Xeelee: Vengeance

by Stephen Baxter

  ‘But the wormholes will change all that. We’re predicting growth rates more like colonial-era America. I mean, somewhere well over two per cent. In two hundred years you could have a population of billions in space. All enabled by our wormholes.’

  Nicola laughed. ‘Are you serious? You’ve only built one trial wormhole so far—’

  ‘Two, actually,’ Poole said.

  ‘There’s another?’

  ‘We have an installation orbiting Mercury. Another of our conceptual schemes. We’re going to drop a wormhole mouth into the Sun.’

  Nicola gaped. ‘Why in Lethe would you do that?’

  Poole grinned. ‘Partly for science – to study what’s in there – you could use the wormhole as a refrigeration channel to protect a deep-entry craft. We call the project the Sun Probe. But the main goal is energy extraction. Through a wormhole, you could just pump out solar heat to anywhere in the System. Like miniature, portable stars, hanging out there in the dark. Moor it to a Kuiper Object and you have a graving yard for starships.’

  Almost reluctantly, Nicola admitted, ‘OK. That’s a neat idea.’

  Harry snorted. ‘We’re playing for the future. Billions of people in space. You hesitate, you lose. Lethe, no, we’re not going to wait.’

  Nicola glanced at Michael. ‘Your father’s either a genius or insane.’

  ‘He’s a Poole. And we’re about to arrive at another family folly . . .’

  Gea was waiting to meet them at the foot of the Goonhilly Mound.

  The Mound was generally considered a masterpiece of cautious mid-Recovery-era architecture. When it had been built – initially serving as the seat of a British regional parliament – the relic antenna park at its feet, an emblem of an earlier space age, was already six hundred years old. But to a modern eye the Mound itself was a much stranger sight than those more ancient structures. Poole knew that travellers from Africa, for example, always immediately likened the building to a huge termite mound. And that was no coincidence.

  Tall, slim, its exterior was smoothed over with an oddly contoured texture, as if it had been moulded from wet clay – its substance was actually based on nanotubes of carbon, strong and light. Inside, once Gea had them waved through security, Nicola gaped at lofty chambers with sculpted roofs, and shining floors across which walked UN senators and their aides. All this was soaked in a gentle light – nothing more than sunlight, Poole knew, filtered through walls that were as translucent as fine porcelain, though tinged green by layered panels containing blue-green algae, busily photosynthesising, eating carbon, producing energy.

  But Nicola was soon distracted by the people, as usual. Sober, slow-moving delegates in floor-length gowns, black with silver inlays and stylised hoods.

  ‘They keep staring at you, Michael,’ Nicola said. ‘I guess they’re going to know all about you and your wormhole buddies. But – there, see that guy? – he looked at you, then looked away.’

  Harry grunted. ‘They’re a pack of snobs in here, is what they are. Always been the same – you can read it in our ancestors’ diaries, Michael – the political and moneyed classes have always looked down on mere engineers. Even though we’re the ones who built the world.’

  Gea demurred. ‘That’s a very partial point of view, Harry. My reading of history is that there has always been a tension between those who would build things, and those who would seek to oversee on behalf of the public good. In fact, as you will see today, a new UN Oversight panel has already been established, if on a rather ad hoc basis, to monitor the unfolding situation following on from your wormhole dramas. You have to see it as a compliment that they chose to come hold a General Assembly meeting here, at this famous Poole family monument, instead of one of the more traditional meeting places, in New York or New Geneva. In politics, symbolism can be everything.’

  Poole said, ‘Yet here I am in person, and they aren’t so much as looking at me.’

  Harry shook his head. ‘When they figure out what they want to do with you, believe me, they’ll look at you.’

  Nicola wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, personally I just want to go figure out somewhere to eat. But there’s a smell in here that’s putting me off. And is there a breeze? Maybe the air conditioning is faulty.’

