The Last Book in the Universe Read online

  “I never thought of it that way,” Lanaya says, a bit uneasily. Then she turns to me and goes, “Anything you’d like to see?”

  I think about it. The thing is, we’re already in the most amazing place I’ve ever dreamed of. More like never dreamed of. But there is something I want to see, even if it isn’t as big or grand as the Grand Canyon. “Can the thinkspace show us what’s making Bean sick?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Lanaya says. “Let’s find out.”

  She speaks a few words to the cyber. A moment later a human body rises from the floor. Not a real body, of course, but a transparent version, where you can see inside. As the body turns, some of the bones and organs begin to glow, highlighting where the sickness comes from.

  Leukemia, the cyber-voice says, any of a group of neoplastic diseases of the blood-forming organs, resulting in an abnormal increase in the production of leukocytes, often accompanied by anemia and the enlargement of the lymph nodes, spleen, and liver.

  Then the body dissolves and we’re inside the bloodstream, which is loaded with things that look like fat white tires. The cyber-voice tells us the tire-looking things are white blood cells, and having too many white blood cells makes the blood weak and tired. Untreated, it can lead to death.

  Among the improved population, genetic extinction of the leukemia disease group was achieved in the early twenty-first century, the cyber-voice says. Backtimer treatments involved complex chemical therapies and bone marrow transplants, specific methods that are no longer available.

  Then the blood fades away, and we’re back in the thinkspace, letting the words bang around inside our brains until we understand.

  For the first time since we met, Lanaya doesn’t want to meet my eyes.

  “It isn’t fair,” I say. “Proovs never get the blood sickness, so nobody bothered to remember the cure. That’s what the cyber said, isn’t it?”

  Lanaya nods. “I’m sorry,” she says.

  It feels like a fist has clenched inside my head. My face is hot and my tongue is so thick with anger, it’s hard to get the words out. “I don’t care how perfect you are, or how beautiful. Bean is a million times better than anybody in Eden,” I say. “But you’re going to let her die because she wasn’t ‘improved’ before she was born.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lanaya says.

  “I hate you,” I tell her. “I hate all of you.”

  And then I run to the room where my sister lies in her transparent coffin, waiting to die.

  LATER THAT DAY we take Bean to a place they call the Primary Laboratory. Lanaya’s parents — excuse me, her contributors — got permission from the Authority to bring Bean here to see if there’s anything that can be done. So far, nothing has changed. Bean still lies in the long sleep, although she doesn’t seem to have gotten any worse since they put her in the glass coffin.

  In the backtimes they had people called “doctors” who took care of sick people, but proovs hardly ever get sick, so they have “medical technicians” instead. The med-teks mostly do stuff like patch up proovs who get injured in accidents, so they don’t really know what to make of Bean. All they can do is tell the Prime-cybers to search for data about the blood sickness.

  While we’re waiting, Lanaya shows us around the Primary Laboratory. The Prime is where proov babies are made and “improved,” which makes it the most important place in Eden. Most of the place is underground because when the proovs were first starting out, the air was still poison from all the volcanic eruptions kicked off by the Big Shake.

  “The original survivors thought the radiation came from nuclear waste, and some of it did, but the worst came from within the earth itself,” Lanaya explains. “The natural radiation and the volcanic gases made the air toxic for almost a century. The average lifespan of humans dropped to something like twenty years. That’s when genetic engineering really came into its own. Until then, large-scale modification had been forbidden, more or less.”

  We’re passing through the oldest part of the Prime, which has been preserved as a reminder of how bad things were right after the Shake. There are holo images of the original genetic engineering team, and all of them are wearing gas masks. In one of the images they’re standing around a small crib, holding up a crying baby.

  “I notice the baby doesn’t have a gas mask,” Ryter observes.

  “That’s one of the first things they improved,” Lanaya says. “The ability to tolerate higher levels of toxic gases. Every child of Eden still carries that improved gene, although we no longer need it.”

  “And does that child still survive?” Ryter wants to know, pointing at the image of the baby.

  Lanaya gives him a strange look. “That holo was taken over two hundred years ago,” she says. “That’s a hundred years more than the average proov lives. The First Child has been dead for a long time.”

  “Ah,” says Ryter, as if he’s satisfied some unspoken question.

  Lanaya seems amused by the question. “I know you normals think we’ve solved the riddle of eternal life, but we haven’t,” she tells him. “Before engineering, certain rare humans lived for as long as one hundred and twenty years. That survival rate has been incorporated into the coding for every child of Eden, but we haven’t been able to improve upon it.”

  “And there’s no way to reverse the aging process?” Ryter asks wistfully.

  Lanaya shakes her beautiful head. “Sorry, no. We can activate the genes that lengthen lifespan, but we can’t reverse aging.”

  “So what happens when proovs get old?” he asks, as if the subject is close to his heart.

  “They age gracefully,” Lanaya says with a smile. “That’s the best we can do.”

  They let me visit with Bean, which is really sort of pointless, since she doesn’t know I’m there, but for some reason it makes me feel a little better, just looking.

  “If anything can be done, we’ll do it,” Jin promises when he finds me there, staring through the glass.

