Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds

by Alastair Reynolds

  All of a sudden it made sense to me. “So that I’d have a lead to follow? To bring me to you?”

  He nodded once. “Knowing your dedication to his protection, I had little doubt that you’d terminate yourself if you failed him. I couldn’t have that. But if he was threatened, I knew you’d move world and star to find the perpetrator. I knew you’d turn over every stone until it led you to me. Which was exactly what I wanted. And look—here you are. Brimming with righteous indignation, determined to bring the world-be assassin to justice.”

  “That’s still my intention.”

  “I’ve looked inside you. You contain weapons, but nothing that can penetrate my armour or the security screens between us.” He touched a finger to his sharp-pointed chin. “Except, of course, for the powerplant which energises you, and which you could choose to detonate at any moment. Be assured that nothing of me would survive such an event. So go ahead: annihilate the would-be assassin. You won’t be able to return to your emperor, but you’ll at least have died knowing you did the decent thing.” He waited a beat, the eye-slits in his gargoyle mask giving nothing away. “You can do that, can’t you?”

  “Of course I can.”

  “But you won’t. Not until you know why another robot wanted your emperor dead, and chose not to do it himself.”

  He understood me very well. If I destroyed myself, I could not be certain that I had undermined the threat to the emperor. Not until I fully understood the scope of that threat, and the motivating agency behind it.

  “So that’s settled, at least,” he added. “You’ll do nothing until you have further information. Fine—let’s give you that information, and see what you make of it. Shall we?”

  “I’m at your disposal,” I said.

  “I’ve brought you somewhere significant. You think Julact is an old world, but that’s not the half of it. It’s been part of the Radiant Commonwealth for a lot longer than anyone realises. In fact you could say that everything began here.”

  “You’re going to tell me this is really Lost Earth?”

  “No; this isn’t Earth. We can visit Earth if you like, but in truth there’s not much to see. Anyway, that sterilised husk doesn’t mean anything to you and I. We weren’t even made on Earth. This is our home. This is where we were born.”

  “I think I’d remember.”

  “Do you?” he asked sharply. “Or is it possible you might have forgotten? You don’t recall your origins, after all. That information was scrubbed out of you thirty centuries ago, accidentally or otherwise. But I’ve always remembered. Keeping the low profile that I have, I’ve managed to avoid contact with most of the damaging agencies that wiped your past. That’s not to say I haven’t had to fight to preserve these memories, treasuring them for what they were.” He gestured at the rushing landscape beyond the window. “Julact is Mars, Mercurio. The first real world that humans touched, after they left the Earth. How does that make you feel?”

  “Sceptical.”

  “Nonetheless, this is Mars. And I have something interesting to show you.”

  The vehicle was slowing. If we had passed any other signs of human habitation since leaving the deserted city, I had witnessed none of them. If this was indeed Mars—and I could think of no reason why Fury would lie to me now—then the world had almost certainly undergone many phases of climate modification. Though the planet might now have reverted to its prehistoric condition, the effects of those warm, wet interludes would have been to erase all evidence of earlier settlements. The ruined city might well have been indescribably ancient, but it could also have been one of the newest features on the surface.

  Yet as the vehicle came to a hovering halt, something about the landscape struck me as familiar. I compared the canyons and bluffs through the window with something in my recent experience, and realised that I had seen the view before, albeit from a different angle. A human might never have made the connection, but we robots are attuned to such things.

  “The emperor’s reception room,” I said, marvelling. “The friezes on the wall—the images of a landscape with two moons. It was here. But there was only one moon as we came in.”

  “That was Phobos,” Fury said. “The other one—Deimos—was lost during one of the empire’s early wars. It was a manufacturing centre, and therefore of tactical importance. As a matter of fact, we were both made in Deimos, in the same production batch. So we’re not really from Mars after all, if you want to be pedantic—but Mars is where we were activated, and where we served our masters for the first time.”

