The Forge of God (34 page)

"The planetism has found ways to use more and more of her raw materials and surface area. She dominated the oceans, then spread plants and animals out to conquer the barren continents. These plants and animals had somehow become specially suited to life on land. I suspect more than random chance was at work, but I'm too weak to argue about that now. It's irrelevant to my scheme.

"Now, after ages, humans are here, and we're not doing too badly. We've got an organ as important as the legs on an amphibian—a highly developed brain. Suddenly, Gaia is becoming self-aware, and looking outward. She's developing eyes that can look far into space and begin to understand the environment she has to conquer. She's reaching puberty. Soon she's going to reproduce.

"I know you're way ahead of me now. You're saying, 'That means human beings are the Earth's gonads.' And I am saying that, but the analogy is weak at best. In time, Gaia would probably have sacrificed everything on Earth—all her ecosystems—to promote human beings. Because we're more than gonads. We are the makers of spores and seeds, we are the ones who understand what Gaia is, and we will soon know how to make other worlds come alive. We will carry Gaia's biological information out into space, on spaceships.

"You know, this idea puts a lot of problems in perspective. Gaia has nurtured us, but she has also goaded us, and sometimes tormented us. She's used all of her resources to make sure we don't feel too comfortable. Diseases that used to help regulate ecosystems have suddenly become stimulants. We're working hard to control all the diseases that harm us, and in doing so, we're understanding life itself, and coming to understand Gaia. So Gaia uses diseases to stimulate and instruct. Is it any real coincidence, you think, that in the twentieth century, we've been hit by so many retrovirus and immune system epidemics? We can't solve these epidemics without understanding life to the nth degree. Gaia is regulating us, regulating herself, making herself ready for puberty.

"Because that's what would have happened. Gaia would have sent us out, and we would have carried her within our spaceships. Maybe we would have made Earth unlivable, and that would be one more reason to leave the seed pod, because it's all dead and shriveled. But that would only be natural. Maybe we would have preserved Earth and gone outward. It's like the dilemma for parents who either make life a hell for their kids to get them out, or the kids have enough gumption to get out on their own, to break loose. Not that I know these problems firsthand, as a parent… but I remember being a kid.

"Of course, Gaia isn't the only planetism. There are probably billions of others, some of them part of seeding networks—planetisms with parents. Some are independent. And when they get out into the galaxy, they find they are in competition. Suddenly they're part of an even larger, much more complex system—a galactic ecology. Planetisms and their extensions—intelligences, technological civilizations—then develop strategies to compete, and to eliminate competition.

"Some planetisms take the obvious route. They exploit and try to spread rapidly. They're like parasites, or young diseases that haven't learned how to live harmlessly within a host. Other planetisms react by seeking and destroying the extensions of these parasites. Eventually, I suppose, if the galaxy itself is to come alive—become a 'galactism'—it's going to have to knit together the extensions of all its planetisms, put them in order. So the parasites either fit in and contribute or they are eliminated. But in the meantime, it's a jungle out there.

"You talked to me a long while back about Frank Drinkwater. Drinkwater, and others like him, have maintained for years that there is no other intelligent life in our galaxy. He claims that the lack of radio signals from distant stars provides the proof. He also thought the lack of von Neumann machines confirmed that we are alone. He was too impatient. Now, obviously, he's wrong.

"We've been sitting in our tree chirping like foolish birds for over a century now, wondering why no other birds answered. The galactic skies are full of hawks, that's why. Planetisms that don't know enough to keep quiet, get eaten.

"I'm just about done now. Too tired to elaborate. Maybe you've already thought this through. Maybe you can find it useful, anyway.

"You've been my own goad and barb sometimes, Art. Thank you for that. You are my very dear friend, and I love you.

"Take care of Ithaca, as much as she needs it.

"My love to Francine and Marty, too.

"I hope and pray you all make it, though for the life of me, I can't figure out how."

