Pock's World Read online

  Joy was shouting ahead, into the blowing mist, so he had to lean over her shoulder to hear. It was very intimate contact. If she had planned it, as he suspected, then her mother’s strategy had worked and Joy had picked out her target. His fans on Ayne would forgive many things, but not statutory rape.

  “How can you know how old the ruins are?”

  “That’s easy. Half of them are buried in old lava and we can date the minerals. Nothing survives in the jungle except stone, and even that weathers. Nothing survives on Pock’s for long. Mountains crumble and sink. This world turns over its surface every million years or so. Everything gets buried in lava sooner or later, or just collapses into the ground when the volcanoes have sucked out the magma below.”

  A cliff loomed out of the fog on their right. A waterfall roared somewhere close, audible even over the noise of the flyer itself.

  “We don’t have oceans or mountains ranges, just scenery,” Joy shouted, zooming around a rock pillar. As long as she kept lecturing, Ratty had to keep his chin on her shoulder.

  “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

  “Roughly.”

  Roughly could have been rougher, because a few moments later the flyer soared up into brilliant sunshine and there was a hillocky island straight ahead, a heap of black ridges and green gullies in a billowing sea of cloud. A few other peaks showed in the distance, all lit by the eerie light of a low sun—a real sun in a blue sky. Javel had disappeared.

  “Mount Garookuh!” Joy crowed. “That’s where we’re going.”

  Several thunderstorms were heading there also, but the flyer arrived first. She set it down gently on a hummocky green space that would qualify as the main summit. It supported one notable spire and many green or black pillars and pyramids, even a few lonely trees. Everything seemed unreal in the low light, streaked with elongated shadows.

  “Watch you don’t break an ankle,” Joy said, sliding down. “Mattress moss won’t eat you, but it feels like it’s trying to. And there can be rocks or tree trunks buried in it. There’s a lot of lightning up here, so the trees get struck.”

  Lightning he could do without!

  “Let’s go look at that!” Holding his hand, she led him toward the nearest hillock. The ground cover was well named, billowing and bouncing underfoot like heaped air mattresses. They both stumbled repeatedly, sprawling into hot wet sponge. It was only a few meters to their objective, but Ratty was gasping and puffing by the time they arrived. Joy found a patch of black rock on the side of the green heap and tugged more of the surrounding plant cover away.

  “This is a Querent wall, see? If you look close, you can make out the stonework.”

  Well, maybe. The rock was weathered to powder, but with an effort he could see joins in it. He stared around the bizarre landscape, trying to make out a city among the humps and ridges. “Has this ever been excavated?”

  “Not here.” She leaned against the mossy wall, puffing as hard as he. “It’s too holy. Tourist Quassia and some other places, yes. I told you—nothing but stone survives, and even that doesn’t last.”

  Ratty looked around the bizarre mountain top. “Why would the Querent build anything up here?”

  “They built all over Pock’s, but all the low-lying sites have been buried in ash or lava long ago. This was their great holy place a million years ago, give or take.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She smiled at the scenery. “They told Monody.” She flashed a glance at Ratty to see how he had taken that. “They worshiped the Mother here, in their city of Quassia, although Garookuh was a lot higher in those days. The geologists say this part of Pock’s is sinking and will probably turn into an ocean soon. A small ocean. Do you know we have boiling seas in some places?”

  He put an arm around her.

  “See that spire?” she said quickly. “That’s Quoad.”

  “I thought he was the martyr? Did he get turned to stone?”

