River of Blue Fire (11 page)

Well, Celestino was landfill now, a job even
he
would have trouble screwing up.

Dread lit a thin Corriegas cigar, one of the few compensations of being stuck in South America as far as he was concerned, and contemplated his options. He had to be ready if the Old Man had another job for him; this was exactly the wrong time to show any hesitation or resistance. He also had to keep the Otherland puppet sim active, either by himself or with help from trustworthy employees. So far, Dulcie Anwin still fit that category, but bringing in someone else would just mean more management for him, more security concerns, more possible points at which something could go massively astray. . . .

He would put that decision aside for later, he decided. When Dulcie took over in four hours, and if the residual stimulants in his system would permit it, he would try to get a little sleep, and then he might be in a better frame of mind to judge something so important.

But in the interim, he needed to get on with some of his own research. What the people caught inside the Otherland simulation network had discovered told him very little so far about the Old Man's purposes; what they had unwittingly revealed about themselves, though, was more immediately useful. For one thing, if he decided to bring in other sim drivers to help, he could then look into trying to replace a second member of that merry little band of river travelers, in case his current infiltration got bounced from the system by the next giant fish attack or whatever.

However, he was even more interested in knowing who these people were and why the mysterious Sellars had brought them together, and of all the travelers, the African woman and her friend were the top priority. He had the others where he could keep an eye on them, but for all he knew Renie whatever-her-name-was had been knocked offline, in which case she was now a very loose thread indeed.

Dread notched down the intensity of the rhythm track to something more in line with careful thought, then sent a smoke ring spinning toward the low, white ceiling. The room was windowless, part of a half-untenanted office complex in the outer ring of Cartagena, but it had high-bandwidth data lines, and that was all he cared about.

This Renie was African, that much he could have told just from her accent. But someone had said that her companion was a Bushman, and some quick reference-checking suggested that most of the remnants of that people were to be found in Botswana and South Africa. That didn't mean that the woman couldn't be from somewhere else, that they might not have met online, but he liked the odds that they were both from the same place.

So, Botswana and South Africa. He didn't know a lot else about her, but he knew that her brother was in a coma, and when cross-checked with her first name and its possible variants, that would have to narrow things down considerably.

But he wasn't going to do it himself. Not the grunt work. Since the job seemed likely to be in southern Africa, he would let Klekker and his associates handle it, at least until they found a hot trail. After that, he wasn't so sure: Klekker's men were mostly thugs, which certainly came in handy sometimes, but this was a very delicate situation. He would decide when he knew more.

Dread sent up another smoke ring, then waved his hand, obliterating it. The adrenals had kicked in, and along with the rush of energy he felt a sort of blind, idiot ache in his groin and behind his eyes that he hadn't felt since the night he'd taken the stewardess. It was an itch, he knew, that would become more than that soon, but he didn't know how he could possibly find the time to hunt safely. He was right on the edge of the biggest thing ever, and for once he intended to take the Old Man's advice and not let his private pleasures compromise his business.

Dread grinned. The old bastard would be so proud.

A thought occurred to him. He lowered a hand to his crotch and squeezed meditatively. It wasn't a good time to hunt—at least not in RL. But this simulation was so realistic. . . .

What would it feel like, to hunt in Otherland? How closely would these sims imitate life—especially in the losing of it?

He squeezed again, then brought the drums back up inside his head until he could feel them buzzing in his cheekbones, the sound track for some ultimate jungle movie of danger and darkness. The idea, once kindled, began to burn.

What would it feel like?

CHAPTER 5

The Marching Millions

NETFEED/NEWS: US, China At Odds Over Antarctica

(
visual: signing ceremony for Six Powers treaty
)

VO: Only months after the signing of the Zurich accord, two of the Six Powers are again squabbling over Antarctica
.

(
visual: American embassy in Ellsworth
)

Chinese and American companies, both of which license space for commercial exploitation from the UN, are in a dispute over who has the rights to what is thought to be a rich vein of mineral deposits in the Wilkes Land area. Tensions rose last week when two Chinese explorers disappeared, and accusations were made by Chinese media sources that US workers had kidnapped or even murdered them
 . . .

“C
AN I come in?” a voice asked in Renie's ear.

Two seconds later, Lenore Kwok appeared in the conference room. She wore a jaunty leather aviatrix helmet and what looked like new coveralls.

They probably are new
, Renie thought.
Just switched back to default setting
. Even someone who had spent as much time in simulation as she had was finding it hard to reconcile herself to this amazingly realistic new world—no, new
universe
, for all intents and purposes, with different rules for every piece of it.

