‘Was there any warning?’ Nissa asked.
‘Not much. A brief, powerful surge of energy from the Mandala on Paladin across every electromagnetic band we could measure, hard gamma all the way down to ultra-long baseline radio waves. And then it was over, and Zanzibar was hanging over Paladin. It should have come crashing down! But somehow it had retained the orbital angular momentum it had at the moment of the Crucible event, and that was enough to send it looping around Paladin. We had no idea what had happened, to begin with. We barely recognised what we were looking at as being a chunk of the old holoship.’
‘Did you attempt contact?’ Nissa asked.
‘Rescue, more like. We picked up emergency transmissions from the survivors. Confused, panic-stricken – they had even less of a clue about what had happened than we did. At least we knew we were in another solar system after the Watchkeepers transported us. All they knew was that there’d been a massive explosion and half their world was gone. They were only starting to come to terms with that when we boarded. Of course, we were something of a shock to them – but not as much of a shock as what had just happened. Yes, you are orbiting a new planet now. Yes, we are the Trinity. Yes, you appear to have followed us across seventy light-years.’
‘The Watchkeepers allowed you to interact?’ Kanu said.
‘They kept their distance. The three of us were all highly regarded by the original colonists and the survivors readily accepted our guidance, even our leadership. I was invited to coordinate the human survivors, while Dakota – the cleverest, wisest of the Tantors – assumed her former role as matriarch. Eunice, being neither machine nor human nor elephant, didn’t command quite such ready loyalty from either faction, but her expertise was invaluable in knitting Zanzibar’s broken systems back together. Even the harshest of her sceptics came to see her value. But then things began to change. We thought we were over the worst of our difficulties, but in truth they had barely begun. Our little rock was simply not big enough to sustain humans and elephants simultaneously.’
‘Swift,’ Nissa said. ‘Might I ask a question?’
Swift adopted his usual camouflage. ‘By all means.’
‘How much of this did you suspect the first time we saw the recording?’
‘Had I suspected any of it, Nissa, I would have voiced my concerns immediately.’
‘Yet you’re the one who wanted another look at the recording. That was your idea.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Then you had some idea that encrypted data was there, whether or not you’re prepared to admit it now.’
‘It was clear to me that the recording had been edited, Nissa. But then, did we not all reach that conclusion?’
‘Only you were capable of detecting that embedded data,’ Kanu said, struck by a powerful sense that he was arguing with himself. ‘Neither Nissa nor I saw anything suspicious in those numbers. You saw the alphabetical cipher – we didn’t. And if you saw nothing the first time, why were you so keen that I not blink the second time?’
‘He knew,’ Nissa said. ‘All of it, or part of it, at least.’
‘Is this true, Swift? Did you withhold your suspicions?’
‘I rather resent the thrust of that question.’
‘Just answer it.’
‘We were in the midst of delicate negotiations with Dakota. It would have been counterproductive of me to raise doubts on the basis of incomplete data.’
‘Counterproductive to you,’ Nissa said.
‘She has a point, Swift,’ Kanu said. ‘When we debated remaining aboard Icebreaker or taking it inside Zanzibar for repairs, you raised no objections.’
‘You were at liberty to take whichever course of action you thought the wisest, Kanu. Please do not blame me for failing to find fault in your own argument.’
‘You slippery little . . .’ Nissa said.
Kanu raised a calming hand. ‘It’s too late for recriminations.’
‘Is that you speaking, or Swift?’
‘It’s me, and we’re in this situation now, so there’s no point arguing about it. Maybe Swift could have spoken up sooner, but he’s helping us now, isn’t he?’
‘Now that we’re committed. Now that our ship is locked inside Zanzibar.’
‘May I continue?’ Swift said, becoming Chiku again.
‘Provided you promise to be a little less devious from now on,’ Nissa said.
‘Gradually it became clear to me that it’s not human assistance the Watchkeepers need, but organic assistance. The species doesn’t really matter. From the perspective of an alien robot, a Tantor is just another warm-blooded organism with a central nervous system. The Tantors are already on the cusp of human intelligence – we did that ourselves, through generations of genetic intervention. All the Watchkeepers had to do to achieve their purposes was give them the final push. Extreme longevity was only the first of the gifts bestowed on Dakota. The next was human-level intelligence, perhaps something beyond that, even. It was not hard for them. They had a good understanding of how our minds worked, given how deeply they’d already looked into my head. When they took Dakota from us the second time, I still felt I knew her. When she returned, I wasn’t sure.’
‘What had changed?’ Kanu asked.
‘She’s become something new – something formidable and clever. And whatever mix of genes produces that cognitive enhancement, it’s inheritable. Her offspring are significantly smarter than the Tantor baseline. It’s unevenly distributed – they don’t all get the same package of enhancements – but across all her children, and their children, Dakota’s genes are slowly raising the intelligence of the entire Tantor population. More of them speak like her, more of them use tools the way she does – more of them can plan and strategise and out-think us. And I don’t know quite what to make of that. I don’t want to be frightened of it. I don’t want to overreact against a development that could be wonderful. But all of a sudden, the Tantors are no longer ours. We neither control nor understand them – and we have no idea what they are going to do next. Something good and wise, I hope; something that serves all our needs. But I fear it may not play out that way. We have remade Zanzibar and given them the means to run it on their own. I think they could become totally autonomous, in time.’
