House of Suns

by Alastair Reynolds

  I sank back into the seat. ‘Whatever it is, I’m ready for it.’

  ‘When Hesperus was brought to me - a truly conscious being, albeit a broken one - he catalysed a change. It must have been imminent, poised to happen, for quite some time. Perhaps I had begun a slow process of waking, a slow realisation that it was time to gather myself and move on. But had I - Hesperus - not been brought to me - Valmik - I would still be in that state of delayed transition, like a sleeper trying to rouse himself from the coils of a lovely and seductive dream, one where the colours and emotions are brighter and stronger than they ever are in the waking world.’

  ‘We had to help him.’

  ‘It was an act of singular kindness. We are both grateful, Purslane. But now you need to know the whole story.’

  My throat was tight. There was acid in my belly. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Machine People never came to Neume. Hesperus was the first, or at least the first to come into my presence. But when he came, when I took his broken body into myself, I remembered something. It was an experience that had happened so long ago that I could not truthfully distinguish it from a figment of my own imagination. But when I picked apart Hesperus’s memory, I found the key that unlocked the truthfulness of my recollection.’ He paused and regarded me with all the intensity of expression his golden mask was capable of. ‘He was not the first.’

  ‘You said no other Machine People had come before him.’

  ‘That is correct. A million years after the Golden Hour, four million years before the Machine People, there were others.’

  ‘Other what?’

  ‘Another machine civilisation. Another race of intelligent, conscious robots.’

  ‘No,’ I said, with a burning conviction. ‘I know my history. Nothing like the Machine People ever arose before them.’

  ‘That is what you believe to be true. But the Vigilance discovered evidence to the contrary. It found the remains of this robot civilisation on several worlds, scattered across galactic space. The evidence had been misinterpreted; it was assumed that the Priors had been responsible. The Vigilance detected anomalies in the official explanation - the temporal evidence did not fit the Prior hypothesis - and flagged the matter for further investigation. When news of this puzzle reached Machine Space, I was dispatched to penetrate the Vigilance and learn the extent of their knowledge.’

  Your mission.’

  ‘Around the same time - within a circuit or so - Campion must have entered the Vigilance and compiled his report for Gentian Line. Campion’s strand must have mentioned this selfsame anomaly, even if that was simply one bright gem in a treasure chest of intelligence. But that gem is where all this began, Purslane. When Campion delivered this strand, the wheels of a great and terrible process were set in motion. That is why you were ambushed, two hundred kilo-years later.’

  ‘All this because of an anomaly in the Vigilance’s data?’

  ‘Because of the significance of that anomaly - to humanity, to the Machine People, and most especially to Gentian Line.’

  I reeled, struggling to take all this in. It was not just difficult for me to accept the emergence of another machine civilisation, when the history books said otherwise. I had lived through that history, seen it within my own eyes. I remembered all the twists and turns, all the savage bottlenecks. I could reel off the names of a hundred thousand turnover cultures without stopping for breath. There was no room in that litany of known events for something as momentous as the coming of living machines.

  ‘I don’t get it, Hesperus. How does this have anything to do with Gentian Line? And if those machines existed, why don’t I remember them? How did they manage to come and go without leaving a dent in history?’

  ‘They didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘They left their mark on history. They left many marks. But one by one, systematically and with great thoroughness, the marks were erased.’

  ‘By the machines?’

  ‘They were already extinct.’

  ‘Then who did it?’

  Hesperus waited a moment, then said, with infinite gentleness, as if he had no wish to cause me pain or anguish, ‘The House of Suns was the secret Line tasked to keep this knowledge buried. You and every shatterling of the Commonality played a part in bringing it into existence. When you were ambushed, it was your own dark instrument turning against you.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Nausea washed over me, slow and dreary as the tide on a heavy panthalassic. Four hours had now passed since our departure from Neume, and still there was no word from Silver Wings of Morning. Charlock, Orache and Agrimony’s ships were now accelerating harder than ever, their usual safeguards rescinded. After much debate, it had finally been agreed that their owners would remain with the five trailing vehicles - Dalliance, Betony’s Adonis Blue, and the ships of Sorrel, Tansy and Henbane - while the three lead craft attempted to catch up with Silver Wings and compel her to slow down. Galingale was still moving into position; it would be some time before he was able to do anything useful.

