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8 | Lucas
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8 | LucasWhen Kev and Lucas emerged from their suite, morning sky was visible between the perimeter cable strands to their right. Kev skirted the room and looked out one of the windows, resting his hands carefully on the tough, almost frictionless transparent membrane. Fluffy cumulus floated slightly below them, a vast field of gigantic sheep. Far below, the Mediterranean gleamed sapphire, the horizon hidden in the haze. He was too far up to see the base of the tower. Suddenly, he felt extremely small and out of his depth, an ant lost in the works of a great clock. His nineteen years had been spent in a rather rural environment. Kibbutz Jeshua was thoroughly connected to the rest of the world through the comp, but the problems they wrestled with every day were rather rustic in nature: whether the crops were tended properly, whether the cattle were fed on time. Major engineering was an earthen dam on the branch. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against the cool transparency until the feeling of panic passed, reminding himself that the Nobles themselves promised to undo what he had done to Gull.
Voices came to him from beyond the fig trees shading the fireplace. Crossing the ruggrass, Kev found that Lucas had found their host.
A platform of what looked like marble rose from the grass. Chavvah stood in the center of a ring of counters festooned with complicated instruments and containers. Jehu was seated on the opposite side, and Lucas stood against the near side of the counters. Gull's pod hovered at one end, putting his head at everyone's eye level. Kev made sure an optimistic smile was firmly in place as he approached.
"Hey, Gull," Under the redness of the beta burns, Gull's color was poor. He coughed, a deep rumbling, and managed a weak smile.
"I'm hanging in there. Chavvah says that she'll begin treatment this morning."
"Isn't that what she's doing now?" He looked around in confusion as everyone, including Gull broke out in laughter. The Noble stooped down, opened a panel and produced a pan. The smell of hot bread and cinnamon arose.
"What I'm doing now, is breakfast. We enjoy the simple pleasures still; praise to the One!"
"Praise to the One!" They all echoed the simple grace. She smiled and carried the rolls to where grapes and oranges were laid out. Kev sheepishly took his place beside Lucas. Gull tried to keep up his end of the conversation, telling Chavvah and Jehu about life in the colonies, and what he remembered of his accident. The Lady did not volunteer stories of her past as Jehu did, but listened intently, until the meal was done. Rising, she commanded their attention.
"Children, it is time we began Gull's treatment." Chavvah looked if anything, younger than Lucas, but radiated such assurance that it seemed only natural for her to use the term 'children'. "Lucas, you may accompany us. Kevin, it would be best that you remain here. Your work will begin when Gull returns."
"I will see that our guest is not bored," Jehu volunteered.
"Very well. Gull, if you are ready. Florence, follow!"
Lucas tucked his data slate under one arm and walked beside Gull down an arched corridor. It curved back and forth on itself, the glowing walls hung with scores of tapestries similar to the one he had seen on the loom in the main room. Their recursive designs, interweaving and endlessly varied within a narrow pallet reminded him of old Gaelic motifs from books out of Before, when the British Isles still stood above the waves of the North Atlantic. Possibly with a touch of a fractal computer-generated design. He was opening his mouth to ask a question when the corridor belled out into a vast room, seemingly a lush valley in a temperate forest ecosystem. The illusion was convincing; the mouth of the corridor resembled a cave, the roof sloping sharply away above. Chavvah continued out into the space, her robe brushing small saplings and grasses bordering a narrow path that turned right and ran parallel to the wall, uphill. She crossed the path and halted at the edge of a void. Lucas approached cautiously, his questions forgotten. A light source came into view, bright enough to make his eyes water, hanging unsupported a little below them at the center of a huge well. The true shape of the chamber manifested itself and Lucas froze in awe. The surface that they walked wound both upwards and down along a huge shaft like the threads of an immense screw. The far walls, greyed with a mist of water vapor, seemed more distant than they were. Great trees sometimes grew past one or more levels, their branches flowing along the underside of the next level. From where he stood, he could see several climactic zones, a stand of pines and poplars growing above them, dense rainforest several levels below. The bottom of the shaft was dim, the lower levels in shadow.
