Poseidon's Wake

by Alastair Reynolds

  When the engine stopped, they had arrived within a whisker of the broken Watchkeeper. Icebreaker was less than the width of its own hull from the skin of the alien machine. There had been no sign of life – of activation – from a distance, and there was none now they were closer. The drifting hulk was warm on one side, cool on the other, but only because it kept one side turned to Gliese 163.

  It was the middle section of a Watchkeeper, severed at both ends – a snipped-off cone – and with a long, deep, lateral gouge running the length of its warm side. They decided to chance another small thrust correction to place Icebreaker inside the thermal concealment of that gouge. Although they were floating next to part of a Watchkeeper, the ruin of the alien machine was still hundreds of times larger than Kanu’s ship, and the gouge was deep enough to hide them completely.

  They came to a halt, holding station in their improvised hideaway. The walls and floor of the wound offered glimpses of the Watchkeeper’s secret interior – a puzzle of vast and silent mechanisms packed as tightly as intestines – but only a glimpse. They could see no deeper than the outermost viscera, and no blue glow shone from the depths to elucidate the overlying structures.

  A living Watchkeeper was awesome enough, Kanu thought. But a dead one was something more because it testified to a greater power – something with the capability to kill a robot as large as a moon.

  ‘We should be safe now,’ he said, ‘but just to be certain we’ll power down everything we don’t need and sit here as quietly as we can. Swift – can you compute an optimum escape profile for us?’

  ‘Consider it done, Kanu. And thereafter? Resume a higher orbit, beyond the moons? It won’t cost us much more energy.’

  ‘No – we’re not ready for this place just yet. I’ll admit it – I’m a little spooked.’

  ‘Entirely understandable. Imagine how I feel – another machine intelligence, witnessing butchery on this scale. So where should we go next?’

  ‘I think it’s obvious,’ Kanu said. ‘Paladin. And hope there are no nasty surprises waiting for us there.’

  ‘There are no nasty surprises,’ Swift said, ‘only degrees of unpreparedness.’

  Swift’s plan had them waiting ten hours as the fragment’s orbit carried it beyond the diameter of the orbit of the outermost moon. It transpired that the Watchkeeper had a measurable gravitational field – strong enough that they had to resist its pull with a whisper of micro-thrust, as if they were moored next to an asteroid. There should have been no surprise in that, but in no other context had the mass of a Watchkeeper ever been detected. It was as if – being dead – some cloaking or mass-negation effect had now ceased to function.

  To control gravity, to make mass vanish like a palmed card – here were implicit technological secrets which, suitably unravelled, might spur a thousand industrial revolutions. But Kanu and his companions could only content themselves with the gathering of data. The understanding – the exploitation – would have to be left to other minds, in other solar systems, if it could be done at all.

  Still, here was another solid discovery to add to the puzzles they had already found. A new Mandala, wheels taller than the sky and a glimpse into the physics of the Watchkeepers. If Kanu did nothing else with his life, these findings would be achievement enough. The very thought of it – the idea of contributing something this big to the sum of human knowledge – brought him solace. It was good to have done something useful, and to have survived until now.

  At no point could Kanu say he felt totally calm – there were still too many unknowns for that – but there was an easing in his mood, a sense that at least one challenge had been met. He realised, quite suddenly, that he was ravenously hungry. It would be good to eat, not knowing what lay ahead or when they might have the chance again.

  Nissa agreed with him.

  ‘Thank you for allowing me to make that decision,’ she said when they were seated at their table. ‘Even if the idea was Swift’s.’

  ‘It was right to do something. My plan wasn’t a plan at all.’

  ‘You never told me that story about the snakes before.’

  He thought back to the happy, golden bliss of their short few weeks together since Lisbon, before the reality of his mission came between them. ‘There hasn’t really been time.’

  ‘I mean during all the years we were married. I’m sure I’d remember.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The old Kanu was a good man. He told a lot of stories, but most of them were designed to put him in a good light. Subtly, I’ll admit, but admitting to weakness definitely wasn’t one of his strengths.’

  ‘I admitted to a weakness?’

  ‘Indecision is a poor quality, especially in a politician, a mover and shaker.’

  ‘Although sometimes it can be better than making the wrong decision in haste.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Nissa conceded. And in a gesture that was outwardly small but which conveyed magnitudes, she allowed herself to add a measure of wine to Kanu’s glass. ‘But not always.’

  He was not forgiven, he knew that. Perhaps there could be no forgiveness after the catalogue of injustices he had inflicted on her, from betrayal to outright kidnapping. But independently of forgiveness there was an unconditional kindness, a generosity of spirit, which she had always possessed, and for which he now thanked his stars.

  ‘I have said it before,’ he told her, ‘but I cannot say it too often. I am sorry.’

  ‘We saw the worldwheels,’ Nissa said. ‘No one else has. That doesn’t excuse what you did to me. But in this moment, after what we just survived? I’m glad to be here. And I want to go back, to find out what those worldwheels have to tell us.’

  ‘They frighten me,’ Kanu admitted.

