A WARner Communications Company


Copyright @ 1988 by Greg Bear

All rights reserved


Warner Books, Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10103


OA Warner Communications Company


Printed in the United States of America


For David McClintock;

friend, fellow admirer of Olaf Stapledon,
and above all, bookseller.

Only when space is rolled up like a piece of leather
will there be an end to suffering,
apart from knowing God.
---~vet~vatara Upanis. ad, VI 20


In the end, there is cruelty and death alone over the land. Not in a single
ray of light or grain of sand will you find solace, for all is dark, and the
coM gaze of God's indifferent, heavy-lidded eyes falls on all with equal
disdain. Only in your inner strength is there salvation; you must live just as
a tree must live, or the cockroaches andfleas thatflourish in the land and
ruin of Earth. ~4nd so you live, and feel the sting of knowing you live. You
eat whatever comes to hand, and if what you eat was once a brother or
sister, so be it; God does not care. Nobody carex You whore, and if you
whore with man or woman, nobody cares; for when all are hungry, all are
whores, even those who use the whores. And disease flourishes when all are
whores, for germs must live, and spread across the land and ruin of Earth.

Some say we will climb back to the sky on our own. Some say we all
should have died; should have died, for penance. But that was not to be.
For by time's freak and history's whim, the angels come from the Stone, to
march over the land and offer what solace the land cannot; to push back
the clouds and smoke and let sun pass through, to sow our crops and
harvest our food, then to pass the plows on to us. You marvel at this, and do
not curse the angels in the madness of your guilt;for they are a glory like a
dream, and you do not truly believe.

They minister to your disease, and in time you join them to minister
unto others. Medicine becomes religion; help the sole commandment; healing
the greatest gi~ to God one can imagine.

They bring miracles from out of the Stone. They stay among us, but are
not of us, and a few grumble, but the few are ignored as the chaff is
ignored. What the few grumble about is division and dissatisfaction, for we
are never happy. ~lnd never content, and never satisfied. But the angels do
not listen.

· 4nd then from the Bible Lands and points east, from the Lands of the
Book and out of the People of the Book comes rebellion. For their lands
have not been scorched and they can still find strength in the soil, and they
are ingenious and know the Law of Tree and Flea; Because they are Chosen
of God, they fight these angels who are not angels, but devils to them,'


2
	· GREG BEAR
they fight and they are subdued by miracles and made pacific. And the
People of the Book sleep the sleep of the pacific, building and working but
not fighting. So it is in the land where humankind first opened its eyes
And then in the land sunk in evil at the tip of the Heart of Darkness,
like white dregs in a black bottle, from this land comes speakers of ~4frikaans
and English in their fine uniforms, driving ahead of them their slave
armies, to despoil all the untouched Southern Lands of the Earth. They
fight and they are subdued by miracles and made pacific, in their way.
And they sleep the sleep of the pacific, building and working and not
fighting. So it is at the bottom of the amphora of ~4frica.
Light and learning begin again above the soil, for strength returns to the
soil, and to the flesh. All this we owe to the angels. And if they are only
men, only our own children come back clothed in light, what is that to our
gladness and gratitude?
They lift us from the Law of Tree and Flea, and make us human again.
--Gershom Raphael,
The Book of the Death, Sura 4, Book I.

ONE

Recovered PA. rth,
Indep-endent Territory- of
New Zealand, A.D. 2046

The New Murchison Station cemetery held only thirty graves. Flat grassland
surrounded the fenced-in plot, and around and through the grassland
a narrow runoff creek curled protectively, its low washing whisper
steady above the cool dry wind. The wind made the blades of grass hiss
and shiver. Snow-ribboned mountains shawled in gray cloud glowered
over the plain. The sun was an hour above the Two Thumb Range to the
east, its light bright but not warm. Despite the wind, Garry Lanier was
sweating.
He helped shoulder the coffin through the leaning white picket fence to
the new-dug grave, marked by a casually lumpy mound of black earth,
his face a mask to hide the effort and the sharp twinges of pain.
Six friends served as pallbearers. The coffin was only a finely shaped
and precisely planed pine box, but Lawrence Heineman had weighed a
good ninety kilos whc.~ he died. The widow, Lenore Carrolson, followed
two steps behind, face lifted, puzzled eyes staring at something just above
the end of the coffin. Her once gray-blond hair was now silver-white.
Larry had looked much younger than Lenore, who seemed frail and
phantasmal now in her ninetieth year. He had been given a new body
after his heart attack, thirty-four years before; it was not age or disease
that had killed him, but a rockfall at a campsite in the mountains twenty
kilometers away.
They laid him in the earth and the pallbearers pulled away the thick
black ropes. The coffin leaned and creaked in the dirt. Lanier imagined
Heineman was finding his grave an uneasy bed, and then dismissed this
artless fancy; it was not good to reshape death.
A priest of the New Church of Rome spoke Latin over the grave.
Lanier was the first to drop a spade of damp-smelling dirt into the hole.
Ashes to ashes. The ground is wet here. The coj~n will rot.

4
	· GREG BEAR

Lanier rubbed his shoulder as he stood with Karen, his wife of almost
four decades. Her eyes darted around the faces of their distant neighbors,
searching for something to ease her own sense of displacement. Lanier
tried to look at the mourners with her eyes and found only sadness and a
nervous humility. He touched her elbow but she was having none of his
reassurances. Karen felt as if she didn't belong. She loved Lenore Carrol-son
like a mother, and yet they hadn't talked in two years.
Up there, in the sky, among the orbiting precincts, the Hexamon conducted
its business, yet had sent no representative from those august
heavenly bodies; and indeed, considering how Larry had come to feel
about the Hexamon, that gesture would have been inappropriate.
How things had changed . . .
Divisions. Separations. Disasters. Not all the work they had done in
the Recovery could wipe away these differences. They had had such
expectations for the Recovery. Karen still had high hopes, still worked
on her various projects. Those around her did not share many of her
hopes.
She was still of the Faith, believing in the future, in the Hexamon's
efforts.
Lanier had lost the Faith twenty years ago.
Now they laid a significant part of their past in the damp Earth, with
no hope of a second resurrection. Hcineman had not expected to die by
accident but he had chosen this death nonetheless. Lanier had made a
similar choice. Someday, he knew, the earth would absorb him, too, and
that still seemed proper, though not without its terror. He would die. No
second chances. He and Heineman, and Lenore had accepted the opportunities
offered by the Hexamon up to a certain point, and then had demurred.
Karen had not demurred. If it had been her under the rock slide,
rather than Larry, she would not be dead now; stored in her implant, she
would await her due resurrection, in a body newly grown for her on one
of the precincts, and brought to Earth. She would soon be as young or
younger than she was now. And as the years passed, she would not grow
any older than she wished, nor would her body change in any but accepted ways. That set her apart from these people. It set her apart from
her husband.
Like Karen, their daughter Andia had carried an implant, and Lanier
had not protested, something that had shamed him a little at the time;
but watching her grow and change had been an extraordinary enough
experience, and he realized he was far readier to accept his death than
this beautiful child's. He had not overruled Karen's plans, and the Hex
ETERNITY ·


amon had come down to bless the child of one of their faithful servants,
to give his own daughter a gift he did not himself accept because it was
not (could not be) made available to all the Old Natives of Earth.

Then, irony had stepped in and left a permanent mark on their lives.
Twenty years ago, Andia's airplane had crashed in the eastern Pacific
and she had never been found. Their daughter's chances for a return to
life lay in the silt at the bottom of some vast deep, a tiny marble, untraceable
even with Hexamon technology.

The tears in his eyes were not for Larry. He wiped them and drew his
face into stiff formality to greet the priest, a pious young hypocrite Lanier
had never liked. "Good wine comes in strange glass," Larry had once
said.

He came into a wisdom I envy.

In the first flush of wonder, working with the Hexamon, all had be~n
dazzled; Heineman had after all accepted his second body gladly enough,
and Lenore had accepted youth treatments to keep up with her husband.
She had later dropped the treatments, but now she seemed no more than
a well-preserved seventy . . .

Most Old Natives did not have access to implants; even the Terrestrial
Hexamon could not supply everybody on Earth with the necessary devices;
and if they could have, Earth cultures were not ready for even
proximate immortality.

Lanier had resisted implants, yet accepted Hexamon medicine; he did
not know to this day whether or not that had been hypocrisy. Such
medicine had been made available to most but not all Old Natives, scattered
around a ruined Earth; the Hexamon had stretched its resources to
accomplish that much.

He had rationalized that to do the work he was doing, he needed to be
healthy and fit, and to be healthy and fit while doing that workmgoing
into the deadlands, living amidst death and disease and radiation--he
needed the privilege of the Hexamon's medicine.

Lanier could read Karen's reaction. Such a waste. All these people,
dropping out, giving up. She thought they were behaving irresponsibly.
Perhaps they were, but they--like himself, and like Karenmhad given
much of their lives to the Recovery and to the Faith. They had earned
their beliefs, however irresponsible in her eyes.

The debt they all owed to the orbiting precincts was incalculable. But
lov~ and loyalty could not be earned by indebtedness.

Lanier followed the mourners to the tiny church a few hundred meters
away. Karen stayed behind, near the graves. She was weeping, but he
could not go to comfort her.

S 	· GREG BEAR
He shook his head once, sharply, and glanced up at the sky.
No one had thought it would ever be this way.
He still could hardly believe it himself.
In the single-story meeting room of the church, while three younger
women set out sandwiches and punch, Lanier waited for his wife to join
the wake. Groups of two or three gathered in the room, ill at ease, to step
forward as one and pay their respects to the widow, who took it all with a
distant smile.
She lost her first family in the Death, he remembered. She and Larry,
after their retirement from the Recovery ten years ago, had behaved like
youngsters, hiking around South Island, taking up various hobbies, occasionally
going to Australia for extended walkabouts, once even sailing to
Borneo. They had been or had seemed carefree, and Lanier envied them
that.
"Your wife takes this hard," a red-faced young man named Fremont
said, approaching Lanier alone. Fremont ran the reopened Irishman
Creek Station; his half-wild merinos sometimes spread all the way to
Twizel, and he was not considered the best of citizens. His station mark
was an encircled kea, odd for a man who made his living from sheep;
still, he had once been reputed to say, "I'm no less independent than my
sheep. I go where I will, and so do they."
"We all loved him," Lanier said. Why he should suddenly open up to
this red-faced half-stranger, he did not know, but with his eye on the
door, waiting for Karen, his mouth said, "He was a smart man. Simple,
though. He knew his limits. I . ."
Fremont cocked a bushy eyebrow.
"We were on the Stone together," Lanier said.
"So I've heard. You were all confused with the angels."
Lanier shook his head. "He hated that."
"He did good work here and all over," Fremont said. Everybody's
decent at a funeral. Karen came in through the door. Fremont, who
could not have been more than thirty-five, glanced in her direction and
then turned back to Lanier, speculation in his eyes. Lanier compared
himself with this young and vigorous man: his own hair was solid gray,
hands large and brown and gnarled, body slightly bent.
Karen seemed no older than Fremont.

ETERNITY · 7

TWO

Terrestrial Hexamon Earth
Orbit, Axis EucJ'id

"Let's talk;" Suli Ram Kikura suggested, turning off her collar pictor
and folding up in a chair behind Olmy. He stood by her apartment
window a real window, looking through the Axis Euclid's interior wall
at the cylindrical space that had once surrounded the Way's central singularity.
Now it revealed swimming aeronauts with gauzy, bat-like
wings, floating amusement parks, citizens tracting on causeways formed
by faint purple fields and a small arc of darkness to the left, near-Earth
space visible beyond the interior wall.
The colors and activity reminded him of a French painting from the
early twentieth century, a park scene suddenly bereft of gravity, strolling
couples and children of orthodox Naderites scattered crazily every which
way. The view changed constantly as the axis's body rotated around the
hollow at its center, a streaming display of Hexamon life and society, of which Olmy no longer seemed a part.
"I'm listening," he said, though he did not look at her.
"You haven't visited Tapi in months." Tapi was their son, created
from their mixed mysteries in Euclid's city memory. Such conception
had only returned to favor the past ten years; before that, when orthodox
Naderites had dominated Euclid's precinct government, natural births
and ex utero births had been the order of the day, and the hell with
centuries of Hexamon tradition. Hence, the children playing in the Flaw
Park beyond Ram Kikura's window.
Olmy blinked, guilty about avoiding his son. The point was always
quickly reached with Suli Ram Kikura. "He's doing fine."
"He needs us both. A partial on demand is no replacement for a father.
He's up for his incorporation tests in a few months and he needs---"
"Yes, yes." Oltny almost wished they had never had Tapi. The weight

8 · GREG BEAR

of responsibility now, with his researches also heavy on him, was too
much. He simply did not have time.
"I don't know whether to be mad at you or not," she said. "You're
facing something difficult. I suppose a few years ago I could have guessed
what it is . . "Her voice was rich and even, well-controlled, but she
could not hide concern mixed with irritation at his quiet obtuseness. "I
value you enough to ask what's bothering you."
Value. They had been primary lovers for more decades than he cared
to count (seventy-four years, his implant memory stores reminded him,
unbidden), and they had lived through--and taken part in--some of the
Hexamon's most turbulent and spectacular history. He had never seriously
courted any woman but Ram Kikura; he had always known that
wherever he went, whomever else he established a brief liaison with, he
would always return to her. She was his match a homorph, neither
Naderite nor Geshel in her politics, lifelong advocate, one-time senior
corprep for Earth in the Nexus, champion of the unfortunate, the ignored
and the ignorant. With no other would he have made a Tapi.
"I've been studying. That's all."
"Yes, but you won't tell me what you've been studying. Whatever it is,
it's changing you."
"I'm just looking ahead."
"You don't know something I'm not privy to, do you? Coming out of
retirement? The trip to Earth "
He said nothing and she pulled back, lips tightly pressed together. "All
fight. Something secret. Something to do with the reopening."
"Nobody seriously plans that," Olmy said, an edge of petulance in his
voice unseemly in a man over five centuries old. Only Ram Kikura could
get through his armor and provoke such a response.
"Not even Korzenowski agrees with you."
"With me? I've never said I support reopening."
"It is absurd," she said. Now they had both probed beneath armor.
"Whatever our problems, or shortages, to abandon the Earth--"
"That's even less likely," he said softly.
". And re-open the Way. . . That goes against everything we've
worked for the past forty years."
"I've never said I wanted it," he reiterated.
Her look of scorn was a shock to him. Never had their distance been so
great that either could have felt intellectual contempt for the other. Their
relationship had always been a mix of passion and dignity, even in the
years of their worst dispute . . . which this showed signs of equaling or
surpassing, though he refused to admit disagreement.

ETERNITY · 9

"Nobody wants it, but it sure would be exciting, wouldn't it? To be
gainfully employed again, to have a mission, to return to our youth and
years of greatest power. To open commerce with the Talsit again. Such
wonders in store!"
Olmy lifted one shoulder slightly, a bare admission that there was
some truth in what she said.
"Our job here isn't finished. We have our entire history to reclaim.
Surely that's labor enough."
"I've never known our kind to be moderate," Olmy said.
"You feel the call of duty, don't you? You're preparing for what you think will happen." Suli Ram Kikura uncurled and stood, taking him by
the arm more in anger than affection. "Have we never truly thought
alike? Has our love always been just an attraction of opposites? You
opposed me on the Old Natives' rights to individuality "
"Anything else would have damaged the Recovery." Her bringing the
subject up after thirty-eight years, and his quick response, showed clearly
that the embers of that dispute had not died.
"We agreed to differ," she said, facing him.
As Earth's advocate in the years after the Sundering and in the early
stages of the Recovery, Ram Kikura had opposed Hexamon efforts to use
Talsit and other mental therapies on Old Natives. She had cited contemporary
Terrestrial law and taken the issue to the Hexamon courts, arguing
that Old Natives had the right to avoid mental health checkups and
corrective therapy.
Eventually, her court challenge had been denied under special Recovery
Act legislation.
That had been resolved thirty-eight years before. Now, approximately
forty percent of Earth's survivors received one or another kind of therapy.
The campaign to administer treatment had been masterful. Sometimes
it had overstepped its bounds, but it had worked. Mental illness
and dysfunction were virtually, eradicated.
Ram Kikura had ggne on to other issues, other problems. They had
stayed lovers, but their relationship had been strained from that point on.
The umbilicus between them was very tough. Disagreements alone--even
this--would not cut it. Ram Kikura could not, and in any event
would not cry or show the weaknesses of an Old Native, and Olmy had
given up those abilities centuries ago. Her face was sufficiently evocative
without tears; he could read "the special character of a Hexamon citizen
there, emotions withheld but somehow communicated, sadness and loss
foremost.
"You've changed during the past four years," she said. "I can't define

8 · GREG BEAR

of responsibility now, with his researches also heavy on him, was too
much. He simply did not have time.
"I don't know whether to be mad at you or not," she said. "You're
facing something difficult. I suppose a few years ago I could have guessed
what it is . . ." Her voice was rich and even, well-controlled, but she
could not hide concern mixed with irritation at his quiet obtuseness. "I
value you enough to ask what's bothering you."
Value. They had been primary lovers for more decades than he cared
to count (seventy-four years, his implant memory stores reminded him,
unbidden), and they had lived through--and taken part in--some of the
Hexamon's most turbulent and spectacular history. He had never seriously
courted any woman but Ram Kikura; he had always known that
wherever he went, whomever else he established a brief liaison with, he
would always return to her. She was his match--a homorph, neither
Naderite nor Geshel in her politics, lifelong advocate, one-time senior
corprep for Earth in the Nexus, champion of the unfortunate, the ignored
and the ignorant. With no other would he have made a Tapi.
"I've been studying. That's all."
"Yes, but you won't tell me what you've been studying. Whatever it is,
it's changing you."
"I'm just looking ahead."
"You don't know something I'm not privy to, do you? Coming out of
retirement? The trip to Earth--"
He said nothing and she pulled back, lips tightly pressed together. "All
right. Something secret. Something to do with the reopening."
"Nobody seriously plans that," Olmy said, an edge of petulance in his
voice unseemly in a man over five centuries old. Only Ram Kikura could
get through his armor and provoke such a response.
"Not even Korzenowski agrees with you."
"With me? I've never said I support reopening."
"It is absurd," she said. Now they had both probed beneath armor.
"Whatever our problems, or shortages, to abandon the Earth "
"That's even less likely," he said softly.
"--And re-open the Way... That goes against everything we've worked for the past forty years."
"I've never said I wanted it," he reiterated.
Her look of scorn was a shock to him. Never had their distance been so
great that either could have felt intellectual contempt for the other. Their
relationship had always been a mix of passion and dignity, even in the
years of their worst dispute . . which this showed signs of equaling or
surpassing, though he refused to admit disagreement.

ETERNITY · 9

"Nobody wants it, but it sure would be exciting, wouldn't it? To be
gainfully employed again, to have a mission, to return to our youth and
years of greatest power. To open commerce with the Talsit again. Such
wonders in store!"
Olmy lifted one shoulder slightly, a bare admission that there was
some truth in what she said.
"Our job here isn't finished. We have our entire history to reclaim.
Surely that's labor enough."
"I've never known our kind to be moderate," Olmy said.
"You feel the call of duty, don't you? You're preparing for what you think will happen." Suli Ram Kikura uncurled and stood, taking him by
the arm more in anger than affection. "Have we never truly thought
alike? Has our love always been just an attraction of opposites? You
opposed me on the Old Natives' rights to individuality "
"Anything else would have damaged the Recovery." Her bringing the
subject up after thirty-eight years, and his quick response, showed clearly
that the embers of that dispute had not died.
"We agreed to differ," she said, facing him.
As Earth's advocate in the years after the Sundering and in the early
stages of the Recovery, Ram Kikura had opposed Hexamon efforts to use
Talsit and other mental therapies on Old Natives. She had cited contemporary
Terrestrial law and taken the issue to the Hexamon courts, arguing
that Old Natives had the right to avoid mental health checkups and
corrective therapy.
Eventually, her court challenge had been denied under special Recovery
Act legislation.
That had been resolved thirty-eight years before. Now, approximately
forty percent of Earth's survivors received one or another kind of therapy.
The campaign to administer treatment had been masterful. Sometimes it had overstepped its bounds, but it had worked. Mental illness
and dysfunction were virtually, eradicated.
Ram Kikura had ggne on to other issues, other problems. They had
stayed lovers, but their relationship had been strained from that point on.
The umbilicus between them was very tough. Disagreements alone
even this--would not cut it. Ram Kikura could not, and in any event
would not cry or show the weaknesses of an Old Native, and Olmy had
given up those abilities centuries ago. Her face was sufficiently evocative
without tears; he could read'~the special character of a Hexamon citizen
there, emotions withheld but somehow communicated, sadness and loss
foremost.
"You've changed during the past four years," she said. "I can't define

10
	· GREG BEAR

it . . . but whatever you're doing, however you're preparing, it diminishes
the part of you that I love."
His eyes narrowed.
"You won't talk about it. Not even with me."
He shook his head slowly, feeling just another degree of withering
inside, another degree of withdrawal.
"Where is my 01my?" Ram Kikura asked softly. "What have you done
with him?"

"Ser Olmy! Your return is most welcome. How was your journey?"
President Kies Farren Siliom stood on a broad transparent platform, the
wide orb of the Earth coming into view beneath him as Axis Euclid
rotated. Five hundred square meters of stressed and ion-anchored glass
and two layers of traction field lay between the president's conference
chamber and open space; he seemed to stand on a stretch of open nothingness.
Farren Siliom's dressBwhite African cotton pants and a tufted black
sleeveless shirt of Thistledown altered linen emphasized his responsibility
for two worlds: Recovered Earth, the Eastern hemisphere of which
rolled into morning beneath their feet, and the orbiting bodies: Axes
Euclid and Thoreau and the asteroid starship Thistledown.
Olmy stood to one side of the apparent void in the outer shell of the
precinct. The Earth passed out of view. He picted formal greetings to
Farren Siliom, then said aloud, "My trip was. smooth, Ser President."
He had waited patiently for three days to be admitted, using the time
for the awkward visit to Suli Ram Kikura. Countless times before, he had
waited on presiding ministers and lesser officials, fully aware, as centuries
passed, that he had developed the old soldier's attitude of superiority
over his masters, of respectful condescension to the hierarchy.
"And your son?"
"I haven't seen him in some time, Ser President. I understand he is
doing well."
"A whole crop of children coming up for their incorporation exams
soon," Farren Siliom said. "They'll be needing bodies and occupations, all of them, if they pass as easily as I'm sure your son will. More strain on
limited resources."
"Yes, Ser."
"I've invited two of my associates to attend part of your briefing," the
president said, hands folded behind his back.
Two assigned ghosts projected partial personalities, acting with temporary
independence from their originalswappeared a few meters to one

ETERNITY · 11

side of the president. Olmy recognized one of them, the leader of the neoOeshels
in Axis Euclid, Tobert Tomson Tikk, one of Euclid's thirty sena-' tors in the Nexus. Olmy had investigated Tikk at the start of his mission,
though he had not met with the senator personally. The image of Tikk's
partial looked slightly more handsome and muscled than his original, an
ostentation gaining favor among the more radical Nexus politicians.
The presence of projected partials was both old and new. For thirty
years after the Sundering, the separation of Thistledown from the Way,
orthodox Naderites had controlled the Hexamon and such technological
displays had been relegated to situations of extreme necessity. Now the
use of partials was commonplace; a neo-Geshel such as Tikk would not
be averse to casually scattering his image and personality patterns about
the Hexamon.

"Ser Olmy is acquainted with Senator Tikk. I don't believe you've m6t
Senator Ras Mishiney, senator for the territory of Greater Australia and
New Zealand. He's in Melbourne at this moment."
"Pardon the time delay, Ser Olmy," Mishiney said.
"No fear," Olmy said. The audience was purely a formality, since most
of Olmy's report was contained on record in detailed picts and graphics;
but even so, he had not expected Farren Siliom to invite witnesses. It was
a wise leader who knew when to admit his adversary or adversaries--into
high functions; Olmy knew little about Mishiney.
"Let me apologize again for disturbing your well-deserved retirement."
Earthlight flooded the president. As the precinct rotated, the Earth again
seemed to pass below them. "You've served this office for centuries. I
thought it best to rely on someone with your experience and perspective.
What we're dealing with here, of course, are largely historical problems
and trends . "
"Problems of cultures, perhaps," Tikk interposed. Olmy thought it
brash for a partial to interrupt the president; but then, that was neoGeshel
style.
"I assume these honorables know the task you set for me," Olmy said,
nodding at the ghosts.' But not the whole task.
The president picted assent. The moon slipped beneath them, a tiny
bright platinum crescent. They all stood near the center of the platform
now, the partials' images flickering slightly to indicate their nature. "I
hope this assignment was less strenuous than the ones you're famous
for."
"Not strenuous at all, Ser President. I've been afraid of losing touch
with the details of the Hexamon--" or indeed the human race, he
thought, "--living so calmly and peacefully."

12
	· GREG BEAR


The president smiled. Even for Olmy, it was hard to imagine an old
warhorse like himself living a life of studious leisure.

"I sent Ser Olmy on a mission around the Recovered Earth to provide
an independent view of our relations. This seemed necessary in light of
the four recent assassination attempts on Hexamon officials and Terrestrial
leaders. We in the Hexamon are not used to such . . extreme
attitudes.

"They might be the last vestiges of Earth's political past, or they might
indicate breaking strains we are not aware ofmreflections of our own
'belt-tightening' in the orbiting precincts.

"I asked him to bring me an overview on how the Recovery was pro-eeeding.
Some believe it is finished, and so our Hexamon has designated
the Earth itself 'Recovered,' past tense, job accomplished. I am not convinced.
How much time and effort will be necessary to truly bring the
Earth back to health?"

"The recovery goes as well as could be expected, Ser President." Olmy
consciously altered his speaking and picting style. "As the senator from
Australia and New Zealand is aware, even the Hexamon's vast technologies
cannot make up for a lack of resources, not when you wish to accomplish
such a transformation in mere decades. There is a natural time
required for Earth's wounds to heal, and we cannot accelerate that by
much. I estimate that about half the task has been accomplished, if we
say that full recovery is a return to economic conditions comparable to
those preceding the Death."

"Doesn't that depend on how ambitious we are on Earth?" Ras
Mishiney asked. "If we wish to bring Terrestrials to a level comparable
with the precincts or Thistledown . ." He did not finish his sentence; it
was hardly necessary.

"That could take a century or more," Olmy said. "There's no universal
agreement that Old Natives want such rapid advancement. Some would
doubtless openly resist it."

"How stable are our relations with Earth just now?" the president
asked him.

"They could be much improved, Ser. There are still areas of strong,
overt political resistance, Southern Africa and Malaysia among them."

Ras Mishiney smiled ironically. Southern Africa's attempted invasion
of Australia was still a sore memory, one of the greatest crises in the four
decades of the Recovery.

"But the resistance is strictly political, not military, and it's not very
organized. Southern Africa is subdued after the Voortrekker defeats, and

ETERNITY · 13

Malaysia's activities are unorganized. They do not seem worrisome at the
moment."
"Our little 'sanity plagues' have done their job?"
Olmy was taken aback. The use of psychobiologicals on Earth was
supposed to be highly confidential; only a few of the most trusted Old
Natives knew of them. Was Ras Mishiney one such? Did Farren Siliom
trust Tikk so much that he could mention them casually?
"Yes, Set."
"Yet you've had qualms about these mass treatments?"
"I've always recognized their necessity."
"No doubts whatsoever?"
Olmy felt as if he were being toyed with. It was not a sensation he
enjoyed. "If you're referring to the opposition of Earth's former advo.
cate, Suli Ram Kikura . . . we do not necessarily share political beliefs
even when we share beds, Ser President."
"These are past matters now. Forgive my interruption. Please eon-tinue,
Ser Olmy."
"There's still a strong undercurrent of tension between most Old Natives
and the ruling parties of the orbiting bodies."
"That's a painful puzzle to me," Farren Siliom said.
"I'm not sure it can be surmounted. They resent us in so many ways.
We robbed them of theft youth--"
"We pulled them up from the Death!" the president said sharply. Ras
Mishiney's assigned ghost gave a faint smile.
"We've prevented them from growing and recovering on their own, S er. The Terrestrial Hexamon that built and launched Thistledown rose
from just such misery, independently; some Old Natives feel perhaps
we've helped too much, and imposed our ways upon them."
Farren Siliom picted grudging agreement. Olmy had noticed a hardening
of attitude against Old Natives among Hexamon administrators in
the orbiting bodies the past decade. And the Old Natives, being what
they were--many still rough and uneducated, still shocked by the Death,
without the political and managerial sophistication earned through centuries
of experience in the Way had grown to resent the firm but gentle
hand of their powerful descendants.
"The terrestrial Senate is quiet and cooperative," Olmy said, avoiding
Ras Mishiney's eyes. "The worst dissatisfactions, outside those already
mentioned, seemed to be in China and Southeast Asia."
"Where science and technology first rose after the Death, in our own
history . . . willful and strong peoples. How resentful are the Old Natives
overall?"

14 · GREG BEAR

"Certainly not to the point of worldwide activism, Ser President. Consider
it a prejudice, not a rage."
"What about Gerald Brooks in England?"
"I met with him, Ser. He is not a threat."
"He worries me. He has quite a following in Europe."
"At most two thousand in a recovered population of ten million. He's
vocal but not powerful. He feels deep gratitude for what the Hexamon
has done for the Earth . . . he merely resents those of your administrators
who treat terrestrials like children." Far too many of that kind, he
thought.
"Resents my administrators." The president paced on the platform.
Olmy watched this with a deep, ironic humor. Politicians had certainly
changed since the days of his youth even since the Sundering. Formal
deportment seemed an art of the past. "And the religious movements?"
"As strong as ever."
"Mm." Farren Siliom shook his head, seeming to relish bad news to
fuel a smoldering irritation.
"There are at least thirty-two religious groups which do not accept
your administrators as temporal or spiritual rulers--"
"We don't expect them to accept us as spiritual rulers," Farren Siliom
said.
"Some officials have tried several times to impose the rule of the Good
Man on Old Natives," Olmy reminded him. "Even on the honorable
Nader's contemporaries . . ." How long ago had it been since a fanatic
orthodox Naderite corprep had recommended using an illegal psychobiological
to convert the faithless to Star, Fate and Pneuma? Fifteen years?
Olmy and Ram Kikura had helped suppress that notion, before it had
even reached a secret Nexus session, but Olmy had almost converted
overnight to her radical views.
"We've dealt with these miscreants," Farren Siliom said.
"Perhaps not harshly enough. Many are still in positions of influence
and continue their campaigns. At any rate, none of these movements
advocate open rebellion."
"Civil disobedience?"
"That is a protected right in the Hexamon," Olmy said.
"Used very seldom the past few decades," Farren Siliom countered.
"And what about the Renewed Enterprisers?"
"Not a threat."
"No?" The president seemed almost disappointed.
"No. Their reverence for the Hexamon is genuine, whatever their

ETERNITY · 15

other beliefs. Besides, their leader died three weeks ago in the old territory
of Nevada."
"A natural death, Ser President," Tikk said. "That's an important
distinction. She refused offers of extension or downloading to im-plantsB"
"Refused them," Olmy said, "because they were not offered to her
followers."
"We do not have the resources to give every citizen of the Terrestrial
Hexamon immortality," Farren Siliom said. "And they would not be
socially prepared, at any rate."
"True," Olmy acknowledged. "At any rate . . . they never opposed
Hexamon plans beyond their immediate territory."
"Did you meet with Senator Kanazawa in Hawaii?" Ras Mishin. ey
asked with a hint of distaste. Olmy suddenly understood why the senator
was attending. Ras Mishiney was heart and soul in the camp of the
orbiting bodies.
"No," Olmy answered. "I wasn't aware he had been anything but
cooperative with the Hexamon."
"He's gathered a lot of power to himself in the past few years. Particularly
in the Pacific Rim."
"He's a competent politician and administrator," Farren Siliom said,
reining in the senator with a glance. "It isn't our duty to keep power
forever. We're doctors and teachers, not tyrants. Is there anything else of
significance, Ser Olmy?"
There was, but Olmy knew it would not be discussed before these
partials.
"No, sir. The details are all on record."
"Gentlemen," the president said, raising his arms and opening his
hands to them. "Have you any final questions for Ser Olmy?"
"Just one," Tikk's partial said. "How do you stand on the reopening
of the Way?"
Olmy smiled. "My views on that issue are not important, Ser Tikk."
"My original is most curious about the views of those who remember
the Way vividly." Tikk had not been born until after the Sundering; he
was one of the youngest neo-Geshels on Axis Euclid.
"Ser Olmy has a fight to keep his opinions to himself," Farren Siliom
said.
Tikk's partial apologized without any deep sincerity.
"Thank you, Ser President," Mishiney's partial said. "I appreciate
your cooperation with Earth's parliament. I look forward to studying
your complete records, Ser Olmy."

15 · GREG BEAR
The ghosts faded, leaving them alone above the dark fathomless void,
now empty of both Earth and Moon. Olmy looked down and spotted a
~limmer of light amidst the stars: Thistledown, he thought, and his im plants
quickly provided a calculation that confirmed his guess.
"One last question, Ser Olmy, and then this meeting is completed. The
neo-Geshels . if they manage to get the Hexamon to re-open the
Way, do we have the resources to continue the Earth's support at present
levels?"
"No, Ser President. Successful re-opening would cause long delays at
the very least in major rehabilitation projects."
"We're already strapped for resources, aren't we? More than the Hex-
amon is willing to admit. And yet, there are Terrestrials---Mishiney among them who believe that in the long run, re-opening would benefit
us all." The president shook his head and picted a symbol of jud~nnent
and a symbol of extreme foolishness: a man sharpening a ridiculously
long sword. The pict symbol no longer had a connection with war, per se, but its subtext was still a little surprising to Olmy. War with whom?
"We must learn to adapt and live under the present circumstances. I
believe that deeply," Farren Siliom said. "But my influence is not boundless.
So many of our people have become so very homesick! Can you
imagine that? Even I. I was one of the firebrands who supported Rosen
Gardner and demanded a return to Earth, to what we thought of as our
true home but no one alive in the Way had ever been to Earth! How
sophisticated we think we are, yet how irrational and protean our deepest
emotions and motivations. Perhaps a better grade of Talsit would help,
no?"
Olmy smiled noncommittally.
The president's shoulders slumped. With an effort, he squared them
again. "We should learn to live without these luxuries. The Good Man
never availed himself of Talsit." He walked to the edge of the platform,
as if to avoid the abyss beneath their feet. Earth was coming into view
again. "Have the neo-Geshels carried their activities to Earth? Beyond
people like Mishiney?"
"No. They seem content to ignore the Earth, Ser President."
"The least I'd expect from such visionaries. That's a political wellspring
they'll regret overlooking. Surely they can't believe the Earth will
have no say in such a decision! And on Thistledown?"
"They're still openly campaigning. I found no sign of subversive activities.''

"Such a delicate balance a man in my position holds, trying to play so
many factions against each other. I know my tenure in this ot~ee is

ET E R N ITY · 17

limited. I'm not good at hiding my beliefs, and they are not the easiest
beliefs to hold these days. I've fought the notion of re-opening for three
years now. It will not die. But I can't help believing that no good will
come of it. 'You can't go home again.' Especially if you can never decide
where home is. We're in a delicate time. Shortages, weariness. I see the
inevitability, someday, of re-opening .... But not now! Not until we
have finished our tasks on Earth." Farren Siliom regarded Olmy with an
expression near pleading. "I'm as curious as Senator Tikk, I'm afraid.
What are your opinions about the Way?"
Olmy shook his head slightly. "I'm resigned to living without it, Set
President."
"Yet you won't be able to renew your body parts soon . . . or are the
shortages already acute?"
"They are," Olmy admitted.
"You'll resign yourself to city memory willingly?"
"Or death," Olmy said. "But that won't be for years."
"Do you miss the challenges, the opportunities?"
"I try not to worry about the past," Olmy said. He was being less than
candid, but he had learned long before when to be open, and when not.
"You've been an enigma for all your centuries of service, Ser Olmy. So
the records tell me. I won't press you. But in your brief.., considerations
of the problem, have you thought of what might happen to us,
should we re-open the Way?"
Olmy did not answer for a moment. The president seemed to know
more about his recent activities than Olmy found comfortable. "The Way
could be reoccupied by Jarts, Ser."
"Indeed. Our eager neo-Geshels tend to overlook that problem. I can't.
I'm not unaware of your researches. I believe you show extreme foresight."
"Ser?"
"Your researches in city memory and the Thistledown libraries. I have
my own active rogues, Ser Olmy. You seem to be accessing information
with a direct bearing on re-opening, and you've been studying for years,
at some personal cost, I imagine." Farren Siliom regarded him shrewdly,
then turned back to the railing, knocking it lightly with the knuckles of
one hand. "Officially, I'm releasing you from any further duties. Unofficially,
I urge you to continue your studies."
Olmy picted assent.
"Thank you for your work. Should you have any further thoughts, by
all means let me know. Your opinions are valued, whether or not you
think we need them."

18
	· GREG BEAR

Olmy left the platform. The Earth had rotated into view again, perpetual
responsibility, unfamiliar home, sign of pain and triumph, failure and
regrowth.

THREE

Gaia, Island of Rhodos,
Greater Alexandreian
OikoumenCg,
„oar of Alexan lros 2331-2342

Rhita Berenik~ Vaskayza grew wild on the shores near the ancient port of
Lindos until she was seven years old. Her father and mother let the sun
and sea have their way with her, teaching her only what she was curious
to know--which was a great deal.
She was a brown, bare-limbed wild thing, wide-eyed and elusive among
the brown and white and faded gold battlements and columns and steps
of the abandoned akropolis. From the bright expanse of the porch of the
sanctuary of Athen Lindia, palms pressed against the crumbling walls,
she stared down the cliffs into the azure unending sea, counting the
steady, gentle march of waves against the rocks.
Sometimes she crept through the wooden door into the shed that
housed the giant statue of Athen, rising thick-limbed and serene in the
shadows, looking decidedly Asiatic, with her radiant brass crown (once
gold) and her man-high stone shield. Few Lindians came up here; many
thought it was haunted by the centuries-dead ghosts of Persian defenders,
massacred when the Oikoumen regained control of the island. Sometimes
there were tourists from Aigyptos or the mainland, but not often.
The Middle Sea was not a place for tourists any more.
The farmers and shepherds of Lindos saw her as Artemis and believed

ET E R N I TY · 19

she brought them luck. In the village, her world seemed full of welcoming
smiles from familiar faces.
On her seventh birthday, Berenik~, her mother, took her from Lindos
to Rhodos. She did not remember much about the island's biggest city
besides the imposing bronze Neos Kolossos, re-cast and erected four
centuries ago, and now missing all of one arm and half of another.
Her mother, with red-brown haft, as wide-eyed as her daughter, led
her through the town to the whitewashed brick and stone and plaster
home of the first-level Akademeia didaskalos--the master of children's
education. Rhita stood alone before the didaskalos in the warm sunny
examination chamber, barefoot in a plain white shift, and answered his
simple but telling questions. This was little more than formality, considering
that her grandmother had founded the Akademeia Hypateia, but it
was an important formality.
Later that day, her mother told her she had been accepted into the first
school, her lessons to begin at age nine. Then Berenik~ took Rhita back to Lindos, and life went on much as before but with more books and
more lessons to prepare her and less time to run with wind and water.
They did not visit the Soph on that journey; she had been ill. Some
said she was dying, but she recovered two months later. This all meant
very little to young Rhita, who knew almost nothing about her grandmother,
having met her only twice, in infancy and at age five.
The summer before she began her formal schooling, her grandmother
called upon her to return to Rhodos, and to spend some time with her.
The Soph was reclusive. Many Rhodians thought she was a goddess.
Her origins and the stories that had grown up around her supported theft
beliefs. Rhita had no fixed opinions. What the Lindians said and what
her father and mother told her were confusingly far apart on some points
and close on others.
Rhita's mother was almost frantically thrilled by this privilege, which
Patrikia had accorded to none of her other grandchildren. Her father,
Rham6n, accepted it with the calm, self-assured aft he had in those days,
before the sophC~'s death and the factional fighting at the Akademeia.
Together, they took her to Rhodos by horse cart, driving along the same
cobbled and oiled road they had followed two summers before.
Patrikia's house stood on a rocky promontory overlooking the Great
Naval Harbor. It was a small gypsum-plaster and stone dwelling, in late
Persian style, with four rooms and a separate study on the low cliff above
the beach. As they walked up the path through the vegetable garden,
Rhita looked over a brick wall at the ancient Fortress of KamybsC~s
across the harbor, rising like a huge stone cup from the end of a broad

20 · GREG BEAR

mole. The fortress had been abandoned for seventy years, but was now
being refurbished by the Oikoumen. Workmen clambered along its thick
crumbling walls, tiny as mice. The Neos Kolossos guarded the harbor
entrance a hundred arms beyond the fortress, still armless, standing with
more dignity withal on its own massive block of brick and stone, surrounded
by water.
"Is she a witch?" Rhita asked RhamOn softly at the front door.
"Hsss," Berenik~ warned, crossing Rhita's lips with her finger.
"She's not a witch," RhamOn said, smiling. "She's my mother."
Rhita thought it would be nice for a servant to open the door, but the Soph had no servants. Patrikia „askayza herself stood smiling in the
doorway, a white-haired brown-skinned dried stick of a woman with
shrewd, deep-seeing eyes wreathed in leathery wrinkles. Even in the heat
of summer, the wind blew cool on the hill, and Patrikia wore a floor-length
black robe.
She touched Rhita's cheek with a dry finger tip, and Rhita thought, She's made of wood. But the Soph's palm was soft and warmly sweet-scented.
From behind her back, she brought out a garland of flowers and
looped them around Rhita's neck. "An old tradition from Hawaii," she
explained.
Berenik~ stood with head bowed, hands pressed firmly to her sides.
Rhita saw her mother's awe and vaguely disapproved; the Soph was very
old and very skinny, to be sure, but not frightening. At least not yet.
Rhita tugged at the flowers around her neck and glanced at RhamOn,
who gave her a reassuring smile.
"We'll have lunch," Patrikia said, her voice husky and almost as deep
as a man's.
She walked slowly ahead of them into the kitchen, measuring each step
precisely, slipper-shod feet scuffing the rough black the floor. Her hands
touched a chair back, as if she were greeting a friend, then tapped the rim
of an old black iron basin, and finally smoothed along the edge of a
bleached wooden table laden with fruit and cheese. "After my son and daughter-in-law--sweet people that they are, but they intrude~-after
they go home, we can really talk." The Soph glanced sharply at Rhita,
and despite herself, the girl nodded agreement, conspiring.

They spent much of the next few weeks together, Patrikia telling her
tales, many of which Rhita had already heard from her father. Patrikia's
Earth was not the Gaia Rhita had grown up on; history had gone differently
there.
On a warm hazy day when the wind was still and the sea seemed lost

ETERNITY · 21

in glazed sleep, her grandmother walked slowly ahead of her in a nearby
orange grove, a basket of fruit slung over one arm. "In California, there
used to be orange groves all over, beautiful big oranges, much bigger than
these." Patrikia lifted a reddish, plum-sized fruit in her thin, strong fingers.
"The groves had almost disappeared by the time I was your age.
Too many people wanted to live there. Not enough room for the groves."
"Is California here, or there, Grandmother?" Rhita asked.
"There. On Earth," Patrikia said. "There's no such name here." She
paused, staring up at the sky reflectively. "I don't know what's happening
where California would be in this world . . I suppose it's part of
Nea Karkh~d~n's western desert."
"Full of red men with bows and arrows," Rhita suggested.
"Maybe so. Maybe so."
After eating alone together in the kitchen. Rhita listened quietly to the Soph in the welcome cool of the summer's evening, an old oil lamp
glowing and smoking sweetly on a wicker table between them, supplementing
the twilight as they shared glasses of warm tea. "Your great-
grandmother, my mother, comes to visit me now and then . . ."
"Isn't she in the other world, Grandmother?"
Patrikia smiled and nodded, her face a mass of wrinkles in the golden-orange
light. "That doesn't stop her. She comes when I sleep, and she
says you're a very bright girl, a wonderful child, and she's proud to share
her name with you." Patrikia leaned forward. "Your great-grandfather's
proud of you, too. But don't let us get you down, dear. You've time
enough to play and dream and grow up before your day comes."
"What day, Grandmother?"
Patrikia smiled enigmatically and nodded at the horizon. Aphroditi
dazzled and shimmered over the sea like a hole in a dark silk lamp shade.

Rhita returned to Patrikia's house two years later, no longer a wild child made polite by the presence of an impossibly old grandmother, but
a studious, well-groomed young girl intent on becoming a woman. Pa-trikia
had not changed. To Rhita, she seemed like a preserved fruit or an
Aigyptian mummy that might survive forever.
Their talk this time was more about history. Rhita knew quite a bit
about Gaia's history--and not precisely as the Oikoumen wanted it
taught. The Akademeia Hypateia-used the distance between Rhodos and
Alexandreia to some advantage. Decades before, the Imperial Hyps~lot~s
Kleopatra the Twenty-first had given the Soph far more discretion as to
curriculum than the royal advisors found pleasing.

33 · GREG BEAR

At eleven, Rhita was already aware of politics. But she was proving
even more adept at numbers and the sciences.
In the long evenings on the porch, watching the death of days along
purple and gray and red horizons, Patrikia told Rhita about Earth, and
how it had almost killed itself. And she told Rhita about the Stone that
had come from the stars, hollow like a gourd or some exotic mineral,
built by Earth's children from a future time. Rhita puzzled over the
subtle geometries that allowed such an enormous object to be whipped
back through time into another closely similar universe. But her head
seemed filled with sunlit bees when Patrikia described the corridor, the
Way, that Earth's children had attached to the Stone .
She slept restlessly and dreamed of this artificial place shaped like a
never-ending water-pipe, with holes leaking onto an infinity of
worlds . . .
As they gardened, weeding and killing insects, planting barricades of
garlic around tender young flowers, Patrikia told Rhita the story of her
arrival on Gaia. She had been young then, sixty years ago, when she been
given the chance to seek a gate in the Way that might take her to an
Earth free of nuclear war, where Patrikia's family might still live.
Instead, she had miscalculated and come to Gaia.
"I became an inventor at first," she said. "I invented things I knew
from Earth. I gave them the bikyklos. Farm tools. Things I remembered.''
She waved her hands as if to dismiss them. "That lasted only a
few years. Soon, I was working for the Mouseion, and people began to
believe my stories. Some treated me as if I were more than human,
which," she shook her head firmly, "I am not. I will die, my dear, probably
very soon . . .'
Within five years of her arrival on Gaia, Patrikia had been called to the
palace to meet with Ptolemaios Thirty-Five Nikephoros. The old ruler of
the Oikoumen had questioned her closely, examined the devices she had
brought with her and managed to keep safe, and proclaimed her a true
prodigy. "He said I was obviously not a goddess, and not a demon, and
attached me to the court. Those were hard times. I made the mistake of
describing Earth's weapons to them, and they wanted me to help them
build bigger bombs. I refused. Nikephoros threatened to imprison me~
he was feeling quite pressed by Libyan desert armies then. He wanted to
wipe them all out with one blow. I told him again and again what the
bombs had done to Earth, but he didn't listen. I went to prison in Alexandreia
for a month, and then he released me, sent me to Rhodos, and
told me to start an akademeia there. He died five years later, but the
Hypateion was well established. I dealt with his son well enough . . . a

ETERNITY · 25

nice boy, rather weak. And then his granddaughter.., first her
mother, of course, a strong, vjillful woman, but brilliant, but then the
Imperial Hyps~lot~s herself as she came of age . . ."
"Do you like it here?" Rhita asked, adjusting her broad straw sun-hat.
Patrikia pushed her wizened lips out and shook her head ruefully, admitting
and denying nothing.
"This is my world, and it is not my world," she said. "I would still go
home, given a chance."
"Could you?"
Patrikia nodded at the bright sky. "Perhaps. But not likely. Once,
another gate opened on Gaia, and with the queen's support, I spent years
searching for it. But it was like a marsh ghost. It vanished, reappeared
somewhere else, vanished again. And now it has been gone for nineteen
years."
"Would it take you to Earth, if you found it?"
"No," the Soph said. "It would probably take me back into the Way.
From there, however, I might be able to go home."
Rhita felt sad, hearing the old woman's soft voice fade on the last
word, her face deep in shadow under her hat, feline black eyes closing,
opening halfway, infinitely tired. The Soph shuddered and looked appraisingly
at her young granddaughter. "Would you like to learn some
interesting geometries?"
Rhita brightened. "Yes!"

She lay half-asleep on her cot in the bare whitewashed room, listening
to waves from a distant storm breaking just a few dozen arms away, great
poundings of Poseidon's fists on the rocks, coinciding in her dreams with
the slow thump of the hooves of a huge horse. Moon filled a near corner
with cold light. Rhita opened her eyes to slits, feeling a presence in the
room with her. A shadow crossed the moonlight, carrying something.
The girl stirred on her leather bed, still not fully awake, her body lost in
comfort.
The shadow came closer. It was Patrikia.
,. Rhita's eyes closed and then opened slightly again. She was certainly
not afraid of the sophS, but why was she in her room at this late hour of
the night? Patrikia grasped her granddaughter's hand in her own dry,
strong fingers and placed it on something metallic, hard and smooth,
unfamiliar yet pleasant to touch. LRhita murmured an incoherent question.
"This will know you, recognize you," Patrikia whispered. "By your
touch, you make it yours, years from now when you mature. My child,

24
	· GREG BEAR

listen to its messages. It tells you where, and when. I am too old now.
Find the way home for me."
The shadow passed from her room, and the moonlight faded. The
room filled with darkness. Rhita closed her eyes and soon it was morning.
On this new morning, Patrikia began teaching Rhita two languages
that did not exist on Gaia, English and Spanish.

The Soph died, attended only by her three surviving sons, in the bare
room where five years before her granddaughter had slept and dreamed
of horses. Now a young woman, beginning her third-level studies at the
Hypateion, Rhita hardly knew what emotions she felt. She was of middle
height but gawky, her face bluntly, boyishly attractive, her figure slight;
her hair was reddish brown, and her brows arched quizzically over green
eyes, her father's eyes in her mother's face. What part of her was Pa-trikia?
What did she carry of the sopM?
Her father was a slow, careful man, but his grief and worry were
evident as he led the stade-long funeral procession across the sun-beaten
carved stone roadway to the Merchant's Harbor, taking the Soph's frail
body to the boat that would carry it out to sea. His two brothers followed,
Rhita's uncles, teachers of language in the Hypateion; after them
came the entire faculty of the four schools, dressed in gray and white.
Rhita walked a step to one side and behind her father, saying to herself, I do what she wanted me to.
Rhita studied physics and mathematics. That was what she carried of
the sophS.
Her talents.

One year after the funeral, as spring greened the orchards and the
vineyards and olive groves came into flower, Rhita's father took her to a
secret cave a dozen stadia northwest of Lindos, not far from where she
had been born. He refused to answer her questions. She was a grown
woman now, or thought she was. She had already taken a lover, and she
objected to being ordered about, being led mysteriously to places she
knew and cared nothing about. But her father insisted, and she did not
enjoy defying him.
The caves were blocked by thick, narrow steel vault doors, ancient
with rust but with hinges well-oiled. Overhead, a flight of Oikoumen jet
gullcraft maneuvered, probably from desert aerodromoi in Kilikia or
loudaia, leaving five nail-scratches of white against the soft blue sky.
Her father opened the vault doors with a ponderous key and nine

ET E R N ITY · 25

twists of a combination dial hidden in a locked recess. He preceded her
into the cool darkness, past casks of wine and olive oil and dry stores of
food hermetically sealed in steel drums, through a second door into a tiny
rear tunnel. Only when the gloom became impenetrable did Rham6n
press a black button and turn on a light.
They stood in a low, wide cavern, the air sweet with the smell of the
dry rock. In the yellow glare of the single light blub, her father advanced
behind his looming shadow to a rough-hewn, stout wooden cabinet and
pulled out a deep drawer. The wood's groan sounded heavy and sad
between the hard walls. Within the drawer were several fine wooden
boxes, one as large as a traveling case. He withdrew that one first and
carried it to where she stood, kneeling before her and unlocking the lid.
Within, surrounded by a cushion of velvet molded for something at
least three times its size, was an object barely as wide as her two palms
spread together. It resembled a pair of handlebars from one of the Soph's bikykloi, although much thicker, with a curved saddle pointing away
from the juncture.
"These are yours now, your responsibility," he said, lifting his hands as
if refusing to touch the box any more. "She was saving them for you. You were the only one she thought could take up her work. Her task. None of
her sons were up to the job. She thought we were suited for administration,
not adventure. I never argued with her . . these things scare me."
He stood and backed away, his shadow swinging off the box and its
contents. The sculpted-looking thing within gleamed white and pearl.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It is one of the Objects," he answered. "She called it a 'clavicle.'"
The Soph had brought three Objects with her from the Way in her
wonderful journey to this world. Their powers had never been explained
to Rhita; Patrikia had simply told her what some of them did, not how. Her father brought forward the other boxes, laying them on the dry floor
of the cave, opening them. "This was her teukhos," he said, indicating a flat metal and glass pad a little larger than her hand. He reverently
touched four small shiny cubes nestled next to the pad. "These were her
personal library. There are hundreds of books in these cubes. Some have
become part of the Hypateion's sacred doctrine. Some have to do with Earth. They're in languages that don't exist here, mostly. I suppose she
taught you some of them." His tone was not resentful, merely resigned;
perhaps even relieved. Better his daughter than him. He opened the third
box. "This kept her alive while she came here. It gave her air to breath.
All of these are yours."
Bending over the largest box, she reached for the saddle-shaped Oh
35
	· GREG BEAR

ject. Even before her finger brushed the surface, she understood that this
was the key that opened gates from within the Way. It was warm and
friendly, not unfamiliar; she knew it, and it knew her.
Rhita closed her eyes and saw Gaia, the entire world, as if marked on
an incredibly detailed globe. The globe spun before her and expanded,
drawing her down to the steppes of Nordic Rhus, Mongoleia and Chin
Ch'ing, lands beyond the power of the Alexandreian Oikoumen. There,
in a shallow swale, above a trickling, muddy stream, glowed a brilliant
red three-dimensional cross.
She opened her eyes, terrified and pale, and stared down at the clavicle.
It was three times its former size now, filling the molded velvet cushion.
"What's happening?" her father asked.
She shook her head. "I don't want these things." She ran to the cave
opening and into the sunshine. Her father trailed after, slightly hunched,
almost obsequious, calling out, "They are yours, my daughter. No one
else can use them."
She outran him and hid in a cleft between two weathered boulders,
wiping tears from her eyes. She suddenly hated her grandmother. "How
could you do this to me?" Rhita asked. "You were crazy." She pulled her
knees up to her chin, bracing her sandaled feet against the rough dry
rock. "Crazy old woman."
She remembered the shadow in the darkness when she was a girl and
kicked out against the stone until her heel was bruised. The months
Rhita had spent almost alone with her, listening to her stories, thinking
of that fabulous world . . . she had never imagined that it actually existed,
as real as Rhodos or the sea. Patrikia's world had always been as
far away as dreams, and as unlikely.
But Grandmother had never lied, never even stretched the truth, about
anything else they had discussed. She had always been perfectly straightforward,
treating her as an adult, explaining carefully, answering her
questions with none of the dissembling adults often hid behind.
Why should she have lied about the Way?
As dusk softened the outlines of the tree branches overhead, visible
through the cleft, Rhita emerged from the rocks and walked slowly down
the slope to the cave. There, her father waited, sitting beside the vault
door, a long green stick held in both hands across his knees. She didn't
even consider the possibility he might hit her; Rham0n had never physically
punished her. The stick was just something to fiddle with and contemplate.
Gentle, careful Father, she thought. Life was complicated for him. The

ETERNITY · 27

politics of succession at the Akademeia was getting nasty. He didn't need
any more grief.
He stood, threw the stick away and wiped his hands on his pants,
staring at the ground. She went to him and hugged him fiercely. Then
they returned to the cave, gathered up the Objects in their cases and,
fully burdened, carried them down the hill to the whitewashed house
where Rhita had been born.

FOUR
I

'i'orrestr. ial Hex. amon,
Ax s Euclid

The journey into Axis Euclid city memory was brief. Olmy chose a
downline link and dropped a complete copy of himself into the matrix
buffer to await entry into the central creche. His body appeared to sleep;
in fact, a partial in his three implants was processing data on recorded
Talsit ambassador interviews, searching for behavioral oddities that
could give him clues to true Talsit psychology. He knew he had no time
for rest; he could feel it as well as think, an itch, a compulsion, a restless
impatience difficult to control.
If he felt a personal kinship to any male beside Korzenowski, it was
Tapi, his son. He had known many children in the city memory creche,
sometimes as a tutor, sometimes as a judge; few were as high in quality as
Tapi, and Olmy was convinced his opinion was objective. In less than five
years of city memor~ education, the youngster was progressing to a level
of sophistication rare in the crbche. Olmy doubted the boy would have
any difficulty earning an incarnation; still, the exams were not easy.
He had resented Ram Kikura's motherly suggestion that he visit Tapi;
and yet, without her making the suggestion, he might have sacrificed
such a luxury to his work . . .
Fatherhood was not a simple proposition.
They had applied to create Tapi seven years ago, two years after
Olmy's official retirement. At that time, the conflicts between the orbiting

28 · GREG BEAR

bodies and Old Natives on Earth had not seemed particularly strong or
destructive; the Recovery had seemed on track, and both had felt there
would be time to create and nurture a child. They had planned the boy's
mentality in close cooperation, deciding against the orthodox Naderite
fashions of less structured creation as well as physical childbirth. Ram
Kikura, with a feminine sensibility that had struck Olmy with its
strength and conviction, had said, "A mother and father are not made by
a few hours of pain and awareness of bad physcial design . "
They had referred to the great philosophical treatises on mentality, and
used classic design templates for non-parental aspects that Olmy (actually,
Olmy's tracer) had found uncatalogued in Thistledown's third
chamber library. Working in city memory for eight days (almost a year in
accelerated time) they and their partials had combined the parental mysteries,
selected large blocks of parental memory for endowment at certain
growth stages, and overlaid the templates with great care to create the
mentality they would call Tapi. The name came from Tapi Salinger, a
twenty-second-century novelist they both admired.
Some conceived in city memory had as many as six parents. Tapi was
biparental, with a predisposition toward masculinity. He had been born,
achieving active status, six years before, both parents in attendance, one
of only thirty children quickened in city memory that year. His body
image at that time had been a six year old boy, Polynesian in appearance
--Polynesians and Ethiopic blacks had been considered the most beautiful
of the human races in Ram Kikura's youth--and extremely puckish
in behavior. Indeed, Ram Kikura had begun to call her son Robin instead
of Tapi, but as he had matured and sobered (though never losing
the spark of Robin Goodfellow), Tapi prevailed. For the first year of their
son's life, Ram Kikura and Olmy stayed in constant personal attendance,
leaving city memory only for pressing duties, which were few. They had
established several fantasy living spaces, allowing Tapi to grow in several
simulated eras almost simultaneously.
The wonder of city memory was the flexibility of mental reality. With
most of the resources of Hexamon libraries a part of the memory matrix,
construction of simulated environments was a matter of a few moments'
effort. The wisdom of historic time--as documented and as perceived by
the Hexamon's greatest scholars and artists was available to Tapi, and
he had thrived on it.
Then difficulties had arisen, not with Tapi but with the Hexamon itself.
The political winds had shifted and some had even hinted at reopening
the Way. The neo-Geshel party had grown in strength, countering the

ETERNITY · 31)

best prognostications of the Naderite political advisers. Olmy had felt the
cold draft of history compelling him to prepare .
And as the next few years passed, he spent less and less time in person
with Tapi, leaving the duty of fatherhood to permanently downloaded
partials. Ram Kikura had also found less time, but still maintained close
contact with Tapi. Tapi had never shown resentment, nor had his growth slowed, but Olmy often felt the pangs of regret.
The downline buffer was given access and Olmy's original was loaded
directly into the city memory creche. Tapi waited for him, his self-de-signed
image now that of a young man, a good approximation of what a
natural son of his parents might have looked like~Olmy's build and
unaltered eyes and lips, Ram Kikura's nose and high cheekbones, a handsome
young male with the few stylish flaws that were the hallmark of
intelligent body-design. They embraced, an electric concatenation of
physical and mental mergings that in an earlier time might have been
considered embarrassingly intimate for father and son, but which was the
norm in city memory. Olmy measured his son's progress from that embrace,
and Tapi was given a healthy close of parental approval.
Picts and speech were unnecessary in city memory, but resorted to
nonetheless; direct mind-to-mind communication was laborious and
time-consuming, used only when precise communication was necessary.
"I appreciate your coming, Father," Tapi said. "Your partials were
growing tired of me."
"I doubt that," Olmy said.
"I kept testing them to see if they matched you."
"Did they?"
"Yes, but I irritated them . ."
"You should always be polite to a partial. They carry tales, you know."
"You haven't accessed their memories?"
"Not yet. I wanted to see you fresh."
Tapi projected a haze of body plans for Olmy's approval. The young
man's body would be self-contained, but without the reliance on Talsit
parts and other maintenance items in short supply. His design would not
be able to exist so long without maintenance and nutrition, but for these
times it was a better design than Olmy's. It was certainly more practical.
"What do you think?"
"It's very good. You've earned council approval?"
"Provisional."
"You'll get it. Elegant adaptation,'' Olmy said, and meant it. He almost
wished he could apply for reincarnation and try it out. Still, he had
lived with Talsit parts for so long .

30 · GREG BEAR

"Do you think they'll re-open the Way?"
Olmy gave him the mental equivalent of a grimace. "Don't race
ahead," he said. "I haven't got more than a few memory hours, and I
don't want to spend them discussing politics. I want my son to teach me
all he's learned."
Tapi's enthusiasm was electric. "Wonderful things, Father! Did you
ever study Mersauvin structures?"
Olmy had, but only briefly, finding them tedious. He didn't tell his son
this.
"I've made the most remarkable correlations," Tapi continued. "At
first I thought they were tedious abstractions, but then I plugged them
into analysis of synthetic situation and found the most incredible judgments.
They allow the most complex predictive modeling. They act as
serf-adapting algorithms for social scaling and planning . . . they even
model individual interactions!"
Tapi moved them into a private buffer. "I decorated this myself," he said. "Nobody's seen fit to overwrite yet. I think that's a compliment
from my creche mates . . ."
It certainly was. Private buffer decors in the creche were usually as
vulnerable and fleeting as ice in a fire. The decor, to Olmy's view an
exhausting array of mental tests and demonstrated algorithms, was far
more complex and accomplished than anything he could have done.
"I took some liberties with my formal lessons," Tapi continued. "I
applied the Mersauvin structures to external events."
"Oh? What did you learn?"
Tapi displayed a jagged and discontinuous curve. "Many breaks. The
Hexamon is under severe strain. We're not a happy society any more. We
were once, I think; in the Way. I compared the present dissatisfaction
with psychological profiles of nostalgia for previous stages of life in natural-born
homorphs. The small mimics the large. The algorithms show.
that the Hexamon wants to return to the Way. My teachers haven't
graded me very well on this, I'm afraid. They say the results lack rigor."
"What you're saying is, we all want to go back to the womb. No?"
Tapi agreed with smiling reluctance. "I wouldn't put it so baldly."
Olmy studied the jagged curve with a combination of pride and the
familiar sinking feeling. "I think it's very good. That's not a simple parental
compliment, either."
"You think it will predict?"
"Within limits."
"I . . . may be acting foolishly, but I thought there was strong pre
ETERNITY · 81

dictive value here, too. So I've made my decision on primary vocation.
I'm training for Hexamon defense."
Olmy regarded the boy's image with more pride, and an even stronger
sensation of sorrow. "Like father, like son."
"I've studied your history, Father. It's admirable. But there are ways I
think I can improve on the pattern." Tapi's image burst into an enthusiasm
of colors and then reshaped itself, dressed in defense force black. "I
will try to aim for higher office toward the latter stages of my career.
Within one or two centuries of active duty, normal time. I wonder why
you never made the move toward leadership roles."
"If you've studied your father closely enough, you'll know."
"The old ways. Old disciplines. Once a soldier, always a soldier. The
best and highest expression."
Olmy nodded; those were honest sentiments.
"But your abilities . . . you've tended in recent years to feel less regard
for your superiors. You say to yourself this is because their abilities
have declined . . But I think it may be suppressed and diverted expression
of your own desires to shape history."
That's my son, Olmy thought. Quick and to the point..4nd doubtless
right on the mark. "Leaving partials with you is like leaving lambs to
guard the lion."
"Thank you, Ser."
"You're probably correct on all counts. But if you enter that hierarchy,
you'll have to suppress and divert your own cocky compulsions, too. The
most difficult road to leadership is through the defense for~s."
"Yes, Father. That would instill discipline and self-control."
Unless it shapes you in a mold you're reluctant to break, Olmy thought.
"Do you approve of re-opening?" No escape, not even in crOche. "I observe and I serve."
Tapi smiled. "I've missed you, Father. Not even correct partials shine
like the original."
"I have . . . apologies to make," Olmy said. "For past and future actions. I'm going to be very involved in work from here on, more so
than in the past."
"You're working for the defense forces again?"
"No. This is personal. But I may not be able to meet with you any
more often than I have in the past few years . . . maybe less often. I
want you to know that I am proud of you, and appreciate your growth
and maturity. Your mother and I are both exceptionally pleased."
"Proud of mirror images," Tapi said with a hint of serf-deprecation.

33
	·GREG BEAR

"Not at all," Olmy said. "You're more complex and organized than
either of us. You're the best of both of us. My absence is not disapproval,
and it is not . . what I would choose."
Tapi listened, smiling.
"My consent for incarnation is on record," Olmy said, "I've assumed
responsibility in the Hexamon for your actions. Your mother has done
the same."
Tapi was suddenly solemn. "Thank you. For your confidence."
"You are no longer our creation," Olmy said, following the long-established
ritual. "Now you make yourself. I'll recommend a commission in
the defense forces. And I'll try to visit you . . ." Honesty, he thought,
would be the best policy. "But that's probably not going to be often."
"I will do you honor," Tapi said.
"I have no doubt." Olmy glanced around the decor. "Now, I'm interested
in these Mersauvin structures. Let's quiet this place down a bit and
I'd like you to show me how you reached your conclusions."
Tapi set about eagerly to do just that.
Olmy departed from Axis Euclid within six hours, one of three passengers
in a shuttle to Thistledown.
He didn't feel like conversing. T~e other passengers were too self-absorbed
to pay him much attention.

FIVE

Earth

Lanier sat on the edge of the bed to put on his hiking boots. He allowed
himself a small grimace as he bent over to tie the laces. It was nine
o'clock in the morning and a brief squall had passed over the mountains,
dropping a freshet of rain and casting a sweet draft of wind from the sea.
The bedroom was still chill. His breath condensed in front of his face.
Standing, stamping his boots on the worn rug to settle them, testing the
tightness on his ankles, he frowned again at a different kind of ache,
another memory he could not blank.
Donning his jacket by the broad window in the living rooln, he looked

ETERNITY ·


over a few hedges and tall ferns at the green and craggy hills beyond. He
knew his route through those hills; he had not walked there for years, but
today seemed like a good day to reacquaint himself. He sought no panacea,
no rigorous exercise to bring back a youth he had rejected; merely a

diversion from his thoughts, which of late had been particularly bitter.
Three months had passed since Heineman's funeral.

Karen had not said goodbye before leaving on an errand to Christchurch.
She had taken the new Hexamon five-wheel truck; the roads
were still rugged in the wet, and the old truck was not always up to
country barely fit for horses. Someday, he thought, he would become ill
in this house, and it would be a half hour or more until an emergency

vehicle would reach them, and then, like Heineman, he would be dead.
One way to rid himself of the bad memories.

"Toll, toll, pay the toll," he sang softly, his voice husky with the coid.
He coughed; age not disease. He was healthy enough. Years more would
likely pass, too many, before the memory blotter came and sucked his
cares away.

He had done so little in his decades of service, as far as he could tell.
The Earth after forty years was still a gaping wound, despite its ofi~cial
name; on its way to recovery, to be sure, but a place of constant reminders
of death and human stupidity.

Why did the past come back to him so vividly now, of all times? To
distract him from the frustrations of his widening rift with Karen? She
had been positively stony since the funeral.

Twenty-nine years ago. ,4 nameless town deep in the forests of southeastern
Canada, a cold and snowy trap for three hundred men, women, and
children. The men emerged from their solid, low-slung log cabins, emaciated
beyond even Lanier's experience, to confront the sky-travelers. Lanier
and his partners, two Hexamon operatives, a man and woman, were well-fed
and healthy, of course. They walked resolutely across the snowy fieM
between their craft and the nearest hut, addressing the men in French and
English.

"Where are your w~men?" the female operative asked. "Your children?"
The men stared at them, eyes elfin with starvation, ethereally beautiful,
faces white, hair gray and patchy. One man staggered forward, jaw slack,
arms out, and hugged Lanier with all his strength. Like being squeezed by
a sick child. Lanier, close to tears, supported the man, whose yellowed eyes
shone with something like adoration, or perhaps just relief and joy.

,4 rifle shot rang out and the female operative spun back across the snow,
her chest a well of gore.

"NoI NM" cried another of the men, but more shots clipped bark from

34
	· GREG BEAR

trees, splashed snow, sang off the hull of the craft. ,4 single middle-aged
man with a thick black beard, less emaciated than the others, carrying a
rifle that seemed even more nourished and fleshy than he, stood in the
town's lone road, cursing loudly, "Eleven yearsl Eleven! Where have you
gods been these eleven awful years?"

The male operative, whose name he could no longer recall, knocked the

man over with a hot flash of ball lightning spun from their only weapon.
Lanier stood over the wounded operative, quickly assessing her condition.
She would not survive unless they retrieved the marble of downloaded
personality from the back of her neck; Lanier bent down and felt her pulse,
letting her eyes flutter shut, allowing her to enter the first stage of death.
Ignoring everything around him, he took out a folding scalpel and sliced
open the woman's neck just below the skull, feeling with his fingers for the
black marble, pulling it from its socket, slipping it into a small plastic bag;
as he had been trained.

While he did this, the town's men slowly and methodically stomped the
rifleman to death. The male operative tried to pull them away, but however
weak they were, he was one and they were dozens The man who had
hugged Lanier kept his silence during the operation, frightened out of his
wits at this outrage, and then got down on his ragged knees and pleaded
with Lanier not to destroy their town.

The women and children emerged from the log huts, more dead than

alive.

The people of this makeshift town had survived eleven winters, even the

hard first two winters, but they would not have survived this one.

"For whom the bridge tolls," he muttered. My wife is vital andyoung. I

am old. We make our decisions and we pay the tolls;

He stood still in the hallway for a moment, eyes tight shut, trying to

force the fog out of his head. Woolgathering, his grandfather had called
it. Appropriate in New Zealand. This wool was thick with brambles,
however.

We did not save everybody. Not even all the strong and capable. The

Death was too universal even for angels from heaven to spread succor to

all.

He had not worried about such things for decades, and it irritated him

that these thoughts came to him now like pale substitutes for guilt, a guilt
he did not believe he should feel. I did my job. God knows I devoted thirty
years to the Recovery.

And so had Karen, but she did not look like a worn-out rag.

Picking up his stick, he opened the door. Gray clouds still skated
overhead. If he could catch pneumonia the old man's friend he might

ETERNITY

deliberately try to do so. But among the benefits conferred upon all Old
Natives by the Terrestrial Hexamon was freedom from most disease.
Their resources in that regard had been ample; every man, woman and
child on Earth carried organisms that policed their bodies against any
possible outside invaders.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the front porch door's storm-glass
pane, face strong but deeply lined, the lines around his mouth curved
down, clefts on each side of his nose, eyes sad, upper eyelids drooping,
making him appear worldly-wise. It was with a mix of satisfaction and
perverse disgust that he realized he felt older than he looked.


Lanier regretted his vow to scale the first leg of the high switchback
before resting. At the second bend of the mountain trail, doubled over,
hands gripping his trembling knees, he sucked in jaggged volumes of air
and puffed them out, sweat dripping from his brow. He hadn't done
much hiking or even exercise for years, and unless he truly wanted to end
this life, to overexert on his first long hike was a foolish luxury. The
miracles of Hexamon medicine could only do what he had allowed them
to do; that is, keep him reasonably vigorous for his age and disease-free
and unaffected by excess radiation, of which he had an abiding horror.

His breath coming back to him, the pain in control now, he looked
down from the precipice trail at the valley floor three hundred meters
below. Flocks of sheep--maybe they belonged to Fremont, the young
owner of Irishman Creek Station flowed across the mottled green and
sun-yellow grasslands, echoed by great rain-heavy gray and white clouds
crossing their own intense, dust-blue pastures. Overhead, an eagle soared,
the first he had seen this season. The wind this high was cold and bracing
even in the November springtime; a thousand and more meters up the
mountain there were still patches of snow, dotted with the inevitable
filamentary scarlet fungi the shepherds and farmers called Christsblood.

He finally allowed himself to sit on a rock. His shins ached. His calf
muscles threatened to .knot. For the first time in months, maybe years, he
actually felt pretty good, justified somehow for existing.

The wind called his name. Startled, he turned around, looking for a
hiker or shepherd on the trail below or above, but saw no one. Satisfied
the sound had been an illusion, he pulled a goat-cheese sandwich from
his backpack, unwrapped it and began to eat.

The wind called him again, this time more clearly, closer. He stood
and glanced up the trail, frowning. The call had come from that direction,
he was sure of it. Stuffing the sandwich back in its wrapper, he
marched around the second bend and a hundred yards up the trail, boots

SS · GREG BEAR

grinding into the pebbly surface and sliding on succulent grass still damp
with dew. He was alone on the trail.
Singing to keep his rhythm, he paused to catch his breath and let the
clean air pass into his blood, clear his mind of cobwebs gathered from
months of sitting indoors.
He needed to riddle his situation.
While pitying his fellow humans, he had also come to hate them. It
seemed that in their agony, more often than not they flailed about in a
way that made things worse. Sometimes, those who had been treated
cruelly--losing homes, family, cities, nations--had reacted by treating
other survivors even more cruelly.
Lanier's favorite reading of late had been the twentieth-century philosopher
and novelist Arthur Koestler, who had thought humankind fatally
flawed in design. Lanier had few doubts.
He had seen men, women, and even children subjected to deep psychological
probing and treatment, plucking out their demons, leaving them better adjusted and better able to effectively confront the reality around
them. Lanier had simply stayed quiet in the dispute over such "healing."
The treatments had cut decades off the Recovery, yet he still could not
decide whether he approved. Were human beings such weak, ill-designed
machines that so few could heal themselves, self-diagnose, self-critique?
Obviously. He had become a pessimist, perhaps even a cynic, but there
was a part of himself that hated cynics; therefore, Q.E.D., he was not
fond of himself.
A wide mantle of cloud drifted over the land, a circular hole precisely
in its middle. He resumed his seat on the boulder by the trail and
squinted at the brilliance of the broad beacon of sunlight crossing the
valley. So full of warmth, so hypnotic, that kilometer-wide patch; if he
simply let his mind rest, sunlight on grass might answer all his questions.
He felt vague, sleepy, ready to set all his burdens down, lie back, let the
sun dissolve him like warm butter.
A few hundred meters up the trail, a man dressed in black and gray
and carrying a hiking stick descended toward him. Lanier wondered if
this was the voice in the wind; he wasn't sure whether he appreciated
company or not. If the man was a shepherd, fine, he could get along with
rustics; but if he was a daytripper from Christchurch . .
Perhaps the other hiker would ignore him.
"Hello," the man greeted him, boots crunching in the gravel behind
Lanier. Lanier turned. The hiker stood before the brilliant leading edge of
the cloud bank. His hair was dark, cut short; he was just under six feet

ETERNITY · S7
tall, young-looking, broad-shouldered, upper arms heavy with muscle.
He reminded Lanier of a young bull.
"Hi," Lanier said.
"I've been waiting for you to come up here and lead me down," the
man said, as if they were friends of long standing. Lanier identified his
mild accent: Russian.
Lanier frowned at him. "Do I know you?" he asked.
"Perhaps." The man smiled. "Our acquaintance was brief, many years
ago." Lanier's mind refused to dredge up where he had seen the man
before. Puzzles irritated him.
"Memory fails me, I'm afraid." He turned away.
"We were enemies once," the man said, seeming to enjoy the exchange.
He did not come any closer, however, holding his stick in front of him.
Lanier glanced back at him again. He wasn't warmly dressed and carried
no backpack. He couldn't have been on the mountain for long.
"You're one of the Russians that invaded Thisfiedown?" Lanier asked.
His question, asked of a man so obviously young, was not stupid, though
it might have been once. The hiker didn't appear to be over forty; still, he
might have undergone youth therapy on one of the orbiting bodies or in
the Hexamon Earth stations.
"Yes."
"What brings you all the way out here?"
"There's some work to do, important work. I need your help."
Lanier held out his hand. "I'm retired." The stranger helped him to his
feet. "Those days were very long ago. What's your name?"
"I'm disappointed you don't remember me," the man said petulantly.
"Mirsky. Pavel Mirsky."
Lanier laughed. "Good try," he said. "Mirsky's the other side of
heaven by now. He rode the Oeshel precincts and the Way sealed up
behind him. But I appreciate your joke."
"No joke, friend."
Lanier searched the man's features carefully. By God, he did resemble
Mirsky.
"Did Patricia Vasquez ever find her way home?' the man asked.
"Who knows? I'm not in the mood for guessing games. And what the
hell do you care?" Lanier surprised himself with his vehemence.
"I would like to find her again."
"Fat bloody chance."
"With your help."
"Your joke is in lousy taste."
"Garry, it is no joke. I am back." He stepped closer. The resemblance

38 · GREG BEAR

to Mirsky was uncanny. "I've been waiting up here for you to come,
someone who recognizes me, and can take me to the right people. You
have been important in the Recovery, no?"
"I was," Lanier said. "You could be his brother." His exact twin,
actually.
"You should take me up to Thistledown. I must speak with Korzenow-
ski and Olmy. They are still alive, are they not?"
Konrad Korzenowski had designed the Way, once attached to the seventh
internal chamber of the asteroid starship Thistledown. Thistledown
and two sections of the Axis City were still in a ten-thousand-kilometer
orbit around the Earth, one polar "cap" removed, exposing the seventh
chamber. The Thistledown had been blown from the end of the Way to
allow the escape of the Naderite portions of the Axis City, forty years
ago. The Way had briefly opened into empty space: it had almost immediately
sealed itself, closing its infinity off from this universe forever. Those
who had elected to stay within the Way--Pavel Mirsky among themm
were more distant than the souls of the dead, if the dead had souls.
Lanier stammered something unintelligible, then coughed at a catch in
his throat. His neck hair bristled. "Jesus," he said into his hand. "What's
going on here?"
"I've traveled a good distance in space and time," the man said. "I
have a very strange story to tell."
"Are you a ghost?" That was an old, useless thing to ask; he did not
mean "ghost" in the Hexamon sense. His face flushed.
"No. You shook my hand. I'm solid flesh, mortal . . . in a fashion."
"How did you come back?"
"Not by the shortest route." He grinned hesitantly and set his stick
down in the grass beside Lanier's boulder, then sat. Mirsky if indeed it
was Mirsky, something Lanier was not willing to concede---looked across
the valley with its movements of sheep and cloud shadows, and said
again,
"I must speak to Korzenowski and Olmy. Can you take me to them?"
"Why not just go directly?" Lanier asked. "You've made it this far.
Why come back here?"
"Because I think in some respects, you are even more important to me
than they are. We must all meet and talk. How long since you last spoke
with them?"
"Years," Lanier admitted.
"There is a crisis coming in the government." Mirsky glanced up at
Lanier, face calm, serious. "The Way is going to be opened again."

ETERNITY · ~19

Lanier didn't react. He had heard rumors, but nothing more. Still, he
had isolated himself from Hexamon politics.
"That's ridiculous," he said.
"No, it is not, actually," Mirsky replied matter-of-factly. "Either physically
or politically. It is like a drug, that kind of technology, that kind of
power. Even the pure of heart cannot hold their convictions forever. Will
you arrange a meeting?"
Lanier's shoulders slumped. He felt defeated, too weak to muster up
the proper words and defend his sanity. "I have a radio, a communicator,
in my house," he said, "down in the valley." He straightened his back.
"You'll have to prove you are who you say you are."
"I understand," Mirsky said.

SIX

Thistledown

Olmy sat before a personal quarters library terminal in Alexandria, the
second chamber city, in a district not yet repopulated. He had installed
the terminal just a few days before, in the apartment where he had spent
his later childhood and where Korzenowski's tmassembled partials had
been hidden, all that had been left of the Engineer after his assassination
centuries before. Olmy had located those partials as a boy, and had later
been responsible for reassembling and reincarnating Korzenowski, with
the help of Patricia Vasquez..
In this obscure location, on a supposedly untraceable private terminal,
Olmy received a message from an old acquaintance. The picts, loosely
translated, read:

"Have something for you. Crucial to your work."

