‘There’re no resources to spare,’ Ward growled back. ‘Any more than we can spare the power for this woman’s Virtual fantasy land.’
Flammarion was unfazed; she seemed to Jophiel to be in total control. ‘No resources to spare from your war gaming, Max, even for fulfilling the most human of new objectives?’
Jophiel sensed what she was about to reveal, and so, evidently, did his template.
Poole stepped forward. ‘Flammarion, this isn’t appropriate. We’re here to discuss—’
‘Signals,’ Flammarion said, loud and clear. ‘We’ve picked up signals. Over on Gea.’
She had everyone’s attention.
The crew started shouting questions. ‘What kind of signals?’ ‘Where from?’
Max Ward was visibly furious. ‘Michael, shut her up.’
But Poole was evidently more circumspect. ‘Too late, Max,’ he murmured. ‘Now she’s revealed it, we need to talk this through—’
‘Human signals.’
‘Uh oh,’ Nicola said, grinning.
After that, Flammarion answered the crew’s questions honestly and openly, as far as Jophiel could tell. Just as she’d told Jophiel himself. That they’d picked up signals from a star, that they’d named after crewman Goober. That some element of the signals received seemed to be human in origin.
Poole stepped up, ashen-faced. ‘Look – there’s no conspiracy here. No secrets. We knew this would be exciting, distracting.’
‘More than that,’ Alice Thomas said. ‘It changes everything.’
‘We were going to brief you properly, just as soon—’
‘Just as soon as you finish condemning the crew members who made this discovery for you,’ Flammarion said.
Alice Thomas asked, ‘What can we do about this? Can we get there, to Goober’s Star?’
Jophiel stepped forward. He still had no idea how humans could have beaten lightspeed to get so far out from Earth as Goober’s Star, but since his return from Gea he had had time to come up with the answer to Alice’s question, at least.
‘Yes. Yes, we can, Alice. In theory. We can reach Goober. We’ve been accelerating at a single gravity up to this point for more than six subjective years – across over four hundred light years. Now we need to decelerate, over eight hundred light years, to this destination. We can get away with a lower thrust, although the longer we delay a decision and a turnaround, the higher the deceleration we’ll have to endure. Still take eight hundred years objective to get there. But for us, only a few more years—’
A roar of debate, demands, proposals, objections.
Nicola was grinning again, Jophiel saw. But then she always did enjoy disruption, whatever the cause.
And Jophiel’s template, Michael, stood there grim-faced, apparently helpless to contain the event.
At last Max Ward, looking murderous, stalked to the centre of the amphitheatre. He held his hands up and boomed, ‘Shut – up!’
Not surprisingly, he was obeyed.
Ward stalked the stage. ‘Listen to yourselves. I thought we had a crew here. Not a rabble shouting each other down. Before we get back to the point – which is how to deal with this mutineer . . .’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, not looking back at Flammarion. ‘Listen to me. I know it’s hard, to set yourself a tough goal, and to see it through. But let Michael Poole lead you. Michael’s been there. Who was it who saved the Earth? Think how much that cost him. He did it anyway. And me too,’ Ward said, strutting now, jabbing a thumb at his own chest. ‘You know why I’m here. Because I already fought a war for the survival of my loved ones and my nation, and won it. Because I led a ragtag army from northern Europe across a frozen sea—’
‘It lasted a week.’ Alice Thomas stepped forward again. ‘Your war. It lasted a week. It couldn’t have lasted any longer, before the whole Earth got frozen into lockdown. A week. We’ve already been out in space for six years subjective, and more than twice as long left to go before we even get to the Galaxy Core, and – what then?’
Max Ward’s face had turned crimson. He stalked forward, fists bunched, and loomed over Alice. ‘What then? Then comes survival and victory. And you will learn that to survive in this wasteland of space you need to take orders. From me, from Poole – from your competent officers. And if you don’t, we have no use for you. No room.’
Alice just stood there, quietly enduring his aggression.
