PROBABILITY MOON

by Nancy Kress

  “Wait, Ahmed. Just another small minute. I must do this while we are still out from under rock cover.”

  In the falling gloom, the big man peeled down his s-suit and sat on the ground. Bazargan caught the brief glint of moonlight on the knife as Gruber sliced free the sewn flap of skin and removed the emergency comlink from his thigh. He didn’t even wipe it free of blood before using it.

  “David … David Allen. This is Dieter Gruber. Answer, please.”

  Silence. It should have been I that did that, Bazargan thought. But he had been too weary to think of it, too sick to carry it out. Wordlessly Ann knelt beside Gruber and swabbed meds on the gash on his leg.

  “Ach, you don’t answer, David. Then I will record.”

  Pointless, Bazargan thought. If David Allen wasn’t answering, it was because he was dead. The Worlders had killed him. Proof that they had decided Terrans were, indeed, unreal.

  But Gruber was not interested in facts. He went on from hope. “If you receive this message, David, answer on the planet-use frequency. Give your position. We will come for you if we must, or you can come to us. A flyer will rescue us all in three days, twenty hours. Bring Enli with you if she is in fatal danger here. We all think of you.”

  “That’s all you can do, Dieter,” Ann said softly.

  “I know. We must go. Come, Ahmed, lean on me.”

  Bazargan did, although he would not have bet that Gruber remembered he was there. Moving as quickly as possible along the darkening path, Gruber planned excitedly with Ann. “With orbital scanning equipment on the flyer, we have another chance to find David and Enli, ja? And then we can ask Enli in detail about what happened to her sense of shared reality when the wave effect hit World … maybe a Lagerfeld will even show some permanent, documentable brain effects. And an expedition can be formed to excavate the probability-field artifact from the mountains. Ann, an entire new era of science will begin, things we have only speculated about.”

  She answered in the same excited tone, but Bazargan lost her actual words. He was trying to picture what might have happened on World if David and Enli had indeed delivered their message about the “sky sickness.” Word would have spread over the entire planet, efficiently delivered, unquestioned by any hearer, and the entire planet would have obeyed the call to safety. There was nowhere else in the known universe where such a reality could be possible. Nowhere.

  And Enli … if Worlders did still consider her someone to be murdered, then the humans must take her with them. But in Caligula system, or on Earth or Mars or the Belt, surrounded by the permanently unreal, Enli’s headpain would be terrible and unceasing. No shared reality for her at all; Bazargan wasn’t even sure she could survive that. Although given a choice, perhaps Enli would prefer death on Caligula to death on World, because on Caligula her body could decay and she would, in her truth, have the chance to rejoin her ancestors.

  But before that death, which could take years, Enli would live without sharing the reality of the human worlds. It would be for her a horrifying, completely discordant existence. Like putting a delicate blossom from a flower lyric into the scream of a shuttle launch.

  Or like putting a human on World.

  Ann and Gruber still foamed with enthusiasm. Bazargan didn’t have the heart to tell them that none of it would come to pass. Any expedition to explore the buried artifact would have to get past the powerful political fact that humans were no longer welcome on World. An examination of Enli’s brain, or even of her subjective memory, might indeed reveal that something had happened to her shared-reality mechanism when Tas had exploded. But it would be anecdotal evidence only, undocumentable and, by definition, unrepeatable. Therefore, not science.

  And another truth must be recognized and shared as well. Even if poor David Allen’s most grandiose fantasy came true and some geneticist could have found a way to genetically splice the shared-reality mechanism into the human genome, it would make no difference. Shared reality could develop nowhere else but on World, swathed in the probability-altering field of the buried artifact. Shared reality might be a true reality, but it was one closed to human beings.

  The last of the sun’s afterglow disappeared from the little forest. Gruber turned on his powerful torch, and it illuminated for the three humans a narrow, temporary path of light through the alien woods.

  EPILOGUE

  GOFKIT RABLOE

  People had been arriving all day, usually in twos and threes, on bicycles and on foot and in farm carts. Some wore expensive tunics and shawls, but not very many. Except for the priests from Reality and Atonement, who had traveled from Rafkit Seloe, most of the people came from the rural villages near the Neury Mountains. These were the ones that had adopted this particular ceremony as their own. Enli saw Azi Pek Laridor arrive, pulling a small and dilapidated farm cart, Calit jumping up and down in the cart beside the new infant asleep in a basket. Azi looked dusty and hot and content. She set down her cart near the back of the small crowd, flexed her shoulders, and frowned at Calit. The child subsided, but not much.

  Enli stood neither far nor near the flower altar. It was plain for an altar, a single bare curving slab of stone supported by three legs curved like trifalit stems. The flower beds surrounding the altar weren’t spectacular, either, although the lush pajal bushes made a colorful display. Yellow and orange, the colors of hospitality. The Terrans were welcome to return to World.

  Although, in three whole years, they had not.

  A servant of the First Flower raised his arms, and the straggly crowd quieted. All together, they began to sing. First the harvest chants, then the flower lyrics, in the exact order they had been sung in the Gofkit Rabloe root cellar. From the corner of her eye, Enli saw little Calit begin to dance in the farm cart. Gently his mother stilled him.

