A World Between (49 page)

“I could be of great assistance to you...” Maria suggested. “Believe me, I could more than justify the political risk...”

Carlotta studied her speculatively for a moment. She thought of that potential embittered 25 percent of the voters. She thought of Roger Falkenstein’s prediction of failure for the Pacifican Institute of Transcendental Science. Perhaps Transcendental Science
does
have a medicine to heal our wounds without leaving scars, she thought.

“I believe you, Maria,” she said, reaching out and taking her hand. “Welcome aboard.” Maria looked up. She smiled wanly. She nodded silently.

“So Sisterhood
does
turn out to be powerful after all, doesn’t it?” Carlotta said. She laughed. “But not quite the way the Femocrats mean it,” she said. “You could twist semantics a little closer to the truth and call it the Sisterhood of man*”

A very long aerial shot of the silvery disc of the abandoned Godzillaland Institute of Transcendental Science. As the camera zooms in on the Institute, six helicopters parked in front of the building become visible. Tiny figures scamper from the helicopters toward the Institute as the camera zooms in closer: men and women carrying crates, chests, and items of equipment into the empty building.

The shot centers on a stationary female figure standing just in front of the entrance to the Institute, and the camera zooms in much more rapidly now into a closeup on this woman, who is revealed as Maria Palkenstein. Her face is calm, determined, perhaps a bit contrite.

Maria Falkenstein: “Citizens of Pacifica ... or I should say my fellow Pacificans, for I’m going to have to get used to that ... as you no doubt know, I am Dr. Maria Falkenstein, Institute graduate, late of the Arkology
Heisenberg.
Pending Parliamentary approval of a permanent position, I have accepted a provisional appointment as acting Provost of the Pacifican Institute of Transcendental Science, contingent upon approval of my application for Pacifican citizenship. As you see, the Institute is now being reopened under my direction, and applications for admission will now be accepted by the Ministry of Science.”

She pauses, staring at the camera, as if waiting for the enormity of her announcement to sink in.

Maria Falkenstein: “My people came here with a vision of a transcendent human future and a dedication to spreading our advanced knowledge throughout all human worlds. Unfortunately, we also came with a righteous conviction that this end justified any means. Even more unfortunately, a Femocrat mission arrived with an even more ruthless dedication to thwarting that goal, and soon we were all caught up in a conflict that strained Pacifican society to the breaking point.”

She becomes openly humble, painfully apologetic.

Maria Falkenstein: “For my part in what happened, I can only humbly beg your forgiveness. But despite the efforts of Femocracy and Transcendental Science, it was
you
who in the end prevailed. And for that, I can only offer my heartfelt thanks to you for what you have taught me.”

She pauses and smiles ruefully. “I learned how men and women could live together in justice and equality. I learned that it takes more than logic and knowledge to make a people whole. I learned how a free and democratic people could retain control over its own destiny despite overwhelming odds against them, I am learning from you still...”

The camera pulls back for a longer shot, including the entrance to the Institute as Pacificans pass back and forth through the shimmer-screen.

Maria Falkenstein: “Now I offer my own knowledge in return. You have been told that without guidance from a true Institute graduate, your native Pacifican Institute can only be a pale shadow of the real thing, and I must tell you that this is true. The Femocrats have told you that a male faschochauvinist scientific elite will in time come to dominate Pacifica, and I say this shall not be, and I am here to prove it.”

The camera moves in for a closeup on Maria Falkenstein; determined, resolute, some of her old pride regained.

Maria Falkenstein: “I stand before you now as Provost of a truly
Pacifican
Institute of Transcendental Science, as an Institute graduate capable of guiding that Institute to scientific parity within decades, not centuries, and as a woman. To the Femocrats, I say,
here
is the leader of your male faschochauvinist scientific elite! To my former colleagues, I say
here
is an Institute graduate and a Pacifican, who will share our knowledge with all mankind as knowledge was meant to be shared. To you, my fellow Pacificans, I promise to dedicate the rest of my life to the great adventure we are now embarking upon as fellow Pacificans and human beings.”

