There’s air. It’s why we’re here. Take the bloody helmet off.
Oh, bugger it...
“Solomon, are you listening? If I asphyxiate, I want you to sue the arse off Ainatio.”
“I’ll do my best, Captain.”
Here we go. Here we go, here we go, here we go.
Ingram walked halfway down the ramp, released the collar seal, and lifted off her helmet. Yes, the air was breathable, wonderfully breathable, scented with things she couldn’t recognise — spice and straw and the seaside — and fresh. The breeze was perfect. Damn, this was like stepping off a flight for a couple of weeks’ leave and taking a first breath of deliciously foreign air. She inhaled a few lungfuls and stepped onto Opis’s unspoiled soil. It had been easy to think up apt but highly unsuitable comments for this moment, but hard to come up with a statement of appropriate gravitas.
And one that we can all believe.
“A second chance for mankind,” she said. “Let’s be better this time round. Let’s remember what we left behind. And let’s start as we mean to go on.”
She waited. Movement caught her eye and she whipped around on a reflex, but it was only an obsolete industrial quadrubot walking towards her.
“Solomon?”
“Welcome to Opis, Captain. And welcome to Nomad. Don’t worry, it’s all been recorded for posterity. I know it’s not far to walk into camp, but may I suggest we unload the rover?”
“Yes, let’s go and put the kettle on. Grab your bags, people, we’re checking in.”
Searle, Filopovic, Kokinos, and Yeung had disembarked and were busy taking photos of each other to mark the event. The rover rolled down the cargo ramp — more pictures, more hilarity — and everyone climbed in. This process would be repeated for the next week until all cargo and the ship’s company were on the surface, minus a rotating maintenance party in Cabot. This would be home for the rest of their lives, unless something extraordinary happened on Earth. This was theirs to turn into success or failure.
Searle drove the hundred yards to the camp. Solomon loped alongside, keeping up easily with the rover.
“Bot racing, live from Opis,” Kokinos said. “I didn’t realise quads had such a turn of speed, Solomon.”
“They do if you modify them.”
“This could be fun.”
Ingram revised her take on Solomon every time he said something. She realised she’d stopped worrying about not being able to override him in an emergency and started seeing him as a member of the crew. She didn’t know how much work it took to build an AI that could carry on a meaningful conversation and make decisions, but she knew that creating something as self-aware, emotional, and intellectually creative as a human being was several orders of magnitude beyond that. Solomon had all those qualities.
He’s capable of deception, too. He decides what people need to know. That’s a whole new level of autonomy.
Perhaps Bednarz just got carried away with his creation. Ingram wondered if he’d been a lonely man isolated by his genius and his wealth, in need of the kind of friend who liked him for himself. She could imagine Solomon filling that void.
There were still construction and maintenance bots wandering around when Searle parked outside the main building. Ingram exercised command privilege and took a folded Union Jack and a Royal Navy white ensign from her kitbag and shook them out. It was impossible to perform any flag ceremony correctly without flagpoles, but she’d find a place to fly them later. For the time being, she draped them reverently from grippers in the entrance lobby, one flag on each wall, then saluted them. She turned to see the rest of the party clutching their own flags. At least most of them were laughing. It felt like sheer relief that they’d made it here alive, but morale would make or break them this far from home, so she’d keep the mood rolling.
“In the absence of any government around to stop me, I claim this planet in the name of the United Kingdom, and we’ll proceed to teach the natives cricket as soon as is practical.” There was nothing to do but join in with the hilarity. “God save the King, and we’re not giving it back.”
Haine started guffawing loudly in her earpiece. She hadn’t realised that Solomon was patiently streaming everything back to Cabot via the quad’s camera.
“I’ll colour it pink on the map, shall I, Captain?” Haine said.
“That’s the spirit, Commander.”
But Searle was still holding his carefully folded Stars and Stripes to his chest. It knocked the elation out of her. Like more than half the crew, the poor bastard had woken up to find his country was gone. None of them had given their future for the greater glory of Ainatio. Even the ones who’d deny being patriots still had a sense of a tribe that was theirs and wasn’t replaceable.
Ingram beckoned to Searle, moved the white ensign to the other wall, and stood back.
His flag was much bigger than hers. As Searle tried to hold it against the wall to secure one end, she stepped forward and caught it to stop it touching the floor. Searle adjusted the level to his satisfaction and stood back to salute.
“Everything can be rebuilt, Brad,” she said quietly. “Everything.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I believe it.”
Maggie Yeung put up the Singaporean flag, Filopovic a Croatian one, and Kokinos a Greek. That was interesting: both Filopovic and Kokinos were listed as German citizens. Ingram wondered if they would have identified with their ancestors if they hadn’t had the same bad news as Searle on waking, but she knew there couldn’t be any flags that hadn’t been brought on board by crew members decades ago. They’d thought this through from the very beginning. This was who they were.
