Godlike Machines

by Alastair Reynolds

  “I guess you didn’t have a clue what you’d actually find.”

  Nesha gives a brief, derisive laugh. “Of course not. I wasn’t thinking in those terms at all. I was just thinking of frequencies, harmonics, Fourier analysis, caustic surfaces. I wasn’t thinking of fucking music.”

  “Tell me how it felt.”

  “The first time I ran the analysis, and realized that the pulsations could be broken down into notes on the western chromatic scale? Like I was the victim of a bad practical joke, someone in the department messing with the data.”

  “And when you realized you weren’t being hoaxed?”

  “I still didn’t believe it-not to begin with. I thought I must have screwed up in my analysis somewhere, introduced harmonics that weren’t real. I stripped the tools down and put them together again. Same story: notes, chords, melody, and counterpoint. Music. That’s when I started accepting the reality of it. Whatever we were dealing with—whatever had come to find us—wasn’t what we had assumed. This wasn’t just some dumb invention, some alien equivalent of the probes we had been sending out. The Matryoshka was a different order of machine. Something clever and complex enough to sing to itself. Or, just possibly, to us.” Nesha hesitates and looks at me with an unwavering gaze. “And it was singing our music. Russian music.”

  “I know,” I say. “It’s been in my head since I came back.”

  No one had ever gone this deep before.

  The Progress had travelled fifty kilometers into the Machine-through two layers of orbiting obstruction, each of which was ten kilometers in depth, and through two open volumes fifteen kilometers thick. Beneath lay the most difficult part of its journey so far. Though the existence of Shell 3 had been known since the second apparition, no hard data existed on conditions beneath it.

  The barrier was actually a pair of tightly nested spheres, one slightly smaller than the other. The shell’s material was as dark as anything already encountered, but—fortuitously for us—the spheres had holes in them, several dozen circular perforations ranging in width from one to three kilometers, spotted around the spheres in what appeared to be an entirely random arrangement. The pattern of holes was the same in both spheres, but because they were rotating at different speeds, on different, slowly precessing axes, the holes only lined up occasionally. During those windows, glimpses opened up into the heart of the Matryoshka. A blue-green glow shone through the winking gaps in Shell 3, hinting at luminous depths.

  Shortly we’d know.

  “How’s he doing?” Galenka asked, from the pilot’s position. I had just returned from the orbiter, where I had been checking on Yakov. I had fixed a medical cuff to his wrist, so that Baikonur could analyze his blood chemistry.

  “Not much change since last time. He just looks at me. Doesn’t say or do anything.”

  “We should up the medication.” She tapped keys, adjusting one of the Progress’s camera angles. She was holding station, hovering a few kilometers over Shell 3. Talking out of the side of her mouth she said, “Put him into a coma until we really need him.”

  “I talked to Baikonur. They recommend holding him at the current dosage until they’ve run some tests.”

  “Easy for them to say, half a solar system away.”

  “They’re the experts, not us.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I think we should let them handle this one. It’s not like we don’t have other things to occupy our minds, is it?”

  “You have a point there, comrade.”

  “Are you happy about taking her in? You’ve been in the chair for a long time now.”

  “It’s what we came to do. Progress systems are dropping like flies, anyway—I give this ship about six hours before it dies on us. I think it’s now or never.”

  I could only bow to her superior wisdom in this matter.

  In the years since the last apparition, the complex motion of the spheres had been subjected to enormous scrutiny. It had been a triumph to map the holes in the interior sphere. Despite this, no watertight algorithm had ever been invented to predict the window events with any precision. The spheres slowed down and sped up unpredictably, making a nonsense of long-range forecasts. Unless a window was in view, the movement of the inner sphere could not be measured. Radar bounced off its flawless surface as if the thing was motionless.

  All Galenka could do was wait until a window event began, then make a run for it—hoping that the aperture remained open long enough for the Progress to pass through. Analysis of all available data showed that window events occurred, on average, once in every 72-minute interval. But that was just an average. Two window events could fall within minutes of each other, or there might be a ten hour wait before the next one. The window was tight—the Progress would have to begin its run within seconds of the window opening, if it had a chance of slipping through in time. I didn’t envy Galenka sitting there with her finger on the trigger, like a gunslinger waiting for her opponent to twitch.

  In the event, a useful window—one that she could reach, in the allowed time-opened within 40 minutes of our conversation. Looking over her shoulder at the screens, I could hardly make out any change in Shell 3. Only when the Progress was already committed-moving too quickly to stop or change course—did a glimmer of blue-green light reassure me that the window was indeed opening. Even then, it hardly seemed possible that the Progress would have time to pass through the winking eye.

  Of course, that was exactly what happened. Only a slight easing of the crease on the side of Galenka’s mouth indicated that she was, for now, breathing easier. We both knew that this triumph could well be very short-lived, since the Progress would now find it even more difficult to remain in contact with the Tereshkova. Since no man-made signal could penetrate Shell 3, comms could only squirt through when a window was open, in whatever direction that happened to be. The swarm of relay microsats placed around the Machine were intended to intercept these burst transmissions and relay them back to the Tereshkova. Its puppet-strings all but severed, the robotic spacecraft would be relying more and more on the autonomous decision-making of its onboard computers.

