Far Thoughts and Pale Gods

by Greg Bear

  “It was the shepherd who raised us above the beasts by making us their masters,” another said. “It was the maker of tools and tiller of the soil who murdered the shepherd and was sent to wander in exile.”

  “To be sure,” his father said, eyes gleaming in the firelight. “And later it was the shepherd who stole a birthright from his nomad brother—or have we forgotten Jacob and Esau? The debt, I think, was even.”

  “There’s much that is confusing in the past,” Sam Daniel admitted. “And if we use our eyes and see that our exile is made less difficult by the use of tools, we should not condemn our worthy cains. But those who built the cities were also making tools, and the tools turned against us.”

  “But why?” his father asked. “Because of our degraded state as humans? Remember, it was the Habirus and Catholics—then Jews and Christians—who commissioned Robert Kahn to build the cities for God-Does-Battle and to make them pure abodes for the best of mankind, the final carriers of the flame of Jesus and the Lord. We were self-righteous in those days and wished to leave behind the degraded ways of our neighbors. How was it that the best were cast out?”

  “Hubris,” chuckled a Catholic. “A shameful thing, anyway. The histories tell us of many shameful things, eh, lad?” He looked at Jeshua. “You remember the stories of the evil that men did.”

  “Don’t bother the child,” his father said angrily.

  Sam Daniel put his arm around the man’s shoulder. “Our debater is at it again. Still have the secret for uniting us all?”

  Half-asleep, Jeshua opened his eyes and tried to roll over on the bed. Something stopped him, and he felt a twinge at the nape of his neck. He couldn’t see well—his eyes were watering and everything was blurred. His nose tickled and his palate hurt vaguely, as if something were crawling through his nostrils into the back of his throat. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Silvery arms wove above him, leaving gray trails of shadow behind, and he thought he saw wires spinning over his chest. He blinked. Liquid drops hung from the wires like dew from a web. From where the drops fell and touched his skin, waves of warmth and numbness radiated.

  He heard a whine, like an animal in pain. It came from his own throat. Each time he breathed, the whine escaped. Again the metal things bobbed above him, this time unraveling the wires. He blinked, but it took a long time for his eyelids to open. When the darkness passed, he saw there was a split in the ceiling, from which branches grew down, one coming up under his vision and entering his nose, others holding him gently on the bed, another humming behind his head, making his scalp prickle. He searched for the twinge below his neck. It felt as if a hair was being pulled from his skin or a single tiny ant was pinching him. He was aloof, far above it, not concerned; but his hand still wanted to scratch and a branch prevented it.

  His vision cleared for an instant, and he saw green enameled tubes, chromed grips, pale blue ovals being handed back and forth.

  “A anna eh uh,” he tried to say. “Eh ee uh.” His lips wouldn’t move. His tongue was playing with something sweet, like hard candy. Years ago he’d gone for a mouth examination—with a clean bill of health—and he’d been given a roll of sugar gum to tongue on the way home.

  He sank back into his skull to resume listening to the old talk by the fireside.

  “Hubris,” chuckled a Catholic.

  “Habirus,” he said to himself.

  “Hubris.”

  “A shameful thing, anyway—”

  “Our debater is at it again. Still have the secret for uniting us all?”

  “And raised us from beasts.”

  Deep, and sleep.

  He opened his eyes and felt something in the bed with him. His hand moved to his crotch. It felt as if a portion of the bed had gotten loose and was stuck under his hip, in his shorts. He lifted his hips and pulled down the garment, then lay back, a terrified look coming into his face. Tears streamed from his eyes.

  “Thanks to El,” he murmured. He tried to back away from the vision, but it went with him, was truly a part of him. He hit the side of his head to see if it was still a time for dreams.

  It was real.

  He climbed off the bed and stripped away his shirt, then stood naked by the mirror to look at himself. He was afraid to touch it, but of itself it jerked and nearly made him mad with desire. He reached up and hit the ceiling with his fists.

