As a result, uniquely in this planetary system, even in the depths of space it is always daytime. The stars become a gleaming murky haze in the far distance when you are in the Sol system; and the planets themselves shine as though floodlit. For Earth Humans, the sun always shines, and no one ever goes hungry.
I donned a spacesuit and flew from a tether on the outside of my ship as we sailed deeper and deeper into the Earth system. The light of the Angel was reflected and refracted over the diamond surfaces of the Dyson Jewels, making them sparkle in a million different hues. The rings of Jupiter shone with magical resonance. And the natural ring of Saturn had an ethereal glow that sent shudders of eerie pleasure down my spine.
We soared at one-third light speed past Venus (a tropical rainforest now, with civilisations existing on the surface and in the trunk and branches of the Aldiss Tree, which has its roots on the equator but spans the entire planet). We took a long, looping detour so I could see the canals of Mars – this, I felt, was one of the grandest architectural triumphs of recent years, as this barren planet was carefully transformed into a world of palaces connected by long tendrils of water, and in which motorboats and hang-gliders are the universal means of transport.
But then our path arced back again and we headed for Earth, the blue and green central bauble in this Christmas array.
I am old enough to remember the Pessimistic Years, when humans feared that ecological disaster would bring the planet to the brink of destruction. Well, they were right; but out of the wreckage of twenty-second-century Earth has come a revitalised planet, more fecund and more beautiful than ever. The poles have refrozen, the rainforests have been replanted. And the tens of billions who died in India and Africa and Europe and South and North America through a deadly cocktail of global warming, thermonuclear pollution and biological warfare are now fertiliser in Earth’s rich soil.
When I left Earth, much had already had been achieved. Africa was in better shape; China was battling with its population crisis; pollution was at its lowest level for decades. But there was much left to do.
But a century and a half later, the progress made was astonishing. Things had changed at an exponential rate. Energy had become abundant. The Solar system had been fully colonised. The Dyson Jewels had been built. And Earth had renewed itself after all the thousands of years of human abuse and neglect.
The phoenix had risen from the ashes; Earth was reborn.
I floated on my tether. I put my visors on “Amplify”. I peered at the now unfamiliar cities in the only-too-familiar land formations of my home planet.
Was that London? I wondered. Then I recognised Big Ben.
I was home.
I stayed for a hundred years in Paradise.
Then I got bored again.
How can I write of the beauties of Earth and the Sol system? How can I praise and venerate the genius of humankind’s intellect and imagination and inventive powers?
I cannot. It is a glory beyond praise. Our oceans teem with Dolphs, our skies flock with light-boned flying humans. Our cities are wonders of delight. And the grandeur of Nature is enhanced, not diminished, by our careful tending and landscaping. The Rocky Mountains, the Himalayas, the South Pole, the savannahs of Africa, the tropical rainforests, the Highlands of Scotland, the forests of central Europe, the deserts of Africa, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the cities of the Incas and Aztecs, the White House, the Houses of Parliament… all these treasures remain intact, restored and magnificently showcased, and are venerated.
But for me, during my stay on Earth, it came to seem strange to live somewhere where everything is beautiful, and wonderful, and perfect. This was a civilisation where there was no poverty, where education was available to all, where the average intelligence was genius level, thanks to superior training and the benefits of brain-chip implants. And it was a civilisation where no one aged, and where beauty was a prerequisite. There were no flat-chested women; there were no small-dicked men. No one died of a stroke, or a heart attack; in fact, by and large, hardly anyone died at all.
And for a long while, it all seemed marvellous. I revelled in my experiences on Earth. I savoured the company. I laughed and got drunk and travelled and helped my son plan his trading strategies.
I revisited Florence, and was able to savour the paintings in the Uffizi without having to endure long queues of babbling foreigners. I went to Venice, and found gleaming hygienic toilets in every bar and hotel. I went to Paris, and was awed by the courtesy of the waiters. I visited New York, and was beguiled by the calm, uncluttered quality of life. I toured the Midwest and drank fantastic cappuccinos, and dined in elegant gourmet ranch restaurants.
I travelled round India and did not see a single beggar. I went to St Petersburg, and discovered fabulous service and cuisine of the highest calibre. I saw no crime or pollution, no overcrowding, no bad manners. Road, rail and air travel was easy and reliable and free. The clothes were beautiful too – and richly varied, and idiosyncratic. And the racial mix was exhilarating.
In short, everything I used to hate about my own planet had been improved; and nothing, so far as quality of life was concerned, had been made worse. What’s more, I was surrounded by pleasant, witty, funny people. Having endured years of desiccated solitude on Rebus, I finally had friends and a social circle.
What could be more wonderful!
And Peter always found time to be with me. We dined together once a week. He introduced me to the best new wines. He told me amazing stories of his adventures on Meconium. I was delighted to find he had acquired a flair as a raconteur. And he was so amazingly nice to me. Eager to please me in every way, in fact. Desperate to please me, if truth be told.
