The Water Bear

by Groucho Jones

  “Okay. Well, everyone, Slim’s my best friend. My father. My mentor. My kickboxing coach.”

  “Saved you from the mean streets of Glasgow,” he smiled.

  Box laughed. “That’s right. Slim found me a home, like a lost kitten. Sent me to Paris. Cured my addictions. Taught me to fight. Slim’s an excellent kickboxer.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m a klutz, a kuruttsu, compared to you.”

  “You should see these two fight.”

  “Well, they’re Po soldiers.”

  “Slim, why are you here? I’m confused.”

  “I work for the Po.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I also freelance a little.”

  “For who?”

  “This isn’t the place. First, to sleep. You know where your room is. I’ll sort out the others.”

  “And after that?”

  “Then, under cover of darkness, like good spies, we’ll hatch our plans.”

  Box’s room was exactly as she’d left it: a narrow bed, slightly mildewed, tucked high under the eaves, overhanging the street. She felt a strong rush of memory, here in this familiar place. She’d led a hard-enough life, she supposed, although she was mindful of those who’d experienced worse. She was alive. Right here, in this milieu, people were dying in their millions, directly from wars, or of starvation in the forced labor camps of the Med.

  For the first time since leaving Earth, she felt safe. Nothing could hurt her here. Not with Slim down below, smoking his rollup cigarettes. The weirdness ebbed away, and for a moment, she was just Ophelia Box, not a bit-player in a game she didn’t understand.

  She sighed. Whatever was happening here, it wasn’t what she signed up for, but what choice did she have?

  It wasn’t as though she said no.

  It wasn’t as though she wanted to.

  Slim gave the others the bedroom below. All day, they slept. Outside, the swelter settled on the city like a shroud, smothering the streets, as the mercury climbed past 40°C. Later, when the sun was dipping beneath the spiky Clerkenwell roofs, and the first cool air was creeping through the backstreets, they visited a local restaurant, one Box remembered well. She ordered dolmades, acres of mezêdhes, and more retsina than was wise.

  “This is delicious,” said Kitou.

  “Oh, to be sixteen again,” said Box.

  The food was delicious, and so was the place, all twisted up with its rival antiquities. Russians and Persians, playing chess. Taxi drivers, arguing in Greek. Dolmades, duqqa and dumplings. While the girls ate, Slim told them the story of his ancestors.

  “My people, the Tuniit giants of Kalaallit Nunaat,” he said, “travelled east in the age of the ice spirits, tracking walrus and seal.”

  It was a story Box had heard hundreds of times: a staple of her childhood. Slim had a beautiful voice, and a magnetic way of storytelling. Later, as a young historian, Box would learn that the Tuniit - the Dorset giants - were the fabled first peoples of the Arctic. The origins of their story were shrouded in myth, but Box knew the truth. She’d heard the dogs, howling in the mist; the rattle and thump of runners on ice, in Slim’s sonorous baritone voice, too real to be make-believe.

  Just hearing it here, made the hairs on her neck stand on end. It was like an electrical circuit, wired directly into her memories.

  The girls were full of questions, which Slim answered directly. He told them about survival on the ice - how to stay warm, how to track seal, how to find water - as though he’d been there himself.

  “Two thousand years after that,” he said, “the Vikings came to the high arctic tundra. They called us the Skræling, and couldn’t defeat us in battle. They didn’t have to, because although we’d fight, we were a gentle people. In the end, the fierce and clever Inuit drove us from our lands, not by war but by competition for resources, and we disappeared forever.”

  “But you’re here,” said Brin.

  “Hidden,” winked Slim.

  “This was how long ago?” asked Box.

  “The last diaspora was about the time of Christ.”

  “You’re one of the old ones?” asked Kitou.

  “Even older that you,” he said.

  That night, the Bat descended out of a tangerine sky, lit from below by the fires in Bow, like a bat fluttering into the underworld. The four of them climbed onto Slim’s rooftop, into the belly of the ship.

