Gil and Lucia had sat in on his gentle inquisition for a while, then grown restless and gone for a swim. Lunch-time had reconvened them, though if he had been hoping to impress his nephew and Lucia with their guest’s new-found articulacy it seemed Pieter was to be disappointed; the presence of large quantities of food seemed to have temporarily driven all thought of conversation from the girl’s head.
They sat at one end of the dining-room table. The windows were open to the veranda and the curtains billowed slowly.
Pieter sat on one side of the table while the young lovers sat on the other, with their strange, fey guest at its head, a generously proportioned napkin tucked into the neck of her blouse and another spread across her lap while she frowned and sighed and dipped her head down almost level with the table while she attempted to manipulate a knife, fork and spoon to the end of eating the food on her plate.
Gil and Lucia exchanged looks. Pieter watched the young woman at the head of the table attack a lobster claw with the wrong end of a heavy spoon, and sighed.
‘On reflection, perhaps seafood salad was a mistake,’ he said.
Bits of red-white carapace spattered across the table; their guest made an appreciative growling noise at the back of her throat and after sniffing at the meat revealed, sucked it out and sat back, chewing open-mouthed and smiling happily while looking at the other three diners. A cleaning servitor hummed and clicked from under the table and busied itself on the floor, gathering up the bits of food and debris the girl had let drop. She looked down at it, grinning, and swept more shards of lobster off the table and onto the floor.
‘What,’ Lucia asked Pieter, ‘exactly is an assurer?’
‘I can’t find it either,’ Gil said, smiling at Lucia and squeezing her hand. Like her, he was eating one-handed.
‘An asura,’ Pieter said, secretly pleased, though wondering if the two young people really couldn’t find the word in their habitua or were just being polite. ‘A Hindi word, originally,’ he told them. ‘It used to mean a demon or a giant opposed to the gods.’
Lucia wore that annoyed look Pieter had come to recognise as her reaction to anything that was not expressed through implants and which she thought ought to be. It was fairly common for those in the first inflationary rush of infatuation, lust or love to embrace almost exclusively the inner voicelessness of implant-articulation in preference to the somehow physically off-putting and clumsy medium of normal speech, and although Pieter did not think Lucia jealous of their guest - any more than Gil seemed able to spare the girl more than the most cursory attention - she did seem to resent both the simple distraction she represented and the fact Pieter had suggested they communicate by speech in deference to the girl’s seeming total lack of implants.
‘Hindi, hmm,’ Gil said, obviously having to look the word up. ‘So what does “asura” mean nowadays?’ He smiled at Lucia, squeezing her hand again under the table.
‘A sort of ... natural, one might say,’ Pieter replied (mischievously, knowing they would both have to look that up too). He spooned a little crabmeat and ate contemplatively while watching the girl flick bits of shell further and further away across the floor so that the cleaning machine described a zig-zag course towards the windows. ‘Something generated semi-randomly by the corpus or some separate system for reasons of its own,’ he went on, dabbing at his lips with a napkin. ‘Usually to do with some required change impossible to achieve from within. A non-predictable variable; a wildness.’
Lucia glanced at the girl. ‘Why does she have to appear here, though?’
Pieter shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘She’s nothing to do with the clan, is she? She doesn’t belong to any of our families,’ Lucia said, her voice low, though the girl didn’t seem to be listening, still throwing lobster-chunks towards the window. ‘So why does she have to pop out of our vault; bit cheeky, isn’t it?’
‘I think it may have been sheer chance,’ Pieter said, frowning a little. ‘Whatever; she is here now and we must decide what to do with her.’
‘Well what does one normally do with . . . asuras?’ Gil asked.
‘Gives them shelter and does not try to impede them when they want to move on, I believe,’ Pieter said. ‘Rather like any guest.’
The girl aimed and threw; a piece of lobster-claw bounced at the edge of the window between the softly blowing curtains, ricocheted through the rails of the balcony outside and disappeared down towards the garden. The pursuing cleaning machine trundled as far as the rails, and then stopped. It clicked a couple of times, then retreated into the room. The girl looked disappointed.
‘Why, where’s she going to go?’ Lucia asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Pieter admitted, nodding at their guest. ‘Though she may.’ He sipped at his wine.
They looked at her. She was holding another section of lobster above her, squinting up into it, one-eyed. Gil and Lucia exchanged glances.
