The blond man smiled. It seemed a curious reaction. Perhaps the visitor was here for the same reason she had come; he might be looking for a deluded friend or lover. Unlike her, he was going to take direct action instead of wasting his time.
They approached Giancarlo’s house. The man raised an eyebrow when he saw it. “How nice,” he said. She thought she heard a chuckle. “How very Leo Tolstoy. The humble, spiritual man.” He began to walk up the flagstone path. She hesitated, then followed him. He stopped for a moment.
“Do you want me to go?” she asked.
His lip curled. “Please stay, by all means. I’d rather have you here.”
“He might not be home.”
His blue eyes narrowed. Nola felt uneasy. He continued up the path.
As they reached the front door, it opened. Teno came outside, followed by Giancarlo, who raised his eyebrows when he saw the stranger and Nola.
“Is one of you Giancarlo Lawrence?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Giancarlo answered. “I am.”
“I thought so. I just wanted to be sure.” The stranger bent forward a bit, fumbling with his shirt. Then he was holding a weapon, aiming it at Giancarlo.
Nola froze. She thought: He’s from another cult. Giancarlo was raising his slender hands. She saw his eyes. He was terrified. He backed away.
“No.” Giancarlo’s voice was high. Teno moved slowly to one side, crouching a bit, as if preparing to leap at the visitor. Nola held her breath. Teno’s gray eyes were cold, as if the mind behind them were calculating the chances of thwarting the attack. Giancarlo’s hands were shaking. He pressed them together, as if praying. “No.”
“No?” The blond man suddenly dropped his wand. “Don’t worry,” he said harshly. “It isn’t even charged. So you’re afraid, too, in spite of what you say. Oh, I wanted to see that. I’m not about to make you a martyr.” The visitor turned and hurried down the path.
Nola was too stunned to go after him. Giancarlo stared at the wand in the grass. Teno leaned over and picked it up.
“He was right,” Teno said. “It isn’t charged.”
“You were afraid,” Nola said, “weren’t you.”
Giancarlo raised his head. Two red spots had appeared on his cheeks. “It wasn’t time. I have too much to do. You shouldn’t have brought him here.” His voice croaked the words.
“I didn’t know what he was going to do. I thought he was looking for your guidance.” She tried to summon up some sympathy for Giancarlo, but failed. “Strange, your being afraid. I thought you didn’t fear death. Maybe the next one will bring a loaded weapon. Then at least you’ll be able to give your theory a real test.”
Giancarlo was watching her. The red spots were larger, and the pale skin of his face was drawn tight against his skull. He was angry. She wondered if he was angrier at the visitor or at her. He clasped his hands together and looked down at the ground. When he raised his head again, he seemed calmer.
“It isn’t death that frightens me,” he murmured. “It’s being injured, or feeling pain. We can repair so much damage to the body, and yet it still seems so fragile.”
Nola did not believe him. It was death that had frightened him; even his faith had not dispelled all his fears.
“Would you like me to stay?” Teno asked in a toneless voice.
“No. I think I’d rather be alone.” Giancarlo went back up the path to his door.
Nola turned away and walked toward the road. Teno was following her; she slowed her pace. “What do you think?” she asked. “Was he afraid, or wasn’t he?”
“I’m sure he was. Anyone would be. Certain reactions take place in the body, and reason is slow to override them.”
“But that isn’t true of you, is it. You weren’t afraid.”
“I don’t have the same physiology. I don’t react that way. Of course, my reflexes must be quicker than yours in order to make up for that, or my reason would be too slow to take action when necessary.”
“You could have made a mistake. The man might have had a charged weapon.”
“Of course I could have made a mistake. But I wouldn’t have acted unless I was sure my chances were good.”
They walked to the fork in the road without speaking. A breeze fluttered Teno’s dark curls. Nola looked down the road. The red cart was rolling toward the gate.
Teno said, “I went to see Giancarlo to tell him that I wish to undergo the little death.”
