Robert Reed - Marrow

“A waste of breath, even.”

Then Miocene pulled a new piece of paper to the top of the pile, and dipping her head, she added, “Get us home, darling. That’s all that matters. Then I will personally give you the keys to a first-class laboratory, and you can ask all these great questions that seem to be keeping you awake nights.”

A quiet little party followed Pepsin’s announcement. Talk centered more on new gossip than grand speculations: who was sleeping with whom, and who was pregnant, and which youngsters had slipped away to the Waywards. Washen quickly lost interest. Claiming fatigue, she escaped, walking past the security stations, and alone, walking home to the newest Hazz City.

A rugged metropolis of eighteen thousand, the Loyalist capital lay in the bottom of a wide, flat, and well-watered rift valley. Every home was sturdy but read)’ to be abandoned. Every government building was just large enough to impress, bolted to its temporary foundation of bright stainless steel. With the late hour, the streets were nearly empty. Thunderheads were piled high in the western sky, stealing heat from a dying lava flow; but the winds seemed to be shoving the storms elsewhere, making the city feel like a quiet, half-abandoned place being bypassed by the world’s great events.

Washen s house looked out over a secondary round. It was smaller than its neighbors, and in the details, was a duplicate of her last five houses. Blowing fans kept the air fresh and halfway cool. With shutters closed, a nighdike gloom took hold, and Washen allowed herself the wasteful pleasure of a small electric lamp burning above her favorite chair.

She was in the middle of a report projecting coming demands for laboratory-grade glassware. The utterly routine work made her fatigue real. Suddenly it seemed, ridiculous to look three centuries into the future, or even three minutes, and Washen responded by yawning, closing her eyes, then dipping into a hard, dreamless sleep.

Then she was awake again.

Awake and confused, she reached for the mechanical clock dangling from her belt on a titanium chain. The clock was a gift from various grandchildren. They had assembled it themselves, using resurrected technologies and patient hands. The overhead lamp still burned, and the wasted energy flowed over the delicately embossed casing, its bright silver mixed with enough gunk to lend it strength. She opened the round case and stared at the numbers. At the slowly turning hands. This was the middle of the night, and she sleepily realized that what had awakened her was a slow, strong pounding against her front door.

Washen turned off the lamp, rose and opened the door. The harsh glare of the sky flowed over her. She blinked, aware of two figures waiting for her, wearing nothing but the light. Then her eyes adapted, weakening enough for her to see two welcome faces.

In the middle of the night, apparently unnoticed, Washen’s son and his father had strolled into the heart of the city.

Diu offered a wry grin.

He looked the same as always… except for the breech-cloth and a leanness that ended with his strong thick legs. And his skin had the smoky tint that Marrow gave everyone. His scalp was shaved free of every hair. And after years of hard wandering, his feet had been pounded into wider, flatter versions of their old selves.

Locke spoke first. He said, “Mother,” as if the word had been thoroughly practiced. Then he added, “We’ve brought meat. Several tons, dried and sweetened. We’ll give it to you, if you’ll give us the vault.”

The Waywards knew everything, it was said. And with good reason.

Instantly, without blinking, Washen told them, “The vault s empty. And pretty much useless, too.” Then she saw the other Waywards, several dozen of them, and the crude wooden sleds each of them had pulled, pack-animal fashion, each sled loaded high with bales of blackish and reddish carcasses.

Diu smiled with his mouth and his quick eyes, conceding, “We know it’s empty.”

“We.” In the past, on those rare occasions when they had spoken, Diu had always referred to the Waywards as “they” or “them.”

Washen jumped to her next rebuttal.

“It’s not my decision to give the vault to you. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

“Of course not,” he agreed. “But you’re the one who can wake up those who’ll make that decision.”

Which was what she did. The four surviving Submasters were roused out of their three beds, and with Miocene presiding, the meats were inspected and the Wayward offer was debated in whispers. There had been a shortfall of good protein lately. For all of its stampeding success, the Flowering meant machines and energy. Not new farms or fresh efficiencies in cultivation. Which the Waywards must have known, too.

Standing on the hot black round, Washen wondered when her son and Diu had started this trek. The nearest Wayward camp was at least six hundred kilometers from here, and they couldn’t have used the local roads without being noticed and intercepted. Pulling sleds over sharp ridges and through the jungles… they were obviously determined, and fantastically patient, and cocksure about how things would end…

Miocene approached Washen, and with the other Submasters, they rejoined their guests.

“Agreed,” said Miocene grudgingly.

Locke grinned for a moment. Then with an easy politeness, he said, “Thank you, madam.”

Unlike his father, Locke hadn’t shaved his scalp; his golden hair was long and simply braided. In a world without cattle or horses, Waywards used their own bodies as resources, for work and for raw materials. Her son’s belt was a tightly braided length of old hair. His breechcloth was a thin soft leather stained white by sweat salts. A knife and a flintlock pistol rode on his hips, and both handles had the whiteness of cherished bone, carefully carved from leg bones lost—she prayed—in violent accidents.

Again Locke said, “Thank you, madam.”

The Submaster let her mouth drop open, a question waiting to be asked. But then she changed her mind and closed her mouth. She had decided not to mention her own son, even in passing.

Washen knew her that well.

Centuries of living close to this woman had left her easy to read. And as always, Washen felt a mixture of pity for the mother and scorn for the power-mad leader. Or was it scorn for the mother, and pity for the poor leader?

Miocene offered to press Locke’s hand, signaling the end of negotiations. But something lay in his hand. It was disc-shaped and wrapped tight inside a folded green hammerwing.

He handed it to Miocene, then said, “As a gift. Look.”

The Submaster warily unfolded the wing and stared at the gift. A disc of pure yellow sulfur lay in her palm. Like so many light elements on Marrow, sulfur was in short supply. The sight of it was enough to make Miocene blink and look up in surprise.

“What would you give us for a ton of this?” asked Locke.

Then before she could answer, he added, “We want a laser like yours. That powerful, and with enough spare parts.”

“There isn’t another one,” she replied instantly.

“But you’re building three more.” He nodded with an unimpeachable authority, then added, “We want the first of the three. Which should be next year, if we’re not mistaken.”

Because it was poindess to lie,Washen told them, ‘You’re not mistaken.”

Miocene just stared at the sulfur cake, probably counting the industries that would be begging for the smallest taste.

Another Submaster—nervous, worried Daen—had his face screwed up in disgust, asking their guests, “But what do you need that kind of laser for?”

Diu laughed, a quick hand wiping the oily sweat from his scalp.Then he asked the obvious question:’If your little group sitting on this tiny patch of planet can find one vault, by accident… how many more do you think we might be sitting on…?”