Axis s-2

by Robert Charles Wilson

  "What? Intervene on your behalf? What magic do you think I possess?"

  "I thought," Turk said, "you might be able to explain. I also didn't rule out the possibility of some useful advice."

  Diane nodded and tapped her chin with her forefinger. Her sandal-clad foot counted a parallel rhythm on the wooden floor.

  "You could start," Lise said, "by telling us who Sulean Moi really is."

  "The first relevant fact about her," Diane said, "is that she's a Martian."

  The human civilization on Mars had been a great disappointment to Lise's father.

  That was another thing they had discussed, those nights on the veranda when the sky had opened like a book above them.

  Robert Adams had been a young man—an undergraduate at Cal Tech during the lean years of the Spin, facing what had looked like the inevitable destruction of the world he knew—when Wun Ngo Wen arrived on Earth.

  The most spectacular success story of the Spin had been the terra-forming and colonization of Mars. Using the expanding sun and the passage of millions of years in the external solar system as a kind of temporal lever, Mars had been rendered at least marginally habitable and seed colonies of human beings had been established there. While a scant few years passed on Earth behind its Spin membrane, civilizations on Mars had risen and fallen.

  (Even those bare facts—unmentionable in the presence of Lise's mother, who had lost her parents to the dislocations of the Spin and would brook no discussion of it—had raised the hackles on Lise's neck. She had learned all this in school, of course, but without the attendant sense of awe. In Robert Adams' hushed discourse the numbers had not been just numbers: When he said a million years she could hear the distant roar of mountains rising from the sea.)

  A vastly old and vastly strange human civilization had arisen on Mars during the time it took, on the enclosed Earth, for Lise to walk to school and back.

  That civilization had been wrapped by the Hypotheticals in its own envelope of slow time—an enclosure that brought Mars into synchronization with the Earth and ended when the Earths enclosure ended. But before that happened, the Martians had sent a manned spacecraft to Earth. Its sole occupant had been Wun Ngo Wen, the so-called Martian Ambassador.

  Lise would ask—they had this conversation on more than one starry summer night—"Did you ever meet him?"

  "No." Wun had been killed in a roadside attack during the worst years of the Spin. "But I watched his address to the United Nations. He seemed… likable."

  (Lise had seen historical footage of Wun Ngo Wen from an early age. As a child she had imagined having him for a friend: a sort of intellectual Munchkin, no taller than herself.)

  But the Martians had been coy from the beginning, her father told her. They had given the Earth their Archives, a compendium of their knowledge of the physical sciences, in some areas more advanced than earthly science. But it said very little about their work in human biology—the work that had produced their caste of long-lived Fourths—or about the Hypothetical. To Lise's father these were unforgivable omissions. "They've known about the Hypothetical for hundreds if not thousands of years," he said. "They must have had something to say, even if it was only speculation."

  When the Spin ended, and both Earth and Mars were restored to the customary flow of time, radio communication with the Martians had flourished for a time. There had even been a second Martian expedition to Earth, more ambitious than the first, and a group of Martian legates had been installed in a fortresslike building attached to the old United Nations complex in New York—the Martian Embassy, it came to be called. When their scheduled five-year tenure expired, they were returned home aboard a terrestrial spacecraft jointly engineered by the major industrial powers and launched from Xichang.

  There was never a second delegation. Plans to send a reciprocal terrestrial expedition to Mars broke down in multinational negotiations, and in any case the Martians had shown little enthusiasm for it. "I suspect," Lise's father said, "they were a little bit appalled by us." Mars had never been a resource-rich world, even after the ecopoeisis, and its civilization had survived through a sort of meticulous collective parsimony. Earth—with its vast but polluted bodies of water, its inefficient industries and collapsing ecosystems—would have horrified the visitors. "They must have been glad," Robert Adams said, "to put a few million miles between them and us."

  And they had their own post-Spin crises to deal with. The Hypothetical had also installed an Arch on Mars. It rose above the equatorial desert, and it opened on a similar small, rocky planet, hospitable but uninhabited, orbiting a distant star.

  Communications between Earth and Mars had slowed to a perfunctory trickle.

