Crescent City Rhapsody

The Times, London, Evening Edition July 10,2019

At a press conference this afternoon, the Prime Minister denied reports that there exists an agreement among the members of the North Atlantic Nanotech Organization to fund research focussed on producing the feared, theoretically possible Universal Assembler.

“That would be against international law,” she replied. “We have, in conjunction with our treaty members, authorized the release of certain molecular manufacturing machines which will relieve some of the perennial problems of humankind. These machines only have the capacity of replicating in a strictly controlled fashion for serious, and not frivolous, ends. I repeat, there is no move among member nations to open the door to nanotech research that would be as dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible as a Universal Assembler might prove to be.”

The Prime Minister did not point out that the United States has not signed this treaty; some speculated that such a reminder might seem accusatory.

When asked if there had been any reports lately from Tranquillity Base on the moon, which has been feared lost to a nanotech cataclysm, the Prime Minister responded that it was too early to know anything for sure. “The Silence will lift, as it always does” was her reply. “Moscow has launched a reconnaissance flight, but as you know, France’s similar flight last month was tragically lost when a sudden pulse caused it to plunge into the North Atlantic. We must exercise caution and restraint. However, I must observe that the moon was not governed by our laws regarding nanotechnology and may have suffered serious consequences because of that.”

FOURTH SOLO Tamchu and the Girl Kathmandu, Nepal | 2020

The tourists watched indulgently, charitably, at first. They always did. As if stopping at Tamchu’s little patch of territory was an obligation, a sort of penance for having money, while, presumably, he did not. Else why would he be begging on the street? He barely glanced at them, a trio perfect for this particular act—impatient father, smiling mother, wide-eyed boy.

With a theatrical flourish, Tamchu pulled from one pocket of his loose pants a small green rectangular prism that looked waxy and pliable. From his other pocket, he took a pinch of the golden powder he kept in a plastic bag and rolled the green prism in the stuff. Then he cupped his hands tightly around it and felt it warm. He smiled guilelessly at the tourists, making sure to catch the eye of the mother. He winked at the boy and the boy looked startled, then winked back. He bowed his head and muttered some utterly meaningless words in Hindi over his hands. His tiny portable radio poured forth music vaguely oriental.

“Come on, let’s go,” said the father. “We’ve got a lot of stuff to see. And I want to get back to the Hilton for lunch. No telling what kind of diseases we could get eating around here.”

Tamchu felt the fluttering within his hands. He nodded to his sister, sitting on the blanket, and she reached behind herself and picked up one of the small delicate cages she had assembled from toothpicks and glue. She worked on them here by the temple. He could have bought suitable cages for the same price in lots of a hundred, but this made a better show, brought in more money. Besides, hers were complex and interesting, small works of art.

The man turned away, but the boy stood still and the woman said, “Wait, honey. I think he’s done.”

Tamchu uncupped his hands at the door of the tiny cage and an emerald-winged butterfly staggered into the cage, with barely room to flutter its stiffening wings. His sister shut the door and secured it with another toothpick.

The boy stared. “How did you do that?”

“Magic,” said Tamchu.

“Mom,” said the boy in a pleading voice.

The father was irritated, but Tamchu bargained smoothly and efficiently for euros and admonished the boy that he had to release the butterfly at the end of the day because it contained a reborn soul. He said that thus would the boy gain good karma. “You will make sure he does this?” Tamchu entreated the mother. He’d had more than one irate tourist return the next day with the butterfly dead in the cage.

She nodded. They moved down the street and turned the corner.

“I’m tired,” said his sister. She was not really his sister, which anyone could tell. He had high Tibetan cheekbones and coppery skin, while she was pale and willowy. Like him, she had lost her family. But while he still had distant relatives, members of the well-entrenched Tibetan refugee community here in Kathmandu who had promised to help himself and his sister once they arrived, she seemed to have no one in the world. He thought of her as his sister because she was the same age as the real sister he had lost to fever during the long trek from Tibet to Nepal. Fever, while above them flew some sort of new kind of Chinese helicopter that could morph into a jet, and which fluttered down notices that because they had broken the law, they would not drop the new, cheap antidote. If they would turn around…

But the group had refused.

Tamchu knelt next to her. He had known her for eight months. “I know, Illian.” It was an odd name. “Here, let me fix your pillow so that you can rest. In the shade?”

“No, in the sun,” she said with a little shiver. He moved the pillow and helped her lie down, covered her with a blanket.

“Here’s someone else,” she said, struggling to rise, her eyes full of pain.

“I’ll handle them,” he said. “You rest.” He turned to the tourists, hating them and their money, the money that could purchase a cure for her.

They had told him about it at the free clinic, where he took Illian when she first had her symptoms. They did all the usual things—a DNA scan and immunizations. The nurse practitioner told him that Illian had a rare virus and gave him a printout that described it. It supposedly worsened steadily and ended in death at an early age. There was a cure that was administered only at a clinic in Germany, courtesy of the government. The cure was experimental and a waiver had to be signed. The bulletin listed only an e-mail address, which was odd, since the Internet functioned so rarely and because it cost so much to use.

But that night after Tamchu put Illian to bed he went to the Web café, where the perfume of hashish was strong and where the cousin he and his sister had been planning to live with let him use the Web for free, because the café’s profit came from hashish, coffee, and tea, and because he owed Tamchu a favor.

Tamchu was tired. He ate little so as to save money. It was always a strain dealing with tourists and worrying about Illian. He was probably being robbed by the man who sold him the butterflies. Everyone had them now anyway. He would have to think of something new.

He waved away the hashish pipe that his cousin offered him when he entered. He liked it well enough. Maybe after Illian was cured he could afford to lose himself in hallucinatory visions. His cousin told him that the Internet had been working for two days, but that he should hurry. They never knew when it might quit.

He pulled from his papers the letter he had composed in English, which he spoke well because of India’s influence in Nepal. He hoped they would understand it in Germany. He typed in the address and stared at it for a moment, hoping that his letter would be persuasive enough.

Tamchu took out the optical sphere holding Illian’s sketchy medical history, DNA scan, and test results and seated it into the indentation on the corner of the keyboard. His cousin had taught him how to do all this; he had caught on pretty quickly. And at least the Chinese school he had attended in Tibet had been good.

Illian had dropped into his lap, more or less, and he’d come to love her. She had unusual talents, strange but somehow beautiful ways of doing things that seemed to spring from her soul. She also spoke several languages; they seemed easy for her to learn. He knew she was a unique being. It was so hard to see her wasting away and suffering. He would do whatever he could to help her, but the technician at the clinic had told him that this was a very long shot and that she needed real doctors. Their most recent volunteer had not shown up, so they had been without a doctor for several months.

He thought of Illian, took a deep breath, then pressed the send key.

DRIVING RHYTHM Tamchu Goes Traveling 2021

To ease his nervousness, Tamchu paced up and down the trains he rode, from one end to the other, smoking cigarettes on the vibrating platforms. But now they were in central India, rattling across vast plains, and the aisles were full of the children and belongings of the poor. He wished he could jump off and run alongside the train to expend his anxiety. Tamchu had always thought himself poor. But after spending days with these destitute, ragged bundles, he felt lucky, if not rich. His seatmate, an old man with few teeth, glanced at him in annoyance as he twitched about. Late-afternoon sun glared in the window, blinding him, gilding a lone dusty tree far out on the plain. He’d heard from Illlian only once since he’d sent her to the Munich clinic. His aunt, a travel agent, had gotten an international charity organization to defray most of her airfare, but it had taken him a long time to get together enough money to follow, and there was no way that he could afford to fly. Planes were extremely expensive, since they now flew only during daylight and in very good weather. There was no telling when the Silence might cause instrument failure—and perhaps engine failure—so most new planes now were small, of ultralight materials, coated with a skin that maximized absorption of solar energy to stretch travel capability to emergency limits should a pulselike incident occur. He’d seen several of the new zeppelins in their stately progress across the sky, but in order to travel in them, you had to have more money than to fly on jets, and storm-free weather. Most commercial airlines were out of business, crying foul, intimating that somewhere there was some sort of secret information about the nature of the radio interference that would have allowed them to continue to safely operate. Another conspiracy theory.

Tamchu’s seatmate bent over and extracted a foil packet from his bag beneath the seat. Rice, probably. Tamchu’s mouth watered. The man fluffed the pleated bag and pulled the strip that began the heating process, insulated from the foil. The foil was yellow; when it turned color, the rice would be done.

Tamchu was trying to save as much as possible. He rose, squeezed through the aisle amid what were probably a flurry of Indian curses, and emerged in the hot wind of the platform. He lit a cigarette in lieu of supper.

The brakes wailed, and Tamchu grabbed the door lever as he was hurled forward. Above the din of the train he heard gunshots. Against his better judgment, he stuck his head out from the side of the train. The door to the car slid open and the platform filled with shouting people. Though he had a translation card his kind aunt had pressed upon him, filled with thirty-seven languages, their fear needed no translation.

He’d been lucky so far. This part of the world, at least, was plagued by bandits, and governments were not strong enough to protect against them. In many instances, government guards might work in collusion with bandits. He looked out again and, with some amazement, saw that these bandits rode horses. A woman with streaming black hair rode past on a golden horse, wearing blue jeans and some kind of red band binding her breasts. Evidently, his stare had caught her attention, for she wheeled her horse from the band, which was headed for the first-class cars in the rear. She pulled her horse up in front of him and shouted at him in a language he did not understand.

He shrugged as she repeated herself. “I am Tibetan,” he said in Hindi and was surprised when she rather unfortunately turned out to comprehend.

“Come with us and change the world!” she said, her Hindi halting but her voice forceful.

“I am a Buddhist,” he said, hoping she would understand what he meant.

She did. She spat as her horse pranced restlessly and fought her tight rein. “This is your only life, brother. Use it to make a change. We are building a city from which to fight the scientists who have ruined the world.”

“I am looking for my sister. She’s in Germany,” said Tamchu, thinking how useless it probably was to argue with such a woman.

“Bring her too,” said the woman and galloped off.

His fellow passengers glared at him suspiciously. Tamchu could only shrug. He fought his way back inside, went to his seat. His seat-mate, apparently unperturbed, was just opening his packet of cooked rice. Steam burst from it, carrying the rich scent of curry powder. Tamchu saw that it was pocked with raisins. His mouth watered.

To his surprise, his companion smiled and offered him some. Tamchu put his hands together, bowed slightly, saying, “Namaste.” He plucked a small wad out with his fingers, rolled it into a ball, and popped it into his mouth. “Good,” he said. The bandits thundered past, whooping. A dilapidated truck followed them, its open bed piled high with trunks, jouncing over the open uneven ground. The train started up again slowly. The bandits vanished in the distance. The old man pulled out a deck of cards, smiling, and indicated an interest in Tamchu’s cigarettes.

A block from the train station in Munich was a clock tower. It looked very old. Within a perimeter of shining glass towers reflecting the dully opalescent sunset, the old city appeared intact, though Tamchu would not have known if it was a recent fantasy construction like many of the Western cities he’d heard about. They were starting some of that in Kathmandu. Disney had torn down an ancient Hindu temple, first removing all of the sacred monkeys who littered the place with their feces. Now strange monkeylike creatures roamed the temple, and no one knew if they were robots or artificially created organic creatures with only a few rote responses programmed into them. The mournful deep thrum of the horns and chanting were programmed on the hour, the monks having been displaced to a housing project.

So Tamchu surveyed the quaint street with some distrust. He brushed snow from a bench and sat and looked at the square, his hands in his pockets. It was not really very cold. He was in Munich at last. He was very tired.

The clock said that it was only three in the afternoon. There were many cafés about. He longed for a cup of hot tea. He’d shared a third-class sleeping compartment with a Turkish family the night before and their baby had cried all night. His stomach was a knot of hunger. His head ached.

But Illian was not far away. He pulled out a map his aunt had printed for him and oriented it. He had planned this part well. The clinic was about a mile away. Down this grand promenade for five blocks, then a right turn. The thought of seeing Illian filled Tamchu with joy and dread. Joy at possibly seeing her. Dread at possibly hearing that she was dead.

He picked up his pack and walked quickly, passing a small glass booth with men crowded inside, drinking beer. It seemed too cold for that. He began to run. Illian was just minutes away. He dared not think of her face, so thin and drawn when she’d left.

He took the third left. The buildings looked much older here, even shabby. His heart sank. He’d expected a state-of-the-art clinic, white and gleaming and filled with the things that would heal his dear friend. The street was narrow and the dull afternoon light touched only the tops of the buildings. Maybe there was some mistake. Or maybe in a block or two things would change. He knew nothing about cities. He’d never been in one before, not this large.

He stopped before 44-27. It was just a plain wooden door. He rechecked the address.

Dr. Lenoir had sent an ambulance to the airport to pick up Illian. He knew this was true because it had been verified by his aunt, in whatever way she did so. Illian had been taken somewhere—by someone.

He climbed the concrete steps and knocked on the door.

In the center of the door was some sort of smooth plate, and upon it a glowing hand. Though he’d never seen such a thing before, Tamchu recognized it as some sort of admittance device. They had them, for instance, on the doors of the Hilton Kathmandu where his brother-in-law worked. His heart rose. This at least seemed high-tech. He brought his own hand up and fit it inside the glowing outline. The hand seemed to demand this action. He was astonished to see his own name appear on the screen above the hand, but realized that it had somehow extracted the information from his passport.

He waited a minute or two, shivering, but nothing happened. He pounded on the door. Then he started kicking it, yelling, and finally, exhausted, fell silent. He could wait.

He walked down the steps and cut a long straight branch from the bare bush next to the porch, the top of which was at eye level. He leaned back against the cold bricks and pulled half a bar of chocolate he’d been saving from his jacket pocket and ate it. The sky grew dark. He wasn’t sure how long he would wait. Perhaps he should find a place to stay and return in the morning. Maybe he should call the police, though he doubted that they would care. He got out his translation card and fed it a few phrases and gave each German phrase a number.

The door opened and a man in an overcoat hurried out and down the steps, looking neither left nor right. As Tamchu had hoped, the door closed slowly; he put his stick between the bars of the railing and stopped it; in a second, he was up the steps and inside.

This was better. The inside of the clinic belied the outside. As white and sterile as could be wished, the walls gleamed with a faintly bluish light.

The reception area was empty; he saw a low white counter, an office chair, a computer, and a few waiting chairs arranged around a gray rug. The computer was many generations removed from those he’d used in Kathmandu. He wished he had time to look at it more closely, as it appeared to be one of the DNA-based computers he’d seen advertisements for in the English edition of the German newspaper he’d found on the train. But some sounds caught his attention. Children’s voices!

He ran down a corridor lined with paintings hung low so that children could see them easily; another happy touch. Surely Illian would be cured in a place like this. He looked round a corner and stopped.

He counted seven children in beds in a darkened room with a glass window. They were hooked up to various machines. All were sleeping. He found this odd. All asleep at the same time? Or in some near-death coma? Many small screens throughout the room registered information he did not understand. In a clear glass cupboard with condensation on the outside, he saw vials of blood and other fluids. Of course these needed to be tested; why did they disturb him? Then he saw a thin pale sliver of meatlike substance sealed within plastic. brain section #437. ship stat to central lab was scribbled on its label. He pressed his lips together. Certainly, this sample could not be human.

On the wall was a map of the world on which many pin-sized blue lights glowed. As he watched, two more lit, one in North America and one in Australia. He saw all this in an instant and then, in fear, he quickly inspected all their faces; none of them was Illian. He left the room and followed the voices once more.

At the end of the corridor was a large room and more children were there. Heart beating hard, he stood outside a window, obviously a two-way mirror since no one noticed him, and watched.

As in the other room, the children appeared to be of the same age, more or less. No toddlers, no teenagers. Perhaps the disease was like that. Perhaps it did not surface until a certain age. Perhaps they all died before they got very old.

