by Neal Asher
‘Yes!’ shouted Rhine, slamming his hand down too hard on his console, then sucking his stinging fingers afterwards. One fragment of a loosely connected theory proven true.
‘I’m not sure that when you’re happy, I should also be,’ said Le Roque, walking over to peer at the equations on Rhine’s screen, frowning, then moving away again.
‘Get ready,’ Le Roque announced next to the entire station, ‘though what for I don’t know. No one quite knows what happens next.’
They were close to their destination: laser measurements showing a slight distortion of the warp bubble caused by a huge mass in the universe adjacent to their small and temporary one. Saul made direct adjustments to the vortex generator that effectively turned the warp through a hundred and eighty degrees, then shut down the drive. They came out of warp still carrying the impetus given by the Traveller engine, but now taking them in the opposite direction relative to its previous thrust. The ship shuddered, stabilized, EM fields reaching out and feathering towards infinity, pushing on the surrounding universe. And the ship accelerated. Saul now sent images to every screen presently not in use for some other purpose. Old Jupiter gazed at them with a vexatious red eye while they slid past veined Europa, whose pallid gaze lingered upon its secret oceans within.
9
Revolt!
The more authoritarian a society becomes, the more there are of the disaffected who are ‘fighting for freedom’. Conversely, the more liberal a society is, the more people you will find who are fighting to exert authoritarian control. Oddly enough, in both cases, they are the same people. The freedom fighter is just a revolution away from becoming a dictator. The concerned and righteous, who wish to make some changes for the good of all, are just an election away from pulling on their jackboots. Never trust the activist who wants to change the world for the better, because their ‘better’ is usually the worse for you.
Argus
‘It just doesn’t feel real,’ said Dr Da Vinci, his gaze fixed on a screen showing Jupiter looming close, and its moon Io closer still. Close enough to identify three volcanoes pumping sulphurous plumes out into space.
‘It isn’t real.’ Hannah injected her latest cerebral biopsy into a sample bottle, then eyed the doctor from Mars. ‘It’s all light-and-colour enhanced and the perspective shortened so we can see both. It all looks very CGI out there.’ She gestured to the screen.
‘I don’t mean that.’ Da Vinci reached up to finger the small dressing at the back of his skull. ‘I mean the speed of it. When I shipped out to Mars, I had months aboard a Traveller to begin to appreciate the scale of it all – to know that I was travelling an immense distance.’ He stood up from his chair. ‘How can we possibly be in orbit around Jupiter? How can we be sure the images we see are real?’
He was being rhetorical and philosophical – a tendency which was only a recent trait, according to the report Saul had given her access to. Da Vinci was a lost soul trying to make sense of it all, but he was also a highly intelligent and capable lost soul. On Mars he had hated the interference of Political Officer Ricard and lodged objections that would have seen him put into an adjustment cell on his return to Earth, had that eventuality not been cancelled for all of them at Antares Base. He had seemed to concur with Var’s takeover there, but had ultimately backed Rhone and, according to Var, had cried over the corpses that generated.
Hannah grimaced. She had initially felt a bond with Saul’s sister, but now that was evaporating. Var Delex was as ruthless as Saul which, in both cases, stemmed from the need to survive. However, with his continued transformation, Saul’s ruthlessness seemed to have disconnected him from base human motives, while Var’s instincts seemed to be wrapped up in resentment, paranoia and some silly need to compete with her brother. Yes, Saul was now a dangerous creature, but Hannah knew that he was no longer vengeful. Var, however, she realized, was not someone to be trusted with the kind of power Saul presently wielded.
‘How can we know the images reflect reality?’ Da Vinci repeated.
Hannah studied him, perfectly understanding his difficulties. After all that had gone before, he had been whisked halfway across the solar system in a partially constructed interstellar vessel by a man who seemed to be breaking every law imaginable, including those of physics. He was, Hannah felt, very much a fellow traveller, for like her he had all the moral objections and shied away from the harsh solutions.