‘They did,’ Nissa said.
‘We don’t know that for sure,’ Kanu said.
‘Look around, Kanu. Have you seen another living human soul since we arrived? The worst did happen, just as Chiku feared – a war between the Risen and the people. And now we know who won.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
It was a challenging thing, Goma reflected, to remove one’s own helmet under near-vacuum conditions, and Dr Nhamedjo had given it his best shot. He must have retained his conscious faculties long enough not only to undo the neck-ring fastenings – supposedly fail-safe under reduced pressure, although there were loopholes in any design – but also to lift the helmet away from his head even as the air and heat surged from his body, stealing life and awareness in the same explosive gasp. A final few seconds of lucidity, and then darkness ink-blotting in from all sides. Goma wondered what had been the worst part of it: the inexpressible cold, shocking as a helium bath; or the airlessness, his lungs attempting to draw sustenance from vacuum? Both, perhaps, equal in their viciousness, their absolute promise of imminent death. Nor would it have been instantaneous. But he was a physician, and must therefore have had a shrewd idea of what to expect.
The Tantors found him on the trail between the camp and the lander, on his own, with no sign of the cargo sled he was supposed to have been dragging from the airlock. From his footprints it was clear that he had never reached the ship, nor had any intention of doing so. He had set off with only one goal in mind: the taking of his own life. These last days must have seen him marking time, waiting to learn whether the virus functioned in the intended fashion. Once he had
his evidence, he was free to remove himself from the expedition.
None of this was immediately apparent to Goma, or indeed to any of her associates. All they had was a dead man, brought in by elephants. Heeding Eunice, the three spacesuited Tantors had remained outside after depositing Nhamedjo in the airlock. They had found his helmet close to his body and brought that back, too.
‘If it turns out they killed him . . .’ Vasin said, apparently thinking aloud.
‘I think he did this to himself,’ Goma said. ‘Look at his suit. It’s not like Eunice’s. The Tantors wouldn’t have known where to start opening it, even if they had the right tools on their trunks.’
‘Maybe they did?’ said Loring. ‘Went out to fix equipment, didn’t they?’
‘They had tools,’ Eunice confirmed flatly. ‘Trunk attachments, adaptors – stored in those panniers on their suits. They could have swapped them on and off easily enough – it’s how they work in vacuum. But do you see any signs of a struggle, scratches or damage to his suit?’
‘They’re so strong, he wouldn’t have had a chance to struggle,’ Loring said.
‘No, but he’d have had ample time to run away. They don’t move quickly in those suits. Even if they cornered him – which they didn’t – your friend would have had time to call us.’
‘Can’t have committed suicide,’ Loring said. ‘He went out there to help us? To fetch the medical equipment?’
‘To delay the actual act,’ Goma said. ‘To buy more time for the infection to take hold, to make the medicines less likely to help. He never had any intention of coming back.’
‘You’re very sure of his guilt,’ Vasin said.
‘He put the disease in Ru.’
‘You don’t know this.’
‘No, Gandhari, but who else could have done it? He had the opportunity, with Ru not being well enough to come out of skipover at the same time as the rest of us – and how do we know that was even true? We just took his word – he was the doctor. It gave him all the time he needed to pump her full of whatever nasty crap he needed to. I should have seen it sooner. Grave always said there was another saboteur among us.’
‘You’re forgetting something,’ said the captain. ‘Doctor Nhamedjo was openly critical of my handling of Grave. Of all us, he was the one who expressed the most scepticism concerning Grave’s guilt.’
‘He was clever, that’s all – he knew full well that nothing he said would make a blind bit of difference. Look at me – the innocent, thoughtful Doctor Nhamedjo.’
‘We can argue his guilt in due course,’ Karayan said, ‘but right now we still need those medical supplies. I am willing to return for them.’
‘The Tantors are still out there,’ said Loring.
‘Then I will exercise caution.’
They watched Karayan leave, dragging the sled behind him – light now that it was unladen. Eunice had warned Atria, Mimosa and Keid that another person would soon be on the move, and their shuffling, spacesuited forms were visible from a number of topside windows as they waited for further instructions.
‘Why don’t you send them to the lander?’ Goma asked. ‘They can help carry extra supplies.’
‘It’s that clear-cut to you, is it?’ Eunice snapped back. ‘Nhamedjo is dead, case closed? None of you had the slightest inkling of his guilt until just now, so how do I know I can trust any of you?’
‘You don’t,’ Goma said. ‘But you can begin by excluding Ru. She didn’t have a clue what he’d put in her.’
‘She’s still infected – still a lethal agent.’
‘You have her under quarantine, and pretty soon you’re going to have more medicines and tools at your disposal. At least start treating Ru as the victim, not the perpetrator.’
