Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

‘Yes.’

‘That vow can stand. But I can be the one who delivers the heart. Where’s the problem in that? It’s not as if I’m not family. It’s not as if I couldn’t be trusted to deliver on the commitment.’ He looked at her sharply. ‘Is it?’

‘Of course not. But—’

‘And I’m going there anyway.’

‘But Nissa—’ Ru began.

‘She’ll come with me. Earth’s medicine may or may not be more advanced than what they have here on Crucible. They may or may not have the same ethical constraints concerning the regeneration of damaged neural tissue. But it’s not Earth I’m counting on. I’ll take Nissa to Mars. They remade me once, when I should have died. Rebuilt my brain cell by cell, stitched Swift into my skull like a pattern woven into a tapestry. If they could do that for me, they can bring Nissa back too.’

‘You would have no guarantee,’ Yefing said.

‘No, I wouldn’t. But if curing her was easy, you’d have already done it. It’s beyond what you can do — or beyond what you’ll allow yourselves. Isn’t it?’

‘There are impediments,’ Yefing answered, in a confessional tone. ‘But none of us wished to dash your hopes so quickly. There are still avenues to be explored…’

‘And I appreciate your efforts, your good intentions,’ Kanu said. ‘But there’s another consideration. I have to go back to Earth. It’s not just about Eunice’s heart. I have to answer for myself.’

Malhi said: ‘I do not understand.’

‘Years ago, when I was leaving Earth’s system, I turned my ship’s weaponry on another vehicle. I killed a man. At least one. His name was Yevgeny Korsakov. We were friends. Or at least colleagues. I saw no other course of action open to me, but that does not absolve me of responsibility. You say there is no extradition treaty.’

‘You would go voluntarily,’ Malhi confirmed. ‘We have no record of this crime, and Earth has no knowledge that you have returned to us. If you chose to remain here, there is no reason why you could not enjoy decades of freedom.’

‘But I’d still have to live with myself.’ Kanu smiled at them all. It was a smile of wise and sad acceptance more than of joy. ‘It’s all right. I’d more or less made my mind up before we left the medical complex. As soon as there’s a ship, I’ll be on it. Perhaps they’ll have forgotten my crime, or decided to forgive me for it. Whatever their view, I’ll abide by it. I’m sure they’ll grant me the mercy of delivering Nissa to Mars, and Eunice’s heart to Africa.’

‘You’re doing this for her,’ Goma said. ‘Not because you can’t live with yourself. But because she matters more to you than anything.’

Kanu had no answer for that.

‘A ship is scheduled to leave in a few weeks,’ Malhi said, finally breaking the silence. ‘There would be no problem in placing you and Nissa aboard it, if that’s what you wish. But there is time to think about your decision.’

‘Thank you, Malhi. But I don’t think I’ll change my mind. This is what must be done. Besides, it’s no hardship. Earth is my home. Whatever lies in store for me there, it’s where I belong.’ And he turned his face to Goma, letting her know that she need have no regrets, no second thoughts, no doubts, no misgivings, that all was well between them. ‘Where Eunice belongs. I’ll see that she returns home. It’s the least I can do.’

‘Kanu…’ Goma said, her eyes welling up. ‘Uncle.’

He drew her closer, hugged her to him. ‘It’s a beautiful machine Ndege left you. I think you should spend some time enjoying it again. I’ll be fine. One day, perhaps, I’ll come back to Crucible.’

‘I wanted to see Earth.’

‘Earth’s not going anywhere. It’ll still be there in a hundred, or a thousand years. But meanwhile, there are Risen. This is their cusp, Goma — their bottleneck. We came through our share of them; now it’s our turn to do something for our friends. They’re in good hands, I know.’

‘I hope it works out for you, Kanu,’ Ru said.

‘It will. I always try to hope for the best. What else can we do?’

Twenty days later they watched him depart.

Goma had already said her farewells; there had been no need to say goodbye to him at the spaceport. Instead they had flown out in the Sess-Na, far beyond Guochang’s last straggling suburb, into elephant territory.

The ambassadors would soon be walking these alien plains, but not just yet: there were still weeks or months of acclimatisation ahead of them, before they could comfortably breathe Crucible’s air. But elephants had made that transition once before, without the benefit of contemporary medicine, and Goma had no doubt the ambassadors would prove equally adaptable.

For now it was just her and Ru, standing together a few dozen paces from the aircraft.

‘I spoke to Malhi,’ Goma mentioned. ‘They’re still tracking her, after all this time.’

Ru looked at Goma with only mild interest, her real attention still on the distant spaceport, lying somewhere beyond the distant shark fin of the medical pyramid. ‘Her?’

‘Arethusa. She’s still alive, still somewhere out there. But bigger and stranger than she ever was before. She nearly killed Mposi, did you know? He tried fixing a tracking device on her. That didn’t go down well.’

‘And now…?’

‘Someone needs to bring her up to speed. She may not be an Akinya, but she’s been part of this for long enough. I want Malhi to take me out there. A boat, submarine, whatever it takes. There are still merfolk. They can help me find her.’

‘And if she tries to kill you as well?’

‘I’m counting on her wanting to hear my story first. Someone owes her this much.’

‘For old times’ sake?’

‘For old times’ sake.’

They saw it long before any sound had a chance to reach their ears. A rising spark, steady as an ascending star, a glint of hull balanced on that brightness, arrowing its way to orbit, to meet with the larger starship that would soon be embarking for interstellar space. Goma waited, and waited, but there never was any sound, just the heat and stillness of the day, their own breathing, the untroubled silence between them. She thought of Kanu in that ship, his wife with him, their hopes and fears, and the heart that travelled with them, on its long homecoming.

There had been warning, but not quite enough.

When the moment of translation came, there was still much that the Risen could have done to ready their world for its next port of call. In the stony corridors, enclosed halls and great vaulted chambers of Zanzibar , countless Risen were still engaged in their daily activities. They had been going about their business despite Dakota’s departure and the irksome human interference with their power-generation grid. Fortunately, the grid was not essential for their continued existence, although it certainly made life easier. Ideally, when the warning arrived, the Risen would have abandoned their less vital tasks and taken up monitoring stations throughout Zanzibar , but most especially near the vulnerable points of its skin, ready to act if some part of that outer layer ruptured. None of them had direct memories of the first translation event, the one that had brought Zanzibar (or rather this chip of it) from the orbit of Crucible to the orbit of Paladin, across a numbing span of light-years. But in the community of the Risen, direct memories were only one strand in the larger tapestry of the Remembering. All knew of the severity of that event — the terrible toll of Risen and human lives. All could recount the hard days that had followed as the survivors fought to transform this severed fragment into a home that could keep them alive. And after the hard days — hard weeks, months, years. Crushing setbacks, bruising failures. Not until Dakota came to them had the worst of it been surpassed, and even then their difficulties were not over.