"The Arboretum is not precisely forbidden to mortals." Chavvah's voice blended with the songs of birds flitting from level to level. A thread of waterfall spooled its way from an upper tier, stray drops beading the polished silver of the medical pod. "But we do not make it easily accessible, nor widely publicise its existence."
"I don't blame you," breathed Gull. He had thought that his sense of wonder had reached its limit. "My lips are sealed."
"Many species of plants are grown here which have disappeared from earth in the last... oh, several thousand years. The genetic records are stored in the City, where there are gardens even larger than this one."
"This one is frighteningly impressive," marveled Lucas. He shook his head, counting the spiral tiers and trying to estimate the kilometers of path that ran unbroken from top to bottom. "But you did not bring us here to sightsee, Lady."
"True," she agreed. She gestured, and a rod of bronze colored metal appeared in her hand, presumably from the same place that Jehu had once produced his sword. She touched the rod to the medical pod's control section. "Our destination is at the top of the Arboretum. It would take too long to walk, but I know a short cut. Set your hand on the medical pod, Lucas. Do you know the story of the Apostle Peter on the Sea?"
Lucas did so. "Yes, I believe I know it- oh, my soul!" he exclaimed, as he felt the a-grav field of the pod extend to encompass his body. He grabbed for a secure handhold. They rose from the grass, drifted out over the shaft and began to rise, accelerating until the wind of their passage fluttered their clothing like flags.
"Fear not, Lucas," laughed Chavvah. "This is not a test of your faith."
Gull grinned as once again Lucas' eyes were tightly shut. The foliage changed with each tier they passed. Some were well watered with waterfalls, small streams, even miniature ponds collected in terraced areas along the spiral. Other sections seemed to be without any water, and Gull felt a bone-dry breeze play from vents as they passed. Distance-shrunken figures were visible through the foliage, walking along or working at various tasks, alternately revealed and hidden by their ascent. Looking up, he saw a dome capping the top of the shaft, and an extension of the spiral ledges projected out over the drop like a real-life set piece from an old Roadrunner cartoon. They rose beside this tongue of land, supporting some sort of machinery at its tip that evidently ran the light source, now below them. The area at the top of the shaft was planted in a variety of tree that was unfamiliar to either of the two mortals. Row after row of graceful, silver-barked trunks supported crowns of fleshy arrow shaped leaves that were such a clear and intense ggreen that they seemed to glow with their own light.
"These are the Trees of Healing," explained Chavvah as they gently came to rest at the edge. Lucas lost no time in moving away from the lip. "We are at the top of what you might call the residential section of the Tower. You can see the cable arrays through the dome if you look closely. Our destination is there." She pointed through the trees which marched into the distance in orderly ranks. Far down one aisle they saw a flash of white stone.
They reached a building that resembled a ruined greek temple, with graceful pillars delineating a recangular volume of roofless space. Within, a fan of comfortable seats overlooked a sunken area of the floor holding what Lucas recognised as medical equipment: monitors, imaging arrays and a larger version of Gull's medical pod. Along one side of the of the area were tanks holding a variety of liquids, varying in color and clarity. On the other side of the stage, several figures sat before deceptively simple comp stations. Images and symbols flew across their screens almost faster than Lucas' eyes could register them. Chavvah went over to them and spoke briefly. Gull was struck by their expressions, almost alien in their remoteness and repose. When they saw the Lady, huge, almost childlike smiles transfigured them.
Lucas spoke quietly to Gull. "I believe those are what they call Innocents. Supposedly they died as infants or younger; resurrectred as adults, they have no earthly socialization. Their only culture is that of the City, whatever that is."
