I sit there and sob long enough for my back to ache. I’d curl up like a cat but I’m afraid of putting my face near the dirt and the microscopic organisms within it.

  A message arrives and the “urgent” tag makes me almost vomit with fear. What has Sung-Soo said? Is this it? After all these years of hiding, am I about to be exposed?

  I bring my knees up and rest my head on their bony hardness, wrapping my arms around my legs and squeezing them as tight as I clutched my dying child.

  The smell of her hair, her tiny frame that I’m afraid I’ll crush, her limp, doll-like limbs. She’s barely there and no matter how much I want it and how hard I press her against my chest, my body can’t give hers life again.

  Then I’m outside of myself looking at a grim tableau. It’s a study in futility: my face distorted and inhuman with grief, the sound of my animal roar slamming into the walls of the tiny hospital room. The doctor standing a meter or so away, her face the picture of sadness within permitted professional parameters and the nurse staring at me, his eyes wide at such a display of raw, brutal, ineffectual love.

  Countless machines beeping and flashing impending death with cold impartiality. All of them useless. My maternal instincts equally so.

  A second urgent message brings me back into my body, now wretched with tension. This one could be from Kay, saying she’s at my house and has seen inside, that they’re coming to find me and put me into treatment of some kind. There will be an emergency council session addressing how to deal with someone like me. They’ll vote to destroy my house and take my things away. They’ll force me to live in an empty shell and I’ll rattle around inside with nothing to hold me tight.

  Eventually, the tears stop and I begin to ache too much to keep sitting so still and tight. The sound of the wind in the grasses becomes comforting, as does my little dell walled by the thick green stalks. I feel safer, sitting down here with only the sky above me, and it eases the panic.

  I twist onto my hands and knees, turn around like a timid dog and raise my head slowly until I can peep over the top of the grasses. I expect to see a small posse heading straight for me, ready to cart me off for some sort of inquisition, but there’s nothing between me and the colony except the grass and the bugs lurking within it. I can’t see anyone near my house, but I can’t zoom in to see if the door has been forced. What am I thinking? No one has been near it; otherwise my alarms would have gone off. I lost sight of that in the panic.

  I sit back on my heels. The stalks are squashed flat below my legs and pressing uncomfortably against them. Everything looks peaceful there. Slowly, reluctantly, I accept that I have to open these messages and face whatever is within.

  They are both from Mack. I select the first, and after opening and closing my fisted hands a few times, I blink twice.

  I don’t know what you said to him, but it worked—look at Carmen’s discussion group. Thanks, Ren—that’s a massive weight off me.

  I read it three times, to be sure. Sung-Soo did what he said he would.

  Then I remember the second message and the anxiety spikes. That could be the one about my house.

  There’s nothing to do but open it.

  I still need you to place the seed for me though. Carmen’s not done with this yet and I can’t take the risk. She’s sent me a message about wanting to revise the ceremony and questioning why things are done the way they are and all sorts of bullshit. I suppose she’s worked herself up so much she doesn’t want to see it all go to waste. Maybe she just wants to see me squirm for the fun of it. What a pain in the arse. You’re quiet, are you OK?

  I flop backward, my shoulders, neck and head pushing back more of the stalks until they hold me at a fairly comfortable angle. Sung-Soo kept his promise.

  I clasp hold of the pendant, which is slick with my sweat from where it’s rested against my chest. I don’t like him knowing about this, but I can cope if that’s all it’s going to be. I think I can, anyway.

  A tickle on the back of my neck makes me leap up onto my feet and brush it frantically. Dozens of itches creep across my skin as I imagine some creature crawling around on me from the grass. After satisfying myself I haven’t been bitten and nothing is trying to hitch a ride, I head back toward the colony.

  There’s nowhere else to go.

  20

  I MANAGE TO get back to the house without anyone seeing me. At least, no one calls my name or waves or comes over. I open the door, crawl in and sink into a pile of clothes, exhausted. It isn’t even lunchtime and I could sleep for hours.

  I’m woken by something falling on my head. It happens sometimes. I pull it from my cheek and see that it’s the top I wore to Sung-Soo’s welcome party. It has wine spilled down the front. I didn’t notice that at the time. I ball it up and toss it away from my little nook. I’ll deal with it later.

  With trepidation I check my messages. There’s one about a list that’s been set up by Nick to coordinate the colony’s desire to shower housewarming gifts upon Sung-Soo. Everyone is free to open it and see what hasn’t been made for his house yet and then tick off the item they’ve decided to give him. It’s a nice idea, like an old-fashioned wedding list.

  All the basics have been given already, and even as I scan the list, items are being grayed out as someone makes their choice. By the end of the day Sung-Soo will have everything he could possibly need and significantly more than he’d ever want.

  I see that a projector unit hasn’t been picked yet, probably because it requires assembly. It intimidates most people, despite there being so many construction guides on the public server. I built the house and the water filtration unit, basic kitchen and waste management system, but I still feel like I should take him a gift. Something to calm the waters between us again, perhaps. Or just an excuse to go and see him and determine whether he still wants to talk to me. No, it’s more than that; I want to see if he’s going to hold this over me. I need to see if he’s a threat.

