The Night's Dawn Trilogy (355 page)

“Come with us.”

He turned from the window, seeing his sister’s apprehensive expression, and smiled reassuringly. “Sure, kid, no problem.”

The galley was one compartment Rocio hadn’t tried to modify with his energistic imagination, leaving the contemporary metal
and composite surfaces undisturbed. However, they’d plainly been pillaged by some passing barbarian army. A cascade of empty
sachets were littering the floor, stuck in place by treacle-like liquids. Storage cabinet doors swung open, revealing empty
spaces. The timer on an induction oven bleeped away relentlessly.

A ten minute search turned up five cans of drinking chocolate, a sachet of unhydrated oatmeal cakes, and a serve-3 pizza with
extra anchovies.

Jed surveyed the cache with dismay. “Oh Jeeze, there’s nothing left to eat.” He knew what that meant, one of them would have
to sneak into the asteroid to find some supplies. Zero guesses who’d get picked for that doozy.

______

Jay woke up in a wonderfully soft bed, wrapped inside a smooth cocoon of clean cotton sheets smelling faintly of lavender.
It was that warm drowsy state which always followed a really long, deep sleep. She squirmed round a little, enjoying the contentment
of being utterly at peace. Some small object had managed to wedge itself under her shoulder, harder than the luxurious pillow.
Her hand closed round it, pulling it out. Coarse fur tickled her fingers. Frowning, squinting she held up the… doll. Tatty
old thing. She smiled cosily, and put Prince Dell down beside her. Snuggling into the mattress.

Her eyes flipped wide open. A fog of hoary light was curving round a pair of plain navy-blue curtains. It illuminated a neat
wooden room, with its sloping ceiling supported by a scaffold of naked A-frame beams. The tight-fitting wall boards had all
been painted a silky green, bedecked with picture frames that were mainly landscape watercolours, though there were several
sepia photos of people in history-text clothes. A glazed pedestal washbasin with brass taps stood in the corner, a towel hanging
beside it. There was a wicker chair at the foot of the bed, with a pair of fat cushions crammed into it. The sound of waves
rolling gently onto a beach could just be heard in the background.

Jay flung back the sheet and slithered down off the bed. Her feet touched a warm carpet, and she padded over to the window.
She lifted a corner of the curtain, then pulled it wide open. The beach was outside; a fringe of grass blending into white
sands, followed by gorgeous turquoise water stretching out to a mild horizon haze. A clear azure sky rose from the other side
of the haze, cut in half by that incredible curving line of brilliant silver-white planets. She laughed in amazed delight.
It was real, really real.

The bedroom’s door opened into the chalet’s hallway. Jay ran along it, out onto the veranda. The hem of her nightie flapped
around bare feet, Prince Dell was clutched in one hand. Outside, the heat and salty humidity gusted over her along with the
intense sunlight. She flew down the steps and onto the grass, dancing round and whooping. The sand was hot enough to make
her jump up and down before retreating back onto the grass. She gave the glittering water an exasperated look. How lovely
it would have been to dive right in. Haile was going to adore this place.

“Good morning to you, young Jay Hilton.”

Jay jumped, and turned round. One of the purple globes she remembered from last night was floating half a metre above her
head. Her nose wrinkled up in bemusement. It seemed to be the victim of a talented graffiti artist who’d inflicted two black
and white cartoon eyes rimmed with black-line eyebrows; more black lines defined a pug nose, while the mouth was a single
curve sealed by smile commas. “What are you?” she asked.

“Well, wadda ya’know, my name’s Mickey. I’m a universal provider. But I’m a special one, coz I’m all yours.” The mouth jerked
up and down in time with its voice.

“Oh yeah?” Jay asked suspiciously. That silly face was far too happy for her liking. “What does a universal provider do, then?”

“Why, I provide, of course.”

“You’re a machine.”

“Guess so,” it said with goofy pleasure.

“I see. So what do you provide?”

“Whatever you want. Any material object, including food.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’re tiny, what if I wanted a… a vac-train carriage.”

“Why would you want one of those?”

Jay sneered at it smugly. “I just want one. I’m proving a point.”

The face lines squiggled their way into an expression of dozy obedience. “Oh. Okey-dokey, then. It’s going to take about quarter
of an hour to put it together.”

