Proxima (30 page)

‘I will explain, in time.’ He held out his hands. ‘I know this is difficult for you. But here you are, together. Would you like to talk?’

Penny and Stef looked into each other’s eyes, just as they had in that first moment of revelation in the Hatch on Mercury. Then they looked away.

At length Stef said, ‘I’ve done some research. On us, on our past.’

‘I know. You’ve been doing it for years. My firewall traced you. I let you go ahead.’

‘I saw the records,’ Stef said. ‘As they exist now. We
are
twins, genetically identical. I am the older by a few minutes. We seem to have been close companions when we
were small.’

‘I remember,’ Penny said more softly. ‘I wouldn’t need to research it. We played all the time.’

‘We were put through the same schools by our father. We showed the same kind of aptitude, basically mathematical, logical, verbal. We both joined the ISF for the sake of scholarships that
put us through grad school and sponsored our early researches, and enabled us to get access to the kernel labs on the moon.’

‘The ISF split us up,’ Penny said. ‘Their psychs thought it would make each of us more self-reliant. Still we did the same training and development, more or less, just in a
different order.’

‘But our careers converged again, when we started working on kernel physics.’

Penny said, ‘It all came from that day we were on Mercury with Dad, we were eleven years old, when the first hulk ship was launched. That was what inspired us to go into kernel research in
the first place.’

Stef closed her eyes, just for a moment.
No. I was there alone. With Dad. You weren’t there, not even as some unwelcome ghost. That was my day, not yours
. . .

‘And then it was all fine until we went into the Hatch on Mercury,’ Penny said sadly. ‘I went through first, Stef. You followed me in. And when I went into that second chamber,
and I turned around and you saw me, I could see you didn’t recognise me. We’d only been out of each other’s sight for a minute—’

‘Less than that,’ Earthshine said. ‘I have studied the record. Thirty-eight seconds.’

‘And my memory is different,’ Stef said. ‘I went alone into the Hatch. I opened the second hatch. There was Penny, already in the next chamber.’

‘Before that time, you, Stef, clearly knew your sister. Afterwards you were baffled by her very existence, though you did your best to conceal it when you realised that something was very
wrong.’

Stef felt resentment flare. ‘You’re not allowed access to any material on kernel physics. That’s a UN law.’

‘Of course,’ Earthshine said smoothly. ‘But any such law needs a defined boundary. And I, or my legal advisers, push assiduously at that boundary. Wouldn’t you? I am
entitled to explore the
implications
of kernel science, even if I must turn my head away from the physics itself. A visual record of events at the Hatch tells me little about the
underlying physics, and much of it is in the public domain anyhow.’ He leaned forward. ‘Major Kalinski – I mean, Stef. Only you remember how it was before. Your life as an only
child. Yes? Most people therefore assume your memory is faulty.’

Stef said, ‘Or that exposure to the Hatch messed with my mind and sent me mildly crazy.’

He shook his head. ‘But that’s not what you believe, is it, Major? Now consider the alternative. If your mind
hasn’t
been tampered with – if your memories are
authentic—’

‘This makes no sense,’ Penny said, growing hostile.

Earthshine urged, ‘Just run with this for a moment. Stef, what’s your alternative hypothesis?’

She took a deep breath. ‘History changed. What else? The minute I opened that Hatch.’

Earthshine nodded. ‘Before, there was a different history.’

‘Where I was an only child. Where I had a different name, for God’s sake. I was Stephanie Penelope Kalinski, not Stephanie Karen, and Penelope Dianne never existed. And when I opened
that Hatch and stepped inside, there you were, Penny – real, live, impossible. With a set of memories of a different past. Memories that were in everybody else’s head too.’

‘All except yours,’ Earthshine said. ‘Just suppose you’re right, Stef. Just suppose reality
was
changed, that the Hatch, on accepting you, immediately
tinkered with the past
– at least with your own past. Giving you a sister you never had. And presumably causing subsequent small changes that rippled away from that big central
adjustment.’

Penny was clearly uncomfortable, and Stef was sure she knew why. They were talking about a world where she’d never even been born, and that must be existentially terrifying. Penny said
now, ‘Occam’s razor. Basic principle of science. The idea that Stef somehow got a kind of amnesia is a lot simpler than the idea that the
whole universe
has been changed to
generate a new reality.’

