Moonstar (16 page)

Jobe tried. And then she stopped trying. Not all at once, but bit by bit. As each new answer failed, it became a signpost of a way that wouldn't work, until finally there was nothing left but dead-end markers and no paths that she could see were left to try. Inside, she would not admit that she would not give another that which she still wanted for herself. Even though she knew too well just what it was that she would not admit. Me first—then someone else? Her self was screaming in her skull; she would not give it away until she knew what it was that she was giving. Perfection enlarges when it's shared? Who says? She could not give it away while she was jealous of the one she gave it to. Why should Dakka receive perfection first? Why not Jobe, who was more desperate? And even when they told her—as they had, repeatedly—that it was the act of giving that made perfection happen, she still would not believe.

It needed a lover, a lover. If Jobe ever thought of lovers—and despite the pain of such a thought, she dreamed occasion ally of it, a relationship so deep and pure that it transcended life and time and became immortal of itself—the possibility of such was never quite immediate however; it was something held apart, as if expected not today, or even in a coming month, but in a not too formless future just beyond the definitive tomorrow, taking shape but still a blur—that's where her lover was. Her lover—oh, yes, Jobe's lover was a fine and golden one, living comfortably right here, in that tiny space behind her eyes, the safest place of all, protected from reality. She was there whenever needed, catering to every whim, servant of desire. And of course Jobe loved her so that she would give her life for her, do anything; they never argued, never. Lovers never argued, they were much too much alike, always agreed on everything. Love, Jobe explained to herself, doesn't need sex. It is spiritually transcendent. The sex is something else—oh, it's there, of course. Lovers hide inside each other for their sex so they don't have to turn to others, which is something harder. Far simpler to work it out with someone who understands the messy needs. Love—real love—now that was something that should exist beyond the obviousness of sex, separate, a thing in and of itself apart from bodies grappling in the dark. Love, you see, is a submergence of oneself into a larger experience—that part of her ideas she took from the Philosophies—and as the experience enlarges, so does the selves that it contains, taking them higher than they've ever been before. The viewpoints gained are from a new perspective, and the newer vision turned back on love, expands it all the more, as if grateful for the dazzling upward trip. Love grows on love. It doesn't need the slimy sexual side, except as refuge for the body. Love should be pure. Transcendent. She liked that word, she craved that kind of love. Sex—? Well, she wanted to be worldly without the ugly business of actually having to live in the world herself.

Once in a while, it would come to her: I'm going to die alone and old and unloved. And once in a while, she would scream, panic-stricken inside of her own life, I must do something! I can't go on like this!

But those were nighttime thoughts—the nighttime thoughts evaporate in the blue and yellow light of day. If she thought about it at all during the day, she'd dismiss those fears as foolish meanderings (I'm still young; I have time), obsessive ones and unimportant. So, whatever it was she lacked, she didn't realized the lack of it, because she wouldn't trust her own nighttime thoughts for being truer than the daytime ones. Oh, why didn't someone come and save her from herself already, bringing her the kind of life she knew she really deserved?

The screen was still talking: “Dissatisfaction, frustration, desperation—these are conditions that would pervade the greater mass of all human life, were it not that each human life determines the limits of its territory, the size of the battles it will fight, the challenges that it considers worthy of intention. Each human life defines its terms of confrontation, and by that definition, defines the person acting in them. The person either grows to meet those challenges—or fails to grow and is defeated by them.

“Confront yourself—and the outcome of that conflict, the shape of the resolution will eventually set the tone for the rest of your life. You will decide if you are satisfied or not with whom you will discover yourself to be, and that satisfaction or dissatisfaction will become the roots of your whole being.”

Jobe had heard it all before. Some philosopher or other. Or some Watichi. It didn't matter. It wasn't what you believed that was important—it was merely that you believed; it was the very act of believing that accomplished. But right now Jobe did not, could not, would not, believe in anything, not in herself, not in her life. Not in sex, not in love.

“If you can challenge your own self, then you will find yourself plunging into new and ever larger challenges—challenges that you will seek on purpose to continue challenging yourself so that you can continue growing. Or—if you avoid the challenge, you will avoid all of the possible growth-making situations, and the lack of growth is death, a living one, but death nonetheless. You will die, even if it takes a hundred holy years.”

Maybe that was it, Jobe thought. Maybe I am dying. Have I been offered challenge? Isn't Choice a challenge to a life? The acceptance of my body, and ultimately myself?

Jobe backed away quite cautiously from that appraisal. It cut too close to home. No one here at Option knew how to teach her how to deal with a thought like that, and Jobe had her own way of dealing with challenge anyway—retreat to higher ground, regroup and study the situation carefully. Usually, by that time, it had passed, or at least become another situation. Confrontation could be avoided safely; Jobe had learned that much at least. The screen's voice was misinformed—or this part just did not apply to her, it was not matter now.

“Just because we understand some of the laws of nature, doesn't mean we are exempt from the. We use our words to set ourselves apart from what we are—we manipulate our symbols and think we control the concepts they represent. Talking about feeling is self-defeating when it is more important to feel. Talking about civilization is not the same as being civilized. Just because we can define it, doesn't mean we are. Just because you know these thoughts does not mean that we are masters of them, or even masters of ourselves.”

Yes, Jobe nodded, yes; understanding what the screen was saying. What a pity all those others who were watching would never know that it was really aimed at them; they would miss the truth of it. They weren't gifted, weren't special—they were lesser humans; the ones who weren't me. Dying, the same as everybody else, victims of the heat-death of the universe.

Dying? Nonsense! I live my life for me.

In front of a screen?

Why not? It doesn't hurt me—

But then, why aren't you happy, Jobe? Why aren't you loving?

Well—

Well?

I'm not beautiful. I mean, I'm not bad-looking, but only beautiful people find love.

What about all those people who aren't beautiful, yet seem to have a partner to sleep with whenever they wish? Every night. Sometimes even love.

The uglies? Well, I'm not as bad as them—

But isn't it odd how they always seem so happy compared to you?

Shrug. It doesn't matter. They do it with each other. The uglies have to do it with someone. They do it with other uglies. Yes, that makes sense. Of a sort.

If that's what you want. All right.

Anyway, the screen doesn't demand beauty for its involvement. It doesn't even demand involvement, merely acceptance.

It asks for time.

I give it willingly.

It's a vampire, Jobe. It feeds upon your time. It's killing you.

The screen was flickering. Enticing. Safe retreat, the screen. And betrayal. Flicker. Flicker.

“—one moment please.” Flicker. Beep. “—no way to predict how severe the effects will be. Strong shelter is advised immediately for the islands bordering the shield. Evacuation is recommended for the islands of—”

“What the—?”

“Shhh!”

“What's going on?”

“Erdik ship. Went through a plasma—”

“Not the plasma,” someone corrected. “The focusing shield.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it isn't—”

“—at this time, the situation is still uncertain. Until we know how seriously the field has been torn, we cannot predict—”

“Oh, Great Reethe, no!”

“Shut up!”

Someone was choking, or sobbing. Two Dakkarik were holding hands and sitting very close to each other. Jobe felt as if she were embedded in ice. Sweat was dripping down her cold sides.

“—have slightly more than thirteen hours before the Lagin eclipse. By that time, of course, we will have a better idea of what damage has been done and what the secondary effects will be; but the thirteen-hour margin also allows a chance to—”

Flicker, flicker. Babble, babble. The Lagin! Kossarlin was in the Lagin!

“—some of the effects can be minimized; Authority maintains its plasma-control stations for precisely this kind of emergency, although there has not been a torn shield since the Nonal Comet passed, a hundred and thirty-one years ago. We do know that as much as forty percent of the screen has been destroyed, perhaps more, in which case the Maintenance Authority will be unable to prevent the—”

Jobe sat alone. Unable to watch. Unable to leave. What had happened to her innocent shadow-murals? This was pain! Her retreat had been ripped away from her, and she was nailed to her bench in fear. Her stomach had dropped away, a sickening gulp in her belly, and her ears were roaring with her heartbeat. This was real! She knew too much about the plasmas; everybody did, it was taught at elementary levels. They were fragile. They had to be maintained. They had to be protected. If they were destroyed, it could mean the end of the Satlik biosphere. The end of life. The screen flickered, and flickered again.

“Look! Already there are weather effects,” someone cried in horror.

“Nonsense. This is direct feed from Tarralon.” A representation of the planet, a shadow-cone projected on it.

“—transverse across the Lagin Shield. The red line there. As you can see, the ship passed between the focusing satellites and the plasma proper. It's theorized that the localized singularity of the Erdik drive generators created a specificity of fringing within the field, overloading the field and destroying it.

Why the satellite shut down and did not immediately begin constructing a new focusing field is still being investigated. The second Lagin satellite is still trying to maintain its functions, but an elliptical shield requires two generators. The plasma has now stretched into an egg-shaped with most of the material moving southward into the disrupted area; the southern part of the field has begun to bulge dangerously. It is possible that if the field continues to weaken and extend, then the plasma could expand beyond its threshold density and dissipate beyond repair—if the field does not collapse upon itself first. There is at least the singular blessing that the Erdik captain did not realize the damage she was doing. The word from the Erdik embassy is that she believed erroneously that her engines had been shut down, when in fact they were only idling, and creating the singularity disturbance. We will have more on that later. Had she realized what was happening and tried to move out of the way, she might have done worse damage, disrupting the fields of both satellites—”

Lagin Shield. Lagin Shield. Named after the first Satlik to mother a child on the new world.

All of the plasmas were approximately equal in size. Each one served as an ecliptor to split the midday of the area it was synchronous to, as well as a nightside reflector for its darkday. Without a shield, neither would occur.

The Lagin was Jobe's home.

“—worst effects are expected in the southern half, where the plasma is continuing to bulge—are working on the fields now—?

How high would the temperatures climb? Kossarlin was in the Southern Reach of Lagin.

The screen went blank, then there was an image of the Erdik ambassador and her aides going into an emergency session of the High Synod. A voice was making noises about aid—whatever either of the two Erdik shuttles now at Porta might implement.

A map, and then a voice. “—first predictions are in now. The worst affected areas will be here, here and—”

“Oh, Reethe! No!”

“For Dakka's sake, be quiet!”

“That's my home!” Jobe's heart was knotted, it pounded in her chest like a bomb.

“—will evacuate as many as we can—”

“I've got to get home!”

“That's the worst thing you could do.”

“Shut her up.”

“She's distraught, can't you see?”

“—this just in now, the field is collapsing! Emergency measures are being taken—”

“Those bleeding, stinging, sucking Erdik!”

“Hey—watch it!”

“Hold her back, hey!”

“Hold her down.”

“Get the Healer.”

“Take it easy, Jobe—everything's going to be all right!”

“Let go! I have to get home! My family!”

“We all have families—”

“No—!”

“All right, Jobe. All right. It's going to be—”

“No, it isn't! You don't understand. We have babies. The babies can't stand the heat! The temperatures are going to kill them!”

“—Erdik have reassured the High Synod that they will do whatever possible—”

“Oww! Watch her nails!”

“Let go of me, you stinging spawn!”

Don't hit her! She doesn't know what she's doing.”

“Where's the Healer?”

“—no way of generating new plasma on this scale—”

There were arms all over her. And hands. She bit and slapped and clawed, but there were too many.