Mallow

by Robert Reed

  Twenty-one

  A CARDE OF captains and gifted architects had designed the Grand Temple, and for a thousand years the best artisans had labored over it, while every adult Loyalist gave time and willing hands to its construction. Even half-finished, the Temple was a beautiful structure. Six gold-faced domes were arranged in a perfect circle. Graceful parabolic arches of tinted steels straddled the domes, riding higher and higher on each other's backs. The central tower was the tallest structure on Marrow, and the deepest. Its foundation already reached a full kilometer into the cold iron, and in its basement was a reservoir of pure water where the occasional neutrino would collide with a willing nucleus, the resulting explosion producing a lovely cone of light that proved to priests and to children what every Loyalist needed to accept without question: Marrow was a small part of a much greater Creation, a Creation invisible to the eye but not to the believing mind.

  The Wayward defector had asked to be brought to the temple, which was a perfectly ordinary request.

  But the Submaster had reviewed the field reports as well as the transcripts of both official interrogations, and the only certainty was that nothing else about this defection was ordinary, much less simple.

  The temple administrator was a nervous woman made more so by events. Wearing the soft gray robes of her office and a tortured expression, she greeted Miocene with a crisp, 'Madam,' and a cursory bow, then blurted out, 'It is an honor,' even as she prepared to complain what a great disruption this business was.

  Miocene didn't give her the opportunity. Firmly and not too gently, she said, 'You've done a marvelous job, so far.'

  'Yes, madam.'

  'So far,' she repeated, reminding her subordinate that failure was always just one misstep away. Then with a softer voice, she asked, 'Where's our guest?'

  'In the library.'

  Of course.

  'He wants to see you,' the administrator warned. 'He practically demands that I bring you to him.'

  They were standing at one of the minor entranceways, the heavy door carved from a single virtue tree, ancient and gigantic. Because she refused to be rushed by anyone, Miocene paused, letting one hand caress the old wood, dark as clotted blood and perforated with spongelike holes where nodules of battery fats had been. Her guards — a pair of trunklike men with quick, suspicious eyes - stood nearby, watching the quiet side street. For an instant, Miocene's mind was elsewhere. She found herself thinking about the ship, and in particular, her wood-lined apartment not five hundred meters from the Master's quarters.

  Then she blinked and gave a sigh, feeling a familiar little sadness, and a knot of secret fears . . .

  'Well, then,' she muttered, straightening her back, then the creases of her uniform. 'Take me to our new friend.'

  Public services were being held in each of the six main chambers. Citizens elected their priests, and as a result, each had his own style and perspective. Some spoke endlessly about the Great Ship. Its beauty, its grace; its unfathomable age, and its endless mystery. Others readied parishioners for the glorious day they would meet their first aliens. And an ecletic few dwelled on more abstract and far-reaching topics: the stars and living worlds and the Milky Way, and the vast universe that dwarfed everything that humankind could see and touch or even pretend to comprehend.

  One service was wrestling with such cosmic wonders. A satin-voiced gentleman was singing praises of G-class suns. 'Warm enough to bring life to more than many worlds at a time,' he called out, 'and long enough lived to feed a creative evolution. Our home world, the great Earth, was born beside such a golden sun. Like the seed of a virtue tree, it was. It is. And our universe is full of billions of seeds. Life in its myriad forms is everywhere. Life thick and life lovely, and life forever.'

  'Forever,' chanted the small audience, in careless unison.

  Ceramic arches and ported flycatchers separated the hallway from the chamber. A few faces happened to glance to one side, noticing the Submaster striding past. Murmurs rose, spread. But the priest standing up front, leaning hard against the diamond podium, ignored the noise, pressing on with his speech.

  'We must prepare, sisters and brothers. The day is waning, gradually but inexorably, and we will see the time when each of us is needed. Our hearts and hands, and our minds, will be thrown into the construction of the bridge.'

