Wasteland of Flint

by Thomas Harlan

  Frowning a little at the nauallis, who had folded his arms over his chest and gone back to sleep, Gretchen tucked the flint into one of the cargo pockets built into her vest. Closing her eyes brought on a surging sense of drowsiness, but she soldiered on, letting her hands drift across the ground, letting her slow, crawling motion carry her wherever it would.

  A little later, after cracking her head painfully against a boulder, Gretchen gave up the search as a bad job and crawled into the tent. Hummingbird was fast asleep, his partially detached breather mask serving as an echo chamber for a snuffling kind of snore. Gretchen made a disgusted face at him, then collapsed on her own sleepbag, utterly spent.

  "This just isn't the same," Gretchen said, late in the afternoon, as she and Hummingbird were eating again, waiting for the sun to set and the air to chill enough to fly. "There's no campfire to sit around. No flickering light on the cave walls, no darkness beyond the firelight, filled with strange sounds ... the gleam of eyes as hunting cats prowl by."

  Hummingbird grunted, sucking the last of a puce-colored threesquare from its tube. Gretchen had not offered to share any of her tabasco, drawing an aggrieved look from the old man. "Our common ancestors," he said, wiping his lips, "would not have considered such a scene 'homey' or 'nostalgic'. The cough of a jaguar in the night was a cause for terror, not comfort."

  "I suppose." Gretchen was kneeling in the knocked-down tent, rolling up her sleepbag. "So—I didn't find an improper stone this morning—should I look again?"

  Hummingbird raised an eyebrow at her and then laid a finger on his temple. "Really?"

  Gretchen rubbed her brow, then winced to feel the bump from running into the boulder. "Well, I guess ... say, how long will it take me to learn the good stuff?" She started to grin. "Like flying or throwing lightning from my hands or changing into an animal, like in the old tales?"

  "I do not teach such things!" Hummingbird snapped, suddenly angry. His face compressed into a tight frown and Gretchen moved back involuntarily. "The way of the tlamatinime is subtle, balanced. We follow the line of the earth, we do not break balance or distort what is."

  "Oh." Anderssen eyed him warily, seeing an unexpected, fulminating anger shining in his lean, wrinkled old countenance. "Not a problem. I understand."

  "I doubt that," the Méxica growled, rising abruptly. "You've plighted troth to a science which barely acknowledges balance at all—much less attempts to move in accord with that which is."

  "Wait a minute," Gretchen said, her own anger nettled by the fury in his voice. "Science seeks to understand, not to destroy. I was joking, old crow, joking." She paused, a flicker of doubt crossing her face. "Are there ... there aren't judges who can fly, are there?"

  Hummingbird looked away, attention fixed on the horizon, where the sun was sliding down toward night, a huge red-gold disk with wavering purple edges.

  "No," he said after a moment. A hand waved negligently at the Midges parked in the shade. "Though we fly ourselves, with some help. But your science ..." He sighed.

  "I don't understand," Gretchen said, trying to keep from sounding antagonistic. "The more we learn, the fuller our understanding grows, the better mankind can exist in this universe. We learn, old crow, our science learns."

  "No. No, it does not." Hummingbird rubbed the edge of his jaw, lips pursed, staring at her in an appraising way. "Your science ... your science is about control, Anderssen-tzin, not about understanding. Now, listen to me before you raise your voice in defense of the beast which whelped you! I have met many of your colleagues; on Anáhuac, in the orbital colonies, on the frontier worlds. There are men and women among their number I admire. Many of them mean well. My quarrel is not with these people, but with the doctrine they serve."

  "What?" Gretchen fell silent as Hummingbird raised a hand sharply, though her eyes narrowed in irritation.

  "The basis—the seed, the root, the wellspring—of your science, Anderssen-tzin," he said, settling down to the ground, legs crossed, "is to make things happen the same way not just once, not twice, but a thousand times. It is to learn enough, discover enough, to allow a human being to control the processes of the universe. From sparking fire to forging a bronze knife to making a reliable breather mask." Hummingbird tilted his head a little to one side, amusement glinting in his dark eyes. "Isn't that the heart of your science? The evolution of a hypothesis into a theory? The definition of fact? Of scientific truth?"

