by Sarah Zettel
The door was a layer of solid that slid away from a layer of optical matter. Winema stepped through the shimmering stuff, causing its minute crystals to ripple through the light curtain that held them in place. No one but Witnesses saw the inside of the Holding.
The twenty-four Witnesses ringed the chamber, standing in their specially customized alcoves. Each body was encased in a metallic skeleton that made sure its limbs were properly supported regularly and exercised. The polymer tubes that fed into their veins kept internal nutrient and waste levels constant. If the power failed, or even fluctuated, they would all be released and the Holding evacuated. The only process that could not be circumvented was age. At 120, the Witnesses still died and had to be replaced from the mobile ranks.
Winema walked into the center of the circular chamber, tracked by twenty-four cameras and twenty-four eyes. She stood straight and proud under the gaze of the Memory. She did not have to hand them her name. They already knew her better than she knew herself.
“I have the names for the chain of Imperialists in my line of sight,” she said.
Witness 14 opened his mouth. There was a delicate hiss as the joints on his skeleton responded to the movement. “Recite.” The eyes blinked, but the cameras did not.
“Wife Caril Hanr Sone of the Grand Errand, Ambassador-Beholden Paral Idenam Or of the Grand Errand, Bio-technician Uary Nearch of the Grand Errand, Contractor Kelat Hruska of the Hundredth Core.” Winema enunciated the names clearly, adding each traitor to the Memory.
“Ambassador Basq Hanr Sone of the Grand Errand?” asked Witness 20.
“No connection,” said Winema. “They have been using him as a cover and blind for their activities. He is guilty only of being unobservant.”
“Exile Jahidh Hanr Sone?”
“Still in operation on the Home Ground. Believed to be seeking and sorting useful artifacts in addition to delaying the Unifiers’ actions.”
The eyes blinked again. The delicate threads between the alcoves could not carry thoughts, but they could carry impressions. Their hunches ran from Witness to Witness like the electric current ran through the room, carried between the cameras using neurografted transmission wires that were even more sophisticated than Winema’s own. It was the closest the Vitae had been able to come to mastering telepathy.
“Which of these are necessary to the Reclamation in their current positions?” asked Witness 24.
“Uary Nearch, Kelat Hruska, Jahidh Hanr Sone.”
“Justify Jahidh Hanr Sone,” said Witness 1.
The camera eyes reflected Winema’s face and form twenty-four times as the Memory watched her carefully.
“His efforts discovered the artifact Stone in the Wall and began the understanding of the relationship between the mechanically derived and human-derived artifacts. He is motivated to make the final connection and it is highly likely he has leads into the truth that our Contractors and Ambassadors yet lack.”
The Memory absorbed her statement. The silence was a comforting weight on Winema. Her camera eye tracked the room. The lines between the alcoves glowed violet as the Memory communed with itself. She was being considered seriously.
“Recommend disposition of Caril Hanr Sone and Paral Idenam Or,” said Witness 10.
“It is my recommendation that they be collected publicly. This will slow current Imperialist activities within the Vitae Encampments. I further recommend that they be given to the Shessel World Enclave for their permanent exile in order to reinforce the impression of the Vitae’s willingness to cooperate fully in Quarter Galaxy civilization now that we have returned to the Home Ground. We will require resources and diplomatic connections until emigration and settlement is completed.”
The glow she saw with her right eye intensified. The camera eyes clicked back and forth as the Memory listened.
“The Memory concurs with this assessment,” said Witness 1. “Formal Witness Winema Avin-Dae Uratae, you are assigned to the collection of Caril Hanr Sone and Paral Idenam Or. The Memory shall transfer their new status to the Assembly.”
Winema closed her eyes and made full obeisance to the Memory.
Uary pressed the recorder sheet into the park wall and watched while the tidy lines of green text printed themselves across the milky grey surface. The park and the corridor were filled with the amber lights that created ship’s dawn. No shadows except his own crossed the wall and the only sound in the whole park was his breathing.
Technically, there was no punishment for writing anything in a public park. Technically, many things were true. Technically, by now he should have been smuggled onto Kethran and into an Imperialist lab, where the female artifact recovered from the Home Ground waited for him. Technically, Jahidh should have already mapped the relationship between the mechanically derived and human-derived artifacts on the Home Ground.
What is going wrong? We are the Rhudolant Vitae. We are the First Life. We are the architects of the Quarter Galaxy…He peeled the recorder sheet off the wall and rolled it into a tight cylinder. Optical matter flowed into the square where it had lain and solidified to become a section of blank wall. That is, of course, the problem. We’ve gotten so used to manipulating governments and corporations, we’ve forgotten that individuals will still work betrayal, and that our own land are capable of grotesque mistakes.
Our entire history is based on the fact that we were betrayed and we still forget to watch out for it.
The problem also was that now that events were truly moving and moving fast, there was no time for individual implications to sink in.
