Elysium Fire

by Alastair Reynolds

  “Oh, I’d love to—really I would. But there’s the small matter of give and take. It’s not often I have real leverage over you—I’d be foolish to waste this opportunity. Let go of your inhibitions.”

  The two ships began to level out. The hull shutters opened, the hull’s visible arc still giving off a faint glow as it surrendered some of the heat gained during the entry. They were moving hypersonically now, and snatches of terrain occasionally opened up below.

  “You really don’t understand people any more, Aurora. If you ever did.”

  Her face blanched, her eyes flaring with wounded pride—a little too theatrically to be convincing. “Mm. You really know how to hurt a girl, Dreyfus. How unchivalrous of you. How mean.”

  “One day you might grow a conscience.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want one of those. I tried it once and it didn’t suit me at all.” Her face began to fade out, crazing over with static before sharpening one last time. “Regretfully, I must now take my absence—but we’ll speak again, won’t we?”

  “No rush,” Dreyfus said, Aurora becoming disembodied eyes and mouth, and then just the mouth, the last part of her to fade.

  It was gone for a moment, and then another face appeared on the console.

  “Still keeping up, Dreyfus?”

  “Yes, Hestia.”

  “Good. If you’ve done your homework, you’ll know that my correct title is Detective-Marshal Del Mar. We’ll keep it formal, shall we?”

  “Absolutely. It’s Field Prefect Dreyfus, if we’re holding score.”

  “Follow me,” she said.

  Julius did not care for the new phase in Caleb’s hunting game. He went along with it all the same, grudgingly aware that he preferred his brother’s company to none at all.

  Caleb had grown more adept with the shaping of material objects. One afternoon, visibly pleased with himself, he showed Julius his latest triumph. It was a fully functioning crossbow, formed from a single piece of quickmatter. He passed it to Julius, inviting him to admire it.

  “I thought a hunting rifle was more your style,” Julius said. “Something that works, not just a dummy.”

  “I could have shaped a functioning rifle easily enough,” Caleb replied off-handedly. “I know what’s inside a rifle. A few moving parts: nothing too challenging. But you need chemistry to make bullets, and quickmatter’s chemically inert.”

  “Pity. Poor you.”

  “I figured a crossbow oughtn’t to be too hard, and it wasn’t. It’s just a question of designing different tensile properties into the components. The range and stopping power isn’t as good as a rifle, but that just makes the game a bit more interesting.”

  “Does it?”

  “Yes. We’ll need to get closer to the animals.”

  “They’re not real,” Julius pointed out, for all the good he knew it would do. “They’re figments, visual ghosts. We don’t need to actually shoot them with a physical object.”

  Caleb looked at him oddly. “There’s no fun in making the game too easy. We have to feel as if we’re doing our part, and that means we won’t be able to kill them unless we’re within a realistic range.”

  Julius sighted along the crossbow. It felt solid in his hands, well balanced, economical and elegant in its design. It was beyond anything he was presently capable of conjuring, but Caleb already knew that and certainly needed no further encouragement. “As long as you don’t expect us to use knives. What are we supposed to shoot with this?”

  “I’ve already thought about that.” Caleb dug into the pocket of his shorts and came out with a sharp-tipped dart, about the size of his thumb. “Quickmatter again. I tried a few different forms until I found the right shape. Go on, try it.”

  “There aren’t any animals nearby.”

  “Just shoot at anything. I want you to get the hang of it.”

  Julius armed the crossbow, figuring out for himself how to latch it. He placed the dart in the smooth groove that ran the length of the weapon, then raised the crossbow to his shoulder. He swung around slowly, sighting at a grove of trees about fifty paces away. He picked one tree, held his breath and squeezed the trigger stub. The bow jerked a little as it released, but he had been ready for that and it had not upset his aim.

  A moment later, the dart embedded itself in the tree with a solid, satisfying thunk.

  “I hope you’ve made a few more of those.”

