by Neil Clarke
“But not for four worlds,” Amund said. “I convinced the river to agree to give us full rights to both hot worlds and the original two ice moons, plus twelve other moons. And one gas giant. Which is pretty useless in the short term. But maybe someday. And also, I’ve won the right for the colonists to bid on this system’s Oort, if someday they ever want to do that.”
Rococo opened his mouth.
One word emerged.
“Good,” he said.
“It is,” Amund agreed.
Mere was clothed and emerging from the cabin.
Amund continued. “And by colonists, I mean humans. Mortals. Nothing but. This solar system is and will always be a sanctuary for luddies, whether they’re human or big ribbons of living gel.”
Rococo said, “Oh.” Then his natural poise took charge, and he said, “Goddamn impressive, sir.”
“Sir,” he said.
Mere was close but the wind was blowing, and what could she hear?
Amund leaned against the man, his mouth next to Rococo’s ear. And that was when he said, “Oh, and the river still needs its sacrifice. And she left it up to me to choose which one of us gets the honor.”
11.
Rococo was friendly with three former luddies, a fourth was an out-and-out enemy, and there was a fifth luddy who he met while she was still a child. Apparently he made an impression, because two decades later, having decided to leave the faith, she asked this important immortal to accompany her to a facility that did nothing but transform her kind into his kind.
“I want to live and live and live,” she claimed, holding her companion’s knee. “But can I confess what scares me?”
“That you’ll grow bored,” Rococo said.
She was startled until she stepped outside herself. Then she laughed, admitting, “That’s the cliché, I suppose. Lives always become tiresome, and ten thousand years leaves a girl empty and dull.”
“That’s what some people want to believe,” he said. “But then again, luddies need every reason to think themselves right. No matter how much of a lie that reason happens to be.”
“So you don’t feel bored.”
Rococo winked at her, and with a happy voice said, “They won’t tell you. The luddies who want to keep you small. But that thing you call boredom? It doesn’t exist. Not for my kind. Monotony and apathy are symptoms of a weak mind, not a condition that afflicts those with too much time. For us, life is furiously rich. With our memories and our big eye for detail, it’s very difficult to keep us from being enthusiastically involved in every facet of the day. Every breath and good thought and the little pains too. Which are almost never large pains, by the way. Every circumstance is another fascinating element inside a grand parade that doesn’t need to stop for any reason short of death.”
His friend went through the necessary surgeries and rebirth, and unlike a few patients, she quickly adapted to her new state. And fifty years later, while Rococo was leading a distant mission, he received news that his friend died in a tragic accident involving plasmas and AI errors.
The two of them were never lovers. Yet the woman was first in his thoughts that evening, and she stayed with Rococo throughout the sleepless night. Long stretches of conversation came to mind, word for word, and there were intervals where memory was far larger than the present. Once again, Rococo was sharing a drink with a perpetually young lady who was throwing her new cognitive skills at new languages and exotic faiths, all while touring exotic corners of the Great Ship. She was also making friends and then throwing the same friends aside when they proved to be the wrong sorts for a girl who was preparing for the next million years.
“A million years,” she said.
Night had reached its middle, and Rococo sat on the deck, in the open. Sometimes he looked at stars, sometimes down at his empty hands. But all he saw was a girl who was so thrilled, standing on the edge of Forever, and all she was asking from the Universe was a brief million years.
Three times, Mere came to him in the night. The first two visits proved nothing but that the man didn’t want to speak to her, regardless of what she said. But that didn’t stop her from explaining that Amund was a shit. He was a shit who should have told them what was happening, even if the river forbad any warnings. “He could have used the Highland language to keep us ready. I learned enough words to follow the topic. If he had thought about doing that, which he would have. If the shit had ever bothered to try.”
Shrugs didn’t capture Rococo’s indifference.
Silently gazing at the back of his hands. That’s what convinced her to walk away. Twice.
Somewhat more effective was the third visit. With the sun rising behind them, Mere sat on the deck, legs crossed, near enough to Rococo that they might bump knees. With a careful quick voice, she said, “Of course it’s possible that everything is a lie.”
He looked at her, looked away. “About a sacrifice.”
She nodded.
“And he’s the one who decides who.”
This time, Mere glanced at her own hands. Waiting him out, apparently.
Finally, Rococo said, “I believe the man.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know him,” he explained.
Face and mouth both asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean that if I did know the man, then I’d be able to yank the fabrications from the truth. For instance, if I’d slept with the fellow. Then I’d have a perspective. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel as if I’m guessing about everything.”
“Everything,” she repeated. “Including this alleged agreement,” he said. “We don’t know if this world has offered worlds to us, much less tossing us most of the solar system. And how can we be sure that luddies are the only organisms that are welcome here? We have no details. We have nothing but words and posturing from a creature that you don’t know either. Do you, Mere?”
“Not particularly well,” she said.
The sun was suddenly bright and wonderfully warm, baking into his flesh. “All right,” Rococo said. Then after a long pause, he added, “I’m going through the morning as a doomed man. All right? That’s how I want to approach my last day, even if it isn’t today. All right.”
