The Medusa Chronicles

by Stephen Baxter

  More images, of Soviet-American landings on Mars in the 1980s.

  “Since then we’ve seen a remarkable century of progress. Resources from space helped us over hurdles—fuel depletion, climate problems—that might otherwise have tripped us. The first World President was inaugurated in 2060, to a recording of the Hendrix anthem—but I lived in Bermuda for ten years, and they always said the main benefit of hosting the planet’s capital city has been first call on the Global Weather Secretariat for hurricane protection.”

  Polite laughter.

  “And as for Seth’s descendants . . .” He brought up an image of his own mission patch. It was a variant on the family crest, which showed a leaping springbok, the Springers being an old Dutch family with rich offshoots in South Africa. Now that springbok leapt among Pluto’s moons. Springer smiled modestly in response to a ripple of applause.

  “And in a way it all stemmed,” Springer said, “from Grandpa Seth’s hero­ism. Anyhow, as the New Year approaches—according to Houston time, which is the only clock that counts for an astronaut—I move, with your permission, Madam President, that we return to the bar—”

  And at that moment the submarine shuddered, a mile-long vessel ringing like a gong.

  7

  If Falcon had ever doubted that the slim, modest woman in the pale lilac suit really was the President of a united world, the case was proven now. Seconds after that sinister shiver—as red alarm lights flashed, distant sirens wailed, and Captain Embleton called instructions from the stage beside a frowning Matt Springer—it seemed to Falcon that a good proportion of the audience in the Sea Lounge had already swarmed around the President like expensively suited, heavily armed bees. In a moment the swarm had escorted her from the room.

  Falcon, meanwhile, turned and rolled at top speed out of the Sea Lounge. Already people were on their feet, pushing their way out of the room—but even now they cowered back from Falcon, a seven-foot-tall pillar of gold.

  Hope Dhoni was still where he and Webster had left her, in the Obser­vation Lounge, her glass of iced tea half-drunk on the table where she sat. And she was staring at a white form that clung to the huge observation window.

  It was a sea sprite, clamped to the glass, Falcon recognised, with a grim sense of foreboding fulfilled. “I knew it. Damn it.”

  Webster came hurrying after Falcon. “At least it’s quiet in here. What with the crew shouting and the alarms and the lights flashing ­everywhere—”

  “I presume there are enough lifeboats for everybody.”

  “Of course, Commander Falcon,” said Captain Embleton, who came stalking into the room, trailed by Matt Springer and a gaggle of her senior officers. “This isn’t the bloody Titanic. We’ve already got the President away.”

  Webster whistled. “That’s quick.”

  “A condition of her being brought aboard. I dare say whoever plotted this thing wasn’t aware of that. But,” she said more softly, “the problem is time—time enough to get everybody off before the hull implodes.”

  The officers were pointing and declaiming, checking minisecs, running through the evacuation plan in high, calm voices. Bizarrely, the little robot Conseil began to circulate among the sudden crowd, as if seeking a role in the sudden crisis. “May I serve you?” It was universally ignored.

  Embleton turned from one of the officers to eye Webster. “Adminis­trator, given your own seniority—”

  “I’m staying right here,” Webster snapped.

  “Idiot,” murmured Falcon.

  “Takes one to know one—I don’t notice you baling out. Anyhow, the ship might yet be saved, right?”

  Falcon, who had gyroscopes whirring in the place his stomach should have been, wasn’t so sure. “Not if the ship’s list continues to worsen.”

  Matt Springer looked at him with respect. “Of course you can feel it. So can I, I think.”

  Dhoni looked up at Falcon in alarm. “Oh, Howard—”

  “I know.” He forced a smile. “Another great vessel in mortal peril, and here I am in the middle of it. Not again . . .”

  “Soon enough everybody will feel the list,” Embleton said grimly, glancing at a minisec held by one of her officers. “We’ve suffered multiple fusion micro-explosions, all around the perimeter of the hull.”

  “They blew the ballast tanks,” Falcon said.

  “Exactly.”

  Hope Dhoni stood, looking bewildered. “Who did this? And why?”

