The World at the End of Time

CHAPTER 28

Landing on Newmanhome again was a thrill for Viktor Sorincaine. For one thing, it was real spaceflight! The vessel was a real spaceship landing shuttle, and Pelly let him sit in the copilot seat as they brought it in. Just being on Newmanhome was an even greater thrill; it was home again. His real home. The place where he belonged—even though, shockingly, the place was no longer anything like the green and promising land he had grown up in. (Nothing green had lived through Newmanhome's ages of ice. Nothing was alive anywhere at all on Newmanhome, except what the habitat people had put there.) Yet Viktor even had friends there! Jeren was waiting eagerly for him, shy and dumb and devoted; and Korelto. Even surly Manett managed to grumble a greeting as he clasped Viktor's shoulder. His eyes, though, were fixed on little Balit as the boy was helped out of the lander and onto a carrying chair. "He's really Frit and Forta's kid?" Manett whispered. "He actually came with you? Fred! Then maybe something's really going to happen around here after all!"

"Sure things are going to happen!" Jeren rumbled loyally. "Viktor's here now!" Then he wheedled, "But leave him alone, you guys, all right? He needs time to get settled in, doesn't he? Now, look, Viktor, I fixed up a place for you. I can take you there any time. Are you hungry? I could make some rabbit stew—real rabbits, Viktor; we've got a whole flock of them breeding now …"

Viktor hardly heard any of that. He was gazing around at the planet he had left. It wasn't all depressing. Although the hills were brown and bare, the bay was clear blue. So was the sky, with cotton-ball clouds dotted out over the ocean. And there was definitely a certain amount of life on Newmanhome again. Human life, anyway. Practically the planet's whole population—nearly sixty people!—had come to greet the new arrivals, like the citizens of any frontier town gathered at the railroad station to see the train come in.

"I'd better help Balit," Viktor said—to no one in particular, to all of them. He hurried over to where the boy was painfully levering himself into the sedan chair, with a pair of squat, husky gillies standing ready to take up the carrying rods. Balit looked up at him, trembling—partly with the effort of holding his head straight in Newmanhome's gravity, to be sure, but also with sheer excitement.

"This is wonderful, Viktor," he breathed. And then he fumbled a metal case from his pouch. "Hold still, please."

Viktor allowed his picture to be taken, then ordered parentally, "Put your hat on. You don't know what sunburn can be like; you're not used to it." As the boy obeyed, Viktor looked up. Pelly was escorting a lean habitat man over to join them. The man was hobbling on two canes, and he had a blue beret pulled down almost to his eyes. A woman, as tall and thin as himself but almost as pretty as Nrina, limped after them.

"Viktor," said Pelly, "this is Grimler, and her husband, Markety. They're the ones who sent you the data you asked for."

"Tried to anyway," the woman said, giving Viktor a hug of greeting. "I hope it was some use for you—I admire you so much, you know."

While Viktor was still blinking in surprise at that, the man was going on. "It's harder from the actual stores," Markety apologized. "You'll see. We can take you there any time you like."

"Any time," the woman echoed hospitably. "Do you want to go up there now?"

"Oh, yes," Viktor said.

It was a good thing they had built the datastore and the freezers adjacent to the power plant up in the hills instead of in Homeport itself. There wasn't any Homeport anymore. At least, there was nothing left of it that was visible. The place where the city of Homeport had once been was now at the bottom of the bay.

The bad thing, however, was that a hill was still a hill. To go up it took work.

Balit, Grimler, and Markety didn't even try to climb it themselves; that was what the gillie litter bearers were for. Their squat bodies were solid muscle; Nrina's arts had seen to that. Viktor envied them. His own muscles, softened by so many months in the soft gravity of habitat and Moon Mary, complained of the task of lifting a human body so far. Halfway up, Viktor had to pause to catch his breath.

When he looked around for familiar landmarks there weren't any. "I don't see the power plant buildings," he protested.

From beside him, Korelto said reasonably, "Of course you don't see them, Viktor. They got buried." He wasn't out of breath at all—of course, Viktor reflected, he'd had more time to get in shape on Newmanhome.

"But the plant's still running," Jeren assured him. "You can hear it if you listen, and the buildings are still there. And lots of the things in them are still okay. Come on, it's just another twenty minutes or so."

"Just give me a minute," Viktor said. He turned as the gillies brought Balit up next to him and set the chair down. The boy looked up at him, weary but grinning and game.

"Are we there yet, Viktor?" he asked. And then, without waiting for an answer, he pulled his camera out again in excitement. "Look up there! Aren't those things clouds?"

Viktor nodded, without answering. He was listening. Apart from the occasional sounds of the climbing party, the silence was almost absolute. A faint sigh of wind. Some distant machine noises from the little cluster of buildings at the foot of the hill, where Pelly's ship was being unloaded.

And—yes—a high-pitched, almost inaudible whisper from farther up on the hillside. The sound was familiar to Viktor, even after all the time that had passed. "Is that the power plant turbines I hear?" he asked.