He’d read every article ever written about me. He had databanks of all the memos I’d drafted. He had multiple copies of all my books, though he admitted that he had difficulty reading them. He brought me his girlfriends for my inspection. He asked my advice on his advisers, he showed me the transcripts of his Cabinet meetings. There was much he didn’t burden me with, but I became an invaluable influence on his strategy and person-management.
He loved my stories of psych bombs and mental manipulation. He was amazed at the idea that it’s possible to mould another person’s mind, purely through flattery and ego-boosting techniques.
He was such a needy child. I gave, gave, gave, but I never complained. I was only too pleased to be, at last, the mother of my son.
However, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. I found myself suffering from pleasure surfeit. I was becoming alienated by beautiful architecture and gorgeous clothes. I was fed up of constantly dealing with people with perfect manners, and perfect bodies. I was jaded with perfection.
Instead, I longed for messy, ugly, imperfect, fucked up. I wanted to be on a train that was late, I wanted a waiter to slop coffee in my lap and not apologise. I want to be jostled in the street so I could jostle back and scream, “Fuck you!” I wanted my bins to be not collected for a fortnight, so the foxes could break them open and scatter rubbish everywhere. I wanted my wine to be off so I could spit it out all over my brand-new tablecloth. I wanted my car to break down. I wanted to be constipated. I wanted an excuse to be cranky, irascible, a pain in the arse. I wanted some grit in my oyster. I was becoming, let’s face it, nostalgic for the good old days.
And so, after nearly a century of living a perfect and totally balanced and happy life, I yearned to be lonely and miserable again.
I explained all this to Peter, and he was totally baffled. And then he was upset. Almost hysterical in fact. But I persevered, and eventually he agreed to build me a stellar yacht that was fast enough to take me across the Universe, so I could travel once again.
He was, however, devastated at the thought of losing me. We had grown so close together in my years on Earth. In the course of that glorious century together, he had given me everything I could desire. Love, kindness, respect, wealth, and the best of everything. He even gave me a remote computer
implant that was the twin to his own – with access to all the knowledge and wisdom of humankind, and with a flexible and evolving personality.
Yes, I can’t deny it, I savoured being a Goddess. But I had made my mind up.
Peter and I hopped on a jet and dined that night at the best hotel in Rio de Janeiro. The moon was full. The weather was balmy. The band played salsa and rumba. We talked of our pasts, our favourite lovers, our best meals. We savoured the memories we had shared over the last hundred years, in which we had finally come to know each other properly.
But then I said my farewells. Two days later I was flown into orbit, where I joined my purpose-built stellar yacht. I familiarised myself with the controls, and learned how to mould the ship to my own personality. My remote computer receiver/ transmitter chip was initialised. I realised, with some astonishment, that this was many orders of magnitude better than any microchip implant I had ever had before. With a blink of an eye I could conjure up on my retina a star atlas that would guide me through any part of the known Universe. And with a single half-voiced command, I could hear any piece of music, read any book, see any painting or work of architecture, be told any fact, savour any image that had ever existed in the history of humanity. The computer was so powerful that I was awed by its potential. But I programmed it with a personality that was meek and deferential enough to overcome my latent insecurity complex.
And finally, I unfurled the sails, fired the ion drive, and soared elegantly and swiftly out of the Sol system.
As I left, I decided on a whim to fly outside the yacht for a while. So I suited up, left through the airlock, and floated on a tether tied to the hull as I watched my home system recede. Through my ear implants, I listened to the 14th symphony of Pietro Machan. The bell resonances suffused my entire body. I felt as if I had ascended to heaven and was sitting at God’s right hand.
But there was still a dark patch in my heart. Because I knew, of course, that deep down my little boy hadn’t changed at all. I knew by then about the Doppelganger Robots and the slave planets. I knew of the policy that allowed weaker breeds to be edited out of the human race. Because in a world where some can live for ever, then from time to time others will have to be arbitrarily executed. Otherwise, there may come a day where an Earth Human actually has to wait, or even queue, for something that he or she desires.
And that will never be allowed to happen.
As well as the factory euthanasia and mass poisoning of undesirables and sicklies and uglies, it was the policy of all Earth system settlements that all newborn babies should be carefully scrutinised. And any infant which didn’t get the requisite number of ticks on his or her Future Citizen’s Examination (with categories including pre-natal health, birth weight, potential IQ, and parental DNA mix) would be terminated. Abortion was, in fact, a thing of the past; infanticide was now considered to be a much fairer method of quality control.
And as a result of this ruthlessly applied policy of population control, there was never a question of there not being enough wealth to go around. Those who are chosen to live will have all they can desire. And the only requirement of Citizenship is to work a certain number of hours a year operating a Doppelganger Robot in order to keep the wheels of human culture turning.
Some, of course, become DRs out of the sheer joy of it. Because on a perfect world, surrounded by beauty and grandeur, it’s a welcome relief to travel (virtually speaking) to a hellhole planet and confront alien monsters and rape and murder and pillage one’s own kind.
Peter called it his societal safety valve; and I do take his point. But part of me was never comfortable with the hidden implications of Peter’s form of human civilisation.
But what, I asked myself, was the alternative? A return to the bad old days of premature death, ageing, disease, poverty, starvation and injustice?
