by Wil McCarthy
The shrunken image was considerably less menacing: the comets were now the size of regular snowballs, or a couple of large scoops of ice cream, moving visibly but definitely not in the path to the barge.
The prince nodded, and scratched briefly at his forehead. “All right, now, jaggy comets like that are less than a thousand kilometers wide. Probably more like a hundred. So if each one is twice the size of Tongatapu—call it a third of an Ireland—that means we’re looking at them from, I dunno, maybe three thousand kilometers away? Damn, that is close.”
“Dangerously?”
“Well, yeah . . . ,” Bascal hedged. “But you have to remember, we’ve been passing this stuff all along. Not as close as this, I guess, maybe not as big, but the density of the Kuiper Belt isn’t a whole lot less than the Asteroid Belt. Pick a Point A and a Point B, and I guarantee you there’s a lot of ice in between. Mostly concentrated in bands and rings, with little shepherd planets nudging them around. The barges follow the high-density corridors, but we’re cutting right across them.”
“Are we in danger?” Conrad persisted.
“Yes,” the prince acknowledged quietly. He watched the mace heads growing visibly, and crawling along toward the ceiling’s edge. “But there are loose pieces everywhere. It’s why the neutronium barges are out here: to grab and squeeze all this wasted matter. But yes, obviously, our chances increase during a close approach like this. Our worst odds are right at closest approach.”
“Which is when?”
“A minute from now? I’m not sure, Conrad.”
“Shit. Should we try evasive maneuvers?”
“Won’t do any good,” Bascal said. “But you knew that, right? Just sit tight, boyo. No concern.”
Conrad cleared his throat. “We’ve been taking a huge chance all along, haven’t we? Any normal ship would be scanning with radar.”
“Yep. That’s true.”
The twin comet—now the size of a Karl Smoit shirtball—moved to the edge of the ceiling and vanished. Neither of the boys said anything for a tense little while, and it was Bascal who finally broke the silence.
“Do you know how to inspect the sail for holes?”
“No,” Conrad answered.
“We do it electrically. Electricity can’t cross a hole, so you lay down a wire from one end of the sail to the other—say, port to starboard—and if you can get a current across it, it’s intact. If you can’t, you log the position and move on, and then match it later with a scan in the boots-caps direction. That gives you the exact size and location of the hole. Shall ... we try it?”
“Um. Definitely.”
Within minutes, they’d found a dozen pinholes scattered all over the sail—places where some speck of matter had punched through at twenty kips, shattering the nanoscopic wellstone fibers. By themselves these holes were no big deal, except that one of them had begun to tear. The opening had probably started out circular, maybe a tenth of a millimeter across, but it had spread in one direction, forming a linear rip that was several millimeters long.
“I don’t know how long it’s been there,” Bascal said grimly. “It shouldn’t spread like that—the force on the sail just isn’t that much. We’d better grommet these holes, just to be safe.”
“Grommet?”
“Encircle them with little rings of impervium. It shouldn’t affect our invisibility—not much. Not as much as the Jolly Roger image on the sail, and that hasn’t given us away yet.”
“Can’t we just close the holes?” This was not an idle question; things made of wellstone were always dividing and recombining in various ways. Any decent shirt—not these camp rags or the Denver kiddie-flash Ho insisted on wearing—could change its cut and fit on a few seconds’ notice. The shrink-wrap on the cabin itself had had a slit over the door, big enough to walk through, that had sealed itself automatically after liftoff.
“I guess we can try,” Bascal answered uncertainly. “It’s not what you’re thinking, though. When you command a parted seam, the wellstone separates in a very particular way. Even when you cut it, it knows it’s being cut, and does the right thing. This is different. Sudden damage like that is a shock to the fibers. Right up next to the hole, I doubt they’re working at all. Anyway, this isn’t exactly fashion-grade sailcloth, is it?”
That bothered Conrad. “I don’t like this, Bascal. Eventually, if we stay out here long enough, we’ll get unlucky. One of these particles will fire right through the cabin, won’t it?”
