Poseidon's Wake

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Nothing remained for Kanu but to return to Zanzibar, knowing he had failed. Swift had intervened promptly enough to prevent Icebreaker suffering severe additional damage — certainly nothing that would prevent an imminent departure — and such slight damage as had been done could be rectified during normal operations.

‘Why?’ he asked as they assumed station, floating just beyond Zanzibar’s polar door.

‘Why did I not allow you to kill yourself?’ Swift’s figment asked, striking an ironic, chin-stroking pose. ‘Does that even require an answer, Kanu?’

‘It was our only way out.’

‘You mean it was your only way out. It would have absolved you of any further involvement in this unpleasantness, that is true. But it would not have begun to resolve the larger problem, or left Nissa with a hope of saving herself.’

‘I had to take the ship from Dakota. I couldn’t just run.’

‘And I could not allow a good man to sacrifice himself, no matter how much he might resent my intervention.’ Swift leaned in, both hands on the console, his face looming before Kanu. ‘We have work to do here — there is knowledge for the gathering. The potential for a meeting with intellects beyond our experience! Dakota is an opportunity, not an obstacle.’

‘To you, maybe.’

‘Our goals are not dissimilar, Kanu.’

‘I’m starting to wonder about that. I’ll admit I came here to find some answers. So did you. But that was before we knew about Poseidon, about the Terror, about all those dead Watchkeepers. About Dakota, and what they’ve turned her into. That’s enough for me for now. I’ve seen the pitfalls — seen what’s at stake. But you want to keep pushing — you want ultimate contact with the M-builders or the Watchkeepers, whichever presents itself first.’

‘In which case, forgive me for not wishing to revel in ignorance.’

‘This isn’t about ignorance, Swift — it’s about you putting the interests of you and your robot friends ahead of the rest of us.’

‘I shall pretend I did not hear that.’

‘Pretend what you like. I had a chance to stop this and you interfered.’

‘I am expected to apologise for saving your life?’

‘It was my choice. You took that away from me. If Dakota’s the Watchkeepers’ puppet, what does that make me? Just another puppet, except I’m serving the interests of the Evolvarium instead?’

‘I believe we are both serving the interests of reason and enlightenment. And our relationship is one of mutual benefit, Kanu. Individually, we are ineffective. Together, we at least have a chance of outflanking Dakota.’

‘This is your idea of outflanking her?’

‘One way or another she will have her ship, Kanu. If it is not this one, then she will lure Travertine in for the same ends. We have an obligation to spare our new friends that particular difficulty.’

At last Kanu felt something inside him give way. He still felt violated, his trust in Swift damaged. But at the same time, he was only able to air these thoughts because his friend had not permitted him to kill himself.

‘Damn you, Swift. How do you manage to make everything you do feel like the only honourable course of action?’

‘Because I have learned well from a master.’ Swift moved to his side and patted his shoulder. ‘Strong heart, Kanu. Our day is far from lost.’

‘One promise.’

‘If I may oblige.’

‘Should I ever try to take my own life again, you will do me the honour of not intervening.’

‘But my own life would also be at stake.’

‘That’s true. But this is the deal you signed up to. If I choose to end my existence, I don’t want a parasitic machine intelligence from Mars deciding it knows better than I do.’ Swift tapped a finger against his lip. ‘Good that we can speak plainly.’

‘Yes.’

‘Might I add a reciprocal condition of my own?’

‘If you insist.’

‘Do nothing in haste, Kanu. I had a taste of non-existence during skipover. Death is all very well — doubtless it has its benefits — but I am not quite done with living yet. I think the universe still has some surprises in store for both of us.’

At the household, Nissa was silent. She had programmed the projecting wall to show a moving image from Earth, the view from a beach as the old sun made its way to the ocean’s flat horizon. The light was bright, but also nearly colourless — a line of chrome breakers against the darkening platinum of the water, the sky a perfect shimmer of silver, the sand like snow, the trees in the foreground black silhouettes.

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ he said.

The wall made the sound of the waves. They crashed and broke in an endless series of static roars, each the birth of a miniature universe, each drawn back into a slow, hissing death.

‘Never,’ she said, ‘do that to me again.’

