The Fall of Sirius

by Wil McCarthy

  “Names,” another voice echoed.

  “No, I'm afraid Vere is mistaken,” Malye declared firmly, and with a deliberately false air of expertise. She pushed her face almost up against the window, looking down and sideways for the clearest possible view. “This isn't Artya. It isn't any of the Thousand Lesser Worlds at all. Obviously this is a new world, previously unknown to us.”

  People were breathing all around her, breathing in the sharp, heavy way of those who are about to speak. But no one spoke. No one felt like contradicting her declaration.

  She turned away from the window, fixed her eyes on Plate. “How soon until we dock?”

  “Not long,” he said, looking back at her, and for some reason his copper eyes were sad, as if he had begun to comprehend the magnitude of their loss, to sympathize with it, to realize there was no comfort he could possibly offer.

  You, Malye thought impatiently, who claimed not to be human.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  214::22

  HOLDERS FASTNESS, GATE SYSTEM:

  CONTINUITY 5218, YEAR OF THE DRAGON

  The new world proved just as alien on the inside as on the out. High gravity, for one thing; probably very nearly two gee's, which came as quite a shock after relaxing in a tenth that much aboard the transport. There were white, hexagonal corridors just like the ones in reclaimed Pinega, except that here they wound together in a twisted mess that quickly stymied Malye's sense of direction. Like noodles in a bowl, almost, and also the corridors here were crowded with Gateans, mostly Workers, who moved about unhurriedly but with palpable self-importance, their chins held high.

  Everywhere, she heard the fluting, huffing, scraping sounds of the Waister language, aesthetically compelling and yet seemingly neither musical nor linguistic in its patterning. Really it was just noise, like modulated static. But it was everywhere, echoing through the crowds, filling up the breathing air with its alienness.

  Plate had told her that this whole world was not hollowed out and occupied pole-to-pole, as Tyumen had been, nor inhabited superficially, in its near-surface crustal layers like Pinega. The shape and composition of the planetoid didn't lend itself to such projects, and anyway the cucumber tumbled end-over-end, producing a fierce spin-gee gradient between the center and the outstretched tips, and it was the high-gravity portions the Gateans preferred to occupy. Just like Waisters, of course, the better to understand them.

  “Holders Fastness” was in fact just a warren of tunnels and chambers at one of the cucumber's ends, the whole complex no more than five kilometers from top to bottom. Which relieved her, because at this population density the world could easily hold hundreds of millions of Gateans, and that was something she'd rather not have to think about.

  The refugees marched in more or less the same way they had in boarding the transport that morning—Crow and Wende and Mark and the nameless Dog filling the space behind them, with Line and Plate leading the way ahead. The children, evidently not bothered by the heavy gee, amused themselves by running out ahead and then running back to badger Plate and Line with questions. At first Malye worried about this, about what Line might do if the children managed to annoy or upset him, but in fact he seemed to be ignoring them almost completely, and Plate actually appeared to enjoy their attention, so she decided to let them be. They would spend their whole lives in this future, however long or short it proved to be for them; best that they enjoy themselves when they could.

  And so Malye found herself, as in the much quieter and simpler time that already seemed many days distant, walking between Viktor and Sasha, and speaking with them in low tones.

  “I think I could almost get the hang of this,” Viktor was saying. “The Gateans are strange, yes, but it's just a matter of deducing their operating states. Do this, they behave that way. Do that, they behave this way. That's all emotions are anyway, just a change of operating states. You see that in any machine.”

  “People aren't like machines,” Sasha cautioned, in his usual defeated tone.

  “No, they're not machines,” Malye said, “but Viktor is right; there's nothing random about them. We are not powerless here, not quite, but what influence we have, we don't know how to use. We've benefitted thus far from luck and intuition, but that has to change, it will change. Intuition is worthless without understanding.”

  It went on like that for a while, not exactly idle chatter but not focused either, not productive. They didn't know what was going on, or what was expected of them, or anything, really.

  The walk was long, a kilometer at least, and through endlessly twisting hallways, but eventually they came to a membrane door which led them into what was clearly an elevator, a large, white platform at the bottom (or middle?) of a hexagonal shaft which rose to dizzying heights above them, terminating in a flat ceiling just barely visible in the distance. When Wende and her entourage oozed through the membrane, crowding in behind the refugees as they had in the transport's hold, the air smelled close and sweet. I wonder how we smell to them? she thought suddenly. Probably, she didn't want to know. The platform began to hum.

  “Don't lean against the wall,” Plate cautioned, his voice echoing and echoing upward, and then they were rising, slowly, the membrane doorway sinking beneath the floor, many others moving down the shaft toward them on the six walls. Everyone was silent. The ascent took several minutes, and covered what must surely be a hundred meters or more of vertical distance.

  And then the platform stopped again, and Line hulked his way through the crowd to exit the membrane first, Plate trailing behind him as if in tow. Everyone followed. They were getting good at this; it was starting to come naturally. Was that a good thing or a bad?

