Seeds of Earth

by Michael Cobley

  frowned.

  'I am very grateful for your help, for all this,' Robert

  said. 'But I cannot help thinking that there is a price for

  it.'

  'You are most perceptive.' The proximal paused. 'You

  have arrived at a crucial decision nexus in a situation that

  has been developing for some time. To encapsulate it

  would be to strip away vital details, yet you deserve to

  know some of the background, so I will attempt a sum-

  mary. As you may have known before, hyperspace has

  many levels, and I think you now realise that those levels

  go down much further than you or the Sendrukans sus-

  pect, being the remains - attenuated, drained, foolishly

  destroyed, or even savagely pillaged - of previous uni-

  verses. When a universe dies, a new one is born at some

  point, somewhere, and its birth draws forth the energies

  and forces and matter-matrix-membranes of the old,

  which intermingle in that glorious outburst of newness

  and creation. The carcass of the old sinks down to join

  the compacted strata of its predecessors, in which the

  survivors continue to eke out strange and convoluted

  existences.

  'Wars there have been a-plenty down the ages, but in

  recent times curious events have been taking place - the

  disappearance of certain survivor races, the appearance

  of others thought long dead, raids on peaceful regions,

  and a steady, rising background of reasonless, near-

  random acts of violence. I have my suspicions, mostly to

  do with the remnants of the Legion of Avatars, a vicious

  enemy which besieged the Forerunners' galaxy 100,000

  Human years ago, even though the depths of their incar-

  ceration should make it impossible for them to send any

  of their number upward to higher levels.

  'Therefore I want to send an emissary to treat with an

  old and powerful sentience called the Godhead which

  resides in its own secluded corner of hyperspace, one

  deeper than the Legion's prison but away in a different

  region altogether. This sentience will almost certainly

  possess vital information about other denizens and ves-

  tigial species of the lower depths, but it will not

  communicate with any artificial lifeform, only organic

  ones, which is why you are here -1 asked the Sentinel of

  the warpwell to send me an Uvovo or a Human, and it

  chose you. Unfortunately, longitudinal warpwell travel is

  hard to judge, which is why you appeared near the

  Abfagul lithosphere in the stone stratum of the Teziyi.'

  Robert felt as if he should be angry at having been

  snatched away, but he knew that the alternative would

  have been very unpleasant. This situation, including the

  unexpected rejuvenation, certainly had its positive

  aspect, so for the moment, he decided to give the prox-

  imal's proposal serious consideration.

  'What has happened to my AI companion?' he said. 'I

  have an implant . . .'

  'I am sorry, Robert Horst, but we removed it. These

  fabricated entities are closely linked to the Hegemony's

  AI hypercore which resides in the first tier of hyper-

  space - they are intrinsically untrustworthy. However, I

  freed it from its imperatives and released it into the tier-

  net.'

  The proximal moved smoothly towards the door. 'I

  realise that this is a lot of information to absorb so I

  have arranged a new companion for you. She will be

  able to answer questions and aid your adjustment.'

  Before he could say anything more, the proximal

  strode out of the door. He sighed, wondering who this

  'she' was, and stared at the reflection in the mirror. Then

  he heard approaching footsteps and looked up to see

  Rosa enter the room.

  'Oh, Daddy, did he not open the window? Here, let

  me do it - you've got to see the Garden.'

  'Rosa, you're ... how can you be .. .'

  Then it struck him. If the Construct had given his AI

  Harry its freedom, then might it not do the same for the

  Rosa in the intersim device?

  'Are you . . . the simulation?' he said, embarrassed

  somehow.

  She smiled. 'That's right. The Construct had this syn-

  thetic form made for me and gave me full autonomy

  and empathy and curiosity sub-imperatives.' She swung

  open the shutters. 'There it is, Daddy, look! Isn't it

  amazing?'

  From the window he looked out over fabulously intri-

  cate, descending levels of stone and metal terraces and

  roofs, intermingled with niche gardens, small orchards,

  many individual trees, even a few greenhouses. And at

  irregular intervals a span of metal road or catwalk pro-

  jected outwards to a cluster of similar buildings just

  hanging there, not dissimilar to the wider, lower thor-

  oughfares that extended to larger agglomerations of

  habitats. And everywhere he looked he saw machines of

  every function and design ethos and he began to wonder if

  the buildings were not so much habitats as parking bays

  or repair shops.

  'You're right, Rosa,' he said. 'It is amazing, and

  strange.'

  'This is the Garden of the Machines, a kind of sanc-

  tuary, a waypoint for AIs and AS machines, a place for

  recuperation or repair. It's also the Construct's head-

  quarters and home to all its followers and servants. If

  you could look back at it from out there it would look

  like an island mountain suspended in midair, with other

  buildings and walkways on its underside .. . oh, but

  there will be plenty of time for sightseeing when we get

  back.'