  “No. That was where he died. It’s the holiest of holies. The pillar back at the temple is a smaller copy of this one. You see how there’s nothing growing on it? I would have taken the flyer closer, but Quoad stands right on the edge of the drop. It’s almost sheer down into the caldera, even after all this time, and there can be nasty downdrafts so I didn’t dare. The caldera’s still active, once in a while spouting steam and hot mud. If I’d had more time I could have found the path, but I didn’t. We can look for it afterward if you want, and then we can walk over to Quoad, but this is close enough for— There’s ancient legends about Quoad, you know? The pillar Quoad. Querent legends. They said its roots are down in the center of the world and its hands reach up to the Mother and—”

  “Stop!” he said softly, tightening his hold. “Joy, you’re trembling! Stop worrying. I’m not going to do anything. You don’t have to do anything. It’s a wonderful place and I’m grateful to you for bringing me here. That’s all. Nothing else is necessary.”

  She twisted around and buried her face in his neck. He hugged her tight—both arms now. Her hair was damp in his face. He liked the smell of it, exotic, unfamiliar. She was still shaking.

  “You don’t want to hear where the Querent went to?” she mumbled.

  “I don’t give a spit for the Querent. Did you ever come up here with Scrob?”

  “Scrob? Of course not!”

  “No, he wouldn’t appreciate it,” Ratty said, suspecting that he was just starting to appreciate it himself. “Why were you in such a hurry to get us here?”

  “It’s time,” she whispered.

  The poor kid was obsessed!

  “It will be time when you want it to be time, and not a minute before. Don’t pay any attention to what your mother says. Don’t throw yourself at a decadent old off-worlder pervert like me just because he’s not going to be around— I mean because he’ll have to go home to Ayne very soon. You’ll know when it’s time and who—”

  “It’s time now!” She pushed him.

  The moss rocked under his feet, and the two of them went down together and bounced. In the sudden release of tension they both burst out laughing. She tickled him and set them bouncing again. He rolled over and tickled her. She squealed and punched. They rolled and bounced and giggled like children.

  But they were not children, and he had ended on top.

  “Idiot!” he said. They were nose to nose. Eye to eye. His hand was cupping her left breast and she must be aware of his epically tumescent GM phallus red-hot between them.

  Silent stare. She was waiting for him to make the next move.

  Not to have kissed her then would have been a slap in the face.

  One of those kisses… On a scale of one to five it scored about a forty-nine.

  Eventually he pulled back, breathing hard, knowing that if he was going to stop at all he must stop now. His hand still insisted on fondling her breast. The light.. The sun was going out. Puzzled, he looked at the sky and then down at her smile. It was blissful.

  “What?”

  “Click!” she said, eyes bright as diamonds.

  Huh? Oh, Click!

  “You’re certain?” he mumbled.

  “Do it!”

  He sucked on her right nipple. She gasped and clutched his head with both hands. He had never know a woman with skin so soft. There was no hurry. He was going to do this properly. He was going to calm her fears and then rouse her to such a frenzy of passion that all her life she would judge all lovemaking by this first time. He had all the time in the world.

  The sun was going out.

  Chapter 9

  The chapter house at Hederal was many mansions, an array of wooden buildings on a hillside overlooking—so Athena was informed—a spectacular view of the town and river valley. Rain and fog hid that. She was assigned what her guide called a cabin, but it was as large as a house and luxuriously appointed. She changed, tied her hair in a ponytail out of the way, and stepped out into the downpour again, heading for a promised meal. Old Ayne had it
s faults, but at least a girl could get dry there once in a while.

  Solan emerged from the next cabin, closing the door with care unusual in a boy his age. He waited for Athena.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  He offered his wan little smile. “Starving. I have a black hole inside my tummy, Dad says.” He fell into step beside her.

  “You father isn’t coming to dinner?”

  “Maybe later, he says, but I think the medic drugged him. He’s in a lot of pain now.”

  “He’s very brave to keep working. Courage must run in your family.” If Skerry was dying, what had prompted his son’s reckless offer in the airship? Had he felt suicidal, or had he been trying to impress the father he was soon to lose?—Watch! This is what I will be.

  “He says he’ll last longer if he can keep working. It’s funny,” Solan added in a non-funny tone. “We thought he might last another few fortnights, and now both of us will die next Sixtrdy. At least we can go together.”

