Alastair Reynolds: On the Steel Breeze

‘You bastard, Mecufi.’

‘Think things over – there’s no immediate rush. Take days or weeks if you like. But not months. And definitely not years. Our patience isn’t inexhaustible.’

‘I want to go back to Lisbon now,’ Chiku said.

By the time the flier returned her to Belém, and the tram to Pedro’s studio, it was night in Lisbon, night in Portugal, night all over that sleepy hemisphere of the good Earth. Chiku imagined a tide of life and wakefulness sloshing from one face of the planet to the other. She thought about the way dolphins slept, switching conscious activity from one half of their brain to the other.

She told Pedro what had happened. She told him of the complications and the position she now found herself in. She gave more of herself to him in that one conversation than she had in the five previous years of their life together.

Pedro offered love and sympathy and understanding. But he could not make the decision for her.

‘I know,’ she said.

In the morning, though, it was simple enough.

She rode the Santa Justa elevator to the café, and waited, and at length Mecufi arrived. She told him to do what needed to be done. Mecufi nodded and reiterated the risks to Chiku Red, and insisted she convince him that she fully understood and accepted those risks. If she approved the procedure, it could effectively cost Chiku Red her life. At Mecufi’s insistence Chiku formulated a mote which conveyed – she hoped – her state of preparedness. The merman took the mote but bowed to etiquette in not disclosing its contents in her presence.

Later, when Mecufi was gone, she returned to the Baixa and walked to the shore of the Tagus. Plump clouds stacked up high to the south, yellow-bellied with rain. Across the river stood the statue of Christ the Redeemer. Chiku wondered if the kind of redemption she was likely to need was the kind on offer, and found it doubtful. She was glad of the old statue, though. They kept talking about what do to with it, as if in some sense it embarrassed the present, a piece of the past sticking around longer than was circumspect. No one had similar problems with the suspension bridge, but it was just as old. Today it glittered like a thing made from mercury. It was a marvel. Everyone loved the suspension bridge.

She wept for what she was about to do to herself. But her mind was set.

The memories hit her in a green rush. The delegation was speeding along in an open-topped monorail car, whooshing through the gaps between trees. Chiku had to keep reaching up to hold her hat on, but she was enjoying the feeling of motion, the simple pleasure of having a breeze on her face.

‘So,’ their host said, steepling his fingers, ‘do our arrangements meet with your exacting standards, Representatives?’

Chiku was wise enough to remain politely noncommittal. ‘We’ll need to review our findings in depth, Representative Endozo, then make a formal report to our legislative assembly.’

‘Although,’ Noah said, ‘what we’ve seen can’t be faulted. Isn’t that right, Gonithi?’

After Chiku and Noah, Gonithi Namboze was the third member of the Zanzibar Delegation. An expert in Crucible ecosystem dynamics, Namboze had accompanied them to verify that the chamber in Malabar was suitable for the elephants.

‘I do not anticipate any difficulties,’ Namboze said, although her tone betrayed her nervousness.

Noah had spoken out of turn, putting the young representative on the spot.

‘Difficulties?’ Endozo asked, as if the mere mention of such things was a cause for concern.

Chiku smiled tightly. ‘As I said, we’re here to conduct a thorough review. We can’t afford to skimp on any details, not when so much is at stake.’

‘Well, of course not,’ Endozo said, with an equally tight smile.

They were on their way back to the shuttle dock. They should have been on their way already but Chiku had requested a second look at the prospective chamber before they returned to their holoship. It was here, in this marvellous wooded space, that the offshoot herd elephants might be accommodated.

There were no elephants here in Malabar, not yet, but there was a suitable biome and a stable ecology that already supported large herbivores. The introduction of elephants would need to be managed carefully – Zanzibar ’s animals had not left their own chamber in the hundred and fifty years since departure – but Chiku saw no insurmountable problems. They had done it once before, exporting a small offshoot of the herd to Majuli. It had been one of the early successes of Chiku’s political career.

At the shuttle dock, their boxy little craft had been serviced and readied for departure while the formalities were in progress. Although the day had gone well, Chiku was still exhausted. It had been the culmination of months of careful preparation and diligent committee work, bringing the Assembly around to her point of view.

Lately Chiku wondered if the tiredness ran deeper. It had been many decades since her last skipover. Chiku and Noah’s last two applications had been declined – too valuable to the community effort, supposedly. It was flattering up to a point. And Mposi and Ndege, when the matter had been put to them, were not at all approving of the idea of being wrenched away from their friends and routine. But Chiku had heard that her next request might be looked upon more favourably. Sixty years, if they won full approval – enough to bring them out barely thirty years from their destination.

Thirty years was nothing – they could all bear that easily. And if the children disliked it, they would come round to their parents’ view in time.

‘I will report back to our chair,’ Endozo said. ‘We shall await your report on our facilities with great interest.’

They formulated motes and exchanged them as tokens of good intent. Endozo had brought two additional motes provided by senior members of his own legislation. As was customary, the motes were not to be disclosed until later.

Soon the three politicians from Zanzibar were on their way home, strapped into their seats as the shuttle boosted out of Malabar ’s dock. Clear of the holoship and its buzzing armada of support craft, they accelerated quickly. Presently, the engines quietened and the cabin was weightless. There was no room in such a small ship for provision of artificial gravity.

Noah was the first to let out an enormous sigh of pent-up tension. ‘Sarcastic bastard. He didn’t have to rub our noses in it quite that much, did he?’

‘He was just doing his job,’ Chiku said, agreeing with her husband but careful not to give the wrong impression to the junior Namboze. ‘We need their cooperation a lot more than they need ours and they’ve got excellent facilities. But they do have to meet our requirements – or I should say the elephants’. They’ll be living there, not us. So for their sakes, we’d better get this right.’

‘Your family name,’ Namboze said hesitantly. ‘That’s no coincidence, is it? Your involvement with these animals?’

Chiku had been down this road enough times to know where it led.

‘No, it’s not a coincidence. Working with elephants is something of a family tradition.’

‘Going back a long way?’

‘Way back – to Africa and the work my uncle was doing there.’

‘Geoffrey Akinya?’

So the eager Namboze had been doing her homework.

‘Correct.’ Chiku hoped the firm but polite terseness of her answer would send the right signal. She was far too worn out for a history lesson, however well-intentioned the enquiry might be.

Unfortunately, Namboze was not quite so easily discouraged.