Tropic of Creation (14 page)

She opened the portal and entered Tirinn’s stage. He was surrounded by noisy free water. From this inauspicious locale, Maret gathered it would be a bad session.

As she looked more closely, she saw that her teacher was seated in front of a waterfall, on a shelf of rock. Maret gathered her resolve and approached him. At the foot of the falls, a WaterWay disgorged its contents while canyon walls rose up on both sides, laden with disorganized plant growths. Here were bottomless skies, and many kinds of fecund life, some mobile, some fixed, some edible, many poisonous, some lower on the food chain. Some higher. She
knew
these things, didn’t she?

“Shall we stand and gawk, or shall we begin?” Tirinn Vir Horat asked, his grating voice carrying despite the roar of the falls.

Maret picked her way through the plants crowding the edge of the WaterWay, her feet wallowing in soupy gravel. The smells of the place disoriented her.
What does a vone smell like?
all candidates wished to know. Like a meal of sweet lorel and like offal, myth said.

As she seated herself on the rock, a disconcerting mist of water sent chills through her scalp.

Tirinn shifted his perch, creating a rock indentation that allowed him to sit more comfortably. He left her sitting on the flat rock. His loose-fitting caftan was soaking wet, clinging to his body, revealing rolls of fat at his waist. He turned, searching her face. “Ah. So you have questions, do you?”

She found herself blurting: “Will you send me forward?”

He spit to the side. The gob fizzed as the mist fell on it. “Impudent. Ask me something else.”

“Will Nefer prevent me from going Up?” It was discourteous to imply that Nefer might subvert Tirinn’s decision. But statics were always trying to manipulate ronid decisions, to support their wagering for personal vendetta, or to indulge personal genetic preferences.

He looked up to the vivid blue sky, as though in exasperation. “You think I’d admit to corruption?”

“Will she find some other way to ruin me?”

“She may try. Is it worth the risk, is that your question? If you don’t know the answer to that, why are you wasting my time? This is the busy season for me. Did you see the line out there?” He waved at the portal, now a large flower with progeny flowers sprouting by the moment from its edges. “A few of those candidates are very promising. I’ve put my hopes on several of them. I can’t waste time with slackers.”

“I’m not slacking. I’m paying for the training myself.”

“Yes, paying. And the price hurts, does it? Maret-as, are you blind as the hab? The risks are commensurate with the payoff.”

Anger crawled up from her belly. She was paying dearly, and getting little. Was it cowardly to fear Nefer Ton Enkar and the ruin she could bring?

Ponderously, he rose to his feet, facing the WaterWay a few moments. Then he carefully removed his caftan and jumped in, naked.

It was a shocking thing, to see someone jumping into a flow of water without any warning.

She couldn’t see him for a moment. Then he reappeared in the writhing pool where the falls met the WaterWay. “Ho!” he cried. “Here is what I see! You are Maret-as. Your siblings are Nirid, Rumir, Hoz, Diret, and Garl. Your prime is Ellod, your second prime is Talik of high repute. Your second kin net from Birim, Ellod’s sibling,
are Berd, Rullat, Fon, and Falaam, as well as Rez’s progeny, Lassem and Zir; finally, Rumir’s progeny, Ninim. All names of distinction. And that is only the beginning.”

He floated on his back, squinting into the bright ceiling of sky. He spoke softly, but she could hear him whisper in her ear. “Deeper than Talik, the flow speaks of your kin and your lineage. They stand, Maret-as, foot upon shoulder, each net supported by the one beneath in cycles past knowing.”

