For more than a century there had been a back-and-forth dialogue between the particle physicists and the cosmologists. The cosmologists would scribble their equations, trying to figure out which particles were flitting around at what time in the universe's development, and their results would suggest an experiment. So the physicists would fire up their accelerators and either verify the cosmologists' equations or send them back to the blackboard.

The reverse process also happens. One thing most of us agree on is that the universe exists (people who deny that usually follow some trade other than science), so if some theoretical particle interaction would lead ultimately to the nonexistence of the universe, then you can save a lot of electricity by not trying to demonstrate it.

Thus it went, back and forth, up to the time of the Jupiter Project. The Johnson Ring had been able to take us back to conditions that were obtained when the universe was one tenth of a second old. By that time, it was about four times the size the Earth is now, having expanded from a dimensionless point at a great rate of speed.

The Jupiter Project, if it worked, would take us back to a time when the universe was smaller than a pea, and filled with exotic particles that no longer exist. But it would be the biggest machine ever built, by several orders of magnitude, and it was being built by automatic robots with no direct supervision. When the Jupiter group sent an order out to Io, it would get there fifteen to twenty-four minutes later, and of course the response would be delayed by an equal length of time. A lot can happen in forty-eight minutes; twice, the Project had to be halted and reprogrammed-but you couldn't really halt it, not all at once, because the submachines that were making the parts that would go into orbit just kept on going for forty-eight minutes plus however long it took to figure out how to reprogram them.

Over the Jupiter Program director's desk, there was a picture from a movie over a century old: Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice, staring dumbfounded at the endless line of brainless brooms marching through the door.

I SLEPT A COUPLE of hours and woke up suddenly, in a panic sweat. I couldn't remember what I'd been dreaming about, but it left me with a fading sense of vertigo, falling. It had happened a few times before, the first day or two off duty.

Some people wound up never getting any deep sleep unless they were jacked. Sleeping that way gave you total blackness, total lack of sensation or thought. Practicing up for death. But relaxing.

I lay there staring into the watery light for another half hour and decided to stop trying. Went into the kitchen and buzzed up some coffee. Really ought to work, but I wouldn't have any papers until Tuesday, and Research could wait until tomorrow morning's meeting.

Catch up on the world. I'd resolutely stayed away from it in Cambridge. I turned on Amelia's desk and decrypted a thread to my news module.

It humors me and puts the light stuff first. I read through twenty pages of comics and the three columns I knew to be safely immune from politics. One of them did a broad satire about Central America anyhow.

Central and South America took up most of the world news section, unsurprisingly. The African front was quiet, still stunned a year after our nuking of Mandelaville. Perhaps regrouping and calculating which of our cities would be next.

Our little sortie wasn't even mentioned. Two platoons of soldierboys took the towns of Piedra Sola and Igatimi, in Uruguay and Paraguay; supposedly rebel strongholds. We did it with their governments' foreknowledge and permission, of course-and there were no civilian casualties, equally of course. Once they're dead they're rebels. La muerte es el gran convertidor, they say- Death is the great converter. That must be literally true as well as a sarcasm about our body counts. We've killed a quarter-million in the Americas and G.o.d knows how many in Africa. If I lived in either place I'd be a rebel.

There was a business-as-usual running report about the Geneva talks. The enemy is so fragmented they will never come together on terms, and I'm sure at least some of the rebel leaders are plants, puppets ordered to keep the thing good and confused.

They did actually come to agreement over nuclear weapons: neither side would use them except in retaliation, starting now, though Ngumi still won't take responsibility for Atlanta. What we really need is an agreement on agreements: If we promise something, we won't break the promise for at least thirty days. Neither side would agree to that.

I turned off the machine and checked Amelia's refrigerator. No beer. Well, that was my responsibility. Some fresh air wouldn't hurt, anyhow, so I locked up and pedaled toward the campus gate.

The shoe sergeant in charge of security looked at my ID and made me wait while he phoned for verification. The two privates with him leaned on their weapons and smirked. Some shoes have a thing about mechanics, since we don't actually fight. Forget that we have to stay in longer and have a higher death rate. Forget that we keep them from having to do the really dangerous jobs.

