On the Steel Breeze

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It took her long moments to realise what she was looking at. It resembled an abstract sculpture of some kind, an artifice of crumpled, foil-like surfaces, as if sheets of delicate metal foil had been balled up in a giant fist and then rammed into the earth. A steel angel, she thought, ejected from heaven.

Her second thought was much less poetic.

Sess-na. The aircraft had daggered into the ground, wings ripped out of their sockets and buckled like a scarecrow’s arms.

The Sess-na had crashed.

She pushed the old proxy as fast as it would go, spreading her own arms for balance in imitation of an aircraft’s wings. She had precious little experience with aircraft crashes against which to measure this disaster. She had been aboard June Wing’s spaceship Gulliver, of course, when it fell to earth in Africa, but that craft had only crashed because someone shot it down. They had walked away from Gulliver, but the Sess-na had none of the more modern craft’s safety features. Could anything have survived such a crash – even a machine?

‘Ah,’ said a voice from somewhere to her left. ‘I was going to mention that, Chair Akinya, but it slipped my mind. I hope you’re not angry with me.’

Chiku halted the proxy. She was not out of breath, of course, but the stop command also compelled the machine to stand with hands on hips, exactly as she would to catch her breath after exertion. ‘Were you in that when it crashed?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I remember Geoffrey telling me he could control the Sess-na remotely – send it off on errands, or have it come and pick him up.’

‘A machine that can think for itself? Whatever next!’

‘Why would I be angry with you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know – destruction of an irreplaceable family heirloom, something like that?’

‘Machines don’t last for ever, Eunice. If you use them, sooner or later they break.’

‘That’s reassuring.’

‘Perhaps the rules don’t apply to you. And you’re the machine that matters to me, not that old aircraft.’

‘I’m sure we could knock the dents out of it, given time.’ She made a pained expression. ‘Then again, maybe not.’

‘What happened? Are you hurt… damaged?’

Eunice was striding up the slope, knee-deep in whiskery undergrowth. She looked the same as ever – no limbs missing, no skin hanging off her face to reveal a gleaming horror of chromium skull-plates. Just a skinny, short-haired woman of indeterminate age, dressed for adventure.

‘It was my fault. I was having fun with it, and I got reckless. Serves me right. But it looks worse than it was. I escaped with only a few scrapes and bruises – metaphorically speaking. Can’t say the same for my pride.’

‘You haven’t got a pride to lose. And what do you mean, “fun”.’ Had Chiku been able to squint, she would have squinted. ‘You’re totally serious, aren’t you?’

‘I’m always serious about my fun. I was messing around – taking silly risks because I enjoy it. Been doing a lot of that sort of thing lately. I blame you – and those funny neural structures you brought back from Arethusa.’

‘I didn’t think they’d be much use to you.’

‘So why did you give them to me, then?’

‘A gesture. Like bringing flowers.’

‘You could have just brought flowers. Although I’m glad you didn’t. I think I’m glad, anyway. It’s sometimes hard to know.’

‘What did you do with the structures?’

‘Mapped them into myself as best I could. Connected areas of my logical architecture that hadn’t been strongly correlated. Rewired other bits. There was a lot of guesswork involved. You’re really not cross?’

‘I’d love to have so few problems that that was a concern, Eunice. Did the structures really make you reckless?’

‘Impetuous, certainly. Prone to the unexpected action. I’ve become thrillingly poor at modelling my own future behaviour. I can’t begin to tell you how liberating that feels, not quite knowing what I’m going to do next.’

‘You must have created your own Lyapunov horizon,’ Chiku said. ‘Become a system too chaotic for long-range forecasting.’

‘Never mind long-range – I can’t even be sure what I’m going to be doing in five minutes.’

Chiku was suddenly immensely glad not to be physically present with this strong and unpredictable machine.

‘This might not be good,’ she said cautiously. ‘Perhaps you’re breaking down.’