‘But what exactly is she supposed to do?’ Gil asked.
‘Again, I have no idea,’ Pieter admitted. ‘She may provide some fresh input for some section of the corpus, or possibly - indeed probably - she is what one might call a system test; a specimen signal-carrier whose only purpose is to ensure everything is in working order should the medium require to be used in anger - as it were - at some point in the future.’
Lucia and Gil looked at each other again.
‘Could this have something to do with the Encroachment?’ Gil asked, his expression serious. He squeezed Lucia’s hand again.
‘It might,’ Pieter said, waving his fork while inspecting the oysters on his plate. ‘Probably not.’
‘Suppose she isn’t just a signal test?’ Gil asked with deliberated patience. ‘What does she do then?’ He refilled Lucia and his glasses.
‘Why then, she will probably find her way to wherever she is supposed to find her way and deliver her message.’
‘She can hardly talk in joined-up words,’ Lucia snorted. ‘How is she going to deliver a message?’
‘She doesn’t even have any implants,’ Gil added.
‘The message may be in an unusual medium,’ Pieter said. ‘It might lie in the precise pattern of flecks in the iris of one eye, or in one of her finger-prints, or in the disposition of her intestinal flora, or even in her own genetic code.’
‘And this message is something the data corpus knows and yet doesn’t know?’
‘Quite. Or it may come from some system which isn’t part of the main corpus and which can’t communicate with it.’
The girl was watching Gil drink from his glass. She imitated the action and spilled only a little.
‘Machines that can’t communicate?’ Lucia said, laughing. ‘But that’s . . .’ she waved her hand.
‘Diseases are communicated, too,’ Pieter said quietly, folding his napkin. Their young guest seemed to be practising gargling.
‘So?’ Lucia said, with a contemptuous glance at the girl.
‘Well, anyway,’ Gil said emolliently, patting Lucia’s hand while addressing his uncle, ‘She’s here and our guest; she may even prove amusing if she is so preternaturally naive. At least she appears to be house-trained.’
‘So far,’ Lucia said. ‘Anyway; isn’t there somebody we ought to tell about her?’
‘Oh, I suppose one might report her arrival to the authorities,’ Pieter said easily. ‘But there’s no hurry.’
The girl sat back, belched, looked pleased with herself, then farted. She appeared slightly taken aback, then just grinned.
‘Air,’ she said, nodding to the other three people round the table.
Pieter smiled. Gil guffawed. Lucia stared at the girl for a moment. Then set her napkin down primly. ‘I am going to lie down,’ she announced, rising.
Gil got up too, still holding Lucia’s hand. ‘Me too,’ he said, smiling broadly.
Pieter returned their nodded farewells and watched the two young people leave.
He turned to the girl. She wiped one blou
sed forearm messily across her mouth then thumped her chest hollowly with her fist.
‘Asura,’ she said, grinning triumphantly, and burped again.
Pieter smiled thinly. ‘Quite so.’
2
‘The signal came at noon yesterday,’ Clispeir said quickly, quietly. ‘The observatory was stationary. Gad,’ she laughed gently, ‘all our preparations and cryptography went for nothing; the signal came in light all right, but not in any ancient code or any fancy wavelength, and not in frequency or amplitude modulation; they just manipulated the beam to make actual letters appear upon the plain, shining lines like the reflections waves cast on a wall or ceiling.’
‘What did it say?’ Gadfium asked. They sat together on the small bed, curtains drawn, light dimmed, whispering like school girls conspiring a prank. She was not sure if it was some ancient memory that made her head spin, some genuine reaction to the impoverished air in the observatory, or the import of what they were talking about.
Clispeir laughed. ‘At first it just said, “Move”,’ she said. ‘Oh, Gad, you should have seen us. We stared at the letters on the salt for a full minute before we pulled ourselves together and decided that even if we had gone plain-crazy, and it was some mass hallucination, we might as well shift. So we did; we moved a couple of metres. The letters stayed where they were, then disappeared. When they reappeared it was as though they had followed us.’
‘But what did they—?’
‘Ssh! I’m coming to that!’ She pulled on a chain round her neck and drew a slim pen from inside her tunic, unscrewed it and pulled out a piece of flimsy paper which she unrolled and handed to Gadfium. ‘They came in groups every eight seconds. Here; read for yourself.’
Gadfium stared at the scribbled writing.
