Seeds of Memory

by J. Richard Jacobs

  “No, Trina. No. Some will be lost because of what we must do. We will all be taking the same risk, but those who stay behind will merely continue their lives on Paz as if nothing had happened—except they will be living with a maturing awareness and there will be nothing they can do about it.” He was being deliberately vague, but it was essential she produce the list.

  “What do you mean when you say, ‘...on Paz?’”

  “Yes, Niki, what does that mean?” Pasha insisted.

  “Later. First we need to take care of this,” he said, slapping the lists on the table.

  “All right, Nikisha, you are the Delta. When do you want me to begin?"

  “Tonight. This must all be done quickly. We have much to do, and there is very little time before the La Paz comes for us."

  “The ... La Paz? What is this, Nikisha? And where are we going?"

  The questions needed answers, and he probably should not have mentioned the La Paz, but the work needed for the preparation demanded they move with haste—time was not on their side. He knew he couldn't keep it from them much longer, but this was not the proper point or place.

  “Please, Trina, everything in its order, okay?"

  Niki took Pasha's hands in his and looked deeply into her eyes for the understanding he hoped he would find there. Instead, what he saw was confusion, bewilderment—perhaps fear. He increased the pressure of his grip in reassurance.

  “Now, my love,” he said in a low voice. “Are you ready for your job?"

  “Depends on the job,” she whispered in response and managed to work up a weak smile.

  Niki knew it wouldn't be wise to let either of them know how unsure he was, too. They were frightened, and any sign of uncertainty on his part would only make things worse. Niki modulated his voice deliberately into a soothing tone and measured his words carefully.

  “I have a list of things we need. Since you do all the purchasing for Mr. Washton—"

  “Did."

  “Did?"

  “Mr. Washton was termed. I'll tell you about it, later. You were saying?"

  “Termed?"

  “Never mind, Niki. For now, anyway. The list?"

  Niki slid a stack of papers across the table to her.

  “These are the things we need, and we need them as fast as we can get them. Sorry, I didn't make chips. You'll have to sort through this by hand. Now, what happened to Mr. Washton?"

  Pasha ran a finger down the top sheet, stopping on various items to read, and ignored his question.

  “Eight thousand liters of V-70 hydraulic fluid?"

  “The shuttles won't work without it,” he said. “To be completely honest, they may not work with it, either."

  “But ... three thousand liters?"

  “Minimally, right. For the last time—what happened to Mr. Washton?"

  “He was ... termed by the seditionists while he was in Nucanda with Mr. Lanno."

  “Who did—"

  Lira set a tray on the table and sat down beside Antaris. Niki decided not to push for more about Washton while young Lira was there and pulled one of the steaming cups close, letting the vapors wind their way into his nostrils.

  “Yes, sir,” Lira said. “What is it you wanted me for?"

  “Lira, you're the youngest of this generation of the Gammas, aren't you?"

  She was fresh, her flesh smooth and clear of the marks of life. Her hair, long, silky, shining clean, tumbled over her shoulders in blue-black waves covering the tiny protrusions of someday breasts. She was youth in all its unused perfection.

  “Yes, sir, I think I am.” She looked to Antaris who nodded her confirmation.

  “I understand you're also one of the brightest."

  Lira blushed and looked down at the table.

  “Without doubt,” Antaris volunteered.

  “Well, Lira, the Fathers have given us a job—an important and incredible task. Part of it will be to leave everything behind, all that is comfortable and familiar. We are to leave it behind us and step out into the open jaw of the unknown. Tell me, Lira, will you be ready to go when it's time?"

  She didn't have to say a thing for her eyes told him all he needed. They sparkled with the fire of life yet to be lived, and in them he could see adventure, curiosity—and a wanting.

  “Oh, yes. Yes, sir,” she said with the quiet and absolute sureness only the young possess. “Where are we going?"

  “Yes, Nikisha,” Antaris added. “Where?"

  “In time ... in time I'll tell you about it. Right now it's enough to know you're ready, Lira. You'll all understand ... soon. In the meantime, it's best you—none of you—knows where or when."

  Niki could envision what the reaction would be if the average Pazian were to become aware of what they were going to do, and he was also cognizant of the fact that it was best no one had the knowledge he now possessed until time drew short enough to preclude any organized response or unintentional slip of the tongue in the wrong place.

  “I can only tell you this much—we must conclude all of our preparations by the beginning of the Halfyear feasts. Shortly before that time, I'll tell everyone the whole story."

  “What did you mean when you said they may not work with it?"

  “What?"

  “You said the shuttles may not work, even with this hydraulic fluid,” Pasha reminded him.

  “Oh. Well, they've been sitting idle for over two hundred years—some of them almost two hundred thirty years. They were programmed to do periodic maintenance on themselves, but they've had limited resources and there are certain things they just can't do. A lot of the systems rely on hydraulics to function and, if the seals are bad, we may not be able to replace them in time."

  * * * *

  Niki was the only Delta, and only the Deltas had been given the memories required to run the shuttles. He was going to have to provide instruction to other members of the group at locations where the shuttles stood—a difficult task at best and a dangerous one at least, but it was the only way he could see to get as many as possible off Paz. He couldn't do it alone.

