Poseidon's Wake (20 page)

She looked down his angled torso to the point where it met the well’s troubled, turbulent surface. His right forearm was submerged below the elbow. Goma could not resist. She would not touch any part of the well, but she had to touch her uncle. Her fingers stroked his upper arm.

‘Uncle.’

Not because she expected an answer, but because to say nothing was worse.

‘Goma,’ Vasin said quietly. ‘You should step back now, until the technicians come.’

It was the gentlest of touches, scarcely any contact at all, but the press of her fingers had upset some equilibrium. Mposi began to slump away from her, leaning further into the well. As he tilted, so the steepening angle drew his right arm from the surface. Beneath the elbow, the arm was nearly gone. Goma stared in wordless horror. It had not been severed or burned, just dissolved away leaving milky strands, the liquidising remnants of bone and muscle, nerve and flesh. And as Mposi slumped further, so it became clear that a similar process had affected the rest of him.

Ru slapped a hand over Goma’s eyes, snapped her head around.

‘Don’t look,’ she whispered.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Margrave of Underthrace was, naturally, apologetic for the inconvenience they had suffered on their way through Europa’s waters. ‘There was a time when Regals stood for something,’ he lamented. ‘We had our differences, yes, our disagreements over territory and negotiating rights with the Outside, but we had far more in common than we had to divide us. We knew where we stood with each other. These hooligans barely know they’re born. How dare they charge you to pass through
my
waters!’

‘I don’t suppose they’ll do it again,’ Kanu said.

‘They’ve had their gentle warnings,’ the Margrave said. ‘Unfortunately, we’re long past the point of reasoning with these ruffians. Force is the only language they understand – and if it isn’t brute force, you’re wasting your time. You’ve done me a favour – I would have had to nip those incursions in the bud sooner or later, so it might as well be today. I’m just sorry you had to get caught up in all that unpleasantness.’

‘I almost thought we wouldn’t make it,’ Nissa said. ‘Those Consolidation ships in close orbit – is that all connected with the trouble down here?’

‘If they touch this moon, they will learn a valuable lesson.’

‘I hope for your sake,’ Kanu said, ‘that the lesson isn’t too painful for either party.’

‘Spoken like a true ambassador. No water so troubled that it can’t be oiled.’

They were breathing the dry air of Underthrace, in a room furnished for the needs of Outside visitors. The Margrave’s Regals had escorted
Fall of Night
all the way in, easing through a thickening forest of submarine structures until they came to a kind of enclosed glade, a bubble of ocean in the fortified heart of Underthrace. The Regals had docked Nissa’s ship and connected an underwater airlock so that Nissa and Kanu could disembark.

The Margrave remained fully immersed, under deep-ocean conditions. In the middle of the room, rising from floor to ceiling, was a glass tube armoured to withstand a differential pressure of hundreds of megapascals. The glass was tinted, the Margrave no more than a shadowy form. Kanu made out a suggestion of some kind of headdress or helmet, a hard, ridged shape, but he could not decide if it was an adornment or some kind of bony extrusion of the Margrave’s altered anatomy. Of the face, he saw only the glint of goggles above a kind of mandrill-like snout or mask.

‘I never meant to cause you any trouble,’ Kanu said. ‘There’s been enough of that already where my family’s concerned.’

‘The trouble was coming whether we liked it or not, so please do not feel bad on my account, Kanu.’

‘Wait,’ Nissa said, raising a hand. ‘Let’s clear this up right now, shall we? Kanu is my guest. He only came along for the ride, so can we please stop talking as if this visit is for his benefit, not mine?’

Kanu shifted in his black and purple chair. It was scarcely any bother to stand in Europa’s gravity, but the chairs had been provided as a courtesy. The guests had even been served chai, brought to them by air-breathing aquatics.

‘The art is here,’ Kanu confirmed. ‘It’s been here since Sunday first brought it to Europa. That’s the reason for Nissa’s visit.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘At least we agree on that.’

‘You’d have come here with or without me,’ Kanu went on. ‘But because I knew of your interest in Sunday, and Sunday’s connection with Europa, I knew you would eventually make this trip. It was imperative that I travel with you. You had the ship and the legal clearance to land on Europa. I had none of those things, and if I had begun to seek them . . . well, there were already enough questions surrounding my integrity. We could not stand that sort of scrutiny.’

‘We?’ Nissa and the Margrave asked simultaneously, the moment of unity surprising them both equally.

‘The machines and I. The robots of Mars. Margrave? Nissa still doubts me. I don’t blame her in the slightest, so would you mind telling her about the ship?’

