Adiamante

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Stet, Coordinator.” Lieza was all business.

  “Do I want to know about the scavengers and kalirams?” asked Kemra.

  “The kalirams stay in the rocky parts of the mountains. They’re killer sheep that became omnivores with a preference for meat. They prey mainly on the deer, but anything will do, and they don’t like humans or vorpals much.”

  “What else … never mind.” She broke off as we neared the shuttle.

  Lieza had converted two of the couches into flat pallets, and the cyb officers stretched the wounded cyb on one. The wounded marcyb still hadn’t said much of anything, and her eyes were the same flat brown, as if nothing had happened. I suspected the dead cyb’s eyes would have looked just the same, but I didn’t check and repressed a shiver.

  “There will be a medical team waiting,” Lieza announced. “Settle in. We’re lifting.”

  The door had barely clicked up into place when the shuttle eased skyward.

  Kemra looked at the screen, and I didn’t feel like talking. They still didn’t seem to understand. After losing a trooper and facing the prairie dogs, they failed to see what Old Earth had become.

  We were still a few minutes out of Parwon when Keiko came across the net. “Coordinator. Majer Henslom was here. He took five squads on the upper Aquarius trail. The vorpals got nearly a dozen. He’s looking for your head.”

  “He won’t get it. Besides, he’ll have to stand in line, the way things are going.”

  “I warned you.” She projected darkness with her words.

  “You did. I’ll keep you posted. Or Lieza will, if Henslom does get my head.”

  “Thanks,” interjected the pilot, her words ironic on the net.

  “I have this feeling that a lot’s going on above us,” Kemra said. “You people have a high net, don’t you.”

  “High?”

  “I can sense something, but that’s all.”

  “Like you, we use nets for some things,” I admitted. “I was telling the pilot that a lot of people were standing in line for my head at the moment.”

  Kemra shook her head. She opened her mouth as if to say something.

  I looked at her, and she shut it.

  Viedras was studying the equipment he’d used, or reviewing the results. His lips were pursed, and I wondered if he’d caught my sped-up movements.

  As Keiko warned me, two more marcyb officers were waiting at the locial tower when we set down. One was Majer Henslom. The other was a force leader. The force leader’s left arm was heavily bandaged and splinted.

  Kemra followed me out of the shuttle. So did Viedras, Babbege, and Cherle. Babbege turned and helped get the wounded cyb into the emergency medical wagon, then climbed in with her.

  “Coordinator?” asked Henslom, his voice cool.

  Kemra looked from Henslom to me and back again.

  “Yes?” I waited, and the medical car whined away toward the center of the locial.

  “You seem to have a local wildlife problem. Or you used local wildlife to ambush my troops. Or both.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You certainly must know. You obviously set it up.”

  I looked straight into those flat eyes. “I set up nothing. After our meeting yesterday, in fact, I decided against setting up anything. All I did was refuse to warn or protect you. You don’t seem to understand. Old Earth has become a dangerous place.”

  Henslom took a step forward.

  “Halt!” snapped Kemra.

  “I would not have thought you would take the side of the locals,” said the majer.

  “I’m not. I’m keeping you from committing suicide.”

  For the first time, Henslom’s eyes showed confusion.

  Kemra used their local net to add, “He’s the one who took out your agent bare-handed in the dark. I watched him destroy four of those vicious dogs in seconds. You’d last about three instants.”

  “Him? Politicos don’t fight,” Henslom flashed back.

  “They do here,” came the boosted response.

  I kept my face expressionless.

  Henslom swallowed.

  Then Kemra spoke. “I believe the majer was not prepared to find our ancestral home so … violent.”

  “Living here continues to be a struggle.” My words were true, although I doubted the true nature of the struggle would ever be obvious to them. “At every turn, I have tried to let you see matters as they are, and yet you have persisted in seeing them as you wished. Yesterday, I decided against continuing any special protections.”

