Collected short stories, p.288
Collected Short Stories, page 288
But the triggers shit, and the chemical explosives have been cooked to water and plastic. It cant detonate
Bang. Again.
Atoms vibrate, Ord reminded him. This way, that way.
Xo had a frail, pitiful face when he wanted. Watching his onetime friend grunt and lift the bomb again, he said, So what?
A few quadrillion uranium atoms could move toward the same point, in the same moment.
Xos eyes grew larger, just a little bit.
Random vibrations and my pounding, and they just might accidentally reach critical mass.
Impossible!
Possible, Ord countered, but highly unlikely. Again he dropped the bomb, sparks flying higher. Unless, of course, someone noticed me standing here, and if that someone didnt much like Chamberlains. Or Nuyens, for that matter. If they could uncook the explosives and heal my trigger
It wont happen, Xo interrupted. Not with our security
I found your message.
Xo fell silent.
In the taverns files, Ord continued. The gold-crested stranger is your sworn enemy, it reads.
Thats a lie!
Bang. Why did you want them to hurt me?
Youre fine now, Xo observed.
Again Ord flung the bomb into the unyielding bricks.
In an almost imperceptible fashion, Xo flinched.
Ive always tried to be friendly toward you, the Chamberlain argued. Even when we arent friends, I treat you better than the others do. Better then almost anyone, now that I think about it.
What if I sent the message? said Xo, in a speculative way. Maybe it isnt because of you. Maybe its your sister. Alice made it so that none of us can leave home, and we never will if you keep sneaking away
Again the bomb struck, cracking one of the old bricks.
How long will you do that?
Until it explodes, Ord promised, his voice level and cool. Ill get more 235 when this stuff goes bad, and maybe after ten billion years
Xo shuddered and stepped back, closing and sealing the useless door.
The Nuyens tolerated Ords presence for a few hours, then sent home a stern warning wrapped within a few concerned words. Lyman was dispatched to retrieve the baby Chamberlain. Ords action wasnt a declaration of war, but it wassomething . As Lyman walked him back to the tube car, the dead bomb thrown over a burly shoulder, he tried to scold the boy. He said all of the best bruising words, in a properly heated tone. Yet his gaze had acquired a new light, a kind of black wonder, and with the most unexpected envy, he gazed at the youngest Chamberlain as if for the first time.
Four
Last night, for an indeterminate period and through means yet undiscovered, our prisoner escaped. Then, in an act that is perhaps even more impressive, she managed to return again, passing undetected through a security network already perched on full alert. We are struggling to determine her whereabouts and agenda. However, questions directed at our prisoner are being met with amused puzzlement. Alice herself has raised the possibility of a highly selective, rigorously maintained amnesia covering those minutes an amnesia that undercuts our every attempt at interrogation
The lone positive in this ugly business is that the Chamberlains escape went unnoticed among casual viewers. Our audience saw an illusionary Alice sitting in her cell, no one guessing that she was elsewhere, and free
Alices jailer, confidential
THE TRIAL HADlasted for decades.
Nothing in human history matched its scope, its unrelenting tragedy, or the ultimate anticlimax. Each day, a robotic bailiff recited the names of humans and aliens who had died during the previous twenty-four hoursa powerful white hum of sound embracing as many as ten billion lost souls. Then the defendant would describe her enormous crimes, or experts would sit before the judges, struggling to put a cost to the carnage. Some voices argued that the explosion was nearly finished, the worst now passed. But the majority agreed only that there was no clear end in sight. The Core was being consumed by the firestorm. The baby universe was still bleeding energies through the faulty umbilical. Certain brutal mathematics hinted that no end was coming, that the superheated bubble would grow and grow, and within another million years, the Milky Way would have vanished, its plasmatic ash racing toward the living worlds of Andromeda.
