Authors: Jr. L. E. Modesitt
Adiamante (27 page)
Kemra halted at the heavy hatch to lock one, slipping onto shipnet and coding her entry. I waited.
The first hatch opened, and we stepped through. As it closed, the second one opened, and we walked through it and across the open space of lock one toward the waiting shuttle. No marcybs remained to pipe me off the
Gibson.
Gibson.
“An observation? Explain that, if you would.” Kemra's voice contained both anger and bewilderment.
I shrugged, and nearly lost my balance in the low gee. “It's simple. Using that much power results in one of two things. Either those against whom you use it retaliate with greater power, or they don't. In the first case, the result is obvious. In the second case, what happens is that so much power translates into inner arrogance within the society, and for a number of well-documented and intricate reasons I won't try to explain in detail, leads to the destruction of that society's power. That's what happened to the Rebuilt Hegemony, and quite a few other societies.”
“You're impossible and patronizing,” she snapped. “You won't explain because you can't. It's just some magic that you believe, and think everyone else should believe.” Kemra stopped at the foot of the lander ramp.
I lurched to avoid running into her.
“Well, can you explain this mumbo-jumbo magic?”
“Not in your terms.”
“In yours then.”
I looked at the lander looming above us in the chill of lock one, then at Kemra's eyes, even more chill than the air around me. “Power attracts those who are corrupt. A society that can destroy a moon or a continent or boil a hole in a satellite that will last for millions of years offers immense power. That power attracts and creates equally great corruption. No society has ever lasted in the form that exercised such power because that much power is far more attractive to its members than the moral restraint necessary to maintain a functioning society. That's because no society can continue when every member insists on receiving back more than he or she contributed. The exercise of power requires that those in power receive much more than they contribute, and that means all too many others feel cheated, and fewer and fewer will abide by society's rules.”
Kemra shook her head. “You're incredibly naive. For all your brilliance, you are so naive. Most members of any society couldn't even understand what you're talking about. And they wouldn't care.”
“No,” I said slowly. “They couldn't say what I said. But they feel it, and care, and they act upon it. I gave you your answer. Could we leave?” I'd given them clue after clue, answer after answer, and they wouldn't listen. They couldn't listen.
“Yes, we can leave.” She turned angrily.
I followed more slowly and strapped into the couch silently.
Neither of us said anything until Kessek had the shuttle well clear of the
Gibson.
Gibson.
As we sat in our separate couches in the lander, Kemra
turned toward me and asked bluntly, “Why didn't you clone her?”
turned toward me and asked bluntly, “Why didn't you clone her?”
“Who?” I was still trying to figure out a better explanation for why successful use of massive force would destroy the cybsâif we didn't first.
“Your soulmate. What was her name? Did you have children?”
“Morgen.” I paused as the lander's attitude jets fired once, twice. “I thought we were talking about why excessive use of forceâ”
“We won't ever agree on the use of force,” Kemra said in exasperation. “Let's keep it simple. Maybe I can understand this on a personal basis. First, children. Did you have any?”
“We have a daughter. She's grownâa marine biologist.”
“Does she have children?”
“No. What does this have to do withâ”
“Just a minute. I'm getting there. Why didn't you clone Morgen and just feed her mind to the clone?”
I tried not to wince, but the wrongness of that ripped at me. I swallowed and finally answered. “It would have been wrong.”
“You ⦠a demi? Youâof those who once imposed your concepts of right on the galaxy? You worry about right and wrong?”
“Strangely enough, yes.” I laughed, and did not conceal the bitterness. “Cloning would not have worked. An exact clone would have died soon from the same causesâ”
“How? That sort of death is an interaction between genetic predilections and environment.”
“Exactly. Could I doom a duplicate Morgen to a duplicate death?”
“You wouldn't have to replicate all the environmental factors. Why, with all your great knowledge of anatomy and physiology, couldn't you recreate her without the defects?” Kemra's tone was not quite sarcastic.
