Strength of Stones

  No wonder he had been suspected, Kahn thought. The mimics must be everywhere.

  “Hello,” Kahn said. The mimic opened his eyes. “Hello.”

  “From which city?”

  The mimic didn’t answer for a long moment. “Mandala,” he said finally. The voice was deep, quite convincingly human.

  “I come from Fraternity,” Kahn said. The mimic nodded and looked at Kahn’s clothes, and finally at the shoes. The shoes had been undone in a search for weapons and no longer sealed against the pant legs.

  “Fraternity made you?”

  “No,” Kahn said. “I’m not a city part.”

  “Then you’re human.”

  “Not exactly.” It was difficult treating the mimic as something other than a human; the cities had never specifically been instructed to make humans. For some of Kahn’s clients, that ability would have been blasphemous. But Kahn suspected that city programming still operated in the mimic. “I am the builder,” he said. “My word is qellipoth. It is a practical word, not a theoretical word.”

  The mimic jerked as if kicked. “I am Jeshua. This is Thinner.” He held up the head. “Builder… I am…”

  “Be quiet,” Kahn said softly. “I have questions.”

  “Builder, I am shocked… doubly shocked. I feel the power of your words… but I have been studying kaballah, too. For a long time, a century, Builder.” Jeshua’s eyes filled with tears. He reached out to touch Kahn’s foot. “Are you here to rescue the sparks?” he asked. “Is it time for the regathering?”

  The mimic’s humanity ran deep. His independence was surprising. A normal city part would have come completely under his control upon hearing that sequence of words. And it knew kaballah! Kahn had only briefly studied the mystical teachings under the spotty tutelage of George Pearson, God-Does-Battle’s financial minister. Kahn had considered it his duty to know more about his heritage, for in past centuries his family had been Jewish.

  “I don’t know about the regathering,” he said. “I’m not a messiah, I’m not a kabbalist. I’m the builder.”

  Jeshua sagged and his eyelids lowered as if in fatigue. “I feel the compulsion,” he said again. “Only the builder would know those words. But I don’t know how I know… I am very confused.”

  “I programmed a code and command into all city parts long before you were made,” Kahn said.

  “You were human. How could you live so long?”

  “I have questions, too,” Kahn said. “I hope you can answer my questions, and I’ll try to answer yours. But first, we have to get out of here. I don’t think I’m going to see any higher authority.”

  “Why are you in jail?”

  “They think I’m a city part.”

  Jeshua moved the head into his lap. “They destroy cities, city parts,” he said. “They’re human.”

  “There’s a place where humans are more tolerant, Expolis Ibreem. If we can find our way there…”

  Jeshua reached up with a hand at least half again as wide as Kahn’s and tested the bars overhead. “They’re too strong for me to bend them. Besides, I’m damaged.” He looked down at Thinner, who still had his eyes closed.

  “Is the head alive?” Kahn asked. He felt like an artist who had once painted a simple picture, and come back years later to find it growing more and more bizarre.

  “I think so,” Jeshua said. “Thinner. Wake up. Open your eyes.” The head opened his eyes. “We’re with the Builder.”

  “I heard,” the head said hoarsely. “Now I know why you study kaballah. He planted the seed. Let me see him.” Jeshua turned the head and lifted it. “Welcome, Builder. Your coming is a mystery to us.”

  “Then we’re even. You’re a mystery to me.”

  “Jeshua, the walls are concrete and the bolts holding the bars are set maybe only a few centimeters deep. You can’t break out in your condition, but maybe you can spread a little pouch fluid on the concrete.”

  Jeshua considered that for a moment, then set the head down gently on the dirty floor. “Peah,” Thinner said. “Smells like a sewer in here.”

  Kahn’s eyes widened as Jeshua pulled up his dirty white tunic. The mimic was fully equipped with genitals, body hair, anal opening. Jeshua touched several spots on his belly and pulled aside a flap of skin.

  “Think you’re hungry,” Thinner said.

  Jeshua pulled out a milky pouch from his abdomen. “I’ll have to cut it, there’s no opening here.”