Gull nodded, suddenly concious of his colonial upbringing, and the wideness of the world, things in the universe that he knew nothing about. Chavvah returned, led them over to a smaller grouping of furniture in a corner of the structure that gave a comforting sense of intimacy.
"Let us speak again of your treatment, Gull. You may refuse it, even now. Medicine might prolong your life for a much as several months. Most of them would be relatively comfortable. What we propose is to use massive doses of the Tree of Healing both internally and externally."
"Lucas broke in. "Isn't that dangerous? I've heard in theory of what might happen in an overdose situation."
"That is why the Nobles alone are entrusted with the Tree," agreed Chavvah. "Too high a concentration of the benevirus carried by the leaves could overwhelm a mortal's DNA, causing it to disassociate. Without a strong spiritual awareness to guide the rebuilding, the consequences would be unpleasant. Gull's treatment requires someone who knows what his genomes should look like, and can control the nanosystem's action."
Lucas felt a prickle at the back of his neck. Chavvah sat before them, legs crossed beneath the flowing garment she wore, seated on a low couch. As Tiglath had made him think of a marble statue, she seemed modeled in terra cotta, though no less imposing. Her hands were strong, long-fingered.
"Lady, those hangings, back in the access corridor... are they-"
"Genetic code analogues, yes. Models of organism's DNA. It helps me visualize the sequencing and the alells' relationships. Before you ask, let me say that you don't have the referents to allow me to explain how we do this. The various devices on the stage below are there for recording and other such purposes, but we heal living things with the mind and spirit, and the power of the One alone."
She turned back to Gull. "The process is difficult, but not dangerous. I have done it before, at the time of the Rescue, and occasionally since. You must trust me, and not struggle. Afterward you will be as one newly born, and must remaster the connections between mind and body, though your biological age will remain the same. Take as long as you like to decide."
Gull closed his eyes, feeling the deep-bone fatigue that gripped him even through the endorphins supplied by the Florence unit. He guessed that by now she was taking over some of the functions of his major organs. He imagined shredded RNA skipping like an old computer program, cells dying as they forgot to metabolize sugars, or pass toxins through membranes.
"No point in waiting, is there?" He opened his eyes, met hers steadily as she opened herself to him. Her face was soft and comforting, though somehow as precisely herself as if it had been faceted from diamond. Gull somehow realised that she was old- older than Jehu, and that over the years she had chosen the appearance that she now wore, and knew it down to the interface between herself and the air. Such control and assurance shone in her eyes that the last of his reluctance evaporated.
"None," she said. They followed her down to the stage area. Lucas assisted, attaching certain electrodes to Gull with elastic belts, and positioning small cameras to the satisfaction of the Nobles at the consoles above them. The Florence unit docked in a socket at the side of the larger pod. Chavvah passed her hands over the control panel, and the large unit shifted its internal dimensions and began to fill with a pale green liquid.
Gull's heart beat fast, though from fear or excitement he could not decide. Chavvah herself climbed into the tank, the emerald liquid quickly soaking the caftan and plastering her braid to her back. Lucas freed the IV lines, switching them to the main pod's supply. Careful to keep him within the bubble of the A-grav field, Chavvah lifted Gull out of the pod. Even under her gentle touch, skin tore and bled. Lucas removed the brief gown he wore, and Chavvah drew Gull down into the tank with her. As the liquid covered his skin, he felt a warmth, mounting to a burning sensation that soaked swiftly deeper. He began to pant, and Chavvah placed a hand under his chin and drew his face toward hers.
"Remember, Gull, do not struggle. Sleep, child, sleep."
The words were in the Noble's tongue. Lucas, even though he was standing a distance away, felt his eyes grow heavy, as though the sounds had called sleep to fill the room like a fog. Shaking his head, he struggled to remain alert. He saw Gull relax into her arms, and then she pulled him without a struggle beneath the surface of the liquid.
He must have gasped. "Do not be concerned, Lucas. The liquid is life itself." Her eyes began to go distant. "It begins. I must concentrate now. I will not speak again until he is whole. Pray the One to overwatch me."