They were involved in activities he found curious. One appeared to be building a holographic structure. She walked back and forth between two stations and each time she adjusted something and the structure changed. She was concentrating deeply. Another danced to music Tamchu could not hear, which was not so odd, but the boy’s eyes were glazed and he appeared deranged, his eyes glittering as if with fever. Suddenly a radio blared on. They all stopped what they were doing. The girl screamed, a high but rather soft sound. More like keening. Another girl started to pull things off the shelves and fling them to the floor. The boy’s red face crumpled as he began to sob. Tamchu thought, shouldn’t the feverish boy be resting? This loud music was idiotic. He suddenly realized how pleasant it was in Kathmandu because this constant noise was not around—its only radio and television stations broadcast sporadically. Not because of the Silence, which of course heightened that effect, but because few people owned radios and television sets and because not much advertising was sold. The only stations that tried to reach Nepal were Chinese propaganda stations with news everyone knew was fake and subtitled soap operas of impossibly rich Chinese.

Illian was not here. But where were the nurses, the doctors? Then he saw that all within was being recorded by cameras rotating from the ceiling.

As if to answer his question about adults, a heavy hand clasped him by the shoulder and he was whirled around to face a man with a small round face. He was wearing a white coat.

“Who are you?” he demanded in the British-tinged accent of India. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

Tamchu shook off the man’s hand, anger rising. “My name is Tamchu. Two months ago, I sent Illian here. Dr. Lenoir picked her up at the airport. Where was she taken? I don’t see her here.”

The man’s mouth tightened briefly, then he appeared to relax. He glanced nervously at the children and took Tamchu’s arm. “Come,” he said.

He led Tamchu back to the reception area. “Sit down, please,” he said.

“Where is she?” Tamchu asked. Just then a young woman with a long blond braid entered the room carrying a sandwich and a cup of coffee. She stopped dead on seeing Tamchu and the doctor. The doctor glared at her.

“Where have you been?” he demanded. “Where is Hans?”

“Hans became sick, Dr. Lenoir,” she said in a defensive tone of voice. “He called Peter to take his place. He should have been here by now.”

“How did he—” Lenoir began, then apparently thinking better of his harsh tone, he turned to Tamchu. “I am sorry. Please forgive me.” He bowed his head. The woman, taking this as a dismissal, sat in the office chair at the computer and began doing something with her control sphere, a slight frown creasing her forehead.

Tamchu was sorry he’d sent Illian to this place. And what could she do about it, so young and defenseless?

Lenoir lifted his head. “I am sorry to have to tell you this, but Illian died.”

Within Tamchu sprang up the blue glow in his chest that he had visualized since a child in times of stress, taught by his mother, who had also taught him calmness. He stared directly into Lenoir’s eyes. The man blinked and cleared his throat.

Because of his own calmness, Tamchu noticed that the woman had stopped whatever she had been doing and was staring at the back of the doctor’s head with something like amazement and disgust on her face.

Tamchu thought, It is not true. But if this man wanted to tell him this lie, what could it mean?

He was suddenly, deeply on his guard. The entire aspect of the place troubled him, not only for Illian, but for all the children here.

“When did she die?” he asked gently, willing his voice free of suspicion.

The doctor cleared his throat and sat back in his chair. “Two weeks ago,” he said after a pause. “It was quite sudden. She seemed to have improved greatly. And then—” He shrugged. “We sent word, of course. I guess you left before it arrived.”

Good guess, thought Tamchu. It had taken him three weeks to get here.

“Where is she buried?”

“She was cremated,” said Lenoir quickly.

“Without my permission,” Tamchu said, allowing his voice to rise, though he would have preferred cremation to burial.

“You signed permission,” said Lenoir, looking relieved to be talking about something tangible.

Tamchu shook his head and said more loudly, “I did not.”

“Let me show you.” The doctor turned and said, “Karen, please get out the file of this girl. Illian… ?”

“She had no last name,” said Tamchu. This was not uncommon in Kathmandu and he had not thought to give her one.

Karen opened a file drawer and after a moment’s search pulled out a file. She walked over and handed it to Lenoir. He riffled through it, pulled out a paper, and showed it to Tamchu, pointing to his signature.

“That is in German,” said Tamchu.

“If you didn’t understand it, you shouldn’t have signed it,” said Lenoir. “I can arrange for you to have her ashes, of course,” he said.

“Can I look around for a moment?” asked Tamchu. “Is there anyone here I can talk to, someone who took care of her?” Very real tears rose in his eyes. “You see, this is hard for me. I’ve come such a long way. I had such hope…” He was almost certain that Illian was here—somewhere. The doctor was lying about something. If he really was a doctor. He might be a doctor of something, thought Tamchu, but he was certainly not a doctor who took care of patients.

“I am sorry,” said the man. He closed up the file and handed it back to the waiting secretary standing behind him. He did not look at her. Her eyes caught Tamchu’s and he saw that they were troubled. She shook her head, once, at Tamchu. She mouthed something at him. Wait? She pointed at the door. She turned to walk away just as the doctor looked behind himself at her. She walked back to the station, tossed the file into a basket on the counter, and set to work.

Lenoir rose and took Tamchu’s arm, pulling him up. “There are so many children, and we are working so hard to find a cure. I wish we had been in time for your—for—”

“Illian,” finished Tamchu for him. “Don’t you have any facilities for the parents who are visiting?” asked Tamchu. “Maybe I can stay and help. Volunteer.”

“Thank you, but I’m afraid that is not possible,” said Lenoir.

“Just someone to… to change bedpans,” said Tamchu. “Things like that. I only want to help to relieve the suffering. Illian was very sick. Sometimes I had to—”

“Let me help you to the door,” Lenoir said. “Working around here would only prolong your sorrow, I assure you.” Tamchu thought to struggle, to run back and grab the file, but just then another man walked in the front door. He was clearly a guard, with a holster and gun.

“Peter,” said the doctor. “I am so glad you are here. Please escort Mr.—ah, our guest to the door.”

In a moment, Tamchu was on the dark porch. He paused briefly, then, feeling watched, walked back toward the main promenade. He turned a corner, waited a few moments, then slipped back out and crouched behind another concrete porch. It was very cold and he began to shiver. He was sorry he’d eaten his entire chocolate bar. He wondered how long he should wait. No matter. He would wait all night if necessary. And then he would go to the police and the consulate. He stomped his feet to warm them.

He was lightly dozing when someone passed by. The woman! Her long blond braid gleamed in the lamplight. He grabbed her arm and she jumped in fear.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s me.”

“Not here,” she said. “Come. Hurry.” She glanced behind her and then there was a shout. “They noticed it missing. I hate them.” She thrust the file into his hand. “Run.”

She darted down the alley and he followed. He heard running feet behind them. Then shots. She fell. He stopped. “Run,” she cried. “They’ll kill you too. You must do something about them—”

Too? He bent and pulled her up. Peter passed through a streetlight. Someone opened a door and shouted something in German. Tamchu heard the wail of a police siren. Peter was gone. All was confusion. By the time the ambulance arrived, she was dead.

Tamchu sat in the police station, drinking cold coffee. He had told his story to detectives via a translator and they had merely eyed him suspiciously. He’d left out the part about the file, slipped into his pack. He demanded to speak to the Nepalese consulate. The man had come, checked his passport, then scolded him. “You are a Tibetan refugee. You have a lot of nerve getting me out of bed.” He left. Tamchu was being held for questioning, but they assured him they didn’t think he had killed the girl.

The detective sat at a desk, smoking a cigarette. Tamchu wished he had one, not to mention something to eat. The phone beeped, a low, cool tone, and the detective picked it up. Tamchu heard him speak Lenoir’s name, then he glanced over at Tamchu. He nodded once, put down the phone, and rose. “It seems you have stolen some property of the clinic,” he said as he approached.

Tamchu jumped up, ran out the door. It was gray morning. He turned down a corner and sprinted. They did not catch him. Perhaps they did not chase him.

Tamchu had never imagined that he might some day be a fugitive from the law. They apparently did not believe his story. Why should they? Or perhaps they did. Perhaps they did and they, like Lenoir, had something to hide.

He bitterly recalled the hope in his heart when he had put Illian on the plane. He had betrayed her.

He slept in a dingy, cheap room for more than a day. Before he slept, he hid the file. But they did not come for him. Whatever was worth the life of a young woman was apparently not worth turning the city upside down for.

He woke and took a long hot shower. After he dressed, he ventured down to the street. It was midday and crowded. He bought some bread and cheese from a bakery and hot coffee and hurried back to his room. He ate and then got out the file, spreading out the papers.

He saw an image of long thin lines of colors—red, blue, green, and yellow intermixed on each line. Number 768. Orphan. Weight, age, vital signs. A stapled copy of some paper about magnetic sensitive properties of fish, bird, and mammal brains, wrinkled as if it had been jammed into the file later. There was the form he’d signed, so eager to get help for her. That was all. Probably they kept most of their information in their database. Tears formed in his eyes. Such a gentle child. They had loved each other. The papers slid to the floor.

He must have been mistaken in believing her alive. It was just his strong wish that had made him believe that the man was lying. If she was alive, wouldn’t that Lenoir man want to tell him—if only to keep him happy?

But why had the woman run after him? Particularly if it was so dangerous. Perhaps she had not known the risk she took. Perhaps Illian was dead, but the woman had believed that he could somehow help the other children there. Maybe by getting the papers to the proper authorities?

Tamchu was presently inclined to stay out of the way of any kind of authority.

After a while, he sat up and looked at the papers again. The colored lines looked like genetic information to him. He’d seen something like that in a newspaper.

Why all this secrecy surrounding a child who had had a new rare virus? Why were the children hidden away? Contamination? That was nonsense. If true, the adults would have been protecting themselves somehow. If that were true, he and his relatives would have this terrible virus. It had not been a virus after all. But what was it?

These papers held the key to something important, he felt. But there was no one in Munich who could help him. He was a fugitive.

He considered breaking into the clinic again. That was his only recourse. It had not been too difficult before. Perhaps he could even formulate a plan to free the children inside.

In a club that reminded him of his cousin’s hashish club, Tamchu met a man who changed his passport for him. He did not charge. He said it was his hobby. He said he did it to free the world from tyranny. He gave Tamchu a job in the café, weighing out hashish, washing coffee cups. With his money, Tamchu rented a room in the building across the street from the clinic.

But he did not keep it long. After a few days, he was sure that the clinic was deserted. No one had gone in or out. They had fled.

Tamchu learned Munich well. He sought out every hospital, every orphanage, every school, adoption agency, runaway shelter, juvenile detention center. His German improved. He had a photograph of Illian. Everyone shook his head gravely when he saw it.

Tamchu spent months hanging out at the club. He felt safe there. These people were filled with the anger he felt. So much was wrong with the world. Things were changing so fast. Evil governments and more evil scientists were hiding something—something about the pulses. Something about nanotechnology. Something. At the very least, they grumbled, it was a return to the values of the early Industrial Revolution, when the wealthy invested in factories and enslaved the poor; when the poor were sent to the mines to dig the fuel for the factories and died coughing out their slimed lungs. A few owned the patents; a few owned the processes; the few were not about to release these riches to the rest of the world. Much money had been invested in the development of nanotechnology. Stockholders had to be paid and profits had to be shown.

A few of his fellows, Tamchu learned after he had earned their trust, were tapped into elaborate spy rings. One of the young men was a medical school dropout. Tamchu showed him the printouts regarding Illian, which were in German. Tamchu had used a scanner on them that translated the summary into spoken English, but still it was mostly terms that Tamchu did not understand.

“This is wild,” the young man said. A slow tattoo, a new layer of skin capable of supporting images, sent a tiny green square careening across his cheekbone as he spoke. “This girl, Illian, has a mutated form of DNA that is showing up worldwide. All the children with this mutation are exactly the same age. Exactly. The theory is that they were all conceived at the same moment.” He frowned. “Apparently they require unusual amounts of magnesium in their diets in order to avoid unpleasant symptoms, perhaps even death.” He handed the sheets back to Tamchu. “No doubt some sort of illegal government operation caused this mutation, eh? And now they are trying to collect these children, eliminate the evidence. Or use them somehow. Who knows?”

“What government?” asked Tamchu. “I believe that she was born in Afghanistan.”

The other man said, “It does not matter. All governments are linked together in their illegal endeavors. There is an illusion perpetuated for the common man that different governments exist, that is all.”

Tamchu did not find this answer very satisfactory, but all the man wanted to talk about was governments, not DNA, and Tamchu put his file away.

One day there was great excitement in the club. One of the women brought in a small vial. To demonstrate the powers of the liquid within, an emulsion, she said, which contained molecular manipulators, they rigged up a local telephone system with two phones, a battery, and a cable. The woman lay bare the fiber-optic wires and dropped a bit of the liquid on them. The splay of fibers turned a uniform brilliant green. The phones went dead.

“So what?” said one of the men. “You shorted it out.”

The woman shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “This stuff eats glass. Fiber-optic cable.”

“Big deal,” said another. “They’ll find a cure for it soon.”

“But what fun until they do,” said the woman.

Tamchu’s anger by now was great. Fiber-optic cable had carried to him the lie of Illian’s salvation. He finally accepted that she was probably dead. Dead at the hands of Dr. Lenoir, who was part of some kind of government-backed conspiracy.

He was part of the team that put out the telephones of Munich one night.

The next day he was heading east, hidden in a compartment in the ceiling of a box car carrying stinking pigs. He did not emerge until his watch showed that he should be in Turkey. And then he continued to head east. He carried the file with him. But he rarely looked at it anymore. He thought, once, of the harm he might have done to innocent people by putting out the phones. There was no possible connection to helping Illian in doing that. His friends at the club had changed his way of thinking radically, he realized. It seemed wrong somehow… yet it also seemed right to draw attention to all that was bad with the world.

Still…

He did not meet the bandit band when crossing India and was mildly disappointed. He ran out of money in Bangkok and went to work for a vendor pulling bobbing coconuts from a tub of iced water, slicing their stem ends with a machete, and sticking a straw in them. He sweated day and night, living in a cheap room with one small window above a whorehouse. The girls were terribly young, about Illian’s age. He was always kind to them. They often wept. They were terrified and he saw several die of disease and some of brutality. He spent time wondering what to do to help them. But he was afraid of doing something wrong. Whatever he thought of, he saw a thousand flaws.

Then one day a woman wearing black cotton pants and shirt strode in carrying a machine gun. She and two women with her walked through the whorehouse, killing the owner and several clients while the girls screamed. Tamchu ran downstairs to see what was the matter and found the muzzle of the gun pointed at his face. Several of the girls shouted, “No, no, he is our friend!” and the woman said, “Come, then” and waved him into the truck waiting in the alley. In less than five minutes, the truck roared down another alley and backed into a warehouse. The girls under cover of bougainvillea thickets were loaded into three long-tail boats waiting in the klong behind the warehouse and told to lie in the bottom. They were covered with canvas, then baskets of fruits and fish. The woman donned a turquoise sari, tied a wide conical hat over her head, put on dark glasses, and lit a cigar. “Get in,” she said to Tamchu. “Now.”

He got in.

They putted slowly up the klong. Tamchu was sure that if police boats appeared, the engines would show themselves to be capable of much speed. From beneath the canvas he heard sniffling and sobbing. “Shut up,” said the woman.

By dark they were out of the city. By lantern light they made many turns and though Tamchu tried to keep track of them he was soon confused. The woman did not talk. She smoked a lot. Tamchu wanted a cigar, but did not dare ask for one. She told the girls to pee on themselves if they had to. Finally, after midnight, they pulled up to some docks. By the light of the crescent moon, Tamchu saw a small village of stilted houses.

She made the girls throw their clothing in a pile and bathe in the river. When they emerged, shivering, some women from the houses brought towels and set fire to the flimsy dresses. “Whore’s clothing,” she said. “Warm yourself by it.”

They were given clean shifts and led into the houses. There were other girls there, but they were sleeping in long dormitory rows. The girls were fed a dinner of rice and steamed fish and put to bed. They were quiet and docile, all of them.

The woman brought Tamchu to the kitchen and sat him down. She got out a bottle of whisky and offered him some.

“I don’t drink,” he said.

“How odd,” she said.

“I am a Buddhist,” he explained.

She snorted. “Who isn’t? All the men I killed today, they were Buddhists. I’m a Buddhist.”

“I don’t think so,” said Tamchu.

Her eyes were long; exotic and dark. Her eyebrows were like wings on her smooth, pale face. Her shining black hair fell down her back to her narrow waist. “Who are you?” he asked.

“You don’t need to know my name. I am building an army to rid the country of the scourge of selling girls. These girls said you were their friend. Is it true?”

