Evolution (13 page)

“When you’re in a second-generation Tobe’s environment, it can filter what comes your way,” Sam said. “Outside of one, it’s more like standing in the street, hearing every passing conversation while trying to focus on what the person in front of you is saying.”

Jess reached out to take Sara’s hand. “You know your way around
Leviathan
. Just don’t be too long. Lots of people are going to want to see you.”

Sam understood his daughter’s need for mental quiet. She was so much like him in so many ways but with the added challenge of a questioning mind that wanted all the knowledge Sam had avoided. The Tobes must have been having a grand time searching out answers for her. If only they knew what a burden that constant communication could be sometimes on a human mind.

He kissed Jess on the cheek as they exited the shuttle. “I’ll be along shortly. I want a minute or two with Lev first.”

He had so many different places to call home: Chariklo, which could no longer support an ecosystem, Rendition’s penthouse which could house more people than Sam wished to consider, Sophie, and
Leviathan
, which had brought him to life literally and figuratively. Finding the bridge and the adjoining captain’s office was like wandering through a childhood home.

Sam looked around the old office. “Hey, Lev, knock-knock.”

Behind the cold computer screens, he could feel the computer excitedly rout power to his location.

“Who’s there?”

“Sam.”

“Sam who?”

“Sam how I keep coming home to you.”

Sam smiled as Lev let out a laugh that filled not only the captain’s office but the bridge as well.

“Just wanted to make sure you’d be okay with staying in orbit around Earth,” Sam said. “It’s not quite the adventurous life you’re used to.”

“Compared to twenty years sitting silent and cold out in the Kuiper Belt, this is a vacation. So many other ships to talk to, this lovely solar energy, no need to constantly be worried about my power storage—I can hang out here for as long as you like.” A large, disembodied smile filled the central view screen.

Kind of creepy, Lev. Just saying.
Not that talking flowers were much better.

An image of Dr. Elliot Shot standing outside the door filled a side view screen. Sam turned away from the fading smile to greet the strange old man who’d been so instrumental in developing the software that had resulted in Sam becoming god to the Tobes. “How was the adventure?”

Dr. Shot fell heavily into the captain’s chair. “We rescued a lot of colonies. Some resisted, but we’ve made contact with the pirates. They say they’ll step in should things get worse. Lev’s made some strong contacts out there. When the time comes, hopefully they’ll honor their word.”

Sam doubted the trip had ever been just a humanitarian mission. “Why you? I never got that. You just left that mansion in upstate New York to live on a space freighter while she plays savior to poor, destitute societies that didn’t have the good sense to leave when things went bad. It’s not like you were involved in the rescues.”

“I got bored. You can have all the wealth you can ever hope to spend, live longer than twice what most experience, even have recognition and power from man and Tobe alike, but so what? Thought I’d see a little of the solar system while I could still get away. That’s the trick. Don’t ever let boredom get its hooks in you so far you can’t change your life.”

Lev—the smile that stretched the width of the office—started talking. “I’ve enjoyed having Elliot onboard. We’ve had some lively conversations. I even got to run some of his time experiments. No answers yet, but being a laboratory and a lab partner has been very fulfilling.”

At least the volume doesn’t match the size of the mouth, but no one should have to look at teeth that big.

* * *

T
he agro pod
hadn’t changed. Taking in a deep breath of the oxygen-rich air, Sam pushed off into the empty space. He’d have gladly glided all the way out to the pod wall if it hadn’t meant someone would have to come fetch him. Instead, he grasped a vine strategically placed not far from the edge of the vegetation.

Happily, he swung from vine to vine toward the village. He had an urge to live the uncomplicated life of some ancient child’s story—to shed his clothes and his cares, to live with the wild people and plants, to take each day on its own. In space, the constant communication with the Tobes was turned down, and his mind found the freedom for such flights of fantasy.

