Richard Powers - Plowing the Dark

Klarpol performed the four most widely recognized gestures for exasperation. Spidey, I need your help here.

Sorry, Adie. I think Ãò with him. We're a symbol-making animal.

I know that, you geek. But that doesn't make our symbols real. We might get a leaf. We're never going to get politics.

Politics isn't irreducible, just because it's big.

Big? Big? Do you even begin to realize…? You've all gone completely—

O'Reilly held out his open palm. If we can date the universe, if we can come up with the theory of evolution, if we can shoot electrons through semiconductor channels, then surely we ought to be able to explain what makes groups of people do what they do.

Explain, maybe. After the fact. But that's hardly the same thing as predicting—

Look, O'Reilly said. Stand here. Right here. Head up. Keep your eye on twelve o'clock. When I say "now," press the left wand button.

He took off his own glasses and went to the console. He coaxed the keys with his two index fingers, using a thumb for the spacebar. OK, he said. Now.

Adie found herself at the Earth's axis, the nations swinging generously around her. The planet's surface began to glisten like an oil-coated puddle. Detailed, scrimshaw stipplings came alive, modulating through cycles of incandescence. The whole globe scintillated, like central Tokyo from the night window of an aircraft. Countries sparkled like emeralds, their capitals amethysts. The embers of human activity invited her to come down out of the remote loneliness of empty space and warm herself by the fire.

Now and then, livid signals of hope and longing shot out in bolts across the continents, messages cascading across a telephone switchboard. Adie sucked in her breath. The glistening meant something, as sure as constellations in the sky once did. The lit net flashed denser than the circuitry inside a thinking mind. It was its own goal, the home that a displaced immigrant can only dream of one day reaching.

What… what is it supposed to be?

The cities of the world. Talking to each other.

Yes, but what are they saying?

Two things. "Give me more energy" and "Here's what you asked for."

Last month's trading in petrochemicals, Lim translated.

O'Reilly's eyes glinted like two more point eels in the mosaic. Actually, they're next month's.

Lim rocked back. You're keeping a log? We'll be able to check how well you do?

Of course.

Adie stared at the sumptuous pageant unfolding in the air around her. She paused, reluctant to step out of the diving bell. Then she walked through the projection. As she passed through the membrane, it played for a moment upon her own body.

It's lights, Ronan. Just lights.

He took a theatrical step toward her. That's right. He showed her his empty palms, then the backs of his hands. He stood against the north wall of the Cavern, a living silhouette, glowing with a luminous halo. Just lights. But then, what isn't?

It's my turn, Lim said. Everyone out. Eleven until two. Says so on the sheet.

Yes. Your rightful hour upon the stage. O'Reilly turned to Klarpol and offered his hand. She grabbed and inspected it, looking for the sleight.

Would you like to get a bite of something real to eat? he asked.

Something real?

Something other than a burrito, I mean.

Who's paying?

You are.

All right, then.

They drove down the hill to a twenty-four-hour falafel shack that catered to the TeraSys late-night set. Ulterior motive, he told her, once they were served.

That's a redundancy. Even our revealed motives have hidden ones.

He thought for a moment, in mid-chew. Yes. He laughed. Yes, you re right. And they both returned to eating.

After some mouthfuls, she prompted him. You were saying?

Hmm?

Your real reason for luring me into this tryst?

Oh. Right Have a look at this, then, will you? If you don't mind? Had to sign for it at the P.O. this morning.

He handed an envelope across the table, blue onionskin, exotically stamped, and fringed with the airmail barber-pole striping around its edges. Adie opened it and removed a single, handwritten sheet.

Ronan, you shiftless bastard. You were supposed to come back here by now. Is this a contest of wills? Because if it is, I lose.

Adie lifted her eyes from the paper. I cant read the signature.

It says "Maura."

Wife?

Something like that. Housemate for the better part of a decade.

Adie returned to the page, the changed message. Why are you showing me this? I mean, it's OK. I dont mind. I'm even flattered. But…

I need a woman's read. Someone who can tell me what she's saying.

What she's saying? She's saying she wants you to come back.

Hmm. It's that easy?

Yes. It's that easy. You jerk.

O'Reilly bit off a mouthful and swallowed, in one continuous motion. What do you suppose she means by "I lose"?

Oh, for the love of… You cant mean this. Not even you. You need this spelled out?

I guess I do. First off, you ought to know that there was never any talk about my—

Look. She wants you. She loves you. She's surrendering. Work it out, or I'll cut your balls off for her.

Ms. Klarpol. You know I can't possibly go back.

Her head shot back. I know nothing of the sort.

You know what we're assembling here.

The Cavern? A glorified drive-in movie. Not worth screwing up a couple of lives over.

The Cavern is the race's next step. The consolidation. Nothing comparable has ever existed, except in our imaginations. And Maura wants me to walk away from it. How long has history been working at this device? Centuries. Millennia.

About a year, for me. And I'd trade the matter transporter in a second, and throw in the antiaging beam to boot, if someone wrote me a note like that.

They downed what remained of the fried chickpea meal in silence. They stood to go, each clinging to one side of the righteous impasse.

What I want to know, O'Reilly said, halfway out the door, is whether "I lose" might mean that she's considering the possibility of coming out here to join me.

Adie bit her lip in disgust. Damned if I know, Ronan. Why don't you build yourself a little prediction machine and find out?

They laid down the old floor over the newer one, wall to wall, an inch to the inch. The synthetic white composites reverted to knotty pine. Jackdaw, Adie, and Spiegel measured and cut each wood-grained symbol, planing the cured boards like the most careful of carpenters.

They tinkered and trued, pulling up the planks from the source room and shimming them into the target. It took some doing, for the original floor at Aries had traveled a good deal. The wood was old and warped, and often refused to behave at all. But plank by plank, the salvaged floorboards agreed to lie down in their new frame.

Adie insisted that they save the spotty varnish. She wanted the worn patches translated wholesale to their same coordinates in the rebuilt bedroom. That meant work, for origin and destination belonged to different ordinal realities.

Her goal was a floor that swam and sank just like the original, yet sat snugly on the joints of the Cavern floor it overlaid. She wanted an Aries you could walk on: a lumber bridge fitted across time and space, tongue in groove, the stains and nicks of its private history preserved intact.