“Even if we managed to remove just one critical strand from the DNA subhelicesâand could find just the oneâdon't you see? Morgen was a demi, and so am I. Her clone”âI shiveredâ“would be also.”
Kemra looked blank as the shuttle bucked slightly at the first hint of the upper atmosphere.
“Would it be fair to make that new person conform to the lines of Morgen's life? And, as I mentioned, since humans are whole-body people, how would it even be possible? We can't cram a lifetime of experience into a few years. Look! Morgen would still be dead. You can't duplicate people that way. So I'd have a clone that was almost Morgen, but I would have gone through her death once, and, since that would change me, then nothing would be the same, and that new person would be tied to a life where nothing was quite the same or quite right, without really having chosen it herself.” I winced again at the inherent wrongness of it all.
Her eyes widened slightly as if trying to grasp something, and not quite reaching it.
“You don't understand, do you?” I took a deep breath. “That's something you've never understood, part of the gulf that separates us.”
Kemra turned cold again, and her eyes were hard and chill as ice three.
“Humans are whole-body creatures. Every physical and emotional impact modifies both body and the brainâmerely scanning the brain and duplicating the mental images doesn't do it. That's why you all have to stay close to your netsâbecause unanchored mental images don't retain well.”
“Coordinator, are you all right?” Keiko snapped through the uppernet, cutting through my concentration, which was wavering anyway after the headaches created by the
Gibson
's particle beam.
Gibson
's particle beam.
“I'm fine,” I lied. “Any problems?”
“Besides half the locials screaming about the cybs boiling a hole in the moon? No. No problems at all.”
“Good. I'll be there as soon as I land.”
“Or Locatio gibbering about the cybs in Ellay being ready to fry his locial?”
“They won't, but if they start, that breaks the Construct, and he can do as he pleases.” I rubbed my forehead. Things were going to get worse, much worse. “There wasn't anyone or anything damaged on Luna, was there?”
“Some items shifted in the north depot. That was it. They chose an abandoned area.”
That figured. They seemed to have some understanding of what would break the Construct without understanding the implications at all.
“There will be a groundshuttle waiting,” Keiko promised. “Take it.”
I would. What else could I do?
“I'll ignore that,” Kemra snapped through my confusion, responding to my observation before the high speed net-exchange.
“Unanchored mental images?” I stumbled, trying to pick up the threads of my thoughts. “Why? Why do you all deny whole-body reality?”
Kessek flared the lander, slowing the monster as it dropped toward Parwon.
“We don't deny it. But it warps true logic. What is true is true, whether your body feels that way or not.”
I shrugged. “That's accurate enough, but you don't resolve logic-body conflicts by ignoring your body, but rather by integrating thought and body.”
“We do. We integrate bodily inputs into the nets, and we identify bodily biasing factors to ensure that they don't create emotional biases to true logical solutions.”
“That doesn't work,” I said tiredly, knowing the words were wrong as I spoke them, but trying to juggle too many variables and worries wasn't making clear thought any
easier or more logical, and I was trying to be logical when I was half intuit, and it wasn't working.
easier or more logical, and I was trying to be logical when I was half intuit, and it wasn't working.
“You have enough answers for why nothing can be done,” Kemra said brightly, every word forced. “You can't or won't say anything that will stop the Vereal fleet. You couldn't or wouldn't do anything that would have saved your beloved Morgen. You don't have any descendants, and you probably won't, and you can't explain any of this. So what can you do?”
I wished I knew. I just sat there as the lander rumbled to a halt a hundred meters north of the Deseret tower.
“That's a good question,” I said into the abrupt stillness as Kessek killed the rumbling engines. “I don't have a good answer, except that I know that not every question can be resolved through the application of better and better technology and more and more power.” I released the harness and sat up in the supple officers' couch. “I know what is right and what is not, and I know that you can't explain that understanding in hard, bright, logical, and correct words that fit every circumstance, because you can't separate words from life and expect them to hold their full meaning.”
