Engineering Infinity (37 page)

She seemed very young for her
post: hardly more than a girl. She could almost have
been
a
human girl with gene-mods. Could have chosen to adopt that fine pelt of silky
bronze, glimmering against the bare skin of her palms, her throat and face.
Chosen those eyes, like drops of black dew; the hint of a mischievous animal
muzzle. Her name was Ki-anna, she represented the KiAn authorities. Her
partner, a Shet called Roaaat Bhvaaan, his heavy uniform making no concession
to the warmth of the space-habitat, was from Interplanetary Affairs, and
represented Speranza. The Shet looked far more alien: a head like a grey
boulder, naked wrinkled hide hooding his eyes.

Patrice didn’t expect them to be
on his side, this odd couple, polite and sympathetic as they seemed. He must be
careful, he must remember that his mind and body were reeling from the
Buonarotti Transit - two instantaneous interstellar transits in two days, the
first in his life. He’d never even
seen
a non-human
sentient biped, in person, this time last week: and here he was in a stark
police interview room with two of them.

“You learned of your sister’s
death a Martian year ago?”

“Her disappearance. Yes.”

Ki-anna watched, Bhvaaan
questioned: he wished it were the other way round. Patrice dreaded the Speranza
mindset. Anyone who lives on a planet is a lesser form of life, of course we’re
going to ignore your appeals, but it’s more fun to ignore them slowly, very,
very slowly -

“We can agree she disappeared,”
muttered the Shet, what looked like mordant humour tugging the lipless trap of
his mouth. “Yet, aah, you didn’t voice your concerns at once?”

“Lione is, was, my twin. We were
close, however far... When the notification of death came it was very brief, I
didn’t take it in. A few days later I collapsed at work, I had to take
compassionate leave.”

At first he’d accepted the
official story. She’s dead, Lione is dead. She went into danger, it shouldn’t
have happened but it did, on a suffering war-torn planet unimaginably far
away...

The Shet rolled his neckless
head, possibly in sympathy.

“You’re, aah, a Social Knowledge
Officer. Thap must be a demanding job. No blame if a loss to your family caused
you to crash-out.”

“I recovered. I examined the
material that had arrived while I was ill: everything about my sister’s last
expedition, and the ‘investigation.’ I knew there was something wrong. I couldn’t
achieve anything at a distance. I had to get to Speranza, I had to get myself
here
-”

“Quite right, child. Can’t do
anything at long distance, aah.”

“I had to apply for financial
support, the system is slow. The Buonarotti Transit network isn’t for people
like me -” He wished he’d bitten that back. “I mean, it’s for officials,
diplomats, not civilian planet-dwellers.”

“Unless they’re idle super-rich,”
rumbled the Shet. “Or refugees getting shipped out of a hellhole, maybe. Well,
you persisted. Your sister was Martian too. What was she doing here?”

Patrice looked at the very slim
file on the table. No way of telling whether that tablet held a ton of
documents or a single page.

“Don’t you know?”

“Explain it to us,” said Ki-anna.
Her voice was sibilant, a hint of a lisp.

“Lione was a troposphere
engineer. She was working on the KiAn Atmosphere Recovery Project. But you
must
know...” They waited, silently. “All right. The KiAn
war practically flayed this planet. The atmosphere’s being repaired, it’s a
major Speranza project. Out here it’s macro-engineering. They’ve created a - a
membrane, like a casting mould, of magnetically charged particles. They’re
shepherding small water ice asteroids, other debris with useful constituents,
through it. Controlled annihilation releases the gases, bonding and venting
propagates the right mix. We pioneered the technique. We’ve enriched the
Martian atmosphere the same way... nothing like the scale of this. The job
also has to be done from the bottom up. The troposphere, the lowest level of
the inner atmosphere, is alive. It’s a saturated fluid full of viruses,
fragments of DNA and RNA, amino acids, metabolising mineral traces, pre-biotic
chemistry. The configuration is unique to a living planet, and it’s like the
mycorrhizal systems in the soil, back on Earth. If it isn’t there, or it’s not
right
, nothing will thrive.”

He couldn’t tell if they knew it
all, or didn’t understand a word.