  I know they’re trying to help, but I’m still pretty cranked about the unfairness of it all. “So what do you care if a normal dies?” I say. “They die every single day from all kinds of disease and you don’t do anything to stop that.”

  Jin gives me this wise-and-understanding look and says, “It’s easy to ignore what you can’t see, and most of us have never even seen a normal. As you know, I think it was a mistake to bring you people into Eden, but now that you’re here, we feel compelled to help, if only because Lanaya wants us to.”

  “She’s really that big a deal, your daughter?”

  “Is it a big deal to be a latchboss in the Urb?”

  “The biggest,” I say.

  “Being one of the Masters is even bigger,” Jin says. “Everything that happens in Eden is controlled, ultimately, by the Masters. Masters are not chosen or elected, they’re designed for the job. Specifically improved to have leadership qualities, and the ability to plan for the future. To plan even beyond their own lifespan. That’s very important to us, thinking about the future.”

  “Yeah? What’s so important about the future, if you’re not alive to see it?”

  Jin looks at me like he can’t believe I don’t know what he’s talking about. “That was the mistake the backtimers made, not planning far enough ahead. They knew a planet-wide disaster like the Big Shake would happen eventually, but when it did happen, they weren’t ready for it. More than a billion people perished during the Shake and in the dark times that followed. All because nobody wanted to think about the future.”

  “Thinking about the future may be great for proovs,” I tell him. “But normals don’t even have a past, let alone a future.”

  “Everyone has a past,” he says evasively.

  “You’re wrong.”

  I tell what’s happened to memories since everybody started probing. How things in the Urb seem to be getting worse and how a lot of the latchbosses are too busy probing to care. When I get to the part about Mongo the Magnificent, Jin’s pe
rfect eyes widen in horror.

  “I had no idea!” he exclaims.

  That’s when Ryter decides to pipe up. So far, he’s mostly been quiet, listening to me spout off. “There’s something else we discovered,” he points out, fixing his saggy old eyes on Jin. “Brain probes are made here in Eden, with your technology, and then smuggled into the Urb.”

  Jin quickly shakes his head. “Impossible,” he says, sounding shocked. “Why would we do that?”

  Ryter shrugs. “You tell me. Are there proovs who would like to see the Urb and all the people in it disappear?”

  Jin grimaces uncomfortably. “I suppose there are.”

  “Well, if someone wanted to wipe us out, or encourage us to self-destruct, rotting our minds would be a good place to start.”

  “You must be mistaken,” Jin says, protesting, but you can tell he’s worried that it might be true.

  “Take away memory — the sense of who we are — and human beings revert to animal behavior,” Ryter says. “And animals are easier to exterminate than humans.”

  “Exterminate? What a terrible word!” he exclaims. “Why would we want to do that?”

  Ryter shrugs again. He almost looks amused by Jin’s reaction. “Why would you want to exterminate us? Because we still exist. Because we’re a reminder of what you used to be. Because the Urb surrounds Eden. Because we’re dangerous. There are plenty of reasons — take your pick.”

  “This can’t be,” Jin says to himself. “I’ll go to the Authority and ask them, and if necessary the Authority will go to the Masters. I’m sure you must be wrong.”

  But he doesn’t sound sure. He sounds more like a man hearing something he’d rather not think about, even if he’s known about it all along.

  Later that same day the word comes back that the cybers have found something interesting. “Interesting” is Bree’s word. To me it sounds impossible, but I want to believe it anyway.

  “The cybers could find no data on the old cures,” she says at first, which opens the darkness inside my heart. “Evidently it had something to do with specific amounts of very toxic chemicals, what they called ‘chemotherapy,’ and controlled exposure to radiation. It’s a wonder anybody survived a ‘cure’ like that, but apparently they did, and quite successfully, too. But it doesn’t matter, because we no longer have access to their ancient technologies.”

  “So there’s nothing you can do for her,” I say.

  “I didn’t say that,” Bree says. “I said we can’t replicate the backtimer cure. But the cybers have an interesting suggestion. It may be possible to give your sister an improved gene. Several improved genes, actually, that control how the body replaces blood cells.”

  “And that would make it better?” I ask.

  “If it works,” Bree says. “We won’t know until we try.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?” I ask.

  Bree gives me a long, sad look. “You already know the answer to that.”

  She’s right. I do.

  THREE DAYS AFTER they inject her with the new and improved genes, my little sister Bean gets her own personal future.

  I’m there when it happens.

  At first I don’t notice anything different. I’m sort of staring into the glass coffin-thing that’s keeping her barely alive, thinking about stuff from when we were both little. Stupid stuff that wouldn’t mean anything to anybody but me or Bean, like the time Charly caught her feeding crumbs to the rats behind our unit and she acted all surprised that he was upset and told him, “Rats are people, too.” Charly demanded to know where she got such a crazy idea, and she said, “From you, Daddy.” Because, see, Charly was always calling people “rats.” That’s when poor old Charly realized his four-year-old daughter was a whole lot smarter than he was, and on her way to being smarter than anybody else in the Urb, period.

