Pushing Ice

by Alastair Reynolds

  For the first time since leaving Eddytown, she had weight again. She stepped out of the shuttle onto a scalloped, sloping path that ambled down to the lowest part of the chamber. The gravity felt close to a standard gee, though inside the suit it was difficult to tell. She panned around, taking in the whole grotto. She felt an obligation to observe, knowing that the suit would be storing the data for future playback.

  Another pair of rib-like doors swung open in the far wall. The sudden movement startled her, but she kept her cool. Then a Musk Dog came through the wall.

  She got it badly wrong at first. She thought there were several of them, not just one individual. The alien looked like two or three scabby street dogs fighting over a scrap of meat: an unruly mass of mismatched limbs, fur the colour of sun-baked mud, too many tightly packed eyes above a toothsome black muzzle. It was difficult to make out its basic body shape, for the thing kept scratching and scrabbling and pissing, arcs of steaming urine jetting from too many places as it made its scratching, scrabbling, sniffling way through the chamber. It only came as high as her waist.

  When it spoke, Svetlana heard a rapid, strangulated retching and gargling. Overlaid on that, produced by some mechanism she couldn’t see, was the cool, synthetic voice of the CNN anchordoll.

  “Svetlana Barseghian, welcome aboard the gristleship. We trust your stay here will be pleasant. Feel free to leave at any time, but we hope you will stay awhile.”

  “Thank you,” she said, the suit transmitting her voice to the outside world.

  “It is safe to breathe our atmosphere. There are no toxins, viruses or microorganisms that might cause you harm or discomfort.”

  She glanced at the HUD read-out. It confirmed that the external atmosphere was safe to breathe, while warning her that its readings might be in error and that she should therefore proceed with due caution.

  “I’m okay in here, thanks.”

  The Musk Dog snuffled around her suit. It brushed against her, lingering with its hindquarters. “Please consider breathing our air. It would please us very much.”

  She shook her head, hoping that the creature recognised the gesture. Their use of the anchordoll suggested that they already had a thorough grasp of human body language. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll keep the suit on for the moment. It’s not that I don’t trust you — just that I feel safer inside.”

  The Musk Dog paused in its inspection of her. “That’s fine. We understand. Perhaps next time, when you have grown more accustomed to our ship?”

  “Perhaps,” Svetlana allowed.

  “I must introduce myself. I am The One That Greets.”

  “Hello, One That Greets. Thank you for having me aboard.”

  The Musk Dog paused to squirt urine against part of the chamber. Where the urine impacted, Svetlana noticed, the chamber walls gained a temporary, fading discoloration.

  “It is our pleasure. Now, will you please follow me? I am tasked to take you to The One That Negotiates.”

  “Lead on,” Svetlana said.

  She followed the flailing mass of red-brown limbs, pausing every now and again as the creature halted and urinated against the wall. The Musk Dog brought her to a sweaty chamber deep within the gristleship. The walls were covered with the same fused secretions, years upon years’ worth of them, layered in a crusted impasto that she guessed was metres thick. On some level, Svetlana judged, the ship was the product of those secretions and daubings.

  “I will leave you with this one,” the Musk Dog said, retreating the way they had come.

  The other Musk Dog was crouched down in front of a kind of display wall: a mosaic of randomly shaped facets pressed into a claylike matrix at odd, arbitrary angles. Each of the facets was displaying a different ShipNet channel. The creature’s attention hopped from screen to screen with manic inattention. Svetlana heard a babble of human voices, and over that a synthetic rendition of the Musk Dog language.

  The second Musk Dog waited until The One That Greets had left before acknowledging Svetlana’s presence. It turned from the display wall, raised its muzzle and examined her, sniffing vigorously.

  “The other one touched you,” it said, walking around her. Limbs thrashed and tangled against each other, as if there was something fundamentally wrong with the alien’s motor coordination.

  “It brushed against my suit,” Svetlana said.

