Gods of the Greataway (15 page)

“Do what I say.”

Clearly disappointed, the clerk left. Brutus played at the keys, his big fingers surprisingly nimble. His heart was thumping. 143,545. Discrepancy — one child. Why had no one noticed before? Because it was not listed as a discrepancy — it was shown as a shipment, but not to Earth. That baby had been transferred within the People Planet, to …

Selena!

What had she done with it? And, perhaps most significant, why had she wanted it? Brutus played with the keys. He dipped into forgotten intricacies of the Rainbow, he discovered ancient programs, he unlocked forgotten memory banks. And he found the answer.

“Oh, Mordecai,” he whispered.

*

So the bewilderment changed to understanding, and after a while, the understanding changed to a slow anger. Selena knew the answer. Selena knew that Earth was one neotenite short, and that it had been for almost eighty years. But when the discrepancy had come to light — when the assembled Cuidadors had turned accusing eyes on Brutus — Selena had not spoken. She had sat by, secure in her position as a True Human, and allowed suspicion to surround Brutus like an animal stink.

Brutus growled.

In the Song of Earth, as in all of Mankind’s legends, revenge is accepted as natural; the ability to harbor a grudge and act upon it is something that distinguishes humans from animals. Only in everyday life is revenge condemned. Yet Brutus the animal-man thought of revenge, that day.

He had
two courses open to him. The first concerned Selena and the lost baby. The second was more far-reaching, and it had the additional advantage that he could change his mind at any time. So Brutus, full of mighty rage, chose the second course.

He would physically remove the data crystal dealing with the early days of the neotenites, effectively preventing the True Humans from learning about this period and — possibly — finding a cure for neoteny. He, Brutus, would call a halt to neoteny research until he felt good and ready to allow the True Humans to continue …

He could almost hear the Rainbow creak as it dealt with the unfamiliar instructions. Brutus was no genius, but he knew his way around this section of the Rainbow better than any Cuidador. And it crossed his mind that nobody had researched neotenite history before because nobody possessed the necessary computer skills. Whatever the reason, the neotenites were still neotenites, and Brutus intended to make sure they stayed that way for a while.

The Rainbow gave the location of the data crystal.

Brutus left the room accompanied by the horse-clerk, who by now was almost prancing with curiosity and frustration. He made his way to the vaults.

“What are you looking for?” asked the clerk, as Brutus touched his fingers to the codepad and the door swung open. Now the clerk was whinnying with excitement; Brutus and Selena were the only people on the planet with authority to enter the Rainbow’s innermost parts. Afraid of being excluded, he crowded Brutus through the doorway. “What’s happening? What’s going on?”

“Stay here.” Brutus walked on, entering the memory bank, where over 35,000 memory crystals, containing everything that had happened on the People Planet since it was founded, sat in rows like bright and perfect teeth, occasionally glowing and winking when the Rainbow, in its endless deliberations, called on one for data. Brutus began to search the earlier crystals, running a thick finger along the rows, lips moving. Soon he found the century he was looking for, then the decade.

And there was one crystal missing.

It
could not be coincidence. The cube for the year 108,285 Cyclic, which the Rainbow had defined as being crucial to the history of the neotenites, had been removed …

Only one person could have done that. Selena.

Therefore she must have outguessed him and taken the crystal for safekeeping.

His anger changing swiftly to guilt, Brutus rushed for the exit, almost bowling over the horse-man, who had crept forward to peer over his shoulder. “Tell nobody we were here!” he growled. “Nobody at all. Do you understand?” He seized the clerk by his loose tunic and stared ferociously into his eyes.

“I understand, Brutus,” replied the clerk.

Brutus was about to re-emphasize his warning, when the bells started ringing, and in his remorse he uttered a sudden roar that caused the horse-man to scream with fright, thinking he was about to be attacked. For an instant they clung to each other, struggling and bellowing.

Then Brutus tore himself free and ran for the stairs.

*

Alice met him in the delivery room. She was talking wildly. “… you weren’t here, you see, and I couldn’t hold it — I didn’t have the strength.” She was weeping, her huge face wet and crumpled like a crushed fruit.

