Part 15 (2/2)

To his surprise, it was Mallory who closed eyes in thought, then smiled and answered, ”Karst topography. On Earth, it was caused by limestone subsidence.”

Along each of the valley's walls grew ma.s.sive trees hung with moss and strange parasites, through which twined the mist. The angles of growth were odd. Then Tristen realized the gravity was set parallel to the pitch of the slopes, so if one were to step onto them, they would seem level. It was the Builders' way of coaxing a little extra useful s.p.a.ce into the Heaven. They had had their sense of aesthetics, the old ones, rooted in their appreciation of the sublime as G.o.d's creation. They had tried to uphold that where they could.

Gavin beat wings and heaved himself far more heavily into the air than was, strictly speaking, necessary. ”If we're going forward at all costs,” he said, ”then let's stop lollygagging and go forward at all costs.”

Irritable words or not, he took care not to outpace them, so Tristen found it easy to keep up. Samael and Mallory flanked Tristen on either side, intent on their surroundings. Mallory in particular seemed determined to soak in every detail, walking hushed and attentive.

The mist-Tristen knew the word, but had rarely felt the phenomenon before-curved around each of Gavin's metronomic wingbeats on an elegant spiral, as smoke in a test chamber might circle an airfoil. It was breathtaking, as was the sensation of cool water-without-water on his skin where he had left his helm retracted and his faceplate open to show they came in peace.

The mist was their friend, he thought, as they came out of it-Tristen in armor just as white, now in the lead. Mallory was on his left, Gavin's white wings fanned from one shoulder like an improbable headdress. Samael was on his right, a black coat of beetle sh.e.l.l flaring about his calves like an animated gunslinger's, transparent enough that Tristen could glimpse landscape through his shoulders.

As the clouds thinned, they came up between black, hunch-shouldered shapes working in the fields that clung to each wall of the valley. People began to straighten from their toil, turn, and stare. It was novel to watch, because the residents stood at obtuse angles to the road, as if the steep valley walls were perfectly level and the rice paddies that covered them were on terraces. Around the ankles of the black-clad farmers, Tristen saw the ripple and splash of fins as fish thrashed away from the waders.

Tilapia. An ancient technique, adapted from Old Earth: cofarming the fish with the rice. Tristen smiled.

And kept smiling, though he realized as the farmers began to draw together, a.s.semble, and walk out of the water that what rippled that water was not exclusively fish. However breathtaking the mist, the topography, the ranks of silent agricultural workers were, none of it was as breathtaking as the bronze-black serpents, creamy-bellied, that slipped from the rice paddies to follow. Tristen caught his breath. Each six meters in length, as large around as a man's thigh, the snakes were the colors of black pearls and b.u.t.ter.

Sliding across the earth, they seemed small-headed, inoffensive, their eyes like black star sapphires suffused with a silvery overlay of light. Tristen only knew the serpents for what they were because, here and there, one reared up and opened its infamous hood like a flower on an arm-thick stem.

”Cobras,” Samael said.

”The Go-backs are snake handlers,” Mallory said. ”They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

”They're Exalt.” Gavin fanned his wings again, stiff pinions rasping against Mallory's hair. ”What's a little snake neurotoxin?”

”Can't you see?” Tristen said. ”The snakes are Exalt, too.”

The serpents in question braided and rebraided themselves across the mossy earth and the road like some animate, sapient memory of water. Tristen watched as one farmer and another paused to stroke the snakes, which seemed to take no notice. He reached out and opened his hand.

If he expected a serpent to flow up under it, pleased like a cat to be stroked, no such thing happened. Instead, the snakes surrounded them, intertwining in a plaited circle ten meters in diameter. A ring of farmers stopped just beyond it. However they dressed, and despite being unarmed, they carried themselves with a light-footed straightness that told Tristen he would not care to fight them. And he certainly would not care to fight them all at once, attended by their familiar serpents.

