Fantastic Children 2 Ch.6

Chapter 6: Tarlant, Baldwin, Dumas: Wheels Within Wheels

"Tarlant? TARLANT!"

Tarlant snapped awake guiltily at Agi's shout.  Not that he had much to feel guilty about.  He was a mechanical engineer, and now that all the equipment had been assembled, and research was the goal, he was mainly useful as an assistant or when repairs or adjustments were necessary.

He hurried toward the sound of the shout, readying his apology, but it was not necessary. Agi was staring in consternation at Squeak.  The robot was aligning one of the enormous sensor panels—if they had had time to construct the facility properly, they would have been automatically adjustable—but was issuing a high-pitched alarm tone, and red lights were flashing all over its body.

"What's wrong with it?" Agi demanded.

"Beats me, I haven't had a chance to take one apart and see what makes it tick yet."  Tarlant could have pointed out that it was Agi who had said that would be a waste of valuable time, but instead he pulled the voicelink from his pocket and said "Link Dumas,"

After a moment, a voice issued from the device.  "Dumas here."

"Dumas, we've got a robot issue," Tarlant said.  "Can you hear the alarm?  We have red lights flashing, too."

"Sounds like brain fry."

"What?"

"The cortical center is about to burn out," Dumas said. "Do yourself a favor, have the robot move to an open area and take a storage position.  You'll find it easier to access the cortex.  I'll bring you a replacement core when I come down there."

Tarlant ordered the robot aside, and Squeak settled down on a concrete landing pad, legs pulled in underneath.  Behind him, Tarlant heard Agi irritably order Bubble to change the array's angle to 2077.643 mark 4.  A second alarm began to sound.

"Dumas?  Bring two," Tarlant said.  Secretly delighted at the opportunity, Tarlant began unfastening the clamps that affixed Squeak's carapace to the frame. Since the carapaces had to come off anyway, Agi could hardly object if Tarlant took ten minutes to paint them.  Squeak would be rust red, he had decided, with yellow spots.  Bubble would be sea green with blue spots.

Under the hood, the works of the robot were a little disappointing.  While some of the parts had been improved and refined since his time on Greecia, there was nothing strange or revolutionary or mysterious under the hood. Except for the cortical center. That was a thick, wheel-shaped object with a hole in the center, energy circuits running to it from every direction.  The grooves that radiated from the hole in the center glowed with pale light.  Tarlant could smell something hot and acrid, and flashes of electricity skittered across the surface of the core.  Even as he watched, a flash of blue flame enveloped it entirely, and all the light went out.  Beneath him, Tarlant felt the life go out of the robot.

As he moved to take Bubble's carapace off, Tarlant could hear Agi fuming about the delay.

"It can't be helped," Soreto said.  "Why don't you get some sleep in the meantime? I don't think you've slept more than an hour at a time in the last two weeks. If you get overtired, you'll start to make mistakes we can't afford."

"All right," Agi caved in.  "But just two hours."   

He set his chronometer and lay down on the concrete, using a folded canvas tarpaulin as a pillow.

"It would only take three minutes to go inside and find a bed," Soreto said.  "Agi?"  But Agi was already dead to the world. Soreto sighed, bent down, and removed Agi's chronometer.

"He's going to kill you," Tarlant predicted.

"He needs to sleep," she said.  "If I thought we could haul him into the Institute without waking him up…" She went back to her work, and Tarlant hauled the two carapaces over to lean them against the wall. The paint had been ready and waiting for days, and Tarlant, free of Agi's constant pressure, took his time to do a neat job.

What Agi didn't seem to understand, Tarlant thought, was that not everybody could stand the kind of pace Agi set.  Yes, two worlds were in the process of being destroyed. And yes, it was most likely their fault and their responsibility. But how would it help to make themselves miserable all the time?  That was Palza's mistake, in Tarlant's opinion.  He smothered himself in his guilt until it broke him, until he could no longer bear the burden any longer.

