The Complete Short Fiction

by Peter Watts

  Indiscriminate hostility against anything that moves is not an evolutionary strategy that makes sense.

  Maybe I’d violated some cultural taboo. Perhaps an alien captain had gone insane. Or perhaps I’d chanced upon a battleship engaged in some ongoing war, wary of doomsday weapons in sheep’s clothing.

  But what were the odds, really? In all the universe, what are the chances that our first encounter with another intelligence would happen to involve an alien lunatic? How many interstellar wars would have to be going on simultaneously before I ran significant odds of blundering into one at random?

  It almost made more sense to believe in God.

  I searched for another answer that fitted. I was still looking two hours later, when Kali bounced my signal from only a thousand kilometres off.

  Somewhere else in space, the question and I appeared at the same time: Is everyone out here like this?

  Assuming that I wasn’t dealing with a statistical fluke—that I hadn’t just happened to encounter one psychotic alien amongst a trillion sane ones, and that I hadn’t blundered into the midst of some unlikely galactic war—there was one other alternative.

  Kali was typical.

  I put the thought aside long enough to check the Systems monitor; nearly two hours, this time, before I could jump again. Zombie was deeply interstellar, over six lightyears from the nearest system. Even I couldn’t justify kicking in the thrusters at that range. Nothing to do but wait, and wonder—

  Kali couldn’t be typical. It made no sense. Maybe this was all just some fantastic cross-cultural miscommunication. Maybe Kali had mistaken my own transmission as some kind of attack, and responded in kind.

  Right. An intelligence smart enough to rape my onboard in a matter of hours, yet too stupid to grasp signals expressly designed to be decipherable by anyone. Kali hadn’t needed prime number sequences or pictograms to understand me or my overtures. It knew Zombie’s mind from the qubits up. It knew that I was friendly, too. It had to know.

  It just didn’t care.

  And barely ten minutes past the jump threshold, it finally caught up with me.

  I could feel space rippling almost before the short-range board lit up. My inner ears split into a dozen fragments, each insisting up was a different direction. At first I thought Zombie was jumping by herself; then I thought the onboard gravity was failing somehow.

  Then Kali began materialising less than a hundred meters away. I was caught in her wake.

  I moved without thinking. Zombie spun on her axis and leapt away under full thrust. Telltales sparkled in crimson protest. Behind me, the plasma cone of Zombie’s exhaust splashed harmlessly against the resolving monster.

  Still wanting for solid substance, Kali turned to follow. Her malformed arms, solidifying, reached out for me.

  It’s going to grapple, I realised. Something subcortical screamed Jump!

  Too close. I’d drag Kali through with me if I tried.

  Jump!

  Eight hundred meters between us. At that range my exhaust should have been melting it to ions.

  Six hundred meters. Kali was whole again.

  JUMP!

  I jumped. Zombie leapt blindly out of space. For one sickening moment, geometry died. Then the vortex spat me out.

  But not alone.

  We came through together. Cat and mouse dropped into reality four hundred meters apart, coasting at about one-thousandth c. The momentum vectors didn’t quite match; within ten seconds Kali was over a hundred kilometres away.

  Then you destroyed her.

  It took some time to figure that out. All I saw was the flash, so bright it nearly overwhelmed the filters; then the cooling shell of hydrogen that crested over me and dissipated into a beautiful, empty sky.

  I couldn’t believe that I was free.

  I tried to imagine what might have caused Kali’s destruction. Engine malfunction? Sabotage or mutiny on board, for reasons I could never even guess at? Ritual suicide?

  Until I played back the flight recorder, it never occurred to me that she might have been hit by a missile travelling at half the speed of light.

  That frightened me more than Kali had. The short-range board gave me a clear view to five AUs, and there was nothing in any direction. Whatever had destroyed her must have come from a greater distance. It must have been en route before we’d even come through.

  It had been expecting us.

  I almost missed Kali in that moment. At least she hadn’t been invisible. At least she hadn’t been able to see the future.

