Read Singularity's Ring Online
Authors: Paul Melko
Singularity's Ring (33 page)
So much destruction and anger just to rebuild a jungle,
Strom sends.
Strom sends.
Not a jungle. They are building a country,
Moira replies.
Moira replies.
“You don’t want to work in the factories,” Violet explains. “They lose a few every week. No safety rules, except what the guilds allow in exchange for kickbacks.” As we pass factories, she explains why each is dangerous. “This one is run by the Bantu Mafia. Don’t know why they’re called the Bantu Mafia, not an African among them.”
“Where do you work?” Meda asks.
“The Hillside Arboretum,” Isis says from behind. “But there ain’t no work there for you.”
“Yeah, the Arboretum,” Violet says. “We plant trees and water them, then dig them up for the head-in of the river. But there’s no room on the squads for you. Sorry.”
“We don’t want to stay at the ocean. We want to go east.”
“Then there’s probably room for you on one of the planting crews,” Ferd says. “Well, maybe one of you, or three of you. Whatever.”
The industrial region circling the city ends abruptly at the crest of a hill. Below us is the Congo. Terraced gardens descend the kilometer to the river, interspersed with residential condos. These are the first of the reclaimed areas, and the trees are ten years old, ten meters high.
Violet leads us down the street toward the river. Water gurgles in troughs on both sides of the street. Quant spots the pumphouses, one every one hundred meters along the crest, each one pulling water from the river to feed the hundreds of gardens. The air is suddenly humid and wet.
Violet cuts through an alley parallel to the river, and beyond the houses are rows and rows of saplings lining the hill. The Arboretum covers two large blocks. Mist hangs in the air from sprayers. In some places, tarps drape over the trees to block the equatorial sun.
“See that hut there?” Violet says. “That’s the Tree Guild House. Ask there. Say you want to do tree planting.”
The other three are already walking away, so we just thank Violet.
A small line queues at the door of the hut, which looks vacant. We take our place at the end of the line. The others, haggard and twitchy with desperation, eye us warily.
Are there any pods as desperate as these people?
Strom asks.
Strom asks.
Just the broken ones,
Manuel replies.
Manuel replies.
Quant:
Even they had food and shelter.
Even they had food and shelter.
Manuel:
The OG should clean this place out.
The OG should clean this place out.
Moira sends veto coursing through the pod.
Do we trust the OG to do anything now?
she asks.
Do
we still think the OG is the best form of government? After what it’s done to us?
she asks.
Do
we still think the OG is the best form of government? After what it’s done to us?
I didn’t really mean that,
Manuel replies, taken aback.
Manuel replies, taken aback.
Then don’t think it,
Moira sends.
Moira sends.
A hefty man walks over from the main building. He’s dressed in coveralls smudged with dirt. He opens the door to the hut and sits on the stool there, pulling a clipboard from the wall.
“Don’t even ask. I don’t have nothing but work for someone who knows a Forzberg Arboratiller. So if you don’t know how to drive one of those, get the hell out of line.”
No one moves.
What’s a Forzberg Arboratiller?
Quant asks.
Quant asks.
Manuel shrugs.
“I will be testing you on this.”
We step out of line, and the man looks at us.
“At least some of you are honest. The rest of you can go. You five, come with me.”
It was a test.
It pays to be honest,
Moira preaches.
Moira preaches.
A groan slips through us.
The rest of the queue mutters at us as they leave. The foreman hands us forms.
“I’m Mr. Ellis, subforeman for the Molehill Arborist Sodality. You’re all apprentice class A arborists. Fill these out. Wait.” He looks closely at Meda. “You’re clusters. Jesus, crap.”
He’s going to fire us,
Manuel says.
Manuel says.
“How many of you are there?”
“A trio and a duo.”
“This is my lucky day. Fill these out.”
He trots back to the main building while we write in our fake names and information.
What’s that about?
Manuel asks.
Manuel asks.
