23

 

A call stirred Habidah out of sleep. At first, she thought it a hallucination. She hadn’t even been allowed to contact anyone when Feliks died – suddenly and peacefully – a week after she’d returned.

Whoever it was could only be signaling her with the amalgamates’ permission.

She pushed her feet out of bed. She stared at the wall a while, let the message drum against her subconscious before answering. The viewwall flicked to life. A larger-than-real Osia stared down at her. She stood in front of a dark background. Her jet-black skin made her difficult to distinguish. It was only from memory than Habidah knew that Osia even had a nose.

Habidah was dressed only in her underclothes. She said nothing, waiting for Osia to speak first. The timing of the call, the lack of warning or time to make herself presentable, meant that Osia was trying to put her on edge.

Osia said, “I’m prepared to give you permission to contact the Unity.”

Habidah blinked. It took her a moment to know how to react. She said, “With anything I might say about your project censored.”

Osia inclined her head. “The security of our project is important. So are your concerns. I haven’t had an opportunity to express my condolences for the passing of Dr Vine. I’ve been given to understand that the two of you knew each other well.”

“You would know,” Habidah said, drily.

“On long-term transplanar assignments, it’s traditional for the project leader to inform the families of those who’ve died.”

Osia’s background check would have let her know that Habidah had little family or friends to speak of. There was nothing in Osia’s voice to indicate that she wasn’t sincere. “I will tell them,” Habidah said, with a cracked voice.

Osia nodded and vanished.

Habidah queried NAI. The communications gateway was open.

She stood and dressed, taking her time. Ways and Means would be listening to everything she sent home, of course. Her thoughts raced, trying to think of some way that she could get word out. Even if the whole Unity knew about the amalgamates’ project, though, she doubted that would stop them. Most people simply wouldn’t care. This was a primitive little plane. Everyone back home had worse troubles. They weren’t here; they didn’t know these people.

She pinged Joao. He’d returned on the shuttle a day after Feliks had died. He was in Feliks’ quarters, packing his belongings. Joao had volunteered to spare Habidah from having to ask.

He said, “Osia just called me. Guessing she told the same thing to you.”

Habidah said, “They want something they won’t say.”

“Of course they do.”

“I’ll contact Feliks’ family.” She hesitated. “Thank you for preserving his remains. I wasn’t in a state where I could ask you.”

“Not a problem.” She and Joao weren’t friends, but Habidah didn’t think that she could have gone on without a companion of some kind. “Want to return the favor? I don’t think I’m up to contacting my family. I don’t want to tell them how I’m doing. If you could, I would appreciate it.”

Habidah sent back a wordless affirmation. She sat cross-legged on her bunk, and turned her attention back to the wall.

After a moment breathing deeply, she connected to the Unity.

Communications between planes was the challenge that, long ago, had necessitated the creation of AIs as sophisticated as the amalgamates. There was hardly a more daunting task in the multiverse. Even small gateways swallowed hideous amounts of power. To save enough energy to make transplanar communication economical, the aperture opened and closed after every bit in a datastream. Accomplishing that, never mind predicting the millisecond the response would arrive and opening just in time to allow it through, took a mind beyond human understanding.

It was one of the many reasons the Unity couldn’t exist without the amalgamates. All of its message traffic routed through them and the Core Worlds.

A hot flood of information rushed into her demiorganics. The wall showered her in dazzling icons: directories, guides, news bulletins, heaps of advertisements, gossamer maps of connections to millions of planes, demiorganic firmware updates, and mounds of her own unanswered mail tugged at different parts of her senses and awareness.

Reading the chart of network connections that would put her in contact with Feliks’ home plane, Rodinia, was like following a water droplet down a spiderweb. Her signal leapfrogged thirty-five gateways, each opening and closing in tandem with millions of other signals. It was dizzying to follow.

Finally, though, she reached Rodinia. Rodinia’s Public Commission had chosen to welcome visitors with an old-fashioned orbital view of their world. A live image of its lake-dappled megacontinent glittered across the wall. Arrow-straight irrigation canals crisscrossed its plains. Its western shorelines were smudged gray from a hundred city-sized rain factories.

Habidah stared for a moment, and wondered what it would have been like to grow up on such a throwback. Everything about this plane, from the clean air to the lack of visual noise polluting its dark side, said that Rodinia wanted to appear a simple world, almost frontier rustic. If any of this had shaped Feliks’ character, she’d missed it.

Rodinia’s directories listed a sparse few million inhabitants, most of them employee-shareholders of the same three companies. Rodinia was an agricultural world, trundled over by building-sized harvesters. Most people living here supervised the machines, and that was all. Everyone who didn’t have a reason to stay left for more interesting planes. Like Feliks.

Habidah ran a search for Feliks’ family. Zero results. She tried again. That didn’t make sense. She had their names in Feliks’ personnel record. Mother, two fathers, two sisters, all on Rodinia.

It was only when she expanded her search into other directions that she discovered her mistake. She had been searching the records of the living.

