Resplendent

by Stephen Baxter

  He stood. ‘You’re a jasoft. Aren’t you, Gemo Cana?’

  ‘Oh, worse than that,’ Gemo murmured. ‘I’m a pharaoh . . . You know, I have missed this view. The Qax knew what they were doing when they gave us jasofts the sunlight.’

  She was the first pharaoh Hama had encountered face to face. Before her easy authority, her sense of dusty age, Hama felt young, foolish, his precious philosophies half-formed. And he found himself staring at the girl; he hadn’t even known pharaohs could have children.

  Deliberately he looked away, seeking a way to regain control of the situation. ‘You’ve been in hiding.’

  Gemo inclined her head. ‘I spent a long time working in offices like this one, Hama Druz. Longer than you can imagine. I always knew the day would come when the Qax would leave us exposed, us pharaohs.’

  ‘So you prepared.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? I was doing my duty. I didn’t want to die for it.’

  ‘Your duty to Qax occupiers?’

  ‘No,’ she said, a note of weariness in her voice. ‘You seem more intelligent than the rest; I had hoped you might understand that much. It was a duty to mankind, of course. It always was.’

  He tapped a data slate on his desk. ‘Gemo Cana. I should have recognised the name. You are one of the most hunted jasofts. Your testimony before the Commission—’

  She snapped, ‘I’m not here to surrender, Hama Druz, but to ask for your help.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I know about your mission to Callisto. To the enclave there. Reth has been running a science station since before the Occupation. Now you are going out there to close him down.’

  He said grimly, ‘These last few years have not been a time for science.’

  She nodded. ‘So you believe science is a luxury, a plaything for easier times. But science is a thread in the tapestry of our humanity - a thread Reth has maintained. Do you even know what he is doing out there?’

  ‘Something to do with life forms in the ice—’

  ‘Oh, much more than that. Reth has been exploring the nature of reality - seeking a way to abolish time itself.’ She smiled coolly. ‘I don’t expect you to understand. But it has been a fitting goal, in an era when the Qax have sought to obliterate human history - to abolish the passage of time from human consciousness . . .’

  He frowned. Abolishing time? Such notions were strange to him, meaningless. He said, ‘We have evidence that the science performed on Callisto was only a cover - that many pharaohs fled there during the chaotic period following the Qax withdrawal.’

  ‘Only a handful. There only ever was a handful of us, you know. And now that some have achieved a more fundamental escape, into death, there are fewer than ever.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want you to take us there.’

  ‘To Callisto?’

  ‘We will remain in your custody, you and your guards. You may restrain us as you like. We will not try anything - heroic. All we want is sanctuary. They will kill us, you see.’

  ‘The Commission is not a mob.’

  She ignored that. ‘I am not concerned for myself, but for my daughter. Sarfi has nothing to do with this; she is no jasoft.’

  ‘Then she will not be harmed.’

  Gemo just laughed.

  ‘You are evading justice, Gemo Cana.’

  She leaned forward, resting her hands on the desk nonchalantly; this really had once been her office, he realised. ‘There is no justice here,’ she hissed. ‘How can there be? I am asking you to spare my daughter’s life. Later, I will gladly return to face whatever inquisition you choose to set up.’

  ‘Why would this Reth help you?’

  ‘His name is Reth Cana,’ she said. ‘He is my brother. Do you understand? Not my cadre sibling. My brother.’

  Gemo Cana; Reth Cana; Sarfi Cana. In the Qax world, families had been a thing for ragamuffins and refugees, and human names had become arbitrary labels; the coincidence of names had meant nothing to Hama. But to these ancient survivors, a shared name was a badge of kinship. He glanced at Gemo and Sarfi, uneasy in the presence of these close primitive ties, of mother and brother and daughter.

  Abruptly the door opened. Nomi Ferrer walked in, reading from a data slate. ‘Hama, your ship is ready to go. But I think we have to—’ She looked up, and took in the scene at a glance. In an instant she was at Gemo’s side, with a laser pistol pressed against the pharaoh’s throat. ‘Gemo Cana,’ she hissed. ‘How did you get in here?’

  Sarfi stepped towards Nomi, hands fluttering like birds.

  Hama held up his hand. ‘Nomi, wait.’

  Nomi was angered. ‘Wait for what? Standing orders, Hama. This is a Category One jasoft who hasn’t presented herself to the Commission. I should already have killed her.’

  Gemo smiled thinly. ‘It isn’t so easy, is it, Hama Druz? You can theorise all you want about justice and retribution. But here, in this office, you must confront the reality of a mother and her child.’

  Sarfi said to Hama, ‘If your guard kills my mother, she kills me too.’

  ‘No,’ said Hama. ‘We aren’t barbarians. You have nothing to fear—’

  Sarfi reached out and swept her arm down at the desk - no, Hama saw, startled; her arm passed through the desk, briefly breaking up into a cloud of pixels, boxes of glowing colour.

  ‘You’re a Virtual,’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes. And do you want to know where I live?’ She stepped up to her mother and pushed her hand into Gemo’s skull.

