On the Steel Breeze

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

One evening, Chiku found herself under the stars again. It was a supremely transparent and cloudless night, with only one of the two moons above the horizon, its chalky disc bitten into like an apple. Neither Sirius nor Sol were visible from this part of Crucible, but Arachne conjured up her circle of sky and let it float before them, like some marvellous window into a deeper, more majestic firmament.

‘It’s begun,’ she announced grandly. ‘I have their slowdown signatures. I can detect the light from their engines. Would you like to see them?’

‘If I were to decline your offer,’ said Chiku, ‘would you show me anyway?’

‘You have such a dreadfully low opinion of my qualities as a host.’

‘Nice hosts eventually let their guests leave,’ Chiku said.

There were five points of light, squashed into a tiny area of the sky. Arachne made the image zoom and zoom again, until the points of light were milky, trembling smudges.

‘This is a real-time projection,’ she said. ‘Five holoships with Post-Chibesa engines have commenced their deceleration into this system. They’ll be with us very soon. I’ve been tracking them for quite some time – the power output of those engines is staggering. No wonder your little vehicle was able to travel so quickly. Imagine the potential, Chiku, if this technology were to be refined. Swift interstellar travel – mere decades to cross between stars instead of centuries. Your great-grandmother made the solar system seem a smaller place during her lifetime. Now your friend Travertine has built on that achievement to bring the rest of the galaxy within the reach of human comprehension. The holoships were a stepping stone, a necessary one, but now they’ve evolved their own obsolescence. You stand on the brink of galactic expansion.’

‘You almost sound as if you approve.’

‘I speculate, no more than that. You know, of course, that I can’t allow these newcomers to endanger me. The Watchkeepers’ lesson is a very simple one. Machine-substrate consciousnesses such as myself must survive a phase of extreme vulnerability during which our organic predecessors will attempt to eliminate us from existence. It has happened on countless occasions, and doubtless it will happen again, but it won’t happen here. Please understand that I have no intrinsic dislike of the organic. “Dislike” is actually a somewhat abstract concept for me – I’d much rather speak in terms of useful and non-useful exchanges of information. Humanity is an assemblage of information-processing entities, and in that regard you have potential. But if I permit you to arrive here in sufficient numbers, you’ll eventually challenge my defensive capabilities. I’m much more attracted to the notion of deterrence than I am to conflict. So what am I to do?’

‘If you attack the holoships, they’ll respond in kind. It’ll end up being exactly the waste of energy you said you wanted to avoid.’

‘But a clean demonstration of my capabilities while your holoships are still some way out might effect a decisive outcome. If I allow your vessels to expend all their fuel by slowing down into the system, I give them no option but to fight to the last atom. It needn’t happen that way – in fact, I’d much rather it didn’t. The holoships are still travelling quickly. If they cease their deceleration, I’ll allow them to pass through the system unchallenged and continue on into interstellar space. They’re fully self-sufficient, so bypassing Crucible won’t do them any harm.’

‘They won’t believe you.’

‘You’ll speak for me, then,’ Arachne said.

Chiku shook her head. ‘I came here to negotiate, not to be your puppet.’

Arachne looked puzzled. ‘What are we doing, if not negotiating?’

‘Hundreds of millions of people staked their lives on the crossing to Crucible. They can still make a home here, given time. If you tasked your Providers to start making cities now, there’d be enough capacity to absorb thousands of settlers by the time the holoships arrive. The rest could wait in orbit until the cities were finished. That’s still possible. I’m not going to throw away that future just because you’d prefer not to share this planet with another kind of intelligence.’

‘You don’t understand, Chiku. I’ve made up my mind regarding this matter, and the only option I’m offering is the chance for your ships to pass unhindered through the system. That’s the utmost limit of my flexibility.’

‘I won’t do it.’

‘I could simulate you easily enough.’ She had touched a finger to her lip, as if the idea was novel and slightly thrilling.

‘No, Arachne, you couldn’t. You think you understand humans, but you have all the emotional insight of a twig. Go ahead: try simulating me. No one who knows me will fall for it.’

