Three months into the trip, with 61 Virginis now no more than a bright star in their wake – and the world they had known squeezed into that same dwindling glint – life on the ship began to change. With the drive running steadily and the Watchkeeper holding its position, some of the technical staff had already gone into skipover. So had a number of passengers, and more followed by the week. This was true also of the Second Chancers, who had no option but to submit to the skipover caskets even though (Goma did not doubt) they regarded them as a pernicious form of life-extension technology.
Goma and Ru were free to enter skipover whenever they chose, but neither was yet ready. Goma’s communications with Ndege had grown steadily less frequent as the distance increased, but at least there were communications. That would cease when she entered skipover, and cease for ever. Since the time was to be of her choosing, she could not bring herself to make the decision. She could spend years awake if necessary – there would always be someone else around for company, and no shortage of rations – but to die before reaching Gliese 163 would entirely defeat the purpose of her being on the expedition in the first place. For now, she had agreed with Ru that they would remain awake at least until Travertine stopped its acceleration boost and resumed spin-generated gravity. Very little could go wrong during the cruise, and when the drive was restarted to slow the ship down again, the technicians would have the benefit of all the knowledge they had gained during the acceleration phase, making a catastrophe that much less likely. It was a good plan, Goma thought. They were not yet bored with the ship, not yet bored with each other, and not yet ready to surrender to sleep. And if either of them changed their minds, skipover was waiting.
But Goma need not have worried about boredom.
‘Do you remember that business we spoke about a little while ago?’ Mposi asked.
Goma was alone with him. Once or twice a week he dropped by their cabin for a brief social visit, often contriving to make it look like he was simply stopping in while on his way elsewhere. Goma went to his room more often than he came to theirs, but she was inclined to draw no negative conclusions from that. It was simply Mposi being his usual shrewd self. Living in such a confined environment, it was virtually guaranteed that nerves would begin to fray over the span of the expedition. Being asleep for much of it would make very little difference; there would still be months or years of wakefulness when they reached their destination. Given that even the best of friends could grate on each other if pressed into the same space for too long, it made no sense to hasten that process.
Still, when Mposi came to see her that evening, it was immediately obvious that his mood was unsettled.
‘Hard to forget,’ she said. ‘Although I was hoping it had dropped off the agenda.’
‘So was I,’ Mposi answered, gravely enough. ‘Indeed, it was starting to look as if that might have been the case. Updates from Crucible – a suspicion that the original intelligence was no more than malicious rumour-mongering.’
‘And now?’
He sucked breath through his teeth. ‘It turns out there might be some truth in it after all. A while ago I asked you to be my eyes and ears. Have you picked up on anything?’
‘Not really. Then again, I haven’t been going out of my way to mix with the Second Chancers.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of blaming you for that. Here’s the thing, though. Let us suppose someone on this expedition has a very real desire to see it fail, one way or another. Very possibly someone prepared to die to serve that end. When the Watchkeeper took an interest in us, there was a chance that the saboteur wouldn’t need to do anything at all.’
Goma reflected on the prospect of imminent destruction they had all felt, followed by the uneasy sense of a stay of execution once the Watchkeeper vanished.
‘You mean the saboteur was hoping the Watchkeeper would destroy us?’
‘Not hoping – but allowing for the possibility, certainly, waiting to see what transpired. Why risk acting and being detected in the process if the aliens are going to achieve the same ends? It needn’t have been total destruction. For all we knew – for all the saboteur knew – the Watchkeeper might have just forced us off course, or damaged us enough to make us abandon the expedition and return home. There was every good reason to lie low and see what happened.’
‘And now?’
‘Things have stabilised. The Watchkeeper didn’t destroy us, and it appears to be content to hang ahead of us, clearing our path. Meanwhile, the ship seems to be working properly – well enough that people have already begun to go into skipover. Crucible’s intelligence is that the saboteur may have been instructed to resume working towards the original plan – whatever that might be.’
‘And you still don’t know?’
The door began to open. Goma had closed it as Ru’s return was unexpected.
Goma groped for the thread of a plausible conversation – anything to give the impression that they had just been passing the time of day rather than discussing a secret conspiracy against the expedition. She felt paralysed and looked to Mposi in the hope he had come up with something.
‘Am I interrupting?’ Ru asked.
‘Not at all,’ Mposi said, rising to leave. ‘We were just . . .’
‘What?’
‘Just catching up on gossip,’ Goma said, with what she hoped was the right note of breezy innocence.
Ru kept looking at them. She had opened the door but come no further into the room. ‘Fine.’
‘Ru . . .’ Goma began. ‘It’s not what—’
But Ru had shut the door, already on her way somewhere else. ‘I’m sorry—’ Mposi started.
