Ventus

"Well, at least it"s not in the city," he said.

"Hey, get off that!" shouted a pa.s.sing woman. Tamsin jumped down from the statue"s base. A few heads turned, but no one else stopped them as they ran down the hill to the docks.

In stories Jordan had read, a city"s docks was always the place where lowlife sailors and prost.i.tutes waited to prey on travellers and lost children. He had always pictured the wharves of a seagoing city as full of one-eyed men with swords and nasty dispositions, with bodies in the alleys and kegs of wine rolling down from visiting ships.

Rhiene was not like that. Of course, it was an inland port; most of the traffic here came from barges that simply shuttled between the city and the far end of the lake, a distance large enough to cut a day or so off the travel time of wagons coming from the south. There was supposedly a river that emptied into the lake somewhere, and boats went up that too, but not, apparently, pirate ships. The docks were clean and well kept, and other than one disciplined work gang unloading a shallow single-masted ship, there was no great activity.

"This is pretty stale," said Tamsin. "Let"s find the marketplace."

"There might be more than one," he pointed out.

"Whatever."

They wandered in the crowds for a while, and though Tamsin looked quite blas about it all, Jordan felt overwhelmed by the huge press of people. Hundreds visible at any time, and around every corner there was a new hundred. Most of the people in sight were dressed similarly, men in fashionable townsman"s jackets, the women in long pleated dresses that swept the road gracefully. He had to conclude that they all lived here. Could he live in such a place, with so many neighbors?

For a while they stood at the gates of the University of Rhiene, gazing at the sun-dappled grounds and ivied buildings. Queen Galas had walked here, he thought, and knowing this suddenly made her seem real in a new way. They had shared something, Jordan and Galas, if only the fact of having stood here.

In a flux of troubled emotions, he let himself be swept along by Tamsin, until they came to a market.

If Jordan had thought there were many people in the streets, this place was as crowded as Castor"s during a wedding, only the mob went on and on, dividing and subdividing into alleys and sidestreets. Lean-tos and carts stood along all the walls, and some enterprising men and women had simply laid their goods out on blankets in the street. A roar of voices welled from the press of people, animals, and running children. Smells of incense, manure, fresh-cut wood and hot iron filled Jordan"s head, making him dizzy.

Tamsin laughed. "This is the place! See, Jordan, this is the place to be in Rhiene!" She ducked into the press.

"Wait!" Shaking his head but grinning, he ran after her.

The chaos had an infectious energy to it. You could not walk slowly in this place. After a few minutes, Jordan found himself darting around like Tamsin, poking about on tables of turquoise baubles, then flitting over to a fruit seller, nearly stumbling over a one-legged woman selling cloth dolls from her mat--wishing he had more than the few coins in his pockets.

The only problem was, the roar of voices tended to trigger his visions. Every now and then Jordan had to stop and shake his head, because he would hear Armiger"s voice coming at him from within his own skull, or that of a doctor with whom the general was speaking. Such moments no longer frightened him, but they made it hard to concentrate on the here and now.

Then, in the very middle of the market, he was stopped in his tracks by another voice that rang sudden and clear in his mind: "Go to the woman with the brown knapsack. Tell me what"s inside it."

"What?" He looked around, blinking.

"I didn"t say anything," said Tamsin. "Oh, look. A magician."

There he was--a lean, well-groomed man standing on a little stage at the back of a short alley. A large audience stood in silence, listening as he recited something. His eyes were closed, and he had one hand touched dramatically to his forehead.

A young woman in peasant"s garb emerged from the audience. She went hesitantly up to stand beside the magician, and at his urging, opened the pack she"d been carrying. As she displayed each of the items inside, murmurs then applause ran through the audience. Shortly thereafter a small rain of coins landed at the magician"s feet.

Jordan and Tamsin watched for a while. The magician was guessing the contents of people"s bags, pockets or just what they held in their clenched fists. He was always right. The crowd was amazed, and all too willing to pay to watch the performance continue.

Every time the magician was presented with a puzzle, Jordan heard something no one else seemed to hear. This man had the same power Turcaret had possessed, a limited power to speak with the Winds--or at least with mecha. When Jordan concentrated he could see, almost as if he were imagining it, something like a diaphanous b.u.t.terfly hovering above the crowd. When the magician commanded it, the invisible thing wafted over to the satchel, bag, case or box, and penetrated its surface with fine hairlike antennae. Almost like a mosquito, he thought.

