Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future (43 page)

Thomas—
Perfect
, he reminded himself— took them up a mountainside, through trees noticeably shorter, and barer, as the afternoon passed. The summit was sharp and raw, no mansion built upon it. They climbed past a single greenish boulder, then dropped into a grove of blue-black spruces. With stone tools they cut boughs for bedding. With flint and dried wood they made a
sputtering fire, and Perfect held his imperfect hands to it, catching some portion of its tiny heat.

Ord asked why he lived this way. "You sing out of key. You don't paint particularly well. And you get cold." He listed the items as if they were symptoms of disease. "And you won't even regenerate a simple finger, will you?"

"I'm not cold," Perfect protested. "And when I am, I'll pull my robe out of my pack."

Ord was comfortable. As the sun set, his flesh generated its own internal fire. Yet he held his hands to Perfect's fire, remarking, "Alice wouldn't live this way."

A laugh, insane and infuriating.

Then, "From what you've said, Alice might be thrilled to live this well now."

That wasn't what Ord meant, and both knew it.

"Let me tell you about our dear sister." Perfect pulled dried meat from his pack, offering none to Ord. "Every fancy skill, every energy source, all that godly garb… Alice wanted them. Always, always. Everyone's that way, in their fashion. But she's about the worst, and I'd like to think, with a good Chamberlain modesty, that I'm the best. I acquire only those talents that I absolutely need, and if I'm wrong, I give them away again. To Alice, in some cases."

"Augmenting your voice… is that too fancy…?"

"Oh, I sing, and I like singing. I just do it badly." Another laugh while he chewed on the inedible mammoth. "Everything I do I do with joy and within my limits, and that's all I want."

"But you didn't even know about the trial," Ord complained.

"If something truly important happens, I'll hear about it." A little wink. "But you're right, I'm not tied to the universal networks. And I don't know ten million languages. My mathematics are useful, no more. My senses are good enough, no more. And my strengths fit the job of the moment." A soft, slow laugh, then he added, "In case you haven't noticed, my humor is simple. Maybe even a little crude. Which suits my needs fine, thank you."

But why? Ord kept thinking. Why are you different?

"My moment of enlightenment?" Perfect waited for his brother's eyes, then said, "Eons ago, I was sitting beside an alien sea, in my best godly fashion, and this fellow happened to stroll past me. Do you know about the Brongg?"

Bipeds, vaguely fishlike. A home world with methane seas and water-ice continents. They were the oldest known intelligent species, and Brother Thomas was the first human to meet them.

"Very good," the caveman offered, giving a little chuckle. "Anyway, this little fellow was walking Brongg-fashion, meaning syrupy-slow. When he saw me, he gave me greetings and stopped to chat— the Brongg are great talkers— and eventually I learned his identity. He was famous. Ancient beyond belief. I was a baby, barely a million years old, and of all the creatures I have ever met, he seemed the most genuinely happy. A billion years of happiness walk
ing on the beach, carrying nothing but a simple ice lance— he was fishing, Ord— and I've always held that lesson very close to my heart."

They were a cold, cold species, Ord knew. The Brongg had wondrous technologies, but they did little with them. They traveled sparingly, reproduced slowly, and were as alien and bizarre as anything humans had ever found. How could they bring enlightenment?

Perfect didn't answer that thought. Rising, he pulled the promised robe from his pack, the fur rich and glossy, sewn together from smaller furs with a certain artless skill.

"Why did you come back to the Earth?"

His brother lay down beside the fire, a bent arm serving as a pillow. "I was asked to come," he muttered. "Someone appeared without warning, gave me my marching orders, then framed it as a request before she vanished again."

Alice.

Perfect gave a sleepy nod, eyes beginning to close.

But before he could sleep, or whatever state it was, he heard one last question from a confused little brother. "Are we still in the estates? Because I'm forbidden to leave them—"

"Watch the sky," Perfect advised.

Ord obeyed, his heated breath rising toward the night's first stars. They were the right stars in the right places, but where were the planets? And the starships coming and going? Glancing to his left, he saw the green boulder on the summit become a smooth green globe, and the mountain beneath it evaporated, and the stars brightened and multiplied in the sudden vacuum… and a thousand lessons in terraforming told Ord what he was seeing.