“Lione knew the tropo
reconstruction wasn’t going well. She found out there was an area of the
surface, under the An-lalhar Lakes, where the living layer might be undamaged.
This - where we are now - is the Orbital Refuge Habitat for that region. She
came here, determined to get permission from the Ruling An to collect samples -”

Ki-anna interrupted softly. “Isn’t
the surviving troposphere remotely sampled by the Project automats, all over
the planet?”

“Yes, but that obviously wasn’t
good enough. That was Lione. If it was her responsibility, she had to do
everything in her power
to get the job done.”

“Aah. Raarpht... Your sister
befriended the Ruling An, she gained permission, she went down, and she stepped
on a landmine. You understand that there was no body to be recovered? That she
was vaporised?”

“So I was told.”

Ki-anna rubbed her scarred
forearms, the Shet studied Patrice. The interview room was haunted by meaning,
shadowy with intent -

“Aap. You need to make a ‘pilgrimage.’
A memorial journey?”

“
No
,
it’s not like that. There’s something
wrong
.”

The shadows tightened, but were
they for him or against him?

“Lione disappeared. I don’t speak
any KiAn language, I didn’t have to, the reports were in English: when I hunted
for more detail there are translator bots. I haven’t missed anything. A
vaporised body doesn’t
vanish
. All that tissue,
blood, and bone leaves forensic traces. None. No samples recovered. She was
there to
collect
samples, don’t tell me it was
forbidden... She didn’t come back, that’s all. Something happened to her,
something other than a warzone accident -”

“Are you saying your sister was
murdered, Patrice?”

“I need to go down there.”

“I can see you’d feel thap way.
You realise KiAn is uninhabitable?”

“A lot of places on Mars are
called ‘uninhabitable.’ My work takes me to the worst-off regions. I can handle
myself.”

“Aap. How do you feel about the
KiAn issue, Messer Ferringhi?”

Patrice opened his mouth, and
shut it. He didn’t have a prepared answer for that one. “I don’t know enough.”

The Shet and the Ki looked at
each other, for the first time. He felt they’d been through the motions, and
they were agreeing to quit.

“As you know,” rumbled Bhvaaan, “The
Ruling An must give permission. The An-he will see you?”

“I have an appointment.”

“Then thap’s all for now. Enjoy
your transit hangover in peace.”

Patrice Ferringhi took a moment,
looking puzzled, before he realised he could go. He stood, hesitated, gave an
odd little bow and left the room.

The Shet and the Ki relaxed
somewhat.

“Collapsed at work,” said Roaaat
Bhvaaan. “Thap’s not good.”

“We can’t all be made of stone,
Shet.”

“Aaah well. Cross fingers, Chief.”

They were resigned to strange
English figures of speech. The language of Speranza, of diplomacy, was also the
language of interplanetary policing. You became fluent, or you relied on
unreliable transaid: and you screwed up.

“And all my toes,” said the Ki.

On his way to his cabin, Patrice
found an ob-bay. He stared into a hollow sphere, permeated by the star-pricked
darkness of KiAn system space: the limb of the planet obscured, the mainstar
and the blue “daystar” out of sight. Knurled objects flew around, suddenly
making endless field-beams visible. One lump rushed straight at him, growing
huge: seemed to miss the ob-bay by centimetres, with a roar like monstrous
thunder. The big impacts could be close enough to make this Refuge shake. He’d
felt that, already. Like the Gods throwing giant furniture about -

He could not get over the fact
that nothing was real. Everything had been translated here by the Buonarotti
Torus, as pure data. This habitat, this shipboard jumper he wore, this
body
. All made over again, out of local elements, as if in
a 3D scanner... The scarred Ki woman fascinated him, he hardly knew why. The
portent he felt in their meeting (had he really
met
her?) was what they call a “transit hangover.” He must sleep it off.

The Ki-anna was rated Chief of
Police, but she walked the beat most days. All her officers above nightstick
grade were seconded from the Ruling An’s Household Guard: she didn’t like to
impose on them. The Ki - natural street-dwellers, if ever life was natural
again - melted indoors as she approached. Her uniform, backed by Speranza,
should have made the refugees feel safe: but none of them trusted her. The only
people she could talk to were the habitual criminals.
They
appreciated the Ruling An’s strange appointment.

