The Great Symmetry (16 page)

“What’s wrong with the navigation program?” Lobeck demanded. “There is an open path directly along their route.”

“We can’t drive across the plaza,” Erickson told him. “Local custom.”

“Absurd. We will follow the line. Chopper, give me manual control.”

“No! Don’t do it!”

Lobeck pulled the chopper hard to the left, out of the parade. A few pedestrians had to dash out of the way. That was fine with Lobeck – slow learners were not his problem. He steered to follow the orange line, only deviating to avoid a few tables that might cause damage to the vehicle.

As he passed the tree, a few small branches snapped. This far from the trunk, the branches were thin and therefore not an obstacle.

At the far side, they had to re-enter the traffic. While this slowed them once again, Lobeck’s maneuver had saved several minutes.

“That’s done it,” Erickson declared. “We’ve shut any doors that might have been open to us. Nobody here will help us now.”

Lobeck didn’t reply, talking instead into his headset. “Skylar, those ten centuries of rentals you reserved. We need them now. When doors won’t open for us, we just need to break them down. Let me know when they are ready.”

Military Message

The door slid shut behind Admiral Incento. He was home, if only for a little while. As commander of Kelter’s space fleet, he would need to be back on duty in just a few hours.

He paused to look out the large picture window. Two boulders framed a view into the outcrops of the gorge. He could see the junction with Mariah Gorge coming in on the right, a couple
of kilometers downstream. Although the streambeds had been dry for thousands of years, the sculpted cliffs still conjured an appealing image of flowing water. He had paid plenty for this location.

“Dad, there’s a great trial on! This guy − there he is! − he’s up for Murder I.” His daughter looked up at him.

“Isn’t there anything else on?”

“Murder! Premeditated, cold blooded murder. He’ll be tanked forever, I just know it. Vote, please Dad?”

Incento wondered where he had gone wrong. “You know I can’t vote, sweetie. I haven’t seen the whole thing.”

“They won’t know that! I’ve had it on the whole time. Put him away. Tank him! He’s ugly!”

“Laurel, I wish you would watch something else.”

“You mean you’d let a cold blooded killer go free to kill again?”

Incento moved from the living room, leaving behind him the enthusiastic refrain, “Guil-tee! Guil-tee! Guil-tee!”

His phone rang. “Answer,” he said.

The face of Rod Denison flashed up on the screen of the desk unit. “Admiral, I’ve got a package for you.”

“Send it along, then.”

“I was requested to hand deliver it personally to you. Will you be home for another ten minutes?”

“I’ll be here,” Incento told him.

“See you momentarily, then.”

Incento occupied the minutes with the news. The Affirmatix fleet, depicted in garish but largely accurate graphics, was shown converging on the planet. “The antiterrorist patrol is continuing into its second day, with the fleet making absolutely sure that no ships leave the Kelter system until the matter is entirely resolved,” the caster said.

A retired admiral picked up. “This is a standard method to assure containment. While it’s definitely causing some interruptions to commerce, this should just
be for the short term. We have word that the operation may be over within two to three days.”

“We all certainly hope so. Next we’re going to move to a news conference in progress at the office of the Abilene Information Systems Authority, about how you can help us to protect you from these kinds of terrorist threats. With apologies to fans, we will have no sports coverage this hour.”

Incento turned the news off and stared out the window until the bell rang.

“Open,” he called at the tone, and Denison walked in. He passed Incento a small box.

“There’s your package. It came in from Goodhope via Elassar, and I got the charter to bring it down here from Top Station. Although whatever they thought was so urgent two days ago is probably moot by now. The big news is up in the sky. Why do you think they’re doing it?”

In the private setting of his own home, Incento didn’t even bother to trot out the True Story. Denison was no fool. To Incento, it was a relief. Almost nobody actually believed most of the True Story, but you had
to pretend, and in most circumstances everyone had to pretend to agree with you.

