by David Brin
“That’s all right, Peter,” Gordon shrugged, pretending. “The delay wasn’t bad, and I appreciate the help.”
They walked for a time in silence, Gordon’s thoughts a hidden turmoil. If Peter only knew how much I would have preferred to stay. If only there were a way …
Gordon had come to love the simple comfort of his guest room, across from the House of Cyclops, the large and pleasant commissary meals, the impressive library of well-cared-for books. Perhaps most of all he would miss the electric light by his bed. He had read himself to sleep each of the last four nights, a habit of his youth, quickly reawakened after long, long dormancy.
A pair of tan-jacketed guards tipped their hats as Gordon and Aage turned the corner of the House of Cyclops and started across an open field on their way to the stables.
While he waited for Cyclops to prepare his itinerary, Gordon had visited much of the area around Corvallis, talking with dozens of people about scientific farming, about simple but technically advanced crafts, and about the theory behind the loose confederation that made for Cyclops’s peace. The secret of the Valley was simple. No one wanted to fight, not when it might mean being left out of the cornucopia of wonders promised someday by the great machine.
But one conversation, in particular, stuck in his head. It had been last night, with the youngest Servant of Cyclops, Dena Spurgen.
She had kept him up late by the fire in the commissary, chaperoned by two of her girl emissaries, pouring cups of tea until he sloshed, pestering him with questions about his life before and after the Doomwar.
Gordon had learned many tricks to avoid getting too specific about the “Restored United States,” but he had no defense against this sort of grilling. She seemed far less interested in the thing that excited everyone else, contact with the “rest of the nation.” Clearly, that was a process that would take decades.
No, Dena wanted to know about the world just before and after the bombs. She was especially fascinated by that awful, tragic year he had spent with Lieutenant Van and his militia platoon. She wanted to know about every man in the unit, his flaws and foibles, the courage—or obstinacy—that made him continue to fight long after the cause was lost.
No … not lost. Gordon had reminded himself just in time to invent a happy ending to the Battle of Meeker County. The cavalry came. The granaries were saved at the last minute. Good men died—he spared no details of Tiny Kielre’s agony, or Drew Simms’s brave stand—but in his tale their struggles were not for nothing.
He told it the way it should have ended, feeling the wish with an intensity that surprised him. The women listened with rapt attention, as if it were a wonderful bedtime story—or as if it were critical data and they were going to be tested on it in the morning.
I wish I knew exactly what it was they were hearing—what they were trying to find in my own small, grimy tale.
Perhaps it was because the Lower Willamette had been at peace for so long, but Dena had also wanted to know about the worst men he had met, as well … everything he knew about the looters and hyper-survivalists and Holnists.
The cancer at the heart of the end-of-the-century renaissance … I hope you are burning in Hell, Nathan Holn.
Dena kept asking questions even after Tracy and Mary Ann had fallen asleep by the fire. Normally, he would have been aroused by such close, admiring attention from an attractive woman. But this was not the same as it had been with Abby, back in Pine View. Dena had not seemed uninterested in him that way, to be sure. It was just that she seemed much more intensely involved in his value as a source of information. And if he was only to be here for a few days, she was completely unhesitant in choosing how best to use the time.
Gordon found her, all in all, overpowering and maybe a bit obsessed. Yet he knew that she would be unhappy to see him go.
She was probably the only one. Gordon had the distinct feeling that most of the other Servants of Cyclops were happy to be rid of him. Even Peter Aage seemed relieved.
It’s my role, of course. It makes them nervous. Perhaps, deep inside, they sense some falseness. I couldn’t really blame them.
Even if the majority of the techs believed his story, they had little reason to love a representative of a remote “government” certain to meddle—sooner or later—in what they had spent so long building. They talked about eagerness for contact with the outside world. But Gordon sensed that many of them felt it would be an imposition, at best.
Not that they really had anything to fear, of course.
Gordon still wasn’t sure about the attitude of Cyclops itself. The great machine who had taken responsibility for an entire valley had been rather tentative and distant during their later interviews. There had been no jokes or clever puns, only a smooth and involute seriousness. The coolness had been disappointing after his memory of that prewar day in Minneapolis.
Of course his recollection of that other supercomputer long ago might have been colored by time. Cyclops and its Servants had accomplished so much here. He was not one to judge.
Gordon looked around as he and his escort walked past a cluster of burned out structures. “It looks like there was a lot of fighting here once,” he commented aloud.
Peter frowned, remembering. “We pushed back one of the AntiTech mobs right over there, by the old utility shed. You can see the melted transformers and the old emergency generator. We had to switch over to wind and water power after they blew it up.”
Blackened shreds of power-converting machinery still lay in shriveled heaps where the technicians and scientists had fought desperately to save their lifework. It reminded Gordon of his other worry.
“I still think more ought to be done about the possibility of a survivalist invasion, Peter. It’ll come soon, if I overheard those scouts right.”
“But you admit you only heard scraps of conversation that could have been misinterpreted.” Aage shrugged. “We’ll beef up our patrols, of course, as soon as we have a chance to draw up plans and discuss the matter some more. But you must understand that Cyclops has his own credibility to consider. There hasn’t been a general mobilization in ten years. If Cyclops made such a call, and it turned out to be a false alarm …” He let the implication hang.
