by S. J. Ryan
"Yes, Sergeant," Geth, Croin, Dran, and Jran replied in sequence. The Wizard bobbed acknowledgment.
While the others broke camp, she stood alone and reflected on Geth's words. What were Roman soldiers doing this far west? Why had the Queen sent Carrot's patrol to the far west at the same time? Two years of guerrilla insurgency had made her suspicious of coincidences.
Starting to wonder just who had made Boudica the Official Queen of All Britanians, she went to her backpack and unfolded the letter. She sniffed strongly a woman's hand, with the scent of body oils associated with a diet of Britanian staples. So based on that, Boudica – whoever she was – was Britanian. Whatever comfort there is in that.
But then she reached the flourished signature and detected another scent, so faint she wasn't sure it was there at all.
She pressed her nose to the parchment and inhaled deeply. Human, female, but – somehow off. What put her off most of all was that she never forgotten a scent in her life, yet she could not remember where she had smelled this one before.
Degradation of senses and memory, she thought. This is what you get for associating with a mad Wizard.
She put the letter away and rejoined the others for the trek east once more.
16.
The group plodded eastward and within hours Matt exhausted Dran's knowledge of Rome and the rest of the world. He lapsed into silence, as did the others. They were all on grim alert after the attack. Matt was especially wary, as satellite view was useless in the Dark Forest, where the combination of low altitude (the station) and high latitude (Matt) required a slanting viewing angle that made it impossible to see anything nearby below tree top level. Thus every caravan and cart they encountered he met with wariness.
"Maybe we shouldn't have left Fish Lake," Matt subvocaled.
"I lack sufficient data to make a conclusion," Ivan replied.
"We got attacked by ten soldiers. That's pretty solid data."
“That event could have been an anomaly, but I will keep your assessment in mind.”
Walking, walking, walking, Matt thought. The monotony of pre-industrial civilization was something one had to experience to believe.
"I guess I assumed that since everyone at Fish Lake was friendly, everyone on the planet was friendly," Matt said. "It's not that far-fetched. If I were genetically-engineering human DNA for a seeder probe, I would have moderated human aggression."
"Genetically-engineering human DNA without consent is considered unethical," Ivan said.
"Ivan, I wasn't saying I would do it. Just that if I were doing it, that's how I would do it."
Ivan paused. "I am not sure I understand the distinction."
Matt paused. "And maybe you're right not to."
"Matt, how are you leg muscles today?"
"Much better than yesterday, thanks. Your conditioning program is working great."
Matt thought privately, Now, can you do something about the boredom?
Walking, walking, walking. Matt delved into Ivan's music archives and listened to songs that possibly hadn't been listened to by anyone else in centuries. At least on this planet.
“I wonder where everyone is,” he said.
“From the context, I assume you don't mean the local villagers, as we are encountering many of them on this road.”
“No, I was thinking of what happened to the rest of the human race. I know two hundred trillion kilometers is a long way, but after all these centuries you would think that humans from Earth would have come here to see what was going on.”
“I have surveyed my libraries for relevant information,” Ivan said. “It appears our situation is similar to that of humans who believed that intelligent life existed elsewhere in the universe and was technologically advanced enough to achieve interstellar communication and travel, yet had never contacted humans.”
“Oh yeah, the Three Theories of Extraterrestrial Non-Contact. We learned about those in elementary school. What were they again?”
“That humans are alone in the universe, that humans are under quarantine, that humans are in a 'cosmic zoo.'”
“I think 'cosmic zoo' applies to us. The rest of the human race is probably up there watching us right now.”
“I perceive an inconsistency in your thinking,” Ivan said. “If the rest of the human race has evolved sufficiently to be treating this world as a cosmic zoo, then they would want to avoid having anything interfere with the natural course of events. Yet they allowed you to come here.”
Matt had already thought a great deal about that. He said, “It could have to do with the Singularity, and directed evolution. After a few centuries, maybe everyone has 'ascended' like Synethesia was doing when we left. So they look at me now, and seeing how unevolved I am, they decide I have more in common with the zoo animals than with them. So they let me come here and become part of the zoo, because if they took me back to Earth or wherever they are, I'd feel like a cockroach in comparison.”
“But – “
Matt waited, then raised an eyebrow. He'd never heard Ivan fail to finish an uninterrupted sentence.
“But what?”
Ivan paused. “Matt, you are aware that the architecture of my artificial intelligence allows me to pursue more than one directive at once and attempt to achieve an optimal trade-off.”
“Yes.“
“One of my directives is to protect the psychological stability of the host by always being positive and encouraging. However, another of my directives is to protect the host by always being factual and objective.”
“Yes . . . . “
“In this instance, the two directives appear to be in irreconcilable conflict, in that I know that what you said is discouraging to you, yet I also know it is the most plausible explanation.”
“Ah. Well, it doesn't really discourage me that much. It's really a lot better than thinking that my parents and friends are dead. And it's better than being dead myself.”
After that, Matt decided that he would try to keep his thoughts more down to earth – that is, allowing that the 'earth' was a different 'Earth.'
