Poseidon's Wake

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

There was darkness, and then there was light. For a few seconds Icebreaker had gone dead, all its displays inactive, its interior illumination shut off, the background noise of its life-support systems silenced. Even the Chibesa core had fallen to a sudden and ominous stillness. Nothing in Kanu’s prior experience of the ship had prepared him for this, not even the Watchkeeper’s attack.

As the systems began to recover — emergency lights coming on in the bridge, fans restarting, a chorus of recorded voices informing him of various status indications — Nissa and the Tantors began to speak at once.

‘What has happened, Kanu?’ Dakota asked.

‘I don’t know.’

The elephant persisted. ‘Do you think it is connected to the Mandala event — the energy spilling out from Paladin?’

‘Zanzibar must have streaked past pretty close,’ Nissa said. ‘Maybe we got buffeted by… something?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kanu repeated.

For once, he had no need of a mask, no need to lie. He genuinely had no idea what had just happened — he had neither initiated it nor expected it. But the more he thought about it, the less likely it felt to him that the Mandala event itself had anything to do with Icebreaker going dark. They had witnessed the event and the ship’s normal functions had continued uninterrupted, registering nothing of immediate concern within its environment. Zanzibar was long gone before the arrival of whatever hit Icebreaker.

Whatever this was, it must have been initiated locally, whether by accident or design.

A dark suspicion began to form.

‘Talk to me, Swift,’ Kanu subvocalised.

‘Ah, you can still hear me. That’s excellent. I wasn’t totally sure, you know. A shock to the ship of this magnitude — who knows what the collateral effects might be?’

‘I can hear you. Now talk to me.’

Kanu was still in semi-darkness, but he was not alone. Nissa was next to him, both of them seated. Dakota and the other Risen were still present, too, but drifting free of the floor. Their huge breathing presences were tumbling like boulders — there was nothing fixed within reach of a trunk or foot to arrest their motion.

Presumably they were just as bewildered by this latest development as Kanu. Or perhaps, having witnessed the Mandala event, their capacity for astonishment had been overloaded like a blown circuit. He could relate to that well enough.

‘The ship is ours again, Kanu,’ Swift said. ‘Or it will be, soon enough.’

‘It was never not ours.’

‘You know exactly what I mean. We were unable to take decisive action while the Friends were in jeopardy. Now they are no longer in jeopardy — or at least their prospective fates lie completely beyond our influence. That frees us, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘You made the ship do this?’ Nissa asked through the same subvocal channel. ‘You could do this all along, and you waited until now?’

‘You are both silent, yet I sense deliberation,’ Dakota said. ‘I will ask again. What do you know of this event — both of you?’

‘Some fault in the ship,’ Kanu said, for the sake of giving her something. ‘That’s all I know.’

More of the lights and displays were coming online now and the recorded warnings were beginning to die down. The ship was restarting itself, cycling through health and calibration checks, but the process appeared to be running without complication.

‘Your ship seemed reliable until now,’ Dakota answered. ‘Do you have an explanation for this sudden fault?’

‘Nothing I’d bet my life on,’ Kanu said.

She rammed the ceiling and tucked her trunk around a structural member. ‘Try me anyway.’

‘Clearly we missed something. But the ship’s coming back to us. When we have full functionality, the event logs should explain what the problem was.’

‘I find it telling that it happened so soon after the atrocity we just witnessed.’

‘I wouldn’t read too much into that. Can you get down from there?’

A lurch signalled the centrifugal wheel restarting itself, providing gravity in the absence of thrust. Dakota held on for a few seconds while the spin slowly phased in, then allowed herself to ‘fall’ the short distance to the floor. She landed hard enough to send a solid thud through the fabric of the ship. Hector and Lucas found their own footing, stumbling and then regaining balance.

‘Are you being honest with me, Kanu?’ Dakota asked.

‘No, he isn’t. But don’t blame him for that. He’s not responsible for me — at least, not entirely.’

The sounds were coming from Kanu, but Swift was generating the words. Kanu had no control over them. With the same absence of volition, Kanu rose from his seat. They had reached normal gravity. He walked around until he faced the Risen and gave a small bow, tucking his hand against his belly.

‘Permit me to introduce myself,’ he said.

Dakota eyes glittered with vehemence. ‘What is this?’

‘I am Swift. We haven’t met.’

Dakota shifted her gaze onto Nissa. ‘Do you understand what is happening?’

‘I do,’ she answered, ‘and I think you should listen.’ But there was apprehension in her voice as well — Kanu sharing her sense that Swift had begun to operate entirely on his own agenda.