Of course, that's exactly it for some of them: we also stand in the way of their being heroes. "It takes all kinds of people to make a world, my mother always says. Fewer kinds to make an army.

He finally admitted I was who I was. You carrying? he asked as he filled out the pa.s.s.

No, I said. Not in the daytime.

Your funeral. He folded the pa.s.s precisely in two and handed it over. Actually, I was armed, with a putty knife and a little Beretta belt-buckle laser. It might be his own funeral someday, if he couldn't tell whether or not a man was armed. I saluted the privates with one erect finger between the eyes, traditional draftee greeting, and went out into the zoo.

There were about a dozen wh.o.r.es lounging around the gate, one of them a jill, her head shaved. She was old enough to be an ex-mechanic. You always wondered.

Of course, she noticed me. Hey, Jack! She stepped onto the path and I stopped the bike. I got something you can ride.

Maybe later, I said. You're lookin' good. Actually, she wasn't. Her face and posture showed a lot of stress; the telltale pink in her eyes tagged her as a cherrybomb user.

Half price for you, honey. I shook my head. She grabbed on to my handlebars. Quarter price. Been so long since I done it jacked.

I couldn't do it jacked. Something made me honest, or partly so. Not with a stranger.

So how long would I be a stranger? She couldn't hide the note of pleading.

Sorry. I pushed off onto the gra.s.s. If I didn't get away fast, she'd be offering to pay me.

The other hookers had watched the exchange with various att.i.tudes: curiosity, pity, contempt. As if they weren't all addicts of one kind or another, themselves. n.o.body had to f.u.c.k for a living in the Universal Welfare State. n.o.body had to do anything but stay out of trouble. It works so well.

They had legalized prost.i.tution in Florida for a few years, when I was growing up. But it went the way of the big casinos before I was old enough to be interested.

Hooking's a crime in Texas, but I think you have to be a real nuisance before they lock you up. The two cops who watched the jill proposition me didn't put the cuffs on her. Maybe later, if they had the money.

Jills usually get plenty of work. They know what it feels like to be male.

I pedaled past the college-town stores, with their academic prices, into town. South Houston was not exactly savory, but I was armed. Besides, I figured that bad guys kept late hours, and would still be in bed. One wasn't.

I leaned the bike up against the rack outside of the liquor store and was fiddling with the cranky lock, which was supposed to take my card.

Hey boy, a deep ba.s.s voice said behind me. You got ten dollars for me? Maybe twenny?

I turned around slowly. He was a head taller than me, maybe forty, lean, muscle suit. Shiny boots up to his knees and the tightly braided ponytail of an Ender: G.o.d would use that to haul him up to heaven. Soon, he hoped.

I thought you guys didn't need money.

I need some. I need it now.

So what's your habit? I put my right hand on my hip. Not natural or comfortable, but close to the putty-knife. Maybe I got some.

You don't got what I need. Got to buy what I need. He drew a long knife with a slender wavy blade from his boot.

Put it away. I got ten. The silly dagger was no match for a puttyknife, but I didn't want to perform a dissection out here on the sidewalk.

Oh, you got ten. Maybe you got fifty. He took a step toward me.

I pulled out the puttyknife and turned it on. It hummed and glowed. You just lost ten. How much more you want to lose?

He stared at the vibrating blade. The shimmering mist on the top third was as hot as the surface of the sun. You in the army. You a mechanic.

I'm either a mechanic or I killed one and took his knife. Either way, you want to f.u.c.k with me?

Mechanics ain't so tough. I was in the army.

You know all about it, then. He took a half-step to the right, I think a feint. I didn't move. You don't want to wait for your Rapture? You want to die right now?

He looked at me for a long second. There was nothing in his eyes. Oh, f.u.c.k you anyhow. He put the knife back in his boot, turned, and walked away without looking back.

I turned off the puttyknife and blew on it When it was cool enough, I put it back and went into the liquor store.

The clerk had a chrome Remington airspray. f.u.c.kin' Endie. I would've got him.