From his own sedan chair, now coming up even with them, the man named Markety said, "Yes, of course it's the turbines. Are we going to stand here and talk or go on? I thought you people were used to this kind of drag. You two," he ordered Balit's gullies. "Pick the chair up and let's move."

"Do you want me to give you a hand, Viktor?" Jeren asked anxiously. "I know how I felt when I got back here, the first few days. Weak! I never felt like that before. But it'll pass, honest it will, Viktor."

"Of course it will," Viktor growled, panting hard, waving off the offer to help. The other thing about Newmanhome he had almost forgotten was that it could be hot. He was not only fatigued but sweating profusely when the trail turned. A shaft entrance lay ahead—something new; something dug recently to get down to something else long buried beneath the surface. Pairs of gillies were coming out of it, carrying freezer capsules.

"Let them pass," Markety called from behind. "They've got cargo to take down to the ship."

Viktor was glad to oblige. He gazed around, wondering. There was a time—oh, a long time ago, a terribly long time ago—when all this hillside had been green and sweet, and people had gathered around to picnic and dance and listen to old Captain Bu's speeches. This had to be the same place. But how sadly it had changed. He remembered that he had been there with Reesa and Tanya and the baby, before they married …

He had to look away, for his eyes were stinging. He saw Jeren looking at him worriedly and pulled himself together as the gillies lumbered past on their way downhill.

The turbine scream was louder now, unmistakable. There was another throbbing sound that was harder to identify, until Viktor saw a stream of muddy water gushing down alongside the trail.

Jeren saw what he was looking at. "That's from the pumps," he explained. "They have to keep pumping the water out, of course."

"Pumping?" Viktor repeated, and his heart sank.

For it had never occurred to him that freezing meant ice, and melting meant flooding.

Viktor turned to Markety, whose chair was just coming up behind him. "Is that why you had so much trouble retrieving the data?" he demanded. "Because the datastores were all under water?"

Markety looked astonished, then, as understanding dawned, the expression turned to compassion. "Oh," he said. "I thought you knew that."

Viktor had not forgotten what homesteading a new world was like, not entirely, anyway. What he had forgotten was how much work it was.

Annoyingly, everyone he saw seemed to think that he had come there for no other reason than to take part in the work—if not in fact to oversee it. They did need overseeing. When Viktor explained what a well was, and a septic tank, and why the former always had to be dug uphill from the latter, Markety was almost pathetically grateful. "How did you get along without me?" Viktor asked, half-amused, half-aghast at these inept pioneers.

"Very badly, I'm afraid," Markety said at once. "We need you. After all, you're the only person who's ever seen Newmanhome the way it ought to be."

So, willy-nilly, Viktor was drafted into every project. The good thing about hard, demanding work was that it kept one too busy to dwell on defeats. Well, it almost did; but nothing could quite wipe out of Viktor's mind the thoughts of those ruined stacks of magnetic fiches that had once held the sum of human knowledge. Meltwater had done what time alone could not. All the chambers that had held the datastores had been under water. And even the parts that had now been pumped dry were a soggy ruin; steel was rust, silicon was cracked and crazed; everything was caked in mud. To restore any of the lost information would be something like burning a book in a crucible and trying to read its contents in the smoke.

Meanwhile, there was the work.

The most important job on the reborn planet was providing enough food to keep the people alive. Naturally, Pelly's ship brought tons of food on every trip, and the first habitat visitors had installed gillie-manned hothouses to grow the kinds of things they were used to eating. It wasn't enough. The revived corpsicles, who were by far the greater part of Newmanhome's tiny population, had to find ways to feed themselves.

It was Manett who led Viktor to the scratched-out plot of hillside ground that was their first attempt at a farm. It was fortunate that Jeren's promise had been kept: Viktor's muscles had accustomed themselves to carry his full weight around again—there were aches, but they did their job. Even Balit was getting used to the demands on his artificial muscles, though on the trip to the farm plots Jeren carried the boy on his back.

As soon as they had reached the plot Jeren set the boy down and turned to Viktor, his face grinning with pride. "What do you think?" he asked modestly, waving at the irregular rows of green. "I didn't do all of it. Markety let us use the gillies for some of the work. And Manett helped, and some of the others."

Viktor studied the spindly shoots. The mere sight of growing things was a lift to the spirits, among so much bare desolation, but there was nothing there that grew higher than his knee, and nothing resembling fruit on any of it. He asked apologetically, "What are they?"

Jeren looked surprised. "Potatoes," he said, pointing. "All those right there. And there's carrots, and cabbage—you had some of that last night, remember? And we tried tomatoes and peppers, but they didn't come out real well."

"They came out terrible," Manett growled. "The carrots get all squashed and funny-looking, too."

"The rabbits like the green stuff, even if we can't eat it. Besides, the carrots taste all right," Jeren said defensively.

"They taste like carrots, sure," Manett agreed, "but even in the caves we used to grow carrots that were four times as long as those. What's the matter with them, Viktor?"