  Stop it, boy! “We must never give up hope,” she said.

  But often young eyes saw more clearly. Young minds were readier to accept the world as it was, instead of hiding it behind dreams. Chyle had been like that, and Solan knew there was no hope. STARS had seen the opportunity of diverting the probe to make an easy kill. It had planned geocide right from the start. General Sulcus had never said that the commissioners could vote on the sentence. Their job was to confirm the evidence, and it sounded as if the evidence was cut and dried. Tomorrow she would meet a non-human hominin, Homo novus.

  * * *

  As they reached the main house, the rain stopped. A sliver of sun was showing over the horizon, lighting the base of the clouds.

  Indoors, she was introduced to a newcomer, Cardinal Phare, a short, plumpish man with an irritating air of infallibility. He wore a red tunic above his red shorts, a red visor, and a jeweled pectoral cross. Either he had brought fresh garments for Brother Andre or the friar’s robe had changed color to a darker brown. Clearly Gownsman Oxindole was displeased at the presence of another purveyor of Christianity on the Mother’s world, for he soon pled pressure of work and excused himself. Only seven went in to dine: Athena, Millie Backet, the two clerics, Linn, Braata-Zyemindar, and Solan.

  The food machines offered a dozen choices, none of which were familiar. Athena watched in amusement as Solan piled his plate even higher than Braata’s. He had not been lying about his internal black hole. The boy looked puzzled when Cardinal Phare said grace.

  “Old Ayne custom,” Linn explained. “You give thanks before you eat. If you don’t have anything to eat, you aren’t allowed to complain.”

  “Because,” Brother Andre said, “there may be reasons of which you are unaware.”

  “This blue stuff is delicious!” Backet remarked loudly.

  “Don’t ask,” Linn warned.

  Athena had no appetite. She could find nothing delicious in this funeral feast. The conversation took off after trivia, but Brother Andre soon brought it back to business.

  “I have some questions for you, Braata. When exactly did you learn that the world would end on Sixtrdy?”

  Braata looked miserable. “Just this morning, Brother, when I was told STARS would evacuate Pock’s by Frivdy at the latest, and non-essential personnel would leave on Forsdy.”

  “Were you told who ordered this?”

  Interesting question, Athena thought. Whose hands were bloody?

  “I was told it was ordered by management,” the STARS man said.

  “And who is management?”

  “I have no idea, Brother. I don’t know if there is a planetary management or an overall sector board. I knew my supervisor and her supervisor. The rest were just people.”

  Lin’s heavy voice rolled into the conversation. “Do you know when that decision was made?”

  Braata shook his head.

  “When did you mine the projector?”

  “Five days ago.”

  Athena watched anger bubbling all around the table. That had been before Sulcus began recruiting them.

  Linn said, “And from then on, the die was cast? Pock’s World was doomed from that moment?”

  “From the moment we left the probe,” STARS’s man said. “When we could see what had happened, when we found the abandoned food and so on, Chessel reported on tight band. She cognized me to ask whether I had brought delays that could be set for four days, and I assured her I had. I think that was when she was given the settings that aimed the probe at Pock’s.” He sighed and pushed away his plate almost untouched. “She may not have known what she was doing any more than I did. She would just upload the numbers she was given.”

  “You acted in good faith,” Linn said. “And we must remember that STARS is doing its duty by its lights. Even the gownsmen admit that the cuckoo hominins have infiltrated Pock’s World. Historically STARS has burned any planet in danger of being taken over by synthetics. We cannot deny the evidence if the Pocosins themselves accept it.”

  “You’re on STARS’s side now?” Athena said.

  Lin’s smile was as polished and bloodless as ever. “No. I hate the thought of the shock wave this will send through the sector economy. But that was never the question. We were all in denial. If I am indeed introduced to a cuckoo tomorrow, and am convinced that it, or he, is genuine, then I must admit that STARS has enough evidence to proceed to sterilization according to its traditions. Whether such an extreme and literal scorched-earth policy is morally justified or necessary nowadays is another matter. Strict quarantine could avoid economic catastrophe.”