Nola turned. She searched the olive-skinned face, trying to imagine that solemn visage with one of the self-satisfied smiles everyone else here wore. “You surprise me, Teno.”
“I don’t see why I should.”
“I thought you didn’t have our little quirks.”
“I’m curious. I want to see what happens to me. Giancarlo is pleased. But the faith he feels is not possible for me.”
They moved toward Jiro’s lawn. Jiro had put down his weeder and was wiping his brow with one bare arm. “Why isn’t it possible?” Nola asked.
“Faith involves an emotional conviction. Sometimes reason can aid or support it, sometimes faith goes against reason. But reason alone cannot lead one to a faith such as Giancarlo’s. There is that leap that is required, and I can’t make the leap.”
“Then why bother?” she said. “Why go through all that, if you know you can’t accept it?”
“Because I would like to see if I experience what others here have. And though I can’t have the sort of faith Giancarlo demands, I can at least assign some sort of probability to his notions, based on my own reason.”
She stepped into the shade under an oak. She was beginning to wonder if her companion was being honest with her. Did Teno secretly feel a stirring of emotion, a need for something more than reason? “You see,” Teno went on, “it might be possible to support what he says rationally, once one has gone to the other side. Here one needs faith; one can’t have anything else. It’s like a baby trying to think of being outside the womb.”
Teno walked on. She hurried out of the shade and stubbed her toe. She stared at the rock, then strode after Teno. “It’s nonsense,” she said as she caught up.
“Is it? Giancarlo has some sort of notion that the next world, or the higher state, as he calls it, represents the next evolutionary step, and that, in a sense, we become another sort of being. Now, I present a problem here. Do I exist on this evolutionary ladder, or am I outside of it? I may have originated in human genetic material, but I was altered at conception.”
Nola shrugged. “Any child born now is altered in some way.” She was trying to be generous. Teno still remained alien and disorienting.
“But most are unchanged. They are completely human. Except for having certain genes tailored to avoid genetic defects, they’re no different from people born before the Transition. Even you aren’t different, because what’s happened to you is an adaptation to another environment. But I am different. In a sense, I’m a member of a new species.” Teno paused. “Giancarlo doesn’t know how to react to what the biologists might do, what they’re already starting to do. He wants to know whether the creation of new beings is in keeping with this pattern of his. If it is, then he can accept what the biologists do. If not, then he must condemn it and take a stand against such manipulations.”
She frowned. “Surely you’re not going to believe that your existence was a mistake.”
“Don’t you already believe that?”
Nola refused to answer.
“Look.” Teno gestured at the gate. Just beyond the stone wall, the blond man who had threatened Giancarlo was pitching a tent. She smiled. “I must go,” Teno continued. “I did want to ask you something. I would like to have you there when I go through my little death. Giancarlo tells me it’s customary to invite anyone you wish to have present.”
“Are you sure you want me there?” She looked away. “You must know that you make me uneasy.”
“I’m used to that. I make many people uneasy. This is one of the few places
I’ve been where most of the people feel comfortable with me.” Nola thought she caught a trace of wistfulness in the steady voice; she was probably imagining it. “Perhaps I simply need another doubter with me when I endure Giancarlo’s ministrations.”
Teno raised a hand, then walked off, cutting across a grassy hill to another path, striding in the direction of Mikhail’s home.
She made fists of her hands. She strode quickly to the gate. The tent was up now, and the blond man had disappeared inside it. She leaned against the gate. The stranger peeked out as he lifted a tent flap, and caught sight of her.
He waved and came out. She opened the gate and went toward him. “My name’s Leif Arnesson.” He showed his even white teeth. “And who might you be?”
“Nola Reann.” She glanced at the faded green tent. “I didn’t expect to see you again. Are you going to stay?”
“Why shouldn’t I? Why give a man a scare and run away? It hardly seems sporting. I have everything I need, though I hope I can prevail on someone to feed me a good dinner once in a while. That is, if Lawrence doesn’t run me off. I suppose he’s a bit peeved.”
