Forge of Heaven

by C. J. Cherryh

  "He's much more interesting than some."

  "He's poison, Ardath. Take it from someone who roomed with him. He keeps his digs like a stinking miner's dive, he deals with dealers who don't scruple to sting the gullible, he's a slime, in short, a glowing green slime with no redeeming uses, and I'm relatively sure he's got fingers in the black market and worse. He doesn't attract his close satellites. He buys them. He pays them in far more money and favors than he ought to have. I'm sure, and I can't prove, that he's killed one of them. Do I need to paint you any broader picture? I got as far as I could away from him long before I went to work for Brazis. Now he's snuggling up to my sister-now, of all times, with this ship doing what it's doing-and do you think his helpfulness to you is coincidence? You're not where you are and who you are by being stupid, or gullible. If you don't want to tar yourself with illicits and smugglers and attract the notice of the very d‚class‚ police, get as far from him and Capricorn as you can get, and for God's sake, don't share a drink with them or their friends."

  Ardath turned away, a rustle of cloth, a shifting of expensive stars, all gained gratis. She was leaving, and he had a last moment's uneasiness. He took her arm, delaying her, and she slipped free with a flip of a starry scarf over her shoulder. "Ah." A smile, slow and sweet and superior. "Now there's the brother I love to tease. So completely fast to flare. I take it by all this you really don't like him."

  "Algol isn't a joke. Listen to me."

  "Oh, do you think I'd ever socialize with him? You think so little of me. I can take a hint. I'm leaving. I'm going out where I get respect."

  "Ardath, use your brain. You're in danger, coming here in the first place. Wake up and live in the."

  ". real world?"

  He winced. The family motto. Now he was saying what their father had said at the last disastrous family get-together. "I'm not quoting him. I'm asking my sensible sister."

  "To be all gray and sober like some we can name? To go to Earther church and work on the line in the plastic works until I get too old to be worth paying and station gives me a pension apartment? Or maybe I can just take a job with the government and lie to my friends. No! Where you are isn't the shaping works, but it's close, brother, it's all gray, and if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have any reputation at all on the street."

  She was getting under his skin. Way under his skin. She suspected enough to speculate in mutually dangerous directions, and he couldn't afford to defend himself. He was angry, and when she tried to make her grand exit on her terms, things he'd thought for years welled up into his mouth, things that needed saying, because he'd seen that look on Arden when she took out on a self-willed mission, to do exactly what she wasn't supposed to. "You wait. You listen to me until you get what I'm saying."

  "You told me to go."

  "Don't be a baby. You remember what you told the parentals when you left? Try to get me to care. Well, I cared about things then, and I still care, but I'm getting tired of caring all by myself. I patch things up while you make gestures, the way I did on their anniversary this year and last. I mop up, I handle the parents, I keep things in the family civilized, and even if they won't, I'll be there if you ever make a mistake with your mods and do yourself lasting harm. But damn, you're increasingly selfish!"

  "I'm selfish, opinionated brother!"

  "Selfish, self-centered, how do I say it? I've told you all this and all you can think about is your reputation and your ways of dealing with threats. Well, there's more to the universe than that. There's a world outside the Trend that keeps your world safe, and there's a world underneath it, and that second world's damned dangerous, sister. Don't tell me you have any real idea what Algol is, because I'm sure you don't know, and you won't know, not unless you get where I was, and I never, ever want you to go there. So shut up, go think about it, don't act, and don't do anything stupid."

  "Are you a slink?"

  "For the twentieth time, I'm not a slink."

  "Not a slink. Maybe a courier. But very well paid. And you can't own up to what you do. What do I believe about you?"

  "That the real universe is wider than the Trend. Wider, and far more dangerous."

  "The real universe?" Bitterly. "We don't live in the real universe. We do live in the Trend. It's what matters. You're going to be notorious on the street before you're done, and I think I'm going to die of shame."

  "Listen to me! Listen, for once in your life. The whole universe isn't out to embarrass you. Other people have lives. Other people have crises."

  "They'd have fewer if they didn't tangle themselves up in silly secret jobs."

  "Well, guess who pays the real bills at the restaurants that give you free food and drink, sister."

  "Because you're stupid. If you just quit that silly job and came on the street I could tutor you. You could be someone."

  "I have news for you. I'll say it a second time, in plain words. I'm not stupid and I love the job I do."

  "It's a job."

  "It earns money that supports you. Where do you think it all comes from?"

  "From the gray people. The little people. What would they be, if they didn't have us to look at? What would there be to look at, at all, without the Trend? Would you want to live here, if there weren't the Trend?"

  He knew where he'd want to live, if the microbes that lived in his body from birth wouldn't destroy that world and the peace that depended on its complete isolation. He lived outside and above one of those life-globes the Earthers favored. He protected, he observed, he did all he could to ensure life went on inside his precious sealed globe, but he never could touch it or reach inside.

