The Ascension Factor

But Ozette believed now that she could save the world for Avata and human alike, and for this he vowed to guard her every breath — for this, and for the stirrings of love that strained in old traces.

Spider Nevi and his thugs hunted the both of them now. Ben had wooed her away from the Director's very short leash, but Crista did the rest. Crista and Rico. Ben knew well that the leash would become a lash, a noose for himself and possibly for her next time and he had better see to it that there was no next time. Flattery had made it clear that there was nothing in the world more deadly, more valuable than Crista Galli. It was certain the man who'd made off with her wouldn't be lightly spared.

Ben was forty now. At fifteen he'd been plunged into war with the sinking of Guemes Island. Many thousands died that day, brutally slashed, burned, drowned at the attack of a huge Merman submersible, a kelp-trimmer that burst through the center of the old man-made island, lacerating everything in its path. Ben had been rimside when the sudden lurch and collapse sent him tumbling into the pink-frothed sea.

The years since and the horrors he had seen gave him a wisdom of sorts, an instinct for trouble and the escape hatch. This wisdom was only wisdom as long as he kept alive, and he remembered how easily he had thrown instinct out the porthole the time he fell in love with Beatriz. He had not thought that could happen again until the day he met Crista Galli, a meeting that had been half-motivated at the possibility of seeing Beatriz somewhere inside Flattery's compound. Crista had whispered, "Help me," that day, and while swimming in her green-eyed gaze he'd said, simply, "Yes."

In her head sleeps the Great Wisdom, he thought. If she can unlock it without destroying herself, she can help us all.

Even if it wasn't true, Ben knew that Flattery thought it was true, and that was good enough.

She rolled over, still asleep, and turned her face up at the prospect of the dim light.

Keep you away from light, they say, he thought. Keep you away from kelp, keep you away from the sea. Don't touch you. In his back pocket he carried the precautionary instructions in case he accidentally touched her bare skin.

And what would Operations think if they knew I'd kissed her?

He chuckled, and marveled at the power beside him in that room.

The Director had already seen to it that no interview of Crista Galli would ever be aired. Now, at Flattery's direction, Holovision had lured Beatriz with an extra hour of air time a week glorifying Flattery's "Project Voidship."

Beatriz is running blind, he thought. She loves the idea of exploring the void so much that she's ignored the price that Flattery's exacting.

Flattery's fear of Crista's relationship with the kelp had kept her under guard. The Director sequestered her "for her own protection, for study, for the safety of all humankind." Despite weekly access to Flattery's private compound, Beatriz showed no interest in Crista Galli. She lobbied his support, however, when Ben had requested the interviews.

Maybe she hoped to see more of me, too.

Beatriz was wedded to her career, just as Ben was, and something as nebulous as a career made pretty intangible competition. Ben couldn't understand how Beatriz let the Crista Galli story slip through her fingers. Today he was very happy that she had.

* * *

Fire smolders in a soul more surely than it does under ashes.

— Gaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire

Kalan woke up from his nestling spot between his mother's large breasts to loud curses and a scuffle a few meters down The Line. The chime overhead tolled five, the same as his fingers, same as his years. He did not look in the direction of the scuffle because his mother told him it was bad luck to look at people having bad luck. A pair of line patrolmen appeared with their clubs. There were the thudding noises again and the morning quieted down.

He and his warm mother stayed wrapped in her drape, the same one that had shaded them the day before. This morning, at the chime of five, they had been in The Line for seventeen hours. His mother warned him how long it would be. At noon the previous day Kalan had looked forward to seeing the inside of the food place but after everything he'd seen in The Line he just wanted to go home.

They had slept the last few hours at the very gates of the food place. Now he heard footsteps behind the gates, the metallic unclick of locks.

His mother brushed off their clothes and gathered all of their containers. He already wore the pack she'd made him, he hadn't taken it off since they turned in their scrap. Kalan wanted to be ready when she negotiated rice, because carrying the rice back home was his job. They had made it right up to the warehouse door at midnight, then had it locked in their faces. His mother helped him read the sign at the door: "Closed for cleaning and restocking 12-5." He wanted to start his job carrying the rice now so he could be going home.