The other school, the accretionists, held a different view. They maintained that robot intelligence was an emergent property, something that could only happen given sufficient resources of time and complexity. The accretionists argued that the surviving robots became the way we were gradually, through the slow augmentation of simpler machines. In their view, almost any machine could become an intelligent robot, provided it was allowed to evolve and layer itself with improvements.
It would have been convenient if we robots could have settled the matter. The unfortunate fact, though, was that we simply didn’t remember. Like any recording apparatus, we were prone to error and distortion. At times when the emperor’s hold on the galaxy had slackened, data wars corrupted even the most secure of archives. I could sift through my memories until I found the earliest reliable events of which I had direct experience, but I knew—I sensed—that I was still only plumbing relatively shallow layers of my own identity.
I knew I’d been around considerably longer than that.
The only thing I could be absolutely certain of was that I’d known the emperor for a very long time. We fit together like hand and glove. And in all that time I’d always been there to protect him.
It was what I did.
THE OFFICIAL WAS a high-ranking technocrat on Selva, one of the major power centres of the Luquan Emergence. He studied me with unconcealed hostility, sitting behind a desk in his private office in one of Selva’s aquatic cities. Fierce, luminous oceanforms—barbed and tentacled things of alien provenance—clawed and suckered at the armoured glass behind him, testing its strength.
“I really don’t think I can offer any more assistance, sire,” the official said, putting sufficient stress on the honorific for it to sound insulting. “Since your arrival on Selva we’ve given you free rein to conduct your investigations. Every administrative department has done its utmost to comply with your requests. And yet you still act as if there is more we could have done.” He was a thin, sallow man with arched, quizzical eyebrows, dressed in a military uniform that was several sizes too big for him. “Have we not demonstrated our obedience with the trials?”
“I didn’t ask for those dissidents to be executed,” I said. “Although I can see how useful it would have been for you. Arrest some troublemakers, ask them questions they can’t possibly answer, about a crime they had nothing to do with, and then hang them on the pretext that they weren’t cooperating with the Great House. Do you imagine that will buy you favour with the emperor? Quite the opposite, I’d suggest. When all this is over and done with, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you have an imperial audit to deal with.”
He shrugged, as if the matter was of no possible consequence.
“You’re wasting your time, sire—looking for a pattern, a logical explanation, where none exists. I don’t even know why you’re bothering. Didn’t you already find your assailant? Didn’t you already extract a confession?”
“We found evidence that points to the Luquan Emergence.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about that.” Ostentatiously, he tapped at a sealed brochure on his desk. “A cryptic statement in an ancient tongue. Some dust that could have come from anywhere.”
I maintained a blank expression, giving no hint at my anger that the forensic information had been leaked. It was inevitable, I supposed, but I had hoped to keep a lid on it for a little longer.
“I’d discount any rumours if I were you.”
A mouthful of concentric teeth gnashed against the glass, rotating and counter-rotating like some industrial drilling machine. The official craned around in his seat, studying the ravenous creature for a few seconds. “They have a taste for human flesh now,” he said, as if the two of us were making idle conversation. “No one’s exactly sure how, but it appears that at some point certain undesirables must have been fed to them, despite all the prohibitions against introducing human genetic material into the native ecosystem.”
“I suppose I must count as an undesirable, from where you’re sitting. Coming in with imperial authorisation, the license to ask any questions I choose.”
“I won’t pretend I’ll shed many tears when you’re gone, if that’s what you mean.” He straightened in his chair, the stiff fabric of the uniform creaking. “On that matter, there’s something you might benefit from knowing.”
“Because it’ll get me off Selva?”
“I’d inflict you on Porz, if I didn’t know you’d already visited.” He tapped another finger against the brochure. “It behoves me to point out that you may be making a tactical error in conducting your enquiries here, at the present heart of the Emergence. This ancient inscription—the quote from that old text—harkens back to our very early history. The geopolitical balance was different back then, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.”
“I know my history.” Which was true, up to a point. But the history of the Luquan Emergence was a bewildering thicket of half-truths and lies, designed to confound imperial legislators. Even the Great House hadn’t been able to help me sort out truth and fiction where the Emergence was concerned. It was worse than trying to find Lost Earth.
“Then consider acting upon it,” the official said. “Julact was the heart of the Luquan Emergence in those days. No one lives there now, but…”
“I’ll come to Julact in good time.”
“You may wish to move it up your schedule. That part of the Emergence doesn’t see much traffic, so the skipspace connections are being pruned back. We’ve already mothballed all routes west of the Hasharud Loop. It’s difficult enough to reach Julact now. In a few years, it may not be possible at all—even with imperial blessing. You know how hard it is to reactivate a path, once it’s fallen out of use.”
No administrative entity within the Radiant Commonwealth was supposed to shutdown skipspace paths without direct permission from the Great House. Merely doing so was a goading taunt against the emperor’s authority. That, though, was a fight for another day.
