The Naked God - Flight nd-5

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Undoubtedly. Too final. Look, I don’t know if Mae and Jeeta explained this fully to you, but the research team believe it would exterminate every soul in the beyond. You can’t seriously consider that.”

  “Samual, those souls you’re so concerned about are attempting to enslave every one of us. I have to say I’m surprised by your attitude. You’re a military man, you know that war is the result of total irrationality combined with conflict of interest. This crisis is the supreme example of both. The souls desperately want to return, and we cannot allow them to. They will extinguish the human race if they succeed.”

  “They will ruin almost everything we have accomplished. But total life extinction, no. I don’t even believe they can possess all of us. The Edenists have proved remarkably resistant; and the spread has all but stopped.”

  “Yes, thanks to your quarantine. It’s been a successful policy, I won’t deny that. But so far we’ve been unable to offer anything that can reverse what’s happened. And that’s what the vast majority of the Confederation population want. Actually, that’s what they insist upon. The spread might have slowed, but it hasn’t stopped. You know that as well as I do. And the quarantine is difficult to enforce.”

  “You really don’t understand what you’re proposing, do you. There are billions of souls there. Billions.”

  “And they are living in torment. For whatever reason, they cannot move on as this Laton character claimed is possible. Don’t you think they’d welcome true death?”

  “Some of them might. I probably would. But neither you nor I have the right to decide that for them.”

  “They forced us into this position. They’re the ones invading us.”

  “That does not give us the right to exterminate them. We have to find a way to help them; by doing that we help ourselves. Can you not see that?”

  The President abandoned his image’s impartiality and leant forwards, his voice becoming earnest. “Of course I can see that. Don’t try to portray me as some kind of intransigent villain here. I’ve supported you, Samual, because I know nobody can command the Navy better than you. And I’ve been rewarded by that support. So far we’ve kept on top of the political situation, kept the hotheads in line. But it can’t last forever. Sometime, somehow, a solution is going to have to be presented to the Confederation as a whole. And all we’ve got so far is one solitary possible answer: the anti-memory. I cannot permit you to abandon that, Samual. These are very desperate times; we have to consider everything, however horrific it appears.”

  “I will never permit such a thing to be used. For all they are different, the souls are human. I am sworn to protect life throughout the Confederation.”

  “The order to use it would not be yours to give. A weapon like that never falls within the prerogative of the military. It belongs to us, the politicians you despise.”

  “Disapprove of. Occasionally.” The First Admiral permitted a slight smile to show.

  “Keep on searching, Samual. Bully Gilmore and his people into finding a decent solution, a humanitarian one. I want that as much as you do. But they are to continue to develop the anti-memory in parallel.”

  There was a pause. Samual knew that to refuse now would mean Haaker issuing an official request through his office. Which in turn would make his position as First Admiral untenable. That was the stark choice on offer.

  “Of course, Mr President.”

  President Haaker gave a tight smile, and datavised his processor to cancel the meeting, safe in the knowledge that their oh-so diplomatic clash would be known to no one.

  The encryption techniques which provided a security-level-one conference were, after all, known to be unbreakable. The most common statistic quoted by security experts was that every AI in the Confederation running in parallel would be unable to crack the code in less than five times the life of the universe. It would, therefore, have proved quite distressing to the CNIS secure communications division (as well as their ESA and B7 equivalents, among others) to know that a perfect replica of a 27-inch 1980’s Sony Trinitron colour television was currently showing the image of the First Admiral and the Assembly President to an audience of fifteen attentive duomillenarians and one highly inattentive ten-year-old girl.

  Tracy Dean sighed in frustration as the picture vanished to a tiny phosphor dot in the middle of the screen. “Well, that’s gone and put the cat amongst the pigeons, and no mistake.”

