by Mike Ashley
He sleeps, and eats, and sits in a man-nappy staring at the wall.
We had assumed that desire transforms us. But actually only the death of desire can transform us. We thought, for a while, that Macro was unusually blessed; but the truth is quite otherwise. In another man this might have diluted the hatred. I did not realize, on Mars, that hatred was the right term; but on the shuttle to Earth, looping around a fern-curl trajectory in company of my rival, my pleasure came back to me. And with it came the realization that hatred for Macro had reorganized my psyche almost wholly around its line of force. The greatest pleasure of all, of course, was knowing that his mind is destroyed. That is a continual refreshing mountain stream of joy inside my soul.
We know, now, where we stand. This is how I reported it to the UN council. We know the Hitchers, like us, originated in a portion of the galaxy swaddled about with enough dark matter to protect them from the fullest awe-blast of the naked sky. They, like us, evolved in a sort of galactic microclimate. This is not to say that life can only evolve intelligence in such places – quite the reverse, in fact. It transpires that there is a staggering wealth and variety of other forms of alien life; but almost all of them grew to species maturity in the waterfall blast of the sense of wonder. Accordingly they developed a particular form of consciousness: as a sea-shrimp evolves able to endure the intense pressures of the ocean floor so they evolved a pleasure-protected mind. The Hitchers were different, though, in the exact manner in which we are different. Because of their galactic environment they evolved a pleasure-sensitive consciousness of delicate intensities. It could not endure the awe-pressure of the naked cosmos. I think they made the choice to shed their hedonia long ago. I think that all that remains is a sort of residual curiosity, or even perhaps nostalgia, for a lost mode of being – as a grown man, in a suit, walking past a copse of trees on his way to work might feel a flicker of simian desire to toss everything aside and clamber into the boughs and branches. Other intelligent species would no more offer humanity the means to travel from star to star than we would give a boat to a man allergic to seawater. Than we would give a hang-glider to a man allergic to air. But the Hitchers have their reasons for wanting, at least, to give us the choice.
How badly, then, do we want to travel to the stars? Is the answer to that question: badly enough to be prepared to sterilize our sense of wonder?
Of course, the sense of wonder is why we’ve always wanted to go in the first place. We can have our desire to go, and never survive the trip; or we can fit the emotional prophylactic necessary for survival and lose the desire to go in the first place.
Perhaps we should castrate (as it were) a self-selected corps of explorers, travellers and traders; enable them to go on our vicarious behalf. But this travel will not require elaborate fleets of exclusive spacecraft. It will open the door to everybody. If they are still prompted by their hunger of wonder, how many will heed warnings not to rush through? These are big and important questions. Oh, they pass me by. My hatred, and its dumb idiotic object, is too important for me now to be prepared to give it up. I shall stay, and relish. My hatred remains, and I take a solace in that. Because it a pure hatred. It endured when unsupported by pleasure. I hated him despite the fact that it gave me no pleasure to do so, back on Mars. Nothing is purer.
TIGER BURNING
Alastair Reynolds
Though Welsh born, and having spent his formative years in Cornwall and Scotland, Alastair Reynolds (b. 1966) moved to the Netherlands in 1991 where he spent the next twelve years working for the European Space Agency until taking the plunge to become a full-time writer in 2004. He is best known for his Revelation Space sequence of novels that began with Revelation Space in 2000. All of Reynolds’ work boasts an understanding and conviction about the future of technology and that can be found in miniature in this story which was written in homage to that glorious 1950s movie, Forbidden Planet.
IT WAS NOT THE FIRST TIME that Adam Fernando’s investigations had taken him this far from home, but on no previous trip had he ever felt quite so perilously remote; so utterly at the mercy of the machines that had copied him from brane to brane like a slowly randomizing Chinese whisper. The technicians in the Office of Scrutiny had always assured him that the process was infallible; that no essential part of him was being discarded with each duplication, but he only ever had their word on the matter, and they would say it was safe, wouldn’t they? Memory, as always, gained foggy holes with each instance of copying. He recalled the precise details of his assignment – the awkward nature of the problem – but he couldn’t for the life of him say why he had chosen, at what must have been the very last minute, to assume the physical embodiment of a man-sized walking cat.
When Fernando had been reconstituted after the final duplication, he came to awareness in a half-open metal egg, its inner surface still slick with the residue of the biochemical products from which he had been quickened. He pawed at his whorled, matted fur, then willed his retractile claws into action. They worked excellently, requiring no special effort on his part. A portion of his brain must have been adapted to deal with them, so that their unsheathing was almost involuntary.
He stood from the egg, taking in his surroundings. His colour vision and depth perception appeared reassuringly human-normal. The quickening room was a grey-walled metal space under standard gravity, devoid of ornamentation save that provided by the many scientific tools and instruments that had been stored here. There was no welcoming party, and the air was a touch cooler than conventional taste dictated. Scrutiny had requested that he be allowed embodiment, but that was the only concession his host had made to his arrival. Which could mean one of two things: Doctor Meranda Austvro was doing all that she could to hamper his investigation, without actually breaking the law, or that she was so blissfully innocent of any actual wrongdoing that she had no need to butter him up with formal niceties.