Viktor was conscious of Balit's eyes on him. "I wasn't ever a farmer, really," he apologized. No one said anything. They were waiting for him to go on. He said uncomfortably, "Has anybody tested the soil?" Blank looks gave him the answer. "They might need some kind of fertilizer," he explained. "Minerals or something. I wish we could get at the data-stores. I'm sure they'd have all kinds of agricultural information.''

"You know we can't do that, Viktor," Manett snapped.

Jeren pointed out, pacifically, "See, Viktor, none of us ever tried to grow anything out in the open, like this."

Viktor nodded in silence. He knew they were waiting for him to speak. He knew, too, that the most honest thing he could tell these people would be that he didn't know how to help them. He even opened his mouth to say as much, but Balit was speaking ahead of him. The boy said confidently, "Viktor will take care of it. Back on Moon Mary he told me lots of stories about when people were growing things on farms. Didn't you, Viktor? I remember you talked about irrigating the fields. And what was the other thing, something about seeding the ground with earthworms?"

"Well, yes," Viktor said unwillingly, "I saw all that kind of stuff done. But I never—"

He stopped there, looking around at the way they were hanging on his words. Even surly Manett was gazing at him with hope.

"But," Viktor corrected himself, "I, uh, I—" He looked around the field for inspiration, then finished, "I don't see any way of watering these crops. Some of the plants look pretty dry."

"It rains on them, doesn't it?" Manett growled.

"It only rained once in the last three weeks," Jeren corrected him. "Maybe Viktor's right. Look, there's plenty of water down there in the bay. We could take some of the pumps from the freezer—"

"No!" Viktor yelled, shocked. "That's salt water! That'll kill them."

"Oh, sure," Jeren said remorsefully. "All right, then there's a creek that goes down by the landing strip, how about that?"

But by then Viktor had an idea. "Why pump it uphill?" he asked. "There's all that water that's being pumped out of the power plant area. I saw it running down by the trail. We could get the gillies to dig a ditch, divert it to here. Or, even better in the long run, we could start a new farm, wherever the water comes down."

He stopped, because they were all grinning at him. Balit's face was shining with particular pride. "I told you Viktor would know," the boy informed the others. "Now what do we do about this fertilizer stuff, Viktor?"

Viktor thought for a moment. "I suppose if we sent some soil samples back to Nergal somebody could test them and tell us what to do," he said slowly. "Then, I remember we seeded earthworms. I don't imagine any of those survived the ice, but there might be some left in the freezers. We could look. If there aren't any there, maybe Nrina or somebody could make some for us. You have to have something like earthworms to get a good crop, because they lighten the soil and help things grow."

He stopped, because Balit was looking doubtful. "What is it?" he asked.

"Well, there's one thing I don't understand about that, Viktor," Balit said diffidently. "In school we learned about growing things, and nobody ever said anything about earthworms."

Viktor frowned, trying to remember what the farms in the habitats had been like. "Maybe they prepare the soil a different way on the habitats," he hazarded. "Probably they do—I'm sure the crops on the habitats don't grow in plain dirt. It's bound to be something artificial—really special—probably with all the minerals and so on that the plants need measured out exactly. But here we're talking about trying to restore vegetation to a whole planet, Balit. The earthworms would do it all for us, you see. And—yes, now that I think of it, you might need other kinds of bugs, too. Bees, for instance. Some kinds of plants have to have bees, to carry the pollen around so the seeds will develop."

He stopped, startled by the expressions of relief on every face.

"I told you," Balit repeated happily.

And Jeren said with pride, "I knew things would be all right as soon as I saw you get off the ship, Viktor."

By the time Pelly's ship took off again for the return flight to Nergal, Viktor had come to terms with his worst defeat … almost.

It wasn't easy to do that. The destruction of the data files meant the end of a lot of hopes for him, but the thought of bringing Newmanhome back to life provided a different kind of hope. Almost as good. Not quite.

But everyone around him seemed almost cocky with expectations for the future, even Pelly. In the last moments before takeoff, Pelly took time out from shouting at the gillies as they finished loading the lander to clasp Viktor's shoulder awkwardly and say, "I'm sorry about your files, Viktor. Listen, if there's anything I can do—"

"Thanks anyway," Viktor said.

Pelly paused to study him thoughtfully. "You know," he said, "sometimes when things are at their rottenest something nice happens. Maybe something that you don't even expect. You could turn out to have a pretty happy life here, Viktor, with a little luck."

"I know that," Viktor said, summoning up a smile. It wasn't a smile of amusement or pleasure, but the kind of graveside smile a widow gives to the friends offering condolence. "Jeren's been telling me the same thing. You're both right, of course."

