Poseidon's Wake

by Alastair Reynolds

  Kanu nodded within his helmet. Panels and signs were still aglow, and dim yellow service lighting offered glimpses into adjoining passageways and compartments.

  ‘We’ll never sweep the whole thing,’ he said, ‘so we won’t try. For a start, I think we can rule out survivors in the lower levels. But we should be able to reach the control core easily enough.’

  ‘It would be unwise to raise your hopes,’ Lucien said.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Regardless, Kanu is correct,’ Dalal said. ‘For the sake of making our governments look good, we must go through the motions.’

  ‘Steady with talk like that,’ Kanu said. ‘They’ll hang you for honesty.’

  Dalal grinned back at him through her faceplate. ‘Being hanged is the least of my present worries.’

  The slope of the floor made progress tricky, but they found their way to the central trunk elevator without too much trouble.

  Korsakov found the control panel and punched the big manual button to summon their ride. It came rattling and groaning along its shaft, squealing and protesting. Kanu supposed that they were lucky the elevator was working at all, after the impact the craft had sustained. But he would have welcomed any excuse to abandon the search and return to the flier.

  The ambassadors entered the elevator, followed by Swift, and the car began to ascend, bucking and jerking as it hit some obstruction.

  ‘It is not easy to see what these Reclamationists were hoping to achieve,’ Swift said, as if he felt an obligation to make conversation.

  ‘It might be a symbolic gesture,’ Kanu said. ‘Reclaiming a piece of Mars, if only for a few days.’

  ‘With their corpses?’ Swift asked.

  ‘Maybe they hoped to survive long enough to issue some kind of statement, a declaration of sovereignty or suchlike.’

  ‘I still fail to see the logic. What use is this dry, airless world to you?’

  ‘No practical use at all,’ Kanu said as the elevator halted and the doors opened. ‘But we can’t bear the thought of someone else having it.’

  The control deck was a semicircular room with passages branching off it and a wide armoured window occupying one arc of the curved wall. Some of the console displays were still active, and Korsakov was confident enough to start flipping the heavy manual control switches. With a clunk and whine, the window’s armoured shuttering began to retract.

  They were higher on Mars now than when they landed, a good twenty levels up, and from this elevation – surveying the oddly tilted landscape – Kanu could easily make out the luminous, pastel-shaded anthills of three distant robot cities. Even closer, one of their connecting tentacles formed a distinct glowing ridge-line, like the spine of a half-buried sea-monster. He watched, partly mesmerised, as lights raced along the spine with the speed of shooting stars.

  ‘Do those cities have names, Swift?’

  ‘I am not sure you would perceive them as “cities”, Kanu. “Nodes” or “hubs” would be more accurate. Functional modules, like your own brain compartmentalisation. But yes, they do have distinct signifiers. Although again, “name” may be stretching things a little—’

  ‘When you’re done chatting,’ Korsakov said, ‘we could begin searching the ship with these internal sensors.’ He was bending over a console, tapping keys. Displays were coming online, showing blueprints and cross sections, and he drew their attention to a couple of them. ‘These areas appear to contain air, and these are where the ship seems to have lost pressure.’

  ‘Given the lack of time available to us,’ Dalal said, ‘it’ll be a token search. But at least we can go home saying we did the best we could.’

  ‘Should my compatriots find organic material,’ Swift said, ‘we would treat it with the utmost respect.’

  ‘Thank you, Swift,’ Kanu said, ‘but I’m not sure being shredded and incorporated into your neural-logic networks is the fate we’d want for our loved ones. Even if you did it respectfully.’

  ‘I can, nonetheless, assist with your search.’

  The ambassadors looked at each other. Korsakov started to say something, but Kanu raised a hand.

  ‘No, it makes sense. One of him can do the work of four of us in about a thousandth of the time.’

  ‘I would not go quite that far,’ Swift said, ‘but I can certainly make a difference, given the time you have remaining.’

  ‘Yevgeny,’ said Dalal, ‘can you call up the sensor search on different consoles?’