The Home Ground was not some far-off paradise anymore, but it wasn’t just a ruined hulk to be recolonized, either. There was technology there that had survived longer than the memory of its function had. The Vitae would learn to use it. Nothing could stop that, but the blind still prevailed in the Reclamation Assembly. They would not see that if the power was not directed outward from the beginning, it would turn inward. Those who were now Imperialists would find something closer to home to raise arms about. With knowledge of the Ancestors’ technology, the arms would draw more blood than words, and the blood would be Vitae. It would spill itself out while the rest of the Quarter Galaxy looked on in mild curiosity.
Uary turned on his heel and hurried back to the lift. Technically, Caril should come out of her quarters first, to see the new essay and know he would be waiting for her in the market, but Uary couldn’t risk Basq finding him there. If Basq knew Uary worked with the Imperialists, Basq would use that fact to get Uary removed from committee work, and then there was no telling who would be the one to examine the male artifact when it was brought in.
The markets opened whenever the ship was near enough to a settled planet for goods to be imported by shuttle from the surface. Temporary storage facilities were set up in the Grand Errand’s fifth level park to dispense the goods and record the sales. Residents who had their names entered on the subscription rosters could select goods from a posted list on their private terminals and have them delivered to their quarters rather than being required to come to the market. Depending on the world, there could be thirty or thirty-five different units that would need replenishing two and three times a day.
Kethran, however, had very little variety to offer the ship.
Barely a dozen boxy, silver vendors had been stationed between the park’s stages, easels, and terminals.
Uary strolled through the park. He paid no attention to the holographed dancers, or the green marble statue of a many-branched tree, or the single-phase abstract mosaic on display. He wandered from vendor to vendor, examining the meats and vegetables, and trying to discern how well the Vitae-induced strains were really adapting to Kethran’s environment. He selected several samples to be delivered to the lab so he could go over them in detail. The poultry did not seem to be as robust as it should, but then again, some of the Kethran distributors slighted Vitae procurers…
Caril, ever mindful of her position as dutiful Wife of a prom
oted Ambassador, breezed into the park with an air of total neutrality that would have done a Witness proud. She wound her way easily between the half a dozen other Wives, male and female, who mulled about the market space. She examined the food offerings with serious attention and a practiced eye before selecting delicacies for breakfast.
Uary sauntered along and waited until Caril was at a stall by herself before he crossed the park and stood beside her.
The parks were not safe, but they were safer than anywhere else on the Grand Errand. Word-of-mouth conversations were not truly safe, either, but, like the parks, they were safer than the alternatives.
“Good morning, Wife,” he said politely as he leaned over to select his own fruit. Whatever Uary thought of Basq, it was a matter of record and repetition he was always polite to Basq’s Wife and Beholden. “Not much of a selection today, I’m afraid.”
“Every little bit is a little bit more.” She sized up the contents of the tray with an appraising sweep of her eyes. “But it’s not adding up to enough, you’re right.” She turned over an apple, checking for bruises. “The war is real and if they’re primitive, they’re effective soldiers apparently, and all choosing up sides. The Unifiers haven’t armed them, but they’re still advising. Jahidh has done his job almost too well,” she said with a touch of irony. “It’s going to be very bloody, Uary, and too many resources are going to be wasted. The problem is, we don’t know enough to stop it. There is a possibility that genetic relatives of the female artifact will be located, but no word on how soon.”
“Kethran was a total debacle.” Uary rolled an apple between his fingers, feeling the tension of the skin. It was smooth, but perhaps a little too thick. That would make for a tart fruit as opposed to a sweet one. Uary made a mental note to find out if that was a deliberate or accidental variation. “But at least I’ve been assigned to analyze the male artifact.”
“Yes.” Caril prodded several more fruits. “That is an issue.”
Uary ran his fingers over another sample but his mind played her last sentence over again. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve had word about that,” she said, leaning back and surveying the whole tray again. “The only race left that we have a hope of winning is the race for understanding. Anything you learn about the male artifact will pass into the hands of the blind. We can’t let them have it. We need to give the ones already on the ground a chance.”
Uary felt his heart begin to beat heavily as understanding seeped into his veins. “I can’t destroy the only artifact we have.”
Caril touched two apples and the stall’s arms extracted them from the holder to add to the bundle of purchases being assembled for her by the drone systems.
“You have to.”
Uary stared at the stack of apples. You have to. He had been telling himself that since he joined the Imperialists. You have to be independent of Outsider governments when it comes to acquisition of organic resources and raw materials or you could be denied what you need. You have to turn your power outward, or it will turn inward on you. You have to have a guiding vision or all that has been done since the Flight is meaningless, just another fragment of chaos in the universe.
But surely I do not have to destroy the work of the Ancestors.
Uary opened his mouth, but a flash of green caught his eye and the words died before he could form them. Winema, the Formal Witness he had selected to be assigned to Basq, stood in the hullward entrance to the park. Basq was nowhere to be seen.
Caril tracked his gaze around to the Witness and froze. She was not the only one. All the Wives in the park had turned to single-phase statues at the sight of the unaccompanied Witness.
Winema moved with unhurried strides through the tableau until she stood six inches from Caril. Her silicate hand reached out and gripped the Wife’s wrist.
“Wife Caril Hanr Sone, you are held in the eyes of the Memory for activities counter to the dictates of the Assembly and the laws of the Vitae and for directly endangering the effort of the Reclamation.”
