by John Varley
Everything else was gone.
Seventy-five years went by.
At the age of one hundred and three, Gaby Plauget died beneath the central cable of Tethys. She died horribly, painfully, of fluid building up in burned lung tissue.
Then came the biggest surprise of all. There really was a life after death. Gaea really was God.
She fought that notion all the way to the hub. She had seen her dead body lying there. She had become just a point of awareness, feeling nothing on a physical level. Disembodiment did not prevent her feeling emotions, though. The strongest one was fear. She regressed to her childhood, found herself reciting Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s and the Lord’s Prayer, imagined herself in the huge, cool, forbidding, and yet comforting space of the old cathedral, kneeling beside her mother, saying the rosary.
But the only cathedral was the living body of Gaea.
She had been taken, or moved, or spirited, or in some way transported to the hub, to the movie-set staircase she and Cirocco had climbed so long ago. It was deep in dust, and adorned with movie-set cobwebs draped artfully. She herself felt like a camera on a very steady dolly, moving without volition or control through the little Oz door off to one side and into the Louis XVI room which was an exact duplicate of a set from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was where she and Cirocco had first met the squat and dumpy old woman who called herself Gaea.
The gilt paint was peeling from the picture frames. Half the lights were out, or flickering. The furniture was frayed and sprung and musty. Sitting in a wobbly chair, her bare feet propped on a low table, staring at an ancient black-and-white television set and drinking beer from a bottle, was Gaea. She was shapeless as usual in a filthy gray shift.
Gaby, like everyone but the most fanatical, had envisioned a thousand possibilities for what life after death might be like, spanning the spectrum from heaven to hell. Somehow, this one had never come up.
Gaea turned slightly. It was like one of those arty films where the camera eye is supposed to represent a character, and the other players respond to it. She looked at Gaby, or at the locus of space where Gaby imagined herself to be.
“Do you have any idea the trouble you’ve caused me?” Gaea muttered.
No, I don’t, Gaby said. Though, when she thought about it, “said” was a pretty concrete verb for what she actually did. There was no sound involved. She did not feel lips or tongue move. No breath was taken into the lungs which, so far as she knew, still lay in the darkness beneath Tethys, clotted with phlegm.
But the impulse was like speaking, and Gaea seemed to hear.
“Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?” Gaea groused. “There are wheels within wheels, babe, to coin a phrase. Rocky was coming along nicely. What’s wrong with being a little drunk every so often?”
Gaby “said” nothing. “Rocky” was, of course, Cirocco Jones. And she had been more than a little drunk almost all the time. As for leaving it alone…
Cirocco might have. There was no way to be sure. Possibly forty or fifty years down the line she would have bestirred herself and tried to do something about the impossible situation that had driven her to drink. On the other hand, maybe it was possible for even an immortal to drink herself to death.
At any rate, it had been Gaby who finally pushed Cirocco into the first, tentative step of surveying the regional brains of Gaea, looking for hints of useful subversion, hoping to locate somebody who could serve as focus for Gaby’s planned Rebellion of the Gods.
It had earned her a nasty death.
“I had plans for that gal,” Gaea was saying. “Two or three more centuries…who knows? It might have been possible to tell her a few things. It might have been possible to…to make her understand…to admit what…” Gaea trailed off in disconsolate mutterings. Again, Gaby did not respond. Gaea glanced irritably at her.
“You’ve pissed me off,” she complained. “I never figured you for starting all this trouble. Tragic figure, that’s you. Following Rocky around with your little pink tongue hanging out, like a bitch in heat. It was a good role, Gaby, one you could have built a life around. I ain’t gonna forgive you for writing your own lines. Just where do you come off being the…” At a loss for words, Gaea hurled her beer bottle at a huge stain on the wall. There was a lot of broken brown glass heaped beneath the stain.
Gaea looked up again, with a wicked leer.
“I’ll bet you want some answers. I’m going to enjoy giving them to you. Here’s one, right here.” Gaea reached out—her hand blurring as it approached the Gaby/camera viewpoint—and came back holding a small, white, struggling thing with two legs and goggling eyes.
“Spies,” Gaea said. “This was yours. Sitting in your head for seventy-five years. How’d’ya like that? This is Stoolie. Rocky’s got one called Snitch. She doesn’t know about it, any more than you did. Everything the two of you did, it came right back to me.”
Gaby felt a bottomless despair. This must be hell.
“No, it isn’t. That’s all bunk, too.” Gaea paused long enough to squeeze the life from the squalling obscenity in her hand, then wiped the bloody mess on the arm of her chair.
“Life and death aren’t as important as you think. Consciousness is the real conundrum. Your awareness of yourself as a living being. You remember dying, you think you remember floating up through space till you got here, not so very long ago. But time is tricky on this level. So is memory. You aren’t a spook, if that’s any consolation to you.
“I have you,” Gaea whispered, making a gesture much like the one she had used to crush the Stoolie. “I cloned you, I recorded you, I took everything there was of Gaby-ness about you when you first showed up here. Cirocco, too. Since then, I’ve been constantly updated by that little bastard in your head. I am not supernatural, I am not God, not in the way you think of God…but I am one hell of a magician. The question of whether you, Gaby Plauget, the little girl from New Orleans who loved the stars, really died down there in Tethys, is, in the end, philosophical hair-splitting. Not worth the effort. You know that the awareness I am now addressing is you. Deny it if you can.”
