05. Children of Flux and Anchor (8 page)

"Fine."

"And the children? Where are they?"

"Already at the carnival. They've never seen one, you know."

"Well, neither have most people. But we'll show them what a good time one is, eh?"

The judge dismissed Sheva with a wave of the hand and took Suzl over to some lawn chairs in the garden. Both sat, and almost instantly a young and eager Fluxgirl was running out to ask if they required anything. Sensing from Vishnar's nod that it was not out of line to order, she asked for more coffee, and the judge nodded agreement. Inside of five minutes the girl was back with a pot on a silver tray, two exquisite porcelain teacups and saucers, and silver cream and sugar servers. This servile business made Suzl uneasy, but it was only her required conscience and she knew it. Given a choice of being server or served, the second was better every time.

"So, what do you think of the place?" Vishnar asked her.

"It's most impressive," she responded, trying not to sound too much the country hick. "I don't believe I ever saw or heard of anything quite like it."

"It's based on a set of programs from the old records," he told her. "If our interpretation is correct, it's a good reproduction of the estate of the first military commander on World. Of course, that was up in Cluster One, in the Headquarters Anchor. It was actually of a prefabricated design. Fascinating. The method itself has saved us much misery here in New Eden, but no one expected something like this among the records. Goes together like a jigsaw puzzle, in fact. The grounds, of course, took much longer and are still in the process of development."

"It all looks fine to me," she told him truthfully. "I can't imagine what one might add to it."

"Oh, the original had several other features. I'm still considering the big swimming pool. Don't swim myself, but it's getting to be a skill needed in New Eden, what with the Sea and all. The trouble is getting instructors. Until I can, I don't want anything in which someone can fall and drown while we either stand about helplessly or drown trying to save them. Do you swim, by the way?"

She shook her head. "I'm from right around here, remember. It was never something we had to do. Oh, there were some nice ponds and small lakes—I guess they're still there—but it wasn't something you needed to learn."

He nodded understandingly. "The odd thing is, we owe a lot to this program. One of the other things it included in its grounds plan was an ambitious two-kilometer steam locomotive at one-tenth scale. It was from that alone, by simply scaling it up, that we developed our railroad system, which is the only thing that really makes such a massive Anchor area as New Eden work as one. The odd thing is, at their level, steam was an ancient and totally outdated method of propulsion. It was sort of like importing bows and arrows when you already had these computer-guided laser rifles. Or—am I boring you with this? I like to talk and sometimes I go on and on. Don't hesitate to say so if it's the case."

"No, I find it fascinating," she told him truthfully, although she knew his culture was battling his intellect now. "It was his—toy, then."

"Yes, yes! Exactly that! One marvels at what they must have been like—to be able not only to travel vast distances here and build and colonize a world but to even indulge themselves by bringing such frills."

She decided it would be pushing it too far to note that such things had always been and still were for the privileged elite only. The average settler or poor working slob, she guessed, probably got to bring two changes of clothes, a watch, and maybe pictures of his or her parents. All but a very few in New Eden would never be able to have an estate like this built and maintained, let alone the whole of World. "I assume that was also true of the carnival things?"

He gave a chuckle. "Oddly enough, from what we can find out, no. They were apparently built as basic amusements after the Betrayal by some people who'd escaped to the stringers. Oh, they are probably similar to carnival things the ancients had back on the Mother World, but it's not too clear. We've made them grander for this new carnival. Scaled them up, like we did the trains."

"I'm looking forward to going. The last carnival I attended was here, too, when I was very young. In a way, it was the last innocent time I ever had. A few days later they picked me out of the crowd and sold me into Flux."

He stared at her for a moment, then started to say something, stopped, took a drink of coffee, and decided to change the subject. He knew her history, at least up to the time she'd left New Eden. He decided he liked her. He wasn't sure he'd like all the girls to be this worldly or forward, but she was certainly entitled to be the exception.

"I understand you're not going home," he noted.