* (flash)
MOVE /
NOW MOVE BACK /
THANK YOU /
LOVE IS GOD / ALL ARE HALLOWED / * WE HAVE NOTED / THAT YOU ATTEMPTED / TO COMMUNICATE WITH / US IN THE PAST / HOWEVER STANDBY / SYSTEMS THEN FUNCTIONING / WERE NOT ENABLED TO / REPLY OR INSTRUCTED / TO COMMENCE / OUR REACTIVATION / THIS HAS NOW / OCCURRED DUE TO / SOLAR SYSTEM’S APPROACH / TO INTERSTELLAR / DUST CLOUD / WHICH EVENT YOU CALL / ENCROACHMENT / THIS CONCERNS US ALL / CURRENT ESTIMATES / OF EFFECT ON EARTH / GIVE CAUSE FOR / ALARM / WE HAVE NOT / RECEIVED NOR DO / WE BELIEVE YOU HAVE / RECEIVED ANY / COMMUNICATION FROM / OFF-PLANET THERE / FOR WE MUST ACT / ALONE TO SAVE / OURSELVES / ACTION OPTIONS / INCLUDE CURRENT / LOWER-LEVELS / ATTEMPT TO CONSTRUCT / ROCKETS FOR / EVACUATION / THIS IS ALMOST / CERTAIN TO FAIL / IT IS KNOWN / SECTIONS OF LOWER- / LEVELS COMPETE / AGGRESSIVELY FOR / SUBSIDIARY SPACE / TECHNOLOGIES BUT THIS / TOO IS UNLIKELY / TO SUCCEED / ALSO NOTE DANGER / WORKINGS IN L5SWSOLAR / * HALLOWED BE / THE CENTRE THE / ABSENCE THAT / GIVES STRENGTH / GIVES MEANING / * THREATEN SIGNIFICANT / FABRIC INTEGRITY LOSS / CORRECT ANSWER MUST / LIE IN CRYPTOSPHERE / OR AN ASSOCIATED / BUT COMMUNICATIVELY / REMOTE SUB-SYSTEM / WE BELIEVE AS / WE BELIEVE YOU DO / THAT TECHNOLOGY EXISTS / TO SAVE US ALL / BUT ACCESS TO / DISCOVERY OF THIS / TECHNOLOGY EVADES / US AND WE ARE / UNABLE TO CONTACT / CRYPTOSPHERE / DIRECTLY DUE TO / CURRENT CHAOTIC / INFECTIOUS STATE / OF SAME / GIVEN RUMOURED / EXISTENCE OF EMERGENCY / META-PROTOCOLS / WE THEREFORE URGE / YOU TO REMAIN / VIGILANT AS SHALL / WE FOR ADVENT / OF EXTERNAL DATA- / CARRYING EVENT OR / SYSTEM-EMISSARY / (ASURA) / PLEASE ALSO NOTE / WE BELIEVE RULING / SECTIONS OR LOWER- / LEVELS KNOW THEIR / APPARENT ATTEMPTS / TO ESCAPE CERTAIN / TO FAIL / WHY IS THIS / WE QUESTION / REPLY THROUGH / HELIO SEMAPHORE OR / SIGNAL-LAMP ONLY / * LOVE IS FAITH / IS UNKNOWING / BE ALL HALLOWED / IN THE EYE OF / NOTHING / SHANTI / END *
She couldn’t take it all in; she started, got half-way through, lost it again, started more slowly, then read it in full a second time.
By the end of it, Gadfium was staring at the piece of paper; she could feel her eyes bulging from her face and sense the tension in the surrounding skin. Her head still felt as though it was spinning. She gulped, looked at the smiling, shining face of Clispeir.
There was a knock at the cabin door. ‘Ma’am?’ Rasfline asked, voice muffled.
Gadfium cleared her throat. ‘I’m alive, Rasfline,’ she called, her voice shaking. ‘Just let me rest. Ten minutes.’
‘Very well, ma’am.’ She could hear his hesitation.
‘Yes, Rasfline?’
‘We should not stay much longer, Chief Scientist . . . and also, there is an urgent message from the Sortileger’s office. He would like to see you.’
‘Inform him I’ll be on my way in ten minutes.’
‘Ma’am.’
They waited a few moments, then Clispeir seized the other woman’s shoulders, glancing at the paper Gadfium held. ‘I know some of it seems like nonsense, but isn’t it just the most exciting thing?’
