The Great Symmetry (21 page)

Evan shined his light around the chamber. On a far wall, there was a steady drip, about one drop every two or three seconds. Each drop fell for a meter into a shallow pool. The outlet was the tiniest trickle, which joined another, slightly larger stream. The combined flow ran down a slope to join the cascade that raged into the pool. From there, the identity of the small stream, and of each component drop, was instantly and completely lost.

Once, he had visited an area of waterfalls and rocky streams on Caledonia. This stream was oddly different than those. He watched as the planet’s pull only lazily convinced the water to flow to the lowest place. Rounded blobs accruing in each fall and then being smashed on rock or absorbed back into the pool below.

The stream had been there for millennia, beyond the threshold of human knowledge. Some of the rain that fell once or twice a year in the highlands to the north, even above the altitude of breathable air, gathered in this stream and flowed every moment, in a place that did not know
day or night.

At last, one human had come upon the sight. And she had backed away, leaving it free to flow as it always had. Choosing not to stake a claim that would have brought her a lifetime of unbounded riches.

Mira. The last person he would have ever expected to make such a choice.

The river flowed past, unmindful of their presence, no more affected by the light than by the eternal dark that had preceded their arrival, and that would soon be restored
.

At last Evan understood.

He swore his oath.

Part 5: The Daughters of Atlas

Live Broadcast

“Okay Governor, here’s your script. We’ve got a few minutes to practice, but we don’t have long. As soon as we get it recorded, we’re going to turn around and release it live. This can’t wait.” The frazzled producer had none of his usual smooth manner.

Governor Rezar looked at the displays and began to read.

He looked up from the script.
“Is this for real?”

“Yes sir, that’s why we had to pull you from your tournament. I am deeply sorry about that. It’s an emergency.” The producer listened to something in his earpiece. “We need to record in just a few minutes.”

“A nuclear strike?”

“I’m afraid we couldn’t create a True Story in time, so we had to go with some objectively factual elements. It’s the best we can do.
And by the way, it’s tactical nuclear,” the producer clarified.

The governor spluttered. “How could this−”

The producer’s expression looked like he was trying to settle down an anxious performing animal. “We’ll give you a full briefing, but right now, we need to get this broadcast out.
We’re experiencing huge losses in confidence. The market is down over eight percent, and that’s everybody’s retirement. So we need to help our constituents.”

Rezar studied the script. The makeup artist came in. Rezar was experienced at learning his scripts during makeup and hair.
The script was short. It was no problem. During recording, he had the prompter as well, although he had learned that he looked much more authentic if he knew what was coming.

A nuclear strike. On his planet. This was wrong. Even an uninhabited patch of desert.

Rezar queried for recent command-level communications with Affirmatix and found the recording from a few hours earlier. General Leon and Admiral Incento, practically falling over themselves to accommodate Vice President Lobeck of Affirmatix. It went beyond the normal privilege and respect that was accorded to a top figure of any Sister. The voices
smelled of fear.

He searched, chasing down leads. At one point he had to enter an additional security code, beyond his usual credentials. Rezar was glad he could remember the code, and that it was still current.

Then he had it. The D6, a weapon that could end all life on Kelter, was insystem. The ultimate threat, exacting frantic cooperation from the Kelter security forces, to locate and turn over three fugitives. Unbelievable, not just the fact of it, but that he hadn’t been told.

“Governor, it’s time.” The producer brought Rezar back from his inquiries.

Rezar felt like his mind was split in two. The extremity of the situation could barely exist in the same universe as the words he had been practicing and was about to recite.

The governor began his address. “Good afternoon, fellow citizens, consumers, and hard-
working, patriotic supporters of our way of life. I need to talk to you about a very important topic. You may have heard that a tactical nuclear device was used in the Valley of Dreams site, forty kilometers to the northwest of Abilene. This was a necessary part of an ongoing counterterrorism operation that we conducted in a public-private partnership with the Affirmatix Family. We were forced to take this measure in order to absolutely assure that certain very dangerous materials were completely destroyed.”

“I am happy to report that the operation was one hundred percent successful. We are completing our site assessment and will be wrapping up operations over the next few days
. We also expect that the blockade, which was necessarily put in place around the system, will likely be lifted sometime in the next two or three days, as soon as we have completed our verification.”

