Distress - A Novel Part 20

"No. Climb out and get help."

"You don't have time." Ve yelled toward the loading bay; vis cry sounded weak to me-either my hearing was fading, or ve'd inhaled enough of the toxin to affect vis voice. I tried turning my head to see if there was any response; I couldn't.

223.

Cursing my stubborness, Kuwale raised verself up and dragged me over the edge.

I sank. I was paralyzed and numb, unsure if we were still connected. The water would have been transparent if not for the air bubbles; it was like falling through flawed crystal. I desperately hoped that I wasn't inhaling-it seemed impossible to tell.

Bubbles drifted past my face in contradictory wavering streams, refus-ing to define the vertical. I tried to orient myself by the gradient of light, but the cues were ambiguous. All I could hear was my heart pounding- slowly, as if the toxin was blocking the pathways that should have had it racing in agitation. I had a weird sense of deja vu; with no feeling in my skin, I felt no wetter than when I'd stood on dry land watching the image from the tunnel diver's camera. I was having a vicarious experience of my own body.

The bubbles suddenly blurred, accelerated. The turbulence around me grew brighter, then without warning my face emerged into the air, and all I could see was blue sky.

Kuwale shouted in my ear, "Are you okay? I've got you now. Try to relax." Ve sounded distant; all I could manage was an indignant grunt. "A couple of minutes, and we should be safe. My lungs are affected, but I think that's pa.s.sing." I stared up into the unfathomable sky, drowning in reverse.

Kuwale splashed water over my face. I was improving; at least I could tell that I was swallowing most of it. I coughed angrily. My teeth started chattering; the water was colder than I'd imagined. "Your friends are pathetic. One amateur burglar, caught out by a backup alarm. Cholera that gets confused by a melatonin patch. Toxins that wash off in seawa-ter. Violet Mosala has nothing to fear."

Someone grabbed my foot and dragged me under.

I counted five figures in wetsuits and scuba gear; they were all clad in polymer from ankles to wrists, and all wore gloves and hoods as well. No skin exposed. Why7 I struggled weakly, but two divers held me tight, trying to thrust some kind of metal device into my face. I pushed it away.

The harvester emerged from the translucent distance, barely visible against the sunlit water, and I felt my first real shock of visceral fear. If they'd poisoned the tentacles-restored the natural gene to the engineered species-we were dead. I broke free long enough to turn and see the other three divers thras.h.i.+ng around Kuwale, trying to hold ver still.

224.

One of my captors waved the device in front of me again. It was a regulator, attached to an air hose. I turned to stare at her; I could barely make out her expression through the faceplate, though Witness instantly recognized another target. The air hose led to a second tank on her back. I had no way of knowing what the tank contained-but if it was harmful, I was only minutes away from drowning anyway.

The diver's eyes seemed to say: It's your decision. Take it or leave it.

I looked around again. Kuwale's arms were tied behind vis back, and ve'd given in and accepted the unknown gas. I was still weak from the toxin, and short of breath. I had no chance of escaping.

I let them bind my hands together, then I opened my mouth and bit hard on the regulator tube. I sucked in air gratefully, reeling between panic and relief. If they'd wanted us dead, they would have run a fis.h.i.+ng knife through our ribs by now-but I still wasn't ready for the alternative.

The harvester approached, and the divers swam forward to meet it, dragging us along. I wanted to s.h.i.+eld my face with my hands, but I couldn't. The medusa s knot of transparent tentacles opened up around us, writhing like the pathological topologies of pre-s.p.a.ce, like the vacuum come to life.

Then the net closed tight.

225.

21.

The harvester's toxins were enervating, but not painful. If anything, they made the ride more bearable: relaxing muscles tensed in revulsion and claustrophobia, dulling the sense of being eaten alive. The creature was probably just a commercial species, not the privately engineered weapon I'd imagined. Belatedly, I started recording; my eyes stung from the salt, but closing them gave me vertigo. I could see Kuwale and the divers guarding ver, blurred as if through frosted gla.s.s. Pacified by the toxins, coc.o.o.ned in translucent jelly, we moved through the bright water.

I pictured us being winched into the air and dropped unceremoniously onto the deck, like the catch I'd seen disgorged earlier. Instead, someone relaxed the harvester with a hormonal wand while we were still in the water, and the divers hauled us up over the side, climbing rope ladders. On deck, Witness matched three more faces. No one spoke to us, and I was still too s.p.a.ced-out to compose an intelligent question. The woman who'd offered me the regulator bound my feet together, then tied my hands, already joined, to Kuwale's, linking us back-to-back. Another of the divers took away our notepads, wrapped a length of (non-living) fis.h.i.+ng net around us-threading it under our arms-then hooked it to the winch and lowered us into an empty hold. When they closed the hatch, we were in total darkness.

I felt my biochemical stupor lifting; the odor of decaying seaweed seemed to help. I waited for Kuwale to volunteer an a.s.sessment of our situation; after several minutes of silence, I said, "You know all their faces; they know all your communications codes. Now tell me who's winning the intelligence war."

