‘Remove your helmet,’ Hesperus urged again. ‘It’s quite safe, and we can talk more easily that way.’
I did as he suggested. The suit would not have allowed me to undo the helmet unless the air was breathable, but his encouragement was reassuring.
‘How long have you been like this?’
‘A while.’
‘Since you put me into abeyance?’
He smiled - he was still capable of that. ‘No, this state of immobility came much later - within the last six hundred years. For a long time I was the way you remember me. Once you were in abeyance, I began to direct my energies into regaining control of the ship. For many years it was all I could do to keep out of reach of the weapons and tracking devices Cascade sent after me. He was wary of touching the ark, though. That was when I began to wonder about the location of the opener. Once my suspicions had been aroused, it was an easy matter to locate it - it took only a few centuries of patient investigation.’
‘It was in there all along, just waiting for me to stumble on it?’
‘It was concealed - hidden inside a camouflaging impasse. Unless you had reason to look more closely, you would have seen only an empty cargo bay. You probably did look in there on more than one occasion in the distant past.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said doubtfully. It was equally likely that my subconscious had kept me away from the ark’s hold, knowing the secret it contained.
‘I tried to sabotage the opener, but quickly learned how well protected it was. Someone had gone to extraordinary lengths of ingenuity and resourcefulness to make it sabotage-proof. Her handiwork was marvellous.’
‘It was me, wasn’t it?’
‘Very likely.’
I cursed myself under my breath. ‘What have you tried?’
‘Everything imaginable. Everything imaginable has failed. As you may have observed, I am attempting to overload the impasse with a concentrated injection of energy. The chances of success are not high. It was simply one more avenue to explore. I have been trying for three hundred and seventy years.’
‘And the ship?’ I asked. ‘Who’s running her now?’
‘Neither of us. After centuries of mere survival, I decided the time had come to attempt to regain control. Cascade was strong, but I was not the simple Machine Person he imagined me to be. Gradually I wore him down - invading his mind, stripping away his intellect layer by layer. Over centuries I reduced him to a machine vegetable, a box of reflexes. I could not have done so without the gifts I inherited from Valmik.’
I looked at the inert white robot on the other side of the room. ‘And now?’
‘I am fighting a mindless entity. But he is not powerless, or without stratagems. Before I began to strip away his faculties, he put in place measures that I cannot rescind. The ship is course-locked - she cannot be turned from her current heading.’
‘Can’t you overcome him, disable those measures?’
‘I have been trying to do exactly that, without success, for hundreds of years. He was cleverer than most, Purslane. He must have anticipated my eventual takeover of his mind.’
‘I could get an energy-pistol, shoot him right now.’
‘It would do no good. The ship would still be course-locked, and I would still have to contend with the rest of him.’
‘How close is the stardam?’
‘We are very near now - less than a light-month away. I expect the opener to function very shortly. You can see the dam, if you wish.’
Without waiting for my answer, Hesperus caused an image to appear on my main displayer. It was garlanded in white and gold threads, but the surface was still unobstructed. A fountainburst of blue-shifted stars bunched aft, with a magnified circle of perfect darkness punched through the middle of them. You could blue-shift the black of a stardam as much as you liked and it would still be black.
‘That’s it?’
‘Realtime imagery,’ Hesperus confirmed.
The black circle, and the space around it, swarmed with red icons. ‘What are those things? Planets?’
‘Ships and defence stations. They’ve been waiting for us. Once our destination and intention became clear, Gentian Line sent a warning ahead of us, signalling the surrounding communities to guard the stardam.’
I felt a twinge of betrayal, while knowing that there was nothing else they could have done.
‘How much warning have they had?’
‘A little over sixty years. Just enough time to coordinate a few nearby systems, and call in any Line-level ships in the neighbourhood. It won’t stop us, Purslane.’
‘How sure of that are you?’
‘Very sure. I know what this ship can do now. I have seen her smash Charlock, Orache and Agrimony’s ships. Later she swatted Galingale aside - his ship carried more and better weapons than any of the others, and still it made no difference. After that there were three ships following us - Dalliance, Shock Diamond and Chromatic Aberration. Only Dalliance is left now. The other ships made attempts to slow us down, but Silver Wings picked them off effortlessly. They inflicted only minimal damage, easily repaired. From what I have learned concerning the cordon, the chances of them hurting us - let alone stopping us - are very small. It will be a massacre, and nothing will have changed.’
‘You could be wrong. There could be hidden ships, waiting to emerge from camouflage at the last moment.’
‘There could be, yes.’ Hesperus hesitated. ‘I took a liberty, Purslane - I hope you will not be angry.’
‘After you locked me in a box for three thousand years? Why would I be angry?’
