Macrolife (18 page)

The map screen was a large oval well in the control room. John looked down into the planet's ocean of air. Three haulers drifted nearby, slugs readying to descend from low orbit, fill their bellies with ore, and depart. Each was a kilometer of hull with a detachable passenger module in front, a cargo hold in the middle, and a gravitic workhorse in the back.

“Thirty percent of the surface,” Miklos Anastasian was saying, “is two continents joined by a narrow land bridge. The northern mass extends to within thirty degrees of the pole, the southern reaches the south pole. The sea between the continents is warm and shallow. The land bridge is part of the western mountain chain running up across both continents. There are deserts and grasslands east of the range, then wooded mountains and the eastern coastal plain. The coast itself is cliff rock, with hundreds of offshore islands, once part of the mainland.”

John sensed amusement in the wiry man's voice. A hundred-fifty-year-old researcher in planetary geologies, Miklos belonged to the middle range of modified citizens. Stronger than most of the populace, he was able to run at better than twenty kilometers per hour, and he needed one-third less sleep; implanted in his bare head was the usual Humanity II link. His dark eyebrows seemed to be made of solid material in the light streaming up from the screen.

“What about settlements?” John asked.

Miklos extended a muscular arm over the screen. “There seem to be cities in the northeast near the coast. There's a big city some thirty kilometers north of the shallow sea. Everything is very quiet.” He leaned over the screen intently, as if preparing to scrape his bony fingers through the wrinkles of land in search of life.

“What about climate?”

“Be prepared for changes during the day, something you're not used to. The north is tundra, changing through temperate to tropical as you go south. Vegetation and animals are hybrids of earth-derived and local. It will be hard to separate the kinds. Gravity is eighty-seven percent earth. It's the fifth planet out of ten, orbiting the double star at one point four astronomical units. A stormy place.”

Miklos stood up and looked down at John. “I'll fill you in on as much as I can before we land. The suns are slightly smaller than sol. You'll see them taking up about twenty-five minutes of arc in the sky. They're within ten percent of each other in size; one is brighter than the other, but you won't notice that because your eye is not sensitive enough to differences between very bright sources.”

And yours is
, John thought.

“During day you'll see only a spread-out mass of light when you glance up, not two disks. By the way, don't look directly at them, you'll harm your eyes. The suns circle each other in nine hours, producing eclipses every four and one-half hours. The amount of light is then cut down, depending on which sun is eclipsing which at what time and position, and where you are on the planet. It's a twenty-nine-hour day. When the suns are side by side, it gets warmer in the afternoon. On a clear day you may see two shadows of yourself. At sunset you'll see that the suns are elongated, flattened at the poles, sharing stellar material across the distance between them. Watch out for winds and storms. Auroras are intense at night.”

“What about intelligent life, besides the colonists?”

Miklos shook his head and a sad look came into his gray eyes. “I suspect there aren't many left. Something has been very wrong down there for a long time. We've located the dead hulk of the starship in orbit. I doubt anyone we'll run into will know who we are. We may not run into anyone, native or colonist.”

“You mean they're all dead?”

“A few individuals might find the mountain valley where we'll be mining, but it's a big world and few people. We'll see more animals than intelligent life. It may be too early in the planet's history for intelligent life, or it never developed for some reason.”

John imagined large beasts creeping through thick vegetation, breathing shapes covered with hide and hair, eyes filled with madness.

“I'll find them,” John said.

“That's up to you,” Miklos said, the tone of amusement returning to his low voice. “What are you looking for?”

John looked into the well of the screen instead of answering. The angle of view was changing rapidly. The shuttle was in the atmosphere, coming down fast. Cloudy material rushed by; filaments of white and dark wispiness gathered and were torn apart by the shuttle's passage. The view cleared to show mountains only a few kilometers below. Jagged peaks stretched to the horizon, a line of sharp rocks ripped out of the ground by some titanic plow. The shuttle dropped lower, revealing snow on the cloud-wrapped summits; green valleys nestled like moss.

“There's a pass ahead,” Miklos said, “and our base is in the valley.”

Slowly the shuttle passed between two mountains and entered the valley. The vertical screen went on. John looked up and saw a stream cutting through mossy vegetation as the shuttle landed.