Gazing at the green world, he whispered, "Neptune."

Against all reason, in one afternoon he and Perfect had hiked their way to the chilled edge of the solar system.

6

You will be stripped of possessions, money and mind, and each of your works will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Worlds terraformed in good faith, by legal means, will be spared. But illegal worlds will be sought out and destroyed by whatever means are deemed humane.…

—from Alice's sentencing

Ord watched Neptune, wonderstruck by its presence. Because it was genuine, he sensed. No illusions involved. This was the modern Neptune, terraformed in increments by many people, including Chamberlains.

Including Alice, in her youth.

Technical details buoyed up out of his augmented memory. Small gas giants of this class had their volatile gases shattered, hydrogen sequestered inside the deep core while metals and silicates were pulled up in its place. Airborne continents were grown, floating on giant vacuum bubbles. The new atmosphere was nitrogen and helium, sweet oxygen, and the vital trace gases. Light and heat came from fusion, each world capable of fending for itself. An area
many times Earth's was made habitable, at a profit; and with modern methods, an Alice-class human could finish the essential work in less than five thousand years.

Why were they here? he asked himself.

What was special about Neptune?

But despite his questions and the lousy bed, Ord felt himself drifting off to sleep, dark and dreamless, then woke when the blunt end of a spear was jabbed into his ribs.

"Time to leave," said a distant voice, with urgency. "They know you're missing, and you're making them afraid."

The sky was cobalt blue, another false sun washing away the stars. Ord rose, attempting to ask every question that he had thought up last night. Words came in a rush, then he faltered. Then Perfect was walking and Ord was walking beside his brother, step for step; and a sensation, bizarre and indescribable, made him mutter, "What's happened to me?"

"You've been altered, a bit. Alice began the work, and I did some tinkering last night." The profile was weathered, sober. "We've rebuilt you as quickly as possible, under these circumstances—"

"What's wrong with me?"

"If you're like me, nothing." A bleak, oversized laugh. "The truth? Part of you is a starship. You're built from dark matter and magic, and your engines are an exotic inertialess drive. Your hull is invisible, we can hope. Legs and lungs, and your skin, are projections based on your own expectations." A second smaller laugh. "Despite appearances, we're actually moving at very nearly lightspeed."

Ord snapped, "I don't believe you."

"That's probably best, all things considered."

For an instant, Ord felt the man speaking to him in many voices, most of them in convoluted technical languages that some new, unexpected part of him ingested without fuss, without hesitation. But what made him panic was the sudden sensation of his true self: Huge and ghostly, suffused with liquid energies beyond almost any human's experience.

He tried to walk slower, and couldn't.

"For the moment," said Perfect, "I will operate your legs."

Ord crossed nonexistent arms on his facsimile chest. "I want to know where we're going."

Perfect squinted, as if he could see their destination. In the illusion, they were marching down a verdant mountainside, birds and other phantoms calling out as they passed.

"This is illegal," the boy gasped.

"Immoral," his brother agreed. "And cruel. And dangerous, too." That brought genuine pleasure, bubbling and warm. "But when a famous criminal came to you, did you tell the authorities? When she slipped you a mysterious object, did you say, 'Look here, everyone! Look what Alice gave me!'?"

Ord was weeping. Sobbing.

"For now," said Perfect, "we're traveling to the Oort cloud."

"Then where?"

"Let's reach the cloud first," his brother replied. "That way, if you're caught, you can claim to have been kidnapped—"

"I am kidnapped!"

"Good attitude. Keep it up."

Ord never would have agreed if he'd known… if he'd been given any hint of what was involved… crimes accomplished, grave danger implied.… an insane journey away from the safety and comfort of home…!

A five-fingered hand patted Ord on the back.

"You would have balked, yes. But out of fear and ignorance. That's why I framed the question as I did: 'Do you wish to help?' You do or you don't, and both of us know you do. You can't help but want to help, which is an honored old Chamberlain curse."