  “We don’t know yet.” Captain Embleton broke away from her officers to stalk to the window. “But we know how.”

  “With the sea sprites,” Falcon said. “Like the one stuck to the window.”

  More crew came into the lounge now, carrying technical gear that they fixed to the window, studying the sprite.

  Embleton said, “It happened only minutes ago. Suddenly the sprites diverged from their programming. They swarmed around the hull, anchored themselves as this one has, and—”

  “Detonated their power packs, I presume,” Springer said, stepping forward to see more clearly.

  “Quite. Which ought to be impossible.”

  “Evidently not,” Falcon said. “The question is, why hasn’t this one gone up?”

  Embleton took a breath. “We need to be grateful it hasn’t. If it had, much of the ship’s habitable areas would already be flooded. As it is the ship’s in trouble. We were already a little below our nominal cruise depth of sixteen hundred feet, and now we’re heading steadily down. Our crush depth is twenty-four hundred feet, but we ought to survive some distance below that—well, it’s to be hoped. This century-old bucket has flaws we discover every day . . . We have support in the sea and in the air; the President goes nowhere without cover. This is the weak point, actually. If this window holds we have a chance of getting everybody off in time. If.”

  Webster asked uneasily, “Is it still the tradition that the Captain’s last to leave the ship?”

  “To hell with tradition. This Captain’s going nowhere until she knows who or what has threatened her ship—”

  “Simps know.”

  Falcon turned to see a party of simps approaching. The Ambassador, Ham 2057a, was in the lead, and a gang of his colleagues were dragging a human with them—a crewman, judging by the uniform.

  More crew followed, weapons in their hands, uncertain. One reported, “Captain, we’ve trailed the simps from the Bosun’s compartment. The simps grabbed Stamp, here, and we weren’t sure what to do. The Ambas­sador was very insistent—”

  “Stand down, Lieutenant Moss. Ambassador Ham, this is one of my crew. I’ll listen, if you release him into my custody.”

  Ham shrugged theatrically. “Simps’ job done.”

  The chimps dumped the man, Stamp, to the deck. At a nod from Lieutenant Moss, a couple of his men took Stamp’s arms and hauled him to his feet. Stamp looked young, Falcon thought, no more than mid-twenties, with pale features, red hair. His face was scratched, his ensign’s uniform torn from the rough handling of the chimps, but he seemed unharmed.

  The great ship creaked as it listed further, helplessly plunging deeper into the depths.

  Embleton turned to Ham. “Ambassador? What’s this about?”

  Ham gave a wide grin, and knuckle-walked up to her. “Simps heroes, that’s what. One of my team, her name Jane 2084c. Works computers. Smart. Went to Bosun room, interested, fan tour. There was Stamp, doing what he was doing. Took no notice of her. Kept on doing it. Only a simp, simps don’t matter, can’t understand. Ha! Jane understand.”

  Falcon said, “The sprites are controlled from the Bosun.”

  “Quite.” Embleton walked up to Stamp. “Well, Ensign. Suppose you tell me what you were doing.”

  Stamp straightened up and saluted. “Sir. I was destroying this ship, sir, and killing you all.” He had a strong English accent, probably London, Falc
on thought.

  “You changed the Bosun’s programming—”

  “I locked in new commands for the sprites. They were to attach to the hull and self-destruct. Those things are dumb, their programming simple. The safety blocks were pitifully easy to overcome.”

  “Were they? And why did you— No, tell me this.” She gestured at the window, the sprite locked in place. “Why has this one not blown yet?”

  “Because I wanted you to understand,” Stamp said, sneering. “I want you to know you will die—and so will the world—because of what this ship is. What it represents.”

  Webster frowned severely. “And what is that?”

  “The hegemony of the United States.” He glared at Webster. “Which began when you Americans manipulated the outcome of the Second World War to crush the British Empire and alienate the Soviets—”

  Embleton sighed. “Oh, for God’s sake. A Global-Sceptic. Part of the old independence movements that opposed the World Government.”

  Webster nodded. “I remember. I was just a kid. Bombs in London, Geneva, Bermuda.”

