by Robert Reed
'I saw them,' said Aasleen. She stepped forward, glad to take credit. 'Counted them, measured them. Knew it was you, and came home to report."
'There's a quicker route than the one you found,' Miocene cautioned.
'Quicker than three years?* Diu joked.
Am embarrassed laughter blossomed, then fell away. Then Aasleen felt like telling them, 'It's been closer to four.'
She had a clever quick face, skin black as band iron, and among her peers, she seemed the only happy soul -this one-time engineer who had gradually become a captain, and who now had the responsibility of reinventing everything that humans had ever accomplished. Starting from scratch, with minimal resources . . . and she couldn't have looked more contented . . .
'You didn't have clocks,' she warned them. 'You were living by how you felt, and humans, left without markers, fall into thirty— or thirty-two-hours days.'
Which wasn't a surprise to anyone, of course.
Yet Saluki exclaimed, 'Four years,' and marched into the brightest patch of light, glancing up through a gap in the canopy, perhaps trying to find the abandoned base camp. 'Four long years . . . !'
If only a single captain had stayed behind at the base camp. One warm body could have called for help, or at least made the long climb to the fuel tank and leech habitat, then to the Master's quarters . . . assuming, of course, that there was someone up there to find . . .
Thinking the worst, Washen recoiled. And finally, with her most careful voice, she forced herself to ask, 'Who isn't here?'
Miocene recited a dozen names.
Eleven of them had been Washen's friends and associates. The last name was Hazz — a Submaster and a voyage-long colleague of Miocene's. 'He was the last to die,' she explained. 'Two months ago, a fissure opened, and the molten iron caught him.'
A silence fell over the little village.
'I watched him die,' Miocene admitted, her eyes distant, and damp. And furious.
'I've got one goal now,' the Submaster warned. Speaking in a grim, hateful voice, she said, 'I want the means to return to the world above. Then I will go to the Master myself and I'll ask her why she sent us here. Was it to explore this place? Or was this just the best awful way to be rid of us . . . ?'
Thirteen
BITTERNESS SERVED THE woman well.
Miocene despised her fate, and with a searing rage, she blamed those unconscionable acts that had abandoned her on this horrible, horrible world. Every disaster, and there were many of them, helped feed her emotions and fierce energies. Every death was a tragedy erasing an ocean of life and experience. And each rare success was each a minuscule step toward making right what was plainly and enormously wrong.
The Submaster rarely slept, and when her eyes dipped shut, she would descend into vivid, confused nightmares that eventually shook her awake, then lingered, left in the mind like some sophisticated neurological toxin.
Her immortal's constitution kept her alive.
Ancestral humans would have perished here. Exhaustion or burst vessels or even madness would have been the natural outcome of so little sleep and so much undiluted anger. But no natural incarnation of humanity could have lived a single day in this environment, subsisting on harsh foods and ingesting every sort of heavy metal with each breath and sip and bite. Once it was obvious that the Master wasn't pulling her fat carcass down the tunnel to rescue them, it also become plain that if Miocene were to escape, it would take time. Deep reaches of time. And persistence. And genius. And luck, naturally. Plus everyone else's immortal constitution, too.
Hazz's death had driven home every hard lesson. Two years later, she still couldn't stop seeing him. A gregarious, Earthborn man who loved to talk about bravery, he was nothing but brave at the end. Miocene had watched helplessly as a river of slag-covered iron trapped him on a little island of old metal. Hazz had stood up tall, looking at the fierce slow current, breathing despite the charring of his lungs, putting on a grimacing sort of smile that seemed, like everything else in this awful place, utterly useless.
They tried desperately to save him.
Aasleen and her crew of engineer-minded souls had started three separate bridges, each melting before they could finish. And all that time, the iron river got deeper, and swifter, shrinking the island down to a knob on which the doomed man managed to balance, using one foot until it was too badly burned, then using the other.
He was like a heron bird, in the end.
