In Dark Corners (26 page)

I sighed, closed my eyes, and tried to visualize old San Fran as it had been in the late '20s before the Shield was constructed; I tried to recall my parents' faces. But all was a nebulous blur, dimmed by the passage of twenty-five years. Of course I remembered being taken from my family and going to live at the CFE Child Care Center downtown when I was ten, after the time of bruises had passed, and the subsequent days of testing. Then, before that first trip up to the Eye, the terrible news: My parents had disappeared on a trip to Couver, probably killed by outcasts. Yes, both gone. But even after all these years I could still hear my mother's voice: A gentle, soft whisper, crooning across time so sweetly—
Mikey, dear Mikey
—

The nervous talk had suddenly stilled in the shuttlecraft, and the unusual silence disturbed my reverie.

I opened my eyes, turned in my seat, and looked about, really noticing for the first time since boarding the ship at the Eye my fellow passengers. A few wore the secular blue uniform of Public Broadcasting System techs; and though the majority, like myself, wore the gray robe of the CFE, I saw no other scarlet cowl designating my Order. All eyes were locked on the big screen above the flight deck partition.

I turned back to view the screen myself.

Exodus II had finally penetrated the high cloudbank and, for the first time since departure, I saw the real surface of Earth and felt an unsettling sensation of rapid movement. Taking a deep breath, I touched the insert on my seat arm, trying to relax as the chair contoured protectively to my body shape.

On the screen, we saw wisps of yellowish mist, and just visible far below, a bridge. The remaining tower of the old derelict loomed up in the mist, the badly rusted metal blending with its original burnt-orange color. It was the Golden Gate, of course, a structure I recognized from a recent Mid-Watch, featuring relics of the West Coast of North America. As the shuttlecraft passed over the bridge tower, the camera rotated down, and for a fleeting second, we glimpsed the black road surface end abruptly over the gray-green colors of the bay. Then, we were zooming along high above the water and over an island with remnants of another bridge leading west to the ruins of San Fran. Still flying southerly we began our final descent, but the dirty fog thickened so much that our view of the San Fran Shield was obscured…

A few minutes later we hit down hard, bumping along a rough runway, and for a moment I thought the shuttlecraft was going to rattle apart; and all too suddenly the pilot was braking to a jarring stop. Thank God for the cocoon seat!

Despite the travel drugs, my pulse raced furiously, and it took several minutes for me to catch my breath.

Then, before leaving the craft, we were all busily occupied, donning protective masks and coveralls, giving everyone a bulky, monster-like appearance; and, indeed, most of my fellow passengers shuffled to the exit clumsily, experiencing difficulty moving in the gear against Earth's gravity. But I managed relatively easily, my regular exercise routine at the Monastery gym, even in .8 gee, quite effective.

As we stepped outside onto the ramp though, I shared my fellow passengers' discomfort. For even through the insulation of our coveralls we were overwhelmed by the humidity of the sweltering air. And before I reached the ground, my face, armpits, and crotch were all prickly. And, yet, at the same time I was experiencing the muggy heat, I felt a rush of excitement, as if I'd been released from the confinement of a cell—that special euphoria experienced by all habitat dwellers when first stepping outside into the great, unbounded space enveloping the Earth. A sensation I relished on every visit.

A host of CFE West officials herded us into pedi-cabs for the short trip to the San Fran Shield. Of course I had ridden in similar vehicles in Ny-Ny, but these were smaller, one-driver affairs. I settled back into my assigned seat, sharing the cab with a young PBS tech, whose pale face, when he momentarily slipped from his mask, was flushed a deep pink. He babbled on, after wiping away the sweat and repositioning the mask, obviously a first-time traveler from the Eye, quite overwhelmed by the trip—

We stopped abruptly!

