Maximum Ice (35 page)

He let her remove it. Then she stepped off a few paces, keeping guard, fully intending to launch a spear at anything that would interrupt Wolf.

And so she stood watch. She faced off against the sculpted, darkening bergs, thinking about Ice as an immortality machine. What a strange, unearthly ambition: to live forever. Who would wish to outlive one’s family, one’s friends, one’s time? When she’d encountered Lucian Orr—if she’d had her wits about her—she would have told him it was no prize, to live so long. It was better to have full moments than long ones. It was better to lie in a lover’s arms, to grow old together. Dying couldn’t be as bad as saying good-bye over and over again. Poor Lucian. She could have told him.

She looked outward, past the plateau, to the vanishing horizon. The entire landscape was the product of a tall, decaying man. His immortality ambition crushed, he finally sought death. A bad death.

When it was full dark, Wolf appeared at Zoya’s side. He had rigged a travois for Snow Angel’s body. Without words, they left the plateau, pulling their burden, finding their way by flashlight, through a plateau grown stiff and black.

All the paths led down and outward.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sister Gretchen ladled a dollop of gruel into Kellian’s bowl. Next came the sugar sauce, metered out by Sister Odette.

Four long tables filled with postulants waited silently Kellian, at the head of hers, sneaked a glance at the row upon row of bowed, shaved heads. At the other end of the table, Hilde raised her eyes long enough to flash malice at Kellian.

Hilde hadn’t adjusted to another white robe at her dormitory, much less her table.

They dug into their cereal as Sister Roselyn, at her raised dais, began the morning lesson. Kellian hardly registered sister’s voice, droning on about moral identity as an ethical resource. She pushed her spoon through the gruel, thinking about conversations with Ice.

Conversations. With Ice.

She felt the hairs on her arms lift into the wool of her sleeves. It was true. Though Sister Patricia Margaret didn’t believe her, Kellian knew she was speaking to Ice. Ice had passed her tests, solving equations in an instant. Breaking its millennia-long silence, Ice communicated using natural unencrypted language. English.

It had all happened so fast: first, her obo-based program had found a chink in Ice’s armor—or attracted Ice’s interest. The simple queries appearing on her screen were almost childlike. Then, when she had downloaded her diaries, Ice absorbed
them, displaying curiosity about the facts recorded there. Ice’s queries demonstrated astonishing characteristics: integration of facts; making generalizations; asking questions. It displayed, Kellian thought, common sense. Ice appeared to be reasoning.

“… the monsters inside us,” Sister was saying. “Caging our destructive impulses… the course of history…”

Down the table, Nit was nodding over her cereal, after being kept up half the night reciting her shortcomings in the chapel. No one was there to hear her recitation, but Kellian was sure Nit had faithfully recounted them.

Kellian managed to swallow a lump of the food-bender meal. But in her mind she was already at the node, talking with Ice.

She was the last one in the hall to notice that Sister Roselyn had changed the tenor of her speech.

The postulants were staring at Hilde.

Sister Roselyn was upset. “And this isn’t the first time, young woman.”

Kellian bent forward to ask Jace what was happening.

“Hilde,” Jace whispered, looking stricken. “The nuns say she was found missing during bed check last night.”

Bed check? If the nuns had made one of their random dorm checks, Kellian had slept right through it.

Every spoon in the room was laid down. But no head turned.

The gruel curdled in Kellian’s stomach. Hilde was on the precipice. You couldn’t tell by looking at her, with her serene face, but the nuns would soon crack that façade. Out of that crack would issue the truth about Hilde and Daniel.

Damn, Kellian didn’t have
time
for this. Ice waited.

Hilde was caught in Sister Roselyn’s accusatory stare. “Well?” Sister demanded. “Surely there is an innocent explanation for such an absence?” But by the look on her face, she didn’t think so. “Stand, Postulant Hilde.”

Hilde rose to her feet like a log that had been long pushed underwater.

And as she stood, Kellian also stood, anchoring the other end of the table.

Sister Roselyn shot Kellian a frown that would have wounded if it had been a stone. “Sit down, Kellian.”

“But Sister, Hilde was with me.”

Nit stared in dismay, then stretched under the table to kick her in the shins.

Sister’s face twisted. “I think not, postulant. You were in your bunk.”

Kellian groped for ideas, fast. “Forgive me, Sister, but we both were gone, up on the ramparts.” She was standing on the edge with Hilde. Kellian felt suspended over a frozen land. She waited.

Sister Roselyn glanced at Hilde, then back at Kellian.

Kellian blurted, “To see the light show. Ria’s lights.” And she did hope to God that the aurora was up and running last night.

Another sister was whispering in Sister Roselyn’s ear. “I’m told you were in bed.”

Kellian shrugged. “Must have been my pillow they mistook.” Across the table, Nit looked like she might faint into her gruel.

Then Hilde spoke up, her voice strong in the drafty hall. “It was my idea, Sister. I take the blame.” Despite her peril, Hilde didn’t look the least afraid. Kellian hoped
she
didn’t, either.

Sister Roselyn gazed at the two of them a long while. Then she said, “So you two were cavorting up on the ramparts like brown-robed youngsters?”

Kellian tried an ingenuous blink: “A little beauty, Sister. We work hard. We wanted to see the aurora.”

