Debatable Space (34 page)

I watch Alliea die. I have already seen my beloved friend Hera blown to shreds. And when I see Alliea kill herself, I rage
at the waste of a talented warrior, though I respect her choice. However, I am Grendel, leader of the pirate pack. I have
vowed never to die peacefully.

My leg is blown off by a rocket blast, but the suit self-seals and I battle on. I am a huge, flying one-legged killing beast.
I battle on. And on. I see limbs floating freely, weightless and shorn, both human and robot. I see streams of blood that
form red comets in the still emptiness of space. The speed of the warriors fighting in this battle is so extraordinarily fast
that we resemble molecules in motion in a murky liquid.

The flashing lights are laser beams. Shock waves rock us to and fro, but we continue moving, bobbing, flicking, surging. I
kill many many DRs, and I savour each one, for each is a precious, and a cherishable victory. My radio is silent for the most
part, but I have programmed my earpiece to play a solitary drumbeat as I fight. DUM dum-dum-dum-dum, DUM, dum-dum-dum-dum,
DUM. It calms me, and it gives my body an inner rhythm, as I whirl and veer like lightning trapped in a jar.

And so, and thus, I fight.

It is some time before I realise I am dead. I wonder… where am I?

I am on the bridge, with Harry, who is in a howling rage, and Jamie, who is the cybergeek god incarnate.

I drafted this battle plan, to Flanagan’s brief. And on my computer screen I can feel the war unfolding. Ambushes and boobytraps
are carefully seeded, like twists in a detective novel. But most of all, we rely on the sheer fighting power of our rocket-propelled
warriors flying outside the ships. They are like wasps that bring an elephant to its knees, and chew its bones.

“Brandon?”

The Captain is speaking to me. I realise that, for three long seconds, my heart has stopped beating. I gulp, force myself
to breathe again.

“Alliea is dead,” I tell him. He stares at me blankly.

The rules of my ssspecies tell me I cannot intervene in any way in this combat. We are a paccccifist, nonwarrior life form.
We do not fight, it is alien to usss, imposssssible to our nature. We
cannot
fight. Ever!

I watch as ten Corporation warshipssss close in on the Captain’s ship. I worry that they will be able to destroy Flanagan
before his crew notice this new threat.

Sssso I ssssupernova. The nova becomes focussssed into a ssssingle flare. I lunge and plunge and ssssoar and sssspike, ripping
through the enemy warships like a ssssun turned javelin.

It issss gloriousssssssssssss!

“Shit, what was that?” I ask.

Jamie checks his computers. The debris of enemy warships litters our path.

“Not sure, Cap’n. Spontaneous combustion?” he hazards.

The shattered warships are burning up, they are actually melting in deep space. I make a guess.

“Thank you Alby,” I murmur to myself.

Lena is in her room. I go and visit her. She is actually asleep.

I gently kiss her cheek and she awakes. “Oh, you,” she murmurs. Then her eyes flash open. “It’s over?”

“It’s over.”

“We’ve lost.”

“We’ve won.”

“How many survivors?”

“Very few. Perhaps, three ships in all. Maybe a hundred pirates still alive. Plus our own ship.”

Her face is ashen. I’m surprised. I didn’t think she would have cared that much.

“A hundred left,” she says, “out of eleven million, and that’s a victory?”

“Well, we killed
all
of
them
.”

“I’m sorry for sleeping.”

“There’s nothing you could have done.”

“I want to sleep a bit more.”

Lena lies down. Her eyes close. Within seconds, she is asleep again. I look at her with jealousy. I yearn to sleep. To switch
off. To have a brief respite from guilt.

But that cannot be.

The battle issss won. Flanagan’ssss ship and hisss asssault fleet of three vessselsss hass esscaped and ssset off towardssss
Kornbluth.

But I linger.

I should not have played a role in the combat. That isss not the way of my people. We do not take sssides in the warssss between
men. But I like Flanagan. I consssider him a friend. He hasss taught me much.