“It is,” said Tamchu.

She lit two thin cigars and handed him one. “I believe you,” she said, “and you are lucky that I do. Tell me about yourself.” He did.

Mid-beat Phrase on the Tonic Jason | At the Fair | 2025

Jason could not contain his excitement. He pounded on the back of the seat with his fists and let out a whoop. Even though, at twelve, he was a little old for this.

“Sit still,” said Dad, who was driving. “We’re almost there.” Jason could see his grin in the mirror, though. They’d put up with just about anything from him since the hospital.

They drove through a golden land, sharp with escarpments and mesas. Black shadows backfilled cliffs, and Jason saw a row of thin, distant pines clinging to a short ridge. The sky was a blue that stunned him with the mere quality of blueness. Just the colors—the gold and blue—were enough to drive him nuts. Colors did that. Especially since he’d been in the hospital. He was so in love with the very fact of color.

But he was also in love with electronics, game theory, and formulas calculating materials stress. The last had given him an odd reputation among his friends, and he’d decided that such things were best kept to himself. But he hadn’t seen his friends in a while. He missed them. He wasn’t allowed to call or write.

To distract himself, he pulled out the flatscreen from the back of his father’s seat. It was hinged at the top, and he unfolded the plastic bar at the bottom and hooked it into the latch on the seatback that would keep it from swaying back and forth. He pawed among the piles of stuff squished next to him on the seat and finally found his control sphere. His fingers fit comfortably into its indentations; he operated it through a complex combination of fleeting pressures similar to those used when playing musical instruments, a skill that had long since become intuitive.

The gps was off today. It didn’t matter. He always seemed to know where he was, what direction he faced, even the elevation, once he grasped the concepts of miles and of altitude, and had some feedback. This came in handy, for the gps was usually off now. He guessed they were only about fifty miles from the New Worlds Fair. Mike was driving at a hundred miles an hour, more or less. They were almost there. This road led literally from nowhere or else there would be more traffic. They’d hiked down from a lake eleven thousand feet high yesterday and had seen no one else while there. They’d been keeping to themselves lately. His mom had even taken care to park beneath some trees to shield them from satellite surveillance.

It was rumored that ten thousand people might attend. Almost twice as many as last year’s fair. It was getting some kind of reputation among the kind of people his mom hung out with.

He glanced at his mother’s profile—her long, straight nose, determined chin. She stared ahead almost tensely, with hunger for what she’d find ahead. Feeling his stare, she turned and grinned at him, blue eyes alight with merriment, blond hair pulled back into one long braid but escaping in wisps around her face. She reached between the seats and squeezed his knee; turned back to stare at the road.

The fair was everything Jason hoped it would be. Sound and sight formed rich currents of energy with him at their nexus. After a lot of begging and not a little discussion between them, he was allowed to explore by himself, as long as he returned to a checkpoint every hour. He was made to know that if he did not, he would be embarrassed by his parents, who would turn the fair upside down to find him. “And just stay in this section,” said Mike sternly, staring down at Jason with deep-set dark blue eyes that brooked no discussion.

At first he wandered with no clear direction. He had a few dollars but decided not to spend them until he’d seen everything. He stayed away from the virtual booths—he’d long ago decided that spending time in them was like eating too much cotton candy. Afterward he felt sick and empty.

The air was so clear that the mountains surrounding them were sharply defined. He saw an eagle take flight from a cliff several miles away.

But the New Worlds were waiting. He pulled his attention back. First he went to the Gaian Arena, voice of the earth choir rehearsal read a sign with an arrow. A group of people mingled down near the creekbed. He chose an information station but learned nothing new.

The Gaian philosophy had been firmly set for decades. He rather liked it. Sometimes it seemed as if he could feel the oneness of which his mother spoke; feel the living earth pulsing beneath him, joining with the sun in a celebration of specific forms and energies. Since humans were a part of Gaia, though, and their thoughts, inventions, and follies, he did not exactly understand the Gaians’ hatred of humanity, indeed, of themselves—at least it seemed so, at times, to him.

When he played solitaire, he thought of how one combination of cards, the initial condition the computer dealt, started out with very little possibility of solution, which would be, perhaps, the occasional creation of life in one-billionth of all the constantly forming and dissolving universes. The elements—the suits, the numbers—were all there, but the building sequence had to happen as the game progressed. Often there was complete failure, game over. Sometimes as he played, Jason tried to envision a universe in which a Goddess, such as his mother seemed to believe in, existed. Surely in all possible universes there must be a fair percentage in which Goddess did exist. Why not this one? Then again, he had also been struck by the realization that the next card turned up could spell the end of the game. And that his own situation—and all of humanity’s—might be at the next to the last play just before the cards were all swept together, whisked from the screen, reshuffled, redealt. He wasn’t sure how the Gaian philosophy fit into all of this. Something about taking charge, maybe. His mother said that there were terrorists among them, fanatics who wanted to destroy civilization. “They’re not the real Gaians,” she said. “They’re like wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

He saw, through gaps in the milling crowd, his parents strolling hand in hand, stopping at the Millennialist Arena. They stepped beneath a shading pavilion, one of those things that grew on a filament net from raw material siphoned from buckets placed around the perimeter. When you were finished with it, you just rolled it up and put it back in the buckets and poured some chemical over it. Jason thought they were a lot more trouble than they were worth. As he stood looking at it, he thought that there must be more efficient, easier ways to produce a canopy. Its main virtue was that you could design its shape on a computer quite easily. Then the design was transmitted to each molecule of the polymer in the buckets—the latest generation of computers had a port from which issued the DNA, as it were, of your design, made from an ampoule of all-purpose molecular soup you inserted. That was what was programmed. Then your custom-made pavilion would grow in a matter of hours. This would be handy, Jason thought, if you were setting up in venues where you were constantly assigned different types of spaces.

It didn’t really matter here, where there was plenty of space. But on the other hand, it was perfect for this kind of setting, where technology itself was the point.

Jason thought he might as well check in now. He walked over and stopped behind his parents, listening. In front of them, a model of a white hivelike city floated on a shimmering holographic ocean. Tiny waves swept past. His mother bent to restart its evolution. She had loosened her hair and it was swept behind her by the breeze, shining and golden. They were absorbed in the city and did not see him.

He could hear, faintly, a woman’s voice describing the process. “First, electrostatically charged nets ionize, collect, and organize matter from sea water.”

“You could have a country free of old styles of government,” said Cassie as the island grew and formed steppes containing gardens, apartments, fields of produce, sea farming basins. Tiny people boarded elevated trains.

“It could be run by the Gaians,” said Mike in a teasing tone of voice. He pulled Cassie close with an arm around her shoulder. Jason had noticed that his parents seemed much happier together than the parents of his friends.

“Don’t laugh,” said Cassie quietly. “You never know.”

“That’s for sure,” said Mike soberly.

“Have you been to the space colony?” asked Jason. Mike looked over his shoulder and pulled Jason close with his free arm. “No,” he said. “Let’s try it.”

By evening, when they popped up their tent, with a screened sky view for a roof that sealed itself at the first drop of rain, they had seen at least ten types of Utopian communities, each suggested by some new flavor of technology. The rapidly dropping temperature activated biomolecular warming filaments in Jason’s clothing. He pulled out a hat and gloves. He and his parents sat on low folding chairs, eating self-heated dinners. His parents shared a bottle of wine. As the sharp band of gold on the horizon faded to deep blue, then black, the stars became a brilliant wash across the sky.

“Sometimes I think that it’s good that things are changing,” said Cassie. She absently swirled wine in a plastic cup. “I’m sure the night sky wasn’t this clear anywhere when I was a kid.”

“The good new days,” said Mike, pulling his blanket tighter.

“Oh, stop,” she said.

“Let’s have a fire,” said Jason. “I’ll go get some wood.”

“Against the rules,” said Cassie. “What if everyone here started their own fire?”

A woman walking past their tent paused. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but we have a fire,” she said. Her voice was low and husky. She carried a biolantern in one hand and raised it. Thick white hair lay loose down her back. “I’m on my way back from choir rehearsal. Come on over and share it with us.”

“I don’t—” began Cassie.

“Thanks,” said Jason, jumping up. He knew that his parents would follow. “Want me to help collect wood? I saw some driftwood down by the creekbed.”

“Brought our own,” said the woman. “A pickup truck load. I like a good fire in the evening. Takes the chill off. We’re pretty far off from the pack, though. Half a mile away.”

Cassie stood and picked up the bottle of wine.

They followed the woman across rough ground and around house-sized boulders. Their bobbing lightsticks caused sharp shadows to dance in all directions across the rock-littered terrain. A burst of laughter rang out in the night before she turned a sharp corner down a cliff face, and faint singing came from the groups scattered throughout the canyon. “Careful here,” she said. Though the trail was fairly wide, emptiness yawned at their right, lit somewhat ahead by the fire, now visible.

Seven or eight people were seated around a large fire that illuminated an arch about thirty feet high at its apogee and tapered back into the cliff. The crisp air, the smell of wood smoke, the solitude of the place seemed to take Jason back a hundred and fifty years, to the Zane Grey novels he’d lately taken to.

The people all seemed relatively old to Jason. “Hey, Mabel,” said one of the men.

“I brought some company.”

“The more the merrier.”

They got seated and were introduced to the others. They were a party from Colorado. Civil astronauts. People who believed that governments should not provide the only access to space. Since the first Silence, the International Space Hotel had been taken over under the aegis of emergency provisions in international treaties. Besides, it was claimed, the hotel wasn’t safe anymore. Various factions of civil astronauts built their own rockets. The destruction of one of their capsules six years ago and the death of the Argentinean construction worker and her husband whose turn had come up after they’d maintained membership for fifteen years had put a damper on such flights. The Koreans had claimed that they thought the capsule was an enemy missile. The more militant among the civil astronauts claimed that it had been a gesture deliberately calculated to intimidate.

Jason pulled off his hat and gloves, unzipped his jacket. The fire felt good. His parents were smiling. This made him glad. They’d been so worried since he’d been in the hospital.

“What do you think of the fair?” Mabel asked them after the others returned to their conversations.

“I think that we might be forced to make some decisions in the near future about which way we’re going to go,” said Mike. “It’s good to have information.”

Mabel nodded. The fire snapped; sparks swirled out into the night. She pulled out a bag of marijuana and neatly rolled a joint as she spoke. “There’s more than meets the eye, that’s for sure. My cousin on the moon colony said—”

“You have a cousin on the moon colony?” asked Jason.

Mabel nodded and lit the joint. Mike and Cassie had some and passed it around the circle and shared their wine. “He’s been there for quite some time too. Been planning on going to Mars, but that might not happen now.”

“But they told us—”

“I know what they told you,” Mabel said. She leaned forward on her stool and clasped her knees. Her hair shone silver in the moonlight. Her face looked strong with its deep crevices. Jason wondered if she was a Native American. He wondered if she believed in vortexes like his mother did. He’d learned that it wasn’t polite to ask people. And sometimes it embarrassed his mother. She said that people’s religious beliefs were very personal.

Mabel began to speak then in the incantatory tone of a person telling a story. They had to lean forward to hear her. The others paid no attention; Jason figured they knew all this anyway.

“The moon colony has not closed down. They’ve put this story out, but it is not true. The people there had to sign a pledge of secrecy. This was eleven years ago, around the time of the first Silence. My cousin was an organic chemist. She wasn’t in the military. She refused to sign the pledge. They let her stay anyway. Sometimes she sends back messages about what’s been happening. About what they know.”

“So what do they know?” asked Mike. His voice had the respectful tone he used when talking to some of Cassie’s friends and acquaintances. He avoided the least tinge of ridicule or disbelief. Jason knew that he thought the conspiracy theories that were circulating about the nature of the Silence ranged from the ridiculous to the flatly impossible. Still, he said, he was keeping an open mind.

“The only model that fits all the known facts of the Silence points to the interference of some kind of intelligent source. It need not be close.”

“But why?” asked Cassie, and her face had an eager look. Jason knew she lived for this kind of stuff.

Mabel shrugged. “They can’t tell that. In fact, the source may not even know that they’re doing this to us or may not care. Chances are we’re nothing to them.”

“We’re just part of the ecology of the universe,” said Cassie.

Mabel looked at her.

“Like, you know, endangered species,” said Cassie. “Something others don’t even know or care about.”

Mabel snorted. “I don’t plan to go extinct. I’m not some kind of moss or microbe. I’m intelligent. I don’t have to live or die at the mercy of God or fate or aliens or chaos or whatever you want to call it. If God there was, and God told me that I was supposed to acquiesce, I’d go to war with God.” She leaned forward and whispered, “We’re leaving.”

Mike leaned back on his stool and clasped his hands; nodded. “Oh. And what’s the price of a ticket?”

“You misunderstand me,” said Mabel. “I’m not beating the bushes for money.”

“Most of these—organizations,” said Cassie delicately, “want everything you own. I mean, look around. Every one of them is like a religion. Worse than a religion. A cult. You have to pledge all. Your property, your life, all your time. Instead of worshipping Goddess, they worship… a way out.”

“Or a change,” said Mabel. “You know, taking humanity to the next level, all that.” They all took another toke of the joint as it came around. “To tell the truth, we don’t have room for anyone else. And we don’t need any more money. But what we do need is people to spread the word about us after we leave. To receive whatever messages we might manage to send. For one thing, we’ll be able to get messages from the moon colony, at least for a while, and we can send them back, coded. So that the government won’t try and intercept them.”

“Where are you going?” asked Jason.

Mabel’s eyes were grave. Maybe even a little frightened. She lowered her eyelids, then looked back at Jason.

“To the source of the Signal,” she said.

“The signal?”

“That’s what’s causing the silences,” she said.

“But how close do you think this is?” asked Cassie.

“Closer than the government admits,” said Mabel.

“But—” began Mike.

“I’m a codebreaker,” Mabel said. “A mathematician, to be sure, but there are others who concern themselves with the distance issues. I concern myself more with the information that comes during the silences.”

Jason leaned forward, his heart pounding. “I always—”

“What kind of information?” asked Mike, cutting Jason off with uncharacteristic rudeness. Cassie’s face was impassive as she watched Mabel, and that was strange too. Jason would have thought she’d say something to his dad about being impolite.

They didn’t want him to mention how he always got well during the silences. And sick again when they stopped. The last time, he guessed, had been pretty bad.

It had been only a month ago. He remembered waking to his mother’s face. Her cheeks were hollow, her hair uncombed, her clothing wrinkled as she dozed in the chair next to his bed. The morning sun was inching across the floor and his chest was filled with a brimming happiness he seemed to float on, out over the world, into everything, every cell of every thing, into the very reaches of the universe, all shot with happiness.

But Cassie looked very sad.

“Mom?” He pushed himself up in the bed. He was surprised at how weak he felt; how dizzy when his effort caused light-shot darkness to hover around him for a moment before clearing.

Cassie opened her eyes. They were so blue—and looked even larger now than they had before because her face was so thin—and filled instantly with tears. “Jason!”

And then she was hugging him, careful not to knock out his IV. “It happened again?” he asked, his voice muffled by her golden hair.

In a few minutes, his parents were having a whispered argument in one corner of his room.

“What’s wrong?”

They turned from their huddle. “How do you feel?” asked Mike. He looked worried.

“Fine,” Jason said. “A little tired maybe. I remember dreams—”

“You were hallucinating,” said Cassie. “You had a high fever.”

“But I remember a lot of people standing around me.”

“Doctors,” said Mike a bit grimly.

“What’s wrong with doctors?” asked Jason.

“These doctors wanted—” began Mike. Cassie frowned. Mike glanced at her, but continued. “He might as well know this, Cassie. We might not always be around.” He pulled the chair close to the bed, sat, leaned forward, talking very quietly.

“These people told us they were from the government. They told us that you had a very unusual viral infection and that they wanted to take you to an institution where they could isolate it and deal with it.”

Cassie stood next to Mike. She continued. “Dr. Howe—Nelly—got in touch with an old friend of hers at the Centers for Disease Control. He told her that there was no such thing. Even if it was classified, he would know.”

“They were making it up?” Jason was astonished. “Are they real doctors?”

“There are all kinds of doctors,” said Mike. “Some of these were not medical doctors. In fact, I’m not sure we even know their real names. They just showed up after Nelly updated your insurance information.”