Ve s.h.i.+fted irritably. "I'll tell you this much: I don't think they'll harm us. They're moderates; they just want us out of the way."

226.

"While they do what?"

"Kill Mosala."

My head swam from the stench; the smelling-salts effect had outlived its usefulness and gone into reverse. "If moderates want to kill Mosala, what do the extremists have in mind?"

Kuwale didn't answer.

I stared out into the blackness. Back on the docks, ve'd insisted that the threat to Mosala had nothing to do with technoliberation. I said, "Do you want to clear up one small point of Anthrocosmological doctrine for me.

"No."

"If Mosala dies before becoming the Keystone .. . nothing happens, nothing changes. Right? Someone else will take her place-eventually- or we wouldn't even be here to talk about it."

No reply.

"Yet you still feel responsible for keeping her safe? Why?" I cursed myself silently; the answer had been staring me in the face ever since I'd spoken to Amanda Conroy. "These people are not the political enemies of someone who just happens to be a potential Keystone. Are they? They're a walking affront to every mainstream Anthrocosmologist- because they've stolen your ideas, and pushed them to their logical conclusion. They're AC, just like you, except that they've decided they don't want Violet Mosala as creator of the universe."

Kuwale responded venomously, "It's no 'logical conclusion.' Trying to choose the Keystone is insanity. The universe exists because the Keystone is given. Would you try to change the Big Bang?"

"No. But this act of creation still hasn't happened, has it?"

"That makes no difference. Time is a part of what is created. The universe exists-now-because the Keystone will create it."

I persisted, "But there's still room left to change things, isn't there? No one knows yet exactly which TOE is true."

Kuwale s.h.i.+fted again; I could feel vis body grow rigid with anger. "That's the wrong way to look at it! The Keystone is given! The TOE is fixed!"

I said, "Don't waste your breath defending the mainstream to me. I think you're all equally braindead; I'm just trying to come to grips with the more dangerous version. Don't you think I have a right to know what we're up against?"

227.

I could hear ver breathing slowly, trying to calm verself. Then ve explained, reluctantly: "They believe that the ident.i.ty of the Keystone is determined, preordained . . . along with everything else in history, including the killing of any 'rivals.' But determinism doesn't take away the illusion of power-have you ever known an Islamic fatalist to be pa.s.sive? It's not as if the hand of G.o.d is going to reach out of the sky and make sure that they spare the Keystone-or some improbable conspiracy of fate will frustrate them, if they go after the wrong physicist. There's no need for supernatural intervention, when the whole universe and everyone in it is just a conspiracy to explain the Keystone's existence. Whoever they murder, for whatever reason, they can't get it wrong.

"So ... if they kill all the rivals of the theorist with the TOE they favor, then that TOE must be the one that brings the universe into being. And whether they've really chosen anything or not, the result is the same. The TOE they want, and the TOE they get, end up being identical."

It hit me, belatedly. "And they're in Kyoto, too? You think they got to Nis.h.i.+de-that's why he's sick? And they got to Sarah, before she could expose them?"

"Most likely."

"Have you told the Kyoto police? Do you have people, there-?" I stopped; ve could hardly discuss countermeasures, when we were almost certainly being monitored. I said wearily, "What's so wonderful about Buzzo's TOE, anyway?"

Kuwale was derisive. "They think it leaves open a chance of access to other universes, seeded from pre-s.p.a.ce by other Big Bangs. Mosala and Nis.h.i.+de both rule that out completely; other universes might still exist, but they're unreachable. Black holes, wormholes, in their TOEs, all lead back to this one cosmos."

"And they're willing to kill Mosala and Nis.h.i.+de-because one universe isn't enough for them?"

Kuwale protested sardonically, "Think of the infinite riches we'd be throwing away, if we chose a self-contained cosmos. Take a long-term perspective. Where would we flee to, when the Big Crunch came? One or two lives is a small price to pay for the future of all humanity, isn't it?"

I thought of Ned Landers again, trying to step outside the human race, in order to take control of it. You couldn't step outside the uni--but out-explaining every TOE theorist with Anthrocosmology, verse and then playing choose-your-own-creator, came close.

228.

Kuwale said despondently, "Maybe Mosala is right to despise us, if this is where our ideas have led."

I wasn't going to argue. "Does she know? That there are ACs who want to kill her?"

"She does and she doesn't."

"Meaning what?"

"We've tried to warn her. But she loathes even the mainstream so pa.s.sionately that she won't take the threat seriously. I think she thinks . . . bad ideas can't touch her. If Anthrocosmology is nothing but superst.i.tion, it has no power to harm her."

"Tell that to Giordano Bruno." My eyes were adapting to the darkness; I could see a faint strip of light on the floor of the hold in the distance.

I said, "Have I missed something-or have we been talking all this time about the people you call moderates?" Kuwale didn't reply, but I felt ver move-slumping forward, as if in a final surrender to shame. "What do the extremists believe? Break it to me gently, but break it to me now. I don't want any more surprises."