  “People of World,” the priest began, when the singing had ended, “may your blossoms rejoice.”

  “May the flowers of your soul flourish forever,” the crowd answered.

  “We come here on this day to honor a messenger of the First Flower, David Pek Allen, who saved World from the sky sickness.”

  People nodded. Over the years Enli had heard rumors that shared reality now included doubts that the sky sickness had occurred at all. Certainly there had been no sign of it after everyone emerged from the root cellars. No sick animals, no wilted blossoms, no diseased cooking pots, as Pek Gruber had foretold and as happened when people ventured too far into the Neury Mountains. But no one dwelt seriously on the possibility that Pek Allen had played some sort of unfathomable alien trick. That the sky sickness had in fact occurred was now shared reality, not yet shifted into open disbelief. This was true, even though as each year passed, Pek Allen’s sacrifice became a less important part of shared reality, with room for passing doubts. A minor ceremony, observed only in this one place.

  The servant of the First Flower finished his speech and called for presentations. Those presenting stepped forward, one by one, and placed their offerings on the bare altar, murmuring flower blessings.

  Estu, the child Pek Allen had abducted to force Gofkit Rabloe to hear him, offered a bouquet of wildflowers she had gathered herself. People smiled; an appropriate offering from a young girl.

  Pek Callin, Estu’s old grandmother, laid on the altar a woven wreath of rafirib, a work of art in its lovely curves. “Aaaaaahhhhhh,” the crowd said appreciatively.

  From Riflit Pek Lafir and his wife Imino, a loaf of fresh-baked bread.

  From a man that Enli didn’t recognize, a wooden carving of a mountain.

  Azi came forward, leading the fractious Calit by the hand. The little boy, too young to be real, nonetheless observed everything from sharp, intelligent eyes that couldn’t seem to be any more still than the rest of him. Enli sighed. You never knew what sort of children you would get. Gentle Ano, for instance, had produced not only the obedient Fentil but also Enli’s niece, Obora, who was easily the noisiest child in Gofkit Shamloe. Azi placed an offering of zeli fruit twine
d with trifalitib on the altar.

  The next offering surprised Enli: a man in the tunic of the Household of Voratur. Last year Pek Voratur had sent no offering. What could have happened in the Voratur household to lead Pek Voratur to reconsider? Probably Enli would never know. The Voratur offering was a beautifully made but not ostentatious flower tapestry, which the messenger draped to hang over the front of the stone altar.

  Enli came last. When it was clear there were no more presentations, she pushed her way to the altar. A few people recognized her, those who had been in the root cellar that day, and smiled. Many others were strangers, mostly young people, drawn to the ceremony primarily for the dancing and feasting that would follow. Young people were young people.

  The crowd was growing restless, but their attention sharpened as Enli unwrapped her offering and laid it atop the Voratur tapestry. “Aaaaahhhhhhh,” they said again, but with a different tone than when they had appreciated old Pek Callin’s wreath. Enli had brought a flower remembrance, the finest money could buy in Rafkit Seloe. She had been saving for it for three years. Her wish had been that Ano come with her to present it in Tabor’s name, but Ano—who had accompanied Enli to last year’s ceremony—was pregnant again and very near her birthing time.

  The flower remembrance was blown glass, with the exquisite and sophisticated curves that marked it as the work of World’s finest glassblower, Avino Pek Molarian. This rural crowd had never heard Pek Molarian’s name, but they recognized the subtle beauty of the intricate glass tunnels. Through them the bright liquid metal, flowersoul, ran over and between two perfectly preserved Terran rosib. The rosib came from the Voratur flower trade, captured forever in the glass.

  Enli whispered, for her presentation was meant only for Pek Allen’s spirit. “From Enli Pek Brimmidin of World and Tabor Pek Brimmidin among his ancestors.”

  “May all your gardens bloom in joy,” the priest of the First Flower said, again raising his arms, and the ceremony was over. The crowd began to disperse. The young people gathered on a flat clear patch of ground well away from the altar; in a few moments the sound of dancing flutes rose on the warm air. The visitors from Reality and Atonement mounted their bicycles for the return ride to the capital.

  Azi pulled her cart over to Enli. “May your flowers bloom, Enli.”

  “And yours, Azi.” Enli smiled.

  “Do you stay for the dancing?”

  “No, I must return to my sister. She’s near her time.”

  “My garden rejoices for her. Then would you like—Calit! Stop that this moment!”

  “He is beautiful, Azi.”

  “And a headpain all by himself. You look well, Enli.”

  “Thank you,” Enli said. She knew she did not look different than she always had been: large, plain, undistinguished. But compared to how Azi had seen her the day of the sky sickness, Enli knew she must look wonderful. So would Azi always see her.

  Calit had found an odd-shaped rock to study. In the moment of peace, Azi said suddenly, “Enli—do you think they will ever return? The Terrans?”