‘I am an artificial intelligence,’ Swift said. ‘I came from the Evolvarium society on Mars, inside Kanu — operating on the same neural platform as his own consciousness.’

‘A parasite?’

‘A passenger,’ he corrected delicately, tapping a finger to Kanu’s lip. ‘My host was entirely cooperative — a full and willing partner in our enterprise.’

‘Which was?’

‘To understand ourselves. To explore our origins and our ultimate potential. To seek the paths by which the machine and the organic might coexist. Or, if such coexistence proved impossible, to learn which strategies would suit us best when forced into opposition. The least destructive paths. I had two primary ambitions. The second was to achieve meaningful contact with the Watchkeepers, something quite impossible within the human hegemony of the old solar system.’

‘And the first?’

‘To meet my maker.’

‘You believe in a god?’

‘I believe in Eunice Akinya. That may or may not be an equivalent statement. That ambition was achieved. I met Eunice, and we had a full and frank exchange of opinions.’

‘We met her,’ Dakota said. ‘In the ching environment. But only us.’

‘You forget — where Kanu goes, I go. What Kanu witnesses, I witness. But there’s so much more to it than that. Within the bounds of that environment, Eunice and I were able to exchange a great deal of information. You caught none of it. We used non-verbal channels — a battery of subtle methods. You’d be surprised at the resourcefulness of two artificial intelligences when they have something to communicate. Actually, I should clarify: she’s no longer running on a machine substrate. She’s become meat — returned to her human origins. That was an interesting adjustment for me to make — like discovering that god is made of wood, or flint. But the essence is still her, and her faculties haven’t been entirely diminished by reversion to the flesh.’

‘Reversion,’ Nissa said. ‘Thanks.’

‘No offence intended.’

‘None taken. What else did she tell you?’

‘That we have a chance. She believed she might be in a position to initiate a Mandala event, although nothing was certain. She encouraged me to do everything I could to maximise the usefulness of such an action. Fortunately, I had already done some preparatory work of my own. Of course, I knew nothing about the viability of instigating the Mandala event. But I had long thought it wise to install some precautionary measures in the operating architecture of this ship.’

Had Kanu been capable of registering surprise, this would have been his turn.

But Swift continued, ‘Let me explain. It’s rather impolite of me to keep using Kanu as a puppet in this way so I am going to relinquish control to him. In any case, I think the ship has now regained sufficient capacity to render this mode of communication quite superfluous.’

Kanu felt himself return. He worked his jaw, drew breath — Swift never appeared to breathe enough when he was in control.

‘Swift—’ he began.

‘A moment, my friend.’

The bridge’s main display filled with an image of Swift’s head and upper torso, dressed as always like a man of learning from the late eighteenth century, with a white scarf, frock coat, pince-nez glasses and a head of boyish curls.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Some explanation may be in order and we’ll come to that in a moment. Before we do, though, there are a couple of pressing issues to be addressed. The first concerns our trajectory. The Chibesa core is restarting — I have it on a fast cycle — and in a few minutes we will have full power and control. Once we have that capability, we will initiate a hard burn to avoid crossing the outer threshold of the moons. Given our present speed and course, that burn will push the ship to the limit of its structural and energetic tolerances. It will be uncomfortable for all passengers, but with due preparations it should be bearable for everyone.’

‘I hope you haven’t left it too late,’ Nissa said.

‘I haven’t. Now for the second issue. The Risen are no longer the commanding authority aboard this vehicle. Kanu and Nissa are in control, and any challenge to their status will be met with immediate punishment. I can make this ship do things to itself that would be uncomfortable for a primate but most certainly fatal for an elephant. Is that understood?’

‘Does he really have control?’ Dakota asked.

‘If he does,’ Kanu answered, ‘I have no idea how. But I don’t think he’s lying.’

‘I’m not. The moment is nearly upon us. Dakota — you may remain here, if you desire, but I would strongly recommend using one of the restraint couches.’

‘Whoever you are, however you are speaking to us,’ Dakota said, ‘this ship will continue to operate under my command. The loss of Zanzibar is shocking, and there will be consequences, but it must not distract us from our purpose. Kanu — resume our planned trajectory. Do not deviate. Our projected course remains valid.’

Swift did something that jammed the centrifuge to a violent halt, forcing an emergency braking system to engage equally violently. Kanu was thrown off his feet, Nissa likewise. He paddled madly and grabbed the nearest console, then reached out a hand to Nissa.

