Poseidon's Wake

by Alastair Reynolds

  ‘But you do not hate the fact of them.’

  ‘They are what they are – thinking creatures as capable of sin or goodness as the rest of us. They were never given a choice to be what they are. The greater sin would be to wish harm upon them for the sins of others. Besides, we are on a mission to seek the truth of things. The truth is seldom something to be feared.’

  ‘I think we have some more truth-seeking to do. Are you strong enough to join us?’

  ‘That is not for me to say.’

  ‘I will monitor him closely over the next few hours,’ Dr Andisa said, ‘but the signs are encouraging so far. I think he will be up on his feet as quickly as the rest of us were.’

  ‘We wronged you, Peter,’ Goma said, ‘and I take my share of responsibility for that. Mposi would have been disappointed in me that I did not stand up for you. But I am trying to do better.’

  ‘And succeeding, by the sounds of things.’

  ‘I still have some way to go.’

  ‘So do we all,’ Grave said. ‘But that is called living.’

  They were looking at Zanzibar, projected onto one wall of Vasin’s quarters. It rotated slowly, bringing all its facets into view. It was the best 3D image they had gathered so far, assembled from a multitude of angles and sensor bands, across many light-minutes of space, with every conceivable image-sharpening algorithm thrown into the fray.

  ‘It’s not that we doubted you, Eunice,’ Vasin was saying, ‘but you’ll understand we had reasons to be sceptical.’

  ‘And now?’ Eunice asked, arms folded, unable to entirely hide her triumph.

  ‘The shape speaks for itself – it fits into the larger profile of the original Zanzibar very convincingly, and its mass is just about equal to that believed to be missing from the ring system around Crucible. Of course, few of these artificial surface features correspond to the original holoship – but then you’ve already told us there was a scramble for survival after the translation event. Do you see much evidence of change since you were last aboard?’

  ‘Nothing drastic,’ Eunice said. She sketched a finger across blurry details. ‘A few airlocks here and there, some alterations to the power grid, but I wasn’t expecting much. The Risen can work outside if they need to – they also have spacesuits and the means to move independently – but it’s not their natural environment, and they don’t adapt easily to it.’

  ‘Less easily than we do?’ Goma asked.

  ‘We’re arboreal apes. We enjoy being high up and in our bones we feel safer. Elephants spend their lives glued to the ground, rooted there like trees. Being in space will never feel as natural to them as it does to us.’

  ‘So we have an edge over them,’ Vasin said.

  ‘Only a small one. They’re as determined as we are, and sufficient determination will conquer any natural reluctance. Monkeys don’t like water, but we’ve overcome that instinct well enough.’

  ‘But still,’ Goma said, ‘if they don’t like being outside, maybe we can use that to our advantage.’

  Eunice leaned in eagerly, as if about to make a constructive suggestion. ‘Engage them in close-quarters combat? Daggers between teeth, no quarter given?’

  ‘I was trying to think of something useful – some way we could exploit our innate differences without resorting to violence. What about that power grid?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘If we stop it working, will they be able to repair it easily? I don’t mean shut it off permanently, just demonstrate that we can deprive them of power. You said we need a means of negotiating with Dakota – would that help?’

  ‘It might, it might not.’

  ‘Could we do it, though?’ asked Vasin.

  Eunice thought about it for a few seconds, or at least gave every impression of doing so.

  ‘The mirrors were an emergency measure installed during the difficult days immediately after the translation. We worked with the surviving humans to cobble them together, using spacecraft parts and materials from inside Zanzibar. I never expected them to work as long as they have.’

  ‘And?’ Goma pushed.

  ‘The orbital control and mirror-aiming system is as autonomous as we could design it to be. We wanted the mirrors to keep working even if there was some total breakdown in communications with Zanzibar. Obviously, we did a fairly good job. But we did leave a back channel – a control protocol, in case we needed to reprogram or reassign the mirrors.’