  "No," Gretchen said, feeling like she'd stumbled into a first-term philosophy class. "You're confusing the goal of engineering with the process of science. And not the first person to do so, either." She sniffed, tilting up her nose. "Engineering is about reliability and process control—but science ... science is about learning why things work, not just how. Science ... She paused, failing to wrestle her words into something succinct and pithy. "Our science is just like your seeing, but born from the mind, from logic, not from an organic alkaloid."

  Hummingbird grunted dismissively. "Logic is the construct of a human mind and prey to every failing thereof. The universe around us is not logical, not at its heart."

  Gretchen's nose twitched, as at a foul smell. "There is always accident, chaos, uncertainty."

  "Yes," Hummingbird said, starting to smile. "There is. The bane of your mechanistic technology—the enemy of order, the devil which must always be pursued, always driven out. Consider, Anderssen-tzin, if you turn in a dig report which is incomplete, which leaves data unaccounted for, analysis undone—is your supervisor pleased? Does he laud your efforts?"

  "No." Grimacing, she made a so-what motion with her hand. "So we chase something unattainable—is that bad? Is that something to deride or disparage? You're pleased enough to ride in an aircraft which will work reliably! Disorder is no friend of humanity."

  Hummingbird's head rose at her words and a calculating, weighing expression came into his lean old face. "Do you think so?"

  Gretchen nodded, tapping her recycler. "Yes, I'd rather be able to see another sunset than choke to death on my own waste."

  "There is a difference," Hummingbird said quietly, "between the individual and the race." He paused and the hiss-hiss of his air tube being idly bitten filled the comm circuit. "Are you familiar with the mortality rate among infants on planets newly colonized by the Empire? The so-called Lysenko effect?"

  "Yes." Gretchen could not keep a dubious tone from her voice. Though the scientists on Novoya Rossiya were good Swedes, she did not agree with all of the work being done there. "Death rates among the first generation of colonists are high, but not unduly so for a new world being opened. First Settlement is dangerous work. But the second and third and fourth generations suffer from an incredibly high death rate among the young—sometimes as high as eighty percent. After the fifth generation, if the colony has managed to survive, the mortality rate begins to drop, eventually approaching, but never matching the Anáhuac baseline."

  Hummingbird nodded. "This has been the focus of great debate. Many scientists have urged genetic modification of the colonists to better fit the parameters of their new worlds, so more children would survive."

  "Yes, I have heard of this." Gretchen watched him carefully. As a rule, the Great Families did not colonize other worlds themselves, though they financed many settlements. The landless were sent out in their stead. There was great social and economic pressure on the macehualli to gain a landholding, even at great risk. She had reviewed the literature herself, in grad school. Millions had died. "The Empire has steadfastly refused."

  Hummingbird smiled at the bitterness in her voice. The flat golden light of the setting sun gleamed on his high cheekbones. "I will tell you a small secret, Anderssen-tzin. Nearly a hundred years ago, when this trend had repeated for the fourth time, the Emperor decreed that this thing, this genetic modification, would be attempted. A world called Tecumozin was selected and a generation of humans was pre-adapted for life thereupon."

  "And?"

  "They thrived for a time—two,
three generations. Then a plague brewed up among them, something attacked the modifications which had been made to their core DNA. The entire colony was lost. The Emperor was perturbed and listened to us, the naualli, for a change." A brief flicker of irony colored his words. "A judge was sent and he went among the ruins, watching quietly and listening. What he found can—could—be best expressed as the planet being angry with the colony. No accord had been reached between the men who settled there and the fabric of the world around them. They had tried to gain power over it, recklessly. Very foolish."

  "What do you mean?" Gretchen was disturbed. Every planet she had visited had held a particular, unique feeling or atmosphere. Ugarit was clearly different from Old Mars, but she had never thought of it as being "angry."

