The Saints of Salvation [British Ed.]

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘I predict. But then, predicting is how I made my fortune when I was human.’

  ‘I checked. You inherited a fortune.’

  ‘I inherited a small fortune, and turned it into the greatest accumulation of wealth in history.’

  ‘Yeah, almost as big as your ego. So what next?’

  ‘You finish decelerating, they send a portal over to the Morgan. You all go through to the congress. Simple.’

  ‘Nah, nothing ever is. Not in these times.’

  *

  As the fleet approached its negotiated parking orbit a million kilometres out from the ring, the Morgan’s sensors started to capture the warm particles in high resolution. Yirella, Ellici and Wim formed one analysis team, gathering in a small conference room to pore over the images and data tables compiled by the genten. The room’s walls were all but invisible behind the thick hologram projections – a perspective that seemed to place them at the heart of the little system, sitting on the surface of the neutron star itself.

  ‘There’s some standardization,’ Wim observed. ‘There are thousands of particles that have a similar size and mass; we’ve given them a preliminary type classification. Not that it matters, because they all have exactly the same external skin – that copper colour. So we don’t know what any of them actually are.’

  ‘And there’s nothing under a kilometre,’ Yirella said. ‘But their thermal emission ratio is fairly constant across the types.’ She studied close-up images of what looked like asteroids but seemed sculpted from polished copper. Their surfaces moved, though – slowly, the bulges and dints undulating with a lethargic arrhythmia. As she watched the time-lapse images she had a disturbing flashback to a biology lecture featuring a foetal sac with a teratological embryo shifting around inside.

  The thought was deeply uncomfortable, so she gave up and called Ainsley. ‘What the hell are those things?’

  ‘Habitats, ships, factories, stores of processed materials, labs, experiments, sensors; everything you’d expect from an advanced civilization.’

  ‘But they all have the same surface.’

  ‘It’s a development on the mirrorfabrik shielding you use,’ Ainsley said. ‘The cloak protects them from the neutron star radiation. It’s useful for defence, too.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ Ellici said as she pulled up more detailed sensor data. ‘Really odd. The neutron star has an unsymmetrical gravity field.’

  ‘How can that be?’ Wim mused. ‘There’s no theory that can account for uneven mass distribution inside a star, let alone a neutron star.’

  ‘It’s got to be those inner stations,’ Ellici said. ‘The hundred and fifty big ones. Their gravitational emissions are off the scale. They must be affecting it.’

  ‘We saw what the Resolution ships could do at the Vayan ambush,’ Yirella said. ‘This could be a similar emission. Some kind of directional gravity beam?’

  ‘If enough of them pull at the neutron star’s surface, they might create a wave in the outer crust; it’s only ions and electrons down to about four hundred metres.’

  ‘Love the way you call it “only”,’ Wim said.

  ‘But susceptible to external forces,’ Yirella countered. ‘I wonder if we can get an accurate surface map? See if there are physical waves splashing around down there.’

  ‘They wouldn’t be big,’ Wim said. ‘The neutron star’s only twenty-one kilometres in diameter, so a wave would be maybe a couple of millimetres high. Probably less.’

  ‘We’re missing the main point,’ Ellici said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they can?’

  ‘Because they’re weaponizing neutronium would be my guess. Remember, Ainsley has some kind of super-dense weapons we haven’t seen in action yet.’

  ‘And here we are in orbit around two point three solar masses of neutronium,’ Yirella said. ‘Matter that’s just as dense as you can get. Weaponize that, and the Olyix will be in serious trouble.’

  ‘Anyone would be,’ Wim said. ‘That’s a take-over-the-galaxy weapon.’

  ‘I disagree,’ Yirella said. ‘It’s a terrify-the-galaxy weapon, yes, but you can only destroy one thing with it. That doesn’t compel people to submit, just to run away.’

  ‘Or die.’

  ‘Good job they’re on our side, then,’ Ellici said.

  Yirella grinned over at her friend. ‘There’s one thing missing from this ring – from the whole system, actually.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘The seedships.’