The camera pulls back abruptly as her composure cracks and tears well up in her eyes.

Maria Falkenstein: “And finally... and finally... to you, Roger, I say ... I say... I’m sorry if you think I’ve failed you. I’m sorry if ... I hope one day you’ll understand ... I loved you and a part of me loves you still... I’m sorry, Roger, I’m sorry that this had to be..

A sob wracks her body, and she covers her face with her hands as the camera jerkily reverse-zooms into a discreet long shot on Maria Falkenstein as seen from far, far above, a lonely isolated figure standing in a clear space in the wild greenery of the everlasting jungle, like a figure out of an ancient tragedy framed by a spotlight in the center of some vast and bewildering planetary stage.

20

A
FTER ALL BUT SHE HAD BOARDED,
C
YNDA
E
LIZABETH
paused atop the embarkation ramp of the B-3I for a last glimpse of Pacifica to carry with her across the abyss of time and space to Earth.

Fewer than two hundred people had bothered to see the Femocrat ship off, and most of these were newshounds and media crews, and even
their
turnout was unimpressive considering the planet’s multitude of news channels. So final and complete was their defeat and discrediting after the defection of Maria Falkenstein that their departure wasn’t even a major news item.

A defection for which
I
was at least partly responsible, Cynda thought, and strangely enough, she felt no little comfort in that. At the end, she had after all managed to leave some small trace of herself on the future destiny of the planet and in the life of one true sister—and for the better, not the worse. Now the Pacifican Institute of Transcendental Science would be truly Pacifican—a joint effort of men and women together with a woman and a Transcendental Scientist in charge.

As for Maria Falkenstein herself, Cynda, perhaps more than anyone, could empathize with the course she had taken, for it was the mirror-image of the choice she herself had been forced to make. Maria had forsaken the man she had loved for the new destiny that called her, and Cynda had forsaken the possibility of finding the kind of man who might fill her heart for her duty as a Femocrat and a human being. Maria’s sacrifice took her away from the world she had known to work out a new life on a new planet, and Cynda’s sacrifice was bringing her back to her own world as a transformed stranger, a potential agent of change. There was symmetry in that, a rough sort of cosmic justice.

And when the arguments and counterarguments had ground each other down, Cynda was sure that Femocracy would be forced to realize that it could no longer afford to stand aloof from the commerce and discourse of the Galactic Media Web. Not with the Pacificans openly trafficking in the formerly secret knowledge that Sisterhood had coveted for over a century. Femocracy could now not afford not to buy the inertia-screen, the matter transformer, rejuvenation, and all the rest Even an ideologue like Bara Dorothy was beginning to see that isolation from the Web would mean that the Femocratic planets would become a primitive backwater while the rest of the galaxy swept onward and upward.

And in order to buy, Femocracy would have to sell. In order to sell, Femocracy would have to produce wares that could compete on the interstellar market. And in order to do that, Femocracy would have to learn how to adapt itself to the galactic mainstream, to grow, and to change.

Who can say where that may one day lead? Cynda Elizabeth thought. Who can say that one day it may not be possible for a Sister and a Femocrat to openly walk the streets of Earth with her
man
and yet remain both a Sister and a Femocrat? There are other Sisters on Earth who have felt what I feel, a few strongly enough to have braved punishment by acting out what was in their hearts. How many of us are there? Who has even dared to try to find out? Femocracy is going to have to change, and if Sisterhood is truly powerful, may it not one day be strong enough to accept even breeder-lovers like me as Sisters and true comrades? Who can say that I may not live to see that new world?

Cynda looked out across the broad Columbian plain for one last time. Fields of golden grain rippled in the breeze beneath an unclouded sky. In the distance, the Big Blue River flowed toward Gotham, that alien city where for a while at least she had found her own true nature in the arms of a man. She wondered what Eric might be doing now, whether he would be watching this departure on the net.