  Gemo observed his lack of comprehension. ‘You don’t know much about us, do you, even though you presume to judge us? Hama, pharaohs rarely breed true.’

  ‘Your daughter was mortal?’

  ‘The Qax’s gift was ambiguous. We watched our children grow old and die. That was our reward for serving the Qax; perhaps your Commission will accept that historical truth. And when she died—’

  ‘When she died, you downloaded her into your head?’

  ‘Nowhere else was safe,’ Gemo said. ‘And I was glad to, um, make room for her. I have lived a long time; there were memories I was happy to shed.’

  Nomi said harshly, ‘But she isn’t your daughter. She’s a copy.’

  Gemo closed her eyes. ‘But she’s all I have left.’

  Hama felt moved, and repelled, by this act of obsessive love.

  Sarfi looked away, as if ashamed.

  There was a low concussion. The floor shuddered. Hama could hear running footsteps, cries.

  Nomi Ferrer understood immediately. ‘Lethe. That was an explosion.’

  The light dropped, as if some immense shadow were passing over the sky. Hama ran to the window.

  All around the Conurbation, ships were lifting, hauled into the sky by silent technology, an eerie rising. But they entered a sky that was already crowded, darkened by the rolling, meaty bulk of a Spline craft, from whose flanks fire spat.

  Hama cringed from the brute physical reality of the erupting conflict. And he knew who to blame. ‘It’s the jasofts,’ he said. ‘The ones taken to orbit to help with the salvaging of the Spline. They took it over. And now they’ve come here, to rescue their colleagues.’

  Gemo Cana smiled, squinting up at the sky. ‘Sadly, stupidity is not the sole prerogative of mayflies. This counter-coup cannot succeed. And then, when this Spline no longer darkens the sky, your vengeance will not be moderated by show trials and bleats about justice and truth. You must save us, Hama Druz. Now!’

  Sarfi pressed her hands to her face.

  Hama stared at Gemo. ‘You knew. You knew this was about to happen. You timed your visit to force me to act.’

  ‘It’s all very complicated, Hama Druz,’ Gemo said softly, manipulating. ‘Don’t you think so? Get us out of here - all of us - and sort it out later.’

  Nomi pulled back the pharaoh’s head. ‘You know what I think? I think you’re a monster, pharaoh. I think you killed your daughter, long ago, and stuck her in your head. An insur
ance against a day like today.’

  Gemo, her face twisted by Nomi’s strong fingers, forced a smile. ‘Even if that were true, what difference would it make?’ And she gazed at Hama, waiting for his decision.

  Obeying Nomi’s stern voice commands, the ship rose sharply. Hama felt no sense of acceleration as shadows slipped over his lap.

  This small craft was little more than a translucent hemisphere. In fact it would serve as a lifedome, part of a greater structure waiting in Earth orbit to propel him across Sol system. The three of them, plus Sarfi, were jammed into a cabin made for two. The Virtual girl was forced to share the space already occupied by Hama and Gemo. Where her projection intersected their bodies it dimmed and broke up, and she averted her face; Hama was embarrassed by this brutal indignity.

  The ship emerged from its pit and rushed directly beneath the looming belly of the attacking Spline; Hama had a brief, ugly glimpse of fleeing, crumpled flesh, oozing scars metres long, glistening weapon emplacements like stab wounds.

  The ship reached clear sky. The air was crowded. Ships of all sizes cruised above Conurbation 11729, seeking to engage the rogue Spline. Hama saw, with a sinking heart, that one of the ancient, half-salvaged ships had already crashed back to Earth. It had made a broad crater, a wound in the ground circled by burning blown-silicate buildings. Already people had died today, irreplaceable lives lost for ever.

  The ship soared upward. Earth quickly folded over into a glowing blue abstraction, pointlessly beautiful, hiding the gruesome scenes on its surface; the air thinned, the sky dimming through violet, to black. The ship began to seek out the orbiting angular structure that would carry it to the outer planets.

  Hama began to relax, for the first time since Gemo had revealed herself. Despite everything that had happened he was relieved to leave behind the complications of the Conurbation; perhaps in the thin light of Jupiter the dilemmas he would have to face would be simpler.

  Gemo Cana said carefully, ‘Hama Druz, tell me something. Now that we all know who and what we are—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘In your searching, has your inquisition turned up a pharaoh called Luru Parz?’

  ‘She’s on the list but I don’t believe she’s been found,’ Hama said. ‘Why? Did you know her?’

  ‘In a way. You could say I created her, in fact. She was always the best of us, I thought, the best and brightest, once she had clarified her conscience. I thought of her as a daughter.’

  The Virtual copy of her real daughter, Sarfi, turned away, expressionless.

  Nomi cursed.

  A vast winged shape sailed over the blue hide of Earth, silent, like a predator.

  Hama’s heart sank at the sight of this new, unexpected intruder. What now?

  Nomi said softly, ‘Those wings must be hundreds of kilometres across.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Gemo. ‘Just like the old stories. The ship is like a sycamore seed . . . But none of you remembers sycamore trees, do you? Perhaps you need us, and our memories, after all.’

