The Credulity Nexus (23 page)

It stopped,
scuttled to the left, scuttled to the right, then returned to where
it started and stopped again. It stood there facing the hatch, a
small light on its head blinking as if to assure anyone watching
that it was still thinking. It reached out a pair of manipulators
and seized the chest of drawers. For a few seconds it tugged and
pushed and did a little twisting and straining, but the heavy piece
of furniture did not move.

While it
worked on its problem, Freymann studied the machine from behind. By
the time the robot had worked out that it needed to remove all the
drawers to lighten the obstacle enough to shift it, Freymann had
found what she was looking for: a small plate near its base with
the words “maintenance access only” written on it.

There were six
drawers. By the time it had removed four of them, Freymann had
unscrewed the plate with a steak knife. Before it shifted the
fifth, she’d looked inside, found the off-switch and shut the busy
little machine down.

With a heavy
sigh of relief, she sat down with discarded drawers all around her
and leant against the dormant robot. Now for the hard part.
Somewhere in that stumpy little body was a circuit with a radio
transmitter and receiver in it. Somewhere else, she would find a
battery. With those two objects, and a few bits and pieces pulled
from its innards, she could make herself a device to broadcast an
SOS. If she could send it out loudly enough and on a wide enough
spectrum, maybe, just maybe, someone would hear it and come and
take a look.

What the heck,
she thought, getting up and trying to prise off the robot's head.
She had nothing else to do.

Partway
Station was a technical marvel. In geosynchronous orbit above
Heinlein, the Solar System's longest tethers ran fifty-four
thousand kilometres down to the city. They also ran up beyond
Partway, to where a second orbiting platform had been built:
Alltheway Station. The size of a small town, Alltheway – being
beyond the geosynchronous orbit – felt a centripetal force
equivalent to one-sixth G. Heinlein and Alltheway would hang in
each others' skies, with Partway a bright star between them.

Maria hung from a conveyor that gently
pulled her along towards the gondola terminal. She was glad she
didn't have to find her own way. Partway was enormous, and the
sights that surrounded her were overwhelming. Not just the
magnificent face of the gibbous Moon, seven times its usual size;
not just the complex geometry of the gigantic space station she was
travelling through; but the strange, bizarrely-modified,
inhuman-looking people all around her.

She'd seen
extreme genemods and biopatches on vids, of course. Sometimes she
even saw somebody in real life – one of those creepy kids with a
third eye, say, or a war veteran with an oversized mechanical arm –
but she had never seen anything like this! Everywhere she looked
there were people – usually men, but not always – with mechanical
body parts. There was one with huge metal clamps instead of feet.
Outside of the zero-G environment of Partway, Maria couldn't
imagine how he would be able to get around. One man had a whole
range of tools on spindly arms emerging from his back, so many of
them that they fanned out on either side of him like skeletal
wings. People had faces replaced by complex sensor arrays; others
had their limbs replaced by tools – some so massive they dwarfed
their torso. A silver cylinder passed her, flying under its own
propulsion. It was about a metre tall by a metre in diameter, and
on top was a human head under a plastic dome.

“
You see all sorts here, dear,” Kirsty said
from behind her. Like it or not, she was stuck with the old woman
all the way to the ground now. “Every time I come, they get a bit
weirder.”

“
Has your son...?”

“
Ha! Over my dead body! If I ever see as
much as a bolt through his neck, I'm marching him off to the
nearest doctor to have it removed. Besides, these people mostly
work out on the tethers, building the structures. My boy's got a
nice, safe office job. Look, did you ever see one of those
before?”

She pointed to
a pair of uploads, chatting together on a row of strap hangers in a
departure lounge. Maria studied them as she glided past. Compared
to most of the somamods she'd seen, the uploads looked nearly
human, except their bald, naked nanite bodies made them look like
giant plastic toys. One was much larger than the other – maybe
twice as large as a big man – and they were different colours, but
otherwise they seemed normal.

