World Engine

by Stephen Baxter

  Could you have got home, do you think? Without support from your mission control?

  We thought so. Misha was senior to me, especially in the matters of piloting the craft, re-entry, and so forth. Our craft were always less smart than the Americans’, but smart enough and a lot more robust. A Soyuz re-entry capsule can fly itself home without any input from outside, once delivered to the correct re-entry window. We thought we had a fighting chance to make it back, yes. But—

  There was an accident?

  We were always cautious. But, if I could give you one piece of advice in your own exploration of Phobos—

  Don’t touch the blue hoops?

  It was Misha. He was too intent on taking yet another reading of the residual radiation from the hoops, seeking to map any change. Our Geiger counters were clumsy, antique models – he lost his grasp on his tether—

  Ah.

  He only touched it. One palm, brushing the surface – a human hand touching that alien wonder . . .

  There was a blue flash.

  I think I was unconscious for a while. When I recovered, the blue hoops remained. Misha was gone. I have found no trace of him.

  Nor have we, in our exploration here.

  We are not sentimental people, we Russians, despite American caricatures. Our soldiers are not brought home draped in flags, with brass bands; the dead are delivered home from the front in plywood coffins. Still – I regretted being unable to pay Misha my respects. He was a good companion and a fine cosmonaut.

  And meanwhile, suddenly, after that blue flash, I was – somewhere else.

  As well as Misha, the rest of Spektr was lost to me, the Earth-return booster, our Soyuz. And the solar panels, of course. Everything outside the Mir. The master alarm clamoured, I remember. The Mir module itself was distressed by its amputation. And Earth fell silent, even of the desperate cries of the war-ravaged continents. Silent to our receivers at least.

  Something similar happened to me. As I told you I did not travel to Phobos with this group, with Malenfant and the others. My companion fell against a blue hoop. And I was stranded in a different history. We don’t know what to make of this. As I said, it seems that Phobos is a kind of knot, where timelines, even different epochs, can tangle up.

  And if you touch a hoop—

  We don’t have a good theory. It’s not something you can experiment with. We think maybe the whole mechanism is – reset, somehow. The interfaces between the timelines reconfigured.

  The knot retied.

  Something like that.

  Well, I strove to survive. We had batteries, and good ones. I shut down all but the most basic life-support functions, and endured. Time means nothing here. For months I have eked out the remaining energy in my dying craft, as it slowly froze around me. Finally I have lived in my Orlan suit, my pressure suit, hooked in to the craft’s plumbing – ha! – opening it only for the intake of food, the removal of waste. I know that my body was rotting within.

  And then—

  Yes?

  And then you came. Or rather, your partner.

  Arkady. It was Arkady who found you first.

  Your companion. Yes. I . . . His suit was ripped, Emma Stoney. By the hoops, I now see. He was dying already. I held him in my arms. I—

  Poor Arkady.

  He died well. But I was afraid, I admit it. I thought I was alone here. Suddenly, another Russian, already dying. And then, months later, the rest of you. I do not deny it. I saw the US flags on your suits. Our countries were at war! A Russian cosmonaut had stumbled into my refuge, dying already! I thought . . . I thought . . .

  We came in peace.

  I know that now. And so – well.

  Now I may be the last Russian.

  We must negotiate.

  50

  Four days after he was retrieved from the interior of Phobos, Bartholomew announced he was prepared to allow Vladimir Viktorenko out of bed.

  The Russian emerged cautiously from the sleep cubicle he had been using. He wore his own jumpsuit, much repaired by the Step crew, plastered with mission patches and Russian flags. It looked like a practical garment, Malenfant thought, faded and stained, but with lots of pockets, Velcro patches and loops for hanging stuff, big chunky zippers that looked like they were designed to close a tent.

  Viktorenko hesitated, glanced down at the bangle on his wrist, and looked over at Bartholomew. ‘Is this thing working? You can understand me in English?’

  Bartholomew smiled, reassuring. ‘Actually only Malenfant and Emma are speaking English. But you will be hearing us in your contemporary Russian, I hope. A miracle of twenty-fifth-century technology.’