“We can go right out,” Miklos said. “Don't worry. You've been protected against possible disease. The open space above is something you're not used to, but it's not so different that you'll be disoriented.”

Anastasian turned and went down the ramp leading from the observation area to the airlock area below.

John lingered before following. He looked out at the stream, the sky and clouds, the snow on the peaks, and he felt that to go out there would change him forever. Anastasian's indirect jibes had nothing to do with it.

He went down the ramp into the airlock chamber, determined to show Miklos that he was not afraid. Anastasian gave him a warm green jacket and a pair of boots. John dressed and followed him into the lock. The door slid shut behind them, and the outer door opened.

As John followed Miklos down the exit ramp, he noticed the wind blowing from his left, carrying unfamiliar smells and a sharp, watery freshness. The wind crept into the sleeves of his jacket, whispered in his ears, and slipped through his hair as if the planet were examining him before he stepped off the ramp. The suns were warm on his face, and he looked up briefly to see their massed light almost overhead. He noticed his shadow as he stepped onto the ground. The soil was soft and he could almost taste its smell. Worms and crawling things lived in it; he felt uneasy.

The shuttle hauler had landed near the stream that ran down the middle of the valley from the west. The three other shuttles had landed farther upstream. Miklos was walking toward the figures coming out of them.

The air was cool, despite the sunlight. John put his hands in his jacket pockets and started slowly toward the stream.

“Don't move around too fast until you're sure of your feet,” Miklos shouted back at him, without stopping.

John ignored him, continuing toward the stream.

He came to the water and gazed into the flow. The air was chilly over the liquid. He looked at the sky, an inverted blue plain covered with clouds, hiding the stars as well as any artificial shroud.

Miklos was coming back toward him. Behind him, the three haulers suddenly seemed out of place. Anastasian stopped a few feet away and John saw that the man was grinning.

“Yes, I know,” Miklos said. “If your tongue were thunder, you'd shake the planet to throw me off. I couldn't resist taking pokes at you. Forgive me. But you'll be more careful.”

“Don't you have work to do?”

“First let me get you set.” Miklos pointed. One of the larger hatches on the shuttle was open, and a small black flitter was rising out of the hold. When the craft was high enough, it glided toward them and settled to the ground.

“Blackfriar said you should have it.”

The canopy in the center of the oval disk rose and two men got out. They were tall and dark, dressed in close-fitting green coveralls.

“Ibram and Aric are mining engineers. They're in charge of the mining camp in the range, between those peaks behind them.”

John nodded in greeting. They turned and walked back toward the shuttle. As he watched them stride away, John again felt distant from their world. Their genetic heritage was continuous for more than a thousand years, combining and recombining in new and subtle ways, while he was a skipstone from the past, unchanged, living beyond his time. In one sense he was Samuel Bulero, but without his lost brother's memories. He was that exact throw of the genetic dice, the image of his other self, thrown into play again.

Clouds covered the suns. The wind died suddenly, as if the planet were holding its breath.

“It's an eclipse,” Miklos said.

Slowly the light began to drain out of the world. The snow on the peaks took on a blue glow. The sky darkened as the larger sun covered its brighter companion.

“I measure a more than half drop in light,” Miklos said.

John felt a breeze. He looked up at the clouds hiding the suns and saw one disk wheeling through gray ashes.

He turned to Miklos. “What's the flitters range?”

“More than you'll need. Let me show you.”

John followed him to the craft and up the footholds into the cabin under the canopy. He climbed down inside and sat next to Miklos in front of the controls.

“The automatic coordinates are set for this valley and for home, so the craft will bring you back quickly if you need it. Just press this area. But don't try leaving the planet on manual. You shouldn't have to. This is the stick. Use it to maneuver or hover; accelerate by pressing on top. If you let go, automatic will take over. So if you can't do something yourself, let go, so the Humanity II routine can do its job for you. Any practical speed is possible in the atmosphere. You won't feel any acceleration in the gravitic field, and you won't be able to go faster than design limits. Good luck.”

Suddenly Miklos was climbing out. It was becoming brighter outside as the eclipse ended. “The red is for the canopy emergency,” Miklos shouted as he made his way to the ground.

