03. Masters of Flux and Anchor (27 page)

Those spells will roll like a great wind into all the lands, immediately followed by the activation of the ancient program. As Flux is transformed to Anchor, the wizards so attacked will find themselves powerless to react or to undo what we have done. Those who survive the onslaught will become as ordinary as you or I, and as mortal. All of this is coordinated by our own Dr. Sligh, whose own communi¬cations breakthroughs make it possible for us to time this down to the last tenth of a second throughout the entire cluster. Just one signal will trigger the adaptation and a few seconds later the ancient programs. Our troops have withdrawn into Anchor or outside the cluster. The individ¬ual volunteers on the amplifiers are there merely as safety checks and observers. Everything is being handled by what Dr. Sligh calls "preprogrammed remote control.'

Preprogrammed remote control, Matson thought, his heart sinking. Could the Hellgates, too, be opened this way? Now, at least, he understood why Tilghman had insisted on this specific timing for his visit and had been anxious to keep him here. The Judge wasn't as naive about the Guild as he'd let on. He wasn't about to let Matson go when an order from the stringer might disrupt the vital communications needed to pull this off. After it was over, the mere elimination of this much Flux would be New Eden's answer to the Guild. He wondered if they really knew all the consequences of what they were doing, and doubted it.

"I will now give the order to commence the operation." Tilghman told them. "As soon as it is completed, our troops are ready to spread out and assess the total effect and, hopefully, contact and establish control over the popu¬lations affected. Detailed mapping and exploration will come later. I must tell you, though, that we have to trust our ancestors on these programs. Except for the fact that they will not alter existing Anchor, we have no idea what sort of world we now will create, and I find that more exciting than frightening. The protective walls will go up for a brief period here only because there is some indica¬tion of a backlash in the air from the change in power. Records state that a very thin lead sheeting will be more than sufficient protection for the less than three minutes required, so have no fear. This is it, gentlemen—the dawn of the new age that will permanently revolutionize World and create a single New Eden so large and so secure that it shall never fall!" He reached down and threw a switch in front of him.

Bells and sirens went off all around them, up and down the wall and behind, as well as on the apron. The winch motor came to life, coughing and chugging and giving off a somewhat foul smoke, but the walls came up dramati¬cally and were soon locked in place. Although the back and top were open, they all felt cut off from reality. Now a second section of the front wall was pulled up creating a roof about two-thirds complete, cloaking them in semi-darkness. Matson felt simultaneous urges to make a run for it or to somehow attack and kill this assembly and break that communications link. He did neither, both because there was really no place to run and because the signal had already been given and there was no chance of stopping it now.

There was a sudden series of loud, terrible explosions that shook them almost off their chairs and rattled the temporary walls. Then there was a great rush of air, a terrible windstorm that swept into Anchor. Below, men and animals shouted and screamed and panicked and the wind picked up every loose particle and whipped it around. Trees and tents toppled, and it grew suddenly very dark, and the temperature- seemed to drop several degrees in a minute. The sound of fierce thunder and the echoes of lightning continued.

Below the wall, those with a view of Flux who were not propelled into emergency action by the terrible windstorm could look out and see startling changes take place. The fixed, familiar curtain of reddish-gold with its sparkles stretching up to the heavens as far as the eye could see was no more; there was now a reddish-brown swirling fog. Observers in the blockhouse on the apron watched as much as they dared in awe as the mass reached the ground, and there was a sudden line of electrical fire moving from the very lip of the apron inward into Flux. As it did so, with increasing speed, the far observers could see the mass of swirling clouds withdraw with the line of energy, as if the whole were some living, alien force.

By the end of three minutes, the entire mass had receded from view of anyone in Anchor, and beyond the apron and above them was no longer void but open sky, mostly gray in color and obscuring the great orb the old Church wor¬shipped as the source of World's light. It was a turbulent, storm-tossed sky, but it was not such a sky as had never been seen in Anchor.