  “Let me bite it,” Thinner offered. Jeshua held the head to the pouch. Despite his own lack of viscera, Kahn felt strange and looked away.

  “Now I won’t be able to eat,” Jeshua said. “We’ll have to reach Resurrection soon, get a city-fed meal, get fixed.” Almost sorrowfully, he said, “I’m a real wreck now, aren’t I?”

  “You’re still better off than I am,” Thinner said, his task finished. “Wipe my mouth. I don’t want to blister.”

  “You can eat human food and city fluids, too?” Kahn asked.

  “The builder didn’t provide for our construction?” Thinner asked. Jeshua cupped his hands and clear, steaming fluid poured into them. He dabbed the fluid on the concrete around the bolts, then dipped his hands in the water bucket in one comer. The concrete sizzled and became a greyish mud. The bars groaned and settled a centimeter or so.

  “I didn’t know cities could make parts like you,” Kahn admitted. “My creations exceed my expectations.”

  “Builder is a proud father,” Thinner said, his voice muffled. He had fallen over again. Jeshua was re-sealing his belly skin. Kahn reached over and righted the head.

  “Not so proud,” Kahn said. “What will that acid do to your insides?”

  Jeshua smiled. “Not much leaks. I just have to remember not to get hungry. Shouldn’t be too hard—I’ve only started eating human-type food again in the last few weeks.”

  “Can we get out now?” Thinner asked.

  “I think I can wrench up this end,” Jeshua said.

  “And after that?”

  “We should probably wait for guards,” Kahn said. “When they come to get us—surprise them.”

  “I’ll stand between their guns and you, Builder,” Jeshua said. “I’m already injured—a few more bullets won’t hurt.”

  “You’re amazing,” Kahn said. “I would never have guessed city parts could take so much abuse.”

  “That’s why the Holy One, blessed be He, put us here—using your master plan,” Jeshua said. “We are to absorb the pain of the messianic age.”

  “My friend has gone a bit deep into that stuff.” Thinner said. “From what I’ve heard, he has only you to blame.”

  Kahn grinned at the rebuke. “I don’t think my code is wholly responsible. You both seem to be true individuals. If I didn’t know, I’d say you were human.”

  “No,” Jeshua said. “We are not that.”

  “Well, technically speaking, neither am I, and I think I can take a few bullets as well as you.” He wasn’t positive about that—especially not where his head was concerned—but he felt it was time to assert himself, show a little courage. He felt almost ashamed in the face of his latter-day creations.

  A guard opened the door at the end of the cell corridor. Kahn held his finger to his lips. Three pairs of boots clacked on the pavement and he looked up to see men leaning over the pit, shadows against the dim blue skylight.

  “All city parts?”

  “We think so. Haven’t cut them open yet—but one is hurt, and he isn’t human. The other’s just a head, no body, and one is dressed in clothes like he came out of a polis.”

  “Open up, then.”

  The guard bent down and inserted a key into the lock. The hinges slipped in their corroded seats, making the bars fall against the outer frame with a clang. The guard inserted his lever to pry the bars up, but they had jammed.

  Jeshua braced his feet on the floor of the pit and reached up with both hands. Heaving suddenly, he pushed the bars away from the frame. The guard was k
nocked backward and Jeshua stood, using the bars to pin the other two against the corridor wall. Kahn grabbed the head and climbed out of the pit. Jeshua plucked the keys out of the bars and they ran to the opposite end. With the second door open, they found themselves in an exercise yard adjacent to the old Synedrium judgement chambers. Jeshua kicked a flimsy panel door open and they came to a flight of stairs opening onto a street. They were in the delivery alley in back of the jail. The alarm hadn’t gone off yet; the Founder police weren’t as efficient as Kahn expected.

  They were in Canaantown proper, running through the early scooter and foot traffic, when the jail bells rang.

  Arthur sat on the front porch of the house waiting for the first cool winds of evening, chin in his hands and knees braced against a broken board. The stars were twinkling furiously as the land gave up its warmth. To the west, heat lightning flashed silently between clouds pushed high during the late afternoon. The tall anvil-head billows looked like faces in the brief purple and green illuminations.

