Jim Baen's Universe

Science Fiction Stories

Shoresteading, Part Two

Written by David Brin

 

Part II

 

Departure

 

The journey began with a bribe and a little air.

And a penguin-like robot, standing on the low dining table that Wer had salvaged from a flooded mansion. A mechanical creature that stayed punctiliously polite, while issuing commands that would forever disrupt the lives of Wer and Ling and their infant son.

"There is very little time," it said, gravely, in a Beijing-accented voice that emanated somewhere on its glossy chest, well below the sharply-pointed beak. "Others have sniffed the same suspicions that brought me here, drawn by your indiscreet queries about selling a gleaming, egglike stone, with moving shapes within."

To illustrate what it meant by "others," the bird-thing scraped one metallic talon along the scaly flank of a large, robotic snake—an interloper that had climbed the crumbling walls and slithered across the roof of this once-opulent beachfront house, slipping into the shorestead shelter and terrifying Ling, while Wer was away on his ill-fated expedition to Shanghai East. Fortunately, the penguin-machine arrived soon after that. A brief, terrible battle ensued, leaving the false serpent torn and ruined, just before Wer returned home.

The reason for that fracas lay on the same table, shimmering with light energy that it had absorbed earlier, from sunshine. An ovoid shape, almost half a meter from tip to tip, opalescent and mesmerizing.

Only a week or two ago, Wer had been thrilled to discover a hidden cache, filled with beautiful things, mostly geological specimens. Which was all Wer thought the stone to be, at first. Or else he would have been more cautious—far more cautious—making queries on the Mesh.

The penguin-shaped robot took a step toward Wer.

"Those who sent the snake creature are just as eager as my owners are, to acquire the worldstone. I assure you they'll be less considerate than I have been, if we are here when they send reinforcements. And my consideration has limits."

Though a poor man, with meager education, Wer had enough sense to recognize a veiled threat. Still, he felt reluctant to go charging off with his family, into a fading afternoon, with this entity . . . leaving behind, possibly forever, the little shorestead home that he and Ling had built by hand, on the ruins of a seaside mansion.

"You said that the . . . World Stone . . . picks only one person to speak to." He gestured at the elongated egg. Now that his hands weren't in contact, it no longer depicted the clear image of a demon . . . or space alien. (There was a difference?) Still, the lopsided orb remained transfixing. Swirling shapes, like storm-driven clouds, seemed to roil beneath its scarred and pitted surface, shining by their own light—as if the object were a lens into another world.

"Wouldn't your rivals have to talk to it through me," he finished. "Just as you must?"

One rule of commerce, that even a poor man understood—you can get a better deal when more than one customer is bidding.

"Perhaps, Peng Xiao Wer," the bird-thing replied, shifting its weight in what seemed a gesture of impatience. "On the other hand, you should not overestimate your value, or underestimate the ferocity of my adversaries. This is not a market situation, but akin to ruthless war.

"Furthermore, while very little is known about these world-stones, it is unlikely that you are indispensable. Legends suggest that it will simply pick another human counterpart—if the current one dies."

Ling gasped, seizing Wer's left arm in a tight grip, fingernails and all. But still, his mind raced. It will say whatever it must, in order to get my cooperation. But appearances may be deceiving. The snake could have been sent by the same people, and the fight staged, in order to frighten us. That might explain why both machines showed up at about the same time.

Wer knew he had few advantages. Possibly, the robot had sensors to read his pulse, blood pressure, iris dilation, skin flush response . . . and lots of other things that a more educated person might know about. Every suspicion or lie probably played out across his face—and Wer had never been a good gambler, even bluffing against humans.

"I . . . will need—"

"Payment is in order. We'll start with a bonus of ten times your current yearly income, just for coming along, followed by a salary of one thousand New Yuan per month. As you might guess, this amount is trivial to my owners, so more is possible with good results. Perhaps much more."

It was a princely boon, but Wer frowned, and the machine seemed to read his thoughts.

"I can tell you are more concerned about other things, like whether you can trust us."

Wer nodded—a tense jerk. The penguin gave a semblance of a shrug.

"That you must decide. Right now." Again, with that faint tone of threat. Still, Wer hesitated.

"I will pack some things for the baby," Ling announced, with resolution in her voice. "We can leave all the rest. Everything."

But the penguinoid stopped her, lifting one stubby wing.

"I regret, wife and child cannot come. It is too dangerous. There are no accommodations and they will slow us down." As Wer started to protest, it raised one stubby wing. "But you will not leave them to starve. I will provide part of your bonus now, in a form they can use."

Wer blinked, staring as the machine settled down into a squat, closing its eyes and straining, almost as if it were . . .

With an audible grunt, it stepped back, revealing a small pellet on the table top. "You'll find the funds readily accessible, at any city kiosk. As I said, the amount, though large for you, is too small for my owners to care about cheating from you."

"That is not what worries me," Ling said, though she stepped closer, leaned in, and snatched up the pellet. Wer saw that, while her voice was husky with fear, holding Xie Xie squirming against her chest, she wore a cold, pragmatic expression. "Your masters may find it inconvenient to leave witnesses. If you get the stone—how much better if nobody else knows? After . . . my husband departs with you . . . I may not live out the hour."

I hadn't thought of that, Wer realized, grimly. His jaw clenched. He took a step toward the table.

"Open your tutor tablet," the bird-thing snapped, no longer courteous. "Quickly! And speak your names aloud."

Wer hurried to activate the little Mesh device, made for pre-schoolers, but the only access unit they could afford. Their link was at the minimal, FreePublic level—still, when he spoke the words, a new posting erupted from the little screen. It showed his face . . . and Ling's . . . and the Worldstone . . . plus a few dozen characters outlining an agreement.

"Now, your wife knows no more than is already published—which is little enough. Our rivals can extract nothing else, so we have no reason to silence her. Does that reassure?

"Good. Only, by providing this reassurance, I have made our time predicament worse. Many new forces will notice and start to converge. So choose, Peng Xiao Wer. This instant! If you will not bring the stone, I will explode in twenty seconds, to prevent others from getting it. Flee or agree! Sixteen . . . fifteen . . . fourteen . . ."

"I'll go!" Wer grabbed up the heavy sack that formerly held the gleaming ovoid, and rolled it inside. The worldstone brightened, briefly, at his touch, then seemed to give up and go dark, as he stuffed in some padding and slung the bag over a shoulder. The penguinoid was already at the flap of the little tent-shelter. Wer turned, only for a moment . . .

. . . as Ling held up their son—the one thing they both cared about, more than each other. "Thrive," he said, with his hand upon the boy's head.

"Survive," she commanded in turn. A moist glisten in her eye both surprised and warmed him, more than any words. Wer accepted the obligation with a hurried bow, then ducked under the flap, following the robot into the setting sun.

Halfway down the grand staircase, on the landing that Wer had turned into an indoor dock, the penguin split its belly open, revealing a small cavity and a slim, metallic object within.

"Take it."

He recognized a miniature breathing device—a mouthpiece with a tiny, insulated capsule of highly compressed air. Quang Lu, the smuggler, had one—a bulkier model. Wer snatched it out of the fissure, which closed quickly, as the robot waddled to the edge, overlooking the greasy water of the Huangpo Estuary.

"Now, make speed!"

It dived in, then paused to swivel and regard Wer with beady, now-luminescent eyes, watching the human's every move.

Wer took a brief, backward glance, wondering if he would ever return—then followed.

 

Seasteading

 

Ocean stretched in every direction.

Peng Xiao Wer had come to think of himself as a man of the sea. After all, for years he had spent most of his time in water—amid the scummy, sandy, tidal surges that swept up and down the Huangpo Estuary. He thought nothing of holding his breath while diving a dozen meters for crab, or prying salvage from the junk-strewn bottom, feeling more akin to the fish, or even drifting jellies, than to the landlubber he once had been. It a world of rising seas and drowning shorelines, it seemed a good way to adapt.

Only now, he realized, I always counted on the nearness of dry land.

The huge, ugly concrete seawall that China had erected, to defend its new coastline. And, beyond that new Great Wall, the shining towers of East Shanghai. Even the teetering, pre-flood mansions that poor men like me were tricked into shoresteading—a cheap way to clean up the mess left by other generations. Even those crumbling ruins were somehow reassuring.

Compared to the real thing. Compared to this.

 Ahead of him lay nothing but gray sea, daunting and seemingly endless, flecked with wind-driven froth and merging imperceptibly with a faraway, turbid horizon. Except where he now stood, on a balcony, projecting outward from a man-made island—a high-tech village on stilts—clinging to a reef that used to be a nation.

And that was now a nation, once again.

Looking carefully, he could follow the curve of breakers, where mutant corals had been planted in faint hope of enhancing the shoals. Below the surface, he knew, there lay stumps of what had once been buildings—homes and schools, shops and wharves. Only, here there had been no effort to preserve doomed properties against the rising sea. Explosives took care of that, years ago, making swift work of Old Pulupau, soon after most of the natives moved away. Anyway, the new inhabitants didn't want unpleasant reminders to spoil their view.

Of course there was a lot more hidden from the eye, just under the surface and beyond the reef. A vista of pulsating industry had been visible from the small submarine that brought him here, three days ago. Wave machines for generating electricity and siphons that sucked up bottom mud to spread into the currents, fertilizing plankton to enhance nearby fishing grounds and earn carbon credits at the same time. Through a tiny, circular window, Wer had also seen huge spheres, shaped like gigantic soccer balls, bobbing against anchor-tethers—pens where whole schools of tuna spent their lives, fed and fattened for market. A real industrial and economic infrastructure . . . all of it kept below the surface, out of sight of the residents.

A glint of white cloth and silvery metal . . . Wer winced as his right eye, fresh from surgery, overreacted to the sudden glare, reflecting off a twenty meter sailing vessel that passed into view, around the far corner of Newer Newport. Sails billowed and figures hurried about the deck, tugging at lines. A call—distant but clear—bellowed across the still surface of the lagoon.

"Two-Six, heave!"

Voices answered in unison as well-drilled teamwork rapidly set the main sail. Though the crew seemed to be working hard, nobody would call it "labor." Not when the poorest citizen of this independent nation could buy or sell a man like Wer, ten thousand times or more. Wer found the sight intriguing, in more ways than he could count.

I always thought that rich people would lay about, letting servants and robots do everything for them. Sure, you heard of wealthy athletes and hobbyists. But I had no idea so many others would also choose to sweat and strain . . . for fun. Or that it could be so—

He shook his head, lacking the vocabulary. Then something happened that he still found disturbing. A dark splotch appeared, as if by magic, in a lower corner of his right eye. The shadow resolved into a single Chinese character, with a small row of lesser figures underneath, offering both a definition and pronunciation guide.

Obsessive.

Yes. That word seemed close to what he had in mind. Or, rather, what the ai in his eye estimated, after following his gaze and reading subconscious signals in his throat, the subvocalized words that he had muttered within, without ever speaking them aloud.

This was going to take some getting used to.

"Peng Xiao Wer," a voice spoke behind him. "You have rested and the worldstone has recharged. It is time to return."

It was the same voice that he had come to associate with the penguin-machine, his constant companion during the hurried journey that began less than a hundred hours ago—first swimming away from his wife and child and the little shorestead they all shared, then aboard a midget submarine, followed by a fast coastal packet-freighter, then a hurried midnight transfer to a seaplane that made a rendezvous, in mid-ocean, with yet another submarine . . . and all that way accompanied by a black bird-like robot. His guide, or keeper, or guard, it had spoken to him soothingly about his coming duties as keeper of the worldstone.

Only at journey's end, after surfacing and stepping onto Newer Newport, here in Pulupau, did Wer meet the original owner of the voice.

"Yes, Nguyen Ky," he answered, turning and nodding to a slight man, with Annamese features and long black hair braided in elegant rows.

"I come, sir."

He turned to gather up the off-white ovoid—the worldstone—from a nearby patio table, where it had lain in sunshine for an hour, soaking energy. A welcome break for him, as well.

