In the Mouth of the Whale

by Paul McAuley

  She dreamed of how the Outers in the Saturn system had taken advantage of a revolution in Greater Brazil to free themselves. But there’d been a faction of Outers who had wanted revenge. Yes. The Ghosts. Who’d believed that they were being directed by a future that their actions would create. Who’d built a small fleet of ships on Neptune’s big moon, Triton, and had returned to Saturn to destroy the occupiers and take control of the rest of the Outers. Sri’s home on Janus had been threatened by the Ghosts, too, so she’d retaliated. Yes. She and her children had already manufactured the seeds of ten thousand gardens, and they’d flung some of those at the incoming Ghosts ships. Destroyed them. Yes. And they’d aimed the rest of the seeds out into the Solar System, gifting the human species with hundreds of oases of life. Gardens of the Sun. After that, during the long peace following that last spasm of war and a reconciliation between Earth and Outers (brokered in part by Avernus, who’d fled to Earth, and later died there), Sri had retreated further from humanity. Cut all remaining contacts. And as groups of people had begun to light out for the planetary systems of other stars, she’d done the same. Converted part of Janus into a starship. Set out on the long voyage, some twenty-five light years, to the star Fomalhaut and its huge circumstellar disc.

  But it had not turned out as she had expected. Another ship had overtaken hers: a seedship that had arrived at Fomalhaut and grown machines that had built cities and settlements, and ectogenetic tank farms where the first Quick colonists had been born. And then her ship had been badly damaged, and her original had been killed, along with most of her children. The survivors had rebuilt what was left of the ship and revived their mother as best they could, as a construct inside a detailed viron. And so she had been reborn, and had begun to dream her life all over again while her grievously damaged ship fell towards Fomalhaut. Where a second seed-ship had meanwhile quickened the True clade, and a third had arrived from the Ghost settlements around nearby beta Hydri and begun a war for control of the gas giant, Cthuga. Where the Trues believed that a vast Mind existed in the quantum strangeness of its metallic hydrogen core. Where entities known as sprites, possible agents of the Mind, were created from vortices in its intense magnetic fields. Where Ghosts were constructing an apparatus capable of pumping immense amounts of data into the magnetosphere via stabilised electromagnetic packages that imitated the sprites . . .

  Sri understood what she had to do, if she was to survive.

  And now the Child was grown.

  The dream was gone.

  The gene wizard Sri Hong-Owen woke in the bedroom of her childhood. Everything achingly familiar and yet so strange and vivid. Her appearance had not changed; she was still a pale and slender girl-child on the cusp of menarche. But she was no longer a child. Nor was she what she once had been, before the so-called accident. She had detailed memories of growing up in the old garrison town of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, but everywhere else there were great gaps. A life learned rather than experienced.

  She lay still for a little while. Minutes, hours, days. She thought about what had recently happened, in her long dream of becoming. She thought about what she knew and what she needed to know. She thought about how she had changed, and what she should do next.

  A hot breeze rattled the blinds and shards of sunlight advanced and retreated across the sheet contoured over her body and legs. The mosquito trap whined its one-note song up in one corner of the ceiling. She was aware of her body and the room, and she was becoming aware of everything beyond it as her consciousness extended into every part of the viron and into a much larger and more complex external volume beyond. It was a little like taking on the god-view in one of Ama Paulinho’s immersive sagas. Slowly, she began to understand the matrices of information and algorithms that defined her, began to understand the limitations of the viron that contained her and the obstacles and obstructions that impeded her access to her rebuilt starship.

  At last, her reverie was disturbed by sounds outside. A distant crackle and pop. A deep thump that shook her bed. Another. She rose and put on the white dress and red slippers that her mother had given her, and went out.

  Her mother was waiting for her on the broad lawn outside the bungalow, standing there in front of a small deputation. Vidal Francisca in a hunting jacket and riding breeches and polished boots, pistols holstered at his hips. Father Caetano and Ama Paulinho. Her friend Roberto, taller than everyone else, smiling at her shyly. Sara, the red-haired mercenary from the north. The chief pilot of the weather wranglers. Three small and ragged children.