  “Warning is a special protection?”

  “One reason Old Earth collapsed was that our ancestors refused to live in balance with the ecology and that they forced incredible diversions of resources to create a luxurious lifestyle and to protect themselves from what they conceived of as the slightest chance of harm.” I turned to Kemra. “The subcommander has seen the ruins. This continent was filled with hundreds of areas such as those. When the earth had the chance to redress the balance, it did. We try to live with it, rather than force even greater changes.”

  “You can’t tell me you live with things like those … those … predators,” said Henslom.

  “No. You’re right. We avoid where they live, and we don’t build close to them, and they generally hunt away from the locials. But we also don’t go out and kill them just because one sometimes kills a draff or a child.”

  “You’d let a child near them?”

  “I wouldn’t. I never did. Some people are stupid. We don’t regulate stupidity. You protect it, and it breeds.”

  They all looked horrified, even Kemra.

  “You people don’t listen,” I snapped. “I told Viedras to stop. I warned you all that, once you crossed the territorial border of the prairie dogs, they became aggressive. He told me not to be silly, and he crossed that line. We got away with one dead cyb, and some nasty slashes. It didn’t have to happen, but you thought you knew better. That’s a form of stupidity—or arrogance.” I turned to Henslom. “You didn’t ask us about whether it was safe to take your troops out of the locial. You told us that was what you were doing. Your assumption was that Old Earth is perfectly safe unless you’re warned. Is deep space safe? Would you drop into the sun’s photosphere because no one warned you it would incinerate you? Nothing is perfectly safe. We don’t provide warning signs to protect you from yourselves. Try to remember that.” I was treading close to the edge of the Construct, possibly too close, but I had to try.

  “Thank you, Coordinator. Thank you so very much,” was all Henslom had to say, and he was still seething inside, and he hadn’t heard a word I said. He turned and walked quickly toward the shuttle that waited to take him into Parwon center.

  I wanted to kick him. He was denser than collapsed depleted uranium. Why did he think that, when he was on a mission to slag Old Earth, I should be going out of my way to protect him? He couldn’t even see that by not protecting him, I was trying to let him see reality enough for him to make an intelligent choice, to avoid stupidity.

  The others turned toward the cyb lander, all except for Kemra, who waited, then asked, “Why are you so angry? You weren’t hurt. You’re upset with us, yet you have no reason to be pleased with our arrival.”

  “Any form of stupidity and unnecessary death bothers me, and it really upsets me when people refuse to see what is.”

  She frowned, then asked more quietly, “The vorpals, the prairie dogs—are they why the draffs don’t live away from the locials?” The wind, colder than when we had left, blew her short and sandy hair forward to touch the edge of her cheeks, softening the hard planes of her face.

  “Some of the reasons,” I said. “The bears have lost their fear of humans, and the cougars never had much. That doesn’t count the scorpion packs, the centipedes, or the rattlers, except they’ve always been dangerous, except now they rattle after they strike, instead of before.”

  “How can you demis live out there?” She gestured in the gen
eral direction of our—my—house.

  “We can generally sense most of them. We do have ways of protecting ourselves, as you saw, but those with children must be exceedingly careful. Most of the predators zero in on any human child.”

  “Then why …”

  “It’s hard to fight danger if you don’t grow up to recognize it.” And besides, we weren’t about to give up Old Earth to the predators. “As I said, and, as no one heard, we won’t coddle stupidity among ourselves.” I stopped again. “You saw those palaces in the ruins. That was stupidity, too, incredible, arrogant stupidity. The first demis isolated themselves in luxury behind an impenetrable wall. Look what happened. We can’t do that. We have to stay in touch with our bodies and our world. No isolation on pristine nets.”

  She shook her head.

  I wanted to say more, but the Construct is strong within us—even within me, grieving and confused as I was.

  Behind her, the snow swirled toward the north end of the field like a dark curtain falling across the piñons, and I knew I’d have to hurry if I didn’t want to be caught in Parwon for the night.

