"Why are you so keen to seek out these political groupings, to find out about the Wheah?'
'I'm curious about them.'
'Curious how?'
'I think everybody in the t'T should be curious about them. Don't you? They might invade – they could be planning a war with us. You said you yourself – didn't you say so yourself, back on Narcissus?'
Klabier shrugged. 'Maybe.'
I stopped and grasped her arms to make her look at me. 'You do believe it, don't you? You do believe what you said on Narcissus – that the Wheah are about to invade?'
'I don't know,' she said, breaking away from my grip. 'Who cares? It's just something to say.'
'I can't believe you! Why would you say it if you didn't believe it?'
'Don't be silly' She went down on her haunches to get a better look at the sand, picking up a palmful and scribbling through it with a finger from her other hand. I copied her, looking at the miniature dots of grit, the ground-down remains of rocks and shells. So much miniature material! So many thousands of miles of heaped up miniscule-ness. 'You're being silly.'
'I take it seriously,' I said, sulkily.
'It's just something to say,' Klabier told me, standing up again. 'That's all it is. Merely something to say – that's the point of politics. Saying something. The pleasure is in the saying, not in what is said.'
But I remained convinced that there was something important, some core of truth at the heart of all the talk. We wandered on until the rising tide had reached its highest point, pushing us progressively further and further inland. Then we sat down and made love. We slept. After waking we went in search of food; of course, the landscape was liberally provided with automatic sustenance dispensers. We made love again. 'You're hungry for it,' said Klabier, a little breathless with the urgency of my caresses. I think I was angry with her, and that anger fuelled my desire. Human sexual desire is a peculiar thing, dear stone.
We wandered into a short valley in the rocky highland and found a community of floaters; people who were mostly concerned with riding flat, rigid balloon structures, less than a metre long, that they gripped to their chests with both arms. These balles, as they called them, gave them enough buoyancy to fly through the air for many metres off the ground, provided there were a breeze to give them lift. The balle-riders preferred the mornings; they would run down the long strand of exposed beach, towards the incoming tide and into the teeth of a morning gale. Leaping into the air the breeze would carry them along, and they would skim onwards. We stayed with these balle-riders for several days, I seem to remember, and one morning the two of us strolled down towards the distant sea to watch them. There were dozens of them, swooping and skimming close to the waves. The highest skill (and the greatest credit amongst the group) came when they were able to bounce themselves off the curling wall of water, veer away from the collision before the wave collapsed over them, and fly free without getting wet. It was a tricky skill to master, and many of them were swallowed by the waves, or fell from their balles into the water. But the ones that managed it flew with such grace and motion as to make me jealous of their ability.
Then the tide would come all the way in, and the balle-riders would stop and take lunch; to talk, make love, and doze within earshot of the waves splashing on sand a few metres away. Then, come the evening, they would resume their riding, with the sea slowly shrinking away and the sun going down.
I began to sense that Klabier was becoming restless with our wanderings. I also had reasons for wanting to move things along more rapidly. My AI was becoming most annoying, providing me with a seemingly never-ending commentary on the wastefulness of what I was doing, of how I was going to be given over to the 'police', of how important my mission was (although it couldn't tell me why).
We moved inland, and spent time in a number of different cities. In one Klabier met an old lover, and went off with him to spend a week in the mountains. I was absorbed during this time with another political group, and hardly missed her.
This group had a completely new theory about the Wheah. 'Everything you have heard is wrong,' they told me, when I joined their group. I soon discovered that they began every 'political' meeting with this mantra; everything you have heard is wrong. 'We are taught,' they said, 'that we are the best and most preferable. That we are unconquerable, that we have achieved a Utopia. But this is not the case at all.'
Not the case? snorted the AI in my ear. This is more insane than the last group. Why are you wasting your time with these fantasists?
