Macrolife (10 page)

Suddenly they were looking across the length of Asterome, as if from a high mountain, except that green countryside, bodies of water, houses, and roads were visible in every direction.

“I wanted to prepare you. Follow me, please.”

Alard stepped into the passage. Sam followed first, grasping the handrail as he walked through the nautilus-like curve, which slowly turned uphill toward an exit.

Sam stepped out into sunlight and stood next to Alard. One by one, the others came out and were silent before the view.

In the contained space of the sky, the triple beams of the linear sun marked the long axis of the hollow world. The light, Sam knew, was caught by the giant sun mirror on the outside of the asteroid, more than ten miles away, entering through a series of focusing devices and filters. The three beams, Sam saw, were projected across the hollow to another focusing and reflecting device, somewhere below where they stood. The air glowed between the beams; the distant light terminal was a circle of sunlight. A giant lake circled the world's equator without spilling, reminding Sam of water in a whirling bucket.

“This way,” Alard said. He led them to a downhill path. “Please watch your step. There are idiosyncrasies in centrifugal pull: it will increase to only three-quarters earth normal, but watch your added strength, and do not jump. You may not come down in the same place.”

A trolley-like vehicle waited for them at the end of the path. They climbed in and took seats behind Alard. The car left its dead-end terminal slowly. “It runs downhill on this track,” the governor said as he turned to face them, “then climbs to the high country at the other end, where we also have docking facilities.”

Sam felt his weight increase as the car rushed down into Asterome's heartland. His stomach was still upset, as if he were on a ship at sea; part of it, Sam knew, was his worry about Richard, nagging at him, making him anxious to confront the truth, whatever it might be. Maybe he was one of those rare individuals who could never get used to centrifugal gravity; yet he remembered getting his sea legs, so perhaps he would get his space legs.

“We should arrive in a few minutes,” Alard said loudly over the sound of rushing air. “Everything is ready for you.”

Sam nodded, wondering how much faster the car would go.

Alard suddenly pointed upward through the canopy. “There's an automated line like this one on the sky side,” he shouted, “but we also have a subway in the service level below the land. That line fans out to reach more branch stations.”

Sam nodded and smiled. Alard finally noted his distress and smiled in sympathy.

The car was coming to a small town just before the central lake. Sam took a deep breath, enjoying the smell of flowers and grass. The land was flattening out; his legs touched the floor more firmly now, and that quieted his stomach.

The car sped into town and slowed to a crawl. Sam looked around at the buildings, handsome widely spaced single and multistoried structures from every period of the last century and a half, terrace after terrace climbing on each side of the roadway in the curve of the world.

The car pulled up to a platform and stopped. “Please be careful,” Alard said as he got out.

Sam stepped down and stood next to the governor. As the others emerged, a man came along the sidewalk and stopped next to Alard.

“This is my assistant, Soong Weng Ling,” Alard said. “He will show you to your quarters.” Before Sam could thank him, Alard turned and walked away down the street.

“You will forgive the governor,” the assistant said, “but he is a busy man in troubled times. Please follow me.”

Soong Weng Ling led them down the sidewalk of what appeared to be the main street, which ran at right angles to the trolley line. The lake was at their left, and for a moment the street suggested an interior latitude line, sloping gently upward before them. It occurred to Sam that here one had to go “below” to see the stars, that Asterome's observatories, its maintenance and docking facilities, were in the world's basement.

They followed Soong Weng Ling across the street. Sam paused before the rotating doors of the Hotel Asterome-Hilton and waited for the others to catch up.

“Mr. Soong,” Sam started to say.

“You may call me Weng Ling.”

“Weng Ling, how extensive is the level below us?”

“One day it will equal the inner surface, but with less overhead space, of course. We excavate as we need more space for industrial and scientific facilities, but only a quarter of the available limit has been used.”

Sam found himself liking the young Chinese; his answer had been full of hope, like something Richard would say.

“I count three towns,” Margot said while looking up.

Sam glanced upward. The tribeam was warm on his face, a captive sun shining by stolen light in a garden world that seemed to exist outside human history.

“Shall we go in?” Janet asked.

Orton and Margot stopped their sightseeing. Soong led the way through the spinning doors into the lobby. A very ordinary-looking desk clerk gave Sam the register.

“I will take them up myself,” Soong said after they had all punched in their names. He led the way to the elevator.

Their suite was on the top floor of the ten-story structure and consisted of a large solarium-living room common area and four bedrooms. A large screen showed the earth from twenty-five thousand miles out, looking like a painting on the wall opposite the solarium windows.

The light filtering in through the orange curtains created a warm, peaceful glow, inviting forgetfulness, but the magnified image of earth was a direct link to all his fears. Sam thought of the students and colleagues he had left behind.

“There's a good Chinese and Japanese dining room down the street,” Soong said. “I will be back later to see if you have any needs.”

He turned and went out, closing the door carefully behind him.

Janet stared at the screen. Orton and Margot sat on the sofa. Sam approached the screen and examined the controls. He touched the highest setting and the earth drew nearer.

“At that magnification,” Margot said, “you can tell time by which cities are visible.”

Sam looked closely, but clouds hid the Western Hemisphere. He imagined thick smoke rising from New York and drifting out over the ocean.

 

The linear sun went out at six, dimming slowly. Streetlamps came on and filled the darkened hollow with a firefly glow. The evening air was dark as Sam and Janet led the way back to the hotel. Strolling people filled the streets; couples sat in the open cafes and small groups stood talking at the corners.

Sam looked up across the world, at the lights scattered like stars across the green country; the overhead towns were galaxies of concentrated light; the ends of the world were black, as if open to the void.

Suddenly a holo of the full earth appeared in the night overhead. Janet cried out; the crowd in the street grow silent. The sunlit globe seemed terrifyingly close under high magnification.