  A single flake of snow caught on her hair, and one image superimposed itself on another, and the words came to mind, unbidden:

  “ … for whitest flakes will gown my grace,

  and jewels of ice will frame my face … .”

  I looked away and swallowed. After I moment, I pulled myself together.

  “You actually looked human for a moment, Coordinator Ecktor.”

  “We’re all human … if we choose to be.” That was the best I could do, and it wasn’t enough.

  She shook her head again. “We’ve seen your view of Old Earth. Perhaps you should visit us.”

  “Perhaps.” Anything but another Jykserian episode. If a visit to hell would help, I’d go, just so long as I didn’t have to threaten or make the first strike. “Perhaps.”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  Then she was gone, and I walked through the flurries to the flitter.

  XX

  The snow had begun to fall sometime in the night, and by the time I rose, in the grayness before true dawn, it was more than ankle deep. Ankle deep and powdery, the kind that came out of the north, lasting and cold, falling in a fog-like curtain.

  When the kettle began to whistle, I filled the dark green pot with boiling water and dropped the tea caddy inside. Yslena had made the pot and sent it, three years or so earlier. Looking at the dark green curved sides of the pot, I realized I needed to link with her before long—but with the time differential, she was asleep.

  While the tea steeped, I toasted some bread—the heavy kind, because I’ve never been good at making the light kind. Morgen had been, but everything I get involved with turns out heavy, including bread.

  It was the last loaf I had in the keeper, and that meant either using comptime credits or making bread. I still had plenty of preserves, and I slathered them across the two slices of toast. A chunk of cheese, more ripe than I would have liked, and a bowl of dried pear slices completed breakfast, and I sat down to eat, my eyes lifting to the window.

  The piñons on the edges of the ridge were concealed by the falling snow, but neither Swift-Fall-Hunter nor the raven were likely to be perched there in the storm. The sambur never browsed higher than halfway up the slopes, either.

  After finishing the pear slices and cheese, I took a long swallow of tea, then held the mug with both hands under my chin and let steam and spice of tea, bergamot-scented, wreathe my face. After I finished, I set the heavy green mug on the table and looked back to the window and the falling snow. My fingers found their way to the adiamante oval on the table—still smooth, heavy, and nonreactive.

  Adiamante—useless for anything except defense, unable to argue, unable to threaten. Were we the adiamante of the universe?

  Idly, I wondered if the prairie dogs in their hummocks thought about cold or snow. Unlike eagles or the less force-evolved species such as cougars and bears, the prairie dogs and vorpals and kalirams were harder to read, more difficult to gain a sense of their presence and purpose. Another evolutionary adaptation?

  After setting down the adiamante on the table, I swallowed the last of the tea and headed for the shower. Hot showers helped remove the chill from bones and soul.

  After showering, I pulled on heavy running trousers, shirt, boots, and a jacket—plus one of the sheath knives—and stepped outside where the snow kept falling.

  With a deep breath, I headed westward, boots dropping near-silently into the growing white powder as I tried to maintain a quick and even pace despite the uncertain footing. Was that life—trying to maintain the pace despite the treacherous ground across which we had to move? Was it all in vain? I shouldn’t have been so desperately lyrical because that lyricism called up other lyricism.

  “ … and words we whispered flamed in vain

  against Old Earth’s last reign and rain … .”

  Except that I was running through snow, not rain, avoiding sagebrush, cedars, junipers, and rocks half-hidden by snow. I almost wished I’d find a vorpal, but they never showed up when I was angry enough—or stupidly desperate enough—to take one on.

  I pushed my thoughts in other directions.

  Dialogue one: Had it been fair to let Henslom’s cybs be killed by the vorpals? No … but wouldn’t it have been less fair to delude them by protecting them? Or was that a rationalization?