But it didn't feel as though they were right, and he was glad enough when Pelly had to break off his efforts at consolation to give orders to the gillies. And then, very quickly, Markety finished the last of his weepy farewells to his wife, who was going back to Nergal for a visit; and the last of the capsules containing corpsicles for Nrina's lab were stowed, and the gillies were herded away out of range of the rocket's exhaust, and Pelly waved a final good-bye from the port … and then the port was closed. Everyone retreated to safety, Jeren carrying Balit and anxiously urging Viktor on with them. The lander motors spilled out a little wisp of flame, then roared. The ship picked up speed as the noise became deafening—rolled away—began to lift—and was suddenly only a dot in the sky, disappearing over Great Ocean. Everyone was watching. No one spoke. Viktor caught a glimpse of Balit, staring wistfully at the vapor trails the lander had left behind, and behind him Markety, looking very tired and staring sadly after the disappearing ship that was carrying his wife away.

Then the ship was out of sight. The last fading thunder of its engines died away, and the silence of lonely, empty Newmanhome came in around them.

It was Manett who broke it. "Well," he said, his tone angry as he challenged them all, "now we can get back to digging those irrigation ditches."

Two weeks later the ditches were dug and a trickle of muddy water seeped into the soil of the farm plot whenever somebody, usually Jeren, lifted the flat panel that served as a gate. It hadn't rained, but the plants were already looking a little healthier. Korelto and half a dozen others were spending their days in the cryonics chambers, looking for the earthworms and bees that Viktor had prescribed, or for anything else that might be useful to their task—without much luck so far, but still hoping.

Viktor did not go with them for that. Viktor did not like being in the place where he had lain as a corpsicle for all those centuries; it was too much like visiting his own grave.

In any case, there were plenty of other things to keep Viktor busy, and some of them were even pleasant. One morning he sought Balit out and offered him a treat. "Markety's got an inflatable boat, and there's something I want to look at. How would you like to go out on the bay?"

Naturally the boy had only one answer to that. "Oh, Viktor," he sighed when they were afloat. "I didn't know people could go floating out onto all that water—without even getting wet! No one I know has ever done such a thing!" And he dabbled his bare feet into the water, squealing in pleasure at the unexpected cold.

Viktor pulled them a few hundred yards away from shore and then rested on his oars, looking about. Balit had his camera out again, taking pictures in sheer joy of everything he could find. But when Viktor looked at the same things—the barren hills, the empty skyline—it all seemed bare and hopeless. The idea of a living Newmanhome seemed like a mirage. Apart from the handful of revived corpsicles, no one seemed to care. Even Markety. If these were the most enterprising people alive, Viktor thought sourly—and people like Markety and Pelly had to be that, since they were the only ones who bothered to come here—then the human race was in bad trouble …

But the sun was warm, and the water gentle. The only breeze was mild and on-shore; there were no waves to speak of, and no risk of being blown out to sea. "What was it you wanted to see, Viktor?" Balit inquired.

"Look down into the water," Viktor ordered. "See if you can find anything that doesn't look natural." And then, as the boy leaned precariously over the side, Viktor pulled him back, laughing. "Don't fall in. You don't know how to swim yet."

"But there are some funny-looking things down there, Viktor. Are they what you mean?"

Viktor leaned over to look. It took a moment to be sure of what he was looking at, for they were nearly buried in mud, but then he nodded in satisfaction. "I thought they'd be there. They're Von Neumanns."

"What are Von Neumanns, Viktor?"

"Do you know the things that bring metals in from the asteroids? The things your grandparents use to manufacture things with? Those are Von Neumanns, too. These are the same kind of thing, only these don't travel in space—they feed on metals in hot springs under the sea. And it looks like they went right on doing it for a long time! There are thousands of them here, Balit." And he tried to explain how the Von Neumann nautiloids had gone out for untold centuries, even under the ice when Newmanhome was frozen, eating and reproducing, and then returning as their chemical sniffers sorted out the flavors of Homeport, as salmon did on Earth, and their tiny brains told them to return for harvesting.

"But there wasn't anyone here to harvest them," Viktor said.

"So they're no good anymore?" the boy asked.

"Not at all! I'm glad to see they're really there. They could be pretty valuable, if we had any way to use them. Pure metals, already refined, all sorts of raw materials …" He grinned wryly. "If we had factories we could do a lot of manufacturing. If we had food to feed the people to run the factories. If we had the people to grow the food to feed the people. If—"

He broke off as he realized Balit was holding the camera on him. "Come on, Balit, what are you going to do with all these pictures? Why don't you turn that thing off?"

"No, it's really interesting, Viktor," the boy protested. "What do you mean, if you had people?"

Viktor resigned himself. "All right, let's start from the beginning. The whole planet's bare, right? Which means there's no ground cover to hold the soil in place. So it's been washing down into the sea for a couple of centuries now, which means that if it isn't stopped fairly soon Newmanhome will stay dead." He paused for a moment, trying to remember the bright, promising early days of the first colony on Newmanhome. "So what has to be done, as soon as possible, is get some kind of vegetation going, all over the world. That means planting seeds—a whole planet's worth of seeds, Balit; millions of tons of them. I suppose they'd have to be sown from airplanes—if we had airplanes. If we had the seeds to sow. Then—are you sure you want to hear all this?"

