This continued until more than twenty-six hundred Towers were alight – a little more than Briggs’s estimate – a wall of furious fire nearly two thousand kilometres long, twenty kilometres high, and spanning a twenty-fifth of the huge planet’s circumference.
And then – everyone was watching – the first Tower to light up was extinguished. Then its neighbour, one and a third seconds later. And then the next, and the next. Now it was as if a band of nuclear fire, a band of fixed length, was slowly working its way along the tops of the Towers, tracking the world’s rotation.
‘It’s only bloody working,’ Lighthill said. ‘Just like you said it would, boys!’
‘Had to be,’ Malenfant muttered. ‘Had to be that way. The only conceivable design . . .’ Even if – he realised, recalling their earlier conversations – even if the engine whose working he had deduced, while beyond human capabilities, was crude, a Chinese firecracker compared to the exquisite, world-bending machineries inside Phobos.
Nicola said, wondering, ‘You want an exact number? Two thousand, six hundred and twenty-one Towers are alight at any instant.’
Lighthill frowned. ‘Why that number?’
‘It’s a prime number,’ Deirdra said immediately, surprising Malenfant. ‘Maybe that means something. To the World Engineers who built this, anyhow.’
World Engineers, Malenfant thought. Yeah. That name fits.
Bit worried about that Tower One, Guy Briggs called down from the Charon in its high orbit. The way it shut down – there was an odd flicker. Only observable in retrospect, you understand. We had to see a few more examples before we realised. But still . . .
‘I wouldn’t worry about one Tower out of sixty-five thousand, Guy.’
But Malenfant saw that Josh Morris too looked faintly concerned. ‘I hope it wasn’t anything to do with the rough treatment we gave that particular Tower. Dropping a nuclear bomb down its throat, I mean. We thought it would work – well, it did work – but it was a bit drastic.’
Agreed. I’ll take the Charon down for a closer look . . .
‘Stop bloody fretting, both of you,’ Lighthill said. ‘And don’t go in too close, Guy, Bill. We’re all overwrought, and not surprising, but that’s not ideal conditions for decision-making. Look, we’re here for the long haul. We said we would have to watch all this for a couple of days at least, did we not? Just to be sure it’s working as it should be.’ He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘And so as far as I can see the next big milestone will be when the wave of ignitions has travelled around the turning planet, and we are back to Tower One. Which should light up again after twenty-five hours, one Persephone day. Correct? And the sequence all starts over again.’
‘Correct,’ called Josh Morris.
‘Then in that case, calm down. We eat, we sleep, we take turns at these instruments. And at staring out of the ruddy windows. You too, Guy, Bill. You know the drill.’
Malenfant stretched. ‘He’s right, of course. OK, I’ll stand down too. Would you Brits trust me to make a round of tea?’
‘Not bloody likely,’ said Lighthill.
So they worked, ate, slept, or tried to, as the wall of fire marched around the turning planet, the Towers flaring and dying in their orderly sequence.
About eight hours in, Malenfant looked over some summary results. Already the deflection of the planet from its slow path was visible to the instruments, just.
‘Exactly as Briggs worked out,’ he said to Emma. ‘Like some vast piece of clockwork. You couldn’t have a more simple concept matched to a more monumental execution.’
Emma herself, with Deirdra, was poring over flickering lines on crude green cathode-ray-tube screens, equipment that looked to Malenfant like it was out of a museum of the 1950s. ‘Look at this, though, Malenfant. Data from the seismograph network. Remember, the Towers are exerting so much stress that it’s as if the weight of the crust over the mantle has doubled, where they are firing, a huge pressure point working its way over the crust as the planet turns. You can see the waves in the mantle it is generating – see this plot? Like acoustic waves, essentially, sound waves bouncing around the planet, through all that liquid rock between the crust and the core. Malenfant, the whole planet is shuddering.’
Deirdra said, ‘And look at these pictures . . .’