  I mark the projector as my choice and see if there are any time slots available on the colony’s midsize communal printer. It will be faster to split the component manufacture between that and my home one. I book a slot later in the day, select the model I want to make and check that the base metals and minerals needed for it are available in the communal feed. Levels are lower than they would normally be, thanks to the current high demand, but there’s enough. We need to either recycle some things or make an expedition again if the levels get much lower. I’d rather the former, seeing as we’ve managed for the last ten years or so to keep fairly balanced without the need to mine for more base materials.

  There’s probably a thing or two I could chuck in the Masher to help replenish some of the rarer elements. Then I remember I can’t actually reach any of the three Masher chutes in my home anymore.

  Sitting up, I resolve to clear the pile in front of the one in my bedroom. But when I see it all stacked so high, the desire disappears, like a tiny water spillage sucked up by dry, cracked earth. Where do I start?

  The one in the hallway might be easier to reach. I squeeze and twist my way out of my room and into the corridor with its valleylike route leading toward the printer. I don’t really think of it as a living room anymore, seeing as I stopped using it as anywhere other than the place I collect my printables from some years ago.

  Now that I’m looking at the stuff stacked in front of me, I’m struggling to recall exactly where the Masher chute door is. By the time I’ve found the right spot, it’s clear there’s far too much work to be done to access the chute considering I want to build a projector today too. It’s a job for another time when there’s less going on.

  I was so distracted by the list for Sung-Soo that I neglected to check the rest of my messages. I clamber my way back to the nook in my bedroom and open them up. There’s one from Kay with a report on the parasite’s genetic makeup that I almost open before seeing the subject of the message below. It’s from the program I created on the Atlas server to find potential matches for the metal artifact.

  The first batch of results is in.

  I open the report and select the first match that leaps out at me with its evidence score of photo and film matches in the high thousands.

  The potential match is for “glasses,” or “spectacles,” to use an older word pulled from the archive. I ask the AI to provide a visual summary of one hundred randomly selected examples it’s found to come up with the suggestion, just to be certain it’s the kind of object I have in mind.

  I watch the pictures, each one displayed for five seconds before being replaced by the next. There’s one of a woman on a beach (oh God, to go to the beach again!) and she’s wearing a pair of sunglasses like my grandfather used to wear. There’s one of a child hunched over a paper book in what could be a schoolroom but I’m not certain, having never been in one myself. Image after image of the past, across multiple countries, people of multiple ages and races all with defective vision. They’re from the days before it was routinely fixed by crude laser surgery in the time of my grandfather. Once basic lenses formed computer interfaces, they were used to correct vision instead.

  Memories of people wearing glasses in Paris when I was a student come to mind. They lived in the poorer areas, had the worst jobs and were the people society did its best to ignore. Some still wore them because they distrusted the lens technology and tried to persuade everyone else it was another way for the gov-corps to track your movements and exploit your data. I ended up arguing with one of them in a bar one night until we realized we agreed; I just accepted that all the data he feared would be harvested by the lens was already being captured by a dozen other devices and techniques. One more data source wasn’t going to alter the fact that I was already in the system. We ended up drinking so much I passed out in the stairwell outside the flat. The man died a week later in the first wave of violent protests that marked the beginning of the “bloody summer” that the press reveled in reporting. All those protests achieved was raising the profiles of several citizen journalists. Nothing changed, of course.

  I pause the images, minimize the interface and fish out the artifact from the little crevice I tucked it into for safekeeping. Could this be part of a pair of glasses?

  I run my finger along the lengths and feel patches of roughness on one of them. There are two, separated by a smooth portion. The ends of the two pieces look broken, but one of them has a slightly bulbous edge, suggesting a second hinge used to be there. Am I trying to fit it to the suggested pattern? It’s what human beings are far too good at, after all.

  I hold the length with the rough patches up to my face. It’s certainly long enough to form the front part of the frame. The rough patches correspond with my eyes—perhaps the large external lenses were attached there. The hinge makes the second piece bend in the right direction to form the arm over my ear.

  No. This is madness. How would a pair of glasses end up in God’s city? If others did travel here before us and explored . . . and even died in there . . . why would they be wearing such primitive devices? Surely they’d have technology comparable to ours to travel here and—

  That’s an assumption. Several, in fact. Aside from the one about physical similarity, who am I to think I know the technological development of all species and cultures? Besides, the glasses could just be an earlier form of interface, just like they experimented with before integral retinal lenses.

  The program provides other potential matches, which I scroll through, but none have as much visual evidence from the archive. The search is far from complete though. I have to keep an open mind.

  Mack pings me, asking if I’m free. It makes me groan and curl up on my side. Hasn’t today been enough? Do I have to go outside again? I allow myself one minute of indulgent self-pity and then reply with a promise to be over right away. I can’t let anyone think something is wrong with me. I can’t risk the attention.

  • • •

  EVEN though there are dark circles beneath his eyes, Mack looks happier than I’ve seen him in days. He offers me a drink and I ask for Turkish coffee. He’s the only person on this planet who makes it just the way I like it. I can’t tell the difference with printed versus cooked food, but I can with that.

