Now he pauses, hands forgetting the unseen partner. A look of calculated confusion sweeps across his face. Fingers rise to his thick black hair, stabbing it and yanking backward, leaving furrows in the unruly mass.

  “Our numbers,” he says. “Our population. It made us

  sick with worry when we were ten billion standing on the surface of one enormous world. ‘Where will our children stand?’ we asked ourselves. But then in the next little while, we became ten trillion people, and we had split into a thousand species of humanity, and the new complaint was that we were still too scarce and spread too far 8 5

  R O B E R T R E E D

  apart. ‘How could we matter to the universe?’ we asked ourselves. ‘How could so few souls endure another day in our immeasurable, uncaring universe?’ ”

  His erect penis makes a little leap, a fat and vivid

  white drop of semen striking the wooden stage with an audible plop.

  “Our numbers,” he repeats. “Our legions.” Then with a wide, garish smile, he confesses, “I don’t know our numbers today. No authority does. You make estimates. You extrapolate off data that went stale long ago. You build a hundred models and fashion every kind of vast number.

  Ten raised to the twentieth power. The thirtieth power. Or more.” He giggles and skips backward, and with the

  giddy, careless energy of a child, he dances where he stands, singing to lights overhead, “If you are as common as sand and as unique as snowflakes, how can you be

  anything but a wild, wonderful success?”

  ABLE

  The wild man is enormous and powerful, and surely

  brilliant beyond anything that Able can comprehend—as

  smart as City as a whole—but despite his gifts, the man is obviously terrified. That he can even manage to stand his ground astonishes Able. He says as much to Mish, and

  then he glances at her, adding, “He must be very devoted

  to whoever’s inside.”

  “Whoever’s inside what?” she asks.

  “That trap.” He looks straight ahead again, telling

  himself not to waste time with the girl. She is foolish and bad-tempered, and he couldn’t be any more tired of her.

  8 6

  C O E L AC A N T H S

  “I think that’s what the cylinder is,” he whispers. “A trap of some kind. And someone’s been caught in it.”

  “Well, I don’t care who,” she snarls.

  He pretends not to notice her.

  “What was that?” she blurts. “Did you hear that—?”

  “No,” Able blurts. But then he notices a distant rumble,

  deep and faintly rhythmic, and with every breath, grow-

  ing. When he listens carefully, it resembles nothing nor-

  mal. It isn’t thunder, and it can’t be a voice. He feels the sound as much as he hears it, as if some great mass were

  being displaced. But he knows better. In school, teachers like to explain what must be happening now, employing

  tortuous mathematics and magical sleights of hand. Mat-

  ter and energy are being rapidly and brutally manipu-

  lated. The universe’s obscure dimensions are being twisted like bands of warm rubber. Able knows all this. But still, he understands none of it. Words without comprehension;

  froth without substance. All that he knows for certain is that behind that deep, unknowable throbbing lies something even farther beyond human description.

  The wild man looks up, gray eyes staring at that

  something.

  He cries out, that tiny sound lost between his mouth

  and Able. Then he produces what seems to be a spear—no,

  an elaborate missile—that launches itself with a bolt of fire, lifting a sophisticated warhead up into a vague gray space that swallows the weapon without sound, or complaint.

  Next the man aims a sturdy laser, and fires. But the

  weapon simply melts at its tip, collapsing into a smoldering, useless mass at his feet.

  Again, the wild man cries out.

  His language could be a million generations removed

  8 7

  R O B E R T R E E D

  from City-speech, but Able hears the desperate, furious

  sound of his voice. He doesn’t need words to know that

  the man is cursing. Then the swirling grayness slows it-

  self, and parts, and stupidly, in reflex, Able turns to Mish, wanting to tell her, “Watch. You’re going to see one of

  Them.”

  But Mish has vanished. Sometime in the last few mo-

  ments, she jumped off the world’s rim and ran away, and

  save for the fat old leopard sleeping between the horse-

  tails, Able is entirely alone now.

  “Good,” he mutters.

  Almost too late, he turns and runs to very edge of the

  granite rim.

  The wild man stands motionless now. His bowels and

  bladder have emptied themselves. His handsome, godly

  face is twisted from every flavor of misery. Eyes as big as windows stare up into what only they can see, and to that great, unknowable something, the man says two simple

  words.

  “Fuck you,” Able hears.

  And then the wild man opens his mouth, baring his

  white apish teeth, and just as Able wonders what’s going

  to happen, the man’s body explodes, the dull black burst

  of a shaped charge sending chunks of his face skyward.

  PROCYON

  One last time, she whispers her son’s name.

  She whispers it and closes her mouth and listens to the

  brief, sharp silence that comes after the awful explosion.