Her head bent until it almost touched the surface and became entirely still. Lucas settled himself to watch. It was hard to be sure, but Lucas thought he saw a change begin. The burns lightened, and currents in the fluid that billowed Chavvah's gown began to carry strands of his hair away, dissolving before they reached the surface. Gull became blurry, a cloud seeming to hang over the surface of his skin. Within the cloud his flesh began to shift. It was disquieting to watch. After a while, Lucas got up and walked around the installation. The Nobles monitoring the comp ignored him, rapt in their concentration of the hurtling images. The translucent dome gave him only a vague idea of the sun's position. He walked out into the plantings of the Tree and breathed in the elusive fragrance. He fingered a down drooping branch with its load of life-giving leaves.
The scent and feel of the leaves brought back past celebrations of the Great Feast. His first had been in Jerusalem, standing at the front of the community center with that year's latest crop of young adults. Their parents were seated proudly behind. Lucas had already settled on his career as a medic, and begun his studies. Kneeling before the Nobles officiating at the ceremony, a male and female impressive in their white robes, holding the golden caskets of leaves. Condensation dewed the containers' surfaces from the supercoolers, and fog billowed when they were opened, pouring over the surface of the stage. Lucas' newly broadened shoulders stretched at his jacket, his cheeks itched with a young beard. He had repeated the Kingdom oath, pledged obedience to the Children of the Firstborn. When he reached into the offered container for one of the leaves, the cold burned his fingertips. The leaf warmed quickly in his hands, broke sweet and crisp under his teeth. His studies hadn't prepared him for the euphoria. His finger healed before his eyes, the dead skin flaking away within minutes. Since that time, the years made little impression on him, but he had never forgotten his first encounter with the Tree. He wondered if Gull would remember his.
Lucas looked around; he must have been lost in thought for a while. He checked his wrist comp for the time. He had strolled until the building was nearly lost behind him, and the trees seemed to stretch forever in every direction. The silence was complete. The trunks were almost completely uniform, their branches well pruned. No dead limbs littered the carpet of moss that absorbed his footfalls, no suckers sprung from the roots. He turned to retrace his steps and his eyes fell on one branch of one tree. A pale, tender shoot, no longer than his thumb had pushed from under the bark, soon to be noticed and removed. He put his hands in his pockets, felt a small specimen vial; he must have put it in there while packing. Without concious thought, he reached out and plucked the tiny branchlet, stoppered it securely within the vial and returned it to his pocket in a single motion. As he walked back to the structure, he imagined he could feel it glowing, like a miniature sun against his thigh.
He paused, leaned against one of the pillars at the perimeter. It was cool and smooth, carved with subtle texture that echoes that of the Trees of Healing. Looking up, he saw the swell of the mature trunk, flaring at the top into carved branches that met in regular yet varied arches. In the controlled environment of the dome, a roof was superfluous. Yet the Nobles who built this titanic structure were still human enough to desire borders and walls. Were they human enough to be evaded? Lucas had no plan, had not come with larcenous intent. Perhaps that very lack would carry it off. He took a moment to focus his thoughts on Gull, pushing the awareness of what he carried to the back of his mind.
Something was different as he made his way back down the ramp. Chavvah still cradled Gull in the tank, frozen in her trance of molecular awareness. The emerald liquid in the tank had been replaced by a clear one; the cloudiness was gone from around his form, and Lucas looked closely. Gull had been one of his first deliveries when he had come to kibbutz Jeshua, and he had watched the boy grow up. The boy in the tank was certainly Gull, with the same bone structure, the same upturned nose, the same jaw line. He seemed a little taller, though even thinner than he had been. There was a downy fuzz on his head, and the skin was smooth and pink as a baby's. The scar on his leg from the accident in the south fields was gone, and the bottoms of his feet were without the calluses and confined shape imposed by shoes.