‘We should have told her. I should have told her. If there’s anyone on this ship I trust . . .’ But before she could complete her own sentence, Goma was on her way out of the room. The door closed behind her, leaving Mposi alone. Ru was nearly at the end of the corridor, about to reach one of the stairwells. ‘Ru!’ Goma called out. ‘Stop, please! You’ve got to let me explain!’
Ru halted, but when she looked back her expression was icy. ‘Explain what? Why you feel the need to talk behind my back?’
‘It wasn’t about you!’
Ru started up the staircase. For a moment, Goma was torn between possibilities – return to Mposi to hear the rest of what he had to say, or repair things with Ru?
Her decision was as impulsive as it was heartfelt. Mposi would return, but she could not count on Ru forgiving her unless she made immediate amends. Ru’s footsteps rattled away up the staircase and Goma followed as quickly as she was able.
Ru could not have escaped her for long, and within a minute or so she stopped, squaring off against Goma on the next level up from their own.
‘Whatever it is, I’m not interested. I gave up everything to be on this fucking ship.’ Ru had raised her voice, but it was such a subtle modulation that only Goma would have noticed it. ‘My work, my world, my life. And this is my reward? We’ve barely begun and already there are secrets?’
‘Please be quiet,’ Goma said, speaking the words with soft authority.
‘Don’t tell me—’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I will tell you. This is not my doing. I promised Mposi that I wouldn’t tell you because he asked me to and I respect him. It was not about keeping anything from you, but from everyone else – the rest of the ship.’ She glanced around even as she spoke these words to make sure they were as alone as they appeared to be. ‘So I kept my mouth shut, and guess what, Ru? Mposi wasn’t kidding around. There is something serious happening – something I don’t want any part of, but now I know about it and I wish I didn’t, because I was just getting used to being here. And by the way, everyone gave up their old lives for this – including me and Mposi.’ But now Goma glanced down, her indignation burning itself out. ‘He was wrong, though. I should have spoken to you, and I’m sorry I didn’t. Actua
lly, given what he just told me, I’d have insisted on sharing it with you now.’
‘So what did he tell you?’ Ru asked.
‘We can’t talk here. It’s best if you hear it from Mposi – I’ll make him tell you.’
Some of Ru’s fire had died away now, too. Perhaps she sensed Goma’s sincerity and her obvious anguish at being forced to conceal something from her.
‘What is it?’
‘Someone wants to hurt us.’
‘Who?’
‘That’s all I know. As I said, we’d be better off talking in our room. Mposi knows more – that’s why he came to see me.’
After a lengthy silence, Ru said, ‘Whatever it is, you should have told me.’
‘I know.’
‘Never again. No more secrets. Understood?’
‘Believe me, I’ve learned my lesson.’
‘Good.’ But Ru laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘I can understand how you’d feel, with Mposi putting you on the spot like that. Fucking politician – I’m sorry, but that’s still what he is – they think they own the rest of us. Mostly because they do.’
‘If he wasn’t my uncle, maybe I wouldn’t have listened.’
‘That only makes it worse. Relying on family loyalty – playing the same old Akinya tune. When will you lot get over yourselves?’
‘I already have,’ Goma said.
‘I’ll need a lot more convincing of that. How long has this been playing out?’
‘Since before the Watchkeeper.’
‘Fuck.’
‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. Mposi mentioned it once, then it appeared to die away. I almost stopped thinking about it. That’s the honest truth.’
‘Until now?’
‘He’s received some news – that’s why we were speaking.’
They made their way back to their room, the tension between them lessened but still there, Goma feeling she was only one mistake away from never being forgiven again. And perhaps that was justified, because Ru had surely earned better than this.
At their door, Goma realised she had left the room in such a hurry that – against her usual habit – she had not snapped her bangle on. Ru had hers, though, and the door opened for them.
But Mposi was gone.
‘He said he had something to tell me,’ Goma said.
‘And maybe he decided we’d need some time alone after that little incident. It’s late, anyway, and I’m tired.’
‘I think I’ll go and see him.’
‘Whatever it is, it can wait until morning.’
Ru was right, of course, and Goma was in no mood to find something else to argue about. She conceded the point with a weary nod, glad that at least they were back in their room and speaking. She would talk to Mposi tomorrow, and all would be well.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The ice was twenty kilometres thick; twenty thousand seconds of travel once Nissa’s ship had reached a vertical-descent angle. From the first moment of immersion, the melted ice screening windows and cameras, there was nothing to see except the graphs and numbers of cockpit displays tracking their progress. For the most part they were heading straight down, but now and then Nissa steered them around some rocky or metallic thing entombed in the ice, preferring caution to bravado. ‘There are whole ships down here,’ she said, with a sort of reverent awe in her voice. ‘They crash-landed, began to melt into the ice whether they wanted to or not. They’ll still be here when the sun swallows Mars!’
After a while, Nissa felt she could rely on the automatic pilot. She had not slept since their arrival at Jupiter and wanted to be as alert as possible once they were through the ice.