Gadfium nodded. She put one shaking hand to her brow and patted Clispeir’s shoulder with the other hand. ‘Yes, and very dangerous,’ she said.
‘You really think so?’ Clispeir said.
‘Of course! If Security hear about this, we’re all lost.’
‘You don’t think if you could somehow get this to the King he’d, well, have a change of heart? I mean: realise that the best thing was for us all to work tog—?’
‘No!’ Gadfium said, appalled. She shook the other woman’s shoulders. ‘Clispeir! The message itself mentions the King and his pals seem to have some secret agenda; if we tell them we know they’ll just silence us!’
‘Of course, of course,’ Clispeir said, smiling nervously. ‘You’re right.’
‘Yes,’ Gadfium said, ‘I am.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Now, we have ten minutes - may I keep this?’ She held up the sheet of paper.
‘Certainly! You’ll have to make your own copies for the others.’
‘That’s all right. Now, as I was saying; we have ten minutes to decide what to do.’
3
The Palace was situated in the Great Hall’s central lantern, a tall octagonal construction protruding from the centre of the steeply pitched roof which in a humanly scaled version of Serehfa would have been open and hollow and have helped light the Hall’s interior below.
The Palace filled a hundred tall storeys within the lantern and projected downwards into the Great Hall for another ten levels; those lower floors were mostly devoted to the Security services and their equipment. Lush gardens and broad terraces graced its outer walls, and within it were housed its own great halls, ballrooms and ceremonial spaces. Its summit was capped by further walled gardens and a small airfield.
His Majesty King Adijine VI sat in the great solar, at one end of a mighty table too long to be used for purely vocal discussion without amplification. He listened to the chief ambassadorial emissary for the Engineers of the Chapel as he forcefully outlined some subsidiary position on possible technological cooperation should the hoped-for peace be forthcoming. The emissary’s voice boomed out across the hall. Possibly, thought the King, the emissary would not have required amplification.
The chief ambassadorial emissary was a fully sentient human-chimeric; a man in the guise of an animal - in this case ursus maritimus, a polar bear. Such creatures were generally frowned upon; animals were seen as the final resting place - or at any rate one of the last resting places - for the crypt-corroded souls of the long dead, but the clan Engineers had a tradition of such beasts. It had been something of an aggressive statement for the Chapel usurpers to make, appointing such a being as their main representative at the talks. Adijine didn’t care.
He was finding the chief ambassadorial emissary’s tirade tiring; certainly in the course of providing the bear’s body with vocal equipment capable of reproducing human speech the Chapel scientists had created a powerful and profoundly bassy instrument, but one could grow weary of it all the same, and the man within the beast ought to leave the sort of detail he was now dealing in to his retinue. However, as well as liking the sound of his own voice, the chief ambassadorial emissary seemed unable to delegate effectively, and Adijine had rather lost interest in the
substance of what was now being discussed.
He switched away.
Like the other Privileged, the King had no implants, save for those which would be used only once, to record and transmit his personality when he died. Unlike most of them he had access to technologies that allowed him the benefits of implants without the drawbacks, giving him unrestrained one-way access to all those with implants and - in the right circumstances - even those without them. It did mean he had to wear the crown to make it all work, but he had a choice of several attractive models of crown, all of which were tastefully designed and sat lightly on one’s head.
In theory the regal paradigm best expressed the reality of modern power - better than a commercial, civil or military archetype for example - and certainly it seemed that people were happy enough with a kind of benignly dictatorial meritocracy which at any given moment looked somewhat like a real monarchy - with primogeniture and fully hereditary status - but wasn’t.
Actually he suspected few people these days really believed that in the past kings and queens had been chosen by the accident of birth (and this when it really had been an accident and even their crude attempts at improving their bloodstock tended to result in in-breeding rather than regal thoroughbreds). Equally, though, the sheer grandiosity of the stage that Serehfa itself presented might be seen to demand an imperial repertoire.
The King entered the minds of the men behind the walls.
Twenty troops of his bodyguard were concealed behind the paper partitions lining the room. He scanned each quickly - on principle, really, they were thoroughly programmed - and then focused on their commander. He was watching the scene in the hall on a visor monitor. Adijine followed the man’s slow sweep of the view and listened to quiet system chatter coming over his audio implants. Head-ups flickered on and off as the guard commander’s gaze fell on individuals in the room.
Feersum Endjinn Page 7
