Kiln People

by David Brin

  This new hole looked even more dank and narrow than the first. But it offered a slim chance and I took it without hesitation, grabbing Ritu’s arm and tugging her after me.

  She made no complaint, coccooned again in her blanket of passive resignation. No wonder Ritu could be bullied around by a figment of her own imagination, I thought — admittedly a churlish remark. How strange that the aggressive, stronger-willed part of her was suppressed, only to be released through dittoing. She must have had a strange childhood.

  Progress grew difficult. This tunnel was much rougher and so cramped that we had to stoop much of the time. Less effort had been taken to flatten the floor, as if the builder didn’t expect to need this passage very long. Glowbulbs were fewer and most seemed to have been shot out in recent fighting. Fragments of robotic cockatrice guardians lay everywhere, mingling with pools of recently dissolved golem slurry. Surrogates of clay and silicon had waged a brief, bitter struggle down this narrow lane.

  Were there survivors? More important, were they still tuned to avoid injuring beings made of flesh? Or did such legalistic distinctions matter anymore?

  I lost track of time and distance. (My implant wasn’t working down there, of course.) Still, a sense of hope grew as Ritu and I hurried. We must be getting near the base again — whatever part of it Yosil spent so many golem-years digging to reach. Once inside, I’d waste no time making that phone call -

  Suddenly, I tripped over something in the shadows, stumbling past a squishy obstruction. A body groaned and reached for me with massive arms, but I managed to jump out of the way. And the supine battle-golem couldn’t pursue because three quarters of it had been blown away.

  That was the good news.

  The bad news: now Ritu and I were on opposite sides of the crippled warrior-doll, which turned what was left of a smoldering head to peer at us at us before it asked -

  “Making a break for it, Morrissss?”

  The raspy, slobbery voice wasn’t too bad, for someone with just half a face. Most dittos would disintegrate after such injuries, their Standing Waves unraveling like spun candy in a thunderstorm. But gladiatorial models are sturdy.

  “You don’t want to go that way.” The head nodded in the direction I had been heading.

  “Why not?” I asked. “Were the defenses too strong, Beta? Couldn’t blast your way through?”

  The fractured figure shrugged. “No, we made it. But Yossie had already grabbed the stuff. He’s holding out in his lab. I shudder to think what he plans to do with—”

  “Whoa! What are you talking about? Maharal is dead!”

  A dry chuckle. “You think so?”

  I spat to get rid of a sudden foul taste. “The police coroner was thorough. Yosil Maharal died in that car wreck. And by now any ghosts would have—”

  “Any ghosts would still be around, Morris. But Alpha never told you about that, did she?”

  Alpha. Beta’s nickname for Ritu, naturally. In the dim light her face seemed gaunt, sickened by the figure on the ground, by its injuries and flippant attitude, but above all by the Mirror Effect — disgust at seeing a reflection of yourself that you despise. She had it bad.

  “What’s he talking about?” I demanded. But Ritu only backed away two steps, shaking her head.

  The shattered golem laughed. “Go on, tell him! Tell Morris about Project Zoroaster and its multifaceted assault on the status quo. Like the new method to replenish dittos, so they last weeks or even months—”

  “But that would …”

  “—or the research into making better imprints from one ditto to another. That’s the part I was interested in professionally, of course, to make piracy really pay. I needed details that Ritu never learned at her day job, way up in the UK management dome, and for some finicky reason she refused to go down to R amp;D, no matter how hard I prodded. So I came up with a nifty espionage plan instead … one that used you, Morris.

  “Only it must’ve backfired, I guess. Seems I finally offended somebody powerful. Someone with the resources to track me down and—”

  “Powerful. You mean Kaolin?”

  A shrug. “Who else? He was already upset when Yosil vanished, taking all his records and prototypes. Maybe Aeneas decided it was time to clean house, to purge Project Zoroaster … and get rid of all his enemies while he was at it.

  “But your guess about that is as good as mine. This is the first chance I’ve had to incarnate for weeks! When it comes to recent events, all I know is what Ritu’s seen and heard. If only I had time, I’d put out feelers. Verify what I think panicked Aeneas. Maybe plan some revenge.