  ‘I must steal it and smuggle it back to our Russian labs, where we will make cheaper, better versions. Just kidding.’ He was dark-haired, eyes brown, not a big frame – in the small, cramped spacecraft of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Malenfant knew very well, being small was a selective feature for astronauts and cosmonauts alike. Yet even so Malenfant could see how scrawny he was, how sunken his cheeks, how pale. He looked as if he was just recovering from some severe illness – which, in a sense, he was. And oddly it made him look younger than his half-century true age.

  Everybody was staring – naturally enough, but it made for an awkward moment, Malenfant thought, as the Last Small Step crew gazed at Viktorenko, and he gazed defiantly back.

  It was Deirdra who made the first move. ‘Come over to the table,’ she said. ‘Sit with us. Eat. I looked it up. I know there are old Russian traditions.’ She moved back, graceful in the low gravity, and indicated the laden table at the heart of the Step cabin.

  Malenfant silently reflected on her growing leadership.

  Viktorenko stared at her, and drifted over to the table. The food was held in place under transparent dishes. ‘Bread. Salt. Salted pork? And the drink—’

  ‘Just water,’ Bartholomew said sternly. ‘I wouldn’t recommend vodka just yet, Vladimir.’

  Viktorenko lifted the covering over the bread, touched it with one finger, broke off a small piece and bit into it. ‘It tastes like Russian bread. Did you carry this to Phobos? Perhaps for this lost Berezovoy?’

  Malenfant grinned. ‘No need, Vladimir. This is the future, remember. They have matter printers now. Devices that can take raw material and print out anything you like – food, clothing.’

  He stared, but quickly recovered his composure. ‘We Russians have a legend of the samobranka. The magic tablecloth . . .’ He took more bread, and some of the salted meat. ‘I am somewhat hungry,’ he said to Bartholomew. ‘Not very, but somewhat. Is that a sign of good health?’

  ‘It is.’ Bartholomew smiled. ‘You’ve been fed mostly intravenously up to now. I am glad to see you taking solid food. But, given my trying experiences with Malenfant here, I might have thought you would be – well, squeamish about food from the printers.’

  Viktorenko looked surprised. ‘Listen, I am a man who grew vegetables directly from human piss and shit. Not just mine, but that of my late colleague Mikhail Alexeevich, who I loved as dearly as a brother, but who shat as the Volga flows after an autumn storm. This, the produce of some miniature factory? I pour it down my throat.’ And he took another bite to prove it. ‘But if I am a pressure on your resources—’

  ‘Which you aren’t,’ Malenfant said sternly.

  ‘You are certainly welcome aboard my ship,’ Gershon said now – the first time he had spoken, Malenfant realised. ‘Aboard the Last Small Step. Which I guess is pretty roomy compared to the primitive capsules you used to fly in, Vladimir.’

  Viktorenko glanced around dismissively. ‘A Soyuz was no bigger than it needed to be. The name. Last Small Step. What does it mean?’

  Emma said, glancing around warily, ‘Well, this is where we start getting into the weirdness, Vladimir. In my memory, it’s a reference to the first words that Neil Armstrong spoke when he stepped out on the Moon. “That’s one small step for a man . . .”’

  ‘Ah.’
r />   ‘Whereas,’ Malenfant said, ‘I remember them as the words Aldrin spoke when he became the first Moonwalker, as a tribute to his buddy who had already died of a heart attack.’

  ‘And I,’ Viktorenko said grimly, ‘must imagine them as the first words Armstrong would have spoken had not sloppy American engineering caused his craft to detonate itself on landing, thus sparking off decades of conflict.’

  ‘One simple event,’ Malenfant said. ‘If epochal. And between us we remember three different versions of it. We evidently come from three different strands in the manifold.’

  ‘Yet here we are all together,’ Deirdra said firmly. ‘Let’s sit.’

  They gathered around the table, all save Gershon, who hung back. The table was equipped with small, neat stools, with bars under which a discreetly hooked toe would hold a diner in place effortlessly in the low gravity.

  ‘So,’ Viktorenko said. ‘Important things to discuss. Such as different histories. What if Napoleon had not turned back at Moscow? Paths not taken.’

