Ark

by Stephen Baxter

  Zane sneered. ′So you say.′

  ′Are you in your safe place?′

  ′I′m in the museum. In my room.′

  ′What can you see?′

  ′The door is open.′

  Holle said, ′What can you see through the door?′

  ′A boy. He′s frightened.′

  ′I know. Well, you can help him, Zane. Can you go get him, and bring him into the room with you?′

  ′I don′t know.′ Zane twitched on the couch.

  ′You can send him out again any time you want.′

  Zane lay silently for a minute, then stirred.

  ′Is he there?′

  ′He′s standing beside me. He′s smaller than me. Skinny. He′s sort of shivering.′

  ′Can I speak to him?′

  Zane shuddered, and when he spoke again, his voice had a subtly higher pitch. ′I can′t see. It′s dark.′

  It had always been dark when Harry Smith had come for Zane. ′Do you know who I am?′

  ′Doctor Wetherbee?′

  They went through this every time. ′No. I′m Holle. Doctor Wetherbee asked me to help. Do you remember we discussed that?′

  ′Yes.′

  ′And do you remember what we said we′d do today?′

  ′You said you′d try to make me go into Zane 3.′

  ′How do you feel about doing that?′

  ′I don′t know what it means.′ He rubbed his arms, which were pitted with the small scars of the self-harm he still managed to achieve, periodically. ′I′m dirty. I should wash first. Zane won′t want me.′

  ′No. You′re clean. Clean inside. Zane knows that, Zane 3. He wants to welcome you, because that way he can help you, he can take away how you′re hurting, and you can help him, because he needs to remember what you remember. So it′s all a good thing, isn′t it?′

  ′I′ll be gone, if I go into him.′

  ′No. You′ll still be there, everything that makes you unique. It′s just that you′ll be inside Zane 3, not outside. I won′t forget you.′

  Zane suddenly opened his eyes and stared straight at Holle, his face twisted. ′Promise me that.′

  Holle had never helped Zane, or Venus or Matt, while the abuse was actually going on, though all the Candidates had suspected what Harry Smith was up to. For years she′d turned her back, afraid for her own position. Now, hearing this plea for help as if from the boy Zane had been back then, but expressed in the gruff voice of a thirty-nine-year-old, her heart broke. ′I promise. Maybe you could step back and let me talk to Zane 3 again.′

  After another pause the alter Zane 3 emerged, visibly. ′So what now? How do we actually do this? How do I get him inside me?′

  Holle glanced at Theo. The texts and case studies were vague on the precise mechanics of this crucial moment.

  Theo leaned forward. ′Can you see him? What′s he doing now?′

  ′He′s crying.′ Zane sounded faintly disgusted.

  ′Then just hold him,′ Theo said. ′Put your arms around him. See if you can stop him crying.′

  ′OK.′ Zane sounded reluctant, but his upper arms twitched, a vestige of movement. ′I′m holding him. He′s making my shirt wet. He′s stopping crying. I … Come on. It′s OK.′

  Holle asked, ′What′s happening?′

  ′It′s like a shadow falling across me, I - oh, I can see him, but he′s inside my head now. Inside my eyelids!′

  ′Don′t be afraid,′ Holle said, soothing. ′It′s going well. Everything′s fine. Can you hear his voice? Can you hear what he′s thinking?′

  ′I can hear, I can see, oh God. I can see his memories. It′s like HeadSpace porn. Did this happen to me? I remember now, I remember the first time, Harry was comforting me about the antimatter accident, he put his big heavy arm around me - oh, shit.′

  ′It′s OK, Zane, you′re doing well.′

  ′And this poor kid has been carrying this garbage around for all these years?′

  ′He did it for you, Zane. I′ll count down from five, and then you′ll wake up, you′ll be here with me and Theo in the surgery. OK? Five. Four …′

  On waking, Zane was subtly different. More anguished. Angrier.

