Jay poured some milk over the cereal bowl, deciding not to ask about the strange-shaped flakes. One thing at a time. “Do the Kiint live on all these planets?”
“Ah, yes. I did promise I’d explain things today, didn’t I, sweetie?”
“Yes!”
“Such impatience. Where to start, though?” Tracy sprinkled some sugar onto her grapefruit, and sank a silver spoon into the soft fruit. “Yes, the Kiint live on all these planets. They built them, you know. Not all at once, but they have been civilized for a very long time. One planet couldn’t possibly accommodate them all any more, just like there are too many humans to live on Earth nowadays. So they learned how to extract matter from their sun and condense it. Quite an achievement, actually, even with their technology. The arc is one of the wonders of this galaxy.
Not just physically, culturally, too. All the species who’ve achieved FTL starflight visit here eventually. Some that haven’t, too. It’s the greatest information exchange centre we know of. And the Kiint know of a few, believe me.”
“The provider said there was a big library here.”
“It was being modest. You see, when you’ve got the technology to take care of your every physical requirement, there’s not much else you can do but develop your knowledge base. So that’s what they do. And it’s a big universe to get to know. It keeps them occupied, and fulfils life’s basic requirement.”
“What’s that?”
“To live is to experience, and experience is living. I had a lovely little chuckle when the first Kiint ambassador from Jobis told the Confederation they had no interest in starflight. Travel broadens the mind, and heavens do they travel. They have this quite magical society, you see, they spend their whole time developing their intellects. The best way I can put it for you, is that wisdom is their equivalent of money, that’s what they pursue and hoard. I’m generalising, of course. A population as large as theirs is bound to have dissidents. Nothing like our Edenist Serpents, of course; their disagreements are mostly philosophical. But there are a few Kiint who turn their backs on their own kind. There’s even a couple of planets in the arc they can go to where they’re free of the central society.
“Whatever faction they come from, they’re all very noble by our standards. And I’ll admit it leaves them superbly prepared to face transcendence when their bodies die. But to be honest, that kind of existence is rather boring for humans. I don’t think we’ll ever go quite so far down that road. Different mental wiring, thankfully. We’re too impatient and quarrelsome. Bless us.”
“So you are really human then?”
“Oh yes, sweetie. I’m human. All of us living here are.”
“But why are you here?”
“We work for the Kiint, helping them to record human history. All of us take little unobtrusive jobs where we can get a good view of events. In the old days it was as servants of lords and kings, or joining up with nomads. Then when the industrial age started up we moved into the media companies. We weren’t front line investigative reporters, we were the office mundanes; but it meant we had access to an avalanche of information most of which never made it into the official history books.
It was perfect for us; and we still mostly work in the information industries today. I’ll show you how to use the AV projector later if you want, every broadcast humans make goes into the arc’s library. That always tickled me, if those desperate marketing departments only knew just how wide an audience they really have.”
“Are the Kiint really that interested in us?”
“Us, the Tyrathca, the Laymil, xenocs you’ve never heard of. They’re fascinated by sentience, you see. They’ve witnessed so many self-aware races dwindle away to nothing, or self-destruct. That kind of loss is tragic for the races which succeed and prosper. Everybody’s different, you see, sweetie. Life alone is precious, but conscious thought is the greatest gift the universe offers. So they try and study any entities they find; that way if they don’t survive their knowledge won’t be entirely lost to the rest of us.”
“How did you end up working for them?”
“The Kiint found Earth when they were exploring that galaxy about two and a half thousand years ago. They took DNA specimens from a few people. We were cloned from that base, with a few alterations.”
“Like what?” Jay asked eagerly. This was a wonderful story, so many secrets.
“We don’t age so quickly, obviously; and we’ve got a version of affinity; little things like that.”
“Gosh. And you’ve been on Earth since you were born?”
