Luka nodded, somehow simultaneously contemplating while also doing his best not to think at all. “Do it,” he finally said.
“Luka,” Khang said cautiously. “Please. Think about what you’re doing here. You don’t have to do this.”
“No,” Luka said. “I don’t have to do this. In fact, none of this had to happen at all, did it?”
Khang watched him for a moment, then shook her head passively. “What do you want me to do, Luka?” she asked him. “Do you want me to apologize? Do you want me to beg?” She took a step forward and narrowed her eyes. “Well I won’t,” she hissed. “I know you think you’ve had a difficult life, but let me tell you, what you’ve been through is nothing. You have no idea where I came from. No idea what I’ve been through. No idea what happened to me and my family and the people I loved. I won’t apologize to you or anyone else for the things I’ve had to do to get to where I am and to protect what I’ve built. And I will not take responsibility for yours, or for anyone else’s, past.”
“This isn’t about anyone’s past,” Luka told the councilwoman. There was neither malice nor vengeance in his tone. “For once, the only thing I’m thinking about is the future.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
BLACKSAIL
THERE WAS ONLY ONE PLACE where the captain of the New York—one of only two remaining Metropolis-class mining rigs—felt she had complete privacy: the uppermost deck of the bridge known as “the nest.” She’d annexed the space many years ago, designating it her own private office over the protests of exactly no one. In order to ensure security, the captain had the quick-release hatch cover in the floor replaced with one that sealed biometrically, and the only personnel she permitted on the bridge below were officers personally vetted and authorized by no one but herself.
The weight of the structure was borne by a series of steel struts, the shapes and angles of which gave one the impression of standing beneath the belly of an immense insect, the gaps between its bolted metallic appendages filled with several fused layers of filtered inductive polymeth. Although the nest had windows all around, it did not afford much of a view. It was the only structure that extended above the New York’s dome, so rather than a breathtaking panorama of the bustling floating city sprawling below, when visibility was good, the captain might occasionally glimpse an expanse of dark and featureless open water, or perhaps even a distant rocky crag, shrouded and desolate. More often, though, she found herself surrounded by multicolored bands of haze—dark and wispy and foreboding where they swirled together in unstable interaction—and the flashes of stroboscopic cloud-to-cloud lightning that frequently discharged when radiation concentrated in the upper atmosphere.
Other than the windows and the biometric hatch, the captain had never allowed the nest to be updated. While the rest of the rig—and even the main bridge below—continued to benefit from Coronian construction, material, and technology, she kept her office as close to original as possible. The floor was a type of prickly green astroturf with paths worn pale and bare, illustrating her tendency to pace when in contemplative moods, and the beams showed signs of corrosion coming through the layers of paint, which the years had turned from white to a muted shade of surgical green. At either end of the room were identical sloping consoles strewn with dozens of dials, switches, knobs, and gauges—most of which still functioned thanks to an analog-digital conversion interface she had installed on the bridge below. But the captain’s favorite anachronisms—and the instruments through which most of her communication still flowed—were the two heavy plastic black handsets suspended in their spring-loaded cradles, attached to their consoles by thick glossy cords that had once been neatly coiled, but over the years had been stretched into wayward kinks. There were swivel chairs bolted to the floor in front of each console, their yellowed foam guts held in with several strips of fraying gray duct tape.
The focus was currently on the center of the room where the captain, her commander, and her first lieutenant all stood around an expanded brushed steel surface. In front of them was a single solid-sail hydrofoil—the designation “Blacksail” emblazoned across its hull—that had recently been netted from among the dozens that maintained their positions in the surrounding waters below. It had been smuggled up to the nest inside a hastily assembled crate just large enough to conceal it, and just small enough to fit through the hatch in the floor. In front of the first lieutenant, there was also a slip-sealed jar of thick green sludge.
“The first thing I need to know,” the captain began, “is how much the Board of Supervisors knows.”
The captain wore a fitted black vest over a white shirt with baggy sleeves and loose cuffs. She was a tall woman with long, black hair that remained obediently tucked behind her ears, and prominent arching eyebrows that gathered all immediately available attention and channeled it directly into her wide-set, upswept, almond-brown eyes. Not only was she usually the most dynamic presence in the room, but she was almost always the tallest, as well. Even her first lieutenant—a stocky Neo who had accompanied the first generation of assemblers, and whom she had promoted rapidly up through the ranks as he continued to demonstrate his loyalty—was a few centimeters shorter.
“They don’t know anything,” the commander replied. “But we’re not going to be able to keep it that way for very long.”
As the captain’s younger brother, the commander had similar dark and well-honed features, though he was smaller and seemed better suited to a deferential role. These were the two men the captain trusted above anyone else, and on whose allegiance she felt her leadership depended.
“Then tell me what we know,” the captain said.
The commander looked across the table, deferring to the first lieutenant.
“Just as the Coronians indicated,” the Neo began in his powerful baritone timbre, “this is one of an entire fleet of extremely sophisticated hydrofoils.”
“Sixty-four?” the captain asked.
