Salvation

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Yuri couldn’t quite avoid the shudder of revulsion that brought on. He did manage to avoid a small prayer of thanks to the dear Virgin Mary that he’d never had children. He hadn’t been inside a church for more than a century, but thanks to his mother, the Russian Orthodox Church had been an ever-present influence in his early childhood. “I see. But if a family member wasn’t available?”

  “It would still be possible, though the number of candidates would be small. You would have to be very lucky to find one.”

  “Or know a man that can,” Yuri murmured. “Okay. So I’ve done my research and have a suitable donor body. What do I need from you?”

  “Such a procedure would require a great deal more than Kcells profiled to conduct nerve impulses between human neuron junctions.”

  “What else do you need?”

  “Nerve repair in humans is now relatively successful, if expensive. The use of stem cells to regenerate damaged nerves is approaching an eighty percent success rate. However, reconnecting severed nerves is extremely difficult. And for a brain transplant, every nerve in the spinal cord would first have to be severed. Before you did that, you would need a micron-level scanner sophisticated enough to identify and tag the individual nerve pathways. It would first be used on the spinal cord of the person whose brain was to be transplanted, then on the victim, in order to know how to match them up.”

  “Yeah.” Yuri closed his eyes, trying to visualize the problem. “I get that. You’d need to join the right pathways up; otherwise you’d think you were moving a leg when you’re actually bending your arm.”

  “A crude analogy, but essentially correct,” Hai-3 said. “However, it is not just the nerves that control muscle movement that would be required. You would also have to successfully reconnect the body’s entire sensorium, or you would be completely numb and unable to control the muscles that you did command to move. Apparently our human partners have taken to calling it zombie syndrome.”

  “Sounds about right,” Yuri conceded.

  “I am not aware of any scanner that sophisticated being built,” Hai-3 said. “Furthermore, as well as this hypothetical scanner, you would require a nanosurgical device to physically connect the severed nerves to both ends of the Kcell bridge. We have been examining this procedure with our human corporate partners.”

  “You’ve experimented on humans?” Yuri did his best to ignore Stéphane’s sigh of exasperation.

  “Certainly not,” Hai-3 said. “We have formed development and sales partnerships with several human biogenetic companies; they provide us with their requirements, and we try to profile our Kcells accordingly. There have been attempts to use a Kcell nerve fiber to bridge a missing nerve section in pigs. Some were successful. Some not. Progress is slow, but is being made. I would caution you, the largest number of nerves in a bundle that were reconnected by company research teams was eleven. There are several million nerves at the top of the human spinal cord, so the problem is orders of magnitude more complex than anything currently achieved. If a scanner and surgical device could be built, the procedure would have to be controlled by a G7Turing. Given the number of nerves involved, the subject would probably have to be placed in a coma, and the operation would be conducted over a period of months. I am not certain how much human money would be involved in funding such an enterprise.”

  “Right,” Yuri said. “So basically, what you’re telling me is that brain transplants don’t exist?”

  “Currently, yes, although it may become possible in the future. Another factor in this equation is the Kcell nerves themselves. As I told you, several million individual fibers would be required for such an operation. In the last seven years, we have provided our research partners with a total of two and a half thousand.”

  Yuri felt strangely disappointed by Hai-3’s reassurance. At the same time, it did make him wonder exactly what had happened to Horatio. “That’s good to know, thank you.”

  “That such a criminal concept has taken root in human culture is most distressing to us,” Hai-3 said. “This is not why we made our biotechnology available to you. We only wanted to help you before we fly onward to the God at the End of Time. Death is not something biological entities should suffer anymore. I hope you can explain that to people in your media companies who have influence—perhaps upon the successful conclusion of your case?”

  “Of course. I’m sorry about the way people have twisted the possibilities of Kcell application. Unfortunately, there are those among us, thankfully a small minority, who live by a different set of rules, which makes such unpleasant stories believable.”

  “The Olyix understand. You are new to sentience. Your behavior is still affected by your animal origin. You seek to advance yourselves at the expense of others.”

  “As I said: a minority.”

  “We were like you once. Our biotechnology allowed us to modify ourselves, to cast aside such animal-derived impulses. We gave ourselves a higher purpose.”

  Yuri maintained a polite expression. He knew what was coming, and out of the corner of his eye he caught Stéphane grinning knowingly. The Olyix were unremittingly evangelical. Hai-3’s cooperation came with a price: He had to endure the sermon. “Sadly for now,” he said, “we are stuck with our more humble bodies and all their flaws.”

  “Indeed,” Hai-3 said. “But consider that if you joined with us, crimes like the one you face today would be a thing of the past.”

  “What you ask is interesting, but as a species I don’t think we’re ready for a voyage to the end of time. We’re not mature enough to face a deity—yours or anyone else’s.”

  “You can be. That is what we hope to offer you before our arkship flies onward once more. We continue to learn how to adapt our Kcells to function in your bodies. Our growthmasters believe we can one day model clusters to duplicate your neural structure. When that happens, you can become immortal like us.”

  “The singularity download. Yes. I think our society has a long way to go before we accept that. If the body is not original, we would not be us.”

