Gateways (11 page)

“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.

Patri 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 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.”

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 of 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.

Those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass.

—Confucius

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 . . . Patri 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 ever-present goggles now shattered into bits that only helped to ravage her face. Patri 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. Reuse 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 Huangpu. 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 refill 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 righthand 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 up-current, 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.