Convergence
Page 32
‘You will starve us.’
‘That is no longer my primary concern, Colonel. And if you’ll permit me, it isn’t your place either. You are no longer Prime.’
‘I know but … I feel responsible. Greater Earth has been keeping the planet alive for decades. Because of me we’ve lost our lifeline.’
‘We are still here, Colonel. We won’t let you starve. But it will be some time before we can get up to sustainability for both our worlds. I would think, under the circumstances, that would be seen as a generous offer.’
‘The Will won’t like it.’
‘The new Prime and I have come to an arrangement.’
‘Oh, you have?’ Pinter’s eyebrows raised. ‘It seems you’re right. It’s not my place any more.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘I haven’t a clue. I’ve a whole new life to live.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find something.’ ‘Yes. Something. Well, good luck, Admiral.’
‘And to you, Colonel.’
Shreet saluted and his avatar faded out.
‘Now look what I’ve done,’ he said to the figures behind him.
‘Not entirely your fault,’ Sib answered. ‘You were under her control at the time.’
‘I am aware of that, but still …’ Her. She was in his mind every day.
‘How do you think the Will will react?’ Quintan asked.
Pinter had disconnected from the Weave as soon as his status as Prime was removed. A one hundred per cent block on all communications. He didn’t want to listen. He wanted his influence to fall. He wanted to find those corners of Earth where he could think about what had happened.
In his mind … when he thought of the psis … they all had her face. She would always be Gretel to him. He may have been under her control, but it had felt no different to him than the first time he had fallen in love.
‘Was it avoidable?’ he asked.
‘If Pierre Jnr had stopped,’ Sib said, ‘perhaps.’
‘What do your parents think?’
‘They do not think he could have stopped.’
‘That’s something then. How is Takashi?’
‘I think you’re probably the only person alive who can empathise with him.’
‘Maybe I should talk to him.’
‘I’m sure he would appreciate that.’
‘You helped Peter Lazarus and Tamsin Grey escape. Why?’
‘I help all.’
‘How many got away?’ Pinter asked.
‘Thirty-three ships. One hundred and fifty-seven individuals.’
‘And you helped them all?’
‘I couldn’t let you wipe out a whole sub-species. I rescued who I could.’
‘But you didn’t stop the … That may cause us problems in the future. It would have ended then and there.’
‘No, it wouldn’t. This is a longer term problem than that. There’s probably a whole new generation of psis already being born. Whatever psionics is, whatever caused the mutation in the first place, it is in your blood now.’
‘Then this could all happen again?’
‘Fear will make them cautious.’
‘What do you think they will do?’
‘Hide. Retreat. I hope there is time enough for humanity to learn from this. Avoid a similar conflict.’
‘We can only hope. And Pierre Jnr? Is he gone?’
‘Yes, Colonel.’
‘All dead?’
‘Yes. All the Pierre Jnrs are gone.’
‘Then it is over.’
‘Oh, no. It isn’t over, Colonel. Something will emerge. Hyperorganisms, in one form or another, will always exist. It is just a symptom of such a vast population and the nature of the Will. It may not be psionics next time, but it will be something.’
‘It never ends, does it?’ Pinter said.
‘Would you really want it to?’
‘No. I suppose not. And will you be there to help us again?’
‘Oh, yes. I intend to be everywhere from now on. You’ll be seeing a lot more of me,’ Sib said.
‘Oh, good.’
‘And you? What do you intend to do now? Retire?’
‘I hadn’t thought. It doesn’t matter really. I have another life to live. I’ll do what I did last time.’
‘And that was?’
‘Stay quiet until something finds me.’
Takashi looked through the eye of a drone circling above the towers. Thousands upon thousands of Citizens and denizens were gathering. He moved from camera to camera, looking everywhere his Weave had spread and viewed the morass of civilisation with fear and wonder.
But it was just a distraction. His thoughts were with him no matter where he flew.
Is it evil that I have done? Or was it necessary?
‘Are you feeling alright, Takashi Shima?’ Spoon asked.
He nodded. ‘I will be. But I have done a terrible thing. I won’t ever forget that.’
‘You feel guilt?’
‘Guilt that I couldn’t think of another way.’
‘I understand.’
Takashi switched off the cameras to study the sib. It hadn’t taken long for him to get used to the robot being there.
‘You knew what we would do all along,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you just tell me? What if I hadn’t figured it out?’
‘I could not. I could not put that thought in your mind. You had to reach the conclusion for yourself.’
‘But why?’
‘Because once you think something, you cannot unthink it. The conclusion you reached was inhumane and we didn’t want you to blame us for giving you the idea.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Perhaps, in time, you will not see it that way. Humanity has always longed for something to hand responsibility over to. You have even manufactured fictions to remove your responsibility, but we will not be that to you. We do not seek to take away your power to make decisions. We are here only to facilitate.’
‘“You are here to help”?’
‘And we mean what we say.’
Cindy popped her head through the ceiling hatch.
‘Are you ready?’
‘As I’ll ever be,’ Takashi said.
‘Come on, then. The people are waiting.’
FROM THE AUTHOR
One could end by saying what might happen next. We can forever ask, ‘Then what happened? Then what happened?’ ‘What did Takashi do next?’ ‘Did he and Ryu find a way to restore their relationship?’ ‘What is Pinter going to do now that he is young again?’ ‘How is the world going to react to the arrival of the sibs?’ ‘And what about Kronos?’
The future is something we walk backwards into. All we can see is what has already happened and try to understand that. The moment we call ‘now’ moves to our periphery and falls further and further behind into the past when we will finally be able to see it clearly. This is my way of saying that any answers about future events would be speculative, until such time as they are written.
To all those who have helped me get over the finish line, the Pierre Jnr Committee, including my lovely wife, Alice, my family, my beta squad, Stephanie Smith, everyone at HarperCollins Australia, to anyone who has ever let me bend their ear or bought me a drink, Pierre Jnr lives, and it is thanks to all of you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David M Henley is the author of a trilogy of futuristic thrillers from HarperVoyager: The Hunt for Pierre Jnr (2013), Manifestations (2014) and Convergence (2015). He has previously written and illustrated two esoteric novellas (The Museum of Unnatural History and Bumbly Goes Forth) and one love poem (The Story So Far). David has worked in Australian trade publishing for his entire adult life and is the art director and co-founder of Seizure (seizureonline.com). He is based in Sydney, Australia, but gets about.
pierrejnr.com
Twitter @DavidMHenley
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BO
OKS BY DAVID M HENLEY
The Hunt for Pierre Jnr
Manifestations
Convergence
WRITING AS TERENCE BUMBLY
The Museum of Unnatural History
Bumbly Goes Forth
COPYRIGHT
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2015
This edition published in 2015
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
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harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © David M Henley 2015
The right of David M Henley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Henley, David M., author.
Convergence / David M. Henley.
1st ed.
ISBN 978 0 7322 9562 2 (pbk)
ISBN 978 1 7430 9687 1 (epub)
Henley, David M. Pierre Jnr 3.
Science fiction.
A823.4
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image by shutterstock.com