Chiku spread her hands in a gesture of profound hopelessness. ‘You’re used to waiting, Eunice. You may have to wait a while longer. Me coming here, finding my way into this chamber . . . it’s all accidental. If not for Kappa, I wouldn’t be standing here. Who knows how long you’d have had to wait before someone found you?’ Then she remembered something that Eunice had already told her. ‘You’ve been outside, though.’
‘I’d forgotten too much, and it began to worry me. There were supposed to be secure data connections between this chamber and the rest of Zanzibar, so that I could tap into the public nets without leaving this chamber. Also, that proxy – it doesn’t work now, but it was left here so that someone like you, an Akinya with inside knowledge, could visit me without being physically present. But without the data links or the proxy, I had no choice but to leave the chamber if I wanted to fill the gaps in my memories.’
The thought that this machine, this artilect, had on occasion walked in the public spaces of Zanzibar left Chiku profoundly unnerved.
‘And did you manage to fill those gaps?’
‘To some extent, but there are still absences. I was damaged, you see. I was powerful for a very long time. Scarily powerful. Then things changed.’
‘In what way?’
‘I met something. Crossed paths with . . . whatever it was. Another artilect, almost certainly. Just as powerful as me, just as furtive.’
‘Something like you?’
‘Similar, but disembodied, the way I used to be. Spread across the networks, haunting their vulnerabilities. Whatever she was, she must have been there for a long while. Lurking in the solar system, quietly aware of me.’
‘You say “she”—’ Chiku said.
‘I told you I was damaged. It reached me, tried to kill me. It stabbed me with mathematics. Infected me with viruses and malware that spread like a disease, causing progressive failure of my core systems. Even after I’d consolidated myself into a single body and become small enough to move unnoticed among people, the disease progressed. When I ventured back into Zanzibar, I was trying to put right what had gone wrong. Trying to plug the holes in my soul.’
‘Why do you think it locked on to you? What did you mean to it?’
‘I don’t know, and I’d very much like to. What was it? Who made it, and for what purpose? How extensive was its reach in our home solar system? Might it still be there now, or did it manage to infiltrate Zanzibar? Is it still looking for me?’
Chiku sighed. ‘You don’t have much to go on.’
‘I have a name. The thing that tried to kill me calls herself Arachne.’
Chiku was glad to return home, to Noah and the children. The pod returned her to Kappa and she climbed out of the shaft without incident. When she returned her suit, she was almost disappointed when no one demanded an account of her actions. It turned out that she had only been gone an unremarkable five hours, no cause for alarm. Her casually proffered explanation for the dents and scratches on the suit – that they had been occasioned by a minor collapse when she was exploring one of the basements – was accepted without question. Eunice had cleaned up her minor head wounds well enough that they were not obvious. Only a clump of mud and grass caught in the articulation between knee and thigh threatened to undermine Chiku’s account. But if anyone noticed it, it was assumed to have been contamination from inside Kappa.
That night, when Ndege and Mposi were asleep, when their neighbours’ lights had gone out, she and Noah discussed what she had found.
‘Before we begin,’ Chiku said, ‘I need you to accept what I’m about to tell you without question.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘You’ll understand in a minute. All I’m saying is, if you stop me to quibble over every tiny little detail, we’ll be here until next week. Are you willing to listen first and ask questions later?’
Noah poured wine. ‘Talk away.’
So she talked, and Noah, to his credit, did not quibble. He interrupted once or twice, but only for the sake of amplification or clarification, never because he doubted the essential veracity of her story. She told him all of it, from the pod, to the aircraft, to Eunice and the Tantors. She told him what she had learned of Eunice’s nature, and why she had no reason to doubt that she had been talking to a machine. She told him of Eunice’s amnesia, and the thing called Arachne.
‘I know I made you a promise at the start of all this,’ she said, when she was done with the account. ‘I said I’d either go to the Assembly with my findings or never mention the matter again. But you see now why I can’t keep that promise, don’t you?’
