Poseidon's Wake (54 page)

‘Then it’s a good thing I’m not planning to utilise any of those channels. Your mother used light and shade, did she not? The selective masking of areas of the Mandala?’

‘Yes, but she was inside it, camped there, physically present. She had screens, blackout sheets, floodlamps . . . you have none of these things.’

‘I have the mirrors,’ Eunice said.

This was met with another silence, but it was shorter than the first and this time Vasin was the one to break it.

‘No. You lost control of the mirrors. We saw it happen. You told us she had found her way in.’

‘Ah, yes, so I did. Which obviously eliminates any possibility that I was lying, or withholding some portion of the truth . . .’

Ru made a lunge for her across the edge of the well and nearly got a hand around Eunice’s neck before she jerked out of reach.

Ru snapped her attention to Goma. ‘What the fuck is she talking about?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Everybody calm down,’ Vasin said. ‘Eunice – clarify the situation with the mirrors. You said she had control.’

‘That was true.’

‘And now you’re saying you
do
still have control?’

‘That’s also true. You should have paid more attention when I told you I was deep inside that architecture – deep enough to allow Dakota the illusion that she had regained some control. I allowed her to think she’d beaten me. I allowed you to think I was all out of options. In truth, I’d already embedded the command code – the instruction for the mirrors to swing onto Paladin’s Mandala.’

‘You want to attack it!’ Vasin said.

‘What are the odds, Captain, that any human technology could even begin to damage something that’s been there for several million years, weathering solar storms, asteroid bombardments and geological changes without sustaining so much as a blemish? No, that’s not what I wanted the mirrors for. Goma knows. Goma sees.’

‘Light,’ Goma answered. ‘She can modulate the mirrors to send a version of Ndege’s command string – talk directly to Mandala in the language of light.’

‘To initiate a Mandala event?’ Vasin asked.

‘Yes,’ Eunice said. ‘It’s not difficult. It’s the Mandala’s purpose, and it doesn’t need huge encouragement to start doing the thing it was designed to do. Especially not after all this time asleep, dormant, waiting to be reactivated – as Ndege found when she communicated with Crucible’s Mandala.’

‘You’re insane,’ Karayan said. ‘You cannot take this action.’

‘I see no alternative. Kanu is acting under duress because of the threat to the Friends. I am removing them from the equation.’

‘Stop her,’ Ru said. ‘Kill her. Whatever it takes.’

Eunice directed a look of supreme contrition at the other woman. ‘You have every right to despise me, Ru – but not on this score. I’m not hurting the Friends or the Tantors. I am sparing them further involvement in this unholy human mess. They have endured one Mandala event; I have every confidence they can survive another.’

‘No,’ Ru said, as if none of those words had reached her. ‘She’s got to be stopped.’

‘And how would you do that? I’ve told you that the command sequence is already activated. Would you like me to deactivate it? In which case, I’ll need access to the console again – and you’d better hope we still have enough time left before Mandala begins to come into view, because that fifteen minutes is a very fuzzy estimate indeed.’

‘If we allow her access to the console,’ Grave said, ‘we could be giving her exactly the opportunity she needs. Are you bluffing, Eunice? Can we trust a single word that comes out of your mouth?’

‘You can trust me when I say this: the translation event is irrevocable. It will happen. And if you wish for some good to come out of this, now would be the time to warn Dakota so that she can get a message to the rest of them.’

‘She won’t believe a word of it,’ Vasin said. ‘Not now.’

‘But at least you’ll have tried,’ Eunice said.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Kanu was staring at the approach solutions for the swarm of moons, thinking back to their first ignorant encounter with the killing space around Poseidon, when the chime of an incoming transmission began to sound.

‘I think we have heard all we need to,’ Dakota said. ‘Our point was made, as was theirs. They have begun to turn from us, and we have clarified their status as potential prisoners of war. I do not believe there is anything left to say.’

