The Naked God - Flight nd-5

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Are the Kiint really that interested in us?”

  “Us, the Tyrathca, the Laymil, xenocs you’ve never heard of. They’re fascinated by sentience, you see. They’ve witnessed so many self-aware races dwindle away to nothing, or self-destruct. That kind of loss is tragic for the races which succeed and prosper. Everybody’s different, you see, sweetie. Life alone is precious, but conscious thought is the greatest gift the universe offers. So they try and study any entities they find; that way if they don’t survive their knowledge won’t be entirely lost to the rest of us.”

  “How did you end up working for them?”

  “The Kiint found Earth when they were exploring that galaxy about two and a half thousand years ago. They took DNA specimens from a few people. We were cloned from that base, with a few alterations.”

  “Like what?” Jay asked eagerly. This was a wonderful story, so many secrets.

  “We don’t age so quickly, obviously; and we’ve got a version of affinity; little things like that.”

  “Gosh. And you’ve been on Earth since you were born?”

  “Since I grew up, yes. We had to be educated the Kiint way first. Their prime rule in dealing with other species, especially primitive ones, is zero intervention. They were worried that we might become too sympathetic and go native. If we did that, we’d introduce ideas that were wrong for that era; I mean, think what would have happened if the Spanish Armada was equipped with anti-ship missiles. That’s why they made us sterile, too; it should help us remain impartial.”

  “That’s horrid!”

  Tracy smiled blankly at the horizon. “There are compensations. Oh sweetie, if you’d seen a fraction of what I have. The Imperial Chinese dynasties at their height. Easter Islanders carving their statues. Knights of armour battling for their tiny kingdoms. The Inca cities rising out of jungles. I was a servant girl at Runnymede when King John signed the Magna Carta. Then lived as a grandee noblewoman while Europe was invigorated by the Renaissance. I waved from the harbour when Columbus set sail across the Atlantic; and spat as Nazi tanks rolled into Europe. Then thirty years later I stood on Cocoa Beach and cried when Apollo 11 took off for the moon, I was so proud of what we’d achieved. And there I was in the spaceplane which brought Richard Saldana down to Kulu. You have no idea how blessed my life has been. I know everything, everything, humans are capable of. We are a good species. Not the best, not by Kiint standards, but so much better than most. And wonderfully unique.” She sniffed loudly, and dabbed a handkerchief on her eyes.

  “Don’t cry,” Jay said quietly. “Please.”

  “I’m sorry. Just having you here, knowing what you could accomplish if you have the chance, makes this hurt so much harder. It’s so bloody unfair. ”

  “What do you mean?” Jay asked. Seeing the old woman so upset was making her nervous. “Aren’t the Kiint going to let me go home?”

  “It’s not that.” Tracy smiled bravely, and patted Jay’s hand. “It’s what kind of home that’ll be left for you. This shouldn’t have happened, you see. Discovering energistic states and what they mean normally comes a lot later in a society’s development. It’s a huge adjustment for anybody to make. Human-type psychologies need a lot of preparation for that kind of truth, a generation at least. And that’s when they’re more sociologically advanced than the Confederation. This breakthrough was a complete accident. I’m terrified the human race won’t get through this, not intact. We all are, all the Kiint observers want to help, to point the researchers in the right direction if nothing else. Our original conditioning isn’t strong enough to restrict those sort of feelings.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Even if they allowed us, I’d be no use. I’ve been part of all our history, Jay. I’ve seen us evolve from dirty savages into a civilization that has spread among the stars. More than anybody I know what we could grow into if we just had the chance. And I have the experience to intervene without anyone ever knowing they’d been guided. But at the most crucial time of our social evolution, when that experience is utterly vital , I’ve got to stay here.”

  “Why?” Jay pleaded.

  Tracy’s frail shoulders trembled from repressed emotion. “Oh sweetie, haven’t you worked out what this dreadful place is yet? It’s a bloody retirement home.”

