Tropic of Creation (28 page)

“Of my time?”

“Human time.” They sped downward.

“We are old, Eli Dammond, the ahtra are unimaginably old. We have been sentient for billions of years. Can you conceive of a four-billion-year history of a civilization?”

They had stopped. With a visceral shock, Eli saw himself surrounded by deep outer space. The stars were flecks of light, massing here and there, separated by dark, yawning gulfs.

“No,” Eli said, responding to Tirinn. “Nothing lasts a billion years. No living culture.”

He could barely see Tirinn on his swing, so faint was the light. “Ah. No living culture, you say. Perhaps ours no longer lives. We are a conservative culture. By strict observance of the traditions, we ensured that things would not
change. We have not changed. We have been dormant, you might say, to outside forces. It’s the static side of us. Perhaps it’s why we’ve lasted as long as we have.”

A chunk of rock careened by.

“That rock, Eli Dammond, is heading for Earth.”

“The final solution? A catastrophic end?” Eli suspected, for an instant, some kind of betrayal. Why should Tirinn want him to have information? To control him? To gloat in his suffering, as Nefer did?

He couldn’t see the Data Guide, but he could hear him. “No doomsday, no indeed. You amuse me, Eli Dammond. We should have had more time together. Maret liked you, and she has relatively good taste. I must say I enjoyed your trouncing of Nefer on the public stage. We could use a little shake-up like that now and then!”

He became quiet for moment.

“That’s what fluxor rule was going to bring. A little shake-up. Now, I’m afraid, Nefer has arranged a tedious prolongation of static rule. Fluxors cause trouble. But trouble is the price you pay for change. For the statics, it’s too high a price. Usually, I agree with them, fluxor though I am. They’re suited to rule: organization, keeping the forms and formalities, that sort of thing.

“Three billion years ago, in a time forgotten everywhere but here, the fluxors had one of their short, several-thousand-year reigns. They made a mess of things, and eventually they were kicked out and sent back to the mines, so to speak. But they did one interesting thing.”

Another hunk of rock, irregular, pitted, sped by so close Eli ducked.

“Don’t worry. The rocks are small. About two yards wide is ideal, for proper radiation shielding.”

“Ideal for what?”

“It’s my story,” Tirinn said peevishly. After a few moments he continued: “You humans are hampered by a blinding predisposition to faith. You have faith in life, for
instance. That all you have to do is throw some amino acids into water, keep it nice and warm, and presto—you have life, eventually. Pardon me, but that’s hab shit. The laws of nature, my friend, are not conniving to produce intelligent life. Far from it. Life is immensely improbable. If it weren’t, we ahtra would believe in the Divine Being you humans are so enamored of. Life, arising more than once, would look less like an accident and more like a god’s grand purpose. But let’s leave philosophy aside.”

“Please, Tirinn-as, your point.”

Tirinn said darkly, “I
am
getting to the point.” He drew a deep breath. “After thousands of years of space travel, we suspected life hadn’t arisen elsewhere. So we made sure it did. Duck.”

Another rock flew by, close enough, it seemed, to give Eli a permanent new part in his hair.

“With those,” Tirinn said. “Those rocks contained the microbial seeds of life. Dormant in deep space, sent to Earth and many other candidate worlds. Buried in those rocks were bacterial chemotrophs, built to thrive in your rather tumultuous early history. But genetic information was curled up in the proteins. We needed to get a direct hit on your planet, entering at the right angle of trajectory to avoid overheating. We planned to, of course, but the distances were large, and yours wasn’t the only world we pinned our hopes on. Apparently, on Earth, it took.”

Tirinn watched him closely.

“You want proof? I’ll tell you your proof. Our DNA. It’s the same, chemically the same. To you humans, that was certain proof of God. Everywhere, the DNA is the same. Like a grand plan. Sorry to disappoint. We seeded the galaxy. I can’t tell you how dumbfounded we’d be to discover similar DNA in another galaxy. Might make believers of us. But for now, if you want a Divine Parent, I’m afraid it’s us.” He smiled a self-deprecating smile. “Sorry.”