‘We may as well hear them out,’ Nissa said. ‘If there’s the slightest chance it might be useful information, we’d be fools to ignore them.’

‘They have nothing we need or can use,’ Dakota said. ‘Our knowledge of Poseidon is already immeasurably richer than theirs.’

‘They have Eunice,’ Kanu said.

‘They have a bag full of dying memories that thinks it once owned the stars. I am sorry to speak so bluntly of her, Kanu, but you have seen first hand the harm she would have done us had the means been available. As it was, she overreached herself.’

The chime continued knelling.

‘I’d take the call if I were you,’ Swift said. ‘I think it may be a matter of some urgency.’

‘How would you know?’

‘I’ve spent some time getting to know the ship.’

‘You’re in my skull, Swift. You only see and hear what I see and hear.’

‘That’s perfectly true, Kanu, but as I hoped I demonstrated in
Zanzibar
, you do not make the best use of those channels. The ship is telling me that this signal is something we would indeed be very foolish to ignore. It speaks of a matter of urgency that I think one might characterise as “dire”.’

‘They have nothing that can touch us.’

‘We are not the subject of the dire urgency, but we can assist those who are. Something awful is about to happen to
Zanzibar
, Kanu, and in that respect, I think we can agree that it concerns us all.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Ignore Dakota. Take the call.’

In his own voice, Kanu instructed
Icebreaker
to play the transmission. Dakota began to voice her disapproval, but she had barely begun when Goma started speaking.

‘Don’t shut me off. Listen. You too, Dakota. This isn’t a threat, or any kind of negotiation. Eunice claims that
Zanzibar
is about to experience a second Mandala event. A second translation to who knows where. It’s imminent – minutes away, maybe less. We can’t stop it happening, and nor can you – but you can warn them. It was bad the first time; now you can at least tell them to prepare for it – to bring in anyone or anything outside and to brace for whatever’s coming. Please heed us – we gain nothing by lying to you. And tell them that wherever they end up, they won’t be forgotten.’

Goma fell silent. Kanu looked at Nissa, then back to Dakota – wondering if they felt the same way he did. He hoped this would prove to be nothing more than a ruse. But the time he had spent talking with Goma had convinced him that she spoke with absolute sincerity. More than that: she was genuinely afraid of what was coming.

So was he.

‘After all this time,’ Dakota said, ‘a Mandala event would not simply happen all by itself.’

‘So it’s not a coincidence,’ Nissa replied. ‘It’s something to do with our activity. Triggered by us, or by them.’

‘There is no mechanism by which they could reach Mandala at that distance.’

‘That we know of,’ Kanu said. ‘And Nissa’s right: they gain nothing by lying. We must take her seriously. I think you need to consider giving that warning.’

‘I will not be held hostage to absurd threats.’

‘Signal Memphis,’ Nissa said. ‘Tell him there’s a chance something is about to happen. Tell him to act as if it might be real – that’s all you have to do.’

The elephant cogitated. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Do it!’ Kanu snarled. ‘Goma said we might only be minutes away from the event. It’ll take that long to get a signal back to
Zanzibar
!’

But then the chime sounded again. On his console, Kanu saw that the point of origin was Paladin space, not
Mposi
. He raised an eyebrow at Dakota.

‘Someone wants to speak to you.’

It was Memphis, as he guessed it must be. The huge bull filled the wall, projected larger than life. The other Tantors, with the exception of Dakota, lowered their heads in submission.

‘The mirrors have moved,’ Memphis said. ‘They are not pointed at
Zanzibar
now. They are pointed at Paladin. They are shining light onto the Mandala. We cannot make them stop. What should we do?’

Not all of them, Kanu guessed – the mechanics of their orbits and sight lines would not allow for that. But if someone wished to communicate with the Mandala using light, they needed only one mirror.