  Outside the small circle of people he needed to help him, no one could be allowed to have the information that he was preparing the shuttles for operation. It was bad enough he was known to exist and worse that his interest in the shuttles was now, apparently, widely understood.

  There was a distinct advantage to being the only living direct-line Delta. Everyone believed the Delta to be the key to the outcome of the enlightenment and that meant they all wanted him—alive. He didn't have to fear for his life, but, with all those people looking for him, he was definitely limited when it came to his movements. If it were possible for him to get to the other shuttle sites without anyone discovering what he was doing, they would continue to concentrate their efforts in the New London area, and he would be free to operate without interference.

  The majority of the shuttles were in remote locations where his exposure would be minimal. They were guarded, of course, but things would be much easier than in places like New London, where the ancient ships were part of a controlled display.

  I have to get back to Twenty-three, but how?

  How much information did the Council have on Twelve Points? Not much, he thought, and they'd be much more concerned about the Generation and that Cadre bunch, to be sure, with whom violence had replaced reason. The cult had not been a bad idea at all.

  What had transpired during the last few weeks had shown the Generation to be fragmenting from within and under attack from without. The seditionists obviously believed he was involved with the Generation, and the Council, if they were aware of his existence, probably did, too. It wouldn't be long before one or both of them discovered that not to be the case, and then Twelve Points would be in peril. Something needed to be done. They needed a way to cause everyone concerned to believe that Twelve Points were nothing more than religious extremists with no connection to him or awareness of his presence—that Twelve Points had not the slightest idea who
, or what, the elusive Delta was. If this could be accomplished, both factions and the Council would remain distracted by their own agendas long enough for Twelve Points to finish the work laid out by the Fathers so long ago.

  Niki now knew he would never again be a fisherman. Not here, anyway. And he had a new way of thinking about the Fathers. The resentment was still there, and he continued to curse them for the confusion and turmoil they had handed him, but there also was a growing appreciation for what was beginning to look like a grand plan with a scope well beyond his simple way of thinking. They had been doing a job, just as Twelve Points was about to do, but the Fathers had bungled it by not laying it all out in a comprehensible form in the first place. His dreams and the Ancient Record were beginning to reassemble the plan of the Fathers enough for him to grasp what had to be done and maybe ... maybe the Twelve Points of Light would do it better this time.

  * * * *

  Niki pulled a battered card from his pocket, snugged up his collar to keep the chill from trickling down his back, and with some difficulty read the number as he punched it into the pub-link pad.

  Shan had to be dealt with. His probing and suspicions could bring down the flimsy shroud that, thus far, had shielded Twelve Points so well. Term him? No, he couldn't think that way. Sure, if it was necessary to defend against an immediate threat ... but Shan—Shan was just a good man imbued with excessive curiosity and a zeal for his work. Something would have to be done about Shan, and Niki thought he knew what that something had to be.

  Niki smiled affably at the startled Albo Shan who stared back at him in disbelief from the tiny screen.

  “Evening, Bo. I believe you've been looking for me."

  Shan's pale, surprised eyes stared out of the small square at the top of the link, lips moving, but with no sound eschewing. He blinked several times, then cleared his throat.

  “Niki? I've ... I've been trying to find you for days, man. You're in trouble, I think. Where are you?"

  “I can't tell you that, Bo. If you want to see me, go where we first met at first light tomorrow. Wait for my call. And Bo, don't mention this to anyone."

  “Why? What's happening?"

  “Never mind that, just be sure you haven't been tracked—and be there. You'll get further instructions then. Oh, before I close this contact—I appreciate what you've been trying to do, but be very careful because there are many who would do you harm if they were aware you have any connection to me. I'll see you soon, Bo."

  Before Shan could respond, Niki cut the connection and walked slowly back to Twelve Points, pondering his next move while small clouds of his breath assimilated into the cold night air and Vegamtu pushed a vague shadow along in front of him.

  * * *

  Chapter XIII

  The frigid fingers of the north Pazian plains found their way through his carper down jacket and, although he had pulled it tightly around him, it was no defense against the resolute wind. Shan ducked into the entry alcove of a building behind him, but it afforded little relief as the breeze swirled in tight, confused circles through the recess, finding every opening in his puffy armor with unerring accuracy. It was cold—bone-jarringly cold in Ganeden, the fourth city he had been instructed to visit in his effort to meet Niki. Each time he arrived at an appointed place he would be led around a haphazard circuit and ultimately provided with a fresh ticket to another location. The ticket and an envelope containing instructions would be jammed into his hand at the last moment, leaving him barely enough time to make it to the pad before the flight departed.

  As he stood there trying to duck as much of the wind as he could, three figures wrapped in loose-fitting blue robes approached from upwind. Shan recognized their garb. They called themselves Witnesses, but they were really recruiters for a religious gang of halfwits who referred to themselves as the Twelve Points of Light. Shan watched them drift toward him, their robes billowing and vibrating in front of them, making them look like pregnant Cooper's whales swimming in formation. It was hard to tell if they were men or women or both with their hoods pulled down over their faces. The only thing he was certain of was that they were Twelve Points people.