‘I don’t intend to.’

‘You thought that was the answer, Kanu? After all this time? Are you really that stupid?’

‘The people aboard the other ship warned me,’ he replied. ‘I received a message from them saying I should not cooperate with her.’

She was still facing the ocean, not Kanu. ‘They came all this way to tell you that?’

‘I don’t know. I’d have liked the opportunity for a longer conversation but it was difficult even with only a few minutes of time lag. Do you want to know the odd thing?’

‘I’m being held prisoner by talking elephants. I’d say my capacity for oddness is somewhat overloaded.’ A breaker surrendered itself to entropy; in the interval between that wave and the next, she said, ‘What was it?’

‘They sent one of us, another Akinya, on that other ship. Her name is Goma, and I don’t even know who she is.’

‘Do you think she means well?’

‘I think we all mean well.’

‘Not my question.’

‘It’s the best answer I have. We do mean well — all of us, not just Akinyas. But doing well is the hardest thing of all. Our minds aren’t up to it. The machine’s too big. We can’t see how any one of us fits into it, how any given action shapes the final outcome.’

Nissa turned from the ocean. At last he sensed the promise of forgiveness, or at least a willingness not to withhold it for eternity. He would take that.

‘Then we have to get better,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Much, much better.’ She rose and faced him, taking his head in both her hands, fingers like a vice. ‘I almost dare not ask. One of you decided not to go through with it. Who should I thank?’

There were still a number of short-range service taxis aboard Zanzibar — Kanu and Nissa had noticed them on their first arrival — some of which had been adapted for the use and transportation of Tantors. Over a course of days, a small expeditionary force boarded Icebreaker, together with all the supplies and equipment Dakota deemed necessary. The shuttle Noah had been mated via a docking connection that allowed humans and Risen to pass from one ship to the other.

There were three Risen, including Dakota. The others were a pair of males, both adults, but younger and smaller than their matriarch. Their names were Hector and Lucas, and from the similarity in their manners and build, Kanu was quick to decide they were siblings, or perhaps cousins. He had expected these newcomers to flounder in the unfamiliar weightless environment of the ship, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The Risen all had elephant-shaped spacesuits, enabling them to move from ship to ship even without the use of connecting airlocks, and their trunks proved surprisingly handy during weightless operations, serving as both anchor and counterbalance. No: this was a well-trained crew, unfazed by the challenges that lay ahead.

Clearly they were among the elite of the Risen, perhaps the matriarch’s direct offspring. Their dedication to her appeared total, and utterly without question.

‘I thought Memphis would be coming with us,’ Kanu said.

‘Memphis would not cope well with the rigours of spaceflight,’ Dakota explained. ‘It does not come naturally to us. These younger Risen have prevailed over their instinctive fears with exhaustive training and dedication to the cause. They have learned to use spacesuits and manage weightless operations inside Zanzibar’s central core. They understand physics and the rudiments of astrogation. But Memphis is older, and consequently his ways are less easily altered. Besides, he is my most loyal and dependable ally. Were I required to entrust the safety and security of Zanzibar to anyone other than myself, it would be to wise and slow Memphis.’

‘And you, Dakota — are you prepared for the rigors ahead?’

‘I have faced the Terror already, Kanu. Faced it with it my deepest, boldest threat rumble. It is nothing to me, and neither is the idea of leaving Zanzibar.’

‘And when we reach Poseidon — your nerve will hold?’

‘When the chasing moons single us out, there will be fear. Anything less would be unnatural. But we will stand our ground. Why? Do you lack confidence in yourself?’

‘I’d feel more confident if I had a choice in the matter.’

‘Ah, but you do have a choice. You’ll always have that. There will never be a time when we are beyond reach of Zanzibar, and there will never be a time when I cannot dictate my commands to Memphis. Consequently the choice will be simple enough: cooperate, or think of the harm you are doing to the Friends.’

‘That’s no choice at all.’

‘Perhaps not. The truth is, I would much rather we see each other as friends engaged in a mutual adventure. But at the back of your mind, remember that you have a powerful disincentive to turn against me.’