  And there were no more Martians on Earth. They had all gone home when the diplomatic mission ended. Lise had never heard otherwise.

  So how could Sulean Moi be a Martian?

  * * * * *

  "She doesn't even look like a Martian," Lise said. Martians were four to five feet tall at most and their skin was deeply ridged and wrinkled. Sulean Moi, as she appeared in the original snapshot from her father's house in Port Magellan, had been only ordinarily short and not especially wrinkly.

  "Sulean Moi has a unique history," Diane said. "As you might imagine. Would you like a cold drink? I think I would—my throat's a little dry."

  "I'll fetch," Turk said.

  "Fine. Thank you. As to Sulean Moi… I'm afraid I have to tell you something about myself before I can explain." She hesitated and closed her eyes briefly. "My husband was Tyler Dupree. My brother was Jason Lawton."

  A second passed before Lise placed the names. They were names out of history books, Spin-era names. Jason Lawton was the man who had helped seed the barren deserts of Mars, the man who had set the replicator launches in motion, the man to whom Wun Ngo Wen had entrusted his collection of Martian pharmaceuticals. It was Jason Lawton who had defied the U.S. government by distributing those drugs, and the techniques for reproducing them, among a scattered group of academics and scientists who would become the first Terrestrial Fourths.

  And Tyler Dupree, if she recalled correctly, had been Jason Lawton's personal physician.

  "Is that possible?" Lise whispered.

  "I'm not trying to impress you with my age," Diane said. "Just establish my credentials. I'm a Fourth, of course, and I've been a part of that community since its inception. That's why Sulean Moi came to see me, a few months ago."

  "But—if she's a Martian, how did she get here? Why doesn't she look like a Martian?"

  "She was born on Mars. When she was very young she nearly died in a catastrophic flood—she suffered injuries, including tissue death in the brain, that could only be treated by a radical reconstruction using the same drugs that extend life. Given at such an early age, the treatment has a rather dire side effect—a sort of genetic recidivism. She never acquired the wrinkles most Martians develop at puberty and she continued growing past the point at which they ordinarily stop. Which left her looking almost like an Earthling—a throwback, as they would have seen it, to her earliest ancestors. Because she lost most of her immediate family, and because she was considered grotesquely deformed, she was raised by a community of ascetic Fourths. They gave her an impeccable education, if nothing else. No doubt because of her appearance, she was fascinated by Earth and devoted herself to scholarship in what we would call 'Terrestrial Studies'—I have no idea what the Martians called it."

  "An expert on Earth," Lise said.

  "Which was why, eventually, she was selected as one of the Martian legates."

  "If that's true, her photograph would have been everywhere."

  "She was kept away from the press. Her existence was a carefully guarded secret. Do you understand why?"

  "Well—if she looked so much like an Earthling—"

  "She could pass unnoticed in a crowd and she had taught herself to speak at least three terrestrial languages like a native."

  "So she was what, a spy?"

&nbs
p; "Not exactly. The Martians knew there were Fourths on Earth. Sulean Moi was their diplomatic mission to us."

  Turk handed out glasses of ice water. Lise sipped eagerly—her throat was dry.

  "And when the Martians left," Diane said, "Sulean Moi chose to stay behind. She traded places with a woman, a Terrestrial Fourth who happened to resemble her. When the legation went back to Mars that woman went with them—our own secret ambassador, in a way."

  "Why did Sulean Moi stay?"

  "Because she was shocked by what she found here. On Mars, of course, the Fourths have existed for centuries, constrained by laws and institutions that don't exist on Earth. Martian Fourths buy their longevity with a variety of compromises. They don't reproduce, for instance, and they don't participate in government except as observers and adjudicators. Whereas all our Fourths are outlaws—both endangered and potentially dangerous. She hoped to bring Martian formality to the chaos."

  "I gather she didn't succeed."

  "Let's say her successes have been modest. There are Fourths and Fourths. Those of us who are sympathetic to her goals have funded and encouraged her over the years. Others resent her meddling."

  "Meddling in what?"

  "In their efforts to create a human being who can communicate with the Hypothetical."

