Seeds of Earth (3 page)

The belly of the beast,
he thought.
Or maybe the lion's den.

It always felt like this whenever he had these meetings with Sundstrom, no matter where they took place. Which was why he had got into the habit of visiting his sister, Solvjeg, shortly beforehand, just to quietly let her know where he would be for the next few hours, with a veiled hint as to whom he was meeting. Today, though, she was full of eagerness to know if the rumours were true, that there had been a signal from Earth.

Theo grinned, recalling the moment. The message had apparently been received that morning, yet he had heard it sixth-hand from an old friend in the Corps by mid-afternoon, so it was no surprise that Solvjeg picked it up from the old girls' network. Now it was evening and the rumours were all over the colony. Even Kirkland, the leader of the opposition, had issued a statement, but so far there had been no official confirmation from either the council or the president's office.

A ship from Earthl
he thought.
So now we know that the human race survived the Swarm War, but did we beat them or did other survivors flee from Earth? And what happened to the other two colonyships, the
Forrestal
and the
Tenebrosaf

His mind was a ferment of questions, the outcome of a year and a half of unpaid work at the Hyperion Data Project. It had been his own soldiering experience that had led to helping one of the supervisors with the transcription of a military treatise in Swedish. It turned out to be a Swedish translation of
On War
by the Prussian Von Clausewitz, a book that Theo had only ever read references to. Engrossed in the steady work of extracting it from the
Hyperion's
reams of raw text, and having to guess where the paragraphs began, he had become fascinated with the
Hyperion
and her sister ships, including the ones that were never launched . . .

The door behind the shelves in the corner opened and the president entered, his wheelchair pushed by a young man in a brown and grey onepiece.

'Evening, Theodor,' Sundstrom said, dismissing the attendant then dextrously propelling himself across the room to stop behind his desk.

'Good evening, Holger,' Theo said. 'Interesting study you have, some nice books too.' He indicated a glassfronted cabinet. 'Is that the Serov edition of
Nineteen Eighty-four
over there?'

'Yes, it is,' said Sundstrom. 'Collins's
Moonstone
is rarer, of course, but Orwell is much more of a politician's writer.'

Theo chuckled. Vasili Serov had been a systems tech on board the colonyship
Hyperion
and had played a decisive role in the deadly struggle against the ship's Command AI. In the Hardship Years that followed, Serov had cobbled together a crude manual printing press and painstakingly typeset those few novels sitting in datapods that had not been linked to the shipboard comnet. The huge memorybanks of the
Hyperion,
buried under layers of encryption by the ship AI, were to remain inaccessible for decades, so Serov's work had proved invaluable to the surviving colonists.

For a moment both men were thoughtfully silent, then Sundstrom spoke:

'I assume you've heard.'

'About two hours before I got your invitation,' Theo said, watching him. 'So it's true - Earth has sent a ship to find us, which means that the Swarm were defeated and all our troubles are over, yes?'

Sundstrom gave a thin smile.

'If only matters were that straightforward. Theo, the Swarm War lasted two and a half years before the Hegemony helped chase the last of the Swarm away, and that was a century and a half ago, which is a long time in the history of a culture or a society. Just think about all the strife and upheavals that our little enclave has been through - the Hyperion AI war, First Families against the New Generation, the Consolidators versus the Expansionists, the New Town Secession - and multiply that to a planetary level.' He shook his head. Tin afraid that our lives are about to become quite a bit more complicated, not to say uncomfortable.'

Frowning, Theo sat back, going over in his mind the dozen or so meetings he'd had with Sundstrom in the last two years.

'You speak as if you know something I've not heard about.. .' He leaned forward. 'When you first asked me to join your little cabal, you said that we were preparing for the worst, like the possibility of occupation by an unfriendly species. Now it seems that there's an Earth ship due in . . . how long?'

'Fourteen hours.'

'Less than a day, fine,' Theo said. 'Yet your demeanour is not that of, shall we say, delighted anticipation.' Then he laughed and snapped his fingers. 'Or has it been this contact with Earth that we've been preparing for all along?'

Sundstrom leaned back in his wheelchair, gnarled hands loosely clasping the handrests. 'Your intuition has always been sharp, Theodor,' he said. 'If you had been the leader of the Winter Coup rather than Viktor Ingram . ..'

