Behold a Dark Mirror (33 page)

"So you don't remember what this is?"  She said, shaking the bag with the black leaf that had burned Nero's hand.

Nero shook his head.

"There's a new alkaloid in this vegetable tissue.  It may have hallucinogenic property, and maybe other exotic effects perhaps related to your recovery."

Great, I stumbled onto a new street drug
, Nero thought.

"Mr. Doe, I don't care if you deal drugs, but you're pissing me off if you keep mankind from another miracle like penicillin!  Where did you find this?  And are you the Magician or not?"

"Yes, I was the Magician.  But I got tired of that bar number." 
How am I going to explain where I found that blade—that leaf?
  he thought.  "And I don't know what that blade is."

"Can I believe you, Mr. Doe?  You're lucky you'll be out of here before I lose my self-restraint."

She turned around and walked out of Nero's sight.

*

Kebe sat on the grass, watching Nero carefully.  The mid-afternoon air was fragrant with unusual smells, and a warm breeze carried distant noises.  All around, the vegetation was luscious.  The setting sun tinged the sky with touches of gold.  "What did you think you were doing?"  Kebe said.

Nero glanced around, as looking for someone else:  "Who, me?"  he replied.

"Yes, you.  What on earth were you trying to do?  Look at yourself, you're peeling like a baked apple and may as well have been dead if not for some sort of miracle."

Nero laid down, his back on the ground.  He turned on his side, plucked a blade of grass and stuck it between his teeth, then rolled onto his back.  "Contributing to the future of mankind—isn't it what everyone is doing now on Virgil?"

"What's the matter with you, Nero?"  Kebe said.

Nero stared up into the sky;  Kebe looked at him.  He closed his eyes, and reappeared at her other side. 

Kebe gasped.  "Don't do that to me!"

"See?  I'm a freak."

She closed her eyes into a thin slit.  "You're making yourself a freak.  What's eating you?"

Nero folded his arms under his head.  "Nothing I'm willing to admit to, Kebe.  I'm chomping at the bit.  I want to teach someone what I'm learning.  I need more Cheshire tail, I want people to take interest in what I'm doing.  I want to feel useful, instead of being the Wonder Warlock."

"You risked your life to get some attention?  For all we know, nobody else may be able to do what you can.  You are the key to bringing this gift to mankind.  You're irreplaceable—why did you take a chance like that?"

"Miscalculation, Kebe.  Once more."

"What were you doing?"

"Chasing Ghosts."

"What for?"  she said.

He rose halfway up, resting sideways on his elbow.  "Because they're there.  Because I have nothing better to do than pick tomatoes," he sighed.  "Because I think the Ghosts have a part in our plan."

"What plan?  What do you mean?"

"The Plan to Save the World, of course.  Isn't that what we're up to?"  Nero said.

"You're being sarcastic, Nero.  Remember, a lot of people have died.  You owe them some respect."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry—be wise.  You're hope, Nero.  Hope is priceless."

"I realize what I've become, Kebe.  I'm the flagpole of the hope flag.  My head understands it.  My heart—not really.  It wishes for a different reality;  so I have to soothe it.  Chasing Ghosts is a way to do it."

"Says who?"

"Says me, Kebe.  I know they can't hurt me.  I want to find out more about them.  My accident," he looked at his peeling skin, "was unrelated to the Ghosts—just my poor judgement and criminal inexperience.  I'll be more prudent from now on."

"You carry an awesome responsibility, Nero."

"I realize that.  I don't deserve it, but I must find a way to bear it.  I'm a lonely person, Kebe."

She sidled against him.  "You're not."

He paused for a long time.  "I'd like to teach you autogenic teleportation.  I guess there's a little tail to spare for you."

"No, Nero."

"Unwilling?"  he said.

She looked at him with tears in her eyes:  "I'm pregnant."

Silently, Nero sat up and reached for her hands, held them for a long moment.  Then he hugged her tenderly.

"Jenus?"  He asked.

Kebe nodded.  "I want this baby more than my life, but I'm so scared," she sobbed, her tears streaming.  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

Nero rubbed her shoulders, caressed her hair.  "I'm so happy for you, Kebe, so happy.  Children are a gift like no other gift.  You'll be a wonderful mom." 

He felt a tear streak his cheek.

Part V: Furioso

Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?  And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.

Malachi 3:14-15

CHAPTER 35

Kebe looked at Nero, pacing;  her pregnancy was nearing term.  "I've been on a crusade ever since I can remember, trying to debunk the myth that power cares about people, and look where it's gotten me!  I don't even know if I can provide for my unborn child."  Her eyes red, she sniffled;  a hand on her hip, with the back of the other hand she wiped her nose.  "It's been grief, and sorrow, and death...  I've buried so many friends I've stopped counting, not because I can't remember, but because it hurts too much.  I have nothing to show for my life."  She yelled,  "Nothing!"  Tears ran down her cheeks.

