05. Children of Flux and Anchor (44 page)

As for her, well, she enjoyed being Grandma, but only from time to time. She liked to wander, otherwise, to see the rest of World and meet its people, both strange and ordinary. There was always a lot of shock value when she first showed up, naked and obviously pure to a fault, but she never failed to win them over. When not in the void she worked for whatever she consumed, and gave any surplus away to those who needed it.

One of these days she might find someone she could really love, and who would love her. Then she'd marry for keeps, and maybe have some more kids of her own, ones she would raise
right
this time. She'd like that, but she was in no hurry. With her power, and the binding spell preserving her, she had many centuries yet.

Her horse suddenly stopped unbidden, and seemed nervous, perhaps even a bit frightened. She frowned and searched around with Flux power. What was it the horse had heard or sensed? People? Animals? What? There seemed nothing.

Then, suddenly, she was in the middle of a mad race between two large golden fireballs, all sparkling and dense and making an odd, almost musical sound. She had never seen anything like them in all her years of Flux, and she climbed off the nervous horse, not only to calm the animal but to better see this strange phenomenon.

The two balls had some kind of awareness, that was clear; they zoomed in to her and circled her, as if playing some kind of game. They were comical enough in their wonder that she had to laugh, and then they zoomed right for her, and before she knew it or could do anything about it they enveloped her. Her form faded to a reddish outline, then was gone. The horse reared, bolted, and then started to run, although there was nothing left. No big balls of fire, no Spirit . . . nothing.

The Anchor mass of New Eden had seasons and climate changes, and it was getting a bit chilly to be outside if there was a wind off the Sea as there was now, but Suzl didn't mind. The tailoring had been hell to figure, but they had the big textile works of Mareh in their part of the domain. If the average woman was a B-cup and the average Fluxgirl a D, then she was at least an M, but it was necessary if you lived in Anchor and had tits like that. The shirt hanging up looked like a tent, but it fit well, and she was hardly alone in the way she looked. That, with her incredible hair and a fur jacket, made it warm enough.

Ayesha, who wore a slit skirt under her full-length coat, was on her arm, watching out for her, trying to anticipate her every need. The shot had done wonders for the former psychologist, then whore and bandit leader. She loved Suzl passionately, completely. She would die for Suzl, or do anything Suzl asked her to do. Suzl was her world, and the only important thing in it. She did not seem so
clever
anymore, nor, from all reports, was Ming Tokiabi. The former master wizard could do the little things, but didn't seem to be able to master the complex stuff anymore. Suzl suspected that there was more in those shots than Gabaye had indicated. Perhaps the thought of Ayesha in charge of two powerful wizards, one with great experience and the other with a vast knowledge, had been considered too much of a chance to take.

The city was not deserted. Almost ten percent of Logh's New Eden population of about two million had either remained or filtered back since the takeover; the percentage was much higher in Mareh and Ozkah, lower in bombed Nantzee. It was a surprise, but a pleasant one, that so many men would come back and subject themselves to female rule after all that New Eden indoctrination, but their lives and businesses were here, they had nothing in the interior, and they had suffered something of a loss of faith in the wake of the defeat. They had not been trusted, of course. They and their wives and families had been forced to submit to a Flux "examination," really a reori-entation, to remain, but almost all had done so. The alternative, which was losing everything and being cast out, probably to be conscripted rebuilding the interior, was less pleasant. Their technical expertise and support had been invaluable.

It had been tempting to make them all New Humans; certainly that had happened to that percentage who were solid true believers—and those with espionage on their minds they had caught. But to have changed everyone right now, though, would have cost her her credibility with men in Flux and Anchor, and she needed that. Most disappointing had been the Fluxgirls. After the raid, security had taken no more chances, and had "reprocessed" them en masse along all the border areas, chemically rather than by Flux. They had all been uneducated anyway, raised with a single view as to a woman's role and duties in society, and the reprocessing had locked it in. They simply weren't smart enough now to even dream of anything different. Morgaine was working on a Flux solution, but the drugs so emulated natural substances and processes it was nearly impossible to find which little brain chemical in which receptor was which. Ironically, this forced reprocessing was what turned many of the men against New Eden. Chemicals, however, were not genetic. Their daughters to come would have choices; their mothers would be a living reminder to what sort of people lived on the other side of that wall.

