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Poseidon's Wake

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‘So you can switch the beams off or aim them somewhere else,’ Caspari said.

‘We won’t know for sure until I send the command.’

‘We don’t want to hurt them,’ Goma said, ‘but we’ve every indication that Kanu’s being coerced. Right now, the mirrors are our only long-range negotiating tool. I don’t intend to use them as a weapon, but if we can squeeze them short of power, we may buy some time for negotiation.’

Eunice nodded, but there was a note of caution in her voice. ‘The instant the mirrors deactivate, Dakota will know that we have control. We’ll have played our only card at that point, and Dakota’s bound to start trying to regain control from her side. I’m doing everything I can to lock out direct commands from Zanzibar, but I can’t promise I’ll succeed.’

‘You designed this system?’ Loring asked.

‘Not exactly,’ she answered carefully. ‘The old version of me designed it, a version I barely remember being. Lot of water under the bridge since then.’

‘Do your best,’ Vasin said. ‘We can’t expect the impossible. Equally, we’d be fools not to try to use the mirrors. Could we…’ But she abandoned the thought with a sudden distasteful expression, as if she had bitten into something sour.

‘What?’ Eunice asked.

‘I was wondering if we might use them as a weapon, if it came to that?’

‘No!’ Peter Grave said, Goma shaping the word in the same moment, sharing his exact repugnance.

‘I’m not talking about inflicting deliberate loss of life, just making a statement. If that ship powers up again, could we focus the mirrors onto it, cause enough damage to prevent its departure?’

‘Not with several minutes of time lag thrown into the pot,’ Eunice responded. ‘We can steer the mirrors, but not in real-time. Provided the ship doesn’t follow a predictable path, it can always stay out of harm’s way.’

‘Maybe not the ship, then. But Zanzibar won’t be going anywhere in a hurry, will it? If we steer the beams off their power grids, we could inflict structural damage on the other parts.’

Goma had believed there was steel in Gandhari Vasin before; now she had proof of it.

‘This isn’t war,’ Goma said.

‘Not yet,’ Vasin said. ‘But we’d be idiotic not to think ahead, wouldn’t we?’ Then she clapped her hands once, making a jangle of jewellery. ‘Continue your work, Eunice — do everything you can to lock Dakota out of the mirrors, but take no action she might notice. In the meantime, we will continue preparing the lander. It will make no difference to your work — if you can control the mirrors from Travertine, you will also be able to do so from the smaller ship, and the time lag will be reduced as we close in.’

‘When we do we leave?’ Goma asked.

‘Three days, maybe two if things progress well.’

‘It won’t be war, Gandhari. We need to understand that. Tell her, Eunice.’

‘What would you like me to tell her?’

‘That it can’t come down to violence. That nothing’s so serious that it has to end that way.’

‘I’d love to,’ Eunice said.

Then she returned to her work, as if the matter was settled.

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.