The living pods had filled out nicely. No longer would someone have to snuggle into one as though it were a confining sleeping bag. Though the pods were still too small to entertain guests, at least a person could manage to change clothes in private. And beyond the oversized peapods, he made out Jess, Jillian, and the girls excitedly talking to Doc—probably recounting their adventures on Earth.

Sam pulled hard at a vine then pressed his arms to his sides to rocket toward the family. At the last moment, he spread out his limbs to slow his progress. “Where is everyone? When we came home from Earth last time, Jess was mobbed with people.”

Doc pointed toward the transparent agro-pod wall. “Most are staring at Earth. Not many of them have ever seen mankind’s birthplace. Gotta expect they’d be a little curious.”

Sam turned to look past the vegetation. Small human forms pressed against the transparent barrier like bugs on a hovercraft view screen. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“You mean is everyone going to abandon ship and move to the big city? I doubt it. Some will. Some just want to visit. But most of us that built the village are hoping we can settle back into our normal lives again.”

Sam used some wisteria vines to secure himself from floating off. “How is normal life these days?”

“You have a way of not asking questions you want the answers to. Jonathan’s not facilitator at the moment. Mira’s taken on that role but only with a lot of help from Yoshi. She still says she doesn’t want to be away from her garden. Jonathan’s not too happy with being displaced. I suspect he’ll be one of the first to board a shuttle to Earth. Hopefully, he’ll come back, but if he doesn’t… well, this experiment was never meant to be a prison.” Doc was far more gracious than Sam thought necessary.

And where did Sam and his family fit in? They were transient members of a community based on daily relationships—and the benefactors without whose help, both political and financial, the village might not continue to explore its life of simplicity. Treasured members, or disruptive influences? Probably both.

“We’ll be here when we can, but to keep things moving smoothly aboard
Leviathan
, I think we’ll need to keep New York as our primary residence,” Sam said though it wasn’t the answer he wanted to give. To some, the village would be a prison they wanted to escape, but for him, it continued to be the Garden of Eden, and he didn’t want to be cast out.

S
am had trouble sleeping
. Hurricanes were bad enough, but electrical storms raised havoc with his telepathic connection to the Tobes. Each time a lightning bolt struck, it violently disrupted his awareness of them like a jab in the eye. To let Jess sleep, he got up to observe the storm from the living room. At least watching the dark clouds allowed him to anticipate where the next strike would hit. He always guessed wrong. Maybe he should’ve taken her suggestion and escaped to
Leviathan
. In the year the ship had been in orbit overhead, he’d only retreated from the storms a handful of times.
Too late now.

Joshua materialized in the chair next to him, also in pajamas. “It’s a bad one tonight. Thought you might like a little company.”

“Everyone safe in the maze?” Not that Sam had anything to do with the well-run system, but his acknowledgment of the Tobes’ work keeping people safe in the underwater walkways and connected buildings made Joshua feel good.

“Not really a problem tonight. We won’t get that much rain or wind. Just a lot of lightning. We’re keeping pretty busy maintaining the network. We can reestablish communication almost instantly, but during the power surges, we momentarily lose our handle on things. Not a situation we find comfortable.”

You don’t find it comfortable? You should feel what I experience.
For sarcastic remarks, unspoken communication proved best.

“Sara keeps saying pain and torture will be next on the list for Touch.
I used to think she was kidding, but after the last year, studying under Mira, I’m not so sure.” Joshua stopped talking. He went deathly white, his eyes huge with terror.
Oh my God.

Before Sam could ask, Ed burst through the wall like a rogue bull, soaking wet, panting heavily with the same wide-eyed look of terror. “I don’t know what happened or even how it’s possible. I’ve got everyone on trying to find her.”

Fear gripped Sam’s stomach. This wasn’t just a network communication problem.
Who?
He screamed the question out to every Tobe on Earth.

Joshua reached over to put his hand on Sam’s. It sank to the overstuffed cushioned chair arm. “It’s Sara. We’ve lost contact with her. She’s not here in the penthouse or anywhere else as far as we can tell. This shouldn’t be possible. She has the lens.”