Uary knew that last sight of Caril would stay with him for a long time. She drew herself up straight and proud. The Witness walked toward the park entrance and Caril walked with her, falling into step at her side, both eyes straight ahead, ignoring everything, including her captor.
She left Uary standing by the apple stall, with a piece of fruit still in his fingers, too stunned to remember he also had appearances to keep up. His heart fluttered frantically in his rib cage. When the Witness spoke Caril’s sentence, her organic eye had been fixed on Caril, but her camera lens had been fixed on Uary.
Did they know of their connection? How could they not know? But if they did know, why had they taken her and left him with that last vision and the echo of her final, almost-heretical instructions.
Destroy the work of the Ancestors? Uary wanted to collapse under the weight of that thought. He remembered when he saw the initial analysis of the female artifact. He’d gone into the chapel and said all six Graces. Her construction was flawless, flawless! And the spheres she carried were more alive than she was. They were perfect, immortal, biological constructions, irreplaceable parts of a system he could only start to guess at. He’d cursed out loud when he heard that she had escaped Kethran. Even though it would have brought Basq all the prestige even he could dream of, Uary wouldn’t have cared if the Ambassador had succeeded in bringing her back, just so long as Uary could work with her again. There was so much to understand, so much that could be learned if only he could get the time.
Analysis of the male would be good, of course, and useful, and interesting in its own right, but the female…with her, they might learn how the Aunorante Sangh had defeated even the Ancestors and then…and then…
Something damp drizzled across his fingers and Uary came to himself with a start. He had crushed the apple in his hand. Its juice dripped out around his fingertips and across his palm. He dropped the fruit and hastily ordered the stall to deliver it to the lab along with the rest of his samples.
Uary made his own way to the lab wrapped in a private fog. Destroy the one artifact they had in their hands. How could he? Yes, the Reclamation had been accelerated. Yes, within a few dozen hours, they would have their pick of samples, technically. But who knew who would be assigned to those samples, and who knew how long analysis would take? Yes, Jahidh reported a lead he could follow for himself, but still, who knew how long that would take either? They needed to begin now, in this hour, with this sample that they already had some baseline data for.
The Witnesses had already taken Caril away. If he destroyed the artifact, they’d take him, too.
The sounds of voices and mechanical activity pulled Uary up short a bare millimeter before he collided with the lab door. The automatic reader had been shut off. Uary impatiently laid his hand against the palm reader.
The doorway cleared to reveal his Beholden swarming between the tanks and terminals that made up the lab’s equipment. The lab had been designed around an array of analysis vats. The central holding tank was an elongated oval large enough to hold a full-grown Shessel. The side closest to the lab entrance was clear, so a support capsule could be placed right alongside the tank. The side toward the hull held the holding tank’s monitors and also allowed pipes to feed into three smaller tanks that could dispense the analysis gel and any additional chemicals the work might require.
Lairdin, an amputant with a missing ear whom Uary had appointed his supervisor, was helping two students drain what smelled like fresh sterilizer out of the central holding tank. The gel oozed into the reconfiguration tank, where any stray bacteria or biological waste could be filtered out while the main holding tank was readied for the next subject.
“Can you believe it, Bio-technician?” Lairdin said happily. Uary had accepted her contract because of her precise grasp of neurotransmitter configuration. Since then he had learned to ignore her atrocious manners. “I owe the Ancestors at least four of the Graces for this.”
Uary took in the bustling activity, none of which he had ordered. “What am I being asked to believe now, Supervisor?”
Lairdin’s hands froze halfway to the tank’s keypad. “You didn’t replay my message? The system told me it was received.”
Uary shook open the recorder sheet and pressed it against the wall. Immediately, it displayed a recording of Lairdin’s face.
“Bio-technician Uary,” said the recording, “we have received a transmission from the contraband runner, Tasa Ad, who states he has recovered the female artifact Stone in the Wall. The Bridge liaison says the Captain himself has cleared the ship for access to a docking clamp for cargo transfer. I will prepare the lab immediately.”
Shock raced down Uary’s spine and rooted him to the floor. The female artifact Recovered and on the way to the Grand Errand. Where not ten minutes ago he’d received orders to destroy the only other artifact in his possession.
“Technician?” said Lairdin. “The first artifact is reported to have been unloaded seven minutes ago. It’ll be arriving any minute. Do you want to prepare the terminals?”
Atrocious, atrocious manners. Uary ripped the recorder sheet out of the wall and dropped it back into the rack. “Yes.”
He sat behind the analysis board and began shuffling its pads. There weren’t many lines to open. He needed his personal observations of the female artifact and the stones, Basq’s records, and the raw information on the male artifact. Uary eyed Lairdin and the other Beholden. The supervisor was bustling around the lab, making sure everything was in order, prying into every detail, except the Bio-technician’s private terminal. Even she was not that rude. He felt watched anyway, by the Witness he could not see, and by the fact that under the board lay a hidden line to Caril’s own terminal. He would have to remove it as soon as he was alone again.
Whenever that would be.
Uary laid his hand on the notepad and curled his fingers inward as if the pad was a sheet of polymer that he could crumple up and toss aside.