Rift (72 page)

But that was tomorrow’s problem. For now, he allowed himself to explore the land and to hope for a future.

Sometimes at night, staring at his campfire, he thought back on the best times: building the raft on the beach with Spar; the first few days on the Inland Sea, poling westward, watching Loon swim like an otter; learning to fight from Kalid; standing at the rail of the
Cleopatra
with the Tallstory River splitting under the ship’s prow … the one night that Loon and he shared in Brecca’s escape room. The best times were all he remembered, or all he chose to remember.

And whether it was the Forever Plains, the rivers, the caves, or the great valley, the world itself shaped events. Lithia carried them on its iron winds, or thwarted them, or bounded them, or pardoned them, creating their lives as surely as their own wills, and with truer aim. When you looked at where the world took you, it was, as Spar said, a thing of awe. And if you had to ask what that was … 
Well, then, you beyond help
.

After the ninth day, Reeve finally saw his goal in the distance.

The white sails of the ship caught the bright sunlight like mirrors. He stood on a low hill, gazing down the Rift Valley at the Gandhi River, a blue highway that could take them most of the way they had to go.

Reeve hoisted the pack onto his shoulders again and started down the hillside. After a few minutes, he could see people milling on the deck of the
Cleopatra
. He thought he could make out one of them, a dark
man with his hair pulled back, who stood at the prow watching Reeve. In the distance, he heard the man shout, “Reeve Calder, by the Lord of Worlds!”

Reeve quickened his pace, eager, suddenly, for the company of a friend.

EPILOGUE
 

Reeve knew something was wrong when he and Kalid were able to scale the rock cliffs and enter the caves without challenge. They wound their way through the tunnel, finding the holding cells empty. Graffiti carved into the passageway wall proclaimed “Reform the Pool” and “Darwin’s Revenge.” Something had happened here, and Reeve feared the worst. Perhaps the Somaform defenses were not as fine as they thought.

Kalid ordered his jinn to spread out and secure the place. Leaving a group to guard their exit, Reeve and Kalid proceeded into the Labs, pushing their way through debris piled at the entrance.

Still illuminated by skylights, the great atrium was in shambles. The splintered railings of the mezzanines gaped open in places, while severed cables hung from the ceiling, pointing toward the smashed placards on the floor, with the twisted faces now deformed further amid the rubble.

Kalid pulled debris off a placard and stared at the grotesque visage depicted there. “Here is a face of nightmares,” he said.

“One of these could have been me if I hadn’t escaped,” Reeve said.

“Yet you hold no blame for Mercury Clave?” Kalid kicked at the placard with his silver-toed boot, and it slid down the pile of junk to clatter on the floor.

“They were wrong about some things. Like everybody.” Reeve shrugged. “We can’t be too choosy about our allies if we want to survive.”

Kalid flashed a grin at him. “You are either a great leader or a very bad one.”

“Let me know when you figure out which.” At a distant noise, Reeve glanced up to search the grand staircase and the mezzanines. Nothing. But the sound came again, like the bellow of an ox. Several jinn sprinted to the top of the stairs to pursue the noise.

A smile tugged at Reeve’s mouth. “I think I recognize that sound,” he said. “Come on.” He hurried up the stairs after the others, then down the corridor.

As they strode through the outer apartments, Reeve heard cursing.

“Damn you to fourteen hells!”

He gestured Kalid and the others away from a door behind which a woman’s imprecations thundered. He knocked on the door. Silence greeted this. He knocked again.

Finally, a voice roared: “Oh, come the hell in!”

Reeve opened the door. Brecca was sitting up in bed, still in her nightdress, her hair loosely braided, a great number of plates and dishes piled around her, as well as an enormous mound of books.

“Ministrator,” Reeve said, in mock deference.

Brecca looked at him for several moments over her reading glasses, perched on the end of her nose. “I don’t suppose,” she said, “in all your travels you learned how to make a decent crème brûlée?” She waved off his attempt at an answer. “Surrounded by brutes. I’d give my left tit just to find somebody who knows what a crème brûlée is.”

