Greg Bear: Blood Music

The cloak fell away from her and was indistinguishable from the dust of the arena.

She stood and brushed herself off.

The island of Manhattan was as level and empty as a cookie sheet. To the south, clouds billowed thick and dark gray. She turned around. Where the food cylinder had been, dozens of open boxes haphazardly filled with cans now rested. On top of the nearest box was a can-opener.

“They think of everything,” Suzy McKenzie said. In minutes, the rain began to fall.

The winter of burning snow had hit England hard. This night, the velvet-black clouds obscured the stars from Anglesey to Margate, scattering luminous blue and green flakes on land and sea. When the flakes touched water, they were immediately extinguished. On land, they piled in a gently glowing cloak that pulsed like bellowsed coals when trod upon.

Against the cold, electric heaters, thermostats and furnace regulators had for months proven unreliable. Catalytic heaters burning white gas were popular until no more could be had, and then they were at a premium, for the machines that made them proved equally unreliable.

Antique coal stoves and boilers were resurrected. England and Europe slipped quickly and quietly back to an earlier, darker time. It was useless to protest; the forces at work were, to most, unfathomable.

Most houses and buildings simply remained cold. Surprisingly, the number of people sick or dying continued its decline, as it had throughout the year.

There were no outbreaks of virulent disease. No one knew why.

The wine, beer and liquor industries had not fared well. Bakeries radically altered their product lines, most switching over to production of pasta and unleavened breads. Microscopic organisms the world around had changed with the climate, as unreliable as machinery and electricity.

In eastern Europe and Asia, there was starvation, which put paid to (or confirmed) ideas about acts of God. The world’s greatest cornucopias no longer existed to spill forth their groceries.

War was not an option. Radios, trucks and automobiles, planes and missiles and bombs, were just not reliable. A few Middle Eastern countries carried on feuds, but without much enthusiasm. Weather patterns had changed there, too, and for a period of weeks, burning snow fell on Damascus, Beirut and Jerusalem.

Calling it the winter of burning snow summed up everything that had gone wrong, was going wrong; not just the weather.

Paulsen-Fuchs’ Citroen sputtered along the rugged single-lane macadam road, snow chains grinding. He carefully nursed it, prodding the accelerator, braking gently on a slippery incline, trying to keep the machine from giving up altogether. On the bucket seat next to him, a bag of paperback mystery novels and a smaller bag wrapped around a bottle had been stuffed into a picnic basket.

Few machines worked very well any more. Pharmek had been closed for six months because of severe maintenance problems. At first people had been brought in to replace the machines, but it had soon become apparent that the factories could not operate with people alone.

He stopped by a wooden post and rolled his window down to get a clear view of the directions. Camusfear n, a hand-carved board declared; two kilometers straight ahead.

All of Wales seemed covered with phosphorescent sea-foam. Out of the black sky came galaxies of brilliant flakes, each charged with mysterious light. He rolled the window up and watched flakes fall on his windshield, flashing as the wipers caught them and pushed them aside.

The headlights were off, even though it was night. He could see by the snowglow. The heater made ominous gurgles and he urged the car on.

Fifteen minutes later, he made a right turn onto a narrow, snow-shrouded gravel road and descended into Camusfearna. The tiny inlet held only four houses and a small boat dock, now locked in jagged, crusty sea-ice. The houses with their warm yellow lights were clearly visible through the snow, but the ocean beyond was as black and empty as the sky.

Last house on the north side, Gogarty had said. He missed the turn, rolled roughly over frozen sod and grass, and backed up to regain the road.

He hadn’t done anything half this insane in thirty years. The Citroen’s motor chuffed, snarled and stalled barely ten meters from the old, narrow garage. Snowglow swirled and dreamed.

Gogarty’s dwelling was a very old plastered and whitewashed stone cottage, shaped like a brick-two stories topped with a slate shingle roof. On the northern end of the house a garage had been appended, ribbed metal sheet and wood frame also painted white. The garage door opened, adding a dim orange-yellow square to the universal blue-green. Paulsen-Fuchs pulled the bottle from the bag, stuffed it into his coat and climbed out of the car, boots making little pressure-waves of light in the snow.

“By God,” Gogarty said, coming to meet him. “I didn’t expect you to try the journey in this weather.”

“Yes, well,” Paulsen-Fuchs said. “The craziness of a bored old man, no?”

“Come on in. There’s a fire—thank God wood still bums! And hot tea, coffee, whatever you want.”

“Scotch!” Paulsen-Fuchs cried, clapping his gloved hands together.

“Well,” Gogarty said, opening the door. “This is Wales; and whiskey’s scarce everywhere. None of that, regrettably.”

“I brought my own,” Paulsen-Fuchs said, pulling a bottle of Glenlivet from beneath his coat “Very rare, very expensive.”

The flames crackled and snapped cheerily within the stone fireplace, supplementing the uncertain electric lights. The interior of the cottage was a jumble of desks—three of them in the main room—bookcases, a battery-powered computer—” Hasn’t worked in three months,” Gogarty said—an étagère filled with seashells and bottled fish, an antique rose and velvet daybed, a manual Olympia typewriter—now worth a small fortune—a drafting table almost hidden beneath unrolled cyanotypes. The walls were decorated with framed eighteenth century flower prints.

Gogarty took the tea kettle off the fire and poured out two cups. Paulsen-Fuchs sat in a worn overstuffed chair and sipped the gunpowder brew appreciatively. Two cats, an orange tabby with spiky fur and a pug-nosed black long-hair, sauntered into the room and stationed themselves before the fire, blinking at him with mild curiosity and resentment.

“I’ll share a whiskey with you later,” Gogarty said, sitting on a stool across from the chair. “Right now, I thought you’d like to see this.”

“Your ‘ghost’?” Paulsen-Fuchs asked.

Gogarty nodded and reached into his sweater pocket. He removed a folded piece of brilliant white paper and handed it to Paulsen-Fuchs. “It’s for you, too. Both our names. But it arrived here two days ago. In the mail box, though there hasn’t been mail delivery for a week. Not out here. I posted my letter to you in Pwllheli.”

Paulsen-Fuchs unfolded the letter. The paper was unusual, buff-textured and almost blindingly white. On one side was a neatly handwritten message in black. Paulsen-Fuchs read the message and looked up at Gogarty.

“Now read it again,” Gogarty said. The message had been short enough that most of it remained in his memory. The second time he read it, however, it had changed.

Dear Sean and Paul

Fair warning to the wise. Sufficient. Small changes now, big coming. VERY big. Gogarty can figure it out. He has the means. The theory. Others are being alerted. Spread the word.

“Every time, it’s different. Sometimes more elaborate, sometimes very concise. I’ve taken to recording what it says each time I read it.” Gogarty held out his hand and rubbed his fingers. Paulsen-Fuchs handed him the letter.