Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future (40 page)

"Civil suits," the ancient Chamberlain repeated, a gleeful laugh piercing the silence. "Oh, we'll teach these people about pain, my boy. I promise—"

"Don't," Ord whispered.

Another laugh, vast and genuine.

"I mean it." He made his new body sit up. "It was my fault, and I don't want them hurt."

"And I know you're being honest," said his brother. "I'm laughing because you think you have a voice here. Which you haven't. It's been decided. Our AI lawyers have set to work, and we'll squeeze the last cold credits out of the bastards." A bright little wink. "Someday, Baby, you'll appreciate our efforts."

Ord doubted it.

"Now," said the brother, "thank me for your health."

"Thank you, sir."

"Rest," he advised.

Did a creature like him ever rest? Ord doubted that, too. Then he thought of asking when he would be able to travel the Earth… when, if ever, would the children be free to leave the Family estates…?

But the brother had vanished, melting into the floor without sound or fuss. Possibly he had never been there in the first place.…

Ord glanced at Lyman, and Lyman returned the expression.

They were babies, they agreed.

What could they do?

*

"Don't leave
our
estate," was Lyman's advice. "Or else."

An unrepentant Chamberlain might be restricted to a smaller place, in other words. Like the old mansion. Or worse, his own tiny room. When he was Ord's age, Lyman had traveled farther and broken many more rules, but that was before the Core. "Leaving was stupid," he proclaimed, confident in his fears. "For any reason. Dumb, dumb, dumb."

Ord examined himself. In the not-so-remote past, a child who was temporarily killed— regardless of reasons— was given some tiny improvement as a salve for any embarrassments. More mature blood, some enhanced sense. Perhaps even an enlarged mind. But no, Ord felt identical to what he was days ago: an old-fashioned human carriage being gradually improved, century by century, acquiring vast powers at a geologic pace.

It was a tradition, this prolonged immaturity.

It was an essential term of the Peace. If certain humans were to embrace godly powers, then shouldn't they master each power in turn, with patience and an eye on their grave responsibilities?

Ord looked sixteen but was almost ten times older. And Lyman was several times older than him, his body and mind ready to leave home, ready to travel and work in space. A terraformer by training, he was another noble Chamberlain eager to help humanity and the galaxy.…

Yet all new postings were on hold.

"Because of the current situation," one of their elders had promised. "A temporary measure, and a precaution, and for the time being, you'll have to be patient, little ones."

With a bitter, impatient voice, Lyman confessed, "I don't understand. You could have gone anywhere, but why
there?
"

Ord had seen the lizard-folk die at the Core, their colorful and lovely bodies igniting as the homes melted around them, oceans boiling, and a mammoth scream rising up from the world itself. Horrible, gripping images, and he'd decided to visit the famous tavern, wanting to better understand how their relatives felt.

"And now you know," his brother mocked.

Ord shrugged, seeing no reason to apologize.

Lyman grimaced, looking outdoors without focusing his eyes. "Just promise that you'll stay where you belong." But before Ord could respond, he added, "
They
tell me that I'm responsible for you babies.
They
say I'm your elder, and is that fair?"

New lungs expanded, the air as clean as medicine. "I'll stay in my room for a million years, if you want."

"Maybe you should," Lyman warned him; then, with that glum assessment, he turned and walked away, ending their discussion before. Ord could spin even larger lies.

The boy climbed from bed, then dressed.

He rode the nearest stairwell to the ground floor. A pair of old bear-dogs greeted him, knowing his scent— tiny olfactory markers meaning
Ord—
and he equitably patted their broad heads, coaxing them to lay back down and
nap. The PRIDE AND SACRIFICE sign was above the auxiliary door. He touched it, as always, then turned and jogged out to the stables.

What could he ride? What wouldn't be too easy or dull?

The stables were cavernous, the atmosphere thick with the stink of fresh hay and fungi, blood stews and cultured blubbers. Its animals came from far worlds and the best laboratories— Chamberlain laboratories— and the smartest of them called to Ord, by name, promising long fun rides if only he would feed them. A treat before dinner, please?

His urge to ride faltered, died.

It happened more and more, reliable pleasures lacking their old vitality. Still pleasurable, but more as theories than fact.

