Proxima

by Stephen Baxter

  Stef stood rigid, almost at attention beside her luggage, unwilling to respond. There was a stiff moment.

  Penny said, ‘Here we are, in person together, for only, what, the fourth time, the fifth? Since—’

  ‘Since the Hatch opened.’

  ‘Right.’ Penny stepped back, subtly. ‘Sorry. Old habits die hard. Even after all this time. We always hugged, before.’

  Earthshine watched this exchange with lively interest. ‘The “always” applies to you, Penny Kalinski. To what you remember. But to your sister Stef, the “always”, the past before the Hatch incident, did not include you at all.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Stef said. ‘Lucky me. Suddenly I gained a sister.’

  A look crossed Penny’s face, like the passing shadow of a defunct Heroic Generation sunshield. ‘And I,’ she said, ‘feel like I lost one.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ murmured Earthshine. ‘Fascinating. But here we are standing in the heat. Please, come into the shade, both of you . . .’

  The old building extended to several storeys and an underground extension. For Stef, the most striking feature of the ornate interior was a sweeping marble staircase down which the virtual projection of Earthshine marched with convincing footfalls, his shadow shifting in the soft lighting. ‘Once this was an Italian-owned bank,’ he said, ‘but it has been put to many other uses over the centuries. Including a bookstore, when they still had paper books. A real historical relic . . .’ Cleaning robots worked discreetly.

  They reached a relatively small, cool, windowless, underground reception room, where Earthshine invited them to sit on overstuffed armchairs, and offered them water, American-style soda, coffee, from a self-service counter. Penny took a coffee, Stef a glass of water. The room was without decoration, save for a big block of what looked like sea-eroded concrete on one wall, maybe half a metre across, its deeply pitted face marked with a mesh of concentric circles and arrowing lines, apparently intentionally carved. Stef remembered a similar design on a brooch Earthshine had worn before. The peculiar item distracted her; it looked elusively like some kind of map, a schematic, but she could not have said a map of what.

  ‘So,’ Earthshine said, sitting with legs crossed, fingers steepled. ‘It’s good of you to have come so far to meet me – and to take a break from your work schedules, which I know is a sacrifice for both of you. Thank you too for agreeing to put up with each other’s company, at least for a short while. Welcome to my underground lair! Or one of them.’ He smiled, with a show of apparently charming self-deprecation. ‘That’s how you think of us, isn’t it? Terrible old monsters, ruling the world from our furtive dens.’

  Stef said, ‘I like to think we’re a bit more sophisticated than that.’

  But Penny countered, ‘No, you got it about right.’

  Earthshine grinned. ‘You contradict each other. In your talk, even in your choice of drinks. Whatever one does, the other must not follow. How fascinating. And yet by behaving this way you become ever more the mirror images that you each appear to reject . . .’

  For Stef all this was picking at a scab. She snapped, ‘Is there a point to this?’

  ‘Oh, indeed there is,’ Earthshine said. ‘In fact your oddly coupled nature is what I primarily wish to talk to you about. I have followed your trajectories since that strange day on Mercury when the Hatch was opened. Well – you won’t be surprised to learn that. It’s what you would expect of me, isn’t it? To watch over you all, like some inquisitive god.’ He leaned forward. ‘I have asked you here, you see, because I have learned something. I have found something.’

  ‘Something to do with us?’ Stef asked.

  Penny said, ‘And what’s it to do with you, Earthshine? What do you want?’

  ‘Well, that’s rather nebulous at the moment. Suffice to say—’ He paused, as if choosing his words. ‘I want to stop being afraid.’

  Stef stared at him, startled by that peculiar non sequitur. He’d said this calmly, his expression still, faintly artificial. Yet that, somehow, made it all the more convincing.

  Penny seemed more aggressive. ‘You, afraid? Afraid of what? You’re an artificial mind stored underground in massively paralleled and distributed processor and memory banks, with your own dedicated manufacturing units and energy supply. You and your partners rode out the climate Jolts like they were bumps in the road, while millions of us died. What could you possibly be afraid of?’

  ‘I will explain, in time.’ He held out his hands. ‘I know this is difficult for you. But here you are, together. Would you like to talk?’