She showed them grainy television images shot from satellites, and relayed to more bulbous, coarse-grained cathode-ray-tube screens. Malenfant saw what looked like pictures of Yellowstone, or Iceland: volcanic provinces, suddenly active. Geysers erupting. Steaming cracks in the ground. Even the multiple calderas at the summit of that big shield mountain on Caina seemed to be cracking.
‘Incredible,’ Emma said now. ‘Do you realise that the effective gravity field is going to be changed? Because of the acceleration, you see. My God, Malenfant. We kick-started an engine that changes gravity . . .’
Lighthill said, ‘All that’s as may be. What I see is an engine that is evidently performing as it was designed to – and after thousands of millions of years. Sweet as a nut.’
He seemed determined to be mundane, Malenfant thought. Well, somebody had to be, he supposed.
A couple of shifts later, after a full twenty-five hours of firing, Malenfant was reminded of those over-confident words.
Because that was when there was a flicker, coming from screens all around the habitat.
‘Whoa.’ Malenfant took a step back from where he had been looking over Emma’s shoulder. ‘What was that? Some instrument glitch?’
Not that. The report came from Guy Briggs. It was Tower One. The one we dropped the pill down, the first that would have to fire again. And—
‘And it didn’t,’ Emma said. She looked at Malenfant, worried. ‘We had every camera focused on it, Malenfant. It had to work again. It didn’t fire.’
Lighthill hovered over her screens. ‘But each Tower ignites the next in line. Correct? So, what about Tower Two?’
That one lit up, McLaurin reported. We were watching. There must be some backup system. It was a hellish long one and a third seconds until we saw that beautiful flame, I can tell you.
‘But it did work,’ Lighthill said. ‘And the rest?’
So far as we can tell, Geoff.
‘Very well. Then we don’t have to fret about this one Tower, do we? One out of sixty-five thousand?’
Briggs said hesitantly, I don’t think we can be, umm, complacent about that, Wing Commander. This is an integrated planetary-scale mechanism, with planet-wide effects. If even one Tower fails, then the system as a whole might be compromised.
Lighthill frowned. ‘How?’
Nicola shrugged. ‘If the thrust isn’t uniformly applied because of gaps in the fence, you could get shocks – tremors. And amplification, perhaps. Feedback effects.’
Josh nodded. ‘Which could in turn cause the fence of Towers still more damage. If they began to become misaligned, even slightly—’
‘Very well, Lieutenant, I hear what you say. What are you suggesting we do, then?’
Nicola said, ‘If it fails from here, I don’t see what we can do, Wing Commander.’
Lighthill glanced at a silent Deirdra, chewed his lip. ‘We are here because we vowed to save an Earth. An Earth that is different from our own, but which is just as rich and vibrant as ours – an Earth, indeed, where versions of our own distant grandchildren may actually be alive. I suggest we wait and see. Another few days, at least, as the planetary engine goes through its cycle a few times. And then, if we can do no more, at least we’ll have given it our best shot. We play to the whistle, as my old rugger coach “Pigskin” O’Brien used to say.’ And he added firmly, ‘After all we could always drop that other bloody bomb in. Now then – whose turn to stand down and get some kip?’
70
Another full day of agonising wait for the firing, or otherwise, of Tower One.
Emma did her best to keep Deirdra occupied. By the end of the day, Deirdra said wearily to Malenfant, ‘I’ll always rem
ember this period. Because this is when I learned to play chess.’
At the end of the second cycle of Persephone’s twenty-five-hour day, fifty hours after its first glitch, Tower One failed again.
And, this time, so did Tower Two.
Bill McLaurin called down, breaking a gloomy silence in the Melinoe base. So. Time for Plan B, Wing Commander?
Lighthill sighed theatrically. ‘Very well, Bill. The second bomb?’
The second bomb. At the start of the next cycle we drop that baby down the throat of that pesky Tower One, and – if we get the timing right to the microsecond – we start the whole process all over again.
Lighthill glared around bleakly at the team on Melinoe. ‘Responses?’
After a pause, Nicola ventured, ‘Well, it is all we have, sir. It’s this or nothing.’