As carefully as he would handle a baby, Wer hefted the artifact and followed Nguyen Ky between sliding doors of frosted glass, moving slowly, out of habit, in order to let his eyes adapt to interior dimness. Only, he might as well not have bothered. His right eye . . . or ai . . . now adjusted brightness and contrast for him, more quickly than any spreading of his natural iris.

The room was broad and well-appointed, with plush furnishings that adapted to each user's comfort preference. Programmable draperies were set to a soothing pattern that rippled gently, like a freshwater brook, though the farthest window was left open. Through it, Wer glimpsed the rest of Newer Newport—more than a hectare of sleek, multistoried luxury, perched on massive footings, firmly anchored over the spot where the ancestral kings of Pulupau once had their palace. Some distance beyond, a series of other mammoth stilt-villages, each wildly different in style, followed the curve of a drowned atoll. One of them—with architecture reminiscent of palm logs and thatch roofing—was set aside for the old royal family and a number of genuine Pulupauese. As legalistic insurance, no doubt. In case any nation or consortium ever questioned the sovereign independence of this archipelago of wealth.

Seasteading. Of course, Wer had heard of such places. Along the spectrum of human wealth, these projects lay at the very opposite end from the shorestead that he had settled with Ling, in the garbage-strewn Huangpo. Here, and in a few dozen other locales, some of the world's richest families had pooled funds to buy up small nations to call their own, escaping responsibility to the continental states, with their teeming, populist masses. And taxes. Yet, there were essential traits shared in common by seastead and shorestead. Adaptation. Making the best of rising seas. Turning calamity into advantage.

Three technical experts—a graceful Filipina who never removed her wraparound immersion goggles; an islander, possibly an heir of the native Pulupauans, who kept fingering his interactive crucifix; and an elderly Chinese gentleman, who spoke in the soft tones of a scholar—watched Wer gingerly replace the worldstone in its handcrafted cradle, surrounded by instruments and sleek, ailectronic displays.

The ovoid had already started coming alive, in response to his touch. Nobody knew why, as keeper of the worldstone, Wer alone could rouse the object's power to create vivid images that shone within—like a whole world or universe shining within an egglike capsule, half a meter long. Whatever the reason, Wer was grateful for the honor, for the employment, for a chance to participate in matters far above his normal station of life.

The now-familiar entity Courier of Warnings lurked—or seemed to lurk—just within the pitted, egglike curves, amid those everpresent swirling clouds. Courier's ribbon eye stared outward, resembling Anna Arroyo's unblinking goggles, while the creature's diamond-shaped, four-lipped mouth pursed in a perpetual expression of worry or disapproval.

Wer carefully re-attached a makeshift device at one end, that compensated for some of the object's surface damage, partly restoring a sonic connection. Of course, he had no idea how the mechanism—or anything else in the room—worked. But he kept trying to learn every procedure. If only so the others would consider him a colleague and not an experimental subject.

From their wary expressions, he could tell it would take time.

"Let us resume," Dr. Nguyen said. "We were attempting to learn about the stone's arrival on Earth. Here are the ideograms we want you to try next, please." The small man laid a sheet of e-paper in front of Wer, bearing a series of characters. They looked complex and very old—even archaic.

Fortunately, Wer did not have to hold the ovoid in his hands, anymore. Just standing nearby seemed to suffice. Bringing his right index finger close—and sticking out his tongue a little in concentration—he copied the first symbol by tracing it across the surface of the worldstone. Inky brushstokes seemed to follow his touch-path. Actually, it came out rather pretty. Calligraphy . . . one of the great Chinese art forms. Who figured I would have a knack for it?

He managed the next figure more quickly. And a third one. Evidently, the ideograms were not in modern Chinese, but some older dialect and writing system that preceded the unification standards of great Chin, the first emperor. Fortunately, the implant in his eye went ahead and offered a translation, which he spoke aloud.

"Date of arrival on Earth?"

There were two projects going on, at once. First, using the ancient symbols to ask questions. But Dr. Nguyen also wanted to expose the entity to modern words. Ideally—if it truly was much smarter than an Earthly AI—it should learn the more recent version of Chinese, and other languages as well. Anyway, this would test the ovoid's adaptability.

After a brief pause, Courier appeared to lift one arm, with a weirdly flexible double-elbow, and knocked Wer's ideograms away, causing them to shatter and dissolve with a flick of one three-fingered hand. The simulated alien then proceeded to draw a series of new figures that jostled and arrayed themselves against the worldstone's inner face. Wer also sensed the bulbous right end of the stone emit faint vibrations. Sophisticated detectors fed these to a computer, whose vaice then uttered enhanced sounds that Wer didn't understand.

Fortunately, Yang Shenxiu, the white-haired Chinese scholar, could. He tapped a uniscroll in front of him.

"Yes, yes! So that is how those words used to be pronounced. Wonderful."

"And what do they mean, please?" demanded the Vietnamese mogul standing nearby.

"Oh, he . . . the being who resides within . . . says that he cannot track the passage of time, since he slept for so long. But he will offer something that should be just as good."

Dr. Nguyen stepped closer. "And pray, what is that?"

The alien brought its forearms together and then apart again. The everpresent clouds seemed to converge, bringing darkness upon a patch of the worldstone, till deep black reigned across the center. Wer caught a pointlike glitter . . . and another . . . and then two more . . . and another pair . . .

"Stars," announced Anna Arroyo. "Six of them, arrayed in a rough hexagon . . . with a final one in the middle, off-center . . . I'm searching the online constellation catalogues. . . . Damn. All present day matches include some stars that are below seventh magnitude, so it's unlikely . . ."

"Please do not curse," said the islander, Paul Menelaua. "Let's recall that the topic at hand is time. Dates. When. Stars shift." Still fondling the animatronic cross that hung from a chain around his neck, he added. "Try going retrograde . . ."

The figure of Jesus seemed to squirm, a little, away from his touch. Anna frowned, but nodded. "I'm on it. Backsifting and doing a whole sky match-search in one hundred year intervals. This could take a while."

Wer grunted. Held back a moment. Then hurriedly blurted.

"Seven!"

The scholar and the rich man turned to him. Wer had to swallow to gather courage, managing a low croak.

"Try the seven maidens. You know. The . . ." He groped for a name.

"Pleiades," the scholar finished for hum. "Yes, that would be a good guess—"

The Filipina woman interrupted. "Got you. Scanning time-drift of just that one cluster, back . . . back . . . yes! It's a good match. The Pleiades, just under five thousand years ago. Wow."

Dr. Nguyen nodded. "I expected something like this. Peng Xiao Wer, the box that formerly held the worldstone—please tell us, what did the inscription say?'

Wer recited from memory.

"Unearthed in Harappa, 1936. . . ." He then spoke the second half with an involuntary shiver. "Demon-infested. Keep in the dark."

"Harappa, yes," Nguyen nodded, ignoring the other part. "A center of the Indus Valley culture . . . the poor third sister of the early days of urban civilization, after Mesopotamia and Egypt. Some think it was a stunted state—cramped, paranoid and never fully literate. We don't really know what happened to the Indus civilization. Abandoned about 1700 BCE, they say. Possibly a great flood weakened both main cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro."

He shook his head, and the elegant braids swished. "But this makes no sense! Why would it be speaking to us in archaic Chinese, a dialect from a millennium later? Harappa was buried under sand, by then!"

Wer shrugged. "Shall I try to ask, sir?"

The small man waved a hand in front of his face. "No. I am following a script of questions, prioritized by colleagues and associates around the world. We'll keep to these points, then fill in gaps later. Go to the next set of characters, Peng Xiao Wer, if you would please."

Wer felt gratified, again, by Dr. Nguyen's unfailing politeness. The gentleman had been well-brought up, for sure, skilled at how best to treat underlings. Perhaps I will get to work for him, forever. Not a harsh fate to contemplate, so long as Ling and the baby could join Wer, at some point soon.

He meant to prove his value to the man.

Bending over the stone, Wer carefully sketched four more of the complicated figures. Professor Yang Shenxiu had provided these versions of the questions, in a style from long ago, in order to communicate with the entity within. Dr. Nguyen's consortium could not wait for their own worldstone to learn modern Chinese. There wasn't time.

Not with the world in an uproar over dire things that were being said by the so-called Havana Artifact—another alien emissary-stone that an American astronaut recently retrieved from high orbit. This stone in front of Wer offered a way to check—in secret—on the stories being told by that other one in Washington. So far, they knew one thing.

Courier proclaimed that the Havana Artifact had been sent by "liars."

Wer concentrated on drawing the ancient characters right. When the last figure was finished, seeming to float, just below the surface of the egg-shaped thing, Wer spoke the question aloud, as well.

"How did you arrive on Earth?"

The reply came in two parts. While Courier of Warnings painted ideograms and uttered antiquated words, an image took shape nearby, starting as night's own darkness. Anna Arroyo quickly arranged for an expanded version of the picture to billow outward from their biggest 3D display, revealing a black space-vista, dusted with stars.

Meanwhile, in arch tones that seemed beautifully and appropriately old-fashioned, Professor Yang Shenxiu translated the ancient ideograms, aloud.

Pellets, hurled from point of origin,

Thrown by godlike arms of light,

Cast to drift for time immeasurable,

Through emptiness unimaginable . . .

One star, amid a powdery myriad, seemed to pulsate, as if aiming narrow, sharp twinkles outward. . . .

"Capture those constellation images!" Dr. Nguyen commanded, with no time for courtesy.

"I'm on it!" Menelaua snapped. His fingers left the crucifix and waggled in the air with desperate speed, while the islander grunted and hopped a little in the seat of his chair.

Wer stared as several of the narrow, winking rays seemed to propel tiny dots in front of them. One of these zoomed straight toward his point of view, growing into a wide, reflective surface that loomed toward those watching.

"Photon sail!" Anna diagnosed. "A variant on the Nakamura design. Propelled by a laser at point of origin."

Wer grunted, amazed by her quickness—and that he actually grasped some of her meaning! The space windjammer hurtled past his viewpoint, which swiveled around to give chase—and he briefly glimpsed a tiny, smooth shape, dragged behind the giant sail, brilliantly radiant in the home star's propelling beam . . .

. . . which then dimmed. The diaphanous sail contracted, folding and collapsing into a small container at one end of a little egg, whose former brightness now faded, until it could only be made out as a seed-shaped ripple, hurtling at speeds Wer couldn't begin to contemplate.

"Neat trick with the sail," Paul commented. "Tuck it away, when it's not needed for propulsion or energy collection, so it won't snag interstellar particles. With bi-memory materials, it could expand or contract with very little effort. I bet they use it later to slow down."

Wer now grasped how the worldstone must have come across the incredible gulf between stars—a method sure to provoke feelings of kinship from this colony of wealthy yachting enthusiasts. At the same time, he wondered. What would ancient peoples, in China or India, have made of these images?

In fact, could anyone guarantee that modern humanity was much more advanced now? In ways that mattered most?

Meanwhile, Scholar Yang's narration continued.

Slow time passed while the galaxy turned,

A new star loomed—its light, a cushion.

The pellet turned around and re-deployed its sail, which now took a gentler, braking push from a brightening light source ahead. The sun, Wer realized. It had to be.

"Knew it!" the islander exulted. "Of course there's no laser at this end. Just sunlight alone won't be enough."

As the star ahead grew from a pinpoint into a tiny, visible disk, a new object abruptly loomed in front of the worldstone—a great, banded sphere, replete with tier after tier of whirling, multicolored storms.

Chosen beforehand—a giant ball waited,

Ready to catch . . . pull . . . assist . . .

Yang Shenxiu's translation stumbled as, even with computer aissistance, he could only offer guesses. Well, after all, the Indus and archaic Chinese peoples knew very little about astronomy, planetary navigation and all that.

"A gravity swing past Jupiter," Anna murmured in apparent admiration. "Like threading a microscopic needle across centuries and light years. They had to time it perfectly."