The message was completed by .coordinates for an abandoned station
in the fifth chamber and a time for meeting--"Alone," the picts strongly
implied. It was signed with the chop of Feor Mar Kellen.
Mar Kellen was an old soldier and gate police comrade, about Olmy's

40 · GREG BEAR


age. He had been born during the later Jart Wars, the biggest push
against the Way's invaders before the Sundering, when the Jarts had been
repelled beyond two ex nine---two billion kilometers down the Way.
Those wars had lasted forty years and had scoured hundreds of thousands
of kilometers of the Way. The territory gained had been fortified
and gates had been opened to uninhabited worlds ripe for mining. These
worlds had supplied the raw materials for the early Axis City, and then
had supplied the atmosphere and soil which covered much of the Way's
surface.

Those years had been horrible and glorious, years of death and annealing;
the Hexamon had emerged from them stronger, ready to command
the paths between gates, attracting patrons and partners from inhabited
worlds accessed through those same gates. In some instances, the
Hexamon had assumed trade abandoned by the Jarts; in this way it had
established strong mercantile bonds with the enigmatic Talsit. It was the
Talsit who had told them the name of theft enemies, as closely as it could
be translated into human speech.

The Jarts had not been defeated, of course; merely pushed far down
the Way, and kept there by a series of powerful fortresses.

Mar Kellen had survived the last twenty years of the wars, and had
then served in the fortresses beyond 1.9 ex nine. Even those frontier
outposts had not challenged him enough. He had joined the gate police,
and there had met Olmy.

They hadn't seen each other for centuries. Olmy was surprised to learn
Mar Kellen was on Thistledown; he would have thought him the type to
join the Geshels in theft push down the Way.

Clandestine arrangements irritated him; he had long since ceased to
enjoy intrigue, especially when it was unavoidable .... But Mar Kellen
had suggested he had something Olmy could not ignore; and whatever
his old friend's peculiarities, he had never been deceitful.


The fifth was Thistledown's gloomiest chamber, a kind of vast cellar.
Many train lines passed through on their way to the sixth and (at one
time) seventh chambers, but only one still stopped there, and that infrequently,
by special request. There were few restrictions on travel to the
only unoccupied chamber in the Thistledown, and each month a few
hardy mountain climbers and river rafters visited the grim, cloud-shrouded
landscape of raw asteroid mineral, sculpted by centuries of
mining into fantastic gray and black and orange peaks and abysses. The
excess waters of Thistledown ran red there, thick with rust and other

ET E R N ITY · 41


dissolved minerals, not recommended for drinking without having chelation
implants to handle the metal content.

The fifth chamber on average was only forty kilometers wide. At the
beginning of Thistledown's journey, it had been thirty-eight kilometers
wide; the removed material had been used for construction and to replenish
volatiles lost through the inevitable leaks in the asteroid's recycling
systems. Nobody lived there on a permanent basis; it was patrolled only
by remotes.

Olmy took the empty train from the fourth chamber, sitting with arms
folded as the black kilometers of asteroid wall between the chambers
flowed smoothly by.

Mar Kellen's message had been so unexpected that he did not even try
to guess where this would all lead.

Assuming nothing, Olmy wasted little thought on what lay ahead and
instead re-explored what little Talsit cultural information had been acquired
and stored in the libraries of the Axis City and Thistledown. He
had been over this material frequently, and was now methodically churning
it over again, hoping to answer a few intractable questions.

The short journey gave him little time, however, and he watched the
tunnel walls give way to a wild, improbable relief of thick black clouds
broken by shafts of silver tubelight, racing between sawteeth of somber
red and green and gray-blue. The train had emerged from the exit of the
curved tunnel at a cant, with windows on the right side pointing up at
almost thirty degrees.

He had always found a grim emotional solace in these barren regions.
The train slowed and moved along its three cradling rails to a small
cupola-covered station nestled between two rugged walls of dull, oily-looking
nickel and red iron. Rain splattered the stone platform beyond
the cupola. Not far away came the roar of a tumult of water seeking one
of the broad brown lakes that dotted the chamber.

Mar Kellen waited for him inside the small deserted terminal, sitting
on a stone bench that seemed more suited to resting machinery than
humans. Thunder growled outside, a sound Olmy had seldom heard in
Thistledown; but then, he had seldom had time to visit the fifth chamber,
where thunder was common. Mar Kellen lifted two antiquated umbrellas
in greeting. He projected a series of biographical picts at Olmy, with sub-signs
to indicate degrees of truthfulness and where it might, and might
not, be polite to inquire more. Inquiries seemed to be generally discouraged.
Olmy did likewise, though with even more equivocation and brevity.
The rest of the conversation used both speech and picting.

42
	· GREG BEAR


"I've followed your career, Ser Olmy, as much as was made public.

You're an illustrious fellow and a credit to the Naderites."

"Thank you. I'm sorry to say I've lost track of you, Ser Mar Kellen."
"Glad to hear it, myself. I made it my duty to be as obscure as possible
without downloading into city memory and going rogue." He pitted an
image of himself as a free-spirited rogue, crudely sketched, suggesting he
might not be terribly successful. They both laughed, although Olmy's
humor was more forced.

"I hoped you didn't learn too much about me," Olmy countered.

"No. Your career was obscure, as well. But parts have become history.

And I've learned, perhaps impolitely, of your current interest."

"Oh?"

"You seem to believe we'll be confronting non-humans again soon.
Perhaps even Jarts."

Olmy said nothing, his lips pressed into a wry smile. His private researches
had been surprisingly public, it seemed; at least for those who
thought it worthwhile to know. Mar Kellen's obscurity became more
understandable; this man had not downloaded, but he was a rare phenomenon
a corporeal rogue. Olmy picted a yellow half-circle indicating
interest and full attention.

"I've come across something you might find useful. A holdover from

centuries past. Rather like the Engineer's record."

"Here?" Olmy asked.

The old soldier nodded solemnly. "Do we have an arrangement,

should you be interested? I assure you, you will be."

"I'm not a wealthy man. Not even a particularly powerful man."

"I understand, Ser Olmy, but you still have the support of the Hex-

amon. You could provide me with all I require in the way of access and
privileges, since I'm hardly a fool for Earth's gold."

Olmy examined the man and closely analyzed his picting style. Mar

Kellen was sincere, not bluffing, as far as Olmy could tell.

"I'm retired," Olmy said. "My influence isn't nearly as great as it used

to be. Within the limits of my present status . "

"Sufficient status to procure my needs."

"If you truly have something I can use, agreed."

Mar Kellen's abrupt broad smile was wicked. "Agreed. Come with

me." He handed Olmy an umbrella and showed him how to spread it
wide. "This belonged to my Beni. You'll need it. Shields our tired old
bones."

Olmy held the umbrella over his head and followed Mar Kellen on a
narrow trail away from the station. The trail had been cut into a slope of

ETERNITY · 43

rock and wound through a gorge above a steady red rush of water. Here,
tubelight barely filtered through clouds and rain. The landscape was lost
in a shadow almost as deep as Earth night. Mar Kellen brought out a
light and showed Olmy the way up an incline. The beam caught a hole in
the rock. "It's warm and bright beyond that doorway. Come. Just a few
more minutes." They had been hiking for half an hour.
"I found this while investigating resources for the Thistledown repopulation
project," Mar Kellen said. "Routine work for a gentleman of leisure.
It had been erased from all resource maps but one, and that one
must have been an oversight .... It didn't seem important to the project,
so I didn't tell anybody. But I mentioned it to my Beni, and she she
was my mate," he confided suddenly, pausing on the incline to look over
his shoulder at Olmy. "Only thirty. Born since the Sundering. Imagine,
an old war horse finding a young lady . . . truly a lady. Old Naderite
family. But she had adventure in her blood. She far outstripped me for
enthusiasm. She wanted to explore. So we explored. We came here, and
foundm''
He took a spry leap up into the cavity. Olmy followed, more gracefully
but with less drama. A smooth black wall at the rear of the cavity reflected
a meager dot from the light. Mar Kellen slammed his hand
against a smooth black wall with painful force, face locked in a momentary
grimace. "When we found it, it looked just like this. I knew the look.
A security wall. Then I became enthusiastic. Nothing like a code to
crack! Not easy, though. I had to crack thirty different coded blocks,
using analysis invented only in the last century. Math has become my
hag, Olmy." He stroked the blackness, looking between it and OImy.
"But it's a hag I've mastered. Once upon a time, this place was very secure .. ."
He pitted a quick flash of symbols and the black wall brightened to
gray then simply vanished. Beyond was a well-lit tunnel.
"Once inside, I suspected there were many lethal security measures.
We looked for them, and found them--more than I would have thought
necessary to guard anything. Most had reached their mandated limits of five centuries and had automatically deactivated. Obviously, nobody
knew about it . not even presidents. Or so I assume. I may be wrong
there." Again, the wicked smile.
They approached the wide, half-circle archway entrance. A mechanical
voice of ancient style--at least ~ old as similar voices in Alexandria
mrequested their identity.
Mar Kellen announced a series of numbers and displayed his palm to
an ancient ID panel near the opaqued doors. "I've recoded with my own

44 · GREG BEAR


patterns," he told Olmy. The doors cleared and opened slowly. Within, a
bare, stripped-down reception area waited in semi-darkness. Mar Kellen
beckoned Olmy through, and took him down a hallway to a small room,
also lacking furniture or decor pictors.

Mar Kellen stood in the middle of the room's blank white walls, shadowless,
hands folded in front of him. Olmy stayed in the doorway. "This
room is the gateway to a very great secret," Mar Kellen said. "Of no
practical use to anybody . not now. But once, it must have been very
useful indeed. Maybe it was used, and none of us heard about it. Maybe it
was considered too dangerous. Come in, come in."

With Olmy standing beside him, Mar Kellen lifted one hand, extended
one finger, and pointed it at the floor. "Down, please." The floor vanished.
The room was a lift shaft. They dropped quickly, without sensation,
into darkness. Every few seconds, a thin illuminated red line marking
some unknown depth passed. This went on for several minutes.

Olmy had never heard of inhabited tunnels extending more than two
kilometers into the asteroid. They must have descended at least twice
that far.

"More and more interesting, hm?" Mar Kellen said. "Buried very

deeply, very securely. What could it be?"

"How far down?" Olmy asked.

"Six kilometers into the asteroid wall," Mar Kellen answered. "The
lower levels have their own power grid. It doesn't show up on any chamber
accounts."

"It's an illegal data dump," Olmy guessed. He had heard of such
things, super-secure dumps used by police and politicians who in centuries
past had feared falling out of favor with the Hexamon. But he had
never actually seen one.

"Almost correct, Ser Olmy, but not illegal--extra-legal. The
lawmakers had this built. Can the lawmakers do anything illegal, strictly
speaking?"

Olmy didn't answer. It was a truism, even in the highly ethical world
of Hexamon politics, that no governing system could survive a totally
rigorous enforcement of its own laws.

A white square rose beneath them to become the floor again. A door
opened, and Mar Kellen led him down a short hall into a dim cubical
cell, barely three meters on a side.

"This is the memory access terminal," Mar Kellen said, sitting on a
curved metal stool before a broad featureless steel panel mounted at
stomach level in one wall. "I played with it . . and I found something
horrible."

ETERNITY · 45

He touched the panel and faint round lights appeared in two places.
"Access, general key-code. I am Davina Taur Ingel."
That name would have belonged to an ancestor, probably female, of
the former Infinite Hexamon presiding minister, Ilyin Taur Ingel. Mar
Kellen handled the board as if he had had some practice.
"This was the tough part. The security systems have deactivated, but
there were access mazes in place beyond them, built into the memory
structure. They were very careful, our mysterious extra-legal people. If
there had been no mazes, I might have given this to you, for free, just one
old friend passing something useful to another. But I wasn't alone when I
made this discovery. I had Beni with me . ."
Olmy detected a sharp rise in Mar Kellen's emotions. The old soldier
was experiencing grief, anger, and finally a grim kind of triumph. Mar
Kellen was sincere, but was he sane?
He motioned for Olmy to step forward and place his hand on the
panel, below a green light.
"Don't worry, just keep your personal barriers ready. You can handle
it. I barely managed, but it caught us by surprise."
Mar Kellen said, "Access occupant, guest of Ingel."
Olmy's head jerked back and all his muscles locked. He was getting
impulses from something within the panel, something not used to a human
body. He saw snatches of visuals, more than just distorted; almost
incomprehensible. And he heard a voice far more alien than that of a
Frant . . or even a Talsit messenger.

Time concern. Duty concern. Inactive unknown time. < <

Olmy jerked back his hand with considerable effort.
Mar Kellen's features had contorted into a rictus of enthusiasm. The
old soldier was sincere, but he was also irresponsible. He had been
shocked by his experience here, perhaps even emotionally damaged, and
yet had managed to almost completely conceal his condition from Olmy
until now. Mar Kellen laughed and sucked in his breath to regain composure.
"It killed Beni. After we riddled the maze. It distorted all her
neural paths, even reached into her implant memories and scrambled
them. There wasn't anything left to download into city memory, but her
body was perfectly intact, alive. I killed what was left of her and disposed
of it myself. That's why I have to charge you." His face was blank and
pale. "For her loss. For her pain. What do you think they stored in
here?"
"I don't know," Olmy confessed.

45 · GREG BEAR

"I have a good theory. If I'm right "He stuck his chin out and
grinned his wicked grin. "JThey must have captured it a long time ago.
They must have downloaded its personality or whatever the equivalent is,
in secret, in this clandestine memory store . And then they abandoned
it. It waited all these centuries, dormant, for Beni and me to
stumble across it. You believe we'll face Jarts again, am I right? What
would the mentality of a captured Jart be worth to the Hexamon if that
happens, hell?"
Olmy shook his head, too stunned to answer.
"Come look at this. I didn't find it until after she was gone, after we'd
· . . Yes. Come." He stepped toward the wall opposite the doorway. The
wall separated in five L-shaped segments and withdrew silently,
smoothly. They entered a large dark chamber, cool air eddying around
them.
"Show yourself, you bastard." Lights came on in a circle high overhead.
A block of transparent crystal lay in the center of the octagonal
chamber, occupied by a creature unlike anything Olmy had ever seen. It
had a large, blue-gray vertical hammerlike head cut through with three
horizontal clefts. Out of the uppermost cleft protruded shimmering white
tubes tipped with black eyes, perhaps--and out of the two lower, long
black tufts of hair. Behind the oversized headMroughly the size and
shape of a man's trunkJstretched a long, smooth green horizontal thorax.
Bifurcated pale pink tentacles each as thick as Olmy's wrist and as
long as his arm rose in a crest along the back. To the rear, behind the
tentacles, was a bristle of short red barbs or feelers. A thick uplifted tail
ended with a purple bugle flare. Perhaps strangest of all, seven pairs of
lower "legs" or supports lined both sides of the body, not legs or limbs in
the traditional sense but poles or long sharp-tipped spikes, each the color
of obsidian, and just as shiny. Below the head, or perhaps emerging from
the lower head itself, were two sets of many-jointed arms, one set tipped
with appendages remarkably like hands, another with pink translucent
palps.
Despite his years of experience dealing with non-humans, Olmy shuddered.
As he stepped closer, against his strongest instincts, he frowned,
appreciating a deeper truth about the creature; that this body was not
alive, merely preserved so that it would not decay. There was something
undignified, disordered about its awkwardness that told him it must be
dead.
"Beautiful, no?" Mar Kellen circled the transparent block. The creature,
fully extended, would have been about four meters long from vertical
head to uplifted tail. "Our ancestral defenders, perhaps people we

ET E R N ITY · 47


knew . people who trained us . . they caught a Jart, and he or she
or it is stored right here. But why not spread the news? This sort of thing
would have been sensational, invaluable . . ."

Olmy knew what he meant. With the weapons possessed by both sides,
battles were infrequent and cataclysmic. The Jarts had never responded
to diplomatic overtures; in truth, after a few decades of the war, humans
had stopped making them. Neither side could ever be certain what its
enemies looked like. Decoys and deceptions had been used by both sides;
information of any sort was suspect. To capture a Jart even a dying or
dead Jart and understand something of its thinking . . .

That would have been special, indeed. Why keep it so secret, even
down the ages? What had they discovered about their prize that required
such caution?

Mar Kellen shrugged, his pictor casting a stray, context-free blue symbol
on the ceiling. "Unless it's not real. Maybe it's a failed simulation.
· . ." He tapped the console. "But I suspect it's real. Our simulations
weren't worth much. Though we never encountered Jarts face to face.
Nobody ever has, we were told, and returned to tell the tale. But this

· . was kept secret from us all. Whatever, it must be worth something;
Ser Olmy."

The old soldier pointed out a white plate to one side of the block.
"There are other ways of examining it. I tried them after Beni--my mate
--after she died. I wouldn't touch the direct feed for months. But this is
less dangerous. Puts the damned thing on display, an analog of its mental
activity. I suppose experts could read the signs back then. I can't."

O!my watched the plate. A luminous cylinder formed above the plate.
Like a geometric flower, it blossomed and extruded a haze of spinning
lines. The lines danced hypnotically. The lower portion of the cylinder
splayed out and assumed a tessellated variety of colors; black against
gray, blood red against green, white against green, red against black, and
so on, fixed and unmoving.

"Tame so far, bm?" the old soldier asked.

Olmy glanced at him, then back at the display. He could not begin to
riddle what was being shown. "This is a diagram of the being's mind?"

"It's a Jart," Mar Kellen said, agitated. "It must be. This shows the
Jart's mind and its memories. I've spent hours here, watching it. Sometimes,
I've said to myself, 'This is what killed Beni . . .' Then I've had to
leave or risk going mad."

Olmy contemplated the pattern, fascinated. He had touched the very
edge of the being's personality; not enough to determine whether it was
whole or a partial, damaged or intact, or even to guess whether it had

48
	· GREG BEAR

been in active memory of inactive. But here was an unparalleled opportunity-and
an impenetrable mystery.
Olmy felt his body stabilize a hormonal surge.
"Gives one a chill, doesn't it?" Mar Kellen asked. "Too many mysteries.''
"Indeed." He approached the preserved body, letting his own mind
and implant processors mull over the problem. "You've shown this to
nobody else?"
Mar Kellen shook his head. "I've been out of touch. Beni was . . ."
His eyes met Olmy's, half-lidded, face wrinkling in pain. "Healing me.
Bringing me back."
O!my turned away from the old soldier's anguish.
He had gone in harm's way more often than he could remember. He
had tried his courage with perverse regularity. Not even pure Talsit--something
he hadn't enjoyed in four years could relax the hard little
knot of desire for challenges. Yet he did not so much relish danger as
experience. There had been very little extraordinary experience in the last
few decades. He, too, had finally wearied of Earth, with its quagmire of
needs and excess of misery.
But never in all of his lives had he felt the kind of fear he did now.
Whatever lay within the memory storage--almost certainly a Jact personality,
if Mar Kellen's suppositions were correct had been strong
enough to kill Mar Kellen's mate and damage Mar Kellen.
"Don't thank me," Mar Kellen said, smile gone. "Now that I've
brought you here, I'm . . ." He picted a fury of red and yellow symbols,
personal symbols, meaningless to Olmy but structured in an old Naderite
prayer-form. "I don't want anything, really. I don't even care about
advantages. There isn't much I do care about, now. I killed her, bringing
her down here .... "
Olmy broke from his reverie. "You've found something very important,''
he said. "I'm not quite sure what it is, yet. . ."
"I'm not curious any more. If it's important, I leave it to you. I've
really lived too long," Mar Kellen said softly, his face glowing by the
light of the Jart patterns. He blinked slowly, then licked his lips and
glanced at Olmy. "Haven't you?"

ET E R N ITY · 49

SEVEN

Gaia, Near Alexandreia
Year of Alexandros 234 5

Rhita stood on the aft deck of the steam ferry Ioannes, plying the waters
between Rhodos and Alexandreia. To keep away the winter sea chill, she
wore an Akademeia brown cape and a butter-colored Rhodian wool
gown. Her eyes soft-focused on the ocean and the ferry's broad, churning
wake. She was accompanied by a lone gull perched a few arms away on
the dark oak railing, beak open, curiously turning its head back and
forth. The somber gray sky brooded over a calm ocean the sullen color of
iron. Behind her, large motor wagons from Rhodos, KOs and Knidos
hunkered in the shadow of the covered main deck.
At twenty-one years, she felt even more mature than she had at eighteen,
and that made her very mature indeed. At least her keen sense of
fun had not yet deserted her; she had a healthy awareness of her own
capacity for foolishness, and regretted finding little time to indulge it
nOW.
Her hair had kept its luminous reddish-brown shade of childhood, but
now she cut it shorter. Little changed were her large, quizzical green
eyes, pale skin, and her stature. She had not grown beyond middle
height, though her shoulders had broadened somewhat. She had inherited
her father's quiet physical strength, as well as long-fingered hands
and long legs.
Rhita had visited Alexandreia only twice, both times before she was
ten years old. Her mother, Berenik~, had thought it best to keep her only
child close to the Hypateion and away from the cosmopolitan seductions
of the Oikoumen~'s central city.
Berenik~ had been an avid disciple of Patrikia, and had married
Rham6n, the Soph's youngest son, more out of duty than love. She had
loved her daughter fiercely, seeing in her a young image of Patrikia her
50 · GREG BEAR

self. In looks, however, Rhita resembled her mother more than her
grandmother.
Now, with her mother dead a year, and Patrikia dead almost nine
years, and her father still locked in a struggle for control of the
Akademeia--in competition with theocratic elements her grandmother
had openly despised--it had seemed best for her to take her talents and
learning to the place where they might do the most good. If the
Akademeia declined, at least she would be elsewhere, perhaps to establish
a new Hypateion.
These worries were not foremost in her mind, however. They made her
feel almost comfortable and secure when compared with her major cone.
grn.
For sixty years, Patrikia had searched for an elusive opening into a
place she had called the Way. This gate had proven elusive, appearing at
various times in various parts of the world only long enough to entice,
never to be precisely located. Patrikia had died without finding it.
Rhita now knew precisely where the gateway was. It had stayed in one
fixed position for at least three years. Such knowledge did not comfort
her. She had become accustomed to her role, though hardly less resentful.
Knowing about the gateway had robbed her of her own life. Her
grandmother, she thought, had imposed an almost impossible burden on
a young girl by setting the instrument to recognize her touch, and hers
alone.
Perhaps Patrikia had been a little crazy that year before she died.
Crazy or not, she had given her granddaughter a terrible responsibility.
Everything else her petition to study at the Mouseion, her personal
life, everything--was subordinate to her knowledge.
She had not even told her father.
Rhita had hoped for a quiet life, but with a sigh, watching the seabird
preen a wing, she knew that was not possible, not in this world. Even
without the Objects, life at the Akademeia was going to be rough. All
that she loved and was familiar with lay over the blue-black sea behind
her.
She carried the clavicle and life-support machine in a large locked
trunk; in a smaller suitcase, she also carried her grandmother's "slate,"
an electronic tablet for reading and writing upon. These were guarded by
Lugotorix, her Keltic bodyguard, in her cabin. Lugotorix was unarmed,
bowing to the Soph's abhorrence of weapons and warfare, but hardly
less lethal for all that. RhamOn, for all the Hypateion's pacifist philosophy,
was a practical man, on occasion surprisingly resourceful and

ETERNITY · 51

worldly. Lugotorix's service was being paid for in goods more valuable
than money; his two brothers now studied at the Akademeia. With such
an education, they might overcome the prejudices that had handicapped
those of Keltic descent since the uprising of century twenty-one.
Rhita felt a steady, unobtrusive connection with the clavicle; if anything
happened to it, she would know, and she would probably be able to
find it, wherever it was taken. With Lugotorix standing guard, few would
try to take it; but not even the Kelt knew what he was protecting.
In good time, Rhita would petition Queen Kleopatra for an audience.
She would present her evidence.
What happened after that, she did not care to dwell upon.
Having had enough sea air for the time--it was thick with cinders as
the smoke shifted on the changing wind--Rhita returned to her small,
stuffy cabin, sending the hulking, quiet black-haired Kelt to his own
cabin for a rest. She removed her clothes and put on a simple Hindi
cotton nightshirt. Crawling between the short hunk's thin blankets, she
switched on a feeble electric lamp and removed from her suitcase the
smaller wooden teukhos, the book-box containing her grandmother's
slate and the cubes of music and literature, including her own diaries.
Nothing like the slate existed on this Earth, though in a few years the Oikoumen mathematicians and mekhanikoi promised to create great
electronic calculating machines. Patrikia had provided some of them
with the theory of such machines, in meetings conducted just before her
death.
Rhita realized her responsibility in caring for these Objects. In a real
sense, she carried the fate of the Rhodian Akademeia with her; the Objects
were proof of Patrikia's truth-telling. Without them--if, for example,
the ferry were to sink in the sea and the Objects were lost--there
would be no proof, and in time Patrikia's story would be considered
myth, or worse, a lie. But whatever the danger, wherever she went,
RhamOn had ordered that Rhita was to have these objects with her always.
Rhita had read her grandmother's notes many times, comparing the
history of her Earth with the history of Gaia. She took comfort in the
notes on the slate, as she might have taken comfort from reading familiar
fairy stories.
The modern Earth her grandmother described was such a fabulous, if
horrifying place a world that had burned itself alive with its own genius
and madness.
One cube held several complete histories of Earth. Rhita had read
these carefully, coming to know the other world's story almost as well as

S0 · GREG BEAR

self. In looks, however, Rhita resembled her mother more than her
grandmother.
Now, with her mother dead a year, and Patrikia dead almost nine
years, and her father still locked in a struggle for control of the Akademeia--in competition with theocratic elements her grandmother
had openly despised--it had seemed best for her to take her talents and
learning to the place where they might do the most good. If the Akademeia declined, at least she would be elsewhere, perhaps to establish
a new Hypateion.
These worries were not foremost in her mind, however. They made her
feel almost comfortable and secure when compared with her major con-
C~11.
For sixty years, Patrikia had searched for an elusive opening into a
place she had called the Way. This gate had proven elusive, appearing at
various times in various parts of the world only long enough to entice,
never to be precisely located. Patrikia had died without finding it.
Rhita now knew precisely where the gateway was. It had stayed in one
fixed position for at least three years. Such knowledge did not comfort
her. She had become accustomed to her role, though hardly less resentful.
Knowing about the gateway had robbed her of her own life. Her
grandmother, she thought, had imposed an almost impossible burden on
a young girl by setting the instrument to recognize her touch, and hers
alone.
Perhaps Patrikia had been a little crazy that year before she died.
Crazy or not, she had given her granddaughter a terrible responsibility.
Everything else--her petition to study at the Mouseion, her personal
life, everything--was subordinate to her knowledge.
She had not even told her father.
Rhita had hoped for a quiet life, but with a sigh, watching the seabird
preen a wing, she knew that was not possible, not in this world. Even
without the Objects, life at the Akademeia was going to be rough. All
that she loved and was familiar with lay over the blue-black sea behind
her.
She carried the clavicle and life-support machine in a large locked
trunk; in a smaller suitcase, she also carried her grandmother's "slate,"
an electronic tablet for reading and writing upon. These were guarded by
Lugotorix, her Keltic bodyguard, in her cabin. Lugotorix was unarmed,
bowing to the Soph's abhorrence of weapons and warfare, but hardly
less lethal for all that. RhamOn, for all the Hypateion's pacifist philosophy,
was a practical man, on occasion surprisingly resourceful and

ETERNITY · 51

worldly. Lugotorix's service was being paid for in goods more valuable
than money; his two brothers now studied at the Akademeia. With such
an education, they might overcome the prejudices that had handicapped
those of Keltic descent since the uprising of century twenty-one.
Rhita felt a steady, unobtrusive connection with the clavicle; if anything
happened to it, she would know, and she would probably be able to
find it, wherever it was taken. With Lugotorix standing guard, few would
try to take it; but not even the Kelt knew what he was protecting.
In good time, Rhita would petition Queen Kleopatra for an audience.
She would present her evidence.
What happened after that, she did not care to dwell upon.
Having had enough sea air for the time--it was thick with cinders as
the smoke shifted on the changing wind Rhita returned to her small,
stuffy cabin, sending the hulking, quiet black-haired Kelt to his own
cabin for a rest. She removed her clothes and put on a simple Hindi
cotton nightshirt. Crawling between the short bunk's thin blankets, she
switched on a feeble electric lamp and removed from her suitcase the
smaller wooden teukhos, the book-box containing her grandmother's
slate and the cubes of music and literature, including her own diaries.
Nothing like the slate existed on this Earth, though in a few years the Oikoumen mathematicians and mekhanikoi promised to create great
electronic calculating machines. Patrikia had provided some of them
with the theory of such machines, in meetings conducted just before her
death.
Rhita realized her responsibility in caring for these Objects. In a real
sense, she carried the fate of the Rhodian Akademeia with her; the Objects
were proof of Patrikia's truth-telling. Without them--if, for example,
the ferry were to sink in the sea and the Objects were lost--there
would be no proof, and in time Patrikia's story would be considered
myth, or worse, a lie. But whatever the danger, wherever she went,
RhamOn had ordered that Rhita was to have these objects with her always.
Rhita had read her grandmother's notes many times, comparing the
history of her Earth with the history of Gaia. She took comfort in the
notes on the slate, as she might have taken comfort from reading familiar
fairy stories.
The modern Earth her grandmother described was such a fabulous, if
horrifying place--a world that had burned itself alive with its own genius
and madness.
One cube held several complete histories of Earth. Rhita had read
these carefully, coming to know the other world's story almost as well as

S:3
	· GREG BEAR

the story of Gaia. She knew that on Earth, Megas Alexandros had tried
to conquer Hindustan and had only partly succeeded, as he had on Gaia.
But on Earth, Alexandros had not fallen from an overturned ferry into
the swollen river Hydasp~s, had not contracted pneumonia and been
forced to lie sick for a month, to fully recover and live to a ripe old age.
On Earth, the Great World-Master had been forced to turn back by his
troops, had fallen sick in another location and died young in BabylOn
· . . And there, Patrikia had told her, was the juncture where their two
worlds had separated.
Rhita often thought of writing fantastic novels of that other Earth,
what her grandmother would have called romances. Perhaps in time she
would; she favored literature when she wasn't deep in her studies of
physics and math.
But who could imagine a world in which the Oikoumen had fragmented
among the loyal Successors? Wars between the Successors, the
transformation of Alexandros's empire into competing kingdoms; Egypt
dominated by Ptolemaios's dynasty, Syria by the Seleukids, and eventually,
with the rise of LatinS, all of the Middle Pontos coming under the
control of Rhoma . . .
Rhoma, in Rhita's world, was a small, troubled city in strife-torn Italia
mhardly the successor of Hellas! Yet on Earth, Rhoma had risen to
destroy Karkh~d0n~arthago in the Latin language~nding that trading
empire's history a century and a half before the birth of the little-known
Ioudaian Messiah Jeshua, or Jesus. Karkh~d0n would never have
gone on to colonize the New World, and Nea Karkh~d0n would never
have rebelled from its mother country and asserted itself on the Atlantian
Ocean, to become, along with the Libyans and Nordic Rhus, one of the
enemies of the Oikoumen . . .
On Gaia, Ptolemaios Six S0t~r the Third had defeated the tribes of
LatinS, including the Rhomans, in Y.A. 84, thereby guaranteeing that
the Ptolemies would be rewarded with perpetual stewardship of Aigyptos
and Asia.
On Gaia, there were nuclear power plants, huge experimental things
built in the Kyr~naik~ west of the Nilos. There were jet gullcraft and
even rockets putting satellites but not men into orbit; but there were no
atomic bombs, no continent-shattering missile barrages, no death-ray
battle-stations in orbit around the world. Many of these wonders were
part of the secret lore of the Akademeia; Patrikia had learned hard lessons
in her encounters with Kleopatra's grandfather·
Gaia, despite its troubles, seemed a more secure and livable place to
Rhita. Why, then, go hunting Earth? Why ask for that kind of trouble?

ETERNITY · S3

She wasn't sure. In time, perhaps, she would understand her own compulsions,
her own loyalties. Until then, she simply did what destiny had
bid her do from childhood; what her grandmother had, without words,
asked of her.
Rhita "scrolled" through the slate texts recorded by her grandmother,
and came to the description of the Way, reading it through for perhaps
the hundredth time. Here was a world even more fabulous and strange
than Earth. Who in the OikoumenC~, or in all this world, could understand
or believe such things? Had Patrikia dreamed at least these wonders,
made them up out of her nightmares? Humans without human
form, a man who had survived death several times, a cosmos shaped like a water-pipe and immensely long . .
In time, she napped. Soon, the dinner bell rang, and she dressed ag.mn,
leaving her cabin once more in Lugotorix's charge. He ate alone from a
pail provided by the ship's galley.
Rhita ate with her fellow passengers, mostly Tyrians and Ioudaians, in
the cramped dining hall above the main deck, ignoring the licentious
stare of a richly-dressed Tyrian trader.
She would miss the Hypateion and its easy equality of the sexes, as
well.

The skies over Alexandreia were clear, as they almost always were.
The ferry smoked past the four-hundred-arm-high Pharos Lighthouse
at dawn the next morning. Rhita stood bundled against the cold at the
stem. This Pharos was the fourth of its kind, the tallest of all, an iron,
stone and concrete monster built a hundred and sixty year before. The
crowded buildings on the low hills of Alexandreia glowed pink in the
morning light, dusky green in the shadows. The marble and granite palace
buildings on the Lokhias promontory were an orange blaze above the
placid gray-blue Royal Harbor. The great caissons, sunk into the harbor
floor northeast of the promontory to hold the harbor water back from
subsided palace buildings, studded the shore like ivory game pieces, linked by lines of piled stone and masonry.
To Rhita, it hardly seemed real, this most famous of the world's cities,
the center of human culture and learning Oikoumen culture, at least.
The ferry docked in the Great Harbor and disgorged its motor wagons
across a broad steel tongue. Greasy smoke and escaping steam wafted
from the wagon deck to the passenger ramp where Rhita and the Kelt
lugged their bags.
Crossing the ramp amid Aithiopian businessmen in their formal skins
and feathers and Aigyptian hawkers, raucous and insistent in their black

,~4
	· GREG BEAR

robes, the pair managed to cross the quay unmolested. Rhita kept her eye
out for somebody to meet them, not knowing quite what to expect if
indeed her grandmother's influence still reached to Kleopatra. Off to one
side of the pier, in a narrow corridor reserved for motor taxis and horse-drawn
cargo trucks, a long, shabby black passenger wagon puffed steam
while its driver smoked a foot-long black cigar redolent of cloves. A slate
chalked with the message "VASKAYZA-MOUSEION" leaned against
one open door.
"That's ours, I think," Rhita said. It wasn't the most elegant of receptions.
There were no security guards present none she could see, anyway.
As they approached the passenger wagon, she felt bucolic in her innocence.
The city, a palpable, odoriferous presence nowmthick acrid fuel
oil, sweet spattering clouds of steam, gassy horse dung, unwashed masses
of travelers and merchants could swallow her whole, chew her up, and
not be held to any kind of account. For the first time, Rhita acutely felt
her lack of power. Her grandmother had always seemed so serf-assured;
how could she possibly be emulated, in the face of such a huge, overpowering
place?
Rhita and Lugotorix presented themselves to the driver, who stubbed
out his smoke against an often-smudged door guard, stuffed the butt into
a grimy pants pocket, and climbed into the elevated front seat. They
boarded the wagon. With a hiss and a jerk, the wagon labored them
down a broad boulevard lined with ancient marble colonnades. Turning
left into a high marble archway, it took them onto the grounds of the
Mouseion, the great Library and University of Alexandreia.

"She's a very handsome young woman," said the bibliophylax of the
Mouseion, adjusting his floor-hugging stool before the queen. "She has
more of her mother's looks than her grandmother's, but her former pedagogue
assures me she is the equal of the Soph Patrikia. She's arrived in
the harbor with some great Northern brute, a servant, my scouts say, and
will be in her temporary quarters within the hour."
Kleopatra the Twenty-first shifted her short, stout body on the informal
throne. The scar that sucked a line across her face from left temple to
right cheek, marring the bridge of her nose and haft-closing one eye, was
a pale shell pink against her fair, otherwise smooth skin. She had little of
the beauty of her youth; the Libyan hasisins had seen to that twenty years
before, during her state visit to Ophiristan. Having no further interest in
lovers---she had lost her three favorite consorts on that one hateful day--

ETERNITY ·

she did not mind her appearance any more. Kleopatra was simply thankful
she still had her health and a sound, agile mind.
The famous dry Alexandreian sunshine crossed the foot-worn white
marble of the royal dwelling's inner porch in a golden stripe and touched
the queen's left slipper, highlighting an unpainted but finely manicured
toe. "You know I indulged that Soph beyond reason," she said. Her
grandfather had decreed that Patrikia Luisa Vaskayza set up an
akademeia on Rhodos. The Rhodian Akademeia, named the Hypateion
after a woman mathematician none in Alexandreia had ever heard of,
had for the last fifty years competed with Kallimakhos's Mouseion for
research funding, more often than not receiving substantial royal awards.
Useful and even startling work had come out of the Rhodian Akademeia,
but everyone in the palace~and in much of the popular press~knew
that the Soph's highest priority had been finding a way to return to her
home. Most had thought her more than a little mad.
"You are stating a royal opinion, my Queen."
"Be straight with me now, Kallimakhos."
The bibliophylax's syrupy expression acidified. "Yes, my Queen. You
overindulged her at the expense of far more worthwhile scholars, with
more formal backgrounds and useful proposals."
She smiled. Hearing this from the bibliophylax made it seem less true.
"No one in the Mouseion has done so much for mathematics and calculation.
For cybernetics," she added, pronouncing the word as the Soph
would have. She dabbled her toe in the sunshine as if it were a stream of
water. For a moment, the simple color of the sunlight warm and full of
God--and the dry, cool breeze from the sea took her away from reality.
She closed her eyes. "Even a queen needs a hobby," she murmured.
Kallimakhos kept a respectful silence, though he had much more to
say. The Oikoumen Mechanikoi League had made its weapons procurement
proposals to the palace two weeks ago. The rebel government of
Nea Karkh~d6n, across the Atlantian sea, had twenty times in the past
year raided the Oikoumen~'s southern hemisphere supply routes. The
rebels had, a decade before, repudiated all contracts made by Karkh~d6n
and were forming an alliance with the island fortresses of HiberneiaPridden
and Angleia. The bibliophylax hoped that all the necessary defense
work could mean fine rich contracts for his Mouseion. Instead, he
sat discussing the Soph Patrikia's.granddaughter. The Soph and her family had dogged his footsteps for all the thirty years he had been in
office, and the footsteps of his predecessor more decades before that.
Kleopatra smiled at Kallimakhos, a sympathetic, motherly smile de
56 · GREG BEAR
spite the scar, and shook her head. "You must take her into the
Mouseion. She must be accorded the rank of her fatherm''
"No match for his mother, that man," Kallimakhos said.
"And she must be allowed to continue her search."
"Pardon my insolence, dear Queen, but why does she not stay at the
Hypateion in Rhodos? Surely she could better carry on her grandmother's
tradition there."
"Her petition states she wishes the assistance of your mekhanikos Zeus
AmmOn Demetrios. Demetrios has agreed, in a private conference with
me. I hope this does not tread on your toes, beloved Kallimakhos."
She knew it did, and she gambled he would ignore the slight. He
benefited too much from his relationship with her highness to let small, if
constant irritations like the Vaskayza family irritate him unduly. "Your
will be done," the bibliophylax said, bowing and touching the collar of
his black scholar's robes to the floor.
Overhead came a shrill hawklike scream, followed by a shudder in the
palace foundations and a distant, innocuous crump. Kallimakhos got to
his feet as the queen rose and followed her deferentially, hands folded,
onto the outer porch. She leaned on the railing and saw a pillar of smoke
in the Brukheion, right in the middle of the Jewish quarter. "Libyans
again," she said. He could see deeper red in her scar, but her voice was
smooth and calm. "Have we any news from Karkh~dOn?"
"I do not know, my Queen. I am not privileged in such communications.''
The Jewish militia would be even more irritated by this, and
already it was common knowledge they did not favor Kleopatra; he wondered
how he could use this new outrage to his benefit.
Kleopatra turned around slowly and returned to the inner porch,
where she picked up the mouthpiece of an ornate golden telephone. With
a nod, she dismissed the bibliophylax.
Within the hour, after a conference with her generals and the head of
the Oikoumen Security Staff, she dispatched a squadron of jet fighter
gullcraft from KanOpos to bomb the Libyan rebel city of Tunis.
She then returned to her simply decorated private quarters and sat
cross-legged on a Berber wool rug. Eyes closed, she tried to still her deep
rage.
She had very little time indeed for her hobbies, but her word was still
law in the Mouseion, if not always in the contentious Boule. Rhita Berenik~
Vaskayza . . .
Kleopatra no longer believed a doorway to another world would ever

ETERNITY · 57

be found. But even in a time of horrible civil strife, and the worst threat
to the Oikoumen in her lifetime, she believed in allowing herself at just
foolish obsession.

EIGHT

Earth

Half of the Laniers' house was century-old stone and rough wood,
perched on a stone and concrete cellar and foundation dug deep into a
tree-shaded hillside. The other half, added forty years before when they
had first moved in, was more modern in appearance, white and austere,
though well laid out and comfortable, with a new kitchen and accommodations for the equipment he had needed for his work. That equipment
still waited against one wall of the study, a small console of communicators
and processors that had allowed him to keep track of the state of
virtually any spot on Earth; his link with the Terrestrial Hexamon,
through Christchurch and the orbiting precincts. He had not entered the
study for six months.
Lanier's neck hair constantly reminded him of his guest's presence on
the road beside him. They climbed the steps up the hill, Lanier's leg
muscles already aching, and stood on the broad covered porch as Lanier
opened the unlocked door. He did not know whether Karen had returned
home or not; frequently, when busy on her own missions, she stayed
overnight or longer in Christchurch or some of the nearby villages. It
actually concerned him little that she might have one or more lovers
(though he would h~/ve resented it if she had taken Fremont into her
bed); he had no evidence of such, and besides, Lanier had never been
susceptible to that kind of jealousy, sex being among the weaker of his
passions.
She was not at home. That relieved him; he didn't know how he would
describe or explain their visitor. Still, surveying the empty house, he felt a
brief, sharp stab of grief. They had lost so much in the past few years,
almost all that had consoled them over the hard cruel decades of the
Recovery.

58
	· GREG BEAR

"Come in, please," he invited. Across the years, he had adopted
Karen's precise, almost Oxfordian style of English. Mirsky, or whoever
this man actually was Lanier had an explanation nearly as ludicrous as
the visitor's ownm, wiped his boots on the porch mat and entered, smiling
with pleasure at the house's antiques.

"A fine home," he said. "You've lived here since . . . ?"
"Between missions, since two-thousand-seven."
"Alone?"

"My wife and I. We had a daughter. She's lost. Dead."

"I have not been in a normal house for . . ." Mirsky lifted his eyebrows
and shook his head. "You can talk to Olmy and Korzenowski from
here?"

Lanier half-shrugged, half-nodded. "In my study, at the back of the
house."

Lanier hesitated at the closed study door, glancing back at the man.
His theory, which seemed more convincing every minute, was that this
fellow did indeed resemble Mirsky, but was not could not be him.
Somebody had created a duplicate of Mirsky, though he could not imagine
why. How would he explain to Olmy or Korzenowski or anybody?
They'd simply have to see for themselves.

"Come in," he invited, opening the door and liberating a faint smell of
dust and old, cool air.

From this room, Lanier had worked after his official retirement to
advise and guide those following in his footsteps. Karen had wanted
them both to continue on full active duty, but he had refused; he had had
enough. Perhaps that had been the beginning of theft rift. More unpleasant
memories returned as he stared at the projectors and control console
mounted in the south wall of the room. So much misery and confusion
communicated; so many missions assigned here, leading to the diagnosis
or treatment of so many indescribable horrors.

Mirsky entered the room. "Your own Earth station. Very important for
you even now?"

Lanier half-shrugged again, as if to be rid of it all. He sat at the console
and activated it. A rolling red status pict formed and then resolved into a
live picture of Earth as seen from the Stone, wrapped in a coil of DNA. A
smooth simulated voice asked, "What services, please?"

"I need to speak to Olmy. Prior reference individual. Or to Konrad
Korzenowski. Either or both."

"Is this official communication or personal?"

"Personal," Lanier replied.

ETERNITY ·


The rolling status pict returned, a beautiful spherical skein of intertwined
red strands.

"Do you want to meet with them personally?" Lanier asked Mirsky.
The man nodded. Lanier lifted his eyebrows and faced the pict again.
More suspicious. Yet who could or would want to mount an assassination
attempt? Such things were not unheard-of-Terrestrial Hexamon politics
--not recently, at least--but they were rare. And Old Natives did not
have the technology to create physical duplicates. The more complicated
his surmise became, the easier it was to assume the man actually was
Mirsky.

"Ser Olmy refuses communication at this period," the console informed
him. "I have located Konrad Korzenowski."

An image of Korzenowski appeared in the study, projected two mete. rs
to one side of Lanier. The legendary Engineer, who had retired from the
Recovery to do basic research, glanced with intense eyes at Lanier,
smiled abruptly, and faced Mirsky. The image resonated slightly with
some unavoidable energy lag or off-world interference, then steadied,
seeming as solid as anything else in the room. "Garry. It's been years. Is
Karen well? And yourself?"

"We're fine. Ser Korzenowski, this man tells me he must speak with
you." Lanier cleared his throat. "He claims to be--"

"He bears an amazing resemblance to General Pavel Mirsky, does he
not?" Korzenowski asked.

"I didn't know you had ever met," Lanier said.

"We did not meet in person. I've studied the records many times since.
You are Ser Mirsky?"

"I am, sir. I am honored to meet such a distinguished individual, and
pleased that you are well."

"Is this man Pavel Mirsky, Garry?" Korzenowski asked.
"I don't see how he could be, Ser Konrad."
"Where did he come from?'.'

"I don't know. He met me on a mountainside near my home . . ."
Mirsky listened to this without comment, face bland.

Korzenowski considered briefly. He still carries part of Patricia Luisa
Vasquez, Lanier thought. It's obvious in his eyes. "Can you bring him to
Thistledown, first chamber, within two days?" the Engineer asked
Lanier.

Lanier felt a mix of deep anxiety., resentment, and an old, contradictory
excitement. He had been away from important affairs for so
long . . .

"I think I can arrange that," he said.

S0 · GREG BEAR

"Is your health good?" Korzenowski asked, some concern in his voice.
None but Old Natives and the most fanatically orthodox Naderites refused
all methods of prolonging life and health. Lanier was ridiculously
decrepit by almost any accepted standard today.
"I'm doing well enough," he answered shortly, feeling the ache in his
legs and now his back.
"Then I will meet you on Thistledown shortly after you both arrive,
however long that may take. Ser Mirsky, I must say I am not completely
surprised to see you." The image faded.
Mirsky met Lanier's astonished glance. "A knowing man," he said.
"Can we leave soon?"
Lanier turned to the console and made the necessary arrangements. He
still had influence, and he had never been displeased to exercise influence.
The situation was evolving; Lanier was no less baffled, no less resentful,
but more intrigued.

NINE

Thistledown

Accompanying the old soldier to the first chamber, Olmy had helped
Mar Kellen book shuttle passage to Earth. Mar Kellen seemed to have
gained a kind of mystic serenity after revealing his secret. They walked
toward the bore hole elevators, Mar Kellen smiling faintly, shaking his
head as he ran his eyes along the ground, scuffing his heels on the stone
paving.
"All I need is a few weeks to think things over. Might as well do it on
the birth world. Beni was not quite orthodox, but she would appreciate
my going down there. She told me it was beautiful . "
"Star, Fate and Pneuma be kind," Olmy said.
"Formula, hm? Between two cynical old soldiers?"
Olmy nodded. "Comforting sometimes."
"Fairy tales after what we've seen and done." Mar Kellen looked up at
the tubelight, squinting unnecessarily. "Maybe you'll need comforting

ETERNITY · 61
now. I'm almost sorry for you. I thought you were the only one who
could handle it. But maybe I did the wrong thing."
"You didn't," Olmy said, not sure himself.
'I'll climb a mountain for you," Mar Kellen said. "A real one, not
something in the fifth chamber, all carved away by machines. Tall, with
wide glaciers and deep places. Taller than anything on Thistledown." He
winked. "Good-by."
Olmy watched Mar Kellen enter the elevator. He received a mental
impression--perhaps intuition, perhaps a quick subliminal pict from Mar
Kellen's mind--that the old soldier would hike into wilderness, deep into
a mountainous region, where he could be sure of never being found.
Olmy returned to the old apartment, relaxing, contemplating. He used
the library terminal to communicate with various legitimate (and discreet)
research programs in Thistledown's extensive memory stores.
When he had made certain his channels were secure taking extra
precautions to keep Farren Siliom's tracers ignorant of his present loca-tion-he
called in an old ally, a tracer he had built himself from the
memories of a short-haired terrier. The tracer had proven itself to be
remarkably thorough, and it seemed to enjoy its work--if enjoyment
could be ascribed to something that was, after all, not a complete mentality.
Olmy set the tracer one task: to find any and all references to the
downloaded Jart in the records of Thistledown or the orbiting precincts.
Many record centers within the asteroid were no longer active; some
were carefully hidden. But the tracer could maneuver into the most inaccessible
memory, so long as some potential information link existed.
Olmy backed away from the teardrop terminal and folded his hands,
face set in an expression of patient watchfulness, eyes glancing this way
and that at the picts thrown up almost at random by the tracer's begin ning progress reports. This would take time.
He had ascertained that Mar Kellen's implant memory was antiquated
and minimal. Beni, as a "not quite orthodox" Naderite, had had only the
legally required memory backups. The Jart record~ had somehow killed
the woman, scrambled her backups, and driven Mar Kellen to the edge
of insanity, in less than a second of contact.
It seemed unlikely, but it was possible that beyond the security maze
the records had been left open and on download status, ready to be
transferred. But the console only supported transfer to human minds or
implants there were no connections for transfer to external storage. He
could, of course, rig such an interface . . . But there had to be a reason
one did not exist in the first place.

62 · GREG BEAR


A rapid download of channeled information into an unprepared and
unaided brain could, in theory, fatally disrupt someone's mentality. But
what kind of machinery or safety circuit would allow any damage to an
unsuspecting investigator? Obviously, unsuspecting investigators were

not expected . . . Only experts.

Prepared experts.

If extreme secrecy was desired, the machinery might be designed to
scramble intruder's minds, but Olmy had never heard of Hexamon agencies
taking lethal protective measures against citizens in the entire history
of Thistledown and the Way.

Beni's first encounter, without implants to buffer the flow, might in

fact have kicked in some kind of safety circuit . . Thus, when Mar
Kellen tried the second interface a moment later not realizing Beni was
injuredMthe safety circuit and the buffer of his more extensive implants

might have blunted the flow enough to disrupt but not kill him.

So many mysteries and questions . . .

In all of his exploits, Olmy had exercised a maximum of caution,
commensurate with the time he was allowed to plan and act. Even so, he
had been killed twice . . .

He took risks gladly enough, but he did not seek them. If there was a

safe and easy way to accomplish his task, that was the method he used.

Now he was about to break his own rule. He knew he would not go to

the Hexamon authorities with Mar Kellen's discovery. That would have
been safe, and theoretically his duty would have been fulfilled. Instead, he
told no one and pondered different alternatives, all of them deliriously
mad.

Olmy had lived through enough history to realize that at most times,
major human were shaped not by rational acts, but by guesswork and
something akin to instinct.

To take proper advantage of this mystery, in the time allotted to him,

he would have to act alone. Turning it over to the Hexamon authorities
would mean delays, investigations by committee, the usual bureaucratic
dance around a controversial asset that could very easily be a debit. He
strongly suspectedMas Tapi's work had probably contirmedmthat within
less than a year the information this discovery contained would be
needed desperately.

Total caution was impossible, even inappropriate. Especially when alt

that he put at risk--for the time beingwwas himself.


He journeyed again to the fifth chamber, this time through the bore

hole, traveling alone on a small private shuttle. He climbed the trail,

ETERNITY · {S3

followed Mar Kellen's instructions to open the security door, and descended
into the asteroid's thick, ancient walls.
In the Jart's crypt, he contemplated the creature's static mind patterns.
The image had changed little since Mar Kellen had first brought up
the display for him. He walked around the image, again studying the
Jart's preserved body. It was as ugly as he had suspected a Jart would be
--and as strange. Perhaps stranger than anything they had met in the
Way, and that had included some very odd beings indeed--some difficult
to define as "alive" but for their mental activity. What creature had ever
walked on solid sharp-ended poles? How did it eat? It was obviously not
designed for speed or flexibility. What function did the tentacles and
cluster of spikes serve? How could that narrow body service such a large
head?
Olmy sat in the tiny chamber, subduing an old, pale fear of very small
places. There was no chair, so he sat on the smooth ancient floor, back
against the wall.
Why is it here? A question equally as unanswerable as Who brought it
here? or How was it captured?
Why would a Jart allow itself to be captured and have its personality
downloaded?
He stood and stretched his muscles and joints. His body still felt
young, fully capable. His mind was equipped with sufficient implant
memory and processing modules to house several human personalities
beside himself; he hadn't used the excess since he had carried Korzenow-ski,
prior to the Engineer's reincarnation four decades ago. But it was
still available. There were few people on Thistledown or anywhere else
who matched Olmy's potential either physically or mentally.
Given a few weeks, he could probably riddle the buried chambers and
discover how to use the equipment properly. But why would he do that?
For the same reasons he had spent the last few years studying all that
was known about the psychology of non-human intelligences. The Ter-restial
Hexamon, after decades of concentrating on very different problems,
was not prepared strategically or tactically to return to the Way.
Yet they would almost certainly do so. He could feel the pressure of
history; a familiar pressure.
If Olmy could give them expert advice, the Hexamon might survive its
own foolishness. And of all the beings most likely to confront them in the
re-opened WayB
The Jarts were the most formidable. Even captured, imprisoned, quiescent
for centuries, somehow they could still kill.

~4
	· GREG BEAR

It was essential that Olmy extract what information he could from this
source, at any personal cost.
With a grin, he realized much of his rationalizing was to hide a basic
truth. He did not trust the present leadership. They condescended to the
past rather than understanding it. His ingrained sense of soldier's superiority
had finally triumphed over his faith in the rightness of the command
structure.
"I'm going rogue, myself," he confessed to the Jart's ancient corpse. "Damn it all to hell."

TEN

Gaia

Alexandreia was a lot filthier than she remembered from her visits years
past; it seemed to wear a cloak of smoke and soot as protection against its
many troubles. The fabulous marble causeways were pitted with decay.
Many of the statues had been shrouded in great sheets of oilcloth.
The representatives of the bibliophylax, the director and archivist of
the Mouseion, hurried her and her luggage off the street before the
Mouseion's famous Eastern Stoa, then put her in a rickety cart, insisting
that she ride rather than walk.
The women's residence hall was a brick and stone two-story block dropped inauspiciously in a dusty, treeless corner of the Mouseion
grounds. Rhita's heart fell when she saw it; Lugotorix, riding beside the
driver on the cart, gave a low whistle of contempt.
They pulled into the broken brick and pounded-dirt courtyard. An
elderly woman in a black shawl swept dust and sand half-heartedly in the
shade of the inset double doorway, giving them barely a glance. The door
opened and a blond, matronly young woman about the same age as Rhita
stepped out with hands clenched over her head in greeting.
"Welcome! Welcome?' she shrilled, clicking her tongue and dropping
her hands to lift her long brown robe out of the dust.
"You are from Rhodos? From the Hypateion?"
Rhita smiled and nodded at her. The cart jerked to a sudden stop and

ETERNITY · 65

the driver gave the Kelt some small assistance in dropping her luggage to
the curbside. "You can't stay here, you know," the woman told the Kelt
sharply. "No men here."
"He's my bodyguard," Rhita said.
"My dear, bad as things are for us in the Museion, none of us need
bodyguards! He'll have to stay elsewhere. You are Reee-ta Berenik~ Vas-kayza?"
"Yes."
The woman hugged her briskly. "I am Jorea Yallos, from Galatia.
Your houseguide. You study mathematics?"
"Yes."
"Fascinating. I study animal husbandry in the school of agriculture. I
have been told to show you your quarters and answer your questions."
Rhita's hopes fell when Yallos urged her to the upper floor and bustled
before her along a dark hallway. "We appreciate your coming here. I'm
sorry we can't do better for you. In the summer, these rooms cool off
more quickly at night. In the winter, that's not what you want. They're
comfortably warm during the day, however." She withdrew a large iron
key and inserted it into the padlock, pocketed both lock and key, and
pushed and kicked the thin wooden door open. It scraped sadly over the
broken the floor.
"Are you a daughter of Isis?" Yallos asked.
Rhita entered the room. It was like a cell in a monastery, with a pair of
small windows mounted high in the outer wall and a leather bed pushed
into one corner. Behind the door, a wobbly stand supported a chamber
pot and bowl. Against the right hand wall, a scabrous wooden desk had
been propped under a faded mural of the Kan0pic Isis with her small,
wide-eyed, feathered infant son and protective snake.
"No," Rhita managed to answer.
"Pity. Dorca, the woman here before you, a lovely helper, she was
quite fond of Isis. You can't redecorate without the women's council's
permission."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Rhita said. She gestured for Lugotorix to
bring in her luggage. He squeezed through the door with traveling case
and wooden boxes under both arms, gently lowered them to the floor,
and stood to one side, away from the suspicious Yallos.
"He's a Kelt, isn't he?"
"From the Parisioi," Rhita affirmed.
"There are plenty of Kelts in Galatia," Yallos said. "I'm of Nabataean
and Hellenic ancestry, myself."
Rhita nodded politely.

{)S · GREG BEAR
"We have a group council at the first hour of sunset. If you'd like to
join us, you're welcome. Let me know if you need anything. We women
have to stick together here. They don't much care for us, Kallimakhos
and his people. We're not good for his defense contracts." Yallos stood in
the doorway. "The Kelt has to come with me now. I'll get him a room in
the old baths, where the groundskeepers bed down."
Lugotorix flicked his slitted eyes from Yallos, whom he clearly loathed,
to Rhita. "Go," she told him. "I'll be okay here." She was none too sure
of that, however. She already felt homesick and out of place. The Kelt
shrugged and followed the houseguide. Rhita suddenly thought of something
and called to her in the hall. "Can I have the lock and key?"
"No locks," Yallos said.
"I need a lock," Rhita persisted, irritated now and worried for the
safety of the Objects.
"Come to the council meeting. We'll discuss it. Oh . if you're not a
sister of Isis, what are you?"
Rhita made up her answer with surprising speed. "I belong to the
sanctuary of Athen Lindia."
Yallos blinked. "Pagan?" she asked.
"Rhodian," Rhita replied. "It's my birthright."
"Oh."
Rhita shut the door and faced her squalid cell. So much for her reception
in the Mouseion. Her grandmother's shadow obviously did not
stretch this far. Was this the queen's doing, or was Kleopatra even aware
of Rhita's arrival?
She sat for a while, shivering in the gloom. A single electric light over
the bed cast a yellow glow over that corner and little else. It was already
midday and the room was just beginning to warm. How much risk
should she take with the Objects, not to mention her own safety? How
much risk would she take before---if--she reached her goal?
Prying at a shutter jammed over one small, deep-set window, she broke
an already-short fingernail to the quick. She swore beneath her breath,
one green eye bright in her meager success, a thin line of indirect sunlight.
Rhita wiped gritty dust from the desk, used a frayed withy broom to
sweep the floor, and opened her trunk to put her clothes away. In the late
afternoon, the guides had told her, she would meet with the bibliophylax.
She did not look forward to it.

ET E R N ITY · 67

ELEVEN

Earth

The Russian--so it was most convenient to think of him, at least for the
moment stood with Lanier on the porch, waiting for the wink of a
shuttle's lights. The night sky was a smear of aluminum dust across solid
black, depth upon depth of stars. The air had cleared since the Death,
Earth's natural healing mechanisms removing most atmospheric traces of
the conflagration. There were few pollution sources anywhere now, even
with the Recovery well along. Hexamon Technology was non-polluting, self-contained
The first lights they saw were not in the sky, but along the road leading
up the side of the valley to the cabin. Lanier pursed his lips and met the
Russian's glance with a shrug. "My wife," he said. He had hoped to get
the Russian away before her arrival.
The rugged All-Terrain Vehicle, modeled after types used by the first
investigators on the Stone, ground its tires along the gravel drive to one
side of the cabin and stopped, its electrical motors cutting abruptly.
Karen swung down from the cabin in the automatic glare of the outdoor
floodlights, saw Lanier on the porch and waved at him. He waved back,
feeling older just looking at her.
In their life together, he had seen her age a decade or two, grow from
along with me, then regress under therapy, the same therapy he had
turned down. She looked a youthful forty at most.
"I've been in town,'~ she called out in Chinese as she dragged her duffel
from the rear of the ATV. "We're setting up an artificial social network,
so the---" She saw the Russian and stopped on the porch steps, biting her
lower lip. She looked over her shoulder at the drive; no other vehicles.
Then she queried Lanier with one raised eyebrow.
"This is a visitor. His name is Pavel," he said.
"We have not met," the Russian Said, stepping forward and extending
his hand. "I am Pavel Mirsky."
Karcn smiled politely, but her instincts had been aroused.

88
	· GREG BEAR

"How are you feeling?" she asked, shifting her eyes to her husband.
She glanced between them quickly, brow furrowed.
"I'm fine. His name," Lanier repeated with some deliberate drama, "is
Pavel Mirsky."
"I know the name," she said. "Wasn't that the Russian commander on
the Stone? Went with the precincts down the Way . . didn't he?" Her
eyes fell accusingly on Lanier: What is this? She had seen pictures of
Mirsky in the history tapes. The game was up. She recognized him. "You
look just like him."
"I hope I haven't disturbed you," the Russian said.
"He's a son, a look-alike?" she asked Lanier.
He shook his head.
She stood on the top step, hands clasped before her. "You're sure
everything is all right? You're joking with me." She climbed up one step,
paused again. Then, in Chinese, she asked Lanier, "Who is this man?"
In Chinese, Lanier responded, "He's a good imitation, if not the real
thing. I'm taking him to meet with Korzenowski."
Karen walked slowly before them, examining the Russian, biting her
lower lip. "Where did you come from?"
The Russian looked between them. "I have not explained that yet," he
said. "Better to wait until it all comes out."
"You can't be Mirsky," Karen said. "If you're trying to hoodwink my
husband . . All we heard would have to be a lie."
Surprisingly, Lanier hadn't considered that possibility. He had not, of
course, actually seen Mirsky go down the Way.
"No lies," the Russian said. "I am pleased to finally meet you. I have
always thought your husband a fine man, a true leader, with sound judgment.
I congratulate both of you."
"Why?" Lainier asked.
"On having found each other," the Russian explained.
"Thank you," Karen said sharply. "Have you offered our guest any
refreshment, Garry?" She carded her duffel into the cabin. Her suspicion
had turned into anger.
"We're expecting the shuttle any minute," he answered. "We've eaten a
little, and had a beer."
The Russian smiled at the mention of the beer. His enjoyment had
been obvious.
Karen made various small noises in the kitchen, then continued her
interrupted conversation through the screened window opening onto the
porch. "We're going to get twenty or thirty village leaders and political
science students from Christchurch and fly them to Axis Thoreau. It's

ETERNITY · Sg

going to be a kind of conference, all in city memory, to establish social
ties it would take years to make otherwise. They'll all act as if they were
family afterwards, if it goes well. Think of all politicians having family
ties with each other, and their constituents? It could be wonderful." Her tone had changed; now she was ignoring the mystery.
Lanier suddenly felt exhausted. All he wanted was to lie back on the
old couch before the cabin's fireplace and close his eyes.
"Here comes the shuttle," the Russian said, pointing. A blip of white
soared across the opposite side of the valley, then swooped in low, just
above the trees. Karen returned to the porch, face strained, and looked
up at her husband.
"What in hell you are doing?" she demanded in an undertone. "Where
are you going?"
Lanier shook his head. "To the Stone." Everything was losing its edge
of reality. Nothing seemed very probable. "I don't know when we'll be
back."
"You shouldn't go alone. I can't go with you," she said. "I have to be in Christchurch tomorrow." She glanced at Lanier. Karen was no fool,
but she was having a difficult time shifting gears. Her expression said that
she knew just how odd this really was; and how important it might be.
"Maybe you can explain to me after you get to the Stone?"
"I'll try," Lanier said.
"I am sorry for the disruption," the Russian said quietly.
"You shut up," Karen cried, turning on him. "You're just a goddamned
ghost."
At that, Lanier smiled. He put his hand on Karen's shoulder, both to
reassure her and stop her from saying more. The gestures come easily
enough, he thought. Why not the feeling?

They were off, cushioned in the free-form white interior of the shuttle,
flying high above the dark Earth. In the sky, staring out across the black,
ridged horizon, where bloom of stars met mountains, Lanier felt free. He
hadn't flown in years, had almost forgotten the feeling. As soon as the
shuttle pointed its blunted nose straight up, and the view through the
transparency in the hull tilted, his exhilaration changed to an opposite
dread.
Space.
How nice just to fly in the thin .film of air, and avoid the larger issues.
Flying was like a marvelous kind of sleep, above the hard reality of
waking, but below the greater blackness of death .
Across the aisle, the Russian stared straight ahead, not bothering to

70 · GREG BEAR

examine the view, as if he had seen it all so often it could not affect him
one way or the other. The Russsian did not look thoughtful. He did not
look concerned. There was no way to know what all this meant to him, or how he felt about the meeting with Korzenowski . . or about returning
to the Stone.
If he was Mirsky, his return to Thistledown should hold a true cmotional
charge. The last time he had entered the Stone, it had been through
a fury of projectiles and laser beams, as part of the Russian invasion
force, just before, perhaps as prelude to, the Death.
Lanier realized that if this was Mirsky, then from that fateful moment
until he came to the valley, he had not seen Earth again.
The flight, smooth and quiet, seemingly effortless, did not reduce
Lanier's sense of unreality. If he is Mirsky, where has he been since--what
has he seen?

TWELVE

Gaia

The Mouseion had expanded considerably into the Neapolis and :~
Brukheionwthe Hellenic quartertsince ancient times, and had even set
a foot the school of medicine--into the Aigyptian district. The buildings
of the school of medicine, the Erasistrateion, abutted the smaller,
less reputable Library of Domestic Oikoumen Studies, the one-time Serapeion.
The university, research center and library actually, seven
buildings spread around the original library occupied a square about
four stadia on a side in the middle of the city. Scattered throughout the
older marble and granite and limestone buildings were new, boxy iron
and glass centers for the study of science and mechanics. On top of the
steep hill of the former Paneion, the university had installed, five centuries
before, a huge stone observatory. It was more a relic than a functioning
center of astronomical research, but its grandeur was impressive.
Rhita's neck ached from twisting back and forth. Her carriage rolled
with an irregular rhythm over the cobbled and slated paths, between
feathery tress and stately date palms. The sun dipped in the west, throw
ET E R N I TY · 71

ing an orange light across the city, just as she had seen it the day before
on entering the Great Harbor. Smoke drifted in thin dark ribbons from a
tall brick stack appended to one science building. Students in white and
yellow academic robesmmostly male--passed them on the path, eyeing
Rhita curiously. She returned their stares frankly, calmly, though feeling
none too calm inside. She didn't like this place much--not now, perhaps
not evermand that bothered her. This was the center of culture and
science in the Western World, after all. There was much for her to learn
in Alexandreia~if the circumstances had been such that she could just
study.
The oldest intact building in the entire Mouseion, the original central
library, now housed the administrative offices and academic quarters.
Once it had been ornate and lovely; now it looked a little bedraggled,
though still magnificent, three stories of marble and onyx, decorated with
gold-leaf-covered bosses and thousand-year-old grotesques from the time
of the Second Occupation, during the Third Parsa Uprising. Sheets of
paler marble had been added less than fifty years before to repair time-damaged
walls. Thus far, none of the Libyan rockets falling on the delta
had struck the Mouseion grounds.
The path led through an archway into the courtyard, polished granite
and onyx paving stones arranged in a checkerboard cross with exotic
plantings from Aithiopia and the Southern Great Sea occupying the corners,
and an Arsakid Parsa stone lion fountain adorning the center.
The cart lurched to a stop and she stepped down. A young, small man
in a black tunic and Teutonic-style leggings~a popular street fashion in
the city now came forward, a large toothy grin on his narrow brown
face. "I am very pleased to meet the granddaughter of the Soph Pa-trikia,"
he said, dipping forward slightly and passing his hand over his
head in salute. "My name is Seleukos, and I am from Nikaea near Hippo.
I am assistant to the bibliophylax. Welcome to the Library."
"Thank you," Rhita said. He dipped again and beckoned her to follow.
She closed her eyes briefly, checking on the status of the clavicle~it had
not been moved or approached--and then walked after the young man.
The ground-floor office of the bibliophylax was not large for his station.
Three male secretaries worked busily at a triangle of desks in one
corner, beneath the light of an open window. Beside them, a press reaching
to the ceiling overflowed with stacks of papers. A large electric
graphomekhanos hummed and clunked on a heavy wooden stand beside
the press. The bibliophylax himself worked behind a four-part Ioudeian
hand-carved cedar screen, beneath the largest window in the room, in the
opposite corner. The young man ushered her politely behind the screen.

72 · GREG BEAR

The bibhophylax raised his shaven head and surveyed her coolly, then
smiled the merest hint of a smile. He stood and passed his hand over his
head. Rhita did likewise, and took a withy-cane seat at his request.
"I trust everything is in order with your quarters?" he asked. She
nodded, reluctant to quibble about small things. "It is an honor to have
you here." He pulled forward a file---a finger's-width of papers pressed
between two paper-board sheets--and pulled out a long document. She
recognized it as the transcript of her Akademeia studies and appended
progress report. "You are a distinguished student indeed, especially in the
area of mathematics and physics, I see. And you have chosen a similar
curriculum here. Our professors have much to offer you. We are, after all,
a much larger institution than the Akademeia, and we draw our teachers
from around the Oikoumen, and even outside."
"I look forward to beginning my studies."
"One thing interests me. You made an unusual request, even before
you arrived," the bibliophylax observed. "Besides your appointment to
the office of the mekhanikos Zeus Amm6n Demetrios, unusual in itself,
you wish a private audience with the Imperial Hyps~lot~s. Can you tell
me the purpose of your visit to her?"
Before Rhita could speak, the bibliophylax raised a hand and said, "It
is our business, because we look after the welfare of all students in the
Mouseion."
She closed her mouth, waited for a moment, and then said, "I bring a
private message from my grandmother."
"She's deceased," the bibliophylax observed, deadpan.
"Through my father. A message the Soph felt the queen would be
interested in." She paused, her lips set in a grim line. She could feel
opposition radiating from the bibliophylax, even a professional kind of
hatred. "A private message."
"Of course." His face soured slightly, and he flipped through more
papers. "I have reviewed your course requests, ar.d they are all in order.
You are seeking a fifth in mathematics, and a third in physics, as well as a
second in science of city leadership. Can you handle such an academic
load without strain?"
"It's similar to my load at the Akademeia."
"Ah, but Mouseion professors will not be awed by your ancestry. They
might treat you less leniently."
"I was not treated leniently on Rhodos," Rhita said, keeping her irritation
in check. She wanted to laugh at the man, kick her slippers off and
show him the bottom of her foot--but she stayed outwardly composed,
though her stomach twisted.

ETERNITY · 7;3
"No, I am sure you weren't," the bibliophylax said. His small black
eyes dared her to say something more.
"I do have one problem," she said, facing his stare.
"Oh?"
"My manservant. He is with me for protection, at the direct request of
my father, yet we have been separatedm"
"No servants or guards are allowed in the Mouseion. Not even for
royalty."
As it happened, there were no royal youths studying in the Mouseion;
the queen was childless, and most of the rest of the royal family had long
since retired to Kypros for safety.
"Please feel free to consult this office at any time," the bibliophylax
concluded abruptly, closing her file and slipping it into a small square
withy basket on the left hand corner of his desk. He smiled and pas~ed
his hand over his head, dismissing her.

When she returned to her quarters, she sat in the cool of the room for
an hour, trying to regain her composure. The Objects had not been disturbed,
but could she count on complete privacy and security for much
longer? She did not trust the bibliophylax; the only hope she had was that
the queen had already taken up her case, and was protecting her. Whatever,
she hoped her audience would be soon.
She suspected, once she told the queen what she knew and demonstrated
its truth to hermthat she would not long remain a student in the
Mouseion. She would no longer be allowed the luxury of scholarship and
studies.
Discouraged, she left her room to attend the meeting of the women's
council. The least she hoped to accomplish there was to get the lock
back.
Is everybody here my enemy? she wondered.

74 · GREG BEAR


THIRTEEN


Thistledown


The Thistledown's axis bore hole opened tiny and black in the middle of
the vast depression marking the asteroid's south pole. The opposite pole
--"north" for a sense of direction only, since the asteroid had no natural
magnetic field was now a gaping, rough-edged crater with the seventh
chamber opened wide to space. Using ships equipped with traction fields,
the Hexamon had long since swept the debris of the Sundering away
from the seventh chamber, making it serviceable as a spaceport. Someday,
the orbiting precincts would need extensive repair; the seventh
chamber dock would be ideal.

For small ships like the shuttle on which the Russian and Lanier rode,
the south pole entrance was more practical.

Lanier hardly noticed the darkness swallowing the craft. His mind was
still elsewhere. He felt a stronger queasiness, and a flash of anger at his
eternal unease. He closed his eyes tight, then opened them suddenly as
the shuttle latched onto the rotating interior dock.

"We are here," the Russian said.


The first chamber had changed little. Even the de-rotation and re-rotation
of the Thistledown had left it relatively unmarred. Of course,
there had been little but sandy desert on the first chamber's floor in the
first place. As they departed the elevator, a steady, cool breeze fell on
them from the face of the chamber's southern cap, a great, demeaning
gray wall behind them. Around the axis shimmered the hazy white light
of the plasma tube, twenty kilometers above them where they now stood
on the "valley" floor.

To each side, the chamber stretched as flat and normal as could be
imagined for a dozen kilometers, then with a slow, lazy vault began to
creep upward, finally rising in an impossible vertical curve to meet overhead,
behind the plasma tube, like some bridge for gods. After a good
many years how long had it been since his last visit, ten, twelve?--the

ETERNITY · ?S

dimensions of the Thistledown's inner chambers struck Lanier all over
again. He remembered the feeling of those awful months before the
Death, when he had been swamped by administrative duties, by intrigues
on Earth and within the Stone, by mystery and foreknowledge. He had
called it being Stoned.
The rush of memories did not cheer him. He found it difficult to believe
men had ever dwarfed themselves by such a creation. That was how
he felt; small, overpowered. Stoned again.
They were greeted by a tall man, skeletally slender and very bald, an
assistant to Korzenowski. "My name is Svard. Set Korzenowski sends
his regrets that he does not meet you personally." He gave the Russian a
quick appraising stare, then he led them toward a tractor. "The Engineer
has a research compound in the middle of the valley, and he invites you
to join him there."
They boarded the tractor. The eight-passenger vehicle rode over the
sand on a traction field, not treads or tires; it had been manufactured
aboard Thistledown and was sleek and beautiful, with a pearly white
exterior and a soft, adaptable gray interior that shaped itself to spoken or
pitted commands.
Svard wore a pictor hidden within his low collar. Lanier had never
quite learned the art of picting. "I trust you've had an interesting journey,
Mr. Lanier, Mr. Mirsky," Svard said. Lanier nodded abstractedly.
The tractor floated smoothly and swiftly over low scrub and brown and
white patches of sand and soil.
"What keeps Ser Korzenowski busy now?" Lanier asked. "We haven't
spoken for some time."
"He has been doing research," Svard said.
"For the Hexamon?" Lanier asked.
"In part. Mostly to satisfy his own curiosity."
"Who pays the bills?"
Svard smiled over his shoulder. "Really, Mr. Lanier. You should know
that Ser Korzenowski hasmwhat is the old phrase? carte blanche to
spend any reasonabl~ amount, either in resources or money. He was
given that privilege before his death, and the circumstances did not
change with his resurrection."
"I see," Lanier said.
Directly ahead lay a complex of low, flat buildings, their walls gently
curved to merge with the sand. The air above the complex shimmered
like a mirage; was it because of rising heat, Lanier wondered, or something
else? He squinted through the tractor's transparent nose, trying to
define the shimmer.

76 · GREG BEAR

The tractor stopped a few dozen meters from the southern most building
and eased to the sand with a low sigh. The door flowed open and
Mirsky stepped out first, Lanier following, watching the man's reaction
closely. The Russian looked around the valley floor, glancing up at the
plasma tube. He knows the Stone, Lanier thought, He's been here before.
It doesn't hold pleasant memories for him.
Svard bent low to exit the tractor and rose gracefully to his full height,
large eyes blinking. "This way. Set Korzenowski is in his private quarters.''
Lanier savored the extra spring in his step. The Stone's spin imparted a
pull of six-tenths of Earth's gravity on the floor of each chamber, one of
the few qualities of the Thistledown that had always been pleasant to
him. He remembered, decades ago before the Death exercising in the
first chamber, swinging vigorously on parallel bars . . . That reminded him of his once excellent physical conditioning. He had been a gymnast
in college.
A hundred meters to the east of the main complex, a smaller anonymous
blister of white rose a few meters out of the sand. Svard escorted
them along a gravel path and picted a greeting to the dome's receptor as
they approached. A green icon of an outspread hand floated before each
of them. "He wants us to come right in," Svard said. A square door in
the wall curled aside, and Konrad Korzenowski emerged, dressed in a
simple dark blue caftan.
Lanier had not seen him in person in over thirty years. He had
changed little in that time; a simple, spare frame, round face topped by a
short crop of pepper-gray hair, a sharp, long nose and penetrating dark
eyes. The eyes were more haunted--and haunting--than when they had
first met. Having absorbed part of Patricia Vasquez's mystery, that part
of the human personality which could not be synthesized, Korzenowski
had seemed to carry an ineffable aspect of the mathematician. His look
had been enough to Spock Lanier. Patricia was still discernible in the
Engineer's makeup, if anything, more pronounced. What does he feel,
with part of her making up his core?
On Earth before the Death, heart-transplants had been commonplace
before the perfection of prostheses. How does one feel about carrying a
transplanted part of someone's soul?
"Good to see you again, Ser Lanier," Korzenowski said, shaking his
hand. He hardly glanced at Mirsky, treating him less as a guest and more
perhaps as an unresolved curiosity. He beckoned them enter and take
seats. The free-form white interior of Korzenowski's quarters was cluttered
with white and gray cylinders of all sizes, draped with lumps of

ETERNITY · 77

what looked like white bread dough. He pulled a few of these aside--as
he lifted them, they elongated in his hands, hissing faintlymand ordered
the floor to form chairs, which shaped themselves rapidly. The Russian
sat and folded his arms, appearing at ease. The trace of apprehension he
had exhibited outdoors was gone.
Svard made his farewells, picted something rapidly to the Engineer,
and departed. Korzenowski folded his arms decisively, echoing Mirsky's
gesture, and stood before Lanier and the Russian. The Engineer's expression
had become stern, irritated.
"We have a genuine puzzle here, Ser Lanier," he said, regarding the
Russian, "Is this truly Pavel Mirsky, or a clever imitation?" He looked
sharply at Lanier. "Do you know?"
"No," Lanier said.
"What's your intuition?"
Lanier didn't answer for a moment, a little Startled. "I can't really say.
If I have any intuition, it's fogged by all the impossibilities."
"I know for a fact that Pavel Mirsky went down the Way in one half of
the Axis City, and that the Way closed up behind him, and all who
accompanied him. I know there has been no gate opened to this Earth
since. If this is Pavel Mirsky, he's returned to us by some avenue we can't begin to guess at."
The Russian shifted a little in his seat, folded his hands in his lap, and
nodded agreement, content to be spoken of as if he were not there.
"He seems self-satisfied," Korzenowski said, rubbing his chin speculatively.
"Cat with a canary feather. I hope he pardons a candid examination.
Our instruments tell us that he is solid and human, down to his
atomic structure. He is not a ghost in the old or new sense, and he is not
a projection of any kind familiar to us." Korzenowski uttered these observations
as if going through a string of obvious truths simply to get
them out of the way. "His genetic structure is that of Pavel Mirsky, as
recorded in the medical records of the third chamber city. Are you Lieutenant
General Pavel Mirsky?''
The Russian glanced between them. "The simplest answer is yes. I
think it is close to the truth."
"Do you come here of your own free will?"
"With the same qualifications, yes."
"How did you come here?"
"That's more complicated," the Russian said.
"Do we have time to listen, Ser Lanier?"
"I do," Lanier said.
"I would like Ser Olmy to be here," Mirsky said.

78
	· GREG BEAR


"Unfortunately, Set Olmy does not answer his messages. I suspect he
is on Thistledown, but I don't know where. I've sent a partial to locate
him and tell him the circumstances. He may or may not join us. I'd like
to hear your story as soon as possible." Korzenowski sat and pulled one
of the white lumps into his lap, kneading it between his hands.

Mirsky stared at the spotless floor for a moment, then sighed. "I will
begin. Telling it all with words would be painfully slow and clumsy. May
I borrow one of your projectors?"

"Certainly." Korzenowski ordered a traction beam to lower the nearest
projector. "Do you require an interface?"

"I. don't think so," Mirsky said. "I'm somewhat more than I appear."
He touched the teardrop-shaped device with a single finger. "Pardon me
if I don't completely reveal myself to your apparatus."

"Quite all right," Korzenowski said, with absurd cordiality. Lanier's
body hair tingled again. "Do begin."

The quarters interior vanished, replaced by something difficult for
Lanier to comprehend at firstma condensed representation of the Way,
the Axis City, Mirsky's first few days in the forested Wald of the Central
City, the journey down the Way, accelerating along the flaw .