  “But now—”

  Tremors shook the remnant golem. Clay skin that once seemed nearly as supple as the real thing now cracked, rapidly mimicking the onset of age. Struggling, ditBeta grunted a few words at a time.

  “Now … there’s a much … more critical matter … to deal with.”

  I shook my head.

  “You mean Yosil’s ghost is trying to do something—”

  “—that must be stopped!” The clay soldier used its good arm to grab at at Ritu. “Go on … Tell Morris … what it’s about. Tell him what … Father is trying to do.

  “Tell him!”

  A wild look filled Ritu’s eyes. She treated two more steps the way we came, back toward Urraca Mesa and the hidden sanctuary of Yosil Maharal. I could only make out the whites of her eyes as I called.

  “Wait! Beta’s trying to spook you … to herd you back among the others. But this one’s harmless, look!” I struck with my foot and the arm flew off, shattering as it hit the ground.

  “Come this way,” I urged, holding out my hand to help her to step over the decaying war-doll. “We can escape—”

  “Eshcape!” Beta’s putrefying ditto was down to a corroded half-face and part of a torso, yet it maintained enough force of will to emit guttural laughter.

  “Jussst go to the end … of thiss tunnel … Morrissss … and see your esh — cape!”

  The golem’s final cackle was the last straw for Ritu. With a moan of dread and self-revulsion, she swiveled about and ran back the way we came, toward the main tunnel. None of my shouts availed.

  You can’t reason with blind panic. Not that I blame her.

  Soon — predictably — I heard Ritu’s despairing cry as she ran headlong into our pursuers. More Betas, no more pleasant than the version at my feet. Only these would be intact.

  I couldn’t help her now. My sole chance was to turn and flee as the nearest Beta liquefied at last. His final laughter flayed at me, driving my haste as it had Ritu’s, even after the last audible echoes faded.

  A real battle must have raged here, I observed. Machines set up by Yosil Maharal fought bitterly against clay automatons bearing one aspect of his daughter’s many-faced personality. The treasure they vied over must be important! Hurrying, I heard a distant drum of pursuing footsteps, drawing closer from behind.

  At last, the crude tunnel came to an abrupt end. A metal wall stretched left and right before me — armor that was clearly meant to keep trespassers out. The barrier should have worked. It might have, if the base guardians had listened for approaching moles. They meant to, I knew. They established all the proper instruments and vigilant watch programs. Only someone much smarter managed to hack the defense system, fooling the mechanical wardens of this secret redoubt into ignoring blatant sounds of digging.

  A broad face of high-tech steel had been exposed, then a jagged-slanted section removed, carefully avoiding embedded continuity detectors. More evidence of an inside job, planned by someone in the know. Of course this was all short term. It wouldn’t take long to track down the culprit, once Base Security services were roused. The thief had only a little time to execute his plan, whatever it was.

  Approaching the wall fissure — a centimeter thick, I noted — the implant in my left eye scanned for ambush by any leftover cockatrice-bots, though all I saw were fragments. It also got busy trying to put through that phone call t
o Base Security, but no link was in line-of-sight yet. I’d have to step inside and hope …

  Then I saw the emblem:

  BIOHAZARD

  EXTREME DANGER TO ORGANIC LIFE

  The armored room was supposed to have just one entrance. I saw it opposite from me — a heavy airlock with massive, overlapping closures. Almost as imposing were a dozen bulky refrigerators, each of them triple-locked and covered with ribbon seals to show any trace of tampering.

  Somebody had tampered, though, carefully bypassing the alarm wiring on two storage units, then slicing new openings to avoid the locks. Frosty condensation exhaled from the gaps as laboring heat pumps strove to keep up. But that cold was nothing compared to the chill passing through my heart as I glimpsed all the burglary detritus strewn across the floor — abandoned metal trays and torn plastic coverings showing more of those frightening BIOHAZARD symbols. Without any conscious will on my part, the implant zoomed till I could read some ripped tags, carrying names like Airborne Saringenia and Tumoformia Phiddipidesia: Advanced Strain.

