Debatable Space
Page 22
My magic watch, however, is programmed to tell me what time it is subjectively on every occupied planet. It is also programmed to give subjective ages. For me, it is the year 3090, and I am eighty-five years old. But to the Earth Observer, it is AD 3380 and I am 200 years old. This is my official age.
But it is not my real age! It’s just not. I’ve never had those 200 years.
I’ve also devised a remote-control access technique that allows me to download information about other people’s elapsed ages. I’ve done this for Lena, the Captain, all the other crew members of course, and I do it for everyone I ever encounter. So I know their real ages, and their Earth Time ages.
I can play endlessly with this watch of mine, for it tells me the truth about time. Everyone’s time. I know what year it really is on Cambria, on Illyria, on every occupied planet. And I know how many years have elapsed for every person I have ever met.
All this, and more, my watch can do. And I waste, I must admit, a huge amount of time playing around with these facts about subjective and Earth-elapsed time. I don’t know why. It serves no useful function, except that it underlines to me how readily human beings have swallowed the Earth’s intellectual dictatorship. We live by their time; we age ourselves by their years. But every planet has its own elapsed time. And any one who has ever travelled at near-light speed through space has his or her own elapsed time. It makes us unique. We are fellow travellers in the space-time continuum; but nevertheless, we each inhabit different times.
We are islands of time in a shifting-sands Universe.
How philosophical is that!
I miss Xil. He was my only real friend.
I know Xil’s time too. I programmed it into my watch a long time ago. And I factored in the fact that he makes frequent faster-than-light-speed journeys to every part of the Universe. I know Xil’s age down to the nearest hour. I will never see him or speak to him again, but I know his age. He is my imaginary friend. I have him in my watch.
People, by the way, tell me I’m weird.
I guess I am.
Lena
We are in orbit around a barren rock close to the system sun Kappa o332 b. It’s Fireworks Night.
We roll back the canopy of the bridge and sit in our suits surrounded by stars. A pair of Outlaw Traders have commandeered two Corporation warships, and we watch in awe as they slowly glide past us towards the yellow Cepheid star. This star is a pulsating variable, and the planet beneath us bears the scorch marks from the last time the star expanded to its fullest girth and blazed down on the arid rocks. Now the Cepheid is in its waning cycle, slowly diminishing by about 10 per cent of its previous diameter. This winking star hasn’t spawned any organic life forms on its orbiting planets. Nor are there any other kinds of complex self-organising entities in this system. But the fourth planet from the star has a rich atmosphere of ammonia and liquid hydrogen and a stable orbit. And it is blessed, too, with lakes of frozen oxygen. It is a perfect candidate for terraforming, and it is the commencement of this process that we are about to watch.
I remember, fondly, the terraforming of Hope. We created legions of oxygenating robots to stamp across the surface of the planet, swallowing carbon monoxide and spewing out rich clean air. We turned a frozen Hell into a tropical Paradise. It took sixty years, in all, before settlers could walk the surface with an oxygen mask and a pressure suit.
The technology is, these days, much smarter. A micro-thin heat-absorbing lattice has been draped over the surface of the planet. Nanobots have burrowed into the oxygen lakes. Every tiny element is network-connected so that each part functions as a thinking cog in a machine of stunning complexity. And each is connected as part of an energy grid, powered by an energy transmitter in orbit above the planet. This transmitter, in turn, will be powered by energy milked from the sun itself.
The warships sail closer and closer to the sun. At this distance, we cannot see the hull, even with our visors on full magnification. But I imagine a sizzling and a burning as the metal Icaruses soar closer to the sun’s yellow-fresh burning rays. Yellow-fresh makes no sense.
I imagine a sizzling and a burning as the metal Icaruses soar closer to the sun’s flickering incandescent rays. Better.