  “Great El, magnificent Lord,” he breathed. He wanted to rush out the door and stand on the balcony, to show God-Does-Battle he was now fully a man, fully as capable as anyone else to accomplish any task given to him, including—merciful El!—founding and fathering a family.

  He couldn’t restrain himself. He threw open the door of the apartment and ran naked outside.

  “BiGod!”

  He stopped, his neck hair prickling, and turned to look.

  She stood by the door to the apartment, poised like a jacklighted deer. She was only fourteen or fifteen, at the oldest, and slender, any curves hidden beneath a sacky cloth of pink and orange. She looked at him as she might have looked at a ravening beast. He must have seemed one. Then she turned and fled.

  Devastated in the midst of his triumph, he stood with shoulders drooped, hardly breathing, and blinked at the afterimage of brown hair and naked feet. His erection subsided into a morning urge to urinate. He threw his hands up in the air, returned to the apartment, and went into the bathroom.

  After breakfast he squatted uncomfortably on a small stool to face the information desk. The front of the desk was paneled with green slats, which opened as he approached. Sensor cells peered out at him.

  “I’d like to know how I can leave,” he said.

  “Why do you want to leave?” The voice was deeper than Thinner’s, but otherwise much the same.

  “I’ve got friends elsewhere, and a past life to return to. There’s nothing for me anything here.”

  “You have all of the past waiting for you, an infinite number of things to learn.”

  “I just want out.”

  “I’d allow you to leave anytime.”

  “How?”

  “Well, there could be a problem. Not all of Mandala’s systems cooperate with this unit—“

  “Which unit?”

  “I am the architect. The systems follow schedules set up a thou­sand years ago. You’re welcome to try to leave—I certainly won’t do anything to stop you—but it could be difficult.”

  Jeshua drummed his fingers on the panel. “What do you mean, the architect?”

  “The unit constructed to design and coordinate the building of the cities.”

  “Could you ask Thinner to come here?”

  “Thinner unit is being reassembled.”

  “Is he part of the architect?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “If you mean, where is my central position, I have none. I am part of Mandala.”

  “Does the architect control Mandala?”

  “Not all city units respond to the architect. Only a few.”

  “The cyborgs were built by the architect,” Jeshua guessed, and drummed his fingers again, then backed away from the desk. He stood on the terrace, looking across the plains, grinding his teeth. He seemed to always be missing something terribly important.

  “Hey!”

  He looked up. The girl was on a terrace two levels above him, leaning with her elbows on the rail.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said.

  “Dis me, li’l shock, but all mucky same-same ’ereber dis em go now. Hey, do, I got warns fo’ you.”

  “What? Warnings?”

  “Dey got probs here, ‘tween Mandala an’ dey ‘oo built.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No’ compree? Lissy dis me, close, like all dis depen’ on’t: Dis em, was carry by polis ’en dis dey moob, week ’r two ago. Was no’ fun. Walk an’ be carry, was I. No’ fun.”

  “The city moved? Why?”

  “To leeb behine de part dis dey cal
l builder.”

  “The architect? You mean, Thinner and the information desks?”

  “An’ too de bods.”

  Jeshua began to understand. There were at least two forces in Mandala that were at odds with each other—the city and something within the city that called itself the architect. “How can I talk to the city?”

  “De polis no’ talk.”

  “Why does the architect want us here?”

  “Don’ know.”

  Jeshua messaged his neck to stop a cramp. “Can you come down here and talk?”

  “No’ now dis you are full a man … Too mucky for dis me, too cashin’ big.”

  “I won’t hurt you. I’ve lived with it for all my life—I can live a while longer.”

  “Oop!” She backed away from the rail.

  “Wait!” Jeshua called. He turned and saw Thinner, fully corporeal, standing in the rounded arch to the access hall.

  “So she came back, and you’ve been able to talk to her,” Thinner said. “That’s progress.”

