Firefall

by Peter Watts

  “She’s no threat.” Moore was behind Valerie now, looking past her shoulder to her prey. The prey croaked softly. “There’s no reason to—”

  “Thank you for your tactical advice.” A faint white smile ghosted across her lips.

  Was that a faint moan sighing up through the Crown’s throat? Still conscious, then, maybe. Still hope.

  “Trade,” Valerie said.

  “Yes,” Moore replied, moving forward.

  “Not you.”

  Suddenly Brüks was off the deck and yanked into the air; suddenly Valerie’s hand was around his throat, gripping him just below the jaw with fingers cold and sinuous as tentacles while a distant irrelevant Rakshi Sengupta bounced off the southern hemisphere, hacking, doubled over.

  And when Valerie looked at him with that bemused and distant stare, he looked back. He tried not to. Over the slow burning in his lungs, over the casual pain of a larynx compressed just this side of strangulation, he would have given anything to turn away. Somehow he didn’t have the will. He couldn’t even close his eyes against hers.

  Her pupils were bright bloody pinpoints, red stars clenched tight against the light of day. Behind them, the bulkhead rolled past in lazy slow motion.

  The Hub dwindled to the wrong end of a telescope. Sengupta was shouting somewhere, her voice raw and tinny and barely audible over the white noise of distant pounding surf: She killed one of them she killed one of her zombies one of her people he’s not on the board I can’t find him anywhere—

  There was nothing in Valerie’s face but that spectral half smile, that look of dispassionate appraisal. She didn’t seem to notice Moore slipping up from behind, or Sengupta screaming headlong back into the fray with claws bared. She didn’t even seem to notice her own left hand flicking back of its own accord to casually slap the pilot into the soldier, all that momentum spun impossibly on the head of a pin and redirected a hundred eighty degrees. Fucking monster fucking monster fucking monster, Sengupta shouted from across an ocean and Brüks could only think: Cats and dogs cats and dogs...​

  But none of that mattered. All that mattered were he and Valerie, alone together: the way she let just enough air past her fingers to keep him awake, the way she reached out with her free hand and tapped that light arrhythmic tattoo across his temple; the things she whispered for his ears only, intimate secrets of such vital importance he forgot them even as she breathed them out along his cheek.

  Behind her, Jim Moore grabbed a cargo strap and braced his feet against the wall. Valerie didn’t even bother to keep him in view.

  “Is it true?” he asked quietly.

  “Of course it’s fucking true she’s a vampire she’d kill all of—”

  Moore, eyes locked on Valerie, raised a palm in Sengupta’s direction. Sengupta shut up as if guillotined.

  “You think this matters.” There was distant amusement in Valerie’s voice, as if she’d just seen a rabbit stand up on its hind legs and demand the right to vote.

  “You think so, too,” Moore began. “Or—”

  “—you wouldn’t have reacted,” he and Valerie finished in sync.

  He tried again: “Were they under formal con...,” they chorused. He trailed off, an acknowledgment of futility. The vampire even matched his ellipsis without missing a beat.

  Sengupta fumed silently across the compartment, too smart and too damn stupid to be scared. Brüks tried to swallow, gagged as his Adam’s apple caught between the vice of Valerie’s thumb and forefinger.

  “Malawi,” Valerie said quietly, and: “Not mission-critical.”

  Brüks swallowed again. As if there’s anyone on this goddamn ship who’s less mission-critical than me.

  Maybe Moore was thinking it, too. Maybe he decided to act on behalf of Daniel Brüks, the Parasite That Walked Like a Man. Or maybe he just took advantage of his adversary’s distraction, maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Brüks at all. But something—changed subtly, in Moore’s stance. His body seemed looser, somehow, more relaxed, incongruously taller at the same time.

  Valerie was still eye to eye with Brüks, but it didn’t matter. It was obvious from the way her smile widened and cracked, from the tiny click of teeth against teeth: she could see everything that mattered about Moore’s face, reflected in his own.

