Ian McDonald - River of Gods

“What makes them do this? Why do they turn rabid all of a sudden?” Sen asks.

“I’ve always found that the root of a computer problem is human frailty” Mr. Nandha says, turning slowly, trying to identify what it is that has provoked his suspicions. “I suspect our friend has been buying in illegal aeai hybrids from the sundarbans. In my experience, no good ever ionics out of the data-havens.”

Sen has another question but Mr. Nandha hushes her. Very faint, very distant, he hears a movement. Kali has left just sufficient of the office ware for Siva to be able to link into the security system. Nothing on the cameras, as he suspected, but in the diffuse world of infrared, something stirs. His head snaps to the crane gantry at the rear of the go-down.

“I can see you,” he says, gesturing to Sen. She goes up one end of the gantry. Mr. Nandha takes the other. The thing seems to be somewhere up in the ceiling. They walk towards each other.

“At some point, it will break for it,” warns Nandha.

“What will break?” Sen whispers, cradling her powerful weapon.

“I suspect it has copied itself into a robot and intends to escape by that means. Expect something small and fast-moving.”

Mr. Nandha can hear it now between the clanks of the human footsteps; something scrabbling at the roof, trying to tear a way out. Mr. Nandha raises a hand for Jemadar Sen to proceed with caution. He feels as if he is right under it. Mr. Nandha squints up into the nest of wires and ducting. A camera-eye on a boom stabs down at him. Mr. Nandha starts back. Sen raises her weapon; before thought, she lets off a burst into the ceiling. An object drops out so close to Mr. Nandha it almost strikes him, a thing all limbs and thrashing and skittering movement. It’s an inspection robot, a little clambering spider-monkey thing. Individual companies usually can’t afford them but development corporations keep one to service all the clients in a block. The thing will have access to every unit in this industrial zone. The machine rears, darts at Mr. Nandha, then turns and zigzags pell-mell down the gantry towards Sen. All it knows is that these creatures want to kill it and it wants to exist. Panicked by her wild firing, all military sense flies from Sen as the thing bounces towards her. She fumbles at her assault rifle. Mr. Nandha can see with perfect, still clarity that her panic will kill him.

“No!” he shouts, and draws his gun. Indra targets, aims, fires. The pulse momentarily overloads even his ’hoek. The world goes flash-blind. The robot freezes, spasms, goes down in fat yellow sparks. Its legs twitch, its eye booms slide out. It goes still and quiet. Smoke wisps from its vents. Mr. Nandha is not yet satisfied. He stands over the dead aeai, then kneels down and hooks the Avatar Box into its hotwire socket. Ganesha interfaces with the operating system: Kali stands by, swords raised.

It’s dead. Excommunicated. Mr. Nandha stands up, dusts himself down. He tucks his gun away. Messy one. Unsatisfactory. Questions left hanging. Many will be answered when the Fifteenth Floor Gang open up the server, but a man does not become a Krishna Cop without sensitivities and Mr. Nandha’s are telling him this tangle of metal and plastic is the opening letter of a new and long story. He will say that story, he will unravel its intricacies and characters and events and bring it to its right conclusion, but at this moment, his most pressing problem is how to get the stink of burned pasta-tikka out of his suit.

Shaheen Badoor Khan looks down on to the Antarctic ice. From two thousand metres it is less ice than geography, a white island, Sri Lanka gone rogue. The ocean-going tugs hired from the Gulf are the biggest and strongest and newest but they look like spiders tackling a circus big top, hauling away at silk thread guy ropes. Their role is supervisory now; the Southwest Monsoon Current has the berg and the whole performance is running north-by-northeast at five nautical miles per day. Out here on the ocean five hundred kilometres south of the delta the only visual referents are ice and sky and the dark blue of deep water, nothing that gives any sense of motion. How long and hard must those tugs pull to bring it to a stop? Shaheen Badoor Khan thinks. He imagines the berg rammed deep into the Gangasagar, the mouth of the holy river, ice cliffs rising sheer from mangroves.

With a manifest of Bengali politicians and their diplomatic guests from neighbour and erstwhile rival Bharat, the States of Bengal tilt-jet lurches in the chill microclimate spiralling up from the ice floe. Shaheen Badoor Khan notices that the surface is grooved and furrowed with crevasses and ravines. Torrent water glitters; ice-melt has gouged sheer canyons in the ice walls, spectacular waterfalls arc from the berg’s cliff edges.

“It’s constantly shifting,” says the energetic Bangla climatologist across the aisle. “As it loses mass, the centre of gravity moves. We have to maintain equilibrium, a sudden shift close in could prove catastrophic.”

“You do not need another tidal wave in your delta,” Shaheen Badoor Khan says.

“If it ever makes it,” says Bharat’s Water and Energy Minister, nodding at the ice. “The rate it’s melting.”

“Minister,” Shaheen Badoor Khan says quickly, but Bengal’s official climatologist snaps up the opportunity to shine.

“It has all been worked out to the last gram,” he says. “We are well within the parameters for microclimatic shift.” This with a flash of expensively dentistried teeth, and a precision purse of thumb and forefinger. Flawless. Shaheen Badoor Khan feels deep shame when one of his ministers opens his mouth and lets his ignorance walk out in public, especially before the smooth Banglas. He long ago understood that politics needs no extraordinary talent, skill, or intelligence. That’s what advisors are for. The skill of a politician is to take that advice and make it look as if he made it up himself. Shaheen Badoor Khan hates that someone might think he has not properly briefed his charges. Go with them, Shah , Prime Minister Sajida Rana had asked. Stop Srinavas making a tit of himself.

The Bengali Minister With Iceberg lumbers up the aisle smiling his big bear smile. Shaheen Badoor Khan knows from his sources of the territory wars between Bengal’s government departments over whose bailiwick ten-kilometre chunks of Amery ice shelf fall into. Tension between the joint capitals is always something that can be worked to Bharat’s advantage. Environmental Affairs gave way in the end to Science and Technology, with a little help from Development and Industry to secure the contracts and now its Minister stands in the aisle, arms braced on the seat backs. Shaheen Badoor Khan can smell his breath.

“So, eh? And all our own work, too, we didn’t run to the Americans to sort out our water supply, like those ones in Awadh, and their dam. But you’d know all about that.”

“The river used to make us one country,” Shaheen Badoor Khan observes. “Now we seem to be the squabbling children of Mother Ganga; Awadh, Bharat, Bengal. Head, hands, and feet.”

“There are a lot of birds,” Srinavas says, peering out the window. The berg trails a pale plume like smoke from a ship’s stack: flocks of seabirds, thousands strong, hurling themselves into the water to hunt silver sardine.

“That just proves the cold current gyratory is working,” says the climatologist, trying to make himself seen past his Minister. “We’re not so much importing an iceberg as a complete ecosystem. Some have followed us all the way from Prince Edward Island.”

“The Minister is curious about how soon you expect to see benefits,” Shaheen Badoor Khan inquires.