  Stamp ranted at him, “Then you Yanks used Britain as a missile launch platform in your Cold War against the Soviets. And then you suckered us into the so-called ‘Atlantic Partnership.’ You wouldn’t even back our claim for a seat on the World Government Security Council—”

  “I’ve heard enough,” Embleton snapped in disgust. “You’re an embarrassment to a noble history, Stamp. Moss, take him away. I’m damn sure he won’t tell us how he subverted the Bosun—or how I can get that nuclear leech off my window—but try to get him to talk anyhow. Keep the evacuation going. And do whatever you can to hack into the Bosun, you never know . . .”

  Her crew hurried to comply.

  “And meanwhile,” Embleton said softly, “if all else fails, we need to find a way to remove that thing.” She walked back to the window to join Springer, Falcon, Webster and Dhoni. “Any ideas?”

  Webster asked, “The escort ships?”

  “Are World Navy vessels—surface, subsurface, and indeed in the air. I’m told they are working on options. But the Sam Shore is an elderly ship, Administrator, and already destabilised. It would be a tricky operation to get close enough to detach that thing without wrecking us.”

  Webster said, “That’s assuming the leech isn’t rigged to blow if it’s tampered with. I’d set it up that way.”

  Embleton raised her eyebrows. But she murmured to an officer, who murmured in turn into a mouthpiece. “Stamp says it isn’t,” she said at last.

  “That’s something,” Springer said. “Anyhow it sounds like we need to rely on our own resources. How can we get at that thing out there? I take it there are no more sprites.”

  “All destroyed save this one, as far as we can tell. And with the Bosun subverted we could not rely on them anyway.”

  Falcon asked, “Do you have other craft? Undersea boats?”

  “Yes: coracles, they’re called. For tourist jaunts. They have no means of manipulating their environment, and they are already in use as lifeboats.”

  Conseil was still here. “May I serve you?” Falcon stared at it curiously.

  Webster asked, “Why not send a diver out? A human, I mean. Or a team.”

  Embleton said, “Because we are already—depth, Lieutenant?—already two thousand feet down, and descending quickly. Human divers can only descend to fifteen hundred feet, even with pressurised air mixtures.”

  Springer said firmly, “I’d be prepared to try, even so.”

  Embleton sighed. “It would be a heroic but futile gesture, Captain Springer.”

  Falcon said, “I am no human. And my equipment is designed to function underwater.”

  Webster raised his eyebrows. “It’s not a bigger-balls competition, Howard.”

  “Forget it,” snapped Dhoni. “Your metal shell might keep functioning. Your air supply, your life-support, would not, at this depth.”

  “But that might be enough.” He raised his arms and clicked his metallic fingers. “Geoff, there might be some way to rig a remote control. Even if I were—”

  Webster looked disgusted. “Dead?”

  “Unconscious. Maybe with a link through the neural jack . . .”

  “I could work your carcass like a puppet, you mean?”

  Embleton had a murmured conversation with another of her crew. “I’m told that might be possible, Commander—given time. But we have no time.”

  Conseil rolled up to Falcon, the only one paying it any attention, a drinks tray still held in one manipulator claw. “May I serve you?”

  Falcon said, intrigued, “I don’t know. How can you serve us?”

  “Hazard to vessel integrity identified. Rectification options surveyed.” It dropped the tray, which landed softly on the carpeted floor, raised its crude arms, and snapped its pincer-like hands.

  Now everybody was staring. Webster asked, “Captain, I don’t suppose Conseil is equipped to work underwater?”

  Embleton frowned. “Certainly. How else could it deliver cocktails to guests in the swimming pool?”

  Falcon asked urgently, “And do you think it really has identified ‘rectification options’?”

  Embleton glanced at Moss, who said nervously, “Well, sir, it is a flexible, autonomous unit, equipped to operate in a complex, unpredictable human environment—”

  “He means,” Embleton said dryly, “guests are even more difficult to handle than a bomb on a porthole.”

  “I’d say it’s possible, sir.”