  None of us was confident of success, irrespective of whether we believed Purslane was in charge of her ship, or the robots. But it was necessary to take this step so that we might learn how far Silver Wings’ controlling agency was willing to go.

  I was alone on the bridge - Charlock, Orache and Agrimony were aboard other ships, not mine. But their imagos, and those of Betony, Sorrel, Tansy and Henbane, were in attendance. Galingale’s imago appeared when he had something to contribute, but was still rendered smokily to indicate his distance from us. We were all standing, hands resting on fuzzy supports only partly imaged. On the displayer, Neume’s system was an orrery of worlds with the trajectories of our ships arrowing away from the planet in luminous, laser-straight lines, bunched so tightly that they were indistinguishable from each other. Ticking indices next to each ship showed our velocities as a fraction of light. Galingale’s ship was approaching on a gently curved asymptote, still more than half a minute out from our position but pushing hard on the tail of the three unmanned vehicles. I had no doubt that he was going through the same nervous exercises as the rest of us, constantly rechecking weapons and defensive systems. One check should have sufficed - these were systems that had been honed to effectiveness and reliability over the six-million-year existence of the Line - but there were some human habits too deeply ingrained to shake. Soldiers polished their swords before a battle, oiled their guns, kissed their good-luck charms.

  I was resigned to another hour of waiting, as the three ships clawed their way within effective weapons range, when we received the signal. It was frequency-cycling, using none of the standard Gentian message protocols, but it was undoubtedly originating from Silver Wings of Morning.

  ‘It’s just a hail,’ Betony said, his imago standing the closest to me. He appeared to be looking at my displayer, at the summary of the signal content scrolling down next to the orrery. ‘No deep content at all, unless we’re missing something exceedingly subtle.’

  Charlock’s figure swayed as a local acceleration surge hit his ship. Like a man on a leaning deck, he gripped the rail before him, the muscles in his forearm tensing with the effort. ‘We should still respond. Usual point of a hail is to establish contact.’

  ‘Could be a trap of some kind,’ Tansy said.

  Charlock shook his head. ‘We’ve nothing to lose - whoever’s running Silver Wings already knows we’re following. We may as well find out what they have to say to us.’

  Betony bit his lower lip. ‘Why would they use an unfamiliar protocol, rather than Silver Wings’ own sender?’

  ‘Maybe they haven’t got a choice,’ I said. ‘Purslane has a lot of ships in her bay. If she managed to make it to one of them, she could send us a signal even if the robots didn’t want her to.’

  ‘Then by replying, we run the risk of letting the robots know she’s still alive,’ Sorrel said.

  ‘They already know,’ I said. ‘Unl
ess she managed to find a ship with a unidirectional transmitter, they’ll have picked up the initial send. Charlock’s right: we lose nothing by responding, and if Purslane’s the sender it’ll let her know we haven’t given up on her.’

  Galingale interjected his timelagged thoughts. ‘I’m against responding to this transmission. If the robots want to talk, they should slow down and await instructions. We negotiate on our terms, not theirs. If Purslane’s being held hostage, the information that we’re in pursuit won’t help her.’

  Privately I wondered if he was still serious about risking a close approach to Purslane, or whether he had been secretly counting on the crisis being resolved before he was called upon to demonstrate his bravery.

  ‘If she’s alone on that ship, I want her to know we haven’t abandoned her,’ I said.

  Galingale did not respond. My answer would not reach him for another thirty-five seconds, and it would be as long again before his reply reached us.

  ‘Make the response,’ Betony said.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Say nothing about our explicit intentions, but let them know we’re here and that we aren’t going home.’

