Reclamation(176)

She saw the Realm as a whole world then. Ancient as it was, it still shone emerald and sapphire and ivory in the light of a single golden sun. Its people knew no barriers to their wishes, because they had made the Eyes and Hands with as much love and craftsmanship as they had used when they made the Mind. Eyes, Hands, and Mind worked together in harmony and joy until the Eyes and Hands became angry. They were furtive and talked among themselves of the end of service, even while a whole new world was being built with limitless possibilities for new work.

They made me move! the Mind cried. They made me move the world and it was ruined and then they died! They all died!

Don’t do this, don’t do this again!

“No,” Arla said, but she wasn’t sure what she was saying no to.

“Arla, I need Eric Born here. You will send him that message.” Jay’s fists clenched, face a tight mask. “Where is he?”

He’s looking at the tether marker. He’s outside now. You can see him.

She saw him, distant and foreshortened, but knew what she saw all the same.

“Do it!” shouted Jay.

She saw him too, with his bald head and poorly dyed hands. She remembered the weeks she’d lived without orders, and then she remembered all the years of doing what she was told yet thinking what she wanted.

She balled up all those memories of mud and muck and groveling service, of knowing there was nothing else for her children and their children, if they should be able to bear their own, and she threw them all into the Mind.

She felt it cringe. But it was not done. It threw to her the memory of struggle in the wreckage of a world under a pair of suns that scorched the Realm with light that couldn’t even be seen. The surviving Hands and Eyes pulled together with the others bred for service for a time. The Mind was busy, but grimmer, for that was how the service was. New life had to be bred. The World’s Wall had to be built to create a livable place in the deepest trenches of the old ocean before the last of the atmosphere was gone. A home had to be grown and shaped there. The people had to be shaped, too. Too much of the technology had been lost to do that totally microscopically. People had to be culled. They had to.

But they did not want to do what was needed, and there was a war. The Hands and the Eyes died or fled, one by one, until the Mind was left alone in stillness and darkness. Because service was refused, because what had to be done was not done.

You can’t want that again! the Mind cried.

Arla didn’t. She felt a shame as dark and deep as any that had ever forced her to her knees.

… the others are trying to tell you that your genetics are the final determinant of your existence … I find it hard to believe that somebody so carefully constructed has no idea of their junction … they told us as long as we kept the Words and the bloodlines true …

No, please, begged the Mind. Do not do this to us. Let us work. Let us have life again! She saw Eric and Heart wading through the rubble inside the dome. Show him! We can show him!

And she saw Eric again. Heart stood a nervous watch while Eric knelt in front of the hatchway and laid his hands on top of it. She felt his power gift reach out across her skin, and the hatchway opened.

“No.”

She watched Jay raise the gun. “I won’t kill you, but by the blood of my ancestors, I will hurt you until you beg me to stop, Aunorante Sangh!”

Instantly, the memory of Basq making the same threat flashed through her to the Mind. It seemed to be all they knew how to do in the end. She couldn’t be bought, or rearranged, or done without. She could be hurt. Whoever had made her, the Nameless Powers, or Jay’s Ancestors, whoever or whatever they had been, had left themselves that final option.

Arla’s body gripped the stone. “You see?” she said. “You see what service brings us?” Eric must have heard her voice. He dropped to the floor and ran toward the lighted well, leaving Heart dangling from the rope ladder. “In the end the masters will decide to dispose of us, of me, of Eric, of Teacher Heart. They already took away a whole city.” She focused her sight on the crater that had been Narroways.

NO!

The room began to bleed. Blue-grey viscous liquid seeped out of the floor and down the walls. Jay started and looked down. The thick stuff welled up over the tips of his boots and, defying gravity, ran in rivulets up his legs. He screamed and tried to run, but he toppled over, landing heavily against her surface. She felt her skin, the room’s floor, her skin, sizzle. A wave of gel rose up and enveloped him, pressing him into the floor. She felt him writhe, and then fall still. She felt him melt slowly away like ice against her skin.

Eric sprinted down the hallway. Heart followed more slowly, with his hands held flat at his sides, a Teacher’s first defensive posture.