Cenotaxis (3 page)

"Keep moving," I tell the others. "When they find the city empty, they might move out into the jungle. Let's not be here when they come."

This time there are no arguments. We glide like wraiths through the slender trunks and hanging vines. A lizard with round, green eyes watches me from above, utterly unfazed by my disguise.

"We never did manage to work out how you made your decisions."

I watch Bergamasc as he paces back and forth outside the bars of my stone cell. Each step marks out a discrete interval of time. The room is five paces across, generating a rhythm that is almost soothing. Pace-pace-pace-pace-pace... turn. Pace-pace-pace-pace-pace... turn. My enemy's martial 7/4 beat keeps my mind alert.

"There'd be no mystery at all," I say, "if you'd accept the truth of who I am."

Bergamasc's piercingly blue eyes flash at me from under his lowered brows. "Take Paratlantis, for instance. I infiltrated your group; our spy was feeding us everything we needed to know. We had your attack plan, your timetable, the lot. We were careful not to spook you. But you turned back at the last minute, and the net we cast caught nothing. I still don't know what tipped you off."

He isn't listening to me and for a moment I consider saying nothing at all. Reason prevails.

"So you did have a spy," I grant him. "I was beginning to wonder."

"So was I." Bergamasc's frustration has a self-deprecating edge. "I changed encryption keys, tactical staff, AI protocols; you name it—to no effect. I might as well have broadcast my plans on an open frequency for all the good it did me. Most of the time." He nods to himself, and keeps pacing.

"I got you in the end."

Bergamasc takes great satisfaction in the fact of my captivity. I suppose that's understandable, given our history. I am unsure of the precise day I'm occupying, but it seems to be in the middle of my stay: past the unfortunate necessity of torture but not so prolonged that a new and very different frustration has begun to set in.

"Why did you fight?" he asks me. "What did the loss of life gain you? What did the fall of Lima? Did you do it to make some kind of statement—a show to the rest of the galaxy that you stood up to me, and that they should stand up to me too?" His expression is one of puzzlement, possibly genuine. "No one cares, Jasper. I'm not a tyrant. Humanity has bigger things to worry about."

"But you are here," I retort, "even though I'm sure you think you have better things to do with your time."

He shakes his head. "The galaxy can take care of itself for a while. The Forts may be gone, but we've come up with some pretty effective substitutes. As you clearly have."

"What do you mean?" I ask, fearing for the first time for the Apparatus.

"The Forts were killed by a weapon that targeted the communications systems they used, isolating the frags and cutting off their thoughts. Anything using those systems to try to build a new Fort is targeted by the same people, whoever they are. Don't use the same systems, though, and you can avoid being shot at." Turn. Bergamasc stops pacing. Every strand of his short, white hair bristles with invisible energy; the Van de Graaff generator of his thoughts won't let him rest. "I know there's a Fort somewhere here on Earth. It's the only way you could've stayed ahead of us for so long. Give me access to it. Tell it to talk to us."

"There is no Fort," I tell him, even as I wonder how my old friend the Apparatus is faring. The gestalt has been silent through all my days in captivity, most likely because of jamming but perhaps for more sinister reasons. It may be a pale imitation of the galaxy-spanning minds Bergamasc mourns, but I am not handing it over to the invaders without a fight. "You were on my territory, which gave me the advantage. Or perhaps there really is a God, after all."

"I refuse to accept," he grinds out through jaw tightly clenched, "that your God is a tangible force in the universe. I deny its relevance as a metaphor for human existence. I see no reason to keep having this conversation."

"God is both tangible and a metaphor. It is the endpoint of every conversation. Meditate on the concept of God and you will find that it's the one and only unavoidable conclusion."

"I'm not the meditating type. Hand control of the Earth over to me now."

"Why should I give you anything? All you've done is take from me. Well, this you can't take. It's like understanding. Some things you have to find for yourself."

"I understand you well enough, Jasper. I've faced more than a few reluctant collaborators in my time."

"Is that how you think of me?"

"Deep down, yes. You know I'm the best hope the human race has for survival now the Forts are gone."