  “The body, any body—ours, yours—is merely a vessel for the mind. The mind is evolution’s pinnacle. Sentience is extraordinarily rare in this universe. It must be cherished and protected at all costs.”

  “Good to know we agree on that.”

  “Would you consider coming with us, Yuri Alster?”

  “I don’t know. Anything is possible, I suppose,” he replied diplomatically.

  “I will pray for you, Yuri Alster,” Hai-3 said. “And I urge you to consider what we can offer. Sentient species are the children of this universe, the reason it exists. It is our destiny to travel to the conclusion and join together in bliss and fulfillment with the final God.”

  “I see.” He almost said it, almost asked: What about steady state theory? Human cosmologists were now almost convinced that the universe was eternal—that the idea of a trillion-year cyclic state, of Big Bang origins and Big Crunch collapses, was no longer valid. So why do the Olyix think it’s going to end? But he had a job to do. “You have given me a lot to consider. For that I thank you.”

  Another ripple wound its way around Hai-3’s midsection. “You are most welcome. And I consider it an act of friendship on my part to extend our help to you with this unpleasant case you are working on. To devote yourself to the recovery of others less fortunate is an honorable calling.”

  Yuri hoped the Olyix couldn’t pick up on the flash of guilt he felt. “I do what I can.” And what Ainsley Zangari wants.

  “Your dedication is to be commended. I will pray for your success in recovering the unfortunate man who has been abducted.”

  Yuri gave the alien a level stare. “You are most kind. Your help eliminating one line of inquiry has been very beneficial for me. Thank you.” He steeled himself and shook hands with Hai-3 again. This time he didn’t flinch; anger allowed him to k
eep a tight rein on his reactions.

  * * *

  —

  “Baptiste Devroy was not in his flat,” Boris informed Yuri as soon as he was back out on Geneva’s streets.

  “Shit. Where is he?”

  “He deactivated his altme and left the flat at ten fifty-seven this morning. Civic surveillance shows him getting into a cabez, which was requested by Dawn Mongomerie, his current girlfriend. The tactical team are backtracking it.”

  “Ten fifty-seven,” Yuri mused. “Interesting coincidence; that’s about when we started looking for Horatio. Where was I then?”

  “At Horatio’s flat on Eleanor Road.”

  “Fuck it, they were watching to see if anyone noticed he’d gone! And then Jessika and I turned up, Connexion security officers. They must have started shitting themselves.” He called Jessika. “I hope you’ve made progress. They know we’re coming.”

  “How the hell do they know that?” she demanded.

  “Best guess, they were watching Horatio’s flat. Baptiste Devroy is running; the tactical team is on his arse, but there’s no guarantee when they’ll catch up with him.”

  “Well, you’re in luck. I’ve got a promising lead here.”

  “Good. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.” He called Poi Li as he entered the Connexion hub.

  “What’s happening?” she asked. “I see the tactical team missed Baptiste Devroy.”

  “Whoever snatched Horatio knows we’re searching for him, which is bad. I’m concerned they’ll cut and run.”

  “Then you have to find him fast.”

  “No shit!”

  “Is he on Althaea?”

  “I really hope so, because that’s my only lead left.”

  “All right, do whatever you have to.”

  “There’s a tactical team already there, supporting Jessika. It may get noisy.”

  “Althaea’s barely been awarded its settlement certificate. It’s a world without value. Nobody cares what happens there.”

  “You’ll cover for me?”

  “With our history, I’m insulted you asked.”

  Yuri grinned. “One more thing.”

  “What are you, a Columbo wannabe?”

  “A what?”

  “Old fictional detective. Ask your friend Karno Larsen.”

  “Whatever. I need to run something by you, and tell me if I’m being paranoid.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  “You’re a major criminal gang, or one of Ainsley’s rivals.”

  “Connexion doesn’t have rivals.”

  “Envious small-timers. You know: the Brazilian SolarWell consortium. Someone who has the resources and patience to run a long con. Humor me here, please.”

  “Have I ever not?”

  “Then this is how you operate. You find out Gwendoline is Ainsley’s granddaughter and do your research. You create a flawless legend: Horatio and his whole family. Hell, maybe a dozen Horatios, to bump your chances. Then you drop him into place—a place where you know Gwendoline will meet him. And of course she falls for him big time, because they’ve matched him perfectly. He spends the next two years romancing her, and they marry. He tells her how she maybe should take a job with Connexion after all. She does, and works her way up the family ladder, which is a much shorter route to the executive level than anyone without Zangari blood. Zam-bam-thank-you-ma’am. It’s taken fifteen years, but you now have access to the highest level of Connexion—finance, strategy—and the power to influence same. That’s got to be a worthwhile investment for people like that.”

  “All right, I’m playing. So why pull him away?”

  He flinched. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Because he’s a tart with a heart, and really, really fell for her?”

  Yuri hadn’t known that venomous level of sarcasm could carry across a solnet link. “No. I’ve come across something seriously wrong about this; I need to tell you about it in person.”

  “Yuri, a G7Turing would have trouble hacking this encryption.”

  “So color me paranoid.”