  “A few,” Caleb said. “But since it’s quickmatter, it responds to a homing command.” He gestured in the rough direction of the tree, and the dart gave an unsettling wriggle and dropped to the ground. Julius watched as it began inching through the undergrowth, propelling itself with queasy, sluglike undulations. “I could have made it fly, I suppose,” Caleb said. “But as long as it gets back eventually it doesn’t matter how long it takes.” Then he patted Julius roughly. “C’mon. Let’s go and hunt. If it goes well we’ll talk Father into giving us some more quickmatter, and then I can conjure a second crossbow just for you.”

  “I can’t wait,” Julius said.

  They had been walking for a few minutes, Caleb holding the crossbow again, when he said: “What did you mean back there, by the way?”

  “About what?”

  “Knives. You said as long as we’re not expected to use knives.”

  Julius frowned. “Did I?”

  “I know you, Julius, and nothing comes out of your mouth by accident.” Caleb walked on, swinging the crossbow from its stock. “It’s that dream of yours again, isn’t it?”

  “I thought we agreed not to talk about my dream.”

  “You were the one who raised it, not me.”

  “I don’t think I ever mentioned my dream involving knives, Caleb. I’d have remembered it if I had.”

  Caleb turned around, bringing the crossbow around in an arc so that Julius had to duck back not to be bludgeoned. “Don’t lie to me. You said we were standing holding knives, and everyone else was dead.”

  “I didn’t.” Julius reached up and snatched the crossbow from Caleb’s grip, surprised at his own speed and strength. “I know, because I made a point of never saying it. But I’ve caught you out now, haven’t I?”

  Caleb seethed, but said nothing.

  “We both have the same dream,” Julius carried on, meeting his brother’s eyes and not flinching away from the menace he detected in them. “You just don’t want to admit it. You prefer the lie you’ve been sold.”

  “And what lie would that be?”

  “That you’re the son of a Voi. That you’re entitled to this power, this responsibility.” He threw the crossbow at Caleb’s feet. “You’re not one of them, and neither am I. We’re something else.” He cocked his head at the Shell House. “We weren’t born here. Whatever childhood we had, it wasn’t the one they want us to know about.”

  Caleb stooped down to pick up the weapon. He shook the dirt from it, tension flexing through his arm muscles. “You can keep trying to tease me, brother, but it won’t work. Either cough up or stop going on about it.”

  “Do you remember what Doctor Stasov said, the last time he was here?”

  “I suppose you do.”

  “He said they were making monsters out of monsters. He meant us, Caleb. He meant Mother and Father are trying to turn us into something. He also said we’re not really theirs.”

  “Here you go again.”

  “You can pretend you don’t remember, but I saw how much you were bothered by his words.”

  “If he’s so clever, why haven’t we seen him since?”

  “I don’t know.” Julius scowled, not wanting to be side tracked. “He was having an argument with them, wasn’t he? Saying he didn’t want to carry on, and they were telling him it wasn’t any good. I think they were threatening him, Caleb, trying to stop him going away or whatever he was thinking of doing. It’s funny that they haven’t found another doctor, isn’t it? I mean, there’s a whole city out there. How hard could it be to find another doctor to keep an ey
e on two boys?”

  “You already know we have to keep all this secret,” Caleb said. “Perhaps we don’t even need a doctor now, anyway. He hardly did anything the last time.”

  “Maybe we don’t need him now. But that doesn’t change the things he said. He said something bad happened a long time ago, didn’t he? Well, I know what it was. They’ve been careful with the books they leave us, haven’t they? There’s not too much about the history of the Shell House or the Voi family.”

  “No need. We get it rammed down our throats every time we walk past a painting.”

  Julius conceded that this was a reasonable point. “Still, I wanted to see if I could find out about something bad. And I didn’t have to look very far. There’s a book on Marco Ferris. It goes into a lot of stuff. I think they forgot that it also mentions the Amerikano settlement.”

  Caleb fingered the crossbow. “And?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, brother. Before they had the fast ships, they sent robots to lots of different planets. Robots with eggs inside them, or with genetic patterns that could be made into human embryos once they’d arrived and started mining raw materials.”