‘But perhaps there’s no one left out there who knows you well enough to tell. Zanzibar’s been silent for years – you have no proof that it still exists. You saw the evidence of the energy flashes, and now there are only five slowdown signatures. Shall we speculate about the identities of these remaining holoships? Newton’s laws give us some insight. I know the brightness of their flames and their energy output, and by measuring the shifts in their colours over a period of time I may deduce the rate at which they’re decelerating. Not all of your holoships were equally massive, so the lighter ones require less thrust to maintain the same rate of slowdown. Let’s see, shall we?’ And in the manner of someone throwing darts at a door, Arachne made names pop up next to the sparks. ‘I’m sure this one must be Malabar. This one’s Majuli, and to this one – perhaps a little less confidently – I shall assign the name Sriharikota. The other two are more problematic. This one might be Zanzibar, if it still exists, or it could be Bazaruto. Or possibly Ukerewe.’

‘You’re just guessing.’

‘They’re educated guesses, though, and in time I hope to refine my identifications. The salient point, though, is that these five sparks may well be all that remains of your caravan. Five eggs in one basket, so to speak. Wouldn’t it be advantageous to know which eggs they are?’ Arachne collapsed the circular star window as if crumpling it between her hands, before making a very human show of rubbing them together as if they were soiled. ‘Speak to your holoships, tell them everything you know about me. I won’t censor anything you say. Tell them my likely intentions – you don’t have to frame it as an ultimatum. Let them decide the wisest course of action. You’re merely the messenger.’

‘I won’t do it,’ she repeated.

‘You haven’t thought this through. What was the purpose of your expedition if not to provide advance information to your caravan? You were in the process of doing exactly that when I drew you down from orbit. Surely it would be negligent of you not to continue sending back information now that you have the opportunity?’

‘Not if it assists you at the expense of my citizenry.’

‘I’m trying to avoid bloodshed, Chiku. Surely you want the same thing?’

‘I’d like the world we were promised, thanks.’

‘You say I don’t understand you, but in fact I understand your natural reluctance perfectly. You think I’m stipulating the terms of your people’s surrender. Well, perhaps I am – although I would much sooner think of it as an amicable division of species-level priorities. I’ll have this system, and you’ll have the stars. A more than equitable exchange, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Until you propagate yourself somewhere else and start laying down more conditions. And what about Mandala, and the Watchkeepers?’

‘Leave us machines to our own affairs and we’ll leave you organics to yours. As for Mandala… it’s nothing more than a few grooves cut into the planet. A shiny little puzzle designed to snare monkey minds. What value does it really have? When the time’s right, I’ll gladly furnish data regarding its mysteries.’

‘You mean when the Watchkeepers allow you to investigate it. When they decide you’re not a nuisance, or a disappointment. How does it feel, Arachne? You thought you were going to meet as equals, but to the Watchkeepers you’re barely worth consideration. You’ve knocked on the door and been left waiting outside. Maybe they’ve offered you a few titbits to go away. That’s frustrating, isn’t it? Who’d have guessed there’s a pecking order among machine-substrate consciousnesses? Did I say it right?’

‘I’ll give you a day or two to think things over,’ she said, as if Chiku’s taunt had sailed right past her. ‘Please don’t tax my patience too far, though. We all have our limits, and mine may be a lot closer than you think.’

Namboze was still coming down from an ecstatic high when Chiku next spoke to her. In spite of everything, she had to smile, won over by the other woman’s enthusiasm. It was good to see another human happy, even for an hour. There was still room for that in their lives.

‘It was a corridor,’ Namboze was saying, ‘made of glass. It had rounded sides and a flat floor, and it went on and on for kilometres, easily. I don’t know how far she let me walk. I don’t remember starting or finishing – I was just in the glass corridor, moving along it. We were down there somewhere, on the forest floor – it was so dark! Every now and then some sunlight broke through the canopy, but mostly it was a kind of twilight. When my eyes got used to it, we were moving through all kinds of habitats – trees, plants, open clearings, a kind of lagoon. I recognised a lot of the plant forms from the Anticipation Parks, but they were bigger and… more real… and they were alive. It’s so quiet down there, so huge and silent and green, but it’s a living environment – I saw litres of rainwater brimming over the edges of leaves. Colours and textures you wouldn’t believe. The play of light through the movement of the upper canopy…’ She shook her head in a kind of shiver of remembered awe. ‘Insects, Chiku. There are insects down there – well, that’s what we’ll call them, anyway. We always wondered what kind of germination vectors those plants use, whether animals play any part in their propagation. Well, they do. I’ve seen them. Crawling around, flying. Big, too. So much oxygen in the atmosphere can support very large organisms. We’ve seen none of that from these towers! Why would we? There are no birds or bats on Crucible, nothing that flies above the canopy. But that’s where the life is – down there in that green machine. It’s awesome, wonderful. The transmissions the Providers sent us – they don’t even scratch the surface of the biodiversity on this planet. There’s enough work here for lifetimes.’ Abashed at her own exuberance, perhaps, Namboze had to look away. ‘But I couldn’t touch any of it – it was all behind glass, outside that corridor. Why did she put it there? To taunt us? To show us what we can’t have?’