  “Yes. Made me curious, too. And the information desk.”

  “We expected it.”

  “Then can I get some sound answers?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why was I brought here—to mate with the girl?”

  “El! Not at all.” Thinner gestured for him to follow. “I’m afraid you’re in the middle of a pitched battle. The city rejects all humans. But the architect knows a city needs citizens. Anything else is a farce.”

  “We were kicked out for our sins,” Jeshua said.

  “That’s embarrassing, not for you so much as for us. The architect designed the city according to the specifications given by humans—but any good designer should know when a program contains an incipient psychosis. I’m afraid it’s set this world back quite a few centuries. The architect was made to direct the construction of the cities. Mandala was the first city, and we were installed here to make it easier to supervise construction everywhere. But now we’ve lost control.

  “After a century of building and successful testing, we programmed community control into the city maintenance computers. We tore down the old cities when there were enough of the new to house the people of God-Does-Battle. Problems didn’t develop until all the living cities were integrated on a broad plan. They began to compare notes, in a manner of speaking.”

  “They found humanity wanting.”

  “Simply put. One of the original directives of the city was that socially destructive people—those who did not live their faith as Jews or Christians—would be either reformed or exiled. The cities were constantly aware of human activity and motivation. After a few decades, they decided everybody was socially destructive in one way or another.”

  “We are all sinners.”

  “This way,” Thinner directed. They came to a moving walkway around the central shaft and stepped onto it. “The cities weren’t capable of realizing human checks and balances. By the time the problem was discovered, it was too late. The cities went on emer­gency systems and isolated themselves, because each city reported that it was full of deep, dark sinners—antisocials, infidels, heretics. They never coordinated again. It takes people to reinstate the interurban links.”

  Jeshua looked at Thinner warily, trying to judge the truth of this story. It was hard to accept—a thousand years of self-disgust and misery because of bad design! “Why did the ships leave the sky?”

  “This world was under a colony contract and received support only so long as it stayed productive. Production dropped off sharply, so there was no profit, and considerable expense and danger in maintaining contact. There were tens of millions of desperate people wandering all over. Mayhem, violence. After a time, God-Does-Battle was written off as a loss.”

  “Then we are not sinners, we did not break El’s laws?”

  “No more than any other living thing.”

  Jeshua felt a slow hatred grow inside. “There are others who must learn this,” he said.

  “Sorry,” Thinner said. “You’re in it for the duration. We’ll get off here.”

  “I will not be a prisoner,” Jeshua said.

  “It’s not a matter of being held prisoner. The city is in for another move. It’s been trying to get rid of the architect, but it can’t—it never will. It would go against a directive for city cohesion. And so would you if you try to leave now. Whatever is in the city just before a move is cataloged and kept careful track of by watcher units.”

  “What can any of you do to stop me?” Jeshua asked, his mind made up, as stubborn as if he’d come across a piece of steel difficult to hammer.

  He walked away from the shaft exit, wondering what Thinner would try.

  The floor rocked back and forth and knocked him on his hands and knees. Streamers of brown and green crawled over a near wall, flexing and curling. The wall came away, shivered as if in agony, then fell on its side. The sections around it did likewise until a modular room had been disassembled. Its contents were neatly packed by scurrying coat-trees, each with a fringe of arms and a heavier frame for loads.

  All around the central shaft, walls were being plucked out and rooms dismantled.

  Thinner kneeled next to Jeshua and patted him on the shoulder. “Best you come with this unit. I can guarantee safe passage until the city reassembles. Might be months, might be a year.”

  Jeshua hesitated, then looked up and saw a cantilever arch throwing out green fluid ropes like a spider spinning silk. The ropes caught on opposite bracings and allowed the arch to lower itself. Jeshua stood up on the uncertain flooring and followed Thinner.

  “This is only preliminary work,” Thinner said as he took him into the cyborg room. “In a few hours the big structural units will start to come down, then the bulkheads, ceiling, and floor pieces, then the rest. By this evening, the whole city will be mobile. The girl will be here in a few minutes—you can travel together if you want. This unit will give you instructions on how to avoid injury during re­assembly.”

