Poseidon's Wake

by Alastair Reynolds

‘Nonetheless, indulge an old woman.’

  Vasin played the well with her customary fluency. She centred the display space on Paladin, then enlarged it by degrees until Eunice held up a hand.

  ‘Good enough for you?’

  ‘That’s fine. This is a real-time image, right, Captain? It shows the rotational aspect of Paladin, the relative position of Zanzibar in its orbit? It’s accurate to the limit of our current observations, the combined sensor inputs from both Mposi and Travertine?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s no—’

  ‘Watch and learn. I think you’ll find this most instructive.’

  ‘Eunice,’ Goma said, with a slowly dawning dread, ‘what are you about to do?’

  ‘Nothing that your mother didn’t spell out in her notebooks, child. They were very useful. Enormously instructive. They filled gaps in my comprehension I didn’t even know were there.’

  ‘What is she talking about?’ Vasin asked. ‘What notebooks?’

  ‘Never mind,’ Goma said, with equal sharpness. ‘What’s going on? What’s about to happen?’

  Eunice jabbed one finger at the little glowing mote that was Zanzibar and another at the second Mandala. ‘If this rendering is as accurate as you claim, the Mandala is not presently visible from Zanzibar. It lies over the horizon, around the curvature of Poseidon – but not for long. Zanzibar’s orbit is low and Mandala is about to start coming into view. In fifteen minutes, the former will be over the latter.’

  ‘And?’ Karayan asked.

  ‘I am about to send a sequence of commands to the Mandala. They will duplicate the effect of the command sequence Ndege gave to the original Mandala. I will initiate a second Mandala event.’

  For a moment there was silence as everyone struggled to process the full import of what she had just said. Goma was as speechless as the rest of them. There was too much to consider, too much to examine except in small pieces.

  How could she think of doing this? How could she be confident that her commands would have the same effect, or any effect, for that matter? How could she talk to the Mandala? How could she take this risk with Tantor and human lives? Where was she planning to send them? Was it too much to hope that she had a plan?

  How could she dare to be Eunice Akinya?

  ‘Any questions?’ Eunice said.

  ‘It won’t work,’ Goma said eventually, the first of them to break the spell. ‘My mother spent months, years, setting up experiments inside Mandala’s walls. She didn’t talk to it for fifteen minutes from inside a spaceship, across light-seconds of distance. It doesn’t respond to radio, laser, neutrinos or anything we use for normal communication.’

  ‘Then it’s a good thing I’m not planning to utilise any of those channels. Your mother used light and shade, did she not? The selective masking of areas of the Mandala?’

  ‘Yes, but she was inside it, camped there, physically present. She had screens, blackout sheets, floodlamps . . . you have none of these things.’

  ‘I have the mirrors,’ Eunice said.

  This was met with another silence, but it was shorter than the first and this time Vasin was the one to break it.

  ‘No. You lost control of the mirrors. We saw it happen. You told us she had found her way in.’

  ‘Ah, yes, so I did. Which obviously eliminates any possibility that I was lying, or withholding some portion of the truth . . .’

  Ru made a lunge for her across the edge of the well and nearly got a hand around Eunice’s neck before she jerked out of reach.

  Ru snapped her attention to Goma. ‘What the fuck is she talking about?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Everybody calm down,’ Vasin said. ‘Eunice – clarify the situation with the mirrors. You said she had control.’

  ‘That was true.’

  ‘And now you’re saying you do still have control?’

  ‘That’s also true. You should have paid more attention when I told you I was deep inside that architecture – deep enough to allow Dakota the illusion that she had regained some control. I allowed her to think she’d beaten me. I allowed you to think I was all out of options. In truth, I’d already embedded the command code – the instruction for the mirrors to swing onto Paladin’s Mandala.’

  ‘You want to attack it!’ Vasin said.

  ‘What are the odds, Captain, that any human technology could even begin to damage something that’s been there for several million years, weathering solar storms, asteroid bombardments and geological changes without sustaining so much as a blemish? No, that’s not what I wanted the mirrors for. Goma knows. Goma sees.’

