Ilium (37 page)

Gasping, almost gagging, Daeman whirled away, trying to shut off this vision, but everywhere was the complexity—the tagged and streaming ebb and flow of energy being passed, nutrients being absorbed, cells being fed, molecules dancing in the transparent trees, and breathing soil and sky ablaze with its rain and surge of sunlight and radio messages from the stars.

Daeman clasped his hands over his eyes, but too late; he’d looked at Savi—the old woman, but also a galaxy of life. Life nested in the flashing neurons of her brain behind that grinning skull and firing like lightning on the string of shocks along her retinal nerve and in the billions upon billions of living forms in her gut, busy and indifferent all, and—trying to look away, Daeman made the mistake of looking down at himself, into himself, past himself at his connection to the air and ground and sky . . .

“Off!” said Savi; Daeman’s mind echoed the command.

The brilliant midday sunlight bouncing off the trees and needle-strewn soil suddenly seemed as dark as midnight to Daeman. His legs ceased to work. Gasping, Daeman slid along the edge of the sonie and collapsed on the ground, rolling onto his stomach, arms extended, palms pushed flat, face pressed against pine needles.

Savi crouched next to him and patted his shoulder. “It’ll go away in a minute,” she said softly. “You rest here. I’ll go find the others.”

Ada had been hesitant to go when Harman suggested they take a walk —she was afraid that Savi would be angry or alarmed at everyone’s absence when she returned to the glade—but Hannah had already run off in search of Odysseus, and Ada didn’t want to stay there by the sonie alone with Daeman. Besides, she didn’t know if she’d have another chance to speak in private with her new lover before she returned to Ardis and he went flying off to the Mediterwhatsis Basin with Savi.

They walked up a hill, then followed a stream down the other side. The forest was alive with birdsong, but they saw no animals larger than a squirrel. Harman seemed preoccupied, lost in thought, and the only time he touched Ada was when he extended his hand to help her across the stream just above a ten-foot waterfall. She wondered if their night together had been a mistake, a miscalculation on her part, but when they stopped to rest at the base of the waterfall, she saw his eyes focus on her, saw the affection and tenderness in his gaze, and was glad they’d become lovers.

“Ada,” he said, “do you know your father?”

She had to blink at this. The question was not quite shocking—people knew they had fathers, of course, theoretically—but such a thing was rarely asked. “Do you mean know who he was?” she asked.

Harman shook his head. “I mean
know
him. Have you met him?”

“No,” she said. “My mother told me his name at one point, but I believe he . . . reached his Fifth Twenty some years ago.” She had almost said
Ascended to the rings,
the most common euphemism for passing on bodily into the heaven of the post-humans. Her heart pounded when she wondered why Harman was asking her this odd question. Did he think there was a chance that
he
had been her father? It happened, of course. Young women made love with older men who could be their anonymous sperm-fathers—there was no taboo on incest, since there was no chance that a child could be born from such a union, and there were no brothers or sisters since every woman could reproduce only once—but it was strangely disturbing to think about it.

“I didn’t know who my father was,” said Harman. “Savi said that at one point in time—even after the Lost Age—fathers were almost as important to children as mothers are now.”

“That’s hard to imagine,” said Ada, still confused. What was he trying to tell her? That he was too old for her? That was nonsense.

“If I’m ever a father,” said Harman, “I want the child to know me. I want to be with the child as he or she grows up . . . just as a mother would.”

Ada was too shocked to speak.

He began walking again and she followed him in under the trees. It was cooler in the shade, but the air was thicker there. The waterfall made a soft noise behind them. Suddenly Ada looked around, alarmed.

“Did you hear something?” asked Harman, stopping next to her.

“No. It’s just . . . something’s wrong.”

“No servitors,” said Harman. “No voynix.”

That was it, realized Ada. They were alone. For the last two days, the absence of omnipresent servitors and voynix had been like a missing background noise, but it was more apparent now that they were alone, just the two of them.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, she shivered. “Can you find the way back to the sonie?”

Harman nodded. “I’ve been making notes on the terrain and watching the sun.” He pointed with the branch he was using as a walking stick. “The glade is just over that hill.”

