by Linda Nagata
“Lot!” Alta’s tinny voice came to him from the suit’s hood. “Are you okay?”
Not really. He ached all over, and his leg was still numb. But he didn’t want to admit that to her. So he pulled his hood partially up, activating his radio, and in a show of bravado he called out, “Next time, remind me to fix my anchor before I jump.”
“Lot!” she shouted. “Can you hear me?”
He sighed. Perhaps they couldn’t hear his transmission with their hoods down and the noise of the waterfall so close. Or maybe his radio wasn’t sending anymore. He waved to them, to signal that he’d heard.
As they continued their descent, he spent a minute listening to the forest. All he could hear over the mutter of the waterfall was an insect chittering. If insect was the right word. He slipped out of his pack and scooted back down into the water.
Slow green ripples marched across its surface, and it was icy cold. He hadn’t noticed that before. Still, he slid all the way in, until the water was over his head. He could both feel and hear the boiling pulse of the waterfall. He let the current work past his face, ease through his hair, sweep away the bitter acid and his own last lingering expectations.
The Well had tried to kill him—and not with anything as sophisticated as a governor. Macro-scale life could be fatal too. He would be dead now, if Sypaon had not given him a moment to leap away.
The Well was deadly. Kona had said so a hundred times.
Where was the harmony Jupiter had promised? Where was the communion? Surely not in the belly of a radial snake.
He popped back up to the surface, then stroked awkwardly toward the shallows. His lower leg remained immobile, but he could feel a heat working inside it now as his medical Makers rushed to repair the damage.
When he could balance against the bottom, he cupped his hands and scooped at the water, watching the afternoon light play upon the liquid. It didn’t look like regular water. It was tinted a soft green and seemed too viscous, almost gooey as it settled in the reservoir of his palms. He held it to his lips and drank a tentative sip. Cold and slick, with a slight, sweet taste. He drank more, then crawled out on the rock and sat in the liquid afternoon light, contemplating the strangest fact of the day:
The serpent had reacted to the assault Maker in much the same way as his own body, sloughing off the infected tissue to limit the reaction. Was it the bloody Chenzeme influence again? In the Well; in him; in Jupiter. Why?
Urban and Alta were finishing their descent, coming down on the farside of the pond. While they worked their way through the vegetation to the water’s edge, Lot squeezed the seam of his suit, opening it in a line from his throat to his belly. He shrugged out of the sleeves. Kheth’s warm rays played against the bronzy skin of his back and chest.
He thought about going in the water again, then decided to scrounge in his pack instead, pulling out a smashed ahuacatl. He scooped at the browning pulp with two fingers. On the other side of the pond, Urban squatted at the water’s edge, and grinned. “I never knew nirvana could be so exciting.”
Alta stood behind him, her face pale, her eyes still wide with lingering fear. “Are you okay?” she asked again.
Lot shrugged. He ate another bite of ahuacatl, then said, “Leg’s kind of numb. I think it’ll fix.”
She couldn’t let it go. “It almost killed you!”
“Guess it was hungry.”
She didn’t appreciate the humor, and suddenly he was glad they had a body of water between them. “Dammit Lot! What’s the matter with you?”
He scooped at the ahuacatl’s mushy green flesh, his hunger a never-declining demand. “You know,” he mused, “we could have just missed the door to nirvana. What if it was through the belly of that snake?”
She didn’t bother to answer that, just dropped her pack in the bushes before stomping to the end of the pond, where she sat down with her back turned toward him. Her anger boiled like mist off the waterfall.
Urban frowned after her, seeming perplexed. But he let it go and turned to Lot. “So where to, fury? Got any ideas? I don’t think we’re going to find our way back to that road.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lot said. “The road ended at the top of the ridge.”
Urban laughed shortly, then turned to fish an ahuacatl out of his backpack. Lot tossed him a smashed one instead. “My load didn’t come through too well. Better eat it first.”