  'The bridge,' some repeated. While others, distracted by the concrete and the present, watched Miocene and her guards pass behind the altar, followed closely by the flustered administrator. The altar was built from native diamonds mounted in a tube no wider than a human arm. At its base was an intricate mock-up of the city and the finished temple. The tube rose up to the domed ceiling that was painted to resemble a darker sky, and where the ragged stump of the first bridge clung tight, the diamond bridge joined seamlessly, flecks of bright light forever streaking upward, showing the migration of the loyal multitudes — their glorious reward for so much sacrifice and enthusiastic hope.

  Miocene barely glanced at the parishioners.

  It was perfectly acceptable for her to visit the temple, and she didn't want them noticing anything remarkable in her manner or her eyes.

  'When the time is right,' the priest shouted, 'we shall climb. Climb!'

  Then he whirled, his gray robe fluttering and one arm beginning an overly dramatic gesture at the diamond spire, and when he noticed the Submaster and her tiny entourage, his surprise collapsed into instant ritual.

  Bowing, he cried out, 'Madam.'

  The audience behind him shouted, 'Madam,' and fell forward in their iron seats.

  Thankfully, she had reached the library stairs. After a hurried wave and the briefest look, Miocene turned and began to climb, leading her guards and them worrying because of it. The senior guard told her, 'No, madam,' and unceremoniously slowed her with a strong hand to the shoulder.

  Fine.

  She eased her gait, perhaps more than necessary. The guard passed her as the staircase spiraled its way up through the heart of the great building. If memory served, the stair's architect was a difficult grandchild with a narrow genius. She had used the shape of DNA as her inspiration. The fact that only a sliver of modern genetics were encoded in that delicate compound made no difference. It had struck the architect as a suitable symbol. Rising through the oldest language to reach the newest ... or some equally forced symbolism, wasn't it ... ?

  To Miocene, symbols were crutches for the lame. It was a very old opinion for her, and the last three millenia had only reinforced it.

  Like the temple, this quasi-religion was thick with symbols. G-class suns were equated with virtue seeds. What nonsense! There were only so many colors in the universe, at least to human eyes. And Miocene had seen many, many Sol-like suns. If she wished, she could warn the parishioners that under no circumstances would a sun and a seed be confused. Not in brightness, or in color. Gold was a simple thing, and sunlight never was. Ever.

  And yet.

  This temple and its cobbled-together faith were as much her idea as anyone's. And the Submaster hadn't ordered the temple's construction for easy cynical reasons. No, the temple would serve as the foundation for the coming bridge. Physically, and otherwise. It was imperative that the Loyalists understood what was going to happen. If they didn't comprehend and embrace these goals, and keep themselves unswayed by the Waywards' bizarre faith, there was no point in escaping from Marrow. This temple, and dozens of smaller temples scattered across the land, were meant to be places of education and focus. If people required symbols and sloppy metaphors to build a consensus, then so be it. Miocene just wished that the grandchildren would stop being so inventive, and so earnest, particularly with things about which they knew almost nothing.

  The lead guard slowed, then muttered something to someone around the bend. A full squad waited in the library, all armed with heavy-caliber weapons, all watching with a decidedly unscholarly interest as a boyish man, dressed in common clothes and a Gordian wig, paged his way through a dense techni
cal synopsis of the ship.

  According to his interrogators, he was named for the tree.

  He went by Virtue.

  Miocene said the name, just once and not loudly. The man didn't seem to hear, eyes focused on a diagram of an antimatter-spiked fusion reactor. Instead of repeating his name, she stood on the far side of the table, and she waited, watching as the gray eyes absorbed the meaningful words and the elegant lines, these intricate plans drawn from memory by one of her colleagues.

  Slowly, slowly, the defector grew aware of the newcomers.

  He lifted his gaze, and as if emerging from some private fog, he blinked a few times, then said, 'Yes.' He said, 'This is wrong.' 'Excuse me?' Miocene inquired.

  'It won't work. I'm certain.' He touched the black corner of the page, and the book moved to the next page. The same reactor was pictured, conjured from the same memory but a different vantage point. 'The containment vessel isn't strong enough. Not by hall.'

  Like so many grandchildren, he was a difficult genius.

  With a look and a slashing gesture, Miocene told the guards and soldiers to leave the two of them alone.

