Blade, page 30
part #4 of Inverted Frontier Series
“Without your interference, we might not have reached this point of development for centuries more. And if the project had succeeded in creating a stable world, we would have been distracted for millennia. Instead, the demise of the project has led us to accept the reality of our own agency. Your brief presence here has freed us to invent a future for ourselves alone.”
<><><>
Alone in truth, Urban thought, for he had guessed correctly. The decision issued by the Core Forum was that the fleet must depart from Hupo Sei. Not because the Blade had been lost, but because of how it had been destroyed. When the missiles had been revealed as weapons of war, their blooms had consumed not only the Blade but also the Inventions’ fragile trust. Beyond the ubiquitous evidence of ancient war, beyond Kuriak’s violence and its corruption of the IRKs, the missiles served as emphatic proof that humans and human-built machines must be forever dangerous, warlike, and destructive.
Despite the pleas of many among the ship’s company, and despite their repeated apologies and their detailed explanations, the Core Forum issued no further communication.
The fleet did not depart immediately. The ships lingered, awaiting the arrival of a spherical habitat, a new home for Ro Az Ra Ni who, contaminated as it was by contact with biological forms, was doomed now to an isolated existence.
Ashok chose a different fate. When Tio announced his intention to depart with the fleet, the little Invention declared, “I will remain with you, Tio Suthrom, and continue my explorations aboard Alaka‘i Onyx, if you find that acceptable.”
Tio did.
<><><>
*Jolly?
At this soft query, a frisson of shock swept over Jolly. He tensed, knowing the moment he’d been dreading had come. His fists clenched. A surge of adrenaline sent his heart racing.
*Jolly? Urban pressed. *Are you all right?
Are you? Jolly countered in an unspoken question.
He sat alone in the dark of his bedroom, his back to the wall, haunted by the taunting promise he’d made to Urban: If you get lost in the silver, I’ll come back in and find you.
Urban had been lost and the Cryptologist too—lost beyond any ability of his to recover them. Though if he had been there, if he had consented to at least keep watch—
No, no, no.
Jolly knew, logically, his presence would have made no difference except that he too would have been lost.
And wouldn’t that be better?
Holding up his hands, he gazed at the ha sparkling in the darkness. He had come by the ha first. Now, among the ship’s company, he was last to possess this artifact of Verilotus, this art of the Tanji.
Pointless now.
*Answer me, Jolly.
*I’m okay. After a moment of hesitation, he added, *I never mastered the silver like you did. Never, like the Cryptologist.
On Verilotus, where the ha had lain dormant within every person, it had been his purpose to waken it. But he could not waken what did not exist within another being. Not here. Not now. Not on his own. Not without the intimate presence of the Tanji.
And not even then! he told himself.
Reluctantly, he disclosed this truth to Urban. *I can’t give you back what you lost.
He knew he could not. Far beyond him to ever re-create the ocean of knowledge and experience Urban had contained. Far beyond anyone—a certainty that did not assuage his guilt or ease the dread he felt at this moment of confession.
*You thought I meant to ask that? No. There’s no unwinding time, Jolly. I know it.
Nowhere in these quiet words did Jolly hear the anger, the resentment, the grief he had expected.
*The Cryptologist? he asked.
*She knows it too.
Jolly sighed as a warm tide of relief rose through him. *I’m sorry for what you’ve lost . . . what she lost. I would undo it if I could.
A soft laugh, a faux threat: *If I thought you could, I’d make you undo it. Then, somberly, *We go on as we are.
*I’m ready, Jolly said, realizing he could be done now with his self-imposed isolation. *Ready to go on, I mean.
*Sooth, Urban said. *So am I.
Chapter
45
Where to go?
Despite the tantalizing Halo and the lure of lively Sulakari, this was a question the Dragoneers answered without debate as they awaited the arrival of Ro Az Ra Ni’s habitat.
An almost unanimous vote, Clemantine thought as she poured tea for Tio and Urban.
She had seated them side by side on cushions, on the opposite side of the low table from herself, the three of them a fragile triangle. Urban looked downcast and resentful; Tio appeared apprehensive. Despite their age and their long life experience, an adolescent hostility still smoldered between the two of them. It was absurd, and Clemantine meant to get past it.
She spoke gently, assuring them, “It is possible for the two of you to be friends. You just need to get to know one another rather than walking past each other with averted eyes. It’s only hard because the two of you are too much alike.”
This claim caused them both to recoil. They actually leaned away from one another, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you see what I mean?”
Tio side-eyed Urban and said, “I don’t think we are much alike beyond our affection for you.”
Urban scowled—his default expression in any uncomfortable circumstance. “Tio’s right. We’re nothing alike.” He gestured at the table. “And this isn’t necessary. I already know Tio and I like him well enough.”
“Sooth,” Clemantine agreed. “And I like the Cryptologist but that doesn’t mean I never suffered the harsh rasp of jealousy.”
At this, Urban’s scowl darkened. “Why do you bring up the Cryptologist. She was never my lover.”
“No?” Clemantine asked in surprise.
“No,” he answered firmly.