Only one witness defended Alices actions. A scholarly god from a minor Family, he spoke with a scholars dry voice, arguing that if the fire stopped with the Core, the galaxy would be left enriched by this experience. Energy is energy, he pointed out. Energy is mass, and it brings wealth. Today, billions are dying. But the vast majority of us are quite safe, and when the worst is over, we will witness a wave of star formation unlike anything seen since the earliest days of Creation.
A grueling cross-examination didnt shake the witness. With a rationalists zeal, he spoke about the ultimate good that would come from this sad incident. Chaos was a sweet manure. Carnage was a necessary cost. Unimagined industries and reimagined peoples would replace the dead. Yes, the Great Peace had faltered, but it would recover, in time. The future would dwarf the past. Those were his exact words. The future will dwarf the past. Only in the end, as an afterthought, did that little god admit to a minor bias: The Chamberlains had recently paid him a considerable fee for a long-ago consulting assignment.
The uproar was immediate and ugly, the publics rage rekindled.
Some years later, once the trial was drifting into history, the same witness received a much larger payment that had passed through a hundred masking companies and foundations. His ultimate benefactors remained unnamed, but only because the Chamberlains and Sanchexes put an end to their investigations. Names didnt matter. In issues of blood, it was better to despise the entire Nuyen clan.
The trial judges came from untainted, impartial Families and the best judicial minds among ordinary humanity, while the jurors were a scrupulously random collection of citizens lent an assortment of powerful mental talents. For those next decades, their borrowed talents helped them navigate through the complex issues of science and economics, and law, and Right. Their unanimous verdict was that the criminal would be stripped of her powers, wealth, and every shred of enhanced intelligence. Whatever remained would be locked inside a tiny cell beneath the Tibetan plateau, and except for special circumstances, the prisoner wouldnt be allowed contact with the outside world. Then, to ensure that the sentence was being carried out, people throughout the galaxy could watch Alice on their universal walls, watching her sit or sleep, pace or shit. Her old-fashioned bodycalcium bones and a poor womans minimal immortalitycould wear nothing but a thin garment. And as a final note, the cells refrigeration would be imperfect, allowing the Earths own heat to make her constantly and perfectly uncomfortable.
It was a fair verdict. Perhaps, it was even wise. Yet justice eluded humanity. Thousands had taken part in the universe-building nightmare. Some had died fighting the blast or saving endangered worlds. But what could be done about the other criminals? What if they refused to follow Alices example? Plus there were those sticky issues involving civil penalties. Even Alices wealth was nothing compared to the damages already done. Some of the jurists, just before they surrendered their borrowed talents, argued that the Thousand Families should make full compensation, using some common pool of cash and sorrow
But what if the Families didnt agree to those terms?
And worst of all, what if citizens decided that enough was enough? What if people tried to wrest the godlike powers from those chosen few? The Cores little bang and misery would be nothing beside that conflagration. The Ten-Million-Year Peace would shatter like tired crystal, following all the ancient lines of weakness.
How could any such war end well?
Alices trial was finished, and nothing was finished.
That was the only verdict, it seemed. An anonymous grain of sand had started to roll down the mountainside, and there was no calculating the shape or scope of the avalanche to come.
ORD WAS SITTINGbefore a tablet filled with obscure equations, pretending to study, then he felt the pressure of eyes. Looking up, he discovered a small girl standing in his open doorway. His first thought was that she was a younger sister. He noticed the immature face and body. Adult-sized teeth filled the smiling mouth. Her coppery hair was long and worn simply, and she wore a feminine dress that ended at her knees, shins pale and her pink feet bare. There was a tangible joy that Ord could taste as well as feel. And then she spoke sweetly and quickly, telling him, Come with me. Saying to him, Now, Ord. Theyll notice Im gone, hurry!
He rose and followed, and in an instant he dreamed up a little story to explain her presence. The eldest Chamberlains, for reasons simple and complex, had delayed the birth of Ords little sister. But what if a sibling hadnt agreed, finding the means to hide a baby girl? She might be living inside the vast mansion, tucked away in some secret chamber. And maybe she knew about her slightly older brother, and of course she would come see him. Didnt it make perfect, intoxicating sense?