Thanks, I said. He would've gotten me too, with an airspray. You got six Dixies?

Sure. He opened the case behind him. Ration card?

Army, I said. I didn't bother with the ID.

Figured. He rummaged. You know they got a law I got to let the f.u.c.kin' Endies in the store? They never buy anything.

Why should they? I said. World's going up in smoke tomorrow, maybe the next day.

Right. Meanwhile they steal y' blind. All I got's cans.

Whatever. I was starting to shake a little. Between the Ender and this trigger-happy clerk I'd probably come closer to dying than I ever would in Portobello.

He put the six-pack in front of me. You don't want to sell that knife?

No, I need it all the time. Open fan mail with it.

That was the wrong thing to say. Got to say I don't recognize you. I follow the Fourth and Sixteenth, mainly.

I'm Ninth. Not nearly as exciting.

Interdiction, he said, nodding. The Fourth and Sixteenth are hunter-killer platoons, so they have a considerable following. Warboys, we call their fans.

He was a little excited, even though I was just Interdiction. And Psychops. You didn't catch the Fourth last Wednesday, did you?

Hey, I don't even follow my own outfit. I was in the cage then, anyhow.

He stopped for a moment with my card in his hand, struck dumb by the concept that a person could live nine days in a row inside a soldierboy and then not jump straight to the cube and follow the war.

Some do, of course. I met Scoville when he was out of the cage once, here in Houston for a warboy a.s.sembly. There's one every week somewhere in Texas- they haul in enough booze and b.u.m and squeak to keep them cross-eyed for a long weekend, and pay a couple of mechanics to come in and tell them what it's really really like. To be locked inside a cage and watch yourself murder people by remote control. They replay tapes of great battles and argue over fine points of strategy.

The only one I've ever gone to had a warrior day, where all of the attendees-all except us outsiders- dressed up as warriors from the past. That was kind of scary. I a.s.sumed the tommy guns and flintlocks didn't function; even criminals were reluctant to risk that. But the swords and spears and bows looked real enough, and they were in the hands of people who had amply demonstrated, to me at least, that they shouldn't be trusted with a sharp stick.

You were going to kill that guy? the clerk said conversationally.

No reason to. They always back off. As if I knew.

But suppose he didn't.

It wouldn't be a problem, I heard myself saying. Take his knife hand off at the wrist. Call 9-1-1. Maybe they'd glue it back on upside down. Actually, they'd probably take their time responding. Give him a chance to beat the Rapture by bleeding to death.

He nodded. We had two guys last month outside the store, they did the handkerchief thing, some girl. That was where two men bite down on opposite corners of a handkerchief, and have at each other with knives or razors. The one who lets go of the handkerchief loses. One guy was dead before they got here. The other lost an ear; they didn't bother to look for it. He gestured. I kept it in the freezer for awhile.

You're the one who called the cops?

Oh yeah, he said. Soon as it was over. Good citizen.

I strapped the beer onto the rear carrier and pedaled back toward the gate.

Things are getting worse. I hate to sound like my old man. But things really were better when I was a boy. There weren't Enders on every corner. People didn't duel. People didn't stand around and watch other people duel. And then police picked up the ears afterward.

NOT ALL ENDERS HAD ponytails and obvious att.i.tudes. There were two in Julian's physics department, a secretary and Mac Roman himself.

People wondered how such a mediocre scientist had come out of nowhere and brown-nosed his way into a position of academic power. What they didn't appreciate was the intellectual effort it took to successfully pretend to believe in the ordered, agnostic view of the universe that physics mandated. It was all part of G.o.d's plan, though. Like the carefully falsified doc.u.ments that had put him in the position of being minimally qualified for the chairmanship. Two other Enders were on the Board of Regents, able to push his case.

Macro (like one of those Regents) was a member of a militant and supersecret sect within a sect: the Hammer of G.o.d. Like all Enders, they believed G.o.d was about to bring about the destruction of humankind.

Unlike most of them, the Hammer of G.o.d felt called upon to help.

