Maximum Ice (12 page)

The next question was even harder to answer. How well, they asked, could she talk to Ice?

She paused as the room grew quiet. Did they speak to the land in animistic practices? She responded carefully. “We do not know Ice yet, as you do.”

One of the women said that they would teach her to talk to Ice, if she had items to trade, and she was looking at the ear lex when she said so. And then her gaze shifted to Zoya’s satchel. Zoya picked it up and placed it firmly on her lap, establishing her ownership in no uncertain terms. She had brought items to trade, but the ear lex and her radio would not be among them. They were less forthcoming after that, as though the most interesting thing about her was what she had to trade.

Wolf had said the preserve would want to trade with her, and had warned her to bargain hard, as he obviously planned to do with his sled-load of goods. His arrival created as much excitement as hers, for trade among the preserves was a rare opportunity. Mostly self-contained, the preserves lived off the city below, recycling, refining, and reconstituting. But from the looks of the place it was a meager, even squalid, existence.

Given this state of poverty, Zoya doubted that they could “talk to Ice” as the woman claimed. But it was clear that these people sitting around her believed that Ice—locally, and perhaps geographically—was full of information.

“So, Anatolly” she finished, “if I’m right, these people believe they can communicate with Ice. And it with them.”

“Ice?”
he asked.

“Their name for it. Actually, it does look like ice. In places it has a translucent quality. And they speak of Ice as though it’s a construct. One created by former inhabitants who have vanished.”

“Myth, perhaps,”
came Anatolly’s voice.

She heard Janos in the background:
“Stories.”

“Yes,” Zoya said. “It’s a very good start.”

Janos was mumbling something in the background. But Zoya went on: “Of course, there’s another possibility.”

The two men were silent.

“Ice may be an information structure. Nearby, anyway. They speak of it in those terms, although it may be driven by a belief system.”

“Vlad will love this,”
she heard Anatolly mutter.

“Think of it as a hypothesis, gentlemen.”

“It may be more than that,”
Anatolly said glumly Her young man had come back, and was beckoning to her.

“They say I can meet with the leaders here today. They’re called the Group of Five. I’ll convey your compliments to them, Anatolly.”

“Zoya,” Anatolly said, “find out why they think they can talk to Ice. And be careful.”

“Don’t worry about me, Tolly. I’ll be fine.”

“And please don’t call me Tolly.”

She must remember that he was captain these days. How times had changed.

Gray, gray, and gray The preserve was a drab place, despite its creative building materials. Great, barrel-sized ducts punctuated the corridor walls, disgorging tangles of cables and the bright soup of gases one was expected to breathe there. Zoya judged that the lighting of a match could ignite a firestorm.

Her escort—the young man who had served her breakfast— led the way down the patchwork halls, past bisecting corridors, and through a clattering region of machines that he described as the spinning room, if her ear lex told true. Out of one of the machines exuded a fibrous web of gray pulp, on its way to becoming fiber.

From the stairs she had to descend, she realized the place might be as deep as it was wide. In places the stairwell appeared be carved directly from Ice, leaving behind cloudy, regular planes, perhaps where Ice had been hewn along fracture lines.

Now she stood before the apparent leaders of the preserve—four men and a woman, the Group of Five. Seated at a table, they were dressed in an assortment of baggy trousers, tunics, and coveralls—all in gray—the common denominator color of their homespun industry. This group, like the preserve itself, revealed an odd mixture of squalor and gadgetry, including small devices clipped to their shirts as well as wrist circlets studded with lit buttons. Two of them wore headsets resting around their necks in temporary storage.

Zoya began with a smile. She noticed that no one was smiling back yet. Her hand went up to her earlobe, counting her diamonds. They didn’t know that was her nervous gesture. The four diamonds were always there, not that she needed her ancestral wealth—as Ship Mother, all her needs were provided for—but it was tradition.

“I am Worley, of Ancou preserve,” one of them began, the
portly one, with fully three jowls under his chin. His temples were graying, which gave him a distinguished look, and since he began the formalities, she judged him the leader.

“We hold our positions by virtue of our leases on the five dig sites. We speak for Ancou as you do for your—ship. My associates are Bolt, Gribbon, Martoff, and Eng. We are eager to hear who you are, and what our mutual enterprise can be.”

