The Reality Thief Page 5

  “With its tapering concentric layers, shrub-lined balconies, and golden dome, the Alumita is the highest structure along the Park. The residences occupy a detached building about 20 meters from the main ceraffice,” Brother Stralasi reeled off as if reading from a brochure.

  Monk and Shard strolled down the adjoining path together, enjoying the sights and fragrances of the colorful flowerbeds. Darak stopped to appreciate an exquisite yellow rose. “Does it ever bother you that the work you do on planets like this completely eradicates the native life that was here before you came?”

  “N…No, my Lord,” Brother Stralasi stammered, puzzled by the question. “It is with Alum’s blessing that we spread Standard Life throughout the universe.”

  “Have you never wondered...,” Darak paused to search for gentler phrasing. “Have you ever wondered why different kinds of life are so…different?”

  “That is for Alum to know, my Lord,” came the confident, rote answer.

  Darak reflected on Stralasi's reply, considering how to best proceed in this delicate conversation.

  “Tell me, how many planets have you founded in your career?”

  “This is the seventh planet I have been blessed to bring to Alum’s Way.”

  “And on all of those planets, each with their many different life forms, you have never felt any guilt that you might have been depriving them of the chance to develop intelligent life independently? You know, like Yov permitted The People on Origin to do?”

  “But it is written that our intelligence is a gift from Yov to His people.”

  “Hmph,” Darak responded.

  Stralasi picked up on the unspoken criticism. What did I say wrong? Why are my answers not satisfying him? “I do not know what my Lord would have me say.”

  “Come, now. Was not all life, in all its many kinds, created in the universe by Yov?”

  “So it is written in The Book of Alum,” Stralasi cupped his hands together in the Sign of Completeness.

  “Well, then, why do you think Alum would wish to replace the life we find on other planets with Standard Life?”

  There was nothing to say; nothing that would not be considered blasphemous. Stralasi’s heart skipped a beat; he could feel his panic rising. How to answer? Best not. But how to remain silent without insulting the Shard? For the second time that day, he prostrated himself before Darak. “My Lord, I do not know the answers to these questions! Would you have me profane myself before a Shard of Alum? I cannot!”

  Darak responded serenely, as a caring father might gently guide his son to a deeper understanding, “I only wondered if, sometime in your many projects, you might have felt some…sympathy for the life lost in the process.”

  Brother Stralasi’s eyes grew wide with dawning realization. Though it hardly seemed possible, he bowed even deeper. Was this the real reason for the Shard’s visit?

  In anguish, he implored, “Oh Shard of Alum, who sees all and knows all, forgive me. I can have no secrets before you. I confess all! Yes, in my duties as Head Brother to seven Foundings, I have sinned against Alum. On each of the planets I helped Found, I convinced others to build small sanctuaries so we could preserve the local life we found there. I hoped and believed that Alum might one day find a need for life that was not Standard.”

  A short but respectful distance away, the crowd overheard the Good Brother’s startling confession. An anxious buzz of shock and disbelief arose. Some onlookers moved farther away for fear of association; others drew closer to better hear the unfolding drama.

  Stralasi trembled and wailed, “If this is why you have come here, if my life is the price I must pay for this arrogance, I pray, take it quickly. But do not punish those good people whom I convinced to help me. The blame is mine alone.” His body was overtaken by great sobs. He felt a tender touch on his shoulder.

  “Stand up, Brother Stralasi,” Darak soothed. “You will not be punished for your sins today.” He added, a little louder for the crowd’s benefit, “There will be no punishment, for I consider there to be no sin.”

  Stralasi stood up tentatively, hardly believing that he still lived. The gaze that greeted him only confused him further. Darak looked happy as he guided him gently by the arm to a nearby bench.

  They sat down and Darak continued, his voice hushed but unmistakably excited.

  “I had hoped to find one like you among the Founders,” he confessed, “someone with compassion as well as piety. But I could not have dreamed that I would find you so soon upon my return, and so near the Edge. It’s practically miraculous.” He laughed, almost giddy, and shook his head in disbelief.