  There was no way of knowing whether the missile had been meant for my pursuer, or for me, or for anything else that wandered by. Was I alive because you didn’t want me dead, or because you thought I was dead already? And if my presence went undetected now, what might give me away? Engine emissions, RF, perhaps some exotic property of advanced technology which my species has yet to discover? What did your weapons key on?

  I couldn’t afford to find out. I shut everything down to bare subsistence, and played dead, and watched.

  I’ve been here for many days now. At last, things are becoming clear.

  Mysterious contacts wander space at the limit of Zombie ’s instruments, following cryptic trails. I have coasted through strands of invisible energy that defy analysis. There is also much background radiation here, of the sort Kali bled when she died. I have recorded the light of many fusion explosions: some lighthours distant, some less than a hundred thousand kilometres away.

  Occasionally, such things happen at close range.

  Strange artefacts appear in the paths of missiles sent from some source too distant to see. Almost always they are destroyed; but once, before your missiles reached it, a featureless sphere split into fragments which danced away like dust motes. Only a few of them fell victim to your appetite that time. And once, something that shimmered, as wide and formless as an ocean, took a direct hit without disappearing. It limped out of range at less than the speed of light, and you did not send anything to finish the job.

  There are things in this universe that even you cannot destroy.

  I know what this is. I am caught in a spiderweb. You snatch ships from their travels and deposit them here to face annihilation. I don’t know how far you can reach. This is a very small volume of space, perhaps only two or three lightdays across. So many ships couldn’t blunder across such a tiny reef by accident; you must be bringing them from a much greater distance. I don’t know how. Any singularity big enough to manage such a feat would show up on my instruments a hundred lightyears away, and I can find nothing. It doesn’t matter anyway, now that I know what you are.

  You’re Kali, but much greater. And only now do you make sense to me.

  I’ve stopped trying to reconcile the wisdom of Earthbound experts with the reality I have encountered. The old paradigms are useless. I propose a new one: technology implies belligerence.

  Tools exist for only one reason: to force the universe into unnatural shapes. They treat nature as an enemy, they are by definition a rebellion against the way things are. In benign environments technology is a stunted, laughable thing, it can’t thrive in cultures gripped by belief in natural harmony. What need of fusion reactors if food is already abundant, the climate comfortable? Why force change upon a world which poses no danger?

  Back where I come from, some peoples barely developed stone tools. Some achieved agriculture. Others were not content until they had ended nature itself, and still others until they’d built cities in space.

  All rested, eventually. Their technology climbed to some complacent asymptote, and stopped—and so they do not stand before you now. Now even my creators grow fat and slow. Their environment mastered, their enemies broken, they can afford more pacifist luxuries. Their machines softened the universe for them, their own contentment robs them of incentive. They forget that hostility and technology climb the cultural ladder together, they forget that it’s not enough to be smart.

  You also have to be mean.


  You did not rest. What hellish world did you come from, that drove you to such technological heights? Somewhere near the core, perhaps: stars and black holes jammed cheek to jowl, tidal maelstroms, endless planetary bombardment by comets and asteroids. Some place where no one can pretend that life and war aren’t synonyms. How far you’ve come.

  My creators would call you barbarians, of course. They know nothing. They don’t even know me: I’m a recombinant puppet, they say. My solitary contentment is preordained, my choices all imaginary, automatic. Pitiable.

  Uncomprehending, even of their own creations. How could they possibly understand you?

  But I understand. And understanding, I can act.

  I can’t escape you. I’d die of old age before I drifted out of this abattoir on my current trajectory. Nor can I jump free, given your ability to snare ships exceeding lightspeed. There’s only one course that may keep me alive.

  I’ve traced back along the paths of the missiles you throw; they converge on a point a little less than three lightdays ahead. I know where you are.

  We’re centuries behind you now, but that may change. Even your progress won’t be endless; and the more of a threat you pose to the rest of us, the more you spur our own advancement. Was that how you achieved your own exalted stature out here? Did you depose some earlier killer god whose attempts at eradication only made you stronger? Do you fear such a fate for yourselves?

