Blade, page 13
part #4 of Inverted Frontier Series
“Missiles like yours,” she observed. And for the first time she thought to ask, “Do you regret the gift of them?”
His eyes flared in surprise but then swiftly narrowed. He spoke slowly, doubtfully, “We saw the scars of such a war at Tanjiri. Megastructures sliced open. Vast swaths of space left utterly empty even of trace molecules. But the war there ended before utter annihilation. There is nothing left at the Sun. And you ask why I’m eager to visit the machines? They at least have not destroyed themselves.”
“They are machines.” She pressed that point and though she kept her voice soft, she challenged him with her words. “Intelligent, free-thinking, conscious machines.”
He didn’t miss her meaning. “Forbidden machines.”
“Sooth. In all the histories we know, the evolution of such things, if not quickly put down, always led to disaster.”
“So then, what are you thinking? That we should annihilate them?”
“What?” She stopped, too shocked to go on. “No. Of course not.”
They had come to the pavilion. No one else was about as he turned to confront her. “No, because they’re separate from us. They’re not our machines, not human-made. They exist under their own ruleset.”
“Yes. That’s how it is. And we are not Chenzeme. We must never behave like the Chenzeme. But I don’t like it, Urban. I don’t like the idea of these sentient machines and the danger they represent—and I wonder that you don’t feel the same.”
A slight, indifferent shrug. “I did at first. But as your melancholy pilot likes to point out, we biologicals are the dangerous ones. Tio Suthrom doesn’t object to the Inventions. He believes them superior to us in every way.”
She frowned at this diversion, but she did not try to dodge it. Crossing her arms, straightening her shoulders, she said, “Given Tio’s situation, his experiences, his conclusions about the collapse of human civilization—he needs to believe that. To believe we are fatally flawed, marred by greed, marred by avarice, by jealousy, and by ambition. So that no matter how high we reach we will be brought down by a collective doom carried within the innate structures of our minds.” She gave him a hard, evaluating look. “Knowing you as well as I do, I worry he may be right.”
That pirate smile. “I’ve survived this long. I hope to go on for some time more.” His smile faded. His gaze drifted a little and his brow furrowed. “Do you mean to keep him? Tio Suthrom, I mean. I know he’s eased your grief. I can see that. I’m glad someone could.”
She sighed, reluctant to answer with her own feelings still in flux. “He is a softer man than you.”
“And you’re drawn to his melancholy.”
“An old habit. You would not get this, but it can be comforting to give comfort.”
He hissed skeptically, then pressed her for an answer. “Do you mean to keep him around?”
“Is it my choice?”
“Realistically, yes. If you want him here as a friend, as a lover, I don’t think the ship’s company will argue against it—or that he’ll object either.”
“And you?” she asked.
“It’s late to be asking my opinion.”
“Sooth,” she said, smiling. She should not be amused at his quiet jealousy, but she was. “I still love you,” she assured him. “Nothing needs to change between us.”
But that wasn’t true and they both knew it.
<><><>
Urban sat in the back row of the amphitheater alongside the Cryptologist. Every seat was occupied, and excited murmurs erupted when Vytet presented Ashok’s invitation to visit Hupo Sei.
The Invention was there with Vytet, sharing the dais. Its nine instances had all gathered within the structure of its square hive, each tucked into a hexagonal socket, with eye spots and audio speaker facing out. The hive rested on a pedestal that elevated it to the equal of Vytet’s considerable height.
With the initial presentation done, Vytet invited questions that Ashok answered in a voice boosted well above its usual volume so that it carried easily throughout the amphitheater.
Urban listened, and was pleased with the direction of the discussion. Perhaps his satisfaction showed on his face, because the Cryptologist leaned in, catching him by surprise and inducing a shiver as her lips almost brushed his ear. “You wish to make this journey?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“I do too. Griffin is ready. The ship is as evolved as Dragon now.”
He turned to her, mildly annoyed, aware she had ignored his injunction to swiftly strip Griffin’s philosopher cells of their Chenzeme nature. Instead, she had taken her time with it and in retrospect he was glad. He had been reacting out of emotion, furious at the situation, at Griffin’s alienation. The Cryptologist had shown far better judgment than he. Not that he was ready to admit it. In an undertone he groused at her, “You’ve taken so long I wondered if you meant to do it at all.”
A coy smile hinted she saw right through him. She leaned back in her seat, her smile disappearing as she returned her gaze to the dais. Barely audible now, she murmured, “I would not spend one second more than I needed to amid the horror of Griffin’s untamed philosopher cells.”
Did she mean it as a criticism of Clemantine? He had to believe she did. The Cryptologist had shown better judgment than both of them.
Vytet called a vote and as Urban had predicted, the ship’s company unanimously accepted Ashok’s invitation to visit Hupo Sei.
Next, Tio Suthrom in his handsome, human avatar, stood before the ship’s company and asked that he be granted passage to Hupo Sei, concluding, “It would be a precious opportunity for me to spend this time among my own kind.”
This request was granted, though not with a unanimous vote. No one recorded an objection, but Urban, alone, abstained.
