Edges

Chapter 34

Now that he’d located the cocoon that held the entity’s newest avatar, the Bio-mechanic longed to destroy it. It would be so easy to do.

The structure of the cocoon was well known to him. It was a copy of the barrier wall he’d designed to protect the warren. And it was not defended by the unfathomable nanotech that guarded the containment capsule. Instead, it utilized the Bio-mechanic’s own system of Makers to keep it safe from the surrounding Chenzeme tissue.

Knowing the entity had so casually replicated his work infuriated him. It fed his determination to rid the ship of this maddening infestation. Adding to his pique was the knowledge that the thing within the cocoon was a masquerade and not at all human.

Ultrasound had yielded an initial view, later confirmed by molecular mapping. The partly grown avatar had lightweight honeycombed bones, no brain, no digestive system, and lungs just large enough to give it the capability of speech. It had many small hearts and what looked like gas-exchange surfaces in its skin to supplement the undersized lungs. An inefficient structure, clearly not intended for long-term use, but with the advantage that it could not be killed by a single projectile as a human could.

The Bio-mechanic maneuvered a fleet of sensors into position to monitor the cocoon… though it would be so much more satisfying to bring into play one of the pods of stealthed explosives he’d prepared for the Pyrrhic Defense. He imagined using such a device to immolate the cocoon.

He so looked forward to putting a fiery end to the entity’s tenure.

But the avatar was not the entity. It would do no good to attack the cocoon, whatever momentary satisfaction he might derive. So he resisted the temptation.

Resisting temptation was new to him. In the past, he would either act or not act, as logic dictated. He did not suffer illogical desires. But his decades-long failure to evict the entity had changed him, made him more bitter, more duplicitous, more human.

A hundred years ago he would not have had the complexity to resist the temptation to report to Urban on the existence of the Pyrrhic Defense. Now he had nearly completed the project without informing either Urban or the other Apparatchiks.

The Bio-mechanic despised his new skill at duplicity. He foresaw that it would inevitably destabilize the smooth operation of the ship. But for now, no one knew better than he did what must be done and by the Unknown God he would do it.

Urban existed on only a single timeline, occupying the high bridge, when the Bio-mechanic messaged him: *The avatar is on the move.

He replicated into the library, and linked into a sensory web established by the Bio-mechanic. The web allowed him to monitor the progress of the avatar’s cocoon as it slid through the ship’s tissue. Ninety-two minutes later, the cocoon merged with the warren’s barrier wall, releasing its occupant into an empty chamber.

Lezuri had waited only three days to make his return.

Urban opened a window. Filled it with the updated personnel map, now capable of tracking the location of the avatar.

The Scholar appeared, uninvited, within his frameless window. “Let me be with you when you talk to him.”

Urban considered this, then nodded his assent.

In the bedroom of Clemantine’s cottage, he awoke, his memories already synced by a submind. The Scholar joined him, a ghost presence residing in his atrium and riding on his senses, perceptible to him, but to no one else.

The personnel map showed Lezuri waiting to cross from the zero-gravity of the warren to the rotating gee deck.

“Look there,” the Scholar said, highlighting a point on the map as Urban walked into the front room. “Naresh is waiting to meet Lezuri.”

It did look that way. The physicist was loitering by the transit gate, behind the amphitheater. Urban considered and then rejected the possibility that the entity had signaled Naresh.

The Apparatchiks on Griffin remained suspicious that the document containing the Naresh Sequence had been a plant, that Lezuri had somehow gained access to Naresh’s atrium, and through that, to the network. But there was no evidence for it, and the DIs assigned to watch for unusual activity had found nothing of note.

“Naresh must have instructed a DI to monitor the map, and alert him,” Urban said.

The points representing Lezuri and Naresh crossed the pavilion together—but not toward the path that led most directly to Urban’s location. Instead, they went the other way around the gee deck. Riffan and Vytet joined them, and then a few others. Tarnya, Mikael, even Alkimbra among them. The group did not go even as far as the dining terrace, gathering instead on a small lawn.

“I thought he would come to see you,” the Scholar said, bemused.

Urban had thought so too. Lezuri needed him, wanted his cooperation.

“Will you go see him?” the Scholar asked.

“It’s what he wants, isn’t it?”

“It would put you in the position of supplicant.”

“Does that matter in this circumstance?”

“I doubt it matters to Lezuri, but how would it affect you?”

Urban thought about it and decided he would let Lezuri come to him. He could wait and he would miss nothing because Vytet could be trusted to make a record of everything that was said.

He continued to watch the map. Others joined the little gathering. He saw Clemantine among them. He was about to message her, but she messaged him first: *Riffan has loaned Lezuri a tablet.

Clemantine knelt on the edge of the gathering. She counted fourteen admirers, sitting with Lezuri on a small span of lawn. Vytet, Riffan, and Naresh closest to him.

