There was a long silence. Levine maneuvered his view around the garret and noticed that the fog had cleared. He moved to the window. It was now dark, and a full moon was shimmering off the surface of the ocean like a skein of silk. A dragger, nets hung, chugged toward the harbor. Now that the conversation had lapsed into silence, Levine thought he could detect the sound of the surf on the rocks below. Pemaquid Point Light winked in the darkness.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Scopes said. “It captures everything but the smell of the sea.”
Levine felt a deep sadness steal over him. It was a perfect illustration of the contradictions in Scopes’s character. Only a genius of immense creativity could have written a program this beautiful and subtle. And yet the same person was planning to sell X-FLU II. Levine watched the boat glide into the harbor, its running lights dancing on the water. A dark figure leapt off the boat and caught the hawsers as they were thrown from the deck, looping them over cleats.
“Originally, it began as a set of separate challenges,” Scopes said. “My network was growing daily, and I felt I was losing control. I wanted a way to traverse it, easily and privately. I had spent a fair amount of time playing with artificial-intelligence languages, like LISP, and object-oriented languages such as Smalltalk. I felt there was a need for a new kind of computer language that could meld the best of both, with something else added, too. When those languages were developed, computer horsepower was minuscule. I realized I now had the processing capability to play with images as well as words. So I built my language around visual constructs. The Cypherspace compiler creates worlds, not just programs. It began simply enough. But soon, I realized the possibilities of my new medium. I felt I could create an entirely new art form, unique to the computer, meant to be experienced on its own terms. It’s taken me years to create this world, and I’m still working on it. It’ll never be finished, of course. But much of that time was spent in development, in making the programming language and tools sufficiently robust. I could do it again much more quickly, now.
“Charles, you could stand at that window for a week and never see the same thing twice. If you wished, you could go down to the dock and talk to those men. The tide goes in and out with the phases of the moon. There are seasons. There are people living in the houses: fishermen, summer people, artists. Real people, people I remember from my childhood. There’s Marvin Clark, who runs the local store. He died a few years back but he lives on in my program. Tomorrow, you could go down there and listen to him telling stories. You could have a cup of tea and play backgammon with Hank Hitchins. Each person is a self-contained object within the larger program. They exist independently and interact with each other in ways that I never programmed or even foresaw. Here, I’m a kind of god: I’ve created a world, but now that it’s created, it goes on without further input from me.”
“But you’re a selfish god,” Levine said. “You’ve kept this world to yourself.”
“True enough. I simply don’t feel like sharing it. It’s too personal.”
Levine turned back to the wizard-image. “You’ve reproduced the island in perfect detail, except your own house. It’s in ruins. Why?”
The figure was still a moment, and no sound came through the elevator speaker. Levine wondered what nerve he had touched. Then the figure raised the gun again. “I think we’ve spoken enough now, Charles,” Scopes said.
“I’m not impressed by the gun.”
“You should be. You are simply a process within the matrix of my program. If I shoot, the thread of your process will halt. You will be stuck, with no way to communicate with me or anyone else. But it’s largely academic now. While we were chatting about my creation, I sent a sniffer routine back over your trail, tracking you across the network backbone until I located your terminal. It can’t be too comfortable, stuck there in Elevator Forty-nine between the seventh and eighth floors. A welcoming party is already on its way, so you might as well sit tight.”
“What are you going to do?” Levine asked.
“Me? I’m not going to do anything. You, however, are going to die. Your arrogant break-in, along with this latest round of snooping into my business, really leaves me little choice. As an intruder, of course, your killing will be justifiable homicide. I’m sorry, Charles, I truly am. It didn’t need to end this way.”
Levine raised his fingers to type a reply, then stopped. There was nothing he could say.
“Now I’m going to terminate the program. Good-bye, Charles.”
The figure took careful aim.
For the first time since entering the GeneDyne building, Levine was afraid.
Carson woke with a start. It was still dark, but dawn was approaching: As he looked out, he could see the sky beginning to separate itself from the black mouth of the cave. A few yards away, Susana was still asleep on the sand. He could hear the soft, regular sound of her breathing.
