His yellow oilskins shone in contrast against the dark greens of his boat and the surrounding water as he made for the mouth of his harbor and the open sea beyond.
“Yet fish there be, that neither hook, nor line, nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine.”
—John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
Robert Reed is the author of nearly three hundred published stories and novels. His most successful properties are wrapped around a giant star ship dubbed the Great Ship, and its mysterious cargo—an entire world named Marrow. “The Speed of Belief” is set in that universe, as is his next novel, The Dragons of Marrow. A short movie has been made from Reed’s novella “Truth.” Called Prisoner X, it is available for purchase from all the usual streaming venues. Reed lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
THE SPEED OF BELIEF
Robert Reed
1.
Water dreamed of flowing downhill, and despite their bluster and brains, humans were nothing but fancy water.
That robust, endlessly useful lesson came early. Rococo was growing up on a colony world undergoing the final stages of terraforming. Man-brewed storms were transforming the barren highlands, and knowing where the new rivers would rise, the boy would find high ridges where he could watch the churning, muck-infused flows. Majestic violence was a reliable pleasure, and he adored the painful rich stink of alien rock being torn apart. But most of all, Rococo loved his own wild panic, and standing where everybody could see him, he couldn’t help but dance along with the trembling world.
Strangers warned the boy to be smart and step back. Friends knew that he was quite smart, and so they begged him to be more careful, please. But Rococo’s parents didn’t trust his brains or his common sense, and that’s why they simply banned their son from wandering the wastelands alone. But of course rules were nothing but treaties, and every treaty was just words wrapped around flaws. A charming lad could always convince some old fool to go with him, and then through one clever trick or another, he would slip away to do just what he wanted.
Then one day a mountainside collapsed. Rococo was prancing joyously, and then with no warning, rock and flood swallowed him. Rancid salty mud killed the body in every little way. Oxygen metabolisms shut down. His bioceramic brain retreated inside itself. Limbs were torn off, his chest was gored, and the shattered head was finally buried under a young river delta. Blind and helpless, that remarkable mind had little choice but to consider its own nature. And that’s when Rococo began to appreciate how he was being carried through life by some very simple urges. Curiosity, for instance. That was a drug forcing him to find out what would happen next. He also had an instinctive love for mayhem, his senses coming alive only when the world turned wild. And there was always satisfaction in doing what nobody else would try, which was evidence that smug pride was the most useless, marvelous force in the Universe.
Modern humans had engineered minds wrapped inside ageless, nearly immortal flesh. But their flesh was still mostly water. Water was a sanctuary for the ancient emotions. Love and lust, status and revenge. Those were the simple dictates in every person’s actions. Furthermore, emotion had a pathological need to string the Universe into a personal narrative. Every person lived within a story. That tale was adaptable and selfish, and it worked best if it served the soul’s needs. No matter how small, every journey demanded purpose. Just rising from the chair and crossing the room involved planning and a successful arrival. But where the average person was happy with small successes, Rococo wanted more. That’s what he decided sixty thousand years ago. Robots and family dogs were yanking his corpse out of the river mud, and his parents were weeping over and screaming at the mummified face, and AI doctors preparing to heal him completely. But the boy inside witnessed none of that drama. He was a calm soul reveling in his mighty ambitions, an epiphany born inside a temporary grave. And now he understood that he would risk anything for just the thin chance of being part of history.
“People don’t dream,” Rococo began, as a joke and not as a joke. He felt as if he believed every word, declaring, “It’s our water that dreams, and that’s what makes us simple. Solvents are uncomplicated and transparent. Water or liquid methane, sulfuric acid or supercritical carbon dioxide. Every species is compelled by the fantasies of its broth.”
Pausing, he tried to gauge his audience’s reaction.
Silent indifference held sway.
“And nobody is better suited than me when it comes to deciphering what an organism believes,” he continued. “Knowing the beast across the table: That’s what makes the premier diplomat. Which isn’t my only skill, no. But it’s a talent, and I’m not an animal that keeps quiet about his talents. Particularly when I’m walking beside the Ship’s most famous exobiologist.”
These were old boasts, but Rococo had never made them sound so ludicrously grand. He wanted to push the issue this morning. Eight days after their vault landed in the high country, and seven days into a desperate march across this lovely, half-dead wilderness, he was hungry for energy. Rococo wanted to kindle scorn or mocking laughter and maybe an exchange of insults. Big emotions would give everyone enough fire to keep them distracted. The question was: How would Mere react to his inspired nonsense about dreams?
Two more steps, and then the tiny woman stopped walking. Staring at the horizon, not at him, she said nothing. A native bug landed on her head and then flew away again, and she said nothing. They had a destination and a timetable, but it was more important to make everyone wait. Then, as if addressing the horizon, she said, “Water doesn’t dream, and only an idiot would think so.”
Diplomats could smile on command—either a human grin or some disarming,