The boy tried to collapse. And couldn't. He felt limp, half-dead and wracked with miseries, uttering a great long sob before asking the perfectly reasonable question:

"Why me?"

"My question too." A weighty pause, then another useless pat on the back. "Perhaps Alice wants you because you're the baby. Perhaps it's as simple as that."

Ord barely heard him, his mind collapsing in on itself.

"We Chamberlains love closure, that sense of being
done
. That's why we build exceptional worlds. Durable, full-bodied biospheres equal to three billion years of raw evolution."

What was he saying?

"The last Chamberlain is sent on a great mission by one of the first." Perfect clucked his tongue but didn't laugh. "It's closure, and it feels right, and maybe that's all there is to that. Despite its source, the decision could be that simple."

*

They crossed billions of kilometers, and the country, befitting some odd logic, grew colder and drier, forests replaced with open steppe populated with herds of extinct game. Giant bison and woolly mammoths grazed beneath a weakening sun. In the distance, looming like mountains, was a blue-white glacial mass. Sometimes Ord noticed human hunters in the distance, some of them walking, some standing in one place, watching. Watching for us, he suddenly realized. They were symbols meant to mark other ships, but even the nearest of them couldn't find the brothers.

Ord quit weeping, forcing himself out of self-pity. In a choking voice, he asked, "Why do you travel this way?"

"In ancient times," said Perfect, "travelers onboard steamships and starships would pin photographs and holos to their cabin walls. To remind them of comfortable places, of course. To give their eyes something other than empty water and space."

Ord found himself listening, glad for the voice.

"Space bores me," said his incredible brother. "Hard vacuums and the ancient cold play on my nerves, if you want the truth."

Ord felt the vacuum surrounding him. It was a thin chill stew of virtual particles, and it felt like a light winter breeze.

He asked, "How long were you hiding in the estate?"

"I followed Alice home from the Core, a few years afterward."

"Because she wanted you to come? Is that the only reason?"

A mild, quiet laugh, a wisdom implied. "You aren't the only person whom our sister has bewitched."

Questions, like virtual particles, appeared out of nothing.

And vanished again.

"I've known Alice for almost my entire life." Perfect paused, waiting for his brother's eyes. "I don't need much prompting from her. For a lot of reasons, I behave."

"If you were at the Core," Ord remarked, "you could have been helping."

"Help build that universe? Hardly." A hard chuckle. "The Core is a big place, and I wasn't with her. I was living in seclusion between Alice and your front door."

"But you knew what she was doing—?"

"And fought with her when she came to visit." A black expression, sour and wild-eyed. "Oh, I fought. I augmented myself with every persuasive skill, and when they failed, I threatened her. As if that could do any good."

Each step took them closer to the high glacial wall. Between them and the ice was a low moraine, moss and lichen growing wherever there was shelter. As they climbed the loose slope, their feet destroyed oases and created new ones. With a quiet voice— a hunter's voice— Perfect asked:

"Do you wonder what they did with Alice's powers?"

They had been stripped away. Of course.

"But what does that mean?" Perfect posed the question, then gave an answer. "Powers have physical sources. Augmented minds need neural nets. Moving a world requires godly power. And there are the machines that crack molecules and weave dark matter and build bodies and tear them down again, in an instant." The healthy hand took Ord by the arm, then squeezed. "I'm talking about Alice's body and mind. Her bolts and microchines. And her antimatter-digesting guts, too."

"I've wondered about them," the boy confessed.

"A grand secret, they are. And a wrenching problem for the poor officials who need to decipher them, then destroy them."

They reached the moraine's crest as the sun set behind them. A day done; a comforting sense of closure. Perfect dropped his knapsack and sat on it, eating his endless dried meat, gladly sharing it with the boy when he asked for another taste.

Without daylight, the world shrank, darkness giving the tundra a close, constricting feel. But the ice seemed to grow, becoming glassy, some subtle inner light betraying networks of fine cracks and deep fissures. Tiny, tiny humans stood at its base. Each held a spear, but Ord realized that spears meant weapons of a different kind; and in a whisper, Perfect said: