On the Steel Breeze (44 page)

But if she failed to rise to the challenge, who would?

‘Do you mind,’ she said, looking first at the nurse and then at the merman, ‘if we have a little time on our own? You’ll have my answer shortly.’

‘Of course,’ Mecufi said. ‘Take as long as you like.’

So they left her alone with Chiku Red, and for a long time they simply held hands across the table. This was not the way they had imagined things, the three of them, when they broke bread under a tree on a warm day in Africa. So many possibilities in the drawing of the coloured lots. Ambition and glory, lives large enough to justify the Akinya name.

They had carved out room for so many mistakes.

‘I’ll do my best to help you,’ Chiku said finally. ‘We can live together, in Lisbon. You may be safer here, but that’s not my choice to make. Do you want to come back with me?’

After a silence, Chiku Red answered: ‘Yes.’

‘I can’t promise you luxury – it’s been a long time since the Akinya name had that much pull – but I think we can be comfortable. It’s a beautiful city. There are so many things I could show you.’

‘Yes.’

Chiku Yellow tightened her grip around Chiku Red’s hands.

‘It’s strange, that it’s come to this. But at least we’re together. I worry about Chiku Green sometimes. I wonder what she’s doing out there. I hope she’s happy.’

‘Yes.’

Chiku had no idea whether ‘yes’ was an automatic answer to any question or an indication that Chiku Red shared her concerns. Something of both, perhaps. She would have to learn to negotiate such ambiguities many times over in the days that lay ahead. Perhaps it would become easier with time.

Presently, she became aware that a merperson had returned to the garden.

She turned, expecting Mecufi, but saw instead a sleeker, taller merperson who walked without the assistance of an exo. She stared at him with a sort of unsurprised recognition, half-knowing this moment had been inevitable.

‘Kanu.’

Kanu nodded. She took in his astonishingly broad shoulders and a neck like the steepening flanks of a volcano. His face was handsome and strange and unquestionably her son’s.

‘I hope you don’t mind the interruption, Mother – I couldn’t let you come and go without seeing you.’

‘Of course I don’t mind.’

His movements gave the impression of tremendous contained power. He had dressed for their meeting in a patterned smock and matching knee-length trousers. His forearms and lower legs were bare, as were his webbed feet and hands. He left wet footprints on the floor as he walked towards her. His hair, long and black, was pushed back from his brow in wet furrows.

Chiku released Chiku Red’s hands and rose from her chair to meet her son. They embraced. He kissed her cheek, and then bent down to kiss Chiku Red’s.

‘I never thanked you for saving me.’

When he smiled, his face did not move in quite the way she expected. ‘That oversight can be forgiven – it was a complicated day. And it was a very long time ago. I was glad we had a chance to speak, at least. How have you been?’

‘Up and down. Alive, thanks to you and your kraken.’

‘That was a good kraken. We worked well together. I was sad when it died – they don’t live as long as we’d like, even with genetic engineering.’

‘Thank you for coming to see me.’

‘I couldn’t have missed your being here. I’m very sorry about Grandmother Sunday, by the way. But I hear you were closer towards the end.’

‘We spent time together in Lisbon, Sunday, Jitendra and me. You’d have been welcome to join us.’

‘I know, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there. But the work we’re doing here . . .’ He swept a webbed hand before him. ‘There’s an urgency, now, a sense that we don’t have the luxury of limitless time. I’m glad to be involved in the preparations, but that doesn’t leave much room for anything else.’

‘Preparations for what, Kanu?’

‘The end of something – or the beginning, perhaps. It feels inevitable now. News will reach us from Crucible, sooner or later.’

‘So you know about all that.’

‘Only what Mecufi’s told me. When news comes, how will they take it?’

‘Who?’ she asked.

‘You,’ Kanu clarified. ‘Drylanders. The rest of humanity.’

‘We’re all in this together,’ Chiku said.

Kanu’s silence told her that he had no response to her statement that would satisfy them both.