The projected information spun and dazzled. All sense of present time
ended. Mirsky told his story in his own way. Korzenowski and Lanier
lived it.


Call it escape or the grandest defection of all tim~ Running from the
horrid past, my own death, the death of my nation, the near-death of my
planet. If you can refer to as "running" the flight of half a city, filled with
many tens of millions of souls and perhaps a dozen million corporeal
human beings, down an infinite tunnel in space-time, fleeing through the
fury of a star's heart on the rail of an elongated "knot," an umbilicus of
impossibilities...

The tunnel itself an immense tapeworn curling through the guts of the
real universe, pores opening onto other universes equally real but not our
own, other times real and equally real... Those pores cauterized by our
passage, the tunnel itself changing or having changed because of our flight,
warping and expanding from the moment it was made with the prior
knowledge of our escape; how do you explain this to an unaugmented
human being?

You cannot.

I had to change to know all this, and change I did, many times across
decades and centuries of flight. I became many people, and sometimes one
of me would hardly know another until they could mesh with each other,

ETERNITY · 79

exchange personal gossip. I was no longer the Russian Mirsky--had not
been perhaps since my assassination in the Thistledown library but an
inhabitant of the Geshel neighborhoods of ~4xis Nader and Central City.
citizen of a new world, adapting to it's unlikely enviroment. We were no
longer masters of all we surveyed, as the ,4xis City had once nearly
been . . .
I watched the humans who had come with me from Earth evolve, as I
did, or eventually fade away-~die in the last way left to immortals, to
forget one's self and be forgotten by others; The rest of us lived, and
merged.
The journey lasted, from our point of view, centuries; You know that
time is a variable thing, far less important than our youth and weakness
once made us think; flexible, but ever-present, warped and twisted into
some barely recognizable form or another.
I lived many different times: the time of the city traveling down the
at relativistic velocities, my time on the high-speed level of city memory, the
time spent communicating directly with my fellow travelers, as I do now
with you. Time bunched and coiled like a spring. If all my time were
stretched out in a straight line, I might have lived ten thousand years, by
your scale...
We had long since passed beyond the point in the Ft~y where the last
moments of this universe might have been accessed. Had we opened a gate
there, something not possible to us, we might have witnessed the death of all we had ever known, all that wasMhowever remotely connected with us

·
	. ~4nd still we fled. I had defected from my own universe.
Strangely, that moment was not particularly momentous. We had already
closed in upon ourselves in an extraordinary way, like a pupating
insect. We had isolated ourselves from our surroundings, even as we continued
to study them.
The l~y opened into an immense, twisted tunnel. Our passage down
this tunnel no longer followed any rational geodesic. There was no longer a
flaw, a singularity, in the middle; the city could not draw its power from
the flaw generators, so it sucked power from the very thin atmosphere of
particles and stray atoms within the I~y. find because of this, we slowed
· . . rapidly. Within ten years of our own basic time, the city traveled at
less than relativistic velocities;
The ~y grew broader around us. We studied this increase, and foresaw
what awaited us... ~4 vast blister of space-time, capping but not ending
the ~y, finite but unbounded...
We had entered the egg of a new universe. We could not survive as
material beings within this egg. We would have been dissolved by the na
80
	· GREG BEAR

scent plasma of potential mass and energy as salt vanishes in water. But we
learned how to cope with such an eventuality.
The entire city, all of its citizens, worked to transform itself. }Fe expected
at any moment to simply die, cease to exist, for we were children facing a raging furnace. But there was another possibility, very remote . .
The possibility that we could adapt to the furnace-egg, live in it, and
finally shape it to expand into a mature universe. It would sever its connection
with the Way, drift free in superspace, and within the furnace-egg, our
transformed selves would expand butterfly wings, reborn.
Is it immodest to say we planned to become gods? We had no choice. We
had reached the end of the Way, such as it had any end, and we could not
go back... We had no choice but to make our own universe.
To do so, we had to shed all of our material connection& We had to
impose ourselves on the foundation of all space and time, beyond and
below energy and matter, beyond the touch of the plasma amnion.
I watched my companions wall themselves up in light, great rose windows
of personality spreading and blurring at the edges, painted across the
wails of the city, using the city's mass as a temporary restraint against
simply dissolving away. The light of each of us touched the light of all. We
were drunk with oneness. It was an orgy of incredible proportions. All the
remnants of our humanity distilled into a vast merging sexuality. We almost
lost sight of our goal We might have become stunned by our own self-immersion
in recognition, love and pleasure, and plunged like a lovesick
moth into the furnace . . . But we regained control, and managed to take
the next step.
All that we were, now united, was a frail and very delicate tissue of
thought wrapped in and around the remains of the city. We spread those
tt;ssues out to the particle winds within the Way, much hotter now with the
furnace-egg so near. We toughened, condensed, and finally pushed ourselves
through to a level beneath even that of light and energy.
We flowered into the furnace, imposed our will, gave it the impetus to
expand by converting the remaining mass of the city into energy, tipping
the balance. The unbounded egg began to swell and cool, its plasma amnion
condensing and taking shape .
We became shapers of worlds. For a moment, we considered simply
reproducing our own birth universe, making galaxies and stars and starting
things anew. But we learned quickly that we could not do this. This
universe was far more constrained than ours had been. Its roots were hum-bier,
coming not out of the ground of superspace itself, but from the tortured
extending of the l~y. It would be smaller, less complex, far less

ET E R N I TY · 81

ambitious. Still, we could shape it into a fascinating place, a universe that
would absorb all our creative abilities . . . if we were careful.
It is far more difficult to be a god than we could possibly have imagined.
We had assumed, from the beginning I suppose, that one conscious will, or
a combined conscious will, could shape and control a universe. We focused
our pinpoint of will and shaped and made, guided and tuned, in ways that
of course I cannot begin to describe, because in this body I cannot remember
them, or fit them into my thoughts even if I could remember.
For a time, it seemed all would go well. We rejoiced in our mastery. We
were like a child in a vast playground The universe became beautiful. We
began to shape the equivalents of living and thinking beings, to be our
companions, perhaps to hold our own personalities in time. We still yearned
for material form. We were still influenced by our origins.
`4nd then it began to fail. The universe ruptured, decayed, rotted. Its
boundaries shriveled inward, eating and transforming what order we had
established into sour, hot chaos. We had miscalculated. `4 single will could
not create a stable universe. There had to be contrast and conflict.
We desperately tried to separate ourselves into opposing forces to repair
the damage. But it was much too late.
The god we had become, failed.
We would have all ceased to exist, dissolved in the falling shreds of our
failure. But we heard another voice. It was a less exalted, less ecstatic voice
than ours, and it seemed far away. But it was much more practical and
experienced, much more diverse. We thought for a time we had heard the
voice of another god, or gods, but that was simply our ignorance. However
advanced we had become, we were incredibly ignorant and naive.
What we heard was the voice of our descendants, reaching us from the
end of our own universe..4ll the intelligent beings who had grown up and
grown old with the cosmos we had been born into, had detected our failure,
and felt us trapped within. They were no more material, no more distinguishable
as individuals than .we were, but theirs was a hardier, more
practical intelligence..They had become the Final Mind, at once united
and coherent, and yet made up of many individual communities of mind&
They rescued us. Pulled us back along the still-open cord of the Way,
never quite severed from our furnace-egg.
Their rescue was not magnanimous. They had a use for us.
Is it appropriate to describe the emotions of a failed god? We were
chagrined, deeply embarrassed. We measured ourselves against this other
matrix of thought, and saw we were less than infantile: we were puerile. We
were young wine aspiring to vintage. We had begotten vinegar.
But we were forgiven, and treated, brought back to the equivalent of

82 · GREG BEAR


health. We were welcomed into the community of thinkers, one and separate
at once, who occupied the end of the old universe. They revealed many
things to us.

I was reconstituted from the whole of my matrix, isolated an experience
worse than death, I can assure you, worse than loss of family or city or
nation or planet. I mourned and went crazy, and they reconstituted me
again, with refinements. Finally, after many attempts, they made me stable,
and sent me back here.

I carry a message, and a requestmif it can be called a request. They
have their limitations, these descendants of all intelligent beings now alive.
,4nd they have their duties. They must bring the universe to an honorable
and complete end, an aesthetic conclusion. But they do not have infinite
resources.

I am more than I seem, but I am far less than those who sent me here,
and I must persuade you of one thing.

I have described the [Fay as a great tapeworm, winding through the guts
of the universe. It extends beyond our universe, as you know. The universe
cannot die with such an artificial such a young construct winding through
its body; rather, it cannot die well. It can only die badly, and our descendants
cannot accomplish all they hope to.


Lanier swam out of the projection and re-focused his eyes on Mirsky.

One particular image lingered in his mind. It terrified him. He tried to
remember it clearly, but all he could retrieve was a vague impression of
certain galaxies being chosen, throughout time, for sacrifice . . .

Galaxies dying to provide the energy for whatever the Final Mind was

trying to do.

His head throbbed and he felt mildly nauseated, as if he had eaten too

much. Moaning, he leaned forward between his knees.

Korzenowski put a hand on his shoulder.

"I share your distress," the Engineer said quietly. Lanier glanced up at
Mirsky, who had released the projector.

"What in hell are you?" he asked weakly.

Mirsky didn't answer that question. "You must re-open the Way, and

you must destroy it from this end. If you do not, then we have betrayed
our children at the end of time. The way, to them, is a kind of magnificent
hairball, an obstruction. We are responsible for it."

ETERNITY · 83

FOURTEEN

Gaia

On the evening of her fourth day in Alexandreia, after seven frustrating
hours trying to find her way around the maze of buildings, walking from
classroom to distant classroom, as Rhita sat alone in her room, digesting
another unfamiliar and faintly nauseating meal eaten in the tiny dining
hall reserved for women, she allowed herself a moment of supreme homesickness
and misery. There was nothing she could do but cry. After a few
minutes of that, and no more, she sat up on the hard cot and grimly
considered her situation.
There had been no word yet from Kleopatra.
She had not yet met with the mekhanikos Demetrios, her appointed
didaskalos. On a rare occasion of providing useful information, Yallos
told Rhita that she should meet with the didaskalos within a week or so,
otherwise her standing in the academic competition might slip. She felt
lost; she had had an appointment with the man since the week before
sailing from Rhodos. Inquiring at his office, in a dark, ancient and ill-tended
building in the western quarter of the Mouseion grounds, she had
been told by a waspish male assistant, "He has been called to Kr~t~ for a
conference. He will be back inside a month."
What was worse than the indignity was her sense of loss and alienation.
Nobody here knew her; it seemed scarcely anybody cared about
her. The women--with the unfortunate exception of Yallos, whom Rhita
had taken a strong disliking to---ignored her or slighted her. Yallos, with
an air of coming to the aid of a simpleton, had appointed herself Rhita's
informal advisor.
To the women in the dilapidated two story building, she was "an island
girl," unsophisticated and boorish. Worse, she was also from a well-known
family, and yet had not been graced by the Mouseion with any
apparent privileges. Her social status was a puzzle, then; she was fair
game for their disdain. Within earshot, they gossiped about her, speculat-

84
	· GREG BEAR

ing wildly. She had heard whispered rumors that the Kelt was her "island
lover."
That, she thought, was probably envy.
She was not free to leave the Mouseion and wander the streets of
Alexandreia; she knew very well what might happen to an innocent "island
girl" there. And walking with the burly, taciturn Kelt at her side
was not the sort of stroll she fancied just now, though in time she might
resort to his company, just to get away from the Mouseion.
She hadn't seen the ocean since leaving the quays in the Great Harbor.
Rhita longed for Rhodos, for the prancing sea-laughter of the waves
when a storm sat offshore, the dusty green smell of olive groves and the
play of dazzling clouds against lapis blue sky. What she missed most of
all was the company of Rhodians, simple and sun-wise, as the island
saying went; especially the beach children.
Perhaps she was just an "island girl."
At almost any hour of the day, sometimes even at dusk or after the
twilight had faded, on the rocky and sandy beaches of Rhodos could be
found a few scampering adolescents, brown and naked but for shifts or
loincloths. Usually they were Avar Altais from the south of the island or
the old refugee slums in Lindos, swarthy, oriental-eyed, round-headed,
mouths full of curses, sun-gold limbs flashing as they spear-fished in the
tidepools or carried makeshift metal detectors in search of lost coins or
buried wrecks. She had stolen away as an adolescent from her studies to
run with them, laughing and learning their language, their curses and
sunny expressions of enthusiasm, musical and harsh at once, so alien on
her Hellenized tongue. Her mother had called them "barbarians," an old
word seldom used now. Most of the citizens of the Oikoumeni were
barbarians by her mother's definition.
When Rhita's breasts had developed, and the shoulders on the beach
boys had grown broader, something new had come into their play a tender roughness. She had almost appreciated the curses thrown at her,
half in jest, half as if growled by carnivores wanting her flesh. Had she
been less protected, a bit more worldly and less enshrouded by the Hypateion
gymnasion's code of behavior, one of those boys might have been
her first lover. The Great Mother knows she had had enough caresses
and kisses stolen from her
She still remembered their jokes, born out of centuries of struggle and
desperation, not at all tempered by the tolerance and clime of Rhodos.
There were cruel, wild jokes about ill-timed death spoiling great plans,
raucous fables about separated families and lost relatives, about herd
animals never seen on Rhodos.

ETERNITY · 81~

Once, she had sat talking with a boy perhaps a year younger than she.
He had told her his family's story, unnumbered centuries tangled up with
the lives of other families, other tribes, perhaps even other nations; and
she had tried to fit that in to what she knew about the old Rhus-Oikoumen~Parsa
alliances and the extinguishing of the Steppes tribes. In
return, he had listened to her formal history with unusual politeness and
attention, and then had told her, "That's what you winners say." Leaping
up, he had brayed at her like an ass, and run across the beach, his bare
feet unerringly picking a path on flat sun-heated stones.
With a sigh, Rhita opened her eyes, losing that hot pale noon sky and
distant running boy. She picked up the electronic teukhos that had belonged
to her grandmother, switched it on, selected a memory block and
began to search through the volumes listed. Then, realizing she might be
taking a risk, she turned the machine's lighted screen off. Examining the
frail door, she decided the least she could do was block it with the room's
single cane chair. She hadn't dared listen to any of the music cubes since
her arrival; discovery would be at best embarrassing, and at worst, disastrous.
The Mouseion might confiscate the Objects. They might accuse her
of all sorts of ridiculous crimes; how could she know?
Rhita hated this strange, difficult, clannish Mouseion, with its ancient,
mazy gounds . .
She felt out of place among the city-wise students, drawn from all
around Gaia. To her surprise, she had seen young men dressed in the
peculiar fringed leather clothes sported by Nea Karkh~donians, in imitation
of the indigenous peoples they had subjugated a century ago. These
were the children of the sworn enemies of the Oikoumen. What perversion
of diplomacy allowed them into Alexandreia? She had even seen
students dressed in the shifts and leather skirts of Latin tribes. Not that
she disliked any of them personally; Rhodos seemed so remote from all
that, though having studied her history, she knew nobody was truly
isolated from such conflicts.
Rhita drew the gap i.n the curtains tighter, old nut-shell curtain rings
rattling against the cane rod, and returned to her bed, feeling without
reason a little more secure. Switching the screen back on, she surveyed
the list. She had read or'looked through virtually all of the two hundred
and seven books listed.
This time, however, her eyes alighted on a title she had not read. She
could have sworn it was newly added. It said simply, "READ ME
NOW." She called it up on the screen.
The index card preceding the display of the first page told her the
volume was three hundred pages in lengthmabout a hundred thousand

85
	· GREG BEAR

words--and it was in Hellenic, not English, as all the other books in the
cubes were. She halted the display of the index as she saw a flashing
cursor next to a description she had not seen before. "Contents and
catalog display suppressed until 4/25/49."
That had been two days before.
Rhita pressed the keypad to read the first page.

Dear Granddaughter,

You have the name of my mother. Is it all my fancy someday
you will meet her? When you were younger you must have
thought I was a crazy old woman though I think you loved me.
Now you have this, and I can talk to you though I have never
gone home, not really. Some say even here that dying is going
home.
Imagine that world I have torn you about, and you have read
these books, if you are my granddaughter, and I know you are.
You have read these books and they must tell you I made
nothing up. AH is true. There was a place called Earth. I did
not come out of a whirlwind.
I clung to this slate and the few blocks brought with me all
by accident, by chancelmfor years when it seemed even to me I
must be crazy. Now you are burdened by my quest. But all
things are connected, even such faraway things as my world
Earth and yours Gaic~ My fancy could be important to you
and all on Gaic~ If there is a gate. And there will be again. They have come and gone on the clavicle like dust-devil& Who
would taunt an old woman so?
On certain days, I will leave you something here to read, like
the unrolling of a scroll, to be revealed only that day and after.

She could not get the machine to display any more of the large file's
contents. The machine had apparently been set to portion it out to her a
bit at a time. Rhita turned off the slate and screwed her knuckles into her
eyes. She could not get away from Patrikia. She had no life of her own.
But if there was such a thing as a gate
And there was! Who could deny machines that spoke to her mind, or
hundreds of books her grandmother could not possibly have imagined,
much less written?
If the gate was real, then there was more of a burden on her shoulders

ETERNITY · 87

now than just responsibility to her grandmother. All the people on Gala
weighed her down.
Rhita was beginning to imagine what such a thing as a gate would
mean to this world. Not all that she imagined was pleasant. It would
bring change, perhaps immense change . .

FIFTEEN

Thistledown City

The tracer transferred itself to Olmy's library terminal and signaled with
the black and white pict of a grinning terrier that it had completed its
search. Olmy switched on blowers to collect the remnants of a meager
cloud of pseudo-Talsit, pushed himself off the couch and stood before the
teardrop terminal, concentrating on the tracer's picted condensation of
its findings.
No relevant file sources in Axis Euclid or Thoreau or copies of library
records of Nader and Central City. AH file sources classified in Thistledown
libraries; classification limit has expired, but no records of access to
files since the Sundering. Last access-52 years remote from Axis City, no
identification, but likely from noncorporeal in city memory. Thirty-two
files containing references to Fifth Chamber Repository.
By law, all security classifications in libraries and city memory storage
were voided after one hundred years without application and approval
for renewal. Olmy inquired of the tracer how many applications for extension
had been made on the files. The tracer replied Four. The files were all' older than four hundred years.
"Records of file authors," he requested. AH author records deleted.
That was highly unusual. Only a president or presiding minister could
approve of deletion of authors or originators from file records in libraries
or city memory storage; and even then, only for the most pressing reasons.
Anonymity was not an approved concept in Hexamon history; too
many of the Death's perpetrators had hidden themselves away from responsibility
before and after the holocaust.

88 · GREG BEAR

"Description of files."

,4ll are brief reports, in words only.

The time had come. Olmy was surprised to realize his reluctance. The
truth might be worse than what he had imagined.

"Show me the files in chronological order," he said.

It was worse.

When he had finished and stored all the files in implant memory to
mull over at leisure, he gave the tracer its reward--the free run of a
simulated grassy field on Earth and released the meager cloud of
pseudo-Talsit into the room again.

His decision was made infinitely more difficult by what the tracer had
retrieved.

Reading between the lines--the whole story was by no means con-mined
in the files, which were adjunct files only, bare scraps left over
after some hasty and none-too-thorough purge---Olmy put together his
half-educated surmise.

A living Jart had been captured some five centuries before, under what
circumstances there was no knowing. It had died before being returned to
Thistledown and its body had been preserved after its mentality was
crudely downloaded. Not knowing Jart psychology or physiology, the
downloading had been only partly successful. How integrated the Jart
mentality was, how true to its original, not even its captors had known.
They had even suspected the body; several researchers felt that Jarts, like
humans, could adapt their biological forms and even their genetic
makeup to fit the circumstances. Hence, the Jart's physiology had been
studied, but the studies were inconclusive; they had not been passed on to
military commanders or other researchers.

At first, the investigations into the downloaded mentality had conducted
in secure but relatively open situations, with perhaps ten or fifteen
individual researchers. Nine had died in the process, two irretrievably
their implants hopelessly scrambled. Direct or indirect mental links with
the downloaded personality had been forbidden at that point. Research,
so encumbered, came almost to a halt.

Even then, Olmy knew, indirect examination of mentalities had been a
highly developed art. He found it difficult to believe that a Jart, fragmented
or whole, could injure investigators in such circumstances. And
yet, Beni had been killed and Mar Kellen damaged . .

Olmy controlled another hormonal surge. Were he not so altered and
augmented, the surge would indicate a condition called fear.

For centuries, there had been a law in cybernetic research: "For any
program, there is a system such that the program cannot not know its

ETERNITY · og

system." That is, a program, however, complicated, even a human mentality,
could not always be aware of the system it was running on, if no
clues were provided by that system; it could only know the extent to which the system allowed it to run.
But less than a century ago, Hexamon investigators headed by a brilliant
team-leader, homorph Doria Fer Taylor, had found mathematical
algorithms which allowed programs to determine the nature of their systems.
Thus, a downloaded mentality could tell whether or not it had been
downloaded; Olmy could, in theory, know under any circumstances
whether his focus of personality was running in implants or in his organic
mind.
In theory, such algorithms, fully developed, could allow a mentality or
program to change the nature of its system, to the extent that a syst.em
could be changed. Because of the existence of rogues in city memory,
such information could have had disastrous consequences. The rogues
even one rogue could have destroyed city memory and all that was in it.
Human mentalities were not disciplined enough to be given such power.
The researches had been classified. Olmy had learned of them through
his police work, when he had been ordered by the presiding minister to
investigate whether any mentalities in remote gate memories---human or
otherwise--had independently discovered such power. None had.
Olmy searched his deepest levels of implant memory for the Taylor
algorithms. He had often tucked away such items, trusting himself to
keep them secure, unable to resist the chance to incorporate them into his
personal data file. They were still available. He would have to purge them
before~if--he ever downloaded into the current city memory.
Not likely, he thought.
Judging from what had happened to Beni and Mar Kellen, as well as
the early researchers, the Jart mentality was aware of and fully capable of
using the Taylor algorithms. But at the time of its capture, humans had
not even known of their existence.
The Jart mentality: still an unknown quantity, had been removed to
complete isolation in the fifth chamber, to be studied now and then
across some number of decades, apparently less than a century, and then
to be forgotten, but for an occasional inquiry as to status. Too valuable to
be destroyed, too dangerous to be investigated . . .
The investigators had apparently all passed into city memory in their
alloted times. Most had been Geshels. Equally apparent, all of them had
chosen to go down the Way during the Sundering. That could explain
why there had been no further inquiries in the last forty years; it did not
explain twelve years of silence before that.

90 · GREG BEAR

He called up the complete list of data and looked at the file access
dates. Why check on static files if not to see whether somebody else has
accessed them?
The access dates were all between five and thirty years apart over the
last century and a half. The name of the acccssor had been erased after the fact in each case; a clever trick, but perhaps not clever enough. Olmy
requested the string length of the erased void in each access record. In
every case, the name had filled fifteen spaces. It seemed probable that
only one person had accessed the files for at least one hundred and fifty
years, checking to see if the footprints were still hidden, if the dangerous
skeleton in the closet was still secure.
Someone, of course, could have accidentally stumbled on the security
door in the fifth chamber, or found out about it as Mar Kellen had. But
Mar Kellen had used code cracking techniques developed comparatively
recently to open the door.
In all likelihood, nobody in the Terrestial Hexamon but Mar Kellen
and now Olmy knew anything about the captured Jart.
Mar Kellen was finding his way to an honorable obscurity.
That left Olmy.

SIXTEEN

Gaia

The Boul~ conference on the Libyan attack on the Brukheion had been
discouraging. Jewish militia stationed all around the Nilos delta had already
shown their displeasure in demonstrations that bordered on mutiny;
the Boul~ was now reacting. Kleopatra, attended by her usual
midge-cloud of counselors and advisors, had emerged from the session
into the glare of lights wielded by an official Boul~ recording crew. She
had enough vanity to hate bright lights and cameras, and enough sense of
duty to smile.
Her position as queen was shaky indeed. She had long since come to
regret the power she had regained for the Ptolemaic Dynasty in the past
thirty years; power enough to take blame, yet not enough to assume

ET E R N I, TY · 91

control. She did not have the power to defy the Boul~ completely and
take charge of the military; yet she was held responsible by many groups
if the Bouli military policy was a failure. Rumors of plots were thick in
the air; she almost wished they would come true.
The day did not improve when her Mouseion spy reported on how
Rhita Bereniki Vaskayza was being treated.
Her Imperial Hysilotis had long since learned to take every possible
advantage of a situation. She had suspected for over a decade that the
Mouseion's interests were drawing apart from her own, but not so far
apart that they would be openly defiant. The Akademeia Hypateia on
Rhodos was a thorn in the bibliophylax's side; Kleopatra had thought
she could provoke an interesting response, then, by allowing Patrikia's
granddaughter to come to the Mouseion. And if this young woman
brought better news than Patrikia had . . . So be it.
Either way, she was useful.
But what the spy told his queen was infuriating.
She listened to the spy's testimony while seated on a campstool in her
private study. Her scar whitened as her jaw muscles tightened. She had
not believed that the bibliophylax Kallimakhos would be so willing to
flout her authority.
Kallimakhos had sent Rhita's chosen didaskalos, a young physics and
engineering professor named Demetrios, away on extended sabbatical,
against his own expressed wishes. (Demetrios, the spy said, was a fine
mathematician as well as a promising inventor, and had looked forward
to working with the daughter of the Soph Patrikia.) Kallimakhos had
then rudely treated Rhita, ignoring her privileged visitor's status, forcing
her to live separately from the Kelt bodyguard who might very well be
necessary for her safety . . .
Rhita Vaskayza, the spy said with some professional admiration, was
bearing up well under these disgraces. "Is she a royal favorite?" the spy
asked.
"Do you need to know?" Kleopatra asked coldly.
"No, my Queen. If she is a favorite, however, you have chosen an
interesting woman to favor."
Kleopatra ignored the familiarity. "It's time to play the chosen piece,"
she said. With a deftly pointed finger, she ordered the spy from the room.
A secretary appeared in the doorway. "Bring Rhita Berenik~ Vaskayza to me, tomorrow morning. Treat her exceptionally well." She hummed and
stared at the ceiling, thinking what else she could do. Something for her
simple satisfaction, without derailing any larger plans. "Send the tax
auditors to the Mouseion. I want every administrator and didaskalos on

92 · GREG BEAR


the premisesBunderstand that, only those who are immediately present
--audited for tithe performance and royal taxes. With the sole exception
of Kallimakhos. Tell him I wish to meet with him within the week. And
see to it that any royalties and benefits transferred from palace funds to
the Mouseion are delayed for.three weeks."

"Yes, my Queen." The secretary touched clasped hands to chin and
angled back through the door.

Kleopatra closed her eyes and stilled her dull anger with a slow
breathy moan. She found herself wishing more and more for something
apocalyptic, to cut cleanly through the political morass that was her life
now. Neither supremely powerful, nor weak enough to be ignored, she
had to ply her power like a sailor with a ragged boat on Lake Mareotis.

"Bring me something distracting and wonderful, Rhita Vaskayza," she
murmured. "Something worthy of your grandmother."


The residence hall echoed with women's voices speaking Hellenic, Ar-

amaic, Aithiopian, and Hebrew. Today was the beginning to classes, yet
Rhita had no didaskalos, no assignments, and hence, no classes beyond
the basics accorded to all Mouseion students: orientation, language--of
which she had no needmand Mouseion history. By the second hour of
morningmbeginning after sunrise---the hall was nearly empty, and she
sat in a dark mood in her cramped room, wondering about the wisdom of
coming to Alexandreia at all.

She heard two pairs of heavy footsteps outside her door and felt a
moment of anxiety. There was a rap on the doorframe, and a male voice
inquired, "Rhita Berenik~ Vaskayza?"

"Yes," she said, standing to face whoever might come in.

"I'm here with your bodyguard," the man said in polished common
Hellenic. "Her Imperial Hyps~lot~s requests your presence by the sixth
hour of this day."

Rhita opened the door and saw Lugotorix standing behind a tall, bulky
Aigyptian in royal livery. The Kelt nodded at Rhita and she blinked.
"Now?"

"Now," the Aigyptian confirmed.

Lugotorix helped her gather the cases containing Patrikia's Objects.

She felt faintly ridiculous, having tried the Mouseion at all; but that had
been her father's strategy, at her mother's suggestion, years back. Best
not to approach her Imperial Hyps~lot~s directly, her mother had advised.
Especially after the fiasco of the disappearing gate& ,:

A much larger motorized wagon waited for her on the cobble road
curving past the main archway of the residence hall. Three other Aigyp-

ETERNITY · g3

tians, also in royal livery, carefully loaded her cases into the back. The
Kelt took a seat beside the driver, and the guards stood on running
boards. With a wind-horn roaring, she was driven from the grounds of
the Mouseion, west to the palace.
Leaving the main gate, she looked back and realized, with an intuitive
shudder, that her brief sojourn in the Mouseion was at an end.

SEVENTEEN

Thistledown

Once, before the age of thirty, life had been bordered by walls of reasonable
proportions; Garry Lanier had not had to face a constant barrage of
explosive re-evaluations of reality and where he fit in. Since the arrival of
the Stone, he had had to come to grips with mind-stretching truths so
often, he had once thought nothing would amaze him any more.
He lay in the bunk prepared for him by Svard, Korzenowski's assistant.
In the dark, on his back, half-covered by a sheet, he sighed and
knew that he was not so jaded after all. The Russian's story had flabbergasted
him.
Mirsky had returned, after traveling beyond the end of time and becoming
at least a minor deity.
He was an avatar, a reincarnated symbol of forces outside even Korzenowski's
comprehension.
"Jesus," Lanier said almost automatically. The name had lost considerable
power in the .past few decades. After all, the miracles at the foundation
of Christianity were almost all duplicated weekly in the Terrestrial
Hexamon. Technology had superseded religion.
But what was Mirsky, that his reappearance should supersede even the
abilities of the Hexamon? Had wonders gone full circle, back to the realm
of religion again?
What Mirsky had shown them . . The combination of simplified
visuals and words and incomprehensible sounds projected into their
minds . . His innards still curled at the memory of the experience.
What would Karen have thought, from her less Western perspective?

94
	· GREG BEAR
Born in China of parents defected from England, her capacity for wonders
might be increased by a different attitude toward reality. At least,
she had never seemed quite as culture-shocked, future-shocked, as Lanier
had felt. She had accepted the inevitable and undeniable with calmness
and pragmatism.
Lanier knuckled his closed eyes and turned over, trying to find elusive
sleep. Now that he could not possibly see her, he realized he missed
Karen. Even with the hidden bitterness of their last few years together,
they shared something with her when they were together: a common link
with the past.
Was it that he was simply too from to accept these new realities? Would
pseudo-Talsit help, or a cleansing of his mental channels through a new
youthfulness?
He swore under his breath and started to get out of the bunk, but there
was no place he could safely go in the compound, no place where he was unobserved. And he needed isolation now, needed darkness and freedom
from stimulus. He felt like a transported animal clinging to the security
of an enclosed cage. Opening the door, he might be assaulted by another
barrage of impossibilities.
While Lanier tried to sleep, Korzenowski was arranging a meeting
with the president and several key corpreps. There was a good possibility
that Judith Hoffman, Lanier's boss and mentor four decades ago, would
be present.
Lanier had not kept up with her activities for years. He was not surprised
to learn she had undergone pseudo-Talsit and transplant rejuvenation,
but it came as something of a shock when Korzenowski informed him she was leading the Thistledown faction that supported reopening
the Way.

The trains between Thistledown's chambers were as efficient as ever,
sleek silver millipedes gliding at several hundred kilometers an hour
through their narrow tunnels. Lanier sat beside Mirsky, and Korzenow-ski
sat opposite, all lost in silence.
Theirs was a cosmic shyness with little room for small talk not after
what Mirsky had showed them. Mirsky took the silent treatment stoically,
peering through the windows at the surrounding tunnel darkness
and the sudden explosion of cityscape as the train emerged into tubelight.
The third chamber metropolis, Thistledown City, had been designed
and built after the asteroid's launch, taking advantage of lessons learned
in the construction of Alexandria in the second chamber. Its enormous
towers rose from slender bases to wide tops five kilometers above the

ET E R N I TY · 95
valley floor. Soaring suspended structures reached across the curve of the
chamber like skyscrapers strung along a curtain. The glittering
megaplexes, each as capacious as a good-sized town on prewar Earth,
seemed poised for imminent disaster. Much of Thistledown City was an
architectural nightmare to unaccustomed eyes, always teetering, threatening
to collapse in a stray wind.
Yet these buildings had survived the stopping and re-rotation of the
asteroid during the Sundering, with comparatively little damage.
"It's truly beautiful," Mirsky said, breaking the silence. He leaned
forward and Shook his head enthusiastically, grinning like a boy.
"Quite a compliment from a man who's seen the end of time," Korze.
nowski observed.
He doesn't act like an avatar, Lanier thought.
After the Sundering, Thistledown City had been re-occupied by citizens
from the precincts. An abortive attempt to bring Old Natives to the
asteroid and settle them had been called off' after the new immigrants
expressed great unhappiness; most had been returned to Earth, where
they would not be overawed by unnatural splendor. Lanier sympathized.
Now, the city was about one-fifth full, citizens clustering together in
certain areas, others in less populated regions often living one or two
families to a building. If ever large numbers of Earth's inhabitants could
be persuaded to make Thistledown their home, space aplenty waited for
them.
All of the city's parks had been restored, unlike in Alexandria, where
restoration was still in progress. Some had been replanted with flora
brought up from Earth. Conservators were encouraging endangered ani-reals
from Earth to breed in various spectacular zoos completed within
the past two decades. The second and third chamber libraries contained
the genetic records of every Earth species known at the time of Thistledown's
launch, but a large number of species had vanished in the years
after the Death; now was their chance to prevent those extinctions.
The Terrestrial Hexamon Nexus met in the middle of a thousand-acre
rain forest. A wide, low translucent dome the color of a clear twilight sky
vaulted over much of the forest and the Nexus meeting chambers; under
the dome, the tubelight was transformed into glorious sunlight and
clouds.
The Nexus was not in session this day. The meeting chambers, a circular
arena and central stage, were almost empty.
Judith Hoffman sat in an aisle seat near the central stage. Lanier,
Mirsky and Korzenowski walked down the aisle abreast, and she turned
in hex seat, cocking an eyebrow. With a quick glance, she summed up

~ · GREG BEAR


Mirsky and Korzenowski, and then she smiled at Lanier. He stepped

aside and met her welcoming hug while Mirsky and Korzenowski waited.
"It's wonderful to see you again, Garry," she said.

"It's been too long." He smiled broadly, feeling more energetic and
reassured just in her presence. She had allowed herself to age a little,
Lanier noted, though she still appeared twenty years younger than he;
her hair was steely gray and her face carried a look of tired, careworn
dignity.

She had deliberately ignored the more advanced fashions of Thistledown
City, where apparel might consist of illusion as much as cloth.
Instead, she had chosen a stolid gray pants suit with just a hint of feminine
cut to her lapels. She wore a pictor necklace and carried a small slate
at least four decades old, the equivalent here of a quill pen.

"How's Karen? Have you been keeping up with Lenore and Larry?"
"Karen's fine. She might be here now. She's working with Suli Ram
Kikura on a social project." He swallowed. "Lenore is in Oregon now, I
believe. Larry died a few months ago."

Hoffman's mouth made a surprised O. "I hadn't heard . . Damn.
That's a Christian for you." She clasped his hand and sighed. "I'll miss
him. I've been out of touch up here--too much so. I've missed you all,
but there's been a lot of work." The other three representatives approached
from another aisle: David Par Jordan, Assistant and Advocate
to the President, a small, delicate Thistledown-born man with white-blond
hair; Sixth Chamber Supervisor Deorda Ti Negranes, a tall, lithe
female homorph dressed in black; and Eula Mason, a squat, powerful
woman with hawklike features, corprep for Axis Thoreau, an orthodox
but not extreme Naderite with substantial power as a swing vote in the
lower Nexus.

Mirsky watched them all with his mild, distanced expression, like an
actor waiting to be called on stage. Hoffman shook hands and exchanged
pleasantries with Korzenowski, then turned to Mirsky. She folded her
hands in front of her chest. "Garry," she said, "is this man who he says
he is?"

Lanier knew his judgment would be relied upon implicitly. "I wasn't
sure to start with, but now, I think he is, yes."

"Ser Mirsky, my pleasure to meet you again," Hoffman said. "Under
circumstances more peaceful, and certainly more mysterious." She unfolded
her hands and exteneded one with some hesitation. Mirsky
grasped it by the fingertips and bowed.

Chivalry from the end of time, Lanier thought. What next?
"Indeed, Ser Hoffman," he said. "Much has changed."

ET E R N I TY · 97


As they adjourned to a meeting room in the complex beneath the
arena, introductions were made all around, with a social awkwardness
that Lanier found amusing, considering the circumstances. Human convention
could trivialize even the most momentous occasions, and perhaps

that was its purpose--to bring enormous events down to a human scale.
Korzenowski pointedly did not go into detail about Mirsky.

"We have some complicated and important evidence to bring before
the Nexus and the president," Korzenowski said as they took seats
around a small round table.

"I have one question, and I can't wait to ask it," Eula Mason said,
features stern. "I know very little about Ser Mirsky. He's an Old Native
--pardon me, a Terrestrialtand he has Russian ancestry, but your introduction
doesn't explain his importance, Set Korzenowski. Where does he
come from?"

"From a great distance in space and in time," the Engineer said. "He's
presented us with some disturbing news, and he's ready to testify before
this select group. I warn you--you've never experienced anything like
such testimony, even in city memory."

"I make it a habit to avoid city memory," Mason said. "I respect you,
Ser Korzenowski, but I dislike mystery and I certainly dislike having my
time wasted."

For ostensible allies united against the re-opening, Lanier thought Mason
was being remarkably uncongenial to Korzenowski.

Korzenowski was unfazed. "I've asked the four of you here because
this is so unusual a circumstance, and I'd like a kind of rehearsal before
we go on to the full Nexus."

"Will we need aspirin?" Hoffman asked Lanier, leaning in his direction.

"Probably," Lanier said.

Negranes's design as a homorph was a little too extreme for Lanier's
tastes; her facial features were' too small on her head, and her body was
proportioned in ways. that exceeded the natural---emphasis on length of
legs and thickness of thighs, extremely long fingers, an almost masculine
chest. Yet her bearing was regal and it was obvious she knew her place in
this room, and on Thistledown. "Is this evidence designed to discourage
re-opening, Ser Engineer?"

"I think it may allow us to reach a compromise," Korzenowski said.
That's a bit optimistic, Lanier thought.

Mason squinted with unconcealed suspicion. Obviously, Korzenowski
was not completely trusted in his own camp. That was hardly surprising;
he had designed the Way in the first place.

98
	· GREG BEAR


"Then let's have it," Par Jordan said.

"This time, I will not use a projector," Mirsky said. "I will spare Sers
Korzenowski and Lanier . . . They have suffered my story once already."


When the presentation was over, Hoffman laid her head on the table
and sighed. Lanier rubbed her neck and shoulder gently with one hand.
"God," she exclaimed, her voice muffled. Par Jordan and Negranes
seemed stunned.

Mason stood, hands trembling. "This is a farce," she said, turning on
Korzenowski. "I'm amazed you believed this willful deception. You are
certainly not the man my father put his confidence in "

"Eula," Korzenowski said, facing her coldly, "sit down. This is not
deception. You know that as well as I."

"What is it, then?" she asked, voice shrill. "I don't understand any of
it!"

"Yes, you do. It's quite clear, however amazing."

"What does he want us to do?" she continued. Korzenowski raised his
hand and nodded his head, asking for patience. Mason found just enough
patience to fold her arms and sit rigidly back in her chair.

"Do you have any questions?" he asked Negranes and Par Jordan.

Par Jordan seemed the least disturbed of them all. "You think the
president should see this? I mean, experience it?" he asked.

"It must be 'he entire Nexus, please, for a decision," Mirsky said. "As
soon as possible." They looked at him as if he were an unexpected ghost

or perhaps a very large insect. They were noticeably reluctant to speak
to him directly.

"Ser Korzenowski, that's going to be difficult. I sympathize with Ser
Mason's reaction . . ."

She slapped her open hand on the table, vindicated.

Negranes lifted her head. "I've never felt anything like it," she said. "It
makes me feel immeasurably small. Is everything so futile, that we simply
vanish and are forgotten in time?"

"Not forgotten," Mirsky said. "Please. You are not forgotten. I am
here."

"Why you?" Negranes asked. "Why not some better-known figure
from the Hexamon?"

"I volunteered, in a way. I offered myself," Mirsky said.

Hoffman fixed Korzenowski with her clear brown eyes. "We've been
opposed on this question for a long time. I'm sure Garry is surprised to

ETERNITY · 99

hear I've been supporting re-opening. How do you feel, experiencing this?
Have you changed your mind?"
Korzenowski didn't answer for a moment. Then, using a tone of voice
that made Lanier jump a familiar tone, that of Patricia Vasquez he
said, "I've always known it was inevitable. I've never enjoyed inevitability.
I don't enjoy this, now. I designed the Way, and was punished for
doing so by assassination. I was brought back, and I saw what progress
we had made, and how much we had gained as human beings--not lost.
We were trapped by our own glories.
"I was certain that returning to Earth would balance out our problems,
but the Way is like a drug. We have been using this drug for so long,
we cannot break free of it, so long as the possibility for re-opening remains."
"You sound ambivalent," Mason said.
"I think the Way must be re-opened. And then it must be destroyed. I
see no alternative to the method presented by Ser Mirsky."
"Re-opening," Mason said, shaking her head. "Finally giving in."
"Our responsibility is a heavy burden," the Engineer continued. "The
Way must be dismantled. It blocks the designs of those whose goals are
far larger than anything we can easily imagine."
"Count on this," Mason said. "If we favor any kind of re-opening, they will not let us dismantle." She nodded at Negranes and Hoffman.
Hoffman looked at Lanier, her face only now regaining some of its
color. "By all means. The Nexus must see this. I believe this man is
Mirsky, and that's remarkable enough to convince me."
Par Jordan stood. "I'll make my recommendation to the president."
"What is your recommendation?" Mirsky asked.
"I doubt we can block testimony before the Nexus. I don't know
whether we'd want to. I just . don't know." He took a deep breath.
"The disruption is going to be unbelievable."
Lanier suddenly longed fora chance to relive that moment on the
mountain, when he ha.d first seen the hiker descending the path.
Given another chance, he might run away as fast as cramped legs
allowed.

100 · GREG BEAR


EIGHTEEN


Gaia Alexandreia
Lokhi s Promontory


Kleopatra the Twenty-first greeted the young woman warmly in the sitting
room of her private quarters. The queen's hair was shot with gray
and her eyes lackluster. The scar across her cheek, a badge of honor well-known
throughout the Oikoumeni, appeared red and puffy. She looked
exhausted.

The Kelt was not allowed into the private quarters. Rhita felt vaguely
sorry for the man, always cooling his heels someplace away from his
primary duty--protecting her.

"You were not treated well at the Mouseion," Kleopatra said, sitting
across a transparent rose-veined quartz table from the young woman. "I
ask your forgiveness and understanding."

Rhita nodded, not knowing what to say, thinking it best to let the
queen speak. Kleopatra seemed agitated, ill at ease.

"Your request for an audience was expected, and welcome," she continued.
"I'm afraid your grandmother thought I lost faith in her." The
queen smiled faintly. "Perhaps I did. It is easy to lose faith in a world of
disappointments. But I never doubted her word. I needed to believe in
what she said. Is that easy to understand?"

Rhita realized her silence might be interpreted as shock at being in the
presence of royalty. Strangely, she was not nervous. "Yes. I understand."

"From what I've been told, you were not close to your grandmother,
not all your life."

"No, my Queen."

Kleopatra waved away the formality, fixing her tired eyes on Rhita.

"She chose you for something?"

"Yes."

"What?" The queen's hand gestured for her to be more forthcoming,
as if urging her closer.

	ETERNITY ·
	11)1

"She put me in charge of the Objects," Rhita said.
"The clavicle?"
"Yes, my Queen."
"Is it busy disappointing us again?"
"It shows a new gate, your Imperial Hyps~lot~s. This one has stayed in
place for three years."
"Where?"
"In the steppes of Nordic Rhus, west of the Kaspian Sea."
The queen thought that over for a moment, brows drawn together. Her
scar lightened in color. "Not easy to get to. Does anybody else know it's
there?"
"Not that I know of, my Queen."
"Do you know where it leads?"
Rhita shook her head.
"There's nothing . . . more convincing about this particular gate?"
"In what way, my Queen?"
Try as she might, Rhita could not change her method of address. It
seemed almost sacrilegious to speak to the woman baldly, without some
kind of obeisance.
"I suppose I'm asking for security. If I outfit an expedition, brave the
diplomatic difficulties of sending it to Nordic Rhusmshould we be
caught, I mean, since there's no question of asking permission--and it's
all for nothing, a hole to nowhere . ."
"I can't guarantee anything, my Queen."
Kleopatra shook her head sadly, then smiled again. "Neither could
your grandmother." She took a deep breath. "She was, and you are, both
very lucky to have me as queen. Someone more intelligent, more pragmatic,
would not listen to either of you."
Rhita nodded solemnly, braced for rejection.
"Do you have any idea what lies on the other side of this gate? Any
notion at all?"
"It may take us back to the Way."
"Patrikia's big water-pipe world."
"Yes, my Queen."
Kleopatra stood, holding her finger to her temple on the upper end of
her scar, clenching and relaxing her jaw. "What would your expedition
need? More than what Patrikia once requested?"
"I don't believe so, Hyps~lot~s."
"Not a great expenditure. The Objects are all working properly? The
Rhodian mekhanikoi have kept them in good shape?"

102 · GREG BEAR

"They have required no maintenance, my Queen. Other than changing
batteries . . They are working properly."
"You could guide this expedition?"
"I think that is what my grandmother wished."
"You're very young."
Rhita did not deny it.
"Could you?"
"I believe so."
"You lack your grandmother's passion. She would not have hesitated
to say yes, even if she doubted herself."
Rhita did not deny this, either.
Kleopatra shook her head slowly, walking around the table. She
stopped with her hands resting on the back of Rhita's chair. "It's political
folly. Risking a confrontation with the Rhus, and a storm in the
Boul~ should secrecy be broken . . . My position is not enviable now,
young woman. There's a part of me irritated--no, not just irritated, angry!--at
your simply being here, making your tacit request. And another
part . . . the part your grandmother took advantage of..."
Rhita swallowed, locking her neck muscles to keep from constantly
bobbing her head in agreement.
"I've already spread some minor punishments for your ill-treatment in
the Mouseion. In a way, I've already supported your cause. But it is not
easy for me to simply give in to my desires. And I do desire that you find
something . . . wonderful, maybe even dangerous, wonderfully newly
dangerous. Something far above this incredible tangle of low-level threats
and high-level hatred and intrigue." She bent beside Rhita, bringing her
face close to the young woman's, eyes shifting over her features. "What
collateral do you offer?"
"Collateral, my Queen?"
"Personal guarantees."
"None," Rhita replied, her heart faltering.
"None at all?"
Very softly, hating herself, fearing herself and her own uncertainties,
Rhita said, "Only my life, Hyps~lot~s."
Kleopatra laughed. Straightening, she took Rhita's hands in her own
and raised her from the chair, as if they might dance. "There's some of
the old girl in you after all," she said. "Can you show me?"
Rhita unlocked her neck muscles long enough to nod once.
"Then bring your clavicle here and show me, as your grandmother did.
I enjoyed that experience."

ETERNITY · 103

NINETEEN
Thistledown, Fifth Chamber

After thirty-one days of investigation, Olmy had reached a decision. The
Jart mentality, in its present location, could not be studied safely. He
knew too little about the system it was stored in, whereas the Jart appaiently
knew everything.
He stood in the second room, jaw muscles working. The mentality's
displayed image had not changed noticeably in all the time he had studied
it. Placid, undisturbed, timeless; soon to be reborn, and perhaps to
attempt its higher purpose yet again .
Olmy had never put himself into a situation where his inner being
could be violated. He had even shied away from mixing personalities
with lovers and friends, not uncommon back in the heady days of the Jart
Wars. Whenever he had joined entertainments in city memory, he had
always carefully wrapped a tight shell around his self.
He regarded this foible with as much amusement as anyone; but he
had violated the rule only once, when he had downloaded Korzenowski's
reassembled partials into his implant memories. Korzenowski's scattered
mentality had been close enough to share only his outer layer of
thoughts, and nothing deeper, however.
In a way, he detested deep intimacy. He valued his singularness. He
had never subscribed to the old poet's maxim that to be alone was to be
in bad company. Olmy clearly understood why he rejected deep intimacy;
he did not want to know himself completely, or to have anybody
else know him. He did not relish the thought of exploring his own mentality,
as others did.
But to know the Jart, the best way would be to download it into an
isolated implant within himself. He could not trust any device to resist
the Jart's explorations; inside, he could constantly monitor the
downloaded mentality, and even shift it from an implant using one sys~
rem to another with a different system. He had three large memory implants,
one of them only five decades old, the extra two installed in

104
	° GREG BEAR

anticipation of carrying the Engineer's partials, all of Talsit construction.
Each could be modified at will, isolated, examined from outside with
little or no chance of unwanted output from whatever was kept in memory...
The plan had been inevitable all along.
Olmy had simply avoided the obvious.
How much was he willing to sacrifice for the Terrestrial Hexamon? His
mentality, his soul? If the Jart somehow managed to corrode its way
through all internal barriers, to outwit and outmaneuver him, then more
than that would be lost.
The Jart had allowed itself to be captured.
It was a Trojan Horse.
Of this much he was sure.
And he was about to take the horse within the walls of his own precious
citadel, his mind.
If his safeguards failed, the Jart might do what it had probably planned
to do all along. It could become a spy, a saboteur in human form, within
the Hexamon. It could control all of his memories, even, in the worse
case imaginable, convince his enslaved personality that he was acting of
his own volition.
Hormonal implants kept his body chemistry in relative balance, but
the sharp bite of fear was still apparent. Olmy had never been so unsure
of the outcome of his plans.
He returned to the first room, where Beni had died, and opened a small
box of equipment. Onto the panel's output device he locked a data valve.
Drawing several leads from the valve's smooth round surface, he fastened
them to the curved band that would slide tightly around the base of his
skull.
The downloading could take hours; the equipment here was ancient.
The valve would not allow any unregulated surge of information.
You're about to become a bomb, he told himself. A very dangerous
rogue indeed.
The room was silent but for the faint hum of the valve. He thought of
the fifth chamber landscape, six kilometers above, and of the mass of the
Thistledown all around them; even more ancient than this equipment. A
weight of history and responsibility that he had carried for most of his
life.
If he were to die right now, killed by this rash process or by some
unexpected irregularity in his body--rare, but not unknown--he knew he
would have performed his duty to the Hexamon many times over. He

ETERNITY · 105

would not regret simply ceasing to be. And perhaps Korzenowski or
someone else would pull the Hexamon through these dangerous times.
He reexamined the wires. All fittings were correct. First, however, he
had to take a few precautions. He rigged a strong traction field near the
door, laying two small nodes on each side. The nodes would draw from
the room's hidden power supply. If he simply tapped a remote button, or
sent a sharp whistle, or blinked his eyes in a rapid code, the field would
activate . . . And there was no way to turn it off or harm the nodes,
since they would lie within their own field.
He would not be able to escape. Nothing inside him would be able to
escape. This would be a tomb for both of them.
If necessary, Olmy would stay in the room for several weeks, waiting
to see if the process was successful. He had rigged other traps for himself
in Alexandria, in the fifth chamber near the train station, in the third
chamber. All he had to do, should something go wrong away from this
small sanctuary, would be to make his way to one of those traps, activate
traction fields, and wait to die or wait to be discovered.
Nobody knew of these traps. Nobody knew of his plans.
And then, there were the traps within his own mind . . . Mental tripwires
controlled by the same internally-downloaded partial that would
oversee the Jart's mentality.
If he felt himself losing all control, and could not make it to a trap, a
blunder across these trip-wires would release a small explosive charge in
his chest.
Satisfied that everything was in order, he reconnected the leads and sat
on the floor, legs in a lotus, before the panel. He removed a small vial of
nutrient fluid from his equipment case, lifted it to the silent air in toast,
and said, "Beni. Mar Kellen. Nameless researchers. Star, Fate and
Pneuma be kind to you all." He drank it down and laid the vial aside.
Then he reached up and touched the valve.
The transfer began.

106
	· GREG BEAR

TWENTY

Gaia, Alexandreia,
Lokhias Promontory

The evening after their meeting, Rhita dined with the queen on sturgeon,
lentils and fruit in the hall of Ptolemaios the Guardian. They took their
seats at a marble table, a servant standing behind each, and looked out
over the parapet at the sun setting on the ancient capital.
Kleopatra explained the unusual menu as each dish was served. "This
is a royal fish, flown in fresh from Parsa, a fish beyond price, garnished
with its own roe. The lentils are a common dish, coarse and healthy,
served with unleavened bread made of bleached maize from the Southern
Continent. The fruit is Gaia's gift to rich and poor, common to us all.
Would that all commoners could eat as well as their rulers." As they ate,
they did not discuss the gate or anything else of immediate consequence.
"We've made enough interesting decisions today," Kleopatra averred.
After the dinner, Rhita was shown by a wizened white-haired chamberlain
to a windowless room deep in the ancient, cool lower floors of the
royal quarters, in the palace's north wing.
"Do you trust him?" the chamberlain asked her just outside her door,
jabbing his finger at Lugotorix.
"Yes," Rhita said.
The chamberlain looked him over with a squint. "If you say so." He
raised his hand and a servant at the end of the hall advanced. A few
mumbled words of Aigyptian--which Rhita did not understand--made
the servant run to the end of the hallway. A moment later, while all three
stood waiting in awkward silence, a dour, stocky old man in a leather
apron and arm-chaps brought forward a Ioudaian machine gun and a
bullet-proof vest.
"This is the palace armorer," the chamberlain explained. He took the
weapon from the armorer and handed it to the Kelt, who accepted it with
obvious admiration. Then the chamberlain ordered the armorer to in
ETERNITY · 107

struct the Kelt in its usage, which he did, using Hellenic and a much of
Parisiani.
"You wear an armored vest, and she doesn't," the armorer explained,
"because you should always be between her and a hasisin. Understood?"
The Kelt nodded grimly.
At another gesture from the chamberlain, two massive Aithiopians
stalked toward them from the end of the hall. The Kelt raised his new
weapon instinctively, but the chamberlain tapped the gun's black barrel
with a disdainful finger and shook his head. "Ceremony," the chamberlain
explained. "You're to join the Palace Guard."
The Kelt was initiated on the spot in a brief blood-sharing ceremony
with the Aithiopians. Judging by his astonished expression, he was quite
impressed. Rhita was less enthusiastic; she was tired, and vaguely wondered
why she had to witness all this.
A cot was brought into the corridor and placed near the door of her
sleeping chamber. Then the chamberlain gestured to the armorer and the
Aithiopians and they left.
"You're going to be comfortable here?" Rhita asked him, standing in
the doorway. He patted the cot with the splayed fingers of one huge hand
and shrugged.
"It's too soft, mistress, but it won't hurt me."
"What do you think of all this?" she asked, her voice lower.
The Kelt pondered for a moment, thick dark-blond eyebrows knitted.
"Will I go with you, or stay here?'
"You'll come with me. I hope."
"That's okay, then." He was obviously unwilling to comment further.
Rhita closed her door and walked around the room, trying not to feel
closed in. The fanciful murals painted above a wainscot did little to add
to the room's size. They depicted crocodile and hippopotamus hunters on
Lake Mareotis, and were doubtless very old--perhaps two thousand
years. Their sense of perspective was primitive. Rhita suspected she could
do better herself, and she had never been a quick study at drawing.
After examining the exquisite furniture--ebony and ivory and highly
polished silver and brass--she lay on the feather mattress and stared at
the purple silk canopy hanging from the ceiling.
Ye'hat in hell am I doing?
Teeth clacking together with exhaustion and anxiety, Rhita remembered
she had not yet looked at the slate to see if there was a message for
her today. She removed the slate from her case and turned on the display.

108 · GREG BEAR

My dear granddaughter,

If you have met the queen, you know she is a very smart
woman, tough and quite capable of holding her own in a troubled Oikoumen . But she is also a woman who will die shortly
--politically, perhaps, before her body dies. The Oikoumen
will soon be run by aristocratic administrators, men for whom
politics is a precise and clear-cut science. They already resent
her for her intuitions and unpredictable decisions. That is why
the gates must be found and examined before she dies or is
deposed. She is our last chance. No reasonable politician would
allow an expedition such as this. For one thing, no reasonable
man would believe in the existence of something like a gate.
Kleopatra believes because it gives her a much-needed thrill, a
sense of bigger things in a life focused on day-to-day crises. I
have disappointed her once, but I think the need is still in her.
All the same, do not be arrogant with our queen. Exercise your
inborn caution. And beware the lure of the palace. It is a dangerous
place. Kleopatra lives there as a scorpion among snake&

Rhita thought about the chamberlain, the armorer, the Aithiopian
guards, and the ceremony she had been made to witness. Somehow, it all
made a little more sense. She turned off the slate, grateful to the Soph for
her foresight and insight. But her teeth still chattered, and sleep was
not easy to find.

Planning for the expedition to the site in Nordic Rhus began the next
morning, in secret. The pace of the next two days was dizzying; the queen
and her advisors seemed to be racing against time to get their preparations
made, and Rhita was soon made privy to the reason for speed and
discretion.
Kleopatra had once, decades before, controlled most matters involving
exploration and research in the Oikoumen. She had assumed this royal
prerogative in her youth, even before the influence of the Boul~ had
waned and Kleopatra had gathered more and more power to the Ptolemaic
Dynasty and away from the Alexandreian and Kan6pic aristocra- lies.
"Your grandmother cost me dearly when her gates wandered and vanished,''
Kleopatra said, lips twisted in a wry smile. She shuddered and
dismissed the past with her hand. "But the aristoi have been getting into
a fair amount of trouble lately. Farmer and kl~roukhos revolts, conscrip-

ETERNITY
tion failure in the Kypros crisis . . . They've been in hiding for the past
few months, letting me take the fall, and that gives me some room to
breathe. If I breathe secretly. Secrets don't last long in Alexandreia. I
have to have this expedition outfitted, and on its way, within five or six
days, or chances are it'll be stopped by the Boul~ Royal Counselor."
Kleopatra introduced her to a trusted advisor, Oresias, an explorer and expert on the Nordic Rhus who had a fierce loyalty to Kleopatra. Oresias
was tall and lean, of late middle age, strong and aquiline and white-haired;
centuries past, he might have been one of Alexandros's generals.
With his help, Rhita hastily prepared a list of supplies and people necessary
to the expedition. On something more than whim, she included the
name of Demetrios, though they still had not met; she thought she might
enjoy the company of a fellow mathematician.
Oresias consulted with another trusted advisor, Jamal Atta, a short,
black-haired man, retired general of the Oikoumen Overland Security
Forces. Jamal Atta was of Berber ancestry, but affected the style of an old
Persian soldier. Together, they plotted the difficulties and dangers of
entering unfriendly territory.
Rhita thought about the long journey to Nordic Rhus with no small
amount of trepidation. As Oresias spread the plans before her on a cards-and-jackals
table in the royal game room, his strong, badly-scarred index
finger tracing the likeliest routes, she wondered what the queen's motivations
really were. Had Patrikia read Kleopatra's intentions truly?
The expedition would be politically risky; they would have to avoid
detection by the Nordic Rhus high-frequency towers placed along their
southern borders, from Baktra to Magyar Pontos. The independent
Rhus-allied republics of the Hunnoi and Uighurs also lay in the path, and
both were renowned for fierce and heartless warriors. Intrusions might be
regarded as justifying counter-intrusions, or even lead to small border
wars. Jamal Atta mentioned these possibilities in passing, as simple comments
on Oresias's plans.
The expedition's vehicles would be Ioudaian beecraft, large hovering
vehicles powered by Syrian jet turbines. Atta fanned out a handful of
pictures of these beecraft with their top-mounted long broad spinning
blades and forward canopies like bug's eyes.
"I cannot say how reliable they are," Atta said in his deep, froggy
voice, with his face even longer and darker than usual. "We can get two
of them from the palace secret police~. They have a range of five hundred
parasangs. A parasang is about three hundred OikoumenC~ schoene--rope-lengths."
Rhita said she knew military and Persian measures. Jamal
Atta lifted an eyebrow, pursued his lips and continued. "Weapons we can

110 · GREG BEAR


get plenty ofmblack markets flourish in the delta, if we can't transfer
them from the palace armory or the weapon factories at Memphis. The
question I need answered is, why are we going? What do we plan to do if
we find what we're looking for?" Both Atta and Oresias had been told
some details, but not all, about the unlikely thing for which they would
search.

Rhita stared at the plans spread on the game table. "We'll try to enter
the gate," she said.

"Where will this door take us?"

"Into a place called the Way." She described it for him, but Atta's eyes
glazed after a few minutes and he raised his hand.

"If we can live there, then others can live there, too. Will they resist
us?"

"I don't know," Rhita said. "They might welcome us."

"Who will they be?"

"The people who made the Way. Perhaps."

Atta shook his head dubiously. "Whatever someone has, they protect
from intruders. This all sounds dangerous and badly thought out. I
would feel safer with an army in front of me."

Oresias, sitting to one side, said, "Obviously, an army is out of the
question. If this young woman is prepared to go, can an old strat~gos be
less willing?"

Atta held up his spread hands. "You're damned right I can. But her
Imperial Hyps~lot~s commands." He fixed his weary eyes on Rhita again.
"What kind of weapons might they have?"

"Nothing we could defend ourselves against," Rhita said.

"What does that mean?"

"From what my grandmother told me, they have weapons we might
dream of making in a hundred or a thousand years."

"What are they, gods?" Atta asked with a gloomy edge in his voice.
"An old kl~roukhos on his plot might think they were gods, yes,"
Rhita said. She blushed slightly, realizing she had used a queenly tactic
against the strat~gos.

"What about an old soldier hoping to live on his pension?" Atta asked.
"An old man who's seen all the things this world has to offer, from the
forests of Nea Karkh~d0n to Africa's bottom?"

"You've seen nothing like the Way," Rhita said, staring at him without
blinking. Atta refused to engage in this kind of contest. He casually
turned to Oresias.

"Wonderful," he said. "Her Imperial Hyps~lot~s wishes us to end our
days of service eaten by monsters or burned to ashes by gods."

ETERNITY · 111

"Or being met by friends," Rhita said, angry now at the strat~gos's
cynicism. "Friends who could bring the Oikoumen back to its days of
glory."
"Treasure beyond the monster's jaws," Oresias said.
"Try to be more specific about their strengths and weaknesses . . if
they have any weaknesses," Atta urged her gently. "We only have a few
more hours before we start putting everything together. Help an old ass
carry a heavier load."
"I've never seen these things. I've only been told about them," Rhita said, suddenly afraid again.
"Try to remember," Atta said with a sigh. "Any scrap can only help."

TWENTY-ONE
Thistledown, Fifth Chamber

The Jart bided quietly within Olmy, apparently unaware of any change in
status. Olmy lay in the second room, eyes closed, probing delicately at his
new companion, like a surgeon seeking the best point of entry to a sleeping
but dangerous beast.
He could feel the depths of the asteroid all around him, unchanged
across billions of years, implacable as time, primordial rock and carbonaceous
materials and water that had fed and housed his people for centu-

He looked at the empty plate which had once revealed the Jart's'placid
patterns. Now the memory stores were empty; all that there was of the
Jart had been successfully uploaded into Olmy's implants.
His first discovery, in the first few seconds of investigating the Jart,
was that a kind of translating shell, or interface, had been developed,
either by the Jart itself in reaction to the probes of early researchers or,
less likely, by the researchers themselves. Without the shell, Olmy would
not have picked up sensible communications when Mar Kellen first
hooked him to the system. The Shell was incomplete but useful for a
beginning.
Having confirmed that translated communication was possible, Olmy

GREG BEAR
~ ° ,able-checked his precautions. He had set both the Jart mentality
	do~
	·
112 ff--hic'Oh., occupied one implant--and a downloaded partial of himself
ow ~ '~- tr,- from. his primary self, and erected a number of bamcades,' not the
n ~l~t. , whmh was a timer that regulated access to all of his implants..T~..e
	wh)J I of
--
	'l~ . conducted the early investigation and reported to him penodlY'
- be super-fast world of implant functions, all of this took place
	artl~ n tff, ·
	,
	P 'i ~ '~ten minutes of the uploading. Olmy s partial determined that the

	callyI, [hin ~mtality was almost intact that is, its major routines and subrou-

	I~ ~ m~)peared to follow the accepted rules for intelligence ordering. They

	with/<es aff)t fra~ented. The Jart's lesser routines did not appear to function

	Jart, ~re nc y, but he would reserve judgment on that until later.
tme~ erl
	· . OP , ~ever assumed that any part of a ticking bomb was inert until one
wer~ One ~)tely understood the bomb.
	pro! -m-p.l?)in the first hour, Olmy's partial had located some pieces of Jart
	C

		Witffnce-memory. The first attempts to transfer these disturbed the
	co~ Perie:arts
rt. P~I of its mentality seemed to wake briefly from its timeless slum-once
again Olmy received a cacophony of anxiety messages:
	exlJ
	r) an--

	Jar
		~:::~Duty unclear. Presence of Duty arbiter(?)<

	bef
		/~ Unable to locate (self?)<

			/ ~ (Abominations) <

then a lapse back into the quiet pool of seeming repose.
And memories he retrieved were far from clear or easy to translate. Jart
The, a were very different from human equivalents; "eyes" were semi-
/ns°r~ both light and sound, combining such signals in a way unique in
///ye tO~,xamon,s experience. This did not cause Olmy's major difficulty
	s~/~e
	~(.. Be memories, however; algorithms had been known for centuries
	fi 'th tL ·
.ffhich
could interpret nearly all sensory messages. What puzzled him (or I .//1 at this stage, his partial) most of all was the deemphasis on indiW
)ther~perception to the advantage of larger cultural conditioning. A Jart
~ ~d, uallual's personal perspective seemed almost irrelevant; and there was
r~ ~aivic-. ·
--own evidence that this Jart at least acted more as a remote sensor
V )~bstaY self. willed individual.
i~ [tan aother indications contradicted this. The Jart had a strong, indepen-
Yet ~'otivation routine--what in human terms might be analogous to an
~."!entr/[~!~ere were enormously difficult associated complexes of social and
Ig°"erar~¢,-l'"hical= responses which meshed with this' motivation routine, how-P
~)ne Jart was strong-willed, yet in certain situations--when en-
eshefi in its social environment--it would be completely docile and

ET E R N I TY · 113


obedient, lacking almost any will at all. And it would find no contradiction
between these states.

For a Jan, obedience was indistinguishable from self-will, yet Olmy
was certain Jarts did not comprise a group mind at least, not this Jart.
Perhaps the Jart carried a model or artificially imposed simulation of the
Jart hierarchy, a kind of monitor or conscience.

For a time, as Olmy received data through the one-way link with his
partial, he wondered if in fact two or more mentalities had been
downloaded. It was difficult to accept such primary contradictions in the
routines of an individual.

The partial was finally able to assemble a series of sensory memories
that could be translated into human terms.

Not surprisingly, since the Jart had been highly stressed, the most
prominent images were of its capture. Olmy saw what had to be the Way

quite flat and colorless--and brilliant objects in the foreground, picked
out with amazing detail. The details changed frequently, making him
wonder whether his partial was translating properly. The partial, anticipating
the reactions to its primary, assured Olmy its interpretations were
correct.

The Jart was perceiving objects from multiple and almost independent
viewpoints, not in a Picasso-like Cubist fashion, but by processing the
visual input through many different routines.

It then came to Olmy--and his partial independently concurred that
the Jart was using sensory interpreters adapted from other species. The
Jan contained many visual "brains," almost certainly patterned after
those of non-Jan species.

During its capture, the Jart had apparently shuffled through these
alternatives, trying to duplicate a human viewpoint by using routines
from beings thought to be similar to humans.

Did this explain some of the confusion as to ego and motivation routines?
Did Jarts literally engulf the mentalities of other species, carrying
them around like tools in a kit?

How many intelligent species, how many cultures and societies had the
Jarts conquered? What had happened to them?

Olmy worked for an additional hour, trying to make sense of the visual
memories. Finally he was able to piece together a reasonably clear picture
of the capture.

First level sense interpretation ~erhaps the Jan's natural routine):


The surround is pitchy black and cold, absent of sound. The
foreground is occupied by hot and noisy objects moving very

114 · GREG BEAR

rapidly. The objects are machines, but the Jarts do not build
machines like these (an image of seeding and virus-like development).

Second level sense interpretaion (foreign?):

The background is filled with detail, sharp to the point of distraction;
the foreground objects seem irrelevant, ignored. This
routine simply cannot interpret machines or perhaps close objects
at all.

(Is this an adapted sense routine, Olmy wondered, designed to aug-meat
or supplement the others? It seemed to have a minor place in the
totality.) Olmy had no difficulty recognizing the Way. Tractor fields
stretch across the vast expanse, brilliantly colored--purple and red.

Some fields recede in sparkling tatters from penetration beams
The beams pierce through and intersect but again, this routine
cannot interpret machines

(An odd lack, Olmy thought; seeing was akin to thinking, however,
and it was possible the species this routine had been "borrowed" from
had no knowledge of technology.)
Third level (adapted Jart? Similar to the first):

The actions of the foreground objects are clearly understood, in
the abstract. Each machine is sharply delineated.

Olmy recognized human armored physical penetrators (unmanned except
by partials) and automated seek-and-destroy units, great and small
--all nasty and black and seething with field energies. He shuddered. He
had always disliked such weapons. They were simple and direct and
unstoppable. They destroyed whatever they captured within their fields,
reducing it to component atoms, pulses of heat and gamma rays.
The Jart had witnessed such weapons--yet had survived to be captured.
And this Jart had been in the front lines of whatever skirmish in
the Way these images represented. Humans sent only partials into such
action.
Was this Jart a natural organism in any way, or an artificial creation
entirely? The original human captors had not trusted the physical form
to be typical of Jarts. Why trust the mentality?

ET E R N I TY · 115
Olmy concentrated on the sequence of events in the Jart's capture. As
more sense-memories arrived, he pieced together a humanly linear story.

The Jart occupies a small vehicle, weaving through tractor field
boundaries like a dragonfly through walls of reed& Above,
throughout this section of the Way--

Very likely in the million kilometers or so of disputed territory at 1.9
ex 9

Jart and human weapons engage in fierce combat. There is
stalemate; this situation has continued for a considerable time.

(The Jart measures of time are not clear to Olmy)

The Jart vehicle encounters and destroys numerous small human
machines scouring the Way's barren surface. It encounters
seek-and-destroy units and somehow evades them. It
is now in territory behind the region of impasse, in human
territory, where it will attempt to inflict a devastating blow to
some command center a large fiawship or armored fortress
But its next encounter is with a cloud of penetrators

--and vehicles Olmy himself does not recognize

and before it can maneuver it is caught in thick layers of traction,
the shell of its vehicle stressed and mangled. A research
and reconnaissance machine quickly seals off the crash site in a
traction bubble. The Jart lies within its environment cradle,
pulses of light crawling over the surface of this transparent
shield as its generator begins to fail. Remotes shaped like giant
black beetles push through the bubble and neutralize the weakening
environment cradle, pulling the Jart from its controls.
The Jart body is already severely damaged. Another vehicle,
almost as large as a fiawship, moves over the surface of the way

and the sense images blurred and came to an end.
Olmy opened his eyes. The Jart's mission had been hopeless; he had
never heard of organic forms occupying the Jart equivalent of penetrators.
The entire action was more than suspicious---it was uncharacteristic,
ludicrous.

115 · GREG BEAR


Yet the humans had taken the bait, hopingwperhaps believing that
they had at last captured a Jart.

Perhaps they had. Perhaps the Jarts had been willing to give up the
advantage of an enemy's ignorance in order to slip their Trojan Horse
past the walls. But then, why kill researchers immediately? Why open the
belly of the horse before night has fallen and the Trojans are asleep?

Olmy closed his eyes and recalled the last few scattered visuals sent by
his partial. They were too fragmentary to reassemble--

But connected to the last was a scouring, biting node of corrosion.
Olmy withdrew from this acid sting and shoved the entire sequence into
his third implant, isolating it immediately.

He then purged the third implant of all data contents.

The Jart was not slumbering.

Olmy waited for the downloaded partial in the second implant to deliver
a self-analysis. When the data came through, the initiation string
was badly flawed. The partial had been compromised.

The Jart was active. His precautions had almost failed.

Olmy raised more barricades around the isolated implants and prepared
another partial. Sending partials into that alien hell was like sending
himself--the partials were duplicated pieces of himself. His hormonal
levels surged again and he fought back a sick, claustrophobic terror that
almost overwhelmed his peripheral controls.

Less than two hours had passed since the uploading.


Studying the Jart was obviously going to involve a battle of wits. After
wiping the second implant and putting another partial in to replace the
one that had been compromised, Olmy waited for results from a new
series of probes. The Jart mentality did not attempt to tag the data with
corrosives, nor did it corrupt the partial.

They were taking each other's measure.

Despite its attack on the first partialwa circumstance Olmy had been
prepared for--the Jart had not yet succeeded in altering the basic system
of the implants in which it was stored. Olmy believed the Jart did not
understand the system it now occupied, but it probably knew that its
status had changed.

His safeguards were effective. Having accomplished this much, he decided
to leave the buried memory storage rooms and continue his interior
researches in the fourth chamber.

The cramped quarters and the sensation of being surrounded by kilometers
of rock had become oppressive. However, he was not yet ready to

ETERNITY · 117

return to human society. There were a great many more probes to make
and tests to run before he took that risk.
If the Jart was reawakening, the time had come to expose it to some of
the greater reality of human existence.

TWENTY-TWO
Gaia, Alexandreia

Within the cavernous palace garage, Rhita stood at the center of the
circle of members of the queen's expedition. Clavicle in both hands, she
closed her eyes and focused on the spinning globe. Continents raced
beneath her disembodied eyes, their features etched in bright relief. There
were many things about the display she did not understand. Certain
features flashed as if they might be of interest; others were crosshatched
or dotted. Some land masses or ocean areas were outlined in red or
yellow. Yet the clavicle did not reveal the meaning of these functions; it
simply rotated the globe to the KanOpic mouth of the Nilos, then twisted
and rolled the globe again to the position of the gate, marked by a cross.
Her point of view "fell" to the surface of the globe, and she crossed
bright, feverishly colored landscapes to a grassland that burned with
green fire. There was the gate, marked only by an unlikely cross with
wide-splayed armtips.
She opened her eyes.
"It's still there," she said. Oresias stood beside her. She hesitantly took
his hand and placed, it on hers where it gripped the clavicle bar. "Close
your eyes," she said. He did, and she felt the projection move through
her, into him. He stiffened as he had the first time they had shared the
images, then forced himself to relax. After a few seconds, he opened his
eyes.
"I confirm that," he said. "We know our goal."
Kleopatra sat in a portable throne on a stone platform above the circle.
All turned toward the queen. She stood and held her hand out over them.
"The blood of the keepers of Alexandros the Uniter, the Conqueror,
flows in my veins." Her lips twisted in that peculiar smile Rhita had seen

118 · GREG BEAR

several times. "However diluted by Persians and Nordic folk. To some,
this seems like a royal whim, the shadowy wish of a weak queen. But can
you feel this day's importance? What you find, what you learn and bring
back with you, could mean rebirth for the Oikoumen, and a century of
order and prosperity, rather than decline and strife. We might look for a
talisman, for the penis of Aser or the lost magic of Neit; we might be
fools. What we seek instead is real, and I only regret I cannot share your
danger." Her tone was convincing; none, Rhita saw, doubted the words
of their Imperial Hypslots.
"Go with the gods and the spirits of your loved dead. Apollo shines
upon you all. I love you as my children. I envy you."
Sour, long-faced Jamal Atta's eyes filled with tears. Oresias saluted the
queen with a hand held high, fingers splayed--Alexandros's sign of
friendship and cooperation. "We will return, my Queen," he called out.
"We will return," the members called out in unison.
Kleopatra nodded and kneeled before them.
Rhita felt Oresias's hand on her arm. He led her to the cab of a
covered steam freight wagon. Seven such wagons waited to carry them
and their equipment from the staging area in the garage to the aerodromos
in the western desert, beyond the old nekropolis. "This had
better be worthwhile," he murmured in her ear, not in accusation, but in
camaraderie.
Jamal Atta accompanied a tall, black-haired man with ruddy skin.
Both climbed into Rhita's wagon and found their assigned seats. When they were settled, and the wagons began to roll from the garage, the military advisor introduced the stranger. "This is your long-missing
didaskalos, if I recall correctly," Atta said. "He has just returned from
Kallimakhos's exile. Demetrios, this is your patient and disruptive student,
Rhita Berenik Vaskayza. She asked that you accompany us."
Demetrios turned his genial features on Rhita and smiled with a mix of confidence and shyness that Rhita found disconcerting. "I am honored," he said.
"As am I. I hope you weren't . . troubled by your journey. I seem
to have been the reason for it."
"Irritation, no more," Demetrios said. "I'm still not sure what I'm
doing here .... We seem to be going on a long journey, and the queen
personally told me I was needed. I can't imagine why."
"Because you're the mekhanikos with the most advanced ideas," Ore-
sias said. "Her Imperial Hypslots expects we'll be seeing some real
marvels, and hopes you can explain them to us, if our mistress Vaskayza
cannot."

Eternity 119

"She did discuss wonders. I confess I couldn't understand all she said.
· . Are we looking for the door that opened for the soph to enter this
world?"
"Maybe," Rhita said.
"That would be a marvel, indeed·" He shook his head in wonder, and
then looked at the box holding the clavicle. "Is that one of the Objects?"
Rhita nodded. Demetrios had the features of an aborigine from Nea
Karkhd0n, but with lighter, more olive-toned skin. There was perhaps
some Latine blood in him, or Aigyptian.
"You will pardon my reverent curiosity," he said. "Mechanikoi in my
studio have been taught about the Soph's Objects from childhood. To
actually see one . . ." He seemed about to ask if he could touch it, but
Oresias shook his head discreetly.
"I am pleased to meet you," Demetrios concluded, smiling again.
Rhita glanced at the other men in the wagon. She was the only female in
this wagonload. There-were only two other women in the entire expedition.
She had hoped there might be more, but even under Kleopatra's
influence, the attitudes of Alexandreia were very different from those of
Rhodos.
The steam wagons wound through the Brukheion and Neapolis in the early dawn, passing a few market owners and fishermen walking or riding
donkeys to their stalls. The air was crisp, cleaner than it had been the
past few days, which seemed auspicious. Alexandreia had once been renowned
for the purity of its air; the factories of the delta had changed it.
Once through the Neapolis and Aigyptian district--where the roadway
rose above the hovels on disdainful concrete pillars--the Neopolis
spread out before them on the city's western border, a jumble of limestone,
red and gray granite and marble tombs. They were not stopped at
the city's gates; the queen's influence among the police was still strong.
The sun was well up as they passed through the city of the dead. The
poor had invaded the nekropolis centuries before, moving into the tombs
of forgotten families and setting up a unique, violent social structure that
had become a way of life unto itself. The most the police could do was
keep the nekropolis from moving into the Neapolis; the Aigyptian quarter
acted as a buffer. Still, the caravan was not bothered on the rutted,
potholed highway through the tombs.
The queen had her contacts and supporters here, as well.
Beyond the last dismal scatter of old graves, a military highway rose
out of the scrub grass and sand like an inky mirage. The caravan followed
this route to the aerodromos, an additional ten schoene to the

120
	· GREG BEAR

west. Upon their arrival, the morning was well under way. Rhita could
smell kerosene and oil on the wind, and heard a continuous low roar as
jets and other gullcraft took off to patrol the Libyan borders. She could
see little through the plastic windows in the canvas covering the wagon;
they faced away from the aerodromos.
"We're here," Oresios said, standing and flexing his knees. Demetrios
stood beside him, still unsure of his place.
The caravan had stopped on an apron of asphalt near a broad concrete
quadrangle. As she stepped down, glancing left, Rhita saw long rows of
gleaming silver gullcraft, sleek fighters that were all wing and larger
needle-shaped bombers with markings of the provinces of Ioudaia and
Syrian Antiokheia. Beyond them lay the western desert, a narrow ribbon
of cream above the white concrete and black asphalt. A fighter screamed
down the closest runway, passing within barely a hundred arms of the
line of wagons. Rhita shifted the box with the clavicle to one arm and
covered her left ear, wincing at the din.
As they walked around their wagon, she saw the two beecraft squatting
on the apron, sullen and nondescript brown with patches of yellow
and white. They seemed ugly and ungainly compared to the fighters, like
flying houses. Their wide horizontal blades drooped, man-sized nacelles
on the tips coming within three arms of the ground on each side. A few
men in red and white flight outfits stood beside the beecraft, engaged in
conversation, watching the wagons' passengers disembark.
Climbing down from the back of the next wagon in line was the Kelt
and a small contingent of the palace guard; all to protect her, she real-

She stifled a sudden urge to drop the clavicle and run into the desert.
A whistling breeze riffled little lines of sand on the asphalt, scattering
grains about her feet. She looked up at the sun, shading her eyes against
the brilliance.
It was a perfect day for flying. She had hoped it might be otherwise.
She thought of the sanctuary of Athen Lindia, with its stone steps hot in
the sun and the lapis-blue water beyond.
"Time to board," Oresias said. "Didaskolos, assist your student, if you
please."
Demetrios offered his hand but Rhita declined, moving ahead of them
with quick, small steps to show her determination.
"Ours is the machine on the right," lamal Atta instructed.
Oresias shaded his eyes and looked across the field to the low buildings
nestled among sand hills to the south. "Are we expecting a reception?"