‘Possible, but I feel as well as I’ve ever felt.’ She patted her belly as she spoke, as if this was some universal indicator of personal well-being. ‘My memory’s no worse than it used to be, probably a bit better. I still remember you, don’t I? All our conversations? Although it’s been a while – when were you last here?’

‘A year or two ago. I can’t just visit at the drop of a hat any more. After that nastiness with Sou-Chun, politicians can’t sneeze without it becoming public record, and my actions are under a lot more scrutiny these days. But I’m sure you’ve kept up with things.’

‘As well as I’m able. Shall we walk to the camp? You can bring me up to speed.’ In dark conspiratorial tones she added: ‘I gather there’s a ship.’

Yes, Chiku told her – there was such a thing, and in about ten years they might actually have something that worked. But they would not be able to use it straight away.

It was 2395 now – seven years since she had come out of skipover. She had saved the old lander from being dismantled, and now they were refitting it for a one-shot, long-range scouting expedition. Instead of ten thousand colonists, eager to taste Crucible’s airs, the repurposed vehicle would carry no more than twenty volunteers. The new ship, with its untested PCP engine, was projected to achieve about twenty-five per cent of the speed of light, allowing for the thirteen-percent boost it had already gained from Zanzibar’s own motion. The crew would go into skipover for most of the journey and wake on final approach. They would reach Crucible about ten years ahead of the caravan.

All this was still a long way into the future.

‘The kinematics don’t allow us to launch much sooner than twenty years from now,’ Chiku said. ‘That’s a basic limitation of the engine and its fuel requirements. In a way, it helps us to have more time to get the ship ready. They say we’re about a decade away from initial readiness but my suspicion is that we’ll end up needing every second of those additional years.’

‘I see you’re adjusting to the long game, then.’

‘Not much choice, is there? If I return to skipover, the project could stall.’

‘You mentioned “volunteers”,’ Eunice said as at last they strode into the sun-dappled clearing. ‘I take it that means these hardy souls will receive some forewarning about what to expect?

‘No, I can’t take that risk. The wrong word now, a lapse of secrecy, could undo everything.’

‘But you must have informed select members of your government.’

‘No – none of them. It’s been difficult, of course, convincing them that we need this expedition, given the risks involved, but I’ve found ways and means. It helps that deep down everyone is scared. Privately, and despite the Pemba legislation, they all know we need to prove the slowdown technology, so Icebreaker is the perfect testbed for the new engine. If Icebreaker works, we can scale-up the engine to the size required to slow a holoship. That alone makes it worth doing. But I’ve also argued the logic of verifying that the surface amenities are up to scratch and capable of supporting us.’

‘And those would be the surface amenities that don’t actually exist?’

‘I’ll break that to them gently, when we’re on final approach.’

‘Hypothetically, what would happen if the truth did get out?’

‘There’d be trouble,’ Chiku said. ‘Fear and panic, of course. Widespread social unease. Beyond that, political rifts bigger than any holoship. Travertine’s work give us a choice, and that’s not always a good thing. Push for slowdown, or skip Crucible all together? Move to a military footing? Even before we met the Providers, we’d have civil war inside the caravan. Can you imagine that, after all we’ve been through?’

‘I thought we were losing the habit of wars,’ Eunice said glumly, stooping to adjust one of the irrigation lines running into her plant beds.

‘We are, slowly.’ Chiku took a seat. ‘But it’s still in our blood, like some fucking horrible disease we’re still carrying around with us. That’s why I’ve got to make the advanced expedition work. If I can contact the Providers, negotiate some common ground—’

‘So you’ll be on this ship, when it goes.’

‘I’ve staked my career on it, these last few years. Icebreaker is my creation. No one’s taking it away from me.’ She used her proxy hand to pick up some metal things that were lying on the table – scraps and coloured shards, coinlike metallic pieces threaded onto wire.

‘And the other volunteers?’

‘Still to be decided. I have selection veto. They won’t know the truth, but they must be people who can handle it when we arrive.’