  The view arrived suddenly. For over twenty minutes Louise had been sitting in one of the lounge’s big chairs, its webbing holding her in the deep hollow of cushioning. Her belly muscles were beginning to strain as they were obliged to hold her in a curving posture. Then she felt a slight trembling in the decking as the lift capsule was shunted onto the tower rail. A tone sounded. Thirty seconds later they flashed out of the Skyhigh Kijabe asteroid. There was a quick impression of soured-white metal mountains, but they quickly shrank from sight overhead. Gentle gravity relieved her muscles, and the webbing slackened.

  Earth shone with a mild opalescent light below her. It was midday in Africa, at the base of the tower, and the clouds were charging in from the oceans on either side. There seemed to be a lot more of them than there had been on Norfolk, although the Far Realm had been orbiting at a much lower altitude. That might account for it. Louise couldn’t be bothered to find the correct meteorology files in her processor block, and run a comparison program. The sight was there to enjoy not analyse. She could actually see the giant white spirals spinning slowly as they battered against each other. It must be a pretty impressive speed for the movement to be visible from such a height.

  Genevieve switched her webbing off, and glided over to the lounge window, pressing herself against it. “It’s beautiful,” she said. Her face was flushed as she smiled back at Louise. “I thought Earth was all rotten.”

  Louise glanced about, slightly worried by what the other passengers would think of the little girl’s remark. With the quarantine, most of them must be from Earth or the Halo. But nobody was even looking at her. In fact, it seemed as though they were deliberately not looking. She went over to stand beside Gen. “I guess that’s as wrong as everything else in the school books.”

  The Halo was visible against the stars, a huge slender thread of stippled light curving behind the planet, like the most tenuous of a gas-giant’s rings. For five hundred and sixty-five years, companies and finance consortiums had been knocking asteroids into Earth orbit. The process was standardized now; first the large-scale mining of mineral resources, hollowing out the habitation caverns, then the gradual build up of industrial manufacturing stations as the initial resources were depleted and the population switched to a more sophisticated economy. There were nearly fifteen thousand inhabited asteroids already drifting along in their common cislunar orbit, and new rocks were arriving at the rate of thirty-five a year. Tens of thousands of inter-orbit craft swooped between the spinning rocks, fusion exhausts tangling together in a single scintilating nimbus. Every asteroid formed a tiny bulge in the loop, wrapped behind a delicate haze of industrial stations.

  Louise gazed at the ephemeral testament to astroengineering commerce. More fragile than the bridge of heaven in Norfolk’s midsummer sky, but at the same time, more imposing. The vista inspired a great deal of confidence. Earth was strong, much stronger than she’d realized; it sprang from a wealth which she knew she would never truly comprehend.

  If we’re safe anywhere, we’re safe here. She put her arm round Genevieve. For once, contented.

  Below the majesty of the Halo, Earth was almost quiescent by comparison. Only the coastlines of North and South America hinted at the equal amount of human activity and industry on the ancient planet. They remained in darkness, awaiting the dawn terminator sliding over the Atlantic; but the night didn’t prevent her from seeing where people were. Arcologies blazed across the land like volcanoes of sunlight.

  “Are they the cities?” Genevieve asked excitedly.

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Gosh! Why is the water that colour?”

  Louise switched her attention away from the massive patches o
f illumination. The ocean was a peculiar shade of grey green, not at all like the balmy turquoise of Norfolk’s seas when they were under Duke’s stringent white glare.

  “I’m not sure. It doesn’t look very clean, does it? I suppose that must be the pollution we hear about.”

  A small contrite cough just behind them made both girls start. It was the first time anyone apart from the stewards had even acknowledged they existed. When they turned round they found themselves facing a small man in a dark purple business suit. He’d already got some thin wrinkles on his cheeks, though he didn’t seem particularly old. Louise was surprised by his height, she was actually an inch taller than him, and he had a very broad forehead, as if his hair wouldn’t grow properly along the top of it.

