John Barnes - Candle 241

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CANDLE

JOHN BARNES

TOR® tom doherty associates book NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either

fictitious or are used fictitiously.

CANDLE

book, or portions thereof, in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010 www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Design by Lisa Pifher ISBN 0-312-89077-X

First Edition: February 2000

Printed in the United States of America 0987654321

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CANDLE

For Paul Edwards.

"If you live in this country long enough, you get

colorful."

CANDLE

One thing you have to say for the Colorado Rockies, you sleep

good, these days, now that there's nothing to worry about. I was

dead solid asleep when I woke up to a voice saying, "Hey,

Currie."

I didn't recognize the voice right away, but that wasn't so

unusual; One True speaks in different voices. I sat up in bed,

facing into the bright moonlight. Mary and me, we love to sleep

with the curtains open so we can see the sky and wake up with

the sunlight, and we can do it nowadays because nobody ever

looks through a window anymore unless they're supposed to.

Probably we could've done it in the old days anyway because

Sursumcorda, Colorado, never had more than a thousand

people anyway, and we live a ways outside and above it.

Our house up there is a nice old twentieth-century A-frame

with lots of glass. With that southern exposure, on a full moon

night, you wouldn't need electricity to read in there.

"Hey, Three-Cur."

Nobody's called me that in a long time so I was wondering for

just a second if I was having a waking dream, like I used to just

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CANDLE

after I retired. But Mary didn't even twitch, and since we always

leave our link on while we're at home, when I have a bad

dream, or she does, we both wake up. And my copy of Resuna

seemed pretty calm tonight—nothing out there but the usual

traffic of assurances and friendliness.

"You're wide awake, Currie, and we need to talk," the voice

said. Now I knew it was One True. It had chosen to come to me

through my auditory nerves, instead of as a voice entirely in my

head. I reached to my copy of Resuna and it reached to Mary's;

sure enough, One True had already put a block on her so that

she'd sleep pleasantly through any noise and light we needed to

make.

"Yes, it's One True," the voice agreed, responding to my

thought. "Do whatever you need to get comfortable and I'll talk

to you in eight minutes and thirty seconds."

"Eight and thirty," I said. In the back of my mind, my copy of

Resuna started the countdown. I got out of bed.

I sleep ten hours or more every night in winter, especially late

winter. Not that I don't enjoy skiing, snowshoeing, hunting, ice

fishing, and all, but at forty-nine years old, a few hours of

anything outside tires me pleasantly out, and then a decent

dinner, with a small glass of wine, and a good book after,

usually put me out by eight or nine at night, and I get up with

the sun, not before it. So from the way the full moon hung in the

southwest, I guessed it was about five in the morning.

Five eighteen a.m., Resuna said in my mind. Seven minutes forty-

four seconds remaining.

I shook off the last drowsiness, climbed out of bed, and threw

on a dressing robe and slippers, wincing at the way the cold

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CANDLE

hurts my bad toes these days—I had led a little too vigorous a

life when I was younger, breaking most of my toes and getting a

touch of frostbite a few times, so that between one thing and

another, my toes are lim sensitive, and that cold floor just sets

them off.

I went into the bathroom and peed into the recycler, stretched a

couple more times, and finally said aloud, "Bob, coffee now,

please, and warm rolls for one in twenty minutes?"

"Sweet or plain?" Bob asked. This was out of the household

software's experience—Bob had been installed after I

retired—and it wouldn't necessarily trust the data files it had

copied from its predecessor.

I took a moment to clarify—"Sweet. If I get a call that gets me up

before sunrise, pritnear always, I'll want sweet rolls."

I splashed some water on my face. Since I was up, Bob would

already be warming my clothes for today, so I didn't bother

with instructions about that.

As I was buttoning my shirt, I could hear the gurgle and gush of

coffee into the carafe, and by the time I got my shoes on—one

minute forty-four seconds to go, Resuna assured me—I felt pretty

decent. Resuna was grumbling, where I could just feel it, about

having to adjust my serotonin levels when I was going to throw

caffeine at my brain as well, but I knew perfectly well it could

do that without any trouble. Your copy of Resuna picks up your

traits to some extent, and I'm afraid I've always been a griper.

I went to the kitchen to get my coffee. I didn't know why I was

so sure this would have something to do with my old job. It

could be something else. One True calls everyone a few times a

year—always on your birthday, and on your region's Resuna

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CANDLE

Day, and then there's all the routine business stuff that everyone

has to do—but something about this call had made me think at

once that it would turn out to be about the old job.

Three-Cur. He addressed me as Three-Cur. That was a nickname I

hadn't heard since my days as a cowboy hunter. I got coffee

from the kitchen, enjoyed the pleasant odor of sweet rolls under

way in the foodmaker, and went downstairs to the big room. In

the moonlight, there was no need to turn on a light. I sat down

and took that first long slow sip of coffee that helps a lifetime

caffeine addict see that the universe, on the average, is a pretty

good place.

Aside from the moon and Orion, and a few scattered other stars,

I could see no lights through the window. The dark rectangles

and trapezoids of Sursumcorda lay far down the mountain from

me, with no streetlights—no one was out, so they weren't

turned on. Pritnear everyone in that little town sleeps like Mary

and me in winter—we're a community of old-timers.

I leaned way over sideways on the couch for an angle through

the window. Just as always, I saw the bright tiny oval of Supra

New York hanging in the sky. In all my eleven years on the job,

I had seen SNY in the sky from camps in the wilderness just

before I went to bed, and from canyons and mountaintops while

I waited on stakeout, hundreds of times, and always taken

comfort in the sight. Seven million people lived up there,

nowadays, almost directly above Quito, Ecuador, all running

Resuna, all part of One True like me.

The wilderness just didn't seem as lonely, as long as I could see

good old SNY. I saluted seven million fellow citizens with my

coffee cup. They didn't wave back, but I still knew they were

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CANDLECANDLEJOHNBARNESTOR®tomdohertyassociatesbookNEWYORKThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisnovelareeitherfictitiousorareusedfictitiously.CANDLECopyright©2000byJohnBarnesAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbook,orportionsthereof,inanyform.Thisbookisprintedon...

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John Barnes - Candle 241

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