  What must have happened, she tells herself, is that her

  boy found his good sense and fled. How can a mother

  8 8

  C O E L AC A N T H S

  think anything else? And then the ominous deep rum-

  bling begins again, begins and gradually swells until the walls of the trap are shuddering and twisting again. But

  this time the monster is slower. It approaches the trap

  more cautiously, summoning new courage. She can

  nearly taste its courage now, and with her intuition, she senses emotions that might be curiosity and might be a

  kind of reflexive admiration. Or do those eternal human

  emotions have any relationship for what It feels . . . ?

  What she feels, after everything, is numbness. A terri-

  ble deep weariness hangs on her like a new skin. Procyon

  seems to be falling faster now, accelerating down through the bottomless trap. But she doesn’t care anymore. In

  place of courage, she wields a muscular apathy. Death

  looms, but when hasn’t it been her dearest companion?

  And in place of fear, she is astonished to discover an incurious little pride about what is about to happen: How

  many people—wild free people like herself—have ever

  found themselves so near one of Them?

  Quietly, with a calm smooth and slow voice, Procyon

  says, “I feel you there, you. I can taste you.”

  Nothing changes.

  Less quietly, she says, “Show yourself.”

  A wide parabolic floor appears, gleaming and black

  and agonizingly close. But just before she slams into the floor, a wrenching force peels it away. A brilliant violet light rises to meet her, turning into a thick sweet syrup.

  What may or may not be a hand curls around her body,

  and squeezes. Procyon fights every urge to struggle. She

  wrestles with her body, wrestles with her will, forcing both to lie still while the hand tightens its grip and grows comfortable. Then using a voice that betrays nothing tentative or small, she tells what holds her, “I made you, you know.”

  8 9

  R O B E R T R E E D

  She says, “You can do what you want to me.”

  Then with a natural, deep joy, she cries out, “But

  you’re an ungrateful glory . . . and you’ll always belong to me . . . !”

  ESCHER

  The prison-ball has been reengineered, slathered with

  camouflage and armor and the best immune-suppressors

  on the market, and its navigation system has been adapted from add-ons stolen from the finest trashcans. Now it is a battle-phage riding on the sharp incisor as far as it dares, then leaping free. A thousand similar phages leap and lose their way, or they are killed. Only Escher’s phage reaches the target, impacting on what passes for flesh and launch-ing its cargo with a microscopic railgun, punching her and a thousand sisters and daughters through immeasurable

  distances of senseless, twisted nothing.

  How many survive the attack?

  She can’t guess how many. Can’t even care. What

  matters is to make herself survive inside this strange new world. An enormous world, yes. Escher feels a vastness

  that reaches out across ten or twelve or maybe a thou-

  sand dimensions. How do I know where to go? she asks

  herself. And instantly, an assortment of possible routes

  appear in her consciousness, drawn in the simplest imag-

  inable fashion, waiting and eager to help her find her

  way around.

  This is a last gift from Him, she realizes. Unless there

  are more gifts waiting, of course.

  She thanks nobody.

  On the equivalent of tiptoes, Escher creeps her way

  9 0

  C O E L AC A N T H S

  into a tiny conduit that moves something stranger than

  any blood across five dimensions. She becomes passive,

  aiming for invisibility. She drifts and spins, watching her surroundings turn from a senseless glow into a landscape

  that occasionally seems a little bit reasonable. A little bit real. Slowly, she learns how to see in this new world.

  Eventually she spies a little peak that may or may not be ordinary matter. The peak is pink and flexible and sticks out into the great artery, and flinging her last tendril, Escher grabs hold and pulls in snug, knowing that the

  chances are lousy that she will ever find anything nour-

  ishing here, much less delicious.

  But her reserves have been filled again, she notes. If

  she is careful—and when hasn’t she been—her energies

  will keep her alive for centuries.

  She thinks of the World, and thanks nobody.

  “Watch and learn,” she whispers to herself.

  That was the first human thought. She remembers that

  odd fact suddenly. People were just a bunch of grubbing

  apes moving blindly through their tiny lives until one

  said to a companion, “Watch and learn.”

  An inherited memory, or another gift from Him?

  Silently, she thanks Luck, and she thanks Him, and

  once again, she thanks Luck.

  “Patience and planning,” she tells herself.

  Which is another wise thought of the conscious, en-

  during ape.

  THE LAST SON

  The locked gates and various doorways know him—

  recognize him at a glance—but they have to taste him

  9 1

  R O B E R T R E E D

  anyway. They have to test him. Three people were ex-

  pected, and he can’t explain in words what has happened.

  He just says, “The others will be coming later,” and leaves that lie hanging in the air. Then as he passes through the final doorway, he says, “Let no one through. Not without

  my permission first.”

  “This is your mother’s house,” says the door’s AI.

  “Not anymore,” he remarks.

  The machine grows quiet, and sad.

  During any other age, his home would be a mansion.

  There are endless rooms, rooms beyond counting, and

  each is enormous and richly furnished and lovely and

  jammed full of games and art and distractions and flour-

  ishes that even the least aesthetic soul would find lovely.