"Please, Viktor!" the boy begged.

Viktor shrugged. "But we need people to do the work. Not only to sow the seeds planetwide, but to grow food to feed everybody doing it. And to build the planes, maybe; and before that to build the factories to build the planes. Balit," he said earnestly, "I've been through this before, and it's hard. When the first Earth ships landed here they had a few thousand people, and all kinds of machinery designed for every purpose you can imagine—and still everybody was working night and day for years. How many people are on Newmanhome now?"

"Sixteen," the boy said promptly. "I mean, sixteen from the habitats, plus forty-two like you, and all the gillies."

"Sixteen," Viktor said, nodding. "Plus forty-two like me. Of course there are a few thousand more—like me—in the freezers, but we can't do much about it. Manett says they tried to revive some on their own, but most of them died. Freezer burn, over all that time, the only chance is to take them back to the habitats where somebody like Nrina has all the equipment and can do the job right. No," he said, staring emptily at the brown hills, "I don't see how it's possible. We just don't have the resources to stay alive here, much less try to figure out—"

He stopped himself, then grinned at the boy. "I was all set to go on about Nebo and what happened to the universe again, wasn't I? And you've already heard enough about that."

"Never enough, Viktor," Balit said seriously, but he turned off his camera. Then he said, "There are plenty of people on the habitats, you know."

"Sure there are. They stay there, too. They don't come to crude places like this."

"I'm here, Viktor."

Apologetic, Viktor reached out to stroke the boy's shoulder. "I know you are, Balit. I appreciate it. But—let's be serious, Balit. How many people are willing to leave the habitats and come here? And the ones who do come, how long can they stay? You can't tell me you're comfortable here."

"It's not so bad, Viktor," the boy said, trying to sound as though he meant it. They were silent for a moment, then Viktor pointed down through the water.

"See those lumps down there? Not the Von Neumanns, the square-edged ones? I think those were the docks of Homeport. Of course, they're buried in mud now, but I'm pretty sure that's what they were."

"Wouldn't the docks be at the water's edge, Viktor?"

"They were. But that was before the ice pushed the land down; that happens, sometimes." Viktor looked around. "I'd bet," he said, "that we're floating right now just about over where Homeport was!"

He stopped paddling and gazed at the water, trying to reconstruct the plan of the old town. It could have been so. This could have been the waterfront—that patch back there where his home had been—up higher, near where the present shoreline lay, perhaps the old site of the schoolhouse where he had first met brash, red-headed, teen-aged Theresa McGann …

"Is something the matter, Viktor?" Balit asked anxiously.

Viktor blinked. After a moment he managed a grin. "It's all right," he said. "I was just remembering."

Balit nodded, studying Viktor's face. Then he said hesitantly, "Viktor? Has—ah—has Nrina called you?"

Viktor looked at the boy. "It wasn't Nrina I was thinking about," he said.

"I know," the boy said. "I just wondered." And then he said, "When we give Markety's boat back to him, do you think we should ask him to show us the Nebo things?"

"Oh, my God," Viktor said, shaking his head in astonishment. Because, incredible as it was, with all the other things that had been going on since he arrived back on Newmanhome, he had almost forgotten "the Nebo things."

The things weren't in a museum, or anything like one. They were in a shed on the outskirts of the little colony, and most of the space was full of junk that no one wanted but no one was willing to throw away. Since that exactly described the artifacts from Nebo, they were there—half-concealed behind a litter of broken dune-buggy wheels, stacks of cracked crockery dug out of the ice-age warrens, and other unnameable debris,

When, with Markety's help, Viktor and Balit got to the Nebo things they were not much better. The largest of them Viktor had already seen, on Nrina's desk machine, a lavender metal object as big as a man, more or less cubical in shape. Viktor poked it cautiously. It was very solid. "Why weren't these things taken to the habitats?" he asked.

Markety looked astonished. "They might be dangerous, Viktor. You know what happened on Nebo when people tried to poke into that sort of thing. They're better here, so that in case anyone does anything risky there would be less damage—I mean, to anything important," he explained.

"You mean if anybody tries to see what's inside them," Viktor said, nodding. "Maybe you're right, but it has to be done."

Markety's astonishment turned to worry. "I don't know if that's a good idea, Viktor."

"It doesn't have to be done here. Maybe they could be taken to some other part of Newmanhome—maybe we could work out some kind of remote-controlled machinery to try to open them up—I don't know, maybe the best place to do it is on Nebo itself. But in the long run we have to take the chance, because we do have to know!" As the words came out of his mouth Viktor heard, surprisingly, that he sounded as though he were actually growing excited again.

"Pelly says maybe it could be done in space," Balit offered eagerly.

"Just so it's done, I don't care how," Viktor said. "Those Nebo machines did things human beings couldn't even imagine—ever—even when they could travel from star to star."

Markety coughed. "We know they were pretty good at killing people, anyway," he conceded.

