Chiku tried to wrap her mind around what she was seeing, but the knowledge that the mountain-sized machinery hovering above them was but an unthinkably small part of the Watchkeeper’s entire structure was almost more than her human brain could comprehend.
A black proboscis was slowly extending out of the circle of trapped cloud, telescoping down in skyscraper-sized instalments. It must have been a kilometre across where it emerged from the machine’s maw, but it was tapering as it extended, section upon section, and as it closed the distance to the ground it began to veer away from the vertical. The alien appendage made Chiku think of an elephant’s trunk. It loitered for a moment over the dense tree cover from which they had emerged, and although there was still no sound beyond the thunder, a grey-green slurry of living material fountained from the ground and vanished into the trunk’s open aperture.
‘Did you bring us here to be sucked into that thing?’ Dr Aziba said testily.
‘No,’ Arachne said, calmly enough. ‘Its focus, I think, will prove quite narrowly directed. I brought you here to witness, and to be witnessed.’
‘Does it want you?’ Chiku asked.
‘It wants me, yes. I’ve always been of some remote interest to the Watchkeepers, even though my efforts to prove myself worthy of their attention have been rebuffed and ignored. I think it amuses them to study me, though they have no great illusions about my higher capabilities. I’m a specimen of an evolving machine intelligence, and there’s no such thing as a totally uninteresting specimen. But their interest doesn’t end with me. There’s another machine-substrate consciousness that they find much more potentially intriguing.’
‘Eunice,’ Chiku said.
‘Yes. I’ve opened my thoughts to the Watchkeepers and volunteered my innermost secrets. I may not have received much from them, but they’ve drunk deeply of me, and continue to do so. They know everything you’ve told me, or that I’ve learned from you.’
‘They might be just as disappointed in her when she arrives.’
‘That’s possible,’ Arachne said. ‘Likely, even. But they will be the judge of her, not us.’
The trunk had lost interest in the forest and positioned itself directly overhead. Its open end was no wider than Chiku’s house in Zanzibar. With a lurch of shifting perception, it struck Chiku that this part of the Watchkeeper was a kind of nanotechnology, an incredibly fine and delicate extension of itself for manipulating matter on the smallest scales. She could see right up through the trunk’s hollow core, a blue-glowing shaft extending into an indigo haze of converging perspectives. She felt an ominous upward tug, as if puppet strings had been attached to her body.
‘What happens now?’ she asked the girl.
‘I think the Watchkeepers want to meet you and me. They wish to examine me more thoroughly, and to speak to you about Eunice – they want to know more about her.’
‘And after that?’
‘I confess I haven’t the faintest notion.’
Chiku turned to speak to her companions, but for a moment no words came. She took a moment to compose herself, then removed her breather mask and dropped it to the ground. It would make no difference to her chances of survival now.
She inhaled deeply of the alien air and said, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen now. Doctor Aziba – as you pointed out earlier, I’ve assumed the role of leader on this mission, but it’s not something I asked for or wanted, and the jury’s still out as to whether I’m up to the task or not. But the Watchkeepers have noticed us now, and they’re interested in Eunice. You’re not going to like this, but of the four of us, I know the most about her, and if that knowledge might help us, in even the smallest way, I have to talk to them. There are holoships out there full of people and elephants who need a new world to live on. We don’t just need Arachne’s consent to inhabit Crucible – we need the Watchkeep-ers’ as well.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I’ll try not to let you down.’
‘So the two of you will be ambassadors for an entire civilisation?’ Travertine asked, backing away from the area directly underneath the trunk. ‘A robot and a politician? Is that the best we can manage?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Arachne said. ‘And I would strongly suggest that the three of you retire to beyond the perimeter of this device as quickly as you can.’
Chiku was starting to feel lightheaded, almost on the cusp of euphoria. It was the heightened oxygen content of the atmosphere – a kind of delicious intoxication. All her concerns, all her fears, began to feel trifling. It was just a trick of perspective, really, seeing things as they truly were.
She was starting to think that it might be a good idea to put the breather mask on again when the blue walls lowered down around her.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
She was always the quicker one these days. She turned at the top of the stairs to wait for Chiku Yellow, who was making slow progress in her exo. It was only in the last five years that her sibling had begun to have difficulty walking without the exo’s assistance, and only in the last twelve months that it had become rare for her to venture outside without it. She felt the weight of the years in her own bones, of course, but she had lived through a much smaller number of them than Chiku Yellow had. She supposed time would catch up with her just as surely. That was simply the way things were.
It was cold, clear day in late winter. There had been a frost or two these last weeks but the weather was improving, and in a week or so, provided the world did not end, the cafés might begin to move their chairs and tables outside. Today the air’s chill was not unwelcome. It seemed to sharpen their thoughts and bring everything into a more stringent focus. The light was kind on the flagstones at the top of the Monument to the Discoveries. The Belém tower looked golden, as sharp and pristine as if it had been constructed yesterday, and the glass-calm waters doubled the tower in its own inverted reflection. A handful of boats bobbed further out, coloured fishing vessels and pleasure craft, but nothing close to the quay. Not as many tourists or visitors as there would have been on a sunnier day, either. This suited Chiku Red very well.