‘This is too big for you to handle, Chiku.’
‘I agree. But I know this for a fact – we absolutely cannot risk invoking the Assembly.’
‘Sooner or later,’ Noah said, ‘they’ll start rebuilding Kappa, and someone else will find that shaft.’
‘Eunice knows that. But she also knows the time isn’t right for full disclosure.’
‘Can you trust her? Given what you told me about her memory, is she totally sane?’
‘I don’t know. I’m going to see what I can find out about Arachne, at least. Beyond that, though, one thing’s very clear to me. I’ve established that we can enter and leave the chamber in relative safety – for the moment, at least.’ She paused, knitting her fingers over and over. ‘When I go back, you have to come with me, Noah. You need to see this, too.’
‘It still sounds too risky to me – what about the children if we’re harmed?’
‘I know what to expect now and I don’t think we’re in any danger from anything in that chamber. But we don’t have long – once the reconstruction work gets under way, we’ll lose access.’
‘I could go on my own,’ Noah said.
‘The transit pod wouldn’t work for you. But even if it did, I promised to go back. I trust her, Noah. She’s Akinya, too. She may not be flesh and blood, but we made her. That makes her a family problem.’
‘Your family’s past has an annoying habit of intruding on the present,’ Noah said.
‘You’re not the only one who wishes it would stop,’ Chiku said.
In the morning she found herself called to the Assembly Building for a private meeting with Chair Utomi. They took coffee in Utomi’s office, while the Chair made troubling smalltalk. This was in disquieting contrast to his usual directness. It was quite obvious to Chiku that he was building up to something she was unlikely to find pleasant.
‘You seem tired,’ he observed, as if that was supposed to improve her mood. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Well, aside from this business with Travertine, the accident that could easily have killed us all, not to mention the political fall-out we can expect from the rest of the local caravan and then slowdown rearing its head . . . no, everything’s fine.’
‘Sarcasm will be the death of you,’ Utomi said, peering at her over the rim of his coffee cup with owlish regard. In his sturdy fingers the cup looked like something made for a doll. ‘But your point is well made. These are difficult times, and this Travertine mess hasn’t improved things. So, would you like some good news, for a change?’
She wondered how well she was hiding her suspicion. ‘We could all use some, Chair.’
‘Two things. I mentioned a few days ago the likelihood of a favourable outcome regarding your recent request for skipover. Nothing’s formalised, but I can tell you now that the indications are very, very positive. You’ve been a valued member of the Assembly, Chiku, and the feeling is that it would be a shame not to have the benefit of your good judgement on the final approach to Crucible.’
‘I hope to be alive then, whatever happens, Chair.’
‘True, and we hope you will be, too. But while you’re up and about there’s always a chance of accident or something worse. In skipover, we can safeguard you against any mishaps – foreseeable ones, at any rate.’
‘I understand. When might I expect the formal announcement?’
&n
bsp; ‘Soon, I hope – which brings me to my second piece of good news. The local caravan really doesn’t want trouble, Chiku – we’ve enough on our hands without emergency rule being imposed on Zanzibar. You’ll hear none of that in the public statements, of course – the Council of Worlds has to at least give the impression of holding firm on its threats and promises – but there are always back channels. Not even Teslenko wants things to come to martial law. All everyone’s looking for is a way to close this sorry little affair and get on with our lives. We want closure, a clean conclusion that makes an example of the complicit parties.’
‘An example,’ she repeated.
‘I know you and Travertine are, or have been, friends – that can’t be helped, and no one’s blaming you for it. Ve was a friend to many of us, once. But Travertine committed a serious crime, and regardless of the loyalties that come with friendship, a transgression of that magnitude can’t go unpunished, can it?’
‘I don’t think anyone would disagree with that, Chair.’
