Pushing Ice (71 page)

“Did she hurt you?” Svetlana asked.

Parry shook his head. “I’m okay, babe. Bella treated me good.” He tried to kiss her, but the bulk of her suit got in the way. Abandoning the attempt, Parry looked back at Bella. “I came to you willingly with that evidence,” he said. “I never resented what you did.”

“I know,” she said. “You don’t have to feel bad about this. It isn’t your battle.”

Svetlana pulled her helmet from its grip point. “I’m going to put this back on now, Bella. I need to be wearing the helmet to tell the suit to send the file. You trust me, right?”

“Do whatever you have to do.”

Svetlana dropped the helmet back into place. After twenty or thirty seconds, she reached up and pulled it off again. “Transfer should be in progress: it’s a big file, even split in two. I’ve e-mailed it to the address you specified.”

“I need to confirm that it’s gone through,” Bella said, unzipping her jacket. “I’m going to pull out a flexy and make a call to Wang. You cool with that?”

“Go ahead.”

Bella removed the flexy, stiffening it with a flick of her wrist — a movement so familiar now that it felt burnt into her muscles. The flexy came alive with ShipNet options. According to the high-level menu, normal services had been suspended due to the state of emergency. Bella, however, did not need normal services.

After a few moments Wang was on the line: white-haired and wizardly, ancient as the hills, utterly unrecognisable as the eager young man who had dropped into her world half a century ago. Until he smiled, that was, and then the years fell away. He was a brave man, willing to remain behind in his lab while the rest of the colony raced to the hills.

“I have the data, Bella. Half of a construction file.”

“That’s great — you’ll get the other half shortly. Does it look valid to you?”

“I’d need days just to skim the surface operations. There’s really only one way to be sure that a construction file is valid, and that’s to see what happens when you feed it into a vat.”

“I understand. Just keep in mind this is something a little out of the ordinary.”

She ended the call, folded up the flexy and stuffed it back into her jacket to warm itself. “We’ll discuss the other half now.”

“That means you,” Svetlana said.

Bella spread her arms magnanimously. “I’m all yours. How would you like to proceed?”

The pace of events and Bella’s pliant willingness clearly unsettled Svetlana. “You can begin by announcing your resignation.”

Bella barely blinked. “I resign. What else?”

“Announce that you are handing over authority to me.”

“I’d love to.” Bella touched a finger to her lips. “Problem is, I just resigned. I have no more authority than you do. Or do you want me to unresign, for the sake of procedure?”

Svetlana growled her displeasure. “Walk to the train. There’s an open door at the back.”

“Just me?”

“Just you, Bella.” Svetlana looked pointedly at Liz Shen and the other Lind loyalists on the platform. “This isn’t about recrimination. Everyone will be treated fairly, including you.”

Bella did as she was told, then paused when she was almost at the door. “I’m going to get inside now. I take it the train will return me to Eddytown, to some state of incarceration?”

“Janus isn’t big enough for both of us,” Svetlana said. “The only way we can share it is if one of us is locked away.”

“Just get your people out of there. I don’t care if you leave me behind, but evacuate that town.”

“We’ve been over this. No one’s going anywhere.”

“Is Emily there?”

“You know she is.”

“Then you’re sentencing your own daughter to death. If you care about her — if you care about anyone — get them on the train.”

“Pretty low, Bella, emotional blackmail like that.”

“I know you care about Emily. You still have a chance to save her.”

“Get on the train.”

Bella paused again just as she was about to step through the luminous aperture into the waiting maglev. “As soon as I know Wang has the second file.”

“He’ll have it the moment you step onto the train.”

“Just a second. Before I step inside, I want to show you something.”

“You played yourself, Bella.”

“Maybe I did, but I didn’t play Chromis.”

“Chromis?” Svetlana asked, the name meaning nothing to her.

Bella looked at the memorial cube. So, following her gaze, did Svetlana. The cube had been there all along, quietly waiting in the shadows at the back of the concourse.

There was just enough time for Svetlana to register recognition and then surprise.