He tested his claws again. They still worked. Behind him, he was vaguely aware of an indolently swishing tail.
He was just sheathing his claws when a door whisked open in one pastel-grey wall. An aerial robot emerged swiftly into the room: a collection dull metal spheres orbiting each other like clockwork planets in some mad, malfunctioning orrery. He bristled at the sudden intrusion, but it seemed unlikely that the host would have gone to the bother of quickening him only to have her aerial murder him immediately afterwards.
“Inspector Adam Fernando, Office of Scrutiny,” he said. No need to prove it: the necessary authentication had been embedded in the header of the graviton pulse that had conveyed his resurrection profile from the repeater brane.
One of the larger spheres answered him officiously. “Of course. Who else might you have been? We trust the quickening has been performed to your general satisfaction?”
He picked at a patch of damp fur, suppressing the urge to shiver. “Everything seems in order. Perhaps if we moved to a warmer room . . .” His voice sounded normal enough, despite the alterations to his face: maybe a touch less deep than normal, with the merest suggestion of feline snarl in the vowels.
“Naturally. Doctor Austvro has been waiting for you.”
“I’m surprised she wasn’t here to greet me.”
“Doctor Austvro is a busy woman, Inspector; now more than ever. I thought someone from the Office of Scrutiny would have appreciated that.”
He was about to mention something about common courtesies, then thought better of it: even if she wasn’t listening in, there was no telling what the aerial might report back to Austvro.
“Perhaps we’d better be moving on. I take it Doctor Austvro can find time to squeeze me into her schedule, now that I’m alive?”
“Of course,” the machine said sniffily. “It’s some distance to her laboratory. It might be best if I carried you, unless you would rather locomote.”
Fernando knew the drill. He spread his arms, allowing the cluster of flying spheres to distribute itself around his body to provide support. Small sph
eres pushed under his arms, his buttocks, the padded black soles of his feet, while others nudged gently against chest and spine to keep him balanced. The largest sphere, which played no role in supporting him, flew slightly ahead. It appeared to generate some kind of aerodynamic air pocket. They sped through the open door and down a long, curving corridor, gaining speed with each second. Soon they were moving hair-raisingly fast, dodging round hairpin bends and through doors that opened and shut only just in time.
Fernando remembered his tail and curled it out of harm’s way.
“How long will this take?” he asked.
“Five minutes. We shall only be journeying a short distance into the inclusion.”
Fernando recalled his briefing. “What we’re passing through now: this is all human built, part of Pegasus Station? We’re not seeing any KR-L artifacts yet?”
“Nor shall you,” the aerial said sternly. “The actual business of investigating the KR-L machinery falls under the remit of the Office of Exploitation, as you well know. Scrutiny’s business is confined only to peripheral matters of security related to that investigation.”
Fernando bristled. “And as such . . .”
“The word was ‘peripheral’, Inspector. Doctor Austvro was very clear about the terms under which she would permit your arrival, and they did not include a guided tour of the KR-L artifacts.”
“Perhaps if I ask nicely.”
“Ask whatever you like. It will make no difference.”
While they sped on – in silence now, for Fernando had decided he preferred it that way – he chewed over what he knew of the inclusion, and its significance to the Metagovernment.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, humanity had achieved the means to colonize nearby branes: squeezing biological data across the hyperspatial gap into adjacent realities, then growing living organisms from those patterns. Now the Metagovernment sprawled across 30,000 dense-packed braneworlds. Yet in all that time it had only encountered evidence of one other intelligent civilization: the vanished KR-L culture.
Further expansion was unlikely. Physics changed subtly from brane to brane, limiting the possibilities for human colonization. Beyond 15,000 realities in either direction, people could only survive inside bubbles of tampered spacetime, in which the local physics had been tweaked to simulate homebrane conditions. These “inclusions” became increasingly difficult to maintain as the local physics grew more exotic. At five kilometres across, Meranda Austvro’s inclusion was the smallest in existence, and it still required gigantic support machinery to hold it open. The Metagovernment was happy to shoulder the expense because it hoped to reap riches from Austvro’s investigations into the vanished KR-L culture.
But that investigation was supposed to be above-top-secret: the mere existence of the KR-L culture officially deniable at all levels of the Metagovernment. By all accounts Austvro was close to a shattering discovery.
And yet there were leaks. Someone close to the operation – maybe even Austvro herself – was blabbing.
Scrutiny had sent Fernando in to seal the leak. If that meant shutting down Austvro’s whole show until the cat could be put back into the bag (Fernando could not help but smile at the metaphor) then he had the necessary authorization.
How Austvro would take it was another thing.
