‘How long?’
‘A matter of days. A hardship for her and a worry for you, I appreciate that, but it is an extremely small price to pay when set against the years we have already crossed. Now rest, Goma – and set your mind at ease. Ru will be well.’
She wanted to demand more of him – additional guarantees. But she was too tired, too groggy, to do more than place her trust in this man. Sometimes that was all you could do.
So she rested. After an hour or two, she was able to experiment with moving around, easing herself out of the casket and onto her feet, steadying herself against walls and furniture until she learned to trust bones and muscle. It was hard at first – she felt pinned down under a dead weight, nauseous and dizzy at the same time. But her strength and confidence returned, and the ill-effects slowly faded away. She kept down fluids and soon found herself able to eat. She wandered around a small area of the ship, regaining her bearings. Hour by hour, more and more people were awake and mobile. All appeared content to share the same assumption: that they were aboard a ship that had crossed seventy light-years of space, in one hundred and forty years of time.
Goma could hold these facts in her head well enough, but accepting them as deep, visceral truths was another thing entirely. She felt exhausted by skipover, physically drained, every part of her bruised, but that was not the same as feeling fourteen decades older.
She kept looking down at her own hand, studying the familiar anatomy of her wrist, the pores of her skin, the fine dark hairs, the architecture of bone and tendon beneath the flesh. Nothing had changed – nothing felt older. She pinched the skin of her belly, but it too appeared miraculously indifferent to the process it had undergone. Blemishes, moles, scars were all present and correct. She did not look quite herself in the mirror – there was a slackness of muscle tone, a vagueness to her gaze – but all of that was a normal consequence of skipover. Indeed, the ill-effects were connected with the transition from total skipover stasis to full animation rather than the fourteen decades of stasis itself.
They had moved Ru out of her skipover casket into a dedicated medical suite – one of two on the ship – and placed her on a normal bed under a bank of conventional medical instruments. She had lines going in and out of her, of different colours and thicknesses, conveying blood, urine, saline and drugs to and from different machines. She had a crown-like device fitted around her forehead, maintaining the medical coma and simultaneously running some sort of cyclic neural scan – peelings of her brain flickering in different colours on the display above her headboard. It was a difficult time for Dr Nhamedjo and his staff since they still had a dozen or more sleepers to bring out of skipover. But they managed to find time to make it look as if Ru was their chief concern.
Goma wanted to be at her side. But Dr Nhamedjo assured her there was no chance of her waking up ahead of schedule; that everything was proceeding according to a fixed and orderly timescale. ‘These prefrontal areas,’ he said, indicating part of the scan, ‘are still inflamed and must be brought under control. She is also suffering microseizures – a kind of temporal-lobe epilepsy. None of this is without precedent in AOTS cases, and all of it is responsive to careful management. But above all it must not be rushed, or we will leave Ru with greater impairments than when she joined us.’
It was hard to watch her lying there, so helpless and so clearly afflicted. Every now and then she tremored, sometimes violently enough that it was hard not to think she was in the grip of nightmares, or in pain. But Nhamedjo assured Goma that there was no conscious activity involved, and that Ru would remember nothing of this time.
Goma held her hand, tried to still it when the palsy hit. She whispered kindnesses to Ru and settled a kiss on her fever-hot brow.
‘Come back, my love. I need you.’
For the time being, though, there was nothing to do but wait.
‘Perhaps,’ Gandhari said, ‘a thing or two to take your mind off Ru – would that help?’
‘It might.’
‘The truth is, I hardly know where to begin. We’ve learned so much already, and yet all we’ve managed to do is replace every question with two more. Still, I have to start somewhere.’
They were in the captain’s cabin, just the two of them. Not much had changed since the last time Goma had been in it. The picture on the wall was different now – perhaps Vasin had changed it herself, or else the room had made the choice based on its own selection algorithm. It was a strange, gloomy painting of a pale and naked woman in the embrace of a withered skeletal figure. To one side of the coupling floated sperm-like forms; to the other bulbous-headed aliens.
Goma had difficulty squaring this image – or, for that matter, the destructive landscape that had preceded it – with the calm, collected, warm-spirited person who lived in this room.
‘Who was there to wake you up?’ Goma asked, remembering the other woman’s kindness.
‘Nobody. But one of us had to be first, and it might as well have been me.’
‘That can’t have been pleasant.’
‘Well, it was silent, I’ll say that for it. Colder than I wished. Something was off with the thermostat settings – we soon fixed that, but only after I’d shivered my way through two whole days, trying to restart the climate control. Still, it wasn’t too bad – mainly I was happy we’d made it, that we weren’t just some cloud of atoms sailing on through space.’
The ship had not been totally devoid of life during the main part of its cruise, Goma knew. Periodically, technicians had come in and out of skipover to review the vital systems, while Nhamedjo’s medical team had done the same thing for the sleepers, putting themselves through the ordeal of multiple skipover transitions. From what she could gather, there had been little work for these brave souls to do. Nothing had gone badly wrong; nothing had needed serious repair.