  "What I mean is this; the race of man may come to thrive on an alien world, but he must reach a balance, he must pay a price for life within its shelter, and the price is blood. This is old, old knowledge among the Méxica: All human life is sustained by the sacrifice of a few. In your terms, in the context of your science, the colonists needed to adapt in subtle ways to their new home. This is a delicate process and many die, unable to exist in the new environment. But a few live and prosper. And their children have found a balance with the new world. Your science is not subtle enough to rush the process, but we are a hardy race and teoatl, the fluid of life, is the opener of the way."

  Hummingbird fell silent, watching her.

  Gretchen stiffened, his words triggering a flowering of thought in her mind. Bits and pieces of studies she had read, personal experiences, stories heard around dig campfires, even the echoes of the old Church coalesced. "The Emperor sleeps soundly at night, does he, knowing the Empire is built on the bones of children?"

  "This is the way it has always been. I hope it will always be so."

  Gretchen felt sick, but there was a certain, cold sense to his viewpoint. To think progress could be gained free of cost, without struggle, was a child's daydream. She put down her tea, a sort of lost, distraught expression creeping into her face.

  "You would let a station die—even if there were thousands of people aboard—to stop some kind of... infection .. . from entering the Empire. You'd just let them die. You'd let me die."

  Hummingbird nodded. Gretchen felt his calm gaze like an iron band tightening around her heart.

  "I would trade many lives to save our race," he said with a perfectly grim certainty. "A hand, any eye, a limb—as long as mankind survives, my work is done. An old man said this, long ago: 'It is not true we come to this earth to live. We come only to sleep, only to dream. Our body a flower, as grass becomes green in spring. Our hearts open, give forth buds, then wither.' So did Tochihuitzin say, and his words are as true today as they were then."

  Gretchen's mouth twisted into an expression of complete disgust. "You're... you're not interested in justice at all. You're no more than an antibody!"

  "Hah!" A sharp laugh escaped the old man. He grinned, teeth very white in the dim light beneath the overhang. "I am. A good word to describe what must be done for our tribe to survive. An antibody." He laid back down, chuckling to himself.

  ABOARD THE PALENQUE

  Parker ran his finger up a control gauge on the main pilot's panel and felt a subdued, distant roar shiver through the frame of the ship. "Commencing turnover," he announced on the public comm. "We are in z-g for sixty-five seconds."

  The navigational display showed the Temple-class starship begin to tumble in place, a constellation of maneuvering drives on the engineering ring blazing with light. Parker watched silently, chewing on a rolled-up tube of plastic he'd scavenged from Anderssen's kit. Tastes better than the tabac, he thought, feeling a twinge of nervous urgency. His medband beeped sullenly, refusing to dispense more nicotine into his system. The pilot scratched at a red abrasion along the edge of the silver unit. Freakin' company medical policy... it's my religious right. Goddamit.

  "Turnover complete," he said, sliding the maneuver drive control back to zero. Another set of readouts was rapidly spiraling down to nothing as the ship completed the roll. The flare of exhaust guttered out, equalizing the ship's forward momentum. Parker grunted in satisfaction. "Ship at... full stop. Main engines zero thrust. Maneuvering drives zero thrust."

  The view in the main display had shifted, following the rotation of the ship, and a red spark glowed among black velvet and diamonds. Parker dialed up the magnification, causing the half-disc of Ephesus Three to swim into closer view. "Better."

  He turned, looking over his shoulder at the captain's station. Magdalena was barely visible, hunched down in her nest of blankets and quilts, only the thin yellow slits of her eyes viable. "Orders, mon capitaine?" Parker tried to look properly attentive, which was difficult given his unshaven face, sallow complexion and weary, fatigue-smudged eyes.

  "I'm not the pack leader," she hissed in response. Her fur was getting matted too. "But we should stay."

  "Okay," Parker said amiably. "I can nudge us into a long parking orbit, maybe spiral us back in a little bit at a time."

  Commander's privy comm made an abrupt squeaking sound and Magdalena swung her chair around, scanning the feeds from various shipboard cameras. "Isoroku is coming topship," she said briskly, the tight fur around her nose wrinkling up. "With one of the Marines. Fitzsimmons."

  "Starting delay one," Parker replied, as he tapped a series of glyphs on his panel, initiating a detailed diagnostic test of the ship's hyperspace generators. "That's four hours at least."