  “Mr. Slim,” said Pax when they were aboard, and the Bat had risen high above the crowded air lanes, and London was spread out below them like a warzone.

  Like a patient, etherized upon a table.

  Brin had originally offered to lift Slim up, using the Bat’s gravity drive.

  “It’s faster,” she said.

  “No,” said Slim. “Tuniit and gravity drives - not a happy combination.”

  “Master Pax,” said Slim. “Ito has spoken well of you.”

  “And you. Please meet my ship, the Water Bear.”

  “We’ve met,” said Slim, to the Water Bear’s androform remote.

  “It’s been a long time, Yokohama Slim,” said the ship.

  “And the Bat.”

  “Welcome,” said the Bat.

  “Where’re we going?” asked Pax.

  “Not so much where,” said Slim, “as when.”

  Slim asked Kitou to bring him Macro’s device. Kitou frowned disconsolately at that.

  “It won’t bite you,” smiled Pax.

  “Do you mind?” asked Slim.

  “Go ahead,” said Pax.

  Slim touched its surfaces with his long fingers.

  “This is a functioning time travel drive,” he said. “You just have to know how to work it.” Something flashed inside it. For a moment, Box thought she saw star systems, reflected in its depths.

  “As you may know,” he said, “I serve several masters. Our friend, the bank. Po intelligence, of course. Our alien compatriots, the Xap. Others you don’t want to know about.

  “This, this is Magellanic. Or at least, the box it comes in is. The tech, not so much.”

  He touched the object again. It flashed, and again Box had the sensation of a revealed infinity.

  “Which I happen to know how to drive.”

  He touched the object again.

  “And we’re here,” he said. “Or then. We just travelled in time, to 1851. A great many things happened, in 1851. We’re going to visit the Great Exhibition.

  “Tell me,” he said to the Water Bear. “Do you have anything resembling a robot here?”

  “This ship has a maintenance drone,” she said.

  “Can it fight?”

  9 ∞ The Spirit Molecule

  1851

  Driving through Victorian London in a horse-drawn carriage was like crack cocaine for a modern historian. It was a crisp autumn day, and the city stank, of sewage from the Thames, and coal smoke from a hundred thousand chimneys.

  Their cab was a Clarence, known as a growler, for the noise its tires made on the cobblestoned streets. They rumbled down Piccadilly, jam-packed with carts and steam-powered cars, and saw posters for the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, at the Crystal Palace, in Hyde Park.

  Slim had them dressed in the height of Victorian fashion, with bonnets, gloves and voluminous skirts, and parasols against the watery sunshine. As usual, their clothes were a perimeter defense of nanobots and fields. Slim was wearing conventional fabrics: a raffish but threadbare frock coat and vest, as befits an Inventor. He’d disguised the drone’s pincers in red leather boxing gloves, which had been hanging in his 1851 kitchen. This milieu was on the cusp of the Queensbury Rules, and the gloves showed signs of regular use.

  They were highland lassies again, in company with their uncle, the Oriental Inventor, and his Fighting Machine, the Mechanical Spider.

  The growler dropped them at Hyde Park Corner, by Burton’s Ionic Screen, during the fashionable hour, and Slim tipped his top hat at the promenading women, who ignored him, or blushed furiously.r />
  “You always did cut a dashing figure,” said Box.

  “I astonish them,” said Slim. “They can’t tell if I’m a gentleman or a savage.”

  “They desire both,” said Brin.

  “This place is incredible,” said Kitou.

  The Spider scuttled behind, waving its gloves like a crab. In 21st century Hyde Park, such a device would’ve drawn a crowd of delighted teenagers, but these Londoners hardly seemed to notice it.

  “They don’t recognize it as technology,” observed Kitou.

  “We exploit that phenomenon,” said Brin.

  “We’re exploiting it now,” said Slim. “Four time-travelers, hiding in plain sight, and the best available scandal is my ethnicity.”