  ‘Light,’ Goma answered. ‘She can modulate the mirrors to send a version of Ndege’s command string – talk directly to Mandala in the language of light.’

  ‘To initiate a Mandala event?’ Vasin asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Eunice said. ‘It’s not difficult. It’s the Mandala’s purpose, and it doesn’t need huge encouragement to start doing the thing it was designed to do. Especially not after all this time asleep, dormant, waiting to be reactivated – as Ndege found when she communicated with Crucible’s Mandala.’

  ‘You’re insane,’ Karayan said. ‘You cannot take this action.’

  ‘I see no alternative. Kanu is acting under duress because of the threat to the Friends. I am removing them from the equation.’

  ‘Stop her,’ Ru said. ‘Kill her. Whatever it takes.’

  Eunice directed a look of supreme contrition at the other woman. ‘You have every right to despise me, Ru – but not on this score. I’m not hurting the Friends or the Tantors. I am sparing them further involvement in this unholy human mess. They have endured one Mandala event; I have every confidence they can survive another.’

  ‘No,’ Ru said, as if none of those words had reached her. ‘She’s got to be stopped.’

  ‘And how would you do that? I’ve told you that the command sequence is already activated. Would you like me to deactivate it? In which case, I’ll need access to the console again – and you’d better hope we still have enough time left before Mandala begins to come into view, because that fifteen minutes is a very fuzzy estimate indeed.’

  ‘If we allow her access to the console,’ Grave said, ‘we could be giving her exactly the opportunity she needs. Are you bluffing, Eunice? Can we trust a single word that comes out of your mouth?’

  ‘You can trust me when I say this: the translation event is irrevocable. It will happen. And if you wish for some good to come out of this, now would be the time to warn Dakota so that she can get a message to the rest of them.’

  ‘She won’t believe a word of it,’ Vasin said. ‘Not now.’

  ‘But at least you’ll have tried,’ Eunice said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Kanu was staring at the approach solutions for the swarm of moons, thinking back to their first ignorant encounter with the killing space around Poseidon, when the chime of an incoming transmission began to sound.

  ‘I think we have heard all we need to,’ Dakota said. ‘Our point was made, as was theirs. They have begun to turn from us, and we have clarified their status as potential prisoners of war. I do not believe there is anything left to say.’

  ‘We may as well hear them out,’ Nissa said. ‘If there’s the slightest chance it might be useful information, we’d be fools to ignore them.’

  ‘They have nothing we need or can use,’ Dakota said. ‘Our knowledge of Poseidon is already immeasurably richer than theirs.’

  ‘They have Eunice,’ Kanu said.

  ‘They have a bag full of dying memories that thinks it once owned the stars. I am sorry to speak so bluntly of her, Kanu, but you have seen first hand the harm she would have done us had the means been available. As it was, she overreached herself.’

  The chime continued knelling.

  ‘I’d take the call
if I were you,’ Swift said. ‘I think it may be a matter of some urgency.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘I’ve spent some time getting to know the ship.’

  ‘You’re in my skull, Swift. You only see and hear what I see and hear.’

  ‘That’s perfectly true, Kanu, but as I hoped I demonstrated in Zanzibar, you do not make the best use of those channels. The ship is telling me that this signal is something we would indeed be very foolish to ignore. It speaks of a matter of urgency that I think one might characterise as “dire”.’

  ‘They have nothing that can touch us.’

  ‘We are not the subject of the dire urgency, but we can assist those who are. Something awful is about to happen to Zanzibar, Kanu, and in that respect, I think we can agree that it concerns us all.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ignore Dakota. Take the call.’

  In his own voice, Kanu instructed Icebreaker to play the transmission. Dakota began to voice her disapproval, but she had barely begun when Goma started speaking.