“One unfortunate result of this will be that we will have to re-designate the area around this operation as a military reservation, to protect you from hazards and assure everyone’s safety. We’ll be publishing the new boundaries of the reservation into all navigation systems in the next few hours.”

“I know that the events of the past few days have created a lot of anxiety, and I assure you that I am working, all day and every day, to make sure that everything is back to normal just as soon as possible. Meanwhile, please go about your business. Remember that your job needs you and the families need
you. Thank you and have a great day.”

The producer looked pleased with the result. “Thank you so much for coming, Governor, and we’ll get you right back to your tournament. The players have all halted as a courtesy to you, so it will be your turn to play just as soon as you get there.”

The seventh hole. Par four, eight hundred ten yards. Rezar had launched
a fantastic drive and would be hitting his second from only two hundred yards out. If he could stick the green, he had a great chance at birdie. It was the one golf course on Kelter that had actual living grass on the greens, and that was softer than the usual turf. It was his favorite course.

“Please send my regrets to the other players,” Rezar told the producer. “I must attend to a pressing matter.”

“Marcom advises that the appearance of normalcy is critical on today of all days,” the producer protested. “And I heard you’re in a great position on the seventh.”

“Then everyone else will just have to appear normal in my stead,” the governor said, and headed out of the studio.

His guard detail fell in with him. Colonel Ellis had been with him for five years. She approached her duty to protect the governor with a seriousness that sometimes embarrassed him. The others in the detail were all highly trusted but less personally vested. They simply did their jobs, in rotating shifts
.

Rezar knew, without even having to check, that Ellis had planned the egress route, and made sure that others had swept it within the past few minutes. That the vehicle was secure. That nothing would happen.

“Deborah,” he said. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Name it, Governor,” Ellis replied.

“I need to know what’s happening out there. In the Valley of Dreams. We can’t rely on the information from Affirmatix.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“I want you to go to the site. Find any evidence you can. Check for survivors in the vicinity. Anything you find, bring it back directly to me. Nobody else. Will you do that for me? As a personal favor.”

“I’ll send a detail, sir.” Ellis started to pull up her phone.

“No. You. Lead the force in person.”

“But my first duty−” she protested.

“Is to protect me, I know.” They had gone down this road before. “And at this moment, investigating the Valley of Dreams is the best way to do that. Please.”

Ellis considered for a moment. “I’m on it,” she said.

Unfinished Business

For more than a kilometer Evan and Kate followed Mira along the course of the stream through the cave, doing their best to stay out of the water. It was a raging torrent in most places, and stunningly cold, as they found out when they refilled their water containers. Cold, but fresh, instead of the saline of all other natural water known on Kelter.

Above the stream, a braided series of upper level passages wound along. Once, the stream had flowed up there, until it had cut farther and farther down to its present course. In some places, the upper passages were separate and had their own floors, making for easy travel. In other spots, an upper passage would cut directly over the stream passage, and they needed to leap across.

The noise was omnipresent.

The walls and floor of the cave also looked very different from before.
In the dry passages, the rock was coated with a fine layer of dust, or floored with sediment. While the passage often had strange and fantastic shapes, the color was a dull grey or tan.

Here, the wetness provided a view into the layers, veins, and other fine features of the rock. Evan found himself stopping to look at the details, before the cold and Mira’s urging hurried him along.

In some places the ripples of the water reflected their lights into waves that reflected all over the walls and ceiling of the cave, a fantastic effect of which he had never seen the like.

It was a cold, forbidding, and dangerous place. And it was
amazing.

The most difficult stretch of passage was the place where every level aligned, forming a single tall hallway over a hundred meters high, floored with rushing water. Mira took them on an intricate route along a series of ledges, twice having to jump entirely across to the opposite wall. In those places she had trailed the line, which made the crossing easy for Kate. Evan leapt across as the tail, with the line tied around him but no certainty that it would help if he missed his mark.

When they were back in a safer upper level, they walked along, until Mira pointed to a small hole in the floor. They could hear the roar from below. “That’s it,” she said.
“The last of the river.”