And Jophiel felt profoundly disturbed. He had seen Ward’s passion before, his energy, even his anger. He had never seen this – rage. And he wondered for the first time how brittle Max Ward was going to prove to be, when a real crisis hit the mission.
Still the moment stretched; still Alice stood her ground.
At last Ward backed off. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder once again. ‘And just to drive it home into your bony heads, witness the consequence of betrayal. Flammarion Grant – this copy of her anyhow, and every such copy, every backup – will be deleted from the Gea processing store. Meanwhile her template, flesh-and-blood Flammarion, will be taken back into the Cauchy, conditioned and counselled. When all that’s settled—’
‘Execution,’ Alice said coldly. The single word, spoken in her small voice, cut across Ward’s noisy bluster. ‘That’s an execution. Since when did we put each other on death row? What is this, an Anthropocene failed state? You will not murder this woman, Virtual or not.’
A rumbling assent from the crew.
Nicola was still grinning. ‘Well, well. The first direct challenge to the reign of our two emperors. Quite a moment. But I think the issue of Flammarion’s execution, or not, is moot.’
Everybody looked around.
Flammarion was gone; unobserved during the row, she had vanished.
Then Max Ward’s softscreen alerts began to flash. And Poole’s, and others among the crew.
And the wormhole interface at the apex of the lifedome began to flare electric blue.
10
Ward snapped out orders. A handful of crew broke away, hurrying to monitoring stations.
Jophiel quickly discovered that a string of cargo pallets was coming through Island’s wormhole link with Gea. Loaded aboard were sleeper pods laden with hibernating crew, and a few bewildered-looking conscious individuals in pressure-tight skinsuits. The wet crew of Gea, human flesh and bone, was being offloaded from the GUTship.
And Gea was changing course. Slowly, subtly, surely, she was leaving the little flotilla.
Ward erupted. ‘We ought to blow that Lethe-spawned thing out of the sky! Some kind of warning shot at least – we could board her—’
‘No,’ Poole snapped. ‘The wormhole could easily be destabilised.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Michael,’ Nicola said evenly. ‘It’s not going to happen. I mean, look around you. The crew wouldn’t stand for it.’
Still the crew were gathered in the Island amphitheatre, silent or talking softly to each other, bewildered, scared – exhilarated, some of them, Jophiel thought.
And Jophiel saw that there was a significant knot around Alice Thomas, who was leading an intense discussion. It seemed the day’s developments were not yet done.
Ward still seemed consumed with rage. ‘Then to Lethe with it. We have two ships. We go on, continue the mission, carry the fight to the Xeelee.’
‘No.’ Here came Alice Thomas, trailed by a gaggle of wary-looking followers. ‘I don’t think it can be as simple as that, sir. Not ever again. What of the signal from Goober’s Star? A human signal? Isn’t that more important? Look – we support you, Michael. We’ll fight your war. Some day. But we don’t want to spend our lives in a military camp, any more than we want Flammarion’s sterile Virtual utopia. We want lives. We want children. And we want to go to Goober’s Star, if there are people there. What other response can there be?’
Everybody stared, Jophiel saw. M
ost of the crew were in earshot, still in the amphitheatre, gathered around the central confrontation.
Nicola laughed. ‘Suddenly it’s a crisis.’
And Jophiel came to a decision.
We’ve got to work together, that other, evanescent Poole had said. And he was right.
He stepped forward.
Poole glared at him.
‘Let me try, Michael. Maybe I can help.’ He turned to the crew. ‘So I know not everybody’s here, in flesh or as Virtuals – there are sleepers, those on duty at their stations – we can consult properly later. None of this was planned . . . Let’s get a sense of the mood.
‘How many of you want to go to Goober’s Star? And how many to the Galaxy Core? Assume it’s a choice of one or the other.’ He strode away from the group, ten paces. ‘If the Core, go to Michael. If you’re for Goober . . .’ He looked Michael Poole in the eye. ‘Come to me.’
A moment of tension. Nobody moved. Jophiel was aware of Michael staring back at him.
Poole Red was facing Poole Blue, like a dipole, the tension between them palpable.