Gordon knew that local village leaders had misgivings over his story. They didn’t want to draw men from the second planting. And Cyclops had expressed doubts that the Holnist gangs really could organize for a truly major strike several hundred miles upcoast. It just wasn’t in the hyper-survivalist mentality, the great machine explained.
Gordon finally had to take Cyclops’s word for it. After all, its superconducting memory banks had access to every psychology text ever written—and all the works of Holn himself.
Perhaps the Rogue River scouts were merely on a small-time raid, and had talked big to impress themselves.
Perhaps.
Well, here we are.
The stable hands took his satchels, containing a few personal possessions and three books borrowed from the community library. They had already saddled his new mount, a fine, strong gelding. A large, placid mare carried supplies and two bulging sacks of hope-filled mail. If one in fifty of the intended recipients still lived, it would be a miracle. But for those few a single letter might mean much, and would begin the long, slow process of reconnection.
Maybe his role would do some good—enough at least to counterbalance a lie.…
Gordon swung up onto the gelding. He patted and spoke to the spirited animal until it was calm. Peter offered his hand. “We’ll see you again in three months, when you swing by on your way back East again.”
Almost exactly what Dena Spurgen said. Maybe I’ll be back even sooner, if I ever come up with the courage to tell you all the truth.
“By then, Gordon, Cyclops promises to have a proper report on conditions here in north Oregon worked up for your superiors.”
Aage gripped his hand for another moment. Once again Gordon was puzzled. The fellow looked as if, somehow, he w
ere unhappy about something—something he could not speak of. “Godspeed in your valuable work, Gordon,” he said earnestly. “If there’s ever anything I can do to help, anything at all, you have only to let me know.”
Gordon nodded. No more words were needed, thank Heaven. He nudged the gelding, and swung about onto the road north. The pack horse followed close behind.
9
BUENA VISTA
The Servants of Cyclops had told him that the Interstate was broken up and unsafe north of Corvallis, so Gordon used a county road that paralleled not far to the west. Debris and potholes made for slow going, and he was forced to take his lunch in the ruins of the town of Buena Vista.
It was still fairly early in the afternoon, but clouds were gathering, and tattered shreds of fog blew down the rubble-strewn streets. By coincidence, it was the day when area farmers gathered at a park in the center of the unpopulated town for a country market. Gordon chatted with them as he munched on cheese and bread from his saddlebags.
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with the Interstate up here,” one of the locals told him, shaking his head in puzzlement. “Them perfessers must not get out this way much. They aren’t lean travelin’ men such as yourself, Mr. Krantz. Must’ve got their wires crossed, for all their buzzin’ brains.” The farmer chuckled at his own wit.
Gordon didn’t mention that his itinerary had been planned by Cyclops itself. He thanked the fellow and went back to his saddlebags to pull out the map he had been given.
It was covered with an impressive array of computer graphics, charting out in fine symbols the path he should take in establishing a postal network in northern Oregon. He had been told the itinerary was designed to take him most efficiently around hazards such as known lawless areas and the belt of radioactivity near Portland.
Gordon stroked his beard. The longer he examined the map, the more puzzled he grew. Cyclops had to know what it was doing. Yet the winding path looked anything but efficient to him.
Against his will he began to suspect it was designed instead to take him far out of his way. To waste his time, rather than save it.
But why would Cyclops want to do such a thing?
It couldn’t be that the super machine feared his interference. By now Gordon knew just the right pitch to ease such anxiety … emphasizing that the “Restored U.S.” had no wish to meddle in local matters. Cyclops had appeared to believe him.
Gordon lowered the map. The weather was turning as the clouds lowered, obscuring the tops of the ruined buildings. Drifts of fog flowed along the dusty street, pushing puffy swirls between him and a surviving storefront windowpane. It brought back a sudden, vivid recollection of other panes of glass—seen through scattered, refracting droplets.
Death’s head … the postman grinning, his skeletal face superimposed on mine.
He shivered at another triggered recognition. The foggy wisps reminded him of superchilled vapor—his reflection in the cool glass wall as he met with Cyclops back in Corvallis—and the strangeness he had felt watching the rows of little flashing lights, repeating the same rippling pattern over and over.…
Repeating …
Suddenly Gordon’s spine felt very cold.
“No,” he whispered. “Please, God.” He closed his eyes and felt an almost overwhelming need to change his thoughts to another track, to think about the weather, about pesterous Dena or pretty little Abby back in Pine View, about anything but …
“But who would do such a thing?” he protested aloud. “Why would they do it?”
Reluctantly, he realized he knew why. He was an expert on the strongest reason why people told lies.
Recalling the blackened wreckage behind the House of Cyclops, he found himself all at once wondering how the techs could possibly have accomplished what they claimed to have done. It had been almost two decades since Gordon had thought about physics, and what could or could not be achieved with technology. The intervening years had been filled with the struggle to survive—and his persistent dreams of a golden place of renewal. He was in no position to say what was or was not possible.
But he had to find out if his wild suspicion was true. He could not sleep until he knew for sure.