  He sees none of that now. Alone, he walks to what has al-

  ways been his room, and he sits on a leather recliner, and the house brings him a soothing drink and an intoxicating drink and an assortment of treats that sit on the platter, untouched.

  For a long while, the boy stares off at the distant ceil-

  ing, replaying everything with his near-perfect memory.

  Everything. Then he forgets everything, stupidly calling

  out, “Mother,” with a voice that sounds ridiculously

  young. Then again, he calls, “Mother.” And he starts to

  rise from his chair, starts to ask the great empty house,

  “Where is she?”

  And he remembers.

  As if his legs have been sawed off, he collapses. His

  chair twists itself to catch him, and an army of AIs brings their talents to bear. They are loyal, limited machines.

  They are empathetic, and on occasion, even sweet. They

  want to help him in any fashion, just name the way . . .

  but their appeals and their smart suggestions are just so 9 2

  C O E L AC A N T H S

  much noise. The boy acts deaf, and he obviously can’t see anything with his fists jabbed into his eyes like that,

  slouched forward in his favorite chair, begging an invisible someone for forgiveness. . . .

  THE SPEAKER

  He squats and uses the tip of a forefinger to dab at the puddle of semen, and he rubs the finger against his

  thumb, saying, “Think of cells. Individual, self-reliant cells. For most of Earth’s great history, they ruled. First as bacteria, and then as composites built from cooperative bacteria. They were everywhere and ruled everything, and then the wild cells learned how to dance together, in one enormous body, and the living world was transformed for the next seven hundred million years.”

  Thumb and finger wipe themselves dry against a hairy

  thigh, and he rises again, grinning in that relentless and smug, yet somehow charming fashion. “Everything was

  changed, and nothing had changed,” he says. Then he

  says, “Scaling,” with an important tone, as if that single word should erase all confusion. “The bacteria and green algae and the carnivorous amoebae weren’t swept away

  by any revolution. Honestly, I doubt if their numbers fell appreciably or for long.” And again, he says, “Scaling,”

  and sighs with a rich appreciation. “Life evolves. Adapts.

  Spreads and grows, constantly utilizing new energies and novel genetics. But wherever something large can live, a thousand small things can thrive just as well, or better.

  Wherever something enormous survives, a trillion bacteria hang on for the ride.”

  For a moment, the speaker hesitates.

  9 3

  R O B E R T R E E D

  A slippery half-instant passes where an audience

  might believe that he has finally lost his concentration, that he is about to stumble over his own tongue. But then he licks at the air, tasting something delicious. And three times, he clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

  Then he says what he has planned to say from the be-

  ginning.

  “I never know whom I’m speaking to,” he admits. “I’ve never actually seen my audience. But I know you’re great and good. I know that however you appear, and however you make your living, you deserve to hear this:

  “Humans have always lived in terror. Rainstorms and

  the eclipsing moon and earthquakes and the ominous guts of some disemboweled goat—all have preyed upon our

  fears and defeated our fragile optimisms. But what we fear today—what shapes and reshapes the universe

  around us—is a child of our own imaginations.

  “A whirlwind that owes its very existence to glorious, endless us!”

  ABLE

  The boy stops walking once or twice, letting the fat

  leopard keep pace. Then he pushes his way through a last

  wall of emerald ferns, stepping out into the bright damp

  air above the rounded pool. A splashing takes him by

  surprise. He looks down at his secret pool, and he squints, watching what seems to be a woman pulling her way

  through the clear water with thick, strong arms. She is

  naked. Astonishingly, wonderfully naked. A stubby hand

  grabs an overhanging limb, and she stands on the rocky

  shore, moving as if exhausted, picking her way up the

  9 4

  C O E L AC A N T H S

  slippery slope until she finds an open patch of halfway

  flattened earth where she can collapse, rolling onto her

  back, her smooth flesh glistening and her hard breasts

  shining up at Able, making him sick with joy.

  Then she starts to cry, quietly, with a deep sadness.

  Lust vanishes, replaced by simple embarrassment.

  Able flinches and starts to step back, and that’s when he first looks at her face.

  He recognizes its features.

  Intrigued, the boy picks his way down to the shoreline,

  practically standing beside the crying woman.

  She looks at him, and she sniffs.

  “I saw two of them,” he reports. “And I saw you, too.

  You were inside that cylinder, weren’t you?”

  She watches him, saying nothing.

  “I saw something pull you out of that trap. And then I

  couldn’t see you. It must have put you here, I guess. Out of its way.” Able nods, and smiles. He can’t help but stare at her breasts, but at least he keeps his eyes halfway

  closed, pretending to look out over the water instead. “It took pity on you, I guess.”

  A good-sized fish breaks on the water.

  The woman seems to watch the creature as it swims

  past, big blue scales catching the light, heavy fins lazily shoving their way through the warm water. The fish eyes

  are huge and black, and they are stupid eyes. The mind

  behind them sees nothing but vague shapes and sudden

  motions. Able knows from experience: If he stands quite

  still, the creature will come close enough to touch.