Floe, page 16
part #3 of Thaw Trilogy Series
* * *
“I didn’t think that many would stay at CliffEdge,” Odel told Mox as he pulled a loaded sled behind him. “I mean, only fifty are coming with us, and half of them big people?”
Mox laughed and looked up at her mate twice her height. “My dearest, my people and I are from a nation that was separated from the rest of the world by surrounding glaciers for thirty thousand years—or so that Una machine told us. So, stuck in a small country all that time, we are not naturally very adventurous. To us, adventure always meant dangers and strangers. You have to realize that the ones who came up to these highlands had already resettled from People’s Lands down to ShadowFall and then over to Thessland, all in less than two years. That forest at CliffEdge, with its meadows and streams and fish and wild game animals, is still a paradise to them, compared to the dreary Misty Sky and the ice back home. And now, being up and away from the threats of those Originals, that gives them the peace and security you promised.”
Odel agreed. “And I think that more than a couple of your countrymen might just be thinking of how important their location could be as a trading post between the highlands and Thessland. They still have friends, maybe even relatives, down there. And we left them half the godscloth and the iron cage elevator.” He laughed. “I tell you, anybody like your folks who can make a living selling icebergs from a river will probably make a killing at CliffEdge. The oak trees there make for better timber than the pines below, and some of the outcroppings look to have mineral deposits for the taking. So there’s no telling what all your talented salesmen will find to peddle”
* * *
“I reckon we’ve stayed at least fifty to a hundred miles east of the New River all this time,” Odel said at a campfire one evening, weeks after leaving CliffEdge. “Our little expedition is staying well away from the Solar Priests at God’s Port. We ought to be less than fifty miles from my lands, due north.”
Mox and the other group leaders smiled. “Odel, dear,” Mox ventured, “the fifty of us are getting restless, they tell me. We’ve passed through some nice territory coming this way. Valleys and rivers and forests and plains, almost any of those places would make a good place just to stop and settle. And very few people, too.” At that, the leaders murmured under their breaths. Twice Odel’s entourage had fought off attacks by small bands of near-naked, pale-skinned savages, but springbows and spears had made short work of them.
Odel could tell that the men around the campfire didn’t agree with Mox. I concur, he thought. Why settle where savages roam? We were better off than that back in Thessland. The Originals might be savage but they are not savages. “Mox, hon,” he said, “my quarry and farm lands will provide resources and work for this many. And there’s lots more, unclaimed, to the east of my place. And no savages—or Originals.” Solar Priests we got, but they’re way west. He would handle those men when any problems arose, but for now he just wanted to get these people safely to his home.
* * *
Odel was leading his straggling group of refugees up the access road from the main paved highway to his quarry site, and closely observing changes along the way. “This road has been improved since I left,” he told Mox, who was walking beside him, carrying her springbow at the ready. “Paved with flat stones. They will handle heavy loaded wagons better, no ruts and all, but I wonder why.”
As he entered the quarry site, Odel was astonished. “Who are all these people?” he asked aloud, to nobody in particular. There before him, his quarry had been excavated to twice the open volume as he had left it, and two dozen workmen were busy swinging sledgehammers against wedges, splitting off slabs of the precious pink granite. As the immigrant group filled in the staging area where wagons were being loaded, the quarry workers stopped and looked on with astonishment. What they saw were a big, bushy-bearded Odel in ragged khakis, several dozen other large people dressed in a motley assortment of tunics and trousers and skirts, and an equal number of short dark people, half the height of the big ones. Although some were dragging sleds behind them, the most obvious and ominous feature of the strange crowd was that almost every one of them was carrying an unusual type of bow. And all of them, now standing and staring back at the quarrymen, were aiming pointed projectiles at the awed onlookers.
“Who’s running things here?” Odel bellowed out.