  Holle asked, ′Are you OK? Do you want anything, some water?′

  ′No water. I′m fine.′ He sounded anything but fine. He looked dazzled; he shaded his eyes. ′Everything′s bright. Ow, and loud.′ But the only noise in the room was the unending hum of the ECLSS pumps and fans. ′I hear my heartbeat.′

  Holle spoke softly. ′What do you remember?′

  ′That I didn′t remember before? Years of systematic abuse by that prick Smith. And, in retrospect, years of grooming even before that.′ His eyes snapped open. Suddenly he was mocking, angry. ′Or maybe you put this shit in my head. Nothing else about this experience is real. Why should these memories be any more valid?′

  Holle felt beaten. ′Zane, we′re just—′

  ′Are we done? Can I go?′

  76

  Five days after Seba arrived in Earth orbit, Masayo called Kelly to the shuttle flight deck.

  She swam through the lock from Seba. Mike Wetherbee and Masayo were waiting for her, loosely strapped into the twin pilots′ couches at the nose of the shuttle. Kelly briskly kissed Masayo, and she drifted behind the two men, looking over their shoulders. For long minutes they looked out of the flight deck′s big windows in silence.

  There, looming over them beyond the windows, was the Earth itself. Even after five days it was hard to believe that they were here, that after a seven-year flight from Earth II they had actually made it home again. Yet here was the blunt reality.

  The world was a shield of lumpy cloud, so close that its curvature was barely visible. Looking ahead to the horizon Kelly could see the cloud banks in their three-dimensional glory, continent-sized storms crowned by towering thunderheads. Seba was approaching the terminator, the diffuse boundary between night and day, and the sun, somewhere behind the hull, cast shadows from those tremendous thunderheads onto the banks of clouds beneath. Meanwhile on console screens data and imagery about the Earth chattered and flashed, information on climate and oceanography and atmospheric content and the rest compiled by instruments intended to inspect a new world, and whose electronic eyes were now turned on the old.

  Masayo asked, ′So how′s Eddie?′

  ′Fine. Going crazy. You know how he gets before he crashes for his nap.′ Eddie, Kelly′s second child and fathered by Masayo Saito, four years old now, conceived and born in microgravity, was a spindly explosion of energy. Eddie was one of just four children born during the voyage from Earth II, which had brought the crew roster up to twenty-three. In a hull designed for a nominal crew of forty or more, there was plenty of room for the kids to play. ′Jack Shaughnessy′s with him. Says he′ll put him to bed when he calms down.′

  ′Good.′ Masayo smiled, his broad face bathed in the light of Earth.

  Kelly felt a stab of affection for him. Now forty-one, Masayo had lost his boyish good looks to thinning hair and a fattening neck, and like all of the crew after eighteen years in the Ark he was sallow, too pale, with a darkness about the folds of his eyes. But his enduring good nature showed in his face, and the easy command that had once won him the loyalty of the Shaughnessys and his other ragtag illegals now inspired love from his son with Kelly.

  Did Kelly love Masayo? Did he love her? Those questions weren′t answerable, she had long ago decided. They would never have come together, never stayed together, if not for the unique situation of the mission. But that was the frame in which they lived, and within which any relationship had to flourish. For sure, she believed he was good for her.

  But Mike Wetherbee was watching Kelly in that clinical, mildly judgemental way of his. ′Jack′s pretty reliable,′ he said, his tone needling. ′You can trust him. I guess.′

  Mike seemed on the surface to have got over his hijacking from Halivah, seven years earlier, drugged and bound. But whenever he
got the chance he put pressure on Kelly, especially over her children, digging into that dull ache, that awful memory of having given up a child. Mike hadn′t trained as a psychiatrist; whatever skills he had he′d picked up on treating patients since the launch, notably Zane. He seemed to have learned well, if his slow, subtle torture of Kelly was any sign.

