To Hold Infinity

by John Meaney

  “And the ceremony?”

  “Deep scan. The elder passing on edited thoughts, memories, to her successor. The thing is, to scan that deeply, you're going to heisenberg the original into chaos. That's why the elder chooses to die.”

  “Chooses?” Yoshiko felt cold.

  “Lori's physical death was caused by a euthanasia toxin. Self-administered, before the ceremony started.”

  “And if she hadn't taken it—?”

  “You've seen Xanthia.”

  “Yes.” Yoshiko let out a long, shaky breath. “Yes, I have.”

  Tai no sen. To wait for the enemy.

  Yoshiko got up, and stood by the window. Her reflection was a pale and insubstantial ghost. The black night was real.

  Wait for the enemy's commitment. Then counterstrike.

  Finally, she rejoined the others.

  “Lori made a suggestion.” She forced her voice to remain steady. “Though she did not mean it quite literally—but there is an offworld quota.”

  A frown etched Jana's pointed features.

  “I don't understand,” said Reilly.

  “Oh, no.” Maggie stood up. “Yoshiko, you can't mean it.”

  “If Rafael can't reach me physically—” Yoshiko looked at Major Reilly. “—then he'll have to strike through Skein.”

  “A Judas goat,” breathed Jana.

  Reilly frowned.

  Maggie said, “She's talking about upraise. Becoming a Luculenta.”

  “That's impossible.”

  “No.” Jana's jet-black eyes glinted. “That's perfect.”

  Chasms fell away beneath him: sheer planes, steely grey ribbed with black, around which angular darts and polygons flew. A shower of crystal spheres flew past, and each contained a universe of visions, mathematical realms and seafaring vessels, poetry and picnics, music and—

  “Tetsuo?”

  Flicker: just inside the habitable zone, sitting on a fallen tree at the forest's edge. Morning mist steamed at the forest's edge.

  “I don't—”

  Turquoise info-waves crashed upon him, each a tumult of voices and white noise—so strange, these inconsistent fragments, as though he were missing something important—and twisted jangling constructs fell among the paths of his nervous system.

  Then his mind twisted apart as the universe expanded: blazing avenues stretching along twenty dimensions, more, all at right angles to each other, and he screamed inwardly as he tried to encompass impossible perspectives on endless data, shapes and communication-forms beyond simple primate comprehension.

  “Are you alright?”

  Something…

  Suddenly, it was there. Urgent and malevolent, an awful sense of presence, of something or someone terribly aware of all he was, of all the petty fears which made him Tetsuo. It reached inside him with protocols like pincers, with code-like claws, burrowing into the computations of his mind—

  Out.

  “Talk to me, Tetsuo.” Dhana's small strong hands pulled off his resp-mask. A faint ammoniac whiff in the air, but otherwise fine to breathe. “What's going on?”

  “Oh, God—”

  Realms of data, questing phantoms…

  “—I think I just logged on to Skein.”

  Dhana looked around urgently. “Keep your voice down.”

  <<>>

  “Sorry.” Tetsuo pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “I won't do it again, if I can help it.”

  How could he explain? For a moment, he had existed in dimensions beyond human understanding.

  “They're pitching the bubbles.”

  On a ridge overlooking a wooded dell, the air shimmered slightly. A disembodied hand briefly appeared behind it—one of the Agrazzi reaching through the smartatom chameleon-film for something—and a slightly shifted foreground image accompanied it: a dark circle, a hand appearing to reach into the dome-shaped disturbance. Then both hands were withdrawn, and the dome became quite invisible.

  Tetsuo shook his head, feeling nauseated. Illusions in reality, nightmarish mindscapes in Skein. It was too much.

  “Over here.” Brevan beckoned.

  Tetsuo stumbled twice as they walked, but Dhana was there to steady him.

  Among the roots of a giant mossy tree, Brevan had set up a smartatom bubble, still opaque. Kerrigan and Avern were inside already.

  Tetsuo and Dhana ducked inside, then Brevan followed and sealed the gap, and spoke urgent instructions into his wrist terminal. Inside the tentlike bubble, nothing changed. Outside, Tetsuo hoped, light falling at every angle onto the bubble was partially redirected around it, and amplified and retransmitted in the original direction.