The form in the water did not answer directly. Nissa looked at Kanu, and for an instant he was on the cusp of doubting himself as well. Perhaps this was the moment when his delusions reached the point of fracture, their grand absurdity becoming apparent even to Kanu.

But the Margrave said, ‘You’ll forgive me for thinking no one would ever come. It has been such a long time.’

‘It has,’ Kanu agreed. ‘But now we need it. Is the ship intact?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wait,’ Nissa said. ‘What
ship
? What are you talking about?’

Kanu tried to answer as reasonably and openly as he could. ‘It’s around a hundred years old. It was built here, out of sight, and left to repair and upgrade itself as necessary. It was fast for its day and is even faster now.’

‘You lying . . .’ But then she shook her head, words inadequate to express her disgust at him, at the degree to which she had been used. Kanu knew he deserved worse. He had done a vile, hateful thing.

‘There was no other way. And I haven’t turned traitor against humanity. This concerns us all – flesh, blood, steel.’

‘What do you know?’ the Margrave asked.

‘The robots are still confined to Mars, but their information-gathering capability is much more extensive than any of us ever suspected. And they’ve found something, Margrave – a signal, from another solar system. It wasn’t even aimed at this system. It was picked up by human listening systems around Crucible, but in the process it also came to the attention of the robots’ intelligence-gathering apparatus. News of the message was kept secret by Crucible’s government, but it’s already reached the robots on Mars.’

The Margrave stirred in his tube. ‘And this is of interest to the machines because . . . ?’

‘The most probable source of that signal, at least according to their analysis, is another artificial intelligence. Years ago, a simulation of Eunice Akinya travelled to Crucible along with the first colonists. The Watchkeepers permitted human settlement on Crucible on the condition that three subjects went with them into deeper interstellar space. The Eunice construct was one; the other two were my half-mother Chiku Green and an elephant named Dakota. A machine, a woman, an elephant. The Trinity, they were called. The organic members of the Trinity may or may not still be alive – who knows? But the construct was effectively immortal. For the robots on Mars, this realisation presents opportunities on two fronts. They can re-establish ties with the closest thing they have to a creator – communion, if you will. It’s also a chance to come to a better understanding of the Watchkeepers. They’re bound to have communicated with Eunice on some level, and she’s bound to have learned something about them. The possibility of gaining insight into what the Watchkeepers want of us is as significant to humans as it is to robots.’

‘So your intention is to respond to that signal,’ the Margrave said, ‘for which you need your ship. But only Nissa could get you to Europa. I can understand how she might feel . . . aggrieved.’

Kanu turned to face his companion. ‘Nissa – no apology can begin to atone for what I’ve done to you. You’ve every right to feel mistreated, to loathe the moment I came back into your life. But you
must
understand the stakes. We stand at a threshold, all of us – people, merfolk, machines. You and I.’ He looked down at his knotted fingers, shaking his head. ‘I don’t expect forgiveness, but if you can at least bring yourself to understand that what I’ve done—’

‘There’s nothing to understand. If you trusted me, if you felt anything for me as a human being, you’d have told the truth from the moment we met.’

‘I didn’t even know the truth myself at that point,’ Kanu said, persisting despite a rising sense of hopelessness. ‘I wasn’t allowed access to my own memories. I thought we’d met by chance. I was overjoyed . . . I loved you, Nissa. I still do.’

‘No, you find me useful. Or did, until I’d served my purpose.’

‘A moment, please,’ the Margrave said, not impolitely. ‘We have much to discuss, I know, but I must attend to a matter of immediate and pressing importance. Will you excuse me momentarily?’

Kanu watched the Margrave descend back down the tinted shaft and disappear beneath the level of the floor. Oddly, now that the glass contained nothing but water, he was more acutely aware of the pressure it held back. He imagined it shattering, Europa reclaiming this room quicker than either of them could blink.

‘I died,’ he said eventually, when Nissa said nothing. ‘On Mars. The accident was genuine and I had no right to survive it. It was only by the grace of the machines that I was put back together. I had a friend among them, a robot called Swift. When they’d restored enough of my mind that I could understand my predicament, Swift offered me a choice. It was very simple.’

‘To live or die?’ Nissa asked finally.