“I’m as perplexed as you, Rodney. It makes no sense for them to blockade here. If they take aggressive action, or stay too long, they will stir other Sisters to war, and they will lose.”

“Unless they have something worked out with a few of the other Sisters. Who do you think the defectors will be?”

Incento shrugged. “I can’t imagine.”

“I just know one thing, Admiral,” Denison told him. “They wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t think they were going to get something. The Affirmatix are not stupid.”

“There are many kinds of victory. Sometimes a leader will go to war, fully expecting to lose, to eliminate domestic opposition. To stimulate the economy. Or simply out of curiosity about war.”

“I’d hate to get blown up to satisfy someone’s curiosity. Surely, if it came down to it, we’d surrender. I was just trying to remember if I have any issues with Affirmatix. I think I’m clean with them. Hope so.”

“Thank you for the package, Rod
ney, and your promptness conveying it to me.”

“Moving news is my business. Have a good day, Admiral. ”

Denison left the house.

Moments later, Incento was opening the box. First, the eye scan. Then, the combination. Finally the key, a combination of physical and magnetic. Typical security overhead dreamed up by people who had nothing better to do. Once, years ago, he had lost the damn key. What a mess. And he
had gotten in trouble twice, first for losing the key, then second for sending an unprotected message to the effect that he had lost the key.

He had opened many such containers since then. This one slid open in seconds. Inside was a single card. He popped it into a reader and typed in one last authentication code, then read the header message.

“Confirmed reports have one D6 type device deployed to Affirmatix battleship M6780. Ship M6780 glomed to Holder on Day 309, and is scheduled to leave for Kelter on Day 310. The D6 requires a minimum of twelve capital ships evenly globed around a world, and will completely destroy all inhabitants, structures, and superficial terrain (features of less than 300 meters in vertical extent) over the entire planet.”

Day 310. Today. M6780 was arriving soon, or was already insystem.

Valley of Dreams

Kate sat in her accustomed spot, her canvas in front of her, attempting to capture the essence of the scene in front of her. How many times had she painted from exactly here, in differing light and season? She ran her practiced fingers over the controls, creating a mosaic of shades and textures. Some were flat, others more glossy. Captures of images from the actual scene were transformed to merge with the painted elements. A touch of shimmering movement was folded in to just a few areas of the painting, just at the threshold of awareness from a viewer’s averted vision. Kate was a master.

She considered the painting.

It sucked.

It didn’t just suck. It really sucked.

It was the kind of painting that anyone could make, if they had taken a course in how to use the canvas, and had mastered some of the technical skills. Printed to a fixed copy, hung up with pride in the living room for a time, destined to be offered at a garage sale for ten credits, with no takers, and ultimately to sit among the possessions of the departed, each relative desperately hoping that someone else would claim it so that nobody would have to face the guilt of disposing of the piece of domestic family history.

She was a little short of breath. Just a little. Kate didn’t get out as much as she once had. Still, she could adjust. The headache was fading.

This place had always brought her peace. It stood for so much. Discoveries. Beginnings. Endings, for better or worse. It was where she and Evan had met, and where they had parted ways for the final time. She had not realized at the time just how final. Now she would never see him again.

Still, she couldn’t believe the news reports. Evan, a te
rrorist? That just couldn’t be.

The mysterious arrival had been his ship, and it had been destroyed while trying to spread a deadly virus to Kelter, according to the news. She would never know whether that was true or not. Whatever Mira knew, Kate was not going to find out. That ship had sailed. Evan was gone, and it didn’t matter now.

Did anything matter? The family, gone. Whether she accepted one of the ever-shrinking offers from CoreValue or went down fighting, it could not be what her parents had worked their
whole lives for. What she had then built upon.

When her parents had died, everyone expected the end for the family. It had been theirs. It had been them. A labor of their love. And they were gone.

When she and the lawyers had gathered to read the will, there were the complex legal documents. There had also been a letter. On paper, written by hand, in ink.