  The creature cocked its head, as if weighing the significance of what she had just told it. After a moment it said, “I am The One That Negotiates. I am most gratified that you have come aboard the gristleship. There is much that we can offer in trade. With the Whisperer passkey, you will have access to closed regions of the Structure. With femtomachinery and frameshift technology, you will enjoy a negotiating advantage over several less advanced cultures. Now that the Uncontained are loose again, such things may make the difference between extinction and survival. You should not rely on the Shaft-Five Nexus for protection against the Uncontained. The Stiltwalkers did, and look what happened to them. Yet these are only the first of many things that we will offer you. There will be much more to follow, if negotiations proceed harmoniously.”

  Very little of what the alien had just told her meant anything to Svetlana, not being privileged to the information Bella had gleaned from McKinley. “What do you want from us?” she asked.

  “The same commodity as the Fountainheads: we seek access to the deep mechanisms of your world.”

  “You want to draw power from Janus.”

  “The very thing,” the Musk Dog said, after a moment’s consideration.

  “What would you need from me for that to happen?”

  “Simply your permission, as a delegated negotiator for your culture.” Again, the Musk Dog cocked its head. “The method of your approach was eccentric. Was there some technical problem that required you to drill your way out of the transparent structure?”

  “Yes,” Svetlana said. In order to reach open space, she’d had to use a suit-mounted cutting torch to drill her way through the elevator shaft blocking the skyhole, ascend the shaft until she was on the far side of the Iron Sky and then cut her way out again. The shaft would repair itself easily enough, but news of the damage — and the fact that she had attempted to visit the Musk Dogs — would be sure to have reached Bella by now.

  “Very well,” the Musk Dog said shrewdly. “No further questions are required, then?”

  “None at all.”

  “That’s good. It’s always most satisfying to us when we can be sure that we are dealing with a delegated negotiator rather than an adventurous free agent. You can imagine the great vexation that has caused us in the past.”

  “You need have no fears in that respect,” Svetlana said.

  The Musk Dog knew she was lying, Svetlana was certain. It knew she was lying and it didn’t care.

  “Then we may begin. As a token of our goodwill, you will already find forge-vat construction files uploaded into your suit memory. These concern technologies postdating the emergence of the Transgressive Intelligences. You will find tools, weapons and protective devices, together with protocols for more efficient forge-vat designs. All these gifts must be used with due scrupulousness.”

  “I understand.”

  “We trust that these gifts will enable you to consolidate your position as designated negotiator, Svetlana Barseghian.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Svetlana called up a HUD read-out. The suit’s memory inventory contained many new files, in the format used for forge-vat blueprints. Even after the technological convulsions of the last thirty-five years, the Musk Dog’s names for the gifts conveyed a shuddering implication of profound futurity. “How did you do that?” she asked.

  The Musk Dog glanced at the wall of screens. “We have already subjected your data protocols to exhaustive study. Your suit is less secure than you imagine.” It looked back at her, opening its muzzle in a drooling smile. “But don’t be alarmed. We would never seek to disadvantage a valued trading partner.”
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  Svetlana glanced at the wall screens: business as usual in Crabtree, judging by the ShipNet content. Bella had yet to make an alarmist statement denouncing Svetlana’s actions. “So how do we proceed from here?”

  “We discuss terms of access. We will begin with a single energy tap. It will have no detrimental effect on your own energy-gathering activities. In return for this, we will offer you the blueprint files to build a Whisperer passkey.”

  “And that will get us through the endcap door?”

  “It will function on four occasions, and then it will cease to operate. You would need to negotiate with us again if you wished to open more doors. We would then sell you another limited-use passkey.”

  “I’m not quite sure how this will work,” she said.

  “What, exactly?” the Musk Dog asked.

  “There’s only one route into our world — through the sky-hole at the Fountainhead embassy.”

  “So we noticed. The Fountainheads placed energy taps inside Janus, didn’t they?”