He propped himself up on one elbow, aware of a dull nagging thirst. Crawling on hands and knees to the edge of the spring, he cupped the warm water in his hands, drinking it greedily. As the thirst died, a gnawing hunger began to assert itself in the depths of his belly.
Standing, he walked to the mouth of the cave and breathed the cool, predawn air. The horses were a few hundred yards off, grazing quietly. He whistled softly and they lifted their heads, perking their ears at his presence. He walked toward them, stepping carefully in the darkness. They were a little gaunt, but otherwise seemed to have survived their ordeal quite well. He stroked Roscoe’s neck. The horse’s eyes were bright and clear, a good sign. He bent down and felt the coronet at the top of the hoof. It was warm but not hot, showing no sign of laminitis.
He looked around in the gathering light. The surrounding mountains were carved from tilted sandstone, their sedimentary layers running at crazy diagonals through the eroded humps and canyons. As he watched, their summits became infused with the scarlet light of the rising sun. There was a stillness to the air almost religious in its force: the silence of a cathedral before the organ sounds. Where the muscled flanks of the mountains sank into the desert, the skirts of the lava flow cloaked their base in a black, jagged mass. Their own cave was hidden from view, below the level of the desert. Standing one hundred yards from it, Carson would never have dreamed there was anything around but black lava. There was no sign of Nye.
Carson watered the horses again in the cave and then hobbled them in a fresh patch of tobosa grass. Then, locating a mesquite bush, he used his spearpoint to cut off a long flexible sucker, with a cluster of stobs and thorns at the end. He walked out of the lava and into the desert, examining the sand carefully as he went. Soon, he found what he was looking for: the tracks of a rabbit, still young and relatively small. He followed them for a hundred yards until they disappeared into a hole underneath a Mormon-tea bush. Squatting down, he shoved the thorny end of the stick down the hole, threading it through several turns, and—when it reached the den— prodding and twisting, feeling a furry resistance. Twisting more vigorously now, he slowly pulled the stick back out of the hole. A young rabbit, whose loose skin had been caught and twisted up in the stobs, struggled and grunted. Carson pinned it with his foot and cut off its head, letting the blood drain into the sand. Then he gutted, skinned, and spitted it, buried the offal in the sand to deter buzzards, and returned to the cave.
De Vaca was still sleeping. At the mouth of the cave he built a small fire, rubbed the rabbit with more alkali salt from his pocket, and began roasting it. The meat spit and sizzled, the blue smoke drifting into the clear air.
Now at last the sun came above the horizon, throwing a brilliant shower of golden light across the desert floor and deep into the cave, illuminating its dark surfaces. There was a noise and Carson turned to see de Vaca, sitting up at last and rubbing her eyes sleepily.
“Ouch,” she said as the golden light flared in her face and turned her black hair to bronze.
Carson watched her with the smugly virtuous smile of an early riser. His
eyes strayed from her to the interior of the cave. De Vaca, seeing his expression change, turned to follow his gaze.
The rising sun was shining through a crack in the cave opening, striping a needle of orange light across the floor of the cave and halfway up its rear wall. Balanced atop the needle and illuminated against the rough rock was a jagged, yet immediately recognizable image: an eagle, wings spread and head upraised as if about to burst into flight.
They watched in silence as the image grew brighter, until it seemed it would be forever branded into the rear of the cave. And then, as suddenly as it had flared up, it died away; the sun rose above the mouth of the cave, and the eagle vanished into the growing superfluity of light.
“El Ojo del Águila,” De Vaca said. “The Spring of the Eagle. Now we know we found it. Incredible to think that this same spring saved my ancestors’ lives four hundred years ago.”
“And now it’s saving ours,” Carson murmured. He continued to stare at the dark space where the image had been for a moment, as if trying to recall a thought that was dancing just beyond the verge of consciousness. Then the wonderful aroma of roasting meat filled his nostrils, and he turned back to the rabbit.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“You’re damn right. What is it?”