Kanu and Nissa boarded before the last of the Risen. Within the ship, they had all the liberty they desired — no part of the ship was barred to them, not even those spaces into which only a human could squeeze. The centrifuge sections had been spun back up to normal gravity and they had ample privacy — their old sleeping quarters were untouched despite the modifications. They could also access all the normal shipboard functions, from communications to navigation.

‘Despite our earlier conversation,’ Dakota said, standing at one of the control pedestals, ‘it is vital to me that we conduct our expedition in a spirit of mutual cooperation. It is true that we have had cause to doubt each other’s better intentions. Such difficulties are to be expected in an enterprise such as ours. But let us not lose sight of what we have achieved, and of what lies within our reach. Human — Tantor symbiotic exploration — people and the Risen united in a spirit of scientific and cultural enlightenment. What have we to fear if we stand together?’

‘You stood with Chiku and Eunice once,’ Kanu said, ‘until they had the poor sense to disagree with you.’

‘We have all made mistakes. The mark of intelligence is to learn from them, and not be bound by the errors of the past. I regret everything that came between Chiku, Eunice and I. But they were not steadfast in the face of the unknown.’

‘Are you still Dakota, or have the Watchkeepers made you into something else?’

‘I know my own nature, Kanu.’

She was cycling the main viewer through display options, learning her way around the controls. The tip of her trunk, splayed like an open hand, was a thing of dexterous wonder.

‘I think I know it, too,’ he said. ‘You imagine you have free will, and maybe you have just enough to fool yourself into believing that. The fact is, though, you’re doing the work of those zombie machines — mindless automata that became so clever they forgot how to be conscious. It’s not too late, Dakota. Abandon this expedition — or at least delay it until we’ve made contact with the other ship.’

‘The other ship, yes. I will admit I have some interest in it — but only insofar as it spurs me to even more decisive action. They are on the move, did you know?’

‘Are they?’

‘Not the main vessel, but a smaller craft — a vehicle about the size of our Noah. Nothing escapes the Watchkeepers’ scrutiny, and there is nothing I need to know that they will not bring to my attention.’

‘You think they care about you?’ Nissa asked.

‘I concede that theirs is a detached sort of interest — clinical, you might say. I am realistic enough to think of myself as an instrument in the service of their enquiry. If a better instrument were to present itself, I might cease to be their favoured subject. But for now they are invested in me, and this other ship is no more than a distraction. I would like it to remain that way. Might you show me how to project a schematic of the entire inner solar system? I appear to be unable to zoom out from the immediate neighbourhood of Paladin.’

‘Access that sub-menu, then select the logarithmic scale factor,’ Nissa said.

‘Thank you — I should have seen that.’

The schematic showed Gliese 163, then its family of worlds — at least out to the orbit of Paladin, the eighth world from the star. Dakota called up a set of curving paths which showed options for their own trajectory depending on start time, gee-loads and fuel consumption. The coloured paths fanned out like peacock feathers, annotated with numbers and symbols, but all commenced at Paladin and ended at Poseidon.

‘Our course is simple — we have but one objective. They have commenced their journey from Orison, but at the moment their trajectory can’t be extrapolated with any precision, other than to say that it remains bound to the ecliptic, so it is very unlikely that they mean to leave the system. More likely, they have a world in mind. Paladin is one possibility, but it would not cost them much in additional time to divert to Poseidon, or indeed towards three or four other objectives. What do you make of this smaller vehicle, either of you?’

‘You’re the one with the Watchkeepers whispering in your ear,’ Nissa said. ‘Why not ask them?’

‘Oh, I have — or rather, they have tried to present me with the information in a way suitable for my comprehension. But they are not good at that sort of thing, and frankly I don’t have time to be swallowed up and dismantled by them again. The small ship does not strike me as having interstellar capability, but I would not like to bet against it if it came down to speed and agility within a solar system. Do you concur?’

‘If you’d like me to,’ Kanu said.

‘I do not wish to find that ship already at Poseidon when we arrive, hampering our approach. For that reason, we shall take the hardest, fastest course open to us — or at least the fastest we can achieve without employing post-Chibesa energies.’ Dakota moved her trunk — Kanu was still curiously fascinated by the way it shaped itself to the needs of the moment — and blanked out all but one of the trajectories. ‘There — our golden course. It will bring us within the outer perimeter of the moons in just over forty-eight hours. Unless the other ship has capabilities not known to us, they cannot beat us to Poseidon.’

