Fire World

  Azkiar gave an impatient squawk. “Mmm, yes,” Aurielle muttered, aware that he needed some kind of response. Quickly, she settled on a course of action. She must meditate on his discovery, she said, which was not the answer Azkiar was waiting for. To her alarm, he flew down to the table and chased her twice around the candlesticks. Meditate? How many hours and spins had she wasted, brooding over this woven cloth, bending his ear tufts with her theories? He collared her against a high-backed chair. Downstairs was visible proof that the tapestry actually meant something. If she didn’t believe him, she should go and investigate the humans herself. Aurielle gulped and tightened up the muscles of her beak, drawing her beak slightly away from his. Yes, she could do that, she said, but then in a timid voice she added that she still didn’t quite understand what he was getting at? All right, a human had triggered the door, but that in itself didn’t mean very much. Azkiar sighed and turned away. It’s not the door, he said. It’s David, the man. I’ve seen him before — and so have you.

  And therein lay the nub of the puzzle. For when Aurielle rightly suggested that Azkiar’s senses were becoming addled because she had not been present on Floor Forty-Three when he had encountered the grown-up David, Azkiar twirled his glowing ear tufts and pointed a wing at the Tapestry of Isenfier. And at last he was able to finish his report and tell her why he had backed away quickly when he’d cornered David in the fiction department. He pointed to two of the pictured humans: a man, cradling a woman in his arms. Them, he said to the stunned Aurielle, They were the humans I saw on Floor Forty-Three. They are David and Rosa.

  6.

  I thought you’d be taller.”

  “Hmph,” said David. “Well, I’m quite a lot bigger than you.”

  “I’m only nine.”

  “Eight and a bit, actually. I am tall anyway. I’m over six feet.”

  “And very handsome,” Eliza Merriman said. She stopped what she was doing and came to sit down at the kitchen table.

  “I’ve got longer hair than you,” Penelope said. She pulled a strand of her blond curls down toward her shoulder.

  David tilted his head and let his wavy hair fall. “Yes, but mine does that without help.”

  “Well, mine’s springy!” the girl said furiously.

  “All right,” said Eliza. “It’s not a competition. I love you both — just the way you are. Hair, height, shoe size … temperament.”

  “My shoes are size four.”

  “Thank you. Duly noted. Look, why don’t you make your brother feel at home by making him a nice cup of tea?”

  “Make?” said David. The verb was unusual on Co:pern:ica.

  His mother waved him silent.

  “OK, I’ll put the kettle on,” Penelope said. Even more unusual.

  “Yes, Penny, put the kettle on,” her mother echoed, almost singing the words.

  The little girl jumped up and ran to the sink.

  “She doesn’t imagineer very well,” said Eliza, keeping her voice low so the child wouldn’t hear. “Her fain is there, but she hasn’t had the chance to learn how to use it, probably because of the aging process — and the way she was born. We’ll talk about it later, when we’re alone. Just indulge her for now — and don’t mention Harlan.”

  “She doesn’t know about Dad?”

  “No. And I want to keep it that way for now.”

  “Are we having cake as well, Mommy?”

  “The best,” Eliza said, sending Penelope scurrying to the fridge.

  “Oh, Boon!” the girl tutted, almost knocking the katt sideways as she yanked the door open. “Get out of the way!”

  Boon muttered and righted his course. He spent a sec or two imperiously licking his tail, then jumped up and settled on David’s lap as if his owner had never been away.

  “Hey, Penny?” David said, stroking Boon’s head. He ran his thumb inside the shell of the imperfect ear.

  “Yes?”

  “I brought you a present from the librarium.”

  “Did you?”

  “Mmm. It’s in my room.”

  “Where? On the bed?”

  “I’m not saying. You’ve got to find it.”

  Penny put the kettle down and was gone in a flash.

  “Well, there goes your cup of tea,” Eliza said.

  “It’s all right, it was deliberate — so we can talk.”

  Eliza glanced down the arm of the pod that led to David’s room. “Don’t be silly. She’ll be back at any moment.”

  “No, she won’t.” He grinned. “I’m moving her present around until I need her to find it.”

