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Poseidon's Wake

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129

‘No,’ Kanu said again.

‘Louder. I need to hear it.’

‘No. You didn’t. You kept your vow.’

‘Well, then,’ Swift said. ‘With that unpleasantness behind us, let us discuss the base cause of your present malaise.’

‘My malaise?’

‘I speak not of your present mental disequilibrium, occasioned as it is by the uncertainty surrounding Nissa’s condition. That is to be expected, and like you I hope fervently that she will come through this ordeal unscathed. My concern is a larger one — that the Terror has driven a gaping wound into your psyche, one that time and tide may struggle to repair.’

‘You were in my head when we felt the Terror, Swift. You got a dose of that as well. Don’t tell me otherwise.’

‘Yes, and the experience was every bit as bracing as I anticipated. A cold, hard blast of reality.’ Swift bounded to the edge of the groove with a chilling indifference to the drop beyond his toes. ‘What could be colder than being made to feel the utter futility of existence? To know that not only is there no meaning to anything, but there never can be? That life itself is completely devoid of purpose? That nothing will be remembered? That despite our grandest efforts, our boldest endeavours, nothing can or will ever be preserved? That the kindest acts are doomed to be forgotten, along with the cruellest? All loves, all hates erased from the record? Yes, what could be worse than that?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all in the whole of creation. And if death troubles me — which, I am pleased to say, it most certainly does — then the idea of not even being remembered, not even leaving the tiniest quantum ripple in the wake of the coming vacuum fluctuation… well, that is a great deal more than troubling. We live by our deeds, whether we are machines or people or elephants. And if our deeds are meaningless and forgotten, what does that make us?’

‘Nothing,’ Kanu answered, fiercely enough that he spoke the word aloud. ‘Pointless interactions between matter and energy, doomed to be erased. That’s the message, Swift. That there’s no meaning. That we don’t matter.’

‘No,’ Swift answered, with corresponding force. ‘We do matter. This truth does not rob us of meaning — it gives it back to us. It liberates us from the burden of posterity, from the burden of deluding ourselves that our acts have some chance of outlasting eternity. If we are kind to each other now, it’s not because we’re hoping to be remembered well, to be lauded in some great accounting of things. It’s not because we want to be rewarded for our behaviour, or to be admired for the wonderful things we did during our brief span of existence. Exactly the opposite! Now that we know there is no chance of that, our deeds have no higher meaning than the context of the moment in which they occur. One decent deed, one kind gesture, enacted without thought of recompense or remembrance, performed in the full and certain knowledge that it will be forgotten, that it cannot be otherwise — that single deed refutes the entire message of the M-builders. They were wrong! There is no Terror, only enlightenment! Only liberation! And we will continue to refute their message with every gracious act, every decent thought, every human kindness — until the moment the vacuum rips.’

‘Just a fancy speech, Swift. That’s all it is.’

‘More than a speech, Kanu. A viable moral strategy for negating the M-builders’ nihilism. It’s a choice. A question of free will. Do you choose it, or reject it?’

‘You’re a machine,’ he said. ‘How could you ever understand?’

‘I was a machine,’ Swift answered. ‘Once. But then I spent too long in the company of the living.’

‘Over here,’ Eunice said sharply.

Kanu turned. He had been so wrapped up in his conversation with Swift that he failed to notice Ru was no longer standing. She had slumped over at the back of the ledge and was lying akwardly on her side. It was not the posture of someone who had sat down carefully with the intention of closing their eyes or conserving energy. He saw in the same glance that none of her suit’s status indications were glowing.

Eunice was quickly at her side, easing her into a more natural position with her back braced against the rear of the ledge, her legs stretched out before her.

‘What is it?’ Kanu asked.

‘I don’t think it’s the concussion — she was lucid enough when Goma called. That bump she took coming down here must have done more harm to her suit than we realised. There’s been a sudden systems failure.’

‘She said nothing.’

‘Then she couldn’t have got much warning. Wait a second.’ Eunice was repeating the exercise she had already performed on Nissa, flipping open hatches in the chest pack, squinting through her own faceplate with steely concentration, not wanting to miss a detail.