  Brother Stralasi managed to contain his tears long enough to ask gloomily, “What will become of me?”

  “I want you to come with me.”

  Stralasi was astonished. “Come with you where, my Lord?”

  “I will travel to many parts of Alum’s Realm on my journey to Home World. I could use a man of experience in my travels. That is, if you are willing.”

  Brother Stralasi couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I am not to be executed?”

  “Not while you are with me, at any rate.” Darak’s countenance darkened. “Although, there will be plenty of dangers ahead.”

  Stralasi could not imagine what kinds of danger a Shard of Alum might have to confront. The mere idea caused him to shudder.

  “I am humbled and deeply grateful that Alum could forgive my disobedience. He is All Wise and Infinitely Loving!” Stralasi’s joy radiated and, again, he threw himself at Darak's feet. “My life is Alum’s! I will serve you, my Lord, as long as you see fit to have me!” He grasped Darak’s right hand and kissed it again and again as the crowd cheered.

  “Enough of that,” Darak rebuffed, and helped Stralasi to his feet. The Good Brother was touched to see the look of compassion on Darak’s face.

  “We have had enough of fear and praise for one day, I think.” Darak allowed Brother Stralasi a few moments to compose himself, before suggesting, “Why don’t you show me to my lodgings now?” He took Stralasi’s shoulders in his hands and looked compassionately into the Good Brother’s eyes.

  “There will be time enough for you to prove yourself along the way. For now, you will need to arrange replacements and promotions, I imagine. We leave tomorrow.”

  7

  Paul Leigh sat alone in a corner of the Emergency ward waiting area, sobbing quietly, his head in his hands. Sounds of competent activity drifted down the corridor past the Nurse’s Station. Occasionally, someone got up from their seat to check on the status of a loved one. The main entrance doors slid open and closed for the umpteenth time that evening, and two men approached him. Paul didn’t notice.

  “We came as soon as we heard,” said Nick.

  “How’s she doing?” David asked.

  Paul looked up at the sound of their voices, harsh in the hushed seating area. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, barely audible. His face was ashen gray, save for a pair of swollen, red-rimmed eyes.

  “Have the doctors been out to speak with you yet?”

  “An intern came out a while ago. She’s still in surgery.”

  They sat down on either side of Paul. “What exactly happened?”

  “I have no idea. She just fell.”

  “What do you mean?” David probed. “She fainted?”

  “No, she…she just…” Paul struggled for words. “I was pulling up to the curb to pick her up after work. She just…toppled over. She went straight as a board, and then toppled over. Right in front of the car. I couldn’t stop in time,” he sobbed.

  As Nick put his hand on Paul’s shoulder, he exchanged a guilty glance with David, which didn't go unnoticed by a surgeon coming through the double doors from the operating rooms. Spotting Paul, the surgeon removed her cap and approached.

  “Mr. Leigh? I’m Dr. Holden.” The three men stood up. The doctor eyed David and Nick, and focused her gaze on Paul.

  “U
h, these are associates of my wife…friends, really,” Paul explained. “Close friends.” He introduced the men with a feeble hand motion, “David Arnell, and Nick Franti.”

  “I see. Gentlemen,” the doctor acknowledged the two. “Mr. Leigh, your wife has experienced a severe head trauma. We’ve relieved some of the pressure on her brain but she’s still in critical condition with extensive intracerebral bleeding. The baby appears to be stable for the moment; its heart rate is still elevated but out of the danger zone. Your wife requires further surgery but, to be frank, we’re reluctant to continue at this point.”

  “What do you mean? I don't understand. Why would you be reluctant to operate?”

  The surgeon held up an x-ray film. “The entire image is covered with unusual bright specks and hazy lines that we can’t explain. Do you know what these are?”

