Eon

by Greg Bear

  Within fifty hours, Olmy decelerated their little craft and approached the atmosphere barrier at I.3 ex 9, passing through the axial hole at little more than a crawl—a few dozen meters per second.

  What lay on the other side of the barrier was unexpected—and enchanting.

  For as far as the eye could see, the Way resembled the fourth chamber in the Thistledown. If anything, it was even greener and more luxuriant. Clouds drifted at leisure beyond the plasma robe, over a landscape of forested hills partaking of a palette of greens and grassy golds. Rivers cut bright paths through the hills, reflecting the tubelight at every point to take on an aspect of shimmering silver.

  Patricia floated in the nose of the flawship, arms crossed.

  Prescient Oyu explained that this segment of the Way was being adapted for eventual human settlement. The project had been started by those who wished to relieve the tensions arising from overcrowding in the Axis City. Even City Memory’s enormous capacity was being filled and would soon need extensions.

  The Way had other, smaller segments adapted for human living, but on the whole it had been reserved for commerce.

  The segment at I.3 ex 9 was to have been devoted to homorphs and their special need in short, it had been chiefly intended for orthodox Naderites.

  A year before, the settling of this segment had been delayed by a Jart incursion beyond 2 ex 9. Now the delay was indefinitely extended; the Jarts and their allies had grown in strength, and it seemed they might break through to I.3 ex 9.

  Still, the humans did not pull back. They did not settle the segment, but they conducted other activities--including opening a gate at I.301 ex 9.

  The verdant areas of the segment extended for only a few thousand kilometers. The flawship passed over a terminal building covering the gate through which the segment’s soil and atmosphere had been brought into the Way; they were accelerating again, over a stretch of sandy, barren territory much like the region just beyond the seventh chamber, and then through another atmosphere barrier.

  There was no commerce in the next segment. No other gates had been opened; except for three more defense outposts, the Way was a featureless, darkly bronze tube along the entire million-kilometer stretch. Patricia contemplated the geometry of this undisturbed section of corridor. The geometry stacks would be of a different configuration without gates to bunch them, but they would exist--in fact, this segment might be ideal for her search ...

  “Would you like to test your ideas here?” Olmy asked her quietly.

  She turned, startled, and nodded.

  “Ser Yates and I have been discussing your theories,” Olmy said. “We feel you should present them to Ser Ry Oyu ... “

  Patricia’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ”Would this have anything to do with Korzenowski?” she asked, deciding now was as good a time as any to probe Olmy’s secrets.

  Olmy lifted a finger to his lips conspiratorially. ”If you wish to test your ideas ... perhaps. But no more talk until our destination.”

  At I.301 ex 9, they passed through another barrier. Beyond, a segment barely sixty kilometers long lay velvety green under a thick and hazy atmosphere.

  Four small terminal buildings—little more than a hundred meters on each side—were spaced around the as-yet-unopened circuit at the middle of the segment.

  A disk a third as wide as the one that had transported them to the Tunbl terminal ascended from a white landing field near the zero terminal, climbing toward the flawship.

  Patricia’s jaw hurt. She realized she was clamping her teeth and forced herself to relax. What was Olmy up to—and what would he and the gate openers possibly want with her? What could she exchange in return for the opportunity?

  They descended to the surface in the smaller disk. This disk was clearly more utilitarian in design; its bottom half was opaque, and its only illumination was the steady glow of traction fields.

  A pie-shaped segment of the disk slid aside, and traction field chutes lowered them gently to the landing area. Olmy disembarked last.

  Prescient Oyu led them toward the terminal.

  “We can walk,” she said. ”I think it would be best to meet with Ser Ry Oyu immediately.”

  They crossed the white pavement and then stepped on thick, fine-bladed grass. Oaks and maples were spaced evenly around the park-like grounds; beyond the trees, the yellow terminal pyramid possessed only four steps, each twisted in relation to the one below.

  To one side of the terminal, a series of four traction pipes, each about three meters in diameter, wound for several kilometers around the terminal grounds just above head level.