'We are not the superior beings of the galaxy,' one tiny-faced, huge-legged woman announced. The whole group listened in reverent silence. 'The Wheah are. We are an experiment, set up by the Wheah thousands of years ago. They set us up, and retreated into the space beyond the Tongue. From there they have observed us, sending occasional agents amongst us for more detailed work.'
There were so many questions here, so many things that didn't make sense, that I wasn't sure where to start. 'I don't understand,' I said.
Everybody in the group looked at me, with oddly pitying expressions. It was starting to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary 'political' group. There was no actual discussion, nobody disagreed with anybody. Instead everybody nodded agreement and scratched the bridges of their noses.[22]
'The Wheah are far superior to us,' somebody told me, as if explaining things to a child.
'So far above us,' said somebody else, 'as to be practically gods.'
'They will return soon.'
'The experiment is nearly at an end.'
All eyes were on me. Something told me that there would be little point in my challenging this strange fixed notion of the group's. I looked from face to face. 'What is the experiment,' I asked, slowly, 'designed to achieve?'
There was a silence.
'That,' said somebody (a woman whose chin had been elongated to two sharp points), 'will become apparent.' She looked round at everybody else. 'When they return.'
8th
Dear Stone,
Yes, I was having doubts, I am happy to admit that; it makes me more human, doesn't it? It pleases my doctor (wellhello!), I daresay, to think that my conscience worried through 'right' and 'wrong'. Or should I be more precise? I had doubts about my ability to follow through with the mission I had agreed to undertake. To kill so many people! People, true, I had never met before, and whom therefore didn't truly exist, but nonetheless! Nonetheless! Let's say – why not say – that I refused to do this thing. Perhaps I would go back to jail (no! never!), and spend the rest of my days pondering my choice.
Your thoughts, said my AI sharply, are spilling over. I get the strong impression you are not committed to this mission.
'I don't understand it!' I wailed. "Who wants me to do this terrible thing? Why do they want it done? There must be some other way – there must be! Tell me why they want it done, and perhaps we can find some other way of achieving their goal. The goal! But what on earth can the goal be – it makes no sense – so many deaths. How can that benefit anybody?'
I have explained, said the AI. I cannot tell you who, or why, until afterwards. There is no other way.
'They will all die for no reason!'
For the first time there was a tone of uncertainty in the AI's imitation-voice. Are you having qualms of conscience? it asked.
'And what if I am?'
You? We don't believe it.
That was the first jarring note in my AI's communication with me; I caught it immediately. It was so striking that it even shook me out of my melodramatic wailing.
'What did you say?' I snapped at it.
What? What?
'You said "we don't believe it". Who is we?'
I said I couldn't believe it. I've never known you to have doubts like this. Is this all a part of falling into a sexual infatuation with that woman? I thought your conscience was a withered limb, absent through freak chance of genetic mutation.
'Never mind that,' I said. 'Who is we? Why p
ut it in those terms? We don't believe it?'
Nothing. Never Mind.
'You slipped up there.'
No I didn't.
'Yes you did. Yes you did.'[23]
I meant the many potential AIs, waiting to be grown in your brain after I expire from the seeds. Remember I told you about the seeds?
'That's nonsense. That wouldn't convince a child. Who are you-all? Who is the you?'
I pressed on, but it wouldn't tell me. After a while I grew bored, and made my way outside to sit on a communal step and watch the day's eclipse. Eclipses were so regular an occurrence that only tourists bothered to stop and observe them; but nonetheless I was not alone on the step as the sky's green tint deepened, thickened and eventually went purple-black. The best bit of an eclipse, dear stone, is not the total blackout; it is the time when the sun is mostly covered – the light takes on a strange, spectral quality to it. Familiar objects become dissociated from normal memory. It is beautiful. And as I watched it, I sensed the ghostly presence behind the so-called AI in my brain. The many intelligences that were observing me through it, the many individuals that were bringing their collective will to bear on me through it. I shut my eyes, not caring now if the AI could overhear my thoughts or not, and visualised them; and I saw, in my mind's eye, rank upon rank of Wheah, standing one behind the other, planning their plans and conspiring to cause the death of millions of t'T citizens.