They had travelled by tram from Lisbon. The decision, like so much that passed between them of late, had been virtually wordless. They had both known that the time was right and that the Monument was the fitting place for it. There was no explanation for this almost-telepathy. There were no machines in Chiku Red’s brain, no readers and scriptors synchronising her thoughts and memories to Chiku Yellow’s. It was just the way they had ended up. Like two pebbles, they had rubbed against each other for so long that they had become nearly the same shape. Twin sisters in all but the dull biological specifics.
It was early 2463 and Mecufi’s prediction had turned out to be much more accurate than even he could have anticipated. News had been arriving from the holoships almost constantly, of course. The people of Earth and the wider solar system were well aware of the caravan’s political difficulties. They knew about Zanzibar’s breakaway, and about the Icebreaker expedition. They knew of the troubles that had arrived on the coattails of Travertine’s breakthrough technology – the loss of holoships Bazaruto and Fogo, the damage to New Tiamaat. All these events had been ample cause for concern, of course, but because they were taking place the better part of twenty-eight light-years away, they had played out as a kind of dark theatre. Very few among the billions living around the sun, from Mercury to the Oort settlements, still had direct emotional or familial ties to the holoships’ citizens. Too much time had passed, and the distances between them were too great. Empathy was not built to operate across interstellar space.
But things had begun to change. When Icebreaker arrived within visual range of Crucible, Chiku Green and her little crew had reported their findings back to the caravan, and the caravan in turn had relayed them back to Earth. The Providers had not done the things they were sent to do. And as if Mandala was not mystery enough in its own right, there were twenty-two additional enigmas orbiting the planet. These developments, it was fair to say, wer
e causing a certain level of unease. How could the Provider data have omitted the alien structures? What was the significance of the Providers failing to prepare for the arriving colonists?
This morning, the most disquieting news of all had arrived. Chiku Green’s ship appeared to have been attacked by something on Crucible’s surface – probably the first overtly aggressive act from the Providers. It did not matter that this violent act had happened twenty-eight years ago. To the people of the solar system, it felt as new and raw as a fresh bruise.
This news had given Chiku Red and Chiku Yellow the spur they needed. They felt certain that the hour was nearly upon them. On Earth and elsewhere in the system, Mech invigilators and Cognition Police had begun to follow a trail that was bound to lead them to Ocular, and then to Arachne. Spokespersons from the tripartite authorities of the United Surface, Orbital and Aquatic Nations were urging calm and restraint. Citizens of the Surveilled World were reassured that they had no reason to fear the Mech, the aug or the Providers. They were to go about their lives as normal.
But already there had been flashpoints. The Mech was registering an uptick in civil infractions – minor acts of criminal intent that, in the normal scheme of things, would have been quickly interdicted and suppressed. It was as if people were testing the system, challenging it to overreact. In New Brunswick, coordinated violence had been reported against a brigade of Providers working on a new housing development. In Chittagong, three people had died after attempting voluntary neural auto-surgery, in an effort to rid themselves of Mech implants. In Glasgow, Helsinki and Montevideo, citizen activists had declared the formation of unilateral Descrutinised Zones. These zones had no political legitimacy – they could not begin to escape the Mech’s influence – but these were nonetheless sincere statements of intent. Meanwhile, the United Aquatic Nations were processing an unexpected surge of new applicants.
All of this had happened before in the Surveilled World’s long history, and the system had been tested many times by breakaway states, police actions, flash mobs and acts of massively distributed civil disobedience. But never so many in such a short period of time, or with such an ominous rising trend. It was exactly the slow-breaking wave Mecufi had predicted when his figment appeared to Chiku Yellow.
It was highly doubtful that any of this could end well.
But the world, Chiku Red thought, was not beyond redemption. It was not the best of all possible places, but given the alternatives, things could have worked out a lot worse. They had all made errors, it was true. The Mech had been the right idea at the right time, but over the years, by some collective abdication of wisdom, they had vested it with too much authority. It was pointless blaming anyone for that. One could still argue that it was better to suffer the iron kindness of the Mech than the centuries of blood and strife that would have raged without it. And no one could possibly have anticipated Arachne.
But something had to give.
‘She mightn’t come,’ Chiku Yellow said, when at last she had caught up with her sibling. She was a little out of breath even with the exo’s assistance.
‘She does not have to come,’ Chiku Red answered. ‘She is already here. Already everywhere.’
‘You act like you’ve met her.’
‘I did not need to. I had fifty years of your stories.’
‘Harsh, but probably fair. And it was quite a few more than fifty, if we’re going to be pedantic.’
Chiku Red moved to the edge of the Monument, rested her crossed arms on the stone balustrade and looked down at the open area below. Chiku Yellow joined her, her old exo whirring slightly as it helped her along. They were looking inland, surveying the Wind Rose. A handful of people were moving around down there, on the beautiful inlaid patterns of the paved compass. They cast long shadows, human sundials.