He thought about what he would do in Londa. Go to that publishing house, maybe. Ask what they knew of the mentors. Then maybe he could board a ship and tour the world.
Then he had a horrifying thought, perhaps one of the most horrifying for any (Earth-yeared) teenager.
"I'll have to get a job.”
“Do you want me to provide a survey of possible employment opportunities in Britan?”
“Not really, but I guess so.”
"According to my review of all visual telemetry since landing," Ivan said, "the primary occupation of the inhabitants of Britan appears to be, farmer. Perhaps you could be a farmer."
"Farming the way they do it here? Plowing fields all day behind the butt of a horse? I'd rather crawl back into biogel. Hey, wait, what am I thinking? I'm a Healer, probably the best on the planet! I'll just charge for medical services."
"That seems of questionable ethics," Ivan said. "Shouldn't medical care be free for all?"
"We're not in Seattle anymore, Ivan. The economy of this world is pre-Singularity. It's based on resource scarcity. If I don't charge for services, then I don't have any money, and I can't buy food, and I starve. And if I starve to death, no one gets healed. Is that ethical?"
"It is not utilitarian," Ivan admitted.
Matt listened to more music. But Ivan, metaphorically speaking, had gotten under his skin.
"Look,” Matt said. “I'll also heal people for free. In fact, I was thinking, maybe there's a way to cure this Plague all at once. What if we make the counter-virus into a communicable virus, so that it could spread just by touching? Then I wouldn't have to go to people to cure them, and people wouldn't have to come to me for the cure. The cure would go to them automatically. Is that possible?"
“You mean, to modify the counter-virus for high-efficiency transmission. Yes, that is possible.”
"Then let's do it."
&
nbsp; A few minutes later, Ivan announced completion. "The viral count is projected to double every twenty minutes. Within six hours, recipient individuals will become contagious through casual physical touch and airborne transmission in proximity. At walking speed, island population will be saturated in six days. Would you like me to introduce the counter-virus into your body at this time?"
"Uh, what?"
"I will need to introduce the counter-virus into the body of the host to initiate replication."
"I see. Nothing can go wrong, can it?"
"There is always a minimal chance of adverse consequences."
Matt realized it had been easy enough to abstractly contemplate the spread of a well-intentioned but potentially hazardous virus over an entire planet, until that process included himself.
"Ivan, what are the chances that the plague will simply burn out?"
"I have analyzed the individual genomes of all persons you have come into physical contact with on this planet," Ivan said. "I have not seen any example of natural immunity. The plague appears to be designed for one hundred percent mortality."
"'Designed?' Are you saying the plague is artificial?"
"The genetic sequence closely matches that of experimental viruses tested by military laboratories in the twenty-first century. The probability of random coincidence is less than one in one hundred billion."
"Then whoever released it, they knew they were going to kill everyone on the planet! Who would do such a thing?"
He had spoken aloud. The others on the road turned and looked. Matt looked away and they resumed walking.
"Yeah," Matt subvocaled. "Then whatever the risk, we don't have a choice. Go ahead and introduce the counter-virus into my body for replication initiation, or whatever you said.”
"I will inform you if there is any adverse reaction."
But Ivan had nothing to report on that, and Matt, aside from feeling queasy with apprehension, sensed no noticeable adverse reaction himself. Indeed, he sensed nothing unusual at all.
By the next day, informed by Ivan that he was fully contagious with the Cure Virus, Matt made a habit of greeting un-gloved passersby with hearty handshakes. Many, likely to be leery of the spread of the Plague, shirked from his touch, but he managed to make skin contact with dozens nonetheless.
Soon Carrot came alongside, flushed and scowling. "What is with you? Yesterday you shied from everyone we encountered. Today you won't leave them alone. Do you realize your breath and touch could be spreading the Plague among the healthy?"
"I'm spreading a cure," he said. "You'll have to trust me."
Matt watched with fascination as her hair strands flickered between brown and orange.
"Trust you! You dress strangely, you have a strange accent, you ask the most basic questions about everything as if you were born the day before we met. Why should I trust you? Personally, I think you're a simpleton who wandered from his caretakers. If not for the desperation they feel from the Plague and the surprise of the fireball, everyone would see in a moment that you are no – "
He gazed serenely at her arm. She looked down, rubbed it, and scowled.
“I have the power of healing too,” she said, “but I don't go about pretending I'm the Second Coming of the Star Child.”
“I never claimed to be a star child, let alone the Star Child,” Matt replied hotly. “And believe me, this is my first time here.”
“Yet you claim to be a wizard, and come from Aereoth.”
“I never claimed – well, okay, once. But people just assume – “
“And you allow them to believe. Because you're a fraud.”
“I am not a fraud!”
She halted and her eyes locked on his from centimeters away. “Then tell me, do you say to my face here and now that you are a wizard, and that you come from Aereoth?”
He became aware that the others had halted and were looking at him too, waiting.
“I, uh, well – “ And then suddenly he scowled and met her gaze and put his hands on his hips and said, “I can do things that for this world qualify as wizardry. And I come from a place called Earth, which for all intents and purposes qualifies as Aereoth.”