  The temple administrator had to ask, 'How long will you need the library?' Then to explain her boldness, she added, 'Researchers are coming from Promise-and-Dream's biolabs. They've got some priority project—'

  'Make them wait,' she growled.

  'Yes, madam.'

  Then Virtue told everyone, 'I don't know if I'd trust a word in this place.' He spoke loudly and without a hint of charm. 'I thought I'd be drinking from some fucking fountain of wisdom, or something. But I just keep finding mistakes. Everywhere I look, mistakes.'

  Mildly, the Submaster told him, 'Well. Then it's a good thing that you happened by.'

  The defector closed his current volume, in disgust.

  To her personal guards, Miocene said, 'Out of earshot. Wait.' Then to the administrator, she said,'Go downstairs. Go down and tell all those worshipers that the Submaster would appreciate a long and very loud song.'

  'Which song?' the woman sputtered.

  'Oh, that's their choice,' Miocene replied. 'It's always theirs.'

  THE DEFECTOR WAS an emotional alloy: two parts arrogance, one part fear.

  It was a useful combination.

  Sitting at the table with Miocene, Virtue seemed to recall that smiles were a helpful gesture. But he wasn't particularly skilled with the expression, his smile looking more like a pained wince, his light gray eyes growing larger by the moment.

  'I told them that I absolutely had to see you,' he reported. 'Only you, and as soon as possible.'

  'Madam Miocene.'

  His genius wavered. A stupid voice said, 'Pardon?'

  'I am your single hope,' she replied, leaning back in the tall chair as if disgusted by the creature before her. 'You live out the day if I let you. Otherwise, you die. And I think that I'm entitled to hear my name used in the proper fashion, at the proper times.'

  He looked at his own hands.

  Then, quietly, 'Madam Miocene.'

  'Thank you.' She showed him a narrow grin, then with a slow, almost indifferent set of motions, she opened the bright chromium case of her electronic file box, pretending to read what she already knew by heart. 'To my associates, you claimed that you had something to tell me. News fit only for my ears.'

  'Yes . . . Madam Miocene . . .' He swallowed hard, then said, 'It has to do with this world of ours—'

  'This isn't my world,' she interrupted.

  Virtue nodded, and waited. His eyes couldn't have been larger.

  Miocene pretended to concentrate on the screen. 'It says here . . . that you're a second-generation descendant of Diu—'

  'He was my grandfather, yes. Madam.'

  'And your father . . . ?'

  'Is Till.'

  She looked up, staring as if she had never noticed the familial resemblance. After a lengthy pause, she mentioned, 'Many Waywards are Till’s children. As I understand these things.'

  'Yes, Madam.'

  'No real honor to it, since there's so awfully many of you.'

  'Well, I don't know if I would . . .' He hesitated, then said, 'No, madam, I suppose there isn't a specific honor, no.'

  She touched a key, then another, scrolling through the transcripts and the written accounts of each interrogator. Every entry gave clues to this man's character, or lack of it. And none could be trusted as the final word on anything concerning him.

  'So our texts are inaccurate. You're claiming.'

  Virtue blinked, and he held his breath.

  Souls were a fluid alloy. The arrogance hid deep inside him, replaced on the surface by a growing, strengthening sense of fear.

  'Are they inaccurate, or aren't they?'

  'In places, I think so. Yes.'

  'Have you built a fusion reactor like the one in those diagrams?'

  'No, madam.'

  'Are there any reactors like it in the Wayward nation?' 'No.'

  'You're certain?'

  'I can't be absolutely certain,' he admitted.

  'And we haven't built them, either,' she confessed. 'Our geothermal plants are quite sufficient for our very modest demands.'

  The defector nodded, then attempted a compliment. 'This is an amazing city, madam. They let me see pieces of it on my way here.'

  'That was their mistake,' she replied.

  He hunkered, a little bit.

  Then she gave him a smile, inquiring, 'Do you Waywards have cities this large? With almost a million people in one place?'

  'No. No, madam.'

  'We've mastered some marvelous tricks,' she continued. 'The crust beneath us is thick and solid, and we keep it that way. Quakes are diffused or bled away. The fluid iron is steered into managed zones. Artificial vents, in essence.'

