Geoffrey discarded the stick. ‘Hello, big girl.’
Matilda snorted and threw back her head, then returned to the business of foraging. Geoffrey surveyed the rest of the party, alert for signs of illness, injury or belligerent mood. One of the younger calves – Morgan – still had the same limp Geoffrey had noted the day before, so he voked a specific biomedical summary. Bloodstream analysis showed normal white cell and stress hormone counts, suggesting that there was no infection or skeletal injury, only a moderately debilitating muscle sprain that would clear up with time. Babies were resilient.
As for the rest of the M-family, they were relaxed and peaceable, even Marsha, the daughter who had recently mock-charged Geoffrey. She appeared sheepishly absorbed in her foraging, as if trusting that the incident was something they could both put behind them.
He paused in his approach, framed the view with his fingers like a budding auteur and blinked still frames. Sometimes he even took a small folding chair from the Cessna and sat down with a sketchbook and sharpened 2B pencil, trying to capture the ponderous majesty of these wise and solemn creatures.
‘So, old lady,’ he said quietly as he came nearer to the matriarch, ‘how are things today?’
Matilda eyed him with only mild curiosity, as if he would suffice until something more interesting came along. She continued to probe the ground with her trunk while one of the calves – Meredith’s boy, Mitchell – nosed around her hindquarters, flicking flies away with his tail.
Geoffrey voked the link with Matilda. A graphic of her brain appeared in the upper-left corner of his visual field, sliced through and colour-coded for electrical and chemical activity, all squirming blues and pinks, intricately annotated.
Geoffrey placed his bag on the ground and walked up to Matilda, all the while maintaining an unthreatening posture and letting her see that his hands were empty. She allowed him to touch her. He ran his palm along the wrinkled, leathery skin at the top of her foreleg. He felt the slow in-and-out of her breathing, like a house-sized bellows.
‘Is this the day?’ he asked.
After six months’ careful negotiation he had flown to a clinic in Luanda, on the Angolan coast, and completed the necessary paperwork. The changes to his own aug protocols were all legal and covered by watertight non-disclosure statutes. The new taps had been injected painlessly, migrating to their chosen brain regions without complication. Establishing the neural connections with his own brain tissue took several weeks, as the taps not only bonded with his mind but carried out diagnostic tests on their own functioning.
In the late summer of the previous year he’d had strange machine-like dreams, his head filled with luminous gridlike patterns and insanely complex tapestries of pulsing neon. He’d been warned. Then the taps bedded down, his dreams returned to normal and he felt exactly as he had done before.
Except now there was a bridge in his head, and on the other side of that bridge lay a fabulous, barely charted alien kingdom.
All he had to do was summon the nerve to cross into it.
Geoffrey walked around Matilda once, maintaining hand-to-skin contact so that she always knew where he was. He felt the other elephants studying him, most of them adult enough to know that if Matilda did not consider him a threat, nor should they.
Geoffrey voked his own real-time brain image into position next to Matilda’s. Mild ongoing activity showed in the visual and auditory centres, as she watched him and at the same time kept vigil over the rest of her family. He, on the other hand, was showing the classic neurological indicators of stress and anxiety.
Not that he needed the scan to tell him that: it was there in his throat, in his chest and belly.
‘Show some backbone,’ Geoffrey whispered to himself.
He voked the aug to initiate the transition. A sliding scale showed the degree of linkage, beginning at zero per cent and rising smoothly. At ten per cent there was no detectable change in his mental state. On the very first occasion, six months ago now, he’d reached fifteen and then spooked himself out of the link, convinced that his mind was being slowly infiltrated by tendrils of unaccountable dread. The second time, he’d convinced himself that the dread was entirely of his own making and nothing to do with the overlaying of Matilda’s state of mind. But at twenty per cent he had felt it coming in again, spreading like a terror-black inkblot, and he had killed the link once more. On the five subsequent occasions, he had never taken the link beyond thirty-five per cent.