“Maybe,” Bascal said honestly. “I don’t know. If it was small enough, I think passing through the first layer of wrapping would vaporize it. I doubt it could penetrate the wood after that. But then you’d have a pinhole in your airtight wrapping.”
“And that would be that.”
Bascal thought it over and nodded. “It would be bad, anyway. Maybe we should inspect the wrapping.”
They did this, and quickly discovered another hole. A leak. Fortunately it was small—only a tenth of a millimeter—and there didn’t seem to be any significant air loss through it, although over enough time it would surely bleed away their entire atmosphere.
“Before the advent of programmable matter,” Bascal noted, “spaceships were full of leaks. You just couldn’t make them airtight, not if you wanted to get in and out, or get cables in and out. Or have windows.”
“It only has to last fifteen days,” Conrad agreed weakly, trying for the same casual tone.
There was little point in grommeting the hole, since the wrapping was already as rigid and tough as its invisibility permitted. But they went ahead and did it anyway, swapping a bit of tough inviso-cloth for a circle of tougher impervium. The hole itself, per Bascal’s prediction, was simply an absence of matter, not programmable, not patchable from inside the cabin. Unless maybe they wanted to drill through a log and patch the appropriate section of shrink-wrap by hand.
“I’ll bet a sheet of plastic and some library paste would do the trick,” Conrad moped.
“Nah,” Bascal said. “No need. Let’s just ride it out and hope for the best.”
chapter fourteen
restoration day
It was 5 P.M. and hotter than hell when Xmary set off, on foot, for the rendezvous point. Eight kilometers from home—farther than she’d ever walked in her life—but with four days’ warning she’d had time to search the product libraries for a really comfortable pair of mischief shoes, and a walking stick of hollow diamond that weighed nothing, looked like a soap bubble, and collapsed to the size of her pinkie when she slipped it in her pocket.
She could wish for a closer rendezvous, but (a) like everyone else in the worlds, she was in perfect physical condition, and (b) getting word out to Feck had been difficult and risky, and getting word back from him had nearly blown everything. Xmary had had to co-opt a classmate, a girl she barely knew but saw regularly in the one place she was still allowed to go. But the girl, Wandi Strugg, had had no idea there was anything illegal going on—she thought it was a simple case of forbidden love, and had read Feck’s message aloud, right in front of Herr Doktor Professor Vanstaadt.
“ ‘Commons Park, at Fifteenth Street on the east bank of the Platte, seven P.M. sharp. Bring six garlands, a sketchplate, and something discreet to protect your knees and elbows.’ ”
Wandi was smirking when she said it—no mystery what she was thinking—but Herr Doktor Professor sniffed something amiss in the words, and looked up from his desk, straight into Xmary’s face.
“Are you in some trouble, young lady?” His voice was like an old cartoon, from the days when people had real accents, and while his skin was smooth, his hair was an honest shade of gray. Herr Doktor was a kindly old busy-body; everyone knew it. Too kindly, too old. Too difficult to fool.
“No, sir,” she’d answered cooly, fighting down the urge to imitate his voice. But the hot flush of her face had said otherwise.
“It’s her boyfriend,” Wandi crooned, thinking she was simply embarrassing a classmate. But
it was that very obliviousness that saved the day; Herr Doktor looked Wandi over, weighing her words and her tone, and found no trace of guilt or deceit.
“You should be more considerate,” he told Wandi. “These matters are always delicate.” To Xmary he said, “They have sensors in those parks, you know. If you want an area for private use, I suggest you make a reservation.”
Xmary had nodded and retreated, too choked with fear and embarrassment to make any reply. She hadn’t opened her mouth in class—any class—in the four days since then. It was too close a call, and she didn’t care to risk it any further. It wasn’t punishment she feared, but compassion, because the wisdom of age would shut her down if it could, show her the foolishness and futility of all her best-laid plans. In their version of tranquility she would do nothing, accomplish nothing, be nothing.