“Right, new regulations, because I’m a tyrant,” Ingram said. “Everybody has to make a national dish when it’s their turn in the galley. This supersedes any victualling arrangements by the supply officers. That is all. Carry on.”
Solomon led them through the buildings, an interconnected warren of domes and low-rise blocks. It was odd to follow an industrial quadrubot playing tour guide with that silky voice. Ingram would now always see him as this creature.
“So most of this was mined and built here, then,” Searle said, looking around the workshop. Everything looked pristine and unreal. Bots were tidier workers than humans. “I saw the plans back in the day, but it looks like things were amended.”
“Yes, we made some changes to the original spec over the years,” Solomon said. “That was when the FTL comms relay came into its own.”
“You say that so casually.”
“I’ve been living with it for a long time. I apologise if I sound blasé.”
Searle was lost in the remotely-constructed marvels around him. Ingram took Solomon outside for a quiet word.
“I know you’re busy, but is there any chance of knocking up a few flagpoles for outside the main doors?” she asked. “I realise it’s not mission-critical.”
“Certainly, Captain. That was a very gracious gesture with the flag, by the way. How many poles shall we have?”
“How many flags have we got? Depending on what people brought with them, it could be as many as fifteen.”
“Let’s start with seven on one side of the doors and see what shakes out.”
“Thank you.”
“Are we landing the next batch as planned?”
“Yes, eleven hundred Alpha tomorrow.” Ingram had always wished she’d had more hours in the day, and now she actually did. “I’m going to take a while to adjust to saying twenty-five fifty-nine for midnight.”
“And remember that the Director wants a word.”
“Now?”
“Might as well, Captain.”
“Okay. Patch me through from my cabin.”
At least she knew where she was going. She’d memorised the route through the habitat from the video tour that Solomon had provided: maintenance bay
, suit room, hydroponics, and up the stairs to her quarters. The whole complex felt and looked like a deserted factory for a tech start-up, minus potted plants and vending machines. She left her environment suit in an alcove marked COMMANDING OFFICER and went in search of her cabin.
It looked bigger than it had in the video. She tested it like a hotel room, opening closets and trying the taps — good, the plumbing worked — and there was even a small food prep area that hadn’t been in the original plans. The place wasn’t roomy enough to live in permanently, but it would do until things settled down and there was time to think about expansion.
She’d rehearsed all this in the smallest detail before leaving Earth. Walking into this place after years in cryo should have been like returning to work after a long weekend, the sight of familiar surroundings after a brief interruption. But it didn’t. It felt like opening the front door of a new house for the first time, wondering if the surveyor had found all the little problems or overlooked the imminent collapse of the roof.
It’s not a ship. It’s not a shore establishment.
It’s a colony. It’s home.
Nobody could do a quick recce and assess the planet in advance. They’d gone on the best data from telescopes. It had been a leap of faith from the start, and everyone here was a risk-taker. It was only now that they had access to satellite surveys and could see evidence that the gamble had paid off.
Okay, time to talk to the boss. Do it now.
Solomon was a very efficient manager. The terminal was ready on the desk. The only thing missing was an exotic chocolate on the pillow and a turned-down sheet. Ingram rolled her head to iron out stiff muscles.
“Okay, Solomon, ready when you are.”
She was sure that she would never have been chummy with Erskine in normal life, but the woman who appeared on the screen certainly seemed moved by the landing and even looked a little glassy-eyed. Solomon had said that she’d inherited the Nomad project in her twenties from her dying father, a delicate topic never to be mentioned because she’d had no choice in the matter. Maybe the unshed tears that Ingram thought she could see were just sheer bloody relief, then. Seventy was very late in life to find that your time was finally your own. Ingram felt sorry for her.
“This is a remarkable day, Captain.” Erskine didn’t appear to be in an office. The backdrop was a glass wall that looked out onto a lawn fringed by azaleas and dogwoods in full bloom. For Ingram, the sight of a late spring day on Earth was both nostalgic and only yesterday. “I’ve been watching the site with Solomon for years, and I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to finally see people walking around and starting to build a new future there.”
“Well, Director, the state of readiness of the camp is genuinely impressive, so thank you for having the place ready for us. It’s a real shame we can’t share the day with a wider audience, but I understand the dilemma. Let’s hope it resolves itself in the future.”
“I’m going to be perfectly frank and say that I doubt things will improve here in your lifetime, and certainly not in mine. But that’s one of the things that Nomad insured us against.”
“And still just one follow-up mission.”
“I’m afraid so. There are people here who don’t want to go, because they never signed up for it, but Solomon will keep you up to date with the list. And the launch date is still subject to change, but it won’t go beyond the end of this year. Again, Solomon is the fount of all knowledge on that.”
Ingram realised there was something she knew but hadn’t fully felt until now: she could only talk to Earth for a few more months. There’d be no big project team left, no more continuing missions, and no chance of talking to the wider world. Suddenly the FTL comms seemed less relevant.