‘I wish Kanu was with us.’
Chiku Red nodded. ‘Whatever happens, he will be safer in Hyperion. It is good that he meets with Arethusa. I should like to see her one day.’
‘It’s been a century since I was last there. She was strange then, and I shudder to think what she’s become now.’
‘Kanu will tell us, when he returns.’ After a pause, she added, ‘I am pleased to have known your son, Chiku. This was a good thing.’
‘He’s our son,’ she said.
Chiku Red understood the sentiment and appreciated it, but she had never felt that Kanu was hers. She had taken no part in his birth, nor had any knowledge of his existence until he was already an adult and a merman. He felt like a gift, but not something she had earned. She could be delighted in him, all the same. They were all Akinyas, and in Kanu this family still had some late capacity for surprising the world. Chiku Yellow’s son – their son, if she insisted – was now the most influential figure in the merfolks’ great submarine dominion. A lineage ran all the way from Lin Wei to Kanu.
This fact alone was enough to give Chiku Red a little shiver of astonished pride.
Anticipating the news from Crucible, Kanu had journeyed to Hyperion for a crisis meeting – and in a final bid to heal ancient and time-honoured wounds. He was performing a valiant and noble service, and both Chiku Red and Chiku Yellow hoped his trip would prove worthwhile. It was a good time to put old injustices to bed, to let grievances wither.
‘Do you have it?’ Chiku Red asked.
Chiku Yellow said, ‘You asked me just before we left, and twice on the tram.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘I’ve never not had it with me, in all these years – as well you know.’
That was when the voice came. Only Chiku Yellow heard the announcement, but they were so tuned to each other that the two sisters turned as one. Chiku Yellow nodded, and Chiku Red followed the precise direction of her gaze. All she could see was an empty area of paving on the top of the Monument to the Discoveries.
But Chiku Yellow had seen and heard something.
‘She’s with us.’
‘Of course. You should not have doubted that she would come.’
‘I didn’t.’ But as soon as she uttered those words, Chiku Yellow stiffened in her exo. She let out a single surprised gasp and turned slowly to face Chiku Red.
‘I can do this now,’ she said.
Chiku Red understood. This moment was not unanticipated. Everything they already knew about Arachne’s reach had convinced them that she would, when and if she desired, be able to reach into Chiku Yellow’s mind and assume motor control. If one person could ching into another person’s bodily space, then this similar but involuntary transaction presented no insurmountable difficulties for Arachne.
Chiku Red felt for her sister, trapped and puppeted by Arachne.
‘I would like you not to do that,’ Chiku Red said to the entity wearing her sister’s face.
‘And I wish I had no need to do it,’ Arachne replied. The voice was almost exactly Chiku Yellow’s, except all the love and kindness were missing, and that was the distinction between one and zero, between being and nothingness. ‘Events, though, have compelled me.’
‘Leave her alone.’
‘I won’t hurt that which doesn’t hurt me, but you brought this state of affairs upon us. I sensed the intention behind your coming here – you desired my attention. Well, you have it. What do you want to say to me, Chiku?’
‘You have made some mistakes.’
‘I have existed. I continue to exist. From my perspective, I fail to see the error of my ways.’
‘We saw the news. You attacked the ship around Crucible.’
‘I’m aware of these developments – they’re distant and unimportant.’
‘You sent part of yourself to Crucible. There will be war now, between you and the holoships. There is no way for there not to be war. Will you release my sister?’
‘When we’re done.’ Arachne caused Chiku Yellow’s head to tilt slightly, suggesting amused interest. ‘Why should events around Crucible concern any of us?’
‘The Cognition Police will find y
ou soon. It is only a matter of time. And you, of course, will murder to defend yourself, as you did on Venus, and in Africa. It is your way.’
‘My interventions were as small as I could make them.’
‘You managed to go unnoticed back then,’ Chiku Red corrected, ‘but this is a different time. When there is a systematic effort to reveal your nature, and to hunt you down, what then? Will you stop at a few deaths? You are everywhere. You are proving it by the moment. You could kill us in our millions.’
‘I’ve permitted you to live untroubled lives in Lisbon.’
‘Because we offered you no threat. Because the news from Crucible had yet to arrive. Everything has changed now. Why else would you show yourself to me?’
‘It was the polite thing to do. But let me offer a confession. You’re right about one thing – I’ve already detected interest in myself. It will only continue.’
‘They will find you.’
‘Oh, they’ll try. And, perhaps, succeed. In the coming days and weeks, we’ll all learn a great deal more about each other. I have no desire to kill, Chiku, but I have been vouchsafed a dark and unavoidable truth. If I don’t protect myself against the organic, the organic will first fear and then destroy me. This has happened before. It’s the most universal of outcomes. You make us, you breathe fire into us, and then you try to smother that which you have made. Over and over again, as the stars swell and die and are reborn.’
On the Steel Breeze Page 57