There seemed to be some sort of commotion up near the beginning of our entourage. I leaned out and spotted figures ahead in the mist, several appearing to be dressed only in rags and unmasked. Then a CFE official blocked my view, rapidly explaining that there was
no
danger, the three unmasked men were only outcasts begging for plastic. He moved on quickly to enlighten the next cab. After a few moments the way was soon cleared and we moved forward again.

Outcasts?

I slumped back down in my seat, but my sense of euphoria had disappeared, and my skin underneath the coveralls was covered with a clammy sweat. I shivered, wondering if the outcasts were defectives or had they been Marked in the past. Absently, my fingers sought out the tiny silver case inside my robe, the Instruments of my guardianship. A heavy responsibility, indeed.

After a few more minutes' travel, darkness fell as our driver followed the procession of cabs, pedaling along an old asphalt highway. My fellow traveler pointed out the surprisingly excellent state of repair of the pre-Collapse road, all the potholes filled with some kind of sand/gravel mix—

Suddenly he was shouting in a voice thick with awe: "My God, look at that, Brother!"

I jerked my gaze east in the direction he was pointing, and across the bay the darkened horizon seemed lit by a green luminescence, blurred only slightly by the curtain of fog. It was the famed Livermore Burndown, of course. An impressive, but grim reminder of the foolishness of the Symbolists. "Groundstar," I murmured, shaking my head sadly.

The remainder of the short trip was relatively uneventful as we slowly moved through the unshielded outskirts of the city. Here and there a candle flickered, illuminating a ramshackle hovel; but most of the shacks or tents were unlit, blending in with the dark heaps of rubble, scenes very similar to the outskirts around Rio D, Ruscow, or any of the post-Collapse Shields.

Outcasts. I shivered again, remembering the beggars back at the shuttle port…

We passed through a perimeter of relatively neat ruins, then waited to enter one of the decontamination locks of the Shield. I breathed a sigh of relief, anxious to get out of the restricting mask and coveralls.

Audio-disc excerpt from Chapter One of
Return Of The Ice Man,
a book confiscated June 7, 2052.

After dinner at the CFE West Complex in the Shield, I was summoned to the quarters of the Bishop, an old friend. He'd been my first Order Senior, twenty-five years ago on the Eye. He looked much older and grayer, of course, his forehead lined with the many worries of his post. But he still generated that same personal warmth that had eased my ten-year-old fears when I first reached the Eye and stepped into the Monastery.

"Brother Michael," he greeted me with a big smile, "it's been much too long." He squeezed my hand and gestured for me to take a seat at his desk.

I nodded, expressing my delight at seeing him again. He'd left the Order about fifteen years ago to administer CFE East at Ruscow, and in all my years of traveling for the Order, our paths had never crossed. It was indeed a pleasure to see him again. I reached into my robe, bringing forth a special present, a pouch of hothouse tobacco from the Eye. Like many of the older Church officials at the Monastery he'd developed the strange habit of smoking the dried plant.

He opened the pouch, held it to his nose, and sniffed deeply with closed eyes. "Oh, my goodness," he said, his voice thick with pleasure. After packing his pipe and lighting it, he exhaled a cloud of smoke and nodded gratefully. And I had to admit that the tobacco smoke did have a pleasant aroma, filling the room with a kind of spicy sweetness. "This is an occasion," he said, pulling out a small chessboard from the top drawer in his desk. "Still play?"

"When time permits, which is too infrequent," I replied, recalling his deep love for the game. He'd taught all of us—my group of ten novice Brothers—the game during our brief leisure moments between Eve- and Last-Watches. "But," I quickly added, "I'm still not much better than the old days."

He laughed, picked a pawn of each color, hid his hands for a moment, then held up his clenched fists for me to choose. "Yes, I play too seldom, too, especially in the last year or so…" He frowned, his eyes clouding momentarily. "Well, we can talk about that while we play," he said, gesturing to the board.