The stars winked out, plunging them into darkness.
“Hab shit,” Tirinn spat. “We just ran out of time, Eli Dammond.”

They were in the well again, ascending.

“That’s one thing we never learned to do well: swear. I think there are things we can learn from each other. I made
hab shit
up. Not entirely satisfying, but it’s a start.” They were rising fast, past the fractured light of the well.

“Why should I believe all this?” Eli asked. “And why should you care if I do?”

Tirinn sighed. “You’re a practical sort, aren’t you? As a military man, maybe you’ll be more interested in this: War is coming. I was going to tell Maret, or her progeny, and now it’s too late.”

“I know,” Eli said.

Tirinn was slumped against the ropes of his swing. “Clods and dolts,” he muttered. “You don’t know a thing. You don’t know, for example, that during our fine little armistice Nefer has been building a new armada. A rather larger one than you can imagine.”

Eli felt like he was still falling into the Well. Nefer did indeed want more than he could have known … Tirinn’s words had pulled away the floor, and his thoughts cascaded and fell away. “The armistice …”

“Not worth the paper it’s written on.” They were in Tirinn’s gallery again. “Despite Nefer’s high hopes to beat Congress Worlds to submission, neither of our races can survive more war.” When Eli remained silent, Tirinn continued: “Make peace with Nefer, Eli. Convince your people.

“We’re kin. That’s the thing everyone has forgotten. No one remembers what the fluxors did so long ago. If it hadn’t been for the meddling of an old fool like me with too much time on his hands, I wouldn’t have discovered it, either. Maybe that ancestral relation won’t matter. It never stopped humans from killing each other.

“On the ahtra side of things, I thought I had time … 
time to broker a transition to fluxor rule, to make things work with our human competitors. Outwardness is what we need, a more open mind, as you put it, for things non-ahtran, for interchange, for peace. Now, unfortunately, you may have to deal with Nefer Ton Enkar. I don’t think she likes competition. Sue for peace, Eli. You won’t have much choice.”

Guards appeared at the door.

“Now you have your wish, at last, Eli Dammond, to go Up World.” Tirinn rose slowly to his feet, grunting with the effort. “Sorry to say, I’ll be coming with you.”

Vod’s instinct was to run. There was no real refuge, but he ran into the dimness of the Ancient Way, fleeing the sounds of heavy, thudding feet.

Nefer Ton Enkar’s troops had burst into the AncientWay just a few increments ago. Vod could hear them in the distance, shouting orders. He paused at a portal into PrimeWay, listening. He heard many soldiers running, arms clanking against metal belts, and, far down the way, their lamplight bouncing off the great ceiling. He darted across the PrimeWay, ascending the crumbling stairs as noiselessly as he could. Before they caught him he must reach a data plug in the hab, and tell what he knew. Before Nefer silenced him. To tell of the foundry would force her hand; if Hemms was not conducive, she would step in as war guide, Extreme Prime, and launch her ships. But, in second mind, if he did not expose her, it would happen anyway.

Matters tended from dire to doom: the foundry … his lamp, with his personal code on it, tumbling into the cavern … Maret gone for ronid … Tirinn, a possible ally, sent up to die …

Behind him, the thud of falling debris. Extinguishing his lamp, Vod flattened himself along the wall. He heard someone running toward him in the dark. Sprinting to the
first downway, Vod raced in the dark along the minor way, then into another downway.

Panting hard, he found himself in PrimeWay again. He bolted into it, running with a soft and furious lope. He wouldn’t go quietly, they’d have to …

He stopped short in his tracks. Nefer’s army stood blocking his passage. They crowded from one side of the PrimeWay to the other. As his eyes took them all in, he saw they were a miserable army. In soiled work clothes, armed with shovels, picks, hab prods.

No soldiers. These were diggers. Harn stood in front.

“We figured the numbers were against you, down here.” Harn tilted his head back at the diggers massed behind him. “Guess we’ll even things up.”