  “You can do that? From a distance?” Eliza stared at him in wonder. “Your father always said you would reinvent the rules of imagineering.”

  “I need to find him, Mom.”

  She looked away, trying to resolve her hurt. “David, he killed someone. It was all over the t:com news. If you go after him, I’ll lose you both.”

  David rested his fingers against Boon’s neck. “Mr. Henry’s death was an accident. Dad made a mistake, but he’s not a criminal. Did he explain to you why he was running the experiment?”

  Eliza shook her head. “Harlan rarely discussed his work. I’m not even sure I want to know. Eight years of life with my children are gone. I can’t forgive him for that. Besides, I wasn’t around when he was planning the experiment. I was taken from here, to be trained as an Aunt. I was in the Dead Lands when all this was happening.”

  “An Aunt? You couldn’t become an Aunt in a million spins.”

  “Hmm, truer than you think. According to the one who took me in, I’m too ‘wild’ to learn their ways. She canceled my program and sent me home. I’m just so relieved that she let me keep Penny. I’m effectively under house arrest, here. I’m being monitored by her. She could turn up at any moment, day or night. If she comes calling, you must give her access. I mean that. No confrontations, OK? Her name is —”

  “Aunt Gwyneth.”

  Eliza looked up. “How did you know?”

  “I met her at the librarium. She’s the one who exiled Dad. Sounds like she’s got a finger in everything.”

  “She’s an Aunt Su:perior. A very powerful influence.”

  “I don’t trust her,” David said. He picked up a banafruit and started to peel it.

  “David, that kind of talk is going to get you into trouble.”

  “I can read it in her auma, Mom. The woman’s not right.”

  Once again, Eliza looked away, pained. “I hear what you’re saying and I know I should feel great anger toward her. She’s torn our family apart, after all. But there was a moment in the Dead Lands when I sensed she had genuine compassion for me.”

  “Why, because of Penny?”

  “No, not Penny. And that’s another story anyway. Aunt Gwyneth wasn’t there when Penny was born. Neither was your father. I constructed Penny without Harlan’s auma — or the patronage of the Aunt. Your sister was birthed from an egg.”

  “An egg?”

  “Shush. She’s got ears the size of your librarium. I don’t understand how this could happen either. Aunt Gwyneth had a few spiky words for it, but I’m not going to repeat them here. You must promise me you won’t say a word of this to Penny.”

  “Of course not. But an egg? Like a firebird, you mean? You found a firebird’s egg and imagineered a girl inside it?”

  “No. I made an egg. Physically. From this.” She opened a drawer and plopped a chunk of earth wrapped in paper on the table. “It’s called ‘clay.’ I brought it back from the Dead Lands. David, I saw things in that place. Things way outside the Grand Design. Animals like Boon, different from Boon. And incredible flying creatures.”

  “Dragons?” he asked, suddenly becoming still.

  “Yes.” She looked stunned. “You know about dragons?”

  He thought back to Rosa and her book. Rosa: What must she be feeling at this moment? “I learned a little in the librarium. Tell me what happened.”

  Eliza raised her shoulders.
“There isn’t much to say. One moment I was totally alone in the wilderness and the next, dragons had appeared in the skies all around me. They were transparent, almost ghostly, but they felt very real. I had a powerful instinctive memory of them. That’s how I knew what they were. After that, it gets a bit fuzzy, but one of them, a really strange-looking creature, skinny and bony and not nearly as thickly scaled as the rest, guided me to a cave — to shelter. That’s where I began to work with the clay. As well as the egg, I made figures of the dragons I’d seen. Aunt Gwyneth destroyed them all before we left. I was lucky to smuggle this lump of clay out.”

  David pressed his thumb to it, leaving a dent.

  “There’s something else you should know. They did something, David. The dragons, I mean. They were partly responsible for Penny’s birth. One night, I left the egg in a nest of dead wood at the mouth of the cave. A dragon spirit came down and immersed it in flame. It tripled in size and glowed for two days, too hot to go near. As it cooled, it cracked open. And there she was. This tiny human child. Beautiful. Fully formed. And completely unblemished — apart from one thing.”