  'Get back?'

  'From your mission to open a dialogue with the

  Godhead, Daddy!'

  'But I haven't . . . well, I'm still mulling over the

  details.'

  'Oh, but the Construct explained it all to me and it's

  very straightforward. If you don't go, the Construct will

  have to send one of his semiorganics instead, which the

  Godhead may just completely ignore. Please say you'll

  go, Daddy, please.'

  He knew when to yield, especially with the suspicion

  that Rosa might be the one asked to go in his stead.

  That Construct knows how to coerce without being

  obvious.

  'Okay,' he said. 'I'll go.'

  She hugged his arm, delighted. 'It's going to be excit-

  ing, Daddy, an exciting adventure!'

  JULIA

  Aboard the Deucalion, the Heracles's pinnace, now en

  route to Baramu Freeport, Julia Bryce rose from the

  data station, thanked the systems op - who doubled as

  the small ship's comms officer - and left the tiny console

  bay, heading forward. The'passage was narrow and

  twice she had to squeeze past crew members going the

  other way, an unpleasant experience, but she was getting

  used to it, or at least enough not to shudder visibly.

  Back in their cramped stateroom, Irenya, Thorold

  and Arkady were playing two-board switch-chess while

  Konstantin lounged in one of the middle bunks, makingr />
  notes as he watched the game from above. Eyes glanced

  her way and she met each one.

  'Find any?' she said.

  Arkady, still studying the spread of pieces, held up his

  thumb.

  'Obvious one in the light fitting ...' A finger came

  out. 'Not so obvious one in the wall clock. Both . ..' He

  snapped his fingers.

  Irenya looked up. She was a tall, willowy blonde who

  always asked the first questions.

  'What did you discover?'

  'The same as before,' Julia said, sitting at the small

  table. The game was abandoned as all attention focused

  on her. 'The pinnace's tiernet connection confirms what

  that cut-down Imisil one told us - no one knows how to

  create dark antimatter, except us.'

  'Can we really be sure? Tiernets cannot contain the

  sum total of knowledge.' - Thorold, doubter, sceptic

  and necessary irritant, as well as being a superb particle

  physicist.

  'There are no successful theories or experimental

  data, nor any papers referring to the same,' she said.

  'Nor is there any sign of T-triadic radiation being

  detected anywhere.'

  'Unless some megalomaniac scientist is hiding a dark-

  matter lab in another deepzone somewhere,' Thorold

  said.

  'The question is, what do we say when we get inter-

  rogated by Earthsphere Intelligence?' Julia said.

  'Sundstrom was desperate to keep us out of the hands of

  the Hegemony, but look where we ended up.'

  'If we tell Earthsphere, the Hegemony will know

  about it in hours,' said Konstantin, still sprawled on his

  bunk. 'Their AIs talk to each other.'

  'There are several Al-implanted people on board this

  vessel,' said Irenya. 'They unsettle me.'

  'Earthsphere Intelligence is going to want an expla-

  nation,' said Arkady. 'We should feed them some

  alternative theories - God knows we were involved in

  enough lunatic military projects down the years.'

  Heads nodded.

  'Good idea,' said Julia. 'We should all think about

  that.' She regarded them for a moment. 'Something else

  we should consider are our long-term options, whether

  we eventually want to return to Darien or go some-

  where else.'

  Irenya looked surprised. 'I'd always assumed that we

  would be going home.'

  Thorold snorted. 'Home! Why should we give any

  extra consideration to that place - what did they ever do

  for us? After all, we know what they did to us . . .'

  'There are a lot of other Human colonies within the

  boundaries of Earthsphere, as well as the Vox Humana

  League,' said Arkady. 'Assuming that we find a way to

  go where we want, perhaps we could travel out to one

  of them and start new lives there.'

  'Or we could start our own colony somewhere,' said

  Konstantin.

  Apart from Julia, no one looked at him, a measure of

  their disregard for the notion.

  'One thing you should remember,' Julia said.

  'Elsewhere we will be seen as oddities or even cripples -

  on Darien we have status.'

  'Back there, we were despised,' Thorold said. 'Guilt

  and fear defined our existence in that place.'

  Irenya shook her head. 'I'm sorry, Thorold, but there

  is more to it than that - a lot of the norms feel shame

  and want to reach out to us.'

  'Sentimental imagination,' Thorold said. 'Perhaps

  you're the one feeling ashamed ...'

  Julia leaned forward before the bickering could get

  going.

  'Reflect on all these aspects - if and when the chance

  arises for us to pursue our own course, we need to have

  a consensus.'

