Godlike Machines (34 page)

I could barely conceal my dismay. The Director had struck for the first time in my presence just moments after E. C. Cotton arrived. Was it too much to speculate that the two things were connected? That she was the key to this confluence of mysteries was a possibility I could not ignore.

“Where did she go?”

“Topside. She had that look they all get, when they’ve been searching down deep—”

“I mean just now. Did she go back up?”

“I presume so. It’s none of our business what she does. People handle things like this differently. Some go off the rails, but she seemed—Donaldan, where are you going? We need you here!”

I had turned my back on her and was pushing through the secure perimeter. Her cries fell behind me. I ignored, too, her subsequent requests to return to duty. Let her think I was running out of weakness, or perhaps fear, using Cotton as an excuse to flee from the Director’s handiwork. I knew otherwise.

First I called at security HQ, where I uploaded Cotton’s personnel records into my memory dump. Even at a quick glance, they seemed inauthentic. Her full name, true or otherwise, was listed as Emmaline Celeste Cotton, and details were sketchy prior to her arrival on this level. She was 34 years old, the same approximate age as her corpse—a fact that only exacerbated the puzzle. If the body was genuine—as it appeared to be—and some twist in time had delivered it to her in advance of her actual demise, why was she unconcerned about the small amount of time remaining to her? The haste with which she had hurried off struck me as at odds with human nature—unless the body had already told her everything she needed to know, and set her off on errands unknown.

I downloaded the audiovisual record of the body’s placement, intending to analyze this later, since surely the means of its arrival in our jurisdiction would provide a clue. Once I had that data, I traced Cotton’s movements through the mine to determine where she had got to. Hoping against hope that she had not already reached the surface, I followed her recorded image along its path through this habitat to the next. She was heading for the elevators in sector eight.

By then I was on the move too, not stopping to fabricate an explanation for the staff at HQ. If they wondered why I was disobeying Supervisor Nemke’s orders, they said nothing. These were bridges, I decided, that I could mend on my return, for at that moment, my orders were clear: to follow the mystery for the glory of the Great Ship and the Guild. It would be a lie of omission not to add that being shamed by my pratfall in front of my erstwhile colleagues was also an incentive.

E. C. Cotton had already left the elevator cluster by the time I arrived. With utmost haste, I determined which shaft she had taken. To my surprise, she had not gone up at all, but down-down the sole shaft connecting the upper levels to the lower. Wherever she was heading, it wasn’t back to the surface.

I commandeered the next carriage from a gaggle of young miners heading coreward to pursue their fortunes. It was imperative that I be able to think without their distracting babble. As the carriage disengaged from the habitats, I felt a clear sense of vertigo, even though the floor beneath my feet was absolutely steady. My first visit to the lower levels wasn’t supposed to be like this. I hoped that the rumours I have been gathering for you, Master Catterson, would prepare me for what lay ahead.

The drop lasted several minutes. In that time, I reviewed the audiovisual record. The container had not been in position as recently as a day earlier, so I jumped forward in increments of one hour to a point where it was extant, and then scrolled back. People came and went, going about the business of the mine. Some of them I recognized; others wore full-body fieldsuits with semi-opaque pressure masks covering their faces. It was one such who placed the container for Officer Gluis to discover 13 hours later, so I knew my hope of an easy answer was ill-conceived.

The captured image was of a slender male displaying no identification, physical or electronic. His fieldsuit was different to the ones worn by miners on that level, but not so different as to attract attention. Moving calmly into view from the camera’s left, he slid the container into position and made certain it was secure, then walked just as casually out of the frame. As he disappeared, I caught a faint profile of his face through the semi-transparent mask. It was barely a glimpse, but something about it struck me as familiar. I cannot say what, exactly, and I analyze the records now with increasing perplexity. There is barely a hint of cheek and nothing more than an outline of a nose. I wonder if I am reaching at something that does not exist. How could I know the face of this mysterious man? What are the odds against such a happenstance? Nevertheless, I present the blurry image to you, Master, in the hope that you will decipher what I cannot.