He thought he could do better this time. There had been sufficient opportunity to chide himself for his earlier failures, to reflect on the family’s quiet disappointment in his endeavours.
As the scale slid past twenty per cent, he felt superhumanly attuned to his surroundings, as if his visual and auditory centres were beginning to approach Matilda’s normal state of activity. Each blade of glass, each midday shadow, appeared imbued with vast potentiality. He wondered how any creature could be that alert and still have room for anything resembling a non-essential thought.
Perhaps the relative amplification levels needed tweaking. What might feel like hyper-alertness to him might be carefree normality to Matilda.
He exceeded twenty-five per cent. His self-image was beginning to lose coherence: it was as if his nerve-endings were pushing through his skin, filling out a volume much larger than that defined by his body. He was still looking at Matilda, but now Matilda was starting to shrink. The visual cues were unchanged – he was still seeing the world through his own eyes – but the part of his brain that dealt in spatial relationships was being swamped by data from Matilda.
This was how he felt to her: like a doll, something easily broken.
Thirty per cent. The spatial adjustment was unsettling, but he could cope with the oddness of it all. It was weird, and it would leave him with the curious appreciation that his entire sense of self was a kind of crude, clunking clockwork open to sabotage and manipulation, but there was no emotional component.
Thirty-five per cent, and the terror hadn’t begun to come in yet. He was nearly four-tenths of the way to thinking like an elephant, and yet he still felt fully in command of his own mental processes. The emotions were the same as those he’d been experiencing when he initiated the link. If Matilda was sending him anything, it wasn’t enough to suppress his own brain activity.
He felt a shiver of exhilaration as the link passed forty per cent. This time, just possibly, he could go all the way. Even to reach the halfway point would be a landmark. Once he had got that far, there would be no doubt in his mind that he could take the link to its limit. Not today, though. Today he’d willingly settle for fifty-five, sixty per cent.
Something happened. His heart rate quickened, adrenalin flooding his system. Geoffrey felt panicked, but the panic was sharper and more focused than the creeping terror he had experienced on the previous occasions.
The matriarch had noticed something. The aug hadn’t detected any large predators in the area, and Odin was still much too far away to be a problem. Maasai, perhaps . . . but the aug should have alerted him. Matilda let out a threat rumble, but by then some of the other elephants in the family had begun to turn uneasily, the older ones shepherding the younger individuals to safety.
His sense of scale still out of kilter, Geoffrey’s eyes swept the bush for danger. Matilda rumbled again, flapping her ears and heeling the ground with her front foot.
One of the youngsters trumpeted.
Geoffrey broke the link. For a moment Matilda lingered in his head, his sense of scale still awry. Then the panic ebbed and he felt his normal body image assert itself. He was in danger, no question of it. The elephants might not mean him harm but their instinct for survival would easily override any protectiveness they felt towards him. He started to back away, at the same time wondering what exactly was approaching. He made to reach for his bag.
A dark-garbed and bony-framed man stepped out of the bush. He flicked twigs and dust from his suit trousers, apparently oblivio
us to the elephant family he had just scared to the brink of stampede.
Memphis.
Geoffrey blinked and frowned, his heart still racing. The elephants were calming now – they recognised Memphis from his occasional visits and understood that he was not a threat.
‘I thought we had an agreement,’ Geoffrey said.
‘Unless,’ Memphis said reasonably, ‘the circumstances were exceptional. That was also the understanding.’
‘You still didn’t have to come here in person.’
‘On the contrary, I had to do exactly that. You set your aug preferences such that you are not otherwise contactable.’
‘You could have sent a proxy,’ Geoffrey said peevishly.
‘The elephants have no liking for robots, from what I remember. The absence of smell is worse than the wrong smell. You once told me that they can differentiate Maasai from non-Maasai solely on the basis of bodily odour. Is this not the case?’
Geoffrey smiled, unable to stay angry at Memphis for long. ‘So you were paying attention after all.’
‘I wouldn’t have come if there was any alternative.Lucas and Hector were most insistent.’
‘What do they want with me?’
