Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

Kanu studied Ru’s unconscious face through her visor. There was no change as yet, but a drastic alteration was unlikely. He had to trust that they had helped her in time.

‘How do you think she’ll do?’ Kanu asked.

‘Lap of the gods. Goma mentioned something to me — a condition Ru has, due to oxygen poisoning — which may or may not complicate things. But we’ve done what we can.’ Eunice, he noticed, was drawing a heavier than usual breath between her utterances. ‘She looked strong to me. I liked her.’

‘You’d have done this for any one of us.’

‘Perhaps. But at least with Ru I had an account to settle. You’ll take care of her until you reach the ship, Kanu? Soon you’re going to be the only one of us standing.’

‘There must be something I can do for you. The oxygen supplies — can’t we plumb them in directly?’

‘You find me a tool shop, I’ll make the necessary alterations.’

‘I wish…’

She was still standing, but the effort — especially in Poseidon’s gravity — must have been taking its toll and her knees began to buckle. She allowed herself to rest a hand on Kanu’s shoulder. ‘You wish things were different from the way they are. That’s a refrain as old as time. I’ve lived a long and strange sort of life, Kanu, and I’ve known that feeling a few times. Generally it’s best to accept that things are exactly as bad as they look. At least that way you know it’s time to start digging your way out.’ She coughed, and when her voice returned it was weaker than before. ‘But no digging now. Not for me, anyway. And you know what? This hasn’t been too bad. I got to be human again. I got to be alive, with a head full of memories that felt as if they belonged to me.’

‘Did they?’

‘Once or twice. Enough to make the whole thing worthwhile.’ She staggered, caught herself. ‘Oh. I think I need to sit down now. Help me to the ledge. I’ll dangle my feet over the edge.’

‘I don’t want you falling.’

‘I’ve no plans to. I just want to see the sunrise.’

It was still dark. At the rate her suit systems were failing, there would be no sunrise for Eunice Akinya. But he could not deny her last request. Kanu guided her to the ledge, took her arm as she sat down on the lip.

‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, after a silence. ‘They’ll want to take me back to Earth, back to Africa. They can have part of me, I suppose. But the rest belongs on Orison, with the Risen.’

‘I’ll make sure that happens.’

Kanu became aware of a presence looming behind him. He glanced around, expecting it to be Swift. But it was Ru, bracing her hands against her knees but otherwise standing.

‘I blacked out,’ she said. ‘Something wrong with my suit after all, I guess. But I feel fine now. What’s up with her?’

‘Look at your chest pack,’ Kanu said quietly.

Ru must not have noticed until that moment. She stroked a hand along the clean surface of the unbuckled, undamaged device. ‘Wait…’ she began. And then her gaze must have fallen upon the broken unit, still lying on the floor where they had left it.

‘Its hers, the one you’re wearing,’ Kanu said. ‘She wanted you to have it.’

‘What about Eunice?’

‘I think we should sit with her,’ he said. ‘Just for a while.’

The wheel turned. Mposi orbited. The hours passed like lazy summers. There had been some sort of breakdown in communications between the ship and the party in the groove. It went on for an hour, with no one answering the transmissions from the ship; Goma was certain it meant the worst. She had thought of asking Vasin to take the ship down immediately, she did not mind abasing herself by begging, not when other lives were at stake.

But eventually there was a crackle, a voice she had no trouble recognising.

‘It’s Ru.’

Goma took the call. ‘We were starting to worry about you. Is everything all right down there?’

‘Everything’s fine. I had a problem with my suit, but it’s fixed now and I didn’t suffer any harm.’

She sounded defeated rather than ecstatic, but also alert and satisfactorily aware of her immediate situation.

‘What about Hector?’

‘Hector’s all right. No cause for alarm. We’ve been checking on his suit status periodically — he’s warm and breathing. I can’t say we’ve had any deep and meaningful conversations, but there’ll be time enough for that later. Are you ready for him?’

‘Gandhari says she can bring the primary lock into play for long enough to load him. What about Kanu and Eunice?’

There was a silence before Ru answered.

‘Kanu’s good. Eunice is dead.’

Goma’s first instict was to respond with a flat denial, as if this could not be possible under any set of circumstances.

‘No.’

‘It’s true. My suit went wrong, the damage was worse than we thought and I blacked out. When I came around, Kanu and Eunice had swapped the good part of her suit onto mine. She was already gone, Goma.’

After that, there was nothing to do but wait for the wheel to turn. When the groove was approaching forty kilometres from the surface, Vasin once again summoned the nerve to take Mposi down, landing on the same level as Kanu and Ru but a few dozen metres to one side. It was still much too close for comfort, but the shorter the distance they had to move Hector, the better.

Goma, somewhat rested by then — but still having to argue her case with Dr Andisa — was finally allowed to go out in one of the suits. Grave and Loring were dealing with Hector, coaxing him back to sufficient wakefulness to be able to assist with getting himself into the primary lock, access to which involved holding Mposi in an even more precarious position than before.

Goma had expected Ru to be up on her feet, wanting to be the first aboard off that cold and narrow shelf. But she was sitting on the groove’s edge, her feet dangling over the side, next to Eunice. On the other side of Ru was Kanu. They were both still wearing their helmets, but Eunice’s had been removed and now sat behind her, her head fully exposed to the vacuum. Goma moved to her side, standing perilously close to the edge herself. Ru and Kanu were also the only ones wearing chest packs.

Viewed from the side, Eunice’s posture was one of acceptance, even tranquillity. Her gloved hands rested in her lap, shoulders relaxed, head lolling only slightly down towards her chest within the open neck ring. From a distance, she might have been taking a snooze, or lost in reflective meditation. Goma sat down next to Ru.

‘Do they need help with Hector?’

‘No,’ Goma said, swallowing hard before continuing. ‘I think they’ve got that covered. But we can’t hold station here for very long. Vasin wants to be up and off the groove as quickly as possible. It’s not safe.’

‘You don’t say.’ But there was no malice in Ru’s remark, just a quiet exhaustion. ‘I hated her, you know.’

‘You had grounds to.’

‘And yet she did this. She could have lived, but she gave herself up for me instead. Was it on her mind all the time? Is that why she was so keen to stay down here with me?’

‘No one could have been that calculating.’

‘Except her.’

‘Not even Eunice,’ Goma said. She began to push herself up from the ledge, thinking how easy it would be to make a mistake, even now. ‘Ru, Kanu — we have to go.’

‘I’m staying with her.’ Before Goma could say a word, Ru went on, ‘Kanu should leave, definitely. He needs to get back to Nissa. But my suit is good. I only need to ride the rest of the way to the top of the wheel.’