  Within the pipes, suffused by a faint violet glow, shapes not even remotely human tracted over the landscape.

  “Our clients and allies,” Olmy said. He pointed to one individual, an eight-legged cylinder with a mane of fuzzy antler-like appendages surrounding its bifurcated, round “head.”

  “Talsit,” he said. “Tertiary form. They’re a very old race—their history goes back at least two billion terrestrial years. You’ll meet another Talsit soon—one serves as assistant to the primary gate opener.”

  The terminal was little more than a shell, about 100 meters high and 150 wide at the base. Within the terminal, a series of graceful gun-metal-blue scaffolds curved above the smooth-lipped pit about 50 meters in diameter.

  Hanging from the center of the scaffold in an intersecting radiance of traction fields was an object tiny in comparison, no broader than three hands. To Patricia, it resembled an old-fashioned Japanese pillow, with its neck-receiving curve. The base was forked, however, like the handlebars on a bike. She stopped by the edge of the scaffold to inspect it, knowing almost by instinct what it was, and how important it could be to her.

  To Lanier, it looked like a divining rod with a radar dish attached.

  “What is that?” Patricia asked, her voice small.

  “That is what a gate opener uses to dilate the Way manifold,” Olmy said.

  She seemed to shudder. ”What’s it called?” she asked.

  “A clavicle. Only three exist. Ry Oyu has charge of this one.”

  “Where’s yours?” Patricia asked Rennslaer Yates.

  “Inactive,” Yates said. ”Each is tuned to a gate opener. When the gate opener is not performing his official function, the clavicle is deactivated.”

  She reluctantly looked away from the suspended clavicle and followed the others to the western end of the terminal building.

  There, under an incomplete cupola roughly sketched from racing black and gold lines, a tall, thin man with close-cut Titian-red hair stood next to a data pillar. Patricia looked first at the man, then at the cupola.

  “Friends,” Prescient Oyu said, “this is my father, Ser Ry Oyu.”

  She introduced Olmy and Lanier. The primary gate opener nodded to each in turn.

  “And this is Patricia Luisa Vasquez,” Yates said, hand on her shoulder.

  “I’ve learned the old language just to speak with this woman,” Ry Oyu said. ”And the old cultures and ways. Yet she gives me such a peculiar look!”

  Patricia straightened and cleared a slight frown from her face.

  “You were expecting something more impressive, weren’t you?” Ry Oyu said. ”Not the Wizard of Oz, I hope.” He extended his hand to her, eyes narrowed in amusement. ”I am deeply honored.”

  Patricia shook his hand, her thin black eyebrows drawn together.

  Ry Oyu patted her hand paternally and glanced uneasily at Olmy.

  “Now this branch of the conspiracy is gathered. My researchers are at the first-quarter location now; they’ll join us in a few hours. They have no idea what’s happened here. I’m not sure how I’ll explain it to them—a person in my position, engaged in petty intrigues. Miss Vasquez—”

  “I prefer Patricia,” she said, voice still small, subdued.

  “Patricia, do you have any idea what we’ve brought you here to discuss?”

  “Some idea,” Patricia said.
>
  “Yes? Tell us.”

  “It involves my work on the corridor—the Way. And it somehow involves Konrad Korzenowski.”

  “Very good. How did she discover these things, Olmy?”

  “I arranged for a rogue to visit her.”

  Patricia stared at him in shock, eyes square, touched with anger.

  “I see. And?”

  “The rogue revealed certain facts to her.”

  “Something of a risk, don’t you think?”

  “A very minor one,” Olmy said. ”She has the Mystery, after all.”

  “Does she, now.” Ry Oyu approached Patricia. ”Do you know what he’s talking about—the Mystery?”

  Patricia shook her head. ”No.”

  “Do you know how important this might be to us? No, of course not. Too many questions ... Patricia—”

  “Olmy knows where a complete record of Korzenowski is,” Patricia said abruptly. It was a wild guess but she hated appearing completely ignorant.

  “Actually, I doubt that,” Ser Oyu said. ”There are no complete records—not since the assassination.”

