‘Because it’s madness.’
‘Someone still needs to go there and find out. I would, if I were younger. But instead my brave daughter will take my place. Don’t think I’m not proud of you, Goma, but you’ll allow me a little jealousy.’
‘I’m jealous of you. You had the chance to live and walk among the Tantors. You knew them.’
‘I did, and it was wonderful. While we’re on the subject, though? When the event happened, most of the Tantors were still on Zanzibar. We’ve assumed all this time that they were killed, lost to history. A wonderful promise squandered. Believe me, I’ve felt my share of that loss. But if something survived the translation, then there’s a chance the Tantors did, too.’ Ndege looked down at her fingers, lost in herself for a few seconds. ‘It occurred to me that perhaps Ru would find this of interest.’
Goma had gone so long without allowing herself hope that it was rather odd to feel that all the doors were not yet locked. But Ndege knew both of them well enough. Tantors were the answer to any argument.
‘She might not believe me.’
‘She doesn’t need to. The mere possibility that there might be Tantors will be enough. Admit it, Goma – you’re the same.’
‘You said this could get both of us into trouble.’
‘I did, and I meant it. But if it made a difference to Ru’s decision, then I think the risk would be worth it, for both of us.’
‘I . . .’ Goma began.
‘You don’t know what to say. That’s understandable. You don’t know whether you’ve been given a bomb or a gift. My suggestion? Use it wisely. You’ll only have one chance with Ru.’
‘Thank you,’ Goma answered.
Ndege returned the slip of paper to Gulliver’s Travels, tapped the book against her table and then rose to replace it in the bookcase. She flashed a quick smile and then it was gone. ‘I await developments, daughter.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Kanu and the robot trod water next to each other. They were in a wide, calm sea, nothing but ocean and sky to the limit of vision. Swimming was natural enough for Kanu – he was always happier in water than on land – but the thought of the robot having to share the same unforgiving element struck him as both comical and ludicrous, a profound violation of all that was right and proper.
‘Aren’t you made of metal?’ he kept asking. ‘Aren’t you too heavy for this sort of thing?’
‘So are you,’ Swift answered every time. His frock coat looked heavy and sodden.
‘But I only have to swim a little bit to support my weight.’
‘That’s your problem,’ Swift said. ‘You’re not moving at all!’
It had been Kanu’s move for quite some time, but whenever he felt himself on the threshold of committing, some doubt stayed his hand. The longer he delayed his move, the worse the indecision became.
‘Well, then,’ Swift said, obligingly enough, ‘I shall simply make another move while you think about it.’
‘Is that in the rules?’
‘Different rules for different times. We have to think innovatively now. It’s no good being held back by old patterns.’
Swift picked up one of his own pieces, a knight, preparing to place it on the floating board. The chessboard rose and fell on the gentlest of swells, hingeing in the middle in a manner that made Kanu think of the languid wingbeat of a giant manta ray.
It was odd, now that he paid proper attention to it, that all the pieces were the same colour. Kanu did not appear to have any of his own on the board.
Then Swift lost his grip on the knight. It slipped from his fingers, bounced off the side of the board and vanished under the water.
‘I’ll fetch it,’ Kanu said.
‘Would you be so kind?’
Kanu submerged. The sun’s dazzle was kinder under the waves and its trembling light fell on the sinking chess piece. As the knight descended, a string of bubbles left the horse’s mouth. Kanu snatched for it, but his fingers closed on water. The knight was still falling.
Kanu followed it into darker, cooler waters. Never mind, he was made for this. He could stay submerged for as long as a sperm whale and dive just as deep. Already he could feel the old engine of his heart beginning to slow, the blood leaving his extremities.
But even with his webbed hands and feet, it was becoming harder to match the speed of the knight’s descent. The water was almost totally black now, the chess piece’s progress marked only by the silvery thread of its bubbles.
There was something below him.
It was a huge form, a concentration of deeper blackness, ink upon ink. He thought for a moment that it was a pinnacle, a summit pushing up from the ocean’s bed. But the black thing was rising to meet him. It was a wonder he could see it at all; even more of a wonder that the trail of bubbles was still silver-bright. He redoubled his efforts, grasping for it even as he pulled himself deeper. The knight was headed straight for the rising blackness. Within the blackness, a mouth began to open and kept opening, angling ever wider, a tunnel of blackness within blackness. The knight descended into it and the mouth clamped suddenly shut, scissoring the chain of bubbles.
‘You ought to turn around, Kanu.’
He knew her voice, and he knew her name.
Arethusa.
‘I have your knight. I’ve swallowed it. I’ve Jonahed it into the belly of the whale. Would you like it back?’
‘It’s Swift’s knight, not mine.’
‘You can have it if you swim into me. Look, I’m opening my mouth again. Just swim inside and collect what’s yours. Or give up and turn back to the light.’
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘You could die. That would solve a lot of problems. You want to die, don’t you? You were hurt so very badly, Kanu – no one would blame you.’
