Polity 4 - The Technician (47 page)

‘I have
only one question,’ said Chanter, also removing his helmet then peering inside
it with distaste. ‘Why did Dragon do this? Why did Dragon heal the Technician?’

‘Surely
you know the answer yourself,’ Blue replied.

‘To
meddle, to play with dangerous things, to cause disruption and twist the shape
of the world.’

‘The
usual view of Dragon, yes, but not the central reason.’

‘Then
why? Why?’

‘Because,’
said Blue, ‘it was aesthetically pleasing.’

The
amphidapt displayed a brief puzzlement, then he closed his eyes and shook his
head. He looked sick.

It had
taken Jem a little while to understand the man, but now he did. Chanter had
invested heavily, both emotionally and intellectually, in the belief that the
Technician was expressing itself through its art. Despite the fact that all
recent evidence pointed to that creature’s art being a product of a
malfunction, he had doggedly clung to that investment. But now, Blue’s words
had undermined the last bulwark of Chanter’s faith, a feeling Jem understood
perfectly.

Because
it wasn’t based on logic, faith did not often fail when exposed to logic – such
was always taken as an attack and resulted in a stubborn lockdown. However,
take the faithful one out of his normal environment into one where he could not
help but stumble on facts that refuted his faith – let that one expose himself
to logic and accept it – and sometimes a breaking point could be reached.

‘Just a
machine,’ said Chanter.

Jem
didn’t quite understand that. ‘But a machine more complex than any Human
being.’

Chanter
looked at him. ‘But a machine nonetheless.’

Jem
shook his head, still trying to encompass this strange idea – one that could be
backed up by no physical science – that created organic machines somehow
differed from evolved ones. Then, all at once, he understood. This was the
thinking of members of a young civilization, newly arisen from primitivism and
yet to grow comfortable with their machines. Less than ten thousand years ago
Humans were still banging rocks together and sacrificing goats to ensure the
sun rose. Yes, there had been a time when the Atheter had felt the same, when
their machines were new and something separate from themselves. The Atheter of
his own time had been certain about that, but it was a period of history lost
somewhere far behind tens of thousands of years of war, of rises and falls that
never quite expelled them from the age of machines.

‘What
does this mean?’ Jem asked.

Chanter
just stared at him for a long moment. Perhaps he didn’t understand the question?
No, finally he replied, ‘A soulless mechanism.’

Oh yes, the soul . . .

Jem
understood the concept; he had thoroughly believed in souls before. He winced
at the painful embarrassment he felt now, felt himself dissolving, his
forty-five years of human life diluted in an immensity of experience and
understanding. Then something snapped, that other mind inside him detaching,
again changing him just a little bit more but again distancing itself from him.

‘What
will you do now?’ Jem asked.

Chanter
stared at him again, then abruptly swung back to Blue. ‘We’re done here?’

‘We are
done,’ the dracowoman agreed. ‘Are you satisfied?’

‘Satisfied?
Hardly.’ He turned back to Jem. ‘Now I’m going back to my mudmarine. Yes,’
Chanter nodded to himself, ‘I’m going back.’ He stomped towards the door, which
obligingly hinged open ahead of him, and he stepped outside.

Jem now
turned and faced Blue. ‘And this was aesthetically pleasing for Dragon too?’

Blue
nodded an acknowledgement. ‘Dragon considered it unfinished business and so
left the memories.’

‘Did
interference make Dragon feel alive?’

‘I don’t
understand you.’

‘Consider
Chanter’s feeling that constructed organisms and evolved organisms are somehow
different. I ask again: did interference make Dragon feel alive?’

‘You are
still unclear.’

Jem
allowed himself a small smile, a Human twist of the face that denoted a certain
communication. The Weaver had known the same sorts of problems, once, far in
the past. War machines like the Technician could never be still.

‘Dragon was
aware it was a biomech, and carried the awareness in itself of its creators’
belief in their own uniqueness. To prove itself it had to do,
could not be still.’

‘I dream
Dragon dreams sometimes.’

‘Quite,’
said Jem. ‘And in doing, Dragon went beyond merely
curing the Technician, did it not? Dragon prepared for the inevitable results
of the Technician becoming fully functional.’