  Webster grinned. “It’s worth a try, damn it.”

  Embleton nodded sharply. “Lieutenant Moss, it’s your baby. Equip this toy to get that leech off my window.”

  Moss nodded. “Give me five minutes, sir. Conseil! Follow me . . .”

  * * * *

  From within the Observation Lounge, the party had a grandstand view as the little robot, supported by flotation bags, working a thruster gun with one manipulator claw, loosened the “leech” from the window with the other claw. Robot hands designed for mixing cocktails, detaching a bomb from a nuclear submarine.

  Then, when the job was done, Conseil returned to the Observation Lounge—its hull dinged, water dripping from its squat frame—to a round of admiring applause. In a showy gesture, Captain Embleton bent down and shook its claw of a hand. Ham, the simp ambassador, clapped the robot on the back.

  Webster murmured, “A shame President Jayasuriya isn’t here. We’re seeing history being made.”

  Dhoni was intrigued by the robot. “Makes you think, Howard. Here’s two of the solar system’s greatest heroes, and there was nothing you could do when the crisis came. Whereas this little guy . . .”

  Falcon grunted. “Maybe we need smarter robots after all.”

  Springer nodded sagely. “I think you’re right, Commander. My great-to-the-fourth-grandfather was the first true astronaut hero. But maybe because of his feat we’ve been too dazzled by the human factor to consider other possibilities. We’ve got marvellous spacecraft and other heavy mechanical engineering, but we’ve contented ourselves with only modest progress in computing.” He glanced at the minisec in his hand. “Why, our smartest gadgets—aside from experiments like Conseil—are no more capable of independent thought than Grandpa Seth’s 1960s slide rule. We’ve kept our machines subservient.”

  Webster nodded sagely. “You used the argument yourself, Howard, when you pitched the Kon-Tiki mission. Jupiter’s atmosphere was going to be a tricky environment, with high-speed winds, turbulence, electrical storms and whatnot. To pilot the ship was going to need skill and experience and swift reaction times, and you couldn’t yet program all that into a computer . . .”

  “Well,” Springer said, “today we’ve seen what machines can do, if only we let them off the leash.”

  “You’re right, Captain Springer
,” Embleton said. “This humble Conseil will never be forgotten. The machine that saved the President—that’s how the headline writers will have it. The machine that went where no human could go.”

  “Not even you, Commander Falcon,” said Hope Dhoni, and she slipped her hand in his once more.

  Ham 2057a reared up to face Conseil. “Yes. Machine, thinking for itself. A new kind of being in your world.”

  Falcon looked down at him. “As simps were.”

  Ham grunted. “You understand us now, at least. You gave us home. You declared us Legal Persons (Non-human). How will you treat these fellows?”

  Hope Dhoni smiled at the robot. “Well, it’s your day, Conseil. You saved our lives! I suppose that since you were—activated—all you’ve heard has been orders from humans. No more orders for you, I guess. So what now?”

  And the machine hesitated.

  Falcon expected the usual programmed reply: May I serve you?

  He was stunned when Conseil said softly, “I am not quite sure what to do next. But I will think of something.”

  INTERLUDE:

  APRIL 1967

  The camera angle had panned down, taking in an expanse of blocky white buildings, laid out campus-like amid neat areas of lawn and roadway. The point of view zoomed in to show squared-off cars, men in suits, and then narrowed to one building, then one window of that building. And then with one dizzying swoop through the glass, into an air-conditioned office. Lots of photographs and flags, cabinets and framed documents, a desk with a calendar and a briefcase . . .

  “The Apollo Moon programme is cancelled,” the man behind the desk was saying. “But the good news is you two good old boys are gonna get the chance to save the world.” George Lee Sheridan smiled hugely.

  The two astronauts just stared at this man, a big, bold, brassy southerner. All Seth Springer knew about Sheridan was that he was some kind of functionary based at NASA HQ in Washington, DC, a monument to bureaucracy that the astronauts studiously stayed away from. Now here he was in Houston, in the very office of Bob Gilruth, head of the Manned Spaceflight Center. And with this perplexing, bewildering news.