Something Coming Through

57. The Gift

Mangala | 15–28 September

Fahad visited Chloe in hospital a couple of days after Vic had told her about the first real flight of the spaceship, and said that he was planning to return to Earth on the next shuttle.

‘What about the ships?’ Chloe said.

Fahad shrugged. ‘They won’t be going anywhere for a little while. And I have to see Rana. See that she is safe. Tell her about the gift that her friend gave us.’

‘Tell me everything. What was it like, flying that ship? Was it easy, was it scary, what?’

‘I was scared that I would fail. But then the ship’s systems settled around me and I knew exactly what to do…It was wonderful, Chloe. Better than anything. I can’t really describe it, but when you go up you’ll see exactly what I mean.’

Fahad was dressed in a green denim jacket and green work pants and a red T-shirt. Sort-of-but-not-quite military gear. He’d grown out his hair and it hung loose around his face and there was a gold earring in his left ear. To mark his first voyage, he’d said. He also told her that he’d come to an arrangement with Ada Morange. Her lawyers would fight his legal battle for control of his ship; he would share with her everything he knew.

Chloe said, ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’

‘She helped me find what I needed to find,’ Fahad said. ‘And she’ll help me keep control of it, too. To start with, her people have worked out what Rana’s drawings mean.’

It took Chloe a moment to remember what he meant. The starburst of lines radiating out from a central point.

Fahad said that it was a map. ‘There are these tiny dense stars, pulsars, which rotate really quickly, and emit beams of electromagnetic radiation. Like radio signals. You can only detect the pulsar beams when they’re pointed at you, so they tick like very precise clocks. Some in milliseconds, some in seconds. Every one is different, so if you know the period of the tick, you can identify the pulsar. Dr Morange’s people think that’s what Rana’s map shows. The marks on each line are a code, giving the period. And the length of the line is the distance from the pulsar to the place the map is aimed at.’

‘Do they know where this place is?’

‘Not yet. The same kind of maps were put on these robot probes that went out into deep space, beyond the edge of the solar system. In case aliens found them, and wanted to know where they came from. Those had a key, a way of working out the time periods. That’s what we need to find first. And when we do, we can find the pulsars, and find the place we’re supposed to find.’

‘Whatever it is.’

‘We’ll know it when we find it. You should talk to Dr Morange, Chloe. You’re the only other person who can control the ships. You can name your price.’

Fahad had acquired a definite air of glamour. A raffish, piratical confidence. The rock-star chic of a kid from the streets who’d made good on talent, luck and dedication. Chloe saw in him one half of the future struggle between the fearful and jealous conservative heartland of humanity and the bold impatient energy of the frontier. And she knew, thanks to her gift, her curse, that she was going to have to decide which side she was on.

‘It scares me,’ she confessed.

‘It’s only just begun,’ Fahad said. ‘There are other ships out there. The first thing we have to do is go and find them.’

‘Did the ship tell you that? Or was it Ugly Chicken?’

‘There were many Elder Cultures,’ Fahad said. ‘And even if only one of them possessed ships, this can’t be the only system where they stashed them. Maybe that’s what the map is about. We’ll find out, you’ll see.’

His serene self-assurance was marvellous and frightening. It reminded Chloe, just a little, of the messianic gleam of the leader of the New Galactic Navy. Who had also believed that he’d been chosen to fly to the stars.

She said, ‘We have to get past the lawyers and politicians first. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It gives us a chance to think about what we want to do, what we should do, before we fly off into the unknown.’

‘When I come back we’ll go up together,’ Fahad said. ‘It’ll be the beginning of a great adventure!’

But the lawyers and politicians were still arguing about the disposition of the ships when the shuttle arrived. Chloe had been discharged from hospital by then. She still needed a crutch to walk, and she couldn’t walk very far before the grinding pain in her hip became too much, but she had moved into a little apartment in the UN building and liked to sit in the café in the plaza and watch the people of this new world go by. That was where Ada Morange’s lawyer found her, and told her that his boss would like to talk to her.

