Children of Time

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  But not all of it. Some of it appeared now to be keeping Guyen alive.

  He sat on the steps before the uploader, as though he was a steward awaiting a vanished king, or a priest before a throne fit only for the celestial. But he was steward and king both, minister of his own divinity.

  His appearance was plain proof that the ragged cult he had surrounded himself with was still capable of working with the Gil’s technology, most especially the medical bay. Guyen sat there quite naturally, as though at any moment he might get up and go off for a stroll. But just as the upload facility was threaded through with connections to the ship, so was Guyen. He wore robes that lay open over a shipsuit that seemed to have been patched together from several older garments, but none of it hid the fact that two thick, ridged tubes had been shunted up under his ribs, and that one of the machines beside him seemed to be doing his breathing for him, its flaccid, rubbery sacs rising and falling calmly. A handful of thinner pipes issued from just past his left collarbone, like the flowering bodies of some fungal infection, before running into the mess of medical devices, and presumably cleansing his blood. It was all familiar to Holsten from back home, and he was aware that the Gil must store equipment like this for the extension of life in extreme cases. He had not expected to witness an extreme case, though. He was the oldest man in existence, after all, and if anyone was going to need this stuff, it would be him.

  Guyen was an extreme case. Guyen had beaten him to that title by a comfortable margin. Lain had said he was old, but Holsten had not really processed the concept. He had thought he knew what ‘old’ meant. Guyen was old.

  The commander’s skin was a shade of grey Holsten had never seen before, bagged and wrinkled about his face where his cheeks and eye sockets had sunk in. Those almost-hidden eyes did not seem to focus, and Holsten was suddenly sure that somewhere there was a machine that was seeing for Guyen as well, as though the man had just started outsourcing his biology wholesale.

  ‘Commander.’ Absurdly, Holsten felt a curious reverence creeping in on him as he spoke, as though he was about to be born again into Guyen’s ridiculous cult. The man’s sheer antiquity placed him beyond the realm of human affairs, and instead into that of the classicist.

  Guyen’s lips twitched, and a voice came from somewhere amid that nest of botched technology.

  ‘Who is it? Is it Mason?’ It was not Guyen’s voice, particularly. It was not really anyone’s voice, but something dreamt up by a computer that thought it was being clever.

  ‘Commander, it’s me, Holsten Mason.’

  The mechanical sound that followed was not encouraging, as though Guyen’s reaction was too foul-minded for his mechanical translator to pass on. Holsten was suddenly reminded that the commander had never particularly liked him.

  ‘I see you’ve got the uploader . . .’ Holsten petered out. He had no idea what the uploader was doing.

  ‘No thanks to you,’ Guyen croaked. Abruptly he stood up, some sort of servos or exoskeleton lifting him bonelessly to his feet and perching him there incongruously, almost on his toes. ‘Running off with your slut. I might have known I couldn’t depend on you.’

  ‘All the travelling I’ve been doing since your clowns woke me up has been entirely the idea of other people,’ Holsten shot back hotly. ‘But, seriously, you don’t expect me to ask questions, given what I’ve seen here? You’ve had people just . . . what, living out their lives here over the last hundred years? You’ve set yourself up like some kind of crazy god-emperor and conned all those poor bastards into being your slaves.’

  ‘Crazy, is it?’ For a moment Holsten thought Guyen would rush at him, pulling all those tubes out of himself on the way, but then the old man seemed to deflate a little. ‘Yes, well, I can see how it might look crazy. It was the only way, though. There was so much work. I couldn’t just burn through Science and Engineering, using up their lives like I’ve used up my own.’

  ‘But . . .’ Holsten waved a hand towards the cluttered mass of machinery at Guyen’s back. ‘How can this even happen? Okay, the uploader, it’s old tech. It’s going to need fixing up, troubleshooting, testing – that much I understand. But not a century of it, Guyen. How can you have been doing this for so long, and got nowhere?’

  ‘This?’ Guyen spluttered. ‘You think the uploader took all that time?’

  ‘Well, no I . . . yes . . .’ Holsten frowned, wrong-footed. ‘What did, then?’

  ‘I’ve gone over the whole damn ship, Holsten. The drive’s been upgraded, the system security, the hull shielding. I’d say you’d not recognize the specs of the Gilgamesh – if I thought you had any idea what they looked like before.’

  ‘But . . .’ Holsten waved his hands as if trying to encompass the magnitude of what the other man was saying. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we’re going to war, and it’s important that we are ready for it when we arrive.’

  ‘To war with . . .’ sudden understanding struck. ‘With Kern? With the satellite?’

  ‘Yes!’ spat Guyen, his lips quivering, the artificial sound of the single word far grander than anything he could surely make on his own. ‘Because we’ve seen it now: the ice worlds, and that grey abomination we’ve left behind. And then there’s the green planet, the life planet, the planet our ancestors made for us, and we all thought the same when we saw that: we thought: “That’s going to be our home.” And it is! We’ll go back and take out the satellite, and we’ll finally be able to stop journeying. And then what you see here, that so offends you with how unnatural it is, all these people living and breeding, that will be right again. Normal service will resume. The human race can pick up at last, after a hiatus of two thousand years. Isn’t that something to strive for?’