"Jenus will be a good father to your child," Nero said, sitting on a rough bench.

"Maybe he will," Kebe said.  She was fighting her tears, but her voice still cracked.  "Jenus is a smart opportunist, perhaps he's changed, but old habits die hard."  She wiped her nose again and dried her cheeks with the back of her hand.  "You know, I really want to admire his ability to disregard inconvenient ideals.  He's with us because it's the easiest way to achieve his ambitions—which altogether elude me.  But maybe I'm too harsh with him.  He's a good man."

She laid both hands on her belly, looking at it tenderly.  "He'll sure help our child succeed, in a conventional sense."  She turned to Nero, pausing.  "Judging from my experience, I suppose that's good."

"Do you really believe that's good?"  Nero bit his tongue as soon as he said it.

"I sure do.  Do I like it?  That's a different matter, but as things are, I don't think it's important.  I'm a failure by choice, Nero.  Jenus is a failure because he made a mistake.  Now he's trying to make up for it, and he's pretty good.  But he's different from you.  You..."

"Me...?"

"You're an asshole!"  She strode to the door, and slammed it on her way out.  Nero stared after her.  He had made his choices as a mature man, at the time the decision was needed.  His goal was to test his motivation and resolve;  he needed to be sure of his drive as much as he needed air to breathe. 
A man who cannot stand alone,
Nero repeated in his head,
cannot stand in good company—because he can't choose his friends.

Yet life had taken turns he hadn't expected.  No battle plan survives contact with the enemy—that much he knew and accepted, but he was now convinced he had lost the war.  Kebe had been a great resource to him—she had become one of the few people he truly admired.  Kebe wanted acceptance, love, comfort, yes—that, he could provide.  She also needed a mate she could respect.  He could not give her what she needed.

He admired her strength, her drive, and her courage.  She was larger than life, despite her frailty or maybe because of it.  Frailty had taught her to build strength;  the hero that she was had thrived on that need.  Nero understood that it would be easier to gain a hero's condescension than a hero's respect, and that's what Jenus had earned: condescension.  Nero wanted her respect, not as a gift, but because he'd earned it.

Destiny, Nero had just learned, could be even more perverse than nature.  What Kebe needed, what Nero wanted to give her, wasn't ready. 
I don't have it yet!
  Nero thought,
and if I’ll ever do, it will be a waste now.

CHAPTER 36

"We're meeting," Nero said, standing behind the lectern, "Because we need each other for a special purpose."

A large crowd sat in front of him.

"We all know that the situation here on Virgil is difficult, that the Tower is not forthright, that on this planet there are dangers the Tower has lied about.  We," Nero pointed to Max Hopkins, Terry Dayan, Jenus, and Kebe sitting next to him, "have been looking for a solution.  We believe there is one.  Now we need your help to build it.  This gathering is dangerous but necessary.  We need your help now, for our common good."

Jenus stood up.  The crowd watched in silence.

"We need help," he said and looked down, pausing.  Jenus's gaze swept the audience:  "I need... a digital biologist."

The audience murmured.  Nero looked down, a whispered rant of despair passing through his lips.

"If you need a stinking Dee-Bee, you got no solution," a raucous voice in the crowd yelled.

"That's right; I'm out of here," said a woman in the back, standing up and walking away.  Two more followed her;  others shouted their disapproval:  "Dee-Bees destroyed my life!" "They wiped out three planets!"

Jenus looked at Nero.  "Looks like the Perimeter Wars are hard to forget." 

"They've made Dee-Bees the scapegoats for two hundred million deaths," Kebe whispered, "but it wasn't their fault."  Uncomfortable in her advanced pregnancy, she nevertheless stood up.  "Everyone quiet!"  she yelled, "quiet down!"  She waited for the clamor to subside;  then as the uproar abated perceptibly, she yelled,  "we are all in the same boat on Virgil!"  Shouting in the crowd subsided.  "We live or die together—without a Dee-Bee we all die!"

"Then let's die!"  a voice answered.

"Oh, yeah?  Look at you."  She pointed her finger to where the voice had come from.  "You are alive on the goodwill of the Tower, which already cheated you to get you here.  I bet you're so worried you don't sleep at night if you have a family, and if you don’t you’re even worse off.  Why did you come here?  Because you want hope!  Are you willing to give it up and end up as fertilizer for the next crop?  What do you have to gain by hating Dee-Bees?  And what do you have to lose?"  She took a deep breath.  "If you want another chance, Dee-Bees want it too, and they could help all of us.  Is there anybody here who doesn't want another chance?