  I flop onto his sofa and cradle my head in my hands as he clinks and thuds away in the kitchen. If someone left the glasses behind, where are they now? Did they leave? I imagine a body rotting and decomposing in the tunnel and it makes me nauseous, so I tune back in to what Mack is saying.

  “So I’m thinking when she sees how much it means to everyone, she’ll simmer down. And Sung-Soo’s been brilliant. Hasn’t fazed him at all.”

  He brings in two steaming cups and hands one to me. I let the aroma waft up and try to focus on the simple pleasure, but it isn’t enough to still my thoughts.

  “Do you think anyone came here before us?”

  He frowns at my question. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  “Theoretically, it’s possible,” I continue. “We found a way, right?”

  The frown doesn’t lift. “We haven’t found any signs of anyone else. Atlas didn’t detect any old structures or wreckage or—”

  “But they might have come to God’s city and left again. Not settled, like we did.”

  “Like tourists?” He sniffs. “Who knows? There are more important things to think about now, Ren, remember?”

  I sip the coffee and let it soothe the flicker of fear that I’ve just let myself blather on without thinking. I’m not usually so careless, but after the upset with Sung-Soo earlier and the ramifications of this damn artifact, I’m not at my best. Thank goodness he’s too distracted to wonder why I asked. I refocus myself.

  “I suppose you wanted to see me about the seed,” I say and when he nods, a little pocket of dread blooms within me.

  “It’s got to be done,” he says. “How’s the coffee?”

  I don’t let him divert my attention in the way he wants. “I’m really not comfortable with this.”

  “I’ll show you the best route. Just make sure you wear all the protective gear, don’t take out the seed until the last minute and make sure that—”

  “I mean, I’m not sure this is the right thing to do.”

  He sighs. “Do we really need to go through this again?”

  I turn my attention inward. Do I have the courage to stand up to him? It’s not like I’m afraid of him. But I keep going along with what he wants. Why?

  “You know there’s no better way to keep this colony going,” he says softly. And he’s almost right; I don’t challenge the way he does things because I can’t think of a better way, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. “If there is,” he continues, “tell me; we’ll talk about it. But just flatly refusing to help when there’s only days to go isn’t good enough.”

  “I haven’t ‘flatly refused,’” I say before I realize the trap he’s led me into. Shit.

  He smiles. “Glad to hear it.”

  “But I’m not happy about it.”

  “I don’t exactly skip there every year either,” he says, a harsh edge creeping into his management voice.

  “I know. I just . . . don’t think this can go on forever. They have to find out one day. I think this should be the last year.”

  “It can’t be. I haven’t put anything into the message about that. We have to plan further in advance.”

  I want to be the kind of person who would stand up now and declare that there is a better way, or that I’ll stand by my principles in this as all things and not do it. But what is the alternative? And I’m just as afraid of what will happen if the transition from lies to truth isn’t handled carefully. I should have spoken up over twenty years ago.

  But if I had, I would be dead.

  “You’d better show me how you do it, then,” I say, without bothering to hide the defeat in my voice. He isn’t the victor. Fear is. And cowardice.

  21

  AFTER A COUPLE of hours at Mack’s place, being actively taught by another human being for the first time in years, I decide to go to God’s city via the proper entrance. I won’t go inside—I can’t from this direction—but I want to embed some of the details he showed me via the projector and an immersive gaming platform adapted for that purpose.

  I walk through the eastern gate, one I usually avoid, and follow the only path that crosses the boundary out of the colony. The crystal is laid right up to the outer edge of God’s city. The path stops about three meters away from where the first tendrils of the city rise up from the ground. Its end point is just in front of the city’s natural entrance through the outer perimeter, formed by the space between two of the thickest tendrils, which make an organic pointed archway.

  I still pause, even after all these years and the twenty-odd times I’ve been forced to parade into here with everyone else for the annual circus. Those times within the crowd, among their excitement and anticipation, haven’t been enough to scrub away the very first time we walked through this alien archway.

  I retrace the steps I took then. This time I’m not looking up at God’s city with wonder and apprehension; instead I’m mapping what Mack showed me onto the structure looming ahead of me and reinforcing the route I’ll need to take tonight. It helps to look at it this way. It distances me from that time before.

  I cross the central courtyard—a grand name for nothing more than an area of compacted earth between the archway in and the entrance to the main city. I avoid looking at that as long as I can. It always makes me feel sick and I don’t want to engage with the people on duty today unless I have to.

  I’m used to them being there now. At first I hated it and voted against the motion to post people at the entrance, when it was debated in the early months of the colony. Once people had got the essentials of colony life in place, they had time to think about Suh’s return. Nick was worried she would emerge from God’s city and think no one cared about her return if she wasn’t greeted immediately. I argued that she wouldn’t mind, but this wasn’t good enough and Mack spotted an opportunity to start growing the mythos that fed into the seed ceremony. He backed the people who wanted to maintain a vigil around the clock. A senseless waste of time and energy, but the majority worked its magic again and now no one wants to be the one to say it was a mistake.