Then the current surged, and the thin black slag burst open, a red-hot tongue of iron dissolving Hazz's boots, then boiling away both of his feet and setting fire to his flesh. But the engines of his metabolism found ways to keep him alive. Engulfed in flames, he actually managed to stand motionless for a long moment, the grimacing smile getting brighter and sadder, and very tired. Then with every captain watching, he said something, the words too soft to be audible, and Miocene screamed, 'No!,' loudly enough that Hazz must have heard her voice, because suddenly, on boding legs, he made an heroic attempt to walk himself across the slag and molten metal.
His tough, adaptable body reached its limits. Quietly and slowly, Hazz slumped forward, his mirrored uniform and his smiling face and a thick tangle of blond-white hair bursting into dirty flames. The water inside him exploded into steam and rust and hydrogen. Then there was nothing left but his shockingly white bones, and a wave of hotter, swifter iron pulled the skeleton apart and took the bones downstream, while a rising cloud of blistering fumes drove the other captains away.
Miocene wished that she could have retrieved the skull.
Bioceramics were tough, and the tough mind could have survived that heat for a little while longer. And weren't there stories of miracles being accomplished by autodocs and patient surgeons?
But even if he was past every resurrection, Miocene wished she had Hazz's skull now. In her dreams she saw herself setting it beside one of the Master's golden busts, and with a deceptively calm voice, she would tell the Master who this had been and how he had died, and then with a truer, angrier voice, she would explain to the captains' captain why she was a disgusting piece of filth, first for every awful thing that she had done, then for every good thing that she had failed to do.
Bitterness brought with it an incredible, fearless strength.
More and more, Miocene trusted that strength and her resolve, and more than at any time in her spectacularly long life, she found herself with a focus, a pure, unalloyed direction to her life.
Miocene relished her bitterness.
There were moments, and there were sleepless nights, when she wondered how she had ever succeeded in life. How could anyone accomplish anything without this rancorous and vengeful heart that would never, no matter what the abuse, stop beating inside its blazing, fierce chest?
WASHEN'S RETURN HAD been an unexpected success. And like most successes, it was followed by disaster. The nearby crust rippled and tore apart, a barrage of quakes shattering the river bottom as well as the nearby hillside. The old remnant of the bridge pitched sideways, and with a creaking roar, its sick hyperfiber shattered, the debris field reaching across fifty kilometers of newborn mountains.
The fall of the bridge was momentous, and unseen.
The captains' encampment had already been obliterated by a mammoth geyser of white-hot metal. The neat houses were vaporized. Two more captains died, and the survivors fled with a bare minimum of tools and provisions. Lungs were cooked during the retreat. Hands and feet were blistered. Tongues swelled and split wide, and eyes were boiled away. The strongest dragged the weakest on crude Utters, and finally, after days of stumbling, they wandered into a distant valley, into a grove of stately blue-black trees that lined a deep pool of sweet rainwater, and there, finally, the captains collapsed, too spent to curse-As if to bless them, the trees began discharging tiny balloons made from gold. The shady, halfway cool air was filled with the balloons' glint and the dry music made when they brushed against one another.
'The virtue tree,' Diu call
ed them, snagging one of the golden orbs with both hands, squeezing until he squeezed too hard and it split, hydrogen escaping with a soft hiss, the skin collapsing into a whiff of soft gold leaf.
Miocene set her people to work. New homes and new streets needed to be built, and this seemed an ideal location. With iron axes and their enduring flesh, they managed to hack down half a dozen of the virtue trees. The golden fat inside the wood was nourishing, and the wood itself was easily split along its grain. The beginnings of twenty fine houses were laid out before the hard ground ripped open with an anguished roar. Wearily, the captains fled again.
Again, they scrambled over ridges sharper than their axes, and the country behind them burned, then melted, consumed by a lake of iron and slag.
Nomadic blood had taken hold.
When they settled again, no one expected to linger. Miocene asked for simple houses that could be rebuilt anywhere in a ship's day. She ordered Aasleen and her people to build lighter tools, and everyone else stockpiled food for the next migration. Only when those necessities were assured could she risk the next step: they needed to study their world, and if possible, learn to read its fickle moods.
Miocene put Washen in charge of the biological teams.
The first-grade captain picked twenty helpers, including the five from her first team, and with few tools but keen senses and their good memories, they fanned out across the nearby countryside.
