The Saints of Salvation [British Ed.]

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘I’m being economical. Just because we’re post-scarcity doesn’t mean we should be profligate.’

  ‘Couldn’t be assed, then?’

  ‘Fucking A.’

  Yirella didn’t know if she should be laughing or sneering at Ainsley’s android avatar, yet somehow she wasn’t surprised by it. ‘So what now?’

  ‘Congress!’ He winked, a disturbing pucker on his perfectly smooth face.

  Dellian smirked.

  ‘Oh, Saints save us,’ Yirella groaned. She saw there were eighteen captains in the big hall. ‘Shall we begin?’ she asked Alexandre.

  ‘I think so, yes.’ Sie bowed slightly to Immanueel. ‘I hope you will be patient with us. Not everyone here is as fast as Yirella.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then I’d like to start by thanking you for this reception. You said you built this habitat for us?’

  ‘Yes. I’m pleased you like it. It took us six weeks to mature it.’

  Alexandre drew a breath ready for hir next question, but Yirella held a hand up.

  ‘We’re not at your level, are we?’ she said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  She closed her eyes, focusing on what she’d seen and heard. ‘Natural gravity is a product of spacetime curvature.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘But you have full mastery of it. This habitat is proof of that.’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘So you can create wormholes, for which you’d have to manipulate negative energy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The same technology as the Olyix. So, you have a phenomenal amount of control over the fabric of spacetime.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Seasons. You said you timed the seasons so the wisteria would be in flower for today. That means this is an enclave, but the opposite of the Olyix one.’

  ‘Huh?’ Dellian grunted.

  ‘Now I am the one impressed,’ Immanueel said.

  She turned to Del. ‘This is and is not a new habitat, depending on your observer viewpoint. It was built a short while ago, then Immanueel’s people changed the internal time flow. Inside the Olyix enclave, time flows slowly relative to an external observer, allowing them to travel to the end of the universe without suffering too much ageing and entropy. In here, time flows quickly relative to that same observer. So those trees in the forest are genuinely hundreds of years old.’

  ‘Fuck the Saints,’ Dellian muttered.

  ‘Which must take a phenomenal amount of power?’ Yirella looked expectantly at Immanueel.

  ‘We derive it directly from the neutron star.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘If we are to successfully negate the Olyix enclave, we knew we had to understand the mechanism that creates and maintains it. It was one of our first accomplishments after we extended our minds.’

  Dellian looked around at the crews from the fleet. ‘Anyone still think Yirella did the wrong thing?’

  Ainsley’s white hand slapped him on the shoulders. ‘My man!’

  ‘All right, Dellian,’ Alexandre said. ‘Let’s try and be constructive here, shall we?’

  There were tiers of heavy wooden chairs arranged in a semicircle, all facing the crystal pillar. Yirella got the impression they were all handmade – and if not, someone had made a big effort to design tiny differences into the carved oak.

  Immanueel sat in front of the twinkling pillar on the largest chair; its bifurcated backrest was obviously intended to accommodate a tail. The captains and crew from the fleet found themselves spaces in the rows of chairs facing their host. Yirella wound up in the front, sitting between Ainsley and Alexandre, with Dellian on the seat behind her. She knew from his buttoned-down expression that he was stifling a laugh.

  ‘What?’ she asked from the side of her mouth.

  ‘We’re in the court of the elven king now,’ he replied.

  When she glanced forwards again, she had to agree. Immanueel’s size made for an imposing figure, and their chair could easily be a throne. Looked at without modern filters, the baroque rustic hall with its weight of new ages bestowed the setting a convincingly regal appearance: the benign monarch granting loyal courtiers an audience.

  Some of them with regicide and revolution on their minds. She saw Kenelm three rows back, hir disapproval unconstrained as sie scrutinized the hall’s gently domed ceiling.