  She answered with the automatic authority of a leader. “Yes.”

  “Are there physical power linkages between the interior and the embassy?”

  “No,” she said, masking her hesitation.

  “Our technology requires linkages. They will need to be routed back to the gristleship through skyholes.”

  “Can you drill skyholes?”

  “Very easily, with your permission. We’ll begin with a single skyhole, a single discreet tap. We can cut the skyhole immediately.” The Musk Dog studied her with a peculiar attentiveness. “That will make your return journey less problematic, we hope.”

  “That sounds reasonable.”

  “Does that mean we have your permission?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Then the passkey blueprint will shortly appear in your suit memory.”

  “Can we make it in one of our vats?”

  “Yes, but with caution. The passkey must be assembled using femtotech machinery, but that machinery need only constitute a temporary kernel, quickened within a shell of normal nanomachinery. When the passkey is complete, the femtotech layer will self-disassemble.”

  “It sounds complex.”

  “The blueprint will take care of the details. Later, we can negotiate for the transfer of a permanent femtotech kernel, which will enable you to make a frameshift engine.”

  “Let’s just start with one hole, one tap.”

  The Musk Dog nodded. “There is one other matter we must resolve before this arrangement can be said to be satisfactorily settled. It is a small thing, and will cost you nothing. When the matter is concluded, the passkey file will be transferred.”

  Something in its tone alerted her. “What?”

  “It concerns the other Musk Dog, The One That Greets.”

  “Yes,” she said uneasily.

  “It will arrive here shortly, intending to escort you back to the arrival chamber. That is its duty: to escort visitors on and off the ship. That is why it is called The One That Greets.”

  “I understand that, but —”

  “When it arrives, you must refuse to accompany it. The One That Greets will be offended and alarmed, and will plead with you, but you must hold firm. You must inform it that you found it offensive, and that you do not wish to spend any further time in its company.”

  “I didn’t have any problem with it.”

  “Nonetheless, you must lie, otherwise these negotiations cannot reach a settlement.”

  “I don’t get it. Why do I have to lie to it?”

  “I did not expect you to understand.” The Musk Dog emitted an audible yawn, very much like a human sigh. “We are a factional species. The operation of the gristleship is divided amongst many groupings… packs of Musk Dogs. At any one time, one or more of these packs may attempt to assert dominance over another.”

  “I see.”

  “Currently, there is a factional dispute between the department of the ship under my responsibility — the handling of affairs of trade — and the department of the ship served by The One That Greets. It is necessary that I assert my authority. If the other one is not shamed, my own position will become untenable. If that were to happen, so would yours. We would have no option but to discontinue negotiations.”

  “It still didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “When the first one brushed against you,” the Musk Dog said, “it was attempting to assert ownership over you. It left a chemical tracer on your spacesuit, specific to The One That Greets. It was claiming you as its own. I cannot tolerate this.”

  “It claimed ownership of me?”

  “We have never pretended to be anything other than a highly territorial species.”

  The suit conveyed a scrabbling, scuffing sound to her ears. The first Musk Dog had returned, almost tumbling over itself in the hectic flail of its multiple sets of limbs. Seen together, there was no way she could distinguish between the two aliens.

  “If negotiations are concluded, I am ready to take you back to the travel pod,” The One That Greets informed her.

  “Negotiations have proceeded very well,” The One That Negotiates said, unctuously. “Very, very well indeed. Haven’t they, Svetlana Barseghian?”

  * * *

  When it was done, when she had locked the helmet back into place and purged her lungs of the fetid, vile-smelling air of the gristleship (although it was, as the Musk Dog had promised, quite breathable) she said, “What will happen to the other one now?”

  “The other one?”

  It was scent-marking her spacesuit now, overwriting the earlier traces left by the first Musk Dog. It smeared weeping glands against the suit, leaving rapidly hardening secretions. It cocked legs and urinated. It moved around the suit, pausing here and there, watering her with the fastidious care of an elderly gardener.

