Strength of Stones

by Greg Bear

  “Who can we see from this angle?” Arthur asked. Kahn turned and followed his gaze.

  “That’s Pearson,” he said. “He’s as responsible for this as I am, in his way.”

  Arthur felt briefly dizzy. It was more than just walking while craning his neck—it was as if, for a second, he had indeed looked into a mirror too closely—the mirror of God-Does-Battle’s history, with a crumbled, monumental face staring back, eyes filled with moonlight, smiling benevolently.

  They were less than a kilometer from the border, staying close to the road but not traveling on it, when they stumbled onto a camp. A man in brown canvas shorts and sleeveless shirt, wearing a broad-brimmed round hat, was giving instructions in a melodic tenor voice. Four others—a woman about the same age, two adolescent boys—and a young girl—were loading the truck and taking down a large tent.

  Arthur, Jeshua and Kahn watched from the cover of some brittle bushes.

  “They’re from Ibreem,” Arthur whispered. “Sounds like their visitor’s pass is running out, so they’re going to cross the border tonight.”

  The man was talking about Resurrection.

  “They act as if they live there,” Arthur said. “I’ve heard about an enclave surrounded by the city. Maybe that’s what he means.”

  “He sounds like he’s a teacher,” Jeshua said. “I recognize that tone.”

  “Wife and students?” Kahn asked.

  “One’s his son, I think,” Arthur said. “Ibreemites have different ideas about polises than Founders. They try to live with them—not interfere. They’re a Syndine state.”

  “So?” Kahn asked.

  “Maybe we can get a ride with them. Jeshua should hide the head—we don’t want to be too shocking. We could certainly fit on the back of the track.”

  Kahn agreed. They stepped forward into the lantern light. The girl was startled and dropped her burden of metal tent poles with a clatter.

  “Don’t tell them everything all at once,” Arthur said. “I still have my doubts about you—so give it slowly, or not at all. We’re just travelers, pilgrims.”

  The man stood between them and the camp, holding out his hands in a gesture that could have been welcome but for his wide eyes and flaring nostrils.

  “We need a ride, if you have room,” Arthur said. “My friends and I are going to Resurrection.”

  “What’s your business?” the man asked.

  “We’re pilgrims,” Arthur said. “We need to visit Resurrection. I’ve never been there.”

  The man looked at Kahn’s clothes and Jeshua’s wounds, some of which had started healing over. “It looks like you’ve had a rough journey so far.”

  “That we have,” Arthur said.

  “Excuse us for bothering you,” Kahn said, stepping forward. “We’re from New Canaan West. I desperately need to get to Resurrection.”

  “You’re fugitives,” the man said cautiously. The four others had grouped themselves near the truck.

  “He isn’t,” Kahn said, indicating Arthur. “We are. But not for crimes.”

  “The big fellow—what is he?”

  Kahn motioned for Jeshua to step closer to the lantern light. “If I’m guessing right, he can get into the city—the polis. He can be repaired there.”

  “City doesn’t take in sick people any more. That stopped a long time ago. There are hospitals in the enclave…”

  “He’s a city-part,” Arthur said. “A mimic. They’re trying to kill him here.”

  “What has he done?”

  “Nothing,” Kahn said. “He was trying to get to Resurrection and he had to cross New Canaan West.”

  “Names?” the man asked.

  “Mine is Arthur Sam Daniel, my family used to live in Ibreem. This is Jeshua, and this is Azrael Iben Cohen.”

  “My name is Hale Ascoria. I’m a teacher. My wife, Lod, and son David. My students, Sanisha and Coort. Your country gave us a four-day pass, and now we’re going home.” He glanced over his shoulder at the group, then took off his hat and fanned his face slowly. “New Canaan isn’t known for thieves, not now, anyway. You say you’re pilgrims… how can I be sure you’re not police?”

  “Jeshua, show him your arm,” Kahn said. The mimic stepped forward a few paces and peeled back his skin. Ascoria squinted to see more detail in the dim light.

  “Mandala,” Jeshua said. “Originally I came from Ibreem, too, when I thought I was a human being. I grew up there as a child.”

  “How old are you?”

  “About a hundred and forty years.”

