Inhibitor Phase

by Alastair Reynolds

  ‘But she’s been silent until now,’ Barras said.

  ‘There are two possibilities, I think. Either she was aware of wolf activity, and was withholding her transmissions, or the suit has only just brought her back to consciousness. I don’t think it’s very likely to be the former.’

  Pinky looked at me with all the intensity of which he was capable. ‘This had better not be a mirage, Warglass.’

  ‘I sincerely hope it isn’t.’

  ‘I need more than “hope”.’

  ‘So do we all. Which is why I advocate an immediate departure. There’s no telling how close that suit is to the end of its life-support capability, or what condition Lady Arek is in. The pulses are very faint, even allowing for the suit’s distance.’

  Pinky looked uneasily at Barras. ‘When you say immediately . . .’

  ‘Within the next twenty-six hours,’ I answered. ‘Sooner still, if I had my way. And I’m afraid it can’t be a question of going out there, finding Lady Arek, and returning to Ararat. Every time we move through this system, or come and go from this planet, we endanger ourselves and everyone here. When we leave, we leave for good. And anyone not aboard Scythe will have to learn to live here, with all that that entails.’

  ‘Some hard choices just got harder,’ Pinky said.

  Barras shook his head slowly. ‘I’m not sure that they did. I think this may even help us. We could spend weeks talking about living here or leaving here, and never get any closer to a decision. But if there’s a life to be saved, and if that life also happens to be Lady Arek’s . . .’ He made to stand up from the loose circle. ‘We’ll put it to the others. But as far as I’m concerned, my mind’s settled. You’ve given us a world to live on, somewhere a lot better than the last place, and I trust that these people will help us make it work.’

  The mariners had been content to listen until then, passing no judgement or observation.

  One said: ‘The road to the sea is not an easy one. But many have walked it.’

  ‘We will be there to guide, and to welcome,’ said another.

  Probably Rose stood up next to Barras. ‘They should vote, as Barras says. But the less time it takes you to leave, the better.’

  ‘There’s a place on Scythe for anyone who wishes to come with us,’ I said, noting that Probably Rose had already cast her lot with the remainers. ‘If we leave in twenty-six hours, or thirteen, that promise still holds.’

  ‘We know,’ Barras said. ‘And I’ll make sure the message gets around. But I know the pigs, and I’ve already seen the way the mood is turning. They’re ready to join the mariners.’

  ‘Not all,’ I said.

  ‘The doubters’ll see the light. Lady Arek’s name always carried a lot of weight in the Swinehouse. They’ll want to do what they can for her now. And delaying even a few hours won’t help her at all.’

  ‘No one should be cajoled,’ I said.

  Barras made a dismissive gesture in my direction. ‘Go and do what you need to do to get that ship ready to leave, Warglass. And, Pinky? You know you’ll be keeping her company, so do what you need to do as well.’

  Pinky scratched a heel against the green-slicked rock beneath him. ‘Just when this place was starting to grow on me.’

  In the end, thirteen hours was all it took. Barras had been right about his promise of unanimity, however it was achieved. I was already on the back of the ship, looking down as Pinky hugged Probably Rose, whispering something to the human woman before turning away and scrambling up laddered recesses onto the hull. Then it was a brief wave to Barras and the others: doubtful promises made and fond hopes offered.

  It was all happening too quickly and I felt pangs of guilty abandonment. I believed in the good intentions of the mariners; that they would do all in their power to shepherd their new flock into the sea. But we were still leaving these people to a desperately uncertain fate. The only shred of forgiveness I could offer myself was that our own future was no more settled. Perhaps less so. But whatever hopes we had, they would be improved by the presence of Lady Arek. Therefore, we were compelled to leave, and every hour that we delayed was another hour in which she was at the failing mercy of her suit.

  ‘I’m sorry that it’s ended up this way,’ I said to Probably Rose. ‘Sorry that we’ve been forced to make this choice. But I’m not sorry to put this burden on you. I think you can take it. I think you’re at least as strong as any of us.’

  She glanced away, as if my praise stung her. ‘Find Lady Arek for us, and verily.’

