by Paul McAuley
Tony asked again if she was all right.
‘It’s full of light,’ she heard herself say.
‘The tower?’
‘Everything,’ Lisa said, but Tony had turned away from her because Dave Clegg had walked up to the base of the tower, was peering at the wall of cemented sand through the curve of his helmet faceplate. He scraped at it, kicked it, then raised the ray gun and started to walk backwards.
‘That isn’t a good idea,’ Tony said sharply.
‘I want a sample. Unless you have a crowbar or a wad of C4 in your back pocket, this will have to do.’
‘I don’t know who made this, or why,’ Tony said. ‘But I do know that it would not be a good idea to upset them.’
Lisa felt his alarm, or maybe it was her ghost’s, and said, ‘You could bring the whole thing down.’
‘I’m just going to chip it,’ Dave said, and took aim and fired.
There was a quick white flash; a hand-sized chunk of an arch turned black and crumbled, leaving an ugly pockmark. Dave scraped at the edge, retrieving a scant palmful of red grains. ‘It just looks like sand,’ he said, and dusted his gloves.
All around, the luminous silence of the city.
Lisa said, ‘Either the sand organised itself, like some kind of nanotechnology, or something organised it.’
‘Most likely it is something we do not understand,’ Tony said.
‘You’re from the future. I would have thought stuff like smart nanotech was commonplace.’
‘Unfortunately, this is not the future that the past dreamed about.’
‘Shut it, you two,’ Dave said. ‘We have a problem.’
He was pointing at the sky: at a star that had appeared in the east. A drone, according to Tony.
‘Is it the police?’ Lisa said.
‘I don’t know.’
Dave started to raise his gun as the star swooped towards them, then thought better of it. Lisa glimpsed a wasp-shaped machine about as long as her arm, and then a human figure stood there, a giantess ten or twelve metres tall. She was dressed in black, with pale skin and red lipstick and a neat cap of black hair. After a moment, Lisa remembered a picture of Ada Morange from an old profile piece, back when she’d been the thirty-year-old CEO of a hot biotech start-up.
The huge avatar looked down at them, and a voice boomed out. ‘Master Tony. What have you done now?’
Dave Clegg stepped forward. ‘It was me, Professor! I saved them!’
‘And who are you?’
‘I’m the pilot, Professor. David Clegg. The pilot of your timeship. I rescued them from Adam Nevers, and I brought them here.’
‘But first, I think, you surrendered to him. You gave him my ship, and you gave him Lisa Dawes.’
‘I left everything behind because you told me that I would find something important at the other end,’ Dave said. ‘Something wonderful and glorious. Instead, I found that Adam Nevers was waiting for me. I found that I’d wasted six years of my life travelling all the way out to a star orbited by a fucking wormhole you and your fucking company didn’t know about.’
‘No one knew of the wormhole when you set out,’ Ada Morange said. ‘But here you are, and I will see that you are rewarded appropriately.’
Dave ignored her, saying, ‘I had to kill my friends and colleagues to save myself and my passenger. I had to grovel to Nevers. But I fooled him. I got away, and I freed these two and brought them with me. I did it for you, and the first thing you say to me isn’t, “Thank you for your hard work and sacrifice.” It isn’t even, “How nice to see you again.” No, you accuse me of surrendering. Like I had some other choice. And now you’re telling me I’ll get my reward? Really? I’m not even sure who you are any more.’
‘I am your employer. And I kept my promise to you, Monsieur Clegg. Here you are, and here I am. But you have not yet rescued your companions. Nor have you escaped. Do you see why?’
The avatar gestured hugely at the sky. Another star was falling towards them.
64. Ruins And Mad Ghosts
The second drone halted about two hundred metres above the deck and was enveloped by a gigantic avatar of Adam Nevers. Tony watched, half-dismayed, half-amused, as the policeman and Ada Morange engaged in a brief competition to overtop each other and quickly ran up against the limits of their capabilities – as the avatars grew bigger, they became grainier and ever more translucent. They reached a compromise at about a hundred metres tall, looming over the Ghajar tower like ludicrously displaced blimps from Victory Landing’s Fat Tuesday parade. Ghostly in the perpetual late-afternoon sunlight. Their voices booming out across the sand city as they exchanged barbed greetings.
