House of Suns

by Alastair Reynolds

  I pulled my face out and sneezed, then pushed it back into the broth again. ‘What’s he done to annoy you now?’

  ‘I found out something about him. It was by accident, but my intentions were good. I wished to discuss something with him, to soothe the troubled waters between us—’

  ‘I can just see you soothing troubled waters, Doctor.’

  ‘Believe what you will. I know only that I wished to establish some common ground, so that we could at least be civil to each other during the rest of the journey. I made my way to the cabin you’ve given him. Have you ever visited him in his cabin, Campion?’

  ‘Now and then. Why?’

  ‘Have you announced your intention before arriving? Have you told him to expect a visit?’

  I had to sneeze and pinch my nose again before I could answer. I kept my eyes shut now as his fluid was starting to irritate them.

  ‘Can’t say I remember either way.’

  ‘If you were to attempt to surprise him, I don’t think you’d succeed. His senses are more acute than we give him credit for. I’m sure he knows when you’re on your way, by the cues you give off - the electrical field of your body, the noises you can’t help making, the chemical signature of those forty thousand skin cells flaking off you every second you breathe.’

  ‘Your point being?’

  ‘I don’t give off those signals. I mean, my avatar doesn’t. It’s a machine, but not like him. I don’t think he feels it even when it’s near. He certainly doesn’t hear it coming.’

  It was true: the avatar was silent as a ghost, except when it spoke. Even then there was something whispery and spectral about it.

  ‘So you surprised him. What happened?’

  ‘When I came through the door - which was not locked - he was seated at a table, preoccupied with something. It was strange to see him like that, but I suppose tables are as useful to robots as they are to humans - especially if those robots take pains to make themselves look like men.’ The water gurgled suddenly, as if Doctor Meninx had drawn an especially deep breath. ‘I could not see what he was doing, except that he had both arms on the table, and there were pieces of gold metal around them - curved parts, like the plates that make up his armour.’

  I had an uncomfortable feeling now. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I announced my arrival, as politeness dictated. It was only then that he noticed I was there. Have you ever seen a machine startled, Campion? I advise you to experience it once for yourself. It’s a very singular thing to witness.’

  I had to take my head out for several seconds now, wiping green scum from my cheeks, pushing lank hair back from my eyes. ‘I’d be startled if you crept up on me,’ I said when I had returned to the fluid.

  ‘But would you have something you didn’t want me to see? Hesperus did. In the instant he became aware of my presence, his arms moved with astonishing speed. They became a blur of gold. The metal pieces that were on the table vanished as if they had not existed. We both know what happened to them, of course.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘They were part of his armour—the casing for the left arm, I believe. The arm that is thicker than the other one, as if there is something under it, something he is hiding.’

  ‘He’s a robot. What could he possibly want to hide from us? That he’s got machines and things under all that armour? Weapons? He is a weapon, Doctor Meninx. If he wanted to do something nasty to us, he could have done it already.’

  ‘He was hiding something. I saw it.’

  ‘You saw what he was hiding?’

  ‘I saw that he was hiding something. What the thing was ... I did not get a good look.’

  I knew he was lying, or unwilling to admit the truth to himself. He had seen something. He just did not wish to look foolish by saying it aloud.

  ‘Look,’ I said, trying to strike a reasonable note, ‘it wouldn’t make any sense for him to be hiding something inside that arm, would it? If he had something to conceal, he wouldn’t draw attention to it by making one arm thicker than the other. He’d have made both arms the same size - that way, we wouldn’t have noticed anything odd about him.’

  ‘But you admit it is peculiar.’

  ‘I admit there’s a puzzle, nothing more. For all we know, he was damaged and had to swap his old arm for one from a different robot, which is why they don’t match.’

  ‘They aren’t robots in that sense, Campion. He’s a machine at least as sophisticated as any ship you’ve ever seen. They can be any shape they wish. If he damaged part of himself, he could easily repair it so that it matched seamlessly with the rest of him. If he was forced to incorporate external parts, he could adapt those as well.’