“The friend at the CDC did say something interesting,” said Mike.

“Anyway,” said Cassie, “your father thinks—we’ve decided—that it would be best to leave. Kind of—”

“Kind of secretly?” asked Jason, getting excited. “But Mom, you don’t think it’s a good idea?”

Cassie sighed. “No, I think he’s right. It just seems so extreme.”

Mike got up. “Let’s go. We’re going to pretend that we’re just taking you for a stroll in the wheelchair. Cassie, go get the car ready. We’ll meet you at the side entrance.”

The nurses took out his IV and were glad he was feeling well enough to accompany his parents down to the cafeteria. In ten minutes, they were driving north on the interstate. The back of the van was completely full.

“What’s all this stuff?” Jason was lying on the backseat, covered with blankets. He did feel tired.

“We’re just going on a little vacation.” Cassie turned off the interstate, onto a small road that headed north.

They hadn’t gone home since. That had been a month ago.

Jason was beginning to realize that they never would.

New World Strut Marie | New Orleans | 2027

Marie stared at the music on the piano, looked back at her hands on the keys, muttered, and carefully placed each finger on the correct key; pushed forward with her back. Carnival season was in full swing and Marie had all the doors and windows closed against it. Velvet drapes blocked sunlight. The piano, the bench, Marie, and a huge potted fig tree were the only objects in the loft.

A complex chord issued from the Steinway baby grand.

“Bravo, bravo!”

Now the room apparently contained Hugo as well. He clapped vigorously; Marie thought it a tribute to the genius of sarcasm that his very claps mocked her efforts. She made ready to create the next chord. It took about a minute to place her fingers correctly.

“Moving right along, I see,” said Hugo, putting his hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged it off. “There is no need to make fun of me,” she said, pushing her way into the next chord.

“Oh, but it’s lovely. I could tell from the doorway that it was ‘Solitude.’ ”

Marie believed him. That’s all it took for him. A hint of a voice, less than a measure; a note suspended in air, and it was Ella Fitzgerald; more than that, it was recorded in a particular studio on a particular day with such and such musicians—

Marie turned on the bench and faced him, rested her back against the piano. “I need to be doing it. It’s a learning thing. I used to be pretty good. At classical stuff anyway.”

“Fair,” said Hugo and pretended to duck.

“Anyway, that’s all lost. And I’m not learning very quickly. Something’s slowed down.” There had been more falls, glasses slipping from her fingers, dizziness. A shadow passed through Hugo’s eyes. Maybe. It was gone swiftly. She hadn’t told him about those things, so she was probably imagining it. Anyway, it was only to be expected. These transformations were new and far from perfect.

She had been putting off seeing a doctor. Since returning to New Orleans, Marie had been inundated in the process of implementing a flood of improvements and with sorting out all kinds of political and educational problems. There had been much opposition from the old guard, which had retrenched in her absence, and for months she experienced keen joy stealing back power. A kind of cult sprang up around her seemingly miraculous reincarnation, which she did not discourage.

She also wasted no time in setting up a system of free bionan clinics and staffing them with doctors trained in the latest molecular engineering techniques. Though the kind of resurrection she had engineered for herself was still far too expensive to give away and still fraught with perils which her doctor cautioned her could manifest at any time, there were still major cheap benefits she was able to offer. A cure for some cancers, based on stem cell regeneration. A cure for cystic fibrosis. A cure for heart disease. Dighton had to hire a huge staff to fend off lawsuits based on the similarity of such cures to exceedingly expensive procedures owned by large research corporations. He was happy.

Despite her industry, Zion’s vision of a new era haunted Marie. She had sent a lot of money to his school and received lovely letters from his orphans. For a long time, he urged her to visit Freestate, for he feared something had gone wrong. Then there was a long, heartbroken letter bearing the news that it had been destroyed by a hurricane. However, he told her in the same letter, almost everyone had survived, and many of those people hoped to begin to build a new floating island, using what they had learned. They were looking for an investor.

Marie had been ignoring his not-so-subtle hint for some time now.

Increasingly frustrated by the effect El Silencio was having on just about everything, she was looking into various alternatives to the new BioCities that were being proposed by the government. So far there were none. Communications were shot, transportation was switching over to the maglev NAMS system as gasoline engines became increasingly difficult to fuel due to shortages, and international news and mail was sporadic. Small towns became survivalist cults and middle-sized cities were nightmares. Marie had police on every corner and all kinds of supply systems in place—not to mention one of the first NAMS stations in the country. But it was still hard. Everyone’s energy was spent on surviving, on trying to keep various systems running without the aid of computers, though new DNA computers as well as computers with tiny molecular-sized vacuum tubes were starting to pick up the slack. The retreat to the nineteenth century was not easy.

A week earlier, a shipment of nanotech masters had arrived. Resembling microwave ovens, they ostensibly converted material into new clothing, or metal into new configuration, or grew wooden objects. The clothing aspect was fun. Marie had put them about in schools, shelters, and charity organizations and people were experimenting with the design programs. The three biggest department stores in the city were filing a suit against her. The machining and wood processors were helpful, but the size of the things they could manufacture was limited. Marie had a committee working on proposals on how best to use them.

She had ordered larger tanks but was not allowed to receive them until some kind of government approval came through.

Despite all her activity, her own life felt hollow. She was often quite tired, and she tried very hard to remain interested in things.

“Well.” Hugo’s look was unusually entreating. “Got your things packed?”

Marie stared across the room, past Hugo, toward nothing. “I’m sorry. You go by yourself. I just can’t help it. Maybe when she’s older.”

Hugo frowned. “She’s growing up without you, Marie. You’ve hardly seen her since she was an infant.”

It was true. Marie left every detail to Hugo and Missy, and the place of birth, like everything else, was their choice. She did not consider the child her own. She did not intend to. The memory of her first glimpse of the baby was still painful.

“Kalina.” Hugo’s expression was silly; joyous, as he held the brown swaddled infant in his arms. Missy too stood beaming, tears in her eyes, looking down at the child. “Kalina Marie Laveau.”

The living room of the wretched Pink House shouted out Marie’s loss from every corner. Evidently Hugo did not share her acumen. He continued, oblivious to the fact that she had seen this infant before, and that this infant had died because of her mother’s penchant for buying unusual stocks.

“Kalina was the original title of Ellington’s ko ko. He planned it as an opera that would tell the story of the race.” He looked at Marie anxiously. “Do you like it? As a name, I mean?”

He held out the baby to Marie.

Marie took one long dreadful look at the beautiful face of Petite Marie and fled the room.

Hugo was disappointed that Marie did not take more interest in Kalina, but he visited often and was giddy with joy whenever he returned. Neither of them mentioned moving Missy and Kalina to New Orleans; even if Missy had wanted to move, both feared—but did not speak of—the possibility of new enemies.

She forced herself to go several times a year, but never stayed more than a day. Even that was torture and she was sure that Kalina could tell. She was sure that Kalina would blame it on herself.

Is there a good time to tell someone that she is a clone? Is there a good time to mention what happened to the original girl?

Marie made her voice firm. “Better for her. Besides, you go and see her every month. She’s happy, isn’t she?”

“Sure.” Hugo rattled on. Marie could tell he was trying to mask his disappointment. “Missy’s great. I was kind of hoping she might marry this Chuck she’s been seeing, but she doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. I checked him out, though. He’s a good guy. Furthermore, Kalina seemed even smarter than ever this time and will probably be ready for college math courses when she’s twelve. According to her tutor.”

“She seemed even smarter than the last time you saw her? How is that possible? She was already the most intelligent child in several galaxies.” Marie tried to put a light tone into her voice. Hugo would probably never be able to understand how much it hurt to even listen to distant talk of her. Petite Marie wouldn’t ever go to college. “And how is she doing in school? I mean with her classmates?” She attended the local school, even though her tutor did most of the teaching. But Marie had seen to it that her school and the others on Tortola as well had many more resources and better-trained teachers than ever before, and she had set up a college scholarship fund for the islanders.

“She has plenty of friends. One close one, Andrea. She’s Joe Alingua’s granddaughter. Nice kid. They go fishing a lot.”

“See, Hugo? If she lived here, she couldn’t go fishing with her friends. And I can’t go see her. Who knows who might be following me?”

“Cut Face and Shorty took care of all those connections, Marie. I really don’t think that you’re going to have trouble from that quarter again. How are they doing anyway? Found out how to reverse that stuff they took?”

“Not yet.”

“I gather it’s not one of your priorities.”

“They seem pretty happy.”

“So do dogs.”

“Maybe I should tell them to go out and find it.”

“That would be one approach.”

“Well.” Marie crossed her arms. “You’ll be back in a month or so?”

“A week’s sail there, a week’s sail back. Time to play in between. See to things.”

“Thank you, Hugo.”

Again, the maddening shrug. He turned to go, then turned back. “So you’re really not going.”

“I’m sorry, Hugo! Really, I am!”

“I am too. I really thought… that you’d change, I guess. I couldn’t have believed… I know that if you’d just see her…”

“Maybe I’ll try to go next time.”

Hugo smiled broadly. “That would be great. She’ll be so excited to see you. She doesn’t understand how you can be too busy.”

“I said I’d go. I’m tired now.” Her voice was sharper than she’d intended.

“Right.” Hugo patted her hand and left.

Marie flopped into the hammock on her balcony and did not cry. She did not cry for a very long time. Then she fell asleep.

Marie was unhungry for several days. She slept around the clock after Hugo left, keeping to her upper rooms, locking out the sounds of Carnival.

On the night of Fat Tuesday, the climax of Mardi Gras, she woke around midnight, dry-mouthed and fuzzy-headed. She rolled out of the hammock, sat in a wicker chair on the balcony, and sipped a glass of former ice water in which floated a spent slice of lime.

Below, the tones of steel drums tangled with a strident cornet and the whine of electric guitars from a nearby bar. Marie observed it from a tired distance, wondering why she did not feel beckoned.

She was convinced that she remembered her first Carnival, when she was but days old. Her mother rose from her bed in gauzy splendor on hearing the Carnival, snatched up her baby, and danced them both through the streets for a good long while before summoning a horse taxi to take them home to a furious Grandmère. In Marie’s memory, her infant eyes took in blurred bright colors; her new brain absorbed the counterpoint of a somber funereal dirge followed by a wild bouquet of assonant horns that jolted her nervous system into awareness as she was offered up for blessings to manbos and priests. It was one of her favorite stories and she’d implored Grandmère to tell it over and over as she grew up. But after her mother’s death, Grandmère told it no more. Her mouth would grow tight and she would turn away.

Now Marie understood.

She had thought that she was mostly over the deaths of Petite Marie and Al. She could not imagine ever again marrying. But she did have another child, who, according to Hugo’s plan, should now be filling her life with joy.

Instead, she felt nothing.

There must, she thought, be something wrong with her. Something that her resurrection had not restored. The emotional imperative to live fully was missing.

She rather wished that some clowns would come along—and this time kill her truly.

Since tourism had withered due to the lack of transportation— which promised to change once the North American Maglev System was completed years hence—Mardi Gras had become much more concentrated, more thoroughly Caribbean. Something else drove this transformation as well—a rekindling of mystery, perhaps. It was more intense than the millennium, this folk-fed feeling, this powerful intimation, that something was happening out in space, in the darkness from which they might soon awake. They were in a pregnant pause between technologies. The old was wrecked and ruined. The new was just barely glimpsed and fearful.

What could one do but dance?

Crowds still seethed out on Bourbon Street, and she glimpsed them from her balcony. The spillover on her side street was more demure. Here, midnight could be construed as being just past the dinner hour. Couples were still capable of perusing antiques and art in the shops below with some attention. The customary line for the latest hot restaurant—Ducks, she thought it was called—snaked around the corner.

Then Marie sat up straighter; tried to see through the shadows.

She jumped up and leaned over the railing. “Grandmère!”

The woman with the stern face, elegant French twist, and even the long black lace-trimmed dress of her grandmother turned the corner and vanished.

Marie was surprised to find that her hand trembled as she held tight to the railing.

She slipped into her sandals and ran out of her apartment, down the stairs, and slammed open the front door. One or another of her bodyguards might be following her; she didn’t know and didn’t care.

As she passed through pounding skirls of Celtic rock, she thought she heard someone call out her name; she did not stop. The air seemed full of ancient pagan ritual as green-eyed, red-haired, brown-skinned men and women, descendants of Africans and forty thousand Irish slaves Cromwell sent to the Caribbean, moved with pale white Americans of Irish descent wreathed in the sweet perfume of heavy ale.

Marie stopped, jumped up and down, and thought she saw the woman again, turning toward St. Anne Street. Some aunt, some cousin, her rational brain told her as she jogged along. Not Grandmère, stern, loving, tough Grandmère, whom she so desperately missed, even after all these years. Grandmère always had a way of helping her make sense of things. Maybe she could help now. Life was so strange. Time fractured when she saw Kalina and it took her weeks to get over it, to forget the beauty of the months after Petite Marie’s birth, which were terribly gone and which could not be replayed. That beauty, those memories, were a curtain between herself and Kalina that she could not tear aside.

She didn’t want to.

Past St. Anne, Dumain, St. Philip. Short blocks learned through infant eyes. Following the naked feet of Petite Marie, running, tossing clothes behind her. There—Grandmère! Erect in the lightpool, passing the corner grocery where she bought her French cigarettes. The crowd dwindling, rougher, three skinny white men drinking giving her the eye from across the street, one stepping out, then halting after a sharp glance from Marie.

Out of the Quarter onto Esplanade, she knows now where the old lady’s going. It was this way, yes, so long ago, they took the same trolley clanking north on Esplanade, now approaching her like dream or doom, kind bowed front and uniformed driver. She climbs on. Grandmère took the one before, no doubt. She sits across from a man her exact color wearing white shorts gold Saints tank shirt and a shiny new top hat. One leg crossed loosely over the other, leaving that v-space like Adele being Ghede, Death God of the voudoun pantheon. Marie nods. He nods. She sits tall. The Queen. Open windows and night scents cool eddy through the car, passing beneath dark interstates and now crossing Elysian Fields, Athis Street, didn’t an aunt live here? Old mansions recede in shadows.

End of the line, Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park. Dead now, but look—is not the roller coaster lit, are not the carousel horses flying stiff in their calliopied circle hooting its steam notes as she walks the old asphalt paths with others, and Ghede follows too, his long stride pacing hers a little to the left, a bit behind.

And then the lakeshore, distant western lights painted on dark water by the low longest bridge. Drums and a tree. Sand and mangrove and light waves lapping.

Drums and a peristyle.

A fire and people dancing.

Ghede holds her hand now, rough dry skin and a French cigarette dangling from his mouth. They fall back seeing her, the drums fail, someone calls her name. A chant is raised.

Like the old jazz song.

But too there is the draped long altar, crisp white cloth dishes of food bottles of wine candles and flowers. Cut forced magnolias from somewhere scent sweet and heavy, white orchids, pink freesia sprays.

Before the tree an old man stoops, dribbling flour from fingers, forming Agwe’s boat on beaten ground. A thin black man the oungan; chief. Right side gilded by fire. A phalanx of five: three bearing swords, flanked by two bearing flags, approach. The oungan kisses the tips of the swords, the tips of the flags. The bearers retreat. From large to small: manman, segon, boula, three drums tattoo the damp night air. The oungan raises a bowl of water, shakes anson rattle above and below, calling for Agwe, God of the Sea.

All chant:

—repeating, repeating the signaling, entreating Agwe to appear—

She kicks off her sandals. Mud sand cool beneath her feet, she walks through the veve verge around the tree. A breeze lifts lake smell toward her, a boating day with Mother, laughing, laughing, splashed by cool waves. She wonders how to find them, Mother, Grandmère, Petite Marie. Only she is here in the world. Only she sifts matter through her. She is too alone to be.

The universe a shell of stars a pulse of drums she moves.

She does not move the stars, but they move her. Their light is strong as hands as strong as hunger. They move her like drums; light and low and fast, the segon move her arms; deep and running through the ground, the manman move her legs; wide circling sounds from the boula move her head.

And then she moves the seas if not the stars.