  Penny and Stef looked into each other’s eyes, just as they had in that first moment of revelation in the Hatch on Mercury. Then they looked away.

  At length Stef said, ‘I’ve done some research. On us, on our past.’

  ‘I know. You’ve been doing it for years. My firewall traced you. I let you go ahead.’

  ‘I saw the records,’ Stef said. ‘As they exist now. We are twins, genetically identical. I am the older by a few minutes. We seem to have been close companions when we were small.’

  ‘I remember,’ Penny said more softly. ‘I wouldn’t need to research it. We played all the time.’

  ‘We were put through the same schools by our father. We showed the same kind of aptitude, basically mathematical, logical, verbal. We both joined the ISF for the sake of scholarships that put us through grad school and sponsored our early researches, and enabled us to get access to the kernel labs on the moon.’

  ‘The ISF split us up,’ Penny said. ‘Their psychs thought it would make each of us more self-reliant. Still we did the same training and development, more or less, just in a different order.’

  ‘But our careers converged again, when we started working on kernel physics.’

  Penny said, ‘It all came from that day we were on Mercury with Dad, we were eleven years old, when the first hulk ship was launched. That was what inspired us to go into kernel research in the first place.’

  Stef closed her eyes, just for a moment. No. I was there alone. With Dad. You weren’t there, not even as some unwelcome ghost. That was my day, not yours . . .

  ‘And then it was all fine until we went into the Hatch on Mercury,’ Penny said sadly. ‘I went through first, Stef. You followed me in. And when I went into that second chamber, and I turned around and you saw me, I could see you didn’t recognise me. We’d only been out of each other’s sight for a minute—’

  ‘Less than that,’ Earthshine said. ‘I have studied the record. Thirty-eight seconds.’

  ‘And my memory is different,’ Stef said. ‘I went alone into the Hatch. I opened the second hatch. There was Penny, already in the next chamber.’

  ‘Before that time, you, Stef, clearly knew your sister. Afterwards you were baffled by her very existence, though you did your best to conceal it when you realised that something was very wrong.’

  Stef felt resentment flare. ‘You’re not allowed access to any material on kernel physics. That’s a UN law.’

  ‘Of course,’ Earthshine said smoothly. ‘But any such law needs a defined boundary. And I, or my legal advisers, push assiduously at that boundary. Wouldn’t you? I am entitled to explore the implications of kernel science, even if I must turn my head away from the physics itself. A visual record of events at the Hatch tells me little about the underlying physics, and much of it is in the public domain anyhow.’ He leaned forward. ‘Major Kalinski – I mean, Stef. Only you remember how it was before. Your life as an only child. Yes? Most people therefore assume your memory is faulty.’

  Stef said, ‘Or that exposure to the Hatch messed with my mind and sent me mildly crazy.’

  He shook his head. ‘But that’s not what you believe, is it, Major? Now consider the alternative. If your mind hasn’t been tampered with – if your memories are authentic—’

  ‘This makes no sense,’ Penny said, growing hostile.

  Earthshine urged, ‘Just run with this for a moment. Stef, what’s your alter
native hypothesis?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘History changed. What else? The minute I opened that Hatch.’

  Earthshine nodded. ‘Before, there was a different history.’

  ‘Where I was an only child. Where I had a different name, for God’s sake. I was Stephanie Penelope Kalinski, not Stephanie Karen, and Penelope Dianne never existed. And when I opened that Hatch and stepped inside, there you were, Penny – real, live, impossible. With a set of memories of a different past. Memories that were in everybody else’s head too.’

  ‘All except yours,’ Earthshine said. ‘Just suppose you’re right, Stef. Just suppose reality was changed, that the Hatch, on accepting you, immediately tinkered with the past – at least with your own past. Giving you a sister you never had. And presumably causing subsequent small changes that rippled away from that big central adjustment.’

  Penny was clearly uncomfortable, and Stef was sure she knew why. They were talking about a world where she’d never even been born, and that must be existentially terrifying. Penny said now, ‘Occam’s razor. Basic principle of science. The idea that Stef somehow got a kind of amnesia is a lot simpler than the idea that the whole universe has been changed to generate a new reality.’