Sam’s mind locked up. He’d heard Joshua’s words, but they didn’t register. If he couldn’t understand what was said, then maybe it hadn’t happened.

Jess ran in from the bedroom, pulling a robe around her naked body. She landed full force against Sam. Wrapping her in his arms, he realized no amount of internal denial would stop the oncoming flow of events. Ellie, as distraught as her brother but with the addition of tears streaming down her face, raced in after Jess.

“I have to check on Emily. I need to know she’s safe.” Staring intently at the wall screen, Jess yelled, “Contact
Leviathan
. Get me Doc. Now.”

Lev appeared as a coat of armor. “Emily’s aboard and perfectly safe. She’s sleeping. I’m waking up Doc now.”

Things were happening faster than Sam could process. He still couldn’t believe Sara was missing. Hearing that Emily was safe, though a relief, didn’t do anything to locate the missing daughter.

A bleary-looking Doc, hair disheveled and eyes puffy with sleep, filled the view screen. It took him a moment to focus on the information in front of him. Jillian leaned over his shoulder. Her younger eyes sped through the information. “I’ll get Emily. You won’t believe anything unless you see her for yourself. I know I wouldn’t. Just find Sara.” She abruptly disappeared from the screen.

Of course Emily was safe. Lev had said so. But Sam had thought Sara was safe also. Were any of his people really safe? The word itself,
safe
, began to lose meaning.

Doc remained at the monitor. His eyes grew fierce. “One of you Tobes explain it to me. Use simple words. How do you normally detect a human, and what does it mean when you lose one?”

Joshua ran his hand through his rapidly graying hair. “We don’t see with eyes the way you do. We surround Earth with our communication energy—the network. People exhibit a different type of energy, like droplets of oil in a pool of water. Sara’s droplet just disappeared.”

“Does that ever happen normally?” Doc asked, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Ellie took Joshua’s arm. “It only happens when a person dies. But we’re sure that’s not what happened to Sara.”

Jess gasped as she buried her face in Sam’s chest. Her tears caused his heart to miss a beat.

“Why?” Sam was desperate for any straw of hope to grasp.

“We’d have noticed if she was in distress.” Ellie wasn’t being defensive, but the emotional toll wasn’t limited to humans. “And she has the lens around her, which makes her disappearance impossible.”

Jess ran from the room and nearly knocked Sara’s door down. “Did no one think to actually look?”

It was a false hope. Sara wasn’t there. Her bed was rumpled, but she’d never been a sound sleeper. Everything about her untidy room appeared normal… except for the absent girl.

Sam turned to Ed as they crowded the girl’s doorway. Reason was in full conflict with emotion in his brain. His words came out ice-cold in his attempt not to scream. “What happened? I want to know exactly when you lost track, and how.” He tried not to sound cross. The family’s bodyguard would have gladly sacrificed his immortal life to protect the girls.

“When Joshua mentioned Sara, I automatically checked on her. It’s just a natural, almost subconscious response. When she wasn’t in her room, we all started to scour the network like waves spreading out when a rock is tossed into a pond. At first we assumed she’d slipped out to see Marco—”

“Stop,” Jess cut in. “Who the hell is Marco?”

What? Sara’s seeing someone, and you didn’t think to tell me?
He was god after all. Who in hell did the Tobes think they were, keeping something like that from him?

Ellie put her hand on Jess’s arm as she looked at Sam. “He’s just a boy Sara’s been talking to over the network. Of course we know who he is and what’s transpired so far. It’s all innocent, but we’ve been expecting some type of a clandestine liaison sooner or later.”

“Pull him up now,” Jess yelled. “I want to meet this guy who talked my daughter out of her room in a lightning storm.”

And don’t leave out the Tobe involved with his household.
Sam wanted a word or two with that technological being as well.