ET E R N ITY · 121

he asked. Rhita followed his pointing finger and saw a line of distant vehicles about half a parasang from the asphalt apron.
"No," Atta said, tensing. "We have this part of the field to ourselves." "Then we'd better hurry."
Demetrios moved up behind Rhita as if to protect her. The palace
guards and the Kelt joined their group at the beecraft hatchway, falling
in line at Atta's command. The military advisor cursed repeatedly under
his breath, eyes flicking between the people and piles of supplies yet to be
loaded and the approaching wagons.
Oresias rapped on the plastic canopy and the Kybernts opened a
small window. "Get this thing off the ground first if you have to. Get her
out of here if they reach us before we're ready."
"I've got a query on the radio," the kybernts said.
"There weren't supposed to be any queries," Oresias told him sharply.
"Then I don't suppose they expect an answer," the Kybernts replied casually. "Everybody has to be loaded two minutes before we can leave
the ground. I need time to get my blades up to speed." He snicked the
window shut.
Rhita found her seat within the narrow fuselage, a thinly padded canvas
square stretched across two parallel iron bars. Demetrios handed her
the case containing the slate and helped her secure the clavicle in its box
behind a net in an overhead rack. The whine of the jet motors directly
overhead was hideously loud, disorienting. A crewman handed them ear-covers and motioned for all to be seated and strap themselves in.
Outside, the last of the supplies was being hastily piled into the second
beecraft. The wagon drivers retreated to their vehicles and spun them
away from the apron toward the military road. Rhita wondered what
would happen if they were caught; why had things gone wrong? Had they gone wrong?
She clapped her hands over .the ear-covers and closed her eyes. She had
never flown before.
Oresias tapped her' shoulder and she opened her eyes.
We're going, he mouthed to her. She glanced out the square window
between the explorer's seat and her own and saw the ponderous jet nacelles
blurring as the blades picked up speed. The roar seemed to turn her
entire body to liquid. She hadn't urinated in hours. The need was intense.
She clenched her teeth.
The two beecraft left solid ground and drifted off the apron, accelerating
north. She couldn't see what the soldiers in the vehicles behind them
were doing. She hoped they weren't shooting.

133
	· GREG BEAR

Demetrios, sitting beside the Kelt across the aisle, grinned despite his
gray face and strained expression. Rhita closed her eyes again.
She knew she would never again see Rhodos or RhamOn or the sanctuary
of Athen Lindia. The feeling came to her as an absolute certainty,
beyond question.
For the first time, she actually understood the parallels between her
grandmother's journey and her own. Her grandmother had been young,
too; only a couple of years older than Rhita was now. She had not just
flown from her home, but had been lifted by rockets into space, away
from Oaia from Earth.
So who was responsible? What could she have done to avoid this mis-cry?
Rhita prayed, remembering the comfort and peace of sitting quietly
in the shadow of Athen's sanctuary, and for the merest instant she was
back there, with Athen towering above her in the dark wooden shed.
Then the beecraft lurched sharply and she saw dazzling iron-pewter
sandpaper through the window ocean directly below them, hundreds,
perhaps thousands of arms away.
"We're turning east," Oresias shouted in her ear. "I think we've gotten
off without any damage. At least we're not being followed."
"What will we come back to?" Atta shouted. Even at high volume, his
voice expressed dismal unhappiness. He flung his hands out and rubbed
his temples with his fingertips. "What went wrong?"
The question remained unanswered. As planned, they kept radio silence,
staying five or six parasangs off the coast.
The pressure in her bladder was becoming too much. She leaned forward,
gestured for Oresias to lift an ear-cover, and said something in a
low voice. He still could not hear her.
"I have to urinate," she shouted. The explorer raised an eyebrow and
pointed to the back, where a crewman was pissing into a metal canister.
"There's a curtain."
Rhita nodded. Not too embarrassing for a former gynandroS what
Patrikia called a tomboy. When she was done, as a small sign on the
canister instructed, she poured the contents into a funnel in the floor.
Presumably, it fell from the beecraft and dribbled across the sea, her own
personal rain.
She finally became used to the noise, and ate from a packet of dried
fruits and nuts, drinking wine thoroughly diluted with water. One of the
three crewmen handed out plastic packets of olive oil, telling everyone,
"For your health. Suck it down."
Rhita glanced at the overhead rack and saw the clavicle secure behind
its netting. She tried to persuade herself that the expedition was under

ETERNITY · 1;33

way and there was no sense feeling regret, but regret dominated her
thoughts anyway.
In an hour, her attitude began to change. She was almost used to the
bobbing and the rising and falling in her stomach. Looking out the window
and seeing the clear, cloudless air of the coastwand then, far to the
southwest, the smoggy haze above the delta--gave her a new perspective
that was actually exciting. She listened to Oresias and Jamal Atta plotting
their course with the Kybernts, who had left the beecraft in charge
of his assistant. Behind and to their right flew the second craft, matching
course precisely.
The Kelt and the palace guards took the situation quietly and stoically.
Rhita thought there was a kind of contest between them--the first to
show any sign of unease, lost.
Demetrios no longer looked so gray, but he was obviously unhappy.
Rhita leaned across the aisle and then unbuckled her harness to get closer
to him. She tapped his ear-covers and he lifted one side away.
"Let's have a contest," she said, giddy.
"What kind of contest?" he shouted.
"The first one to look scared or sick or upset, loses." She nodded at the
guards and the Kelt and grinned. "Game?"
"Game," Demetrios said, returning her grin. "I've lost already,
though," he said ruefully.
"Starting now. Let's sober up."
Atta looked at them with patent disapproval.
"Where are we?" Rhita asked him, lurching near the group of three
and grabbing hold of an overhead rack. Her bravery seemed unlimited
now.
"West of Gaza," Oresias said. "Making good time. We're following
Alexandros's route! Sort of. We have a stop in Damask for refueling,
then Bagdad,, then on to Raki below the Kaspian Sea, where we're
followed by an aerial tanker. We refuel in mid-air over the Hunnos Republic,
and within two hours we're at your site in the prairie steppes. I
hope our allied provinces are good on their pledges to the queen."
The sound of the beecraft's engines equated with security for Rhita
now. She napped for an hour, dreaming of sandy wastes, and found they
had crossed Ioudaia and were nearing DamaskS. Like an enormous
pastry fresh from the oven, the sand and rock and crusted mountains
passed below. She thought of caravans and days of travel, of dying of
thirst and digging for water in ancient wells . . . That was romance.
Crossing it all like god's bird was simply unreal.
Out of the baked pastry desert came a distant patch of green, spread

124
	· GREG BEAR

across the sands like a spill of paint. Rhita smelled Damask before she
actually saw it; a smell of life and water and greenery that made her lift
her head and twitch her nose, hoping for more. Demetrios and Oresias
were deep in expedition plans; the mekhanikos was catching up on what
he had missed. She wondered how she would feel if she had been conscripted,
as Demetrios had. But I was conscripted, she reminded herself. My grandmother chose me. She crawled from her harness and looked
through a window.
Damask claimed to be the oldest city in the world. Excavations at
Jericho in the last century had challenged that claim, but Jericho was a
much smaller community, hardly more than a village; Damask had
truly been a city for millennia. It was the major trading center of Syria,
surrounded by orchards and fields, squat glass and steel and stone ziggurats
rising from the Jewish quarter and the Horian quarter, the massive
stone Persian fortress dominating the south of the city, and south of that,
the international civilian aerodromos of E1 Zarra.
Atta returned from the Kybernts' cabin and told her they would be
landing on the outskirts of E1 Zarra for refueling. "I hope to get some
news there, if anybody's talking." He shook his long head gloomily.
The beecraft dropped low and approached the aerodromos just above
tree-top level. Rhita smelled dates and cookstove camel-dung smoke and
smiled despite the tension. She had never been to any of these places; if
she lived, she would be a very well-traveled young woman.
The beecraft set down on a flat concrete pad near a few ragged old fuel
wagons. Tired, dusty men approached the two craft, dragging long, flat
sand-colored hoses behind them. They waited for the props to stop spinning,
then tugged the hoses to within a few steps of the side doors.
Oresias swung their door open and jumped down, followed by Atta, the
bodyguards and Demetrios. The Kelt took a deep breath and shook his
head as if to clear it.
Atta conferred with the closest field attendant, who seemed reluctant
to say anything, concentrating on hooking up the hose and starting the
fuel pumping. Atta then walked over to speak to a wagon driver, and
seemed to have better luck. When he returned, he appeared, if such a
thing was possible, even more desolate.
Rhita stood beside the mekhanikos as Atta told them what he had
heard. "There's no communication out of Alexandreia. We're getting our
fuel, but we were supposed to get aerial charts of the steppes from the
Syrian Map Center, and they haven't shown up."
"What do they mean, no communication?" Oresias asked.
"Just that. No radio, no telephone, nothing, as far as the driver knows.

ETERNITY · 125

He's an officer, too; he talks with pilots coming in to the aerodromos. All
flights are being held in Alexandreia. Ours are the only craft to land
today."
Oresias circled his fingers around his wrist and twisted them. "Something's
gone wrong."
Demetrios squinted quizzically. "Whatm''
"We're being slighted," Atta said. "We get our fuel, but the powers in Damask are being spare with other amenities. That tells me the queen's
influence may now be less important to them . . ."
Oresias chafed his wrist until the skin seemed about to rupture. "A
blow against the palace?"
Atta shook his head, unwilling to speculate. "We still have our mission.
But something's wrong. It must have begun just before we left. We
can't radio back . . it would take an hour or more to go into the city,
or to the aerodromos administration and place a cable.. "He
shrugged. "We have no choice but to go on."
Rhita stared at the distant towers and squat ziggurats of DamaskS,
realizing she was not scared, but should be. The flight's mixed exhilaration
and boredom still had a grip on her, like a drug.
"Check with your clavicle, please," Oresias told her softly as they re-boarded
the beecraft. "I want to know whether our goal is still there."
She pulled the box from its rack and opened it, touching the handlebars
with one finger. The brilliantly colored world spun before her again,
and the cross reappeared in the same position, unchanged.
"Still there," she affirmed. Oresias strapped hirnseff into his seat,
leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
In a few minutes, the beecraft were refueled and ready for the flight
again. Atta came aboard at the last and angrily slammed the sliding
hatch shut. "What about our aerial tanker?" he muttered. "What about
the return leg?"

125
	· GREG BEAR


TWENTY-THREE


Thistledown


Olmy arrived in the fourth chamber an hour after hiking to the abandoned
station in the fifth chamber. The train crossed over a broad expanse
of shimmering, silvery water and dropped him off at a rest station
on Northspin Island, in the first quarter, near the northern cap. Avoiding
the few other hikers, he rented a tractor, drove ten kilometers to a distant
trail head, and walked into the dense coniferous forests.

Within his implant memories, isolated from his primary personality,
the freshly created partial conducted its more cautious investigation of
the Jart mentality.

Three hours later, he stood beneath a thousand-year-old redwood, a
light mist drifting from spinward, his feet sinking into ancient loam.

Whatever isolation and abstraction he had felt before, after his months
of research on nonhuman psychology, was nothing compared to his sense
of self-exile now. He kept thinking of Tapi, perhaps even now working
through his incarnation exams. He did not think he would see his son for
some time, if ever; or Suli Ram Kikura. It seemed unlikely their paths
would cross.

He felt the redwood's thick, tough bark and wondered if he should feel
a kinship with this old tree. In truth, he felt a kinship with nothing, not
even his fellows, and that disturbed him. It was barely possible his implant
regulators were not working properly, and that he was experiencing
an unhealthy mental state. Just to be sure, he ran a test string through his

primary mind and through the regulatory implants.
No inappropriate states, the results told him.
Merely extreme stress and danger.

All of these trees had survived the re-rotation after the Sundering.
They had lasted through temporary weightlessness, floods, chaotic
weather, and years of neglect, and now they seemed to thrive. Why
couldn't he feel simple encouragement from their example?

Why can't I feel anything at all?

ET E R N I TY · 127
A scheduled status report emerged from behind the barriers. His partial
sent a string of information indicating successful penetration of the S art's cultural and personal memory stores. In addition, the partial had
exchanged cautious "greetings."
Olmy sat back against a tree and took a deep breath. A kind of dialogue
was happening a lot sooner than he had expected. The Jart, for the
moment, was finding some advantage or other in cooperation. He might
soon be able to tell how much of the Jart's ostensible memories were real
and how much manufactured; it seemed unlikely the Jart would willingly
give up actual information about its kind. But then, everything about this situation was unlikely . . . and Olmy still had no idea what a Jart's
psychology was like, what it was capable or not capable of doing.
When the partial transferred its findings to Olmy, for a time, as he sat
with eyes open, he saw both the forest and

Great prism-shaped Jart fiawships, moving with majestic slowness
over a colonized segment of the Way

(again in several visual layers, but these more ordered, less frantic)

and dancing clouds of midge-like attendant machines and vehicles moving from the fiawship to broad curving ramps on the
floor of the Way

With a start, replaying the memory, Olmy realized that beneath the
nearest ramp was an inverted image of the exterior of a planet. He tried
to reinterpret but could not; it seemed that at least in this case, Sart gates
were not circular holes, but slashes in the Way several kilometers wide.
There was always the possibility that all the information he had received
this far was deception, that the Jart itself was a ruse; one way to find out
would be to ask Korzenowski about the possibility of elongated gates in
the Way. Even if they were possible, other details might be distorted . . .
Another memory:

mingling with other beings

(Jarts? Clients of the Jarts?)

in a thick green liquid, much smaller silver worms passing
between them, occasionally wrapping around one individual or
another and cinching tight enough to crease flesh. Some of the

·
	GREG BEAR

beings reser,.bled the Jart body in the fifth chamber memory
store's second room; others were flat white specked black carpets
with undulating fringes, flying through the liquid, or trilaterally
symmetric watarfish" with flexible mandibles or fingers
on the end of each arm, or thick shapeless extrusions from
colorless tubes . . .

All seemed to have some remote and nightmarish sea floor as a common
origin, and none of them did anything Olmy could even begin to
understand.
There were other images, too many to experience for the moment.
Storing these findings without examination, he moved on to the exchanged
"greeting."

Partial: (Replay of capture memories and a string signaling
awareness of the Jart's existence and status.)
Jart: > I am beyond reach of duty? Where is duty expediter
label?<
Partial: You are >beyond reach of< ally our kind.
Jart: > What is brother/father status? Is this communication
from command oversight? <
Partial: >Brother/father status < not known. Not command
oversight. You are captured and under examination.
Jart: >Acknowledge personal status as captured. <

The partial then sent a long list of questions. Those were being processed
now. At least, for the time being, he had an illusion of progress.
The partial passed along another string:

Jart: >Cooperation and transfer of status information? Replacement
of command oversight and command? <

This seemed to be a kind of surrender. Olmy marked the phrases "duty
expediter," "command oversight" and the isolated "command," wondering
if they were levels in Jart society. The partial had agreed to the
condition offered by the Jart, subject to further explanation. The limits
and methods were being worked out now, with the barriers still up and
not likely to be lowered except for the transfer of more findings and
status checks.
Olmy dug his hand into the loam and stared up at the tree branches

ETERNITY · 129
overhead. All of his defenses were on alert. It was possible the Jart was
simply preparing for another assault.
Somehow, he didn't think it was that simple. Having failed to immediately
kill or subdue Olmy, the Jart was apparently taking a different tack.
Where it would lead, Olmy had no idea.
But a detailed exchange was beginning.

TWENTY-FOUR

Gaia

Elamite Bagdad was a ruin slowly being rebuilt by the Mesopotamian
Nekhemites, who had moved west in armored, mechanized hordes and
sacked the city twenty years before, while the Oikoumen concerned
itself with one of the endless Libyan incursions on its own borders. The
Nekhemites had proved themselves barely able to control the effete but
efficient people they had so piously slaughtered in the name of their
faceless, demanding god; they had then turned to Kleopatra, one of the
few queens left on Gala, and requested that she be a "bride to Nekhem."
The request was so ludicrous and so opportune that it could not be
denied; henceforward, her Imperial Hypslots was worshiped in effigy in
Bagdad,, and Oikoumen money and technical assistance flowed into the
ancient city. In return, the Nekhemites guarded the frontiers of the Hun-nos
Republic and Nordic Rhus.
Jamal Atta thought it very.unlikely they would face any trouble in
Bagdad,, and indeed, .after three hours of flight from DamaskS, the turbaned
and red-robed attendants at the new aerodromos gave them all the
fuel they needed, and maps of the Kazakh, Kirghiz and Uzbeki territories
of Nordic Rhus. As they departed sad Bagdad,, the Kelt bent over to
investigate the floor and held up something, grinning foolishly. Tiny
plastic statues of Kleopatra mating with Nekhem had been tossed
through the beecraft doors along with their supplies.
The Kelt gave her his find. Rhita fingered it thoughtfully, fascinated by
its crude vigor. Inelegant, ignorant, vicious and cruel beyond her experience,
yet honest and full of life, the Nekhemites might someday own all

130 · GREG BEAR

the middle lands of the old world. She hoped they had deposed Nekhem
by that time. He was an ugly god.
From Bagdad,, they crossed the land of the Nekhem and picked up a
tailwind, which brought them in two hours to Raki, Raghae of old, once
again on Oikoumen territory. Raki was an isolated city on an island of
peace heavily fortified on all its borders. There, Oresias learned from a
military field inspector that no news had been heard from Alexandreia,
and that their air transport escorts an aerial tanker and an old cargo
plane that would be abandoned were ready to accompany them from
that point.
They now began their incursion into truly dangerous territory. Fifteen
hundred years before, the Persians and the Oikoumen in Europe had
been swept to the west and then driven to the seas the Priddeneian Sea
and the Middle Sea by the Alanoi and Hunnoi, working their nomadic
peoples and subject Teutonic tribes into a vast mobile nation of warriors.
An empire had been set up from the shores of Galleia and Kimbria to the
great walls of Chin, the greatest the world had ever known--and the
most fragile. In fifty years, that empire had vanished like a dream of
blood and smoke, and the Skythians and Nordic Rhus had moved into
the void. The Alanoi and Avars had finally held their ground east of the
Kaspian, and the Hunnoi north and east of them. For a thousand years,
these territories had been in flux, but had kept their basic shapes, until
the arrival of the Aigaian Turkmenoi, pirates and ravagers of Hellas.
The Turkmenoi had carved their own niche, transferring their piratie
tendencies to the Kaspian, and it was over that slender mountainous
territory between the Altaic republics that the beecraft now flew. The
Turkmenoi recognized no one as their betters or their masters. They
isolated themselves and tried to hold back the incursions of the outside
world. There would be no mercy for gullcraft should they be forced
down; but it was unlikely the Turkmenoi could muster such weapons.
Rhita looked at the hundreds of miles of broad naked mountains passing
below, and felt lonelier than ever before. She realized the variability
of human thought and human history, the contradictions of cultures, as
unmappable as these rocky passes and pinnacles, and it seemed that
humans would never share a single truth. That meant either there was no
single truth, or humans would kill themselves trying to find it 	Either

way, thinking about it depressed her.
Her
exhilaration of a few hours before had faded into dark unease. She
was
tired; sleep on the beecraft was not refreshing, accompanied as it was
by
the unending roar of the jets. Her stomach was touchy again; she did

E T ER N I T Y · 131

not feel it was safe to eat any more, yet she was hungry. She complained
about nothing, but the flight was dragging on and on . . .
They refueled in the air near the northeastena border of Turkmenia.
That process was interesting, what little she could see of it. The tanker
veered away from their group and flew back to Raghae, leaving them
with the cargo plane as escort. So far, despite her unease, she had to admit the expedition was going well.
Against her will, her thoughts wandered to home. She had never had
opinions one way or the other about the Oikoumen; it had always been
there; it seemed to be immortal. Within her lifetime, there had never been
disaster broad enough to affect her world. Still, Rhodos had been peaceful
for only eighty years. As a youngster, she had swum in huge rain-filled
pockmarks in the hills, shell-holes from bombardments older than
almost anyone alive. But if the queen herself was in peril
The entire Oikoumen could change its character. There might not be
a home she could safely return to. Rhita squirmed on her seat, thinking
of war, rebellion, death.
The mountains below gave way to ochre flatlaads, with raw, rounded
naked-looking hills and rocky promontories. The ochre became patchy
green, and long ribbons of green bordered shallow streambcds. "We've
passed over the southern extremes of the Hunnos and Alanos republics,"
Oresias said, returning from the front cabin.
They swooped close to ground level for twenty minutes. Atta seemed
especially forlorn, shaking his head and pounding his hands despairingly
on his knees, waiting for the Nordic Rhus Uzbek and Kazakh watchtowers
to sense them. But defenses never appeared; they apparently had
passed through, either unseen or a blip too small to be credible.
"One hour," Oresias said. The jets droned and wind rushed by,
whistling through cracks in the beecraft hull. She tried to sleep again, but
could only close her eyes, not bring on oblivion. She ached all over from
tension and trying to hide how. uncomfortable she was. The men sat still
as statues, stoic, faces dull, rocking back and forth in unison as the
beecraft maneuvered or hit a pocket of air.
How could she be so uneasy, and yet so bored? She might die, and not
be excited when death caught her .... Would death--she imagined a
large black serpent with skulls for teeth--recoil from such a cool, calm
victim? Was it against death's principles to eat the uncaring?
Looking out the window. Squinting in the sunlight. Using the can in
the back again and voiding it, watering the steppes. Sitting, strapping herself in.
"How close?" Oresias asked, bending over her. She had managed to

132 · GREG BEAR

fall asleep somehow, dreaming of turtles flying. She rubbed her eyes and
gripped the clavicle. The globe seemed much larger now, and the sweep
across the surface much shorter, with more and more strange symbols
and abstract shapes flashing by, unexplained. Then she was in the swale,
and the cross was still there, vibrant red.
"Let me sit up front," she said. They made way for her to the Kybernts ' cabin, and the assistant gave her his seat. She clutched the
clavicle, feeling its responses, and looked out over the endless grasslands.
"Down, please," she said.
"How far?" the Kybernts asked.
"Slow down, and descend to . . . a hundred arms? Less?"
She looked back at Oresias. Demetrios had crowded in the hatch behind
him, eyes wide, face still pale.
"Fifty arms," Oresias said. "Will we see it?" he asked her.
"I don't know. It might not be large . . . but I'll know when we're
there."
The two beecraft slowed and descended, while the cargo plane and
tanker began to make wide turns over the landscape, flying above them
every few minutes as they searched. Rhita concentrated on the prairie,
trying to match the terrain with what she felt in the clavicle . . . an
exercise not really necessary, as it turned out.
"Here," she said. "Stop here." The clavicle had simply told her, in no
way she could specify, that they were over the site. The beecraft overshot
and she guided them back, until both craft were within a hundred and
fifty arms of each other, and the site lay beneath them, recognizable now:
a grassy fertile swale around a small muddy streambed. She could not see
the gate with her eyes, but the clavicle told her its precise position.
"Let's land," Oresias instructed the Kybernts. The Kybernts spoke
with his counterparts on the other beecraft, and they descended the last
fifty arms, touching down with a gentle bump on the grass, their blades
causing rippling waves to spread and clash between them.
"Stop your engines," Atta instructed from behind Oresias. "We want
silence. We've come here like a horde of drunken demons. No sense
overdoing it."
"Is there a place for the gullcraft?" Oresias asked Rhita. She was
confused for a moment--how could she know?--when she remembered
that the clavicle could tell her. In the clavicle's display, she flew over the
simplified landscape and searched for a flat, undimpled area several stadia
in length for the plane to land. "Northeast a few hundred arms," she
said. "It looks smooth, though there's probably a few holes . . . might
be rough."

ETERNITY ·133

"From which direction?" Oresias asked.
"They should fly in from the south. They'll see it it's quite broad."
"Wish them luck," Oresias instructed the Kybernts as he relayed her
message. "Is it safe to go out?"
"I don't see why not," Rhita said, though she trembled. Not seeing the
gate with her eyes disturbed her. She could not tell anything about it
except its position.
Perhaps it's nothing at all.
The doors were pushed open and a sweet, clean cool breeze blew into
the stuffy interior. Grass-smell like a horse barn. Tang of something else,
wet soil perhaps.
From horizon to horizon, the prairie steppe rolled with dominant confidence,
ignoring them, ignoring all humans, concerned only with its
dreaming fecundity. Its surface provided some of the richest land on
Gaia, where water was available. To the west, a clean orange-yellow sun
was within half an hour of falling below the horizon. The sky was cloudless
and pure, the blue of Athen's hemline spread over her domain, with
a few bright stars or perhaps planets twinkling in the expanse, drops of
glitter from Aphrodite's makeup box.
The cargo plane made its descent to ground a couple of stadia distant,
followed by the tanker, their motors obscenely loud in this calm, this aloofness.
They stood, all the expedition, beneath the still blades of the beecraft,
looking down the gentle slope into the swale. They had arrived at their
destination without real difficulty. Nobody, judging from their expressions,
expected the absence of trouble to continue. Atta kept glancing at the horizon all around, one heavy eyebrow lifted doubtfully.
The Kelt stood beside Rhita with his weapon ready. The other palace
guards followed a few moments after, expressionless, alert. Birds returned
to the grass, tiny feather bullets shy and curious.
Rhita lifted her clavicle. "It's. there," she said. She swallowed. "I'll go
down and look at it. Nobody comes with me . . . except him." She
indicated the Kelt. It would deeply insult her bodyguard to keep him
away when she walked into danger.
Demetrios stepped forward, still pale from his ordeal on the beecraft.
"I'd like to go with you," he said. "I'm here to make an opinion about
what we're seeing . . . I'm useless if I just stand here."
Rhita was too tired and nervous to object. "Just Lugotorix and you,
then," she said, hoping there wouldn't be any more brave men volunteering.
There weren't. Oresias and Atta stood at the edge of the swale, arms
folded, surrounded by the beecraft crew and Kybernts and the other

134
	· GREG BEAR

expedition members, while Rhita, the Kelt and Demetrios walked down
the gentle slope to the muddy streambed.
Not of her own volition, Rhita lifted the clavicle into a better position
and carried it before her. She saw the gate in the display as a red circle
now, barely five arms ahead of them. "Is it close?" Demetrios asked.
Rhita pointed. "Right there." She could finally make it out with her
eye, an almost invisible lens floating about eight arms above the ground,
slightly darker than the sky around it. It seemed quiescent, but still it
terrified her.
The clavicle told her things she barely understood, and she had to ask
it silently for a repeat. Not using words, it informed her again that this
was an incomplete gate, requiring very little energy to maintain; a test
gate, through which probes might be dropped and samples taken. It was
not large enough for anything wider than a hand to pass through, and it
was not at this moment open for passage anyway.
She relayed this to Demetrios. They walked around it, heads inclined,
while the Kelt stood a few arms away, weapon ready. Can I open the gate
myself? she asked.
The clavicle responded that there was a possibility the gate could be
expanded from this side, but that such an action would undoubtedly alert
anybody or anything monitoring the gate, whatever they might be. Do you know who opened this gate?
No, the clavicle said. Gates at this stage of their creation are pretty
much all alike.
She turned to Oresias and Atta and said, "It's too small to pass
through. If I try to open it wider, people on the other side will know
we're here."
Oresias considered this for a moment, then he and Atta conferred in
low voices. "We'll think about this overnight," Oresias said. "Come back
to the beecraft. We'll set up camp."
The sun was already below the horizon and the sky over the grassland
darkled quickly. Rhita squinted at the lens again, seeing a watery star
distorted through it, and nodded at Demetrios. "Let's go;-" she said.
Camouflage nets were thrown over the beecraft, making them look like
grassy hillocks--not a very good disguise, she thought, considering how
flat everything was around them, but better than nothing. Oresias and
Atta met with the Kybernts of the cargo plane while four large tents
were erected. Rhita listened to their plans for the next day from her cot
on a pad of grass flattened by a canvas sheet. Flies and moths buzzed
around her light in the corner of the tent. She was exhausted; hardly able
to keep her eyes open, and yet she could not seem to drift off. Demetrios

ETERNITY · 135

brought a can of soup from the makeshift galley and she sipped it, asking
herself silently, again and again, Why here? Why open a gate here? Who could have followed Patrikia to this Gaia, and who would want to?
There had been no messages on the teukhos for the past two days. This
evening, however, she flipped the switch and saw her grandmother's
words again. She had been no witch, after all; she was still advising Rhita
about politics in Alexandreia, a world to all intents and purposes lost to
her granddaughter now. Rhita read the long message and closed her eyes,
somewhat relieved; for a time, she had thought perhaps Patrikia was
staring over her shoulder, holding her accountable. Now it was apparent
that the Soph had been mortal, after all.
Exhausted, Rhita turned off the slate, packed it into its goatleather
case, and turned down the kerosene lantern. In other parts of the tent, 'all
was quiet. Outside, the day's gentle wind had settled, and the prairie was
wrapped in expansive silence, with thousands of stadia of emptiness all
around.

TWENTY-FIVE

Thistledown City

Lanier, feeling a need for simple amusement, rearranged the decor of his
guest quarters below the Nexus dome. He walked from room to room in
the palatial suite, giving voice instructions. "Polynesian," he said in the
dining hall, currently austere, sharp-edged and classical. The decor projectors
searched their' period memories and produced a fire- and torch-lit
ceremonial chamber, matted with brown and white tapas, set with
wooden bowls. The walls were constructed of palm logs and faced with
more matting woven of grass and palm leaves.
"Very good," he approved. By making fun of such marvels, he felt he
could soothe his wizened little ego, or at least put himself in a better
mood.
Once, powerful governors---senators, presiding ministers and even presidents--had lodged in these quarters. The rooms had been empty for

135
	·GREG BEAR

centuries after the exodus down the Way, and were now used only for
ceremonial occasions.
Korzenowski had gone off to make arrangements for the full Nexus
conference; Mirsky was in his own quarters, similar to these; Lanier had
nothing to occupy him but his thoughts. He felt like a fifth wheel. He was
old, if that mattered; his understanding had never been adequate to a
problem like this. Yet he had not expressed his reservations to anyone
yet, and that worried him still more. It meant the administrative dog
within him was starting at last to grip the bone being forced between its
teeth. He did not want that; he wanted repose, not mind-bending excitement
and challenge. He wantedB
Not to put too fine a point on it, Garry Lanier realized he wanted to be dead.
His eyes opened a little wider and he sat on the step of the staircase
leading into the dining hall (carved from volcanic rock, the projectors
perceived). He felt as if his heart had skipped a beat. Always willing to
hide his feelings from himself, he had never directly confronted this particular
personal truth.
An end to life and experience. Acquiescence to rest of the final sort.
Reassurance that whatever the advances in medicine and technology, for
him at least all life could end in darkness and quiet.
Lanier had lived through more unusual things than he could clearly
recall; much of his memory was clouded by simple incomprehension. He
might spend a century researching what he had seen, and be only a little
wiser; so he would chuck it all and lie back.
Still, the admission shocked him. He rubbed his hollowing cheeks with
his long, thin, still-strong fingers and repeated this interior revelation
several times, savoring its bitterness. Whatever he had been, he had never
been a quitter, and yet this was nothing if not wanting to quit.
Heineman had not wanted to quit. He had accepted mortality, but had
enjoyed life to the end, and he had survived as much trauma as Lanier;
perhaps more. Lenore Carrolson's spirit was intact; she still had vitality
and purpose. And Karen relished life so much she refused to think of
dying, postponing that day with Hexamon technology.
No wonder he and Karen had parted ways. Like Lenore, she had not
been blunted by all she had seen, and she had seen as much as he. She
had grieved for their daughter as deeply as he--grief made all the more
difficult because it was mixed with an impossible hope . . . that they
might someday recover Andia's implant. Where was his failure, then?
The room's voice announced a visitor at the main entrance. Lanier
groaned, hoping for time to chew this over before having to confront his

ETERNITY · 137

fellows, but that was not to be. He could not deny visitors now. "All
right," he said. He walked to the suite's main entrance, a five-meter-long,
two-meter-wide steel bridge suspended in a hollow sphere of meteoric
crystal. A slice of the crystal moved aside from the opposite end of the
bridge. Pavel Mirsky stood there, smiling his usual chagrined smile.
"Am I interrupting?"
"No," Lanier said, spooked more by the man's normality and solidity
than by anything else. Why couldn't he come dressed as a god, at least? A
thunderbolt or two flickering in his hair...
"I do not sleep normally, and I am bored just searching for information
. . . I need company. I hope that is fine with you?"
Lanier nodded weak assent. Of course he would be bored. Even the
Stone's incredible libraries would seem childish to him..
	wouldn.'t
they?

"I haven't apologized for imposing on you, have I?"
"I believe you have," Lanier said. Surely, his memory can't be faulty? "Perhaps I have." He smiled again and crossed the bridge, passing
Lanier. "These are spacious living areas, yet not, I think, much more
luxurious than where common folks lived? Technology finally made
equals of leaders and led."
"It's too rich for my tastes."
"I agree," Mirsky said as they crossed the reception rotunda, passing
beneath a dome depicting the heavens as viewed from the Thistledown's
northern pole. At the moment, the Moon was visible and full, and its
light cast shadows under their feet. "This is a nice effect, though, no.9"
He seemed more like a child now. More spontaneous, playful, yet in
control.
Lanier followed Mirsky into the suite's small informal sitting room.
The Russian tried out a stylish and neutral chair--neutral in that it did
not possess traction cushions or any other field effect. He bounced on the
centuries-old cushions, still pliant, and shook his head with mock sadness.
"I was such a mess when I left this place, this starship," he said. "I
had lost much of my personality, or so I thought . . . very confused. I
remember one thing clearly, however."
Lanier cleared his throat. Mirsky's long stare was unnerving.
"My admiration for you. I found you an incredible force. You faced all
from the beginning, and did not . crack?"
Lanier shook his head slowly, not quite denying that he had kept his
sanity. "Those were hard times."
"The worst. I can hardly believe what I am now came out of those
times, those circumstances. But this evening, I feel this urge to talk, and I

188 · GREG BEAR


want to talk more with you. You and I are not much alike, most would

say, but I see similarities."

"Even now?"

Mirsky's face became bland. "You are not enthusiastic. I fear you have
come to the end of your rope."

Lanier barked a laugh. "Yes," he said. "How true." Softly.
"You know, a man reaches the end of his rope, he falls off."
"Hangs himself, actually," Lanier said. "That's the cliche."
"But a dog, he reaches the end, bites the rope . . . he's free."
"Old Russian wisdom?"

"Hardly," Mirsky said, still bland. He did not quite look at Lanier, not
quite away from him. He seemed a kind of pudding into which one could
comfortably fall, to live a life of vanilla and sleep. The itch to confess


Lanier sat opposite him, trying to revivify that fluid body motion of his
youth, just to compete with this avatar. Competition not being practical,
but--

"All right," he said. "I'm tired. I've lived too long. You've lived out a
universe and you're not bored or tired."

"Yes, but I have been bored and tired in ways I cannot see clearly now.
Exhausted by failure. We who went down the Way failed miserably, and
it cost us in ways . . . well, it cost dearly. We were scarred. We suffered
what I can only call an ego-loss, and that alone was almost enough to
bring us to serf-extinction. When you exist in a nullity, ego-loss is like
loss of blood. We nearly sapped ourselves away." Mirsky rested his hands
on his thighs and splayed his fingers, examining them as if looking for
dirt or hangnails. Almost shyly, he asked, "Are you curious about me,
what I am now?"

"We're all curious," Lanier said, again softly, gently, as if not to disturb
Mirsky's enchanting blandness.

"I am back to my old serf, mostly. Sometimes I do not control my
capabilities, and that is when what I must do exceeds the comprehension
of my old serf."

Lanier raised his brows, not understanding. Mirsky continued without
elaboration.

"But I come to talk about you, and why I came back to you. I owed
you a debt. I could not discharge that debt across all of time. In some of
my forms, this debt did not bother me, since all my past was tucked away
like an old book, unread. But when I knew I would return as my old serf,
the debt surfaced."

"I don't know of any debt." Lanier felt the impulse grow, not just

ET E R N I TY · 13g


confession but a bursting, an exploding. He wanted to hold his head and
keep himself together.

"A simple debt. I need to thank you."

Tears came to Lanier's eyes, unbidden, unwanted.

"You were decent. You did your work and did not ask for thanks. You
are the reason I survived to make our long journey, and come back now.
In every situation, there can be a seed crystal of goodness and decency, of
sensibility. You were that crystal on the Stone."

Lanier leaned his head back on the chair, tears streaming down his
cheeks. Had it been in his character, he would have sobbed. He held

those spasms in, but felt a release none the less.

"A simple thanks," Mirsky reiterated.

How incredible that in all the time he had worked on the restoration,
he remembered no one thanking him. Not even Karen, too close to see
the need. He had sacrificed life and time for the people he had administered,
yet because of his manner--a confident self-sutticiency--he had
never been thanked, or because of some personal flaw could not remember
the thanks. Perhaps he had never put himself in a position to be
thanked. The release now was like the unwinding of an ancient spring
that had pinched his vitals.

He lifted his head and stared at the Russian's blurred face, embarrassed
and grateful at once. "I was your enemy," he managed to croak.
He touched his face and was surprised to find old skin, soft and yielding.

Mirsky clucked his tongue, a startling mannerism in an avatar. "To
have a decent enemy is a blessing beyond measure," he said, rising. "I
have disturbed your rest. I will go."

"No," Lanier said, lifting his arm. "No. Please. I do need to talk with
you." The fear and envy this man aroused had turned in a moment into a
kind of love, a homecoming of feelings he would never have acknowledged
four decades ago. With these feelings came a sudden wary, almost
painful concern for Karen. What was she doing now.9 He needed to speak
to her, too. His skin . . . so old!

"Shall we reminisce? There appears to be time enough now, and may
not be later."

Mirsky nodded and sat again, leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands
clasped. The blandness had gone from him.

"Maybe we both need memories refreshed," Lanier said. "I wanted to
tell you how tired I was, but I don't feel very tired now."

Mirsky waved his hand nonchalantly. "Old warriors always chew the
bull long after."

140 · GREG BEAR

"Chew the fat," Lanier said, smiling. It seemed very unlikely Mirsky
made an unconscious error. "I'd like that."
"Tell me what happened after I defected."
"First, I'd like to ask a question . . A thousand questions."
"I cannot answer a thousand questions," Mirsky said.
"Then one or two."
Mirsky nodded skeptically.
"Your presentation . . . there was so much power there. You tell us
they'll take--they are taking--whole galaxies and converting them, destroying
them.. . Lifeless galaxies?"
Mirsky grinned. "Wise question. Yes. Stillborn, you might say . .
Huge, full of too much energy, burning themselves out anyway, or
quickly falling into frozen stars at their center . . . You call them black
holes. No life, no order in those galaxies will survive. The Final Mind
accelerates and controls their death."
Lanier nodded stupidly, caught himself, and licked his dry lips. "With
so much power, why not just force us? Send a kind of army of people like
yourself, or . . . something stronger."
"Not subtle. Not the right way."
"What if you fail?"
Mirsky shrugged. "Even so."
"What will happen . . between now and the end of time?" There it
was, bald; he had had his interest in the future renewed, and with that
came curiosity.
"I remember only what I need to remember. If I remembered more, I
would not be allowed to tell you . . . not everything."
"How long will it be until the end?"
"Time means less and less in that region of history," Mirsky said. "But
an estimatea ballpark figure is not too misleading. About seventy-five
billion years."
Lanier blinked, trying to absorb such a span.
Mirsky shook his head sadly. "Sorry. I am not trying to be evasive, but
there can only be so much revelation now. Perhaps later . . . much
later, when humans join the communities . ."
Lanier shivered and nodded. "All right," he said. "But I'm still curious.
Others are probably more curious than I am . . The very people
you have to convince."
Mirsky agreed with a wry expression. "Now, Garry, I have my own
questions. Can we talk about what happened after the Geshel precincts
left?"
"Starting from when?"

ETERNITY · 141

"From the return to Earth."
Lanier thought, found a starting point, and began his confession, after
the need for it had finally passed.

TWENTY-SIX

Gaia

Birds sang and something else was in the air--something electric. Rhita
pulled down her covers and listened to the men moving around in the
rest of the tent, grumbling. She rubbed sleep from her eyes; she had been
exhausted, strained to the breaking point, she realized now. For a moment
she simply hung on to the comfort of her bed, refusing to listen to
her instincts. Then something exploded not far from the tent and she was
on her knees, and on her feet, dressed only in loose-fitting underwear. The air crackled and wind beat the outside of the tent. A few men
screamed questions and orders at each other. Demetrios lifted the edge of
the tent flap, stared at her, embarrassed, and said almost sternly, "Thunderstorm.
It's going to pour rivers on us any minute."
"Just what we needed!" She stepped into her pants, not at all embarrassed
to be seen by him. In fact, she found the moment slightly arousing
.... the appraising look in his eye before his politeness made him look
down .
"It adds to the excitement," he admitted, back turned. She looped her
shirt closed and zipped up her jacket, then bent down to put on her
shoes, buckling quickly. In seconds, she was fully dressed. She brushed
past Demetrios and skipped by a Kybernts and a soldier, down the
covered gap between two sections of the tent, into the outside.
Oresias and Jamal Atta stood at the edge of the ravine, Oresias with
hands on hips, Atta speaking into the mouthpiece of a mobile radio
mounted on the back of a soldier. What happened to radio silence? she
asked herself. Demetrios came through the tent door behind her, just as
big drops of rain splashed on her face and hands and darkened the fabric
of her jacket. Atta lifted his hands and shook his head; the last straw,
more than any human could bear.

142 · GREG BEAR


The two beecraft seemed hunched under the onslaught, blades drooping
almost to the level of the grass. Soldiers stood in the hatchways,
smoke rising from several long pipes as they casually watched the downpour
grow more intense. Oresias handed the soldier the mouthpiece and
drew his jacket up over his head, running toward them. Lightning flashed
to the south, lighting up the canopy of clouds and the steppe around
them with cold, pale brilliance.

"There's disaster in Alexandreia," Oresias shouted over another crack
of thunder. He pushed Rhita and Demetrios back through the door into
the tent and threw aside his jacket, running his hand like a comb through
his wet hair, rubbing water out of his eyes with his knuckles. Atta remained
standing in the middle of the storm, raising his arms now and
then, shouting or whispering, they couldn't tell over the noise.

"He wants lightning to hit him. Might be better for all of us," Oresias
said. "There's been a revolt. Elements in the Mouseion, I gather . .
and the Jews. The Lokhias is under siege and the palace has been locked
up. Soldiers loyal to the queen have dropped bombs on the Mouseion--"

"No!" Rhita felt the word leap out of her, a futile, outraged countermanding
order.

Oresias grimaced in shared pain. "We should have known from the
attitude in BagdadE and DamaskS. We have no protection on the way
back. For all we know, the Hunnos and Rhus border stations are being
alerted now. I don't think they have a radio fix on us yet, but they will if
we have to send any more messages."

Lugotorix stood tall and protecting over Rhita, his eyes dark under a
heavy frown.

"What do we do here?" Demetrios asked, apprehensive but not fearful.
"Our mission," Oresias said. "We have two hours before I order a pullout
and we try to get back. We'll unload what we need from the cargo
plane." He ordered several soldiers to organize the transfer of supplies.
Outside, the tanker's engines roared over the storm. The fuel had been
transferred, and now it was taking off. "A long, leisurely expedition is no
longer possible, but we can investigate this gate, learn as much as we can,
and save our skins before the Kirghiz or Kazakh Tatars or their Rhus
masters are upon us."

Atta had given up imprecations against the thunder and joined them
under the tent. "Lightning hit the gate," he said breathlessly. "It glowed

like a lantern." Simultaneously, he and Oresias looked at Rhita.

"My turn, isn't it?" she said.

"I will bring the Objects," Lugotorix said. She looked at the Kelt's

ET E R N ITY · 143

retreating back with some surprise. Everybody pushes me to thi I don't
like the feeling I have; my instincts say no...
Or was she simply afraid?
"Will lightning strike the clavicle, too?" Oresias asked.
"I don't know," she said softly.
"What?"
'? don't know/" she shouted. Demetrios nodded phlegmatically and
she turned away from him with a flash of disgust contradicting her earlier
attraction. He can't help. Nobody can help. I'm trapped.
Lugotorix returned with the large case. She unlocked it with her keys
and removed the clavicle, holding it low before her, feeling its power in
her hands and thoughts. It tries to reassure me. The Kelt adjusted his
machine pistol and shifted from one foot to the other behind her. Oresias
smiled and pulled aside the tent door.
Without hesitation, refusing to show any weakness to anybody, disgusted
with herself and everything else apeeially with her weak-minded
notions of adventure the day before--she stalked out into the
driving rain.
She stopped and turned, eyes blinking against the pounding drops.
"That way," Demetrios said, pointing her in the direction of the swale.
"It'll flood soon," she called over her shoulder. The men followed her,
all but the Kelt hunched over. Lugotorix strode through the storm like a
walking tree, hair plastered across his face, eyes more slits, teeth bared in
a grimace.
The bottom of the swale was already ankle-deep in rushing water. She
slipped and stepped gingerly down the bank, somehow staying upright
with both hands gripping the clavicle, until she splashed across the bottom
and stood beside the shivering lens of the gate, seeing it with her eyes
and also in her mind, undisturbed by the storm or the lightning strike.
The clavicle showed her how wide the storm was, and odd symbols
flashed through the display, bunching up at one point in the clouds and
blinking green--
Just as lightning brightened the grassland yet again.
The clavicle kept her informed, about all conditions around the gate..4 pity Grandmother didn't tell me about all this, she thought. She might not
have known.
"It's still here, and it hasn't changed," she called to the men. Only
Lugotorix followed her into the swale. DDenetrios stopped halfway down
the bank, not, she surmised, out of fear, but in deference to her position,
her control of the situation.
"Do you need help?" he asked, holding out his hands.

144 · GREG BEAR

"I don't know," she said. "I've never done this before."
What do I do to widen the gate? she asked the device. She assumed that
was what they were all after, with no time to be extra cautious. She could
hardly conceive of who or what might be waiting for them on the other
side: ogres or gods.
She was still a child of Rhodos, however sophisticated she might pretend
to be. She did not have her grandmother's upbringing.
The clavicle instructed her below a level she could follow with her
conscious mind. Her hands tingled; the effect was almost painful. Her
muscles jerked minutely, growing used to new directives, new channels of
command being blazed through her nervous system in just a few seconds.
For a moment, Rhita was both tired and nauseated, but that passed and she straightened.
Surprised, she blinked away a few drops of water. The rain had
stopped and she hadm't noticed. Had she fainted or blacked out? She
turned and saw Lugotorix behind her, eyes focused over her head. Deme-trios
halfway down the bank, and Atta and Oresias and the soldiers along
the edge, all stared at the gateway.
Rhita looked up.
The lens had risen and expanded, flattening. It gleamed oddly in the
fresh rays of a morning sun shining at a low angle between parting
clouds. She consulted the clavicle.
The gateway's changecL What's happening?
We have made it expand, the clavicle told her. You ordered it so.
Can I go through it?
Not advisable, the clavicle said.
Why?
We cannot know what is on the other side.
Rhita thought that made a great deal of sense, but their time was
limited. There no way we can find out?
None.
But it is open?
Yea
Can someone come through from the other side?
Yea
The enormity of what she had done began to sink in. She stood below
and to one side of the gate, admiring its uncanny beauty, like a suspended
raindrop, or the lens from the eye of some huge fish.
Water had risen above her ankles in the swale. It tumbled in glassy
sheets over the bent grass, muddy foam catching against the bank. Rhita
glanced down at it, annoyed, and decided it would be wise to climb up

ET E R N ITY · 145


the bank, away from any possible flood. She stood beside Demetrios,
holding the clavicle level with her knees, breathing heavily. "It's open,"

she told him quietly. He glanced at Atta and Oresias, then back at her.
"Don't you want to tell them?"

"Of course," she said. "It's open," she called back over her shoulder.
"I opened it. The clavicle opened it."

Atta nodded, lips drawn down, eyes squinted in speculation. Oresias
gave her a short smile. "We can pass through?"

"It says we can, but that we shouldn't. It doesn't know what's on the
other side."

Oresias walked down the bank. "We came here to investigate," he
reminded them. "Whatever's happened in Alexandreia, that's our mission.
You're too valuable to send through," he told Rhita, "and we need
Atta to command the pilots and soldiers in an emergency. Which this
situation is, probably. DemetriosB"

"I'd love to go," the mekhanikos said, eyes sparkling.

"No." Oresias lifted his hands and shook his head. "You didn't sign on
to take risks. I did."

Lugotorix watched them all closely, his eyes following the circle of
conversation.

"Bring down the second Object," Oresias ordered one of the soldiers.
The man ran off to comply.

"I don't know how to use it," Rhita said. "Grandmother didn't tell

me."

"Careless of her," Oresias said, face glowing with the challenge.
"Wel'll see if it still works, and whether or not we can work it. If it
works, I go through. If not--"

"I'm responsible for all of the Objects," Rhita said.

"And I'm responsible for you," Oresias said. "If it doesn't work, we
can at least poke one of our caged animals through first, and then I'll
follow if the animal comes back alive." He touched Rhita's arm lightly.
"I'm not a complete fool, and I don't want to die. We'll be cautious."

The case containing the second object was brought down into the
swale by the soldier. Rhita opened the lid while he held it, and brought
out the control box and recirculation box, both attached to a thick black
belt. "It's very old," she said.

Oresias held up his arms and she wrapped the belt around his waist.
"How would you make it work?"

Rhita thought for a moment, then touched the control box with her
hand. The device did not communicate with her mind; apparently it was

145 · GREG BEAR

less sophisticated than the clavicle. What would Grandmother do? she
asked herself.
She'd talk to it.
"Please turn on," she said in Hellenic. "Please protect this man."
Nothing happened. She thought about that for a while, and then decided
to use her grandmother's English, a difficult language she was not at all
fluent in. "Please turn on," she said. "Protect this man."
Again, no response.
Rhita felt a flush of anger at her own ignorance. Why didn't Grandmother
teach me how to use all the Objects? Perhaps, toward the end of
her life, Patrikia's brilliance had faded. "I can't think of anything else to
try . . "she said. "Unless . . . it might work if I'm wearing it."
Oresias shook his head firmly. "If her Imperial Hypslots still sits on
her throne, she'd have my head if I put you in any danger. We'll try the
animal first." He ordered that a cony be brought forward.
"I'll go," Lugotorix told Rhita in confidence, speaking softly in her
ear. She shook her head; everything was confused. They were amateurs;
none of the others--probably not even her--had any idea of how momentous
this occasion was, how dangerous and not just for them.
The cony arrived, a small bundle of fur in a wicker cage, twitching a
pink nose, its cage suspended by a metal hook on a long wooden pole.
The water had not risen appreciably, so he took the far end of the pole
and stepped into the stream, walking awkwardly with the cage dangling
before him. "Where should I put it?" he asked.
Despite herself, Rhita grinned. "In the center."
Lugotorix seemed to find this amusing, too; the Kelt seldom found
anything worth smiling about.
Oresias lifted the long pole and maneuvered the cage up to the center
of the glimmering lens. "Like this?" he asked. The cage and cony disappeared,
as if by some magician's sleight of hand.
"Yes," Rhita said softly, awed. She tried to visualize Patrikia falling
through such a lens, landing in an irrigation channel . .
"I'll leave it there for a few seconds," Oresias said, the pole trembling
in his grip.
Rhita heard a deep pounding sound to the north. Jamal Atta looked up
from the swale and flinched. "Tatars--Kirghiz!" he shouted. "Hundreds
of them!"
Oresias's face blanched, but he continued to hold the pole in position.
"Where?"
Lugotorix leaped to the rim of the swale. Rhita was torn between
staying near the gate and Oresias and following the Kelt to find out what

ETERNITY · 147

was happening. Soldiers shouted around the beecrafi. The pounding grew
louder.
"Horsemen and infantry!" Lugotorix called down to her. "They're
close--a couple of stadia."
"What banner?" Oresias asked, his entire upper body trembling with
the weight of the cage and pole. The lens hung steady and undisturbed,
absorbing the cage just as an invisible doorway swallows the top of a
magician's rope.
"No banners," Jamal Atta said. "They're Kirghiz! We must leave!"
Oresias pulled the cage from the gate convulsively. Rhita saw a limp
blur of red and gray in the cage as Oresias swung the pole out over the
stream to the bank. They both peered down at the cony. It was dead; it
hardly resembled an animal at all.
"What happened to it?" Rhita asked.
"Looks like it exploded, or something tore it apart," Oresias said. He
fingered the wooden bars; they were intact, their contents dripping a thin
fluid of blood onto the grass and dirt. He unhooked the cage and stuffed
it hastily into a rubberized sack. Lugotorix came down the decline to
grab her arm. "We go now," he said firmly, machine pistol in hand. She
did not resist.
They stood on the edge of the swale for a moment to get their bearings.
Soldiers ran through the grass to the beecraft with boxes of supplies. One
stumbled and fell, screaming; Rhita thought he had been shot, but he
regained his footing and picked up his load. She looked to the north,
beyond the beecraft, and saw a line of dark riders moving rapidly toward
them, horses up to their withers in grass. Clods of mud flew up behind
them, and their voices joined in a heavy, ululating song above the pounding
of hooves. Some waved swords and long rifles in the air. Hidden by a
low hill until just this moment, a flimsy multiple-winged gullcraft suddenly
vaulted into view behind the riders, buzzing like a summer dragonfly.
The gullcraft flew over the line, gained more altitude, and passed
above them at about .fifty arms, wings dipped almost vertical as the Kybernts and one observer in a rear seat tried to see the invaders. She
clearly made out a long black telescope in the observer's hands, and then
Lugotorix lifted her by her arms, pinned to her sides by his huge hands,
and ran with her to the nearest beecraft. Oresias tried to keep up with
them. She turned and saw Jamal Atta scrambling with arms outfiung,
cape billowing, in the direction of a.clump of soldiers bearing yet more
boxes of supplies from the cargo gullcraft.
"Drop them! Get to your craft!" he ordered. But it was too late. The
horsemen were already riding through the camp, some plunging into the

148
	· GREG BEAR

swale, barely missing striking the gate, and up the other side, horses
ehuffing and flinging ribbons of foam, their nostrils flaring.

The riders wore black leggings and dark gray pants, with loose magenta
tunics belted and tied around the wrists with rope. Their hats were
made of skins, ear coverings flapping loose as they bounded around the
tent, pointing their rifles and laughing and screaming. Soldiers cowered
in the grass, on their knees, or stood their ground with wide eyes, cringing
this way and that, not daring to bring up their own weapons.

They were clearly outnumbered. To add to the confusion, it began to
rain again.

Lugotorix lifted her into the beecraft and leaped up after her, pushing
her behind a bulkhead with one boot while he took a position with pistol
behind his back near the open hatch. Other soldiers hid in the craft, and
some crawled beneath it, seeking refuge from the pounding hooves. There
were at least three hundred riders.

The second beecraft started its jets. Rhita crawled to a low window on
the opposite side and saw the props rotate ponderously, jet pods low,
almost in the grass. Horsemen rode around it, rifles pointing at the forward
compartment, shouting and swinging their free hands down. Ore-sias
crawled up beside her. Demotrios coughed behind him. "They won't
let any of us leave," he said. Jamal Atta strode with some dignity between
four riders on plunging and rearing horses, glancing this way and
that with a fierce grin. He's showing them he has no fear, Rhita thought.
Atta turned and approached the area of the rotating blades. The pods
were picking up speed now, the props rising slowly and the grass bending
outward. The horsemen rode clear, rifles still at ready. Atta shouted at
the beecraft, but from inside their own vehicle, they could not hear what
he said.

"He wants them to stop the engines," Oresias guessed.

Demetrios found his own position near a second window. "What happened
to the cony?" he asked.

"It's dead," Oresias answered bitterly. "Our luck has been steady
throughout this expedition."

"Dead how?" Demetrios persisted.

"Like something ate it and spit it out!" Oresias replied, eyes wild. "We
may all be dead in a few minutes anyway."

Encircled by riders, Jamal Atta spoke with a brawny fellow in a thick
black wool coat, shiny with rain, that made him seem twice his already
formidable size. The Kirghiz swung a long curved sword idly near Atta's
ribs. Atta seemed to pay little attention to this, maintaining an admirable
calm despite being soaked to the skin, his hair hanging in long strings.

ETERNITY · 149

Other riders herded scattered soldiers before them. The second beecraft's
engines moaned sadly, turbines dropping in pitch, and the props swung
to halt, pods undulating.
"He's surrendering," Oresias said. "Not much choice."
Rhita still held the clavicle. She had ignored the device for several
minutes, yet she clutched it firmly in both hands. Lowering her head
from the window, shaking her aching hands out one by one, she returned
her full attention to what the device was telling her. Her thoughts filled
with the display again. She saw the gate still represented by a red cross
mand she saw what must have been a haze of rain drops around the
swale. The riders did not seem significant to the clavicle--she could detect no symbols indicating their presence. But something was happening to the red cross. It was surrounded by one red circle, and then by another,
and a third. The circles broke into three equal segments and spun
about the cross.
What's happening.
The gateway is still expanding; the clavicle told her.
How?
Controlled from the opposite side.
Rhita's heart fell. She had not been truly frightened--exhilarated,
shocked, surprised, but not afraid--until now. "What have we done?"
she murmured. Once again she prayed to Athen Lindia and closed her
eyes, wishing Patrikia were here to advise her.
A trio of riders seemed to rise up out of the ground before the beecraft
hatchway, screaming and waving their rifles and swords. Oresias stood
and faced them, hands outstretched to show he was unarmed. The lead
rider, bareheaded, bald and with a long, thin mustache, leaned forward in
his minimal saddle and motioned for Oresias to approach.
"You speak Hellenic?" the rider asked.
"Yes," Oresias said.
"Our stratgos, he wishes a word with youmyou are Oresias?"

"You command with this arabios Jamal Atta?"

"Why are you here?" The bald-headed rider leaned forward with an
expression of intense, solicitous interest. Then he leaned back, shaking
his sword vigorously. "No. You tell the strategos, with the arabios, all together!"
Oresias climbed down from the hatch and followed the trio across the
grass, around the beecraft, to where Atta conversed with the man in the
wool coat.

150
	· GREG BEAR

Rhita still had half her attention on the clavicle display. The circles
spinning around the cross had become a blur; that, the clavicle told her,
was an indication of the strength of the gate. A great deal of energy was
being expended. She could not see the swale or the gate directly.
"Something's happening," she told Demetrios. He knelt beside her,
hair dripping rain. They all resembled drowned cats. He held out his
hand, and she released the clavicle to clasp it, then pull it down to touch
a handle. His eyes grew large.
"God!" he said. "It's a nightmare."
"I guess the Tatars don't see anything unusual," Rhita surmised. "But
it's getting wider, stronger."
"Why.9"
"Something's going to come through," she said.
"Maybe more people like your grandmother," Lugotorix said. He laid
the machine pistol behind the winch housing, out of sight but quick to
hand; not, however, immediately in hand, in case they were searched.
Rhita shook her head, feeling hot, almost feverish.
They are not human, the clavicle told her. They do not use human
methods on the gate.
Demetrios stared at her, having heard the message as well, but not
knowing what to make of it.
How soon? she asked.
The gate is open. When they will pass through cannot be knowr

TWENTY-SEVEN

Thistledown, Fourth
Chamber

There was no time to worry about the Jart's almost total cooperation
with his partial; Olmy could hardly keep up with the flow of information
they were exchanging. Some risk was involved; a particularly subtle corrosive
or worm could be embedded in the Jart's flood of information, and

ETERNITY · 151

might even make it past Olmy's filters and other defenses, but that was a
risk Olmy was willing to take.
The exchange was not one-way. Olmy's partial was providing the Jart
with selected information about humans.
Physically, Olmy sat on a rock by a narrow streamlet, tubelight filtering
through a haze of pollen that dusted the quiet pool near his feet.
Mentally, he explored the labyrinth of Jart social strata, convinced by
now that the Jart's information was accurate and not made-up. It was too
convincing, too true to what little humans had learned about their long- time adversaries in the Way.
This Jart was a modified expediter. Expediters carried out orders
passed through duty expediters, slightly different in mentality and form.
An expediter might be thought of as a laborer, although their tasks were
often non-physical; expediters might just as often be assigned thought
processing as physical work. Duty expediters designed practical ways of
carrying out policy. They decided who should be called up from a pool of
expediters, who were stored, Olmy learned, in a kind of city memory, but
kept inactive. If physical forms were required for their labor, they were
assigned to bodies which might be either mechanical, biological, or a mix of the two.
Another description of another kind of body existed which Olmy was
not sure he understood: the translation came across as mathematical form, but was not complete by any means.
The Jart was not above holding back key information. Neither was
Olmy.
Above duty expediters was command. Command made policy and
foresaw the results through intense simulation and modeling. Command
was always made up of Jarts in their original natural bodies, without
augmentation of any kind. They were mortal and allowed to die of old
age. They were never downloaded. Olmy puzzled at this bottleneck in an
otherwise extremely advanced and amorphous group of beings; why not
give what was obviously an important level in the strata more flexibility,
and more capabilities than they naturally had? He made a note to have
his partial ask the Jart about this.
Above command and all other ranks of Jarts was command oversighL At first, Olmy could not understand what role command oversight
played. Individuals in this rank were immobile, lacked any bodies, and
resided permanently in a kind of memory storage different from that
where inactive expediters were kept. Command oversight Jarts--if they
could be called Jarts at alltwere stripped of all but pure reasoning faculties
and rigorously modified for their tasks. Apparently they gathered

152 · GREG BEAR
information from all levels of the strata, examined it, made judgments of
goals achieved and efficacy of actions, and presented "recommendations"
to command.
In all of Jart cybernetic technology, as far as Olmy was being informed,
there were no artificial programs; all processing was accomplished
by Jart mentalities which had, at one time or another, occupied
natural and original Jart bodies. However far from their natural origins,
however duplicated, modified and customized, these mentalities always
had a connection with their original memories. It was possible, then, that
there were Jarts still active who remembered a time before their occupation
of the Way, who perhaps remembered the Jart home world.
If there had been a single home world . . .
The Jarts might not be a single species, but a combination of many
species a kind of volvox of beings and cultures.
The only level within the strata allowed to breed naturally was command.
No impression of what command looked like came through in the
information; Olmy was beginning to realize that understanding Jart
physiology was much less important than humans had once thought.
Jarts, far more even than humans, had superseded their physical origins;
most had been consumed by their cybernetic structures.
But in all honesty, Olmy could see that had the Infinite Hexamon
continued its development, humans might have ended up in a society not
qualitatively different from that of the Jarts. They might yet; neoGeshels
were pushing the Terrestrial Hexamon to return to the old ways.
Did freedom or individuality mean anything at all in such a culture?
Another note, another question.
In all the information, Olmy found nothing that could be considered
directly strategic: nothing about the Jart activities in the Way, about their
trading partners (if any) or their ultimate goals (again, if any). He decided
it would be best not to press for this information until he saw fit to
provide the Jart with similar insight.
It was a kind of dance, this exchange of information. The moves had
started out awkwardly, rapidly become fast and furious, and might soon
slow to a measured back-and-forth rhythm.
For the time being, there was almost total cooperation. Olmy doubted
that would last; the Jart had its mission, after all, and probably suspected
that a greal deal of time had passed.
Vigilance was the order of the hour.

ET E R N I TY · 155

TWENTY-EIGHT

Earth

There was no physical sensation when the shuttle lifted off from the
landing field at Christchurch. Karen Farley Lanier closed her eyes briefly
and listened to the exclamations of the delegates, many of whom had
never flown until the last few weeks, much less traveled in space. They
would spend seven hours in transit before docking with the Stone--Thistledown,
she corrected herself. Only the Old Natives referred to the orbiting
asteroid as the Stone.
Still slender, her blond hair. graying into sunlit ash, Karen seemed
mature, but nowhere in age near her sixty-eight years. She might have
been a well-preserved forty. Pride in her appearance and fitness had been
part of her bulwark against the Death; if she could maintain her strength
and youth, she felt more subconsciously than otherwise, then the Earth
could regain her vitality. Sometimes she accused herself of serf-serving
vanity, but what did she have to be vain about, or for that matter, who
could she be vain for? Her husband hadn't complimented her on her
looks in at least five years; they hadn't made love for three years; she had
neither time nor inclination for affairs.
Life had made her almost completely self-contained, a kind of emotional
analog to the hormorph Olmy.
The atmosphere in the shuttle was electric with excitement. The delegates
sat glued to the. ports, eyes wide. After an hour and a half, the
novelty passed sufficiently for some of the delegates to turn away from
the view of stars and Earth. Karen looked around the broad, dimly-lighted
white interior of the cabin. As with almost all Hexamon shuttles,
the furnishings resembled ingeniously molded soft white bread dough:
couches arranged almost casually for maximum efficiency, all capable of
customizing themselves to fit their occupants' bodies; opacity where no
windows were needed, transparent ports where passengers wished to see.
out; pools of light where a delegate read a small stack of papers (archaic
in this setting!), and shadow where another slept.

154 · GREG BEAR


This Hexamon shuttle was much larger than most, easily capable of
carrying several hundred passengers. There veere forty-five aboard now,
forty-one men and women from around the Earth, as well as herself. It
was going to be a grand experiment a by-your-bootstraps knitting of
these individuals into a single family, teaching them to see that their
problems were not separate but intimately linked, and to see their companions
not as competition, but as helpers.

The introduction at Christchurch had gone smoothly enough; Karen
had blended in, despite her rank as Chief Earth Coordinator, and had
been accepted by most of the group as a peer.

A number of delegates had attached themselves to her in an attempt to
form a proto-ruling-class. One such was a middle-aged Mainland Chinese
woman whose community, near Karen's home province of Hunan, had
not known the touch of the Terrestrial Hexamon until just five years ago.
Another was a badly scarred, very proud Ukrainian, representing a group
of Independents who had held off the would-be-salvagers of their villages
and towns for nearly twenty years after the Death. Yet a third was a
North American from Mexico City. Mexico City had survived the bombs
only to succumb to lethal radiation, and had been repopulated by Latinos
from Central America and refugees from the border cities . . .

Karen appreciated their confidence in her but she subtly discouraged
the hierarchy they were unconsciously forming. She did not desire eminence
or power, only success. Theirs was a unique opportunity. The
circumstances had to be handled carefully.

Their faces bore the mark of Earth's agony, even though some had
been born after the Death. Few of these people had received pseudo-Talsit
mental therapy, having kept their sanity and abilities even in the
worst of times; they were incredibly tough and resilient. They had been
hand-selected by Hexamon sociologists who had spent months searching
the Recovery census completed only in the past four years for just
their kind. "We call them high primes," Suli Ram Kikura, the project
coordinator, had told Karen. "Strong naturals with little or no previous
tampering."

Most of them were natural leaders, having come to power without
Hexamon help. They seemed at ease together, though few had dealt with
each other as leaders before. Their communities were far enough apart
that the borders did not touch, and there had been little commerce between
them; but with the completion of the Hexamon social structure
over the next ten years, their peoples would certainly interact, and the
experience they received aboard the Stone would make them allmit was
hoped--a kind of seed, broadcast over the Recovered Earth.

ETERNITY · 155

Ser Ram Kikura's prejudice against the Hexamon's extensive psychological
meddling still showed; it made her the perfect coordinator for this
project, an attempt to let Earth stand on its own feet.
Some citizens of the Terrestrial Hexamon seemed to feel the Hexamon
would not remain stable for the indefinite future. The shortage of materials
necessary for the maintenance of society aboard the Stone, the shifts in deeply held attitudes, the repercussions of dealing with their own origins
on the post-Death Earth all were taking theft toll in Hexamon
stability.
If Earth had to survive a crisis among its saviors, it would have to be
weaned . . .
Karen spoke Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish, having
brushed up on her Russian with Hexamon devices, and having learned
Spanish the same way. That was enough to communicate directly with
most of the delegates. Those few whose language she didn't speakm
including three whose dialects had arisen since the Death could usually
communicate with others in the group through a shared second language.
No outside human or machine translators diluted this early stage of their
interaction; they were being taught to rely on each other. Before the week
was out, they would all speak each other's languages--having acquired
them within the third chamber's city memory--and many more, besides.
For the first time in years, Karen felt on the edge of fulfillment. She
had suffered as much as Garry during the last four decades, traveling
around the ravaged Earth, seeing more death, destruction and seemingly
unending agony than she thought she could stand. Losing their daughter.
Her breath still took a hitch at that memory. But she had dealt with her
grief in a very different manner, not internalizing it as world-guilt, but
finally rejecting it, setting her personality aside as a separate thing, and
dealing with her work as a nurse might. She did not succeed entirely
she had her own hidden scars but she had not declined into a permanent
funk.
She forced the thoughts back again, a little surprised they had gotten
loose. Karen had long ago learned when and how to block off the area of
her mind having to do with her husband; she usually managed not to
think much about Garry when they were separated, concentrating on the
delicate tasks at hand. But their last meeting . . . Garry, nervous, perhaps
even frightened, though doing his best not to show it, escorting a
man who could not possibly be on Earth . . .
She glanced out the shuttle window at stars, temporarily ignoring the
steady, polite conversation of three delegates sitting beside her. Was
Garry aboard the Stone, with the impossible Russian? She had, in her

155
	· GREG BEAR


own stubborn way, come close to resolving the mystery by deciding that
someone had played a trick on her husband; that Mirsky had never gone
down the Way. But the more she thought about it--and she could not
help thinking about it now, with little else to do the more she realized
how unlikely this was.

She felt a flush of anger. Something was going to happen. Something
momentous. She resented the mystery of Mirsky's return, feared it might
drive Garry deeper into his funk by making him face cosmic imponderables
even farther outside his control than Earth's pain.

She frowned and turned away from the stars. Unlike Lanier, Karen felt
little dismay at the changes in her life. She accepted change easily
enough; spaceflight, the Stone, the opportunities offered by the Hexamon.
But Mirsky's return slipped from her understanding like a fish through
her fingers.

"Ser Lanier," the Chinese delegate called, smiling broadly and inclining
her head as she sat beside Karen on the free-form couch. Her face
was wreathed in fine sun-wrinkles; she was small and round, matronly,
probably ten years younger than Karen. "You seem pensive. Are you
worried about this conference?"

"No," Karen said, smiling reassurance. "Personal difficulties."

"Your mind should be at rest," the delegate said. "All will go well. We
are friends already, even those whom I worried about."

"I know," Karen said. "It's nothing, really. Don't trouble yourself."
He's doing it to me again, she thought. I cannot get away frorn him. She
closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep.


TWENTY-NINE


Thistledown


Korzenowski's partial located Olmy in the fourth chamber forests of
Northspin Island two days after Lanier's arrival. Downloaded into a
cross-shaped tracking probe, the partial searched the fourth chamber
with infrared sensors and located seven hundred and fifty humans. Most
were in groups of three or more; only seventy were solitary, and only

ET E R N ITY · 157

two, across half a day of activity, showed signs of deliberately avoiding
company. The partial analyzed the heat signatures of both of these possibilities
and settled on the one most likely to be a self-contained
homorph.
Under any other circumstance, this kind of search would have been
unthinkable, a gross invasion of privacy. But Korzenowski knew the
importance of having Olrny speak with Mirsky. And he needed Olmy for
the upcoming Nexus debate on the reopening of the Way. The Engineer
could no longer completely oppose that project; Mirsky's arguments were
too persuasive, however bizarre. How could one deny the requests of
gods, even if they existed only at the end of time?
It was not the partial personality's duty to analyze these problems. It
flew above the valley floor to hover near Olmy's campsite, and then
projected an image of Korzenowski with the appropriate picts revealing
its status as an assigned ghost.
From Olmy's point of view, Korzenowski seemed to walk out of the
forest, his face wreathed in a smile, his eyes cat-like, piercing. "Good
day, Ser Olmy," the ghost said.
Olmy pulled himself away from the flow of Jart information and hid his all-too-human irritation at being found. "You've gone to considerable
trouble," he picted.
"Something extraordinary has happened," the ghost informed him.
"Your presence in the third chamber is required."
Oimy stood by the tent, unsure of his emotional state for the moment,
neither moving nor picting nor speaking.
"A decision is to be made regarding the Way. Your presence is requested
by my original."
"Is this a Nexus summons?"
"Not formally. Do you remember Pavel Mirsky?"
"We never met," Oh-ny said. "I know who he was."
"He has returned," the ghost' said, rapidly picting the few salient details.
Olmy's face seemed to contort with pain. He shuddered, then his shoulders sagged and the tension left him. He pushed aside the Jart
information, refocusing on his humanity and on his relationship with
Korzenowski, once his mentor, the man who had shaped much of his life
or rather, lives. The fact of Mirsky's reappearance then assumed its
proper color deeply bizarre, more than puzzling: entrancing. He did
not doubt the ghost's message. Even had someone besides Korzenowski
summoned him, this news alone would suffice to bring him out of the
forest and away from his meditations.

1.~8 · GREG BEAR

Events were moving more rapidly than he had imagined.
"Is there time for me to hike out?" Olmy asked, smiling. The mild
social humor was as sweet as sugar in his mind, and he realized how
starved he had become for human company. The ghost returned the
smile. "Quicker transportation will arrive soon," it said.

"The prodigal son," Korzenowski said, hugging Olmy firmly in the
Nexus antechamber. "I apologize for sending a partial to hunt you down.
I assume you didn't want to be found."
Olmy felt a kind of shame, standing before his mentor, unwilling to
speak of what he had been doing. He still had to keep his balance within
his own head, watching the implants he had given over to the Jart.
"Where is Mirsky?" he asked, hoping to sidestep questions.
"With Garry Lanier. The Nexus is meeting in two hours. Mirsky is
testifying before the full chamber. He wants to speak with you first."
"Is he real?"
"As real as I am," Korzenowski said.
"That worries me." Olmy forced a grin.
"He has an amazing story to tell." Korzenowski, unwilling to find
humor in anything now, looked away from Olmy at a wall of natural
asteroid iron, his reflection milky and distant in the polished metal surface.
"We've caused a lot of trouble."
"Where?"
"At the end of time," Korzenowski said. "I remember thinking about
this possibility centuries ago, when I was designing the Way .... It
seemed a vain fantasy then, that anything I could be involved in would
have such repercussions. . . But the idea has haunted me. I half expected
someone to return from the precincts, qike a ghost."
"And here he is."
Korzenowski nodded. "He hasn't pointed any accusing fingers. He
seems happy to be back. Almost childlike. Still, he frightens me. We have
such responsibilities, now." Korzenowski turned his square, discerning
eyes on Olmy. "Would you resent a request for help?"
Olmy shook his head automatically. He owed more to the Engineer
than he could ever repay more than even bringing him back to life
could tally against. Korzenowski had shaped Olmy's life, opened vistas to
him he would have missed otherwise. Still, he was not sure how his plan
--already fixed and irrevocable might match Korzenowski's. "I am always
at your service, Ser."
"Sometime in the next few months, perhaps even today if the time is
right--if Mirsky puts his story across as clearly to the Nexus as he did to

ETERNITY · 159

us---I am going to recommend that the Way be opened," Korzenowski
said.
Olmy's smile was faint, ironic.
"Yes, I know," Korzenowski said gently. "We've been opposing forces
on this."
It seemed no one understood his position, not even his mentor. Olmy
did not think it worth the time to correct him. Still, he could not help but
gently chide the Engineer, if only to make sure he was keeping everything
in perspective.
"I hope I don't presume when I say that you are not completely unhappy
with this turn?"
"There is excitement and challenge," Korzenowski said, "and then
there is wisdom. I've been clinging desperately to wisdom. Which of us is
more eager to have this monster back?"
"Which of us really wants to face the consequences?" Olmy asked.
Lanier and Mirsky left the elevator and approached them. Mirsky
walked ahead of Lanier, smiling expectantly, and extended his hand to
Olmy. "We have not met," he said. Olmy shook the hand firmly. Warm
and human.
"You are the expediter of our duty," Mirsky said. Olmy could not
completely contain his reaction to that choice of words. Mirsky paused,
examining his face. Who is he looking at? Olmy wondered. "You understand
the problems, no?"
Olmy hesitated, then said. "Perhaps some of them."
"You've been preparing?"
There was no question now of not understanding. "Yes."
Mirsky nodded. "I would expect nothing less from you. I'm anxious to
testify," he said. "Anxious to get things moving." He walked away with
an abruptness that puzzled all of them.
Olmy turned to Lanier while the Russian paced near the door to the
Nexus chamber. "How have you been?" he asked. "And your wife?"
"She's fine, I suppose, working on a project . ."
"She's just arrived on Thistledown," Korzenowski said. "She's working
with Ser Ram Kikura."
"Will the Nexus listen to me?" Mirsky asked, walking back toward
them. "I am nervous! Can you believe that?"
"No," Korzenowski said in an undertone.
Mirsky suddenly turned and faced OImy. "You believe the Jarts will
oppose us," he said. "And you suspect they won't be the only ones. You
know the Talsit were Jart allies before---you think they probably are

150 · GREG BEAR

again. You have been working on this, haven't you? It's what I expected
from youl" he said again, staring earnestly at Olmy. Olmy nodded.
"Is he the same Mirsky?" Olmy asked Lanier when Mirsky returned to
the opposite side of the room.
"Yes and no," Lanier said. "He's not human."
Korzenowski glared at Lanier. "Knowledge, or supposition?"
Lanier pursed his lips. "He can't be human. Not after what he's gone
through. And he's not telling us everything yet. I don't know why."
"Does he know whether he will succeed?" Olmy asked.
"No, I don't think he does." A dreaming expression came to Lanier's
face. "I've never met anybody like him. I envy him."
"Perhaps we should all be cautious in our evaluations," Korzenowski
suggested dryly. "Having an angel in our midst."
Mirsky paced back yet again. "Nervousl I haven't felt nervous in . . . a very long time! It is exhilarating."
Korzenowski's irritation grew. "Are you beyond caring?" he asked.
"I beg your pardon?" Mirsky stopped pacing, facing the Engineer with
an intensely puzzled expression.
"We are---/am being forced to make a decision I have tried to avoid
for forty yearsl if we do have to fight the Jarts, the results might be
disastrous--we might lose everything." He grimaced. "Including the
Earth."
"I am more concerned than you know," Mirsky said. "There is more
at stake than just the Earth."
Korzenowski was not mollified. "If you are indeed an angel, Ser
Mirsky, you might not be as concerned as we are about our own skins."
"Angel? Are you angry with me?" Mirsky asked, his face bland again.
"I am angry with this situation?' Korzenowski said, drawing his head
closer to his shoulders. "Pardon my outburst." He looked to Olmy, who
had stood with arms folded throughout the exchange. "We are both torn
by our emotions. Ser Olmy would love to get back to his paper work,
keeping our Hexamon intact in the Way, and I am fascinated by the
prospect of re-opening. The part of me that remembers Patricia Was,,

quez . . .
Lanier almost flinched as Korzenowski glanced in his direction.
"That part is eager. But what our less responsible selves want, and
what is safe for our Hexamon, could be very different things, Ser Mirsky.
Your reasons are compelling . . . I am just irritated by your carefree
attitude." Korzenowski looked down at the ttoor and took a deep breath.
Mirsky said nothing.

ETERNITY · 161
"In truth," Olmy interceded, "the pressures on the Hexamon to reopen
would be strong even without you."
"Thank you for your guidance," Mirsky said quietly. "I lack perspective.
I must approach the Nexus carefully." He spread his arms and
looked down at his body, still clad in hiking clothes. "To have limitations, to think in channels. It's exhilarating to be back in flesh again! A wild,
haft-drunken blindness . . . a fleshy peace."
The Earth circled by a strand of DNA, the symbol of the Terrestrial
Hexamon Nexus in session, appeared by the doors to the chamber. A
partial of Presiding Minister Dris Sandys materialized beside the symbol.
"Full chamber," the partial said. "Please enter now and be sworn in."
Mirsky squared his shoulders and smiled, walking through the doors
first. Lanier held back, entering the chamber behind Korzenowski and
Olmy. Guided to his assigned seat in the lower circle, he was reminded of
the time when he had testified before the Infinite Hexamon Nexus on the
Axis City. Now, that time didn't seem so long ago. Earth's wounds had
been raw and fresh then, nearly fatal.
Mirsky stood patiently in the armillary sphere of testimony before the
presiding minister's dais. President Farren Siliom occupied the dais beside
the P.M. Lanier faced the pictor near his seat, aware that the experience
would drain him again, but eager to see what Mirsky would say this
time, whether he would elaborate.
An orthodox Naderite corprep seated beside him smiled politely, picting
polite curiosity about Lanier's age.
"I'm from Earth," he answered.
"I see," the corprep said. "Do you know anything about this testimony?''
"No fair telling ahead of time," Lanier said conspiratorially. "Get set
for the ride of your life.