Yet hints of entanglement had reached her, and she felt sure this denial did not represent the whole truth. “Something more than lovers, then?”
His gaze cut away. A sheen of heat on his face. “Whatever that was, it’s gone now,” he told her. “Gone with the Blade.”
A thoughtful nod as she said, “I’m sorry.” She meant it. She felt for him, for what he’d lost.
But Urban only shrugged, dismissing the subject. She knew him well enough to let it go, saying only, “Drink your tea. Both of you. And please, resolve to be friends, because I need you both.”
She sipped her tea, wishing they would talk to one another—and they did, in their way. Tio said, “Another minute until we depart.”
And Urban answered, “Sooth.”
Clemantine resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. It was, at least, a start.
She gazed at the liquid lingering in her cup, awaiting the unbalanced sensation of acceleration. But then, mere seconds before the moment of departure, a message reached her from the Astronomer: *I have found a likely candidate for the object you were seeking.
A moment of confusion caused her to frown. She had to search her memory before she realized what he meant. And then she blurted aloud, “You found Ona’s refuge?”
This drew curious looks from both Urban and Tio. “What is it?” Urban asked. “What’s going on?”
The Astronomer, following Clemantine’s lead, also spoke aloud, his voice emanating from hidden speakers as he answered her question. “What it is remains to be determined.”
“But it still exists?” she asked.
“Yes. It is in a distant orbit which has likely kept it safe from exploitation. The Pilot can amend Khonsu’s course, if you wish to send an outrider to explore further.”
Despite a swiftly rising weight of dread around her heart, she told the Astronomer, “Yes, send Khonsu. I want to know.”
By this time, Urban had worked out exactly what was going on. “No, Clemantine. This is not a good idea. We know nothing about the ghost in that refuge. For all we know, she’s another Lezuri . . . or a flawed and wicked soul like an antagonist in an ancient drama.” He shook his head. “Pass on,” he pleaded. “She belongs to the past. And we owe her nothing.”
“All true,” Clemantine whispered. “And still I want to find her.”
“But why?”
She groped to define the reason. In part, it was atonement. She had caused the demise of Kuriak who was Ona’s caretaker. But it was more than that. It was the idea of this ancient artist, in the face of despair, resolving to reach past disaster on the mad chance that she might find again a life worth embracing.
But all Clemantine said was, “I want to know if Ona is still there. Because if it was me, I would not wish to be abandoned.”
<><><>
Claiming the task for herself, Clemantine went alone as a ghost in Khonsu’s library.
The suspected refuge proved to be a smooth, dark, perfect ovoid, only a little larger than the landing ship, Argo. Its surface yielded almost no returns from radar and no heat above ambient. Though Khonsu had already approached within a hundred meters, drifting closer still, Clemantine could see it only as a black void in the ocean of background stars.
A wonder the Astronomer ever found it.
She assigned two scout-bots to explore. The first landed without incident and secured a grip. The second followed. They mapped and analyzed the surface, but found no means to enter.
This did not surprise her. The outer shell had likely been grown seamlessly around the core, one last layer of protection around the precious computational substrate holding Ona’s archive. Clemantine could use a gel of Makers to dissolve the shell and force an entrance, but that risked triggering a self-destruct routine as she had done when dealing with Kuriak.
No, she would approach politely, with an audible tap at an imagined door. “Knock, knock,” she said softly, her voice relayed by a weak radio signal. “Human here. Yes, we still exist. I have come to waken you, Ona. Won’t you let me in?”
She said it that way as a lark, never expecting it to be enough to waken an intelligence within. But as she began to instruct Khonsu’s DI to repeat similar words in other languages—just in case—a voice replied. Not a human voice. She felt sure of that. No, this voice spoke with the flat placid tone of a simple DI. It said, “Of course you may come in. Please stand by. Several minutes are required to synthesize a doorway.”
Clemantine immediately suspected a trap. “You admit a stranger so easily?” she asked with a thread of tension in her words.
“No. It is Kuriak who decides. Kuriak guards this facility. Only those Kuriak authorizes are allowed to approach.”
Ah. A simple DI indeed, unaware that Kuriak had ventured in-system long ago—and that it would not return.
“Very good,” Clemantine said.
She shifted to a waiting avatar already grown within a cocoon in Khonsu’s tissue. She woke within it, dressed in a silver skin suit. The cocoon surfaced—a blister peeling open on the scout ship’s slender hull—and Clemantine emerged.
The refuge now lay a mere fifteen meters distant. Without waiting for further invitation, she pushed off, gliding toward it at a cautious velocity, a thin tether trailing behind her. By the time she touched down, a door had opened onto a dark and narrow crawlspace. Deep within, a soft silvery light, beckoning.
She asked the DI, “Have you ever admitted anyone before?”
“No. You are the first.”
“What will I find inside?”
“That archive Kuriak sent you to retrieve.”
Clemantine hesitated then, held back by a last brutal rising of doubt. Was it unwise to waken the past?
Of course, she thought. But having come this far, it would be absurd to back out now.
She entered the tunnel and, finding a hand-hold, she propelled herself toward the light.
