Rift (44 page)

He hadn’t.

“The orthong bring us our penance.” His face lit up with a rapturous smile. “They are the instruments of Deity to cleanse humanity and transform it.” He shook his head in bewilderment at Reeve. “You’ve been afraid of them, demonized them, haven’t you? So ignorant. Your information about the orthong is based on superstition and prejudice.” He gazed out at the surrounding cliffs. “The orthong, you see, are the instruments of the Reversion. They are sweeping out the abomination of the Terran overlay, and teaching us to move up to the next stage.”

“That’s
superstition,” Reeve said. “The Reversion started long before orthong arrived here.”

“Yes, of course. But we believe the orthong seeded the Reversion from a great distance, sending catalyst ships in advance of their colonization.”

“A tidy belief, Gregor. To blame geology on the aliens.”

“We don’t blame them. We thank them. They are far, far more advanced than mere humans. But we hope to live in peace with them someday. Between the orthong and the Somaformers, your terraform plans are doomed, Reeve Calder.”

“My plans?”

“Your associates at the Rift are the main thrust, I’m sure. We tracked the shuttles coming in. We were waiting for you. It was foretold.”

“Gregor, do you have any idea what you sound like?”

Gregor turned the two tiny mirrors of his eyes around to reflect Reeve. “You’re about to tell me? A man whose life is in my hands has a quibble with my scientific position?” His voice was very soft, out of hearing of the guards. “Careful. Brecca may have made promises to you, but, believe me, they’re not worth the junk jewelry she decks herself out in. Terraforming is a projection of our fear of change,” Gregor continued, returning to his calm demeanor. “We try to shape the world to us, ignorant of the blessing in conforming to the world. So perverse. It defies understanding.”

“And you learned this from the orthong?”

Gregor shrugged. “No. The orthong don’t speak with us—yet. They come for our xenoliths. We mine them from a kimberlite pipe accessed through the east lab wing, a very rich source.” He nodded at the large stones beside the man standing in the Contact Place. “The rocks come from three or four hundred miles down. We were blessed with being near a deep magma pipe. We just dig into it from the side, and take out our offerings. The xenoliths have come up so fast—sometimes in seconds—they don’t melt or respond to pressure changes. They’re perfect representatives of the deep planet. In a way, they’re like alien visitors.” He raised his eyebrows to emphasize the significance of this tidbit. “We don’t know why the orthong like the xenoliths. All we do know is that they come for them, regularly. Afterward, we remove the rejected man from the gene pool.”

Reeve had a pretty good idea what that might mean.

“When one of them is finally accepted, we’ll pursue his genome to its logical conclusion. We will produce the transgenic survival race. Fit to live on Lithia as it is becoming.”

Reeve looked at this deluded, white-coated fool,
hoping for a level of genetic engineering thousands of years beyond the Somaformers’ outdated equipment and theories. “The Lord of Worlds is certainly lucky to have you here helping evolution along.”

Gregor almost smiled. “I didn’t expect you to understand.” The fellow below sat down cross-legged and gazed out, away from the observers. His head and shoulders were covered with a layer of dirty snow, like mold from a petri dish. Gazing outward, he seemed to wait for the aliens to find in him some beauty or utility, to justify his being.

“You will follow this man, after your transformation,” Gregor said to Reeve. “We’ll have to chain you to a post, which is crude, but you’re not a believer, after all. As for your comrades at the Rift—we don’t worry about them for now. The First Scientists foretold that Stationers would come back again to inaugurate the second terraforming. The second abomination. We don’t have the army to stop you yet. But we’re getting bigger every year, as the starving flock to us. Even the … jinn that arrived with you, even they have elected to join us.”

At Reeve’s skeptical look, Gregor shook his head. “We offer more than Atlantis Clave ever could. So we grow. Before your people can do much damage, we’ll swarm northward and absorb them into the Pool.” Gregor cocked his head at Reeve and appeared to scrutinize his face. “Actually, I don’t blame you. You’re the product of your upbringing. But the Somaformers will demand your offering, and I try to give them what they want.”

“Rumor has it they want
you
out of the gene pool.”

Gregor looked at him a few beats. “I don’t like you, Calder. That’s a problem. I always try to be dispassionate in my gengineering. I’m going to have to work hard at forgiving you before you die.”

“Better men than you have tried that. You should stick with genetic tinkering.”

A flicker of color washed into Gregor’s eyes, a slate-gray solidity that seemed to bring rational sight to the vacant irises. But, looking up, Reeve saw that it was the sky being reflected, and that the sky was darkening by the moment as thunderheads collected overhead, laden with black flakes of stone.

4

Spar’s face was a scowling nightmare mask, thrust into Reeve’s sleepy view.

“Wake up, lad. We got trouble.”

Reeve propped himself up on his elbows, blinking against the light. It was the middle of the night, and he’d been sleeping his first real sleep in days. “What?” he managed, while his brain struggled to get firing.

“She’s gone. Mam’s gone.”

The words slapped him full awake. Scrambling to his feet, Reeve said, “What do you mean gone?”

Spar regarded him darkly. “What do you
s’pose
I mean?”

Reeve paced through the room, conducting a fruitless search. He stopped in front of the rubble wall.

“She ain’t no mole,” Spar’s voice came. “They came and took her.”

Reeve fought off panic. “No. We would have heard them.”

Spar kicked the remains of the food tray. It sailed up into the air and clattered against the shelving. “The freaks drugged us. You were sleepin’ harder than a dead man.”