  Sensing her wishes, he allowed, 'The Waywards don't have that technology.'

  'You're still nomads, aren't you? Basically'

  He started to answer, then hesitated. 'I'm not a Wayward anymore,' he finally offered. Then with a tight little voice, he added, 'Madam.'

  'But you could tell me much about them. I would imagine.'

  A cursory nod.

  'You know about their lives,' she continued. 'About their technologies. Perhaps even their ultimate goals.'

  'Yes,' he said. 'And yes. And no, madam.'

  'Oh? You don't know what Till wants?'

  'Not in any clear way, no.' He swallowed as if in pain. 'My father . . . well, Till doesn't exactly confide in me . . .'

  Again, Miocene touched the keys. 'Maybe that's why you lost the Wayward faith. Is that a possibility?'

  'I'm not sure that I ever believed.'

  'All that noise about Builders and Bleaks and ancient souls entombed inside those hyperfiber coffins . . . ?'

  'The truth is that I don't know what's real. Madam.'

  She looked up, suspicion mixed with fascination. 'So you might believe. If circumstances were changed in some way, that is.'

  The arrogance resurfaced. Quietly, angrily, he asked, 'Wouldn't you change your mind? If you suddenly realized that your mind was wrong, I mean.'

  'As I recall, you demanded to be brought here. To this temple specifically. I can only assume that you're eager to see the Great Ship for yourself, and to that noble end, you want to help our holy mission . . .'

  'No, madam.'

  Miocene feigned surprise, then disgust. With her own quiet anger, she asked the defector, 'In what do you believe?'

  'Nothing.' He sounded defiant, but like a child too full of himself, too impressed with the keen edge of his own exceptional mind. 'I don't know why Marrow is here,' he complained, 'much less who built it. Or why. And I'm absolutely convinced that no one else has answers for those questions, either.'

  'The artifacts—?'

  'There's another obvious explanation for them.'

  But she didn't want to hear any groundless speculations. What was important here - what was vital and even urgent - was to ascertain the real
talents of this taciturn young man. A contemptuous snarl preceded her firm declaration: 'I don't have use for Wayward scientists. We've had a few of you defect, once a century or so, and as a rule, you're badly educated. Unimaginative. And you trade on the names of your insane fathers.'

  'I am well educated,' Virtue replied, in a sudden fever. 'And I'm extremely imaginative. And I don't use your son's name to my advantage!'

  She stared at him, the picture of skepticism.

  'Don't you appreciate the risks that I've taken? For your sake, and everyone's?' He barked the words, then with a wince and grunt restrained himself. A nervous hand threw open the book, as if one of its intricate, flawed pages would lend support for his cause. Then with a soft, furious tone, Virtue explained, 'I was Chief of Delving at the main research facility at the Grand Caldera. In secret, I taught myself how to fly. Alone, I stole one of our fastest pterosaurs, and I flew to within a hundred kilometers of the border. Inside a rainstorm, I jumped. I left the pterosaur to be shot down, and without armor or a parachute, I dropped through the canopy. When my shattered legs healed, I ran. I ran all the way to that shithole checkpoint of yours. That's how badly I wanted to be here, Grandmother. Madam Miocene. Whatever the fuck you want to be called . . . !'

  'It's a grand epic,' Miocene offered. 'All that's missing is the motivation.'

  Glowering silence.

  'Chief of Delving,' she repeated. 'What were you delving into at the Grand Caldera?' 'Energy.'

  'Geothermal energy?'

  'Hardly.' He glanced at his own hands, reporting. 'There has always been a problem, and both nations know it. There's too much energy running through this place. Energy to light the sky, and power enough to compress an entire world and hold it in one place. That's power beyond what fission can supply. Or normal fusion. Even the great captains are at a loss to explain such a thing.'

  'Hidden matter-antimatter reactors,' Miocene offered.

  'Something's hidden,' he agreed. One hand pulled a braid into his mouth, and he sucked on the wig's dark hair for a moment. Then he spat it out again, and he told the Submaster, 'I was delving into the deepest regions.'

  'Of Marrow?'

  A cursory nod. 'Looking for your hidden reactors, I suppose.'