The carriage moved beneath me, the first sensation I had registered during the journey. A short time later, the doors opened. I stepped out into a very different space. Instead of cramped, dimly-lit corridors and an ever-present tang of recycled air, this level was bright to my eyes. I squinted for a moment, noting white walls, vaulted ceilings, and gleaming observation blisters set into the floor, smelling people instead of industry, and taking stock of those nearby as best I could. There were miners, officials in unfamiliar blue uniforms, and even a child walking hand-in-hand with an adult. (A child! I could barely believe my eyes. What madman would bring an infant into a mine?) Standing not four meters from me, gazing down through one of the bulging blisters, was the woman I sought.

Emmaline Celeste Cotton looked up as I approached, and said, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

I had no answer for her, not immediately. My attention was caught by the downward view through the blister. It showed an endless sea of lava upon which bobbed islands of semi-molten stone. Green flames licked and danced like djinns, dodged by graceful flitter-craft and ignored by sturdier extraction platforms. The habitat in which I stood hung not 100 meters above the hellish ocean, but the floor was hardly warm, and the ambient temperature perfectly comfortable. Were the environmental controls to fail, I had no doubt that we would be burned to ash in a second.

No one but Cotton and I so much as glanced through the blisters. To them, I supposed, the view was commonplace. The human mind learns to accept all manner of wonder, if it is presented every day. The same goes for horror, as the miners’ coexistence with the Director proves beyond doubt.

With some effort, I brought my attention to the matter at hand. “You were expecting
someone
.’’

She nodded. Her eyes were light brown, I noted for the first time, and they hid a calculating mind. “Why are you here, Donaldan Lough?”

“You left a crime scene, your own body—”

“The truth, now. You’re not like the others. Why are you the only one to come after me, and not them?”

You will comprehend, Master, the care with which I chose my next words.

“None of the others seem to give a damn. You saw them. To Gluis, your body was nothing but a joke to frighten newbies—and look what happened to him. Nemke’s well-meaning but a plodder. No one’s asking the questions that need to be answered.”

“So you’re curious.”

“I am curious,” I said, “to know why you are going down rather than up, to your death rather than away from it.”

She examined me as closely as I was examining her. What she saw helped her come to a decision. Although I was not privy to her reasoning, I believe I conveyed only muddled trustworthiness, and that was sufficient.

“I’m not going any further down,” she said. “I’m going sideways.”

“To where? There’s only one entrance to the mines.”

“Look behind you, Donnie Boy.”

I did as she instructed, half-anticipating that she would strike me or attempt to flee the moment my back was turned. She did neither.

Set into the wall behind me I saw the entrance to the elevator shaft down which I had just descended. The gaggle of miners I had disenfranchised emerged from it at that moment, casting me dark looks but finding the observation blisters entirely more interesting. What I had not noticed-distracted in a similar fashion—was a second entrance next to the first, identical in design but with no matching counterpart on the level above.

I crossed to it in a dozen easy strides. (It occurred to me later that I had felt lighter on this level, but that is only to be expected so much closer to the center of the planet.) The door did not open for me, despite my security credentials, and displayed no information regarding its destination.

“Where does this lead?” I confronted Cotton right there, in front of the closed sliding doors. “Tell me.”

“I already did. Sideways.” She raised an empty hand. “If you like, I’ll show you.”

I tripped over the thought that she wanted to take my hand, as a lover might. Then I realized that she wished only to communicate via the receptors in her skin, the same receptors by which she had accessed her corpse’s memory dump.

I tightened my firewalls and raised my hand in return.

The moment our fingers touched, three strings of alphanumeric symbols appeared in my mind.

rmei68q9ve42izms7tj

5ek38eoqwjup40dwgg5

TRELAYNE

They meant nothing to me.

