Inhibitor Phase

by Alastair Reynolds

  ‘Weapons cycling for two more shots,’ Cantor said.

  I bellowed: ‘Glass! Stop! Whatever point you need to make, you’ve made it.’

  ‘You think she can hear you in here?’ Chung asked.

  ‘I think she can hear me anywhere.’ I lowered my voice, realising that I had never needed to raise it in the first place. ‘Glass. You’ve got me. You can blast your way into us, I believe it now. And if you run out of slugs, I don’t doubt that you can override every airlock in Sun Hollow. Our safety interlocks won’t stop you. You can probably blow all our air if you want to. But you don’t have to. It’s done.’ I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘It’s done. You have me.’ Then, to Chung: ‘Word on your teams?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘Glass! Let them live. I’ll come to you. Whatever you want.’

  Cantor said: ‘We’ve lost all telemetry from the end of the tunnel. No idea of pressurisation, lock status . . . if there even is a tunnel any more.’

  ‘Close all intermediate locks. If the air’s venting out into vacuum, we won’t know it for a minute or so.’

  ‘Miguel,’ said Valois, returning to the Red Room with Nicola and Victorine right behind him, all three of them looking just as confused and frightened as the rest of us. ‘What the hell is she doing to us?’

  I moved over to them, clamping my hands around Valois’s shoulders. ‘I need a moment alone with my wife and Victorine, if that’s all right.’

  Nicola wrenched me away from Valois. ‘No. Whatever you are about to say, no.’

  Some part of our predicament must have been communicated to her in the journey to Sanctum. ‘I have no choice. We have no choice. Glass wants me.’ I had never looked into another person’s eyes as fiercely and deeply as I looked into hers. ‘I have to go with her. If I don’t – if we keep resisting – she’ll keep damaging Sun Hollow until she gets what she wants anyway. And that will hurt you far more than losing me.’

  ‘We can kill her.’ Nicola’s voice was a monotone, the shock of my declaration hitting her like a bereavement. ‘There must be a way to kill her.’

  ‘There might be,’ I said. ‘But not without terrible risk to ourselves, and still with no way of eliminating whatever part of herself got into our systems. Kill the body, the soul of Glass remains. I wish it weren’t so simple.’

  Victorine had grasped enough of what was under discussion to ask: ‘How long does she want you to go away for?’

  I had two choices then: the consoling lie, or the blunt truth. As cruel as it might have seemed, I was doing Victorine a longer-term kindness by speaking honestly.

  ‘Forever.’

  ‘You do not know that!’ Nicola interjected.

  ‘Glass must have a ship of her own,’ I answered. ‘An interstellar ship. It’s out there somewhere. She mentioned a place called Charybdis, presumably a planet. But it’s not one any of us have ever heard of. That means it must be some way out beyond any of the settled systems, which means I’ll be gone a very, very long time. How long, I couldn’t say. But our lives are short now.’ I pulled Victorine to my chest, tears stinging my eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I wanted to see you grow up. I wanted to see you become the great person I know you will be. And, Nicola . . .’ I turned to her mother. ‘You’ve shared these years with me and let me know something of a daughter’s love. I’ll carry my gratitude for that wherever I go. You are both more than I ever deserved.’

  All objection was gone from Nicola’s voice now. She knew I had made my mind up. All that was left was heartbreak.

  ‘She should not have done this to us.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed, forcing a wry smile through my own tears. ‘She shouldn’t. And I don’t agree with any part of it. But here, today, I matter less than Sun Hollow.’ I stooped down until my face was level with Victorine’s. I dipped a hand under her chin, forcing her watering eyes to meet my own. ‘This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. But you are strong, and good, and it will not destroy you. I’ll carry your love for me wherever I go, and you’ll keep mine with you in Sun Hollow. And you’ll live, and grow, and love. And you will make your mother proud, and I will always be proud of you both.’

  ‘Kill her for me,’ Nicola said.

  ‘And for me,’ Victorine said.

  ‘When the chance comes. Which it will.’