“It’s Urban who controls access to the ship’s network,” Naresh was saying. “He is the ultimate authority here.”

“You will understand,” Vytet said, “that we must insist on certain security precautions. We cannot open the network to you, but we’re happy to answer any questions you have.”

“I would like to see where we are,” Lezuri answered. “Our precise position within the void.”

“Oh, I can show you that,” Riffan volunteered. He had a tablet with him. He checked the display and then handed it to Lezuri.

Clemantine gasped. She wanted to cry out, to tell Riffan, No! No, don’t give our enemy this doorway into Dragon’s network!

Instead she messaged Urban: *Riffan has loaned Lezuri a tablet.

Urban responded: *He’s looking at astronomical data.

*He’ll try to penetrate the network.

*I’ve throttled access. Don’t worry. Then he added, *Show me what’s going on.

She complied, opening a link that allowed him to see the video she was recording through her atrium.

After several seconds, Lezuri handed the tablet back to Riffan, saying, “It’s a relief to me to know we are still a safe distance from Tanjiri.”

“Oh yes,” Riffan said. “We’re still years away.”

“Tell us about Tanjiri,” Vytet urged him.

Lezuri cocked his head, eyeing Riffan with a thoughtful expression. “Long ago, when you first came to speak to me—I was not then capable of response—you described to me the history of this ship. You told me Urban is its master.”

“That’s right,” Riffan said. “But this is a shared mission, we are all bound together for the old worlds, to discover what might be there. And we understand there will be dangers—”

“No,” Lezuri interrupted gently. “You have no conception of what lies ahead of you.”

Clemantine rose to her feet. “Do you?” she asked him. “I had the impression you were marooned for centuries, if not millennia. What has changed since you were last at Tanjiri?”

He eyed her for several seconds. Debating an answer? Finally, he said, “I have not been to Tanjiri. I would not trespass there.”

This drew a flurry of questions. He ignored them all, turning to Vytet, to Naresh, asking questions of his own, “Who is it that decides the destination of this ship? All of you together? Or is it Urban who makes this decision for the rest of you?”

An uncertain silence fell across the gathering. Even Clemantine wasn’t sure how to frame an answer. Finally, Vytet offered a cautious explanation: “We have always treated it as a matter of discussion.”

“But the final word is Urban’s,” Naresh added. “The ship is his. He is the ship. You will need to persuade him if you want to see this ship go somewhere other than Tanjiri.”

Lezuri nodded. He rose to his feet. “Please excuse me. The lifespan of this avatar is limited, and it seems I must visit Urban after all.”

From Urban, a soft, self-satisfied chuckle. He told Clemantine, *Come home. You’ll want to see how this plays out.

Urban looked over his shoulder at Clemantine as she walked in from the bedroom, breathless, her face shining with sweat. She’d put her experience playing flying fox to good use, shortcutting through gardens and over rooftops to arrive at the backdoor well before Lezuri crossed the threshold.

“No one has told him you can command the ship,” Urban said.

“Let’s keep it that way.”

“Agreed.”

She took a seat on the sofa while he walked to the door. The gel retracted. Lezuri was outside, alone, crossing the patio.

“Come in,” Urban said.

Lezuri came in talking. “You want to believe you are strong, wise, ruthless—”

“Not so much,” Urban broke in. “But I can learn. I imagine there’s a lot I could learn at Tanjiri.”

Lezuri hesitated, eyeing Clemantine. She gestured at the other end of the sofa. “Please. Have a seat.”

He ignored this offer, returning his attention to Urban. “Tanjiri is not for you. You are not ready to encounter what exists there.”

This could be true, the Scholar said, speaking from within Urban’s atrium where no one else could hear.

“I want to see it anyway,” Urban said aloud. “The broken megastructures. The celestial city. The living worlds.”

“You’re not ready,” Lezuri insisted. “If I demonstrate this to you, will you consider another path?”

He did not wait for an answer, but produced an object from his hand.

From his hand.

A ultra-thin silvery needle that flashed with refracted light as it burst out of the skin of his palm, emerging at a low angle, growing and growing in length until it reached a full twelve centimeters.

Urban backed away in alarm. Clemantine rose to her feet.

“Do you recognize it?” Lezuri asked, holding the needle up. Its mirrored surface sliced light into a spray of rainbow glints that danced madly across the walls and ceiling.

“No,” Urban said, his mouth dry, wondering where this was going.

“But you can guess.”

“Is it like that needle you used to penetrate the hull of my ship?”

“Yes, except this one won’t activate. It won’t grow spontaneously. It doesn’t have that capability, but everything else is there. Everything I know. All of it folded into a quantum-scale matrix.” Lezuri held it out. “Take it. It won’t harm you. It’s a gift, from me to you. All my knowledge yours—if you can work out how to access it. If you can do that, then I am wrong, and you are ready to go to Tanjiri.”

