Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

‘I’m certain they will.’ He was speaking slowly, distantly. ‘It was the best thing, keeping her in skipover. Even though she missed most of our time in the Tantors’ system.’

‘We’ll have to go back, won’t we?’ Goma said, trying to strike an optimistic note. ‘Not us, necessarily, but people. Maybe we won’t even need a starship to do it. Just crank up Mandala again, the way it worked before.’

‘Someone’s going to have to try,’ Kanu agreed.

But it would not be him, Goma thought. Or her, or Ru. Captain Vasin, perhaps, if she had not yet had her fill of cosmic exploration. But even Gandhari looked drawn, worn out by what they had gone through.

She was speaking.

‘In a little while, so I am assured, we will be met by diplomatic envoys from the present government. They are bound to seem odd to us. Perhaps a little frightening, too. It’s been a while. But you can be certain that they are just as apprehensive about meeting us. We must seem very strange to them indeed. But with good intentions in our hearts, good faith in our new hosts, good faith in ourselves, we will find a way through. Some of you will attempt to return to your old lives on Crucible. I do not wish to understate the challenges you will face — although I am quite sure you have a ready appreciation of what lies ahead. But never forget this. We are a crew now, and we will remain a crew. When you leave this ship, you do not leave behind the friendships and alliances we have forged. They remain with us. They will be our bond across all the years and challenges to come. Each and every one of you has my respect and gratitude.’

There were more words to come, not just from Vasin, but after a while they began to wash over Goma, her thoughts spinning away on their own trajectories. She was thinking of the ambassadors — how easy it was to gloss over the complicated business of introducing five new sentient beings to a world, until the time was almost upon them. She was thinking of Kanu, for whom this was no kind of homecoming, and for whom any mood of celebration must have rung cruelly false. She was thinking of Nissa, neither dead nor alive, and the hopes that had been placed on the unknown medicine of a world three centuries from their understanding. It was a kind of magical thinking, she saw now, like a child’s trust in the intervention of fairies. And she was thinking of Eunice Akinya’s heart, which had yet to reach its resting place.

Soon the envoys came. Their manner was quiet, understated, deferential. Even as they moved through the ship, she never saw more than two of them at any one time. They were doing their best to be unobtrusive, not wishing to shock their time-slipped guests. Their faces and skin tones showed a variety of ethnicities, and there were some among them who had the sleek, hairless features she associated with merfolk, but it was hard to be certain. Their clothes were dark, modest of cut, with wide white collars and puffed white cuffs. Some of them wore small skullcaps or berets over short, neatly manicured hairstyles. If they brought technology with them, Goma recognised none of it. Perhaps they were so saturated with it that carrying technology was unnecessary.

She heard them speak, shifting effortlessly from one language to another. They came equipped with Swahili, Zulu, Chinese, Punjabi, a dozen other tongues. Their diction was over-precise, their speech clotted with formalisms, including the odd phrase that was old-fashioned even when Goma was a child, but she could not fault them for that. Yet between themselves she caught them whispering sentences that hovered just beyond comprehension — not quite a foreign language to her — the cadences and rhythms were naggingly familiar — but a dialect so far removed from her experience that it may as well have been.

There were medical tests. One by one, all the crew were brought to the non-weightless clinic. Mona Andisa’s team stood aside while the Crucible envoys performed subtle investigations. It was the one and only time Goma saw any kind of tool or instrument in their hands. They had black styluses, tipped with a small bulb, which they swept slowly over the bodies of their subjects. They spoke to Andisa’s medics, whispered agreeably between themselves. They seemed unconcerned, going through formalities. Eventually word filtered through that there were no barriers to any of the crew, passengers or ambassadors, descending to Crucible. They were free to disembark into the golden station, from which shuttles were available to take them all the way home.

Goma and Ru only took the minimum of possessions with them — the rest could be freighted down later. They walked through the vaults and atria of the golden station, gawking at cathedral-sized spaces which seemed largely deserted, as if the station had been emptied of human occupation in readiness for Travertine ’s arrival, or even built especially for them. Perhaps it had. They’d had decades to get ready for it, after all, decades to rehearse every detail of the reception.

The shuttles turned out to be the translucent manta things Goma had seen earlier. Each was large enough to take one or two Tantors and a dozen or more human passengers. Eldasich and Atria went down in one shuttle, Mimosa and Keid in another, and Hector stayed with Goma and Ru. Kanu was there as well, together with the draped form of Nissa’s skipover casket. The envoys fussed around the interior of the shuttle making adjustments to the provisions, moulding and shaping its décor with practised, wizard-like gestures. Finally they were satisfied, the casket secured, the passengers comfortable, and the last leg of the journey home could begin. Two envoys remained aboard the shuttle, but as far as Goma could tell no one was in direct control. The vehicle seemed to know what it was meant to do.

They detached from the station over Crucible’s nightside, then arrowed down from orbit, knifing into the upper atmosphere and gradually catching up with dawn. Even as re-entry plasma flickered and curled around the shuttle, its brightness throwing highlights across their faces, the ride remained as smooth as if they were on rails.

‘Gandhari spoke well,’ Kanu said, keeping one hand on the casket secured next to his seat. ‘You couldn’t have asked for a better captain. But this world won’t hold her interest for long. She’ll want to move on. I can see it in her eyes.’

‘I’m not sure it’s our world any more,’ Goma said.

Kanu’s look was kind. ‘You’ll fit back in.’

‘Not for long, I hope. I have an obligation to discharge. It’ll mean a trip to Earth, one way or another. I gather they have more starships. Sooner or later there’ll be a ship going that way.’

‘Can you afford the passage?’

She had no answer to that. None of them did. Whatever funds they might have left behind on Crucible were now moot. Perhaps they had snowballed into vast personal fortunes, or perhaps they were worthless. Or worse, had somehow transmogrified into crippling debts. Besides, Goma did not have the least idea how much it would cost to transport herself back to Earth. It would cost twice as much again to take Ru, assuming she was deemed fit enough to tolerate another skipover episode. ‘I’ll find a way,’ she said, as if the will alone was sufficient.

‘But this is where the Risen will remain,’ Kanu said.

‘For now,’ Ru said. ‘At least until we’ve gone beyond five living members. Maybe in a couple of generations we — they — will feel comfortable about committing some of their number to Earth. Not just Earth, but to other solar systems.’ Her tone hardened, gaining conviction. ‘Wherever there’s a human presence, there ought to be Tantors. Risen. It’s the only way. But we’re twenty, thirty, fifty years from worrying about that. Let’s help them build up the herd, get that on a stable footing, before we start reaching for the stars again.’