Then the air moved. A storm of black shapes erupted from the visible face of the memorial cube. They were awesomely fast, cutting through the air like the shadows of fast-moving clouds on a summer day. The reeves poured forth, orbiting the two parties in a vicious black gyre, creating a savage draught that chivvied their clothes and forced them to lean into its pressure. Still they poured forth from the cube: an endless gush of black that defied the common-sense laws of what could possibly be contained in such a small volume. In a flash, the gyre of motion halted and the reeves were suddenly on the ground — many dozens of them, poised motionless on the platform: black, sleek, knife-handed, hatchet-faced terrors from the depths of history.

The wind dropped, the concourse suddenly silent.

“Do nothing, say nothing, think nothing,” Bella said, still poised at the side of the maglev carriage. “These things are very, very dangerous.”

Svetlana had the nerve to speak. “What are they?”

“Reeves,” Bella said. “Instruments of government. They’re pure femtotech. There must be a hundred of them here now, but the cube could make thousands of them if I ordered it.”

Svetlana frowned at the cube. “I knew you’d found it. I also heard you’d had no more luck than I had in figuring out what it did.”

“That was true at first,” Bella said. “The difference is I touched it.”

“You
touched
it?”

“It was a message for me, sent eighteen thousand years after our departure. A token of goodwill, and a kind of toolkit.”

“Eighteen thousand years,” Svetlana said, with an automatic headshake of disbelief.

“That’s just the start of it,” Bella said. “I’m sorry, but we’ve come a lot, lot further into the future than eighteen thousand years. How far, I don’t quite know — but it has to be tens of millions of years, probably more.”

“And you just know all this somehow.”

“I know that the human species is extinct, and we’re all that’s left. The cube told me a lot, Svetlana, but it wasn’t just that. You had your doubts as well. You came to believe that the Fountainheads were lying.”

With a trace of unease, she said, “Yes.”

“Well, you were right. But they were lying out of kindness. We simply weren’t ready for the truth.”

“What now, Bella?” Svetlana looked around at the massed regiment of reeves. “You appear to have the upper hand.”

“Nothing’s changed,” Bella said. “This was a demonstration, that’s all. In a moment, the reeves will return to the cube and everything will continue as planned. I’ll get on the train, you’ll send the file to Wang, Wang will make the passkey, you’ll get yourself and everyone else off Janus.”

“Then
why
show me all this?”

“Because I could. Because I wanted you to know that I could have ended all this hours ago. I could have taken Eddytown, Svieta. In minutes. There’d have been casualties, but the reeves would have prevailed.”

Still Svetlana didn’t understand. “So why didn’t you?”

“I’m tired, Svieta,” Bella said. “I felt the same way Parry did when he concealed those murderers. I didn’t want any more killing. If the only way to achieve that was to surrender to you, to give you everything you wanted, then fine, I was ready to do that. But I wanted you to know that it could have ended differently.” Bella paused, about to stop speaking, when she felt the need to add something else. “You’ll win now, Svieta. You’ll get the High Hab, and Parry. But when I board that train, I’ll ride it to Eddytown knowing I did the right thing. If you want to think of all this as a demonstration of my moral superiority, I won’t stop you. It’s not going to be much consolation to me when Janus goes up.” She moved to board the train.

“Wait,” Svetlana said. She lifted up her helmet, frowning at something on the internal HUD.

“Send Wang the second half of the file,” Bella said.

“Wait, damn it. Something’s happening. I don’t understand, but —”

“What?” Bella asked.

“The suit’s not happy about something. I need to put the helmet on. Tell your…
reeves
not to pounce.”

“Do it slowly,” Bella warned.

Svetlana lowered the helmet back into place. She took longer than before. When she lifted it again and let it glue itself back to her hip, Bella could not gauge the expression on her face. It was somewhere between affront and abject dread.

“What?” she asked again.

“I don’t know,” Svetlana said, her eyes wide with incomprehension. “All I know is… I’m not seeing Eddytown.”

“What do you mean, not seeing it?”

“It isn’t there. It’s dropped off the net.”

Something convinced Bella that this was no ruse. She retrieved her flexy, stiffened it and examined ShipNet.

It was exactly as Svetlana had said: Eddytown was out of contact.

“Something’s happened,” Bella said.

“I know. I
know
something’s happened.”

“It’s specific to Eddytown. It can’t be anything to do with what the Musk Dogs have done to Janus.”

