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 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 done! 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 self-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 foodstuffs—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.