‘No. To live, or to live. Swift said that the machines would do what they could for me and send me back to the world of people, and that would be an end to it. I’d still be tainted, of course – I’d still lose my career, my sense of purpose – and my colleagues who died on Mars would still be gone. Shall I tell you about Garudi Dalal? She loved poetry. I took her belongings back to her mother and father, in Madras.’ But Kanu sighed, beyond explaining himself. ‘I believed Swift – trusted him. I thought I could help the machines. That’s why I agreed to the second option – to allow a part of them to escape Mars inside me – doing what they could not do alone. Allowing them to use me, the way I used you. Life, again – but life serving a deeper purpose.’

‘You agreed to it,’ she said flatly.

He nodded, accepting the distinction. ‘I chose to put my trust in Swift, and this is where it has brought me.’

‘Conscience clear, then.’

Kanu gave a final, defeated shrug. ‘I know there’s nothing I can say to fix this. But I am sorry it happened and with all my heart, I wish you well. These last few weeks—’

‘You regret that they happened?’

‘No! I regret that it took me so long to find you again. I regret that it took Mars, my death and Swift’s bargain to make it happen. I regret losing you in the first place, and I regret that
this
will always stand between us, worse than anything that ever happened before. I am truly sorry, Nissa, but there is nothing more I can offer beyond my apologies.’ After a moment, he added, ‘You needn’t worry about your return. The Margrave will take good care of you and make sure you reach the Outside in one piece.’

‘That’s it, then? My usefulness is over, but you’ve very thoughtfully considered my future welfare?’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘I’ll tell you what it’s like.’ Nissa stiffened her jaw. Her voice was calm initially, but anger was building behind it. ‘You saw me as a means to an end – a convenience. Had there been anyone else with the ability to get you to Europa, you’d have lied and schemed your way around them as well.’

‘That isn’t how I feel—’

‘I don’t give a shit how you feel.’ Now her voice turned into a snarl. ‘You’ve treated me like a piece of disposable equipment, a tool. Something you use once and throw away. And no matter what crocodile tears you manage to dredge up now, no matter what ersatz contrition, you went into this with cold-blooded calculation. You knew exactly what had to be done and exactly who had to be manipulated. You thought it through – planned it like a campaign. The happy accident of us meeting? Two old lovers reconnecting? Sleeping with me? You probably have it all worked out on a diagram.’

‘All of that was sincere—’

‘You’re a snake, Kanu. An emotionless reptile. It sickens me that I ever thought you possessed a human conscience. And do you know what? You haven’t just lied to me; you haven’t just betrayed me and wasted my time. You’ve fucked up my work. You’ve fucked up everything I planned to do on Europa – years of planning, years of devotion to the memory of your stupid dead grandmother and her fucking art.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ She parroted him with a sneer. ‘That’s all you’ve got, isn’t it? But what more should I expect? You’re a diplomat. You’re used to words making everything right. Not now, though. You don’t get out of this with a few spoken charms. But why am I even bothering? Why am I deluding myself that this conversation means a damn thing to you? As soon as you’re on your ship, you’ll be off and away – and you won’t have to give me a second’s consideration after that.’

‘I will. You’re wrong about me – wrong about how I feel. If there’s a way I can make this right—’

‘There isn’t. Not now, not ever.’

A rising, piston-like movement caught his eye. It was the Margrave returning to the room. Kanu’s vision had adapted to the gloom since his arrival and he spied more of the Margrave’s dark anatomy and regalia, gaining a clearer sense of bony integuments and hard, hornlike growths.

‘I had hoped they would see more sense,’ their host said. ‘Our rash friends, the ones who hampered your arrival?’

‘The ones you skewered?’ Kanu asked.

‘We only skewered one,’ the Margrave countered, as if this was acceptable. ‘The ringleader. To send a message to the others not to trouble my jurisdictional waters again.’

Nissa asked, ‘And did it work?’

‘Not
quite
as I had intended. I am afraid that they have been gathering in greater numbers around the limits of Underthrace ever since your arrival. Of course, this happens from time to time and they are always rebuffed. But the present concentration . . . I regret that I may have precipitated something closer to civil war.’

‘Are we in danger?’ Kanu asked.

‘No! Not in the slightest. Underthrace will hold. The lines will not be crossed.’

The king’s grip was faltering, Kanu sensed. It might have been faltering for months or years but their arrival must have quickened some underlying process of collapse.

‘Can you guarantee it, Margrave?’

‘As my life is my word. The Consolidation forces are of no concern to you, either.’

Kanu looked at Nissa, then back at the Margrave. ‘What about them?’

‘They’ve landed. Six of their enforcement ships are now on our ice. I believe they intend to exploit the internal difficulties we are currently facing. Foolish beyond words – and displaying their utter contempt for the mutual respect of treaties and rights!’