  “I know this is rude,” he said quietly. “But I believe you’re from outsystem?”

  Louise wondered what had given them away. She’d bought the pair of them new clothes in Skyhigh Kijabe, one-piece garments like shipsuits but more elaborate, with pronounced pockets and cuffs. Other women were wearing the fashion; so she’d hoped they would blend in.

  “Yes,” Louise said. “From Norfolk, actually.”

  “Ah. I’m afraid I’ve never tasted Norfolk Tears. Too expensive, even with my salary. I was most sorry to hear about its loss.”

  “Thank you.” Louise kept her face blank, the way she’d learned to do whenever Daddy started shouting.

  The man introduced himself as Aubry Earle. “So this is your first visit to Earth?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Genevieve said. “We want to go to Tranquillity, but we can’t find a flight.”

  “I see. Then this is all new to you?”

  “Some of it,” Louise said. She wasn’t quite sure what Aubry wanted. He didn’t seem the type to befriend a pair of young girls. Not from altruism, anyway.

  “Then allow me to explain what you are seeing. The oceans aren’t polluted, at least not seriously; there was an extensive effort to clean them up at the end of the Twenty-first Century. Their present colouring comes from algae blooms. It’s a geneered variety that floats on the top. I think it looks awful, myself.”

  “But it’s everywhere,” Genevieve said.

  “Alas, yes. That’s our carbon sink these days. Earth’s lungs, if you like. It performs the job once done by forests and grasslands. The surface vegetation is not what it used to be, so Govcentral introduced the algae to prevent us from suffocating ourselves. Actually, it’s a far more successful example of terraforming than Mars. Though I would never be so undiplomatic as to say that to a Lunar citizen. We now have less carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than at any time in the last eight hundred years. You’ll be breathing remarkably clean air when you arrive.”

  “So why do you all live in the arcologies?” Louise asked.

  “Heat,” Aubry said sadly. “Do you know how much heat a modern industrial civilization of over forty billion people generates?” He gestured down at the globe. “That much. Enough to melt the polar ice and quicken the clouds. We’ve taken all the preventative measures we can, of course. That was the original spur to build the orbital towers, to prevent spaceplanes aerobraking and shedding even more heat into the air. But however economic we are, we can’t dissipate it at a rate that’ll turn the clock back. The old ocean currents have shut down, there’s no ozone layer at all. And that kind of ecological retro-engineering is beyond even our ability. We’re stuck with the current environment, unfortunately.”

  “Is it very bad?” Genevieve asked. What he’d described sounded worse than the beyond, though she thought the man didn’t sound terribly upset by the cataclysm.

  He smiled fondly at the planet. “Best damn world in the Confederation. Though I expect everyone says that about their homeworld. Am I right?”

  “I like Norfolk,” Louise said.

  “Of course you do. But if I might make an observation, this is going to be noisier than anything you’ve experienced before.”

  “I know that.”

  “Good. Take care down there. People aren’t likely to help you. That’s our culture, you see.”

  Louise gave him a sideways look. “Do you mean they don’t like foreigners?”

  “Oh no. Nothing like that. It’s not racism. Not overtly, anyway. On Earth everybody is a foreigner to their neighbour. It’s because we’re all squashed up so tight. Privacy is a cherished commodity. In public places, people don’t chat to strangers, they avoid eye contact. It’s because that’s the way they want to be treated. I’m really breaking taboos by talking to you. I doubt any of the other passengers will. But I’ve been outsystem myself, I know how strange it all is for you.”

  “Nobody’s going to talk to us?” Genevieve asked apprehensively.

  “Not as readily as I.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Louise said. She couldn’t quite bring herself to trust Aubry Earle. At the back of her mind was the worry that he would volunteer to become their guide. It had been bad enough in Norwich when she’d depended on Aunt Celina; Roberto was family. Earle was a stranger, one prepared to drop Earth’s customs in public when it suited him. She gave him a detached smile, and led an unprotesting Gen away from the window. The lift capsule had ten decks, and her standard-class ticket allowed her into four of them. They managed to avoid Earle for the rest of the flight. Though she realized he was telling the truth about privacy. Nobody else talked to them.

