Poseidon's Wake - Страница 7

IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY WE RECLAIM THIS WORLD FOR PEOPLE! LET THIS BE THE FIRST LIGHT OF A NEW MARTIAN DAWN! LET FIRE CLEANSE THE FACE OF MARS IN READINESS FOR THE RECLAMATION!

‘The message was almost certainly meant to be read by robots, rather than humans,’ Swift said. ‘They would have been counting on us reaching the wreck in advance of any diplomatic party. Had you not arrived first, we would have triggered exactly this response.’

‘We’re leaving,’ Dalal said. ‘This instant.’

‘For once,’ Kanu said, ‘I think you’ll find the four of us in unanimous agreement.’

The elevator returned them to the level where they had boarded. They still had to pass through the airlock, but for the first time Kanu allowed himself to hope they might yet make it our alive.

‘Lucien is the newest ambassador,’ Dalal said. ‘Ve should go first. It’s only fair.’

‘Agreed,’ Kanu said. ‘It’s settled. Lucien first. Then you, Garudi. Yevgeny next, then me. Strict order of hierarchy, and save the arguing for later.’

Korsakov said, ‘You mean to be last, Kanu?’

‘Makes sense — I’ve been on Mars the longest.’

‘I won’t leave this ship with a robot still inside it, free to do what it likes with a human asset.’

Kanu had to stop himself seizing the other man by the shoulders. ‘Get some perspective, Yev. We were about to hand it over to the machines anyway.’

The lock was ready to receive Lucien. As the door closed, Dalal said, ‘Don’t wait for us outside. Get back to the flier and prepare to leave.’

Lucien gave a nod through vis visor as the door closed. Kanu watched the airlock indicators crawl through their automatic cycle.

‘I’m clear,’ Lucien said, after what felt like an eternity. ‘Jumping off.’ There was a thump, an intake of breath. ‘Down and moving. Flier is intact.’

‘Lock’s cycling for Garudi,’ Kanu said.

‘I could attempt to force the mechanism to open both doors at the same time,’ Swift said.

‘And risk jamming it completely?’ Korsakov said. ‘No. We’ll leave the way we came in.’

Finally the lock was ready to accept Dalal. She stepped inside, turned away from the door and initiated the cycle. The door sealed and the interminable process recommenced. Air out, door open, air in again. Kanu cursed the intransigent stupidity of the airlock for not understanding their deeper predicament.

‘I’m out,’ Dalal said. ‘Crossing ground. Lucien is at the flier. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, we’re fine. Yevgeny’s next.’

It could only have taken as long for Korsakov to cycle through the lock as the other two, but to Kanu it felt like at least twice as much time. Now there was so little to lose, he wondered if perhaps Swift ought to force the lock after all.

But the air was pumping back in now. Korsakov was outside.

‘Are you clear, Yev?’

‘I see the flier. Lucien and Garudi are aboard. She should have moved it by now — why is she delaying?’

‘Out of some misplaced concern for your well-being, perhaps?’

‘You should be next,’ Swift said.

‘No,’ Kanu answered. ‘You’re a witness to this and I want you to survive. If and when you make it back to your friends, they need to know that this was a terrorist act.’

‘My friends already know, Kanu.’

‘Maybe they do. But for my peace of mind, you’re still going first.’

Swift gave a perfunctory nod. ‘If you insist.’

‘I do.’

The lock was ready to accept Swift. He was on the verge of entering it when there came a sudden sharp blur of motion and Swift was on the other side of Kanu, the airlock vacant, and Kanu was being pushed — shoved was closer to the truth — into the waiting aperture.

‘Swift, no!’

‘It is within my capability to help you, Kanu. Therefore I have no option.’

Before he could act, Swift had pushed enough of himself into the lock to be able to activate the automatic sequence. It was a snakelike striking motion, almost too fast for the eye to follow. Kanu barely had time to register what had happened, let alone abort the lock sequence. Swift withdrew, the door sealed and the exchangers began to drag air out of the chamber.

‘The terms of our inspection visit are still in force, Swift! We have our one hour! It has not expired!’

‘Which is precisely why I will be joining you on the other side the moment the lock allows it.’