“Sure,” Jay sneered.

“Hey! That’s got lots of complicated parts inside, you know.”

“Right.”

“If you’d asked for something simple, I could provide straight away.”

“All right. I want the Diana statue from the Paris arcology. That’s just a lump of carved rock.”

“Easy peasy.” “Uh—” Jay managed to grunt.

Mickey zipped out over the beach, too fast for her to follow. She swivelled, just in time to see it inflating equally fast.
At ten metres in diameter, its ridiculous face was suddenly not so pleasant and harmless as it loomed above her. A pair of
shoes began to ooze through the bottom. They were as long as Jay was tall. Mickey started to rise up, exposing legs, waist,
torso…

The full fifteen metre height of the granite statue gazed out serenely across the Kiint ocean. Pigeon droppings scarred its
shoulders. Above Diana’s head, Mickey shrank back to its usual size and floated back down to Jay. Its mouth line shifted up
into feline gratification.

“What have you done?” Jay yelled.

“Provided the statue. Wossamatter, wrong one?”

“No! Yes!” She glanced frantically along the beach. There were figures moving round outside the other chalets and big white
clubhouse, but fortunately none of them seemed to have noticed. Yet. “Get rid of it!”

“Oh. Charming.” Mickey inflated out again. Its hurt pout ominous on such a scale. The statue was swallowed whole. The only
memorial: a pair of giant footprints in the sand.

“You’re mad,” Jay accused as it shrank once again. “Utterly mad. They should switch you off.”

“For what?” it wailed.

“For doing that.”

“Just doing what I’m told,” it grumbled. “I suppose you want to cancel the vac-train as well, now?”

“Yes!”

“You should make up your mind. No wonder they won’t hand over my kind of technology to the Confederation. Think of all the
statues you’d leave lying round the place.”

“How do you do it,” she asked sharply. “How do you work? I bet you’ve never even been to Earth, how do you know what Diana’s
statue looked like?”

Mickey’s voice dropped back down to normal. “The Kiint have this whopping great central library, see. There’s no end of stuff
stored in there, including your art encyclopaedias. All I’ve gotta do is find the template memory.”

“And you make it inside you?”

“Small things, no problem. I’m your man, just shout. The bigger stuff, that’s gotta be put together in a place like a high-speed
factory. Then when it’s done and polished they just ship it in through me. Simplisimo.”

“All right. Next question, who decided to give you that silly voice?”

“Whaddya mean, silly? It’s magnifico.”

“Well, you don’t talk like an adult, do you?”

“Ha, hark who’s talking. I’ll have you know, I’m an appropriate companion personality for a girl your age, young missy. We
spent all night ransacking that library to see what I should be like. You got any idea what it’s like watching eight million
hours of Disney AVs?”

“Thank you for being so considerate, I’m sure.”

“What I’m here for. We’re partners, you and me.” Mickey’s smile perked up again.

Jay folded her arms and fixed it with a stare. “Okay,
partner
; I want you to provide me with a starship.”

“Is this another of those point thingies?”

“Could be. I don’t care what type of starship it is; but I want it to be one I can pilot by myself, and it has to have the
range to get me back to the Confederation galaxy.”

Mickey’s eyes blinked slowly, as if lethargic shutters were coming down. “Sorry, Jay,” it said quietly. “No can do. I would
if I could, honest, but the boss says no.”

“Not much of a companion, are you.”

“How about a chocolate and almond ice cream instead? Big yummie time!”

“Instead of a starship. I don’t think so.”

“Aww, go on. You know you want to.”

“Not before breakfast, thank you.” She turned her back on it.

“Okay. I know, how about a megalithic strawberry milkshake, with oodles and oodles of… ”

“Shut up. And you’re not called Mickey, either. So don’t pretend you are.” Jay smiled at the silence; imagining it must be
contorting its sketched face into hurt dismay. Her name was being called from the chalet.

Tracy Dean stood on the veranda, waving hopefully. She was dressed in a pale lemon dress with a lace collar, its design obsolete
but still stylish. Jay walked back, aware that the provider machine was following. “The face wasn’t a good idea, was it?”
Tracy said with dry amusement after Jay climbed the steps to the veranda. “Didn’t think so. Not for someone who’s seen all
you have. But it was worth a try.” She sighed. “Program discontinued. There, it’s just an ordinary provider, now. And it won’t
talk stupid anymore, either.”