  She turned, almost lazily, tossed Brüks aside like a cigarette butt. Brüks flailed across the open spine; he barely missed a figure blurring past in the opposite direction. A cargo cube caught him and slapped him back off the deck. He doubled over, coughing, while Moore and Valerie danced in fast-forward. The monster’s arms moved as though spun by a centrifuge; her body rebounded off the deck and shot through empty space where Jim Moore had existed a split second before.

  “Fhat thouding do’re.”

  Not a shout. Not even an exclamation. It didn’t sound like a command. But those sounds reached into the Hub from the south pole and seemed to physically slap Valerie off target, reach right into the monster’s head and grab her by the motor nerves. She twisted in midair, landed like a jumping spider on the curve of the bulkhead and froze there: eyes bright as halogen, mouth full of gleaming little shark teeth.

  “Juppyu imaké.”

  Moore rose from a defensive crouch, studied hands half-raised against blows that hadn’t materialized. Brought them down again.

  Chinedum Ofoegbu rose from the throat of the Crown.

  You can’t do that, Brüks thought, astonished. You’re stuck in the Hold for another three days.

  “Prothat blemsto bethe?” Ofoegbu’s hands fluttered like a pianist’s against an invisible keyboard. The light in his eyes slithered like the aurora borealis.

  I don’t care how smart you are. You’re still made out of meat. You can’t just step out of a decompression chamber.

  The Bicameral’s blood must be fizzing in its flesh. All those bubbles out on early parole, all those gases freed from the weight of too many atmospheres: all set loose to party it up in the joints and capillaries...​

  One’s all it’ll take, one tiny bubble in the brain. A pinpoint embolism in the right spot and you’re dead, just like that.

  “Your vampire—” Sengupta began, before Moore preempted her with: “We have some mission-critical issues to deal with...”

  But there is no you anymore, is there? You’re just a body part, just a node in a network. Expendable. When the hive cuts you loose, will you get it all back? Will Chinedum Ofoegbu wake up in time to die a roach’s death? Will he change his mind too late, will he have a chance to feel betrayed before he stops feeling anything at all?

  Ofoegbu coughed a fine red mist into the room. Blood and stars bubbled in his eyes. He began to fold at the middle.

  Lianna Lutterodt climbed up in his wake, bent in on herself, one arm clenched tight to her side. With the other she reached out, wincing; but her master was too far away. She pushed off the lip of the south pole, floated free, caught him. Every movement took a visible toll.

  “If you people are through trying to kill each other”—she coughed, tried again—“maybe someone could help me get him back to the Hold before he fucking dies.”

  “Holy shit,” Brüks said, dropping back into Commons. The node was back with its network. Lianna was meshed and casted and had retreated to her rack while her broken parts stitched themselves back together.

  Moore had already cracked open the scotch. He held out a glass.

  Brüks almost giggled. “Are you kidding? Now?”

  The Colonel glanced at the other man’s hands: they trembled. “Now.”

  Brüks took the tumbler, emptied it. Moore refilled it without asking.

  “This can’t go on,” Brüks said.

  “It won’t. It didn’t.”

  “So Chinedum stopped her. This time. And it just about killed him.”

  “Chinedum was only the interface, and she knows that. She would have gained nothing and risked everything by attacking him.”

  “What if she’d pulled that shit a few day
s ago? What if she pulls it again?” He shook his head. “Lee could have been killed. It was just dumb luck that—”

  “We got off lightly,” Moore reminded him. “Compared to some.”

  Brüks fell silent. She killed one of her zombies.

  “Why did she do it?” he asked after a moment. “Food? Fun?”

  “It’s a problem,” the Colonel admitted. “Of course it’s a problem.”

  “Can’t we do anything?”

  “Not at the moment.” He took a breath. “Technically, Sengupta did attack first.”

  “Because Valerie killed someone!”

  “We don’t know that. And even if she did, there are—jurisdictional issues. She may have been within her rights, legally. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

  Brüks stared, speechless.

  “We’re a hundred million klicks from the nearest legitimate authority,” Moore reminded him. “Any that might happen by wouldn’t look more kindly on us than on Valerie. Legalities are irrelevant out here; we just have to play the hand we’re dealt. Fortunately we’re not entirely on our own. The Bicamerals are at least as smart and capable as she is. Smarter.”