‘I’d like to contact Travertine,’ Vasin said. ‘I can speak to it via my suit, but it’ll be simpler if you just give us a direct line. Are we in the right alignment for that?’
Eunice nodded at the ceiling. ‘Your ship is overhead.’
‘Then let me talk to Nasim Caspari.’
‘Another trustworthy soul?’
‘I’m going to ask him to put a lock on Nhamedjo’s quarters and medical suite. I’ll want a complete search of his personal effects and a more thorough examination of his background than anything we’ve performed to date. Clearly we missed something.’
‘You have a fine talent for understatement.’
‘Then I’ll ask Andisa to start working with us to find a cure for Sadalmelik and the others, just as soon as our analysers have a look at the blood samples. You’ve met six of us—’
‘Yes, and hasn’t that gone well.’
‘There are forty-six more of us in space – forty-seven if I decide to thaw Peter Grave, which is at least an outside possibility at this point. That’s a lot of expertise – more than any of us has on our own, and that includes you, Eunice. If we made a mistake about Nhamedjo, then I’m truly sorry. But the only way out is via cooperation, and that means none of us acting rashly.’ Vasin looked at Goma. ‘I concur that Ru must remain in quarantine – that’s the only sensible option – but she must be informed that we do not think she is culpable. Do you accept that, Eunice?’
‘Nothing is proven either way.’
‘I’m not insisting on proof, just a little reasonableness. I am willing to turn over the resources of my entire starship to help you and the Tantors – now give me something back.’
‘You made this mess.’
‘You invited us,’ Vasin replied.
Of course there were no miracles to be had, except of the modest kind permitted by the exigencies of medicine and time. Karayan came back with a sled-load of supplies, and on the second trip the suited Tantors returned to the lander to help with additional logistics. Vasin outlined the situation to Caspari, and with all haste her desired arrangements were put in place. The lander’s medical analysers were patched through to Travertine and additional blood samples taken from both Tantors and humans. The remaining members of Nhamedjo’s medical staff – presumed innocent until otherwise proven – were assigned the task of processing this data, first to select the best therapeutic approach based on the existing medical stocks, and secondly to attempt synthesis of a targeted antiviral drug.
Not all of the news was against them. Atria, Mimosa and Keid had completed repairs on one of Eunice’s remote transmitters, which in turn allowed for better and more prolonged communications with Travertine. The starship, meanwhile, had now dispersed relay satellites into its own orbit, furthering their chances of remaining in contact. Vasin returned to the lander and moved it closer to the camp, allowing a flexible pressure bridge to be strung from one of the airlocks. This in turn permitted the humans to move more easily from one to the other.
Ru’s virus was detected at low concentrations in all the expedition members, most notably Goma, but not at a level where infection was a strong likelihood. After more than a day all remained asymptomatic, confirming that the virus had been engineered to avoid obvious detection.
‘Nhamedjo would have seen it in our blood,’ Goma said. ‘That’s a given. But no one was looking over his shoulder, doubting his word.’
Eunice remained entirely free of infection, although in other respects she appeared fully human, it was clear that she had some sort of immune system.
‘To think I let that bastard examine me,’ she said. ‘He was close enough that I could have snapped his neck like a dry twig.’
‘Would you have, if you’d known?’
‘In an instant.’
‘That would have done wonders for diplomacy. Anyway, the damage was done by then – Ru was already primed to infect the Tantors. For all we know he tainted her blood while the rest of us were still in skipover. With hindsight, it makes sense that he’d concentrate his efforts on one of us – we were always going to be among the first to contact the
m.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t speak of this making sense, Goma. Not while Sadalmelik is dying.’
‘I’m just saying there’s a twisted logic to it. He must have rejoiced when we put Peter Grave into skipover.’
‘Then this other man is definitely innocent?’
‘I think he and Mposi were trying to flush out the real saboteur. Grave confided in Mposi and they arranged to meet, but Doctor Nhamedjo got to Mposi first. When Gandhari digs into his background, I’ll be interested to know if he had expertise in nanotechnology.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s how he hoped to get rid of Mposi.’
‘I am sorry about that. I remember Mposi, although he was a much younger man when I knew him. I would have liked to meet the older version – to see the person he grew into. And Ndege, of course.’
‘You only thought to ask one of them to come.’
‘I did not have the luxury of sending a long and involved message. Besides, Ndege was the one who had the best knowledge of Tantors – the one most likely to impress Dakota. Well, my plans did what plans have a habit of doing.’ But she touched Goma’s hand. ‘You are blameless in this. I understand that.’
‘And Ru?’
‘You appear convinced of her innocence. I admit that the force of your opinion is . . . compelling.’
‘We studied Tantors on Crucible – we put our lives into bringing them back. Ru almost literally – that’s why she’s as damaged as she is. She didn’t want to follow me here at first – this expedition was going to tear us apart, wife from wife. But when she realised there was even a glimmer of a chance that they might still be alive . . . that was enough to change her mind.’
‘So the Tantors persuaded her where you could not?’
‘I love her. And I know she loves me. But I can’t ever be the biggest thing in her universe.’
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