  ‘If I may, I will start with a brief history,’ Immanueel said. ‘We initiated our transition up from baseline human form five years after we were birthed out of the seedship biologic initiators, some fifty-five years ago in Earth standard years – normal spacetime existence. Yet we are not a monoculture. Many of us chose neural expansion in tandem with corpus elaboration; others did not. Some, like myself, decided to wait here and meet you for the sole purpose of travelling together to the Olyix enclave and instigating FinalStrike.’

  Yirella shot Alexandre a surprised glance, which seemed to be mirrored on hir expression.

  ‘As such,’ Immanueel continued, ‘we have devoted ourselves to developing what Ainsley insists on calling weapons hardware.’

  ‘So you are going to help take on the Olyix enclave?’ Alexandre asked.

  ‘Indeed, yes. I hold the view that the Olyix cannot go unchallenged – especially in view of their impact on human history.’ Behind Immanueel, the pillar underwent a burst of shimmering colours.

  ‘Can I ask how many of you hold that view?’ Wim queried. ‘In fact, how many of you are there?’

  ‘That last question is now unanswerable,’ Immanueel said. ‘Many of us have already left; they have already begun to expand and populate their own domains.’

  ‘Who left?’

  ‘They are called the egress faction; they refute the notion of interspecies conflict. They rightly regarded it as immature and irrelevant to high-scale evolutionites such as ourselves. We do not need to fight; we are able simply to rise above such animal-origin situations. It is our belief the Olyix do not have the ability to capture and cocoon us. However, since we began to change this star’s rotation speed, the Olyix will inevitably arrive here at some point. Therefore the egress faction departed, travelling to other stars where they will establish themselves in new spacetime-extrinsic domains.’

  ‘You mean enclaves?’ Yirella said.

  ‘I expect some egressor domains will incorporate alternative time-speeds relative to universal spacetime, yes.’

  ‘Sanctuary,’ Dellian exclaimed.

  ‘New sanctuaries,’ Immanueel corrected. ‘We have no knowledge of the Sanctuary that Factory humans and the Katos went on to establish.’

  ‘How many of this egress faction left?’ Yirella asked.

  ‘Fifty-seven thousand eight hundred and thirty-two,’ Immanueel replied. ‘Each of them established a squadron of powerful battle cruisers in case they encountered a Resolution ship before they could inaugurate their domain.’

  ‘I’m sorry? Each of them?’ Yirella’s question kicked off a lot of murmuring in the audience behind her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean they all went their individual way?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘Of course. We are all individuals. That is the freedom you gave us. Everybody here is independent, and nobody is answerable to another. It is the final liberation. Thanks to you, genesis human.’

  She could well imagine the expression on Kenelm’s face.

  ‘Wait,’ Tilliana said. ‘You told us all these egress people are now expanding their population?’

  ‘Correct. Although individual, we retain our social nature. Everyone who left here has or will found their own society.’

  ‘At fifty-seven thousand different stars?’

  ‘Yes. To begin with, anyway. Stars are needed as a power source for spacetime-extrinsic domains. I expect they will simply take gas giants out of orbit and convert their mass to energy once they have constructed the appropriate structures.’

  Like everyone in the hall, Yirella was silent for a moment as she tried to appreciate the implication o
f what Immanueel had just told them. ‘So who remained?’ she finally asked. ‘Apart from yourself.’

  ‘We call ourselves the history faction.’

  ‘Okay. So how many of you are there in this history faction?’

  ‘Three thousand five hundred and seventeen.’ Their hand waved leisurely at the crystal pillar, which briefly flared a twilight amber.

  The hall was silent again. ‘Three and a half thousand?’

  ‘Yes. That number troubles you? You consider it to be low? Do not worry, I assure you we have the ability to destroy the Olyix enclave.’

  Yirella couldn’t make herself look at the Ainsley android. Her body had chilled too much to do anything but stare at Immanueel on their not-throne. Very carefully, she said: ‘The seedships were tasked with growing a base population of a hundred thousand humans in biologic initiators. You have been here for sixty years now. I’d like to know what happened to everyone who isn’t egress or history.’