  “The one you just asked me to humiliate,” she said.

  “Oh, that one. It will return to its faction. They will learn that it did not earn your approval, that you spurned it, that you have entered into negotiations with my pack.”

  “And then?”

  “They will reprimand it.”

  She had to know. “And what form will that reprimand take?”

  “It will be dismembered,” the Musk Dog said, disinterestedly. “Dismembered and then eaten.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Bella was making plans to pay an unscheduled visit to the Fountainheads when she learned that Jim Chisholm was already on his way down. She caught the maglev and met him in Underhole, in a secure part of the plaza. The area had been cordoned off by an impromptu wall of flickering haunts, joined hand in hand like a chain of paper men.

  Beyond the cordon, the usual thin straggle of passers-by watched the proceedings uneasily, unpleasantly aware of how dire things must have been to merit a visit from Chisholm. Bella could feel it, too: her old friend no longer belonged amongst his own people. Of all of them, of all the dead who had been revivified, he was the only one who had never really returned from the grave. Svetlana had been right all along, she thought peevishly. They got back someone, but it was not the man they had known on Rockhopper. It wasn’t just the fact that some parts of his mind had been filled in using structures salvaged from Craig Schrope, although those instances when the Schrope patterns broke through were unsettling enough. There was also an alien aura around him, like a haze of static electricity. She did not fear him for a moment, or doubt that he meant well. There was still goodness in him. But it was the shrewd and analytic goodness of the paternally wise, which could sometimes feel very much like coldness.

  His eyes were serious behind the old half-moon glasses he still wore. “It’s bad, Bella.”

  “Your news or mine?”

  “Both, I suspect. The Musk Dogs are playing true to form. Sooner or later they were bound to tempt one of you into making contact. Short of imposing martial law, there’s not a lot you could have done about that. McKinley’s very agitated, as you can imagine. I just h
ope the situation isn’t irremediable.”

  “McKinley said there was no safe level of exposure to Musk Dogs.”

  “McKinley was right, but if you act now, you may be able to salvage something.”

  “I don’t know how much damage she’s already done.”

  “You’ll find out sooner or later.” Chisholm removed his half-moon glasses and wiped them on the beige sleeve of his gown. “You’ve played things very well up until now: not issuing a public statement was exactly the right thing to do. Let the Musk Dogs think this is all officially sanctioned.”

  “What next?” she asked.

  “Reason with Svetlana, if you can. Persuade her to back out of further negotiations. If the Musk Dogs get the message that there’s nothing more to be gained here, they may cut their losses and leave.”

  “I’ll do what I can. Maybe I should send Ryan — she’s more likely to listen to him than me.”

  “That sounds wise. I’d offer to talk to her myself, but if she’s bought the Musk Dog line, my protestations won’t count for much.” He tucked the glasses back onto his nose. “Besides, there’s another matter currently pressing on my attention.”

  “Your bad news,” Bella said.

  “The Musk Dogs have allowed the Uncontained to penetrate an adjoining volume. Doors are open clear through to five light-minutes. They’re on their way.”

  “This can’t get much worse, can it?”

  “It’s about to. The exiled Whisperer returned to the embassy. It’s even more certain that there’s been some kind of deal between the Musk Dogs and the Uncontained. There may have been nothing accidental about their leaving those doors open.”

  “And they still have no idea what that deal’s about?”

  Chisholm was grim-faced. “The Whisperer had obtained some new intelligence — it’s beginning to look as if the deal might have something to do with access to Janus.”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “Janus was a machine designed to bring us here and keep us alive during the journey. It contained enough energy to move itself across interstellar space at relativistic speed, with a little bit set aside for emergencies. Now that we’ve arrived in the Structure, its job is done. We may not have noticed it, but the energy reserves in Janus are finite and dwindling.”