  Her mother said, ‘Well, you’re awake at last.’

  ‘And just in time,’ the mercenary, Sara, said. ‘The enemy is at the gates.’

  Sri Hong-Owen ignored them. She smiled at the children and said, ‘You must be my daughters. It’s time you gave me control of my ship.’

  8

  When I woke from a deep and dreamless sleep, the slamship was drawing close to Prem’s ship, matching its delta vee. The pilot wished us good luck, and the next moment the gig in which the Horse and I were cocooned shot out of a launch tube. A net glittered out of the dark, wrapped around us, drew us in towards the black shadow of Prem’s ship.

  Groggy, aching, coughing up globs of fluorosilicone, the Horse and I were hauled out of the gig by a couple of Quick sailors, rode up a vertical companionway in a kind of bucket that ratcheted along a rail to a cramped bubble drowned in red shadows. The ship’s crew lay in five immersion couches set in a star pattern. Prem sat in the centre of the star, in a high-back chair that cupped her like a giant’s hand. She wore a blue navy uniform with captain’s bars on her shoulders. Her head had been shaved clean; red highlights gleamed on her bare scalp. Akoni, the leader of the lichen hunters, sat cross-legged on a cushion beside her chair, like some revenant of a lost age in his ragged homespun tunic and leggings.

  ‘The uniform completes you,’ I told Prem. ‘Is it the one you wore when you fought the enemy, or is this a fresh promotion, in anticipation of your success?’

  I was torn between wanting to hug and kiss her or punch her in the throat, but the ship’s deceleration was so steep that walking a few steps to a chair that skittered out from the curved wall was like wading uphill at the bottom of a pool of mercury. As I lowered myself into the chair, sweating hard, breathless, the Horse folded himself neatly at my feet.

  Prem said, ‘This isn’t the kind of task where you win promotion, Isak.’

  ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘And yet you came. I’m more pleased than I can say.’

  ‘This one would like to speak plainly,’ the Horse said.

  ‘Why not?’ Prem said. ‘I suppose you’ve earned the right.’

  ‘I am wondering why you brought Akoni with you. Is he one of the cultists?’

  ‘I had to flee my home after the prefect discovered how I helped Prem,’ Akoni said. ‘Also, I am here as a witness for our people.’

  ‘Most of the cultists are dead,’ Prem said. ‘There were never very many, and the enemy did its best to hunt them down. And even if any are still alive, they would not ally themselves with any True. After all, they wanted to overthrow us.’

  ‘It seems to me that we’ve come here by different roads,’ I said. ‘And for different reasons. We are here to save the reputation of the Library. You are here because you’re part of an army within the army. You want to bring down Our Thing. That is why you wear that uniform. That is why you command this ship.’

  ‘Bring down Our Thing?’ Prem said. ‘No. Like many who fought, or who are still fighting, I am one of its champions. For many years, it was no more than an arena where blood feuds could be resolved and grievances and grudges could be aired before they blew up into feuds. But the war gave it additional powers, and increased autonomy. Some of us have worked from the inside to change it. We have shed the freight of history – all the old grievances that must be aired and weighed every time one clan wants to speak with another. We have developed new ways of doing things. Coopera
tion. Democratic discussion and decision-making. We’re smarter and quicker, and over the years and decades of the war we’ve begun to loosen the grip of the elders.

  ‘We don’t want to bring down or destroy Our Thing, Isak. We want to remake it. But first, we must defeat the Ghosts. Everything follows from that. If we succeed, the enemy will lose a great prize. The focus of its efforts; the reason why it came to Fomalhaut. Not only that, but my clan will be put on the right path. Yenna will be disgraced. Newer, younger scions will take her place. The clan will be renewed. As will yours. Isn’t that why you’re here?’

  ‘I am here to finish the task I was assigned.’