‘The truth being that they’ve signed up for a suicide mission?’

‘It’s a long shot, but the mission’s not totally doomed.’

‘Noah will be out of skipover by then.’

‘I know. Seven years, if we launch in 2415.’

‘Your children will be seven years older, too. To be blunt about it, they won’t be children any more by then.’

‘Is this art?’ Chiku asked abruptly. ‘Have you been making these trinkets?’

‘Idle hands, dear girl. The drawback of being increasingly human is that the hours begin to weigh on one in a way they never used to. It’s a shame I can’t be with you.’

‘I wish you could, but the time isn’t right for you to emerge. I can’t tell you how much happier I’d be meeting a bunch of artificial intelligences if I also happened to have one on my side.’

‘Can we drop the “artificial intelligence”? It’s a bit like me calling you a meat-based processing system.’

‘I suppose. Regardless, you’re needed here – the Tantors have come to rely on you. We can’t abandon them.’

‘Even if the survival of the entire caravan depended on it?’

‘Everything depends on everything else, doesn’t it? That’s interconnectivity for you – it’s a bitch.’

Eunice laughed humourlessly. ‘So we’re back to square one, just trying to muddle through like the fools we are. This lovely new ship of yours – are you anywhere near testing it?’

‘Still years away. Plus, it’s pretty tricky to test a Post-Chibesa engine if you don’t want anyone to know you have one. We’ll have a better idea once we’re out there, on our way, and can ramp up the engine without raising any awkward questions.’

‘And who else has this vigorously tested and reliable new technology, beyond Zanzibar?’

‘Nobody, as far as I know. We’ve kept a tight lid on the whole project. The Pemba Accord is still in force.’

‘Naughty, naughty Chiku.’

‘Naughty, naughty Eunice – you gave Travertine the shove ve needed, didn’t you?’

‘Ve’d have got there in the end, given time, but I don’t suppose it hurt that the key formulae began to mysteriously insinuate themselves into vis private research files. Still, let’s not downplay Travertine’s achievement. It’s one thing to be given a big boxful of theory and quite another to make an engine out of it.’

‘It’s a miracle that Travertine was able to make something tangible from Sunday’s synthesis,’ Chiku said. ‘Travertine forgets things, sometimes. Loses track of conversations. Ve was so sharp, a few years ago, but it’s gone now – or blunted, anyway.’

‘Isn’t it about time ve was pardoned? Or shot? At this point, either option would be a kindness.’

‘Travertine’s work can’t be publically acknowledged, so it can’t be publically rewarded either. I wish there was some other way.’

‘There usually is.’ Eunice had finished tinkering with her irrigation lines. ‘I’m glad you visited. Any idea when the next time might be?’

‘If there is a next time,’ Chiku said.

‘Oh, I’m sure there will be. Would you like to see the Tantors?’

‘Of course.’

‘Dakota’s still with us, you’ll be glad to hear. She’s come on in leaps and bounds, too – a proper wrinkly old matriarch, very political and canny. Are you absolutely sure Geoffrey didn’t splice some Akinya DNA into them?’

‘Fairly sure…’

‘I think you’ll enjoy the conversation, anyway. And her granddaughters are going to scare the absolute living bejeezus out of you. Here, help me with these.’ Eunice was bending to pick up some plastic crates, the kind she might normally have used to convey seedlings. The trays rattled with a great many plastic and metal toys and puzzles, all apparently fashioned by hand.

‘They’re going to overtake us, aren’t they? Not right now, not tomorrow,’ Chiku said, rising from her seat, ‘but one day we’ll wake up and the Tantors will be looking back at us, saying, “Catch up, slowcoaches.”’

‘In terms of available brain volume,’ Eunice said, ‘they do have an undeniable advantage over us monkeys. But I don’t think we have anything to worry about. They’re only elephants – why in heaven’s name would they hold a grudge against us?’