‘But that doesn’t mean “nothing” is not a better option,’ Lighthill said.
Malenfant felt more reckless. ‘What harm can we do if we try? This is a world that was ruined by the engineers billions of years before we even evolved. If we get the rockets working, fine, we might do some good. If not – well, how can we make things worse?’
Josh said, ‘But we don’t know what we’re dealing with here. We’re like chimpanzees hitting a hand grenade with a stick.’
Lighthill listened patiently. Then he said, ‘I’ll tell you how we can make this worse, Malenfant. By risking the necks of my crew to no purpose. But as Nicola says, it’s this or nothing. That’s how.’
Malenfant nodded, chagrined. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’
We heard that, and we’re ready, sir, Guy Briggs called.
‘Then, gentlemen, let’s give it a shot. Our last shot, indeed.’
We won’t let you down, Geoff.
‘I’m sure you won’t. I just hope I haven’t let you down with the wrong decision.’
Malenfant grunted. ‘I guess that’s what command is all about.’
‘Indeed, Colonel Malenfant. Indeed. Well, let’s move, everybody, and get this done.’
So another seemingly interminable day wore away.
Then they crammed once more into the wardroom of the Melinoe base. Bartholomew, still inert, was propped in one corner like an anatomical model.
And, in their multiple screens, Persephone was visible, hanging huge, with a row of sparking candles illuminating a segment of the equator. They could all see the drama unfold.
Five minutes.
Bill McLaurin’s voice was admirably calm, Malenfant thought.
Lighthill murmured into his microphone, ‘We can’t eyeball you, Bill. Not from here. But I can picture you, coming down.’
So hush up and let us concentrate. Sir.
‘Sorry, old man.’
Four minutes. Guy, is our gift ready to deliver?
Right down that big old chimney, Bill. Ha! Here we are, like two heavily armed Santas.
Well, I’ve got the paunch for it. Three minutes . . .
On the Harmonia they waited it out in silence now, as the Charon crew worked through a rerun of the approach a few days before; once again Malenfant listened as Guy Briggs called in distances and timings to Bill McLaurin, his commander and pilot. Static-distorted voices, calmly working.
Malenfant, reminded of Armstrong and Aldrin, felt unreasonably moved.
Ten seconds, by my watch.
Five.
One.
And then –
The screens flared with light.
When the overloaded systems had cleared a little, Malenfant saw that the great Towers were falling one by one – like a row of dominoes, he thought irreverently, in a record-breaking stunt by a giant. Falling away along both directions of the fence, away from the great wound where Tower One had been. Dominoes twenty kilometres high, falling against each other. Shattering like china, even as they tumbled, and again Malenfant wondered what material they could be constructed of.
And the link to Charon was lost.
71
It took them some hours of working on instruments and data records to establish what had happened. But, Malenfant deduced in the end, it was simple enough.
‘They dropped the bomb,’ Josh Morris said, wondering. ‘Right down that big mouth. The timing was perfect.’
‘The bomb evidently worked,’ Lighthill said grimly.
Emma said, ‘But we didn’t expect the reaction it provoked . . .’
Which had been, at this second triggering, a gout of nuclear fire much broader and brighter than the orderly ignitions of the other Towers. And that excessive detonation within Tower One seemed to have caused the structure, essentially, to burst.
Then the neighbouring Towers had started to topple, possibly from the blast itself – or, Malenfant thought, maybe the sheer hammering of the ground by that one tremendous smash had been enough to shake the others to pieces. And when two, three, four Towers had fallen, he supposed, with the rest still burning, the whole system was going to fall apart.
A system designed to withstand billions of years of geological upheaval had a weak spot after all. Typical of humans to find it.
And the Charon: the lander had been lost in that first fearsome blast from Tower One.
Bill McLaurin, Lighthill’s ‘McLaurin Minor’. And Guy Briggs, elegant, enthusiastic about his subject – brilliant in his way, Malenfant thought. Lost too. Complex lives ended, moths in a blowtorch.
