Evers nodded. “Be my guest. They’re hardy.”
She pulled off a leaf and let the branch spring back up. Its veins shone with a golden glow. She crushed it against her palm, and the sap shone against the skin, slowly fading. “Incredible. They tap Forever’s own ichor?”
Evers nodded. “Yes. We call it luthiel. The plants circulate and cleanse it, acting like extra kidneys for the system.” He beckoned. “Come on. Your home for your time with us is just ahead.”
Ana glanced up at the worldlet stretched out above her. She was more than Ana could have hoped for.
They passed through a clearing where a small brook babbled along next to the pathway. “Where does the water come from? Do you haul it all up here from Earth?”
The director laughed. “No, the cost of that would bankrupt us. Turns out Ariadne had a fair amount of frozen water. The world-mind has been kind enough to purify it for us. We think Daphne has even more—maybe enough for our own little sea.”
“Here we are.” Master Evers opened the door to a small one-story cabin that would have been more at home in up in the Sierra Nevadas back on Earth. Inside, though, it was all modern, complete with a field laboratory for her use and a link into Transfer Station’s station-mind.
McAvery gestured her inside. “I’ll give you a few minutes to get settled, and then we’ll head out to the North Pole.”
AARON FOLLOWED Dania Thorpe through the settlement, his eyes straying from time to time to how her hips filled out her skintight AmSplor uniform. Though she was easily ten years his senior, she was nonetheless sexy, in the way that most women under a certain age were sexy to straight teenage boys. Her long golden hair flowed down her back like a river.
She glanced back at him to make sure he was keeping up, and he quickly looked away, taking in the trees and the chunks of stone that lined the pathways beneath his feet.
“It’s never going to happen.” She turned away.
“What?” His cheeks flushed red.
“All those things flashing through your little head about me. I’ve seen that look before, Hammond.” She laughed. “I don’t mind. It’s actually kind of flattering, but it’s never gonna happen. You’re too young, and I don’t date boys. Or men. Got it?”
He gulped. “Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s miss. Now let’s get you settled. You’ll be bunking in Astrid. That’s one of our three dorms, where most of the new grunts start out. Devon will take you out today and show you the ropes.”
They reached a two-story building, framed with sturdy timber and capped with a wood-shingle roof. It was like something out of the TriDee hit Moon Prairie.
“Devon, you up there?”
A young dark-complexioned man in his early twenties popped his head out of one of the second-floor windows. He sported a neatly trimmed goatee that matched his close-cropped black hair. “Dania, that you?”
“Yup. Got a new recruit for you fresh up from Earth. Can you show him the ropes?”
“Be right down.” He disappeared from the window and soon came bounding down the stairs and out the open door. He was barefoot, his work pants rolled up to his knees. He thrust out a hand to Aaron. “Devon Powell at your service,” he said, grinning.
“Aaron Hammond.” Aaron smiled back. Devon’s cheer was infectious.
“Follow me, Aaron Hammond, and we’ll get you settled. Then I’ll show you what we do around here. Dania, I’ve got it from here.”
She waved them off, and he led Aaron up to his room in the dorm.
AFTER THEY dropped off their things in the private cottage set aside for her use, Colin brought Ana to the edge of the lake that lapped along one side of the colony, its azure waters warm like a tropical sea. In fact there was even a black sand beach—“all created out of asteroid rock, courtesy of our host,” according to the director.
“Sorry, Colin, but I’m confused. How are we going to reach the world-mind from here?” Ana asked, glancing over her shoulder. “She’s literally at the other end of Forever, right? Aren’t we going in the wrong direction?”
The director grinned. “You may have designed her, but we’ve been living with her for ten years. We’ve figured out a few things. Trust me.” He gestured to a mechanical skiff tied up at the end of the dock. She hated boats. “Don’t worry.” He read her look. “The water’s calm except during storms, and we’re not due for another of those for—” He looked at his watch. “—four or five more hours.”
She allowed herself to be lowered into the boat—raft was more like it—and McAvery engaged the AI. It was a low-level mind, perfectly suited for its mundane task.
The shoreline receded behind them, and she had the chance to appreciate the cathedral ceiling of the world above them in all its grandeur. The lake swung up on either side of them in gradated shades of blue, and along its shores marched the forest, its colors vivid up close but fading into gray as the walls of the world reached their midpoint. McAvery Port sat on a peninsula surrounded by the lake on three sides. The rest of the world dissolved into mist beyond the bright filament that lit them from above. It was quite dramatic.
Ahead of them was the end of the world. The closer one, at least. It grew rapidly as they approached, a giant rock face built from the heart of the original asteroid.
“That’s the South Pole. The world-mind and our operations center is at the North Pole.”
Directly ahead of them, a tiny dot appeared on the water. It grew slowly, and she could see a straight line that ascended along the rock wall and pointed to somewhere high above. Looking up, up, up, she saw something in the sky: a tiny fleck winging its way through the air. “I didn’t think you had birds up here yet,” she said in wonder.
“Some seabirds—but that’s not a bird.” He grinned. “Have a little patience.”