  “We have an obligation to deliver city-parts to Resurrection. This is our pact. But I’ve never seen a mimic as old as you say you are. Most are from Fraternity.” He looked at Kahn. “We came here to study Fraternity. We’re from Expolis Geshom originally, but we moved to the Resurrection enclave ten years ago.” He took a deep breath. “If I’m taking a chance, God help your immortal souls. Join us, pilgrims.”

  The truck was gas-powered, smelly and noisy but rugged enough to travel the rutted roads. The students rode in the front seat with Ascoria; his wife and son sat behind the truck bed panel, and Kahn, Jeshua and Arthur squatted near the tailgate. Tent and provisions separated the groups. Jeshua kept Thinner in the bag, looking into it now and then. The big mimic’s face was impassive, but Kahn could sense that the head wasn’t doing very well.

  The border was sparsely patrolled these days, Ascoria explained. Friction between Ibreem and New Canaan was slight, and with the heat, patrols were kept to a minimum. They passed through a wire gate with an empty sentry booth and were in Ibreem.

  They had started out in the early morning. Within an hour, they were driving across the old alluvial plain. Resurrection gleamed in the post-dawn light. The sun was already as bright as an electric torch.

  A few kilometers out on the plain, the dirt path turned into an oiled road. The truck bounced less vigorously, and Kahn was able to concentrate on the city ahead. It was much smaller than he remembered, as if great chunks had been removed and the walls had closed up after them. There was no central tower, but a circle of smaller towers, with one larger than the rest on the north side. It looked for all the world like an overgrown sports amphitheater.

  The oiled road circled the city about thirty meters from the outer wails. The walls rose smooth and silver-green at least a hundred meters above the plain, topped by translucent spikes like the bristles around Fraternity, but fresh and formidable-looking. Except for the obvious reduction and redesign, the city looked healthy.

  “Here’s the gate,” Ascoria called back. He turned the truck’s wheel and drove them up to a smooth tunnel entrance. A man-made fence had been constructed, touching the outer wall but not fixed to it. Two guards sat under a wooden canopy, drooping with the heat. Lod dug in the glove compartment for identification.

  Kahn listened closely.

  “I have pilgrims and a city part—a mimic,” Ascoria said. We brought them in from Ibreem.”

  “Fugitives?”

  “Only the mimic.”

  The guards circled to the back of the truck to look them over. One asked if they had any identification. Arthur produced a thin leather pouch with a scored metal card.

  “And you?” the guard asked Kahn.

  “I’m a pilgrim. I’ve lost my identification.”

  “Then we can only give you a two-day pass.” The guard returned to the cab on Ascoria’s side. “We have no warrants from the Founder for fugitives, parts or otherwise, but then, they never tell us, do they? If you’ll vouch for them, put them up until their visit is done—deliver the part—we’ll let you through. You know the procedures?”

  Ascoria nodded resolutely. The guard waved him on and the truck drove through a smooth-walled tunnel.

  The enclave was a separate city contained within Resurrection. It was made of mud-brick, wood, plaster and concrete. Ascoria drove cautiously through clean, narrow streets overhung by third floor balconies.

  Kahn noticed the skilled ca
rpentry and design. Raingutters wound around buildings, sometimes jumping the short gaps between and becoming part of the ornament. The plaster was expertly textured and studded with river stones and bits of glass.

  Resurrection had been on the river plain for a hundred years, Ascoria explained. It had left its home in the highlands, resisting marauders, and rebuilt itself where underground water was plentiful. “It took in sick children, and once it even treated sick adults. That was before it moved. A woman named Reah entered the city in the highlands and guided it here. She was Moslem, or at least came from a Moslem town. That’s where we’ll drop off the part—at Reah’s Temple, on the west side. She was killed after the city settled here, but by that time she had ordered city transport parts to go out and gather alt sick and crippled children. The city took them in long after she died, for about seventy-five years, and let them out in the enclave when they were cured. Then, about twenty-five years ago, the city stopped taking anybody in. That was when a city called Throne came down to the river plain, about ten kilometers from here.”

  “Throne disappeared overnight,” Loci said. “Some believe it walked, others say it was sucked underground.”