  ‘Then where are they?’ Wim said, frowning.

  ‘Inside the museum particle?’ Ellici suggested.

  ‘Surplus to requirements,’ Wim said. ‘Plus the ring orbit is uncomfortably close to the neutron star. The radiation down there is dangerous. If we didn’t have mirrorfabrik shells, the fleet wouldn’t be in this parking orbit. We’d be a lot further out.’

  ‘The seedships were obsolete,’ Yirella said. ‘They didn’t bother maintaining them. Simplest solution applies.’

  ‘Interesting insight into their psychology, then,’ Ellici said. ‘Human cultures normally display a reverence for the past. You know there was a protective dome built over the Apollo lunar module at Tranquillity to preserve Armstrong and Aldrin’s footprints from overeager tourists.’

  ‘That probably died the day the Olyix super-nuked Theophilus crater. It was a miracle they didn’t crack the whole moon open with that one.’

  ‘Most likely,’ Wim said testily. ‘Your point?’

  ‘This is the first human civilization we know about that has no past, no heritage,’ Yirella said. ‘I deliberately chose not to burden them with expectations and traditions. Their value system is going to be different from ours. And Ainsley told me they were . . . argumentative at first.’

  ‘That indicated they took time establishing the boundaries and behaviour profiles that parents normally instil in children. But of course they had to determine those for themselves. So yeah, they’ll probably look at things differently. From a strictly logical point of view, the past is really dead to them, an irrelevance.’

  ‘Sentimentality is an inbuilt human trait,’ Wim said.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Don’t start bringing up nature versus nurture, not here. Please.’

  ‘Their society, particularly the individuals themselves, aren’t old enough to have experienced death from old age, not yet,’ Yirella said. ‘They have never known that kind of loss. That must impact their outlook.’

  ‘Saints, what have you created?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said, and grinned. ‘Wonderful, isn’t it.’

  *

  A small spherical craft with the ubiquitous copper skin flew out of the ring to the Morgan, accelerating and decelerating at twenty gees. When it had manoeuvred into the starship’s largest airlock, it opened up to present a single portal, three metres in diameter. Alexandre was standing in front of it, at the head of a delegation of senior officers and fleet captains. They could glimpse a verdant green landscape framed by the glowing blue rim – one that seemed to be mostly rainforest. A human figure walked through.

  Yirella couldn’t stop her lips twitching as she regarded the neutron star human in fascination. The visitor was an easy three metres tall, and she thought probably omnia; something about the sharp facial features elicited the instinctual assumption. Gender – if there was one – was hard to determine, what with the colourful ribbons of cloth that were wound spiral-style around its body – and which seemed to be moving as if still being wound. It was a perception issue, as if her eyes couldn’t quite resolve the subtle motion. The bands of colour were also travelling along the fabric in the opposite direction to the – apparent – physical motion. Then there were the visitor’s eyes, which were pale golden orbs, not at all biological. Also unusual was their skin, which was black but not as dark as her own, and had a kind of indigo mottling as if some reptilian DNA had somehow seeped in. The whole reptile theory was enhanced by the tail, over a metre long and sinuo
us, with strong muscle bands swishing it from side to side in a controlled pendulum motion that suggested it was anything but vestigial.

  Dellian leant in towards her and whispered: ‘Is that how you designed them?’

  ‘No. The initiators were set to produce standard binary humans. There’s been plenty of body modification going on here.’

  ‘Free to do what they like, huh?’

  Yirella was about to give him a really glance when the exotic visitor turned to face Alexandre, who was beginning hir official welcome speech. The cloth strips on its back parted to flow around five metallic sockets protruding from the spine. Yirella couldn’t figure those out at all; they were quite brutalist, given the technology level on show in the ring.

  ‘I am Immanueel,’ the visitor said in a high voice that hinted at amusement. ‘I thank you for your greeting. This is a momentous occasion for us.’ Immanueel began to look around at the people lined up behind Alexandre, searching – then drew a breath and walked straight to Yirella. Everyone parted to give them a clear path.

