Stephen Baxter - Last and First Contacts

Asia was plunged in night, the land darker than she had expected, with little waste light seeping out of the great metropolitan centres of southern Russia and China and India. The Pacific was vast and darkened too, and it was a relief to reach morning, and to pass over North America. She was disappointed that they travelled too far south to have a chance of glimpsing the camels and elephants and lions of Pleistocene Park, the continent’s reconstructed megafauna.

And as they reached the east coast they sailed almost directly over the Florida archipelago. Freddie was clearly able to see the wound cut by the hurricane. She called for a magnification. There was Cape Canaveral, venerable launch gantries scattered like matchsticks, the immense Vehicle Assembly Building broken open like a plundered bird’s egg. The hurricane was the reason for her journey – and, incidentally, the ruin of Canaveral was the reason she had had to launch from Guiana. Hurricanes weren’t supposed to happen, not in 2162. Stations like Tempest 43 had put a stop to all that a century ago. Something had gone wrong.

Antony Allen spent most of the orbit throwing up into paper bags.

At last the shuttle leapt up into deeper space, silent and smooth, and Earth folded over on itself.

‘Tempest 43, Tempest 43, this is UN Space Agency Shuttle C57-D. You ought to be picking up our handshaking request.’

A smooth, boyish voice filled the cabin. ‘C57-D, your systems have interfaced with ours. Physical docking will follow shortly.’

‘I’m Doctor Antony Allen. I work on the UN’s Climatic Technology Legacy Oversight Panel. With me is Professor Frederica Gonzales of the University of Southampton, England, Europe. Our visit was arranged through—’

‘You are recognised, Doctor Allen.’

‘Who am I speaking to? Are you the station’s AI?’

‘A subsystem. Engineering. Please call me Cal.’

Allen and Freddie exchanged glances.

Allen growled, ‘I never spoke to an AI with a personal name.’

Freddie said, a bit nervous, ‘You have to expect such things in a place like this. The creation of sentient beings to run plumbing systems was one of the greatest crimes perpetrated during the Heroic Solution, especially by AxysCorp. This modern shuttle, for instance, won’t have a consciousness any more advanced than an ant’s.’

That was the party line. Actually Freddie was obscurely thrilled to be in the presence of such exotic old illegality. Thrilled, and apprehensive.

Allen called, ‘So are you the subsystem responsible for the hurricane deflection technology?’

‘No, sir. That’s in the hands of another software suite.’

‘And what’s that called?’

‘He is Aeolus.’

Allen barked laughter.

Now a fresh voice came on the line, a brusque male voice with the crack of age. ‘That you, Allen?’

Freddie was startled. This voice sounded authentically human. She’d just assumed the station was unmanned.

‘Glad to hear you’re well, Mister Fortune.’

‘Well as can be expected. I knew your grandfather, you know.’

‘Yes, sir, I know that.’

‘He was in the UN too. As pious and pompous as they come. And now you’re a bureaucrat. Runs in the genes, eh, Allen?’

‘If you say so, Mister Fortune.’

‘Call me Fortune…’

Fortune’s voice was robust British, Freddie thought. North of England, maybe. She said to Allen, ‘A human presence, on this station?’

‘Not something the UN shouts about.’

‘But save for resupply and refurbishment missions the Tempest stations have had no human visitors for a century. So this Fortune has been alone up here all that time?’ And how, she wondered, was Fortune still alive at all?

Allen shrugged. ‘For Wilson Fortune, it wasn’t a voluntary assignment.’

‘Then what? A sentence? And your grandfather was responsible?’

‘He was involved in the summary judgement, yes. He wasn’t responsible. ’

Freddie thought she understood the secrecy. Nobody liked to look too closely at the vast old machines that ran the world. Leave the blame with AxysCorp, safely in the past. Leave relics like this Wilson Fortune to rot. ‘No wonder you need a historian,’ she said.

Fortune called now, ‘Well, I’m looking forward to a little company. You’ll be made welcome here, by me and Bella.’

Now it was Allen’s turn to be shocked. ‘By the dieback, who is Bella?’

‘Call her an adopted daughter. You’ll see. Get yourself docked. And don’t mess up my paintwork with your attitude rockets.’

The link went dead.

Shuttle and station interfaced surprisingly smoothly, considering they were technological products separated by a century. There was no mucking about with airlocks, no floating around in zero gravity. Their cabin was propelled smoothly out of the shuttle and into the body of the station, and then was transported out to a module on an extended strut, where rotation provided artificial gravity.

The cabin door opened, to reveal Wilson Fortune, and his ‘adopted daughter’, Bella.

Allen stood up. ‘We’ve got a lot to talk about, Fortune.’

‘That we do. Christ, though, Allen, you’re the spit of your grandfather. He was plug-ugly too.’ His archaic blasphemy faintly shocked Freddie.

Fortune was tall, perhaps as much as two full metres, and stick thin. He wore a functional coverall; made of some self-repairing orange cloth, it might have been as old as he was. And his hair was sky blue, his teeth metallic, his skin smooth and young-looking, though within the soft young flesh he had the rheumy eyes of an old man. Freddie could immediately see the nature of his crime. He was augmented, probably gen-enged too. No wonder he had lived so long; no wonder he had been sentenced to exile up here.

The girl looked no more than twenty. Ten years younger than Freddie, then. Pretty, wide-eyed, her dark hair shoulder-length, she wore a cut-down coverall that had been accessorised with patches and brooches that looked as if they had been improvised from bits of circuitry.

She stared at Allen. And when she saw Freddie, she laughed.

‘You’ll have to forgive my daughter,’ Fortune said. His voice was gravelly, like his eyes older than his face. ‘We don’t get too many visitors.’

‘I’ve never seen a woman before,’ Bella said bluntly. ‘Not in the flesh. I like the way you do your hair. Cal, fix it for me, would you?’

‘Of course, Bella.’

That shoulder-length hair broke up into a cloud of cubical particles, obscuring her face. When the cloud cleared, her hair was cropped short, a copy of Freddie’s.

‘I knew it,’ Allen said. He aimed a slap at Bella’s shoulder. His fingers passed through her flesh, scattering bits of light. Bella squealed and flinched back. ‘She’s a virtual,’ Allen said.

Fortune snapped back, ‘She’s as sentient as you are, you arsehole. Fully conscious. And consistency violations like that hurt. You really are like your grandfather, aren’t you?’

‘She’s illegal, Fortune.’

‘Well, that makes two of us.’

Two suitcases rolled out of the shuttle cabin, luggage for Freddie and Allen.

Allen said, ‘We’re here to work, Fortune, not to rake up the dead past.’

‘Be my guest.’ Fortune turned and stalked away, down a metal-plated corridor. Bella walked after him, looking hurt and confused. Her feet convincingly touched the floor.

Freddie and Allen followed less certainly, into the metal heart of the station.

To Freddie, the station had the feel of all the AxysCorp geoengineering facilities she’d visited before. Big, bold, functional, every surface flat, every line dead straight. The corporation’s logo was even stamped into the metal walls, and there was a constant whine of air conditioning, a breeze tasting of rust. You could never escape the feeling that you were in the bowels of a vast machine. But the station showed its age, with storage-unit handles polished smooth with use, touch panels rubbed and scratched, and the fabric of chairs and couches worn through and patched with duct tape.