Gateways (7 page)

“The stone is damaged,” the penguinlike automaton observed. “It must have once possessed sound transducers. Perhaps, in a well-equipped laboratory—”

“Legends?” Wer suddenly asked, knowing he should not interrupt. But he couldn’t help it. Fear and exhaustion and contact with demons—it all had him on the verge of hysteria. Anyway, the situation had changed. If he was special, needed, then the least that he could demand was an answer or two!

“What legends? You mean there have been more than one or two of these things? You mean they’ve appeared before?”

The bird-thing tore its gaze away from the the image of the humanoid creature, portrayed opening and closing its mouth in a pantomime of speech that timed roughly, but not perfectly, with the buzzing under Wer’s right hand.

“You might as well know, Peng Xiao Wer, since yours is now a burden and a task assigned by Heaven.” The penguinlike machine gathered itself to full height and then gave him a small bow of the head. “A truth that goes back farther than any other that is known.”

Wer’s mouth felt dry. “What truth?”

“That stones have fallen since time began. And men have spoken to them for at least nine thousand years.

“And in all that time, they have spoken of a day of culmination. And that day, long prophesied, may finally be at hand.”

Wer felt warm contact at his back, as Ling pressed close—as near as she could, while nursing their child. He did not remove his hands from the object on the table. But he was glad that one of hers slid around his waist, clutching him tight and driving out some of the sudden chill he felt inside.

Meanwhile, the entity within the stone appeared frustrated, perhaps realizing that no one heard its words. The buzzing intensified, then stopped. Then, instead, the demon reached forward, as if toward Wer, and started to
draw a figure
in space, close to the boundary between them. Wherever it moved its scaly hand, a trail of inky darkness remained, until Wer realized.

Calligraphy. The creature was brushing a figure—an ideogram—in a flowing, archaic-looking style. It was a complicated symbol, containing at
least twenty strokes.
I wish I had more education,
Wer thought, gazing in awe at the final shape, when it stood finished, throbbing across the face of the glowing worldstone. Both symmetrically beautiful and yet jagged, threatening, it somehow transfixed the eye and made his heart pound.

Wer did not know the character. But anyone with the slightest knowledge of Chinese would recognize the radical—the core symbol—that it was built from.

Danger.

The journey began with a bribe and a little air.

And a penguinlike 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 from 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 . . . worldstone . . . picks only one person to speak to.” He gestured at the elongated egg. Now that his hands weren’t in contact with it, 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 worldstones, 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 tabletop. “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 preschoolers, 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. Nor will anyone else. Does that reassure?

“Good. Only, by providing this reassurance, I have made our time
predicament worse. Over the course of the next few minutes and hours, 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. Agree, or flee! Sixteen . . . fifteen . . . fourteen . . .”

“I’ll go!”

Wer grabbed up a heavy sack and rolled the gleaming ovoid 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 . . .

. . . 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. He 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, metal 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 Huangpu 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 he slipped in the mouthpiece and took the biggest plunge of his life, following a sleek little robot into the murk.

The journey of a thousand li can begin with a first step into a pile of dogshit.

—popular Chinese expression, in cynical reply to Lao-Tzu

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 Huangpu 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. In 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, preflood 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.