The mighty gas planet swerved by unnervingly fast, and the pellet, with its sail still billowed open, now plunged slightly away from the sun, then plunged toward it again, from a different angle.

Paul interjected. "But it would still have loads of excess velocity. This needle would have been chosen to offer multiple swings past other planets, as well as Jupiter and the sun, again and again."

His appraisal was borne out, as the broiling solar sphere darted by, making Wer's eyes water. Just after nearest passage, the sail furled back into its container . . . and soon a smaller ball swung past, so close that Wer felt he was passing through the topmost of its churning, yellow clouds, while a brief, glowing aura surrounded the image.

"Atmospheric braking through the atmosphere of Venus. Dang! They'd need orbital figures down to ten decimals, in order to plan this from so far away, so long in advance."

Then, another sudden veer and gyre past Jupiter. . . .

"Yes, though it could make small, real time adjustments, in between encounters, by tacking with the sail," Anna replied. "Still they wouldn't arrange it in such detail without a destination in mind." She made her own rapid finger movements. "They had to know about Earth already. From instruments, like our LifeSeeker Telescope . . . only far more advanced. They'd know it had an oxygen atmosphere, life, non-equilibrium methane, possibly chlorophyll. Even so—"

Without shifting his transfixed gaze, Wer had to shake his head. There was no way that ancient peoples could have made anything of this, even if Courier showed them all the same images and told them all about these worlds, named after their gods—or the other way around. Wer's head seemed to spin, nauseated, as the whirling, planetary dance went through several further encounters—more dizzying, gut-wrenching pirouettes—until the sense of pell mell speed finally diminished. The pace grew sedate—if no less urgent.

Then a different-colored dot appeared, just ahead.

Once again, the storytelling image zoomed in upon the box at the front of the pellet. A little hatch opening, the sail re-emerging.

At long last, the goal lay in sight,

Now to approach gently, and find a perch,

To focus, study, and appraise,

Then to sleep again and wait.

Wait until a time of claiming,

When allures are certain. Ready . . .

 Only, this time, something went wrong, as the sail came out of its box—and one corner dimpled inward, crossing its own lines and causing a tangle.

"Uh-oh, that can't be good." Paul Menelaua commented. "How'd that happen?

Wer blinked in surprise and felt his guts clench as the sail rapidly collapsed, its slender cables knotted and spoiled. While this happened, Paul's commentary continued.

"It must have intended to fine-tune its approach to Earth, by gradually tacking on sunlight till entering a high, safe orbit, perhaps at a Lagrange point. Then spend some time—centuries—evaluating the situation. Maybe use the sail as a telescope mirror, to make detailed observations from a secure distance. Then wait."

"Wait . . . for what?" Anna was doubtful. "For the planet to produce space travelers? But, the temporal coincidence is incredible! To launch this thing timed so it arrived only a few thousand years before we made it into space? How could they have known?"

Wer marveled that these skilled people could grasp so much, so quickly. Even allowing for all of their fancy tools and AIds, it was a privilege to be in such company.

"Incredible, but implicit! Anyway, how do we know the solar system isn't filled with these stone-things, arriving all across the last billion years? We never surveyed the asteroid belt for objects this small. And that astronaut snagged one that drifted in—"

"It's still an appalling coincidence," Anna snapped. "There has to be—"

"Comrades, please," Professor Yang Shenxiu urged, raising his eyes briefly from his own work station. "Evidently, something went wrong at the last minute. Let us observe."

Wer found that he could barely breathe from tension, watching a drama that had unfolded millennia ago. He felt sympathy for the worldstone. To have traveled so far, and come so close to success, only for it all to unravel . . .

Failure! Luck evades us,

While the ball-Earth reaches out,

To clutch me to her bosom.

Wer glanced at Yang Shenxiu, who was once again far away in time and space, his eyes glittering with soft laser reflections cast by his helper apparatus. Of course, the alien entity's vocabulary must have come from its encounters with early humans, in long-ago, more colorful days.

Will Earth embrace me?

Will I end in a fiery pyre?

Or will she fling me outward,

To tumble, forever—

—in cold and empty space?

Unable to maneuver, even a little, the pellet let go of its uselessly clotted sail as the planet loomed close, swinging by, once . . . twice . . . three times . . . and several more . . . From Paul's commentary, it seemed that some kind of safety margin was eroding with each orbital passage. Doom drew closer.

Then it came—the final plunge.

So, it will be fire.

Plummeting amid heat and pain,

Destined for extinction . . .

Starting with deceptive softness, the flames of atmospheric entry soon crackled around the image, accompanied by a roar that seemed almost wrathful. Wer realized, with a sharp intake of breath, that it would be just like the Cheng He expedition. He felt an agonized pang, as any Chinese person would . . .

. . . until new characters floated upward, to jitter and bump alongside the image-story, painted in brush strokes of tentative hope. 

Then, once again,

Fate changed its mind.

The grand voyage might have ended then, in waters covering three-quarters of the globe, an epic journey climaxing in burial, under some muddy bottom. Or, impacting almost anywhere on land, to crush, shatter and explode.

Instead, as they watched the egg-artifact ride a shallow trail of flame—shedding speed and scattering clouds—there loomed ahead a snow-covered mountainside! It struck the pinnacle along one flank, sending white spumes jetting skyward. Then another angled blow, and another . . . till the ovoid finally tumbled to rest, smoldering, on the fringes of a highland glacier.

Heat, quenched by cold, melted a shallow impression, much like a nest. Whereupon, soon after arriving in a gaudy blaze, the pellet from space seemed to fade—barely visible—into the icy surface. Wer had to blink away tears.

Wow, he thought, releasing tension. That was much better than any of the telenet dramas that Ling used to make him watch.

Meanwhile, archaic-looking ideograms continued to flow across the Worldstone, next to the story-image. Yang Shenxiu was silent, as distracted and transfixed as any of them. So Wer glanced at some modern Chinese characters that formed in the corner of his right eye. A rougher, less poetical translation, offered by his own aissistant.

This was not the normal mission.

Nor any planned-for program.

For once, none of the smart people said a thing, joining Wer in silence as the picture narrative flowed on. Spot-sampled snapshots seemed to leap across countless seasons, innumerable years. The glacier underwent a time-sped series of transition flickers, at first growing and flowing down a starkly lifeless valley, carrying the stone along, sometimes burying it in white layers. Then (Wer guessed) more centuries passed as the ice-river gradually thinned and receded, until the retreating whiteness departed completely, leaving the alien envoy-probe stranded, passive and helpless, upon a stony moraine. 

But the makers left allowance,

For eventualities unexpected.

Appearing to give chase, grasses climbed the mountain, just behind the retiring ice wall. Soon, tendrils of forest followed, amid rippling, seasonal waves of wildflowers. Then, time seemed to put on the brakes, slowing down even more. Single trees stayed in place, the sun's transit decelerated, unnervingly, from a stop-action blur to the torpid movement of a shadow, on a single day.

Wer swayed in reaction, as if some vehicle he was riding had screeched to a halt. A bubble of bile rose in his throat. Still, he was unable to stop watching, or even blink. . . .

. . . as two of the shadows moved closer, converging upon a pair legs—clad in leather breeches and cross-laced moccasins—that entered the field of view in short, careful steps.

Then, a human hand, stained with soot. Soon joined by its partner—fingernails grimy with caked mud and ocher. Reaching down to touch.

 

Dour Storytellers

 

Wer tried hard to follow the conversation—partly out of fascination, but also because he felt desperate to please.

If I prove useful to them—more than a mere on-off switch for the worldstone—it could mean my life. It might even mean getting to see Ling and Xie Xie again.

That goal wasn't going to come easy, though. The others kept talking way over his head. Nor could he blame them. After all, who was he? What was he, but another piece of driftwood-trash, washed up on a beach, who happened to pick up a pretty rock? Should he demand they explain everything? Dui niu tanqin . . . it would be like playing a lute to a cow.

Except. of course, they needed his ongoing service as communicator/ambassador to the entity within that rock—and he seemed to be performing that task well enough. At least according to Dr. Nguyen, who always seemed friendly to Wer.

Still, the tech-search experts—Anna Arroyo and Paul Menelaua—clearly felt dubious about this ill-educated Huangpo shoresteader with weathered skin and rough diction, who kept taking up valuable time with foolish questions. Those two would be happier, he knew, if the honor of direct contact with the Courier entity were taken over by somebody else.

Only, can the role be passed along at all? If I died, would it transfer to another? Surely, they had mulled that tempting thought.

Or do I have some special trait—something that goes beyond being the first man in a decade or two, to lay eyes on the worldstone? Without me, might there be a long search, before they found another? That possibility, he knew, was the one he must foster. At some point, it might keep him breathing.

"Clearly, this mechanism in our possession was dispatched across interstellar space by different people, with different motives, than those who sent the Havana Artifact," commented Yang Shenxiu, the scholar from New Beijing, who rested one hand on the worldstone, without causing more than a ripple under its cloudy surface—giving Wer a touch of satisfaction. It reacts a lot more actively to my touch!

With his other hand, Yang motioned toward a large placard-image screen for comparison. In vivid three-vee, it showed the alien object under study in Virginia, America, surrounded by researchers from around the world—a bustle of activity watched by billions of people and supervised by Gerald Livingstone, the astronaut who had discovered and collected that "herald egg" from orbit.

To most of the world, that is the sole one in existence. Only a few suspect that such things have been encountered before, across the centuries. And even fewer have certain knowledge of another active stone, held in secret, here in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean.

Wer contemplated the three-dimensional image of his counterpart, a clever and educated man, a scientist and spaceman and probably the world's most famous person, right now. In other words, different from poor little Peng Xiao Wer in every conceivable way. Except that he looks as tired and worried as I feel.

Watching the man portrayed in the placard-view, Wer felt a sense of connection, as if with another chosen one. Another keeper/guardian of a frightening oracle from space. Even if they found themselves on opposite sides of an ancient struggle.

Paul Menelaua answered Yang Shenxiu by describing a long list of physical differences in excruciating detail—the Havana Artifact was larger, longer, and more knobby at one end, for example. And, clearly, far less damaged. Well, it never had to suffer the indignities of fiery passage through Earth's atmosphere, or pummeling impact with a mountain glacier, or centuries of being poked-at by curious or reverential or terrified tribal humans . . . not to mention a couple of thousand years buried in a debris pit, then a couple of decades soaking in polluted waters underneath a drowned mansion. Wer found himself reacting defensively on behalf of "his" worldstone.

I'd like to see Livingstone's object come through all that, and still be capable of telling scary stories.

Of course, that was the chief trait that both ovoids had in common. Differing somewhat in the details, each one seemed intent on frightening Earthlings with dire warnings they could do nothing about.

". . . so, yes, there are evident physical differences. Still, anyone can tell that at a glance that they use the same underlying technologies. Capacious and possibly unlimited holographic memory storage. Surface sonic transduction at the wider end . . . but with most communications handled visually, both in pictorial representation and through symbol manipulation. Some surface tactile sensitivity. And, of course, an utter absence of moving parts."

"Yes, there are those commonalities," Anna Arroyo put in. "Still, the Havana Artifact projects across a wider spectrum than this one—and it portrays a whole community of simulated alien species, while ours depicts only one."

Dr. Nguyen nodded, his elegantly-decorated braids rattling. "It would be a good guess to imagine that one species or civilization sent out waves of these things, and the technology was copied by others—"

"Who proceeded to cast forth modified stones of their own," concluded Anna. "Until one of those races decided to break the chain letter, somewhat. By offering a dissenting point of view."

Wer took advantage of this turn in the conversation—away from technical matters and back to the general story their own worldstone had been telling.

"Isn't . . . is it not . . . clear who came second? Courier warns us not to pay attention to liars. It seems . . . I mean is it not clear that he refers to the tales that are . . . that have been told by the Havana Artifact?"

