Strength of Stones

by Greg Bear

  “Dis em, in solit lib, dis em… Clo’ed in clo’es ob dead…

  “The red shaft vanished to a point without skylight. The unfamiliar glare hurt his eyes. He shaded them to see more clearly. The girl backed away from the railing and stopped singing.

  He knew by rights he should be angry, that he was being teased. But he wasn’t. Instead he felt a loneliness too sharp to sustain. He turned away from the shaft and looked back at the door to the room of cyborgs.

  Thinner stared back at him, grinning crookedly. “Didn’t have chance to welcome,” he said in Hebrew. His head was mounted on a metal snake two feet long; his body was a rolling green car with three wheels, a yard long and half a yard wide. It moved silently. “Have any difficulty?”

  Jeshua looked him over slowly, then grinned. “It doesn’t suit you,” he said. “Are you the same Thinner?”

  “Doesn’t matter, but yes, to make you comfortable.”

  “If it doesn’t matter, then who am I talking to? The city computers?”

  “No, no. They can’t talk. Too concerned with maintaining. You’re talking with what’s left of the architect.”

  Jeshua nodded slowly, though he didn’t understand.

  “It’s a bit complicated,” Thinner said. “Go into it with you later. You saw the girl, and she ran away from you.”

  “I must be pretty frightening. How long has she been here?”

  “A year.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Don’t know for sure. Have you eaten for a while?”

  “No. How did she get in?”

  “Not out of innocence, if that’s what you’re thinking. She was already married before she came here. The chasers encourage marriage early.”

  “Then I’m not here out of innocence, either.”

  “No.”

  “You never saw me naked,” Jeshua said. “How did you know what was wrong with me?”

  “I’m not limited to human senses, though El knows what I do have are bad enough. Follow me, and I’ll find suitable quarters for you.”

  “I may not want to stay.”

  “As I understand it, you’ve come here to be made whole. That can be done, and I can arrange it. But patience is always a virtue.”

  Jeshua nodded at the familiar homily. “She speaks Chaser English. Is that why you were with the chasers, to find a companion for her?”

  The Thinner-vehicle turned away from Jeshua without answering. It rolled through the cyborg chamber, and Jeshua followed. “It would be best if someone she was familiar with would come to join her, but none could be persuaded.”

  “Why did she come?”

  Thinner was silent again. They took a spiral moving walkway around the central shaft, going higher. “It’s the slow, scenic route,” Thinner said, “but you’ll have to get used to the city and its scale.”

  “How long am I going to stay?”

  “As long as you wish.”

  They disembarked from the walkway and took one of the access halls to an apartment block on the outer wall of the city. The construction and colors here were more solid. The bulkheads and doors were opaque and brightly colored in blue, burnt orange, and purple. The total effect reminded Jeshua of a sunset. A long balcony in the outer wall gave a spectacular view of Arat and the plains, but Thinner allowed him no time to sightsee. He took Jeshua into a large apartment and made him familiar with the layout.

  “It’s been cleaned up and provided with furniture you should be used to. You can trade it in for somewhere else whenever you want. But you’ll have to wait until you’ve been seen to by the medical units. You’ve been scheduled for work in this apartment.” Thinner showed him a white-tile and stainless-steel kitchen, with food dispensers and basic utensils. “Food can be obtained here. There’s enough material to customize whatever comes out of the dispensers. Sanitary units are in here and should explain themselves—”

  “They talk?”

  “No. I mean their use should be self-evident. Very few things talk in the city.”

  “We were told the cities were commanded by voice.”

  “Not by most of the citizens. The city itself does not talk back. Only certain units, not like myself—none of the cyborgs were here when humans were. That’s a later development. I’ll explain in time. I’m sure you’re more used to books and scrolls than tapes or tridvee experiences, so I’ve provided some offprints for you on these shelves. Over here—”

  “Seems I’m going to be here for a long time.”

  “Don’t be worried by the accommodations. This may be fancy by your standards, but it certainly isn’t by Mandala’s. These used to be apartments for those of an ascetic temper. If there’s anything you want to know when I’m not here, ask the information desk. It’s hooked to the same source I am.”