Gaby could not.
“It’s all done with mirrors,” Gaea said, shrugging it off. “If you had a ‘soul,’ then I missed it, and it’s floated off to your anthropomorphic-Catholic-Judeo-Christian ‘heaven,’ which I personally doubt, as I’ve never heard any radio stations broadcasting from there. Everything else of you, I own.”
What are you going to do with me? Gaby asked.
“Shit. I wish there was a hell.” She brooded in silence for a time. Gaby could do nothing but look on. Slowly, Gaea produced an expression that wan an awful hybrid of a grin and a sneer.
“Actually, though hell isn’t available, I have a reasonable facsimile. I don’t expect you’ll survive it.
“But I didn’t finish telling you why. Do you want to know?”
Gaby thought anything would probably be better than Gaea’s substitute for hell.
“You can say that again,” Gaea said. “Because you’ve ruined Rocky for me. Rocky was a genuine flawed heroine. I’ve been looking for one for millennia. Now, she’s still flawed, but she’s going to get some spine. Snitch can feel it building. She’s just finding out you’re dead. She isn’t sure I killed you, but near enough. Robin and Valiha and Chris are in deep trouble. They may not survive it. Right now, Rocky’s going to devote all her energy to saving their lives. Then…she’s going to come up here and declare war. This”—Gaea thumped her chest—“this incarnation of Gaea won’t survive it.” She shrugged. “That’s okay. I was getting tired of Mrs. Potatohead, anyway. I have some ideas for the next Gaea that might amuse you. But you won’t care. I’m through with you. You’re wasting my time.”
With that, Gaea had reached out and…grabbed the dream/locus that was Gaby. Things went black, then she found herself rising within the curved emptiness of the hub, rising toward a red line of light at the very top of the hub, a line she and Cirocco had seen
when they first stepped out….
It’s all a dream, she reminded herself. That conversation never happened, not on a physical level. Gaea had all Gaby’s memories, and was capable of making new ones on the computer-program/memory-matrix that was all that was left of Gaby, who used to be flesh and blood. So this is all illusion. She is doing something to me, but I am not flying up into the air, I am not plunging into that swirling maelstrom which I have always known, in my heart, is the mind of this thing called Gaea….
***
One thought protected her. One notion clutched tightly in the midst of chaos prevented her from slipping from mania into insanity.
This is the twenty years, Gaby thought. I lived through it already.
***
In the red line, the speed of light was a local ordinance, a quaint regional phenomenon which could be a nuisance—like a cop hiding behind a billboard in a rural Georgia town—but which, with the proper bribes or enough horses under the hood, need not cause concern.
Take it a piece at a time. “Speed” depends on space and time. Neither were very important concepts in the Line. “Light” was complex and unnecessary parcels of massless wavicles, a by-product of living in the line, like sweat and feces. “Speed of light” was a contradiction in terms. How heavy is that day in the mountains when you built a campfire and saw a shooting star? What is the mass of yesterday? How fast is love?
The line extended all around the inner rim of Gaea, which, considered from an Einsteinian perspective, was a circle. The line was not circular. Seen against the backdrop of the inner rim, the line was thin. The line was not thin.
The line seemed to exist within the Universe. None of it extended outside the physical boundaries of Gaea, and Gaea was contained by the Universe; therefore, the line existed within the Universe.
The line was much bigger than the Universe.
In the end, the word “Universe” was unsuitable for use in a definition of the line. The concept of a naked singularity most closely approached the true nature of the line…and had little to do with it.
Things lived in it. Most of them were insane, as Gaea had intended Gaby to go insane. But Gaby kept holding to that thought: This is the twenty years. And: Cirocco will need me.
Slowly, cautiously, Gaby learned the nature of reality. She became as a God. It was pitifully inadequate—she had a lot of the Answers now, and knew that the Questions had never been phrased properly—but it was something. She would have been a lot happier living out the sort of script she had thought of as Life, but it was too late for that now, and she would accept what she must.
***
Cautiously, staying away from that dominant presence she knew as Gaea, Gaby began to look out of the line.
She saw Cirocco arrive in the hub, saw the bullets tear into the thing that called itself “Gaea,” felt the much more interesting series of changes pass through the entity she knew as Gaea, and grew thoughtful. There was a possibility there….
She thought about it for a moment that turned out to be five years long.
She realized she could not endure much longer in this place. Gaea had not made it here, though a part of her remained in the line. Gaby must do the same thing if she were to survive. Carefully, trying not to alert Gaea, she disengaged herself and moved her center of consciousness down to the rim. She saw Cirocco many times, and remained unseen.
She began to learn the ways of Magic.
Twenty-three
“Maybe she’s never coming,” Gaea said.
“You could be right,” Chris replied.
He dipped his scrubber into the soapy water, swished it around, and raised it again to the big, pink wall of flesh.
