Steel struggled to her feet, cradling her arm, seething with pain and rage. “You atavistic moron! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Her eyes were green fire. “Nobody touches—” She was too angry to finish. He wasn’t going to answer anyway. His eyes had lost focus. He hadn’t been able to breathe for about a minute. Then Steel saw me dangling from the rail struts. “Mo! Mo, what are—? Are you all right? I mean, oh, my—HAM! We’ve got to get him up from there!”
Ham looked up at her. The tall guy looked impotently down at me. I don’t think he could have lifted his spirits, never mind two and a half meters of ex-Martian, and Steel’s arm was broken.
Ham started to release Mr. Muscle, but Steel said, “No! No, don’t let him go!” Which gave Ham a conundrum, and put me in a bit of a spot as well. I don’t think either one of us could figure out how he was going to hang onto the guy and pull me back onto the bridge at the same time. Ham looked at Steel inquiringly, the man’s skull still in his mouth.
The tall guy was no help at all. He just stood there, frozen. Finally, Steel said, “I don’t know! I don’t know, just get rid of him! I don’t want him around me!”
Ham came to a decision. He stood up carrying his limp prey in his teeth and casually threw him over the side. I saw him flash past me to fall down and down, splash into deep water and slide over the lip of the falls. Ham then reached a long, simian arm over the railing, grabbed me under the armpit and swung me back up onto the bridge. Simple enough. I almost passed out from the pain in my chest.
I sat on the bridge deck feeling woozy as Steel got on her system: “Jean-Léon! Jean-Léon, Krupp is coming down the Poellat.” (The name of the stream). “Ham threw him off the bridge. He’d been quite violent.” She listened. “Yes, yes. Try to fish him out before there’s brain damage. I don’t want to have to pay for re-booting him. We’re coming down now. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I coughed up something sticky and metallic—I really wasn’t feeling too well. The sun was coming out again, I could see it reflecting on the wet wood, but it seemed to be getting darker anyway. And the bridge kept swaying around. That wasn’t right. I started to say something to Steel about it, but ...
“ ...”
“ ... why I continue to counsel against ...”
“ ... Krupp has always ...”
“ ... guess that’s my decision, not yours ...”
“ ...”
... the sky was a deep blue, a royal blue, almost a midnight blue, spattered with gold five-pointed stars ...
I was in a golden hall ... gold on gold ... Thick shafts of mote-filled sunlight spilled in between wine-colored columns of porphyry ... gold Byzantine arches covered with interlocking polychrome filigrees sat on lustrous gold capitals ... brilliant blue pillars of lapis lined the gilded upper gallery ... color everywhere ... a huge, Byzantine crown hung above me, gold, covered with white candles ... Saints in bright robes conversed solemnly, golden glories emanating from their bearded visages ... I saw Jesus standing in a golden field, surrounded by cherubim, attended by seraphim, adored by John and Mary ... On the—floor? Was it a floor? Fantastic animals and feathery trees cavorted and danced ... Broad stairs of creamy marble ascended to the apse where a magnificent throne of gold and ivory stood ... And on that throne sat—sat—
Steel. Talking to the tall guy.
Or maybe yelling.
“You were there,” she was saying, “and I had logged on.”
He nodded, trying to placate her.
“Look what he did to my man!”
“Yes, yes—”
“He was simply trying to protect me!”
“Krupp has had—”
“Krupp should freaking re-structure!” Steel was really mad. I couldn’t really figure out why, but then, I couldn’t really figure out why I couldn’t move. Somebody passed between them and me. I couldn’t see who. I was only seeing what was right in front of me. Outside of that circle things were really fuzzy.
“I was going to say that Krupp has had issues with you since you maneuvered him out of this place. I’ve always thought it unwise to provoke him. I still think so.”
“This has nothing to do with him.”
“He seems to think it does.”
Oh! I was in a nano-doc. There must be something wrong with me. It covered me up to my chest. I could see a large bandage on my shoulder. A cool hand was laid on my forehead. A familiar hand.
“You’re right,” Steel was saying, “ ‘he seems to think.’ He doesn’t actually think, he just seems to—”
“Estelle, this attitude will do no good. First your escapade on Eden. Now this adventure. You can’t really blame him for feeling—”
“He BROKE MY ARM! Do you understand?”
Eden? What the hell was Steel doing on Eden? Didn’t she ever go anyplace legal?
“Yes. He was out of control. He will be counseled.”
“I’m not paying for his ’boot. I logged on. I have it all recorded. You were there.”
“Yes, I was there. I’m sure it will all be worked out.”
“He’s paying for my arm, too. And my—” she looked at me. “Mo! You’re awake. How are you feeling?” She descended the steps and came up beside me.
“I ... uh, I’m not sure ...”
She put a finger to my lips. “Don’t try to talk now. Just rest. Archie’s here.”