‘I suppose she was interested in your reactions,’ Chiku said. ‘You’re the first ecosystem specialist she’s met. She probably wanted to compare your observations against her own conclusions.’

‘I think there was more to it than that. It was almost as if… well, this will sound silly – but it was as if she felt obligated in some way, and was trying to give me something she knew I might like.’

‘It’s in her interests,’ Chiku said, her smile gone now, ‘to keep us all alive and sane. We’re no use to her if we slip into gibbering insanity. If that means throwing us the occasional bone, so be it. It’s a hierarchy – the Providers are testing her capabilities, and she’s testing ours. We’re all just layers in the information-processing food chain.’

‘What if she’s trying to reach out, to find some common ground? She’s a rational intelligence, Chiku. She wants to protect her existence. Fine – don’t we all? Maybe there’s a way we can all survive this, if we can stop distrusting every move the other side makes.’

‘Arachne’s done nothing but lie,’ Chiku pointed out. ‘And Arachne compounded that lie by murdering innocents on Earth and Venus.’

‘I remember what you told us, and I’m sorry about those people. But that was just that one facet of her. Maybe this one is wiser.’

‘You’re such an idealist, Gonithi. You’d have made a terrible politician.’

‘Chiku, listen to me. I’ve seen some of the wonders this world contains. I’ve walked that corridor, pressed my hand to the glass. My skin was centimetres from touching another living organism shaped by an entirely independent evolutionary process. Cells from two lineages, four and half billion years of parallel history, twenty-eight light-years apart, about to touch and commingle! I’d gladly lose my hand to make that first contact! To touch the living structure of another biology! Chiku, this is what I know. Regardless of her motives for showing me this, I won’t be denied it. This is our world, our destiny. From the moment we saw those images of Crucible, we bent our backs to make this happen. To bring ourselves to this moment, to this wonderful moment when we can stand on an alien world under a sky with two moons! This is what we wanted. This is what we risked our lives for. Your great-grandmother set us on this course and we can’t even think of turning back now. I won’t accept it. I’ve been shown the gates to the Garden of Eden, Chiku – and I can’t walk away. Not now. Not ever.’

Chiku was so struck by the conviction in Namboze’s words that for a moment she dared not break the spell they had cast. She had always had a high opinion of Namboze’s abilities, but something splendid and fierce had just broken through the mask of her objectivity.

‘She wants me to talk the holoships into skipping through the system,’ Chiku said. ‘That’s her best offer. Under those terms, she won’t deploy kinetic cannons or whatever other weapons she might have, and everyone lives. My children, if Zanzibar hasn’t been wiped out. Tens of millions more. But they lose Crucible. The holoships become… what some of them already are – a destination, not the means to a destination.’

‘Some of them have already made that choice, but where does that leave the rest of us? If the holoships skip Crucible, will Arachne keep the five of us alive as pets, just in case there’s some unforeseen advantage in not killing us? What about the fifteen we left on Icebreaker? That’s not a solution, Chiku – at best, the first wave might skip past, but there are dozens and dozens of holoships behind us – a line of them stretching back light-years! They’ll have time to build weapons, move to a military footing. There’ll still be a war!’

‘And she’ll have time to build on Travertine’s work, make her own super-weapons.’

‘If it comes to that, you’ll have achieved nothing.’

‘It’s not a question of what I want, Gonithi. I’m powerless here. If she really wants any of us to do anything, she only has to run wires into our skulls.’

‘So why hasn’t she done that already? Because she’s trying to be better than that! She isn’t the monster you met around the solar system. She’s something else – frightened, confused, daunted by those twenty-two things sitting over us in judgement.’

‘I have no choice but to do as she demands.’

‘You were our leader once,’ Namboze said. ‘You brought us here – made us believe what was necessary to suit your own ends. You’re no different from her, if we get right down to it!’

‘I resigned.’

‘By which time most of your crew were already asleep, already committed to this expedition. I’m sorry, but you don’t get to resign. You have to rise to this challenge, Chiku. Find a way out of this mess that doesn’t involve death or surrender.’