She watches from where she has been for a long time, watches her body walk toward the shore, watches her Agwe legs through her Agwe eyes approach the rowboat transformed to fit vehicle for a god, sees him nod, her rider Agwe; feels him step with masculine grace into the finely painted barque, painted with eyes, veve, decked with small white Corning Ware containers of fried oysters, jambalaya, red beans and rice set carefully among flowers and bottles of rich red wine on the flat prow of the boat.

Agwe nods; accepts; helps Ghede into the boat. To the west where the long bridge flows, the golden city shines, a city in the clouds, a new Jerusalem, an African homeland, a city where all are free and strong, and lovers stroll the streets, and their children play without fear.

Without fear of death.

It is not one’s own death that is to be feared. It is instead the death of those one loves.

Marie for an instant swallows hard, but Agwe hears the drums, returns and waves, standing as the boat rocks and Ghede holds the pole for a moment when they are ten feet from shore as chanting multitudes push them out, fumbles in his pocket, sticks another cigarette in his mouth and lights it with the third match, poles away and away from them.

But going for them. Preparing the way.

Opening the pathway to a new golden city.

Leading them across the sea.

Ghede poles them all the way down to the abandoned Navy dock as the dancing fires grow smaller and the drumming fades. In the darkness, lake noise lapping, they sit opposite now. He gives her a strange look and runs his hand up her leg, up the inside of her thigh, and she is not Agwe now, though he may well be Ghede. She leans well forward to find his mouth and they kiss, grabbing one another’s shoulders, then drawing closer still, and though it seems impossible that there is room between the hard seats, they fuck. Marie cries out again and again in the night. But she is also Agwe, taking humanity to the golden city in painted boats filled with po’ boys, Hurricanes in frosty glasses, and vials of immortality, equality, and intelligence. Ghede chips open the cork with his pocket knife. They drink the wine and eat the oysters and fuck some more.

Marie Laveau walks the whole way back to her house, barefoot, feet eventually bleeding from rough concrete, eyes fastening on every house she passes, on the streets of her childhood, streets that seem like her own body, streets and houses and people of her city waking as she approaches her corner through litter and booze stench and the occasional drunk asleep on the sidewalk.

She walks wet muddy bleeding tired and smiling through the green door, nods to astonished Shorty, goes upstairs, and falls into bed.

That evening she sent a message to Hugo: bring kalina and missy home. If they want to come. The message may get there before he turns the Erzulie around.

The next day Marie gets to work. Real work, soul-feeding work.

Is it just sex, she wonders? Did beautiful Ghede set up new chemical pathways? Did consorting with Death release the light of life?

No matter. She is changed. Not the original Marie, and not the ghost Marie trying to inhabit a life long gone.

She sees a curious boat of lashed bark and colorful silk sails, two feet in length and almost as tall in an antique shop.

She buys it.

Ad in 437 national and international newspapers, IEEE Journal, The Journal of Nanotechnology, Science, Nature, New Architectural Times, Pheromone Research, Physical Review…

Kalina is petulant. Clearly impressed, though trying to pretend she is not. “It’s nice here,” she says coolly, touching things. “When can I go home?”

Marie glances at Hugo, at Missy. “This is your new home, Kalina. New Orleans. This is your house.”

“And you are my new mother?” She has Missy’s British accent, so cultured.

“No. Missy is your mother.”

“She says you are my mother.” A long measuring look from deep brown eyes that Marie forces herself to meet.

“It’s complicated.”

“I know. I’m a clone.” Her voice airy, unconcerned. “So what?”

“Yes, you’re right. It makes no difference.”

“So when can I go home? I miss my friends.”

Marie kneels in front of her. “Soon, Kalina. Stay for a week. Please? Hugo and I will show you around. Missy wants to go shopping. Then you can go home. All right?”

A shrug. Marie hugs the girl to her. It will take time.

Hugo’s voice alerted Marie to his presence in the room. “Well, my dear. You called? You’re doing better. That arrangement of ‘Caravan’ is pretty complicated.”

Marie pushed back the piano bench and walked over to the tall, open windows that opened onto Bourbon Street. A hot breeze stirred the leaves of her ficus. Kalina and Missy had returned to Roadtown, but a visiting schedule had been established. Marie was filled with energy and resolve.

She said, “Have you heard about the new pheromone-based city plans that the government is financing?”

Hugo perched on the piano bench and teased out a melody with one twisted hand. “What I read in the news. Sounds pretty farfetched.”

“It is, and it isn’t. Since the Silence started, they’ve been busting their butts to come up with some viable ways of doing business. There’s a Japanese company that developed a kind of pheromone alphabet—metapheromones, they’re calling them. They’re already in pretty heavy use in Asia in various applications. They’re going to be the basis for communication in this system.”

“How?”

“Well, that’s the next thing. People have to get what they’re calling receptors. We already have pheromone receptors in our noses. Pheromones go directly into the brain through the nasal passage, like all smells. None of this nerve conduction. No mistakes. It’s been in use, experimentally, in Asia already. It’s a lot easier over there, apparently. More of a free-market atmosphere, at least in significant patches of the landscape.”

“But aren’t pheromones for, say, mindless armies of ants and bees?”

“Actually, just about all living creatures use them for communication to some extent. We use them for more information about others than we probably know, though in the public’s mind they’re associated with sex. Even with ants and bees, the messages that are transmitted are quite complex. They communicate alarms, acceptance, distance to food, and things like that. We like to consider ourselves as being more complicated than insects—and we are—so who knows how much pheromones contribute to what we do and who we are?” She laughed. “And who knows what we’d lose if it were possible to upload minds to a less degradable storage medium than the brain, like so many people are talking about. Pheromones, hormones—probably a lot of things that contribute to our sense of who we are and our sense of community.”

“But it would be pure,” said Hugo.

“Pure nonsense, maybe. Unrecognizable as human, certainly. Anyway, the technology is way, way beyond basic insect pheromone communication now. It’s kind of like—for instance, now we can easily manipulate images and convey information that way, whereas for centuries we were stuck with flat paintings that were not easily reproducible and copying books by hand. We use images—print—to communicate in an extremely precise manner now and literacy is sky-high, relatively speaking. It will be like having a whole new sense; it opens up a whole new world of information and possibilities. We can manipulate this other type of information and install new senses— they’re calling them ‘receptors’—in the human body in order to process the information. This won’t be influenced by whatever is causing the Silence. It’s biological. A BioCity. Used by humans who will be different than we are now.”

“Sounds like a damned scary setup. Not to mention expensive.”

“It is. Scary and expensive. But the government will finance the conversion for any city that wants to try it. The alternative is to turn into the analog of a Rust Belt city, isolated, out of the loop, unable to communicate. It will be like not having any telephones in a city when everybody else in the world has three lines in their house. There’s a reason they’re financing things. Unlimited government access is a part of this package. In other words, they retain the capacity to be able to worm their way into any transaction, any communication. It’s their property. And whomever or whatever comes after the government would have the same access. That’s the scary part of it, in my opinion.”

“Does everyone here want a BioCity, Marie? Seems that sentiment has been running rather high against it, from what I’ve read in the Times-Picayune.”

“Well, after seeing this, I don’t blame them.” She sighed. “The potential is there for greatness. For learning. For fulfilling human potential. For enabling us to grow. For solving this communication problem. For…”

“I get the picture,” said Hugo. “So what’s the solution?”

“I think we’ve got to do it.”

“Go into hock with the government and let them spy on us?”

“Yes—and let them pay while we change the specs.”

“In what way?” Hugo slid off the bench and began pacing, hands clasped behind his back.

“In whatever way we please.”

“Translation: In whatever way you please. But anyway, I’m sure this would be pretty easy. The government is going to allow all kinds of weirdnesses to be inflicted on United States citizens by Marie Laveau and her counterparts elsewhere.”

“They are the ones that wish to inflict weirdness on everyone. I just want information to be free.”

“What a charming catchphrase. It sounds kind of familiar.”

“It’s from that old Santa Fe Institute—a kind of slogan for chaos. Remember? I was reading it to you a few months ago. It’s what got me thinking.”

“My dear, when you get to thinking, it’s just grand.” He raised his arms in a magisterial fashion. “Hey, let’s put on a play!”

Marie glared at him. “You’re on thin ice, buddy. Besides, that’s my idea exactly. We’re going to put on a play. We’re going to trick the government into thinking we’re going along with their plan, but we’re going to subvert it at the last minute.”

“Good idea! I’ll just run down to the bookstore and buy one of those new BioCity subversion manuals. We’ll work our way through the handbook.”

“I’m afraid it might be a little more difficult than that. In fact, I’ve been looking into the concept of Zion’s floating city. It would be created, not discovered. No one to displace, the way people are always displaced when countries are conquered. We can start our own country or noncountry from—”

“The ground up?” suggested Hugo.

“You are just too funny. From scratch. But I’m hoping that this works out. I think that we need to get off of this continent. Off of any continent. I think that we need a place for volunteers, people dedicated to figuring out what’s going on with the Silence. I’ve been in contact with some Space Pioneers too. There are all kinds of astoundingly bright people who really want an opportunity to use what they know. From what I can tell, no government in the world is giving them a chance. If anything is happening, it is top secret. In fact, I’ve heard some very strange things.”

“Like what?”

“Well… listen to this. Six months before the first Silence—now, this is not firsthand information—some kind of virus appeared here. It spread around the world pretty quickly. There were hardly any symptoms at all, except maybe sniffles.”

“And?”

“Okay. Some children—again, not many—born nine months after the first Silence have a very distinctive DNA anomaly. The common vector may be this virus that the mothers had. Governments all over the world have joined forces to round these kids up and figure out if there is any connection to the Silence. Seems like a real long shot, right? Well, it seems like there’s not much to be derived from these kids so far. Many seem to be astoundingly bright, although a relatively high percentage are mildly to profoundly autistic. All of them go berserk when broadcasting is working.”

“And?”

“And that’s all I know. It’s just one example of how weird everything really is and how little us common folks know about it. I’m sure there’s all kinds of information out there that a conglomeration of standard-issue geniuses could use to try and dope it all out. Why should all this be secret?”

“I get your drift. As in, you know, a city drifting along on the…”

“Oh, stop. You know I’m right. And it needs to be a secret. No government would like this kind of country. All those people paying no taxes. Thinking as they pleased.”

“Yeah. What a mess. Let me get this straight. You’d be willing to let them think as they pleased?”

“Oh, stop. I know that it would be hard. But I just have to have faith. Faith like Zion. He believes in something. He has vision. Ellington had vision. Every piece of his I master, I gain a little more capacity for vision too.”

“Hmm,” said Hugo.

“That’s right,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to get. Those vision synapses. And he had faith in the abilities of his musicians. He let them have their own voices. That was the power of his work. His genius. Didn’t you tell me that?”

“I didn’t mean for it to be a blueprint for a political movement.”

“Well, there you go. That’s the creative part of me, see? Making that leap.”

“Flying off into space, more like.”

Hugo dodged the copy of Elementary Ellington that Marie grabbed from the piano and threw at him. It flew past him with a rustle of pages and bounced off the wall.

“Sacrilege!” shouted Hugo and picked the splayed book off the floor, tenderly flattening its pages. As he worked on this, he said, “Marie, who is this ‘we’ you’re talking about, when you refer to, say, subverting an entire complex city structure?”

“I have a plan.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“There are people you have to find, bring together. Recruit. Experts or people that have something we need. You need to convince them to come. I’ve located all kinds of fragments of information around the world.”

“ ‘Around the world.’ That sounds exciting. Travel is so fun and easy these days. Let’s see, there’s steamship, zeppelin, bicycle—”

“Are you going to help?”

“With a capital S, as in Strayhorn.”

“Oh, yeah. He wrote a lot of Ellington’s stuff, right?”

“I believe the word is ‘collaboration,’ although you’re probably right about Strayhorn sharing credit when he shouldn’t have had to. He was a quiet genius. Apparently pretty frustrated at times because he operated under the Ellington umbrella and maybe didn’t get the credit he deserved.”

“Is that a hint? I’ll give you double billing in my memoirs.”

“I salivate.”

“I take that as a yes. I’ll tell you who and what I think we need.”

“Let’s just cut out this we crap, all right?”

“Okay. We’re—I’m—planning to convert New Orleans into a non-FDA-approved city in the interim. Dighton said that this could possibly be interpreted as an act of war. He looked over the contract that the city council and the mayor and whoever else they can round up has to sign.”

“ ‘Act of war’? What can they do, besides cut the funding? Blow a major American city to smithereens?”

“Well, that’s the thing, Hugo. Whatever happens from here on out is going to be in an arena where nanotech weapons will probably be used. My best information is that a Japanese firm among others has developed a lot of weapons along that line. Substances that, for instance, can reprogram thought and behavior in a large population. No mark on the body—at least externally. Everyone going about their business. A mental neutron bomb.”

Hugo nodded. “Kind of like your pet thugs.”

“Yes.”

“So—this is what we need?”

“No. We need someone who knows something about it so that we can defend ourselves.”

“Do you have someone in mind?”

“Of course. And then there’s the matter of the Signal.”

“What signal? You mean the Pulses?”

“Not exactly. There’s something about them that I really didn’t know.”

Hugo smacked his forehead. “No! Impossible!”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but yes. A man showed up two days ago in response to my ad. You know, the one I circulated when you were in Tortola. He won’t give me his name. Or—he did give me one, but I’m sure it’s not real. He wouldn’t stay for more than a day either and I don’t know where he went. He intimated—wouldn’t say flat out—that he’s a former intelligence agent. He was quite agitated and had a lot of strange beliefs about aliens. But he told me that there’s a bum living in D.C. that knows a lot about the phenomenon that happens every once in awhile after a Pulse.”

“You mean the… the radio activity—if you’ll excuse me.”

“You’ll be disappointed to hear that you don’t have a first on that.”

“Fine. Let’s see now.” Hugo ticked off points with his fingers. “One, a transformed New Orleans. Which may put us at odds with the Feds. Two, a new floating city. Hell, a whole new country. Or noncountry.”

“A new Jerusalem,” added Marie.

“Oh, of course. Three—what was three?”

“Three was that I have a lot for you to do. All over the world, beginning, I think, in D.C. Japan eventually. Asia, Europe, Africa… it’s actually harder to think of a place I don’t need you to go…”

“So—there’s a new world a’comin’, right? I seem to remember…” Hugo picked up Elementary Ellington and paged through it. “Here it is. ‘New World A-Comin’.’ Abridged for piano, of course. I read you a quote from Ellington’s autobiography, Music is my Mistress.” Hugo cleared his throat. “ ‘The title refers to a future place, on earth, at sea, or in the air, where there will be no war, no greed, no categorization, and where love is unconditional, and where there is no pronoun good enough for God.’ ” He closed the book and put it back on the piano.

Marie gave him a few slow claps. “Perfect, Hugo! I’ll have that inscribed on the city gate.”

“Whatever you’re taking, Marie, I’m happy.” Hugo shot his wrists from his sleeves, laced the fingers of his hands together, cracked them backward. “I hope it improves your piano playing too.” He feinted to one side.

She laughed.

After he left, she made an appointment to see her doctor.

Shorty sat in one of the easy chairs in Marie’s office; Cut Face stood, his hands in his pockets. Marie leaned her butt against a long mahogany table and folded her arms.

“How are you doing?” she asked Shorty.

“I be fine.”

“Our jobs,” said Cut Face anxiously. “We be taking care of things as pleases you?”

“Oh yes!” said Marie. They relaxed. “I am just concerned that you still seem to—to be controlled by me. Because of what I gave you.”

“It is of no matter,” said Shorty.

“What else we be doing?” asked Cut Face. “Now we be doing good. Doing things for you.”

Like killing people, thought Marie. Keeping the vestiges of the old guard from regrouping. “But you need to be thinking for yourselves. Deciding whether or not things are right. Not necessarily be doing things just because I tell you to.”

Shorty looked puzzled. “There always be a boss. Usually lots meaner than you. Here peoples treat us nice. We gots plenty to eat.”

Cut Face said, “I think I know what you be saying, Miss Laveau. But there be another reason for this. This be our penance. We did— many bad things. Many more than you know. Probably more than we be remembering.” His face was grave. “Shorty and I talk about this. Maybe this be how we are making up for them. With Jah.”

Marie suppressed a sigh. She did not fancy being seen as an agent of God’s will, particularly when the results were twisted about by the victims in this fashion.