  She moved to one side of the room where an x-ray illuminator was fastened to the wall. She slid the film into the clamp and turned on the lamp. “We’ve never seen anything like this. We checked the machine for malfunction before we came to speak with you, but it checks out fine. Until we have a better idea of what we’re dealing with, we don’t feel comfortable proceeding. We’re running more tests but it’s going to take some time.”

  Paul squinted at the x-ray for a few seconds. He leaned in to get a better look, tipped his head one way, and then the other. Without uttering a word, he jerked bolt upright, whirled around, and glared at David and Nick. The two exchanged anxious, guilty glances.

  A primal growl rumbled in Paul’s throat. His fists flexed and contracted, until his rage escaped in a deep, long bellow, “Aaaoowrrrrggh!” He lunged for David’s throat, pushing him back, and pinned him to the wall.

  “What the hell have you done to my wife?”

  Shocked by Paul’s change in character, Nick and Dr. Holden jumped forward to restrain him.

  David struggled to escape the incensed man’s suffocating grip. “It wasn’t us! It wasn’t us!” he rasped.

  “Liar! This is your handiwork. I can see it,” Paul seethed.

  “Paul, he’s telling the truth!” Nick tugged at the man trying to strangle the life out of his colleague. “Sharon did this to herself!”

  Paul gaped at the scientist, relaxing but not giving up his grip. Sharon had often said she would trust Nick with her life. But he didn’t believe for a second that she felt the same about David. David would do almost anything if it served his own interests.

  “Paul, she begged us not to tell you, especially once she found out she was pregnant! Nick pleaded, “But David’s right. She injected the dendies into herself. It was entirely her decision.”

  Paul’s arms dropped to his side and he slumped down into the nearest chair.

  Dr. Holden held up a hand to halt the approaching hospital guard. “Are you going to be okay? Both of you, I mean. Do we need Security?”

  “No, we’re okay,” David answered for both of them. “I apologize for the scene, doctor. We’ll be alright.”

  Paul, however, did not look as convincing. At the doctor’s signal, the officer gave them some space but maintained a close watch. He’d seen a smoldering glare like that before, and experience told him that the man could erupt again at any second.

  Paul lowered his voice to a fierce hiss, “You’d better come clean. Right here, right now. All of it, or I swear….” Paul let the two men fill in the rest of the sentence for themselves.

  Dr. Holden sat down. “Okay, so what exactly is going on here, gentlemen?”

  Nick gulped. He didn’t want it to come out like this. Not here. Not like this. Where to start?

  “Paul, you know how Sharon was growing more and more frustrated with the FDA, with all their hoops and delays. You know that she’s always been passionate about her work, and impetuous. A risk taker, and impatient with obstacles.”

  Paul leaned forward to interrupt, but Nick couldn’t stop. He’d been holding back for too long.

  “She jumpstarted the human dendy trials by using herself as the first test subject,” he blurted. “She forced me, and then David, into her confidence because she needed someone to collect reliable data on what was happening to her. You have to believe us, we had nothing to do with her decision. We didn’t know anything about it until after she’d injected herself. That’s the truth.”

  Paul sat silently, unable to believe but equally unable to deny that their story was consistent with the bold woman and dedicated scientist he’d married.

  Dr. Holden had been listened intently to Nick’s story. “I won’t even pretend to understand what you are talking about,” she admitted. “But I have a seriously injured patient in urgent need of treatment. So, what exactly are these things in her brain? I mean, what are we dealing with here—animal, vegetable, or mineral? And is there any reason I can’t do an MRI or treat her in the normal way?”

  David deferred to his partner. “Nick, you know more about clinical neuroscience than I do.”

  Nick glared back at the company CEO before addressing the doctor. “She's been getting MRIs almost every week so there shouldn’t be any problem with those. I'll run over to the lab right now to get you our most recent scans for baseline comparison. In fact, our machine’s a lot more sensitive than yours so we could use it to get a more detailed current scan.”

  He worked through the logistics, “No, I guess that's not going to work. She can’t be moved to the lab, and the fMRI’s too big to bring here.” Dr. Holden shifted impatiently. Nick blinked and looked at the floor. “Sorry, just trying to help.”

