Strings (37 page)

“This is Cedric,” Alya said. “Dear, this is Harold.”

“Get your head down!” Cedric shouted.

Eyes still wide, Harold drooped into a crouch to match his.

Cedric turned back to study the Earthfirsters. They were still coming slowly, herding the crowd back against the central railing. There was no doubt he was trapped. And all he needed was a mike, and the only mikes around were on those golfies. But before he could get within shouting distance, he would be burned down…

The crowd was backing faster, knocking over fences and trampling bedding. Children were weeping, women wailing, men yelling in nervous anger.

“Darling?” Alya said, sounding worried at last. “What can we do?”

“If I only had a mike! I’ve got codes set up!”

“Tell me!” she shouted, adjusting her grip on Bert, who was starting to squirm. “I can get close enough!”

“No good! Wouldn’t work for you.” Why had he been so stupid as to make the codes voice specific? And what code would save him now? He had prepared one to turn off lights—but the Earthfirsters could make light with their torches, and people would get trampled in the panic. He had a code to call Frazer Franklin—God knows why he had thought he might need that one. He had one to call Fish, but Fish wasn’t accepting calls. And one to—

He grabbed Alya’s arm, almost causing her to drop Egbert. “Tiber!” he shouted. “Is the window still open?”

“I think so.”

“Is it Class One?”

“Yes! Yes!”

But that didn’t solve the problem.

“If I had a mike, I could get us there!” Maybe—it was a hell of a long shot.

“Tell me, then!” she repeated angrily.

“No good—it has to be my voice!”

“Your voice?” Alya swung around to the about-sixteen-year-old version of Cedric. “Oswald! You’ll do it, won’t you?”

“Do what, Alya?” the kid asked nervously.

“That’s it!” Cedric shouted, so loud he made his own head rattle.

The crowd had stopped moving, and the Earthfirster leader was bellowing, trying to make himself heard over the racket.

“Go forward, close as you can to a golfie. Then just yell, ‘Code jumper!’ Got it? System’ll think you’re me!”

The kid nodded and grinned Cedric’s grin back at him. “‘Code jumper’?” He squeezed off into the crowd. He was younger and shorter and dressed differently—he would be safe enough.

“Me, too?” Harold demanded nervously. “Should I try?”

“No, you’re too tall!” Cedric realized that he had almost straightened up. He stopped again apprehensively.

“How about me?” Alfred squeaked, in treble.

Cedric and Alya said “No!” together.

A firearm cracked loudly, and a nasty sound of ricochet whined off into sudden silence. The crowd seemed to hold its breath.

“Hubbard!” the Earthfirster leader roared. “Come out, Hubbard!”

Silence. Cedric glanced guiltily around him. He was a pied piper, surrounded by youngsters. What sort of a coward would hide among children?

“Hubbard! We know you’re in there. Come out or we start firing.”

And somewhere a voice exactly like Cedric’s yelled, “
Code jumper
!”

Nothing happened. System did not acknowledge. Cedric sank to his knees. It was all over, then—he had played his last card.
Code jumper
meant, “Get me to Tiber as fast as possible.” But he had never seriously believed that his authority was high enough to mess with the transmensor. Maybe the window had closed by then anyway. Maybe it was open at another dome and people were using it.

Which would mean a small delay while System closed the window at that dome and opened it here, in Bering…

And then System did just that. Air pressure equalized with a clap of thunder that battered every eardrum in the dome. Daylight blazed up from the pit and a shower of golden leaves and butterflies swirled high in the blast. The tops of trees swayed within the central railing.

For a moment there was panic. The whole crowd spun around to see, and Hubbard Cedric lurched to his feet and ran, crouching to disguise his height, shoving and elbowing his way through, throwing people aside in his haste. He fell against the rail, and right below him was a placid forest stream. The water looked deep, and it was only two or three meters down.

Cedric vaulted over—and landed in Tiber with a resounding splash.

Tiber, Day 8

THEY HAD NAMED the city Rome. It would be the capital of the world for at least as long as the string lasted, and the string was showing no signs of ending—each window was longer than the one before. Unless some evil-minded star came blundering by, the string might well survive long enough to make Tiber the Institute’s greatest success.