  ‘There is no air conditioning,’ Gea said. ‘Not in the sense you mean. In this building the flows of air, moisture, energy are organic – natural.’

  Poole murmured, ‘Think termite mound.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  Gea said, ‘The whole point of the design is that humanity should fit once more into the natural flows of energy and matter on the planet – and by the time the Mound was constructed the experience of successful colonies on worlds like Mars had taught us a lot about how to build in a resource-constrained environment.

  ‘Hence, a building like a termite mound. There is no air conditioning – no traditional technology of that sort, no pumps and fans. Instead, convection drives air through the walls, which are porous – the whole building is like a tremendous lung. And the heat which drives that convection comes primarily from the fungus farms in the basement levels, where, incidentally, much of the food you’ll eat here is produced. Already nearly a millennium old, functioning as well as when it was designed – and aspects of it have served as models for the architecture of Towers around the planet.’ She smiled, calm. ‘And I was here at the opening, by its designer, Lilian Poole. Quite a day.’

  Harry grunted. ‘Well, Lilian has her plaque in the Princess Elizabeth Land mausoleum like the rest of them. But she doesn’t deserve it. Not in my eyes. Pooles are about changing the world. Not living like some mindless insect in a hive.’

  Gea said enigmatically, ‘A shame you can’t ask Michael’s distant uncle George about that.’

  A distant chime sounded.

  ‘The sessions are resuming,’ Gea said.

  ‘Good,’ Harry said grimly. ‘Time to go to work. Politics . . .’

  12

  After a rest stop at their quarters, Gea guided the visitors to a meeting room in the building’s subterranean levels, where they were shepherded into a kind of viewing room, walled off by soundproof glass.

  UN General Assembly representatives, in person or as Virtual avatars, had already gathered in a main chamber that appeared a traditional setup to Poole, with semicircular banks of benches. The session’s speaker stood at a central podium, a woman dressed in silver-black robes and hood, as were the rest of the delegates. The discussion was ongoing, and voices murmured softly in Poole’s ear with offers of translation options.

  Gea listened to the conversation for a moment. She was, after all, an artificial sentient, Poole reflected; even as a few words from a single delegate trickled into Poole’s own ear, Gea could be consulting volumes of transcripts, cross-references and ancillary evidence.

  At length she said, ‘They’re discussing policing options. Every time we have a crisis the same issue comes up: to what extent we need to expand the core of trained police operatives in the Federal Service . . .’

  Poole understood the principle of Federal Service – and knew also about the debates that had surrounded it, probably since the system had been inaugurated, when the last of the world’s armies had been disbanded centuries before. It was the duty of all citizens under the UN – thus all human beings born anywhere in the Solar System – to donate some of their time to the Federal Service, from which huge pool were drawn volunteers for the police forces, various peacekeeping functions, and the ongoing curation of Earth itself. Some professions gained you exemption, such as expertise in medicine. And of course for the influential and rich there were always opt-outs. Poole himself had ignored that, but in his late teens had accepted Harry’s assistance in getting a placement in disaster recovery and trauma medicine, skills he imagined would become useful in the course of his own career.

  The most important single ag
ency was the Federal Police, a global force unified under the UN – and thus the only officially sanctioned quasi-military force in existence. Now, Poole learned, trying to follow the debate, the questions before the Assembly included a motion that perhaps a fully trained, permanently staffed military force, or at least the core of one, ought to be instituted.

  ‘Good,’ Harry growled.

  ‘Of course we ought to have an army,’ Nicola said, for once agreeing with Harry.

  Poole wondered vaguely where she had done her Federal Service. He said, ‘There’s no “of course” about it. Earth has seen nothing like a war since—’

  Harry said, ‘Nobody’s talking of waging war, a human war. But we do appear to face a possible threat from this bunch of alien species. Wouldn’t it be better to have a trained militia ready before we need it? Why, the big armed nation-states of the Anthropocene would have done a better job of facing down this threat than we have so far. The right mind-set, you see.’