‘When do we leave?’ Nissa asked.

‘Is there any reason not to depart immediately?’

‘No,’ Kanu said, for he knew that the ship was as ready as it ever would be, and Dakota far too intelligent to be convinced otherwise.

‘Then you have your answer,’ the elephant said.

For a long while they hardly appeared to be moving at all, Zanzibar diminishing in size so slowly that Kanu’s eyes offered no real impression of progress. They were like a ship fighting its way out to sea from the safety of a harbour, the town and the rising land beyond only reluctantly allowing their prize to slip from reach.

The tiny distance they had come made no difference to Paladin’s apparent size. As they pulled away from Zanzibar, so the Mandala rotated into view below.

Kanu stared at it with a troubled sense that he had offered it insufficient attention — that too much had been happening when they arrived, too much while they were guests of the Risen. It felt discourteous — a lapse in respect that was bound to be punished. When he had known of the Crucible Mandala’s existence, he had envisaged a mute and mindless thing — an alien construction, sphinxlike with its secrets but possessed of no deeper intent. Now, in such close proximity to the second Mandala, his perception underwent a change. He felt its scrutiny on him — its need to be attended, to be observed and to feel itself the subject of awe. It was not malignant, he decided, but neither was it universally benign. It was capricious, capable of acts of supreme and disregarding cruelty — a jealous god branded onto the face of a world.

He did not like it. But then again, no one was asking him to.

‘At one hundred kilometres from Zanzibar,’ Dakota said, ‘you may increase our thrust to normal output. We will make a direct course for Poseidon. We have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of that would require subterfuge.’

That was when Icebreaker began to pick up a transmission. The console chimed, and chimed again.

‘It’s the smaller ship,’ Kanu said. ‘Do you want to take the call?’

‘Let us hear what they have to say — we have no obligation to respond.’

The transmission was simple audio-visual, with no cumbersome encryption. Kanu threw it onto the nearest wall and studied the face that appeared. He recognised her immediately: it was Gandhari Vasin, the woman who had spoken to him just before his abortive suicide bid.

He was careful to show no recognition.

‘This is Captain Vasin,’ she said. ‘We see you moving, accelerating away from Zanzibar. I must insist that you reverse course and return to Zanzibar. I will allow you five minutes to acknowledge this transmission and demonstrate some intent to turn around. If I see no change in your trajectory, I will be forced to consider punitive action. Trust me — I have the means.’

The transmission ended. Kanu made a mental note of the time. She had allowed for the time lag between the smaller vehicle and Paladin’s neighbourhood, but without much room for error.

‘Your thoughts?’ Dakota asked.

‘There’s no point articulating them,’ Kanu said. ‘You’re committed to this action, and you know she can’t reach us across this distance.’

‘Then you consider it a bluff.’

‘You tell me.’

‘I am struck by two things. The first is that she would be very unwise to stake so much on a bluff, given that we will know the truth of it in a few short minutes. The second is that she arrived at her point very quickly — no introductions, no clarification regarding her mission or mandate, the name of her ship—’

‘Make of that what you will.’

‘If you had prior contact with these people, Kanu — you would have informed me, of course?’

Half-truths came to him without effort. ‘That may not have been her first transmission but it’s the first one we’ve heard. But she could have been sending for days without Icebreaker recognising it as a deliberate attempt at communication. For all we know, she made her introductions ages ago and the ship was too damaged to recognise it for what it was.’

Dakota gave a nod, and Kanu trusted that she was satisfied. He ought to have been grateful for that, but the words had come from Swift, not his conscious self.

At least, he could take no credit for them.

‘Nonetheless, we must consider her threat,’ Dakota said. ‘Unless her expedition has weapons that defy physics, she cannot possibly harm us from such a distance. But she must have something to back up her threat.’

‘Or it is a bluff,’ Nissa said.

‘We shall find out soon enough, in that case. Maintain our heading, Kanu. Make it clear that we will not be deterred.’