  The house was empty. His daughter was in Canaantown, visiting Jorissa. Nan’s visits with her mother grew longer each time. This visit, he suspected, would be the longest of all. He doubted she would return.

  He didn’t want to feel betrayed. There was nothing here for Nan, after all; little enough for himself. The farm was a memory and a deed to a tract of dead land, soon to be appropriated by the Founders. He was an old man withering under the sun, doing nothing, promising nothing. It was best she leave.

  But the betrayal was real and it hurt him nonetheless. It was a hard time, pushing people to do hard things. Soon, he suspected, he would either die or he would leave, and at age fifty-five, he doubted it was time for him to die.

  For the moment, however, he felt like doing nothing more than sitting on the porch, wondering how long it would take for God-Does-Battle to bake and blow away.

  The lightning was coming closer. Some of the flashes were almost directly overhead, still silent, but bright enough to pick out the trees, front fence and road like full double moonlight. In a vivid purple flash that left an image swimming in his eyes, he saw two figures standing by the fence.

  They were on the trod, both of them this time. The one who called himself Kahn and the big fellow with the head in his arms. Arthur was too tired to care.

  “So come on up,” he shouted into the hot dark. “I feel half crazy, half a ghost myself. Come on!” He waved them to approach.

  The dim lantern light coming through the front window picked them out about five meters in front of the porch. The big fellow was frightening, sure enough, more like a giant corpse than a man, and carrying a head just like Arthur had seen him before. Except for dirt, Kahn was no different from two days before.

  “We need your help,” Kahn said, coming closer. “Where’s your daughter?”

  “In town.”

  “We need to know the way to Resurrection. This is Jeshua.” He pointed and the giant nodded at Arthur.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to the head?”

  “My name is Thinner,” the head said. Arthur tensed and moved up one step.

  “If I can get to Resurrection, I can at least begin to put things right,” Kahn said. “With the problems you’ve faced, you must understand how urgent this is.”

  “My problems are my problems. They’ve been with me for a long time, and I don’t think you can do anything about them. Did they take you to jail?”

  Kahn nodded. “I met Jeshua and Thinner there.”

  “City parts, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you aren’t.”

  “He is the builder,” Jeshua said.

  “So I’ve heard. You have to go to Ibreem to find the polis. That’s across the border west of here, maybe fifty, sixty kilometers. Just go west.”

  “I think we need more specific directions. Which roads—landmarks—”

  “I’ve never been there,” Arthur said. “I’ve just heard stories. Oh, I’ve been to the border. Take any road west. How did you get away from them?”

  “With Jeshua’s help,” Kahn said. “Just west, then?” He pointed.

  “No, more that way,” Arthur said, correcting him. “The wind blows from there mostly, nowadays. Used to blow from the east.”

  “Thank you for your hospitality, and for trying to help me,” Kahn said. “I won’t forget your decency.”

  Arthur looked away. “Great deal of good it’s done me. But I appreciate your saying so.”

  The giant city part had been looking at him steadily, brow knit as if in thought. As Kahn turned to leave, Jeshua said, “Is your name Daniel?”

  “It is. Arthur Sam Daniel.”

  Jeshua smiled. “I knew your—great grandfather, great—great grandfather? A man named Sam Daniel the Catholic.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” Arthur said. “He was supposed to be the great man in our family. But that was maybe a hundred years ago.”

  “The age of wonders is at hand,” Jeshua said. “Your ancestor was an honorable man, and someday I would like to know what happened to him.”

  They walked off into the dark, until only the vague starlight outlined them. Arthur was shaking on the porch as if he were cold, but the air was still tepid.

  He stood, brushed off his pants, and cupped his hands over his mouth. “Wait a moment!” Under his breath, he muttered, “Crazy bastards, crazy stupid asses,” and he ran into the house. “Just a moment!”

  He came out with a canvas bag filled with all the canned food and clothes he thought worth taking. If Nan returned, he had scratched a note on the kitchen table top. There was enough left to make it worthwhile for her to come back, but if she didn’t… then she would never know.