‘Any time. Just put her on the phone.’

The lawyer smiled. ‘Actually, she would prefer a face-to-face meeting.’

Ada Morange had come up on the shuttle to Mangala, accompanied by a small entourage of scientists and lawyers, and the!Cha, Unlikely Worlds. Chloe met with her in a suite in the Petra Carlton. They sat facing each other in their wheelchairs; Unlikely Worlds’s tank squatted next to Ada Morange, its articulated legs folded around it.

‘We have been given a chance to change history,’ the entrepreneur said, after they had got past the niceties of congratulation on a mission accomplished, and concern about Chloe’s recuperation. ‘We have been entirely dependent on the Jackaroo’s shuttles and their fixed schedules. But now we will be able to travel freely between Mangala and Earth. And between Earth and the other worlds…’

‘As long as the Jackaroo allow it,’ Chloe said.

‘Sometimes, I’m told, the Jackaroo make something attractive by forbidding it,’ Ada Morange said. ‘They push people towards it by pretending to push them away.’

Chloe looked at the!Cha’s tank, said, ‘Is that true? Or is it another of your stories?’

While she’d been bedridden, she’d had plenty of time to think about the Jackaroo, and the!Cha. About why the avatar that called itself Bob Smith had visited her on that beach in Norfolk; about what the avatar carried by Adam Nevers had said to Vic.

Bob Smith had told her that she had been standing at a place where small actions could have large and unintended consequences: that had definitely turned out to be true. And it had said that there were others here, with their own agenda. Perhaps it had meant people like Adam Nevers. Or perhaps it had meant the!Cha, who collected stories they used to attract the attention of a female mate, back home, wherever their home was. Who reshaped stories that were not pleasing, according to the avatar carried by Nevers; who liked to accelerate change.

Unlikely Worlds said, in its amiable baritone, ‘Your species is hardwired to be curious. One of your oldest stories is about a forbidden fruit. Would your female progenitor have tasted it, if it had not been forbidden? Would the serpent have been able to tempt her with it?’

‘Are you saying that Ugly Chicken wasn’t an Elder Culture eidolon? That the Jackaroo planted it?’

‘Perhaps they made it seem important.’

‘They tried to stop it calling down the ships,’ Chloe said, seeing in her mind’s eye the hallucinatory war in the air between the bright shards and the quick dark ghosts. ‘Why would they do that if they wanted us to have them?’

‘The avatar carried by Adam Nevers was not a true avatar,’ Unlikely Worlds said. ‘It was a partial. An independent copy. Perhaps it was given to Nevers because he wanted to stop the eidolon. After all, they came here to help.’

‘They’d help both sides?’

‘Why not? Perhaps, as far as they are concerned, the differences between both sides are trivial.’

‘And what about you?’ Chloe said. ‘What kind of help have you been giving us?’

‘You are thinking of claims made by the avatar carried by Adam Nevers.’

‘Very much.’

‘It was, as I said, only a partial. And perhaps the story it told was a story that Adam Nevers wanted to hear. That he needed to believe, so that he could justify his actions. You are all heroes of your own stories.’

‘Then tell me that you haven’t been manipulating Dr Morange. That you haven’t been manipulating me and everyone else. That you haven’t been fucking up our lives so you can go back to some pond and spawn children.’

Chloe heeled away tears, and felt a naked humiliation. She’d meant to confront the!Cha with reasoned argument, but instead she’d lost her temper.

Unlikely Worlds said, in a perfect imitation of kindness, ‘Your story has no need of embellishment, Chloe.’

‘I wish I could believe it.’

‘The Jackaroo are of course a great imponderable,’ Ada Morange said, after a short silence. ‘But this much we know: they see things differently. And they are not yet, as far as we are concerned, a problem. What I would like to do today, Chloe, why I invited you here, is begin negotiations about revising your status within my company, and to secure your unique skill set.’