They seemed to have forgotten the puny humans at their feet. Tony and Lisa stood in the nominal shelter of the Ghajar tower, looking up at the giants. Dave Clegg crouched a little way off, clutching his ray gun.
Above them, Adam Nevers’s avatar was telling Ada Morange that he had come to ask for her surrender. Her laugh thundered across the pink sky. ‘I could ask the same of you.’
‘You’re outnumbered.’
‘At the moment, Monsieur Nevers, it is you who are outnumbered.’
‘The police squadron will be here soon. And their drones will be here a lot sooner.’
‘I see that they have already lost a ship,’ Ada Morange said. ‘We will deal with you, and then we will deal with them.’
‘I doubt that very much. And there’ll be more ships on their way when the Commons government realises what I have found here. Best give it up now. Surrender and save the lives of everyone in your little fleet.’
‘But it is not my decision. I am no more than a passenger.’
‘You persuaded Mina Saba to come here. You persuaded her to give you control of that drone. You can persuade her to surrender.’
‘She came here because I was able to show her that our interests were the same. As they are.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Nevers said. ‘Mina Saba and her crew of fanatics want to find powerful new technologies. They want to find the location of the Jackaroo home world, and answers to all the questions the Jackaroo shrug off. Why they came to help the human race, what happened to the Elder Cultures, what they want from us. All that. Secrets that will enable the Red Brigade to take control of the destiny of the human race. But you know as well as I that there are no such secrets. That the Red Brigade is no more than a gang of common criminals with delusions of grandeur, meddling in things they don’t understand.’
‘I did not come here to “meddle”,’ Ada Morange said, with a precise measure of disdain.
‘No, you played on Mina Saba’s delusions and persuaded her to bring you here because you are a brain in a box with a fixation. Not even a brain, really. An incomplete replica that’s running on tired ideas and old ambitions. You started something a hundred years ago, and you haven’t been able to let it go because you’re incapable of thinking of something new. You aren’t the new thing, Ada. You’re the old thing. You’re everything that went bad in human history after First Contact. Everything the Commons is trying to fix.’
‘That is quite a speech.’
‘I’ve had a lot of time to think it through.’
‘And have you thought about why you are here, Monsieur Nevers?’
‘I’m here to put and end to all the trouble you and your fixation have caused.’
‘No,’ Ada Morange said. ‘You are here because you are exactly what you accuse me of being. Because, Monsieur Nevers, you are in the grip of an obsession that has become your only reason for being. You travelled into the future because of it. You followed me here because of it. When did it begin? I wonder . Was it in London, when you became aware that one of my research units was interested in an insignificant cult? Was it when you went against the orders of your superiors and chased a boy possessed by an eidolon from Earth to Mangala? Or did it begin after you failed to prevent him finding what he went there to find? If you have spent the rest of your life trying to
make up for that failure, then I am sorry for you. You have wasted your life on the wrong cause, and become a hypocrite who claims to be doing the right thing when all he really wants is petty revenge.’
Lisa said to Tony, ‘Is she really some kind of AI?’
‘A laminated brain,’ Tony said. ‘Not exactly a simulation, but not exactly a real person either. A mind frozen in time, supported by a lot of code and hardware.’
‘Whatever she is, she’s way smarter than Nevers,’ Lisa said. ‘She sees right through him.’
High above them, Nevers’s avatar was saying, ‘Unlike you, Ada, I’m only human. And I’ve given up a lot to get here. So I don’t think anyone will blame me for taking a little personal pleasure in putting an end to your long career.’
‘How arrogant of you, Monsieur Nevers, to think that you can protect humanity from its own curiosity.’