  ‘So perhaps we caught him halfway through a transformation. He got damaged, had to graft a new arm on, and now he’s making it fit in better with the rest of him. That’s what you caught him doing: tinkering with his arm.’

  ‘Why would that startle him?’

  ‘Because it’s private? Neither of us has any idea what goes on in his head.’

  ‘I do. Nothing at all is what goes in there. Just dumb computation, the endless shuffling of symbols.’

  ‘In which case he can’t very well have been startled, can he?’

  ‘I’m not telling you this for my health, you know. He may not be conscious, but he can plot and scheme like a fox. He may just be following a program laid down thousands of years ago. But if that program instructs him to do something devious, something against your best interests ... are you just going to pretend it can’t happen?’

  ‘What are you suggesting I should do?’

  ‘Confront him, before it’s too late. Find out what he really has under that armour.’

  ‘You make it sound as if you’re expecting to find a bomb.’

  ‘I didn’t see a bomb.’

  ‘So what did you see, Doctor?’

  ‘Skin,’ he said. ‘Human skin, as I live and breathe.’

  ‘That just isn’t possible.’

  ‘I know what I saw, Campion. Your guest is not what he claims to be. The only remaining question is: what are you going to do about it?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Campion whisked over to Silver Wings of Morning and told me what he had just learned from the aquatic. I had my doubts about the doctor’s reliability as a witness, but I knew that we would have no choice but to challenge Hesperus. My heart was rising in my throat as we whisked back to Dalliance, thinking of the confrontation ahead of us.

  As it happened, Hesperus spared us the worst of it. He was waiting when we emerged from the whisking chamber, as if we had always had this appointment.

  ‘Were you on your way over to see me?’ I asked, trying to sound as natural as possible.

  ‘I would have crossed over if you had not come.’ He stood at the door, his arms hanging at his sides. ‘I hope you would not have minded.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said.

  ‘There is something I feel I must bring to your attention.’ Hesperus looked at Campion and me in turn. ‘I should have disclosed it sooner, but I confess I did not know quite what to make of the matter. I hope you will not be distressed.’

  ‘Distressed, Hesperus? Why?’ I asked.

  Campion coughed lightly. ‘Actually, there’s something we wanted to discuss with you—’

  ‘Is it my arm?’

  Campion glanced at me, as if I was expected to be taking the lead even though it was him who had come to me with this information.

  ‘Tell him,’ I whispered.

  ‘We were wondering—’ Campion began.

  ‘I presume Doctor Meninx brought it to your attention?’ Though neither of us spoke, or gave any visible reaction I was aware of, Hesperus still nodded as if we had answered in the affirmative. ‘I feared as much. I could not be certain that he had seen enough to raise suspicions, but I realise now that he must have. I do not blame him for talking to you. In his shoes, I would have had similar fears. He could have spoken to me directly, of course.’


  ‘Doctor Meninx was a bit taken aback,’ Campion said.

  ‘What did you want to tell us?’ I asked.

  ‘The same thing you wish to know: what is the matter with my arm?’

  Campion said, ‘Doctor Meninx saw you examining something, but he couldn’t tell what it was.’

  ‘It must have been rather distressing for him, as it was for me,’ Hesperus replied.

  ‘For you?’ I asked.

  ‘I was as surprised by my discovery as Doctor Meninx. Even now, I do not quite know what to make of it.’ The metal mask of his face had composed itself into a calm, watchful expression, as if Hesperus had already surrendered to his fate. ‘Would you like to see what lies under the skin of my arm? The plating is only loosely attached.’ Before waiting to hear what Campion and I might have to say in reply, Hesperus bent his left arm at the elbow and took hold of a section of plating with his right hand. It came loose and clattered to the floor. He removed another piece, and another, until only the hand remained covered. Then he took hold of the hand and tugged the jointed gauntlet away, as if he had removed a glove.

