Earthweb

by Marc Stiegler

  And still the question reverberated in her mind. What were they going to do?

  * * *

  Reggie's trip from Laker's Inn to the Ng'eno residence was uneventful. Skycars crowded the air; periodically you could see one or another of them turn sharply as their proximity radars warned of a close approach. Cars were the first thing people bought with their newfound wealth, so Kisumu's skies were almost as busy as Colorado Springs, where the EDA had its headquarters.

  From the air Reggie could also see trains coming in from both directions on the Ugandan Railway. A fleet of ships steamed across the lake. Reggie wondered if Kisumu would still be here in a month. Could the enemy ship recognize this place as a potent military staging area? Would it blast Kisumu as one of its first actions?

  Of course, Reggie knew something Shiva did not know: that one single individual here in Kisumu personally threatened the giant warship more than all the equipment lifted from the drop port. And that person lived in a modest, red-brick, two-story house outside the bustle of the city. Reggie could see it as his skycar slowed to a hover near its roof.

  A plain-looking family car sat next to the landing pad. Everything about this dwelling seemed completely unremarkable, considering the abilities of the forecast trader who lived therein.

  Touchdown complete, Reggie headed for the front porch. The tall, ebony woman with short, kinky hair who opened the door looked substantially older than himself. This surprised him. He had dug out a little information on her on the Web, and Selpha's bio showed she had no more than two years on him. He recognized the suspicion in her eyes, though she gave him a tired smile. "Ms. Selpha Ng'eno?" he inquired.

  "Yes, Mr. Oxenford," she replied, clasping his hand in a firm grip. Her speech surprised him. Not only did her voice have a strong, even commanding tone, but it rose clear and beautiful . . . rather like his own, in fact. It was free of the twangy American accent so common in the world these days. He should have expected that . . . after all, she had learned English here in her native Kenya.

  Reggie smiled broadly. "I'm Reggie Oxenford. And I must say, it is delightful to find someone who speaks proper English, not that intolerable American slang."

  That drew a cough from Selpha he interpreted as a suppressed laugh. "English is the official language of Kenya," she said, "though it is a bit hard to keep up the tradition, with American so popular on the Web." She led him into the living room, where a younger woman stood smiling brightly. "Mr. Oxenford, this is my sister Dorothie."

  Reggie nodded to the girl. She was a beauty, with shoulder-length hair that curled rather than kinked, and smooth clear skin the same rich color as Selpha's. Only three years separated the sisters, yet they appeared to be from different generations.

  Dorothie cocked her head and inquired, "Would you like something to drink, Mr. Oxenford? It's a long trip from England." Dorothie spoke perfect American. Clearly a child of the new order.

  "That would be delightful. Some tea, perhaps?"

  A coldness permeated the room as Selpha and Dorothie exchanged glances. Reggie knew that somehow he had lost what little goodwill he had earned in the earlier exchange. Dorothie said apologetically, "We don't have tea here, Mr. Oxenford. Coffee, perhaps? Or a Coke?"

  "Coffee would be good. Thank you."

  Dorothie departed and Selpha stepped back into the role of hostess. "Please sit down," she said, pointing at a high-backed cream-colored chair.

  For the first time Reggie took a measure of the room. The chair appeared quite new, with hardly a hint of wear on the soft cloth. Indeed, everything in the room was new-ish. Suddenly Reggie understood the significance. "Did you buy this place about four years ago? After Shiva IV?"

  Selpha nodded. "Most astute, Mr. Oxenford. I bought it with our earnings, helping the Angels in the last go."

  "How did you do in the Angel One assault yesterday?" Blast, Reggie thought even as he said it. He was coming a bit too fast.

  Selpha looked away. "We certainly did better than the Angels themselves."

  Reggie took a deep breath. Somehow, he needed to get Selpha's trust if he was to achieve his goal. "It was quite terrible," he said softly, "I'm sorry I brought it up."

  Dorothie returned with coffee, some cookies, and a Coke for Selpha. She hurried from the room.

  Selpha spoke next. "I, uh, suppose I should apologize to you as well, Mr. Oxenford. About the tea."

  Reggie looked at her in surprise. "Not a spot of bother, Ms. Ng'eno. The coffee is delicious."

  "Yes, well . ." Selpha sat up straight, as if making a confession. "I should explain. You know we're from Kericho."

  Reggie nodded. "That was why I thought tea would be an easy choice, actually." Kericho's main claim to fame was still its tea, despite all the changes in Kisumu just a few miles away.

  "Well, I worked on the tea plantations for six years. It is not a pleasant memory. Tea is simply not allowed in my house."

  Reggie realized then that Selpha had probably grown up in a thatched hut, quite possibly married off at the age of twelve for a few cows. No wonder she looked older than her age. "Congratulations on your escape."

  "Thank the Earth Defense Agency."

  Reggie waited for her to elaborate. As the silence became awkward and Reggie decided to fill the void, Selpha continued. "After the Top Drop, Dorothie tricked me into learning how to use her palmtop, and I became the satlink admin for our village."

