On the Steel Breeze (69 page)

‘The motion passed, narrowly,’ Mposi said. ‘Even then, I think some still believed she was lying. But slowly her revelation came to be accepted as truth. We’d seen Chamber Thirty-Seven, walked inside it. What reason could we possibly have to doubt any other part of her story once we’d accepted the most outlandish part: that this woman had raised a clan of talking elephants!’

‘But she was still speaking about Crucible,’ Chiku said, ‘as if you still stood some chance of arriving. What changed?’

She was learning the rest of it when the bad thing occurred. Even though
Zanzibar
had developed the prototype PCP engine, scaling it up to the size necessary to slow a holoship had always been an ambitious objective, especially in the time remaining to the caravan. But it had become doubly difficult for
Zanzibar
, forcibly isolated as it was from the rest of the community, its best minds either executed or in detention on other holoships. They barely had the industrial capacity to go it alone, never mind indulging in the kind of draining economic and technical effort needed to build a new slowdown engine.

After two centuries of interstellar voyaging, this was almost more than the citizenry could accept. The prize for which they had fought so valiantly was not to be theirs, and those who had at times disdained that prize were now in the best position to take it.

But they were not without options, Eunice said. They had taken the old lander and made it into
Icebreaker
, and they could do that again, albeit on a smaller scale. Allowing for some sacrifices,
Zanzibar
still had the capacity to build a second prototype of the PCP engine, smaller and more efficient than the first, and this engine could in turn be integrated into a smaller, nimbler spacecraft. They took one of their shuttles, scooped out its innards and replaced them – after years of effort and
setbacks – with the new engine. It was a monumentally difficult task, conducted in total isolation and with maximum stealth.
Zanzibar
had to maintain the illusion that it was a dead or dying holoship, hurtling uncontrolled through space.

When they got close enough to Crucible, they sent the new ship on its way. It was launched as secretly as possible, its course taking it well away from the slowdown trajectories of the other holoships. Its mission was to make contact with Crucible, but also to serve as witness. If there were mistakes to be made, let the other holoships make them.

‘She’s aboard that ship, of course,’ Mposi said. ‘No way she was being left out of the loop, not after all this time and everything she’d done to get us to Crucible in the first place.’

‘Just her?’ Chiku asked, wondering how spartan the arrangements aboard the other ship must be, and what kind of volunteers might have been required.

‘No, not just her,’ Ndege said.

Chiku was about to ask Ndege to elaborate on this point. But at that exact moment Guochang vanished.

Out of ching, back in their bodies on Crucible, they knew immediately that the very worst had happened. An impactor had fallen squarely on one of Arachne’s surface positions, exactly where she was holding one of her hostages. Her defences had been too tardy to stop the incoming body, and it had arrived at a sufficiently steep angle that the atmosphere had done little to absorb its kinetic energy. Guochang, in ching, had known nothing about his imminent end. It would have been painless and instantaneous – better, in truth, than the ends June Wing and Pedro Braga had suffered, all those years ago. But death was death, and when the time of reckoning came, it was a small mercy to be oblivious. He had been happy in the ching, too – happy just to be back on
Zanzibar
, even if only in a dream. Chiku had been smiling, overwhelmed with delight at the Tantors, giddy that her holoship had found a way to endure, and that her children were not only still alive but part of the world-changing events occurring aboard
Zanzibar
. All the difficulties they had faced and would continue to face were as nothing compared with the mere fact of their survival.

The four survivors felt as if they were in each other’s presence, all in the same tower, but they knew it was an illusion being maintained by ching.

‘The rate of bombardments has never been higher,’ Arachne informed them. ‘In addition, the Watchkeepers have moved to what I
can only interpret as a condition of elevated alertness. Communication between them has intensified. I believe we may be on the threshold of . . .
something
.’

Guochang’s death was bad enough, but the impactor had also killed – or placed forever beyond resurrection – three of the fifteen skipover volunteers who had yet to be revivified. To Chiku, it felt like an even greater affront that these people had died without knowing the purpose of their sacrifice, or without the dignity of an apology for being lied to.

‘We can’t stay here,’ she said. ‘Any of us. If the surface is too risky, you’d better find a way to get us back into orbit.’