‘We still have oxygen and power,’ Kanu said.

‘That won’t help her. There’s a system failure deep in the pack, maybe a secondary leak here as well. It must have opened up as the ambient pressure reduced. She’s in trouble, Kanu. Plugging in more air and power won’t help — the fault’s too extensive. Did you see her go down?’

‘No.’

‘I saw her a few minutes ago and she was still standing so she hasn’t been down long. If we can restore air and heat, she’ll have at least as good a chance as Nissa.’

‘You just said we can’t do that.’

‘Not with the supplementary supplies.’ Eunice paused, turned from the slumped form. ‘There’s an easier way. It’ll give her a fully functioning life-support system for the rest of the trip.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘She takes my chest pack. Watch what I’m doing very carefully — you’ll need to reverse these steps precisely when you reconnect my pack in place of hers.’

For a moment he did not quite grasp what she was proposing. The words, yes. The implication, no. But then the truth of it dawned with a sort of sick clarity. ‘No, Eunice,’ he said, dizzied. ‘This isn’t how it’s going to happen. My suit—’

‘Isn’t the same design as hers. Mine, piece of antiquated shit that it is, matches perfectly. Your chest pack won’t mate with her coupling systems; mine will. Watch.’ She ran her fingers around the edge of the pack, where the power and pressure valves connected with the rest of the suit. ‘Primary and secondary shut-offs. These have to be tight or the air inside her will vent the instant I remove the pack. Are you following?’

‘No. Stop. We need to think this through.’

‘Believe me, Kanu — the one thing you don’t do in emergencies is think things through. Thinking things through gets you a headstone and a nice epitaph. She thought things through. See how that worked out for her. Now watch!’

He reached out, tried to prise her hands away from the chest pack. ‘No. Not a life for a life.’

‘You think Ru deserves to die?’

‘None of us deserves to die! Not her, not you!’

‘Because I’m an Akinya?’

‘Because I will not let you give up your life for hers! For all we know she’s already beyond any hope of recovery!’

‘And Nissa wasn’t? We gave her a chance, Kanu — why not Ru?’

‘Nobody had to die for Nissa to get her chance.’

‘Ru wouldn’t be in this mess if she hadn’t come down for you.’ With a force that surprised him — far beyond what this small, bony woman looked capable of — Eunice reasserted her grip on the chest pack’s connectors. ‘I know you don’t want to see a death, Kanu. I know you’re not valuing my life over hers. You’re a good man and I understand your reluctance. But I won’t sit back and do nothing. You’re going to help me.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You will. Swift? Make him. Do this one thing for me. And listen.’

He tried to struggle with her again even as part of him surrendered to the logic of her sacrifice, while another part accepted that she would always find a way to be stronger if the moment depended on it. But then his own strength was gone. Kanu felt himself slump back, as if every muscle in his body had been given an immediate and binding command to relax.

He stared at the figure who stood watching proceedings, hands behind his back, expression observant but concerned.

‘Swift!’

‘I have no choice, Kanu. She made me what I am. I can hardly refuse a simple request from my maker.’

After that, he could only bear witness.

‘The connections are sealed,’ Eunice said. ‘I’m removing the pack now.’ She eased the buckled device from Ru’s chest, exposing the gold- and-chrome-coated interfaces and plugs where it had coupled with her suit. ‘Now mine. This is the awkward part — they don’t generally assume you’ll be doing this while still inside the suit.’

‘There’s a reason for that,’ said Kanu. He could not interfere, but he could still talk.

‘Yes.’ But there was a sadness in her answer, not the dismissiveness Kanu might have expected. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll have. It’ll depend on the tightness of the seals. If I can maintain consciousness and dexterity, I’ll do my best to reconnect the pack to Ru, but you’ll need to do it if I can’t — is that clear?’

‘You’re asking the impossible of us.’

‘No, I’m asking you to save a life. Mine will already be over, bar the shouting. This isn’t a moral conundrum. I’m sparing you that.’

‘Damn you. And damn you, Swift, for playing along.’