  ‘And me. But I won’t rest until we’ve confronted them. Snakes everywhere, Kanu Akinya, no matter where you look. But sometimes you just have to step into the grass.’

  Kanu lifted his glass and sipped his wine. It was as delicious as any vintage he could remember.

  They left on a ghost of thrust, emerging from the Watchkeeper’s wound at a few tens of metres per second, more than enough to break the pull of its gravitational field, and for several minutes all was well. They had seen nothing of Poseidon for the ten hours of their concealment, but now the planet was visibly smaller and they were safely outside the weave of its moons. Swift made another course correction, lining them up for the transit out to Paladin. Kanu allowed himself to believe they had beaten the odds on this one, and for that he was grateful. Whatever they encountered around Paladin, they would take much more care not to stumble into danger a second time.

  But that was when the Watchkeeper struck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  On its approach to Orison, Travertine directed the full bore of its mapping sensors at the little world’s surface. The instruments clarified a picture of a virtually airless planet, its grey-pink surface lavishly cratered, its magnetosphere extinguished, its atmosphere no more than a thin, attenuated relic slowly leaking into space. Nothing orbited Orison, no moons or stations or ships, and the planet showed no obvious signs of large-scale settlement. There were a handful of metallic features scattered within several hundred kilometres of each other, but few of them were large enough to be independent camps. Somewhere in the middle of these scattered signatures was a larger, concentrated cluster of objects and power sources, and this coincided with the origin of the most recent burst of transmissions.

  They studied it at maximum magnification, picking out a small hamlet of domes and locks and connecting tubes, with hints of deeper structures buried underground. Even from orbit, it had a makeshift, unplanned look to it, as if thrown together in haste using whatever components were available. Scratchy trails led away from the camp, aimed in the rough direction of the other metallic features far over the camp’s horizon.

  A surface expedition was
soon made ready and a scouting party selected to go down in the heavy lander. Vasin would lead it, accompanied by Goma, Loring, Karayan and Dr Nhamedjo.

  ‘And Ru,’ Goma said.

  ‘She isn’t well enough,’ Vasin said. ‘I watched her stumbling around only a few hours ago.’

  ‘We’re all stumbling around, Gandhari. Ru’s no worse than the rest of us. Anyway – why the hell does Maslin Karayan get to come along if Ru can’t?’

  ‘He has every right.’

  Goma folded her arms. ‘So does Ru.’

  ‘It took a lot of negotiation to talk Maslin into coming on his own rather than as part of a larger Chancer delegation. But if it means this much to you, I will speak to Saturnin again.’

  ‘Do so.’

  ‘I am not accustomed to taking instructions, Goma.’

  ‘I mean: please.’

  ‘You are very determined,’ Vasin said, not without approval. ‘There is more of her in you than any of us realise, I think. But be careful you don’t become her – I rather like you the way you are.’

  Nhamedjo was initially unwilling, declaring Ru still much too frail for a surface expedition. But at the collective insistence of both Goma, Ru and – with a measure of reluctance – the captain herself, he eventually agreed to reconsider his position. While the lander was being readied, he brought Ru back to the medical suite for another series of tests. Whether it was stubbornness, or some late improvement in her condition, Ru scraped narrowly through. Nhamedjo conceded that she could cope with a spacesuit’s breathing system, and she was not so weak that the trip in the lander would cause her difficulties. In return for this concession, Goma agreed not to cause a fuss about the presence of Maslin Karayan.

  ‘Whatever persuasion you used on Doctor Nhamedjo,’ Goma said later, when she and Ru were alone in their room, ‘tell me you’re really well enough for this.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Good, because I need you around for the rest of this expedition. And don’t forget we have a return trip to make.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ru, feigning surprise. ‘Somehow that had slipped my memory.’

  ‘I mean you have to be strong for that, too. No good wearing yourself out here.’

  ‘I know you mean well, but honestly, nothing could stop me being on that lander. Miss the chance to see you getting taken down a peg by your dear dead grandmother, or whatever she is?’

  ‘Glad to hear your motives are so pure.’

  ‘Scientific curiosity comes into it, too, of course. Tell me you’re as excited by that as I am.’

  Despite her apprehension Goma forced a smile. ‘I am.’

  It was true, or near enough. For the first time since Mposi’s death she had something else to think about. The prospect of having a few of their questions answered – albeit at the expense of dealing with the haughty reincarnation of her distant ancestor – could not help but excite her. She was desperate to know more, and soon she would.

  But still – Mposi.

  ‘Ru . . . there’s something I need to tell you. I wasn’t happy bringing it up until you were stronger, but—’

  ‘If you’re breaking up with me, your timing is a little unfortunate.’

  ‘Please don’t joke.’

  ‘All right, sorry. Go on.’

  ‘Do you remember me asking you to try to reprogram my bangle?’

  ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘No, but Aiyana Loring could. Ve fixed it, and I broke into Grave’s room – where they were keeping him after the trial, before they put him into freeze. It was late one night, no one else around. I wanted to see him, to speak to him, before skipover.’

  ‘In the name of hell, why?’