‘Perhaps you should take a good hard look at what has happened in the last hundred years. The Jackaroo gave us access to new worlds, and told us we could build utopias there. Did it change us for the better? No. We rushed out to those worlds carrying all our sins with us, and misused Elder Culture tech to make up some new ones. And after the New Frontier opened up there was an empire built by a madman, and two bloody wars to defeat him and his equally murderous son. New kinds of madness and perversion. Meme plagues threatening to destroy us. All of this from Elder Culture tech. People like you make glorious claims about the technology you peddle, and then you run away from the mess it creates. And people like me have to take charge and clean it up. That’s why I’m here. I’m going to arrest you and put an end to your tired old schemes, and you’ll live out the rest of your life, if that’s what you can call it, as an exhibit. A lesson to people who think that, just because they’re a little smarter and luckier than ordinary people, they can do as they please.’
Lisa said, ‘This is the man who killed my dog to make a point. To punish me. To show me who was in charge.’
There was a rawness in her voice that Tony hadn’t heard before. He was worried that the seizure or collapse had weakened her, that the burden of her eidolon was growing too great.
Ada Morange’s avatar was saying, ‘Look around you, Monsieur Nevers. Look at this city and ask yourself: why was it created? It is a response to the arrival of people carrying Ghajar eidolons, that much is clear. But what kind of response is it? What is it trying to tell us?’
Dave Clegg shouted, ‘It wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t brought us down!’
The man was trying to assert himself because he was beginning to realise that he had been caught in the middle of something that had nothing to do with him.
‘It’s like everywhere else. Full of ruins and mad ghosts,’ Adam Nevers said. ‘Everywhere we go, we find that the dead have been there before us. And we’ve been contaminated by them. By their ghosts and by the remains of their tech.’
‘We can work together to discover the meaning of this city,’ Ada Morange said. ‘Or the Red Brigade and I will brush you aside, and discover it anyway. That is my offer to you, Monsieur Nevers. Which will it be?’
‘How about a third way?’ Adam Nevers said, and there was a thunderclap.
The ground quaked under Tony’s boots; he saw with shock and dismay a pillar of fire and smoke blast up several kilometres beyond the quarrelling giants. His pressure suit’s radiation detector was redlining; atmospheric pressure was rising. He grabbed Lisa’s arm, told her to kneel and protect her helmet. The blast wave hit a bare second later.
65. City Of Gold
Lisa was knocked onto her back by the solid blast of air and sand, crooking an arm over the faceplate of her helmet as it howled over her. And then it died away and she could see the two avatars again. The sky beyond them was roiled with dust and smoke but the city’s lovely glow was undimmed.
Tony helped her to her feet, saying, ‘Radiation just spiked hard. I’m picking up cobalt-60, strontium-90 . . . It looks like Nevers dropped a dirty bomb close to the city.’
‘He nuked it?’
‘A low-yield tactical device. We are downwind of its fallout,’ Tony said, with unreasonable calm.
‘Will our pressure suits keep us safe?’
‘For a little while . . .’ Tony was distracted, turning to stare up at the giants looming above them.
‘You think the city is the prize?’ Ada Morange was saying. ‘The entire sub-stellar hemisphere is sand. Enough to build a million cities like this.’
‘Oh, that bomblet was just a love tap,’ Adam Nevers said. ‘If needs must, I can do much worse.’
‘If you expect me to surrender to save this city, you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.’
‘But I don’t expect you to surrender,’ Adam Nevers said. ‘Goodbye, Ada.’
Ada Morange said, ‘Wait! No! I want—’
Her avatar winked out; her drone plummeted to the ground.
High above, swift machines drew knots of contrails across the smoke-darkened sky as they engaged and destroyed each other. And a double star was burning in the east, expanding cometwise, fading.
Adam Nevers’s avatar turned to look down at Tony and Lisa. ‘As for you, I’ll come to collect you when I’ve finished with the Red Brigade.’
Tony said, ‘What have you done?’
Dave Clegg said, ‘The fucker took out the Red Brigade’s capital ship. And their mad ship, too.’
Tony said, ‘Ada Morange is dead?’
‘And Mina Saba,’ Adam Nevers said. ‘Who I believe was responsible for the death of your father. You can thank me later, when you’re back aboard.’