  ‘Don’t shut me off. Listen. You too, Dakota. This isn’t a threat, or any kind of negotiation. Eunice claims that Zanzibar is about to experience a second Mandala event. A second translation to who knows where. It’s imminent – minutes away, maybe less. We can’t stop it happening, and nor can you – but you can warn them. It was bad the first time; now you can at least tell them to prepare for it – to bring in anyone or anything outside and to brace for whatever’s coming. Please heed us – we gain nothing by lying to you. And tell them that wherever they end up, they won’t be forgotten.’

  Goma fell silent. Kanu looked at Nissa, then back to Dakota – wondering if they felt the same way he did. He hoped this would prove to be nothing more than a ruse. But the time he had spent talking with Goma had convinced him that she spoke with absolute sincerity. More than that: she was genuinely afraid of what was coming.

  So was he.

  ‘After all this time,’ Dakota said, ‘a Mandala event would not simply happen all by itself.’

  ‘So it’s not a coincidence,’ Nissa replied. ‘It’s something to do with our activity. Triggered by us, or by them.’

  ‘There is no mechanism by which they could reach Mandala at that distance.’

  ‘That we know of,’ Kanu said. ‘And Nissa’s right: they gain nothing by lying. We must take her seriously. I think you need to consider giving that warning.’

  ‘I will not be held hostage to absurd threats.’

  ‘Signal Memphis,’ Nissa said. ‘Tell him there’s a chance something is about to happen. Tell him to act as if it might be real – that’s all you have to do.’

  The elephant cogitated. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Do it!’ Kanu snarled. ‘Goma said we might only be minutes away from the event. It’ll take that long to get a signal back to Zanzibar!’

  But then the chime sounded again. On his console, Kanu saw that the point of origin was Paladin space, not Mposi. He raised an eyebrow at Dakota.

  ‘Someone wants to speak to you.’

  It was Memphis, as he guessed it must be. The huge bull filled the wall, projected larger than life. The other Tantors, with the exception of Dakota, lowered their heads in submission.

  ‘The mirrors have moved,’ Memphis said. ‘They are not pointed at Zanzibar now. They are pointed at Paladin. They are shining light onto the Mandala. We cannot make them stop. What should we do?’

  Not all of them, Kanu guessed – the mechanics of their orbits and sight lines would not allow for that. But if someone wished to communicate with the Mandala using light, they needed only one mirror.

  ‘Memphis,’ Dakota said. ‘I have news . . . information. You must act upon it with all haste. Zanzibar moved once, when it came from Crucible. Now there is a chance it may move again, and very soon. Communicate with all chambers. Bring all Risen inside as quickly as you can – away from the locks and the berthing core. Zanzibar was very badly damaged during the first translation, and there may be damage during the second . . . You must be ready, Memphis. Close the great doors, ready the chambers for isolation . . . prepare to bring the emergency generators into use. You have never been the swiftest of us, Memphis, but you are good and loyal and there is no Risen I would sooner trust with the welfare of our home. You have a slow strength – but you are seldom wrong, and you have never disappointed me.’

  Kanu spoke up. ‘Memphis – hear what I have to say. You’re going to another solar system, probably, into orbit around another star with a Mandala on one of its planets. Everything’s going to be strange. You’ll have to fend for yourselves to begin with, but I promise you won’t be forgotten. We’ll come – no matter how long it takes. We won’t rest until we’ve found you.’

  ‘None of us shall,’ Dakota said. ‘But answer me this, Kanu – who is this “we” you speak of?’

  ‘Whatever we make of ourselves, Dakota. Humans, merfolk. Tantors. Machines. Whatever we manage to salvage from this. We’re all orphans of the storm now, all Poseidon’s children. We either find a way to live with what we are, with all our differences, or we face oblivion. I know which I’d rather.’

  Few had been in a position to witness the first Mandala event, mostly only those caught up in its immediate and devastating effects. For excellent reasons, their testimonies had never entered the public record: the majority of them were now part of the cloud of gas and debris circling Crucible – a monument to their own destruction.