She swerved her attention sideways. “Take it
away
. All of it.”

Dooley scampered forward and started stacking plates with remnants of meals onto a tray. He managed to stack the tray a foot high, and then couldn’t lift the thing. He was dressed in white robes and wore Gregor’s flat white hat with tassel. He nodded at Reeve. “I’m glad you came back. I could use some help, especially—”

Brecca trumpeted,
“Now!
Take it now.” At his look of distress, she softened her tone and smiled a mockingly sweet smile. “Please, Dooley. That’s a good lad.”

Turning to catch the attention of a jinn standing just outside, Reeve signaled for him to remove the tray. Behind him, Kalid entered, bowing low to Brecca.

At the sight of the pirates, she pulled the bedcovers over her chest. “Are the unwashed masses invited into my bedroom? Have I sunk that far?”

Reeve pulled a chair close to the bed and leaned back into it. “Knock it off, Brecca. I came a thousand miles to talk to you. I’ve also been through a bit of trouble since I saw you last, so I’m in no mood for games.”

She took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes in profound weariness. “So terribly sorry, dear boy, for all your
suffering.”
She looked about her apartment, which was in disarray, with piles of clothes and books everywhere. “And what do you suppose it’s been like here? Party’s over, if you didn’t notice.”

“I noticed.”

She repositioned her arm, which up until now Reeve hadn’t realized was in a sling. “It’s been a nightmare. Gregor tried a power play. He botched it, naturally, but not before my Somas went a bit nuts and ransacked the place. Poor Greggy just didn’t understand that he couldn’t pull me down without bringing the whole kit and caboodle down, too.” She shook her head. “I managed to keep them out of my office. I
guess they figured if they killed me in the doorway, they’d never be able to move my body. I jammed myself in and dared them to shoot.” She smiled, an awful, yellow grin. “Worked like a charm.”

“Where is everybody now?”

She closed her eyes and sank back into her pillows. “Gone. All gone. Most of them dead. Gregor forced some of them to jump from the cliffs.… It was ghastly. I would have pushed him off myself if he hadn’t performed the final sacrifice.” She opened her eyes, took one look at Dooley, and shook her head. “We’re all that’s left.” She fixed Reeve with a commanding stare. “Make him take off that goofy hat, will you?”

Reeve sighed. “Dooley, what’s with the high-priest routine?”

Dooley flicked the tassel out of his face, but it swung back. “Somebody has to be the Successor, don’t they? I didn’t want to be it, believe me, and I’m no good at it, which even—”

Brecca growled, “Never,
never
ask him a question.”

“Take off the hat, Dooley. It upsets Brecca.”

Dooley’s eyes bugged out. “Take it off? But …”

Reeve gestured at a jinn, who swiped at the thing, sending it zinging across the room.

“Where’s the girl?” Brecca asked. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you to bring her along?”

“Loon is in the orthong forest.”

Brecca sighed hugely. “So what do I get? Ruffians and fools.” At
fools
she looked directly at Dooley.

Pressing on, Reeve said: “Loon sent you a present.” Digging into his backpack, he pulled out a heavy geode and placed it on the bed next to her.

She narrowed her eyes and glanced from the stone to Reeve and back again. “OK, I give up. What is it?”

Reeve grinned at Kalid. “Should I give her the long story or the short one?”

“Just give me a damn cigarette for starters.” Brecca
cradled her arm and made a small grunting noise, as though she was in some pain. “Dooley won’t let me smoke,” she said petulantly.

Dooley seemed startled to hear his name. “No, no, it’s just that there aren’t any, and I’ve looked everywhere, but she blames me just the same!”

“I could smoke
rat dung
, Dooley. But you don’t have the brains God gave a cabbage. You could figure something out—”

She stopped in amazement as Kalid came forward with a pipe sporting a nine-inch stem. It was lit. He handed it over to her with a flourish. “Madame,” he said.

