Robert Charles Wilson - SPIN

"What about you? Aren't you saved?"

She let a long silence ride down the phone line between us. "I wish that was a simple question. I really do. I keep thinking, maybe it isn't about my faith. Maybe Simon's faith is enough for both of us. Powerful enough that I can ride it a little way. He's been very patient with me, actually. The only thing we argue about is having kids. Simon would like to have children. The church encourages it. And I understand that, but with the money so tight, and—you know—the world being what it is—"

"It's not a decision you ought to be pressured into."

"I don't mean to imply he's pressuring me. 'Put it in God's hands,' he says. Put it in God's hands and it'll work out right."

"But you're too smart to believe that."

"Am I? Oh, Tyler, I hope not. I hope that isn't true."

* * * * *

Molly, on the other hand, had no use for what she called "all this God crap." Every woman for herself, that was Moll's philosophy. Especially, she said, if the world was coming unglued and none of us was going to live past fifty. "I don't intend to spend that time kneeling."

She was tough by nature. Molly's folks were dairy farmers. They had spent ten years in legal arguments over a tar-sands oil-extraction project that bordered their property and was slowly poisoning it. In the end they traded their ranch for an out-of-court settlement large enough to buy a comfortable retirement for themselves and a decent education for their daughter. But it was the kind of experience, Molly said, that would grow calluses on an angel's ass.

Very little about the evolving social landscape surprised her. One night we sat in front of the TV watching coverage of the Stockholm riots. A mob of cod fishermen and religious radicals threw bricks through windows and burned cars; police helicopters peppered the crowd with tanglefoot gel until much of Gamla Stan looked like something a tubercular Godzilla might have coughed up. I made a fatuous remark about how badly people behave when they're frightened, and Molly said, "Come on, Tyler, you actually feel sympathy for these assholes?"

"I didn't say that, Moll."

"Because of the Spin, they get a free pass to trash their parliament building? Why, because they're frightened?"

"It's not an excuse. It's a motive. They don't have a future. They believe they're doomed."

"Doomed to die. Well, welcome to the human condition. They're gonna die, you're gonna die, I'm gonna die—and when was that ever not the case?"

"We're all mortal, but we used to have the consolation of knowing the human species would go on without us."

"But species are mortal, too. All that's changed is that suddenly it's not way off in the foggy future. It's possible we'll all die together in some spectacular way in a few years… but even that's still just a possibility. The Hypotheticals might keep us around longer than that. For whatever unfathomable reason."

"That doesn't frighten you?"

"Of course it does! All of it frightens me. But it's no reason to go out and kill people." She waved at the TV. Someone had launched a grenade into the Riksdag. "This is so overwhelmingly stupid. It accomplishes nothing. It's a hormonal exercise. It's simian."

"You can't pretend you're not affected by it."

She surprised me by laughing. "No… that's your style, not mine."

"Is it?"

She ducked her head away but came back staring, almost defiant. "The way you always pretend to be cool about the Spin. Same way you're cool about the Lawtons. They use you, they ignore you, and you smile like it's the natural order of things." She watched me for a reaction. I was too stubborn to give her one. "I just think there are better ways to live out the end of the world."

But she wouldn't say what those better ways were.

* * * * *

Everyone who worked at Perihelion had signed a nondisclosure agreement when we were hired, all of us had undergone background checks and Homeland Security vetting. We were discreet and we respected the need to keep high-echelon talk in-house. Leaks might spook congressional committees, embarrass powerful friends, scare away funding.

But now there was a Martian living on campus—most of the north wing had been converted into temporary quarters for Wun Ngo Wen and his handlers—and that was a secret difficult to keep.

It couldn't be kept much longer in any case. By the time Wun arrived in Florida much of the D.C. elite and several foreign heads of state had heard all about him. The State Department had granted him ad hoc legal status and planned to introduce him internationally when the time was right. His handlers were already coaching him for the inevitable media feeding frenzy.

His arrival could and perhaps should have been managed differently. He could have been processed through the U.N., his presence immediately made public. Garland's administration was bound to take some heat for hiding him. The Christian Conservative Party was already hinting that "the administration knows more than it's saying about the results of the terraforming project," hoping to draw out the president or open up Lomax, his would-be successor, for criticism. Criticism there would inevitably be; but Wun had expressed his wish not to become a campaign issue. He wanted to go public but he would wait until November, he said, to announce himself.

But the existence of Wun Ngo Wen was only the most conspicuous of the secrets surrounding his arrival. There were others. It made for a strange summer at Perihelion.

Jason called me over to the north wing that August. I met him in his office—his real office, not the tastefully furnished suite where he greeted official visitors and the press; a window-less cube with a desk and sofa. Perched on his chair between stacks of scientific journals, wearing Levi's and a greasy sweatshirt, he looked as if he'd grown out of the clutter like a hydroponic vegetable. He was sweating. Never a good sign with Jase.

"I'm losing my legs again," he said.

I cleared a space on the sofa and sat down and waited for him to elaborate.

"I've been having little episodes for a couple of weeks. The usual thing, pins and needles in the morning. Nothing I can't work around. But it isn't going away. In fact it's getting worse. I think we might need to adjust the medication."

Maybe so. But I really didn't like what the medication had been doing to him. Jase by this time was taking a daily handful of pills: myelin enhancers to slow the loss of nerve tissue, neurological boosters to help the brain rewire damaged areas, and secondary medication to treat the side effects of the primary medication. Could we boost his dosage? Possibly. But the process had a toxicity ceiling that was already alarmingly close. He had lost weight, and he had lost something perhaps more important: a certain emotional equilibrium. Jase talked faster than he used to and smiled less often. Where he had once seemed utterly at home in his body, he now moved like a marionette—when he reached for a cup his hand overshot the target and jogged back for a second intercept.

"In any case," I said, "we'll have to get Dr. Malmstein's opinion."

"There is absolutely no way I can leave here long enough to see him. Things have changed, if you haven't noticed. Can't we do a telephone consult?"

"Maybe. I'll ask."

"And in the meantime, can you do me another favor?"

"What would that be, Jase?"

"Explain my problem to Wun. Dig up a couple of textbooks on the subject for him."

"Medical texts? Why, is he a physician?"

"Not exactly, but he brought a lot of information with him. The Martian biological sciences are considerably in advance of ours." (He said this with a crooked grin I was unable to interpret.) "He thinks he might be able to help."

"Are you serious?"

"Quite serious. Stop looking shocked. Will you talk to him?"