Ken MacLeod - Newton's Wake

‘The facts will be quite enough,’ said Chair.

‘Fine. Well, I don’t dispute that it’s who it says it is—an upload of a Professor Shlaim.’

‘With respect,’ said Space, ‘that is not the most pressing question before us. We wish to hear your version of who you are and what you represent, and of what’s going on in the galaxy.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Carlyle. ‘Well, I’ll come back to the matter of Shlaim presently. As for the big picture. My name is Lucinda Carlyle. I’m a member of an exploration team sent to this planet by my family. The Carlyles are, you might say, a family business. We specialise in exploring the wormhole skein and organising traffic through it. The skein stretches aw the way back tae the Solar System, and takes in, well, a whole load a planets.’

‘Do you claim to own or rule these planets?’ asked Chair.

‘Good God, no! Just the skein and the gates.’

‘I … see,’ said Space, wincing slightly. ‘And who does rule them?’

She shrugged. ‘What our clients do is their business, see? But if you’re asking who else is out there, well, there are three other powers that we know about, kindae wee empires like. There’s the one we thought you were at first—America Offline. They’re farmers—terraformers. They’re descended from the folks who escaped the Hard Rapture due to no being wired up, and they kindae continue like that. We get on aw right wi them, they trade through the wormholes an’ sic, but they’re no sae keen on us poking around in the posthuman tech. And there usually is some lying around, near the gates, so we sometimes, well, fall out if you see what I mean. But we run into a lot more trouble wi the next lot, the Knights of Enlightenment, they’re mainly Japs wi’ some Chinks and Indians an’ that, and they try to kindae understand the posthuman tech without becoming posthuman themselves. They’re intae hacking rather than salvage, if you like.’

‘And what is, ah, salvage?’ asked State.

Carlyle smiled at her brightly. ‘What we do, like what we were doing this morning. Tae hear thae Japs go on about it you’d think it was clear-cutting or strip-mining or something. I mean, it’s no like we don’t leave enough for them.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said State. ‘Please go on.’

‘And they’re no intae terraforming, nor mining on planets either. In fact they object tae it. Some kindae religious thing, or maybe scientific. Anyway, that’s AO and KE for you. The third lot, DK, they’re a whole different kettle ae fish.’

‘DK?’ Space sounded as though the acronym had troubling echoes.

‘We think it stands for Demokratische Kommunistbund , or maybe Democratic Korea or Kampuchea for all I know. As to how they got started, yi can guess. Guerillas and peasants and what have you. Whatever, they’re communists, and they’re space settlers.’ She waved a hand in a circle. ‘Intae orbital habitats. Their big thing is increasing their population. They don’t terraform, but they do strip-mine terrestrial planets. Tend tae avoid the posthuman tech, but they’ll buy it fae us, or licence it fae the Knights.’ She sat back. ‘That’s it,’ she said, looking at a row of faces frozen in various degrees of disbelief. ‘Course,’ she added, ‘they all have starships. They aw fittle. But the skein is way more convenient for a lot ae stuff. So we dae deals wi them all.’

Chair took a deep breath and scratched his chin. ‘These powers, they … come into conflict with each other?’

‘Oh, sure, but it’s complicated.’ Carlyle frowned, then brightened. ‘You know that kids’ game: sea, ship, fish?’ She gestured with a flat palm, two fingers like scissor blades, and a fist, several times. ‘Sea floats ship. Ship catches fish. Fish swims through sea. It’s like that.’

Chair leaned back. The Joint Chiefs all looked at each other, as if conferring silently.

‘What you’ve told us,’ Chair said at last, ‘tends to corroborate Professor Shlaim’s deposition. He described three competing barbarian migrations, and one gang of criminals.’

‘Who are the criminals?’ Carlyle asked, gamely trying to make the question sound genuine.

‘Yourselves,’ Chair said. ‘The Carlyles.’

‘Oh aye? And who’s the law?’

‘That,’ said Chair, ‘is a reasonable question. It’s why we are not treating you as a criminal. We do however insist on freeing your slave.’

Carlyle made a smoothing-over gesture. ‘Please yourselves,’ she said. ‘But there is one thing I’d warn you about, before you try tae download the Professor. As I’m sure you can see, there is no way in the normal course of things that he could take over my suit. Whatever it was allowed him to do that didnae come fae me, and I’ll bet it didnae come fae youse lot, either. Am I right?’

She turned to glare at Armand, who nodded reluctantly.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘So my guess is, it came fae that big burst signal that Mr Armand was so worried about. You’re dealing wi a thoroughly corrupt piece of software here. Don’t expect the wetware tae come out any cleaner.’

The suit clenched its glove and banged its knee-joint. ‘This is outrageous—’

Koshravi joined in the subsequent burst of general laughter and reached across Carlyle’s lap to the suit. ‘Don’t worry, Professor Shlaim,’ she said. ‘We have thorough debugging protocols for human downloads. For us it’s an old problem, and a solved problem.’

‘Not if it’s aliens you’re dealing with,’ said Carlyle, shrewdly but desperately.

‘The principles are the same,’ said Koshravi.

‘Indeed they are,’ said Chair. ‘Mrs Koshravi, if you would be so good as to arrange the matter?’

‘Of course,’ said Koshravi. ‘After you, Professor Shlaim.’

The medic and the suit left the room.

Space was staring at her. ‘You mentioned starships,’ he said. ‘We have always understood that faster-than-light travel raised the possibility of causality violations.’

‘Oh aye, it does an aw, except if you try tae bring one about you run intae the CPC.’

‘CPC?’ Again with the troubled echo.

‘Chronology Protection Conjecture. Say ye try tae send a signal intae the past, or your ship’s course mucks about too much wi the light-cone consistency conditions. Ye’ll find the transmitter disnae work, or your course takes longer or goes a different way than you plotted it, or—as the saying goes—she was never your grandmother in the first place.’

‘Do I take you to imply that God intervenes, or the Universe somehow arranges matters to prevent causality violations?’

‘God, or Nature, aye, that’s one way of looking at it. Another is, well, it just cannae be done, like trying to build a perpetual motion machine, or making two plus two equal five. It adds up tae the same thing, you might say.’

‘But—’

‘Let us leave philosophy to the physicists,’ said Chair. ‘I understand the gate on North Continent is closed. Can we expect starships from your … family to turn up? Will they be able to find us?’

‘Oh, sure, once you’ve been through a gate you’ve got the real world coordinates. Just feed them fae your suit’s instruments tae a starship navigation computer, and away ye go. I expect some of our ships tae turn up in few weeks.’ She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘But don’t worry, they’ll no turn up last week.’

Carlyle brushed the palms of her hands together, and sat back. ‘In the meantime,’ she added, ‘it would behoove you to be nice to me.’

‘Quite so,’ said Chief, abstractedly. He sighed. ‘Let us move on.’

The Joint Chiefs turned their attention to Armand.

‘What do you recommend?’ asked Defence. ‘To deal with the war machines, not the Carlyle starships.’