  Clara once told me about Saringenia — a truly nasty organic plague that had been tested during the Fizzle War. As for Phiddipidesia, a mild version that escaped ten years ago caused the SouthWestern Eco-Toxic Aquifer Plume. I shuddered to imagine what an “advanced” strain could do.

  According to solemn treaty, stocks were supposed to have been destroyed long ago.

  Naturally, web cynics have always spun lurid tales about dark conspiracies. Vaults like this one had to exist, they claimed. It just isn’t in human nature to throw away a weapon.

  I stood there, half-astride the gap in the metal wall, gazing into whistle-blower’s paradise, pondering the huge tattler’s bounty if I reported all this to the open nets … and wondering how the Dodecs ever managed to keep it secret in this day and age. That is, I would have pondered such things, I’m sure, if I weren’t paralyzed with mind-numbing terror. Especially when I noticed a spray of glittering slivers on the floor … bits of glass from vials that had fallen during the hurried robbery.

  It was already way too late to start holding my breath.

  How long I stood there, blankly staring at death’s shiny frosting, I cannot imagine. What finally stirred me from blank fixation was a sound — drumming footbeats announcing the approach of a more familiar and tangible threat. One the mind could grasp.

  “Well, Morris. Here you are.” Beta’s voice rocked me off the cusp of fear. “Now you see what’s at stake. So why don’t you be a good little shamus and back away from there, hm?” From the shadows behind me emerged half a dozen of the burly war-dittos Beta had hijacked from the reserve armory, advancing under the tunnel’s low ceiling in a stooped crouch.

  As they drew near, I felt something precious start to vanish — my power to act. To affect events. I don’t know about you, but to me that power can mean more than one measly life, even a real one. In this case, a whole lot more.

  I jumped the rest of the way into the storage room and began running for the door at the other end. “No!” the nearest Beta cried. “Let me handle this! You don’t know what you’re doing. Your body heat could set off—”

  I strained to turn the big wheel controlling eight big steel pins that sealed the hatch shut. No codes or locks should be needed to turn it from the inside, right? I felt it start to move …

  Battle-golems are fast, though. They were on me before the wheel turned thirty degrees. Implacable hands pried loose my grip, further abusing my sore thumb, then a jumbo-sized Beta slung me under one arm — a sensation I was really starting to hate. Writhing and kicking, I flailed frantically as he carried me away from the big hatch, till we passed the cool surface of a storage refrigerator. When my hand brushed strands of luminescent ribbon I spasmodically grabbed, yanking and tearing clumps from their moorings.

  That had results! Abruptly, the ambient lighting switched from muted white to alert red. Shrill blarings resounded.

  “That tears it,” one Beta muttered.

  “We’ll bring him along anyway,” my bearer answered, bending over to reenter the cramped tunnel while hauling me like a slab of meat. Soon we were racing along, driven by augmented ceramic muscles that felt uncomfortably hot near my skin, especially after leaving that refrigerated room. All I could do was watch stony walls tear by in a blur, inches from my face, growing disoriented, as if in a fever.

  Was I already infected with some fast-acting plague? More likely, motion sickness was being amplified by hopelessness and an overactive imagination. But who knew yet?

  Emerging back in the main tunnel, we found ourselves amid a swarm of other battle-golems. The Beta who was hauling me turned left, hurrying toward the hidden stronghold of Yosil Maharal — at least that’s what I presumed. I also spied Ritu in their midst, now more closely guarded than before, looking glassy-eyed and withdrawn amid the creatures she had imprinted — giant, terrifying dolls that were propelled by a part of her she loathed.

  The spatter of gunfire sounded closer than before, but seemed to be tapering off. Apparently the reinforcements had been called forward to mop up Yosil’s final layer of defense.

  Well before we arrived at that front however, a second fractious murmur came up from the rear — distant, surprised shouts followed by sharp detonations. I saw the nearby Betas consult each other in brief, worried tones. Some turned to face this new threat, setting up firing positions, while the rest of them pushed Ritu and me forward.