“We’ve counted fifty-eight so far,” the lieutenant said. “We believe six were lost.”
“And how did the Coronians get them all to gather in one spot?”
This question, the commander fielded. “Do you remember the software patch we received from the Coronians for our navigation system?”
“Yes.”
“It contained an algorithm to compensate for an error they intentionally introduced. An error that caused everything without the patch to navigate to the same spot: right here.”
“Very clever,” the captain conceded. “And what about all this talk of terraforming technology? Is it real?”
The first lieutenant and the commander exchanged looks.
“That’s the thing,” the commander said. “Either the Coronians were lying, or they have no idea what the hydrofoils are actually for.”
The captain regarded her younger brother. “What are you talking about?”
The Neo took over. “They were never designed for terraforming,” he explained. “They don’t contain seeds or catalysts. They contain spores. I would estimate several billion each.”
“Spores?” the captain repeated. “Spores for what?”
“For algae,” the Neo said.
“They aren’t terraforming,” the commander explained. He picked up the green jar in front of him and presented it to the captain. “They’re aqua-forming.”
“Oh my God,” the captain said. “Are you telling me that’s algae? Actual living algae?”
“We’re surrounded by it,” the Neo told the captain. “The spores are not only viable, they’re thriving. There’s no competition out there—nothing whatsoever to slow them down.”
“But why?” the captain asked. “Why algae instead of trees and plants?”
“Because the potential habitat for algae is vastly larger,” the lieutenant said, “and once it gets started, it’s almost impossible to stop.”
“In other words,” the commander added, “if you wanted to reboot the planet’s oxygen cycle, algae is by fa
r the fastest and most efficient way.”
The captain took a moment to consider her brother’s remark. “Back up for a second,” she said. “Explain to me why the Coronians are so threatened by oxygen production?”
“It isn’t the oxygen production,” the Neo said. “It’s the oxygen cycle. The more habitable the planet becomes, the faster the atmosphere will allow solar energy to penetrate again.”
“Which means,” the commander continued, “the sooner we go back to the Solar Age, and the less dependent we are on Coronian energy.”
The captain nodded her head deliberately. “And the less incentive we have to keep providing them with raw materials,” she concluded.
“Exactly.”
The captain squinted at the drone in front of her, partially capsized on the steel surface. “Then this is exactly what we need to weaken the alliance between the Coronians and the Board of Supervisors.”
The commander and the lieutenant looked at one another before the lieutenant responded. “That’s the conclusion we came to, as well,” he said.
“How much of the planet’s surface have they covered?”
“Unfortunately there’s no way to know that,” the Neo said. “As far as I can tell, the logs aren’t geotagged.”
“Speculate.”
“It’s possible they could have covered as much as five to ten percent before they were redirected.”
“But,” the captain’s brother interjected, “if it was the right five to ten percent, their influence could be much greater.”
“How?”
The commander deflected the question back to the Neo.
“Currents,” the lieutenant said. “Whoever did this was smart. They probably knew they couldn’t cover the entire planet, which means they would have probably tried to maximize their effectiveness by targeting the most prominent and wide-reaching currents within range.”
The captain took the jar from her brother and held it up to the light. As she peered into the flourishing and self-contained ecosystem, her pallid complexion inherited some of its verdant illumination. “Where the hell did they get spores?”
“We have no idea,” her brother said.
“Are there any left?”
“That’s the most interesting part,” the captain’s brother said, then prompted the lieutenant to elaborate.
“We think the hydrofoils have already released most of their payloads,” the Neo said, “but there’s a way to make more.”
“Make more?” the captain repeated. “How?”
“I haven’t had time to go though all the data yet, but we know the hydrofoils contain schematics for assembling more hydrofoils. And cultures for producing more spores.”
It took the captain a moment to put together the implications of what her first lieutenant was telling her. When she did, her eyes narrowed and she lifted one side of her mouth into an admiring grin. “They knew someone was going to find them.”
“Not only did they know the Coronians would send someone to collect them,” the Neo said, “but they correctly assumed that anyone so closely affiliated with the Coronians would have assemblers and decent laboratories.”
The captain put the jar back down on the metal surface. “Who are they?” she asked. “Do we know?”
“Yes and no,” the commander said. “For obvious reasons, whoever did this didn’t want to be directly identified, but there is a kind of . . . I’m not quite sure what to call it. A kind of epitaph.”
“For who?”
“Someone named Arik Ockley.”
“Since you’re calling it an epitaph, I suppose that means you know he’s dead?”
“Apparently, which I guess is why they felt it was safe to acknowledge him. It was his research that all this was based on.”
The captain turned away from the table, clasped her hands behind her back, and followed a worn strip in the floor to the front of the nest. She ran a finger down the curvature of the plastic handset while she deliberated.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. When she turned, her eyes were wild and her smile was as amused as it was cunning. “The Coronians want the hydrofoils, right?”
“They do,” the lieutenant confirmed. “They want them delivered as soon as possible to the nearest broker post.”