  “By that time, all the children who had come to the enclave had made a fine place to live. Many stayed, grew up here, established hospitals. Now pilgrims come from all around to worship, especially at Reah’s Temple, and to be treated. We have the finest doctors on God-Does-Battle.”

  “Never heard any of this in New Canaan,” Arthur said.

  “The Founders think we’re fools,” Lod said bitterly.

  Kahn listened silently, looking at the brown and white buildings, the crowds of pilgrims and citizens—the white robes of the one discernible from the more tailored pants and coats and dresses of the other. There were gas engine cars and horse-carts. On the west side of the enclave was Reah’s Temple, a cubic structure decorated by columns and simple bas-relief carvings. Pilgrims sat under broad awnings, napping or kneeling in prayer, waiting for the heat to die down. Next to the building was a pillar about twenty meters high, topped by a bronze statue of a woman in a straight dress.

  “Do they worship her?” Arthur asked.

  “No, no!” Ascoria said. “To the Habirus, she’s a prophet, and the Moslems believe she’s a saint, as do the Christians. The Moslems—some, anyway—use the pillar as a substitute for Mecca.”

  “Don’t they know where Mecca is?” Kahn asked.

  “No, how could they?” Ascoria asked.

  “The pole star is the Earth’s sun,” Kahn said. “Or at least, it is by now.”

  “What?” Ascoria asked, incredulous.

  “They haven’t forgotten…” Kahn hesitated. Arthur shook his head slowly. “That’s what some of us think in New Canaan,” he finished. “Old records.”

  “Moslems have accepted that Mecca’s direction is lost,” Ascoria said. “It would be pretty hard to change their minds now.”

  “This is where the Break Wars are healed,” Led said. Sanisha, the young girl student, nodded agreement. “We show the Canaan Founders that humans and cities can live together, if not intermingled.”

  Arthur stared up at the city’s towers. Their shadows fell across the enclave, then climbed the wall on the other side. “Where’s Reah now? I mean, her body.”

  “She was killed inside. We don’t know what happened to her body,” Ascoria said. “But we know she’s dead. The first teachers saw her die. Most of the children are citizens here now, doctors, priests, mbs, mullahs and muezzins in the Moslem quarter. Some of them claim to have seen Reah in the city.” He smiled indulgently.

  They stopped near the temple and Lod offered a prayer of thanksgiving. A broad space separated the inner wall and the outermost buildings on the enclave. Pilgrim’s vehicles parked in the gap, with horse-drawn carts placed under wooden sheds. Streams of water flowed under the wall, one passing through a conduit directly beneath the temple. The wall itself produced fruit and vegetables at shoulder-level, a vertical garden which the pilgrims harvested for their meals. In the beginning, Lod explained, the food from the walls had sustained the entire enclave—children and teachers—but now it was not enough, and was reserved for pilgrims. The citizens were fed by food grown and purchased outside the city and—in emergencies—on shaded rooftop gardens. Most families had gardens.

  Most of the hostels in the enclave were full now, so white tents were pitched in the inner perimeter. Families sat in front of the tents, shaded by broad awnings or the city’s shadow. The atmosphere was that of a holiday gathering, restrained by the heat.

  “It’s beautiful,” Arthur said.

  Ascoria parked the truck at a small brick guard house near the wall, connected by a covered walkway with Reah’s Temple. He motioned for Kahn and Jeshua to follow. Jeshua picked up the bag and walked behind them.

  “You and your friend can stay with my family and students tonight,” Ascoria said. “We’re already sharing our home with pilgrims, but if you’re gregarious, there should be enough space.” He turned to Jeshua. “Are you ready to be delivered to the city—willing I mean?”

  Jeshua nodded.

  “It’s quite simple, really. Approach the wall by the cubicle. The guard there will let you through—once he sees you’re a city part.” Ascoria pointed at Jeshua’s arm. Jeshua reached down and opened the seam.

  “Will you join us later?” he asked Kahn.

  Kahn nodded, then glanced at Ascoria. The teacher’s smile had frozen. Jeshua walked to the cubicle and waited for the guard to step out. The guard nervously looked him over, then passed him through.

  As Jeshua stepped up to the wall, a circular patch grew milky and parted. He stepped inside. The gap sealed behind him. Ascoria and the guard watched intently, mouths slightly open. Then the moment passed.