Ada smiled, but she wasn’t totally convinced. She checked her palm-finder, but it was as blank as it had been since they’d left the Antarctic domi. She’d been in the woods before—usually on her Ardis estate—but never without a servitor floating nearby to show the way home or without a voynix for protection. But this was just background tension to the central anxiety about Harman’s odd question and comment.

“Why are you talking about fathers?” she asked.

He looked at her as they strolled farther down the hill, deeper into the sequoia forest. The shade was almost gloomy here, although shafts of light slanted down here and there through the cathedral hush. “Something Savi said to me this morning,” he said. “Something about me being old enough to be your grandfather. About me going after this quest to find the firmary—and getting involved with you—as a sort of denial of my Final Twenty.”

Ada’s first response was anger, followed immediately by a stab of jealousy. The anger was at Savi’s stupid remark—it was none of the old woman’s business who Ada slept with or how old he was; the jealousy came from the fact that Harman had left their bed that morning at sunrise to go down and talk to Savi. Ada had simply kissed him good-bye when he’d slipped out of bed, soniced and dressed that morning, feeling some disappointment that her new lover did not want to spend another hour with her before they all had to rise for breakfast, but respecting his choice, imagining that he was just an early riser from old habit.

But what was so important that he had to leave her at dawn to go talk to Savi? Wasn’t he planning to spend the next several days with Savi in his stupid quest for a spaceship? In fact, realized Ada, Savi was taking
her
place in that quest.

She studied Harman’s face—so much younger looking than Odysseus’ shocking crow’s feet and gray hair—and saw that he hadn’t noticed her flash of anger and jealousy. Harman was still preoccupied, obviously mulling over his own thoughts, and Ada wondered if his attention and sensitivity to her the last few days—culminating in their wonderful lovemaking last night—were aberrations, just part of a pre-lude to sex, and not his usual demeanor. She didn’t think so, but she didn’t know. Was all this closeness she’d been feeling with Harman an illusion, something she’d generated out of her infatuation with him?

“Do you know how you choose to get pregnant?” asked Harman, still poking the ground distractedly with his walking stick.

Ada stopped in shock. That question was . . . astounding.

Harman stopped and looked at her as if he had said nothing unusual. “I mean, do you know how the mechanism works?” he said, still seemingly oblivious to how inappropriate his question was. Men and women simply did not discuss such things.

“If you’re going to lecture me on the birds and the bees,” Ada said stiffly, “it’s a bit late.”

Harman laughed easily. Over the past couple of weeks, that laugh had enchanted Ada. Now it irritated the hell out of her.

“I don’t mean the sex, my dear,” he said. Ada noticed that it was the first time he’d used an endearment with her, but she was in no mood to appreciate it. “I mean when you receive permission to get pregnant, perhaps decades from now—and choose the sperm donor.”

Ada was blushing and the fact that she couldn’t stop blushing made her angry. She blushed more deeply. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She did, of course. It was men who weren’t supposed to know or discuss such things. Most women decided to apply for pregnancy around their Third Twenty. Usually the waiting period was one to two years before permission was granted—relayed from the post-humans through servitors. At that point, the woman would cease sexual intercourse, take the prescribed pregnancy uninhibitor, and decide which of her former mates would be the sperm-father of her child. Pregnancy ensued within days and the rest was as ancient as . . . well, humankind.

“I’m talking about the mechanism by which you decide which stored sperm-packet is chosen by your body,” continued Harman. “The real old-style human females didn’t have that choice . . .”

“Nonsense,” snapped Ada. “We
are
the old-styles. It’s always been this way.”

Harman shook his head slowly, almost sadly. “No,” he said. “Even in Savi’s day, just fourteen hundred years ago, pregnancy was more of a slapdash thing. She says that this sperm-storage and selection mechanism was something the posts built into us—into women—based on some borrowed genetic structure from moths.”

“Moths!” said Ada, no longer simply shocked but truly, deeply angry now. This was as absurd as it was demeaning. “What the hell are you talking about, Harman
Uhr
?”

His head snapped up and he seemed to notice her reaction for the first time, as if her retreat to the formal honorific had been a slap in the face bringing him back to reality.