  ‘Would Dakota know about that channel?’ Vasin asked.

  ‘Maybe, but it would still be hard for her to close it off without physical access to the mirrors. So . . . yes – maybe there’s a possibility. But it’s been a while and everything I know about the control architecture is in here.’ She tapped the side of her head.

  ‘Is that good or bad?’ Vasin asked.

  ‘Oh, my memory is excellent. But I can’t promise anything until I’ve done some tests. Can I use your spaceship?’

  Vasin looked appalled. ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Then at least your long-range communications array. It’ll need to be done delicately – I don’t want Dakota to guess that I’m trying to speak to the mirrors or she’ll be a step ahead of us.’

  ‘With appropriate supervision,’ Vasin said, ‘I suppose I could permit it.’

  ‘Good to know I’m considered such a trusted guest,’ Eunice answered archly. ‘By the way, I like your choice of painting – it’ll remind us what’s at stake.’

  Goma had been so fixated on the image of Zanzibar that she had not noticed Vasin’s wall image had changed again. Gone were the violent, world-shattering sun and the pale maiden with the skeletal figure. This was a skull-faced person clasping their hands to the bony bulb of their head, standing on a bridge or pier, under a lava-red sky that oozed and throbbed like a wound.

  ‘The Scream,’ Vasin said.

  ‘The Terror,’ Eunice answered.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  On the morning that he meant to kill himself, Kanu and Nissa made their customary journey from the household to the civic building for their daily audience with Dakota. Kanu had mentioned nothing of his intentions to Nissa and now did his best to banish every trace of them from his words and manner. She must not know, she must not suspect, or she would blame herself for not doing enough to stop him. Equally, Dakota had to be given every reason to believe that Nissa was in no way complicit in the act. His death would serve an obvious and logical end, but if he could engineer it in such a way as to cause the least difficulty for Nissa, all the better.

  He did not feel suicidal, not even for a moment. This was not an action springing from some intense weariness of life, nor was he in physical pain. His despair, his sense of utter hopelessness, was derived entirely from his current predicament. He still loved the idea of being alive, and if he could have seen a path through his difficulties that both averted them and allowed for his own continued existence, he would have gladly taken it. But there was no such path. If he denied Dakota her starship, she would murder the sleepers. If he gave her the ship, she would court disaster not just for herself but for the entire human and elephant diaspora. Had he been a more ruthless person, he would have accepted the first outcome as morally preferable to the second. But Kanu would permit himself no such calculus. He would not balance life against life – except his own.

  So he would do it. Destroy the ship, and he took away the means of her expedition. If she decided to kill the sleepers anyway, out of spite, that was beyond his control. But he hoped she would not, for they were still valuable to her. He dared apply the same reasoning to Nissa.

  ‘I’d like Nissa to come with me,’ he bluffed, knowing full well what Dakota’s answer would be.

  ‘And risk both of you running away with that ship?’ Dakota asked with a certain amusement, as if it was naive of him to think she might be so easily gulled. ‘No
– good Nissa will remain here, aboard Zanzibar, while you conduct the tests. If the ship cannot be operated by one individual, it is not yet ready. Yet you have told me it is nearly ready.’

  ‘It is,’ Kanu said.

  ‘Then you will go aboard alone. If you require Risen assistance, so be it, but Nissa will remain here.’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘No, I won’t need the Risen.’

  ‘She won’t compromise on this,’ Nissa said.

  ‘I didn’t expect her to. It was worth a try.’

  But in truth, he had never wanted Nissa with him – not given his intentions. He kissed her. He made it brief, lingering only for an instant. He did not want her to sense anything unusual about this parting.

  ‘How long do you think it will take?’ she asked.

  ‘Not long,’ Kanu answered.

  With great care, he moved Icebreaker under its own power for the first time since the Watchkeeper attack. Only steering motors were required to extract the ship from Zanzibar, but the operation was as slow and painstaking as defusing a bomb. Once free, Kanu allowed his ship to drift to a safe distance of one hundred kilometres, while still following the same orbit around Paladin.

