The Great Symmetry (25 page)

“Is that good news?” Kate asked.

“Affirmatix or Kelter government, I don’t think it makes a difference,” Mira said. “Pigs of
the same litter.”

Evan stepped up to Mira. “You can do it, Mira,” Evan told her.

“I’m not sure you understand. This is the East Edge. It’s no playground. If I had any kind of glider, it would be a piece of cake. What do we have? Nothing.”

“I know you can jump, Mira. Not just in the cave.” During the expeditions at the Valley of Dreams, Mira had launched herself from the tall cliffs above, bounding from ledge to ledge, all the way down. It was great sport, and she always enjoyed doing something that nobody else dared to try. It had become a spectator event to watch her on a new descent route.

Mira eyed the choppers, coming in from two directions. “I’ve got this,” she said.

Evan took her hand for a moment. “Thank you,” was all he said.

Then Kate. This time Mira gave in
. It was more than a lady golfer hug. And, it was not so bad.

Mira prepared the reader. First, another card from Evan, with the data and the same cover message. Tell Everyone. She put it in her pouch, which already was slung on her front, inside her coat. She zipped up the front of her coat and stepped to the edge.

It was going to be a close thing between the two groups of choppers.

The open book. Two surfaces of rock, not quite parallel but still very open to the world, separated by a dark crack. Facing sideways, she could dance her way down between them, stepping forward and back, if she did it just right. Staying centered and balanced on the space in between, and not putting too much into any one step. If she caught too hard on any one spot, the force would set her spinning, and it would be over.

Mira had a backup plan. If she lost control on the descent, she would curl herself forward into a ball, protecting the reader. It would probably survive the impact, and would continue to automatically send its message, if it had a clear sight line to anywhere in civilization, or to enough open sky for a satellite, from the bottom of the cliff.

As she stood on the edge, she checked the
two groups of choppers once more. Something was changing in the lead flier from the unmarked group. She zoomed in.

The bay was open, and the barrel of a heavy weapon was pivoting toward them.

Mira shouted back. “Take cover!”

Do not think. Just do. She walked three steps to the left along the edge. Mira heard the explosions behind her as she took a larger bounding step, back to the right toward the open book, into the thin air.

Trust

Evan scrambled to follow Kate over a boulder near the back wall of the cliff, then joined her in a shallow recess at the base. The boulder provided some cover. It was the best place they could find on five seconds notice.

Another explosion shook the ledge.

As they hid, Evan found himself regretting that he wouldn’t be able to see it. He didn’t doubt for a moment that this jump was Mira’
s biggest and finest dance ever.

The choppers were growing closer. Waves of sound from the rotors pulsed, at times interfering with each other and creating strange moments of near silence before the next beat arrived even louder than the one before.

Evan pulled himself into the crawl space as completely as he could. “Kate,” he said. “If we don’t make it−”

“Evan, stop with that.
Here and now. Right here. Right now.”

Here and now. Kate was handing words that he had used so many times right back to him.

The rotor noise ramped up even more. Some of the choppers must be directly overhead. At least the artillery had stopped for now. What else was going on out there?

Evan needed to know more. He rolled over and started to struggle part way out of the cleft. He
heard Kate behind him. “They’re shooting out there!”

Evan kept behind the boulder for cover, and listened, wishing he could see out from where he huddled.

He closed his eyes to focus. There were two distinct types of chopper. Some had a lower frequency wave with a lower speed whumph, while others had
a fast tinny heartbeat. Their signatures mixed and echoed all over the rocks around them, and there was no way to tell where any one chopper was.

Two sharp, curt calls that must be voices. Maybe ten or twenty meters away- it was hard to tell. Were they on the ground?

Then, no mistaking boots scuffing on gravel and rock. Yes they were.

More commands.

The rotor sounds from both types of chopper were represented, but somehow fewer now. Evan wished they were gone, so he could hear what was going on.