"So why am I fighting you?"

"That's what I want to know." He starts pacing again. "Me, I think Earth was isolated too long. Containment and Quarantine be damned. Isolation is bad for most people, and it's bad for cultures too. There's a limit to how much we can work out on our own."

"Exactly. Open your mind," I tell him. "Listen and you will hear God telling you what you need to know."

He shakes his head. "Give me your Fort and I'll tell you who betrayed you."

"No one betrayed me."

"No? Do you remember how you were captured? Do you think it was only because you let your guard down?"

There is a simple answer to that question. I haven't lived that day yet, so the knowledge cannot be in my mind.

"What are you driving at?" I ask him. "Are you suggesting that one of my own turned me in?"

"Think about it," he says. "I'll tell you the truth when you're ready to talk."

"It won't work. I trust my friends implicitly. You can't make me doubt their loyalty to me."

Bergamasc doesn't argue with that. He leaves me to ponder this new thought, congratulating himself no doubt for his cleverness. My contempt for him only grows. There is no depth to which he will not stoop. I will not allow him to cast a shadow over what I know to be true.

This is the truth, inasmuch as such truths can be contained in words.

We here on Earth knew about the death of the Forts—there were in fact frags of several living here, unregistered, when the Slow Wave rolled by—but we do not mourn them. Once we might have, perceiving them, as most people do, as the pinnacle of human evolution. With slow, meticulous thoughts, they spanned the galaxy from edge to edge, and had even begun to make forays beyond, into the much larger universe. They defied a Prime's comprehension.

They were, however, not gods. I don't know if they pondered such issues during their complex symphonies of slow-time cognition. If they had, I'm sure they would have reached the same conclusion as the ancient minds of Earth: that "God" has been many things to many cultures down the history of the human race. Rule-giver, punisher, benefactor, creator, destroyer, lover—God is, in other words, everything that humanity is itself, and what it yearns to be. God was born when humanity became self-aware, and God has grown with every leap of humanity from Earth to the planets, to the stars, across all the galaxy. The idea of God is therefore greater than any Fort, greater than all the Forts combined. For every advance we make as a species, God inches that much further ahead, forever out of reach.

God, born in what we are, is what we aspire to be.

Must it always be so? That was the question asked by the ancient minds of Earth. Brilliant intelligences, long spent, they turned their thoughts inward rather than outward, seeking the limits of humanity's evolution and trying to find a way past them, to new possibilities. Rather than snap forever at the heels of the idea of God, which will remain beyond us even if we manage to place the entire universe under our dominion, they sought another way to transcend. If humanity imagines God in its own image, with more than a pinch of desire, couldn't that recipe be extended to create something real?

Humans are explorers. The unknown draws us onward and outward, just like the idea of God, across every boundary and beyond every pale. We do not stay confined for long.

The ancient minds of Earth caught in their deepest thoughts a glimpse of a better path. The purpose of their grand experiment was to follow that path to its only possible conclusion. That's where I come in. Helwise MacPhedron and her pretender king might not want to hear it, but the experiment was undoubtedly a success. Humanity has overtaken God at long last, and I am here to prove it.

War. Chaos. Mayhem.

Ground troops play an unprecedented role in the occupation of Earth. Conventional tactics aren't available to my enemy, so he resorts to older methods. And dirtier tactics, some might say, although I do feel a measure of sympathy for him. The task before him is a difficult one; the circumstances that make Earth desirable work against him at every turn, and the resistance isn't going away in a hurry.

We are in central Asia, using the Silk Road as a heritage shield en route from one battlefield to another. The thud and crack of light munitions fall behind us as we approach Lop Nur, site of ancient nuclear tests and the so-called Wandering Lake. Marco Polo stopped here before crossing the Gobi desert and meeting the legendary Kublai Khan. Now its dirt is radioactive and hides megatons of waste in corroding drums. The region is protected by nine hundred thousand years of tradition and memory. The invaders dare not follow us here. If they do, I have a contingency plan in place.