  Olmy tied together what she had already heard bits and pieces of the story of Konrad Korzenowski. Called the Engineer, he had designed the inertial damping systems for the Thistledown, and had overseen the in-flight maintenance of the Beckmann drive. Working from inertial damping theory, he had then designed the sixth chamber machinery that created the Way.

  That project had taken thirty years, and had been accomplished by forging an alliance between the largely Geshel governing bodies of the Thistledown, and the orthodox Naderites inhabiting Alexandria in the second chamber.

  Korzenowski himself—like Olmy—had been a Naderite by birth, and had given his word that Naderite wishes would be carried out. What the Naderites demanded was that the creation of the Way not alter the original mission, which was to find an Earth-like planet circling the distant star Epsilon Eridani. The Naderites believed their principal mission of settling distant worlds in the name of Earth was a sacred obligation, the only truly acceptable reason for venturing beyond the Solar System.

  But Korzenowski had not reckoned with a number of problems.

  First, he had not known that the linking of the way with the Thistledown’s seventh chamber would, in effect, whip-snap the asteroid starship out of its native universe, and into another. And he had not figured on the incredibly bad luck of having the experimental gates, opened by remote manipulation before the connection, allow Jarts into the Way and give them centuries to exploit their position.

  Korzenowski had retired his corpus into Thistledown’s City Memory soon after the first Jart wars, in the wake of the ensuing scandal.

  Even there, he had been harassed.. Finally, radical Geshels, judging him to be a Naderite traitor, had arranged for the purging of his personality records--in effect, assassinating him.

  “Then he is dead?” Patricia asked, confused.

  “No,” Olmy said. ”In City Memory, he was supervising the construction of the Axis City. To do that, he placed partials of himself in different locations, to carry on his work more rapidly. The most extensive partials were retrieved by his fellow engineers and entrusted to a woman, who placed them in secret storage. This woman died in an insurrection in Alexandria, a century after Korzenowski’s assassination. She was an orthodox Naderite, and at that time her sect did not allow implants. Her death was final.

  “A century after that, the final Naderites were driven from Alexandria, and for a time some were kept in Thistledown City. I was born there. And while I was experimenting with the abandoned private memory banks of our apartment building, I discovered the hidden partials of Korzenowski. I was very young then. I only had a few years to become acquainted with the engineer. But in that time ...”

  Olmy glanced at Ser Oyu. He had kept this secret for centuries and was reluctant to reveal it even now that the time was right. Ser Oyu nodded encouragement.

  “In that time, I learned that the Engineer had sought to repay his people for the injury he had done to them, however inadvertently. After the Jart wars, the Geshel-ruled Hexamon decided it was unnecessary to proceed to Epsilon Eridani; the Thistledown’s course was uncertain, and, to be truthful, they simply thought there was more potential for settlement and exploration in the Way. They were right, but that did not satisfy the orthodox Naderites. They had lost not only their mission in life, but their Earth, and their home universe. So before retiring his corpus, Korzenowski secretly reprogrammed the Thistledown guidance systems. The ship sought out and located the home Solar System, and began a return journey.”

  “I don’t see how I can help,” Patricia said.

  “Korzenowski’s partials, when assembled, almost equal the original,” Ser Oyu said. ”We lack only the final impressed shape, the Mystery, to have him back with us. In this way, we hope to repay him for what he gave us. We hope to let him see his success.”

  Patricia glanced at Olmy to Oyu, and then to Yates.

  “And what will you give us?” she asked.

  “Your colleagues will have their choice of returning to Earth or proceeding down the Way with the Geshels. You, on the other hand, will be given the means to play out your dream.”

  “My dream?”

  Ry Oyu walked to a smooth black cabinet under the center of the shimmering cupola. He opened the cabinet and brought out a small pearl-white box. Returning, he held the box to Patricia and instructed her to open it.

  She lifted the lid. Within, lying in a hollow of green velvet, was a miniature version of the clavicle that depended from the scaffold.

  Yates looked upon it with her and sighed.