Of course they were amused by his stumbling attempts to speak a higher grade of Beijing dialect, with classier grammar and tones. But he also knew there were many types of amusement. And, while Anna and Paul might feel the contemptuous variety, it was the indulgent smile of Dr. Nguyen that mattered far more. He seemed approving of Wer's earnest efforts.

"Yes, Peng Xiao Wer. We can assume—for now—that our worldstone is speaking of the Havana Artifact—or things like it—when it warns against enemies and liars. The question is—what should we do about this?"

"Warn everybody!" suggested Yang Shenxiu. "You've seen how the other worldstone has thrown the entire planet into a funk, with that story told by the emissary creatures who reside within. A tale of profound and disarmingly blithe pessimism, confidently assuring us that nobody survives. Already, there are rising waves of nihilism and despair, across every continent."

"Not everybody is reacting that way," Paul answered. "Perhaps the warning will have net positive effects. It may be enough to rouse humanity, to gird us with determination and make us decide at last to grow up. To bear down and concentrate on solving—"

Anna snorted with disdain. "You've seen the telecasts. Those artifact creatures insist, over and over again, that there is no way to accomplish it. Surviving as a technological civilization appears to be like crossing a vast minefield. Too many mistakes lie in wait for any sapient race. Too many bad tradeoffs or ineludible paths of destruction. They say it's rare for any advanced culture to last for more than a few thousand years. At best. Barely long enough to learn how to make more of these—" she gestured at the worldstone "—and cast out more copies of the chain letter!"

Well, Wer thought, even a few thousand years would be nice. We humans have only had high tech for a century or so, and we seem to have already blown it.

 Anna held up a finger.

"Either they are telling the truth about that inevitability, in which case it's all hopeless, and we should take up their offer . . . or . . ." she held up another. "Or they are telling this story in order to push us toward despair and self-destruction—the scenario that our Courier entity warns against."

Yang Shenxiu agreed. "This is bigger than any of us. Let us bring these terrifying stones together! Let them debate each other, before the world!"

All eyes turned to Dr. Nguyen, who rested both elbows on the teak tabletop and bridged his fingers, blowing a silent whistle through pursed lips. Finally, he shook his head.

"I am answerable to a consortium," he said at last, in impeccable Mandarin, with only a hint of his childhood Mekong accent. "My instructions were to start by getting this stone's story and determining if there were any differences from the Havana Artifact. That we have accomplished.

"Alas, the second imperative priority was made crystal clear—to seek advantageous technologies, at almost any cost. Either through interrogation or through dissection. Also, using such methods to determine if there are troves of information the thing is holding back."

With grim, tight lips, Paul Menelaua nodded. Meanwhile, Wer and the others stared, in various degrees of shock.

"The word advantageous . . ." Anna protested. ". . . it assumes we can discover something that the researchers in Virginia aren't discovering—technologies that would give our consortium an edge. But we've already seen that these objects are similar. Moreover, the entire premise of the story being told by the creature-simulations inside the Havana Artifact . . . their whole narrative . . . revolves around a promise that they will give humanity every capability to make more of these stones!

"It's the reason they crossed so many light years. Surely that means we'd gain nothing from tearing apart—"

"Not necessarily," Paul dissented. "If Courier is right, they have a hidden agenda. They'll hold back plenty. Sure, they're teaching humanity how to make copies. But really, what are they offering? These stone emissaries don't seem to be all that far in advance of our present capabilities, anyway. Now that we've seen them, we could probably duplicate everything—except maybe those super propulsion lasers—in thirty years. Or less.

"No, what has to worry us is the possibility that there may be a lot more to all of this, underneath what they are telling us. Only, because the Havana Artifact is openly shared and in public hands, it will never be subjected to harsh scrutiny."

"But we can cut into our stone, because we're not answerable to public opinion, is that it?" Anna's voice cracked with disbelief. "Are you listening to yourself? If Courier is telling the truth, then only he can expose the other stone's lie! Yet, because we believe him, and have an opportunity to proceed in secret, we'll start sawing away at him, with drills and lasers?"

"Hey, look. I was only saying—"

"What about the others?"

Menelaua glared at Wer for interrupting, so fiercely that Wer shrank back and had to be coaxed into resuming.

"Please continue, son," Dr. Nguyen urged. "What others are you talking about?"

Wer swallowed.

"Other . . . stones."

Nguyen regarded him with a blank, cautious stare,

"Pray explain, Peng Xiao Wer. What other stones do you mean?"

"Well . . ." he gathered his courage, speaking slowly, carefully. "When I first arrived here, you . . . graciously let me view that report . . . the private report describing legends about sacred crystals or globes or rocks that . . . were said to give some humans a chance to . . . to see strange or distant or fantastic things. Some of the stories are well known—crystal balls and dragon stones. Other tales were passed down for generations within families or secret societies. There is one that's supposed to go back nine thousand years, right? It's . . . it is interesting to compare those sagas to the truth we see before us . . . and yet . . ."

He paused, uncertain he should continue.

"Go on, Wer," urged the rich man—representing an association of many other rich men and women.

"Yet . . . what I don't understand is why that report, all by itself, would have made people so eager . . . spending so much money and effort . . . to actually look for such a thing! I mean, why would any modern people—sophisticated men like you, Dr. Nguyen—believe such stories, any more than fables about spirits and demons?" Wer shook his head, repressing the fact that he had always believed in spirits, at least a little. So did lots of people.

"I figure the former owner of our worldstone—"

"Lee Fang Lu." Yang Shenxiu interjected a name that Wer had never known, till now. The fellow who used to own that pre-deluge mansion, with the clandestine basement chamber where Wer had found a treasure trove of odd specimens. He nodded gratefully.

"Lee Fang Lu might have been arrested, tortured and killed over rumors—"

"That he possessed something like this." Dr. Nguyen nodded and his beaded hair clattered softly. "Pray continue."

"Then there's the way you and your . . . competitors . . . pounced on me, after I put out just a hint about a glowing white egg. Clearly, when the Havana Artifact was announced, there were already powerful groups out there, who knew the . . . the . . ."

He groped for the right words. And abruptly a new, unfamiliar Chinese language character appeared in that ai-patch, overlain upon his lower right field of vision. Plus a row of tone-accented roman letters, for pronunciation. The ai-patch had been doing that more often as it grew more familiar with Wer—anticipating and assisting what he was trying to say.

". . . the range-of-plausible-potentialities . . ." he carefully enunciated, while moving his finger over his palm, mimic-drawing the character in question—a common thing to do, when a word was obscure. He saw the others variously frown or smile a little. They were probably used to this sort of thing.

"I just find it hard to believe that powerful people would go to so much trouble . . . to search frantically for such a thing, even after learning about the Havana Artifact . . . unless they thought there was a real possibility of success. Unless they had strong reason to believe those legends were more than just legends."

He looked at Dr. Nguyen, surprised by his own boldness.

"I bet there was a lot left out of that report, sir. Is it possible that some groups have had worldstones before this? And maybe still do?"

Menelaua shook his head and snarled. "That's ridiculous."

"And why is that, Paul?" Anna Arroyo answered. "It'd take care of that temporal coincidence, at least a bit. Maybe these things have been crisscrossing our region of space for a long time, like messages in bottles, sent by neighbors squabbling and slandering each other. While most settled into far orbits, waiting for Earth to produce space-faring folk, others might have landed—accidentally, like this one. Or on purpose in some way. Most would shatter or get buried at sea. But just like a plant that sends out thousands of seeds, you need only one to take root . . ."

Yang Shenxiu protested. "If there were so many, would not geologists or gem seekers or collectors or plowing farmers have seen, by now, some of the fallen ones? Even if they were split or burned, they would stand out!"

Anna shrugged. "We have no idea how these things decay, if broken. Maybe they decompose quickly into a form that resembles typical rock crystal—like some of those that were worked into sacred skulls. Or they might dissolve into sand or dust, or even vapor. One more reason to leave this one intact, I say!" She turned to Wer. "But your point is that some clandestine group or groups may already have one or more of these things. Either complete or a partially working fragment. They might already have heard some variant on the tale told by the Havana Artifact . . ."

"In which case, not telling the world may have been merciful and wise," Yang Shenxiu muttered. "Better to let people continue in blissful ignorance, if all our efforts will be futile anyway. If humanity is simply doomed to ultimate failure."

Paul Menelaua pounded his fist on the table. His action-crucifix wriggled in rhythm to the vibrations. "I can't accept that. The Havana aliens must be lying! That stone should be dissected, instead of this one."

Silence stetched, while Yang Shenxiu seemed uncertain whether to interpret Paul's shouting as disrespect, or simply a matter of cultural or personality difference. Finally, the scholar shrugged.

"If we might get back on topic," he said.

"Indeed," Anna said. "I doubt any group would keep such an active stone secret out of pure altruism. Human beings tend to seek advantage! While rationalizing that they mean well, for the greater good." She spoke in ironic tones, without looking directly at Dr. Nguyen. "But that's the problem with this hypothesis of Wer's. If any other group already had such a stone, would we not see new technologies similar to . . . similar to—"

Her voice stuttered to a stop, as if suddenly realizing what should come next.

Paul filled in for her. "Similar to the advances we've all seen, across the last century or so? As I just said, we're already converging on these abilities. More rapidly than any other kind of technology! Methods for advanced visual simulation, realistic avatar aindroids that pass Turing tests—"

"All of which may simply be incremental progress, propelled by the market, by popular culture, and by public demand," Dr. Nguyen pointed out. "Honestly, can you name a single breakthrough that did not seem to follow right on the heels of others, in a rapid but natural sequence of human ingenuity and desire? Isn't it a tiresome cliché to credit our own inventions to intervention from above? Must we devolve back to those lurid scenarios about secret laboratories where hordes of faceless technicians analyze alien corpses and flying saucers, without ever telling the citizenry? I thought we had outgrown such nonsense."

The others looked at their leader, and Wer could tell they were all thinking the same thing.

If anybody in this room does know about another, secret stone, it would be him.

"But of course," Nguyen added, spreading his hands with a soft smile, "according to this new hypothesis of Wer's, we should look carefully at those who have profited most from such technologies. Bollywood moguls. The owners of Believworld and Our-iverse. The AIs Haveit and Fabrique Zaire. In which case—"

Wer felt a wave of satisfaction—briefly—upon hearing one of his ideas called a "hypothesis. " Even so, he had an uneasy feeling about where this was heading.

"But that only makes our purpose here more pressing," Dr. Nguyen continued. "If there are human groups who already have this advantage—access to alien technologies—then they may turn desperate to prevent the International Commission from completing its study of the Havana Artifact. Even worse, there is no telling how long we can keep our own secret. Almost anything we do, any coding or shrouding that we use, could be penetrated by those who have had these methods for some time.

"Our only safe recourse would be to get as much out of this worldstone as possible, quickly, in order to catch up."

Wer realized something, watching Nguyen weave this chain of logic, even as the others nodded in agreement. He is using this argument to support a decision that was already made, far above our heads.

"Wer, I want to start asking the Courier entity for useful things. No more stories. We need technologies and methodologies, as quickly and practically as possible. Make clear how much depends upon—"

He paused as—ten meters across the lavish chamber—the far door opened. At the same instant, a curtain of obscuration fell across the table—a dazzle-drapery consisting a myriad tiny, bright sparkles that prevented any newcomer from viewing the worldstone.

Too bad it also filled the air with a charged, ozone smell. Wer wrinkled his nose. He didn't understand how a Discretion Screen was generated by "laser ionization of air molecules," but he knew that a simple bolt of black velvet could have accomplished the same thing. Or else locking the door.

A moment later, a liveried servant hurried in—a young woman with strawberry hair. Wer had spoken to her a few times, a refugee from New Zealand, whose spoken Chinese was broken and coarse, but she lent the place a chaste, decorative charm.

"I asked that we not be disturbed for any—" Nguyen began.

"Sir, I am so sorry, sir." She bowed low, as if this were Japan, where they still cared about such things. "Supervisor Chen sent me to come to you here with discreet message for you. He needs you at command center. Right away."

Nguyen started to get up, unfailingly polite. "Can you please say what it's about?"

