by Robert Reed
“As if they’re the only ones.”
“You mean the Waywards.” Miocene nodded and laughed, and she made a show of finishing her own tea. Then she told the first-grade, “I just assumed they’d want to remain here, where they’re happiest. On Marrow, and we could lock them in here. Nice and tight.”
A new category had eased its way into the Submaster’s scrupuously accurate tally of gains and losses. There were the born, of course, and the dead. And now, in small but swelling numbers, there were the missing.
It was presumed, with reason, that these new casualties were slinking away, taking nothing but the provisions and light tools suitable for a good march. If rumor and physical evidence could be believed, the nearest Waywards were a thousand kilometers past the horizon. It was a daunting journey to any reasonable soul, but Miocene could almost believe that children—the most susceptible to go missing—might convince themselves that here was a worthy challenge, an undertaking sure to answer some vague need or a trivial absence in their very brief lives. She could even picture their reasons. Boredom. Curiosity. Political ideas, sloppy or muscular. Or perhaps they didn’t see advancement for themselves here, inside the Loyalist camp. They were slow, lazy, or difficult people, and maybe the Waywards would be less demanding. Unlikely, but that’s what the missing must have told themselves. And off they marched, singly and in little groups, blissfully counting on youth and good fortune to bring them to their just rewards.
Some died en route.
Alone, in nameless and temporary’ valleys, they were swallowed by the flowing iron, or flash-baked in a burst of fiery gases.
Miocene’s first instinct had been to dispatch search parties, then punish the children for their treachery. But more charitable voices, including her own, cautioned against rough measures. Who mattered were those who remained behind, the willing and the genuinely far-sighted ones.
Each night, placing her daily entry into its asbestos envelope, then into the asbestos trunk, Miocene rewarded herself with small congratulations. Another day accomplished; another centimeter closer to their ultimate goal. Then she would sit on her little bed, typically alone, and because she often forgot to eat during the arbitrary heart of the day, she would force down a slice of heavily spiced fat. She made herself feed a body that rarely felt hunger anymore, but that needed calories and rest, and at least she was able to give it the former. Then Miocene would lie in the imperfect night, typically on her back, and sometimes she would sleep, and dream, and sometimes she just stared up into the contrived darkness, forcing herself to remain motionless for a full three hours, her mind working with a dreamy vagueness, planning the next day, and the next week, and the five thousand years to come.
The Five Hundredth was a ripe moment for grand gestures.
A year-long observance of their lives on Marrow culminated in a week-long celebration, and the celebration peaked with a lavish parade around the Grand Round of Hazz City. Half of the world’s Loyalists were in attendance. Painted bodies marched, friends and family locking arms, or they stood in the Round’s tent-shrouded center, or they watched the parade from one of the fifty wood and plastic buildings that rimmed the neat outside edge of the public area. Fifty thousand happy, well-fed souls were present, and each one of them looked up as Miocene stepped to the podium, glancing at the clock in one hand as the other hand lifted, a long thin finger dropping as a signal, her strong voice announcing:
“Five hundred years.”
Magnified and projected from cumbersome speakers, her voice seemed to boom across the city and the world.
There was a great cheer, sloppy and full throated, and honest.
“Five centuries,” she repeated, her voice louder than the crowd’s. Then Miocene asked the nation, “Where are we now?”
A few jokes were muttered.
“Where we always are!’ someone called out.
A thin trickle of laughter diminished into a respectful, impatient silence.
“We are climbing,” the Submaster declared. “Constantly, endlessly climbing. At this moment, we are being lifted skyward at the graceful, glorious rate of a quarter of a meter to the year. We are building new machines and new citizens, and despite the hardships that the world throws at us daily, we are prospering. But what is more important, by a thousandfold, is that you remember what we are climbing toward. This world of ours is only a small place. It is like a hammerwing larva nestled inside its large and infinitely more impressive cocoon.