'If I'd had that sharp an intuition back then, I would have shot the bastard, not trusted him,' Theo said testily. 'But you're dodging the question, Holger.'

'I'm waiting for the others to join us first - ah, I think they're here now.' He reached forward and fingered an angled display set in the desktop.

The others,
Theo thought. Sundstrom had occasionally hinted at the existence of other cabal members, but in two years Theo had met only one of them, a broadshouldered, muscular Scot who was introduced as Boris. He was not among the three who now entered the study, two of whom - a man and a woman - he had never seen before. The third he recognised immediately as Vitaly Pyatkov, assistant director at the Office of Guidance, an intelligence organisation founded in the wake ot tru Winter Coup. Theo was amused by the look of agiias. surprise that flashed across the man's features on seeing who was in the president's company, and also by the bland expression that slammed into place an instant later.

'Thank you all for coming here this evening,' said Sundstrom. 'You have all agreed to be part of my little advisory inner circle, but I intend to keep identities ;o i minimum for now.' He then introduced the man as Donny, and the woman as Tanya. Once everyone had settled, he began.

'First, as Fm sure you've all realised, the rumours are true. One of our comm satellites picked up a message claiming to be from the Earthsphere ship
Heracles,
offering friendly greetings and informing us that they will be entering Darien orbit at about ten tomorrow morning. Simurg 2, our satellite orbiting Nivyesta, is tracking an object on an intercept course with Darien; further communications have confirmed that the objec t is their source.'

'Further communications, sir?' said the woman Tanya. 'Has there been dialogue? Do we have any clues about what to expect?'

'There is a special ambassador on board, going by the name of Robert Horst, but thus far we have exchanged little more than diplomatic pleasantries.' Sundstrom's face grew serious. 'However, there are certain truths that I must make you all aware of from the outset.'

He raised a wire remote and clicked it. The screen at his back blinked on, showing a blue world from orbit, with a small green moon in attendance - Darien and Nivyesta. The perspective swung round gradually, bringing the sun, New Sol, into view, causing a lens flare before it slid out of the frame, leaving planet and moon against a hazy backdrop through which a few bright stars shone, diamond points suspended in misty veils.

'The tract of stellar dust and debris that surrounds us,' he went on, 'is rather larger than some observers had reckoned, nearly a thousand lightyears across at its widest, and our star system is located in one of the denser swirls. This tract is known as the Huvuun Deepzone and is one of several scattered around this part of the galaxy. It also happens to be the focus of a bitter border dispute between two regional civilisations, the Imisil and the Broltura.'

On the screen, Darien and its solar system dwindled into the mottled murk of interstellar dust clouds while strangely contoured walls emerged, stretching across lightyears, the three-dimensional boundaries between the deepzone and adjacent territories.

'The Brolturan Compact is closely allied to a huge interstellar empire called the Sendruka Hegemony, who also happen to be allies of Earthsphere. Unfortunately, the Solar System is nearly 15,000 lightyears away, which puts us well outside Earth's region of influence. The Imisil Mergence were once at war with the Hegemony, which adds a certain tension to the situation.'

Sundstrom paused, and there was an astonished silence. The others glanced at the screen and each other as the revelations sank in, and Theo's mind spun with the implications.

Complicated and uncomfortable?
he thought.
That's an understatement.

Pyatkov the intelligence officer spoke:

'Sir, respectfully - I know that your exchanges with the ambassador have not contained such information, so I must ask where it comes from.'

'I'm sorry, Vitaly, but I cannot reveal that at the moment.'

'Then how long have you known all this?' Theo said.

'Nearly two and a half years,' the president said. 'You will all find out the nature of this source in time, but they do not wish others to know straight away in fear of an inevitable political backlash.'

It's got to be the Enhanced,
Theo thought.
They're involved in all the tech-heavy projects, and I'll bet that old Holger has a couple tucked away, translating signaltrawled from the Great Beyond.

'So who should we fear the most?'

Sundstrom smiled ruefully. 'Realpolitik being what it is, I feel that none of them are to be entirely trusted, but Earth's alliance with the Sendruka Hegemony is dis turbing . . .'