Miklos stood and waved at him, but John was alone now, free to explore for as long as home was building its twin in the sky. For a moment he felt that he almost understood Blackfriar's trust in him, but the thought threatened to grow into complexity and he dismissed it. He would be the first to see the planet, before the survey teams went out to see what had happened to the colonists.

He took the stick in his hands. The canopy came down and the two seats came up even with the rim, giving him an unrestricted view. The landscape around him was slightly blue through the tinted canopy.

Imperceptibly the gravitic field enveloped the flitter, lifting it upward swiftly. A thousand meters up, he turned the craft into the southeast and started a shallow climb, moving slowly to get the feel of the controls. He pressed the speed control and the land below began to rush by in a blur. The mountains stood around him, powerless to keep him in the valley.

Clouds covered the suns as the flitter rushed into the southeast. He climbed higher to keep their warmth on his face. At midafternoon the brighter sun eclipsed its larger companion, reducing Lea's illumination by slightly less than half. He caught a glimpse of the ocean just as the eclipse was ending. The water sparkled as if it were on fire.

A storm sat on the eastern horizon. As he flew lower over the plain, clouds obscured the suns again, turning the ocean dark blue. He turned the flitter eastward and dropped within a thousand meters of the beach, where powerful breakers crashed against the sand and rocks.

He was completely in control of the craft, sure of the freedom that it had given him. The afternoon's sights had helped him forget himself. It was enough that the planet was strange, enough that he was curious about what he might find; nothing else existed.

The small display map indicated that he was now more than two thousand kilometers southeast of the mining site. He eased the craft away from the beach, slightly toward the northeast, hoping to glimpse the large city that Miklos had mentioned.

Storm clouds now took up half the sky in front of him, gray and black cumulus illuminated by silent flashes of lightning.
The planet is alive
, he thought,
as much a system of living things as home
.

He saw the city, a dark mass of towers sitting under the thunder-heads. The storm covered the whole sky as he flew closer and darted under the cloud ceiling. Rain began to hit the canopy. The lightning became more frequent, stabbing at the dark land below. The flitter cut through the rain without shaking, its gravitic field a vise holding it steady in relation to the planet's surface.

The city was a ragged black outline against the leaden sky, receiving the torrent without protest. As the lightning flashed, he imagined the city to be a huge black spider crouching ahead. He could almost reach out and touch it, though he knew that it was still kilometers away.

He turned on the outside audio for a moment and heard the wind howling; thunder rumbled and cracked and died. The craft slowed to a drift over the city.

The towers held up more than one level. Huge holes gaped at him, black pits into the lower levels. The wind whistled through the city's wounds. What suffering had been here? he wondered; the vast ruin was an external record of misery and decline.

He wafted toward a tower. A finger of lightning struck the top, hurling debris down into the ruin. He released the stick, leaving the flitter to hover while he cleared the map from the small screen to reveal the area directly below. In the moment of another flash, human figures ran across the wet surface.

He took the stick and landed the craft. For a moment he sat there, unsure of what to do next. Above him the clouds drove fast in the wind, covering the broken point of the tower.
Where have I come to? What am I doing here?
he asked himself.

As the rain lessened, he heard the aching groans of the city around him—metal grinding, slipping, breaking, and being pulled down somewhere below. It was a bass rumble in his stomach, the sound of dying things calling to him.

The canopy went up and he crawled out, making his way carefully down the footholds. The city shuddered as his feet touched the metallic surface. He took a deep breath of the damp air and looked up at the rushing clouds. Suddenly he felt a reversal of direction. For a moment the sky was down and the city was up; he was standing upside down on the outside of a round ball and at any moment the wind would blow him and the city away into the mists; but the moment passed and he steadied himself on his feet.

The rain was now a fine mist; the wind was losing its force. He wiped his face and walked toward the tower. There was a large hole in its side. Bracing himself, he looked inside; the darkness was impenetrable.

He turned and walked back toward the flitter. The sky was growing lighter as the storm passed. He looked to where the suns would be and saw only a patch of light. The wind was a cold breeze as he climbed into the flitter.

The sudden whistle of the communication link almost frightened him. He jumped into his seat and opened the line.

“John, this is Miklos. Just checking.”

