But what for? They say it just happened… a fight of selfish genes. If so, though, why do we feel so much pain thinking there might not be a purpose?
In his own heart Nelson felt that strange mixture — hope and despair. A philosopher was what he was working to become. His teacher had said it was his true knack. But that didn’t help one damn bit against the fluxions of youth, its hormone rush, or the agony of being alive.
Worse, just when he most wanted to talk to Jen, she had abandoned him.
Don’t exaggerate, Nelson chided himself. It’s only been a few days. You’ve heard what’s happening on the net. fen’s probably up to her ears.
Still, he wished there were someone he could talk to about all this. Someone who had answers to offer, instead of endless questions.
If only—
Shig tugged at his leg and coughed a bark of dismay, looking up at him wide-eyed. Shaken from his thoughts, Nelson started to speak, then blinked and wondered what it was that suddenly felt wrong. He touched the metal railing nearby and felt an odd vibration. Soon a low rumble caused the grillwork beneath his feet to shudder, gradually working its way up to audibility. The sound reminded him of the low, infrasonic growls the elephants used in calling one another, and sure enough, several of the captive creatures began trumpeting in reply. The walkway began to shake.
Earthquake! he realized, and suddenly thought of all those people down in the old mine shaft. “Computer!” he shouted. “Connect me with Dr. Wolling in—”
Nelson cut short abruptly as a terrible wrenching seized his gut. He doubled over, moaning as the catwalk heaved violently. The baboons shrieked in panic, but he could do nothing for them. It was agony just to breathe and a labor of sheer will to keep from tearing at the metal plates, trying to bury himself under them.
Woe unto he who unleashes the Fenris Wolf. Who dares to waken Brahma. Who calls down Bizuthu and breaks the Egg of Serpents!
Let those who curse their own house inherit the wind…
• NOOSPHERE
Jimmy Suarez grabbed Dr. Kenda’s arm, halting the wheezing physicist’s flight across the dusty wheat field. “Look!” Jimmy cried, pointing in the direction they had been running. The technicians stumbled to a halt. Fleeing an expected calamity behind them, they looked up at another one taking place before them! Their goal had been the nearby bio-ark… the only shelter in sight once they finally tumbled out of that horrible, creaking elevator. Now they felt grateful not to have made it that far. For the pyramidal structure glistened, reflecting Luna’s pale light amidst coruscating showers that looked like an aurora brought to earth. Dripping sparkling droplets of electric fire, the edifice lifted out of the ground and rose into the sky, accelerating.
“Hot damn, the bastards missed,” Jimmy shouted hoarsely. “They missed!”
Dr. Kenda’s eyelids fluttered. “It’s not possible. The projection…” He shook his head. “They won’t miss next time.”
“But the thread domains below us won’t replenish right away!”
“If they’re behaving like they used to,” another operator cautioned. “They were changing so fast…”
“How?” Kenda interrupted, utterly perplexed. “You saw the simulation. How did they miss?”
“Only one way to find out,” Jimmy answered. “I’m going back. Anybody coming?”
Kenda turned away, motioning now to the east, where the lights of Kuwenezi Canton shone in the distance. When Jimmy tried to grab his arm the physicist tore free and shouted. “It’s over! Can’t you see that? The minute we come back on line, they’ll do to us what they did to that ark!”
“But they missed—”
Jimmy watched them go, feeling his resolve waver. He almost followed. But curiosity was a flame that could not be quenched, even by fear. It drove him to turn around, climb back into that awful, rusty elevator and descend once more into the dreadful old mine.
His head whirled. Why had that beam missed?
He found part of the answer when he saw who had taken over the resonator in their absence. Jimmy stared at what had become of Jennifer Wolling.
“My God!”
She had undergone a physical transformation… as if devils from some medieval torture squad had taken weeks to work her over on a rack. Stretched out of shape like an india rubber man — nevertheless, she was still alive.
Moreover, a strange light seemed to glisten from those eyes, blinking slowly, still conscious. Jimmy hurried to where she lay slumped against one wall. But as he reached to cut her link to the towering gravity antenna, she jerked her queerly elongated head, knocking his hand aside.
“Not yet …” came her hoarse whisper. Then she smiled and added, “… child.”
Jimmy had a queer feeling as he watched her die… that her consciousness seemed to seep away down pathways beyond his ken. Cradling her head, Jimmy listened to the resonator mumble low mysteries into the Earth.
•
At that same moment, Mark Randall was far too busy to stare. Too many bizarre things were happening, and only pure professionalism saved him from stupifaction.
“Elaine! Go to the bay and uncover the scopes. I’m turning the ship!”
“But we aren’t even in orbit yet,” his copilot complained. “You can’t open the doors this soon. It’s against regs.”
“Just do it!”
He felt Intrepid around him, still creaking as the shuttle shook off the hot stresses of insertion burn. Officially, they were still in the atmosphere. But that was just a technicality. Air molecules were sparse this high up. And anyway, there wasn’t a moment to lose.
Hands dancing across the controls, he shouted orders to the literal-minded, voice-actuated processors. Mark avoided looking through the forward windshield. It was far more important to unleash the ship’s automatic optics than to play tourist with his own eyes… even if it was a spectacle out there.
Things were flying off the planet. Bits of this and that too far away to discern clearly, but each dazzled as it passed beyond Earth’s shadow to bathe in Sol’s bare illumination. Astronaut’s intuition gave him some idea how distant some of the objects were, their spin rates, even their approximate size-albedo product.
Too big, he thought. They’re too damn big! First chunks of ice. Now this?
What in hell’s going on? Is the whole world breaking up?
When images began pouring in through Intrepid’s unleashed instruments, Mark began thinking that might be the very answer.
The sky lit up with the debris of battle.
•
Sepak Takraw didn’t have an astronaut’s professionalism to buffer him. He simply stared at the great hole where New Guinean hills had formerly sheltered a vast network of secret caves. Now a lake of pulverized dust lay in a broad oval between the slopes… dust so fine the faint breeze made undulating ripples in it, as if across water. Gusts wafted glittering tendrils into the air like spindrift.
Sepak wasn’t the only one staring. The soldiers who came running from their guard posts stopped to gape as well. For days they had played hide-and-seek, his jungle savvy against their high-tech sensors, they in blur-weave armor, he in loincloth and feathers. Now, however, they stood nearby like predator and prey stunned by the same sudden cataclysm, their quarrel instantly forgotten. Side by side he and a soldier gazed across the bowl, brimming with matter so fine it might have been the same primordial stuff that formed the sun and planets long ago.