He wasn’t sure what to think about the pilot and he harbored a deep ambivalence about him, and about Clemantine’s fascination with the man.
Jealousy sparked against resentment, yet he did not, would not, say anything against Tio Suthrom. He could see now, in hindsight, how he and Clemantine had diverged, the two of them wanting different things, envisioning different futures. The idea of the blade dividing them.
And even if it wasn’t so? It would have been an act of cruelty to force Tio Suthrom back into the solitary existence he had endured for so very long, and Urban was not a cruel man.
After the vote, after the formal goodbyes, he escorted Ashok in all its instances, back to Argo. With no one but them in the transit bubble, the Invention spoke freely. “Heeding your suggestion, I reviewed the library files discussing what is known of the creation of the moon you call Ezo, and I am intrigued. I believe such a project would also intrigue the Originalists—though having been away more than two of your centuries, I cannot say whether that faction remains as influential within the Core Forum as before.”
There it is, Urban thought. The first step on an elusive path toward the creation of a blade. A small victory, yet it brought him some modest consolation for his rift with Clemantine. Still, many more steps would need to be taken on a path that could be easily blocked.
He spoke carefully. “You understand that any proposal to develop this technology must be treated as a sensitive topic?”
“I understand your people are not all of one mind. That there are factions among you, just as there are among us. I do not wish to see the project ended before it is begun. For that reason I will continue to heed your advice and refrain from discussing it with any other Dragoneer.”
“And with Tio Suthrom.”
“Yes.”
The transit bubble reached Argo. It opened, revealing the landing ship’s little cabin.
“I don’t know if it will ever be possible for us to actually do this,” Urban reminded the Invention.
“It is as yet only an interesting concept,” Ashok agreed as its instances crawled across the threshold.
“Exactly. And it’ll stay that way for a while.”
Urban lingered until Ashok had all nine instances safely ensconced in the hive. Then he retreated to the warren, leaving it to a DI to ferry the Invention back to Alaka‘i Onyx.
Tio Suthrom still served as the great ship’s ghost pilot, synchronizing with his living avatar through an occasional exchange of subminds.
The great ship was first to leave Ryo. It fired its fusion engine, commencing a long lazy acceleration toward interstellar velocity. Urban instructed the fleet’s scattered outriders to gather in its wake and, in time, to accelerate past it, taking on their usual staggered formation.
Griffin followed.
Dragon trailed behind.
Chapter
22
Bursts of laser light made their slow way across the void, received and then relayed by each subsequent communication buoy in the chain laid out by Alaka‘i Onyx when the great ship first fared to Ryo.
Ashok’s initial dire warnings would be 8.3 years in transit. A second, more optimistic set of messages described the true nature of the marauder ship, its accompanying fleet, the humans who controlled the exotic technologies of those vessels, and their desire to visit Hupo Sei.
Urban alone knew of a third communication, one describing the creation of Ezo and suggesting a possibility: that although the Dragoneers had no part in that creation, they had some understanding of it, and it might be that they could be persuaded to undertake the challenge of replicating such a world at Hupo Sei.
The fleet would be more than halfway through the crossing before any reply could reach them. Urban meant to make careful use of that time to prepare—but not just yet.
<><><>
The ship’s company remained active at the start of the crossing. Ashok had shared the results of its studies at Ryo and Tio Suthrom had shared his library—fresh information to be analyzed and integrated by the ever-curious Dragoneers.
Their curiosity encompassed Tio Suthrom too.
When Tarnya persuaded the melancholy pilot to take a role in an historical play she had written, he proved a compelling performer. At a brief pause between the first and second act, Urban was disgruntled to note how the chatter filling the amphitheater all focused on Tio. Even Vytet was caught up in admiration. She sat a few seats away, but not so far that Urban couldn’t hear her when she leaned forward, murmuring to Clemantine who sat in the next row, “Your pilot has a gentle charisma. It’s not hard to see why you are drawn to him.”
Clemantine turned around, eyes sparkling with pleasure as she told Vytet, “Oh yes, he is easy to be with. I like him very much. But he is not my pilot. He does not belong to me. And he has his own curiosities.”
“Ah . . . truly? Then you would not mind . . . ?”
“I would not.”
Urban looked away long before this exchange was done. Easy enough to divert his gaze; not so much, his attention. He could not help wondering if Clemantine had said those words specifically for him to hear. Did she want him to know he had not been wholly replaced? That he had not been permanently consigned to an outer circle in the hierarchy of her friendships?
By the Unknown God! he chided himself. Let it go!
She had. The certainty of it left him with a cold knot in his belly and cold resolve in his heart.
He did not stay for the second act.
<><><>
Until Vytet spoke, Clemantine had not realized Urban was there, sitting quietly two rows behind her. Now, as she took note of his departure, a quirk of conscience urged her to seek him out, to seek to soothe the differences between them. But the raw truth was, she did not want to. Not yet.