‘It almost worked,’ Emma said.
‘Almost,’ Lighthill said. ‘Damn.’ He faced Malenfant. ‘Oh, I blame myself. You were right, Malenfant. These voyages are expeditions of exploration. I am expected to take the initiative, to follow leads – to use my judgement. But—’
‘No buts. That’s precisely what you did,’ Malenfant said.
‘I just cost two good officers their lives, man! What kind of judgement was that?’
‘They knew the risks.’
Deirdra said, ‘And they did it to save a whole world. Not your Earth, but an Earth, a planet full of people. People your officers didn’t even know – billions of them. They couldn’t do enough to deflect Persephone and Shiva. But they will never be forgotten, until my world’s own story is over. I’ll make sure of that.’
Lighthill just stared at her. Then he said, ‘That was rather magnificent. Thank you, Greggson Deirdra. And when, if, I find my way back home to the families of Bill and Guy, I will pass on what you have said. Word for word.’
Nicola coughed. ‘So what next?’
‘Loose ends,’ Lighthill said firmly. ‘As far as Briggs and McLaurin are concerned, I need to write my log. And we need to leave some marker, down on that wretched doomed world, of the men we lost.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Bob Nash murmured.
‘But then—’ He pulled his lip. ‘As I told you, Malenfant, my orders are open-ended. We are supposed to be going on to Shiva. Outwards. But it seems to me we have unfinished business here.’
‘You mean, with the engineers. The . . . World Engineers, as Deirdra called them. Whoever built the Towers and threw Persephone out here.’
‘Exactly. Whoever or whatever they are. And whatever they want. And it seems to me we may have a way we can go to find out.’
‘Through Phobos,’ Emma said, sounding excited.
‘Indeed. This big old planet was stuck out here by your World Engineers, for whatever ruinous reason they may have had – and one wonders if they had something to do with setting up the Shiva incursion in the first place – and now Bill and Guy have given their lives trying to find a way to deal with this bloody mess. But if we go back to Phobos, deeper in perhaps, and meet them on their own turf, so to speak . . . Then we’ll see what’s bloody what.
‘But en route we can certainly take Miss Greggson home. We will return to Phobos, and the Last Small Step – and then that vessel can return you to your Earth, Deirdra.’
Deirdra looked doubtful, Malenfant thought, but she didn’t reply immediately.
Lighthill glanced at the others. ‘But what about you, Miss S
toney, Malenfant?’
Malenfant looked at Emma. ‘I guess that’s tricky,’ he said. ‘Where is home for me? No manifold magic is going to get me back to my 2019. Emma, I suppose you could get back through Phobos to your timeline—’
‘My place is with you,’ Emma said fiercely. ‘Even if you’re not my Malenfant.’ She glared at Lighthill. ‘And you think I want to turn my back on all this?’
Malenfant grinned. ‘I’m with you, Lighthill. I guess we all are. If we can’t win the game, let’s change the rules.’
‘Good man.’
‘And I,’ Deirdra said now, firmly, ‘am coming with you.’
Malenfant studied her. Somehow he was not shocked. ‘OK. But, Deirdra – what about your family? Your mother?’
Her face worked, and, in glimpses, he saw the child inside the growing adult. ‘I’ll speak to my mother before we go back into Phobos. And I’ll come back one day. I don’t intend to die down there. But it’s my decision. My world.’
Malenfant spread his hands. ‘Your decision.’
‘Yes,’ she said, firm, determined. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Fine,’ Malenfant said. ‘But what about him?’ He pointed at Bartholomew, who still stood silent in the corner of the habitat.
‘Good point,’ Deirdra said. ‘Bartholomew. Override off.’
Bartholomew seemed to come awake with a jerk. He glanced around quickly, at Malenfant, at Deirdra. ‘What did I miss?’
FIVE
On Her Last Known Awakening
72
Can you hear me?
I can hear . . . I can’t see . . .
Try to be calm. It’s over now.
Over? . . .
Do you know who you are?
World Engine Page 44