When they reached the ocean, the river had built itself into a towering blue-black wave. Five hundred meters above the surface of any normal river, they were being shoved forward so fast that the air blasted past them. But Rococo remained outside. Stress or habit was at play, or maybe the absence of imagination that comes with the gallows. The man could do nothing but watch the ocean retreating before the gelatin wall and before him. What wasn’t calmness had come into him, or maybe this quiet had always been present, in secret. Being someone who was always loud or ready to become loud, he didn’t know the tricks about lasting silence. But he was trying to learn. How much time remained? Don’t calculate that. The best trick was to do nothing but sit and watch everything at once, committing nothing to memory because nothing was more useless now than fresh remembrances. Not for Rococo, not anymore. Just sit still and merge with each breath and the glorious sight of saltwater fleeing from a giant that was bearing him faster and faster toward their destination.
There.
The streakship was waiting exactly where it was expected, where it promised. Thick legs straddled an island that had sunk into the waves, just from its terrific mass. Where the destroyed streakship had been minimal hyperfiber and maximum vacuum, this beast was a marvel of deep armor and utter indifference to its surroundings. It was a bright gray cone that could have hidden happily inside a mountain range. It was a machine that would welcome them and protect them, and if the resident AIs were tweaked just so, the ship would fall in love with each of them, probably forever.
“What if Amund was lying?”
Rococo said it to the wind or himself, or maybe no one. Maybe the wind was talking to him, or the river had marshaled the words, perfectly mimicking how Rococo sounded to himself.
Either way, the h
ope was offered, and an instant later, it died.
Amund never explicitly said, “I’ll have you killed.” Because that was such an obvious answer. But what if the river and this world didn’t think that Rococo was enough of a sacrifice? If these entities didn’t approve of immortals, maybe Mere was on the platter, too. Which meant that Amund could step alone into the streakship, and being the only surviving member of this awful mission, he would easily take charge.
These ideas needed time to bake, except there was no time.
Rococo saw quite a lot, but most of his focus was on the gray cone trying to stand above the onslaught of flesh and vengeful rage.
When he stood, he stood quickly, putting his back to the wind. The pack and kit were secured to the deck’s middle. Rococo claimed both and entered his cabin, opened the pack and gave instructions. Was this request too detailed, too odd? Was he wasting valuable time? But no, Remoras had built the kit, and Remoras designed wondrous machines. A sculpture of pure carbon—the narrow diamond blade and an elaborate, bone-shaped graphite hilt not meant to fit any human hand, but useful enough for a man about to commit murder.
The streakship was minutes away, and the towering wave decided to slow itself, beginning a steady, graceful collapse.
Rococo stepped inside Amund’s cabin. Sitting on the mattress, legs too stiff to be crossed, the mortal body was wearing comfortable clothes without boots. For a moment, nothing happened. The man looked as if he might rise any moment, or he might close his eyes and nap. But then the bal’tin ceremonial knife caught the sunlight, flashing like a beacon, and Amund responded with a sudden sound. A laugh, or perhaps something else. It could have been a sob, a muddled word, or maybe just some miserable noise escaping on its own.
Rococo managed two steps before his legs quit working, before both hands failed him and the weapon struck the floor.
Softly, one of them said, “Do what you want.”
Whose voice was that? Rococo wasn’t certain, and he didn’t care. What mattered was that he had done nothing wrong. He was bringing his colleague a fancy memento, and no crimes were being attempted, nothing was behind him but an open door and sunshine.
Except Rococo had said, “Do what you want.”
“Thanks for the advice,” the other man said. “I’ll try to do just that.”
Retreat began with a small step, then a pause. Embarrassment took hold, forcing Rococo to drop his eyes.
Amund pulled in his legs and rose, both arms helping fight gravity. Then he stepped close, saying, “You’re the great diplomat. And so smart, too. If I believed half of what you’ve told me, I’d have no choice but to consider you one of the most brilliant creatures ever born from circuits and salt.”
Rococo looked up, finding hard eyes and a broad grin that quickly turned into an ugly, disgusted expression.
“You’re the genius,” Amund said. “So of course you realized the truth. Probably long ago.”
“What truth?”
“Well, that the rivers, and I mean all of the rivers, have been playing a spectacular game with us.”
“Game?” Rococo muttered.
“Or don’t you see it?” Laughter bubbled out of him, but the man’s expression remained cold, furious. “When the rivers first learned about you, millions of tiny immortal machines riding inside one giant machine, they were afraid. Disasters were looming. Maybe like never before, they spoke to one another. They asked what they could do to save themselves. And after consideration and hard debate, they decided to send you promises. Four worlds offered, and three of those worlds were dedicated to the machines. Except they never wanted you on their shoreline. That’s why they demanded someone like me. One pure river. And after a lot of hard, invisible preparations, they staged a terrible war between stubborn beliefs.”
“Staged,” Rococo echoed.
“Be honest,” Amund said. “Bad as this damage looks, how many rivers were killed? Zero. That’s how many. Each creature is diminished, yes. But still enormous compared to little us. And then they attacked our ship, stripping our resources to a desperate minimum. But of course that should have bothered a genius like you. Against tremendous odds, you survived. So did I. We lived because that was the plan, and then the river spoke to me. Which was the main reason why I was invited in the first place. To negotiate.”
