“Cloistered in some library on Stromness. Exactly.”
Ark Darwin was still riding at anchor outside the cove, and its fuselage was still flooded. This made it a perfect setting for what was happening now: a diplomatic conference between the Pingers and a delegation of important Blue officials who had been pod-dropped, straight from Greenwich, a few hours after the conclusion of the battle above the beach.
Einstein, Sonar Taxlaw, and all the other Blues had evacuated the cove and gone aboard the ark. Beled had been the last to depart; before climbing into the waiting boat, he had freed the captured Neoander and left him enough provisions to keep him in good stead until he could be rescued by his own people. And his own people had shown up in force a few hours later. But according to the deal they themselves had struck with the Diggers, their claim was to the land surface only. And Ark Darwin wasn’t on the land. So, a growing Red military encampment was spreading around the shore of the cove, facing their Blue counterparts across a few hundred meters of salt water.
The ark’s flooded hull was chilly, and obliged the Blue diplomats to dress warmly. Ty, Deep, and Arjun were in a dry space higher up and farther forward, a sort of half-exposed mezzanine where folding tables and chairs had been set up to act as a mess hall for the growing complement of Blue personnel — as well as any Pingers who felt like wading up the ramp. They were eating hot soup and quaffing a funky but quite palatable cider from the northern slope of Antimer.
“Now,” said Arjun — enjoying, as only an Ivyn could, the opportunity to wax professorial—“what you must be wondering about these people is—”
“How the hell they survived. With only one submarine.”
Arjun nodded. “It turns out that if you look at the work of those scholars I mentioned — the most recent of whom died two centuries ago — there are clues.”
“But if the selfies were taken before the Hard Rain even began,” Ty protested, “how could there be clues as to what happened after?”
“I mean clues that Cal went out of his way to plant in the background of the photos. Clues intended for Ivy’s eyes only. Hints that he had more of a chance than one might imagine.”
“Go on.” Ty sat back and reached for his cup of cider.
“We know all about the Cloud Ark program, because it’s where we came from. It is our history. We have all of the records in our archives. Well, what Cal was hinting at, with these photos, is that there was another program, perhaps as large, that we never heard about.”
“A program to keep people alive under the sea?” Ty asked.
“Exactly. There are, in the background of these photos, detailed bathymetric charts of some of the deepest undersea canyons in the world’s oceans. There are documents — binders on a shelf — whose titles suggest that they are about such preparations. Other clues as well — it’s all public research, I’ll send you the information if you want it.”
“Okay,” Ty said, just to be cordial. He knew that he would never read those research papers. “But the bottom line is that Deep’s people”—he nodded at their tablemate—“didn’t survive just because Cal got lucky.”
“They have an Epic of their own that, for all we know, might compare to ours,” Arjun said.
Sonar and Einstein had been making their way down the food service line and now approached, eyeing the two vacant seats at the table. Arjun took this as his cue to excuse himself. Deep said goodbye to him with a courteous bob of the head. Within moments Ty and his Pinger friend had been joined by the young Ivyn and the Cyc. For a minute or two, the new arrivals did nothing but eat ravenously, the only conversation being Sonar asking the names and origins of the various foods — all new to her — on her tray. Ty handled those inquiries so that Einstein could be left free to stuff his face. After a while this became a source of amusement even to Sonar Taxlaw, who just watched the boy eat, and transferred some of her food to his tray when he began to run low.
“Sometime, you’ll have to tell me what it’s like,” Ty remarked.
“What—” Einstein began, before food got in the way.
“—what’s like?” Sonar said, completing his sentence.
“Finding someone so completely. The way you two did.”
“That’s never happened to you?” Einstein asked. He wasn’t being rude. It had simply never occurred to him that he could have had experiences of which Tyuratam Lake knew nothing.
“No. It’s never happened to me.”
Einstein had begun to approach the point of satiation. He sat back in his chair and cast his gaze over the wreckage of his lunch, looking for any morsels that deserved more attention.
“I have a question for you,” he said.
“Fancy that,” Ty returned.
“What’s the Purpose? People keep mentioning it.”
“I wish I knew.”
“Very funny, but you know what I’m talking about. Roskos Yur mentioned it. Cantabrigia Five mentioned it. Purpose with a capital P.”
“My answer remains the same,” Ty said. “No one has ever told me. I have to make guesses, based on what I see from people who act like they know what it is.”
“People like the owners of your bar?”
“Evidently.”
“And what is your guess?”
Sensing another pair of eyes on him, Ty glanced over toward Deep, who was chewing vigorously, trying to reduce a stubborn wad of seaweed to submission. But he seemed to be following the conversation.
Ty shrugged. “Humans have always—”
He was about to say deluded themselves but didn’t want to make a poor impression on Deep.
“—preferred to believe that there was a purpose to the universe. Until the moon blew up, they had theories. After Zero, the theories all seemed kind of stupid. Fairy tales for coddled children. No one thought about the big picture for a few thousand years. We were all scrambling to survive. Like ants when their nest has been destroyed. On those rare occasions when we thought about the big picture, it wasn’t really that big — Red versus Blue or what have you. There was surprisingly little thinking about the Agent. Where it came from. Whether it was natural or artificial, or even divine.”
Einstein, the Cyc, and Deep were all nodding as if to say Go on, go on!
But he had nothing to go on with.
“Some people — some Red, some Blue, and some ambiguous folks like the Owners of my bar — maybe even some of those kind of people”—he nodded at Deep—“seem to think they know something.”
“Do they?” asked Sonar Taxlaw.
“I have no idea,” said Ty. “But from what I’ve seen, they’re not stupid. Even if they are—”
He paused, groping for words.
“Even if they are,” Einstein repeated, “what?!”
“It’s a way — the Purpose is a way — of saying there’s something bigger than this crap we’ve spent the last week of our lives dealing with.”
“Red versus Blue crap?”
“Yes. And even though no one is sharing anything with me—yet—I like the feeling of that. People who claim they are motivated by the Purpose end up behaving differently — and generally better — than people who serve other masters.”
“So it is like believing in God.”
“Maybe yes. But without the theology, the scripture, the pigheaded certainty.”
Einstein and the Cyc nodded and looked thoughtful. But also, or so it seemed to Ty, a little let down.
“Sorry I didn’t have an answer to your question,” Ty said.
“What are you going to do next? Now that your Seven is disbanded?” asked Sonar.
“Go back to my bar.”