And yet. How could security nets and watchful elders fail to notice her? And if a little girl was so perfectly protected, then how could she manage to escape long enough to find Ord?
He ran on rising stairs, powerful legs unable to keep pace. The girl looked back at him, her expression disappointed. I thought youd be faster by now, she said, speaking through her thick long hair. Then, with a wink and giggle, she asked, Why arent you faster, Baby? You need to be.
Only then, finally, did Ord realize how far he had climbed and where she was leading him.
His legs locked up, in terror.
But the stairs kept lifting him, past the intricate, ever-changing murals where the great and glorious Chamberlains reenacted the past. He begged the stairs to stop, but they wouldnt. His sister was standing on the top landing, facing him for an instant before stepping back and out of sight, and Ord lied to himself, assuring himself that she was just a little girl and that her keepers must have stuck her inside the abandoned penthouse, knowing that no one went there anymore
Ord was deposited on the landing. The girl had vanished, the massive satin-crystal door stood ajar, and momentum, not courage, carried him through the chill gap between door and jamb.
The room beyond was enormous, hectares of floor beneath a high ceiling, every surface ripped and charred, sagging portions of the ceiling held up with invisible braces and old robots standing motionless, waiting with infinite patience for the order to move again. Ord turned in a circle, with a dancers unconscious grace. When the Nuyens and other officials came here, hunting for Alice, they had demolished the place, even when they realized she wasnt here. This would be the perfect place to hide a secret sister, he told himself. Though he didnt believe that story anymore, no matter how elaborate he made it. No matter how sweet it seemed.
Quit thinking, Ord. Come here.
The red-haired girl stood in the distance, her back toward him and the golden sunlight pouring through a diamond-paned window. Ord picked his way across the battered floor, barely breathing. She seemed to be looking below, drinking in the great estatea roar of autumn colors at their height, brilliant shades and tones joining into a half-tamed work too large for a boys eyes, too intricate for even his augmented mind.
He would always remember the sight of her, her coppery hair, like his, unremarkable against those grand colors. And how the sunlight pierced her dress, revealing her pale new flesh, the body rigorously simple, even plain, sexless and unaugmented, and pure. Why, with everything being possible, did she choose that appearance? For the innocence implied? But who knew why Alice did what she did? Not for the first time, Ord doubted that his sister could identify all of her reasons. She was too large to understand herself, and had always been and what an astonishing, horrifying curse !
Alice turned, and in a motion faster than Ord could follow, she pushed something small and soft into his hands. Then with a desperate near gasp, she told him, Youve got to save it! Theyll destroy it!
What? Destroy what?
Im pledged to protect fragile its nothing but
Protect what? he blurted.
Brother Perfect knows. Go find him. She showed the quickest possible smile, a flash of those bright big teeth, then she closed his fingers around her gift. This will help you
Brother who?
I trust you, Alice promised, her voice bleak and untrusting. And Perfect, too. But nobody else, not anymore.
Then she was gone again, never quite seen and already lost; and for a long, confusing moment, Ord stared out at the vistaat the mountains and deep valleys; at the brilliant pained colors of dying foliagenearly forgetting how he had come here, barely aware of the heavy little mystery lying invisible in his baby hands.
Five
Discreet observations of the Chamberlain estate have identified five distinct and powerful anomalous events. Two occurred during Alices escape, probably marking her arrival and subsequent departure. Two other events have been linked to the clandestine visit by Chamberlain Fifty-three, presumably on a mission of grand strategy and espionage. But most troubling is the oldest anomaly. It was witnessed several years after our observations beganseveral years after Alices surrenderand perhaps it only signaled the departure of some ancient Chamberlain whose presence was never suspected. Though it could have been an arrival, which leads to a chain of obvious questions: Who arrived? And on what mission? And what is this secret Chamberlain doing now?