The Risen were not so fortunate. They had begun to drift again — paddling their feet and swinging their trunks in a vain effort to gain some traction. Air-swimming was barely effective for humans; for elephants it was entirely useless.

Nissa grabbed the back of her own chair and released herself from Kanu’s grip.

‘I can keep doing this indefinitely,’ Swift said, ‘but I hope the point is made. Force and strength will not help you now, Dakota. When I restore the gravity, you will secure yourselves in the restraining couches. Nissa — might I ask where you are going?’

‘To fetch something.’

She moved quickly and confidently even though gravity had not yet returned. A minute passed, maybe two — long enough for her to reach any number of adjoining rooms. Kanu swallowed hard, trying to ease the tightness in his throat.

‘I hope you’ve thought this through, Swift. Why did you have to shut down the ship?’

‘I installed an avatar of myself in Icebreaker’s control architecture. It needed a total shutdown to gain the necessary authority across all functions — without it I’d only have partial control. Besides, it’s rather helped to make my point.’

‘If making your point involved scaring me half to death, consider your work done.’

Nissa pushed her way back into the bridge holding something long and thin in her right hand and tucked into the crook of her right elbow. Kanu stared at it for a second before recognising it as the harpoon gun they had found on the dead Regal.

Nissa braced herself into a stable position next to one of the chairs and settled the harpoon into both hands like a rifle. It was a nasty, complex thing, with gas canisters and a gristle of pressure lines, the ugly barb of its tip a promise of the damage it could do to flesh.

She aimed it first at Kanu, thought for a moment, and then shifted the aim onto Dakota.

‘You appear to be in two minds,’ the matriarch said.

‘I was. Now do what Swift said.’

The gravity returned and the Risen took their positions in the acceleration couches, Nissa aiming the harpoon as if she was more than willing to use it. But the Risen had accepted the practicalities of their situation and offered no resistance to this change of status.

‘Will you kill us, Kanu?’ Dakota asked. ‘Is that your plan?’

He considered offering her glib reassurance, that he had no intention of harming them, but in truth he had not thought it through. Perhaps it would indeed come to killing. He hoped not, but this was not the time for empty promises.

‘We’ll see how we fare,’ he answered.

As soon as the drive was ready, Swift applied power in increasing increments, winding down the centrifuge as the thrust ramped up to half a gee and beyond. Kanu returned to his seat and Nissa to hers, where she cradled the harpoon in her lap.

‘You realise that would only have stopped one of them,’ he said. ‘And even that wasn’t certain.’

‘After what she did to the Friends, I’ll take what I can get.’

The drive climbed through one gee, then beyond. At one-point-five gees, Kanu sensed that he would struggle to lift himself from his seat and move around. At two gees, his own weight pressing against his bones, he decided it would be beyond his capacities. Nissa, lither and stronger, might still have been able to move around with care. But the Risen were now effectively prisoners of their couches. Their musculoskeletal structures were already operating at the limit under terrestrial gravity; now they weighed twice as much.

‘Can you still breathe, Dakota?’

‘We are not so weak as you imagine, Kanu. Our strength has carried us this far — it will serve us a little longer.’

But he could see the effect of the acceleration for himself — the muscles of her face being dragged down, the skin around her eye slipping to reveal the pink enclosure of her eyeball. Her trunk sagged listlessly.

Two gees, then two and a half. Warning messages had begun to sound again, but these were of no evident concern to Swift. Kanu did not need to speak — he could have subvocalised easily enough — but for the sake of the Risen he made the effort.

‘Tell me how you did this, Swift.’ His voice was strained and he had to fight for breath between words. ‘I understand how you found a way to communicate with Eunice, but you couldn’t have put all this in place since then. There’s no way you’d have time to install any kind of avatar, or whatever you want to call it.’

‘I must confess there has been a degree of deception on my part, but I hope you will not hold it against me.’

‘What did you do?’ Nissa asked.

‘When you were sleeping, after the Watchkeeper attack, but before the arrival at Zanzibar, I saw it as an opportunity to put certain provisions in place… and therefore I took it.’

‘I don’t see how,’ Nissa said. ‘We were both in skipover. I was with Kanu when we went under.’

The engine had topped out at three gees. Kanu could hear as well as feel it, like an endless thundering storm front.

‘She’s right,’ Kanu said. ‘I programmed the sleep intervals myself.’

‘You think you did,’ Swift replied, with a trace of bashfulness. ‘The truth is, I intervened. The sleep interval you programmed was not the one you intended. And when you emerged from skipover, I held you in a state of borderline unconsciousness while I made use of your body.’

