by David Brin
In all this glistening fine
steel and cool ceramic sureness
Rot rules
as surely as in ancient sea-bed Earth.
Cool yet crackling flingers call up
lightning that once kindled organic clinging,
fevered molecules mad for union,
not knowing that growth means age
and then the chewing march begins.
We live from eating others
just as these chilled lands will gnaw us down,
ceaseless and unending digestion of
our hearts and dreams,
plots and schemes,
all passing clouds in an airless black
And yet we lack
a clear way back to youth,
or Earth, or slot sleep’s birth.
I’d rather be brought down
after the long summer’s chase,
belly torn out
(it’s no disgrace)
than seep like sludge into
the garden’s moss and hear the
polite such a loss
when I know all will be ground
down to make the soil where
new Caesars will march,
unknowing, on to their good humus, too.
Virginia coughed in the heavy, musky air. She never seemed to finish poems anymore. Instead she took them out to examine, turning them to the light like pretty pebbles found on last summer’s vacation beach. Well, poems acquire a certain deadness when they’re done… not finishing them gives them indefinite life. She smiled to herself.
When she returned down a narrow lane, Carl was through talking to the hydro crew. She liked the way the silvered inner surface of the dome reflected a warped, surreal vision of Carl immersed in a riot of plantlife, as if it were an ocean in which he was afloat. When he turned toward her she held up a hand. “Conference?”
“Sure.” He stood waiting, the old caution still far back in his eyes. I’ve hurt him so many times…
“I… wanted to tell you…”
“Yes?”
“I know you felt that there was… some chance of Saul and me…”
He smiled wanly. “There’s always hope.”
“You’ve never given up:”
“No.”
“You might as well,” she said gently.
“It’s that certain between you?”
Virginia recalled her own thoughts about that, only minutes ago. “Out here, nothing is certain, you know that. No, it’s just that… you have such, well, such traditional goals.”
“Dreams, I’d say.” Carl smiled with a warm, rueful humor, as if aware of his own foibles. He would keep this polite and graceful, she saw. Time had given him a veneer, a sense of self. He had changed greatly in these years, almost without her noticing. I’ve been so wrapped up in Saul…
She struggled to find the right words, but before she could he said, “Admittedly, out here the idea of love and family, that whole snug picture, doesn’t work. We haven’t figured out how to protect the children from Halleyforms yet.”
“You’ll never have a family with me.”
“I’m resigned to that. Saul won’t either, of course.”
“No, but not because of his sterility. It’s me. I—I can’t have children.”
His lips parted but he said nothing. The veneer was gone in an instant and she saw again the old Carl, filled with longing and need.
“I… could never tell anyone. It was years before I could say anything, even to Saul.”
“God… I’m sorry.”
She blinked back tears. “I’ve come to terms with it.” Then why am I crying, idiot?
“All this time…” He shook his head, his face open and somehow fresher, younger. All these years he’s sheltered a dream, and now it’s gone.
“I knew about it well before we left Earth.”
“I… see,” he said numbly.
“Carl—”
“What about, uh, fixing whatever’s wrong? Saul’s done wonders—” He stopped.
She thought sharply, Was it me you wanted, or your dream of sweet little Percell children, genetic miracles among the stars? But the suggestion was wrong, unkind.
She blinked rapidly. “This is a… special case. Not even genetic surgery… He did try cloning. without my permission. It was a disaster.” She shrugged.
“You… knew… all along.”
She nodded. “I suppose it influenced me, made me come on the mission in the first place. I wasn’t going to have a conventional life, no matter how I played it.”
“You could’ve adopted.”
“You know the odds against a Percell getting children to bring up. Even in Hawaii.”
He said savagely, “Yeah, they sealed off everything from us, didn’t they?” The memory could still draw bitterness.
“I could’ve stayed…fought with the others…”
“You saw what happened.”
She nodded, sniffing, surprised at her own emotion. If I stay here I’ll cry. “We…really made the right choice, didn’t we? Coming?”
