"What do you call love here?"
"Lie back and find out," she teased. As Caroline rode him he looked to the side and saw Nugget watching them, and then he closed his eyes and let himself become lost in the feelings.
THE FALL + 14 YEARS
"It won't be long now, Lawrence."
It was the only argument they had ever had. But it had gone on for years.
They had long since made their home on the ridge separating West Mountain and Music Mountain. It had been tempting to settle on Hot Springs Mountain itself, nearer to the springs, but some instinct had told them that it wouldn't be proper to live on such a unique spot. Besides, the ridge offered a number of different nearby micro-climates supporting a wide variety of gatherable plants and game.
Within the vacuum that was once the town itself, besides the negative impressions of long-disappeared buildings, a public fountain had survived, because it had been made almost entirely of cut stone. The mortar had gone but the stones remained in their original positions. It was not hard to plug the gaps with wooden shims, which would expand to make a water-tight seal when water was added, and to dig a channel guiding the spring's runoff back onto the splash plate so that it could fill the basin. The spring had a chance to cool some as it ran down the mountain, so that the water temperature was suitable for a hot bath; even in the coldest part of winter, the water emerging directly from spring heads was hot enough to scald.
The man-made lakes which once surrounded the town had disappeared with still obvious violence, apparently when the dams restraining them had simply ceased to exist. Floodwaters had cut deep gulleys in the valley lowlands, making them treacherous. Occasionally they found arrowheads, which Caroline quietly buried; she had not introduced the bow and arrow to her family, and did not intend to. There were also a couple of Civil War era fortifications, complete with descriptive signage engraved in stone. Whenever she passed one of these, Caroline made sure to take a few swings at the sign with the heaviest available rock; she wanted them obliterated before her children learned to read.
She, of course, would never teach them such a ridiculous thing, but Lawrence was obstinate on the point and Caroline didn't think it would do any harm. It would be forgotten in a few generations, since it served no purpose in their primitive lifestyle.
To celebrate their arrival, Caroline had Lawrence work the gold nugget into a short wire. She used it to pierce her nose, and then bent it into a simple ring. After a while, Lawrence even got used to her wearing it all the time.
Nugget and Ozark roamed freely, together and alone, sometimes miles from home. From one of these expeditions Nugget returned with an improbable prize, a tiny ice-clear stone which caught the sunlight and reflected it in brilliant flashes. It was a faceted diamond. Caroline told her daughter only that it was exceedingly rare, letting her think it was somehow related to the natural quartz crystals which were all over the place.
In warm weather Nugget sometimes wore a loincloth, in Lawrence's fashion, and sometimes went nude like her mother. Ozark had adopted Lawrence's more modest habits. The younger children, male and female, went nude unless the weather required otherwise; Caroline refused to force them into modesty, and they had demonstrated little inclination in that direction. All of the children had seen them having sex; Caroline insisted that they make no effort to hide it. Fortunately, the kids seemed to accept their explanation that they were "playing an old peoples' game."
Except that Nugget would soon be ready to play it, too.
"I can feel it. In a month or two, she'll be a woman. I haven't hidden it from her, you know; I've shown her my own period, and she knows what it's for."
"Of course, you never hide anything from the kids, except technology."
"How else would you do it? You want to make them feel bad about themselves so they'll look to stones and metal for comfort?"
"Caroline..."
"You want them to maybe re-invent the wheel, then steam, then..."
"Caroline, stop it."
"You know where it leads."
Lawrence sighed. "She's twelve years old."
"She's going to be a woman. We've gone at this from every angle. If you think we should try to start a community, then we have to consider genetic diversity, breeding years...we have to start as soon as possible, and we have to get as many combinations as possible off of our limited gene pool."
"We've gone over this a hundred times."
"But soon you will have to do it. I want my daughter to have a proper coming of age. You should also be thinking about Ozark; before long it will be time to do something for him."
"Do something to him, you mean," Lawrence said sullenly.
"It's the only way, Lawrence."
They had argued about it for more than six years, but when the time came he found himself powerless to contradict Caroline's will. Fortunately she had spoken with Nugget, so his daughter did most of the work for him just as Caroline had done most of the work all along. She explored his body with microscopic fascination, especially his cock which she carefully teased erect. There was little really new for her in all this, since she had seen him fucking Caroline plenty of times. He wouldn't have been surprised, either, to learn she had already been experimenting with Ozark. What was new was that she was fertile, and so was he.
Working slowly, Nugget completed their incestuous coupling, working her way slowly down his cock just as Caroline had done that first time in California fourteen years earlier. But while Nugget moved with her mother's carefulness and deliberation, she did not possess Caroline's amazing certitude. And she was so small, like a feather atop him, and her grip on his cock so tight. Lawrence found himself responding to her despite his reservations; his body was literally making up its own mind to go along.
When he came he yelled out loud. He was quite unprepared for its intensity, as if he was a participant in some primitive magic ritual which had unleashed a strange power in him. In a sense, reflecting later, he would suppose that that was exactly what had happened.