‘I won’t pretend that your vote will swing things one way or the other, Chiku. Travertine’s fate is already all but sealed. But a show of unanimity . . . a forceful declaration that we will not tolerate this kind of meddling . . . that could go a long way to keeping our enemies at bay. In return, we’ll be allowed to continue to enjoy the open and democratic rule we presently enjoy. It is also my view that such a show of unanimity would actually be in Travertine’s best interests.’
‘I’m not sure I quite follow that.’
‘If the Council perceives a whiff of disunity, they’ll press for execution. But if we make this gesture, show some solidarity, then they may accept the lesser sentence of denial of prolongation.’ He smiled tightly. ‘Frankly, we’d be doing Travertine a favour.’
‘We’ll all sleep easily in our beds, then.’
‘This is about the entire community, Chiku. It’s bigger than a single human existence. Bigger than a life. Bigger than personal loyalties. And I’m not asking you to push the dagger in yourself, merely to set personal feelings aside and acknowledge that Travertine committed a crime that warrants harsh punishment.’
‘And if I chose not to go with the majority?’
‘You’ve been an asset to this community. Why blot your copy-book now with a single rash action?’
‘I see.’
‘I’m not saying that your vote for or against Travertine will have the slightest influence on your chances of securing skipover.’
‘No, of course. You couldn’t possibly say that.’
‘Exactly.’ Utomi sighed, smiling softly. ‘I think we can be of one mind here, Chiku.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She waited in the shattered building, as motionless as the pieces of jagged rubble around her. No one appeared to have been here since her last visit. She had given Noah clear directions, but he was late. Their agreement had been clear: if Noah got caught up in something that would make it difficult for him to come to her alone, he was to abandon the rendezvous. Chiku would visit Eunice by herself.
But then she saw him, Noah’s suit turning him into a neon skeleton, approaching along one of the cleared thoroughfares. Some distance away, a pair of yellow machines toiled in the demolition of one of the larger domes. The pair squabbled over a big piece of shredded building, tearing it apart between them.
Noah dimmed his suit’s markings as he entered the ruined dome where Chiku was waiting.
He spoke on the private channel. ‘I wondered if your meeting with Utomi would run too long for you to get here on time.’
‘No, I managed to escape. It’s not good news, though. He more or less said that if I don’t vote against Travertine, we can forget about skipover.’
‘That’s blackmail!’
‘Call it targeted persuasion. All off the record, though, and totally unaccountable. But there’s no way I’m compromising my principles over this. We have a legitimate right to skipover, whether or not I go with the majority verdict.’
‘I suppose.’ Noah picked his way over debris. ‘Any sign that someone’s been poking around since last time you were here?’
‘Looks the way I left it, but it won’t be long before the clean-up machines arrive. There’s a chance they’ll find the shaft, but I think it’s much more likely they’ll just seal it over without anyone noticing.’
She showed him to the basement. Noah had always been good with heights, much better than Chiku, and he did not hesitate to follow her into the shaft. Chiku led the way, and with every step she felt a piece of her sanity clicking back into place. No, she was not going mad. Here was the shaft, and the tunnel it led to. Next, they came to the junction marked on Travertine’s plan. And finally they arrived at the pod, squatting in the embrace of its three guidance rails, exactly as she had left it.
‘It’s huge,’ Noah said.
Chiku smiled. ‘Big enough for elephants.’
She showed Noah to the pod’s forward-facing compartment. As soon as the door sealed, air flooded the interior. Chiku removed her glove and urged the pod into motion. Soon the red hoops were sliding by at increasing speed.
‘Here’s the route we’re on,’ she said, sketching a finger along one glowing thread on the map within the console. ‘I think we end up somewhere near the front of Zanzibar. That makes sense, doesn’t it?’
‘There’s no room anywhere else,’ Noah said. ‘Not for a chamber as big as you described. But there’s a lot of solid rock at the leading cone, to absorb collisions.’
‘Yes – plenty of raw mass to soak up particles and high-speed impacts, which is why there are no accommodations there, or any critical infrastructure. If you absolutely had to find room for a hidden chamber, that’s where you’d put it.’