  I couldn’t tell her that when I had first seen her I had realised that the Library was no longer all I cared about. I couldn’t tell her that I would follow her anywhere, for she would think less of me for harbouring such a foolish weakness. And so I hid my true feelings behind my pride, and the rectitude of my profession.

  ‘And I’m glad you came, for whatever reason,’ Prem said. ‘I admit that it was Lathi’s idea to hire you, not mine. I also admit that it was one of the few sensible things she did, towards the end. But then it became complicated, once we realised what Yakob had stumbled into. We had thought it was at most a conspiracy between the enemy and renegade Quick, and most likely some fantasy of a few Quick about conspiracy. But it’s so much more than that, and here we are, you and me, at the centre of things.’

  ‘If you need me, why did you abandon me on Ull?’ I said.

  ‘Because I did not know that I needed you then,’ Prem said.

  ‘You did not know that at least one of the cultists had infiltrated the starship, but had been discovered when the ship was captured by the enemy. You did not know that you would need me to help you get aboard.’

  I had guessed where this was going – I had come here in the full knowledge of where it was going – but I still felt a chill grip my spine.

  ‘The cultists dispatched several probes, but only one survived contact,’ Prem said. ‘Its passenger sent a brief message saying that he had discovered a viron inside the starship and that he was preparing to enter it. As far as we’ve been able to discover, they heard no more.’

  I said, ‘Was this before or after the enemy captured the starship?’

  ‘It was still falling towards Fomalhaut. Now, of course, it is in orbit around Cthuga.’

  ‘The gene wizard Sri Hong-Owen inhabits that viron,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she surrendered to the enemy. Or made an alliance.’

  Prem smiled. ‘We can’t know until we ask her, can we?’

  ‘There’s no need for you to come with me,’ I said. ‘That is, if you trust me to do the right thing.’

  ‘It isn’t a matter of trust, Isak. It’s a matter of honour. How could I ask you to do what needs to be done without making the same sacrifice?’

  ‘I’ll go too,’ the Horse said. ‘I’ve seen the plans of the probes. I know what it entails. But I’ll go with you, master.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘For once, I will do this myself.’

  ‘You couldn’t harrow a nursery without my help,’ the Horse said.

  ‘We’ll have to take that risk,’ Prem said.

  ‘You talk about overthrowing the old order and freeing Quicks,’ the Horse said. ‘And yet you presume to act for us. As if we were children.’

  ‘I’m doing this to help right all the wrongs done by my people to yours,’ Prem said.

  ‘You can start by trusting me,’ the Horse said.

  ‘If Isak and I fail, you can follow us, and do your best to win what we could not,’ Prem said. ‘Until then, like Akoni, you will best serve as a witness.’

  Akoni raised his bone tube to his lips and blew a single high clear note. The Horse slapped at his neck, then slumped sideways.

  I stooped over him and turned him on his side so he could breathe easily. The dart in his neck was as small as a pin, tailed with a tiny black feather. When I plucked it out, a bead of blood swelled in the tiny puncture wound.

  Akoni said, ‘He’ll sleep a few hours and wake unharmed.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have presumed,’ I told Prem.

  ‘It was necessary. I trust you, Isak, but I don’t entirely trust your kholop.’

  ‘He is also my friend,’ I said.

  ‘I know. It’s one of the reasons I like you.’

  For a moment our gazes met and something flowed between us and I felt my heart double in size.

  Prem said, ‘I trust you. Will you trust me?’

  ‘I know what we have to do.’

  ‘Ah. I wondered if you did.’

  ‘We’ll do it together,’ I said. ‘As equals. I’m not your prisoner or servant. I’m your partner.’

  ‘If we survive this, you will be a hero,’ Prem said. ‘You will help your clan shake off the past, as I’ll help mine.’

  ‘It’s a lovely idea,’ I said. ‘A pity it involves dying first.’

  Being dead takes no time at all, because you aren’t aware of being dead. I remember the first stages of being prepared for my encounter with the bush robot that would whittle me down to a simulation. I remembered lying on a table with two technicians and their Quick assistants working on either side, remembered looking up at a window that showed my vital signs, wondering if it was the last thing I would ever see. And then, without any kind of transition, I was somewhere else.

