But yes! Michel said when Nirgal mentioned this observation to him. Very good, Nirgal. Your sight has such insight. In archetypal terminologies we might call green and white the Mystic and the Scientist. Both extremely powerful figures, as you see. But what we need, if you ask me, is a combination of the two, which we call the Alchemist.
The green and the white.
Afternoons the children were free to do what they wanted, and sometimes they stayed with the days teacher, but more often they ran on the beach or played in the village, which lay nestled in its cluster of low hills, halfway between the lake and the tunnel entrance. They climbed the spiralling staircases of the big bamboo treehouses, and played hide and seek among the stacked rooms and the daughter shoots and the hanging bridges connecting them. The bamboo dorms made a crescent which held most of the rest of the village inside it; each of the big shoots was five or seven segments high, each segment a room, getting smaller as they got higher. The children each had rooms of their own in the top segments of the shootswindowed vertical cylinders that were four or five steps across, like the towers of the castles in their stories. Below them in the middle segments the adults had their rooms, mostly alone but sometimes in couples; and the bottom segments were living rooms. From the windows of their top rooms they looked down on the village rooftops, clustered in the circle of hills and bamboo and greenhouses like mussels in the lake shallows.
On the beach they hunted shells or played German dodgeball, or shot arrows across the dunes into blocks of foam. Usually Jackie and Dao chose the games, and led the teams if there were teams. Nirgal and the younger ones followed them, cycling through their various friendships and hierarchies, which were honed endlessly in the daily play. As little Frantz once crudely explained it to Nadia, Dao hits Nirgal; Nirgal hits me; I hit the girls. Often Nirgal got tired of that game, which Dao always won, and for better fun he would take off running around the lake, slowly and steadily, falling into a rhythm which seemed to encompass everything in the world. He could circle the lake for as long as the day lasted when he got in that rhythm. It was a joy, an exhilaration.
Under the dome it was always cold, but the light was perpetually changing. In summer the dome glowed bluish white all the time, and pencils of lit air stood under the skylight shafts. In winter it was dark, and the dome flared with reflected lamplight, like the inside of a mussel shell. In spring and autumn the light would dim in the afternoon to a grey and ghostly dusk, the colours only suggested by the many shades of grey, the bamboo leaves and pine needles all ink strokes against the faint white of the dome. In those hours the greenhouses were like big fairy lamps on the hills, and the kids would wander home criss-crossing like gulls, and head for the bathhouse. There in the long building beside the kitchen they would pull off their clothes and run into the steamy clangour of the big main bath, sliding around on the bottom tiles feeling heat buzz back into their hands and feet and faces as they splashed friskily around the soaking ancients, with their turtle faces and their wrinkled hairy bodies.
After that warm wet hour they dressed, and trooped into the kitchen, damp and pink-skinned, queuing up and filling their plates, sitting at the long tables scattered among the adults. There were one hundred and twenty-four permanent residents, but usually about two hundred people there at any given time. When everyone was seated they took up the water pitchers and poured each others water, and then they tore into the hot food with gusto, downing potatoes, tortillas, pasta, tabouli, bread, a hundred kinds of vegetables, occasionally fish or chicken. After the meal the adults would talk about crops or their Rickover, an old integral fast reactor they were very fond of, or about Earthwhile the kids cleaned up and then played music for an hour and then games, as everyone began the slow process of falling asleep.
One day before dinner a group of twenty-two people arrived from around the polar cap. Their little dome had lost its ecosystem to what Hiroko called spiralling complex disequilibrium, and their reserves had run out. They needed sanctuary.
Hiroko put them in three of the newly-mature treehouses. They climbed the staircases spiralling up the outsides of the fat round shoots, exclaiming at the cylindrical segments with their doors and windows cut into them. Hiroko put them to work finishing construction on new rooms, and building a new greenhouse at the edge of the village. It was obvious to all that Zygote was not growing as much food as they now needed. The kids ate as modestly as they could, imitating the adults. Should have called the place Gamete, Coyote said to Hiroko on his next time through, laughing harshly.