  ‘Yes,’ Malenfant said. ‘Different worlds.’

  ‘Worlds,’ Viktorenko mused. ‘Whole universes? Does the divergence go that far? Or are we looking at more minor deflections – strands missing from a tapestry, though the bigger picture stays the same?’

  Malenfant spread his hands. ‘I’ve no idea, Vladimir. We need theoreticians here. Physicists, experimentalists. Not a pair of artificial people, a bunch of failed astronauts, and a starry-eyed kid.’

  Deirdra pursed her lips. ‘I’ll let you get away with that. Just.’

  ‘And I,’ Vladimir said, ‘am no astronaut. I am a cosmonaut.’ He put his hand over the bangle on his wrist. ‘Kosmonavt. Can you hear the Russian?’

  Malenfant nodded. ‘Respectfully noted.’

  Emma grinned. ‘Of course he’s a cosmonaut. Five hundred years on, you haven’t lost your gift for effortlessly insulting people, have you, Malenfant? How the hell you ever thought you were going to found a multi-billion-dollar business—’

  ‘All part of my rugged charm.’

  ‘We should talk about Phobos,’ Deirdra said firmly. ‘So here we are, all from different timelines, as you said, Malenfant. But it’s Phobos that seems to be tangling them all up. Isn’t it?’

  ‘Quite right,’ Emma said. ‘And we have absolutely no idea how it works. Do we?’

  ‘Let alone why,’ Malenfant said, brooding. ‘If it’s an artefact it must have a purpose.’

  Viktorenko nodded. ‘Are we sure it is an artefact?’

  ‘The Sculpture Garden looked like an artefact to me,’ Deirdra said firmly. ‘Even if I wasn’t allowed to go see for myself. Those blue hoops in a . . . square. But not a square.’

  Even just remembering seemed to give Malenfant a ghost headache.

  ‘And,’ Bartholomew said now, ‘I can confirm what Vladimir told you, Emma. In terms of the Mir’s positioning in space, I mean. I spent a lot of time going back into Vladimir’s Mir module, trying to retrieve stuff – and, respectfully, dealing with the body of your colleague Arkady.’

  Emma nodded gravely.

  ‘Most of you have been in there; you know what it was like. No lights, a real mess. And I couldn’t see out, any more than you could have, not at first; all the ports were frosted over. Anyhow my focus was on the interior of the module, not the outside. We plastic people aren’t generally equipped with curiosity subroutines.’

  Malenfant snapped, ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, in the end I went to one port, and I found a knife, frozen to the table in the eating area, and I used that to scrape away the layers of frost on the glass, until I had cleared off enough to see outside. And I saw—’

  Deirdra was wide-eyed. ‘Not Phobos rubble?’

  ‘Stars,’ said Viktorenko.

  ‘Stars,’ Bartholomew confirmed. ‘I saw stars, Deirdra. And it’s just as illogical as the hoops’ five-sided cube. The module is thirteen metres long. It is docked to the exterior of Phobos, just as Vladimir described. It sticks out from the side of the moon like a monolith. I could see all that from inside – looking out of the windows. But at the same time it is buried a kilometre deep inside Phobos, with one airlock giving onto the Sculpture Garden. Just as we found it.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Emma said.

  ‘Experienced, impossible or not,’ Bartholomew said.

  ‘There’s probably a logic to all this,’ Emma said. ‘Just as there is probably a logic to having those five hoops in a space where only four hoops can exist. It’s just that it’s a – higher – logic than we are capable of seeing.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Malenfant said, thinking hard. ‘Look – we know, or we suspect, that Phobos is some kind of junction between timelines in the manifold. This fancy set-up has some purpose we don’t yet know. But if there are discontinuities in time, maybe there can be discontinuities in space as well.’

  ‘That may be so,’ Emma mused. ‘But what’s it got to do with Neil Armstrong?’

  That shut them all up.

  Bartholomew produced more bread and pork, and served up Russian tea, in small cups with nipples that released tiny quantities of fluid that nevertheless burned Malenfant’s tongue. Hot drinks never worked in zero gravity, he groused to himself.