‘I lack the means,’ Arachne said. ‘My rockets aren’t suitable for the purpose. They are extensions of me, not vehicles for moving people. There’s no room inside them for passengers, and no provision for keeping passengers alive.’

‘Then change them,’ Travertine said exasperatedly.

‘It would take too long, even if my space-based capabilities weren’t already at maximum capacity.’

‘You move us around Crucible,’ Doctor Aziba said. ‘How does that work, exactly?’

‘By Provider or airborne vehicle. But where would I take you? The only places I can keep you alive are the places they’re trying to destroy!’

‘What about
Icebreaker
?’ Chiku asked. ‘You damaged our ship when you brought us down from orbit, but the hull was intact until you cut a hole in it to gas us. Can’t you patch it up, clamp some rockets on and get us back into space, the same way we came down?’

‘I took the ship to pieces,’ Arachne said.

Namboze sighed. ‘Well, of course you did.’

‘It was the only way to extract the information embedded in your vehicle. You had no expectation that it would ever fly again. I could task my Providers to reassemble it, but it would be just as difficult and time-consuming as readying one of my own rockets.’

‘Wait,’ Chiku said slowly. ‘You say you can’t keep us alive in any of your structures. Maybe that’s true, but we also came to Crucible intending to live on the surface once we were acclimatised.’ She jabbed her finger into the floor until it dimpled. ‘We brought basic supplies with us on the lander – enough for twenty people, not just the five of us.’

‘Four,’ Travertine corrected, gently.

‘Well?’ asked Dr Aziba. ‘Did you dismantle our masks, rations and survival equipment as well as the ship, Arachne?’

‘Your equipment’s intact and can be made ready quite quickly. But what good will it serve? You can’t survive for long, even with your
masks – you have enough rations for perhaps several tens of days, if you’re fortunate. You will be much safer where you are now.’

‘Until another impactor breezes through your defences,’ Namboze said, ‘which could happen at any moment. I agree with Chiku – if we can’t reach space, I’d sooner take my chances out there, in the forest.’

Chiku nodded. ‘Eunice is on her way aboard a functioning ship, which may be able to keep all of us alive – including the other sleepers – until this is all over. Whatever
that
means. Arachne – you must let her slip through your defences.’

‘We have an old score to settle – she might feel it’s time for a reckoning.’

‘Were you even listening to what Chiku’s children said?’ Namboze scolded. ‘She’s offering herself up in the hope that she can negotiate with you, not to get back at you for what you did to her two hundred years ago and twenty-eight light-years away.’

‘We must work on the basis that we all have good intentions,’ Dr Aziba agreed. ‘As Chiku said in her transmission, there’s a strength in not being strong. This is your chance, Arachne. You must let that ship reach the surface unharmed.’

Chiku blinked, and the others were gone. Arachne was standing at the window, her back to the room, the violin and bow lolling from her fingers.

‘Please don’t worry about your absent friends,’ the girl was saying. ‘They’re all quite well, and arrangements are in hand for your evacuation. I will also do my best to safeguard the remaining sleepers. There’s something I want to discuss with you first, though.’

‘Something that can’t be shared with the others?’

‘In this instance, I am not sure that would be wise.’

Chiku peered past Arachne, through the window. Perhaps it was her imagination, but the ceiling of cloud had gained an additional drab opacity. She shuddered to think of the sheer deadening cargo of dust already in the atmosphere, stirred and distributed by complicit winds and high-altitude jetstreams.

Dust had no business being up there. It would all have to come down eventually.

‘What do we have left to say to each other that we haven’t already said?’

‘I lied, just a little, and you must forgive me. In the context of my larger falsehoods, it’s only a very small untruth.’

‘Out with it, then,’ Chiku said.

‘I told you that your holoships weren’t yet within range of my coun-termeasures. The truth is that they’ve been within range for several days
now, by which I mean that projectiles launched from my kinetic cannons quite some while ago have had plenty of time to intersect with your holoships by now. They may already have impacted, with megatonne effectiveness.’

‘Then they’ve either hit or they’ve missed,’ Chiku said, bewildered and uneasy.

