by Alex Lamb
‘You could say that,’ said Will.
It was admittedly an incredible find – a piece of technology potentially more useful than anything the Transcended had ever given them. Taken at face value, it was the solution to all of Earth’s problems, presuming they could ever build enough starships to ferry people over. But the idea that such bounty might come with heavy costs didn’t appear to have occurred to Pari. He almost pitied her for that.
‘Here’s the interesting thing,’ said Pari. ‘This star system never saw a suntap flare, even though it’s sitting here right in the middle of Fecund space. We’ve analysed the spectrum and can’t see any signs of damage. Besides which, the biosphere would have been fried. So what do you think that means?’
Will could think of several implications, not all of them pleasant.
She answered for him. ‘It means it was left for you to find.’
Will peered at her.
‘Yes, you,’ she said. ‘Do you imagine this world that offers so much is here by accident? I don’t. The Transcended put you in the frame. They gave you the ship and the tools. They made it possible for you to find this gift. The one they left for us. Why didn’t you?’
Will’s mouth curled into a snarl. ‘You’re asking me? I was trying to save your fucking planet from itself. Or didn’t you notice?’
She waved a tutting finger at him. ‘No, Will. That’s not what you were doing. You were trying to save everybody. That’s not the same. You didn’t learn the one big lesson the Transcended tried to teach you. What makes the difference between a species that prospers and one that dies is constructive self-editing. They told you that explicitly. All your accounts feature it prominently. But they were talking about editing at the species level, Will, not just about you personally. And editing requires cutting.’ Her expression darkened. ‘You left that job to the Fleet. And that’s why the Rumfoord League had to take it on.’
‘Very convenient,’ said Will. ‘The end justifies the means and all that bullshit. I’m sure you must feel very noble interpreting my experiences for me. How convenient that you get to choose who cuts, and how! And with such a handy scalpel just lying there in space! Tell me, Pari, what kind of a fucking idiot abuses alien tech? Wasn’t one war enough of a lesson?’
‘We learned from the war and you didn’t,’ she said without hesitation. ‘We aren’t doing this to wage a war but to prevent one. Take a look at this.’
She passed him a new invitation. This one opened to reveal a suite of cliometric simulations – huge ones, running thousands of scenarios with billions of pseudo-human agents individually modelled. Will blinked at the level of detail that had gone into them.
‘We have Andromeda Ng-Ludik to thank for all this. I believe you’ve met?’
The work was undeniably impressive. Ann was good for something, at least, even if it wasn’t making sound ethical decisions.
‘She presented this work at a closed meeting on Triton over a year ago. You missed it – for personal reasons, as I recall. The finding from her research is irrefutable. If action is not taken, social pressures in human society will result in war and subsequent economic collapse.’
‘But we knew that already,’ said Will. ‘That’s what we’ve been trying to solve!’
‘How?’ said Pari. ‘By talking to the senate? By threatening people? By getting upset and punching holes in a half-a-million-peace-coin podium? You should have paid more attention, Will. Models like these don’t just tell us what’s going to happen. They tell us how. And they show us the solutions that can actually work. And guess what, you consistently avoided using the one variable the models suggested was absolutely necessary: force. You just expected everyone to start behaving better because you did. That’s not good enough, Will. And that’s why you’re here.’
She tweaked the display in his sensorium, drawing his attention to the huge starfish shapes dotting Snakepit’s surface.
‘As I’m sure you’re aware by now, this planet comes with a self-defence mechanism. Those bio-forms are defensive nodes. If the planet is damaged or exploited in any significant way, it constructs a matching response.’
‘Drones,’ said Will.
‘Exactly. What we call Nemesis machines – bio-formed warp-enabled munitions. An extraordinary concept, is it not? The response is extremely predictable. This means that whenever the sects land a new Frontier-busting settlement, we can shut it down without IPSO being any the wiser. So far it has been used no fewer than eight times at the Far Frontier.’
Will’s gaze snapped to her face. ‘Eight?’
She looked saddened by his surprise. ‘Will, the proxy war you imagined we were trying to start at Tiwanaku has been going on for more than two years. Flags have been capitalising on Fleet limitations and claiming worlds outside of IPSO control for months now. They’ve been trying to seize territory without even a glance in the Fleet’s direction. And had they succeeded, the balance of power would already have changed. The sects would have abandoned politics. That war you fear would have long since started. You see, Will,’ she said, ‘you failed already. We’ve been covering your ass for years. Take a look.’
She passed him another invitation. This time, Will couldn’t bring himself to open it. He didn’t doubt she had the proof. People had been expecting the sects to make a move since before he lost Rachel. His shoulders sagged. History had been advancing all around him and he’d never even noticed. He, who had been personally tasked with saving it.
‘Instead,’ she said, ‘we clear up each incident without ever impacting the Fleet’s finances. Each operation the Nems carry out is immaculate. They’re so tidy that nobody needs to know they happened. Except the sects, of course, who’re spitting with rage. All they know is that their horrid little military outposts full of religious fundamentalists keep disappearing. But this pattern is unsustainable. Every new illegal outpost is larger than the last. And the larger the target the Nems consume, the more human data they internalise and the less predictable they become. Which meant that Tiwanaku had to be the very last site we let them take. We knew that without something to reset politics, the sects would eventually win. As ever with Earth, it’s just a numbers game. They have them. We don’t. And if they win, your vision of a unified species will be lost for good.’
