The Golden Space (37 page)

Merripen explained as briefly as he could; Jorah nodded and did not interrupt. She frowned when he finished and looked uneasily toward the pit.

“This may have nothing to do with the ones you’re trying to find,” Jorah said softly. “But about ten years ago, six or seven hundred kilometers from here, I did see something strange. We’d been digging at a site that had seemed promising but didn’t pan out. I was tired and discouraged, so I went out alone in a hovercraft. The land’s flat there, I would have seen anyone coming for a long way, so I wasn’t really being reckless. My craft was driving and I wasn’t paying too much attention to where it was going, but after a while, I noticed that it was going in the wrong direction.”

She glanced at the pit again, as if afraid someone would overhear her. “I checked it. There was nothing wrong. I reset it—I was going north—but it kept bearing east. So I got out and stretched out my arm. I felt a field, an invisible field. I couldn’t penetrate it, and my craft couldn’t go through it.”

“A shield,” Merripen said.

“Like the ones around Citadels? But this one was huge. Whatever generated it was a lot more powerful than anything I know about.” A tall woman hurried past, toward the pit; Jorah stopped talking and toyed with the teapot until the woman disappeared into the pit.

“I got a little nervous,” Jorah continued. “I took out my binoculars. All I could see was flat ground reaching toward the horizon. Finally I thought I saw something move, but it might have been my eyes playing tricks. I was scared, but still curious. I decided to measure the diameter of the shield. I rode around it. It was at least fifty kilometers wide, maybe more. I’ve forgotten. Something had to be in there, but I didn’t see it.”

Merripen clutched his cup. Karim raised his eyebrows; Andrew put down his bowl. “Maybe I should have stayed there,” Jorah said. “Maybe I should have brought my friends to check it. I left. I went back to our site and I didn’t say a word. I had bad dreams about it. Once I thought that there might have been people inside it from out there.” She waved at the sky. “I dreamed that they’d come here to make the earth over, to tear it apart. We left our site soon after that. I never went back, and I didn’t report it. It was obvious that whoever left the shield there didn’t want intruders, and I was afraid of what it might mean.”

“Tell us how to get there.” After he spoke, Merripen felt surprised. He could be heading toward something even more dangerous than Domingo’s village. Andrew was nodding; Karim seemed oddly indifferent.

Jorah said, “So you’re going to go.”

“We might as well. We have no other leads.”

“I don’t think you should.”

“Then you shouldn’t have told us about it.”

She grimaced. “I’m just resentful, I suppose. You’re going to go there, and I was too frightened to stay. I guess I’m not used to dealing with anything that’s still alive. I sometimes feel like a grave robber.” She gazed toward the pit. “And sometimes I don’t know whether I’m digging here or burrowing through my mind.” She lifted her head. “When will you leave?”

“Right away,” Merripen said.

“I’d better give you directions, then.”

By the next day, the hills had given way to flat land. A sea of grass rippled before them to the horizon; darker bands flowed over the grass as it swayed. Under the wide sky, Merripen felt small and exposed; the small fluffy clouds overhead were so low it seemed he could touch them, while those in the distance appeared to be thousands of kilometers away.

He was riding with Andrew, Karim’s craft at their side. Far ahead, the empty craft was a fat insect swimming in a green and brown sea. Merripen thought about Karim. The man no longer seemed ill, but he had been keeping to himself ever since their departure from Jorah’s site.

Merripen had awakened in the night, while they were resting near the side of an old road, and had noticed that Karim was not in his craft, though his light was on. Peering into the darkness, he had at last spied Karim standing in the road, arms out, face turned toward the stars. Merripen had pretended he was still asleep when Karim returned. He had said nothing to Andrew.

Karim’s craft floated ahead, then settled on the ground. The high grass bowed under it. Merripen stopped behind it and signaled to the other man. There was no answer.

Merripen was out of his craft and walking toward Karim’s when the other man emerged, a wand at his waist and a pack on his back. His dark eyes were clear; he smiled. “It’s done,” Karim said, and his voice was deep and full again. “I’m going to leave you here.”

Merripen shook his head. Andrew had come to his side. “What are you talking about?” Merripen said.

“Surely you can guess. It must have occurred to you earlier. I’d done my work with viruses, using them to transmit certain traits, to change genes, to transplant new ones. I became my own subject. I considered this for a long time; I knew what I was doing. That’s why I had to leave Pine Point. I’m not as I was.”

Merripen stepped back. Karim looked as he had, yet his eyes seemed lost in the contemplation of a vision Merripen could not see. “What have you done to yourself?”

Karim opened his hands, flexing his fingers. “All my senses are
sharper. The air itself can nourish me; I’ll need little food. I can live in the world. I no longer
have to hide from it.” He lifted his head. “I carry a symbiote—its cells are replacing my own
even as I speak. I taste the wind, I see its sound. It blows from the south now—I smell the
ferns and the traces of moss, the swamp air. I’m stronger. I can heal myself almost
instantly.”

“But why did you do it?”

“Because I want to live in the world, out here. I thought about it so
many times as I went out hunting or hiking—it’s time for us to return to that. But we can’t as
long as we cling to our devices, the things we need to stay alive, the things that separate us from
the world. You think I’m mad.” Karim shook his head. “But I can be fed by sunlight, I can pluck that
weed”—he waved at a leafy green plant—“and be nourished by it, because my body will
change it to food. I can live as we were meant to live. We made a mistake when we set ourselves up
as Earth’s rulers—we are only part of it, and perhaps not the most important part,
either.”

Karim looked down at the Bond on his wrist. “I no longer need this.” He removed it and dropped it on the ground, crushing it under his foot. “This is where I’ll leave you. Take my hovercraft—I left a record of my work in its computer, in case anyone wishes to join me. Perhaps you will if you don’t find your friends.”

