Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

‘Just like that.’

‘We’re getting a ship ready. It’ll make the crossing, with some modifications. Wheels are turning. The expedition will happen — it’s just a question of who goes on it.’

‘You have your answer. Send Ndege.’

‘That’s the problem. My sister is very old.’

‘So are you.’

‘But I haven’t been wasting away under house arrest for more than a century. Aside from the political complications, there’s another headache. Ndege has one child, a daughter named Goma. She wishes to take her mother’s place.’

‘Either this Goma is very old herself, or Ndege was allowed conjugal visits.’

‘Neither. The child was conceived long before Ndege’s incarceration, but Ndege and her husband chose not to have their daughter until later in the colony’s settlement. They kept the fertilised egg in the facility in Guochang — it wasn’t an unusual arrangement in those days. But her husband died, and Ndege pushed herself into her work, and the Mandala event changed everything. For a long while afterwards she could not bring herself to consider the unborn child, but eventually she relented.’

‘Did you play some part in that, Mposi?’

‘I was concerned for my sister. The arrest was taking its toll on her and I felt that raising a daughter would be good for her soul.’

‘Soul. Listen to you.’

‘Soul, spirit, state of mind — whichever term you prefer. The point was, Goma gave Ndege something else to think about. The government allowed her to have the child and to raise her while remaining in detention. It was an odd upbringing for Goma, I’ll admit — very cloistered. But it did her no harm, and Ndege is still with us.’

‘And now this Goma becomes a thorn in your side.’

‘She wasn’t supposed to find out about any of this. But on the face of it, Goma is the better candidate — young and strong enough that there is no question she can endure the skipover interval. It means I won’t be sending Ndege to her almost certain death.’

‘Then your conscience can be clear. I do not see the difficulty.’

‘Goma’s safety is hardly guaranteed. She might survive the skipover, a hundred and forty years of it, but then what? What will she find around Gliese 163? For all we know it’s a trap of some sort — maybe a fatal one.’

‘It sounds like a very long-winded way of killing someone.’

‘That’s my hope.’

‘Then you must send Goma. She consents, and she is an Akinya. Why do you ask me?’

‘I want to know that I am doing the right thing. Regardless of whether I back Ndege or Goma, I’ll still be separating a mother from her daughter.’

‘You are an inveterate meddler, Mposi. Always have been, always will be. You Akinyas can never leave well enough alone, none of you. You meddled in Ocular, you meddled in human technological development, you meddled in the fates of elephants, you meddled in first contact, you meddled with Mandala. Is your sister’s happiness really any of your business? You didn’t cause her incarceration — she did, by being rash. And yet you made her bring a daughter into the world because you thought it was what she needed. And now you meddle again — mother, daughter, who shall you send? Whose life shall you cast to the winds?’

‘I’m just trying to do the right thing,’ Mposi protested.

‘You can’t. It’s not in you. The only thing you Akinyas can be relied on to do is make new mistakes, over and over. The more you try to do right, the worse your choices. You’re a corrupting influence. It’s what the universe made you to be.’

‘Is that really what you think of us?’

‘Give me a reason to form a different opinion. Give me a reason to think there’s a single one of you who doesn’t have their eye on the main chance. Even you, Mposi.’

‘I didn’t ask to be placed in this position. If Goma insists on taking her mother’s place and has a better chance of surviving the trip, who am I to stand in her way?’ But then a sudden, shivering insight overcame him. If Arethusa wished to doubt his good intentions, his hopelessness in the face of an impossible choice, he would give her pause for thought. ‘I’ll go,’ he said, simply and quietly, as if it were the smallest thing.

‘In her place?’

‘No. I’m not much stronger than Ndege, and besides — I’m not her daughter. But I can be there for her.’

‘Brave intentions, Mposi. I know what this world has come to mean to you. But you won’t stand by these words. The moment you’re out of the water, out of my presence, you’ll pretend they were never spoken.’

‘I won’t. I’ll talk to the doctors. They’ll find me fit enough. I’m swimming with a sea-monster, aren’t I?’

‘Be careful with your words.’

‘And you be careful who you doubt, Arethusa. I came to you for your wisdom, not your scorn. You’re wrong about us, especially Goma, and especially me, and I mean every word I just said.’

‘Go on, then, Mposi Akinya.’ She uttered his name with sneering condescension. ‘Prove me wrong about you and your kind. I’ll be here, waiting to hear what becomes of you.’

‘If you’re still sane by the time we get back, I’ll be glad to tell you. But frankly I have low expectations.’

He turned from her without another word, thinking of the boat and the dry and distant sanctuary of Guochang.

Ndege had prepared chai for the two of them. She took a sip, pursed her lips in a habit of familiar distaste. Ndege, who had been born on Zanzibar , maintained that boiled water always tasted wrong on Crucible. Goma had learned to humour her, but the fact was that sooner or later water tasted like water. How long had her mother been on Crucible, that she could not learn to like the taste of it?

‘He’s a fool.’

‘But a fool with the medical authorisation to do whatever he wants. Anyway, you shouldn’t speak ill of your brother.’

‘He’s still a fool.’

‘He’s only doing this out of some misguided sense of obligation.’ Goma worked at her own tea. ‘Since I’m going in your place and he can’t do anything about it, he feels he has to be there to take care of me. I can’t blame him for that. He’s wrong, of course — I don’t need him looking over my shoulder — but I can’t begrudge him the adventure.’

‘No good will come of it.’

‘Then you try arguing him out of it.’

‘Not much chance of that, Mposi’s like an asteroid — once he’s set on a course, there’s not much to be done.’

‘If only we could swap Ru for Mposi, both our problems would be solved. How are things with Ru, by the way?’

Goma studied her mother’s face, searching for clues as to the intent behind the question. There were lots of new lines lately, complicating the map.

‘Nothing’s changed. I’d have told you if something had.’

‘But you still speak to each other?’

‘We’re colleagues. We work on the same project. It would be difficult not to speak.’

‘I mean as wife and wife.’

‘What do you want me to say — that it’s all fine between us?’

‘It looked like it was, to begin with. You said Ru was accepting of your decision.’

‘Maybe she was, at first.’

‘So what changed?’

Goma worked at her chai. She thought, for a second, of finishing it in a gulp and storming out. Her mother had requested — no, demanded — this meeting. It had come at an awkward time and Goma had struggled to alter her plans to accommodate it. She assumed Ndege had something more important on her mind than rubbing salt into recent wounds.

‘Ru was just deluding herself, that’s all. Can we talk about something else?’

‘I’d rather we talked about Ru.’