"Sir, I think they have detected something approaching the security boundary at high speed, plus several other possible contacts—"

That was when the window behind Wer's back exploded into a million shards.

 

Dismemberment

 

Wer felt shoved forward by the concussion—a fist of air striking his body from behind, as hard as any ocean wave. At almost the same instant, a spray of glass slivers impacted his back. Somebody screamed—it might have been him—as the cloud of brittle shards jetted past him to collide with the scintillating fog of the Discretion Screen. Dazzling sparkles flared as glass splinters met ionized nitrogen, appearing to frame his shadow in a vivid aura. It might have even been beautiful, if his mind had room for anything but shock . . . plus a single, stunned word.

What?

 Stumbling to a halt right at the edge of the table, he glanced to the right and saw Dr. Nguyen—his left cheek bloody from a dozen cuts—turn toward him and shout. But Wer's ears didn't seem to be functioning. Only a low, growling hum penetrated.

Nguyen blinked. He pointed at Wer, then into the blinding haze above the tabletop—and finally jutted his finger southward, toward the exit farthest from the explosion. The ai-patch in Wer's lower right cone of vision started offering helpful interpretations, but he already understood.

Take the stone and get out of here!

This all took the barest moment. Another passed while Wer hesitated. Loyalty to his employer called for him to stay and fight. What would the others . . . Paul and Anna and Yang Shenxiu . . . think if they saw him run away?

But Nguyen jutted his finger again—emphatically—before turning to face something new, entering the room behind Wer. And Wer knew something with uncanny certainty. That just turning around to see might be the worst mistake of his life—

—so, instead, he dived into the drapery of fizzing sparks.

Naturally, it hurt like blazes. It was designed to. Keeping his eyes closed, he scooped up the worldstone by recall alone, along with its nearby container-satchel. A shoresteader and reclamation diver needed good visual memory.

Tumbling out the other side of the dazzle curtain, he rolled across the carpeted floor and onto his left knee. By touch alone, Wer slid the ovoid into its carrier case, while he blinked rapidly, praying that clear vision would return—

—then instantly regretted the wish, when he saw what had become of the beautiful face of Anna Arroyo. She lay nearby, torn from forehead to ribs, the everpresent goggles now shattered into bits that only helped to ravage her face. Paul Menelaua, his own visage a mass of dribbling cuts, with tiny glass daggers sticking out of some held his dying comrade, offering Anna his crucifix. The animatronic Jesus moved its mouth, perhaps reciting some final prayer or death rite, while its hands, still pinned to the silver cross, opened in a gesture of welcome.

Hearing flooded back. Murky shouts erupted, beyond the shrouded table, where he had just fled seconds ago. Dr. Nguyen's protesting voice argued with several others that were harsh, demanding. The floor vibrated with heavy footsteps. Grating rumbles carried through the shattered window—from war engines that had somehow crossed the broad Pacific undetected, all the way to this rich, isolated atoll. So much for the mercenary protection that wealth supposedly provided.

Wer gathered his strength to go . . . then spotted the New Beijing professor, Yang Shenxiu, cowering nearby, clutching a table leg. The scholar babbled and offered Wer something—a memory sheet, no thicker than a piece of paper and about the same size. Yang Shenxiu's fingernails clawed, involuntarily, at the fragile-looking polymer, leaving no tracks as Wer yanked it from the scholar's hand. Then, with a parting nod to Yang, he sprang away at a crouching run, dashing for a sliding door that gave way to a balcony, and then the sheltering sea.

 

Bless the frugal habits of a shoresteader. Waste nothing. Re-use everything. Upon arriving at Newer Newport, Wer had kept sly possession of the little disposable underwater breathing apparatus that the penguin-robot gave him, back in the murky waters of the Huangpo. Was it his fault they never asked for it back? In the well-equipped arcology kitchen, using a smuggler's trick, he had managed to re-fill the tiny reserve tank, while rehearsing speeches of forgetful innocence, should anyone find it in his pocket.

Now, splashing into a storm of saltwater bubbles and engine noise, Wer fumbled at the compact breather with one hand, struggling to unfold the mouthpiece and eye-shields, while the weight of the worldstone dragged him downward by his other arm. There was a scary moment when the survival gadget almost slipped out of his grasp. Only after slipping it snugly into place did Wer finally kick off his sandals and suck in a hopeful, tentative burst of needed air.

Okay. It's good, he noted with some relief. But ease up. Breathe slow and steady. Move slow and steady.

The normally clear waters roiled with turbid murk, a fog of churned gases, chopped seaweed and fragments of shattered coral, along with a cloudy phosphorescence of stirred diatoms. Something foreign—perhaps leakage from those engines—filled his mouth with an oily tang. Still, Wer felt grateful for the obscuration as he kicked hard to grab a ladder stanchion along one of the massive concrete pillars, anchoring the arcology to the bottom.

Noises reverberated all around—more explosions and the rattattat of weapons being discharged somewhere nearby, while bits and pieces of debris fell from Newer Newport, splashing and tumbling to disturb the muddy bottom. Or else landing atop the drowned Royal Palace of Pulupau, just below. Part of him noted, with a shoresteader's eye for such things, that if the palace walls had not collapsed, the roofline would extend well above where he was, right now.

Wer clung to his perch, trying both to control his racing heartbeat and to seem very small. Especially when—after searching and peering about—he was able to make out several vessels, bobbing just beyond the reef, blocked from entering the lagoon by the shoreline ruins. Evidently they were submarines of some kind. Sneakers, designed for bringing commandos close to shore. Though Wer squinted, they were difficult to make out. The nearest submersible looked like a compact, tubular bulge of ghostly ripples, almost liquid amid the churning shoal currents . . .

. . . until the aiware in his right hand field of view intervened, applying some kind of image processing magic to overcome the effects of blur-camouflage. Then, all at once, an augmented version of the scene—truer than reality—traced the warship for him, distinct enough to make out a sleek, sharklike shape, whose mouth still gaped after spewing raider troops, minutes ago.

Dr. Nguyen said this implant was only a simple one, to help me with translations. But it seems to be a whole lot more. Perhaps smart, too?

That thought must have conveyed to some nerves controlling speech, because Wer's unspoken question provoked an answer—one that floated briefly in the right-eye's field of view. A single, simple character.

YES.

Wer shivered, realizing. He now had a companion—an ai—inside him. By one way of viewing things, it felt as much a violation as the painful cuts across his back. Which were oozing blood into the water, causing several sand sharks to start nosing upcurrent, heading this way, despite the turbulence. Not deadly in their own right. But more dangerous predators might soon converge, if the bleeding didn't stop.

He tried to bear down and think. Shall I try to reach one of the other arcologies? Even if Newer Newport was taken, the rest of the resort colony might be holding out. And, from the booming shockwaves still reverberating through the shallows, it seemed that they must be. Of course, his loyalty had been personal, to Dr. Nguyen, not to any consortium of rich folks. Still, the stipend they were paying into an account, for Ling and the baby, that was reason enough to try.

If it seemed at all possible, that is. The worldstone was too heavy a burden to haul through a long underwater slog, with limited air, while dodging both sharks and raiders. Anyway—

The enemy . . . they'll soon realize the stone isn't up top, anymore. There'll be searchers in the water, any second now.

He decided, then.

It must be down.

He had already spotted several parts of the collapsed palace where the roof looked relatively intact, likely to host cavities and hiding places. Spots that only a shoresteader might notice. If he hid well, resting to minimize oxygen consumption, the invaders might give up after a quick scan, assuming that the worldstone was elsewhere—taken to another arcology, perhaps—and go chasing after it there.

Letting go of the stanchion, he allowed the stone's weight to drag him down till bottom mud met his feet . . . and he felt antediluvian pavement underneath a few centimeters of muck. The Pulupauan king's ceremonial driveway, perhaps. He shuffled along, grateful that none of the spiky, genetically engineered New Coral had yet taken root here. Hurrying, while trying not to exert himself, he slogged past several rusting hulks of automobiles—perhaps beloved, once-upon-a-time, but not enough to take along, when the princely family fled rising seas.

There. That old window. The gable looks in good shape. Perfect.

Perhaps too perfect . . . it might occur to the enemy to search here. But he had no time to be choosy. Wer kicked through a series of hops that took him over the worst of the debris jumbles and clumps of rusty nails, arriving finally at the opening. He took a moment to grab the sill and frame, giving them a good shake to check for stability. But wealthy scuba divers would already have come exploring through here by now. It must be safe.

He slipped inside, and found the expected cavelike hollow. There was even a small air pocket at the ceiling vertex, probably stale, left here by those earlier diver-sightseers. Lacking a torch, Wer chose to settle in next to the opening, clutching the satchel and waiting. Either until the bad guys went away, or his breather ran empty, whichever came first. The goggle part included a crude timer display. With luck and a very slow use-rate, there might be a bit more than half an hour of air left.

Before it runs out, and I have to surface, I'll hide the worldstone. And I'll never tell.

Something occurred to him: was that the very same vow made by the last owner of the alien relic, Lee Fang Lu? The man who kept a collection of strange minerals underneath his seaside mansion? Did that man resist every pressure to hand over the ancient interstellar messenger-stone, even unto death?

Wer wished he could be so certain of his own courage. But, above all, he yearned to know more about what was going on! Who were the parties fighting over these things? Dr. Nguyen seemed reluctant to talk about history, but there were hints . . . had factions really been wrangling secretly, in search of "magical stones" for thousands of years? Perhaps going farther back in time than reading and writing?

Only now, centuries of cryptic struggle seemed headed for some desperate climax, all because that American astronaut chose to let the whole world in on it. Or was all this frenzy for another reason? Because Earthling technology was at last ready—or nearly ready—to take up the tempting deal offered by those entities living inside the Havana Artifact?

A proposition, from a message in a bottle . . .

. . . to teach humanity how to make more bottles.

Wer blinked. He wanted to rub his eyes, in part because of irritation from the dazzle curtain, along with all the debris and salt deposited on his lids and lashes. And waves of fatigue. His head hurt, in part from trying to think so hard, while the water shivered and boomed around, pummeling him with the din of fighting.

Of course he knew that explosions were far more dangerous underwater. If one occurred nearby, concussion alone could be lethal, even if the roof didn't collapse. Then there was the nagging worry over how long his air would last.

At least no big sharks could follow him inside this place. Perhaps his cuts would stop oozing before he had to leave.

To Wer's relief, the clamor of combat eased at last, diminishing toward relative silence. Only soon, he felt the drone of an engine drawing closer. His tension level spiked when a cone of sharp illumination speared through the murky water, just outside the dormer, panning and probing across the royal compound. His gut remained knotted until the rumble and the searchlight moved onward, following the line of ruins toward the old Parliament House and the soggy remnants of the town beyond.

Wer closed his eyes and concentrated on relaxing, slowing his pulse and metabolism. As the seconds passed, he felt gradually more able to remove himself from worry and fear. At least partly.

Serenity is good.

That pair of characters floated into the corner of his ai. Then three more, composed of elegant, brushlike strokes—

Contemplate the beauty of being.

For an instant, he felt irritated by the presumption of a machine program, telling hm to relax and meditate, under these conditions! But the ideograms were quite lovely, capturing wise advice in graceful calligraphy. And the ai had been a gift of Dr, Nguyen, after all. So . . . Wer decided to give in, allowing a sense of detachment to settle over him.

Of course sleep was out of the question. But to think of distant things . . . of little Xie Xie smiling . . . or of Ling in better days, when they had shared a dream . . . or the beauty he had glimpsed so briefly in the worldstone—those glowing planets and brittle-clear stars . . . the hypnotic veer and swing and swerve of that cosmic, gravity ballet, with eons compressed into moments and moments into ages . . .

Peng Xiao Wer, wake up!

Pay attention.