  “And what was that?”

  Eliza picked at her fingers for a moment. “She had a small dragon’s tail.”

  Tail? David mouthed. He felt his gaze being pulled toward his room. “And is it …?”

  “No. It shriveled away almost immediately. It seemed to be absorbed inside her.”

  “So she’s part dragon? She has their auma?”

  “Yes. It’s possible I do, too. And you know what? The idea fills me with joy. They are amazing creatures. I felt more alive among them than I ever have before.”

  David finally took a bite of his banafruit, though he seemed to have lost the will to chew. “How did Aunt Gwyneth react?”

  “She doesn’t know — about the dragon auma. I was planning to tell her. But after she destroyed the sculptures I thought it would be too dangerous.”

  David nodded. That was a reasonable assumption. “Why destroy the sculptures? I don’t understand that.”

  “She called them a heresy against the Design. And yet I’m convinced she believes in dragons.”

  “She must have had her suspicions about Penny?”

  Eliza nodded. “She almost collapsed when she saw her. The feeling I had was … what’s that old word? Envious.”

  “Surely Aunts can have a child like anyone else?”

  “Not one like your sister.”

  “Got it!” cried a voice.

  David sat back, tutting. In the midst of the conversation he had let his concentration slip. Penny was pounding back toward the kitchen. He cleared his thoughts and said, “Dad’s com:puter. Is it still in his study?”

  “Yes, but it’s useless. Wiped, I think. The Re:movers came and …”

  “That’s OK,” David said, raising his hand.

  Penny ran in, breathless. She plonked Alicia in a Land of Wonder on the table. “What is it?” she asked.

  “A book,” David said. “You read it and … pictures come into your head.”

  “What’s reading?” Penelope looked blankly at her mother.

  David pushed Boon off his lap and stood up. “I’ll teach you,” he said. He picked up the book and tapped Penny on the head with it. “I’ll read it to you. Tonight. At bedtime. Would you like that, little sister?”

  “Read it now!” she said excitedly.

  “Not now,” said David. “Too many things to do.”

  “Oh! Like what?”

  David smiled and tousled her hair. Com:puter. Micro:pen. Answers, he was thinking.

  He put the last of the banafruit into his mouth and made his way to his father’s study.

  7.

  Harlan Merriman’s private room was just as David had remembered it: pale blue walls (plain, for calmness, his father always said), vertical blinds (half open) at the window, a purple frondulus to add a sweet breath of contrast to the blue, a desk in the center of the wood-effect floor. A model of minimalism, the study had always been neat and uncluttered, though the ornamental constructs that usually decorated the alcove shelves were gone — possibly taken by the Re:movers, more likely faded away. A material construct, if uncared for or left untended for a while, would eventually begin to disassemble, and the fain required to make it would be returned to the Higher. An individual’s power to imagineer could quickly diminish in this way. In extreme cases it could be lost for good. For that reason, shrewd Co:pern:icans did not create excessive possessions, but managed their fain at comfortable levels and learned only to construct what they needed, when they needed it. A true appreciation of the world around them was one of the greatest Co:pern:ican virtues. Harlan had been a wise exponent of the practice, but had always liked to gather real artifacts, too. David picked up a light gray pebble, the only thing left lying on the shelves. It was shaped like a cloud and had yellow striations across its surface. There was no telling where his father had found it, but that was just part of Harlan’s enigma. David dropped it into his pocket, exchanging it for the micro:pen. He went and sat in his father’s chair.

  “Begin,” he said.

  The com:screen pinged to life.

  “Explore.”

  The com:puter reported no software available. Wiped, as Eliza had said.

  David inserted the pen. It was recognized immediately. As data poured into the molecular drive, he tapped his knees in appreciation. His father, forward-thinking as ever, had downloaded all the run:time software the com:puter needed onto the pen. It wasn’t long before the machine was up to full efficiency. As it reached that status, a window opened and Harlan Merriman’s face appeared on the screen.

  “One to one,” David said. The sound of Harlan’s voice would now be digitally reshaped so that it fell only within David’s envelope of hearing.