So intent was Lucas on the boy that he started when Chavvah drew a deep breath and sat back. The motion swirled the crystal liquid in the tank, more viscous than water, but Gull remained asleep below the surface. She looked down and a smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were still distant, a portion of her awareness remaining elsewhere.
"He is out of danger, Lucas. I am, as you would say, tying up loose ends. Perhaps half an hour's work, and then we shall reintroduce him to the air. I hope you were not bored during your wait. I am afraid that there was little for you to see.
Lucas kept himself from putting his hands in his pockets. "It was most... edifying, nonetheless, Lady. I have so many questions, now that I have seen this place and what you have done."
Chavvah seemed too distracted to notice his discomfort. "You may ask your questions; it will not interfere with my task."
"Gull is not now the same as he was before the accident, is he. There's no longer a one to one correspondence in his cells?"
"A perceptive question... The changes in his height and body mass are a result of his regrowth in a weightless environment. I have of course, forced the retention of calcium in the bone structure. But that is merely superficial rearrangements of tissue. What I had to do is to dismantle his body and rebuild it around undamaged nuclei. The major structure is retained, but retinal patterns and fingerprints have taken new configurations."
"What about his brain structure- what about his memory?"
"Memory is holographic, a function of the spirit. The last millenia's experiments with electrodes calling up vivid memories, even to smells and visions hinted that the brain is just a switchboard between mind and soul. Of course, their mindset didn't let them acknowlege the supra-material. The Florence unit has the capability to induce microcurrents with an accuracy of two neurons. In a relatively short time new connections will be established."
"And his motor functions?"
"The pod will set up the linkages, but it will be up to you and Kevin to reinforce them."
"So we're talking about good old fashioned physical rehab, are we?"
"Positively ancient. But progress will be rapid."
"I'm sure it will, be Lady." Lucas bowed. "This building... is it a clinic, a temple or what?"
Chavvah shook her head. "A studio. This place," she motioned with her chin, since her hands were full, and indicated the whole of the Arboretum, "is mine to care for. All of these plants, save the Trees of Healing, were brought to me by my children, after the Rescue. When we were done, for a time, healing the hurts of men, it pleased me to restore a bit of the earth, to keep my hand in."
Lucas gazed down at Gull. "You certainly have not lost your touch, Lady."
Chavvah gently released the boy, to float unsupported in the liquid, connected by the IV cuff to the machinery of the tank. She stood, the liquid, an immense long-chain molecule, ran quickly from her hair and clothing in an unbroken stream. Within seconds, she was dry. She drew Gull from the tank, the substance also draining completely from his body, and returned him to the to the field of the smaller pod. Lucas watched as a nest of spidery arms slid from behind the headrest and arranged themselves over his scalp, and the sides of the pod clamshelled over his torso. His face, blank as a sleeping infant's, began to twitch and move as the AI began to chart the architecture inside his skull. One appendage, holding a breathing mask, was poised to intervene, but Gull made the change back to breathing air smoothly.
Chavvah stroked Gull's cheek. "We shall let him sleep; his perceptions would be scrambled and distressing, were he to awake now." She turned, and bowed to the Nobles at the monitoring consoles. Their task at an end, they passed through the arches and disappeared into the plantation. Shortly thereafter, Chavvah led Lucas and the reconfigured medical pod with its sleeping form back through the silver-barked forest. They paused at the land's edge, Lucas looking over the low wall at its perimeter in apprehension.
"Isn't there another way down?" he pleaded.
The Noble smiled. "It is the most direct way, friend Lucas."
"I know, sighed the medic. "I just seem to be doing a lot of flying this trip, and I prefer to keep my feet on the ground."
They descended more sedately, and by the time they reached their original tier the light from the dome above was dwindling, and the artificial sun was almost at its recieving tube in the floor of the shaft. From the viewpoint of the corridor mouth, dusk had fallen over the forest, a rosy sunset glow reflecting from the undersides of the opposite levels.