  Apparently our little task force was surrounded. Enemies behind us now, as well as ahead.

  Great, I thought, succumbing to fever, or else to gloom.

  Better not let the travel nets learn about this lovely Place. Or every maso-tourist in the world will want to come.

  53

  Soulscape

  … as gray and red combine to explore a rainbow …

  Who says Yosil should get to be the rider?

  His mad ghost yammers on, using pompous braggadocio to convince himself he’s still in charge, but I’ve stopped listening. Poor old ditYosil hasn’t got a clue yet that something’s gone terribly wrong with his plan.

  The glazier amplified me from the measly ditective who was seized from Kaolin Manor. Countless boson-duplicates combine like droplets in a mighty wave. That’s all I was supposed to be, a simple carrier wave with all the “me-ness” rubbed out.

  But I’m here! Peering along new dimensions. Learning fast.

  For example, I’ve been studying those “echoes” that I noticed earlier. They are other people. I behold them flickering nervously at some undefinable distance.

  Here one burns with a bitter tang that reminds me of anger. Over there shimmers a wavering flame with the acidic color of regret. But the common trait appears to be aching isolation — each a lonely outpost, forlorn, incommunicado, a solitary spark burning on an arid plain.

  Even when I happen on a crowd of millions — a nearby metropolis? — the premier feature of this realm is melancholy sparseness. Cityscapes always seemed crowded — all those jostling bodies of flesh and clay, accoutered with clothes and tools and brash voices. But here, viewing them stripped down to their cores, you realize that a few million souls amount to almost nothing, like widely scattered blades of grass, desperately calling themselves a lawn.

  No, they’re even less. Consider specks of algae, dotting a barren shore, touching only the barest fringe of an enormous, vacant continent. It’s a dour view of the human condition. Yet I find the austere panorama exciting. For I can touch them!

  One corner of me still feels compelled to recite and describe, even though I know that metaphors of sight and sound mislead. Yosil was right — new perceptions call for new vocabularies. Space and proximity have different qualities on this alternate plane, where location is based on affinity. Love or hatred or obsession can move two soul-flickers closer together for a while. Side by side, a pair will sometimes kindle a new glimmer that ignites in abrupt hopefulness. Marriage. I figure, giving the phenomenon a comfortably fam
iliar name, and children.

  Not all of these collaborations are lasting or happy. Still, gentle aromas of joy waft from some.

  It gives new meaning to the phrase “soul mate.” How many wistful teens have yearned to find that one special other with all the right complementarities to blend in perfect union? The romantic notion always seemed foolish, ignoring the work and compromise that genuine love requires. But while scanning this strange landscape, I spot patterns and textures of character that seem to complement each other, suggesting harmonious blends, if only they meet.

  What a business opportunity, if some enterprising entrepreneur ever used this technique to offer a new, improved dating service …

  … but Yosil Maharal had something more profound in mind when he designed this window to a deeper layer of reality. Take what happens when a flicker starts to waver and then fade. In the so-called real world, we have a name for it. Death.

  A few of these dwindling embers smolder with unmistakable courage, while others fume what I can only call despair. And, at the very last moment, some make a fleeting, ecstatic effort to go elsewhere.

  There’s one! A dying speck launches itself across the solemn expanse like a dandelion seed that sparkles briefly, auspiciously …

  … before tumbling back to the sere plain, guttering out, leaving behind a dusty imprint. A great many burnt indentations mark the landscape in all directions. More than I could ever count. Most of them feel old.

  It happens again, and again. The dying repeat this futile effort, one after another. Why do they bother, when it’s always unavailing? Do they sense a goal worth striving for, no matter how bleak the odds?

  There is something … I can tell with my new senses. It must be the same allure that underlay religions — a potential for some phase beyond egg and child, beyond larva and youth. Beyond adult woman or man. Hope for continuity, proliferation — perhaps even endless propagation across a vast new dominion. The potentiality is evident to me now!