“You’re Terence, right?” she asked Shorty. “And you, Cut Face— you are Robert?”

“Yes,” said Shorty. “But Shorty be a good name for me. Everybody call me Shorty now. I like it.”

Cut Face nodded in agreement. “Miss Laveau, do not worry about us. When Jah decides that we have paid our debt, He will release us.” He spoke quietly, with dignity.

“As Jah’s chosen agent,” Marie said dryly, “I’ll be searching for that which would restore you. I’m sorry that I did this.”

Shorty grinned. “Better this than you be killing us, Miss Laveau.”

“Thank you for coming,” said Marie. “You may go now.”

Marie stood in Jackson Square. It was evening. The birds and the wind were still, but soon the black cloud upriver would push wind and torrents of rain across the city.

Marie felt the contentment, the stasis, of early summer fill her. Something like joy spread around her, as if the centuries-old buildings—the cafés, the museum, the cannon, all the ghosts she’d known since childhood—were really herself. And, as if she were a bird, her mind’s eye rose and encompassed all of it—the music, the scoundrels, the fevers, the quadrille balls, the slave dances in Congo Square, the river culture that spanned centuries.

The first breath of wind brought strains of jazz from a nearby café. She smelled oysters frying, coffee brewing, wine being poured, pecan pies coming out of ovens. The leaves of the trees turned up silver. Her city, hers. The rhapsody of cities filled her—entities complete as a single person, informed by their histories, forever changing, their fortunes ebbing and flowing. A consilience, a blending of culture, science, emotion, labor, the dailiness of lives, a web of families and friends.

And then as thunder boomed and the first splats of rain fell fat on the sidewalk, hissing, she raised her arms as if the rising wind could take her, hurl her like a leaf. She danced, shouted, threw back her head and sang, the voudoun chant of the old woman rising in her, and all was golden, and the veins of the city were filled with the luminous fluid which was knowledge—knowledge of that one poem that would illuminate a dark moment or explain an entire century; knowledge of the antibiotic that would save a young one’s fevered brain; knowledge of what the stars were made of, how space warped and folded; the truth about the place from whence the Signal came…

She barely noticed Hugo grabbing her hand, dragging her through the golden lightning-veined glory, for her mind once again rose.

But this time she looked down on a new island, a country of truth and vision, a place where things were whole, integrated, not fragmented, where humans at last reached their pinnacle, leaped from it into the unknown, and rose, rhapsodic, into space…

“Marie,” Hugo panted as he pulled her beneath the museum’s colonnade, where they rested against a Civil War caisson. “Marie, are you all right? Why the hell were you standing out in the rain?”

“Rhapsody, Hugo,” she said, laughing, as the golden pouring rain sluiced off the roof in sheets, and the gray river was beat full of holes, and a lost umbrella tumbled ownerless through the park and lodged against a magnolia tree whose branches flailed in the wind. “Rhapsody.”

Left-Hand Voicings Zeb | Washington, D.C. | 2028

Zeb stirred on his park bench, moved his arm from his eyes, and saw a small brown man staring down at him.

No. Well. Actually, he was a short man, though he wasn’t that small. He was pretty husky. Looked strong.

“Nice suit,” said Zeb, sitting up and swinging his legs around. “Want a seat?”

The dwarf hoisted himself up beside Zeb. “Beautiful afternoon.”

He had an odd accent that Zeb couldn’t place. The dwarf sat quietly and finally Zeb agreed. It was late April. The park, near the National Zoo on Connecticut, was filled with flowers, and trees had lately fattened with unfurled leaves into clouds of grasshopper green. Zeb had been up all night—or, rather, lying flat on his back all night— staring at what stars he could scry in the light-ruined sky.

“How about some coffee? On me?”

“Sure,” Zeb said.

They strolled down Wisconsin until they reached a block of small bistros. Hugo indicated one with tables set up outside, behind a sheltering glass wall. They seated themselves. There was no one else there.

“This place looks pretty pricey,” said Zeb. The dwarf hadn’t said much, and neither had he. Zeb didn’t mind. Their silence was companionable.

“It is.” A formally dressed waiter came and the dwarf asked, “What’s good today, sir?”

The waiter glanced sideways at Zeb. “Steamed mussels with ginger for starters. But we won’t be open for another hour.”

“That sounds good. Tell Andre that Hugo is here. Tell him to knock himself out. Have your sommelier choose the wines.”

The waiter looked doubtful, but said, “Very good, sir,” and turned to leave.

Zeb said, “You forgot the coffee.”

Hugo called the waiter back and ordered two coffees.

“I don’t drink. Your name’s Hugo?”

“Never?” asked Hugo, raising his eyebrows. “Yes, I’m sorry. My name is Hugo. And yours is—”

“Zeb.

Hugo nodded thoughtfully when Zeb gave his name. “I think you’ll want to make an exception today.” The waiter brought a wine. “Excellent choice,” said Hugo. The waiter poured and left.

Zeb’s stomach tightened. “What do you want?”

“Ah, you like to cut to the chase. You’re wanted in New Orleans.”

“Me? Why? Who wants me?”

“A woman named Marie. She’s setting up a project having to do with certain radio wave anomalies.”

Zeb almost choked on his coffee. He pushed his chair back, ready to run.

“Great pay,” said Hugo. “Probably better than you’re making here.”

This Hugo had a great sense of humor. Zeb noticed that his face was slightly flattened; his hands a bit twisted. But there was nothing wrong with his mind.

“Look,” Hugo continued, “if I wanted to do you in, would I take you out to dinner first?”

“I can’t leave.” Zeb was filled with panic at the very thought. His beloved streets. Each one had a meaning. Ellie. His SETI group. His friends in the park.

“Pity,” said Hugo. “Mmm. Here are the mussels. Outstanding presentation. Tell Andre, please.” The waiter nodded and left. Hugo pried a mussel from a shell, chewed, and swallowed. He tore off a chunk of bread, soaked it in the broth, and ate with a running commentary proclaiming culinary ecstasy.

Zeb realized that he was starving. He looked at Hugo warily. The man couldn’t pull things out of his head, could he? But the diamonds. The diamonds were in his inner pocket, sealed in the little pocket. Drop one in, read out the data. He still hadn’t exhausted it.

Maybe that’s what this guy was after.

“You don’t have to decide now. I thought it might be good to hang around some first. Answer your questions. We have a concert to attend.” Hugo sipped his wine.

“Oh?”

“Duke Ellington at the Howard, doing Black, Brown and Beige.”

Zeb decided that Hugo’s smile was one of pure bliss. “It’s gotten good reviews in the Post.”

“Ah. You read the paper.”

“Religiously, as they say.” Zeb reached into a pocket and unfolded a white rectangle of sleek thin material. “Found this e-paper about a year ago. Whoever lost it had a heck of a subscription. Been downloading since then. Whenever the system is up. Maybe once a month. I think they keep trying just because they’re stubborn. But when it’s not up free papers aren’t hard to find. And now that we’ve got the Evening Star back in addition to the Post and all those peripheral papers, it’s hard to get through all of it.” He put his e-Post away, buttered a slice of bread, and found it up to Hugo’s blissful proclamations. “I don’t understand how folks like this Ellington person can do that to themselves.”

“Oh, I can,” said Hugo. “I think that it would be utterly fascinating to be able to do what others of genius have done. We don’t have new works of genius coming out of these folks, it’s true. This guy—what was his name?”

“Ed? Something,” said Zeb, trying to recall.

“Yeah, that’s right. Ed Street. Apparently, he was an adequate musician. He didn’t go into it from a standing start. He attended Juilliard, Howard, did a stint at Monk. Then he went to Mexico and got the Ellington implant. Even had his appearance changed. The Duke at age, say, fifty-five. Put together an orchestra. I gather most of the guys he picked up were strays—musically adept, but just bumming around, picking up jobs here and there. He convinced them of the beauty of his scheme and financed their implants too. I don’t think many of them had their appearance done over. Maybe they will now that they’re in the money, but I imagine Street has a lot of debt to pay off. Anyway, I’m really looking forward to it. It’s the closest thing to being at some of history’s hot moments that we’ve got. No creative frisson, perhaps. But the faint echoes of it.”

After dinner, Hugo suggested that they walk crosstown toward the Howard. “If you’re up to it. It would clear my head.”

“I like to walk,” said Zeb. “It helps me think.” Quietly tony Georgetown town houses lined the cross-streets here, interspersed with businesses.

“What do you think about?”

Zeb stopped walking. “What do you really want?”

Hugo stopped too. “Marie is trying to put together a place that will—how can I put this without sounding melodramatic? I can’t. She wants to create a place that will pull us back from the brink of disaster. Which is where we are now. There is no free flow of information. Those who know certain things are once again isolated from those in another discipline or even their own, who might be able to spark some synergy. My job is to gather up the people who can help us do that. People who know something. People who are at the top of their field.”

“I’m not at the top of my field,” said Zeb flatly, starting to walk again. “I’m pretty much in the gutter. As I’m sure you can see.”

“But why?” asked Hugo.

“Because…” began Zeb, then stopped. Why tell this man anything? He felt torn. Part of him felt deeply uneasy; wanted to careen into the next alley. Another part of him wanted to trust this man with his life. Something about him seemed so solid. How do you know? Zeb asked himself, growing angry. How can you tell who seems solid and who doesn’t?

“Look,” said Hugo. “If this is how you like to live, you’d be free to live this way in New Orleans. But you’d be there. You could check in. You could share what you know, what you think. You can talk to like-minded people.”

“How did you know how to find me?” asked Zeb.

“It wasn’t easy,” said Hugo. “Sometimes I feel as if I’m a character in a fairy tale. You know, the brother who has to find the needle in the haystack, outwit the wicked giant, and find the golden apples of the sun all in one night. It’s getting kind of late. Maybe we should catch a cab.”

The crosstown ride took only minutes, through small elite neighborhoods, each with its own character. “My aunt used to live there,” said Hugo as they passed a small garden apartment of red brick. “We used to visit her every fall.”

Zeb allowed himself to fall into the cadence of the ride, lulled by the wine and the good meal. He tried to wonder why anyone would find him valuable in any way and failed. He figured this guy didn’t know about the diamonds; otherwise, why this song and dance? He would have tried to take them by now. The kids who gathered around him and called him Star Man were just that—naïve kids, looking for someone to believe in. They didn’t really know much. He could have told them anything and they’d believe. For all he knew, he had told them anything.

The Howard was a stunning Victorian gem, its previous plain façade restored to its original majesty. The blocks surrounding it were filled with small shops—grocers, florists, gourmet food stores, pre-theater restaurants. Snazzily dressed people, some with skin the color of milk, some with skin the color of ebony, and all shades between, strolled toward the theater through pools of streetlight.

Zeb was perused with distaste—if not disgust—by the doorman. As Hugo slipped the doorman some money, Zeb read a sign about the Howard’s restoration, the result of nanotech advances and much trust funding.

They settled into a private balcony; Zeb was relieved because no one would complain about him. The show was just beginning.

Street came on and joked about how the world was evolving toward beigedom. “Ladies and Gentlemen… in our travels in Asia…”

Hugo stood at the railing. “Amazing,” he murmured. “He seems perfect.” He turned and sat down. “I am in heaven.”

Zeb listened clinically. Music still held little fascination for him, but he’d never had much exposure to jazz and he found himself fascinated by the tonal relationships and rhythmic structures that filled the air. It was a lot different than the classical music that…

That who?

He realized that he rarely remembered that he had at one time had a wife, much less her name.

Agitated, he rose to go, but Hugo pulled his arm down with surprising force for such a short man. “The part we just heard was never recorded by Ellington and I’ve never heard it. It was a tonal description of how the main character, Boola, was abducted from Africa and came here on a slave ship in the fifteen hundreds. This is an archetypal black who lives through centuries of black history in the United States. I am in complete awe.”

“It was interesting,” conceded Zeb.

“You’ll really enjoy the next part.”

Despite himself, Zeb did become immersed in the performance. He’d never bothered to seek out live music because it seemed artificial compared to natural random sound. Perhaps because of the wine, he relaxed; let the music rearrange his thoughts.

After the second standing ovation, Hugo led him out a fire exit corridor. “Should we be going this way?” Zeb asked nervously.

“Only if we want to avoid getting crushed.” Hugo turned down a branching hallway and yanked open a door that Zeb had not even seen in the dimly lit hall. They were backstage, he saw.

Hugo sought out Street and launched into a complex appreciation of the performance. Street looked pleased. Then Hugo talked about some project this Marie wanted Street to undertake. He handed Street a card and what looked like a tape cassette. Street looked nervous and kept glancing around; finally he said, “I’m sorry, I’m due at a party,” and Hugo let him go. They wandered out into the alley behind the theater. The night was cool now.

“I thought we’d stay at the Sheraton tonight. I’ve booked us seats on the new magrail for tomorrow morning.”

“I never said I’d go,” said Zeb.

“That’s true, you didn’t. But we’d appreciate it quite deeply if you would come.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Tell me why and we can discuss it.”

“You never told me how you found me.”

“We advertised for those with a particular background. Very quickly, a man showed up in New Orleans and told us that you knew things about the astronomical aspects of our current situation that very few people know. He recommended that we get in touch with you. Maybe help you out. Get you away from Washington. He said that you knew him under another name, but he wouldn’t give us his name. I’ve been looking for you for about two weeks. I talked to you last week when you were in that park at Sixteenth and K, but you were raving about aliens and didn’t seem to hear me. This man said that he once gave you an overcoat—”

“Why didn’t you kill me?” he said to Hugo in a low voice, backing away. This man was pretending to know Craig. And Craig was dead. He just wanted the classified information he’d been working with. Damn. Someone must have seen him using it in the library. He tried to keep the little book out of sight, but sometimes he had to consult it as he worked. “I don’t have anything! I don’t! Why didn’t you just kill me right away! I’m nuts. I’m unstable. I don’t know a goddamned thing. Stop following me.” His running seemed as slow to him as if he were caught in a nightmare.

Hugo followed, yelling, “Wait!”

Fear pumped Zeb’s arms and legs: that tiny vision of Craig on the television motivating him, along with the probable shot from the gun Zeb suddenly knew Hugo carried; tell them nothing, nothing, because after that they might as well kill you. Panting, he entered dark welcoming shadows and heard a small voice yelling from half a block away, “He’s not dead!”

The dwarf was trying to make him stop, trying to lure him back. He ran down an alley, cut through some yards, jumped on a passing bus and rode, transferred, rode some more. He rode until he fell asleep. The driver woke him and threw him off, and Zeb wondered if perhaps he had dreamed of the brown dwarf.

BREAK

A boy plays in a park. He is five years old. His father sits on a bench with other parents not far away.

The boy scuffs his feet on the dirt patch below his swing; slows; slips from the plastic sling and stumbles forward a few steps. He reaches down to touch a yellow toy helicopter someone has left on the worn grass next to a crumpled paper cup.

He picks it up; spins the propeller. He looks up to see a woman with long dark hair standing not far from him, watching him with a look as strong as a teacher’s look. He wonders if he is doing something wrong. Maybe the helicopter belongs to her little boy. He has an impulse to run away with it and keep it for himself. He notices his father watching him now, so he takes a few steps toward the woman. He should give it back to her. He isn’t supposed to keep things that don’t belong to him.

Suddenly his hand tingles as if asleep. He drops the helicopter and shakes his hand, but it gets ‘worse. His hand feels stiff and numb. He tries to scream, looking around for his father, and sees the woman smile and walk away. He hears his father’s wild shout, but he is very stiff now, and it is hard to breathe. He barely feels his father’s arms as he grabs him up, and his eyes stare upward at the blue reeling sky.

Extended Riff in Past and Future Minor Annie | Washington, D.C. | 2029

It was amazing, observed Annie, just before the Metro slid beneath the Potomac through one of the several new tunnels facilitated by recent molecular manipulation breakthroughs, how spring in Washington still had the power to fill her with the joy of nature’s rebirth. She closed her eyes to hold within the image of pink cherry blossoms on trees that always reminded her of pirouetting dancers held in exquisite pause. She’d strolled among them yesterday, trying to mentally prepare for the ordeal she imagined today would be.

Too soon the second stop came and she had to debark and rise into the politic-stained world of science she now inhabited. She fought her way to the escalator.

