“Take me a lifetime. I’m vidding for posterity, for an eternity of schoolkids. What’s happening now, Major Stype?”
“There’s a veldt. A million square miles of it. The green lines in the spectrum aren’t quite chlorophyll. Infrared suggests it’s grass and some tree clumps, little forests. Someone has been writing on it in really big letters.”
Finally, a message from God? Marco didn’t say that.
He’d get reported, or slapped. “Writing on the veldt?”
“Just on the grass. Whatever it is avoids the trees.”
“What does it say?”
“We can’t read it. The letters are cursive, all linked up with almost no breaks. We’re not even sure it’s writing, but that’s what it looks like. No human language, except that there’s one little stretch that’s in English.”
“What’s it say? For God’s sake, Major!”
“It’s in script, no breaks. It says, ‘Ice on my mind.’”
The narrator didn’t have to ask what that meant. He’d just come out of cold sleep, and with his mind intact, as far as he could tell. But that phrase had terrified him when he went to sleep.
“You may thank God we solved that problem,” Major Stype said.
“Ah. It’s probably an obscenity, for them, the ones down there. So you woke me with a mystery, Major? Good. What else?”
She laughed. “Hah!” Her expression hardly changed as she continued, “We got through to Geographic. Well, to an AI that calls itself Cassandra. An AI, built in the old days without a lot of the safeguards we put in now. And still in orbit, not down on the planet. Think about that. Still in orbit. Older AI. The chief engineer is going over the Cassandra plans now, and chuckling half the time.”
“Chuckling?” Humor? Just what kind of story was this? The major, or monitor, or whatever she was laughed again, but not much; something worrying her.
“Chuckling,” Major Stype said. “We learned a lot about AI after Geographic launched. Maybe the First Speaker should have eased into that conversation. The first thing he asked about was the writing on the veldt. Do they have intelligent aliens? Cassandra broke off. Sudden silence. That was three days ago, and we can’t get a peep out of Cassandra since.”
“Why would it do that—just shut up. Ignoring us?”
“That’s one explanation. Paranoia’s another. Maybe it’s making sure we don’t learn any more about Avalon.”
“But—but—”
“You may not recall, Narrator, but the Geographic trustees made it very clear that they wanted no Godsons aboard, nor did they need our help.”
“I recall, Major.” He tried Smile Number Three, the one he used in fashion shoots rather than on the screen. It was authoritative, but vulnerable. “Which is why I am astonished that we are headed to their planet. I assume there is a reason?”
“Not your problem just now. You’ll learn more when you’re fully awake.” She was all business. This one wouldn’t be seduced, not here, and not by him.
But the nurse was still promising. Later, perhaps. Business now.
Marco’s brow furrowed as he went into planning mode. He’d start there, stock footage of Messenger under thrust, then the telescope footage. Avalon, then closer, then the veldt. Then backflash. He had plenty of footage during the two years leading up to takeoff. Cut that a lot. Some tracks from the pacing ships, then it would be all stock from outside.
Prechildren loading, ten thousand fertilized eggs at a time. Then frozen crew . . .
Major Stype was watching him, the tip of a pink tongue touching the middle of her upper lip. She liked watching his concentration. It earned her respect . . and a little more.
Good. Back to two hours again. Less, if he was lucky. “Major? When can I get to work?”
♦ ChaptEr 5 ♦
backgrounds
“Hand me that grippy, Jason.” Carlos tightened the clamp on his workbench’s plasma cutter. Vibration shivered the housing, making the very precise alignments necessary for tool construction more difficult to achieve. Jason Tuinukuafe, the big beefy kid who was the younger of the Samoan Twins, wheeled the all-purpose calibrating solderer over and locked it down so that Carlos could work his magic. It looked like a short-armed steel octopus.
He’d heard from Cadzie that skeeter “Blue” Three gave him the willies on the way to the mainland. While skeeters made water landings just fine, it was still disturbing.
Twyla staggered yawning into the shop from their bedroom in the adjoining house at the foot of Mucking Great Mountain. He hated to admit it, but much of the current attraction in a bedmate was simple companionship, feeling a warm body nearby. Madre Dios, he had certainly never expected that change. For others, perhaps, but not Carlos Garcia.
As the saying goes, time wounds all heels.
Twyla was a sweet lady, physician and chief psychologist who thought herself a mix of Irish and Cherokee, but couldn’t be certain. Her long black hair had lovely white streaks now. They suited her. She kissed his cheek, scenting of cinnamon. “Morning. Coffee?”
“Had mine,” he said.
“Surprised to find you boys out here so early, Jaxon.”
“I’m Jason,” the Samoan replied.
“Of course you are.” She massaged Carlos’ shoulders, her fingers digging into knots of tension. “You’re tight,” she said. “What’s the urgency?”
“We’ve got problems, but thank goodness Camelot is isolated, and safe.”
“Problems,” she repeated. “I thought you said we couldn’t undo our biggest problem.”
“The printer, yes. That was a real disaster.”
“Come on,” Jason wiped a meaty forearm across his brow. It was summer on Camelot, and mornings got humid early. “That was a long time ago. Tricky for a while, but we make just about everything we consume now. What was the big deal?”
Carlos sighed. “We didn’t like what we saw happening on Earth. Things had gotten too easy, for too many of us. There was a breakdown of ambition and drive . . and fabricators were a part of that. You could just ‘print’ anything you wanted. Sand was a perfect starting material for much of it. We were impossibly wealthy, and getting soft.”
She took another sip, and grinned at him over the rim of her cup. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you didn’t used to think like that.”
“Is that right?”
“Oh, it’s right. Cadmann did, though.”
Carlos winced. She might have been reading his mind. “Fair enough. I . . .”
“What?”
Carlos sighed. Why was it so hard to say this out loud? “I miss him so much. I didn’t know him very long. All totaled up, what? Twenty years of real time? But he’s haunted me for forty. He saved us. And I find myself thinking ‘what would Cadmann do?’ Not often, just ten times a day or so. I watch Cadzie, wondering whether or when he’ll start showing the same strength.”
“And?”
“He’s a good kid. Strong, smart. But it isn’t fair to ask him to be his grandfather.”
Jason doffed his goggles. Pale circles marked where the lenses had protected his face from grinder dust. “It’s not fair not to let him be. Are you worried? About the machines?”