Singularity's Ring by Paul Melko Read Free Book Online Page A

could have sketched it all with pheromones, but I didn’t know if I wanted her to know the whole story.
    “We met a singleton today.”
    “Oh, my.” The words were so vague. Without the chemical sharing of memories and thoughts, I had no idea what her real emotions were, cynical or sincere, interested or bored.
    “Over by the Baskins’ lake. There was a cottage there …” I built the sensory description, then let it seep away. “This is so hard. Can’t I just touch you?”
    “That’s all we need. Me, then you, then everybody else, and by the time school starts in two weeks, we’re all sick. We can’t be sick.” Moira nodded. “A singleton. Luddite? Christian?”
    “None of those. He had an aircar. He was angry at us for stepping on his tomato plants. And he … looked at me.”
    “He’s supposed to look at you. You’re our interface.”
    “No, he looked at me. Like a woman.”
    Moira was silent for a moment. “Oh. And you felt …”
    The heat crept up my cheeks again. “Flushed.”
    “Oh.” Moira contemplated the ceiling. She said, “You understand that we are individually sexual beings and as a whole—”

    “Don’t lecture me!” Moira could be such a pedant, one who never threw a stone.
    She sighed. “Sorry.”
    “’Sokay.”
    She grinned. “Was he cute?”
    “Stop that!” After a pause, I added, “He was handsome. I’m sorry we stepped on his tomato plant.”
    “So take him another.”
    “You think?”
    “And find out who he is. Mother Redd has got to know. And call the Baskins.”
    I wanted to hug her, but settled for a wave.
     
    Mother Redd was in the greenhouse, watering, picking, and examining a hybrid cucumber. She had been a doctor, and then one of herself had died, and she’d chosen another field instead of being only part of the physician she had been. She—there had been four cloned females, so she was a she any which way you looked at it—took over the farm, and in the summer boarded us university kids. She was a kind woman, smart and wise, but I couldn’t look at her and not think how much smarter she would have been if she were four instead of just a trio.
    “What is it, sweetie? Why are you alone?” asked the one looking at the cucumber under the light microscope.
    I shrugged. I didn’t want to tell her why I was avoiding my pod, so I asked, “We saw a singleton over by the Baskins’ lake today. Who is he?”
    I could smell the pungent odor of Mother Redd’s thoughts. Though it was the same cryptic, symbolic chaos that she always used, I realized she was thinking more than a simple answer would warrant. Finally, she said, “Malcolm Leto. He’s one of the Community.”
    “The Community! But they all … left.” I used the wrong word for it; Quant would have known the technical
term for what had become of nine tenths of humanity. They had built the Ring, built the huge cybernetic organism that was the Community. They had advanced human knowledge of physics, medicine, and engineering exponentially until finally they had, as a whole, disappeared, leaving the Ring and the Earth empty, except for the fraction of humans who either had not joined the Community or had not died in the chaos of the Gene Wars.
    “This one was not on hand for the Exodus,” Mother Redd said. That was the word that Quant would have known. “There was an accident. His body was placed into suspended animation until it could be regenerated.”
    “He’s the last member of the Community, then?”
    “Practically.”
    “Thanks.” I went to find the rest of my pod. They were in front of the computer, playing virtual chess with Willow Murphy, one of our classmates. I remembered it was Thursday night, Quant’s hobby night. She liked strategic gaming.
    I touched Strom’s hand and slipped into the mesh of our thoughts. We were losing, but then Murphy was good and we had been down to three with me running off alone. Was that a trace of resentment from my fellows? I ignored it and dumped