Evan imagined the space for just a few yards around them, willing himself to hear only what was nearby. More footsteps to his
left, at least three people. To the right, something scraping on the ground. A creak that sounded like hinges unfolding.

Directly above him, he felt a shadow, and looked up.

Brown chitinous plates, darker insect eyes. Evan could not tell if he had been seen. Then the creature slowly put out an armored hand, recognizable as human. Pointing down, palm toward him. Stay. Be calm.

More shouting. Evan
could only make out a few of the words, but there was no mistaking the intent. Hostile orders. Intimidation. Defiance. Threats.

Evan squeezed Kate’s shoulder. “Be ready,” he told her.

The hand moved. Just a fraction, twice. Pointing slightly back, then reset to its original position. Such a slight movement, but he knew. Move, it had said.

To trust, or not?

He had such limited information.

The hand gestured again. The soldi
er still faced resolutely forward, having never looked down at him.

Evan closed his eyes again and considered the fabric of possibilities. Who did they fear most? The families, of course. Affirmatix.

And an Affirmatix hireling would not signal. Would not request. Their hired gun would be pointed straight at his head, demanding obedience.

Evan began to scramble out of the hole. He reached back and gave Kate’s shoulder an urg
ent tug. He slithered behind the boulder, then behind the soldier’s armored legs.

More soldiers were positioned behind a set of barricades, facing to Evan’s left. The men had deployed the shields remarkably quickly. Straight ahead of him was a chopper, about ten meters away. It was amazing to Evan how it had been able to land so precisely, just a few meters from the edge of a kilometer-deep fall. Evan thought the chopper might be the promised land, and moved forward for a better look.

In low gravity, it’s easy to crawl. Just a few pounds of pressure kept his
belly off the ground. The main hazard was pushing too hard, and popping up. Evan resolved to stay low.

The dialog now came through clearly.

“You must get out of the way so we can recover the terrorists and all of their effects! Now! Stand aside, every moment counts.” There was no mistaking the voice of Arn Lobeck.

“I have my orders. I am securing this site and all evidence. We’ll keep you fully apprised of the situation.” A woman, perhaps older, with a strong deep voice that was a match for Lobeck’s.

“I don’t think you understand. You are endangering a counterterrorism operation. Let us through,
” Lobeck ordered.

“I will be following my orders. Sir.”

Evan and Kate crawled forward another meter. The open side door of the chopper faced them.

The soldier who had originally found them was walking along beside them, still giving no evidence to the world that they were crawling below. Then the soldier turned left, facing the barricades with his arms straight down, pointing with just an index finger in the direction they were crawling. Toward the chopper.

Evan reached back for Kate, taking her hand and pulling her forward to match his position. For a moment, they lay flat on the gravel, faces turned to face each other. Then he turned to look forward.

Five meters short of the chopper, the line of barricades ended. Five meters in the open.
They crawled forward to the end of the shelter.

It would take just one second to get across. Maybe two.

There was a big difference between one second and two. That additional moment might be all someone needed, to aim and shoot, if that was their plan. Evan did not doubt that it was so.

They would
have to go at the same time.

The argument continued. Evan tuned it out.

Kate was to his right. They looked at each other. Evan pointed forward. Kate nodded. Evan rose up to a starting crouch, and Kate followed suit.

More yelling. The woman soldier was holding her ground. Holding out. For them, Evan assumed. He held up one finger, then two, then three. And they launched.

There are many delights of living on a world with low gravity, but a huge drawback is the difficulty of going forward very quickly. Flat ground gives you nothing to push against. Evan scrabbled with his feet, accelerating as quickly as he could.

Evan saw that he had made a stronger start than Kate, and he was pulling ahead. He reached back and caught her shoulder, pulling her forward with him. One more big push with his feet, and they flew past the barricade together, into the open gap.