  ‘It’s done. Five consoles – four for us and one for the machine. I’m already running a visual and infrared search on decks twelve to eighteen – don’t bother duplicating my efforts.’

  ‘We won’t,’ Kanu said.

  The consoles were simple to use, and it did not take long to run at least a cursory search on each deck. They were looking for the obvious: survivors or bodies, in plain view. If people were hidden away in lockers, out of the reach of the sensors, there was nothing the ambassadors could do about it.

  ‘In ten minutes we’ll need to be on our way back down,’ Dalal announced. ‘And that’s assuming we cut our margins to the bone.’

  ‘Our margin is still good,’ Kanu said. He had searched half of his allotted area of the ship, seeing only empty corridors and service shafts, plus the occasional vault-like cargo bay. Since some of the bays retained pressure, there might be survivors hidden among the ranks of cargo pallets. But unless they made themselves known, they were going to remain there.

  ‘Wait,’ Lucien said, stepping back from vis console, vis gloved fingers spread wide. ‘I’ve just been locked out.’

  After a moment, Dalal said, ‘And me.’

  ‘The fault has spread to my console as well,’ Swift said, his hands becoming a blur on the controls.

  Kanu was also unable to continue his search, and he noticed Korsakov suffering the same problem. The schematics had vanished. All the displays were showing the same thing: a block of Swahili, appearing and disappearing over and over.

  IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY WE RECLAIM THIS WORLD FOR PEOPLE! LET THIS BE THE FIRST LIGHT OF A NEW MARTIAN DAWN! LET FIRE CLEANSE THE FACE OF MARS IN READINESS FOR THE RECLAMATION!

  ‘The message was almost certainly meant to be read by robots, rather than humans,’ Swift said. ‘They would have been counting on us reaching the wreck in advance of any diplomatic party. Had you not arrived first, we would have triggered exactly this response.’

  ‘We’re leaving,’ Dalal said. ‘This instant.’

  ‘For once,’ Kanu said, ‘I think you’ll find the four of us in unanimous agreement.’

  The elevator returned them to the level where they had boarded. They still had to pass through the airlock, but for the first time Kanu allowed himself to hope they might yet make it our alive.

  ‘Lucien is the newest ambassador,’ Dalal said. ‘Ve should go first. It’s only fair.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Kanu said. ‘It’s settled. Lucien first. Then you, Garudi. Yevgeny next, then me. Strict order of hierarchy, and save the arguing for later.’

  Korsakov said, ‘You mean to be last, Kanu?’

  ‘Makes sense – I’ve been on Mars the longest.’

  ‘I won’t leave this ship with a robot still inside it, free to do what it likes with a human asset.’

  Kanu had to stop himself seizing the other man by the shoulders. ‘Get some perspective, Yev. We were about to hand it over to the machines anyway.’

  The lock was ready to receive Lucien. As the door closed, Dalal said, ‘Don’t wait for us outside. Get back to the flier and prepare to leave.’

  Lucien gave a nod through vis visor as the door closed. Kanu watched the airlock indicators crawl through their automatic cycle.

  ‘I’m clear,’ Lucien said, after what felt like an eternity. ‘Jumping off.’ There was a thump, an intake of breath. ‘Down and moving. Flier
is intact.’

  ‘Lock’s cycling for Garudi,’ Kanu said.

  ‘I could attempt to force the mechanism to open both doors at the same time,’ Swift said.

  ‘And risk jamming it completely?’ Korsakov said. ‘No. We’ll leave the way we came in.’

  Finally the lock was ready to accept Dalal. She stepped inside, turned away from the door and initiated the cycle. The door sealed and the interminable process recommenced. Air out, door open, air in again. Kanu cursed the intransigent stupidity of the airlock for not understanding their deeper predicament.

  ‘I’m out,’ Dalal said. ‘Crossing ground. Lucien is at the flier. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, we’re fine. Yevgeny’s next.’

