The Temporary King

The Temporary King

By Paul J. McAuley

Here and there mud had been daubed in crude symbols: the traces of bears. I pointed them out.

“They live in the rooms underneath. No one knows how far it all extends. They say it underlies all of the mountain.” It was cold in there, and I hugged my shoulders as I peered into the flickering shadows of the spiral ramp. “The bears can be dangerous. They speak a kind of American, but it isn`t much like ours.”

“Our ancestors, Christ. Why did they trouble to alter bears? They were crazy, Clary, you know? They did so much damage to the world at one time that they spent most of their energies afterward putting it back together, changing animals to make them more intelligent, raising extinct species from dust. What do you think he bears are guarding down there?”

“It was all looted age ago. Come on, Gil, please.” I thought that I could hear something moving far below, in the darkness. After a moment he shrugged and turned to follow me out into the sunlight.

I sat in the shade of a little aspen that canted out from the remains of a wall, and watched Florey prowl the ruins. The sunlight sank to my bones, and I closed my eyes. After a while Florey sat beside me. His white chest, the single crease in his flat belly. His black hair tangled about his white face.

The Temporary King. Photo : Elena

“It is true,” I asked, “about the people in the old days growing animals? »

“Surely. Plants, too. Greater Brazil may have invented the phase graffle, but it’s way behind the old biology. That was all lost in the war, like a lot of things. On Elysium we lost Earth, you know.”

« What’s a phase graffle? »

« It keeps a ship together in phase space. A sort of keel into reality, you understand? Otherwise the entropic gradient would spatter it all over the universe.”

I sighed. “I wish I knew more.”

“It’s a big universe outside this forest. You’re better off here, really you are.” His silver eyes flashed in the sunlight. His knees leaned negligently against my thigh.