  Yirella wasn’t used to looking up at people. Of all Immanueel’s modified aspects, she found their height the most unsettling.

  ‘The genesis human,’ Immanueel said reverentially, and bowed. ‘I am honoured. You created us unbound – the greatest gift sentience can be given. We thank you for our lives and freedom.’

  Yirella opened Ainsley’s white icon. ‘What in the Saints have you done?’

  A mocking chortle came back at her. ‘Everyone needs a creation myth. Don’t blow it. Messiah.’

  ‘Oh, crap.’ She composed a gracious smile for Immanueel. ‘It is I who am flattered by this encounter. This ring and what you have done to the neutron star is extraordinarily impressive. You must be rightly proud of your accomplishments.’

  ‘Thank you. We have built a habitat suitable for you. The congress of determination can be held as soon as you are ready.’

  Yirella glanced over at Alexandre, who seemed more entertained than upset that Immanueel was treating her as if she was in charge. ‘I believe we are ready now,’ she said politely.

  Immanueel turned and gestured at the portal – a pose Yirella associated with a medieval courtier ushering their royal charge. ‘Then I would be delighted if you would accompany me.’

  ‘Of course.’ There was the tiniest spectre of doubt itching away in her mind, that this might be some luxurious trap – which made her annoyed with herself. This is what happens when you’re brought up to believe everything outside the fence is your enemy.

  *

  The habitat that the portal led to might have had a terrestrial environment, but visually Yirella found it disorienting. She’d been expecting to come out in one of the many larger cylindrical particles that the fleet’s sensors had found in the ring. But Immanueel had said: We built a habitat for you.

  Should’ve paid attention.

  The portal opened onto a wide plaza of stone slabs. Their surface was infused with lichen blooms, while moss was packed tight in the cracks. They looked old, as if they’d been laid many decades ago, if not longer. But then, ordinarily, she would have thought the thick woodland of bald cypress and oak trees surrounding the plaza must have been well over a century old, given their size. Whatever fast-grow genetic tweaks had been made to their seeds had produced an authentically ancient-looking biosphere. We could have done with that on Vayan.

  On the other side of the plaza from the portal was a disc-shaped building, suspended thirty metres off the ground on fluted columns. The supports were twirled by wisteria trunks almost as thick as the nearby trees. They swamped the building, decorating it in deep violet flower clusters so that only the disc’s window band rim was visible. It left her with the impression of something sacred that had been abandoned to nature, like one of old Earth’s pre-industrial temples.

  Finally, her subconscious hauled her gaze up beyond the tree canopy so she was looking along the bulk of the habitat. A frown crept onto her face. The cylinder bent along its length – a long curve that put the endcaps out of direct sight. So . . . considerably longer than any of those cylinders the fleet had categorized orbiting the neutron star. It took a moment for her to work out what was wrong with what she was seeing. She was standing on the floor of a cylinder with a landscape curving above her in defiance of any planetary geography, its apex hidden behind an axial strand of glaring light. It was the typical layout of big human habitats like Sisaket, which they’d left behind at the start of the FinalStrike flight. Such habitats rotated around their long axis to provide Coriolis gravity on the floor of the shell – except this wasn’t a simple cylindrical geometry. Instead she was standing inside a tube that circled around on itself to form a toroid, so it couldn’t be rotating around the axial sun tube.

  ‘Saints alive,’ she muttered. This is an artificial gravity field. ‘You can manipulate gravity,’ she said to Immanueel.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Again: impressive.’

  ‘I would say thank you, but it is you we should be thanking.’

  ‘How do you see that?’

  ‘We exist because of you. If we have built something that impresses you, I am pleased. You are the root from which all we are has grown.’

  Yirella just knew she’d be blushing. ‘Ah, right.’

  She searched around for other neutron star inhabitants, but the only people on the plaza were ones from the fleet still coming through the portal. ‘Where is your delegation?’ she asked.

  Immanueel tipped their head to one side in a distinctly avian motion. ‘I’m sorry. This physical aspect of mine will be present for the congress. Further attendance of my faction colleagues will be through their direct data aspect involvement. Apart from Ainsley; he has manifested as an android.’