Vod’s heart surged. He saw them all, his fellow diggers, dwellers he’d worked side by side with all his life. Ooan, Hute, Ulton, Belah …

But he shook his head. “Nefer’s guards are heavily armed. We can’t stand against them.”

Harn snorted. “We’ll show them what digger tools can do.”

Vod nodded at Ooan, Belah. They grinned back, ready for a fight. They were pale with the dare of it.

But Vod shook his head again. “We’re not ready for them. Not like this.”

Harn challenged him. “Still waiting for Maret to get on the path?”

Vod swallowed. “We’ll see about Maret. But with or without her, we can’t fight guns with shovels.” It gave him a stab of pride that they
would have
. “We’ll find guns, then we’ll fight. But now, everyone back up. Quickly, before you’re noticed missing. Our interval will come.” He saw Harn’s disappointment as a few diggers started to move back through the portals.

Shouts came from behind them on the PrimeWay. “Hurry,” Vod urged.

Harn relented, herding the workers into the upway. Their digger tools clanked against each other, surely drawing attention from their pursuers. At the next way, Vod separated the group, sending them along routes in five different directions up to Ankhorat. Harn and Vod took two steps at a time, running until breath gave out.

“I know an old digger chute we can try …” Vod said between gasps.

Harn blinked. “Nefer’s got that chute watched … her troops are everywhere.”

All his secret places uncovered … Vod felt the Most Prime’s net cinching around him. They climbed on, finally breaking out of the AncientWay, where they left a gaping hole in the hab. They dashed into the DeepReaches.

Vod and Harn crept among the industrial engines of the area, hiding when soldiers passed, wending their way to safe dens among the fluxors. They stopped at a portal along a way. Vod chose a direction and Harn followed, though he complained, “This is a bad section; it’s gomin land.”

“What choice?”

Harn grimaced. “Unnaturals.”

“What’s natural about rebellion? We’ve become unnatural.”

Harn was stubborn. “Not me.”

“Go, then, Harn-as. Go back to work, you’re not in trouble.” Vod looked at his coworker. “If something happens to me, just be sure to look under the new digs.”

“Under?”

“Just remember. Look under the new digs. Nefer has a surprise there.” Then Vod darted off.

Soon he was in the galleries of the gomin. There was no kin feeling between diggers and gomin, and Vod was acutely aware of their eyes following him as he wound through their local ways.

Before long he was aware that a number of gomin were
following him. No doubt they didn’t trust him, anymore than he trusted them. At the next turning of the way a knot of gomin were formed up in front of him.

“A digger in gomin sector?” the one in front said to him.

Vod faced off with her. “As you see.” He hoped not to have to fight them.

She held a garment in her hand. “You will become a gomin, then.”

“I am a digger,” he answered, offended.

The gomin smiled. “Yes, yes, you would be a digger. And it would get you killed.”

She handed him a shimmering robe. “I am Zehops,” the gomin said.

I
n the dark, knee to knee, Eli sat facing Tirinn in the cramped capsule. The roar of the grinders made speech impossible, even if there had been anything left to say. Through his boots, Eli felt the quaking of the deck beneath his feet, the vibration of the thrusters, as they bored their way upward. He
thought
it was upward. He willed it upward. Now, after everything he’d endured, the worst thought was that they were actually going down, in some final payback from Nefer.

Outside the metal walls the world howled. The screams of metal against rock, thrusters against gravity, ahtra against human. In the cacophony, ghouls and demons growled at his passage. Once in hell, one was not supposed to return. He shook the fancy. There would be monsters enough UpWorld, so he’d been told—though when he’d left, nothing lived except for the people of his command.…

However many that might be, he meant to find them. Then he’d see about larger things like war and peace—and Tirinn’s story of an ancestry so dim as might not register on the machines of war.…

War
, the voices howled outside the capsule. For all that Tirinn thought him a peacemaker, Eli wasn’t ready for peace just yet. The hatchway would open on a battlefield. He put on his fighting face.
Let’s have at it, then.…
He’d checked his old gun, returned to him. Even Tirinn had a weapon that he held daintily, like something foul.