She nodded. “My name is Zoyechka Kundara. My friends call me Zoya, as I hope you will. I speak for my ship,
Star Road
, as the representative of Captain Anatolly Razo. On behalf of my ship, I wish to thank you for your shelter and hospitality. It was cold up there, and I was very tired after my long journey.”

Martoff leaned forward, peering through thick-lensed glasses. “Ah, your journey. We’ve been hearing about that. But a journey from where?”

“We have been on a journey between the stars,” Zoya said. They waited for her to continue. “I’m afraid it’s a rather long story.”

Worley sat back in his chair, crumpling his chins together. “We have time for a long story.”

She marched out the speech she had arranged with Anatolly “We set out from here a very long time ago,” she began. “On our ship, we lived out our lives and bore children. All that time we traveled across the great distances between this earth and the other earths God has seen fit to create. We explored. Then we returned to the place of our ancestors. It’s much different than it used to be. But it’s still a place we wish to call home, to establish a preserve of our own. We would welcome your suggestions on where we should build a home, for you know your world, and we have become strangers to it.”

The group exchanged glances. Well, she was sure they found her claims extravagant.

“We might have a suggestion or two,” Worley said. “Of course, you’d need a lot of help… a new dig on the barrens isn’t easy.”

Eng piped up, a slightly built man with an eager manner: “I could get some of my people to share tech on the food bender, how would that be?”

Whatever a food bender was, she was sure he meant well. “That would be… ”

Worley interrupted. “That’s one thing on the table. But we’re a poor preserve, and much as we’d like to donate our expertise, there’s a fair-trade issue, you see. Tit for tat?”

Zoya did see. He was pragmatic, of course. A man who lived in a place like this would be. “We’re not looking for handouts,” she assured him. “Trade should be fair.”

Worley beamed. “Exactly. But let’s not rush to do business. Time enough for all that, I hope.” He folded his pudgy hands neatly in front of him. “We did have a few questions. Zoya,” he added.

“You don’t mind questions?” Eng asked. His smile was bright and hard. He was afraid of her.

“Please, ask. I also have some questions, if it’s permitted?”

“Certainly! This is the sort of thing we hoped for,” Worley said. “But first—I can’t help but ask—How long ago did you leave for your star journey?”

“Long ago,” Zoya answered. When they waited for more, she added: “Thousands of years ago.”

“Thousands…” whispered Bolt, the woman who had thus far been silent.

Zoya turned to her. “Yes. And for most of that time, we’ve been dreaming of returning home. We’ve missed it. Then, we found that it was changed.”

“Changed?” Worley asked.

Zoya nodded. “Ice.”

Bolt looked shaken. “If you left before the Advent of Ice, then that was long ago indeed.” She glanced at her associates.

Worley said, “You are, you claim to be… of the time of the Ecosphere?”

“I don’t know all your terms, but our ship set out when the earth was covered with open water and green hills.”

The panel of inquisitors held a protracted silence.

“That is a weighty claim,” Worley murmured.

A cavernous vent near the ceiling coughed into action, enriching the air with smells of burning dust, chemicals, and sour milk. Though the draft made Zoya’s eyes water, the Five were unmoved by the intrusion.

“If you say you are an Eco, show us your tech,” Martoff said, his eyes looking as large as boiled eggs behind his framed glasses. He nodded at her ear lex, which had offered her whispered translations. Though her spoken language was improving, she still found translations helpful.

“It translates your speech for me. I’ve been studying your language, but I’m afraid I speak poorly.”

“Not at all!” Eng inserted. “Quite remarkable. I congratulate you.”

For a moment the lights dimmed. The wall sconce behind the Group of Five’s table fluttered on and off, finally blooming into full power again.

The Five paid no attention as Martoff continued doggedly “We wish to know how it works. Your translator.”

“I will explain what I can. But surely that can wait until we have gotten better acquainted?” She smiled broadly, but Martoff was not much one for smiles.

“Certainly,” boomed Worley. “No hurry, none at all.” He glanced at Martoff. “You must forgive our eagerness. But if you
are from—that long ago—we are most certainly interested in how you built Ice. So much depends on it. Everything, in fact.”