As he wrapped his arms around Kate, Evan looked back over his right shoulder. In a fraction of a second, he saw more details than he had noticed in some other entire days of his life. Arn Lobeck towering above their defender, a hand raised in front of her face. The woman, wearing just a khaki uniform even as the other soldiers were in full armor, her hair coming out from her cap in a tidy braid. Lobeck pivoting to suddenly point at Evan, almost hitting the woman as he did so.

Behind Lobeck, a line of metal grey armored men. In an absurd detail, Evan realized that he had no idea if they were men, or women, or a mix.

One word. “Shoot!”

But the blasts were too late. Evan and Kate had aimed perfectly, sailing into the open compartment of the chopper and slamming into the far wall.

A man was yelling. “Is that everyone!?”

“Yes!” Evan shouted.

The man waved his arm in a circle, and immediately the chopper fired up.

Another soldier was throwing something over them. It looked like a blanket, but there was far more mass to it.

As the chopper shuddered off the ground, Evan bolted upright and started to shrug the heavy cover off. “Mira!” He frantically pointed down. “Down the cliff! One more!”

The man pushed down on Evan’s shoulder. “We saw. We have a recovery team there. Now stay under the cover.”

“Is she okay?”

The man tapped his own temple. “Need to know. Stay down.”

The chopper rapidly gained height and speed, tearing around the huge bulge of rock, leaving any possible view of Mira behind.

Part 6: Delusional Optimism

Tell Everyone

Axiom studied the transmittal. The request was clear enough. “Tell Everyone.”

That did not mean he would act upon the request, unless it had merit. Axiom and his network had resources that they had accumulated over decades, preparing for the moment when there was something to say that would truly matter.
Many of those resources would be lost the first time they were ever used. Lives would be harmed, some even ended.

He called in his most trusted circle of friends and advisors. They analyzed, conferred, and analyzed further. Authenticity was first. It appeared highly likely. The data explained the discovery of the new glome, and the arrival of the pursuing warships. If it was a hoax, it was
extremely elaborate, and fragile, since it could be so easily disproved.

Significance was next. If it was true, then it was a blockbuster. All of the hyperspace glomes for thousands of parsecs in every direction, and their destinations. Routes
to over a hundred thousand new star systems. Salvation, possibly, for worlds reaching the limits of their resources and real estate.

Also, freedom, with all of its good and bad aspects. For every person, no matter what their beliefs, there could be a place – perhaps a new world, where nobody else yet lived.

Kelter would be directly affected. In just the past year, the infoterrorists had been tracking a serious revival of the old plans to bring water from comets to Kelter Four. The water would be needed to supply several hundred million new immigrants from Goodhope,
and from other worlds where no room or resources remained. With this discovery, such a plan would be mooted, because there would be so many other places to go. For better or worse, Kelter would remain a backwater.

The second order analysis demonstrated another level of meaning for the data. The aggressive efforts of Affirmatix
to contain the information, going as far as a nuclear strike, demonstrated their complete disregard for the wellbeing of the average person.

From there, the implications went well beyond Affirmatix. The other six Sisters were no different, a lesson that people would instantly grasp.

Considered in total, the discovery was deeply significant. It was worth ending the decades-long truce.

There was one question that never came up
. Nobody asked whether they should keep the information for their own advantage. Suggesting such a betrayal would have ended life-long friendships. The instruction – Tell Everyone – was clear. They would choose whether to follow the instruction, but they were committed not to use the information for any other purpose than that.

They gathered together in person. Axiom addressed them
. “We are here with common purpose, even as we each make our personal choices. When we warred with the overt authorities over each fact and each idea, we had victories and losses, yet overall we could not win. They adapted their methods and their messaging too quickly, and always had more than us. Computers. Programs. People of skill, purchased and bound by the golden handcuffs. And so we agreed to the truce. The official realities of civilization held sway without interference from us, and in return they did not pursue us deeply.”