  In a whisper, the image of his father said, “David, if you’re watching this, then I managed to reach you before they tracked me down. I didn’t have long to make this :com, so if I’ve missed anything or I’m repeating what I’ve already told you, forgive me.

  “There are two films on the drive. One is of you in a sleep facility at Thorren Strømberg’s therapy center. We took you there when you were twelve spins old because you were experiencing nightmares you couldn’t recall the next day. You were sent to the librarium on Thorren’s advice. He did it to protect you. He’s a good man, David. Trustworthy. Clever. He’s gone into hiding to avoid the Aunts. He didn’t betray me; I asked him to do this because he was present when the second film was shot. That was done at my lab, where we were trying to recreate the conditions of your dreams. You’ll know about the time distortion by now. I haven’t had time to analyze the footage, but I believe that whatever caused the quake is not of this world. You possess extraordinary talents, David. Something, somewhere, knows it and wants to track you down. I don’t know why. Watch the film — I can hardly stop you now — but if anything becomes apparent, I beg you not to attempt anything. Find Strømberg. Show him. Take it to the Higher. And please, don’t come looking for me. They’ll send me to the Dead Lands. You could spend an eternity trying to find me. I want you instead to take care of your mother. But most of all, take care of yourself.”

  The window closed. Without waiting for a verbal command, the com:puter began to play the film Project Forty-Two. David sat forward. For the first time he saw what his father had seen — the disturbed sleep, the rift, the firebirds coming. But what made him tilt forward on the edge of his chair was the sight of himself morphing into …

  “Reverse twenty secs,” he said. “Replay till command.”

  The section played over and over. David sat back again, shaking his head. What was happening to him? What was he becoming? What kind of creature had curving yellow teeth and brown eyes that slanted back like that? And what was that creature attempting to fight? A burst of laughter distracted his thoughts. Glancing sideways, he saw Penny in the garden, playing with Boon. Penny, who looked just as human as he did. If his sister had drago
n auma inside her, was it possible that he had something unusual as well? I saw things in that place. Things way outside the Grand Design. Animals like Boon, different from Boon. His mother’s words tripped through his head again. What if the animal he’d become in his dreams was once alive and well in the Dead Lands? He swung his chair back to the screen again. “Stop. Next film.” The com:puter cleared the image. Up instead came the darker environment of Harlan Merriman’s laboratory. David recognized his father and Thorren Strømberg and guessed that the third man was Bernard Brotherton, the tech:nician who had visited his father at home several times. The camera was pointed at the horseshoe of lights, giving roughly the same view that the scientists had from their observation platform. Their conversation was hard to pick out, but David heard his father make a bold announcement before he activated the horseshoe device. Behold the universe in microcosm.

  At first, there was nothing. No obvious effect. Then the airspace circumscribed by the frame of the shoe began to stretch and fold, and crackling bolts of elec:trical energy emerged from nodes all around its inner surface. Where they met, at the center of the airspace, a vertical shimmering line appeared, just like the one in David’s dream. The two scientists briefly congratulated each other. Then David saw Bernard Brotherton turn to the panel of controls beside him and say something back to Harlan. The tech:nician shook his head. He sounded troubled. But Harlan half-raised a hand, clearly indicating that the procedure was not to be halted yet. Strømberg was pointing to the shimmer at the same time, which was bulging as though it were about to split open. Suddenly, a firebird came into the picture. It had flown through the construct that was the laboratory wall and had positioned itself right behind the horseshoe. It wasn’t one that David recognized, but it had clearly come to do the same job as before: seal up the shimmer and go. He saw his father leave the observation platform, frantically waving his hands in an effort to stop the bird interrupting. The bird widened its nostrils and produced a jet of fire. An unseen wave of energy was expelled from the shimmer in all directions. The result was dramatic. The firebird and all three men were catapulted as far from the pulse as the walls of the laboratory would allow. Likewise, the horseshoe and the com:puters controlling it were torn apart or smashed against anything solid. The shimmer disappeared to a fine point, as if it had been sucked into a hole in space. A sec later, the camera flickered and gave out. The film stopped.