  It could only have taken as long for Korsakov to cycle through the lock as the other two, but to Kanu it felt like at least twice as much time. Now there was so little to lose, he wondered if perhaps Swift ought to force the lock after all.

  But the air was pumping back in now. Korsakov was outside.

  ‘Are you clear, Yev?’

  ‘I see the flier. Lucien and Garudi are aboard. She should have moved it by now – why is she delaying?’

  ‘Out of some misplaced concern for your well-being, perhaps?’

  ‘You should be next,’ Swift said.

  ‘No,’ Kanu answered. ‘You’re a witness to this and I want you to survive. If and when you make it back to your friends, they need to know that this was a terrorist act.’

  ‘My friends already know, Kanu.’

  ‘Maybe they do. But for my peace of mind, you’re still going first.’

  Swift gave a perfunctory nod. ‘If you insist.’

  ‘I do.’

  The lock was ready to accept Swift. He was on the verge of entering it when there came a sudden sharp blur of motion and Swift was on the other side of Kanu, the airlock vacant, and Kanu was being pushed – shoved was closer to the truth – into the waiting aperture.

  ‘Swift, no!’

  ‘It is within my capability to help you, Kanu. Therefore I have no option.’

  Before he could act, Swift had pushed enough of himself into the lock to be able to activate the automatic sequence. It was a snakelike striking motion, almost too fast for the eye to follow. Kanu barely had time to register what had happened, let alone abort the lock sequence. Swift withdrew, the door sealed and the exchangers began to drag air out of the chamber.

  ‘The terms of our inspection visit are still in force, Swift! We have our one hour! It has not expired!’

  ‘Which is precisely why I will be joining you on the other side the moment the lock allows it.’

  When the door opened, Kanu had to stop himself toppling out. He had climbed up on the way in but now he chanced a jump, hingeing his legs to absorb the impact and trusting that the reduced gravity of Mars would spare him any injury. He hit the dirt and sprawled, nearly burying his visor in the soil. He grunted, gathered air into his lungs and pushed himself to his feet. He was still alive, and Korsakov was just vanishing into the belly of the flier. ‘I’m clear!’ he called. ‘But Swift is still coming through.’

  Korsakov and the others would have heard something of the exchange between Kanu and the robot, even if its meaning were unclear. ‘Why did you allow—’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  Kanu set about crossing the ground to the flier. It really was not very far, but after a dozen paces he felt compelled to turn back, anxious to see Swift appear in the open lock. He wanted Swift to be true to his word, to be the sincere and honest friend he had always believed in.

  The ship blew up.

  It was not a nuclear blast or metallic-hydrogen phase change; it was not the flare-up of a runaway Chibesa motor. It was not the swallowing whiteness of an unbound post-Chibesa process, the kind of catastrophic event that had destroyed entire holoships.

  It was still an explosion.

  The detonation tore through the ship about a third of the way up the exposed part of the vessel. Above the blast zone, the already leaning edifice started buckling over. Kanu had thought it on the verge of toppling before; now it was fulfilling that promise. Debris, flung in all directions by the detonation, began to rain down around Kanu.

  ‘Kanu!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Take the flier!’ someone shouted in return, and it was only when the words were out that he recognised his own voice.

  Kanu started running, or what passed for running in the soft, slipping dust under his feet. In the distance, the flier was taking off. The boarding ramp was still lowered, dragging across the ground, and the flier was turning to meet him.

  ‘No, Garudi,’ Kanu called. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  Kanu glanced back again. A lengthening shadow loomed over him now. The wreck was coming down, bowing to meet him. He could see no sign of Swift, and with an exquisite clarity he knew he stood no chance of reaching the flier.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The seas were heavy, the boat’s rise and fall testing Mposi’s delicate constitution to its limits. For an Akinya, he had always been a poor traveller. Chai and greenbread and paperwork, four square walls and a horizon that stayed still – that was all he really wanted from life.