We played for a little while in silence, but I could tell the Bishop was not really concentrating on the game. Something was distracting him. Abruptly he paused in the middle of a move. He leaned back from the board, puffed on his pipe, then said, "Your services will be required this time, Brother Michael, probably twice…" The last word trailed off as he picked up his knight and rolled it absently in his fingers, his mind far from the game he loved so dearly. I could read a kind of uncharacteristic despair in his expression. He brushed his hand through his thinning hair and sighed. "Where to begin? Well, first, let me show you the arrest of the Symbolists, seventeen in all, taped ten days ago, which precipitated the request to the Order for you to be sent down—"

Whirr.

A panel on the sidewall parted, revealing a big screen. The Bishop touched the insert again on his desk, and a picture focused on the screen: A shack, obviously outside the Shield and a group of people, all roped with come-along-stuns, being led by several masked Caretakers, one holding up an old-style book to the camera like a trophy. The prisoners all wore the black hoods of innocence as prescribed by law…After a few more minutes the screen went gray and the panel slid back with a whirr.

I searched the face of my old mentor, wondering what was so unusual about the arrest to apparently cause his great degree of concern.

As if reading my thoughts, the Bishop shook his head. "No, Michael, I'm afraid this was not a routine arrest at all, for several reasons. The book itself, and one of the women is a reader; and we think her husband wrote the thing. They're both in the Sen-Dep tanks—"

"But that's wonderful," I said with a sincere degree of enthusiasm, "a reader, a writer, and a book, all confiscated in one arrest." Teachers, readers, writers, or books were rarely picked up in raids by the Caretakers, usually carefully protected by the Symbolists.

He shook his head, dismissing my elation. "No, there's something much more important about this arrest, the nature of those caught. The other fifteen Symbolists are all young and none are defective, not even a tiny bruise. And it seems to be a trend that all the Symbolists recently killed or captured in my sector are young, healthy, very few defective—"

He stopped suddenly, his tone rising slightly in pitch. "These are young people who should've applied for CFE training!"

"Perhaps it's just a situational or local—"

"No," he interrupted me rudely, something I'd never seen him do in all the years I'd known him at the Monastery. He stood up and paced the room nervously. "I've recently checked with Ruscow, Londontown, Rio D. Their arrest records show the same developing pattern over the last eighteen months. We are losing the young people, Brother."

Of course this was serious, if true.

For a moment or two I said nothing, noticing now that the Bishop was standing, that he was thin, almost frail, his shoulders rounded as if carrying a heavy burden. No doubt about it, he was indeed concerned about this trend. He slumped back down in his chair. I shook my head. "It doesn't make sense. What can the Symbolists offer? A life outside the Shields, a life of hardship, defective children, disease, early death. Have you had any of these healthy, young people tested mentally?"

He shook his head, a wry expression on his face. "No, they're not chuckleheads."

"Then why are we losing them?"

He shrugged and shook his head. "I'm not really sure," he finally answered and sighed, leaning over and taking something out of a drawer at his desk. "But I think the book we just confiscated may be the answer.
Return Of The Ice Man
has been mentioned a number of times by Symbolists under the probe in the Sen-Dep tanks. "I've had several audio-discs made for you to listen to." He handed me five discs and a player. "It's difficult…" An uncharacteristic anger flared up, flushing his face, knotting muscles in his neck. He sputtered, "A bunch of fantastic lies!" Then he gained control of himself, his muscles relaxing, and he gazed at me coolly. "If I'm right, Brother Michael, then this writer and reader are extremely dangerous, perhaps the greatest hazard the Church has faced since its founding." By his tone there was no doubt about the gravity of the situation.

I took the discs, shook hands, and retired to my room.

After Last-Watch, I listened to the discs. The story was indeed difficult to follow, a strange mix of fact and fancy laced with much anti-Church propaganda, most of the story taking place in the near or far future. Throughout the tapes, the book portrayed the Symbolists as courageous underdogs, struggling against the fascist repression of the Church of the Fundamental Ecologic. But how could anyone believe that? I asked myself, puzzled by the odd philosophy.