“Solomon says you’re coming as well.”
“Yes, I think I’ll actually be a few years younger than you by the time I arrive — in terms of biological age, anyway.”
“Well, in one way you already are. I was born nearly eighty years ago.” It was ballsy of Erskine to risk the journey, but staying on Earth probably wasn’t any easier. “We can sit down with a bottle of Opis-grown wine and compare notes on our aches and pains.”
“It’s a deal.” Erskine looked past the camera for a moment and made a gesture to someone with her forefinger. “Before you go, there are some people who’d like to say hi.”
The camera switched to a packed meeting room full of complete strangers — men, women, and even some children — waving and applauding. It took Ingram a moment to realise that these were the staff who’d only recently discovered Nomad existed and that they were going to be leaving Earth. Her self-control had already been dented today by the incident with the flags, and the sight of all these happy, excited people clapping almost tipped her over the unforgivable edge into a misty-eyed moment. She waved back and gave them a thumbs-up while she composed herself.
“I’m sure we’ll be talking to many of you in the weeks to come,” she said. “And I look forward to meeting you all in person, although I might have changed a bit by then.”
At least that got a laugh. Erskine’s voice cut in and the camera shifted back to the room with the view.
“Thank you for your time, Captain. We’ll leave you to settle in. And congratulations from all of us.”
The screen switched to the comms standby portal. Ingram leaned back in her seat, chastened. The last few weeks had made them all feel they weren’t really so far from home, just at the end of a very long-distance call. It was a seductive and dangerous illusion, and it was cruelly temporary. They were still looking at forty-five years without outside contact. But that was what they’d trained for and what they’d expected. The best way to proceed was to cut the cord and go back to believing that Cabot was on her own.
“I think that went quite well, don’t you?” Solomon said, a disembodied voice in the audio system again.
“I must be losing it. It hadn’t really sunk in that we won’t need the link with Earth for much longer. Not if everybody’s going to be heading out here.”
“We don’t necessarily need to cut ourselves off from Earth completely. We can carry on listening. News. Entertainment channels.”
“That’s going to make it even harder. Maybe we should restrict the FTL contact to operational need and wean ourselves off it earlier. I’ll leave you to decide what’s necessary.”
“Very well. It’s data they need, after all. Not social calls.”
“Okay, let’s crack on. Got to get this empire built, eh?”
“That’s the spirit, Captain.”
Ingram unpacked her kitbag and went down to the ops centre to start on the next crew transfers. She decided to land thirty more personnel in the afternoon, which would put them ahead of schedule.
By early evening, the communal areas were starting to fill up, making it feel less like they were the last survivors of humanity. Ingram felt too tired to eat dinner and opted for an early night instead. She fell asleep looking up through the cabin window at a sky that was a lot more familiar than she’d expected. It was only the presence of a strange moon that reminded her how far she was from home.
She woke a couple of times in the night, unsure where she was until she realised she’d been disturbed by bots still working in the darkness. The noisy little buggers were banging metal. There must have been a window open somewhere in the accommodation block. When she ventured outside the next morning before breakfast, she realised what they’d been doing. There were now seven full-size flagpoles complete with halyards and fittings, properly rigged and ready for use, in a neat line in just the right spot outside the main doors.
She put in her earpiece. “Solomon, this is bloody fantastic. Now that’s what I call service. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Captain. Will you be conducting Colours and Sunset daily now, then?”
Ingram had to think about that. Her insti
nctive answer was yes, because it made no difference that they were technically civilians now. Veterans had always performed ceremonial duties at public events, and the line between that and daily ceremonial now felt blurred. Flags mattered to people. They were more than practical identification: they were embodiments of tribe, the places and communities that men and women were willing to die for.
“Yes, let’s do it,” she said. “I did say start as we mean to go on. Civvies exempt, if they prefer.”
“Colours at oh-eight-hundred, and sunset at twenty-one hundred at the latest?”
“You’ve been doing your homework, Solomon.”
“I certainly have, Captain. I’ll check to see what other flags have arrived with the latest intake.”
Colours ended up being a little late that morning, but twenty of the ship’s company, including civilians, stood to attention to see the flags raised for the first time. They’d now added Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian flags to the mix.
“I suppose it speaks volumes that we’re all chums,” Haine said, studying the row of flags fluttering in the breeze. “All these APS member states represented here, and we’re not trying to kill each other. A regular paradise.”
Ingram shielded her eyes against the sun, contemplating the effect. The flags really did give the place a different atmosphere. “They ought to be the same size. Looks a bit scruffy. Never mind, I’m sure they’ve all got personal significance, and we can always make new ones later.”
“What would we do without bots, Captain?”
“What would we do without Solomon?”
“True. We’d be stuffed.”
Solomon could probably hear all this. Ingram hoped he had a sense of pride among all the other human quirks that Bednarz had given him.
The Best of Us Page 29