“If I had the slightest suspicion that I was being manipulated…”
“Of course you’re being manipulated. I want you out of my jurisdiction.
“Oh, and it’s a red world,” the official continued. “And the soil’s a close match to that sample you found in the bullet. In case that makes any difference to you.”
“You said it yourself. That soil could have come from anywhere in the galaxy. A close match doesn’t imply a unique match.”
“Still. You’ve got to start somewhere, haven’t you?”
I LEFT SELVA.
My passage to Julact was appropriately arduous. After emerging from the soon-to-be-mothballed skipspace portal I had to complete the final leg of the journey at sublight speed, accruing years of irritating timelag. Before I dropped out of superluminal signal range I contacted the Capital Nexus, alerting the emperor that I would not be home for some time.
“Are you sure this is wise, Mercurio?”
“Clearly, it suits them that I should redirect my enquiries away from Selva, Porz, and the other power centres of the present Emergence. But Julact is worthy of my attention. Even if there isn’t anyone living there now, I may find another clue, another piece of the puzzle.”
The emperor was outside again, very close to the spot where his previous body had been shot, kneeling by the treasured koi pond with some kind of water-testing device in his hand. A white and orange male broke the water with his barbled head, puckering silver-white lips at the force-shielded sky above the Great House. “You sound as if you’re caught up in some kind of elaborate parlour game,” the emperor said.
“That’s exactly how it feels. By the same token, I have no choice but to play along. Ordinarily I would not consider dropping out of contact for as long as it will take me to travel to Julact and back. But since the Great House seems to be running itself well enough in my absence, and given that there have been no further security incidents…”
The emperor lifted a yellow silk sleeve. “Yes, of course. Do whatever
is necessary. I could hardly expect you to be less thorough about this than any other security arrangements you’ve dealt with.”
“I promise I’ll be as quick as possible.”
“Of course. And once again, I urge you to take all necessary precautions. You and I, we’ve got a lot of history together. I’d feel quite naked without you.”
“I’ll report back as soon as I have something, sir.”
The emperor, the fish and the Great House faded from my console. With nothing to do but wait for my journey to end, I sifted through the facts of the case, examining every aspect from every conceivable angle. The process consumed many centuries of equivalent human thought, but at the end of it I was still none the wiser. All I had was a bullet, an inscription and some fine red dust.
Would Julact provide any answers?
The red world was smaller than most terrestrials, with a single small moon. It had a ghost-thin haze of atmosphere and no evidence of surface biology. Winds scoured tawny dust from pole to pole, creating an ever-changing mask. The humans of the Luquan Emergence had not, of course, evolved on this world. Thousands of years before their emergence as a galactic mini-power, they must have crossed interstellar space from Lost Earth, to settle and perhaps terraform this unpromising pebble.
From orbit, I dropped down samplers to sniff and taste Julact’s lifeless soil. As the technocrat had already promised, it turned out to be in uncannily close agreement with the forensic sample. That didn’t prove that Julact was the home of the assassin—dozens of other worlds would have given at least as convincing a match—but at least I didn’t have to rule it out immediately.
I surveyed the planet from space, searching for possible clues. Humans had been here once, that much was clear. There were ruined cities on the surface—smothered in dust, abandoned tens of thousands of years ago. Could someone have stayed behind, nursing a potent grudge? Possibly. But it was difficult to see how a single man could have orchestrated the long game of the assassination attempt. It would have taken several normal lifetimes to put in place the necessary measures—and only a select few have ever been given the imperial gift of extended longevity. A machine such as I—that would have been different. But what possible harm could a robot wish upon the emperor?
I was debating these points with myself when a signal flashed from the surface, emanating from the largest ruined city.
“Welcome, Mercurio,” said the signal. “I’m glad you finally arrived.”
“To whom am I speaking?”
“That doesn’t matter for now. If you wish answers to your questions, descend to the perimeter of the abandoned settlement from which this transmission is originating. We have much to talk about, you and I.”
“I’m on official business for the Great House. I demand to know your identity.”
“Or what?” the voice asked, amusedly. “You’ll destroy the city? And then what will you have learned?” The tone shifted to one of gentle encouragement. “Descend, Mercurio—I promise that no harm will come to you, and that I will satisfy your curiosity in all matters. What do you have to lose?”
“My existence?”
“I wouldn’t harm you, brother. Not in a million years.”
I commenced entry into Julact’s wisp of an atmosphere. All the while I scanned the city for signs of concealed weaponry, half expecting to be blown out of the sky at any moment. There were no detectable weapons, but that wasn’t much consolation. The only assurance I could offer myself was that I was now only slightly more vulnerable than when I had surveyed Julact from space.
The city lay inside the crumbled remains of a once-proud wall. I set down just beyond it, instructing my ship to wait while I ventured outside. As I stepped onto Julact’s surface, the dust crunching beneath my feet, some ancient memory threatened to stir. It was as if I had been here before, as if this landscape had been awaiting my return, patient and still as an old painting. The feeling was neither welcome nor pleasant. I could only assume that the many skipspace transits I’d been forced to endure were having an effect on my higher functions.