“What happened?” And then he saw.

One of the birth tubes was missing. The ocean cow had dragged it through the great window, and the grommet had snapped shut. Water seeped to the floor. “That’s no big problem,” he said. “Somebody can go out and guide it back through. We’ve done it before.”

“But …” She pointed speechlessly.

Outside, the tentacle waved aimlessly in the surging green of the ocean. Beyond it, through the mist of silt and plankton, Brutus could see the bulk of the cow. It was moving, turning. Slowly, it was rolling away from the caves of the baby factory. The other birth tubes were stretched taut.

Nurses were clamoring. “It’s pulling away from us!” one of them cried, seizing Brutus’s clothing. She was a delphid, but for once she was not smiling. “Do something, Brutus! We’ll lose it!”

“I
don’t understand,” Brutus muttered, scratching himself wildly. “It has no reason. It can’t be hungry. And it’s in the process of giving births.” He collected his thoughts. “Unless it’s in pain.” He peered through the window.

A few meters away, close to the limits of visibility, he saw a bulge in the loose birth tube. A series of muscular spasms radiated from the bulge across the expanse of the hide, like ripples in a lake.

“That’s it,” said Brutus. “It’s a difficult birth. The baby is stuck.” The next thought was completely automatic. “I must go out there and free it.”

“Not you,” said Alice.

But Brutus was hurrying away from her, out of the delivery room, making for the waterlock and shouting for a delphid to follow him.

*

As the endless flank of the ocean cow slid past him, his mind was still on Selena and the way she’d allowed Juni to blame him for the missing child. He saw Selena in his mind’s eye, slim and elegant — which his Alice was not — and, usually, kind and fair-minded — which Alice was. Many times, Selena had shielded him from Juni’s cruel shafts. Even on that dreadful occasion when he’d been discovered in the Dome’s lower reaches floating the neotenite babies Outside in little boats, Selena had tried to be fair.

So why had she not admitted to taking that baby? After all, it had happened eighty years ago. Presumably she’d wanted it for purposes of research and it had died. That was sad, but not criminal. So why not admit it?

Brooding, cocooned in his pressure suit, Brutus swam downward. He was alone. The delphid, who could hold his breath for half an hour, needed no suit and had gone on ahead. They would try to get the end of the birth tube back through the grommet so that the baby could be born in the delivery room.

The ocean cow shifted perceptibly, narrowing the gap as Brutus swam between the creature and the cliff. Soon the window of the delivery room came into view. Faces crowded against it, mouthing soundlessly. He saw Alice looking scared and chewing her knuckles. He passed the first birth tube; it was stretched slender. Watching it go through the grommet, he saw that the nurses had gotten ropes around the tip and were pulling. Other teams hauled at other similar ropes down the length of the delivery room. It was a futile exercise. Out here, he was very much aware of the vast bulk of the cow. If it decided to roll, nothing would hold it. As he watched, he saw teams of shrugleggers being led into the room. They were quickly harnessed to the ropes, backs to the window. They leaned into their work, their muscular thighs straining.

The delphid
tapped him on the arm, pointing. A tube hung loose, thrashing, and the bulge of the baby was halfway to the tip. Now a new worry seized Brutus. The obstruction seemed to have cleared itself, but unless they got the tube back through the grommet, the baby would be born underwater and would drown.

The tip slapped him across the side of the head and, spinning, he caught it. The delphid swam up and got an arm around the tube. Together they tried to maneuver the tip toward the grommet. Brutus shouted soundless encouragement into his helmet. The tip touched the grommet, then jerked away. The strength of the tube was fearsome. It lashed sideways and rammed Brutus against the window, squeezing the breath out of him. He shook his head, gasping, hoping the helmet’s tiny oxygenator had not been damaged.

Then the wall of the ocean cow rolled in toward him, pinning him against the window, upside down.

He got his knife against the cow’s hide and pushed, but he might as well have tried to stab Azul Dome itself. The cow was like a smooth rock, insensitive to localized discomforts. His legs trapped, Brutus yelled into his helmet.