He returns, slower than he left, weighed down by a box in his arms. “Read these. Tell me if you can run one of these things.”
Strom opens the box. Inside are paper copy manuals for a tree-planting tractor. The image on the first manual shows a huge agricultural monstrosity. The symbol on the cover—a triangle-bound three—indicates it’s to be operated by trio pods only.
“These are built for trios,” Meda says.
“No shit. Can you drive it?”
Manuel has been paging through the operating manual, his thoughts drifting among us, spicy with abstractions and interactions.
Manuel?
Meda prods.
Meda prods.
Oh, yeah, no doubt.
“Yes, we can.”
“Happy damn day. The OG dumped a dozen of these bastards on us and we thought they were being nice. Until we figured it took three people to run one. Bastards. Consider yourselves class B arborists.” He checks his watch. “The bus leaves at noon from here. Be on it. Report to Subforeman Muckle at Hinterland. He’ll get you set up with this piece of crap.”
Hinterland: the end of the Congo, a frontier, without law, full of desperate people. If Leto is somewhere, it is there. We leave a note for Duchess Monahan at the guild house to which she is attached, then head back to catch the bus.
The river is perfectly straight for a hundred kilometers, a feat of precision, a green V cut into the desert. There are two main thoroughfares at the tops of each bank, sometimes a kilometer from the river, sometimes alongside
the brown, turgid Congo, but always traveling to the northeast.
the brown, turgid Congo, but always traveling to the northeast.
We are reminded of the Amazon, the other river of our adventures: wild and alive, where this river is mechanical and reversed. If the desalination plants ever stop, if the power ever fails, the river will dry to desert and again the sand will overtake this long oasis.
Barges ply the river, working through locks into the interior, barges full of stone, cement, brick, and steel. At intervals landings jut into the river, places to offload the barges. They are named Landing One, Landing Two, and so on, but serve as population-dense spots, not really towns, just densities.
Otherwise the river is empty, save for arborists and gardeners monitoring the watering. At one hundred kilometers, we reach Brazeltown, an oasis of capitalism and abandon. The hills around the river in a clearly demarcated circle are filled with bars and casinos. A dozen barges are tied up here.
The bus waits twenty minutes for its riders to disembark at a casino that lures them in.
“The next bus comes in twenty-four hours. Why not spend it in air-conditioned luxury?” the driver says flatly.
We buy sandwiches at a stand not far from the bus stop. Some of the people on the bus, other arborists, wander into the casino. They are not on the bus when it starts up again.
The river curves, an engineered bevel to encompass a peninsula of low-lying rice paddies. We expect to see some gengineered animals striding through the fields, but instead see singletons working the slopes.
The road sweeps away from the river, and we are suddenly in a cracked, broken land. Tan and sepia stone and dirt surround us. It is hard to believe that a river is just a
kilometer over that hill. It is equally hard to believe that a century before it was jungle.
kilometer over that hill. It is equally hard to believe that a century before it was jungle.
It’s a strip of green in an ocean of desert,
Meda sends.
Meda sends.
They are fools,
Manuel sends.
Manuel sends.
They’re at least trying,
Moira replies.
Striving.
Moira replies.
Striving.
They are exploiting something no one else wants,
Manuel sends.
Why else would the OG give this to them?
Manuel sends.
Why else would the OG give this to them?
Duty, responsibility, stewardship,
Moira ticks off.
Moira ticks off.
Penance,
Quant adds.
Quant adds.
But the waste of it all,
Strom sends.
Strom sends.
It was wasted when the singletons got here,
Moira says.
But the OG couldn’t motivate this sort of project by itself.
Moira says.
But the OG couldn’t motivate this sort of project by itself.
The air is so dry and cloudless that the Ring is clear as it seems to dive into the horizon. The Ring is straight overhead here at the equator, just as it was in the Amazon.
I think I see an elevator,
Manuel sends. He is peering out the front windshield of the bus.