  At 115 million cubic feet, the cast-iron and plate-glass Crystal Palace of the Great Exhibition was one of the great buildings of its time. Its interior volume was divided into halls, and in one of the halls, in a section reserved for the Russian inventions, was a sign:

  Ultimate Fighting Competition

  Box groaned.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Kitou.

  “Nothing,” said Box.

  The Russian Firing Solutions [Zakrytoe Aktsionernoe Obschestvo] stall was only slightly larger than a full-sized boxing ring. In it was a boxing ring, and room around it for standing. Inside the ring were two machines, being fettled by men with oily cloths. Crowded round the ring were excited gentlemen, waving banknotes at bookmakers. This was before the wave of laws against the aristocratic vice of gambling. Constables looked on, interested only in maintaining public order.

  Slim waved a fan of pounds in the air.

  “I have the next winner,” he yelled.

  The crowd ignored him. They had eyes only for the two machines already in the ring. One was a kind of horizontal trebuchet. It spun, and an arm swung out, then a second arm appeared, with a ball on the end. Powered by a tightly wound spring, it struck and struck again, with bewildering speed.

  A weaponized double pendulum.

  It was called the St Austell Slinger.

  Its opponent was a more conservative design. Humanoid and bipedal, it lumbered around the ring, thinking before striking. It was called the Matryoshka Doll, and according to the posters pinned to the walls of the stand, it was the Mechanical Fighting Champion of the World.

  It was clearly hopeless.

  It wasn’t even a Matryoshka Doll.

  Its owner waved the championship belt in the air.

  He caught Slim’s eye, and they exchanged a complicit smile.

  The fight was over in under a minute. The Doll thought once, and again, then reached through the chaos of the pendulum’s arcs and pulled a mechanical pin. The payload jack-knifed into the crowd, where it knocked a gentleman unconscious.

  The undefeated Champion had won, again.

  It had won by thinking.

  Box found that reassuring.

  Slim hoisted the Mechanical Spider into the ring, to hoots and groans from the gentlemen. As on the promenade, these bettors didn’t recognize its biomechanical actuators as technology. Bets were made on the Doll. The fight began, and the robots circled each other. After a few moments, Kitou and Brin began whispering among themselves.

  “The bipedal machine knows Po,” said Kitou.

  Box recognized some of the moves. There was a clever dog, in which the lumbering robot pushed the nimble drone back, and then the drone spun and pummeled it ineffectually.

  The crowd laughed.

  “They’re colluding,” said Brin.

  “Yes,” whispered Slim. “We like to think of it as putting on a show.”

  More bets were placed, and the fight became more kinetic. Soon the Spider’s speed was outmatched by the Russian machine’s greater reach, and it was punched from the ring. The crowd dispersed, and several gentlemen slapped the back of the Russian.

  “What just happened?” asked Box.

  “We lost,” said Slim.

  Slim led the women toward the Russian Inventor and his robot. Kitou moved like a blur. Before anyone could react, she had the Russian pinned to the side of the ring, and was whispering to him in a songlike language. Somewhere, Kitou had found a knife, and was turning it against his carotid artery, not gently, arching him back. Brin peeled her loose, and accepted the blade, which Kitou willingly released.

  “That’s mine, thank you,” said the Russian. He was a sallow young man, and he was showing them an empty shoulder scabbard. To his credit, he wasn’t showing any signs of being afraid, as though being bailed up with his own weapon was an everyday event for him.

  Brin pocketed the knife.

  “What the fuck was that?” asked Box.

  “Pursang,” said Slim, “If I’m not mistaken.”

  “What was she saying?”

  “I’m not especially fluent,” said Slim. “But, approximately, I kill you later.”

  Slim took a glaring Kitou by the shoulders.

  “Listen, my little stiletto. Your first mistake is that to understand events, we must first talk to the Horu.”

  “I know that,” said Kitou. “It’s why he’s alive.”

  “Your second mistake is that the Horu is the machine.”

  “Yes,” boomed the robot.

  “Why do you want to kill me?”