Thank you. Log it, print it. The two warships spit harpoons into the sun’s chromosphere, and through into the photosphere. Ultrasound cameras then transmit the image of the Hell that exists in the heart of the sun itself, which is projected onto a filament screen that hangs high above our spacecraft. On this cinema screen in space we watch the milking of the sun.
The harpoons fly through space, then inflate into vast luminous balloons and plunge into the sun’s heart. The balloons disintegrate in the heat until all that is left is the core of the harpoon, a silver capsule shaped like a flying bullet moving at near-light speed, too fast to burn. These capsules hurtle through the convective zone into the core, ripping through the supergranulated bubbles of gas which swirl blindly within this sun.
Then the capsules emerge, in the blink of an eye or less, on the other side of the sun, rich in stored energy. We can chart their progress, on a computer simulation, as they make a series of impossibly swift orbits of the planetary system, until finally they slow down enough to achieve a stable orbit. Then, at precisely the moment they are slow enough to be visible, they slowly fan open. Like butterflies, that circumnavigate the globe in an instant too brief to measure, then slowly flap a wing.
And then, a series of invisible pulses, the capsules begin to transmit the energy trapped in their superdense cores into the space power station that orbits the barren planet.
The energy is then bounced down to the planet itself, where it is captured and retransmitted to the lattices and the oxygenators. The intricate and brilliant terraforming web springs slowly into life. Heat is sucked out of the atmosphere. Blazing fires liberate and unfreeze the oxygen lakes. A billion sensors fine-tune each instant of the process, as liquid hydrogen boils and becomes hydrogen vapour and as oxygen gas slowly trickles out and joins the witch’s brew.
And then the sun flares. Like a rebellious fire that resents the prodding of a poker, it has been jarred and jostled into a cataclysmic self-disruption. Vast billows of flame balloon out from the chromosphere and turn the inky black sky into a glittering kaleidoscope of light and burning space debris. A frozen comet flares and shoots its burning tail in front of us before vanishing into microns. Chunks of burning sun are spat out with the power of a billion exploding fusion bombs and turn night into day, space into sun. Even through our suits, we burn in the heat of the solar explosion.
Then the flares dim. With each passing second more and more energy is stolen. Fires break out on the planet below us. Like sparkles on sun-touched water, the fire flickers on the planet below us. The sun flares again – we exult. The flare retreats. The sun is wounded now, its pride is damaged by the human-made tools which sucked the heat from its fires.
The process will take nine months, then the planet will be habitable. Such is progress. My heart soars. I am proud to be alive, and proud, too, to be human. What gods we are! Beware, Lena, of the dangers of hubris.
Oh shut up. Who programmed you to be so snide? You did.
Ah.
Flanagan
The Pirates’ Hall. It’s the greatest building on Captain Morgan’s Planet: a huge room with sheer brick walls and a glass roof looking up to the night sky and the double stars of the Helicon system.
The hall is shaped like a coliseum, a perfect cylinder with superb acoustics and cambered floors, which mean that those in the centre tables can be clearly seen and heard by those half a mile away near the walls.
We are at Centre Table – Lena, Harry, Alliea, Brandon, Kalen, Jamie and myself. Alby skulks around mysteriously, occasionally flowing away and reappearing as a pattern of circular lights on the glass ceiling. It’s a curious thing with Alby; normally he’s so much one of the gang, that I forget how different he really is. For Alby, socialising is bizarre; friendship is
peculiar, though a welcome discovery; and it seems to him entirely natural and ordinary to move everywhere at light speed. And so, like a will-o’-the-wisp, he is here there and everywhere. No gossip eludes him; no table is a stranger to him. He even nuzzles under tables and warms the boots of huge hairy warriors.
Grendel is my host. He is a former pirate captain who is now the elected leader of the pirate haven, Captain Morgan’s Planet. He manages a team of the most gifted prostitutes in the human universe – men, women, transsexuals, duo-sexuals, castrati, Dolphs, Lopers, and more. But he’s not a pimp, in the classic sense of the word. He’s an agent, personal trainer, inspirer and motivator. These whores will cut a punter’s heart out for transgressing the binding sex contract in even the smallest particular. So, if you like it rough, you can have it rough. But if you cause an iota more pain than you have bargained for, you will die.