That would be absurd. This way has to be better. It has to be.
So I declined to think any further of the implications of Peter’s policies. I chose to remember the good times, and not to obsess about the murder, genocide, rape, humiliation, degradation and oppression of entire planets of human beings on hundreds, nay thousands, of planets in the human zone of habitation. Yes, bad things happen, but sometimes it’s best not to brood upon them. That was my view at that time. Perhaps I was… No.
No.
No looking back. No self-recrimination. I do not allow myself that luxury. Forward, I must always look forward.
And so I travelled through space. I saw things that are far beyond your wildest dreams. I wrote some more concerti. And, as I travelled, I had instantaneous email and vidphone contact with all my friends, from every stage of my life.
But sometimes I went years without hearing from or seeing anyone. I listened to music. I began to write, and am still writing, my memoirs. I replayed the memories I have on microchip from every year of my life since implants were invented.
I was quite content, to be honest. I sailed my yacht into the far recesses of the human-inhabited galaxy, to the region of Illyria and Kornbluth. I was aware that a mere twenty light-years away was the looming space-distorting monstrosity of Debatable Space; but I felt no fear. I sailed, and I sailed… and…
I lose myself in the long soaring arc of the plunging bucking near-light-speed stellar-wind-battered flight, my eyes drinking in the spectral glows and searing sunlight while my sensors calibrate velocity, acceleration, heat and cosmic radiation, I surf from visuals to instruments and back and both until I feel the bucking of stellar wind, no, that’s repetitious, delete the words “stellar” and “wind”, it’s now “the bucking of pulsing photons” on my fins and sail and feel the burning of the hot yellow dwarf sun on my cheeks Lena, we have company.
Book 10
Lena
Here we go. The final battle. The culmination of all our efforts. Lena, are you afraid?
Of course not. Are you? Yes.
How can you be? You’re a machine. Afraid! You’re a liar! Not as big a liar as you are.
True. I am terrified. I cannot sleep, or relax. For the first time in many years I… I actually give a fuck. So what exactly are you afraid of? Death?
Oh no. I’ve faced that too many times. Not death.
Life.
Flanagan
“Are we ready?”
“I’m ready, Cap’n.”
“I’m ready too, Cap’n.”
“I’m ready, Flanagan.”
“Cap’n, I need to wee.”
I make a face at Jamie. Cheerfully, he pees into absorbent space underpants. I give the order to attack.
“Attack.”
I am weary of war. I have no zest for this battle. But this is, let’s face it, what we’re here for.
The attack begins. I perceive it numbly, through a haze of exhaustion. We have reached that stage where our bodies can move themselves, without conscious thought.
Brandon flies our ship through intercepting missile fire. We lob antimatter bombs into the atmosphere of Kornbluth, and the robot defence systems ignore them; the defence of human life is not on their list of priorities. But the missiles are on a curving orbit. They soar down through the atmosphere, then back up again and reach escape velocity on the other side of the planet. Just as we launch our attack on the Quantum Beacon the missiles arrive from nowhere in the space behind our enemies. Bang! Bangbangbang bang
Bang.
The double flanking is powerfully effective. Our ships fight well. The defensive forces facing us are light, most of the Cheo’s warships were obliterated by us in the space battle, and new ones have not yet been built.
Even so, a bitter fight ensues. But finally we breach the force fields and let loose a cluster of nanobombs that burrow into the hull of the Beacon’s ship and eat the fissile material which is used to send the quantised signals through space. The Beacon is neutralised, though not destroyed. We have almost won. All we have to do is follow up the attack.
“Okay we’re moving in.”
“Aye
aye, Cap’n.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
“Prepare to board.”
“Preparing to board.”
The ship lurches forward. I take a deep breath. Then slowly exhale. I allow my thoughts to settle, and an eerie calm descends upon me.
For a second I allow myself to hope…
Then the ship stops, with shocking abruptness. I almost tumble from my seat. I look at Brandon, who has stalled our vessel with such astonishing clumsiness. His face is pale, he is listening to a message in his inner earpiece.
“What?” I bark at him.
“Cap’n… News from Cambria.” He can hardly speak the words.
I am filled with foreboding.
“Can’t it fucking well wait?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Doppelganger Robots have reasserted control. A backup Quantum Beacon has been employed.”
“ What!!!” screams Jamie.
“Backup? Fucking backup?”
I shoot a fierce look at Lena. “What is this? Did you know about this?” She looks fearful, I believe she didn’t know.
“After all we have done, all we have sacrificed,” Jamie murmurs, bitterly.
Lena’s brow furrows. She appears to be listening to something. Then, finally, she tells us, “I’m sorry.”
All eyes burn her with hate.
“I didn’t know, I swear!” she tells us, in broken tones. “Peter must have encrypted the information, my remote computer knew nothing. But now… I have the information now.” Her eyes are glazed, as her remote computer explains it to her: “There was a second Beacon on the Cambrian system, hidden inside an asteroid. This has now been activated.” Her tones are tinged in guilt. She blames herself, for not guessing this, for not interrogating her own mind in search of Peter’s secret strategies.
Debatable Space Page 31