“More magic,” Kemra said, her voice as tired as I felt.
The heavy ramp whined down onto the permacrete.
“If that's how you feel, that's all it will be.” I stood on legs that felt all too shaky.
“You'll turn ⦠never mind.” She shut her mouth as I stumbled down the ramp, but she never left her couch.
The ramp rose as I walked toward the tower, rubbing my forehead and blotting back the tears caused by the continuing headache and the cold wind out of the north.
As the lander rumbled back down the strip, I took a last look toward the black monster before walking toward the groundshuttle.
None there were so blind as would not see, and never
had that been so true, I felt. Then, that had probably been exactly how my eleven predecessors had felt.
had that been so true, I felt. Then, that had probably been exactly how my eleven predecessors had felt.
Such a comforting thought. Six of them hadn't even survived their office as Coordinator.
Dvorrak waved, and I walked toward his groundshuttle as the cyb craft rumbled back down the locial strip, lifting toward orbit.
THE STORY THE DEMI TOLD
T
he man with the silver hair, and a uncle or ancient he must have been, he sat in the corner of the room, a real room, not a space in a net or a cybfile, but an inn of stone and wood and tile. In that corner of the curved wall that formed the back of the public room, the man leaned against the back of the stool, and listened he did as the soft rain of the centuries fell outside.
he man with the silver hair, and a uncle or ancient he must have been, he sat in the corner of the room, a real room, not a space in a net or a cybfile, but an inn of stone and wood and tile. In that corner of the curved wall that formed the back of the public room, the man leaned against the back of the stool, and listened he did as the soft rain of the centuries fell outside.
The warriors, and warriors they were, would have called him old, for his hair was silvered and short, not long and dark and flowing, nor bound in silver or gold like that of a warrior, and he drank juice of the apple, not the beer of a true man or the lager of a hero or the poteen of a rebel. Nor did he have the arms of Cuchulain, nor the clear eyes of the Sons of Miled, nor the ice-edged thoughts of a Gates, nor the iron face of a Wayneclint, nor the stout heart of the true hero who would right all wrongs with a sharp blade and a strong shield. And his face was smooth as a child's, and beardless.
Sat there he did as though he belonged there, and each man thought he was the uncle of another, for he was too old to be of them and too young to be a father of any, and each knew the fathers of the others.
Cuchulain, he of the black shield and the hard, hardheaded
sword, he told of the War of Words, and the quarrel over the Champion's Portion, and he laughed, as the heroes do, even at Uath the Stranger, who had carried his cut-off head under his arm, and at how Conall Cearnach fled from Uath.
sword, he told of the War of Words, and the quarrel over the Champion's Portion, and he laughed, as the heroes do, even at Uath the Stranger, who had carried his cut-off head under his arm, and at how Conall Cearnach fled from Uath.
Laegaire lifted his mighty mug, and quaffed it, and sure it was more than a barrel he quaffed, for his thirst was mighty, as he told of the tale of how Conchubar ordered Cathbad the druid into spelling pale and beautiful Deirdre into her journey through the strange sea to her death, and of the deaths of the sons of Usnach, the three fairest heroes who had each killed more than three hundreds apiece of Conchubar's warriors.
Those in the public room laughed and cheered, all but the old and silver-haired man in the back corner, who sat on the stool with the back, for he had not the thews of Cuchulain, nor of Laegaire, nor even Levarcham. His face was pale and thin and unlined.
Each hero had a tale, of the old days, and of how he had routed and killed, and set things to right, sometimes to right the right that the hero before him had righted. The newer heroes, like halfJack and Greencross, told the same tales, save that they used the knives of fire and the lightnings wrested from the sky. But they too had slain to put things right, and their minds were like the thews of Cuchulain, iron-hard and merciless in their pursuit of their righteousness.
In the end, only the old man had not spoken, and the lamps dimmed, and Cuchulain, being a hero and most courteous, turned to the silver-haired man.