“We are in the center of a starship. A great vessel, complex and vast. This starship is racing through a universe that you have never seen. About which you know next to nothing. A universe of such scope and beauty that when you see it, I promise, all of you won’t be able to hold back your tears.”
She paused, just for an instant.
“I promise. All of you will see this great universe.
“For the willing and the loyal, your rewards will be vast and glorious, and you will have no fear or want for the rest of your endless lives.”
A small cheer rose, then collapsed on itself.
“I know how hard it can be,” she told them. “To believe in places and wonders that none of you have witnessed for yourselves. It takes a certain type of thinking. A grand, dreaming mind. It takes courage and trust, and I am so pleased with each and every one of you. For your work. Your patience. And your boundless love.”
A larger, self-congratulatory cheer blossomed, hands clapping each other and flat wet bellies before the crowd slowly let itself grow quiet again.
“We old captains thank you. Thank you!”
That was a prearranged signal. The surviving captains were sitting behind Miocene according to rank. As a body, they rose to their feet, their silvered uniforms catching the light, and after a communal bow, they sat again, staring purposefully at the back of her head.
“Your lives here have only become richer with time,” she remarked. “We old captains brought knowledge with us, a small taste of what is possible. You see the impact of that knowledge every day, everywhere. We can now predict eruptions months in advance, and we farm the local jungles with great efficiency, and who is our equal at building new and fantastic machines? But those aren’t our greatest gifts to you, our children. Our grandchildren. All of our beautiful, loving descendants.
“Our greatest gifts are charity and honor.
“Charity,” she repeated, “and honor.”
Miocene’s voice ran off into the distance, bouncing off the High Spines and returning again. Softer now, and kinder.
She smiled grandly, then said, “This is what charity is. On my authority, today and for the next complete year, there is a full pardon in effect. A full pardon intended for any person belonging to the Wayward camps. We want to include you in our dream. Yes, the Waywards! If you are listening to me now, come forward. Come out of the wild forests! Come join us, and help us build for this great day coming!”
Again, the echoes bounced off the nearby mountains.
Surely the Waywards were hiding on those slopes, watching the great celebration. Or closer, perhaps. Rumor had it that spies crept in and out of the Loyalist cities every day. But even when she heard the thunder of her own voice, Miocene didn’t believe that any Wayward would ever willingly accept her charity.
Yet only one year later, typing into the bulky and very stupid machine that passed for an AI, the Submaster could write, “Three souls have returned to us.”
Two were Loyal-born, desperately unhappy with the hard Wayward existence. While the third convert was one of Tills grandchildren, which meant that she was one of Miocene’s great-grandchildren.
Of course the Submaster had welcomed each of them. But she also made certain that the three newcomers were shadowed by special friends, and their conversations were recorded and transcribed, and nothing of technical merit, no matter how trivial, was put in easy reach.
Every night, just before her sleepless sleep, Miocene typed into the machine’s simple magnetic mind, “I
hate this world.
“But,” she added with a grim satisfaction, “I will have it by its heart, and I’ll squeeze that heart until it can never beat again.”
Seventeen
A decade later, the High Spines were about to die.
Seismic evidence showed an ocean of liquid metal rising beneath them, and the local virtue trees were equally convinced. A string of hard, sharp tremors caused a panic in the jungles and up on the raw black iron, and inside Hazz City people were knocking their most cherished buildings off their foundations, preparing to carry them away, abandoning the region according to precise, exacting plans.
What the grandchildren were doing was wrong. They knew it was foolish and dangerous, and they expected to pay a stiff penalty. Yet the promise of wildfires and utter devastation—more carnage than they had ever witnessed in their little lives—was too much temptation to resist.
A dozen youngsters, the absolute best of friends, borrowed asbestos suits and boots and bright blue-painted titanium oxygen tanks, carrying those treasures to the foothills in a series of secret sleeptime marches. Then as their home city was being wrestled to safer ground, they assembled near the main round, and in order to swear eternal secrecy for what they were about to do, each cut off one of his or her little toes, the twelve bloody pieces buried in a tiny, unmarked grave.