The rush of corridors and doors slowed abruptly, and a moment later Fernando was deposited back on his feet, teetering slightly until he regained his balance. He had arrived in a much larger room than the one where he had been quickened, one that felt a good deal more welcoming. There was plush white carpet on the floor, comfortable furniture, soothing pastel decor, various homely knick-knacks and tasteful objets d’art. The rock-effect walls were interrupted by lavish picture windows overlooking an unlikely garden, complete with winding paths, rock pools and all manner of imported vegetation, laid out under a soothing green sky. It was a convincing simulacrum of one of the more popular holiday destinations in the low-thousand branes.
Meranda Austvro was reclining in a silver dress on a long black settee. Playing cards were arranged in a circular formation on the coffee table before her. She put down the one card that had been in her hand and beckoned Fernando to join her.
“Welcome to Pegasus Station, Inspector,” she said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to greet you sooner, but I’ve been rather on the busy side.”
Fernando sat himself down on a chair, facing her across the table. “So I see.”
“A simple game of Clock Patience, Inspector, to occupy myself while I was waiting for your arrival. Don’t imagine this is how I’d rather be spending my afternoon.”
He decided to soften his approach. “Your aerial did tell me you’d been preoccupied with your work.”
“That’s part of it. But I must admit we botched your first quickening, and I didn’t have time to wait around to see the results a second time.”
“When you say ‘botched’ . . .”
“I neglected to check your header tag more carefully. When all that cat fur started appearing . . .” She waved her hand dismissively. “I assumed there’d been a mistake in the profile, so I aborted the quickening, before you reached legal sentience.”
The news unnerved him. Failed quickenings weren’t unknown, though, and she’d acted legally enough. “I hope you recycled my remains.”
“On the contrary, Inspector: I made good use of them.” Austvro patted a striped orange rug, spread across the length of the settee. “You don’t mind, do you? I found the pattern quite appealing.”
“Make the most of me,” Fernando said, trying not to sound as if she had touched any particular nerve. “You can have another skin when I leave, if it means so much to you.”
She clicked her fingers over his shoulder, at the aerial. “You may go now, Caliph.”
The spheres bustled around each other. “As you wish, Doctor Austvro.”
When Fernando had heard the whisk of the closing door, he leaned an elbow on the table, careful not to disturb the cards. He brought his huge whiskered head close to Austvro’s. She was an attractive woman, despite a certain steely hauteur. He wondered if she could smell his breath; how uniquely, distastefully feline it was. “I hope this won’t take too much time, for both our sakes. Scrutiny wants early closure on this whole mess.”
“I’m sure it does. Unfortunately, I don’t know the first thing about your investigation.” She picked up a card from one part of the pattern, examined it with pursed lips, then placed it down on top of another one. “Therefore I’m not sure how I can help you.”
“You were informed that we were investigating a security hole.”
“I was informed, and I found the suggestion absurd. Unless I am the perpetrator.” She turned her cool, civil eyes upon him. “Is that what you think, Inspector? That I am the one leaking information back to the homebrane, risking the suspension of my own project?”
“ I know only that there are leaks.”
“They could be originating from someone in Scrutiny, or Exploitation. Have you considered that?”
“We have to start somewhere. The operation itself seems as good a place as any.”
“Then you’re wasting your time. Return down-stack and knock on someone else’s door. I’ve work to do.”
“Why are you so certain the leaks couldn’t be originating here?”
“Because – firstly – I do not accept that there are leaks. There are merely statistical patterns, coincidences, which Scrutiny has latched onto because it has nothing better to do with its time. Secondly, I run this show on my own. There is no room for anyone else to be the source of these non-existent leaks.”
“Your husband?”
She smiled briefly and extended a hand over the coffee table, palm down. A figure – a grave, clerical-looking man in black – appeared above the table’s surface, no larger than a statuette. The man made a gesture with his hands, as if shaping an invisible ball, then said something barely audible – Fernando caught the phrase “three
hundred” – then vanished again, leaving only the arrangement of playing cards.
Austvro selected another, examined it once more and returned it to the table.
“My husband died years ago, Inspector. Edvardo and I were deep inside the KR-L machinery, protected by an extension of the inclusion. My husband’s speciality was acausal mechanics . . .” For a moment, a flicker of humanity interrupted the composure of her face. “The extension collapsed. Edvardo was on the other side of the failure point. I watched him fall into KR-L spacetime. I watched what it did to him.”
“I’m sorry,” Fernando said, wishing he had paid more attention to the biographical briefing.
“Since then I have conducted operations alone, with only the machines to help me. Caliph is the most special of them: I place great value on his companionship. You can question the machines if you like, but it won’t get you anywhere.”
“Yet the leaks are real.”
“We could argue about that.”
“Scrutiny wouldn’t have sent me otherwise.”
“There must be false alarms. Given the amount of data Scrutiny keeps tabs on – the entire informational content of meta-humanity, spread across 30,000 reality layers – isn’t any pattern almost guaranteed to show up eventually?”
“It is,” Fernando conceded, stroking his chin tufts. “But that’s why Scrutiny pays attention to context, and to clustering. Not simply to exact matches for sensitive keywords, either, but for suspicious similarities: near-misses designed to throw us off the scent. Miranda for Meranda; Ostrow for Austvro, that kind of thing.”