‘Nothing that we or anybody else have been able to detect anyhow, Miriam,’ Poole murmured into his comms system. ‘The Probe just sails on through space, following a ballistic track, sending no messages, responding to no hails. Tracked by a growing crowd of ships, sightseers, science-institute craft, official government vessels. And Federal Police cruisers, the kind adapted for deep-space operations in the asteroid belt. The police are the only armed ships, as far as I know . . .’
A crowd that now included the Bellona. There were just two days left until the object’s scheduled encounter with Mars. His words were being fired out from the position of the Probe to Jupiter orbit, to the Gallia Three habitat, on a tight neutrino beam, virtually undetectable.
‘I know there’s a forty-minutes lightspeed delay before you’ll hear this, Miriam. Another forty minutes minimum before a reply. And, look, given the way Mars and Martian orbit are blanketed with ships and probes, with artificial eyes and ears, you mustn’t reply unless you’re sure it’s safe . . .
‘Maybe it’s nothing more than what it looks like: a lump of diamond sailing through space, towards Mars. A cannonball. Although the one big modification we witnessed, since Jack and I were almost in the line of fire of that Lethe-spawned weapon inside the Cache, is that it’s somehow got itself wrapped up in Xeelee hull plate – a rough ovoid of the stuff, that somehow assembled itself around the projectile. Maybe it grew in the sunlight from some kind of seed: a Xeelee flower, Jack calls this hypothetical object. Anyhow, it’s a shell that’s added virtually nothing to the mass of the thing but presumably has given it some kind of additional protection. Armour plating, Nicola says.
‘But that kind of language – armour – is forbidden, it seems, by the UN Oversight group and the various think tanks they’re consulting on Earth, and elsewhere. Even though, from the moment it emerged from the Cache, its projected track has been steady, its target unchanged – slap in the middle of the Hellas basin, the biggest bullseye target on the planet. But we can’t say “target” either . . .
‘I keep thinking of when I picked you up from Io. You know better than I do that the emergence of the Xeelee from the wormhole portal in the first place came associated with violence, with damage. But you could put that down to – well, to carelessness. Accidents. There has been no specific evidence of a destructive intent, let alone a warlike one. Not so far. Even the various crafts’ refusal to answer any hails you can ascribe to cultural misunderstanding. This, though, a hundred thousand tonnes of diamond dropping out of the sky onto an inhabited world – and a couple of similar “Probes” heading for the Moon and Earth itself – I get the impression that still nobody wants to believe . . .
‘Well, I guess the reaction to the entire incursion, for better or worse, is going to be shaped by whatever happens here at Mars.
‘Jack Grantt wants to be down on the planet, when the impact comes – if it comes. Jack, of course, has family. And after all, his bugs in the rock, the Lattice, his dreaming planet-sized Martian mind, if it exists – I guess it’s their world, not ours, and they’re threatened just as much as the human colonists. We’ve sent him ahead in the flitter.
‘Not colonists, Nicola reminds me now. Wrong word. There are human lineages down there more than a thousand years old. This is their world as much as anybody’s. Fair enough.
‘As for Nicola and me, we’ll cross to the Hermit Crab at Phobos, and stay in orbit. Given my, ah, personal involvement, I don’t want to be any kind of distraction. Anyhow, we’ll watch the show from up here.
‘And, you see, there are the other two Probes. If anything bad does happen here I have a feeling I may want to get back to Earth quickly.
‘I increasingly think that Highsmith Marsden was right to hide you all away in Gallia.
‘Please get back to me. But above all stay safe . . .’
Poole and Nicola were left in peace for twenty-four hours. Then, with just one day left until the Probe reached Mars, Poole was ordered to face an Oversight scrutiny committee.
In other words, he got a call from his parents.
34
Nicola cleared out of the lifedome for the duration of the conference.
She closed up her skinsuit and drifted down to the engine pod, buried deep in its cache of asteroid ice, to run, she said, some routine maintenance and upgrades. That was tactful, for her, but Poole had no doubt she would be listening in; he prayed she didn’t disrupt what was always going to be an awkward session.