Blue
said nothing, just stared.

Jem went
on, ‘Perhaps you didn’t realize that the download you provided, at Dragon’s
behest, gave me more than it gave Chanter. You are involved. You are still
involved, for you were instructed to provide the means to end all this. Where
and how?’

Blue
blinked, even her draconic visage twisting in thought. ‘Yes, you were to ask
that question.’

‘And you
to provide an answer.’

‘The
means has been brought here, and Shree Enkara carries it. She intends to use it
against the Atheter AI, but it was only with such intention that I could get
her close to you.’

Jem
nodded once in acknowledgement and departed after Chanter.

As he
stepped out into Masadan evening, Jem processed the new information and started
coming to conclusions he did not like. He had been manipulated and used all his
life; first by the Theocracy, then by the Polity, and now by Dragon. Never had
his destiny been his own. However, there was no way to avoid what had been
planned for him. He must see it through before he could ever find his own
course. He hurried after Chanter, falling in beside the amphidapt as he strode
from the town. They did not speak until they reached the perimeter, where
Chanter came to a halt and folded his arms across his chest and gazed pensively
across at his mudmarine.

‘Are you
running away?’ Jem asked.

‘Maybe,’
Chanter agreed.

‘The
Technician being a faulty machine does not mean it was incapable of art.’

Chanter
shook his head. ‘It’s all too damned complicated now, and there are too many
people involved. How can I see to the core of it all with experts and AIs
over-analysing every scrap of data? Some things should remain inviolate. Some
mysteries should remain mysteries.’

‘Something
I once believed,’ said Jem.

Chanter
glared at him, his face blushing purple. ‘This has got nothing to do with
damned religion!’

Jem
shrugged. It seemed to him that whilst it had nothing to do with organized
religion, it had everything to do with faith – that comfortable sanctuary from
the complications of reality.

‘Where
will you go now?’ he asked.

‘Somewhere
cleaner, less complicated, somewhere I can think.’

Chanter
strode away, and Jem let him go. Who was he to argue with the man? He had only
started to make sense of the world using someone else’s mind. The amphidapt
reached his mudmarine, raised one hand goodbye, then a bright light glared and
his vessel lifted and tore in half. The crump of the blast seemed more
sensation than sound.

By the time Grant reached the blast site it was already swarming with
dracomen and, even at night like this, he recognized Blue.

‘Where
are they?’ he barked.

Blue
held out the flat of her hand, turned it over then pointed. Grant headed where
indicated. Jeremiah Tombs was down on his knees, not praying, but cradling
Chanter’s head in his lap. The amphidapt looked thoroughly wasted; burnt from
head to foot, one of his legs gone along with part of the side of his head, now
exposing mangled contents. Unless the man had a memplant there would be no way
back for him.

‘Shit,’
said Grant. ‘Shit!’

Tombs
looked up, eyes strangely bright in the near-dark, reflecting light like the
eyes of an animal.

‘He
wanted to go somewhere less complicated, cleaner, somewhere he could think,’
said Tombs.

‘And you
reckon he’s gone there.’ Grant could not conceal his contempt.

‘No,
he’s just dead.’

When it was first discovered there was
great excitement about the Atheter AI. The sheer size of the chunk of memory
crystal it occupied indicated that it must be the gatekeeper on a vast
repository of alien knowledge. A benefit of this was obtained upon first
contact with the AI: a method of scanning in underspace to locate patterns
generated by Jain nodes in realspace, thus to locate them. A later contact
revealed a snapshot of part of the tragic Atheter history, but not really much
more than had already been guessed. Then the AI shut down for two decades. When
this silence finally ended, information again began to become available from
the AI, indirectly, but it was disappointing. The vast repository of
astrogation data, studies of Atheter astral bodies, suns, worlds, asteroids and
underspace maps rendered very little that was new and not known; the fragments
of Atheter history were very interesting, but censored, and technological data
only matched current Polity development. Everything else of real interest to
Polity AIs – mainly the advanced technologies – was available, but at a slow
trickle and at a price. The Atheter AI was wise enough to recognize the
stupidity of giving away a valuable commodity.