  “We give to the city what is the city’s,” Ascoria said, trembling with awe. “Now it’s done. Come, we’ll go to the house.”

  The house was a school for more advanced students, located near the edge of the enclave. Kahn estimated the city enclosed an area of about half a hectare, in which about a hundred thousand citizens lived, and a third again as many pilgrims. Housing was dear, and Ascoria’s house climbed four stories, each story crammed with people—pilgrims, students, more of his family.

  “Let’s stay on the ground floor,” Kahn suggested to Arthur.

  They ate lunch, then napped or pretended to nap through the scorching afternoon. As dusk turned the sky above the enclave to dark blue and grey-green, lights came on along the roadways. Arthur and Kahn helped distribute the evening meal, then sat down and ate, Kahn nibbling with convincing hunger, Arthur with unfeigned ravenousness. The guests on the first floor glanced at Kahn’s odd clothes, but the mix of the crowd was broad enough that he didn’t draw too much attention. The night was hot and still. As they ate, Lod and Sanisha led a group of male students in singing prayers, and Ascoria led a group of female students in reciting them back. Arthur felt like joining in, but he didn’t know the words. Kahn watched with his usual unreadable expression, dark eyes seeming to fill their sockets in the dim electric light.

  Outside, clouds were moving across the stars. Kahn and Arthur found blankets and matting in one corner of the ground floor and lay down with twenty or twenty-five others. As the evening prayers were said, the rain began to fall. Led rigged a funnel and a large glass jug outside the front door, under the roof’s main drain.

  Ascoria kneeled beside Arthur and Kahn. “You know, I’m very curious about you,” he said to Kahn. Lod was turning off the lights by unscrewing the bulbs. The air was humid and big drops were pattering on the street outside, clearly audible through the wood door and window shutters. “I’m a teacher, and I like asking questions. But I don’t believe you want anyone to ask questions of you—not yet.”

  Kahn looked down at the floor, embarrassed. It was a rare emotion for him, but he didn’t know what to say to the man.

  “The city part seemed to know you,” Ascoria conti
nued. “I look at you, and I shiver. Nobody else reacts that way.” He pointed with his face at the people lying, waiting for sleep, all around. “I don’t know why, but you’re different. Not a pilgrim.”

  “Let’s go to sleep,” Arthur said, looking at the two from the comer of his eye. “We’re just pilgrims.”

  Ascoria stood. “What the mimic said… I have this feeling…” He cut himself off. “But I’m imposing on guests.”

  “It’s a wonderful community you have here,” Arthur said. “It is indeed,” Kahn affirmed, swallowing.

  “We wish it would stay that way, but the heat is becoming too great, I fear. The weak want to leave. They say we’re cursed again, that we’ll never have peace on God-Does-Battle. Will we?” He gazed directly at Kahn, his eyes intense.

  “I don’t know,” Kahn said truthfully enough.

  “Of course not,” Ascoria said. “It’s not one’s lot to know what the future… what we face. Good night.”

  Arthur nodded and rolled over.

  When the others on the first floor were asleep, Kahn went to Arthur and shook him gently. “We have to go now,” he said, then held his finger to his lips. “They’ll wake up in a couple of hours.”

  The streets were almost dry, and the air was filled with mist. Most of the street lamps were dimmed, singing a dull orange. Kahn led Arthur through the streets.

  They came to the perimeter space and walked between the pilgrim tents, past the cubicle and the guard. The guard was asleep, his face beaded with sweat. The entire enclave was like a place in a fairy tale, enchanted with heat, sleeping in the minimum comfort of early night, waiting for the cool of midnight to get up again and work. Kahn walked up to the wall, but Arthur stood back a few meters. “Come on,” Kahn said. “You can enter with me.”

  “Come where?”

  Kahn laid his hand on the surface. “I’m the builder,” he said to the wall. “I’m the true architect, and my word is qellipoth. It is a practical word, not a theoretical word.”

  The wall flowed aside, forming a smaller version of the smooth tunnel which led into the enclave. Arthur shook his head. “Why?” He was suddenly panic-stricken; he had never actually believed the man.