“I'm in the city, two thousand kilometers southeast, thirty north of the ocean. What a wreck this place is. There hasn't been a civil government here in ages. I've landed on the upper level near an old tower. There's been some rain.”

“I know. Want to come home?”

“No. Is that all you called for?”

“Be careful,” Miklos said. “We can die just like any living thing.” He broke the connection.

John climbed out of the flitter, determined not to be frightened by Anastasian's warning. He jumped the last step and turned to look at the tower.

Three figures stood in front of the large hole. Their hair was long and wet, and they watched him with dark eyes.

Unchanged humans
, he thought,
like me
.

Sunlight broke through behind him. He turned around and saw the misshapen red suns setting in the west, bathing the city in a rich vermilion light, two broken yolks spilling orange-red plasma between them. The storm was disappearing into the south.

He turned to the strangers again and took a step toward them. They drew back, but stopped.

Looking more carefully, he saw that the one in the middle was a girl. She was wearing a crude tunic of coarse material, stitched together with black cord. The tunic came down below her knees; her feet were covered with boots made from the same kind of material, animal skin of some kind. She seemed distressed by his gaze.

Both males were shorter than John. He sensed their protectiveness of the girl. He raised a hand and smiled.

Slowly the girl started to raise her hand. One of the men said something to her, but she smiled and kept her hand up. John took another step forward. Both men stepped in front of her suddenly, but she said something to them in an angry tone. She pushed between them and came forward.

She stopped and looked up at him with dark blue eyes. There was a green tint in her black hair. She pointed to the flitter behind him, at the sky, and then at him. He nodded, and it seemed to be the response she wanted. She pointed to herself and said, “Anulka.”

“I'm John Bulero.”

“Imjonbulero?”

“Anulka,” he said, imitating her sound. She smiled at his effort, and for a moment he forgot her two companions.

Suddenly one of the men came up and tugged at her arm, while the other retreated toward the tower. Anulka pointed at the setting suns, then at the east, and at the place where she stood. He guessed that she wanted to meet here tomorrow, and nodded.

Then she turned and followed the two males. They climbed through the hole in the tower. He could go with them, he thought, but when he came and looked down into the breach, he saw her motioning for him not to follow. He watched as she made her way down the ladder on the inner wall. Her companions were lost in the darkness below her. In the moment before she disappeared, she looked up at him again, this time with a look of determination.

He tried to imagine what there might be for them at the bottom of the vertical passage. How did these people live, and what did they know about their origins? What had happened on this planet during the last thousand years? Why did the colony fail? Who was this girl? What was it like to live here? She seemed so vital and alive, as if she enjoyed her way of life. The confidence of her manner was not what he had expected.

He turned and walked toward the flitter. The suns were now flattened balloons filled with red light; the larger one was just beginning to eclipse its companion, hiding the vast spillage of plasma between them.

Around him the towers of the city cast black shadows across the blue metal surface. He took a deep breath, feeling open to the world, a sense of possibility mixed with uneasiness.

He climbed into the flitter and sat back. Stars began to appear in the darkening sky, until the east was ablaze with more than a hundred bright points of light. Lea's position just inside Praesepe gave it a night sky dominated by the stars of the cluster.

He turned down his seat and noted the food cupboard in the back of the cabin.

Can we help here
? he asked himself as he lay back.
Maybe I can do something before we leave. We might be here for a decade. It would not be hard to do a few things
. He reached over and pulled a thermal blanket from its clip. Covering himself, he looked into the starry brightness overhead, feeling like an insect on a huge tabletop. The towers of the city were dark shapes around him, sentinels standing guard in the starlight.

The audio picked up noises from below, things just beneath his ability to hear; half-felt sensations came and went, moments of fear and excitement, and night sadness, all conspiring to keep him awake.

He fell asleep and woke up not knowing where he was; he was falling away from the unprotected outside of the planet, toward the suns. He opened his eyes, realizing that he was vulnerable under these quiet stars, but the thought of danger pleased him. In time he might want more than this new intensity, but for now the quickening of life's pulse was what he wanted most; for the moment he would compromise and give himself to opposing things. Unplanned opportunities waited for him on this world, and he would discover them for himself.