“What have you done?” Jay yelled.
“Provided the statue. Wossamatter, wrong one?”
“No! Yes!” She glanced frantically along the beach. There were figures moving round outside the other chalets and big white clubhouse, but fortunately none of them seemed to have noticed. Yet. “Get rid of it!”
“Oh. Charming.” Mickey inflated out again. Its hurt pout ominous on such a scale. The statue was swallowed whole. The only memorial: a pair of giant footprints in the sand.
“You’re mad,” Jay accused as it shrank once again. “Utterly mad. They should switch you off.”
“For what?” it wailed.
“For doing that.”
“Just doing what I’m told,” it grumbled. “I suppose you want to cancel the vac-train as well, now?”
“Yes!”
“You should make up your mind. No wonder they won’t hand over my kind of technology to the Confederation. Think of all the statues you’d leave lying round the place.”
“How do you do it,” she asked sharply. “How do you work? I bet you’ve never even been to Earth, how do you know what Diana’s statue looked like?”
Mickey’s voice dropped back down to normal. “The Kiint have this whopping great central library, see. There’s no end of stuff stored in there, including your art encyclopaedias. All I’ve gotta do is find the template memory.”
“And you make it inside you?”
“Small things, no problem. I’m your man, just shout. The bigger stuff, that’s gotta be put together in a place like a high-speed factory. Then when it’s done and polished they just ship it in through me. Simplisimo.”
“All right. Next question, who decided to give you that silly voice?”
“Whaddya mean, silly? It’s magnifico.”
“Well, you don’t talk like an adult, do you?”
“Ha, hark who’s talking. I’ll have you know, I’m an appropriate companion personality for a girl your age, young missy. We spent all night ransacking that library to see what I should be like. You got any idea what it’s like watching eight million hours of Disney AVs?”
“Thank you for being so considerate, I’m sure.”
“What I’m here for. We’re partners, you and me.” Mickey’s smile perked up again.
Jay folded her arms and fixed it with a stare. “Okay, partner; I want you to provide me with a starship.”
“Is this another of those point thingies?”
“Could be. I don’t care what type of starship it is; but I want it to be one I can pilot by myself, and it has to have the range to get me back to the Confederation galaxy.”
Mickey’s eyes blinked slowly, as if lethargic shutters were coming down. “Sorry, Jay,” it said quietly. “No can do. I would if I could, honest, but the boss says no.”
“Not much of a companion, are you.”
“How about a chocolate and almond ice cream instead? Big yummie time!”
“Instead of a starship. I don’t think so.”
“Aww, go on. You know you want to.”
“Not before breakfast, thank you.” She turned her back on it.
“Okay. I know, how about a megalithic strawberry milkshake, with oodles and oodles of . . .”
“Shut up. And you’re not called Mickey, either. So don’t pretend you are.” Jay smiled at the silence; imagining it must be contorting its sketched face into hurt dismay. Her name was being called from the chalet.
Tracy Dean stood on the veranda, waving hopefully. She was dressed in a pale lemon dress with a lace collar, its design obsolete but still stylish. Jay walked back, aware that the provider machine was following. “The face wasn’t a good idea, was it?” Tracy said with dry amusement after Jay climbed the steps to the veranda. “Didn’t think so. Not for someone who’s seen all you have. But it was worth a try.” She sighed. “Program discontinued. There, it’s just an ordinary provider, now. And it won’t talk stupid anymore, either.”
Jay glanced up at the purple sphere, which was now completely featureless. “I don’t mean to be awkward.”
“I know, sweetie. Now come and sit down. I’ve got some breakfast for you.”
A white linen tablecloth had been spread over a small table beside the weather-worn railings. It had Spanish pottery bowls with cereal and fruit, one jug of milk, and another of orange juice. There was also a teapot with a battered old strainer.