  One of the three flapping robes stopped in front of the alcove and spoke in a voice loud enough to keep his words from being whisked away completely on the howling wind.

  “You Shan?"

  “Yeah, I'm Shan,” he replied. “Is this it, or am I being taken on another tour?"

  “This, Brother Shan, is it,” the voice shouted from beneath his hood. “Please, follow at a distance. No closer than a square. When we make a turn we will slow until you are able to see us. When you come to a building with a bright red front, stop and enter the alcove there. Do not continue to follow us. Is that understood?"

  The other two guides remained flapping in front of the alcove, shuffling and swaying to maintain their circulation in the cold. Around their hood openings, where their moist breath had not been allowed to escape on the wind, ice had built up to form a rigid ring. The frozen breath refracted and reflected the light of a visibly weaker Vegamwun and shimmered along the edges pulled in tight to protect their faces. Blue apparitions wearing vertical haloes, he thought. Shan nodded, and the one who had spoken to him joined the other two, and they hurried off downwind. Shan shivered and yanked at his jacket, then, when his guides were about a square away, he stepped reluctantly back into the biting wind.

  * * * *

  The sign on the building vibrated and banged against the wall. It was difficult to read since it was worn nearly clean by the incessant scrubbing of windborne sand.

  GANED N O L SUPPLY

  WE MAK IT SLIDE

  Shan was glad the buildings of Ganeden had not been designed by the architects of New London, where the wind calmed to a whisper during the cold part of the year. They would not have thought to provide any protection from what he was enduring. He pushed into a small corner of the alcove to wait for his next contact. Was it getting colder? The wind had blown another half hour away to the east, and he was just about to give up when a voice spoke to him from the doorway.

  “Brother Shan?"

  “Yeah, yeah, Brother Shan. Now what?"

  “Please, come in.

  Inside it was dusk dark, with just enough light to see robed figures moving in front of him. They motioned, and he followed. Their robes, long and full, gave them the appearance of blue ghosts gliding across the floor. The room, filled with boxes, crates, and drums looked like a warehouse of some kind, but what light there was was too dim for him to read any of the labels.

  What the hell are they doing here?

  “Please, Brother Shan,” his guide said, and pointed to an opening in the wall.

  Shan entered, the door clanged shut, and the lift immediately began its descent. When it came to a halt he had counted ten standard floors. Ten standard floors beneath the blasts of cold, abrasive wind relentlessly scrubbing the surfaces of Ganeden.

  Waiting outside the lift was another group of blue-covered guides who led him down a long hall that ended at a massive bronze door. Shelter? Could be. Many of the northern communities once provided central Neathing shelters that were used by all the people in the area who had not dug their own. Of course, that had been a long time ago—before the rule of the single family shelter was adopted.

  The door swung open, and light from beyond struck the walls of the passage. They, too, were lined with solid bronze plates. Definitely a shelter from the old days. Three blue robes surrounded him, and a sharp, stinging sensation grabbed him by the back of his neck as the needle sank in. Instantly he felt he was falling, spinning. The air smelled of garlic, his tongue swelled, and everything in view went off in different directions—the walls melting around him. He was aware of being picked up and laid on a hard surface that turned out to be the bed of a cart, which carried him along a passage to another room where he was transferred to a box on a waiting tunnel car. The small light at the front of the car reflected off copper colored walls in
a rectangular shaft, and the cars wheels made a clickety-clackety sound as they passed over gaps in the rail segments that had been laid down a very long time ago. Shan thought it might have been two hundred years or more since shelters such as these had been built—then everything went black.

  * * * *

  “How much did you give him?"

  “Five cc's, sir,” a robed figure replied. “It ought to be enough to keep him out for the rest of the night."

  “Fine,” Niki said. “Put him in the transport while I get the other material ready."

  Shan's limp body was draped across the rear seat of the transport when Niki returned with a small package under his arm. Niki laid the box on the floor beside the heavily drugged Shan, closed the door, and climbed into the passenger side in front.

  “We have it all, love,” he said and closed the door. “Let's go."

  Pasha deftly lifted the transport above the ice-covered ground at the end of the tunnel and locked on the express track for North Coopersland. She turned and looked at Niki with what Niki had come to know as a troubled expression.

  “Niki, what do we do with him if he doesn't want to cooperate with us?"

  “It's hard to believe he won't. There's a story here, and that's what he wants. I don't think we need to worry about cooperation, love."

  “I guess that's true. But what if he decides we aren't doing the right thing? Suppose he concludes that we're not acting in accordance with the Book of the Law?"

  “I don't think he will, but, if he does, I imagine we'll have no choice but to hold him until it's time. Then we can let him go, and it won't make any difference. He will still get his story, missing a lot of the detail, and we'll be gone."

  “I hope we don't have to do that. Things are complicated enough."

  Pasha eased the mag-drive forward, and the transport disappeared quickly into the steely glow of Vegamtu.

  * * * *

  Villers lay on the floor, his blank, unblinking, glazed eyes turned to a ceiling he would never again see while his home was systematically, meticulously dissected by silent men in dark gray uniforms.