Harry had known, almost by instinct. He was still alive, hanging on in Los Angeles, too weak to do much besides sleep. Arthur suddenly felt a panic at the thought of a world without him. What would he do? Now, more than ever, Harry was necessary…

"Art," Francine said. He tried to relax and brought his gaze down from the ceiling, to her face. "Are you thinking about Harry?"

He nodded. "But that's not all." Without considering the consequences, moving ahead on an instinct he hoped was as good as Harry's, he had made up his mind. "There's something big going on," he said. "I've been afraid to tell you."

"Can you tell me?" she asked, squinting as if reluctant to hear. Enough change, enough shock in the news without it coming into her house any more than it already had.

"It's not a government secret," he said, smiling. He told her about the encounter in the airport, the information in his head, the formation of the network. It spilled from him in a confessional torrent, and he interrupted only to let Gauge in when the pup howled miserably in the garage.

Francine watched her husband's shining eyes and his beatific face and bit her lip.

When he was finished, he shivered and shrugged all at once. "I sound completely nuts, don't I?"

She nodded, a tear falling down her cheek.

"All right. I'll show you something very strange."

He went to the locked upper-hall cupboard and drew down a cardboard box. In the bedroom, he drew off the lid. Within the box, to his surprise, lay not one but two identical spiders, motionless, their green linear eyes glowing. Francine backed away from the open box.

"I didn't know there was another," he said.

"What are they?"

"Our saviors, I think," Arthur answered.

Will she be saved?
he asked the humming expectancy in his head. She reached out to touch the spiders, and he was about to stop her, warn her, when he realized it didn't matter. If they had wanted her to be "possessed," the new spider—wherever it came from—would have already taken her. Hesitantly, she reached out to touch one. It did not react. She stroked the chromium body thoughtfully. The spiders moved their legs in unison, and she withdrew her hand hastily. The motion stopped.

"It's like they're alive," she said.

"I think they're just very complicated machines."

"They take samples, store information… and they…" She swallowed hard and wrapped her arms around herself. She began to shiver, her teeth clacking. "Ooo-o-h, Arrthur …"

He reached out to hug her tightly, laying his cheek on the top of her head, nuzzling her.

"I'm still here," he said.

"Everything is so unreal."

"I know."

"What… what do we do now?"

"We wait," he said. "I do what I must do."

Her expression as she craned her head back to face him was a mix of fascination and repulsion. "I don't even know that you are who you say you are."

He nodded. "I can't prove that."

"Yes, you can," she said. "Please, maybe you can. Maybe I know already." She folded herself more compactly into his arms and hid her face against his chest. "I don't want to think… I've lost you already. Oh, God." She pulled away again, mouth open. "Don't tell Marty. You haven't told Marty?"

"No."

"He couldn't take it. He has nightmares already about fire and earthquakes."

"I won't tell him."

"Not until later," she said firmly. "When we know for sure. What's going to happen, I mean."

"All right."

Then it was time to dress and pick up Marty from the school. They drove together through the drizzle.

That evening, after Marty had gone to bed and while they sat together on the couch in the living room reading, legs entangled, the phone rang. Arthur answered.

"I have a call for Arthur Gordon from President Crockerman."

Arthur recognized the voice. It was Nancy Congdon, the White House secretary.

"Speaking."

"Hold on, please."

A few seconds later, Crockerman came on the line.

"Arthur, I need to speak with you or Feinman, or with Senator Gilmonn… I assume you're in touch with him, or with the Puzzle Palace?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. President… I haven't spoken with the senator or the NSA. Harry Feinman is very ill now. He's dying."

"That's what I was told." The President said nothing for a long moment. "I'm under siege here, Arthur. They still can't get a vote through in the House, but they're maybe two votes down… I'm not sure I know everybody who's laying siege, but I thought you might be able to speak to them. You don't need to admit complicity… or whatever you would call it."

"I may not be the right man, Mr. President," Arthur said.