She was not looking forward to this morning’s meeting. She was to be an expert witness before Congress regarding the development of a master plan for the implementation of the new communication system based on metapheromones, and in an hour would be deposed. She’d just spent a predawn briefing hour at the Pentagon. Now she would stop by her office, pick up a few things, and wait for the limo.

Sunlight as she emerged into the upper world was pale, the air chill despite the presage of cherry blossoms. As she waited to cross I Street, a parade of variously shaped vehicles, depending on their fueling system, met in their daily homage to the god of gridlock, and she quickly wove through them against the signal. In less than a year it would be illegal to drive anything in the United States except solar-powered vehicles. Or bicycles. And she had a feeling that anything except public transportation would be outlawed in most cities, anyway.

She stopped by her regular coffee stall and Feng handed her her customary cup of near-viscous Vietnamese coffee. As she sipped, she cut through a greening park. A statue of some general on a horse loomed over her. She went over her objections to this particular proposal. The main one being that it could all get out of control so easily. But how to make that stand up against panic? They would just respond that the world was in a state of emergency. Radio and wire communications were all but shot. Cables were limited as to the amount of information they could carry, and only two weeks ago a key cable to Japan had been ruined by nanotech sabotage. There were a lot of angry people in the world now. Some were just mad, and some wanted the whole world to revert to some kind of bucolic Gaian vision, which meant a radically reduced population and very little technology. Terrorist attacks from various quarters were on the rise. Conversion to BioCity mode would give a greater measure of detection and immunity—at least, this is what the developers claimed. She planned to heartily dispute this idea.

She was not looking forward to her day in committee. Who was she, they would say, to try and derail these excellent proposals from some of the most prestigious international nanotech firms presently operating? For weeks her head had been spinning as she tried to set down precisely the problems she foresaw, and then tried to cast the problems into scenarios that would be easy to understand. She’d spent nights of cold fear. She shivered now as she passed through the general’s blue shadow. The sun disappeared. A gust of cold wind rattled the bare branches above her.

Suddenly a face was in front of hers, bearded and pale. The man wore an ancient overcoat. His eyes were sharp, not rheumy like those of many bums. She opened her mouth to say she had no change, then closed it.

They stared at one another for a long moment. It had been years. How many? Fifteen? And how heartbroken her mother had been. Annie believed that the sorrow had led to her cancer and her death. Could it really be him?

“Uncle Zeb?” she said gently, for he looked frail and as if he might bolt.

He stood as if dazed.

“It’s Annie,” she said. “Remember? Sal’s girl?”

He blinked. “I thought so. I’ve seen you. Walking through the park. You come this way every day.”

Annie frowned. She had been coming this way for about three months, ever since she got a cryptic note, sealed inside a battered letter with a Tokyo postmark, saying that she might find her uncle here. She’d considered it a baffling prank, but concern won out. At first she looked for him, then stopped, but the route became a superstitious ritual.

Zeb lifted his hand, pushed back her hair as he had done when she was little. “How’s Sally?”

The deep sadness she had for the most part conquered resurfaced and made her nose sting. “She’s dead, Uncle Zeb. She looked for you everywhere, you know? She spent three years searching. Dad thought she was crazy.”

“ ‘Dead.’ ” His hand dropped to his side. His mouth sagged. He looked back up at her. “I’m—so sorry, Annie. You see, I haven’t been… well, I guess. This is… a good time. I mean, for me. For thinking.”

Annie brushed tears away. A fine way to greet the committee. “I have to be somewhere in ten minutes. Come with me. You can wait outside. Afterward we’ll have something to eat. Damn, the hearings will probably take all day. Look—”

“It’s all right, Annie,” he said gently. “You’re busy.” He turned to walk away.

She followed him. “Zeb, are you crazy?” She could have bitten her tongue, but continued on. “You need to come home with me. I have an apartment on Kalorama. You know, up by the zoo. What have you been doing all this time?”

He stopped and asked, looking straight ahead, “How are Pleiades and Zephyr?”

She felt like strangling him. She took a deep breath. “They both died years ago. Brad was devastated. But they had three litters and he kept several puppies. He breeds collies now and raises sheep.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve really got to go. My office is on the next block. You can wait there. Come on.” She took his arm, but he didn’t move.

“I like it better outside.”

“I wish I had more time. Here’s my card.” Exasperated, she scribbled on the back. “This is my address. I’ll tell the security man to expect you. I’ll see you at my condo tonight, all right, Uncle Zeb?” She tried to sound as firm as possible. Then she ran to make the light. Damn. She’d be late. And her thoughts were all scattered. She looked back from across the street. He was gone.

She splurged and took a cab home that night. What the hell. What was she saving for anyway? Her old age? Judging from her experience today, she wouldn’t have one and neither would all the shortsighted assholes she’d tried to be so straight with. They’d be washed away in some sort of nanotech surge. Her mind danced with horrific images. What was she doing here? She should be with Brad, raising sheep down in the valley. She might as well be weaving blankets for all the good she was doing here. There was no way logic could cut through all the money that was flowing under every table in Washington these days. Not to mention the exciting ways in which these international corporations could present their expensive and dangerous visions of the future. Maybe they all deserved to go back to the Middle Ages. In her opinion, that was where they were heading, more quickly than most people seemed to realize.

Sure, she was a curmudgeon—and pretty young to be one too. She was proud of it. And now was the time to go for broke. Desperate measures were called for. Her day had convinced her of that if nothing else.

It was dark and she jolted from side to side in the tiny backseat. The driver didn’t speak English; she’d punched her address in and the cab’s map told him where to turn.

She felt as if she’d spent a day breaking rocks. She’d had a quick glass of wine while waiting for the Vietnamese carryout meal that was in the large bag next to her. She relaxed into a mental state where thoughts flowed freely.

These were strange times. Humanity had been powerfully jolted in the past few centuries, always, before this, by the truth. The Enlightenment had been the first great change. A flowering of thought directly due to the availability of books printed with movable type. Then, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, Darwin’s assertion that everything in existence was not designed by God but was the result of natural forces. In her opinion, that powerfully revolutionary thought had never been entirely assimilated by humankind as a whole, mired as it was in some sort of hardwired attachment to religion and mysticism. Then physics had spawned the atomic bomb and the cold war that, true to its name, froze political enmities for fifty years. But just as now, the threat had accelerated scientific progress. The Internet, with its lack of rules and hierarchy, had been designed so that people (read: Americans) could communicate with one another after the world was flattened and begin to rebuild it. In their own image, of course.

Now the advent of nanotechnology, coupled with the Silence, had brought humanity face-to-face with all kinds of truths it seemed to be choosing to ignore.

The Earth was part of a larger galactic ecology, which was now affecting them in powerful ways. They were on the cusp of being able to manipulate matter in all kinds of subtle fashions, and this included the matter of the mind. A huge room, a cracked door, a sliver of light admitted—

Would they slam the door or traverse the enormous room and fling it open?

Well, unlike Brad, she couldn’t help caring about them all. She opened her eyes and watched the lights reel past. They were new biolights and cast a cold greenish glow. The cab sped past a corner where a gang of girls sat on the sidewalk, smoking and checking out their weapons for whatever spree they had in mind tonight. She was nuts to live here. She ought to get a condo across the river in Virginia. It was safer there. Or so the ads implied.

She thought of the opening line of one of her favorite poems, Blake’s “The Tyger”: “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright.” If all their intelligence was the tyger, how long would they last, how would they be able to fare into this coming forest of the night? No immortal hand or eye had framed this fearful symmetry. At least not in this universe. Symmetry was just a part of the basic package, on a very deep level. And now it was up to them, the mortals, to frame whatever would come next.

She unlocked the cab door with her credit squirt, and it flashed the total as she opened the door. She grabbed her dinner. Their dinner. She hoped to see Uncle Zeb. The taxi door slid shut and the guard came out to escort her the ten feet to the door.

She’d had no time to think about Zeb. She didn’t want to think about him because it would just remind her of those dreadful years when her mother wasted away and all the time since. Fifteen hard, strange years, with two near-misses at marriage.

“You’ve got a visitor,” said Harry as he walked her to the door. Another guard watched from inside the glass doors and several more were on call about the building.

“Sorry they made you wait down here, Uncle Zeb. Hi.” She hugged him. He did not smell like a bum. She remembered his smell from her childhood—woodsmoke and outdoors. Now it was just like plain soap.

He hugged her—hard. He stepped back and seemed to be struggling to speak.

“This is nice,” Zeb said finally, as they stepped into the apartment. A narrow hallway led to the living room, dining room, and kitchen on one side and to two bedrooms on the other side. She used one of the bedrooms as a study. The apartment was furnished with some of her mother’s furniture and old art deco pieces picked up at estate sales. Unmatching, faded oriental rugs covered the wooden floors. Zeb stood in the living room, not speaking. He looked uncomfortable, as if he was a wild being unused to walls. “Sit down while I heat this up,” she said.

“That was your mother’s dining room set, wasn’t it?” he asked, standing in the dining room. “It was your grandmother’s.”

“Yes,” she said. She wondered if Zeb was an alcoholic. He didn’t look it. He just looked weathered. “Can I take your coat?” she asked, but he shook his head.

She went into the kitchen. Zeb followed. She got the stuff out of the bag and set the cardboard boxes on the induction plate. It was old-fashioned but came with the apartment. “Only problem with this is that you have to stir it,” she said. She opened a drawer and handed him a spoon for each box.

There were noodles, some kind of beef dish, spring rolls, vegetables. She poured herself a glass of wine. “Want some?” she asked hesitantly.

“Sure,” he said, but left it sitting on the counter after a sip. She got out plates and bowls and he poured steaming food into them.

“How long have you been in Washington, Zeb?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Oh.” He was quiet for a minute. “For a long time.” He piled silverware onto some plates and she took the food and they went into the dining room. They pulled out chairs and seated themselves. Outside of Annie’s tall old-fashioned windows, the lights of the city twinkled. Annie helped herself to some spring rolls, thinking how pleasant it was that there had been no gunfire yet.

“It smells sweet in here,” said Zeb. “Kind of like your mother’s house.” He bent his head down and sniffed at the table. “Old wood does that. Exudes a fragrance.” He looked up at Annie and said, “Some people think that scent can be the strongest trigger of memory.”

She filled Zeb’s plate. “Eat. You’re too thin.”

Zeb didn’t feel like eating. I only want to remember, he thought. He gazed at Annie, his vision filled with not only her face, but the dear face of her mother. Annie looked so capable, so much in charge. He was very glad that she seemed to have crossed the developmental shoals in which he’d foundered.

She stood and lit candles in crystal holders that also were Sally’s and smiled at him. “A special occasion,” she said. Or at least he thought it was something like that from the look on her face. She turned back to Craig and they were talking about something. He wondered when Craig had come. He hadn’t seen Craig in… so long. When was it last? Craig pushed the plate toward him again, nodding.

Their words—Craig’s and Annie’s—were like shots of sound that blurred into the air. Pleasant tones, though a bit like sparring. Annie looked at him anxiously and he smiled back. It was all so lovely. It was as if, in the dimness of the room, they floated in a sea of stars, just the table and chairs and the old family buffet behind Annie, ornate and holding the glow of years. If he walked over and opened the drawers, what memories might he pull from them and shake out like napkins long folded… the archetype of the day, perhaps, when he and Sally had gone swimming down at the creek, dogs barking from their sentinel stones, blue mountains visible between the trees, and then Dad setting the table with this same china in the summer evening…

Then Annie was hugging him, and Craig looked on worriedly. He heard Annie quite clearly. “Zeb, Zeb, it’s all right, oh, honey, it wasn’t your fault, really.” He realized he was sobbing. He sucked in great gasps of air and made keening animal sounds. “So much gone,” he heard himself say.

“I’ve never seen him like this,” Craig said.

“He’s just found out that his sister died,” said Annie, her words tight and angry. “Not that it makes any difference to you. Come on, Zeb. Give me that damned coat. That’s right. I’ve got heat here. Now come on over and lie down on the couch for a minute. You just rest.”

Zeb felt his protective shell being peeled off, heard Craig murmur “I’ve tried to give him a new coat, but he likes that one.” Well, of course he did. It had been a present from Craig.

“I’m not always like this,” he protested as they got him onto the couch. Craig wiped his face with a napkin and he realized that he was sweating profusely. “I wish,” he said. “I wish.” And then he fell asleep. From time to time, he opened his eyes and saw Craig and Annie across from him, talking and sometimes arguing, but he always lapsed back into sleep again—safe, protected sleep. He felt Sally hovering around him. He was sure he did. She’d gone where dimensions undid themselves, a place where he often dwelt, while the world flowed past around him.

Annie collapsed onto an overstuffed chair of vaguely thirtyish mode, upholstered in forest green with lime green piping. She drew her legs up beneath her. She held tight to her newly poured whisky and water. The food sat uneaten on the table. Zeb lay on the couch across from her. It had been a very long day. She wondered who Craig was. Zeb had clearly been hallucinating.

She decided that she would take the morning off. They could have a quiet breakfast. Maybe coffee would help him. She tried to remember what her mother had said about Zeb’s condition. She sat back in her chair, sipped her whisky, and watched him sleep.

He was very thin. Probably malnourished. But alive. “Oh, Mom,” she murmured, and tears came to her eyes and this time she let them fall.

She’d been in her sophomore year of college. Sally had been worried about her, of course. It was a distant, steely sort of worry. Will you crack up like my brother?

No danger, Mom. Levelheaded. Dependable. Good old Annie, that’s me. Brad had suffered one or two scary episodes, but now seemed… almost all right, with his collie-herded cloned sheep and his little wool factory down in the valley. All the latest stuff. The wool practically fell off the sheep and made itself into smooth cashmere sweaters. But still All-Natural, of course. All-Natural was a great selling point. There was a nice picture on his package of sheep and collies. Very natural, indeed. And on Zeb’s land. It had been hard as the devil to wrest that place from legal limbo, seeing as how there had never been a body.

Annie took a sip of whisky and let it warm her throat and chest. She tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and remembered.

It was a blustery day in January, about ten degrees. The sky was pure blue and cloudless, but the wind kicked up great gusts of powdery snow and whisked it across Route 460 as Sally fought the wind’s grip on the truck.

“Didn’t even take his pills with him,” Sally said again. She said that often. Annie said nothing. Sally had been able to wangle the truck from impoundment in D.C. with a sizable donation. “Now where is that turn? Do you remember, Annie?”

“No,” said Annie. She’d quit school for a semester to try and help her mom. She was worried about how it might affect her standing and hated herself for it. But she couldn’t help it if she was a perfectionist. Nanotech was such a hot discipline now that it wasn’t easy to get into the best grad schools. “Wait. There, I think. Between those fence posts. I remember that old barn.” Zeb had brought them up the previous summer.

Sally turned the truck so it went beneath the posts. “Tire tracks. Sand. Somebody’s been up here, haven’t they?”

Annie tried not to think about who that might be. Since the blackout, there had been a government clampdown on an amazing amount of activities. She’d had to go through a security check in order to continue a completely mundane astronomy class she was taking just for the credits. “Are you sure we should do this, Mom?” she asked.

“He was up here the night it happened,” she said. “He found out something up here.”

“And now he’s gone,” said Annie. “Doesn’t that tell you something, Mom?”

“I won’t have you talking like that!” Sally said.

“I didn’t mean it that way—oh, never mind,” said Annie. “He’s still alive. I know it.”

“He might have wandered in front of a truck,” said Sally grimly, but they both knew that wasn’t true. They’d seen him on SNN. The whole world had. Saying something about a government cover-up.

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Annie. “The antenna wasn’t far from the Appalachian Trail. Why don’t we get some winter hiking gear and go in that way?”

Sally fought for the steering wheel as they jounced over a big rock. “I’ve thought of that.”

Annie stared at her mother. “You have?”

“Sure. But if they’re guarding the place, they’ll have thought of that. It seems a lot more dangerous in a way. If we seemed to be sneaking up on them, we could get killed. This way—” She shrugged.

“Be careful,” said Annie as they crawled along a narrow road next to a cliff. Sally didn’t reply.