Kuwale confessed miserably, "You might say they . . . hybridized with the Ignorance Cults. They're still ACs, in the broadest sense: they believe that the universe is explained into being. But they believe it's possible-and desirable-to have a universe without any TOE at all: without a final equation, a unifying pattern. No deepest level, no definitive laws, no unbreakable proscriptions. No end to the possibility oftranscendence.

"But the only way to guarantee that... is to slaughter everyone who might become the Keystone."

My clothes seemed to reach an equilibrium with the hold's moist air at the most uncomfortable level of dampness possible. I needed to urinate, but I held off for the sake of dignity-hoping that I'd be able to judge correctly when the problem became life-threatening. I thought of the astronomer Tycho Brahe, who'd died after rupturing his bladder during a banquet, because he was too embarra.s.sed to ask to be excused.

The strip of light on the floor didn't move, but it grew slowly brighter, and then dim again, as the hours wore on. The sounds reaching the hold meant little to me; random creaking and clanking, m.u.f.fled voices and footsteps. There were distant hums and throbbing noises, some constant, 229.

some intermittent; no doubt the most casual boating enthusiast could have discerned the signature of an MHD engine, propelling a jet of sea-water backward with superconducting magnets-but I couldn't have picked the difference between maximum thrust and a crew member taking a shower.

I said, "How does anyone ever become an Anthrocosmologist, when no one knows you exist?"

Kuwale didn't answer; I nudged ver with my shoulder.

"I'm awake." Ve sounded more dispirited than I was.

"Then talk to me, I'm going out of my mind. How do you find new members?"

"There are net discussion groups, dealing with related ideas: fringe cosmology, information metaphysics. We take part-without revealing too much-but we approach people individually if they seem sympathetic and trustworthy. Someone, somewhere, re-invents Anthrocosmol-ogy two or three times a year. We don't try to persuade anyone that it's true-but if they reach the same conclusions for themselves, we let them know that there are others."

"And the non-mainstream do the same? Pluck people off the nets?"

"No. They're all detectors. They all used to be with the rest of us."

"Ah." No wonder the mainstream felt such a strong obligation to protect Mosala. Mainstream Anthrocosmologists had literally recruited her would-be murderers.

Kuwale said quietly, "It's sad. Some of them really do see themselves as the ultimate technoliberateurs: taking science into their own hands, refusing to be steam-rollered by someone else's theory-refusing to have no say in the matter."

"Yeah, very democratic. Have they ever thought of holding an election for the Keystone, instead of killing off all the rival candidates to their own pretender?"

"And give up all that power, themselves? I don't think so. Muteba Kazadi had a 'democratic' version of Anthrocosmology which didn't involve murdering anyone. No one could understand it, though. And I don't think he ever got the mathematics to work."

I laughed, astonished. "Muteba Ka^adi was AC?"

"Of course."

"I don't think Violet Mosala knows that."

"I don't think Violet Mosala knows anything she doesn't want to."

230.

"Hey, show some respect for your deity."

The boat lurch slightly. "Are we moving? Or did we just stop?" Kuwale shrugged. Adaptive ballast smoothed the ride so thoroughly that it was almost impossible to judge what was going on; I'd felt no wave motion in all the time we'd been on board, let alone the subtle accelerations of the journey.

I said, "Do you know any of these people, personally?"

"No. They all left the mainstream before I joined."

"So you can't really be sure how moderate they are."

"I'm sure of the faction they belong to. And if they were going to kill us, we'd be dead."

"There must be good and bad places for disposing of corpses. Points where illegal discharge is least likely to wash ash.o.r.e-computable by any half-decent piece of marine navigation software."

The boat lurched again, then something struck the hull; it resonated all around us, setting my teeth on edge. I waited, tensed. The sound died down, and nothing followed.

I struggled to fill the silence. "Where are you from? I still can't place the accent."

Kuwale laughed wearily. "You'd be wrong if you could. I was born in Malawi, but I left when I was eighteen months old. My parents are diplomats-trade officials; we traveled all over Africa, South America, the Caribbean."

"Do they know you're on Stateless?"

"No. We parted company. Five years ago. When I migrated."

To as.e.x. "Five years ago? How old were you?"

"Sixteen."

"Isn't that too young for surgery?" I was, still, only guessing, but it would take more than superficial androgyny to split up most families.

"Not in Brazil."

"And they took it badly?"

Ve said bitterly, "They didn't understand. Technoliberation, as.e.x- everything that mattered to me-none of it made sense to them. Once I had a mind of my own, they started treating me like some kind of ... alien foundling. They were highly educated, highly paid, sophisticated, cosmopolitan . . . traditionalists. They were still tied to Malawi-and to one social stratum, and all its values and prejudices-wherever they went. I had no homeland. I was free." Ve laughed. "Travel shows up the 231.

invariants: the same hypocrisies repeating themselves, over and over. By the time I was fourteen, I'd lived in thirty different cultures-and I'd figured out that s.e.x was for dumb conformists."

That almost shut me up. I asked tentatively, "You mean gender or intercourse?"