“Yo, stranger,” said a big, leather-aproned man, his tattoos and cap insignia indicating his allegiance to the Solar Priest cult. In a defiant stance, he snarled, “I do. I am the foreman of this site. And what is the meaning of this, this, invasion of the property of the Solar Temple?”
Odel walked right up to the man and stared at him, eye to eye. “I am Odel M’ridge, and this is my property, my quarry.” Waving an arm back toward his band of refugees, he said, “And I—we—aim to take back possession of it, right now.”
The foreman started to say something, but sputtered. Seeing the hostility in the faces of the archers pointing their shafts at himself and his men, he calmed down. Bowing slightly, he said, “As you wish, Mr. M’ridge, is it? No use getting people killed here. Me and my guys will leave now, on a wagon if you will let us. I’ll just have to report this situation to the priests in God’s Port. As I’m sure you know, they won’t be happy.” He waved to the bewildered quarrymen, who dropped their tools and headed for the largest wagon, a ponderous affair drawn by a team of four oxen.
Odel was shaking his head. “You tell the Solar Priests that Odel M’ridge is back home and wants no trouble. Just to occupy my quarry and my lands. I will also insist on a full accounting of the illegal harvesting of my granite since I’ve been away. Now, go!” The foreman bowed again and joined his crew on the wagon. Odel was impressed at the man’s stoic behavior. I would’ve put up a fight, if somebody came onto me like I did on him! But the man was just doing his job. Odel knew he would have to find out what happened while he was away. The road was paved so heavy loads of my granite could be transported, I’ll bet. But why would they need so much stone? At any reasonable price, someone had carted off a small fortune. My fortune!
Putting down their weapons as the wagonload of displaced workers disappeared down the access road, all of Odel’s followers began to take advantage of the jugs of cool spring water and the spread of food laid out on workers’ tables. After weeks of wild game, berries, and the occasional beezt meat, the appetizing array of breads, cheese, beans, pork, and sauces were like a palace feast to them. Odel was just glad they hadn’t arrived after that food was gone.
But now, though he had promised his people here peace, he was going to have to prepare them once again for a fight this time with the Solar Priests. Will it ever end? he wondered. Will it ever?
21.
In frustration at Una’s flat declaration of “You didn’t ask,” Thist shouted at the Anklya-image on the front screen of the cabin, “Can’t you ever anticipate what we want to know? You knew we wanted all the godsphere information we could access. You have deliberately withheld important information!” Calming down, he addressed the image more civilly. The three-dimensional representation with which Una chose to represent herself was too close to reality, Thist thought, awakening repressed physical memories of the great times he had spent with his and his twin’s lover.
Now a political leader back in The People’s Lands, their homeland at the foothills of The Ice, Anklya had chosen to remain in that country rather than return to her native Motherland. “Too many bad memories in Motherland,” she had said when Thist had left her, “of when I was only a slave. Among your people here in the north, I am treasured, free. You may go fight for the Mother, but I will live here with your birther, Mell. She needs me.” Though unhappy with her choice, Thist let her go. But he often missed her, both body and brain. He was sure that his twin did, too.
The collective system of qomps that comprised Una’s Developing Intelligence answered immediately, even before Thist’s last word had been uttered. “Thist, I am in the process of developing models for human thought and expectations. Human life is not an algorithm, but a chaotic system of unknowable complexity, more akin to turbulent gas dynamics. However, with this latest datum, I will attempt henceforth to provide unasked-for information when a decision is made that it can be done without causing harm.”
Thusk laughed at his twin’s frustration. “I have been with Una a lot longer than you have, twin. Knowing what questions to ask of her is a majority of the answer. Having her think like we do might be impossible.” Turning to the Anklya-image, he said, “Una, please summarize for us what that pirate’s sphere had to say.”