  Jay was swinging her feet about while she sat on a too-high stool. As well as being their main social centre, the clubhouse catered for the retired Kiint observers who weren’t quite up to living by themselves in a chalet anymore. A huge airy building, with wide corridors and broad archways opening into sunlit rooms that all seemed to resemble hotel lounges. The walls were white plaster, with dark-red tile floors laid everywhere. Big clay pots growing tall palms were a favourite. Tiny birds with bright gold and scarlet bodies and turquoise membrane wings flittered in and out through the open windows, dodging the purple provider globes. The whole theme of the clubhouse was based around comfort. There were no stairs or steps, only ramps; chairs were deeply cushioned; even the food extruded by the universal providers, no matter what type, was soft, requiring little effort to chew.

  The first five minutes walking through the building had been interesting. Tracy showed her round, introducing her to the other residents, all of whom were quite spry despite their frail appearance. Of course they were all very happy to see her, making a fuss, patting her head, winking fondly, telling her how nice her new dress was, suggesting strangely named biscuits, sweets and ice creams they thought she’d enjoy. They didn’t move much from their lounge chairs; contenting themselves with watching events around the Confederation and nostalgic programmes from centuries past.

  Jay and Tracy wound up in the lounge with the big TV for half the afternoon, while the residents argued over what channel to watch. They flipped through real-time secret governmental and military conferences, alternating those with a show called “Happy Days,” which they all cackled along to in synchronisation with the brash laughter track. Even the original commercial breaks were showing. Jay smiled in confusion at the archaic unfunny characters, and kept sneaking glances out of the window. For the last three days she’d played on the beach with the games the universal providers had extruded; swam, gone for long walks along the sand and through the peaceful jungle behind the beach. The meals had easily been as good as the ones in Tranquillity. Tracy had even got her a processor block with an AV lens that was able to pick up Confederation entertainment shows, which she watched for a few hours every evening. And Richard Keaton had popped in a couple of times to see how she was getting on. But, basically, she was fed-up. Those planets hanging so invitingly in the sky above were a permanent temptation, a reminder that things in the Kiint home system were a bit more active than the human beach.

  Tracy caught her wistful gaze once and patted her hand. “Cultural differences,” she said confidentially as the mortified Fonz received his army draft papers. “You have to understand the decade before you understand the humour.”

  Jay nodded wisely, and wondered just when she’d be allowed to see Haile again. Haile was a lot more fun than the Fonz. Then they’d flicked stations to the First Admiral and the President.

  “Corpus will have to intervene now,” one of the other residents said, a lady called Saska. “That anti-memory could seep outside the human spectrum. Then there’d be trouble.”

  “Corpus won’t,” Tracy replied. “It never does. What is, is. Remember?”

  “Check your references,” another woman said. “Plenty of races considered deploying similar weapons when they encountered the beyond. We’ve got records of eighteen being used.”

  “That’s awful. What happened?”

  “They didn’t work very well. Only a moderate percentage of the inverse transcendent population were eliminated. There’s too much pattern distortion among the inverses to conduct an anti-memory properly. No species has ever d
eveloped one that operates fast enough to be effective. Such things cannot be considered a final solution by any means.”

  “Yes but that idiot Haaker won’t know that until after it’s been tried,” Galic, one of the men, complained. “We can’t possibly allow a human to die, not even an inverse. No human has ever died.”

  “We’ve suffered a lot though,” a resentful voice muttered.

  “And they’ll start dying on the removed worlds soon enough.”

  “I tell you, Corpus won’t intervene.”

  “We could appeal,” Tracy said. “At the very least we could ask for an insertion at the anti-memory project to monitor its development. After all, if anyone’s going to come up with an anti-memory fast enough to devastate the beyond, it’ll be our weapons-mad race.”

  “All right,” Saska said. “But we’ll need a quorum before we can even get the appeal up to an executive level.”

  “As if that’ll be a problem,” Galic said.

  Tracy smiled mischievously. “And I know of someone who’s perfectly suited to this particular insertion.” Several groans were issued across the lounge.

  “Him?”

  “Far too smart for his own good, if you ask me.”

  “No discipline.”

  “We never ran observer operations like that.”

  “Cocky little bugger.”

