Nothing but a vast glass graveyard.
I don't know what the League intended on Melaquin. To build a refuge? A zoo? How had those humans of four thousand years ago reacted when they saw this new home? They had food, they had water, they had medicine and artificial skin; they even had obedient AIs to help and teach them. With all those comforts, it would be hard to walk away… but it would also be hard to live here, eternally colorless and odorless.
Or perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps those ancient people filled these streets with music… held dances, played jokes, painted murals on every glass surface. They were finally free from fear and want; their beautiful glass children would never starve down to skeletons, or cough themselves bloody from TB. Those first people might have lived joyously and died in comfortable peace, convinced this was truly a paradise.
That was four thousand years ago: the early ages of what humans call civilization. If those first generations painted these walls, the paint had long since flaked away. If they sang and danced, the tunes were forgotten. Human roots ran shallow on this planet; when the people of flesh died, their works crumbled, leaving only immortal glass.
Glass buildings. Glass children. Children who seemed to make no artworks, no songs, no sloppy messy life.
Was the problem physical… some lack in their glands, something the League left out when making these new versions of humanity? Or was the problem social? When the fear of death was gone, when offspring were rare, did you lose the incentive to achieve something beyond yourself?
I still don't know. Whatever went wrong on Melaquin happened in every settlement on the planet — an astounding thing in itself — and it happened so long ago that no evidence remained of the loss.
All I saw was glass. A glass city.
Oar no doubt thought it beautiful. She too was glass.
Signs
The elevator was set into the outermost wall of the city: a wall of rough-hewn stone, striated with geological layers slanted twenty degrees to the horizontal. I have never liked caves — I can feel the weight of all that rock pressing down on my head — but the cavern was so huge, my misgivings were small. Besides, there were veins of pink quartz, green feldspar, and other tinted minerals deposited through the stone, providing welcome variations in the bleak color scheme.
Another variation was a sign painted in loose black letters on the nearest building:
GREETINGS, SENTIENT BEINGS
WE'RE IN THE CENTRAL SQUARE
WE'LL SHOW THEM WHAT EXPENDABLE MEANS!
"What does that say?" Oar asked.
"It says hello," I told her. "And that we've come to the right place."
"It is a very big place," Oar said, staring out on the forest of towers, domes, and blockhouses.
"Be brave." I gave her a squeeze, telling myself not to feel awkward about touching her "Walton said we should walk to the center now."
It was a long walk; it was a big city. I wondered how many ancient humans had been brought here… certainly not enough to fill the place. After living in grass huts or wattle-and-daub, the people must have been intimidated to have so much space at their disposal. Then again, they were used to living outdoors; maybe with a roof over their heads, they actually felt confined.
Our route led straight down a broad boulevard, its surface smooth white cement. A few buildings had words painted on their walls: KEEP GOING… NO U-TURN… BE PREPARED TO MERGE… the indulgent signs people write to amuse themselves in empty cities. SIGNAL YOUR TURNS… DEER CROSSING… ALL CARS MUST BE RUNNING ELECTRIC…
I didn't translate them for Oar. Some jokes aren't worth explaining.
Dirt
The closer we got to the center, the more dirt I saw. First it was just thin dust on nearby buildings; then bits of grit accumulated at the edge of the boulevard; then spills of grease or electrolyte darkening the pavement.
"This is a filthy place," Oar said with self-satisfaction. "My home would never become so dirty."
"Do you clean your home?" I asked.
"No." Her voice was offended. "Machines attend to such matters."
"This city has the same kind of machines. Otherwise the place would be buried in grime. The Explorers must have kicked up more mess than the systems could handle; either that or my friends have commandeered the cleaning machines for other things." Most likely for spare parts, I thought. Someone like Jelca wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice a janitor-bot in his drive to restore a spaceship.
"So the Explorers make this place dirty?" Oar asked. "Hah! Fucking Explorers."
"Maybe you shouldn't use that phrase," I told her. "You want to get along with the others, don't you?"
"I do not know them yet," she replied. "If they are very stupid, I may want to kick them."
"Please, Oar; you're my friend, and they're my friends. It will make me sad if you pick fights."
"I will not pick fights unless they deserve it." Her tone of voice suggested they would deserve it.
"Oar, if you get jealous that I have other friends—"
"Festina!" shouted a voice behind me.
Jelca.
Changed
He had no hair. Wasn't that strange? Just the bald skull I remembered, covered with the scabby patches that would grow inflamed and bleed if he tried to wear a wig.
For some reason, I had thought he'd have hair. I don't know why — I hadn't said, "Melaquin tech helped me so it must have helped him too." I hadn't thought about it logically at all; I had just assumed Jelca would have hair… that he would be dashing and handsome and muscular.
I had assumed he would be perfect.
He was not perfect; he looked gaunt and twitchy. Jelca had always been thin, but now he looked positively ravaged, as if he hadn't eaten or slept for days. It didn't help that he was wearing a badly-fitted long-sleeved shirt… a shimmery thing of silver fabric that probably came from the local synthesizers: something like spun glass, but a fine enough mesh that it was opaque. I doubted Jelca wore it for the sparkle — more likely it was the only cloth the synthesizers would produce — but the shirt was so glitzily out of place, it looked like voluminous silver lame hung around the bones of an anorexic.
"Festina?" Jelca said.
"Yes."
"You're here too?"
"Yes."
"You've changed."
"Have I?"
"Yes."
He spoke flatly — no grin of welcome for an old friend, or even a courteous smile for a fellow Explorer. Walton had been happier to see me, and Walton was a complete stranger.
Jelca's eyes stared fixedly at my cheek. God knows, I was used to stares, but this one unsettled me. I couldn't read his face. Was he simply surprised? Or was he disappointed with me, maybe even repelled?
I noticed that his hand had dropped onto the stun-pistol holstered at his hip — not a purposeful gesture, I thought, just a reflex, just something he was in the habit of doing. Everything about him seemed as tight as wire.
"You look good," he said at last. It did not sound like a compliment.
"You look good too," I responded immediately.
"You both look very ugly," Oar announced in a loud voice. "And you are so stupid I want to scream."
"So scream," Jelca said. "Who's stopping you?"
"I am too civilized to scream," she answered. "I am very cultured, I have cleared many fields, and I do not—"
"You're Oar," Jelca interrupted, obviously making the connection for the first time.
Oar shrieked. "You recognized ugly Festina but did not recognize me?"