152
	· GREG BEAR

THIRTY

Gaia

The Kirghiz in the black wool coat held court in the expedition's tent,
sitting cross-legged in the middle of a circle consisting of five of his
troops, Oresias, Jamal Atta, Demetrios and Lugotorix. Rhita stood with
the others outside the circle, hands bound with strong thin rope. Women
were anomalies on a military expedition, apparently; they did not believe
she was among the leaders, and no one made them any the wiser.
A translator entered the circle, short and wiry, wearing a drab uniform
cut in a modern Rhus manner, with scalloped collar and tight-wrapped
linen leggings above short, supple boot-slippers. The bull-like, black-coated
Kirghiz leader spoke, and the translator converted his words into
common Hellenic.
"I am Batur Chinghiz. I control this square of the grass for my esteemed
masters, the Rhus of Azovian Miskna. You are trespassers. I need
to know your reasons, to report by radio to my masters. Can you eno
lighten me?"
"We are here on a scientific expedition," Oresias said.
The translator smiled before converting those words into Kirghiz.
Batur smiled also, showing even yellow teeth.
"I am not stupid. Surely you would ask our scholars to do this thing
for you, not risk your own lives."
"It is an urgent matter," Oresias said.
"What about the dark one, the arabios; What does he say?" Jamal Atta nodded in Batur's direction. "I concur."
"With whom, me or the light-skinned leader?"
"We are on a scientific expedition."
"Ah, so it is. I will report you are lying, and they will tell me to kill
you, or perhaps cage you and send you to Miskna. Are you part of the
revolt in Askandergul? He means," the translator added, "Alexandreia,
of course."
"I don't understand," Oresias said.

ET E R N I TY · 153

"Are you fleeing from the palace, perhaps, cowards in search of sanctuary
in our wide territories?"
"We know little about a revolt."
"We have only received news in the past few hours ourselves." The
Kirghiz lifted his broad shoulders and raised his chin, staring at them
across his flat brown cheeks. "We are not speakers of nonsense here. He
means Barbarians," the translator added again. "We have radios, and we
are in touch with our fortresses. We even bathe when the rivers are full or
we are garrisoned."
"We have all due respect for the illustrious Kirghiz soldiers of the
Rhus of Azovian Miskna," Atta said, glancing at Oresias. "We are intruders,
and we humbly beg your mercy, which under the sky of (}od and
the grass of the Riding Devils, we feel sure the great horsemen Batur
Chinghiz will grant us." Oresias narrowed his eyes, but did not object to
Atta's attempt at formulaic diplomacy.
"I am pleased by your kind and understanding words. But mercy is not
mine to give. I am, as you say, soldier and not master. Enough of this.
Can you enlighten me further before I request orders for your disposition?''
Rhita shivered. The clavicle had been taken from her when they had
been dragged out of the beecraft; she had no idea what was happening
with the gate, but darkness was coming. More than anything, she wanted
to be away from this place, relieved of responsibility to her grandmother,
to the Akademeia and her Imperial Hyps~lot~s---whatever had happened
to her now . . .
She was terrified. The past few hours had given her time to absorb a
few facts she had until now managed to ignore. She was mortal; these
people would gladly kill her and all her companions. Lugotorix could not
protect her, although when the time came--if it came~he would attempt
to die first trying.
This situation was her doing. She could not easily pass the blame on to
her father or Patrikia: She had agreed to come; the outcome of bringing
the news to Kleopatra could not have been foreseen, but . .
She shivered.
The Kirghiz troops prodded and shoved them out of the tent and into
a hastily made enclosure of tent poles and canvas gleaned from the emergency
supplies in the cargo gullcraft. The enclosure had no roof; it lay
open to the cool wind and the deepening twilight. "I think we're dead,"
Atta murmured as the final section of canvas was erected and tied by a
Kirghiz infantryman, who regarded them with narrow, curious eyes.
Their prison was flimsy at best, but they didn't dare even touch the

154 · GREG BEAR

canvas; they had been given, by gestures of rifles and hands striking the
fabric, the distinct impression that bullets were ready for anyone who
made a ripple in the barricade.
Rhita squatted on the dirt, arms across her knees, and rubbed her face
wearily. Her entire body ached; hours of fear had done this to her. She
needed desperately to urinate, but no one had yet made provisions within
the barricade for a latrine, and she was too angry and confused to take
the lead. Soon, however, she might be forced to.
She turned flitted eyes up at the stars, as miserable as she had ever
been in her life, and felt their coldness sink into her face. They don't
know, they don't care.
All absolutes meant nothing; how far could a goddess such as Athen
extend? She seemed wholly inadequate beyond Gaia. The comfort of
prayer meant little if she was going to die soon, and die in discomfort and
ignominy, far from Rhodos.
"Damn it, I have to piss," she said aloud. Jamal Atta stared down at
her, his dark brows knitting.
"So do I," he said. "We'll--"
Rhita ignored him, fascinated by something above his headma luminous
green straight line, singular, unembellished, silent.
"remake an area over here--" Atta continued.
The line passed smoothly over their enclosure; she could not tell
whether it was near or very far. Another green line crossed it and both
lines moved their juncture rapidly to the edge of the enclosure. That
made them seem close.
The gate. Something was happening at the gate.
The lines passed out of view. There was no unusual sound outside the
enclosure--men conversed in soft gutturals; boots scuffed dirt, grass rustled
in the cool evening wind. Darkness was almost complete. She
smelled raw dirt and scared men and the green of the steppes.
Like an automaton, she followed Atta to the designated latrine,
marked by boot-scuffed lines of sod. She pulled down her pants and
relieved herself. A few men glanced in her direction, never too frightened
to catch a glimpse of a woman's naked flesh. Pulling back her pants, she
stepped out of the scuffed lines and looked closely at her companions
within the enclosure. They stood in dejected postures, heads hanging,
faces coldly outlined by a faint crescent moon and the starlight.
This was what it had come down to. In truth, she now hoped something
would come through the gate. It might be their only chance at
reprieve.
Had the green light been real, or were her eyes playing tricks?

ETERNITY · 165

She stood still for several minutes with arms crammed beneath her
jacket, the cold sapping her strength and numbing her face. The fabric of
the barricades tensed and bellied in a freshet of wind; expecting a bullet,
she flinched as a teardrop of rain splatted on her eyelid. A black wall of
cloud slid smoothly over the moon. She could barely see around herself.
More raindrops fell. She listened for sounds outside the barricade,
suddenly alert, her arm-hairs pricking. No voices. Not even the hoof-clomps
or neighing of horses complaining of the wet. Darkness, scattered
rain and wind whipping the canvas.
The moon gleamed through a rift. Lugotorix stood beside her, huge
and bedraggled. Saying nothing, but touching her arm, he pointed above
the barricade to their left. Something tall and sword-shaped, as wide as a
man's spread arms, towered over their flimsy prison. Its edges rippled
like water. Smoothly, quickly, it curved to one side and dropped out of
sight. Death, she thought. It looks like death.
"Kirghiz?" the Kelt asked quietly. Nobody else seemed to have noticed.
"No," she said.
"I didn't think so," Lugotorix muttered. Rhita tried to locate Oresias
or Jamal Atta in the temporary illumination; they were hidden among
the men. Before she could find them, the moon vanished again.
A hideous ripping noise on all sides startled her. She gave a small
scream and reached for Lugotorix, but he was not there. The canvas
barricade was being torn to shreds. Wind rushed by, the wake of the
passage of something huge. Nails drove into her back, knocking the
breath out of her, one pause two pause three and four and five. She could
not fall over. Lugotorix whimpered nearby like a struck dog, a sound she
had never heard from him before. Head slung back, jaw open, scalp and
neck resting on something icy cold, she saw once again the straight green
lines cross above them.
Something lifted her. She had an impression that the grass had grown
huge and metallic; .the camp was covered with swaying, supple steel
blades, edges rippling like water, topped with smooth green shields or
hoods. Her spine stiffened until she wished she could scream, but all her
muscles had frozen. She could still see, but gradually she realized she was
losing the ability to think.
For what seemed a very long time, she saw everything, and nothing;
she might as well have been dead.155 · GREG BEAR

THIRTY-ONE

Gala

The clavicle came into her hands and comforted her. It knew her; for the
moment, that was enough. The clavicle was withdrawn and she missed it
deeply.

No time at all later, but later nonetheless, she realized the clavicle had
told her the gate was fully established, a "commercial width." There
were other gates. This did not comfort her.

Lugotorix, standing naked between two huge snake-swords, touched
on arm and thigh by dots of luminous green.

You are connected with this man?
Yes.
Do you need him?
Yes.
,~nd the others?

She thought of Demetrios and Oresias.
They saved them.
She wondered what would happen to the others.
It did not comfort her that she was a center of attention. For a time,
there were many of her, and some of her selves were subjected to unpleasant
experiences. That was all she remembered. Her body was not injured.
She had no privacy.
They asked her if Athen had opened gates to Oaia; or Isis, or Astarte.
Rhita said no. She did not believe these beings, gods, actually existed.
That interested them. Are the gods imaginary companions to console you
for the possibility of dying?
She didn't know how to answer that.
You did not make the clavicle.

ETERNITY · 167

No answer required. That much must have been obvious. How did you find it? She told them.
They believed her.
They became very interested in the sophS.
She's dead, Rhita informed them. You are from her.
Again, no answer was required.
Some time of intense discomfort, worse than pain.
It was almost worth the experience to feel time passing.
Without memory, she stood in a place of blue sky and crumbling
marble overlooking the sea.
That went away, and came back, and she was years younger, stand.ing
in the sanctuary of Athen Lindia. She remembered everything, including
her life after this moment. A young man stood near her, vaguely
handsome; his face was not clearly defined. He wore a white byssos shirt
and dark pants with legs split and tied; like a fisherman, but not. She
wondered if this was a lover but he was not; nor was he a friend.
"Is this pleasant for you?" he asked, walking around her. "Please be
truthful."
"It doesn't hurt."
"I hope you'll pardon our intrusion. We've had few opportunities to
work directly with your kind. You've been treated rudely."
She forgave nothing. Her confusion was too great for such niceties.
"Would you prefer I have a name?"
"I won't know you, anyway."
"Would you prefer we stay here?"
It seemed wise to say yes. She nodded, appreciating the sun on her face
and the cool reassurance of the abandoned temple in the rock. She did
not believe she was actually there.
I am Rhita, she told herself. I am alive. Maybe I've been taken through
the gate.
Maybe Grandmother came from Hades.

1~
	· GREG BEAR


THIRTY-TWO


Thistledown City


For reasons clear only to himself and his advocate, the president had
decided not to lodge in the formal Nexus quarters beneath the dome.
Instead, he chose temporary quarters in a small, plainly decorated apartment
in a Journey Century Five building adjacent to the arboretum, a
kilometer from the dome. Four hours after Mirsky's testimony, Farren
Siliom held audience there with Korzonowski, Mirsky, Olmy and Lanier.
His manner was sharply formal. He seemed to be controlling anger.

"Pardon my forthrightness," he picted to Korzenowski. "I have never,
in my existence in the Way and now near Earth--never seen such a
treacherous about-face by a celebrated Hexamon citizen."

Korzenowski bowed slightly, face stiffening "I make these requests
reluctantly, and under pressure," he said. "That should be obvious."

"I'm sure the entire Nexus needs a Talsit session," Farren Siliom said,
pressing on the bridge of his nose. The president glanced at Lanier,
seemed to dismiss him with a leisurely blink, then focused his attention
on Mirsky. "The Hexamon considers itself an advanced society, whatever
our self-ordained limitations . . . but I find it very hard to believe our

work could have such far-ranging consequences."

"You are at a crux," Mirsky said.

"So you claim. We are not complete innocents, however. I well remember
Olmy's deceit before the Geshels some years back, when he brought
the Engineer back to us. He did all true Naderites a service. But is this
another kind of deceit, another manipulation?"

"The truth of my story should be obvious," Mirsky said.

"Not so obvious to someone who has spent the last ten years fighting a
tide of sympathy for re-opening. Fought with the Engineer by my side,

although that seems difficult to believe now."

Lanier swallowed. "May I sit?" he asked.

"By all means," Farren Siliom said. "My irritation obscures my manners.'
The president ordered a chair to be formed for Lanier, and as~ an

ET E R N ITY · 159


afterthought, ordered chairs for them all. "We're going to talk for some
time," he told Korzenowski.

"I'm a reasonably practical man," Farren Siliom continued, "as practical
as a politician can be in charge of a nation of dreamers and idealists.
That's what the Hexamon believes it is; has been for centuries. But we've
also been hard-headed, strong and willful. We met the challenge of the
Way once. But we nearly lost to the Jarts, and they have had decades

since to refine their tactics. We all believe they've occupied the entire Way
don't we?"

Lanier was the only one to abstain from agreeing. He felt like a dwarf
among giants here; again old, a fifth wheel.

"Do you understand my confusion?" Farren Siliom asked Korzenow-ski.

"Yes, I do, Ser President."

"Then clear it up for me. You've been convinced, but do you swear to
me by the Good Man, by the Stars and Fate and Pneuma, that you are
not involved in a plot to re-open your creation, and you have not somehow
fabricated this entire episode?"

Korzenowski regarded the president for several seconds in offended
silence. "I so swear."

"I regret calling your integrity into question, Ser Korzenowski. But I
must be absolutely certain. You had no prior knowledge of Ser Mirsky's
return?"

"I half-expected something of this sort; I cannot say I believed it would
happen. No, I did not have prior knowledge."

"You are convinced the Way has done this damage?"
"Not damage, Ser Minister," Mirsky said. "Obstruction."
"Whatever. You are convinced?" He stared sharply at Korzenowski.
"Yes."

"You understand that most of the corpreps and senators have the highest
regard for you, but that your motives in this case must be suspect.
You spent much of your life creating the sixth chamber machinery and
the Way. You must have felt some justifiable pride at changing the course
of Thistledown's history. It would be understandable if you felt your
status had decreased since your reincarnation and since the Sundering.
Personally, I'm well aware you've had nothing to do with encouraging
our neo-Geshels." Calmer now, the president rubbed his hands together
and sat among them. "If we open the Way, will we be at war with the
Jarts, Ser Olmy?"

"I believe we will."

That~ it, Lanier thought.

170 · GREG BEAR

"If we do not open the Way, Ser Mirsky, and make preparations to
close it from our end, will we block the distant, noble efforts of our
descendants?"
"Of the descendants of all intelligent creatures in our universe, Ser
President. Yes."
Farren Siliom leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "I can
replay parts of your testimony. I'm sure most of the corpreps and senators
are doing so now." He grimaced. "The procedure for voting on this
is going to be difficult. We've never called for a complete Hexamon plebiscite.
Do you understand the problems?"
Mirsky shook his head.
"Let me enumerate them. Voting procedures on Thistledown and in
the orbiting precincts are very different from those on Earth. Most citizens
on Earth must vote physically. It would take months to make arrangements
for such a vote; we simply haven't prepared.
"Each citizen in space must download a special partial into a mens
publica in city memory. The partials are assembled into a unified whole,
using methods strictly outlined in the Hexamon constitution, and can
vote within two to three seconds on any subject, though by law they are
given much more time to make a decision. Citizens can update their
partials once a day if they wish, to reflect changing personal attitudes; the
partials cannot evolve opinions on their own.
"Those are the technical considerations. Considered as a problem of
public policy, if we re-open the Way only to destroy it, we aggravate
those who wish the Way to remain closed, and to avoid conflict with the
Jarts. We certainly do not satisfy those who wish to reoccupy the Way.
And the Jarts will no doubt resist our efforts fiercely. They may have
more at stake in the Way now than we ever did; they seemed much more
singular in their pursuits. Am I correct, Ser Olmy?"

Farren Siliom folded his hands. "I do not know how our Terrestrial
citizens will view this problem. Or even whether they're capable of judging
now. For most Old Natives, the Way is a very foggy concept, at best.
Earthbound citizens do not have direct access to extensive city memories
or libraries yet. I suspect, however, that the neo-Geshels will invoke the
Recovery laws and cut Earth out of the voting entirely 	That
would
be
exceptionally distasteful."
"Earth's
senators would fight it every step of the way," Lanier said. "The
Recovery laws haven't been used for a while, but they're still in place."
Farren Siliom raised his hands, face drawn. "The way I read the Hexamon's
temper now, those who want to re-open are about evenly

ETERNITY · ltl

divided with those who don't. Social condensations and coalescences are
not at all unlikely in such a split; rapid formation of power groups . . .
perhaps even a neo-Geshel domination in the Nexus. The neoGeshels
could force me to act as they decree, or resign and let them form a new
government. These problems are not specifically your problems, my companions.
But you bring them to me, and I can't say I'm grateful to you.
Nor can I say how the vote will go. We face a number of problems, a
number of decisions, and now that the genie has finally crawled or
exploded out of its bottle again . ."
Farren Siliom stood and picted a query at the quarters' monitor. "If
you could stay here for another few minutes, gentlemen, I've arranged
for another Old Native to join us. Ser Mirsky should remember him. You
were companions, fellow soldiers, during the invasion of Thistledown by
forces of the Soviet Union, before the Sundering . . . before the Death.
He returned to Earth after the Sundering, and has lived in what we now
call Anatolia."
Mirsky nodded, face composed. Lanier tried to remember the surviving
Russians who had worked with and around Mirsky, and found only a
few faces weakly linked with names in his memory. The sharp, acerbic zampolit Belozersky . . . assured, calm, doomed Vielgorsky, senior engineer
Pritikin.
The monitor flashed and Farren Siliom ordered the door to open.
"Gentlemen, this is Ser Viktor Garabedian," he said with a look of triumphant
expectation. He believes he'll expose Mirsky, Lanier thought.
Garabedian entered the room, white-haired, thin, slightly stooped. His
hands were hideously scarred. His eyes were half-lidded, rheumy. Lanier
could read his condition almost immediately. Talsit-cleansed radiation
damage.., he must have tried to return to the Soviet Union, decades
ago.
Garabedian looked around the room, obviously not prepared for this
meeting. His eyes lit on Mirsky and an ironic smile crossed his face.
Mirsky seemed stunned.
"Comrade General," Garabedian said.
Mirsky rose and approached the old man. They stood apart for a
moment, and then Mirsky spread his arms and hugged him. "What happened
to you, Viktor?" he asked in Russian, holding the old man at arm's
length.
"A long story. I expected another-old man. They didn't tell me you'd
look the same. Set Lanier, I recognize him, but he looks dignified, not
like a youngster."

172 · GREG BEAR


Farren Siliom folded his arms. "It took us several hours to locate Ser
Oarabedian."

"I live as near Armenia as I can," Garabedian told Mirsky. "The
homeland will be cleansed in a few years, and I can return. I've worked
as a policeman with the Soviet Recovery Forces . . . I fought in the
Armenian Liberation against the Hexamon . . . Not much of a war, like
children fighting their doctors and teachers with sticks. When that was
put down, I became a farmer. Where have you been, Comrade General?"

Mirsky glanced around the room, tears in his eyes. "Friends, Viktor
and I must talk."

"They want me to ask you some questions," Garabedian said.

"Yes, but alone. All but for you, Garry. Will you come with us? We
need a room." He glanced at the president.

"You can use one of my work rooms," Farren Siliom said. "We will
record your meeting, of course . . ."

Lanier observed the change in Mirsky's expression. He seemed
sharper, more hawk-like, less serene; much more like the Pavel Mirsky
he had first met in the Stone, four decades ago.

"I'd like to speak with Ser Lanier for a moment, then he'll join you,"
Korzenowski said.

The two men left the room, guided by the president to another section
of his temporary quarters.

"Ser Lanier?" Korzenowski asked.
"He's Mirsky," Lanier said.
"Did you doubt?"
"No," he said.

"But this is additional proof?"

"For the president," Lanier said. "It has to be the clincher."

"The president's reservoirs of doubt are vast," Olmy said quietly.
"Matched only by political expediency."


The president passed Lanier in the wide cylindrical hallway, nodding
at him. Uncomfortable, Lanier followed Mirsky and Garabedian into the
work room and stood beside them. A small round table rose out of the
floor, surrounded by several free-form chairs. The room smelled vaguely
of clean snow and pines; a residue, Lanier suspected, of some previous
environment.

Garabedian, cap clutched in gnarled pink and white hands, examined
his old comrade with the childlike eyes of the old and weary, eyes empty
of any emotion but a kind of stunned wonder.

"Garry, Viktor was with me when the Space Shock Troops invaded the

ETERNITY · 173

Potato Thistledown," Mirsky said. "He was with me when we surrendered,
and he advised me during the bad times after . I last saw him before I volunteered to go with the Geshel precincts. You've lived
through hard times, Viktor."
Garabedian continued to stare, his mouth slack. Then he turned to
Lanier. "Sir," he said in halting English, "You have not stayed youthful.
Some have. But Comrade General Mirsky . ."
"No longer a general," Mirsky said quietly.
"He has not changed at all, except . "Garabedian squinted at
Mirsky again, and said in Russian, "When you were shot, sir, you
changed. You became more resolved."
"I've been on a very long journey since."
"The people who brought me here . . . we seldom see them in Armenia.
They come to break up our little wars, to stop our plaques, to repair
our equipment. We were like children. We hated them so much. We
wished to be let alone."
"I understand," Mirsky said.
"This time, they did not ask me... Pavel." Using Mirsky's first
name seemed to strain the old man. "They came and said I was needed.
They said I was a witness. They were like police in the old times." His
voice rose. "How can they treat us so like children? We have sufferedl So
many died."
"How have you suffered, Viktor? Tell me."
Lanier saw Mirsky's face become bland and accepting again, and a
chill made him clench his jaw muscles. Mirsky put his arms on Garabedi-an's
shoulders. "Tell me."
"Nothing is like it was," Garabedian said. "Nothing will ever be.
There is good and bad in that. It seems all my life I have been confused,
having seen this, and then gone back to the villages where my forefathers
lived. Having fought against the Hexamon, having lost . ."
,,yes?,,
Garabedian held up his hands. "We went into poisoned lands. The soil
had become a serpent.' It bit us. We were taken out by Hexamon angels.
They apologized for not giving us new bodies. I could not go home.
There was nothing there. I moved into Armenia . . they call it North
Anatolia now. No nations, they say. No factions. Only citizens. I farmed
and raised a family. They were killed in an earthquake."
Lanier felt the familiar sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. CouMn't save them all.
"I raised horses. I joined an Armenian cooperative for protection
against the Turks. Then the Turks made peace, and together we fought

174 · GREG BEAR


against immigrant Iranian farmers raising opium. The Hexamon came in

there, too, and pulled us out..
	. Then they gave people something that

made the opium useless."

Mirsky looked at Lanier.

"Some sort of immune response, blockers . . ." Lanier said. He knew

very little about this aspect of the Recovery. Mirsky nodded.

"Go on."

"It has been a long life, Pavel. I have suffered and seen many die, but
until now I have forgotten much of the pain. I see you, so young. It is
indeed you?"

"No," Mirsky said. "Not the same one you know. I've lived a much
longer time than you, Viktor. I've seen much myself, triumph and failure.''

Garabedian smiled weakly, shaking his head. "I remember Sosnitsky.
He was a good man. I think often that we could have used him in Armenia
. . . Me! An Armenian, thinking that about a White Russian! Everything
has been turned upside down, Pavel, and it is still upside down. I
hated the Turks, now I am married to a Turkish woman. She is small and
brown and has long gray hair. She is not a city girl, not like my first wife,
but she's given me a beautiful daughter. I'm a farmer now, growing
special plants for the Hexamon."

Lanier thought of the Frant farmers on Timbl, the Frant homeworld,
walking through their fields, growing biologically altered crops for export
to the Way.

"Is it what you wanted?" Mirsky asked.

Garabedian shrugged, then smiled ironically. "It's a living," he said.
He grasped Mirsky's left hand in his and prodded him with a scarred
finger. "You! You must tell me."

Mirsky looked at Lanier with a sheepish expression. "This time I'll tell
it in words," he said. "Garry, you must go back to the others now.
Viktor, tell Ser Lanier. Am I Pavel Mirsky?"

"You say you are not exactly him," Garabedian said. "But I think you

are. Yes, Ser Lanier. This is Pavel."
"Tell the president."
"I will," Garry said.

Mirsky smiled broadly. "Now sit, Viktor, because I doubt that you will
believe what has happened to this Ukrainian city boy . . ."

ET E R N I TY · 175

THIRTY-THREE
Thistledown City

Little of the Nexus debate took place in real time. Korzenowski and
Mirsky answered questions and discussed the problem in detail within an
isolated Nexus branch of Thistledown city memory; Lanier "listened in~'
to the debate. Hours of argument and information exchange whisked by
in seconds.
The debate was not nearly as exhausting as it would have been in open
session. Oeshels, neo-Oeshels and all but the most orthodox Naderites
participated; off and on, it lasted three days. It seemed to last several
months. Not an aspect of the reopening was neglected, not a nuance left
unexplored.
There were proposals of such scale that Lanier's mind reeled; some
firebrands--if you could call any Nexus member a firebrand wanted the
Way opened, scoured of Jarts, and then human hegemony pushed even
farther, opening new wells every few dozen kilometers, establishing broad
lengths of territory before Jarts or other forces could push them out
again. Others scoffed at the grandiose schemes; still others, presenting
depositions from colleagues of Korzenowski who had been in precinct
city memory for decades and even centuries, theorized that the Way
could be destroyed from the outside, without reopening.
This suggested two possibilities: that those who wished to unravel the
Way could do so without the risk of confronting the Jarts; and if the Way
were re-opened and the Jarts defeated, they might exact revenge by destroying
it from outside. Mirsky, unveiling yet more of his character and
capabilities, demonstrated through complex mathematics equations
that made even Korzenowski furrow his brow--that this was unlikely.
The Russian seemed in his element during the debate. The level of
discussion was usually far beyond Lanier's comprehension, even when
his mind was augmented by loaned talents--a service he had never used
before.
But Lanier could sense one thing perhaps not so obvious to the corp-

176 · GREG BEAR


reps and senators. Reverence for the Way was deeply branded into even
those who were terrified of re-opening. The Way had been their world;
most of them had grown up in it, and until the Sundering, most of them
had known no other existence. The debate, however fiery, was one-sided;
the question rapidly became not whether to re-open, but what to do after
the Way was linked again to Thistledown.

They gathered now in physical session to hear what the Nexus would
recommend to the Hexamon. In addition, a vote would be taken on
whether to pass the matter on with Nexus recommendations to the Hex-amon
as a whole, or to restrict voting to the Thistledown, mens publica,
or to launch an educational campaign on Earth and postpone the voting
until that effort was complete, which could take years.

Lanier entered the Nexus Chamber alone; Mirsky, Korzenowski and
Olmy had preceded him for some pre-session discussion with the president.
The chamber was empty but for two corpreps across the circle
picting at each other. He stood in an aisle, oddly at peace. He was still
out of his depth, but since his confession to Mirsky, he no longer felt the
inner turmoil, the dark, confused exhaustion.

He had toured the third chamber city for a few hours earlier in the
day, riding a spinward train to the main library where he had once spent
hours learning Russian, and where Mirsky had been shot and resurrected.
The library had been reactivated thirty-five years ago; it was now
a busy facility, its wide floor of pictors and seats often serving hundreds
of corporeal scholars at once. The library had been built about the same
time as the Nexus dome. What had once seemed monumental, alien and
frightening containing as it did the news of Earth's death before it had
happened was still monumental, but familiar now, acceptable to him.

His attitude toward the starship had certainly changed. He thought he
wouldn't mind living on Thistledown for a few years. The lighter pull of
the asteroid's spin agreed with him; he was tempted to try some gymnastics.
Parallel bars had helped keep him sane when he had administered
the exploration of the Stone. Glancing at his clawlike hands, he winced,
thinking of what he had allowed to slip away..

He still resisted the idea of rejuvenation. He wanted to discuss things
with Karen, to see if their bonds hadn't been cut completely.

But he would not interrupt her conference. That was important to her.
Besides, while the debate was still relatively closed, he did not think it
was politic to talk with those not directly involved.

The members entered the chamber and took their seats with little talk
or picting. The ak in the chamber was charged with something ineffable;

ET E R N I TY · 177


history, Lanier thought. Decisions had been made here that had altered
the fate of worlds. Now, the fate of more than worlds was at hand.

Mirsky and Korzenowski entered behind him and walked down the
aisle. Mirsky smiled at Lanier and took a seat beside him. Korzenowski
nodded at them both and walked farther down to sit beside the panel of
six men and women currently in charge of the sixth chamber machinery.

The president and presiding minister Dris Sandys came in last and
took their seats behind the armillary sphere of testimony.

The presiding minister announced, "The Nexus mens has cast its vote
on the proposal of Sets Mirsky, Korzenowski, Olmy and Lanier."

Lanier was surprised to find himself designated as one of the proposers.
A flush of excitement and nervous pride went through him.

"Now it is time to confirm this vote by a physical plebiscite."
Lanier glanced around at the corpreps and senators, hands clenched in
his lap. He did not know how the vote would be taken; would they all
pict their decisions, the whole chamber lighting up like a Christmas tree?

"The final recommendation of this Nexus having been determined first
in the Nexus mens must now be confirmed by a voice vote. Each voice
will be recognized and tallied by the chamber secretary; the votes will be
cast at once. Members, is it your decision to proceed with the basic
proposal of re-opening the Way? Signify by aye or nay."

The chamber was a chaos of ayes and nays. Lanier thought he detected
a preponderance of nays, but that apparently was nerves on his part. The
presiding minister glanced at the secretary, seated beside the sphere of
testimony, and the secretary raised his right hand.

"Aye it is to the proposal. Is it to be the recommendation of this Nexus
to open the Way with the intent of ultimately destroying it, as Ser Mirsky
has requested?"

The Nexus members voted again, their voices a warm murmur in the
dome.

"Nay it is to this decision.. The Way is to be kept open. Is it the
decision of this Nexus to create an armed force with the express purpose
of securing the Way ~or the benefit of the Infinite Hexamon and its
pledged allies?"

~ The voices seemed to rise in volume, Lanier could not tell whether
ayes or nays led now; the vote was very close, and some corpreps and
senators had dropped out, bowing their heads or leaning back, faces
strained.

"The decision is aye. Is it the decision of this Nexus to put the issue
with our recommendations before a full vote of the Terrestrial Hexamon,
including the mens puplica and the corporeal voters of Earth?"

178 · GREG BEAR


Again the voices spoke out in unison.

"Nay it is to this plan. Is it the decision of this Nexus to take a vote
solely from the mens pounds blica of the seven chambers of Thistledown and

the two orbiting precincts?"

And again.

Lanier closed his eyes. It was happening. He might actually stare down
the throat of the Corridor, the Way, again .... There might even be a
chance, someday, of learning what had happened to Patricia Luisa Vas-quez.

"Aye it is. The vote shall be taken solely before the mens pounds blica of the
three orbiting bodies. Ser Secretary, do these votes tally with the Nexus
mens?"

"They do, Ser Presiding Minister."

"Then the recommendations are set and the voting process will begin.
A Nexus advisory will be issued to all citizens of the three orbiting bodies
tomorrow at this time. There will be a week-long period of individual
research and contemplation, with all information and testimony presented
to the Nexus available to the voters. Within twenty-four hours of
the end of that week, all citizens will inform their partials within the
mens publica, and another period of twenty-four hours will pass before a
vote is taken there. The decision of the citizens of the Hexamon will be
ratified by the Nexus within one week, and the implementation of the
new policy will be made binding upon the Nexus and the president and
presiding minister. It is the law that the president may delay this entire
process by as long as one month of twenty-eight days. The president has
informed me that he does not wish to delay the process. This meeting is
hereby adjourned. Thank you all."

Uncharacteristic pandemonium broke out in the chamber. Lanier
watched the corpreps and senators flashing bright picts at each other,
some meeting to embrace, others standing in stunned silence. A contingent
of conservatively dressed Orthodox Naderites came forward to meet
with the president and presiding minister beneath the podium.

Mirsky pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is not good," he said

quietly. "I have opened the bag and the winds are escaping."

"What will you do?" Lanier asked.

"Much thinking. How could I not have convinced them?"

"During your journey, you might have forgotten one thing about humans,''
Lanier suggested.

"Obviously. What thing?"

"We're a perverse group of sons of bitches. You've come to us like an
avatar. Maybe they resent being dictated to by a demigod, just as much

ETERNITY · l?g

as people on Earth resent being saved. Maybe they simply don't believe
you."
Mirsky frowned deeply. "My physical powers are not great," he said.
"I come as catalyst, not as an explosive. If I fail, however, there will be
grave times ahead."
Lanier felt his old instincts coming to the surface. "Then use judo on
them," he said. "Think of the power to be directed when the Way is
opened."
"Power?" Mirsky turned his placid gaze full on Lanier.
"The social disruption." He might not be a fifth wheel after all; he saw
a crazy plan coming together in his head.
,,yes?,,

"I think perhaps we should go with Olmy to Suli Ram Kikura."
"You are thinking something interesting, then," Mirsky said.
"Perhaps. I need to talk with my wife, too. Earth has been cut out of
the decision. There's a lot of resentment already; this could be explosive,
even if you aren't." He had taken the bone in his teeth and was clamping
down hard. His neck ached with tension. He rubbed it slowly with one
hand.
"Lead on, my friend," Mirsky said. "This avatar bows to your judgment.''

THIRTY-FOUR

Thistledown City Memory

The valley of Shangri-La lay below the walls of the palace in shadowy
emerald splendor, mountain crests touched with gold in the last light of
the sun. Karen gripped the cold stone rail of the balustrade with fingers
clenched white.
The conference had begun to unravel on the first day.
The fighting among the delegates had begun in the third chamber city
when they had been taken to their-apartments, located on the lower
floors of a huge gray and white Journey Century Nine building shaped like a golf tee. A woman from North Dakota had protested that their

180
	· GREG BEAR
quarters were entirely too luxurious. "My friends back home are living in
wooden and sod shacks. I can't live like a queen."
Suli Ram Kikura had suggested, somewhat innocently, that the quarters
could be made to seem as spare as they wished. The North Dakatan
had scoffed. "Fake hovels in a palace won't disguise the palace," she had
answered contemptuously.
A shack had been built for her in a nearby park. The expense of wiring
an extension pictor and building the shack had cost more than her simply
living in temporary luxury; but there had been no criticism of her choice.
This was to be an exercise in understanding and unanimity, after all.
Then had come the disputes over which fantasy environments the delegates
would interact in. "We can't expect lasting results if we lose all
touch with reality," a male delegate from India had declared. He had
then demanded a setting similar to an early-nineteenth-century mogul's
palace. When none of the other delegates had agreed with this, he had
threatened to leave the conference.
He was back on Earth now.
What had seemed straightforward and promising to begin with had
rapidly turned sour.
The remaining delegates had finally settled on a suitable environment
for interaction a duplicate of James Hilton's Shangri-La, created for
downloaded Thistledown vacationers centuries ago. Within a few hours,
more disputes had broken out. Two delegates had become enamored of
each other and complained when the environment would not allow them
to have sexual relations.
"That's not what we're here for," Karen had tried to explain. They had
not been mollified. Suli Ram Kikura had put her foot down, explaining
that the environment had been modified to forbid sexual interactions. In
this project, the delicately balanced psychological atmosphere would be
damaged by allowing them. The two delegates had grudgingly given in,
but even now complained about other petty issues.
Karen realized now that she and Ram Kikura had approached this
project with entirely too much idealism. This shamed her; she knew
humans too well to have been so naive. But Ram Kikura's attitude had
affected her deeply; she had approved of the advocate's upbeat approach,
and had unconsciously hoped against her better judgment that it would
all turn out well, that people would after all be reasonable . . .
But even those with the very best attitudes and records were only
human. Taken from the surroundings in which they had proven themselves,
they had become little better than children.
City memory's ideal environments were too seductive for Old Natives,

ET E R N ITY · 181

and for that reason unsuited for what Karen and Ram Kikura hoped to
accomplish.
Besides, there was a tension in the air . . . even in ShangriLa--something
she could not define, but which seemed to put large obstacles
in the way of their project's success.
Suli Ram Kikura appeared on the balcony behind her and put a hand
on her shoulder. "I think it's time you took a rest."
Karen laughed. "This place was made to be restful."
"Yes, but for you, it's not right."
"So what are we? Wild flowers that wilt in the greenhouse?"
Ram Kikura's brow wrinkled. Physically, she had changed little since
Karen first met her, four decades before; she was still striking, with
strong, pleasingly irregular features and golden-brown hair. "I've never
thought of Thistledown as a greenhouse."
"It's Shangri-La to these people, even without going into city memory.
I should have known."
"You're tired."
"I'm mad, goddammit.'
"I was wrong. It is not your fault."
"No, but I was hoping so much you'd be right, and we could bring
them all together here . . . forge a bond. It was such a wonderful plan,
Suli. How could it have gone so wrong, so quickly? We explained it to
them. . . They're acting like children!"
Ram Kikura smiled grimly. "They know what they need better than
we, perhaps. I wanted to force things. Like a parent watching a child play
with toys . . . trying to teach them how to grow up more quickly."
"That's not fair . . ." Karen cut herself off, surprised that hearing the
delegates compared to children made her angry. She felt close bonds with
these Old Natives... was one herself, of course. "They've lived
through hell, most of them."
"Maybe they thought of this as a vacation," Ram Kikura suggested.
"And we were tour guides. We disappointed them by being so bossy."
Despite herself, Karen laughed. She's a master, really, however naive
she is... we've been. "So what do we do now?"
"I have just enough stamina to give it one more try. But you, dear
Karen, are at the end of your rope."
"I must be. I want to kick them."
"So you must take a break. We've been in this environment for an
objective ten-hour period. Return to your apartment "
"Back to my body. Out of the dream."

1112 · GREG BEAR
"Precisely. Out of the nightmare. And get some genuine rest, in your
own head, natural rest without city memory's overtones."
"How could this be anything b~ restful?" Karen asked wistfully. The
stars were coming out above them, as sharp and real as any she had seen
on Earth. The night winds smelled of jasmine and honeysuckle.
"Do you agree?" Ram Kikura asked.
Karen nodded.
"Then go now. I'll report to you if anything improves. Otherwise, I'll close this whole charade down and send them all back to their bodies.
We'll escort them back to Earth and start planning all over again." She
lifted her eyebrows and inclined her head, staring levelly at Karen. "All
right?"
"Yes. I . . . how do I get back?"
"Ruby slippers, my dear. Remember the code."
Karen looked down at her feet. Instead of soft doeskin boots, she now
wore ruby slippers. She tapped them together. "There's no place like
home," she said. Ram Kikura vanished.

An objective hour later, in her temporary apartment, Karen put on a
silk kimono, given to her by a group of survivors in Japan thirty years
before, and lay back on a couch with a cool glass of Thistledown Chardonnay,
a Haydn quartet playing softly in the background sans pictor
accompaniment. The apartment environment had been adapted to resemble
an open-air porch looking across a tropical island beach. Across the
broad, dazzling blue ocean, a nub of volcano smoked casually, its plume
mingling with stacked white anvil-head clouds. Warm, salty breezes
played over her wicker chair.
She might have never left city memory, the illusion was so complete,
but there was a certain sensation, a knowing, that her body was being
deluded and stimulated, and not just her mind. It was a moot distinction.
So many distinctions were moot on Thistledown.
We are all such children! she thought, sipping her glass and considering
the distant volcano. Maybe Garry's right to chuck it all and let from age
claim him. Maybe we are all burned out after forty years, and he's only
being honest.
The room control chimed melodiously. She leaned back in the chair
and said languorously, "Yes?"
"Two men wish to speak with you, Ser Lanier. One is your husband
and the other is Pavel Mirsky."
Involuntarily, she shivered. Speak of two devils "Drop the islands and
give me the standard setting." The porch, beach, volcano and ocean

ET E R N I TY · 183


vanished and were replaced by a small room decorated in classical Hex-amon
spareness. "All right."

Garry appeared in the middle of the room. "Hello, Karen."

"How are you?" She fingered the cool bowl of her wineglass, both glad
to see him--she had not blanked out her worry--and curiously irritated.
But their quiet discord had gone on for so long, she did not want to let

him know her emotions. That was her armor.

"I'm fine. I've been thinking about you."

"I wondered if you were up here," she said defensively, struggling to
keep her voice mellow.

"I wanted to talk to you before now, but I didn't want to interrupt
your conference."

"Please do," she said. An image came to her mind of whom she
wanted to be like now: the American actress of the early twentieth century,
Bette Davis, cool and contentious, armored but desirable. The

apartment pictors could not do that for her, however.

"We need to speak with Suli Ram Kikura."

"She's still in city memory, keeping the chickens from pecking at each
other."

"Problems?"

"It's not going well, Garry." She looked away from the image, noticed
her finger actually in the wine, removed it, and set the glass down. "I'm
resting. What about Mirsky? What's happening?" There; the curiosity
had escaped.

"Have you been following the Nexus proceedings?"

She shook her head.

"There's very big trouble coming." He explained the situation.

The time had come to shift gears; this was not strictly a personal call.
Still, the shift did not come easily. "That doesn't sound like the Nexus at
all. Without consulting Earth?"

"Mirsky's told us some amazing things," Lanier said, "and frankly, I
don't like the Nexus denying his request. I think re-opening the Way, and

leaving it open, is a very bad idea."
"Suli hasn't heard his story?"
"No."

She thought quickly, her conflicts temporarily suspended. They were
almost a team again, working together on a problem. Something had
changed about her husband. What had Mirsky done to him--to all of
them? "All right. I'll contact her in city memory and tell her it's urgent.
Then I'll set up a meeting. Where are you?"

"Nexus dome quarters."

184 · GREG BEAR

"Mirsky . . . he is Mirsky?"
"Yes."
That answer, unequivocal, brooked no argument; she knew Lanier better
than to think he had come to such a judgment lightly. Somewhat to
her surprise, she found she still trusted her husband's judgment on these
matters . . perhaps on many other matters as well. Why was that surprising?
She did not dislike Garry; she disliked the thought of losing him
forever. Their discord and separation were certainly not based on distrust
or aversion.
"This is very big, then." A note of wonder and speculation crept into
her voice.
	"It is indeed," Lanier said. "And Karen . .
	I don't want our prob	lems
to get lost in it."

	Her face flushed. "What do you mean?"

	"I need to talk about other things, too."

	"Oh?"

	"When there's time."

	"Fine," she said tightly.
"I love you," Lanier said, and his image faded.
Completely against her will, and to her surprise, her breath caught in
her chest and she had to struggle to hold back tears. It had been years
since he told her that.
	"Damn him," she said.

THIRTY-FIVE

Rhita

Before the memory of her capture was lost to her completely, bleached
away by the false Rhodian sun, she asked the youth, "Where are my
friends?"
"Preserved," the youth replied. She tried to ask more about them but
could not. Her thoughts were restricted into certain channels. With a
wrenching awareness of the falseness of this place, she forced herself to
think, I am not free. She felt a shiver of horror. She could not be among

ETERNITY · 185

her grandmother's people. The Soph would have told her about such
horrors . .
Who had her, then?
She did not understand how such things could be; how could she be
someplace and yet not be there? This was not a dream, however devious;
it did not feel like a dream. Whatever it was, they took if from her, but it
was not hers; she did not control it.
She walked through the stone house where Patrikia had lived, bare feet
stroking cool the with each step, peering into this room, then the next,
aware somehow that they wished to know more about the sophs but
unwilling to tell them. Or show them. She was blocking her grandmother
from her mind. How long could she do this? They seemed very strong.
She decided she would ignore the youth. He did not answer her ques. -tions
fully. There was no way of knowing whether the little he did tell her
was the truth.
A flash of anger and scattered confused thinking made her vision
darken and Patrikia's library room fade. When her vision cleared, the
Objects lay on the floor around her, clavicle revealed in its wooden case.
"This is a device for passing from the Way to other worlds. You attracted
our attention by using it on the gate."
Rhita glanced over her shoulder to see the youth behind her. His face
was still indistinct.
"Where did you get it?" he asked.
"You know that already."
"Where did your grandmother get it?"
She closed her eyes and still saw the clavicle before her and felt the
unanswered question.
"We are not going to torture you," the youth said. "We need your
information to take you where you want to go."
"I want to go home," she said softly. "My real home."
"You did not make this device. Your grandmother did not make it.
Your world has no use for such things. We are curious how it came to be
here. Did you once commune with the Way, far back in history, perhaps?"
"My grandmother. I told you." What had she told them?/1nd how
often?
"Yes. We believe you."
"Then don't ask me again and again? She turned on the youth, anger
again dimming her vision. Each time she got angry, it seemed they knew
more; yet she was not actually trying to hide anything from them. She
surmised she could not hide facts if they were capable of making her

186 · GREG BEAR


think she was on Rhodos when she wasn't. I should be nearly dead with

fear.

"There's no reason for you to be afraid. You are not dead, you are not
injured."

The youth's face suddenly became distinct, as if a shadow not of darkness
but of ignorance had passed. He had regular features, black eyes,
black hair and a slight growth of beard. He might have been a Rhodian

beach boy. "I take this shape because you are not familiar with us."
"You're not human?"

"No. We come in many different forms, unlike your people. We are all
unified, but . . ." He grinned. "Different. So please accept me in this
more pleasant shape for the time being."

They seemed to have changed tactics, or perhaps learned how to make
their deception even more convincing. Rhita turned away from him and
from the vision of the Objects. "Please leave me alone. Let me go home."

"I will not conceal truth from you. Your home is undergoing changes
now, to make it more efficient."

Rhita looked at her hands. She wanted to shiver, but she couldn't; she
could, however, feel more anger. She restrained herself. "I don't know
what you mean."

"We've laid claim to your Earth. I suppose it's time we drop this

pretense and acquaint ourselves more fully. Are you prepared for that?"
"I-~"

"Let me explain. This is a kind of waking dream, made up by our
investigators to introduce you gently to your new life. I am a superior
officer among the investigators. I have just arrived to speak with you.
Until now, you've been speaking with an inferior officer. I am more

acquainted with your people than he was. Is that clear?"

"I think so," Rhita said.

"You've been in this state for several years of your time. Since there's
nothing you can do to hurt us, and since we have enough information
from you for the time being, there's no need for pretense, so I've decided
we will let you awaken. When you are ready, you will be able to use your
real body, and the environment you see around you will be real. Understood?"

"I don't want any of this," she said. Years? That took a moment to sink
in; the despair she felt spreading through her thoughts was a dark, freezing
thing. She realized she might as well have been dead from the moment
she boarded the beecraft; perhaps from the moment she had left
Rhodos. She--and Patrikia--had opened a true Pandora's box; she still
had no idea what had emerged. Year~

ETERNITY · 187

I am too young. How could I have known? Patrikia did not know. Is the
world dead, too?
The cold sensation passed and she felt a series of small aches. The
illusion of Rhodos and Patrikia's home faded. She opened her eyes and
found herself lying on a hard, warm surface beneath a square of light the
color of embers. The light slowly dimmed. Her skin felt sore, as if it had
been sanded; indeed, looking at her arms, they seemed flushed, sunburned.
A man-shaped shadow stood just beyond the reach of the light. An
olive-colored darkness surrounded them, the hue of a dream before it
begins, or after it ends. She did not feel well.
"I'm sick," she murmured.
"That will pass," the shadow assured her.
"Are you a Jart?" she asked, trying to sit up. She had not voiced that
question until now because she had hoped never to have to know the
answer. Now, hopeless, she faced the shadow.
"I've tried to decide what that word means. It's possible we are; but
you've never encountered Jarts, nor did your grandmother, who told you
about them. The word does not connect with us; the humans your grandmother
seems to have known could not have spoken our true name...
They might have known a name used by others, not human. The answer,
at any rate, may be yes."
"She told me you fought humans."
The figure in shadow did not directly respond to this. "We are many
and varied, and we can change our shapes if we wish, change our functions.''
Rhita felt better, physically if not mentally. The despair faded with an
odd sensation of hot chill that diminished with the overhead glow, now
cinnamon. Other lights came on, vague and soothing, in the olive gloom.
"Am I on Earth?"
"You are within what you call the Way."
Her breath shuddered and she suppressed a moan. That meant nothing
and everything to her. Could she believe them? "Are my friends alive?"
"They are here with you."
That, she decided, was evasive.
"Are they alive?" she asked again.
The shadow stepped forward, its face falling within a nimbus of light.
She shrank back, sensing very strongly this was not a dream or an illusion,
but a physical being. The face was masculine but without much
character, smooth-skinned, narrow-eyed. Not a face she would look at
twice in a crowd. It was neither godlike, nor some monstrous horror. It

188 · GREG BEAR


wore a jacket and pair of pants similar to that worn by the soldiers she

had traveled with . . . years ago, if that wasn't a lie.

"Would you like to speak with them?"

"Yes," she said, breathing more rapidly. She held her hand up to her
face; it felt the same. She had not been changed; why should she expect

such a thing? Because her captor looked human?

"All of them?" the Jart asked.

She looked down for a moment, lips moving. "Demetrios and Ore-sias,"
she said.

"Allow us some time, please. We discard nothing."


THIRTY-SIX


Thistledown


"I hadn't expected to see you again," Suli Ram Kikura picted at Olmy,
her symbols cool blues and greens. Olmy smiled enigmatically and followed
Korzenowski and Mirsky into the corporeal meeting area reserved
for Ram Kikura's fellowship project. Befitting the Terrestrials' home surroundings,
the room had been decorated in mid-twentieth-century industrial
boardroom--spare metal and wood chairs, a long wooden table,
bare bone-white walls, with a display board on one end. "Excuse the
primitive conditions," Ram Kikura apologized in speech.

"Brings back memories," Lanier said, catching the chill between the
advocate and Olmy. Olmy seemed to take it in stride; but then, Lanier
had never seen him nonplussed. "I spent many a long hour in rooms that
looked like this."

"Our Earth guests are still in city memory. We're trying to repair a
complete fiasco," Ram Kikura said. "Karen will join us in a few minutes.
From what she tells me, some unholy alliances have been forged the past
couple of days. The Nexus has decided to re-open the Way?" She pointedly
avoided Olmy's eyes.

Korzenowski stood by one of the chairs, fingering it with a puzzled
expression. "Yes," he said, coming out of his brief reverie with a quick

ETERNITY · 189

blink. "A Nexus advisory subject to Hexamon voting. Precincts and
Thistledown only."
"I presume they're invoking the Recovery laws. We should have wiped
those from the statute books years ago." Ram Kikura seemed more radical
and bitter to Lanier than when they had first met. Age and the
Recovery had worn on her, as well, yet she did not appear any older than
when he had first met her. She had kept her style and looks largely
unchanged the past four decades.
Olmy completed a slow walk around the table, his gait smooth and
leonine. "You've absorbed Set Mirsky's story?"
Ram Kikura nodded. "As much as I care to. It's hideous."
Mirsky's eyes widened in surprise. "Hideous?" he asked.
"The ultimate pollution. The ultimate sacrilege. I was born and raised
in the Way, and yet now . . ." She looked as if she might spit. "To open
the Way again, and keep it open, is more than folly. It's evil."
"Let's not get extreme," Korzenowski said mildly.
"I beg the Engineer's pardon," Ram Kikura said.
"You're being shrill," Olmy picted privately to her. She turned on him
with a stone-heavy glare. "These men are here to ask your help. So am I.
There's no sense being self-righteous before you know what we need. Or
what we believe."
This message passed in an eye's blink. Lanier only knew that Olmy had
picted with her; he was not in the line of picting, of course, and did not
consider himself adept at translating picts anyway. Ram Kikura's shoulders
slumped and she stared at the carpet, eyes closed, taking a deep
breath.
"My apologies. Ser Olmy reminds me of my manners. I happen to be
passionate about these things. Seeing the aftermath of the Death gave me
a strong impression of what our hubris can do."
"Please remember, until now I have opposed the re-opening of the
Way," Korzenowski said. "But the pressures on the Hexamon are enormous.
And Ser Mirsky's return "
"Excuse me, Ser Korzenowski," Mirsky interrupted. "I am curious
why she calls my story hideous."
"You tell us the Way clogs up our universe like a snake," Ram Klkura
said.
"Not precisely. It makes a project carried out by our very distant
descendants more difficult, perhaps impossible. But the Way itself is not
thought of by these beings as 'hideoUs.' They regard it with wonder. That
such a tiny community, traveling between worlds, still locked into the
realm of matter, should accomplish so much in so short a time . this

190 · GREG BEAR

is unprecedented. Constructs similar to the Way exist in other universes,
but none of them were created by beings so early in their development.
To our descendants, the Way stands out as the Egyptian pyramids did in
our history, or Stonehenge. If they had their preference, it would be
preserved as a monument to early brilliance. But that is not possible. It
must be dismantled in a particular fashion
	and that can only begin
here."
Ram Kikura's anger faded. She regarded him with deep interest. "You
aren't concerned with our petty politics, are you?" she asked.
Mirsky rapped his fingers on the table, an impatient gesture Lanier
found intriguing. "Politics . . . never petty to those caught up in it. I
am concerned only insofar as politics might prevent dismantling the
Way."
Karen entered the conference area and stepped forward to kiss her
husband. The kiss was short but apparently sincere; there was no need,
she seemed to tell him, for personal problems to come to the fore now.
Nevertheless, he took her hand and squeezed it.
"The timetable is short," he said, forcibly interlacing his fingers
through hers. Her jaw tightened and she glanced around at the others,
wondering what they were making of this, quickly seeing that social
nuances and speculations were the last things on anybody's mind.
Lanier did not loosen his grip. "Ser Korzenowski?"
"The Way could be opened in less than six months. I'm afraid Set
Mirsky's story drove a wedge into the Nexus, and the neo-Geshels used
that wedge to open a wide split. The Nexus will advise a permanent reopening.
Nobody doubts what will happen then if the Jarts aren't waiting
for us, I mean. There'll be a rush of enterpreneur legislation--permits
to open 'test' gates, some of which of course will lead us to Talsit concessions
.... And if we establish commerce with the Talsit again, we'll
never shut the gate down. The Talsit are damnably seductive salesmen,
and besides, many Hexamon citizens need their goods too much right
now. There's an air of desperation.. . Ser Olmy?"
"Even Naderites enjoy their longevity," Olmy said. "Within the decade,
millions will have to give up their bodies and download into city
memory . . or die. Naderites dislike the idea of living permanently in
city memory. They accept artificial life enhancements, but city memory is
a kind of Gehenna, a limbo to the orthodox."
"That sounds a lot like hypocrisy to me," Lanier said dryly.
"It is, of course," Korzenowski said. "Committees of partials are being
formed in city memory to study the possibility--that's all the neoGeshels
will call it of Jarts reoccupying the Way. If they agree with Ser

ETERNITY · lgl

Olmy, they might delay the re-opening until an adequate defense is in
place~perhaps even a workable offense."
"My God," Karen said. "They'd fight the Jart Wars all over again?"
"They are being very optimistic," Korzenowski observed darkly.
"What if the Jarts are right there, waiting for us?" Lanier asked.
Korzenowski grimaced. "Such a nightmare has occurred to me often
the past few days. I have partials in city memory listening to all planning
sessions. And I must participate in the defense of the Hexamon, if I am
so ordered . . ."
"How can we defend ourselves?" Karen asked.
"It used to be a secret, very closely held," Korzenowski said. "But
even the deepest secrets can be declassified when the ruling powers think
it expedient. We have immensely powerful offensive weapons stored in
Thistledown. They were too ungainly for pure defense; useless in the Way
fortresses. No military planner gives up weapons that might someday have a use.. . So they were kept in the asteroid walls. Ancient, but still
effective and deadly.
Ram Kikura covered her nose and mouth with prayerful hands and
shook her head. "Star, Fate and Pneuma,' she murmured. "I didn't
know. The people were told--"
"All politicians will lie," Mirsky observed, "when it is politically expedient.
The people demand it of them."
Lanier's face had gone pale. "Weapons?"
"Surplus from the last Jart War, stockpiled in Thistledown's secret
chambers," Olmy elucidated.
"They've been there all along? When we first boarded?" Lanier asked.
Olmy and Korzenowski nodded. Ram Kikura watched his reaction
with grim irony.
"What if we had found them . . . ?' He did not finish his speculation.
"The Death happened anyway," Korzenowski said, waving a hand,
irritated at being sidetracked. "Even if the Jarts are in the Way, we can at
the very least establish' a 'beachhead,' I believe the strategic term is."
"Unless they've progressed beyond our old technologies," Ram Kikura
said dourly.
"Indeed. At any rate, I have been given a Nexus command to render
technical assistance. That I cannot refuse. I've had my special research
privileges for too long to play the upstart now. Our problem is, how to
change the Hexamon's collective mind .... '
"Go around the Nexus," Ram Kikura said. "Go directly to all citizens,
including terrestrials."

102 · GREG BEAR

"Without the Earth, a bare majority would agree with the reopening,"
Lanier said. "We've done opinion modeling. Or rather, Ser Olmy did."
"They cut the Earth out because it's too ignorant?" Karen asked.
"Too provincial and too self-absorbed," Korzenowski said. "Which, of
course, it is . . . but the procedure is very irregular. The threat of encountering
Jarts could be made more evident .... Even the existence of
the weapons might be used to convince the mens publica to vote against
the advisory. Ser Ram Kikura's suspicion that the Jarts have advanced
beyond us--that could make a useful counter-argument. And before the
advisory is made, I think we can attack it through the judiciary on the
grounds that no segment of the Hexamon should be disenfranchised."
Mirsky had taken a seat in one of the conference room chairs. He
clasped both hands in front of him, then lifted his arms over his head.
"Delicate job," he said. "No doubt Garry understands how delicate?"
Karen looked at her husband.
Lanier decided to emulate the Russian's familiarity. "Pavel says the
Way must be dismantled."
"And if it isn't?" Ram Kikura asked.
"It will be," Mirsky said. "One way or another. I did not count on
such difficulties. Even with a better mind than I now have. If I fail, the
consequences will be spectacular .... "
"Is that a threat?" Ram Kikura asked.
"No. It is a certainty."
"How spectacular?"
"I do not know. I did not make the contingency plans. I probably
would not understand them in my present form, anyway."
"Too many questions," Korzenowski said unhappily. "Ser Mirsky,
when your story is made public . . . how many of our citizens will
believe you, and how many will think your appearance here is an Orthodox
Naderite trick to keep us locked to Mother Earth?"
"I can be no more convincing than I am now," the Russian said,
releasing his hands and stretching. "Do you not believe me?" He looked
around the group, thick eyebrows raised in query.
Karen, who had yet to see his presentation, ventured no opinion.
Korzenowski, Olmy and Lanier did not hesitate to express their belief.
Ram Kikura reluctantly said she concurred.
"We have to set our strategy," Lanier said. "Between us, we can devise
something worth presenting to the opposing corpreps and senators. They
can make their case Ram Kikura can carry the case to the judiciary. A
two-pronged assault."
"I think I'd better start on Earth," Ram Kikura said. "There's a meet
ET E R N I TY · 193

ing of the Earth Hexamon Council in a few days. We were going to report
our conference results there anyway nobody in the Nexus will be any
the wiser if Karen and I leave and attend that meeting. How much of this
is officially confidential?"

"All of it," Korzenowski said. "Until the advisory is made, none of us
is supposed to talk."

"That's not strictly legal either," Ram Kikura mused. "The Nexus
neo-Geshels have become an eager group, haven't they? I'm surprised
Farren Siliom would go along with them .... "

"He'd rather keep his government together than turn everything over
to his opponents," Lanier said.

Ram Kikura picted a complex symbol he could not read. "I'll steer
clear of mentioning the weapons. That could involve me in defense law-,-and
I'm no expert there."

"Somehow, when I was not in this body, and my mind was immense, I
thought all rational people would agree," Mirsky said, shaking his head.
"What a surprise to be human again!"

Lanier smiled thinly. "Back to being thick as a brick, hm?"

"Not thickness," the Russian said. "Perversity, twisting."

"Amen," Karen said, glancing at Ram Kikura. "People are the same
all over."


THIRTY-SEVEN


The Way


The ghost of Demetri(3s hung translucent and unhappy before Rhita. Her
face was white with horror; she had expected nothing like this. Now she
understood she was beyond the reach of any god or gods; or in the hands
of the wrong gods.

The escort told her, "His mind patterns have been stored. His body is
also in storage. He is not using his body at this moment; nor are his
thoughts moving through his brain. They move through a different medium,
where you also were once stored." He stood beside Rhita, examining
her face, gauging her reactions. "Are you in distress?"

194 · GREG BEAR
"Yes," she said.
"Do you want the display ended?"
"Yes! Yes!" She backed away, hiding behind her clenched fists, and
began to cry hysterically. Demetrios reached out with ghostly arms, beseeching,
but could not speak before he vanished.
In the indefinite chamber that was her prison, she squatted on the soft
floor and buried her face in her hands. All of her remaining scant supply
of courage had fled her. She realized, beneath her horror and hysteria,
that at this moment she was completely vulnerable to her captors. They
could put her back in a fantasy, in a dream, and she would live there
happily without protest, answering their questions, just to be in some
place like home, away from this nightmare.
"There is no reason for your fear," the escort said, stooping beside her.
"You would be speaking to your friend, not to an image we have made.
He is still thinking. He occupies a pleasant illusion, as you did before you
insisted on returning to your body."
The escort waited patiently, saying nothing more as the paroxysm
faded and she regained control of herself. She had no idea how long this took. Time was not her strong point now. "Oresias and the others . . .
are they dead, too?" she asked between her last few sobs and gulps.
"Death has a different meaning for us," the escort said. "Some are
active in illusions; others are inactive, as if in deep sleep. None are dead."
"Can I speak to any of them, if I want to?" she asked.
"Yes. All are available. Some might take more time to be brought here
than others."
She decided it would be best to try again, although she was not at all
sure she could control herself. "Can you make Demetrios seem more
real? He frightens me. . . He looks like he's dead. He looks like a
ghost."
The escort seemed to savor the word, "ghost," repeating it several
times and smiling. "He can be made to seem as solid as you and I, but
that will still be an illusion. Do you want such an illusion?"
"Yes. Yes."
Demetrios reappeared, more substantial but no less miserable. Rhita
got to her feet and approached him, leaning forward, arms stiff by her
side, hands clenched into fists. "Who are you?" she asked between gritted
teeth. Still, her body shivered.
"Demetrios, mekhanikos and didaskalos of the Mouseion of Alexandreia,"
the figure replied. "You are Rhita Vaskayza? Are we dead?" He
spoke as a shade might speak, voice slow and quavering. Rhita could not
stop her teeth from chattering.

ETE R N I TY ·195
"I d-don't think so," she said. "We've been captured by demons. No."
She shut her eyes tightly, trying to think how Patrikia would have approached
this situation. "I think we've---we've been captured by people
who are not human, but with very advanced . . machines."
Demetrios tried to take a step forward, but seemed to be walking on
ice. "I can't reach you," he said. "I should be frightened, but I'm not.
· . . Am I the one who's dead?"
Rhita shook her head. "I don't know. He says you're still alive. You're
dreaming."
"He says? What is he?" Pointing to the escort.
"One of our captors."
"He looks human."
"He's not."
The escort didn't seem to think it was necessary to pay attention to the
image. He focused on Rhita. This frightened her even more.
"Are the others dead?"
"He says they're alive."
"What can we do?"
The escort, eyes still on Rhita, said casually, "Nothing. Escape is not
possible. You're all being treated with respect, and no harm will come to yOU."
"Did you hear him?" Rhita asked, jerking her thumb vehemently at
the escort. She really wanted to strike him, but knew that would accomplish
nothing.
"Yes," Demetrios said in a thin voice. "We opened the wrong doorway,
didn't we?"
"He says years have passed on Gain."
Demetrios looked this way and that, squinting as if through smoke. "It
	seems only a few hours ago.
	. . Can he take us back to the real Gala"
	"Can you?" Rhita asked.
"It's possible," the escort answered diffidently. "Why would you wish
to return? It's not the same world you once knew."
Demetrios did not ~:eact. Rhita felt sick to her stomach; she had
enough of her grandmother's knowledge and instincts to half-visualize
what that meant. These were Jarts; Jarts were rapacious. So Patrikia had
been told by the people in the Way.
I may be responsible for the destruction of my home. Her hands rose
automatically, like symmetrical claws, to just under her chin. "Deme-trios,
I am so frightened. These . people don't seem to care. They
just want information."
"On the contrary," the escort said. "We're really quite passionate.

196 · GREG BEAR


We're very interested in your welfare. Very few people have died since we
claimed your planet. A great many of them are in storage now. We waste
nothing. We cherish all thoughts. We have scholars, and we save as much
as we can."

"What are you talking about?" Demetrios demanded. His voice was so

calm, calm and deep and thin; Rhita remembered what that felt like, to

be in the illusion and not feel true fear.

"Do you wish me to address your companion?" the escort asked Rhita.

Dumbfounded, aware there was some protocol here of which she was :il
ignorant, she gave her permission with a nod.

"It is our duty and destiny to study and preserve the universes, to

spread our own kind, the best and most efficient of all intelligences, to ~.:!
serve the ends of knowledge. We are not cruel. Cruelty is a word and
concept I learn only from your language. It is wasteful to cause pain and
to destroy. It is also wasteful to let other intelligences advance to a point
where they will slow our growth by resistance. Wherever we go, we
gather and store, we preserve, we study; but we do not allow resistance."

Demetrios absorbed this soberly, with a puzzled expression. He knew

next to nothing of Patrikia's stories; only what she had told him on the
grasslands, before the arrival of the Kirghiz horsemen.

"I would like to see my home," Rhita said resolutely. "I would like
Demetrios and Oresias . . and Jamal Atta, as well, to accompany
me."

"Only part of your request can be granted. Jamal Atta killed himself

before we could capture him. Not enough of his personality has been
preserved, I fear, to present 9 complete image, or to control a rebuilt
body."

"I must go," Rhita said, sticking to this one demand, unwilling to be
distracted by her own mounting horror. If she wept, if she let her hands
reach her face, she might lose all control, and she would not shame
herself before these monsters. Or before pale Demetrios.

"We will take you there. Do you wish to observe the process, or would

you like your journey to be instantaneous?"

Demetrios looked at her pointedly; she wasn't sure what he wanted her

to say, but it was obvious to both of them that she was the important one

to their captors. "I want to see everything," she said.

"It might be confusing. Do you wish for me to accompany you, and
explain, or would you like a supplement added to your own psyche, to
your memory, to guide you?"

She bowed her head, face almost touching her hands. She did not
understand the first alternative, or perhaps she refused to understand it.

ETERNITY · 197
Can they make me more than what I am? Perhaps she had already been
changed. That thought was almost unbearable. "Please," she said, her
voice little more than a harsh whisper. "Come with us. Just take us."
She had one hope left; that the Jarts were liars.
If they were not, then she might as well be dead, and she would work
very hard to die. Somehow, she did not think the Jarts would let her. To
their way of thinking, it might be a waste.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Thistledown City

Ram Kikura wondered what it would be like, some day, to fall into city
memory, never to return; trapped away from life, in a world indistinguishable
from life but for all its mutability, its extraordinary privileges.
That would make city memory either heaven or hell, albeit a comfortable
enough hell . .
She had been born in city memory, incarnated much as her son would
soon be, and feeling uncertain about city memory now was both premature
and foolish. She had at least one more incarnation to go, her life was
not hazardous; she might live for millennia before the problem became
practical . . .
But she mulled it over as a natural youth on Earth might mull over
death. The youth on Earth, however, would not be allowed to sample the
afterlife; she could do so whenever she wished, for as long as she wished,
and visiting her "unborn" son was the usual reason.
Her visits seldom lasted more than five minutes, external time; those
five minutes in city memory could extend for months. The last time she
had visited, she had accompanied Tapi on a tour of an imaginary and
highly embellished Amazon, something he had created as a personal
project. The simulation was selected for a permanent place in city memory
recreations, something of an honor.
Their time would be more limited' on this visit. She was entering Axis
Euclid's city memory remotely, from Thistledown. That reduced both
the time and complexity of her experience.

198 · GREG BEAR


When she accessed Tapi's personal space, he was involved in "limiting''
himself, cutting away unnecessary mental adjuncts to prepare his
mentality for birth. By law, no newborn could enter its body requiting
implant memory; every incarnate had to design and choose a core mentality
that could fit within the limits of a normal human brain.

"It's painful," he said ruefully. "So much freedom here. Makes the real

world seem harsh and confined!"

"Sometimes it is."

"Makes me wonder if incarnation is such a privilege . . ."

She moved through his personal space, looking over what he had already
cut away. "Wise choices," she said. Extraneous subroutines, modified
personalities adapted to abstract environments he was unlikely to
encounter when he became incarnate, sexual image experimentations
probably prompted by fellow unborns . . . all stored away, to be accessed
at some future date should he wish, or permanently discarded.

"There's a lot of me disappearing," he complained. Around Olmy,
Tapi did not complain; he enthusiastically demonstrated and explicated,
but never revealed his doubts. That was reserved for his mother, and she
took some pride in seeing this other side.

"Doesn't look like anything essential," she commented dryly.

"Fewer voices in the chorus," he said. "But I'm seeing what I'll be

more clearly. I think Olmy will approve, don't you?"

"Has he been to see you?"

Tapi nodded. "Some time back. He gave his approval."

She withheld some half-sarcastic comment. "He knows quality when
he sees it," she said instead.

"Father's facing some very large problems."

"Aren't we all."

"Perhaps larger than you think."

She examined her son's present image---very close to the appearance of
his chosen body-form--and asked, "Has he told you anything . . surprising?''

"No," Tapi said. But he was holding something back. He knew the

present status of his parents' relationship; he would not carry tales.
"I'm concerned about him."
"So am I."

"Should I be more concerned?"

"I don't know," Tapi said, honestly. "He tells me very little."

Ram Kikura set her mind on the task at hand, finished examining the
deleted adjuncts, and embraced her son. "All right," she said. "I think
you're ready."

ET E R N I TY · 199


"Your approval?" he asked, an eagerness in his voice that belied his
previous complaining.

"Registered already," she said. She did not go through the age-old

formula, as Olmy had; she resisted that kind of traditionalism.
"Have you decided where you're going to be born?"
"Yes," he said. "On Thistledown."

Olmy had been born within the asteroid; she had been born on Axis
City. Still, she knew Tapi was not slighting her.

Tapi arranged his personal space to hide the discarded adjuncts. "Do
you approve of my plans once I'm born?"

"It's not my place to approve or disapprove. You'll be independent."
"Yes, but I appreciate your opinion."

"My opinion is," she said, "like father, like son. Olmy's part in you is
very strong. Mine seems subdued at the moment. But I have no doubt
you'll make us both proud."

Tapi literally beamed, filling the space with light. He embraced her
again. "You're as much a soldier as Father," he said. "You just fight
different battles."


Olmy felt more in control among his fellows, and less strained by the
circumstances than he had thought. Still, it was good to be alone, if only
for a few hours. He missed the isolation of the fourth chamber forest.

He did not return to the Thistledown City apartment; instead, he had
accepted temporary quarters beneath the Nexus dome. Whoever so desired
could spy on him all they wished; he was certain they could not
discover what he carried in his implants.

There was a strong temptation to simply lie still and study what his
partial was sending to him; he resisted that temptation and went through
the intricate steps of the Frants' relsoso dance, taught to him over a
century ago on Timbl, the Frant homeworld. He stretched out his arms
and lifted his legs, twisting smoothly from corner to corner of the small
quarters. Frant anatomy was inherently more subtle and flexible than
human; Olmy had to refashion some of the basic movements. Still, the
relsoso did its job. He felt more relaxed and stronger afterward.

"Now I'll sit and vegetate," he announced out loud, squatting in the
middle of the blank, unfashioned parlor and its white furniture-forms.

The exchange with the Jart mentality was proceeding smoothly, according
to his partial; in a few more hours, more information would be
passed through the barriers.

What he already had to digest was considerable. There was little room
left in his implants to process the material more rapidly; between the

200 · GREG BEAR


Jart, his partial, the various barriers and safeguards, and the cleared and
uploaded information, the implants were filled almost to capacity. His
study consequently was slow, limited to a natural human rhythm. There
were some advantages to this; implant processing of information was
rapid but sometimes lacked the cross connections of more natural thinking.

Olmy closed his eyes and was bathed in Jart philosophy. Translating
the concepts into human language or even thought was difficult at times;
other times, the ideas seemed directly analogous. He mused on the possibility
that the Jart was releasing this part of itself in order to persuade its
captor; propaganda certainly was not out of the question.

He instructed his partial to match the cultural and philosophical exchange
with an equal emphasis on persuasion.

Jarts were voracious conquerors, much more so than humans. While
humans desired commerce, Jarts seemed to relish domination and complete
subjugation. They were unwilling to share hegemony with non-Jart
species, making exceptions only when they had no choice. The Talsit, for
example, had traded with Jarts before humans had retaken the first few
billion kilometers of the Way. The Jarts must have known that conquering
the elusive Talsit was virtually impossible. Talsit were after all representatives
of a much older race, even more mysteriousBand certainly far
more advanced--than Jarts.

The question was, why such voracity? What lay behind the push to
control everything?


Command has duty established by >ancient command<
Gather and preserve that > descendant command < may complete
the last duty. Then there is repose for expediters and all
others, and in repose we will become ourselves again, relieved
of duty, relaxing the >image of strained materials< that is
our thought and being. Why is this not what humans do?


Olmy tried to riddle this apparently key passage. It had such a formal
air that he surmised it might contain quotes from some ethical or semi-religious
work of literature or indoctrination.

The notion of descendant command was particularly intriguing, with
its overtones of Jart evolution, transformation and transcendence. Oddly,
in this idea there was also the only hint that Jarts and other beings could
equitably cooperate and share responsibility. There was an implication of
vast enterprise behind descendant command, of work that surpassed the
capabilities of any individual group of beings.

ET E R N ITY · 201


Gather and preserve. That string/image was particularly striking.
Olmy searched the background behind it, opening up layer after layer of
complex instruction. The Jarts were collectors, and more than that; they
transformed what they collected, hoping to prevent self-destruction of
the collected objects, beings, cultures, and planets. Nature was, for them,
a process of decay and loss; best to take control of all things, stop the
decay and loss, and ultimately present this neatly beribboned package to
· . descendant command.

Olmy felt a mixture of attraction and horror. Theirs was not a selfish
greed; it was a compulsion of incredible depth and uniformity for such a
diverse and advanced culture, and it had little to do with their own
welfare and progress. Jarts were simply the means to a transcendent end.
They believed they could rest only when the task was done, when the
neat package of preserved galaxies (such maniacal ambition!) would be
given up to this nebulous entity; their reward would consist of being
gathered and preserved themselves. And what would descendant command
do with the package?

It wasn't a Jart's duty to speculate. Certainly not an expediter, however
modified.

Olmy found a list of supremely forbidden actions and inactions. While
it might be necessary to destroy in the struggle to completely preserve--as
the Jarts had to destroy human forces to try to keep control of the Way
--to destroy unnecessarily was hideous sin. There was not a hint of
cruelty in any portion of the Jart philosophies; no enjoyment of victory,
no petty satisfaction for the success of a moment's work, no savoring of
an opponent's defeat. Ideally, Jart actions were to be motivated only by
desire for the transcendent goal. Satisfaction would come when the package
was presented.

Olmy doubted that this kind of purity was possible in any living being,
but that at least was the ideal;, and in its rigor and selflessness it put to
shame a good many exalted human philosophies. There was a neatness
and finality about it that denied change of mission without denying progress;
progress in speeding achievement of the goal was highly desirable,
and any level of Jart from expediter to command could make improvements
subject to command approval.

Human history had seldom managed that neat trick; fixed goals almost
inevitably fixed change, causing a strain in human history that usually led
to denial or reshaping of the goals.

Even in the Hexamon there was the dichotomy of accepted philosophy
---Star, Fate and Pneuma and the rule of the Good Man Naderwand the

202 · GREG BEAR

contradiction of actions necessary to preserve institutions and advantages
for individuals, groups and the Hexamon as a whole.
Jarts could fit war and destruction neatly into their philosophy, encompassing
contradiction of goals in a tight wrap of necessity while controlling
excess and bloodlust. Humans had never been so neat about theft
paradoxes, nor so capable of reining in excess.
Olmy realized there was an element of propaganda here, very effective
propaganda. He was not seeing Jart history; there seemed very little of
that. He was simply being fed the ideals with no information as to how
closely they were followed.
He withdrew from the philosophy and sped through an overview of the
Way's role in the Jart scheme.
When the Jarts had first entered the Way through a fortuitous test
gate, they had quickly understood the principles behind this marvel.
They had thought themselves either the creators of this infinite tube-shaped
universe, through a rationale Olmy found diflicuit to follow, or
they had postulated that descendant command had sent it to them to
help them reach theft goals. And the Way could not have been more
neatly designed for them; by understanding its principles, as they quickly
did, Jarts could open gates to any point in the universe, and even find
means to enter other universes. They could travel to the end of time. In
this Jart's memory, they had not done so, apparently, never having
mounted an expedition like that of the (Jeshel precincts after the Sundering
.... Perhaps they felt it was best to leave such things to descendant
command, or at least to wait until theft task was finished.
As a tool, the Way fit into theft plans perfectly. Through the Way, Jarts
could wrap up and even present the package in record time.
Olmy barely touched the image connected with this idea: a static,
perfectly controlled universe, all energies harnessed, all mysteries removed,
unchanging, ready for consumption by descendant command.
It was a logical conclusion.
Still, it made him feel justified for all the resistance he had offered to
the Jarts. Theirs was the purity of a kind of death. Jarts did not savor or
enjoy or suffer or exult; they merely performed their roles, like viruses or
machines . .
He knew the simplification was unfair, but a feeling of deep abhorrence
was upon him. Here was an enemy he could understand and hate at the
same moment.
His partial signaled that more information was ready for transfer and
consideration.

ETERNITY · 203
Olmy opened his eyes. It was hard to reorient after such strange journeys.
Having barely skimmed the data already available, he packed it
away and cleared the path for more.

THIRTY-NINE

The Way

Her captor's scrupulous attention to leading her step by step to Gaia
began to wear on Rhita early in the journey. Nothing, not even the scale
of what she was seeing, was familiar or comprehensible.
First, she was taken from her chamber--actually quite a small room,
nowhere near the cavern she had imagined--and placed inside a protective
oval bubble, where they stood on a flat, railed platform four or five
arms wide and as black as lamp soot. The escort accompanied her in the
bubble, which seemed to be made of exquisitely thin glass.
Or perhaps soap. She was not willing to place any limits on what her
captors could do.
"Where are my companions?" she asked. The image of Demetrios had
been left behind; they were alone in the bubble.
"They are taking a much quicker route. What I am doing with you is,
if I may borrow a word, expensive; it consumes energy. I am given only
so much energy for my tasks."
The bubble hung suspended in blackness. Ahead of them, at the far
end of the blackness, a brilliant triangle of white light grew as large as her
outstretched hand, and then stopped. For a moment there was no further
action; the escort stood in silence, staring at the light ahead.
Rhita shivered. Something animal in her looked for a way out, hoping
that some magic had suspended all this reality and provided her with a
chance to escape. But she did not try. Left idle with her thoughts, she
turned and saw an opaque wall behind them, covered with the sheen of
an oil slick on black water, gold and silver and all the colors of the
rainbow besides. The wall stretched off above them in shadowy darkness.
It was hauntingly, massively beautiful; it gave her no clues whatsoever as

204 · GREG BEAR

to where she was, or what would happen next. The silence terrified her;
she had to speak to keep from screaming.
"I don't know your name," she said quietly. The escort turned to her,
smooth face all attention, and she was oddly ashamed for even wanting
to know such things about her enemy. The shame came in part from
realizing that she could not hate this figure standing beside her; she
wasn't even sure what it was. To learn more, she would have to ask
questions tllat might make her seem weak.
"Do you want me to have a name?" the escort asked pleasantly.
"You don't have a name of your own?"
"My companions address me in a wide variety of ways. In this form,
however, since I am to be viewed and accessed only by you, I have no
name."
His seeming obtuseness renewed her irritation. "Please choose a
name," she said, turning away from him.
"Then I will be KimOn. Is this a suitable name?"
She had had a third school paidagOgos named KimOn. He had been a
round, pleasant man, gentle and persistent but not quick. She had felt
deep affection for KimOn as a young girl. Perhaps the escort hoped to
play on that. And perhaps he doesn't need to use any such obvious subterfuge.
"No," she said. "That isn't your name."
"Then what should my name be?"
"I will call you T~phOn," she said. From H~siodos: the horrible being
who fought with Zeus, son of Gaia (hence the escort's human appear	ance)
and Tartaros; a deeply buried monster of limitless evil 	That
	name
might keep her on her guard.
	The
escort nodded. "T~yphOn it is."
Without
warning, the bubble sped away from the rear wall. There was no
way she could judge their speed; she felt no motion. All around, the darkness
seemed filled with subliminal rainbows. Glancing up, she saw a myriad
faint beams of light traveling in parallel from the triangular whiteness
ahead, over and behind them, into the wall, where they vanished.
The triangle grew larger and brighter; they were obviously approaching
something, but what she could not be sure.
Hypnotized,
Rhita stared until the whiteness filled her vision, a brilliant,
almost dazzling luminosity with a pearly quality that both awed and
soothed her. This was the light in which a god might come clothed. Those
gods I don't really believe in, she thought. They're still inside me, though. Athen and Astarte and Isis and Aser and Aserapis and Zeus . . and
now TfphOn.
Suddenly
the light surrounded her, and the blackness became a yawnETERNITY · 205
ing wall or hole behind. With a sudden reorientation, she realized that
she had emerged from a huge triangular prism into a surrounding bath of
pearly light. She turned and saw the dark equilateral mouth receding. It
was framed by a thin line of sullen red of a richness and elegance hard to
describe a color that seemed to carry within it the qualities of serene
dignity, vibrant life and horrendous violence all at once.
"Where am I?" she asked, her voice no more than a whisper.
"Behind us is a vessel. We are in a vacuum, within a tube of glowing
gases. We will descend through this tube momentarily."
She still had no clear idea where they were. Her stomach had knotted;
so much strangeness, she decided, was not good for her. How had the Soph reacted, seeing so many strange things? There was a time when
Gaia herself must have seemed strange and perhaps awful to Rhita's
grandmother.
She held her fists to her eyes and rubbed them. They hurt. Her neck
hurt from ~o much tense craning. Her head hurt; she felt miserable again,
and yet there was a beauty to the light... She was ashamed to be in
pain.
I'm not reacting well, am I? Perhaps I should be grateful to still be sane. The glow intensified and she felt a momentary tingle. They passed
through the boundary of the tube of pearly light. Below lay something
incomprehensible, intricate like an enormous map, pale green in color,
covered with white and brown lines, dotted at rhythmic intervals with
processions of cone-shaped towers made up of stacked disks with
rounded edges.
Again she felt a reorientation, and saw with understanding instead of
just coordinated sensation.
They were within a closed, elongated surface round like a cylinder or a
pipe, but enormous. The surface of the cylinder spread out like a Kr~tan
textile design, all pale greens and browns and whites, or like . . . she
quickly ran out of comparisons.
Rhita knew where she was now. Patrikia had described many of these
things~though not these patterns or colors. Above their bubble
stretched the wide band of the plasma tube, much fainter now, and the
impossible region called the flaw, the singularity. Perhaps the prism rode
the flaw, like the Hexamon's fiawships.
She was seeing the Way.

