Solaris Rising (17 page)

“We grew up together.”

“I know. I was there.”

“And so I was given back to him.”

“That’s the idea. It’s another trivial bit of kindness. Why not do it, if you can?”

Matt leaned forward and scratched Prince behind the ear, and then the back of his head where he liked it. Prince sat and closed his eyes, submitting to the touch. “I’m like Mister Mersey, then.
He
thinks he’s real too.” And, Matt thought, he’d backed away when Mister Mersey asked
him
for help.

“A bit like that.”

“Something went wrong, though. I woke up. I came here.”

“Yes. Matt, you’re not a whole human. But there’s just enough of Matt in you for the dog. You’re supposed to go through the cycle of each day, with the dog, without you, umm,
noticing
that anything’s missing, that anything’s wrong. And then at the end of each day you are – reset. You retain just enough trace memory to look after the dog.” He rubbed his face again. “Oh, this is coming out all wrong. It’s more subtle than that. But anyhow –”

“My reset button broke.”

“Yes. Yes, it did. You became aware, well,
too
aware. There are lots of categories of consciousness, degrees of awareness. Something like that. It’s as if you woke from a dream. Look, it was a glitch. They were trying to do something pretty subtle if you think about it, and a long way from their own experience. But all with the best of intentions.”

Matt grunted. “Very nice of them. So what now?”

“You’ve been fixed. But, given what you’ve been through and the distress it must have caused you – and will cause when it all sinks in – they’ve decided to give you a choice. You can have your, umm, reset button pressed.”

“And go back to the dream.”

“Yes.”

“Or?”

“Or you can stay awake. Here, like this.”

“With Prince.”

“That’s the point. But when Prince dies – well, that’s it.” He bent to stroke Prince’s face with his finger. “He’s not a young dog, is he?”

“He may have a couple of years.”

“That’s all they can offer you, Matt. That or the dreaming.”

“Where I didn’t even notice Dad was gone.”

“Yes –”

“I’ll stay awake. Tell them.”

Mister Bowden smiled. “Well, they already know. Good choice, by the way.” He stood and stretched. “I’d better get back. That lawn won’t cut itself. Actually, it will, sort of, but you know what I mean.”

“I’ll see you around, Mister Bowden.”

“That you will, Matt. Take care now.” He walked away, his steps echoing.

Prince, still submitting to the stroking, was falling asleep, his head heavy, his eyes closing. With a last burst of energy he jumped onto Matt’s lap, turned around a couple of times, and then slumped down, curled up, his head resting on Matt’s arm.

Matt had just found out his father was dead. That
he
was dead. That he wasn’t real, he was some kind of copy. Maybe he was in shock. It didn’t seem to matter. After all, at least Prince was real. And there was always Mister Mersey to call in on.

He sat quietly, working out where the two of them could go for their long walk that afternoon. As the day wore on the rich light from the lantern tower shifted across the cathedral’s deep, empty spaces.

ELUNA

STEPHEN PALMER

Stephen Palmer first came to the attention of the SF world in 1996 with his debut novel
Memory Seed
, followed by its sequel
Glass
, both published by Orbit in the UK. Further novels followed, including the critically lauded
Muezzinland
. His most recent novel is
Urbis Morpheos
, the reading of which was described by one reviewer as “…the obtuse gift it is, to wallow in this utterly striking universe that Palmer has created... a supremely odd yet deeply rewarding experience.” Stephen lives and works in Shropshire.

“You are looking at ancient laser sail starships circling a distant cloud of interstellar gas backlit by young, hot stars. Can you see how the cloud seems to be brown and green ink in water? Look more closely. The starships appear as tiny glittering dots.”

“Are they what people call spiderwebs?” I asked.

“They used to. You can see them now?”

“There are about thirty. Do they orbit a common focus?”

“No. Don’t forget, the objects you see now are not what left the solar system. The starships have evolved over many centuries. Every now and again they come together to mate, pass on their artificial genes, then give birth to new starships.”

“But we’re seeing them as they were a few centuries ago. Anything could have happened in that time.”

“Indeed! A good point, child. But this is always the problem with self-replicating machines. Ancient records suggest that many of the starships have left the region of interstellar space you are observing. We cannot say where they are. You observe today those that remain.”

“And you don’t know how many new spiderwebs have been born, do you?”

“No.”

After a pause I said, “Why are they attracted to the clouds of gas?”

“They need raw materials and energy to survive – and to evolve. They circle it like marsh-crows circling a kill.”

I shuddered. “But there aren’t any spiderwebs any more, are there?”

“We use more advanced techniques now, aided by the alien races.”

“In Eluna!”

“Yes, child.”

“I’d like to work at the starport. It sounds interesting.”

“Your family will help, of course. You know they will. But at the moment you are naught but a student. In a hundred years or so, when you grow up…”

“Then?”

“Perhaps.”

The exnoo was the size of a cat, the shape of a wart and the colour of coffee, and its keening voice began to worry Freosanrai. Her alien companion was forbidden in the swamps of Eluna. And her father was about to arrive.

Freosanrai glanced around the cubicle in which she had set up her workshop. With the flick of a hand she made opaque the plexi-wall, dropping the exnoo into an aluminium bin.

“No, no, not darkness!” came the whine of the alien.

“Shush! Just while my father is here, then we’ll leave. I told you before, you’re not allowed here.”

“Darkness...”

“Quiet, now!”

Freosanrai stood straight and checked her appearance in a roll-on mirror: short blue hair, large dark eyes, thin mouth. Clothes of wispy silk and plastic knee boots. There came the sound of footsteps outside, a tap on the cubicle door, and then her father walked in.

As usual, he frowned. “What are you doing here?”