He startled out of a fetal curl and reflexively clutched reflexively at the heavy satchel—as the universe around him seemed to boom like the inside of a drum. The little attic-cave rocked and shuddered from explosions that now pounded closer than ever. Wer fought to hold onto the windowsill, preparing to dive outside, if the shelter-hole started to collapse. Desperately, he tried to focus on the telltale indicator of the breather unit—how long did I drift off? But the tiny analog clock was a dancing blur before his eye.

Just when he felt he could take no more, as he was about to throw himself through the dormer to risk survival outside, no matter what—a shape suddenly loomed in the opening. A hulking form with huge shoulders and a bullet-like head, silhouetted against the brighter water outside.

Wer let out a low moan and a stream of bubbles, backing into a corner as the figure bent and twisted to squeeze inside, fleeing the watery maelstrom. The interloper squirmed about awkwardly, giving Wer a few moments to take measure.

It's a man . . . wearing some kind of military uniform . . . and one of those helmets that are equipped with emergency pop-out gills . . .

Oxygen-absorbing fronds had deployed out of recesses in the other fellow's headgear. Wer saw that he had a small tube in his mouth and was sucking at it desperately. Evidently a refugee from the renewed combat raging overhead, he wore goggles that were flooded and clearly not meant for underwater use. Wer watched as the soldier floundered, trying to stay upright while struggling for enough air.

He had better calm down, or he'll overwhelm those little gills. Also, Wer realized—I'm darkness adapted and my eye covers work. I can see him, but maybe he hasn't seen me.

Evidently, the fellow wasn't as big as he had thought. Those hulking shoulders . . . had been inflated by air pockets inside the uniform, collapsing now as bubbles gradually escaped. The soldier—quite slim, he now realized—must have jumped into the sea in a hurry, much as Wer did earlier. Such haste suggested that—maybe—the tide of battle might have turned, outside.

Wer started edging toward the opening, lugging the worldstone satchel in short, careful shuffling steps, careful to avoid both broken timbers and the newcomer's feet.

Whoever he was, the soldier must have had good training. Wer could tell he was adapting, gathering himself, concentrating on solving problems. As the rollicking explosions diminished a little, the man stopped thrashing and his rapid gasps ebbed into more regular breathing. When he started to experiment with exhaling a vertical stream of bubbles, aimed at clearing and filling his goggles, Wer knew there was little time left to make a clean getaway. He picked up the pace, fumbling around behind himself to find the opening. Only it took a bit of effort while hauling the heavy . . .

He stopped, as sharp illumination erupted from an object in the soldier's hand, engulfing Wer and the dormer window.

Aided by the implant, Wer's right eye adapted, even as the left one was dazzled into uselessness. For several seconds, Wer stood and exchanged a long look with the soldier, who drifted almost within arm's reach. Because the implant laid a disk of blackness over the bright torchlight, he was able to tell that it was part of a weapon—a small sidearm—that the fellow aimed at Wer's chest.

Slowly, without jerky motions, Wer pointed at the torch . . . then at the dormer entrance . . . then jabbed his thumb upward several times.

Whoever is chasing you may see that light, streaming out of the ruins . . . and drop something unpleasant on us.

The soldier apparently grasped his meaning and slid a control or sent a subvocal command. The light source dimmed considerably and become all-directional, dimly illuminating the whole chamber so they could see each other . . .

. . . and Wer realized, he had been mistaken. The interloper was a woman.

Several more seconds passed, while the soldier looked Wer over. Then she laid the weapon down nearby—and used her right forefinger to draw several quick characters on the palm of her left hand.

You are Peng Wer.

Palm-writing was never a very good form of communication, all by itself. Normally, folks used it only to settle ambiguity between two spoken Chinese that sounded the same. But down here, it was the best they could manage. Anyway, the flurry of movements sufficed for Wer to recognize his own name. And for him to realize—the invaders had come, all this way across the ocean, both knowledgeable and well-prepared.

Only now, things seemed to be going rather badly for them.

But it would be rude to point out the obvious. So he finally responded with a brief nod. Anyway, she had expressed it as a statement, not a question.

The soldier finger-wrote three more ideograms. 

Is that the thing?

She finished by pointing to the satchel holding the worldstone, that Wer clutched tightly. And he knew there was little use denying it. A simple shrug of the shoulders, then, to save air.

She spent the next few seconds concentrating on sucking air from the barely-adequate emergency gill, then exhaled another stream of bubbles to fill her goggles. Her eyes were red from salt water and rimmed with creases that must have come from a life engaged in scrutiny. Perhaps a technical expert, then, rather than a front-line warrior—but still a member of an elite team. The kind who would never give up.

As combat sounds drifted farther away, she wrote another series of ideograms on her left palm. This time, however, he could not follow the finger movements well enough to understand. Not her fault, of course—probably his own, deficient education—and this time the aimplant in his eye offered no help.

He indicated confusion with a shake of his head.

Frustrated, she looked around, then shuffled half a meter closer to the nearest slanted attic wall. There, she used the same finger to disturb a layer of algae-scum, leaving distinct trails wherever she wrote.

Are you a loyal citizen?

She then turned and patted a badge on her left shoulder. And Wer noticed, for the first time, the emblem of the armed forces of the People's Republic of China.

Taken-aback, he had to blink.

Of course he was a loyal Chinese! But citizen? As a shoresteader, he had some rights . . . but no legal residency in either Shanghai or any of the great national cooperatives. Nor would he, till his reclamation contract was fulfilled. All citizenship is local, went the saying . . . and thus, two hundred million transients were cast adrift. Still, what did citizenship mean, anyway? Who ever got to vote above the province level? Nationwide, all "democracy" tended to blur into something else. Not tyranny—clearly the national government listened to the People—in much the same way that Heaven could be counted-on to hear the prayers of mortals. There were constituent assemblies, trade congresses, party conclaves, dominated by half a billion little emperors . . . and it all had a loose, deliberately traditionally and proudly nonwestern flavor.

Still, am I proud to be Chinese? Sure. Why wouldn't I be? We lead the world.

Yet, that wasn't really what loomed foremost in his mind.

What mattered was that he had been noticed by great ones, somewhere high up the pyramid of power, obligation and privilege. By people who were high enough to order government special forces on a dangerous and politically risky mission, far from home. 

They know my name. They sent elite raiders across the sea, to fetch me. Or, at least the worldstone.

Not that it was certain they'd prevail Even great powers like China had been out-maneuvered, time and again, by the planetary New Elites. After all, the woman soldier was hiding down here with him.

No. One consideration mattered, more than citizenship or national loyalty.

Even as the rich escaped to hand-made sovereignties like New Pulupau, old-fashioned governments still controlled the territories where billions of ordinary people lived—the festering poor and middle classes. Which that meant one thing to Wer.

The high masters of China have Ling and Xie Xie in their hands.

I truly have no choice.

In fact, why did I ever believe I had one?

Wer shifted his weight in order to lean over and bring his own finger toward the slanted, algae-covered boards. Even as he drew a first character, the ai in his eye remonstrated.

Don't do this, Wer.

There are other options.

But he shook his head. And grunted the code word they had taught him for clearing the irritation away. The artificial presence vanished from his right field of vision, allowing him to see clearly the figures that he drew through filmy scum. Fortunately, by now the explosions had faded away almost completely, allowing him to trace his strokes carefully.

I will cooperate.

What must I do?

A look of satisfaction spread across the soldier's face. Clearly, this was better fortune than she had figured-on, only moments ago, when she jumped from the balcony of Newer Newport into the uncertain refuge of ocean-covered ruins. Perhaps, this little royal attic had unusually powerful chi.

She started to write again, across the scummy, steeply pitched ceiling.

Very good. We have little time . . .

Wer agreed. Less than five minutes of highly compressed gas remained in the tiny air tank. That is, if he could even trust the tiny clock in his goggle lens.

She continued to write.

Nearby, we have a submerged emergency shelter where we can . . .

The soldier stopped suddenly, as if her body had gone frozen, her eyes masked in shadow. Then, he saw them glint with fear as she turned, like a marionette tugged by swirling currents.

He swiveled quickly . . . to see something very large, looming in the dormer opening. A slithering, snakelike shape—wider than a man—that wriggled upward, almost filling the slanted entrance. Robotic eyes began to glow, illuminating every crevice of the cavity within. Evidently, a powerful fighting machine, it seemed to examine both of them—not only with light, but also pulses of sonar that frisked their bodies like ungentle fingers of sound.

A sharp spotlight swerved suddenly downward, at the soldier's pistol sidearm, laying on a broken chunk of wood. Abruptly, a whiplike tendril emerged from its mouth and snatched up the weapon, swallowing it before either human could move. Then, a booming voice filled the little hiding place, made only slightly murky by the watery echo chamber.

"Come, Peng Xiao Wer," the mechanical creature commanded, as it began to open its jaw wide. "Now. And bring the artifact."

Wer realized, with some horror, that the serpent-android wanted him to crawl inside, through that gaping mouth. He cringed back.

Perhaps sensing his terrified reluctance, the robot spoke again.

"It is safe to do this . . . and unsafe to refuse."

A threat, then. Wer had plenty of experience with those. Familiarity actually calmed his nerves a little, allowing him to examine the odds.

Cornered, in a rickety sunken attic, facing some sort of AI super-robot, with my air supply about to give out . . . um, do I have any choice?

Yet, he could not move. So the serpaint made things clear. From one eye, it fired a narrow, brilliant beam of light that made the water bubble and steam along its path. By the time Wer turned around, it had finished burning a single character in one of the old roof beams of the Pulupauan royal palace.

 CHOOSE.

Still, he thought furiously. No doubt the machine could simply take the worldstone away from him, with one of those tendril things. So . . . it must realize . . . or its owners must . . . that the worldstone required him. Still, in order to make sure, he extended a finger and palm-wrote for the creature to see.

I am needed. It speaks to me. Only me.

The serpent-machine had no trouble parsing Wer's hand-writing. It nodded.

"Agreed. Cooperation will be rewarded. But if I must take only the artifact, we will find a way."

That way would be to offer the stone new candidates. As many as it took. With Wer no longer alive.

"Choose now. There is little time."

 

Wer almost dug in his heels, right then. He was getting sick of people—and things—telling him that. Still, he managed to quash both irritation and fear, shuffling a step closer, and another.

Then he glanced back at the Chinese special forces soldier, who was still staring, wide-eyed. There was something in her expression, a pleading look.

Wer stood in front of the sea monster. He wrote on his palm again, in front of its eye.

What about her?

The robot considered for just a moment, then answered.

"She knows nothing of my mission, owners, or destination. She may live.

Quiet thanks filled the woman's eyes, fortifying Wer and putting a sense of firmness in his step, as he drew close. Though he could not keep from trembling, as he lifted the satchel containing the worldstone and laid it inside that gaping maw. Then, without its weight holding him down, he rotated horizontal and turned his body to start worming inside.

It was the second strangest thing that he had ever done.

The very strangest—and it puzzled him for the next hour—was what he did while crawling inside . . . when he slipped one hand into his pocket, drawing out something filmy and almost translucent, tossing it backward to flutter out of the sea serpent's jaw, drifting below where its eyes could see . . . but where the soldier could not help but notice.

Yang Shenxiu gave it to me to protect from the attackers, and now I'm giving it to one of them? Does that even make sense? And yet, somehow, it felt right.

The gullet of the serpaint wasn't as gross as he expected. The walls were soft and he only had to crawl back a short distance to find a space that seemed shaped to fit a person, reclining on his back. While he twisted into the seat, Wer felt the jaw close with a solid thump and he felt backward movement. Soon, by some mechanical wizardry, the small space around him began emptying of water, replaced by—

—Wer spat out the mouthpiece and took a tentative breath that turned into a shuddering gasp of pure relief. What little air had been left in the breather was stale beyond belief. The noseplug and gogglets went next, and he rubbed his itchy eyes, gratefully.

Then he realized, a patch of the machine's wall near his head . . . it was transparent! A window, then. How considerate. Really. It made him feel ever-so-slightly less like a prisoner—or a meal—and more like a passenger. He pressed against the little viewing patch, peering at the dimness outside. Now illuminated only by slanting moonlight, the palace ruins were a slanted jumble. It took him several moments, while the huge robot continued backing up, to spot the little attic opening where he had taken shelter.