After Palza's departure, Tarlant had worried about Hasmodai going the same way.  Hasmodai had always been deeply emotional, and was never the adventurous type. Over the years Tarlant had watched his friend become more and more melancholy. The desperately depressing literature Hasmodai began to steep himself in more and more struck Tarlant as a bad sign, but Hasmodai actually seemed to find some sort of emotional strength in his gloomy readings.  Through him Tarlant had been introduced to the works of Faulkner, Zola, Hardy and Dostoevsky.

Tarlant hadn't wanted to be introduced.

"Hey," he called to Hasmodai. Gesturing at Agi, he said, "The cat's away.  How are you doing?  We probably have time for a quick dip in the ocean."

"I'm fine," Hasmodai said.  "I'm getting some really interesting readings right now. But if you want to take a break, go ahead."

Hasmodai did seem fine.  In fact, he appeared more light-hearted than Tarlant had seen him look since Greecia. He was back in his element—doing research.  This was the kind of adventure Hasmodai loved.  In a laboratory he could explore and discover and face challenges and bear responsibility. The years of running, hiding, searching and fighting had been horribly against his nature. Here, in a way, he was home again.

"Wonder!" Tarlant called.  The snoozing dog lurched to her feet and trotted after him as Tarlant ran down the sandy beach, pulling off his shirt.  It seemed a bit like cheating to loaf when Agi was asleep and couldn't protest, but Tarlant worked best when he could take a little time off for some fun and relaxation now and then.  

Eventually Tarlant saw Dumas exit one of the buildings.  He threw a stick of driftwood for Wonder to chase one last time and returned to the lab site, dressing on the way.  

"Been enjoying yourself?" Dumas asked pleasantly.  Dumas was even better than Agi at twisting the knife of guilt.  The difference was, Tarlant respected Agi. Dumas's disapproval didn't bother him much.

"I needed something to wake me up," Tarlant said. "Did you bring the cortical centers?"

Dumas slid a canvas pouch off his shoulder and handed it to Tarlant.  It was heavy.  Inside were two round black wheels similar to those which Tarlant had watched burn out in the robots.  He examined them with interest.

"What are they made of?  How do they work?" he asked.

"Some kind of carbon matrix. And I haven't the slightest idea."

Tarlant popped the burned-out cores, now cool, from Bubble and Squeak. The burning had left them warped and misshapen, the smooth grooves along the top twisted.  As soon as each new core was put in place, the robot hummed to life.  As the machines reactivated their backup memories, Tarlant put the newly painted carapaces in place.

Bubble and Squeak arose from the dead, and after an interested examination of each other's new color scheme, returned to adjusting Agi's sensor panel.

"That's really inefficient," said Tarlant.  "What if one of those burnt out in an emergency, or in the middle of carrying something heavy? Or somewhere you had no spare core?  How would you ever get the robot home?"

"Amazing.  You really are the robotics expert. Nobody else seems to have ever thought of that before.  You should send a message to the manufacturer."

Sometimes, lately, Dumas would have entire conversations where he did not say anything snide or sarcastic or accusing or hurtful or insulting.  This was apparently not one of those times. Tarlent snorted.  "Do you have a spare core I could study?  Maybe I if could figure out how it works, I can design one that lasts longer." Seeing the expression on Dumas's face, he hastily added, "It might speed up our work."

"Ian?  Hey, Big Brother!  You shouldn't be sleeping on the concrete like that."

Belle had come with Dumas.  Tarlant opened his mouth to tell the girl to let her brother sleep, but it was too late. Agi was already sitting up, rubbing his eyes, and groping for his missing chronometer.

"So, what sort of progress have you been making on your research?" Dumas asked.  He casually put an arm around Belle's shoulders as she came to stand beside him, looking up admiringly, with both arms around his waist.  

Tarlant saw a muscle twitch in her brother's face, but Agi simply said, "Hasmodai?  Dumas would like a progress report."

