David Brin - Earth

Okay then, let’s try a few similes.

The chaos in the Net was like spray blowing over a small boat. All sorts of unwanted material accompanied the subroutines her ferrets brought back. Jen was both alarmed and amused when some bits of software dross actually fought not to be tossed out! They clung to existence in her computer like scrabbling little life-forms and had to be tracked down lest they scurry into some corner and use up scarce memory, or maybe even breed.

On impulse she looked to the small screen where she’d exiled the cartoon creatures called up by her own free associations. In the foreground, for instance, shimmered a teetering house of cards and spent, smoking electrical fuses, clearly extrapolated from recent surface mumblings.

Then there was the tiger symbol, which had lain in that same spot all these weeks. The simulacrum purred lowly, lounging on a nest of what looked like shredded paper.

She told the snippet of herself. If you insist on hanging around, then it’s time I put you to work .

The tiger yawned, but responded when she tapped two teeth together decisively — asserting the dominance of her central self over its parts. Subvocally she gave it instructions, to go hunt those spurious flurries of unwanted software — all the scampering, chittering irrelevancies that kept swarming into her work space from the Net’s chaos, disturbing her work.

The weather’s high , she realized. At times like these, any mobile thing will seek shelter, anywhere it can .

With that thought, flecks of rain seemed to dampen the tiger’s fur, but not its mood. With another yawn and then a savage grin, the cat set forth to clear away all interlopers, to give her model room to settle and grow.

On other Polynesian islands, the people lived lives much the same as ours. Their chiefs, too, were beings of great mana . Our cousins, too, believed the course of the warrior was just below that of the gods.

But in other ways we differed. For when his canoes arrived from ancient Hiva, our forefather, Hotu Matu’a, knew at once where he had come. This is Te Pito o Te Henua — the island at the center of the world.

We had chickens and taro and bananas and yams. There was obsidian and hard black stone, but no harbor, and our canoes were lost.

What need had we of canoes? What hope to depart? For we believed the closest land to Rapa Nui was the bright moon itself, who passed low over our three cratered peaks — paradise overhead, barely out of reach. Believing we could get there with mana , we built the ahu and carved the moat .

But we had slain great Tangaroa and were cursed to fail, to suffer, to live off the flesh of our brethren and see our children inherit emptiness.

It is hard, living at the navel of the world.

He was shaving when the telephone rang. Alex wasn’t happy with the new razor he’d bought after the escape from New Zealand. Its diamond blade was far too sharp, unlike his old one, which had worn down nicely over the years since his sixteenth birthday. That wasn’t the only thing he missed. Stan and George also — their steadiness and calm advice. Communications were supposed to be safe from the rising noisiness on the Net, but despite military assurances, they had worsened for days.

Were Spivey’s peepers conspiring to keep them apart? Or might George and Stan be snubbing him because of his growing campaign against the colonel’s control?

Alex prepared to run the blade over his face again, wondering if maybe it was time to quit being so old — fashioned and get his face depilated, like most other men.

A shrill chirping made his hand jerk. “Bloody hell!”

Alex tore off a sheet of toilet paper to stanch the wound. He recalled seeing a can of coagulant enzyme in the medicine cabinet and pulled aside the mirror to start rummaging for it.

The phone chirruped again, insistently. “Oh… all right.” He slammed the mirror shut. Applying pressure to stop the bleeding, he stepped into the tiny bedroom, sifted through the clutter on the nightstand for his wristwatch, and pressed the ACCEPT CALL button. “Yes?”

The person on the other end paused and then realized there would be no picture. “ Tohungal Is that you?”

From the Maori honorific, it had to have been one of the newcomers Auntie Kapur had sent to watch over Alex and his team. “Lustig here,” he affirmed. “What is it?”

“Better come quick, Tohunga . We caught a saboteur trying to blow up the lab.” The voice cut off with a click. Alex stared at the watch. “Cripes,” he said concisely. Grabbing a shirt off the dresser, he dashed out the door trailing shaving cream and tiny specks of blood.

“I guess we’re not needed anymore.”

“Come on, Eddie. We don’t know the bomb was sent by Spivey. What about a hundred other countries, alliances, agitation groups… Hell, even the boy scouts must have some idea where the focal resonators are by now.”

His chief engineer grimaced. “I served in the ANZAC Special Forces, Alex. I know standard issue demolition charges when I see them.” The big, red-headed Kiwi hefted a tennis-ball-sized contraption. “The casing’s been altered to make it look like Nihon manufacture, but I just did a neutron activation scan, and I can tell you exactly which factory in Sydney made it. Even the lot number.

“Bloody sloppy of the bastards, if you ask me. They must have been confident we couldn’t stop ’em.”

Alex glanced over at the would-be saboteur, a nondescript Polynesian. Possibly a Samoan, whose appearance would presumably blend in with the natives of Easter Island. Except that the Pasquans of Rapa Nui were a breed apart and proud of it.

What kind of man takes a live bomb across the seas in order to blow up other people? People who have mothers and lovers and children, just like him?

Probably either a professional or a patriot , Alex thought. Or, worse, both .

The bomber smiled nervously at Alex.

He knows the way things ought to go now. According to the rules, we’d have to hand him over to Chilean authorities. Then, in the fullness of time, his masters will cut a deal for him.

Only what rules apply when everyone’s talking about the end of the world ? Alex’s hands balled into fists. The saboteur seemed to read something in his eyes and swallowed hard.

Across the room, Alex saw Teresa watching him, arms folded in front of her. So what do we do now ? he wondered. More than ever, he wished he could gather old friends and tap their wisdom.

“I agree. I’d lay odds it was Colonel Spivey who sent the bomb.”

Everybody turned to see who had spoken with such authority, in a rich, confident basso. “Manella!” Alex cried out. Teresa gasped.

Standing in the doorway, the Aztlan reporter smiled and carried his bulk gracefully into the chamber. Resting one arm on the guardrail of the gravity resonator, he smiled all around. “It’s good to see you remember me, Lustig. Hello, everybody. Captain Tikhana. Sorry to abandon you back in Waitomo. But I really was indisposed.”

“You choose convenient moments to come and go,” Teresa said bitterly. “What makes you think we’ll have any interest in what you have to say now, Pedro?”

Manella smiled. “Come come. I’m sure Colonel Spivey’s told you how much he respected whoever ran interference for our project, before he finally found us.

Didn’t he admit that? Doesn’t that imply whose side I was on… am on?”

Alex frowned. Pedro was implying that even now he had his own tap into the Waitomo complex. Which was plausible enough. He’d had plenty of time to plant bugs. One fiber, as thin as silk, was all you needed.