  I knew that the mission planners had subjected the Progress to every eventuality, ever scenario, they could dream up. I also knew that none of those planners seriously expected the secrets of the Matryoshka to bear the slightest resemblance to their imaginings. If it did, they’d be brutally disappointed.

  The rear-looking camera showed the window sealing behind the Progress. The inside surface of Shell 3 was as pitilessly dark as its outer skin, yet all else was aglow. I shivered with an almost religious ecstasy: soon the secrets revealed here would be in the hands of the entire human species, but for now—for a delicious and precious interval—the only two souls given this privilege were Galenka and I. No other thinking creature had seen this far.

  Beneath Shell 3 was another empty volume-Gap 3. Then there was another sphere. We were looking at the central 60 kilometers of the Matryoshka, three quarters of the way to whatever lay at its heart. Shell 4 looked nothing like the dark machinery we had already passed through. This was more like a prickly fruit, a nastily evolved bacterium or some fantastically complex coral formation. The surface of the sphere was barely visible, lost under a spiky, spiny accretion of spokes and barbs and twisted unicorn horns, pushing out into the otherwise empty band gap for many kilometers. There were lacy webs of matter bridging one spike to the next. There were muscular structures like the roots of enormous trees, winding and entwining around the bases of the largest outgrowths. It was all ablaze with blue-green light, like a glass sculpture lit from within. The light wavered and pulsed. Shell 3 did not look like something which had been designed and built, but rather something which had grown, wildly and unpredictably. It was wonderful and terrifying.

  Then the signal ended. The Progress was on its own now, relying on its hardwired wits.

  “You did well,” I told Galenka.

  She said nothing. She was already asleep.
Her head did not loll in zero gravity, her jaw did not droop open, but her eyes were closed and her hand had slackened on the joystick. Only then did I realise how utterly exhausted she must have been. But I imagined her dreams were peaceful ones.

  She had not failed the mission. She had not failed Mother Russia and the Second Soviet.

  I left her sleeping, then spent two hours attending to various housekeeping tasks aboard the Tereshkova. Since we were only able to use the low-gain antenna—the high-gain antenna had failed shortly after departure—the data that the Progress had already sent back needed to be organized and compressed before it could be sent onwards to Earth. All the data stored aboard the Tereshkova would get home eventually-assuming, of course, that we did—but in the meantime I was anxious to provide Baikonur with what I regarded as the highlights. All the while I checked for updates from the Progress, but no signal had yet been detected.

  Without waiting for mission control to acknowledge the data package, I warmed some food for myself, took a nip of vodka from my private supply, and then carried my meal into the part of the Tereshkova loosely designated as the commons/recreational area. It was the brightest part of the ship, with plastic flowers and ornaments, tinsel, photographs, postcards, and children’s paintings stuck to the walls. I stationed myself against a wall and watched television, flicking through the various uplink feeds while spooning food into my mouth. I skipped soaps, quizzes, and talk shows until I hit one of the main news senders. The main state news channel showed me what the rest of the world—or the rest of the Soviet Union, at least—was getting to hear about us. The Tereshkova had been big news during its departure, but had fallen from the headlines during the long cruise out to the Matryoshka. Now it was a top-listed item once more, squeezing out other stories.

  The channel informed its viewers that the ship had successfully launched a robotic probe through Shells 1 and 2, a triumph equal to anything achieved during the last two apparitions, and one which—it was confidently expected—would soon be surpassed. The data already returned to Earth, the channel said, offered a bounty that would keep the keenest Soviet minds engaged for many years. Nor would this data be hoarded by Russia alone, for with characteristic Soviet generosity, it would be shared with those “once-proud” nations who now lacked the means to travel into space. The brave cosmonauts who were reaping this harvest of riches were mentioned by name on several occasions. There was, of course, no word about how one of those brave cosmonauts had gone stark raving mad.

  I knew with a cold certainty that they’d never tell the truth about Yakov. If he didn’t recover they’d make something up—an unanticipated illness, or a debilitating accident. They’d kill the poor bastard rather than admit that we were human.

  “I went to see him,” Galenka said, startling me. She had drifted into the recreation area quite silently. “He’s talking now—almost lucid. Want us to let him out of the module.”

  “Not likely.”

  “I agree. But we’ll have to make a decision on him sooner or later.”

  “Well, there’s no hurry right now. You all right?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  She had rested less than three hours, but in weightlessness—even after an exhausting task—that was enough. It was a useful physiological adaptation when there was a lot of work to be done, but it also meant that ten days in space could feel like thirty back on Earth. Or a hundred.

  “Go and sleep some more, you want to. The Progress calls in, I’ll wake you.”

  “If it calls in.”