They were in the Bathhouse, which was simply one of the soundstages on the RKO lot which had been used for an Esther Williams spoof and then left idle for the task of Gaea’s Bath. The light was dim. The walls and ceiling were wood, the huge sliding doors closed. Somewhere hot rocks had been heaved into hot water, producing clouds of steam. Sweat poured off Chris and Gaea alike.
The scrubber was simply a big pushbroom with stiff bristles. Gaea’s hide, though soft to the touch, seemed unharmed by this implement, no matter how hard Chris used it. It was one of the minor mysteries.
A panaflex wandered by, scanned the scene, shot a few feet of film, and then drifted away.
“You don’t really think that,” Gaea said.
“You could be right,” Chris said, again.
Gaea shifted. Chris stood back, as any movement of Gaea’s bulk entailed hazards to normal folk who happened to be in the way.
She was reclining, face down, her head resting on her folded arms. She was in about two feet of water. When she settled down again her head was turned, and one massive eye tracked him. He was cleaning her right side, from the waist to the shoulder, working his way toward the upper arm. It would take him a while.
“It has been a long time,” Gaea went on. “What…eight months now?”
“Something like that.”
“Do you have any idea what she’s doing?”
“You know she was here twice. You know I wouldn’t tell you if I saw her again.”
“You are impertinent, but I love you. Anyway, I know she hasn’t been here.”
Which was true. She had warned him that that was the way it would be, but it was still hard. Chris was badly in need of moral support.
On the other hand, this job as bath attendant was not as bad as he had feared it would be. It was obviously intended to demoralize him. He did his best to let Gaea think it was working, dragging his way to and from work on those days when she called for a bath. But it was just a job. Once you got over the bizarre nature of it, it wasn’t much different than painting a house.
He worked his way along her side and down the outside of the arm, cleaned his scrubber again, and began rasping away at her elbow and upper arm.
“When she gets here…” he began, then trailed off.
“What?”
“What will you do to her?”
“Kill her. I’ve already told you that. Or try to, anyway.”
“You really think she has a chance?”
“Not much of a chance. She’s overmatched, wouldn’t you think?”
“Anybody can see that. Why don’t you just…go out and hunt her down? She couldn’t escape you for long, could she?”
“She’s very crafty. And my…sight doesn’t include her anymore. She worked that part of it very well.”
Gaea had made oblique references to blindness before. Chris didn’t know for sure, but suspected that was Snitch.
“Why do you hate her so much?”
Gaea sighed. The clouds of steam swirled violently.
“I don’t hate her, Chris. I love her dearly. That’s why I’m going to give her the gift of death. It’s all I have to give her, and it’s what she needs. I love you, too.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Yes. Unless Cirocco can save you. With you, death won’t be a gift.”
“I don’t understand the difference.”
“With you, it will be agony, because you’ll miss Adam’s love. You’re young, and nothing so good as Adam has ever happened to you.”
“I understand that part. I don’t understand why it’d be a favor to Cirocco.”
“I didn’t say favor. Gift. She needs it. Death is her friend. Death is the only way left for her to grow. She will never find love. But she can learn to live without it. I did.”
Chris thought about that, and decided to take a chance.
“You sure did. You substituted cruelty.”
She raised one eyebrow. Chris did not like to look into her eyes, even from a distance. There was too much ancient pain inside them. Evil, too, much, much evil…but he had started to wonder where evil comes from. Did one just decide to become evil? He doubted it. It must be a slow thing.
“Of course I’m cruel,” Gaea muttered, closing her eye again. “There is no possible way for you to ge
t the perspective on my cruelty, though. I’m fifty thousand years old, Chris. Cirocco is just over a hundred, and already feels things eating away at her soul. Can you imagine what I must feel?”
“You mean three million, not—”
“Of course. What was I thinking of. You can do my back now, Chris.”
So he got the stepladder and climbed up with his scrubber and a hose. Her back was soft and yielding under his bare feet. She purred like a cat when he scrubbed between her shoulderblades.
Twenty-four
Cirocco came out of the Fountain and stretched out on the sand. She closed her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them she was still on sand, but it was the fine black sand of the small lake where Gaby had made love to her on the day Adam was taken.
She turned her head, and saw Gaby standing beside her. She reached up and Gaby took her hand. Once more there was a feeling like being pulled away from a sticky surface, then she was on her feet. She hugged Gaby.
“You’ve been away so long,” Cirocco said, on the edge of tears.
“I know, I know. Too long. And we don’t have much time now, and there is much to see. Will you come?”
Cirocco nodded and, holding Gaby’s hand, followed her into the lake. She knew the water was shallow, yet felt the bottom drop away quickly until they were floating with just their heads out of the water. Gaby made a movement with her head, and they dived.
It wasn’t like swimming. They went straight down. Cirocco did not need to propel herself in any way; they simply moved. She could feel the water rushing past her.
And it wasn’t water. It was more like mud, like warm earth. This must be what a worm feels moving along underground, she thought. She remembered, long ago, struggling through the damp soil of Gaea toward the light: hairless, disoriented, frightened as a new-born babe. This wasn’t like that. There was no fear.