  Magdalena was also in motion, keying a private channel to their Welshman, who appeared on camera in the mess area of the habitat ring. Several of the scientists were also in the galley, trying to make an appetizing lunch from Fleet emergency rations and the remains of expedition supplies. "Bandao-tzin—Isoroku is heading to the bridge. He won't be happy we haven't left the system yet—see if you can locate Heicho Deckard. I can't find him on camera."

  The gunner set down a cup of coffee and nodded, though he did not look up at the overhead. Instead, he said good-bye to Doctor Sinclair and wandered out into the main accessway, hands in the pockets of his jacket. Magdalena hoped he could run down the stray Marine quickly. She was a little on edge to be letting them run loose in the pack-ship.

  The main door into the bridge cycled open, letting light from the access tube spill across a deck still showing gaping holes from their efforts to replace the damaged conduits. Magdalena wiped her hand across the surveillance v-panes and the entire panel went dark. She and Parker looked up with interest as Thai-i Isoroku pulled himself through the hatchway and kicked off to reach the edge of the command station. The Marine gunso followed, his hair a black, oily cloud behind his head, barely restrained by a snakeskin strap. Maggie thought Fitzsimmons looked a little worn down by the effort restoring the engineering deck to service, though she supposed he might be worrying a little bit about Golden-hair. As he should!

  "Repairs are complete." Isoroku's voice was gravelly and unused to conversation. He stared at Parker with narrow eyes, stonelike features showing nothing but incipient displeasure. "Transit status?"

  "Running a preflight check right now," Parker said, concentrating on his control panel. "Should be finished in three, four hours."

  "A waste of time," the engineer growled. "We've just finished tuning and adjusting every downside system—there's no reason to test them all again!"

  "Procedure," Magdalena said, avoiding Fitzsimmons's searching gaze. The Marine was frowning a little and trying to get a good look at her control panel. "I'm sure everything will go smoothly with the test."

  Isoroku turned his stone-hard expression on her and the Hesht felt a shiver of adrenaline. By conscious effort, she kept her ruff from stiffening, though facing a member of a strange pack without the restraining ritual of meeting-with-claws-sheathed made her queasy. "Our orders are to make transit from this system," the engineer said in a harsh voice, "for Ctesiphon Station as soon as possible. Both the main drive and the hyp
er-space gradient generator are now in working order. Pilot, have you plotted an entry vector and course?"

  "He has not," Magdalena said, before Parker could reply. Her ears flattened back against her skull. She took care to speak slowly and carefully. "We are in no hurry, Isoroku-tzin. Nothing untoward has occurred on Ephesus Three or in the outer system. We are now at minimum safe distance for a transit, which means we can make gradient to hyperspace in minutes."

  "We have our orders," the engineer said, a slight tic starting under one bloodshot eye. "The tlamatinime was very clear in his desire. This ship is to leave immediately. The Cornuelle will be following us with all speed."

  "I understand your desire to rejoin your crew," Magdalena said, feeling her limbs tremble with the prickling rush of J hunting-blood. "But I will not abandon my pack-leader in the midst of a desert with no hope of retrieval. The Cornuelle—'

  "—will pick them up," Isoroku said in a sharp tone. He pulled himself sideways to the end of the command panel. Magdalena's chair turned smoothly, following him. Both of her hands—hidden under the blankets—flexed, claws sliding in and out of bony sheaths of cartilage. Deep grooves were already cut in the fabric.

  "If they can," Magdalena said, black lips curling back from shining white teeth. "Yet the long-fang is far away, hunting among the flying mountains, farther than we from the planet. If something happens, then chaguh Hadeishi will have to race back at full acceleration to succor my pack-leader and your judge. The eldest-and-wisest wanted us to be quiet, Isoroku-tzin." She smiled, showing triple rows of curving white teeth. "Heshatun know something about being quiet. We will wait out here, for a few days, and see what happens."

  "Our orders—" Isoroku's voice rose appreciably, twin spots of color appearing on his pockmarked cheeks.

  "Are not valid aboard this ship," Magdalena hissed, body stiffening. "This is a civilian ship, not Fleet. Our salvage papers have been properly filed. You are our guests."