‘I signalled the cordon - I am able to control Silver Wings to that extent. I explained our situation - that you and I are innocent hostages, unable to influence the course or velocity of this ship or stop her from responding to hostile overtures. I offered them graphical testimony of what I had already witnessed. I showed them that there is no combination of their forces that stands a chance of stopping us, and that the best they can hope for is massive losses of ships and sentients. I urged them to stand all crewed ships down and rely only on automated attack stations, to minimise losses.’
‘Did they listen?’
‘I have received no response. Nor have I observed any change in their defensive posture. I believe they received my message but chose to ignore it.’
‘You can see why they might. For all they know, they are hearing Cadence or Cascade, trying to talk them out of an attack that might actually work.’
‘I am sorry, Purslane - it was the best I could do.’
‘I could try talking to them.’
‘I do not believe it would make any difference now. Your voice and face could be faked just as easily.’
‘I’d still like to try.’
‘Then speak.’
‘Now?’
‘The sooner they move out of range of Silver Wings’ weapons, the fewer losses they will sustain. They cannot stop us, but at least we will not have more blood on our hands.’ He smiled encouragingly. ‘Speak, Purslane. Perhaps you can make a difference, where I failed.’
‘I’m not sure where to begin. Usually when I address a civilisation I like to know a bit about it. Like, are they bipeds, do they breathe air, simple stuff like that.’
‘You don’t have that luxury now. The best you can hope for is that these people understand Tongue. They probably do, or they would not have acted on the Gentian warning.’
‘All right, then.’ I coughed to clear my throat again - it was still dry, despite the breakfast. ‘This is Purslane. I am a shatterling of Gentian Line. You’ve already heard from my brothers and sisters, I think. You may already have heard from my friend Hesperus. I want you to know that everything you’ve heard is true. This ship is carrying a single-use opener and it’s aimed at your stardam. If the opener works, we’re all in a lot of trouble - humans, posthumans, every organic sentience in the meta-civilisation. That’s a given. You’re right to try to stop us - if there was a foolproof way of doing it, I
’d be encouraging you to go right ahead. But this isn’t a battle you can win. Please believe what Hesperus has already told you - that all you’ll be doing is flinging machines and people against an unstoppable object. If you have some ultimate weapon we don’t know about - ten thousand Line ships about to break out of camouflage and open fire with H-guns - then go ahead and use that weapon. But if you don’t, I beg you to remove all your crewed ships from the immediate vicinity of the stardam.’ I fell silent. Hesperus nodded.
‘That was good, Purslane. You made a very persuasive case.’
‘But they won’t listen, will they?’
‘There is always hope.’
I dragged fingers through my hair, tangled from the helmet. ‘Does any of this matter, anyway? If we reach the stardam, the lives that will be lost trying to stop us will be a total irrelevance compared to the lives that will be lost afterwards, when the First Machines break through.’
‘That is my gravest fear, and the thing I most want to discuss with you.’
‘I thought you wanted me to persuade the cordon to disperse.’
‘The cordon is merely a taste of the worst that could happen. As you say, if the stardam is opened, and the First Machines have hostile ambitions, even the loss of an entire civilisation would be a mere detail.’
‘They’ll have hostile ambitions. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Revenge is for biologicals, as I have already pointed out.’
‘Tell that to Cadence and Cascade. Revenge was pretty high up their agenda, as far as I could tell.’
‘You have a point.’
‘What do you want to say to me, Hesperus?’
‘That I can stop this ship at any time.’ He let that sink in, allowing me a few moments to digest the implications, watching me with those magnificent opal/turquoise eyes until he judged that the moment was right to continue. ‘My control of Silver Wings is still imperfect: I cannot steer her or slow her down; I cannot prevent her from opening fire on friendly forces. But I can destroy her, and the opener. I have sufficient control of the white ark to initiate an excursion event in her engine. As we discussed many centuries ago, Silver Wings could not contain such an energy release.’
I could only focus on the practicalities of what he was suggesting, not the brutal emotional truth of it.
‘The opener’s inside an impasse. Will it survive?’
‘Unlikely. The impasse is strong enough to resist weapons, but not the energies associated with an engine failure.’
‘There’s no other way, is there?’
‘No outside agency can stop us. Only we have that means now.’
My mind flashed through all the options we had already tried or rejected. ‘Can we abandon ship and trigger the engine remotely?’
‘Abandoning ship is not an option for me, I’m afraid. It would take me much too long to reshape myself, and we have little time left.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Regretfully, it is also not an option for you. I cannot disengage the curtain on the cargo bay, nor persuade the door to open. You could exit via one of the passenger locks in a suit, but without a ship, you would not survive long.’
‘It’s all right. I wouldn’t leave you here alone.’
‘That is considerate of you, Purslane.’
‘What would it take? Do you have to make any preparations?’
‘All it needs is a word from you. Tell me to do it, and the ship will cease to exist.’