Archie’s face swam into my field of vision. “Hi, sport,” she said. “If you’re gonna dance, you ought to learn the steps first.” She smiled at me. I don’t think I’d ever seen her smile like that before.
Steel came back. Had she left? I had no idea. “I had them bring you in here so I would know when you woke up,” she said, leaning over me. Her eyes filled my vision. “I have even more to thank you for, now.” She kissed me on the mouth.
“Thank you.” No, that wasn’t right. I should have said—what?
“You take it easy.” It was Archie again. “You got a pretty good concussion, there. Not to mention a punctured lung. We’ll have you out of there in a few minutes.”
“Good.” That sounded right. No. “Thank you.”
“...”
I was in a cave—no. I was in a bed, an intricately sculpted fantasy of a bed, under a heavy, sky-blue coverlet that was embroidered with golden vines and white swans. The impression of a cave was made by the carved wooden canopy—a fantastic puzzle of dozens of interlocking Neogothic spires and steeples, delicate and pointed, thick with ornamental buds and boles, connected by fairy arches and flying buttresses.
Outside the window I could see the Poellat gorge, the delicate footbridge arching over the falls. Across the room a thick, oaken door, carved to resemble a cathedral window, opened beneath a pastoral scene from Tristan and Isolde. Archie walked through it.
“Feeling any better?” she smiled.
“Yeah,” I croaked in return, “Much better. What room is this?”
“You got the royal treatment. Steel gave you her room. It made it easier to keep an eye on you.”
“Oh.”
“How are you doing?”
I sat up and looked around. “Uh, much better, really.”
“They’ve made some improvements in nano-docs in the last three decades. I’ve got some catching up to do.”
“Yeah. I bet.”
“Let me just check some things ...” She sat down on the bed and started doing doctor stuff, thumpings, peerings, various invasions of privacy.
I asked her, “I was in the throne room, right?”
“That’s right.” She shined a small light in my left eye.
“Hmm. You know ... when I woke up there, I ... I thought ...”
“What?” She shined it in my right.
“I thought maybe I’d—I mean, I thought I was in—”
“Does that hurt?” She dug her fingers into my ribs.
“No.”
“How about that?” She dug in a different place.
“No.”
“Good. Your rib seems to have knitted up just fine.”
“It feels okay.” She listened to my lung. I asked, “What’s the story with this Krupp guy?”
“He kind of went crazy, didn’t he?”
“Kind of.”
“It’s that damn genome work of his. They have to keep his system flooded with so many hormones and steroids ... Let’s take this off and see how things are progressing.” She turned me around to get at the bandage on my left shoulder.
“What happened to my shoulder?”
“He roughed you up pretty good. Tore a couple of scales off.”
“Oh. How does he get away with acting like that?”
She peeled the dressing away. “You mean, why don’t they fix him?” There was a bright pink place where the shoulder plate and the plate under it had been ripped away.
“Yeah, I guess. Why would he want to act that way? How can he get so disconnected?”
Archie chuckled knowingly. I hate it when people do that. She asked me, “How long have you been off the net?”
“Me? Just under a year. Why?”
“Have you noticed yourself getting a little paranoid? A little reclusive?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what she was driving at.
“Developing a little bit of ‘me against the cosmos’ attitude?”
“Maybe.”
She prodded my shoulder. “Tender?”
“Nope.”
“You ever wonder how people in the syndicates live with the idea of sending their fellow human beings into the trades? You know, enslaving them, turning them into human machines?”
“I guess I always assumed they were callous bastards.”
Archie laughed as she bundled up the bandage and threw it away. “Interesting and oddly appropriate choice of phrase. It shows your age.” She turned to me, “Do you think you could do it?”
“What? Send people into the trades?”
She nodded.
“No.”
“You’ve worked for the corps, haven’t you? Weren’t you an architect or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’ve worked with people who were in the trades. Worked over them.”
“Yeah, but I tried not to work them over.”
Archie smiled at my attempt at levity. “You felt connected to them. One with them.”
“Yes. Very much so.”
“You notice you never rose into management.”
I nodded. She sat down in an ornate wooden chair whose cushion matched the coverlet on the bed. She was right. I’d always been in the creative team, whether it was to design buildings or eco-systems, never management.
“You never will,” she said. “You’ve spent too much time on the net.”
“What do you mean? Everybody’s on the net.”
“We’re not. Steel isn’t.”
“That’s because—”
“Neither is Krupp, or his tall friend, Daimler. Or anyone else in the syndicates.”
“What are you talking about? How would they—”
“Oh, they interface with the net. They communicate with it, they check up on it. But they’re not on it. They’re all on independent systems. Like Steel. Think about it. Have you ever bulleted a syndicate member on the net?”
“I’ve never had any reason to—”
“They always came to you, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Like they do with everybody else.”
“But why? Why aren’t they on the net?”