  There was only a short pause, but with Poi Li that was significant. “Okay.”

  “And in the meantime, run a full check on Horatio. Not just a G7Turing data mine; if he was put into place, his controllers will know we’d do that at some point. Go deeper. Maybe send someone you trust to physically interview his parents, get DNA samples and check them against residuals in his flat, talk to his school friends, his teachers, see if they have any memories of him as a boy. If he was planted, his controllers won’t be able to cover everything. I want to know if he’s real, Poi.”

  “All right, Yuri. Leave it with me.”

  “Thank you. I’m stepping into the Althaea hub now. I’ll call you as soon as I have something.”

  * * *

  —

  The frontier town of Bronkal only warranted twenty-five Connexion hubs and a single commercial transport hub. It was a small town on the edge of the Estroth plains, a flatland plateau that extended for nearly two thousand kilometers before dropping sharply into the sea. It was that unbroken level ground that swung the decision to terraform in Althaea’s favor.

  Pollux, as a K0 orange-giant star, wasn’t the obvious choice for a human world. But it did have a gas-supergiant planet, Thestias, which in turn had forty-eight moons. Four of the larger ones, Althaea, Pleuron, Iphicles, and Leda, were caught in a rosette orbit in the Lagrange-2 point, forever drifting around each other in Thestias’s umbra. In most cases, being caged within a supergiant planet’s shade would be a gloomy existence, but not when Thestias orbited a mere 1.6 AUs out from an orange giant. The reduced sunlight striking Althaea’s surface was as intense as midday on Earth’s tropics. Conjunctions with its L-2 co-moons provided a regular variable day-night cycle as it passed between their shadows.

  It was midday between Pleuron-conjunction and Leda-conjunction (eighteen hours of light) when Yuri stepped out of the hub on Esola Street in the middle of town. He exhaled sharply. Compared to this humidity, London had been practically arctic. The monotonous carbon and glass buildings stretched out along the street with geometrical precision. Palm trees provided some shade along the cracked concrete pavements, but not much; they were swaying about from the surprisingly fast gusts of wind sweeping along the street. Few people were walking in the sweltering daylight, and even fewer cycled; the road itself was mainly occupied with single-occupant cabez and larger taxez humming along the shimmering asphalt, along with commercial vehicles rumbling between them. It was like a scene from the mid-twenty-first century, Yuri thought.

  Boris connected to the local net, and twenty seconds later a three-wheeled cabez pulled up in the broad strip of empty concrete to one side of the hub. Yuri climbed in and sat down on the narrow seat, thankful for the AC vents blasting cool air into the tiny transparent bubble. He always agreed with the saying that you wore a cabez rather than rode one.

  It drove forward, taking him quickly through the town’s depressing grid of near-identical buildings, their panel walls mass-fabricated in an industrial estate on the outskirts. There was nothing else to see on the ground, no vista of the vast marshlands stretching out beyond the town’s docks. That didn’t bother him; on Althaea, the view was all about the sky.

  Pleuron’s orbit had already dropped it below Althaea’s horizon, while Leda was now rising to the zenith—an airless cratered world with its vast silver-gray mares laced with glowing lava streams. Massive tectonic activity was constantly rearranging its geography, rendering mapping an irrelevance. And beyond that, dominating the apex of the bright azure sky, was the awesome globe of Thestias itself: a circle of darkness crowned by a blazing halo of golden light created by its perpetual eclipse of Pollux. The glowing edges illuminated fast-moving white and carmine clouds, their swirling kinesis producing the bizarre optical i
llusion that they were somehow spilling over the edge of a hole in space to flow down into its black heart. An optical illusion that made it seem as if Althaea was also falling toward the gas supergiant’s eternal nightside. Locals called it the Eye of God.

  Yuri shivered, shaking off the giddiness the sight conjured up. The cabez took him to a commercial block on Nightingale Avenue. He walked into the reception, and Boris directed him along one wing to the office suite Jessika had rented forty minutes earlier. The rooms backed onto a small warehouse where the tactical team had parked their farm truck. The team’s captain, Lucius Soćko, had brought a thirty-centimeter portal inside a briefcase, which they’d threaded up in the warehouse. The rest of his team was coming through the two-meter portal door, along with equipment and specialist mission support operators.

  Lucius was in the main office standing behind Jessika, who had taken her pink jacket off to sit at a desk with several new electronic modules. Yuri hadn’t encountered the captain before, but the file Boris was spraying across his tarsus lenses spoke of good work. You didn’t get to his level in Connexion Security without being competent. One thing the file hadn’t prepared him for was seeing Lucius’s arm around Jessika’s shoulders.

  “What have you got for me?” Yuri asked.

  Jessika looked around, smiling as Lucius quickly stood up straight. “I still haven’t managed to trace the Tarazzi van in the docks,” she said. “However, we have no record of it driving away again through the commercial transport hub after it delivered Horatio. It’s probably still there.”

  “They will have reregistered it,” Yuri said bluntly. “Probably within ten minutes of it arriving.”

  “There have only been seven similar vans departing Bronkal since then,” she countered. “All of them legitimate.”

  “These guys are professional,” Yuri said uncertainly.