She only waved him away. But perhaps worry accounted for Hirokos more distant air. She spent all her days in the greenhouses at work, and seldom taught the children any more. When she did they only followed her around and worked for her, harvesting or turning compost or weeding. She doesnt care about us, Dao said angrily one afternoon as they walked down the beach. He directed his complaint at Nirgal. She isnt really our mother anyway. He led them all to the labs by the tunnel hill greenhouse, chivvying them along as he could so well.
Inside, he pointed to a row of fat magnesium tanks, something like refrigerators. Those are our mothers. Thats what we were grown inside. Kasei told me, and I asked Hiroko and its true. Were ectogenes. We werent born, we were decanted. He glared triumphantly at his frightened, fascinated little band; then he struck Nirgal full on the chest with his fist, knocking Nirgal clear across the lab, and left with a curse. We dont have parents.
Extra visitors were a burden now, but still when they came there was a lot of excitement, and many people stayed up most of the first night of a visit, talking, getting all the news they could of the other sanctuaries. There was a whole network of these in the south polar region: Nirgal had a map in his lectern, with red dots to show all thirty-four. And Nadia and Hiroko guessed that there were more, in other networks to the north, or in complete isolation. But as they all kept radio silence, there was no way to be sure. So news was at a premiumit was usually the most precious thing that visitors had, even if they came laden with gifts which they usually did, giving out whatever they had managed to make or obtain that their hosts would find useful.
During these visits Nirgal would listen hard to the nights long animated conversations, sitting on the floor or wandering and refilling peoples teacups. He felt acutely that he did not understand the rules of the world; it was inexplicable to him why people acted as they did. Of course he did understand the basic fact of the situationthat there were two sides, locked in a contest for control of Marsthat Zygote was the leader for the side that was rightand that eventually the areophany would triumph. It was a tremendous feeling to be involved in that struggle, to be a crucial part of the story, and it often left him sleepless when he dragged off to bed, his mind dancing through to dawn with visions of all he would contribute to this great drama, amazing Jackie and everyone else in Zygote.
Sometimes, in his desire to learn more, he even eavesdropped. He did it by lying on a couch in the corner and staring at a lectern, doodling or pretending to read. Quite often people elsewhere in the room didnt realise he was listening, and sometimes they would even talk about the children of Zygotemostly when he was actually skulking out in the hall.
Sometimes, in his desire to learn more, he even eavesdropped. He did it by lying on a couch in the corner and staring at a lectern, doodling or pretending to read. Quite often people elsewhere in the room didnt realise he was listening, and sometimes they would even talk about the children of Zygotemostly when he was actually skulking out in the hall.
Have you noticed most of them are left-handed?
Hiroko tweaked their genes, I swear.
She says not.
Theyre already almost as tall as I am.
Thats just the gravity. I mean look at Peter and the rest of the nisei. Theyre natural born, and theyre mostly tall. But the left-handedness, thats got to be genetic.
Once she told me there was a simple transgenic insertion that would increase the size of the carpus callosum. Maybe she fooled with that and got the left-handedness as a side-effect.
I thought left-handedness was caused by brain damage.
No one knows. I think even Hiroko is mystified by it.
I cant believe she would mess with the chromosomes for brain development.
Ectogenes, rememberbetter access.
Their bone density is poor, I hear.
Thats right. Theyd be in trouble on Earth. Theyre on supplements to help.
Thats the g again. Its trouble for all of us, really.
Tell me about it. I broke my forearm swinging a tennis racket.
Left-handed giant bird-people, thats what were growing down here. Its bizarre if you ask me. You see them running across the dunes and expect them to just take off and fly.
That night Nirgal had the usual trouble sleeping. Ectogenes, transgenic it made him feel odd. White and green in their double helix For hours he tossed, wondering what the uneasiness twisting through him meant, wondering what he should feel.
Finally, exhausted, he fell asleep. And in his sleep he had a dream. All his dreams before that night had been about Zygote, but now he dreamed that he flew in the air, over the surface of Mars. Vast red canyons cut the land, and volcanoes reared nearly to his unimaginable height. But something was after him, something much bigger and faster than him, with wings that flapped loudly as the creature dropped out of the sun, with huge talons that extended toward him. He pointed at this flying creature and bolts of lightning shot out of his fingertips, causing it to bank away. It was soaring up for another attack when he struggled awake, his fingers pulsing and his heart thumping like the wave machine, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk.