‘You’re offering me a job.’

‘You already have a job. I’m offering you a new one.’

She handed Chloe a slim folder, explained that it contained a draft contract, and quoted two six-figure sums. One for what she called the basic salary, the other a bonus to acknowledge Chloe’s help, and to provide compensation for her injuries.

‘There will be other bonuses, equally generous, based on your performance. Although if you are only half as gifted as Fahad, you will have no difficulty in securing them. I know that this is a life-changing proposition. So I do not expect you to make your decision immediately. Study it. Take your time. And I would advise you to hire a good lawyer to check the contract. We’ve worked well together, Chloe. I hope that we will continue to work together for many years.’

‘You have Fahad,’ Chloe said. ‘You don’t need me.’

‘There’s no need to make up your mind now. Think about my offer. Take as long as you need.’

‘I’ve already made up my mind. No one should have both of us.’

‘You’d rather work for the British government, or the UN? I don’t see you as a good fit for sclerotic bureaucratic organisations like that.’

‘You’re right. I’m at my best when I do my own thing. That’s how I found Fahad, after all.’

‘While working for me. As you still do, in fact.’

‘I was working for Disruption Theory. Which you shut down. And anyway, I quit.’

Ada Morange studied her. Chloe tried her best to meet that deep dark gaze. There was nothing human in it that she could see, no anger, no disappointment, no pity.

‘My offer still stands,’ the entrepreneur said. ‘And meanwhile I will continue to pay your hospital bills, and to pay for your protection also. There have already been threats to your life from fanatical elements, you know, back on Earth. If you really do want to do your own thing, you should bear that in mind.’

That was as close to a threat as she came. Chloe knew there would be years of trouble ahead, trying to stay out of Ada Morange’s orbit, but she also knew that she had a singular advantage. Only she and Fahad could control the ships. Sooner or later someone would figure out an interface that anyone could use, but meanwhile people who wanted easy travel to other planets would have to rely on their goodwill. Ada Morange had Fahad. And if she dared to use her gift, Chloe thought, everyone else would have her.

They parted on an amicable note. Ada Morange gave Chloe two gifts, both double-edged.

The first was a return ticket to Earth that Chloe knew she would not need. When she was ready, she could go back on her own terms, in her own ship. The second was a memory stick containing a video message from Neil and his family — they were glad she was safe, and hoped she would be coming home soon — and an up-to-date archive of the Last Minute wiki.

‘I know how much it means to you,’ Ada Morange said.

As Chloe wheeled around, ready to go, Unlikely Worlds said, ‘I enjoyed your story, Chloe. I hope that I will be able to continue to enjoy it.’

And he also said, in a startlingly intimate whisper transmitted through her wrist patch, that he had left a little gift of his own in the archive of the Last Minute wiki.

It wasn’t hard to find. All The King’s Horses: a short video shot from somewhere above Trafalgar Square. The viewpoint yawed and pitched, turning this way and that — Chloe, who knew everything about those last moments, believed that it had been recorded by the balloon that had been adrift high in the sunlight air. And knew, with a deep thrill of absolute conviction, remembering another untethered balloon above Mr Archer’s meeting, that it had been no child’s balloon.

She also knew that the King’s Mews had been demolished to make way for Trafalgar Square. That the site of the National Gallery had once been a stable block.

There would be time later to think about what all this implied, to wonder how long the aliens had been observing humanity, and wonder what else they might have been doing. Now, Chloe watched with narrow and absolute concentration as the balloon’s unstable viewpoint crossed the roof of the National Gallery and turned towards the narrow street on the far side, and the entrance at the rear of the National Portrait Gallery. The video froze at that point. After a minute, she dared to zoom in. And saw the woman caught in mid-step as she walked down the long ramp, on her way to meet her friend for lunch, not knowing that this was the last minute of her life, the last minute before everything changed.

Before the aliens came, eager to help.