  “I can't see the tower.”

  “Over there, between the forked trees.”

  “Got it.”

  They all watched the terraformer tower. Tetsuo's nerves grew steadier.

  “Are you sure they're coming?” Dhana asked impatiently.

  Kerrigan glanced at her.” “Bound to be. Any—”

  “There.”

  Hunched over, trying to get a better view, Tetsuo was acutely aware of Dhana pressed beside him, intent on the distant tower.

  Predatory flyers slowly circled the tower.

  “They're not landing.”

  “No. I think they're going to—”

  There was no explosion.

  A low hum, a buzzing which seemed to reach inside Tetsuo's guts, was accompanied by the merest puff of dust from the tower's base. Then, slowly, the tower crumpled and collapsed.

  One flyer hovered over the settling dust. Blue lightning stabbed into a sequence of precise points amid the debris.

  Then the flyers resumed formation, and steadily glided away.

  “My God.”

  “What about the graser fire?”

  Kerrigan looked grim. “Destroying the evidence. Including Federico's Luculentus clone.”

  Killing their own.

  “Nice people.”

  Tetsuo looked around the faces in the smartatom shelter. Despite their words, none of them looked truly shocked. They had known TacCorps were this ruthless.

  “You're bloody mad,” he said. “All of you.”

  The dead girl sat up in bed and smiled.

  “Yoshiko. Maggie.” Lori's eyes looked out from Vin's sweet face. “It's good to see you.”

  Yoshiko's skin crawled.

  “Vin?” she forced herself to ask. “Are—you all right?”

  Scarlet hair, teenage face. Luxuriously appointed room: white and gold, carpet of mobile mandelbrots gently swimming, the med-scanners disguised as ornamental sculptures and decorative glass orbs. Morning sunshine poured through a skylight.

  “Oh, Yoshiko.” Those young features held an expression of ancient gravitas. “Perhaps you had better call me Lavinia.”

  “I—yes, OK.”

  Yoshiko and Maggie sat on faux Louis Quinze chairs, on either side of Vin's—Lavinia's—bed.

  Yoshiko felt drained. She and Maggie had stayed overnight in guest rooms here at the med-centre—after Jana and Edralix had left—but sleep had not come easily.

  Turning to Maggie, Lavinia said, “Yoshiko remembers Vin saying how much she hated her real name.”

  Dread crossed Maggie's face as Lavinia continued, “I recall saying those words to Yoshiko, on Ardua Station. But I also remember giving that name to my soul-daughter, when she was designated to me, aged eight.”

  “Lori?” Yoshiko tentatively asked.

  “No, I'm not Lori.” Lavinia shook her head. “But so much of Vin was lost, replaced with blank tissue and initialized plexcore lattice, that I am much more Lori than I should have been.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Don't be.” Lavinia shrugged. “Whoever I am, this person you see was born because of what happened. I am me. How can I be unhappy that I exist?”

  Yoshiko shook her head, and Maggie looked away. This was too much to grasp.

  “Hurry now.”
Kerrigan's voice was abrupt. “Or we'll miss the rendezvous.” Beside him, Avern and the other Agrazzus were helping their wounded—and glassy-eyed—comrade to walk.

  Tetsuo paused, halfway up a leaf-strewn slope. A lone bird cheeped in a branch above his head.

  “Good job he didn't say ‘meeting,’” said Tetsuo in a stage whisper. “Wouldn't want to sound like an amateur.”

  Dhana snickered, then fell silent before Kerrigan's glare.

  “You have a problem, Mister Sunadomari?”

  “No, sir.”

  They forced a path among undergrowth, then headed downslope on soft ground. Among the tangled trees, Tetsuo caught a glimpse of white and orange.

  A flyer, already landed and waiting for them.

  A tall grey-haired Luculenta was there. While the wounded Agrazzus was put aboard her flyer, she conferred with Kerrigan and Brevan.

  “Looks like we're honoured,” murmured Dhana.

  “You mean they're talking about me?”

  “Who could blame ’em?”

  Tetsuo, trying to think of a smart reply, realized that the Luculenta was walking towards them.

  “I'm Felice Lectinaria.” The woman's voice was very elegant. “I know Yoshiko.”