‘So why didn’t you just tell me?’ said Will.
‘Because we judged, based on prior experience, that you couldn’t make the necessary cold decision. So we arranged for Fleet scouts to witness an “alien event”. We laid a warp trail linking Tiwanaku straight to Earth. And then we made sure that you and the Ariel Two would become unavailable. The Nemesis machines will attack Earth. And then they’ll be beaten before they can adapt. With Earth’s population under threat, the sects will have no choice but to support the Fleet. And with evidence that the Far Frontier holds alien dangers, political support for Frontier-jumping will vanish. The human race will be reunified.’
Will shivered at the implications. ‘At the cost of billions of lives,’ he said quietly.
Pari wagged her finger at him again. ‘Actually, just a few million. We’ve been quite careful about that. Our ships will be ready when the attack begins. The Nem swarm will never reach Earth itself. There’ll be losses in the out-system, of course, and surface casualties due to the radiation impact, but that’s all. Frankly, it’s a low price to pay compared to that of another interstellar war.’
Will couldn’t stomach her talk of costs and cutting and paying. It felt cheaply clinical to him – the kind of decision-making leaders engaged in when they felt certain they’d never have to bear the brunt of their own choices.
‘How nice that you won’t be paying,’ he sneered.
Pari’s smile dropped away. She suddenly looked very angry.
‘Aren’t I? Haven’t I? You remember, I hope, that rebels on Earth murdered my family. I’ve spared you the footage of their charred co
rpses staked out on the ground. Did you know that some of those gang members were as young as twelve? All were executed after the trial that followed, of course. Earth’s justice is as pathetic as its discipline. You seem to forget that I’m from Earth, Will. I’ve dedicated my life and my career to helping it. I could so easily have done what my father wanted and supported the interests of his sect, but I chose not to. I tried to follow in your footsteps, Will Monet, and make a difference. I took your sacrifice and your vision seriously. More seriously than you did, apparently.’
Her nostrils flared as she spoke. Her voice trembled. Pari Voss’s famous exterior had cracked, spilling out some of the poison froth from inside.
‘It was in the wake of that … those … killings that I realised helping the world was never going to be enough. I saw that no matter how hard I worked, no matter how much I gave and gave, there would always be more poverty. More horror. More death. The Earth was like a mindless machine just churning it out. And that’s when I realised I needed to turn the horror machine off. If I did that, it would make the whole species sit up and take note.’
‘But how can this possibly help?’ said Will sadly. ‘Even if your plan works, how does hitting the Earth make it better? You’re not making the poverty go away.’
‘Can you really not see?’ she snapped. ‘We had all the tools to end poverty hundreds of years ago, Will, so why does it still exist? Because people squeeze each other. They can’t help themselves. And they keep squeezing and hurting and crushing and maiming right up until someone starts squeezing them back. We had to make it look like someone else was doing the squeezing. We had to give humanity the gift of fear – the one gift you were never going to give us. The one gift that would offer people an incentive to stop fighting. You see, Will, you were ready to change yourself for mankind. But you were never ready to change mankind for itself.’
‘Because I believe that change should be a choice,’ he said.
‘Right up until one person’s choice destroys another’s?’ she said. ‘Because that’s what we’re looking at. That’s the reality your endless, cowardly optimism has created. You stayed golden. You got to act the hero. Your power and position gave you the liberty to adopt the moral high ground about human progress without ever having to look at what it meant for everyone else. Well, here’s something to think about. You fired on those Nemesis machines by choice. Which means that your action triggered the next phase of the immune response. We made sure of that. The Gulliver couldn’t fire. The Chiyome didn’t on purpose. It’s your act and only yours that will cause the attack on Earth. Whatever you may think of us, you’re responsible for what happens to Earth now.’
Will’s skin prickled.
‘I don’t expect you to like me or understand me,’ said Pari. ‘It’s too late for that. I don’t expect you to join my side. But after the attack on Earth, someone will need to unify humanity. Someone who will bring revenge against the attackers and word of a new home for humanity. Because without that organising force, everything will slide backwards. We intend that unifying force to be you. Just as you elevated Gustav after the war without giving him any real choice in the matter, so we will elevate you. Over the years you’ve confided in me plenty with your feelings about Earth, Will. You’ve told me over and over about your isolation and the terrible moral load. Well, guess what – I freed you from that burden by taking it on myself, thereby enabling you to fulfil the goal you were meant for. The job you were supposed have finished years ago.’
Will looked at her with horror and then buried his face in his hands.
‘I’ll leave you now,’ she said. ‘You’ve got some thinking to do.’
Will felt sick. Pari had touched him as she’d intended. He couldn’t help but see that the situation he found himself in was as much his own doing as anyone else’s. Yet she didn’t have a clue what her actions had wrought. She still imagined she was in control.