Urban made a face at the damaged fruit, but he took a tentative bite. Lot didn’t try too hard to dodge the sudden rise of bitter feelings. “Oh yeah, and here’s one for your girlfriend,” he said, lobbing another ahuacatl across the water.
Urban scrambled to catch it with his free hand. He gave Lot a long, cool look, then called to Alta, tossing the fruit in her direction. “It happens sometimes, fury. It’s nobody’s fault.”
Down the valley, the edge of Kheth’s disk had been cut off by the peak of a jagged ridge. Lot reached into his pack and pulled out a lychee, feeling his bitterness coil upward like cool steam into the dying afternoon. “Jupiter’s out there. I caught his trace up on the ridge, just before the serpent hit. Only …”
He frowned at Urban. How to explain? “It wasn’t really him, I … don’t think.” Alta had turned around. She stared at him, raw anticipation shoving her anger aside. “It felt too … too distinct, maybe. Almost artificial. Like a lure?”
“He could have changed,” Urban said. “That’s what he came here for.”
“I guess.” Lot didn’t feel sure of anything anymore. “Anyway, it’s something to follow.”
CHAPTER
25
DAYLIGHT WAS FADING BY THE TIME THEY REACHED the valley’s end. They stood at the head of a six-foot waterfall, looking out over an eroded volcanic crater, its gray walls forming a shallow ring around a plain of low-growing tussocks and sedges and the odd green globular plants. Shadows ran long across the level ground. But where Kheth’s light still reached, tiny white diamonds glinted within the green and bronze turf. “Weird,” Urban said. “Looks like a park, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
The stream dropped into a small splash pool that had no obvious outlet. Lot leaned forward, gauging the distance to the opposite shore. He could jump that far.
He was eager now to get out of the highlands. All during the hard scrabble down the valley, as he’d limped over the slow repair of his knee, Jupiter’s presence had continued to brush him, sweeping past in irregular wisps, mingled with a sensory packet that brought him a salt scent he’d never smelled before. In his ears he could half-hear the purring sound of waves on rocks, just as he’d heard it at times in the VR. He was being called to the ocean. There was something here that was aware of him, that expected him. A straw to grasp. He wanted to find it.
So he jumped first, going long over the tiny splash pool and into the tussocks beyond, landing so most of his weight was taken by his good leg. Green water splashed up around him, splattering the leggings of his suit, and he sank calf-deep into a soft, boggy turf. He looked down in surprise, to discover green water gradually pooling around his legs. “This place is like a sponge!”
“Can you get out?” Urban asked. He crouched anxiously at the top of the falls. “We could throw you a cord.”
“No, I think it’s okay.”
Carefully, he pulled out first one foot, then the other, stepping lightly onto the center of a large tussock. He sank only a few inches this time, the water lapping over the toes of his boots. “The splash pool must have saturated the ground all around here.” He bounced up and down on the springy surface. “This is really weird.”
“I’m coming down.” Urban and Alta climbed down the rockface, then waded through the shallow pool.
Lot had already started hobbling across the crater, making a line for the far wall. A flock of four-legged, scarlet avians startled at his approach, blasting into the air with a noise like farts, leaving an equally foul odor behind them. Other flocks winged past overhead.
The light
faded abruptly as Kheth dropped below the crater rim. Long shadows weighted the tussocks, and the brassy afternoon sky swiftly gave way to mild pink and then deep, deep blue. The elevator column still had the light, and as the illumination on the ground faded, it gleamed like an optical fiber, with a pearly luminescence. Though they’d been walking away from it for hours, it still seemed to be almost directly overhead. Now that the day’s glare had faded, Lot could see the swollen joint of the city, with a few stars emerging from the nebula’s veil.
“Lot.”
Alta stood close at his side, her breath laced through with nervous tension. She touched his elbow. “Did you see that over there? What is that?”
She pointed tentatively, as Urban puffed up on her other side. Lot looked in the indicated direction, but saw only a mound of upthrust soil. He’d seen many like it as they’d followed the stream. He hadn’t thought much about it. He’d seen the same thing that day he’d run the warden, and no one had suggested then the structure held any interest.
