Spear of Light (11 page)

She looked left. Maybe beyond the place where the ship material flowed into the Wall and added to it? She walked left toward that glowing line.

She expected guards, but instead there was only the line of material, like a tightly controlled river throwing out a sparse, warm light. It screamed of inhumanity, of technology far beyond anything she had seen.

A break in the light looked like it might be a doorway or a wall, but as she approached it she realized it was a slender bridge. A path led toward the bridge, which soared in soft curved loops above the slow river.

She ascended a steep, curling ramp up to a thin walkway. There were no handholds, just the walkway, and the river below.

She took a deep breath and walked as quickly as she could. She stopped at the apex of the curved bridge and glanced down. A soft wind plucked at her, bringing a slight metallic smell that could be from the artificial river below her or from the Wall itself.

The material wasn't as homogenous as she had thought. Darker and slower ridges held a brighter and faster substance inside, a glittering line of what might as well be magic.

How did beings who had lived so far from light know how to use it so effectively? There had been no visible trace of the Next when she first came to Lym less than two years ago, and now they owned this part of the planet and looked as if they had always been here.

She swayed, slightly dizzy. She should have been selfish enough to ask Amica for food, even if it would have been taking it from children. Other than a few nuts Jean Paul had encouraged her to eat, her last meal had been on the transport here. Hours ago. Maybe fourteen or sixteen hours. Maybe a few more.

As she descended on the far side she almost slipped, unbalanced and bereft of a handrail.

A silver pillar waited for her on the far side. Her certainty that it was Next bore itself out as it unfolded into a vaguely humanoid shape. It created eyes for her, and the faintest intimation of a mouth, although it didn't bother to try and speak through the mouth. Rather, the voice just filled the air around her. “Nona Hall. It is a pleasure to see you.”

She stiffened. How did it know her? “I don't recognize you. Did we meet when you were docked at the Satwa?”

“The
Bleeding Edge
is now orbiting Lym. I have been told about you by some of the people that you met there.”

A visceral, uncontrollable fear shook her. “I'm looking for someone. Manny. He . . .” She hesitated. “He runs Manna Springs. Someone told me he might be here.”

“No human may pass into our city.”

She hadn't expected that. “What about the ones who want to become you?”

“Do you?”

“Never.” A quick certain answer. “But do you know where Manny is?”

“Yes. Go to Hope. The town is past the road from the spaceport and through the Mixing Zone and on to where humans live.”

Hope. The name surprised her.

The Next pointed in the direction she had been going. Although they were a long way away, there were lights, a few stationary white lights and a few lights that moved, perhaps the lights of vehicles. What must be a skimmer took off from near the base of the Wall.

It looked like a good hour's walk. “Do you have any food or water?”

It went silent for a moment, erasing the fake mouth but keeping its eyes. This was nothing like Yi or Jason or Chrystal, who were human souls trapped in humanoid bodies that looked like their old ones. After the first shock of the subtle difference had worn off, Nona had never doubted Chrystal was herself.

However, it was impossible to see the seed of humanity that the Next claimed existed inside every one of them in
this
being. She watched it, certain that its stillness meant it was calculating something.

She regretted asking it for such a flesh-based thing as water.

It re-created its face, this time more fully, more human. “I will take you.”

Its arms hardened and became longer, and it scooped her up with them.

She bit her tongue to keep from screaming.

The arms folded tight, making it just the tiniest bit hard to breathe. It was strong enough to kill her with no thought whatsoever.

It didn't. It carried her as gently as if she were a baby, its gait smooth and flowing. A low hum emanated from it, an intentional sound like a lullaby.

Above her, the top of the Wall gleamed and grew. Nonetheless, the near stars outshone the Wall. She spotted familiar constellations, and a few of the orbiting stations.

The Next walked at least twice as fast as Nona herself could have, and it rocked. If she had been easy in its arms, she would have dozed as it walked the Wall. As it was, she got lost in stray thoughts about Charlie and Satyana, about Lym and the Diamond Deep.

A light flashed on them, shocking Nona attentive. All she saw were a few scattered buildings, some that looked quite official. Nothing that looked like homes. “Are we in Hope?”

“This is the Mixing Zone. Humans and Next are visit each other here, deals happen, people are hired, choices made.”

“There aren't a lot of people mixing,” Nona observed.

“You humans are too busy fighting each other to talk to us,” it said.

True enough. “So this isn't Hope?”

“Not yet. We'll be there soon.”

She relaxed again. It was hard to see, the way the robot was carrying her, sort of like a human mother would carry a child with an arm supporting her back and another one just under her bent knees.

A skimmer hummed above them, flying toward town.

“Do you know what's happening in Manna Springs?” she asked.

“Only that there is still fighting. We don't know why.”

Rage, she thought. Rage and fear. But there was no point in trying to explain that to the Next. Either it understood such emotions or it did not.

The Next put her down beside a gate. “This is the way into Hope. You will have to explain your business. The guardians of Hope are human.”

She felt like laughing at that, both at the idea and at how silly it sounded. She wondered if the Next understood the pun. When she turned to ask it, it was already walking away.

“Thank you,” she called after it.

It held up a hand as if in acknowledgment, and then the hand disappeared and a simple cylinder traveled back the way a humanoid robot had come.

The gate in front of her was simple metal, with the word Hope printed on it in huge letters, and a smaller script below that said, “Gather Hope in great measure and here become More than Human.”

Strange.

The wall around the gate was a small thing compared to the great Wall of Nexity, almost but not quite small enough for her to just pull herself up and over.

