Children of Time

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘So, what, Guyen just set himself to wake early, got a replacement tech crew out of cargo, and started work?’ Holsten hazarded.

  ‘All in place when he woke me. And frankly, I don’t pretend to understand the technical arguments.’ Karst shrugged. ‘So he needed me to track down people who were escaping from his little prison-camp cult thing. I figured the best thing I could do was look after my own people and make sure nobody else got hold of the guns. So, Lain, you want the guns now? Is that it?’

  Lain cast a glance at Holsten to see if he was about to go off on another tangent, then nodded shortly. ‘I want the help of your people. I want to stop Guyen. The ship’s falling apart – any more and the main systems are going to be irretrievably compromised.’

  ‘Says you,’ Karst replied. ‘Guyen says that once he actually does the . . . does the thing, then everything goes back to normal – that he’ll be in the computer, or some copy of him, and everything’ll run as sweet as you like.’

  ‘And this is possible,’ Vitas added. ‘Not certain, but possible. So we must compare the potential danger of Guyen completing his project with that of an attempt to interrupt him. It is not an easy judgement to make.’

  Lain looked from face to face. ‘And yet here you both are, and I’ll bet Guyen doesn’t know.’

  ‘Knowledge is never wasted,’ Vitas observed calmly.

  ‘And what if I told you that Guyen’s withholding knowledge from you?’ Lain pressed. ‘How about transmissions from the moon colony we left behind? Heard any of those lately?’

  Karst looked sidelong at Vitas. ‘Yeah? What’ve they got to say?’

  ‘Fucking little. They’re all dead.’

  Lain smiled grimly into the silence that generated. ‘They died while we were still on our way to the grey planet system. They called the ship; Guyen intercepted their messages. Did he tell any of you? He certainly didn’t tell me. I found the signals archived, by chance.’

  ‘What happened to them?’ Karst said reluctantly.

  ‘I’ve put the messages up on the system, where you can both access them. I’ll direct you to them. Be quick, though. Unprotected data gets corrupted quickly nowadays, thanks to Guyen’s leftovers.’

  ‘Yeah, well, he blames you for that. Or Kern sometimes,’ Karst pointed out.

  ‘Kern?’ Holsten demanded. ‘The satellite thing?’

  ‘It was in our systems,’ Vitas remarked. ‘It’s possible it left some sort of ghost construct to monitor us. Guyen believes so.’ Her face wrinkled up, just a little. ‘Guyen has become somewhat obsessed. He believes that Kern is trying to stop him.’ She nodded cordially to Lain. ‘Kern and you.’

  Lain folded her arms. ‘Cards on the table. I see no fucking benefit to Guyen becoming an immortal presence in our computer system. In fact, I see all manner of possible drawbacks, some of them fatal for us, the ship and the entire human race. Ergo: we stop him. Who’s in? Holsten’s with me.’

  ‘Well, shit, if you’ve got him, why’d you need the rest of us?’ Karst drawled.

  ‘He’s Key Crew.’

  Karst’s expression was eloquent as to his opinion of that.

  And is that it, for me? I’m just here to add my miniscule weight – unasked! – to Lain’s argument? Holsten considered morosely.

  ‘I confess that I am curious as to the result of the commander’s experiment. The ability to preserve human minds electronically would certainly be advantageous,’ Vitas stated.

  ‘Planning to become Bride of Guyen?’ Karst asked, startling a glare from her.

  ‘Karst?’ Lain prompted.

  The security chief threw his hands up. ‘Nobody tells me anything, not really. People just want me to do stuff and they’re never straight with me. Me? I’m for my people. Right now, Guyen’s got a whole bunch of weirdos who have been raised from the cradle on him being the fucking messiah. You’ve got a handful of decently tooled and trained lads and lasses here, but you’re not exactly the fighting elite. Take on Guyen and you’ll lose. Now I’m not a fucking scientist or anything, but my maths says why should I help you when I’ll likely just get my people hurt?’

  ‘Because you’ve got the guns to counter Guyen’s numbers.’