  It was different this time. There were multiple spectators both within Zanzibar and beyond, and to a degree all had been forewarned. On Paladin itself, no living thing stirred. But the changes to the second Mandala, quickened by Eunice’s play of light, had now become convulsive. Patterns shifted and shifted again becoming hypnotic, beguiling. Once, it had been a thing of wonder to witness changes on a timescale of hours or days. Now the Mandala adapted from second to second, moving matter around with a careless disdain for the ordinary limitations of inertia and rigidity. Indeed, since something odd was clearly happening to space in the vicinity of the second Mandala – or was about to happen when the translation event initiated – perhaps that was also true of time. Clocks might be running strangely down there – who could say? It was beyond any conceivable human physics – an invocation of alien science and engineering that might as well have been the work of mages, for all that it corresponded to any theory or hypothesis.

  On Zanzibar, Memphis and the Risen watched as their orbit brought them closer and closer to the edge of the changing Mandala, and then they were over it. They saw this through cameras, through portholes and observation bubbles – faces pressed against the glass, filled with apprehension and terror, wondering what new fate the universe now had in store for them.

  On Travertine, long-range sensors captured the same spectacle. By some dark fortune, the Mandala and Zanzibar were both visible to them. Zanzibar was a pollen-like smudge, bright and tiny, the Mandala a shivering labyrinth of intersecting circles and radials foreshortened by their angle of view. Nasim Caspari was reminded of ripples on a pond, of the interference patterns where they met and interacted. This pond was governed by weird, restless symmetries. He yearned to reach a deeper understanding of the fundamentals.

  They had been warned. From the data on the first Mandala event, some sort of energy release could be anticipated. Caspari ordered Travertine on high alert, its Chibesa core quenched as a precaution. The crew rushed to their emergency stations and braced for the unknowable.

  There wasn’t much time left.

  On Icebreaker, Kanu, Nissa and Dakota observed the same changes. They were also tracking Zanzibar, although from a different viewing angle – Paladin’s spin had brought Mandala into nearly perfect alignment with their sensor array, and Zanzibar was about to transit across it like a planet sliding over the face of its sun.

  Dakota had sent
her warning in a spirit of precaution, but now there could be no doubt that it had been a wise decision. There had been no time for Memphis to organise a return transmission, but she was inclined to look on that as a favourable indicator. It meant he was busy, rushing to prepare Zanzibar for the moment of translation. He was doing everything she had ever counted on him to do.

  Much had changed for Dakota since she first arrived in the system as a guest of the Watchkeepers. She had felt the Terror and come to regard it as a challenge rather than an impediment. She had seen the arrival of Zanzibar, flicking into existence around Paladin, and she had helped steward the Tantors – the Risen – through the immense and testing hardships of those first days. Over time, she had diverged from her companions in the Trinity – come to see them as adversaries rather than allies. The Watchkeepers had bestowed gifts upon her, and in turn she had become their instrument, their willing servant. She accepted this role with equanimity. They had made her more than she had been or ever could be by herself, and it was an honour to be chosen, to be considered worthwhile. But she had not entirely discarded the bonds of love and loyalty, even though these things were now vastly diminished among her greater concerns. Memphis had always been dutiful and she had come to think fondly of him, even as the Watchkeepers’ changes pushed her further and further from the ranks of the ordinary Risen. Even now, she felt empathy for the old bull. She could do nothing for him, not at this distance. But whatever happened, she hoped he would rise to the challenge, and that the challenge would not be too testing for him – indeed for all of them, and if his plans found a use for the Friends, she would also wish them well.

  Nissa Mbaye, who was not an Akinya but whose life had been snared in their concerns, wondered what part, small or otherwise, she had played in this development. It seemed probable that Kanu’s arrival had precipitated much of what was now taking place – the expedition, the deaths, the coming translation. She accepted no moral blame for any of that – those forces had been in motion long before she had any conception of their purpose. But had it not been for her desire to reach Sunday’s artworks, she would never have provided Kanu with his ride to Europa. Could a meeting in an art gallery in distant Lisbon really have led to this? She told herself that Kanu would always have found a way to reach his ship, but there was no guarantee of that.