Archie examined me for a while. Then she said, “Psychological necessity. Their positions require them to do things that connected people couldn’t do.”
“Things that ... Yes.”
“You lived through that time,” she continued. “You should remember what created the necessity for this economic system.”
I thought about it. Going to the stars. To build ... “So everyone could afford to re-boot.”
“That’s right,” she nodded. “We had to create wealth on an unprecedented scale. We had to invest on an unprecedented scale. The cheapest possible way we could do it still almost bankrupted us.”
I thought of Valhalla. “Yes.” It had been so very, very expensive.
“It’s the paradox of our time. Everybody hates the corps because they take people into the trades, an inarguably evil thing to do. Tantamount to slavery.”
“Yes.”
“And yet if it weren’t for the trades none of those people could afford to re-boot. They literally owe their lives to the corps.”
“And the syndicates that control them.”
She nodded. “To answer your initial question: there are two reasons people like Krupp get away with their behavior. One is that people like him are necessary to the system.”
“How so?”
“The corps have always needed people who were aggressive, ruthless. Competitive. It’s how they survive. The question is ...”
“What?”
“Do we still need them to survive?”
I thought about that for a while. Then I said, “What’s the second reason?”
“Oh,” Archie allowed herself a little, sardonic laugh. “The second reason is they can afford to pay the damages.” She stood up and patted me on the shoulder. The uninjured one. “You see? One afternoon in a nano-doc and a good night’s rest and you’re back to normal.”
“Right,” I laughed, “Are you going to put my scales back on?”
Archie looked at me, “What do you mean?”
“You know, the ones he tore off me.”
“Oh. I don’t know. Steel said you were going to be getting your genome re-vamped anyway.”
“Oh, right,” I remembered, “but you have them, don’t you?”
“N-no, I don’t think we do. Why?”
I was getting alarmed. “Where are they?”
“Hey, settle down,” She placed her hand on my arm. “What’s the matter?”
“You have the bigger one? The shoulder plate?”
“Not so far as I know. Why?”
“It had a small meteorite mounted in it. Remember?”
“Yes,” she nodded. Then, “Oh, no! Was that a talisman?”
“My first. From my first life.”
“Oh, Mo! Why did you have it in such a vulnerable place?”
“I didn’t think I was going to get beat up and thrown off a bridge,” I snapped.
“I’m sorry. Of course not. Well, maybe they found them, have them somewhere. Maybe they just didn’t give them to me, you know, in all the confusion.”
But they were nowhere to be found. Washed down the Poellat. Probably in the Danube by that time. Gone.
We asked Jean-Léon if Krupp had had anything in his hands when they fished him out, but no. “Non. Non, rien. Je regrette.” He seemed genuinely concerned.
I’d had that little cosmic rock since I was nine years old. Some damages can’t be paid.
Part IV
Circe
Chapter 16
After I recovered we got off Earth in a hurry. The only stop before we left was the little shop Steel loves in Lausanne. We both got re-worked. Another mystery. My scales are gone, as is her fur. Her eyes are back to normal, if you call spectacularly beautiful, almond-shaped eyes normal. Her corneas are visible, her irises round. Their color is closer to blue now than green. And we’re both quite a bit shorter. We could pass for Terrans from an earlier epoch. Why? Don’t ask me, I only work here.
Of course everyone changes appearance from time to time, particularly if you’re moving from planet to planet. The Lightdancer had bulked all of us up so we could handle Earth’s gravity after the gentle pull of Vesper. Then she slimmed us down a little when we headed for Circe, our first stop in the Pleiades. That sort of thing you hardly notice, these days.
I remember one time, in the early thirties I think, they made a huge reality about ancient Earth. It was one of those sweeping historical (or semi-historical) romances, fil
led with privateers and sheiks and wooden ships. The hero and heroine were two Africans that were captured and sold as slaves, one to an Arabian Emir, the other to a Don somebody-or-other in South America somewhere. The story was long and improbable, but very romantic.
For decades afterward there were Africans everywhere. If you didn’t have gleaming black skin you just weren’t stylish.
Then they did one about an Icelandic edda and everyone had red braids and freckles for a while. And there was a huge one that aspired to enact the entire Bhagavad-Gita—I don’t think one out of ten people understood it, but for a while everyone looked like me.
Now I look like me. And I assume Steel looks like she originally did. Only both of us have lost about half a meter.
It’s funny about her eyes, though. You get used to seeing a person through their eyes. I can’t tell if she’s more available or less.
The crew had a great liberty in Paris. I guess Alice particularly had a good time. They saw the new band, TAUToLOGy, in concert. She and Yuri came back singing, “I PERsonally LOVE you, ’cause THAT’S the way I FEEL.” Yuri also managed to convince everyone to tube out to Malibu on the west coast of North America to go surfing. They even got Marcus to come up from Senegal. Tamika got a great suntan.
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