Zoya hastened to say, “Please understand that
Star Road
left home before such a thing as Ice came to be. That’s why we were so surprised to find it here when we returned. I’m afraid we know very little about it. Less than you do.”

Worley took a huge breath, causing his chin to double back on itself even more. “We had hoped otherwise. It could have been a partnership between us.”

“Partnership? To what purpose?”

“Ice grows,” he said. “But it never recedes. Makes our mining operations very difficult.” He glanced at the floor. “There are riches to be had in the old city. But we fight for every square meter of it.” He sighed. “You don’t speak to Ice then? Not at all?”

“No. But you do?”

Worley spread his hands. “A paltry interface. We catch glimpses of Ice. A word or two, here and there. Of course, the foretellers say each word is precious. To those of a more practical bent”—there he included his fellows—“we simply mine it for resources.” He raised his hands, looking around him. “Everything you see here is from Ice. From the buried world.”

“How does Ice… speak?”

Worley blinked. “Light. The light carries words. You didn’t know?”

“We admit it caught us by surprise.” The lights. The lights carried words. But whose?

The woman spoke again. “If you were born on your star ship, then you don’t remember what it was like, do you? The time of things that grew on earth?”

Zoya had agreed with Anatolly that perhaps her unique history would be too shocking, but she didn’t want to lie, so she said, “We had our records of those days, and pictures, and they
were beautiful indeed. You call those times the First World. But to us it was home.”

The woman went on in a hushed voice: “It broke your heart? When you saw our world?”

Zoya was taken by surprise. Simply, she answered, “Yes.” Then she added, “But we don’t give up.”

“We hoped you had knowledge of Ice,” Worley said. “The Ecos created Ice. Therefore, they can uncreate it.” An eager light came into his eyes. “Think of the riches lying buried, below.”

“I’m so terribly sorry. But perhaps we can still find—a common enterprise.”

“Of course,” Worley said, “A shared enterprise.” He looked at the others, finding agreement there.

Zoya said, “I do have a few questions of my own, if I may.” When Worley nodded, she went on, “You say the Ecos built Ice. To what purpose?”

“Well,” Worley said, “that depends on who you ask.”

“Some prefer a religious answer,” Bolt said. “Ask the foretellers. But most of them are lunatics.”

Martoff added, “Others say it is all a grand plan set in motion long ago. From Ecosphere, to Zerosphere, to—the next sphere, when we will become one with knowledge.”

Eng leaned forward. “Most people understand things more practically. Though much of our history is lost, we do know the Ecos built Ice to contain all knowledge. But there was so much knowledge to contain—the Ecos knew so much—that Ice grew beyond bounds.”

“Why did the civilization of the Ecos disappear?”

Eng continued: “They were unlucky. The Ecos fell on dark times and fled our world. That’s why we thought you were the Ecos—returned.”

Bolt said, “She should talk to Alger. He loves to study history.”

Zoya brightened. “Alger?”

“Records,” Worley said. “He keeps the records.”

“Perhaps you would introduce me.”

Worley waved a hand. “If you wish. But the man is obsessed with the past. We, however, are concerned with the future. Philosophy is all very well, but it doesn’t feed or clothe us. You see?”

Zoya asked, “I’m told the nuns might be ones to discuss such—philosophy?”

The group in gray received this query with obvious discomfort.

She pressed on: “My ship captain has asked me to speak to them. Can I rely on you to arrange a meeting?” She adjusted the translator lex firmly behind her ear, with a gesture that she hoped conveyed
tit for tat.

Again the lights faded. Noting Zoya’s reaction, Worley said, “The storm yesterday. We’re down at least nine thousand watthours as a result.” He drew his mouth into a determined line. “As to the nuns, we’ll try our best. The good sisters are busy, of course.”

“Thank you. My captain will be most appreciative.”

Worley heaved himself up from his chair.

“Before we adjourn,” Zoya said, “I’d like to inquire after the condition of the wounded man we brought in on the sled.”

Martoff snorted. “Man?”

“He’s no concern of yours,” Worley said. “The sisters will put him down.”