  I reached the end of the ridge and headed downhill, more to the south this time, away from the meleysen groves. For whatever reason, the orangish smell was more pronounced and close to obnoxious when light snow was falling.

  Dialogue two: Why are we trapped by the Construct, like mutants trapped by the meleysens? Because we had no choice left except to subject ourselves to it. Unthinking aggression was genetically positive for clawing humanity to the top of the ecological totem pole, except that it ended up destroying that totem pole. With high technology, strike-first aggression proved unworkable. At last count, our infrequent interstellar surveys had proven that. Three more planets were uninhabited and uninhabitable. Why couldn’t the cybs see? Was it because their whole logic structure was either-or, on-off, one-two?

  The snow continued to fall, and my steps slowed as I trotted uphill once again, senses alert for possible predators, hand straying to the hilt of the sharp knife at my belt.

  XXI

  “What about that shuttle system operating between the locials and the asteroid stations around the planet? Or the spacing of those stations? Those nickel-iron hunks are positioned in almost symmetrical stable orbits,” observed Gibreal.

  “Each is also generating a magnetic field now, except for one, and they’re sending a lot of equipment there,” added Kemra. “They weren’t building fields before, even if they use a lot of equipment that taps the planetary fields.”

  “What are they up to?” asked Weapons. “You’ve spent more time with them than anyone.”

  Kemra did not answer.

  “All their shuttlecraft in use tap the magnetic fields, more efficiently than our magboosts,” admitted Gorum, “but that sort of system is almost useless for warcraft. The fields fluctuate, and some planets and systems have comparatively minuscule fields.”

  “Just hit them and get it over with,” interjected Weapons. The image of a lightning bolt flashed across the net.

  “There’s something we’re missing,” mused the navigator. “Something obvious. I could feel a tremendous frustration from their Coordinator.”

  “Oh … you’re definitely doing your job, then … .” An undulating female figure, overripe and nude, paraded the netline, but through a signature filter.

  “Sanitize it,” snapped Gibreal.

  The figure vanished.

  “Explain, nav,” the commander added.

  “I’ve reported on the wildlife and the marcyb casualties, but their Coordinator was furious—the first time I’ve seen that from any of them—when he talked about our not seeing and list
ening. And there was a plea there, too.”

  “Spare us?” suggested Gorum. “Please don’t roll over us?”

  “No. More like spare us—us the cybs, I mean. It was almost as though he were pleading for us not to be stupid enough to destroy ourselves.”

  “That is interesting, if true.” Gibreal’s words were almost distant. “I have trouble believing that, but perhaps you’d better investigate more. We have a day or two more before we’re ready.”

  “Something else disturbs me,” added the nav. “Except for the nontalking heads, the ruins at Cherkrik, and the Great Wall—there’s nothing left. Think about it. More than ten millennia of building things, and there are less than a dozen remnants on an entire planet?”

  “They didn’t take care of things,” snapped Weapons.

  “There were once pyramids on several continents built of hard stone that massed more than some fleets. If they’d just neglected them, they’d still be there. Or there would be some remnants. There aren’t.”

  “So they went around destroying their heritage,” pointed out Gibreal. “That’s certainly not new, especially if they wanted to rewrite history. Peoples everywhere have eradicated the unpleasant past. These demis are just the first to have both the will, the technology, and the time to do so successfully.”

  “Then why the Hyberniums? Those scenes do not paint them as exactly good people. And the Coordinator went out of his way to show me those luxurious palaces of the old-time demis and to point out the problems they had caused. None of them live like that now.”

  “That’s so they can claim they’re honest. A partial truth to varnish over their guilt.”

  “I don’t think so,” mused the nav, the odor of libraries and ancient books overlaid with the bright light of laboratories. “I think it’s all a way of subtly warning us.”

  “That’s idiotic,” countered Gorum. “Why don’t they just tell us that if we don’t get out of their heavens they’ll destroy us? Because they can’t.”