  “I’ve heard of the city libraries. Are you part of them?”

  “No. I’ve told you, I’m part of the architect. Avoid library outlets for the moment. In fact, for the next few days, don’t wander too far. Too much too soon, and all that. Ask the desk, and it will give you safe limits. Remember, you’re more helpless than a child here. Mandala is not out-and-out dangerous, but it can be disturbing.”

  “What do I do if the girl visits me?”

  “You anticipate it?”

  “She was singing to me, I think. But she didn’t want to show herself directly. She must be lonely.”

  “She is.” Thinner’s voice carried something more than a tone of crisp efficiency. “She’s been asking a lot of questions about you, and she’s been told the truth. But she’s lived without company for a long time, so don’t expect anything soon.”

  “I’m confused,” Jeshua said.

  “In your case, that’s a healthy state of mind. Relax for a while; don’t let unknowns bother you.”

  Thinner finished explaining about the apartment and left. Jeshua went out the door to stand on the terrace beyond the walkway. Light from God-Does-Battle’s synchronous artificial moons made the snows of Arat gleam like dull steel in the distance. Jeshua regarded the moons with an understanding he’d never had before. Humans had brought them from the orbit of another world, to grace God-Does-Battle’s nights. The thought was staggering. People used to live there, a thousand years ago. What had happened to them when the cities had exiled their citizens? Had the lunar cities done the same thing as the cities of God-Does-Battle?

  He went to his knees for a moment, feeling ashamed and primitive, and prayed to El for guidance. He was not convinced his confusion was so healthy.

  He ate a meal that came as close as amateur instructions could make it to the simple fare of Bethel-Japhet. He then examined his bed, stripped away the covers—the room was warm enough—and slept.

  Once, long ago, if his earliest childhood memories were accurate, he had been taken from Bethel-Japhet to a communion in the hills of Kebal. That had been years before the Synedrium had stiffened the separation laws between Catholic and Habiru rituals. His father and most of his acquaintances had been Habiru and spoke Hebrew. But prominent members of the community, such as Sam Daniel, had by long family tradition worshipped Jesus as more than a prophet, according to established creeds grouped under the title of Catholicism. His father had not resented the Catholics for their ideas.

  At that communion, not only had Habiru and Catholic worshipped, but also the now-separate Muslims and a few diverse creeds best left forgotten. Those had been difficult times, perhaps as hard as the times just after the Exiling. Jeshua remembered listening to the talk between his father and a group of Catholics—relaxed, informal talk, without the stiffness of ceremony that had grown up since. His father had mentioned that his young son’s name was Jeshua, which was a form of Jesus, and the Catholics had clustered around him like fathers all, commenting on his fine form as a six-year-old and his size and evident strength. “Will you make him a carpenter?” they asked jokingly.

  “He will be a cain,” his father answered.

  They frowned, puzzled.


  “A maker of tools.”

  “It was the making of tools that brought us to the Exiling,” Sam Daniel said.

  “Aye, and raised us from beasts,” his father countered.

  Jeshua remembered the talk that followed in some detail. It had stuck with him and determined much of his outlook as an adult, after the death of his father in a mining accident.

  “It was the shepherd who raised us above the beasts by making us their masters,” another said. “It was the maker of tools and tiller of the soil who murdered the shepherd and was sent to wander in exile.”

  “Yes,” his father said, eyes gleaming in the firelight. “And later it was the shepherd who stole a birthright from his nomad brother—or have we forgotten Jacob and Esau? The debt, I think, was even.”

  “There’s much that is confusing in the past,” Sam Daniel admitted. “And if we use our eyes and see that our exile is made less difficult by the use of tools, we should not condemn our worthy cains. But those who built the cities that exiled us were also making tools, and the tools turned against us.”

