On the Steel Breeze (76 page)

Whatever the case, much of the dust had now returned to the surface. In the high canopies it formed a talcum film that slowly worked its way back into the green furnace of the world. Over the coming months, these fire-stoked sunsets would abate.

But there were things Ndege did not need to know tonight.

Or, for that matter, tomorrow.

EPILOGUE

When the glass broke, and the mote shattered, the world did not at first shift on its axis. In fact, there was a moment, longer than I cared for, when I began to think that the thing had not had any effect at all. I imagined how we must look, my sister and I.

There must be something almost farcical about it, these two similar-looking women wrestling each other for control of an eye-sized purple marble, one of them squeezing the other’s left hand as if she meant to break every bone in her sibling’s fingers. And then a sort of hiatus, after the mote had been destroyed but before its effects became manifest, the world continuing, the seagulls redoubling their squabbling, the fishing and pleasure boats tilting on the gentle swell beyond Belem and the Monument to the Discoveries.

And then my sister Chiku Yellow became limp. She slumped to the ground, her exo suddenly giving up its duty of support. The rigour had also gone from her limbs. They were no longer stiff or quivering, for Arachne had absented herself.

Bruised and breathless, I knelt next to my sister.

‘Something happened,’ I said. By which I meant that Mecufi’s gift had evidently had some effect. Enough to knock Arachne out of direct control, at the very least.

At first my sister could not say anything. ‘Yes,’ she said, after a worrying interval. ‘Yes.’

‘The Mechanism?’

My sister swallowed and took a series of ragged breaths. Several times she looked on the verge of saying something. I supported her head and stroked the side of her face, this version of myself who now appeared to be both older and more childlike than only a few moments earlier. I felt an oceanic wave of love and despair crash over me. She had turned herself from her two other siblings, and that had hurt us. When Mecufi told her that I would probably die in the process of surrendering my Quorum Binding implant, she had deemed that a price worth paying.
As unquestionably callous as that act had been, though, I had never blamed her for it. Mecufi would never have had the nerve to attempt bringing me back to life, if she had not compelled him to act. I would still be in their seastead, still frozen, a puzzle that no one was in any rush to solve. So Chiku Yellow had given me life as well as death. Her reasons, too, had not been entirely selfish. Under similar circumstances, I would probably have come to the same conclusion.

Afterwards, she had taken me in and made me whole again. I had never thought of any of us as having patience, but Chiku Yellow’s had turned out to be inexhaustible. I suppose for her it was like raising a second child. She had helped me speak, helped me rebuild my sense of who I was. She had redeemed herself a hundred times over.

‘It’s gone,’ she said, finally. ‘The aug. It’s not there any more.’

We were speaking Portuguese, with nothing between us but air and muscle and the slow machinery of our own brains. It was easy for me, but much harder for my sister.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

‘No, I don’t think I am.’ But my sister still found the strength to smile. ‘She did something. Just before the end. She was in my head. Too far inside.’

I confess that I had no idea what to do. It may seem strange, but we had not really given much thought to what would happen after we ended the Mechanism. When people were hurt or injured, the Surveilled World knew what needed to be done. If the people could not summon help themselves, it sent help. A doctor would come, or a scrambulance. If my sister could not issue her own call for assistance, then someone else would invoke the necessary aug functions. The Mech would provide.

But the Mech was not providing. There were no doctors or scrambu-lances coming. No one knew that my sister was hurt except me, and I was powerless.

I tore myself from my sister’s side. I had to know. There had been people down below, with their long shadows like sundials. I moved to the other wall and surveyed the stone and marble compass of the Wind Rose. It was not so very long since we had last looked at it. There were still people down there, and their shadows had not varied to any obvious degree.

But the people were agitated. They were talking to each other.

Or trying to talk.

Someone was running now. They were shouting. Whatever they were
saying made no sense to me. But there was nothing strange about that. I really only spoke one language these days.

I dashed back to my sister.

‘They cannot understand each other. The aug is gone. They are all like me now.’ I looked back over her shoulder, at the stairwell leading down into the lower levels of the monument. ‘I have to find someone who can help.’

‘No,’ my sister. ‘You don’t.’ She closed her eyes. They were closed for a very long time.

I supported her head again. I wondered if there was a chance of getting my sister down to the level of the Wind Rose, without the exo to help either of us. I thought it unlikely, and also did not think much of my chances of finding help when I got there. I could still hear the voices. They were speaking in many tongues. They sounded frightened. They made me think of children who had been playing a happy and carefree game, only to have the rules changed at a stroke, and now the game had become both dangerous and bewildering.

This was unfortunate. But it occurred to me that the people did not know how lucky they were.

‘I am sorry,’ I said, when my sister reopened her eyes.

‘For what?’

‘There is nothing I can do.’

‘There is,’ my sister said. With some tremendous penultimate effort, she moved her hand, closed it around one of my own and drew it to her neck. ‘There is.’

‘What?’

‘Be strong,’ she said. ‘You have work to do. They’re going to need you now.’

My sister died then. I felt her hand slacken, saw the focus and brightness slip from her eyes. But my hand was still where she had brought it, and I understood now that she had wanted me to have the charm she wore around her neck. It was that old thing we had found in the box, when we drew lots under the candelabra tree, and agreed between us that it should remain on Earth, in the care of Chiku Yellow. I undid the leather fastening as carefully as I could, then lifted the charm free. My fingers felt clumsy as I retied it around my own neck. I wanted this to be done now, before I thought of anything else.

I did not feel strong or resolute but I forced myself to stand again, and stand tall. I thought of my sister’s final words. I did not feel like I had the means in me to help myself, let alone anyone else. But Chiku Yellow had spoken truthfully: they would need me now, simply because I had
already learned to live without the Mechanism. But I could still hear the shouts and cries, and they sounded worse than before. I moved to the edge and looked out across the water and the city again. Beyond the confusion at the Monument to the Discoveries, it was hard to sense any desperate change in things. The buildings gleamed and the suspension bridge glittered. But it would be like this everywhere, I knew. Not just Lisbon but the whole world. And not just Earth, either – the Mechanism’s collapse would be spreading out through the solar system even as I thought these words. It was far beyond the Moon already, well on its way to Mars and beyond.

It was preposterous to think that one woman could do any good, when so much was broken. An unforgivable vanity, if truth be told. No one should have the arrogance to imagine such a thing. But then again there is that name of ours.

Chiku Red. Chiku Akinya. Great-granddaughter of Eunice Akinya. Senge Dongma, the lion-faced one, mother of us all.

I steeled myself. It was good to have a purpose in life.

Also by Alastair Reynolds from Gollancz:

Novels

Revelation Space

Redemption Ark

Absolution Gap

Chasm City

Century Rain

Pushing Ice

The Prefect

House of Suns

Terminal World

Blue Remembered Earth

Short Story Collections:

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

Galactic North

Zima Blue

A Gollancz eBook

Copyright © Alastair Reynolds 2013
All rights reserved.

The right of Alastair Reynolds to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company

This eBook first published in 2013 by Gollancz.

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 575 09048 4

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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