The Shadow and Night (74 page)

“That may be where the idea came from. Well, you see . . .” She paused, a slender finger tracing a meandering pattern on the table. “I was thinking that in a small, isolated society, which is what Farholme will be for the next fifty years, change can happen.”

“I see. . . .” It was an interesting insight.

“And,” she went on, “when we get reconnected, we may be very different.”

“And this change . . . ,” Merral asked slowly, watching her delicate face, “would be good?”

A flicker of uncertainty crossed Isabella's face. “Well, of course, not all change is good. We need to be careful. That's what we will be looking at. But—and it's a tentative thought—the Assembly may, for the best reasons, have kept us back.”

“Kept us back?” Merral felt suddenly tense.

“Don't sound so surprised, Merral. What I mean is this: To be an adult you need to make choices. We have not had the choices. We have been kept in a moral kindergarten.”

“Go on, Isabella,” Merral said, feeling unease. “I'm just a plant person really. All this social analysis stuff is new.”

She stared at him. “Well, you see, societies may be like people. Perhaps we too need to go beyond kindergarten.”

Merral felt cold, as if the lake waters were seeping into his veins.

“I see,” he said, trying not to express his disquiet. “I would need to think about that. It's a new idea.”

Isabella touched his hand again. Far away, the band struck up a new piece.

“Maybe,” she said, in a low voice that seemed somehow to make all Merral's concerns trivial, “maybe
we
need to think about it.”

Merral, feeling both longing and alarm in equal and conflicting amounts, tried to speak in as smooth a way as he could manage. “Yes, but not just now. When things settle down.”

Then to cover his confusion, he took another sip of his juice.
I wish Vero were here. I need to talk with him about how she perceives the situation.

Then, in order to restore balance to his mind, he switched the subject to the plans for a new sports tournament for the Ynysmant schools. After an hour, pleading genuine tiredness, he walked her back to her house.

As he donned his night-suit for bed that night, Merral still found himself troubled. He took down imaging glasses off his shelf, went to the table, and carefully picked up the small crystal egg that was perched on a stand. He placed it on the personal creation reader by his bed, lay down, put on the glasses, and ordered that he be logged on to the castle tree simulation.

He closed his eyes as the optics adjusted and opened them to see that he was standing a few meters above a thick snowfield that was lit by late winter's afternoon sun. Data hanging in the air told him that in the fortnight since he had last visited his world, over three years of simulated time had elapsed.

Merral paused, adjusting himself to the sterile, noise- and odor-free brightness of his world. Then he flew effortlessly over the gleaming ground until the vast, snow-streaked brown bulk of his castle tree loomed up before him. He stared at it, admiring again its towering mass, twice the volume of Ynysmant town, before slowly spiraling up around the outside, examining its surface. At the completion of his survey, he found himself pleased; the simulation was progressing well. There was new growth, and despite the heavy snowfall, only a few branches had snapped under the snow's weight.

Now, at the top of the tree, Merral turned and floated down into its enormous hollow interior. Here, protected by the vast wall of the tree, a quieter, milder climate prevailed, and he found that parts of the lake at the bottom had remained unfrozen. He was not surprised to see no sign of life; the only creatures he had created so far were insects, and they were overwintering as larvae in the crevasses of the trunk.

Satisfied, Merral ascended again until he was high in the air above his creation, and as the sun set, he put himself in a slow circular orbit around the tree. There he toyed with the questions his simulation raised. When should he let the tree breed? Should he make another tree anyway? And what other life-forms should he create? He could, of course, just let the insects evolve, but that would take time.

Normally, unless he was going to make adjustments to the program or take images, Merral would have exited his created world fairly promptly. But today, somehow, things were different. As the darkness gathered under and inside the tree, Merral found himself lingering. He had always been fond of his world and proud of his castle tree, but he had never had any illusions that it was anything more than a pure fiction of electrons and photons created and sustained by enormous processing power. Yet now it held an attraction for him that it had never had before. There was something clean, simple, and undefiled about this world that he found alluring. “If only it was real,” Merral said with longing, and he marveled at the strangeness of the thought.

The following morning Merral walked across the two-kilometer causeway and went straight over to the office of his director, wondering what Henri was going to say to him.

Henri gestured him straight to one of the chairs in front of his desk. He flung his own wiry frame into the facing seat.

“Man, I'm glad you are back,” he drawled. “
Ach.
You chose a momentous time to be away.” He gave Merral a bewildered, almost stunned smile.