“Then for all intents and purposes you qualify as duplicitous or daft.”
With that she spun around and stalked down the road toward Londa, and the others followed, wearing blank expressions save for Geth, who was grinning and shaking his head.
Matt stood in the road and subvocaled, “I'm thinking we should go back to Fish Lake.” But then he watched her slender-but-not-as-much-as-a-carrot's figure and couldn't remember what was so special about Fish Lake.
“It's probably not safe on the road alone. And I do want to see Londa.”
He hurried to catch up.
Matt expected one side of the Dark Forest to be the same as the other. But when they left it behind a few hours later, they encountered fields overgrown with brush and weed. Carts were few and decrepit. Those on foot were poorly dressed and gaunt. Huts were slanted and rotting.
"Everything looks run down," Matt remarked aloud.
"Lowlanders are lazy, that's why," Croin said.
Dran shook his head. "Lowlanders were once regarded among the hardest working of any of us. But that was when they had their own farms. Then the Romans made a law that, to pay taxes in the Lowlands, one needed Roman scrip, and to obtain Roman scrip, one had to sell crops in the Roman market. Taxes were set high by the Roman government and prices were set low by the Roman monopolists, and the farmers lost their farms to Roman moneylenders. The Lowlanders became hired laborers on their own land, and work all the harder."
"But they live off the provincial grain dole," Croin said. "Which the rest of us must pay."
"Don't imagine that there is some sort of free market as in the old days. By their manipulation of the supply of scrip, the Romans control all the marketplaces and most all places of employment. So is it the fault of Lowlanders that the Romans don't pay them enough to live on? Is it the fault of Lowlanders that the Romans force you to feed them?"
"But a lot of Lowlanders don't even work."
"The Romans ensure there are never enough jobs, so that those who have jobs see themselves as fortunate though they sweat as slaves."
"You make excuses for Lowlanders, because they are your customers!"
Dran threw up his hands. "Wizard, do you see how it is?"
"It's called 'Divide and Rule,'" Matt said.
Carrot shot him a glance. He smiled back and thought, Not so simpleton now, am I?
Nobody said anything for a while. Matt used the time to ask Ivan what 'scrip' was.
By late afternoon, they had reached the crossroads. Geth interrupted the plodding torpor, "Arcadia! To the north."
Hearing a quiver in Geth's voice for the first time, they all turned north. Matt saw at first only a sliver of glinting metal, like a giant snake, slithering over the hills. The snake became a patchwork blanket, an oily wave that rolled southward. Closer still, Matt saw the snake resolve into thousands of men marching across the grassland, men with swords and spears and war paint and standards made from sticks and bones.
Carrot said softly, "It must surely be the entire army of the Britanian Rebellion.”
Geth raised and flashed his sword as they approached. The nearest of the marchers cheered and flashed their swords in response, creating a glare that all but blinded, just as their combined roar all but deafened.
Weaving before the horde was a chariot bearing a towering woman whose mane of red hair was fluttering after her like a banner. Every time she raised her spear, she yelled, and the men yelled too, echoing against the hills.
"There's a queen for you!" Dran exclaimed.
Matt had to admit, he found it difficult to take his eyes off her.
"That's – what did you call her – Boudica?" he asked.
He wouldn't be able to go to Londa for a while. The mob streamed through the crossroads, blocking access to the eastern side of the Oksiden
Road. Croin trotted to the fringe, shoutingly conversed with the warriors, and trotted back.
He reported breathlessly, "They've spotted the Eighth in the south – and Boudica promises a massacre!"
The eighth of what? Matt wondered. But taking a cue from Ivan, he figured from the context that it probably had to do with Roman soldiers. Which the rebels were going to massacre . . . .
Carrot addressed Matt, "We were to part ways here at any event. This isn't your fight."
"I wasn't going to volunteer," Matt said. He immediately felt stupid for having said it.
"Good luck in Londa," she said.
That made him feel even stupider. He thought back to when he had crouched behind a log while the others had fought their attackers from the woods. That had made him feel stupid, too. Yes, he had no business fighting here when he didn't know which side was the right side – or even whether there was a right side. But now a girl was going off to battle, while a boy was just going to stand off in safety. Something deep within him instinctively felt it was wrong. And – cowardly.
His fellow travelers, now become soldiers once more, departed. Matt sat by himself on a rock by the roadside and watched the sun sink and the army pass. Carrot was visible for a long time because her hair had turned completely orange again.
As the army receded the background noise faded to quiet and he realized he was all alone for the first time since the day of his landing.
"You know, it's funny," he said. "I don't seem to be missing Earth, my family, my friends, my whole past life. All those people I knew on Earth for years and years – and now it bothers me more that I just met those people there and they could be going to their deaths."
Ivan said nothing.
The army marched southward and was gone over the hills, and the crossroads were empty and the road to Londa was open. However, Matt found he had no interest in budging from the rock just then. Maybe, he thought, it's the warm sun relaxing my muscles. And he had walked a good deal this day already. Maybe he would just sit here a while, and think.
"She can handle herself. You did the analysis on her DNA. Designer genes for the Ultimate Warrior. The Romans won't know what hit them."