Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

Kanu was still having trouble with the concept. ‘So you really are an art historian now?’

‘It’s not a complete stretch. Even when we worked together, I had other interests — antiquities, deluge architecture, pre-Mechanism cultural semiotics—’

‘All of that’s still a long way from being an expert on my grandmother.’

‘There’s the small detail that we were married. Is it such a surprise that I know a few things about your grandmother?’

‘I hadn’t forgotten that we were married.’ But in truth, it had been months, perhaps even years, since he had last called her to mind. Not because they had parted in bitterness, or that he wished to erase her from recollection, but simply because his life had changed in so many ways that the years with Nissa belonged in their own compartment, one that he seldom had cause to open.

‘Sunday was always looming there in your ancestral background. You didn’t have to take an interest in her, but that didn’t preclude me from doing so.’

‘I don’t remember any such thing.’

‘It was mostly after we split up. She was a bit of a niche interest then, so her stock hadn’t really begun to rise. Look, don’t tell me you’ve completely forgotten. What about the divorce settlement? You agreed to let me have some of her pieces.’

‘I’m afraid they can’t have meant much to me.’

‘More fool you, merman. You gave away a small fortune. Actually, sizeable fortune would be more like it, with the prices she’s fetching now. You could buy a spaceship with those pieces. In fact, that’s exactly what I did. But who knew, back then?’

Kanu feigned a glum look. ‘Not me.’

‘And you wouldn’t have cared even if you’d had an idea what those paintings might be worth. It was just family clutter to you. Money was never your motivator.’ She appraised him from across the table, doubtless taking in his unostentatious choice of clothing. ‘I’m guessing it still isn’t.’

‘At least one of us did well out of Sunday.’

‘Oh, I’ve done more than well. I see you have a brochure. You didn’t read it very closely, did you?’

Kanu blew away table crumbs and spread the brochure out before them. He could see it now, right at the end: a paragraph of acknowledgements in which Nissa’s name figured prominently. Not just Nissa but The Nissa Mbaye Research Foundation .

‘I’m amazed.’

‘And you’re seriously telling me you were wandering around here without a clue I was involved?’

Kanu hesitated. It was quite possible he might have turned away at the jetty if he had seen Nissa’s name and realised there was a good chance of bumping into her.

‘I didn’t know. Genuinely.’

‘Then your own interest in Sunday… that’s real?’

Kanu took a deep breath. ‘I’m at a bit of a loose end these days so I thought, why not take an interest in Sunday? You’re right — she never mattered much to me before. But that was wrong. It’s odd — she’s just my ancestor, but I started to feel as if I owed it to her to learn a little more about her life and legacy. I thought this might be a good place to start.’

‘We always liked the city. Was that a factor, too?’

Kanu lowered his voice, although there was no chance of them being overheard in the noisy café. ‘I’m lucky they didn’t lynch me the minute I set foot in the place. They have long memories here. Lisbon is where it all started — or all ended , more accurately.’

‘You didn’t personally bring down the Mechanism, Kanu. Also, it was merfolk tecto-engineering that kept Lisbon safe from another tsunami. Anyway, I’m not sure memories are as long as you think. Not these days. It’s an old world now. Too much to remember, too many lives. I mean, take us, for example.’

‘You don’t look any older.’

‘That’s very kind, but you were never much of a liar. Really, though — what happened? I’ll admit, I saw your name in the news. Some bad business on Mars.’

‘I was in an accident — injured, quite badly. But I’m all right now. They fixed me.’

‘They?’

‘The machines of the Evolvarium. I was hurt on the surface and taken into their care.’ After a moment, he said, ‘I still bleed. They didn’t turn me into a robot. I wouldn’t have got far from Mars if they had.’

‘My god. I had no idea it was that serious.’

‘Two of the other ambassadors were killed, so I got off lightly. But the robots’ intervention made it hard for me to carry on in that line of work — there’s a perception that I got too close to the robots. Which is why I’m at a loose end.’

‘So you came back to Lisbon?’

‘Madras first — one of my colleagues had family in India. But how could I resist the pull of this old place?’

‘This is too strange, you and I sitting together. I feel as if the universe has pulled a nasty trick on us both.’

‘Nasty?’

‘All right — unfair. We weren’t expecting this, were we?’

‘I certainly wasn’t.’ Kanu started to fold the brochure and slip it back into his satchel. After the oddness of this encounter, he had lost what little enthusiasm he had for the rest of the exhibition.

‘What are your plans in Lisbon?’

‘I didn’t have any, beyond visiting the exhibition.’ Kanu patted the satchel. ‘Early days, you see. I thought this would be a good way to get my bearings before digging deeper into her legacy. I suppose you’ll be in town as long as the exhibition’s here?’

‘There are only a few weeks left. You did well to make it back to Earth in time.’

‘There’d have been another one sooner or later, I suppose.’

‘And doubtless our paths would have crossed eventually. I know this wasn’t something either of us planned, but it is nice to see you again, Kanu.’

‘I feel the same way.’

There was a silence. He felt certain that Nissa could sense the inevitable question, floating in a state of unrealised potential between them. She had almost voiced it herself when she asked about his plans in the city. Perhaps she had meant him to go further in his answer.

‘We should meet up again,’ Nissa said.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘We should definitely do that.’

Goma had been aboard Travertine for more than two weeks. Each morning she woke to find that the light-speed delay between the ship and Crucible had increased by many seconds compared to the previous day. She preferred not to be reminded of that during the waking hours, for if she dwelt too much on the widening separation between herself and her home, it would have been more than she could easily endure. But it was happening whether she cared for it or not. With the ship under constant thrust, they had locked down the centrifuge wheels for the remainder of the acceleration phase. The fact that she could still walk around, eat and drink, wash and shower, was testament to the force of the Chibesa drive dragging her deeper into the void.

No one was immune to it, including Ru. They’d both had bad moments — a breakdown, a sobbing fit, a spasm of misdirected anger. Fortunately one had always been there for the other. Goma worried what would happen if they both lapsed at the same time. It did not take much to set it off — a news report from home, a smell or a taste that triggered some sequence of memories that in turn related to something they would not experience again, at least until their distant, largely hypothetical return. Goma only had to pick up on some sadness in Ndege’s communications, real or imagined, and she herself was a wreck.

‘Sometimes I wake up back on Crucible,’ she told Captain Vasin, ‘and I’m overwhelmed with joy to discover that the whole thing on the spaceship was just a bad dream. And then I wake up again, for real this time, and I’m here.’