“Use IR,” Alta said.
The shadows were deepening, the land rapidly yielding its heat to the atmosphere. Lot blinked until his visual receptivity expanded far down the spectrum. The bog glowed softly warm, but brighter still was the mound. Its heat signature outshone even Alta’s mammalian intensity. “That’s not just soil,” Lot muttered. It wasn’t a plant either.
He started toward it. Alta hesitated only a moment, then followed. Urban swung wide, to come at it from the side.
It proved to be thigh-high, almost circular, and nearly five feet across. Like all the other mounds Lot had seen that day, it neither moved nor gave any other hint that it was aware of their approach.
The day’s light had faded further. Now Lot could make out a temperature gradient in the mass, zones that varied in warmth by two or three degrees. He crouched beside it. Water puddled in his footprint, and where the edge of the puddle touched the mound’s base, the water began to steam.
In the cooling air, Lot could feel the heat radiant against his face, probably fifteen degrees above human body normal. He reached out a gloved hand and tentatively touched the mound. Alta gave a small gasp, but the mound made no response.
Lot pressed against it. It felt spongy beneath his fingers. He pressed harder, driving his fingers into its tissue. He heard a faint hiss. A noxious odor exploded under his nose. He whirled away, an incoherent bellow ripping out of his throat. He was vaguely aware of Urban and Alta running, a fact registered and swiftly forgotten as a fiery pain swept across his eyes and his sensory tears. He tripped and went down, water splashing up on his face. It cooled the heat.
He pressed his face against the turf, scooped water from the hollows of his footprints and rubbed that against his cheeks while an uncontrollable stream of childish imprecations ran past his lips, “I hate this place, I hate this fucking, dirty place …”
Urban squatted next to him, chuckling softly. “Well gee, fury, you didn’t like that smell?”
“Fuck off.” He was still dabbing water at his cheeks, but the burn had mostly faded.
“Let me see.”
“It’s almost fixed.” But he tilted his face up anyway, so Urban could check it out.
“Wow, your Makers are blazing.” Urban watched for several seconds. “You’re right, though. It’s fading.” He cocked an eyebrow at Lot. “You want to curb your curiosity a little?”
Lot looked back over his shoulder. The mound still glowed, an organic factory of unknown purpose. Alta had approached it again. She stood a few feet off, staring at it, an air of expectation rising from her. Maybe she sensed his gaze, because she looked at him then. “How did it know what chemicals to hit us with? That was the worst stink I ever smelled, but it didn’t stir up my defensive Makers at all.”
“It’s got a good defense,” Urban said. But Lot sensed uncertainty behind his words.
“Or maybe it’s adapted to people?” she asked softly.
“Yeah. Anyway, we’re not supposed to touch it.”
Lot stared at it too, feeling curiosity stir again. Not supposed to was sometimes pretty hard to distinguish from Gotta try it.
He started to pull his hood on. He could protect his eyes and his face while he took the thing apart—
“Uh-uh, fury.” Urban caught his wrist. “Just let it go. You’ve got Jupiter in your sights. Let the exploring come later.”
“But it’ll be at our backs,” Lot argued. “We don’t know—”
“Yeah, that’s right. We don’t know anything. So walk softly. Speak softly. Don’t pick any fights. Okay?”
Lot twisted his arm out of Urban’s grip. He wanted to attack the mound again, just to see if he could, just to try to wrest one small victory out of this miserable day. But he knew Urban was right. “Okay. Let’s get going, then.”
Alta was making her way back toward them. “It’s night. Maybe we should sleep.”
“Here?”
“Yes. It’s a good place. It’s open. We could hear things, see things coming.”
Lot looked again at the mound.
“And we can keep an eye on it,” Alta admitted.
Lot climbed to his feet, suddenly aware of his fatigue. And hungry again. The fruit wasn’t a very concentrated source of calories. “Maybe we should move a little farther away.”