Awkward, even though Poole was the only person actually present.
They sat in a loose circle. Save for Poole, they were all Virtual people on Virtual couches: Harry, Muriel, and Gea. As usual, consistency protocols mandated that the illusion of reality should be maintained; in a freefall environment, they were strapped, if loosely, into their couches. Even the drinks at their sides were in sealed cups with adhesive bases: coffee for Harry, water for Muriel – what looked suspiciously like engine oil for Gea, and Poole, who knew that one of the sentience’s first avatars had been a mock-up of a clanking toy robot belonging to his distant ancestor George Poole back in the twenty-first century, wondered if that was some kind of elaborate joke. If so he appreciated the touch, and he thought he detected the slightest of winks on that wise but almost immobile face when she saw he was looking.
And it was Gea who spoke first.
‘So, is it down to business straight away? This is a family gathering of a sort – and here we have Michael, your son, so recently restored to you safe and sound. What, not even a hug? I’m sure Michael could create an avatar which—’
‘We’re Pooles,’ Muriel said, sounding amused. ‘We don’t do hugs. Descending into pits of peril, yes. Not hugs.’
‘Even if any of us were actually here,’ Harry said. ‘Aside from Michael.’ He glanced away, as if at a clock visible in whatever environment he was calling from, as if he had more important matters to attend to. ‘By the time we’re done, and whatever conclusions we come to are posted back to our originals on Earth, more minutes will be lost from this final day, before – well, before the Cache Probe reaches Mars, and whatever follows. Shall we get on with it?
‘For the record: I am an authorised Virtual representation of Harry Poole. Citizen ident codes follow.’ He closed his eyes, and Poole saw his lips move, reciting a string of digits. ‘Harry Poole is not present in person, on this ship in Martian orbit. Nor are Muriel Poole, or the entity known as Gea. The purpose of the projection of this Virtual is to provide real-time responses to Michael Poole, here on the Bellona. And the purpose of the meeting itself is to share knowledge; any conclusions or recommendations will be fed back to our principals, along with a syncing of the experience itself, for ratification or rejection. Everybody agree?’
Muriel sighed, made a similar statement a little less pompously, as then did Gea.
Poole, restless, got out of his couch and drifted over to the galley area. ‘Well, I’m here in person, authorised, ratified or otherwise. And I need another coffee. Lethe, a family gathering with everybody hundreds of millions of kilometres apart. Just like old times. As you said, Mother, we’re Pooles. Once, you know, Gea, at a birthday party when I was a kid, they got one of the company staff to blow out my candles for me. Because Virtual parents have no puff.’
Gea laughed. ‘You have my sympathy.’
Harry snorted. ‘You’re spending too much time with the Emry runt. She’s feeding you lines.’
Poole just smiled. ‘I think she’d be pleased you remember her, Harry. She seems to be the company I need right now. As opposed to absentee parents showing up like manifestations of unreliable gods.’
‘Shall we get to the point?’ Muriel asked. ‘As you said, Harry, we’re running out of time.’
‘OK.’ Harry regarded Poole. ‘But really, this is one last go-round; Michael’s been pretty thoroughly debriefed since his journey into the Cache. You came
out of there with a slew of data and interpretation. If not for you, son, we’d be even more baffled than we are.’
Gea put in, ‘Harry’s right. The records you returned are unique, and invaluable. And Professor Grantt’s preliminary analyses hold up too. Your Paragons do seem to be a carbon-based life form, adapted to life on a world suspended in a warm bath of radiation – the interior of the Cache is like a fragment of a globally habitable universe, as ours was when young. One interesting point is that the hull plate cloaks the Paragons wear, when they emerge from the shelter of the Cache – and which covers the Probes too – don’t seem to be characteristic of Paragon technology, such as it is. Grantt observed this at the time. The Paragons can build a space cannon; they could not make that. It is far more advanced, technologically.’