  The new corridor looked just like the old, and snaked about so much that floors twisted around to become walls and even ceilings. Any surface might hold a doorway, its orientation only approximately horizontal. Malye began to suspect that the laser-straight corridors Wende's people had built at Pinega were more a matter of expedience than of aesthetics—clearly this place would be, in every way, just as the Gateans wanted it. How did they find their way around?

  This time, it wasn't long before the group came to another membrane that Line and Plate stepped through. Malye, who found herself at the front of the queue again, followed them, trying not to shiver as the faint, dry touch of the membrane kissed across her skin, across the thin robe that covered it.

  On the other side, there was a... throne room?

  A perfect white octohedral chamber, of the sort so very much in fashion these days but significantly larger, and with three smaller chambers sticking off it in three directions. It was through one of these lobes that Malye had entered, but the whole space was open, vaulted, a hollow cathedral of the sort you might once have found in Tyumen, though perhaps not quite so grand.

  And it was absolutely full of Gateans, a hundred of them at least. Malye stepped out of the way so everyone else could get inside, and the chambers filled up even further.

  At the chamber's center was a dais, about a meter and a half higher than the surrounding floor, on which sat three couches, and a truly enormous Queen, who outweighed Wende by a good thirty percent, with two equivalently proportioned Drones lounging on either side. At their feet sat a pair of Workers, with a Dog curled up between them, apparently asleep.

  It didn't take a lot of brain power to figure out this Queen was top silver, that she and her six were members of the dreaded Holders ring, perhaps even the leaders of it. Did rings have leaders? There was so much Malye didn't know. But enough, to get by, perhaps, if she stopped playing along and started making the rules up herself. The best defense, her father had once told her, is a vicious attack to the eyes and genitals.

  Ialah help them all.

  She rounded on Wende, puffed herself up as best she could, squared her shoulders and held her arms away from her sides to create a false impression of mass. It felt somewhat absurd, but absurd tricks like this were common in the animal kingdom, and as often as
not they worked, at least a little. Or so she'd been told. And whether or not they were human, the Gateans were certainly more animal than mineral.

  “Wende,” she said calmly but forcefully, “stay here. Keep everyone with you.”

  And then, without bothering to gauge the Queen's reaction, she turned and started for the dais. The crowd, who had all turned to face her, fell into startled silence, and stepped aside to make room for her as she advanced, holding them back with her eyes. She moved through a sandaled, white-robbed corridor of fat and thin and muscular and four-footed bodies, of Gateans, Aggressor Cultists, green-haired, gray-skinned people who looked like something a child might conceive with a flatscreen and a mismatched set of drawing sticks.

  Shapes and sounds marched across her tongue. Blues and yellows, uncertainty and opportunity and the sharp angles of surprise all around her. But there was no bitter, electric white to spoil the flavor—she was not afraid. Her mind was as clean and clear as a glass of water, free of plans, of recriminations and self-doubt, operating on pure instinct.

  The monster was free.

  On the dais, the Queen began to look a little alarmed, and her Drones stiffened, ready to roll off their couches and drop into action at any time. They didn't know what Malye was up to, and they didn't like that. It was new, and they didn't like new things one bit. They crushed new things, untested things, whenever possible, yes?

  But nobody had ever accused the monster of being stupid. Three meters from the dais, she suddenly threw herself down, kneeling, arms extended until they touched the floor, her forehead following, nose flattening against the warm, slick, seamless ceramic.

  “Oh great Queen!” she called out without raising her head. “I, and all who attend me, surrender before your great strength!”

  These had been the first words to enter her head, the only words, and she said them without reflection, without recrimination or regret. That was pretty much how things were done, when the monster was on the loose.

  Apparently, it had been the right thing to say, or nearly so, or else it had been so outrageously wrong as to stun the Queen and her attendants into almost total paralysis.