“No,” Merripen said. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing. I feel my mind shedding its doubts and intellections as a snake sheds its skin. Farewell.” Karim turned and walked away.

Andrew moved quickly. He darted toward Karim and seized his arms; the taller man shook him off. Andrew grabbed him again. Karim turned, lifted him gently, and flung him to the ground. Andrew got up, dazed but apparently unhurt. Karim began to run, his head and shoulders bobbing above the grass.

“Come on,” Andrew said. “We’ve got to stop him. We’ll go after him in our craft and put him in suspension until we can get him to a Citadel.” Merripen did not move. “Come on.”

“Let him go.”

“But he could die out there.”

“Let him go. It’s what he wants. Death is part of it. In that world he loves so much, creatures die all the time.” He remembered the look on Karim’s face as he had turned away; he had seemed lost in joy. He envied the other man suddenly. Karim would roam the deserted land, at peace. Earth would sing to him. He might live a long time. He wondered if Karim could live forever that way.

Andrew said, “It’s affected his mind.”

“Perhaps it has. But he chose it.” Merripen gazed over the plain at the retreating figure, which grew smaller until it was hidden by the grass.

Merripen, riding in Karim’s hovercraft, had finished scanning the man’s records. He felt depressed rather than illuminated. His journey seemed an exercise in futility. Everything he had seen convinced him that he should never have left the Citadel; if he went back now, he would want to tear it down, little by little, leaving only the walls as a warning. He thought of Karim roaming the plains, of Jorah digging through bones and ruins, of Eline and Domingo, of the burned husk of Harsville. All of it was, at least in part, his legacy; his actions long ago had helped bring it about.

The sun was low in the violet sky. Eline’s craft, far ahead, suddenly veered and turned north. Merripen sat up. It had reached the shield. He took over his craft and drove more quickly, catching up with Andrew, and tried to signal to him. The screen stayed blank; something was interfering with it. Andrew looked toward him and motioned at his own screen.

They rode on until their vehicles met the shield, bumped against it, trembled, and then veered north.

By nightfall, they had circled the barrier completely, but had seen nothing inside it except scrubby land, dotted by shrubs and small trees. The vehicles now sat silently in the dark, noses against the invisible shield.

Andrew punched out supper. The two men ate in their seats, keeping their lights low even in the darkness. Merripen finished eating, then poured more wine.

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” Andrew asked.

“I don’t know. We don’t even know what we’re waiting for. We can hope that they’ll notice someone’s out here and come out to check. Maybe we should hope they don’t see us at all.”

Andrew waved a hand at the bottle of wine that sat on a ledge behind their seats. “Don’t drink too much of that. One of us should stay awake while the other sleeps.”

Merripen nodded. Andrew brooded for a few moments, then said, “Do you think you can sleep now?”

“Yes. I’m very tired.”

“Good. I’ll stay awake, then. I know I can’t sleep.”

Merripen put down his seat, trying to get comfortable. The inside of the craft darkened. Andrew stirred in his seat, touched Merripen’s arm gently, then withdrew.

Someone hidden by the darkness came to stand at Merripen’s side, watching him silently. He was afraid to move. A warm wave rippled over him. He threw up a hand and cried out. He broke into wakefulness; Andrew was holding him.

“You felt it,” Andrew said. “I felt it, too.”

“I think they know we’re here.”

“Lie down. Try to get some sleep.”

A hand touched Merripen. He opened his eyes; it was light outside. He sat up and looked at Andrew. “You didn’t wake me.”

“I couldn’t have slept.” Andrew was sipping tea. “I thought for a moment that there was something on the other side, but I couldn’t see, and I was afraid to get out and look. There’s nothing now.” He put down his cup. “I think I can rest now. Give me a couple of hours.” He lay down on his seat and closed his eyes.

Merripen leaned against his door, then forced himself to open it and get out. He undid his pants and pissed; the stream arched over the grass and bent as it met the barrier. He walked toward the shield and stood there silently, wondering how long he would have to wait. He could live here for a long time, waiting. It might be a good way to live, waiting, never meeting his goal. He pressed his hands against the shield and pushed; his palms tickled. “Come out of there,” he said to the air. His voice was hollow. “Damn you.” He was slipping. He would lose himself and Andrew would have to take him back to the Citadel. He kicked the shield and his toes tingled.

He looked up. There was a bulge on the horizon. It grew larger and became another hovercraft, traveling toward him. He stared at it for a time, then whirled around and ran toward his craft. He jumped in. Andrew sat up.

“Someone’s coming.”

Andrew raised his seat and looked out. The strange craft, its dome opaque, was still moving in their direction. It stopped just behind the shield. Andrew was pale. Merripen leaned forward, ready to back up and hurry away if necessary, trying not to think about whether he could actually escape.

The craft faced him. He began to wonder if there were anyone inside it after all. He thought of hovercrafts and computers and mechanical devices going about their business, with no one left to guide them. Then the craft’s door opened. A woman in blue pants and a white blouse stepped out; she shook back her long black hair.

“Josepha,” Merripen whispered, and he was outside again, running to the shield. “Josepha.” He put out his hands. She came to him and opened her mouth and he thought he saw her lips form his name. She went back to her craft and leaned in, then stood up.

He put out his hand again, and this time the shield was gone. “Merripen,” she cried.

They sent all the hovercrafts inside before the shield was raised again. Josepha was laughing and clinging to his hands, then backing away with the familiar worried look on her face, a tense mouth and a line between her eyebrows. He took her arms and rested his head on her shoulder for a moment, then introduced her to Andrew.

He was staring at her, head tilted to one side. “What’s the matter?” Merripen asked.

“It’s nothing.” Andrew turned toward Josepha. “I thought you looked familiar. It’s nothing.”