A Dream of Ice (22 page)

The implications were immediate and deep and they staggered Mikel. He couldn't even respond. Pao and Rensat intended to rewrite all of history by preventing the destruction of Galderkhaan.

Desperate, impossible questions flooded Mikel's brain. If they succeeded, if Galderkhaan were saved, would the whole course of history change? Would he suddenly cease to exist, since his own lineage would be altered through tens of thousands of years? Or did his existence prove that they had failed, since history had not been changed?

Mikel stood there shaking his head. “You will save—tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands at the cost of billions?” he asked, stumbling through his own thoughts.

“What would you do to save your home?” Pao asked.

“To prevent its loss, I'd do a great deal!” Mikel agreed. “But I wouldn't go back centuries to do it!”

“You are not
cazhed
in permanent, eternal stasis,” Pao said. “So few Galderkhaani were able to reach the transpersonal plane, even being stuck here with a loved one . . . it can be desolate.”

“So you restore Galderkhaan,” Mikel said, “put the Source on hold, work out your issues with the Technologists, create a playground
for your souls . . . and six billion people still die! No, far more than that—all of the people who lived for the last thirty thousand years!”

“Your thinking is flawed,” Pao said hotly, for the first time. “Ninety-seven thousand Galderkhaani would get to live and the result would be billions of Galderkhaani
born
in succeeding generations! Advanced, enlightened beings!”

“We have been blessed by the Candescents, we honor the Candescents, and we will be
with
the Candescents,” Rensat said. “That is our destiny and that is our mission.”

Mikel felt his gut knot and his mind blaze. If he could have struck these two, he would have. Their scheme defined religious fanaticism: no matter what the cost, they and their acolytes had to have their way. Even if they were right, even if some cosmic glory and eternal survival awaited the hundreds or thousands of Priests and Priestly followers who remained ascended but alone, not joined and transcended in some mythical higher plane, that did not justify imposing their will on countless civilizations that followed.

He had to get out of there. He needed counsel, not just Flora but this other woman . . . the one they sought. How had she gone to the past, and why, and what information could she add to this numbing mix?

The good news, for Mikel, was that Pao and Rensat had spent a long time looking for two people and had failed to find them both. He, at least, had a clue from the video about how to find one of them.

There was other good news. He didn't have to stay there and listen to them anymore. He was pretty sure these beings could not hold him.

He hoped.

Pao had turned to Rensat while Mikel processed what he had heard. There was tenderness between the two, and Mikel reminded himself that even the world's most notorious tyrants had families they loved. He did not feel compassion for this man, but a kind of terror he had never known. Mikel understood a love of home; of course he
understood that. But theirs was gone because of its own failings. Other homes had taken its place, homes that they had no right to obliterate.

Mikel used Pao's distraction as an opportunity to pull out the skin mask. He slapped it to his face and visualized the tunnel map he had seen. He couldn't go backward, to where the tunnel had been aflame. There was only one other exit, the large chamber with the glass panel door through which Rensat had entered. If Mikel read the map right, it opened into another series of tunnels.

Not that it mattered, really. It was the only option he had.

Boring through the startled specters, he launched himself forward and threw open the glass panel.

W
e must do something.”

Adrienne Dowman turned to look at Flora, who had spoken almost inaudibly. She was staring through the window panel at the relic as if it had mesmerized her. After two full days, the stone was still floating, still stable.

“So,” Adrienne said. “You're one of those.”

“One of what?” Flora said, not turning her head.

“One of those people who has a single success and takes that as a mandate to do anything you want.”

Now Flora deigned to look at her. She had avoided her new associate as much as possible, spending the day trying to find out where the hell Mikel was and looking for any scraps of new data about anomalies in the South Pole. So far, both endeavors had been unsuccessful. She was feeling uncommonly frustrated and didn't feel like listening to a subordinate.

“I thought we had the conversation about my being uninterested in your opinions,” Flora said.

Adrienne smiled an annoying half smile. “The way I look at it, Dr. Davies, you do not have a choice but to listen.”

“Not?” Flora suggested.

“I don't see that as an option,” Adrienne replied. “You've said it before: the rest of my career is going to be spent right here, working for you. You can't let me off my chain until you go public with your results about these objects, and you know next to nothing about them. So that's pretty far in the future. The equation, then, is: ‘you need me' plus ‘I wish to be heard' equals ‘you will listen.' ”

Flora stared at Adrienne for a moment longer, not quite believing what she was hearing, then looked back at the stone. “And
you
will find that I'm capable of very selective hearing.”

“We'll see,” Adrienne said. “Let's start with this. You've solved
a
problem with that stone. I suggest—I
urge
you not to turn off the system and start messing with it again or you may have to solve others before you're ready.”

“We have no choice,” Flora said. “You've been taking readings since it's been in stasis and learned very little—”

“Oh, I haven't learned very little,” Adrienne replied. “So far, I've learned nothing. This object is like an electron. Stop it and it's just another particle. You only learn when it's active, in motion.”

“Then what choice do I have but to shut off the—what did you call it?”

“The node,” Adrienne replied. “That's the location in the array of sound waves capable of sustaining the levitation.”

“Yes. All right, Adrienne. Give me an option.”

“Patience,” Adrienne replied. She cocked her head toward the stone. “I've had to tiptoe around this relic, literally. Every garbage truck, every bus that passed by on the street had me on edge. Vibrations of any kind affect sound.”

“I understand that,” Flora said. “But I don't think
you
understand what we have.”

Adrienne opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it.

“The stability of a singularity that suddenly, inexplicably reaches out and expands, that creates massive inflation,” Flora said. “What does that describe?”

Adrienne replied immediately. “The Big Bang.”

