Earth

Still, I am more than just another homogenized gray man of bland gray times! And if I’m forced by circumstances to lie, then at least I can look on my lies as a Maori should, as appalling things!

And to that, at last, Stan Goldman’s surrogate voice remained silent. His friend, George knew, would not disagree.

Turning a bend in the passage, he stopped and turned off his lamp. At first the sudden blackness was so utter, his hand was lost in front of his face. At last, however, he made out an incredibly faint glimmer, reflecting off a rupicoline wall ahead. That could only mean one thing, that he was nearly back to the site.

Dialed to its lowest level, the lamp still made him blink when it came back on. He set out again, first scrambling over a ledge and then ducking under a hanging rock drapery to emerge at last on a balcony overlooking the grotto where he and the others had come to battle demons.

Unlike their comfortable, furnished caverns back in New Zealand, only a few stark floodlights cast intimidating shadows across this great gallery. Sleeping bags lay strewn on piles of hay purchased from a Papuan farmer who plowed the hillsides overhead, not suspecting what vast counties lay beneath his hissing tractor. A portable recycling unit stood in one corner, taking in the team’s wastes and returning a necessary if unpalatable fraction of their needs.

None of these discomforts mattered to George’s veterans, of course. So it had to be the virgin nature of these secret caves that had everyone talking in whispers, softly, respectfully, as if to spare the place any more violation than necessary. George wasn’t the only one to go off on solitary reverent explorations. During the brief rest periods their medic demanded between long stints of labor, most of the crew now and then took off just to get away for a little while.

There were other, larger caverns in this network — one even bigger than Good Luck Cave, in Sarawak, dwarfing forty sports stadia. But this one served their needs and so had been sacrificed for the project. Several meters of sediment had been cleared away, exposing hard rock where a large hemispherical basin had been dug.

Nearby lay the metal frame that would hold their new thumper, and beyond that stood the tank where the crystal cylinder itself was slowly growing, atom by atom, under the direction of a myriad of simple, tireless nanomachines. In two days the perfect lattice would be a finely tuned superconducting ante

George climbed down a series of gour pools over which small waterfalls had once cascaded. He’d been away only half an hour, yet his crew had already resumed work.

No need to play foreman here. It’s amazing what a strong motivator it can be, when you have a slim chance to save the world.

A slight, dark-featured man looked up at George from inside the bowl-like excavation, standing on a wooden scaffold.

“So my friend, did you find your river?”

George’s Papuan friend, Sepak Takraw, had enlisted to help their shorthanded team. Enlisted under false pretenses, for George had told him they were probing for deep methane — a recurring grail ever sought by countries that had once been rich in oil, but now grew used to paucity again and hated it. Sepak’s vow of confidentiality was titanium clad, of course. Still, George couldn’t justify letting any more people know the true nature of their mission. Perhaps later he’d get to tell Sepak. After they succeeded. Or when they knew for sure they’d failed.

“Ah.” George lifted his shoulders. “The river is no more.”

“Too bad.” Sepak sighed. “Maybe the farmers took it away.”

“It’s a thirsty world.” George nodded. “So. How does the foundation look?”

Sepak gestured into the bowl, where two of George’s engineers were scrutinizing the smooth wall with instruments. “As you see, we’re all but finished. Only bloody-damn Kiwi perfectionism keeps them at it. Since Helvetians went extinct, you lot are the worst nit-pickers around.”

George smiled at the mixed compliment. However much they bickered, both Maori and pakeha New Zealanders agreed that any job worth doing was worth doing well. Tangoparu Ltd. had built its reputation on that fetish for accuracy.

And all the more so this time. The parameters Alex

Lustig gave us will be difficult enough to meet without human error.

“They finally tired of my impatience and chased me away. Such impertinence. Here, help me out of this pit, will you?”

George hoisted his small friend. Once on his feet, Sepak laid down his tool bag and took out a small flask. It was a mild local brew, but one notorious for playing hell with anyone not used to it. So naturally, he offered George a swig. George shook his head. He had taken a vow.

When next I drink, it will be to our world’s salvation… or standing over the bloody ruin of the bastards who wrecked her.

“Suit yourself.” Sepak knocked back a swallow and then slipped the flask into a pouch embroidered with beaded butterfly designs. He was a full-blooded member of the Gimi tribe, which took pride in a very special distinction. Of all nations, clans, and peoples on Earth, only among native Papuans were there still a few left alive who remembered when the planet had not been a single place.

This year was the cente

Until the Australians arrived, that is. From that moment, the Age of Stone was extinct. The universal Era of the Electron soon enveloped everyone — one world, one culture, one shared vocabulary. One shared Net.

Overhead, Sepak’s great-great-uncle was among the celebrities being interviewed for global news cha

Or at least, Stan Goldman might insist optimistically, the last first contact to occur on Earth.

Sepak would talk about it at the least excuse. Clearly, he saw no distinction between Maori and pakeha, dismissing all non-Papuans as “whites,” in the generic sense. In the odd, reverse pecking order of modern ethnicity-chic, there was no higher status than to have a great-grandfather who had once chipped his own tools from native stone. Who, in pure, primitive i

Sepak looked along one of the galleries, where polished stone ripples fell away toward shrouded mysteries. “So. No more river. Too bad. What good is a glorious cave without a stream to make it laugh and sing? What’s become of the thing that carved this mighty place? Such a mundane end, to be sucked away to irrigation wells.”

“There are signs the river flowed only a few decades ago.” From his pocket, George unfolded a handkerchief. Sepak peered at a few glinting slivers. “What are they?”

“Fish bones.”

The Papuan sighed. Whatever sightless species had once lived atop this tiny ecosphere’s food chain, a few wan skeletons were its only legacy.

George knew that millions above ground would share his sense of loss if they were told. These days, it might even lead to calls for action. Although the uniqueness of this particular line was forever gone, perhaps some other species, locked away in some preserve or life ark, might prosper here if only the water returned. But George would keep his secret, only wondering what these parched cha