Nuyen memo, classified
ALICE REMAINED IMPRISONED;Ord could see as much for himself, nothing different about her cell or the simple gray-green dress or the stiff way she sat on the edge of her plain cot. But it had been Alice in the penthouse, or at least some magical, unknown portion of her. Sitting on his own bed, unconsciously mimicking her pose, Ord felt confusion bleed into fascination, and when the jailers abruptly filed into Alices cell, the fascination turned to excitement.
The jailers belonged to three high-grav races, each man stout and powerful, all made more impressive by isotropic black uniforms. Wearing an expression that was not entirely relaxed, the largest man gazed up at the universal eye. A stiff, formal voice told the universe, The prisoner needs to meet with her attorneys, in private. For the next few hours, this line will be terminated. Thank you.
The wall went dark, and Ord gave a little gasp.
He wasnt the only Chamberlain watching. An electric murmur passed through the air, pulses marking the passage of invisible siblings. From doorless rooms deep inside the mansion came a piercing series of whistles, then an older sister appeared beside Ords bed, weaving a body from light and dust and flakes of his own dead skin.
She stared at her little brother for what felt like an eternity.
Whats wrong? Ord finally asked, surprised to sound so convincingly innocent.
Yet the sister should have seen through him, duplicity bright in his panicky glands and the frazzled neurons. And certainly she should have noticed the invisible object lying on Ords lap, both of his thighs depressed by its bulk, its plain oddness sure to set off the alarms.
Yet nothing registered in her ice-bound blue eyes. A pause, a prolonged blink. Then her brother asked again, What is wrong?
Many things, she assured. Then, Have you seen Alice?
On the wall.
Deeply puzzled, she glanced at the blackness. Confusion didnt wear on her well.
Why are Alices attorneys visiting her?
The sister straightened her back, then whispered, They arent. And there lies the trouble.
He waited.
We have a reportunconfirmedthat Alice managed to leave her cell for a moment, or two
But she cant, Ord sputtered. Shes practically helpless. I mean, didnt they take away her powers?
The sister was eager to agree, and couldnt. Its someones error, she offered. Someones bad joke, perhaps. Pause. I wouldnt worry. Pause. And you say you havent seen her?
Only on the wall, he told her.
An obvious question begged to be asked: Why was Ord watching Alice at this precise moment? But the old sister couldnt see the logic or summon the words. Quietly, almost embarrassed, she said, Well then, good day, little one. Im sorry to intrude. And without waiting for his good-byes, she vanished with a sparkle of milky light.
Ord felt alone, and watched. They suspected that Alice would come see him. Yet he wasnt asked about his visit to the penthouse, while the mystery on his lap might not even exist unless they were thoroughly aware, watching him out of curiosity or caution. But that didnt feel likely, either. For no good reason, Ord sensed that he was as safe as possible, under the circumstances.
What now? he asked himself.
A thousand times, perhaps. And only then did he take hold of the wondrous nothing, examining it in earnest.
The object was fashioned in part from some species of dark matter. Its surfaces were imprecise and a little cool, then warm. Its density was rather like gold or palladium, and with each touch it seemed to merge with Ords own flesh, for an instant, the sensation rather like a surface felt inside a sloppy dream. Ord walked to the far end of the apartment and set the wondrous nothing in his little swimming pool, on the smoothest water, and not so much as a dimple was made. Yet the object remained where he set it. He could push it back and forth like a balloon, nothing but his own hands aware of its weighty presence.
Natural dark matter didnt exist in this form. Coagulated; tangible; capable of interacting with visible matter. But with sufficient energies and the proper cleverness, it was possible to make the wild particles behave, making them cling to one another and play games with a baryonic boy. These were great technologies, and Ord knew little beyond that. Dark matter and its sisters, the dark energies, were the basis for much of his siblings magic. But even the smartest Chamberlain didnt know all of their tricks. In a sense, the ordinary baryonic universe was nothing but a thin pollution inside all that was dark and massive. Ninety-nine percent of everything existed in a multitude of useful flavors that Ord could only see in his imagination, and then, just barely.