  Anyhow, there I am looking right at her and remembering stuff so hard that at first I don’t even notice that she’s staring back at me. Her eyes are open and she’s looking at me! And not with dead or unconscious eyes, either — she’s really looking hard, like she’s trying to figure out what I’m thinking. And what I’m thinking is that I must be dreaming and dreading that any second I’ll startle myself awake and Bean will still be in the long sleep or worse.

  But I’m not dreaming. It’s true. The Bean is back.

  I must have yelled or cried out, because everybody comes running. Ryter and Lanaya and Jin and the med-teks who gave her the injections, they’re almost as excited as I am. The med-teks because they didn’t know if the gene therapy would work, and the others because they know how much Bean means to me.

  The med-teks lift up the glass cover on the coffin-thing. It’s not like Bean is suddenly strong enough to get up or anything. She’s really weak, barely able to raise her hand and touch my face, but I don’t care. Five minutes ago I thought she was a goner, and now she’s back alive and whispering that she had the weirdest dream.

  “I dreamed we went to Eden,” she says. “Isn’t that strange?”

  “We did,” I tell her. “We’re here, and you’re getting better.”

  Suddenly I feel really bad about being so borked off with the proovs. If it wasn’t for Lanaya and her people, Bean would be dead for sure. Maybe some of them hate normals and wish we’d disappear, but they saved my little sister, so they can’t be all bad.

  Nobody looks happier than Ryter. The old geez is grinning so hard I’m afraid his last few teeth will fall out. His whole face is smiling, including his eyes, and he wraps his spindly arms around my shoulders and gives me a hug that takes my breath away.

  “You did it, boy!” he exclaims, wheezing with excitement. “You risked your life for a fair maiden, and now she lives! Oh what a wonderful story! I can’t wait to write it down! Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve given me a happy ending!”

  “But the proovs saved her, not me,” I remind him. “And besides, it was your idea to come to Eden.”

  Ryter shakes his head. It’s as if his ancient, watery gray eyes can see all the way inside me. “Oh yes, we helped along the way, Lanaya and me, and even Little Face. But it was you who started the journey, son. None of this would have happened if you didn’t have the courage to imagine it first.”

  He’s obviously zoomed, but I don’t have the heart to tell him so. But I know who the real hero is, and it isn’t me or even the brave Lanaya. It’s an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won’t let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing things down in a book that no one will ever read.

  Not long after Bean wakes up from the long sleep, Jin has a whispery conversation with Lanaya. They both look worried.

  “As soon as your sister can be moved, we’ll have to leave the Prime,” she tells me later, keeping her voice down. “People are talking.”

  She doesn’t have to explain about people talking. She means the word is spreading that a ragged band of normals have been allowed into Eden. Which may or may not be forbidden, depending on who interprets the rules. So the longer we stay at the Primary Laboratory, the more proovs become aware of our presence.

  “But she’s not all the way better,” I remind her. “She can barely walk and she still doesn’t want to eat.”

  “I know,” Lanaya says, patting my shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll still take good care of her. But in my own spaces, away from prying eyes.”

  So the very next day we all leave the Prime and return to the incredible place that Lanaya calls “home.” Bean doesn’t remember being there, of course, and she’s at least as amazed as I am by the rooms that change scenes according to your mood.

  She is still pretty weak, and can’t stand up for long without feeling dizzy, but she wants to know how everything works. And when Lanaya explains, Bean seems to understand, which means she’s way ahead of me.

  “It’s a logical extension of interactive cybernetic intelligence,” Lanaya tells her, “a computer that can project itself into a three-dim
ensional landscape. Of course these are only holoscope. Illusions.”

  Bean’s eyes are so bright they could light the dark. “I used to pretend something like this,” she says, gazing in wonder at the purple mountains and green valleys of a holoscope called Montana. “I’d lie on my sleeping mat and imagine that I was in a completely different world.”

  “What kind of world?” Lanaya wants to know.

  “A world without walls,” Bean says. “A world where you can go outside without being afraid.”

  “You’re describing Eden,” says Lanaya.

  “I guess,” Bean says. “But I meant the Urb. What it would be like if everything hadn’t been destroyed. If people stopped hurting each other and grew things instead. All those green things out there.”

  “Grass and trees.”

  “It sounds so lovely, so peaceful,” Bean says dreamily. “Grass and trees.”

  Lanaya takes Bean by the hand and leads her to a window. “That isn’t a holoscape,” she says, pointing. “Those are real trees, real grass.”

  Bean looks outside for a long time and then sighs deeply. “It’s beautiful. But it might as well be a holoscape,” she says.

  Lanaya looks at her curiously. “Why is that?” she asks.

  “Because we can’t stay here,” Bean says. “Can we? When I’m better, you’ll send us back. Back to the gray concrete and the acid rain and the latch gangs.”

  Lanaya stares at the grass and the trees and then looks from Bean to me. Her eyes are shiny and fierce.

  “Not if I can help it,” she vows.

  TWO IMPORTANT THINGS happened on our seventh day in Eden. The first is that Bean learned to play a game called “chess,” and the second is what happened to Little Face when he first learned to talk.