Then Nicola came to stand with Jophiel.
Ward went to Michael.
Alice Thomas came to Jophiel. And another of the crew, and another.
It took long heartbeats for the group to sort itself out.
‘Fifty-fifty,’ Nicola said when it was done, still evidently enjoying herself. ‘Well, well. Couldn’t be a more difficult split.’
Michael Poole walked to the centre, his face grave. He looked baffled. ‘We’ll have to run a proper consultation, as you say, Jophiel. We should take our time over that, make sure everyone gets a chance to speak. Every sleeper. We should talk it out.’
Ward made to interrupt.
Poole held up his hand. ‘Not now, Max. There’ll be chances to debate. If the result holds—’
‘We should split,’ Alice Thomas said. ‘The ships. The Gea has already peeled away.’
‘Yes.’ Nicola stepped forward. ‘That fifty-fifty split makes it inevitable. The Cauchy to the Core, I guess. And the Island—’
‘To Goober’s Star.’ Alice smiled. ‘For the people.’
There was no formal ending to the meeting, Jophiel suspected because Michael had no idea what to say. But the gathering started to break up.
Ward stalked away, visibly furious.
Michael approached Nicola and Jophiel. ‘What just happened? At the start of this watch we had three ships in a unified mission. And now, a mess.’
Nicola patted his shoulder. ‘Life is a mess, Michael. Something you’re never really going to grasp, are you?’
Michael shook his head. ‘The Gea I can understand. In a way. They had become something – beyond human. But the Island, though. I thought people had accepted the mission. Now this.’
‘Few of us get to choose our destiny.’
‘But you did,’ he said sadly. ‘You chose Jophiel. After all we’ve been through.’
She shrugged. ‘Sorry. But he – well, he’s you, Michael. Sort of.’
Now Michael faced Jophiel, his other self. ‘And you.’ He rubbed his face. ‘I even managed to rebel against myself. What a day.’
Nicola nodded, as if respectfully. ‘That is, possibly, a first.’
Michael was still staring at Jophiel. ‘It wasn’t just about Goober’s Star, was it?’
And Jophiel knew that his own whole existence hung on the outcome of the next few seconds. ‘No,’ he said gently. ‘My choice too. I want to live, Michael. So I’ve discovered. You’re the template. The original. You’re still in control. You could fold me back into your head, forcibly. But . . .’
They stared at each other. Red and blue, the dipole. Nicola, wisely, said nothing.
Michael broke away first. ‘Ah, into Lethe with it all,’ he said, angry now. ‘If some of the crew reject the mission goals, to Lethe with them. And you, Jophiel. Oh, you can live, for what it’s worth. Just don’t ever ask me for help.’ He walked away.
And a voice murmured in Jophiel’s ear. Say nothing you might regret. You never know. His own voice, older.
When he turned, there was nobody there.
The changing trajectory of Gea was monitored from the remaining ships of the flotilla.
Ben Goober reported to the seniors. Its vector of thrust pushed Gea away from its previous course at several gravities – but the momentum built up after more than six years running at a single gravity was going to take some time to modify.
‘Still,’ Ben said, ‘we think we know where she will be headed, eventually. What direction, anyhow. Pegasus.’
A constellation much distorted by their tracking across the galaxy, Jophiel realised. But he saw the salient point. ‘Gea is heading out of the plane of the Galaxy altogether?’
‘Looks like it,’ Ben said.
Nicola frowned. ‘So what’s out there?’
Ben shrugged. ‘A few rogue stars. Globular clusters, if you go far enough. A big one, called M15 . . . Room to spread out.’
Jophiel lifted his head, looking that way, the true sky masked by the dome of the Island. ‘Godspeed,’ he said. ‘So. What’s next?’
TWO
We are still out on the savannah of stars. And there are ferocious beasts out there . . . And they are aware of us. Indeed they have a grudge.
