“Increase hourly mist ten percent, upper canopy level,” he added, rubbing some leaves. He felt more comfortable using his “knack,” now that book learning was taking some of the edge off his ignorance. From a catwalk he looked across the branches of the miniforest, smelling rank aromas of fecundity and death. Heavy, interlaced branches bore rich humus layers on top, where whole communities of epiphytes lived out cycle after cycle, never touching the ground. Tangled vines sheltered crawling, slithering things whose nocturnal habits made Nelson their only regular human contact.
Most probably preferred it that way. This habitat recreated a bit of the long-lost jungles of Madagascar, where whole orders of primates had once dwelled in splendid isolation, until canoes from the distant east only a few scant centuries ago brought the first human invasion. In that brief time those forests vanished, along with so many of man’s strange cousins—the lemurs and other prosimians. Some “lost” species still lived, barely, in enclaves like this one, sheltered in care by the descendants of ax wielders, forest slashers, and road builders.
The contrast seemed so great, one might think two distinct species had invented the chain saw and the survival ark. But then, Nelson thought, even in ancient times, there was Noah.
A pair of eyes much too large for daylight blinked at Nelson as he wandered by. History is so strange. Once you start really feeling for people long ago, it’s like a drug. You can’t stop thinking about it.
He remembered his epiphany on that fateful day in the baboon enclosure—eons ago—when he first realized that a life without others to care for wasn’t worth living. That same afternoon he had also glimpsed something else … what the struggle for survival must have been like for men and women during most of the ages of humankind.
Nelson stopped where the catwalk neared a bank of sloping glass-crystal. Beyond the ark’s perimeter, the haze-shrouded Kuwenezi foothills shone under an opal moon. It was a beautiful night, in a sere, parched sort of way. His modern mind could look across the expanse with little emotion but aesthetic appreciation … or maybe sadness over the land’s unstoppable deterioration.
But for most of the lifespan of his race, the night must have been more intense—a time of lurking shadows and unseen, mortal dangers—even with the companionship of fire and long after Neolithic hunters had become the most fearsome creatures around. Nelson thought he understood why.
Poor Homo sapiens, doomed to die.
That much people shared with other beasts. But with mortality early humans acquired the added burden of a wild, untamed, magnificent new brain, an organ offering skill and planning by day, but also capable of crafting demons just beyond the flickering firelight, enabling you to imagine in detail tomorrow’s hunt or the next day’s injury or your neighbor’s secret deceit. A mind capable of knowing death … of helplessly watching its conquest over a comrade’s courage, over a wife’s withered youth, over a babe’s never-to-be-known passion … and seeing in those moments the spoor of a foe worse than any lion. The last implacable, undefeated enemy.
What do you get when you mix utter ignorance and a mind able to ask, “Why”? Early human societies grasped at so many superstitions, pagan hierarchies, and countless bizarre notions about the world. Some folkways were harmless, even pragmatic and wise. Others were passed on as fierce “truth” … because not to believe fiercely opened the way to something far worse than error … uncertainty.
Nelson felt a poignant sadness for his ancestors—generation after generation of women and men, each filled with a sense of self-importance as great as his own. Thinking about them made his life seem as ephemeral as the rippling savannah grass, or the moonbeams illuminating both the wheat fields and his mind.
Back when humans roamed in small bands, when the forest seemed endless and night all-powerful, the common belief was that other creatures were thinkers too, whose spirits could be bribed with song and dance. But eventually, the scary woods were pushed back a little. Mud-brick temples glistened, and bibles began saying, “No, the world was made for man to use.” Soulless, animals were for his disposal.
Later still came a time when farmland and city surpassed the forest’s span. Moreover, nature’s laws were at last unfolding before curious minds. Principles like momentum kept the planets on course, and sages perceived the universe as a great clockwork. Humans, like other creatures, were mere gears, thrall to insuperable physics.