“Surely, old man, you must have a story, of the times when youâ”
“Or those who you knew,” added Laegaire, he of the mighty spears, who had slain many in righteous war and who doubted that the old man had ever lifted a blade in anger or in defense.
“Or those who knew of others who knew,” continued Greencross, with the black smile that all drew back from.
“âwhen you,” continued Cuchulain, for he, as did all heroes, presented himself as noble and courteous in speech and demeanor, “saw a hero do some wondrous deed.”
“Hmmm.” And the little old man, he hmmed and he hawed, and he hmmed some more until Cuchulain was nigh ready to cast him out into the cold, for all that Cuchulain was noble and honorable and a right hero among heroes.
“No,” said the old man. “I knew some they called heroes, such as they were. Men with great swords and great spears and great thirsts, such as Fergus, and Conchubar. Such as Conall and Cormac. Men who could grasp the fires of the sun and the knives of the storm. Men such as Wayneclint and Gates. Yet never saw I a mighty or a wondrous deed. Aye, I saw slaying, and killing, and bulls that furrowed and bellowed and burst their hearts. I saw cloaks that concealed broken hearts, and heroes who laid down with many a willing maid and then killed all who defamed her. I saw a man who thought like an engine of iron and tried to starve his betters and their children, even while he would not add a copper to the wages of a working draff. But wondrous deeds, those I never saw.”
“Never?” asked Laegaire in spite of himself and his wishing to set the old man out in the cold himself, though he never would, being a right noble hero, and only of a mind to lift his blade when it was right and proper, such as to determine who was fit to have the Champion's Portion, or to ensure that Ulster and not Leinster or Munster received the Brown Bull.
“Never?” asked Greencross, his smile growing so black that Cormac edged away from him.
“Aye,” answered the old man, yet again ignoring in his speech the courtesy that befit the heroes he addressed. “I
saw men slaughter children, for that they might grow to avenge their dead fathers. I saw children who had escaped such slaughter grown to manhood and become heroes in order that they might slaughter other children to revenge their own dear dead fathers, and, in truth, that was what they did. And I saw the great Greencross lying once with a smile on his dead face in the ashes of Hughst with the stench of death sweeping from the seas. But wondrous deeds, those I never saw.”
saw men slaughter children, for that they might grow to avenge their dead fathers. I saw children who had escaped such slaughter grown to manhood and become heroes in order that they might slaughter other children to revenge their own dear dead fathers, and, in truth, that was what they did. And I saw the great Greencross lying once with a smile on his dead face in the ashes of Hughst with the stench of death sweeping from the seas. But wondrous deeds, those I never saw.”
“An old man ye may be,” said Cuchulain, “but a hero is a hero, and all the world needs Ireland's heroes. Aye, all the world needs heroes, for who will lift his blade for right, if there be no heroes, dear fellow? I say this on the cloak of the sea, on the floor of time, and by the words of the Dagda.”
“All the world needs heroes,” repeated Greencross, and halfJack echoed his words. “For there are those who say there are no heroes, and without heroes there are no dreams.”
“Aye,” replied the old man a last time. “Aye, the world in all its woe, it needs heroes, heroes like Ireland's heroes. It needs men who will lift mighty blades and make the three barren hills three hundred. It needs heroes who will fight and die over who shall receive the Champion's Portion, and women, proud women, who will die for love of their heroes, who die, like Emer, when their hero's light is extinguished. Aye, the world needs heroes like those cut from the mold of the Celts, who will fight and die to decide which child is born and which is not. Aye, the world needs heroes. It must have its heroes to kill scores upon scores that the handful who remain shall be free. It must have its heroes to turn the plains to ashes so that, after the long winter, the grasses will be sweet for roe and bison.”