”h.e.l.lo,” he said, and the cobras rose as one, swaying on every side, ribs spreading wide to flare each hood behind a small, smooth head that could not have seemed less threatening until they rose in display. Tristen had seen pit vipers and other venomous snakes-they tended to be heavily jowled, and look savage. The cobras needed no menace by design until they chose to threaten.

”h.e.l.lo,” one of the farmers answered. A woman's voice, the timbre so close to familiar that it made him shudder, though the tone and the phrasing were wrong. Still, his open hand had half reached out, daring the cobras' hiss, before he pulled it back. Her face lay hidden in her black cowled work s.h.i.+rt, but she was obviously the leader. Nothing happens by accident, and so he already suspected what her response would be when he touched the control on his helm and retracted it back into the armor.

She lifted calloused hands and hooked the cowl back with her thumbs. She was fair, as fair as her mother, though not so pale as her father. Her hair was goldenblond, tending to ringlets, her features fine and regular, the pale skin reddened across her cheekbones from work in a high-UV environment.

And yes, he knew her face.

It is not her, he told himself, but that could not stop the rush of neurochemicals that flooded his brain, sent him soaring on a wave of purely incandescent emotion he could not begin to put into words.

It was not her. Not her mind. Not her soul, if you subscribed to the philosophy of souls. But her body, her flesh. His flesh, which theology said should concern him.

It did not matter who dwelt in her, he told himself with bitter sarcasm. What mattered was that his DNA lived on, his genetic potential. The consciousness inhabiting the sh.e.l.l made no difference. She could breed him grandchildren no matter who lived in her head.

”I am Dorcas,” she said. ”Welcome to our Heaven, Tristen Conn.”

Whatever crossed his face, Mallory read it. And laid a hand on Tristen's elbow in silent, supportive questioning.

The leader of the farmers read it, too. ”She died when you were young.”

Tristen caught himself before he nodded. One could give away so much to fakirs, driven just by the human reflex to confirm communication. Instead, he fought against and mastered the reflex to swallow. I have never been young.

”How do you know my name?” Better than to admit that she should know his name. But the person who should was not Dorcas, though it was Dorcas who wore her body now.

”You are not exactly unknown, Prince Tristen. You will accompany us.”

Her tone made no allowance for argument. She touched her hair. The cobras swayed between them. The circle grew no tighter. And time stretched weary and sharp-edged between them-the few seconds of this conversation, and the gulf of years behind.

In the house of dust, roll yourself in ashes.

Scripture was comforting in direct proportion to its bitterness upon the tongue.

Tristen shook his head. Mallory touched him again, long fingers curving around his armored biceps. Tristen opened his mouth and closed it, opened his mouth once more.

”Tristen?”

”Her name was Sparrow,” Tristen said, eventually, because he had to say something. ”Before she died, she was my daughter.”

13.

available light

Dostoevsky once wrote: ”If G.o.d did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point.... Nor ... if G.o.d does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behavior.... We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free.

-JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, ”Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946)

The orchid's hydra-headed blossoms looked delicate, but the tendrils were strong as carbon monofilament. And Bened.i.c.k did not miss the manner in which-while one remained focused on him, petals up and forward as if straining with attention-the other four dragon faces bent down on their long stems, slicking petals back like reptiles flattening their frills. They gave the impression of hounds nosing after a scent, and indeed he saw one dart forth, grab the stiff, microwaved body of a leech, and gulp it down with head-jerking motions and a swelling of the stem.

While he observed, both worried and fascinated, the blossom that remained focused on him gently brushed his face and said, ”The cyberleeches were particularly programmed to hunt for you. Why should that be?”

Now that he was looking for it, he could see the way some of the tuberous stems behind the array of flat-laid leaves expanded and contracted, showing fine, translucent green membranes between dark ribs. The orchid's breath across his face was sweet, refres.h.i.+ng-not scented, but laden with exhaled oxygen. He breathed deeply to clear his head.

He didn't know the answer to the orchid's question, but he thought he had a pretty good guess. When uncertain, stall.

”Is my sister alive?”

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