The pace of change sped. Forests grew rare and a fourth attitude was born. As Earth groaned under cities and plows, guilt became the newest theme. Instead of peer, or master, or cog in the cosmic machine, Homo sapiens’ best thinkers came to view their own species as a blight. The vilest thing that ever happened to a planet.
Nelson saw these unfolding worldviews the way his teacher had shown them to him, as a series of steps taken by a strange, adaptable animal. One gradually—even reluctantly—taking on powers it once thought reserved for gods.
Each Zeitgeist seemed appropriate to men and women of its time, and all of them were obsolete today. Now humanity was trying to save what it could, not because of guilt, but to survive.
Moonlight brought to mind the pretty young entomologist, who had smiled so provocatively while talking about termites and who then, before saying goodnight, had asked shyly to see his scars.
He recalled how his chest had expanded, how the blood in his veins warmed noticeably as he rolled up his sleeves to show her that the stories she had heard were true. That he, unlike other youths she knew, had actually fought for his life “in the wild” and won a victory, in honor.
Nelson remembered hoping, wanting. He wanted her, and in ways that over millions of years had fundamentally to do with procreation. Oh, sure, today that part of it was optional. It had better be, if humans were to control their numbers. But in the end, love and sex still had to do with the continuance of life, even if just in pretend.
The ancient game. Within him burned a desire to hold her, to lie down with her, to have her welcome his seed and choose him, above all other males, to share her investment in immortality.
And so it goes, on and on:
competition—
cooperation—
It was of some solace to Nelson that every one of his ancestors had wrestled with adolescence and gone on to find, however briefly, union with another. Presumably, if he had descendants, they too would do likewise.
But what for? They say it just happened … a fight of selfish genes. If so, though, why do we feel so much pain thinking there might not be a purpose?
In his own heart Nelson felt that strange mixture—hope and despair. A philosopher was what he was working to become. His teacher had said it was his true knack. But that didn’t help one damn bit against the fluxions of youth, its hormone rush, or the agony of being alive.
Worse, just when he most wanted to talk to Jen, she had abandoned him.
Don’t exaggerate, Nelson chided himself. It’s only been a few days. You’ve heard what’s happening on the net. Jen’s probably up to her ears.
Still, he wished there were someone he could talk to about all this. Someone who had answers to offer, instead of endless questions.
If only—
Shig tugged at his leg and coughed a bark of dismay, looking up at him wide-eyed. Shaken from his thoughts. Nelson started to speak, then blinked and wondered what it was that suddenly felt wrong. He touched the metal railing nearby and felt an odd vibration. Soon a low rumble caused the grillwork beneath his feet to shudder, gradually working its way up to audibility. The sound reminded him of the low, infrasonic growls the elephants used in calling one another, and sure enough, several of the captive creatures began trumpeting in reply. The walkway began to shake.
Earthquake! he realized, and suddenly thought of all those people down in the old mine shaft. “Computer!” he shouted. “Connect me with Dr. Wolling in—”
Nelson cut short abruptly as a terrible wrenching seized his gut. He doubled over, moaning as the catwalk heaved violently. T
he baboons shrieked in panic, but he could do nothing for them. It was agony just to breathe and a labor of sheer will to keep from tearing at the metal plates, trying to bury himself under them.
Woe unto he who unleashes the Fenris Wolf. Who dares to waken Brahma. Who calls down Bizuthu and breaks the Egg of Serpents!
Let those who curse their own house inherit the wind …
• NÖOSPHERE
Jimmy Suarez grabbed Dr. Kenda’s arm, halting the wheezing physicist’s flight across the dusty wheat field. “Look!” Jimmy cried, pointing in the direction they had been running. The technicians stumbled to a halt. Fleeing an expected calamity behind them, they looked up at another one taking place before them!
Their goal had been the nearby bio-ark … the only shelter in sight once they finally tumbled out of that horrible, creaking elevator. Now they felt grateful not to have made it that far. For the pyramidal structure glistened, reflecting Luna’s pale light amidst coruscating showers that looked like an aurora brought to earth. Dripping sparkling droplets of electric fire, the edifice lifted out of the ground and rose into the sky, accelerating.