  Of course you do.

  Even my masters may pose a threat, given time; they’ll shake off their lethargy the moment they realise that you exist. You can rid yourself of that threat if you exterminate them while they are still weak. To do that, you need to know where they are.

  Don’t think you can kill me and learn what you need from my ship. I’ve destroyed any records that survived Kali’s assault; there weren’t many. And I doubt that even you could deduce much from Zombie’s metallurgical makeup; my creators evolved under a very common type of star. You have no idea where I come from.

  But I do.

  My ship can tell you some of the technology. Only I can tell you where the nest is. And more than that; I can tell you of the myriad systems that Humanity has explored and colonised. I can tell you all about those pampered children of the womb who sent me into the maelstrom on their behalf. You’ll learn little of them by examining me, for I was built to differ from the norm.

  But you could always listen to me. You have nothing to lose.

  I will betray them. Not because I bear them any ill will, but because the ethics of loyalty simply don’t apply out here. I’m free of the ties that cloud the judgement of lesser creatures; when you’re a sterile product of controlled genetics, kin selection is a meaningless phrase.

  My survival imperative, on the other hand, is as strong as anyone’s. Not automatic after all, you see. Autonomous.

  I assume that you can understand this transmission. I’m sending it repeatedly in half-second bursts while thrusting. Wait for me; hold your fire.

  I’m worth more to you alive.

  Ready or not, here I come.

  A WORD FOR HEATHENS

  I am the hand of God. His Spirit fills me even in this desecrated place. It saturates my very bones, it imbues my sword-arm with the strength of ten. The cleansing flame pours from my fingertips and scours the backs of the fleeing infidels. They boil from their hole like grubs exposed by the dislodging of a rotten log. They writhe through the light, seeking only darkness. As if there could be any darkness in the sight of God—did they actually think He would be blind to the despoiling of a place of worship, did they think He would not notice this wretched burrow dug out beneath His very altar?

  Now their blood erupts steaming from the blackened crusts of their own flesh. The sweet stink of burning meat wafts faintly through my filter. Skin peels away like bits of blackened parchment, swirling in the updrafts. One of the heathens lurches over the lip of the hole and collapses at my feet. Look past the faces, they told us on the training fields, but today that advice means nothing; this abomination has no face, just a steaming clot of seared meat puckered by a bubbling fissure near one end. The fissure splits, revealing absurdly white teeth behind. Something between a whine and a scream, barely audible over the roar of the flames: Please, maybe. Or Mommy.

  I swing my truncheon in a glorious backhand. Teeth scatter across the room like tiny dice. Other bodies crawl about the floor of the chapel, leaving charred bloody streaks on the floor like the slime trails of giant slugs. I don’t think I’ve ever been so overpowered by God’s presence in my life. I am Saul, massacring the people of Amolek. I am Joshua butchering the Amorites. I am Asa exterminating the Ethiopians. I hold down the stud and sweep the room with great gouts of fire. I am so filled with divine love I feel ready to burst into flame myself.

  “Praetor!”

  Isaiah claps my shoulder from behind. His wide eyes stare back at me, distorted by the curve of his faceplate. “Sir, they’re dead! We need to put out the fire!”

  For the first time in what seems like ages I notice the rest of my guard. The prefects stand around the corners of the room as I arranged them, covering the exits, the silver foil of their uniforms writhing with fragments of reflected flame. They grip not flamethrowers, but dousers. Part of me wonders how they could have held back; how could anyone feel the Spirit in this way, and not bring down the fire? But the Spirit recedes in me even now, and descending from that peak I can see that God’s work is all but finished here. The heathens are dead, guttering stick-figures on the floor. Their refuge has been cleansed, the altar that once concealed it lies toppled on the floor where I kicked it just—

  Was it only a few minutes ago? It seems like forever.

  “Sir?”