“Quite so,” Flora said. She gazed at the artifact. “This is the beginning of the universe in a bottle. And it is artificial, though constructed of naturally occurring minerals, and possibly made by intelligent hands. That's significant.”

“Dr. Davies, it's an ancient stone in a node,” Adrienne said, correcting her.

Flora chose that moment to selectively not hear.

“And you said ‘intelligent,' not ‘human,' ” Adrienne pointed out as she replayed the statement in her head. “What did you mean by
that
?”

Again, Flora ignored her. Instead, she asked, “What would happen to me if I walked in there? It's just ultrasound, right? The same that's used on pregnant women?”

“And that we use to break up kidney stones. Or, perhaps, Group directors.”

“So it could be destructive.”

“Yes,” Adrienne sighed. “I'll just say I hope you won't do that. It would be a seriously flawed decision.”

Flora smiled.

Adrienne was not warmed by the smile. “You're not going to listen.”

“All those vehicles that passed by, the trucks and buses—they did not cause an imbalance, did they?” Flora asked.

Adrienne's mouth tightened. “Dr. Davies, you were smart enough to hire me and now I'm asking you to be smart enough to stay out of the lab until I figure out a safe, sane next step.”

“When will that be?”

“Next Friday, four-oh-one p.m.”

Flora ignored Adrienne's unwelcome quip. “Worst case—what happens if I go in?”

“All right, here's the truth,” Adrienne said. “Let's ignore the question of stability. It's ultrasound on steroids in there. What that means
is, if you don't stay inside too long and if you're protecting your eardrums, any other effects on you should be minimal. Your body heat will probably rise.”

“How long is too long?”

“When you start feeling like you have a fever, that's too long.”

“Seconds? Minutes?”

“Maybe two minutes,” Adrienne said. “I just don't know. And I repeat, I do not want to find out.”

Flora had faith in the iron constitution that came with her Welsh heritage. She wanted to test that envelope. “Anything else?”

“There's a minimal risk of cavitation, bubbles forming in your blood, tissues, or organs.”

“The practical effects of which are?”

“Your blood vessels could rupture.”

Flora gazed at the stone. “How minimal is minimal?”

Adrienne rubbed her eyebrows. “Almost nonexistent if you don't linger once the other symptoms set in.”

“Good.” Flora swung away from the window and strode down the hall.

“Get me out of here,” Adrienne said under her breath, her eyes betraying fear as she watched the relic hovering, quiet and still and ominous.

Flora came back gloved and holding a tray with eight objects, all about the same size and shape as the artifact. Adrienne could see at a glance that none were made of the same type of stone. She guessed ancient clay, wood, and copper right off the bat. One looked like it might be alabaster, and another looked sheathed in a beige leather with an odd sheen. Flora balanced the tray carefully in one hand, thrust a pair of surgical gloves at Adrienne, and tweaked her headphones more securely over her ears. Then she opened the door to the chamber.

“Come on,” she ordered.

“Thank you, no,” Adrienne snapped.

“You're not going to be inside,” Flora returned. “You're going to stand in the doorway and hand me these.”

Adrienne stood still for a moment, then pulled on the gloves with an insolent look. She received the tray dubiously. “Do any of these have a history of acting up?”

“No, they've never misbehaved,” Flora said as she eyed the room, the boundaries of which were set by the black panels on the walls, floor, and ceiling.

Adrienne reached into the pocket of her lab coat and thumbed on a recorder. She announced the time. Flora stood still and shook out her hands. After taking a long breath, she slowly stepped into the frame of inaudible sound waves—

And felt nothing. Flora did a head-to-toe check. Heart rate: unchanged. Breathing: normal. Vision and hearing: neither deprived nor hallucinating. She grinned and approached the artifact.

“Dr. Davies, can you hear me all right?”

“I can.”

“If you start to feel that the world is going swimmy in any way, or if you suddenly feel like you're sort of distanced from everything, like it takes extra effort for your hand to reach an object, that's a warning sign.”

“I'm always distanced from everything. It's called objectivity.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Yes. Hand me one of the artifacts.”

Adrienne surveyed the objects. She selected the alabaster one and leaned forward into the room to convey it to Flora's outstretched hand. Once Flora had received it, Adrienne quickly backed out into the doorway.

Flora regarded the carvings on this stone and compared them to the triangle on the relic. She had memorized the patterns long ago, knew that there was no obvious sequence among them.

“At the risk of stating the obvious,” Adrienne said, “do not move the main stone in any way.”

“Okay. It stays on its back. So. What's the pattern? The creators of these were not children playing with dominoes.”

“Unlike you.”

Flora did not bother responding to that. She continued where she'd left off. “I'm going to align the faces first.” And with that, Flora carefully slid the alabaster artifact into the space above the main stone, as close as possible without their touching.

“What does it feel like?” Adrienne asked.

Flora was glad her companion's first priority was still science. “I feel a slight repulsion between the objects.” Quickly, she flipped the alabaster so that its carvings faced the ceiling instead of the main stone. A very gentle feeling of suction resulted and she let go of the alabaster. She heard Adrienne gasp. Immediately the stone settled in, floating in the air a bare millimeter above the other.

“The node's not big enough to hold all of these up,” Adrienne said.

“Next,” Flora ordered.

Adrienne regarded the tray. Carefully, she picked up the wooden artifact. Its center had begun to petrify but its edges had the fragility of very, very old organic matter. Adrienne held up the object carefully, then leaned in to hand it to Flora.

“This is about an ounce, roughly one-third the weight of the first stone passed into the chamber,” Adrienne said into the recorder. “We should have taken accurate measurements.”

“It's twenty-six point four grams,” Flora said.

Adrienne's mouth clapped shut as Flora slid the wooden artifact above the alabaster one. Again, with a slight suction the object began to levitate, not touching the one below it.