  ‘I see you are concerned,’ Immanueel said. ‘Not all of the original hundred thousand elected to a corpus elaboration. Call them naturalists. They remained in their original bodyform. Many even refused neurological enhancement.’

  ‘People like us, then?’ Dellian said.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘So where are they now?’ Yirella asked.

  ‘Those who were birthed here are now dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do not be alarmed. They all died from old age. Many underwent multiple cellular replacement treatments – rejuvenation, if you like – during their life. The eldest was just short of four thousand years old when she finally passed. It was a moving ceremony. Every corpus who was here at the time attended in a biophysical body to honour her.’

  Yirella let the air out of her body in a long breath. I need time to adapt to the possibilities that are open here, to make them part of my instincts.

  ‘The naturalists must have had children,’ Wim said.

  ‘They did,’ Immanueel said enthusiastically. ‘There were eighteen separate domains built to house them, each with a slightly different social structure. Some more . . . successful than others.’ For once, Immanueel’s serene composure flickered. ‘George Santayana was correct: those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. But all who were birthed here eventually adapted and prospered. The domains containing their societies were taken away by the egress faction, where they will be protected and nurtured once time is restarted within them.’

  ‘Four thousand years,’ Wim mused. ‘What were their populations when they left?’

  ‘Uncertain. Those of us who are corpus don’t like to interfere with naturalists. But it would be several million in each domain. Some had started to develop sub-domains.’

  ‘What sort of lives did they have? What did they do?’

  ‘There are recordings of their existence available for you to review should you wish to indulge your curiosity.’

  ‘Thank you. I would be interested.’

  ‘So now you must start to decide,’ Immanueel said. ‘I will be travelling to the Olyix enclave along with the rest of the history faction to launch our FinalStrike. Are you going to accompany us?’

  ‘Is there any point?’ Dellian asked. He shrugged. ‘I mean, it sounds like each of you is at least as powerful as Ainsley. What the hell can we contribute? Saints, I don’t get why you even bothered waiting for us.’

  ‘In terms of warships and weapons, we believe we have the resources to tackle the Olyix directly, thus completing the goal that Ainsley and Emilja set all those years ago. Once the enclave is breached, we need to locate the Salvation of Life and all the other arkships that store human cocoons – a not inconsiderable task, which by necessity will be conducted in an active war zone. Which leaves us with the question of your participation. You have committed yourselves to liberating natural humans from the Olyix, and those in the original Morgan squads have combat experience inside an Olyix vessel. We wished to honour your commitment by inviting you to join us. After all you have endured, we sincerely believed you deserved the chance to contribute to FinalStrike should you so choose. And, of course, we desired to meet the genesis human.’

  Yirella was conscious that everyone was glancing at her again. Her cheeks grew warm from the blood rising in them.

  As if sie’d sensed her discomfort, Alexandre said: ‘Immanueel, thank you for explaining everything to us. We do have a lot to talk about.’

  ‘Of course. Please feel free to use this domain to relax in. The facilities are the best we can produce, and, I expect, a welcome change from the life-support sections of your ships. If you require anything, simply use your databud to order it.’

  Everyone rose to their feet like a young Immerle estate class dismissed from a lecture. Chairs scraped along the floor; everyone was speaking at once.

  Yirella walked over to Immanueel as they stood up. ‘We need to talk,’ she said.

  *

  In her mind, Yirella envisaged the two of them strolling along one of the gravel paths that wound between the torus domain’s old bald cypress trees, with startled birds flying between the high branches, chirping indignantly at the intrusion. Instead Immanueel led her to a portal across the floor of the hall.

  She walked through into a weird hemispherical chamber twenty metres across, with metallic imperial-purple walls that could have been components of a machine – that, or they were inside a nest burrowed into a scrapheap. The strange geometrical protuberances had deep cracks between them – an effect that arched right overhead to the apex. Light came from a multitude of small sparks that slid slowly along the bottom of the cracks in an eternal progression, going nowhere.

