His body—and he was a Fourth, remember—was a finely tuned machine. It didn’t die easily. Sometime prior to midnight Jason lost the ability to speak, and that was when he began to look both frightened and no longer entirely human. Carol held his hand and told him he was safe, he was at home. I don’t know if that consolation reached him in the strange and convolute chambers his mind had entered. I hope it did.
Not long after that his eyes rolled upward and his muscles relaxed. His body struggled on, drawing convulsive breaths almost until morning.
Then I left him with Carol, who stroked his head with infinite gentleness and whispered to him as if he could still hear her, and I failed to notice that the sun when it rose was no longer bloated and red but as bright and perfect as it had been before the end of the Spin.
4 X 109 A.D. / We all Land Somewhere
I stayed on deck as the Capetown Maru left its berth and made for the open sea.
No less than a dozen container ships abandoned Teluk Bayur while the oil fires were burning, jostling for position at the harbor mouth. Most of these were small merchant ships of dubious registry, probably bound for Port Magellan despite what their manifests said—vessels whose owners and captains had much to lose from the scrutiny that would follow an investigation.
I stood with Jala and we braced ourselves against the rails, watching a rust-spackled coastal freighter veer out of a bank of oil-fire smoke alarmingly close to the Capetown’s stern. Both ships sounded alarms and the Capetown’s deck crew looked aft apprehensively. But the coastal freighter sheered off before it made contact.
Then we were out of the protection of the harbor into high seas and rolling swells, and I went below to join Ina and Diane and the other émigrés in the crew lounge. En sat at a trestle table with Ibu Ina and his parents, all four of them looking unwell. In deference to her injury Diane had been given the only padded chair in the room, but the wound had stopped bleeding and she had managed to change into dry clothes.
Jala entered the lounge an hour later. He shouted for attention and delivered a speech, which Ina translated for me: “Setting aside his pompous self-congratulation, Jala says he went to the bridge and spoke to the captain. All deck fires are out and we’re safely underway, he says. The captain apologizes for the rough seas. According to forecasts we ought to be out of this weather by late tonight or early tomorrow. For the next few hours, however—”
At which point En, who was sitting next to Ina, turned and vomited into her lap, effectively finishing her sentence for her.
Two nights later I went up on deck with Diane to look at the stars.
The main deck was quieter at night than at any time during the day. We found a safe space between the exposed forty-foot containers and the aft superstructure, where we could talk without being overheard. The sea was calm, the air was pleasantly warm, and stars swarmed over the Capetown’s stacks and radars as if they had tangled in the rigging.
“Are you still writing your memoir?” Diane had seen the assortment of memory cards I was carrying in my luggage, alongside the digital and pharmaceutical contraband we had brought from Montreal. Also various paper notebooks, loose pages, scribbled notes.
“Not as often,” I said. “It doesn’t seem as urgent. The need to write it all down—”
“Or the fear of forgetting.”
“Or that.”
“And do you feel different?” she asked, smiling.
I was a new Fourth. Diane was not. By now her wound had closed, leaving nothing but a strip of puckered flesh that followed the curvature of her hip. Her body’s capacity for self-repair still struck me as uncanny. Even though, presumably, I shared it.
Her question was a little mischievous. Many times I had asked Diane whether she felt different as a Fourth. The real question, of course, was: did she seem different to me?
There had never been a good answer. Obviously she was a different person after her near-death and resurrection at the Big House—who wouldn’t be? She had lost a husband and a faith and had awakened to a world that would make even the Buddha scratch his head in perplexity.
“The transition is only a door,” she said. “A door into a room. A room you’ve never been in, though you might have caught a glimpse of it from time to time. Now it’s the room where you live; it’s yours, it belongs to you. It has certain qualities you can’t change—you can’t make it bigger or smaller. But how you furnish it is up to you.”
“More a proverb than an answer,” I said.
“Sorry. Best I can do.” She turned her head up toward the stars. “Look, Tyler, you can see the Arch.”
We call it an “arch” because we’re a myopic species. The Archway is really a ring, a circle a thousand miles in diameter, but only half of it rises above sea level. The rest of it is underwater or buried in the crust of the Earth, perhaps (some have speculated) exploiting the suboceanic magma as a source of energy. But from our ant’s-eye point of view it was indeed an arch, the peak of which extended well above the atmosphere.
Even the exposed half of it was completely visible only in photographs taken from space, and even those photographs were usually doctored to emphasize detail. If you could take a cross-section of the ring material itself—in effect, the wire that bends into a hoop—it would be a rectangle a quarter mile on its short side and a mile on the long. Immense, but a tiny fraction of the space it enclosed and not always easy to see at a distance.
Capetown Maru’s route had taken us south of the ring, parallel to its radius and almost directly beneath its apex. The sun was still shining on that peak, no longer a bent letter U or J but a gentle frown (a Cheshire frown, Diane called it) high in the northern sky. Stars rotated past it like phosphorescent plankton parted by the prow of a ship.
Diane put her head against my shoulder. “I wish Jason could have seen this.”
“I believe he did see it. Just not from this angle.”
There were three immediate problems at the Big House following Jason’s death.