“Rabbit.” He turned it, then pulled it from the fire and stuck the spit upright in the sand. Taking out the spearpoint, he sliced off a haunch and handed it to de Vaca.
“Careful, it’s hot.”
Gingerly, she took a bite.
“Delicious. You can cook, too. I assumed all you cowboys knew how to make was beans in bacon fat.”
She sank her teeth into the haunch, peeling off another piece of meat. “And it’s not even tough, like the rabbits my grandfather used to bring home.” She spat out a small bone. Carson watched her eat with a cook’s secret pride.
In ten minutes the rabbit was gone and the cleaned bones burning, in the fire, De Vaca sat back, licking her fingers. “How’d you catch that rabbit?” she asked.
Carson shrugged. “Just something I picked up on the ranch as a kid.”
De Vaca nodded. Then she smiled wickedly. “That’s right, I forgot. All Indians know how to hunt. It’s an instinct, right?”
Carson frowned, his complacence dissolving under this unwarranted dig. “Give it a rest,” he grumbled. “It wasn’t funny the first time, and it certainly isn’t funny now.”
But de Vaca was still smiling. “You should see yourself. That day in the sun did you good. A few more like it, and you’ll look right at home on the Big Rez.”
Despite himself, Carson felt a hot fury mounting inside. De Vaca had an unerring instinct for searching out his sensitive spots and homing in on them mercilessly. Somehow, he’d allowed himself to believe that the terrifying ordeal they had shared would change her. Now he wasn’t sure if he was more angry with de Vaca for remaining her sarcastic self, or at himself for his foolish self-delusion.
“Tú eres una desagradecida hija de puta,” he said, the anger giving his words a startling clarity.
A curious expression came over de Vaca’s face as the whites of her eyes grew large and distinct. Her casual pose in the sand grew rigid.
“So the cabrón knows more of the mother tongue than he’s let on,” she said in a low voice. “I’m an ingrate, am I? Typical.”
“You call me typical?” Carson retorted. “I saved your ass yesterday. Yet here you are again today, slinging the same shit.”
“You saved my ass?” de Vaca snapped. “You’re a fool, cabrón. It was your Ute ancestor who saved us. And your great-uncle, who passed down his stories to you. Those fine people that you treat like blots on your pedigree. You’ve got a great heritage, something to be proud of. And what do you do? You hide it. Ignore it. Sweep it under the rug. As if you’re a better person without it.” Her voice was rising now, echoing crazily inside the cave. “And you know what, Carson? Without it, you’re nothing. You’re not a cowboy. You’re not a Harvard WASP. You’re just an empty redneck shell that can’t even reconcile its own past.”
As he listened, Carson’s fury turned cold. “Still playing the would-be analyst?” he said. “When I’m ready to confront my inner child, I’ll go to somebody with a diploma—not a snake-oil peddler who’s more comfortable in a poncho than a lab coat. Todavía tienes la mierda del barrio en tus zapatos.”
De Vaca drew in her breath with a sharp hiss, and her nostrils flared. Suddenly she drew back her hand and slapped him across the face with all her strength. Carson’s cheek burned and his ear began to buzz. He shook his head in surprise, noticed she had drawn back to hit him again, and caught her hand as it swung toward him a second time. Balling her other hand into a fist, de Vaca lashed out at him, but he ducked, tightening his grip on her imprisoned hand and thrusting it from him. Overextended, de Vaca fell backward into the pool and Carson, caught off guard, fell across her.
The slap and the sudden fall had driven the fury out of Carson. Now, as he lay across de Vaca—as he felt her hard lithe body struggle beneath his—an entirely different kind of hunger seized him. Before he could stop himself he leaned forward and kissed her, deliberately, on the lips.
“Pendejo,” de Vaca gasped, fighting for breath. “Nobody kisses me.” With a violent wrench, she freed her arms, balling her dripping hands into fists. Carson watched her warily.