“He won’t make you leave. He believes he has the truth, so he can’t very well bar someone from it.”
Leif sat down on the ground, folding his legs. “He was scared. These death cult people are all the same.”
“I don’t think this is a death cult.”
Leif snorted. “Anyone who says death is all right is a death cultist, wouldn’t you say?” He brushed back a lock of hair. “He isn’t the first one of those I’ve seen.” He had lowered his voice, adopting a conspiratorial tone. “I visited another bunch a while back. The leader was scared of me. She talked a lot about suicide and risks, but I didn’t see her rushing to have her name programmed into Mr. Death’s banks.” He laughed.
Nola stepped back. “What did you do?”
“I barely got out of there. They burned my leg off, and the rescue team just reached me in time. The attack on me gave some psychologists an excuse to go in. While I was in the hospital regenerating, I found out that some of the cultists had killed themselves, but the others, including the leader, had been sent to an asteroid. It’s where they belong, don’t you think?” He grinned. “No way out if their reconditioning doesn’t take.” He rose and flexed his legs; he was almost as tall as she. “Bet you can’t tell which one I lost.”
“Isn’t it dangerous to go looking for trouble?”
Leif sat down again. “Oh, the danger doesn’t bother me. I don’t take real chances, anyway. I just don’t like seeing what idiotic ideas do to people.”
“The people here seem content.”
“I thought you were a skeptic.”
“I am. I’m just stating a fact.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t seem to know what you think. Why did you come here, anyway?”
She looked down. “A man I knew came here. I followed him.”
Leif was staring at her slender legs. “A man. Well, that can be remedied. Do you have to wear those wires all the time?”
“All the time I’m here.”
“You were born out there, then.”
“Yes.”
“Do they get in the way?”
“Not at all.”
“Maybe you can give me a chance to find out whether they do or not. You could ask me to dinner some evening.” He reached up and touched her fingertips. “You remind me of a birch tree.” He took her hand. “But there are spiders’ webs on your limbs.” She had heard that particular comparison before. “I do hope we’ll meet again soon.”
She released her hand, turned, and walked back to the gate, thinking of Mikhail.
Yasmin’s loom clattered and hummed. She had designed a new tapestry and was waiting for the loom to weave it. “It’s bad enough that he’s here,” she said to Nola. “But you needn’t have asked him to my house.” She was talking about Leif.
“He’s only been here for a couple of days,” Nola responded. “When he sees how jolly you all are, maybe he’ll change his mind about Giancarlo. After all, he didn’t hurt him. He has a strange sense of humor, that’s all.” She watched the loom, almost hypnotized by the clicking and the geometric pattern of the tapestry. Her attention was caught by one blue line in the middle trapped between mirror images of a hexagon surrounding six-pointed stars. Something was drawing her to Leif; he seemed dangerous, and instead of repelling her it attracted her. He was reckless; he claimed that he avoided real danger, yet he had almost died. She wasn’t used to reckless people; on Luna or in orbit, they were too likely to have accidents.
“At least we won’t be alone with him tonight,” Yasmin murmured. “I asked some guests of my own to supper.”
“Hilde and Jiro?” Nola asked absently.
“Teno and Mischa.”
Nola looked up. “Tell me something,” she said carefully. “Do Teno and Mikhail spend a lot of time together?”
“Why, I don’t know. I guess they have been together a lot recently. Teno’s very calming, in a way.”
“Teno can’t accept what the rest of you believe. Doesn’t that disturb you?”
“I don’t know if that’s true. Teno has to approach it from a different direction, of course.”
“And if Teno stays, it helps Giancarlo. By letting Teno stay, Giancarlo seems to approve of what the biologists do, and in return Teno can say his teachings are reasonable.”