  ‘Dakota – can you hear me?’

  ‘Perfectly, Kanu.’

  ‘Put Nissa on. I want to be sure you haven’t hurt her.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Nissa said, after the slightest of pauses. ‘She isn’t so stupid as to throw away one of her assets.’

  ‘Are you prepared to start the Chibesa drive?’ the Tantor asked, with a certain brusqueness. ‘I am eager for a demonstration.’

  ‘You’ll get your demonstration. But I need an hour or two to make sure nothing’s shifted since we were in Zanzibar. Go and read a book or something.’

  Kanu was in the old control room. During the long course of Icebreaker’s repairs, Kanu had been aboard the ship so many times that it was easy to lose sight of the changes that had been made. From the outside, the alterations were slight, but the ship’s interior was different now, its symmetry and elegance butchered to allow access by the Risen. A number of additional control pedestals now awaited him, rising from the floor like tree-stumps. They came equipped with chunky, tactile interfaces suited for the use of trunks, and with wide-angle visual readouts arranged for the convenience of elephant eyes. Elsewhere, the Tantors had been provided with bulky, padded ‘couches’ – supporting structures they could straddle during periods of high gee-load or weightlessness. They were the size of trampolines.

  The shuttle Noah had yet to be attached, but the docking connections were now in place on the upper hull. All but two of the escape pods had been adapted so that each could take a single Risen, leaving Kanu and Nissa a choice of the two remaining three-person pods – if the expedition ever took place.

  Many of the locks, corridors and rooms had also been enlarged to suit beings the size and mass of Dakota. Where such enlargement demanded it, walls had been removed and chambers joined together. The ship’s interior spaces were larger, but as a whole it now felt smaller. There were still places Tantors could not reach, mostly because of unavoidable engineering considerations, but none related to the critical functions of the ship.

  But there were presently no Tantors aboard – not a living thing save for himself.

  Although every part of the ship was now under weightless conditions – the centrifugal wheels had been deactivated during the rebuild – Kanu still assumed his normal seated position with the console folded down over his lap.

  Now the console chimed.

  He had become used to the ship demanding his attention at frequent intervals – it had done little else during the repairs – but this was something else. Icebreaker was detecting an incoming radio transmission – a purposeful, directed attempt at communication – and it was not originating from Zanzibar.

  While the console chimed, a blue symbol flashed on and off. Kanu stared at it, mesmerised. Breaking the trance, he made to answer the incoming transmission. But he stopped and first took the precaution of locking Dakota out of his communications, at least for the time being.

  Then he took the call.

  A man’s face appeared on the main display. He was fine-boned, with a greying beard and a scalp covered with tight grey curls. ‘My name is Nasim Caspari,’ he said, speaking Swahili with a delicate inflection. ‘I trust you can understand me. I am sending this transmission from the expeditionary vessel Travertine – we are presently in orbit around Orison. We came to this system from Crucible, on a mission to gather information for our government. Our intentions are peaceful and we are ready to offer assistance should it be required. We believe you may have been damaged and forced to seek shelter aboard Zanzibar. Your origin is unknown to us, but if there is scope for cooperation we would be glad to discuss the possibilities. Please respond when you are in receipt of this transmission, which will repeat until we hear a response.’

  That part at least was true, for the ship confirmed that the signal was streaming in on a repeating cycle across a variety of frequencies and transmission protocols.

  Whoever had sent it – whoever this Nasim Caspari was – they were anxious to be heard.

  Kanu deliberated, wondering if he dared risk a reciprocal transmission. Was Dakota even aware of this attempt at contact? he wondered. She had never mentioned it, and Icebreaker had not begun to intercept the signal until it was safely beyond the screening influence of Zanzibar.

  It was possible she did not know about it.

  ‘Help me, Swift. Give me a way of responding that she can’t possibly detect.’