  ‘Doubts. Mposi. Him being a better judge of people than most of us will ever be. I wondered . . . worried . . .’ Goma hesitated, realising she was on the threshold of confessing something that could not easily be undone. ‘I wondered if Grave was telling the truth – that he didn’t kill Mposi, and they were acting together after all.’

  ‘Oh, he really got to you, didn’t he?’

  ‘I had to be sure, Ru.’

  ‘You mean you had to let that little weasel plant the seed of doubt in your mind. I thought you were stronger than that, wife. I thought you had sense.’

  Goma did not rise to the provocation. She was prepared to give Ru the benefit of many doubts given the drugs currently swirling through her blood.

  ‘No one got to me – and Grave’s story isn’t ridiculous. Even Captain Vasin couldn’t establish his guilt beyond all doubt, which is why she accepted this half-measure of having him frozen rather than executing him. Someone did try to damage the ship – no doubt about that. But if it wasn’t Grave, then the culprit is still out there.’

  ‘Well, let’s see. Grave was a Second Chancer, and there are eleven other Second Chancers on the ship. Where do we start – with the women, or the children?’

  ‘Please take me seriously.’

  Ru nodded firmly. ‘I am. But equally I have no idea how we’re meant to act on this change of heart of yours. Nothing you just told me will cut any ice with Gandhari. Have you told spoken to her about it?’

  ‘I can’t see what it’d achieve. She’s heard Grave’s side of things. I’ve nothing to add to that.’

  ‘Then what exactly was it about this midnight visit that rocked your world to its foundations?’

  ‘He mentioned Tantors.’

  Ru made a sneer of disgust. ‘And if there was one emotional button he knew would work on you—’

  ‘It wasn’t just that,’ Goma said, trying hard not to snap. ‘He’s aware of the possibility that splinters of the original population might be out there. He doesn’t even hate what they are. But he says whoever’s behind the sabotage attempt won’t sit back if we encounter them.’

  ‘Won’t sit back – what does that even mean?’

  ‘That the saboteur has another weapon, but won’t use it until we’re close to them.’

  ‘If we ever meet them.’

  Goma nodded solemnly. ‘If.’

  ‘Then we’d both better hope Grave was delusional, hadn’t we?’

  ‘Or keep our wits about us. I keep thinking Uncle Mposi would have had all the answers, all the wisdom. But I bet he’d have given anything for Chiku’s guidance, and Chiku probably felt the same way about Sunday.’

  ‘And Sunday would’ve missed whoever, all the way back to your mouldering ancestor. Hard to think of that sour old relic missing anyone, but I suppose she must have. One day, Goma, it’ll be you that someone misses.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that.’

  ‘I am,’ Ru said.

  The lander had a crew capacity of twelve, so there was more than enough room for six of them, including spacesuits and surface equipment. Goma had seen the heavy transport being prepared for departure. It was a squat, multi-engined cylinder with retractable landing legs and an angular cockpit bubble jutting out from the cylinder’s side, its faceted windows offering the best possible field of view for the pilot. Inside there was a surprising amount of space, with a bridge, commons area, medical suite, galley and several semi-private crew compartments, each of which was rigged with zero-gravity sleeping hammocks. Vasin was already in the command chair on the bridge when Goma boarded, the chair projecting out into the bubble, Vasin imprisoned by folding screens and controls. She appeared to be in her element, utterly indifferent to the risks presented by this expedition. If the worst befell her, though, Nasim Caspari had the necessary skills to command Travertine.

  After a series of checks and reports, they were finally given permission to detach from the larger ship. They pushed out to a safe distance then executed a deorbit burn. The lander descended under controlled power, shrugging aside the atmosphere’s ghostly resistance. They were never quite weightless, and as they lowered closer to Orison, s
o the pull of its gravity became steadily more apparent until it reached a maximum of about half a gee.

  They overflew the encampment, first at an altitude of ten kilometres, then at successively lower elevations, while Vasin picked out a suitable landing site – it was near one of the scratchy trails that led out to the more distant features. The terrain was uneven, with escarpments and slab-sided plateaus. On some of the lower outcroppings Goma noticed dome-shaped piles of rock, arranged too deliberately to be accidental.

  ‘I meant to speak to you before this,’ Maslin Karayan said, sitting close enough that she could not ignore him.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes, but the time was never right. I wanted to say that I am truly sorry for what happened to Mposi.’ They had made the bullish, barrel-chested man trim his beard in readiness for skipover. All of them had also had their scalp hair cut short or shaved off completely so that the requisite transcranial scans could be conducted with minimum difficulty. In Karayan’s case the change was the most dramatic, softening his features and making him look both younger and less sternly patrician.

  Goma saw this as a trap, not a blessing.

  ‘And I am sorry that extremists were ever allowed on this expedition.’

  ‘In your view, then,’ Karayan said, ‘anyone who does not share your exact philosophy is an extremist?’

  ‘If you want to put it like that.’

  Karayan ruminated. She thought she had silenced him, but after a moment he said, ‘Mposi would not have agreed with you.’

  ‘You think you knew him that well?’