"Excellent! We've been collecting some really fascinating data!" Hasmodai reported. He went into a detailed and technical description that Agi and Soreto listened to with interest, but which left Tarlant just slightly fogged. Belle listened to a sentence or two with an obvious complete lack of comprehension or interest, then closed her eyes and concentrated on leaning her cheek against Dumas's shoulder.

Dumas was wearing sunglasses today, and his expression was unreadable. "Enough," he finally said with a sharp gesture.  "Summarize.  And use small words."

"Oh. Well, in short, the rate of Orsel packet proliferance and attrition in the—"

"SMALL words. And explain them."

Hasmodai looked confused.  He tried again, speaking slowly. "Well, to begin with, the Zones are alternate dimensions, parallel universes filled with Orsel energy—named after the scientist who first detected it-- rather than matter. This energy is concentrated in stable packets, or souls. Each world has its own corresponding Zone.  It seems that these souls do not actually leave their Zone when they inhabit a physical body, but project a part of their energy into the material universe.  Ordinarily, at least as far as our studies have determined, there is little change in the population of souls in the Zone. The Enma is a force that maintains the Zone's integrity by stabilizing or, if necessary, eliminating souls that have become unstable, either from forces in the zone, or from occurrences in the material world."

"Such as arrogant, overeducated fools sending souls off to the wrong world."

"Such as," Hasmodai admitted. "For some reason, the populations of the Zones of both Earth and Greecia are now in flux. Souls are vanishing from Greecia's zone at a disturbing rate.  The interesting thing is that new souls are also appearing in both zones."

"Both zones?" Dumas frowned. "Are you sure about that?"

"Oh, yes," Hasmodai said. "In fact, the rate of increase seems to be higher in Greecia's Zone than in Earth's. However, it doesn't approach the rate at which souls are being lost, and they are only vanishing from Greecia's Zone. The rate at which souls are appearing—either newly created or returning, we don't know--in both zones combined is roughly similar to the rate at which Greecia is losing souls. But there may be no real connection, since the patterns of gain are over a chaotic and apparently random spread of time, while the disappearing souls leave the zone in large bursts at regular intervals."

Dumas silently stared at Hasmodai through his dark glasses.

"Like popcorn," Tarlant offered. "It comes out of the bucket in big scoops, but the kernels pop one at a time."

"Exactly!" said Hasmodai.

Dumas turned the blank stare on him, and Tarlant remembered too late that Greecia did not have popcorn.

"Let's reduce this to essentials," said Dumas.  "Do you have any theory on what is causing this…popcorn effect? And how do you intend to stop it?"

"Er," said Hasmodai, looking to Agi and Soreto for help.

"We need to do more research," Agi said. "We've barely had time to start collecting data."

"And already, we've learned so much more about the Zones and how they—"

Dumas interrupted Soreto.  "One more week.  Then we do things my way."  

He turned and left, his arm still around Belle.  Agi glowered after him.

A week," he said in disgust.  "A week is nothing.  It could take us years to gather the data we need and find a solution. Does anyone have any ideas, theories, wild guesses?"

Nobody did.

"But, well, we are learning a lot more about the Zones, at least," Hasmodai said.

"I'm going to have to talk to Belle about Dumas," Agi growled.  "It's bad enough that I may be leaving again, I don't want her heart broken when Dumas goes, too.  He isn't worth the pain."

"I don't think you have to worry about Belle," Soreto said drily. Though Belle seemed to have little respect for or interest in anyone but Dumas and Agi, the loathing that brat felt for Soreto had been obvious and growing.  It seemed from her tone that Soreto's tolerance was wearing thin.

"Anyway, Belle's fourteen years old," Hasmodai said. "You can't control who someone falls in love with.  She's got a right to make her own choices."

"She's my SISTER!" Agi snarled. "It's my job to look after her. And to see she doesn't associate with undesirables. I CAN interfere, and I will."