Chiku stooped to pick up one of the toy boxes. ‘I can’t think of a reason in the world.’

The revival clinic had seen better days. The ornamental fountain had broken years ago, and the hedges had grown wild and unruly. The lawns were worn away to mud and soil and a scrabble of bone-coloured stones. Weeds choked the pathways; bushes curled overhead to form dark, canopied tunnels. Chiku had to stoop to walk along them, pushing branches out of her eyes. A statue had fallen over and never been set right. Another had shattered into a puzzle of cryptic parts. The benches where she remembered sitting and talking to the figment of Chiku Yellow were nowhere to be seen – consumed, perhaps, by the spreading undergrowth.

She saw no living soul until she entered the clinic itself. From previous visits she recalled a reassuring bustle of technicians and nurses; the families and friends of the frozen coming and going; nervous skipover patients on their way into the vaults and relieved ones on their way out. It was safe, but everyone still worried.

She stood in the empty lobby area for a few moments, then called out for assistance. A female nurse, a plump white woman with very pronounced bags under her eyes, bustled out of a back room, startled to find a visitor.

‘Representative… I mean, Chair Akinya…’ the nurse said. She was sweating, her hair dishevelled.

‘I had an appointment,’ Chiku said coolly. ‘Why wasn’t someone waiting for me?’

‘To be honest, Ms… Chair… ’ The nurse was flustered, unaccustomed to dealing with direct authority. Chiku wondered if they had ever crossed paths before. Everyone knew Chiku’s face, of course – she was, after all, the most senior figure in Zanzibar. ‘The thing is… the thing is… the vaults are full enough, but hardly anyone comes or goes these days. We were expecting you, but we got out of step and… we forgot you were coming today…’

Chiku felt a glimmer of sympathy for the put-upon employee. ‘Well, I’m here now. My family are due to emerge from skipover – my husband Noah, and my two children, Mposi and Ndege. I’ve visited them many times.’

‘Yes, yes…’ The nurse ran her finger down the clipboard. ‘Of course, today. Yes, you’re right – they’re coming out today.’

‘I know. That’s why I’m here.’

‘It’ll be a while.’

‘According to the schedule, they should already be on the transition to consciousness. You’ve begun the wake-up, haven’t you?’

‘Yes! Yes, definitely. It’s just…’ The nurse had turned the clipboard upside down, as if it might make more sense that way around. ‘They’re late. A few hours, that’s all. We had a problem yesterday. Not in your sector – I mean, their sector – but it put us behind schedule—’

‘Then I’ll wait,’ Chiku said.

‘It could be six hours. Or eight. It’s hard to tell. Wouldn’t you rather go home than wait here all day? We’ll call you—’

‘Then if it’s all right with you, I’ll wait here.’

Soon they furnished her with a thermal suit and allowed her to enter the vaults. They were in virtually as good a repair as they had ever been. It was true that Zanzibar lacked a heavy manufacturing capacity – or at least did not have much to spare, once resources were diverted into the lander project – so much of the machinery in the skipover vaults was imported, often expensively, from elsewhere in the local caravan. It was true also that tensions in the caravan – when Sou-Chun or her successors had not been seen to act with sufficient rigour – had seen the occasional imposition of sanctions or trade restrictions, so that supplies had not always been plentiful. But Chiku’s people had been nothing if not ingenious, and keeping the skipover vaults running had always been given a high priority. Chiku would have made sure of that even if her family had not been entrusted to the mercy of these machines.

She soon found Noah and her children, and her own casket, still empty. The status indicators showed that warm-up had commenced, but Chiku had no idea how far along the process was. After decades of sleep, nothing was rushed at this stage.

She reached to touch Noah’s cabinet. Her fingers were gloved this time. The little marks that she had once left, the imprints of her touch, had soon been cleaned off the metal – she would have expected nothing less. But the cleaning had been aggressive enough to burnish the cabinet’s surface in two ovals, which was where she now pressed her gloved fingertips.