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked. The floor was so smooth she was worried she’d skid across it if she started walking. There was no colour beneath her feet, as if a hologram were stuck in neutral, giving the impression she was standing on the glass lid of an exceptionally deep well shaft.

  ‘My centrex,’ Immanueel replied.

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Home. I wish us to be friends, or at least form a strong alliance. I believe inviting someone to your residence has a strong significance in your culture?’

  ‘It does. Did. An invitation to share was a large social force on old Earth, but those were different times. Post-scarcity changed the social implication. However, the custom remains – which is rather sweet. But you know this. I gave you all the records you access.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘So if you are corpus, physically distributed across many elements –’ she gestured around extravagantly at the machine rilievo that made up the wall – ‘is this them?’

  ‘Some, yes.’

  ‘Okay, I have to ask: Why genesis human?’

  ‘It offends you?’

  ‘No. It spikes my curiosity, although I know Ainsley is responsible. I regard him as somewhat eccentric, especially for an AI – or whatever he actually is. He’s more than a genten, but less than human, despite how fast and smart he is.’

  ‘He described himself thusly to us, too. Smart, but without imagination. That seems to be an intrinsic part of the human soul, if not its very heart.’

  ‘Don’t go all romantic on me now. Intuition, imagination, impulse; they’re all part of random biochemical interactions in our neural structure.’

  ‘Indeed. But never really imitated outside a biological brain. However many random factors an artificial mind can generate, it cannot be truly imaginative. The idea for us came from you, not him, did it not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So simply calling you originator, or first mother, or similar, didn’t seem to convey the grandeur of what you did. In a very real sense, Yirella, you created us.’

  ‘Okay. I guess I can live with it.’

  ‘It pains us that your value is not fully recognized among your peers. You should be leading the fleet.’

  ‘Us? Is the whole history faction listening in?’

  ‘Not so much that as they are
attuned to my conversation with you.’

  ‘But only with a small part of their consciousness, right? An aspect?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Do you really need us to come with you to the enclave?’

  ‘Our FinalStrike can be conducted without you. Of course it can. However, your squads are ideally suited for the task. They will make a genuine contribution.’

  ‘Closure,’ she said wonderingly. ‘You’re offering us closure.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘I’m concerned about throwing the squads into combat inside the enclave. No matter how advanced you are, and how many aspects you bring, the Olyix are equally formidable.’

  ‘You are correct. Even we cannot offer certainty.’

  ‘You must have some idea what’s in there. You build your domains on the same principle.’

  ‘The principles of quantum temporal mechanics that create and sustain the Olyix enclave, yes, we know them. Its internal nature, no. This is what humans have always dreaded . . .’

  ‘The other.’

  ‘Indeed. Olyix thought processes are genuinely alien. We can produce guesses at how the inside of the enclave is structured – logical guesses. But we can’t actually know.’

  ‘And once you do, you have to formulate a plan immediately.’

  ‘It gets worse.’

  ‘No plan of battle survives contact with the enemy.’

  ‘Exactly. An active combat environment is perpetually fluid. It needs a commander who can make choices. You, perhaps, could contribute.’ Immanueel bent forwards, spine curving so their tail stood up in a fashion that Yirella found oddly disturbing. They leant against the wall, pressing hard against the asymmetric contours. The shiny purple components began to move around their body, creating an alcove that fitted like a glove. Nozzles clicked smoothly into the sockets down Immanueel’s spine, incorporating them into the wall’s constitution.

  ‘No thank you,’ she said, ‘Tilliana, Ellici, and the other tactical teams might provide you with an alternative viewpoint if we come across something unexpected, but I really don’t do well in high-stress situations.’

  ‘I understand, and even sympathize. We will not call upon you for instant opinions, but we would welcome your participation in overall strategy preparation.’ With their motionless body embraced by the centrex, Immanueel’s voice became omnidirectional.