Chapter
46
Slowly, carefully, the fleet made its departure from Hupo Sei. Urban was in no hurry. Neither was the ship’s company, this passage being their last chance to study the Inventions’ civilization at close range. The Pilot had plotted complex trajectories for each vessel, ensuring they would pass close to as many habitats as possible, and sometimes the curious denizens of those habitats invited the Dragoneers to visit via some version of Tio’s artificial avatars. It felt like friendship. Still . . .
“As a general principle, our kinds are not compatible,” Ashok observed one morning as its single instance occupied the corner of Urban’s breakfast table. Tio sat on Urban’s other side, with Clemantine across from them.
“What do we have in common?” Ashok continued. “Certainly we share a curiosity about the Cosmos and a desire to create. But the actions induced by these common traits yield results so different as to seem incomprehensible.”
“Not incomprehensible,” Tio objected. “Just . . . alien. And that is why the Dragoneers find the Inventions fascinating.”
“Yes, Inventions are diverse and fascinating. But the reverse is not true. Having thoroughly studied you, Tio Suthrom, and your histories, the Inventions calculate they possess a sufficient understanding of human nature and evolution—and as you know they are extremely wary of it.”
Not unwise, Urban thought.
Aloud, he suggested in a teasing voice, “Perhaps as our evolution continues, we might someday be sufficiently trustworthy and civilized to be readmitted to Hupo Sei.”
“This is unlikely,” Ashok replied. “The Core Forum risked much to run the experiment of the Blade. When that failed, agreement was reached to adjust our general algorithms, enhancing an inherent drive to engage in a stable cycle of creative, harmonious, and limited growth and regrowth without recourse to the destabilizing effects of advanced human technologies.”
“Some of us would like to avoid those destabilizing effects as well,” Clemantine said, fixing a stern gaze on Urban.
“Though it’s hard to resist,” he countered gently. “Even for you.”
She drew back, as a shadow of regret softened her gaze. “Sooth,” she breathed.
Her venture to the refuge had found more than just Ona. Altogether, she had recovered five archaic ghosts. They remained archived aboard Khonsu, with the ship’s company reluctant to waken them without knowing anything about who and what they were . . . or what they might desire for themselves in a far future that would be both surpassingly strange to them and forever shadowed by the immense tragedy of their intimate past.
Urban regretted reminding her of it. He tried to make up for it with a shrug and a smile, saying, “We have better things to talk about on a sunny morning.”
Ashok accepted this invitation to shift the direction of the conversation. “‘Sunny’ is an odd word,” it observed. “You use it to reference the light of the star you call the Sun. Your origin star.”
“Yes, that’s what it means,” Urban agreed. “What’s odd about that?”
“It is odd because the spectrum of light you use on the gee deck—this ‘sunny’ light—differs from the actual spectrum of the Sun. I would not have suspected the Sun to be your origin star.”
Urban drew back, shocked, even offended by this claim. He wanted to laugh it off, to deny it. The words rose to his lips. But he had no basis for argument because he had never considered the issue before.
Every star possessed a unique spectrum, one that served as its identifying signature. When the Engineer had designed the gee deck’s artificial sky, Urban had not thought to question him on the spectrum of light he used. It was traditional to imitate the sky of ancient Earth. He couldn’t think why the Engineer would have selected a different spectrum . . . if he had, if Ashok wasn’t mistaken.
“Ashok, are you sure?” Clemantine asked, sounding as troubled as Urban felt.
“Yes, I am sure,” Ashok assured her. “The spectrum is very similar, but subtle differences exist.”
Without a word, Urban shifted to the library. There he summoned the Engineer, and the Astronomer too, presenting the question to them. The Engineer cocked his head, looking both puzzled and intrigued. “I did not consult astronomical records when I determined the spectrum of the sky,” he explained. “Instead, I used the palette traditional for habitats.”
The Astronomer was scowling, lip curled in cold anger. “It is true the spectrums do not match.” He turned to face the Scholar, just as that one appeared beside him, confined like his companions within the limits of his window. “Trace the history of this illumination palette,” the Astronomer instructed. “When did it diverge from true?”
A brief pause before the Scholar answered, his voice puzzled, “The palette has always been as it is now. It has never matched the observed spectrum of the Sun.”
“So we see by the light of some other star?” Urban suggested. “Some star where our ancestors briefly settled along the way?”
He had never thought about it before, but now that he did, now that he knew he had not grown up under the Sun’s light, a deep melancholy began to rise. He felt deprived of what he now perceived to be an essential connection to the ancestral world: the Sun’s unique spectrum as a thread that bound Earth’s scattered children to the beginning of all things.
But not if they had always lived under the light of some other star.
“No,” the Scholar said. “The evidence does not support such a conclusion. The palette has always been as it is now, back through the first expedition our history records. And yet it does not match the observed spectrum of the star we call the Sun. Moreover, this same inconsistency exists within the library acquired from the Narans, and also the library from Alaka‘i Onyx. None of us emigrated through the same paths. The only ancestral world we share is Earth itself. It is as if the data for the spectrum was falsified even before the first ships set out.”