Eventually, he said, ‘When you’re done here, I’d like to take the both of you back to Lisbon. Would that be all right?’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It took her long moments to realise what she was looking at. It resembled an abstract sculpture of some kind, an artifice of crumpled, foil-like surfaces, as if sheets of delicate metal foil had been balled up in a giant fist and then rammed into the earth.
A steel angel,
she thought,
ejected from heaven.

Her second thought was much less poetic.

Sess-na.
The aircraft had daggered into the ground, wings ripped out of their sockets and buckled like a scarecrow’s arms.

The
Sess-na
had crashed.

She pushed the old proxy as fast as it would go, spreading her own arms for balance in imitation of an aircraft’s wings. She had precious little experience with aircraft crashes against which to measure this disaster. She had been aboard June Wing’s spaceship
Gulliver,
of course, when it fell to earth in Africa, but that craft had only crashed because someone shot it down. They had walked away from
Gulliver,
but the
Sess-na
had none of the more modern craft’s safety features. Could anything have survived such a crash – even a machine?

‘Ah,’ said a voice from somewhere to her left. ‘I was going to mention that, Chair Akinya, but it slipped my mind. I hope you’re not angry with me.’

Chiku halted the proxy. She was not out of breath, of course, but the stop command also compelled the machine to stand with hands on hips, exactly as she would to catch her breath after exertion. ‘Were you in that when it crashed?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I remember Geoffrey telling me he could control the
Sess-na
remotely – send it off on errands, or have it come and pick him up.’

‘A machine that can think for itself? Whatever next!’

‘Why would I be angry with you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know – destruction of an irreplaceable family heirloom, something like that?’

‘Machines don’t last for ever, Eunice. If you use them, sooner or later they break.’

‘That’s reassuring.’

‘Perhaps the rules don’t apply to you. And you’re the machine that matters to me, not that old aircraft.’

‘I’m sure we could knock the dents out of it, given time.’ She made a pained expression. ‘Then again, maybe not.’

‘What happened? Are you hurt . . . damaged?’

Eunice was striding up the slope, knee-deep in whiskery undergrowth. She looked the same as ever – no limbs missing, no skin hanging off her face to reveal a gleaming horror of chromium skull-plates. Just a skinny, short-haired woman of indeterminate age, dressed for adventure.

‘It was my fault. I was having fun with it, and I got reckless. Serves me right. But it looks worse than it was. I escaped with only a few scrapes and bruises – metaphorically speaking. Can’t say the same for my pride.’

‘You haven’t got a pride to lose. And what do you mean, “fun”.’ Had Chiku been able to squint, she would have squinted. ‘You’re totally serious, aren’t you?’

‘I’m always serious about my fun. I was messing around – taking silly risks because I enjoy it. Been doing a lot of that sort of thing lately. I blame you – and those funny neural structures you brought back from Arethusa.’

‘I didn’t think they’d be much use to you.’

‘So why did you give them to me, then?’

‘A gesture. Like bringing flowers.’

‘You could have just brought flowers. Although I’m glad you didn’t. I
think
I’m glad, anyway. It’s sometimes hard to know.’

‘What did you do with the structures?’

‘Mapped them into myself as best I could. Connected areas of my logical architecture that hadn’t been strongly correlated. Rewired other bits. There was a lot of guesswork involved. You’re really not cross?’

‘I’d love to have so few problems that
that
was a concern, Eunice. Did the structures really make you reckless?’

‘Impetuous, certainly. Prone to the unexpected action. I’ve become thrillingly poor at modelling my own future behaviour. I can’t begin to tell you how liberating that feels, not quite knowing what I’m going to do next.’

‘You must have created your own Lyapunov horizon,’ Chiku said. ‘Become a system too chaotic for long-range forecasting.’

‘Never mind long-range – I can’t even be sure what I’m going to be doing in five minutes.’

Chiku was suddenly immensely glad not to be physically present with this strong and unpredictable machine.

‘This might not be good,’ she said cautiously. ‘Perhaps you’re breaking down.’

‘Possible, but I feel as well as I’ve ever felt.’ She patted her belly as she spoke, as if this was some universal indicator of personal well-being. ‘My memory’s no worse than it used to be, probably a bit better. I still remember you, don’t I? All our conversations? Although it’s been a while – when were you last here?’