‘Do you want me to respond verbally?’

‘I do not think that is necessary. Our intentions will be clear enough from our actions.’

‘Swift?’ Nissa asked, using the subvocal channel.

‘As much as it pains me, I can’t fault her analysis. But I doubt very much that Captain Vasin would make a threat unless she had some means of delivering on it.’

‘Well, that’s reassuring.’

‘It was not meant to be.’

‘Sometimes,’ Dakota said, ‘I have the sense of something passing between the two of you — a private discussion to which I am not privy. Is it wrong of me to feel that way?’

‘We feel the same way around the Risen,’ Kanu answered.

‘Ah, but in your case the feeling is entirely justified. Speech is efficient, but there are some things that can only be conveyed through the old channels — the rumble and the roar.’

Vasin was generous; it was another ten minutes before they heard from her again.

‘You haven’t altered your course, which is regrettable because it’s going to make things very difficult for both of us. Charitably, you may not have heard me or be incapable of responding. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to make charitable assumptions. If you are in a position to do so, please turn your attention back to Zanzibar.’

They needed to do nothing; the image of the shard was still up on the wall, albeit now captured by high-magnification sensor. It was a real-time view and the shard would not be visible for much longer before it passed behind Paladin. For the moment it was unobstructed, lit sharply on one face, shadowed on the other.

‘I have complete control of your solar mirrors,’ Vasin said. ‘They are mine to deactivate or redirect. A preprogrammed command is about to take effect; in about ten seconds you should see the consequences.’

‘My god,’ Kanu said, genuinely startled.

It could not be a bluff, he knew: no one would claim such a thing unless it were within their immediate capabilities to make good on it. And indeed, he only had to look at the thermal hot spots to see that the threat was entirely real.

The bright spots winked out instantly, although it would take much longer for the thermal collection grids and the area around them to cool down to the ambient temperature of the rest of Zanzibar. Still, the point had been made, and made excellently.

‘No,’ Dakota said, with a rage that was both quiet and world-consuming. ‘No. This will not stand.’

‘They’ve done what they said they would,’ Nissa said. ‘Maybe it’s time to think about negotiating.’

Vasin was speaking again. ‘Although I’ve turned off your power, it’s fully within my capabilities to restore it. I have no desire to hurt or inconvenience you — merely to demonstrate that I have the means to do so. Turn around now and the power will be restored.’

‘Speak to her,’ Dakota said.

Kanu nodded. ‘To let them know you’re going to turn around?’

‘To let them know that their power is worthless. Of course I am infuriated that she has this capability. I do not fully understand how it is possible, although in time I am sure that I will. But she misunderstands our position. That power is a luxury, not a necessity. Tell her this, Kanu.’

‘I have no reason to believe you.’

The elephant lowered her head. ‘Better to ask yourself: do I appear concerned? Outraged, most certainly — this is a violation — but it means nothing.’

‘You must need that power,’ Nissa said, ‘or else why would you bother collecting it?’

‘The power was a lifeline in the early days, when times were at their hardest and we had no independent means of supplying our energy needs. But we have become stronger since then — less reliant on the external universe. Zanzibar’s Chibesa core was damaged beyond hope of repair during the translation, but we still had the ships, shuttles and service vehicles gathered within her docks. Many of them had small Chibesa power plants of their own, and so we incorporated them into Zanzibar’s energy grid.’

‘But you still need the mirrors,’ Kanu said.

‘Only in the very long term. Some of the chambers will have to be darkened and resources conserved elsewhere, which is difficult but not intolerable. The Risen have withstood much worse. Tell the captain that. Tell her that I am impressed by her cleverness, but that she would need to shut off the mirrors for many years before it became a serious problem.’

‘This may not be the end of it,’ Nissa said. ‘If she can turn them off… well, what else can she do? Do we really want to find out?’

The mirrors were still disabled and Kanu supposed that Vasin would maintain this state of affairs until she had reason to change it. It was an effective and surprising demonstration, he had to admit — the kind of thing he might have expected of Swift, but not this pleasant-faced human woman.