  “I’m not worried about their capabilities. I don’t trust them.”

  “Do you trust me?” Moore asked unexpectedly.

  Brüks considered a moment. “Yes.”

  The Colonel inclined his head. “Then trust them.”

  “I trust your intentions,” Brüks amended softly.

  “Ah. I see.”

  “You’re too close to them, Jim.”

  “No closer than you’ve been, lately.”

  “They had their hooks into you way before I joined the party. You and Lianna, the way you just—accept everything...”

  Moore said nothing.

  Brüks tried again. “Look, don’t get me wrong. You went up against a vampire for us, and you could’ve been killed, and I know that. I’m grateful. But we got lucky, Jim: you’re usually wrapped up in that little ConSensus shell you’ve built for yourself, and if Valerie had chosen any other time to torque out—”

  “I’m wrapped up in that shell,” Moore said levelly, “dealing with a potential threat to the whole—”

  “Uh-huh. And how many new insights have you gained, squeezing the same signals over and over again since we broke orbit?”

  “I’m sorry if that leaves you feeling vulnerable. But your fears are unfounded. And in any case”—Moore swallowed his own dram—“planetary security has to take priority.”

  “This isn’t about planetary security,” Brüks said.

  “Of course it is.”

  “Bullshit. It’s about your son.”

  Moore blinked.

  “Siri Keeton, synthesist on the Theseus mission,” Brüks continued, more gently. “It’s not as though the crew roster was any kind of secret.”

  “So.” Moore’s voice was glassy and expressionless. “You’re not as completely self-absorbed as you appear.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Brüks tried.

  “Don’t. The presence of my son on that mission doesn’t change the facts on the ground. We’re dealing with agents of unknown origin and vastly superior technology. It is my job—”

  “And you’re doing that job with a brain that still runs on love and kin selection and all those other Stone Age things we seem hell-bent on cutting out of the equation. That would be enough to tear anyone apart, but it’s even harder for you, isn’t it? Because one of those facts on the ground is that you’re the reason he was out there in the first place.”

  “He’s out there because he’s the most qualified for the mission. Full stop. Anyone in my place would have made the same decision.”

  “Sure. But we both know why he was the most qualified.”

  Moore’s face turned to granite.

  “He was most qualified,” Brüks continued, “because he got certain augments during childhood. And he got those augments because you chose a certain line of work with certain risks, and one day some asshole with a grudge and a splicer kit took a shot at you and hit him instead. You think it’s your fault that some Realist fuckwit missed the target. You blame yourself for what happened to your son. It’s what parents do.”

  “And you know all about being a parent.”

  “I know about being Human, Jim. I know what people tell themselves. You made Siri the man for the job before he was even born, and when the Fireflies dropped in you had to put him at the top of the list and ship him out and now all you’ve got is those goddamned signals, that’s your last link, and I understand, man. It’s natural, it’s Human, it’s, it’s inevitable because you and I, we haven’t gotten around to cutting those parts out of us yet. But just about everyone else around here has, and we can’t afford to ignore that. We can’t afford to be—distracted. Not here, not now.”

  He held out his glass, and felt a vague and distant kind of relief at how steady his hand was around the crystal. Colonel Jim Moore regarded it for a moment. Looked back at the half-empty bottle.

  “Bar’s closed,” he said.

  Of greater concern are the smaller networks pioneered by the so-called Bicameral Order, which—while having shown no interest in any sort of military or political activism—remain susceptible to weaponization. Although this faction shares tenuous historical kinship with the Dharmic religions behind the Moksha Mind, they do not appear to be pursuing that group’s explicit goal of self-annihilation; each Bicameral hive is small enough (hence, of sufficiently low latency) to sustain a coherent sense of conscious self-awareness. This would tend to restrict their combat effectiveness both in terms of response-latency and effective size. However, the organic nature of Bicameral MHIs leaves them less susceptible to the signal-jamming countermeasures that bedevil hard-tech networks. From the standpoint of brute military force, therefore, the Bicamerals probably represent the greatest weaponization potential amongst the world’s extant mind hives. This is especially troubling in light of the number of technological and scientific advances attributable to the Order in recent years, many of which have already proven destabilizing.