  ‘He has?’

  ‘Yes.’ Immanueel performed another elaborate gesture, indicating the elevated disc building. ‘If you would join us?’

  Together, they walked across the plaza towards the lofty braids of wisteria trunks and Yirella realized she’d misjudged the size. The disc was a lot bigger than she’d thought: a hundred and fifty metres in diameter at least.

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘It is your Hospitality House.’

  ‘I love the flowers.’

  ‘Thank you. We timed the blossom season for this moment.’

  She saw the blue glow of a portal rim just behind the pillar. They stepped through together, coming out in the centre of the building. It was a single big hall, twenty metres high, walled by the curving rim of windows. Right at the centre was a thick multifaceted crystalline pillar, flared at the base and ceiling. She wouldn’t have been surprised if it was a real diamond; the pristine gleam certainly laid a claim to authenticity. Each of the facets shone with a prismatic lustre that was slowly fluctuating, as if tiny things were moving inside, distorting the light.

  ‘My colleagues’ aspects,’ Immanueel said formally. ‘Most of them are at analytic.’

  Yirella inclined her head to the pillar. ‘I’m delighted to meet you.’

  As one, every point of light swung to rose-gold, flooding the spacious hall with a glorious twilight haze. Yirella smiled politely. She was sure she was misinterpreting some of Immanueel’s conversation. When she glanced around, she registered the vaguely puzzled expressions marring Dellian and Alexandre’s faces. ‘And by analytic, you mean?’

  ‘Ah. The mode my colleagues utilize to encompass this congress will scrutinize and deliberate. When we elevated ourselves out of our birthform, we redistributed our mentality across several physical repositories. Today, each individual currently resident in the ring is a unified corpus. This biophysical body is only one part of me.’

  To her mind it sounded like heresy, but she asked it anyway. ‘Like an Olyix quint?’

  The pillar flickered excitedly with opalescent light.

  ‘A not dissimilar analogy,’ Immanueel conceded. ‘Except that once we matured, we chose to amplify our minds; our corpus are a gre
at deal more than simple backup, which is the basis behind the quint model. My mind, for example, is perfectly interfaced with a quantum processing network as well as biological components that are subject to neurochemical and hormonal distortions. This way, I retain a complete human emotional response to my environment as well as uplifting my intellectual capacity and thoughtspeed. A different set of neurological segments amplify intuition, or whimsy. I consider that aspect to be the most connected with the birthform mind. I still dream, Yirella.’

  The smile she gave Immanueel was tainted by sadness. ‘And which corpus component holds your soul?’

  Immanueel clapped in admiration. ‘An excellent question. You are truly the genesis human Ainsley spoke of. It is a question that would no doubt delight the ancient Greek philosophers.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘The soul is an abstract. It is everywhere and nowhere within the corpus. It is nothing and everything.’

  ‘The one flaw in rationality, yet also the path to greatness.’

  ‘Exactly. Our humanity, the same as yours.’

  ‘Completely different.’

  ‘I confess I was worried about meeting you, Yirella. There is a saying from old Earth: Never meet your idol. But you are everything I envisaged you would be.’

  ‘You haven’t had to argue with her yet,’ Dellian said in a low voice. ‘Let me know how much admiration you have left after that happens.’

  Yirella gave his grinning face the finger.

  ‘Ah, the genesis human’s boyfriend,’ Immanueel said.

  ‘Has a name,’ Yirella admonished.

  ‘Never could be assed to learn it,’ a familiar voice announced loudly.

  She turned to see a pearl-white human male striding across the floor. She knew he was male because he was naked – and anatomically correct. His facial features were easily identifiable. ‘Hello, Ainsley.’

  ‘Hey there, kid. Good to see you, in the flesh.’

  ‘The initiator couldn’t do clothes?’

  ‘Never had you down as a prude.’

  ‘Okay: The initiator couldn’t do colour?’ The android’s whiteness was absolute – eyes, hair strands, the inside of his mouth. Everything was just the same plastic material.