But Nugget's coming of age ritual wasn't over yet. With a beatific smile, she brought his tattoo pigments. It was this idea as well as Nugget's age which had made him fight Caroline so hard. But having already fucked his daughter he felt it pointless to put up further resistance. Nugget had already decided she wanted a feather on her shoulder blade, in honor of her mother's bird tattoos. At least it was a small and simple design, the work of a single sitting. Lawrence completed it as quickly as possible.
Having covered nearly half of Caroline's body by this painstaking method, it was impossible for Lawrence to miss the difference in their reactions. Unlike her mother, Nugget did not seem to get excited by the discomfort of tattooing. If anything, she drifted into a serene kind of calm and even stopped flinching. As he worked, he realized what the difference was; for Caroline, tattoos were a gateway to passion, but for Nugget, they would be the gateway to adulthood.
When he finished they stood to face each other in silence. Like her mother, Nugget might not ever see her first tattoo; Caroline still hadn't seen her phoenix. "I don't know why this was so hard for you, Father, but thank you for doing it."
He smiled crookedly and touched her shoulder. "You're a woman now, Nugget. You should call me Lawrence."
And from that point on, she did.
THE FALL + 42 YEARS
Death always cast a solemn mood over the village; Ozark had lost his own second son, Limerick, to a fall from one of the cliffs on the far side of West Mountain. In all their lives the funeral pyre atop Hot Springs Mountain had been built only four times. Besides Limerick there had been two hunting accidents and a death in childbirth. The pyre was not used for the various stillbirths and babies that had to be sacrificed because there was no hope for their survival; these, as Mother Caroline had taught them, had not ever been human and it was wrong to grieve for them in the same way. Most of these were simply exposed and taken by animals.
It was Ozark's first time to build the pyre.
As Eldest Father of the group, the task had always fallen to Lawrence; but now Ozark was the Eldest Father, because this pyre was for Lawrence.
Even Limerick's death had not caused Ozark to feel such crippling sorrow. If it had not been for the need to do right by Father Lawrence he thought he might just find a cave and sit until he either starved or saw the vision that would heal his pain.
Ozark was not alone. Although the task of readying the pyre was supposed to be solitary, nearly everyone had turned out to watch him work. They stood back respectfully, observing the injunction against helping, but also watching his every movement, watching the limp form atop the wooden frame, as if Father Lawrence might display his obvious divinity one final time by rising directly into the sky on his own rather than waiting to ride the currents of the fire.
Of course Lawrence and Caroline had never attempted to convince their children that they were in any way different, but any fool could see that they were. For one thing, who had been their parents? For another, they knew things. No matter what problem cropped up, one or the other of them always knew something to do about it. And half that primal wisdom was now gone.
Mother Caroline was the last to arrive, waiting quite properly until all preparations were complete. She nodded, and Ozark prepared the flame. It was not proper to use the offspring of a life-giving flame such as the campfire to light the pyre; Ozark was supposed to light a new flame starting with the fire bow. It was a skill they all knew, and it took only a few minutes.
Ozark had done his work well. The pyre went up fast.
The flames absolved Ozark of his responsibility and he stepped back among the crowd, where Nugget hugged him. They watched Mother Caroline as the flames rose. She was standing perfectly still, determined to show her strength in this painful hour.
But in the dancing light, they could easily see the tears running down her face. And as the pyre burned down, she began to simply cry.
None of them had ever experienced this phenomenon before. It was almost as shocking to see Mother Caroline showing such a weakness as it was to be facing the loss of Father Lawrence. As the pyre burned further her grief deepened, until she sank to her knees and wailed.
Tentatively, Ozark approached her. She accepted his embrace and cried into his shoulder, finding if not comfort than at least the assurance that she was not alone in her grief.
But she was alone, more alone than any of them could ever know. She had thought that her nearly six-century reign as Queen of the Death Jockeys and main consort of Fred the Psycho would have prepared her for nearly anything, but as black smoke drifted into the darkening Arkansas sky she found that she had no defences against the blacker pain of her own grief.
THE FALL + 73 YEARS
Nugget had moved the birch bark pages from hiding place to hiding place during her long life, selecting the first hollow tree for this purpose when she was only eight years old. Some of the barks had deteriorated -- even the amazing birch had its limits -- and she had recopied her notes onto newer pages to preserve them. Using the gift of writing, which she had learned from Father Lawrence, she had set about recording her parents' secrets, looking in her stolen snatches of overheard conversation for the pattern which would explain where they had come from and what their purpose had been in coming to this place to raise their family.
Mostly what she had was words, scraps of language whose meanings were completely unknown to her. She fingered the bark, remembering the sounds she had heard, usually whispered quietly in the night when Caroline and Lawrence thought they were alone. Some had always carried an accusatory tone, as if they were somehow dirty:
TEKNOLIJEE
WAR
RADIO
TEEVEE
LEKTRISITEE
Others had been conveyed in warmer, more urgent tones, usually as they discussed some problem or other that needed solving. Usually these discussions would end with some relatively simple trick being revealed that diverted the stream, removed the stain, or whatever was called for, but sometimes the discussions went on for long hours as various options were discussed, and these words were more often heard on Lawrence's lips:
TRIGONOMEE TREE
KALKEWLUS
VAPOR POINT
SPESIFIK GRAVITEE
OKSIDISER
Nugget often wondered what manner of tree the Trigonomee was, and what its useful properties might be. At least a tree was something she could visualize; what, on the other hand, was a gravitee, and how was a spesifik gravitee different from any other kind? Lawrence had never spoken of any other kind, at least not within earshot of Nugget.