“
No, I've never seen one,” Maria said.
“Most people I know don't really approve...” It seemed foolish to
say it, seeing uploads just hanging about like ordinary people, but
the very existence of zombies and ghosts made otherwise quite
rational people start ranting and raving about them and saying it
shouldn't be allowed. People who didn't have enough money to have
it done, that is. Rich people tended to have a more tolerant
attitude.

“
I've met a couple,” Kirsty said. “They're
just like anyone else really, except they don't have souls. Here we
are. That's our stop.”

-oOo-

The private
electro-prop circled a landing strip. One of the robots, still in
the role of flight attendant, collected the litter from around Rik
and checked his seat belt.

It was dusk
when they left the plane and made the short walk to an electric
cart, which whisked them off down a smooth road. It was warm, and
the air was full of the song of cicadas and frogs. The cart
followed the road as it wound across broad lawns, around a huge
ornamental lake, and towards the biggest, ugliest, most rambling
mansion Rik had ever seen.

“
The guy who owns this must be pretty nuts,
huh?” Rik asked his dour companion.

The man didn't
even look Rik's way, but for the first time since they'd met, the
ghost of a smile crossed his lips.

They went in
through a back entrance, and down tiled corridors to a service
elevator that took them up three storeys. When they got out, the
corridors had carpets and were at least twice as wide as the ones
below. They walked in near silence to an imposing set of double
doors with a pair of equally imposing guards standing outside.

“
Are these guys robots too?” Rik asked,
peering into the face of one of them. “'Cause, you know, I'll never
be sure about this kind of thing again.”

“
You can go in now,” Mr Dour said, and one
of the guards opened the door for him.

Rik walked in,
and only the two robots followed him. As the door closed behind
him, a woman unfolded herself from a sofa the size of a Heinlein
apartment.

“
Hello Rik. You look like you're been in
the wars.”

“
Peth. How nice to see you
again.”

Elspeth
Cordell was as elegant as ever in a light summer dress and sandals.
She looked Rik up and down with an expression that made him aware
of just how unkempt he must be, and then told one of the robots to
fetch him a drink.

“
My husband will be along in a moment. I do
hope you have good news for him.”

“
A man who has you, Peth, hardly needs me
to add to his bounty.”

She smiled and
invited him to take a seat.

“
Who would imagine,” she said, “that a
bundle of rags like you, the very dregs of the species, could be so
charming?” Her crisp, old money accent made everything she said
sound infinitely well-mannered.

“
I hope hubby wasn't too upset about you
losing his package. It wasn't your fault, really.”

Her smile
soured a little. “I'm sure you're going to help him get it back. We
wouldn't want anything else to happen to your friends and family,
would we?”

Rik was on his
feet in an instant, fists balled. Fear sparked in Peth's eyes, and
she flinched away from him, but she need not have worried. The two
beautiful robots had Rik by the arms before he could take a single
step forward.

He glared at
the woman without attempting to struggle. “What does your husband
do with these things, Peth? Why did he make them look so hot? Could
it be the rejuvenation treatments aren't working as well as they
used to?”

Peth, however,
seemed impervious to his taunts. In fact, as he spoke, she appeared
to find him increasingly amusing.

“
Silly boy,” she said, stepping closer.
“These are my toys, not Newton's.” She reached out and stroked the
cheek of one of the robots. “The trouble with people like you is
that you have no imagination.”

Rik's trouble,
right at that moment, was an excess of imagination. “So where is
he, your power-crazed lunatic of a husband?”

“
Right here, Mr Drew.”

They both
turned to find Newton Cordell crossing the broad expanse of the
room. Rik had expected someone tall, strong, well turned-out.
Someone like Martin Lanham, for example. He didn't expect a
sour-faced stick insect in a motorised wheelchair.

“
I must apologise for my late arrival.” His
voice was phlegmy, as if he ought to clear his throat. “I hope my
wife has been keeping you amused.”

Rik had had
enough of the fake politeness. He glared at Cordell. “Why should
you care? I'm your prisoner. Be as late as you like.”

