Existence

“I’m also reading paper books,” he told the physician, who oversaw health and welfare in the Silverdome. Betsby’s gray-streaked, sandy hair had grown out during the last few months, along with a new beard and a faraway look in his eyes. Right now, the man’s core attention was focused on a handheld instrument scanning the blemished arm of an elderly woman from drowned Bangladesh. Slawek’s job was to hand over tools, but also keep wary for trouble. People from some cultures didn’t appreciate being poked at by authority figures, adding to the simmering tensions of a melting-pot refugee camp. Slawek was big, streetwise, and had trained in some defense arts. Yet, he still looked like enough of a kid to seem unthreatening, especially when he offered a deliberately goofy grin.

Right now that seemed especially wise. Several males-probably the old woman’s sons-watched protectively nearby. Slawek gave them his best happy face… and got back a grudging nod.

“Come to sick call tomorrow,” Betsby told the woman. “A female nurse will finish your examination. If you don’t come, your family will lose privileges. If you do, I’m sure we can whip up a gene-match and make this nasty crud go away. Do you understand?”

She tilted her head, listening to an old-fashioned translation-plug, then stood to take his hand, thanking the doctor in rapid Bengali. At this, her sons rose and also bowed. It was often like this during rounds. A cycle of tension and release that Slawek found more exhausting than any other duty.

Still, the doc trusts me. That’s worth plenty.

As they left, moving down aisle LL4, Dr. Betsby stopped to face Slawek.

“What books?”

“Sir?” Eye contact with the boss always discomfited.

“The paper books you just mentioned. Where did you get them?”

“Um… there’s a pretty good library in the old Owner’s Box above the fifty-yard line. Old Professor Miller asks us to bring any texts we find in reclam houses. I just hold on to some, to look over first.”

“And so? What are you reading, Slawek?”

“Well, sir… my history curriculum is covering the First American Civil War. Mostly, I walk a full-immersion spectour with a Shelby Foote golem-guide. It’s called Road to Apomatics.”

“That’s Appomattox. I know that one. You can really feel the minie balls whiz by your head at Shiloh. You’re supplementing that with a book?”

“Climate and History, by Professor David Greene. It’s dry, but kind of interesting. He claims the North won the Civil War because it got more immigrants from Europe. People used to think that happened ’cause of Southern slavery. But Greene says it’s on account of that farming was easier in places where snow fell on the ground each year.”

“Why is that, Slawek?” Betsby seemed to be only half listening as he exchanged salutations with several elders at the next shelter. The occupants pulled back their curtains, letting his scanners have full play across their cots and belongings. This family-from the Paraguayan Hot Zone-got special scrutiny and were asked for weekly blood samples. Toxoplasma gondii tended to reestablish itself, even after disinfection. Till they were certified clean, the rules forbade them from keeping cats.

“I think it had to do with how winter cold kind of zeroes everything out. Makes insects and grasses go dormant. So in spring, farmers could plow and fight the weeds and pests from an even start. Also, summers were pleasant, not muggy. All of that was worth some snow.”

Betsby grunted, briefly satisfied, and focused narrowly on his scan. Of course, Slawek would rather be discussing something else, right now-Betsby’s opinion of the Havana Artifact, with its creepy message of pessimism and gloom.

The aliens say nobody survives. Not species or cultures. Just individuals who manage to get copied into crystal chain letters and get fired across space. By Saint Karel, no wonder there have been riots!

The news seemed to strike hardest people with more education, or leisure time to ponder abstractions. Here in Off-Detroit, the dispossessed had nearer horizons-like their next meal. Still, he wondered. How would someone like me win a place aboard a space message bottle? Assuming humanity decides to build them?

Slawek leaned toward a theory-fast becoming consensus on some religion sites and wirlds-that the emissary entities were in fact demons, sent to demoralize mankind! They had the hallmarks. Bizarre physical traits, reminiscent of the Book of Revelation. A professed ignorance of, or indifference to God. And an inability to affect the physical world, except by influencing human minds and hands.

That feature especially struck Catholic theologians-even Father Pracharitkul, who explained it to Slawek just yesterday, at the little church in loge box 42.

“The issue was settled long ago during the Manichean Heresy.” Slawek had to b’goog it, while the Thai priest rambled on. “At the time, it was determined that Satan and his minions have no actual, creative power. They can do nothing physical. Their potency lay solely in the persuasive magic of lies.”

Even the Jesuits, long friendly to notions of extraterrestrial life, now leaned toward this explanation, though the Vatican still reserved judgment. Slawek, too, held back.

I bet Dr. Betsby can shed some light, when I get a chance to ask.

Inspection finished, the Paraguayans brought their drapery-screens back down. Pixelated cloth began shimmering to visually magnify their hovel into something more expansive-perhaps with vistas of the pampas back home, before it dried up and turned to sand.

Though the material also deadened sound waves in both directions, Slawek thought he heard the distinct meow of a feline. A simulation? Or one the family kept hidden? Among other parasitically-induced obsessions, some types of Toxoplasma gave infected people a weirdly desperate craving for kitties.

“All right,” Betsby said, hoisting his bag while Slawek toted heavier devices. “Then if winter was so useful to nineteenth century immigrants, why did a later mass migration of people move south, to the American sun belt, in the second half of the twentieth century, depopulating cities like Detroit?”

He’s doing an evaluation, Slawek realized. They don’t normally let kids my age join one of the outer communes, as an indie. What if I’m ordered to move back under the dome? Will I lose my shares?

“Um.” He blink-ordered a search based on Betsby’s question. Relevant blips crowded in from all sides, but… Betsby hadn’t asked him to remove the goggles… and surely that meant something.

Calm down. It’s not facts and stats he wants. Interpret.

“Well… air-conditioning made southern cities more bearable… and… and for a while jobs moved south, following cheap labor, before heading to the Far East, then Africa. First clothing an’ then cars and such, then computers, fones, fabs, services…”

“Okay, so then why did the migration turn around, sloshing back north again?”

“You mean, reasons other than the kudzu?… Or the flooded coast? Or when the Mississippi changed course, leaving river cities without a river? Or the breakup of Texas? Or the Big Soggy Decade? Or…”

Slawek might have continued listing more bad-luck reasons for the steady depopulation of the American Southeast-only right then he realized it might be unwise. The encampment that stood in front of them now was a tent-canopy wide enough to hold five families, stretching between two whole aisles of the Silverdome mezzanine and cantilevered over the balcony edge by a good five meters or so. The pixelcloth motif of a banner, with an X- shaped, starry cross, waved in a simulated breeze above the entrance.

Half a dozen men lounged along the platform’s forward edge, perched overlooking the old gridiron pitch. Several of them sat cross-legged and very still, wearing completely blank expressions, but the nearest pair-(Slawek sniffed that they were smoking barely legal cannaweed)-glared at the doctor and his assistant. They had specs on, so it would have been no problem to overhear Slawek’s most recent words.

He cursed himself for being inattentive of his surroundings. These redders were the toughest bunch under the dome.

While he smiled at them with his best friendly idiot grin, Slawek did a quick-scan, then subvocalized a message to Dr. Betsby. “Two men are on sick list. But three others”-he marked them-