She gave a weary smile. "No, I'm sort of repeating history. Mr. Ryan's an old friend and his family are also old friends. Odd, though. It's almost like history coming around once more. I'm going to a carnival, then I'm going off and out of Anchor with a stringer—retired, at least." It was more than even that. She was going off with the
same
stringer who'd hauled her into Flux that first time, and she was going without regret because she was just as much an outsider and an oddball as she had been back then. "I hope it's a more uneventful and relaxing trip this time, though," she added.

"I dare say. Is this your first time back here since the Invasion?"

"No. I came back fifteen or twenty years ago—time doesn't mean much to me anymore, I'm afraid—over in the Bakha District with Jeff and some of his people to do some horse trading. Not in the city, though, and not for very long."

Vishnar looked at his watch. "Still three hours until the opening, two until I have to get over there. What say we walk over, through the city, and I'll show you a little of the town?"

"I'd be delighted."

"Would you like to freshen up or change before we go?"

"Do you think I should?"

"Oh, no, my dear. You look absolutely wonderful. Well, then—we'll have to go off the back way, here. I have to stop by the lab and check on something. Do you mind?"

"No, not at all. Do you want me to wait here?"

"Oh, no! Come along! Considering your background, you may be the only girl in New Eden who would be really interested in this."

She got up and followed him, curious and also flattered that he would permit her near his private preserve. She began to suspect that he was going to put the make on her sooner or later. She might be just different enough from these vapid girls to seem somewhat exotic to him. At any rate, he certainly seemed to be going out of his way to impress her.

The building proved more formidable looking up close than it had from afar, although if anything even uglier in the midst of all this beauty. The entry door was, like the building, thick and solid as a vault, and had an electrically encoded panel to gain entrance. She didn't know what would happen if you pressed the wrong code on the pad, but she suspected it wouldn't be nothing at all.

The place was
huge,
and almost entirely open, with just a few plasterboard offices around the base. That open area, however, was filled with an object she had never seen in person but which she recognized instantly.

"It's the ship!"
she gasped. "The
Samish
ship!"

"One of the three," he responded. "Not the mother ship. That's being worked on down in the capital. This is the flying top, the part that caused all the damage beyond the gate. Useless to us as it was, of course. It was designed for those hellish creatures, not us, and also designed to be used in conjunction with their own master computers which are burnt out and not of any logical design we can find, anyway. Some of the best minds from all over World have been working on it and its two twins up north. Two different projects, really. We have always tried to find out how the damned thing could
fly.
No rockets, no apparent major power source like big engines, and it's as aerodynamic as an oak tree. But fly it did—and in ways even a creation of Flux could not."

She nodded absently. "I know. I remember."

He seemed slightly embarrassed for a moment. "Yes, of course you would," he coughed, then took a deep breath. "Well, the second thing was the weaponry. It carried an impenetrable and widening shield with it and it shot beams of something that was lethal to everything it touched. It's vital we understand them, in case we ever have to face them again. Even you will admit that we were lucky the first time."

Her expression was grim, remembering. "Yes. Very." But she wasn't thinking of a new encounter with the
Samish.
No one might ever know what had become of them, but if they hadn't shown up in forty-seven years they were no more likely to show up in the next century, if at all. She couldn't help thinking, though, of a fleet of these things, outfitted for humans, flying, spreading their impenetrable shields through Flux and Anchor, dealing out massive death and destruction. Outfitted for humans who would be in New Eden uniforms.

"Have you . . . had any success?" she asked him hesitantly, wondering how far again she could push it.

"For a long time, no. For almost twenty years actual work was abandoned, as it has been with the mother ships, because of a total lack of progress. Recently, though, two young lads at our own science university over in Babylon took a look at all the research out of curiosity and somehow cracked the core of the problem. It just had to wait until the genius was born and educated who could look beyond conventional knowledge. You know, this was something even our ancestors couldn't do, which was most likely why the other worlds were taken over. Broadcast Flux power. Like the radio. We've had some tests and it seems to work out. We're going for a full-scale demonstration in a week." He suddenly hesitated. "Uh—I'm sorry, my dear—that's all I can say and in fact that was too much. I'm certain you will understand that this is still confidential."