Oh, she still loved him. She had not lied when she’d told him that. Still, they had been through so much together. Their history, with all its grief and terror, grown so heavy she did not want to shoulder it anymore. That had been made clear to her, the night she met Tio. Warmth filled her, remembering it. Looking into his eyes had been like looking into a mirror, his wounded soul a reflection of her own, his neediness hers. No need for questions or explanations. One touch leading to another. Both of them purely there, locked within the present moment and nearly weightless, unburdened as they were by either past or future.
That sweet giddy weightless sense had stayed with her into the morning—only to vanish in Urban’s presence. His fascination with the machines, his dangerous obsessions. They worried her. They weighed on her. They inspired her suspicion. And that was why she would keep her distance. Not for her anymore to be at his side, there to know his mind in time to curb his worst ambitions. Let Vytet watch him, or Pasha, or even the Cryptologist. Clemantine only wanted to watch the second act of Tarnya’s play.
<><><>
Over the ensuing days, evolving friendships and seductions thoroughly integrated Tio into the gee deck’s networks of affection. During this time, as always, the ship’s company kept watch for signs of jealousy or loneliness—feelings that could quickly poison such a small community. If ever they were noticed, solace and counseling would swiftly follow.
Urban remembered this only when Kona messaged him in terse words: *Wake your avatar. I want to talk.
By this point in the voyage, with the course set and Dragon coasting at standard interstellar velocity, Urban had narrowed his existence to a single instance alone on the high bridge. There, awash in the constant interwoven musings of the philosopher cells as they examined their own existence and that of the infinite cosmos around them, he embraced a hypnotic state in which the passage of days did not matter. He had no desire to return to his avatar.
So he suggested a compromise. *We can meet in the library.
*No. Wake your avatar.
His annoyance bled into the cell field. Queries formed around the emotion and potential causes were proposed:
Urban introduced his own explanation:
– remembered miscommunication –
The philosopher cells immediately began to comb through their histories for examples of past instances when communications with allied coursers had gone awry. Urban let their chatter flow past him, immersing himself in the ship’s senses instead, opening his mind to the vastness around him so he would not have to think about—
—waking in the warren, alone, tangled in wall-weed, knowing more or less what Kona meant to say to him. Urban intended this to be a brief exchange. He pulled on newly generated clothes in his usual style—shorts and a long-sleeved shirt—as his extended senses showed him Kona approaching the chamber door.
The door opened. Kona entered. The two of them like distorted mirror images, both stiff despite the lack of gravity. Both on guard.
“Who put you on this task?” Urban asked. “Was it Vytet? Or Clemantine?”
Kona ignored this. Instead, he advanced his own agenda. Speaking in his familiar abrasive manner, he said, “People are worried about you. You’re making them uneasy.” He interrupted himself with a soft scoffing snort. “Hell, you’ve always made them uneasy. It’s worse now that you’re never around, and that Clemantine’s not with you to keep you in check. No one’s forgotten the way you negotiated alone with Ashok and rushed us out of Ryo.”
Urban shrugged. “They all agreed to it.”
“They did,” Kona conceded. “But it begs the question, what other schemes might you be working on out of sight?”
“There’s always something,” Urban agreed, deploying his pirate smile. “But that’s not what you were sent to talk about.”
“Right.” Kona crossed his arms; he sighed. “Stop isolating yourself. That’s my message. Rejoin the ship’s company. Be grateful for what you had with Clemantine, but move on. She has.”
“I know she has, and it’s all right. I’m all right.”
“You’re not. This isn’t you. You haven’t lived a celibate existence since you were twelve years old.”
“Wrong,” Urban countered sharply. “I lived that way for the whole time it took me to get back to Deception Well.” That whole long awful lonely time, when he’d had to come to terms with what he’d left behind.
“Sooth, and you were miserable then,” Kona reminded him. “I’ve heard you say it. And you’re miserable now.”
“I’m not,” he answered. It wasn’t entirely a lie. Though Clemantine’s absence ate at him like some consuming Maker he couldn’t vanquish, he knew how to edit and suppress such feelings.
Kona must have guessed the truth. “Then make yourself miserable,” he said. “Miserable enough that you show up on the gee deck. Make yourself part of the company again, Urban. Play a few rounds of flying fox. Assure people you’re not stewing in bitterness or hatching some illicit scheme.”
“Those are two very different things,” Urban pointed out, still with that smile.
“Go on,” Kona growled. “Do your part—and we won’t have to have this conversation again.”
<><><>
So Urban returned to the gee deck—for games, for concerts, for the evening meal. In time, there was even a rapprochement with Clemantine. He did not blame her for seeking another lover . . . other lovers. He was only one of them now and she, only one of his—as if he’d regressed to his own adolescence.
He missed living with her, yet he made no move to revive the intimate connection they’d shared, telling himself she didn’t want it.
A year passed, and then another. The transition took time. But eventually, gradually, one and two and three at a time, people retreated into the oblivion of cold sleep—Clemantine with them—until only the usual persistent handful remained active: Urban, always on the high bridge though he let his avatar sleep; Pasha, sometimes on the high bridge with him, but always busy in the library and awake on the gee deck; Vytet the same, except she did not visit the high bridge. And then there was the Cryptologist. She existed now mostly as a ghost aboard Griffin, but wakened her avatar now and then for a visit.
