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 majority—more than he had expected—permanent 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 necessary to begin work on the Way, and ordered the laboratory sealed. “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.
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 re-opening.
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 wither 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 born.
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 withdrawl of He had not thought himself so “Oh, God.”
The tunnel yawned wide, full of rainbow night.