‘I wasn’t hurt.’
‘You died on Mars. Or don’t you remember?’
He pulled himself away from the whale. The knight was unimportant. He rose and rose. His heart quickened, his blood resuming its normal circulation. He caught up with the knight’s bubble trail and clung to it like a rope, so that it hauled him all the way to the bright trembling of the surface waters.
And then he broke free into air and daylight, except that Swift was gone and so was the chessboard.
There was a boat nearby. He swam to it, and a beautiful woman with a broad face and kind eyes leaned over the side and made to help him out of the water.
‘I’m strong enough to do it myself.’
‘No, you’re not,’ she said. ‘You’re on Mars, and you’re dead.’
‘Kanu,’ the voice was saying. ‘Can you answer me? The neural traces suggest the presence of deep-level comprehension, but I would be very happy to have it confirmed. Try to speak. Try to say a word or two.’
After an age, he felt he had the strength and focus to oblige. ‘Swift.’
‘Yes!’
‘What happened?’
‘That’s your question – what happened? Not where am I? What kind of condition am I in?’
‘I’m alive.’
‘You are alive, yes. But only by the narrowest of margins.’
After a while, Kanu repeated: ‘What happened?’
‘Do you remember the terrorist incident? There was an explosion, quite a big one.’
Kanu did his best to remember. ‘Dalal . . . Korsakov. Lucien.’
‘It was very bad.’
Something important occurred to him. ‘I can’t see.’
‘You will, shortly. Some wiring still needs to be reconnected.’
‘What about the others?’
‘Regrettably,’ Swift said, ‘there were fatalities.’
A room, this time. He thought for a moment that he was in the embassy, but the view through the window was wrong. Beyond the glass was a kind
of cityscape, except it was no city he had ever known. There were illuminated buildings, conforming less to human architecture than the flanged, angular proportions of ancient radio components. Between the buildings, and linking them, were thick, glowing arms. In place of a sky was a rising vault of excavated rock.
Swift was sitting opposite him. A low table had been set between their chairs, but it was mercifully free of a chessboard.
‘I had the strangest dream.’
‘I feel obliged to point out that not all of your dreams were dreams.’ Swift gestured at a pitcher of water and a glass on the table. ‘If you’re thirsty.’
Kanu continued looking around. ‘Am I really in this room, or are you feeding information into my skull?’
‘This is real. That thing you are wearing is your actual body. It needed rather a lot of repair, so I trust you still find it to your liking.’
Kanu looked at his forearm, the loose fit of the green-embroidered sleeve. He spread his fingers. The webs between them were still present.
‘I’ll ask again: what happened?’
‘You were seriously injured in the Reclamationist incident. It killed you, in fact. But we brought you back to life, stabilised you and set about rectifying the damage.’
He felt he needed a drink now. He tilted some water into the glass and brought it to his lips.
‘The others?’
‘Garudi and Lucien were killed outright – the flier was too close when the wreck came down.’
Kanu absorbed this news, but for the moment it was just there, unprocessed.
‘And Korsakov?’
‘Injured, but not too severely. He made it out of the wreck of the flier and his suit retained its life-support capabilities until he was rescued.’
‘But you saved me.’
‘It took a tremendous concentration of machine resources. We might have attempted to save one of the others, but the likelihood of failure would have been greater.’ After a silence, Swift added, ‘I am sorry to lose both Garudi and Lucien. But I am very glad we were able to save you.’
‘Does the world know I’m here?’
‘Not yet. We issued a statement through the usual diplomatic channels shortly after the incident. That was almost three weeks ago. We said we had recovered human remains and that they would be returned to the rightful authority in due course. Now we can proceed with the significantly better news that we have brought you back to life.’
‘Why didn’t you say so sooner?’
‘We didn’t wish to raise false hopes. Your survival was far from guaranteed.’
‘I’ll need to speak to my people.’
‘Of course. Your great powers are still knocking heads over the whole incident, deciding who is and isn’t to blame for wiping out three-quarters of an intergovernmental diplomatic party.’
‘Half,’ Kanu corrected. ‘I didn’t die.’
‘For long,’ Swift replied.
When the machines deemed him well enough to leave their care – which was only two days after his first intimation of consciousness – Kanu was provided with transport back to the embassy. He was glad when the flier brought him to the summit and the embassy’s landing deck opened to welcome him home.
Swift accompanied him from the flier.
‘We’ve issued the formal announcement concerning your survival,’ the robot said as they made their way down to the level of the main staterooms. ‘News is spreading, and of course there is criticism of our actions. I trust we can count on you to argue our side of things?’
‘I’ll give them the truth, Swift – no more, no less. You have nothing to apologise for.’
‘I hope it will not create difficulties for you in the wider sphere of human discourse.’
Kanu pushed open one of the heavy oak doors and stepped through into a room that felt larger and colder than he remembered. ‘Why should I care what they think of me beyond Mars? Everything that matters to me is here. This is my life. Pretty soon they’ll assign new ambassadors and we’ll carry on as we were before.’