“Since I grew up, yes. We had to be educated the Kiint way first. Their prime rule in dealing with other species, especially primitive ones, is zero intervention. They were worried that we might become too sympathetic and go native. If we did that, we’d introduce ideas that were wrong for that era; I mean, think what would have happened if the Spanish Armada was equipped with anti-ship missiles. That’s why they made us sterile, too; it should help us remain impartial.”
“That’s horrid!”
Tracy smiled blankly at the horizon. “There are compensations. Oh sweetie, if you’d seen a fraction of what I have. The Imperial Chinese dynasties at their height. Easter Islanders carving their statues.
Knights of armour battling for their tiny kingdoms. The Inca cities rising out of jungles. I was a servant girl at Runnymede when King John signed the Magna Carta. Then lived as a grandee noblewoman while Europe was invigorated by the Renaissance. I waved from the harbour when Columbus set sail across the Atlantic; and spat as Nazi tanks rolled into Europe. Then thirty years later I stood on Cocoa Beach and cried when Apollo 11 took off for the moon, I was so proud of what we’d achieved.
And there I was in the spaceplane which brought Richard Saldana down to Kulu. You have no idea how blessed my life has been. I know everything, everything, humans are capable of. We are a good species. Not the best, not by Kiint standards, but so much better than most. And wonderfully unique.” She sniffed loudly, and dabbed a handkerchief on her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” Jay said quietly. “Please.”
“I’m sorry. Just having you here, knowing what you could accomplish if you have the chance, makes this hurt so much harder. It’s so bloody unfair.”
“What do you mean?” Jay asked. Seeing the old woman so upset was making her nervous. “Aren’t the Kiint going to let me go home?”
“It’s not that.” Tracy smiled bravely, and patted Jay’s hand. “It’s what kind of home that’ll be left for you. This shouldn’t have happened, you see. Discovering energistic states and what they mean normally comes a lot later in a society’s development. It’s a huge adjustment for anybody to make. Human-type psychologies need a lot of preparation for that kind of truth, a generation at least. And that’s when they’re more sociologically advanced than the Confederation. This breakthrough was a complete accident. I’m terrified the human race won’t get through this, not intact. We all are, all the Kiint observers want to help, to point the researchers in the right direction if nothing else. Our original conditioning isn’t strong enough to restrict those sort of feelings.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Even if they allowed us, I’d be no use. I’ve been part of all our history, Jay. I’ve seen us evolve from dirty savages into a civilization that has spread among the stars. More than anybody I know what we could grow into if we just had the chance. And I have the experience to intervene without anyone ever knowing they’d been guided. But at the most crucial time of our social evolution, when that experience is utterly vital, I’ve got to stay here.”
“Why?” Jay pleaded.
Tracy’s frail shoulders trembled from repressed emotion. “Oh sweetie, haven’t you worked out what this dreadful place is yet? It’s a bloody retirement home.”
The view arrived suddenly. For over twenty minutes Louise had been sitting in one of the lounge’s big chairs, its webbing holding her in the deep hollow of cushioning. Her belly muscles were begi
nning to strain as they were obliged to hold her in a curving posture. Then she felt a slight trembling in the decking as the lift capsule was shunted onto the tower rail. A tone sounded. Thirty seconds later they flashed out of the Skyhigh Kijabe asteroid. There was a quick impression of soured-white metal mountains, but they quickly shrank from sight overhead. Gentle gravity relieved her muscles, and the webbing slackened.
Earth shone with a mild opalescent light below her. It was midday in Africa, at the base of the tower, and the clouds were charging in from the oceans on either side. There seemed to be a lot more of them than there had been on Norfolk, although the Far Realm had been orbiting at a much lower altitude. That might account for it. Louise couldn’t be bothered to find the correct meteorology files in her processor block, and run a comparison program. The sight was there to enjoy not analyse.
She could actually see the giant white spirals spinning slowly as they battered against each other. It must be a pretty impressive speed for the movement to be visible from such a height.