  In any case the Queen burst out laughing, and did not stop for a long, long time.

  ~~~

  As it turned out, most of the Gateans assembled here were members of Finders ring and something called Talkers ring, though there were some Holders in the crowd as well.

  It seemed—Malye wasn't quite sure about this, but it seemed that any Queen could be entrusted to act with full authority on behalf of her ring. Not a democratic or anarchic structure, but rather one of pure expedience and mutual trust, like a police district in which any greenbar could serve as Coordinator if the circumstances required it. It seemed a little too convenient to actually work, and Malye couldn't quite bring herself to believe it. Not of these people, no. But certainly, the other Finders Queens greeted Wende briefly and simply enough, with neither deference nor arrogance nor formality.

  But the other Queens, the Holders and the Talkers and the one or two from still other rings, were making noise and waving their fat, flabby arms at Wende. The Drones and Workers seemed less animated, though far from motionless, and the Dogs had begun to wander slowly through the crowd, their hairless heads and tails held down.

  It was difficult to know what was going on, what it all might mean; all the conversation was in Waister, all the emotion in some alien realm, some operating state to which the refugees themselves were not privy. Malye had never stood in the middle of a flock of screeching, strutting geese, but having seen them on educational holies, she imagined the experience might be very similar. Occasionally, Plate would lean toward her with boneless grace and whisper the odd detail in Standard; that Wende was explaining the mechanics of the Pinega excavation, that Tempe (apparently the name of the Holders Queen) was soliciting opinions of some sort. But the action taking place here was too complex to be explained in this way. It was like a warren meeting, like a church service, like a drama and a dance and an ugly mob preparing to beat the crap out of some poor citizen. It was an environment that maddened Malye's law enforcement instincts—if this were a human crowd, she would have dispersed immediately.

  But there was nothing human about this, and Malye was not at all sure of her position. Something between a guest and an observer and a pet, she thought, and in no way entitled to enforce her alien ideas of law and order.

  Eventually, though, things seemed to settle down, the cacophony dying away, and at this point the Queen, Tempe, turned her attention on Malye and addressed her in Standard, in a deep, scratchy voice: “Woman, you are here to provide information at a time which is now. You will begin.”

  “Momma,” Elle said, “is that fat lady another Queen?”

  “Hush, baby” Malye replied, touching her daughter's arm. “We'll talk later.” She squared her shoulders and faced the enormous Queen, calling out across the distance between them. “Tempe, my name is Malyene. We have come to provide information, yes, but we do so as a gift to you, in order to help. We will not be coerced or exploited. Do you understand this?”

  The Queen fidgeted liquidly on her couch, as if considering Malye's words. “Malyene,” she said after a few moments, “What you say has been comprehended.”

  “What will happen when the Waisters arrive? What will you do with the information we provide?”

  “Talkers ring,” said the Queen, “will communicate with the Waister fleet.”

  “What will you do with the information we provide?” Malye repeated. “If it's useful to you, what will it change? Will it prevent another war?”

  The Queen seemed to inflate slightly. “No infarct will take place. Newness is absent here. Talkers ring will communicate in the manner we recommend.”

  And she said nothing more after that. All the Gateans had stopped moving, seemed to have stopped even breathing.

  WHAT will they communicate, you fat sack of shit? What is it you intend?

  But that was not a question Malye really felt like asking right now, so she took a deep breath instead, and launched into her own personal account of the Waister attack, of the destruction of Tyumen and Pinega, of the fall of the Sirius colony at the hands of an unknown and merciless enemy.

  And when she was done, Viktor took his turn, and then Sasha, and then the children, and then even the prewar cryostasis patients were asked to come forward and tell their stories, irrelevant though they might be.

  And strangely, as if the air here were infected with some alien spore that killed off human feelings, not one of the refugees wavered or wept in the course of testimony. Too tired, too empty, too self-conscious under the gaze of these hundreds of copper eyes... It was as if they had discovered all at once how much effort it took to be human, and how liberating it could be to set that aside, if only for a while.

  Malye, of course, had learned this lesson long ago.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  214::26

  HOLDERS FASTNESS, GATE SYSTEM:

  CONTINUITY 5218, YEAR OF THE DRAGON

  Plate stood quiescent before the Queen's dais and strove to appear humble and contrite.

  “#Your project is/will be constrained?#” Tempe demanded of him in the Waister language, its tones fluid and grating, like sand raining down on hollow tubes. Plate had been listening to the Holders Queen's voice for a thousand heartbeats as she discharged her frustrations at him, and for the first time in decades, he heard the strangeness of it, the alienness. Sounds no human throat could produce, framing thoughts no human would understand.

  Or would they? The Sirian colonists had engendered almost continual surprise in him since their revival. Strong, intelligent, flexible... all the things humans were supposed not to be, else why had the Aggressors retreated here to Gate System in the first place? His memories of the Suzerainty were dim and fragmentary, the memories of a child swept up in events too vast and convoluted to be understood in any but the simplest terms: a government corrupted and cr
ippled by its own introversion, unable to address or even recognize its vulnerability. Populations of blindness and ignorance, wholly unfit to deal with the promise and threat which the Waisters embodied. Unfit even to understand that the problem merited study.

  But how much of this had he actually perceived for himself? Malyene Andreivne Kurosov'e would have no place in the Suzerainty of his memory. Even her children were cleverer than he'd imagined a human could be, and could human nature have changed so much in two millennia? It seemed unlikely.

  “#The humans are/have been constrained physically/spatially#” he replied without emotion. “#They/their capacity-for-disturbance is/has been constrained#”

  The word for “human,” translated literally, meant “small and stupid,” the Waister designation for a species too bellicose and territorial to yield before an overwhelmingly superior rival. The term had been applied to one other species, now extinct, and it occurred to Plate that the human race, being the first to survive its initial encounters with the Waisters, had perhaps earned the right to be thought of more charitably. But such, of course, was not his place to suggest.

  By “constrained” he meant that he had placed the humans in a remote corner of the Fastness, weighed down by heavy spin-gee and adjacent to nothing important, with no visual cues or other assistance that might help them find their way out. Tempe might wish for more, might wish to punish the humans for the high cost of their testimony, or perhaps simply of being human, but he would not willingly help her do it. Let her punish him, instead; let her rage against the inanity of his ideas and projects and self.