"I don't think those deaths were on purpose," Viktor argued. "Not all of them, anyway. At least we know that they actually helped some people—the ones I saw land on Nebo; we have the tapes to prove it. Yes, they died after a while, but they weren't simply murdered … God knows why," he finished. Then he went on. "I haven't said all of this even to you, Balit, but I have a kind of an idea. I think there's another civilization around—not human. At least, I think there was, and that they sent somebody to Nebo long ago—very long ago, even before the first New Ark landed here from Earth."

"Nobody's ever said anything like that, Viktor," Balit said worriedly. "Where would those people come from?"

"I don't know. The star Gold has planets, according to Pelly. Maybe the people who landed on Nebo came from one of those planets. Anyway, I think that for some reason—I can't even guess what it might have been—they constructed those machines on Nebo to tap the energies of our sun, and use them to accelerate this whole little group of stars."

"Why would they do that?" Markety asked good-naturedly.

"I have no idea. I said so. But we'll never have any hope of knowing 'why' unless we can figure out 'how'—and that means taking some of those machines apart to see what made them run!"

There was a moment's silence. Then Markety said diffidently, "Viktor? You don't mean you're going to, well, just try to break one of them open by yourself, do you?"

"If there was no other way, I would," Viktor said uncompromisingly.

"My," Markety said, pursing his lips. He studied Viktor's face uncomprehendingly, then sighed. "Well, let's talk about something more cheerful. Are you getting hungry?" he asked. "I was hoping you two would join me for lunch—I have some good things Pelly brought from home. What about it, Balit?"

But Balit wasn't listening. His eyes were on the door. "Viktor? Why is it getting so dark outside?" he asked.

Viktor turned to look. It was true; the bright day had turned gloomy. The sun was gone, and the clouds were thick and black. "Well," he said, "if we're going anywhere maybe we'd better hurry. I think it's going to rain."

Rain it did—the first big warm drops splashing on them even before they reached Markety's home, then crashing torrents when they were safely inside. Balit was delighted. He kept jumping up to the doorway, to take more and more pictures. It was coming down most imposingly, with thunder that made Balit hold his ears and lightning strokes that made him squeal—not in fear, or not all in fear, but mostly in a thrill of excitement at this unprecedented, unimaginable spectacle of the elements at work.

The lunch was all Markety had promised, and he was a cheerful host. "I do apologize for not knowing more about those Nebo things, Viktor," he said, steadying his hand to pour wine. It took both his hands to hold the decanter against Newmanhome's pull, one to support the other. "It was my wife, really, who was interested in them—Grimler, you remember? You met her when you arrived."

"Oh," Viktor said, trying to recapture the memory of a slim, pretty woman. "I think I did."

"And she went back with Pelly, unfortunately. I really miss her … But I can't say she knew very much about them, you know, it was just that she thought they were interesting."

"I'd like to talk to her anyway," Viktor said.

"And so you shall, as soon as she gets back." Markety sipped the wine, made a critical face, then beamed. "Yes, I think it's all right. Balit? If you can sit still for a moment I'd like to offer a toast to your wonderful parents."

"Just a minute," the boy called from the doorway, fascinated as he took his pictures of the bright violence in the sky and the muddy rivulets that were running down the walkway outside. "Oh, Viktor," he breathed, "I just can't wait till I send these pictures to my class—they'll be so jealous." Then he recollected himself. "You wanted to drink a toast, Markety?"

"To our great artists, Frit and Forta," Markety said, lifting his glass with ceremony. Then, when they had drunk, he added, "They're part of the reason Grimler sent the data to you, you know. Of course, she was interested anyway, but she would have done anything if Frit or Forta asked her to—any of us would! Did you see his new dance-poem about the kitten? No? Perhaps it was while you were in flight, but we saw the transmission here. Marvelous!"

"Did you know that Viktor has danced with Forta?" Balit put in.

Markety blinked at him in astonishment. "This Viktor? He dances? He's danced with Forta? Why, that's wonderful, Viktor," he said enthusiastically. "I had no idea. I really envy you, Viktor. Actually—" He permitted himself a rueful little smile. "At one time, you know, I wanted to be a dancer myself. I even hoped to study with Forta for a time. It didn't work out. He's kind enough to say he remembers me, but I think he's just being polite. I didn't really have the talent, I'm afraid, except in a very amateur way. And in this gravity of course I can't dance at all."

"Viktor can," Balit pointed out. "He grew up here."

Markety stared at the boy, then, with sudden respect, at Viktor. "Really," he marveled. "Could you some time, Viktor? Perhaps after Grimler comes back? I know she'd be thrilled."

"Certainly Viktor will dance for you," Balit said graciously. "We'll need music, but I'll ask Forta to transmit some."

"Wonderful," Markety breathed, and if he had been a hospitable host before, now he was almost overwhelming. The scariness of Viktor's ideas about Nebo were forgotten. Markety selected the finest fruits for Viktor and Balit, and would not eat himself until convinced they were satisfied. But he was beaming. "Isn't this fine? The rain, and such good company, and all these things going on around us? I can't tell you how glad we are that we're here—Grimler and me—I mean, when she's here."