  ‘Not a good reason,’ Karst stated.

  ‘Because I’m right, and Guyen’s going to wreck the ship’s systems by trying to force his fucking ego into our computers.’

  ‘Says you. He says differently,’ Karst replied stubbornly. ‘Look, you reckon you’ve got an actual plan, as in an actual plan that would have a chance of success and not just “let Karst do all the work”? Come to me with that, and maybe I’ll listen. Until then . . .’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘You’ve not got enough, Lain. Not chances, nor arguments either.’

  ‘Then just give me enough guns,’ Lain insisted.

  Karst sighed massively. ‘I only really got as far as making one rule: nobody gets the guns. You’re worried about the damage Guyen’ll do with this thing he wants to do? Well, I don’t get any of that. But the damage when everyone starts shooting everyone else – and all sorts of bits of the ship, too? Yeah, that I understand. The mutiny was bad enough. Like I say, come back when you’ve got more.’

  ‘Give me disruptors, then.’

  The security chief shook his head. ‘Look, sorry to say it, but I still don’t think that’ll even the odds enough for you to actually win, and then Guyen’s not exactly going to be scratching his head about where all your dead people got their toys from, eh? Get me a proper idea. Show me you can actually pull it off.’

  ‘So you’ll help me if I can show I don’t actually need you?’

  He shrugged. ‘We’re done here, aren’t we? Let me know when you’ve got a plan, Lain.’ He turned and lumbered off, the plates of his armoured suit scraping together slightly.

  Lain was icily furious as Karst and Vitas left, fists clenching and re-clenching.

  ‘Pair of self-deluding fuckwits!’ she spat. ‘They know I’m right, but it’s Guyen – they’re so used to doing what that mad son of a bitch says.’

  She glared at Holsten as if daring him to gainsay her. In fact, the historian had felt a certain sympathy with Karst’s position, but plainly that was not what Lain wanted to hear.

  ‘So what will you do?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, we’ll act,’ Lain swore. ‘Let Karst keep his precious guns locked up. We’ve got one workshop up and running, and I’ve already started weapons production. They won’t be pretty, but they’re better than knives and clubs.’

  ‘And Guyen?’

  ‘If he’s got any sense, he’s doing the same, but I’m better at it. I’m Engineering, after all.’

  ‘Lain, are you sure you want a war?’

  She stopped. The regard she turned on Holsten was a look from another time – that of a martyr, a warrior queen of legend.

  ‘Holsten, this isn’t just about me not liking Guyen. It isn’t because I want his job or I think he’s a bad person. I have taken my own best professional judgement, and I believe that if he goes ahead with uploading his mind, then he will overload the Gilgamesh’s system, causing a fatal clash of both our tech and the Empire stuff we’ve salvaged. And when that happens, everyone dies. And I mean everyone. I don’t care if Vitas wants to make notes for some non-existent posterity, or if Karst won’t get off the fucking fence. It’s up to me – it’s up to me and my crew. You’re lucky. You woke late, and then you got to sit in a box for a bit. Some of us have been pushing every which way for a long time, trying to turn this around. And now I’m basically an outlaw on my own ship, at open war with my commander, whose crazy fanatic followers will kill me on sight. And I’m going to lead my engineers into fucking battle and actually kill people, because if someone doesn’t, then Guyen kills everyone. Now are you with me?’

  ‘You know I am.’ The words sounded tremulous and hollow to Holsten himself, but Lain seemed to accept them.

  They were attacked as they were crossing into what Lain seemed to consider her terri
tory. The interior of the Gilgamesh made for odd tactics: a network of small chambers and passages fitted into the torus of the crew area, bent and twisted like an afterthought around the essential machinery that had been put in first. They had just reached a heavy safety door that Lain – in the lead – obviously expected to open automatically. When it slid a shuddering inch, then stopped, there was no obvious suspicion amongst the engineers. It seemed to Holsten that, under the present regime, little things must be going wrong all the time.