The most pressing was Diane, whose physical condition remained unchanged for days following the injection of the Martian drug. She was nearly comatose and intermittently feverish, her pulse beating in her throat like the flutter of an insect wing. We were low on medical supplies and I had to coax her to take an occasional sip of water. The only real improvement was in the sound of her breathing, which was incrementally more relaxed and less phlegmatic—her lungs, at least, were mending.
The second problem was distasteful, but it was one we shared with too many other households across the country: a family member had died and needed burying.
A great wave of death (accidental, suicidal, homicidal) had swept over the world in the last few days. No nation on Earth was equipped to deal with it, except in the crudest possible fashion, and the United States was no exception. Local radio had begun to announce collection sites for mass burials; refrigerated trucks had been commandeered from meat packing plants; there was a number to call now that phone service had been restored—but Carol wouldn’t hear of it. When I broached the subject she drew herself into a posture of fierce dignity and said, “I won’t do that, Tyler. I will not have Jason dumped into a hole like a medieval pauper.”
“Carol, we can’t—”
“Hush,” she said. “I still have a few contacts left from the old days. Let me make some calls.”
She had once been a respected specialist and must have had an extensive network of contacts before the Spin; but after thirty years of alcoholic seclusion, whom could she possibly know? Nevertheless she spent a morning on the phone, tracking down changed numbers, reintroducing herself, explaining, coaxing, begging. It all sounded hopeless to me. But not more than six hours later a hearse pulled into the driveway and two obviously exhausted but relentlessly kind and professional men came inside and put Jason’s body on a wheeled stretcher and carried him out of the Big House for the last time.
Carol spent the rest of the day upstairs, holding Diane’s hand and singi
ng songs she probably couldn’t hear. That night she took her first drink since the morning the red sun rose—a “maintenance dose,” she called it.
Our third big problem was E. D. Lawton.
E.D. had to be told that his son had died, and Carol steeled herself to perform that duty, too. She confessed she hadn’t talked to E.D. except through lawyers for a couple of years now and that he had always frightened her, at least when she was sober—he was big, confrontational, intimidating; Carol was fragile, elusive, sly. But her grief had subtly altered the equation.
It took hours, but she was finally able to reach him—he was in Washington, within commuting distance—and tell him about Jason. She was carefully vague about the cause of his death. She told him Jason had come home with what looked like pneumonia and that it had turned critical shortly after the power died and the world went berserk—no phone, no ambulance service, ultimately no hope.
I asked her how E.D. had taken the news.
She shrugged. “He didn’t say anything at first. Silence is E.D.’s way of expressing pain. His son died, Tyler. That might not have surprised him, given what’s happened in the last few days. But it hurt him. I think it hurt him unspeakably.”
“Did you tell him Diane’s here?”
“I thought it would be wiser not to.” She looked at me. “I didn’t tell him you’re here, either. I know Jason and E.D. were at odds. Jason came home to escape something that was happening at Perihelion, something that frightened him. And I assume it’s connected somehow with the Martian drug. No, Tyler, don’t explain it to me—I don’t care to hear and I probably wouldn’t understand. But I thought it would be better if E.D. didn’t come bulling out to the house, trying to take charge of things.”
“He didn’t ask about her?”
“No, not about Diane. One odd thing, though. He asked me to make sure that Jason…well, that Jason’s body is preserved. He asked a lot of questions about that. I told him I’d made arrangements, there would be a funeral, I’d let him know. But he didn’t want to leave it at that. He wants an autopsy. But I got stubborn.” She regarded me coolly. “Why would he want an autopsy, Tyler?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
But I set about finding out. I went to Jason’s room, where his empty bed had been stripped of sheets. I opened the window and sat in the chair next to the dresser and looked at what he’d left behind.
Jason had asked me to record his final insights into the nature of the Hypotheticals and their manipulation of the Earth. He had also asked me to include a copy of that recording in each of a dozen or so fat padded envelopes, stamped and addressed for mailing if and when mail service was restored. Clearly Jase had not expected to produce such a monologue when he arrived at the Big House a few days before the end of the Spin. Some other crisis had been dogging him. His deathbed testament was a late addendum.
I leafed through the envelopes. They were addressed, in Jason’s hand, to names I didn’t recognize. No, correct that; I did recognize the name on one of the envelopes.
It was mine.
Dear Tyler,
I know I’ve burdened you unconscionably in the past. I’m afraid I’m about to burden you again, and this time the stakes are considerably higher. Let me explain. And I’m sorry if this seems abrupt, but I’m in a hurry, for reasons that will become clear.
Recent episodes of what the media call “the flicker” have set off alarm bells in the Lomax administration. So have several other events, less well publicized. I’ll cite just one example: since the death of Wun Ngo Wen, tissue samples taken from his organs have been under study at the Animal Disease Center on Plum Island, the same facility where he was quarantined when he arrived on Earth. Martian biotechnology is subtle, but modern forensics is stubborn. It recently became clear that Wun’s physiology, particularly his nervous system, had been altered in ways even more radical than the “Fourth Age” procedure outlined in his archives. For this and other reasons, Lomax and his people have begun to smell a rat. They invited E.D. out of his reluctant retirement and they’re giving new credence to his suspicions about Wun’s motives. E.D. welcomed this as an opportunity to reclaim Perihelion (and his own reputation), and he’s wasting no time capitalizing on the paranoia in the White House.