  Tetsuo felt the ground drop away beneath his feet.

  “My mother?”

  “…and they won't let me log on to Skein for ten bloody days!”

  Maggie snorted with laughter, and the tension decreased.

  Lavinia had chatted about her boredom in this room, her enforced abstinence from any form of interface. She revealed the sunny disposition of Lori or Vin, Yoshiko thought, and yet was neither.

  Maggie sighed. “What about Septor? Shall we send for him?”

  Journalistic instinct. Yoshiko smiled inwardly. Maggie's question had gone right to the heart of things.

  The expression on Lavinia's face shut down.

  “Relationships do not survive a Passing.”

  “But if you bump into him at a dinner or something—”

  “Then we'll be exceedingly polite and formal with each other. There is a protocol which governs such occasions.”

  Yoshiko intervened before the silence grew awkward.

  “What about young Brian?”

  A flashing grin.

  “He's not bad, is he?” For a moment, it was Vin sitting up in bed. “Can't dance, though.”

  Yoshiko remembered Vin and Brian in each other's arms, in the ballroom.

  Lavinia's expression was suddenly stricken. “I—no, Lori—saw Xanthia. They say it's not my fault, but it was my ware, my safety routines which failed in the laser array.”

  “It wasn't your fault.” There was cold fury in Maggie's voice.

  “I don't agree. My house, my system.”

  “Haven't they told you anything?” asked Maggie. “Although—the med-centre staff can't know much about it, anyway.”

  “I'm supposed to rest.” Lavinia's pale face was tight, and she shivered. “I don't deserve to live—”

  Maggie's voice was low and fierce. “Whatever happened to Xanthia, it was Rafael de la Vega who did it.”

  “Who? Oh, yes. Rafael.” Lavinia looked confused. “What could he do? Sabotage the laser array?”

  Maggie looked at Yoshiko.

  “We think,” said Yoshiko softly, “he attacked Xanthia through Luculentus fast comms.”

  “What? But—There are LuxPrime protocols, safeguards.” Lavinia was holding back tears. “And there were hundreds of us there, watching.”

  “Maybe that was part of the thrill. He could have used something like the scanware from, ah, Baton Ceremonies.”

  “He scanned Xanthia?”

  “Or just initialized her mind.” Maggie looked grim. “Scrambled it.”

  “But—”

  “Here.” Yoshiko dug in her pocket, then held out the infocrystal. “I don't know about the psychological effect of seeing this. If you're supposed to be resting—”

  “Show me,” said Lavinia, with an iron grimness neither Lori nor Vin had ever possessed.

  “Warning: stress levels indicate the patient needs rest. Visitors will please leave—”

  “Shut up!” Lavinia's voice was furious as she stopped the display, a hundred frozen dancers around Xanthia's tortured figure.

  The med-centre system fell silent.

  Yoshiko swallowed. She was not sure this was wise, but she could not have Lavinia torturing herself with misplaced guilt.

  “Lavinia—” Maggie took Lavinia's hand, as once more debris fell and Yoshiko knocked Vin out of the way far too late, and Vin's head was a bloody ruin.

  “I'm alright.” Lavinia froze the display once more. “Federico Gisanthro moved fast.”

  “Yes.” Yoshiko remembered the speed of his sprint across the ballroom floor, straight towards Xanthia. “He reacted very quickly.”

  “But I don't see Rafael at all. Where is he?”

  “That,” said Maggie, “is another story.”

  “I don't know much of this would be admissible in court.” Lavinia pointed at the dark shadowy figure, the reconstruction produced by Edralix's analysis.

  Maggie, who was also seeing this for the first time, said, “I remember him standing there. Rafael. That's just where he was.”

  “But your memory could be fooled, by virtue of seeing this. And the Pilots could have faked this analysis, more easily than someone could have edited my house-system's logs.”

  “You're playing devil's advocate, right?”

  “Oh, Yes.” Lavinia's face was grim. “In fact, Lori saw Rafael stumbling across the lawns towards the parked flyers. I—she—thought he was sick.”

  “Not too sick to hack into your house-system.”

  Yoshiko, who had been observing silently, said, “I don't know. Lavinia, before Lori gave me global authority to the system, weren't the proctors using it?”