13.2: ANN
Ann waited on the station’s command deck for Senator Voss to finish her session with Will Monet. They’d overhauled the place again since her visit months ago. Video panels now covered every available inch of wall-space, densely packed with a hundred different kinds of visualised statistics about the world beneath them. Work tables and clusters of meeting couches equipped with projector bubbles dotted the gently curving floor. League scientists filled the seats, rapt in study. It was like walking around inside a giant infographic.
After weeks in the cramped interior of the Chiyome, the cavernous spaces of Snakepit Station came as a huge relief. Except Ann couldn’t shake the feeling that the officers busily analysing the planet below them had all missed a crucial detail.
A transit pod delivered the senator to the floor. She emerged breathing hard, her hands pressed together.
‘Senator Voss, ma’am. A word, if I may,’ said Ann, striding across to meet her.
The senator looked exhausted – more than she usually let people see.
‘What is it, Captain?’
‘First, ma’am, are you okay?’ said Ann, examining Voss’s face. Her usually flawless olive skin showed lines of stress.
The senator exhaled. ‘Yes, just a little wound up, I suppose. I’ve been rehearsing that speech in my head for years. But when I finally got to say it all to his face, it took rather a lot out of me.’ She smiled, her artificial brightness coming back online. ‘Ah, well. We all do the jobs fate assigns us, don’t we? What do you need?’
‘I wanted to report to you personally as soon as I could about the Nems, ma’am,’ said Ann. ‘I know you already have my written account but I don’t think this can wait. From what we saw, the Nems are operating dangerously close to the edge of our model tolerances. We can’t say with any confidence that the Tiwanaku swarm is operating as expected.’
The senator’s smile switched off again. ‘An unfortunate assessment,’ she said.
‘Furthermore, discussion with Captain Monet during his transfer raised a disturbing point. He suggested a level of deliberate agency in the biomaterial we deployed that our analysis hadn’t detected. As I understand it, the team in the denaturing lab believed they’d minimised the capabilities of the material, but from Will’s account, it’s not clear that they succeeded.’
‘Under the circumstances, one might expect Monet to overstate the risks,’ said Voss.
‘Understood, ma’am,’ said Ann, ‘and were it not for the fact that his account appeared to correlate with what I witnessed first-hand, I wouldn’t have brought it up.’
‘I see.’
‘Coupled with the absence of the Gulliver, I’m concerned that our project may already have veered off track,’ said Ann.
The senator folded her arms. ‘Really. So what do you recommend?’
‘An immediate scouting flight to Tiwanaku to check the development of the swarm. Also, a short visit to the Nerroskovi System to see whether the Gulliver can be located. As I understand it, one of our watcher drones arrived with a report of a Nem departure event in that direction.’
Senator Voss frowned. ‘Surely by the time you got there, the end of the rendezvous window would have passed. The Gulliver would have already left.’
‘Accepted, ma’am, but at least knowing the fate of Mark Ruiz and Overcaptain Shah would strengthen our hand. We might be able to bolster our negotiating position with Captain Monet.’
‘Of course,’ said Voss. ‘But potentially at the cost of limiting our capabilities here during the next phase. Sam Shah is a smart man,’ she added. ‘Nobody knows more about the Nems than he does. It’s lamentable that he’s out of the picture at this point, but that possibility always existed.’
Ann nodded. ‘You’re right, ma’am. Certainly locating them comes as a secondary priority to monitoring the swarm. I have one other proposal.’
Voss inclined her head. ‘Go on.’
Ann took a deep breath and spoke her mind
. ‘I strongly recommend the creation of a backup option to cover the eventuality that Nem behaviour becomes dangerously unpredictable. In that scenario, we cut a deal with Captain Monet and abort.’
The senator’s lips thinned.
Ann hurried onwards. ‘Either he helps us and swears to protect the interests of the League, or we leave him here and avert the machine attack without him.’
Parisa’s face was unreadable. Data light flickered in her synthetically blue eyes. Ann waited for a response.
‘That would not be a backup,’ said the senator eventually. ‘That would be a disaster.’
‘Ma’am—’ Ann started.
Voss cut her off with a sweep of her hand. ‘We know the machines will be destroyed at Earth. No other part of this endeavour has been over-engineered to such an extent. The Nems could quadruple the size of their expected fleet and still not change our risk envelope. And at the end of the day, we have the Nem homeworld. To prevent the creation of new machines, we nuke the planet. Then they won’t have anywhere to take their samples to. Admittedly this would represent a terrible waste, but we are equipped for that eventuality. As your video log from Tiwanaku clearly demonstrates, planets are delicate things. And this one is no different. Tell me, Captain,’ the senator added. ‘Did you see any evidence at Tiwanaku that the Nems wouldn’t carry out a follow-up attack?’
‘No, ma’am,’ said Ann, her cheeks colouring. ‘But all those models were based on a fixed rate of development—’
Voss chopped her down again. An edge entered her voice. ‘We put everything into this,’ she said. ‘Our money. Our time. Our credibility. And now you’re proposing that we throw away all that effort and demonise ourselves over fear of a pile of five-million-year-old machines? That planet hasn’t had intelligent life on it since humans walked upright.’