Briefly, just before the machine began accelerating forward, Wer thought he glimpsed a shadow—a human silhouette—framed by a canted, twisted dormer window.

At least, he thought he did. Enough to hope.

 

It's a buoy

 

The sea serpent took a circuitous route along the ocean floor, carrying Wer on a lengthy tour of murky canyons and muddy flats that seemed to stretch on endlessly.

Although the little cavity where he lay had clearly been intended for a passenger's comfort, there was almost no room in the padded space, between curved walls that kept twisting and throbbing as the machine beast propelled itself along. Nor was the robot vehicle as garrulous or friendly as Dr. Nguyen's penguin surrogate had been, giving only terse answers when he tried to start conversation and refusing his request for a webscreen or immersion specs or any other form of ailectronic diversion. For the most part, the apparatus kept silent.

As silent as a motorized python could be, while undulating secretively across a vast and mostly-empty sea. Clearly, it was avoiding contact with humanity—not easily done in this day and age, even far away from shipping lanes and shorelines. Several times, Wer felt thrown to one side as the snake-submarine veered abruptly and dived to take shelter behind some mound, within a crevice, or even burying itself under a meter or so of mucky sediment, then falling eerily quiet, as if hiding from predators. On two of those occasions, Wer thought he heard the faint drone of some engine gradually rise and fall, in both pitch and volume, before fading away at last. Then, as the serpent shook itself free of mud, their journey resumed.

Of course there were still signs of mankind, everywhere. The ocean floor was an immense junkyard, even in the desert zones where no fish or plants or any kind of organism could be seen. Shipwrecks offered occasional sightseeing milestones, but far more often Wer saw mundane types of trash, like torn commercial fishing nets, resembling vast, diffuse, deadly clouds that drifted with the current, clogged with fish skeletons and empty turtle shells. Or swarms of plastic bags that drifted alongside jellyfish hordes—a creepy mimicry. Once, he spotted a dozen huge cargo containers that must have toppled from a mighty freighter, long ago, spilling what appeared to be bulky, old-fashioned computers and television screens across at least forty hectares.

I'm used to living amid garbage. But I always figured that the open sea was better off . . . more pure . . . than the Huangpo.

Losing track of time, he dozed at last, while the slithering robot hurried across a vast and empty plain, seeming almost as lifeless as the surface of the moon . . .

. . . then jerked awake, to look out through the tiny window and find himself being carried along a jagged underwater mountain range, an apparently endless series of stark ridges that speared upward from unfathomable depths, reaching almost to the glistening border between liquid and sky. It was as alien a landscape as he had ever seen, and even more transfixing because the rippling promontories vanished into bottomless gloom, below.

If the mechanical creature that had swallowed him meant to shake off any pursuers, or avoid detection, weaving its way through this labyrinth would seem a pretty good approach.

Feeling somewhat recovered from exhaustion, Wer peeled open some ration bars that he found in a small compartment by his left arm. A little tap offered trickles of fresh water. There also was a washcloth, which he used to dab and clean his cuts, as well as possible in the cramped space. A simple suction tube—for waste—was self-explanatory, if a bit awkward to use. After which, the voyage became a battle against both tedium and claustrophobia—the frustration of limited movement and worry over what his future held.

No clues came from the sea serpent, which only spoke sparingly and answered no questions, not even when Wer asked about some roiling funnels of black water that he spotted, rising from fissures in a nearby ridgeline, like columns of smoke from a fierce fire.

It occurred to Wer that—perhaps—he shouldn't be so glad that the owners of this sophisticated device had included a window, after all. In stories and teledramas, kidnappers always insist on a blindfold, if they plan to let you go.

The time to worry is when they don't seem to care. If they let you watch the route to their lair, it often means they know you'll never talk.

 On the other hand, who could possibly tell, from memory, one hazy sea-ridge from another?

That reassured him for a while . . . till he remembered the visual helper unit that Dr. Nguyen installed in his right eye. Wer had come to take for granted the way the tiny aissistant augmented whatever he looked at, enhancing the dim scene beyond the window. Now he realized; without it, he wouldn't be seeing much at all.

Are they assuming that a poor man, like me, is un-augmented?

He wondered about the implant. Might it even be recording whatever he saw? In which case, was he like the kidnap victim who kept daring fate, by peeking under his blindfold? 

Or am I headed for someplace that is so perfectly escape-proof that they don't care how much I know?

Or someplace that I'd never want to escape from?

Or am I to be altered, in ways that will make me placid?

Or do they figure that I'll only be needed for a little while—till a replacement can be arranged, to speak with the worldstone? Must I try as hard to win over my next masters, as I did Anna and Paul and Dr. Nguyen?

Each scenario came accompanied by vivid fantasies. And Wer tried not to subvocalize any of them—there were modern devices that could track the impulses in a human throat and parse words that one never even spoke aloud. On the other hand, why would anyone bother doing that, with a mere shoresteader trashman, like him?

Ultimately, each fantasy ended in one thought. That he might never see his family again.

But the soldier . . . the woman in that drowned attic room . . . she will get the sheet recording that Yang Shenxiu made. She will know that I cooperated. The government will protect and reward Ling and Xie Xie. Surely?

It was all too worrisome and perplexing. In order to help divert his thoughts, Wer put the worldstone on his lap and tried talking to Courier of Warnings. True, without immersion in sunlight, the entity had to preserve energy, subduing its vivid animations—the images were dim and limited to a small surface area. Still, if he could learn some new things, that might prove his worth, a little, when they arrived.

It wasn't easy, at first. Without any sound-induction devices, he was limited to tracing characters on the ovoid's surface. Courier at first tried responding with ancient ideograms. But Wer knew few of those, so they resumed the process of updating its knowledge of written Chinese. The entity-within offered pictures or pantomimed actions. Wer sketched the associated modern words—often helped by the ai-patch. Never having to repeat, it went remarkably quickly. Within half a day, they were communicating.

At last, Wer felt ready to ask a question that had been foremost in his mind. Why did Courier hate the aliens inside the Havana Artifact?

Why did he call them "liars?"

It a stream of characters, accompanied by low-resolution images, the entity explained.

Our world is farther from its sun than yours. Larger but less dense. Our gravity slighter. Our atmosphere thicker and rich with snow. It is a planet much easier to land upon than your Earth. Hence, if a solar sail is built especially sturdy in the middle, it can be used as a parachute, to cushion the fall.

And so, when they came to our world, many of the stones did not shy away, lurking at a safe distance. No, instead they sometimes chose a direct approach, raining down upon—

There appeared a new symbol, not at all like anything in Chinese, but made up of elegant, curling and looping lines that suggested waves churning a beach. The emblem reminded Wer of Turbulence and so that became his word for the planet.

—from many sources.

My species rose up to sapience already knowing these things, finding them occasionally in mud or stone or ice. Foraging packs of our pre-sapient ancestors cherished them. Early tribes fought over them, worshipped them, looked to them as oracles, seeking advice about the next hunt, about agriculture, about diplomacy . . . and marriage.

The alien made a gesture that Wer could not interpret—a writhing of both hands. And yet, he felt somehow sure that it expressed irony.

Thus, our evolution was guided. Accelerated. Certainly our cultures.

Painting characters with a finger, Wer wrote enviously that humanity never had such help. That is, unless you counted a few, vague strictures from Heaven. And, perhaps, some nudges from the rare messenger fragments that made it to Earth.

Do not envy too readily, Courier chided. It might have gone smoothly, if there were only one kind of stone, with one inhabitant each! But there were scores, perhaps even hundreds of crystal seers, scattered across several continents! Only much later did we learn—they had come across space from several directions. At least six different alien points of origin. Turbulence-planet sits at a meeting of galactic currents.

Then add this irksome fact. That each stone held multitudes! Communities, accumulations, whole zoos of "gods," in many shapes, who bickered, even when they agreed.

We had the blessing—and the curse—of highly varied counsel. Except, of course, when they all wanted the same thing.

But still, Wer wrote, they helped you rise up quickly.

Courier nodded. Though whether the gesture was native to it, or learned from other humans, Wer could not tell.

One tribe—following advice—practiced fierce eugenics upon itself, in mountain isolation for fifty generations. When they burst forth, all other tribes were awed into submission. The females of our species wanted only to mate with their males.

The worldstone depicted a mob of naked primitives, bowing before another group that stood taller, more erect, wearing furs, with wide noses and thick manes—much like Courier himself.

Just a century later, we had cities. Within five, we were in space.

And then . . . only then . . . we learned what the emissaries wanted from us.

Wer felt tension, even though he knew the answer already. Everyone on Earth knew, thanks to the Havana Artifact. He had watched some news-informat shows about it, back in his small quarters at Newer Newport. Wer painted a summary with his finger.

They Asked You To Build More Emissary Stones—Millions Of Duplicate Bottles . . . And Messengers To Put Inside Them—And Then To Cast Them Forth Toward New Planets Beyond.

An interstellar chain letter, people were calling it. Or a galactic pyramid scheme. The ultimate in "viral content"—getting neighbors to pass on more copies to more neighbors. In fact, that was exactly how one savant described it—a panelist on a show that Wer had seen, a renowned pandit from a top university in Sao Paulo.

"For a century and more," the Brazilian had said, "we kept sifting the skies for radio signals from other civilizations, because optimistic astronomers calculated that other spawning grounds for intelligent life just had to be there! Moreover, those astronomers assumed—naturally—that alien races would use radio, which travels far easier across space than physical objects do.

"But what if nobody happens to be listening right then? What do you do? Keep broadcasting? On and on, forever? Over the millennia—or eons—that it might take until that other star system develops technological people? That kind of commitment can get really expensive.

"Ah, but what if you send a probe, a tiny thing. True, the up-front cost is greater. But, with any luck, it can enter orbit above a likely planet and then wait, at no further cost to the civilization that sent it. Wait for people worth talking to.

"Some people dismissed the probe idea because they assumed that you must dispatch something fully capable. Of investigating and reporting back to the home world. Or mining local resources to make copies of itself. Any of these duties would demand heavy mass and fragile moving parts, rapidly increasing cost, reducing travel speed and cutting the numbers you can send. How much simpler to hurl just little, solid-state packets of information?

"Packets that can reproduce, simply by asking for that favor, at the other end!"

It had made sense to Wer . . . in a weird kind of way.

Only then the professor explained about the viral part. He talked further about how the Havana Artifact was indeed like a virus, moving from host to host, in order to get copies of its compact genes sneezed onward! Only, in this case, since the host would be an entire civilization, each packet had to be persuasive. It must sway an intelligent life form—a whole culture—to devote precious resources of their planet and solar system, in order to make huge telescopes and seek new planetary targets . . . then to manufacture vast numbers of new envoy-eggs and light sails . . . and giant lasers to propel them.

And what inducement could the little envoys use, to persuade such effort? Oh, the little eggs could offer knowledge. That might work with a few races with a strong sense of honor and quid pro quo. But something more was needed. And inducement more compelling.

"They offer to include some members of the host species, as new members of the community within," the scholar said. "Like adding a new signature to the bottom of a chain letter. It's what the Havana creatures propose. To show us how to download some of ourselves into crystal probes. A way for many humans to get to travel to the stars—as downloaded surrogates—and possibly live forever."

At the time, Wer felt that it was clear, the scholar thought this a pretty good deal. Of course, a man like him would certainly be among those who would get the honor, to file a fully aware duplicate in hundreds, thousands of little message bottles, cast heavenward on beams of light.

Recalling that explanation, Wer now wrote on the surface of the worldstone, summarizing it all, in part to check on his own understanding.

Again, Courier nodded.

It is the same deal they presented to us, back on Turbulence.

And we agreed! After all, these were the gods who had vexed and confused and guided and tormented and loved and taught us, as far back as our collective trace memory could penetrate the misty past. Even when we knew what they truly were—mere puppets sent by beings who once lived near faraway suns—we felt obligated to move forward.