Axiom continued
. “But I never gave up the idea of truth. And I came to believe that there would come a day when there was a single idea, or a single piece of information, that would permanently change the balance. If our piecemeal efforts were swatted away, there would be no brushing aside a charging elephant. For myself I have built up the means to carry that idea, at such time as it may arrive, into all corners of Kelter. And for so many years I have encouraged each of you to do the same.
I expressed the wish that you in turn would ask others to do this as well. Meanwhile, the Codex has allowed us to listen for the moment.

“It is perhaps ironic that as we have held our ear to the ground so
carefully and for so long, our opportunity has dropped directly out of the sky. And now it’s time to ask. Are we at the moment? If we commit everything to this one, we may not be able to do it again for many years, if ever. I ask for your considered thoughts.”

“Let’s do it!
” Antonia. An enthusiast. “We have waited too long already. Will we wait entire lifetimes before we act? For some lives, we have already done that, in effect.”

“Thank you, friend,” Axiom told her. “I do wonder whether it is because you wish for it to be the right time, rather than knowing
.”

“But Axiom, what do you believe? Lead us!”

“I will take the privilege of the last word. I do not want my truth to obscure yours, or anyone’s. Who will speak next?”

“How do we prove it?” Kestrel. “If it is true, then the moment has arrived, and we must give it everything.
But I ask for one more assurance that we are not being fooled.”

“Thank you also,” Axiom said. “I believe we can answer the mail further on this. The Codex is a great wonder, and it has access to much information that
is not publicly available. Even some of the classified information that is held by one branch of a family or government is invisible to another branch. And so I made a request of our librarian. Knute, please tell us of your progress.”

“Here is the very latest,” Knute told them. “Our team has gathered up
every reference to glome locations that we can find, from every source that the Codex has been able to glean. We have made a single composite. And we have compared this to the data that we received from Adastra or McElroy, which is alleged to have come from the Versari.”

“How strong is the match?”

“We have compared just over twelve
hundred glome locations. Seven are different.”

“So it is not perfect,” observed Kestrel.

“We face the eternal reference question,” Knute replied. “When you compare two bodies of knowledge, which one d
o you believe is more correct? We have started to look in detail at those differences. In two cases so far, we have come to believe that the information that we gathered into the Codex is incorrect, and the Versari data is more accurate.”

“Are there any cases where we can prove the Versari information to be wrong?”

“None yet.”

Kestrel
rendered his judgment. “It is real.”

“Then we have one last question,” Axiom said, “about the report of the D6. If they choose, Affirmatix could end all life on this planet. Should this deter us?”

The room broke out in a babble of commentary. Amid the great passion that each person expressed, there was very little disagreement.

Kestrel summarized the sense of the room. “We have lived in fear too long. If we cower every time a Sister brandishes a stick, we will die in a hole in the ground. This is the moment. I say yes.”

Each of the others had their say.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, Yes, Yes.

All eyes were on Axiom.

“Is there any disagreement?” Axiom asked. There was none. “I say that the time is now. I request that each of you engage every resource
that you have. We move at the top of the hour in just three minutes, exactly on the millisecond. Hold nothing back. Let every person on Kelter become aware. And on the moons, and the stations. Tell everyone.”

Although
he was the generally recognized leader of the infoterrorist network, Axiom had no ability to issue orders. He had no position power at all. He could only request, and have
some faith that others would take his request seriously.

Which they did.

Conventional channels were very big. At exactly the top of the hour, and in the seconds and minutes thereafter, the data was sent directly to millions of recipients at their homes and places of work. The data was posted in multiple copies on any storage devices that could be accessed, and there were hundreds of thousands of those.

And then there were the unconventional
channels. People handed out cards on the street to anyone who would take them. Even paper was employed in some quarters, as archaic as it was, to draw attention to the existence of the data, and to create artifacts that could not be remotely deleted.

Performing artists hastily updated their material to incorporate the message. Comedians made fun of it, and of anyone who denied it. Callers worked through lists of friends with voice calls, making sure they had heard.

The counterterrorism centers on Kelter were on duty every moment of every day. They had run drills for many different situations.
They were skilled, they were experienced. They were prepared.