  * * * * *

  "I know how grotesque that must sound," Diane Dupree said. "But it's true." She added, in a more subdued voice, "It's what killed my brother Jason."

  What made this unquestionable, Lise thought, was the woman's obvious sincerity. That, and the wind rattling the blinds, and the human noise of the villagers going about their business, a dog barking aimlessly in the distance, Turk sipping his ice water as if these assertions were old news.

  "That was how Jason Lawton died?" In the books Lise had read, Jason Lawton had been a casualty of the anarchic last days of the Spin. Hundreds of thousands had died in the panic.

  "The process," Diane said calmly, "is deadly in an adult. It rebuilds much of the human nervous system and it renders it vulnerable to further manipulation by the networked intelligences of the Hypotheticals. There is—well, a sort of communication can take place. But it kills the communicant. Theoretically, the procedure might be more stable if it was applied to a human fetus in vivo. An unborn child in the womb."

  "But that would be—"

  "Indefensible," Diane said. "Morally and ethically monstrous. But it's been a terrible temptation for one faction of our community. It holds out the possibility of a real understanding of the mystery of the Hypotheticals, what they want from us and why they've done what they've done. And maybe something more, not just communication but a sort of communion. Commingling the human and the divine, if I can use those words."

  "And the Martians want to stop this from happening?"

  Diane looked subtly ashamed. "The Martian Fourths were the first to try it."

  "What—they modified a human fetus?"

  "The project was unsuccessful. The child didn't survive past puberty. The experiment was conducted by the same group of ascetic Fourths who raised Sulean Moi—she was there when the child died."

  "The Martians allowed this?"

  "Only once. Sulean Moi meant to prevent the same thing happening among our own Fourths, who are even less constrained by law and custom—or to interrupt the process if it had already begun."

  The breeze was warm, but Lise shivered. "And has it? Begun, I mean?"

  "The technology and the pharmaceuticals were distributed by Jason along with everything else Wun Ngo Wen brought to Earth. We've had the capability for decades, but there was no real interest in pursuing it except among a few… you might say, rogue groups."

  "I thought Fourths had some kind of built-in inhibition," Turk said. "For instance, Tomas. Once he took the treatment he stopped drinking anything stronger than beer and he quit picking bar fights."

  "We're inhibited against obvious aggression, but not so much so that we lack the capacity for moral choice—or self-defense. And this isn't aggression, exactly, Turk. It's callous, it's inexcusable, but it's also, in a sense, abstract. Pushing a needle into the vein of a pregnant volunteer isn't a perceived act of violence, especially if you're convinced of the necessity of it."

  Lise said, "And that's why Genomic Security is interested in Sulean Moi."

  "Yes. Genomic Security and every similar agency. It isn't just Americans who fear Fourths, you know. In the Islamic world the prejudice is especially strong. Nowhere is safe. For decades Genomic Security has been attempting to track down and secure every extant trace of forbidden Martian biotechnology. Probably less to destroy it than to monopolize it. They haven't succeeded and probably never will succeed. The genie is out of the bottle. But they've learned a few things in the course of their work. They learned about Sulean Moi, obviously. And the idea of Fourths interceding with the Hypotheticals scares the hell out of them."

  "For the same reason you're afraid of it?"

  "Some of the same reasons," Diane said. She drank from her glass of ice water. "Some."

  The village muezzin called the faithful to prayer. Diane ignored the sound.

  Lise said, "Sulean was in Port Magellan at least once before. Twelve years ago."

  "Yes."

  "Going about the same business?"

  "Yes."

  "Successfully? I mean, did she stop—whoever was involved—from doing this thing?"

  Ibu Diane looked at Lise, looked away. "No, she was not successful."

  "My father knew her."

  "Sulean Moi knows a lot of people. What was your father's name?"

  "Robert Adams," Lise said, her heart beating harder.

  Diane shook her head. "The name isn't familiar. But you said you were looking for one of his colleagues in the town of Kubelick's Grave?"

  "A man named Avram Dvali."

  "Avram Dvali." Ibu Diane's expression became somber. Lise felt her excitement peak.