‘Memphis,’ Dakota said. ‘I have news . . . information. You must act upon it with all haste.
Zanzibar
moved once, when it came from Crucible. Now there is a chance it may move again, and very soon. Communicate with all chambers. Bring all Risen inside as quickly as you can – away from the locks and the berthing core.
Zanzibar
was very badly damaged during the first translation, and there may be damage during the second . . . You must be ready, Memphis. Close the great doors, ready the chambers for isolation . . . prepare to bring the emergency generators into use. You have never been the swiftest of us, Memphis, but you are good and loyal and there is no Risen I would sooner trust with the welfare of our home. You have a slow strength – but you are seldom wrong, and you have never disappointed me.’

Kanu spoke up. ‘Memphis – hear what I have to say. You’re going to another solar system, probably, into orbit around another star with a Mandala on one of its planets. Everything’s going to be strange. You’ll have to fend for yourselves to begin with, but I promise you won’t be forgotten. We’ll come – no matter how long it takes. We won’t rest until we’ve found you.’

‘None of us shall,’ Dakota said. ‘But answer me this, Kanu – who is this “we” you speak of?’

‘Whatever we make of ourselves, Dakota. Humans, merfolk. Tantors. Machines. Whatever we manage to salvage from this. We’re all orphans of the storm now, all Poseidon’s children. We either find a way to live with what we are, with all our differences, or we face oblivion. I know which I’d rather.’

Few had been in a position to witness the first Mandala event, mostly only those caught up in its immediate and devastating effects. For excellent reasons, their testimonies had never entered the public record: the majority of them were now part of the cloud of gas and debris circling Crucible – a monument to their own destruction.

It was different this time. There were multiple spectators both within
Zanzibar
and beyond, and to a degree all had been forewarned. On Paladin itself, no living thing stirred. But the changes to the second Mandala, quickened by Eunice’s play of light, had now become convulsive. Patterns shifted and shifted again becoming hypnotic, beguiling. Once, it had been a thing of wonder to witness changes on a timescale of hours or days. Now the Mandala adapted from second to second, moving matter around with a careless disdain for the ordinary limitations of inertia and rigidity. Indeed, since something odd was clearly happening to space in the vicinity of the second Mandala – or was about to happen when the translation event initiated – perhaps that was also true of time. Clocks might be running strangely down there – who could say? It was beyond any conceivable human physics – an invocation of alien science and engineering that might as well have been the work of mages, for all that it corresponded to any theory or hypothesis.

On
Zanzibar
, Memphis and the Risen watched as their orbit brought them closer and closer to the edge of the changing Mandala, and then they were over it. They saw this through cameras, through portholes and observation bubbles – faces pressed against the glass, filled with apprehension and terror, wondering what new fate the universe now had in store for them.

On
Travertine
, long-range sensors captured the same spectacle. By some dark fortune, the Mandala and
Zanzibar
were both visible to them.
Zanzibar
was a pollen-like smudge, bright and tiny, the Mandala a shivering labyrinth of intersecting circles and radials foreshortened by their angle of view. Nasim Caspari was reminded of ripples on a pond, of the interference patterns where they met and interacted. This pond was governed by weird, restless symmetries. He yearned to reach a deeper understanding of the fundamentals.

They had been warned. From the data on the first Mandala event, some sort of energy release could be anticipated. Caspari ordered
Travertine
on high alert, its Chibesa core quenched as a precaution. The crew rushed to their emergency stations and braced for the unknowable.

There wasn’t much time left.

On
Icebreaker
, Kanu, Nissa and Dakota observed the same changes. They were also tracking
Zanzibar
, although from a different viewing angle – Paladin’s spin had brought Mandala into nearly perfect alignment with their sensor array, and
Zanzibar
was about to transit across it like a planet sliding over the face of its sun.

Dakota had sent her warning in a spirit of precaution, but now there could be no doubt that it had been a wise decision. There had been no time for Memphis to organise a return transmission, but she was inclined to look on that as a favourable indicator. It meant he was busy, rushing to prepare
Zanzibar
for the moment of translation. He was doing everything she had ever counted on him to do.