‘You know because of that.’ Hannah held up a finger. ‘Listen.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said after a moment.
‘Of course,’ said Hannah. Being fairly new aboard and this being his first time in Arcoplex Two, he had no idea about the sounds he should be hearing. Hannah could hear it, however: the creaking and low groaning, the occasional snap and ping of a joint realigning; the ship yielding under the unsubtle touch of Jupiter – the same touch that generated the seismic shifts and volcanoes characteristic of Io. It would get worse too, once they moved between Io and Jupiter.
She shrugged. ‘You can hear the gravitational stresses,’ she explained, ‘but if you really want the truth, then get a spacesuit and go outside. You’ll soon lose all your doubts, believe me.’
‘I’ve no doubts, as such,’ said Da Vinci, ‘I’m just divorced from the feeling.’ He now took a look around her laboratory, his expression turning slightly acquisitive. ‘I was told that, after you’d taken my sample, you’d have something for me to do?’
The station’s medical personnel were underemployed, for the moment at least, so there had been no real position for him. However, he was certainly skilled enough to join her in working here. Quite likely he would have moral objections, and ones she wanted to hear, which was why she had saved until now what she revealed to people just before their biopsies.
‘First you need to understand what this is really for.’ She held up his cerebral sample.
‘Not for growing graft tissue?’ He seemed baffled.
‘Come with me.’ She led the way through the door leading to her production floor, which was starting to fill up with equipment and now had a scattering of employees, some of whom were even human. As she explained about the backups and pointed out the various tanks in which bioware was growing, and a small chip-etching plant busily at work, his gaze flicked attentively to every detail. As they reached the far end, he stepped over to a tank inside which resided something organic shot through with shiny wires and plastic optics, suspended in a cloudy fluid at the centre of a web of power and nutrient feeds. He placed a hand against the toughened glass, then gazed at her questioningly.
‘Not here, then?’ he said.
‘What?’ Hannah asked.
‘The clones.’
That was it, right there: he’d gone straight to the heart of it. Hannah wondered if it was truly ergonomics that had made her decide to keep the cloning facility separate from operations here. Perhaps she just preferred it to be out of sight, so that her conscience would not nag her quite so severely.
Da Vinci stepped back from the tank and turned to study the perpetually growing rack of backups.
‘So we can live forever – or at least for longer than our natural span,’ he said. ‘But, as always, such developments have their price.’
Hannah grimaced. ‘I understand the thrust of your remark, but what precisely is a “natural span”?’ She shook her head, experiencing a tightening in her torso like the precursor to one of her panic attacks, and felt it loosen. ‘Our natural span, if you wish to call it that, is long enough merely for us to breed and pass on our genes, then everything after that is just a bonus. People have lived well beyond that span for centuries.’
‘I think you understood my meaning.’ He gazed at her steadily.
‘Perhaps . . . but what do you reckon the price might be?’
‘One that the clones will be paying, perhaps?’
‘If you could elaborate?’
‘Tank-grown clones are human beings who should be allowed the righ
t to life. By using them as receptacles for these’ – he waved a hand towards the backups – ‘you are effectively destroying that life.’
Perhaps this was a mistake. Now, moving on from ‘natural span’, he was talking about ‘right to life’. Was this man a doctor of medicine or one of divinity and philosophy? Her own feelings about those backups and clones related more to the cheapening of the life a person owned, and the potential for abuse.
‘One has to ask where the line should be drawn,’ she said. ‘Does a sperm have a . . .’ Hannah paused, seeing a slight twist to his mouth and suddenly remembering something more in his report. He had very firm views on this subject, ones that were in sympathy with her own: human life was nothing special; it was the human mind that was important. ‘Yes, you had me there, for a moment,’ she finished.
‘I just wanted to be sure we are on the same page.’ Da Vinci then nodded towards the backups. ‘So which one is his?’
‘By “his” I presume you’re talking about Alan Saul’s?’ Hannah felt a resurgence of the anger she had experienced only a few days ago.