Then there were the words concerning origins, which were spoken with such loathing or sorrow that their importance was crystal clear, if not their meanings:
SIBERSPASE
KOMPEWTER
CHANGE
PRIMINTELEKT
Change was an ordinary enough word, but there was nothing ordinary about the way her parents said it when they thought they were alone. Sometimes, when Caroline was very tired, she would talk of the "World Before." She would never say much about it; someone might say it was a shame they could not find game without a long and tiring search, or kill a bear without getting dangerously close to it, and Caroline would mutter that "that was something for the World Before." Before what? Before the Change, perhaps?
In any case, she had to find out soon or never, because Caroline was dying. She had never quite been the same after Lawrence's death, but she had still been active, even energetic. She just hadn't taken such a direct role in the community's activities. She had gradually loosened her grip, to the point that now there were many youngsters who had never even met her. Then she had gotten slower and quieter, and lately it had become quite hard for her to walk up a difficult slope. Nugget wasn't so young herself; she had already survived Ozark, who had died in his sleep, and her youngest brother Pilgrim was fading fast. He had some kind of condition which made his movements painful, and for which Mother Caroline's wisdom had offered no help.
And now for two days she hadn't eaten.
"I have ripe blackberries," Nugget said as she approached Caroline's shelter. "They will do you good."
Caroline looked at Nugget, and could see that Nugget suspected. "You know I have no need of those," she said softly. "My time is coming."
Nugget was surprised how tiny and despairing her voice sounded when she said, "Why?"
Caroline laughed, and coughed a little. "I have to," she said. "It would be wrong to try and fight it."
"Mother, I need to talk to you before you go."
Caroline smiled. "About what, child, your birch tablets?"
Nugget froze, her eyes wide.
"I've known about those for more than fifty years. They seemed harmless enough, and your father and I figured that if they were the most you could make of our indiscretions, then we weren't doing too badly."
"Fifty years," Nugget said numbly.
"Your father was flattered. I thought we should confront you with them and tell you to stop, but it would have probably caused more trouble than it was worth. I'll make you a deal, daughter. Help your old mother to the spring so I can take a hot bath, and I'll tell you a story. I'll tell you a story about the World Before."
Tears welled in Nugget's eyes. "Fifty years. You make a fool of me for my entire life, then..."
"You're not a fool, daughter. I'll tell you why we did it."
"If I ... If I ..." Nugget sobbed. "If I help you down, I'm not sure you'll be able to make it back up the path."
"I don't think that will be a problem."
Still weeping, Nugget helped Caroline to her feet and down the first steps to the path to the old fountain.
The hot water slipped around her like a velvet skin, and Caroline tried to slip into the past.
"Daughter, do you have any idea how old I am?"
"I'm counted seventy-one solstices, so you must have seen at least eighty-five."
"I am over seven hundred and sevent
y years old."
Nugget sobbed louder. "Please, mother, don't tell me lies at a time like this."
"No lies, child. I lived a hundred and six years in the World Before, and I was dying then as I am dying now. I didn't know it, but your father was working as I was dying. He was a great man. There has never been another like him, but he was not perfect and he made one terrible mistake.
"With the help of many thousands of other people, your father built a vast and complicated thing. The word for it is on your tablets; it was called a computer. That's nothing but a meaningless word to you, and that's all it needs to be. But of all the artisans who dedicated themselves to the making of the computer, your father was the most important, because he was the one that taught it to think. Without the others to help him Lawrence could not have made the computer, but without Lawrence, the others could not have made it live; you have to remember that."
"Okay, Mother."
"The computer could not disobey Lawrence, but he was afraid other people would use it for bad purposes. So he taught it to answer first to its own conscience, the conscience he had created for it. Then your father set it loose, confident that it was capable of doing only good for the people of the World Before. Even Lawrence himself would not be able to make it contradict its nature."
She paused, and Nugget prodded her. "What happened?"
"The computer got a bright idea," Caroline said in a sour voice. "It figured out how to make people immortal. So it made us immortal."
"Just like that?"
"That was the least of its powers. It remade the world. There was nothing we couldn't have for the asking. There was nothing we couldn't do. Nothing could ever hurt us." She coughed again. "It was fucking boring."
Their eyes met.
"It was the worst thing ever. Nothing mattered. Not pain, not accomplishments, not anything." Caroline touched one of Nugget's tattoos, the small spiral which Ozark had tattooed above her right breast to celebrate their first coupling after his Vision Quest, when they were finally both adults. "After the Change, the World Before became another of the words you overheard. Cyberspace. In Cyberspace, all you'd have to do is make a wish and your tattoos would be gone."
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect Page 18