There were guards, of course. From the Army. Annie was vaguely surprised. Wasn’t this a National Guard sort of thing? They were just to maintain the perimeter. Despite the fact that she and Sally were in Zeb’s truck, these guards just believed that they were driving up for the view or to check on cattle or something.

They had spent two weeks in Washington. Of course, all was in an uproar; the city was packed and it was like a pilgrimage. Washington had to know what to do!

When Annie returned to school, she was not penalized. Far from it. Because of her scores, she was put into an accelerated program. When she told them that she couldn’t attend through the summer because she had to work, the government put her in one of the new scholarship programs. Suddenly science was important. A new grim atmosphere pervaded not only the country, but the entire world. Alternatives to so many kinds of technologies had to be found.

Annie woke because someone was talking and because it was cold. She was sitting in the living room, but it was dark. The windows were open. Freezing wind had scattered a stack of her papers around the room.

Zeb had his coat on again. He was smoking, using one of Sal’s china cups as an ashtray. She quelled the impulse to jump up, grab it, and wash it.

His face was lit by the light of the kitchen. He was talking very fast. He jerked his cigarette to his mouth, jerked it away after a quick puff.

“I didn’t mean to do it, you know, but I had no choice, Annie. There was something I knew.” He laughed—loudly. “Did you see me in the newspaper, The Washington Post? Not long ago.”

“No,” she said. Though she tried to read the paper religiously, some days she was just too tired. The news was pretty much back to print medium now, since radio was so sporadic. “You know, pretty soon you’ll be able to get the news just by touch. Kind of like in a Kurt Vonnegut novel. Of course you’ll have to change yourself to do that—somewhat.” She realized with a start that she was rambling as much as he was. It was all so dreamlike. “Why were you in the paper, Zeb?”

“Apparently, I gathered a huge crowd around me. I was hollering about aliens. Nothing new, you know, just the same old stuff. Same old stuff people have been ranting about for years.”

A chill went down the back of Annie’s neck. “Does this have anything to do with the antenna? Remember what you talked about that Thanksgiving—”

Zeb’s face underwent a powerful transformation. He looked dazed for a few seconds, losing the manic energy that had tightened the skin around his eyes. He swallowed. He took a deep breath. He looked around and switched on a light. Then he closed the window. He took the china cup into the kitchen and Annie heard water running. Annie couldn’t get up to save her life. She felt as if she were being held underwater by a powerful force. It was all so strange.

He came back into the room and took off the coat, hung it next to Annie’s. He sat down on the couch, leaning his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands. “You remember. But you were so little.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she laughed. “I was nineteen.”

He looked around. “This is a very nice apartment. What do you do?”

“I work for the government. This antenna stuff is driving you crazy, isn’t it? I mean, it has.” She tried to be distant, clinical with him. It wasn’t that difficult. She was an adult now.

He looked alarmed. “The government!”

“Don’t worry. I’m a lowly nanotechnologist. I work on developing codes—legal definitions and limits—for the implementation of nanotech.” She laughed. “After today, I can’t think of anything more ridiculous.”

He nodded. “I’m not surprised. I mean, that you’re doing important work. You were always pretty focused. Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know how long I’ll be like this. I can never tell.”

“I guess you don’t take your medicine,” Annie said. “I’m sure they have much better stuff now. We can go see—have you checked out—”

“No!”

“Okay, then,” she said. “We won’t. But why not?”

“You think I’m crazy.”

“You are.”

“In some ways. But not in others. I mean, I guess I’m not always in control of myself. I’m manic. I know that. I realize it. But Annie, when I’m that way, I can think.”

“What good does it do you to think when you’re sitting on a steam grate?”

He looked surprised. “It doesn’t matter where I am. Really. You work for the government.”

“It doesn’t matter what you tell me, Zeb. It will be a secret. I won’t tell anyone.”

“But that’s the problem,” he said. “Everyone needs to know. I have proof.”

Annie laughed despite herself. “Uncle Zeb,” she said hopelessly. “Proof. Hey, what we wouldn’t give for proof. I know what you think. At least vaguely. But people who think that aliens are causing this are totally ridiculed. Batted down.”

“Kicked around,” said Zeb without rancor. “But I know what I know. That makes it bearable.”

“Kind of like… Copernicus, right?” she asked.

“Exactly,” said Zeb seriously. “You want everyone to know. You really do. But I guess…” He shrugged. “Maybe it would be good to— to get into better shape. Get some kind of credibility. But how? They aren’t going to hand some kind of podium to me. I’ve tried that approach. Really. I went to Tech and tried to get my job back a few years ago. I had tenure. They told me to wait in an office. Within half an hour, some men in suits showed up. I managed to get away from them. I knew about some old steam tunnels that nobody remembers now—under the physics building.” He turned to the side of the couch and picked up a remote control that was sitting there. “Television working?”

“Zeb!” she said, bolting from her chair. “You can’t see that!” It activated her hv platform and a copy of what she’d been working on to show to Congress.

He laughed, kneeling in front of the platform. Laughed like a child, delightedly. “And they think I’m crazy. How the hell is this supposed to work?”

Some city was there, the tallest building about a foot high. Chicago, remembered Annie blearily. They’d been afraid to show this happening on their home ground, the District. Somewhere pleasantly removed from their everyday experience was deemed best. As far as she could tell, no one was prepared to risk a changeover—a “conversion,” as the process was being called, in Washington. Because a conversion carried risk of a surge, among other complications—a disaster wherein the molecular process mutated and began to change everything around it in an uncontrolled fashion.

“This is prototype number three, it says.” Zeb sat back on his heels, his weathered face bathed eerily in patches of multicolored light.

The buildings were topped with what looked like swimming pools. Lines streaked down the sides of the buildings. “They conveniently left out the buildings without flat roofs,” mused Zeb. “Guess they’ll have to cut the tops off.”

“No,” said Annie quietly. “They’re just going to enliven them. Change their molecular structure and then regrow them to suit. Make them more—plastic, I guess, is a good word.”

“Hmm,” said Zeb. “What a thought.”

Tiny spheres, like Ping-Pong balls, bounced between the building tops, touching down in the pools and darting to those on other rooftops.

“What if it rains?” asked Zeb. “What if the wind blows?”

“Try number… seven,” she suggested.

A wonderland of huge flowers blossomed atop the buildings. Large bees took the place of the spheres. Zeb stared at it for a moment, then burst out laughing. He switched to number five. “Anyone thought of infrared?” he asked.

She sighed. “People are leery of depending on anything having to do with frequencies. They’re thinking more and more along biological lines. The bees and the flowers—that’s pheromone-based. The bees will be fairly large, capable of transporting information packets that are analogs of pollen. Wind won’t be a problem for them unless it’s quite extreme.”

“Pheromones?” he said. “You mean like sex?”

“Kind of,” she said. “Except that the idea is to use that basic form of communication like an alphabet. There are thousands of naturally occurring pheromones and all kinds of creatures use them for very precise communication. Say that we develop more pheromones. Combine them into words. Metapheromones. Grow receptors for these metapheromones in humans, so they can know things by touch. Or by smell.”

“The smell of the Bible,” mused Zeb, rising and settling back onto the couch. “The smell of Newton’s laws. The smell of The Origin of Species. The smell of ‘I Love Lucy.’ ”

“The smell of facism,” said Annie. “That’s why I’m at least trying to steer this toward touch. That’s a little more controllable. Not that I have a whole lot to say about it.”

“Here,” said Zeb, raising his arm as if in a toast. “Have a sip of Das Kapital!”

“You’re getting the picture,” said Annie.

“But wouldn’t bike couriers and vacuum tubes be just as fast?”

Annie laughed. “Hell no! Information is ferried constantly, by air. Pickup and delivery almost as fast as a phone call or fax. No street traffic. And couriers would have to haul a truckload of paper to transport the amount of information we can put in a milligram of the pollen analog. ‘Information at the speed of consciousness’—that’s one motto I’ve heard. This concept was developed by a collaboration between an American and a Japanese company. Their stock is sky-high right now. But the plan for American cities is a little bit different.”

“How so?”

“Encryption. Or lack thereof. It will be illegal, and they’re trying to make it basically impossible to change anything about the system. Particularly the part of it that makes government access to absolutely any exchange of information crystal clear. And no other plan is to be approved for use in the United States.”

Zeb frowned. “Is that constitutional?”

“Well… you see, we’re not officially at war, because there is no visible enemy. There are signs of a possible enemy, of course, but they really don’t want people thinking about the Silence in those terms, because they’re afraid that the result would be anarchy. But the War Powers Act has been invoked rather indiscriminately. I think that it’s an index of how helpless we feel.”

“Despite that, I read a lot of conjecture in the paper about the Silence. In the legitimate press.”

“Yeah, and it’s kind of on a par with ‘Did Oswald act alone?’ So they’ve demeaned the whole idea of possible intelligence out there, at least publicly. If anyone’s got any clear proof that aliens are causing the pulses, instead of some natural galactic event, they’re not speaking up. Still, with so much terrorism and the possibility of their spies being here on Earth—”

“Their spies?”

“Sure, Uncle Zeb. Alien spies.”

“Wouldn’t they—whoever they are—be trying to find these alien spies? I mean,” he added wryly, “I’ve certainly had a taste of the invisible ‘theys.’ ”

“Oh, they are.” She laughed. “Trying to. There’s talk of some mutation having occurred that night—remember that Thanksgiving Eve?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well, I don’t have a thing to do with that project. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that it even exists. I’ve only heard rumors. Something about increased levels of magnetite in their brains.” She laughed. Then she looked at Zeb’s face. “What?”

“Magnetite. Annie…” Zeb tried to remember. “About twenty years ago, we found a new form of neutron star. It revolves two hundred times per second. It creates a powerful magnetic wave and messed up some satellites from time to time. If… such a field was generated by something closer, it could even affect the iron atoms in your blood.” He looked up. “It seems to me that magnetic forces would also be affecting magnetite, right?”

“Why, sure. In fact, not that I know a lot about it, but magnetite in the brains of birds has been connected with their migrational abilities. Apparently, they’re tuned in to the magnetic fields. And there’s been a lot of bird die-offs since the pulses started. Erroneous migrations. Really a tragedy. One more tragedy. No one knows how that’s going to affect world ecology.” Annie slumped back in her chair.

Zeb sighed. “It so frustrating to be stuck here when somewhere something astounding is happening. Somewhere out there.” He smiled faintly. “I’ve heard rumors too. I’ve heard rumors that despite the blackout, NASA is still sending out satellites and even ships. That people on the moon, on Mars, know what is happening.”

“That may be true. But I don’t have access to that kind of information. If it is true, I suspect that very few people do.”

Zeb said, “It’s the very opposite of the way we grew up. We grew up with a spirit of scientific enterprise. We were all in this together, together in the world, together in trying to get to the heart of the great mysteries. We shared information. This is terribly wrong. The world is like a police state now. This is the biggest mystery that has ever occurred and anyone who wants to do something about it is persecuted. Who put these people in charge, anyway?”

“Well, let me see if I can spell it out for you. Not that I’ve got the clearest picture. Because it isn’t clear. The military, of course, has a whole lot of power and jurisdiction over matters like this, and they’ve used that to the hilt. For instance, I was not allowed by the Defense Department to talk about certain nanotech weapons that have been developed or that are in the pipeline today when I was deposed by the Congressional Committee on Communication. Various agencies always had overlapping turf and that’s gotten more confusing. People out in the rest of the country seem to think that their elected officials have a lot of power. They don’t. They come and they go. They can fund or defund an agency or a program, but that’s about it. There’s a lot of inertia here—as in moving objects that won’t stop until an equal and opposite force is applied. Even the National Institutes of Health are doing a lot of classified research. So it’s not at all far-fetched to think that this or that government agency-slash-cabal is doing what they please. Top that off with all the economic chaos… whew!”

“Isn’t there anyone that’s trying to… to rebalance things? To find the truth? To set things right? To go out there?”

Annie thought back to the letter with the Tokyo postmark. The postmark had been nine months old. The letter mentioned a certain Marie Laveau and New Orleans. It suggested that Annie’s expertise would be useful there. She had thought of it as some kind of prank.

But it had been right about Zeb hanging out in that park.

“Why did you vanish that day?”

Zeb opened his mouth as if to speak. Then he closed it.

“What?”

“I really don’t want to say.”

“Why the hell not? I mean, we looked all over creation for you, Mom and I. You can at least tell me what happened.”

“It might be dangerous for you.”

“ ‘Dangerous’! That’s kind of a fascinating assertion.”

“I was told that I had to… to cooperate concerning some information that I had. And I didn’t want to.”

Annie leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, cupped her chin in her hands. She narrowed her eyes.

“Zeb. Who told you this?”

He looked away.

“Are you afraid?”

“I’ve been afraid for many years, Annie.”

“I’m very, very sorry about that. But I can keep you safe, I’m sure.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He pushed himself up off the floor. “In fact, I’d better go now. I’ve probably put you in danger.”

“No, Zeb!” Annie jumped up and grabbed his arm. “No, please don’t go.”

“I have my work. Annie, I’m doing some very important work. I’m thinking.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you are.” She was frantic. He couldn’t just walk out now. “Stay the rest of the night. Look. In here.” She dragged him down the hallway. “See? Mom’s walnut bed. All made up! Look.” The headboard was intricately carved with a running motif of flowers and leaves. She pulled back the covers. “With Mom’s sheets, remember these? The little red tulips. She would want you to stay. Please. And we can talk tomorrow.”

Zeb stopped resisting. “All right, Annie. But just until tomorrow.”

She turned down the covers. She brought him some chamomile tea and set it steaming on the doily next to the night table lamp. She brought him towels and showed him the bathtub. She told him to leave his clothes out and she’d wash them in the morning. The window was covered with wide Venetian blinds and she pulled them up a bit and opened the window a crack. The stream of cold air felt good. “There. Now promise you’ll be here in the morning.”

Then she remembered something. She went into her bedroom and opened the closet, climbed up on a chair, and pulled things down from the top shelf and dumped them behind her. She had to go get a flashlight and then she had to find batteries for it. She wondered if she had forgotten where this thing really was. Then she saw it, squeezed in the corner.

The Virginia Tech tote bag held the printouts from Zeb’s truck, along with a tape on which he raved about all kinds of mathematical relationships. Once again she was suffused by a wave of sadness as she pulled it out and wondered if she ought to give it to him. It might upset him too much. It certainly upset her. It brought back the last years of her mother’s life with a rush.

But it was his. She dragged it toward her, sneezing from dust, and let it drop to the floor with a dull thud. He said he was thinking. Einstein hung around the Institute for Advanced Thought for thirty years, thinking. Why not Uncle Zeb?

She peered in the bedroom door. “Zeb?”

He was sprawled on the bed, snoring. Wearing his clothes and his shoes. But he opened his eyes. “What?”

“I’m sorry. Here.” She set the tote bag next to the bed. “I kept this from your truck.”

He sat up and leaned over, pulled out the tape and the first unfolding sheets. His face worked. He looked up. “Annie! I had no idea! This is incredibly valuable. Thank you so much!” He stood and gave her a rough hug and sat down again, shaking his head in what seemed like wonder. “This will be such a help! You know—what I’m really working on is a Theory of Everything. I really believe that whoever is sending this must know the answer, whatever they might call it and however they might be using it. They must have long ago found the link between quantum and Newtonian physics. I think they’re trying to tell us what it is.”

Annie was quiet for a moment. It seemed hilarious and absurd and touching. But…

She remembered what her mother had said about Zeb’s early intellectual powers. Maybe it wasn’t all that silly.

“Kind of picking up where Einstein left off?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“Sounds preposterous, doesn’t it?”

Annie’s chest felt tight for a moment. “Not so much, Uncle Zeb. If anyone can figure it out, you can. I really have to sleep now. But don’t you dare leave. You just plan on staying here and doing your work, all right?”

She slept on the couch to make sure she’d catch him in the morning. But of course, when she woke up, the covers were turned back on an empty bed. The printouts were gone. She felt keen disappointment.

And yet, as she stood in the tiny day-bright bedroom filled with her mother’s things, elation filled her like sunlight. His work. At least he thought he was doing something important. Most people didn’t even have that. He was alive. She couldn’t cage him. And evidently he had some paranoid belief that he was a danger to her. But she could at least keep an eye out for him, without being obvious.

It was a small redemption, but somehow it made all the difference.