  —J. Moore, “Hive Minds, Mind Hives, and

  Biological Military Automata: The Role of

  Collective Intelligence in Offline Combat,”

  Journal of Military Technology 68 no. 14

  (December 3, 2095)

  A SUN GROWN huge. A shadow on its face. A fleck, then a freckle: a dot, a disk, a hole. Smaller than a sunspot—darker, more symmetrical—and then larger. It grew like a perfect tumor, a black planetary disk where no planet could be, swelling across the photosphere like a ravenous singularity. A sun that covered half the void: a void that covered half the sun. Some critical, razor-thin instant passed and foreground and background had switched places, the sun no longer a disk but a brilliant golden iris receding around a great dilating pupil. Now it was less than that, a fiery hoop around a perfect starless hole; now a circular thread, writhing, incandescent, impossibly fine.

  Gone.

  A million stars winked back into the firmament, cold dimensionless pinpricks strewn in bands and random handfuls across half the sky. But the other half remained without form and void—and now the tumor that had swallowed the sun was gnawing outward at the stars as well. Brüks looked away from that great maw and saw a black finger lancing through the starfield directly to port: a dark spire, five hundred kilometers long, buried deep in the shade. Brüks downshifted his personal spectrum a few angstroms and it glowed red as an ember, an infrared blackbody rising from the exact center of the disk ahead. Heat radiator. A hairbreadth from the center of the solar system, it never saw the sun.

  He tugged nervously at the webbing holding him to the mirrorball. Sengupta was strapped into her usual couch on his left, Lianna to his right, Moore to hers. The old warrior had barely said a word to him since Brüks had broached the subject of his son. Some lines were invisible until crossed, apparently.

  Or maybe they were perfectly visible, to anyone wh
o wasn’t an insensitive dolt. Empiricists always kept their minds open to alternative hypotheses.

  He sought refuge in the view outside, dark to naked eyes but alive on tactical. Icons, momentum vectors, trajectories. A thin hoop of pale emerald shrank across the forward view, drawing tight around the Crown’s nose: the rim of her reflective parasol—erased from ConSensus in deference to an uninterrupted view—redundant now, spooling tight into stowage. The habs had already been folded back and tied down for docking. Beyond the overlays, the Crown fell silently past massive structures visible only in their absence: shadows against the sky, the starless silhouettes of gantries and droplet-conveyors, endless invisible antennae belied by the intermittent winking of pilot lights strung along their lengths.

  The Crown bucked. Thrusters flared like the sparks of arc welders in the darkness ahead. Down returned, dead forward. Brüks fell gently from the couch into the elastic embrace of his harness, hung there while the Crown’s incandescent brakes gave dim form to the face of a distant cliff: girders, the cold dead cones of dormant thrusters, great stratified slabs of polytungsten. Then the sparks died, and down with them. All that distant topography vanished again. The Crown of Thorns continued to fall, gently as thistledown.

  “Looks normal so far,” Moore remarked to no one in particular.

  “Wasn’t there supposed to be some kind of standing guard?” Brüks wondered. There’d been an announcement, anyway, in the weeks after Firefall. While we have seen no evidence of ill will on the part of blah blah blah prudent to be cautious yammer yammer cannot afford to leave such a vital source of energy undefended in the current climate of uncertainty yammer blah.

  Moore said nothing. After a moment Lianna took up the slack: “The place is almost impossible to see in the glare unless you know where to look. And there’s nothing like a bunch of big obvious heatprints going back and forth for telling the other guys where to look.”

  It was as much as she’d said—to Brüks, at least—since Valerie had flexed her claws in the Hub. He took it as a good sign.

  More sparks, tweaking the night in split-second bursts. Wireframes crawled all over tactical now, highlighting structures the naked eye could barely discern even as shadows. Constellations ignited on the cliff ahead, lights triggered by the presence of approaching mass, dim and elegant as the photophores of deep-sea fish. Candles in the window to guide travelers home. They rippled and flowed and converged on a monstrous gray lamprey uncoiling from the landscape beneath. Its great round mouth pulsed and puckered and closed off the port bow.