The Saints of Salvation

by Peter F. Hamilton

  For once Jessika’s composure deserted her. “I…don’t have any information on that.”

  “Neána biotechnology is remarkably similar to Olyix biotechnology,” Callum said. “And how did the Neána know about the enclave and its properties? They either visited before they dispersed into their abodes, or just maybe they were there when it was under construction.”

  Everyone looked at Jessika.

  “I have no answer,” she said meekly.

  “I’m calling bullshit,” Alik said and grinned at Kandara. “If the Neána had ever been to the enclave, they’d know where it is. Equally possible the neurovirus extracted some information from a quint or onemind about it being a slowtime zone.”

  “And the biology?” Callum asked.

  “Terrestrial-style planets will probably follow the same evolutionary route at a biochemical level,” Yuri said. “That’s the theory the Connexion exobiologists always favored. Sure, the farther along the evolutionary timescale you got, the more fantastical and divergent the animal life would look to us. But if a planet has the same elements available, the basic cell chemistry would be similar. Occam’s razor.”

  “Damn,” Kandara said in frustration. “I really like my conspiracy theory.”

  “Keep at it,” Jessika said, her humor bouncing back. “Time on this trip is going to need filling.”

  “I disagree,” Callum said directly to Yuri. “Our composition is due to a million acts of chance and random mutation. That’s why we have our distinct biochemistry. We have no idea what natural Neána biochemistry is like.”

  “Of course you disagree,” Yuri grunted.

  “That’s the spirit, boys,” Kandara said. “I can see our time in here is going to pass so quickly.”

  Alik groaned in dismay. I wonder if I can simulate some artificial humans in here for proper company?

  FINALSTRIKE MISSION

  FLIGHT YEAR 15

  At first Yirella didn’t even have the strength to moan in dismay. Waking from suspension was always a struggle, but at least it meant she was alive. Every time before she opened her eyes, she always had the same thought. Who’s there? Would it be Del, one of her other friends, or an Olyix quint waiting for the chamber lid to open?

  She felt the umbilical tubes withdraw from her abdomen and forced herself to open her eyes. A face was slightly out of focus on the other side of the transparent casing. Human. That was a good start. With nausea strumming away at her stomach, she squinted up. Protocol was always to have a good friend greet you when you were coming out of suspension. She recognized the face—Matías, one of the other squad leaders. Nice enough guy, but hardly in the “good friend” category.

  The lid slid down, and she slowly sat up, the cushioning rising in tandem to support her.

  “You okay?” Matías asked.

  Yirella just remembered in time not to nod her head. She held up a finger and croaked: “Getting there.”

  Matías waited patiently until she was ready to climb out. She gritted her teeth and managed to raise a leg. He offered an arm as she finally swung both legs over the edge of the chamber. That’s when she saw Rafa, one of Matías’s squad members, standing a couple of meters away. For the first time in years, she felt self-conscious about being naked. Then she noticed the sidearms they both wore and did her best not to smile.

  She stood on the decking, gripping the rim of the chamber to prevent herself falling. An embarrassed Matías handed her a robe.

  “What’s happening?” she asked. Data in her optik was telling her the Morgan was at half light speed already and still just under a light-year out from the neutron star.

  “You’re needed at the Captain’s Council.”

  “Okay. I’ll have a shower and get along there.” It was malicious, but she couldn’t resist.

  Rafa coughed.

  “It’s urgent,” a miserable Matías said. “We’re to escort you straight there as soon as you’re dressed.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, Yirella. All I know is that they need to consult you. It’s very urgent.”

  “Seems about right.” She gestured at the oily fluid still beading her skin. “But first, the shower.”

  Rafa was about to say something, but Matías said: “Of course.”

  She took her time in the washroom and used her databud to order chicken soup from the food printer. As the water sluiced the oil off her skin, she used her interface to check on her cyborg. It was sitting in standby mode where she’d left it seven years ago, in one of the many empty compartments on a lower deck, not far from where the squads used to have their idiot bare-knuckle fights. According to the log, none of the crew had noticed it—not that they patrolled the Morgan looking for intruders. For a moment she was tempted to bring it up out of standby mode, just in case. But that was silly, because there was no physical threat. Having it accompany her to the council would be the equivalent of comfort food. And as soon as she stepped out of the shower, a remote rolled up carrying her chicken soup. So…

  The cup the soup came in seemed inordinately heavy as she carried it with her on the interminable walk around to the captain’s quarters. They had to stop five times for her to sit and rest. She obstinately refused Matías’s offer to summon a remote medical chair for her.

  Kenelm was sitting at the head of the table in hir reception room. The stern expression sie wore would have been intimidating at any other time. Today, Yirella found it hard not to smirk right back at hir. Alexandre was sitting halfway along the table, and hir gesture invited Yirella to sit. She accepted gratefully and drank some more of the soup. Every limb was shaking from the exertion of the walk. Directly opposite her, Tilliana gave her an anxious glance.