“Our Dearest Katey,” it had begun.

“Know that we would do anything for your happiness, in your life to come. All of our possessions are yours, to do with as you will. But please consider one plea. There is more to the family than others may see. It is freedom, a spark, of the type that is dying in today’s world. So if you indulge just one wish that we might have, it would be this. Do not sell out. You don’t need to have anything to do with it. Appoint someone to run it, if you wish – Lieberthal is a good person, if he is still with you. Just keep it away from the Sisters. Please have a long and happy life. With all of our love,”

It was written in her mother’s hand, but signed by both of her parents.

Kate folded the letter and put it back in her pouch.

What would they think, of her colossal error? She had provoked CoreValue by refusing to pay the glome fee. A great adventure, an opportunity to poke them in the eye. She should have known they owned that territory – the finer points of the terms, and the wheels of the legal system.

The swirl of other events made everything worse. Evan’s death. The blockade.

“I am sorry,” she said to the air. “I am so sorry.”

“Canvas. Delete.” The sucky painting vanished and was replaced by a blank khaki tone across the entire surface.

The image was preserved in the canvas, if she wanted it back. It was just artistically satisfying to make it go away, and declare it to be destroyed. Which, to her, it was.

For the first year after her parents’ death, she had tended to the museum and her book series, and left the family for Lieberthal to run. He had done
well.

Then came the day that he asked her for permission to retire. In fifty years of service, he had earned it. But who would replace him?

World, meet Kate DelMonaco, the new President and CEO of DelMonaco Trading.

Now, it was a bitter joke.

Kate put the canvas in her bag, picked up the seat, and started walking along the low ridge. To the site.

No artifice remained. When they had finished their last dig, they had cleaned up. The huts, which had grown in a jumble over the years of expeditions, were long gone.

The head of the valley was dominated by the entrance to Blowing Cave. Many millennia before, it had been a spring. A small skylight entrance, much higher, was the most direct way to the location of the main Versari site. The ceiling and walls of the upper cave had protected what the Versari had left for posterity. Beyond the entrances were tall cliffs, wavy lines of tan, red, and brown.

Kate and Evan had been very successful, in their series of digs. New types of Versari artifacts. Remains, in excellent condition. Fossilized, but they still preserved fine details of the Versari anatomy. Many of the items were now in the museum.

It was just about the best results they could have
expected, for any planet with an atmosphere, considering the million year time frame.

Kate had brought gear to spend the night. Just inside the main cave entrance was the place. There was no counting how many evenings, and how many nights, she had spent there. That she and Evan had spent there.

The small ridge flattened and merged with the valley. Kate walked to the chopper to pick up her camp kit, and then she continued along to the cave.

Just inside, she found the spot. Flattened, the stones all picked up and tossed aside in prior years to make a soft sleeping surface. Some sand had blown in over the course of years, but it would be easy to smooth out. The eternal breeze gently flowed out, from somewhere deep inside the mountain.

She looked back out to the desert. The sun would be setting soon, on the world as it had been.

The Codex

“Feast your eyes,” Mira told Evan.

The Codex
was not much. A row of cubicles, each with several displays. Filling the opposite wall, tall shelves of dead tree books.

“That’s it?”

Mira beamed. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Um, sure?”

“Let me show you. Choose a
cube and pull up a seat. Here’s what’s special. You can look up any information you want, on any topic you want. It’s all stored locally here, in the Codex.”

“Color me unimpressed. I can do that from anywhere.”

“Evan, don’t you get it? It’s here
. Local. The Codex gathers every feed that it possibly can, on every topic, every second of every day. We get a lot of government and family channels that we’re not supposed to have. And when you search, your query
doesn’t get sent back to the provider. You can look for anything you want, and nobody can trace it. Imagine running searches without anyone looking over your shoulder. You can actually look for what you want. It’s magical.”