ON THE WAY BACK to campus I took a wrong turn and, circling back, pa.s.sed a downscale jack joint I'd never seen. They had feelies of group s.e.x, downhill skiing, a car crash. Done there; been that. Not to mention all the combat ones.

Actually, I'd never done the car crash. I wonder if the actor died. Sometimes Enders did that, even though jacking's supposed to be a sin. Sometimes people do it to be famous for a few minutes. I've never jacked into one of those, but Ralph has his favorites, so when I'm jacked with Ralph I get it secondhand. Guess I'll never understand fame.

There was a new sergeant at the gate to the university, so we went through the delaying song and dance again.

I pedaled aimlessly through the campus for an hour. It was pretty deserted, Sunday afternoon of a long week-end. I went into the physics building to see whether any students had slipped papers under my door, and one had-an early problem set, wonder of wonders. And a note saying he'd have to miss cla.s.s because his sister had a coming-out party in Monaco. Poor kid.

Amelia's office was one floor above mine, but I didn't bother her. I really ought to work out the answers to the problem set, get ahead of the game. No, I ought to go back to Amelia's and waste the rest of the day.

I did go back to Amelia's, but in a spirit of scientific inquiry. She had a new appliance they called the anti-microwave; you put something in it and set the temperature you want, and it cools it down. Of course the appliance has nothing to do with microwaves.

It worked well on a can of beer. When I opened the door, wisps of vapor came out. The beer was forty degrees, but the ambient temperature inside the machine must have been a lot lower. Just to see what would happen, I put a slice of cheese in it and set it to the lowest temperature, minus forty. When it came out I dropped it on the floor, and it shattered. I think I found all the pieces.

Amelia had a little alcove behind the fireplace that she called the library. There was just room for an antique futon and a small table. The three walls that defined the s.p.a.ce were gla.s.sed-in shelves, full of hundreds of old books. I'd been in there with her, but not to read.

I set the beer down and looked at the t.i.tles. Mostly novels and poetry. Unlike a lot of jacks and jills, I still read for pleasure, but I like to read things that are supposed to be true.

My first couple of years of college, I majored in history with a minor in physics, but then switched around. I used to think it was the degrees in physics that got me drafted. But most mechanics have the usual compulsory-ed degrees-gym, current events, communication skills.

You don't have to be that smart to lie in the cage and twitch.

Anyhow, I like to read history, and Amelia's library was lean in that subject. A few popular ill.u.s.trated texts. Mostly twenty-first century, which I planned to read about when it was over.

I remembered she wanted me to read the Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, so I took it down and settled in. Two hours and two beers.

The differences between their fighting and ours were as profound as the difference between a bad accident and a bad dream.

Their armies were equally matched in weaponry; they both had a diffuse, confused command structure that essentially resulted in one huge mob being thrown against another, to flail away with primitive guns and knives and clubs until one mob ran away.

The confused protagonist, Henry, was too deeply involved to see this simple truth, but he reported it accurately.

I wonder what poor Henry would think about our kind of war. I wonder whether his era even knew the most accurate metaphor: exterminator. And I wondered what simple truth my involvement kept me from seeing.

JULIAN DIDN'T KNOW THAT the author of The Red Badge of Courage had had the advantage of not having been a part of the war he wrote about. It's harder to see a pattern when you're part of it.

That war had been relatively straightforward in terms of economic and ideological issues; Julian's was not. The enemy Ngumi comprised a loose alliance of dozens of rebel forces, fifty-four this year. In all enemy countries there was a legitimate government that cooperated with the Alliance, but it was no secret that few of those governments were supported by a majority of their const.i.tuents.

It was partly an economic war, the haves with their automation-driven economies versus the have-nots, who were not born into automatic prosperity. It was partly a race war, the blacks and browns and some yellows versus the whites and some other yellows. Julian was uncomfortable on some level about that, but he didn't feel much of a bond with Africa. Too long ago, too far away, and they were too crazy.

And of course it was an ideological war for some- the defenders of democracy versus the rebel strong-arm charismatic leaders. Or the capitalist land-grabbers versus the protectors of the people, take your pick.