  “Get to the point, Julius.”

  “In each instance the robots created a batch of children—newborns. But there wasn’t anyone around to raise those children except the robots themselves. The trouble is the robots didn’t get it right, and the children ended up all wrong. If there was a second generation, it was even worse. Something hadn’t developed properly. Empathy, social awareness, call it what you will. They were little sociopaths. Little monsters.” Julius said the word deliberately, watching his brother carefully. “And most of them went mad. All those settlements, in all the different systems. They all failed for different reasons, but underlying them all was a common cause. They weren’t knitting together the way human communities are meant to. No one should have been too surprised, should they? We’re just mammals. That’s all we’ve ever been, all we’ve known for tens of millions of years. We’ve evolved to grow up surrounded by other mammals, one or two generations of them, showing us how to behave. But the Amerikano children didn’t have that. They came out of metal wombs on an alien planet, with only robots to stand in for their parents.”

  “You’re an expert of all sudden.”

  Julius touched a hand to his heart. “I don’t need to be. I don’t need to be told this stuff, because I’ve known it all along. It’s us, brother. That’s what we are. The survivors of one of those settlements. Those are the dreams we have—being back there, with the other children, and the robots.”

  “That’s not possible. It happened too long ago.”

  “I don’t claim to understand it, Caleb. But I can’t ignore it, either. The Ursas—remember them? I didn’t make that up. It’s all in the book. That’s what the robots were called, when they were trying to raise the first generation. They gave them arms and legs, like people, and covered them in fur, so they wouldn’t be too frightening. It was meant to help the children—like orphans being raised by friendly teddy bears. But it all went wrong.”

  “It wasn’t us.”

  “It was. I don’t know how, but that’s what happened. We killed all the other boys and girls. We weren’t meant to remember it, but we do. And now we’re here.”

  13

  It took a few moments for the mob to notice that the doors to the polling core were opening. Until that development, the human tide of Garlin’s assembly had seemed to be on the turn, first in ones and twos and then in gathering numbers. Sparver had allowed himself to believe that a peaceful resolution was still feasible, and that he and Thalia would be able to leave the habitat with Garlin in their protective custody and some measure of calm restored.

  But the opening of the doors had a profound effect on the mob’s state of mind. The retreat lost its impetus, and then, with a roar of collective determination, that tidal surge began to press back towards the steps and the seven operatives attempting to hold them. This was the crowd’s moment. Those opening doors were not just an opportunity, but an invitation.

  The constables pressed out their stun-truncheons, the ends flickering with blue sparks. The operatives with sonic-cannons began to douse the crowd with continuous pulses, a horrible sound even for anyone not caught in the direct focus of the cannons. Undeterred, the mob was already spilling onto the first couple of steps. Sparver had just enough time to bark an order to his reserve whiphound, instructing it to use maximum force in holding the line.

  On the level ground, next to the cleaning robot, Thalia had been in the middle of persuading Garlin down from his roost. Malkmus and the other constables were next to her. The first two whiphounds were still holding a cordon, but the mob was pressing in and he saw when Thalia became aware of the opening doors. As his own whiphound zig-zagged back and forth at high speed, trying to club or lash anyone who dared test its threshold, Sparver watched Thalia glance around and touch her throat microphone, and then her voice sounded in his earpiece.

  “Ng to Panoply. Things have just turned here. The core is compromised. Repeat, the core is compromised.” Then, locking eyes with Sparver: “Malkmus doesn’t know what’s happening. Those doors shouldn’t have opened.”

  “She said there were constables inside,” Sparver said. “Maybe they overrode the lockdown, for whatever reason.”

  “Malkmus says no. But there should still be multiple barriers between the lobby and the core.”

  “I’m not sure I’d count on them, given what’s just happened. Did Garlin send any sort of signal just before the doors opened?”

  “I’m looking at him right now. He didn’t say or do anything. That doesn’t mean he isn’t responsible.”