Maybe it was the wine. Certainly there had been a lot of it, but for whatever reason, Viktor couldn't help asking, "How come? I mean, I didn't think you habitat people liked planets all that much."

Markety looked both proud and embarrassed. "Grimler and I aren't like all the habitat people," he stated confidently. "I admit some of our friends think we're crazy, but—actually, we like it here. Grimler's said many times things are just too easy in the habitats. There's no challenge. And here's a whole planet that we can make live again—we just want to do our little part in bringing that about. So our lives will be worth something, do you understand? And she'd be here now, except for—"

Markety hesitated for a moment, then, grinning, pulled the blue beret off his head.

It was the first time Viktor had seen him bareheaded. Beside him, Balit made a startled little sound as they both saw that Markety's forehead was emblazoned with the fertility emblem.

"That's right," he said, with that same mixture of pride and embarrassment. "Grimler and I decided we even wanted to have our own baby! Not that there's anything wrong with what Nrina does," he added swiftly. "That's all very well for those who prefer it. But we wanted one who was our natural child, not programmed ahead of time, and so … well, we just went ahead and did it, the old-fashioned way. We made Grimler what you call 'pregnant.' "

"I'm amazed," Viktor declared truthfully.

"Oh, everybody is," Markety said modestly. "But that's what we want—someone who can grow up here on Newmanhome, and not have to take all those pills and injections, and—well, to be more or less just like you, Viktor!"

And that was when there was a scrambling at the door and Jeren turned up, soaked and glistening with rain, his face white with misery.

"Viktor!" he croaked. "The farm! We were just up there checking on everything, and it's gone! All of it! All the seedlings! They're just washed away!"

And behind him Manett came raging in. "Curse you, Viktor! You made us dig that ditch, and now it's just ruined everything!"

And when the worst of the storm was over, and bits of blue were beginning to appear in the east, and Viktor trudged up to look, every word had been true. A healthy stream poured through the new aqueduct, and right on through the little planted area. Not everything was gone, quite. But only a few rows highest up, farthest from the irrigation ditch, survived; everything else was furrowed and glistening mud.

"We should have directed the ditch into some kind of holding pond," Viktor said remorsefully. "And we shouldn't have planted on a hillside like this in the first place—I didn't think about erosion. Especially with all that bare ground up the hill." He shook his head in self-reproach. "I should have known," he said.

"Damn right you should," Manett snarled.

The next day it was as though the storm had never been, the sky cobalt, the sun warm, hardly a cloud in the sky.

But the storm's traces had not gone away. It wasn't just the farm. The street of the little community was ankle deep in brown, gluey mud. Nothing with wheels could move in it. Even the gillie litter bearers could make little headway, their furred feet turning into balls of clinging, sticky stuff; the habitat people painfully picked their way along, one slow step at a time, when they had to go out. Most of them chose to spend the day indoors.

Yet Balit was entering the communications shed at the end of the street. Viktor saw the boy and felt a moment's surprise, but he was talking to Jeren. "We'll have to find a new place for the farm," he said. "On a level. Preferably with some sort of a ridge between it and the hills, so if there's a flood it'll be diverted away from the plants. And near enough to a stream so we can irrigate."

"I don't think we can go looking for a place today," Jeren said doubtfully.

"No, not until the ground dries out a little," Viktor agreed. "And we'll have to do something here, too. I don't suppose we can pave the street, but maybe we could plant grasses all around the village to hold the soil when it rains."

"We can do that," Jeren agreed, looking over Viktor's shoulder. "Viktor? I think Balit's waving to you."

When Viktor turned, he saw it was true. When he trudged his way to the communications shack, the mud sucking at his feet at every step, the boy was bubbling with pleasure. "Viktor, come inside, please. Right away! I've just had a message from Moon Mary that I want you to see!"

There was no denying Balit's excitement. Viktor supposed it would be another loving communication from Frit or Forta, or both of them; for those came almost every day.

It was neither Frit nor Forta. When the picture came on it was a cluster of Balit's schoolmates, laughing and excited. They weren't in their classroom. They were gathered around a plot of ground with bright-green, healthy-looking seedlings poking out of it. "See, Viktor? They did what you said," Balit said proudly.

"What I said?"

"That we should have the soil analyzed. Pelly had some clods on the cryonics capsules he was bringing back, so I asked my school to take it on as part of their project."

"What project?" Viktor demanded.

"They've taken on Newmanhome as a project," Balit explained. "Not just the soil—that's only part of it. But they had it tested to see what it needed, and then they added things. Look at the difference now!"

Viktor stared at him, incredulous. "One little class of kids did that?"

"They're not just kids, Viktor—they're as old as I am. Besides, Grimler helped."

"Grimler? Markety's wife?"

"Yes, of course. She's there, too; you'll see her in a minute. And it wasn't just my class, anyway," Balit declared. "All over the habitats there are schools that have Newmanhome projects. You wanted to know what I was doing with all the pictures I took? Half the schools in the orbits have been watching them. All the kids are getting into it, Viktor—and, look, there's Grimler now!"

