Goma did not have an answer for that.
Set on the table was a dark wooden box which Goma did not recognise. Ndege opened its lid, disclosing a nest of tissue paper. She pulled the paper away carefully, setting the wads down next to the box, and then produced six individually wrapped forms. She peeled each from its tissue cocoon and set them down on the table in order of size. They were a family of six wooden elephants, each mounted on a rough black plinth.
‘Have you seen these before?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘They’re very old and very well travelled. They belonged to Eunice, and then Geoffrey, and then my mother, and then me. They’ve never been split up before, this family. But I think the time is right.’ Ndege grouped the elephants into three pairs, each of which consisted of a larger and smaller elephant. She stared at the permutation for a few seconds before making a substitution between two of the pairs.
‘Two will remain with me. Two will go with you, and two will go with Mposi. Good luck charms. I hope the universe bends itself to bring the elephants back together one day. I’m not inclined to mystical thinking, but I’ll allow myself this one lapse.’
‘Thank you,’ Goma said, quietly relieved that the gift was nothing likely to embarrass her. The elephants were small and charmingly carved, and she appreciated the gesture.
‘There’s something else.’
Goma settled back into her chair, chiding herself for thinking it was ever going to be that simple. ‘Is there, now?’
Ndege creaked up from her own chair, went to the bookcase – the same one where she kept the note from Travertine – and came back with three of her black-bound notebooks. She set them down on the table next to the box and the family of elephants.
She offered one for Goma’s inspection. ‘You’ll have seen me with these, but I doubt you’ve ever looked at them closely.’
Goma opened the pages. They were unlined and filled with her mother’s hand. Very little of it was orthodox writing. There were pages and pages of winding angular glyphs, like the patterns made by dominoes. Sometimes there was a line down the middle of a page and symbols on either side of it, cross-linked by a tangle of arrows.
‘This is the Mandala grammar,’ Goma said, stroking a finger down the right-hand column on one of the pages. ‘The language of the M-builders. Right?’
‘You recognise it.’
‘Yes, but that’s not the same as understanding it, the way you can.’
‘You needn’t blame yourself. They’ve made it difficult. Books locked away in libraries, direct access to the Mandala tightly controlled . . .’ Ndege shook her head in disgust.
‘What are these other symbols?’ Goma asked, indicating the left-hand column, which appeared to be made up of stick figures in various poses, headless skeletal men with squiggles and zigzags for limbs. ‘They’re not part of the Mandala grammar, are they?’
‘No – these are elements in the Chibesa syntax.’
‘Which is . . . ?’
‘The set of formal relationships underpinning both classical and post-Chibesa physics.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Goma was staring at the cross-linking lines, the arrows and forks implying a logical connection between the two sets of symbols, the Chibesa syntax and the Mandala grammar. ‘One of these is the alien writing we found on Crucible. The other is . . . there can’t be a connection, Mother. It’s a human invention. Chibesa invented the syntax to work out her calculations.’
Ndege shot her a look of stern reproval. ‘I know it was a long time ago, but you could at least do Memphis Chibesa the dignity of remembering that he was a man.’
Goma was not sure she had ever heard Chibesa’s first name. It was rather odd to think of this mythical figure being born, like any other human being.
‘Did you know him?’
‘Goodness, no. Memphis died . . . Well, it was a ridiculously long time before I was born. Eunice knew him, though. Look, there’s no need to rake over old ground here. Just accept that Chibesa lent a helping hand in formulating his theory – that it had its origin in some scratches Eunice found on a piece of rock on Phobos, one of Mars’s moons.’
‘Scratches?’
‘The keys to the new physics. Cosmic graffiti, if you like – a kind of irresponsible mischief-making left by someone or something who neither knew nor cared what the consequences would be, thousands or millions of years later.’
Goma considered, at least provisionally, that her mother might be delusional. Not a word of this had been mentioned in any previous conversation between them, at any point in Goma’s life. But nothing in Ndege’s manner suggested confusion.