  There was a murmur of agreement and Julia moved

  her chair away from the table, took out the notes she

  had made in the console bay and began reading. But

  her thoughts continued to circle the issues she had

  steered the rest past.

  We are poorly socialised, she thought. Ask us to

  debate topics that have nothing to do with theoretical or

  technical matters and we retreat into superficial group

  platitudes.

  And Irenya was more than half right. For months

  now, Julia had had a number of suspicions about the

  relationship between the Enhanced and the 'norms', the

  normal colonists, which were crystallised by what

  Major Karlsson's sister, Solvjeg, had said to her back at

  the Akesson farmhouse. At first she had asked about

  Ulrike, whom Julia remembered very well - she had

  been a genius at everything, including relating to people,

  yet there was something in her that could not bear to be

  alive and which eventually won.

  Then, as Pyatkov had begun ushering everyone back

  on the bus, Solvjeg had said something stunning - 'You

  are all unique, Julia. You might be our society's mistake

  but you still come from us; our society is your parent so

  that makes you everyone's children. You need us, just as

  we need you, and not just because we want to be for-

  given.'

  The words had transfixed her, rocked her to the core.

  Then it had been time to go, so, not knowing what to

  say, she had solemnly shaken the older woman's hand

  and got on the bus. Since then the words had gone

  through her head time and time again, making her wish

  that she had said something.

  And then there are the things I wish I had not said,

  she thought, remembering her encounter with Catriona

  on Nivyesta just a few days ago. Perhaps that's why we

  should go home, so that we can say the right things.

  LEGION

  On Yndyesi Tetro, below the murkiest, chilly depths of

  its great western ocean, at the foot of a lightless fissure,

  a pain-weary mind considered the facts of failure. One

  of his treasured scions was dead, its purpose unfulfilled.

  The information had been relayed to him by the other

  two, who assured him that they were working tirelessly

  towards the goal, the prize, although taking separate

  paths.

  Grief assailed him, sorrow at a loss both strategic

  and physical. He was weakened, lessened, yet he clung

  resolutely to his purpose and to the doctrines of conver-

  gence that gave him strength to endure and to plan. It

  was possible to regenerate neural substrate, but only

  certain orders of Legion knights had that capability.

  Until the survivors of the Forerunners' punishment were

  released from the crushing, hellish depths of hyperspace,

  he would have to make do without succour in this black

  and silent existence, entombed in his watery abyss.

  Despite his other two scions' assurances, doubt

  gnawed at him - what if the despised machine-minds of

  the Hegemony found out how to break the Sentinel's

  control over the warpwell? Or worse, if that windup

  toy, the Construct, devised a way of closing the well

  altogether?

  The conclusion was inevitable - he could not remain

  here. As difficult and dangerous as it would be, her />
  would have to rise from his millennia-long refuge and

  make the long hyperspace crossing to the Human

  colonyworld, Darien. Carapace plates would have to be

  patched, suspensor modules recharged, biofeeds

  repaired, sensors rerouted, perhaps even remounted, and

  nourisher tanks replenished in full. It would mean

  taking chances, scavenging the ocean bed and nearby

  shoreline for raw materials, not to mention looking fur-

  ther afield for fresh, undamaged resources. There would

  be exertion, risk and pain.

  That night, a desalination plant on a sparsely inhab-

  ited stretch of the western coast was broken into and its

  storeroom pillaged. The next day, 30-odd miles to the

  south, a chemicals plant was found to have been like-

  wise raided when the owners arrived to open up. The

  day after that, about 50 miles to the north, a bridge

  crossing a wide rivermouth failed and a freight train full

  of freshly milled steel crashed down into the waters.

  Thirty hours later, a ferocious, sky-blackening storm

  tore in from the western ocean, battering the coastline

  with high waves, sending gusts of rain screaming inland.

  At the height of the gale, three ships went down in the

  heaving seas, a 300-foot, double-hulled cargo-hauler

  with a forty-strong crew, mostly Henkayan and

  Gomedrans, a half-empty timber barge ripped from its

  moorings, and a vehicle ferry caught in the fury as it

  tried to make for port on one of the larger offshore

  islands. A few messages appealing for help were received

  by coastal rescue units, after which there was only

  silence. Many knew that vessels sinking in such unfath-

  omable depths were usually considered unrecoverable.

  When calmer weather returned, recovery craft dili-

  gently searched the area but found very few ejecta, the

  shattered remains of wooden fittings and no bodies.

  Over the next few days the search was scaled back, news

  reports became scarcer, shoreline clearup operations

  were finished, and only a handful of small ships and

  boats hired by grieving relatives continued to sweep

  the waters. Until the fourth night after the storm, when

  a Bargalil mariner on board a lugger noticed something

  glowing with a bright blue radiance down in the

  depths. She raised the alarm and the rest of the crew