But not for this.

The monitors blocked, and they chased, erasing the message wherever it was found. For the first few seconds, no human directed this activity. The message was not pre-cleared, and simply so big, and so pervasive, that it was automatically sequestered. Moments later, alarmed humans confirmed the emergency, directing every agent to stop the spread of infoterror.

If a
message could be said to have awareness and volition, then it is fair to say that she screamed. Yet it was not from despair or pain. It was a battle cry as she flung herself at the defenses, searching for any crack, no matter how small.

She split and split again, thousands and then millions of times, sending many of herselves prospecting for new avenues in search of freedom. If some or even most of them perished, it did not matter.

In any given setting, she only had to win once, while the defenders had to pitch a perfect game, and then another perfect game, and then thousands more perfect games extending through the digital equivalent of centuries.

Human eyes, ears, and brains were beginning to receive the message
. An audacious hack sent the story out through twenty of the top channels in the Spoon Feed as a lead story. It mysteriously found itself on that day’s lesson plan for every grade school student on the planet.

Human brains were beginning to process the story, and add to it
. If a message could be said to experience emotion, then it was pride as she saw her children come to life and take wing, then have children themselves. Analysis. Discussion. Debate. The start of understanding, not only of the immediate information,
but of what it could mean for the future.

With parental pride, she recognized in her children, not just the variations on the original message, but also the memetic imperative that powered her forward:

Tell Everyone.

Other humans were panicking as their security, born of the imposed consensus on family-centered facts and values, fell apart before their eyes.

To deny the message was to feed it.

To ignore it was to be irrelevant.

She scanned the field of battle, searching for places not yet overrun, computer networks not yet breached or social circles unmoved. There she directed her energy. She worked together with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren
.

And she sang.

The Bees

“Damn rentals,” Lobeck thought. If they were going to pay this much for each chopper, the fliers could at least have decent weapons, like air to air guided missiles. These clunkers flew like boats, and the main armament of each was a gun that launched dumb projectiles, objects unable to turn aside from their ballistic course even slightly to seek a target. Where was the quality these days?

When the chopper from the Kelter
government had lifted off the ledge, the two groups had found themselves facing each other across the barricades hastily set up by the Kelter guards, weapons pointed at each other. Aside from the ineffectual burst of small arms fire that had missed the terrorists as they flew into the chopper, no shots had been fired.

Lobeck looked down at the woman who had defied him. Still she stood, not having given away a centimeter of ground. She appeared to have no weapon except her own resolve to accomplish her mission. Her actions were misguided and damaging, and yet there was much to admire. Lobeck noted her name from her uniform – Ellis – and made a mental note that he would see if she could be hired in the future. This was certainly not the moment.

“
You may never know how much harm you have caused,” he told her, “to the citizens of your planet.”

Ellis did not reply, and simply stood firmly where she was.

But any further events on this ledge were a distraction. Their prize was flying away at over a hundred meters per second. Lobeck turned away, calling the nearest chopper.

Now, Lobeck was on the lead chopper in their squadron of six, in chase of the four Kelter fliers. They could match their quarry for airspeed, and were catching up, ever so slowly, but were still out of
effective range with the primitive projectile weapons that were at hand.

“What can we deploy from space?” he asked into his headset.

“The nearest assets are poorly adapted for atmosphere,” Mithra Skylar told him from orbit. “They are designed for space-to-space. We can take out any fixed target you need, but small flying vehicles I can’t guarantee.”

“Send them,” he ordered. “At least a dozen. We’ll target when they’re close.
”

Meanwhile, there was one more gambit he could try. Lobeck directed a call toward the government choppers they were pursuing. “Kelter government, be advised that the people you have picked up are extremely dangerous. Any place you take them will necessarily become a target and will be destroyed without hesitation. Any vehicle, any building, any town, any city. To reduce needless loss of life, you must cease maneuvers and hand them over to our counterterrorism operation.”