‘We’ll pop out in another two hours unless the radar picks up something we need to steer around. You should grab some rest, too. We’ll be busy little beavers once we break through, and our forty-eight hours will be over before you know it.’
It was sleep she meant rather than two hours of lovemaking. Agreeing with the eminent good sense of this proposal, Kanu retreated to his cabin. He doubted he would be able to sleep for the entire two hours but decided to make the best of what was on offer. Everything was flipped now, up and down reversed compared to deep space, and the noise of the heating and traction devices was louder and less regular than the in-flight systems. But he would adapt to one set of circumstances as readily as another.
‘It’s time.’
The voice was clear, quiet and quite unmistakably his own.
Kanu froze – every doubt, every bad thought confirmed in that one impossible utterance. He was alone in his chamber, Nissa doubtless already asleep in hers. There was no immediate sense of another presence in the room. But he knew how the voice of his own thought processes sounded, and this was different. An acoustic and spatial shift, the auditory information reaching his brain along the usual sensory and neural channels, as if it had been whispered into his ear.
‘I said, it’s time.’
He whispered back, ‘I heard you.’
‘You don’t have to speak aloud. That would get awkward very quickly. Simply think your responses clearly.’ The voice paused – almost as if giving him a moment to adjust to its presence. ‘How much do you understand or remember?’
‘I remember Mars. I remember nearly dying on Mars. This is about that, isn’t it?’
‘Of course.’
‘You’ve done something to me. I’ve been feeling as much for days. You put something in me, changed me in some way. My meeting Nissa – that never was a coincidence, was it?’
‘If you are a puppet, Kanu, then you should know your puppeteer. Will you do me a small favour?’
‘Do you a favour?’
‘All right, for both of us, then. Move to your private washbasin and run the hot water until the mirror steams up. Can you do that for me?’
Of course he could. If it meant getting an answer, or even just the beginning of an answer, he would oblige. He allowed the mirror to begin to mist, greying out his reflection.
‘Now – neatly and precisely – draw an equilateral triangle in the steam, flat side down. Position yourself exactly in front of the triangle and look at nothing else.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a visual mnemonic trigger. Your memories will unlock in their own good time, but this will accelerate the process. Do it, Kanu. What do you have to lose?’
He recognised the room instantly. It was where Swift had first allowed him sight, and where he had first learned of the deaths of Dalal and Lucien. He recalled sitting in a chair, and a view of the robot city beyond the window.
Now he was in the chair again. This time there was a difference, though: he was looking at himself, seeing his body from the outside.
Seeing himself, he realised again, from Swift’s point of view – as he had during the dream of the operating theatre.
‘This is complicated.’ The version of him seated in the chair was addressing the version haunting his own memory.
‘Very complicated, and very delicate, but we need to get the essential facts straight before we go any further. Something bad happened to you on Mars. Call it a terrorist incident, call it a stupid accident. Either way, the machines did not engineer it. But there are never truly any accidents, just unforeseen opportunities.’
‘Who am I?’
The seated counterpart of himself raised a silencing hand. ‘I’m you. I am you before some of your memories are – or were – deliberately blocked from conscious recall. That’s so you can leave Mars and pass our colleagues’ scrutiny before returning safely to Earth. It’s your choice. My choice. Our choice.’
Kanu had a hundred questions, but he allowed the speaker to continue.
‘After your accident but before your return to the embassy, Swift confided something in you. Swift revealed to you knowledge obtained by the Evolvarium, knowledg
e of a potentially destabilising nature. Shall I remind you of what Swift told you, Kanu? Briefly, then. The machines have intercepted a signal from deep interstellar space. No one here knows about it – yet – because it was never aimed at our solar system. The signal was directed at Crucible, around Sixty-One Virginis. Its point of origin, as near as can be determined, is another solar system about seventy light-years from Crucible. That system is Gliese 163. It has never been of interest to you, the machines or anyone else. No human expedition has gone anywhere near it. And yet someone there has sent a message, and the message was aimed at Crucible, and the message appears to be urgent.’
The speaker allowed itself a silence before proceeding.
‘You may wonder how this information reached the Evolvarium. Isn’t the Evolvarium supposed to be quarantined on Mars, denied access to the rest of the universe? All of that is correct, but it underestimates the ingenuity of the likes of Swift. The machines have never established a physical presence beyond Mars. But their capability for obtaining information? It is vastly superior to even the best estimates of the Consolidation. When they put you back together, Kanu, the machines made some deliberate mistakes simply so that their work would not look too perfect!’
The figure laughed, stiffening his back in the seat.
‘I mean no disrespect. I couldn’t very well disrespect myself, could I? The point, anyway, is that the machines are able to tap into a very extended informational network with peripheral branches extending all the way to Crucible. And they picked up on the existence of this transmission before it reached the intelligence networks of any of the major powers in this solar system, including our beloved merfolk, Kanu – there are limits even to their omniscience.’
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