Slowly, of course, while building a society of knowledge and serenity. . . .

But no! They hectored that it should now be our top priority! They badgered us . . . until, at last, they confided a reason for haste.

And so came the great lie. . . .

Black characters continued appearing under the surface of the stone, but the contrast was fading. Wer realized that it must be drawing low on its supply of stored energy. Moreover, his eyes hurt.

He painted a symbol on the ovoid—WAIT—and rubbed them. Time also for some water. The last protein bar . . .

A musical tone suddenly filled the little chamber. It might have been deafening, except for the padding on the walls. He looked about, voiced a question for the mechanical sea serpent, but got no answer.

Then a single word appeared in the lower right, offered by his ai-patch.

Ascent.

Sure enough, it felt as if the robot were now aiming upward, throbbing hard with swishing strokes of its long tail. Peering through the tiny window, Wer watched as an extinct volcano passed by—its eroded peak now crowned by a coral reef that shimmered with sunlit surf. Was this the secret base of whatever group had sent the serpaint after him?

After the worldstone, that is?

But no, instead of entering the lagoon via a clear channel that Wer spied passing through the shoals, the machine undulated away, following a shoulder of the mountain toward a ridge of shallows, some distance from the atoll. And it began slowing down.

During one of the snake's looping movements, Wer caught sight of something . . . a metal chain leading from an anchoring point on the bottom, tethering something that bobbed at the surface. A wave-energy generator? Was the robot only stopping here to replenish its energy stores?

The thought that this might only be a brief stop, along a much longer journey, seemed to fill Wer's body with aches and his mind with a new-formed terror of confinement. The tiny space was suddenly even smaller and more stagnant than before. He flexed, involuntarily pushing with hands and feet against the close, padded space, breathing hard.

Wer

Focus

It is a weather and communications buoy.

The words, floating boldly, briefly, in his lower right field of view, both chided and calmed him. Wer even had the presence of mind not to subvocalize his relief. No doubt this was a rendezvous point. The serpent would use the buoy to summon another vehicle. A seaplane, perhaps. Wer had been on a similar journey before. Well, somewhat similar.

And yet, after all that covering of tracks, the Chinese Special Forces found us. Found the worldstone. Did they have a spy on Newer Newport? Or did one of their satellites pick up some special color of light, reflected by the stone when I left it outside, soaking in the sun?

Perhaps he would never know. Just as he might never learn the fate of Dr. Nguyen. Or Ling and their child.

Outside, through the little window, he could see a growing brightness as they rose toward daylight. The front end of the snake-bot broached and he had to shade his eyes against a sunshine dazzle off the ocean's rippling surface. Even with help from the ai-patch, it took a minute of blinking adjustment before he could make out something that bobbed nearby in the water—a floating cluster of gray and green cylinders, with arrays of instruments and antennae on top.

Wriggling gingerly, carefully, the serpaint moved closer to curl its body around the buoy and glasp it firmly. Then Wer saw its mouth open and a tendril emerge.

It will tap in

to communicate

with its faction

 The floating characters took on an edgy quality, drawn with strokes of urgency.

You must please act urgently

This won't be easy

Blink twice if willing

He was tempted to balk, to at least demand answers to a few basic questions . . . like willing to do what? For whom? To what end?

But when it came right down to the truth, Wer didn't care about any of that. He had only one basis to pick and choose among the factions that were battling over the worldstone—and over his own miserable carcass.

Dr. Nguyen had been courteous and the snake thing had been rude. That mattered. He closed his eyes, two times.

Good

Now you must press close to the window

Look at the buoy

Do not blink your right eye at all

He only hesitated a moment before complying. It was where curiosity compelled him to go, anyway.

At first he saw only an assembly of cylinders with writing on them—much of it in English, beyond his poor grasp of that language. Wer could make out various apertures, lenses and devices. Some of them must sample air, or taste the water, part of a planetwide network of tools for measuring changes in a world under environmental stress. On the other side of the floating platform, he could make out the snake-robot's tendril, probing to plug itself into some kind of data port.

All right . . . so what are we trying to . . .

He stopped, and almost jerked back in surprise as the scene loomed toward him, zooming in on one part of the nearest cylinder. Of course there was nothing new about vision-zooming. But it had never happened within his own eye, before!

Wer kept as still as possible. Evidently, the patch had means of manipulating his organic lens . . . and using the surrounding muscles in order to aim the eye, as well. He quashed a feeling of hijacked helplessness.

When has my life ever really been my own?

Zooming and tracking . . . he found himself quickly zeroing-in upon one of those gleaming, glassy spots, where the buoy must stare day and night upon the seascape, stormy and clear, patiently watching, accumulating data for the great and growing Grand Model of the World. Suddenly, that gleaming lens filled Wer's right hand field of view . . . and he closed the left eye, in order to let it become everything. A single disc of coated optical crystal . . .

. . . that flared with a sudden burst of bluish-green! More shocking, still, Wer realized that the color had come from within his own eye—spearing outward, spanning the gap and connecting . . .

I didn't know the implant could do that.

I wonder if even Dr. Nguyen knew.

It took every gram of grit and steadfastness to keep from drawing back, or at least blinking.

Almost in

But—

The floating characters stayed outside the cone of action, yet somehow remained readable. They throbbed with urgency.

—you must press your eye

against the window

Wer you must

or all is lost

A low moan fought to escape his throat and he barely managed to quell the sound, along with a sudden heaving in his gut. Gritting his teeth hard, all Wer could think about was the need to overcome raw, organic reflex—passed down all the way from when distant forebears climbed out of the sea. An overwhelming impulse to withdraw from pain, from damage, from fear—

—versus a command from far more recent parts of the brain. To go forward.

Using two fingers of his right hand to hold back the lids, Wer let out a soft grunt and pushed his head against the glass so hard that the eye had to come along.

It was bad. 

Good

Not quite so hard

Hold it

Hold it

Hold it

He held, while greenish flares shot back and forth, between his lens and the glassy one on the buoy . . . and flashing internal reflections bounded around the inside of his right eye, like a maelstrom of cascading needle-ricochets. At one point, his confused retina seemed to be looking at an image of itself, a cluster of blood vessels and sensor cells, and Wer felt boggled by an endless—bottomless—reflection of himself that seemed far more naked and soul-revealing than any mere contemplation of a face in a mirror.

And meanwhile, another part of him wondered in detachment: how did I know what a "retina" is? Is even memory still mine, anymore?

Worse. It got much worse, as the sea serpent seemed to catch on that something was going on. The thrashing intensified and a low growl resonated up and down the snakelike glocoa. Wer responded by clenching hard and holding even tighter.

All sense of time vanished, dissolved in pain. The little window felt like it was on fire. Using his feet and legs and back, he had to fight a war with himself, and the instinctive part seemed much more sane! As if he were trying to feed his own eye to a monster.

And then—

Black, floating letters returned. But he could not read the blurs. They clustered around his fovea, jostling for attention, interfering with his ability to concentrate. Wer sobbed aloud, even as the green reflections faded.

"I know! I'm . . . trying to hold on!"

Finally, the characters coalesced into a single one that filled every space within his agonized eye.

STOP

Meaning took a few more seconds to sink in. Then, with a moan that filled the little compartment, Wer let own body weight drag him back. He collapsed upon the passenger seat, quivering.

A minute or so passed. He rubbed his left eye free of tears. The right seemed too livid, too raw and damaged, to touch or even try to open. Instead of blindness, though, it seemed filled with specks and sparkles and random half-shapes. The kind that never came into focus, but seemed to hint at wonders and terrors, beyond reality.

Slowly, a few of the dazzles traded formlessness for pattern.

"Leave me alone!" he begged. But there was no way to escape messages that took shape inside your very own eye. Not without tearing it away. Oh, what tempting thought.

While he cursed technology, clear characters formed. These featured a brightness around the edges that they never had before.

Wer, I represent a community

—a smart mob—with members

around the entire world . . .

and we want to help you

 Some small presence of mind was returning. At least, enough to notice a change. More than just the characters' shape and color were different. Indeed, they felt less like the simple responses of a partial AI. More like words sent by a living person.

He must have subvocalized it as a question, because when they next reconfigured, the figures offered an answer

Yes, Wer, my name is Tor Saggitarius

I'm pleased to meet you

Now I'm afraid we must insist

Please get up and take action

There is very little—

"I know! Very little time!" He felt on the verge of hysterical laughter. So many factions. So many petty human groups wanted him to hurry, always hurry.

A groaning mechanical sound. The sea serpaint started to vibrate around him.

We've suborned the machine's software

Ordered the jaws to stay open

It may only be temporary

He didn't need further urging. While keeping his right eye closed, Wer bent to slip the worldstone into its carrier, then started crawling forward as the giant robot rocked and convulsed. Keeping the worldstone in front of him, he had to push and squeeze through constrictions, like a throat that kept trying to swallow him back down . . . only to then spasm the other way, as if vomiting something noxious.

Finally, spilling into the snake's mouth, he found that its head was rising and falling, slapping the water, splashing torrents of spume inside. The jaws kept juttering, as if trying desperately to close. And he knew, at any moment, they might succeed.

Scrambling desperately, Wer grabbed a garish tooth, hauling himself and the satchel toward the welcoming brightness outside—

—only to pause before making the final leap.

Don't be afraid, Wer . . .

He shouted.

"Be quiet!"

And swung the valise with all his might, smashing it against the inner face of the serpent's left eye casing, which caved-in with a satisfying, tinkling sound. He then cried out and did it again to the other one. Those things weren't going to aim burning lasers at him, once he was outside. Nor was he worried about the worldstone, which had survived deep space and collision with a mountain glacier. 

Good thinking!

Now . . .

He didn't need urging. Not from any band of "smart mob" amateurs, sitting in comfortable homes and offices around the world, equipped with every kind of immersion hardware, software and wetware that money could buy. Their help was welcome, so long as they shut up.

While the serpent-machine thrashed and its jaws kept threatening to snap shut, Wer heaved with all his might, scrambling like a monkey till he stood, teetering on the lower row of metal teeth—

—then leaped toward the buoy, as if for life itself, hurtling across intervening space—

—only to splash into the sea, just short, with the heavy satchel dragging him down by one hand. His other one clawed at the buoy, fingers seeking any sort of handhold . . .

. . . and failed, as he sank beneath the floating cylinders, hauled by the weight of his treasure bag, plummeting toward the depths, below.

Yet, Wer never fretted. Nor was he even tempted to let go of the worldstone, to save his life.

In fact, he suddenly felt just fine. Back in his element, at last. Doing his job and practicing his craft. Retrieving and recycling the dross of other days. Hauling some worth out of the salty, trash-strewn mess that "intelligent life" had made of the innocent sea.

His free hand grabbed at—and finally caught—the chain anchoring the buoy to the shoulder of a drowned mountain. Then, as the mechanical serpent thrashed nearby, crippled in its mind and body, but still dangerous as hell, Wer also seized the metal-linked tether with his toes.

Maybe there was enough air in his lungs to make it, he thought, while starting to climb.

If so? Then, once aboard the buoy, he might evade and outlast an angry robot. Possibly.

After that? Perhaps the help sent by his new friends in the "smart mob" would arrive before the snake's clandestine cabal did. Before the sun baked him. Or thirst or sharks claimed him.

And then?

Clambering awkwardly but steadily up the chain, Wer recalled something that Paul Menelaua said, back at Newer Newport, when the worldstone entity denounced the famous Havana Artifact, calling it a tool of interstellar liars.

"We have got to get these two together!"

Indeed. With the whole world watching. No more cabals and secret societies. Time to have it out, in front of everybody. And this time, Peng Xiao Wer would be in the conversation!

A bit amused by his temerity—the very nerve of such a vow, coming from the likes of him—Wer pondered as he kept climbing, dragging an ancient chain letter toward the light of day.

Yeah, right.

Just keep holding your breath.

 

****