  Enli stared at the flower altar, bearing the remembrance that had cost her most of three years’ wages in her restored life. No one, not even Ano, had understood why she had insisted on a flower remembrance from the famous Avino Pek Molarian, and Enli had not explained. She had learned much from living among the Terrans, in that brief terrible time: There were things you could not explain. She now knew, as Ano and Azi and even the servants of the First Flower did not, that there were many realities. Some of those realities were what Pek Gruber had called highprobability, some were lowprobability, terms for which no World words existed. Some realities even both existed and not-existed at the same time, until someone like David Pek Allen, through sheer force of will, brought them about.

  The Terrans had always known that, and now Enli did, too. The knowing set her apart; already she could feel the headpain starting. But it was her reality.

  Azi waited. “I don’t know,” Enli finally said, “if they will ever return or not. That’s for the First Flower to decide.”

  Azi nodded; she was a priest herself. “Would you like to come to my house for a glass of pel before you return to your sister?”

  “Yes,” Enli said, “I would like that.”

  She picked up the second shaft of the farm cart, Azi dumped a protesting Calit and his odd-shaped rock into the cart, and the two women pulled together for Azi’s house in the village.

  Men love liberty because it protects them from control and humiliation from others, and thus affords them the possibility of dignity. They loathe liberty because it throws them back on their own abilities and resources, and thus confronts them with the possibility of insignificance.

  —THOMAS SZASZ

  Tor Books By Nancy Kress

  Beggars Ride

  Beggars and Choosers

  Maximum Light

  Oaths and Miracles

  Stinger

  Beaker’s Dozen (story collection)

  THE PROBABILITY TRILOGY

  Probability Moon

  Probability Sun

  Probability Space

  COSMIC CROSSFIRE

  Crossfire

  Crucible

  Praise for PROBABILITY SUN, sequel to Probability Moon

  “Kress’s always excellent characters wrestle with a splendid array of puzzles and problems, human, alien, and scientific: another resounding success for this talented sure-footed writer.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “The author grounds her morally complex plot in the physics of probability. As usual with Kress, her eccentric characters add depth. Readers will start this novel because of Kress’s reputation, will read it for the adventure and will like it for the characters and the science.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The immediate sequel to Probability Moon continues humanity’s war against the alien Fallers, a war humanity is losing. It again shows scientists and the military at odds if not in outright conflict while portraying the strengths and limitations of both with admirable even-handedness. A shipload of scientists has come to study the alien artifact discovered on the planet World, and the ship’s military crew is holding the only Faller POW as a secret captive. The questions that permeate the tightly paced story are whether scientists and the military can cooperate to learn the nature of the artifact—scientific storehouse or doomsday machine—and whether either of those parties will procure the cooperation of the captive Faller, whose perception of reality is unfathomably different from that of any of the humans. Displaying a typically strong synthesis of Kress’s many gifts, the novel leaves the door wide open for at least one successor.”

  —Booklist

  “Kress has blended such a nice set of surprises and inevitabilities that you should learn and read and enjoy them for yourself. You don’t have to read Probability Moon to have a good time, but you’ll probably search it out anyway.”

  —San Diego Union-Tribune

  Praise for PROBABILITY MOON

  “Twisty and compelling, brimful of ideas, with Kress’s usual life-sized characters; top-notch work from a major talent.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Kress’s Sleepless trilogy proved that she was a serious writer, worthy of considered attention. Probability Moon only emphasizes that. While the race between the crew of the Zeus and the alien Fallers contrasted with the struggle by the landing team to have Terrans declared “real” makes for a thoroughly entertaining thriller, the discussion of the “shared reality” of the Worlders is an interesting philosophical debate on how we choose to define other people as real, and hence worthy of being included in the mainstream of society. Probability Moon is a good novel, and good science fiction.”

  —Locus

  “The author weaves a fascinating tale exploring the norms of each society. The mystery slowly unravels as the two cultures interact. Each member of the large cast of characters has an individual struggle a
nd quest, creating an intriguing plot. This book has something for everyone.”

  —VOYA

  “Kress’s characterizations are as sound as ever, but many will be agreeably surprised at her proficiency with military hardware and action scenes. Very impressive.”

  —Booklist

  “Far-future hard SF with believable characters? It’s the rarest commodity in modern science fiction, but Nancy Kress brings the same deft, human touch to this rollicking tale of distant worlds as she does to her trademark near-future tales. A wonderful departure, and a stand-up-and-cheer triumph: the genre’s most thoughtful explorer of inner space proves herself to also be one of its greatest chroniclers of outer space.”

  —Robert J. Sawyer, Nebula Award-winning author of Hominids

  Look for …

  PROBABILITY SPACE

  By

  NANCY KRESS

  Now Available in Hardcover from Tor Books

  Turn the page for a preview of Nancy Kress’s latest

  Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state.

  —ALEXANDER POPE, “AN ESSAY ON MAN”

  PROLOGUE

  MARS

  July, 2168

  Bellington Wace Arnold of Arnold Interplanetary, Inc., arrived late at his opulent office. Beyond the top-floor window and the piezoelectric dome of Lowell City, the sun was already well above the Martian horizon. Not much dust today. The sky was only faintly pink, and Arnold could see all the way to the hard clutter of the spaceport.