Feliks’ parents had been cremated at the Vine Extended Family Mortuary Garden, recently expanded to cope with the influx of onierophage dead. A lump formed in Habidah’s chest. Feliks had never mentioned this. Had he known? Had his family ever contacted him, or he them? She’d never find out. Only one of Feliks’ sisters was alive. She hadn’t appeared on normal directories because she had withdrawn to a coastal hospice for onierophage victims. She didn’t want to be contacted.

Osia had known Habidah would find this, of course.

Habidah backtracked to Rodinia’s address directory, and compared the results to an archived list from several months ago. Millions had been excised. Fifteen percent of Rodinia’s population had died in the past twelve months, with another five percent expected to die in the next six.

Many of Rodinia’s farms had gone dark. Power plant after power plant was shutting down. Its news bulletins were all panic and fear. The plane’s Head Commissioner had died two days ago, the second office-holder in nine weeks. Counseling centers were overloaded, and hospitals so busy that most patients were sent home to die. And still the onierophage was spreading.

There was nothing else to do. She withdrew down the string of connections, back to the Core Worlds. This time to Providence Core, Joao’s home.

For a moment she stared, unseeing, until the news bulletins finally broke through the visual noise. According to them, the Unity was vastly smaller than the last time she’d been there. Thousands upon thousands of planes had dropped out of contact. Some no longer had populations large enough to sustain themselves and had evacuated. Others had quarantined themselves from the Unity, going independent. The amalgamates, loathe to allow any plane to leave their influence, simply allowed this to happen. Occasionally, some of these planes resurfaced, infected and begging for help. Most simply vanished.

Perhaps she was getting old-fashioned, too. She reflexively pulled her attention up to an orbital view just to escape. Providence Core and its sun hung suspended in a solid black sky, dotted with lights too few and too near to be stars. Below, Providence Core’s cities were stars on velvet, mirrored by rings of satellites and stations above. Two gem-faceted planarships, Trade and Finance and Foreign Operations, glittered in the sky.

This solar system, like all the Core Worlds, was in a thick interstellar dust cloud. It blocked most light from the outside universe. Only the sun shone through. The amalgamates had chosen these planes because the minimized cosmic radiation was perfect for their communications networks. They and their fleets and stations were the only objects in the sky.

But even here the amalgamates were helpless. Providence Core had been infected later than most planes, but suffered a comparatively higher death rate. Twenty percent of its people had perished. Another five percent were slated to die in six months. Before long, the death rate would approach that of cities on this plane.

Habidah fetched an orbital image of Providence Core a year ago, and compared. Seas of darkness had opened in the middle of the continents, gradually reaching toward the coast. Providence Core consumed half the energy it had a year ago. The difference hadn’t just come from the deaths, but from the failure of industry after industry as panic, trade quarantines, and economic depression swept the Unity.

The plane was crowded with bodies. There were not enough crematoria to accommodate the dead, nor time for funerals. Some families held onto their dead, waiting. Freezer warehouses were packed full of bodies. Graveships plied the oceans and stars, waiting forever to be unloaded.

It was unlikely that the plague spread by contact, but cities were nigh-abandoned. People no longer wanted to live near their neighbors. Parents had left sick children behind (and vice versa), often in the care of an NAI, but sometimes just to die.

Habidah hadn’t realized she’d been holding her hand over her mouth. She lowered it.

A search for Joao’s family produced more results than Feliks’. Father, dead. Mother, migrated to extraplanar hospice. Surviving relatives included a brother, a niece, two cousins, and an uncle. Habidah had no idea what to say to any of them. She nearly called Joao to ask, but stopped. Like Feliks, he hadn’t mentioned any deaths in his family. If he hadn’t heard, she’d need to find a better time to tell him.

Against her better instincts, she leapfrogged her signal home. To Caldera.

She hadn’t been to Caldera in nearly fifteen years. Until now, she’d believed not much had changed. Caldera was a small, conservative, scientific settlement. It resisted shock. Centuries after its founding, it maintained a stable population of just two hundred thousand.

Eons ago, a meteorite collision had all but blown off the world’s crust. Only a thin layer had been left behind. Caldera had been settled by transplanar geologists studying the resulting continent-spanning supervolcano. Hundreds of years later, the plane still retained its academic character. Every child born on the world had free access to its universities. Its government was a council of professors that loved inflicting social engineering experiments on its populace. Most of these failed in perverse and spectacular ways, but those that stuck – like the system of clan families that had given Habidah her two other names – had become defining features of Caldera. The clans had fostered a sense of community between Caldera’s isolated, underground cities. They defined Habidah, too. She’d never gotten rid of her clan names decades after she’d left. Nor had she ever stopped thinking of herself as a scientist.

She went straight to the news bulletins. She waved through the list of towns and clans, recognizing each of them. Even half of the reporters were familiar. As was the first name she saw, in an obituary for the president of Caldera’s second-largest university. To set an example to the rest of the plane, he had requested no funeral observance.

The burdens of living underground on a hostile world had strained the settlers’ resources in the best of times. Now, with twenty percent of its people dead or dying, Caldera had no time to mourn.

Caldera’s geothermal power plants were shutting down one after another for lack of manpower and expertise. Some cities had imposed brownouts for all services except atmospheric support. Small towns had been evacuated.