  Reggie nodded. "I see." That explained many things. Top Drop had been a part of the WebEveryWhere initiative. In parts of the world where the governments stole more than the bandits, and used even food as a tool of control, Earth Defense had bypassed them and dropped millions of palmtops from the air. Solar powered and capable of vocal as well as written communication, the palmtops did best with children, playing games with them till they learned to read, write . . . and eventually to do calculus. If Dorothie had had to trick Selpha into learning about computation and communication, Selpha had been right at the cusp of the change. The three years that separated the sisters was indeed the transition across generations. Reggie realized there was an award-winning story here, two women so close in age yet so far apart in the civilizations that controlled their formative years. By accepting the precious but difficult satlink admin job, Selpha had been able to shield Dorothie from the harshest truths of poverty as they climbed, together, into a brighter future. Dorothie's youthful nature stood as another testament to Selpha's formidable strength.

  Now he needed to somehow make Selpha understand him as he understood her. Perhaps telling her his goals would make the difference. "Please let me explain why this interview is so important to me."

  Selpha snorted. "You explained yourself in email reasonably well." She pointed a finger at him. "You're doing a series of Web pages on, what do you call them? Ah, yes– 'Unsung Heroes—Behind the Scenes in Earth Defense.' "

  Reggie winced at the sarcastic tone in her voice.

  "Maybe, Mr. Oxenford, the 'Unsung Heroes' are unsung because they want to be left alone."

  Reggie closed his eyes and prepared to try again. "It's true that I make my living as a journalist. But my series on 'Unsung Heroes' is more than just a commercial piece, Ms. Ng'eno. In my own way, I am trying to help defeat these bloody machines." He looked into her eyes. "The world needs more people like you. Out of the billions of people who have never submitted a solution to the prizeboards or offered a new prediction on the 'castpoints, there might be another person somewhere who can do what you do."

  Selpha smiled bitterly. "But if someone else could make the forecasts I make, I would be out of business, would I not?"

  "You wouldn't make as much money," he admitted. "But answer me this. Ms. Ng'eno, if you died, what would happen to Dorothie when Shiva VI came? If you hadn't warned Whitaker about the three minitanks of a new enhanced model, lurking in the materials storage room on Shiva IV , the whole team would have died right there."

  He paused; Selpha looked stricken. He continued, "Ms. Ng'eno,
if you insist, I will write a contract with you, right now, stating that I will not reveal your technique of forecasting until and unless you die or are mentally incapacitated. But please . . . tell me about your methods, or at least make sure someone else reliable knows it so that all of Earth will not lose it even if we lose you."

  Selpha slumped as she thought about the larger issues.

  Reggie pressed the attack. "You will not find a more reputable person in whom to trust your story. Let me show you." He pulled out his palmtop, and popped up a list of his recent publications. He moved, low and quick, to kneel beside her so she could see the display. "Please pick any of these articles at random, and examine the comment links. Most of these articles have actually been endorsed by the people described in them." He picked one from the middle of the screen, and showed her the endorsement and comment made by the interviewee.

  Selpha raised an eyebrow. "Does everyone endorse your pages, Mr. Oxenford?"

  He laughed. "Not everyone." He opened another page, and showed the ragingly hostile attack on him the subject of another article had made.

  Selpha stared at the comment. "Goodness," she muttered, "that is rather vehement."

  "Yes, but look at the comments the fellow has made about other biographers, and about other people in general." Reggie ran a search of the Web for other critiques with the same brand to show her a sampling. A blistering attack on a corner florist for a box of a dozen roses that had contained only eleven flowers nicely captured the fellow's temperament.

  "He rather seems permanently angry," she confessed.

  Reggie held up a hand. "Let me be very honest. I didn't go out of my way to mollify this poor chap, either. I try to write the truth, and that includes not sugar-coating the troubles a fellow has."

  Selpha smiled. "Do you ever make mistakes?"

  He snorted. "Of course. But," he played with the palmtop, "I correct them." On the screen she could see a correction link attached to one of the biographies, in which Reggie apologized for an error.

  "I know it's hard to trust reporters, but believe me, I'm the one for you." Reggie flashed a big smile up at her from his kneeling position. "Really. I'm the best!"

  At last Selpha laughed. "And modest, into the bargain. Very well. But I'm afraid my technique won't do you much good. Or anyone else, for that matter."

  Reggie's knees were starting to ache and so, having won the critical battle, he retreated to his chair. "Really? Your forecasting has something to do with sound analysis, right?"

  Selpha nodded. "Very astute again, Mr. Oxenford. We . . . analyze . . . sounds, and extract the nature of the objects involved from them."

  "I thought so. There were several interesting forecasts, like the one about the minitanks, and another about going clockwise to the nearest slidechute, that appeared on the 'castpoint shortly after sharp sounds echoed down the halls. And of course there were postings on the prizeboards requesting occasional sharp raps on the wall, which were new and rather unusual requests during the assaults on Shiva IV."

  "Those requests were ours," she admitted. "You missed a career as a forecast trader yourself, Mr. Oxenford."