  Cinrea and Wim occupied the seats on either side of Kenelm. Then there was Napar, captain of the Collesia; and Illathan, who commanded the Kinzalor. They directed troubled expressions her way.

  “I apologize for bringing you here right out of suspension,” Kenelm said, “but we’ve encountered an unexpected development.”

  Yirella turned her head to look at Matías and Rafa, who were standing behind her. “Is this to be an expanded council, captain? If so, shouldn’t squad leader Matías be sitting with the rest of us?”

  “Matías is here to ensure order,” Kenelm said levelly.

  “Order?”

  “Yirella, we’ve detected something odd at the neutron star,” Alexandre said in a weary voice. “Actually, disturbing is more like it. We’re hoping you can help us understand what’s going on.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I came out of suspension nine months ago to assist Wim’s approach protocol team,” Tilliana said. “Five fleet ships assembled remote sensor satellites to perform the observation.”

  “I remember the specifications,” Yirella said. “The sensors were good, taken from the original Actaeon array design.”

  “Yeah. The sats decelerated at fifty gees, until they matched velocity with the neutron star. Then they stuck out their probes and sent the data back to us through portals.”

  “And?”

  “The neutron star’s rotation speed has changed.”

  Yirella took a moment to absorb that monumental fact. “Well, that’s good. It should help call the attention of the Olyix.”

  “Good?” Wim said frostily. “That’s your take? Good? We have absolutely no idea how to do that.”

  “We do,” Yirella countered. “There are several theories on how to accomplish it.” She drank some more soup.

  “Yes, but we don’t have the technology to actually do it.”

  “Ainsley probably has. He was carrying some amazing systems.”

  “Ainsley didn’t know how they worked.”

  “No, but the team you led back at the habitats made astonishing progress on Ainsley’s neutronic functions
, didn’t you? That was impressive. Put enough effort into a retro-engineering project, and you should ultimately be successful.”

  Wim shot Kenelm an agitated glance.

  “You’re suggesting that Ainsley analyzed his own composition?” sie asked.

  “I don’t know. What are you asking me?”

  “We’re asking you about this,” Kenelm said.

  The screen at the end of the table came on, showing a starfield. Right at the center was a small ring of faint red speckles.

  “And that is?” Yirella asked, but she knew. She knew because it was beautiful and perfect. Everything she hoped it would be. Yet she still wanted—needed—confirmation.

  “The neutron star civilization,” Wim said tightly. “The infrared emission of close on a quarter of a million individual objects orbiting three hundred and eighty-four thousand four hundred kilometers from the star. Best our sensors can measure from here is that they vary from one kilometer to twenty-five in diameter. There are a small number that are even larger, though their infrared signature is lower.”

  “Wow!”

  “Three hundred and eighty-four thousand four hundred kilometers is a very specific distance.”

  “The distance the moon orbited our lost Earth,” Yirella said. “So Ainsley has a sense of humor, after all. Who knew?”

  “You’re saying Ainsley did this?” Wim challenged.

  “I’m saying he enabled it.” She sipped some more soup, keeping her gaze on Kenelm over the rim of the cup.

  “How did that happen?” Kenelm asked. “The lure civilization you designed was supposed to consist of ten habitats and some neutronic weapon platforms. They were going to announce their existence to the Olyix by targeting the neutron star with chunks of mass to create an artificial pattern of super-high-energy X-ray emissions. Now we see this. How? How could this possibly happen?”

  Yirella put the cup down. “It happened because I gave the humans full control of the seedship initiators.”

  “You did what?”

  “What humans?” Wim asked. “The lure population was androids.”

  “No, that was the original idea. I changed it.”

  “On whose authority?” Alexandre asked.

  “Mine. What you’re seeing around the neutron star is a natural space-based human civilization—one that has developed without limits or restrictions so that it can advance a long way beyond us.”

  Kenelm closed hir eyes, hir body frozen. “Oh, sweet Saints; you didn’t.”

  “Oh, but I did—with Ainsley’s help. I did what I know we have to do to end this. I gave humans the most sophisticated technology we had, and set them free to build whatever they wanted.”

  “Those are real humans?” sie demanded. “Do you even understand the danger you’ve exposed them to?”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic. They’re not in any danger, precisely because I took away your restrictions. All those over-cautious, play-by-the-rules Utopial orthodoxy limits your kind have been imposing on us for millennia. The limits that have stunted us, and reduced us to helpless victims; limits that have condemned billions to imprisonment by the Olyix. The blind subservience that means I wouldn’t be far wrong to call you a traitor to our species.”

  “Enough!” Kenelm shouted, hir fist slamming down on the table. “Matías, she is to be placed under cabin arrest until we can convene a full council.”

  “No,” Yirella shouted, equally loud. “You don’t have that authority. Your captaincy is a lie.”

  “Yi,” Tilliana said desperately. “What are you doing?”

  “I have a question for our captain,” Yirella said. “One question, that’s all. You’re not afraid of that, captain, are you?”

  “Get her out of here,” Kenelm ordered Matías.

  Yirella smiled viciously. “How old are you?”