Manuel sends. He is peering out the front windshield of the bus.
On the horizon, we see the glitter of a Ring elevator far to the east, hundreds of kilometers away. The sight makes us wonder again why Leto hasn’t taken possession of the Ring himself and used its power to destroy the OG and take what he wants by force.
We pass a grove of plywood-and-corrugated-aluminum shanties. Hollow people covered in linen to abate the sun stare at us. Then the road passes back into the verdant valley around the river, and we notice that the threshold of green is guarded by soldiers with guns.
Managed scarcity,
Quant sends.
They build a river and then divvy water out to accumulate wealth.
Quant sends.
They build a river and then divvy water out to accumulate wealth.
The Community would have done it better?
Manuel chides.
Manuel chides.
Yes, it would have. Were there wasted resources with the Community?
Quant replies.
Quant replies.
Just war and destruction.
As we drive farther east, the trees and gardens become
sparser, the river thinner and less crowded. At nightfall, the bus pulls into one of the landings in front of a hotel the driver must have a deal with.
sparser, the river thinner and less crowded. At nightfall, the bus pulls into one of the landings in front of a hotel the driver must have a deal with.
We rent a single room and then prowl the dark river edge, padding from one raucous lit area to the next. The air is humid and wet, yet there is a trace of desert in the wind. They have built something fragile, on the edge of collapse.
A woman walks past us.
She has an interface jack,
Quant sends.
Quant sends.
“Hey, excuse me!” Meda calls.
The woman turns, her face slack. She is a girl, fifteen or sixteen.
“Where’d you get the interface jack?” Meda asks.
Emotion surfaces on her blank face: anger.
“Fuck you,” she barks and turns away.
What did I say?
Meda asks.
Meda asks.
She spotted us as an OG agent.
How?
No. It was hate at the question, not at us,
Strom sends.
Strom sends.
We try to find the girl in the dark, but she has eluded us, and return to the hotel to sleep restlessly before the bus leaves in the morning.
Hinterland is a moated city; the Congo splits at its foot, and two walled bridges allow access to its splendor. Another free zone, it exudes decadence and excitement. Here, the valley walls are still desert, unplanted and empty, but the eye is so drawn to the city itself that no one notices the desert outside once you enter.
The guilds and sodalities are clumped in a warehouse in the middle of the city. The foremen and subforemen stand at lecterns and direct contracted and day workers to tasks. We find Subforeman Muckle leaning against a wall, shaking off would-be workers. It seems that getting
to Hinterland is no guarantee of work. We see many desperate faces, emaciated forms.
to Hinterland is no guarantee of work. We see many desperate faces, emaciated forms.
It’s a frontier,
Quant sends.
Quant sends.
Muckle looks at us, his face blank until we wave our forms in front of him.
“Five? What the hell is Ellis sending me five for? I can’t even use one.”
“We’re not five, we’re two,” Meda says.
“Oh, great. Three times the feed for one-third the work.”
Three times the feed for the same amount of work,
Quant corrects.
Quant corrects.
Shush.
“We’re here to the drive the arborobots.”
“The what?”
“The tree-planting machines that the OG sent you.”
Muckle chews on a pencil. “Well.” He writes down something on his clipboard. He looks at us then, thinking for a while. “I was a week from slagging those things. All right. Come on.”
Muckle leads us out of the warehouse and into the streets. Bicycles and pedestrians vie for position. There are no aircars in the sky. There are no automobiles on the road.
Claustrophobia grips us as we move among so many people. Our thoughts gel and disappear in the ocean of smells and natural pheromones. We trail Muckle, handin-hand-in-hand.
It is ten minutes of walking in the afternoon sun. We pass a walled mansion with stone-fenced gardens and fountains. The clog of people eases. A kilometer farther and we are near the southern arm of the river. There are more warehouses here, fewer shops and restaurants. Muckle palms open a garage on a squat warehouse, ushering us in.
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