The very next afternoon the wave machine was waving too well, as Jackie put it. They were playing on the beach, and thought they had the big breakers gauged, but then a really big one surged over the ice filigree, knocked Nirgal to his knees and pulled him back down the strand with an irresistible sucking. He struggled, gasping for air as he tumbled in the shockingly icy water, but he couldnt escape and was pulled under, then rolled hard in the rush of the next incoming wave.
Jackie grabbed him by the arm and hair, pulled him back up the strand with her. Dao helped them to their feet, crying, Are you okay, are you okay? If they got wet the rule was to run for the village as fast as they could, so Nirgal and Jackie struggled to their feet and raced over the dunes and up the village path, the rest of the children trailing far behind. The wind cut to the bone. They ran straight to the bathhouse and burst through the doors and stripped off their stiff garments with shaking hands, helped by Nadia and Sax and Michel and Rya, who had been in there bathing.
As they were being hustled into the shallows of the big communal bath, Nirgal remembered his dream. He said, Wait, wait.
The others stopped, confused. He closed his eyes, held his breath. He clutched Jackies cold upper arm. He saw himself back into the dream, felt himself swimming through the sky. Heat from the fingertips. The white world in the green.
He searched for the spot in his middle that was always warm, even now when he was so cold. As long as he was alive it would be there. He found it, and with every breath he pushed it outward through his flesh. It was hard but he could feel it working, the warmth travelling out into his ribs like a fire, down his arms, down his legs, into his hands and feet. It was his left hand holding onto Jackie, and he glanced at her bare body with its white goosepimpled skin, and concentrated on sending the heat into her. He was shivering slightly now, but not from the cold.
Youre warm, Jackie exclaimed.
Feel it, he said to her, and for a few moments she leaned into his grip. Then with an alarmed look she pulled free, and stepped down into the bath. Nirgal stood on the edge until his shivering stopped.
Wow, Nadia said. Thats some kind of metabolic burn. Ive heard of it, but Ive never seen it.
Do you know how you do it? Sax asked him. He and Nadia and Michel and Rya were staring at him with a curious expression, which he did not want to meet.
Nirgal shook his head. He sat down on the concrete coping of the bath, suddenly exhausted. He stuck his feet in the water, which felt like liquid flame. Fish in water, sloshing free, out in the air, the fire within, white in the green, alchemy, soaring with eagles thunderbolts from his fingertips!
People looked at him. Even the Zygotes gave him sidelong looks, when he laughed or said something unusual, when they thought he wouldnt see. It was easiest just to ignore it, and pretend he didnt notice. But that was hard with the occasional visitors, who were more direct. Oh, youre Nirgal, one short red-haired woman said. Ive heard youre bright. Nirgal, who was constantly crashing against the limits of his understanding, blushed and shook his head while the woman calmly surveyed him. She made her judgement and smiled and shook his hand. Im glad to meet you.
One day when they were five Jackie brought an old lectern to school with her, on a day when Maya was teaching. Ignoring Mayas glare, she showed it to the others. This is my grandfathers AI. It has a lot of what he said in it. Kasei gave it to me. Kasei was leaving Zygote to move to one of the other sanctuaries. But not the one where Esther lived.
Jackie turned the lectern on. Pauline, play back something my grandfather said.
Well, here we are, said a mans voice.
No, something different. Play back something he said about the hidden colony.
The mans voice said, The hidden colony must still have contacts with surface settlements. Theres too many things they cant manufacture while hiding. Nuclear fuel rods for one, I should think. Those are controlled pretty well, and it could be that records would show where theyve been disappearing.
The voice stopped. Maya told Jackie to put the lectern away, and she started another history lesson, the nineteenth century told in Russian sentences so short and harsh that her voice shook. And then more algebra. Maya was very insistent that they learn their math well. Youre getting a horrible education, she would say, shaking her head darkly. But if you learn your math you can catch up later. And she would glare at them and demand the next answer.
Nirgal stared at her, remembering when she had been their Bad Witch. It would be strange to be her, so fierce sometimes and so cheerful others. With most of the people in Zygote, he could look at them and feel what it would be like to be them. He could see it in their faces, just like he could see the second colour inside the first; it was that kind of gift, or like his hyper-acute sense of temperature. But he didnt understand Maya.