  But today Kelly′s focus was on the present, not the past, and she ignored him. ′So what have we learned?′

  Masayo grunted. ′Nothing good. If we′d hoped Earth had somehow healed - well, we′re disappointed.′ He paged through images and data summaries on a screen before him. ′There′s no exposed land, none at all. But according to the radar the flood′s not as deep as we might have expected. It′s around fifteen kilometres above the old datum, whereas we were expecting nearer twenty-five from the models the oceanographers produced before we left.′

  Mike Wetherbee grimaced. ′Only fifteen kilometres?′

  Masayo grinned. ′Yeah. How shall we break it to the crew? Do you want the good news or the bad news?′ Now he produced a schematic map of the planet′s climate systems. ′The weather′s got simpler now there are no continents in the way, no Saharas or Himalayas. Take a look.′

  In each hemisphere the sun′s equatorial heating created three great convection belts parallel to the equator, transporting heat towards the cooler poles. These tremendous cycles created a kind of helix of stable winds that snaked around the rotating planet. It was a pattern that had endured for billions of years, and even now its continued existence still determined much of the world′s long-term climate patterns. Meanwhile in the ocean the network of currents was much simpler now that the continents were drowned kilometres deep, and unable to offer any significant obstacle to the currents′ circulation. Even the huge gyres, dead spots in the ocean, where humanity′s garbage had collected and hapless rafting communities had gone to scavenge, were dispersed now. A crude system of atmospheric circulation, powerful ocean currents following simple patterns, not a trace of land or even polar ice anywhere in the world: this was an Earth reduced to elementals, like a climatological teaching aid, Kelly thought. Nothing but the basic physics of a spinning planet.

  And yet it was not uniform; this ocean world had features. Masayo produced an image of a vast storm prowling the lower latitudes of the northern hemisphere, a milky spiral the size of a continent that continually spun off daughter storms, themselves ferocious hurricanes in their own right. ′As far as we know this is the same storm they called the Spot, eighteen years ago,′ he said. ′Maybe somebody down there will be able to confirm that for us. It drives winds at around three hundred kilometres an hour. That′s about Mach point two five - a quarter the speed of sound. Must do a hell of a lot of damage to those garbage rafts.′

  ′So we splash down away from it,′ Kelly murmured. ′But where?′

  ′There′s nowhere immediately obvious,′ Masayo said. ′No land, clearly. Nothing but a scattering of rafts. Sometimes you see their lights at night. Some don′t seem to have lights at all. They tend to cluster over the old continental shelves, and particularly over urban areas, the great cities.′

  Mike said, ′We picked up some radio transmissions, mostly not aimed at us.′

  ′ ′′Mostly′′? ′

  ′It′s just chatter. People asking after relatives and lost kids, and swapping news about storms and fishing grounds. A few people still making observations of the climate, the ongoing changes. They can talk through the surviving satellite network. I suspect some of them are trying to bounce signals off the moon—′

  ′Mike, back up. You said, ′′mostly′′. The signals were ′′mostly′′ not aimed at us.′

  He grinned. ′That′s why we called you in here, Kelly. Half an hour ago we picked up this, from a raft over North America.′ He tapped his screen, and a speaker crackled with a looped message:

  ′… knew you′d be back. I′ve been waiting a year for you to show up, since the earliest theoretical return time. Earth II isn′t so hot, huh? Well, if you need a native guide come down here and look me up. You can track this signal… This is Thandie Jones, somewhere over Wyoming, on the Panthalassa Sea. Thandie calling Ark One. I see you! I knew you′d be back …′

  77

  In the cupola′s twilit, humming calm, with the hull of Halivah and the silent stars arrayed beyond the windows, Grace Gray gazed on beautiful, spectacular images of young star systems, a million years old or less, in the throes of formation from an interstellar cloud, and tried very hard to understand what her daughter was telling her.

  Helen, earnest, seventeen years old, said, ′It′s like we′re putting together an album of the birth of a solar system, frame by frame. You see how the young star, having imploded out of the cloud itself, starts to interact with the cloud remnant. A central collapsed disc slices the wider cloud in two …′ The sundered cloud, lit up from within by the invisible star, reminded Grace of a child′s toy, a yo-yo, with the planetary system forming in the gap between the two halves, where the string would wrap. Tremendous jets shot up out of the poles of the star, at right angles to the yo-yo. Helen spoke on, of ice lines and migrating Jovians and photoevaporation, of how starlight could strip away the mantle of a Jupiter to expose a Neptune or a Uranus.

  The cupola was empty save for the two of them and Venus, who, intent on her own work, with headphones and virtual glasses wrapped around her head, was effectively absent.