  "Dvali was a Fourth?"

  "He was. He is. He's also, in my opinion, just slightly insane."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  After walking Isaac back to the compound Sulean Moi told Dr. Dvali about the flower.

  The story seemed so improbable that it became necessary to mount an expedition and set out in search of the thing. Sulean didn't participate but she gave explicit directions. Dr. Dvali took three other men and one of the commune's vehicles and drove off into the desert. Dvali's excitement was predictable, Sulean thought. He was in love with the Hypotheticals—with what he imagined them to be. He could hardly resist the gift of an alien flower.

  They were back by late afternoon. Dvali hadn't been able to find the sighted rose, but the expedition wasn't fruitless. There had been other unusual things growing in the dry wastes. He had collected three samples in a cotton bag, and he displayed them to Sulean and several other observers on a table in the common room.

  One of his prizes was a spongy green disk shaped like a miniature bicycle wheel, with twig-like spokes and a gnarl of roots still attached to the hub. One was a translucent tube a centimeter in diameter and as long as Suleans forearm. The last was a viscid, knobby lump resembling a clenched fist, blue veined with red.

  None of these things looked healthy, although arguably they might once have been alive. The bicycle wheel was blackened and crumbling in places. The hollow tube had fractured along its axis. The fist was pallid and had begun to emit an unpleasant odor.

  Mrs. Rebka said, "Did these things fall with the ash?"

  Dvali shook his head. "They were all rooted."

  "They grew out there? Out in the desert?"

  "I can't explain it. I would guess they're associated with the ashfall in some way."

  Dvali looked expectantly at Sulean.

  Sulean had nothing to say.

  * * * * *

  In the morning Sulean went to see Isaac, but his door was closed and Mrs. Rebka stood outside, her arms crossed. "He's not well," she said.

  "I'll speak to him briefly,"
Sulean said.

  "I'd prefer to let him rest. He's running a fever. I think you and I have to talk, Ms. Moi."

  The two women walked out into the courtyard. They kept to the shade of the main building and sat together on a stone bench with a view of the garden. The air was hot and still, and sunlight fell on the fenced flowerbed as if it had an immense invisible weight. Sulean waited for Mrs. Rebka to speak. In fact Sulean had expected something hostile from Mrs. Rebka sooner or later. She was the closest thing Isaac had to a mother, though Isaac's nature had precluded any real emotional warmth, at least on his part.

  "He's never been sick before," Mrs. Rebka said. "Not once. But since you arrived… he's not the same. He wanders, he eats less. He's taken a ferocious interest in books, and at first I thought that was a good thing. But I wonder if it isn't just another symptom."

  "Symptom of what?"

  "Don't be evasive." Mrs. Rebka was a large woman. To Sulean all these people seemed large—Sulean herself barely topped five foot three—but Mrs. Rebka was especially large and seemed to want to appear intimidating. "I know who you are, as well as anyone does. Everyone in the community has been aware of you for years. We weren't surprised when you knocked at the door. Only surprised that it had taken so long. We're prepared to let you observe Isaac and even interact with him. The only condition is that you don't interfere."

  " Have I interfered?"

  "He's changed since you got here. You can't deny that."

  "That has nothing to do with me."

  "Doesn't it? I hope you're right. But you've seen this before, haven't you? Before you came to Earth."

  Sulean had never made a secret of it. The story had spread among these Terrestrial Fourths—especially those, like Dvali, who were obsessed with the Hypotheticals. She nodded.

  "A child like Isaac," Mrs. Rebka said.

  "In some ways like him. A boy. He was Isaac's age when he—"

  "When he died."

  "Yes."

  "Died of his… condition?"

  Sulean didn't answer immediately. She hated calling up these memories, instructive as they inevitably were. "He died in the desert." A different desert. The Martian desert. "He was trying to find his way, but he got lost." She closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids the world was an infinite redness, thanks to this insufferably bright sunlight. "I would have stopped you if I could. You know that. But I came too late, and you were all very clever about concealing yourselves. Now I'm as helpless as you are, Mrs. Rebka."