Exultant

As he pottered around the little plants, cupping each gently with his dirt-stained fingers, Pirius suddenly saw how lonely this man was. I’m not sure why you’re showing me this, sir.”

Nilis straightened up, massaging his back. “I wish I’d had these troughs built a little higher! Just this, Ensign. We live in a universe of endless, apparently inexhaustible, richness. Everywhere life complexifies, finding new ways to combine, to compete, to live; endlessly exploring the richness of the possible — indeed, as in this example, actually expanding that richness. Once, human society itself showed the same tendency to complexify: no surprise, as we are children of this rich universe. But the Druz Doctrines deny that tendency. The Doctrines try to hold us static, in form, thought, intention — for all time, if necessary.”

Pirius said, “The Doctrines have kept mankind united for twenty thousand years, and have taken us to the center of the Galaxy.”

“There is truth in that. But it can’t last, Ensign. The Doctrines are based on a falsehood — a denial of what we are. And, in the weeds that grow through the tarmac of our spaceports, we see clear evidence of our lack of ability to control. In the social realm it’s just the same — remember those Virtual fan messages you had! The world is much more messy than Commission propaganda allows us to believe.

“And that is my philosophical objection to the Doctrines, Pirius. That is why I have strained every sinew for years to find a way to win this war — before we lose it, as otherwise we inevitably must. You wouldn’t think we are in peril, looking around. We have covered the Earth, enslaved nature, spread across a Galaxy. We are strong, we are united — but it is all based on a lie, it is all terribly fragile, and it could all fall apart, terribly easily.”

Pirius heard a soft tapping sound. He looked down, puzzled. The concrete platform was becoming speckled with dark little discs: water splashes. Then he felt a pattering of droplets on his bare skin — his hands, his brow, even his hair. Perhaps some climate-control system had broken down.

Nilis sighed and pulled the hood of his robe over his head. “Oh, my eyes. Not another shower! I will never finish.”

Pirius looked up. One of those clouds hovered right over his head, its underside dark and threatening. And water was falling toward him, fat drops of it. By tracking back along their paths, Pirius could see the drops were falling out of the sky itself.

It was too much; the last of his courage failed him. He turned and ran for the controlled environment of the apartment.

Later that night Pirius was restless again.

The apartment was dark. But as he walked through the rooms, a soft light gathered at his feet and washed into the corners of the room. It didn’t dazzle his night-adapted eyes, but was bright enough for him to see where he was going.

A colder light came pouring in from outside, through the window: a silver light tinged with green.

He walked forward, not allowing himself to think about what he was doing. Maintenance bots followed him with silent, discreet efficiency.

The terrace door was closed. He pressed his hand to its surface, and it dilated.

There was no rain. It looked safe.

Pirius stepped forward. That cool light picked out the lines of the terrace, washed over Nilis’s tiny garden, and sparkled from the broad back of the river beyond. It was an eerie glow that seemed to transform an already strange world.

Deliberately, he looked up.

The source of the light was the Moon, of course, the famous Moon of Earth. It was a disc small enough to cover with his thumb. But it was a transformed Moon — and one of Earth’s legendary sights, whispered of even in the Barracks Ball of Arches Base.

The face of this patient companion had gazed down through all of man’s turbulent history. But the face was unchanged no more. Patches of gray-green were spreading across the pale highlands and the dusty maria, the green of Earth life rooting itself in the Moon’s ancient dust. That was why moonlight was no longer silver, but salted with a green photosynthetic glow.

And a great thread arced out of the center of the Moon’s face, and swept across the night sky toward the horizon. Pirius thought he could see a thickening in that graceful arc as it swept away from the Moon toward the Earth. The arc was the Bridge, an enclosed tu

The Bridge itself, defying orbital mechanics, was unstable, of course, constantly stressed by tides, and it had to be maintained with drive units and antigravity boxes studded along its length. The whole thing was utterly grandiose, hugely expensive, and quite without a practical purpose. Pirius laughed out loud at its folly and magnificence.

The next morning he tried to describe his feelings on first seeing the tethered Moon.

Nilis just smiled. “We travel to the stars, but we still must build our pyramids,” he said enigmatically.

Chapter 9

Two weeks after his return to Earth, Nilis set up a meeting with a man called the Minister of Economic Warfare.

As he prepared for this meeting, Nilis made no secret of his nervousness, nor how much was riding on the outcome. “I suppose you’d call Minister Gramm my champion. My nano-food i

And so on. Pirius and Torec listened patiently to all this, for Nilis in his blundering way seemed to appreciate having someone to talk to. But it was hard to be sympathetic. To Pirius Red the bureaucratic problems of working at the higher levels of the Interim Coalition of Governance were somewhat esoteric.

On the day of the meeting, to their dismay, Nilis suddenly decided to take both ensigns with him.

Before they set off, Nilis insisted on checking over their uniforms. It did Pirius no good to point out that the smart uniforms took care of themselves better than he or Torec ever could; Nilis nervously examined every seam, every centimeter of beading.

“Anyway,” said Pirius, “I don’t see what we can add to a meeting with a Minister.”

“Oh, you’re my secret weapon,” Nilis said, smiling edgily. “You are unruly defiance made flesh! Even when tangling with the Coalition, you must never underestimate the power of psychology, Ensign.”

Nilis insisted that they were going to walk to the Ministry building — walk across the Conurbation, an Earth city, in the open air. It was a dreadful prospect, but Pirius knew by now that it was no use arguing with the Commissary when he had made up his mind.

Still, Pirius and Torec hesitated on the doorstep of Nilis’s apartment. Pirius had acclimatized to the point where he could sit out in the garden with Nilis, even eat in the open air, but Torec was further behind. And after all, to venture out of doors without a sealed-up skinsuit violated every bit of conditioning drummed into them since before they could talk.