Genevieve switched her webbing off, and glided over to the lounge window, pressing herself against it. “It’s beautiful,” she said. Her face was flushed as she smiled back at Louise. “I thought Earth was all rotten.”
Louise glanced about, slightly worried by what the other passengers would think of the little girl’s remark. With the quarantine, most of them must be from Earth or the Halo. But nobody was even looking at her. In fact, it seemed as though they were deliberately not looking. She went over to stand beside Gen. “I guess that’s as wrong as everything else in the school books.”
The Halo was visible against the stars, a huge slender thread of stippled light curving behind the planet, like the most tenuous of a gas-giant’s rings. For five hundred and sixty-five years, companies and finance consortiums had been knocking asteroids into Earth orbit. The process was standardized now; first the large-scale mining of mineral resources, hollowing out the habitation caverns, then the gradual build up of industrial manufacturing stations as the initial resources were depleted and the population switched to a more sophisticated economy. There were nearly fifteen thousand inhabited asteroids already drifting along in their common cislunar orbit, and new rocks were arriving at the rate of thirty-five a year. Tens of thousands of inter-orbit craft swooped between the spinning rocks, fusion exhausts tangling together in a single scintillating nimbus. Every asteroid formed a tiny bulge in the loop, wrapped behind a delicate haze of industrial stations.
Louise gazed at the ephemeral testament to astroengineering commerce.
More fragile than the bridge of heaven in Norfolk’s midsummer sky, but at the same time, more imposing. The vista inspired a great deal of confidence. Earth was strong, much stronger than she’d realized; it sprang from a wealth which she knew she would never truly comprehend.
If we’re safe anywhere, we’re safe here. She put her arm round Genevieve.
For once, contented.
Below the majesty of the Halo, Earth was almost quiescent by comparison.
Only the coastlines of North and South America hinted at the equal amount of human activity and industry on the ancient planet. They remained in darkness, awaiting the dawn terminator sliding over the Atlantic; but the night didn’t prevent her from seeing where people were. Arcologies blazed across the land like volcanoes of sunlight.
“Are they the cities?” Genevieve asked excitedly.
“I think so, yes.”
“Gosh! Why is the water that colour?”
Louise switched her attention away from the massive patches of illumination. The ocean was a peculiar shade of grey green, not at all like the balmy turquoise of Norfolk’s seas when they were under Duke’s stringent white glare.
“I’m not sure. It doesn’t look very clean, does it? I suppose that must be the pollution we hear about.”
A small contrite cough just behind them made both girls start. It was the first time anyone apart from the stewards had even acknowledged they existed. When they turned round they found themselves facing a small man in a dark purple business suit. He’d already got some thin wrinkles on his cheeks, though he didn’t seem particularly old. Louise was surprised by his height, she was actually an inch taller than him, and he had a very broad forehead, as if his hair wouldn’t grow properly along the top of it.
“I know this is rude,” he said quietly. “But I believe you’re from outsystem?”
Louise wondered what had given them away. She’d bought the pair of them new clothes in Skyhigh Kijabe, one-piece garments like shipsuits but more elaborate, with pronounced pockets and cuffs. Other women were wearing the fashion; so she’d hoped they would blend in.
“Yes,” Louise said. “From Norfolk, actually.”
“Ah. I’m afraid I’ve never tasted Norfolk Tears. Too expensive, even with my salary. I was most sorry to hear about its loss.”
“Thank you.” Louise kept her face blank, the way she’d learned to do whenever Daddy started shouting.
The man introduced himself as Aubry Earle. “So this is your first visit to Earth?” he asked.
“Yes,” Genevieve said. “We want to go to Tranquillity, but we can’t find a flight.”
“I see. Then this is all new to you?”
“Some of it,” Louise said. She wasn’t quite sure what Aubry wanted. He didn’t seem the type to befriend a pair of young girls. Not from altruism, anyway.