  Gea said, ‘Seeing conflict where none yet exists? This is the language used about the issue by some of our more, ah, paranoid delegates.’

  Nicola snorted. ‘He blew up the Wormhole Ghost, remember. How paranoid was that? Paranoid, or calculating, Harry?’

  Harry ignored her, and faced Poole. ‘This is politics, son. Like I told you, I’m here to argue that we can’t let this sideshow about aliens deflect the wormhole programme. And if it would reassure these kooks to have a bunch of Federal cops put on body armour and call themselves a militia, let them have it, I say.’

  Gea laughed, a tinkling sound – not quite authentic, Poole thought, but none the less charming for it. ‘Typical of you, Harry, if I may say so – if not of the Pooles I have known. But you may have a point.’ She moved forward, so she stood between Poole and Nicola as they looked down on the assembly. ‘The outcome of the debate is uncertain. You know, the UN is the sole survivor of the pre-Anthropocene political institutions – but these days the United Nations Organisation is neither united, nor do nations any longer exist, and nor, indeed, is it terribly well organised. In a sense little survives of the organisation its founders established bar that enduring name. But it’s still the best global governance system we’ve got.

  ‘Now, this is a subcommittee of the General Assembly, which is an advisory and scrutinising branch. The World Senate, the executive, sits separately, and from their numbers are drawn the Presidents. There are still representatives from geographical regions, if not from nations.’ She pointed to delegates. ‘The Congress of Europe. Beringia and the Arctic Circumference Zone. The United Americas. Sundaland. The United Asian Republic . . . And over there is a representative of the Lunar Controller, and a party from Mars. Other bodies are represented: ourselves, for instance, the artificial community. In fact President Younger is the first non-artificial sentience to be elected to the post in three terms. And there are lobby groups like the Paradoxa Collegiate, who as you know have long argued for more radical solutions to the world’s problems.’

  ‘Yes. Rare supporters of Poole Industries,’ Harry growled. ‘Even if half of them are struldbrugs like the rest of this talking shop.’

  Nicola frowned. ‘“Struldbrugs”?’

  Poole knew the term but not the derivation. ‘Undying – old, basically.’

  Harry grunted. ‘Centuries old, some of them. And so nothing ever gets done.’

  ‘Too true, Harry,’ came a new voice. ‘Here we are in old England, looking for a hero. And maybe, sometimes, you need Beowulf, not the Venerable Bede.’

  Poole turned, startled, with the rest. Then he smiled. ‘Jack?’

  The man who had joined them was short, stocky. He looked perhaps fifty, his black hair sprinkled grey, his skin space-pale. He was dressed in an apple green coverall that was quite a contrast, Poole thought, to the austere black-and-silver robes of the UN delegates. But then, this was no ceremonial gown but a practical piece of kit – Martian kit, Poole knew, the green designed to stand out against that planet’s ochre background.

  The new arrival grinned at the group, confident of his welcome.

  Nicola spoke first. ‘You’re Jack Grantt. The Mars life guy. Who tried to speak to the sycamore seed alien.’

  He nodded, amused. ‘That pretty much sums up my biography. And you are?’

  ‘Nicola Emry.’

  ‘Ah. Any relation to—?’

  ‘Shamiso? My mother.’

  Gea asked, ‘Is Senator Emry on your Oversight committee, Jack?’

  ‘You should know; she’s chairing it.’

  Harry punched him on the arm, affectionately but hard. ‘Well, you’re in trouble, she’s tougher than you, old man.’ Grantt gave as good as he got, trading mock boxing moves.

  Nicola raised her eyebrows.

  Poole murmured to her, ‘We’re all buddies. Used to visit when we were kids, at Cydonia—’

  ‘You told me. “Uncle Jack.” Heart-warming.’