Indeed, there she was, slim as ever, looking radiant. "Pelly's going to bring two tons of the 'fertilizer' stuff on his next trip, Balit. And, oh, has Markety told you the good news? He's a boy," she said, glowing with pleasure. "Perfectly healthy, and he is going to have Markety's hair and eyes. Isn't it wonderful?"

"Well, I'll have to congratulate Markety," Viktor said with warmth. "I'm delighted, only—" He was staring at the woman on the screen. "Had she had the baby already?" he asked, gazing at Grimler's flat midsection. "I didn't think there was time—"

"Oh," Balit said, looking faintly repelled, "it isn't born yet. I mean, honestly, Markety and Grimler certainly wanted to go back to the old ways, up to a point, but not for Grimler to have to bear it. No, the reason Grimler went back was so dear Nrina could remove it and check it for defects and so on, and then let it come to term properly; it'll be a season or two yet before they have it."

The boy turned off the picture. "Aren't you pleased about all this, Viktor?" he asked anxiously.

Viktor thought about it. "Of course I am," he said, when he was sure he meant it. "Only—"

"Only what, Viktor? Is something wrong?" And when Viktor didn't answer Balit sighed. "Never mind. But, honestly, I think things are going to go a lot better now."

As a matter of fact, they did. Not well enough to lift Viktor out of the shadowy depression that hung over him; well enough so that there was, actually, progress in the things that mattered to the community.

As soon as the ground was dry enough Viktor and Jeren found a spot that was level enough to suit Viktor's strictures. It was protected by a rise just above it, which, he thought, would divert any future floods; and the gillies began grading it for planting at once.

Viktor was on the scene every day, prowling around worriedly when he wasn't manning a shovel himself, trying to remember what things had been like. It was Viktor who decided they needed to heap up a berm of earth around the farm plot, to retain rainfall when it came, but needed also to gate it, so that if the rains were too heavy they could drain standing water off the plots. It was Viktor who demanded a catalogue of every decipherable label of stored genetic materials in the freezer, poring over them to see if he could figure out which might be plants they could use and which would turn out to be merely some peculiar subspecies of cactus or jungle creeper or moss that someone once had thought might sometime be useful, or at least desirable, somewhere—under some conditions—but could do nothing to feed them now.

Viktor kept himself busy. Harshly he told himself that the absence of hope was no reason at all to stop trying. Funnily, it seemed to work.

Whenever there was some good development, whenever Viktor found himself tempted to optimism again, he tried his best to quell the feeling. He didn't want hope. He didn't want the disappointment that hope would bring. He was often the only dour face in an assembly of smiles. Jeren, Balit, Korelto—even Manett and Markety, in their own very different ways—they were all charged up with the excitement of bringing a whole planet to a new birth. Viktor tried not to be. After all, he knew exactly what that was like, for he had lived through it once already, in those first frontier days, thousands of Newmanhome years before.

"But don't you see, Viktor?" Balit said reasonably, in a break between work sessions. "That just means that you, of all people, ought to know that everything we're hoping for can really happen!"

Viktor didn't answer. There was no point in telling the boy the other things he knew—for example, how great the differences were. When the ships from Earth had landed on Newmanhome the colonists they carried had been chosen people. They had been trained and equipped for the job. They had all of Earth's technological knowledge base transported with them to fall back on. More than that, they were all young, and full of the juices of hope—and, most important of all, the planet they conquered wasn't a corpse. It was already a fully living world with an existing biota of its own.

And none of that was true now.

So Viktor refused to hope. When Manett, glowing, told him that Dekkaduk was going to bring them a whole revivification system for the remaining corpsicles in the deep freeze, Viktor's congratulations were perfunctory. When Markety bashfully begged permission to name his forthcoming son after him, Viktor refused to be touched. When Balit announced with delight that a dozen schools had clubbed together to launch a new space telescope—maybe even to settle the question of whether Gold's planets had any possible inhabitants—Viktor's heart trembled for a moment, but he quelled it.

But when Balit came shouting his name—

When Balit came shouting for Viktor, what he was saying was, "Come quickly! She's called! It's Nrina!" And when Viktor came stumbling out of his workroom, rubbing his eyes, it wasn't just Balit. Markety was there, face transfigured with excitement, calling, "Go to the communications shack right away, Viktor!" And Jeren was there, blinking back tears, babbling, "I wasn't sure, Viktor! I thought it was her, but I didn't want to say." And Balit was saying, "And there was freezer damage, so Nrina wouldn't let us tell you until she was sure it would be all right—"

But then, when Viktor got to the communications shack, finally daring to hope, his heart in his throat, the face that looked out at him from the screen was the well-remembered one, and what she was saying was, "Hello, dear Viktor. They didn't like me any better than they liked you, you see, so they popped me in the freezer, too … and, oh, Viktor, I'm all right now, and I'm coming home."