  "Call me Reggie." He chuckled. "I had hoped that you had developed some new type of digital signal processor that did this analysis for you. But if no one else can duplicate your success, what is your secret? Do you just listen carefully?"

  "Not exactly. It's . . ." Selpha's shoulders slumped again. Somehow the answer caused her pain.

  "Do you want that contract from me now?" he offered.

  "No, it's just that . . ." She stopped again.

  The sound of a loud crash came from a back room. Selpha leaped to her feet, and Reggie followed her without invitation, hoping he wasn't intruding but determined not to let her escape now that he had her convinced.

  A left turn into the hallway and a right through double-wide arches led into a glassed-in rec room. The scene before him elicited puzzled anguish. A teenage boy lay huddled on the floor, shivering as if from an unknown ailment. Dorothie knelt beside him, her arms extended, her hands not quite touching the boy. A plastic globe of the Earth still rolled in a slow drunkard's walk across the hard floor. Selpha spoke to Dorothie rapidly in a language incomprehensible to Reggie.

  The boy spoke. "Plastic sphere. Hollow. Shell four millimeters thick. Bumps on the surface. Hit vinyl tile, two millimeters thick, on five-millimeter mahogany plywood backing, three centimeters from a steel cross-strut."

  It took Reggie a moment to realize that the boy had just told him Selpha's great secret.

  Selpha knelt by the boy and looked up at Reggie, once again filled with bitterness. "Reggie, meet my son, Peter."

  Not quite knowing what to do, Reggie knelt down as well and held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Peter."

  Peter did not respond.

  Selpha explained. "Peter is blind." Her hands clenched and unclenched. "He is also autistic." She looked at Reggie as if she had explained everything. Reggie's blank expression clearly told her she had not. "You may know that some autistic children can solve remarkable mathematical problems in their heads. They are known as 'idiot savants.' " Tears welled in her eyes. "My child is also an idiot savant, Mr. Oxenford. But he doesn't do math. He just listens."

  At last, Reggie understood.

  * * *

  Fort Powell, southwest of Las Vegas, could be described as beautiful only by someone with the esthetics of a Franciscan monk. But for such a person the windswept, scrub-blanketed lands presented a study in sublime beauty.

  The austere simplicity of the land reached into the buildings of the base as well. Now barely at midmorning, the fierce desert sun already beat through the tinted windows, reflecting off the polished floor tiles, flooding the classroom with harsh light. The room's fluorescent ceiling tiles might as well have been blackened, for all the value they added.

  Morgan MacBride knew what his new people were seeing in that stark light: a bald and decrepit wreck of a man with a parrot perched on his left shoulder. And he knew what they were thinking: Is that really him? Jeez, I had no idea he was so . . . old! It made no difference.

  Whatever their thoughts, they looked at him with that absolutely sober earnestness shared by young people who believed in themselves and in their mission. He would hate himself for it, but he would use that dedication, exploit it for his own mission. Of course, his mission was only a little different from theirs.

  He began. "Welcome, Angels."

  That created a stir; now they knew that they had been selected.

  "Yes, that's right. You're the Team now. Earth's last hope. If you succeed, your names will be remembered for as long as humankind lives. If you fail, you will still be remembered for as long as humankind lives. But it will be a much shorter memory." He smiled grimly and shifted in his chair. "However, you don't know who I am. You may think you do, but you don't. Let us be very clear about this. I am the man who will cause your deaths. Each and every last one of you will die at my command."

  He let the silence hang in the air for a long minute. When he thought they had recovered, he flexed his huge shoulder muscles, lifted himself out of the chair, and swung onto the desk. The parrot had known what was coming, and took the sudden shift smoothly. "I have led twenty people into Shiva ships. Only one man has ever gotten out of a Shiva alive, and as you can see, he didn't do so well."

  The five people in the room stared at the stumps where Morgan MacBride's legs had been; he let them protrude from his shorts in defiance of the unspoken convention that such disfiguration should be hidden. Everyone knew, of course, that the final explosion of Shiva I had cost Morgan MacBride his legs, but they'd never seen it—no pictures had ever been posted on the Web that showed the price of his victory. Morgan actually had a pair of prosthetic legs, but they were uncomfortable, and besides, he needed his legs like they were for this one day that came every five years.

  "I know that you have gone through the most intensive training process in the history of Earth. S
ome of you have been training for this mission all your lives. I have news for you: your training has just begun. The next twenty-four days will be the real training. It will also be your last."

  He looked down at his palmtop. "Locks and Blocks Specialist . . . Axel Sturmlicht," he called out. A sturdy young man leaped to his feet. "Heavy Weapons and Logistics . . . Lars Moreau," and a hulking Swede stood at attention. "Recon . . . Roni Shatzski." A tall, gangly fellow with a jagged smile stood up. "Medic and Alternate Lead . . . Akira Tanaka," and a small Japanese man joined the others.

  "And the Angel Leader . . . C. J. Kinsman," he bellowed. The thin one that looked too young stood up and saluted. "Yes, sir!" he shouted in a voice that struck MacBride strangely. The voice was too high-pitched, too melodious, too . . .