Much had changed for Dakota since she first arrived in the system as a guest of the Watchkeepers. She had felt the Terror and come to regard it as a challenge rather than an impediment. She had seen the arrival of
Zanzibar
, flicking into existence around Paladin, and she had helped steward the Tantors – the Risen – through the immense and testing hardships of those first days. Over time, she had diverged from her companions in the Trinity – come to see them as adversaries rather than allies. The Watchkeepers had bestowed gifts upon her, and in turn she had become their instrument, their willing servant. She accepted this role with equanimity. They had made her more than she had been or ever could be by herself, and it was an honour to be chosen, to be considered worthwhile. But she had not entirely discarded the bonds of love and loyalty, even though these things were now vastly diminished among her greater concerns. Memphis had always been dutiful and she had come to think fondly of him, even as the Watchkeepers’ changes pushed her further and further from the ranks of the ordinary Risen. Even now, she felt empathy for the old bull. She could do nothing for him, not at this distance. But whatever happened, she hoped he would rise to the challenge, and that the challenge would not be too testing for him – indeed for all of them, and if his plans found a use for the Friends, she would also wish them well.

Nissa Mbaye, who was not an Akinya but whose life had been snared in their concerns, wondered what part, small or otherwise, she had played in this development. It seemed probable that Kanu’s arrival had precipitated much of what was now taking place – the expedition, the deaths, the coming translation. She accepted no moral blame for any of that – those forces had been in motion long before she had any conception of their purpose. But had it not been for her desire to reach Sunday’s artworks, she would never have provided Kanu with his ride to Europa. Could a meeting in an art gallery in distant Lisbon really have led to this? She told herself that Kanu would always have found a way to reach his ship, but there was no guarantee of that.

So she had also played her role, whether consciously or otherwise.

Kanu Akinya looked on with a sort of horrified bemusement, grasping as he did that the larger narrative of his family – the things they had made, the events they had caused, the web of responsibilities they had inherited – had just taken a new and unexpected swerve. There were no Akinyas on
Zanzibar
, but the lives of the Risen and the Friends were an inseparable part of the flow of events Eunice had set in motion. Someone would have to follow up on this. Someone would have to take ownership of this event.

Swift, who occupied the same physical space as Kanu and observed events using co-opted neural networks within the same central nervous system, felt something close to surprise. Swift was used to modelling future events, and over the course of his existence he liked to think he had gained some modest proficiency in that art. The likelihood of a terrorist attack on Mars, the chances of Kanu suffering injury . . . these were events Swift had considered to be well within the bounds of statistical probability. He had even taken it as read that the expedition to Gliese 163 was likely to run into local complications. Encountering the Tantors – especially Dakota – had been a surprise for Swift. But he had not been surprised to be surprised.

This, though, was an event far outside the scope of even his wildest conjectures. Not one of his iterative forecasts had come close to predicting a second Mandala event. He was off the map now; a chess piece sliding over the edge of the board. The moment had come to discard all his earlier exercises in future-casting – they had failed him totally.

Not for the first time, Swift would have given half of Mars not to be imprisoned in this cage of bone and meat, with its narrow, shuttered perception of the world. But he had done what he could. In the interests of information-gathering, he had already tasked every available sensor channel aboard the ship to record the Mandala event.

The humans and elephants around him had not the slightest clue that his control of
Icebreaker
was so comprehensive.

He had seen no need to inform them.

Not yet.

In the lander
Mposi
, Eunice Akinya considered the imminent consequences of her handiwork. It had been one thing to formulate her own ideas of the Mandala grammar, to hew them into the rock of Orison as if they had integrity and self-consistency. It had been quite another to find those connections confirmed and amplified in the patient handwriting of Ndege Akinya, in the black books that her great-great-granddaughter had in turn bequeathed to Goma. Quite another thing still to go beyond those symbols and connections and understand that she had the means to duplicate Ndege’s original command sequence.