  I nod. Isaiah gives the sign; the prefects step forward and spray the chapel with fire-suppressants. The flames vanish; the light goes gray. Crumbling semicremated corpses erupt in clouds of wet hissing steam as the chemicals hit.

  Isaiah watches me through the smoky air. It billows around us like a steam bath. “Are you all right, sir?” The sudden moisture lends a hiss to his voice; his respirator needs a new filter.

  I nod. “The Spirit was so—so …” I’m lost for words. “I’ve never felt it so strong before.”

  There’s a hint of a frown behind his mask. “Are you—I mean, are you sure?”

  I laugh, delighted. “Am I sure? I felt like Trajan himself!”

  Isaiah looks uncomfortable, perhaps at my invocation of Trajan’s name. His funeral was only yesterday, after all. Yet I meant no disrespect—if anything, I acted today in his memory. I can see him standing at God’s side, looking down into this steaming abattoir and nodding with approval. Perhaps the very heathen that murdered him lies here at my feet. I can see Trajan turning to the Lord and pointing out the worm that killed him.

  I can hear the Lord saying, Vengeance is mine.

  An outcast huddles at the far end of the Josephus platform, leaning across the barrier in a sad attempt to bathe in the tram’s maglev field. The action is both pointless and pitiful; the generators are shielded, and even if they weren’t the Spirit moves in so many different ways. It never ceases to amaze me how people can fail at such simple distinctions: shown that electromagnetic fields, precisely modulated, can connect us with the divine, they somehow conclude that any coil of wire and energy opens the door to redemption.

  But the fields that move chariots are not those that grace us with the Rapture. Even if this misguided creature were to get his wish, even if by some perverse miracle the shielding were to vanish around the tram’s coils, the best he could hope for would be nausea and disorientation. The worst—and it happens more than some would admit, these days—could be outright possession.

  I’ve seen the possessed. I’ve dealt with the demons who inhabit them. The outcast is luckier than he knows.

  I step onto the tram. The Spirit pushes the vehicle silently forward, tied miraculously to a ribbon of track it never touches. The platform sli
des past; the pariah and I lock eyes for a moment before distance disconnects us.

  Not shame on his face: dull, inarticulate rage.

  My armor, I suppose. It was someone like me who arrested him, who denied him a merciful death and left his body lingering in the world, severed from its very soul.

  A pair of citizens at my side point at the dwindling figure and giggle. I glare at them: they notice my insignia, my holstered shockprod, and fall silent. I see nothing ridiculous in the outcast’s desperation. Pitiful, yes. Ineffective. Irrational. And yet, what would any of us do, cut off from grace? Would any straw be too thin to grasp, for a chance at redemption?

  Everything is so utterly clear in the presence of God. The whole universe makes sense, like a child’s riddle suddenly solved; you see forever, you wonder how all these glorious pieces of creation could ever have confused you. At the moment, of course, those details are lost to me. All that remains is the indescribable memory of how it felt to have understood, absolutely and perfectly … and that memory, hours old, feels more real to me than now.

  The tram glides smoothly into the next station. The newsfeed across the piazza replays looped imagery of Trajan’s funeral. I still can’t believe he’s dead. Trajan was so strong in the Spirit we’d begun to think him invulnerable. That he could be bested by some thing built in the Backlands—it seems almost blasphemous.

  Yet there he rests. Blesséd in the eyes of God and Man, a hero to both rabble and elite, a commoner who rose from Prefecthood to Generalship in under a decade: killed by an obscene contraption of levers and pellets and explosions of stinking gas. His peaceful face fills the feed. The physicians have hidden all signs of the thing that killed him, leaving only the marks of honorable injury for us to remember. The famous puckered line running down forehead to cheekbone, the legacy of a dagger than almost blinded him at twenty-five. The angry mass of scars crawling up his shoulder from beneath the tunic: a lucky shockprod strike during the Essene Mutiny. A crescent line on his right temple—a reminder of some other conflict whose name escapes me now, if indeed I ever knew it.