Mud spins under the treads of our six-wheeled amphibious vehicles. Rain has dogged us all day, and the sky hangs low and heavy over a dank, waterlogged landscape. AI-controlled gun turrets rotate in unpredictable arcs, sweeping our surroundings for any sign of ambush. For the moment we appear to be safe, but I don't drop my guard. Satellite jamming is so intense that even the Apparatus can't get through. We are on our own.

A cluster of low buildings appears around the bend in the road. Masers wink and flash in response to my orders. Three of the nine vehicles in our convoy accelerate ahead to investigate. A thin bolt of brilliant, blue lightning cracks the sky in two and the world becomes something more than just a sea of gray, just for an instant. Then it's back to mud and waiting to see where the next volley of hostile fire will come from, and who will be killed.

Black-clad figures leap out of the investigating vehicles, scattering efficiently and waving infrared flashlights through open windows and doorways. Their radio silence is complete. The enemy knows where we are, but not what we're doing. I don't intend to give anything away.

The team returns to their vehicles and word comes over the maser links.

"Empty." Alice-Angeles' voice is clipped. "No one's been here for centuries."

"Plant some mines, just in case anyone follows us," I tell her. "We'll proceed into the hills and wait for you there."

"Understood."

I sink back into my seat, made heavy by acceleration. The frag at the controls of my six-wheeler is built like a boxer, all muscle and sinew without an ounce of fat. His eyes dart back and forth, seeing data in layers just as I do and checking the view through the narrow windscreen out of habit. There are ten others crammed into the cabin, stinking of sweat and mud and wet clothes. With our hardcasters jammed by the enemy, we can no longer import new supplies from our allies in the Round, so we are reduced to mismatched armor, weapons that occasionally misfire, and equipment that hasn't seen the outside of a military museum for thousands of years.

But we remain at large, always one step ahead of the invaders. The campaign stretches on and on, and the damage we do mounts steadily higher. How long can it last? Won't they eventually give up and go home?

I know what the future holds for me. I am to be captured, somehow, and interrogated. That doesn't mean, however, that the war is lost. The fight will go on as best it can. If I can erode enough of my enemy's certainty before I am lost, the Apparatus and Alice-Angeles, or one of the other more capable frags, and our allies in the Round can finish the job we started. I will not shrink from what needs to be done.

A trio of ear-splitting bangs comes in quick succession. A powerful impact strikes my six-wheeler, and I am thrown forward in my harness. The vehicle tips to one side, and I quickly realize what must have happened. Three powerful shots, presumably from a sniper, have taken out the armored wheels along the vehicle's starboard side. It is thus rendered completely useless.

Worse, it is a sitting duck. More shots pepper its port side as it skids to a halt, taking out the exposed maser emitters. Before I am reduced to utter speechlessness, I call for help.

It's already on the way. Barely have we slowed to walking speed when another powerful impact tips the crippled six-wheeler up and onto its side. We have been struck by one of our own and rolled so the roof hatch—already opening—is protected from the sniper's position. The dented chassis of the six-wheeler that struck us will provide extra cover.

We are moving. Frags press in around me, visors closed and armor hugging tight. I recognize my boxer as he pulls me out into the rain and into the clutches of my impromptu bodyguard. The sound of engines is loud to my ears. Rain boils to steam on contact with the stricken vehicle's underbelly. I try to make out the sniper's position, but I can see only ragged cliffs. We have been ambushed in a narrow valley with rough, rampart-like sides. Waterfalls cut deep channels down the soft stone. Slippery mud lies underfoot, making every step treacherous, but I cannot fall. The powerful mass of bodies has surrounded me like a fist, leading me to the nearest shelter.

The sniper fires again, sending impacts thudding through the frags pressing against me. For a split-instant I fear that I too will be shot, but bodies fall away and I am left standing with the boxer still at my side, unharmed for the moment. Another six-wheeler skids between us and the sniper—who has moved, I am sure, although there was no signature flash either time. My troopers fire back, spraying the cliff face with answering rounds. The AI gunners rotate in search of a target. Stone shatters into shards that rain down in miniature avalanches. The sniper falls silent.