  I nodded heartfelt affirmation. ‘We will. And when we’ve gone out there and found whatever it is we need in Charybdis, we’ll come back to Ararat.’

  ‘It won’t be the same, yes and yes.’

  ‘No, I doubt that it will be. But I do know that it will be better for your being here. I’m sorry about Snowdrop, Omori and the others; they were your friends, just as surely as they were Pinky’s. But we’ll make sure that their sacrifices weren’t in vain.’

  ‘You never did ask me about my name, Warglass.’

  ‘Were you expecting me to?’

  ‘Most do, yes and verily. They think it’s . . .’ She made the self-cuffing gesture, gently smacking the side of her forehead as if a gear had stuck. ‘They think it’s strange.’

  ‘It is. But strangeness isn’t bad. Look at me.’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘Look at you, Warglass.’ Then, as if continuing the same thread: ‘There was a pig, in the Swinehouse. After what I’d done to her, she couldn’t live. But she never blamed me for any of that. She forgave me, yes. Yes and yes.’

  Gently I asked: ‘Was her name Rose?’

  ‘Probably. They weren’t sure. No one was. She didn’t have a tongue by then.’

  Something in me tightened like an overwound mainspring. ‘Did they make you take her tongue?’

  ‘And verily.’

  ‘I’m sorry for what they made you do.’

  ‘Later, when I had my chance to escape, she was the one who helped me get out. She knew she wouldn’t leave herself. And she knew what the Swine Queen would do to her.’ Something terrible played behind her one remaining eye. ‘Yes, yes and yes. So I said I’d take her name. I couldn’t take her, but I could take her name. I said I’d always be Probably Rose, and I’d never be anything else.’ She looked out at the sea. ‘Do you think I’ll remember, when it changes me?’

  ‘I think you’ll remember everything that matters,’ I said. ‘And Rose . . . Probably Rose? Thank you for everything.’

  ‘You should go now, Warglass,’ she said with a certain sternness. ‘Go and save Lady Arek. Yes.’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered.

  ‘And verily.’

  Farewells completed, Pinky and I went inside and sealed up. We were silent together for a few minutes, preoccupied with our thoughts. There was so much to say that neither of us knew where to start. The act of departure was just too big, too monumental, to begin to talk about. I felt simultaneously as if we were fleeing one responsibility and throwing ourselves headlong into another. That we were turning our backs on friends because of the pull of another friend who needed us.

  It was good to have the technical business of the ship to focus on. Rather than taking off directly, I opened ingestion ports in Scythe’s flanks, sucking in seawater, running it through hyperdiamond compressors and using it for thrust. Gradually the seaweed loosened its hold on the hull and we drifted away from First Camp, moving gently into deepening waters. I waited until we were a kilometre clear of land, and the gathered onlookers, before lifting from the sea, still using the jet compressors. We executed a farewell circuit of First Camp, then arrowed for space, making a quiet departure from the atmosphere, ruffling it to the minimum extent, darkdrives and cryo-arithmetic engines working to cloak us from the notice of wolves.

  ‘They’ll be all right,’ Pinky said at last.

  ‘They will,’ I agreed.

  But almost immediately Pinky dashed my already fragile confidence b
y adding: ‘I hope.’

  Lady Arek had travelled five hundred million kilometres since breaking away inside Bright Sun. Her course had been nearly straight, with just the smallest deflection due to the gravitational influence of the star, its nearest worlds, and the distant influence of its twin. We would have caught up with her whichever way she was moving, but it happened that her vector was aligned with the same quadrant of sky in which Charybdis lay. That was luck, and nothing else, but it saved us time and minimised the velocity changes that we needed to make while still within the stellar environment of Bright Sun.

  Scythe could have passed Lady Arek’s position within a couple of days of leaving Ararat, but the need to match her speed made the rendezvous more time-consuming, and it took more than a week to close in on her pulse. In the last two days of our approach, the pulses became weaker still, with the gaps between them elongating. By then, though, it hardly mattered whether the pulses kept coming. Pinky and I had narrowed down her expected position to a moving volume about ten kilometres across. When we got there, we could use passive sensor methods to locate the suit.