205 · GREG BEAR


FORTY


The Hawaiian Islands


The Terrestrial Senate was in recess, its members scattered around the
Pacific Rim. One influential Terrestrial senator had remained in Honolulu,
however, and Garry Lanier arranged for a meeting with him.

Suli Ram Kikura and Karen accompanied Lanier to Earth; their object
was sabotage.

Lanier knew Robert Kanazawa, senior senator from the Pacific Nations,
from fifty years before; they had met as young officers in the Navy.
Kanazawa had gone on to become a submariner, Lanier a pilot; their
ways had parted until the Recovery, when they had met again in a Nexus
plenary session on Thistledown. They had managed to cross paths every
few years until Lanier's retirement. He deeply respected Kanazawa; the
man had survived the Death in a U.S. Navy submarine, had worked in
California to reestablish civilian authority, and had become senior senator
twenty years before.

During the Death, around the world, Allied and Warsaw Pact military
facilities had been targeted repeatedly. Yet due to some vagary in Soviet
planning, or wholesale missile failures, Pearl Harbor had been hit by only
two warheads. Other bases on the islands had been struck by one warhead,
some by none at all. Honolulu had suffered widespread damage
from the Pearl Harbor attack; still, as a city, it had not been obliterated.
After the Sundering, as Hexamon investigatorswLanier among them
chose sites from which to begin the Recovery, the islands had offered
themselves as a prime location for mid-Pacific support services. The
weapons used there had been relatively clean; the radiation, after five
years, was not especially dangerous, and could certainly be countered by
Hexamon medicines and treatments.

In ten years, the lush growth of Oahu's jungles and grasslands returned.
Cities rose again, feeding both on the Hexamon activity and on
trans-Pacific trade between New Zealand, North Australia, and Japan
and Indochina.

ETERNITY · 207

Because Hexamon communications did not make a geographic position
crucial to centers of Recovery Government, the Terrestrial Senate
had established its capitol on Oahu, at the site of old Honolulu. There
had been a hint of power and privilege in this decision, but the Nexus
overseers did not attempt to change it; they knew that few terrestrials
would participate in such an unpleasant task as leading the Recovery
without substantial perquisites.
Kanazawa lived in a long wood-frame and stone house a mile from the
fused glass shore of Waikiki. With a moist, warm southerly breeze rustling
palm fronds overhead, Karen, Garry and Ram Kikura walked up
the pumice path to be greeted by a Nexus security device, a long polished
white tube about a meter long and fifteen centimeters wide, floating beside
the porch.
"We're pleased to see you again, Ser Lanier," the device said in a
higher-pitched version of Kanazawa's voice. "You are all expected.
Please enter and excuse the mess. The senator is doing research for a
trade bill to be considered next session."
They walked up the stone steps and entered the porch breezeway.
Wicker furniture rested on polished dark wood floors: Papers and folders
lay in haphazard piles around the living room; advanced electronic storage
media were still something of a luxury on Earth. Ostentation was not
Kanazawa's style; he relied on paper.
"I like this," Ram Kikura said, fondling Polynesian print fabrics on
sofa and chair. "The real thing."
Kanazawa stepped from his rear office wearing a blue and white Japanese
cotton print robe and tabi slippers. "Garry, Karen! I'm delighted to
see you again." He smiled at Ram Kikura. "If I'm not mistaken, this is
Earth's advocate and a former colleague, Ser Suli Ram Kikura?" He
offered his hand; Ram Kikura shook it and bowed slightly. "To see all of
you here at once worries me, pleased as I am by the visit. Something
important is happening in the Nexus, I take it?"
He led them to a back porch and ordered drinks from a mechanical
servant. Since his second wife had died ten years before, Kanazawa had
not remarried; instead, he had plunged more deeply into his work, establishing
a reputation as exceptionally polite, exceptionally capable, but
also exceptionally stubborn, even obsessive.
"There's an advisory about to be issued by the Nexus on Thistledown,"
Lanier said.
"I've heard nothing about it," Kanazawa said, tilting his head to one
side with curiosity. His broad, rugged face carried a vivid white scar
across one cheek where he had received a flash burn while standing on

208 · GREG BEAR


the sail of the U.S.S. Burleigh, his submarine. A similar scar marked the
back of his right hand, ending at the shadow of the long jacket sleeve he
had worn. The submarine had been sailing north along the coast of California,
three days after the inception of the Death; the flash had come
from a Spasm re-nuking of San Francisco.

"Chances are, the Old Natives will not be allowed to vote on this
issue," Lanier said.

Kanazawa's expression did not change, but his voice took on an edge.
"Why not?"

"They'll be excluded by Recovery regulation," Lanier said. "Unfit for
the making of decisions involving the parent Hexamon." By a peculiar
twist of legal language, in the early years of Recovery legislation, the
Thistledown and Precinct ruling bodies had become the parental legislatures.

Kanazawa nodded. "Not invoked for eleven years, but still in force.
Should it concern me?"

"It concerns all of us, I think," Lanier said. "It's a rather long story."
"I know it is worth my time, coming from you. Tell me."
Lanier told.


FORTY-ONE


Thistledown


Korzenowski walked across the sixth chamber terminal to join Mirsky
under a transparent skylight. The avatarmKorzenowski found it easiest
to think of him that waymstared up across the chamber at the carpet of
machinery on the opposite side of the chamber. Clouds moved swiftly
over the view, both on their side and the far side; the colors, gray and
green and mottled, traversed by the glow of the plasma tube, soothed
Korzenowski in a way he found puzzling. He had cut himself loose from
all this, yet it continued to fascinate him.

Like Olmy, he now believed that the Hexamon would re-open the Way
no matter what obstacles they faced; would he be sorry?
"It's magnificent," Mirsky said. "A magnificent achievement." He

ET E R N I TY · 209


smiled at the Engineer. "Whe~ I first saw this, it was beyond anything I
could imagine. I was dwarfed. I had not been introduced gradually, had
not had the time Lanier spent in the Potato that's what we called Thistledown.
We had not entered peacefully. It felt impossibly alien and disturbing,
and fascinating, too. Yet Set Ram Kikura called it 'hideous.''

"Her passions do not lie in machinery; she's spent her life with huge
machines. She takes them for granted. It's not unusual for Naderites to
be blind to their actual environment, in quest of some perfection. We're a
mystical group, all in all; Star, Fate and Pneuma lie deep in us."

"How long will it take you to complete this diagnostic?" Mirsky asked.

"Three days. There are partials and remotes all over the chamber now.

Everything crucial seems in working order."

"And the weapons?"

Korzenowski stared intently at the view through the skylight. Rain
began to fall in gentle patters, mottling the glass; the same water that had
cooled and cleansed the machinery in the sixth chamber for centuries. "I
did not build them. I know very little about them. I suspect they're in
working order, also. The Hexamon spent much of its history relying on
machinery to stay alive; we respect our creations, and by instinct, we
build them to last."

"How long until the re-opening, then?" Mirsky asked.

"The timetable hasn't changed. Unless Lanier and Ram Kikura succeed
in blocking the advisory and the vote, perhaps two weeks; no more
than a month."

"You'll do it, if they order you to? Open the Way again?"

"I'll do it," Korzenowski answered. "It seems to be Fate acting,
doesn't it?"

Mirsky laughed. For the first time, Korzenowski heard a timbre in the
avatar's voice that did not seem entirely human, and it chilled him. "Fate
indeed," Mirsky said. "I have been with beings like gods, and fate puzzles
them, too."

210 · GREG BEAR


FORTY-TWO


Hawaii


"I would be honored to have you stay here," Kanazawa said. "My hospitality
is not what it was when my wife was alive only mechanical help
donated by my constituents, but the kitchen treats my guests and me
well."

"We'd be delighted," Lanier said. "We leave in the morning to visit
Oregon, then fly on to Melbourne and back home, New Zealand . . .
Christchurch. We haven't much time."

From the front porch, they saw the sun decline in splendor beyond the
palms and beach, setting the slopes of Barber's Point aflame with a gentler
fire than that area and its Naval Air Station had known during the
Death. A Japanese graveyard lay just west of the senator's property,
behind fresh-painted white picket fencing; Suli Ram Kikura stood there
now, Karen beside her, examining the carved lava pagoda-shaped headstones
and crosses.

"There's something the old Axis City lacked," Lanier said.
"What's that?"
"Graveyards."

"Far too many here," Kanazawa said quickly. "Many things must be
different up there~we have such close ties, and yet, I sometimes think,
so little understanding of each other. I wish I were not so afraid of space
travel. My only trip was the last time we met. My weeks in the Burleigh
cured me of cramped quarters, I suppose. I left the ship when we beached
her at Waimanalo, and I swore I would never sit in an iron tube again. I
flew up there sedated."

Lanier smiled sympathetically.

"You've worked with them--hell, Garry, you were one of the first to

meet them. Surely you understand what motivates them."

"I can guess."

"Why suddenly consider us weak partners, when this could affect all of
humanity?"

ETERNITY · ~11

"We are weak partners, Senator."
"Not as weak or naive as they must think. We can encompass many
strange things before breakfast."
"I think the quote is more like, 'believe six impossible things before
breakfast.'"
"Impossible things! That we have a man returned from the dead, or
very nearly . . ."
"We've had lots of those," Lanier said. "I've even helped resurrect
people. Mirsky is something much stranger than that."
Kanazawa turned his back on the twilight. The flames past Barber's
Point had died to purple dream-tones. Sunsets were not as spectacular
now as they had been for years after the Death, but in Hawaii, they were
still memorable. "All right. Perhaps we are naive. Does she accept such a
thing?"
"Karen, or Ram Kikura?'
"Ram Kikura."
"I think she accepts it one way, and finds it difficult to accept another
way.. . She accepts that we have to act on what Mirsky says. But she
deeply regrets his return. She believes he catalyzed this whole mess,
which of course he did; it would have happened anyway, however."
"Spreading word across the Earth can only increase resentment, however
many believe you," Kanazawa said. "We resent our saviors. We
resent having our childhood stolen from us."
"I'm not sure I understand, Senator. Surely the Death did that."
"No. The builders of Thistledown--they survived the Death, grew out
of it, developed a new civilization. They invented their own marvels,
struggled to supremacy, launched their asteroid starships. We cannot do
that. They've come to us with hands full of marvels, like parents raising
children, giving us miracles here and wonders there, sometimes forcing
them upon us. They did not let us make our own mistakes."
"Thank God," Lanier said .dryly. "We'd screwed up badly enough
already."
"Yes, but do you see what I mean?" Kanazawa asked plaintively. "My
constituents feel lost when confronted by these saviors; they think of
them as angels. A visitor from the precincts or the asteroid is still rare;
they are respected and feared. We are left on Earth like backwater bumpkins."
"If the shoe fits," Lanier said.
"You've grown cynical, Garry."
"Not without reason, Senator," Lanier said, smiling wryly. "But I
understand what you're saying. Still, we have to make more of an effort.

212 · GREG BEAR

Earth can't live in resentment and bitterness and envy like some twisted
postbellum South. Maybe a larger issue like this is what we need to spark
enthusiasm down here."

"They will not understand, Garry," Kanazawa said. "It is beyond
their experience. A fairy tale. It's the stuff myths are made of. Myths
don't play well in politics. You have to disguise them, make them seem
down-to-Earth."

Ram Kikura and Karen came back from the fence, both looking somber.
"Mortality is not the only thing that separates some of us," Kana-zawa
said in an undertone.


Dinner was served by robots. The four of them sat around the table,
Lanier and Karen and Kanazawa feeling slightly giddy with big tumblers
of rum after the day's solemnity and worry. Lanier hadn't been even
mildly drunk in decades; he found more knots loosening, and regarded
Karen with eyes of a distant, more youthful self. She was truly a lovely
woman; however young she seemed, she had much of the wisdom of age,
and that made her even more beautiful. Lanier did not despise youth; he
was simply unwilling to let its attractions dominate him.

Working together might be a remedy, he thought; but she was still not
as warm to him as he felt toward her, and they behaved as an old married
couple might, talking more with others at the table than between themselves.

Ram Kikura was reluctant to try rum. "I've heard about alcohol," she
said with a voice of temperance caution. "A narcotic poison."

"Was Thistledown dry during its voyage?" Kanazawa asked, astonishment
creeping into his voice.

"No, not at first," she answered. "Though alcohol played second fiddle,
if that's still a current idiom. Or third or fourth. Early voyagers were
more interested in direct mental stimulations, a problem we carried with
us from Earth. The stimulations became more sophisticated, and safer,
and we found ways to treat personalities devoted to excess, chemical or
neurological. . . Alcohol was never a major worry, or a major recreation.
Wines, if I remember, were cultivated . . ."

She seemed to enjoy a chance to talk history, especially when it delayed
her decision on the rum. "But when the Way was built, and we had
pushed back the Jarts, trade began through the wells. Talsit and other
substances became known to us... complex intoxicants, enhancers,
augmenters, not to mention the nuances of complete downloading. Alcohol
and other chemical intoxicants were like kazoos." (she emphasized
the word, enjoying its alienness) "compared to a symphony orchestra."

ET E R N I TY · 213
"Primitive treats still have their charm, though," Kanazawa said.
"I'd hate to make a fool of myself," Ram Kikura said softly, dipping
her finger into the small glass, lifting it to her nose. "Esters and ketones.
Very strong."
"Destroys the brain," Karen said, on the edge of being tipsy. "Might
need to rent another."
"Alcohol," Ram Kikura began, pausing, realizing she was about to be
sententious, "is still a problem on Earth. Am I right?"
"You are absolutely right," Kanazawa said. "And a balm for our manifold
wounds."
"I dislike not being .in control of myself."
Karen leaned forward. "Drink it," she said. "It actually tastes good.
You don't have to drink it all."
"I know what it tastes like. I've had biochrones in city memory."
"Biochrones?" Kanazawa asked.
"Not as popular now as they once were," Lanier said. "Simulated full-life
experiences. Edited, usually; the more extreme remove your awareness
that they're simulated. You live another life."
"Jesus," Kanazawa said, making an astonished, strongly disapproving
face. "That's almost like being . . I know. Unfaithful to yourself."
As they discussed the ethical dilemma of whether or not sex in a
biochrone was tantamount, by older Earth standards, to cheating on
one's wedding vows, Ram Kikura brought the rum glass closer. Lanier
could see she was attracted to it; she had always felt a connection with
the past. When they had first met, she had picted an American flag over
her shoulder, proud of her ancient ancestry; here was a bit of the past she
knew little about, directly. Biochrone memories, he had heard, were not
nearly as vivid as real ones; they couldn't possibly be, without extraordinary
implants, larger than practical in homorphs.
"All right," she said, steeling herself and picking up the glass. "To
being human!" She drank a much larger swallow than Lanier would have
recommended. Her e. yes widened and she spluttered, choking. Karen
pounded her back unhelpfully.
"Ah, Pneuma!" Ram Kikura croaked when she was halfway in control
again. "My body hates it!"
"Go slow," Kanazawa recommended. "If that's too strong, I have
some wine . . ."
Ram Kikura waved away their attentions, embarrassed by her ineptitude.
She wiped away tears and lifted the glass again. "What were the
toasts?" she asked, still slightly hoarse.
"Down the hatch," Lanier suggested.

314 · GREG BEAR

Ram Kikura sipped more moderately. "Makes my throat close up."
"I don't understand," Kanazawa said. "It's very good rum, Oahu's
best."
"At least three hours old," Lanier said. Kanazawa gave him a twinkling
look of senatorial disapproval.
"From my district," he said.
"This half of the world is your district. Surely you don't drink everything
bottled by your constituents!" Karen said.
Ram Kikura sat quiet for a moment, contemplating the effect. "I don't
think I'll become drunk," she said. "My implant metabolizers are con-
vetting the alcohol to sugars faster than I can drink."
"What a pity," Kanazawa said.
"I could fine-tune them . . . if I will fit into the occasion less so-

Kanazawa glanced meaningfully at Lanier. Karen sighed. "You are
not a natural party girl, my dear," she said.

The night sky of Hawaii was a cold blaze, reminding Lanier of Van
Gogh's Starry Night. Kanazawa brought a low-powered red laser pointer
onto the back lawn. They sat on the grass, eating Brazilian chocolates
and sipping aperitifs.
"This is my private planetarium," the senator said, crouching carefully,
kicking out one foot, almost falling over, then settling back on his
butt and crossing his legs. "Nothing comparable to actually being up in
space, I suppose .... But I'm happy with it."
He switched on the laser and lifted it. In the moist sea air, the beam
cut a straight glowing path hundreds of feet up to the stars, seeming to
touch them individually. "I know all the constellations," he said, "the
Japanese and Chinese and the Western. Even some of the Babylonian."
"It's beautiful," Ram Kikura said. She had allowed more than a little
of the alcohol to have an effect on her; her eyes were half-lidded and she
seemed relaxed, almost sleepy. "The sky is more . . . human down
here. More friendly."
"Yes, I see that," Karen said. She and Lanier sat back to back on the
grass, heads touching. "But when I was a girl, it still seemed immense.
Frightening."
"Yes, I see that," Ram Kikura said, imitating Karen's tone and smiling
broadly. "I really do."
"My own planetarium," Kanazawa repeated. "I can just point the
laser and move the beam and watch and nobody knows or cares. Their
problems--" He flicked the beam across the entire sky, from cloud-dark-

ET E R N ITY · 215

ened horizon to clear open sea, "---are not my problems." He sighed
over-dramatically. "It is good to see you again, Garry, Karen. And it is
good to meet someone from the precincts on less than formal terms. We
have such distance between us, for being parents and children . . ."
"Who are the parents," Karen asked, "and who the children?"
"You are the parents," Ram Kikura said.
"And the children, too." Karen bumped her head gently against
Lanier's, and then harder, as if to attract his attention.
"Ow," he said. "What?"
"Just bumping, you old son of a bitch." She giggled. "Sorry. Rum
talk."
"Keep bumping," he said.
Ram Kikura held her hands up. "I would love to see crowds of Earth
children now. Healthy children, happy children. I love to watch Hex-amon
children through my apartment window, in Axis Euclid. You've
never had more children, Karen . . . Why?"
"Much too busy," Karen said. She bit her lower lip.
"How can anyone be too busy to have children?"
"Naturally, or the Hexamon way?" Karen asked. The pain had been
blunted by time but she still shied from the center.
"The Hexamon way, I think," Ram Kikura said. "My son Tapi is an
old-fashioned child." She smiled and shook her head. "He will pass his
incarnation exams. He will follow in his father's footsteps . . . Olmy's,'
she added.
"I never knew you had a son," Lanier said.
"Oh, yes. I'm very proud of him. But I did not give birth to him in the
very old sense. To have children is important, though, however you have
them.., whether or not they are raised first in city memory. Allowed
to grow like flowers, to make mistakes."
"And to die," Lanier mused, his eyes closed. Karen stiffened and
leaned forward, breaking their back-to-back contact, and he instantly
regretted his words.
"There are graveyards on Thistledown," he said defensively, avoiding
Ram Kikura's steady gaze. "I've seen them. Columbaria, even pretentious
tombs. Your people once knew what death was like."
"Death is failure," Ram Kikura said, her tone angry.
"Death is completion," Lanier said.
"Death is a waste and a loss."
"I'll go along with that," Karen said, bumping him again pointedly, "More life."

215 · GREG BEAR


"Robert!" Lanier pointed a finger at him. In exchange, Kanazawa

pointed the laser beam's arrow on his chest.

"Garry! What?"

"You decide. You're a natural man. No implants, nothing but radiation
therapy--you've even kept your scar--"

"White badge of courage," Kanazawa said. "Helps me stay in office."
"Is death completion or waste?"

"We're far from the subject of the evening, aren't we?" Kanazawa
asked.

"You have Japanese ancestry. They look upon death in a different way.
Honorable death. Death at the right time."

"Do you have Amerindian blood?" Kanazawa asked him.

"No."

"Well, you look as if you might. When people have to die, they look
upon death differently. They dress it up and dance with it and put it in
black robes and fear it. I have many disagreements with the Hexamon,
but I do not regret their giving us the choice. Those grave most are
from the years just after the Death. Most of my constituents have chosen
to live longer. Some hope to live forever. Perhaps they will. Death is not

failure, it may even be completion, but only so long as it is not master."
"Right," Karen said.

"Have you chosen to live forever?" Lanier asked.
"No," Kanazawa said.
,,Why?,,

"That is personal."

"Sorry," Karen said. "This is not a pleasant subject . . ."

"No. It is important," Kanazawa said. "Not too personal to talk
about. Rum talk, even. I cannot forget certain things. Unpleasant memories.
I cannot use Talsit or pseudo-Talsit, even if we could get them,
wonderful as those treatments are; these memories are a fixed part of me,
and have made me what I am now. I fight with them always. In the
morning I wake to them. Sometimes they hang over my whole day. You

know what I'm talking about, don't you, Garry?"

"Amen," Lanier said.

"When I die, those memories will be gone. I will be gone, and perhaps
someone better will come in my place. He may have knowledge of the
history I've lived through, but he will be able to lift above them. There

will be no waste. What I cannot assimilate, he or she will."

"Amen," Lanier repeated in a whisper.

"We will agree to disagree," Ram Kikura said. "You are a wonderful
man, Senator. Your death would be a loss."

ETERNITY · 217

Kanazawa tilted his head to acknowledge her compliment.
"We cannot cry, you know," Ram Kikura said. "We feel many of the
same emotions, but we have.., not risen above them. Transcended
them. We assimilate and remain ourselves, but . . ." She shook her head
vigorously. "I can't think straight! Rum thought, rum talk."
"We are too close to a lot of death to look at individual death objectively,''
Kanazawa said. "Karen, do you approve of your husband's age?"
"No," she said after a long pause.
"I can't keep up with her," Lanier said, trying for a pleasantry.
She looked down from the stars at the dark grass. "It's not that. I don't
want to lose you. I don't want to sacrifice myself to stay in step with you,
either."
"Lance that boil, doctor," Lanier said.
"Shut up." She pushed away from him again and stood up. "We're
talking stupid talk now."
"Rum talk," Kanazawa said, swinging the beam across the sky again. "In vino, veritas. "
"This is noble," Ram Kikura said. "This is human."
Karen ran for the house. Lanier stood, brushed grass from his pants,
and said, "I think I'm going to follow her and then we'll go to sleep."
Kanazawa nodded sagely.
Lanier walked back to the house, found the bedroom, and stood in the
doorway, watching Karen undress. "I remember the first time you made
love to me," he said. "In the jumpjet. On the tuberider."
She made a little noise, unhitching her bra.
"It took me many years to really appreciate you. Not until after we
were married. After we had worked together."
"Please shut up," Karen said, but not angrily.
"You became like one of my arms, one of my legs," he pursued. "I
took you for granted. I thought everything I'd do, you'd do. I loved you
so much I forgot you weren't me."
"There was work to. do."
"No excuse, even so," he said. "I think you lost sight of me, too."
"You're not the only one with bad memories," Karen said sharply. "I
went back to Hunan. Remember? I saw my town, the farmlands. I
smelled death, Garry, waste. Skeletons of infants by the roadside, you
couldn't tell whether they had been there for months or years, from the
Death or after, when their parents dropped them there because they
couldn't feed them. We couldn't get to everybody in time. You are not the
only one with memoriesl"
"I know," Lanier said, still leaning on the door frame.

218 · GREG BEAR


"I can handle them. I can love you for a lot longer. I don't want you to

go away from me. I hate that thought."

"I know."

"Then come back to me," she said. "You can still become young.
There are centuries left to us. Centuries of work yet to do."

"That's not my way," he said. "I wish you could accept that."
"I wish you could accept my . fears," she said.
"I'll try. We're working together now, Karen."

She half-shivered, half-shrugged and sat on the bed. He remained
standing by the door, still dressed. "What about Mirsky?" she asked.
There was a look of patent wonder on her face, forehead smooth, eyes
wide, lips drawn down as if in a pout. "Is he going to bring the gods
~down on us? Is that what he's really saying? He's a horrible thing,
Garry."

"I don't think so."

She shook her head. "A nightmare."

"A vision," Lanier countered. "Let's wait and see."

"I am afraid," she said simply. "Will you allow me that?"

If he came forward now, he knew, and tried to hug her, she would not
accept; she would push him away. But he could see that the time might
come, and for now, still mildly buzzing with rum, that was enough. "Of
course," he said.

"I'm going to sleep." She lay back on the guest bed and pulled the
covers up.

He watched her for a moment, then shut out the light, turned, and
stood alone in the dark and quiet hallway. Out on the grass, he heard
Kanazawa and Ram Kikura talking.

"I would be honored if you would share my bed with me this evening,"
Kanazawa said.

"I'm not even mildly drunk now, Ser Kanazawa," Ram Kikura said.
"Nor am I."

Ram Kikura said nothing for a moment. Then, "I'd like that."
Lanier contemplated his wife in bed, the quaint comfort of the guest
room, and shook his head. Still too many walls between them. He walked
to the front porch and lay down on the padded wicker sofa there, plumping
an old tattered silk pillow under his head.


In the morning, Lanier walked along the beach before Karen awoke. A
kilometer away, he spotted Ram Kikura, walking around a tongue of
exhausted surf, tall and slender, surrounded by wheeling gulls. Without

E T E R N ITY · 219

gesture, they walked toward each other, and Ram Kikura smiled at him
as they closed.
"Am I a brazen hussy?" she asked, turning to match his pace and
direction.
Lanier returned her smile. "As brazen as they come," he said.
"In all my years as Earth's advocate, I've never made love to an Old
Native," she said.
"Was it quaint?" Lanier asked. She scowled at him.
"Some things stay remarkably the same, in basics," she said. They walked on in silence for a while, watching gulls prance on the wet sand
ahead of them, avoiding the slick rising curves of water. "Ser Kanazawa
is furious," she finally said. "He's angrier than I've seen any man in a
very long time. He didn't show it to all of us . . . He's going to call a
meeting of all of Earth's senators and corpreps. Through me, they'll
challenge the mens publica vote. I can make a strong argument that the
Recovery laws cannot apply in this case."
"Will you win?" Lanier asked.
She bent down to pick up a glass Japanese float. "I wonder how long
this has been here?" she asked. "Do they make these now?"
"I don't know," Lanier said. "I suppose they do. Will you win?"
"Probably not," she said. "The Hexamon isn't what it used to be." She
held the float up close, examining its tiny starlike bubbles floating in
green glass. She returned the float to the sand.
"The president seems to be swinging with the tide," Lanier said. "He
claimed he violently opposes reopening."
"He does. But there's not much he can do if the Nexus supports it.
And I fear that like the captain of a troubled ship, he won't hesitate to
cut the Earth loose, if it's necessary to save what's left of the Hexamon.'
"But the Jarts "
"We beat them back once, and we weren't prepared for them," Ram
Kikura said.
"You sound proud, almost supportive," Lanier said.
She frowned again, shaking her head. "An advocate needs to understand
how the opposition feels. I'm as furious as Kanazawa, myself." She
swung her arms and bent to pick up a crumbling piece of plastic bottle.
"How old is this, do you think?"
Lanier didn't answer. He was thinking of Mirsky, surprised by the
refusal of the Nexus to go along with his request. "What chance is there
for a negative vote?" he asked.
"None," she said. "Without a persuaded and informed Earth, and that
seems to be an impossibility in the near term."

220 · GREG BEAR

"Then why are we here? I thought this was a good idea . . . I thought
we might have an effect."
Ram Kikura nodded. "We will," she said. "We'll hang on their
damned heels and slow them down. The tide is coming in, don't you
think?"
The tide was going out, as far as Lanier could tell, but he understood
her meaning.
"What will we say in Oregon?" he asked.
"The same thing we've said here."
They turned around to walk back toward the house. When they arrived,
the others were up and about, and the robots were serving breakfast.
Kanazawa and Ram Kikura were friendly, cordial and no more.
Lanier was thoughtful. He had had a burst of youthful enthusiasm
shot down. There was chagrin, but there was also the realization he could
still be young and foolish. He could still fight for hopeless causes. Somehow,
that made him feel even more alive, even more resolved.
Besides, he suspected Mirsky or the beings at the end of time---were
far more resourceful than even the Hexamon.
They packed their few pieces of luggage. Ram Kikura and Karen
spoke with Kanazawa as Lanier carried the small bags to the shuttle. As
he entered the shuttle doorway, the automated pilot flashed a red pict
before his eyes.
"Speak in English, please," Lanier said, vaguely irritated.
"Our flight has been held," the pilot said. "We are to stay here until
precinct police arrive."
Lanier set the bags down, stunned. "Precinct police? Not terrestrial
police?"
The pilot did not respond. The interior lighting dimmed. The white
interior relaxed and turned an inactive blue.
"Are you still functioning?" Lanier said. There were no further answers.
He looked around the darkened interior, opening and closing his
fists. He stepped down from the doorway, face red with anger, and confronted
Karen.
"I think we're being intercepted," he said. Ram Kikura and Kanazawa
came from the house.
"Problems?" the senator asked.
"Precinct police are coming," Lanier asked.
Kanazawa's face hardened. "Not if I have anything to say about it."
"You probably don't," Ram Kikura said. Kanazawa stared at her as if
she had struck him. "This is very serious, Garry. How did you--"
Karen looked out to sea. Beyond Barber's Point, three aircraft flew

ETERNITY · 221

toward them, sharp white against the billowing gray midmorning
clouds. They banked and approached the house, slowing and hovering,
their flight fields knocking bits of gravel and dirt from the senator's
driveway and yard.
"Ser Lanier," a voice from the craft boomed above them. "Please respond.''
"I'm Garry Lanier." He stood away from the others.
"Ser Lanier, you and your wife are to return to New Zealand immediately.
All Old Natives are being returned to their homelands."
Ram Kikura stepped out beside him. "Under whose orders, and by
what law?" She lowered her voice. "There are no such laws," she muttered.
"By Revised Recovery Act. Direct presidential authority. Please board
your shuttle. Its flight plans have been changed."
"Don't go," Kanazawa said. He lifted his eyes to the three craft and
raised a fist. "I am a senator! I demand a meeting with the president and
the presiding minister!"
The hovering craft did not reply.
"You won't board the shuttle," Ram Kikura said. "We'll all stay here.
They won't dare use physical force."
"Garry, they said all Old Natives were being returned--even those
with permanent residency on the orbiting bodies?" Karen's face resembled
a child's, horribly disappointed, disbelieving.
"I don't know," Lanier said. "Senator, we can do more in our own
territory . . unless we're under house arrest, in which case it doesn't
matter where we are." He turned to Ram Kikura. "I assume you'll go
back to Thistledown."
"Assume nothing," she said tightly. "All rules are off. I certainly
didn't expect this."
"They do this," Karen said, her face red, "and they'll really have a
fight on their hands."'
I doubt that, Lanier thought. The fight is probably over right here and
now. They feel the need to play dirty.
The three craft held their position, implacable. A light sun shower
began to fall. Ram Kikura wiped wet hair from her face. "We shouldn't
just stand here like disobedient children," Lanier said. "Senator, thank
you for listening to us. If we can talk again, I'll--"
"Please board your shuttle now," the voice boomed.
Lanier took his wife's hand. "Good-by," he said to Kanazawa and

222 · GREG BEAR

Ram Kikura. "Oood luck. Let Korzenowski and Olmy know what happened
here."
Ram Kikura nodded.
They boarded the shuttle and the door flowed shut behind them.

FORTY-THREE

The Way, Efficient Gaia

A maze of brilliant green lines sketched themselves in parallel around
them, breaking pattern to draw a harness or cage about the bubble faster
than Rhita could move her eyes to follow. After a brief pause, another
array of lines rose from the surface of the Way, far below, originating at a
single dazzling vertex near one of the stacked disk towers. The lines
connected and the oval bubble descended with alarming rapidity, though
again with no sensation.
Rhita felt faint. There was too much stimulation, too much to absorb.
"I'm going to be sick," she told T~ph0n. The escort took hold of her left
arm--the first time he had touched her. His touch was warm but unconvincing;
through her constricting circle of thought and vision, she was
faintly repelled. Then she was on her knees and past caring.
She haft-expected T~phOn to do something to her, to fix her and banish
the spell of dizziness. But he simply stood behind her, keeping her from
falling on her back. For a moment, she restrained an impulse to heave,
and then shut her eyes tightly, deciding darkness would be better for her
health.
After a time, the dizziness faded and she felt better. "if you are
thirsty," T~ph0n said, "drink this." She opened her eyes and saw a glass
cup of clear liquid in his hand. She took it and sipped cautiously. Water;
nothing more, as far as she could tell. This disappointed her. She had
expected some elixir. Of course, where the escort had found a cup of
water in the bubble was a puzzle .... She imagined him opening a hole
in his body and drawing it out, or perhaps spitting into the glass. She
shut her eyes again, fighting another rising plume of nausea.
Rhita used the railing to regain her feet, waving off his hand, and

ETERNITY · 223

hastily returned the half-full cup. Partly to distract herself from the panorama
outside, partly to subdue her queasiness, she directed her full
attention to what he did with the glass.
He held it. Nothing more. Shivering, she turned back to the view. They
had dropped much closer to the surface now, and flewmguided by the
green lines toward a white tower. Trying to judge scale, she decided the
tower was at least as tall as the Pharos at Alexandreia, and much more
massive. But the scale of the Way dwarfed all structures.
Rhita forced herself to lean her head back and look up. Her neck
protested. Her lips parted and she sighed, despite herself. Far behind and
above them, the triangular prism hung huge and blunt and graceless in
the center of the pearly ribbon of light, like a long black crystal suspended
in milky water.
Something much farther down the throat of the Way, a blinking beacon,
caught her attention. She shielded her eyes, although the tubelight
was not excessively bright, and squinted to focus on a moving speck. It,
too, was within the ribbon of light, but many stadia away, moving rapidly
in their direction. She jerked her neck back as it reached a point just
above them, saw that it was another huge rainbow prism, and realized it
would collide with the first prism. Twisting about, she gasped as the
prisms struck like trains on a rail. For a moment, they were one long
green mass, and then the second prism passed through the first without
damage to either, continuing its travel unimpaired in the opposite direction.
Patrikia had never described anything like that.
"I feel numb," she said, glancing resentfully at T~rph6n.
"It was your choice to see it all," the escort said mildly. "None of me
take this route often, themselves."
She pondered that syntax for a moment, decided the view was less
disturbing than what she suspected T~ph6n meant, and faced forward
again.
There were no obvious entrances to the tower. Nevertheless, the bubble
passed straight th/~ough the rounded wall of a stacked disk, crossing
an enclosed arc-shaped space filled with floating polyhedrons, and then
through another wall. The bubble discarded its panoply of green lines,
and descended along a leaf-green shaft toward what might have been a
perfectly clear lens of glass. Distorted by the lens were sea-blues and sky-blues
and light browns and cloud-grays; all the normal colors of her
home. She held her breath for a moment, hoping against hope that the
nightmare would end.
"This is the gate to Gaia," her escort said. "A prior gate was opened

224 · GREG BEAR


here. Our gates are not usually so constricted in shape, but the prior
geometry takes precedence."

"Oh," Rhita said. Free with information that meant next to nothing to
her.

As they fell toward the surface of the lens, the color of the shaft
reddened, then abruptly shifted to white.

The bubble struck the lens and they fell through. Below lay a coastline,
gray ocean under cloud shadows, blue ocean in patches of brilliant sunlight.

Rhita could hardly breathe. "Where are we?"

"This is your world," T~phtn said.

She knew that; and it was no dream, either. "Where on Gaia?"

"Not far from your home, I understand--I've never visited here in any
self or capacity."

"I want to go to . . ." She looked up and saw blue sky and an indistinct
shimmer over their heads: the gate they had just passed through.
"Can we go to Rhodos?"

T~)phtn considered her request for a moment. "It would not consume
much more energy. This project nears its limits, however. There will have
to be results soon."

"I don't know what you mean."

"This line of investigation. You must provide results soon."

"You know everything I know," Rhita said, near tears, utterly exhausted.
"What can I do for you?"

"Lead us to those who built your clavicle. Give us clues. But--" He
held up his hand as she was about to protest, "I realize you do not know
these things. Still, there is some hope you can reveal more by your actions,
or by your presence the clavicle may be sought by others than
ourselves. Only you can operate it. You still have some value in your
active form."

"What about my . . . companions?"

"They will be brought here if it makes you more comfortable."

"It would," she said. "Please."

TgphOn smiled. "Your forms of social appeasement are wonderful.
Such simplicity masking such aggression. The request is made; they

should meet us at Rhodos, if we do not exceed the energy budget."
"I'm not sure I can stand here much longer. I'm very tired."

T~phtn encouraged her to squat on the platform. "You will not be
clumsy in my eyes," he said.

With a grimace, she not only squatted; she lay down on her stomach,
peering over the edge. "Are we going to Rhodos?" she asked.

ETERNITY · 225

A green line appeared from nearby clouds and spread out before the
bubble into a radiance of grasping curves. In a cage again, the bubble
transported them high above the ocean. She could not tell in which direction
of the compass they were heading.
"Am I the first human you've ever studied?" she asked.
"No," Tgph0n answered. "My selves studied dozens of humans from
this world before investigating your preserved record."
"Do you know everything about us?" Anger was her dominant emotion
now; she bit off her words, hoping the sour edge was not lost to the
escort.
"No. You still have many subtleties, many things to study. But I may
not be allowed to study you to completion. There are higher tasks, and
my number of selves is fully occupied."
"You keep saying that," Rhita said wearily. "My 'selves.' I don't understand
what you mean."
"I am not an individual, I am actively stored--"
"Like grain in a barrel?" Rhita asked sarcastically.
"Like a memory in your own head," T~phOn said. "I am actively
stored in the flaw. We can induce resonances in the flaw and store huge
amounts of information literally worlds of information. Is that clear to
you?"
"No," she admitted. "How can there be more than one of you?"
"Because my patterns, my self, can be duplicated endlessly. I can be merged with other selves of differing designs and abilities. Various effectuators
can be built for us--machines or ships or more rarely, bodies. I
do work when any of my selves are required."
"You're trained to take care of strangers?"
"In a sense. I made a study of beings similar to you when we fought
with them in the Way. I was an individual then biologically based, in shape similar to my original birthform."
Her grandmother had told her what little she knew about the Jart
Wars. To a young girl, they had not meant muchmmeaningless wonders
in a weave of fantastic stories. She wished she had listened more closely.
"What was your original birth-form?"
"Not human, not this shape at all."
"But you did have your own shape once."
"No. Part of me did. I have since been combined with others, stirred
together." He twirled an extended finger slowly. Rhita frowned at him
over her shoulder..4ll my questions keep me from the truth I'll have to
face.

226 · GREG BEAR


"i'm confused again," she said. "You te]] me one thing, then another."

T~ph0n knelt beside her, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. A very
human gesture. Was his face gaining more character?

"Your language doesn't have the right word-groups. All sound-carried
language is inadequate."

"You don't talk to each other," she said.

"Not in words, or using sounds. Not usually, at any rate."

"Would you kill me if you were ordered to?"

"I will not be ordered to kill you or anybody, if by that you mean
destroy your patterns. That is what you would call a crime, a sin."

Enough for the moment. She rolled back on her stomach. Below them,
the ocean stretched blue-green, shallow, with pillars of rock sticking up
like stumps of trees. She did not know this place.

Yet they were supposed to be near Rhodos. "Near" might mean different
things to a Jart; they could speed down the Way and exit through
gates in soap bubbles, after all.

More pillars appeared. Each was covered by a cap of gold that took the
shape of the rocks, as if painted on. No vegetation, no boats in the water,

just this cloud-shadowed and pillar-specked barrenness.
"Could I smell the air?" she asked.
"No," T~ph0n said bluntly.
"Why not?"

"It is no longer healthy for you. There are organisms and biological
machines on your world now that travel by air, too small to see. They are

raising Gaia to a higher level of efficiency."

"Nobody can live out there?"

T~ph6n seemed to commiserate. "Not of your kind," he said.

She felt weak again. They had spread disease around Gaia--was that

what the escort meant? Death and defilement. Nobody could live''Anywhere?
Can people live anywhere?"

"There are no humans on Gaia. They have been stored for further
study."

Now the hatred came. It jerked her head back, squeezing her vitals like
a giant hand, pushing a scream out. She turned on T~ph6n with fists
raised. He made no effort to defend himself. She hit him as hard as she
could, again and again, not weak feminine blows; she had never been
raised to fear defending herself. Her fists deformed his face and her knees
kicked dimples in his clothing. She seemed to be striking bread dough,
warm and yielding. She continued to scream, pitching higher with each
blow, grunting, saliva falling from her lips, eyes half-closed. Again and

ETERNITY · 227
again. Striking, kicking, grabbing him by the neck and sticking her fingers
into what might be flesh.
Tgph6n collapsed on the platform, face misshapen, eyes beaten shut,
not bruised but simply warped, and she kicked him several more times
until she felt a sparkling dark emptiness in her head. Staring up at the
clouds outside the bubble, tears slick on her cheeks, her chin damp with
spit, the rage gone but the legs and arms still trembling, Rhita began to
creep back into control.
She glanced down at the clothed mass that no longer seemed very
human, her expression that of a panicked horse, pupils like pinpricks and
nostrils wide, then grabbed the railing, feeling again as if she might
vomit. Across the barren sea, she saw a low dark green outline above the
horizon and the last hopeful part of her exulted. That was Rhodos; she
would know it anywhere. The bubble was still speeding her toward home.
T.gph6n spoke behind her, voice undistorted by the injuries she had
inflicted. "I may be exceeding my budget now," he said.

FORTY-FOUR
Thistledown City

President Farren Siliom entered the full Nexus chamber and proceeded
to the podium. Olmy sat beside Korzenowski and Mirsky. They listened
to his speech intently. Korzenowski's expression was enigmatic; he knew
the importance of this occasion as well as anybody in the chamber, but he
expressed neither approval nor disapproval.
Mirsky's face was algo bland, but in its blandness, Olmy thought, there
might lie more threat to the Hexamon than ever posed by the Jarts. Olmy
had come to accept Mirsky's story completely, and now even judged the
man if he was a manmincapable of lying. The president doubtless
agreed; Garabedian's confirmation had weighed heavily in that judgment.
Yet now the Nexus.. and Farren Siliom, for irresistible political reasons
--were committing themselves to a course of re-opening. They were committing
political acts that could only serve to slice a gap between Earth
and the orbiting bodies that might never heal.

338 · GREG BEAR

All native Terrestrials were being returned to the Earth, whatever their
status on the orbiting bodies. The Hexamon was entering a period of
Emergency. Under Emergency Laws forgotten since the Jart Wars, the
president was assuming extraordinary powers. He now had one year in
which to carry out his plans; after that time, because of his use of the
Emergency Laws, he would be forbidden from ever holding political of-flee
again.
He was guaranteeing the purity of the vote of the mens publica with a
vengeance. If the vote was negative, he would resign. If it was positive,
Thistledown's sixth chamber could be refurbished, the Hexamon defense
reestablished and the Way reopened within four months.
Korzenowski had been formally ordered to see to the execution of the
will of the mens publica. He could not refuse. To Olmy, he seemed resigned;
perhaps more than resigned. Having been forced this far, Korzenowski
might be shedding the last vestiges of the mask he had worn for
four decades, a mask of interest only in the Recovered Earth and the
Terrestrial Hexamon, the denial of all his genius and accomplishment for
the greater good of his fellows . . .
Shedding, or having the mask ripped from him, it might not matter
which in the long run.
Olmy had few doubts Korzenowski would carry out the Hexamon's
orders efficiently. The Way might be opened sooner even than the president
expected.
What Mirsky would do, he could not tell. Best not to worry about
imponderables.
Meanwhile, within Olmy himself, the Jart was revealing layer upon
layer of everyday Jart life. The flow of information had turned into a true
flood, perhaps a rupture.
Thus far, he was managing to keep up with the tide. Already he was
planning his briefing for the reorganized defense forces.
Soon, following an agreement worked out between the Jart mentality
and his partial, he would allow the Jart access to his eyes and ears. They
could communicate more effectively if they understood each other better.
There were some dangers in that, of course, but none worse than what
he had already survived.
It was more than a time of changes.
The pace had now taken the proportions of revolution. The Sundering
was about to be reversed.
The president finished his presentation, and the dominant coalition of
neo-Geshels applauded and picted complete approval. The president's
Naderite colleagues kept silent.

ETERNITY ·

Korzenowski turned to Mirsky. "My friend, I must do this work,
whatever my beliefs."
Mirsky shrugged and nodded, as if either forgiving or dismissing the
Engineer. "Things will work out," he said with bland nonchalance. He
glanced at Olmy and winked.

FORTY-FIVE

Thistle.down, the Orbiting
Precincts, and Earth

Korzenowski lifted a lump of white dough and listened to its soft hiss in
his hands. The lumps were remains of a failed attempt six years before to
create a gate without the Way; the failure had been quiet, but decisive.
Instead of creating a gate, he had created a new form of matter, quite
inert, possessing no useful properties that he had found, so far. And he
had spent the past six years searching .
He laid the lump back in its pallet of black stone and straightened,
surveying his laboratory, saying farewell. He would not be back for
months, perhaps not ever.
The results of the Hexamon mens publica vote had been tabulated and
broadcast. By a two-thirds majoritymmore than he had expectedmpermanent
re-opening had been mandated.
Farren Siliom had no choice at all now.
Korzenowski activated the robot sentries and gave final instructions to
a partial. Should he not return, and should anyone come visiting, the
partial would be there to greet them.
He was not reluctant to return to the sixth chamber and begin the
refurbishing; in fact, he was eager. There was a small and persistent voice
in him that either echoed or perhaps, in some way not clear, created that
eagerness: the unquiet voice of that which integrated his reassembled self,
the mystery of Patricia Luisa VasqUez.
Korzenowski gathered up his small tools and journals, all that was
neces~ry to begin work on the Way, and ordered the laboratory sealed.

230 · GREG BEAR


"Be good, now," he instructed a cross-shaped sentry as he walked away
from the domes. He paused at the boundary of the compound, frowning.
It was certainly not in his character to address a remote; he treated them
for what they were, useful machines.

Surrounded by kilometer after kilometer of scrub and sand, the Engineer
boarded the tractor that would take him to the train station in the
second chamber city.


Suli Ram Kikura's partial argued persuasively that its original should
be released from house arrest in Axis Euclid. The partial's appeal was
rejected by the City Memory auxiliary courts on the grounds that under
Emergency Laws, all appeals had to be presented by corporeals. This was
so ridiculous it did not even anger her; she was beyond anger, moving
into sadness.

In her apartment, Ram Kikura had known the partial would fail. This
new Hexamon was not above making up the rules as it went along. To
openly object to the re-opening was not so much dangerous now as it was
extremely awkward, impolite in its extended sense of impolitic. For decades,
Hexamon law and politics had been based upon awareness of
boundaries beyond which lay chaos and disaster; the president and presiding
minister, having accurately gauged the true spirit of the orbiting
bodies, were now doing everything within their power to stay within the
boundaries of their duty, yet also carry out the vote of the mens publica
and the advisory of the Nexus. They also seemed grimly determined to
demonstrate the extremes of this mandate, as if they wished to punish the
Hexamon even their ideological partners for this onerous duty.

She was not allowed access to any city memory; that meant she could
not speak with Tapi, who would be born any hour now. She had not been
allowed to speak with either Korzenowski or Olmy. They were on their
best behavior, she had been told, and were cooperating fully with the
Emergency Effort.

She had refused any form of cooperation. Ram Kikura had her own
boundaries, and she was damned if she would step over them.


In New Zealand, spring brought lovely weather and the amusement of
lambs. Lanier tended their small flock of black-faced sheep; Karen helped
when she wasn't lost in her own funk. Unable to work, confined to their
home and valley, she was not doing well.

They worked together, yet kept their distance. Lanier had lost whatever
enthusiasm Mirsky had kindled. He did not know what would happen
next. He didn't much care.

ETERNITY · 231

In his way, he had once adored the Hexamon, and all it had stood for.
Over the past few years, he had seen from a distance the changing character
of the orbiting precincts, the shifting sands of Hexamon politics.
Now, lost in its own needs and regrets, the same Hexamon that had
worked to save the Earth had finally betrayed him, and betrayed Karen

·
	. had betrayed Earth.
Earth's Recovery was not yet finished.
Perhaps now, it would never be done, whatever the assurances broadcast
around the world nightly from the orbiting bodies. He found these
particularly galling; smooth, pleasant, informative, day by day educating
the Earth about progress in the reopening.
Now and then, Lanier heard of Recovery efforts continuing in a desultory
fashion.
He felt old again, looked older.
Sitting on their porch at night, he listened to cool night breezes wafting
through the bushes, thinking thoughts convoluted and fuzzy as balls of
yarn.
I am only a single human being, he told himself. It is right that I should
~vither like a leaf on a tree. I am out of place now. I am finished. I hate
this time, and I do not envy those being borr~
Perhaps the worst part of it all was that for a brief moment, he had felt
the old spark again. With Mirsky, he had thought of fighting the good
fight; he had hoped perhaps here was an agency more powerful and wise
than all of them.
But Mirsky was gone.
Nobody had seen him in months·
Lanier tried to get up out of his seat, to go to bed and sleep and for a
short time lose all these painful thoughts. His hands pushed on the wood,
and his back moved forward, but he could not lift himself; his pants
seemed stuck to something. Puzzled, he leaned over one side of his chair.
Silently, something exploded. A ball of darkness edged in from one side
of his eyes and his head became enormous.
The ball of darkness centered and became a great tunnel. He grabbed
the ends of his chair arms but could not straighten·
"Oh, God," he said. His lips were numb as rubber. Ink spread in the
back of his head. Doors closed with rhythmic slammings on all his memories.
Karen not with him; not where she was. This was the way his
father had gone, younger even than he was now. No pain just the sudden
withdrawal of He had not thought himself so "Oh, God."
The tunnel yawned wide, full of rainbow night.

233 · GREG BEAR


FORTY-SIX


Thistledown


Buried sixty meters within the outer perimeter of the seventh chamber's
southern cap were seven generators, connected by seven field-lined shafts
of pure vacuum to the sixth chamber machinery. The generators had no
moving pans and nothing to do with electrons or magnetic fields; they
worked on far more subtle principles, principles developed by Korzenow-ski
based on mathematical reasoning that had primarily begun with Pa-tricia
Luisa Vasquez in the late twentieth century.

These seven generators had created the stresses on spacetime that had
resulted in the Way. They had not been used for four decades but were
still sound; the vacuum shafts were still operating and completely free of
matter or time-linked energy, that enigmatic byproduct of interaction
between universes.

In the hole leading to the seventh chamber, an observation blister had
been erected and the bore hole pressurized with air. The blister was now
filled with monitoring equipment, giant red spheres studded with silver
and gray cubes the size of a man's head, tracting back and forth within
the blister's shell, silently avoiding their human masters whenever encountered
along their complex paths.

Korzenowski floated where the Way's singularity had once been, his
body precessing like a slow top, gray hair standing out from his hand in
the blister's gentle cooling breezes. With catlike eyes, he observed the
construction on the southern cap of the seventh chamber, radiating for
kilometers outward from the bore hole, huge black concentric rings of
virtual panicle stimulators and their reservoirs of graviton-stabilized tritium
metal. These would not be brought into play until after the opening
of the Way; the stimulators could be used as weapons, and were capable
of stripping the Way clear of matter for a distance of several hundred
kilometers, giving the Hexamon its first "beachhead," should it need one.
Soon, the traction beam radiation shields would be in place to focus the

ETERNITY ·

backwash of disrupted matter that the stimulators might create along the
same path as the stimulator beams.
Fearsome weapon, fearsome defenses .
Fearsome opponents.
At rest, Korzenowski's thoughts wandered. He used his two hours of
daily inactivity to put the events of the past few months in perspective.
The blister was deserted but for him and the machines.
In two more weeks, the Way generators would be ready for tests. Virtual
universes of fractional dimensions continua with little more than
abstract reality would be created in deliberately unstable configurations.
The night sky over Earth would sparkle with their deaths, as particles
and radiations unknown in this continuum or any stable continuum-left
their tracks in the protesting void.
In three weeks, if the first tests went well, Korzenowski would order
the creation of a torus, an independent and stable universe turned in
upon itself. He would then dismantle the torus and observe how it faded;
the manner of its demise could give clues as to the state and superspatial
location of the Way's sealed terminus.
Over the next few months, they would "fish" for that terminus. A
temporary virtual universe the size and shape of the Way, but of finite
length, would be generated, would be encouraged to merge with the
terminus, and would create an attractive bridge between the generators
and their now-independent progeny.
Ramon Rita Tiernpos de Los Angeles
Korzenowski shut his eyes and frowned deeply. He could not help but
know the source of these increasingly frequent interruptions and what
they signified. When Patricia Vasquez's mystery had been transferred to
his assembled partials, to bind them and give them a core, somehow
memory and drive had been transferred as well. In theory, that was
unlikely. But Vasquez had been in a highly disturbed state, and Korzenowski,
unusually shattered, .had not been a textbook model for the
transfer process.
He did not fight the impulses. For the moment, they did not work
opposite to his wishes, and they did not disturb him unduly. But the
reckoning would have to come soon. He would need to submit to major
personality restructuring.
That was risky and he could not take risks now, central as he was to
the Hexamon's effort.
There, he told himself after a few minutes had passed. Quiet. Peace.
Integratior~
"Konrad," came a voice from the blister's bore hole entrance. Korze-

234 · GREG BEAR

nowski grimaced and turned to face the voice. It was Olmy; they hadn't
talked in weeks. He spread his arms and slowed his precessing, then
tracted outward from the center.
They pitted intimate greetings and embraced each other in the near-weightlessness.
"My friend," Korzenowski said.
"I've disturbed your free time," Olmy said, pitting polite concern.
"Yes, but no matter. I'm glad to see you."
"Have you heard?"
"Heard what?"
"Garry Lanier suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage."
"He wasn't protected--" Korzenowski's face paled. "He's dead?"
"Very nearly. Karen discovered him a few seconds after it happened
and immediately called Christchurch."
"His damned Old Native pride!" Korzenowski exclaimed. The anger
was not just his own.
"They reached him within ten minutes. He's alive, but he needs recon-structionmthe
brain is extensively damaged."
Korzenowski closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. He did not
approve of forced medication, but under the circumstances, he doubted
the Hexamon would give Lanier much choice in his treatments. "They did this to him," he said bitterly. "We've all had a hand in it . . ."
"There's guilt enough to go around," Olmy said. "If Karen consents to
reconstruction, most of the damage can be reversed . . . But he'll need
medical aid that he's always been on record as refusing."
"Have you told Ram Kikura?"
Oimy shook his head. "She's being kept under house arrest, held in a
communications null. Besides, my own leash is short."
"So is mine," Korzenowski said, "but I can swing wide enough to hit
some influential people."
"I appreciate that," Olmy said. 'I'm afraid my political status is uncertain
at the moment."
"Why?"
"I've refused to take command of the Emergency Defense Effort."
"You'd be the best choice," Korzenowski said. "Why refuse?"
Olmy smiled and shook his head.
Korzenowski, stating into his eyes, felt a small tingle of sympathy. He's not alone, either. But he couldn't decide what made him feel that
way, or what the feeling implied.
"I'll explain later. It's not the time now. I think I'll be hard to reach
for a while, however." The last message he pitted in tight-beam so that

ET E R N I TY · 235


only Korzenowski could receive it. "If you need to tell me anything,
please . . ."

Korzenowski examined Olmy for a moment, then pitted, "I'll feel very
alone without you to speak to, should I need you . . . or Garry, or Ram
Kikura."

Olmy nodded understanding. "Perhaps we'll all meet again. Star, Fate
and Pneuma willing." He tracted swiftly back to the bore hole.

Korzenowski floated alone once again in the blister, surrounded by
wheeling machines, red spheres and gray cubes. No use trying to rest now,
he told himself, and returned to work.


FORTY-SEVEN


Earth


Lanier struggled on the lip of a well. Every time he relaxed his hands and
waited to fall, somebody held on to'him. He could not die. He began to
resent being saved. So long as he was alive, he was condemned to suffer
the sour old-party taste in his mouth, and feel the constant disruption in
his stomach and bowels. In a moment of lucidity, he tried to remember
who he was and could not.

Light exploded around him. He seemed bathed in supernal glory. At
the same moment, his mind itched. And he heard the first clear words in
what seemed a very long time: "We've done all we can without reconstruction.''

He pondered those words, so familiar and yet alien.
"He wouldn't want [hat."
Karen.

"Then there's nothing more we can do."

"Will he become conscious again?"

"He's conscious now, in a way. He's probably listening to us."
"Can he speak?"

"I don't know. Try him."

"Garry? Can you hear me?"

Yes why not just let me die Karen No there's "work to do."

235 · GREG BEAR

"Gantt? What work?"
is the Recovery over
". . recovery over . "
"Garry, you've been very ill. Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"I couldn't just let you die. I called the Hexamon medical center in
Christchurch. They've done all they can for now . . ."
He still couldn't see, couldn't tell whether his eyes were open or closed;
the glory had faded to brown darkness.
" . don't let them."
"What?"
"Don't let them."
"Garry, you tell me what to do."
She was speaking Chinese. She sounded very unhappy. He was making
her unhappy.
"What's reconstruction?"
Another voice interposed, speaking English. "Ser Lanier, you can't
recover fully without reconstruction. We send tiny mobile medical devices
into your brain and they help repair nerve tissue."
"No new body."
"Your body is fine, such as it is. It's your brain that's damaged."
"No privilege."
"What's he mean?" the voice asked somebody else. Karen responded.
"He doesn't want any privileged medical attention."
"Ser Lanier, this is standard procedure. You meanm" voice fading,
addressing somebody else, perhaps Karen again, "--he refuses implant
preservation?"
"He always has."
"None of that involved here, Ser. Straight medicine. You haven't refused
medical help before."
No, I haven't. Long life.
"Although I must say, if you'd come in to Christchurch, we could
have told you this was coming on. We could have prevented it."
"Are you from orbiting bodies?" Lanier asked slowly. He opened his
eyes, could feel the eyelids open, but still saw nothing.
"I was trained there, Ser. But I'm from Melbourne, born and bred.
Can't you hear the Stfine?"
In fact, he could now; the thick Australian accent.
"All fight," he said. Did he have any choice? Was he too afraid of
dying, after all? He could hardly think, much less think straight. He
simply did not want to be responsible for Karen's pain.

ETERNITY · 237

Karen wept somewhere far away. The sounds faded and the brownness
darkened to black. Before losing all consciousness, he heard another
voice, this one with a Russian accent.
"Garry. More help coming. Get well, my friend."
Mirsky.

FORTY-EIGHT

Thistledown

Olmy had decided to disappear when it had become apparent they were
going to offer him the command position. There was more risk than he
was willing to take in harboring the Jart and standing at the center of the
Hexamon's most sensitive activities.
After speaking with Korzenowski, he returned to his apartment below
the Nexus chambers, then to his old apartment in Alexandria, and
cleaned both of all traces. He then prepared to deactivate his library link.
He hesitated. Before severing all ties, he had one last duty to perform. He
called up his favorite tracer and inquired as to the whereabouts of his
son.
Thistledown, the tracer quickly replied.
"incarnate?"
"Successfully born and now receiving body indoctrination."
Neither he nor Ram Kikura had been there. . . Guilt and remorse
were not emotions implants were made to control. "Can I speak to him
outside of open channels?"
The tracer did not ~espond for several seconds. "Not directly. But he
has set up a clandestine data account that can only be accessed by you."
Olmy smiled. "Access it."
The account contained only a single message. "Accepted for defense
service. First duty in a few days. Success to us all, Father."
Olmy read the message several times, and viewed the accompanying
pict signifying love, respect and admiration. Without thinking, he
reached out to touch the pict. His fingers passed through it.
"I have a message for my son," he said. "And a request."

238 · GREG BEAR
When the message was in Tapi's account, Olmy withdrew the tracer
and shut down the terminal.
The time had come to hide himself where he was certain he could not
be located. Stockpiling the few resources he needed, he moved them into
a maintenance worker's temporary quarters in a service tunnel near the
north cap, third quarter.
He was not yet ready to present his information to the Hexamon; there was much more work to do. As yet, he had nothing that might be strategically
useful; he had learned a great deal about Jart society, but nothing
significant about Jart science and technology. There was little chance this
Jart carried detailed information about such things; that would have been
foolish in the extreme, given its mission. But Olmy still felt the need for a
few more weeks of investigation . .
In truth, he was losing himself in the study. He saw the trap his own
trap, not the Jart's--and carefully avoided it; he could bury himself in his
own head and simply process the information his partial passed on, for
months at a time, returning to the outside world only to take his nutrient
supplements and perhaps check on progress with the reopening.
He had never been given the opportunity to study an enemy so closely,
so intimately; and studying one's enemy was like examining a skewed
mirror of one's self. In time, playing against the strengths and weaknesses
of an opponent, one could become a kind of negative impression, like a
superimposed mold. And vice versa.
Olmy no longer despised the Jart. He sometimes thought himself close
to understanding it.
They had worked out a kind of psychological pidgin that allowed each
to think in the other's manner, within a common bond of language. They
had begun exchanging personal information no doubt carefully selecting
and pruning, but still offering each other personal insights. Olmy told
the Jart of his background, his natural birth and conservative upbringing,
the Exiling of the orthodox Naderites from the second chamber city; he
did not tell of Korzenowski's stored partials and his centuries-long conspiracy.
And through the Jart, Olmy learned:

A civilized planet is a black planet. No waste and no chance of
detection. We hide here and prepare ourselves for service in the
IZ~by. There are many planets like this, where expediters in and
out of service wait for their assignments. {I} was brought into
service on such a world, lovely dark against the stars; {I} do
not know what a natural birth is. { We} have been brought into

ET E R N ITY · 239

service by duty expediters for as long as {my} memory is informed;
at creation, {we} are supplied with knowledge necessary
to {our} immediate duties. Reassignments bring further
knowledge; {we} do not forget our past assignments, but place
them in reserve, that they may inform {us}in emergency later.

Olmy told the Jart about human childhood: education, entertainment,
choosing and receiving one's first implants, the libraries; he did not tell
the Jart about the Thistledown or what it was, and he carefully monitored
his visual information so that the Jart could not see the starship's
gently curving chambers. He tried to provide the illusion that he, too,
had been born and raised on a planet.
In time, he hoped to be able to penetrate the Jart's analogous lie~.
After all, he was the captor; he had the upper hand. Perhaps later, when
he had become completely sure of his mastery, he would tell the Jart
nothing but truth, and all of the truth.
For the moment, however, they circled around complete disclosure..
Outside, the Hexamon worked steadily toward its goals. Olmy sometimes
accessed a public library terminal away from his hideout, using his
tracer to penetrate Hexamon propaganda, which had become oppressively
thick. The Hexamon seemed to be hiding from itself, guilty for its
actions. It needed to convince itself again and again.
Olmy was not encouraged by such subterfuge. It led to blunders and
bad judgment. All of his worst suspicions and fears about the current
Hexamon leadership were being realized.
After the mens publica mandate, the re-opening was on schedule. The
defenses were nearly complete. The Way could be reconnected within a
month, perhaps less; citizens on the orbiting bodies were enthusiastic but
nervous.
On Earth, the Terrestrial Senate had been placed in emergency recess.
The senators and corpreps were sequestered, as were a number of territorial
governors.
Ram Kikura was still kept under house arrest and in a communications
null in Axis Euclid.
Olmy received this information with grim resignation. There had always
been the potential; now the potential was actual. The reopening
had become an obsession, and nothing would stand in its waymnot even
the honor and tradition of a thousand years.

240 · GREG BEAR

In time, he might come to respect the Sarts, with their single-minded
purity, more than his own people, mired in hypocrisy and confusion.
He returned to his study.

FORTY-NINE

Earth

"Was Pavel Mirsky here?" Lanier asked as Karen turned him over and
checked the flotation fields beneath him. She straightened and gave him
an odd look, puzzled and irritated at once.
"No," she said. "You've been dreaming."
He swallowed and nodded: probably so. "How long have I been
asleep?"
"It wasn't sleep," she said. "You've been reintegrating. They added the
last repair microbes to your blood two days ago. You almost died . ."
She rolled him back onto the fields. "About two months ago."
"Oh."
She stood above him, face stern. "You almost did it."
He smiled weakly. "I don't remember much about it. Was I trying to
find you, when it happened?"
"You were sitting on your chair on the porch. It was cold outside. You
· . . I found you tipped over in the chair." She shook her head slowly.
"Sometimes I hated you. Sometimes . . ."
"I didn't know it was coming," he said.
"Garry, your father."
"I'm not him."
"You acted as if you wanted to die."
"Maybe I did," he said quietly. "But I didn't want to lose you."
"You wanted me to go with you, perhaps?" She sat on the side of the
bed, on the edge of the soft purple sleep fields. "I'm not ready for that."
"No."
"You look old enough to be my father."
"Thanks."
She took his jaw in one hand and gently twisted his head to one side,

ET E R N I TY · 241

touching a bump at the base of his neck. "They put a temporary implant
in you. You can remove it later if you want. But right now, you're a ward
of the Hexamon."
"Why? They lied to me . . ." He lifted his head and reached up,
feeling the tiny bump himself. So there it is~ I'm angry.., very angry.
,4nd I'm relieved, too.
"The Hexamon wants you alive. Senator Ras Mishiney has been made
the temporary administrator of New Zealand and North Australia . .
he ordered you be kept alive, and that an implant be installed whatever
your feelings, so his job won't be made any harder. You're a hero, Garry.
If you die, who knows what Old Natives will imagine?"
"You let them do it?"
"They didn't tell me until after. They didn't give me any choice." Her
voice softened, and her lip began to tremble. "I told them what you
wanted. They did what they said they'd do at first, and then Ras
Mishiney came . . . a sympathy visit, he said." She wiped her palm
across a damp cheek. "He ordered them to put in the implant. He said it
must stay until the crisis is over."
Lanier lay back on the fields and closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I thought you were dead." She stood, then sat down again and
covered both her cheeks with her hands, eyes squeezed tight shut. "I
thought we could never resolve . . . what . "
He reached up to her arm but she shrugged his hand away.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, reaching for her arm again. She did not
refuse his touch this time. "I've been selfish."
"You've been a man- of principle," she said. "I respected you and I was
afraid for myself."
"A man of principle can be a selfish man," Lanier said.
She shook her head and took his hand in hers. "You made me feel
guilty. After all we've done for the Earth, not to share. . its handicaps.''
He looked at the bedroom window. It was night. "What's been happening?''
he asked.
"They're not telling us everything. I think they're close to reopening."
He tried to get out of bed, but the long convalescence had weakened
him, and he gave up the effort. "I'd like to talk to the administrator," he
said. "If I'm important enough to keep alive, maybe I'm important
enough to talk to."
"He won't talk to any of us. Not really tallc He's full of platitudes. I've
come to hate them so, Garry."

242 · GREG BEAR

What a shock it must have been, Lanier thought, sitting on the porch,
wrapped in blankets even though the air was warming. Summer. The
Earth was going through its cycles, raw and uncontrolled and beautiful
and ugly. What a shock to come from the perfect, controlled, rational
environment of the lZ~y and descend like angels into the squalor of the
past.
He lifted his notepad and scrolled the display through what he had
written. Scowling, dissatisfied, he deleted a few paragraphs of obfuscation
and tried to remember the words he had just pieced together in his head.
They don't need us, he wrote. Everything they need is in the Stone--the
Thistledown and when they re-open the V~y, once again they'll have
more than they need·
"If not more than they can handle," he murmured, fingers trembling
slightly above the notepad keys.
Lanier had decided the time had come to write down all he had lived
through. If he was to be kept isolated from the play of history, then he
could record what he had already experienced. His memory seemed
sharper after the reconstruction, a sensation he luxuriated in while at the
same time experiencing more than a twinge of guilt. This was something
he could do, under arrest or not; in time, perhaps what he recorded
would influence people. If there was any profundity left in him.
What a shock, he began again, to find the past full of people who knew
nothing of psychological medicine, people with minds as bent and warped
and distorted (he deleted bent and warped) as nature and circumstance could (he stopped, having written himself into a corner. Started over.) · . . minds as distorted as the bodies of people in ancient times, gnomish,
shriveled, withered, ugly, clinging to their ragged personalities, cherishing
their warps and diseases, fearful of some mandated, standard mental
health that might make them all alike. People too ignorant to see that
there are as many varieties of healthy thinking as there are diseased; perhaps
more· Freedom lay in control and correction, the newly formed Terrestrial
Hexamon knew, yet what a task lay before them! Tricks and subterfuge,
outright lies, were necessary in a constant struggle against the
ravages of the Death as well as the causes of that disaster. And just as I was
broken on the wheel of ministering to this misery, so the Hexamon in time
wished for...
He paused. What? A return to the good old days? To the world they
were in fact more familiar with, more comfortable with, despite their
philosophies and stated goals? The Sundering had been the decision of a
moment, in Hexamon time, just as now the re-opening was. Spikes in the

ETERNITY · 243

smooth graph of Hexamon history. Points of cataclysmic fracture in a
glassy matrix.
All very human, despite the centuries of Talsit and psychological medicine.
Even a healthy, sane culture, with healthy, sane individuals, could
not rise above strife and discord; it was simply more polite, less senselessly
destructive and horrifying.
Karen had said she hated them now; Lanier could not bring himself to
share that emotion. Whatever his anger, his disappointment, he still admired
them. They had finally admitted to a fact that had been obvious all
along. Humans of the past Old Natives could never comfortably mesh
with humans of the future. Certainly not in a matter of decades, and not
with the reduced resources available.
With a suspicious eye, he tracked a white speck flying above the green
hills to the south, watching it pass behind trees and out of his line of
sight. He glanced at his watch. "Karen," he called. "They're coming."
She pushed through the screen door, carrying a tray of repotted plants.
"Supplies?"
"I'd guess," he answered.
"How kind." She didn't sound bitter now; they were resigned to being
pushed out of the way. "Maybe we can coax some straight news out of
whomever it is."
The small shuttle came to a frozen hover above the small square of
garden and grassy yard in front of the cabin. A traction field touched the
ground, extending from the craft's nose hatch, and a young neoGeshel
homorph in black descended. They had never seen him before. Lanier
gathered up his blankets and threw them over the chair arm, standing
with notepad in hand.
"Hello," the young man said. He seemed oddly familiar in manner if
not in looks. "My name is Tapi Ram Olmy. Ser Lanier?"
"Hello," Lanier said. "My wife, Karen."
The young man smiled. "I've brought supplies, as scheduled." He
glanced around, still smiling but apparently ill at ease. "Pardon my awkwardness.
I'm a newb6rn. I passed my incarnation exams three months
ago. The real world is . . . well, it's vivid."
"Would you like to come in?" Karen invited.
"Yes. Thank you." As he climbed up the steps to the porch, he removed
a palm-length silver wand from a pocket in his black suit and ran
his finger along a glowing green line on one side. "Your house isn't
monitored," he said. "There are only monitors on the perimeter."
"They don't care what we say or do," Karen said, no edge in her voice,
only weary acquiescence.

244 · GREG BEAR


"Well, that's an advantage. I bring a package from my father."
"You're Suli Ram Kikura's and Olmy's son?" Lanier asked.

"That I am. Mother nobody can reachwthey're very afraid of her. But
she'll be free soon. My father is hiding, not because they're after him.

· . I don't know why he's hiding, truly. But he thought you might like
a clear, clean report of what's happening on Thistledown." The young
man looked solemn. "I could get in a fair amount of trouble. But my
father took chances in his career, too."

"They designed well," Lanier said, translating a Hexamon picted compliment
into English.

"Thank you." Ram Olmy handed the old-fashioned memory cubes to
Lanier. "You can probably spend a few weeks reading what's in there. No
picts, just text. Father had it translated from picts where necessary. I can
give a summary . "

"Please," Lanier said. "Have a seat." He indicated a wingedback chair
near the hearth. Ram Olmy sat, clasping his hands in front of him.

"The Engineer is going to create a number of virtual universes tonight.
To fish out the end of the Way. I think you'll be able to see the side
effects. It's going to be spectacular."

Lanier nodded, not sure he was up to spectacular wonders just now.

"The defenses are in place. They haven't been tested, but soon. I'm

assigned to one of the test crews."

"Good luck."

"I appreciate your irony, Ser Lanier," Ram Olmy said. "If all goes
well, the Way will be reconnected in a week, and the first test opening will

be within two weeks. I hope to be there when it's opened."

"Should be quite a moment."

Lanier hadn't taken a seat. Karen stood behind him. Ram Olmy
looked up at them, eyes calm but body still not at ease. He moved his
hands to the chair arms and then clasped them again. Like a young colt,
Lanier thought.

"I have a message from Konrad Korzenowski, too," Ram Olmy said.
"Ser Mirsky hasn't been seen anywhere. The Engineer told me to tell
you, 'The avater has fled.'"

Lanier nodded. Then he turned and said to Karen, "We're making the
boy uncomfortable. Let's sit." They pulled up chairs. Karen offered refreshments,
but Ram Olmy demurred.

"I'm built on slightly different lines than my father. Not as efficient,
but I don't need Talsit devices." He held out his hands, obviously proud
of his new material form.

ETERNITY · 245

Lanier smiled. Tapi reminded him of Olmy, and that memory was
pleasant. Karen seemed less taken by this breath of Hexamon wind.
"Why is your father in hiding?"
"I think he's expressing some kind of disapproval, but I truly don't
know. We're all embarrassed by your isolation here. I don't know of
anybody in the defense and protection league who approves of the way
Earth's being treated . "
"But you see it as a necessity," Karen said.
Ram Olmy regarded her with steady, clear eyes. "No, Ser Lanier. I
don't. The Emergency Laws put responsibility for decisions on the president
and Special Nexus Council. They give us the orders. Disobeying the
orders, under these same rules, means loss of incarnation privileges and
direct downloading to city memory. That would put me back where .I
started."
"How did you pull this duty?" Lanier asked.
"Excuse me . . pull?"
"Get this duty."
"I requested,it. Nobody saw anything to object to. I said you were
friends of my father, and of the Engineer, and that I could carry a message
from the Engineer to you."
"They aren't secluded?"
"No. My father's hiding, but he hasn't broken any laws. They can't
make you take command positions. That would be ridiculous."
"Korzenowski volunteered?" Karen asked, her interest growing.
"I'm not sure what his motives are. Sometimes he seems quite strange,
but he's getting his work done. So I hear. The Special Nexus Committee
can't control all communication links; there's considerable gossip on
Thistledown. I see him very seldom, and his partial gave me this message.''
"We appreciate your bringing it to us," Lanier said.
"My pleasure. My mother and father mentioned you often. They said
you were among the best Old Natives. I also wanted to say . . .' He
stood abruptly. "I have to be getting back now. The supplies are unloaded.
When this is over, when the Way is re-opened, the Hexamon feels
it can finally have the resources to finish our work on Earth. I look
forward to that, and I'd like to volunteer now, to work with you on any
project you might lead. Both of you. It would be my honor, and both my
mother and father would be very pr°ud.''
Lanier shook his head slowly. "This will never be over," he said. "Not
in the way the Hexamon imagines."

245 · GREG BEAR


"Mirsky's warning?" Ram Olmy asked.

"Perhaps. And abuse of trust," Lanier replied. "The Hexamon will
have a lot of patching to do."

Ram Olmy sighed. "We've all listened to the testimony. Nobody
knows what to make of it. The Special Nexus Committee says it's a
forgery."

Lanier's face flushed. "You must have your mother's and father's
brains, if they mixed you together out of their own personalities. What do
you think?"

"He's caught up in the adventure, Garry," Karen said. Her attitude
had softened. "Don't be harsh on him."

"Mirsky was no sham," Lanier continued. "He was here, and he convinced
the Engineer, and your father, I'm fairly sure, and your mother.
His warning was serious."

"Where is he, then, Ser?"

"I don't know," Lanier said.

"I'd be interested in meeting him, if he returns."

"If he returns. What if someone or something more powerful than
Mirsky takes notice of the Hexamon's intransigence?" Lanier stood
slowly, more agitated than he wished to appear. "Thank you for visiting
us. Tell whomever is interested that we are well. I am recovering. Our
attitudes have not changed. If anything, they have hardened. Tell your
superiors this for us."

"Yes, Ser. If the occasion arises." He thanked Karen for her hospitality,
locked eyes with Lanier, and nodded. "Good-by."

"Star, Fate and Pneuma be with us all," Lanier said.

They escorted the young man to the front yard, where remotes had
finished the unloading and were now tracting back into their holds in the
craft's underside. Ram Olmy boarded and the craft rose quickly, spinning
about to head west against the fading skyglow.

Karen put her arm around him and kissed his cheek. "Well said."

"He seems to be a good fellow," Lanier said. "Still, he's one of them.
Heart and soul."

"His father's son, more than his mother's."

Lanier kissed the top of her head. Twilight was blending into night. He
looked up expectantly and shivered. "What magic is the old wizard going
to work this evening?"

"I'll bring out the blankets," Karen said. "And the heater."

For a moment, standing alone in the yard with the stars coming out
above him, Lanier did not know whether it was good or horrible to be

ETERNITY · 247

alive. He could not stop the gooseflesh from rising on his arms. This is
real, he reminded himself. I'm awake.
Soon, Korzenowksimand perhaps a part of Patricia Vasquez would
be playing with the ghosts of universes. Karen returned and they prepared
a place on the grass.
"I wouldn't miss this for anything," she said softly. "They're bastards,
but they're brilliant bastards."
Lanier nodded, clutching her hand.
"I love you," he said, tears coming to his eyes.
She lay her head against his shoulder.

Early the next morning, on his notepad, Lanier wrote: We saw thepoint
of Thistledown low to the northwest, soft and ill-defined. The night was
warm and my from bones did not ache; my mind is more clear than it's been
in recent memory, shockingly clear. I had my Karen lying next to me. We
were among the few on Earth who knew what to expect this evening---or
did we?
We owe them so much, these determined angels, our distant children. A
lump came to my throat, simply watching the Thistledown--the Stone--ascend
a few degrees. I feared for them. What if they made a mistake and
destroyed themselves? What if Mirsky's gods at the end of time decide to
intervene? Where are we then?
Straight beams of clear white light fanned out from the Stone and
crossed three quarters of the sky, reaching tens of thousands of kilometers
into space, pointing away from Earth. I do not know what they were; not
light alone, surely, for lasers or some similar phenomenon could only be
reflected by dust, and there is not so much dust in space. We sat almost as
ignorant as savages. The lines of light faded abruptly, and for a moment
there was nothing but the stars and the Stone, brighter now, higher in the
northwest. I thought perhaps Korzenowski had thrown a rough sketch
across the heavens, and this was all we would see.
But from the point of the Stone, across the entire night sky, there unfurled
a gorgeous curtain of violet and blue, taking seconds to reach from
horizon to horizon. Within the curtain glowed indistinct patches of red,' it
took us several seconds to see, within the unfocused patches, images of the
crescent moon, somehow lensed to two or three dozen locations.
The curtain then shredded, like rotten fabric washed apart by a river
current. Where it had been, there now curled lazy arms of green, the
tentacles of a monstrous jellyfish spiraling and vibrating. There was an
organic ugliness in this that made me want to turn away; I was witnessing

248 · GREG BEAR


some unnatural birth, with the attendant gore and mystery; space being
distorted or used in ways it is not accustomed to.

Then all dimmed and the stars returned, clear and sharp, undisturbed.
F~tatever happened now, could not be seen by ua


FIFTY


Thistledown


Korzenowski looked down on the sixth chamber through the blister covering
the northern cap bore hole, fingers working restlessly on a small die
of nickel-iron. Beside him, the president floated with arms folded, in
ceremonial robe and cap resembling a Mandarin lord. He had come from
a special Nexus session to observe the second and third series of tests;
now they waited to see how the sixth chamber machinery would react.

A small plume of smoke rose from the third quarter; already, aircraft
hovered around the damage site.

"You know what that is?" Farren Siliom inquired.