  The isolation might have been safer, but it made the ten hour trip incredibly boring. They spent a long time watching the view through the window as Earth grew larger, and talking idly. Louise even managed to sleep for the last three hours, curling up in one of the big chairs.

  She woke to Gen shaking her shoulder. “They just announced we’re about to reach the atmosphere,” her sister said.

  Louise combed some strands of hair from her face, and sat up. Other passengers who’d been dozing were now stirring themselves. She took the hair clip off as she reorganized her mane, then fastened it up again. First priority when they were down must be to get it washed. The last time she’d managed properly was back on Phobos. Maybe it was time for a cut, a short style that was more manageable. Though the usual arguments still applied: she’d invested so much time keeping it in condition, cutting it was almost a confession of defeat. Of course, back at Cricklade she’d had the time to groom herself every day, and had a maid to help.

  Whatever did I do all day back then?

  “Louise?” Genevieve asked cautiously.

  She raised an eyebrow at the girl’s tone. “What?”

  “Promise you won’t get mad if I ask?”

  “I won’t get mad.”

  “It’s just that you haven’t said yet.”

  “Said what?”

  “Where we’re going after we touch down.”

  “Oh.” Louise was completely stumped. She hadn’t even thought about their destination. Getting away from High York and Brent Roi had been her absolute priority. What she needed to do was find somewhere to stay so she could think about what to do next. And without consulting her block there was really only one city name from her ethnic history classes which she was certain would still exist. “London,” she told Genevieve. “We’re going to London.”

  The African orbital tower had been the first to be built, a technological achievement declared the equal of the FTL drive by the Govcentral committees and politicians who’d authorized it. Typical self-aggrandising hyperbole, but acknowledged to be a reasonable comparison none the less. As Aubry Earle had said, it was intended to replace spaceplanes and the enormously detrimental effect they were having on Earth’s distressed atmosphere. By 2180 when the tower was finally commissioned (eight years late), the Great Dispersal was in full swing, and the volume of spaceplane traffic had become so injurious to the atmosphere that meteorologists were worrying about elevating the armada storms to an even greater level of ferocity.

  The question became academic. Once the tower was on line, its cargo capacity exceeded thirty per cent of t
he world’s spaceplane fleet. Upgrades were being planned before the first lift capsule ran all the way up to Skyhigh Kijabe. Four hundred and thirty years later, the original slender tower of monocarbon fibre was now nothing more than a support element threading up the centre of the African Tower. A thick grey pillar dwindling off up to infinity, immune to the most punishing winds the armada storms could fling at it. The outer surface was lined with forty-seven magnetic rails, the structure’s maximum. It was now cheaper to build new towers than expand it any further.

  The lower five kilometres were the fattest section, providing an outer sheath of tunnels to protect the lift capsules from the winds, enabling the tower to remain operational in all but the absolutely worst weather conditions. Exactly where the tower ended and the Mount Kenya station started was no longer certain. With a daily cargo throughput potential of two hundred thousand tonnes, and up to seventy-five thousand passengers, the capsule handling infrastructure had moulded itself tumescently around the base, a mountain in its own right. Eighty vac-train tunnels intersected in the bedrock underneath it, making it the most important transport nucleus on the continent.

  To keep the passengers flowing smoothly, there were eighteen separate arrival Halls. All of them followed the same basic layout, a long marble-floored concourse with the exit doors from customs and immigration rooms on one side, and lifts on the other, leading to the subterranean vac-train platforms. Even if an arriving passenger knew exactly which lift cluster they wanted, they first had to negotiate a formidable barricade of retail stalls selling everything from socks to luxury apartments. Keeping track of one individual (or a pair) amid the perpetual scrum occupying the floor wasn’t easy, not even with modern equipment.