‘How . . . Phobos?’ Goma shook her head, trying to clear a thickening mental fog. ‘What does Phobos have to do with Mandala? The Mandala is the product of a hypothetical alien civilisation – the M-builders. For all we know, the Watchkeepers are something else entirely. Now you’re asking me to accept that Eunice discovered the remnants of another alien culture, centuries before any of this?’
‘We do like our family secrets.’
‘Or our tall stories.’
‘If it was a tall story, it wouldn’t have told me how to talk to Mandala.’ Ndege tapped the notebooks again. ‘It took me years to make that connection, to see the links between the two linguistic structures. Once I did, though, it was like being given a key. I was able to unlock huge tracts of the Mandala’s inscriptions. I understood that the inscriptions were a kind of control interface, an invitation to start making the Mandala work for us.’
‘And that turned out well, didn’t it?’ Goma said, knowing her mother would not take her sarcasm to heart.
‘Accept that I had my insights,’ Ndege said, with a tolerant smile. ‘I realised that the rock carvings were an ancestral form of the Mandala inscriptions – that whoever or whatever left the scratchings on Phobos was there a long, long time before Mandala came into existence.’ Ndege pushed all the notebooks over to her daughter’s side of the table. ‘You’ll take these with you, too.’
Goma looked at the books. Even with the elephants, they only added up to a negligible fraction of her mass allowance. It would cost her nothing to take them on the ship, nothing except pride.
‘I am a biologist,’ she said slowly, as if her mother might somehow have forgotten this salient detail. ‘I know elephants, nervous systems, cognitive tests. I don’t know a single thing about physics or alien language systems.’
‘We’re cut from the same cloth, Goma. If I could make sense of these connections, then I expect no less from my daughter.’
‘You do have copies, don’t you?’
‘I destroyed them shortly before I was detained. I thought it would be safer that way.’
‘Then I can’t take them!’
‘They’re of no conceivable use to me, not now, so I would rather they were in your care. Even if they do end up halfway across the galaxy.’
Goma sensed an easing in her mother, the relief of a burden discharged. She began to wonder how long it had been playing on Ndege’s mind, this business with the books.
‘I can’t go with you and Mposi – that’s settled – but it would have been nice to get some answers. You’ll just have to be my eyes and ears. Rise to the occasion. Roar like a lion. Be an Akinya, like Senge Dongma herself.’
At the door, with the notebooks and two of the elephants in her possession, Goma said, ‘One day they’ll see they were wrong. You never deserved this.’
‘Few of us get the things we deserve,’ Ndege said, ‘but we make the best of what we’re given.’
CHAPTER SIX
Kanu was in no hurry to reach Madras; equally he knew that he would not be able to settle into the rhythms of his new life until he had discharged his obligation to the family of Garudi Dalal.
His port of entry was Sri Lanka, the nearest land mas
s to the Indian Ocean vacuum tower. From Colombo he took the high-speed train up the western side of Sri Lanka, passing under the Gulf of Mannar and heading up the eastern coast of India. On its way to Madras, the train surfaced into the hard silver glare of an overcast sky, speeding through a string of moderately affluent coastal communities: Cuddalore, Puducherry, Chengalpattu, each a blur of white buildings, pagodas, domes and towers hemmed by a blue-green rush of sea and jungle.
In Madras, the sun was hot and unforgiving and indecently large in the sky.
‘You’ll have read the official reports,’ Kanu said, when they were sitting around a metal table in the back garden of the Dalals’ home, surrounded by trees and birds. ‘I was there, in a sense. I can tell you that Garudi acted courageously and that her death would have been virtually instantaneous. It was an honour to have known her.’
‘These terrorists,’ Dalal’s father said, pouring fresh chai into their cups.
Kanu felt their grief as an invisible, silent presence at the garden table, acknowledged but uninvited. He supposed that the worst sting of it had passed by now, in the six weeks since the incident, but there were still months and years of quiet pain ahead of them.