“Twinings Ceylon tea,” Tracy said happily as they sat down. “Best you can have for breakfast in my opinion. I became completely addicted to it in the late Nineteenth Century, so I brought some back with me once. Now the providers can synthesise the leaves for me. I’d like to be all snobbish and say that I can tell it’s not the same, but I can’t. We’ll let it brew for a while, shall we?”
“Yes,” Jay said earnestly. “If you like.” There was something deliciously fascinating about this old woman who had Father Horst’s compassion and Powel Manani’s determination.
“Have you never brewed tea in a pot before, young Jay?”
“No. Mummy always bought it in sachets.”
“Oh dear me. There are some things which the march of progress doesn’t improve, you know.”
Jay poured some milk over the cereal bowl, deciding not to ask about the strange-shaped flakes. One thing at a time. “Do the Kiint live on all these planets?”
“Ah, yes. I did promise I’d explain things today, didn’t I, sweetie?”
“Yes!”
“Such impatience. Where to start, though?” Tracy sprinkled some sugar onto her grapefruit, and sank a silver spoon into the soft fruit. “Yes, the Kiint live on all these planets. They built them, you know. Not all at once, but they have been civilized for a very long time. One planet couldn’t possibly accommodate them all any more, just like there are too many humans to live on Earth nowadays. So they learned how to extract matter from their sun and condense it. Quite an achievement, actually, even with their technology. The arc is one of the wonders of this galaxy. Not just physically, culturally, too. All the species who’ve achieved FTL starflight visit here eventually. Some that haven’t, too. It’s the greatest information exchange centre we know of. And the Kiint know of a few, believe me.”
“The provider said there was a big library here.”
“It was being modest. You see, when you’ve got the technology to take care of your every physical requirement, there’s not much else you can do but develop your knowledge base. So that’s what they do. And it’s a big universe to get to know. It keeps them occupied, and fulfils life’s basic requirement.”
“What’s that?”
“To live is to experience, and experience is living. I had a lovely little chuckle when the first Kiint ambassador from Jobis told the Confederation they had no interest in starflight. Travel broadens the mind, and heavens do they travel. They have this quite magical society, you see, they spend their whole time developing their intellects. The best way I can put it for you, is that wisdom is their equivalent of money, that’s what they pursue and hoard. I’m generalising, of course. A population as large as theirs is bound to have dissidents. Nothing like our Edenist Serpents, of course; their disagreements are mostly philosophical. But there are a few Kiint who turn their backs on their own kind. There’s even a couple of planets in the arc they can go to where they’re free of the central society.
“Whatever faction they come from, they’re all very noble by our standards. And I’ll admit it leaves them superbly prepared to face transcendence when their bodies die. But to be honest, that kind of existence is rather boring for humans. I don’t think we’ll ever go quite so far down that road. Different mental wiring, thankfully. We’re too impatient and quarrelsome. Bless us.”
“So you are really human then?”
“Oh yes, sweetie. I’m human. All of us living here are.”
“But why are you here?”
“We work for the Kiint, helping them to record human history. All of us take little unobtrusive jobs where we c
an get a good view of events. In the old days it was as servants of lords and kings, or joining up with nomads. Then when the industrial age started up we moved into the media companies. We weren’t front line investigative reporters, we were the office mundanes; but it meant we had access to an avalanche of information most of which never made it into the official history books. It was perfect for us; and we still mostly work in the information industries today. I’ll show you how to use the AV projector later if you want, every broadcast humans make goes into the arc’s library. That always tickled me, if those desperate marketing departments only knew just how wide an audience they really have.”
“Are the Kiint really that interested in us?”
“Us, the Tyrathca, the Laymil, xenocs you’ve never heard of. They’re fascinated by sentience, you see. They’ve witnessed so many self-aware races dwindle away to nothing, or self-destruct. That kind of loss is tragic for the races which succeed and prosper. Everybody’s different, you see, sweetie. Life alone is precious, but conscious thought is the greatest gift the universe offers. So they try and study any entities they find; that way if they don’t survive their knowledge won’t be entirely lost to the rest of us.”