  Nicola breathed heavily. She kissed me, then stood back. ‘You are a good man, Miguel. We shall remember you. But you must remember us, as well. Wherever you go, whatever happens, hold this in your heart: you are a good man, and you are loved.’

  Orders were issued not to obstruct us. We walked unimpeded from the infirmary, out beyond Sanctum, past my empty home, out to an electric cart waiting to carry us down the long tunnel. By then we had word that Chung’s team had made it to the relative sanctuary of the eighteen-kilometre pressure door, and since they were instructed not to defend the tunnel, nor delay the suits, we passed them as they returned to Sanctum, shaken by their narrow survival – they had been much closer to the impact points when the railguns turned on us – but otherwise uninjured.

  Beyond the pressure lock, the last two kilometres of the tunnel had been blasted open to the sky, ruptured by a combination of the railgun strikes and the premature detonation of the demolition fuses. The suits had a clear path down a deepening furrow until they arrived at the other side of the pressure lock.

  Glass told me to instruct Sanctum to close the sixteen-kilometre door behind us, sealing us in a two-kilometre tube of air. We got off the cart and walked to the door. Through a thick pane of glass I saw the suits waiting like pale ghosts on the other side.

  It was a door, not a lock. There was air on this side of it, vacuum on the other. Either we had to go through the door, or the suits had to come to our side. Either way would result in the decompressive venting of all the air bottled into those two kilometres.

  ‘How do we do this?’ I asked. ‘Presuming you have a plan.’

  ‘Don’t try and hold the air inside your lungs.’

  I looked at her sceptically. ‘Because you don’t want me to die?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to have to go to the trouble of growing you new lungs. Although given the work I will have to do with you anyway, perhaps I’ll treat you to some new ones after all.’

  ‘Nice of you not to suggest we brought vacuum equipment with us. I suppose that thing inside you is a life-support device?’

  Glass tilted her head, mulling on her answer. ‘I suppose it is. But I won’t be depending on it to get me across a few seconds of vacuum. The suits will close around us: try and stumble into yours, if you wish, or just wait for the suit to come to you.’

  I had been through enough decompression exercises to heed Glass’s warning not to retain the air in my lungs. She moved her hand to the manual release on the door, and I took one deep breath to flood as much oxygen into my blood as I could. Then I breathed out and Glass opened the door.

  I remember no part of what happened next. I suppose we were blown out of the lock by the force of the escaping air. At some point I came around to a foggy awareness that I was warm, and breathing, and being made to walk like a sleeping soldier propped up by his marching colleagues.

  We were above ground, trudging across terrain that had already been gouged and scarred by the railgun strikes. Me in one suit, Glass in the one to my left, walking in lockstep. I tried to resist that motion, to lag behind her, but the suit’s movement was far stronger than my own muscles.

  ‘Don’t resist it. In time, I’ll allow you almost complete command of the suit and its functions. But not today. Not while your nerves are still a little raw.’

  ‘Did you hear the promise I made to Nicola and Victorine?’

  ‘About killing me? Yes.’

  ‘You don’t think I have it in me.’

  ‘I think you need to be realistic about your chances.’

  ‘I’ve seen your capabilities, Glass. I’ve seen how easily you outdi
d us – how easily you could have killed us all. I’ve also seen how quickly you can move. Mentally and physically, you might be the most dangerous entity I’ve ever encountered. But you’re not invulnerable. You were frightened of that axe, just for a second. Nothing you could have done about it. You couldn’t metabolise it. And you make mistakes. I saw that thing inside you.’

  ‘How can you be sure I didn’t want you to see it?’

  ‘Because the other thing you’re not so good at is lying. I think you’re so good at being nearly perfect that you haven’t had much practice at being human.’

  ‘You’ve read me so well. How do you propose to kill me?’

  I shrugged inside the suit. ‘I’ll have to find a bigger axe, won’t I?’

  Glass halted, and so did I. She lifted a hand, beckoning something down from the sky.

  A ship enlarged above us: a cruciform blackness blotting out the stars. A vaguely conical hull with a slight swelling near the rear. Sharp nose, and two engine outriggers.