Klabier returned from her week away with her old lover. 'Did you have a nice time?' I asked.
'Lovely.'
'Good. I'm tired of this place. I'm tired of Nu Hirsch.'
'We can go to Nu Hirsch First City; it's a hundred kilometres along the coast, and we can get an elevator there to orbit.'
'Good,' I said. 'Good.'
I was in turmoil inside. I felt as if my suspicions had been confirmed; that the Wheah were indeed behind my escape from the jailstar. I was gnawing at my lower lip. I noticed Klabier looked at me with a puzzled expression. 'What?'
'Your lip is bleeding,' she said.
It was not the first time my lack of dotTech had come close to embarrassing me with her. I only smiled, and sucked the lip in to hide the cut.
We took a hand-cart to Nu Hirsch First City. We had noticed several of these passing up and down the highways of the continent; covered wagons two or three metres long and mounted on enormous, five metre-diameter wheels that swept two arcs over the top of the cover. Each cart was drawn along by a Haüd-machine, in a pleasantly arch imitation of archaic transports. These carts were lined up in the central square of the town we were staying at, ready for traveller's convenience. There were other ways of travelling from city to city, of course, but we were in no hurry; and once on the road the rhythm and pace of the travel was most soothing.
'Jasba,' said Klabier. 'Can I ask you a question?'
I was in a 'happy' mood at that moment, as chance would have it; feeling soothed by the bright greenish sunshine and the relaxing lollop of the cart's passage. 'Anything my love, my heart, my mind's delight,' I said.
'Earlier you said that you had a job to do.'
This snapped my good mood instantly. 'Did I?' I replied, my smile gone.
'Yes, you did.'
There was silence, and only the rushing noise of the air as we hurried along.
'Jasba,' she said. "What job is it you have to do?'
Don't tell her! yelled my AI inside my head.
'It's a form of employment,' I said, a little flustered.
'Employment? What a strange word!' And it is a terribly archaic word, dear stone. Nobody is in 'employment' any more.
'I know,' I said. 'It's a curious concept.'
'You are working,' she said, with a smile, as if this were all some joke, 'for some employers!'
'Yes. I can't tell you what they want me to do,' I said, 'because my employers haven't exactly made that clear to me yet. You see?'
'I don't understand.'
'It's – out of the ordinary.'
'Who are your employers?' she asked.
'Well,' I said. 'That's a little out of the ordinary as well.'
She waited for a while before reiterating her question. 'And? Who are they?'
Don't say! shrieked my AI.
As if I could tell her anything – I don't know myself, I subvocalised. And aloud I said, 'I can't tell you. Not yet anyway.'
This clearly did not satisfy her; but there she lay back in the cart and closed her eyes, her face wrinkled with puzzlement.
When I was sure she was asleep I started whispering to my AI. 'There's no point in secrecy now,' I said, too furious to subvocalise. 'I know that the Wheah are behind my mission. I know who you-all are.' But my AI chose that moment not to respond, no matter how urgently I hissed at it.
We arrived at Nu Hirsch First City by sunset, when the yellow sun threw spectacular blues and purples across the western sky, and clouds were stained sharp red. The city was a fine example of Nu Hirsch architecture; all gleaming machine-inspired shapes, pillars, soaring boxes of light, stacked pyramids of gold.
Arrival at the city seemed to have re-energised Klabier. 'It's beautiful,' she said. 'They've built several things since I was here last. Let's go out! We can go drinking – dancing. Wouldn't you like to go dancing?'
I had a sense that something terrible was impending. The pressure of my responsibilities – I am not ashamed to use that term, for my mission was a heavy responsibility to me — was starting to warp my consciousness. I looked around me as Klabier and I walked down the main passage thoroughfare arm in arm; I saw all the people and imagined them all dead, all lying motionless on the diamond paving stones.
'You were talking to yourself again,' said Klabier to me as we walked.