  ‘Well, Occam has been dead a long time,’ Earthshine said mildly. ‘And is the alternative really so preposterous? We know that the Hatch technology involves some kind of manipulation of space-time. You both clambered down into a hole beneath the Hatch that could not exist, according to the geophysics measurements. What is a history change but another such manipulation? In time, rather than space. Stef, I suspect you may not have gone much further with this line of thinking yourself, even in the privacy of your own head.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘I mean that if there has been some kind of history change, effected by the Hatch, or whoever built the Hatch—’

  Penny snorted. ‘Oh, this is—’

  ‘Then it’s been kind of a messy change, hasn’t it? I mean, it hasn’t been clean. We know that it’s left at least one trace of what went before, in your own memory, Stef.’

  ‘That’s hardly evidence,’ Penny snapped.

  ‘It is to Stef. Maybe it had something to do with you being inside the Hatch itself, at the moment the change was effected—’

  ‘And what would be the point?’ Penny demanded now. ‘You’re talking about changing history. If you can do that, why not, hell, wipe out a climate Jolt or two? Or even wipe out the warming altogether – why not go back and shoot Henry Ford?’

  Stef said, her mind racing, ‘Maybe it – or they, the Hatch-makers, whoever is behind this – couldn’t manage anything on that scale. Maybe they didn’t know enough about us, about humanity, to make more than the smallest change. Maybe this was all they could manage. For now, anyhow.’ She looked at Earthshine. ‘But why us? I mean, why me? What’s significant about me, or my life?’

  ‘Everything, ‘ Earthshine said. ‘Or nothing. Maybe it was just the fact that you were first into the Hatch. This was a kind of – test run. An exploration. But if so, as I said—’

  ‘The execution was sloppy,’ Stef said. ‘With one loose end left, in my memory. Trant and King remembered Penny opening the second hatchway and going through ahead of me. I remember opening the second hatch myself, then seeing Penny for the first time . . . Sloppy.’

  ‘At least one loose end.’

  Stef looked at him sharply.

  Penny stood. ‘What do you mean? Have you found another “loose end”? Have you got some kind of proof?’

  He smiled as she loomed over him. ‘Well, wasn’t it logical to at least look? If there is one ragged corner there could easily be more. So I looked. And—’

  Stef said, ‘Is that why you brought us to France? Is there something you want to show us?’

  ‘I can do this virtually,’ he said. ‘Or it may be better if you travel physically and see for yourselves, with your own eyes.’

  ‘Later,’ they both said, their identical voices double-tracking.

  ‘Just show us,’ Stef said. ‘Please.’

  Penny sat down, looking frankly scared.

  Earthshine nodded, waved a hand, and the room dissolved.

  CHAPTER 43

  A footprint.

  Yuri froze.

  Beside him, Mardina pulled Beth close.

  A human footprint, in the mud. Clear as day. Yuri could see the ball of the foot, the heel. He could count the toes.

  ‘Where there’s one print,’ Mardina murmured, ‘there are going to be others. Look, Yuri. That way . . .’ She pointed west across the arid country away from the lake.

  The trail of prints was clearly visible, like shallow craters in the crusty ground, one after another, left, right. Off to the horizon.

  ‘Let’s get back to the ColU,’ Yuri said.

  ‘Right.’

  As they headed, half-running, back around the lake, Beth’s excitement turned to alarm. ‘What is it? Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘No, sweetie,’ Mardina said. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Is it that footprint? Is it somebody bad?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Yuri said. He murmured to Mardina, ‘We’re scaring her.’

  ‘She’s a right to be scared.’

  ‘This shouldn’t be possible, should it? The Ad Astra drops were supposed to be too far apart.’

  ‘Yet it’s happened.’

  They got back to their new campsite, still little more than a heap of supplies, the logs and beams and panels of their dismantled house, a mound of carefully manufactured terrestrial topsoil, other junk. Yuri rummaged until he found a crossbow and bolts. He already had his hunting knife tucked into his belt. ‘I’ll go and check it out. You look after Beth.’