They weren’t true grandchildren. Not to the captains, at least. But they were called “grandchildren” because that was the tradition. Girls and boys anywhere from tenth- to twentieth-generation Loyalists marched together toward the High Spines, in a neat double row, and pushing through the first traces of smoke and caustic vapor, they told some of the traditional jokes about the ancient ones.
“How many captains does it take to get off Marrow?” one boy asked.
“None,” his girlfriend chimed. “We do all the work for them!”
“How big is this ship we ride inside?”
“It gets bigger every day,” another girl offered. “At least in the captains’ minds!”
Everyone had a good little laugh.
Then another boy asked, “What is happier than our leader?”
“A daggerwing on a dinner spit!’ several of his friends shouted, on cue.
“Why is that?” he inquired.
“Because the bug is going to die soon, while our leader just keeps turning on her spit, feeling the flames!”
Miocene’s dark moods were famous. Indeed, they were a source of great fondness among the average grandchild. Looking at that very tall woman, you actually saw the gloom in those dark ageless eyes, and it was easy to believe her desperate need to leave Marrow, returning to that wondrous and most peculiar place called “the ship.”
On Marrow, a cheery, optimistic leader would never inspire. No one else could deserve the kind of support and ceaseless work that the Loyalists gave freely and almost without question.
At least in this little group, that was everyone’s definite opinion.
As their march continued, the laughter grew louder and more nervous. These were city children, after all. They knew the jungle well enough, but this district had been tectonically quiet for most of their lives. The snapping fires and swirling black ash were new to them. In secret, each girl and boy realized that they’d never imagined such a persistent, withering heat. Sometimes they’d burn a hand intentionally, taking what comfort they could from the quick healing of their wounds. Passing too near a little fumarole, half of them scorched the insides of their mouths and cooked their lungs, and coughing hard, they had to huddle beneath a massive baybay tree, slashing its bark to let the cool sap seep out and soothe their aches.
In secret, it occurred to each of them that they would die today. But none could find the simple courage to admit what they were thinking, and each heard herself or himself coaxing the others to hurry, squinting into the black clouds, lying when they claimed, “I can see the mountains.”
Saying, “It isn’t far now, I think.”
I hope.
Using a homing beacon, they found their firesuits and air tanks. Without that simple precaution, they would have stumbled past the cache, the landscape already transformed by the wildfires.
Everyone dressed, not one of the suits fitting properly.
But who cared if there were gaps in the seams, and the brutal heat was leaking inside too quickly? They were brave, and they were hopelessly together in this undertaking, and as if Marrow were trying to entertain them, a sudden vent opened up nearby, letting a deep plume of molten red-hot metal slip a finger out into the open air, under pressure, hot enough to make unshielded eyes blink, running like a river down the floor of the doomed valley.
“Closer,” the children screamed at each other. “Get closer.”
They didn’t bother with safety lines or lifeguards. What mattered was to get near the shoreline, watching the blazing iron push downhill, feeling its enormous, irresistible weight through your sweating toes.
Like a living monster, it was.
And like all good monsters, it possessed a surprising, intriguing beauty.
With a massive grace, the river melted the ground beneath it. Ancient tree trunks evaporated in its presence. Chunks of cold iron were tossed into the river, sinking where it was deep. Larger knobs and boulders of iron resisted the flow for an instant or two, then were shoved downstream with a plaintive screeching scream.
One boy crept up behind a spellbound girl—the subject of a little crush—and with both hands, he gave her a hard little shove.
Then he grabbed her.
She howled and jabbed him with both elbows, then tried to turn around. But she was clumsy in that heavy misfitting suit, one boot slipping and her body yanked free of the fond grip, tumbling back toward the molten metal until she grabbed the boy’s belt, yanking him hard toward her.