"Fire in an inertial control radiation duct," Korzenowski said, paying
the president little attention. His eyes were on the key points in the sixth
chamber, points where any kind of pseudo-spatial backscatter could blow

out huge sections of the valley floor. "It's a minor problem."
"The tests are still successful?"
"Successful," Korzenowski acknowledged.

"How much longer before we make the connection?"

"Nine days," Korzenowski said, giving himself some leeway. "The
machinery needs time to reach equilibrium. We need to let the looped
virtual universe dissolve. Then the path will be clear and we can reconnect.''

The president pieted a symbol of unenthusiastic acceptance. "Neither I
nor the presiding minister are comfortable with this," he tight-beamed at
Korzenowski. "We're all forced to do things we'd rather not do, eh?"

Korzenowski glanced at the president with cat-square eyes. You've
made the whole process Draconian as a kind of revenge, he thought. "At

ETERNITY · 249

least we'll be going home," he said flatly. "Back to a life we may have been ill-advised to leave in the first place."
Farren Siliom did not respond to this unconcealed self-criticism.
Korzenowski had been the inspiration for just that action.
The web had become too tangled to ever separate single strands.

FIFTY-ONE

Thistledown

What is Pavel Mirsky?
Olmy stopped his exercises on the barren quarters floor and immediately
swung up a second level of barriers; the question had come unbidden,
and not through his partial or the established feed; it was not a stray
thought or a wandering echo.
For several minutes, he stood rigid in the middle of the floor, face
blank, trying desperately to locate the source of the query. It was not
repeated; but as he checked each connection between his implants and
natural mind, he realized repetition would not have been necessary. Information
had been drawn smoothly and with very few traces of entry
from his original, natural memory.
The barriers had been breached, yet seemed intact.
The room was bleak enough to serve as a tomb. For an instant, he
contemplated blowing up his heart and the implants, but realized he
could not. The voluntary connections had been severed. Now, only if
hidden detectors in the implants were disturbed would he die. Where was
the partial? Had everything been absorbed--including the secrets of his
safeguards?
Is Pavel Mirsky a human like yourself, or is he command from another
concern?
Olmy locked down his thoughts, hoping against hope that not all had
been lost. He did not have the slightest idea what had happened, or how
extensive the breach was.
I am finding much hidden information that provides missing color and
form, the voice continued. It felt very similar to his own internal voice.

250 · GREG BEAR


That told Olmy that his natural subpersonalities, what the Hexamon
psychologists called "functionary agents," had been suborned.

Olmy felt like the captain of a ship whose crew has been suddenly and
inexplicably possessed by demons. The "bridge" had been peaceful until
just now; but peering below decks told a quite different story.

You are not command nor are you duty expediter. ,/Ire you command
oversight in temporary physical form? No. We see you are a simple expediter
given extraordinary privileges. No. Even more astonishing. You have
taken these privileges upon yourself

Olmy was fully aware he had made a horrible mistake. All of his
safeguards had been sidestepped, so far; he had severely underestimated
the Jart.

This Pavel Mirsky. There is nothing like him in your available memory.
Nor in associated memory, nor in memory we have been given permission
to access. Pavel Mirsky is unique and surprising. What is his message?

For a moment, Olmy thought that to allow the Jart access to this
seeming irrelevancy could give him a chance to recover control and kill
himself. Olmy prepared and released a summary of Mirsky's story.

The Jart's control could not be shaken. As Olmy's sense of helplessness
and horror grew, its cool, speculative fascination with Mirsky increased.

Mirsky is no longer of your rank and order. He is not human, yet once
was; he returns with a message but you do not know how he returnx
Mirsky has been awaited by us, yet appears to you; perhaps it has appeared
to our kind also, but unknown to you.

Mirsky is messenger/expediter from descendant command.

Olmy tried to control his panic and relax. The situation had happened
so quickly, with no warning, that some time passed before he fully realized
their situations had reversed. He was the prisoner now, his personality
fragmented and completely under the Jart's power. What little of his
mind was left to him--he quickly scanned his available natural memories
and found most of them blocked by Jart inhibitors could hardly understand
the Jart's last clear statement.

The Jart found Mirsky's presence very significant.

Your struggle is illuminating. I spread faster with each status search you
make.

"I acknowledge your control," Olmy said.

Good. You fear what I will do to your kind. Harm to your kind was my
original instruction, but it is superseded now. News of the appearance ora
messenger from descendant command is far more important than our
conflicts.

"How did you break through the barriers?"

ETERNITY ·


Inappropriate curiosity./Ire you not fascinated by messenger Mirsky?

Olmy buried a fragment of himself that wanted to scream. "Yes, fascinated
and puzzled. But how did you break through my barriers?"

Your understanding of certain algorithms is incomplete./I flaw of your
kind's development, perhaps. I have been in control an indefinite but significant
number of periods now.

"You've been playing with me . . ."

Does a failed > amateur < deserve greater consideration? You do not fit
in a rank that we acknowledge respect for. Nevertheless, I will accord you
the respect you have accorded me.

Had he been integrated, Olmy knew this would have been the lowest
point of his long life. As it was, he felt a distant, free-floating misery, like
a soul disembodied in some hideous afterlife, powerless to change or

move.

It will soon be possible to give this important information to command
oversight, the Jart said. If you help, integration of your personality parts
will be allowed, and you may witness this important event with full facul-tie~

"I will not cooperate if you seek to harm my people."

No harm to hosts of messenger. You have been recognized and by our
law must be spared from storage and packaging. You are now expediters of
descendant command.

Olmy tried to think that through. The risk was too great to even begin
to think the Jart meant Hexamon no harm . . It had admitted that its
primary mission had been harm. "What do you want to do?"

We must return to the F~y. Command oversight must be informed.
Olmy knew he had no real choice. He had been hopelessly outmatched;
he could not help but wonder whether, in time, the Jarts would
have outmatched them all. Or was that a serf-serving underestimation of
his own, uniquely personal failure?

252 · GREG BEAR

FIFTY-TWO

Efficient Gaia

Rhita felt like a caged animal. She did not want to know the truth;
Rhodos was approaching rapidly, and it would reveal the truth. She was
trapped in the bubble with a bent and distorted monstrosity, some unlikely
battered doll of a human being. She heard it standing up behind
her and dared not turn to look at it. Knuckles white on the railing, she
closed her eyes, then opened them again, telling herself, This is what you
wanted. To see it all.
But her reservoirs of strength had long since been tapped out. She
opened her mouth to speak, and closed it to mute a shriek. Shaking her
head, she bent over the railing and flung herself back, straining her arms
and hands, wild with the grief she did not yet completely feel, but soon
would, as surely as this was Gaia, the real world, her home.
Rhodo's commercial harbor was visible, and the long bridge of land to
the fortress of Kambys~s across from Patrikia's house that overlooked
the old military harbor. The city of Rhodos itself was gone, bare brown
dirt spread flat in its place. "Where is it?" she breathed.
The island was studded with gold-topped pillars of stone. From inland
mountains to coastline, the pillars rose like a Kroisos's dream of mushroom
growths. "Why?" she cried out. "What are they?"
T~ph6n's speech was muffled now. He said something but she could
not understand and refused to turn around to look at him. It.
The sun set behind them as the bubble slowed and approached the
headland where Patrikia's house had been or still was, Rhita saw, surrounded
by a fence of the same fringed metal snakes they had met with in
the camp, it seemed much less than years before.
"Your temple is near here, too," T~ph6n said. She heard it standing up
behind her and felt an awful crawling along her spine; there were things
worse than death, among them being in the service of these monsters. She
wiped her face quickly with the palm of one hand, turned and faced the
battered escort. "Why are these places still here?"

ET E R N I TY · 253

"Because they mean something to you," T~phOn said. It reached up
and pushed the top of its head back into place. She swallowed hard to
restrain another urge to throw up. She had one thing she must hold on
to, and that was the bare remaining shred of her dignity.
"This whole world is significant to me," she said. "Put it back the way it was."
T~ph6n made a sound like a small dog choking, and its speech became
much clearer. "Not possible. Already close to exceeding budget. Your
world will have its uses. It will become its own repository; whoever
wishes to study Gaia in later cycles will come here and do so. Meanwhile,
it serves as a place to raise and train young. What you would call a holy
place."
"None of my people are alive?"
"Very few have died," T~ph~n said, adjusting a shoulder.
She remembered the unexpected yielding of its substance and turned
away again, fist thrust into her mouth.
"In truth, more of your kind would have died had we not come here.
By far the great majority are in storage. It is not unpleasant; my selves
have been there many times. Unlike death, storage is not final."
She shook her head, numb to the horror but unwilling to listen to more
useless talk. "Where are my companions? You said you'd bring them
here."
"They are here." The bubble moved through Patrikia's gray and
withered garden; the orange trees were dusty skeletons. They approached
the house, and from behind the house other bubbles emerged, one containing
Demetrios, another Lugotorix, a third Oresias. Each was accompanied
by an escort: Oresias by what seemed to be an older woman,
Lugotorix by a red-headed old man, Demetrios by a slender young male
in student's garb.
Lugotorix stood with arms crossed and eyes tightly closed. What he
can't see can't make him more. miserable.
T~ph6n kept silent behind her. The bubbles orbited slowly about each
other in Patrikia's yard. Lugotorix seemed to sense her presence and
opened his eyes, looking on her with an expression of fierce joy; he had
not failed completely. Demetrios merely nodded, unwilling to meet her
stare. Oresias seemed unable to raise his head.
Defeat. Final and total. No going back.
What would Patrikia do? If she were here, having lost two homes, two
worlds .... Rhita did not doubt the old Soph would simply have laid
herself down and died. The enormity was truly outside the range of a
human mind.

254 · GREG BEAR

There was no hope. "The whole world is dead," she said.
"No," Tpph6n corrected her.
"Shut up," she said sharply. "It's dead."
The escort did not contradict her again.
She tried to speak with the others, but no sound passed between them.
Suddenly, she turned and faced Tgph6n. On his distorted face there was
a triumphant expression, brief but unmistakable. He had absorbed
enough humanity to mimic exultation.
She had been brought here, she now believed, in part at least so that
the victors could measure their triumph. Prisoners on parade.
She did not turn away. There had been no satisfaction in knocking the
escort about; clearly, abuse did not bother T.~ph0n. And there was scant
satisfaction in defiance. She was too small and limited to even begin to
search for weaknesses. Still, Rhita needed to do something, to pick up
some thread, or indeed she would just lie down and die.
But they would not let her die. She would be stored. And someday,
surely the people who had built the Way would fight the Jarts again,
perhaps destroy them, perhaps find her and her companions, and bring
them back. Could that much be hoped? She could barely even conceive of
such things.
But Patrikia would have grabbed at any thread.
Rhita seized this one and observed Tpph0n calmly now, having lost
everything and knowing it if not accepting. "Take us back," she said.
"This means nothing to you?"
She shook her head.
"You do not wish to visit the temple?"
"NO."
"Do you wish to die?" TpphOn inquired curiously, politely.
"Are you offering?"
"No. Of course not."
"Just take me back."
"Yes."
The interior of the bubble seemed to fill with gelatinous smoke. She felt
all weight lift from her feet.
Store me, she thought. Pack me away.
My time must come again.
Oblivion would have been welcome, if she could have known she
would not be disturbed.

ET E R N I TY · 255

FIFTY-THREE

Earth, Thistledown

Lanier had resumed walking the trails again, climbing the side of the
mountain, looking down over the autumn-brown grasslands and the increased
flocks of sheep. Despite all that had happened, he thought himself
a contented man. He could not save all of humanity from its follies;
could not stop the flow of history.
Losing his sense of responsibility was a necessary liberation; he had
spent much of his life helping others. Now was the time to calm himself
and prepare for his own next step.
Despite the forced implant, and his relief at being saved from death, he
knew he would not choose immortality. When the time came--whether it
be ten years, or fifty years he would be prepared.
He did not think his personality was so valuable that it should impose
itself on others for more than a century. This was not humility, nor was it
exhaustion; it was the way he had been raised.
He accepted that Karen did not agree. Even so, they were much closer
than they had been in years. That was sufficient.
Two months after his recovery, on a particularly crystalline night, they
walked under the stars. Thistledown was not visible. "I'm not sure I care what's happening up there, down there." She pointed through the Earth
at where Thistledown might be~
Lanier nodded. They walked on, lantern illuminating the trail in a blue
circle for several meter's ahead. "That's where we met," he said, and it
sounded silly once he said it; silly and awkward, the words of an uncertain
youth, not an old man. Karen smiled at him.
"We have had many good years, Garry," she said. Then, with her
usual directness, she said, "What's more important to us now, our past
together, or our future?"
He could not answer. In a way, he Was being forced to stay alive. That
implied that he wanted his future to be brief.... Yet he did not wish to
die. He simply wanted equality and justice, and under the present cfi
255 · GREG BEAR


cumstances, immortality did not seem just. He was willing to die for
these convictions. "Just us, now," he said.

She held his hand more firmly. "All right," she said. "Just now."
Lanier knew that Karen would not stay at his side forever. Once the
isolation was liftedmalmost certain within the next few months--she
would become active again, and perhaps separation would drive them
apart again. He didn't want that, but they were no longer well matched.
He could accept being old; she could not.

Still, there were many people he would like to see again.
Questions he would like to have answered.
Whatever happened to Patricia?

Was she home, or alive in some other alternate universe, or had she
died trying?


Thistledown orbited Earth every five hours and fifty minutes, as it had
since the Sundering. In some regions of the Earth, the asteroid's bright
star was worshipped even after decades of education and social engineering;
humanity's psychological yolk sacs could not be eliminated so easily.

The news that the Earth's saviors might soon leave--so the stories had
been simplified caused panic in some areas, relief in others. Those who
worshipped the Thistledown and its occupants believed they were leaving
out of disgust for Earth's sins. They were correct in a sense; but if the
Earth could not abandon its past, neither could the Hexamon.

With the re-opening on schedule, and Korzenowski's wonders performing
flawlessly, the Nexus Special Committee set about healing some
of the worst wounds in their relations with Earth.

There was not much time; nor did they expend an enormous amount
of effort. The Hexamon was enthused; hysteria was not possible, or at
least highly unlikely, in the population of the orbiting bodies, but an
almost drugged sense of splendor reigned. They were proud of their
power and cleverness; they were happy to be working to solve otherwise
insoluble problems. And they felt that Earth would benefit in the long
run, that the Way would bring prosperity to them all.

Mirsky's warnings were virtually forgotten. Hadn't the so-called avatar
vanished without trace? If his strength had been so enormous, why
hadn't he put a stop to the vote and forced the Hexamon to do things his
way? Even Korzenowski gave Mirsky little consideration. There was too
much to do, too many compulsions exterior and interior; and the interior
compulsions grew stronger with each day.

The Engineer tracted from one end of the bore hole to the other,
wrapped in his closed-end, baggy red robe like an overgrown infant.

ETERNITY · 257
The long, slender shapes of three flawships--transported from Axis
Thoreau two days before, threaded through the Thistledown bore holes
--hung suspended in softly glowing traction cradles, huge dark spindles
along his accustomed path.
These were fully armed vessels, brought in as precaution. They could
also be used to explore the Way.
Korzenowski looked down on the wide, cylindrical valley of the sixth
chamber and felt a yearning he could neither analyze nor repress. The
foundation on which all of his assembled partials had been integrated
now colored him through and through. He did not protest; something
was wrong within him, but it did not stop his work; if anything, it made
him more brilliant.

For Olmy, dreaming had never been the same with implants, and it
had changed even more radically since the Jart had taken over.
Sleep was not necessary for an implant-aided homorph. The processing
of experiences and memoriesmand the relaxation and play of an overworked
subconscious mind--took place during Olmy's waking hours;
these activities were assigned to surrogate mentalities within the implants.
Essentially, Olmy's concentrated conscious effort could continue
at all hours while a parallel mentality "slept" and dreamed. The mentality
could then refine and filter Olmy's subconscious mental contents.
The process had been perfected across centuries.
Olmy's dreams were intense, as real as waking experiences, like living
in another universe with different (and changing) rules; but he did not
access them unless he wanted to. They had accomplished their purpose
without his necessarily being aware. Eventually, after five or six years,
dream contents were purged or compressed in his personal implant, and
either downloaded to external personal memory or deleted. Olmy tended
to delete such contents. He was not fond of experiencing his own dreams,
and seldom did so unless he felt they might hold the resolution to a
pressing personal diffic.ulty.
Now, however, the Jart mentality occupied all of Olmy's available
implant space, including his personal implant. Olmy, even when he had
been in control, had had to reassign subconscious processing to its natural
center--his primary mentality.
He had had the choice of either sleeping and dreaming, naturally, or
filtering out waking dream experiences. Before the Jart's conquest, he
had chosen the latter. Dreaming while awake posed few problems; he was
mentally disciplined enough to not be distracted.
Now, however, the Jart was controlling and manipulating not only the

258 · GREG BEAR

implants, but his primary conscious and subconscious routines~those activities which took place within his organic brain. Olmy's conscious
primary self was often shunted into the dream-world abruptly and without
warning.
It was a realm filled with monsters. The subconscious, all those agents
and routines which handled automatic responses, was in a terrible state.
Olmy could be consciously calm, but his fundamental self was terrified,
helpless, and in a panic.
Often, when the Jart did not need his immediate attention, he was
forced to wander the dream landscape like a character in a bad biochrone.
Forced to confront his dreams directly, Olmy found signs of character
flaws that further undermined his already low morale. (Why hadn't he
dealt with these flaws through Talsit or other therapy decades or centuries
ago? He might not have made the disastrous decision to ingest the
~Iart'if he had been fully rational .) In his dreams, he repeatedly
found suicidal urges and had to fight them off--small, insect-like creatures
that threatened to eat away his limbs or bite off his head.
Sometimes it took all his courage and will just to survive until the Jart
allowed his consciousness access to the external world.
In time, he wondered whether the Jart knowingly put him to this
torture as a kind of revenge; drowning him in his own mind, just as the
Jart had been forced to drown in its thoughts until it had slumped into
timeless stasis .
But he had no proof, no evidence the Jart could be cruel or vengeful. It
simply needed his entire mind to sweep for information, or practice its
masquerade as a human being.
When his personality was foremost and in apparent control of his
body, he could not act on any impulse or plan unless approved by the
Jart.
So far, the Jart had not tripped any of those algorithmic snares that
would kill them both. Not even Olmy knew where they were; the partial
had managed to erase itself just before Olmy's surrender--the Jart's single
lapse thus far and only the partial had known the locations and
character of the snares.
The Jart, having satisfied itself that its position was now secure, began
to give Olmy more and more control, and to act more and more as a firm
rider on a horse, rather than a puppet master. For the first time, it expressed
its wishes as a demand, rather than simply forcing him to act.
We must speak with Korzenowski. Make us available for the reopening. "They'll open a test connection first," Olmy explained. "It would be

ETERNITY · 25g

better to wait for the final re-opening. Everl better not to be seen in public at all . . ."
The Jart considered this. We are both on > borrowed time <, no, fellow
expediter? We must act quickly. The risk of early exposure does not outweigh
the risk of finding your pitfalls. Once his test opening is made,
Korzenowski may have great difficulty closing it.

The sixth chamber machinery had been examined and certified, and
repaired or replaced where necessary; ten thousand corporeal humans,
some seventy thousand partials and innumerable robots and remotes had
done their finest work the past few weeks, at Korzenowski's direction.
The next major test was at hand.
In the final hours before the first connection, the Engineer rested in his'
spherical quarters, attached to the wall of the bore hole like a cocoon. He
was mentally and physically near complete exhaustion. Even dividing
himself into a dozen partials could not lighten the burden he carried. He
had felt this burden before, and in one way it exhilarated him, but it had
a sour edge.
Once, gate-openers in the Way had relied on psychological self-mastery.
The cloak of ceremony wrapped around a gate-opener's duties
served as a reminder that a fogged or unfocused mind could not properly
use a clavicle . . .
Yet Korzenowski, his mind in turmoil, was about to use the entire
sixth chamber in effect, the Thistledown itself--as a clavicle, opening
something analogous to a huge gate.
He curled tighter in his red robes, resting within a tube of sleepfield
lines. Eyes closed, he released a small cloud of Talsit, the last genuine
Talsit in the Terrestrial Hexamon, as far as he knew. The session would
not last long enough to clear his thoughts completely, but it would help.
The fog filled the sleepfield and he inhaled deeply, evenly, letting the tiny
particles enter through .lungs, skin, wherever they could, cleansing, correcting,
soothing.
"Ser Korzenowski."
He opened his eyes. Through the thinning Talsit fog, he saw a man
floating nearby. The sphere was locked; no one could enter without the
monitor notifying him. He uncurled, brushing away the last wisps.
Again, it was Olmy. His friend's appearance startled Korzenowski; he
looked unkempt, his eyes did not seem to focus properly, and he smelled
like an ill-tended homorph; he also smelled afraid. Korzenowski's nose
wrinkled.

251) · GREG BEAR


"I would have invited you in," Korzenowski said. "No need to enter

like a thief."

"Nobody knows I'm here."

"Why hide?"

Olmy shrugged. Korzenowski noted that he wore no pictor.
"We've been close friends, more than that even, for a long time."
Korzenowski stretched out and braced himself against a weak traction
field. This sudden awkwardness was peculiar; they had always been at
ease around each other.

"You've always relied upon my judgment . . . trusted me. And I've
always trusted you."

The Engineer liked this conversation less and less. Olmy seemed seat-

tered, almost twitchy. "Yes."

"I'd like to make an unusual request. Something the Hexamon might
disapprove of. I can't explain all my reasons now . . But I think you'll

have major problems opening a test link with the Way."

"My old friend, I'm expecting problems."

"Not like this. I've been researching, collecting everything that we

know about Jarts. I think I've found a way to prevent even greater problems
when we complete the re-opening. It may even help with the test.

I'm asking you to send a message down the Way through the test !ink."
"A message to the Jarts?"
Olmy nodded.

"What sort of message?"

"I can't tell you that."

Korzenowski grimaced. "Trust has its limits, Olmy."

"It's necessary; it might save us all from a hideous battle."
"What did you learn that could save us all?"
Olmy shook his head.

"I can't do something so unusual with so little explanation."
"Have I ever asked anything of you before?"
"No."

"This may be primitive, and uncalled for, Konrad . . but you owe

me a favor."

"Very primitive," Korzenowski agreed. For a moment, he had a strong

urge to call security. The urge passed, but it added to his sense of unease.

"You must trust me that this is very important, and that I cannot
explain now."

Korzenowski regarded the man who had saved his life and arranged

for his resurrection. "You have unique privileges in this community," he

ET E R N I TY · 2t51

said· "But as you said, you've never taken advantage of them before . . .
or taken advantage of me. What sort of message is it?"
Olmy gave him a memory block. "It's recorded here, in a code the
Jarts might understand."
"A message directly to the Jarts?" Korzenowski could not conceive of
a way in which Olmy might turn traitor; still, the idea shocked him. "A
warning?"
"Think of it as an overture for peace."
"You're playing at diplomacy with the worst enemies we've ever faced?
Does the president or the head of Thistledown Defense know about
this?"
Olmy shook his head, obviously Unwilling to say more.
"I ask you just one thing. Will this jeopardize the reopening?"
"Solemn oaths are old-fashioned, too. I give you my solemn oath that
this will not jeopardize the re-opening. It may ensure its success."
Korzenowski accepted the memory block, wondering if there were
some quick way he could come to understand its contents. Knowing
Olmy, probably not. "I'll transmit it through the link on one condition
That you explain to me, very soon, what you are up to. What has
really happened to you."
Olmy nodded.
"Where can I contact you.9" Korzenowski said.
"I'll be at the opening of the test link," Olmy said. "Farren Siliom has
invited me."
"The neo-Oeshel observers want to keep watch on all of us. I'd just as
soon not have an audience."
"Difficult times for all of us," Olmy said.
Korzenowski slipped the block into his robe's pocket. Olmy stretched
out his hand and the Engineer clasped it. Then he left the small quarters.
Will he transmit the message? the Jart asked as they exited the bore
hole.
"Yes," Olmy answered. "Damn you to whatever Jarts call hell."
The Jart's internal voice seemed tinged with sorrow. We are like brothers,
yet we do not trust each other.
"Not at all," Olmy said.
I cannot convince you of the urgency o£my mission now.
"You haven't yet."
When your people open the V~y again, ldo not know what they wi#find
· . . but it will not likely be pleasant.
"They're prepared."

25;3 · GREG BEAR

Your passion is curious I can do your kind no harm. You carry the
message of descendant command. That is the message your friend will
transmit--that you are not enemies, must not be enemies

FIFTY-FOUR

Earth

On his last day on Earth, Lanier cut wood for their stove--more a decorative
item than a necessity---and enjoyed the physical labor. The positioning
of the iron wedge and the solid slam of the sledge. The stacking of
the logs. Solid, muscle-straining, authoritative, ancient rituals.
He watched Karen baking bread, and tasted a slice from a fresh loaf
early in the afternoon.
"Today, I am free of my little helpers," he said, pointing to a red mark
on a wall calendar. The last of his internal medical remotes would have
dissolved by now.
"You should call Christchurch for another check-up," Karen said,
following him with her green-gold eyes.
"They won't remove the implant," Lanier said. "Until they agree to do
that, I'm boycotting Ras Mishiney's little medical tyranny."
She smiled, obviously not agreeing, but not willing to argue any more.
"Fine bread," he said, putting on his boots, grimacing at the new
muscles he had found chopping wood. "Makes the whole world cheerful
again, just by its smell."
"Old English recipe, with some Human embellishments," Karen said,
removing a second loaf from the oven. "My mother used to call it Four
Unities Bread." She slipped the loaf onto a rack on the the counter.
"Going walking?"
He nodded. "Need to stretch and cool down after all that labor. Want
to go along?"
"Four more loaves," she said, taking his arm and kissing him on the
cheek. She stroked his gray stubble with one hand, solicitous, gentle.
"You go on. I'll have dinner ready when you get back."
He took the short trail behind the house, into an old coniferous forest

ETERNITY · ;353

that thad managed to survive clear-cutting throughout the twentieth century.
The thick arching ferns and spreading canopy of branches cast
everything into a sun-spotted green gloom. Birds cut devious ttutters
through the undergrowth and high overhead.
He had hiked about two kilometers from the house when a weakness
along his right side became apparent. Walking a few more meters, he felt
a numbness accompanied by a dull tickle. His armpits became wet with
sweat and he leaned on his walking stick, legs shivering like a sick dog's.
Finally, he couldn't stand up any longer, and he half-sat, half-fell onto an
old mossy stump.
Right side. Left brain. A new hemorrhage had occurred in the left side
of his brain.
"I've had the little helpers," he said, his voice high and childlike with
pain. "They must have fixed me. This shouldn't happen."
A shadow crossed his face. Half bent over, unable to get up, he twisted
his head to one side and saw Pavel Mirsky standing no more than two
meters away.
"Garry. Can you come with me now?"
"I'm not supposed to be sick. The helpers . . ."
"They were not working right, perhaps?"
Fading fast. "I don't know."
"Inferior. Not Talsit. Pseudo-Talsit."
"The medicals should have fixed it."
"Nothing human is perfect." Mirsky sounded very calm, yet he was
doing nothing to help Lanier, not even calling for aid. Lanier had left his
communicator in the cabin.
There was not much pain now, just the black tunnel, the doors slamming
on memory. "It's now, isn't it? You're here because it's now."
"You'll be downloaded into your implant soon. You don't want that." "No. But it shouldn't be now."
Mirsky bent on one knee and stared at him intently. '?t is now. You are
dying. You can either die their way--they will give you a new body this
time-, or you can die your own way. In which case, I would like you to
come with me."
"I . . . don't understand." His speech was slurred. He couldn't control
his tongue. This is awful. It was awful before, it's awful now. "Karen."
Mirsky shook his head sadly. "Come with me, Garry. There's adventure.
And some startling truths. You must decide soon. Very soon." Not fair. "Call for help. Please."
"I can't. I'm not really here, not physical this time."

254 · GREG BEAR


"Please."

"Decide."

Lanier closed his eyes to avoid the tunnel, but he could not. He hardly
knew who he was now. "All right," he said in a voice so weak it was not
even a whisper.

Something warm pressed behind his eyes, and he felt a sharpnesswnot
painful, just sharp throughout his head. The sharpness pared his
thoughts away layer by layer, and for a brief moment, there was no self at
all. Still the paring went on, unwinding, unraveling. Then the process
seemed to reverse, and he felt things fall back into place, but with a
different texture underlyingwas if he were a layer of paint on a canvas,
being peeled from the old surface and pressed onto a new .... Yet there
was no surface, no ground, nothing solid to hang himself on, only the
pattern and some ineffable connection to Mirsky, who no longer looked
like Mirsky, or any human. What he saw now was not light, and what he
heard from Mirsky was not words.

I've been wondering what you really are, he commented without lips to
move. You're not a man at all.

No longer, Mirsky affirmed. I will put something here for Karen, that
she will not have lost everything.

Lanier's body fell to one side, crushing a fern and knocking bark from
the rotten side of the stump. The eyes flickered half-open. The right hand
twitched and curled sharply, then relaxed. The lungs fluttered and urine
trickled into the pants. The heart continued to beat for several more
minutes, but then the breathing stopped and the chest was still.

His implant was not empty, but Garry Lanier was dead.


FIFTY-FIVE


Thistledown


The seventh chamber was in shadow, turned away from sun and Earth
and moon, pointing to the stars. Its smooth-cut edges, its vast round
cavity swept clean of debris, were a lesser and emptier black. Only four

ETERNITY · 265

sets of lights shone on its perimeter, and fitful glows from survey parties
making final alignments.
The blister capping the bore hole now contained a contingent of VIPs
and guests; the official Hexamon historians, a group Korzenowski was
not unfamiliar with; scientists and technicians who would assume the
maintenance functions once the Way was reconnected and re-opened; the
president and presiding minister; the director of Thistledown; Judith
Hoffman.
Olmy, looking considerably improved.
They all hung in the dim lines of traction fields like spider's prey, quiet,
expectant.
vis much ceremony as if this were the actual re-opening, Korzenowski
thought, moving to the center of the dome with his extended clavicle. He
had done this before, centuries ago; opening the Way for the first time
after its creation, setting the Hexamon on a course far more difficult and
final than any had then suspected.
He had still not made his final decision on whether to transmit Olmy's
signal. Friendship, even personal debt, was not something that could be
weighed against an event as important as this .... The considerations of
individuals were dwarfed by his larger responsibilities.
And yet, Olmy had never in his life done anything that was not for the
good of the Hexamon. A more heroic and dedicated figure did not exist.
Korzenowski locked himself into the traction field at the center of the
blister and slowly swung the control clavicle into place. The nodes surrounding
the seventh chamber's cap were slaved to this device. He had
all the capabilities and the entire power of the sixth chamber machinery
at his disposal. He had months of preparation and tests behind him. His
hands on the clavicle were sure; his mind was more clear and more
sharply focused than it had been in years.
The time had come. Around him, the visitors fell quiet and stopped
picting. ~
Korzenowski closed his eyes and let the clavicle speak to him. The
Thistledown's superspace probes--little more than mathematical abstractions
given temporary reality by the sixth chamber machinery--spread outward and inward and in directions that could not be followed by
unaided human brains.
Across the smear of closely related half-realities that surrounded this
universe, across the multiform fifth dimension that separated the great
universes and their different worldlines, the probes went in search of
something artificial, something unlike the precisely organized chaos of
nature. They passed their results back to the clavicle and to Korzenow-

255 · GREG BEAR


ski. He saw a weave of great universes twisting around and even through
each other, coinciding and separating, almost always spreading away
from each other, their fifth dimensional distances increasing.

He knew a kind of ecstasy. The part of him that was Patricia Vasquez
was like the quiet surface of a deep ocean accepting rain; not responding,
merely receiving, leaving him alone to work his extraordinary technology.

For a timeless moment, Korzenowski's senses merge with the clavicle,
and he understood with a clarity at once transient and transcendent all
the secrets of this limited fifth-dimensional cross-section. Korzenowski
was in the state he had experienced only a few times in his past; theoretical
quibbles about the nature of superspace meant less than nothing. He
knew.

In that place beyond words and experience, he found an anomaly.

Infinitely long, curiously coiled
it is very like a worm
at a number of points, those points being places of deep confusion
known as the geometry stacks; curiously supercoiled within the boundaries
of one universe, his own; extending like a linear flame to an unoccupied
and indefinite darkness the shadow of the terminal universe that

would be made and would failm

The Way.

Within those ponderous, fluid yet immutable coils intestines, snakes,
protein molecules, DNAwhe searched for a cauterized end. The search
might have taken centuries; he did not know or care. If the Thistledown
itself had become a cold, sterile hulk in the time it took, he would not
have been bothered. His goal was clear and overwhelming.

Korzenowski examined his creation more carefully this time, with a
more practiced and mature eye. There were certain features of the Way
he thought might merit future investigation: the structure of the very
twisted and interwoven geometry stacks, the wonderful complex curves
of the Way as it interacted with its parent universe's own enormous
space-time anomalies, avoiding disruption and inevitable destruction. His
creation had become like a living thing, seeking to continue its existence
undisturbed . . .

In all the weave of great universes, nowhere could the sensors find any
overall pattern or sense. No intelligence had made all this, nothing had
willed this totality into being. If a god or gods existed, they had no place
here; this much he understood beyond any shadow of a doubt, knew in a
way he could never consciously understand or recover.

There was no god of allness and everythingness. No god would have

ETERNITY · 267

desired such a role; for what Korzenowski saw could not have been
created, and would never be destroyed. It was superspace's own Mystery,
ineffable; the sink beyond all mathematics and physics that absorbed all
G/Sdelian contradictions.
What Korzenowski saw was a fantastic panoply of canvases on which
those things which concern intelligences could be painted, a playground
for ever-evolving and ever-greater intelligences, up to and beyond gods.
Worlds upon worlds upon worlds without end or beginning.
There would never be true boredom here, or true and permanent loneliness.
This was All, and it was infinitely more than enough.
Almost as an anticlimax, the Engineer found what he sought, the cauterized
end of the Way.
He readied the clavicle and powered the stimulators and projectors
surrounding the open seventh chamber. Reflections and distortions of
Earth and Moon and Sun formed slowly spinning halos around the perimeter.
The distant stars shimmered.
He moved nothing, exerted no force, yet brought the cauterized end of
the Way across vast distances to meet with the broadly distended field of
the projectors. He gave little thought to anything but the reaches of
superspace; he was in the ecstasy of stretching his abilities to their greatest
range. Consequences were irrelevant now. The act itself was sufficient.

FIFTY-SIX

Earth

The night sky above Earth filled again with diffuse sheets of light and the
stars danced. Karen shouted through the punctuated blackness; Lanier
had been gone for seven hours, and she could not call for a search party.
Power to the cabin was out. More than power was out--no communications
were possible.
She navigated back and forth along the trail, moving through the forest
by the light of an electric lantern, 'flinching at the pyrotechnics visible
through the canopy overhead. "Garry!" She had an awful knowledge, the
awareness of a missing connection; she equal knew she would not find

358 · GREG BEAR

him alive. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and blinked to
clear away a sting of terror.
Again Karen shined the lantern beam on the trail. Always, his footsteps
ended here. As if he had been carried away. She had gone farther
three times now, finding no more footsteps, no trace; tear-streaks on her
face reflected red from the sky as she stared up, grimacing with frustration.
"Garry~"
His footsteps became confused here, as if he had stumbled around.
Beside the trail, ferns and deep moss hid any spoor. A stump rose from
the foliage. She had passed the stump half a dozen times, pacing, shining
the lantern at it.
For the first time, she noticed that a long layer of bark had been freshly
peeled away. She pushed through the ferns and saw a declivity beyond.
Ferns had been crushed on the lip.
Breathing deeply, erratically, she stumbled and slipped down the shallow
angle and stood in the gully, pausing, not wanting to complete the
act. Lips set tight, she bent over and fingered a broken fern. Then she
used both hands to pull aside the thick fern boughs.
Above the forest canopy, cold sea-green luminosity smeared across the
sky, brighter than her lantern, creeping under every shadow and flattening
all depth. The outline beyond the ferns was brought into dreamy
relief.
"Garry," she said softly, her face contorted. After a moment in which
she felt as if she were falling down a long, deep well, she touched his neck
for pulse, found none, then shined her light into half-open, unresponsive
eyes. Her skin crawled at the coldness of the body's skin, her husband's
skin, and her breath came in painful hitches, unconscious, sharp, birdlike
cries lost in the forest. She could not call Christchurch. All communications
were disturbed by the activity at Thistledown.
She was on her own.
Instinctively. she had done this only once before, but the training had
been thorough--she opened her pocket tool and pulled down the rumpled
jacket collar, rolling the corpse over to expose the neck.

ETERNITY · 359

FIFTY-SEVEN

Halfway

Lanier could not feel his body, or for that matter anything else, but he
could see in a fashion; seeing without eyes, wrapping himself around light
and finding images.
He experienced the presence of his teacher, and knew it to be the being
that had masqueraded as or played or returned to the role of Pavel
Mirsky. He mingled with this being, observed its nature and qualities,
and began to model himself after it, gaining more control.
Without speech or words, he asked certain pressing questions left over
from his physical mind, and received the beginnings of answers.
Where are we?
Between the Earth and Thistledown.
It doesn't look like the Earth. Those fingers of light...
We're not seeing with eyes now. You left those behind.
I~s, yes... The taint of his own impatience sent a ripple through him that was its own punishment. He would soon learn to control these vestigial
emotions; without a body, they were more than useless, they were
disturbing. The pain is gone. But so is my body.
No need.
Lanier absorbed and processed images of the Earth below. It did not
look at all the same now; it seemed covered with glowing, shifting strands
that reached out to darkness, twisted, and vanished . . . What are they?
I can hardly see the planet, there are so many of them.
All those being gathered, large creatures and small. Watch where the
light goes.
It ties into a kind of knot... I can't follow it.
Harvesting the live~ Gathering all the memories and patterns, all the
sensations and recollections.
Souls?
Not as such. There are no ectoplasmic bodies or souls. We are all frail
and temporary, like wilting fiowetx When we are gone, we are truly gone

270 · GREG BEAR

and the universe is empty, desolate, shapeless. Unless at some time those
with the power decide to arrange a kind of resurrection.
Who's doing this?
The Final Mind.
Our descendants save us?
With reason. The observations of living things are a distillation of the
universe, a conversion of information to knowledge. All sensation, all
thought, all experience, is gathered, not just at death, but throughout one5
life. That knowledge is precious; it can be distilled even further and passed
through the tiniest fissures of connection between this universe, as it dies,
and the new universe that is born out of it. The distillation imposes itself on
the new creation, like the passage of seed, guides it away from chaos,
impressing a pattern. The new creation can then develop its own intelligences,
who will in some way or another repeat the process when their
universe grows old.
Nothing dies?
Everything dies. But that which is special in all of us is saved.., if the
Final Mind succeeds. You see the urgency of my mission?
Lanier's memories of all the years of pain and death came to him as if
spread out in an album of three-dimensional pictures. Everything dies . . . But the Final Mind was burning galaxies at the beginning of time, to
power this effort to recover all that was finest in all the things that had
ever lived. Not just human beings, but all living things; all things, at any
rate, that converted information to knowledge, that learned and observed
and came to know their environment that they might change it. From the
scale of microbes to the living Earth itself, all levels harvested and encoded,
selected and
Saved.
He savored that thought, tasting it, delighting in it, sobering at what it
really meant; not the resurrection of the body, not the salvation of any
individual, but the merging and transcendence of the whole. That which
is best in all of us.
He thought of his father, dying of a cerebral hemorrhage in a parked
car in Florida. Of his mother, dying of cancer in a hospital in Kansas. Of
his friends and relatives and colleagues and acquaintances instantly immolated
in the furnace of the Death, that scorching, ashing breath that
lingered so briefly on the Earth. Their achievements, their courage, their
foolishness and mistakes, their dreams and thoughts, harvested as if a
combine swept over them, threshing their kernels of grain away from the
husks and chaff of death. All the simple people, and the brilliant, the
swift contentious birds of the air and the sheep of the green cloud-shad-

ET E R N I TY · 271


owed fields, fish and strange beasts of the sea, insects, people, people,
people, swept up and saved. Was this immortality, to be rendered into
such a form that the Final Mind could remember all that you were?

And not Earth alone, but all the worlds of this galaxy, and all the
worlds of those galaxies filled with life, immense fields of hundreds of
billions of worlds, some strange beyond imagining. Immense was not the
word for such an undertaking. On any such scale, the fate of the Earth
was less than insignificant, yet the Final Mind was diverse enough, powerful
enough to reach down to Earth and shape history with such delicacy,
focusing the eviternal on the infinitesimal.

Even in his present form, he found this hard to accept, impossible to

understand.

,4m I being harvested, too? Is that what you're doing now carrying me

away?

We have a different path and a different role.

What are we spirit, energy?

We are like a current using the hidden conduits by which pa~les of
matter and energy speak to each other, tell each other where they are and
what they are--pathways hidden to humans in our time, but available to
the Final Mind.

Where are we going?

First, to Thistledowr~


FIFTY-EIGHT


Thistledown


The witnesses had gathered in the bore hole, behind Korzenowski's control
center: the president, presiding minister, the director of Thistledown,
official Hexamon historians, Judith Hoffman, selected senators and corp-reps.

Directly ahead, through the blister, a circle of night expanded slowly
until it touched the smooth-cut edges of the open seventh chamber, banishing
the stars. Within the darkness swam afterimages of Sun and Moon
and Earth, growing smaller and dimmer.

272 · GREG BEAR


Korzenowski opened the test link. A pinpoint of milky light glowed in

the center of the dimensionless blackness. Concentrating on the clavicle,
refusing to be distracted by any display but the abstraction provided by
the machine, he "felt" through the link and explored what lay beyond.

Vacuum. The nearly empty void surrounding the flaw; the brightness

of a plasma tube.

The frequency of light matched that of the Way's own variety of
plasma tube.

A few meters behind Korzenowski, President Farren Siliom heard the
Engineer whisper, "It's here."

Now Korzenowski broke out of his trance long enough to pict an
instruction to the console hovering beside him. Olmy's mysterious signal

passed through the open link and down the Way.

"Is everything--" the president began.

The point of light in the darkness ahead of them flashed. Korzenowski

felt a tremor in the clavicle. That tremor seemed to growl throughout the
Thistledown; warning picts appeared in front of him, telling of disturbances
in the sixth chamber.

Korzenowski made sure the link had been correctly established. It had.
Something was trying to pass through the link from the other side.
Korzenowski focused all his attention once again on the clavicle. A
force had inserted itself into the link, intent on keeping it open; a force
stronger and more sophisticated than Korzenowski had imagined possible.

"Trouble," he picted quickly at Farren Siliom.

He tried to sever the link. The point of light remained, even grew in

size. He could not reduce the link; all he could do was expand it, and he
did not think that was wise. Whatever was on the opposite side apparently
desired a complete re-opening, a reconnection with Thistledown.

Returning to the clavicle's simulation of the weave between universes,
Korzenowski examined the link from a wide variety of "angles," searching
for a weakness, something that in theory had to exist. He could
exploit that weakness to destabilize the link, clamp it down on whatever
was trying to pass through.

Before he found that weakness, a hideous flare of energy shot from the

point and pierced the traction field blister over the end of the bore hole.
The blister sparkled and vanished and everything spun in an instant
wind, other traction fields flickering desperately as air rushed out of the
bore hole.

Farren Siliom grabbed Korzenowski's robe. The flare of energy
whipped this way and that, searing the walls of asteroid rock and metal,

ET E R N I TY · 273


arcing over the witnesses to touch the lead fiawship and blast its nose into
shards. The fiawship swung out of its traction dock and smashed against
Korzenowski's spherical personal quarters, squashing it against the
smoking wall.

Korzenowski could not breathe, but that didn't matter. He closed his
eyes and in the expanded instants of implant-augmented time, searched
for the defect he knew must be there.

Farren Siliom lost his grip and shot past Korzenowski. An emergency
traction field net expanded across the gap, lines glowing fiercely as it tried
to stop the outrush of air and debris and people. The president struck this
net and spread out against it, arms and legs held fast.

Olmy had fetched up against a pylon and now clung desperately,
watching people fly past. Judith Hoffman, wrapped in a flickering emergency
environment field, rolled by, and he reached out to grab at her. His
hand was burned by the malfunctioning field, but he caught her and held,
and the field extended around both of them.

Korzenowski, body spinning like a pennant cut loose in a storm, held
in place only by the traction field connecting the clavicle and the console,
felt his natural consciousness fade. He immediately switched all thought
to his implant processors . . . And saw a glimmer of inequity, a hint of
instability, from a certain "angle" on the link. The implant was wildly
interpreting the flow of data from the clavicle; the defect "smelled" like
something burnt, and left a sharp resinous taste in his mind.

The rush of wind slowed, the bore hole pressure having dropped almost
to the level of the outer vacuum, but the blaze of energy pouring
through the tiny link with the Way was narrowing, seeming to grow more
specific in its targets. It had not yet, as far as Olmy had been able to see,
hit any people, concentrating instead on large chunks of machinery, but
now in its curls and convolutions it was coming dangerously close to the
Engineer.

Korzenowski felt the heat but with eyes tightly closed, did not see the
edge of his robe glow and disintegrate. More traction fields fought to
regain the bore hole's integrity, and emergency fields quickly formed
spheres around the remaining people, but they were still being disrupted
by the energy pouring out of the link.

The bore hole filled with spinning debris, stunned and unconscious
people, agonized whorls and streamers of smoke; the loose fiawship
rolled and bounced slowly against the wall, threatening to crush the
confused remotes that had gathered at the sides, awaiting instructions
and an end to the chaos.

Korzenowski directed all the energies of the sixth chamber through the

374 · GREG BEAR


clavicle, at the defect in the link, seeking to open a gate there, a premature
and disruptive gate that would force the link to close or create a
violent crimp in the Way itself.

He wondered for a dark instant if they were facing the power of the
Final Mind, as Mirsky had threatened; his intuition said otherwise.

The link blossomed into redness, like an expanding rose, and the petals
lashed and abraded the cap of the open seventh chamber. He saw all of
this briefly through the clavicle, and then felt an implant overload. If he
did not disconnect, the implant--and part of his natural mind, as well--would
probably be erased.

He removed his hands from the clavicle, but the work was already
done.

The rose shrank against the blackness and stars. The blaze of energy
vanished. The point of light, dimming rapidly, winked out.

Air stopped its painful rush past the Engineer. The traction fields held,
and somewhere in the bore hole far behind, huge pumps began to replace
the air lost in the past few .

How long had it been? Korzenowski queried his implant.

Twenty seconds. Only twenty seconds.

Olmy made sure the unconscious Hoffman was not seriously injured,
then pitted instructions for the environment field to separate. He tracted
alone toward the console and Korzenowski. The Engineer steadied himself
against his own emergency field, sucking in the thin air with painful
gasps.

"What happened?" Olmy asked.

The Jart within him supplied the answer: ~4utomatic defense&

"I was about to ask you that," Korzenowski said. "Your signal . . ."
He stopped and looked around. "How many people lost? Where's the
president?"

Olmy looked through the transparent field now sealing the northern
end of the bore hole. He could see a few twinkling bright objects flying
outward on trajectories away from the seventh chamber and Thistledown.
The traction field holding Farren Siliom had failed. Remotes were

already speeding out to capture them.

"He's out there," Olmy said.

Korzenowski curled up in exhaustion and misery, collapsing like a
pricked balloon.

"I think," Olmy said, "that most of the dead are neo-Geshels . .
they all have implants."

"Disaster," Korzenowski said, shaking his head forlornly. "Was it
what Mirsky warned us about?"

ET E R N I TY · 275


"I don't think so," Olmy said.

"Jarts, then."

Olmy took hold of Korzenowski's arm and gently urged him away
from the clavicle. "Most likely," he said softly. "Come with me." The
Jart did not attempt to control his actions; Korzenowski was as important
to it as to Olmy.

The Engineer was almost babbling. "They tried to force the link to

open completely. They want to get at us. They want to destroy us."
Olmy asked the Jart if that was what they wanted.

Unless and until they receive the signal, that is almost certainly their
goal.

The screams and groans within the bore hole subsided as medical
remotes began to issue from the staging areas in the walls. Olmy guided
his mentor toward a hatch. "We're going to have to talk," he said. "I
have some things to explain."

He did not know whether he had spoken the words voluntarily, or at
the Jart's command. Did it matter?

The message had been sent. Something had happened that could have
destroyed the seventh chamber, perhaps the asteroid. The connection was
not irrefutable, but it was strong. . .

Olmy's failure was bearing its first fruit.


FIFTY-NINE


Thistledown City


In the Nexus chamber~, the Engineer stood before the armillary sphere of
testimony. Presiding Minister Dris Sandys occupied his Nexus seat, to
one side of the president's empty seat. The P.M. escaped any serious
injury.

Judith Hoffman, bruised and exhausted from the ordeal in the bore
hole, sat in a special witness seat, along with the others who had escaped
major harm. The rest of the Nexus chamber was empty; this was a matter
for the presiding minister alone, as acting president, under the Emergency
rules.

275 · GREG BEAR


Olmy sat beside Judith Hoffman. The Jart was quiet within him; alert,
but not interfering.

The P.M. requested that status reports on the dead and injured be
projected before the chamber.

"The president," he said dryly, "is being reincarnated now. There are a
total of seven dead and nine seriously injured, including the two official
historians, two corpreps, one senator, and the director of Thistledown.
We haven't suffered such losses since the Sundering. Fortunately, all are
equipped with implants, and are expected to survive. Can you tell us
what happened, Ser Korzenowski?"

The Engineer glanced at Olmy. There had been no time for the conversation
Olmy had promised; both had been taken away by medical
remotes for examination upon slipping into the staging area. They had
not been alone since.

"I opened a test link with the Way. Something tried to pass through

the link, and interfered with my attempt to close it."
"Do you have any idea what the something was?"
"A Jart weapon, I presume," Korzenowski said.

The presiding minister stared at him. "Is this merely a guess?"

"Vigilant Jarts, waiting for just such an opportunity," Korzenowski
said. "I don't know what else it could be."

The presiding minister asked if the representatives of the Thistledown
Defense Forces agreed. They did; there was certainly no evidence to the
contrary.

"Will it be possible to open another test link and learn for certain?"
"Yes," Korzenowski said. "I can open an off-center link, in effect open
a gate one hundred kilometers or so beyond the closed end of the Way.
With proper shields and safeguards, we can make a reconnaissance and

close the gate with little chance of detection."

"How little?" the presiding minister asked.

"Little enough," Korzenowski said. "But I recommend Thistledown
be evacuated, all but for essential personnel and defense forces."

The presiding minister stared grimly at him. "That would be a horrendous
task."

"It is essential," the head of the defense forces said. "If we are going to
reclaim the Way territories and establish a beachhead, there must be a
buffer between the battle and our civilians."

"What sort of buffer do you contemplate?"

"All civilians must be sent to the orbiting precincts or Earth."

"Do you advocate removing just corporeals?"

"No, sir," the head replied. "We advocate removing all corporeals, all

ETERNITY · 277

residents in city memory, and all important cultural materials and data
stores. Thistledown must serve as a buffer. In the unlikely event of our
defeat, we must be willing to shut down the Way by destroying Thistledown."
Hoffman glanced at Olmy. The expression on her bruised face was
grim. "This is becoming an extravagant indulgence, isn't it, Ser Olmy?"
she murmured. "Nothing worth doing ever comes easy."
Olmy didn't reply. Second thoughts were more than ridiculous now.
"Is there substantial damage to the sixth chamber?" Dris Sandys
asked.
"No, Ser,' Korzenowski said. "We can proceed."
"We can't say this is unexpected," the presiding minister said. The
following pause was long and accusing; nobody in the chamber missed
the unspoken criticism. The president and presiding minister had been
given little choice, and now, those who had put them in such a position
had to face the consequences. "As acting president, and under the authority
of the Emergency Laws, I order that Thistledown be evacuated,
and that Ser Korzenowski and the defense forces make joint plans for
further reconnaissance into the Way."

SIXTY
Earth, Christchurch

Karen sat in the waiting room of the Christchurch clinic, face pale and
drawn from lack of sleep. It had been thirty hours since she discovered
her husband's body, and still there was no word from technicians about
the implant.
Her chair was opposite a window. Outside, the streets of Christchurch
were filled with people, many in Hexamon uniforms, many Terrestrial
citizens, thronging around the hospital. News of the evacuation had arrived
less than half an hour ago; she worried now that her husband's
condition would be of no importance whatsoever in the middle of this
enormously greater crisis, that they would both be forgotten.
She glanced at her hands. Despite scrubbing in the hospital lavatory,

278 · GREG BEAR

she saw there was still an overlooked speck of dried blood under her
index fingernail. She focused on that speckwher husband's bloodtand
closed her eyes. The memories would not go away: opening up his neck,
digging for the implant, slipping it into a pocket and zipping the pocket
shut, driving along the dark roads in a balky ATV with the body and the
implant into Twizel, all taking hours. After the sky had cleared, a shuttle
had flown her into Christchurch.
The body, useless, had stayed in Twizel.
The issues were far from clear to her.
They had spent so many years together, and so few years, in comparison,
growing apart . . Their time coming together again had been so
brief.
Humans are made for sorrow. We are not made for answers or certain-tie~
A technician not the same one she had given the implant to came
through the door of the waiting room, glanced around until he saw her,
and set his jaw grimly, a professional expression that indicated trouble.
She raised her eyebrows, lips forming an expectant O.
"Mrs. Lanier?"
She gave the slightest nod.
"Are you sure the implant came from your husband?"
Karen stared at him. "I'm sure. I . . . took it from him myself."
The technician spread his hands and glanced at the window.
"He's dead?" she asked suddenly.
"The implant doesn't contain your husband, Mrs. Lanier. There's a
personality, but it's female, not male. We have no record of this personality
in our files 	We
don't know who she is. She's complete, however--"

"What
are you talking about?" Karen asked.
"If
the implant is from your husband, I don't see---"
She
stood and almost sreamed, "Tell me what has happened!"
The
technician shook his head quickly, intensely embarrassed and uncomfortable.
"There's a young woman in the implant, about twenty-one years
old. She seems to have been out of actionmstored--for some time, maybe
twenty years; she doesn't have any memory of contemporary
events.
She certainly wasn't downline loaded recently. Her coding--" "That's
impossible," Karen said. "Where's my husband?"
"I
don't know. Are you acquainted with anyone named Andia?" "What?"
"Andia.
This woman's ID lists that name."
"She
was our daughter," Karen said, the blood draining from her face.

ET E R N ITY · 27g


She half-sat, and supported herself with one hand on the back of the
chair. "What happened to my husband?"

"We haven't done more than an initial query. The only personality in
the implant claims that her name is Andia. I have no idea what happened
to your husband."

Karen sat heavily, shaking her head. "How? She's been dead missing
mtwenty years . ."

The technician shrugged his shoulders slightly, helpless.

"Garry . . they made him wear the implant." She straightened in
the chair. This was not reality; this was beyond anything she had ever
dreamed, hope or nightmare: to regain her daughter at the expense of her
husband, through some miracle or perverse trick. "He beat them at their
own game." But he couldn't have done it alone. She looked up at the
technician, determined not to shake herself apart. Her arms and lower
legs felt as if they carried a mild electric current. She had to stand and
move around or she would faint. She stood carefully, slowly, letting the
blood flow back to where it was needed, willing herself to be calm and
not get sick. Something had to be said; she had to react in some rational
way.

"May I speak to her?"

"I'm sorry. Not until we're able to expand her storage. She won't be
lucid until then. Your daughter is a Terrestrial citizen?"

Karen followed the technician into the hospital records area and answered
his questions. With some searching, the old inactive legal records
were recovered. Personality maps taken during the installation of Andia's
implant were compared.

They matched perfectly.

"The only word I can think of is miracle," the technician said. Obviously,
he did not believe her story; he had not removed the implant
himself. "I'll have to arrange for a legal inquiry."

She nodded, numb now from head to toe despite her determination to
stay calm. She felt cast adrift, isolated between horror and sorrow and
wonder and hope. I've lost Garry and found our daughter. There was only
one way that could be explained.

She had never been raised to believe in forces higher than humankind.
Her upbringing had been strictly Marxist; the solace of religion was not
available to her. Yet now she could think only of Mirsky, and what he
might represent.

If you have him, please take care of him, she thought, addressing her
message to the Russian, and to the forces beyond the avatar. And thank
you for my daughter.

280 · GREG BEAR


She waited alone in a small side room for an hour while the doctors
and technicians tried to make their way through the maze of procedure
and law. For a few minutes, she dozed off into a blank void. When the
technician returned and awoke her, she felt much stronger; her numbness
had passed.

"We'll arrange for a reincarnation she's entitled," the technician said.
"That may take time, though. We're going to be extremely busy here for
the next few weeks, maybe months. We've been told to prepare our clinic
for an emergency. Every available shuttle is going to be tied up for the
foreseeable future, and all vehicles, too. I think I can arrange to have a
medical shuttle take you home, however, if you leave in the next hour or

,9


She waved her hand, dismissing his offer. She had nothing to do at
home. "I'd rather stay here. If I can be of any help."

"I suppose you can," the technician said, still dubious. "We've gone
through your records sorry, but there was an element of uncertainty
here .... None of us can figure out what happened . . ." He shook his
head. "Your daughter was lost at sea. There's no way you could have her
implant, and not your husband's."

She smiled a dismayed, sad smile and nodded.

"Are you going to be all right?"

She thought about that for a moment. "Yes," she said. "I'd like to
speak with my daughter, as soon as possible . "

"Of course," the technician said. "I suggest you sleep in the infirmary
for a while. We'll call you."

"Thank you," she said. She looked around the room and prepared to
lie down on an examination table.

Andia.

ETERNITY · 281

SIXTY-ONE

Thistledown City

Korzenowski walked across the park that bore his name, a relic come
back to view his own monument; a brilliant anachronism.
He had come to meet with Olmy and talk, arriving an hour early to
survey this old work, visited only once since his reincarnation. For the
time being, there was little for him to do in the sixth chamber and bore
hole; whenever the defense forces had finished their work, and the evacuation
of Thistledown was accomplished, he was ready to open another,
more discreet test link with the Way.
Korzenowski Park covered one hundred acres in Thistledown City.
Green and quiet, covered by immaculate fields of mowed and rolled
grass, dotted with flower gardens and forests of oaks and elms and other,
more exotic trees, it had been one of the few parks to maintain itself
perfectly over the centuries of the Exiling.
Korzenowski, before his assassinationmbefore the completion of the
Waymhad designed this place on practical yet utopian principles, using
plant and animal, insect and microorganism, as harmonious pieces in an
isolated perfection. He had given himself one constraint: that all living
things within the park would be unaltered and natural. The utopian
artifice had come from keeping certain species separate, and limiting the
park's ecology to a few well-chosen and complementary combinations.
The result had been peace.
One could walk through the park at any time of the year the weather
mimicked Earth's seasons from the point of view of England in the late
eighteenth century--and see nothing but growth. Remote gardeners
groomed the park regularly, trimming away dead growth and mulching it
on the spot. Insects and microorganisms did not prey on plants so much
as work with them.
Here was topiary on a grand scale, arranged across Hilbert rather than
Euclidean space; its shape was not that of animal or geometry, but of

;~8;3 · GREG BEAR


perfect biology, a kind of living heaven. Eden, as it might have been seen

by an English gardener; certainly as Konrad Korzenowski saw it.

He had done this. He hardly knew who or what he was now; was he

the Engineer, living history, animated legend, accorded formal respect
and informal suspicion by both neo-Geshels and Naderites? Was he Kon-rad
Korzenowski, natural-born human being, brilliant son of orthodox
Naderite parents, mathematician and designer? Was he a container for
the unhappy spirit of Patricia Luisa Vasquez?

It didn't matter much; he was a mote of dust in a high wind, and what

he had been or done in the past seemed more than remote. It seemed
irrelevant.

Soon, the Hexamon would try to push back into the Way. There was a

good possibility the current claimants to the Way would force them to
destroy Thistledown; if that happened, very likely he would be annihilated
in the firestorm.

Powers, forces, dominations.

He could barely remember the time he had spent working on the park.

Those memories had been poorly represented in the partials that had

been gathered and archived after his assassination.
He had been murdered by orthodox Naderites.
Shunned by his own parents for forcing the Exiling.
Troublemaker.

That just about summed it up.

He entered a circular hedge maze at the geometric center of the park.

The waist-high outer hedges wandered in uneven tessellations, following
no particular radiant or arc of the circle; some angles were in fact projections
of three-dimensional figures, which made the outer maze particularly
troublesome. Humans with implants had little difficulty riddling the
maze, since they could easily visualize and manipulate it in their heads;
without implants, it was a substantial brain-bender.

He remembered building it with the hope that those with implants
would not use them . . . But most did. That had taught him something
about human nature, that challenge and difficulty mattered less to the
great majority than accomplishment and gain, even in the Hexamon.

Korzenowski glanced up toward the center of the maze and saw a man
standing there, a hundred meters distant. The man began to work his
way outward; Korzenowski, as if challenged, began to work inward. The
sport was diverting, relaxing; he did not look at the man directly, choosing
instead to remember his own design, and riddle what he had forgotten
or lost.

They were still some meters apart, on separate concentrics of the easier

ETERNITY · 283
central maze, when Korzenowski looked up and stared the man full in
the face. For a moment, it seemed as if no time at all had passed since the
Sundering, forty years gone and the early hours of his reincarnation fresh
in memory . .
The man was Ry Oyu, chief gate-opener for the Infinite Hexamon. His
presence was as impossible as Mirsky's; both had gone with the Geshel
precincts down the Way.
"Hello," the gate-opener greeted him, lifting a hand. He nodded at a
point behind Korzenowski, alerting him that they were not alone. Korzenowski
reluctantly turned away from Ry Oyu and saw Olmy on the
maze's periphery.
Abruptly, the Engineer laughed. "Is this a conspiracy?" he asked the
gate-opener. "Are you in league with Olmy?"
"No conspiracy. He isn't expecting me. This seemed like an opport~ne
moment to talk to you both. Shall we meet Ser Olmy on the outside?" the
man asked. "This is a wonderful maze, but no place for comfortable
conversation. Too many distractions and problems to solve."
"All right," Korzenowski said, his tone deliberate and measured.
"You don't seem surprised," Ry Oyu said.
"Nothing surprises me now." Korzenowski waited for the gate-opener
to join him. As they moved together through the maze, following the
pathway, he asked, "Are you also an avatar, prophesying doom?"
"No prophecy. I'm afraid I'm here to be a hard taskmaster," Ry Oyu
said. "Would you like to question me, to confirm my reality?"
"No." Korzenowski waved his hands, brushing the suggestion away.
"You're the Ghost of Christmas Past. Clearly, the gods themselves take a
great interest in all our affairs." He laughed again, this time a small,
exhausted laugh.
"You're convinced I am what I appear to be?"
"No, not that," Korzenowski demurred. "But I'll accept that you are
whatever Ry Oyu has become."
The former gate-opener picted approval of that judgment. Korzenow-ski
noted that Ser Oyh did not appear to wear atorc or any other kind of
projector; the picts emanated out of nothing, a talent interesting in itself.
"I have a difficult request to make of both you and Olmy," the gate-opener
said.
"More a command, I suspect," Korzenowski said.
"I'd like the opportunity to convince both of you of a certain necessity.''
"I agreed with Mirsky," Korzenowski said, feeling vaguely guilty. At
least part of me did. "I supported his efforts."

284 · GREG BEAR


Ry Oyu smiled knowingly. "You've worked exceptionally hard to reopen
the Way." His tone was not accusatory, but in the Engineer's present
mental state, under the present Dickensian circumstances, the gate-opener
did not need to directly accuse.

Korzenowski waved one hand again, as if to shoo the gate-opener

away. "I perform my duty before the Hexamon."

"You have no other motives?"

Korzenowski did not answer. He had no other motives; whatever
stained his personality like a dye, he could not answer for.

"You contain a duplicate of the Mystery of a very singular woman. I
myself arranged for the transfer. You're working for her now, aren't
you?"

"If you put it that way . ."

"I do."

"I suppose I'm working on her behalf, yes. But what she wants doesn't
contradict my duty."

"A mystery is not a complete personality. When something goes wrong
during a transfertif motivations or basic obsessions are copied as wellm

then the mentality resulting is not a responsible, integrated individual."
Korzenowski felt a hollow, dismal despair.

"I am haunted," he admitted. "I have been . . . pushed, compelled
· . "He couldn't finish.

"Don't be distressed. It can all work out for the best."

Korzenowski wanted to shrink away, to consider whether he should in
fact resign from his duties, appoint someone who was accountable, responsible.

"You can use her brilliance, what you have of it," Ry Oyu suggested as
they exited the maze. The gate-opener picted greetings to Olmy, who
accepted his presence without comment.

"Nobody's surprised to see me," the gate-opener observed wryly.
"It's the season of miracles," Olmy said, his voice oddly inflected,
strained. Outwardly calm, inwardly tormented--Korzenowski wondered
what compelled him now.

"Have you two confided in each other yet?" Ry Oyu asked.

"I've confided nothing," Olmy said. "But I suppose we have no secrets
from the Final Mind."

"I wouldn't go that far, but it's obvious the time is right for a long
talk."

Korzenowski thought Olmy looked at least as haunted as he did. "This
is as safe a place as any," he suggested. "No monitors, no remotes. We
can pict in tight-beams."

ETERNITY · 285

"Speech will be difficult," Ry Oyu said. "It's time to bring the nonsense
to an end. Ser Mirsky's approach was not firm enough, I gather
· . or devious enough· I have a proposition for both of you, something
that could resolve all of our diflicultiesmthough not the Hexamon's.
Earth and the Hexamon are going to have to learn to live with each
other. Are both of you willing to listen?"
"I am obedient," Olmy said, his tone even more strained. "You are
from descendant command·"
"What does that mean?" the Engineer asked.
They sat down in a circle of stone benches surrounded by tree roses.
"You're not the only one who's haunted," Ry Oyu said. "Time for Ser
Olmy's explanation, and then my proposition . "

SIXTY-TWO

Thistledown

	There had been nothing like it since the Sundering. The four million

	inhabitants of Thistledown were being removed from the asteroid's five

	populated chambers with every vehicle available in the Earth-Moon vi
· ~
	cinity. Even with ten thousand shuttles of all sizes and utility, the evacua
	tion went slowly; there was a great deal of resistance. Some infighting had

	broken out between the various factions that had made new homes on

	Thistledown.

	In the last four decades, Thistledown had become the bulwark and

	nerve center of the Hexamon, taking over many functions from the orbit
	ing precincts, which were considered much more vulnerable. Transfer-

	ting these functions was an enormous task, simplified only slightly by the

	Hexamon's ability to move mountains of data in very small packages.

	Olmy stood in the first chamber bore hole, wrapped in an environment

	field, watching shuttles pass back and forth in ordered array. Four shut
	tles had been taken out of service and as gaps occurred in the steady

	stream, were being guided below the rotating docks into the staging areas
	for repair. Four out of ten thousand .
	. Hexamon technology was still

	wonderfully etficient in some areas.

385 · GREG BEAR


Olm„'s master witnessed these actions without comment, leaving
O]my, for the time being, to follow a previously agreed-upon routine of
working with the evacuation effort and preparing, in secret, for the theft
of a flawship.

He had made his confession; the expression on Korzenowski's face had
been particularly painful. But the distinctions between failure and defeat,
and compliance with an authority higher than any of them, were dim
indeed now . . .

Olmy had put down some of his burdens. Now he assumed a greater
burden: the realization that even were he not Jart-ridden, he would be
doing the same things, making the same plans, opposing the will of the
Hexamon's leaders and the mens publica.

Some would undoubtedly believe that that made him a true traitor, not
just a defeated and foolish soldier.


Korzenowski made his preparations just nine hours before the next
!ink, this time neglecting his ceremonial red sack-robe and wearing black
overalls, more utilitarian, more suited to the adventure or misadventure

on which they would soon embark. As he absorbed the reports of
automated remotes and partials, all saying that the sixth chamber machinery
and projectors were functioning properly, his natural mind gave
in to a bit of wandering.

He clearly remembered the early years, after the first opening, when
unexpected instabilities had four times threatened complete collapse.
Those had been very difficult times, when the Hexamon had faced not
only his awesome, temperamental creation, but the threat of the Jarts.

At first, there had been stand-off. Neither Jarts nor humans had known
what to make of each other. Attempts at communication with the Jarts
had been rebuffed. The first attacks by the Jarts more like sorties with
intent to inflict damage had come just after his first instability crisis.
The seventh chamber had sustained minor damage. In those early times,
Korzenowski had worried that damage to a buried projector node could
cause disastrous pinches in the Way . . .

His worries then had been unfounded. But through other means, such
a pinch or crimp could be the very technique he would use in a short time
mperhaps within twenty-four hours~to begin the Way's dismantling.
The crimp, if properly formed, could be accelerated along the Way's
"length" in superspace, causing it to coil, knot, form fistulas, and eventually
disintegrate.

"Coil" and "knot" meant something quite different when applied to

ET E R N I TY · 287
such higher dimensions. Korzenowski had worked out what that ripple
of destruction would look like from within the Way, and from without.
While the Way intersected an infinite number of points in space and
time~and a smaller infinity of points in other universes--each intersection
was not in itself eviternal, of infinite duration.
Each gate opened would have a finite existence, no greater than the
total duration of the Way's existence as measured internally; no single
gate would be in existence longer than the Way itself. The total number
of gates that could be opened in the Way was huge, but not infinite; the
Way could not give access to all possible points of intersection.
It would take years, perhaps centuries, for the ripple of destruction
within the Way to complete its work. Much of the Way's length would be
accordioned as the crimp passed by, and a number of spontaneous fistulas
--interconnections between different segments--would close off long sections,
in effect creating closed loops. The fistulas could redouble and
make connections between themselves, cutting the looped segments and
letting them drift free.
When the crimp had completed its journey along the Way, there would
be only a small tail remaining, connected to the "balloon" of the aborted
universe mentioned by Mirsky.
All of this, in a way difficult even for him to understand, was reflected
in the character of the far-distant segments of the Way as they had been
viewed by Ry Oyu before the Sundering. Had Ry Oyu or Patricia--even
suspected such an unlikelihood, they would have seen the effects
immediately.
Korzenowski finished receiving the reports and retired to sit in his restored spherical quarters within the bore hole. He closed his eyes, losing
himself in contemplation and a deep melancholy that was not entirely
unpleasant.
He had nobody, and everybody, to leave behind. No offspring but the
Hexamon itself. Having died once already, he certainly did not fear extinction.
What he feared was overstepping limits.
He had already intruded upon beings vastly superior to humanity with
the creation of the Way. That they bore him no ill will was remarkable,
and perhaps a hallmark of their superiority. Or it was possible that any
emotion, or description, of the predicament--even the projections of
Mirsky~were gross simplifications suited for limited minds.
Now, he was betraying his duty to the Hexamon to make amends for
that overstepping of bounds. Would the Hexamon find sufficient flexibility
and ingenuity to do without the Way forever?
Would they try to make another? What, if anything, would stop them?

288 · GREG BEAR


In all his explorations through the clavicle, in all the explorations of all
the gate-openers throughout the Way's history, they had found no other
construct like it . . . in this universe. Mirsky had hinted that other artificial
constructs similar to the Way had been made in other universes, but
no new Way would be made here.

Korzenowski was fully aware of his capabilities, but did not doubt that
others could match them. He had failed to find a method of opening gates
without an intermediary construct like the Way; perhaps others had sue-ceeded,
and that explained the lack.

Another possible explanation for the Way's uniqueness was interference,
prevention by the forces of which Mirsky and Ry Oyu were but the
tiniest representatives. But why would those forces allow even one Way, if
its effects were so obstructive?

If they followed Ry Oyu's plan, and succeededwthere seemed enormous
risk involved--perhaps in due time the Final Mind, what the Jart
within Olmy called descendant command, could explain it all to them
directly.

Within him, the Mystery of Patricia Vasquez was quiet. Ry Oyu's plan
did not forget her needs.


SIXTY-THREE


Earth


Before receiving her duty assignment in Christchurch, Karen made sure
that the mentality of her daughter was being given the best of care. The
equipment required to fully expand Andia's mentality was not available
in New Zealand, as it turned out; because of the evacuation, and confusion
all around the Earth, it would not be available for weeks. That
would delay Andia's reincarnation; it also meant that Karen could not
speak with her. For the time being, she could only work and be patient.

The confusion worked for her, in one way; nobody could think of
charges to bring against her, not even Ras Mishiney, who received the
news of Lanier's death with barely controlled rage. The easiest course
seemed to be to ignore her, let her blend into the evacuation effort. There

ETERNITY · 289

could even be some political capital made by publicizing her devotion to
duty in the face of tragedy.
When the orbiting precincts were full to capacity, camps were set up
near the most technologically sophisticated urban centers on Earth. The
ideal centers for relocation could provide city memory facilities and the
advanced technology Hexamon citizens often needed for daily maintenance;
like hothouse flowers, Karen thought, or specialized insects in a
hive . . . Very much like all human beings, only more so.
She was assigned to the camps being constructed around Melbourne,
acting as liaison between the Old Native administrators and the evacuation
officials from the orbiting precincts. Day in and day out, as the week
progressed, she smoothed over difficulties, improved understanding, and
made sure that the resentments of the Old Natives did not hamper progress.
At night, exhausted, she slept in a small, private bubble habitat,
dreaming of Garry and of Andia as a child . . . and of Paval Mirsky.
When she did not sleep, in those short rest periods, she wept, or lay
quiet as a stone on an emergency cot, face set, trying to puzzle through
her reactions. Despite their separation, emotionally and sexually, she had
never stopped relying on Garry's presence, or at least the knowledge that
he was available.
She was grateful for the chaos and the work. She suspected her grief
was stronger and harder to come to grips with than if she and Lanier had
been close all along; she could not put aside the thought that given a few
more months, they might have come together as strongly as before.
The world was changing again. Karen actually relished the challenge
of change; but with Garry at her side, what work they could have donel
What problems they could have solved, and with such style!
The wounds of grief were already beginning to heal through her glorification
of the good memories, and cloaking of the bad. She resisted these
mild dishonesties at first, and then gave in, if only to shed her pain.
The camps neared completion by the end of the week. Shuttles already
were arriving, disembarking evacuees.
Just after noon on the last day of the week, Karen climbed the side of a
low, scrub-covered hill, carrying a small wrapped sandwich and a bottle of beer. She looked over what had once been a broad parkland. Hundreds
of Hexamon machines---no larger than trucks--had planned, designed,
and extruded emergency shelters, creating what would in a few days
become fully functional, largely serf-contained communities.
To the east, dumps of raw materials awaited the attentions of intermediate
processors, which separated out the raw materials necessary for the
construction machines. Purified minerals and cellulose and added food
290 · GREG BEAR


stuffs necessary for the machines' quasi-organic components--were
stacked in hills of meter-wide cubes.

The community on the flat land below the hill was more than half-finished,
and already it bore some resemblance to the cities on Thistledown.
For the moment, all the structures-row upon row of domes and
tiered prisms, broad expanses of farm belt, large community centers like
inverted cups--were translucent or white, but soon organic paints and
textural modifiers would be layered over them, coloring and sculpting;
interiors would then be added. Very few would be equipped with decorating
projectors. The Hexamon's evacuees would have to get used to more
austere environments.

No doubt they would feel deprived, Karen thought. But this community
would still be more advanced by several centuries than any other city
on Earth.

By being forced to live on Earth, perhaps the Hexamon citizens would
finally carry out the necessary but long-delayed steps in the Recovery.
Terrestrial and Orbiting Hexamons would finally be compelled to come
to terms with past and future.

Unless, of course, nothing happened to Thistledown. . . Then the
evacuees would return and things would continue as before.

But that seemed highly unlikely. Whatever the outward explanations,
Karen saw the hand of Mirsky behind the evacuation.

Again, she found herself beseeching the Russian to take care of her
husband. It had become a daily ritual. She found a surprising amount of
comfort in it.

If forces beyond her comprehension were still at work, it was possible
Garry had not simply passed into oblivion. Even if she never saw or
spoke with him again . . . he would exist, somewhere.

The wind blowing over the camp and toward the hill brought a scent
of fresh greenery--the scent of a city growing, coming alive. Karen
glanced up at the sky and cruelly, irrationally, wished for Thistledown to
be destroyed.

Not until late that evening, waking from a troubled sleep, did she
realize why; and in the morning, preparing for conferences between the
Melbourne city fathers and newly elected corpreps for the camp town,

she had almost forgotten again.

The wish remained.

You have to know where you are. You cannot live in two worlds.

ETERNITY · 291

SIXTY-FOUR

The Way

In the odd moments--whatever those moments were, time or delusion--when
Rhita was not being examined, tested, questioned, whatever it was
the Jarts did to her--when she could think a thought that she was reasonably
sure was her own, she tried to understand what her grandmother
had told her. That she worked through a wall Patrikia herself had not
penetrated was obvious to her now; a wall of ignorance regarding the
Jarts. What are they doing to me? They seemed to be keeping her
thoughts and self in a separate enclosure. She did not feel her real body;
or at least, she did not believe her real body was still connected to her.
Some of the illusions presented to her were very convincing, but she had
learned to distrust all apparent realities.
Where am I? She was back in the Way again, that much seemed probable;
she had been given the impression that whatever had been done to
Gaia, the task was not yet finished. By deduction, she would not be kept
there; it would perhaps be more convenient to those testing her to have
her body nearby.
Her mind might be anywhere.
Is T. OphOn testing me? She did not know; perhaps it did not mat~er.
Jarts seemed interchangeable.
The tests they put her through were occasionally enlightening, to the
extent that she remembered them, and that she could work with those
memories in the scattered moments she had left to herself.
She was placed in different social situations with phantoms of p~ople
she had known. At first, these phantoms did not include those she had
met in Alexandreia. She played the scenes with some hope they were real;
part of her played them in earnest, quite deluded; she gave what she
thought were honest performances. But part of her, however suspended,
was always skeptical.
Many times she met Patrikia. Many times certain scenes were reenacted.
In this way, her own memory was brought to the forefront, and

292 · GREG BEAR
Rhita was given an opportunity to review it, at the same time the Jarts
did so.
	All this changed after an immeasurable time. Her life became rooted;
she became a student in Alexandreia. The delusion was not interrupted
by her captors.
	She stayed in the women's dormitory, fought her way through social
and political ostracisms, and attended classes on mathematics and engineering.
She hoped soon to begin her studies in theoretical physics.
	Demetrios became her didaskalos. The small part of her still suspended
in skepticism wondered if this was the real psyche of Demetrios;
there seemed something more convincing about him.
All of her surroundings were real enough that she began to relax. Her
skeptical suspended self faded until she regarded such memories as passing
delusions themselves. The last perception of this fading, skeptical
Rhita was: They have finally gotten through my guard.
	Then Alexandreia became real, if somewhat skewed at times.
	She remembered nothing of the journey to the steppes.
Rhita won most of her academic battles. Demetrios seemed to take an
interest in her beyond the normal relationship between didaskalos and
student. They had something in common neither could define.
	The days passed, Aigyptian winter coming, dry as usual but cooler;
they went boating on Mareotis. He confessed that he had taught her
almost as much as he knew, outside of political wisdom; "You seem slow
to acquire that," he told her. She did not deny it; she expressed her belief
that honesty seemed a better policy than merely fitting in.
	"Not in Alexandreia, it isn't," he said. "Not even for the granddaughter
of Patrikia. Especially not for her."
	White ibises stalked through reedy shallows near the sandstone and
granite retaining walls that had maintained Mareotis's ancient boundaries
for a thousand years. Rhita sat in the boat, trying desperately to
remember something, her head hurting; perhaps she felt the pressure of
her didaskalos's attentions. They weren't unwelcome, but there had been
something else far more urgent . . . meeting with the queen? When
would she do that?
	"I'm still waiting for my appointment with Kleopatra," she said, apropos
of nothing.
	Demetrios smiled. "Your father's doing?"
	"I think so," she said, her head hurting more.
	"He wants to beat out the bibliophylax."
	"I don't think that's the reason 	It
must take a long time for
anybody
to see the queen."

ETERNITY · 293

"Reasonably enough. She's very busy."
Rhita pressed her hands to her cheeks. They felt like.., nothing made solid.
"I need to go back to shore," she said quietly. "I feel ill." Perhaps it
was then that the long, continuous delusion began to unravel, and not
because of her captors. Something within Rhita's psyche was going
wrong. All she had seen and felt erupted within her hidden thoughts,
seeking release.
Days seemed to pass. She studied, tried to sleep quietly at night, but
sleep was an odd thing, a void within a void.
She dreamed in these troubled sleeps of a young girl pounding on her
grandmother's door, wanting in. Who was this young girl, who wished to
see Patrikia when she was very busy and could not attend to just anybody?
The young girl wept and grew thinner, starving. In one night's
dreams she was nothing more than a husk, wrapped in a tight linen
shroud and smelling of herbs, slumped against the door like a roll of stiff
cloth, jaw slack. The next night, she was not there, but the knocking
continued anyway, empty and desperate.
Patrikia never gave an audience to the girl.
Rhita, however, did finally get an appointment with the queen. She
walked through the private quarters, noticing Oresias sitting in one corner,
reading from a very thick, very long scroll, like an ancient scholar;
she saw a funeral portrait of Jamal Atta on the wall.
And then a red-headed Kelt led her into the queen's innermost chamber,
the bedroom, deep in the palace, surrounded by arms and arms of
quiet stone, cool, dark. The room smelled of incense and illness. Rhita
examined the Kelt, who regarded her with outwardly solemn, inwardly
terrified eyes. She said, "I should know your name, too."
"Go in," the Kelt told her. "Never mind my name. Go in to the
queen."
The queen was ill, that much was obvious. Rhita saw her on her long,
wide leather bed, draped in the skins of exotic animals from the Southern
Continent; gold oil lamps hung around her, and dim electric lamps as
well. The queen was very old, thin, white-haired, wearing a black robe.
Objects in wooden cases lay scattered around the bed. Rhita stopped by
the bed's right corner; the queen's eyes followed her.
"You're not Kleopatra," Rhita said.
The queen did not speak at all, merely watched her.
"I need to speak to Kleopatra.'
Rhita turned and saw Lugotorixmthat was his name--standing by the
entrance to the bedroom. "I'm not in the right place," she said.