Luru Parz, c. ad 500,000,000
11
Ship elapsed time since launch: (Cauchy) 7 years 226 days
Ship elapsed time since launch: (Island) 19 years 238 days
Earth date: ad 4922
Jophiel, effective captain of the Island, scheduled a crew briefing seven days after the GUTdrive shutdown.
Seven days of zero gravity inside the lifedome of the Island. Seven days of recovery time for the crew. Seven days with the universe shut out, with the greenship’s lifedome still cycling comforting images from a warm Earth, a misty blue sky, a pale Sun rising and setting. Seven days of stillness, after thirteen years of half-gravity deceleration, to slow them to this arrival point in the target star’s system.
When the hour for the briefing approached Jophiel walked alone from his cabin in the fringe of modest buildings around the rim of the lifedome, and crossed the grassy parkland that covered much of the main deck, heading for the amphitheatre at the centre of the lifedome. ‘Walked’ – in zero gravity a waist-high mesh of guide ropes had been laid out a metre or so above the ground; you were free to swim through the air if you liked, but most people used the ropes as they paddled over sunlit turf.
Any gravity strength he desired could have been simulated for Virtual Jophiel, of course. He stuck scrupulously to the conditions the flesh-and-blood crew endured, as mandated by his consistency protocols, and, he thought, by sheer good manners. After the split from the Cauchy, though, he had accepted the use of a small cabin, one of a block at the fringe of the lifedome. There was room, especially since most of the physically embodied crew – the wet crew, as they called themselves now, a bit of Gea slang – had spent the long interval of deceleration to Goober’s Star stashed safely away in sleeper pods.
And he did have some physical gear to store – dedicated softscreens, engineering instruments. Records of his past on Earth. A past he now shared with his wet-crew original, Michael, back on the Cauchy. Michael had kept the Wormhole Ghost amulet, though, the original. Jophiel patted his pocket now, an unreal hand checking the position of an equally unreal replica: the panic button Nicola had given him when he had gone over alone to the Gea. He found the presence of the amulet copy oddly comforting, even if it, like himself, was entirely simulated.
A chicken ran past his feet, clucking. He hesitated, almost lost his footing.
The chicken, snow white, was pursued by a grey blur, harder to make out. And then by a bot that chased them both, fleeing low under the guide-rope layer, with rattling squ
irts of attitude jets.
Naturally Nicola Emry was here to see that stumble. Naturally she laughed. ‘Only you could trip over a chicken when you aren’t even physically present, Poole.’
He straightened up. ‘And in microgravity too. The chickens are getting smart at scrambling along under the ropes. The rats too. And those rats are getting aggressive.’
‘Read your history, Poole. Rats follow humans, wherever we go. We took them to Australia and Hawaii. Now we’ve brought them to Goober’s Star. You think you’ve led us on some kind of extraterrestrial crusade. In fact you’ve been breeding super-rats and spreading them over interstellar space. Complicated thing, life, isn’t it?’
They were nearing the amphitheatre. The crew were gathering, some in their bright red uniforms, some in casual gear, or in the grimy work clothes they used for assisting the bots in their labours around the park. Faces turned to Jophiel as he approached. People held on easily to the guide ropes, with twists around ankles and wrists, floating in sunlight. There were children here now, wriggling around or playing: the triumph of the argument of Alice Thomas and her Second Generation faction. The eldest, now aged eleven, was Michaela Nadathur, born just a year after the separation from the Cauchy. She had been named for Michael Poole, with a touch of irony.
Everybody was out of the sleep pods at last. Indeed, Jophiel realised, it was the first time the whole crew had been together since the separation from Cauchy. And there was a sense that at last the job proper was about to begin.
Asher Fennell was standing with Alice Thomas, Ben Goober and a few other seniors. She nodded. ‘Jophiel. We’re ready for you.’
‘Well, it’s Asher’s show. About time you showed us where we are, don’t you think?’
Asher clapped her hands. Everyone looked her way.
Over their heads, in silence, the sky dome faded to black.
12
Asher stood alone at the centre of the amphitheatre, in the sudden gloom, amid a slightly intimidated hush.
Xeelee Redemption Page 7