  Helen was beautiful, Grace thought, studying her daughter, her profile silhouetted against the star field. Beautiful in a way she had never been, even at seventeen, when everybody is beautiful, even though she shared Helen′s colouring. Helen′s father, Hammond Lammockson, son of Nathan, had been short, squat, bullish like his father. Grace could see little of Hammond in Helen - some of Nathan′s determination, maybe. Or perhaps she was an expression of Saudi royal blood. Or maybe it was something to do with the microgravity they had all endured for the last seven years, since the Split had made rotational artificial gravity impossible. Helen had only been ten. All the kids who had grown up since were slender and graceful - though, against expectation, they weren′t tall. Or maybe she looked like Grace′s mother, whom she had been named for, who Grace herself couldn′t remember.

  Whatever, Helen was a winner of the lottery of genetics - ′gifted′, Venus Jenning had once called her, one of the handful of the next generation deemed bright enough for an intensive education. Grace had always suspected as much, even back in the days when Helen had tried to teach her the rules of Zane′s infinite chess. And she never looked more beautiful than when she was intent on her studies.

  She realised Helen had stopped talking.

  ′Am I losing you?′

  ′Not quite.′

  ′Look, would you like a coffee before I show you some more?′

  Venus pushed her glasses up into her greying hair. ′Somebody mention coffee?′

  ′There may be some in the flask.′

  ′I think that′s pretty much stewed by now. Why don′t you go fill it up for us?′

  ′Oh.′ Helen looked from one to the other. ′You want to talk without me being around, right?′

  Grace smiled, and brushed a floating lock of blond hair back into the knot her daughter wore at the back of her head. ′Well, it was Venus I came to see, honey.′

  ′I can take a hint.′ Helen had her legs crossed around a T-stool; now she unwrapped, floated into the air, and with a fish-like precision arrowed down and grabbed the coffee flask from its holder beside Venus. ′I′ll give you ten minutes. Then I get to show you more good stuff, Mum. Deal?′

  Grace smiled. ′Deal.′

  When she had sailed out through the airlock, Venus turned to Grace. ′You′re here to talk about Wilson, I guess.′

  ′Yeah. And Steel Antoniadi. He′s gone too far with that girl. The hull′s full of talk about it. I′m seeing Holle later. Maybe you could come. If the three of us confront him—′

  ′OK.′ Venus yawned and stretche
d; she wasn′t wearing any restraint, and the arching of her back made her drift up out of her chair. ′I guess it has to be done. I have to admit it gets harder and harder to care about that kind of crap,′ She stared out at the stars. ′Sometimes I just lose myself in here. And thank God Wilson got to be speaker, not me. Helen really is one of the best we have, you know. Do you resent me taking her away to study?′

  ′No. In fact she′s spending even more time training up as a shuttle pilot than she does in here. I′m grateful she has these opportunities. But there′s plenty of griping about your students and their privileges. To be fair to him Wilson defends you, he always points out how we need the planet-spotting and navigation functions.′

  ′Well, so we do. But how does he feel about my programmes of basic research? The fundamental physics, the cosmology—′

  ′I never spoke to him about it.′

  Venus looked back to the stars again. ′I just think we should be doing more than, you know, washing down walls and clearing out blocked latrines. And if you think about it, this is a unique opportunity. Even if all goes well, Helen′s kids will be dirt farmers down on Earth III. It′s only this generation, Helen′s generation, of all the generations since Adam, who have grown up among the stars, away from the overwhelming presence of a planet. Who knows how that′s shaping their minds? Call it an experiment, Grace. Besides, these are seriously bright kids, seriously curious, who aren′t allowed to explore anything in case they wreck the ship. So I try to direct their curiosity out there.′ She fell silent, as she was wont to do, drifting into the private universe of her own head.

  Grace prompted her, mildly mocking, ′And are you coming up with anything useful?′

  Venus laughed. ′Now you sound like Holle, queen of the plumbers. Hell, who knows? Look at Zane′s warp generator. We managed to build a unified-physics engine even before we managed to unify the physics in the first place. It′s as if we built it by accident. Maybe Helen′s generation will come up with something that will make Zane′s drive look like a steam engine. Then we′ll have some fun.′