His voice was leaden, his face a mask. “I… I don’t know.”
She was shocked. Have I taken away his last fantasy? And with it gone, the tide of despair rushes in?
“Carl, you can’t think that. We’ve survived, we’ve managed to—”
“Look, I’d… I’d rather not talk right now. Okay? Just… want to be alone.” He visibly pulled himself together, struggled to regain some of the confident manner of leadership that had become like a second skin to him… however easily it had peeled away, just now. “I appreciate your telling me. I can understand you better now, and at least that’s something.”
“Carl, I.”
“I’ve got plenty more to do here,” he said bluntly. “Maybe later.”
Speechless, Virginia held out her hands, then let them drift to her sides. “All… all right.”
She left quickly, her mind aswirl with conflicting emotions. Somehow she had had to tell him, and yet if it stripped away too much, damaged him…
She had been fooled by his public face of assurance and control. Beneath that, Carl had really changed very little. He had grown as the situation demanded, but not the inner Carl. That Carl had nursed a fantasy, and now she had toppled it.
She loped across the ice, putting her confusion into exercise, a coasting mote moving across a plain the color of a blank television screen.
—Virginia, —JonVon’s well-modulated voice came when she was halfway to the lock. —There are coded transmissions from near your present location.—
“Coded?” She stopped and looked around. Nobody in sight, except a few hydro workers trudging off after their shift. On the horizon one of Jim Vidor’s faery towers spiked at the stars. Farther away a launcher thrummed, driving them gradually, imperceptibly, toward the encounter with Mars. “What do you mean?”
—I broke the code, a juvenile little algorithm. The messages are quite excited and not altogether intelligible. They mention your name and Carl Osborn s.—
“Look, monitor it and try to track the source. I’ve got other things on my mind right now”
She glanced back at the dome and saw through its smudged translucence two figures confronting each other under the brilliant lights.
Carl, suited and gesturing. The second, in a simple robe…she was sure it was Saul.
With Carl in such a state… I wish I could warn Saul. This is definitely not the time to bother Carl with some detail.
Something was wrong. Saul waved his hands, then lurched to the side, as if to leave.
Virginia frowned. Saul looked sick… and something was odd about the way he moved.
Carl took a step forward and Saul pushed him away. Virginia wished she were back in her lab, could tap immediately into one of the worker robos inside the dome, listen in.
The men were shouting at each other, Saul gesturing wildly, pushing. He collided with the towering glass wall.
Th
e dome split! At that moment a blue flash cut down it, ripping the pressure sheet, showering livid yellow sparks. Air gushed out soundlessly, a pearly fog exploding into a ball that rose and grew and shredded. Howcould a man shatter… Thenshe realized.
Laser.
“Saul! Run to the airlock!” But he couldn’t hear her, of course. Saul wasn’t wearing a suit.
Carl sprinted toward the lock, where the helmets were stored.
Saul stumbled, confused, and fell into a mass of vegetation. He got back to his feet among the boiling tangle of plants, but did not seem to know what to do, where he could find pressure again. The lock was only a hundred meters away, but in the disorientating plunge to vacuum the brain gave conflicting signals.
Virginia was running, shouting, without taking her eyes off Saul. His robe flapped above bone-white flanks, he lurched awkwardly—away from the lock, toward the split in the dome. He was mindlessly following the gale that swept past him, sending his brown hair streaming before his eyes, tossing the plants in a whipping gale.
Carl had reached the lock. He ducked inside, slammed the hatch. It would take him at least a minute to find a helmet, get some air into his lungs …
Virginia ran furiously, slipping maddeningly off the ice.
“Saul—no! Saul—”
She knew the effects of vacuum and cold, rupturing the blood vessels in the lungs, freezing the body’s cells, bursting the delicate membranes in eyes and ears, wreaking bloody havoc throughout the body…
He stumbled toward the shattered lip of the dome, drawn by the sucking storm. She was still running when he fell among the upright shards.