‘Soon,’ she whispered. And although she had uttered that promise often enough, today it had currency.

‘I never meant for it to happen this way,’ she said, staring into his eyes, hoping to find in them a hint of conciliation, some faint indication that he might forgive her, or at least come to understand her actions.

‘You mean you never meant for me to know?’ Noah asked.

‘No,’ she said, more fiercely than she meant to. ‘That’s not it at all. It was supposed to be a few days, no more than that. I didn’t think it was worth bothering you with my decision. The fewer people I spoke to, the less explaining I had to do.’

‘And you didn’t want to explain yourself to me, is that it?’

‘No,’ she repeated. ‘But if you didn’t know, no one would expect you to account for my actions. It was my problem – just mine.’

‘I thought it was ours.’

They were in the kitchen. Noah had reluctantly accompanied her home, leaving the children at the clinic, bewildered and bored, while their parents went to settle their future in private. This was not the happy awakening they had all been looking forward to. Noah was sitting across from her at the table, like an uncomfortable house guest. He had not even closed the door behind them.

‘It was our problem,’ she said, her hands halfway to his on the table-top but not touching. The distance between them felt galactic. ‘But you couldn’t help me with the news from home. I had to be awake when it arrived – I didn’t want to leave it until the end of our skipover interval.’

‘What did you seriously hope to achieve in just a few days?’

‘I don’t know. Put some wheels in motion, maybe, to make sure we were in a better position by now.’

‘In a few days.’

‘I know it wasn’t very realistic. But after I heard the news, I couldn’t return to the vaults.’

‘Staying awake was more important than keeping the promise you made to your own family?’

‘How do you expect me to answer that?’

‘Truthfully.’

‘All right, then. Yes. Staying awake was more important. I love you and the children more than anything else in my universe – you know that, don’t you? But for that reason alone I had to act. I couldn’t love you and stand back once I knew something was coming that would hurt you, hurt Ndege and Mposi. That’s what love is – sacrifice. Sacrificing everything, our marriage if necessary, out of love for you. Can’t you see that?’

‘What about trust? You trusted me once, remember? I’ve seen the Tantors.’

‘Please,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me – I keep my promises.’

She looked down. Her fingers looked wrong to her, as if at some point they had been surgically swapped with those of a much older woman.

‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened. The news from home was bad, Noah – unimaginably bad. It was imperative for the survival of the entire caravan that we concentrate our efforts on the slowdown problem. With Utomi dead – he was killed in an accident before I woke up – and Sou-Chun out of the way, I had a chance to influence a change in policy. But it couldn’t be done overnight. Even then, I was only thinking in terms of years. Two, three… five at the most. I never meant to become Chair. One thing led to another and… it just happened.’

‘So what happens now?’ Noah said, his tone perfectly reasonable, but cold. ‘I don’t feel as if I’m talking to the woman I married – just some distant politically ambitious acquaintance of hers. Chair Akinya, for god’s sake!’

‘I came to the vaults to see you, over and over, wishing for the day when you could join me. Check the clinic records if you think I’m lying.’

‘If it mattered so much, you’d have joined us.’ Noah paused. ‘I did check the clinic records. Before the day we were scheduled to wake, you hadn’t been down in nearly three years.’

‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘There’s a mistake in their bookkeeping. It was never that long.’

‘Eighteen months before that, a year before that. The intervals were growing longer. At the start, you used to come down every few months. But that didn’t last.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I never meant—’

‘So am I,’ Noah said. ‘Truly sorry. You should have trusted me. Everything would have been all right.’

He was making to leave. ‘Please,’ she said.

‘I’ll arrange for Mposi and Ndege to see you – they’re going to find all this quite difficult to process.’

Did he mean to keep the children from her? If she put the possibility into words, would she make it an inevitablity?

‘Don’t blame me,’ Chiku said, with the flat resignation of knowing nothing she now said would count in her favour. ‘I only ever did what needed to be done.’