‘But you must be mindful of the opinions of others. We have not often spoken of private matters – surely you have friends and loved ones elsewhere in the system?’
‘Not as many as you’d think.’
‘But you have lived a great many years.’
‘Thanks for reminding me. The truth is, though, that you burn through friends and lovers when you live as long as I have. I am what I am, Swift – an old merman. Too ancient and strange for most people to feel comfortable around.’ He paused to survey the stateroom, finding everything exactly as it had been before the expedition to the wreck, but at the same time every note of the room jarringly off-key.
Dalal had left a book open on one of the tables. Kanu walked to it and stroked a finger across the pages. The text was in Urdu, one of her four or five languages. He stared at the script, trying to remember how it felt to have the words resolve before his eyes, mysteries disclosed. How it had been before the Age of Babel.
‘I’ll miss Garudi.’
‘So shall we. But out of this calamity, perhaps some greater good can come?’
Irritated by the triteness of this sentiment, Kanu snapped shut the book. This in turn made him feel irritated with himself, as if he had lost Dalal’s place in the text. Where on the Earth did her family live? he wondered – Madras? Perhaps he should make a point of returning the book to them. It would be a small kindness, and his bones could do with a dose of Earth gravity now and then.
‘And they say I’m the optimist.’
Swift was at the high-fretted window. ‘There has always been disunity regarding how best to deal with extremists. Now, perhaps, it will not be so hard to make a persuasive case for clamping down on the Reclamationists.’
‘Be careful someone doesn’t make an equally persuasive case for clamping down on you.’
‘I thought that had already occurred.’
A console chimed with the small, annoying tone that indicated a stored message was waiting. Kanu guessed it had been making that chime for some time.
‘This might be a private diplomatic matter, Swift. Do you mind stepping out of the room?’
‘I would be overjoyed to accommodate your request.’
‘And don’t try to listen in, either.’
‘Very well.’ Swift made an impatient gesture with his hand as he headed for the door. ‘Pray take your precious call.’
When he was alone, Kanu stood before the console and used his diplomatic authority to accept the message.
A face appeared above the console. It took Kanu a second or two to recognise it as belonging to his old colleague Yevgeny Korsakov. The ambassador for the United Orbital Nations had changed quite markedly in the three weeks since the terrorist attack. His hair had been shaved to the skull, perhaps in connection with emergency surgery. His face, craggy and gaunt at the best of times, now looked ghoulishly drawn.
The recording began to play.
‘May I offer my warmest congratulations on your return to life, Kanu. Given the circumstances, it is remarkable.’
‘Thank you, Yevgeny.’ The playback paused as soon as it detected Kanu’s intention to speak. It would embed his response into the flow of Korsakov’s words exactly as if the two men were speaking normally, without the hindrance of light-minutes of separation and time lag.
‘But I am afraid I must temper my congratulations with news that you may find less than agreeable,’ Korsakov allowed. ‘You know full well that your relationship with Swift had become problematic. It was possible to turn a blind eye to that error of judgement, at least until now. The machines should have handed you over to human medics, but instead they opted to heal you themselves. Worse, they neglected to keep us properly informed of your condition.’
‘I’m sure you were most concerned.’
‘I can only speak for my delegation, Kanu. You are compromised. I have even heard it said that you have been tainted – that your basic loyalty to humanity can no longer be relied upon. I do not believe that myself – of course not – but it is the wider perceptions that count. And because of those perceptions I am sorry to inform you that you must reconsider your position as ambassador. We are seeking a unanimous cross-governmental vote to have you replaced, for the sake of confidence in the embassy. I do not think we will have too much trouble. Even your own government has come to view you as a soft-liner.’
Kanu was not surprised; he had been expecting as much from the moment Korsakov began speaking.
‘I will resign if I am required to do so by the United Aquatic Nations or the intergovernmental panel,’ Kanu stated. ‘Until then, I will continue to fulfil my duties as ambassador.’
While his reply was on its way to Korsakov, Kanu called Swift back into the room.
‘I’m sorry for shutting you out of that.’
‘Forgiven and forgotten. Judging from your demeanour, though, the news wasn’t good?’
‘Not exactly. That was Korsakov calling to tell me there’s a vote to have me removed as ambassador. There’s no reason for it not to go through. When it does, they’ll ship me back to Earth.’
‘This is official?’
‘As good as. Korsakov wouldn’t have called unless he was certain of the outcome.’
‘But your own government will defend you!’
‘Until it becomes politically expedient to switch me out for someone with a harder attitude to your kind.’
Between them was the table and Dalal’s book. Kanu felt a swell of sadness rise up in him like a tide. They had disagreed on many things, but he felt sure that Dalal would have spoken up for him.
‘We placed you in this unfortunate position, Kanu.’
‘It’s not your fault. And this isn’t about you – it’s about ignorance and fear.’
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