‘Then you were the first to see Gliese 163,’ Goma said.
‘Yes, I had that honour – dubious as it felt at the time. We’re close enough now that it’s harder to see the true colour, but when I first came out, you could really tell it’s a red dwarf – it had a definite pink tinge to it. Now it just looks blazing white, but that’s only because our eyes aren’t very good at dealing with bright objects. You’ll find it very familiar – in fact, it’s not so different in temperature from Crucible’s sun.’
‘Home sweet home.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Still, we didn’t come for the scenery. And if we’d only made one discovery, we’d have justified the expedition a thousand times over.’
‘Tell me what we’ve found.’
‘Another Mandala, for starters.’
Goma was so surprised she laughed. ‘My god.’
‘I know – astonishing, isn’t it? It’s on one of the rocky planets – Paladin, they call it. I’m guessing you remember it from the Knowledge Room.’
‘I do.’
‘If your mother were with us, she could tell us exactly if and how it differs from the one on Crucible. Loring and the others will be studying the data when they’re all awake. You’re welcome to share in the analysis, of course – it might stop you worrying about Ru.’
Goma doubted that, but she knew Vasin meant well by it. ‘I’m not sure I’ll have much to add. Don’t expect deep insights just because of my family connection.’
‘At this point, I’m ready to consider anything that might help. Anyway, the Mandala is only part of it. Are you ready for the rest?’
‘Go on.’
‘There’s a rock orbiting Paladin, like a little asteroid, and someone appears to have reached it ahead of us. There’s evidence of colonisation – surface structures, odd thermal activity. Maybe some additional orbiting objects that we can’t yet resolve, but which will be clearer when we get closer.’
‘Is that where we’re headed?’
‘You’d think so, and it would be a good
guess if you didn’t know about the superterran. Remember the waterworld – Poseidon?’
Goma nodded – she recalled trying to clutch the pure blue ball in her fingers, to steal it from the Knowledge Room.
‘There are artificial structures rising from its waters. Not another Mandala this time – something different, but just as fascinating. Anomalous-looking moons, too, in orbits you wouldn’t expect to occur naturally. All very odd, all very enticing. I’m inclined to rate it as a higher priority than the second Mandala. After all, we already know quite a bit about one of those.’
‘Not as much as we’d like.’
‘True. But then there’s also the signal – aimed directly at us during our approach.’
‘From Poseidon?’
‘No – not from Paladin, either, or even the rock orbiting it. The point of origin is Orison, another one of the planets. Based on its characteristics, we think it likely that the sender is the same one who transmitted the original signal – which is the reason we’re here at all. See what you make of it.’
Vasin looked to the wall next to the gloomy painting where a scramble of geometric forms, a hash of numbers and symbols, gave way to a matrix of pixels assembling into a blocky, low-resolution mosaic of a human face looking back at them. Goma squinted, blurring the pixels together.
‘Eunice.’
‘Yes. Easy enough to check against the records, but it helps to have you confirm it.’
Now the face was speaking.
‘I wondered what was keeping you. Is half the speed of light really the best you can do?’ The question was clearly rhetorical, for the face continued its monologue after only the slightest of pauses. ‘Well, good that you’ve finally arrived, even if you’re not the first. Things have reached a pretty pickle and now you’re part of it. Under no circumstances respond to any transmission from Paladin or go anywhere near Poseidon. Come to me instead. Lock on to the origin of this transmission and adjust your course accordingly. I have amenities and technical know-how you may find useful. Above all else, I have knowledge. If you want to know what happened to the Trinity, I’m the one to talk to.’
The pixels rescrambled into the same blitz of numbers and symbols, then it recommenced.
Vasin permitted it to play a second time, then dulled the sound while allowing the visual to continue cycling.
‘It carries on like that – a repeating transmission, sent out in bursts every six hours. She must have set up some kind of automated send, waiting for us to answer. What do you think she means, that we’re not the first? We’ve sent no other expedition, and our government was careful to limit disclosure of the original signal. How could someone else be here before us?’
‘A ship from another system?’
‘But how would they know to come here? That transmission was aimed at us, Crucible – no one else.’
‘We assume.’
‘Rightly, I hope. That’s only the start of my worries, though. She’s expecting an answer, and we need to get off on the right footing.’
‘I should speak for us,’ Goma decided.
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s only fitting that an Akinya should make the first formal response – for what little good it will do us. Do you like the painting, by the way? Death and the Maiden.’
Goma was attempting to read Ndege’s notebooks, trying to make some sense of the hash of symbols and connecting propositions, when Doctor Nhamedjo called to say that she should come to the medical suite as quickly as possible.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Quite the contrary, Goma. Ru is on her way back to us, and I thought you would like to be here when she awakens.’