“It’s a trick,” Clemantine said.

“Yes,” Lezuri agreed. “The trick is that you are not ready.”

The Scholar said, If what he just told you about that needle is true, then he’s right. You won’t be able to access it.

Urban reached for the needle. Subminds synced him with his ghost on the high bridge. He sent a message to be sure: *If something happens to me…

*Sooth. I’ll end it.

A shiver on the back of his neck as he took the needle.

He held it gingerly, pinched between thumb and forefinger. It felt light, delicate. He feared he would snap it with the least pressure. Nevertheless, he slid his other forefinger along its length.

Cold. Utterly smooth to his touch but not frictionless or he would not be able to hold it at all. Fine points on both ends. He touched one.

The needle pierced the pad of his finger, went straight through bone and emerged through the nail on the other side. Rainbow glints. No blood. No pain either. Still, his chest rose and fell as he strove to contain his revulsion.

Moving with great care, he pulled his finger free.

Still no blood.

He looked at Lezuri. “You don’t believe I can do this—access the information inside.”

“It’s beyond you,” Lezuri assured him.

“Let me guess again. The mechanism to open it is sealed on the inside.”

Lezuri smiled. “Ah, you’re doing better than I thought. You’ve already solved half the puzzle. Now, all that’s left is to work out how to get inside so that you can trigger the mechanism. I will leave you to consider that. This avatar is running out of energy. I must go.”

He did not dispose of himself against the generative wall as Urban half expected, but left instead through the door.

Clemantine came to get a closer look at the needle. “It’s a pretty thing. Doesn’t look real, though. Like it’s only partly in this world.”

“Hmm,” he said, remembering how it had passed bloodlessly through his finger.

He sent the Scholar to the library, to share what he’d seen with the other Apparatchiks. Then he messaged the Engineer and the Bio-mechanic: *I’ve given you access to this location. I want you to analyze this.

Immediately, a smooth white column rose a meter high from the floor. A voice said, “Put the needle on it.”

“The Engineer?” Clemantine asked.

“Yes.”

Gingerly, he set the needle down. It started to roll, but a shallow channel formed in the top of the column, catching it, and then closing over it.

“I’m mapping the surface of the device now,” the Engineer reported. “So far, it contains no active nanotech.”

“Show us what it looks like,” Clemantine said.

The generative wall converted to a video screen. It showed a precisely engineered surface composed of a repeating pattern of pits and knobs.

“The tips of the needle are smooth,” the Engineer reported. “The rest of its surface is tiled in this pattern, presumably to add a slight measure of friction.”

“No seams?” Urban asked. “No lock?”

“Nothing like that,” the Engineer said. “It doesn’t react chemically and our assault Makers cannot interact with it.”

“Like the containment capsule?” Clemantine asked.

“It’s as impervious as the containment capsule,” another voice said. Urban recognized the jaundiced tone of the Bio-mechanic. “But this is a different kind of material. It refracts light differently.”

“Let me see the needle again,” Urban said.

The needle emerged from the top of the column, still cradled in a shallow channel. He picked it up. It felt so fragile in his fingers, as if the pressure of his pulse might break it. Then he tried to snap it in half, and all sense of fragility vanished.

Clemantine gasped when she saw what he was doing, but the needle didn’t even bend.

“You can’t break it,” the Engineer said. “And if you keep trying, it’s going to slip and pierce your hand or disappear into a generative wall.”

Urban held it up, admiring the rainbow glints.

Clemantine hissed softly. “This is a distraction. There’s no way to get inside, is there?”

“Probably not,” the Engineer agreed.

“Then why did Lezuri give it to me?” Urban asked.

“To drive you mad with frustration?” the Bio-mechanic suggested.

“No, there’s a riddle here we’re not getting.”

“Put it back on the column,” the Engineer said. “I’ll take it and run additional tests of its surface—but I think we’ll find the only way into it is to go back in time and be present in the moments before it was sealed.”

“Did you just make a joke?” Urban asked—because that never happened.

“No,” the Engineer said in the same even tone. “I’m serious.”

“Oh.” He laid the needle on the top of the column and watched it disappear. “No problem then. We just have to learn to manipulate time, and the riddle is solved.”

He checked Lezuri’s status and found that the avatar had returned to the warren and from there to the cocoon from which he’d emerged.

“Maybe it’s not a matter of going back in time,” Clemantine mused. “Maybe you have to go forward.”

Urban turned to her. “What?”

She shrugged. “What if you have to… I don’t know… catch the needle in a bubble of time and run it on fast forward until it reaches a point in the future when it was programmed to open?”

“You think Lezuri can do that?”

“No. But maybe he remembers a time when he could?”