Young Cuchulain raised himself out of his stool, lifting his body clear with the strength of forearms like oaks that have withstood the gales and the years, and he walked toward
the old man, his booted feet shivering the very stones where he walked, his eyes sun-bright with the certainty of youth, his mouth red like the blood he would spill, his spirit clear and firm.
the old man, his booted feet shivering the very stones where he walked, his eyes sun-bright with the certainty of youth, his mouth red like the blood he would spill, his spirit clear and firm.
The pale and smooth-faced old man spoke once again. “Yes, there must be heroes. Heroes to fight over which circuit is mightier. To fight over which dying truth shall die last. Heroes to hammer the stars into dust with the fire of suns cast against shields of adiamante. And then to weep in sadness when the last lights die, moaning because there are no wrongs left to right.”
And young Cuchulain, he bit through his tongue, and the blood flowed, before he spoke again.
“And we will settle this outside, old man, for I say that there must be heroes, as the Champion's Portion is mine, and that truth is worth fighting over, and that you lie, and that you are coward and a craven and all manner of ill-spirited cur. You understand not, dear, how the world must have its heroes, and it's out in the chill we'll be settling this.”
“I would prefer, young Cuchulain,” answered the old man, slipping out of the stool in a fashion spritely enough for an old man, but commonplace enough compared to the grace of young Cuchulain. “I would prefer ⦔
“He would prefer,” said Laegaire, and his ruby-red lips curled as only a hero's can curl, his voice gentle and singing like the great harp of Tara. “He would prefer ⦔
“ ⦠not to leave this place. After all, I make no claim to be anything, and I have not for a long time, and I am not a hero. Besides, it's wet and cold out there, a fit place for a hero, but not for anyone else.”
Young Cuchulain, towering like a black oak over the old man, lifted his mighty fists, and he said, “Ah, my dear, and is that the way you should have it? No, my dear, I'm a-fearing for your health, for you are no hero, and out
into the cold you shall go, whether liking or not that you will be.”
into the cold you shall go, whether liking or not that you will be.”
The old man, he stepped right up to Cuchulain, and that little old silver-haired man, without a word, he took his elbow, and it struck poor Cuchulain in the throat, so he could speak not a word, nor breathe, nor gasp. And Cuchulain the hero, with those mighty hands, he reached for the little old man, but did the evil creature stand still like a hero or a man? He did not. He took his iron-toed boots and he stove in Cuchulain's knees, one by one. And as young Cuchulain lay there on the floor, the little old man broke his neck with those selfsame boots.
Laegaire, he rose up like thunder, and he grabbed for the little man. For the silver-haired fellow scarce came to his chin, and the little old man, he didn't even run, but let Laegaire grasp him.
Then Laegaire, he gasped, and he grunted, and he fell on the floor, and his body was gutted like a hog from his manhood nigh unto his breastbone, and his bowels they spilled over the floor.
The little old man, he bowed his head to the rest, and he nodded, polite and courteous as you please, and he said, “Heroes, they don't grow old, and they don't grow smart, and we've had enough of them, and I bid you all good day.”
Then he bowed to them all, and he walked out into the cold, and when Conall, who had followed him, came back, his eyes were black, and he sat at the rail, and not a word would come from the hero's mouth, save one, and that was a name.
That name was all Conall would ever say about the old man who was the only one who had brought down the mighty Cuchulain with but bare hands and his boots. Conall said it but once, and then he walked back out into the cold and the damp, and he never returned to the public
house. Nor did Cuchulain nor Laegaire, for all that they had been raised before.
house. Nor did Cuchulain nor Laegaire, for all that they had been raised before.
You must decide for yourself, but what Conall did not say, what he could not say, was that when he followed the man with the hair like the silver of the sea in the sunset, that man put his feet upon the puddles in the street and left no steps in the mud that remained. The old man spoke not after he left the public house, but, as he passed the guest house of the locial, the sole cyb from Al-Moratoros turned white, and the thinking machine in the cyb's hand sparked fire and died, and the draffs in the upper streets that led to the hills bowed, their eyes dark, and their thoughts deep within their skulls.
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