Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

Ru was standing up in her own buggy, back ramrod straight, a cap jammed down over her eyes. With a notebook wedged into the angle of her right arm and a stylus in the other hand, she was recording observations.

Goma slowed so as not to disturb the experiment. She stopped the buggy, grabbed her things and walked the rest of the way.

The herd comprised thirty members, give or take, led by the matriarch Bellatrix. There were older females under the matriarch, but the only males were infants and juveniles.

In a clearing, Ru had set up the day’s sequence of cognitive puzzles, and one by one the elephants were encouraged to try their luck. There were mirrors, to test recognition-of-self. There were pots with food under them that could be moved around, or blinds that served a similar purpose. There were sturdy upright boards set with movable symbols — simple problems of logic and association and memory, with clear rewards for a correct answer. There were piles of objects and tools that could be combined to solve a problem, such as extracting fruit from a container. With her usual diligence, Ru had been working through combinations of these tests all day. The elephants were generally obliging, but only up to a point. Goma knew how frustrating it became when the rewards stopped being sufficiently attractive.

‘I could use some good news,’ Goma said when she was within earshot.

‘How about you go first. Did you batter those idiots into a pulp?’

‘Metaphorically.’

‘So we get our brand-new fence?’

‘It’s pending, but I think I made a good case.’

‘I wouldn’t expect anything less of you. Still, arseholes, the lot of them.’

‘I wouldn’t go quite that far.’

‘Oh, I would.’ Ru hopped down from the buggy. ‘They’re just playing with us. They could give us ten times the amount we’ve asked for and it wouldn’t make a dent in their funding budget. We’re just down in the noise.’

They walked towards each other.

‘Speaking of noise,’ Goma said, ‘Tomas tells me the numbers aren’t looking great.’

‘Dismal, more like. But why are we surprised? Three years ago I could draw a chequer-board in the dirt and play a passable game of Go with Bellatrix. Now she just scuffs her trunk through the squares — it’s as if she almost remembers, but not enough to understand the point. That’s not an intergenerational decline — that’s a single elephant losing intelligence almost as we speak.’

‘We should expect some age-related cognitive deterioration. It affects people, so why not pachyderms?’

‘We never used to see such a sharp tail-off.’

‘I know — just trying to find a slightly less depressing way of looking at it. Have you been out here all day?’

‘Got caught up. You know how it goes.’

They met, embraced, kissed. They held each other for a few seconds, Goma straightening Ru’s cap. Then Goma stepped back and appraised the other woman, noticing the stiffness in her posture and the slight tremble in her hand, the one still holding her notebook. Ru was bigger and taller than Goma, but for all that she was also frailer.

‘You’re done for the day. Let’s pack up and drive home.’

‘I need to finish this batch of tests.’

‘No, you’re done.’ Goma spoke with all the firm authority she could muster, knowing full well that her wife would not take well to being pressured.

‘It’s just been a long one. I’ll be fine after a night’s rest.’

They packed the study items into the rear hoppers of their two buggies. Goma slaved her buggy to follow Ru’s, then joined her in the forward vehicle. Goma opened the storage compartment by the passenger seat, unsurprised to see that it was empty.

‘Did you even bring your medicines?’

‘I meant to go back for them.’

‘You never miss a detail with elephants — why is it so hard to extend the same care to yourself?’

‘I’m fine,’ Ru said. But after a moment, she added, ‘Can we detour to swing by Alpha herd? I’d like to take a look at Agrippa.’

‘Agrippa can wait — you need your medicine.’

But it was pointless arguing, especially as Ru was driving. She steered the buggy onto a narrower track, the rear vehicle following, and soon they were cresting a low hill to overlook the favoured gathering spot of Alpha herd. It was near the greened-over corpse of a Provider robot, frozen where it had been when the information wave hit Crucible.

They stopped. Goma hopped out first, then went around to help Ru step down.

‘There she is. Binoculars in the back, if you need them.’

‘No, I’ll manage.’ Goma levelled a hand over her eyes, screening out the platinum glare of the clouds. It only took her a few moments to pick out Agrippa, the matriarch of the Alpha herd, but her usual pleasure at recognition with offset with disquiet.

Something was not right with Agrippa.

‘She’s very slow.’

‘I noticed that a couple of days ago,’ Ru said. ‘Some lameness for a while, but this is different. I know she’s old, but she’s always had that underlying strength to get her through.’

‘We should take some blood.’

‘I agree. Bring her in, if necessary. Maybe it’s just an infection, or a bad reaction to something she ate.’

‘Possibly.’

But neither cared to admit the obvious truth: that Agrippa was showing the signs of extreme age rather than of any underlying malady that could be treated with drugs or transfusions. She was simply an old elephant — the oldest of the herd members.

But also the smartest, according to the cognition measures. The only one who could still pass most of the tests, proving that she had an inner monologue, a sense of her own identity, an understanding of cause and effect, of time’s arrow, of the distinction between life and death. Agrippa could not generate speech sounds, but she could understand spoken statements and formulate symbolic responses. She was the last of the Tantors — the last elephant to carry the fire of true intelligence.

But Agrippa had grown old, and although her immediate offspring were cleverer than the common herd, they were not as bright as their mother. Her children had produced grandchildren, diluting her genes even further, and these elephants were barely distinguishable from the others. So weak was the signal, it took careful statistical analysis to prove they had any cognitive enhancements.

‘We can’t lose her,’ Ru said eventually.

‘We will.’

‘Then it ends. We’ll have failed.’

‘There’s more work to be done. Always will be. We’ll still have all these elephants to look after.’

‘They don’t even care. That’s the part that really gets me. We do. It tears us apart to see them losing what they had, year by year. But to them it’s nothing. They don’t miss being Tantors — give them wide-open spaces, food to eat, some mud to roll in — why should they?’

‘Being Tantors was not a normal part of elephant development,’ Goma said. ‘We can’t blame them for not caring. Do dogs care that they’re not as clever as bonobos? Do ants care that they’re not as smart as dogs?’

‘ I care.’

Goma squeezed her shoulder, then hugged her silently for a few moments. She shared Ru’s creeping despair — the sense of something bright and precious and mercurial slipping through their fingers. The more they tried to measure it, to preserve it, the more quickly it was fading. But she needed Ru to be strong, and in turn Goma needed to be strong for Ru. They were like two trees leaning against each other.

‘Let’s go home,’ Goma said. ‘I have to call my mother — I told her I’d visit tomorrow but Agrippa’s bloodwork is more important.’

‘I can take care of that,’ Ru said. ‘You know how much Ndege needs her routines.’