  With a tool case already in hand, one of them pried off a service plate, and Holsten heard the words, ‘Chief, this has been tampered with,’ before a hatch above them was kicked open and three ragged figures dropped upon them with ear-splitting howls.

  They had long knives – surely nothing from the armoury, so Guyen’s people had been improvising – and they were absolutely berserk. Holsten saw one of Lain’s people reel back, blood spitting from a broad wound across her body, and the rest were down to grappling hand-to-hand almost immediately.

  Lain had her gun out but was denied a target, a lack that was rectified when another half-dozen appeared, running full-tilt from the direction they had come. The weapon barked three times, colossally loud in the confined space. One of the robed figures spun away, his battle-cry abruptly turning into a scream.

  Holsten just ducked, hands over his head, his view of the fight reduced to a chaos of knees and feet. Historian to the last, his thought was: This is what it must have been like on Earth at the very end, when all else was lost. This is what we left Earth to avoid. It’s been following after us all this time. Then someone kicked him in the chin, probably entirely without malice, and he was sent sprawling, trampled and stamped on, under the thrashing feet of the melee. He saw Lain’s gun smashed from her hand.

  Someone fell across his legs heavily, and he felt one knee being wrenched as far as it would go, a shockingly distinct and insistent pain amidst all the confusion. He struggled to get free and found himself furiously kicking at the expiring weight of one of Guyen’s mad monks. His mind, which had temporarily given up any illusion of control, was wondering whether the commander had promised some sort of posthumous reward for his minions, and whether that promise was any consolation with a torn-open stomach.

  Suddenly he was clear, and scrabbling at the wall to regain his feet. His twisted knee savagely resisted bearing any of his weight, but he was adrenalined to the eyeballs right then, and overrode it. That got him all of two steps away from the skirmish, whereupon he was grabbed. Without warning, two of Guyen’s bigger goons were on him, and he saw a knife glinting in one hand. He screamed, something to the tune of begging for his life, and then they bounced him off the wall for good measure. He was convinced he was about to die, his imagination leaping ahead, trying to brace him against the coming thrust by picturing the blade already in him in agonizing detail. He lived through the sickening lurch of impact, the cold keening of the knife, the warm upsurge of blood as those parts of him that his skin had kept imprisoned for so very, very long finally took their chance at freedom.

  He was living it, in his head. Only belatedly did he realize that they had not stabbed him at all. Instead, the two of them were hurrying him away from the fight, heedless of his staggering, limping gait. With a start of horror – as though this was worse than a stabbing – he realized that this was not just random gang warfare, Guyen vs. Lain.

  This was the high priest of the Gilgamesh recovering his property.

  5.4 THE RIGHT TO LIFE

  Fabian is brought into Portia’s presence after his escorts return him to the peer house. Her reaction on seeing him is a mixture of relief and frustration. He has been missing for most of the day. Now he is brought into a room of angled sides deep within the peer group’s domain, where Portia hangs from the ceiling and frets.

  This is not the first time that he has evaded his custodians and gone walkabout, but today he was retrieved from the lower reaches of Great Nest, closest to the ground, a haunt of hungry females who either lack or have left their peer groups; the habitat of the busy multitudes of maintenance colonies whose insect bodies keep the city free from refuse; an abode of the numberless, hopeless, unwanted males.

  For someone like Fabian, it is a good place to go to die.

  Portia is furious, but there is a genuine streak of fear for his wellbeing that he can read in her jittery body language. You could have been killed!

  Fabian himself is very calm. Yes, I could.

  Why would you do such a thing? she demands.

  Have you ever been there? He is crouching by the room’s entrance, his round eyes staring up at her, still as stones when he is not actually speaking. With her elevated stance that would let her leap on him and pin him in an instant, there is a curious tension between them: hunter and prey; female and male.

  The ground down there is a tattered mess of broken silk, he tells her; of hastily built shacks where dozens of males sleep each night. They live like animals, day to day. They prey on the ants and are preyed on in turn. The ground is littered with the drained husks where the females have made meals of them.

  Portia’s words thrum towards him through the boundaries of the room. All the more reason to be grateful for what you have, and not risk yourself. Her palps flash white anger.