Brecca took the pipe with a dainty hand. “At last, a man of breeding,” she said, eyeing him with an appraising stare.

“I am your servant, Kalid.”

“To be sure.” She took a little toke, closing her eyes and murmuring, “And I’m your goddamned grateful Brecca.”

After a few moments of quiet, with Brecca smoking and the jinn withdrawing to explore, Reeve said: “The orthong gave me the geode, Brecca.”

Here she raised an eyebrow.

“It contains all the directions we need to survive. To become like Loon,”

She looked at him with a dark stare. “And I should believe this because …?”

“Because you don’t have any other damn choice. You’re washed up here.” He allowed himself to smile with the genuine pleasure he was feeling. “Unless you want to team up with me.”

She puffed away at the pipe, regarding him. Then she said, “I’ll need test subjects. Tawdry as it is.”

“That would be me,” Reeve said.

Kalid added, “And me,” bowing again.

Brecca sucked on her teeth and summoned a light for her pipe. A jinn jumped forward to oblige. “All
righty,” she said. “Let’s take a look.” She threw off her covers with her good hand and swung her feet over the side of the bed. “You boys might want to give me a moment to put myself together.”

Kalid snapped his fingers, and one of the female jinn stayed behind. “Brecca’s wish is your command,” Kalid said, winking at the jinn.

“I like that young man,” Brecca was saying as Reeve and Kalid closed the bedroom door behind them.

After a very long time Brecca finally emerged from her quarters, wearing a rather shopworn ensemble of robes, necklaces, and gaudy earrings. She shook her good hand, rattling the bracelets. “Feels like old times.” Her face slumped resignedly.
“Very
old.”

She led the way to her office, the others forming a ragtag procession behind her.

When the geode lay in front of her at her desk, Brecca turned it over and over, studying it for a way to open it. “As the holy representative of Deity in the world,” she muttered, “I realize I’m supposed to know how to open the damn thing.…” Finally she looked up at Dooley with a menacing smile. “Would you care to try, Dooley?”

Dooley stepped forward and held the rock in trembling hands. It was clear that he was afraid to fail
or
to succeed. But within moments a crack appeared, allowing him to open the geode into two halves. He shrugged. “I’m good with puzzles. It’s part of my transgenic plan, sort of.”

“Well done, Dooley,” Reeve said as the smaller man beamed.

Inside the geode, crystalline facets hugged the concave sides, flashing with glittering pinpricks of light.

“What is it?” Brecca asked, squinting at the interior.

“I don’t know,” Reeve said, “but there are three more stones just like this one.”

“Well,” she said brightly, “I do love a mystery.” She smiled a pert smile at the men gathered around. “Keep
me in tobacco, gentlemen, and I’ll do science until I drop.” She waved her fingers at Reeve impatiently. “Let’s see the rest of them.”

“There’s just one catch,” he said.

“I can’t keep the pipe?” she said darkly.

“Keep the pipe, Brecca.” He waited until he was sure he had her attention. “And keep your robes. We’re going to need you to be the Holy Ministrator for a while longer.”

She rolled her eyes, registering her disgust.

“Folks aren’t going to accept transformation from the orthong. They hate the orthong. We’re going to need … an intermediary.”

“And the religion bit?”

“It could help.” He eyed her pointedly, remembering the raid on his ship. “Without the proselytizing.”

“That was Gregor’s doing. Used a little too much persuasion.”

“From now on, everybody makes their own choice.”

She snorted. “Sweetened with a little pomp and circumstance.”

“Just for a little while. Until we climb back into the scientific age.”

“Could be a long climb.” A profound sigh escaped her lips. “I’m too old for show business.”

Reeve just smiled. “New show, Brecca.”

“Well then,” she said. “Let’s get the show on the road.” Reaching for an electronic probe, she began pecking at the interior of the geode, pushing up her glasses more firmly onto the bridge of her nose.

At her side, Reeve and Kalid bent closer to peer into the lighted stone maze.