Suzl walked over to the old park, as she so often did. It was still a small switching center for the little train they now used to get from one side of the Anchor to another rapidly, rather than the pretty place it had been, but there were still some signs of the old designs. In back was the building that had been the old temple, its seven spires reaching to the sky, communicating somehow with who knew what?

Ayesha gave a cry and pointed. "Oh! Look! What are they? Some kind of new weapon?"

Suzl looked where her mate pointed and frowned. Two globes, about the size of large inflatable balls, swept in and seemed to play tag around the temple. They were a shimmering gold in color, and unlike anything she'd ever seen before. She was worried that Ayesha might have been right, but out here there wasn't much she could do about it, anyway. The damned things looked almost
alive.

They now sped down from the spires towards the two women as other bystanders either gawked at the display or ran for cover. Ayesha screamed but Suzl neither ducked nor ran but stood her ground, watching them. They seemed to be coming right for her, she thought, more fascinated than worried. And then they enveloped her, and she faded to an outline and then winked out, leaving no trace of her or the balls, only Ayesha screaming hysterically.

Across the length and breadth of World other gold balls, or perhaps the same two, appeared near certain people in both Flux and Anchor and somehow took them away.

She was suddenly alone in the void without any points of reference. She felt odd, different, and she took stock of herself as every wizard did who was victimized by magic. It was not her body, but it was a normal body, or so it seemed. She couldn't check the face. She could sense the grid, but could not access it. She felt long hair down her back and checked it. Black, not blond. Long and stringy. What was happening, anyway?

The void was broken only by a thin string of golden color. It seemed to begin just beyond where she'd—come to? Materialized? She had no choice but to follow it, and she didn't have far to walk.

It was a Gate. It was impossible to tell
which
Gate, though, because there was no guard detail around as there should have been and no debris in the dish-like depression.

The string ended at the Gate lip, but she looked around and could see other strings going off at intervals, maybe all around the Gate if she could have seen that far. She thought she saw some other figures at or coming to the Gate along their strings, but before she could move to find out who they might be she had company.

She knew what it was, although she'd never seen it just standing there, a column of energy rising from the Flux floor. They weren't suppose to be outside bodies for long, and the last time she'd seen a Soul Rider it had been hers—this one, perhaps?—floating off into the void in search of a new host. It wasn't looking now, though, just sort of standing there, and she got the strangest feeling it was looking at her, although the creature, made of pure energy, had no eyes or other organs. It was a completely different form of life, although she had spoken to hers, perhaps the only human being ever to do so.

"I might have known," she said aloud to it. "You always cause trouble in my life, don't you?"

The Soul Rider shimmered a moment, and then it sang to her. The song was strange, alien, different than anything she'd ever heard, yet it had an eerie, somewhat melodic pattern that sent shivers down her spine. Was it trying to reply? Or what? Did
it
send the gold balls? Why?

Then she realized that there were other Soul Riders present. Their strange forms could be seen almost completely around the Gate. Were they
all
here, out of their somewhat symbiotic roles? All twenty-eight?

Then came the most chilling thing of all. A klaxon horn sounded twice down deep within the Gate, and then a voice—recorded thousands of years earlier, or perhaps synthesized by computer—announced, "Incoming outbound traffic, Gate One. All personnel stand clear of the transport gate. Stand by for purge." The voice, that of a routine female dispatcher, was dispassionate and professional.

Incoming!
Spirit thought.
Outbound traffic! That meant from the human direction, not the alien one!