Succhh a sssstrange sssspecies. Yet endlesssly fasssscinating and varied. I ssssee them, metaphorically sssspeaking, asss
an animal with razzzzor handsss which ripss out itsss own eyesss. Such is the human raccce.

And, sssstrangesssst of all, each human entity is indisssolubly sssseparate. They reproducccce ssslowly and painfully. They
have no capacccity for genuinely abssstract thought that worksss at the level of pure meaning without the aid of numberssss
or sssymbolssss. And they are, believe it or not, tool buildersssss.

I musssse, for a while, at the infinite folly and entertaining variety of humankind.

Then I feel a flicker of wearinesss, and I die.

Sssoon after, my new ssself is reborn, and consssidersss the ssstack of available memoriesss and intentionsss of the now dead
and exxtinguished “Alby”. It decidesss to continue the charade of being a single, continuousss, consssistent perssssonality.
I become “Alby” oncccce again.

I glory in the ssssight before me. The humansss’ amazzzingly recklessss compressssed-ssspace bomb hasss wreaked appalling
havoc. But it hassss left in its wake a shimmering glowing hazzzze of glory. It isss a light richer than light itsssself.
For a being such assss myssself, composed entirely of light and flame, it is the nearesssst I will ever come to experiencing
a vision of God. This light-hazzzze is quite sublime.

I drift clossser. I ssssee that the hazzzze is made of tiny particlesss. Ssssmall vibrating loopsss that hover and danccce
in space. Some of the loopssss vanish then rematerialisssse. Some merge and form larger loopsss, then exxpand, then contract.

The energy of the dancing loops issss extraordinary. I wonder what will happen if they were to continue to exist in their
pressssent sssstate and ssssize. For I know that these vibrating loops are singing in space. Their musssic, their ressssonancccce,
issss the esssssence of reality itsssself.

I marvel at the sssight. Who elssse hass ever ssseen such a thing?

For these loopsss are the entity we call . Human scccientistsss called them “ssssuperssssymmetrical ssstrings”. They are,
of courssse, the fundamental indisssssolubles of which all matter isss comprissssed – they are the origin and the parent of
electronsss, photonssss, muonssss, quarks, neutrinossss and every other physical manifessstation of matter in its tiniesssst
formsss.

The are the ssssmallest objectssss posssssible in the universe. For humans, they are a theorised reality, too small to be
ssseen or detected with their instrumentsss. Because of coursse all human ssssubatomic detecting instrumentssss rely on the
interaction of particlessss; and there issss no particle ssssmall enough to interact with the ssssmallest object possssible.

And yet, thessse tiny particless are now as large as firefliess. They sswim through space, large enough to see, ssssolid enough
to touch. This is a conssssequence of an esssssential part of their curious and immutable nature – ssssuperstrings will expand
when sssubjected to high energies. They can double or triple in size; or grow by a hundredfold. They can even become macrosssscopic.

And that isss precisssely what they have now done, in the blinding blazzzzing energy release of the human’s compressssssed-space
“Big Bang Bomb”. This is the unexpected sssside effect. Ssssuperstrings made macrossssopic, for me to ssssee and hear.

I glory in what isss around me. The ssssong of the is manifessst as the Universssse itssself, in all its infinite variety.
And now I can hear that sssssong, I can
see
that shimmering frenzzzzzy that is the origin of everything.

I bassssk in joy asss I ssshare in God’s ssssong.

And then I die, of sheer ecssstasy.

And then I am reborn.

We drink, and toast, and count the cost of victory.

It is the worst and vilest cost. All of us sit with vomit in our throats, wallowing in our own disgust. Though it was, we
all concede, a brilliantly planned and executed military manoeuvre.

Picture the scene. The largest fleet of warships ever assembled and marshalled is faced with a small pirate flotilla. Millions
of warships, versus hundreds of thousands. It is inconceivable that the Corporation could lose such a one-sided contest.

But they did. We slaughtered them, and left not a single robot brain intact.

And yet I feel no pride. For the truth is – the entire battle was no more than a diversionary tactic, to allow us to move
on towards our real objective. I sacrificed my entire nation, in order to keep myself and my crew members safe for the task
ahead.