I was startled. 'What?'
'In the cart coming here. I've noticed it several times, actually.'
'You have?'
'I don't mind it. My sister used to do it. Said she had an imaginary friend. I like it, it reminds me of childhood.'
'Well,' I said, unsure what else to say. 'Well.'
She pulled herself closer to me. The evening sky was purple and black, and the stars glimmered sea-green through the immense sky. All along the thoroughfare were brightly lit rooms and buildings, people all around me laughing and kissing, dancing along the paving or reeling as if intoxicated through the crush of people. Fragments of music faded in and out as we passed along. Klabier seemed genuinely happy.
We stopped at a club and drank embre. The sweet tasting fluid relaxed me a little, and I even started singing an old song from my childhood in Terne. I may have cried a little. We were out on the main street again. I can't exactly remember how I got there. You must remember that, without dotTech to help me deal with the intoxicant in my bloodstream, I got drunk quick and hard. 'Look at the stars!' I remember crying to Klabier. 'How beautiful they are! I want to sleep close to the stars tonight!'
I was manic again; happy when only an hour before I had been withdrawn and sullen. Klabier was laughing at my wild energy, or laughing with it, I don't know. 'Let's go to bed!' I shouted.
'Alright,' she said. 'Alright. There are accommodation towers forty stories high at the other end of this road. Up near the mountain side of the city.'
We turned about, with me loudly insisting that I would only sleep in the very top-most room of such a tower. We stopped at another club, on the other side of the road. Here Klabier and I danced, and I got drunker. We became involved in a lengthy 'political' conversation with a group of like-minded tourists, and debated – debated, I don't know exactly what we debated to tell you the truth, stone of mine.
9th
Dear Stone,
Klabier got me, quarrelsome and moody with drink though I was, to the top of the street and up a hemi-second-rapid elevator to the top floor. By the time we got there I was very tired, and muttering to myself; or perhaps trying to communicate with my oddly silent AI. I can't remember. Klabier helped me to bed, and her soothing hands turned easily into erot
ic ones; I lay quite passive whilst she made tender and precise love to me. Afterwards I slept.
I woke before dawn; the sky, just visible through the archway that led to the balcony, a cyan-purple. I was alone in the bed. Sitting up, I could see Klabier standing on the balcony.
I got up, and made my way over to her; but there was a sick, tight feeling in my stomach. I could sense something was wrong.
'Wellhello,' I said to her, touching her shoulder.
'Wellhello,' she replied, sadly.
'What's wrong?' I asked.
She didn't say anything for a while, so I stood beside her with my elbows on the balcony rail. The view was northeast; and to the right the sky was paling blue and green with the coming sunrise. Below, shrunk to toy dimensions by forty stories of height, were a few of the previous evening's revellers on the diamond plateau. They moved, dots on a pale square.
'Why do you talk to yourself so much, Jasba?' she asked.
'What do you mean?' I replied, without thinking.
'Jasba,' she said. Then again: 'Jasba. That's not your real name, is it?'
I thought of saying Of course it is my real name, and then changed my mind. 'What does it mean, that word real?' I countered. 'No name is real in that sense.'
'Jasba,' she said, again, as if testing the word in her mouth. 'Jasba. You're were in a strangely jittery mood last night.'
'I don't usually go out partying at night,' I said. 'Or so I understand. That's all I meant by my reaction.'
'I don't think so. You know something. Don't you? Has the person you speak to, when you appear to be speaking to yourself – has that person told you something?'
'Klabier,' I said, my insides fizzing unpleasantly. 'Stop this. You're scaring me.' Which was the truth, dear stone; I was scared.
She still wouldn't look at me. 'It's all a nonsense. I thought I'd find something different with you, but you're just the same as anybody else really. Aren't you?'
This stung me. For a while I said nothing. Then I said, 'I really do love you, Klabier. I thought you – had feelings for me.'
Adam Roberts - Stone(2002) Page 18