  “What?”

  Her neural interface ordered the screen to display a single image, one she’d copied from volume five of the Falkon terraforming books. Five tall omnia smiling at the camera as they stood on a large expanse of windswept marshland, with a gray sea in the background. Equipment cases were open around their feet.

  “Oh, shit,” Kenelm whispered.

  “What is this?” a confused Alexandre asked.

  “That,” Yirella said, “is expedition team eighteen B-three of the Falkon Terraforming Office biosphere establishment division. They’re taking samples in a coastal marsh to measure the propagule density in the sediment. Important work, given Falkon was only just ending phase three of its terraforming process at the time, two thousand and twenty-eight years ago.”

  Tilliana looked at the image, turned to look at Kenelm, turned back to the screen. “Fuck the Saints! It’s you.”

  LONDON

  FEBRUARY 12, 2231

  “I saw the sky yesterday afternoon,” Horatio said wistfully. “We had a break in the clouds for about five minutes. I’d forgotten how strange that blue is—so light but with a depth to it, as if it’s not really there. It was quite a revelation looking at it, even if it was only for a short time.”

  Gwendoline’s image on the screen gave him a mournful smile. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “They say that’s the third time the clouds have parted this year. I missed the first two. They were only for a few seconds.” He sat back on his flat’s settee, enjoying the memory. Outside, the sky above the shield was darkening to twilight. But inside, the ceiling lights shone brightly. He was still mildly surprised every time he switched them on and they actually worked. In the twenty-five years since Blitz2 had ended, London had only been without a public supply of power for four years while the settled worlds gradually improved their support to Earth. He suspected he shared the same impressed perplexity Londoners of the 1920s experienced when they changed from gas lighting to electric bulbs. Will such a marvel last? Those early years had been a profound lesson in how so many privileges had been taken for granted.

  With the power back on, printers worked again (after a great deal of maintenance); and eventually they even got community recycling systems organized. The only real production issue was food. Organic base fluids were rationed for another five years until a host of new offworld factories were completed. Now you could print most dishes again, though some flavorings were still hard to come by. In the last ten years, London had undergone a re-greening, with the long dead gardens being revived and vegetables planted. Parks that had irrigation systems had even seen grass shoots rising again—all because water was now available in quantity. The Thames was flushed clean every fortnight when they opened a section of the shield and allowed the ominously warm river water to flow through the city once more. He’d even seen some banana trees flourishing along the banks recently.

  Heat under the curving shield remained tropical. Even without the Deliverance ships firing their energy beams at every city shield, pumping terawatts of raw energy into the atmosphere every day, global temperatures hadn’t dropped by more than a couple of degrees since the Salvation of Life had been forced to retreat. There was nothing anyone could do about that except turn up the air-con, pumping their home’s thermal load out into the city’s humid atmosphere. When the environmental technicians expanded a high-altitude aperture in the shield to let in some fresh air, it was as if a portal was opening into a pre-invasion desert.

  “Small steps,” Gwendoline said.

  She seemed oddly anxious—a strange mood for her. He didn’t quite understand it.

  * * *

  —

  The last surprise she’d given him was three years ago, when she moved from Nashua to Pasobla in the Delta Pavonis system. But that at least was understandable; Loi had just announced that Eldlund was pregnant, and Gwendoline wasn’t going to miss out on being a part of her grandchild’s life. Besides, as she’d pointed out, “I can do the same job in Pasobla as I can here; the
ir industrial systems have the same screwups as ours. I’ve already spoken to the Utopial exodus project committee, and they’ll accept me as a level two citizen.”

  “Level two, huh?” he’d teased. “That low?”

  “Shouldn’t take me more than a month to work my way up to level one. And they’ll accept you, too.”

  That had soured the mood. “I’ll think about it,” he’d said, as he always did. Keep kicking the can down the road long enough…

  “I’ve already got authorization to bring the portal with me.”

  “Dear God, how did you work that?”

  Her lips had twitched in a taunting grin. “Level two, remember. It’s part of my golden handshake package.”

  “There are no corporate executives anymore.”

  “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”

  He’d never been so tempted to join her and Loi and Eldlund. That night, he’d even packed a suitcase. A pathetically small one. But then he got a call from one of the community centers. Sorry to call late, but we’ve got some scheduling problems that need sorting. You always handle this kind of thing so well, Horatio. People depended on him.

  The suitcase remained packed. It sat right there in the cupboard next to the case with the portal. Ready. Because one day he would join his family in their safe haven. One day soon…

  “Not so much steps as wading,” he now countered. “The sea level has risen another ten centimeters since November. It came over the Thurrock rampart last week. Even if the air ever does stabilize enough for us to turn the shield off, half the city would vanish underwater.”

  “Yes,” Gwendoline said. “I saw the projections. They’re worried about New York—enough that they’ve increased the city’s evacuation rate to New Washington.”

  “I’m sure they’re loving that in the Billionaire Belt.” Again, he was picking up on how distracted she was. I don’t get this. What isn’t she saying?