Furiously, Agi punched a few buttons on the control board, stared at the monitor, squinted, rubbed his eyes, and stared again.

"All right," he sighed.  "I'm going in to catch up on my sleep.  Who's got my chrono?"

"Soreto," Agi said reproachfully when she handed the chronometer over. Tarlant watched with Soreto and Hasmodai as Agi walked back into the Institute, shoulders sagging in exhaustion and defeat.

"He's overtired and overreacting," Soreto said.  "It's obvious Belle is just feeling left out and looking for attention. Agi's attention.  You notice she's only all over Dumas that way when Big Brother's watching."

"I thought Annoying Girl was supposed to go home," Tarlant said.  "Doesn't she have school?"

"Dumas fixed it," Soreto said.  "Apparently he went to Sanceli Island and told Belle's mother she was being considered for a future scholarship as well, and would be joining our project."

Tarlant could imagine how much Agi had liked finding out that Dumas had been to his home, and had been alone with his mother.

"He seems to be going to a lot of trouble for Belle," Hasmodai said.

"It's just another way to torture Agi," said Soreto.  "Hasmodai, could you send your latest observations to the Institute network?  I want Mel to have a look at it all."  

She left as Hasmodai arranged the upload.  When he was done, Hasmodai pulled a voicelink from his pocket and plugged it into a socket on the control board, typing in a few quick lines of code and executing them.  From the voicelink came the soft buzzing sound of a distant phone ringing, then a click, and an indistinct female voice.

"Hello, Serena, it's Teo," Hasmodai said. "No, I'm fine. Listen, about Rogan, I really don't think he's—what? Promoted to section chief?  Well, that's…yes.  Yes.  Congratulate him for me. Um, no, it was nothing.  Listen, Serena…I may be even longer than I told you.  The project they're working on here is really fascinating.  In fact…in fact…I may be staying on permanently.  I know. Yes, it is, Thank you. Love you."

He punched a button. The link went silent, but Hasmodai remained leaning on the control board, his head hanging.  Then he noticed Tarlant's stare, and flushed.

"I didn't know you could do that," Tarlant said. "Call out, I mean."

"Oh…yes.  It's not that hard to adjust the wave transmitter to patch into a satellite," Hasmodai said.  "Would you like to call home, Tarlant?"  

Tarlant considered.  He had left his home at the age of five to search for the missing princess Tina.  Six years later, he had returned to find his room had been kept exactly as he had left it.

"Nah," he said.  "They know I'll be okay."



Kahale Baldwin frowned at the man on the other side of the desk.  "You must understand, Mr. Cooks, that this is a high-security facility. Sei Station is more than an Antarctic research site, it is the control center for the entire southern climate regulation system. Any attack or terrorist action here could compromise the security and safety of the entire planet.  Ordinarily, we require at least six months training and service before we would consider stationing new security personnel here, but…"

"But nobody wants to go to Antarctica," Cooks said.

And that was it in a nutshell.  Very few of the regular, reliable Brightwater security team were willing to stay on this manmade ice island for six months at a time, cut off by company policy from all outside communication.  Cooks had been hired only a week ago. Though he was older than the usual new hire, his background check was flawless, and he had a splendid service record in law enforcement. No family but an estranged ex-wife, no children, no connections: he was the perfect man for the job.

"Why did you retire early from the Department of Law Enforcement?" Baldwin asked.

"My last case went bad," Cooks said.  "I was on the track of a gang of runaway kids.  Six years I spent tracking them down, with the department breathing down my neck, and just when I am on the verge of nabbing them, what happens?  They wander home on their own, and I get no credit at all."

"Children can be unpredictable," Baldwin said with a tight-lipped smile.

"Yeah, so anyway, I got fed up and decided to go into business for myself, where I could pick and choose my cases. But it didn't really work out.  And since I didn't want to go back to the force, security work seemed the way to go."