“Hot damn, the bastards missed,” Jimmy shouted hoarsely. “They missed!”
Dr. Kenda’s eyelids fluttered. “It’s not possible. The projection …” He shook his head. “They won’t miss next time.”
“But the thread domains below us won’t replenish right away!”
“If they’re behaving like they used to,” another operator cautioned. “They were changing so fast …”
“How?” Kenda interrupted, utterly perplexed. “You saw the simulation. How did they miss?”
“Only one way to find out,” Jimmy answered. “I’m going back. Anybody coming?”
Kenda turned away, motioning now to the east, where the lights of Kuwenezi Canton shone in the distance. When Jimmy tried to grab his arm the physicist tore free and shouted. “It’s over! Can’t you see that? The minute we come back on line, they’ll do to us what they did to that ark!”
“But they missed—”
Jimmy watched them go, feeling his resolve waver. He almost followed. But curiosity was a flame that could not be quenched, even by fear. It drove him to turn around, climb back into that awful, rusty elevator and descend once more into the dreadful old mine.
His head whirled. Why had that beam missed?
He found part of the answer when he saw who had taken over the resonator in their absence. Jimmy stared at what had become of Jennifer Wolling.
“My God!”
She had undergone a physical transformation … as if devils from some medieval torture squad had taken weeks to work her over on a rack. Stretched out of shape like an india rubber man—nevertheless, she was still alive.
Moreover, a strange light seemed to glisten from those eyes, blinking slowly, still conscious. Jimmy hurried to where she lay slumped against one wall. But as he reached to cut her link to the towering gravity antenna, she jerked her queerly elongated head, knocking his hand aside.
“Not yet …” came her hoarse whisper. Then she smiled and added, “… child.”
Jimmy had a queer feeling as he watched her die … that her consciousness seemed to seep away down pathways beyond his ken. Cradling her head, Jimmy listened to the resonator mumble low mysteries into the Earth.
At that same moment, Mark Randall was far too busy to stare. Too many bizarre things were happening, and only pure professionalism saved him from stupifaction.
“Elaine! Go to the bay and uncover the scopes. I’m turning the ship!”
“But we aren’t even in orbit yet,” his copilot complained. “You can’t open the doors this soon. It’s against regs.”
“Just do it!”
He felt Intrepid around him, still creaking as the shuttle shook off the hot stresses of insertion burn. Officially, they were still in the atmosphere. But that was just a technicality. Air molecules were sparse this high up. And anyway, there wasn’t a moment to lose.
Hands dancing across the controls, he shouted orders to the literal-minded, voice-actuated processors. Mark avoided looking through the forward windshield. It was far more important to unleash the ship’s automatic optics than to play tourist with his own eyes … even if it was a spectacle out there.
Things were flying off the planet. Bits of this and that too far away to discern clearly, but each dazzled as it passed beyond Earth’s shadow to bathe in Sol’s bare illumination. Astronaut’s intuition gave him some idea how distant some of the objects were, their spin rates, even their approximate size-albedo product.
Too big, he thought. They’re too damn big! First chunks of ice. Now this?
What in hell’s going on? Is the whole world breaking up?
When images began pouring in through Intrepid’s unleashed instruments, Mark began thinking that might be the very answer.
The sky lit up with the debris of battle.
Sepak Takraw didn’t have an astronaut’s professionalism to buffer him. He simply stared at the great hole where New Guinean hills had formerly sheltered a vast network of secret caves. Now a lake of pulverized dust lay in a broad oval between the slopes … dust so fine the faint breeze made undulating ripples in it, as if across water. Gusts wafted glittering tendrils into the air like spindrift.
Sepak wasn’t the only one staring. The soldiers who came running from their guard posts stopped to gape as well. For days they had played hide-and-seek, his jungle savvy against their high-tech sensors, they in blur-weave armor, he in loincloth and feathers. Now, however, they stood nearby like predator and prey stunned by the same sudden cataclysm, their quarrel instantly forgotten. Side by side he and a soldier gazed across the bowl, brimming with matter so fine it might have been the same primordial stuff that formed the sun and planets long ago.