Meanwhile Rome was a hopeless sprawl of Quonset huts and tents along the bare floor of the valley, stripped of the virgin woods that had once adorned it. Streets were either dust, or mud, or both, many still full of tree roots. A ditcher was laying water-lines and sewers. Away from the river, the shacks soon dwindled to animal sheds and lumber piles, until on its outskirts the town faded off into barns and airplane runways, barbed-wire fences and supply dumps. Already, with only three windows gone by, the supply dumps were huge. One flat patch of churned mud had been set aside for the window, whenever it was open. Someday, Abel thought, there would be a monument on that spot.

Meanwhile the sun was setting, an exhausted peace settling over Rome. The last wraiths of dust drifted away on a rumor of a breeze, and the smoke of cooking fires rose in sleepy coils amid the tents. Twenty-eight-hour days were just like twenty-four-hour days with four more hours’ labor added. The overworked inhabitants had already developed a tradition of going to bed at dusk.

Noticing the fading light, Abel had pushed himself away from his desk and gone outside to watch the sunset and catch some fresh air. His home and office were located in a solitary outlying Quonset hut, close to the window site. Some irreverent wag had painted the words “Presidental Palace” on one side and “El Supremolar” on the other. Everyone thought that it had been done by Abel himself, and of course they were right.

He was pooped. His eyeballs were raw, his throat worse. He made a thousand decisions a day, spoke to a hundred people, ate on the run. Emily kept telling him that he had never been happier in his life, but he had not yet had time to consider the matter. His bad leg ached, which usually meant dry weather ahead.

Near the front door a clump of three and a half trees had survived humanity’s onslaught. They had, in turn, preserved a minute triangle of pseudograss. The National Forest…He sat down there and leaned back against a glossy gray trunk. He wondered where he could squeeze some patio furniture into the priority schedule.

He watched a crimson and lavender butterfly float by, returning to its hive. The shadows were long, the sky a medley of colors beyond reproach. Tiber was a glorious planet, which had so far sprung no worse surprise than humanity’s normal reaction to unfamiliar surroundings, a universal attack of the trots.

Twenty-three years old and king of the world? No, he had never been happier. Absolute power was certainly fun. It would not last long enough to spoil him…unfortunately.

The peace was too good to last, too—a long finger of shadow needled across the presidential lawn.

“Hi,” Hubbard Cedric said.

“Hi, yourself,” Abel said. “Take a chair.”

Cedric dropped to his knees and offered a large and horny hand. He was wearing shorts and boots and a gun. He also wore a splendid tan and a patchy stubble of definitely reddish hue. He was not wearing much of a smile, Abel noticed, but his nose was almost back to normal, and he no longer had a bone-mender on his hand.

Abel had seen Cedric around, but they had not really had a chance to chat since the trip to Nile. “How’s the world treating you?” he asked. “This world, that is.”

“Fine.”

Abel would have liked more enthusiasm. “The princess okay?”

“Oh! Oh, yes, she’s fine.” A very stupid grin slid over Cedric’s face. Abel had seen much the same look on Emily sometimes, when her eye caught his, and maybe he wore it himself also, at those times. He had seen something similar on Alya when she talked of Cedric. Or Gill Adele when Bagshaw Barnwell K. came in sight. Strange creatures, humans.

“No one’s taken any more potshots at you?”

Cedric pouted and shook his head. He had a burn on his cheek where someone had drawn a beam on him, the second day. The assailant had not been caught, but it must have been one of the Earthfirsters. Beyond doubt, the attack would have succeeded had Alya not rammed bodily into Cedric and knocked him down, about a thousandth of a second before the fire.

The moody silence needed lubricating, obviously. “Would you like a beer?” Abel offered.

“Yes, please!”

Abel sighed deeply. “So would I.”

Cedric shot him an exasperated look, then settled himself more comfortably, crossing his meter-long legs. “What’re you going to do with the Earthfirsters?”

“Put ’em on Devil’s Island. We already have—most of ’em—only we told them it was called Paradise Island.”

Cedric grinned briefly. “Which is it?”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Abel said. “Good as this—water and pseudograss. It’s bigger than Ireland, so they shouldn’t be bothering us much for a century or three.” He yawned. “And we’ve promised to deliver their families, and supplies—they’ll do a lot better than they deserve.”

