Halo
Tom Maddox
From the author:
You may read these files, copy them, and distribute them in any
way you wish so long as you do not change them in any way or
receive money for them.
I have entered HALO into the distribution networks of the Net, but
I retain the copyright to the novel.
If you paid for these files, you were cheated; if you sold them,
you have cheated.
Otherwise, have fun and spread the book around.
If you have any comments on the book or this distribution, you can
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November, 1994
HALO
Tom Maddox
To the memory of George Maddox, my father; Paul Cohen,
my friend; and all our lamented dead, lost in time.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Here are some of the people I owe in the writing of this
book.
My wife Janis and son Tom. They have had to put up with the
problems of a novelist in the houseincluding arbitrary mood
swings and chronic unavailability for many of the usual pleasures
of life. To both, my love and gratitude for their love, patience,
and understanding.
My best friends: Leo Daugherty, Jeffrey Frohner, Bill Gibson
and Lee Graham.
My mother Jewell, my brother Bill and sister Janet.
Ellen Datlow: she published my first stories in Omni and
showed me how a really good editor works. Also, two friends who
patiently read through drafts of those stories before Ellen got
them: Geoff Hicks and Larry Reed.
The readers of various incarnations of this book: Beth
Meacham, my editor at Tor Books; Merilee Heifetz, my agent; Bruce
and Nancy Sterling, great readers; Melinda Howard and Gary
Worthington; Lynne Farr; Carol Poole. Also, the members of the
Evergreen Writers' Workshop, especially Pat Murphy.
The Usenet community, friend and foe, for ideas about a quite
astonishing number of things, and for the continuing fascination
of life online; with special thanks to Patricia O'Tuana and the
members of 'eniac.'
The usual suspects at the Conference on the Fantastic, with a
special nod to Brian Aldiss, because we'd all be happier if there
were more like him running around.
At The Evergreen State College, many people who gave
technical advice. (Perhaps needless to say, any consequent
blunders are entirely mine.) Mike Beug and Paul Stamets, world-
class mycologists and explainers, talked to me about mushrooms and
provided invaluable references. Mark Papworth applied a coroner's
eye to a carcass I made. The faculty and students of the Habitats
Coordinated Studies Program, 1988-89 helped me to think about a
space habitat's ecosystem.
A list, much too long to include here, of friends, both
colleagues and students, at Evergreenthough I have to mention
Barbara Smith and David Paulsen, whose cabin and cat make cameo
appearances.
And all I've known who can find a piece of themselves in this
book.
PART I. of V
Everything is destined to reappear as simulation.
Jean Baudrillard, America
1. Burning, Burning
On a rainy morning in Seattle, Gonzales was ready for the
egg. A week ago he had returned from Myanmar, the country once
known as Burma, and now, after two days of drugs and fasting, he
was prepared: he had become an alien, at home in a distant
landscape.
His brain was filled with blossoms of fire, their spread
white flesh torched to yellow, the center of a burning world. On
the dark stained oak door, angel wings danced in blue flame, their
faces beatific in the cold fire. Staring at the animated carved
figures, Gonzales thought, the fire is in my eyes, in my brain.
He pushed down the s-curved brass handle and stepped through
to the hallway, his split-toed shoes of soft cotton and rope
scuffing without noise across floors of bleached oak. Through the
open door at the hallway's end, morning's light through stained
glass made abstract patterns of crimson and buttery yellow.
Inside the room, a blue monitor console stood against the far
wall, SenTrax corporate sunburst glowing on its face; in the
center of the room was the egg, split hemispheres of chromed
steel, cracked and waiting. One half-egg was filled with beige
tubes and snakes of optic cable, the other half with hard dark
plastic lying slack against the shell.
Gonzales rubbed his hands across his eyes, then pulled his
hair back into a long hank and slipped a circle of elastic over