When the door opened, Kanu had to stop himself toppling out. He had climbed up on the way in but now he chanced a jump, hingeing his legs to absorb the impact and trusting that the reduced gravity of Mars would spare him any injury. He hit the dirt and sprawled, nearly burying his visor in the soil. He grunted, gathered air into his lungs and pushed himself to his feet. He was still alive, and Korsakov was just vanishing into the belly of the flier. ‘I’m clear!’ he called. ‘But Swift is still coming through.’

Korsakov and the others would have heard something of the exchange between Kanu and the robot, even if its meaning were unclear. ‘Why did you allow—’

‘I didn’t!’

Kanu set about crossing the ground to the flier. It really was not very far, but after a dozen paces he felt compelled to turn back, anxious to see Swift appear in the open lock. He wanted Swift to be true to his word, to be the sincere and honest friend he had always believed in.

The ship blew up.

It was not a nuclear blast or metallic-hydrogen phase change; it was not the flare-up of a runaway Chibesa motor. It was not the swallowing whiteness of an unbound post-Chibesa process, the kind of catastrophic event that had destroyed entire holoships.

It was still an explosion.

The detonation tore through the ship about a third of the way up the exposed part of the vessel. Above the blast zone, the already leaning edifice started buckling over. Kanu had thought it on the verge of toppling before; now it was fulfilling that promise. Debris, flung in all directions by the detonation, began to rain down around Kanu.

‘Kanu!’ someone shouted.

‘Take the flier!’ someone shouted in return, and it was only when the words were out that he recognised his own voice.

Kanu started running, or what passed for running in the soft, slipping dust under his feet. In the distance, the flier was taking off. The boarding ramp was still lowered, dragging across the ground, and the flier was turning to meet him.

‘No, Garudi,’ Kanu called. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

Kanu glanced back again. A lengthening shadow loomed over him now. The wreck was coming down, bowing to meet him. He could see no sign of Swift, and with an exquisite clarity he knew he stood no chance of reaching the flier.

CHAPTER THREE

The seas were heavy, the boat’s rise and fall testing Mposi’s delicate constitution to its limits. For an Akinya, he had always been a poor traveller. Chai and greenbread and paperwork, four square walls and a horizon that stayed still — that was all he really wanted from life.

Even without the tracking device, it was not usually too hard to find Arethusa. They knew her haunts, her favoured latitudes and familiar places. The only large living thing anywhere in Crucible’s waters, she could be tracked using the ancient and venerable methods of submarine warfare. She gave off a mass signature and distorted the waters above her as she swam. Her songlike ruminations, when she talked to herself or recounted Chinese lullabies, sent an acoustic signature across thousands of kilometres. Networks of floating hydrophones triangulated her position to within what was normally a small volume. During times of heavy weather or seismic activity, though, she had stealth on her side.

Nonetheless, the merfolk had narrowed down her location, and swimming out from the hydrofoil they had finally sighted their quarry. But that was as close as the merfolk could get. They owed their very existence to Arethusa — she had been involved since the start of the Panspermian Initiative. Some obscure bad blood lay in their mutual past, however, and she would not deign to talk to them any more.

So Mposi had to swim alone. The merfolk fitted him into a powered swimsuit equipped with a breathing system and launched him into the darkening swell. He gave chase, and of course Arethusa indulged in her usual games, allowing him to come very near before swimming away faster than he could follow. She could keep this up until the cells in his suit ran out of energy.

But Mposi knew that curiosity would eventually prompt her to relent.

‘It’s me,’ he sent into the water ahead of himself, using the suit’s loudspeaker. ‘We need to talk. It’s nothing to do with the tracking device — I’ll never ask such a thing of you again. This is something else, and I need your advice.’

But it always paid to flatter Arethusa.

‘More than your advice,’ Mposi added. ‘Your wisdom. Your perspective on events. No one has your outlook, Arethusa, your breadth of experience or insight.’

It was hard to talk. The suit was powered, but it still required some effort to drive and coordinate his movements. His lungs burned, even when he turned up the oxygen flow in his mask. She would hear his weakness, he felt sure. She would hear it and mock him for it.

‘Something’s happened,’ Mposi carried on after he had swum a dozen more strokes. ‘A signal’s come in from a long way off. We don’t understand why it’s been sent to us, or what we should make of it. There’s a chance it has something to do with—’