  But Jeshua had other plans. He did as Thinner told him, resting on one of the racks like a cyborg, stiffening as the girl came in from another door and positioned herself several aisles down. He was sweating profusely, and the smell of his fear sickened him.

  The girl leaned forward and looked at him cautiously. “You know ’at dis you in fo’?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  The clamps on the rack closed and held him comfortably but securely. He didn’t struggle. Panels beneath the racks retracted, and wheels jutted out. The room was disassembling itself. Shivering with their new energy, the racks elevated and wheeled out their cargo, forming a long train down a hall crowded with scurrying machines. Behind them, the hall came apart and its bulkheads spewed ropes, sprouted grasping limbs and feet, thrust out wheels and treads.

  A storm to the south lay a broad gray hat over Arat’s snowy peaks. As the day progressed and the city diminished, the front swept near, then over. Low clouds hid the disassembly of the city’s upper levels.

  All joined into a spectacular dance. With the precision of a bed of flowers closing for the night, the city shrank, drew in, pulled itself down, and packed itself onto wide-treaded beasts with unfathomable jade eyes. The racks were hoisted onto the backs of trailers that resembled low, fat spiders; their many long legs pumped smoothly up and down. A hundred flat-backed spiders carried all the racks, and joined in the long dance with thousands of tractors and cranes.

  All the cyborg monsters finally gathered in concentric circles around Mandala, awaiting further instructions. Rain fell on the ranks of machines and half-machines, and the ground became dark with mud and trampled vegetation.

  Transparent skins on rigid foam poles elevated over the carriers. Thinner crawled between the racks and approached Jeshua, who by now was stiff and sore.

  “We’ve let the girl loose,” Thinner said. “She has no place to go but with us. Will you try to leave?”

  Jeshua nodded.

  “
It’ll only mean trouble. But I don’t think you’ll get hurt.” Thinner tapped the rack and the clamps backed away. Night was falling over the storm. Through the trailer skin, Jeshua could see the city’s parts and vehicles switch on interior glows. Rain streaks distorted the lights into ragged splashes. He stretched his arms and legs and winced.

  A tall tractor surmounted by a blunt-nosed cone rumbled up to the trailer and hooked itself on. The trailer lurched and began to move. The ride on the pumping, man-thick legs was surprisingly smooth.

  Mandala marched away through the rain and dark.

  By morning, a new site had been chosen.

  Jeshua lifted the skin and jumped into the mud. He had slept little during the trek, thinking about what had happened and what he had been told. He was no longer meek and ashamed. The cities were no longer lost paradises. They now had an air of priggishness. They were themselves deeply flawed.

  He spat into the mud.

  But the city had made him whole again. Who had been more re­sponsible: the architect, the citizens, or Mandala itself? He didn’t know and hardly cared. He had been taken care of as any other unit in Mandala would have been, automatically and efficiently. He coveted his new wholeness, but it didn’t make him grateful. It should have been his by a birthright of ten centuries. That birthright had been denied by willful blindness among the cities’ patrons and designers. He could not accept any of this as perpetual error. His people tended to think in terms of will and responsibility.

  The maze of vehicles and city parts fell quiet now, as if resting before the effort of reassembly. The air was misty and gray with a heaviness that further sunk his spirits.

  “’Ere dis you go?”

  He turned back to the trailer and saw the girl peering from under the skin. “I’m leaving,” he said. “I don’t belong here. Nobody does.”

  “Lissy. I tol’ de one, T-Thinner to teach dis me … teach me how to spek li’ dis you. When you come back, I know by den.”

  “I don’t plan on coming back.” He looked at her closely. She was wearing the same shift she wore when he first saw her, but a belt had tightened around her waist. He took a deep breath and backed away a step, his sandals sinking in the mud.