The delphid swam below him, gesticulating in the dark tunnel formed by the ocean cow and the cliff.

Apart from its one free tentacle, the cow was comfortable again, lolling up against the window with birth tubes hanging limply inside. That free tentacle flapped past Brutus’s face and he caught it, hoping it might pull him free. But it too went limp, giving one last spasm.

And
a baby floated before Brutus’s face.

The Song of Earth makes much of this moment. The minstrels sing of the trapped Brutus, symbol of compassion and one of the great heroes of all time, picturing him as some kind of dumb animal whose actions were governed by instincts of beauty and purity, picturing him as anything but what he was: a Specialist of average decency with, admittedly, a strong sense of duty and a love of children — but above all, an intelligent man.

And the listeners draw near, wide-eyed and wondering, awaiting the minstrel’s next words, knowing the outcome because the song has been sung a million times, yet every time seeing it afresh in their mind’s eye: the green surging water, the mountainous ocean cow, the tunnel formed by the cow and the cliff, the simple man pinned upside down, and the baby.

*

Brutus thought of the Greataway and the places far beyond Earth and the People Planet. He thought of something the Rainbow had told him, one cool day of autumn when he was exploring the memory banks and he came upon the story of the Hate Bombs and the humans trapped on the far side of them, unable ever to return. He wondered if perhaps they thought it was Earth that was trapped, because
they
were still free to explore the whole Universe if they wished.

He thought of another day when he’d been unhappy and restless and he’d wandered the tiny confines of the island and found himself among Horst’s Stones. He’d heard a footstep and turned quickly, expecting a gang of playful Everlings to mob him with their small bodies, prepared to defend himself without hurting them if possible. But it had been an old woman, a stranger in a cloak that clothed her like night.

“I
want to tell you about the Ifalong …” she had said.

She had spoken of the Galaxy and the Hate Bombs, and of a mighty creature she called Starquin. She had told Brutus he was a necessary element in a great Purpose, and that he should do certain things and make certain choices. In particular, she said, he should act with great compassion when faced with certain problems.

Brutus thought of the babies in the little boats and the reprimand he had received.

“And above all,” the woman had said, “you must protect your own life, because you are essential to the Purpose. On some happentracks you will die, and it is important that those happentracks be few.”

Brutus thought of Selena and the breeding program, and of all those years since there had been a True Human born, and of the slimness of chances. He wondered what the point of it all was, striving after an ancient form when quite obviously the human race had evolved beyond that form.

And the baby’s mouth opened as it tried to take its first breath.

With a mighty shrug, Brutus got his hands around his helmet and ripped it off. He held it right way up and it filled with air, beginning to spill bubbles from the bottom edge. He took the baby and put it into the helmet. Then he handed the baby and helmet to the delphid.

The delphid, expressionless, began the half-kilometer journey along the tunnel to the waterlock.

*

And?
ask the listeners.

On many happentracks, the minstrels tell how the baby became the first True Human born for many years: a child of surpassing brilliance who singlehandedly solved the neoteny problem, analyzed and removed the Hate Bombs and freed the Almighty Starquin to roam the Greataway once more.

The minstrels
tell that because that is how the legend goes. Such an act of heroism as Brutus performed must have been successful, otherwise his death would have been in vain and the whole legend would have had little point. And — such is the infinite nature of the Ifalong — on a few happentracks the minstrels were right.

But on most happentracks they were far from the truth.

T
he
horse-clerk had smiled ingratiatingly. “As I understand it, Brutus discovered one of the data crystals was missing. He left only a moment ago — didn’t you hear the alarm?”

“I’m sure Brutus is capable of dealing with any emergency,” Selena had said coldly. She didn’t like the clerk; of all the Specialists, the horse-people were the one race she could say she disliked en masse. They were small-minded, unintelligent and sly. They were, however, very good at their jobs. And now, she guessed, this wretched long-faced man was implying she ought to leave him alone and go and check on the delivery room.