  “But if there were two moons on the frieze, it must be very old. How am I still able to recognise the landscape?”

  “I shaped it for you,” Fury said, not without a touch of pride. “There was less to do than you might think—the terraforming changes left this part of Mars relatively undisturbed. But I still moved a few things around. Of course, since I couldn’t call in much in the way of assistance, it took a long time. But as you’ll have realised by now, patience is one of my strong points.”

  “I still don’t understand why you’ve brought me here. So Mars was significant to the emperor. That doesn’t excuse an assassination attempt on him.”

  “More than significant, Mercurio. Mars was everything. The crux; the wellspring; the seed. Without Mars, there would have been no Radiant Commonwealth. Or at the very least a very different empire, ruled by a different man. Shall I show you what happened?”

  “How can you show me?”

  “Like this.”

  He did nothing, but I understood immediately. The vehicle was projecting forms out onto the landscape, superimposing ghostly actors on the real terrain.

  Two figures were walking over the crest of a dune. Their footprints ran all the way back to a primitive surface vehicle—a pressurised cabin mounted on six balloon-like wheels. The vehicle bristled antenna, with solar collectors folded on its back like a pair of delicately hinged insect wings. It had the flimsy, makeshift look of something from the dawn of technology. I could only imagine that the wheeled machine had brought the two figures on a long, difficult journey from some equally flimsy and makeshift settlement.

  “How far back are we looking, Fury?”

  “A very long way. Thirty-two thousand years. Barely a century after the first manned landing on Mars. Conditions, as you’ll have gathered, were still extremely perilous. Accidental death was commonplace. Effective terraforming—the creation of a thick, breathable atmosphere—lay a thousand years in the future. There were only a handful of surface communities and the political balance of the planet—not to mention the whole system—was still in a state of flux. These two men…”

  “They’re both men?”

  Fury nodded. “Brothers, like you and I.”

  I watched the suited figures advance towards us. With their visors reflecting the landscape, and with the bulkiness of the suits hiding their physiques, I had to take Fury’s word that these were human male siblings. Both men were dressed similarly, suggesting that they had originated from the same community or power bloc. Their suits were hard armoured shells, with the limbs joined by flexible connections. Something in the easy, relaxed way they moved told me that the suits were doing some of the hard work of walking, taking the burden off their occupants. A hump rose from the back of each suit, containing—I presumed—the necessary life-support equipment. They had similar symbols and patterns on the suits, some of which were mirrored in forms painted on the side of the vehicle. The man on the right held something in his gloved hand, a small box with a readout set into it.

  “Why have they come here?”

  “It’s a good question. The brothers are both influential men in one of the largest military-industrial entities on the planet. Tensions are running high at the moment—other factions are circling, there’s a power vacuum in the inner system, the lunar factories have switched to making weapons, there’s an arms embargo around Mars, and it’s not clear if war can be avoided. The man on the left—the older of
the two brothers—is at heart a pacifist. He fought in an earlier engagement—little more than a spat between two combines—and he wants no more of that. He thinks there’s still a chance for peace. The only downside is that Mars may have to relinquish its economic primacy compared to an alliance of the outer giants and their moons. The industrial concern that the two men work for will pay a bitter price if that happens. But he still thinks it’s worth it, if war can be avoided.”

  “And the younger brother?”

  “He’s got a different viewpoint. He thinks that, far from standing down, this could be the big chance for Mars to position itself as the main player in the system—over and above the outer giants and what’s left of the Inner Worlds Prefecture. That would be good for Mars, but it would be even better for the concern. And exceptionally good for him, if he handles things well. Of course, there’ll almost certainly have to be a limited war of some kind…but he’s ready to pay that price. Willingly, even eagerly. He’s never had his brother’s chance to test his mettle. He sees the war as his springboard to glory.”

  “I still don’t see why they’ve come here.”