  That he didn't care that much about life in the larger globe he actually lived in-well, in that sense, maybe Ardath had a real point. That he didn't have a personal life because he'd never felt inspired to form a relationship inside the Project wasn't ultimately her fault. It wasn't her fault he worked where he did, so that every person potentially available to him had politics attached and every really attractive human being he met socially was off-limits.

  All of which was a bad line of thought at 0400h in a morning when an intrusion alarm had blasted him out of bed, and when-he had the increasingly sickening realization-official ears were almost certainly monitoring their family quarrel. It was in the manual that they didn't, routinely, but he was never convinced they didn't just sample from time to time, or that key words wouldn't wake the system up, and if a burglar alarm at 0400h and a lengthy conversation with the burglar, contrary to the scenario he'd presented to security, didn't do it, he didn't know what would.

  At least-at least the monitors must be used to windows into people's private lives, and wouldn't hold 0400h arguments with a relative too hard against him or her, per se. The fact he was meeting a family member against orders, and that there were rumors on the street, however-that was almost certainly going to send the transcript straight to Brazis's desk. That would likely get Ardath herself tailed for months.

  "Get out of here," he said, thick-witted despite the strong caff, which by now was upsetting his stomach. "You've waked me up, I've got an early call, and now I'm not going to get any sleep and I'm likely to make stupid mistakes. Just go. We'll talk about this when we're not having a family argument."

  "You aren't hearing what I'm saying. It's not as simple as my disowning you."

  "I'm sorry about that. I can't do anything else. Go. Or do I have to get dressed and walk you back to the street?"

  A sniff. Ardath drew her constellations about her. "Go back to sleep. It's clear you don't care at all about our reputations."

  "Good night."

  Ardath's eyes burned palest blue. "I am disowning you. I'm going to damn you to everyone for at least a week, and hope it works."

  "Go do that." He could be kinder. "Shall I walk you downstairs?"

  "No need." She walked to the lift floor.

  "Sam," he said. "Down."

  Ardath vanished into the floor and the shadows below. He didn't as
k how she'd gotten in. Sam knew her voice. He'd identified her as family, as within certain long-established permissions. Unfortunately, Sam wasn't authorized to turn off the alarm system: that system wasn't under Sam's control.

  He wished now he hadn't said such cutting things to Ardath, especially when there might be eavesdroppers. She was what she was. He was what he was. They weren't ever going to agree on lifestyles. She didn't know he forever gazed outside the globe they both lived in. And she was an artist, and a good one, an honest one. There was an importance, that the world have color, and movement, and controversy, for those who didn't have a view and an obsession outside that globe. What price on that? What price sanity?

  Her world, the world she'd give him, if she could, held no attraction for him any longer. It didn't have the scale of the world below. And which of them lived in reality? He would give anything he had to turn up in Marak's path and say, to, he imagined, Marak's great surprise, "I'm Procyon. I've come down to stay."

  That wasn't ever going to happen.

  Though he might sincerely wish he could disappear down there, once information got to Brazis that his cover was halfway blown on the street. He'd tried to misdirect Ardath and her intimates even while counseling discretion, but he wasn't sure he'd been successful in either effort. If word did proliferate on the street that he was a government slink, he might have to say good-bye to where he lived and how he lived. And if they were speculating on possible jobs high up enough to be running messages for the government, Project tap certainly had to be on the short list, and that wouldn't make him much safer. His career was at risk, and he'd put Ardath in danger, asking her to defuse the rumors. God, it was Brazis who'd made him more public, it was Brazis who'd sent him to Reaux-but who was going to get the axe if his cover was blown?

  Damn it all.

  When he did get called on the carpet, as he was sure he would be, he'd plead he'd been waked out of sleep and confronted with an already-formed suspicion that he'd tried to deal with. That his sister was smart and, if warned, wouldn't talk freely-that it was actually safer for her to know something, because she wasn't talking to the family and she served as a rumor clearinghouse for a certain influential element on the street.

  God, he wanted his sister away from Algol, for reasons he should have told her plainly years ago, when he left the Freethinkers.

  She was smart, however. She'd ask Spider and Isis what they thought about the accusations he'd made about Algol, and they wouldn't have a high opinion of Algol, either, if they were honest, and if they'd kept their eyes open. They were older, far more streetwise than Ardath, having grown up unsheltered. They'd talk sense to her. Maybe a hint from him that their little goddess was in danger would encourage them to take a mutual stand.

  If word did get out in the Trend that Ardath and certain others highly disapproved of Algol, that would rob him at least of his better-funded prey. But that scenario also worried him. Algol was dangerous in physical ways, and had no scruples about violence.

  Ardath was no fool, however. She knew the hazards of feuds in the Trend. That fear had run all underneath her arguments for him to shove the job and get out of it. The more he rethought it, the more he was convinced she'd come to warn him, in her little performance, her pretense of na‹vet‚, signaling him as hard as she could-even after he'd warned her about the bugs. She'd been trying to tell him his cover was already seriously compromised and that what she'd heard wasn't just speculation from idle talkers. There already was a problem. He was the fool, not Ardath.