There was no shortage of the dead. All of the available crematoria were running at maximum capacity. Several of the evacuated towns had been turned into holding centers of the dead. Habidah couldn’t restrain her gasp when a reporter’s optics scanned streets she recognized. They were in a town she’d visited for clan fairs. The sunlamps were off. The underground complex had become a vault. The hazy streetlights silhouetted lines upon lines of lumpy bags, blanketed in a fog of Caldera’s cold and poisonous atmosphere. There were thousands.

Habidah’s stomach churned. Her hand was over her mouth again. She held it there to keep from throwing up.

Caldera was missing more than just the dead. Thousands of people had simply left. They recognized that, even if the plague were cured today, Caldera had no future. The Unity was near to splintering. Planes like Caldera would be the first to be left behind.

Three of Caldera’s five largest universities were officially recommending that provision be made for the evacuation of the entire plane. The remaining institutions were expected to join them shortly. If Caldera were evacuated, it was unlikely to ever be settled again.

Habidah disconnected without planning to. The wall blackened.

Before she knew what she was doing, she slammed her palm into the wall. She spun and kicked her bunk. After a moment, the wall lit again without her prompting. She faced it.

Osia’s towering image looked down on her, her expression implacable.

Osia said, “The Unity is facing an existential threat. I don’t think you’ve had a chance recently to appreciate that. It’s gotten much worse since you left. Unless we can cure an invisible disease, it’s going to get much worse in the months and years to come.” Osia’s voice, for once, revealed some emotion: it hardened. “So if we place the survival of our culture above the individual freedoms of primitive planes like this one, I trust future generations will forgive us.”

“Colonizing one world won’t save the Unity,” Habidah said, dully.

“There are dozens of others. Yours is only one of the first. But it will help.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We still don’t know how the plague spreads, but we have figured out who isn’t contracting it. Those of us who’ve transitioned to demiorganic bodies, for one. There are others. Travelers. Exiles. Monks and hermits. Scouts. Explorers. People who, for whatever reason, haven’t visited the Unity in at least five years. All of those we’ve found again have been uninfected. We’ve kept them isolated from the Unity.”

“Turning these worlds into colonies for them won’t preserve even a hundredth of the Unity.”

“There are representatives from every plane. They’re more than we have otherwise.”

“Why save ordinary people at all, though? You just said the amalgamates’ servants aren’t affected by the plague. Neither are the amalgamates. Why not let the Unity die? What do the amalgamates care about ordinary people at all?”

After a moment, Osia asked, “Do you really think we’re that cold?”

“Yes.” When Osia didn’t answer, Habidah pressed, “The amalgamates could have sailed off to the far corners of the multiverse. Not a single one of them has ever tried. Not in thousands of years. They’ve all stayed with the Unity. Everyone knows it’s not out of altruism.”

“I’ve read all of the conspiracy theories about the amalgamates, Dr Shen.”

“For all the weapons, satellites, and factories you have up there, you can’t actually control the peoples of this world, not without human agents getting their hands dirty. It must be the same way with the multiverse as a whole. Humans are by far the most common sentient animal we’ve found. The amalgamates, on the other hand, are unique. To control any significant number of planes, you need humans.”

“While I’d love to debate this at length, Dr Shen, we both have more pressing questions.”

“The answer you’re looking for is ‘no.’ Under no circumstance will I help you colonize and manipulate the peoples of this world.”

“Their lives are short, brutish, and replete with suffering. We can help.”

“If the amalgamates were truly prepared to help them, they’d cure their plague. They can do that at any time now that Ways and Means is here. It’s letting this plague weaken them, leave them vulnerable so their agents can march in and take over.”

“We’re a wealthy civilization, but we don’t have unlimited resources. If you don’t understand the transactional costs by now, I’m not sure you ever will.”

“Whatever you look like, you’re still a person. You know what I’m saying is right.”

Osia stared at Habidah for a long time.

“Goodbye, Dr Shen,” she said, and her image vanished.

When Habidah checked, she saw that her connection to the Unity had been severed again.

She rested her head in her hands. Her thoughts roiled. For, as sure as she had made herself sound, she wasn’t. She couldn’t keep from thinking of Niccoluccio. By trying to protect him, she was making decisions for him and everyone else on this plane, but they might not have been the ones he would choose.

Would he subordinate himself to the amalgamates in exchange for their guidance? Wasn’t submission to a higher power the founding ideal of monastic life? The amalgamates were no gods, but on this plane, they might as well be. They certainly acted like gods. They’d withheld their plague cures to mold this world into a shape more pleasing. Niccoluccio’s god had done worse.

Though she should have gone to Joao, she nearly tried calling Niccoluccio. She needed somebody she could be less guarded around. Ways and Means still allowed his signal to reach her. Her medical monitor said he was healthy and sound.

It would be best for him to let him figure out his own life, without an alien woman using him as a crutch. Still, she’d hoped he would have called before now. They hadn’t spoken since she’d left him in Florence.

She breathed into her hands, and stepped out to tell Joao what she’d discovered.