  Holsten nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I . . . I suppose it is.’

  ‘And when that’s all done – after I’ve worked a generation of specialists from cargo to death, Mason! To death from sheer old age! After I’ve taken their descendants and had them taught, and brought them in on my vision – brought them up on it! – and then prepared ourselves to defend against the satellite’s weapons and its attacks, why would I not go back to the upload facility and try to get it to work? Do you think any of this would have happened without me? Do you understand how important having a single vision is? This isn’t something to delegate to some committee; this is the survival of the human race. And I’m old, Mason. I’ve worked nobody harder than I’ve worked myself, and I’m on the brink of collapse, every scrap of medicine we have is needed just to keep my organs working, and it’s still not done, it’s not finished. I need to see it through. I’m going to upload myself into the machine, Mason. It’s the only way I have of being sure.’

  ‘You want to be immortal.’ It had been intended as an accusation but it came out as something else, something with a hint of respect.

  There was a ghastly choking sound, and for a moment Holsten thought that Guyen was actually dying. But no: he was laughing.

  ‘You think that’s what this is? Mason, I’m dying. The uploader doesn’t change that. The “me” I live inside will die. And soon – before we see the green planet again. I can’t even go back to the coffins now. There’s no way I’d ever wake up. But now that I’ve got the uploader working, I can preserve a copy of me, to make sure things work out. I’m not some mad dictator, Holsten. I’m not some crazy man with delusions of divinity. I was given this task: to shepherd humanity to its new home. There’s nothing more important than that. Not my life, not yours.’

  Holsten realized unhappily that his own moral compass was spinning by now. ‘Lain thinks you’ll wreck the Gil’s systems, if you try that. She says there are copies of your test subjects running riot through the software.’

  ‘I’m my own test subject,’ Guyen growled. ‘Anything in the system is just cast-offs of me. But none of them worked. None of them were me – not enough of me. But what little work I could squeeze out of you before you went gallivanting has served. Perhaps that’s irony. It’s r
eady now. I can complete an upload, and then it doesn’t matter if I die. When I die, it won’t matter. And as for Lain, Vitas doesn’t think it’ll destroy the computer. Vitas wants me to do it.’

  On Holsten’s list of reassuring things to say, that phrase did not feature. ‘Lain seems pretty sure it’s going to be a bad thing.’

  ‘Lain doesn’t know. Lain thinks small; she lacks dedication.’ Guyen glowered, his face screwing up like a piece of paper. ‘Only I can plan long enough to save us, Mason. That’s why they chose me.’

  Holsten stared up at him. The guards were some distance back, and it came to him that he could leap on decrepit old Guyen and just start pulling things out until nature took its course. And also that he had no intention of doing so.

  ‘Then why did you grab me back, if you didn’t need me?’

  Guyen took a few stalking, mechanical steps, pulled up by the leash of his life-support. ‘You’re our star historian, aren’t you? Well, now you get to do the other part of your job, Mason. You get to write the histories. When they tell each other how we came to live on that green world, that other Earth, I want them to tell it right. So tell it right. Tell them what we did, Mason. Write it down. What we do here creates the future, the only possible future that will see our species survive.’

  5.6 RESOURCE WAR

  The spider city states operate a variety of mining concerns, but they themselves do not dig. They have insects for that: one of the tasks that comes more naturally to the ant colonies they use in so many different ways. For centuries there has been enough for all, since spider technology is not metal-heavy, and the organic chemicals more important to them are fabricated from the common building blocks of life itself.

  This is where it starts.

  An ant from a colony run by Seven Trees is now making its way deeper into a set of galleries at some distance from the city itself. Its colony extends all around it – the mine workings are its home, and its siblings’ excavations just a modified form of the same tunnelling they would use to expand their nest. True, much of the colony extends into solid rock, and the ants use modern techniques to conquer that element. Their mandibles are fitted with metal picks, assisted by a selection of acids and other substances to weaken the stone. The colony plans its own mine, including drainage and ventilation to make the place a conducive workplace for the hundreds of blind miners who toil there.

  This particular ant is exploring for new seams of copper within the rock. The metal ore leaves traces that its sensitive antennae can detect, and it gnaws and works patiently where a trace is strongest, digging inch by inch towards the next deposit.

  This time, instead, it suddenly breaks through into another tunnel.

  There is a moment of baffled indecision as the digger teeters on the brink, trying to process this new and unexpected information. After that, scent and touch have built up a sufficient picture of its surroundings. The message is clear: other ants have been here recently, ants belonging to an unknown colony. Barring other conditioning, unknown colonies are enemies by default. The ant spreads the alarm immediately, and then goes forth to investigate. Soon enough it encounters the miners of the other colony and, outnumbered, is swiftly killed. No matter: its siblings are right behind it, summoned by its alert. A cramped, vicious fight takes place, with no quarter given by either side. Neither colony has received instructions from its spider masters to cross this particular line in the sand, but nature will take its course.