Past the stables was an empty pen, a vertical pen, built on a cliff face. Goat-like beasts had lived here eons ago, but the elders got tired of rebuilding the children who would try riding them. The pen was empty, Ord stepping between inert fence posts, looking across a portion of the Chamberlain homeland. Noble mountains and artful deep valleys had been carved from false granites, pink as meat, and every lesser slope was covered with forests and lush emerald pastures. Deciduous trees showed the first hints of autumn. A rushing river passed a kilometer beneath Ord's toes, twisting its way down to a distant and enormous gray-as-steel barrier rising straight into the cloudless sky. The gray portions were hyperfiber, and above were invisible energy barriers, the entire wall bolstered with eagle eyes and AI paranoids. A few decades ago, not long after Alice's trial, strangers had broken into the estates, carrying weapons that couldn't kill any Chamberlain. Yet the wall was built regardless, in a panic, and like anything done in a panic, it was full of flaws. Intended to keep invaders out, it was porous when it came to clever and bored Family children. Yet no one had asked Ord how he had escaped. Either they knew and had already closed the route, or they knew and were keeping it open, booby traps set to catch whomever might try repeating Ord's trick.

Like every Family, this last awful century had terrorized the Chamberlains; but more than others, they deserved their fears.

They were unaccustomed to the sense of menace. It was relentless and unfair. And tiresome. Alice was one of theirs, yes, but there were more than twenty thousand Chamberlains, very few of them—
very few—
involved in the Core's horrible fate. Why blame us? was the general chorus. We aren't Alice; we've accomplished nothing but good for people everywhere. How, how, how can we be blamed for the acts of one odd and possibly senile sister…?

Alice was the most famous Chamberlain. Easily.

She was ancient— a very few generations removed from the patriarch, Ian— and even among Chamberlains, she had been considered remarkable, her talents too numerous to count, vast energies at the ready, and a fierce, unflinching imagination that could never rest. When people of her age and station gathered at the Core, it was Alice who helped inspire them. She revitalized an old idea, asking, "What if we create a
new
universe?" Blending math and mysticism, she showed a workable means. "Do it once to prove the
principle, then we can do it a million times again. Everyone can inherit their own universe, their own playground… and wouldn't that be lovely?"

Intoxicating, yes. And dangerous.

A prototype universe was produced beside the galaxy's largest black hole, its umbilical held open for too long. The scorching new creation flowed out into its ancient and cold mother universe. Billions of humans and sentient aliens had died in the aftermath, and
would
die, and the galaxy's heart would remain uninhabitable for eons to come.

In a gesture both brave and inadequate, Alice returned home just before her crimes were known. Then she offered herself to the Earth's authorities, ordering them to put her on trial. "Punish me," she demanded, "or let me punish myself. Either way, show people justice, and maybe we can keep our Ten Million Year Peace intact."

Alice's arrival was the worst day in Ord's tiny life. For no clear reason, she had taken an interest in him. When it came to explaining her crimes, he heard them first, in graphic terms, and a century of distractions and new revelations hadn't diluted the shock and misery. Alice had shown him the Core's detonation. She made him grieve for strangers, then fear for himself. In a matter of days, she gave the Chamberlains a new legacy, their name suddenly synonymous with greed, waste, and genocide— every horror they were pledged to combat. And now the Chamberlains and the other Families— the chosen and deservedly proud leaders of their species— hid in their estates, or they traveled with a thousand sophisticated security systems in tow. But where were they safe? Ord wondered. They had billions of angry neighbors on just this one continent, and how many workshops were nuclear-capable? What happened if the planetwide nuke-suppressors were deactivated, then countless crude bombs were thrown over the wall, at once? What if just one of them went unnoticed by the paranoids…?

"Quit," Ord muttered to himself.

He started back into the stables, contemplating choices. There were enemies outside, but there were enemies within, too. Ord knew who had alerted the toastmaster to his presence, and he knew how to prove it. And while he didn't blame the lizard-folk, he felt that this kind of malicious act required a reply. Some sort of reasonable revenge.

He paused before an enormous gate of hyperfiber bars and robot sentries. What lived in the shadows was a minor mystery. A great old sister had left the beast here— no one seemed sure just when— and despite hours of watching, Ord had never gotten one good look at it.