“Yeah.”

Abel frowned at him. “Don’t go blaming yourself, buddy. You did great. I just wish you’d fried more of them.” Seeing that Cedric continued to stare glumly at the ground, he added, “We lost a lot more guys than they did. Served them right, what you did to them. You’re a hero back in Cainsville.”

“What’s the word on Barney?”

“Oh, he’s going to be fine,” Abel said. “Good as new.” That was a lie, but the kid did not notice.

Suddenly Cedric smirked under his stubble. “I guess I did do a job on those Earthfirsters. I wish I could have seen their faces when they realized I’d opened a window on them and they couldn’t go home!”

It had not been Cedric who had opened the window—it had been Abel himself, and Fish Lyle. They had closed de Soto and opened Bering, but they would never have managed to corral all the invaders inside one dome had not Cedric knocked out the leaders and then unwittingly turned himself into a human fox and drawn the mob of hounds after him. Fish had accepted the lucky break like the champ he was, overriding the overrides, diverting the two golfies that contained Mother Hubbard and Cheung, and sending the rest on after Cedric. Yet there could be no harm in letting the kid believe that System had obeyed his commands.

But Cedric had gone back to poking grass with a twig.

“What’s on your mind?” Abel asked innocently.

“Alya and I—we’d like to—we thought it might be a good idea to explore the pass through the mountains. The one on the satellite photos.” He waved at the distant peaks, all salmon and peach in the evening sun, and then looked anxiously at Abel. “If you think so?”

The idea had come from Alya, of course, who had gotten it from Abel himself in the first place.

“I dunno…” Abel rubbed his chin. His stubble was gratifyingly much more widespread than Cedric’s. “She’s a wonder at translating. We should have called this dump Babel instead of Rome, and it’s going to get worse. Sikhs and Brazilians coming next—can we spare her?”

Cedric looked up, worried. “We’d be a good scouting team—she can sense danger, and she knows so much—all that science stuff! And I can manage the ponies.”

“You’re also the best shot in the world.”

Cedric shrugged, indifferent. “That’s just a knack, though.”

The hell it was! With a laser, marksmanship was pure iron nerve. The kid was as tough as steel bars and steady as a range of mountains, although he didn’t know it. He was also important to Alya’s intuition, for she had known to save him from the bushwhacker. She claimed that that sort of secondhand warning had never happened before, so he must be critical to her future, and that might mean critical to the colony’s. Cedric was also the best all-round outdoorsman they had. Like it or not, and in spite of his low ambition rating on the GFPP, he was going to start collecting followers. In a few years he would rise to whatever heights the new world then offered: statesman, tribal headman, or senior horse thief.

Abel leaned back to inspect the sunset again, enjoying the balmy evening air and pretending to consider the request. “You’d be gone—what? Three weeks, maybe? Alya’s all right. Don’t know if we can spare you, though, Cedric.”

“Me? What use am I?”

“Might run short of tent poles.”

“How would you like a broken jaw?”

“Very much—then I wouldn’t have to talk so much!” Abel laughed and thumped his companion on the shoulder. “Look—it sounds like a great idea. We’re going to have to move half an army through to the other coast before winter, and I’d prefer to make them walk, if I can—good psychology! Exodus, you know? The Long March? Sure! You go scout the best route. Radio back and we’ll pick you up by air, and then you can lead the migration.”

The Banzarakis would willingly follow their princess, and that would shift Jar Jathro’s political power base well away from the supply depot. Baker Abel’s own power base lay in that cache of supplies and the Institute that was feeding it, and when the string came to an end, then the fast footwork would start. Whoever controlled the equipment would run the world. Having inherited some potent political genes from both his parents, Baker Abel was hoping to give all the Jar Jathro types a few pointers.

Cedric was scowling, probably at the thought of leading a mass migration. Abel tried to imagine him with a long beard and a staff, and decided that he would make a very good prophet figure. More important, though, a couple of weeks away from camp would do him a world of good. He would stop brooding over the killings and over all the Cedric clones he must keep running into—there were six of them—and it would give Abel a chance to round up the last of the Earthfirsters and ship them off to Devil’s Island. Besides, the guy had earned a honeymoon. Any newly paired couple needed to go off alone and nuzzle undisturbed. It was basic human instinct.