  Grantt laughed. ‘I like her. Look, I thought I’d come fetch you on my own initiative before I got ordered to. Michael, Harry, the general session will need to see you later, but right now you’re both asked to testify before Nicola’s mother’s committee . . .’

  With resigned expressions, at least from Nicola and Harry, they followed him out of the viewing gallery, back up a stair, and through more corridors, past more meeting rooms.

  ‘Our sessions have been going on for six days already. I’ve been co-chairing just to keep myself awake. But I accept the need for the effort. For now all we can do is monitor the situation, but the more time we have to generate options ahead of the end game, the better.’

  Gea murmured, ‘“End game.” An ominous phrase.’

  Grantt snorted. ‘I’m a biologist, not a politician. I don’t choose my words. Don’t read anything into that. And, believe me, I’m one of the optimists in that room, comparatively.’

  They reached another viewing gallery. Beyond the window was a smaller copy of the General Assembly room, but here, among the rows of senators in their silver-and-black robes, were other delegates and assistants, more plainly dressed. The atmosphere seemed generally less formal. The attendees consulted data slates and Virtual displays that sparked around them, even as one elderly-looking man, on his feet, made his contribution.

  ‘If it’s that dull,’ Nicola said, ‘why bother staying around? I’d be out of here.’

  ‘I’ve considered it myself.’ Grantt rubbed his back. ‘My kids, you know, and my grandkids, all of them were born at Cydonia. They grew up in Martian gravity, and they’re like gazelles. Me, I was born on good old Earth, yet after more than a couple of days back I’m half immobilised by the gravity.’

  ‘But you stayed here because—’

  ‘Because we’re talking about how we humans should respond to an authentic first contact event. What more important conversation could you have?’ He gestured at the window. ‘It’s not just senators you’ve got in there. I’m not the only scientist involved, of one discipline or another. Commercial interests like you Pooles, various philosophical schools . . . There are even delegates from religious groupings. And then you have the existential-threat lobby, small but growing, and vociferous, a group that thinks we should just destroy these visitors, while we can. If we can. Take no chances. Some of us might have hoped that we’d advanced beyond such attitudes in our moral development as a civilisation.’

  Nicola grunted. ‘They should ask Highsmith Marsden.’

  ‘But then there’s also a strong lobby that believes it’s all a hoax, or maybe some kind of money-grabbing scam. And they want you Pooles arraigned. Harry, you know I’d enjoy seeing you arrested just on general principles, but that ain’t going to happen.

  ‘But even if you concede it is all real, then what is it? Is it actually life we’re dealing with, let alone mind? There are some lifelike behaviours, particularly of those “quagma phanto
ms” as you called them – an unscientific label that prejudges the issue, of course – but your “sycamore seed” with its entourage of silvered bodies has done nothing but spiral in relentlessly towards the innermost System since it emerged. It shows about as much sentience as a short-period comet, some are saying.’

  Nicola said, ‘What about the Wormhole Ghost? The creature who did actually speak to us, who mentioned Michael here by name—’

  ‘Agreed. That’s pretty convincing evidence . . . of something. The trouble is, nobody knows of what. I mean, if your Ghost is authentic – and if it came wandering through a wormhole from, well, somewhere else – how could it possibly know the identity of an individual human?’ He pulled a face. ‘In a way it adds to the confusion, and just weakens the general case. I guess it doesn’t help that we had more or less accepted that we were alone in the universe, in terms of intelligence at least. With myself an honourable exception, as you know.’

  Nicola asked now, ‘So what do you think, “Uncle Jack”?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m Mister Life on Mars, as you reminded me. The guy with the wacky hypothesis that the bacterial communities we’ve been studying on Mars are actually part of a global, possibly sentient network. And we’re having trouble classifying that, let alone communicating with it – we can’t even prove intelligence doesn’t exist on Mars. Even though we’ve been walking around on the planet for over a thousand years. I suppose I’m just arguing for an open mind when it comes to this new phenomenon.’