‘I am but, being at more of a remove from him than you are, I’ll continue to call him the Owner.’ He paused. ‘It seems the politic thing to do.’
‘They’re not here,’ she said tightly. ‘Two days ago he had them removed to his inner sanctum, along with some cloning tanks, if my reading of the ship’s manifest is right. He doesn’t trust us mere mortals . . .’
‘I feel the need to point out,’ said the Martian doctor, ‘that we are all potentially immortals now.’
‘Still . . .’ said Hannah grudgingly.
‘I’d also have to wonder whom I would trust, if I were in his position.’ He gestured to the backups, as they strolled towards them. ‘You tell me I’ll also have one of those sometime in the future. Well, in that future I, too, can see myself wanting to take it away from here and lock it in the safest vault I could find. In fact’ – he looked around – ‘the lack of security here concerns me.’
‘He’s always watching,’ said Hannah.
‘That’s not enough,’ said Da Vinci. ‘I’ll no more rely on demigods than I relied on the non-existent gods from which some people claim our morality descends.’
Hannah felt herself beginning to smile – an unfamiliar sensation. She was finding herself starting to like this doctor from Mars. Var Delex had been company of sorts but, despite her great intelligence and drive, she seemed shallow. Da Vinci seemed to have depths she could drown in and, more importantly, he was male.
‘So will you do it?’ she asked, leaping ahead to test just how much was going on in the mind behind that quite attractive face.
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I’ll run your cloning facility. I’ll grow your body replacements for you and I’ll even look into something you don’t seem to have considered yet: the cryogenics required for keeping those spares on ice.’
Hannah grinned widely, till it felt as if her lips might split. ‘There are state-of-the-art cryogenic pods aboard Messina’s space plane, so you can work with those.’
‘I will.’ He nodded sharply, then turned to study her. ‘But still, the idea of growing clones makes you uncomfortable, as do all the implications of your work here. I’d suggest that is the real reason I’m here.’
‘In a sense,’ said Hannah suddenly sobering. ‘I’m in undiscovered country here, and I at least need someone to point out the direction of the sun to me.’
‘And the Owner cannot do that.’
‘He knows right from wrong, but his morality is harsh and unforgiving.’
‘Is there any other morality available to us now?’ Da Vinci swung away to survey their surroundings again. ‘To fret over what is right or wrong is a luxury that has to be put aside once questions about survival come along. We can debate these things interminably, but in the end how many people have refused these backups? How many would set the chance of eternity against some questionable morality and still choose the latter?’
‘I think we should take this debate to the Olive Tree,’ said Hannah, only in the last instant changing her proposal of location from her own room.
He turned and touched a hand to the base of her back. ‘Yes, let’s do that.’
Hannah smiled at him, starting to get used to the sensation. For a second her gaze strayed to a nearby cam, as if challenging any watcher to comment. But, of course, Alan Saul was no longer subject to such human frailties; he was out of reach and, if she was honest, had been out of reach since he had stepped out of the Calais incinerator.
The room was devoid of visible cams or other forms of surveillance, so Marsin had assured him. They could talk freely here; they could discuss subjects none dared raise while under the watchful gaze of Alan Saul. They apparently ran a debating group here, and Alex must be properly assessed before he could be allowed to join.
Marsin, a slightly chubby Asian with a generally friendly demeanour was, in view of his history, not quite what Alex had expected. The man sauntered over to the two-seat sofa in the cramped apartment and sat down, picked up a remote control to turn off the wall screen, then gestured with the remote towards the chair opposite. Alex sat down, too.
‘On Earth we were subject to a worldwide dictatorship,’ Marsin began. ‘We could dream of being free but in reality we knew that the only way to personal freedom was by acquiring power, and in trying to do so we just enhanced the power of the state.’
So what exactly is freedom? Alex wondered idly, impatient for him to get to the point. However, the question stirred up memories embedded in his mind which were now, as Hannah Neumann had told him, beginning to shake themselves free. He clearly recollected a doctor, who looked very much like Marsin, slicing into his head and then the horrible feeling of his scalp being peeled back and the subsequent grinding of the bone saw. It was unbelievably agonizing, but he was unable either to scream or to move.