  The second colony, that had literally undermined the Seven Trees workings, has been sent out by Great Nest to seek for new sources of copper. Shortly thereafter, centuries of diplomacy begin to break down.

  Since contact with the Messenger was first established, metals consumption has increased exponentially in an attempt to keep up with the complex blueprints that form the Divine Plan. Those cities like Great Nest that are most fervent in pursuing God’s design must push outwards constantly. Supply cannot keep up with demand unless new mines are opened – or appropriated.

  Consequently, more mining works are being contested between rival colonies. Elsewhere, caravans of mineral wealth fail to reach their proper destination. In a few cases entire mining colonies are uprooted, driven away or suborned. Those who lose out are all relatively small cities, and none of them strong adherents of the message. A storm of diplomacy follows, amidst considerable uncertainty as to what has actually happened. Open conflict between spider cities is almost unknown, since every city is bound to its neighbours by hundreds of ties. There are struggles for dominance but thus far in their history, the point has always been that there must be something to be dominant over. Perhaps it is due to the nanovirus still working towards unity between those that bear its particular mark of Cain. Perhaps it is simply that the descendants of Portia labiata have developed a worldview in which open brute conflict is best avoided.

  All this will change.

  Eventually, when the truth becomes sufficiently evident to all parties, the transmitters of Great Nest issue an ultimatum to its weaker neighbours. It denounces them as straying from the purity of the message, and claims for itself the right to take whatever steps it must, to put into effect the will of God. Transmissions from the Messenger, though always obscure and open to interpretation, are taken to endorse Great Nest’s proclamation. Slowly at first, and then more and more rapidly, this outright division spreads from local differences into a global fragmentation of ideology. Some faithful cities have thrown in their lot with Great Nest’s vision, whilst others – distant others – have set up rival claims based on different interpretations of the Messenger’s commands. Certain cities that had already begun to turn away from the message have pledged support to those cities that Great Nest has threatened, but those cities themselves are not united in their response. Other cities have declared independence and neutrality, some even severing all contact with the outside world. Sister conflicts have sparked up between states which perhaps have always rubbed along with a little too much friction, always jostling for leg room, for food, for living space.

  At the disputed mining sites, many of which have changed hands several times by this point, Great Nest sends in dedicated troops. Another task that ant colonies will perform without special conditioning is to fight unfamiliar ants, and a mining colony is no match for an invading army column equipped with special castes and technologies. In two months of hard warfare, not a spider has died, but their insect servants have been slaughtered in their thousands.

  Great Nest can draw upon a vastly larger and more coordinated army than its opponents and one that is better designed and bred for war, but those first months are still inconclusive. When Portia and her fellows gather together to review their progress, they are faced with an unwanted revelation.

  We had thought to find matters settled, Portia considers, listening to her peers weave together their next moves: a sequence of steps that will lead them to . . . where? When the original actions over the disputed mining sites were agreed, their purpose had seemed very plain. They all knew they were in the right. The Messenger’s will must be done, and they needed copper in great quantities – copper that Seven Trees and the other apostate cities would have little use for, save to trade to Great Nest at a ruinous cost. So: seize the mines; that had been a simple aim in itself, and it has been accomplished relatively quickly and efficiently, all things considered.

  And yet it seems that building the future is never so simple. Each thread always leads to another, and there is no easy way to stop spinning. Already Portia’s agents in Seven Trees and the other cities know that Great Nest’s enemies are building and training forces to take back the mines, and perhaps to do even more. Meanwhile, the peer group magnates of her enemies are engaging in similar debates over what is to be done. Every council has its extremists who push for more than mere restitution. Abruptly, to call for moderation is to seem weak.

  All around Portia, there are those saying that more must be done to secure Great Nest from its new-minted enemies,
and thereby to secure the will of their divine creator. They are performing that oldest of tricks: constructing a path by which to reach a destination, only in this case the destination is permanent security. With each step they take towards it, that security recedes. And, with each step they take, the cost of progressing towards such security grows, and the actions required to move forward become more and more extreme.

  Where will it end? Portia wonders, but she cannot bring herself to voice her doubts. An ugly mood has come to the web-walled chamber. Great Nest has its spies in other cities, individuals and whole peer groups who have been bought or who are sympathetic to the dominant city’s ideology. Equally, those other cities will have their agents in Great Nest. Previously, this interconnectedness of cities has always been a virtue, a way of life. Now it is a cause for suspicion, straining the bonds between peer groups, awakening division and distrust.

  Nothing is being decided here, so she heads for Temple. It seems plain to her that guidance is needed.

  She transmits as good a report of the situation, and her concerns, as she can, knowing that, while her speech to the Messenger will be private, God’s response will be received by anyone listening on Great Nest’s frequency – which will certainly include some residing in Seven Trees.

  The record of the Messenger in dispensing practical advice is not good, as Portia is painfully aware. She knows she cannot expect something so much grander than her to spare much consideration for the lowly affairs of Her creations. God is intent on Her machines that will apparently solve many problems, not least that of the maddeningly imperfect communication between the Messenger and those She has set below Her.