The loom clattered to a stop. Yasmin rose and lifted the tapestry from it, glanced at the pattern, then threw it over the back of the sofa. Now that she had finished the design and seen it woven, she seemed to have lost interest in the tapestry itself.
The door chimed. Yasmin went to answer it. Nola stared over the sofa at the window beyond. The sky was darkening early; it would rain.
Leif entered the room. He wore only his shorts; pale hairs curled over his tan chest. Nola masked her unease with a smile.
The others did not join them until Yasmin had finished cooking. Teno and Mikhail sat across from Nola and Leif. Yasmin was at the head of the table.
After a flurry of greetings, they fell silent. Only the tinkling of wineglasses and the clatter of cutlery on the plates could be heard. Outside the open window, the clouds still threatened.
Nola felt disoriented. She had drunk too much with Leif earlier while he skewered the world with verbal knives. She saw the settlement, and those beyond it, crumbling and vanishing from the earth. It all seemed impermanent and transitory; it was as though their long lives only emphasized the far longer life of the universe. Even a life of a million years was less than a second of cosmic time; they would flutter through their lives and disappear from the world, and the universe would be as it was. In the end, the remains of their decomposed bodies would mingle with the dust of those who had lived only a few years.
Nola realized that she had been staring; Yasmin was looking at her questioningly. Leif and Mikhail were eating heartily; Teno had taken only vegetables and sipped water instead of wine.
Leif was watching Teno. At last he said, “You’re a strange one.”
“I was part of an experiment of sorts,” Teno said calmly.
“Oh, I suspected as much. I think I know where you’re from. Allen’s project. Wasn’t that it?”
Teno nodded. “Does my being what I am bother you?”
“Not at all,” Leif replied. “We should have done more biological modification, maybe tried something radical. What difference does it make? We’re all immortal, and that’s the most unnatural thing there is. Anything else is a minor modification.”
Nola turned toward him. “Are you a biologist, Leif?”
“I was, once.” He frowned. “Why be one now? There’s nothing for us to do; truly original work ended some time ago. All we have to do now is make sure everyone stays alive and happy. Everything’s perfect the way it is, isn’t it? Don’t you think so?” He slumped in his chair and said more softly, “How mistaken we were. Death was our spur; we once knew
we would die, but at least our knowledge and our achievements would go on. Now we have what we want. There’s no need to know anything except how to keep what we have.”
Nola leaned toward him. “I thought you didn’t approve of people thinking death might be good.”
“I don’t. But we lack motivation, which death once provided.”
“That’s not true away from Earth.”
“Just wait.” Leif poured himself more wine. “Most of you, on the average, are still younger than people here. You’ll reach the impasse—you’re getting there already. A short time after the Transition, a ship left the solar system. It was the first. I think it was also the last. We’ve never sent another.”
“No one knows what happened to it,” Yasmin murmured.
“Why should that stop us? All the more reason to follow up, wouldn’t you say? But we don’t.”
“There are others who feel as you do,” Teno said. “The biologists who gave me life wanted change. I and those like me were made for the world as it is now. You still have instincts for a different kind of life.”
“Then why are you here?” Leif asked, waving an arm and almost knocking over his wineglass.
“We’re young. We’re still learning. We have to understand. That is why I’m going to experience the little death soon. I shall see what happens to me. You’re welcome to attend.”
Mikhail reached over and took Teno’s hand for a moment, then released it. Nola gripped the arms of her chair, pressing her nails against the smooth wood.
“I’ll want to see that,” Leif replied. “Giancarlo will be surprised to see me there.”
Yasmin looked around at everyone, and then began to speak of some poetry she had read recently. Her voice sang as it recited the Arabic. Nola did not know Arabic, but apparently the others did. Yasmin sighed as she reached the end of a verse. “There’s no other language for poetry,” she said.
“Perhaps,” Teno said. “There’s so much behind every word. Perfect for metaphors; you can hardly avoid them, but it’s difficult to make a straightforward, unambiguous assertion in such a language.”
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