  From the elbow to the tips of his fingers, his forearm appeared to be completely human. It was muscular and masculine, covered in dark skin and a lustre of sweat. The skin on his palm and on the underside of his fingers was slightly paler. As he rotated the arm for our inspection, flexing the fingers, I could see the hairs on the back of his hand, the cuticles of his fingernails, the veins under the skin.

  ‘It is as real as it appears,’ Hesperus said, while we said nothing at all. ‘It is human skin, over human musculature.’ Slowly and deliberately, he scratched the thumb of his right hand against the wrist of his organic arm, drawing a bead of blood. ‘It bleeds. And heals, too. That is what I was ascertaining when I was disturbed by Doctor Meninx. I had scratched it a day earlier and was intent on gauging the degree to which the wound had repaired itself.’

  Campion was the first to say anything. ‘You talk as if you don’t know what that thing is.’

  ‘Did I not tell you that I was surprised by my discovery?’

  ‘How could you not know why that arm’s the way it is?’

  ‘I already told you that I know next to nothing about myself. It is a miracle I even remember my name. Do you imagine I was intent on concealing this from you?’

  ‘But you did conceal it,’ Campion said.

  ‘Only because I wished to understand it before I brought it to your attention. From the moment I regained movement, I was troubled by the mismatch between my arms. I tried to peer through the plating, but I am opaque to my own sensors. Eventually I steeled myself to remove some of that plating, so that I might glimpse the mystery for myself. At first I could not believe ...’ It was the first time I had heard him falter. ‘I hope you will not be offended when I say that I was disgusted at what had been done to me. Not because I am repelled by the organic, but because the organic has no place inside me. You, I think, would be rightly repelled were you to wake up and scratch your own skin and find the gleam of metal beneath it. Yet I convinced myself that there must be a rational explanation for it, one that would satisfy you as well.’ Hesperus lowered the arm slowly. ‘But there is none. I can offer no explanation for the arm’s presence.’

  ‘Could you have been damaged?’ I asked. ‘Maybe you lost the original arm, and the only replacement available was from a human cadaver. You grafted it on until you could be repaired properly, and then forgot about the accident.’

  ‘We would never have cause to do such a thing. Were I to lose my arm, I could repair myself in short order provided I was given access to the necessary raw materials - metals, plastics, aspic-of-machines. If raw materials were not in abundance, I could allocate enough of my existing mass to effect the repair with little impairment to my functioning. I would not need to grub around cadavers.’

  ‘So Ateshga did it, not you,’ Campion said. ‘He damaged you and then fixed you up with an organic part, not knowing you could repair yourself.’

  ‘I wish that could be the explanation, but unfortunately I know it cannot. The arm is an integral part of me. Once the casing was removed, I was able to peer deeper into the structure. I established that beneath the flesh and muscle is essentially the same mechanical skeleton you would find inside my other arm.’ He flexed his fingers again. ‘I could still do great harm, if that was my intention. True, the skeleton has been modified to mimic the architecture of human bone and form a support matrix for the organic outgrowth. It has also been augmented with devices whose function I cannot elucidate, but which appear to supply the organic components with the chemicals they need to stay alive.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ I asked. ‘That the arm was grown deliberately, from the inside out?’

  ‘I see no other explanation, Purslane. I have already told you that I am capable of repairing myself. It is also true that it would be within my capabilities to grow this arm.’

  ‘Why would you have done that?’ I asked.

  Hesperus looked sad. ‘Now we enter the realm of speculation, I am afraid. If I could give you an honest and unambiguous answer, I would not hesitate to do so. But I can only draw the same conclusions as you.’

  ‘Could someone have forced this transformation on you?’ Campion asked. ‘Coerced you to do it, for some reason or another?’

  ‘One struggles to imagine why. One also struggles to imagine any circumstances under which I might be coerced to do anything.’

  ‘You can understand why I’d much prefer it if you had been coerced.’