‘The Xeelee, then,’ Harry said. ‘The material is Xeelee in origin.’
‘Presumably. The speculation is that the Paragons are some form of client species of the Xeelee. Partners, under their protection. Recipients of gifts.’
Muriel frowned. ‘But if the Paragons are relics of the early days of the universe – from ten, fifteen million years after the Big Bang? If the Xeelee have partnered them for that long . . .’
‘Impressive continuity,’ Harry said.
‘Well, we know the Xeelee think on big scales, in time and space.’ She quoted, ‘The stars continued to age, too rapidly. The Xeelee completed their great Projects and fled the cosmos . . .’
Poole suppressed a shudder.
Harry said, ‘Yes, well, whatever happened thirteen billion years ago isn’t so significant as what will happen in the next few hours when that Probe reaches Mars.’
Gea waved a hand, and images and records scrolled in the air. ‘There is a great deal of public concern on Mars, as may be imagined. There have been demands to destroy the Probe, protests at inaction.’
Harry snorted. ‘Protests? Riots, you mean. Such as outside federal buildings at Kahra.’
‘Certainly the official position so far, such as it is, has been based on the premise that this is indeed a probe. That this is still a basically peaceful contact, benevolently intended. We cling to that assumption. Even though we’ve had no response to our own attempts to make contact.’
Muriel said, ‘Still, we have to try. I and my colleagues have studied theoretical first-contact scenarios, and have long settled on the conclusion that intention is everything, in such a situation. If you intend to be peaceful, you must show it—’
‘Ha!’ Harry’s laughter was a bark. ‘You always were lost in the clouds, Muriel. Sometimes I wonder if you really are a Poole. Well, I admit you’ve been winning the argument. In as much as there’s been no serious attempt to follow up the alternative hypothesis about this “Probe”. That it is what it looks like, right now, as it rifles in at Mars. That it is in fact a weapon.’
‘But what could we do?’ Gea asked. ‘We don’t have warships, Harry. The police have some weapons, though it’s been centuries since they were used in anger on any large scale. We have technology we could weaponise, of course. There have been hasty studies . . .’
Harry snorted. ‘“Hasty.” You know as well as I do that the independence-minded factions on Mars have been playing around with weapons tech for decades. But none of these have been deployed against the Probe. Right?’
‘This is not a warlike age, Harry,’ Muriel said. ‘These visitors to our Solar System, welcome or not, are here; they are evidently super-advanced, super-powerful. A war with such creatures could be disastrous – most likely for us, not them. This is what our theoretical studies show. We don’t want to be the ones to start the war, if war isn’t inevitable.’
Harry snorted. ‘Tell that to the poor saps sitting under this thing at Hellas.’
Gea said evenly, ‘Actually the Hellas region has already been evacuated. Mostly. Only those who insist on staying, for whatever reason, are still present, in the hypothetical impact zone.’
Harry frowned. ‘Who in Lethe would want to stay?’
Muriel said, ‘Optimists, frankly. Those who still don’t believe there is harmful intent here, and have stayed around to show that faith.’
‘Faith?’ Harry sounded incredulous. ‘A faith on which you would gamble your life?’
‘It is still possible,’ Muriel said. ‘Even if the Xeelee came from a future of war – even if Michael is some kind of target – perhaps it comes here to create a peace.’
Harry snorted. ‘Peace? Tell that to the survivors. Maybe it’s time we started showing it just how insignificant we are. Oh, this is getting us nowhere. I guess we’ve done what we came for. Which was to see if any of us has anything new to say, before that Lethe-spawned probe falls. Evidently not. I’ve got work to do.’ He drifted out of his chair.
Muriel, as if reluctantly, followed suit. She turned to Poole, forcing a smile. ‘Goodbye, Michael. I’ll speak to you on the other side of all this . . .’
Gea nodded gravely.
Harry glared at Poole, and shrugged.
Then the three of them popped out of existence, turning to transient clouds of pixels that glowed, faded, vanished. Suddenly Poole was alone; the lifedome was big and empty.