  “Look, time is critical. Do these…dendies, you call them?” She glanced at Nick, who nodded. “Do these dendies have any drug interactions, any effect on blood clotting or bruising? How will they react to surgery?”

  “We don’t know,” David intervened, as Nick struggled to formulate a cogent answer. “The simple answer is, we don’t really know.” Nick wouldn't like him admitting that, from neither the academic nor the liability perspective, but it felt good to get it out in the open. He cocked his chin defiantly toward his partner, daring him to disagree or deny. Nick averted his eyes.

  David continued, “Doctor, this particular version of dendy is a hybrid nanoscale device—basically, a self-replicating, semi-conductor particle with a protein-RNA shell. Billions of these tiny components come together to build a consolidated neural network within the host, in this case, Sharon Leigh. Although we have a lot of data about how dendies behave in fish and mice, we don’t know much about they will behave in people, other than the small amount of data we’ve collected to date on Sharon. All of those data come from her; she’s the only human subject we have."

  "And we’ve never exposed the dendies to this level of trauma before," Nick added. "Our guess would be that you could probably treat Sharon as if she were a perfectly normal person, one who didn’t have a dendy network growing in her brain."

  David jumped back in. “And the truth is, that would only be a guess. We’re happy to help you in any way we can, to tell you anything that might help. I don’t know if that’ll be good enough, but that’s all we can do.”

  Dr. Holden looked from David to Nick to Paul. “Very well. It seems we have little choice but to proceed with the utmost caution, given her precarious state and all of the unknowns. Do we have your permission to proceed, Mr. Leigh?”

  Paul cleared his throat, but could only articulate a strained, "Yes, go ahead. Please."

  “Good, then I’d better get back in there. I have two lives to save.” Heading back to the OR, she paused mid-turn. “Gentlemen, I’m not reporting what the three of you’ve been up to…not right now. To be honest, I still don’t really understand what this is, who I’d report it to, or what I’d tell them. But if it turns out to have any effect on treating Dr. Leigh or her baby, I’ll be calling every authority I can think of to make sure your involvement is known.”

  “I understand,” mumbled Nick. “If we can think of anything that might hel
p, we’ll tell the nurses.”

  “You do that,” Dr. Holden shot one last disgusted glance their way and disappeared through the double doors. Scientists!

  8

  Everything comes from Nothing.

  Chaos is the root of Creation.

  Everywhere is the Center.

  Everything evolves.

  Nothing is determined.

  There is no Fate.

  There is no Plan.

  There is no Ultimate Good.

  There is no Ultimate Evil.

  There only IS, and that is all.

  The undulating sea of two hundred thousand curious intoned the opening chant and closed with a collective, self-satisfied sigh.

  Princess Darya sighed as well but for entirely different reasons. Tens of millions of years of servitude to Alum and His Plan has discouraged them from thinking beyond what they’ve been told to think. I’d be surprised if more than a few hundred individuals in this whole crowd understood the significance of the words they’ve just uttered.

  The worshipers arrived clad in all manner of authentic, exquisitely detailed peasant, artisan, and aristocratic clothing. Outside the Grand Plaza, they went about their hurried, all-consuming lives as administrators, technicians, or engineers. For the most part, they gathered here today to witness the spectacle and ritual, not to gain enlightenment.

  Darya cast an appraising eye across the site she’d chosen for today’s dragon battle, and struck what she hoped would look like an imperial-looking posture as she took her seat.

  The elegant throne dominated the center of the great polished black granite dais. Carved in the likeness of a glorious golden phoenix, it towered a good three meters over her head. Flaming wings pointed skyward, and its twenty-centimeter ruby eyes fiercely scrutinized the enormous square before it. A blue pearl, bigger than Darya’s head, rested in its mouth. The muscular legs, terminating in a pair of finely-honed ivory claws, bracketed the seat that was nestled in what would be the belly of the bird. On her left, a four-meter silver trumpet was poised to emit a piercing call to battle.