A fumbling sound at the door snatched their attention. The scratching continued until the door began to open a crack and a shaven head peaked inside. Spar grabbed the man by the neck and hoisted him into the room. Dooley was trapped, bug-eyed, in Spar’s iron embrace.

Reeve peered out into the hallway. It was dim and deserted.

“Where is she, you vermin?” Spar demanded.

“Reeve! Make him let go of me!”

“Why should I?” Reeve advanced on him. “You took her. And we were base pairs!”

Dooley shook his head frantically. “No, only Brecca can decide pairs, and that’s only if …” Spar’s grip around his neck tightened. “She wants to see you,” Dooley’s voice squealed out.

“Where is she?” Spar growled.

“In her quarters. Hurry. We have to hurry.”

“What quarters? Make sense, or I’ll snap your worthless neck!”

“Brecca’s room. She sent for you, but we have to hurry or …”

Reeve held Dooley’s chin in his hand, forcing him to look at him. “Pay attention, Dooley. My friend here is Spar of Stillwater Clave. Children have nightmares about what he does when he’s upset. He’s
real
upset right now. Now where is Loon?”

“The girl? I don’t know! She’s gone?” The look on his face was so horrified that Reeve was inclined to believe him.

Dooley sputtered: “He’ll kill you all, Gregor will! You don’t know what he’s like. You want to stay in the gene pool, don’t you?”

Reeve looked at Spar. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Shall I break his neck?”

“No. I think Dooley will help us. Will you, Dooley?”

Dooley gaped at Reeve. “Come to Brecca’s?”

Without answering, they dragged Dooley into the hallway and tried to get their bearings. A long, dusky corridor stretched in both directions. A whir of fans sounded like birds beating their wings nearby.

“Where are we, Dooley?” Reeve asked, gripping the man’s elbow.

“You can’t escape—everything is guarded and secure
—and you promised you wouldn’t, that you’d be good.” He was whispering, craning his neck to look down both ends of the hall. He tugged Reeve to the right. “Come this way, and hurry!”

Spar shrugged and they set off, Dooley pulling on Reeve like a man demented. “Brecca’s in a fury; she’ll have me discredited if I make a mess of this!” One of the walls was caved in along this section, forcing them to pick their way through stones and rubble. Dooley scrambled over debris and started to run, Reeve and Spar racing with him.

They came to a junction of two corridors where a section had slumped, and Dooley pointed to a crawl space halfway up the wall. “In here.”

“Dooley,” Reeve said, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Tell me how we get out of here. Just give me a hint. No one will ever know it was you. We’ll go see Brecca. Then we’ll just disappear. I have a mission, Dooley. I have—an act of devotion to perform. There’s a great evil loose in the world, Dooley, and right now you have to decide whether to trust me.”

Dooley looked at him in consternation. “I have to decide?”

A noise of a door opening sent Reeve and Spar scrambling into the hole, Dooley following.

They flattened themselves in the stony tunnel and waited. A muffled sound from the hallway gradually faded and left them in silence.

“Straight ahead,” Dooley whispered.

They began crawling through a rocky tube that plunged into blackness.

“What is this place?” Reeve asked as he felt his way forward.

“These are the hiding tubes; the whole hillside is full of them.”

Reeve stopped and managed to turn around. He could hear Spar’s breathing next to him, and Dooley’s fluted breath an arm’s length away.

“Well?” Reeve said. “Have you decided?”

After a long pause, Spar prodded. “Don’t go silent on us now, boyo.”

An anxious sigh from Dooley. “I don’t decide things.”

“Yes you do.”

“I’m not important! My sequence won’t go into the gene line!”

“Dooley, think about what you’re saying, just think! Is it all about evolution? What about love and friendship? Does your fancy Gregor know more about those things than you do?”

“No.” Dooley squeaked in surprise. “Is that the shortest sentence I ever said?”

“Let me just break his neck,” Spar growled.

“I don’t know how to get out of here—I’m not important enough to know something like that.” He began pushing them to continue. “Now hurry, before Gregor finds us.”

They scrambled on for fifteen or twenty minutes, until their knees and hands were ripped. Once they had to pick their way across a jumble of bones, including a human skull, long rotted to bone.

Spar’s comment was: “A ghost hole. This tunnel’s the granddaddy ghost hole.”

“A few people have deserted the Pool,” Dooley said, “but I think this is as far as they get. Most people think the tubes lead out of here, but they don’t, not really. They’re just for hiding, if the Labs were ever invaded. If you try to escape, this is what your fate will be.”

Spar grumbled, “You sure you ain’t mixin’ up your fate and mine?”

“Shhh.” Dooley had stopped. “This way.” He turned into a side tunnel, Reeve and Spar close behind him. “We’re here.”

“And a fine spot it is, too.” Spar coughed at the cloud of dust their passing had raised. “This where your Brecca is?”

A flash of light was his answer. Then it was pitch black again. Dooley had disappeared. In another moment, Brecca’s face appeared in front of them, surrounded by a halo of light.

“Nice of you to drop in, boys.” She smiled, a big, pasted-on grin. Then her face collapsed into a snarl. “Now get the hell in here.”

Reeve felt himself yanked forward, and he toppled out of the tube and through a hole in Brecca’s wall. As he sat stunned for a moment on the floor, he saw Brecca hoist Spar through and then drop a wall hanging back over the hole.

The three men were sprawled on the floor staring up at a woman dressed in an enormous brocaded nightgown with gray hair cascading around her shoulders. She took a huge drag on a cigarette and blew out the smoke viciously, contemplating them like a crocodile its next meal.