“Very well. The ‘godsphere,’ as you call it, originated in what in ancient times was called ‘the Caribbean Sea,’ deep underground, under the seabed surface, at a nanofabrication facility of a corporate entity called Tagren, LLC. During the Emergency, some humans took shelter in those facilities. After a while, they fabricated an indefinite number of the information spheres with their nanofab technologies. Most of the spheres contain no updated information later than that era. I found that nearly all of the devices ceased data inputs either immediately or within a few decades after their fabrication.”
Thist and Thusk could not imagine why the inputs stopped, and that begged the question What were they for?
Una went on, answering the unspoken request. “Apparently the borophene globes require direct solar energy input to activate them. Lacking sunlight or its equivalent, they go silent until recharged. Human touch is required to access the information, but not all human DNA will unlock every sphere.
“The sphere that belonged to the pirate, Captain Noor, was actuated by himself two years ago. Among other contents, it is a documentary presentation that shows videos of ancient survivors, an uncatalogued variety of technological information, and several simulations of the expected geological upheavals caused by the solar eruptions that brought on the Age of Ice. Anticipating your possible interest, here on screen are the complete contents of Captain Noor’s sphere.”
Una’s female voice had awakened the Mothersmen guards, who now took an interest in the digital presentation on the screen. Thist smiled; few outside the inner circles of Motherland’s rulers had ever witnessed ancient digital technologies in action. Flying through the skies in a big green cylinder? That they could accept—everyone knew that birds and bugs could fly, so why not men? But to watch a flat screen with three-dimensional moving pictures, and a beautiful woman who could talk to you? That was not like anything they’d ever even thought of. Dreams were the closest experience, but dreams were not shared. Nevertheless, the soldiers were enthralled. And right now they’re going to witness, with us, secrets that not even Mother Pernie and Wakan Kech have ever seen.
The opening scene was of a three-dimensional blue-and-green ball, one familiar to Thist and Thusk as representing the round Earth, but as it was before The Ice came. The rough outline of Motherland existed below the brown and green northern continent, but it was all blue—a sea! Gasps from the guards told that they understood part of the meaning; Wakan’s crash courses in astronomy and in Motherland geography and geology had been imposed on all nobles, palace staff and military officers, including the guards, so they all knew somewhat of the true nature of Earth and Moon and Sun. But seeing ancient Earth as if from high above in space was entirely new; the Motherland-shaped sea only added to their shock. Remembering his own first reaction to digital simulations just two years before, Thist thought the men accepted both the view and its implications fairly well. They are becoming civilized!
As unintelligible characters appeared on the screen, yellow markings on a blue background, a male narrator’s voice (“Translated from ancient Spanglish for your convenience,” Una explained) said, “July 1, 2135. This information globe is being nanofabricated at Tagren Laboratories, LLC, two kilometers undersea at our corporate location east of Guantanamo, Republic of Caribbea. It contains information about our present situation. We have no idea as to when global storm conditions will allow us to return to the surface. At the very least, these globes may become time capsules for future generations, if any. We plan to nanofacture and eject as many globes as possible over the next weeks, until the dedicated nanofab facilities here are exhausted. If you are seeing or hearing this, it means we have succeeded to some extent. We hope the background information downloaded from all of our local qomps will be of use to you.”
Short video segments of interviews appeared, with over a hundred survivors telling about themselves. After a dozen or so talked about their families and hopes for the future, Thist began to lose interest. “What a waste,” he said. “Who cares about their names? We want ancient knowledge, not a list of names for tombstones!”
Thusk hushed him. “They thought it important, so let’s listen.” The guards in back had no comment, still enthralled by the pictures and sounds coming from the screen. The individuals being shown were fantastic enough in themselves, a range of skin colors like none ever seen in Motherland—yellowish, pitch black, albino white, rainbow glittering—with a spectrum of hair colors and styles, iridescent clothing, internally lit jewelry, even tattoos that moved and changed colors! The common message of the people interviewed seemed to be: “If our relatives or friends find these globes, please try to locate us at—” followed by numbers that apparently meant coordinates to the ancients, but a meaning lost in time, as much as the name of their location.