‘Painkillers interfere,’ the man had explained, ‘but perpetual wiping of his short-term memory during the process gives us the same outcome.’
‘I know because I have an interrogator who uses similar techniques,’ Messina had replied.
Alex had been able to see the Chairman just at the edge of his visual field, arms folded, his expression showing mild interest. Then came a jump, a hiatus, whereupon he remembered forgetting the initial cuts, and returned to a world of pain, then another jump found him waking up on his bed in his small cubicle, and feeling a strong resurgence of his love for and loyalty to Chairman Messina.
‘So there we were, clawing our way up firmly embedded ladders, when we were dragged away,’ Marsin was saying. ‘Dragged away from the slavery we knew and made subject to the whims of yet another dictator.’ Marsin shook his head. ‘We can never hope to be free here.’
Alex reached up and touched his skull, the psychosomatic ache fading. He shook his head and focused properly on Marsin.
For all his high-sounding tone, Alex had no recollection of Marsin fighting to keep the Subnet online, being part of the revolution, or hoarding arms in preparation for a fight for his rights and the rights of his fellow man. However, having run a lot of close security for Messina, Alex had encountered this man before, and now, after things were freed up in his head, recollected him as the toady aide to Delegate Lamont, and knew that he had only escaped mind-wipe here because he had always made damned sure that no responsibility for anything could attach itself to him.
‘And yet we had more freedom than you, Alex,’ he said, ‘so you must feel more deeply what we are feeling now.’
Patronizing twit.
Alex had expected Ghort to make the approach, but perhaps they used the likes of Marsin initially because whatever inner council they had, and it was certain they had one, considered Marsin more dispensable. The man had also set himself up as the go-to guy for the disaffected, being very vocal in his criticism of the Owner and the regime aboard the station. He was acting as a filter – perhaps in place to weed out those whose disaffection was o
nly temporary.
‘I agree, we can never be free here, but then I also question if there is anywhere that we can be,’ said Alex.
‘Freedom must be actively strived for,’ said Marsin vaguely.
‘So how do you propose we go about that?’ Alex asked. ‘There’s nowhere we can escape to, and even if we could get to Earth, we’d end up dead or in adjustment.’
‘We must strive for freedom here,’ Marsin observed, becoming a little more specific.
‘I don’t see the Owner turning this ship of his into a democracy.’
‘We don’t call it a ship – we call it a station – and we don’t call him the Owner, since to do so would be acceding to his will and accepting that we are owned.’
‘We?’
‘Before I can tell you any more I need to know where you stand on this issue,’ said Marsin. ‘If you are happy to be one of the supine occupants of this station gratefully receiving the trifles Saul dispenses, then we may as well end this conversation now.’
‘I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t think there were matters to discuss,’ said Alex, ‘though I’m unsure that such discussion will get us anywhere.’
‘Discussion is a beginning.’ Marsin waved the remote control airily. ‘But after that beginning, what do you yourself think should be done?’
‘Saul will never stand down,’ said Alex. ‘Like all dictators, he will cling to power even to the point of destroying what he has power over.’ He paused in reflection: maybe best to get it out in the open now. ‘Saul had Alessandro Messina mind-wiped and then had him taking part in a military action that resulted in his death, so, as the Chairman’s clone and being conditioned to protect him, I have to say that my feelings are strong. The only way to free ourselves of Saul is to bring him down, and the only way we can do that is by killing him.’ There, it was said. Alex grimaced as another clear recollection slid into his mind: one of him walking into a room where four younger versions of himself sat around a table, clad in hospital whites, with their skulls shaven and covered with scars, trying to play cards but their attention straying, their hand movements jerky, and two of them drooling. There had always been failures, and it had always been best to get rid of them quickly. On that occasion Alex had used an electrostun abattoir tool so there would not be so much mess to clear up afterwards.