  I offered a shrug. “You did everything that was expected of you. That we got this far ...”

  “I know; we should be very proud of ourselves.” She stared at the screen, her eyes still sleepy.

  “They’re going to lie about Yakov.”

  “I know.”

  “When we get home, they’ll make us stick to the story.”

  “Of course.” She said this with total resignation, as if it was the least any of us could expect.

  Soon we bored of the news and the television. While Galenka was answering letters from friends and family I went back to run my own check on Yakov. To our disappointment Baikonur still had no specific recommendations beyond maintaining the present medication. I sensed that they didn’t want blood on their hands if something went wrong with him. They were happy to let us take responsibility for our ailing comrade, even if we ended up killing him.

  “Let me out, Dimitri. I’m fine now.”

  I looked at him through armored glass of the bulkhead door. Shaking my head, I felt like a doctor delivering some dreadful diagnosis.

  “You have to stay there for now. I’m sorry. But we can’t run the risk of you trying to open the hatch again.”

  “I accept that this isn’t a simulation now. I accept that we’re really in space.” His voice came through a speaker grille, tinny and distant. “You believe me, don’t you Dimitri?”

  “I’ll see you later, Yakov.”

  “At least let me talk to Baikonur.”

  I placed the palm of my hand against the glass. “Later, friend. For now, get some rest.”

  I turned away before he could answer.

  He wasn’t the only one who needed sleep. Tiredness hit me unexpectedly—it always came on hard, like a wall. I slept for two hours, dreaming of being back on Earth on a warm spring day, sitting with my wife in the park, the mission happily behind me, deemed a success by all concerned. When I woke the dream’s melancholic after-effects stayed with me, dogging my thoughts. I badly wanted to get home.

  I found Galenka in the pilot’s position.

  “We have contact,” she said, but I knew from her tone of voice that it wasn’t all good news.

  “The Progress called in?”

  “She’s stuck, Dimitri. Jammed in down there. Can’t back out, can’t go forward.”

  “Fuck.”

  What was only apparent when the Progress reached the root complex was that there was no solid surface to Shell 4; that the tangled mass of roots was, to all intents and purposes, the sphere itself. There were gaps in that tangle, too, like the interstices in a loosely bundled ball of string. Methodically and fearlessly, the Progress had set about finding a way through to whatever was underneath. On its first attempt, it had traveled no more than a third of a kilometer beneath the nominal surface before reaching a narrowing it couldn’t pass through. The second attempt, picking a different entry point, had taken it a kilometer under the surface before it met a similar impasse. With fuel now running low-just enough to get it back to the Tereshkova, with some in reserve—the Progress had opted to make one final attempt. It was then that it had got itself stuck, lodging in a part of the thicket like a bullet in gristle.

  Galenka sent commands to the Progress, to be relayed through to it when a window opened. She told it to use its manipulators to try and push itself backwards, and to wiggle its reaction thrusters in the hope that it might shake itself loose. It was the best she could do, but she wasn’t optimistic. We waited three hours, by which time Baikonur were fully appraised of the situation. Then a window opened and the Progress reported that it was still jammed tight, despite executing Galenka’s instructions.

  “Before you say I should have listened to you,” she said. “I did listen. But bringing her back in just wasn’t the right decision, given what I knew at the time.”

  “I fully concurred, Galenka. No one’s blaming you.”

  “Let’s see what Baikonur have to say when we get back, shall we?”

  “I’m sure they’ll be in a forgiving mood. The amount of data we’ve gathered ...”

  “Doesn’t begin to add up against physical samples, which we’ve now lost.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe what? I’ve tried everything in the book. I know what that Progress can do, Dimitri. It isn’t an escape artist.”

  “We do have the Soyuz,” I said.

  “We need it to take us home. Anyway, the Soyuz isn’t rigged for remote contro
l or sampling.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of remote control. I was thinking, we fly the Soyuz all the way in. It’s the same size as the Progress, right? It has similar capabilities?”

  “Give or take.” Her tone told me she wasn’t exactly signing up for my idea with enthusiasm. “And then what?”

  “We reach the Progress, or get as close to it as we can without getting ourselves stuck. Then we EVA. It’s a micro-gravity environment so we should be able to move around without too much difficulty. It’ll be too risky to attempt to free the Progress, but there’s nothing to stop us transferring the artifacts. Plenty of room aboard the Soyuz, to bring them back to the Tereshkova.”

  She breathed heavily, as if she’d just come off the exercise cycle. “This wasn’t planned for. This wasn’t in the book. No one ever mentioned going in with the Soyuz.”

  “It was always an unstated option. Why do you think they sent us out here, Galenka? To operate the Progress in real-time? Part of the reason, certainly, but not all of it.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “It was, but now we’ve got a much clearer picture of what’s inside Shell 3. We can load in the Progress’s trajectory and follow it all the way in.”

  “And if we damage the Soyuz? It’s a fiery ride home without it.”

  “Why should we? We’ll be taking excellent care of it.”