Three months and a day later, every team brought home their reports.
"Breeding cycles are the key,' Washen reported. 'Maybe there are other keys. But certain cycles are pretty close to infallible, it seems.'
The captains were packed into the long narrow building that served as a cafeteria and meeting hall. The central table was a block of iron dressed with gray wooden planks. Chairs and stools were crowded around the table. Bowls were filled with grilled flame ants and sugarhearts, then ignored. Cold tea was the drink of choice, and it smelled acidic and familiar, mixing with the tired oily sweat of women and men who had been in the field too long.
Miocene nodded, at Washen and at everyone. 'Go on, darling. Explain.'
'Our virtue trees,' said the first-grade. 'Those gold balloons are their eggs, just as we assumed. But they typically make only one or two in a day. Unless they feel the crust becoming unstable, which is when they use all of their stockpiled gold. In a rush. Since the adults are about to be torched, and the land will be remade—'
'If we see another show,' Diu interrupted, 'we're being warned. We've got a day, or less, to get out of here.'
In a grim fashion, the other captains laughed.
Miocene disapproved with a look and a cold silence, but nothing more. Normally, she demanded staff meetings that were disciplined and efficient. But this was a special day, and more special than anyone else had guessed.
Washen's team spoke about the species worth watching and each warning sign of impending eruptions.
During stable times, certain winged insects transformed themselves into fat caterpillars, some longer than any arm. If they grew new wings, the stability was finished.
At the first sign of trouble, crab-sized, highly social beetles launched themselves in fantastic migrations, thousands and millions scrambling overland. Though, as Dream noted, the herds often went charging off in the very worst direction.
At least three predatory species, hammer-wings included, would suddenly arrive in areas soon to be abandoned. Perhaps it was an adaption to the good hunting that would come when locals rushed out of their burrows and nests.
In dangerous times, certain caterpillars sprouted wings and took up the predatory life.
And slight changes in water temperature and chemistry caused aquatic communities to panic or grow complacent. Just what those changes were, no one was certain. It would take delicate instruments and years more experience to read the signs as easily as the simplest black scum seemed to manage it.
Everything said was duly recorded. A low-grade captain sat at the far end of the table, taking copious notes on the huge bleached wings of copperflies.
Once finished, it was Miocene's place to invite questions.
'How about our virtue trees?' asked Aasleen. 'Are they behaving themselves?'
'As if they'll live forever,' Washen replied. 'They're still early in their growth cycles, which means nothing. Eruptions can come anytime. But they're putting their energies into wood and fat, not into gold balloons. And since their roots are deep and sensitive, they know what we can't. I can guarantee that we can remain here for another two or three, or perhaps even four whole days.' Again, the grim laughter.
Washen's confidence was contagious, and useful. Losing her would have been a small disaster. Yet years ago, the Master had sent this talented woman to the far side of Marrow, doing her accidental best to get rid of her.
Miocene nodded, then lifted a hand.
Quietly, almost too quietly to be heard, she said, 'Cycles.'
The closest captains turned, watching her.
'Thank you, Washen.' The Submaster looked past her, and shivered. Without warning, she felt her own private eruption. Thoughts, fractal as any quake, made her tremble. Just for the briefest moment, she was happy.
Diu asked, 'What was that, madam?'
Again, louder this time, Miocene said, 'Cycles.'
Everyone blinked, and waited.
Then she turned to the leader of the geologic team, and with a barely hidden delight, she asked, 'What about Marrow's tectonics? Are they more active, or less?'
The leader was named Twist. He was a Second Chair Submaster, and if anything, he was more serious-minded than Miocene. With a circumspect nod, Twist announced, 'Our local faults are more active. We have nothing but crude seismographs, of course. But the quakes are twice as busy as when we arrived on Marrow.'
'How about worldwide?'
'Really, madam ... at this point, there's no competent, comprehensive way for me to address that question . . .' 'What is it, madam?' asked Diu.
Honestly, she wasn't absolutely certain.