“It’s true,” he said. “I’m sorry if I upset you, but Savi says that the posts genetically structured this ability to choose father-sperm years after intercourse from the genes of a moth species named . . .”

“Enough!” shouted Ada. Her hands were balled into fists. She’d never struck anyone in her life, or wanted to, but at this moment she was close to swinging at Harman. “Savi says this, Savi says that. I’ve had enough of that old bitch. I don’t even believe she
is
that old . . . or wise. She’s just crazy. I’m going back to the sonie.” She walked off into the woods.

“Ada!” called Harman.

She ignored him, walking uphill, slipping on needles and wet humus.

“Ada!”

She strode on, ready to leave him behind.

“Ada, that’s the wrong direction.”

Hannah had caught up with Odysseus a few hundred yards from the glade. He whirled and put his hand on the hilt of his sword when he heard her crashing through the brush, but relaxed when he saw who it was.

“What do you want, girl?”

“I want to see your sword,” said Hannah, brushing her dark hair back from her face.

Odysseus laughed. “Why not?” He unclipped the leather sheath from his belt and handed over the weapon. “Be careful with the edges, girl. I could shave with this blade, if I ever chose to shave.”

Hannah drew the short sword and hefted it tentatively.

“Savi tells me that you work with metals,” said Odysseus. He bent to a stream, cupped his hand, sipped. “She says that you may be the only person, male or female, in all this brave new world, who knows how to forge bronze.”

Hannah shrugged. “My mother remembered old tales about forging metal. She played with fire and open hearths when she was younger. I continue the experiments.” She swung the sword overhand, chopping down.

“You’ve seen us fight in your turin cloth,” said Odysseus.

Hannah nodded. “So?”

“You’re using the sword properly, girl. Hacking rather than stabbing. This tool is made for severing limbs and spilling guts, nothing more refined.”

Hannah grimaced and handed the weapon back. “Is this the sword you used on the plains of Ilium?” she asked softly. “And in your adventure to steal the Pallodian?”

“No.” He lifted the blade vertically until some of the light spilling down between the high branches danced on its surface. “This particular sword was a gift to me, from . . . a female . . . during my travels.”

Hannah waited for more explanation, but instead of telling another story, Odysseus said, “Would you like to see what makes this sword different?”

Hannah nodded.

Odysseus used his thumb to tap at the hilt guard twice, and suddenly the sword seemed to shimmer slightly. Hannah leaned closer. Yes, there was a subtle but persistent hum coming from the blade. She lifted one hand toward the metal but Odysseus’ hand shot out quickly, grabbing her wrist.

“If you touched it now, girl, you’d lose all your fingers.”

“Why?” She didn’t struggle to pull her wrist away, and after a few seconds Odysseus released it.

“It’s vibrating,” said Odysseus, holding the sword blade flat just below eye level. Hannah noticed again that she was exactly the same height as Odysseus. The night before, she had heard him in the green bubble hall on the bridge after the others had turned in, joined him for a walk, returned to his domi to talk for hours, and had gone to sleep on the floor next to his cot. Hannah knew that Ada thought they’d become lovers; she didn’t mind and couldn’t think of a reason to disabuse her friend of the notion.

“It’s almost as if it’s singing,” said Hannah, turning slightly better to hear the high-pitched hum.

Odysseus laughed loudly at this, although Hannah didn’t know why. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It wasn’t tossed to me by some Lady of the Lake, although that’s not too far from the truth of it.” He laughed again.

Hannah looked at the bearded man. She had no clue as to what he was talking about. She wondered if he did. “Why does it vibrate?” she asked.

“Stand back,” said the barrel-chested man.

Most of the sequoia around them were six to ten feet thick, some thicker, but a smaller pine—perhaps a ponderosa or Douglas fir—was growing in a sunny patch a few yards to their left. The tree was probably thirty or forty years old, about fifty feet tall, with a trunk perhaps eighteen inches thick.

Odysseus planted his feet, gripped the sword in one hand, and swung idly at the trunk in an effortless backhand stroke.

The blade moved so smoothly through its arc that it appeared that he’d missed completely. There was no noise of impact. A few seconds later, the tall pine tree shivered, shifted, and fell noisily to the ground.