Baldwin nodded. "Very well. Mr. Cooks, welcome to Brightwater and Sei Station.  Your duties will vary between making routine security flyovers of the regulator chain, and providing security for the station and its personnel, including," his smile twisted sourly, " the celebrated Weaver twins.  You are under the command of Captain Walfang at all times, and Doctor Mellert and myself may also give you orders.  If emergency assistance of any sort is required, you may render aid to the other station personnel. Apart from that, they have no authority over you.  Do not let them distract you from your duties, and do not interact with them unnecessarily.  Especially the twins. There is a lounge you may use in your off-duty hours, but there is no communication permitted with the outside world for security reasons.  Is that understood?"

"Absolutely."

Baldwin was pleased.  Most of their new hires were young men full of gripes and questions and 'But—"s.  Cooks would go far at Brightwater.

"Then I leave you to Captain Walfang," Baldwin said.  He rose and let Cooks out into the corridor where the security chief waited, and put on his parka to walk to the hangar.

Most of the rooms intended for personnel at Sei Station were small and claustrophobic, well insulated to retain heat.  Even though the entire station was heated and powered by the heat energy that the climate regulators pulled from air and sea, there were limits to how well their heaters could battle the Antarctic winds.  The hangar was too big to keep reliably heated.  Cold oozed constantly from the out-facing wall, the roll-down door sheathed with ice wherever the heating wires had not been installed, or were no longer functioning.  The enormous room was nearly vacant.  Castor Weaver, not even looking up to acknowledge Baldwin's entrance, was kneeling and concentrating intently, unwinding a roll of black electrical tape and sticking it to the floor.  Until he was closer, Baldwin didn't realize that he was marking out a complex circular pattern, similar to the ones he had been sketching out constantly for weeks now. Pollux sat on a crate nearby, his back to his brother, playing a hand-held video game.

Baldwin's jaw clenched in frustration.  If Doctor Mellert wasn't there, he'd order Castor to clean up the pointless mess he was making, and he'd put Pollux to some practical use.  Mellert didn't understand that children needed discipline above all. Many people shared her sentimental idea of children as fragile beings who needed to be pampered and coddled.  His former career had been destroyed by softhearted fools.  They had called his methods 'excessive' even 'abusive.' But Baldwin's own children were grown and successful—one a military officer, and the other the warden of the large prison on the Western Mainland—and Baldwin knew that the discipline with which he had raised them had done them nothing but good.

"Don't you have something more useful to do?" he couldn't resist saying as he walked past Pollux.

"No," the boy answered.

"Baldwin, come look at this," Doctor Mellert called.  On the shelf before her lay a flat, round object.  With another twinge of annoyance, Baldwin realized it was Castor's pattern again, concentric circles and a pentagram combined with a mandala, layers of patterns overlaying each other, lines intertwining like the web of a dreamcatcher, strange symbols rising from random points.  The child must have wasted days welding the wires together.

With a smile, Mellert held a light bulb above the wire pattern. It lit.  Baldwin gasped.  When Mellert pulled her hand away, the bulb remained hovering where it was.

"What is it?" Baldwin asked.  

"It's Castor's latest invention," she said.  "What have I always told you?  You need to give creative people complete freedom if you want their best results.  Castor's marking out a layout for a full-scale model.  It will make a much more exciting demonstration for the stockholders."

Baldwin continued to stare at the floating bulb.  "We're going to be rich," he said.

"Think bigger, Baldwin," said Mellert.  "Free, unlimited, clean energy for everybody. An end to greenhouse gases. No more nuclear waste. Quite possibly the cure for hunger and poverty.  We may be looking at the end of the world as we know it."

Baldwin looked at Castor Weaver for the first time without dislike.  On the other hand, Pollux still sat with his back turned, and the faint sounds of game music echoed through the hangar.

"I don't know why you bother keeping the other," Baldwin said. "Pollux hasn't invented so much as a whistle all the time he's been here.  I don't care what his test scores are."