How have the authorities chosen to proceed? Crudely. Lomax (or his advisors) conceived a plan to raid the existing facilities at Perihelion and seize whatever we had retained of Wun’s possessions and documents, as well as all our records and working notes.
E.D. hasn’t yet connected the dots between my recovery from AMS and Wun’s pharmaceuticals; or, if he has, he’s kept it to himself. Or so I prefer to believe. Because if I fall into the hands of the security services the first thing they’ll do is a blood assay, rapidly followed by making me a captive science experiment, probably in Wun’s old cell at Plum Island. And I don’t believe E.D. actually wants that to happen. As much as he may resent me for “stealing Perihelion” or collaborating with Wun Ngo Wen, he’s still my father.
But don’t worry. Even though E.D. is very much back in the loop at Lomax’s White House, I have resources of my own. I’ve been cultivating them. These are generally not powerful people, though some are powerful in their own way, but bright and decent individuals who choose to take a longer view of human destiny, and thanks to them I was warned in advance of the raid on Perihelion. I’ve effected my escape. Now I’m a fugitive.
You, Tyler, are merely a suspected accessory, though it may come to the same thing.
I’m sorry. I know I bear some responsibility for putting you in this position. Someday I’ll apologize face-to-face. For now all I can offer is advice.
The digital records I put into your hands when you left Perihelion are, of course, highly classified redactions from the archives of Wun Ngo Wen. For all I know you may have burned them, buried them, or tossed them into the Pacific Ocean. No matter. Years designing spacecraft taught me the virtue of redundancy. I’ve parceled out Wun’s contraband wisdom to dozens of people in this country and across the world. It hasn’t been posted on the Internet yet—no one is that feckless—but it’s out there. This is no doubt a profoundly unpatriotic and certainly criminal act. If I’m captured I’ll be accused of treason. In the meantime I’m making the most of it.
But I don’t believe knowledge of this kind (which includes protocols for human modifications that can cure grave diseases, among other things, and I should know) ought to be corralled for national advantage, even if releasing it poses other problems.
Lomax and his tame Congress clearly disagree. So I’m dispersing the last fragments of the archive and making myself scarce. I’m going into hiding. You might want to do the same. In fact you may have to. Everyone at the old Perihelion, anyone who was close to me, is bound to fall under federal scrutiny sooner or later.
Or, contrarily, you may wish to drop in at the nearest FBI office and hand over the contents of this envelope. If that’s what you think is best, follow your conscience; I won’t blame you, though I don’t guarantee the outcome. My experience with the Lomax administration suggests that the truth will not, in fact, set you free.
In any case, I regret putting you in a difficult position. It isn’t fair. It’s too much to ask of a friend, and I have always been proud to call you my friend.
Maybe E.D. was right about one thing. Our generation has struggled for thirty years to recover what the Spin stole from us that October night. But we can’t. There’s nothing in this evolving universe to hold on to, and nothing to be gained by trying. If I learned anything from my “Fourthness,” that’s it. We’re as ephemeral as raindrops. We all fall, and we all land somewhere.
Fall freely, Tyler. Use the enclosed documents if you need them. They were expensive but they’re absolutely reliable. (It’s good to have friends in high places!)
The “enclosed documents” were, in essence, a suite of spare identities: passports, Homeland Security ID cards, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, Social Security
numbers, even med-school diplomas, all bearing my description but none bearing my correct name.
Diane’s recovery continued. Her pulse strengthened and her lungs cleared, although she was still febrile. The Martian drug was doing its work, rebuilding her from the inside out, editing and amending her DNA in subtle ways.
As her health improved she began to ask cautious questions—about the sun, about Pastor Dan, about the trip from Arizona to the Big House. Because of her intermittent fever, the answers I gave her didn’t always stick. She asked me more than once what had happened to Simon. If she was lucid I told her about the red calf and the return of the stars; if she was groggy I just told her Simon was “somewhere else” and that I’d be looking after her a while longer. Neither of these answers—the true or the half-true—seemed to satisfy her.
Some days she was listless, propped up facing the window, watching sunlight clock across the valleyed bedclothes. Other days she was feverishly restless. One afternoon she demanded paper and a pen…but when I gave it to her all she wrote was the single sentence Am I not my brother’s keeper, repeated until her fingers cramped.
“I told her about Jason,” Carol admitted when I showed her the paper.
“Are you sure that was wise?”
“She had to hear it sooner or later. She’ll make peace with it, Tyler. Don’t worry. Diane will be all right. Diane was always the strong one.”
On the morning of the day of Jason’s funeral I prepared the envelopes he had left, adding a copy of his last recording to each one, stamped them, and dropped them into a randomly selected mailbox on the way to the local chapel Carol had reserved for the service. The packages might have to wait a few days for pickup—mail service was still being restored—but I figured they’d be safer there than at the Big House.
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