‘A year or two ago. I can’t just visit at the drop of a hat any more. After that nastiness with Sou-Chun, politicians can’t sneeze without it becoming public record, and my actions are under a lot more scrutiny these days. But I’m sure you’ve kept up with things.’

‘As well as I’m able. Shall we walk to the camp? You can bring me up to speed.’ In dark conspiratorial tones she added: ‘I gather there’s a ship.’

Yes, Chiku told her – there was such a thing, and in about ten years they might actually have something that worked. But they would not be able to use it straight away.

It was 2395 now – seven years since she had come out of skipover. She had saved the old lander from being dismantled, and now they were refitting it for a one-shot, long-range scouting expedition. Instead of ten thousand colonists, eager to taste Crucible’s airs, the repurposed vehicle would carry no more than twenty volunteers. The new ship, with its untested PCP engine, was projected to achieve about twenty-five per cent of the speed of light, allowing for the thirteen-percent boost it had already gained from
Zanzibar
’s own motion. The crew would go into skipover for most of the journey and wake on final approach. They would reach Crucible about ten years ahead of the caravan.

All this was still a long way into the future.

‘The kinematics don’t allow us to launch much sooner than twenty years from now,’ Chiku said. ‘That’s a basic limitation of the engine and its fuel requirements. In a way, it helps us to have more time to get the ship ready. They say we’re about a decade away from initial readiness but my suspicion is that we’ll end up needing every second of those additional years.’

‘I see you’re adjusting to the long game, then.’

‘Not much choice, is there? If I return to skipover, the project could stall.’

‘You mentioned “volunteers”,’ Eunice said as at last they strode into the sun-dappled clearing. ‘I take it that means these hardy souls will receive some forewarning about what to expect?

‘No, I can’t take that risk. The wrong word now, a lapse of secrecy, could undo everything.’

‘But you must have informed select members of your government.’

‘No – none of them. It’s been difficult, of course, convincing them that we need this expedition, given the risks involved, but I’ve found ways and means. It helps that deep down everyone is scared. Privately, and despite the
Pemba
legislation, they all know we need to prove the slowdown technology, so
Icebreaker
is the perfect testbed for the new engine. If
Icebreaker
works, we can scale-up the engine to the size required to slow a holoship. That alone makes it worth doing. But I’ve also argued the logic of verifying that the surface amenities are up to scratch and capable of supporting us.’

‘And those would be the surface amenities that don’t actually exist?’

‘I’ll break that to them gently, when we’re on final approach.’

‘Hypothetically, what would happen if the truth
did
get out?’

‘There’d be trouble,’ Chiku said. ‘Fear and panic, of course. Widespread social unease. Beyond that, political rifts bigger than any holoship. Travertine’s work give us a choice, and that’s not always a good thing. Push for slowdown, or skip Crucible all together? Move to a military footing? Even before we met the Providers, we’d have civil war inside the caravan. Can you imagine that, after all we’ve been through?’

‘I thought we were losing the habit of wars,’ Eunice said glumly, stooping to adjust one of the irrigation lines running into her plant beds.

‘We are, slowly.’ Chiku took a seat. ‘But it’s still in our blood, like some fucking horrible disease we’re still carrying around with us. That’s why I’ve got to make the advanced expedition work. If I can contact the Providers, negotiate some common ground—’

‘So you’ll be on this ship, when it goes.’

‘I’ve staked my career on it, these last few years.
Icebreaker
is my creation. No one’s taking it away from me.’ She used her proxy hand to pick up some metal things that were lying on the table – scraps and coloured shards, coinlike metallic pieces threaded onto wire.

‘And the other volunteers?’

‘Still to be decided. I have selection veto. They won’t know the truth, but they must be people who can handle it when we arrive.’

‘The truth being that they’ve signed up for a suicide mission?’

‘It’s a long shot, but the mission’s not totally doomed.’

‘Noah will be out of skipover by then.’

‘I know. Seven years, if we launch in 2415.’

‘Your children will be seven years older, too. To be blunt about it, they won’t be children any more by then.’

‘Is this art?’ Chiku asked abruptly. ‘Have you been making these trinkets?’