  I nodded and cleared my throat. I ordered Dalliance to create a message in the form we would normally use for signalling a start-up civilisation, stripping out the embroidery we habitually wove around our messages to confound eavesdropping and impersonation. Then I started speaking.

  ‘This is Campion, aboard Dalliance. We’re three minutes astern and closing. We got your signal, Purslane; I hope you can make sense of this reply. I know you’re listening - listening and still alive. Right now, there’s nothing in the universe I’m more certain of.’ Which was a white lie, but only because I desperately wanted her to believe that I would never give up this chase.

  I continued, ‘ I also know that it was you who initiated that signal, not Cadence and Cascade. If the robots wanted to talk, they’d already have done so using Gentian protocols. I hope you can reply, but in case you’re unable, or we are unable to exchange more than a message or two, I’m going to tell you everything I think you need to know. You left Neume more than four hours ago. Since then you’ve been maintaining a thousand gees on a heading that will bring you to the innermost stars of the Monoceros Ring in one hundred and thirty thousand years. At the time of this transmission, you are making point-four-eight of light and climbing. There are nine ships following you - we left Neume as quickly as we could, and we’re running as hard as we can. We’re not turning around. We’re going to follow you all the way, until we get you back. Please reply, if you can. I want to hear your voice again.’ With the words choking in my throat, I added, ‘I love you, shatterling.’

  It was an effort to keep standing, I was so drained and fearful. I hardly dared to believe that there would be a response. Even if she was alive, there was no guarantee that she had the means to send a more complex signal than the one we had already received. She was also three minutes ahead of us; it would be at least six before I could expect an answer.

  Every second became an anxious eternity. When the time had elapsed, there was only silence. The seconds kept inching past. The seconds became a whole minute, as long again as the six that had preceded it.

  Then, miraculously, she answered.

  Purslane’s voice was very scratchy and indistinct. Even when Dalliance fleshed out the message with her own guess as to what she should have sounded like, there was a remoteness in her voice, as if she was speaking through thick layers of glass.

  ‘I’m all right, Campion. I’m with Hesperus - he’s alive and he’s on our side. We’re in the cargo bay, in the white ark. The other two ... they tricked us, Campion - they were never interested in helping Hesperus. They were hoping he was going to die, and if he didn’t they were going to kill him anyway.’ She paused to draw breath. ‘There’s so much I need to tell you. I know it’s only been half a day since we were last together, but I’ve learned a world of things since then. Most of it’s bad, as well. I know what the House of Suns is, but that’s all I can say for now. Cadence and Cascade may be listening in, and Hesperus says they may not have all the pieces in place just yet. We still don’t know what they want with this ship. If they don’t want to help Hesperus, why the hurry to get back to Machine Space? Anything of value that they’ve learned, they could just as easily signal home. Yes, I know they gave us reasons why that wasn’t a preferred option - but given what we now know of their intentions, we may as well assume they were lying.’ Purslane paused. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better than to keep talking, but Hesperus and I have work to do. I’ll be back in touch as soon as we’re done. I love you, shatterling. Thank you for coming after me.’

  When she was gone, I felt as if something as huge and empty as the Boötes Void had pushed its way into my skull.

  A little later, our imagos gathered around a holographic representation of Silver Wings of Morning, compiled from data in our mutual troves. It was not guaranteed to be an accurate reflection of the internal layout of Purslane’s ship, but it was the best we had. So far no glaring anomalies had leapt out at me.

  ‘If she’s in the white ark,’ I said, stabbing my finger towards the rear of the ghostly form, ‘that places her in this part of the ship, aft of the parametric engine. I don’t remember exactly where the ark’s located - that’s an eight-kilometre-long storage hold and the ark could fit almost anywhere inside it. Even if I knew, it would still be nigh-on impossible to hit the drive, or any other vital system, without also hitting the bay.’

  ‘If the ships come alongside, they can direct their weapons laterally,’ Henbane said. ‘Then they ought to be able to cripple the engine without inflicting significant damage on any other part of the ship.’