~J4 · GREG BEAR


"None of us is, mistress," the Kelt said. "Remember. I am trying to be

strong, to remember, but it is difficult. Remember!"

Rhita trembled, but did not feel her fear deeply.

T~ph0n came out of the shadows, undistorted, as convincing now as
Lugotorix, his face textured with experience, eyes wise, knowing, more
human. "You are permitted to remember now," the escort said.


SIXTY-FIVE


Thistledown City


Tapi Ram Olmy walked down the corridor of the centuries-old apartment
complex, seaching for the floor designator of the Olmy-Secor Triad
Family's unit, as his father had instructed. He found it easily enough.
The door was open, showing an interior decorated with the style and
taste of the original occupants. He had often studied that period in his
father's life; the triad family had spent only three years in this unit, after
being forced out of Alexandria, the second chamber city, in the last
stages of the Exiling. And yet his father had always returned to this
place, as if it represented home more than any other living space he had
had.

Tapi, still fresh to the much more stable world beyond city memory
and the creche, found such devotion curious, but accepted it; whatever
his father did, Tapi was sure was fit and proper.

Olmy stood near the apartment's single broad window, in a wide room
to the right of the entrance. Tapi entered without speaking, waiting to be
noticed.

Olmy turned. Tapi, for all of his youth, was discomfited by his father's
appearance. He seemed to have abandoned juvenation, or neglected his
periodic supplements. He was thinner, haggard. His eyes seemed to fix on
Tapi without seeing him.

"I'm pleased you could come."

Tapi had pulled every string he could think of to be here, when every
available member of the defense forces was on constant duty. He was not
about to explain this to his father, however.

ET E R N I TY · 295

"I'm pleased you asked me."
Olmy approached him, his eyes coming into focus again, looking him
over with a loving gaze that pretended to be objective. "Very fine," he
said, observing those little details and embellishments apparant only to
one who has lived in a self-designed body. "You've done well indeed."
"Thank you."
"You carried my message to Garry Lanier, I understand . . . before
he died."
Tapi nodded. "I regret not serving under him."
"He was a remarkable man. This... is more awkward than it
should be, between two men used to serving the Hexamon . . ."
Tapi listened intently, head cocked to one side.
"I would like for you to convey my love to your mother. I cannot s~e
her."
"She's still isolated," Tapi said. "I can't talk to her now, either."
"But you'll be seeing her before I will."
Tapi's lips tightened on one side, the only acknowledgment of worry.
"I'll never see either of you again. I can't explain much more than
that . ."
"You've told me this once before, Father," Tapi said.
"This time there's no doubt, no second chances."
"Pavel Mirsky came back to us," Tapi said, hoping to make an extreme
comparison as a joke. Olmy smiled in a way that chilled him.
"Probably no chance of that, even," Olmy said.
"Can I ask questions, Father?"
"I'd prefer you didn't."
Tapi nodded.
"I couldn't answer if you did."
"Can I help in any way?"
Olmy smiled again, this time.warmly and with a slight nod. "Yes," he
said. "You've been reassigned to Way defense in the seventh chamber."
"Yes."
"You can tell me one thing. My research hasn't borne any fruit here.
Do your weapons still attack only Jart or non-human objects?"
"They're not set for human objects. They won't fire on them."
"Under any circumstances?"
	"We can target them to fire on any object, manually .
	. But there's

	little time expected to do any manual targeting."

	"Don't," Olmy said.

	"Ser?"

295 · GREG BEAR
"Just that. Don't manually target a human object. I will not compromise
you any more than that."
Tapi swallowed and glanced down at the floor· "I must ask one question,
Father. You are not working under Hexamon instructions. That
much is obvious." He looked up and reached out to touch his father's
arm. "Whatever you're doing is for the good of the Hexamon?"
"Yes," Olmy said. "In the long run, I think it is."
Tapi backed away. "I can't hear any more, then. I will do my best to · . . do this, not do this. Whatever· But if I see any sign, even the . ."
His anger and confusion were apparent.
Olmy shut his eyes and gripped his son's hand.
"If you have the least suspicion I'm lying, or working to harm the
Hexamon, you target manually."
Tapi's face was grim. "Anything else, Ser?"
"You have my blessings," Olmy said.
"Will I ever knoW?''
"If there is any way, within my power, to let you know what happened,
and why, I will."
"Are you going to die, Father?"
Olmy shook his head. "I don't know."
"What do you wish to tell Mother?"
Olmy handed him a block. "Give this to her."
Tapi tucked the block into a pocket and moved toward his father,
hesitated, and finally put his arms around him, hugging him tightly. "I
don't want you to go, not forever," Tapi said. "I couldn't say that to you
the last time." He pulled back and Olmy saw tears on his cheeks.
"My God," he said softly. "You can cry."
"It seemed a good thing . . ."
Olmy touched his son's tears with a finger, in wonder, and said, "It is.
I've always regretted losing that."
They left the apartment together, and Olmy closed the door. They
parted in the corridor, saying nothing more, walking quickly in opposite
directions.
Your son is very much like you, the Jart commented.
"Too much," Olmy said.

ETERNITY · 297

SIXTY-SlX
The Seventh Chamber

The bore hole was almost deserted this time: it contained only Korzenowski
and two defense force observers in corporeal form. Shields were in place beyond the traction blister, ready to move into position betwe6n
the bore hole and the link at the first sign of problems. Emergency overrides
had been placed on certain projectors, to allow Korzenowski to
destabilize the link and withdraw power from the connection, a more
efficient and rapid way to cut all communication between the Way and
Thistledown.
Even with all the safeguards, Korzenowski was apprehensive. What
would the Jarts do next? Something even more violent, something that
could override all precautions?
It was remarkably like playing chess with a masterful opponent, one's
life hanging in the balance.
If the message of Olmy's Jart had gotten through, there might be an
entirely different reception. But he counted on nothing; the blaze of energy
had come through the small link almost as soon as it was opened,
and there was no way of telling whether any signal could have passed
through, or if there had been anybody or anything ready to receive such a
signal.
He maneuvered himself before the console and placed his hands on the
clavicle. He concentrated on this moment, and sank into the trance of
superspace, experiencing all over again the glory and chaos and majesty
of a search for the Way.
He found it, much more easily than before. In the clavicle's sensory
simulation of environments that were not entirely real, much less comprehensible
to human senses, he orbited around a segment of the Way,
although there was no "outside" to .the pipe-shaped universe, any more
than there was an outside to any other universe.
He quickly located a likely coordinate for a gate-like link.
The clavicle and the sixth chamber made their necessary adjustments.

298 ·GREG BEAR


Thistledown seemed insubstantial around Korzenowski, less than
smoke, a dream from a past life.

A spot of light appeared beyond the blister, like a new star, not very
bright. Korzenowski instructed remotes to push a probe through and
investigate the environment beyond.

No energies slashed out; the gate-like link was stable and unimpeded.
The remotes gave him a visual picture from within the Way, just centimeters
above the link.

The Way was empty in this vicinity, and for hundreds of kilometers
north and south. Radar signals probed rapidly south, and returned just as
rapidly, telling him his gate had been opened a distance of one thousand
kilometers from the cauterized end of the way.

The Way was empty in that direction, and to the north, as well, for at
least five hundred thousand kilometers.

Korzenowski broadcast the Jart's signal once again through the link,
paused for several seconds and then repeated it continuously. There was
no response.

But the emptiness might be response enough . . . might, in Jart manners,
be an exceedingly cordial invitation.

"We have a beachhead," Korzenowski picted to the defense force observers.
"The Way is empty to at least five ex five."

He removed the remotes and severed the gate-like link. It had been
previously agreed that under this circumstance, he was to go ahead and
attempt a full link, to connect the Way to the seventh chamber.

Defense forces were already marshaling there, ready to secure the Hex-amon's
advantage.

Korzenowski rested for several minutes, steeled himself, and began the
re-opening of the Way.

The dot of light formed again, extended its petals outward, filled the
void beyond the open seventh chamber with a garden of intricate, elegant
flowers, the tortured world-lines of a haze of half-real universes surrounding
status geometry. The flowers dimmed and were pushed aside.

At the edges of the seventh chamber, the color of bronze became apparent.
Faster than his unaided eye could follow, the Way filled in the
void with its complete presence.

The Engineer kept his place at the center of the blister, linked to the
clavicle, waiting for the final evidence of his success: the lengthening of
the Way's central singularity, the flaw, to compensate for the Way's new
condition as an adjunct of status space-time.

He knew precisely where the flaw would stop its advance. It would end


J

ETERNITY · 299

up just over nineteen centimeters from the locus of his clavicle, pushing
through the blister field.
He felt the flaw advancing: to his eyes, it resembled a strange, curved
mirror growing larger in front of him. In the clavicle's abstraction, it
registered as an enormous dynamically restrained force, all the tension of
the Way's existence and self-contradictions tied up in a calm, yet raging
knot. The singularity was in some respects more real than the Way itself;
but few humans could comprehend that kind of reality.
The flaw pushed aside the blister's field, which formed a thin, bright-blue
ring around it. Inexorable, awesome even to the Engineer, the blunt
end of the flaw reflected some nightmarish version of their world, images
thankfully indistinct, and came to its greatest extension--as he had pre.-dieted--barely
a handspan from the clavicle.
Korzenowski removed his hands from the clavicle's bars. He could not
see Ry Oyu, although he had been aware of the gate-opener's presence
throughout the linking. Defense forces in the seventh chamber swept
their invisible beams of sensor radiation down the re-opened Way, searching
for any sign of Jart occupation.
"The connection is stable," he said. "The Way is open."

SIXTY-SEVEN

The Way

The Stone orbited the Earth, as it had since the Sundering, with only one
difference it now pointed its north pole away from the Earth. The seventh
chamber was now a featureless, abyssal darkness. Traction fields
kept all matter away from the north pole. Nothing would be allowed to
enter the area of linkage.
News passed quickly.
There were few celebrations. The reality was more a matter of sober
reflection than festivity. The Hexamon's obsession had been fulfilled.
But they had been away from their vast domain for decades and who
knew how much time had passed within the Way?

,30(I · GREG BEAR


The president's new body was still being made. Korzenowski stood in

the middle of the president's third chamber apartment, located on the
peak of the highest building in a chamber-spanning curtain structure on
which skyscrapers hung like crystals from a spider web. The space was
empty and echoing, luminous with the unfinished whiteness of an undecorated
environment. The president's image was a projection from an
isolated section of Thistledown's city memory.

"Good day, Set Engineer," Farren Siliom said. Korzenowski stood

with arms folded before the image·

"The work is done, Ser President."

"So I've seen . . . and been told. A superb job, according to your
colleagues."

"Thank you."

"Can you explain why the Way is now empty for such a distance?"
Korzenowski shook his head. "I cannot, Ser President." It comes down

to lie~;

"Could it be because the Jarts are waiting for us, in ambush?"

"I don't know what the Jarts are thinking, Ser President."

"I think you might have a clue . . . as much as I do. I've had visitors

in city memory, three of them."

Korzenowski raised his eyebrows, but looked away, close to total exhaustion,
wanting to sit. A chair rose out of the floor behind him and he
sat. "Excuse me. I haven't slept or used any Talsit. It's been very strenuous.''

"Of course. It isn't possible to truly dream in city memory, and fantasy

or delusion is always clearly marked. What I saw was no delusion."
Korzenowski folded his hands, unwilling to make guesses.

"Mirsky was there," the president said. "And oddly enough, Garry

Lanier, who has died .... Ras Mishiney tells me that he forced Lanier
to have an implant. I don't approve of that, but there's little I can do to
Mishiney . . . except guarantee he never rises above Terrestrial senator.
At any rate, the implant did not retain Lanier's personality. Somebody
else was found in it: somebody missing and accounted as dead for twenty
years. Lanier's daughter. Who brought her back?"

Korzenowski gave the slightest shake of his head.

"Ry Oyu was there, also. He spoke with me. Lanier and Mirsky said

very little. The gate-opener frightened me. He reminded me of higher
duties, duties we once accepted as part of our responsibility in the Way
· . . To utilize the Way in a manner that would ultimately benefit all of

ET E R N I TY · S01

our clients. And he told me that you are going to start a crimp in the Way
soon, which will eventually destroy it."
"Yes," Korzenowski said.
"These avatars can apparently go wherever they wish. Lanier and
Mirsky are gone now. We won't see them again. The gate-opener is still
with us. He says his work is not finished . . . Though nearly so, if you're
still convinced."
"I am," Korzenowski said.
"This goes beyond immediate politics, no? We are both in key positions.
I have the power to interfere in the plan. Or I can stand aside and
let it proceed, even make it easier for you."
"Yes, Ser President."
"The Jarts are no longer our enemies?"
"Perhaps not, Ser President."
"They will not attack Thistledown? They're willing to give up the Way,
and all it means to them?"
"I don't know. Olmy's JartB" Korzenowski stopped, hoping he
hadn't told Farren Siliom something he didn't know.
"I'm aware of Olmy's Jart, though I think the Jart now has Olmy, not
the other way around."
"It's probably responsible for the Jarts pulling back from the end of
the Way. A signal was sent, informing its kind that humans had definitely
communicated with what they call descendant command. Mirsky's Final
Mind."
"So Ry Oyu told me."
"They probably won't attack us unless this is disproven, or remains
unconfirmed."
"I can't imagine the Jarts giving up anything, certainly not the existence
they've fought for, the privileges they value so highly. Could humans
be so magnanimous?"
"We've both lived a contradictory existence the past year, Ser President,
working for the,Hexamon rather than ourselves."
"That's our sworn duty."
"Yes, Ser. But there are higher duties. As you've said."
"Do we know what would happen to the Hexamon if we were to
persist and keep the Way open?"
"No."
"Is it possible descendant command or the Final Mind would find a
way to persuade the Jarts that the Way must be closed and the Hexamon
must be destroyed in order to do that?"
"I don't know. It's certainly possible."

31:)3 · GREG BEAR


"I think it's likely." The president's image appeared to come closer to
Korzenowski. "I know what my higher duty is. We must preserve the
Hexamon, whatever the mens publica thinks. However polite these avatars
have been, however many miracles they've worked, I doubt we can
stand alone against that kind of force."

Korzenowski looked down at his hands. "No, Set."

"I have no other choice, then. I order you to destroy the Way. Can
Thistledown be saved?"

"To completely destroy the Way, and prevent another Way being
made, the sixth chamber must be destroyed as well. If we tried to . . ."
He pieted images of the sixth chamber being sabotaged, Hexamon forces
arrayed against other Hexamon forces, civil war, destruction and division
the likes of which the Hexamon had never experienced, even during the
Sundering. "There's no choice, if we wish to destroy the Way and preserve
the Hexamon. Thistledown is already prepared for its own
death . . ."

The president's image darkened. "Why," he asked quietly, "would
anyone ever wish to be a leader of humans? We could be judged the most
treacherous villains in Hexamon history .... But so be it. I'll make sure
the last phase of the evacuation is thorough. You will warn the defense
forces . I don't think they need to know what's happening and why,

but they should not be killed for their valor."

"I'll warn them."

"I'm being installed in my new body tomorrow. When will the destruction
begin?"

"Not for another sixty hours, Ser President. To give all citizens and
defense forces time to evacuate."

"I leave it in your hands. You know, Ser Korzenowski, I'll be glad not
to have to deal with these issues much longer." The president's image
went black and disappeared, leaving a formal pict of dismissal and the
Hexamon's gratitude for services rendered.

ETERNITY · S08

SIXTY-EIGHT

Between

They had finished their work on Thistledown. Now they moved through
their hidden conduits to points between worlds. Lanier's sense of time had flown; not inappropriately, since he was supposed to be dead. But'he
still thought, still remembered, his mind somehow operating in a new
matrix established and maintained by Pavel Mirsky.
Am I dead now? he asked Mirsky. Yea Of course.
There~ no oblivion.
Would you rather have oblivion? It's not all it's cracked up to be.
No...
Our time here is done. We have choices to make... Choices on how to
go home.
Lanier felt like laughing. He conveyed this to Mirsky.
Marvelous, no? Such freedom. We can return as Ry Oyu will return, or
take another route.., much longer, more arduous.
And he outlined for Lanier where that route would take them, and
how long.
Floating in the soothing, undemanding between, Lanier absorbed the
information, already feeling separated from the reality that had been his life. Either route seemed acceptable . . . But the second way was extraordinary.
Only rarely had he even imagined such a thing. Complete
freedom, a journey beyond all journeys . . . and, as Mirsky pointed out
a journey with a definite purpose.
The Final Mind needs many observers along the way, many progress
reports, l~e can provide one continuous report, from the beginning, to the
end.
We won't start here? Lanier asked.
No. We go back to the beginning. We are only observers, after all, and
not actors, now that our labor is done. The information we gather can have
no effect on the times we'll gather it frorn,

304 · GREG BEAR

Lanier's thoughts became crystalline again, and he felt another sharp
wave of an emotion mixing sense of duty, love and nostalgia. I haven't cut
my roots to the present yet.
Mirsky admitted that he had not, either; not completely.
Shall we say our farewells? Briefly, unobtrusively. To those we love.
For the last time? Lanier asked.
For a very long time to come . . . but not necessarily for the last.
Now you're being obscure.
That's our privilege, with such freedom! Where will you go to say
farewells?
I have to find Karen.
And I will find Garabedian. Shall we meet again in, say, a few seconds,
and begin?
Lanier found he could still laugh, and the feeling of lightness in him
was held down only by that same weight of duty and nostalgia.
All right. ,4 few seconds. However long it takes.
They sped along the conduits reserved for the subtle messages of subatomic
panicles, space-time's hidden circuitry.

Karen walked with three terrestrial senators through the freshly
painted streets of the Melbourne camp. "They call these camps. I call
them palaces," the senator from South Australia said. "Our people will
still be envious . ."
That debate had been going on all morning, and she was tiring of it
rapidly. The day was going to be unbearably long; more meetings, more
pointless bickering, more awareness that never, in all of human history,
would they be free of their monkey heritage.
Karen stopped and felt her knees tremble. Something welled up within
her, a tide of love and anguish and joy; joy at having spent so many years
with her husband, working together, doing as much as two humans
could.
Absolution. We are not perfect; it is enough that we did what we could. "Garry," she said. She could feel his presence, almost inhale him. Her
eyes filled with tears. Pan of her said, Not now. Don't lose it now in front
of these people. But the sensation continued and she held up her arms as
if to a distant sun.
The South Australia senator turned and regarded her quizzically.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"I feel him. It's really him, it's not just me." She closed her eyes
tightly, brought her arms down and held them rigid at her sides. "I feel
him."

ETERNITY · S05

"She lost her husband recently," the senator from the south island of
New Zealand explained to the others. "She's been under tremendous strain."
Karen didn't hear them. She listened instead to a familiar voice.
We are always a team.
"I love you," she whispered. Don't go away. Where are you? Is it really
you? She raised her arms again, grasping at the air, eyes still closed, and
felt for the merest moment the touch of his fingers on her own.
There are many more surprises, she heard him say, and then the touch
was gone, and he seemed to recede across a vast distance.
She opened her eyes and stared at the puzzled faces around her. "My
husband," she said, trembling uncontrollably. "Garry."
They led her to a small greenspace between buildings. "I'm all tight;"
she said. "Just let me sit." For a moment, surrounded by young trees and
well-manicured lawn, Hexamon architecture a few dozen yards away, she
thought she might be on Thistledown again, in the second chamber city,
before meeting and working with Garry; that it was all just beginning
. o .
She shuddered and took a deep breath. Her head was clearing now.
The contact had been strong and undeniably external; she was not hallucinating,
though she doubted she would ever be able to convince others. I'll be fine. Truly. I'm all tight now."

SIXTY-NINE
The Beginning of the Way

Korzenowski was making a sentimental journey. He wished to touch the
surface of the Way before beginning its destruction. It was more than his
only child; it was so large a part of himself that ending its existence was a
kind of suicide.
Taking the elevator to the surface of the seventh chamber, he prepared
his environment field and waited for the massive door to slide open and
show that enchanting perspective, like something from an endless dream.
Considering the time he had spent as a cluster of inactive partials, only

306 · GREG BEAR


for the first century and the last forty years had he truly lived. By Hex-amon
standards, he was a youngster; he was certainly younger than his
own creation, whatever time measurements could be applied to the Way.

Pumps sucked the air from the elevator cab. The door opened, and he
stared down the throat of the beast that had once swallowed him, the
Hexamon, the Jarts, and dozens of other races, opening up commerce
between separate worlds, separate times, even separate universes.

The scoured bare rock and metal floor of the seventh chamber
stretched for almost ten kilometers, gray and cold and dead. Beyond lay
the surface of the Way itself, bronze in color, and not at all lifeless.
Korzenowski knew that if he drew his eye close to that surface, he would
see shots of black and red, a kind of ineffable bubbling activity: the life of
space-time itself, vacuum teased and twisted and seduced into throwing
up a perverse surface.

The bronze pipe, fifty kilometers wide, elongated itself to infinity before
him. A mimicry of the tube light within the enclosed Thistledown
chambers ran in a pale glowing ribbon down its center. He felt dizzy for a
moment, as if he had actually become part of the tortured geodetics
describing the Way's unlikely existence.

A small personal shuttle awaited him. He boarded, and it flew at a
level of several meters over the flatness, crossing the seventh chamber's
boundary, stopping and hovering some thirty kilometers from the south-eru
cap.

Korzenowski stepped down from the shuttle hatch and stood a few
centimeters above the naked surface of the Way. He removed the environment
field segment beneath his feet. Now he was on the surface itself.
Removing his slipper, he let his naked foot touch what was neither warm
nor cold, what possessed only one quality at this moment and that was
solidity. The surface of the Way was uninterested in the laws of thermodynamics.

Korzenowski bent down and rubbed the palm of his hand on that
surface.
He stood up, feeling his foundation the Mystery of Patricia Vasquez
very strongly now, as if someone were watching over his shoulder. Her

creation, too, in a way, he thought. Our oJ~pring, a wonderful monstrosity.
"Nothing is ever pure, except for you," he said to The Way. "You were
made by precocious children. We didn't know what you would mean to
us. You allowed us to dream fine dreams. Now I've got to kill you."

He stood in silence for several minutes on the unresponsive, unreal
surface, then returned to the shuttle and the seventh chamber bore hole.

ETERNITY · 307

SEVENTY

The Way

"We're prisoners," Rhita told Demetrios on the lake, in the long wooden
rowboat. "All of us. The queen is dead, and so is Jamal Atta. They aren't
here."
"All right," Demetrios said. "I agree something isn't right. But what
do you mean by prisoners?"
"This is a test, an experiment. The Jarts."
"I'm not familiar with that word."
Rhita touched his face with her hands. "Do you feel it, though? That
we're prisoners?"
"I'll take your word for it."
"Do you remember a Kelt named Lugotorix?"
An ibis flew from the shore and landed on the prow of the boat. It
opened its long beak and said, "You can remember now."

Rhita shuffled back through her past, hiding. Why remember? There
was nothing she could do; no way to escape when the legs with which she
would run weren't real. She visited with her mother for a time, sitting in
the stone and plaster house near Lindos, talking about inconsequentials.
Relaxing in the sun, which was not as warm as it should have been, nor
as bright. On the road to the temple to spend a day alone, her shadow
preceded her, walking ,long in the morning sun on the dirt and gravel.
She watched it with mild interest, then stopped. It raised its arms; her
arms were down. It gestured wildly. It lengthened, crossing the road, up
over dry hedges and stone walls, across a dead orchard. The tree
branches swayed wherever it touched.
A young man with black hair approached along the road. He stood
beside her for a time, watching the shadow lengthen to the island horizon,
and then spread across sky and rushing clouds. She glanced at him,
not at all curious. He told her, "We are losing you, Rhita Vaskayza. You
must not hide. If we cannot hold you, your self will dissolve in its own

S08 · GREG BEAR

memories, and we would not wish that. We will have to inactivate you.
Wouldn't you rather continue thinking?"
"No," she said. "I know what I'm doing."
She ran from the youth, but in thought or memory or wherever she
was now, she made a very wrong turn.
Rhita stumbled into the warehouse of all her nightmares.
Before she could be inactivated, she saw the ghosts of all she had
killed, flying over the sea's bloody waters, questions on their lips, knives
in theft hands: Why did you open the gate?
She had killed Gaia.
But she could not herself die.
Her psyche, her butterfly, lay pinned in a box, examined and prodded
by monstrous collectors. She saw hall upon hall, brightly lit, stretching
for millions of miles, lined with steel cases, in every case row upon row of
humans---infants, old men, crones, girls, young men, mothers-to-be,
soldiers, all passing under her inspection with infinite detail, more real
than anything in her true life had ever been, squirming on the pins that
ran through their hearts. I am with you, she said. I can't run from you.
But she was running. With no physical body to run with, she chased
her self through her own memories, over all the roads of her mind,
frantic with grief and fear and guilt. She ran faster and faster, until she
seemed to melt and flow like water, the water frantically surging into a
	cold spray, diffuse and selfless
	. . No center, almost no awareness.

	A brief warmth before null.

SEVENTY-ONE

Thistledown

Thistledown, launched thirteen centuries before by its own timeline, had
been beyond doubt the greatest single achievement of the human race,
made even greater by the creation of the Way. Containing the two finest
and largest cities of all humanity, yet never fully populated; containing
the greatest weapons ever devised, birthplace of the most accomplished
and wide-ranging civilization, center of philosophies encompassing all

ETERNITY · 309

the human religions, many synthesized into the myth of the Good Man,
who exemplified the imperfect but glorious expression of that universal
urge to Just Progress, Star, Fate and Pneuma: the universe, history and
human spirit; Thistledown, transient and even humble name for such an
endeavor.
Farren Siliom contemplated all these things from his apartment. He
would not have time to get used to this new body; in a way, he regretted
the waste of resources, but preferred to end his life in a physical form.
If Thistledown were to die, he would die with it, rather than explain to
its citizens what he had done, and why.
Despite an odd melancholymsomething akin to what he had seen in
Korzenowski's face--he did not feel much like a traitor. No doubt, in the
scales of cosmic justice, he was a hero; but he didn't feel that sense'of
justification, either. He had become nothing more than a small transducer
in the circuit of history, a fate experienced most acutely by politicians
who believe or hope they are in control.
He knew his place in the Thistledown's history, though he was far
from sure it would be an honored place. With no authorization, only the
power of being in a certain of[ice at a certain time, he had ordered or at
least supported the asteroid starship's destruction. He had done so for
reasons that were inescapable and correct, yet that were still not clear to
him. I have been persuaded by God~ Historians are seldom kind to lead- e~&
His family was on Earth by now, in a camp in Southeast Asia. His two
children, both conceived and born in the natural manner in accord with
his Naderite beliefs, but of course, with a few Hexamon embellishments,
since he was not orthodox--those children would grow up more influenced
by Earth than the orbiting precincts, he could prophesy; the pre-eincts
would more than likely close themselves off as a society, rendering
aid and assistance, but turning inward. As such, within a century or two
they could cease to be viable, their societies beginning the long process of
decay, like amhe borrowed now from Terrestrial experiences, such as
Garry Lanier might have had lamb's tail bound with cord, cut off from
the parent body. Who could have foreseen such a possibility during the
enthusiasm of the Sundering?
Earth would grow on its own, having been given a mighty boost; who
could say where it would go, after the Recovery and such strong Hex-amon
influence?
He had placed remotes and partials in several places around Thistledown,
all connected to his seusoria, to allow him to fully experience the

310 · GREG BEAR

moment whenmand ifmit came. He still reserved a small and probably
foolish skepticism. Thistledown had always been. In his life, at least . . .
He felt a wave of sentiment for the old times in the Way, and it shamed
him. But those times had been so much easier to comprehend, even if no
less complicated. He had never thought he would be homesick for the
awesome reaches of Korzenowski's creation.
Since the Sundering, it seemed that the Hexamon had never truly
known where it was. It had never found home.

SEVENTY-TWO

The Beginning of the Way

Olmy reached out to touch the blunt, mad-mirror terminus of the flaw
and felt it draw his fingers along where he applied pressure, and push
them back when he applied pressure from the opposite angle. Frictionless,
enormously powerful, the flaw had once supplied all the Hexamon's
energy through these transforms of space and time. Korzenowski
watched from the blister.
"You can enter the flawships?'
"I can enter at least one of them," Olmy said. "My imprint is still on
this one." He pointed to the first ship in the row, closest to the flaw,
mounted behind the blister that covered the bore hole. The wreckage of
the flawship damaged by the Jart intrusion had been removed, replaced
by the second ship in line, and a third added. "It took us down the Way
and through the closing end, during the Sundering . . . with Patricia
Vasquez and Garry Lanier. We dropped off representatives from Timbl
and other worlds . . we dropped off Patricia to open her gate in the
geometry stacks." They tracted along the bore hole to float beside the
flawship.
"I didn't remember this was the ship," Korzenowski said. "They look
so much alike."
Olmy pressed his hand into a circle scribed in the side of the flawship
and a hatchway irised open noiselessly. The smell of the interior was
clean and metallic, redolent with the blunt odors of unbreathed air and

ET E R N ITY · 311


formfit decor. Light spilled from the hatch, gleaming against the dark
metal and stone of the bore hole wall opposite. They entered.

Olmy tracted along faint purple field-lines within the ship to the controls.
Korzenowski moved to the transparent bow. Behind them, the
fiawship interior was shadowy and silent, a long cylinder interrupted here

and there with rounded shapes of unformed furnishings.

~4re there restrictions to your use? the Jart asked.

I don't think so, Olmy replied. He had once had nearly as high a
clearance as a full-rank Hexamon senator, with the added advantages of
connections in the defense forces; as far as he knew, his status had not
been changed. He did not doubt that the ship would respond to any
instruction he gave it. The defense forces would not expect a rogue in
their midst, even though O!my had played that part before. Certainly not
a rogue that would steal a flawship and run it down the Way . . .

With the president's influence---and a little help from vigilant Tapi,
still somewhere aboard Thistledown they would make it.

Olmy inserted his hands into control dimples and created a large docking
field around the flawship. In the dark bore hole, green and purple
diffusions played across the raw rock and metal walls. Slowly, the flaw-ship
advanced toward the blister.

Korzenowski, in the bow, used his pictor to instruct the blister to
accept intrusion. They would pierce the blister and string themselves on
the flaw. The flaw would pass through the center of the ship, down a flaw
passage that gave the ship its U-shape cross-section. When the ship was
strung, the open end of the U would close and the ship's flaw grips would
seize the elongated singularity. At Olmy's instruction, the grips would
bear down at a certain angle, and the flaw would translate the ship forward.

"My partial is sounding the final evacuation alert," Korzenowski said.
"The crimp in the Way will be started in six hours. We should be well
down the Way by then."

Olmy nodded. Tapi,might leave a partial of himself to oversee operations,
as would others in the defense forces; but there would be no one
living left aboard Thistledown.

"Are you tired of life, Ser Engineer?" Olmy asked, apropros of nothing.
"I don't know," Korzenowski said. "Tired of not knowing who I am."
Olmy agreed. "To knowing who we are," he said, raising an imaginary
cup in toast. He pushed the flawship slowly forward, through the blister
and onto the long mad-mirror ribbon of the singularity.

312 · GREG BEAR


SEVENTY-THREE

Thistledown


The last Hexamon archivists and archaeologists withdrew their hundreds
of thousands of hastily created partials from the second and third chambers,
where they had conducted a final survey of the Thistledown's cities.
For lack of time, the other chambers had been neglected.

The contents of Thistledown's city memory and the various library
centers had been gleaned; all that remained untouched were the hidden
information stores, private caches put away over the centuries by individuals
who distrusted direct links with the libraries. Who could say how
much history would be lost if these private caches were destroyed, never
to be discovered or analyzed?

The archivists' frustration was that the Hexamon, before the Sundering,
had had centuries to explore the deserted cities, and had forbidden
most such exploration because of the remote possibility of tampering in
the sixth chamber. After the Sundering, the archivists had thought they
had all the time they needed, never imagining a day such as this . . .

The defense forces withdrew with the last of the archivists. Only a few
suicidal or thrill-seeking individuals remained now--and Farren Siliom,
prepared to atone for his decision, however correct it had been.

He sat in the high, u~!decorated suite overlooking the third chamber
city, picting artistic designs around himself, waiting patiently. So far,
nobody knew he was here or where he was. That saved the embarrassment
of last-minute rescues, if anyone would be so rude as to interrupt a
citizen's chosen path to extinction.

There were no signs of the coming destruction. Thistledown was stable,
the tubelight steady and bright.

ET E R N I TY · 313

SEVENTY-FOUR

The Way

"I'm setting acceleration at one G for the first few minutes," Olmy said.
He asked the Jart, Do you know where your people will be?
Singularity stations are spaced at intervals of about five million kilometers
in Jart territory. We'll encounter flaw defenses and barriers first.
Then we shouldn't be traveling very fast, should we?
No more than one-fiftieth c. That is maximum velocity for aH of our
vessels on the flaw; anything traveling faster is automatically destroyed.
I presume you'll have some way of alerting your superiors that we're not
belligerent?
When that time comes, I will perform through you.
Olmy, having at least the illusion he was in control now, did not look
forward to losing it again. He explained the situation to Korzenowski.
"We should be a million kilometers down the Way when the kink is
initiated," the Engineer said. He pitted his calculations to Olmy, who
understood at least the factors of acceleration of Way destruction, their
required velocity to outrace the destruction, and how long they might
have at their unknown destination to do whatever the Jart thought necessary.
Was this what he had been preparing for these past years?
He had thought he was preparing for war; not for a fool's run down
the Way on a quasi-religious errand for a Trojan Horse Jart. But he knew
he had to count his blessings; at least his error would not destroy the
Hexamon. His own sacrifice, measured against avoiding even the bare
possibility of such a disaster, was inconsequential.
He called up a display of the seventh chamber's southern cap, now
receding slowly behind them. The display showed no activated defenses
beyond the deep-Way sensors and sweeping automatic target acquisition
fields.
With no sensation of motion--the fiawship contained its own inertial
damping system they began to accelerate at one t3.

314 · GREG BEAR
"Here we go," he said.
Korzenowski could not help modeling again and again the sequence of
events happening now in the sixth chamber machinery. Certain control
centers would undergo planned failures within minutes. Other mechanisms
would try to compensate for the failures. For a short time, they
would succeed, but they would be exposed to strains and contradictions
in design that would bring about their own, irrevocable failures. The
projection nodes would try to shut off long enough to allow robot workers
and remotes to correct the imbalance; when no such repairs were
made, and the nodes had to switch on again to avoid their own destruction
under the Way's growing instability, the entire carpet of sixth chamber
machinery would fail.
The kink in the Way would begin.
Where the kink originated, the Way would quickly become unlivable.
Fundamental physical constants would change rapidly; what matter was
left in the Way would cease to exist, converting to varieties of radiation
not encountered in normal space and time. These radiations would
quickly decay to extremely high-energy, photon-like particles, which
would leak through the kink and appear in the regions near the Thistle-down--and
in randomly selected regions for a hundred thousand light
years around the sun. Entering normal space, they would assume the
character of actual photons, appearing as brilliant displays of Tcherenkov-blue.
Korzenowski shook his head, close to weeping. Unlike Oimy, he had
never had himself altered to eliminate such emotional displays. What he
felt was a deep sadness that extended into that part of him which was
Patricia Vasquez. The Mystery they shared, however tainted by her obsessions,
knew what was going to be destroyed, and how important it had
been to the Engineer, how integral a part of his existence.
"It's beginning now," he told Oimy.
Ry Oyu came forward from the shadowy rear of the flawship, startling
Korzenowski. "Your bravery is deeply appreciated," he said.
Korzenowski shook his head slowly.

ET E R N I TY · 315


SEVENTY-FIVE


Axis Euclid


Suli Ram Kikura was no longer a ward of the Hexamon. Released from
confinement to her apartment, she was a free woman again, free to conr
template the confusion and contradiction of the past few weeks.

She could not help thinking that Olmy was playing some substantial
part in all this; perhaps he even knew what was really happening. Nobody
else did.

All her anger and frustration was overridden by her sense of duty.
First, she had to be sure that the destruction of Thistledownmif it happened.., would not jeopardize the orbiting bodies or Earth. She did not
have the technical expertise in these matters, even using the full capabilities
of her implants, to come to any useful conclusions by herself.

For a moment, she simply reveled in having her lines of communication
open and unmonitored. She decided to contact Judith Hoffman.

When she called Hoffman's terrestrial residence in South Africa, a
message awaited her, conveyed by a delegated partial with instructions to
speak only to selected people, herself among them. The partial explained
that Hoffman had been on Thistledown until the very last moment, and
was now on a shuttle returning to Axis Euclid. The partial was willing to
arrange a meeting; it was possible, if channels were not closed by the
Hexamon, to speak with its primary now. Did she wish to do so?

Ram Kikura, usually reluctant to impose, did not hesitate now. "If you
can open a channel, I'll be very grateful."

Hoffman's partial made the necessary arrangements, found that chanwere
still available, and Hoffman herself appeared in Ram Kikura's
living room, seated in a white shuttle formfit, exhausted and unhappy.

"Suli!" she said, trying to muster a semblance of polite gladness. "It's a
disaster out here. We couldn't access a third of what we wanted to...
If it all goes, we'll lose so much . ."

"Do you know what's happening?"


316 · GREG BEAR


"It isn't even classified?' Hoffman said, waving her fingers in dismay.

"The presiding minister lifted all security measures--"

"I know, I'm free."

"The re-opening is a disaster. They say there was instability in the Way
.but I can't believe Korzenowski couldn't take care of that."
"Mirsky?" Ram Kikura suggested.

Hoffman rubbed her neck with her hands. "We were warned."

The coloring on her image changed. With raised eyebrows, she peered
to her left--where a transparency in the hull might be--and a look of
wonder crossed her face. "What is it?" she asked others around her. Ram
Kikura caught muffled sounds of other voices.

She glanced through her own window at the arc of darkness visible
beyond the edge of what had once been the flaw passage. That region was
no longer dark; now it glowed a ghostly blue.

"Something's happening," Hoffman said. "Transmission--"

She faded with a silent sizzle of white lines. Ram Kikura called for an
image of the precinct's exterior, and then added, "Where's Thistledown?
Show me that octant."

A circle of radiant blue appeared in the middle of her living room,
enchanting and deeply disturbing. It did not block out the haze of stars
visible beyond Earth. "Thistledown," she ordered. "Show me where
Thistledown is." A projected red line curled snake-like around the bean-sized
white object and blinked. The glow was not coming from Thistledown,
nor was it limited to the starship's vicinity; it seemed to come from
all space, all directions.

The bean-sized object grew brighter as she watched. "Magnify," she
demanded. Throughout Axis Euclid, she knew citizens by the tens of
thousands were asking for the same picture; her own private projector's
image flickered occasionally as the precinct's signal amplifiers and splitters
cut in.

Thistledown appeared enlarged and in sharp detail, surrounded by a
faint corona of even brighter blue. The north pole pointed away from the
Earth and all precincts. But the south pole itself glowed now. Concentric
and expanding rings of luminous pinspecks formed beyond the south
pole, followed by even brighter rings and then continuous halos.

The Beckmann drive engines were cutting in; she was sure of it. Thistledown
had not used those drives since the Sundering; now the asteroid
starship was pushing itself away from Earth and the precincts.

What had been only an intellectual speculation before was now reality;
Thistledown was preparing for its death.

ETERNITY · 317

Somehow, she knew Olmy was still aboard, or very near the Thistle-downmperhaps
in the Way itself.
Ram Kikura, like Olmy, did not have the means to cry. She sat in
tense silence, watching as Axis Euclid's sensors tracked the Thistledown. How long?
The glare from the Beckmann drives increased until the display had to
adjust for brightness. The plume of destroyed matter reflected from the
south polar crater, forming a long violet brushstroke against the unnatural
blue. The colors and the circumstances went against all reason; she
felt as if she were watching an artificial entertainment, depicting something
remote and beautiful but hardly plausible.
It hurts, she thought, her implants working steadily to handle the emotional overload. I know he's there. And that's my home, where I was
born and grew and workedmwithin the Way
She could hardly bear to watch, yet she did not move.
She owed her past this much, to sit and watch it die.

SEVENTY-SIX

Earth

The ethereal night sky brought people out by the hundreds of thousands.
In Melbourne there was religious frenzy and rioting; Karen heard the
sounds, like a distant grumbling wave, from the balcony of her hotel
room. She had been ordered to take a week's vacation after her episode in
the evacuee camp, a gift he did not appreciate, since it left her with little
to do but think.
She looked upon the show calmly. Marvels had multiplied in her lifetime;
after the events of the past two weeks, she almost expected them
now. She had some vague notion this glow was associated with Thistledown,
but the asteroid starship was not visible.
At midnight, however, she did see the violet plume of the Beckmann
drives, rising from the northeastern horizon like a spotlight beam. It
faded three hand's-breadths above the horizon, which meant it was huge
--tens of thousands of kilometers in length. She did not know what it

318 · GREG BEAR

signified; she thought it might be Thistledown's death glow, but that was
yet to come.
Sitting in a deck-chair on the balcony, wrapped in a sweater against
the night chill, she looked across Melbourne's brightly lit skyline, clutching
a ceramic mug, shivering slightly not just with the cold, but with
having drunk too much coffee.
She knew she was a wreck; she allowed she might someday be able to
rebuild herself, conduct her own Recovery, perhaps become a whole human
being; but for the moment the curtain was down and the stage props
were being rearranged. What came before the spotlights next might be a
new Karen Farley Lanier, or merely a rewrite of the old; at any rate, she
hoped it would be a more successful one. Andia could help her; but until
she actually saw her daughter, she would be as unreal and fantastic as the
night sky.
The plume seemed to grow longer as the minutes passed. Then she
realized the Earth was turning, perhaps bringing Thistledown into view,
if it still existed.
She had had no more contact with Garry. She began to wonder if in
fact she had been overstrained; but an inner voice reassured her, the
experience had been real; it had been Garry.
That alone could give her strength. If the powers behind Mirsky had
saved her husband, or given him some alternate existence beyond death,
then perhaps all things would turn out right after all; perhaps her life,
however trivial in the march of millennia and on a scale of light-centuries,
would have some use, be worth continuing.
Though not forever.
Garry, whatever his final doubts, had left her this: that age and death
and change were natural, even necessary, if not for citizens of the Hex-amon,
then for those humans who had not seen the slow evolution of life-extension
across the centuries.
Someday, she would allow herself to age and die. She smiled, thinking
what Ram Kikura might say.
Something rose in the northeast, at the beginning of the violet plume; a
bright, twinkling thing that looked less like Thistledown than some distant,
continuous fireworks display.
Suddenly, it became as brilliant as a sun, and cast Melbourne into the
light of full summer noon. Cup still hooked to her finger, she flung up her
forearm to shield her eyes and gave herself a painful whack on one ear.
The cup fell to the concrete porch and shattered.
Cursing in English and Chinese, she lurched out of the chair, through
the open sliding glass door and into the bathroom. There, she blinked at

ET E R N I TY · S1g

herself in the mirror, her face hidden behind a negative blind spot turning
green and red at the edges.
The flash had been silent. The hotel was quiet; even the sound of
distant riots had died. When her vision recovered, she peered around the
bathroom door. The sky outside was dark. Cautiously, she walked to the
balcony, holding her hand up near her eyes just in case, and squinted at
where the Thistledown had been. The plume still glowed faintly in the
blackness; a few degress past the plume's tip, all that remained of Thistledown
was a turbulent, dim red ball the size of her thumbnail.

SEVENTY-SEVEN

Thistledown City

Farren Siliom felt the grinding sound before he heard it. It came through
the anchors and suspension cables into the hanging buildings, vibrating
the floor under his feet, making his bones ache.
A remote in the sixth chamber relayed its impressions:
The northern bore hole leading to the seventh chamber was spewing a
fountain of intense white and green. The fountain grew along the axis of
the chamber, spreading as it traversed the thirty kilometer length. The
remote's eyes tracked the fountain to the opposite southern cap, where it
sprayed out in brilliant rings of violet and greenish blue.
The sixth chamber machinery, was no longer operating. The remote
turned its attention to the chamber itself. The valley floor seemed to be buckling, but that couldn't be the sound and vibration would have been
much more violent. Areas of machinery tens of kilometers wide formed
globules and rose toward the axis like soap bubbles. That, too, made no
sense.
Then the sound increased. The northern cap split from the center
outward like a plate of glass hit by a bullet. Radial slivers of asteroid rock
and metal lifted away from the cap and twisted weirdly with the stress of
their uneven inward and outward centrifugal spin. With dream-like slowness,
they plummeted toward the valley floor, striking and crumpling.

S20 · GREG BEAR

Where they had left gaps in the cap, glowing red molten rock spewed into
the chamber, arcing outward in beautiful, uneven pinwheel spirals.
The remote had a momentary glimpse of this before the entire cap
blew inward, the shock wave racing along the valley floor, obscuring
everything with dust and smoke and ending its transmission.
It's grinding the end off Thistledown, Farren Siliom thought, working
its way toward me . . .
The remote in the fifth chamber watched mountains and rusty rivers
distort as if in a rippled mirror. The northern cap shattered, but there
was no outpouring of molten rock; the air in the chamber abruptly
clouded over. This remote also ceased transmitting.
In the fourth chamber, the president's extended eyes and ears heard
the rumbling grow to potentially deafening levels, the trees of the forests
shaking their limbs away, rivers and lakes seeming to boil.
The sixth chamber was almost certainly gone, and that meant no more
inertial damping within Thistledown. If the asteroid was subjected to any
abrupt motion, the cities in the second and third chambers would crumple
like toy castles made of stacked blocks.
Farren Siliom could see his own death, then, minutes before it came.
He would not witness the conclusion of this final episode in Thistledown's
history.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

The Way

Korzenowski knew the kink had formed, ablating the first few chambers
from the Thistledown. The force of this would twist the asteroid around
like a piece of wood on a lathe. The twist would probably reverse at some
point as the kink began its motion along the Way, and that would destroy
everything within Thistledown.
He could see this with a feverish clarity; time and again, his implants
created realistic scenarios for the asteroid starship's demise with a painful
persistence he could hardly stop. Something akin to guilt compelled him

ETERNITY · ;321
to pay attention, to imagine the destruction as accurately as he could .
For he was directly responsible. He had built the Way; he had pushed a
sliver into God's finger.
They had been traveling for just under five hours. Ry Oyu floated near
the bow, face calm.
The flawship shivered faintly. Olmy called up a select display of the
next few thousand kilometers. He saw odd square patches floating a
kilometer or so above the flaw itself.
We approach a flaw station, the Jart warned him. Begin deceleration~ He applied the clamps in reverse, making the flaw fluoresce a vivid
green. By the time they came to a dead stop, they would have traveled
some five million kilometers; the flaw station was probably just where the
Jart had foreseen.
"We'll reach a flaw station in about four hours," he told the Engineer.
The Jart took him over and began to send signals through the flawship
radio frequency transmitters.

SEVENTY-NINE

Axis Euclid

Ram Kikura's display showed the Thistledown spinning this way and
that, like some giant's spindle gathering thread and throwing it off. The
northern first third of the asteroid had been melted and blasted away and
formed a fan of glowing red haze around the remaining mass.
Hoffman's shuttle had not been damaged, she had learned a few moments
before; all communications had been cut off to allow full channels
for official Hexamon signals. Thistledown's demise would not affect the
Earth or the orbiting precincts, beyond a few Old Natives temporarily
blinded by the first flare.
She stood up and walked around the apartment, unable to turn away
from the display. What next? How long untilm
A funnel like the bell of an enormous trumpet congealed out of darkness
ahead of Thistledown. Undulating like a jellyfish, the funnel had

332 · GREG BEAR

none of the qualities of the Way; something far more ominous had just
come into being, a restrained, shaped black hole, like nothing this universe
had ever seen before. The starship began to visibly move toward the
yawning dark bell. That implied tremendous acceleration.
The uneven acceleration toward the funnel split the starship along its
thinner walls with surgical precision. Tidal forces twisted the asteroid
apart in latitudinal segments, as if it were being cut by a giant cake knife,
each section corresponding roughly to an internal chamber.
Air and water and rockmand molten rock toward the northern endm
spread outward from Thistledown like paint smeared by an enormous
thumb, accompanied by a dusty debris that could only be the fragments
of interior mountains, forests, cities.
Thistledown's ruins vanished into the gaping funnel, emerging nowhere,
going nowhere, creating a deficit of trillions of tons in this universe
which had to be made up in some fashion.
From the complex domain of superspace, to the far-spread reaches of
this universe, spontaneous and compensatory leaks of pure energy would
occur, amounting precisely to the mass of Thistledown; thus the books
would be balanced. Chances were the leaks would be so widespread that
not a single one of them and they would probably number in the billions--would
occur near a star, much less a planet. Still, for thousands,
perhaps millions of years, tiny bursts of gamma rays would mystify human
and non-human astronomers. And who would guess their origin?
Perhaps no one.
Ram Kikura watched the display for minutes after Thistledown had
disappeared. The funnel showed now only as a ring of inward-spiraling
dust and debris and a greater darkness against the stars.
Then the bell closed like a flower withdrawing for a long night.
The way had begun its long, violent suicide.

ETERNITY · S2~

EIGHTY

The Way

The Jart flaw station, from their perspective, was simply a huge black
triangle strung on the flaw, its edges flashing dark rainbows as they approached.
Korzenowski and Ry Oyu watched Olmy work intently at the
flawship console, aware that the Jart was conducting the orchestra, attempting
to make the fight music to placate vigilant defenses.
"There's been an enormous amount of activity here," Olmy said.
Korzenowski looked at the picted information from the flawship sensors;
gates had been opened dozens of times about two hundred kilometers
ahead. They appeared to have been opened in one latitude surrounding
the Jart flaw station. Glancing at Ry Oyu, the Engineer brought forward
his clavicle. "This is a geometry stack region," he said. "We're very close
to where Patricia Vasquez opened her own gate."
"It must have been fused shut by the stellar plasma," Olmy said.
"It would have left a trace . . something the Jarts could have detected,''
Korzenowski said. "Did they?"
Olmy consulted the Jart. "They have that capability."
"They might have found the trace of a gate in the geometry stacks too
unusual to ignore." Korzenowski shook his head. "Patrieia may not have
had much time, whether she made it home or not."
Entry to a world populated by humans would be most useful to command
oversight, the Jart said within Olmy. He turned to Ry Oyu. "They
might have found her'. Did they?"
"I don't know," Ry Oyu said. "I don't know the answers to a good
many questions, regrettably. Our jobs would be a lot easier if I did."
Korzenowski scanned the latitude ahead in more detail as they came
closer. Four gates remained open, though there was little activity around
them now.
The triangle filled their forward view. The Engineer was aware of some
abrupt change around them; passage through a kind of traction field,
perhaps, or suspension of the flawship's inertial damping.

324 · GREG BEAR
The flawship entered the station's dark triangle like a spear sliding
slowly into a black pool. Beyond was more darkness, as if the pool were
black paint, absorbing all light, all information; telling nothing.
Olmy's Jart had no idea what awaited them. Things had changed
greatly since its capture; little was familiar, including the design of the
flaw station.
Ry Oyu floated toward Korzenowski and curled up beside him. "This
is the area where I should find Patricia's world," he said. "If I have an
opportunity to fulfill my obligations to her, I'll need to copy her Mystery
. . ."
They hadn't brought along the necessary equipment. "How?" Korzenowski
asked.
"This much I have the power to do," Ry Oyu said. "Close your eyes,
please."
The gate-opener did not even touch him. A few seconds of warmth
scattering through his head and body, the opposite of tingling, and it was
over. Korzenowski opened his eyes. He did not feel any different.
"Just a copy," Ry Oyu said quietly.
The darkness at the flawship's nose suddenly parted and they stared at
a segment of the Way perhaps three hundred kilometers long. Blocking
the segment was a black radiance, deeply scalloped around its circumference,
fully fifty kilometers in diameter. The walls of the Way leading up
to this formation were brazen, undisturbed.
We will not be allowed to pass, the Jart told Olmy. That is a barrier to
protect command individuals.
Olmy slowed the flawship to a few hundred kilometers per hour. A
reception? he asked the Jart.
Very unusual for command individuals to come this far >south <. He slowed the fiawship to a crawl now, as the black shape filled their
northern view. Green lines spun outward from the center of the shape
and made graceful arcs to the circumference of the Way.
"I think we've been noticed," Olmy said.
The arcs rose and neatly encased them. Dozens of transparent bubbles,
perhaps a meter and a half in diameter, each containing a tiny black
smudge like ink in water, flowed toward the flawship along the green
lines.
"Traction fields, or something equivalent," Korzenowski said. "Do
they know how to communicate with us?"
"They don't know any of our languages . . "Olmy said.
A voice issued from the console. "We welcome the representatives of

ETERNITY · S;35

descendant command. Please accept the passage of our transport vehicleso"
"That was English," Korzenowski commented dryly. The message was
repeated in Spanish, then in a language very similar to Greek, and another
language similar to Chinese. Other languages were less identifiable.
At the conclusion of the translations, the bubbles took formation in concentric
rings around the flawship.
Olmy felt the Jart take control of his movements again. The Jart sent
another signal to the barrier through the flawship radio transmitters. It
then moved Olmy to the transparent bow and waited there.
One of the green arcs flared suddenly and illuminated the flawship's
bow. Olmy was surrounded by something like St. Elmo's fire; his body
convulsed. Korzenowski had tracted halfway toward his friend when I. he
display stopped. Olmy rotated to face them with a wan smile. "Inspection,''
he said. "They still don't trust us completely."
"Did you pass?" Korzenowski asked.
"So far, so good."
"Very advanced," Ry Oyu said. Korzenowski thought he detected a
hint of irony.
"Remove the ship from the flaw," came a return signal in English.
Olmy went to the console and instructed the flawship to unstring itself.
"Ride within the bubble nearest your ship's door."
They put on environment packs and stood by the hatchway. When it
opened, a bubble expanded to about four meters in diameter and fastened
itself around the hatch with a sucking, sizzling sound. The black nebulosity
within congealed to make a railed platform.
"Our phaeton," Korzenowski said, following Olmy onto the platform.
A quiet hissing surrounded them; cool air smelling faintly musty, sweet,
like young beer, blew against their faces. The bubble withdrew, sealing itself , and carried them along the green arcs toward a point just outside
the center of the barrier. The .flaw in this region was an uncharacteristic
sour-orange color, carrying the additional burden of Jart information; it
cast a feeble glow against the barrier's gray-black surface.
Four green arcs cradled the flawship and guided it toward the walls of
the Way. Olmy looked at the descending ship with a twinge of regret:
their last contact with the Hexamon. Arms folded, still not entirely resigned,
Korzenowski faced the featureless barrier surface toward which
they were being ferried. His eyes carried little of Patricia's impression
now; she seemed to have sunk back deep into his psyche, biding her time.
Ry Oyu put his hand on the Engineer's shoulder. "In our youth," he
said, "we would have called this an adventure."

326 · GREG BEAR

"In my youth, I always preferred thinking to adventuring," Korzenowski
replied.
The barrier absorbed the bubble, and again they were in darkness.
Olmy would have been more comfortable if the Jart communicated with
him, but it was silent; nothing had passed between them since the inspection.
He could still feel it within him, as an oyster must feel a grain of
sand...
When they finished their passage through the barrier, all that was
human lay behind them. The bubble hovered above a broad forest-green
floor. Perhaps a hundred meters away, the floor met a wall of lighter
green. There did not seem to be a ceiling; merely a pale, featureless void.
"You will meet with command individuals," said a bodiless voice in the
bubble.
"Fine," Korzenowski said, lips straight and tight. "Let's get on with it."
The green wall parted like a curtain and the bubble passed through.
Only now did Olmy feel the Jart react within him; it seemed to change its
shape, rearrange its points of contact with his mentality, stiffen.
"Big day for my conquering companion," he said. "Time for debriefing."
They passed along a proscenium, flanked on both sides by processions
of identical sculptures resembling abstract chrome-plated scorpions.
Their long tail-like abdomens stuck into the green floor, stiffly supporting
gleaming bodies; their abstracted legs and claws raised and spread in
formal salute.
Around and between these shapes floated fist-sized orange and green
balls of light.
"What are they?" Korzenowski asked Olmy, pointing at the sculptures.
"I don't know," Olmy said. "My guide is silent."
Korzenowski made a face and nodded, as if that was the least they
could expect. "Even their architecture is menacing," he said. "Damn us
all for going this far."
Olmy could only agree. Whatever happened to those far-off days of
duty and research and nothing but inner turmoil? Those times seemed
positively peaceful and desirable. What he feared now was not so much
death as something nameless, perhaps coming across the exact opposite
of life and humanity, the antithesis of all he believed in, and finding it was
also true and indisputable; losing all reference and simply fading like an
outmoded idea.
They had already faced the strangeness of Mirsky and Ry Oyu, but

ETERNITY · 327

these avatars had been tailored to humanity. What would Ry Oyu become
to convince the Jarts?
The proscenium opened onto a broad circle surrounded by pale, translucent
sea-green cylindrical tanks, each twice as high as it was broad.
Within the tanks black membranes waved with a calm, resilient rhythm,
like misty banners.
Directly ahead, there were no tanks, only a flat stage about a meter
above the floor. Above this stage floated three obviously organic shapes,
sleek and long and somewhat more massive than elephants, tomos
wrapped in more misty dark banners that first obscured them, then revealed
. . .
Command individuals among the Jarts were incarnate organisms closest
in form to the forebear originals. Whatever world had bred these.
figures must have been a place of poisons and death and bad dreams.
They appeared, first of all, vital,' there was no denying that these creatures
were survivors, with their long black spike-legs and efficient armor
casings wrapped around long, tapering thoraxes. They split in two near
the front, each bifurcated section rearing up from the platform, displaying
deep gashes along the underside. These were fringed with wrinkled
appendages tipped with wickedly pointed black claws. No eyes or other
sensors were visible.
They did bear some resemblance to the body in the hidden chamber,
Olmy thought. They were much more efficient-looking, however, perhaps
more evolved. The dead form in the transparent box might have been a
precursor, like a chimpanzee compared to a human.
How much time had passed in the Way decades, or millions of years? Do you recognize these individuals? Olmy asked the Jart within. For a
long moment, it did not answer, and then it said, These are not command
as known to this expediter.
Perhaps they are not Jarts at all?
They are my kind. There is glory in them. They have accomplished
much improvement.
Will they know you?
They already recognize this modified expediter. Humble submission to
their presence. Something else passed between them that did not fit the
pidgin mental language Olmy shared with the Jart, something ominous
and dark and exalted at once; a kind of murderous pride he could not
classify in human emotions.
"You're looking bemused," Korzenowski said to Olmy.
"No muse at all," Olmy said. "Those are definitely Jarts."
"Ah," said Korzenowski dryly. "Our hosts."

338 · GREG BEAR


l~e bubble came to rest at the fourth con]er of a square, the command
individuals occupying the other three. The misty black drapes wrapped
around their bodies evaporated, and the Jarts lifted their anterior bifurcations,
claws on appendages meeting delicately tip-to-tip, like sutures over
twin gashes, in a manner that would have made Olmy's skin crawl, and
did make Korzenowski draw back instinctively.

"They are quite thoroughly horrible," he said. Olmy did not disagree;
he could not remember encountering intelligent beings who looked more
threatening.

Ry Oyu stood at one edge of the bubble platform, still relaxed and
undisturbed.

Surely they're not the most vicious-looking intelligences in the universe,
Korzenowski thought. The Final Mind doubtless will encompass far
worse. He glanced at Ry Oyu, who smiled and nodded as if listening and
agreeing.

The three command individuals spread their uplifted bifurcations into
wider Vs.

"We meet," said the voice in the bubble, seeming to each of them to
come from over his right shoulder. "This event is not expected. Are you
one or many?"

"We are each individual," Ry Oyu said.
"Which represents descendant command?"
"I do."

"Is there confirming evidence?"

"They want loaves and fishes," Ry Oyu said in an undertone. "So be
it."

He did not appear to do anything, but the three command individuals
shivered slightly, as if struck by a cold breeze. Their upper sections
closed almost to the point of joining.

The voice said, "The testimony is adequate confirmation. What is your
plan for completion?"

Korzenowski frowned, puzzled. Ry Oyu said, "Tell them what we've
done, and what we wish to do. Tell them who you are."

"My name is Konrad Korzenowski," he said. "I designed the Way."
The command individuals did not react.

"We have already begun destruction of the Way . . ."

"Command individuals are aware of this," the voice said.

"We've come to finish the last of our work, to . . . bring one of your
own back to you, and . . ." He stumbled over the words in his head,
trying to express himself clearly and in a way non-humans might understand.
"I carry part of the mentality of another human, who once did

ETERNITY · S2g

work that helped me design the Way. We wish to return this mentality to
an appropriate world, in the geometry stacks . . behind where we are
now." He gestured awkwardly over his shoulder, unsure even of direction.
"We hope to journey on and help the Final Mind. With you, or
alone." How naive and childlike, to even think of being able to help
something so vast as the Final Mind .
"Command individuals have accessed and stored a human-occupied
world in the regions you refer to," the voice said. Then it did not speak
for several long minutes. Finally, "Command is aware. Command did
not create the Way. Do you have knowledge regarding human designator
individual Patrikia I~skayza or Patricia Luisa l~squez, human duty expediter
or of similar rank?"
Korzenowski closed his eyes, then licked his lips, as if savoring some
inner taste, and said. "Yes. I carry part of that individual. Do you have
her, did you find her . . ?"
The voice's tone altered radically; it now sounded female.
"This is command oversight. We have the sexually generated twice-removed
progeny of designator individual Patricia Luisa I~squez"
"I think they mean they have Patricia's granddaughter," Ry Oyu said.
Olmy agreed.
"Where did they find her?" Korzenowski asked. Eyes square and
bright, he faced the command individuals. "Where did you find this
woman?"
The female-toned voice answered. "We have accessed and stored the
world where human designator individual Patricia Luisa ~squez traveled
from the Way. Sexual progeny twice-removed is stored also."
"But not Patricia Vasquez herself?"
"Individual Patricia Luisa Vasquez is dead."
"Can we speak to her granddaughter?" Ry Oyu asked.
"This individual has been .damaged by our investigations."
Korzenowski felt a sudden tremor of horror and despair. He struggled
to control his anger--and a deeper anger, from the ghost of a grandmother
who had never met this granddaughter, never even known of her
existence.
"We'd like to speak with her, damaged or not," Ry Oyu said. "If that's
possible."
The command individuals wrapped themselves in shifting black cloaks
again. Korzenowski turned away, sickened by this strangeness, this incomprehensibility;
this casual cruelty. What had happened to the world
Patricia found? What sort of world had it been before the Jarts "stored"

330 · GREG BEAR


it? In what condition was it now? Ry Oyu touched his shoulder again,
and Olmy moved closer, lending support through solidarity.

"This damaged individual is highly valued," the female voice said.
"Damage was unintentional."

"Let us speak with her," Korzenowski said, his voice cracking.

The three command individuals receded on the platform, as if through
the turning of some distorting lens. A scene appeared in front of the
bubble, the interior of a house of human construction, though not any
home Patricia might have found in Los Angeles in the early twenty-first
century . .


Rhita came out of a moiling eternity, where time was not so much
lacking as non-linear and randomly arranged; true memories dancing
with simulations, unorganized animal thoughts disembodied hunger,
pointless yearning, sexual desire vying with brief moments of crystal
clarity, in which she remembered her situation . . . and rejected it, returning
to the turbulent eternity.

In one moment of clarity, she saw herself as a hero, consciously making
herself useless to her enemies by eluding them within their own incomprehensible
sanctuary. In another, she realized she might never recover
from this jumble, that her enemies might keep her in this state
forever, and a better definition of Hades she could not think of.

She was worse off than any shade thirsting for blood and wine; what
she thirsted for was the sweet liquor of reversed history, second chances,
doors to a past not so much dead as pickled and preserved, waiting for
some inhuman feast of knowledge.

She no longer touched on the presences of Demetrios or Oresias.
Then, at no particular moment, the tempest of chaotic escape calmed.
Her thoughts were still jumbled, but what she experienced and felt was
crystal clear: she stood in her grandmother's house on Rhodos. T~ph6n
was with her, still human in appearance.

She tried to escape again, back into her chaotic freedom, but suddenly
noticed three human forms that did not seem to be Jarts. She did not
know them. There was conversation of a sort; again, the voiceless talk of
Jarts in a dream, disembodied, hideous.

Still, now and then, in her self-imposed confusion, she managed to

listen and not reject what was being said.

There was talk of her grandmother.

Could the two actually be humans? People from Gaia . . . or .
again the storm grabbed her thoughts and whirled them.

Grandmother's Mystery.

ET E R N ITY · ~t31

A memory: sharp and demanding. The Soph explaining how she had
loaned a part of her psyche to a man . . . Magic and mystery in the
Way.
Suddenly, she stood not in a simulation of the Soph's house, but on
the stones of the temple of Athen Lindiamnot in simulation, but in
memory. The memory was so vivid she could feel the wind in her hair
and hear the song of birds darting between the massive cream-colored
columns.
This was the memory she always returned to, a memory of peace and
solitude, where she withdrew from the welter to think her own thoughts,
discover her own self. She had once imagined herself as Athen in her
various forms: wise woman, bringer of victory, Athen of the storms, Athen of python and owls; Ath~nC~ helmeted adorner of old coins, goddess
of the great and tortured city of the Hellenes. An adolescent girl
could be all of those things in the space of an hour, and yet face no
danger for her hubris, for Ath~nC~ understood such dreams.
Ath~nC~ understood and forgave failure, even should it cost a world.
Rhita closed her eyes and opened them again. There was talk of Pa-trisha which was, she remembered, the way her grandmother had sometimes
pronounced her own name.

"She's been stored in a memory matrix, much like city memory," Ry
Oyu said. "She's retreated into herself, following personal pathways..
. They can't unravel her. She's defying them in the only way
left to her."
They watched the uncertain, wavering image of Patricia's granddaughter,
placed in the context of the house-memory like a mannequin within
some museum exhibit, or a zoo animal on display. "Ser Olmy, how does
your Jart justify this?" Korzenowski asked.
"It's distressed that a valued bit of information should be damaged,"
Olmy said.
"I mean the . . . 'packaging' of an entire world."
"In their own way, 'they try to serve the Final Mind," Ry Oyu said.
"They want to send all they've stored on to the Final Mind. And that is
what they'll do. But we should be able to stop this woman's suffering
.... The time has come for decisions. The Jarts know the Way will
soon cease to exist. They accept me as a representative of descendant
command. They're anxious to present the fruits of their labor to the Final
Mind. They'll do anything I say .... As far as they're concerned, this is
the time they've been waiting for, the time that justifies their entire his tory.

332 · GREG BEAR


"I can take Patricia's Mystery, and her granddaughter's stored mentality,
back to the geometry stacks and try to give them some peace."

"Why?" Korzenowski asked, his eyes square and cat-like now, as if he
were suddenly all Patricia Vasquez. "Why just them? Why not restore all
the worlds the Jarts have destroyed and packaged?"

Ry Oyu shook his head. "Not within my means. I do what I can do
now largely to fulfill promises. Long ago, when I was merely a gate-opener,"
he tapped his own chest emphatically, "I failed to teach Patricia
Vasquez properly. I make up for that by giving her another chance, and
her granddaughter, as well. Besides, there's the aesthetic satisfaction."

"Garry Lanier refused special privileges," Korzenowski said, his face
contorted, a mask of contradictory personality and emotion. "Why
should you give us . . . give Patricia Vasquez special consideration?"

Ry Oyu considered this for a moment. "For my past self," he said.
"We can't correct all of our failures. But the Engineer has redeemed
himself for the creation of the Way . . Olmy has suffered for his ambition
and feelings of self-importance . . Mirsky has paid some of his
own debts. Please allow me to correct one of my own failures."

The Engineer's face relaxed. "All right," he said softly. "Take them
home."

"And what do you choose? Ser Olmy, freed from the Jart . . . where
would you go? Ser Korzenowski, still carrying part of Patricia Vasquez,
where would you go?"

"I am incomplete without her," Korzenowski said. "I think she will
stay with me, and be content, as long as she knows some part of her is
going home. I . . . we'd like to journey down the Way and become part
of the Final Mind."

Olmy considered. "That would be fascinating," he said, "but I'm not
sure I'm ready. If all the stories we've heard are true, we follow that

route wherever we are, however we go."

"They are true," Ry Oyu said.

"I think of how few beings have actually known this," Olmy said.
"How privileged we are. I know where I'd like to go, still alive, still
incarnate."

"Where is that?"

"Timbl," he said. "The Frant homeworld. I have many friends there."

"There should be enough time to re-open the gates to Timbl," Ry Oyu
said.

"Don't you feel a bit like Santa Claus?" Korzenowski asked, or perhaps
it was Patricia; the Engineer knew very little about the old terrestrial
legends.

ETE R N ITY · 333

Ry Oyu smiled and turned toward the image of the room, and the
jumbled figure of the woman within. "I'll convey all this to our hosts. I'm
sure they'd be proud to have the creator of the Way go with them to meet
descendant command."

Rhita focused on the wise-looking, smiling gray-haired man, feeling
more secure in his presence. He did not have the fierce aspect of a Zeus,
but more the calm air of Aserapis with his stalks of corn and Plutonian
dogs, his ceremonial bulls and festivals of resurrection.
This calm man spoke of going home.
"I'm going back to Gaia?" she asked, her voice strong in this place
without true sound or true voices.

"Now," Ry Oyu said, "we perform the most sacred of weddings once
again. Patricia, carried within me, will you have the patterns of your own
granddaughter as a shell in which to live, until we can search for the
home you have lost?"
Olmy saw the image of Rhita shimmer, become solid, fade in color;
become solid yet again. Always, the young woman's eyes watched Korzenowski,
and Korzenowski watched her.
"Rhita, will you lend part of your self to this shadow of your grandmother,
that she may have the strength to go home?"
"Yes," Rhita said.
She felt a mingling of their waters, like the mingling of seas so clearly
visible along the outermost pillars of Hercules, entering into the broad
ocean of Atlantis.
She saw a dense weave of realities, Galas in profusion, and knew that
none of them were exactly like her world. But the gray-haired, smiling
man who might have been Zeus or Aserapis told her to choose one in
which the Jarts never did open a gate, never did invade . . . in which
the expedition never happened . . . he suggested no more.
She closed her eyes.

"Time for saying au revoir," the second avatar said. "I entrust Ser
Korzenowski to these command individuals."
Korzenowski transferred his clavicle to the gate-opener and backed
away. The Engineer became separated from Olmy and Ry Oyu as the
bubble split in two. Olmy watched him move off and vanish behind another
black barrier.
Ry Oyu lifted the clavicle, as if to become used to its weight and
capabilities again. "Ser Olmy, these are servants of the Final Mind--

334 · GREG BEAR

however misguided. They tell me they are eager to convey you to your
chosen gate. They are preparing to find the gate and open it now. I
believe we can trust them. But no one knows how much time has passed
there.. "
"Always an element of risk," Olmy said.
"Uncertainty keeps us interested," Ry Oyu commented.
"Thank you."
"You are quite welcome. They will accept their modified expediter any
time you choose to give him up."
Olmy was not at all reluctant to part with this reminder of his greater
failure. Again, he was surrounded by a pale fire. The Jart within him
vanished.
For a moment, he savored the wonderful alonenes~ To be restored,
alive and sane, and to return to Timbl . . .
He thought of Tapi and Ram Kikura, of other failures less spectacular
and ultimately perhaps more haunting.
"Be content, Set Oh-ny," Ry Oyu said, and clasped his hand, then
released it.
Their bubble split in two again.
Ry Oyu turned to the command individuals. "I would like to travel
back to the geometry stacks. I will need to open gates to two worlds in
universes very slightly different from our own."
His bubble moved back through the barriers, into the flaw station, and
down to the Way.
He carried Korzenowski's clavicle lightly. The bubble spread open at
the bottom and gave him access to the living bronze surface.
The gate-opener closed his eyes and murmured the ritual incantations
that prepared his mind, however unnecessary they might be in his present
form.
"I lift this clavicle to worlds without number, and bring a new light to
the Way, guiding this gate that all may prosper, those who guide and are
guided, who create and are created, who light the Way and bask in the
light so given . ."
The surface of the Way grew dark with the approach of the accelerating
kink. That would make opening gates even more difficult. There was
little time left, perhaps only hours, and he had much work to do, much
searching even after the gate was open.
He finished with, "Behold . . . I open a new world."
He had never before, in all his career as gate-opener, made a double
gate. Yet this gate would open onto two precisely chosen worlds.
A circular depression began to form beneath his feet, its edges spar
ETERNITY ·


kling. The first world spun beneath him, as seen through the clavicle;
here was an alternate to Rhita's Gaia, a spreading branch from the Gaia
where Patricia had arrived and made her changes, yet where no Jarts had
ever invaded.

The gate-opener could not stretch this gate far back in time. He made a
brief attempt, then pulled back and concentrated on locating Rhita Vas-kayza.
A Rhita who had never known the Jarts, who had never traveled
to find the Jart gate . .

The Way shimmered violently, and he wondered if there would be
time.


EIGHTY-ONE


Home


Rhita walked through the grove where Berenik~ had told her she would
find her father. She saw Rham6n sitting discouraged among the olive
trees, back against a gnarled trunk, head in hands, face twisted with
troubles. Having fought some petty battle against the Akademeia's increasingly
rebellious board of masters. Needing encouragement.

"Father," she said, and then stepped back as if slapped. Something fell
on her, into her; something at once familiar and very alien. She saw
herself, strange and exhausted, tumbling from nowhere, as if into a cup
· . Memories of invasion, destruction and something like death filled
her. She closed her eyes and held her hands to her head, wanting to
scream. She gasped like a fish with the shock of assimilating so much,

feeling for an instant that she must have lost her mind . . .
Stumbled on a root and almost lost her balance.

When she recovered, the memories were cached in deep background,
safely isolated for the moment.

"Rhita?" Rham6n looked up from his reverie. "Are you all right?"
She made up an excuse to cover her confusion. "Some illness, I think
· . from Alexandreia."

She was home for a vacation. Truly home, not in a dream or a nightmare.
She grasped her upper arms with both hands. Real flesh, real trees,

335 · GREG BEAR


her real father. All the other memories, visions, hallucinations...
faces. Nightmares.

"I felt faint. I'm all right now," she said. "Perhaps it was Grandmother
touching me."

"We could use her touch," Rham~n said, shaking his head.

"Tell me what's happened," Rhita said. And sat before her father,
digging her hand into the dry, caky soil, clenching the dirt between her
fingers.

I will sort this out, in time. I promise myself that I will. Yisions and
dreams and nightmares enough for a dozen lifetimea

The legacy of the sophS. Who was, even now . . . Where? Doing
what?


The Way was coming apart. The flaw station had moved out of sight,
retreating in the face of the Engineer's accelerating destruction. Ry Oyu
gave up his human form then, hovering as a twist of light and pattern
over the double gate, searching across a different Earth, an Earth without
the Death, reaching through the geometry stack some decades back in
time, finding a specific moment.

Even in his immaterial form, the stresses on the Way began to dissolve
him. He shifted character again, hid himself within the geometry of the
gate, f(~und the gate itself dissolving, struggled to keep integral long
enough to complete this last but not least important of his duties---


Patricia Luisa Vasquez stepped from the car of her fianck, Paul, clutching
a bag of groceries. The air was chill with California's mild brand of
winter, and the last light of day spread gray and yellow fingers along the
scattered clouds high overhead. She started up the flagstone path to her
parents' house--

And dropped the bag onto the lawn, arms thrown wide, neck jerked

back, eyes seeming to vibrate in their sockets.

"Patricia!" Paul shouted from the car.

She rolled onto the ground, then straightened again, bucking against

the grass, grunting and whining incoherently.

Then she lay back limp, spent.

"Jesus, Jesus," Paul said, bending over her, hand on her forehead,
other hand waving, not knowing what to do.

"Don't let Mother hear you say that," Patricia whispered, her throat
raw.

"I didn't know you were epileptic."

ETERNITY · 337

"I'm not. Help me up." She tried to gather up the spilled groceries.
"Oh, what a mess . . ."
"What happened?"
She smiled fiercely, sweetly, triumphantly, and then the smile faded
and was replaced by puzzlement. "Don't ask," she said. "I'll tell you no lies."
If I know where I am, she thought, I know who I am. Nothing was
very clear; she had only vague, scattered recollections of a group of people
trying valiantly to help her, and succeeding. But she was home, on
the walkway just outside the little bungalow in Long Beach, and that
meant she was Patricia Luisa Vasquez, and the worried young man kneeling
on the grass beside her was Paul, whom she had mourned for some
reason, just as she had mourned . . .
Looking around at the streets, the houses, unburn~, solid, skies clear of
smoke and flame. No Apocalypse.
"Mother will be so pleased," she said in a hoarse croak. "I think I've
just had an epiphany." She reached up and wrapped her arms around his
neck, hugging him so hard he grimaced.
Around his head, she peered up with sharp, cat-like eyes at the stars
just beginning to shine overhead.
No Stone in the heavens, she told herself. Whatever that means.

EIGHTY-TWO

In the Flaw

With grave misgivings still, Korzenowski submitted to being "stored."
The Engineer experienced a time of cold nothingness, and then a wonderful
and nightmarish jumbling in the maelstrom of information gathered
by the Jarts--the remnants of thousands of worlds, trillions of beings,
gathered haphazardly through time, now transmitted along the
flaw, to pass into the Final Mind.
The Way gathered in great coils and supercoils, eating itself like some
ineffable burning fuse, and died.
The time of avatars on Earth came to an end.

338 · GREG BEAR


EIGHTY-THREE


Timbl


Olmy felt rather than saw the gate closing above him. Static crackled in
the dry air and a low moan spread out from where his feet lightly
touched red sand. Then, nothing but the whisper of a thin breeze.

For a moment, he feared that all he would see would be another Jart
conquest, a world fanatically packaged and preserved for descendant
command. But Timbl had not been invaded by the Jarts. They apparently
had not bothered to reopen this particular gate until now, and they
would never return.

He stood in the raw, blinding glare of Timbl's sun, smiling broadly.
His altered skin could withstand this much ultraviolet; it even felt good
to him, familiar. It seemed to make little difference how much time had
passed here; Timbl at any time would be home to Olmy.

He was at the top of a hill. Below the hill, to the north, lay a flat paved
field, still kept polished white, despite the absence of Hexamon vehicles.
This was where the main gate to Timbl had once opened. It had been
dosed just before the Sundering, when the Hexamon had begun its withdrawal
from the Way.

Olmy looked to the west and saw the brilliant blue ocean. A tiny torch-like
arc crossed overhead and was intercepted by a purple beam of light.
Cometary fragments still fell here, and were still intercepted by Hexamon
defenses . . . Not so much time had lapsed, after all.

There were undoubtedly a good many Hexamon citizens on Timbl,
refugees after the closing of the gate. He would not lack for human
company. But that wasn't what he sought out first. Any visitor to Timbl
had to be personally welcomed by a Frant to have official status.

Early in their history, when Timbl had been besieged by devastating
comet falls, Frants had evolved to pass along the memories and experiences
of every individual to its fellows. The great mass of Frants carried
the memories of all individuals, if not in detail, then at least as a kind of

ETERNITY ·


inbred history. Any individual Frant, returning home, was quickly absorbed,
integrated, debriefed.

By now, every mature Frant on Timbl would know something about
Olmy. They would have assimilated the experiences of the Frants he had
worked with, decades past; sharing the memories, diffusing the personalities.
Every adult Frant would be his friend.

He did not deserve so much, but here it was.

Olmy walked down the hill to the east, toward the ripe, wind-swaying
fields of yellow and blue food plants, into the closest village with its
characteristic central stupa. He passed young Frants, who stared impassively
after him; the young would not yet recognize him. Olmy met his
first mature individual just outside a marketplace closed for the midday
rest period.

The Frant, tall and gangly, face narrow, eyes protruding to each side,
its shoulders cloaked with ceremonial foil, sat on a broad stone bench. It
regarded him silently for a moment.

"Greetings, Ser Olmy," it said. "What a surprise to see you here."
"My pleasure," Olmy said.


EPILOGUE


First, Mirsky told his companion, we start at the beginning.

And then? Lanier asked.

We search for points of interest, until we come to the end.
And then?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Karen Anderson has once again provided invaluable help with my odd
languages and history. Her work on the last chapter of Eon laid many
stones for the foundations of the Oikoumen in this sequel. Adrienne
Martine-Barnes lent much useful research material; I've ignored her direct
observations on the architecture of Rhodes, at my peril, to demonstrate
deep historical changes on Rhodos. Brian Thomsen, illustrious
editor, believed and trusted and took risks, and also worked valiantly to
keep my prose from stumbling. Blame these fine folks for nothing; all
error in this book is mine, or perhaps my computer's. r