“I'm really sorry,” Lenore said, “but I still don't have anybody to help you with your gear. A lot of people aren't on the Hive today—I think it's some kind of system problem. Things are pretty crazy. So what you've got is those of us who are at the end of shift, and mostly we're all in the middle of something.” She made an appropriately sad face. “But I thought I'd give you a quick tour of the place anyway. Then, if you want, you can come along with me and Cullen to look at the
Eciton burchelli
bivouac. It's spectacular major, and you'd probably like it better than sitting around here.”

!Xabbu clambered up onto Renie's shoulder to gain a better conversational position. “What is this thing you are going to see?”

“Ants. Come along—you've never seen anything like it. By the time we get back, they should have the system problems ironed out, and someone will be able to help you.”

Renie looked at !Xabbu, who shrugged his narrow simian shoulders. “Okay. But we really need to get out of here, and not just for your sake.”

“I utterly understand.” Lenore nodded earnestly. “You probably have things to do at home. It must be big slow being stuck online.”

“Yes. Big slow.”

Lenore wiggled her fingers and the conference room disappeared, replaced instantly by a huge, domed auditorium. Only a few of the seats were filled, and tiny spots of light gleamed above a dozen or so others, but the vast room was mostly deserted. On the stage—or rather above the stage—floated the largest insect Renie had ever seen, a grasshopper the size of a jet plane.

“. . . 
The exoskeleton
,” a cultivated, disembodied voice was saying, “
has many survival advantages. Evaporation of fluids can be reduced, a definite plus for small animals whose surface-area-to-volume ratio makes them prone to fluid loss, and the skeletal structure also provides a great deal of internal surface area for muscle attachment
. . . .”

The grasshopper continued to pivot slowly in midair, but one of its sides detached and lifted away from its body, an animated cutaway.

“Normally this would be for the first-year students,” Lenore explained, “the lucky ones who get to come to the Hive at all. But there's almost nobody here today, like I told you.”

As various bits of the grasshopper drifted loose, some vanishing to provide a better view of the section they had covered, other parts were highlighted briefly, lit from within.

“
The exoskeleton itself is largely made up of cuticle, which is secreted by the epidermis directly beneath, a layer of epithelial cells which rest on a granular layer called the ‘basement membrane
.”' Various strata in the exposed armor glimmered into life and then faded. “
The cuticle itself is not only extremely efficient at controlling fluid loss, it serves as protection for the animal as well. Insect cuticle has a tensile strength as great as aluminum with only half the weight
. . . .”

!Xabbu was staring solemnly up at the revolving grasshopper. “Like gods,” he murmured. “Do you remember when I said that, Renie? With these machines, people can behave as though they were gods.”

“Pretty chizz, huh?” said Lenore. “I'll show you some more of the place.”

With another finger flick they left the auditorium. Lenore's tour of the Hive took them to the cafeteria—although, she quickly explained, no one really ate there; it was more of a gathering place. High windows made one wall of the beautiful room entirely transparent, looking out onto a grass-fores ted hillside and the edge of a massive tree root. The difference in perspective between the human-sized objects in the room and the insect's-eye view made Renie faintly uneasy, like staring down a very steep angle.

Their guide whisked them through a variety of other spaces—mostly lab rooms, which were smaller versions of the auditorium, where virtual specimens and data could be manipulated in at least three dimensions and a rainbow of colors. They were also shown some “quiet spots” designed just for relaxation and deep pondering, created with the same care that might be lavished on
haiku
poems. There was even a museum of sorts, with small representations of various anomalies discovered in the living laboratory outside the Hive's walls.

“One of the most amazing things,” Lenore said, gesturing at a many-legged creature hovering in midair and lit by invisible light sources, “is that some of these aren't like anything in the real world at all. We wonder sometimes if Kunohara's playing games with us—Cullen's sure of it—but our charter is predicated on an accurate simulation of a ten-thousand-meter-square cross-section of real terrain, with real life-forms, so I'm not sure I believe that. I mean, Kunohara's pretty serious about the field himself. I can't see him just inventing imaginary insects and throwing them into an environment he's been so careful to maintain.”

“Are there other things that are strange in this simulation world?” asked !Xabbu.

“Well, reports sometimes of objects that don't belong in any real-world simulation at all, and some weird effects—ripples in the base media, funny lights, local distortions. But of course, entomologists are just as likely as anyone else to get tired and see things, especially in a place like this, which is already pretty overwhelming.”

“Why did this Kunohara person make all this?” Renie wondered.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Lenore flipped her hand through her hair, and this very human gesture paradoxically reminded Renie that she was watching a simulation, that the real Lenore might look nothing like this creature before her, and was certainly physically somewhere else entirely. “I read somewhere that he was one of those kids that was obsessed by bugs when he was little—of course, that's true for most of us here. But the difference was, he made money at it. Secured some crucial biomedical patents when he was in his early twenties—that Cimbexin stuff they're trying to use as a cellular-growth on-off switch was one of his, and that self-fitting tile, Informica—and made millions. Billions, eventually.”