They stared at each other for a moment, motionless. Water dripped from de Vaca’s fists onto the dark, warm surface of the pool. The echoes died away until the only sounds that remained were those made by the droplets of water, falling between their labored breaths. Suddenly, she grabbed Carson by the hair with both hands and crushed her mouth to his.
In a moment her hands were everywhere, sliding up beneath his shirt, caressing his chest, teasing his nipples, tugging at his belt and worrying down his fly and easing him out and stroking him with long urgent movements. She sat up and raised her arms as he shrugged off her top, tossed it aside, and then pulled hungrily at her jeans, already soaked black with the warm spring water. An arm went around his neck as her lips brushed his bruised ear and her pink cat’s tongue darted in and she whispered words that brought a burning to the back of his scalp. He tore her panties away as she fell into the water, gasping or crying, he wasn’t sure which, her breasts and the small curve of her belly rising slick from the surface of the spring. Then he was in her and her legs were locked over the small of his back as they found their rhythm and the water rose and fell around them, crashing against the sand like the surf of the world’s dawn.
Later, de Vaca looked over at Carson, lying naked on the wet sand.
“I don’t know whether to stab you or fuck you,” she said, grinning.
Carson glanced up. Then he rolled toward her, ‘raising an arm to gently smooth a tangle of black hair that had fallen across her face.
“Let’s have another go at the latter,” he said. “Then we’ll talk.”
The dawn turned to noon, and they slept.
Carson was flying, soaring above the desert, the twisted ribbons of lava mere specks beneath him. He struggled higher, lifting himself toward the hot sun. Ahead, a huge narrow spire of rock thrust itself up from the desert, ending in a sharp point miles above the sands. He tried to crest the point, but it seemed to grow as he climbed, taller and taller, reaching for the sun. ...
He awoke with a start, heart racing. Sitting up in the cool darkness, he looked out at the mouth of the cave, then back toward its dim interior, as the realization that had escaped him earlier burned its way into him like a firebrand.
He stood, put on his clothes, and stepped outside. It was almost two o’clock, the hottest time of the day. The horses had recovered well, but would need to be watered once more. They’d have to leave within the hour if they wanted to make Lava Gate by sunset. That would get them to Lava Camp by midnight, or perhaps a little later. They would still have thirty-six hours to get their information into the hands of the FDA before the scheduled releas
e of PurBlood.
But they couldn’t leave. Not yet.
Turning to the horses, he tore two strips of leather from the saddle rigging. Then he gathered up an armful of mesquite sticks and dead creosotebush, which he arranged into two tight bundles. Lashing the bundles together with the leather strips, he turned and walked back toward the cave.
De Vaca was up and dressed. “Afternoon, cowboy,” she said as he entered the cave.
He grinned and approached her.
“Not again,” she said, poking him playfully in the stomach.
He leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “Al despertar la hora el águila del sol se levanta en una aguja del fuego.”
“At dawn the eagle of the sun rises on a needle of fire,” she translated, a puzzled expression on her face. “That was the legend on Nye’s treasure map. I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it today.”
She looked at him a moment, frowning perplexedly. Then her eyes widened. “We saw an eagle this morning,” she said. “Silhouetted against the rear of the cave by the dawn sun.”
Carson nodded.
“That means we’ve found the place—”
“—The place Nye has been searching for all these years,” Carson interrupted. “The location of Mondragón’s gold.”
“Only he was off by almost a hundred miles.” De Vaca glanced back into the darkness. Then she turned toward Carson. “What are we waiting for?”
Carson lighted the end of one of the bundles, and together they moved back into the recesses of the cave.
From the large pool where it emerged out of the earth, the spring flowed back into the cave in a narrow rivulet, sloping downward at a slight angle. Carson and de Vaca followed its course, peering into the ruddy gloom created by the torch. As they approached the rear wall of the cave, Carson realized it was not a wall after all, but a sudden drop in the level of the ceiling. The floor of the cave dropped as well, leaving a narrow tunnel through which they had to stoop. In the darkness ahead, Carson could hear the sound of splashing water.
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