‘Fow how long? Hours, days?’

Swift equivocated. ‘Rather more than days, Kanu. Weeks and months would be more truthful.’ He paused to fiddle with his sleeve, as if a button had come adrift. ‘There was a lot to be done, even operating at the limit of your capacity. Getting the ship to obey me wasn’t the hard part — it already thought I was you. But installing a useful part of me in the architecture with only the tactile and expressive channels available via the use of your body… that was supremely challenging.’

‘You duplicated yourself?’ Nissa asked.

‘No. There was never time for that. It took every resource available to the Evolvarium to stuff me inside Kanu’s head — I had nothing to guide me, and nothing to work with but your own flesh and blood. What I created was an image, a kind of shadow of myself. I gave it the ability to make some autonomous decisions, but primarily its job was to conceal itself and eventually respond to my commands. The implant protocol Nissa suggested? That was helpful — it gave me a direct channel into Icebreaker’s neuro-medical surgical suite, which in turn offered me a window into the larger operating architecture. But it was still daunting work!’

‘I dreamed of wandering the ship,’ Kanu said. ‘Haunting it like a ghost, passing through empty, cold corridors. It felt like a nightmare — a horrible, endless fever dream. But that wasn’t a dream at all, was it? That was you, using me.’

‘Some small component of the experience must have slipped through to conscious recollection. I can only apologise for that.’

‘You don’t sound in the least bit apologetic.’

‘Forgive me, in any case.’

‘Swift,’ Nissa said. ‘The Risen. They’re unconscious. They can’t endure this the way we can.’

Kanu had shifted his attention from Dakota to Swift, but now he saw that her eye was closed and her breathing unusually sluggish and laboured. ‘You said it yourself, Swift — what’s hard on us might be fatal for them. You have to reduce the thrust.’

‘In a little while I will do just that. But we must sustain this output if we are to correct our course.’

‘How long?’ Nissa asked, groaning out the question.

‘Another thousand seconds, give or take.’

Kanu looked at Lucas and Hector, then back at their leader. He knew nothing about elephant anatomy, still less regarding their chances of surviving another thousand seconds. He imagined their hearts, slow at the best of times, now being pushed to the limit of their strength — each beat a triumph of muscle over fluid mechanics. Only an evolutionary eyeblink separated Kanu from the savannah, and that was just as true for the Risen. Their minds might be fixed on the stars, but their bodies were only a footstep from the dust and heat of Amboseli.

‘It’s too long. Reduce the thrust now.’

Swift made a quick tooth-sucking sound. ‘I would gladly do so, Kanu, were this course correction not already critical. We can make it — but only if we hold our present output.’

‘Then we can’t make it.’

‘Kanu — I do not think you properly grasp the implications.’

‘No,’ Nissa said. ‘He grasps them, and so do I — it’s us or the Risen. We can survive this, but they probably won’t.’

‘Given recent events,’ Swift said, ‘I would venture that is not such an unthinkable trade-off.’

‘Only in your world,’ Kanu answered. ‘Not in mine. While there’s a chance to save them, I won’t have their deaths on my conscience.’

‘Let me be completely clear: unless we complete this burn, we will not avoid entering Poseidon’s influence. Do I need to define the word “not”?’

‘No, you don’t. And yes, I understand exactly what’s at stake.’

‘And once we do approach Poseidon, we will not have sufficient time to prevent ourselves reaching the atmosphere.’

‘I understand that as well.’

‘Where we may very well die, since this ship was never engineered for atmospheric entry.’

‘We have Noah,’ Nissa said.

‘Noah will do well to survive entry at the speed we will be travelling.’

‘We understand,’ Kanu affirmed. ‘It changes nothing. Reduce the thrust, Swift.’

‘I could disobey you, I suppose.’

‘But you won’t, because you want my friendship and respect as much I want yours. You’ve admitted one breach of our trust, Swift. Don’t make things worse.’

A moment later, Kanu heard the engine noise die down and felt his weight easing. It was not a complete shift to weightlessness, but enough of a transition that it felt just as welcome.

‘One gee,’ Swift said. ‘We’ll try and lose as much speed as we can. And if this doesn’t suit the Risen, then god help us all.’

‘You did the right thing,’ Nissa said.

‘Oh, I’m sure I did.’ Swift prodded his pince-nez glasses higher up the fine profile of his nose. ‘Even if it means the end of us, which may well be the case. But at least this will be interesting.’