Evidently he had underestimated her

‘Captain?’ he said, delivering the return transmission. ‘We’ve seen what you did and there’s no doubt it’s an impressive demonstration of your technical capabilities. Unfortunately, it hasn’t made any difference to us. The mirrors do feed energy into Zanzibar’s power grid, but it can function without that power for a very long time. Months, years, easily — it’s simply a question of placing more reliance on the internal generators. So I’m afraid there’s no reason for us to turn around, and now you’ve taken this hostile action, there’s no further incentive for us to consider you a trustworthy negotiating partner. I’m very sorry, but I think we’ve said all we need to.’

‘Very good, Kanu,’ Dakota said, when he was done.

‘Don’t thank me. I may as well have had a gun to my head. Was any of that true, by the way?’

‘About the generators? Mostly. I won’t pretend that her actions aren’t a nuisance, but it will be the Friends who are the first to suffer. She is the one damaging Zanzibar’s capacity to sustain life, Kanu, not I. For now my concern is with Icebreaker — and we are safely beyond Vasin’s influence.’

‘You wouldn’t treat the Friends so callously.’

‘Let us not dwell on things yet to happen.’

‘Then you’ll leave it at that?’ Nissa asked.

‘This Captain Vasin is resourceful, but I doubt she is infallible. If there is a way to regain control of those mirrors, I shall find it. I can communicate with them just as readily from Icebreaker as from Zanzibar, and I shall indulge myself with the problem: it will help to pass the hours. Do you know something? For the first time in a very long while, I rather wish I had the assistance of my old friend Eunice. She would know exactly where to start.’

‘It’s a shame she died,’ Nissa said.

‘Yes,’ Dakota answered. ‘Careless of me to depend on the frail. I learned that lesson well.’

Later they were alone, making use of the privacy they had been promised. It would be an exaggeration to say they were enjoying it, but Kanu was at least glad to be away from the Risen and their goal-fixated leader.

‘She’s insane,’ Nissa said. ‘The Watchkeepers have done this to her, but that doesn’t change what she is.’

‘I don’t disagree.’

‘So what are we going to do about it?’

‘Nothing. What else can we do? You saw how easily she shrugged off Vasin’s attempt at persuasion. If that didn’t turn her around, what will?’

‘This is our ship, not hers. We’ll always know it better than she does.’

Kanu gave a joyless smile. Odd how Nissa now felt an equal claim on Icebreaker’s ownership.

‘I know what you’re thinking, but it doesn’t change anything. We already have control of the ship but a mutiny would be pointless. The problem is the Friends. If we act against her, she’ll take it out on them.’

‘So kill her. Then what?’

He shuddered at the thought of it. But repugnant as the very notion might be, killing Dakota was not the biggest problem.

‘She’s in constant contact with Memphis. We can presume that contingency plans are in place — if Memphis doesn’t hear from her, he’ll take action against the Friends.’

‘Would he follow through on an order to commit mass murder?’

‘I don’t know, but we can’t risk the slightest chance that he might.’ He offered his hands in defeat. ‘That’s all there is, Nissa. Square one, and we’re stuck on it.’

‘Swift should help us.’

‘If Swift knew a way, he would. But even he can’t change the facts.’

An undercurrent of scepticism entered Nissa’s voice. ‘That, and Swift might not think this expedition is such a bad idea?’

‘We’re on the same side,’ Kanu asserted, with more confidence than he felt.

Nissa waited a moment before answering.

‘You hope.’

They were stationed at a porthole in a part of the ship that still looked back in the direction of Paladin. After hours of acceleration they were at last free of Paladin’s gravitational environment, pushing deeper into interplanetary space. Kanu could easily block out the planet with his upraised fist, and Zanzibar itself was now much too small to make out with his unaided eye. But the Mandala was still visible when it swung into view, and something of its uncanny regularity demanded attention, snaring the brain’s innate capacity for pattern recognition. It had changed again since his last viewing, the interlocking, intersecting circles and radials shifting to some new configuration. The movement of matter on the scale of continental mountain ranges, as effortless and efficient as the rearranging of cutlery between servings.

‘It’s trying to tell us something,’ he said.

‘Or it’s waiting for us to answer,’ Nissa replied.