“This was a trap,” Denise Nadis said. “This whole set-up — these…
things
— it was all to keep our eyes off the plot. She’s done something to Eddytown.”

“I haven’t,” Bella said firmly. “Believe me, this is none of my doing. Maybe I’m wrong and Janus is going to blow up in a few minutes. Maybe the Uncontained have slipped through already —”

“It isn’t Janus, and it isn’t the Uncontained,” said Chromis Pasqueflower Bowerbird, stepping fully formed from the embossed face of the memorial cube. “But it is, possibly, a question of containment.”

They were all looking at her, not just Bella. They could all see Chromis.

Chromis stopped and looked apologetic. “I’m sorry — I wish there was more time for introductions. Bella can vouch for me, I think. My name is Chromis Pasqueflower Bowerbird and I’ve been dead a very long while. But don’t hold that against me.”

“You’re solid,” Bella said, almost dumbfounded.

“There is little further point in subterfuge now that the reeves have made their appearance.” Chromis touched the electric-white fabric of her gown. “I must emphasize to all concerned that I’m not human: merely a plausible simulation of a long-dead personality. This body is simply another shell of femtotech machinery, like the body of a reeve.” She looked momentarily sad. “Although it does feel very convincing to me, if my memories of life are to be trusted.”

“What’s happening, Chromis?” Bella asked.

“Something very unfortunate has occurred in Eddytown.” Chromis looked sternly at Svetlana. “You have a forge vat there. You were attempting to create the passkey.”

“Yes,” Svetlana said, with a renewed flash of defiance, “but there was no deception in that. I agreed to hand the construction file to Wang. I never said I wouldn’t make one myself. I thought that
might
be the wise thing to do.”

“I’m afraid you’ve run into certain… difficulties,” Chromis said.

“I don’t understand,” Svetlana said fiercely. “Tell me what’s happening to Eddytown. My daughter’s there. I want to know that’s she’s okay.”

“She may not be,” Chromis said simply.

“Talk to me!” Svetlana demanded.

“The passkey required femtotech machinery. The Musk Dogs may have warned you about this.”

“They did,” Svetlana said. “They also said I could get around it using a normal vat.”

“I don’t doubt that they did.” Chromis looked furious. “They probably mentioned something about a temporary kernel, or some such?
Hellishly
dangerous. There’s only one safe way to create femtotech, and that’s with a metastable kernel.”

“What’s gone wrong?” Bella asked.

“The kernel has ruptured,” Chromis said. “Replicating femtotech has escaped. It will have consumed the forge vat within a few seconds, the room within a few dozen more, major areas of Eddytown within a minute. Imagine a nuclear explosion, Bella — slowed down, black and boiling. That’ll give you some idea of what it looked like.”

Svetlana and Bella both spoke at the same time. “How do you know all this?”

Chromis looked at both of them crossly. “Because I’m already there. How else do you think?”

“You’re standing right here, Chromis,” Bella said.

“Part of me is here,” she said patiently, “but several hundred kilograms of me are now in Eddytown, and I’m reallocating more of myself there by the second. Do you need these reeves any more?”

“No,” Bella said.

The air screamed. The reeves were gone.

“They’re on their way,” Chromis said. “When they arrive, they’ll fuse with the material I’ve already dispatched.”

Bella glanced at Svetlana, wondering how much of this she was understanding. “To do what?”

The question tested Chromis’s usually saintlike patience. “To do something constructive about the runaway event, of course. What else?”

“I’m sorry,” Bella said.

“Can it be stopped?” Svetlana asked.

“I don’t know. Possibly.”

“My daughter… the other people — you’ve got to do something for them.”

“Many of them are already dead,” Chromis informed her.

Svetlana paled. “Emily. Tell me Emily’s okay.”

“What can you do?” Bella said. “She’s right — whatever’s happened, the survivors need to be saved.”

“Early indications are that the replicating elements are malformed, which may be in our favour. If my femtotech elements can form a containment envelope around the bad matter, I may be able to hack in and persuade the replicators to self-disassemble, as they were always intended to do.” Chromis tightened one fist, as if the effort were already costing her something. “Nothing is certain, though. Femtotech is not child’s play.”