  Pinky was anxious about those diminishing pulses. I felt for him, but there was nothing I could offer by way of reassurance. He had been through the loss of her once, then offered the promise of her still being alive, and now his fortitude was being tested a second time, by the thought of finding her dead and drifting.

  ‘The universe won’t do this to us,’ I whispered to myself. ‘It’s indifferent, but it isn’t actually cruel.’

  Perhaps I believed myself, for a moment or two.

  Fifty-two hours out from contact, Lady Arek went completely silent. Most of the next two days was spent with Pinky and I saying as little to each other as we could get away with. It was not that we had fallen out, but that our nerves were equally strained, and our mutual capacity for patience and tolerance nearly exhausted.

  Scythe’s first glimpse of Lady Arek was a moving speck of warmth, about the size of a person. Warm enough to be alive? I dared not speculate. She had been inside a star not too long ago. Perhaps all we were seeing was the slow fading out of a cinder, a dying spark falling into interstellar darkness.

  I brought Scythe nearer, until we were about a kilometre out. At that range, even though we were far beyond Ararat’s orbit, there was still enough light from Bright Sun to illuminate the suit. Pinky and I watched the slow-spinning form from within the control room, neither of us offering comment. In my mind’s eye I had imagined her speeding into space with her visor to the stars, but the reality was less dignified. At some point in her crossing, she had begun to tumble end over end. Other than that continuing movement, there was no trace of mobility. Scythe could read some systems activity from the suit, picking up thermal and electromagnetic signals, but to my own neural senses it was mute. Diagnostic queries went unanswered. Nor could I detect any aspect of Lady Arek’s mind within it. But there was one thing to which we could pin our hopes, however feebly. Lady Arek was bent nearly double, pressing something to her belly. She must still have the ninth stone, even though we could see no sign of its skein.

  Without a word of preamble Pinky said: ‘I’ll go.’

  I offered no debate, merely a nod of understanding. He knew how to use the suits and airlock systems well enough by now. A couple of minutes later I watched him depart, using cold-gas thrusters to speed over to the tumbling form. His suit was smaller than hers, of course, and to begin with her momentum overwhelmed his own. But by gradual taps of gas Pinky was able to stabilise the two of them, and then haul the unresponsive suit back into the ship. I was rather glad when he did, for this was the last bit of business we needed to attend to before committing for deep space. I felt nervous and exposed until the lock sealed over.

  Trusting Scythe to manage itself for a while – and preferring not to leave anything to the robots – I went down to the lock and met Pinky as he emerged back into pressure. He hauled the other suit behind him, an awkward job even in temporary weightlessness.

  ‘It’s in a bad way,’ I said, appraising the suit’s visible damage. The outer layer of it was mostly black and blistered, with a bronzy sheen over the least-damaged parts. The visor was fogged, and no status indications shone from any parts of the suit. I breathed slowly, reminding myself that Lady Arek would have had no cause to adjust her system preferences to make those indications visible.

  ‘I can see it’s in a bad way.’ He was out of his own suit by then, barely giving it a glance as it shuffled itself back into storage. ‘Tell me something I can’t see with my own two eyes, Warglass.’

  The suit was not disclosing its contents automatically. Gently I dug around Lady Arek’s hands and extracted the Gideon stone from her grasp. I felt it in my own bare fingers, reacquainting myself with the familiar roughness of its texture, its density and coldness. The scarlet light still throbbed within, but weakly.

  ‘It’s dormant,’ I said quietly. ‘But I don’t think it’s dead. I think it likely that the stone gave up a lot of itself getting her clear of Bright Sun, and now it’s in a recuperative phase.’

  ‘Would she have needed it, once she was clear?’

  I had no good answer to that question. ‘She was travelling quite quickly, and with only the armour of her suit for protection. The skein would have been useful, if she ran into any micro-meteorites. But she can’t have run into anything big.’