  “Nonsense,” Tracy said briskly. She put her arm round Jay. “Jay likes him, don’t you, Jay?”

  “Who?”

  “Richard.”

  “Oh.” Jay held up Prince Dell; for some unexplainable reason she hadn’t managed to abandon the bear in her room. “He gave me this,” she announced to the lounge at large.

  Tracy laughed. “There you go then. Arnie, you prepare the appeal, you’re best acquainted with the minutiae of Corpus protocol procedures.”

  “All right.” One of the men raised his hands in gruff submission. “I suppose I can spare the time.”

  The TV was switched back on, playing the signature tune for “I Love Lucy.” Tracy pulled a face, and took Jay’s hand. “Come on, poppet, I think you’re quite bored enough already.”

  “Who’s the Corpus?” Jay asked as they walked through the front entrance and into the sharp sunlight. There was a black iron penny-farthing bicycle mounted on a stone pedestal just outside. The first time Jay had seen it, she’d taken an age to work out how people were supposed to ride it.

  “Corpus isn’t a who, exactly,” Tracy said. “It’s more like the Kiint version of an Edenist Consensus. Except, it’s sort of a philosophy as well as a government. I’m sorry, that’s not a very good explanation, is it?”

  “It’s in charge, you mean?”

  Tracy’s hesitation was barely noticeable. “Yes, that’s right. We have to obey its laws. And the strongest of all is non-intervention. The one which Haile broke to bring you here.”

  “And you’re worried about this anti-memory weapon thing?”

  “Badly worried, though everyone is trying not to show it. That thing could cause havoc if it gets released into the beyond. We really can’t allow that to happen, poppet. Which is why I want Richard sent to Trafalgar.”

  “Why?”

  “You heard what they were saying. He lacks discipline.” She winked.

  Tracy led her back to the circle of ebony marble above the beach. Jay had seen several of them dotted around the cluster of chalets, including a couple in the clubhouse itself. A few times she’d even seen the black spheres blink into existence and deposit somebody. Once she’d actually scampered on to a circle herself, closing her eyes and holding her breath. But nothing had happened. She guessed you needed to datavise whatever control processor they used.

  Tracy stopped at the edge of the circle, and held up a finger to Jay. “Someone to see you,” she said.

  A black sphere materialized. Then Haile was standing there, half-formed arms waving uncertainly.

  Friend Jay! Much gladness.

  Jay squealed excitedly, and rushed forward to throw her arms around her friend’s neck. “Where’ve you been? I missed you.” There was plenty of hurt in the voice.

  I have had time learning much.

  “Like what?”

  A tractamorphic arm curled round Jay’s waist. How things work.

  “What things?”

  The Corpus.haile’s tone was slightly awed.

  Jay rubbed the top of the baby Kiint’s head. “Oh that. Everyone here’s really annoyed with it.”

  With Corpus? That cannot be.

  “It won’t help humans with possession, not big help like we need, anyway. Don’t worry, Tracy’s going to lodge an appeal. Everything will be all right eventually.”

  This is goodness. Corpus is most wise.

  “Yeah?” She patted Haile’s front leg, and the Kiint obediently bent her knee. Jay scrambled up quickly to sit astride Haile’s neck. “Does it know any good sandcastle designs?”

  Haile lumbered off the ebony circle. Corpus has no knowledge concerning the building of castles from sand.jay grinned smugly.

  “Now you two be good,” Tracy said sternly. “You can swim, but you’re not to go out of your depth in the water. I know the providers will help if you get into trouble, but that’s not the point. You have to learn to take responsibility for yourselves. Understood?”

  “Yes, Tracy.”

  I have comprehension.

  “All right, go on then, have fun. And Jay, you’re not to stuff yourself with sweets. I’m cooking supper for us tonight, and I shall be very cross if you don’t eat anything.”

  “Yes, Tracy.” She squeezed her knees into Haile’s flanks, and the Kiint started moving forwards, taking them quickly away from the old woman.