"In the past few hours, I have been denied access to the war room. I've fired Otto Lehrman but that hasn't stopped a thing. Jesus, they've actually threatened to withdraw the troops around the White House! All they've done is clearly illegal, but these people… They can afford to wait me out. Something's going on. And I
need to know what it is
, for Christ's sake. I'm the
President of the United States
, Arthur!"

"I don't know anything about this, Mr. President."

"Right. Hold to the party line. For whatever it's worth, I'm not a stubborn idiot. I've spent the last few weeks agonizing over this. I've spoken with Party Secretary Nalivkin. Do you know what they're doing? They're negotiating with the bogey in Mongolia. He says the world is on the brink of a socialist millennium. That's what the spacecraft in Mongolia is telling him! Arthur, give it to me straight… Is there anybody I can talk to who can put me back in the chain of command? I am not an unreasonable man. I can be reasoned with. God knows I've been thinking this all over. I'm willing to rethink my position. Have you heard about Reverend Ormandy?"

"No, sir."

"He's dead, for Christ's sake! They shot him. Somebody shot him."

Arthur, face pale, said nothing.

"If they aren't talking to you, then who would they be talking to?"

"Have you called McClennan, or Rotterjack?" Arthur asked. Both of them had sworn allegiance to Crockerman even after their resignations.

"Yes. I can't get through to them. I think they've been arrested or kidnapped. Is this a revolution, a mutiny, Arthur?"

"I don't know, sir. I honestly don't know."

Crockerman muttered something Arthur didn't hear clearly and hung up.

January 4

Reuben Bordes met the Money Man near the Greyhound bus terminal on Twelfth Street. The white-haired, paunchy stranger wore a dark blue wool suit, pin-striped golden silk shirt, and alligator-skin shoes. He seemed perfectly happy to pass Reuben a plump gray vinyl zippered bag filled with hundred- and thousand-dollar bills. Reuben shook his hand firmly, smiled, and they parted without a word said between them. Reuben stuck the envelope into the pocket of his olive-green army coat and hailed a cab.

Instructions given, he sat back in the seat, happier than he had ever been in his life. With this money, he could be traveling in style now: taxicabs, airplanes, fine hotels wherever he went. But more than likely the money would be spent on other things. Still, the thought…

There was an extensive shopping list in his head. His first stop would be the Government Printing Office Data Center. There he would purchase four sets of data disks containing the entire public-domain nonfiction records of the Library of Congress. Each set, on five hundred disks, occupied the space of a good-sized filing cabinet, and he did not know why four copies were necessary, but he would pay for them all in cash with about half of the money in the envelope.

He stood in line at the service counter of the Data Center for ten minutes, and then stepped up to the clerk, a young, balding man with a full red beard and a sharply appraising stare.

"Can I help you?" the clerk asked.

"I'd like four sets of number 15-692-421-3-A-G."

The clerk wrote the number down and consulted a terminal. "That's nonfiction, complete, L.C.," he said. "Including all reference guides and indices?"

Reuben nodded.

The clerk's stare became more intense. "That's fifteen thousand dollars a set," he said.

Reuben calmly unfolded a roll of money and counted out sixty thousand-dollar bills.

The clerk examined the bills carefully, rubbing them, holding them up close. "I'll have to call my supervisor," he said.

"Fine," Reuben said.

A half hour later, all the formalities cleared away, Reuben wrote down where he wanted the sets sent—a mailing address in West Virginia.

"What will you
do
with them all?" the clerk asked as he handed Reuben the receipt.

"Read them," Reuben said. "Four times." He regretted that flippancy as he walked south on Seventh Street toward the National Archives, but only for a moment. Instructions were pouring in rapidly, and he had little time to think for himself.

January 5

Lieutenant Colonel Rogers came out of a sound sleep at four a.m., just minutes before his wristwatch alarm was set to go off. He deactivated the alarm and switched on the small lamp at the head of his narrow bunk. For a luxurious minute, he lay still in the bunk, listening. All was quiet. All calm. It was Sunday; most of the Forge of Godders had moved to Furnace Creek the night before for a huge rally planned this morning by the Reverend Edwina Ashberry.