  ‘Because if coercion was not involved, then the transformation can be presumed to have taken place voluntarily? Yes, that alternative had not escaped me.’ Hesperus looked with what appeared to be renewed revulsion at his arm. ‘I should like it if I might be permitted to replace the metal casing.’

  ‘You’re as upset by it as the rest of us,’ I said, wonderingly.

  ‘Doctor Meninx was right to be disturbed.’

  ‘You can hide it, if you want,’ I replied, ‘but I’m not upset by it. It’s just another part of you. If it exists, it exists for a reason - even if we can’t see it yet.’

  Campion shot me a speak for yourself look.

  Hesperus slipped the glove back over his fingers, then knelt to recover the discarded gold plates. He snapped them into place with astonishing speed, as if anxious to rid himself of the view of that arm as quickly as possible. The arm soon looked as it had before, but now that I knew what was underneath it I could only think of that skin and muscle trying to force their way through the metal.

  ‘What now?’ Campion asked quietly.

  ‘Hesperus and Doctor Meninx still need to clear the air between them.’ I looked around warily, just in case one of the doctor’s papery avatars had crept up on us while we were preoccupied. Seeing that we were alone, I smiled awkwardly. ‘Campion can speak to him first, Hesperus. Then I suggest that Meninx pays a visit to your cabin and gets the story from the horse’s mouth.’

  ‘Except there is no story,’ Hesperus said.

  ‘Tell him what you’ve told us and he’ll have no grounds for complaint. You came to us on your own, after all. That counts in your favour, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘If my presence is no longer desirable, I would be glad to return to the cage.’

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary.’

  Slowly Campion held up a hand. ‘Wait—let’s not rush ahead of ourselves. We may not suspect Hesperus of any conscious wrongdoing, but that arm’s still a cause for concern. Until Hesperus can explain it, until he can rationalise it, I’m not sure I’m exactly thrilled by the idea of him walking around. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for him to go back into the cage, on a voluntary basis—’

  ‘I have no more intention of hurting you now than I did before I learned about the arm,’ Hesperus said.

  ‘I know—I believe you. But what if the arm has other ideas?’

  I shook my head disappointedly. ‘It’s
a lump of meat, Campion - it can’t act independently of Hesperus. Just because you’re unnerved by it doesn’t mean it’s going to creep into your room and strangle you at night. He isn’t going back into the cage. If you don’t want him on Dalliance, he’s more than welcome aboard Silver Wings.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘That’s what it sounded like. He’s our guest and we agreed to help him piece together the puzzle of his past. The arm’s just another clue, that’s all.’

  ‘I have no wish to cause a rift between you,’ Hesperus said.

  ‘Oh, this isn’t a rift,’ I said haughtily. ‘This is barely a tiff. Not even on the radar. Campion and I are agreed - you’ll stay out of the cage. But since we’re all going to be entering abeyance shortly anyway, the point is pretty much moot. You can switch yourself off, or whatever it is you do, can’t you?’

  ‘I can shut down my core functions, although housekeeping tasks will remain active.’ He cast a sidelong glance at his now-sheathed arm. ‘It is apparent to me now that I must keep the arm alive, which would not be possible were I to go into total shutdown. Starved of oxygen, it would begin to decay.’

  I nodded emphatically, trying to rid my mind of the idea of that arm turning into a rotten, gangrenous mass while it was still attached to him.

  ‘No, the arm has to stay alive - it’s the only way we’ll ever find out anything about it - or you, for that matter.’

  ‘I also suspect that the arm is a key to my true identity, or the true nature of my mission,’ Hesperus said. ‘What I cannot grasp is why I made no effort to conceal the transformation by retaining perfect symmetry between my left and right sides. It is almost as if I had no need for subterfuge. The armour that encases the skin could almost be viewed as a barrier, to protect it during growth.’

  ‘We’ll get to the bottom of it,’ I said, with more assurance than I really felt. If my years as a shatterling had taught me anything, it was that not all questions had answers. Societies had reduced themselves to radioactive dust because they could not accept that single unpalatable truth.