Poseidon's Wake

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‘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.