Carl rushed past her. But when they reached the crumpled figure, stiffly contorted in a position of tortured agony, they could see sharp, glassy daggers protruding from his back. The deep cuts no longer even spurted scarlet. Purpling bruises, glassy complexion. Blank, open eyes.
The dome crew came running from the far lock, bringing first-aid equipment. Too late.
How strange he looks, Virginia thought. He had always seemed craggy, time-worn but triumphant. Now he seemed unblemished, young, his face smooth, as if years had been erased by the soothing hand of Death.
CARL
He had always been a problem-solver, a man who reflexively reacted to the unknown by breaking it into understandable pieces. Then Carl would carefully solve each small puzzle, confident that the sum of such microproblems would finally resolve the larger confusions. What’d they call it at Caltech? A “linear superposition, with separable variables”? Yeah, that’s my kind of stuff. Ol’ can-do Carl.
He slammed his fist into the foamweb wall of Dome 3. But I can’t fix the past. I can’t bring Saul back. I can’t even comfort Virginia.
She sat among some wilted stems of just-harvested rhubarb, staring into space. Her red-rimmed eyes had lone since cleared of tears and now she was drawn, exhausted, numb. The dome crew had taken Saul’s body way, and in the confusion Virginia had dropped into silence, ashen and listless. Lani Nguyen sat with her, murmuring softly, an arm around Virginia’s shoulders.
Lain and Jeffers had arrived only moments after Saul’s death, responding to Carl’s Mayday call. There was no sign of whoever had fired the laser that punctured the dome. Lani and Jeffers had met no opposition as they sprinted from the nearest shaft. The comm radio carried no news. The dome crew, well seasoned by meteorite punctures, had replaced the shattered wall and resealed the dome quickly. Atmosphere was building to nearly normal.
Jeffers said sourly, “I still can’t figure it.”
Carl blinked, self-absorbed. “What?”
“Why Saul didn’t react when the dome popped. He’s older, sure, but we’ve had plenty trainin’ with leaks in the shafts. How come Saul didn’t follow you?”
“He was disoriented even before that. He came up through the waste hatch over there, mumbling.”
“That’s crazy.” Jeffers shook his head. “The waste hatch?”
“He must’ve taken it as some sort of shortcut. Maybe he knew Virginia was talking to me and—” Carl stopped. He didn’t want to reveal what Virginia had said, or pursue the thought that Saul was trying to stop her. It’s all so damned jumbled up! Why should Saul care about Virginia’s telling me? Or was Saul’s arrival—too late—an accident?
Jeffers bit his lip, uncomfortable. “Virginia… said you and Saul had a fight, sorta.”
“He was shouting stuff—just sounds, grunts, some words all mixed up.”
“You figure he was hallucinatin’ or somethin’?”
“Maybe. I hadn’t seen him in months. In fact, I hardly recognized him. He looked confused, incoherent. The man was deranged.”
“That’s why he didn’t react, get to the lock?”
“I guess. Maybe he’s been experimenting with himself, and his arrogance finally caught up with him.” Carl snorted. “Probably was looking for the Fountain of Youth.”
Jeffers looked skeptical. “Look, there’s just too damn much here. Somebody punches a hole through the dome, nearly kills all of you.”
“Targets of opportunity,” Carl said woodenly. “Unless they spotted Virginia’s tabard s she left, they must’ve thought she was in the dome, too.”
“But who’d—”
A blue flare lit a nearby stubby ice hill. The two men whirled to watch the glare fade, enveloped in the exploding ball of white spray.
“Goddamn!” Jeffers shouted. “Ever’body—helmets!”
Carl started toward Virginia, automatically clamping his own helmet O-rings, and saw that Lani was ahead of him, helping Virginia. “Crew!—get down. If they puncture the dome again.”
—I not need to fire again, Carl. You get the meaning.—
The voice crackled in his earphones. “Who’s that?” he snapped.
—Sergeov! I knew it,—Jeffers sent.
“Clear A-channel,” Carl said to quell the rising chatter on the line. “Sergeov, what the hell.”