“Yes. Pretty momentous.”

“Momentous. Isn't it?” Henri toyed with his beard, and Merral noted that it had lost its usual neatness. “A week ago the job of this Institute was to slowly and steadily expand the forest and the settlements. Then, out of the blue, the Gate goes, and everything is changed. Now our job is ensuring survival.” He breathed out a heavy sigh. “
Ach,
man, we haven't a clue how to do it. So it's endless meetings. But I think we will have to let much of the north go to wildwood.”

Merral groaned. “Wildwood? Oh, let's hope we can avoid that.”

Henri looked sympathetic. “I know. Foresters see wildwood as a mark of defeat. But what else can we do? Our overstretched resources won't allow for more. And remember, it's merely a fifty-year setback. Think of the ten thousand years we have already spent on this world.”

“I suppose you are right, Henri; take the long view.”

“There's no other way.” Henri paused, raised an eyebrow in inquiry, and leaned toward Merral. “But we can talk about that later. Your Herrandown trip. What can you tell me?”

Merral thought for a few seconds. “I'm glad you put it like that. The answer is, not a lot yet. . . .We have got a lot of data in Isterrane, and it's being studied. But there does appear to be something up north, beyond Herrandown. Something that is genetically odd.”

There was a sharp, quizzical look. “What? The Antalfers may be your family, but they are my responsibility. Some sort of anomaly?”

“Yes, something like that . . .” Merral paused. “A mutation or mutations. Perhaps.”

“Hmm. I gather from the quarry team at Herrandown that you sent a message advising more precautions?”

“Yes, people to work in pairs, not to work at night. To avoid the woods.”

“Man, I'd like to know more. . . .” Henri's dark eyes seemed questioning.

“I'd like to tell you. But we just want to be careful. I'll tell you when we have firm data and a decision on what to do. But I take it no one is intending to visit the Lannar Crater area?”

“Not for a month. Assuming that the schedule holds. Which I doubt. But you have a suggestion?”

“I think the area should be left alone. We shouldn't send anybody north of Herrandown until things are clearer.” Merral heard a sharp edge to his voice.

Henri rapped slender fingers sharply on the chair arms. “Well, I'd normally request your reasons, but it's now an unusual situation right across the board.” He sighed. “And to be frank, man, the development of the extreme north was always going to be the first casualty of the Gate loss. Okay, we'll veto the extreme north. We may boost some of the southern colonies instead. They are less demanding.”

“Thanks. So tell me, what have I come back to?”

Henri leaned back and gave a chuckle, but it was one without any happiness. “
Ach,
a fluid and fast-moving situation. I don't even know whether your tropics posting is going to come off.”

“It can wait,” Merral answered, and he meant it.

“Sorry. Anyway, the initial directives are for categorization; we have to look at all our plans in terms of what equipment and resources they need and whether they make use of non-Farholme-sourced material.”

“Any specific guidelines?”

“Two specifics: Delete no data files unless you have first checked that the Library holds a copy. And just today I have had a direct order from Representative Corradon's office telling me that we are not to use machines with gravity-modifying engines. All available Farholme GMEs are prioritized for medical, rescue, and other such work. So, if you need a low-impact machine, use a hovercraft, not a GM sled.”

“Makes sense,” answered Merral, wondering what else would be affected.

“Yes.” Henri rubbed his forehead. “I suppose we must be positive and see it as a challenge. There's a pile of things on your desk.”

“Yes. I saw it.”

Henri rose to his feet. “Yes. But, man, it's good to have you back.”

Seated in his office, Merral began to sort out the memos and files that had accumulated on his desk and on the in-tray of his deskscreen.

A lot of the material awaiting him dated back to before the loss of the Gate, and Merral was able to simply consign it to either a digital or real recycling bin. It was when he stared at his personal calendar with its list of forthcoming virtual conferences across the worlds that he had been planning to attend that the isolation his planet was now under came home to him. He closed his eyes and issued an order. “Diary, delete all reminders re inter-system conferences from today onward.”

The metallic tones came back to him. “Diary query: Your request normally requires an end limit. Until when am I to delete them?”

“Diary, unlimited deletion. All of them. Until further notice. Forever.”

The words “request completed” echoed around the office.

“Good-bye, my old life,” Merral said aloud, and suddenly struck by the enormity of it all, he put his head in his hands.