  ‘This is Scythe. Moray class, with augmentations. Fast, dark, and extremely agile. It’s going to be your home for some time to come, so get used to it.’

  ‘If wolves followed you here, that time might not be long.’

  ‘They never saw me. Scythe knows how to keep to the shadows; to keep upwind of them. Inhibitor swarms are ruthless and powerful, but slow to adapt to changing parameters. That’s our only hope: adapt fast and find something that catches them off-guard.’

  ‘You have weapons in that thing?’

  ‘Yes, very potent weapons. But only enough to slow them down. What I have is maximum stealth. They can’t see my engines, can’t see my hull. Darkdrives, cryo-arithmetics, chameleoflage, nonvelope light-path manipulation – plus six or seven other things you’d need neural augmentation to understand.’ Glass stretched out her hand, magicking open a glowing rectangle in the blackness above. A ramp tongued down until its lower end made contact with the ground. We stepped aboard and the ramp retracted back into Scythe, delivering us into an airlock.

  I felt movement, a heaviness in my belly. We were already lifting away from Michaelmas.

  I had no sense of air flooding into the chamber, nor any indication of it within the suit. But at a certain point my helmet clicked and peeled itself back. Glass’s helmet did likewise. Then the rest of our suits opened so we were able to step out of them, wearing only what we’d had on in Sanctum. The empty suits shuffled back against the airlock wall, then were absorbed to about half their depth.

  ‘How many people are here?’

  ‘Just me. And now you.’

  I considered the time Glass had been away from Scythe. ‘This whole ship runs itself? It must be half a kilometre long.’

  ‘Not far off. And yes, it does mostly run itself. We can communicate neurally, me and the ship, but only in relatively close proximity. Other than that . . . well, it’s quite clever, for a ship.’

  ‘I hope it’s got a good brig.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t be locking you away. What sort of manners would those be? No, this ship is yours now. You may explore as you wish. If there’s a part of it that I don’t wish you to access, Scythe will rebuff you, gently at first and then with escalating force.’

  ‘Those are the rules?’

  ‘Those are the rules.’

  ‘Good. Here are mine. Despite what you’ve said, and the warnings you’ve given, I am going to find a way to kill you.’

  ‘Good. I like a man with a goal.’

  ‘I’ll keep looking for opportunities. One will arise, if I’m patient enough.’

  ‘Scythe will kill you.’

  ‘But at least you won’t have the satisfaction of witnessing it. And if I find a way to kill you, stay alive, and turn this ship around, I’ll take it. There won’t be a moment when I’m not thinking of that. Just so you understand.’

  ‘I’m . . . relieved. If the man I sought hadn’t made such a promise, I’d start to worry that he wasn’t going to be much use to me.’ She reached out, took my chin, and angled my face so that our eyes locked. Her fingers were vicelike, the nails digging in sharply. ‘It’s no lie, is it? I can see the hate in your eyes. So much hate.’

  ‘What did you expect?’

  ‘Hate helps. Hate is useful.’ She made a flicking gesture, batting aside the dark business that floated between us. ‘That said . . . may we at least pretend to move onto a more civil plane of discussion? Come forward. I’d like you to see the control room.’

  We went forward, or up, depending on my shifting perspectives. Scythe had parked over Michaelmas in a belly-down configuration, as far as I could judge from that starless hovering form, and then pushed away from the surface at the same orientation. But now the thrust was coming from the rear of the ship, along its longitudinal axis, and the local gravity had shifted through ninety degrees. Floors and walls had swapped function without fuss, corridors constricting or bulging, doors sealing and opening in accordance with the changing geometry.

  The control room was a spherical chamber, dominated by two monstrous acceleration chairs, the sort that came equipped with an arsenal of life-support devices so a person could endure days or even weeks of constant operation. Both chairs were mounted on bulky gimbals and pistons that allowed for rapid orientation shifts, compensating for any breakneck manoeuvres that Scythe might be required to make. A certain number of controls and displays were built into the chairs’ armrests and head supports, while the rest were farmed out to the spherical walls, grouped into functional stations to which either of the chairs could be guided. There were screens, fold-down control panels and a narrow ribbon of wraparound windows.