  “I agree, but it’s nothing we can prove for the moment.” Sparver jerked back as a projectile narrowly missed his shins. Thalia looked small and vulnerable, hemmed in by the mob on all sides. She had two whiphounds defending the cordon, and a third at her side, but Sparver knew all too well that she could still come to harm.

  “You have one last chance, Garlin,” he heard her call out. “Tell them to pull back from the steps.”

  “These are free citizens,” he answered, roaring out his words, and snaring the mob’s attention while he spoke. “They don’t answer to anyone, Prefect Ng, let alone me. And if there has been such negligence as to leave the core unprotected, why should they be blamed for it?”

  “Julius Devon Garlin Voi,” Thalia said, her voice breaking under the strain, “you are under arrest for the commission of actions detrimental to the democratic process.” She flicked a glance at her whiphound. “Bring him down and hold him on the ground.”

  The whiphound moved in a blur and crack of coils. Garlin had just enough time to register surprise, and to begin moving his hands into a reflex defensive posture, almost a surrender, but it was to no avail. The whiphound had flung itself airborne, lassoed itself around his lower legs, drawn itself tight, and toppled Garlin. That was as much as Sparver saw clearly, but he had little difficulty imagining the rest.

  Garlin would have come down hard. By the time he hit the ground the whiphound would have looped a few more coils around him for good measure, preventing him from flailing out or reaching for a weapon. Depending on the orders Thalia gave, the coils would either lock solid—making it feel as if he were imprisoned in a single unyielding restraint—or would tighten under resistance, eventually biting into skin and bone.

  “Have you got him?” Sparver called.

  Thalia grunted as she knelt down. “Yes. Contained. Ng to Panoply. Update on the situation here. I’ve detained Garlin. Things are getting hot here. We could really use that backup.”

  The whiphound’s zig-zag patrol was growing ever more frenetic. The citizens had gathered up their weapons again and were using them with increasing ferocity, throwing crude projectiles or swiping the air threateningly with sticks and fence posts. Individually, none of these items would have posed the slightest challenge
to the whiphound. But sheer force of numbers was starting to make a difference, and Sparver knew that when the defensive line failed it would happen quickly.

  He turned back to the constables. “Fall back and regroup with your colleagues inside.”

  “They’ll overrun this entrance,” one of the constables said, fear showing in his eyes like a bright new dawn, as if it was an entirely novel emotion.

  “I’ll hold it as long as I can. But if you can form a cordon around the inner core that’ll be a lot easier than defending this entrance.”

  “How long do we have to hold it for?” asked a second constable.

  “Not long,” Sparver said. “Chances are there’s already a cruiser docked as we speak.”

  That was close to a lie, but to his relief the constables accepted his word and abandoned their line, with one of them passing him a stun-truncheon before they left.

  Sparver found he was surprisingly grateful for the stun-truncheon. Its end was sparking and he swung it in an arc, even as he stepped back to assume a higher position on the steps.

  “Still there, Thalia?”

  “Garlin and I aren’t going anywhere,” she said, with a sarcastic friendliness. “Are we, Devon?”

  “Hang tight. Don’t try and move him back to the ship on your own—it’s a job for two of us, even with whiphounds.”

  “Advice noted, Deputy Bancal,” she said.

  A second later the line fell. A hooded citizen saw their moment, springing onto the steps when the whiphound was at the opposite limit of its patrol. As the citizen crossed the threshold, another risked a swipe against the whiphound’s head with the blunt end of a wooden stake, doing no harm to the whiphound but knocking it aside and thereby gaining a precious second or two for more citizens to swarm onto the steps. The whiphound responded with an escalation in the severity of its attacks, using the second edge to draw blood, and whipping and coiling around any limb or extremity unwise enough to stray within its range. Joints were dislocated, bones fractured, skin gashed. Those unfortunate citizens fell back instantly, nursing sudden, bright wounds, but still greater numbers came trampling forward. A few of the wounded fell to the ground, their shocked and moaning forms quickly lost under the advance.