  Even without the tracking device, it was not usually too hard to find Arethusa. They knew her haunts, her favoured latitudes and familiar places. The only large living thing anywhere in Crucible’s waters, she could be tracked using the ancient and venerable methods of submarine warfare. She gave off a mass signature and distorted the waters above her as she swam. Her songlike ruminations, when she talked to herself or recounted Chinese lullabies, sent an acoustic signature across thousands of kilometres. Networks of floating hydrophones triangulated her position to within what was normally a small volume. During times of heavy weather or seismic activity, though, she had stealth on her side.

  Nonetheless, the merfolk had narrowed down her location, and swimming out from the hydrofoil they had finally sighted their quarry. But that was as close as the merfolk could get. They owed their very existence to Arethusa – she had been involved since the start of the Panspermian Initiative. Some obscure bad blood lay in their mutual past, however, and she would not deign to talk to them any more.

  So Mposi had to swim alone. The merfolk fitted him into a powered swimsuit equipped with a breathing system and launched him into the darkening swell. He gave chase, and of course Arethusa indulged in her usual games, allowing him to come very near before swimming away faster than he could follow. She could keep this up until the cells in his suit ran out of energy.

  But Mposi knew that curiosity would eventually prompt her to relent.

  ‘It’s me,’ he sent into the water ahead of himself, using the suit’s loudspeaker. ‘We need to talk. It’s nothing to do with the tracking device – I’ll never ask such a thing of you again. This is something else, and I need your advice.’

  But it always paid to flatter Arethusa.

  ‘More than your advice,’ Mposi added. ‘Your wisdom. Your perspective on events. No one has your outlook, Arethusa, your breadth of experience or insight.’

  It was hard to talk. The suit was powered, but it still required some effort to drive and coordinate his movements. His lungs burned, even when he turned up the oxygen flow in his mask. She would hear his weakness, he felt sure. She would hear it and mock him for it.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ Mposi carried on after he had swum a dozen more strokes. ‘A signal’s come in from a long way off. We don’t understand why it’s been sent to us, or what we should make of it. There’s a chance it has something to do with—’

  ‘That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.’

  She had answered, in her fashion, and his suit had picked up the emanations and converted them into natural Swahili. Arethusa did in fact speak Swahili, or at least she had been able to in the past. Lin
Wei, the girl she had once been, had attended school in East Equatorial Africa.

  Dolphin-torn, gong-tormented.

  He was doing the one thing he had meant not to do – getting on her nerves.

  But she slowed, allowing him to narrow the distance between them, and he was soon approaching her great fluked tail. His mask showed her body, two hundred metres away, as a whiskered oval. She had been two hundred metres long when she hurt him; now she had grown by a third as much again. Arethusa was the oldest sentient organism, as far as Mposi knew. But the cost of that sentience was an endless need to grow. To grow, and to move further and further from the epicentre of human affairs. The murmurings the hydrophone network picked up were increasingly strange, increasingly suggestive of a mind that had slipped its moorings.

  And yet he would still risk all for an audience.

  ‘The signal,’ Mposi persisted, ‘was aimed at us, unidirectional. Low power, even allowing for the transmission distance – and while it repeated long enough for us to recover the content, it was only active for a short while. Doesn’t that interest you, Arethusa? I’ll tell you something else. The message mentioned Ndege. That’s a name you recognise. My sister, of course. Another Akinya. And while you might not be blood, our business is always your business.’

  Arethusa had stopped in the water, so Mposi slowed his rate of approach, painfully conscious of what those flippers could do to him. Like a great spacecraft making a course adjustment, the whale turned gradually until Mposi was hovering just before her left eye. Scarcely any light now reached them, so Mposi was reliant on his goggles’ sonar overlay. He shivered, as he had shivered before, at the magnitude of her – and the very human scrutiny of her eye, looking at him from a cliff of grooved flesh.

  ‘I thought I killed you once, Mposi.’

  ‘You gave it a good try. The fault was mine, though. I understand there was nothing personal in it.’

  ‘Do you?’

  As large as she was, she could move with surprising speed. He had allowed himself to enter her sphere of risk.