‘There is a third option. We spoke of the possibility, faint as it was, that our adversaries might have the means to detonate or neutralise their impactors if some truce situation could be negotiated. The fact is that I’ve always had that capability. My kinetic projectiles aren’t dumb slugs – they have embedded logic. I can order them to self-destruct, or alter their direction of flight with bursts of controllable micro-thrust. The latter offers only a very small change in the vector, but over distances of light-seconds or -minutes it’s usually sufficient to change a collision to a miss, or vice versa. The point being, Chiku, that I’ve had my missiles on a collision course with the holoships for quite some time now, but with the ability to avert that impact at the last moment by transmitting the self-destruct signal to the slugs. I could have struck back against the holoships on multiple occasions, but at the last moment I’ve always neutralised my slugs. Would you like to know why?’

‘You hoped wisdom might prevail,’ Chiku said. ‘That they’d be the ones to back down first.’

‘That was one reason, yes. But I must confess that my actions were also coloured by an element of curiosity regarding Eunice. Once you’d mentioned her existence, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Part of me wanted to destroy her utterly, but another part was equally determined that she shouldn’t be destroyed, so that I might have the chance to learn from her. That was the part that prevailed and steered my hand, Chiku. I dared not destroy the holoships while she might be inside them.’

‘And now?’

‘Now I know she was never aboard any of the five vessels presently approaching us. And those are the vessels currently bombarding us. Perhaps they can’t stop what’s already been set in motion. But Crucible is still being harmed, and the regrettable deaths of some of your companions have highlighted the limitations of my defences. I’m mindful that there are other holoships further out, probably observing events via transmissions and long-range sensors and refining their own plans accordingly. If the first five vessels have the slowdown engine, I think it highly probable that the other holoships have it, too. Would you dispute this?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Good – my next point is so much more straightforward if you accept the first.’ Arachne, who had been facing the window all the time she had been speaking, turned now to address Chiku face to face. ‘These bombardments can’t go on, Chiku, and we can’t tolerate the possibility of a second wave of holoships initiating a similar attack. A line must be drawn.’

‘By destroying a holoship.’

‘No,’ Arachne corrected gently. ‘By destroying three. One would be ambiguous – it might look like a lucky strike. Two would be better, but still wouldn’t offer the definitive gesture I’m seeking. Three is the perfect number. It demonstrates both terrible power and terrible clemency. If I can destroy three, I’m clearly able to destroy five, and yet I’ve chosen not to. I’ve chosen to spare lives instead – to show mercy and forgiveness! There is a strength in not being strong, as you so eloquently stated.’

‘I didn’t mean it this way!’

‘Perhaps not, but my interpretation is equally valid. Events have forced this upon us, Chiku. I dearly wish it were otherwise, but I won’t stand by and see this world murdered. I will not be seen to do nothing.’

‘Seen by whom?’ But as soon as Chiku framed the question, she could answer it herself. ‘The Watchkeepers. You think they’re observing you, testing your reactions. You think you’re being judged.’

‘I’m accountable,’ Arachne said, ‘as are we all. I’m a product of human cleverness, and so are the holoships. So, too, are your Tantors, and your Eunice. None of us is blameless. None of us is absolved of responsibility. Most especially not you.’

‘Your mind’s clearly made up. I’ve pleaded your case, tried to talk them into peace. What more do you want from me?’

‘Your guidance,’ Arachne said sweetly. ‘Three holoships will be destroyed. But the decision as to which two are
not
destroyed – this decision may be yours. We’ve already discussed the probable identities of the five holoships.’

‘No,’ Chiku said. ‘I won’t help you with this.’

‘You misunderstand. I’ll destroy three whatever happens – I’ve already made my preliminary selection. But I’m giving you the opportunity to decide which two will live. What would you prefer, Chiku? That this decision be made by a machine, with no account taken of the lives and possibilities contained with those vessels? Or that a human should have some say in it? A human who knows something of the caravan, a human who has travelled between the holoships, lived and breathed their air? A human who has seen them from the inside, sensed their
individual strengths and weaknesses? A human whose insight might, in some small way, prove advantageous to the peace process? We all want peace – I think we can agree on that. I’ve reached the limit of my understanding of human nature. But I still have you.’