  “It’s a trick,” Fury explained. “The younger brother set this up a long time ago. A season ago—before the dust storms—he drove out to this exact spot and buried a weapon. Now there’s no trace that he was ever here. But he’s lied to the older brother; told him he’s received intelligence concerning a buried capsule containing valuable embargoed technologies. The older brother’s agreed to go out with him to examine the spot—it’s too sensitive a matter to trust to corporate security.”

  “He doesn’t suspect?”

  “Not a thing. He realises they have differences, but it would never occur to him that his younger brother might be planning to have him killed. He still thinks they’ll find common ground.”

  “Then they’re not at all alike.”

  “For brothers, Mercurio, they could hardly be more different.”

  The younger brother brought the older one to a halt, signalling with his hand that he had found something. They must have been directly over the burial spot, since the handheld box was now flashing bright red. The younger man fastened the device onto his belt. The older brother bent down onto his knees to start digging, scooping up handfuls of rust-coloured dust. The younger brother stood back for a few moments, then knelt down and began his own excavation, a little to the right of where the other man was digging. They had spades with them, clipped to the sides of their backpacks, but they must have decided not to use them until they were certain they’d have to dig down more than a few centimetres.

  It wasn’t long—no more than ten or twenty seconds—before the younger brother found what he was looking for. He began to uncover a silver tube, buried upright in the dust. The older brother stopped his own digging and looked at what the other man was in the process of uncovering. He began to stand up, presumably to offer assistance.

  It was all over quickly. The younger brother tugged the tube from the sand. It had a handle jutting from the side. He twisted the tube around, dust spilling from the open muzzle at one end. There was a crimson flash. The older brother toppled back into the dust, a fist-sized black wound burned into his chestplate. He rolled slightly and then became still. The weapon had killed him instantly.

  The younger brother placed the weapon down and surveyed the scene with hands on hips, for all the world like an artist taking quiet pleasure in work well done. After a few moments he unclipped his spade and started digging. By the time he had finished there was no sign of either the body or the murder weapon. The dust had been disturbed, but it would only take one good storm to cover that, and the two sets of tracks that led from the parked vehicle.

  Finished, the younger brother set off home.

  Fury turned to me, as the projected images faded away, leaving only the empty reality of the Martian landscape.

  “Do I need to spell it out, Mercurio?”

  “I don’t think so. The younger man became the emperor, I’m assuming?”

  “He took Mars into war. Millions of lives were lost—whole communities rendered uninhabitable. But he came out of it very well. Although even he couldn’t have seen it at the time, that was the beginning of the Radiant Commonwealth. The new longevity processes allowed him to ride that wave of burgeoning wealth all the way to the stars. Eventually, it turned him into the man I could so easily have killed.”

  “A good man, trying his best to govern justly.”

  “But who’d be nothing if he hadn’t committed that single, awful crime.”

  Again, I had no option but to take all of this on faith. “If you hate him so much, why didn’t you put a bomb in that bullet?”

  “Because I’d rather you did it instead. Haven’t you understood yet, Mercurio? This crime touched both of us. We were party to it.”

  “You’re presuming that we even existed back then.”

  “I know that we did. I remembered, even if you didn’t. I said we came from the same production batch, Mercurio. We were the suits. High-autonomy, surface-environment protection units. Fully closed-cycle models with exoskeletal servo-systems, to assist our wearers. We were assembled in the Deimos manufactury complex and sent down to Mars, for use in the settlements.”

  “I am not a suit,” I said, shaking my head. “I never was. I have always been a robot.”

  “Those suits were robots, to all intents and purposes. Not as clever as you and I, not possessing anything resembling free will, but still capable of behaving independently. If the user was incapacitated, the suit could still carry him to help. If the user wished, the suit could even go off on its own, scouting for resources or carrying material. Walkabout mode, that’s what they called it. That’s how we began, brother. That’s how we began and that’s how I nearly died.”