  The Russian’s suite of rooms at the Grosvenor Hotel, on Park Lane, in Mayfair, were the epitome of regency bling: gold-leaf wingback chairs, gold velvet drapes, and a guttering fire. The Russian, who was called Ned Mulligan, broke out whiskey, which he’d just brought from the robot’s share of the profits, and left to count his day’s winnings.

  Box was sure she remembered his name, from her high-school history lessons.

  “Why do you want to kill me?” asked the robot.

  Slim said, “Kitou?”

  “I’m a Pursang, from Fluxor.”

  The robot clanked, then stopped moving. Unlike the Mechanical Spider, it was a reasonable facsimile of Victorian technology.

  “Ah,” it said after a moment of silence. “Fluxor. That was a crime against all reason.” It clanked again. “But hear me out, young Pursang. My people are innocent of that crime. I’ve already persuaded Ito Nadolo of it.”

  “This Horu is called Chance,” said Slim. “Despite all appearances, he is a human. Chance, these are the ones you have to convince, not Ito.”

  Chance clanked again. “Then I’ll put my case plainly. It’s inconceivable that we’d ever attack Fluxor, let alone destroy it so cruelly. We’re your friends, in ways you can’t begin to imagine.

  “But those are just words. To know the truth, you must travel to Horax.”

  Mulligan returned with a tray of ice, and five crystal tumblers, as though nothing had happened. He had the air of an indomitable fraudster, who believed he could talk his way around anything, and carried himself accordingly.

  “Who are you, Mr. Mulligan?” asked Box. “Not Russian, to be sure?”

  “I’m a Young Irelander,” he said.

  Now she remembered. This Ned Mulligan was an infamous murderer.

  “You’ll be a Fenian then,” she said.

  “And what would a Fenian be?”

  “You fought in the Famine Rebellion.”

  “That I did, and bravely. How d’you know?”

  “I know you’ll be a murderous traitor.”

  “And what would you be, a witch?”

  She snorted.

  “Slim,” said the robot. “You should take them to the aspen glade.”

  “I will,” said Slim. “It’s our next stop.”

  “Pursang?” asked the robot.

  Kitou raised her chin.

  “Please, have an open mind.”

  She nodded. “I will, if Mr. Slim says so.”

  “You have my offer of friendship.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “I understand.”

  Day became night, and while the others lounged around Ned Mulligan’s comfortable rooms, waiting for Lo
ndon to sleep, Box interviewed the robot. Mulligan seemed not to mind. She understood that Chance was in charge here, and it was the Irishman who was the chancer.

  “Why are you here, Mr. Chance?”

  “I’m observing the Xap.”

  “On Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are Xap here on Earth?”

  “Of course, where else would they be?”

  Again, Box had a sense of a world beyond her comprehension. Robots on Earth, in 1851. Her, interviewing one, as though he were no more than a mildly exotic Mayfair personage.

  She had to admit, she quite liked this austere, clanking robot.

  She breathed, and carried on.

  “Why are you helping Ned Mulligan?”

  “For my amusement.”

  “Why are you here, in 1851?”

  “We are when we are, Dr Box. I’m no time traveler. I came here in the traditional way. These are my last few days in the Real. Soon, I ascend.”

  “Ascend? You mean, you’re going to die?”

  “No, we Horu are in the process of moving our civilization to another universe. I’m the last living Horu.”

  “Why?”

  “Why am I the last?”

  “Why are you moving universes?”

  “For cultural reasons, Dr Box. Many perceive the Horu as a death cult. There’s truth in that. For many millennia, we’ve stored our dead in digital necropolises, so they can live on in a better future. We’re in the act of crossing over to that future now.

  “I’m the last, because someone has to be.”

  “The anthropic principle?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, about your extinction...”

  “Extinction isn’t the right word, Dr Box. Evolving is nearer the meaning.”

  “Is it tied up with Fluxor?”

  “Do you mean are we escaping? No. We had nothing to do with events on Fluxor.”

  “But there are witnesses.”

  “Who saw our ships. We’ll have all gone, by the time it occurs.”

  “Then get rid of those ships.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  She decided to change her line of questioning.