  ‘Or she wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘The skein would have barriered her, but there wouldn’t have been much it could do about a sudden deceleration, beyond anything the suit could have protected her from.’ I sketched my hand over the charred form. ‘This damage looks bad, and it’s clear the suit lacked the energy or material reserves to heal itself externally. But that doesn’t tell us anything about what’s inside.’

  He looked at me, or rather at the space just above my eyes, behind my forehead. ‘You still not getting anything?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘The suit should open on its own, shouldn’t it?’

  ‘Not if it doesn’t know where it is, or what’s happened. If its sensors are really badly damaged, it won’t even know it isn’t in vacuum.’ I frowned, trying various command-and-control protocols, attempting to override the suit’s perfectly reasonably instincts towards host preservation. But my signals were bouncing off it, charms that had lost their potency.

  I sighed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ll have to cut our way in. There’s nothing else for it. The suit’s stone-dead, except for some very low-level functionality which could mean anything and nothing.’

  ‘You’re a bundle of reassurance, Warglass.’

  He needed his mind taken off the matter at hand. ‘Go to the weapons archive, Pinky. Bring blades and short-range cutters. Even a boser pistol.’

  ‘Is that an order?’

  ‘A friend asking nicely.’

  He pondered that for a second.

  ‘All right.’

  He was gone, and that was all that I wanted. Of course, I needed no extra equipment to break into her suit: everything I could have wanted was available in the suits already. I summoned a suit, stepped in, and cycled through the minimum functionality tests. I detached the self-merging helmet and set it aside. It was only the suit’s tools and weapons that were of use to me now, and I thought it would be easier on Pinky to see my face if he came back before I was done.

  I straddled Lady Arek, then commanded my right glove to form a precision cutting function. My forefinger elongated, the tip flattening and sharpening to a scalpel-like shape. I touched the blade to the crown of Lady Arek’s helmet and dug in slowly and carefully, alert to the materials-diagnostic telemetry issuing from the cutter. My glove vibrated faintly as the blade engaged its microscopic cutting mechanisms. The blade was both tool and laboratory, and would deactivate itself the instant it strayed into anything that resembled living tissue. But I dared not place undue confidence in its infallibility.

  The blade cut t
hrough the suit’s layers with only moderate resistance. It helped that these were compatible technologies, products of a common engineering philosophy. According to the diagnostics, the charring was confined to the last few millimetres of the suit’s integument, with progressively less damage the further in I went. That was encouraging. The innermost parts, just before I burst through into the body cavity, were showing normal consistency. Lady Arek’s suit was not fighting back against this intrusion, though.

  I worked my way down. I cut a narrow groove down the visor, through the neck joint, into the upper chest. The damaged layers of the suit gave off a powerful, acidic stench, and I had to keep blinking away tears of irritation. All along I was waiting for something horrible to hit me from further in: the choke of cooked or corrupted flesh.

  I worked my down Lady Arek’s belly, stopping just above her hip. The groove was still only a black line, the edges nearly touching. I deactivated the tool, returning my glove to its default condition. Glancing back at the entrance to the suiting area, half expecting to see Pinky returning, I pressed my fingers into the groove, just above her ribcage. It took effort to force my way in, more than my muscles alone could have managed. But with a gasp and a creak, the suit relented. It split open along a widening fissure, and as the smell hit me from within I nearly fell back in distaste. It was a very bad smell, and I batted it away from my nostrils, gagging on a cough. But it was not the smell of a body that had been cooked or allowed to rot. It was just the human consequence of being bottled inside a suit for too many days, with the usual filtering and waste-recycling measures running at a reduced efficiency.

  Just the natural result of being alive.

  I pulled Lady Arek out of the suit. She came out in a slithering, greasy mass, like something that had just been born. She was unconscious, and unresponsive, but she was not dead.

  ‘Oh, you . . .’

  I turned to Pinky. ‘Not a word, Scorp. Not a fucking word.’

  ‘You tricked me, you bastard.’

  ‘And now you don’t have to be the one who opened this suit.’ I brushed Lady Arek’s hair away from her forehead. ‘I didn’t know what we’d find. If it was as bad as I feared, I didn’t want you to be the one who saw her. You’ve seen enough. You’ve been through enough.’