She sighed. That had been, and now it was over, and the equivocal future called to her. For the moment, it was enough to remember what had been, and to know that wherever she was, a world existed somewhere where men and women lived and loved, free, equal, and together.

She waved goodbye to no one in particular and stepped into the ship.

The inertia-screen was on, the drive cut in, and on the main viewscreen of the
Heisenberg's
bridge, Pacifica began to dwindle rapidly. A huge living world of blue sea, mottled green and brown land, swirling white cloud-banks; then a smaller abstraction of itself like a planetary holo-map; finally a bright blue marble glowing against the black velvet of space like a huge and precious sapphire.

As Dr. Roger Falkenstein stood there watching the planet recede, it seemed to him that some psychic umbilicus that linked him to Pacifica, to Maria, to what had been, was being stretched, thinned, and stressed, and he almost physically steeled himself against the moment when it would snap. Indeed, he wished it
would
snap, whipping his bitterness and confusion out of the center of his being and down the long corridor of the void to oblivion.

But that moment of release never came, and how foolish it was to hope that mere kilometers or light-years or parsecs could magically clear his mind of what had transpired down there on Pacifica. Around him, the bridge crew bustled about the task of readying the
Heisenberg
for deep space, and in the decks below many of the Arkology’s personnel were already entering the blissful nothingness of Deep Sleep. All was as it had always been, and yet everything had changed.

No longer would the Arkologies and Institutes be able to hold their knowledge unto themselves. No longer would centrally controlled Transcendental Science spread from planet to planet as a great unifying force. That day was done; the Pacificans would see to that.

Ongoing human evolution could no longer be guided by the best minds of the species; now it would become chaotic, multifocused, as the forefront of knowledge was transferred to the random marketplace of the Web. Only the Pacificans, the masters of the Web and the subverters of the great plan, would be capable of exercising any control, and
their
idea of control was no control at all, precious knowledge sold to any and all bidders.

The only alternative was to try to beat the Pacificans at their own game; dispense gratis via the Web the knowledge and technology that they would be selling. At least that way, by selecting planets with some care,
some
pattern could be maintained at least for a while, and social cancers like Femocracy could be kept from the leading edge of technology. It was a far more subtle and limited form of guidance, restricted as it was to positive reinforcement, but it was now the only way, and the Council would have to accept it as the only viable policy. And perhaps in time, with the responsibility for the destiny of the species that they were unwittingly assuming, the Pacificans themselves would learn the wisdom of care, restraint, and a coherent guiding vision.

As for Roger Falkenstein’s personal life, it existed only as pain, a pain that was becoming a gaping void, but not swiftly enough by far. Losing Maria was still like the shock of a sudden amputation; a part of him was gone, and the wound was still too fresh for him to feel anything but the whited-out pain of his loss.

Only now, as Pacifica became a brilliant blue ball of light mocking him from the darkness, as Maria disappeared forever beyond the veil of space and time, did small coherent thoughts begin to flit around the periphery of his massive pain—and yes, anger.

Was / in some way responsible for this? Falkenstein wondered. Was there some lack in me as a man that enabled this planet to insinuate itself into my wife’s psyche and finally take her from me as surely as if Pacifica were a newer and fresher lover? Was there some emptiness in our life together, in the very society that made us, that Pacifica was able to fill? Was I mistaken? Was I wrong? About
what?

In the viewport beyond Pacifica, stars and everlasting night extended to infinity in space and time. Now, in his pain and his loss, Falkenstein felt a new sense of humility in the face of that overwhelming cosmic countenance. Perhaps the universe was in the end too vast to be entirely encompassed by any living mind. So, too, the mysteries of the human heart Perhaps where certain knowledge ended, the glimmerings of true wisdom began.

Before them, the great orange ball of the sun hovered just above the western horizon, painting the clouds purple, mauve, and gold, glazing the sea with fire, casting long deep shadows eastward from the green islets of the Island Continent, illumining the yellow undersides of a flock of boomerbirds flying high overhead.