  The view through the windows – looking down at the face of Michaelmas as it fell away beneath us – looked convincing, but it was almost certainly false, relayed through tens of metres of hull cladding. If Glass had gone to as much trouble to make her ship invisible as she claimed, windows were the last thing it needed.

  ‘Take a seat,’ she said.

  I eased into the leftmost chair. It turned out to be far more comfortable than any of the acceleration couches on our shuttles. Pressure supports adjusted silently, conforming to my body shape. I ranged my hands across the built-in controls, trusting that anything dangerous would have been locked-out at the system level. Diagrams and menus sprang into life across the screens fixed to the chair, and those on the walls within my field of view, all annotated in Canasian.

  Almost as soon as I had taken note of that, they morphed into Russish. Not some random variant of Russish, either, but the era-dialect with which I was most comfortable.

  ‘How did it do that?’

  Glass was busying herself in her own seat. She made much less use of the tactile controls, her hands forming stiff, dancer-like gestural shapes but not actually contacting any of the surfaces. ‘It reads visual saccades: involuntary eye movements. It maps the way your attentional focus skips across certain symbols and dwells on others. From that, it uses a predictive model to determine that Russish is your preferred tongue. Did it do well?’

  She would have seen through a lie instantly. ‘Yes. But hardly anyone in Sun Hollow uses Russish. I’d almost forgotten it was easier for me than Canasian.’

  ‘You might have forgotten. Your brain didn’t. Old wiring is slow to learn new tricks.’ She made another flicking gesture and I heard a series of rapid thuds from somewhere aft of us. Through the arc of the windows I caught movement: several dozen small objects erupting away from us, showing up as dark specks against the face of Michaelmas. They drifted on natural trajectories for a few seconds, growing smaller, then accelerated on widely varying courses, darting to all quarters of the horizon like a shoal of fish spooked by the arrival of a predator.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘The first of my parting gifts. Consider them an upgrade to your current defence arrangements. Which were – shall we say – a little lacking? These will supplant your existing networks of seismophones and railguns. You’ll have bett
er eyes, ears and teeth. The packages will conceal themselves and tap into your surface cables, repairing them with self-replicating sheathing. They’ll digest and reprocess your existing sensors and guns for raw material.’

  ‘You said nothing on this ship was good enough to stop wolves.’

  ‘It isn’t, and these upgrades won’t stop them either. But they’ll serve Sun Hollow well in other respects: more reliable, more sensitive, more accurate. If another ship blunders into your system, or – perish the thought – another interloper such as I – then you’ll be far better prepared.’

  I could imagine no reason why Glass would overstate the benefits of the packages, nor go to the trouble of dispensing them if they did not offer a significant improvement on our existing arrangements.

  ‘I need to contact Sun Hollow, tell them what’s happening.’

  ‘There’s no need. There’ll be a little bit of me in Sanctum from now on, coordinating your security.’

  ‘Coordinating, or overriding?’

  ‘So little gratitude,’ she said chidingly. ‘But don’t worry. They’ll get used to me very quickly. And in time, they’ll realise that I’m actually on their side. I want Sun Hollow to survive. You’re not alone: there are other pockets of life out there, other doughty little bands of survivors, huddled down against the night. But at any point one or more of those groups could fail, or be found by the wolves. So each must be considered irreplaceable.’

  ‘You have a strange way of showing charity.’

  ‘Charity. Interesting choice of word. Did you think about Faith and Hope at the same time? But it’s not that, Miguel. It’s species-level insurance. My gifts don’t end with these packages, either. While Scythe was on its way to fetch me, I had it send out drones to meet your Disciples. It helped me to blind you, a little, but I assure you that was only temporary. One by one the Disciples have been injected with self-replication packages similar to those I’ve sent to the surface. When the Disciples return to life, they’ll be much improved. Again, it’s nothing that will stop the wolves. But if you have early warning of their approach, you’ll have more time to shut down your noisier processes and sit tight.’