“Then allow me to explain what you are seeing. The oceans aren’t polluted, at least not seriously; there was an extensive effort to clean them up at the end of the Twenty-first Century. Their present colouring comes from algae blooms. It’s a geneered variety that floats on the top. I think it looks awful, myself.”
“But it’s everywhere,” Genevieve said.
“Alas, yes. That’s our carbon sink these days. Earth’s lungs, if you like. It performs the job once done by forests and grasslands. The surface vegetation is not what it used to be, so Govcentral introduced the algae to prevent us from suffocating ourselves. Actually, it’s a far more successful example of terraforming than Mars. Though I would never be so undiplomatic as to say that to a Lunar citizen. We now have less carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than at any time in the last eight hundred years. You’ll be breathing remarkably clean air when you arrive.”
“So why do you all live in the arcologies?” Louise asked.
“Heat,” Aubry said sadly. “Do you know how much heat a modern industrial civilization of over forty billion people generates?” He gestured down at the globe. “That much. Enough to melt the polar ice and quicken the clouds. We’ve taken all the preventative measures we can, of course. That was the original spur to build the orbital towers, to prevent spaceplanes aerobraking and shedding even more heat into the air. But however economic we are, we can’t dissipate it at a rate that’ll turn the clock back. The old ocean currents have shut down, there’s no ozone layer at all. And that kind of ecological retro-engineering is beyond even our ability. We’re stuck with the current environment, unfortunately.”
“Is it very bad?” Genevieve asked. What he’d described sounded worse than the beyond, though she thought the man didn’t sound terribly upset by the cataclysm.
He smiled fondly at the planet. “Best damn world in the Confederation. Though I expect everyone says that about their homeworld. Am I right?”
“I like Norfolk,” Louise said.
“Of course you do. But if I might make an observation, this is going to be noisier than anything you’ve experienced before.”
“I know that.”
“Good. Take care down there. People aren’t likely to help you. That’s our culture, you see.”
Louise gave him a sideways look. “Do you mean they don’t like foreigners?”
“Oh no. Nothing like that. It’s not racism. Not overtly, anyway. On Earth everybody is a foreigner to their neighbour. It’s because we’re all squashed up so tight. Privacy is a cherished commodity. In public places, people don’t chat t
o strangers, they avoid eye contact. It’s because that’s the way they want to be treated. I’m really breaking taboos by talking to you. I doubt any of the other passengers will. But I’ve been outsystem myself, I know how strange it all is for you.”
“Nobody’s going to talk to us?” Genevieve asked apprehensively.
“Not as readily as I.”
“That’s fine with me,” Louise said. She couldn’t quite bring herself to trust Aubry Earle. At the back of her mind was the worry that he would volunteer to become their guide. It had been bad enough in Norwich when she’d depended on Aunt Celina; Roberto was family. Earle was a stranger, one prepared to drop Earth’s customs in public when it suited him. She gave him a detached smile, and led an unprotesting Gen away from the window. The lift capsule had ten decks, and her standard-class ticket allowed her into four of them. They managed to avoid Earle for the rest of the flight. Though she realized he was telling the truth about privacy. Nobody else talked to them.
The isolation might have been safer, but it made the ten hour trip incredibly boring. They spent a long time watching the view through the window as Earth grew larger, and talking idly. Louise even managed to sleep for the last three hours, curling up in one of the big chairs.
She woke to Gen shaking her shoulder. “They just announced we’re about to reach the atmosphere,” her sister said.
Louise combed some strands of hair from her face, and sat up. Other passengers who’d been dozing were now stirring themselves. She took the hair clip off as she reorganized her mane, then fastened it up again.
First priority when they were down must be to get it washed. The last time she’d managed properly was back on Phobos. Maybe it was time for a cut, a short style that was more manageable. Though the usual arguments still applied: she’d invested so much time keeping it in condition, cutting it was almost a confession of defeat. Of course, back at Cricklade she’d had the time to groom herself every day, and had a maid to help.
Whatever did I do all day back then?
“Louise?” Genevieve asked cautiously.
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