  He felt like a child running away from home, but the feeling exhilarated him. He had never done anything this crazy before.

  “I’d like to come with you,” he said as he met them next to the road.

  They traveled by night—not as safe as it might seem, since most travelers moved by night and spent at least the heat of day under shelter if possible. Still, they were careful, and they did not encounter more Canaan Founders.

  Neither Kahn nor Jeshua tired as they walked, but for Arthur’s sake they paused every few hours. Their first stop was within sight of Fraternity, and they sat on a fallen log while the heat mist washed around their legs.

  “If there’s anything you people or parts or whatever you are can do that I don’t know about—fly, disappear, fight like demons, anything like that—don’t wait to tell me,” Arthur said. “Let me know so I can figure a way to take advantage of it.”

  Kahn smiled. “Nothing magical. The food is for you alone, since I don’t need to eat and Jeshua can’t just now. The water we can share, but you’ll need much more than we do. When you get tired, tell us.”

  “I’ll have to slow down now and then,” Jeshua said. “I’m a little worried about Thinner.” The head was silent most of the time, eyes closed as if asleep. “I can’t feed him much now.”

  “My grandfather used to tell me about capturing city parts and using them like horses or cars. But they’re mostly gone now. I was just wondering how much like a city part you are.” Arthur looked at Kahn.

  “Not very much, actually. The technology of the block was more advanced than the technology I had to use in the cities. I didn’t really have much to do with the block, so I can’t say I know how I work… not clearly, anyway.”

  Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “Makes sense, I suppose. I don’t know much about how I run, either. Be a bit perverse if we did, like looking in a mirror too hard.”

  “I’m quite aware of how I work,” Jeshua said. “But then, I’ve had many years to learn such things, and excellent libraries.”

  Arthur nodded as if he were engaging in a perfectly normal conversation. “I still don’t believe all this, you know,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “About the only way you’ll be convinced is to see us in action,” Kahn said. H
e stood.

  “That could do it,” Arthur said.

  A single moon illuminated the misty path as they walked around one quarter of Fraternity. On the outskirts of the city. Kahn bent down to pick up a shard of silicate. “I’ve been wondering what these were for. I remember installing a minor city defense like this, but not so extensive.”

  “Used to be cities would bristle all around to keep people out,” Arthur said.

  “I put in the defense by request,” Kahn said, dropping the fragment. “They asked for it. Wanted it in case the world was invaded by pagans.”

  They crossed part of the perimeter on solid paving. The city walls were dry and grey-white where the moonlight hit them, like translucent bones.

  “I designed Fraternity for contemplation,” Kahn said. “A cross of two intersecting cylinders, topped by a Hofstadter figure—the central tower, there.” He pointed. The moon was just passing behind the tower. The upper promenades and portions of the crossed cylinders had collapsed, leaving the tower in prominent relief. “Did all the cities die like this, in one piece?”

  “Not that I heard about,” Kahn said.

  “Most broke apart and moved,” Jeshua said. “They died that way, scattered. Only a few cities die in one piece. Mandala did. The city just quit functioning, sections at a time, and finally all of it… except for Thinner and I.”

  “They were only supposed to move parts around when the cities were being remodeled. That was a novelty—walls that could walk by themselves. We could do it, so we did.” He laughed sharply.

  “You said something about a Hof—Hofshtad figure?” Arthur frowned. “I know what a cylinder is, that’s like a well is a cylinder’s hole, but—”

  “The tower was designed to represent three portraits when viewed from three different angles. Fraternity’s tower carried portraits of Christ, Aquinas and George Pearson.”

  “Who was Pearson… and Aquinas?” Arthur asked. “Aquinas was a philosopher on old Earth. Pearson was the man who negotiated for the purchase of God-Does-Battle.” Kahn remembered the monumental arguments they had had. Pearson had appointed himself shepherd to all the Jews, Christians and Moslems on God-Does-Battle; at the time of Kahn’s memorization in the block, Pearson had become a recluse living in the Asian Jewish city of Thule.