She made her rounds, visiting the
nests where law-abiding people better stay away. The gangsters knew a human had
“joined the station.”

They were very curious. She
sniffed the wind and lounged with the idlers, giving up Patrice Ferringhi in
scraps, a resource to be conserved. The pressure of the human’s strange eyes
was still with her -

No one ought to look at her scars
like that, it was indecent.

But he was an alien, he didn’t
know how to behave.

She didn’t remember being chosen
for the treatment that would render her flesh delectable, while ensuring that
what happened wouldn’t kill her. She only knew she’d been sold (tradition
called it an honour) so that her littermates could live. She would always
wonder, why
me
? What was wrong with
me
? We were very poor, I understand that, but why
me
? It had all been for nothing, anyway. Her parents and
her littermates were dead, along with everyone else. So few survivors! A
handful of die-hards on the surface. A token number of Ki taken away to
Speranza, in the staggeringly distant Blue System. Would they ever return? The
Ki-anna thought not... Six Refuge Habitats in orbit. And of course some of the
Heaven-born, who’d seen what was coming before the war, and escaped to Balas or
to Shet.

At curfew she filed a routine
report, and retired to her quarters in the Curtain Wall. Roaaat, who was
sharing her living space, was already at home. It was fortunate that Shet didn’t
normally like to sit in Speranza-style “chairs”: he’d have broken a hole in her
ceiling. His bulk, as he lay at ease, dwarfed her largest room. They compared
notes.

“All the Refuges have problems,”
said the Ki-anna. “But I get the feeling I have more than my share. Extortion,
intimidation, theft and violence -”

“We can
grease
the wheels
,” said Roaat. “Strictly off the record, we can pay your
villains off. It’s distasteful, not the way to do police work.”

“But expedient.”

“Aap... He seemed very taken with
you,” said Roaaat.

“The human? I don’t know how you
make that out.”

“Thap handsome Blue, yaas. I
could smell pheromones.”

“He isn’t a ‘Blue’“ said the
Ki-anna. “The almighty Blues rule Speranza. The humans left behind on Earth, or
‘Mars’ - What is ‘Mars’? Is it a moon?”

“Noope. A smaller planet in the
Blue system.”

“Well, they aren’t Blues, they’re
just ordinary aliens.”

“I shall give up matchmaking. You
don’t appreciate my help... Let’s hope the An-he finds your
ordinary alien
more attractive.”

The Ki-anna shivered. “I think he
will. He’s a simple soul.”

Roaaat was an undemanding guest,
despite his size. They shared a meal, based on “culturally neutral” Speranza
Food Aid. The Shet spread his bedding. The Ki-anna groomed herself, crouched by
a screen that showed views of the Warrens. Nothing untoward stirred, in the
simulated night. She pressed knuckle-fur to her mouth. Sometimes the pain of
living, haunted by the uncounted dead, became very hard to bear. Waking from
every sleep to remember afresh that there was
nothing left
.

“I might yet back out, Officer
Bhvaaan. What if we only succeed in feeding the monsters, and make bad worse?”

She unfolded her nest, and
settled behind him.

He patted her side with his
clubbed fist - it felt like being clobbered by a kindly rock. “See how it goes.
You can back out later.”

The Ki-anna lay sleepless,
wondering about Patrice Ferringhi; the bulk of her unacknowledged bodyguard
between her and the teeth of the An.

When his appointment with alien
royalty came around, Patrice was glad he’d had a breathing space. The world was
solid again, he felt in control of himself. He donned his new transaid,
settling the pickup against his skull, and set out for the high-security
bulkhead gate that led to the Refuge Habitat itself.

Armoured guards, intimidatingly
tall, were waiting on the other side. They bent their heads, exhaled breath
loudly - and indicated that he was to get into a kind of floating palanquin.
Probably they knew no English.

The guards jogged around him in a
hollow square: between their bodies he glimpsed the approach to an actual
castle
, like something in a fantasy game. Like a
recreation of Mediaeval Europe or Japan, rising from a mass of basic living
modules. It was amazing. He’d never been inside a big space-station before, not
counting a few hours in Speranza Transit Port. The false horizon, the lilac
sky, arcing far above the castle’s bannered towers, would have fooled him
completely, if he hadn’t known.