So here she was, hiking through the western suburbs toward the aforementioned park, with an enormous rucksack on her back, bursting with phony decorations. She must have looked ridiculous—who carried things anymore? Who walked? But all kinds of strange things took place on Restoration Day; being the celebration of monarchy itself, the fourteenth of August was easily the wildest of Queendom holidays. Possibly the only day when a gathering of rioters could go unnoticed until the riot had actually begun!
Speaking of which ...
She dug the sketchplate out of her pocket and checked the time. And promptly cursed under her breath, because it was 6:58 already. She’d miscalculated her walking time, seeing straight lines on a map without realizing how meandering and indirect the paths and roads really were. She also checked her news headlines, and was annoyed to see that NAVY SEARCH was still CLOSING IN ON MISSING CAMPERS. That particular headline had been recycled almost daily for the past two weeks, and told her nothing at all. Which was frustrating, because she just wanted one little question answered: was she aboard that ship or wasn’t she?
And if so, she also wouldn’t mind knowing why, and how. So that was three questions—still not much to ask, but she’d begun to fear there would never be any answers for her. Which simply hardened her resolve to do something meaningful in the here and now!
Approaching the Platte, she left the street proper and passed through a garden of low trees and struggling midsummer flowers. The pathway was marked with hanging chains, and led to a sturdy wellstone footbridge, with chest-high walls topped by rails of bright green. Even this late in the day, the river itself was full of vesters, children and grown-ups alike swathed in flotation plastics and engrossed in the annual Res-Day ritual of beating themselves senseless on the rocks and rapids. Hooting and screeching among themselves, they paid not one bit of attention to Xmary and her anomalous rucksack.
Across the bridge was another park where dozens of children, maybe six years old and all dressed in various shades of not-quite-royal purple, played and danced to the drummy, twangy strains of Tongan music. But this was Confluence Park, not Commons Park, so Xmary continued on, following the sidewalk south around a set of enormous power transformers and across a deserted street. Like most of the journey, this was all new to Xmary, a slice through the city of her birth that she’d never seen or even imagined before. It was obvious and yet startling, that Denver existed continuously at ground level, with amazing sprawls of cultured space in between the familiar landmarks.
A set of rock stairs led down an incline, and there, finally, was the rendezvous point: a sweep of hilly meadow dotted with trees, and crisscrossed by wellstone paths. Suddenly, Xmary knew exactly where she was: on the hillside overlooking the ruins of Café 1551, now an empty foundation domed over with the yellow mesh of a police cordon. CRIME SCENE. DO NOT TAMPER.
Feck was up ahead, in a kind of gazebo looming over the park from the crown of its highest hill. There were two other boys with him, and two other girls—one leaning against him in a rather familiar way. Xmary waved, and Feck must have been watching the path, because he saw her and waved back almost immediately. He said something to the girl beside him, and she pulled away and stood up straighter. Xmary’s heart quickened, all the excitement and uncertainty of recent weeks coming finally to a head. What she felt when she saw his face, his figure against the skyline, was hard to describe and equally hard to ignore. Enthrallment? Good fortune? An abeyance of her bitter frustration?
She lost sight of him as the path curved behind the hill, but she followed it around and up, and soon enough she was throwing herself into his arms.
“Hi!” She laughed.
“Hi back,” he said, smiling but disengaging himself. “You’re a bit late.”
“I know. Sorry.”
He nodded, looking agitated. “Yeah, our timing is important. You brought the garlands?”
“Right here.” She parted the rucksack’s buckles with a murmured command, then slid the strap off one shoulder and wriggled free.
“Good. Xmary Li Weng, meet riot cell one: Bob Smith, Cherry Florence, Weng Twang, and Patience Electric.”
“Hi, Cherry,” Xmary said, surprised to see one of her close friends here. Cherry was, in fact, the girl who’d been leaning on Feck sixty seconds ago. The others Xmary didn’t know, although they looked familiar.
“Wasn’t sure you were going to make it,” Cherry said, looking her over with a funny kind of disapproval. “After the café incident, I heard from you, what? One time?”