Goma snapped the notebooks shut with no small measure of guilty relief. She was in the medical suite in less than five minutes, equally relieved that she had not arrived too late. Ru was surfacing to consciousness but had not yet woken fully. Dr Nhamedjo was at her side, another of his medics – Dr Mona Andisa – on the opposite side of the bed. Neither appeared unduly concerned by the progress of their patient.
‘It worked, then,’ Goma said.
‘It counts in her favour that she is strong,’ Nhamedjo said. ‘It’s rather a severe case of AOTS, but she compensates very well. As a matter of interest, how did she ever suffer such extreme exposure? I treated one patient who was lost north of Namboze, wandering the jungles for weeks with nothing to protect them from the oxygen – a flier had gone down with a faulty transponder – but that was a very unusual set of circumstances.’
‘Self-neglect,’ Goma said. ‘Too many field trips, not enough time thinking of her own safety compared to the elephants. I’d have watched over her, but the harm was done by the time we met.’
‘She must have been fiercely dedicated to her elephants to think so little of her own well-being.’
‘They get into your blood.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard as much. Almost like an illness?’
‘I can’t say I’ve ever thought of it that way.’
‘Well, I dare say medicine is no different. We all have our magnificent obsessions.’
‘And what would yours be, Saturnin?’
‘The sanctity of human life, I suppose. The ever-unfolding challenge of doing more good than harm. But I would not pretend to share Ru’s dedication to a single cause. She will be frail for a little while, Goma. You will need to take even better care of her than usual, but I do not think that will be a problem.’
‘No, it won’t.’
He nodded towards the neural displays. ‘She is approaching consciousness. We will let you have some time alone together – you’ve earned it, both of you.’
Goma eased next to Ru and stroked the side of her face, the merest touch.
‘Come back to me, love.’
Ru woke. Her eyelids fluttered, opening to narrow slits. She was still and unresponsive for several seconds. Goma snatched a glance at the neural display, wondering if there could have been some mistake – some dreadful brain injury that had somehow escaped notice.
But then Ru said, ‘Am I awake now?’
Goma grinned. ‘You’re awake.’
‘It feels like I’ve been trying to wake up for centuries. Floating under ice, trying to find my way to the air.’
‘That’s not far from the truth. You hit some problems in skipover but you’re better now.’
‘Tell me you’re really Goma and not a figment of my imagination.’
‘I don’t feel like a figment.’ She squeezed Ru’s hand where it poked out from beneath the bedsheet. ‘It’s me – warts and all. We’ve come through. We’re here, in the other system. We all made it.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened to me?’
‘The AOTS complicated your revival, but there’s no lasting damage. You’ll just need to take it easy for a few days.’
‘You’re supposed to be the centre of attention, not me.’
‘Don’t worry about that – I’m sure my time’s coming. There’s so much to catch up on! I want to tell you everything now, in one breathless rush. But there’s time. You need to wake up at your own speed.’
‘I could use a drink.’
‘My pleasure.’
Dr Andisa gave Ru a beaker of amber fluid, some kind of medicinal restorative, which Goma in turn offered to Ru’s lips. Ru sipped slowly, then eased herself into a sitting position on the bed. Goma was encouraged by this show of determination and strength.
‘Thank you,’ Ru said, taking the beaker from Goma. ‘How was it for you, coming out?’
‘I thought it was bad until I saw you.’
‘That really lifts my spirits.’
‘If it’s any consolation, they say no one gets an easy ride.’
‘And are you sure this isn’t a hoax – you’re not all pulling
a trick on me?’
‘No, we’re really there. Around Gliese 163 – or approaching it fast, anyway.’
‘I want to see everything.’
‘You will. But it’s like a sweet shop – we barely know where to start. I already have a job, though.’
‘Lucky you. What is it?’
‘I get to answer the message. We’ve been signalled, told to head for one particular planet. I think it’s Eunice.’
‘You think.’
‘The tone was frosty enough. We’ll know for sure when we get there.’
‘And Dakota – any word on her?’ Ru glanced at the remaining medic, lowered her voice fractionally. ‘The other Tantors you promised me?’
Goma smiled – it was as if they were sharing a naughty secret, barely daring to mention it aloud in the presence of others.
‘It was never a promise, just a possibility.’
‘Tantors?’ Dr Andisa asked with a smile.
‘We can’t let go of our work,’ Goma said. ‘Can’t stop thinking about the elephants back on Crucible. We live them, breathe them, dream them.’
‘It’s all right,’ Ru whispered. ‘We never expected to receive all the answers in one go, and I’d be disappointed if we did. But when we get to this planet, whichever one it is, I want to be part of that.’
‘You’ve a way to go before you’ll be strong enough.’
‘To be honest, right now I feel like something left out to die. What did they do to me while I was under?’
Poseidon's Wake Page 28