I thought of what I had said to the emperor, before my departure. Of how I was going to go walkabout.
Unnerved, but still determined to stand my ground, I waited to see what would happen.
Presently four golden robots emerged from a crack in the side of the city wall. They were standing on a flying disk, a common form of transportation in the Julactic League. They were humanoid, but clearly no more than clever servitors. Each machine had a human torso, but only a very small glowing sphere for a head. I watched their approach with trepidation, but none of the machines showed any hostile intentions.
“Please come with us,” they said in unison, beckoning me to step onto the disk. “We will take you to the one you wish to meet.”
“The one I spoke to from space?”
“Please come with us,” the robots repeated, standing aside to give me room.
“Identify the individual or organisation for whom you are working.”
“Please come with us.”
I realised that it was futile expecting to get anything out of these idiot machines. Submitting myself to fate, I stepped onto the disk. We sped away instantly, back through the crack in the wall. There was a grey rush of ruined stone, and then we were in the city proper, winging over smashed buildings; what had once been towers or elegantly domed halls. Centuries of dust storms had polished them to a glassy smoothness against the prevailing winds. Only a handful of buildings reached higher than the city wall. We approached the highest of them, a tapering white structure like a snapped-off tusk rammed into the ground. At the very tip was a bulb-shaped swelling that had cracked open to reveal a tilted floor. A bronze craft, shaped like a blunt spearhead, waited on the floor for our arrival. I would have seen it from space, had it not been screened from observation until this moment.
The flying disk rose into the belly of the parked vehicle. The robots bade me to step down, onto carpeted flooring. The belly door sealed shut and I sensed a lurch of rapid movement. I wondered if they were taking me back into space. It seemed absurd to invite me down to the surface, only to take me away from Julact.
“He will see you now,” the robots announced.
They showed me forward, into the front compartment of the vehicle. It was a triangular room outfitted in burgundy, with wide, sloping windows on two sides. There were no controls or displays, and the only furniture consisted of two padded benches, set at an angle to each other before the windows. A figure was sitting on one of these benches as I was shown in. The golden robots left us alone, retreating into the rear of the craft as a door closed between us.
Such is the rarity of robot intelligence that I have only been in the presence of machines such as myself on a handful of occasions. In all such instances I always felt a quiet certainty that I was the superior machine, or that we were at least equal partners. I have never felt myself to be in the presence of a stronger, cleverer entity.
Until this moment.
He rose from the couch where he had been sitting, feigning that human need for relaxation. He was as tall as I and not dissimilar in build and cosmetic ornamentation. Where I resembled a masked soldier in jade armour, he was a fiery, almost luminous red, with the face of an iron gargoyle.
“The accretionists were right,” he said, by way of welcome. “But of course you knew that all along, Mercurio. In your bones. I certainly know it in my bones.”
“I confess I didn’t.”
“Well, maybe you think you didn’t. But your deep memory says otherwise—as does mine. We’ve been around too long to have been the product of some brief, ingenious golden age. We’re not just as old as the empire. We go back even further, you and I.”
Through the window the landscape rushed by. We had passed beyond the limits of the ruined city and were now traversing lifeless hills and valleys.
“Do we?” I asked.
“You knew the emperor when he was still recognisably human. So
did I. We knew him before this empire was even a glint in his eye. When the very idea of it would have been laughable. When he was just a powerful man in a single solar system. But we were there, beyond any question.”
“Who are you?”
He touched a fiery hand to the armoured breastplate of his chest. “My name is Fury. Your name was bestowed upon you by your master; I chose mine for myself.”
I searched my memory for information on any figures named Fury who might have been considered a security concern. Nothing of significance emerged, even when I expanded the search parameters to scan back many thousands of years.
“That tells me nothing.”
“Then maybe this will. I’m your brother. We were created at the same time.”
“I don’t have a brother.”
“So you believe. The truth is, you’ve always had one. You just didn’t realise it.”
I thought back to the religious text on the bullet casing, wondering if it might have some bearing on our conversation. Am I my brother’s keeper? What did it mean, in this context?
“How could a machine have a brother?” I asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. Any way, I haven’t come here to be teased with irrelevancies about my own past. I’ve come to investigate a crime.”
“The attempted assassination of the emperor, I presume,” Fury said casually. “I’ll make it easy for you, shall I? I did it. I arranged for the uplift and his weapon. I created the bullet that did so little harm. I put the dust inside it, I put the words on the casing. I did all this without ever setting foot within a hundred light years of the Capital Nexus.”
“If you wanted to kill the emperor…”
“I could have done it; trivially. Yes; I’m glad you came to that conclusion. I take it you’ve now had time to work out why I went to such elaborate lengths, merely to injure him?”
Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds Page 28