They all waited anxiously as the shielding walls were carefully lowered, revealing what now lay beyond. All on the platform had been pretty badly shaken up. but aside from a few minor cuts and bruises there was no other damage apparent.

Everyone stood and then rushed forward to get a view. and even Tilghman was forgotten in the crush of the excitement.

There was no more Flux, but there was a true landscape now. The apron, for all intents and purposes, no longer existed, but merely extended into the new land. To the right stretched a vast, unbroken plain covered with tall yellowish grass whipping about in the still strong wind and looking like great waves upon an alien sea. To the left was a far more breathtaking sight: a vast expanse of deep blue water whose great waves washed up on a large but gentle black sand beach. It seemed to stretch out to the southeast as far as the eye could see, and there was a strong and alien salty smell to the air and the roar of crashing waves hitting upon the beach. It was more water than any of them had ever seen in their entire lives, and it frightened and disoriented them.

Huge thunderstorms seemed to be all around, both out over the water and over the great grassy plains, with dramatic lightning that shot from dark clouds and grounded itself on whatever surface was beneath.

Tilghman had been almost bowled over by the rush to the front, but now pushed his way before the awe-stricken crowd. He saw the scene in front of him and froze, jaw dropping, all the color seeming to drain from his face. The plains were familiar enough, and the only surprise was that the program came complete with its vegetation. He had expected to have to plant it or to wait perhaps years for it to grow out. But it was the huge expanse of blue water with its waves foaming and crashing into the shore that truly shocked him. He had never imagined that such an expanse of water could exist. Broad rivers and great lakes, yes, but nothing like this. They should have known, he realized. They should have guessed, at least, that all that water, deprived of conversion back into Flux at the boundaries, would have to collect somewhere—but this much water was beyond comprehension.

Sitting incongruously a few hundred meters beyond the edge of the sea was the master control amplifier that had created this, now clearly visible, its rectangular form hav¬ing sunk a bit in the soft, moist earth, now a useless relic, the agent of its own obsolescence. The door to the lead-lined operator's cage opened, and a shaken figure eased himself out and dropped down to the ground, then stopped, struck as senseless as the rest of them by the sight he'd helped create.

The temperature of the air at this time of year was generally twenty-one or twenty-two degrees centigrade; now they began to shiver a bit, for the temperature had dropped fully five or six degrees in the operation and continued to do so. By early the next morning it had dropped all the way down to seven, but it would take weeks before it was determined that the temperature range had altered to a spread of about sixteen for a high to five for a low. They were heading into the warmest season under the old conditions, and hoped that it would hold true now, but no one wanted to think right away about what the cold season's temperatures might be.

Communications had been severed the moment that the program had been activated, but troops from all four An¬chors and from positions outside the cluster now proceeded in to check out the new land and pick up the pieces. Without strings or familiar landmarks, however, it would be slow going, and many would be dispersed or lost. The only thing that allowed them to negotiate the new land was the instant discovery that magnetic compasses, used for generations by stringers as a supplementary aid and known to all, were still apparently drawn tp the Hellgate; but with only that one reference point and the known point of departure, it was going to be tough going.

More difficult was the discovery of just how much of the new area was water—and not fresh water, but contami¬nated with salt to such a degree that it could not be used for agriculture. Estimates ranged between a third to more than half of the former void now being covered by water, which greatly raised the humidity of the entire region. Clearly the new climate was not only going to be far chillier, but also much wetter.

No one would ever be able to know how many thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, of innocent people and their arrogant Fluxlords, not to mention stringers, duggers, and travelers of all sorts, were drowned in the massive transfor¬mation of Flux energy to water, but bodies washed up on shorelines after every storm for months.

After the terrible shock of the sight had lessened and the men on the platform had regained enough composure to leave, either to investigate this new place or to organize their commands for the aftermath, Adam Tilghman and four bodyguards remained, gazing out on the strange and terrifying landscape.