  ‘Risky,’ Charlock said.

  ‘But less risky than a stern-shot.’ Betony’s face was set in a permanent expression of grim determination, as if it had been cast in metal and left to solidify. ‘It’s settled: we don’t open fire on her from behind, even if that plays into the robots’ intentions. It doesn’t leave us empty-handed. We’ll bring the first three ships in on parallel flight paths, until they have a clear line of sight onto Silver Wings’ flanks. Then they’ll attempt to disable her engine.’

  ‘And we hope and pray that inertia suppression cuts out at the same instant, or Purslane will be exposed to a thousand gees of unbalanced compensation,’ I said.

  ‘We’re all aware of the dangers - Purslane included.’

  ‘If she were to enter stasis abeyance,’ Tansy put in, ‘her chances of surviving the attack would be immeasurably improved.’

  ‘Send her that warning now and we’ll be giving the robots a clear signal of our intentions,’ Sorrel said.

  Charlock smirked. ‘They’ve probably worked out that we aren’t coming with garlands and bouquets.’

  ‘Nonetheless, they won’t know our exact intentions until those ships open fire,’ Betony said. ‘They may still think we intend to negotiate, or attempt a boarding operation. I agree with Sorrel: we can’t warn Purslane to enter abeyance until the last minute.’

  And if she doesn’t have time?’ I asked him.

  ‘She’s in another ship, inside her own. It won’t protect her against unbalanced acceleration, but it’s still better than being completely exposed. I’m sorry, Campion, but that’s the best we can do. It’s either attack or let them leave unchallenged. If we do that, I don’t think any of us will ever see Purslane again.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Hesperus paced up and down the white bridge of the ark as I dredged information from my memory, his restless motion quite uncharacteristic of the robot I thought I knew. All I wanted was to talk about the earlier machine civilisation, to find out everything he knew and learn what part we had played in their demise. It had been good to talk to Campion - I felt as if a small, warm flame was burning inside me where before there had been only an unlit void - but Hesperus’s revelation was still dominating my thoughts to the e
xclusion of almost everything else.

  ‘How did you - whoever I’m talking to, Hesperus or Valmik - know about the extinction? If the Machine People were already aware of it, wouldn’t they have told us about it hundreds of thousands of years ago?’

  ‘The Machine People didn’t know about the earlier race. When they emerged on the galactic scene, they assumed that the existing historical record - as related to them by human envoys - was largely accurate. That’s not to say that they didn’t anticipate errors and untruths. But they had no reason to expect that history had been rewritten on such a scale, with such systematic intention. For the entire lifetime of my people, we have believed that we were the first true machine intelligence. Soon it will be common knowledge that this was not the case.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me how you knew.’

  ‘Because machines came to me, when I was young.’

  ‘I was talking to Hesperus. Now it’s Valmik. Right?’

  ‘We’re both here, two faces behind one mask. I’m sorry if I confuse you, but to me it’s perfectly natural to switch from one strand of my existence to the other. I am two rivers that have merged into one being, at the confluence.’ Hesperus slowed his pacing. ‘More than five million years ago, long after the Golden Hour but long before I came to Neume, thinking machines found me. I was a novelty to them - huge and slow and wondrous. They were equally novel to me. I saw immediately what they were: human technology that had become haunted, possessed by quick, gleaming cleverness. I had seen smart machines before then, but nothing with the agility and cunning of true intelligence. I knew instantly that these creatures were a different order of machine. Some alchemy of chaos and complexity had given their minds powers of consciousness and free will.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘They told me that they wanted to make contact with human meta-civilisation. Since I had been human once, they hoped I might act as an intermediary, smoothing the diplomatic waters. I urged caution. I had already seen dozens of empires come and go, blossoming and fading like lilies on a pond, over and over, seasons without end. Many of those empires were benevolent and welcoming, but others were inimical to all outside influences. It made no difference to their longevity. The kind empires withered and waned as quickly as the hostile ones. But there was a kind of stability, above and beyond planetary life.’