As they listened, Sundstrom launched into an amaz ing disclosure, sketching the outlines of a topography of interstellar power, rivalry and conflict they had never dreamed existed. The Sendruka Hegemony was an authoritarian, militaristic empire which dominated this part of the galaxy: it employed a range of unprincipled tactics in order to get its way while laying claim to the most altruistic of motives and holding itself up as the example to which other civilisations should aspire. Unfortunately, close bonds of gratitude and trade existed between Earthsphere and the Hegemony, since the latter had been instrumental in defeating the Swarm invasion fleet which had nearly overwhelmed Earth and a dozen other civilisations 150 years ago. That was when the
Hyperion
and two other colonyships had departed the home solar system, after the beginning of the invasion but before the Hegemony's intervention.

As Sundstrom spoke, Theo glanced at the others. The woman Tanya was utterly engrossed, her gaze fixed on the president, while Pyatkov seemed more reserved, frowning slightly as he took it all in. The other man, Donny, seemed to be listening but had a relaxed alertness about him that Theo recognised.

Definitely special forces,
he thought.
Plus an intelligence officer, a networker - maybe she's in government admin or communications - and a disgraced ex-major. There have to be others besides us.

'So we're a human colony world very far from home,' Pyatkov said. 'We've appeared in the middle of contested territory, and Earth's allies are powerful and unsavoury. What of these Brolturans? Are they preferable to these others, the Imisil?'

'The Brolturans constitute a fanatical offshoot of mainstream Sendruka civilisation,' Sundstrom said. 'Their culture is centred on the precepts of a faith called Voloasti which elevates them to the status of God's paladins. The Imisil Mergence on the other hand—' He shrugged. 'They are a confederation of mainly nonhumanoid races, non-expansionist, yet they're contesting ownership of this area we're in, the Huvuun Deepzone, purely to maintain some kind of buffer between themselves and the Brolturans.'

At this Donny smiled and sat straighten 'So what do they look like, these Sendruka?'

'A lot like us,' Sundstrom said. 'They are very human like, except that they average about ten feet in height.'

Theo got a sudden flash of insight, imagining these tall humanoid aliens fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with humans to save Earth from the insectoid Swarm.
Yearn that would generate a good deal of useful gratitude.
Tanya and Pyatkov were openly surprised at this piece of information, but Donny just smiled and nodded.

'They sound formidable,' Theo said. 'Anything else?'

The president gave one of his twinkly-eyed, mischievous smiles. 'Quite a lot else, actually, but there is one particular nugget which I think you'll all find interesting.' Fie looked at them. 'Since the Swarm War, and especially since Earth allied itself with the Hegemony-, the development of artificial intelligence and awareness has moved ahead in leaps and bounds. AIs have spread to every level and sector of Earth culture, permeating the social fabric to the point where many people carry personalised ones around with them, sometimes as implants, and calling them "companions", never AIs. In the Hegemony, such entities are even more widespread, with the majority conferred autonomous rights by law. Several of the oldest and most complex even hold senior posts in government.'

There was a shocked pause, and a shared look of alarm as the meaning of his words dawned. One hundred and forty-eight years ago, soon after the detection of the world that was to become their new home, the crew and colonists of the
Hyperion
had fought a savage and desperate war against the ship's Command Ai. From the point when the ship had dropped out of hyper space, the onboard systems had begun to exhibit malfunctions which grew steadily more hazardous as the landing approached. By the time they made landfall they were actively struggling against the ship, whose AI had ceased to obey instructions. It took control of machinery, bots and various repair drones with which to sabotage the crew's efforts to get supplies out of locked storerooms or to directly attack them. Eventually it had begun waking other colonists from cryosleep, implanting them with neural devices to force them to carry out its instructions: 11 of the original crew of 46, plus 29 out of the cryosleep contingent of 1,200, had been killed by the time the survivors shut off power to the AI core. As to why it had turned against them, the weary victors could only speculate that the unknown stresses of hyperspace had corrupted its data or its cognitive substrate, turning it against them. The horrors of that struggle had echoed down the decades, becoming a potent symbol and a widely accepted justification for banning any research into AI, and commemorated in the annual Founders' Victory celebrations.