Jordan"s heart was pounding with an excitement he had not felt since he had sat by the lakesh.o.r.e and learned how the waves spoke. There was no trick to what this man was doing; Jordan could do it. What was amazing was that the little mechal thing allowed itself to be commanded--and the Winds did not rain fury on the magician for commanding it.

"Come on, let"s go," said Tamsin.

"Wait. I want to try something."

"Oh, forget it, Jordan, you"ll lose your shirt. He"s got the game rigged somehow."

"Yes, and I know how."

"Go to the jewelbox held by the man in green and tell me its contents," commanded the magician.

Jordan closed his eyes and, in his mind, said, "Come here."

The b.u.t.terfly was clearly visible now, like a living flame over the dark absences of the crowd. It was like no mechal beast he had ever seen; it was more like a spirit. It hesitated now over the man the magician had ordered it to, then drifted in Jordan"s direction. It circled his head, as though inspecting him.

"Return." It was the magician, calling his servant.

Who was the stronger here? Jordan smiled, and said, "Stay."

"Return! Return now!"

The crowd was beginning to mutter.

"Ka! Return to me at once!"

"What are you?" Jordan asked the fluttering thing.

"I am Ka. I am test probe of the Ventus terraforming infrastructure. I am a nano-fibre cha.s.sis with distributed processing and solar-powered electrostatic lift wires. I am--"

Jordan had been wondering for days what he should ask the next thing he spoke to. "Do you speak to the Heaven hooks?"

"No. I report to desal 463."

Faintly, he heard the magician announcing that today"s performance was over. The crowd broke into guffaws and jeers. Someone demanded their money back.

"Jordan," hissed Tamsin. "What are you doing? Let"s go?"

"Wait." Then, to Ka, he said, "Will you tell desal 463 that you spoke to me?"

"Yes."

"No, don"t do that!"

"Okay."

Jordan opened his eyes. Okay?

"The show"s over," said Tamsin. "Let"s go."

"I"m doing something."

"No you"re not. You"re standing there like a slackjawed idiot. Now come on." She pulled on his arm.

"Ka, where are you! Please Ka, come back!"

"You are not empty," said Ka.

It took Jordan a moment to figure out what it meant. When Jordan closed his eyes, he could see the mecha all around him, a ghostly landscape of light. The crowd, the magician and even Tamsin were visible only as shadows, holes in the matrix.

"Am I mecha?" he asked Ka.

"You have mecha in you," it said.

"Ka!" cried the magician, aloud this time. He stood alone in the alley, hands clasped at his sides. He seemed on the verge of tears.

Jordan wanted to know more, but Tamsin was pulling at him, and he felt pity for the poor magician, who did not know what was happening. "Return to your magician," Jordan told Ka.

Ka fluttered away. A moment later Jordan opened his eyes to see the man raise one hand into the air as if caressing something. His shoulders slumped in relief, then he began swearing and looking around.

The magician"s gaze fell on Jordan, and stopped. What could he do? Jordan met his eye, smiled ironically, and shrugged.

The magician recoiled as if Jordan had slapped him. Then he backed away and raised one finger to point at Jordan. "You get away from me!" he shouted. "Get away, you hear?"

"Jordan!" Tamsin shook him. "Come on!"

They ran together into the crowd, Tamsin worried, Jordan stunned with new possibilities. He wanted to ask the magician where he"d found Ka, how he had discovered he could command the thing, why the desal tolerate el leaned way out over the parapet. He held his laser pistol in one hand.

Jordan turned and looked over the edge. Two meters down a bast was clinging by its claws to the steepening slope. A burn mark on its back was smoking.

"Take my hand," said Axel. He reached down. "You don"t have to die."

"Don"t risk yourself. They won"t let me die," said the bast. The sound of its voice shocked Jordan to stillness. "Axel, don"t let it win."

Axel"s outstretched hand wavered. "Who are you?"

"Axel!" The bast slipped, caught itself then started to slide. "Axel--who is that woman who looks like me?"

Then it lost its grip, and plummeted silently into the cloud bank below.