"No hands?"  Kebe said.  "What a surprise!  Folks, we're in this together.  Nobody in this room is better than anybody else—ladies and gentlemen, we’re all riffraff, even if some of us are irreplaceable riffraff.  I'm not:  I'm expendable.  Nero, here, is irreplaceable.  Jenus is irreplaceable;  he's the best chemist on Virgil who'd work for us.  A Dee-Bee, too, would be irreplaceable."  She pulled Jenus's gun, grabbing it by the handle, holding it high.  "I will fight for that Dee-Bee, because that's my hope.  I'm tired of living in fear, and I will not deliver my child in fear.  People, if we don't help each other—including Dee-Bees—nobody else will.  And we need one of them to pull us out of trouble."  She stood silent.  "Once more:  is anyone in this audience a digital biologist?"

Eternal seconds passed by.  Jenus said to her in a whisper,  "Expendable?  You say that again, you'll regret it."

A senior citizen rose from his chair amid an upsurge of murmurs;  the man said:  "My name is Primus Lelouche.  Or Frank Jones, if you prefer;  or Matt Ripley.  I was a scientist with
Electric Life
."

The assembly roared.  Primus looked around.

Kebe yelled, "Silence!"

Primus continued.  "I came here seeking a peaceful life.  Maybe I don't deserve another chance, but I'm willing to help you get yours, if I can. 
Electric Life
helped me survive the Purge;  that's why I'm alive today.  We thought digital biology had a future, that I'd help them rebuild after the heat faded, but I've lived in hiding ever since.  On Virgil, I'm a data entry supervisor;  suborganic modeling and synthetic organisms are my real specialty."

"You butcher," yelled the same voice who earlier wanted to die.  A middle-aged man stood up, shaking away hands that were trying to restrain him.  "You killed my parents and my brother!"

"No!" Primus exclaimed,  "neither I nor any of my kind destroyed your family:  the war did, and the political will behind it."

"You liar, you know what you did.  You know the truth, murderer!"

"Digital biology provided the weapons, but your government fired them.  Science was a scapegoat:  I'm no more a war criminal than those who invented gunpowder."

"I won't go for that!  Damn you, I'll see you rot in—"

"Enough!"  Kebe got everybody's attention.  "You!"  she shouted, pointing at the protester whom she had stopped in mid sentence;  he looked at her.  "What do you want?"  she said.

"He killed my family!"

"We all know history, thank you very much.  What do you want here and now?"

"I can't tolerate that man’s presence."

"Then leave."

"No;  I want him dead.  I'll kill him!"  The crowd stirred.

"Get out—now!"

"Or what?"

"Or you'll die."

"Oh, yeah?  Who's gonna do me—you?"

The man began laughing, defiant.  His laugh grew louder.  Kebe raised Jenus's electrogun, aimed and fired.  The man fell.  His laughter died with him in the echo of the crackle from the gun.  In the overwhelming silence that followed, Kebe said,  "Anybody else?  As I said, I'm expendable—Primus is not."  And to Primus:  "You've got the job."

Primus nodded.

"This meeting is over," Kebe said, and sank into her chair.  The hall emptied;  nobody made any fuss.

*

Jenus, Nero, Primus, Kebe, and another woman remained in the empty room.  Kebe was staring into the void, seated, slumping in her chair, her arms dangling.

"The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.  I killed in cold blood;  I will pay for my sin," she said softly, but the empty hall echoed her confession.  Jenus knew better than trying to comfort her;  she was in her own world until she chose to return.

"He was a trouble-maker.  You gave him a chance to go," the woman said, approaching Kebe and Jenus.

"Who are you?"  Jenus said.

"My name is Lucretia Ponti.  I'm a medical doctor at the infirmary.  If I'm right about  what a hotshot chemist and a Dee-Bee are doing together, you may need a physician, too," she said.  "And I know him," she added, pointing at Nero.

Jenus nodded:  "Welcome aboard.  So you're a physician, and you know Nero?"

"I met him before as Mr. John Doe," Lucretia said.  "He was in my ward with bad sunburns that healed too fast.  And he wouldn't answer my questions."

"Yes," Nero said.  "Hello, Dr. Ponti."

She nodded at Nero.  "I ended up here because I bungled a research project, two people died.  It was not my direct responsibility, but I was blamed, and all doors closed.  I loved my job—I love research.  Running the ward is OK, but it's not where my heart is.  I miss research."  She looked at Nero.

"Well," said Primus, "Looks like we're a team."

"Dr. Ponti," said Jenus, "what do you think we're up to?"

"I guess you’re trying to synthesize more of what makes the Magician fly?"

"Now I’m impressed," said Jenus.  "Do you know why?"

Lucretia shrugged.

"Do you know what a Cheshire is?"  Nero said.

"I'd have said a bunch of baloney before tonight."

"Listen, you two," Nero said to Lucretia and Primus.  "I don't want believers—this is not a religion.  Before you ask, here's your sign."  Nero leaned back in his chair.  Primus and Lucretia were looking at him when his body disappeared.

A few meters away another chair filled with a dark shadow growing quickly thicker.  Nero reappeared, opening his eyes.  "It may look easy, but it's not," he said.