‘You represented different interests,’ Dalal’s mother said, offering Kanu a dish of dried and sweetened fruit.
‘We did, but we always respected each other. Besides, we were both from Earth. We had far more in common than we had to divide us.’
‘I am sorry to hear that you have lost your ambassadorship,’ said Mr Dalal.
‘It was right to bring in new blood. Marius is a very safe pair of hands.’
‘Garudi wrote to us when she was able,’ said Mrs Dalal. ‘She thought highly of you, Mister Akinya.’
‘Kanu, please.’
‘She would not have thought it fair, that you should be considered . . . What is the word they use?’ asked Mr Dalal.
‘He doesn’t need to hear that,’ said Mrs Dalal.
Kanu laughed aside the awkwardness. ‘Tainted. It’s all right – I’ve heard it already.’
‘I do not suppose this is a time for idealists,’ said Mrs Dalal.
‘No,’ Kanu said ruefully. ‘I don’t think it is.’
They asked Kanu what had happened to him since the terrorist incident. He told them how the machines had healed him, keeping him in their care for twenty-two days before releasing him to the embassy. ‘Then I was told that my services were no longer required. Soon after, a shuttle arrived to take me away.’
‘And you came straight to Earth?’ asked Mr Dalal.
‘No, there were some administrative formalities first. I was subjected to the most intensive medical examination you can imagine, just in case the robots had planted something in me while I was under.’ Kanu nibbled at one of the dried fruit slices. Overhead, the blades of plants scissored in an afternoon breeze. He was glad to be in the shade. Here the sunlight struck the surfaces of things with a hard, interrogatory brightness. ‘I had to disappoint them, though. Other than some scars, the robots hadn’t left any trace of themselves.’
‘Then you should be allowed to continue with your work,’ Mrs Dalal said, her tone indignant.
‘In a perfect world.’
‘Do you have plans?’ asked Mr Dalal.
‘Nothing terribly detailed. I thought I might visit some old friends now I’m back on Earth. After that, I have enough funds that I don’t need to make any immediate decisions. Also, I’ve been meaning to look into the history of a relative of mine – my grandmother, Sunday Akinya?’
‘She has the same name as the artist,’ said Mrs Dalal.
Kanu smiled at this. ‘She is the artist. Or rather was. Sunday died a very long time ago, and we never had the chance to meet.’
Mrs Dalal nodded, clearly impressed.
‘When Garudi mentioned your name, I did not make the connection,’ Mr Dalal said. ‘But I suppose Akinya is not all that common a surname. I should have realised.’
‘The odd thing,’ Kanu said, ‘is that Sunday never made much of a name for herself when she was alive – not through her art, anyway. Her grandmother was the famous one.’
‘Eustace?’ asked Mrs Dalal.
‘Eunice,’ Kanu corrected. It was a perfectly forgivable error, this long into her afterlife.
After a silence, Mr Dalal said: ‘More chai, Kanu?’
He raised his hand, webbing his fingers apart. ‘No – it’s very kind of you, Mr Dalal, but I need to be on my way.’
‘Thank you again for bringing Garudi’s things,’ Mrs Dalal said.
They needed groceries so decided to walk him back to the railway station. Beyond the shade of their garden the afternoon was still warm and now virtually breezeless. Kanu thought of the ocean and wished he could be in it.
‘I was hoping you might set our minds at ease,’ Mr Dalal said.
‘About what?’ Kanu asked.
‘During the day you don’t usually see it, but at night, it’s hard to ignore. When it passes over Madras, over India, it’s hard to sleep. Just the thought of that thing up there, wondering what it’s thinking, planning. I imagine it’s the same for everyone.’
‘I suggest we take encouragement from the fact that the Watchkeepers have not acted against us,’ Kanu said delicately, drawing on one of a thousand diplomatic responses he kept in mind for questions such as this. ‘It’s clear they have the capability to do so, but they haven’t used it. I think if they meant to, we would already know.’