He wasn't looking in there now, thinking hard to himself.

Muttering to himself.

Asking, "How can I punish someone when I can't really hurt them?"

From the shadows, over the sour stink of blood stews, came a tiny voice, close and earnest.

"Let me show you ways," it said.

Then:

"Come closer? Please, please?"

*

Half of the Thousand Families took part in the Core's disaster. But that didn't mean sterling innocence for the other five hundred of them.

Nuyens had always known about Alice's work, for instance. They didn't help her, but they would have benefited; and when the worst happened, they were quick to blame, capitalizing on the other Families' sudden weaknesses.

Never loved, Nuyens became the Chamberlains' favorite enemy. That's why the Nuyens didn't like the sight of a Chamberlain boy dragging a homemade bomb to their front door. Security systems had already weighed the risks, taking every responsible precaution. But to emphasize their displeasure, a modestranking Nuyen emerged from the nearby earth, growling, "What do you want here? What are you doing?"

"I want to see your brother. I want Xo."

"Your toy is dead," said the dark-haired figure.

With powerful arms, Ord lifted the bomb and dropped it on its trigger. It struck the pink walkway with a harsh
bang
, sparks flying. And he grinned, saying, "I guess it is," while lifting once again.

The Nuyen shook his head in disgust, then reported, "Xo is coming." And he vanished with an intimidating flash and
crack
.

Xo was once a friend, but Ord rarely saw him anymore and never with much pleasure. He had told that Nuyen about his secret trip, but only because Xo was a coward, and Ord wanted to wave Xo's cowardice under his nose. "I found a way out of the estates," Ord had boasted. "Want to come along?"

Never, no.

With a whispered hiss, the door opened. A puzzled adolescent emerged, asking, "Have you gone stark raving, Ord?"

Ord dropped the bomb again.

Xo didn't flinch. He held himself motionless, then took a long, thin breath before asking, "Why? It's not going to work, it never could—"

"It has uranium," Ord countered. "Two kilos of 235."

"But the trigger's shit, and its chemical explosives have been cooked to water and plastic. It can't detonate—"

Bang
. Again.

"Atoms vibrate," Ord reminded him. "This way, that way."

Xo had a frail, pitiful face when he wanted it. Watching his one-time friend grunt and lift the bomb again, he said, "So what?"

"The atoms could move toward the same point, all at once."

Xo's eyes grew larger, just a little bit.

"Random vibrations, and they could accidentally reach critical mass."

"Impossible!"

"Possible," Ord replied, "but unlikely." Again he dropped the bomb, sparks flying higher. "Extremely unlikely, but you're worried all the same. Aren't you?"

"No."

"I found your message in the tavern's files. "The stranger is your sworn enemy—' "

"Lies."

Bang
. "Why did you want them to hurt me?"

"You're fine now," Xo observed.

Again Ord flung the bomb into the unyielding stone.

In an almost imperceptible way, Xo flinched.

"I've always tried to be friendly toward you," the Chamberlain argued. "Not like Ravleen and the others."

"What if I did it," said Xo, in a speculative way. "Maybe it's because of your sister, not you. Because Alice made it so we can't leave home, and it wasn't fair that you did—"

Again the bomb struck, etching out a tiny pit.

"How long will you do that?"

"Until it explodes," Ord promised, his voice level and cool. "I'll get more 235 when it goes bad, and I'll stay here for ten billion years, if I have to—"

Xo shuddered and stepped back, closing the useless door and locking it.

The Nuyens tolerated Ord's presence for only a few hours, then sent home a warning wrapped up in concerned words.

Lyman was dispatched to retrieve his baby brother.

A declaration of war, it wasn't. Yet it was
something
, and even as Lyman tried to scold Ord, his gaze acquired a new light, a kind of black wonder, gazing at the youngest Chamberlain as if for the first time.

3

Last night, for an indeterminate period and through some as yet undiscovered means, our prisoner escaped. We cannot determine her whereabouts or agenda. Our questions are being met with amused puzzlement. Alice herself has raised the possibility of a highly selective, infallible amnesia covering those minutes, rendering our interrogations worthless.…