"He does seem afraid of his own potential, unfortunately," said Mellert.  "But he's still indispensable. Pollux is the mirror to Castor's soul.  When Castor is miserable, Pollux looks sympathetic. When Castor is up to mischief, Pollux looks guilty.  When Castor is inventing something brilliant, poor Pollux has panic attacks. I wouldn't be able to read that boy at all without Pollux. Besides, Castor would completely go to pieces without his brother."

"I doubt that," said Baldwin.  "That boy is as hard and cold as anyone I've met."

"Diamonds are hard, but they shatter when you hit them with a hammer," said Mellert.  "You really don't understand children at all, do you, Baldwin? No wonder your last job was such a bad fit."

As Mellert walked away, her words triggered a realization in Baldwin's brain.  That was why he loathed Castor so much.  The constant, apparently pointless doodling, the way he behaved as if Baldwin barely existed, even the expression of his eyes—it reminded Baldwin of that other child, the one who had been largely responsible for ending his career with the Social Services department.

For the first time ever, Kahale Baldwin wondered if Helga's drawings had held any meaning.




They were wasting time.

A good deal of Dumas's anger had faded at seeing how hard Agi's team was working to solve the problem they had created. But he kept jabbing at them, the way you had to keep jabbing at a stubborn beast of burden, to keep it moving and on the right path.

Because they were scientists first, after all, and human beings second.  With the improved technology and monitoring equipment he had brought, they were in danger of getting caught up in the excitement of new discovery and knowledge, and forgetting they had a goal.  It wasn't their fault, they were born that way.  It was that scientific tunnel vision of theirs. Sit a child in a room full of toys and tell them to write an essay, and you simply had to stand over them to see that it got done.

But they were wasting time.  There was no mystery to investigate.  They had opened the Zones and sent ten souls out of Greecia.  The destruction of the bodies of Tina, Soran and Lord Seth had not been enough to upset the balance seriously, perhaps, but the loss of energy in Greecia's zone had certainly gone critical at the time the scientists' Greecian bodies had been destroyed, severing their tie with their home world.  Like beans on a delicately balanced board, take ten from one end and put it on the other, and all the beans on the board would slide after them. His only hope was that putting them back could still reverse the damage.

They were in denial, of course. They had enough on their consciences without accepting blame for the destruction of Greecia. Still, why were they so resistant to his plan? Not all of them could want to stay on this paltry planet with its primitives and squalor. They must know that the sooner their souls were returned to their own planet, the sooner the crisis would end.  Despite the difference in the passage of time between their planets, they must know that every hour that passed on Greecia might mean another extinction or death.

Was it the fear of death itself that kept them from returning? They had no reason to trust his claim that new bodies awaited them on Greecia.  He was the one who had destroyed the old ones...meaning that he, Dumas, had set the current catastrophe in motion and shared the guilt and the responsibility.  It had been done in the spirit of vengeance, and it had been a foolish and wasteful gesture, as heedless of consequence as the scientists' own abominations.  They also blamed him for the death of their colleague Hesma, which had been another waste.  However often Dumas told himself that it was Hesma's own desperate desire to return to Greecia that had doomed him, it was just that desire that would have been useful to Dumas now.  It would have given him an ally willing to take any risk to bring the lost souls home to Greecia.

In any case, they must be brought to see reason soon. Ten souls had departed via the Autozone, and ten must return. Agi, Soreto, Mel, Tarlant, Hasmodia, Seth and Tina were here.  Soran would be found.

Counting himself, that made nine.

"Damien?" Belle broke the silence with the name he had told her was his 'real' one. "What was all that stuff about dimensions and souls and enemas? They're not serious, are they? I mean, if they really knew where a parallel dimension of souls was, it would be huge. They wouldn't get a bunch of kids in to investigate it, would they?"

Dumas turned his most charming smile on the girl.  "It's all just a game, my dear.  Just a silly, stupid game. Tell me, have you ever been to the royal palace?  How would you like to meet my friend, the prince?"