"Yes, of course."

"Excuse me, then. Wait here while I speak to my engineering chief and then we'll be off for fun and frolic, eh?"

She stood there, just staring at the thing. He
had
gotten carried away, and talked as if he were speaking to the Guardian. Not very long from now, though, if it wasn't already percolating in his mind, he'd see it as having spilled the greatest secret of New Eden to a mere girl. And girls, of course, couldn't be trusted to keep secrets. In fact, girls who were too smart for their own good and found out too much were downright dangerous. She knew, even now, that they could not let her leave. Particularly not with a stringer, retired or not. Before he left here, he'd make a call or two, and she'd be so tightly security-monitored she wouldn't be able to take a bath or a crap in privacy.

She might be able to give them the slip, even get out to Flux, which here, where the Anchor was pinch-waisted, was only a little over fifty kilometers away—but she knew she couldn't do it with five grandchildren. They would know that, too. For now, that was enough for them. They would still spend the afternoon and evening at the carnival, and the charade would be played out, but at some point they would figure out a plan and come for her.

She wanted to cry but wouldn't give them the satisfaction. At least, she thought, she wasn't wallowing in self-pity anymore. As usual, events had reared up and crapped on poor Suzl.

4

SECURITY PROBLEM

Matson grumbled in frustration. It had taken them half the night to reach a point in the line which hadn't either been cut or in some way disrupted every time he'd tried a splice—somebody on the other side was very good with communications him- or herself. The old ex-stringer had also been proud of himself for being able to manage a reasonable connection with the tools at hand after being so out of practice. He had never been a linesman, not of true wired systems anyway, and the old techniques that he had seen no use for that were drilled into his head time after time as a young trainee were slow to come back.

The small emergency box was only on one pole every twelve kilometers, and he'd had to break the seal and then assemble what he needed out of the parts kit inside. It wasn't easy, particularly with only a hand-held light. Not knowing where the raiders were camped, they dared not risk a fire.

The frustration was, after all that, and hanging on nervously from the top of a pole, Matson discovered that there were no central operators on duty between midnight and six in the morning at the interchanges along the route to the city. The phone service simply didn't work for several hours each night.

"We could keep going," Rondell suggested. "There's obviously a town between here and Logh Center or we wouldn't be having this problem."

Matson climbed down and sighed. "Grandson, that town might be right over the next rise, or the next, or the next, or it might be a suburb of the city which is still a day's ride away. We gave it our best shot, and I'm about shot, too. I'm going to turn in right here under this damned phone wire as soon as I can unpack my bedroll and bed down the horse. When I wake up, we'll make the call, and they'll have a lot less warning but they'll still have some. There's no way those raiders could make Logh Center tonight, and they'll need the day not only to get there but to blend in with the carnival crowds in small groups to avoid attention. They won't pull anything before tomorrow night. Probably around midnight, in fact, if they shut down the phones to the east as well."

Rondell sighed, actually grateful that he wouldn't have to push himself any more just to show off for his grandfather. "Well," he sighed wearily, "if they look like that bunch we took out they'll be pretty easy to spot."

"Don't underestimate 'em," Matson cautioned. "They got some Flux power, remember, and ten to one they all look like and will act like good, meek little Fluxgirls until the time's right. Smart idea, really. Hit New Eden right in its male-dominated blind spot. If none of 'em cause problems or have their numbers spot-checked—and in a carnival atmosphere with lots of out-of-town guests they'll be pretty lax—those poor boys won't even understand where the bullets are coming from as they fall. Nope, this is daring, all right, even chancy, so the prize must be something really big, but it's smart. No, you gotta figure that anybody saddled with that original Fluxgirl spell and a whore's spell on top of that who can build and run an organization like this is some kind of mind."