Thist snorted. “Thirty thousand years ago? I don’t think anyone they knew is still around!”
Thusk said, “But this is fascinating. So, Una, what else is there? We’ll be arriving at WaterEdge soon, and will be busy with other matters. You said the pirate’s sphere had simulations of an ancient Motherland Sea? Captain Noor’s claims? And yours, Thist, what you found under the palace, the one that set off Mother Messinex and caused a war?” He was only half-joking.
Thist replied, “Yes, what I found in the old libraries under the palace was one godsphere that showed a map of the world, pre-Ice, and the salty sea covering all of Motherland. When I tried to present the information, she exploded at me, demanding that all the globes and books and maps be taken back below and sealed off forever. That’s when she told that slimy Miran Kech to seize ShadowFall’s libraries. You and Anklya and Una swooped down into that atrium and rescued me then, remember? I never realized what sent Messinex into such a rage. Of course, we didn’t know back then that the Crystal Throne was damaging her mind, either.
“But thinking back on it, that pirate must have shown her the same thing, this view of Earth on the screen, with the sea covering everything. That was over a year ago, when she threw him out and kept this sphere; I must have come into court right after that with my own discovery, which confirmed his claims. No wonder she was so upset—it was proof the pirate was right.”
Remembering Messinex’s fury and the unnecessary war that followed, Thist shook his head. “But it happened all those centuries ago, before The Ice came, so what? Una, keep on, show us the simulations you promised.”
On the screen, the blue-and-green Earth was whipped by intense streams of light and heat—“The solar conflagration as envisioned by the qomps of the survivors who made this video, based on the final data they collected”—followed by continent-sized storms that raged for years, according to the narrator. “Centuries of heavy rain will commence in Earth’s temperate and tropical regions, and the polar regions will rapidly accumulate ice, forming glaciers very quickly. As a consequence, global sea levels will drop hundreds of meters; exactly how far we here will never know.”
“Una,” asked Thusk, “please show what happens to Motherland in this simulation. The rest of the round world, we can worry about later.” Thist asked to include The People’s Lands, too. He had always wondered how his people had survived the cataclysm.
In response, the screen was filled with the large northern continent and the sea immediately below it. As swathes of white accumulated and moved southward, covering over half of that land mass, the Motherland Sea gradually diminished, shrinking to a small lake in the southwest, recognized by the men as the Salty Sea, in their time an eighty-square-kilometer lake that marked the southwestern extent of their country. The broad outlines of Motherland became apparent as the surrounding highlands emerged from the receding waters.
The translated narration continued. “This simulation is the best guess of our qomps. Your mileage may vary. The sims forecast a millennium of heavy global rain, and sea levels dropping significantly as glaciers form. How these events will affect human survivability is not predictable. Following are downloads from our qomps—scientific knowledge, engineering practices, artisanal skills, and a bit of history and philosophy and religion. Lots of music, artwork, 3Ds, just a data dump. The eclectic collection here is made up of everything we had up and running in our facility and on our personal qomps. We never expected to become a library.”
In the background a voice shouted, “And we never expected to be stuck in a Tagren Nanofab a mile underground, either!” Other voices interrupted: “Do we get overtime, Mr. T?” “Is there a damned world left out there?” “Why are we talking into these damned balls? They gonna help us get out and go home?” Followed by darkness.
* * *
With the Anklya-image gone and Una’s front screen now a grayish blank, Thist sat back in his cabin chair, looking out through the transparent walls at the never-ending panoply of fields, patchworks of variegated crops, and silver rivulets of rivers that unrolled below them. “According to Wakan, Noor’s pirates or their like have raided WaterEdge for centuries, usually taking whatever they could grab—food, metals, some people. No wanton destruction, I would presume because they wanted a renewable resource; why destroy your free supplies? The raids never cost quite enough to warrant preparing expensive defenses or trying to build boats and have crews to fight them on the Cold Sea.”