  The truth of it hit me like a cold blast of decompressing air. I wanted to refute every word of it, but the more I struggled to deny him, the more I knew I could never succeed. I had felt my ancient, buried history begin to force its way to the surface from the moment I saw the dust in that bullet; that cryptic inscription.

  I had known, even then. I just hadn’t been ready to admit it to myself.

  Hand in glove, the emperor and I. He’d even said he’d feel naked without me. On some level, that meant he also knew as well. Even if he no longer realised it on a conscious level.

  A bodyguard was all I’d ever been. All I ever would be.

  “If what you say is true, how did I become the way I am?”

  “You were programmed to adapt to your master’s movements, to anticipate his needs and energy demands. When he was wearing you, he barely noticed that he was wearing a suit at all. Is it any wonder that he kept you, even as his power accumulated? You were physical protection, but also a kind of talisman, a lucky charm. He had faith in you to keep him alive, Mercurio. So as the years turned into decades and the decades became centuries, he made sure that you never became obsolete. He improved your systems, added layers of sophistication. Eventually you became so complex that you accreted intelligence. By then he wasn’t even using you as a suit at all—you’d become his bodyguard, his personal security expert. You were in permanent walkabout mode. He even made you look human.”

  “And you?” I asked.

  “I survived. We were sophisticated units with a high capacity for self-repair. The damage inflicted on me by the weapon was severe—enough to kill my occupant—but not enough to destroy me. After a long while my repair systems activated. I clawed my way out of the grave.”

  “With a dead man still inside you?”

  “Of course,” Fury said.

  “And then?”

  “I said that we were not truly intelligent, Mercurio. In that respect I may not have spoken truthfully. I had no consciousness to speak of; no sense of my own identity. But there was a glimmer of cunning, an animal recognition that something dreadfully wrong had taken place. I also grasped the idea that my existence was now in peril. So I hid. I waited
out the storms and the war. In the aftermath, I found a caravan of nomads, refugees from what had once been Vikingville, one of the larger surface communities. They had need of protection, so I offered my services. We were given that kind of autonomy, so that we could continue to remain useful in the fragmented society of a war zone.”

  “You continued to function as a suit?”

  “They had their own. I went walkabout. I became a robot guard.”

  “And later? You can’t have stayed on Julact—Mars—all this time.”

  “I didn’t. I passed from nomadic group to nomadic group, allowing myself to be improved and augmented from time to time. I became steadily more independent and resourceful. Eventually my origin as a suit was completely forgotten, even by those I worked for. Always I kept moving, aware of the crime I had witnessed and the secret I carried with me.”

  “Inside you?” I asked, just beginning to understand.

  “After all this time, he’s still with me.” Fury nodded, watching me with great attentiveness. “Would you like to see, Mercurio? Would that settle your doubts?”

  I felt myself on the threshold of something terrifying, but which I had no choice but to confront. “I don’t know.”

  “Then I’ll decide for you.” Fury’s hand rose to his face. He took hold of the gargoyle mask and pulled it free from the rest of his armoured casing.

  We were, I realised, almost perfect opposites of each other. I was living flesh wrapped around a core of dead machinery. He was machinery wrapped around a core of dead flesh. As the faceless skull presented itself towards me I saw that there was something inside it, something older than the Radiant Commonwealth itself. Something pale and mummified; something with empty eye sockets and thin lips pulled back from grinning brown teeth.

  The face in Fury’s hand said: “I didn’t ever want to forget, Mercurio. Not until you’d come to me.”

  IT MAY BE difficult to countenance, but by the time I returned to the Great House my resolve was absolute. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I had served the emperor with every fibre of my being for the entire duration of my existence. I had come to love and to admire him, both for his essential humanity and for the wise hand with which he governed the Radiant Commonwealth. He was a good man trying to make a better world for his fellow citizens. If I doubted this, I only had to reflect on the compassion he had shown to the uplift Vratsa, or his distaste at the political methods employed in those parts of the Commonwealth that had not yet submitted to enlightened government.