Freosanrai was for a moment perplexed by the question. “I’m meant to be here –”

“Oh, yes... the chemtree recreating the xmech mining ship, isn’t it?”

Freosanrai nodded. Her father must have much on his mind to make such a simple mistake.

Osanagai muttered, “You placed this cubicle too far from the chemtrees. I’ve told you before about that.”

He opened the door and looked out. The music of the Elunan swamp became audible, and Freosanrai detected its methanous smell. She saw dozens of chemtrees, their grey trunks like elephant skin, roots sunk in black water, their leaves red and purple, the size of blankets; the ends of their branches suspending pale flowers like wet papers.

Without looking at his daughter, Osanagai said, “This time I shan’t tell Zebenunai. But please learn from your mistake. Too far from the chemtrees and you will miss the development of the seed. Too close and you will interfere with the pollination. Get it just right. You are a member of the Artisans now, and you have to get it right.”

Freosanrai glanced at her father and murmured, “Yes.”

Osanagai frowned. “Is there no work that you can apply yourself to?”

“I am working. Here.”

Osanagai took a few steps out of the cubicle. He turned and said, “Will you stay here tonight?”

Freosanrai nodded. “I think a multifigur will come tonight to pollinate the xmech mining ship flower. I saw one the last two nights, a big one like a silver dragonfly, but the flower wasn’t fully developed. Anyway, the fruit should be ripe this time tomorrow if the flower is pollinated tonight.”

“Make sure you eat it immediately.”

“Yes, father...”

“Then bury your excrement to a depth of ten centimetres. That allows the seed to develop into the ship –”

“Without hindrance or delay, yet without exposing the undeveloped machine to danger.”

Osanagai shook his head. “I suppose you think you know it all because you are no longer a student.”

Freosanrai shrugged. “I know the basics, which is what you were just telling me.”

“
Don’t
fail on this one like you have before. The xmech are unable to forget a mistake. Zebenunai will lose respect if the mining ship is not delivered to the Ruby Faction – he has known them for three centuries or more.”

Freosanrai raised her eyebrows. “The who?”

“Oh... the Ruby Faction – one of the sections of the xmech populace. Zebenunai has been trying to trace their origin by extrapolating from the positions of stars they transmit data from. Nothing you need to know about. Goodbye.”

Osanagai walked away, his cloak leaving a trail in the damp grass of the chemtree clearing. Freosanrai sighed as she walked out of the cubicle. Around her the dense chemtrees of Eluna moaned as the wind gusted over them. She glanced up to see the outer barrier of Luna translucent white, like the cirrus clouds of the original Earth; below that barrier, more than a kilometre above her, a column of butterflies flew, their myriad wings reflecting sunlight like a cloud of tinsel.

“Get me out of here. I want to be inside your backpack again.”

Freosanrai entered the cubicle and pulled the exnoo from the bin, putting it inside her rucksack and letting the flap fall over the leathery face of the alien. “Is that too dark for you?”

“No, I am comfortable. Have I assisted you enough here? Can we leave?”

Freosanrai hesitated. She only had an hour before evening fell over Ministrator – not enough time to return the exnoo to its hide in the Marshy Sector and then return. But her private task was done, using the exnoo to memorise chemtree types in preparation for later examinations. Yet if the exnoo were discovered she would be expelled from the Artisans, to the eternal shame of her father, and of his father.

“I’m going to keep you here until tomorrow,” she decided. “I can’t risk missing the multifigur.”

“It will come tonight?”

“I’m sure the xmech flower is ready.”

Decision made, Freosanrai lifted the rucksack and carried it across the clearing to the nearest chemtrees, which she clambered across, slipping on their moss-covered roots, until she found a hole in the ground. Into this she placed the rucksack. She glanced around. This part of Eluna, close to the Marshy Sector and Mount Black, was little used. She could see only one hologram marking the position of a growing seed, a golden spiral fifty metres away. The rucksack would be safe.

“Goodbye,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll return to pick you up.”

“Very well.”

Freosanrai returned to the cubicle, checked the monitor computers, then settled into a yoga position on the grass outside.

Gloom fell over Eluna. Many of the chemtrees relaxed, their boles creaking, their branches drooping. Evening multifigur flitted between the chemtrees, catching final beams of light as the sun descended, but as time passed Freosanrai began to worry that the silver dragonfly would not reappear. This hour was the usual time for scent-directed pollinations to occur. She put on her image enhancing spectacles. Nothing.

Night fell, and still nothing. Freosanrai began to fret.

The Mercantile Sector, positioned between the Marshy Sector and the edge of the sector upon which Ministrator is built, is usually quiet at night. An intricate collection of shops and businesses spread out over fifty square kilometres, it is required by law to shut down when the sun sets. But the border with the Olive Sector is leaky, unpatrolled, and the hedonists of that region will on occasion use its broad streets as their lavatories, bordellos and drug dens.

Tonight, a man totters along Point Zero Street, a thoroughfare close to the edge of Eluna. Though he is drunk he can hear the whirrs, screeches and bellows of Elunan technology, incomprehensible to him – a commoner, a voter – yet recognisable, and somehow comforting. He knows where he is. He stops, injects another few millilitres into his veins, and stumbles on.

The stars are invisible beyond the great Lunan barrier, the sphere that is tonight dark and swirling. Alien computers control with precision the amount of solar energy reaching the environment within. Today they increased Luna’s albedo by a fraction of a per cent, responding to innumerable data sent by botanic sensors.

The man leans into a dark doorway. Behind the plexi at his side he sees goods from lower sectors: gene therapy kits, portable microbe generators, auxiliary eyes. At his feet a number of black automechs work, digging miniature trenches so that optical cables can be laid. He is tempted to kick them aside, but even in his inebriated state he will not ignore the taboo.