[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Salap gave me a lidded, dubious look. Conversation lapsed, much to Frick's
relief.
The sun emerged from behind clouds and the air became thick and humid. We had
passed the barren gaps of old farmland. Along the shore, the black cliffs of
the thickets towered thirty and forty meters above the canal, and the water
echoed and splashed as it raced down side tunnels like so many swallowing
throats.
The steward laid out padded sleeping mats on the deck and we slept under the
double arc of stars. I stared up at the stars through a thin night haze over
the canal, wondering if I would dream again when I slept.
My mother would recognize me now. Helpless, mortal, sleeping, and with dreams.
The canal water lapped at the hull of the boat, lulling me. Toward the bow,
Brion and Frick slept, one of them snoring faintly. Salap lay on top of the
cabin. If he slept, he did not snore.
"_Unless you know where you are, you don_'_t know who you are._"
I began to know where I was.
We awoke in a golden fog. The mist-thick morning air burned gold over the
Page 199
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
canal. The steward brought a hot, yeasty decoction in a silver pot and poured
it into cups, then served warm, crisp cakes for breakfast. We sat beneath the
canopy as the fog burned off, all but Brion, who kept to himself near the bow.
Frick chatted lightly about incidentals, filling the time with stories of
trivial social events surrounding Brion. I did not find his stories amusing,
but what he said filled the time and offended no one.
My butt became sore with sitting. I stood and walked aft, standing near the
stern to watch our wake in the empty water.
On the shores of the canal, the thickets became gnarled, their black clipped
edges turning light purple and irregular, lumpy. Only once did I see something
moving through the branches, like a huge brown earthworm. Salap came aft to
sit beside me as the hours passed into evening.
"The captain and I studied this coast years ago," he said. "Though we never
went up this canal, or even as far as the lake. Within the thickets, there are
many dozens of types of scions.
That was back when Lenk was trying to romance the women who ran things in
Godwin. Bring them back into the fold ... But I don't see much scion activity
now. Perhaps Brion is right, and some sort of fluxing is imminent."
"Are you sure there's no other ecoi on Hsia?" I asked.
"None that have been discovered. This one is old, old, perhaps older than any
other on
Lamarckia. Baker thought it might be the ancestor of all ecoi. I believe it
covers the entire continent."
That afternoon, we passed a large flatboat loaded with mounds of dark, fine
dirt -- some sort of ore. Brion sat on the bow with knees drawn up and watched
it pass down the canal. Several bare-chested men on the flatboat waved
cheerfully, and Brion waved back once. He said to Frick, "A
lighter haul again. She's not piling it up like she used to."
Salap squatted beside me and frowned. "Who is this 'she' he keeps talking
about?" he whispered. "What does 'she' have to do with piles of dirt? I'm sick
of mystery."
"It's his show," I said, and thought of the Fishless Sea and its mystery
attraction.
As evening came, we passed another flatboat, half loaded with piles of brown
and red logs like stacked sausages.
"Food," Frick said. "More than we could ever hope to grow ourselves." But
something bothered him about the boat, and he went forward to stoop beside
Brion. They talked in whispers for a while, and Brion became agitated, finally
waving Frick away.
Ahead, the canal broadened into a small lake. All around the lake shore, long
dark file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Legacy.txt (149 of 183)
[5/21/03 12:38:23 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Legacy.txt structures like huge
cocoons, with fibrous gray walls, protruded halfway into the water. Between
the cocoons lay flat open spaces, and offshore from one of these spaces, a
floating crane with a shovel attachment was busily clearing four mounds of ore
and loading them into a third flatboat.
The ore lay in diminishing piles in a clearing that might have once held a
dozen or more mounds of similar size.
"Are you curious?" Brion called back to us.
"Very curious," Salap answered.
"Let it build, let it build," Brion said. "It's seldom I have so many
intelligent witnesses. Allow me a little drama."
Salap tapped his fingertips on the rear gunwale, head lowered. "Pity us, Ser
Olmy. Lenk has always behaved like one kind of child. Brion is another."
There had been a maxim in Thistledown political science classes: that the
governed shaped their governors. This was not quite the same as saying that
the people got the government they deserved, but it pointed in that direction.
Page 200
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
What galled me was the pain and suffering of the innocent, those too young to
make a choice, those born on Lamarckia.
But Brion had been one of those, too.
"If I had been a scientist on the Thistledown, or in the Way," Salap said,
"how many more intelligent, more capable men and women would stand ahead of
me, occupying the finest positions, making the greatest discoveries?"
"So?" I asked, puzzled.
"I know myself, Ser Olmy. I am one of the most intelligent people on this
planet."
"And that worries you," I said.
"It terrifies me. I long for my superiors." He peered across the calm waters
at the shores of this strange lake. "Who mines the ore? Where does it come
from?"
"_She_ does," I suggested. "His dead wife, Caitla."
Salap mused, "We are in a land of dreams, Ser Olmy."
The lake passed behind, the canal narrowed and deepened, and we saw no more
flatboats, or any other boats at all. The pilot pushed us against the slow
steady waters, the electric motors humming, the screws leaving a shimmering
wake behind, set with jewels of fire from the westering sun. The sunset light
made Salap a gilded pirate. We said little to each other.
I think both of us expected to die soon; either Brion's premonitions of change
would be true, and the change, whatever it was, would kill us, or Brion
himself would change and kill us...
Our chances seemed slim.
I thought often of Shirla, and hoped she was being treated well, but in truth,
all the people we had left behind -- dead or alive -- seemed to retreat in
memory as well as time. My universe narrowed to the boat, the canal, Salap,
and Brion. All others -- even Frick and the boat's crew -- were
supernumeraries.
Frick crept aft often enough and spoke to us. He seemed even more acutely
aware of his mortality. His nervous chatter became an irritation, and was
seldom informative. He would not answer direct questions, deferring instead to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]