‘You’d best come and find out. They’re waiting.’
‘At the household?’
‘At the airpod. They were keen to walk the rest of the way, but I indicated that it might be better if they kept back.’
‘You were right,’ Geoffrey said, bristling. ‘Anything they’ve got to say to me, they had their chance last night, when we were all one big happy family.’
‘Perhaps they have decided to give you more funding.’
‘Yeah,’ Geoffrey said, stooping to collect his bag. ‘I can really see that happening.’
Lucas and Hector were standing on the ground next to the metallic-green airpod. They wore lightweight pastel business suits, with wide-brimmed hats.
‘I trust we did not disturb you,’ Lucas said.
‘Of course we disturbed him,’ Hector said, smiling. ‘What else are we to Geoffrey but an irksome interruption? He has work to do.’
‘I conveyed the urgency of your request,’ Memphis said.
‘Your cooperation is appreciated,’ Lucas said, ‘but there’s no further requirement for your presence. Return to the household with the airpod and send it back here on autopilot.’
Geoffrey folded his arms. ‘If there’s anything you need to tell me, Memphis can hear it.’
Hector beckoned the housekeeper to climb into the airpod. ‘Please, Memphis.’
The old man met Geoffrey’s eyes and nodded once. ‘There are matters I need to attend to. I shall send the airpod back directly.’
‘When you’re done,’ Hector said, ‘take the rest of the day off. You worked hard enough as it is yesterday.’
‘Thank you, Hector,’ Memphis said. ‘That is most generous.’
Memphis hauled his bony frame into the airpod and strapped in. The electric duct fans spun up to speed, whining quickly into ultrasound, and the airpod hauled itself aloft as if drawn by an invisible wire. When it had cleared the tops of the trees, it turned its blunt nose to face the household and sped away.
‘That was awkward,’ Hector said.
Lucas flicked an insect from the pale-green sleeve of his suit. ‘Under the circumstances, there was no alternative.’
Geoffrey planted his hands on his hips. ‘I suppose a lot of things look that way when you’ve had an empathy shunt put in. Have you got it turned on or off right now?’
‘Memphis understood,’ Hector said, while Lucas glowered. ‘He’s been good to the family, but he knows where his responsibilities end.’
‘You didn’t need him to bring you out here.’
Lucas shook his broad, handsome head. ‘At least the elephants know him slightly. They don’t know us at all.’
‘Your fault for never coming out here.’
‘Let’s not get off on the wrong foot here, Geoffrey.’ Hector’s suit was of similar cut to his brother’s, but a subtle flamingo pink in colour. Close enough in appearance to be easily mistaken for each other, they were actually neither twins nor clones. ‘It’s not as if we’ve come with bad news,’ Hector went on. ‘We’ve got a proposition that we think you’ll find interesting.’
‘If it’s to do with taking up my burden of family obligations, you know where you can shove it.’
‘Closer involvement in Akinya core strategic affairs would be viewed positively,’ Lucas said.
‘You make it sound like I’m shirking hard work.’
‘It’s clear to us that these animals mean an enormous amount to you,’ Hector said. ‘That’s nothing you need be ashamed of.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Lucas said, ‘an opportunity for a reciprocal business transaction has arisen. In return for the execution of a relatively simple task, one that would involve neither personal risk nor an investment of more than a few days of your time, we would be willing to liberate additional discretionary funds—’
‘Substantial funds,’ Hector said, before Geoffrey had a chance to speak. ‘As much over the next year as the family has donated over the past three. That would make quite a difference to your work, wouldn’t it?’ He cast a brim-shadowed eye in the direction of the Cessna. ‘I’m no expert on the economics of this kind of operation, but I imagine it would make the hiring of one or two assistants perfectly feasible, with enough left over for new equipment and resources. And this wouldn’t be a one-off increase, either. Subject to the usual checks and balances, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be extended going forward, year after year.’
‘Or even increased,’ Lucas said, ‘if a suitably persuasive case were to be tabled.’