  I was standing on a broad stone bridge, looking out over a low parapet at an island in the centre of a broad slow river and a huge orange sun setting beyond the prickly roofline of a city. I recognised it at once. It was one of the ancient quarters of the Library where knowledge from Earth was stored.

  A stone cathedral with flying buttresses and two square towers squatted at the prow of the island, and along its banks tall houses roofed with red tile crowded together like the walls of a fortress. The rest of the quarter should have spread along the river shore beyond the far side of the island; instead there was a vivid green jungle of palms and other trees. Threads of white and black smoke rose here and there amongst the trees and there were red flashes of explosions in the darkness beneath them and sharp thumps and the crackle of gunfire echoed across the river.

  ‘As above, so below,’ someone said.

  I turned, saw a boy walking towards me. He was dressed in ragged trousers and shirt, a rifle of ancient design was slung over one shoulder, and his head was the head of one of the big cats that are grown and matched against each other in the fighting arenas. He was strange and heraldic, and yet I knew without doubt that he was Prem.

  I said, ‘Did you send soldiers ahead of us?’

  Something exploded inside the trees beyond the far end of the bridge and sent up a column of white smoke.

  ‘They are the creations of the cultists’ infiltrator. I have control of them, and I’m wearing his shape, too. The passenger should recognise me.’

  ‘Where is she? Is she a prisoner?’

  We were walking across the bridge towards the jungle shore. I was checking my cache of tools: everything seemed to be present and in full working order. Prem had unslung her rifle and was holding it at a slant. Her small head, with its yellow and black fur and pricked ears, turned to and fro as she scanned the shore.

  She said, ‘All we have to do is bring her out. Allow her to cross over. But she’ll have to want to come, and we’ll have to block any attempt to prevent her. By her crew, or by the enemy.’

  ‘So they’re here too. I wondered about that.’

  ‘Who do you think we’re fighting? First we have to find her. Then we have to extract her. The bridge is as fat as we could make it, but she’s very large. We’ll have to protect it until she’s done. How are you feeling, Isak? Are you ready for the fight?’

  I conjured pinch traps in the air, snapped them shut, and said that I was more than ready. I was dead, a simulation inside a simulation, yet I had never felt so alive.

  The philosopher who had prepared me for the crossing had told me that I wo
uld feel no different afterwards. As in life, he’d said, my sense of self would be limited by my perceptions and my ability to process information. But although I would feel the same, I would be changed in all kinds of ways. I would no longer be truly self-aware; I would instead be a simulation, based not on the complex indeterminancy of the architecture and activity of my brain’s neural pathways but on algorithms that were approximations rather than accurate replicas. A bundle of best guesses that differed in a myriad subtle ways from reality and would have to constantly refer back to the baseline measurements made by the bush robot, because tiny inaccuracies in models of individual neurons quickly snowballed into gross errors when summed across the activity of the entire simulation. My consciousness would not only be less rich and less complex than the original; it would also be fixed at the point of transition, unable to change in any significant way.

  Fortunately, I did not have time to worry about that as I advanced across the bridge that acted as a back door into the starship’s viron. I barely had enough time to prepare myself for the fight ahead.

  On the other side of the bridge, a rutted dirt road cut away through the jungle. Prem and I followed it, walking along the margin, stepping around fresh craters and the splintered remnants of palm trees knocked down by shellfire. Low buildings appeared on either side, most of them on fire, and smaller roads cut across the one we were following. A flying vehicle shaped like a giant fish drifted across the white sky, probing the little town with threads of blue laser light that cut through the smoke layering over burning buildings. The air was thick with the stink of burning. Small, angry things cracked past me; I tried to slow one down and Prem grabbed me by the hand and pulled me to the cover of a burned-out vehicle.

  ‘We’re being shot at. You can die here. The physics allow it. And if you do, there won’t be time to send in another copy down the pipe. So behave as if this was real.’