“OK,” the captain said. She addressed her brother as she moved back toward the table. “I want you to gather a small team of people you trust. Bring all the hydrofoils aboard, then strip them of anything that might hint at what they were actually for. Once they’re crated up and ready to go, then inform the Board.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The captain looked at her first lieutenant. “I want you to start figuring out how we can create more spores from the cultures without anyone knowing, and how we can assemble more hydrofoils. Can you fix their navigation systems?”
“Yes,” the Neo said. “I should be able to apply the same software patch we used to fix ours.”
“Good,” the captain said. “Do it.”
“How many?” the lieutenant asked. “Another sixty-four?”
“No,” the captain said. “That’s too risky. We’re going to do this one at a time. We’re going to target whatever currents we happen to be near at the time we’re ready to release them, and we’re going to keep doing this for as long as we possibly can. And I want every single one to contain fresh cultures and instructions for how to assemble more hydrofoils. I want these things spreading across the planet like a goddamn pandemic.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Neo said.
“What about the epitaph?” the commander asked. “Do you want it included, as well?”
The captain took a moment to consider the question. “Absolutely,” she decided. “Whoever this Arik Ockley was, he deserves to be remembered.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
HALF-LIFE
LUKA SAT ON THE BRIDGE of the Accipiter Hawk and watched the butterfly raise and lower its wings. It was delicately perched amid a bouquet of synthetic blossoms sprouting from a spent liquid oxygen canister with its top plasma torched off—one of several Omicron had distributed across various surfaces in order to keep the artificial insect engaged enough that dust and other particles wouldn’t accumulate on its solar cells. The butterfly’s wings were a type of electroactive polymer that flapped through the manipulation of electric fields rather than by pure mechanical means, and Luka knew that as long as the device remained active and stimulated, it would probably last for decades—perhaps even an entire lifetime.
The key to survival, Luka mused, was to keep moving.
The butterfly’s name was Lykke, which meant “happiness” in Danish. Apparently Ayla had named it in her head the day it was given to her by Costa, but for some reason, she’d never told anyone. Maybe it was because she was afraid people would think she was childish for giving a toy a name, or maybe it was simply because nobody had ever bothered to ask. But then Luka—before even revealing that he or his mother had probably hand-built the creature years ago back in Hammerfest—wanted to know what she’d decided to call it, and he’d sensed that there was a great deal of meaning in her saying its name out loud for the very first time.
As Luka watched the butterfly, he thought about how lifetimes were not really defined as the period of time between birth and death. That was lifespan. Each lifespan, it seemed, was capable of containing multiple lifetimes. Luka’s first lifetime was spent with his parents in the Hammerfest Pod System. His second was aboard the San Francisco with Val and Charlie, and as an assembly technician, a forklift operator, and an eccentric and reclusive sculptor. It was obvious to him that he was about to embark on a third lifetime, but this early on, it was impossible to tell who or what would ultimately define it.
Luka was relieved to be moving on—emotionally and physically—but he also knew that the primary problem with the past was that it never stayed where it belonged. No matter how many barriers and fortifications you erected in its path as you progressed thro
ughout your life, it still found ways to penetrate. If you were lucky, the influence of an event decayed over time, but never by more than its half-life, and never so much that some trace of it could not still be detected. And if you were unlucky, the past accumulated at a rate faster than it was able to dissipate. Sometimes the openings through which we moved forward were too small to drain all of the pain poured forth from the past, and if they could not be widened in time, the only option was to drown.
In general, repression had been good to Luka. As he’d discovered through talking with the copy of Ellie he’d brought with him from the San Francisco, repression had enabled him to function in circumstances where others might have given up. But repression was only one tool, and Luka now knew that the structures one built were often defined—or at least profoundly influenced—by the tools one used to build them. Repression was like constantly building upward in order to avoid the work of building out a more stable foundation, but eventually the instability compounded to the point where your life had no choice but to topple.
Another problem with the past was that every year, it came back around. The cycle of the Gregorian calendar was like the constant rotation of a cylinder with 365 chambers, and the longer you lived, the more rounds filled those holes. Except these bullets were never fully spent, and rather than proving lethal, the wounds they left were a gradual accumulation of debilitating injury. A much better calendrical system would have been one where days never repeated; where lives were marked with infinitely incrementing integers, constantly leaving the things everyone wanted to forget further and further behind; where every second of every day was a chance to completely reinvent oneself out of newly created time that had no inherent knowledge whatsoever of the past.
In the one year since Luka and Ayla had been alone together aboard the Hawk, they had each experienced a lot of anniversaries: the days they’d left their home pod systems as children; the times each had lost people they loved; the moments they’d been forced right up to the very edge of death—in fact, well past the point of peace and acceptance—only to be unexpectedly pulled back into the worlds they thought they were finally leaving behind. And the day that was supposed to be one of joy and festivity—a diversion everyone on the rig badly needed—when they finally arrived at the Maldive Islands Spaceport to retrieve Cam and Zaire, only to learn that Cam had decided not to return—that he had already found work at MIS as a mechanic—and that he felt he had an obligation to teach historians, or academics, or anyone who passed through the port and who he could get to listen to him everything he’d learned about the Coronians.
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