She saw a vision in her mind of prime supported by prime supported by prime, each standing on the shoulders of the one beneath. Between her feet she saw Ellod’s dear face looking up at her. Ellod stood on Talik’s shoulders, Talik’s features grown darker in the data well. Talik stood upon her prime’s shoulders, a fluxor of surpassing beauty, whose name Maret knew, as she knew them all to the twelfth net. The pillar of kin threaded deeper, past the twentieth, fiftieth net. Maret’s sight was so keen, she could discern their expressions, their patience, and their faith. Some had been standing for one thousand cycles, and some for five thousand. She saw their faces. Some looked outward into the well, still called by the flow of the world, still remembered in the wager fields, if only in batches. A few craned their necks to look straight up from their positions in the ladder, gazing past feet and shoulders, looking Maret in the eyes, holding her gaze with a binding force.

Tirinn called out: “Ho!” The WaterWay now ran backward, up the falls. “Here swim your bold descendants, or they would be swimming if there were any. In some ways I hold out more hope for them than you. And some of them are excellent swimmers. They don’t sit whimpering on the sidelines, afraid to get wet!”

She thought she could see gleams of arms, flanks—future kin, born of her imagination.…

After a time, Tirinn climbed out of the WaterWay, grunting with the effort of hauling his bulk up onto the
rock. She thought he could just as well jump up to his seat as make such a production of it, but Tirinn did as he wished. A great fluffy towel was around his shoulders, and he began to vigorously dry off, wiggling his rolls of fat with the towel and buffing his skin to a bronze sheen. As he dressed, he said, “So what was your question again?”

Maret bowed her head. “There is no question, Tirinn-as.”

He took his seat again. “Sure? We’ve got plenty of time.” He smiled out at the WaterWay—now flowing in the right direction.

“I’m sure.”

He shrugged, a movement she had seen Eli Dammond use. For a moment she had wondered what he knew of the human. No doubt, with Eli’s escape attempt, Tirinn would think she had failed at that commission as well.

The Data Guide’s voice was relaxed and self-satisfied. “Now that we’ve had our little chat, let’s train.”

He smiled with great kindness. “Swim,” he said.

She rose and removed her clothes.

“By the way,” came his voice, very low. “You aren’t the only swimmer today. Some will tend to be hungry.”

Holding on to her color, she hesitated only for a moment before diving in.

T
he Third Engineer looked up at Vod dubiously. Vod stood on the lip of the Paramount Borer during one of its brief down increments.

“Please, Third Engineer. This will be quick.”

She was one of the older statics, and had always seemed friendly enough. He thought he could count on her discretion. “Only an increment.” Vod ducked inside, leaving the door open. Soon he heard her lumber in behind him.

The cab brightened as they entered, its data displays bristling with light.

“What is it, Vod-as?” She glanced out the door to see if Second Engineer was watching. Apparently satisfied that he wasn’t, she turned a pointed gaze at Vod.

Now that he had her attention, Vod felt a pang of impropriety at what he was about to do. It wasn’t his place. Nor was it Wecar’s
place
, that narrow slot that now held her bones. Vod plunged on. “It’s the latest digs.”

He inserted his forefinger into the display nub on the control panel where his configuration was primed up. Onto
the heads-up display came a flood of lines, a schematic of tunneling, with colors showing projected build-out of current patterns.

The engineer’s data tendril jerked in surprise as she looked at the display. “What are you doing, working this data?”

“I’m showing you the digs.”

“Yes, certainly, but this isn’t your job, Skilled Digger.”

“Just look, will you?” Vod turned to point at the display, but the engineer went on, disregarding the data. “This is engineer’s work. You’re way out of category, here, Vod-as. Diggers don’t model tunnels.” Statics had a tiresome weakness for truisms.

“I didn’t model them. I just plugged into what
engineers
had already done.” If she would just put one of her minds to this, they could be done and out of here before anyone saw a high engineer and a low digger consorting.

“Why would you need to look at the modeling? You’re a digger. A worthy job, Vod-as, or don’t you think so anymore?”

“By the deep dark well, Jindaal-as, will you just
look?”

A splotch of discoloration appeared on the engineer’s cheeks. “Since when did you think stepping out of category was a fine way to spend downtime?”

Releasing an explosive breath, Vod grabbed Jindaal’s wrist and fairly dragged her out of the borer and down the freshly dug tunnel.

