Paul McAuley - Something Coming Through

Unlikely Worlds said, in its amiable baritone, ‘Your species is hardwired to be curious. One of your oldest stories is about a forbidden fruit. Would your female progenitor have tasted it, if it had not been forbidden? Would the serpent have been able to tempt her with it?’

‘Are you saying that Ugly Chicken wasn’t an Elder Culture eidolon? That the Jackaroo planted it?’

‘Perhaps they made it seem important.’

‘They tried to stop it calling down the ships,’ Chloe said, seeing in her mind’s eye the hallucinatory war in the air between the bright shards and the quick dark ghosts. ‘Why would they do that if they wanted us to have them?’

‘The avatar carried by Adam Nevers was not a true avatar,’ Unlikely Worlds said. ‘It was a partial. An independent copy. Perhaps it was given to Nevers because he wanted to stop the eidolon. After all, they came here to help.’

‘They’d help both sides?’

‘Why not? Perhaps, as far as they are concerned, the differences between both sides are trivial.’

‘And what about you?’ Chloe said. ‘What kind of help have you been giving us?’

‘You are thinking of claims made by the avatar carried by Adam Nevers.’

‘Very much.’

‘It was, as I said, only a partial. And perhaps the story it told was a story that Adam Nevers wanted to hear. That he needed to believe, so that he could justify his actions. You are all heroes of your own stories.’

‘Then tell me that you haven’t been manipulating Dr Morange. That you haven’t been manipulating me and everyone else. That you haven’t been fucking up our lives so you can go back to some pond and spawn children.’

Chloe heeled away tears, and felt a naked humiliation. She’d meant to confront the!Cha with reasoned argument, but instead she’d lost her temper.

Unlikely Worlds said, in a perfect imitation of kindness, ‘Your story has no need of embellishment, Chloe.’

‘I wish I could believe it.’

‘The Jackaroo are of course a great imponderable,’ Ada Morange said, after a short silence. ‘But this much we know: they see things differently. And they are not yet, as far as we are concerned, a problem. What I would like to do today, Chloe, why I invited you here, is begin negotiations about revising your status within my company, and to secure your unique skill set.’

‘You’re offering me a job.’

‘You already have a job. I’m offering you a new one.’

She handed Chloe a slim folder, explained that it contained a draft contract, and quoted two six-figure sums. One for what she called the basic salary, the other a bonus to acknowledge Chloe’s help, and to provide compensation for her injuries.

‘There will be other bonuses, equally generous, based on your performance. Although if you are only half as gifted as Fahad, you will have no difficulty in securing them. I know that this is a life-changing proposition. So I do not expect you to make your decision immediately. Study it. Take your time. And I would advise you to hire a good lawyer to check the contract. We’ve worked well together, Chloe. I hope that we will continue to work together for many years.’

‘You have Fahad,’ Chloe said. ‘You don’t need me.’

‘There’s no need to make up your mind now. Think about my offer. Take as long as you need.’

‘I’ve already made up my mind. No one should have both of us.’

‘You’d rather work for the British government, or the UN? I don’t see you as a good fit for sclerotic bureaucratic organisations like that.’

‘You’re right. I’m at my best when I do my own thing. That’s how I found Fahad, after all.’

‘While working for me. As you still do, in fact.’

‘I was working for Disruption Theory. Which you shut down. And anyway, I quit.’

Ada Morange studied her. Chloe tried her best to meet that deep dark gaze. There was nothing human in it that she could see, no anger, no disappointment, no pity.

‘My offer still stands,’ the entrepreneur said. ‘And meanwhile I will continue to pay your hospital bills, and to pay for your protection also. There have already been threats to your life from fanatical elements, you know, back on Earth. If you really do want to do your own thing, you should bear that in mind.’

That was as close to a threat as she came. Chloe knew there would be years of trouble ahead, trying to stay out of Ada Morange’s orbit, but she also knew that she had a singular advantage. Only she and Fahad could control the ships. Sooner or later someone would figure out an interface that anyone could use, but meanwhile people who wanted easy travel to other planets would have to rely on their goodwill. Ada Morange had Fahad. And if she dared to use her gift, Chloe thought, everyone else would have her.

They parted on an amicable note. Ada Morange gave Chloe two gifts, both double-edged.

The first was a return ticket to Earth that Chloe knew she would not need. When she was ready, she could go back on her own terms, in her own ship. The second was a memory stick containing a video message from Neil and his family — they were glad she was safe, and hoped she would be coming home soon — and an up-to-date archive of the Last Minute wiki.

‘I know how much it means to you,’ Ada Morange said.

As Chloe wheeled around, ready to go, Unlikely Worlds said, ‘I enjoyed your story, Chloe. I hope that I will be able to continue to enjoy it.’

And he also said, in a startlingly intimate whisper transmitted through her wrist patch, that he had left a little gift of his own in the archive of the Last Minute wiki.

It wasn’t hard to find. All The King’s Horses : a short video shot from somewhere above Trafalgar Square. The viewpoint yawed and pitched, turning this way and that — Chloe, who knew everything about those last moments, believed that it had been recorded by the balloon that had been adrift high in the sunlight air. And knew, with a deep thrill of absolute conviction, remembering another untethered balloon above Mr Archer’s meeting, that it had been no child’s balloon.

She also knew that the King’s Mews had been demolished to make way for Trafalgar Square. That the site of the National Gallery had once been a stable block.

There would be time later to think about what all this implied, to wonder how long the aliens had been observing humanity, and wonder what else they might have been doing. Now, Chloe watched with narrow and absolute concentration as the balloon’s unstable viewpoint crossed the roof of the National Gallery and turned towards the narrow street on the far side, and the entrance at the rear of the National Portrait Gallery. The video froze at that point. After a minute, she dared to zoom in. And saw the woman caught in mid-step as she walked down the long ramp, on her way to meet her friend for lunch, not knowing that this was the last minute of her life, the last minute before everything changed.

Before the aliens came, eager to help.