‘Well, Occam has been dead a long time,’ Earthshine said mildly. ‘And is the alternative really so preposterous? We
know
that the Hatch technology involves some kind
of manipulation of space-time. You both clambered down into a hole beneath the Hatch that could not exist, according to the geophysics measurements. What is a history change but another such
manipulation? In time, rather than space. Stef, I suspect you may not have gone much further with this line of thinking yourself, even in the privacy of your own head.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘I mean that if there has been some kind of history change, effected by the Hatch, or whoever built the Hatch—’

Penny snorted. ‘Oh, this is—’

‘Then it’s been kind of a
messy
change, hasn’t it? I mean, it hasn’t been clean. We know that it’s left at least one trace of what went before, in your own
memory, Stef.’

‘That’s hardly evidence,’ Penny snapped.

‘It is to Stef. Maybe it had something to do with you being inside the Hatch itself, at the moment the change was effected—’

‘And what would be the point?’ Penny demanded now. ‘You’re talking about changing history. If you can do that, why not, hell, wipe out a climate Jolt or two? Or even wipe
out the warming altogether – why not go back and shoot Henry Ford?’

Stef said, her mind racing, ‘Maybe it – or they, the Hatch-makers, whoever is behind this – couldn’t manage anything on that scale. Maybe they didn’t know enough
about us, about humanity, to make more than the smallest change. Maybe this was all they could manage. For now, anyhow.’ She looked at Earthshine. ‘But why us? I mean, why me?
What’s significant about me, or my life?’

‘Everything, ‘ Earthshine said. ‘Or nothing. Maybe it was just the fact that you were first into the Hatch. This was a kind of – test run. An exploration. But if so, as I
said—’

‘The execution was sloppy,’ Stef said. ‘With one loose end left, in my memory. Trant and King remembered Penny opening the second hatchway and going through ahead of me.
I
remember opening the second hatch myself, then seeing Penny for the first time . . . Sloppy.’

‘
At least
one loose end.’

Stef looked at him sharply.

Penny stood. ‘What do you mean? Have you found another “loose end”? Have you got some kind of proof?’

He smiled as she loomed over him. ‘Well, wasn’t it logical to at least look? If there is one ragged corner there could easily be more. So I looked. And—’

Stef said, ‘Is that why you brought us to France? Is there something you want to show us?’

‘I can do this virtually,’ he said. ‘Or it may be better if you travel physically and see for yourselves, with your own eyes.’

‘Later,’ they both said, their identical voices double-tracking.

‘Just show us,’ Stef said. ‘Please.’

Penny sat down, looking frankly scared.

Earthshine nodded, waved a hand, and the room dissolved.

A
footprint.

Yuri froze.

Beside him, Mardina pulled Beth close.

A human footprint, in the mud. Clear as day. Yuri could see the ball of the foot, the heel. He could count the toes.

‘Where there’s one print,’ Mardina murmured, ‘there are going to be others. Look, Yuri. That way . . .’ She pointed west across the arid country away from the
lake.

The trail of prints was clearly visible, like shallow craters in the crusty ground, one after another, left, right. Off to the horizon.

‘Let’s get back to the ColU,’ Yuri said.

‘Right.’

As they headed, half-running, back around the lake, Beth’s excitement turned to alarm. ‘What is it? Have I done something wrong?’

‘No, sweetie,’ Mardina said. ‘Not at all.’

‘Is it that footprint? Is it somebody bad?’

‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Yuri said. He murmured to Mardina, ‘We’re scaring her.’

‘She’s a right to be scared.’

‘This shouldn’t be possible, should it? The
Ad Astra
drops were supposed to be too far apart.’

‘Yet it’s happened.’

They got back to their new campsite, still little more than a heap of supplies, the logs and beams and panels of their dismantled house, a mound of carefully manufactured terrestrial topsoil,
other junk. Yuri rummaged until he found a crossbow and bolts. He already had his hunting knife tucked into his belt. ‘I’ll go and check it out. You look after Beth.’