  “Did you get into lots of trouble for rescuing me?” Jay asked anxiously after they’d left Tracy behind.

  Corpus has much understanding and provides forgiveness.

  “Oh good.”

  But I am not to do it again.

  Jay scratched her friend’s shoulders fondly as they hurried down towards the water. “Hey, you’re getting lots better at walking.”

  The rest of the afternoon was a delight. Like old times back in Tranquillity’s cove. They swam, and the attendant universal provider extruded a sponge and a brush so Haile could be scrubbed, they built some sandcastles, though this fine loose sand wasn’t terribly good for it, Jay risked asking for a couple of chocolate almond ice creams—was pretty sure the provider would tell Tracy if she had any more—they swatted an inflated beach ball to and fro, and once they’d tired themselves out they talked about the Kiint home system. Haile didn’t know much more than Tracy had already explained, but whatever new question Jay asked, the Kiint just consulted Corpus for an answer.

  The information was rather intriguing. For a start, the cluster of retirement chalets were one of three such human establishments on an otherwise uninhabited island fifty kilometres across. It was called The Village.

  “The island’s called The Village?” Jay asked in puzzlement.

  Yes. The retired human observers insisted this be so. Corpus suggests there is much irony in the naming. I know not about irony.

  “Cultural difference,” Jay said loftily.

  The Village was one of a vast archipelago of islands, home to the observers of eight hundred different sentient xenoc races. Jay looked longingly at the yacht anchored offshore. How fabulous it would be to sail this sea, where every port would be home to a new species.

  “Are there any Tyrathca here?”

  Some. It is difficult for Corpus to insert into their society. They occupy many worlds, more than your Confederation. Corpus says they are insular. This has troubled Corpus recently.

  Haile told her of the world she was living on now, called Riynine. Nang and Lieria had selected a home in one of the big cities, a parkland continent studded with domes and towers and other colossi. There were hundreds of millions of Kiint living there, and Haile had met lots of youngsters her own age.

  I ha
ve many new friends now.

  “That’s nice.” She tried not to feel jealous.

  Riynine was invisible from The Village; it was a long way around the Arc, almost behind the dazzling sun. One of the capital planets, where flocks of xenoc starships arrived from worlds clear across the galaxy, forming a spiralling silver nebula above the atmosphere.

  “Take me there,” Jay pleaded. She ached to see such a wonder. “I want to meet your new friends and see the city.”

  Corpus does not want you alarmed. There is strangeness to be had there.

  “Oh please, please. I’ll simply die if I don’t. It’s so unfair to come all this way and not see the best bit. Please, Haile, ask Corpus for me. Please!”

  Friend Jay. Please have calmness. I will appeal. I promise.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She jumped up and danced around Haile, who snaked out slender tractamorphic arms to try and catch her.

  “Hey there,” a voice called. “Looks like the two of you’re having a good time.”

  Jay stopped, breathless and flushed. She squinted at the figure walking across the glaring sand. “Richard?”

  He smiled. “I came to say goodbye.”

  “Oh.” She let out a heavy breath. Everything in her life was so temporary these days. People, places . . . She tilted her head. “You look different.”

  He was wearing a deep-blue uniform, clean and creased; with shining black boots. A peaked cap was tucked under his arm. And the ponytail was gone; his hair trimmed down to a centimetre high crop. “Senior Lieutenant, Keaton, Confederation Navy, reporting for duty, ma’am.” He saluted.

  Jay giggled. “This is my friend, Haile.”

  Hello, Haile.

  Greetings Richard Keaton.

  Richard tugged at his jacket, shifting his shoulders. “So what do you think? How do I look?”

  “It’s very smart.”

  “Ah, I knew it. It’s true. All the girls love a uniform.”

  “Do you really have to go?”

  “Yep. Got drafted by our friend Tracy. I’m off to Trafalgar to save the universe from the wicked Doctor Gilmore. Not that he knows he’s being wicked. That’s part of the problem, I’m afraid. Ignorance is a tragic part of life.”