  ‘Are you quite sure of the wisdom of taking such a risk?’

  ‘Yes. Quite sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Our predicament is complicated enough as it is without inviting outside interference.’

  ‘I want to talk to him. If I don’t, he may decide to interfere anyway.’

  ‘I still think it is unwise.’

  ‘I’m pleased you have an opinion. Do it anyway.’

  ‘A moment, in that case.’ Kanu’s hands moved under Swift’s control, executing a short sequence of commands. ‘There. The transmitters are aligned on Orison and the beam should not be within Dakota’s capabilities to detect. You may speak at your leisure.’

  ‘Thank you, Swift. And if you’d do me the courtesy of only allowing my words to come out of my mouth, that would be even more appreciated.’

  ‘You’re the diplomat. I wouldn’t dream of encroaching on your sphere of expertise.’

  Kanu cleared his throat, tapping a knuckle against his windpipe, and straightened himself in his seat. ‘My name is Kanu,’ he began, seeing no need to add any more than that. ‘To the crew of the Travertine – may I congratulate you on a safe crossing. It’s true that we suffered some damage close to Poseidon, but all is now in hand and – despite your extremely kind offer – we have no need of outside assistance. Might I suggest, nonetheless, that you proceed with great caution? We were fortunate not to be more seriously damaged – very fortunate indeed. I wish you the best of luck with your endeavours.’

  He closed the transmission and instructed the ship to send it onwards in a single burst.

  This was a highly compact solar system, with Paladin, Orison and Poseidon all lying within half an AU of their star. Given the current alignment of the planets, Kanu knew he could expect an answer inside five minutes if the newcomers were quick in their response.

  ‘Kanu?’ Dakota asked, when at last he reopened the channel to Zanzibar. ‘Was there a difficulty?’

  ‘None, Dakota, but these diagnostic tests place a high workload on the ship. It’s better if we keep communications to an absolute minimum unless there’s something to report.’

  ‘And what is the prognosis? Nissa and I are both eager to see the evidence of your hard work.’

  In truth, there was no reason
for the ship not to work. The loom of monitors continued to report nothing anomalous, nothing that merited further attention. Trace gases pumped through the various combustion pathways had found no leaks or imperfections. The magnetic containment chambers responded well to surges of test power. Thin plasmas injected for test purposes were corralled, pinched and excited in the expected fashion. The system did its best to simulate instabilities and show that the dampening mechanisms were capable of doing their work.

  Each of these conditions was only a step on the way to a true post-Chibesa reaction, but Kanu saw nothing to give him pause.

  ‘The prognosis is excellent, but I still need to allow more tests to complete.’

  ‘And how long would that be, precisely?’

  ‘A few minutes.’

  ‘You demand great patience of me, Kanu. But after two centuries, I suppose a few minutes more won’t hurt.’

  ‘I hope not. In the meantime, I’m going silent again. I’ll be back in touch when we’re ready to proceed with the full test.’

  He shut her off and leaned back in his seat, sweat pooling between his shoulder blades. The diagnostic tests could run for as long as he let them, but the fact was the ship already knew as much about itself as it ever would.

  ‘Swift?’

  ‘Yes, Kanu?’

  ‘They could answer in five minutes or five hours – or not at all. If I’m left alone in my skull, I may go mad. Would you care for a game of chess while we’re waiting?’

  ‘If you think it would help.’

  ‘It probably won’t. But for old times’ sake, if nothing else.’

  ‘Then I shall be glad to oblige. You are dwelling on the possibility of a reply, aren’t you?’

  ‘I want to know what they know.’

  ‘It will not change our standing with Dakota. The essential facts of our arrangement are not subject to outside influence.’

  ‘Then there’s no harm in hearing what they have to say, is there?’

  Swift conjured a chess table. They played a quick, careless game which Kanu won by narrow odds – it was possible, probable even, that Swift had contrived his own defeat – and were in the opening moves of a second when the console gave another chime.