  Mardina curled her lip. ‘Go ahead, hero.’

  Yuri picked up their one flare pistol, it still had a few cartridges left, and stuffed it into his tunic pocket. ‘Well, if I fire this, come and save me.’

  ‘I’ll save you, Daddy.’

  ‘Thank you, sweetie.’ He kissed the top of Beth’s head, grinned at Mardina with a confidence he didn’t feel, and set off.

  He tracked back the way they had come. There was the first footprint, bright and sharp. Completely ignored by the builders nearby.

  Without hesitating, he went further, following the track of prints across the dry country, heading steadily west, jogging, the crossbow in his hand. In the years since the stranding, Mardina had insisted they both practised with the crossbow until they were reasonably expert. Yuri hadn’t disagreed. There was nothing to shoot at round here, but you never knew. Now it looked as if that might pay off.

  More humans! There had been times, especially before Beth had come along, when he had longed for other people to show up, somehow, somewhere – even his enemies, even arsehole Peacekeepers, even that smug bastard astronaut McGregor. He still felt that way sometimes. But now it was different; now he had Beth to shelter and protect. If there were other survivors of the drops down here, who knew what state they would be in? Who knew how they would react to him?

  He had come to think of Per Ardua as his, he realised. His and his family’s. It made no sense, but there you were. Now he resented having to share it.

  And he feared for his family. He had a mental image of the jilla builders’ efficient genocide: the imprisoning, the wordless, relentless butchery.

  He stopped. Straight ahead of him now was a sandstone bluff, low, eroded, sticking out of the ground, a typical Arduan feature. And beside it, a figure, a single human being. He, she, was crouched by the bluff, digging into the ground with one hand – no, drinking, he saw, there must be a spring there, a pool.

  He walked steadily forward. He held the crossbow at his side, loosely, his finger away from the trigger. He didn’t call out.

  Soon enough the figure by the rock bluff spotted him. A slim woman, she stood up straight. She wore no shoes, trousers that were the cut-down remains of an orange jumpsuit, a bl
ack shirt that looked like half an astronaut’s uniform, and a homemade coolie hat made of stem bark, not unlike his own. She had lost one arm, amputated above the elbow, he saw, shocked. The tattoos on her face were solid black slabs, and seemed designed to emphasise the glare of her pale blue eyes.

  He knew her. She was Delga, who he’d known on the ship, and on Mars before that. The snow queen of Eden.

  Delga grinned at him. ‘Hello, ice boy.’

  CHAPTER 44

  Having met, they had to decide to go one way or the other. Yuri chose to walk west with Delga, towards her group, which she called ‘the mothers’, rather than back towards Mardina.

  ‘Only a few klicks,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. We’re further away than that.’ That was a lie; in fact Mardina and Beth were a lot closer. His instinct was to obscure, to hide, to protect. Of course she might know all about his little group already.

  Delga had aged, and life on Per Ardua had evidently toughened her; she looked scrawnier, more wrinkled, but strong, leathery. Her tattoos hadn’t faded, her face was just as blade-like, just as threatening. Despite the loss of that arm he was quite sure she’d have weapons available. As, indeed, he had.

  He was trying to work through the shock. Just encountering another human being, any other human, here on this static world, changed everything. And now it turned out to be Delga.

  Delga’s face was a tattooed mask, under a scalp shaven in elaborate whorls. Yuri barely knew her. He’d only come across her a couple of times on Mars. On the Ad Astra she’d been in the same hulk as him, but again he’d kept his distance. He’d wanted nothing to do with her products, her chain of contacts, her suppliers and users. The last time he’d seen her, he remembered now, she was leading a bunch of rebels up towards the ship’s bridge, after the arrival at Proxima. She was the type to have survived, he supposed.

  He said now, ‘So what were you doing all the way out here?’

  ‘Stretching my legs. What do you think? The one thing this place does have is room, room to walk off until you’re over the horizon and alone. Can’t do that in a Martian hovel, right? Or in some hulk of a ship. Or on most of Earth these days, probably.’ She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. ‘I come out this way for the water. The springs. And there’s a hollow a little further out that way, more springs, but it just got flooded.’