“I’m really sorry. I was grounded. I would’ve sent a message, but—”
“I hate to cut this short,” Feck said, “but it’s less than two hours till showtime, and we’ve got six major intersections to ... decorate.”
Grinning, Xmary stuck her hand up. “What’s our plan, cutie?”
Feck glared for a moment, then put a hand on her elbow and led her a few meters away from the others. “This is not a picnic. All right? Let’s keep things formal.”
Her voice stiffened. “I’m just asking, Feck. What are we doing?”
He showed her a length of shiny-white wellstone twine, then stepped back and turned so the others could see it as well. “You know what a knot bomb is? These garlands, these decorative spike traps of yours, will be tied to the light poles with these little strings. Securely, right? But at nine P.M., they all come undone and fall in the street, halting the flow of wheeled traffic.”
“And then what?” one of the boys—the one Feck had introduced as Bob—wanted to know.
“Then we go straight to the police station,” Feck said.
Bob was aghast. “We turn ourselves in?”
“We create a distraction. We get inside and block the fax machines, or disable them, or better yet commandeer them to print our own army. Failing that, we obstruct the exits with park benches and trash tubes, or with our bodies. There are only five fax machines inside which are big enough to instantiate a police officer, and only three fixed doorways out of the building.”
Xmary, feeling surly and snubbed, said, “What is it, a medieval castle? They can open a doorway anywhere they want. All it takes is a whisper, and a thousand cops are bursting out into the street.”
“Of course they can,” Feck agreed. “We can’t stop the police or Constabulary. We can’t even really delay them.”
“Then what’s the point?” Bob demanded angrily.
Feck could only shrug. “Who can say? What’s the point of anything? This is a performance, Bob. We’re inspiring emotion. There are twenty other riot cells in place, scattered around the downtown district. We go for the fax depots, the news stations, all the centers of control. We make a show of it. Why? Because that’s what Prince Bascal wants. That’s all you and I need to know.”
“But we get caught right away,” Bob complained. “We don’t stand a chance.”
Feck made a face, and matched it with a sarcastic flutter of his hands. “We all get caught, Bob. I don’t see any way around it. Best case, this’ll be, like, a five-minute riot. I thought that was self-evident. Do you want out?” He scanned the five faces around him. “If anyone wants out, just walk away no
w. No questions.”
The other boy, Weng Twang, wordlessly turned his back and started down the path. Then he paused, and almost cast a glance over his shoulder. But he aborted it just as quickly, and resumed walking.
Feck sighed. “Damn. All right, anyone else? Bob?”
“Uh, no,” Bob said, his eyes on Twang’s retreating form. “My calendar’s clear, pretty much forever.”
“You didn’t get caught at 1551 last month,” Xmary said to Feck.
“That was a fluke.”
“Was it? I wonder. How many of these riot cells have you for a leader?”
“Just the one,” Feck said impatiently. “I can’t use the fax, see? I’m caught if I do. So I’m effectively singled.”
“Well, how many individuals do we have stationed in more than one cell? All their freedom requires is for one copy to escape, right?”
“A few individuals,” Feck allowed. “Not many. We don’t want people going too far beyond their normal patterns too early, attracting attention and all that. Look, none of this matters right now. We need to get moving.” He glanced at the little washroom enclosure just off the gazebo’s east side. “Does anyone need the ’soir? To, uh, relieve themselves? No? Well let’s proceed, then.”
He led them through the park and across the street where, to everyone’s surprise, Weng Twang was waiting for them.
“My apologies,” he said. “Is a numb-ass waffler still welcome among you?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Feck answered, handing him one of Xmary’s holiday garlands. “I’m happy you changed your mind. Again.”
Then he dug something out of his pocket, a little ball of superabsorber black, and tossed it lightly over the wall, into the hulking power transformers Xmary had passed on the way in.
“What was that?” she asked.
And for the first time that evening, Feck chuckled. “That was nothing, dear. That was nothing at all. Shall we go do this thing?”
“And meet whatever fate awaits us,” Xmary agreed, then kissed him hard on the mouth while Cherry Florence glared on.