Almost plaintively he called, ‘Nicola?’
‘I’m still here. And we got a message, from Mars.’
‘From who?’
‘Jack Grantt . . . Actually it’s a message to the human race.’
Poole listened. And he kept listening as the last hours wore away.
35
‘This is Grantt, of the Cydonia Aboriginal Biology Institute, University of Kahra. Recording my uninformed observations for posterity, I suppose. The date and time . . . well, you’ll have those from the recording stamp.
‘My family are safe, come what may, on Phobos. Wife, children, grandchildren. I dedicate this record to them. I am far from home. Half a world away from Cydonia.
‘I am in a flitter, strictly my Institute’s flitter, over Hellas. I am somewhat cautiously circling over Lockyerville, at the heart of Hellas Planitia, and close to the predicted impact site of the object known as the Probe – though as it approaches, still maintaining its speed of fifty times Mars’s escape velocity, that name seems increasingly inappropriate.
‘On a sparsely populated world, Lockyerville is actually a relatively substantial community. And it is at the centre of a radial network of roads that connect it to satellite communities scattered across the Planitia. Lockyerville’s significance is its unique location, of course. The geometric centre of Hellas, the deepest place on the planet, is not only a place of great scientific interest, it is also a unique tourist destination. Travellers like to return home, and point to images from telescopes good enough to pick out Hellas, and to be able to boast, “That’s where I was, right there. You can see it from Earth.”
‘And it is presumably that geometric singularity that has drawn the attention, today, of our new visitors.’
‘Later.
‘Not long to go, to Probefall. I am trying to ensure I am at an altitude high enough, and far enough away, not to be caught by the impactor, if that is what it proves to be, or by the predicted side-effects of its fall. Not that any distance short of half the planet’s circumference would suffice to reassure the flitter’s on-board sentience, it seems; I have had to override its safety protocols.
‘The spacebound observers are still recording no deflection in the path of the object. Not yet. Perhaps there is still time for it to turn away.
‘I have a great sense of solitude, actually. Not an unusual feeling for a field scientist. And I know that in a sense I am alone. Almost all the population of Hellas, which numbered over a million in the flesh, has been evacuated. Even the big arcologies far to the west are emptied. Those glass roofs must have seemed very fragile today.
‘Those who remain at ground zero are hoping, even now, for
a peaceful outcome. A soft landing. Handshakes and an exchange of flags, I suppose. A brass band . . . As I said, I have moved my own family far away.
‘Ground zero. That itself is a ghastly, antiquated, Anthropocene-war-era term. But that is the language in which it appears appropriate to discuss this event. A forty-metre-wide diamond, cloaked in hull plate, coming in at two hundred and fifty kilometres a second – friction with the thin air of Mars will barely slow it – will deliver kinetic energy equivalent to nuclear weapons of eight hundred megatons. A unit of measure that itself dates from the ages of war—
‘Ah. I think I see it. A flash, high above. I am allowing the flitter’s sentience, now, to move us away . . .
‘Impact!’
‘I must – it was so fast – I must record my impressions. And the sequence, much of it too fast to follow with the naked eye, as unscrambled by my instruments.
‘I’ve seen meteors fall. Every Martian has. Small objects often reach the ground, on Mars; the thin air is a poor shield compared to Earth’s. They flash, detonate, rupture; they are generally friable, fragile lumps of rock or ice, and suffer catastrophic damage themselves before reaching the ground.
‘Not this time. Not this time. I think of the cohesion of the diamond core of it – I saw it myself, remember, in the Cache – and then there is the unknown protection yielded by its hull plate coat.
‘It screamed through the air, coming down almost directly towards me. I saw the glowing plasma of the tortured atmosphere, and my instruments tell me that the object itself was unharmed. Intact, all the way to the ground.
‘It came down – that flash—
‘Where Lockyerville was, and that wretched city was right underneath the impactor, I saw a point of unbearable brightness. I still have spots before my vision. On the ground, those close in must have died instantly, those further out blinded.
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