The anterior feeding flaps of the hab were grazing through the loose spoil of clay, sand, and gravel, as though this tunnel were the same as any other.

“Vod Ceb Rilvinn, what in Down World has come over you?”

Thus far the engineer allowed him to propel her into the tunnel, but Vod knew he was on shifting ground. He tried to placate her with formality. “Third Engineer, it is vitally important that I show you something for the safety
of our dig and our lives.” He had hoped she’d come to her own conclusion about that, but he’d be lucky just to keep her attention.

In the sudden gloom of the deep tunnel Jindaal snapped her headlamp on, as he did. “This better be worth—”

“Your valuable time. Yes. It will be.” The old static wasted twice this much time wagering on the job, but Vod knew to defer. “We’ll walk the latest dig, Third Engineer. Then you’ll see.”

He had her gently by the elbow, walking her as quickly as they could manage in the semidark, so that she could imprint the digs. All dwellers kept a map in backmind of everywhere they had ever traversed. In a few increments Jindaal would have the lay of the digs without resorting to an engineer’s display called up by a
digger
. So he took her on through the tunnel, and into a downway, back through another tunnel and into an upway.

Trickles of free water slithered down the open walls of the digs, a sight both he and the Third Engineer were hardened to. Still, they averted their headlamps from the rivulets. As they walked the deserted tunnels, Vod fancied he heard a deep thudding now and again. It was an odd sound, not like the creak of the foam girders or the echoes from active digging elsewhere Down World. But soil and rock shifted, he knew; the deep world was not a silent place.

When they’d stepped through the entire path, Vod turned to her. “So do you see?”

The engineer stared at him.

He added, “They’re too close. The entire new portion of the network is unstable.”

In the gloom he searched her face for response. Beyond the safety issue lay the more interesting question. Why would the engineers allow faulty pockets of tunnels? But when he looked into Third Engineer’s static face, he found only cool contempt.

“Perhaps, Vod-as, you need to rest. The shock of the recent slump …”

“Slump? It was a collapse!”

“But these tunnels are holding.”

“You can see for yourself it won’t last.” But he was in no wise certain what the engineer could see.

“Fluxor hysteria,” came the dismaying answer.

“I’m not hysterical!”

“Keep your color, Vod-as. I only meant that you tend to overreact.”

To his chagrin, he felt his skin pale. This was worse and worse. “Jindaal, this whole section may collapse. Do you want that responsibility?”

“That’s an engineer’s judgment.”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m asking for. An engineer’s judgment.”

This seemed to mollify her for a moment, but then she said, “I’d be asked how I came to my opinion. It would look very bad for you if I told about digger meddling.”

“Then lie.”

“You’re asking me to lie?”

“Vone take me! You’re twisting everything.”

At that moment a grinding creak issued from all around them. A bone-weary pluck on the sinews of the deep. Third Engineer looked up at the ceiling. Her face had turned the color of the hab in off-season. A sheen of sweat coated her face. She began backing up, heading toward the lighted digs.

He’d lost her interest. She was now interested in getting as far away as possible. Though her fears only supported his position.

“Don’t worry,” he muttered. “It won’t fall down until it’s full of diggers.” But already she was scurrying away. Statics ever coveted their personal safety.

In high frustration, Vod kicked the tunnel wall with all his strength.

It held, for now.

Nefer sat before Eli on a richly patterned rug. He remembered her distinctive markings, especially the double oval between her wide-set eyes. This was the first time he’d been with Nefer alone, without Maret to translate.

“You would be well, Captain Eli Dammond,” she said in Standard, with a guttural accent so heavy that Eli leaned forward to hear her. Nefer drew back.

He knew ahtra reacted to human scent, but for this meeting, at least, they’d allowed him to clean himself thoroughly with a cleansing clay and a vacuum hose. His clothes, temporarily taken from him, were returned stiff and clean.