Ken MacLeod - Newton's Wake

Maybe that would generate enough revenue to settle whatever had to be settled between the Carlyles and the last known successor to the states of Earth. When the ships came… The thought of the ships sent her from the bathroom to the bed, where she threw herself face down and bit the pillow. She missed home, family, familiarity. She even missed her familiar.

In the morning, things got worse.

A fine drizzle sifted down through the city’s skyways and bridges, which were in this quarter a mesh almost dense enough to occlude the sky, and quite dense enough to concentrate the falling rain into local cascades of drips that hammered the street and drummed on canopies and soaked the unwary. Carlyle dodged down First Left Street and turned right into Halliday Alley, a covered narrow street where the shops sold scientific apparatus, climbing equipment, hunting weapons, and weather-protective clothing. She ducked into Rivka’s Rainwear and came out wearing an olive-green cagoule over the rouched top and knee-length trousers in blue synthetic kid that the drexler had brought forth as her outfit for the day. She put the hood up and emerged from the alley on to Feynmann Place, the square on the edge of the science quarter. That was what the people who lived there called it. Others called it the geek ghetto. Past the statue of Feynmann with the jagged lines of the Diagram clutched like a god’s lightning-bolts in his upraised fist. The soles of her boots squeaked on wet paving as she walked across to the Java Script, which had become her favourite café. Low comfortable chairs jammed around tiny round tables; you had to wade through the crush of people’s back-to-back backs. Muddy coffee, cloudy drinks, steamy air, airy talk. It was a place where she could sit and listen to the conversations around her, and sip coffee and watch the wall or the window, rather than answer questions.

This morning nobody even wanted to look at her. It was as if they were embarrassed by her presence. They were all watching the wall. She went to the counter and helped herself, then turned to watch too. Shlaim was standing on the Government building’s steps, just as she had a few days ago. Behind him stood the Joint Chiefs.

‘—schematic for constructing an FTL communicator has been retrieved from the suit,’ he was saying. ‘Its construction and testing have been successful. Earlier this morning, it was used to send an appeal to the most civilised of the other powers, the Knights of Enlightenment, for security against the pending arrival of starships from the Carlyle gang. This appeal, I am happy to say, has been answered.’

The cup rattled, the coffee splashed into the saucer over the back of her thumb. She sucked her hand and walked carefully to a table by the window and sat down. For a while she brushed the slight scald against the raindrops caught on the cagoule, and let the coffee cool. On the wall, Shlaim rattled on about how civilised, comparatively speaking, the Knights were, and how keen they would be to protect the planet and the relic from the dangerous depredations of the Carlyles.

The coffee had gone cold. She drank it and stood up. Everyone was looking at her.

‘It’s all true,’ she said.

She walked out. The rain rattled on her cagoule. She didn’t see anything until she got back to the hotel. The minder for the day was waiting in the breakfast room. Carlyle dismissed him and went straight to her room, where she used the screen to call the Government building. It didn’t take her long to get through to Shlaim.

‘Good morning,’ he said. It was still weird, seeing him and hearing his voice.

‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ she demanded. ‘You know what the Knights are like. Have you at least warned off the Carlyles?’

‘Of course. And received the predictable response.’ He slouched his accent into a parody of English. ‘ “Youse want tae mess wi us, we’re ready tae rumble. Keep the fuck aff oor patch.” ’

‘They know the Knights are going to be here, and they’re still coming ?’

‘ “The ships are on their way awready, jimmie. We’ll see who’s got the fastest ships and the maist bottle.” ’

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

Shlaim looked back at her, amused. ‘What did you expect? They have to defend their credibility, not to mention their monopoly over the skein. They can’t let the Knights take control of the gate without at least putting up a fight, even if they know they might lose.’

‘Shit.’ She rocked back, trying to think of an angle, a wedge… . ‘What about those alien war-machines that everybody’s so worried about? Having space battles in Eurydice’s skies isn’t exactly the best way to prepare for their arrival, if they’re really out there.’

‘Oh, bugger that,’ said Shlaim. ‘Look, even the Joint Chiefs are coming round to the possibility that the relic is posthuman rather than alien. And the Knights can deal with posthuman war-machines.’

‘Aye, and so can we. But what if they are alien?’

Shlaim shrugged. ‘They’re not. But suppose they are. If anyone can handle alien war machines, it’s the Knights. And rather more elegantly than the Carlyles, I should imagine. No nasty fission by-products polluting the atmosphere, for a start.’

‘I guess you’re right. If that weapon they used on our search engine is anything to go by, the Eurydiceans could probably do it themselves.’ She frowned, diverted by a puzzle. ‘How the hell did you persuade them the relic might not have been made by the extinct local aliens?’

He grinned. ‘From its ability to hack your suit and set me free. That was a big clue, but not definitive. So we took a core dump. It was obvious at a glance that the intrusion was a descendant of something of human origin.’

Carlyle knew something of diagnostics. It was big part of combat archaeology. Come to think of it, her own diagnostics would have been where Shlaim had derived his. Damn. But still, it would have been a long and laborious job.

‘At a glance ?’

‘That was all it took to identify the Microsoft patches.’

‘Oh.’

‘Indeed. They’re as definitive as index fossils.’

That reminded her of another objection. ‘What about the fossils on Eurydice? Including fossil war-machines?’

‘Convergent evolution, I’m afraid. Looks like the indigenes went through the same shit as we did. A military-driven Singularity. It’s no more surprising that their war-machines looked like ours than that their tanks and aeroplanes did.’

‘I suppose not.’ Still, it bothered her. It all seemed too big a coincidence. She dismissed the thought to her subconscious, from where it might come back bearing clues or brilliant insights, or not. ‘And the Eurydiceans are not bothered at all that you have set us up for a fight?’

Shlaim leaned forward, glaring at her. ‘You have no idea how much they detest what your family did to me, and does to others. I had no need to exaggerate or embroider—the truth was enough. The only reason—’ He stopped. ‘You definitely have no credibility around here. You condemn yourself every time you open your mouth on these questions. I’ve seen polls taken after last night’s little contretemps, and they are personally quite gratifying—for me. I would advise you to keep your head down and your mouth shut, and negotiate your departure with whatever’s left of the Carlyle ships after the Knights are through with them.’

‘The Carlyles might win the round.’

‘They might at that,’ said Shlaim. ‘If they get here first. However, I wouldn’t count on it, and in the meantime my previous advice stands. Goodbye.’

The screen returned to its mirror setting. Carlyle sat and looked at herself for a while. What was it that Shlaim had been about to say, and had stopped himself from saying? ‘The only reason—’ What? The only reason you are still walking around is that you have some value as a negotiating chip. The only reason we’re still being nice to you is that we’re afraid the Carlyles might win. Something along those lines. She had to get out and get home, and there was only one way home now.