  As he sipped his tea, Malenfant looked around at his companions. They all looked earnest, intent, focused – tired, all of them, especially Viktorenko, for obvious reasons. The Russian was pale, drawn, even gaunt. But, tired or not, bewildered or not, they had work to do.

  Malenfant restarted the discussion.

  ‘Actually I don’t think it’s about Neil Armstrong.’

  Emma glanced at him. ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘The jonbar hinge. Is that one of my antique-fanboy references? The pivot, the moment when a choice had to be made – or an accident happened or didn’t happen – and reality changed. Maybe the turning point was the way the space shuttle got built, in the years after Armstrong died.’

  Bartholomew snorted. ‘And it’s just a coincidence that you, a space shuttle pilot, happen to think that event was of world-shaking importance.’

  ‘Well, maybe it was. Emma and I talked it over.’ Malenfant massaged his temples. ‘1969. Even before Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, President Nixon had to decide what we wanted to do next, in space. I was only a kid. But I do remember Nixon making a speech, around 1970. He said: With the entire future and the entire universe before us, we should not try to do everything at once. Even at nine or ten that filled me with dread. Shit, I thought. We ain’t going to Mars after all – or not in my lifetime anyhow. Well, Armstrong’s death swung Nixon’s decision-making in the end – but it was the decisions that counted. That was what made up the jonbar hinge. Not the background causes.

  ‘Do you get it, Emma? Think about it. You mentioned Kennedy, pledging in 1961 to get humans to the Moon in ten years. Well, we made it, but that was a dead end, in terms of space development. And it shaped just ten years of history. Whereas the decisions Nixon had to make after that, about the American space programme post-Apollo – and, in response, the space efforts made by the Soviets and the rest of the world – were open-ended. They were going to shape the human future in space for decades. Centuries.’

  Deirdra was listening with her usual mixture of fascination and astonishment. ‘And everything else,’ she said now. ‘I mean, the whole economy was dragged along by space developments. If not for that—’

  ‘If not,’ Bartholomew said, ‘maybe we wouldn’t have boomed and busted so hard we burned all the coal on the planet. I say “we” in a spirit of generosity to my flesh-and-blood colleagues here present.’

  Malenfant spread his hands. ‘Unanticipated consequences. Everything has unanticipated consequences. We seem to come from – neighbouring realities, similar strands in the manifold, shaped by Nixon’s decisions. We could call it the Nixon Bundle, maybe. The old bastard deserves that much.’

  Emma seemed stunned by these conclusions. ‘Just think abo
ut that, Malenfant. Richard Nixon, shaper of worlds! Suddenly I feel humble again. So. What next? . . .’

  That was when there was a knock on the door.

  51

  They sat there, looking at each other.

  ‘Six of us on Phobos,’ Malenfant said. ‘On this whole moon. Six in this cabin. And—’

  ‘And a knock on the door,’ Deirdra whispered.

  Again that knock, coming from the airlock. It sounded impatient, to Malenfant. A hammering.

  Malenfant recalled that Viktorenko’s Mir hadn’t been the only structure they had found, rooting around in the guts of this transformed Phobos. The other hatches, another mystery they’d had no time to follow up yet.

  Emma touched his arm. ‘I think you’d better answer that, Malenfant.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  So Malenfant drifted over to the airlock. There was no visual system, nothing to show him who was waiting outside.

  Or what. Malenfant hesitated.

  What are you expecting, Malenfant? The spawn of Cthulhu? Get on with it.

  He made sure the lock was evacuated of air. He ordered the outer door to open, close again. A hiss of air equalising inside the lock.

  Then the inner hatch was pushed open.

  A human figure stood there, in a pressure suit, with some kind of reaction gun in the left hand.

  The visitor began competently unlocking latches on a helmet with a rather opaque visor. Malenfant had time to notice a British flag on the chest – a Union Jack – and a name tag: LIGHTHILL, G. RASF.

  Then the helmet came loose, to reveal a man’s head: clean-shaven save for a luxuriant moustache, dark hair cut short at back and sides and greased with some kind of oil. Pale blue eyes, glaring.

  Malenfant could think only to ask, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Never mind that, matey. Are you the bugger who defaced my airlock door?’

  52