  “We’re offering you an exchange, a trade in which you lose nothing,” Ry Oyu said. ”You let us copy your Mystery, to complete the Engineer’s personality record, and we will let you search for your home.”

  “You’re saying that my soul, and Korzenowski’s, are identical?”

  Patricia asked.

  “‘Soul’ is an imprecise term,” the gate opener said. “‘Mystery’ at least has the advantage of a more precise application. When everything in a personality—memory, thought patterns, skills—has been abstracted out, the sum of their parts is still not the whole. There is a super-pattern which colors the entire psyche, and which can be lost when even the great majority of fragments are reassembled. This is called the ‘Mystery’. We have never been able to synthesize it. It is ineffable, and it can only be transferred by an imposition of all the patterns of one person on the assembled personality fragments of another. What is already present in the other is rejected; what is not present, the Mystery, is retained. That is the gift you could give to us--to Korenowski.”

  She took hold of Lanier’s hand, suddenly afraid. This was not in the same league with the things that had gone before; it seemed abruptly mystical and unconvincing. For a time, she had thought that nothing could remain unknown to these descendants, and yet here it was, primary and basic; elaborated upon, manipulated, but not solved.

  “You could take it from me by force,” she said. ”Why try to convince me?”

  “Force is not useful in these circumstances,” Ry Oyu said. “Either you give voluntarily or you do not give at all.”

  “Why do you want him back? Hasn’t he served his purpose?”

  “It’s a matter of honor.” Olmy smiled. ”If the Knights of the Round Table could have brought King Arthur back, don’t you think they would have? The Engineer must see that his plan has come to fruition.”

  “But not as he expected.”

  “No,” Olmy admitted.

  Patricia looked down at her clasped hands. ”Do I lose anything?”

  “No,” the gate opener said patiently.

  “And in exchange, I get to use this ... “ She pointed to the miniature clavicle. ”Why is it so small?”

  “It has been deactivated,” Yates said.

  “It’s yours?”

  He nodded.

  “Yates will transfer
its power to you, and you will learn how to use it during the ceremony,” Ry Oyu said. ”You will stand by my side.”

  “Is Korzenowski here--I mean, his fragments?”

  “He is within me,” Olmy said, pointing to his head.

  Patricia looked at Lanier, her expression that of a little girl uncertain whether she was being told wonderful lies, or incredible truths. She shifted her gaze to Olmy. ”He’s in your implant?”

  Olmy nodded. ”I carry additional implants in my body, sufficient to contain him.”

  “Something big is going on in your city, isn’t it?” Patricia asked.

  “Very big. Your companions back on the Thistledown should know more about it by now.”

  “That’s why the President couldn’t stay with us?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have to rest,” Lanier interrupted. ”We haven’t slept or eaten for hours—”

  “You’re going to push the Axis City into orbit around the Earth? Destroy Thistledown?”

  “Not precisely,” Ry Oyu said. ”But enough for now. Mr. Lanier is right. After you’ve rested, we’ll resume. Talk shop, I believe you call it.”

  Patricia narrowed her eyes and shook her head slowly. ”I don’t know what you people would want to talk with me about. I have to be a complete amateur, a primitive, compared with you ... “

  “If we haven’t convinced you of your value, and your influence, then we are not being sufficiently clear,” Olmy said. ”You are the source of Korzenowski’s work on the Way. You laid the theoretical foundations. That is why we believe you can share the Mystery with him. He was your greatest student. You were the teacher, Patricia.”

  Mirsky hunted through the crowd of Russians for Pogodin, Annenkovsky or Garabedian, keeping an eye on the crosses passing overhead. The soldiers that had once been under his command eyed him sullenly, moving out of his path with fated indifference. He lifted up on his toes, trying to scan the sea of heads, and spotted Pletnev’s red face and fuzzy short-cut crown of hair. Maneuvering in that direction, he came up behind the former heavy-lifter commander and laid a hand on his shoulder. Pletnev turned quickly and brushed the hand away, then cocked his head to one side on seeing Mirsky.