Lisa, perfectly shocked by Nevers’s stark coldness, said, ‘How many people were on that ship? How many did you kill to get rid of her?’
The avatar shrugged hugely. ‘They are trying their best to kill me. Luckily, you turned out to be a useful distraction. I doubled down on it by bombing the city, and in the confusion slipped a couple of drones past their defences. One dealt with the Red Brigade’s frigate; the other hit the hauler carrying the stolen mad ship. The rest of their ships are rallying, but my reinforcements will be here soon. Meanwhile, I think you should find shelter. Even with your pressure suits, the radiation will give you a lethal dose in less than three hours.’
Dave Clegg stepped forward, aiming his ray gun at the avatar, saying, ‘I’m going to enjoy watching the Red Brigade take you down, you murderous motherfucker.’
‘Are you trying to threaten me with that silly little weapon, Mr Clegg? Have you forgotten that I’m not actually there? Or that I have assets that you and the timeship lack, and reinforcements are on the way? If you want to survive this, I suggest that you sit tight, all of you, until I can organise a rescue party.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Dave said, and fired.
The intense beam of white light sliced through Adam Nevers’s avatar and it was gone. Burning fragments of drone showered down, sputtering out on red sand.
Dave turned to Lisa and Tony. ‘You two are coming with me. We have a chance to get off this planet while Nevers’s expedition and the Red Brigade are shooting it out, but it won’t last long. The police interceptors will be here soon, and that’ll be it, game over.’
‘You forgot something,’ Tony said. ‘I have my own ship.’
‘Which is locked down inside Nevers’s mad ship.’
‘It knows how to take care of itself. It will be here soon enough.’
‘If you two men would stop comparing dicks for a couple of minutes, we could come up with a way of surviving this,’ Lisa said.
She felt frail and querulous. Why couldn’t anyone else see the miracle that shone all around them?
‘The only way you’ll survive this is by coming with me,’ Dave said, raising his ray gun.
‘I don’t want to choose between being killed now or when you make your suicide run,’ Tony said.
‘Stop it!’ Lisa shouted, and her anger pushed outward and grasped something.
A squall of sand whi
rled up around Dave Clegg, swallowing him whole; Tony yelled and charged into it. Lisa glimpsed something skittering away and went after it, stumbling in the awkward pressure suit, falling to her hands and knees, crawling, scooping up the ray gun.
Sand rained from the air as the wind died back. The two men stood a few feet apart, fists raised liked boxers. The harsh engines of their breath were loud in Lisa’s helmet; her blood pumped hard in her head when she got to her feet.
‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Hey!’
They both turned. She was holding the ray gun in a two-handed grip, aiming it at Dave Clegg. Its blunt cylinder was surprisingly heavy, trembling in the grip of her stiff gloves. Her heart was beating high and quick, and she was having trouble focusing through the radiance that stained the air around her.
‘You wouldn’t,’ Dave said.
‘You might want to step back, Tony,’ Lisa said. ‘I’m not sure what this thing will do at close range.’
Dave raised his hands to chest height, palms out, saying, ‘Maybe things got a little out of control here.’
‘You’re right-handed, aren’t you?’ Lisa said. ‘Use your left hand to unhitch that bolt gun.’
‘You’re making a mistake,’ Dave said, as he fumbled at his pressure suit’s utility belt. ‘We have a common enemy.’
‘Throw it away as hard as you can.’
He spread his hands and dropped the bolt gun, then turned and started to walk away. Saying, ‘I’m going to my ship. If you have any sense you’ll come with me.’
‘I don’t think Lisa was kidding about shooting you,’ Tony said.
The man kept walking, saying, ‘You think your fucking ghosts can save you against nukes? If you want to live, you should come with me.’
‘It’s okay,’ Lisa said. ‘Let him go.’
They watched as the pilot broke into a run, bounding past the Ghajar tower.
Tony drew a ‘6’ in the sand with the toe of his boot, told Lisa how to switch channels.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘He can’t hear us now.’