“How did you end up working for them?”
“The Kiint found Earth when they were exploring that galaxy about two and a half thousand years ago. They took DNA specimens from a few people. We were cloned from that base, with a few alterations.”
“Like what?” Jay asked eagerly. This was a wonderful story, so many secrets.
“We don’t age so quickly, obviously; and we’ve got a version of affinity; little things like that.”
“Gosh. And you’ve been on Earth since you were born?”
“Since I grew up, yes. We had to be educated the Kiint way first. Their prime rule in dealing with other species, especially primitive ones, is zero intervention. They were worried that we might become too sympathetic and go native. If we did that, we’d introduce ideas that were wrong for that era; I mean, think what would have happened if the Spanish Armada was equipped with anti-ship missiles. That’s why they made us sterile, too; it should help us remain impartial.”
“That’s horrid!”
Tracy smiled blankly at the horizon. “There are compensations. Oh sweetie, if you’d seen a fraction of what I have. The Imperial Chinese dynasties at their height. Easter Islanders carving their statues. Knights of armour battling for their tiny kingdoms. The Inca cities rising out of jungles. I was a servant girl at Runnymede when King John signed the Magna Carta. Then lived as a grandee noblewoman while Europe was invigorated by the Renaissance. I waved from the harbour when Columbus set sail across the Atlantic; and spat as Nazi tanks rolled into Europe. Then thirty years later I stood on Cocoa Beach and cried when Apollo 11 took off for the moon, I was so proud of what we’d achieved. And there I was in the spaceplane which brought Richard Saldana down to Kulu. You have no idea how blessed my life has been. I know everything, everything, humans are capable of. We are a good species. Not the best, not by Kiint standards, but so much better than most. And wonderfully unique.” She sniffed loudly, and dabbed a handkerchief on her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” Jay said quietly. “Please.”
“I’m sorry. Just having you here, knowing what you could accomplish if you have the chance, makes this hurt so much harder. It’s so bloody unfair.”
“What do you mean?” Jay asked. Seeing the old woman so upset was making her nervous. “Aren’t the Kiint going to let me go home?”
“It’s not that.” Tracy smiled bravely, and patted Jay’s hand. “It’s what kind of home that’ll be left for you. This shouldn’t have happened, you see. Discovering energistic states and what they mean normally comes a lot later in a society’s development. It’s a huge adjustment for anybody to make. Human-type psychologies need a lot of preparation for that kind of truth, a generation at least. And that’s when they’re more sociologically advanced than the Confederation. This breakthrough was a complete accident. I’m terrified the human race won’t get through this, not intact. We all are, all the Kiint observers want to help, to point the researchers in the right direction if nothing else. Our original conditioning isn’t strong enough to restrict those sort of feelings.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Even if they allowed us, I’d be no use. I’ve been part of all our history, Jay. I’ve seen us evolve from dirty savages into a civilization that has spread among the stars. More than anybody I know what we could grow into if we just had the chance. And I have the experience to intervene without anyone ever knowing they’d been guided. But at the most crucial time of our social evolution, when that experience is utterly vital, I’ve got to stay here.”
“Why?” Jay pleaded.
Tracy’s frail shoulders trembled from repressed emotion. “Oh sweetie, haven’t you worked out what this dreadful place is yet? It’s a bloody retirement home.”
* * *
The view arrived suddenly. For over twenty minutes Louise had been sitting in one of the lounge’s big chairs, its webbing holding her in the deep hollow of cushioning. Her belly muscles were beginning to strain as they were obliged to hold her in a curving posture. Then she felt a slight trembling in the decking as the lift capsule was shunted onto the tower rail. A tone sounded. Thirty seconds later they flashed out of the Skyhigh Kijabe asteroid. There was a quick impression of soured-white metal mountains, but they quickly shrank from sight overhead. Gentle gravity relieved her muscles, and the webbing slackened.