Jillian sat Emily down where they could see her. The girl’s big blue eyes squinted half-awake. “What’s going on?”

Sam did his best to keep the fear out of his voice. “It’s okay, darling girl. Just a little mix-up down here. We wanted to make sure you were safe. You can go back to bed.”

Her eyes darted from one person to the next in the penthouse. “Where’s Ra?”

Of course he couldn’t keep it hidden. The twins had a connection stronger than the one he shared with the Tobes. If only it included a form of communication.

“We don’t know,” Ellie said. “Somehow she’s gone silent on the network. The storm down here might have something to do with it. But for now, we’re doing all we can to find her.” Ellie never pulled her punches, but then, that was why the girls looked to her for answers when others tried to spare their feelings.

“Emily, do you know anything about Marco?” Jess asked.

Brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?
Sam struggled with his thoughts.

“Ra’s been talking to him over the lens. They’ve started experimenting… sexually. But she wasn’t going to meet him in person until she’d talked to you. Is that where she is?” Emily’s eyes were now wide-awake even if her body still looked as if it wanted to curl back up.

An even sleepier-looking boy of about the twins’ age appeared in a chair on the view screen, his eyes shut. “Whaddya want?”

Sam grasped Jess’s hand before she attacked the still half-asleep young man. “We’re Sara’s parents. Is she with you?”

Deep-blue eyes blinked hard, trying to drive the sleep away. “No, she said we couldn’t meet until you were okay with it. She wouldn’t have sneaked out anyway. I kind of thought that was impossible.”

So did we.
But Sam did his best to not make it another accusation. The Tobes didn’t need the distraction of an angry god. As it was, a very frightened technological being cowered behind Marco.
It’s okay, I know you were just trying to keep Sara’s secrets. But fucking find her!

“I’m sure she’s okay, but if you hear from her, contact us immediately. Okay?” Jess had a way of keeping others at ease so long as they weren’t to blame.

Ed grew translucent as his eyes swirled around in his head, trying to be too many places at once. Sam couldn’t think of anyone else, other than Jess and himself, who would be more driven to find Sara. Ed would never be whole until she was once again safe at home.

“She turned in at 9:47 p.m.” Ed’s voice carried overtones of street noises and people’s random conversations—remnants of the places he was searching. “When a person sleeps, they aren’t interacting with their environment—which with the lens means us. We reduced the connection to minimum power while Sara slept so it wouldn’t disturb her rest. That was at 10:22 p.m. You mentioned her name at 1:53 a.m. That’s when I checked on her. The doors to the penthouse say they’ve been closed all evening. Lily’s been resting peacefully on the roof. Sometimes Sara wanders up to hide out in
Lilliput
if she needs a break from the network noise, but Lily says she hasn’t seen her. We’ve conducted a thorough floor-by-floor inspection of Rendition. And I’ve double-checked the building personally.”

Sam’s mention of Sara’s name seemed like a lifetime ago.

“That’s the best you can do? Somewhere between 10:22 p.m. and 1:53 a.m.?” Jess wasn’t screaming, but Sam suspected she wanted to.

Ed grew fully opaque as he squinted until his eyes closed. “I can see her at 1:12 a.m. Then there’s a series of strong lightning strikes where everything is blurry. That was the height of the storm. My memory fully reestablishes at 1:31 a.m., and I get a hazy glimpse of her at 1:33 a.m., but she’s gone within a minute. It’s a quiet fade-out, but I should have seen it.”

Ellie put her hand on the bodyguard’s shoulder, closing her eyes to share the memory. “It doesn’t make any sense. She’s there, then she’s not. People don’t just turn off.”

Private investigating had long since been considered a lost art. But Sam had read enough old-time fiction to know not to disturb a crime scene. “Call someone. Not another Tobe. I know you’re all doing your best, but I want someone who’s a little more creative in their investigating. Somewhere, there must be someone who still plays around with this means of answering riddles.”