It adds, people say, a spice to the prostitute-punter relationship. But these whores are the best. They are the masters and mistresses of the art of love.
The planet itself is a cornucopia of hot spas and torrential waterfalls. A favourite game is to shoot the rapids from Hispanaiola to Lisbonville, then physically crawl the ten miles from the river to the hospital in order to receive limb and organ grafts. Many die, but here, life is cheap. The pirates who end up here have fought and slain and been tortured and seen their families horribly killed. Many enter a fatalistic state where death is sought in a million random ways. It all makes for a certain wildness, in a corner of inhabited space where there are no soldiers, no law officers, no Doppelganger Robots, and no rules.
Grendel and I go way back. We once fought a duel which lasted for six weeks of grisly, eye-gouging, biting and kicking hand-to-hand combat. By the end neither of us had a functioning limb, and we were reducing to biting each other’s throats. But, hey, we survived, and we’ve been friends ever since. One day I must ask him what we fought about; I made a computer note of it somewhere, but the actual memory is long gone.
Grendel bangs the Centre Table with his beer tankard, which is a two-pint glass carved out of pure 21-carat diamond. The diamond facets sparkle in the light of the overhanging candlebulbs. A hush descends over the hall. Grendel nods to me.
“A song.”
I pick up my guitar. I lightly strum it. I have tuned the instrument to play acoustic guitar with an automatic harmonic and a fluid accompaniment of harp and wah-wah guitar and drums. When I strum the strings, a band plays. If I change my touch, the guitar sound morphs into a powerful saxophone.
I play one of my favourite songs from the Golden Age of blues and rap. I begin with a soft, lyrical, beautiful chorus. My voice soars up, harsh but pure, until the words bounce lightly against the glass roof that bares to us the glittering stars.
“I never thought that I would see,” I sing,
“Such beauty and such tragedy
And foolish fucked up blazin’ wasted lives,
And un’xpected sublimity
I never thought that I would see
So much of life, and of the genius of our universe.”
A heartrending moan is ripped from the entrails of the guitar, and I move into the rap section:
“She was a two-bit crack whore, and she was working the streets
He was a psychopath and she thought he was sweet.
And she played his games, and then she asked to be paid,
And he called her a ho, and he left her for dead.
I was her sorry ass man, her oreo boy,
I was no brotha from the hood, I had my PhD.
And she played me and she lied to me and treated me mean
And so I told her, you a chicken head, I ain’t seein’ you again.
And then I saw her dead, at the hos-pi-tal.
Not smiling no more, got holes for eyes, not smiling no more, ’cause her lips been gouged.
Not smiling.
And I figure it’s my fault, for despairing, and not caring, not holdin’ and keepin’ her.
But, you see, I never thought that I would see
My baby dead.”
And again the chorus, rich, soulful, evocative:
“I never thought that I would see
Such beauty and such tragedy
And foolish fucked up blazin’ wasted lives,
And un’xpected sublimity
I never thought that I would see
So much of life, and of the genius of our universe.”
Lena is nodding her head to the melody, the whisper of a smile on her lips.
Rap again:
“I thought my life was over, when they tracked me and they captured me,
See, they sentenced me to be the only PhD on Death Row, y’know.
But I didn’t give a damn, ’cause I had killed a man, this oreo boy,
I had vengeful motherfucking man-who-killed-my-girl-killing joy.
See the psychopath, he had his friends downtown, but his ass was down,
And I don’t deny, she made me cry, I was her sorry ass man, her oreo boy,
And I killed for her, I paid the bill for her, and I was prepared
To go to Hell for her.
But then they fried my brain, and they wiped my mind,
And they let me go. A hundred years ago.