  He was right, of course, damn him! Linn was always right and always had been. She knew that.

  “Economic catastrophe’?” the friar said. “Friend Linn, our Lord taught us that it was very difficult for rich men to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a theory that God gets bored with them eternally talking about money.”

  Linn smiled, unruffled. “You have found my money useful enough in the past, Brother.”

  “You give it away, which is good. I put it to work, which is my duty. We are now discussing more important things.”

  “Would it work?” Athena asked. “Is the probe big enough to wipe out a world?”

  “Yes!” Surprisingly, the assertion came from Solan. “My dad says it is. Not most worlds, he says, but Pock’s is only just livable at any time. A big strike would split the crust. Lava would pour out. The hot bits raining down would start forest fires all over the world. The carbo… gas…”

  “Carbon dioxide,” Braata prompted.

  “Yes. It would go up until we’d all suffocate, Dad says. If we don’t suffocate, we’ll fry. The carbon stuff will hold in the sun’s heat and the air will get hotter and hotter until the seas boil. The whole world will get boiled.”

  Braata nodded. “You’re right, young friend. With a high-oxygen atmosphere, fire is always a problem. I remember doing this as a problem in class. We had to work out the minimum impact required for sterilization for each world in the sector. Pock’s was by far the lowest, because of the high oxygen, because its crust is so thin and its internal heat flow so great, but mainly because you can use Javel’s gravity to accelerate the missile. And the pirate is in a retrograde orbit, which doubles the impact. So there will be blast and crustal movement, but mostly terrible fires. After that the smoke and soot will block out the sun, and the temperature will plunge for several years. When the sky clears, the excess carbon and sulfur in the atmosphere will produce a massive greenhouse effect, raising the temperature high enough to boil water, and the resulting water vapor will trap even more heat. Nothing will survive.”

  Linn laughed, “You won’t get to check your calculations, will you? You ratted. You won’t be up there on the Pock’s Station grandstand watching the forests burn and the seas boil. Sounds like you’re going to miss a great show.”

  Braata was not intimidated, although he was pale for a Pocosin. “Brother Andre will confirm that it is better to burn to de
ath than to burn for all eternity, and that is what STARS is going to do.”

  “The bright side,” Millie said, “is that we are relieved of the awful responsibility of condemning a world to death. We just have to confirm that the evidence is genuine.”

  “People like you make me sick.” Linn reached for the wine.

  Athena held out her glass for a refill. She had just realized that she was murderously furious as she had rarely been in her entire life. She had been used! That was what hurt. No one had ever turned her to their purpose like this before. Chyle’s death had made her rage, but only against the injustice of heaven. A few sleazy warts on the body politic had roused her temper, and once an unfaithful lover—once and only once. But this…!

  “I won’t wait for hellfire!” she snapped. “I want to make STARS burn now! I am still not convinced that it did not fake this whole thing just to block the Mongo Bill. The timing is too slick to be coincidence. The boy we will be shown in the morning may have been bred in some ghastly laboratory just in case a freak may someday be needed to bolster STARS’s claim of indispensability. It may have a whole zoo of them tucked away on some minor planet somewhere.

  “Even Linn questions the moral justification, and I don’t need to question. I know it is wrong to destroy a world. So fifty hominins have invaded? Pock’s has caught one already. We have his DNA and we have his face. At the very least, the authorities should have been given a year or two to track down the other forty-nine. The rest of you can waffle all you want. The report I file when I return will be a denunciation of STARS as a gang of mass murderers. I will not only throw my party’s full support behind the Mongo Bill, I will urge President Carabin to go before the Sector Council and call for an all-out effort to wrest control of space travel away from these faceless monsters. STARS should be replaced by an organization answerable to the Sector Council. Whoever is destroying Pock’s World should be put on trial for geocide.”