Matson. too. remained. He would have to travel that landscape soon enough, if he could. He took out a cigar and lit it, then approached Tilghman. The Judge didn't turn his gaze from the new scene to see who it was, although from the whiffs of cigar smoke he certainly could surmise it.

"Well, Judge, that's a right pretty trick," the old stringer said. "Looks like everybody in New Eden's gonna have to learn how to swim, and it's gonna be another neat trick to string wires across that."

"It's so—huge," Tilghman breathed. "It must be what the ancient writings call a 'sea.' I—I never thought of a sea as anything more than a lake. Nothing like—this."

"You had all those nice programs and instruction manu¬als to do all this, but did anybody give you an instruction manual for how to live with it? Those ancient boys, they were smart ones, with smarter machines and a whole lot of experience, I bet. You got the basics all right, but I bet you don't have any idea what's supposed to be done next. What kind of fish could live in that stuff." He sniffed the strong salt air. "You can tell it's all contaminated water from here. Best that you can do with it is try to corner the salt market. Hell, Judge, didn't you ever wonder, if they know how to do all this, why they didn't?"

Tilghman could not turn away, but the question stung him. "What?"

"You know what we talked about. They came here to live, somebody got to chasing them, and they locked the doors—but they kept all their machines and the power to do this. Why didn't they? Why'd they leave it as Flux?"

"I—I thought the powers of Flux corrupted those who could use it. I—we, all of us, the scientists as well— thought that the first wizards moved to prevent it. It's the only explanation of why it wasn't done, and why the records, manuals, and programs were dispersed. They took them into Flux so that no one could enact them."

Matson puffed away on his cigar. "Uh uh. That's as good a theory as any, but it might have been different. I don't have the old history that you have, Judge, but if you look at all this you can see that this sort of thing isn't a simple kind of spell, it's the most complicated thing in the universe, maybe. Somebody planned this all out as part of a whole, part of what World was supposed to look like, but then the enemy came knocking at the door. You don't create a world like you create a Fluxland, Judge. A world's a zillion zillion elements, all of 'em in some kind of balance and working this way or that together. You got the landscaping for this section right, but not the fine tuning, the finishing touches, the things that make it real nice and homey. You got the land, and the water, and the plants, and maybe the basic animals—judging from Anchor, there'll probably be insects and that sort of thing. But no big animals, no water creatures any more complicated than those insects or grasses, none of that. I don't think they had all the programs, as you call 'em, yet. Or maybe it takes a hundred years or so of real careful planning. Maybe they didn't do it because it wouldn't work right, and with the door locked they couldn't go get the rest. Maybe they dispersed all that for the same reason they made it so hard to unlock the Hellgates—so nobody would get tempted to do what you just did."

Tilghman suddenly turned and stood up, facing Matson. "No! Even if you're right, it doesn't matter. What's done is done, for one thing. For another, there's every sort of plant and animal, bird and insect, in the Anchors. They'll spread out there now, and in time, the land will teem with life in abundance. We have the plans for great farm ma¬chinery and we have a large population that knows farming, cultivation, and land management. No matter how big and how deep that sea out there is, we'll learn how to use it and how to cross it or at least how to live with it. There's still land out there enough for all who want it. The army can police it, but will never be large enough to control it, and the chance for one's own land will increase pressure for orderly exploration and settlement. You said it, too, Matson. We are not our ancestors. We're a rougher, cruder, more primitive breed who can learn to build and use ancient technology without being totally dependent on it. The army will be the police, and the stringers, of this new land. We'll win, Matson. We'll win, over time."

"Maybe," Matson replied dryly. "Seems to me you've just proved how easy it is now for anybody to open the Hellgates. The only thing I can say in your favor is that you've got a hell of a defensive position now. They can't use Flux against you so they'll have to cross overland by land and sea. I hope you have the time to prepare for it. Me, I've got to survive without getting lost, starving or freezing to death, and see what happened to my kin in all this. At least they were on the land side near as I can tell, if this big water doesn't curve around just out of view."