Mardina curled her lip. ‘Go ahead, hero.’

Yuri picked up their one flare pistol, it still had a few cartridges left, and stuffed it into his tunic pocket. ‘Well, if I fire this, come and save me.’

‘I’ll save you, Daddy.’

‘Thank you, sweetie.’ He kissed the top of Beth’s head, grinned at Mardina with a confidence he didn’t feel, and set off.

He tracked back the way they had come. There was the first footprint, bright and sharp. Completely ignored by the builders nearby.

Without hesitating, he went further, following the track of prints across the dry country, heading steadily west, jogging, the crossbow in his hand. In the years since the stranding, Mardina had
insisted they both practised with the crossbow until they were reasonably expert. Yuri hadn’t disagreed. There was nothing to shoot at round here, but you never knew. Now it looked as if that
might pay off.

More humans! There had been times, especially before Beth had come along, when he had longed for other people to show up, somehow, somewhere – even his enemies, even arsehole Peacekeepers,
even that smug bastard astronaut McGregor. He still felt that way sometimes. But now it was different; now he had Beth to shelter and protect. If there were other survivors of the drops down here,
who knew what state they would be in? Who knew how they would react to him?

He had come to think of Per Ardua as
his
, he realised. His and his family’s. It made no sense, but there you were. Now he resented having to share it.

And he feared for his family. He had a mental image of the
jilla
builders’ efficient genocide: the imprisoning, the wordless, relentless butchery.

He stopped. Straight ahead of him now was a sandstone bluff, low, eroded, sticking out of the ground, a typical Arduan feature. And beside it, a figure, a single human being. He, she, was
crouched by the bluff, digging into the ground with one hand – no, drinking, he saw, there must be a spring there, a pool.

He walked steadily forward. He held the crossbow at his side, loosely, his finger away from the trigger. He didn’t call out.

Soon enough the figure by the rock bluff spotted him. A slim woman, she stood up straight. She wore no shoes, trousers that were the cut-down remains of an orange jumpsuit, a black shirt that
looked like half an astronaut’s uniform, and a homemade coolie hat made of stem bark, not unlike his own. She had lost one arm, amputated above the elbow, he saw, shocked. The tattoos on her
face were solid black slabs, and seemed designed to emphasise the glare of her pale blue eyes.

He knew her. She was Delga, who he’d known on the ship, and on Mars before that. The snow queen of Eden.

Delga grinned at him. ‘Hello, ice boy.’

H
aving met, they had to decide to go one way or the other. Yuri chose to walk west with Delga, towards her group, which she called ‘the
mothers’, rather than back towards Mardina.

‘Only a few klicks,’ she said.

‘Yeah. We’re further away than that.’ That was a lie; in fact Mardina and Beth were a lot closer. His instinct was to obscure, to hide, to protect. Of course she might know all
about his little group already.

Delga had aged, and life on Per Ardua had evidently toughened her; she looked scrawnier, more wrinkled, but strong, leathery. Her tattoos hadn’t faded, her face was just as blade-like,
just as threatening. Despite the loss of that arm he was quite sure she’d have weapons available. As, indeed, he had.

He was trying to work through the shock. Just encountering another human being,
any
other human, here on this static world, changed everything. And now it turned out to be Delga.

Delga’s face was a tattooed mask, under a scalp shaven in elaborate whorls. Yuri barely knew her. He’d only come across her a couple of times on Mars. On the
Ad Astra
she’d been in the same hulk as him, but again he’d kept his distance. He’d wanted nothing to do with her products, her chain of contacts, her suppliers and users. The last time
he’d seen her, he remembered now, she was leading a bunch of rebels up towards the ship’s bridge, after the arrival at Proxima. She was the type to have survived, he supposed.

He said now, ‘So what were you doing all the way out here?’

‘Stretching my legs. What do you think? The one thing this place does have is
room
, room to walk off until you’re over the horizon and alone. Can’t do
that
in
a Martian hovel, right? Or in some hulk of a ship. Or on most of Earth these days, probably.’ She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. ‘I come out this way for the water. The springs. And
there’s a hollow a little further out that way, more springs, but it just got flooded.’