Angels and Exiles Read Free

was right at the peak of his career; he was involved in nearly every project at the highest level, which meant he knew many secrets of the Company. That was when he rebelled. He had never forgiven the Company for its ruling on his father’s death; and now he intended to make war on it.
    With his wealth, he had built a hidden castle in the mountains, where no one could find him; he fled to it in a stolen flier, along with tons of equipment. The young woman went along with him.
    From the castle, he waged war with the Company. In all the places he had worked, he had left software-bombs to irretrievably destroy data, or mechanical traps that would wreck priceless experiments, if not entire laboratories. But he didn’t stop there. He blew up the rail network that linked the cities. He introduced chaos into the computers that controlled the automated outposts. He had even brought genetic equipment with him, and with it he tried to undo the efforts of the life-weavers by adapting the local life to compete with Man-life; by creating diseases to attack the plants, and microorganisms that changed the atmosphere back to what it had been.
    For years he fought his war; he did terrible damage to the Company, and they could not stop him. But then something else happened that hadn’t been foretold. The young woman fell sick. It was a sickness the young man couldn’t cure. Only the Company could heal her.
    And so he communicated with the Company. He made a deal with it: if it saved his love, he would stop his war and give himself up.
    The Company agreed; and its word was binding. It saved the young man’s love in the way that only it could have saved her; so the young man surrendered.
    He thought the Company would punish him by killing him, but the Company could not take his life. Instead, it forgave him: it took him back as an Employee, and the young woman as well.
    And they lived happily ever after.

    The man falls silent. The angel watches him fixedly, the lump of metacoal still held tightly in its hands. Feeling a sudden spasm of unreasoned fear—water moistening the surface of the sand—the man rises to his feet, goes forward to check on the locomotive.
    But all is well. In the depths of the furnace, the metacoal nuggets catalyze the cool fusion of light nuclei; as they become exhausted, they disaggregate and fall to a fine powder that is evacuated and dispersed beneath the engine, coating the rails as with gold dust. The hopper is full, the reaction temperature squarely within the green portion of the alarm spectrum; the cybersystem murmurs softly “all is well.” The nameless man is not needed; he is still on his Hour-long break. The sun will not set for a long time yet.
    He returns to the tender. To his surprise, the angel is still there. Dimly, the man feels there may yet be something to be accomplished. What more does the angel expect?
    —Now I will tell you a story, Other, says the angel. (Its face is set in a strange expression that might be sadness, or even grief.)
    The man settles down uncomfortably. He does not think he wants to hear a story. He thinks of telling the angel this, but holds his tongue. He realizes that the angel is not paying him back, but rather that he is bound to listen to its tale, that he is the one making the payment.
THE TALE OF THE ANGEL
    Some of us were present when the Others first came to Earth in ships of metal that flew without wings. We were puzzled and somewhat afraid. A few conquered their fear and went to observe more closely, perhaps to speak with the Others, if they should know how to speak.
    Those were captured and put in cages. The Others did not listen to their talk; they only talked among themselves, and then they cut their prisoners with metal knives and wounded them with needles. Later, our captive brethren escaped; when they bore their tale to the rest of us, it was decided never to approach the Others again.
    At first we thought it would be easy; but the Others grew in numbers,