  “But why?” his father asked. “Because of our degraded state as humans? Remember, it was the Habirus and Catholics—then Jews and Christians—who commissioned Robert Kahn to build the cities for God-Does-Battle and to make them pure cities for the best of mankind, the final carriers of the flame of Jesus and the Lord. We were self-righteous in those days and wished to leave behind the degraded ways of our neighbors. How was it that the best were cast out?”

  “Hubris,” chuckled a Catholic. “A shameful thing, anyway. The histories tell us of many shameful things, eh, lad?” He looked at Jeshua. “You remember the stories of the evil that men did.”

  “Don’t bother the child,” his father said angrily.

  Sam Daniel put his arm around the shoulder of Jeshua’s father, “Our debater is at it again. Still have the secret for uniting us all?”

  Half-asleep, he opened his eyes and tried to roll over on the bed.

  Something stopped him, and he felt a twinge at the nape of his neck. He couldn’t see well—his eyes were watering and everything was blurred. His nose tickled and his palate hurt vaguely, as if something were crawling through his nostrils into the back of his throat. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Silvery arms weaved above him, leaving grey trails of shadow behind, and he thought he saw wires spinning over his chest. He blinked. Liquid drops hung from the wires like dew on a web. When the drops fell and touched his skin, waves of warmth and numbness radiated.

  He heard a whine, like an animal in pain, It came from his own throat. Each time he breathed, the whine escaped. Again the metal things bobbed above him, this time unraveling the wires. He blinked, and it took a long time for his eyelids to open again. There was a split in the ceiling, and branches grew down from it, one coming up under his vision and reaching into his nose, others holding him gently on the bed, another humming behind his head, making his scalp prickle. He searched for the twinge below his neck. It felt as if a hair was being pulled from his skin or a single tiny ant was pinching him. He was aloof, far above it, not concerned; but his hand still wanted to scratch and a branch prevented it from moving. His vision cleared for an instant, and he saw green enameled tubes, chromed grips, pale blue ovals being handed back and forth.

  “A anna eh uh,” he tried to say. “Eh ee uh.” His lips wouldn’t move. His tongue was playing with something sweet. He’d been given candy. Years ago he’d gone for a mouth examination—with a clean bill of health—and he’d been given a roll of sugar gum to tongue on the way home.

  He sank back into his skull to listen to the talk by the fireside again. “Hubris,” chuckled a Catholic.

  “Habirus,” he said to himself. “Hubris.”

  “A shameful thing, anyway—”

  “Our debater is at it again. Still have the secret for uniting us all?”

  “And raised us from beasts.”

  Deep, and sleep.

  He opened his eyes and felt something in bed with him. He moved his hand to his crotch. It felt as if a portion of the bed had gotten loose and was stuck under his hip, in his shorts. He lifted his hips and pulled down the garment, then lay back, a terrified look coming into his face. Tears streamed from his eyes.

  “Thanks to El,” he murmured. He tried to back away from the vision, but it went with him, was truly a part of him. He hit the side of his head to see if it was still a time for dreams. It was real.

  He climbed off the bed and stripped away his shirt, standing naked by the mirror to look at himself. He was afraid to touch it, but of itself it jerked and nearly made him mad with desire. He reached up and hit the ceiling with his fists.

  “Great El, magnificent Lord,” he breathed. He wanted to rush out the door and stand on the balcony, to show God-Does-Battle he was now fully a man, fully as capable as anyone else to accomplish any task given to him, including-merciful El!—founding and fathering a family.

  He couldn’t restrain himself. He threw open the door of the apartment and ran naked outside.

  “BiGod!”

  He stopped, his neck hair prickling, and turned to look.

  She stood by the door to the apartment, poised like a jacklighted animal. She was only fourteen or fifteen, at the oldest, and slender, any curves hidden beneath a sacky cloth of pink and orange. She looked at him as she might have looked at a ravening beast. He must have seemed one. Then she turned and fled.

  Devastated in the midst of his triumph, he stood with shoulders drooped, hardly breathing, and blinked at the afterimage of brown hair and naked feet. His erection subsided into a morning urge to urinate. He threw his hands up in the air, returned to the apartment, and went into the bathroom. After breakfast he faced the information desk, squatting uncomfortably on a small stool. The front of the desk was paneled with green slats, which opened as he approached. Sensor cells peered out at him.

