Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

‘I never meant to cause you any trouble,’ Kanu said. ‘There’s been enough of that already where my family’s concerned.’

‘The trouble was coming whether we liked it or not, so please do not feel bad on my account, Kanu.’

‘Wait,’ Nissa said, raising a hand. ‘Let’s clear this up right now, shall we? Kanu is my guest. He only came along for the ride, so can we please stop talking as if this visit is for his benefit, not mine?’

Kanu shifted in his black and purple chair. It was scarcely any bother to stand in Europa’s gravity, but the chairs had been provided as a courtesy. The guests had even been served chai, brought to them by air-breathing aquatics.

‘The art is here,’ Kanu confirmed. ‘It’s been here since Sunday first brought it to Europa. That’s the reason for Nissa’s visit.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘At least we agree on that.’

‘You’d have come here with or without me,’ Kanu went on. ‘But because I knew of your interest in Sunday, and Sunday’s connection with Europa, I knew you would eventually make this trip. It was imperative that I travel with you. You had the ship and the legal clearance to land on Europa. I had none of those things, and if I had begun to seek them… well, there were already enough questions surrounding my integrity. We could not stand that sort of scrutiny.’

‘We?’ Nissa and the Margrave asked simultaneously, the moment of unity surprising them both equally.

‘The machines and I. The robots of Mars. Margrave? Nissa still doubts me. I don’t blame her in the slightest, so would you mind telling her about the ship?’

The form in the water did not answer directly. Nissa looked at Kanu, and for an instant he was on the cusp of doubting himself as well. Perhaps this was the moment when his delusions reached the point of fracture, their grand absurdity becoming apparent even to Kanu.

But the Margrave said, ‘You’ll forgive me for thinking no one would ever come. It has been such a long time.’

‘It has,’ Kanu agreed. ‘But now we need it. Is the ship intact?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wait,’ Nissa said. ‘What ship ? What are you talking about?’

Kanu tried to answer as reasonably and openly as he could. ‘It’s around a hundred years old. It was built here, out of sight, and left to repair and upgrade itself as necessary. It was fast for its day and is even faster now.’

‘You lying…’ But then she shook her head, words inadequate to express her disgust at him, at the degree to which she had been used. Kanu knew he deserved worse. He had done a vile, hateful thing.

‘There was no other way. And I haven’t turned traitor against humanity. This concerns us all — flesh, blood, steel.’

‘What do you know?’ the Margrave asked.

‘The robots are still confined to Mars, but their information-gathering capability is much more extensive than any of us ever suspected. And they’ve found something, Margrave — a signal, from another solar system. It wasn’t even aimed at this system. It was picked up by human listening systems around Crucible, but in the process it also came to the attention of the robots’ intelligence-gathering apparatus. News of the message was kept secret by Crucible’s government, but it’s already reached the robots on Mars.’

The Margrave stirred in his tube. ‘And this is of interest to the machines because…?’

‘The most probable source of that signal, at least according to their analysis, is another artificial intelligence. Years ago, a simulation of Eunice Akinya travelled to Crucible along with the first colonists. The Watchkeepers permitted human settlement on Crucible on the condition that three subjects went with them into deeper interstellar space. The Eunice construct was one; the other two were my half-mother Chiku Green and an elephant named Dakota. A machine, a woman, an elephant. The Trinity, they were called. The organic members of the Trinity may or may not still be alive — who knows? But the construct was effectively immortal. For the robots on Mars, this realisation presents opportunities on two fronts. They can re-establish ties with the closest thing they have to a creator — communion, if you will. It’s also a chance to come to a better understanding of the Watchkeepers. They’re bound to have communicated with Eunice on some level, and she’s bound to have learned something about them. The possibility of gaining insight into what the Watchkeepers want of us is as significant to humans as it is to robots.’

‘So your intention is to respond to that signal,’ the Margrave said, ‘for which you need your ship. But only Nissa could get you to Europa. I can understand how she might feel… aggrieved.’

Kanu turned to face his companion. ‘Nissa — no apology can begin to atone for what I’ve done to you. You’ve every right to feel mistreated, to loathe the moment I came back into your life. But you must understand the stakes. We stand at a threshold, all of us — people, merfolk, machines. You and I.’ He looked down at his knotted fingers, shaking his head. ‘I don’t expect forgiveness, but if you can at least bring yourself to understand that what I’ve done—’

‘There’s nothing to understand. If you trusted me, if you felt anything for me as a human being, you’d have told the truth from the moment we met.’

‘I didn’t even know the truth myself at that point,’ Kanu said, persisting despite a rising sense of hopelessness. ‘I wasn’t allowed access to my own memories. I thought we’d met by chance. I was overjoyed… I loved you, Nissa. I still do.’

‘No, you find me useful. Or did, until I’d served my purpose.’

‘A moment, please,’ the Margrave said, not impolitely. ‘We have much to discuss, I know, but I must attend to a matter of immediate and pressing importance. Will you excuse me momentarily?’

Kanu watched the Margrave descend back down the tinted shaft and disappear beneath the level of the floor. Oddly, now that the glass contained nothing but water, he was more acutely aware of the pressure it held back. He imagined it shattering, Europa reclaiming this room quicker than either of them could blink.

‘I died,’ he said eventually, when Nissa said nothing. ‘On Mars. The accident was genuine and I had no right to survive it. It was only by the grace of the machines that I was put back together. I had a friend among them, a robot called Swift. When they’d restored enough of my mind that I could understand my predicament, Swift offered me a choice. It was very simple.’

‘To live or die?’ Nissa asked finally.

‘No. To live, or to live. Swift said that the machines would do what they could for me and send me back to the world of people, and that would be an end to it. I’d still be tainted, of course — I’d still lose my career, my sense of purpose — and my colleagues who died on Mars would still be gone. Shall I tell you about Garudi Dalal? She loved poetry. I took her belongings back to her mother and father, in Madras.’ But Kanu sighed, beyond explaining himself. ‘I believed Swift — trusted him. I thought I could help the machines. That’s why I agreed to the second option — to allow a part of them to escape Mars inside me — doing what they could not do alone. Allowing them to use me, the way I used you. Life, again — but life serving a deeper purpose.’

‘You agreed to it,’ she said flatly.

He nodded, accepting the distinction. ‘I chose to put my trust in Swift, and this is where it has brought me.’

‘Conscience clear, then.’

Kanu gave a final, defeated shrug. ‘I know there’s nothing I can say to fix this. But I am sorry it happened and with all my heart, I wish you well. These last few weeks—’