“You don’t work hard enough if you have time for such
pranks.” But the starch was gone from Sister Roselyn. She grumbled, “I never heard you and Hilde were such fast friends.”

Hilde’s eyes were carefully cast down. “We’ve made our peace, Sister.”

Kellian snapped a look down the table at her, saying in a voice for the table only, “Nit too?”

Hilde’s face tightened, but she murmured, “Yes, Nit too.”

It was late in the afternoon when Kellian and Hilde finished their penance and arrived at the north wing, hands raw from soap suds and lye.

Turning from a work node, Nit came face-to-face with Hilde.

Hilde looked at her with an even face. “How’s the work going, Nit?”

Nit raised her chin. “As fine as ever.” Then she added, “Welcome back.”

Not quite bringing herself to smile, Hilde nodded. She moved into the work area, and the postulants greeted her with genuine warmth.

Kellian murmured, “Don’t push her, Nit. She has her pride.”

“But you tamed the dragon.” Nit was looking at her with something akin to worship.

Kellian saw herself for a moment through Nit’s eyes: Smart, assured, daring… It was an unaccustomed thing, to have such admiration. She hoped she deserved some of it.

She put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Keep an eye out, Nit, I have work to do.”

So Nit stood guard, pretending to be busy but keeping a lookout for the nuns, who were absent today, conclaving over who would take over Sister Patricia Margaret’s stewardship.

Kellian began on the keyboard:
Kellian Bourassa is here.

Immediately, as though Ice had been expecting her, the words came: Describe what you call snow witches.

Kellian never knew what Ice would say. This one surprised her. Of all that her diary contained, snow witches were the least of it.

Snow witches are deformed. Monsters. They travel the barrens and murder to eat.

The words appeared: Monsters are not human. Snow witches are free to roam, to go about their tasks, to take sustenance. They are not monsters. They are human

Bad humans, then. Kellian typed furiously. What do you have to do with them?

What is a bad human?

Kellian wiped her hands on her robe. How was she to answer such a question? She began to wonder if she was capable of this. But she plunged on, because she couldn’t bear not to. She’d told Mother Solange; her duty stopped at that. She keyed:
Bad humans are ones that cause suffering. On purpose.

What is suffering?

Kellian paused. Then:
You read my diaries. Life in the preserve. That is suffering.

What in the preserve is suffering?

She sat, concentrating. There were so many examples. She picked one, still vivid.
When the Evret preserve died on its way across the barrens to our preserve. And we had friends there. And we grieved for their deaths. We suffered.

You lived

Kellian could only type,
We loved them.

Your preserve loved the other preserve

I’m saying some of us loved some of the others. We suffered alone, as individuals. My Aunt Selba died on the barrens. My mother cried for weeks.
Kellian felt a knot grow in her stomach. Could Ice be so ignorant?

Why did Aunt Selba die on the barrens?

She starved to death, because our preserve couldn’t take them in, because we had only enough food for ourselves. She died on the surface, where there was nothing to eat.

There are food benders

Sometimes they break.

Humans can fix food benders

Kellian clenched her teeth.
Not always.

Your preserve didn’t help Aunt Selba. Your preserve knew that was wrong?

Yes.
Kellian could see it coming, and sure enough:

Are you monsters?

No. We did the best we could. We had a dilemma. We could save them for a few days, but then all of us might starve.

Your preserve solved the dilemma by letting them die?

Kellian had to answer,
Yes.

There is nothing to eat on the surface?

Truly, Ice was very ignorant of some things. Intelligent, but stupid about the world.
There are rats. And we grow algae on the ice paddies. And the snow witches eat humans, if they can catch them. She typed furiously. How do snow witches occur?

They are developed over time

By who?

This one

What is this one?

This one is the one that develops snow witches. After a pause, it continued: This one is the one that wonders if they are bad

Why do you want to know?

A fraction of a second of a pause.

Hurry up, please, it’s time

Kellian frowned, peering closely at the screen.

hurry up, please, it’s time, hurry up, please, it’s time, hurry up, please, it’s time, hurry up, please, it’s time, hurry up, please
it’s time, hurry up, please, it’s time, hurry up, please, it’s time hurry up, please, it’s time, hurry up, please, it’s time, hurry up please, it’s time, hurry up, please, it’s time, hurry up, please, it’s

The screen scrolled and scrolled. It responded no further. Kellian sat back, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.

Time for what, she wondered.

Swan followed the light.

The paths through Error’s Rock were dark, but up ahead was a light. He stumbled out of the fissure into a slap of wind off the night landscape. And there was his lantern.

Its glow pushed back the night a meter or two, and he knelt by it, grateful for its simple comfort. All through the descent from the top, hope had been forcing its way back through him, pushing into the cracks.

The thing that Zoya said. That the witch said that she said:
I am immortal.

Had the ship discovered such secrets among the stars? Had they in fact been searching for it, and with their damnable gypsy luck, found it? Yes, it made sense. They had no children, as Solange attested. Just how long
did
they live?

It would have saved a lot of trouble if the ship had revealed this sooner. Perhaps the treatment was resource intensive, and they meant to keep it for themselves. OK, even so, he had plenty to trade with: the power over Ice’s growth. The power to stop it, and to preserve the remaining lands. It wasn’t as though he
wanted
to ruin things. It was collateral damage—not ideal….