  Brazis having gotten him into this, Brazis might be inclined to take the fact she'd warned him, and give Ardath some consideration-if he could do whatever he was sent to do tomorrow morning. If he could bring Brazis whatever it was he wanted, then Brazis might be a lot more sympathetic, working with his problem, rather than just dealing with it and sweeping him away.

  And, always, there was Marak to deal with, Marak, who would back him, unless Marak thought he was a fool.

  So he daren't, above all else, blow the assignment he had. He had to come back smelling of success and professional discretion so he could fix whatever Ardath had come to warn him about. Protect his life on the street. And protect Ardath, who would go to war for him, and who by no means should attempt it, against Algol and his ilk.

  He looked at the cupboard clock. 0448h. He didn't dare oversleep.

  But dammit, he had to calm his nerves.

  He was going back to bed. Lie horizontal. Try to relax his mind.

  The night air was still. The dust had settled. The sky was clear, sparkling with stars, despite Drusus's warnings of fog and disaster. The ridges above them were shadow. The distant pans were ghost-white under the stars, a dizzy distance below their feet.

  Marak stood at the starlit edge of the ledge and called out to the fugitive beshti-"Hai, ye, ye, ye!"

  Lone voice in the night, provoking echoes. It was the call they gave out when the beshti were wandering. It reminded the fools of food, of sweet treats. On a good day it could call beshti in from the fields, for the rare sugar that could tempt the most recalcitrant old bull into reach of a halter.

  He heard distant answers, likewise, lonely in the night, distinct from the echoes.

  "By now they have no idea how to get back," Hati said glumly, from her perch on the rocks nearby, which he was sure was the truth. Far easier to slide down the yielding sand than climb back up it. Their own descent had its perils. They kept careful track of the trail they followed, to be able to find their way back up again, in what might become foul weather.

  Their own beshti had heard and smelled the implied offer, and were on their feet. A wise man kept his promises, even overheard ones, and Marak was ready for them, a couple of sweets in hand, daintily picked off his hand by soft, clever lips.

  Then he went to sit by Hati. Certainly the rascals were down there, in earshot, but it was too dark to try another descent until dawn. If they could find no way down, riding, fast enough to get close to them, he might try it afoot. If he could just get his hands on one of the leaders he could get the whole herd up. He didn't want to shoot the young bull. But he would. He had known that when he asked the boys for the pistol.

  He had Auguste for a watcher, now, Auguste who told them nothing, who left them alone, for the most part.

  Tonight, in the dark, suspended between the world above and the basin below, he was uneasy, and realized the unease was silly, an ancient fear of vermin, as if deadly surprises might skulk out of the dark places of the rocks. The thought of a foot trek had set off that thought. Vermin had lived in such places as this, before the world changed-

  But not now. Tonight it was a foolish fear. The world seemed again what it had been. The hammer had never come down. The world had never broken.

  But the vermin were gone. They themselves were the fiercest thing in the world now, he and Hati and the beshti and their kind. And not a thing moved or crawled, else, on the land, nor had for ages. one eerie silence, for all their lives since the Hammerfall, and the great storms. One great loneliness in the land.

  And change that moved slowly, until this event Ian had long foretold. The Hammerfall had cracked the world; and the pieces of it drifted on internal fires. And now the Wall had cracked, and the land went on shivering, settling into a new age. The place where they sat would be utterly changed-a seacoast, a sea to the south of the Refuge as well as to the west, across the great plateau. If he lied to his eyes, in that dim view below their feet, he could imagine dark, wind-driven water, water stretching out of sight across the horizon.

  Someday, Ian was convinced, life would come crawling up out of that sea and take residence on the land.

  Would they personally live that long? Ian said processes of change ran more rapidly than might have been predicted, that this fact itself caused unease in the heavens.

  Lying warm in his embrace, looking above the eroded sandstone, Hati pointed out what might be a wisp of cloud on the dark western horizon, an absence of expe
cted stars.

  That, now, that was not good.

  "Setha. Setha!"

  Middle of the night and Judy was standing over the bed in hysterics. Setha Reaux lifted his head from the pillow, squinted, and put up an arm to shade his eyes as his wife ordered the light on.

  "Setha, she's gone."

  "Who's gone?"

  "I heard the outside door open. I got up and checked. And Kathy's gone!"

  Reaux's heart started a moderately labored beat, enough to persuade him he had to fling back the covers, put his feet on the floor, and dutifully go to Kathy's room-for what, he had no idea-hardly a chance that she'd be hiding under the bed.

  He walked. Meanwhile Judy was shouting something. He tended to screen Judy's voice out when it reached that frantic pitch, because sensible suggestions never happened when Judy hit that particular note. He just plodded down the hall barefoot at fair speed and looked in Kathy's room.