‘You shouldn’t have woken me. You should have just done it.’
‘I owed you the dignity of choice.’
I fell silent. I knew he was right. Every path I had taken in my life, from the moment Madame Kleinfelter removed the growth inhibitor from my forearm, had been of my own choosing. Absurd as it was to speak of feeling resentment from the perspective of being dead, that is how I would have felt had I been denied this final say in my affairs.
‘I hope I would have extended you the same courtesy, Hesperus. We’re sentients. We deserve that much.’
‘I sense that your mind is settled.’
I felt more weary than saddened. ‘What choice do we have? It’s simple. Every other option has already been exhausted. You can’t slow us down. That cordon won’t stop us. The Line couldn’t stop us - good shatterlings have died trying, when we could least afford to lose any more of them. I’ll be one more death, but that’s a small price to pay, isn’t it? I’m not even sure why we’re debating it. One human life, one robot life, to spare the galaxy a macro-war between the machine and the organic? I shouldn’t hesitate. I should have already told you to do it instead of talking about it.’
‘I thought you might like to send a final message to Campion. His ship will keep a record of it until he awakes.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You may speak at your leisure, Purslane.’
There was less to say now, but the words came with even greater difficulty. ‘This is Purslane. You’ve followed me all this way, and I’m more grateful than you’ll ever realise. I’m sorry about what happened to the others, to Betony and the rest - we did everything we could, but in the end it wasn’t enough. I’m going to destroy Silver Wings now - it’s the only thing left for us to do. It’ll be fast and I won’t feel anything. Clean and bright - a good way to go. Turn around and find the Line again, Campion. Speak for me at my funeral, make me a memorial, and then get on with your life. I love you, and I will always love you.’
Hesperus lowered his face. ‘It’s done. The signal is transmitted. Dalliance will receive it shortly.’
‘You’re certain of that?’
‘Beyond all doubt.’
I looked at the displayer again, with the black circle of the stardam and the red icons of that useless, soon to be decimated cordon. There was no sense asking if anything had changed. The message I’d already sent would still not have reached them, and there would be precious little time for them to act even when it did.
‘I don’t think there’s much point in delaying this, is there? The longer we drag things out, the more chance there is of the opener triggering.’
‘That is always a possibility. But I wish to make one suggestion. The likelihood of you surviving the excursion is not good, but you may maximise your chances be re-entering stasis. By some great good fortune, your casket may come through unscathed.’
‘Great good fortune. That’s encouraging.’
‘I do not wish to overstate your chances.’
‘Point taken, Hesperus. But how would you rate yours?’
‘Rather unpromising, if I am compelled to be truthful. But that changes nothing. If our roles were reversed, I feel certain that you would want me to do all in my power to survive, even if the likelihood of that survival was small.’
I could not argue with that, as much as I would have liked to.
‘I’ll go back to the ark. I can set the stasis casket myself.’
‘No - that would achieve nothing. To stand a chance of surviving, you would be better off as far from the ark - and Silver Wings’ own engine - as circumstances allow. Fortunately, there is such a place. During my peregrinations, I found a secret room containing an armoured stasis chamber, protected by multiple impassors. It is very near the bows, not far from our present position. You must have built it as a precaution against just such a situation as this - your being compelled to remain aboard during a catastrophic engine failure.’
I had no conscious recollection of doing such a thing. ‘I built it?’
‘There’s no question, Purslane. I may only have known you for a fraction of your existence, but I recognise your handiwork. You did well to think ahead.’
‘Just as I did well to stop anyone tampering with the opener.’
‘You cannot blame yourself for that. You never envisaged that you would be the person trying to sabotage it.’
‘You’d better tell me how to get to this secret room.’
‘I programmed it into the go-board. Enter “terminus”. The whiskw
ay will carry you there.’
‘A secret whiskway as well as a secret room?’
‘This is a big ship. It has space enough for a few surprises.’
‘Thank you, Hesperus. It won’t help, but it’ll give me something to pin my hopes on. At least when I go into stasis, it won’t be in the absolute and certain knowledge that I’m going to die. There’ll be a chink of light, for me anyway.’
‘I have had my share of lucky escapes. There is nothing to say I will not profit from another. Go, Purslane.’
There were a thousand things I could have said to him, a thousand questions I wanted to ask. But every second that passed was another second in which the opener might activate, sending its irrevocable command to the stardam.
I said goodbye. I left the bridge and went to the whisking chamber. I punched in the command Hesperus had given me and steeled myself. In the last instant before the field engaged, it occurred to me that he might have been lying; that there might be no such thing as a secret room, and that the whiskway was going to send me into painless oblivion by dashing me against a sealed wall. But the field snapped, the whiskway transported me, swerved onto a track I did not know existed, and after a confusion of blurred, rushing spaces I arrived ... somewhere.
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