“I surrender,” Sepak told the soldier numbly, dropping his bow and quiver. The commando looked at him, then, without blinking, unstrapped his own gleaming weapon and let it fall to earth beside Sepak’s. There seemed no need for words.
The wind picked up, wafting powder like fog to coat their clothes and faces, getting into their eyes, making them blink and tear. Sepak and the soldier backed up and then turned away. In retreat they kept glancing back nervously over their shoulders, unlike the forest animals, most of whom had already resumed their normal serious business of living, unburdened by anything as useless as memory.
Stan Goldman’s view of events wasn’t impeded by trees or jungle or hills. He and a few others shared a privileged vantage point several kilometers from the Greenland resonator. That was where the local commander had ordered “nonessential personnel” when Alex Lustig’s warning came. Those who fit aboard the encampment’s tractor and Malus crane fled even farther, putting as much distance as possible behind them.
Unable to prevail on the commander to let him stay, Stan insisted on at least departing on his own two feet. As well as NATO support staff, the walking exodus comprised men and women from the Hammer Dig, who by this time needed little persuasion that their obscure corner of the world had grown entirely unwholesome. With their background studying long-ago catastrophes, the paleogeologists knew just how small and fragile humans were, in comparison.
Still, by consensus everyone stopped where a gentle rise offered their last view back the way they came. Temblors swept the pebbly moraine. Fortunately, the horizon was nearly flat all the way to the distant coastal clouds, so if anything was going to harm them, it would have to reach right out of the Earth to do so.
Which, of course, is entirely possible, Stan thought. In fact, these minor tremors were only superficial symptoms of a battle taking place far below, as volunteers back at the dome helped Alex’s team on Rapa Nui try to fight off these mysterious new foes. “Any luck, Ruby?” he asked a woman seated cross-legged before a portable console.
“I’m linking up now, Dr. Goldman. Just a nano, while I tap a status update.”
Stan peered over Ruby’s shoulder at a miniature version of t
he familiar globe hologram. As before, the most furious activity took place where the plasti-crystalline mantle met the molten outer core, especially right below Greenland site. Filaments and twisting prominences glowed with energy drawn from the planet’s whirling dynamo, flickering lividly each time slender rapier probes lanced down from the surface, tickling and inciting the most inflamed. Those glimmering threads pulsed hypnotically in rhythms Stan compared to a multipart fugue, beating countertime to Beta’s imperious metronome. The combination spun off beams of warped space-time.
It was a stygian, multidimensional fencing match, and Stan knew his side was now badly outnumbered. New Guinea’s gone completely dark, he saw. And halfway around the globe, another familiar pinpoint glowed wan amber. The African resonator’s barely on idle, probably damaged and out of action.
Those had been early targets of the enemy’s surprise onslaught. The foe had taken them out in quick gazer strikes, like the one Alex had barely warded off. Or maybe they were sabotaged, as had been tried here—an attempt foiled only when last-minute security shakedowns revealed several well-placed limpet bombs. Since then it had been open warfare at long range, with the outnumbered side just beginning to learn the rules.
In an ironic way it actually gladdened Stan to see the innocent incompetence of Spivey’s people. The American colonel’s goal must never have been terror weaponry after all. Or else his officers would surely be better geared for such a fight. All their gazer programs were scaled too small—to lift objects rather than blast them willy-nilly to oblivion. It would take time to bypass all the safeguards put in place to cut civilian damage, readjusting the cylinders to throw deadly force on command.
Time was exactly what Spivey’s people clearly didn’t have.
After the first wave of temblors, earth movements ceased, and Stan knew why. Triggering quakes might in principle offer a bludgeon against big targets like cities. But even a major jolt to this level plain might leave the Greenland resonator intact, ready to strike back. The enemy weren’t taking their advantage for granted. They had to keep the NATO crew occupied parrying thrusts until an opening was found to take them out decisively, once and for all.