  I could have been killed, he echoes, matching her stance, and therefore her intonation, perfectly. I could have lived my entire life there, and died without memory or achievement. What separates me from them?

  You are of value, Portia insists. You are a male of exceptional ability, one to be celebrated, to be protected and encouraged to prosper. What have you ever been denied that you have asked for?

  Only one thing. He walks forwards a few careful steps, as though he is feeling out the strands of a web that only he can see. His palps move lazily. His progress is almost a dance, something of the courtship but laced with bitterness. Theirs is a voiceless language of many subtle shades. They are like us, and you know it. You cannot know what they might have achieved if they had been allowed to live and to prosper.

  For a moment she does not even know what he means, but she sees his mind is still focused on that detritus of doomed males whose lives will take them no further than the foot of the trees.

  They are of no value or worth.

  But you cannot know that. There could be a dozen geniuses dying every day, who have never had an opportunity to demonstrate their aptitude. They think, as we do. They plan and hope and fear. Merely see them and that connection would strum between you. They are my brothers. No less so, they are yours.

  Portia disagrees vehemently. If they were of any quality or calibre, then they would ascend by their own virtues.

  Not if there was no structure that they could possibly climb. Not if all the structure that exists was designed to disenfranchise them. Portia, I could have been killed. You yourself said it. I could have been taken by some starving female, and nothing in that would be seen as wrong, save that it might anger you. He has stepped closer, and she feels the predator in her twitch, as if he were some blind insect blundering too close, inviting the strike.

  Portia’s rear legs close up, building muscle tension for the spring that she is fighting against. And still you are not grateful that I think enough of you that your life is preserved.

  His palps twitch with frustration. You know how many males busy themselves around Great Nest. You know that we fulfil thousands of small roles, and even some few great ones. If we were to leave the city all at once, or if some plague were to rid you of all your males, the nest would collapse. And yet every one of us has nothing more than we are given, and that can be taken away from us just as swiftly. Each one of us lives in constant fear that our usefulness will come to an end and that we will be replaced by some more elegant dancer, some new favourite, or that we will please too much and mate, and then be too slow to escape the throes of your passion.

  That is the way things are. Following her argument with Bianca, Portia is f
inding this polemic too much to deal with. She feels as though her beloved Great Nest is under assault from all sides, and most from those who ought to be her allies.

  Things are the way we make them. Abruptly his pose changes, and he is stepping sideways, away from her, loosening that taut bond of predation that was building between them. You asked about my discovery, before. My grand project.

  Playing his game, Portia comes down from her roost, one leg at a time, while still keeping that careful distance. Yes? she signals with her palps.

  I have devised a new form of chemical architecture. His manner has changed completely from the intensity of a moment before. Now he seems disinterested, cerebral.

  To what end? She creeps closer, and he steps away again, not fleeing her but following that unseen web of his own invention.

  To any end. To no end. In and of itself, my new architecture carries no instructions, no commands. It sets the ants no tasks or behaviours.

  Then what good is it?

  He stops, looking up at her again, having lured her this close. It can do anything. A secondary architecture can be distributed to the colony, to work within the primary. And another, and another. A colony could be given a new task instantly, and its members would change with the speed of the scent, as it passes from ant to ant. Different castes could be made receptive to different instructions, allowing the colony to pursue multiple tasks all at once. A single colony could follow sequences of separate tasks without the need for lengthy reconditioning. Once my base architecture is in place, every colony can be reconfigured for every new task, as often as needed. The efficiency of mechanical tasks would increase tenfold. Our ability to undertake calculations would increase at least a hundredfold, perhaps a thousandfold, depending on the economy of the secondary architecture.

  Portia has stopped still, stunned. She understands enough of how her kind’s organic technology works to grasp the magnitude of what he is proposing. If it can be done, then Fabian will have surpassed the chief limiting factor that is frustrating the Temple even now, and that is preventing them from giving true reality to the Messenger’s plan. The brake will come off the advancement of their species. You have this Understanding, now?