“Excuse me!” he called to one of the farmers. The fellow gave Gordon a gap-toothed grin and limped over, doffing his hat. “What can I do for you, Mr. Inspector?”
Gordon pointed at a spot on the map, no more than ten miles from Buena Vista as the crow might fly. “This place, Sciotown, do you know the way?”
“Sure do, boss. If you hurry, you can get there tonight.”
“I’ll hurry,” Gordon assured the man. “You can bet your ass I’ll hurry.”
10
SCIOTOWN
“Just a darn minute! I’m coming!” the Mayor of Sciotown hollered. But the knock on his door went on insistently.
Herb Kalo carefully lit his new oil lantern—made by a craft commune five miles west of Corvallis. He recently had traded two hundred pounds of Sciotown’s best pottery work for twenty of the fine lamps and three thousand matches from Albany, a deal he felt was sure to mean his reelection this fall.
The knocking grew louder. “All right! This had better be damn important!” He threw the bolt and opened the door.
It was Douglas Kee, the man on gate duty tonight. Kalo blinked. “Is there a problem, Doug? What’s the—”
“Man here to see you, Herb,” the gateman interrupted. “I wouldn’t’ve let him in after curfew, but you told us about him when you got back from Corvallis—and I didn’t want to keep him standin’ out in the rain.”
Out of the dripping gloom stepped a tall man in a slick poncho. A shiny badge on his cap glittered in the lamplight. He held out his hand.
“Mr. Mayor, it’s good to see you again. I wonder if we could talk.”
11
CORVALLIS
Gordon had never expected to forsake an offer of a bed and a hot meal to go galloping off into a rainy night, but this time he had no choice. He had commandeered the best horse in the Sciotown stables, but if he had had to, he would have run all the way.
The filly moved surefootedly down an old county road toward Corvallis. She was brave, and trotted as fast as Gordon considered marginally safe in the darkness. Fortunately, a nearly full moon lit the ragged, leaky clouds from above, laying a faint lambence across the broken countryside.
Gordon was afraid he must have put the Mayor of Sciotown in a state of utter confusion from the first moment he stepped into the man’s home. Sparing no time for pleasantries, he had come straight to the point, sending Herb Kalo hurrying back to his office to retrieve a neatly folded fan of paper.
Gordon had taken the printout over to the lamp, and as Kalo watched, he carefully pored over the lines of text. “How much did this advice cost you, Mr. Mayor?” he asked without looking up.
“Only a little, Inspector,” the man answered nervously. “Cyclops’s prices have been dropping as more villages have joined the trade pact. And there was a discount because the advice was kinda vague.”
“How much?” Gordon insisted.
“Uh, well. We found about ten of those old hand-held vid’ games, plus about fifty old rechargeable batteries, of which maybe ten were good enough to use. And oh yes, a home computer that wasn’t too badly corroded.”
Gordon suspected that Sciotown actually had much more salvage than that, and was hoarding it for future transactions. It was what he would have done.
“What else, Mr. Mayor?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The question is clear enough,” he said severely.
“What—else—did—you—pay?”
“Why nothin’ else.” Kalo looked confused. “Unless, of course, you include a wagon of food and pottery for the Servants. But that’s got hardly any value compared to the other stuff. It’s just added on so’s the scientists have somethin’ to live off while they help Cyclops.”
Gordon breathed heavily. His pulse didn’t seem to want to s
low down. It all fit, heartbreakingly.
He laboriously read aloud from the computer printout. “… incipient seepage from plate tectonic boundaries … groundwater retention variance …” Words he had not seen—or thought of—in seventeen years rolled off his tongue, tasting like old delicacies, lovingly remembered.
“… variation in aquifer sustenance ratios … tentative analysis only, due to teleological hesitancy.…”
“We think we’ve got a line on what Cyclops meant,” Kalo offered. “We’ll start digging at the two best sites come dry season. Of course if we didn’t interpret his advice right, it’ll be our fault. We’ll try agin’ in some other spots he hinted at.…”
The Mayor’s voice had trailed off, for the Inspector was standing very still, staring at empty space.
“Delphi,” Gordon had breathed, hardly above a whisper.
Then the hasty ride through the night began.
Years in the wilds had made Gordon hard; all the while the men of Corvallis had suffered prosperity. It was almost ludicrously easy to slip by the guardposts at the city’s edge. He made his way down empty side streets to the OSU campus, and thence to long-abandoned Moreland Hall. Gordon spared ten minutes to rub down his damp mount and fill her feedbag. He wanted the animal to be in shape in case he needed her quickly.
It was only a short run through the drizzle to the House of Cyclops. When he got near, he made himself slow down, though he wanted desperately to get this over with.
He ducked out of sight behind the ruins of the old generator building as a pair of guards walked past, shoulders hunched under ponchos, their rifles covered against the dank. As he crouched behind the burned-out shell, the wetness brought to Gordon’s nose—even after all these years—the scent of burning from the blackened timbers and melted wiring.
What was it Peter Aage had said about those frantic early days, when authority was falling apart, and the riots raged? He’d said that they had converted to wind and water power, after the generator house was torched.