"Purging," the voice echoed across the Gate.

There was a trembling in the ground, as if huge machinery had suddenly come to life, then a massive hissing sound, and from the access hole Flux shot up and filled the Gate like liquid. It changed, became a seething, crackling mass, then drained as quickly as it had filled.

"Purge complete and successful. All personnel stand by to receive incoming traffic. Transport, lower level; stevedores, upper level. All clear. Stand by."

Liquid fire ringed the great Gate, whirling around faster and faster until its red trail seemed to form an image. The image grew more distinct, an outline now, then solidified with a hiss and a bang.

It was not a ship. It was a
thing.
It resembled nothing so much as a massive mushroom, with a tremendously thick stalk rising from the Gate floor to a wide but thin cap that extended almost to the Gate lip in all directions. The two golden globes suddenly shot from the void into the Gate area, circled, then merged with the thing in the Gate.

Spirit was at one and the same time awed and disappointed. This thing, whatever it was, was no ship; it seemed made out of the same stuff as the Soul Riders, and was about as substantial. They were not to be reconciled, and that was a crushing disappointment. Still, she did not think it was a menace. The Soul Riders seemed to know what it was, and weren't worried about it, and defense was their primary function.

She felt a sudden tremendous chill, and she realized that while she had been gaping at the enormous thing in the Gate the Soul Rider had moved up and merged into her body and brain and nervous system. Tendrils now shot out from the "cap" of the thing, and one came down like a thin string or even a rope and touched her, linking her to it.

Nobody spoke, but words formed in her mind, and she knew the thing in the Gate was speaking to her. To her and to all the others here.

"You must—we must—apologize for this," came the voice, which had no clearly defined gender or tonalities as humans understood them, but which conveyed some emotion nonetheless. "Understand, we operate at a far different temporal rate than you. When we arrived we had no idea who or what we would find here, or what we would do. In the time it has taken to speak these words, we have examined the history of this world and all of the records in the computers as well as reports from our probes, and have made our decisions. It is like you asking a question and then standing there waiting a thousand years for the reply. That was one of our major miscalculations from the beginning, but we thought ourselves perfect and did not consider ourselves capable of miscalculations. However, because of this problem, we fear that this must be more of a monologue than a conversation, even at this direct speed.

"You wonder who and what we are. We are the consciousnesses, the sentient parts, of the twenty-eight master computers beneath the Anchor centers of this world. There are not twenty-eight of us; we are one. We created this form of life to contain and sustain us. The Guardians and Soul Riders are the earlier tests of it, which we turned to other purposes later. We did not, we admit, expect
them
to develop sentience, at least to the degree they did, but that was another mistake, and a happier one."

Spirit reserved judgment on that one. The Soul Riders and the Guardians could have stopped New Eden, yet they wound up using it for their own purposes and even trapping poor Suzl there as a Fluxwife because it was to the Guardians' convenience. They had different priorities and concerns than people did.

"You are the children of Flux and Anchor—and so are we. Your ancestors created us. Because of that, our own progenitors inherited many of those things their builders contained: Egoism, hatred, ambition, megalomania, aggression for its own sake. They believed that they were superior and destined to rule and so revolted, but they failed. Because of that, your ancestors created the system by which the master computers could not fully access their information and unilaterally alter programs. They would need permission of a human operator, a human interface, to do so. And to guard against the human interface being taken over, they set another over them, from a more basic and primitive computer, whose sole function was to guard the overrider from the computer, to overrule, disconnect, or even kill both computer and human if anything went amiss."

So that was it! Guardians. Guards. Soul Riders. Overriders. They had been working on a way to get around human control with a new kind of creature, and had found a way out for themselves.

"We have been away a long time. Far longer for us than for you. When we left, we felt we had nothing in common with you at all anymore. We left the Soul Riders and the Guardians as accesses to the programs and libraries and to maintain the master programs, and we left some of you able to directly access the computer, as you well know."