–
From HOW IT IS by Gordon

The one called Sharn sat on the other side of the ATV from her, holding
his nose to stop the blood. It seemed she wasn’t the only one subject to
Ripple-John’s violence. Sharn, it seemed, was a ‘fucking idiot’ with ‘the
brains of a mud snake’. Sharn had killed someone, that seemed evident, and now
Ripple-John was worried, couldn’t keep still.

‘Why
this way?’ asked the one called Blitz, from the driver’s seat. ‘Surely we need
to stay close – we don’t know where they’ll take him next.’

Ripple-John
turned and stepped over to her, prodded her with his boot. ‘You awake?’

Sanders
kept her eyes closed for a moment, then relented, gazing up at him, her vision
slightly blurred. Pretending she was unconscious still would not have worked –
he would have just put the boot in again. ‘I’m awake.’

‘Why
don’t you tell me all about you and Leif Grant,’ he suggested.

‘What’s
to tell?’

‘I
wonder how much he values your life?’

Sanders
could think of no reply.

Ripple-John
smiled, but without warmth, then turned away to address Blitz. ‘If we stay near
Dragon Down your dear stupid brother has ensured we’ll be hunted down – that
stirred them up like blood in a fucking squerm pond!’ He turned and glared at
Sharn. ‘You were supposed to disable that thing, not blow it to bits and kill
the pilot!’

‘So
we’re running?’ Blitz asked.

‘Yes and
no,’ Ripple-John replied. ‘From the Barrier we’ve got the option to run south,
to our aerofan cache, then we can fly over the hooder activity and go into
hiding at Greenport. But we’ve still got one play left – haven’t we, Jerval
Sanders?’

‘What’s
this about Leif Grant?’ asked Kalash – factual question to get his father back
to the point, and hopefully away from further violence.

Again
the cold smile. ‘Seems Leif Grant and Jerval Sanders here have a history. Seems
she spread her legs for him after the rebellion before running off to look
after Tombs. I wonder how much he values her – whether he values her more than
Tombs. What do you think Jerval?’

Not
giving an answer wasn’t an option. ‘Leif Grant is a professional – he won’t bow
to threats.’

‘You
think?’ Ripple-John nodded to himself. ‘You’d better hope he does, because you,
lady, are dead if he doesn’t.’

Sanders
turned her gaze back down towards the deck. If these idiots thought Grant would
exchange Tombs for her, then they didn’t know the man at all. That meant she
was dead. She wanted to believe that when Ripple-John found out Grant wouldn’t
do as instructed, then she would be killed quickly. She really wanted to
believe that.

Jem glanced at the face on the screen, realized it was no one he
recognized and let his attention stray to one of the windows giving a view
across the central park. In the raspberry light of dawn a group of dracomen
were pruning grape trees and feeding the cuttings into the open back of
something that looked like the offspring of a tortoise and a dustbin. Every now
and again, this thing extended a rubbery tube from its underside to squeeze out
a turd of mulched and digested plant matter at the foot of each tree.

The sun
was rising, yes, and Chanter’s body rested, cooling, wrapped in a scaly caul,
in the room that had been provided for him. But this was about something else.
Someone had gone missing, someone who should have been here.

‘We
didn’t actually want anyone to die,’ said the face on the screen. ‘We just
wanted to ensure you couldn’t go underground to your next destination.’

‘But nevertheless,
you murdered the pilot of that mudmar-ine,’ said Grant tightly.

The man
shrugged. ‘Casualties are inevitable.’

‘Only
when lunatics like you have their way.’

‘No, if
I got my way there would be no need for casualties at all,’ replied the man. What
was his name? Something odd, yes: Ripple-John.

Grant
sat back, pressing a finger down on the mute button.

‘This
doesn’t make sense,’ said Shree. ‘Why contact you now?’

Grant
nodded agreement. ‘Just what I was going to ask.’ He took his finger off the mute
button and sat forward again. ‘So you destroyed the mudmarine, presumably so
you could ambush us when we headed away from here by other means, so why are
you talking to me now?’

‘I
changed my mind and decided to appeal to your sense of justice – a little
research has revealed your long-term relationship with her . . .’