Before she could knock, the gate opened and a redheaded woman asked her, “Why have you come?”

“I'm looking for a friend.”

“A Next brought you. But there are no Next here except for soulbots.”

“My friend is human.” She saw no reason to hide her mission, but she wasn't at all sure she should mention Charlie. “I've been sent to find Manny.”

“Do you wish him harm?”

Nona felt affronted. “Of course not!”

“No one comes inside without being searched.”

Nona didn't like it, but the other alternative available seemed to be to lie down and give up. She was tired enough to stop, and hungry enough, but she had to keep going. “Okay.”

The woman ushered her through the gate and into a long narrow room with a door at the far end, as if an airlock had been designed to keep Hope from the outside world. “Stop here.” She ran her hands up and down Nona's arms and legs and through her hair and along her back and belly. After that, she used a scanner, which hummed quietly.

Nona barely managed to hold her tongue and submit.

When the woman finished, she asked, “Are you all right?”

“I'm tired, hungry, thirsty, and a bit overwhelmed.”

The woman stopped and looked more closely at her. “I bet you are. Poor thing.” She called through the doorway. “Marilla? Please bring water.” She turned her attention back to Nona. “Did you come from Manna Springs? Is it still awful there?”

“Yes.”

A hand popped through the door with a glass of water, which the woman took and handed to Nona. “So why do you want Manny? He doesn't have anything to do with becoming.”

Nona drank half of the water before answering. “Becoming?”

“Becoming. A Next.”

Nona felt confused. “I don't want to do that.”

“What's your name?”

“Nona.”

The woman called over her shoulder. “Marilla? Can you go ask Manny if he's willing to see a Nona? I'll have her wait here.”

A slight woman with dark hair and big black eyes rimmed in gold poked her head around a corner and waved at the redhead. “I'll be right back.”

The guard directed her to wait on a bench, and then returned to simply standing by the gate, silent.

Nona finished the water in three controlled sips, savoring every mouthful. It made her feel more alert and hungrier, and still thirsty enough to drink a gallon more if it were available. She set the empty glass down with regret.

Marilla came and led her away from the gate. They went through the door and then down a long corridor with closed doors on both sides and a locked door at the end.

Once the door closed behind them, Marilla led Nona through a series of booths that were covered with bright textiles. From the smells of spice and old stim that still lingered in the air, Nona guessed that it was an open-air market in the daytime. At the far side, there was a patio that led into a tavern named Hope's Despair.

Inside, a vast room led all the way to the glowing Wall of Nexity. Twenty-five or so tables sat very close together, with a bar at each end of the room. People filled half the tables, and Nona had no trouble picking Manny out. Even though he'd grown thinner since she last saw him, he was still a big man, with distinctive red hair and bright blue eyes.

He looked up as Marilla led her to him. “I thought that would be you,” he said. His brow was furrowed. “Is Charlie okay?”

“He was when I left him. Can I join you?”

“Of course.”

She sank gratefully into the chair opposite Manny. “Amfi is okay, but Davis is dead. Manna Springs is a mess, and your compound is burning.”

“Burning?” He blinked a few times, perhaps chasing tired tears back inside of himself. “Did they burn the gardens?”

She startled. “I don't know. I hope not. We didn't land.”

Manny looked at Marilla. “Thank you for bringing her. I'm safe enough—you can leave her.”

The slight, dark woman looked unhappy, but she turned and went back the way she had come.

“Thanks,” Nona called after her. That's just how it was—the Next had brought her, then abandoned her, and now the human was doing the same thing.

“Are you all right?” she asked Manny.

“I have a few scratches.”

“And your family?”

“They are probably safe.”

“But you don't know?”

“Do you know that Charlie's safe?” he countered.

She fell silent.

“We wait,” he said. “There's nothing to do right now except sit down and wait. I spent the first hour here trying for news, but no one in Hope cares much about Manna Springs.” He looked more closely at her, and then called a waitbot. “I'll pay for whatever she wants.”

“I've got credit,” she said. “Plenty of it.”

He looked at her with what she could only label as compassion. “Perhaps we'll need that later. In the meantime, let me buy you a cup of soup.”

Nona's stomach reacted to the idea of food, reminding her how weak she felt. “I'm starved.”

Manny smiled at her. “Then maybe we can have bread with our soup.”

“I hope so.”

The waitbot apparently took that as an order, since it disappeared.

“And then we sleep.”

“But the whole planet seems to be fighting!”

“And you and I have both been ejected from that fight. I'm a politician, as are you. We're diplomats. We live to fight another day, and there will be one. There always is. We will do better if we're rested when it comes.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

YI

Yi and Jason stared at the huge door in front of them. It had to be a door. It was the full size of the corridor, metal, with unrecognizable symbols etched around the outside. Its smooth gray-green surface was unmarred, rustless, and had no apparent handle. Yi only knew it was a door was because there was a small window cut into it, about as big as his hand. Through the window, he could see a vast open space, full of objects that he couldn't identify.

It's a puzzle.
Jason stared so hard at the door he seemed to be trying to wrest its secrets away with his gaze alone.

Not literally.
Yi closed his eyes and focused. If the previous inhabitants had been on either side of the war, they might have locked away their weaponry. If they had been a group that would become Next and had been told to leave, they might have done the same. This place felt more like it was built for machines than for humans, even if what he'd been taught in school—and just related to Jason—refuted that idea. Unlike the rooms they'd left Charlie and others in, floors were hard instead of soft, corridors and doors wide. Seats didn't have backs. Restrooms or galleys were rare.