Geoffrey couldn’t dismiss an offer of increased funding out of hand, no matter what strings came attached. Pride be damned, he owed it to the herd.
‘What do you want?’
‘A matter has arisen, a matter of interest only to the family, and which necessitates a suitably tactful response,’ Lucas said. ‘You would need to go into space.’
He’d already guessed it had to be something to do with Eunice. ‘To the Winter Palace?’
‘Actually,’ Lucas said, ‘the Lunar surface.’
‘Why can’t you go?’
Hector shared a smile with his brother. ‘In a time of transition, it’s important to convey the impression of normality. Neither Lucas nor I have plausible business on the Moon.’
‘Hire an outsider, then.’
‘Third-party involvement would present unacceptable risks,’ Lucas said, pausing to tug at his shirt collar where it was sticking to his skin. Like Hector he was both muscular and comfortably taller than Geoffrey. ‘I hardly need add that you are an Akinya.’
‘What my brother means,’ Hector said, ‘is that you’re blood, and you have blood ties on the Moon, especially in the African-administered sector. If you can’t be trusted, who can?’
Geoffrey thought for a few seconds, striving to give away as little as possible. Let the two manipulators stew for a while, wondering if he was going to take the bait.
‘This matter on the Moon – what are we talking about?’
‘A loose end,’ Hector said.
‘What kind? I’m not agreeing to anything until I know what’s involved.’
‘Despite the complexity of Eunice’s estate and affairs,’ Lucas said, ‘the execution of our due-diligence audit has proceeded without complication. The sweeps have turned up nothing of concern, and certainly nothing that need raise questions beyond the immediate family.’
‘There is, however, a box,’ Hector said.
Geoffrey raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. ‘What kind?’
‘A safe-deposit box,’ Lucas said. ‘Is the concept familiar to you?’
‘You’ll have to explain it to me. Being but a lowly scientist, anything to do with money or banking is completely outside my comprehension. Yes, of course
I know what a safe-deposit box is. Where is it?’
‘In a bank on the Moon,’ Hector said, ‘the name and location of which we’ll disclose once you’re under way.’
‘You’re worried about skeletons.’
The corner of Lucas’s mouth twitched. Geoffrey wondered if the empathy shunt was making him unusually prone to literal-mindedness, unable to see past a metaphor.
‘We need to know what’s in that box,’ he said.
‘It’s a simple request,’ Hector said. ‘Go to the Moon, on our expense account. Open the box. Ascertain its contents. Report back to the household. You can leave tomorrow – there’s a slot on the Libreville elevator. You’ll be on the Moon inside three days, your work done inside four. And then you’re free to do whatever you like. Play tourist. Visit Sunday. Broaden your—’
‘Horizons. Yes.’
Hector’s expression clouded over at Geoffrey’s tone. ‘Something I said?’
‘Never mind.’ Geoffrey paused. ‘I have to admire the two of you, you know. Year after year, I’ve come crawling on my hands and knees asking for more funding. I’ve begged and borrowed, pleading my case against a wall of indifference, not just from my mother and father but from the two of you. At best I’ve got a token increase, just enough to shut me up until next time. Meanwhile, the family pisses a fortune into repairing the blowpipe without me even being told about it, and when you do need a favour, you suddenly find all this money you can throw at my feet. Have you any idea how insignificant that makes me feel?’
‘If you’d rather the incentives were downscaled,’ Lucas said, ‘that can be arranged.’
‘I’m taking you for every yuan. You want this done badly enough, I doubt you’d open with your highest offer.’
‘Don’t overstep the mark,’ Hector said. ‘We could just as easily approach Sunday and make the same request of her.’
‘But you won’t, because you think Sunday’s a borderline anarchist who’s secretly plotting the downfall of the entire system-wide economy. No, I’m your last best hope, or you wouldn’t have come.’ Geoffrey steeled himself. ‘So let’s talk terms. I want a fivefold increase in research funding, inflation-linked and guaranteed for the next decade. None of that’s negotiable: we either agree to it here and now, or I walk away.’
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