Rococo had no voice.
“The rivers were hoping I’d settle for four worlds, the same as you did. But I saw the game and held out for quite a lot more. Which is why I have to thank you. Half of my life listening to you chatter about how great you were at your job, and I learned a few things. Stupid as I am, I still managed a treaty guaranteeing that these aliens will be surrounded by billions of pure rivers but very few machines.”
Rococo couldn’t remember his last breath. Through clenched teeth, he asked, “And I’ll be the sacrifice?”
“No, I am,” Amund said instantly, without regrets. “I always have been. Aren’t you paying attention?” Then he stepped close and bent just low enough to grab up the knife, holding it sideways on two flattened hands while adding, “You’re not the great diplomat. They pulled a con on you. From the start and without you suspecting. And here I am, the dreamy piece of water that saw what you couldn’t even imagine.”
The knife weighed nothing, and the flesh offered no resistance when the tip went inside the man’s stomach and out again.
Amund collapsed, letting out a long scream.
A tiny portion of the sunlight was blocked when Mere ran inside, grabbing Rococo’s hands. “What are you doing, why would you?” she was asking. “How does this help anything anyone anywhere … ?”
She was carving up her own fingers, trying to yank the diamond blade free of his grip. But Rococo wouldn’t let go. Feeling nothing and hearing nothing, his mind was focused only on the idea that if he was very good, and very lucky, only a million years would have to pass before this woman would willingly touch him again.
12.
Three weeks after the streakship launched, bound for the Great Ship, the AI doctors pronounced Amund well enough to travel. His stitches hadn’t healed completely, and the scar tissue would never vanish. But those problems were bearable, and at least his guts were back where they belonged. Besides, there was too much to do.
Amund was always the sacrifice. The one lie that he told was that he had any choice in this matter. But there wasn’t going to be a staged event full of fake religious noise. The culmination of change and age and his own willingness to continue: That was why he would die. His flesh had nowhere to go but to join with the rivers, and these creatures were older and far more patient than any captain or clerk wandering long among the stars.
Along with the AI doctors, Mere had left behind portions of the streakship’s machine shop and enough raw material to build a fleet of reasonably mindless devices. And following his instructions, a submarine was built and ready.
The river still listened to him, but it wasn’t talking back anymore. Which was understandable. Honestly, what more could be said at this point?
Amund stepped inside the submarine and asked to be moved. No engines were necessary. The ship supplied breath and clear windows and spotlights. But those lights weren’t needed. That was obvious soon after the river pulled him under the surf. The blue flesh of the land was replaced by glowing white flesh that lit the water and Amund’s face and his great wide smile. The entire day was spent crossing the continental shelf, and then the edge came and the river set him where he could see the spectacle. A great current was crawling its way out of the depths. A waterfall flowing backward, milky and brilliant and vast. The world was shaking as the river pulled its reserves out of the abyssal plain: The first surge of an invasion that would rebuild the planet in less time than it would take this one man to die of old age.
How many people were able to watch a new world made?
Everybody could, of course.
But at the end of the day, how many ever took notice?
Madeline As
hby is a science fiction writer and futurist living in Toronto. Her most recent novel, Company Town, was a CBC Books Canada Reads finalist, and winner of the Copper Cylinder Award. She is also the author of the Machine Dynasty series. She has written science fiction prototypes for Intel Labs, the Institute for the Future, SciFutures, Nesta, Data & Society, the Atlantic Council, and others. You can find her at madelineashby.com.
DEATH ON MARS
Madeline Ashby
“Is he still on schedule?”
Donna’s hand spidered across the tactical array. She pinched and threw a map into Khalidah’s lenses. Marshall’s tug glowed there, spiralling ever closer to its target. Khalidah caught herself missing baseball. She squashed the sentiment immediately. It wasn’t really the sport she missed, she reminded herself. She just missed her fantasy league. Phobos was much too far away to get a real game going; the lag was simply too long for her bets to cover any meaningful spread. She could run a model, of course, and had even filled one halfway during the trip out. It wasn’t the same.
Besides, it was more helpful to participate in hobbies she could share with the others. The counselors had been very clear on that subject. She was better off participating in Game Night, and the monthly book club they maintained with the Girl Scouts and Guides of North America.
“He’s on time,” Donna said. “Stop worrying.”
“I’m not worried,” Khalidah said. And she wasn’t. Not really. Not about when he would arrive.
Donna pushed away from the terminal. She looked older than she had when they’d landed. They’d all aged, of course—the trip out and the lack of real produce hadn’t exactly done any of them any favors—but Donna seemed to have changed more dramatically than Khalidah or Brooklyn or Song. She’d cut most of her hair off, and now the silver that once sparkled along her roots was the only color left. The exo-suit hung loose on her. She hadn’t been eating. Everyone hated the latest rotation of rations. Who on Earth—literally, who?—thought that testing the nutritional merits of a traditional Buddhist macrobiotic diet in space was a good idea? What sadistic special-interest group had funded that particular line of research?