The tiny dot ahead of them grew slowly larger and larger, finally resolving itself as a long wooden dock, piers sunk deep into the lake. She was able to make out some details of the tall structure that ascended into the sky along the rock wall of the South Pole. “It’s an elevator,” she said, surprised. There were so few mechanical things here. It looked sorely out of place.
The skiff finally reached the pier, depositing them there, and McAvery helped her out onto the dock and tied up the little boat. “It’s hard to believe that all of this came from that small seed you and I brought here so long ago.” He took in the view. “I never get tired of this part. Come on, we’ve got a climb ahead of us.”
She followed him down the dock to the base of the elevator. A glass-enclosed car was waiting for them. They climbed inside, and the smooth ascent began, lifting them up above the sparkling blue waters.
“From here, you’ll have a spectacular view of the colony.”
She could see what he meant. It was laid out across the water on the peninsula that jutted out into Lake Jackson, wrapping about a quarter of the way around the water’s edge. The structures were all one and two story wood-frame buildings, and they blended well with the surrounding forest, looking organic. “How many people do you have here now?” she asked, amazed at the scope of the operation that had been little more than a pipe dream a decade before.
“About four hundred, with more coming each month. We’re trying to keep up with her, but she is growing so fast. When her next spurt begins with Daphne’s arrival, we’ll be hard-pressed to manage all the terraforming and planting.”
They continued to rise, and she spotted one of those specks she’d seen from below. It flew in above them toward their destination, and she realized what it was at last. “They’re gliders. Colin, that’s ingenious!”
He laughed. “Not my idea. One of the engineers noticed the slipstreams Forever uses for her air circulation and figured we could tap into them for easy pole-to-pole transportation. Hope you aren’t afraid of heights.”
She smiled. “I’m up here, aren’t I?” As the elevator continued to rise, a large platform came into view above.
“You’ll be effectively
weightless topside.” Colin pointed up to the platform. “It’s situated at the axis, so the centrifugal force cancels out the effective gravity. Hold on to the rails.”
She could feel the weight of the world literally lifting off her shoulders. She grasped the rail as he’d advised. It reminded her of her first ride up the Skyhook with her father after they’d moved to North America—watching the ground fall away below them as the elevator car lifted them up into the stratosphere. The ground was now so far below them that the individual features had blurred into broad patches of merged colors, like a giant’s paint palette. Even that was becoming obscured by the sky glow. “She truly is majestic, Colin. You’ve done wonders up here,” she said with a sigh. I’ve missed so much.
The elevator slid smoothly up into the platform and came to a stop, and she was floating off the floor.
“Follow me.” The plas doors opened.
She pushed away from the wall and through the doors with the ease of long practice, even though she’d been Earthbound for so long. It came back to her straightaway.
The platform, topside, was about fifty meters deep, in a half circle jutting out from the rock wall, with windows of plas offering a panoramic view of Forever. Control terminals lined the station, and half-a-dozen techs were at work there.
A staircase led up to the roof. She caught a handhold to stop her forward momentum.
“Morning, everyone.”
The techs nodded at the director and went back to work. Trying to impress the boss, she thought with a wry smile.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the space as someone came down the stairs. “Hey, Tanner, how’s the weather?” McAvery called. The woman who appeared on the stairs laughed. “Morning, sir! Not bad. Not too much mist today.” She was tall and muscular, with something strapped to her back. “How’s Trip?”
“Your brother was fine last night when I saw him station-side.” He grinned.
“Going out for a flight this morning?” Her magnetic boots kept her attached to the floor. She pulled the contraption off her back.
McAvery followed Ana’s gaze. “Glider—military grade. Had to pull a few strings to get those up here. Come on back here.” To the pilot, he said, “Yup, out to the North Pole today.”
“Say hello to Santa for me!”
Ana followed the director to the back of the platform and a bank of lockers. He opened one and pulled out two sets of boots, then handed one to her. “Should have given you these on the way up—would have made this part a bit easier.”
He grinned, and she managed a weak smile back at him. She set the boots down on the floor, where they locked into place, and slipped off her own shoes, letting them float free for a moment. She managed to get her legs down into the boots—not so easy as they had once been, muscle memory or no, these zero g feats of agility.
Her feet secured to the deck, she grabbed her own shoes before they floated out of reach and turned to stash them in the locker.
McAvery was already wearing his own pair and was pulling on a glider pack like the one Tanner had been wearing. The pilot came over from her own locker and offered to give Ana a hand with hers. “Alexandria Tanner.” She held out a hand, and Ana reached out to shake it.
“Anastasia Anatov.” The pack looked vaguely insectoid, a metallic carapace with a set of folded iridescent red wings, two straps to go over her shoulders, and another wide strap to lock the pack on across her stomach. She put her arms out and let the experts cinch her into it. “Should I be nervous?” She glanced out the plas window. “I’ve never done this before.”
“It’s easy. Just slip these on.” Tanner pulled a pair of gloves onto her bare arms. “Then you jump, and the airstream does most of the rest.”