They found an elevated site, where several tussocks had grown together to form a platform slightly higher than the water level. Lot blinked his vision back to native range, finding comfort in the darkness. They ate more rambutan and ahuacatl, and watched the gathering of stars overhead, and later, the swan burster rising over the crater rim. It looked like a thin gold rod when it first appeared. The color startled him, and he wondered if something critical had changed. But as it climbed out from behind low layers of obscuring atmosphere, it regained its perfect white surface.
Sypaon had saved his life on the road today. Why? Why had she even noticed his absence from the city? He looked at Urban. “You know that warden we smashed on the elevator car? I bet that was Sypaon too.”
“You think she’s keeping authority off our backs?” Urban asked. He lay with his head pillowed on a tussock, one arm around Alta as she snuggled against his shoulder.
“Seems like it. If she commandeered all the wardens in this area …”
“How many do you think there are?” Alta asked.
“Dunno.” He looked at Urban. “Not too many, I guess.”
“Don’t know how they make more, though.”
“Yeah.” When it came right down to it, they didn’t know anything about anything. “I really miss Gent.”
“Sooth.”
Alta shifted, her eyes glinting in the ring light. “Have you sensed him at all, Lot?”
“No.”
Her disappointment gusted softly over him. “The fall would have shattered him.”
“Sure.”
“But there could have been something left.”
“Tissue remnants,” Urban mused. “But there would have been a lot of heat on impact. Information content scrambled. Some of his Makers might have survived, but they wouldn’t have enough information to rebuild.”
Lot again went over the sequence of events in his mind: the shock-blast of lightning that had driven him off the wall. Gent’s scramble to catch him. Gent gone.
Alta’s voice whispered softly in the night: “I know he couldn’t have survived it. But do you think there was enough left that … do you think he was brought into the Communion? Or some part of him. It was all he wanted, Lot. The harmony. The union Jupiter had found… .”
To become part of something bigger than one’s self. It was a desire that had burned across the Hallowed Vasties, fusing cultures into the singular organism of a precisely integrated cordon, only the oddballs left on the fringes, but they held the desire too. Or maybe the desire had flared again, under the tutelage of fear inspired by the Chenzeme. The Well was not a human thing, but that only made it grander. Shared biological histories defined t
he clade of species whose ancestors evolved on Earth, or the clade of species descended from the Chenzeme. But such distinctions became irrelevant in the Well, where peace was literally mixed between warring clades.
Lot said, “I think Gent’s been known to the Communion since he descended the elevator that day. I think we all have.”
The ring was beginning its turn from zero to one. Lot looked away from it, seeking Alta’s face in the darkness. She still cuddled close to Urban. But standing behind them was the dim suggestion of another figure. Lot started badly. He was on his knees before a rational thought could slide past his instinctive panic. Through the figure’s torso he could see stars, and the hard line of the distant crater wall. But slowly, slowly, the apparition gained definition. It began to glow with a faint blue luminescence. The strong legs, the muscular shoulders and powerful arms and the face: Gent’s own smooth features.
He heard a tiny cry from Alta.
It seemed perfectly formed. Each finger of each hand carefully distinguished. The nipples on his chest, the pattern of his abdominal muscles, the vertical line of hair beneath his belly button spreading in a patch across his groin and the complexities of his genitalia. His hair was not arranged in the ringlets Gent had worn. It was a short, unkempt mane. But the eyes were Gent’s: a perplexed concern glinting in the night. It looked so real.
But Lot knew it was not. He could get only mechanical snatches of human emotion from it, a subtler replay of the previous night. “It’s an illusion,” he whispered. “A phantom.”
“No!” That was Alta. She dove at the apparition. But as her outstretched hand swept its belly, it shattered, collapsing in a shower of unlinked, half-liquid molecules like a breached soap bubble. Alta’s raw scream echoed across the crater, “No!”
Urban was on his feet, shouting his own indignation. “What was that supposed to be?” He turned his frustration on Lot. “Who’s playing tricks on us?”
Lot settled back against the spongy ground, his heart still running double-time. “Maybe we bring it on ourselves.”