The
trillionaire glanced sharply at Rik. “Let go of him,” he told the
robots with an impatient gesture. The machines obeyed instantly,
Rik noted. So much for any illusion of control Peth might have over
them. Peth stepped quickly away and went to sit down. Perhaps she
was annoyed. Perhaps she didn't want to be within Rik's reach. As
far as Rik was concerned, her feelings didn't matter a damn.

“
Have you got my ex-wife, Maria Dunlop?”
Rik demanded of Cordell.

“
Sit down, Mr. Drew. I have some questions
for you.”

“
Up yours, creep. If you have Maria, I want
her. Then we're leaving.”

Cordell
studied Rik, as if trying to decide just how stupid he really was.
He rolled his chair closer. “Your ex-wife is not here. Currently, I
do not have her. That could change at any moment. Now sit down and
stop playing the fool.” With another gesture, he waved the robots
away from Rik.

Rik hardly
noticed them go. Maria was safe. For now. He felt himself relax a
little. If Cordell had harmed her, Rik would have beaten him to a
pulp. He only realised it after the fact, but it was true. There
was a huge ball of rage that had built up inside him, and it was
aimed at Lanham and Cordell. It would take very little provocation
for him to unleash it at this man. The robot bodyguards could not
have stopped him, Rik was certain.

The impression
Cordell gave of being an old man was false, Rik now saw. He
probably wasn't more than fifty-five or sixty. Hardly anything for
a rich man these days. So why the chair? Why the obvious
decrepitude? Rik sat down and waited for the great industrialist to
continue.

“
Do you believe in God, Mr.
Drew?”

This echo of
his interview with Lanham made Rik snort with amusement. “You've
got my file. Look it up.”

“
The file only tells me so much. It tells
me you don't belong to any church. It tells me you were divorced
from your first wife, despite God's law. It tells me you entered
into a disgusting and sinful liaison with two strumpets
on–”

Rik leaned
forwards abruptly. “Say that again, Cordell, and you will never say
another word.”

Cordell
frowned back into Rik's glare, but he kept his mouth shut.

“
Oh for goodness sake!” Peth complained.
“Just ask him your questions and get him out of here.”

Cordell
flinched at his wife's outburst, but otherwise ignored her.

“
Yet, for all this,” he went on, “the file
doesn't tell me what you truly feel in your heart. Do you
understand? It could be, it could easily be, that you are as
disgusted by your life as I am. It could be that you will, in the
end, seek our Lord's redemption. I would like to know, Mr. Drew. It
is important.”

Rik's eyes
stayed fixed on Cordell's. “I'll tell you what's important,
Cordell. It's important that you never, ever get hold of that
little brew you've had concocted. It's important that people hear
about your half-witted plans to poison the world. It's important
that nutcases like you should be locked up in padded cells and not
be allowed to roam free.”

Cordell
laughed and rolled away. “What can I do with an idiot like this?”
he asked his wife. She looked away, bored, and he turned back to
Rik.

“
If I thought there was any small chance of
saving your soul, Mr. Drew, I would do whatever I could to help you
find salvation. You've been out there, haven't you, at Omega Point?
Listening to their blasphemous nonsense? You're helping them, too.
Trying to get the package to them.” He sounded disgusted, and his
contempt for Rik's actions burned in his eyes.

“
Do you know why they call their home –
their
nest!
– Omega
Point? No, of course not. Do you know why it's orbiting at the L4
Lagrangian Point, so far away?

“
Even their ridiculous symbolism is taken
from that blasphemous Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. You won't
have read his book,
The Phenomenon of Man
, but if you had, you'd know about his ridiculous,
teleological view of evolution, the insane idea that we are all
being led to evolve towards the Omega Point, which that poor sinner
equated with God Himself! And where is the Omega Point? Ahead of
us, pulling us along. That's why they're at L4! The hubris! The
overweening pride! And the irony of it all is this: for all their
symbolism, they are nothing but symbols themselves; code in a
machine; lifeless, soulless monsters!”