Evan and Kate looked at each other with a joy that belied their overall situation. That ordeal, at least, was done.

“Where does the stream come from?” asked Evan.

“It’s a mystery,” Mira told him. “I have gone another two kilometers upstream. I came to a waterfall and was able to jump up it, using some ledges. Then I got up another two waterfalls.
At my farthest point, I got to a fourth waterfall, taller than the others, and pouring down through a small hole at the top. Air and mist swirling everywhere.”

“Could you see beyond?”

“Big, and black. There
is some kind of huge room up there. And the river must go a long way farther. I tried to jump up through it. Once. Very bad idea. I think the only way to get to the top would be to set some bolts in the wall to anchor a climbing rope or a ladder
, and work up it a few steps at a time. I have always wanted to come back, with a crew, and climb it, because I think it’s the greatest mystery in this world. But I couldn’t bring myself to show the river to anyone else.”

“The edge of knowledge,” Evan considered. “You know, when we were digging at the Valley of Dreams, I wasn’t too interested in climbing around in the cave. I had my own puzzles to solve, ”
he told her. “But if you don’t find anyone better, I’ll help you with the climb. You would have to show me how to do all of it, with the bolts and the ropes.”

“You’ve got a deal. The name of the waterfall is Unfinished Business. If we climb it, then it will need a new name.”

“Oh,
no,” he disagreed. “Keep the name. For history.”

They left the hole in the floor, and the river, traveling in passages that were once again bone dry.

Now the passage walls were covered with angular white crystals that sparkled in their headlights. In some places the crystals grew in the form of bushes, up to three meters across, mostly filling up the passage so that it was necessary to squeeze past them.

The most beautiful part of the cave was also the sharpest. Evan was grateful for the gloves that had been part of the chopper gear, and which he still wore.

After the sounds of water were completely gone, Mira signaled a break. A round room with a perfectly flat floor greeted them.
It was even soft. Some ancient stream, or perhaps the wind, had seen fit to provide them with a perfect cushion of sediment. They ate a light meal in the comfortable spot. It was hard to imagine moving any time soon.

“We may as well get some rest here after dinner
,” Mira told them. “Best place we’ll have for a while, and we can’t go all the way without at least a little more sleep.”

“I’m good with that,” Evan said. “At least I’m not in an EVA with the suit telling me I need to sleep in order to conserve oxygen.”

“I was just camping,” Kate said. “Trying not to think of the end of my family. And a few hours later we’re deep in the cave, running from Arn Lobeck and his minions.
What brought them upon us?”

“It’s kind of a long story. I’ll tell it all to you, and it will make quite a tale. When this is all over, maybe you could write another book, except it wouldn’t be
Tails of Versari
. What are you up to, five of them?”

“It’s
seven now, Evan.”

“Vanity press,” Mira put in. “You give them away, right? And the Versari didn’t even have tails. Just stubs, really. Stubs of the Versari, there’s a name for you.”

“Mira, enough! If you could stop that backbiting for just long enough for us to get out of this cave−”

“Thank you Evan, but I don’t need you to defend me,” Kate said. “
The schools need my books, and they have no budget any more.
Tail of Rissta
was read by practically the entire eighth grade on Abilene. I’m proud of that, and it doesn’t matter what Mira or anyone else says.”

“I picked up one just before I went to Aurora,” Evan told Kate.
“
Tail of Uve
. A nice read.”

“You said that it was filled with unproven and unscientific crap,” Mira added helpfully.

“Well, the part about the Versari sensing where the glomes went, that’s pretty far out,” Evan admitted. “But, maybe I have a different perspective now. I enjoyed it.
”

“Evan, you read
Tail of Uve
? Why didn’t you send me a note? I would have loved to hear from you.”

“I’m not much of a letter writer, you know. I didn’t know what to say. Oh Kate, I liked your book, and by the way I’m sorry to hear about your parents. Oh, no. I shouldn’t have said that.
”

“No, that’s okay,” Kate told him. “And I wish you would have written.”

Evan felt an old hurt rise. “Well, I didn’t know that. When it happened, you know how I found out? A news report. The obituary. Three
weeks old. Just saw it by accident. Your parents, and you didn’t even tell me. Didn’t even ask me to come to their celebration.”