Silently, bright flashes appeared; dark blotches covered the daylight, marring the blues, greens, browns, and whites of the home world. Alard's voice spoke over the public address system, seeming to fill the hollow with the utterance of a quiet god.

“A massive earthquake in the Caribbean has created a running crack in the earth's crust, moving east and south. Radio transmissions from Washington, Moscow, London, and Peking are filled with debate and accusations concerning responsibility for what is happening. The remains of New York continue to be wrapped in fire and strange electromagnetic storms….”

Sam saw the look of dismay on the faces of Janet and Margot. Orton was tapping the pavement with his cane. The magma tap was gone, Sam knew, and a new Bulero monster was wandering across the face of the planet, swallowing even more lives.

The image of earth faded from the skyspace.

 

Soong was waiting for them in the lobby. They entered the lounge and sat down in the air-filled furniture that formed a broken circle in one corner of the paneled room.

“You know what is happening on earth?” Soong asked.

“Yes, we do,” Sam answered.

“It was relatively easy, though costly,” Soong said, “to remove what little bulerite we had. The governor and I mean no offense to the Bulero family—“

“That's not important,” Sam said. “The question now is what can Asterome do to help earth?”

“You think it will be very bad,” Soong said.

“There will be those,” Blackfriar said, “who will try to gain political advantage if the major powers weaken.”

“Can Asterome go on by itself?” Margot asked. It was the kind of question Richard would ask, Sam realized.

Soong nodded. “We produce everything we need, but our capacity for receiving refugees is limited. There is a limit, also, on how many people can be evacuated from earth, if that becomes necessary. We can take everyone from the various earth-moon zone space installations and a certain number from earth, but the moon, Mars, and Ganymede City must look after their own. Ganymede City should have the least problem because much of it was built of nonbulerite materials; most of what they have is in their space vessels. Mars and the moon will have a lot of damage, but many will survive to rebuild. Earth is a different matter, however.”

The large screen on the far wall lit up, showing the face of Governor Alard. “There's a first-strike missile barrage coming up from Africa and South America, moving toward North America and Europe. I don't see much intercept response yet. You'd better get over here, Soong.” The face faded, leaving the image of earth. Soong stood and hurried out of the room.

Sam got up and approached the screen, searching earth's cloudy face; the signs of disaster would be small at this distance, difficult to connect with what the mind knew was happening.

The relay angle changed to show earth half in darkness. Sparks played on the dark side—invisible, radiant, dark again, luminous stones sinking into a dark lake; it was impossible to tell ground hits from intercepts. Sam almost expected the planet to shudder visibly; the earth was shaking, he knew, shocks were flowing through the crust, and the final ruin would be greater than anything man could muster.

He thought of the house in New Mexico, wondering if the desert sands would begin to glow, draining the life out of the cacti as the bulerite grew more indeterminate, catching fire from within, like some primordial substance from which universes are made, finally dying into an eternal blackness, where even the starlight would be trapped….

The fools didn't know that the bulerite alone was enough.

Janet came and stood next to him. The magnification increased, framing the entire Northern Hemisphere. Huge areas of smoke filled the daylight portion, slowly being pulled apart into delicate strands by the winds of the upper atmosphere; the fireflies multiplied rapidly, reminding Sam of the flickerings on a computer panel.

“They're not stopping,” Janet said.

“Return strikes have been made at every possible target,” Alard's hushed, quavering voice said over the picture.

The cities glowed in the night, refusing to fade after multiple hits. Sam wondered if any missiles had been fired toward Asterome; they would reach the colony long after it was all over on earth. The bulerite would continue, however, second-best destroyer.

I'll never see another sunrise on earth
, he thought as he put his arm around Janet. Orton and Richard had wanted something that would present humankind with the choice of a shovel for its grave or the stars; immortality or death.
Either to wait for the sun to die and the cold of space to take us, or to go when we are still able and aware of what we can become.
Was he grasping at the words to make this all bearable? Civilizations have died before, he reminded himself, and new ones have grown to take their place.

Margot came and stood next to Janet. “All the people,” she said, “all the friends I knew in school, dying. Now we'll have to survive out here.”

“Richard,” Janet whispered, and pressed her face into Sam's shoulder.

Sam heard a breaking sound and turned in time to see Orton drop the two pieces of his cane, get up with a grunt, and walk out of the lounge.

As Sam looked back to the earth, he felt a rushing in his head, spreading outward from the terror lodged in the center of his brain. His imagination conjured up what his eyes could not see, his ears could not hear. All those who knew him, whose relationship to him gave him his identity and career, would soon be gone; his past was dying, and with it the planet's history. This island in space would certainly not survive the earth by more than a few days; a warhead could reach the settlement in one day.

“Look—there in the Caribbean,” Margot said.

He saw a glowing red spot where the warm blood of the earth was spilling up into the sea from the magma tap. Steam clouds were rising, marking the crack's progress through the crust.

Sam held Janet close and looked at Margot. She seemed in control of herself, despite the terror in her eyes.

“He can't be dead,” she said, “he just can't be. Excuse me.” She turned and left the room. Janet pulled away from Sam and went after her.

Sam watched the screen, welcoming the painful rigidity in his neck muscles. A long time ago, it seemed, the plans had all been made, the world's problems identified; humanity had started remaking the future. Nothing so obvious as the rivalries of the last century would have led to a thermonuclear exchange; the way had been complex, hiding the result until too late. If the war continued for another hour or two, the earth would not recover for a century; longer if the bombs being used were of older design.

What would he live for if Asterome survived? Could Janet and he make a life for themselves off the earth? Suddenly he was afraid that he would never again feel useful or needed. He was worried about Janet; she might react very badly to the news of Richard's death.