“And so he built this with the money?” !Xabbu was examining a caddisfly larva with what seemed too many legs as it emerged from its chrysalis over and over in a looped display.

“No, we built this, if you mean the Hive—well, a consortium of universities and agribusinesses did. But Kunohara built the world outside—the simulation we're studying. And it's really pretty amazing. Come on, I'll show you.”

The transition from the Hive museum to the cabin of the dragonfly-plane was instantaneous. Cullen was already in his pilot's seat. He nodded in greeting, then returned to his instruments.

“Sorry to jump you around like that,” said Lenore, “but we take advantage of our sovereignty in the Hive and don't waste much time imitating normality. As soon as we go through the hangar doors, everything happens in real time and like real life, even if it
is
happening in Giant Bug World. Kunohara's rules.”

“He'd make us walk if he could,” Cullen said. “Every now and then one of our sims gets munched—a migration specialist named Traynor got cornered by a whip scorpion the other day. Turned him into bug-food faster than I can say it. I bet Kunohara thought that was pretty funny.”

“What happened to him?” !Xabbu asked worriedly, clearly picturing what a scorpion would look like at this scale.

“To Traynor? Just a rude shock, then he got bounced out of the system.” Cullen rolled his eyes. “That's what always happens. But then we had to reapply to get him another licensed sim. That's why Angela wasn't exactly pleased to see you. The celebrated Mr. K. is pretty tight-sphinctered about what goes in and out of his simworld.”

“Thanks for that vivid image, Cullen,” said Lenore.

“Belt up,” he responded. “I'm talking to you two rookies in particular. I've got clearance, and we're ready to fly. You don't want to get tactor-bounced any more than necessary.”

As Renie and !Xabbu scrambled to secure themselves, the hangar door slid open, revealing a wall of shadowy plant shapes and a light gray sky.

“What time is it?” Renie asked.

“Where you are? You'd know better than me.” Lenore shook her head. “This simworld's on GMT. It's a little after five
AM
here. The best time to see the
Eciton
is when they start moving around dawn.”

“We're cutting it fine, though.” Cullen frowned. “If you'd been here on time, Kwok, we'd be there by now.”

“Shut up and fly this old crate, bug-boy.”

!Xabbu sat quietly, staring out the window as the mountainous trees loomed and then slid past on either side. Renie could not help but be impressed herself: It was daunting, seeing things from this perspective. A lifetime of ecological catastrophes being pumped through her consciousness by the newsnets had left her with a feeling of the environment as a fragile thing, an ever-thinning web of greenery and clean water. In the real world that might be so, but to be brought down to this size was to see nature in its former terrifying and dictatorial splendor. She could at last truly imagine the Earth as Gaea, as a single living thing, and herself as a part of a complicated system rather than a something perched atop the ladder of Creation. So much of that sense of mastery was perspective, she realized—simply a product of being one of the larger animals. At her current size, every leaf was a marvel of complexity. Beneath every stone, on every lump of dirt, lived whole thriving villages of tiny creatures, and on those animals lived even more minute creatures. For the first time, she could imagine the chain of life down to molecules, and even smaller.

And has someone built that here as well
? she wondered.
As !Xabbu said, are we becoming gods, that we can grow ourselves as big as a universe, or walk inside an atom
?

It was hard not to be impressed by Atasco and Kunohara and the rest—at least those who had not knowingly built their wonderlands with the suffering of others. What she had seen so far was truly stunning.

“God
damn
.” Cullen slapped his hand against the steering wheel. “We're late.”

Renie leaned so that she could look past him, but all she could see through the windshield was more of the giant forest. “What is it?”

“The troop's already on the move,” said Lenore. “See those?” She pointed to several dark shapes fitting above them in the branches.

“Those are antbirds and woodcreepers. They follow the
Eciton
swarm when it travels, and feed on the creatures driven ahead of it.”

“I'm going to have to put on the autopilot,” Cullen said crossly. “It's going to be bumpy, but don't blame me—
I
was on time.”

“Human pilots aren't fast enough to avoid all the bird strikes,” Lenore explained. “Don't take Cullen's charming manners too personally. He's always like this before breakfast, aren't you, Cully?”

“Get locked.”

“It is too bad, though,” she went on. “One of the most interesting things about the
Eciton
is how they make their camp—their ‘bivouac' as it's called. They have tarsal claws, these hooks on their feet, and when the troop stops, they grab each other and link up into long hanging vertical chains. Other ants hook on, until eventually there's a kind of net many layers deep, made entirely of ants, that covers the queen and her larvae.”

Renie was fairly certain she'd heard of more disgusting things in her life but she couldn't think of any offhand. “These are army ants?”