At the time Kath Two and the other passengers arrived, Cradle was dangling two thousand meters above the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, being dragged due west toward where the equator cut across the reshaped coastline of South America. This movement reflected the fact that, thirty-six thousand kilometers above it, the Eye was traversing the habitat ring westward, or CASFON (Clockwise As Seen From Over the North pole). Being nothing more than a weight on the end of a long string, Cradle always followed the movements of the Eye. The city’s dome was open, with its baffles raised to reduce the windblast.
It was balmy and humid. This was almost always true on the equator, but altitude and the brisk movement of the air made it pleasant enough. The smell of that air, redolent of salt and iodine and marine life, was proof irrefutable that Kath Two was back in the atmosphere of New Earth.
It was an artificial atmosphere. The human races had bombarded the parched and dead surface of the planet with comet cores for hundreds of years just to bring the sea level up to where they wanted it. Then they had infected that water with organisms genetically engineered to produce the balance of gases needed to support life — and, having done that, to commit suicide, so that their biomass could be used as nutrients for the next wave of atmosphere-building creatures.
According to their measurements, the result was a nearly perfect reproduction of Old Earth’s atmosphere. No one who breathed it after a lifetime spent in habitats needed scientific data to back that up. Its smell penetrated to some ancient part of the brain, triggering instincts that must go all the way back to hominid ancestors living on the shores of Africa millions of years ago. As she knew from having traveled to Earth many times, it was a kind of intoxicant. It was the best drug in the universe. It made people want to be on Earth more than anything. It was the reason that Cradle — which was bathed in that air, being dragged through it all the time on the end of its thirty-six-thousand-kilometer string — was the most exclusive community in existence. And it was the reason that Red and Blue had twice gone to war over the right to live on the surface.
Cradle was hung from the end of the tether by a sort of bucket handle that arched high above the middle of the city. The bucket handle was hollow, accommodating a surprisingly ramshackle elevator system that took Kath Two and some other passengers down to a platform embedded in the city’s bedrock, or “bedmetal,” along its northern limb. From there a ramp took them up into the streets of the city itself.
The tops of the walls all around the exit were white with crow shit. Hundreds of birds were perched where they could view the faces of those emerging into the light and swoop down to deliver messages to ones they had recognized. Other new arrivals stretched their hands out to offer little snacks. A well-dressed Ivyn man, bustling along ahead of Kath Two, quickly attracted a grizzled crow by that strategy. With his other hand he held out a little tablet that, as Kath Two knew, must be showing someone’s photograph. “Coffee at the Change, dot seventeen,” the man said. The crow gulped the snack down in a move that looked almost like vomiting in reverse, then flapped away screaming the same words into the ether. Other grizzled crows, not hungry or not currently on errands, were keeping up a raucous murmur that, if you listened to it, might give you clues as to what was going on in the equities market or the political world.
At first the new arrivals moved together in a pack, visibly distinct from the ordinary foot traffic of the place, but within a few hundred meters this had dispersed, and Kath Two found herself alone, no different from anyone else.
She knew the general layout from schoolbooks. She had arrived on the north side — Change Hill. Perhaps a native would have known as much just from the attire of the people, the way they walked. These were comersants, working by day in subterranean offices, ascending to the surface for meals, recreation, and other means of enjoying their wealth. Commerce was, of course, spread all about the habitat ring, and the old centers of Greenwich, Rio, Baghdad, et al. had financial hubs that rivaled, and in some ways eclipsed, Change Hill. But nothing could ever compete with this place for prestige. The wealthiest and most powerful financiers, the up-and-coming traders in places like Greenwich, no matter how well they were doing for themselves, were forever haunted by the thought that they might be missing something on Cradle.
Because so much of that activity was taking place below the surface, the streetscape of Change Hill was deceptively quiet, a little like an old Spanish city during siesta. Soon lost, and resigned to the fact that doing so would make her look like a tourist, Kath Two took the piece of paper out of her pocket and reminded herself of the address. She already knew it was on the south side and that she would either have to cross the bridge — which was clearly visible, arcing high above the city — or descend all the way to the floor of the vale and cross the gully at its bottom. The latter tempted her, but she knew that she would want to spend a lot of time there, looking at the place where Endurance had touched down and where Eve Dinah had walked with Dubois Harris. That was best saved for later. So she climbed, winding her way through the streets, which were paved with a stone whose reddish-brown color hid the rust stains that streaked down from every exposed bit of bedmetal. She cut across the park beside the Change, where young traders in good clothes, out on snack breaks, were sitting on benches prodding their tablets, or sprawled in clusters on the grass laughing, or playing lawn sports with colored balls.
The bridge’s northern end met the park’s edge. From far below, the bridge had looked slender and graceful, belying what she now understood was its real bulk. Here it broadened to form a massive connection with Change Hill. Even at its apogee, however, it was broad enough for twenty people to walk abreast. After turning around one last time to admire the marble columns of the Change and to hear the roar of voices within, she faced south and began to ascend. In the early going the bridge was a stairway, but as the arch gradually flattened with height, it turned into a ramp, faced in white marble, broken with occasional landings. She had been informed that the real reason for these was to prevent wheeled objects from going fully out of control. If so that purpose had been artfully concealed by turning them into little sculpture gardens where bridge climbers could pause for refreshment beneath rose-covered bowers.
While not immune to such temptations, Kath Two was at bottom a serious walker who did not like to stop once she had gotten going. She was thinking, reviewing in her mind the journey on the elevator, which had been largely uneventful. This, as she had gradually realized, was a part of its charm and of its exclusivity. It was possible to reach Cradle quickly, if you had enough money to charter, or authority to commandeer, the right vehicles. Most people used the elevator, though. Thus Cradle was separated from the rest of the human world not so much by distance as by time. Spending that much time was a sort of luxury, afforded only to a few. Of course, passengers worked en route — this explained all of those expensive restaurants and bars around the atrium, with their private meeting rooms. But Kath Two hadn’t had any real work to do. She had gone for long hours without talking to another human at all, and had done a lot of reading and watching of entertainment on screens. She had slept normally, confirming that any epigenetic shift that might have gotten started last week had been aborted.
All of this just made her want to reach the meeting place so that she could at least have an explanation from Doc, meet the missing Dinan and Aïdan, and get started on whatever it was the Seven was supposed to be doing.
She maintained a brisk pace to the top of the arch but there permitted herself a few minutes’ pause. At the apex, the walkway broadened into a scenic overlook affectionately known as Hurricane Heights. The wind was so powerful here that it made her eyes water. She turned her back to it and toddled carefully over to the eastern railing, on the lee side. She blinked her vision clear and allowed herself a few minutes’ gawking down into the compounds and the streets and the Vale. The sun was setting behind her. Since they were on the equator it would set quickly. The Vale was already in shadow, but the stone walls of the compounds and the fronts of the buildings were emanating a magical pink-gold glow. Lights were coming on in windows along purple-shaded streets.