“To get through that door,” she said, “you need access codes. I had one, but it was cancelled nine weeks ago. I’ve been stuck here ever since.”

The implication was simple enough to follow: these 19-digit strings were examples of the codes she needed. “Where did you get these from?”

“My body,” she said, with a defiant smile. “The dump was erased, but only because I wiped it clean.”

“You lied, then. Why?”

“Isn’t a better question for the moment: why
two
access codes?”

“That’s why you expected someone to meet you here, but didn’t know who.”

“Exactly. But you’re not Trelayne,” she said, “unless you too have a secret.”

I withdrew my hand, keeping my expression carefully neutral. “Trelayne is a person?”

“A very important person, Don. The most important person in the mines. Some say he’s a thousand years old and lives in a fortress at the center of everything. Others say he’s just a legend, and he never existed at all. Either way, remember those questions you had? Find Trelayne and you’ll have your answers.”

“He’s the person you’re looking for,” I said, remembering with a flash of inspiration what Supervisor Nemke had said about her unsuccessful search.

“Yes.” Her stare was a challenge. “And now I have two access codes to set me on my way again. Are you coming with me or not?”

It was not an easy decision, Master Catterson. If I rejected her offer, I could return to my post beneath Supervisor Nemke and resume my patient exploration of Gevira’s mysteries, aided by her slow but considerate attempts to educate me in the ways of the mines.

Or I could travel with Cotton to a whole new section of the mine-the existence of which I had never suspected just one level up—and pursue the man she said could tell me everything I had ever wanted to know. The opportunity promised untold revelations. It hinted at mysteries we had barely suspected. How could I decline her offer?

I did not. For the Great Ship and the Guild, I resolved to keep following the mystery wherever it led, no matter how many bridges I left burning behind me.

Cotton entered the access codes electronically. The panels slide open, allowing us entry into a carriage identical to the one I had just left. They shut behind us, and with no sensation of motion at all we were underway.

My interrogation of her began almost immediately.

“The view back there,” I said. “That doesn’t look like any mine I’ve ever seen before.”

“What do you think is going on here, exactly?”

I told her what I had learned during my covert surveillance: that the deeper levels harness the resources of Gevira’s lower mantle and core, using the temperature differential between it and the Polar Regions to power the enterprize. That is the official story, anyway. You and I know this to be only partly true, Master, but I did not comprehend until that moment that she knew as well.

“Yeah, it’s bullshit,” she said. “The mine is a net energy exporter degrees of magnitude higher than even an optimistic estimate. And the elements it extracts from the mantle don’t display the expected isotopic proportions. Core-mining can’t possibly be the whole story.”

I asked her for her theory, but she didn’t answer.

“Perhaps twists in causality are a side-effect,” I prompted her, thinking of her abandoned corpse.

“Of what? The kind of concentrated mass-energy you’d need to create a loop in time would suck Gevira into a black hole. I haven’t stumbled over any of those lately. Have you?”

“It’s impossible to define the characteristics of a technology we know nothing about.”

“True.”

“Particularly if that technology is of alien origin.”

“ROTH? Here?”

I asked her to define the term.

“Races Other Than Human, Don. Where have you been living?”

I was tempted to say: far from here. But the urge to put her in her place was controllable.

“The possibility of an alien artifact cannot be ignored,” I said, frostily. “I believe that the Director is protecting it.”

“There’s something odd going on, that’s for sure, but I don’t think that little green men on Gevira are the answer. Most people assume there’s a secret society running things behind the scenes. Those they like, they take. Those they don’t like, they kill. Occam would find that more acceptable.”

Her superior attitude was a constant irritation, but no secret is safe with a braggart. It emerges of its own accord, eventually. I decided to suffer in exchange for the information she promised.

“Have you ever heard of Terminus?” she asked.

For the second time that day, I experienced vertigo. “No.”

“The Structure?”

“No.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know, Donaldan Lough. Stick with me. I’ll do my best to keep you out of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble are you anticipating?”