  Nomi said, anger erupting, ‘People are dying down there because of your kind, Gemo—’

  Hama placed a hand on Nomi’s arm. ‘Tell us, pharaoh. Is it Qax?’

  ‘Not Qax,’ she said. ‘Xeelee.’ It was the first time Hama had heard the name. ‘That is a Xeelee nightfighter,’ said Gemo. ‘The question is - what does it want here?’

  There was a soft warning chime.

  The ship shot away from Earth. The planet dwindled, becoming a sparking blue bauble over which a black-winged insect crawled.

  Callisto joined the community of foragers.

  Dwelling where the forest met the beach, the people ate the grass, and sometimes leaves from the lower branches, even loose flaps of bark. The people were wary, solitary. She didn’t learn their names - if they had any - nor gained a clear impression of their faces, their sexes. She wasn’t even sure how many of them there were here. Not many, she thought.

  Callisto found herself eating incessantly. With every mouthful she took she felt herself grow, subtly, in some invisible direction - the opposite to the diminution she had suffered when she lost her hand to the burning power of the sea. There was nothing to drink - no fluid save the oily black ink of the ocean, and she wasn’t tempted to try that. But it didn’t seem to matter.

  Callisto was not without curiosity. She explored, fitfully.

  The beach curved away, in either direction. Perhaps this was an island, poking out of the looming black ocean. There was no bedrock, not as far as she could dig. Only the drifting, uniform dust.

  Tiring of Asgard’s cold company, she plucked up her courage and walked away from the beach, towards the forest.

  There were structures in the dust: crude tubes and trails, like the markings of worms or crabs. The grass emerged, somehow, coalescing from looser dust formations. The grass grew sparsely on the open beach, but at the fringe of the forest it gathered in dense clumps.

  Deeper inside the forest’s gathering darkness the grass grew longer yet, plaiting itself into ropy vine-like plants. And deeper still she saw things like trees looming tall, plaited in turn out of the vines. Thus the trees weren’t really ‘trees’ but tangles of ropy vines. And everything was connected to everything else.

  She pushed deeper into the forest. Away from the lapping of the sea and the wordless rustle of the foraging people at the forest fringe, it grew dark, quiet. Grass ropes wrapped around her legs, tugging, yielding with reluctance as she passed. This was a drab, still, lifeless place, she thought. In a forest like this there ought to be texture: movement, noise, scent. So, anyhow, her flawed memories dimly protested.

  She came to a particularly immense tree. It was a tangle of grassy ropes, melding above her head into a more substantial whole that rose above the surrounding vegetative mass and into the light of the sky. But a low mist lay heavily, obscuring her view of the tree’s upper branches.

  She felt curiosity spark. What could she see if she climbed above the mist?

  She placed her hand on the knotted-up lower trunk, then one foot, and then the other. The stuff of the tree was hard and cold.

  At first the climbing was easy, the components of the ‘trunk’ loosely separated. She found a way to lodge her bad arm in gaps in the trunk so she could release her left hand briefly, and grab for a new handhold before she fell back. But as she climbed higher the ropy sub-trunks grew ever more tangled.

  High above her the trunk soared upwards, daunting, disappearing into the mist. When she looked down, she saw how the ‘roots’ of this great structure dispersed over the forest floor, branching into narrower trees and vine-thin creepers and at last clumps of grass, melting into the underlying dust. She felt unexpectedly exhilarated by this small adventure—

  There was a snarl, of greed and anger. It came from just above her head. She quailed, slipped. She finished up dangling by her one hand.

  She looked up.

  It was human. Or, it might once have been human. It must have been four, five times her size. It was naked, and it clung to the tree above her, upside down, so that a broad face leered, predator’s eyes fixed on her. Its limbs were cylinders of muscle, its chest and bulging belly massive, weighty. And it was male: an erection poked crudely between its legs. She hadn’t been able to see it for the mist, until she had almost climbed into it.

  It thrust its mouth at her, hissing. She could smell blood on its breath.

  She screamed and lost her grip.

  She fell, sliding down the trunk. She scrabbled for purchase with her feet and her one good hand. She slammed repeatedly against the trunk, and when she hit the ground the wind was knocked out of her.

  Above her, the beast receded, still staring into her eyes.

  Ignoring the aches of battered body and torn feet, she blundered away, running until she reached the openness of the beach. For an unmeasured time she lay there, drawing comfort from the graininess of the dust.

  The craft was called a GUTship.

  As final
ly assembled, it looked something like a parasol of iron and ice. The canopy of the parasol was the surface ferry, now serving as a habitable lifedome, and the ‘handle’ was the GUTdrive unit itself, embedded in a block of asteroid ice which served as reaction mass. The shaft of the parasol, separating the lifedome from the drive unit, was a kilometre-long spine of metal bristling with antennae and sensors.

  In a hundred subtle ways the ship showed its age. Every surface in the lifedome was scuffed and polished from use, the soft coverings of chairs and bunks were extensively patched, and many of the major systems bore the scars of rebuilding. The design was centuries old. The ship itself had been built long before the Occupation, and lovingly maintained by a colony of refugees who had seen out the Qax era huddled in the asteroid belt.