For an instant, they hung in the incandescent air. Then they fell slowly and clumsily onto the cooler ground, laughing in each other’s arms, the simple raw danger of the moment leaving them in love.
While the other children played by the river, they slipped away.
On a burnt hillside, wearing nothing but the thick-soled boots, they made love. He was behind her, holding her against him by her hips, then her hard little breasts. They didn’t dare sit; the ground was far too hot. There were moments when the fumes rose and found them, and they would suck at the bottled air, or they would hold their breath, feeling a quick dizzyness that became a warm electric buzz as their physiologies coped with the lack of oxygen.
Eventually, the game lost its intoxicating charm.
The urgency had left them. Little regrets started to nag. To obscure their feelings, they talked about the grandest imaginable things. The girl pulled up her insulated trousers, asking, “Where are you going to live afterward?”
When we reach the ship, she meant.
“By that big sea,” the boy replied. “The one where the captains first lived.”
It was a common response. Everyone knew about the great bodies of water, the illusion of an endless blue sky suspended overhead. The most artistic captains had done paintings, and without exception, the grandchildren were in awe of the idea that there could be so much water, and it would be so clean, and that living inside it would be great creatures like those mythical whales and squid and tuna.
Running a hand across her lover’s Gordian bun, the girl confessed, “I’m going to live outside the ship.”
“On another world?”
She shook her head. “No. I mean on the ship’s hull.”
“But why?”
She wasn’t entirely serious. These were words, and fun. Yet she felt a surprising conviction in her voice, explaining, “There are people who live out there. Remoras, I think they’re called.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” the boy admitted.
So she explained the culture. She told how the Remoras lived inside elaborate suits, eating and drinking nothing but what their suits and bodies produced. Worlds unto themselves, they
were. And wherever they were on the ship’s hull, half of the universe was overhead. Near enough to reach, beautiful beyond words.
She was a strange girl, the boy concluded. In important little ways, he suddenly didn’t like her very much. He heard himself say, “I see,” without a shred of comprehension. Then with a forced sincerity, he promised, “I’ll come visit you there. Sometime. Okay?”
She knew that he was lying, and somehow that was a relief.
They stared off into the distance, in different directions, struggling with the shared problem of extracting themselves from this awkward place.
After a few moments, the boy gave a little cough and said, “I see something.”
“What?”
“In the iron river. There.”
In horror, she asked, “Is it one of us?”
“No,” he remarked. “At least, I don’t think so.”
The girl started to dress again, forgetting two seams as she struggled to get ready for a rescue attempt. When had she ever been a bigger fool, coming here like this? Unprepared, and doing this with this extremely ordinary boy?
“Where is it?” she called out.
With a marksman’s care, he pointed upstream, and she laid her head against his long arm, squinting now, peering through the clouds of rising fumes to find herself watching a round silvery lump, something that looked odd as can be, immune to the heat and calmly bobbing its way down the iron river.
“That’s not one of us,” she said.
“I told you it wasn’t,” he snapped.
Then he said something else, but she didn’t hear him. She had pushed her helmet over her head and scrambled out of their hiding place, and in her heavy, ill-fitting fire-suit, she was racing down the hillside, shouting and waving, begging for anyone’s attention.
They had just enough time to unwrap a pair of new safety lines, making loops at the ends and running down to where the iron river was narrowest, flinging the loops out at the strange silvery object.
One line fell short, tangled in newborn slag and melted. But the second line fell on the silvery surface, its loop tightening around some kind of thumb-like projection. Eleven grandchildren grabbed the line, and tugged, and screamed hard in one voice, and tugged. The second line was melting in that open blast furnace, but the object was close to shore, its invisible belly rubbing against half-molten ground. Three more expensive, nearly irreplaceable lines were destroyed before they could drag their prize out of the river, and if not for a favorable eddy and the river’s cutting a new channel on its north, they wouldn’t have retrieved the object at all.