‘Then what do they want?’ asked Mrs Dalal, her tone demanding. ‘Why have they come back if they don’t want something from us?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kanu said.
Noticing his unease, she shook her head and said, ‘I am sorry, we should not have pressed you. It’s just—’
‘It would be good to know we can sleep well in our beds,’ Mr Dalal said.
From Madras he travelled west to Bangalore; from Bangalore he took a night connection to Mumbai; from Mumbai at dawn a dragon-red passenger dirigible, ornamented with vanes and sails and a hundred bannering kitetails. The dirigible droned at low altitude across the Arabian Sea, a thousand passengers promenading through its huge windowed gondola. In the evening they docked at Mirbat¸, where Kanu found lodgings for the night and a good place to eat. Over his meal, alone at an outdoor table, he watched the boats in the harbour, recalling the feeling of rigging between his fingers, remembering how it felt to trim a sail, to read the horizon’s weather.
In the morning he drew upon his funds for the expense of an airpod, an ancient but well-maintained example of its kind, and vectored south-west at a whisker under the speed of sound, across the Gulf of Aden and down the coast towards Mogadishu. He veered around fleets of colourful fishing boats, lubber and merfolk crews gathering their hauls. Their boats had eyes painted on their hulls. It was good to fly, good to see living seas and living land beneath him, people with jobs and lives and things to think about besides robots on Mars and alien machines in the sky.
Presently a seastead loomed over the horizon. Kanu slowed and announced his approach intentions.
‘Kanu Akinya, requesting permission—’
But the reply was immediate, cutting him off before he had even finished his sentence. ‘You of all people, Kanu, do not need to seek permission. Approach at leisure and be prepared for a boisterous welcoming party.’
He recognised the voice. ‘I’m that transparent, Vouga?’
‘You’re almost a celebrity now. We’ve been following developments since we heard the good news about your survival. I’m dreadfully sorry about the Martian business.’
‘I got off lightly.’
‘Not from what I heard.’
The seastead came up quickly. It was a raft of interlocking platelets upon which rose a dense forest of buildings packed so tightly together that from a distance they res
embled a single volcanic plug, carved into crenellated regularity by some fussy, obscure geological process. Several of the structures were inhabited, but the majority were sky farms, solar collectors and aerial docking towers. By far the largest concentration of living space was under the seastead, projecting into the layered cool of the deep ocean.
The airpod was not submersible so Kanu docked at one of the towers, nudging past a gaggle of plump cargo dirigibles. The reception was, mercifully, not quite as boisterous as Vouga had warned, but warm and good-spirited for all that. These were his people, the merfolk he had joined and served and later commanded. Some were like Kanu – still essentially humanoid but for some modest aquatic adaptations. For the sake of practicality, Kanu had even allowed some of his own adaptations to be reversed prior to his Martian assignment. There were some among the welcoming party who bore no merfolk characteristics at all: recent arrivals, perhaps, or people who shared the ideology but not the desire to return to the sea.
Others were unquestionably stranger, even to Kanu’s eye. He had been away for long enough to view matters with the detachment of the émigré. Genuine human merpeople, their legs reshaped into fish tails, were the least remarkable. A few resembled otters or seals, furred or otherwise, and several had taken on different aspects of cetacean anatomy. Some had lungs and others had become true gilled water-breathers, never needing to surface. Some greeted him from the water-filled channels around the docking port. Others made use of mobility devices, enabling them to walk or roll on dry land.
‘Thank you,’ Kanu said, unable to stop himself bowing to the assembled well-wishers. ‘It’s good to be home, good to be among friends.’
‘Will you be staying with us?’ one of the merwomen called from the water.
‘Only for a little while, Gwanda.’ They had worked in many of the same administrative areas before his ambassadorship. ‘There’s a lot to keep me busy away from the aqualogies.’
Now that he had returned, he felt a profound sense of belonging, a connection to the sea and its cargo of living things – everything in the great briny chain of being, from merfolk to plankton.
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