The Caryatids

World-spanning, instant connectivity was the stuff of being for a global civil society. So, somewhere up in the Acquis administrative stratosphere, cogwheels turned, galactic and distant.

Six weeks later, Vera found herself meeting Herbert Fotheringay, an Australian geoengineer.

A small Acquis neural corps was formed to redeem Mljet. Vera thought that Herbert had done that, while Herbert had always said that she had inspired it.

Now, sitting years later in the sagging deck chair in an old boat with the island sinking into darkness, Vera knew that no single person had ever done that. Mljet was a web of emerging technologies, around which people accreted.

Nothing much had been "invented" on Mljet. The brain scanners, the attention tracking, the neural software, the social software inside the camps, the sensors, the everyware, the communal property, even the heavy-duty exoskeletons-they all had years of development behind them, somewhere else.

The one innovation was the way they'd been brought to life by people willing to believe in them, wanting to believe in them.

Herbert had always claimed that she, Vera, had "inspired" his efforts. Maybe. There was no way for any woman to deny that she had "inspired" a man. It was true that she had been a girl in distress, demanding rescue.

What if a man came to the rescue? What if an army came? What if the army launched a thousand ships? What if they won? What then?

"You're very lost in your own thoughts," he said tenderly.

"I am," she said.

"Well, you've certainly put a pretty spanner into their works today," Herbert said briskly. "That'll complicate matters upstairs. But I'm glad of it. I'm glad that snarky little real-estate hustler can't patch his deal together and use you as his bait and his billboard. To hell with him and all his Yankee funding. I had hell-all for funding when you and I first tackled that place"-Herbert waved off the starboard bow-"and as for tackling the Big Ice, that is work for grown-ups. Vera: You and I will walk the Earth like Titans. You and me. Wait and see."

"Big machines," she murmured.

"Darling: I'm past that now. It's behind me. That's what these years have finally taught me. Any fool with a big budget can assemble big machines. We're not mechanics, we are two engineers of human souls. We are. It's what we feel in our own bones-that's what matters in this world. The one mistake I made here was letting them set the limits on how we felt. "

"Did you make any mistakes here, Herbert?"

"In one sense, yes, I was blind. The children! No society thrives without children! When I saw how deeply you felt about that child, that niece of yours-then I knew what I had failed to offer you. Yes. I failed you. That tore me up."

"I'm sorry you were hurt, Herbert."

"Yes, that did hurt me, but the pain has opened my eyes. I once had children. They died in Australia. That ended that part of my world, I never got over that grief. But if we beat the Big Ice, you and me, then it will rain in Australia."

"'Australia Fair,'" said Vera. Herbert had talked about his own home island, sometimes. A place much bigger than Mljet. The biggest island in the world. He spoke of how he had loved his homeland.

"I may never set my foot in a renewed, revived, redeemed Australia. But our children will live there. Vera, our children will laugh and sing. They'll be free. They'll be happy."

There was a violent snap as the boat came about. The yachtsman tied off his mainsail, and tramped the little deck in his cheap rubber shoes. He spoke in Croatian. "Srecno i mnogo! Muske dece!"

Vera blinked.

"Dobrodosao, zete!" The sailor clapped Herbert across the back.

Then he reached out his glad hand to Vera, and she realized, with a shock of revulsion, that the sailor was Djordje.

"You have really screwed up," Djordje told her cheerfully, in his German-tinged English. "I told John Montgomery that you would never do it his way-the smart way. All the world for love! Well, you cost me a lot of good business, Vera. But I forgive you. Because I am so happy, very happy, to see you settled in this way."

"You should express some sympathy for your sister," Herbert told him. "On the Big Ice, I'll work her harder than ever."

"There is no pleasing you global politicals," said Djordje. He found himself another deck chair, one even shabbier and more mildewed than the one that Vera perched on. "You spent nine years on that godforsaken island there? That evil hellhole? And you never took one vacation? Truly, you people kill me."

Vera grabbed hard for the shards of her sanity. "How have you been, Djordje? This is such a surprise for me."

"Call me 'George,'" he corrected. "My life is good. I have another baby on the way. That would be number three."

"Oh my."

Djordje helped himself to a fizzing glass of prosecco. "That's not what you say to wonderful news like mine, Vera. You say: ' Mnogo muske dece! ' 'Hope it's a son!'"