  “I’d like to know what I can do to leave,” he said.

  “Why do you want to leave?” The voice was deeper than Thinner’s, but otherwise much the same.

  “I’ve got friends elsewhere, and a past life to return to. I don’t have anything here.”

  “You have all of the past here, an infinite number of things to learn.”

  “I really just want out.”

  “You can leave anytime.”

  “How?”

  “This is a problem. Not all of Mandala’s systems cooperate with this unit—”

  “Which unit?”

  “I am the architect. The systems follow schedules set up a thousand years ago. You’re welcome to try to leave—we certainly won’t do anything to stop you—but it could be difficult.”

  Jeshua drummed his fingers on the panel for a minute. “What do you mean, the architect?”

  “The unit constructed to design and coordinate the building of the cities.”

  “Could you ask Thinner to come here?”

  “Thinner unit is being reassembled.”

  “Is he part of the architect?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “If you mean, where is my central position, I have none. I am part of Mandala.”

  “Does the architect control Mandala?”

  “No. Not all city units respond to the architect. Only a few.”

  “The cyborgs were built by the architect,” Jeshua guessed

  “Yes.”

  Jeshua drummed his fingers again, then backed away from the desk and left the apartment. He stood on the terrace, looking across the plains, working his teeth in frustration. He seemed to be missing something terribly important.

  “Hey.”

  He looked up. The girl was on a terrace two levels above him, leaning with her elbows on the rail.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said.

  “Dis me, no’ terrafy. Li’l shock, but dat all mucky same-same ’ereber dis em go now. Hey, do, I got warns fo’ you.”

  “What? Warnings?”

  “
Dey got probs here, ’tween Mandala an’ dey ’oo built.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No’ compree? Lissy dis me, close, like all dis depen’ on’t: Dis em, was carry by polis ’eh dis dey moob, week’r two ago. Was no’ fun. Walk an’ be carry, was I. No’ fun.”

  “The city moved? Why?”

  “To leeb behine de part dis dey call builder.”

  “The architect? You mean, Thinner and the information desks?”

  “An’ too de bods ’ich are hurt.”

  Jeshua began to understand. There were at least two forces in Mandala that were at odds with each other—the city and something within the city that called itself the architect.

  “How can I talk to the city?”

  “De polis no’ talk.”

  “Why does the architect want us here?”

  “Don’ know.”

  Jeshua massaged his neck to stop a cramp. “Can you come down here and talk?”

  “No’ now dis you are full a man… Too mucky for dis me, too cashin’ big.”

  “I won’t hurt you. I’ve lived with it for all my life—can live a while longer.”

  “Oop!” She backed away from the rail.

  “Wait!” Jeshua called. He turned and saw Thinner, fully corporeal now, leaning on the rounded corner of the access hall.

  “So you’ve been able to talk to her,” Thinner said.

  “Yes. Made me curious, too. And the information desk.”

  “We expected it.”

  “Then can I have some sound answers?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why was I brought here—to mate with the girl?”

  “El! Not at all.” Thinner gestured for him to follow. “I’m afraid you’re in the middle of a pitched battle. The city rejects all humans. But the architect knows a city needs citizens. Anything else is a farce.”

  “We were kicked out for our sins,” Jeshua said.

  “That’s embarrassing, not for you so much as for us. The architect designed the city according to the specifications given by humans—but any good designer should know when a program contains an incipient psychosis. I’m afraid it’s set this world back quite a few centuries. The architect was made to direct the construction of the cities. Mandala was the first city, and we were installed here to make it easier to supervise construction everywhere. But now we have no control elsewhere. After a century of building and successful testing, we put community control into the city maintenance computers. We tore down the old cities when there were enough of the new to house the people of God-Does-Battle. Problems didn’t develop until all the living cities were integrated on a broad plan. They began to compare notes, in a manner of speaking.”