“Once you’re airborne, just keep your palms open and fingers facing forward—like a superhero—and you’ll glide along with the winds. Making a fist with both hands”—Colin demonstrated—“activates the air brakes, slowing you down, while closing one fist or the other activates the ailerons, letting you move left or right.”
“What if I crash?”
He laughed. “Won’t happen. If you somehow end up out of the jet stream and start losing altitude, the sensors will release your parachute and drop you down safely to the ground. Just wait for us and we’ll come find you.” He indicated a red button on the right side of the pack. “Press this and it will set off your distress beacon. Might take a day or two at worst, but you won’t starve out there. We’ve already got some of the food crops planted.”
“Like my own little Garden of Eden, huh?”
“Something like that. Ready?”
She turned to the pilot, who was getting ready to board the elevator for the trip back down to McAvery Port. “Thanks, um… Tanner….”
“Call me ’Ria. And you’re welcome. Happy flying!” The doors closed behind her, and she descended out of sight.
McAvery led her up the stairs, out onto topside’s open roof. There were two platform extensions that hadn’t been visible from below, one on the left, the other on the right.
“Just like the streets back home,” he called to her above the sounds of the wind, which was stronger than she expected. Above them it whistled into a giant cleft in the wall, and out again through another. “Depart on the right, return on the left.”
“She’s breathing,” Ana said, transfixed. My God, she’s really alive.
“You knew that. You designed her.”
She nodded. “Knowing it and seeing it for myself are two vastly different things.”
“Come on. I want to get there by midday. Follow me, and when you’re free of the platform, spread your arms to the sides for a minute. Like this.” He leaped off the platform, and she caught her breath as he began to plunge.
Then he spread his arms, and bright red glider wings snapped out, bathed in the golden glow of the band of light that ran along the axis of the world, and caught the wind. “Come on,” he called.
She gathered her strength and courage, meager as it was, and leaped.
Chapter Five: Grand Tour
AS SOON as Aaron was settled in his new room—a small space with a bed, a wooden desk, and a plas window—Devon called from outside the door.
“Come on out. Dania wants me to give you a tour of the colony.” He grinned at Aaron and disappeared down the hallway.
Aaron scrambled after him. They bounced down the stairs to the ground floor.
“This is the mess hall.” Devon opened a door to reveal a long room with seating for maybe forty—beautifully carved wooden chairs along wood-slab tables. “Breakfast is served at seven. Lunch at midday, and dinner at six.”
Devon led him down the hall. “This is the supplies closet. Take only what you need, and sign out for it through your loop.”
Aaron nodded. The closet was filled with miscellaneous things—bedding, toiletries, tools and much more, and was more than a little musty.
“We hand-wash everything. There’s a drying line for your clothes strung outside your room. The more we can do without power, the less fuel has to be shipped up from Earthside. We even use ichor for light at night—luthiel, they call it.”
“Who lights the lamps?”
“The Lamplighters, of course.” Devon laughed. “Come on. I think we have enough time to see the town before lunchtime. Then this afternoon I’ll take you out with me to one of the work crews.”
He followed Devon down the steps and stopped, once again taken by the strangeness of the vista around him. The world wasn’t supposed to go up and up and up. “How long….” He felt that familiar queasiness in the pit of his stomach.
“Until you get used to it? Maybe a month before you stop noticing it every time you come outside, but I’m still not used to it.” The light was warmer than sunlight, more golden, and more uneven. “I’ll take you to the village square. It’s probably fairly quiet at the moment, but on festival nights, the whole colony is there.” He set off down the pathway toward the lake and the wall, and Aaron followed
. “This is the campus. It’s where most of us live,” he continued. “Over there”—he pointed in the direction Aaron and Dania had come from—“is the Warehouse District. That’s where the supplies that come in from Transfer go before being parceled out to the work crews.
“Finally, by the lake is the Embassy District, where the dignitaries stay when they come to visit, and where the few shops and restaurants we have are located.”
“Where Dr. Anatov is staying?”
Devon nodded. “Come on!”
The path wound out from the dormitories and joined with a larger paved road lined with tall trees of a variety he thought he recognized. “Those are mallow woods, right?”
“Damn, you’re good.”
“I worked on grafts back home at the academy.”
“Beautiful wood from those trees. The chairs and tables in the cafeteria are made from them, and like everything else here, they grow to maturity in just a couple years.”
The road led them into the heart of the settlement, where the wooden buildings clustered more tightly, forming a continuous row along the side of the road. All at once they passed through a gap and into what must have been the village green—a wide open park with a single great oak tree at the center providing illumination for the whole square, surrounded by lush green grass.
Aaron turned around to take in the view. It resembled nothing so much as a medieval town from one of the tridimensionals, but this one was living and breathing and real. It was only slightly spoiled by the tall white antenna that rose at one side of the green.
“That routes all our communications out to Transfer Station.” Devon pulled him along. “Come on. We’ll grab a snack before we head out to the orchards.”
They entered a low single-story building with a series of long tables and benches and a fireplace along one end. A wonderful smell was coming from somewhere. “This is the main cantina for the colony. If you miss a meal at the dorm, you can come down here and grab something to eat at any time.” Devon led him to a wide window along the back.
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