In the display quadrant of Carl’s helmet appeared Sergeov’s grinning, blue-tinted face. The Sigil of Simon Percell was etched into each cheek.
—I hoped to get Carl and Virginia without injury.—Sergeov’s accent came through more clearly. —Even better when flies come to the honey. Jeffers, I hope we can count on you to work with the launchers when this is over.—
“When what is over?”
—You can witness for self.—
Carl had been scanning the horizon to locate their laser. Now, when he turned toward the equator, he saw figures quickly crisscrossing around the launchers. Silently a bolt struck among two running forms and sent them tumbling skyward in the burst of steam. Carl could not tell whether the people were hit directly, but there was scarcely time to consider it before more quick, blue-hot flashes burst forth.
—We take half the launchers already. The rest will either surrender or we will burn them where they stand.—
“What…” Realization dawned. “You… you’ve cut off me and the others, so we can’t lead a counterattack, right?”
Sergeov turned to give a gesture. Immediately Carl felt a crump and vibrations beneath his feet. —I just now gave order to blow in the tunnels beneath your dome. Seals you in tight, right? Great, clape!—
Carl shouted, “You idiot.”
Sergeov laughed. —Like the trap, clap?—Then he sobered, smiled. —Without you the others will he less stupid.—
Jeffers broke in, —This’s mutiny, y’know.—
—Self preservation, you mean.—
Carl could hear in the venom of Sergeov’s words a rebuke of his own leadership. The man’s rantings had seemed comic, dumb, set of leftover ideas. But after the Care Package, a lot of otherwise reasonable people had developed a deep hatred of Earthside, and Sergeov had played to that, claiming that the Mars maneuver wouldn’t work.
And that much was true. The Mars plan almost certainly won’t save us. Nothing will, except a change of heart Earthside.
It had seemed to Carl that Sergeov ha
d never proposed any valid alternatives, and nobody could really take the man seriously. Still, by adding together disgruntled spacers and hard-line Ubers, Sergeov might have enough to seize and hold the launchers, if they did it just right…
“You don’t like the Mars targeting?”
—It is emotional drivel. We could not brake in such thin atmosphere, everyone who stops to work it out knows that.—
“We can try. At the very least we’ll slow down some, maybe open up options on the outbound leg of this pass.”
Sergeov laughed, a dry cackle. —Do not give me speeches. Me and my friends—who be real Percells, not renegades who suck up to any Ortho, even sleep with them—we know the astrophysics as well as you, probably better. You think we cannot do simulations? We know danger of hitting Mars. At best not enough air. So only hope remaining is to brake in atmosphere of planet with thick air.—
“Venus! There’s apossible mission there, though it’s on the outbound leg. We’d have to go through perihelion first, and I don’twant to judge how we’ll survive that.”
—No perihelion. Dumb to even think we can ride that.—
“Why not? Listen, Otis, we can talk over a Venus encounter in detail if you want.”
Jeffers gestured to Carl as he spoke. Along the distant line of launchers, figures were throwing makeshift flags over the cowlings: the Uber sign.
—You see we are winning? Da, all in time. If the other launchers do not give up, we will depress the muzzles of ours, fire empty casings, and pound the others to small pieces.—
Jeffers blurted, —You’re fuckin’ crazy, you know that?—
Carl gestured for Jeffers to be quiet. “Jesus, Sergeov, you wouldn’t do that. We need those launchers—”
—To strike Mars. We shall not go crashing into Mars just to keep Earthside happy.—
“What kind of demented logic is that?”
—Clever logic, it is. Earth would like to see us suicide on Mars, end HalleyLife. What proof shall you need, after they showed how much they care?—
The sneering reference to the Care Package hurt, because Carl knew it was true. The crew had been bitter about that, and this mad rebellion was the outcome. Most spacers, notably the Blue Rock Clan of Hawaiians, stood behind Carl. But Sergeov had undoubtedly recruited among Percells, and Carl wouldn’t be surprised if there were even some Orthos helping him.