Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time

He glanced at her confederates, wondering if things here in Lain’s camp had got to the point where dissent was punishable. ‘Look, I understand it’s not the most pleasant idea, but he’s got us this far. If he wants to load his mind into some piece of ancient computing, then are we definitely sure that’s something worth, you know, killing people over?’ Because Holsten was still thinking a little about those crumpled bodies he had seen, the price of his freedom.

Lain put on an expression to show that she was considering this viewpoint. ‘Sure, fine, right. Except two things. One, I only got one look at his new toy before he and I had our falling out, but I don’t reckon that thing’s a receptacle for minds: it’s just the translator. The only place he can go is the Gilgamesh ’s main system, and I seriously do not think that it’s set up to keep doing all of its ship-running with a human mind shoved into it. Right?’

Holsten considered his relatively extensive understanding of the upload facility. ‘Actually, yes. It’s not a storage device, the thing we took from the station. But I’d thought he’d got something else from there…?’

‘And have you seen any of your old files that suggest he has?’

A grimace. ‘No.’

‘Right.’ Lain shook her head. ‘Seriously, old man, did you not think about what it was all meant for, when you were doing his work?’

Holsten spread his hands. ‘That’s unfair. It was all… I had no reason to think that there was anything wrong . Anyway, what’s your second thing?’

‘What?’

‘Two things, you said. Two reasons.’

‘Oh, yes, he’s completely nut-bucket crazy. So that’s what you’re diligently working to preserve. An utter god-complex lunatic.’

Guyen? Yes, a bit of a tyrant, but he had the whole human race in his hands. Yes, not an easy man to work with, someone who kept his plans to himself. ‘Lain, I know that you and he…’

‘Don’t get on?’

‘Well…’

‘Holsten, he’s been busy. He’s been busy for a very long time since we left the grey planet. He’s set up his fucking cult and brainwashed them into believing he’s the great hope of the universe. He’s got this machine mostly up and running. He’s tested it on his own people – and believe me that’s not gone well, which is why it’s still only mostly up and running. But he’s close now. He has to be.’

‘Why has to be?’

‘Because he looks like he’s a fucking hundred , Holsten. He’s been up and about for maybe fifty years, on and off. He told his cultists he was God, and when he woke up next time they told him he was God, and that little loop has gone round and round until he himself believes it. You see him, after they woke you?’

‘Just his people.’

‘Well, believe me, any part of his brain that you might recognize abandoned ship a long time ago.’ Lain looked into Holsten’s face, hunting out any residual sympathy there for the commander. ‘Seriously, Holsten, this is his plan: he wants to put a copy of his brain into the Gil . He wants to become the Gil . And you know what? When he’s done it, he won’t need the cargo. He won’t need most of the ship. He won’t need life-support or anything like that.’

‘He’s always had the best interests of the ship at heart,’ said Holsten defensively. ‘How do you know—?’

‘Because it’s already happening . Do you know what this ship was not designed for? Several hundred people living on it for about a century. Wear and tear, Holsten, like you wouldn’t believe. A tribe of people who don’t know how anything actually works getting into places they’re not supposed to be, buoyed up by their sincere belief that they’re doing God’s work. Things are falling apart. We’re running out of supplies even with what we took from the station. And they just go on eating and fucking, because they believe Guyen will lead them to the promised land.’

‘The green planet?’ Holsten said softly. ‘Maybe he will.’

‘Oh, sure,’ Lain scoffed. ‘And that’s where we’re heading all right. But, unless things get back under control and people go back to the freezer, Guyen’ll be the only one to get there – him and a shipful of corpses.’

‘Even if he does manage to upload himself, he’ll need people to fix him.’ Holsten wasn’t sure precisely why he was defending Guyen, unless it was that he had long made a profession out of disagreeing with just about every proposition put in front of him.

‘Yeah, well.’ Lain rubbed at the back of her neck. ‘There was all that auto-repair system business we took from the station.’

‘I didn’t know about that.’

‘It was priority for my team. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I know, I know – conniving at our own obsolescence. It’s up and running, too, or looks like it. But, from what I saw, it’s not dealing with the cargo or even most of the systems we need. It’s only set up for those parts of the ship Guyen’s interested in. The non-living parts. Or that’s the best impression I got, before I took my leave.’

‘After Guyen woke you.’

‘He wanted me to be part of his grand plan. Only, when he gave me access to the Gilgamesh , I found out too much way too fast. Some seriously cold stuff, Holsten. I’ll show you.’

‘You’re still in the system?’

‘It’s all over the ship, and Guyen’s not good enough to lock me out… Now you’re wondering why I haven’t screwed him over from inside the computer.’

Holsten shrugged. ‘Well, I was, yes, actually.’

‘I told you he’s been testing the upload thing? Well, he’s had some partial successes. There are… things in the system. When I try and cut Guyen out, or fuck with him, they notice me. They come and start fucking right back. Guyen, I could handle, but these are like… retarded little AI programs that think they’re still people. And they’re Guyen’s, most of them.’

‘Most of them?’

Lain looked unhappy – or rather, unhappier. ‘Everything’s going to crap, Holsten. The Gil ’s already starting to come apart at the system level. We’re on a spaceship, Holsten. Have you any idea how fucking complex that is? How many different subsystems need to work properly just to keep us alive? At the moment, it’s actually the auto-repair that’s keeping everything ticking over, rerouting around the corrupted parts, patching what it can – but it’s got limits. Guyen’s pushing those limits, diverting resources to his grand immortality project. So we’re going to stop him.’

‘So…’ Holsten looked from Lain to her crew, the old faces and the new. ‘So I know about the upload facility. So you got me out.’

Lain just looked at him for a long moment, fragments of expression burning fitfully across her face. ‘What?’ she said at last. ‘I’m not allowed to just rescue you, because you’re my friend?’ She held his gaze long enough that he had to look away, obscurely ashamed of what was objectively an entirely reasonable paranoia he felt about her, about Guyen, and about near enough everything else.

‘Anyway, get yourself cleaned up. Get yourself fed,’ she instructed him. ‘Then you and I have an appointment.’

Holsten’s eyebrows went up. ‘With who?’

‘Old friends.’ Lain smiled sourly. ‘The whole gang’s together again, old man. How about that?’

Portia stretches and flexes her limbs, feeling the newly hardened sheen of her exoskeleton and the constricting net of the cocoon she has woven about herself. The urge came at an inconvenient time, and she put it off as long as she could, but the cramping tightness at every joint had eventually became unbearable and she was forced to go into retirement: a moon’s-span of days out of the public eye, fretting and fidgeting as she split her way out of her cramped old skin and let her new skeleton dry out and find its shape.