Seven Cedrics! Of course they would start banding together fairly soon, like identical twins. And this one would be the leader. He was a hero already.

“When’ll you leave?”

Cedric beamed. “Tomorrow, first light.”

“Mmm,” Abel said noncommittally. “Window’s due around noon.”

Cedric grunted and turned his face away to study the sunset. “Talked to one of the rangers,” he remarked. “One who’d been out west. He said the ocean there is really something. Jellyfish with sails as big as yachts, he said. And things like seals that lie on the rocks and sing.”

“While vigorously combing their long blond hair, I suppose? She keeps asking for you.”

“Let her ask.” Cedric rose and stretched, making Abel feel about knee high.

“What’s so hellish hard about saying goodbye to her?” Abel demanded, craning his neck to peer up at the giant. “Is it Devlin and Eccles that bother you? I know the old woman plays hard-ball—if she didn’t, you wouldn’t be here, bud!”

“Sure. That must be it. We’ll call you when we get to the sea.” Cedric began to move.

“Wait, dammit! Sit down again.”

“No. Gotta go. Lady waiting.”

Abel sighed and scrambled to his feet also, but he hated having to argue with a man’s collarbones. “Then please, as a favor to me, will you wait around tomorrow and say goodbye to Hubbard Agnes when the window opens?”

“No.”

In the baffled silence that followed, Cedric just stood with his arms folded, staring placidly over Abel’s head at the lights spread across the valley, among the tents. Finally he remarked, “See that glow in the west? Alya says it’s the galactic center. She thinks it’ll be a helluva show in the winter sky, when it’s higher.”

“It’s the clone thing, isn’t it?” Abel asked, wondering how it felt to greet oneself six times every morning.

Cedric looked down coldly at him, his eyes glinting. “Can I go now, please, sir?”

“No.”

The big guy growled low in his throat. “All right. Yes, it’s the clone thing. Who or what am I? Can you imagine what it’s like not to have parents? I thought I was a Hastings clone, but I guess I’m not even that. Not a person! Not human! How the hell do I know what I am?”

Huh? This was not what Abel had expected.

“You could ask her.”

“I wouldn’t believe her if she told me the sky was blue.”

“It’s damned near black right now. No, you’re not a Hastings clone—”

“
Then why did System say I was
?” Cedric’s voice almost cracked.

Ah! “It did? What exactly did you ask it?”

Cedric scratched his chin loudly. “Don’t remember my exact words—but I asked it to compare my DNA and his.”

“How? Sequence the nucleotides? Just the active sites, I hope?” Surely the kid could not have been dumb enough to ask for chemical analysis?

“Don’t recall.”

Abel chuckled. “You may not have asked the right question. If you told it to compare your DNA and a chimpanzee’s, it would tell you a better-than-ninety-nine percent fit, you know.”

Cedric balled a gigantic fist.

“Me, too!” Abel said quickly. “Me, too! Human and chimpanzee DNA is that similar, honest! Of course, only about one percent of your DNA is genetically active anyway. Didn’t you know all this?”

Cedric relaxed somewhat, still suspicious. “I don’t know anything.”

“You’re learning. But obviously any two human beings are going to be more alike than a man and a chimp, so most of your DNA would match Hastings Willoughby’s—almost all of it, for that matter. If you’d asked System to estimate the relationship between the two of you, it would have compared the common alleles and reported twenty-five percent. You really are his grandson, Cedric.”

For a moment Cedric was silent. “How can I trust you?” he asked finally.

“If you’re calling me a liar, then I think I’m going to take you down, sonny, big as you are. Now, which is it to be?”

For an icy moment Abel wondered if he’d been rash. Then Cedric growled, “Sorry.”

“Okay. And furthermore, you’re the original, the real Hubbard Cedric Dickson.”

A long sigh escaped from Cedric’s bony chest. “I am?”

“Yes, you are. You have six clones, and they’re all here on Tiber now, but you are the genuine article. Cedric—I swear this!”