‘One some level,’ Noah said, ‘Zanzibar itself must have known about this extra hole inside it. That much missing mass, a mountain’s worth of rock not where it’s meant to be – it must have altered the dynamics of the holoship by some measurable amount. But we never noticed!’
‘Whoever did this cooked the books at a very deep level,’ Chiku said. ‘Designed the chamber in from the outset, then made sure it wasn’t going to show up at any level, no matter how carefully we looked.’
The journey to Eunice’s chamber felt quicker than before, a commonplace trick of perception that Chiku should have anticipated. Once the pod had halted and equalised pressure, they disembarked into vacuum and reviewed suit functionality before proceeding. All was well.
‘It’s not far now,’ Chiku said, feeling a blush of pride in the fact that she had some familiarity with this place, compared with Noah.
There was only room for one person at a time in the airlock at the top of the ladder. ‘I’ll go through first—’ Chiku began.
‘No, I’ll have that honour, if you don’t mind,’ Noah said. ‘This time at least.’
He was waiting for her on the other side, and had already slipped off his helmet, cradling it under his right arm. He had heard her account, of course, and his suit readouts would have confirmed that the air was breathable, but Noah’s haste unnerved her, for some reason. She wished he had waited for her permission before taking off his helmet.
‘It’s good air,’ he said, between indulgent gulps. ‘Different, somehow. This chamber’s not connected to the rest of Zanzibar, is it? None of these molecules has been through my lungs before.’
Chiku shrugged, wondering how he expected her to know these things.
It was daytime in Chamber Thirty-Seven, the sky bright except for the strips of black where the ceiling elements had broken down. Chiku pointed down the valley towards the rising bank of dense vegetation that appeared to mark the chamber’s limit. ‘It doesn’t end there. There’s a connection, a throat bored through to a sub-chamber. Same at the other end. Eunice uses an aircraft to get about.’
‘Does she know we’re here?’
‘It’s likely. She learned of my arrival pretty quickly.’
Still cradling his helme
t, Noah set off down the path, heels kicking up billowing scuds of ochre dust. Chiku removed her own helmet and followed, keeping an eye on her footing and the activity at the base of the valley. She had met the Tantors in Eunice’s presence, and Eunice had assured her friends that Chiku was no threat. It was difficult to guess what would have happened if she had blundered into them on her own, but she doubted that it would have ended well for her.
‘This is amazing,’ Noah cried out, sweeping his free arm around. ‘This whole place, all of it – it’s been here with us all this time, and we had absolutely no idea. Imagine what we could have done with it!’
‘Turned it into another chamber just like the other thirty-six,’ Chiku said dolefully. ‘Houses and parks and schools. We’d still be complaining about lack of room! And what would we have done with the elephants already here?’
‘There,’ Noah said, grinning. ‘Our host, if I’m not mistaken.’
Chiku followed the line of his arm. There was the aircraft, the Sess-na. It was approaching from the opposite end of the chamber than on her first visit. ‘That’s her.’
‘It makes no sense, flying around in that thing.’
‘I think that’s why she does it.’
Noah laughed.
The aircraft buzzed them. Chiku stood her ground this time and waved at the figure in the cockpit. Eunice gave them a wing-waggle, then spiralled down towards the valley floor. The tiny white machine found a strip of open ground and kissed land as daintily as a dragonfly. When it had rolled to a stop, the even tinier figure of Eunice emerged from beneath the white swoop of the high-set wing.
Noah, gripped by what was obviously an intense intellectual curiosity, broke into a headlong, stumbling run that never quite ended in disaster. Chiku followed at a somewhat less breakneck pace. Soon they entered the cover of thick growth hemming the valley’s lower margins. They had lost sight of the aircraft by then, but the sky’s false constellations offered a reliable compass.
‘How much does she know about the outside world?’ Noah asked when Chiku caught up with him, their suits sunlight-dappled through the fine-fretted canopy.
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