Axel climbed down. For a while he just stood there, looking down at the stone under his feet. The others were silent too. Behind them all, Jordan could see a black-robed woman walking in their direction: Galas. A large crowd of men followed her quietly.

"Axel," murmured the Voice. "We have to contact the fleet. 3340 is dead; they have to know."

Axel sat down on the stones. The laser pistol clattered away from him. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I know, I know."

"You"re the only one here with the transmitter implant."

He grimaced. "I"ve been trying to raise them. There"s too much interference from all that." He gestured at the sky.

"I know you," said Galas. They looked at her; she was staring at the Voice.

"You are from the stars, aren"t you? You tried to destroy Armiger, I saw you shoot him with a silver musket."

"No," said the Voice. "I am not--you see, I am--"

"The question is," said Galas, "do you still have your weapon with you? Because we must now make a choice: watch our world be destroyed, or cast Armiger into the flood and let the Winds have their revenge. The Winds are enraged; they will not listen to me. Armiger is impotent against them. We have no choice now."

The soldiers behind Galas began to close in.

"Wait!"

Without thinking, Jordan had stepped between the soldiers and Armiger. "Killing Armiger now won"t end it," he said quickly. "The thalience Winds have decided to destroy humanity. We have to convince them not to."

Galas laughed. "And how do we do that? We can"t even talk to them!"

"You can"t. I can."

The queen tilted her head, considering. "Maybe you can. But you can"t compel them, can you?"

"Not by myself, no." Turning to Armiger, he said, "you have the skill to command the Winds. I have the means to communicate with them. Through me, you can accomplish what you came here to do. Correct?"

The general stared at Jordan for a long moment. Then he shrugged, and said, "Correct."

"How do we know he won"t do the same thing 3340 planned?" said Galas. "Destroy the world to build his own?"

Armiger looked at her wearily. "What would I build? Nothing I do could possibly bring Megan back. Anything less... is meaningless to me now."

He crossed his arms. "What would you have us do?" he asked Jordan.

"Destroy Thalience," said Marya.

Axel nodded. "If this Mediation thing wins, then Ventus will be under the command of humanity again," he said. "That"s what we want, isn"t it?"

Jordan felt his heart sink. It seemed the only option, but he remembered vividly how Mediation had created the animal army that had escorted Jordan and Tamsin here. To Mediation, the world was nothing more than a giant machine. Perhaps Armiger could command Thalience into silence, and make the Winds listen to humanity again. What then? The world would become the toybox of Man"s ego.

If henceforth he could at will command a rose to become a lilly, where was the meaning of the rose?

Reluctantly, he said, "I see no alternative. At least we know what Mediation will do. We don"t know what Thalience wants."

"Yes, we do."

For a moment the Desert Voice regretted speaking. They were all staring at her. Then she hardened her resolve, and stepped out from behind Axel.

"Ever since Axel came to me and told me what was happening here, I"ve been thinking about thalience. It"s a mystery, even to us in the Archipelago. But I think it"s no mystery here on Ventus. And I"m beginning to see it"s no mystery to me, either."

She held up her hand and turned it in the rosy light. "What is it that is speaking to you now? That is the question and answer of thalience. What is this object--this body, woman-shaped, made of wire and silicon? Even I was fooled into thinking that this," she gestured at herself, "is just a thing, a piece of matter with no heart. I thought that my words, my emotions and thoughts were all imitations of another"s". Not real. Once, when I was a starship, that was true. I thought what humans had made me think. I felt what they had made me to feel.

"So it was with the Winds. They were made to see the world as humans see it. They originally thought in human categories and could want nothing that they not been engineered to want.

"The humans who designed the Winds arrogantly wanted to make their imagined metaphysical world real. They wanted to create real essences behind the appearances of the world, using nanotechnology. Luckily there were some involved in the project who were repelled by this travesty; they saw that by erasing the otherness of Nature on this planet, the Ventus designers would leave nothing but humanity, gazing at its own reflection. It would be a horrible global narcissism, permanent and inescapable.

"So these dissidents slipped thalience into the Winds" design. Before, every physical object on this world was to define itself in terms of its meaning to humans. After thalience, every object on this world creates its own essence, one true to itself--even if that essence is beyond the understanding of human beings. It has to be that way, or Ventus remains a puppet show whose only audience is the puppeteer.