But Miocene looked at each of the faces, wondering what it was about her face that was causing so much puzzlement and concern. Then quietly, in the tone of an apology, she said, 'This may be premature. Rash. Perhaps even insane.' She swallowed and nodded, and more to herself than to them, she said, 'There is another cycle at work here. A much larger, much more important cycle.'
There came the distant droning of a lone hammerwing, then silence.
'My self-appointed task,' Miocene continued, ‘is to keep watch on our former base camp. It's a hopeless chore, frankly, and that's why I don't ask for anyone's help. The camp is still empty. And until we can find the means, I think it will remain abandoned.'
A few of the captains nodded agreeably. One or two sipped at their pungent tea.
'We have only one small telescope, and a crude tripod.' Miocene was unfolding a copperfly wing, her long hands gently trembling as she told everyone, 'I leave the telescope set on the east ridge, on flat ground inside a sheltered bowl, and all I use it for is to watch the camp. Five times every day, without exception.'
Someone said, 'Yes, madam.'
Patiently, but not too patiently.
Miocene rose to her feet, spreading out the reddish wings covered with numbers and small neat words. 'When we lived beneath the camp, we rarely adjusted our telescopes. Usually after a tremor or a big wind. But now that we've moved here, fifty-three kilometers east of original position . . . well, I'll tell you ... in these last weeks, I've twice had to adjust my telescope's alignment. I did it again just this morning. Always nudging it down toward the horizon.'
Silence.
Miocene looked up from the numbers, seeing no one.
She asked herself, 'How can that be?'
With a quiet, respectful voice, Aasleen suggested, 'Tremors are throwing the telescope out of alignment. As you said.'
'No,' the Submaster replied. 'The ground is flat. It's always been flat. I've tested for
that exact error.'
It was a steadily growing error; she saw it in the careful numbers.
Quietly, Miocene read her data. When she felt absolutely sure that she understood the answer, she asked, 'What does this mean?'
Someone offered, 'Marrow has started to rotate again.' The flywheel hypothesis, again.
Aasleen said,'It could be the buttresses. With a fraction of their apparent energies, they could act on the iron, causing it, and us, to move a few kilometers . . .'
A few kilometers. Yes.
One of Miocene's long hands lifted high, silencing the others. 'Perhaps,' she said with a little smile. 'But there's still another option. Involving the buttresses, but in a rather different fashion.'
No one spoke, or blinked.
'Imagine that the Event, whatever it was . . . imagine it was part of some grand cycle. And after it happened, the buttresses under our feet started to weaken. To loosen their grip on Marrow, if only just a little bit.'
'The planet expands,' said someone.
Said Washen.
'Of course,' Aasleen trumpeted. 'The interior iron is under fantastic pressures, and if you took off the lid, even a little bit—'
Perhaps unconsciously, half a dozen captains inflated their cheeks.
Miocene grinned, if only for a moment. This very strange idea had taken hold of her gradually, and in the excitement of the moment, she summoned up old instincts, telling everyone. 'This is premature. We'll need measurements and many different studies, and even then we won't be certain about anything. Not for a very long while.'
Washen glanced at the ceiling, perhaps imagining the faraway base camp.
Diu, that low-grade charmer, laughed softly. Happily. And he took his lover's hand and squeezed until she noticed and smiled back at him.
'If the buttresses below us are weakening,' Aasleen pointed out, 'then maybe the ones in the sky are getting dimmer, too.'
Twist said, 'We can test that. Easily.'
Nothing was easy here, Miocene nearly warned them.
But instead of discouraging anyone, she took back those copperfly wings and her precious numbers, and with the simplest trigonometry, she interpolated a rugged Little estimate. Only in the dimmest back reaches of her mind did she hear Washen and the engineers spinning new hypotheses. If the expansion was real, perhaps it would give away clues about how the buttresses worked. Clues about what powered them, and why. Aasleen suggested that a cycle of expansion and compression was the obvious means through which excess heat, from nuclear decay or other sources, was bled away from Marrow. It might even explain how the bright buttresses overhead were refueled. The whole ad hoc hypothesis sounded perfectly reasonable. And perhaps it was even a little bit true. But its truth was inconsequential. All that mattered were the dry little answers appearing beneath Miocene's stylus.