  “Yes, directing drones. Emergency access.”

  “There was a Luculentus, a big man, directing engineers—” Yoshiko cast her mind back. “He didn't seem overjoyed when you put me in charge.”

  “You're saying Rafael had an accomplice?”

  “Looks that way. Perhaps Major Reilly can find out who he was.”

  Maggie shook her head. “How do we know we can trust her? If the accomplice was a proctor, I mean?”

  Unsettled, Yoshiko got up from her seat, and paced across the room.

  “There's a gym here in the med-centre.” Lavinia's voice was amused. “I'm sure they'll let you use it.”

  “That's what I need, all right. To steady my nerves.”

  “We've got to know each other pretty well, haven't we?” asked Lavinia. “Considering what a private person you are, and—well, even I don't know who I am, right now.”

  Yoshiko stared at her. “That's right.”

  Maggie looked from Lavinia to Yoshiko, frowning.

  “So,” said Lavinia. “Why don't you tell me what's really on your mind?”

  Yoshiko exhaled, calming herself. “First, let me show you the rest of what's on the crystal.”

  Billowing clouds of light called to mind the Baton Ceremony and Lori's demise, and Yoshiko shivered as though ice had enveloped her.

  “Is he even human any more?” Maggie's face looked sickened. “Can we even imagine his thought processes?”

  One hundred and two translucent blocks surrounded the central ovoid.

  “We need to show this to someone at LuxPrime,” said Lavinia. “A mind this size—Perhaps he truly did scan Xanthia, as in a Baton Ceremony, but taking absolutely everything that was her: all her thoughts, all her memories. Everything.”

  “How often—?” Maggie seemed on the verge of throwing up. “How many times has he done this before?”

  “Many, perhaps.” Lavinia's face was stony. “Though it's hard to tell. His mind has migrated across all the plexcores. You're right: his thoughts may no longer be remotely human.”

  “Haven't you people ever thought of this possibil
ity?”

  Lavinia shook her head, but said nothing.

  “There's a dead LuxPrime courier involved in this,” Yoshiko pointed out. “Perhaps Rafael had help in committing the unthinkable.”

  “Yes.” Lavinia looked away. “That's just what it is. Unthinkable.”

  For a moment, she grew infinitely distant, then she turned back to Yoshiko and focussed on her. “Go on.”

  Yoshiko nodded at the diagram. “That's not all Edralix found.” Yoshiko manipulated the display, and a sphere appeared, tiny nodes dotted across the surface, the joining arcs clearly labelled. “This shows physical separation.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “Rafael used my son's comms ware for this.”

  Maggie looked up. “What do you mean?”

  “I understand.” Lavinia sounded thoughtful. “Rafael's plexcores are scattered across the face of Fulgor.” She turned to Maggie. “He would need instantaneous interfaces, to avoid lightspeed delays.”

  “Oh,” said Maggie. “Mu-space comms. Of course.”

  “Actually,” Lavinia continued, “with a nexus this size, even stacking all the plexcores together in one room would cause problems, without mu-space links. And they certainly wouldn't all fit inside Rafael's body as implants.”

  “Can Jana do anything?” asked Maggie.

  “I don't think so.” Yoshiko tried to remember what Jana had said about comms architectures. “Their systems aren't designed with eavesdropping in mind. I don't think they can isolate a particular individual's comms.”

  “So it's back to Plan A.”

  “What's Plan A?” asked Lavinia.

  “Bait,” replied Yoshiko, as Maggie simultaneously said, “A Judas goat.”

  “I'll call the LuxPrime tech who prepared the ceremony. He was very sympathetic.” Lavinia spoke slowly. “There must be tracking ware, debugging modules, what have you. Yes, that's the way.” She picked nervously at her lip. “If only integration didn't take so long. I'm not supposed to interface at all for a tenday.”

  “Er—” Maggie cleared her throat. “I don't think it was you that Yoshiko, had in mind.”

  “But she isn't a—Oh, I see.”

  Those young-old eyes seemed to bore into Yoshiko's soul.

  Then, “I would be honoured,” Lavinia said formally, “to sponsor you for upraise, Professor Sunadomari.”