Earth shone with a mild opalescent light below her. It was midday in Africa, at the base of the tower, and the clouds were charging in from the oceans on either side. There seemed to be a lot more of them than there had been on Norfolk, although the Far Realm had been orbiting at a much lower altitude. That might account for it. Louise couldn’t be bothered to find the correct meteorology files in her processor block, and run a comparison program. The sight was there to enjoy not analyse. She could actually see the giant white spirals spinning slowly as they battered against each other. It must be a pretty impressive speed for the movement to be visible from such a height.
Genevieve switched her webbing off, and glided over to the lounge window, pressing herself against it. “It’s beautiful,” she said. Her face was flushed as she smiled back at Louise. “I thought Earth was all rotten.”
Louise glanced about, slightly worried by what the other passengers would think of the little girl’s remark. With the quarantine, most of them must be from Earth or the Halo. But nobody was even looking at her. In fact, it seemed as though they were deliberately not looking. She went over to stand beside Gen. “I guess that’s as wrong as everything else in the school books.”
The Halo was visible against the stars, a huge slender thread of stippled light curving behind the planet, like the most tenuous of a gas-giant’s rings. For five hundred and sixty-five years, companies and finance consortiums had been knocking asteroids into Earth orbit. The process was standardized now; first the large-scale mining of mineral resources, hollowing out the habitation caverns, then the gradual build up of industrial manufacturing stations as the initial resources were depleted and the population switched to a more sophisticated economy. There were nearly fifteen thousand inhabited asteroids already drifting along in their common cislunar orbit, and new rocks were arriving at the rate of thirty-five a year. Tens of thousands of inter-orbit craft swooped between the spinning rocks, fusion exhausts tangling together in a single scintilating nimbus. Every asteroid formed a tiny bulge in the loop, wrapped behind a delicate haze of industrial stations.
Louise gazed at the ephemeral testament to astroengineering commerce. More fragile than the bridge of heaven in Norfolk’s midsummer sky, but at the same time, more imposing. The vista inspired a great deal of confidence. Earth was strong, much stronger than she’d realized; it sprang from a wealth which she knew she would never truly comprehend.
If we’re safe anywhere, we’re safe here. She pu
t her arm round Genevieve. For once, contented.
Below the majesty of the Halo, Earth was almost quiescent by comparison. Only the coastlines of North and South America hinted at the equal amount of human activity and industry on the ancient planet. They remained in darkness, awaiting the dawn terminator sliding over the Atlantic; but the night didn’t prevent her from seeing where people were. Arcologies blazed across the land like volcanoes of sunlight.
“Are they the cities?” Genevieve asked excitedly.
“I think so, yes.”
“Gosh! Why is the water that colour?”
Louise switched her attention away from the massive patches of illumination. The ocean was a peculiar shade of grey green, not at all like the balmy turquoise of Norfolk’s seas when they were under Duke’s stringent white glare.
“I’m not sure. It doesn’t look very clean, does it? I suppose that must be the pollution we hear about.”
A small contrite cough just behind them made both girls start. It was the first time anyone apart from the stewards had even acknowledged they existed. When they turned round they found themselves facing a small man in a dark purple business suit. He’d already got some thin wrinkles on his cheeks, though he didn’t seem particularly old. Louise was surprised by his height, she was actually an inch taller than him, and he had a very broad forehead, as if his hair wouldn’t grow properly along the top of it.
“I know this is rude,” he said quietly. “But I believe you’re from outsystem?”
Louise wondered what had given them away. She’d bought the pair of them new clothes in Skyhigh Kijabe, one-piece garments like shipsuits but more elaborate, with pronounced pockets and cuffs. Other women were wearing the fashion; so she’d hoped they would blend in.
“Yes,” Louise said. “From Norfolk, actually.”
“Ah. I’m afraid I’ve never tasted Norfolk Tears. Too expensive, even with my salary. I was most sorry to hear about its loss.”
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 270