Jay glanced up at the purple sphere, which was now completely featureless. “I don’t mean to be awkward.”

“I know, sweetie. Now come and sit down. I’ve got some breakfast for you.”

A white linen tablecloth had been spread over a small table beside the weather-worn railings. It had Spanish pottery bowls
with cereal and fruit, one jug of milk, and another of orange juice. There was also a teapot with a battered old strainer.

“Twinings Ceylon tea,” Tracy said happily as they sat down. “Best you can have for breakfast in my opinion. I became completely
addicted to it in the late Nineteenth Century, so I brought some back with me once. Now the providers can synthesise the leaves
for me. I’d like to be all snobbish and say that I can tell it’s not the same, but I can’t. We’ll let it brew for a while,
shall we?”

“Yes,” Jay said earnestly. “If you like.” There was something deliciously fascinating about this old woman who had Father
Horst’s compassion and Powel Manani’s determination.

“Have you never brewed tea in a pot before, young Jay?”

“No. Mummy always bought it in sachets.”

“Oh dear me. There are some things which the march of progress doesn’t improve, you know.”

Jay poured some milk over the cereal bowl, deciding not to ask about the strange-shaped flakes. One thing at a time. “Do the
Kiint live on all these planets?”

“Ah, yes. I did promise I’d explain things today, didn’t I, sweetie?”

“Yes!”

“Such impatience. Where to start, though?” Tracy sprinkled some sugar onto her grapefruit, and sank a silver spoon into the
soft fruit. “Yes, the Kiint live on all these planets. They built them, you know. Not all at once, but they have been civilized
for a very long time. One planet couldn’t possibly accommodate them all any more, just like there are too many humans to live
on Earth nowadays. So they learned how to extract matter from their sun and condense it. Quite an achievement, actually, even
with their technology. The arc is one of the wonders of this galaxy. Not just physically, culturally, too. All the species
who’ve achieved FTL starflight visit here eventually. Some that haven’t, too. It’s the greatest information exchange centre
we know of. And the Kiint know of a few, believe me.”

“The provider said there was a big library here.”

“It was being modest. You see, when you’ve got the technology to take care of your every physical requirement, there’s not
much else you can do but develop your knowledge base. So that’s what they do. And it’s a big universe to get to know. It keeps
them occupied, and fulfils life’s basic requirement.”

“What’s that?”

“To live is to experience, and experience is living. I had a lovely little chuckle when the first Kiint ambassador from Jobis
told the Confederation they had no interest in starflight. Travel broadens the mind, and heavens do they travel. They have
this quite magical society, you see, they spend their whole time developing their intellects. The best way I can put it for
you, is that wisdom is their equivalent of money, that’s what they pursue and hoard. I’m generalising, of course. A population
as large as theirs is bound to have dissidents. Nothing like our Edenist Serpents, of course; their disagreements are mostly
philosophical. But there are a few Kiint who turn their backs on their own kind. There’s even a couple of planets in the arc
they can go to where they’re free of the central society.

“Whatever faction they come from, they’re all very noble by our standards. And I’ll admit it leaves them superbly prepared
to face transcendence when their bodies die. But to be honest, that kind of existence is rather boring for humans. I don’t
think we’ll ever go quite so far down that road. Different mental wiring, thankfully. We’re too impatient and quarrelsome.
Bless us.”

“So you are really human then?”

“Oh yes, sweetie. I’m human. All of us living here are.”

“But why are you here?”

“We work for the Kiint, helping them to record human history. All of us take little unobtrusive jobs where we can get a good
view of events. In the old days it was as servants of lords and kings, or joining up with nomads. Then when the industrial
age started up we moved into the media companies. We weren’t front line investigative reporters, we were the office mundanes;
but it meant we had access to an avalanche of information most of which never made it into the official history books. It
was perfect for us; and we still mostly work in the information industries today. I’ll show you how to use the AV projector
later if you want, every broadcast humans make goes into the arc’s library. That always tickled me, if those desperate marketing
departments only knew just how wide an audience they really have.”