Greg Bear - City at the End of Time

CONTENTS

For Richard Curtis:
celebrating thirty years

A.

FOURTEEN ZEROS

PROLOG

Very deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?

Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

Its Time, Alan heard himself whisper. Timegone out like a tide and left us stranded.

C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner, Earths Last Citadel

Everything you know is wrong.

Firesign Theater

The Kalpa

Coming to the Broken Tower was dangerous.

Alone at the outer edge of an empty room half a mile wide, surrounded by a brutality of high crystal windows, Keeper Ghentun drew in his cloak against the mordant chill. A thin pool of air bubbled at his feet, and a fine icy mist lingered along the path he had taken from the lifts. This part of the city was not used to his kind, his brand of physicality, and did not adjust willingly to his needs.

Servants of the Librarian came here rarely to meet with suppliants from the lower levels. Appointments were nearly impossible to obtain. And yet, Ghentun had requested an audience and had been summoned.

The high windows gave a panoramic view of what lay outside the city, over the middle lands and beyond the border of the realthe Typhon Chaos. In all the Kalpa, only the tower had windows to the outside; the rest of the city had long ago walled itself off from that awesome, awful sight.

Ghentun approached the nearest window and braced for a look. Directly below, great curves like the prows of three ships seemed ready to leap into the darkness: the Kalpas last bions, containing all that remained of humanity. A narrow gray belt surrounded these huge edifices, and beyond that stretched a broad, uneven black ring: the middle lands. That ring and all within was protected by an outward-facing phalanx of slowly revolving spires, blurred as if sunk in silt-laden water: the Defenders, outermost of the citys reality generators.

Outside of their protection, four craters filled with wreckagethe lost bions of the Kalpaswept away in a wide curve to either side and back again, meeting in darkness hundreds of miles away: the citys original ring.

Out of the Chaos, the massive orb of the Witness beamed its gray, knife-edged searchlight over the lost bions and the middle lands, blasting against the foggy Defenders, arcing high as if to grasp the towertoo painful to watch.

Ghentun averted his eyes just as the beam swept through the chamber.

Sangmer, the first to lead an attempt to cross the Chaos, had once stood on this very spot, mapping the course of his journey. A few wakes later he had descended from the Broken Towereven then called Malregardand gone forth on his last quest with five brave companions, philosopher-adventurers all.

None ever heard from again.

Malregard, indeed. Evil view.

He felt a presence behind him and turned, bowing his head. The Librarian had such a variety of servants, he did not know what to expect. This onea small angelin, female in formstood barely taller than Ghentuns knee. He colored his cloak infrared, making the nearest pools of air bubble furiously and vanish. The servant also shifted spectrum, then brought up the temperature in the chamber until finally there was some pressure.

Ghentun bent to give the angelin a primordial speck of dirt, a crumbled bit of Earths basaltthe traditional payment for an audience. These were the old rules, never to be forgotten. The Librarian and all his servants were liable to withdraw at a whisper of rudeness into ten thousand years of silencesomething the Kalpa could no longer afford.

Why are you here, Keeper? the angelin asked. Has there been progress this side of the real?

That is for the Librarian to judge. All honor to its servants.

The angelin silvered and frozesimply stopped, for no reason Ghentun could fathom. All the forms had been observed. Ghentun switched his cloak and plasma to slow mode so he might maintain some disciplined comfort. Clearly, this was going to take a while.

Two wakes passed.

Nothing around them changed except that out of the Chaos the Witnesss gray knife-edge beam swept three times through the chamber.

The angelin finally cleared its silvery shell and spoke. The Librarian will receive you. An appointment will be made available in fewer than a thousand years. Pass this information to such successors as there may be.

I will have no successor, Ghentun said.

The angelins reaction came with surprising swiftness. The experiment is concluded?

No. The city.

We have been out of touch. Explain.

Ghentun observed sharply, We do not have the luxury of time. Decisions must be made soon.

The angelin expanded and became translucent. Soon could be interpreted as an affront to any Eidolon, but particularly a servant of the Librarian. It was difficult to believe that such beings still lay claim to the honor of humanitybut it was so.

Explain to me what you can, it said, without denying the privilege of the Librarian.

There are troubling results. They may be harbingers. The Kalpa is the last refuge of old reality, but our influence is too small. As the Librarian anticipated, history may be corroding.

The Librarian does not anticipate. All is permutation.

No doubt, Ghentun said. Nevertheless, world-lines are being severed and unnaturally rejoined. Others may have been dissolved. Whole segments of history may already be lost.

The Chaos has crept backwardin time?

Something like that is being felt by a few of the ancient breed. They are our indicators, as they were designed to be.

Intrigued, the angelin reduced and solidified. Canaries in a coal mine, it said.

Ghentun did not know what canaries were, and only vaguely understood the implications of a coal mine.

Do any of the ancient breed experience unusual dreams? the angelin asked.

Ghentun drew his cloak tight. Ive revealed what I can, all honor to the Librarian. I need to make the rest of my report in persondirectly. As instructed.

From Malregard, we watch your breeds crossing the border of the realviolating city law. They seem determined to lose themselves in the Chaos. None have been observed to return. Is your report an admission of failure?

Ghentun carefully considered his position. By nature, they are a sensitive and determined folk. I am humble before the EidolonsI leave those observations to your kind, and seek criticism from the Librarian, if it is duedirectly.

Another long pause.

The Witnesss gray beam again swept the chamber. As it passed through the angelin, Ghentun observed a lattice of internal processthe highly refined, jewel-like structure of sapphire-grade notic matter. The angelin oscillated before Ghentuns face. Its lips did not move but its bubble of cold shimmered. Induce an individual affected by these dreams to accompany you to the Broken Tower.

When?

You will be notified.

Ghentun felt a flush of frustration. Do you understand urgency? he asked.

No, the angelin said. You can either stay and explain it to me, or carry out these instructions. In seventy-five years there will be an interview with the Librarian. Is that soon enough?

It will have to do, Ghentun said.

Peace and permutation be upon you, Keeper.

The angelin darted off, leaving a trail of silvery vectors that quickly summed and vanished. Once, the vector trail of an angelin would have been a glorious thing to behold. Now it seemed pale and constricted.