Yeah, she was a two-bit crack whore and she was working the streets.
I was her oreo boy, and I knew that she was sweet.”
And the soul singing returns:
“I believe that every day will be a better day for me.
And I believe that every day will make me happier.
And I believe that every day will make the world a better place.
And every day I learn I’m wrong, but I believe!”
And the last chorus:
“I never thought that I would see
Such beauty and such tragedy
And foolish fucked up blazin’ wasted lives,
And un’xpected sublimity
I never thought that I would see
So much of life, and of the genius of our universe.”
I stop. There’s a rich, reflective silence. Then the sound of tankards hitting the wood of the table reverberates around the hall. I nod, moved, and wait.
A black-haired woman with a scarred face and angry eyes speaks.
“A fine song,” she says. And then she repeats some of the lyrics, without the rap, but with a soft, gentle verbal caress: “I’ve seen and experienced things, That’ll push the average to the edge and swan-dive to death, I’m two guys, multiplied by ninety-three guys, Evenly balanced seein’ evil equally in each eye now, Maybe I’m the most thorough worker on the job to you, Or maybe I’m the one, who was plottin’ to rob you.” She nods, appreciative. “We thank you. What is your name?”
“I’m Captain Flanagan, pirate.”
“I am Hera. This is my tale.”
Her voice is still gentle, and soft, so we all quieten as much as we can. Her words slip around the hall like butterflies, and we dart our heads and ears to hear them.
“I was born a slave, I will die a free woman.”
Tankards bang on tables.
“I was the youngest of five sisters. These are their names.
“Naomi was the eldest, she was tall and slim and she loved to run. She was a gazelle, a meteor, whenever she was with us our spirits soared. Naomi was a leader. A person you wanted to be with. We all loved her. Some say she resembled our mother though of course, we did not know our mother. For we were born on Hecuba.”
These last words are spat out like poison venom. All are chilled, for all of us know of Hecuba. A fertile paradise farmed and tended by men, and men alone.
“The second-eldest child was Clara. Clara was a sulky one. We quarrelled a great deal. I was seven years younger, I thought Clara was rude and bossy and, yes, I was wrong and, yes, I repent every cruel and horrible word I said to her, when I was five years old, and when I was six years old, and when I was seven years old and when I was eight years old, and whe
n I was nine years old. But when I was ten years old my elder sister Naomi was taken for harvest and Clara became the mother of our family, and we stopped quarrelling. She was seventeen, and she took her responsibilities seriously. She made us laugh, she sang us to sleep. This is the song she sang.”
Hera’s soft speaking voice modulates into a sweet, unaffected singing voice. Her song is a lullaby written some time in the twenty-first century, and the melody has a haunting clinging quality. It is written in a modulated style; each note shifting through six or seven notes before arriving back at the core note. Hera sings it with huge charm:
“Expectat-i-i-i-on
Of morning’s dawn that’s
Dawning on
Our happy world
Imagine i-i-i-i-i-it.
El-ev-at i-i-i-on
Of human souls
That aren’t controlled
Into paradise.
Imagine i-i-i-i-i-it.
Time to sleep and dream and let your mind be free.
Time to sleep and dream and let your mind, oh let your mind, be
Time to sleep and dream and sleep and dream and let your mind oh
Time to sleep and let your mind and heart be free.
Be free.
Be freeeeee.
Expectat-i-i-i-on
Of better days and
Human ways that
Make our world
A happy world.
Imagine i-i-i-i-i-it.
Sleep, sister, sleep.
Sister.
Sleep, sister, sleep.
Sister.
Sleep, sister.
For you will always be my sister,
Sister.
Sleep.”
She sings a cappella. I’ve heard better voices, I’ve heard richer songs. But nothing has ever touched me so much.
Hera resumes: “For eleven months, Clara sang me and my sisters to sleep. Then, on her eighteenth birthday, Clara was taken for harvest.”