And that is why we did not fight. We stayed back. When facing danger, we fled.
And all my pirate crew stayed with me, apart from Alliea, who refused to live when her children were doomed to die.

So here we are, celebrating a victory in which we played no part. Rejoicing in the sacrifice of warriors who sacrificed themselves
to save us.

It is a hollow, bitter kind of evening. But we enjoy it nonetheless.

I take my guitar and play. The strings are programmed to play old-fashioned honky-tonk piano notes; and I have programmed
the guitar’s chip to give me an idiosyncratic, heartfelt bass and drums accompaniment. And my singing is carried via the intercoms
to every vessel in our small fleet.

I don’t sing the blues. That would sink us entirely. Instead, I sing a gospel hymn of hope and redemption.

I sing:

“On my way

To Canaan Land

I’m on my way

Yeah, to Canaan Land

On my waaay

Oh yeah

To Canaan Land,

On my way

Glory Hallelujah

On my way.”

The piano chords smash and crash through the soaring melody and the heartfelt lyrics.

“Yes I’m on my way

To Canaan land

Yes, I’m on my way

To Canaan Land

On my waaaaaaaaaay

To Canaan Land

On my way

Glory Hallelujah

On my way.”

I raise the energy level. I sing my heart out.

“I’ve had a mighty hard time

But I’m on my way

Had a mighty hard time

Yeah yeah yeah

Mighty hard time

On my way.

On my way

Glory Hallelujah

On my way!”

I have had my vocal chords modified to help me reach the rich throaty pitch of gospel songs like this. I feel as if my skin
is being ripped off and my soul itself is reaching out and touching all my comrades, those before me in the assembly room,
and those in their own ships.

I think of Alliea. I have seen video footage of her lonely death in space; her choice. Her end. Her glory.

“I’ve had a mighty hard time

But I’m on my way

Had a mighty hard time

Yeah yeah yeah

Mighty hard time

O-on my way.”

I think of the many who died. Hera, Grendel, most of the Children Ships. All my own children too, forty-eight of them, died
in the heat of battle. I wanted to save at least some of them, my favourite children, by keeping them in my command vessel.
And I issued orders to that effect on my Captain’s email; then deleted them. And issued them again; and deleted them again.
For how could I chose my favourites, among that wonderful, rebellious rabble of kids? I loved them all, equally. And how could
I save my own, while sending the children of others to certain death? No! No exceptions could be made. All had to die. Their
sacrifice was needed, and their sacrifice was taken.

“Yes I’m on my way

To Canaan land

Yes, I’m on my way

To Canaan Land

On my waaaaaaaaaay

To Canaan Land

On my way

Glory Hallelujah

On my way!”

I think of life and death. So much death. Rob, Alliea, my children from the ship, my wife on Pixar, our children. My crewmates.
My friends. My lovers. My victims. All the countless millions who die, every year, as the casual side effect of the Cheo’s
reign. And here I am, still alive. Heart still pounding. Mind still racing.

And my only consolation is the certainty that I, too, will die soon. Because with all that faces us – how could it be otherwise?

I reach the last chorus, I keep the honky-tonk piano settings, and I segue into another gospel song.

I have caught up with the shipssss. I float outside their hullsss, flickering like the ssssun on water. Through my intercom,
I can hear Flanagan’sss sssssong. And I can imagine the men and women in their cabinsss and assssssembly roomssss, lisssstening,
clapping, ssssinging along.

And assss I float past them in deepesssst spacccce, a flame among the starssss, I, too, hear the new ssssong he ssssings.
It isss fasssst, urgent, with a ssssurging piano accompaniment; and it is a ssssong of hope, with a catchy melody that makesss
the heart ssssoar:

“Oh Lord!”

Flanagan sssings, and I long for fingersss to click along to the beat. He continues:

“Oh Lord

Keep your hand on the plow

Hold on.

Oh Lord

Oh yeah

Oh Lord

Oh yeah

Keep your hand on the plough

Hold on.

Mary had three lengths of chain

And every length was in Jesus’ name.