Beautiful Intelligence (13 page)

She ran back to the bushes, saw Manfred appear.

“You got anything?” he asked.

She nodded, putting her spex in her top pocket. “Hurry,” she said, running on.

At the bottom of the cow path Manfred took her by the shoulder and pointed into a weed-wrecked field. “Vines,” he said. “They might have grapes. Vitamins and all that.”

“Aye, hurry up then. I wanna get back.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “You don’t wanna hear about itchy fingers again. Get your grapes, if there’s any.”

There were some, though not many. Pouncey led the way up the path then stopped atop the escarpment, putting on her spex. The z floated at the side of the soltruck. Joanna looked at her, an expression of puzzlement on her face.

“What you doing?” Manfred asked.

“The nexus can sense somethin’ inside the soltruck. It doesn’t know what it is though – z sig. Weird...”

Joanna opened the door and stepped down, smiling. Manfred took his own spex from the glove compartment and put them on, then walked to the back of the soltruck and unlocked the doors. From inside came rustling and what sounded like whining.

“It’s Indigo,” he said.

Pouncey took off her rucksack and handed it to Joanna. “Fetch its crate inside the comp,” she told Manfred.

All three of them sat inside, Indigo’s crate between Manfred and Joanna.

“Listen,” Pouncey said, “I don’t see why we shouldn’t let Indigo out in here. It ain’t gonna run off even if it escapes.”

Joanna nodded. “You are right. All the bis need as much stimulation as possible. We could have a rotation of crates up the front comp as you drive.”

“Sure, agreed,” Manfred said. “But Indigo... why?”

Pouncey watched as Joanna studied the bi. Half a metre tall, deep blue and rubbery, it looked like an exotic toy Nippandroid. Joanna said, “Suppose its other senses are compensating for its blindness? All the bis are sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. Indigo’s heuristic sensory networks will be working overtime as it tries to build up a picture of its environment.”

“Yeah, by any means possible,” Manfred said. “And even places this remote will be full of electromagnetics. Radio waves from the sun... random wi-fi. You name it.”

“I have an idea,” Joanna said. “Let’s use Indigo as our channel into the bi group. Let’s keep it with us as much as possible, so that it
has
to model
us.
You never know, Indigo could end up being our interpreter... if the bis are communicating.”

“Which you think they are?” Pouncey said.

Joanna nodded, putting Indigo on her lap. “It’ll be like having...”

“A child?” Pouncey said.

“No... a
cat.
You can never tell what cats are thinking. With a child, you can at least make an educated guess.”

Manfred said, “You realise then that Indigo must be aware of the nexus?”

Pouncey nodded. “Two way traffic. Makes sense.”

“A lot of the nexus is wireless,” Manfred mused. “A symbiotic relationship might be growing.” Excitement lit up his face. “This is a huge advance – a nexus cognisant species.”

They all looked at Indigo. Moisture-preserving lids covered its sightless eyes, but its ears twitched and the fronds beneath Joanna’s hands rippled.

~

Denver and Salt Lake City they avoided, but Boise in Idaho was a city like Philadelphia: crowded, busy, a place of law and ninety percent order. Pouncey was able to use her last remaining cash to buy good food, water, toothpaste and soap. They drove on into the Steens Mountains.

Half way up, Pouncey saw a flash to her left. She braked, turned her head to look. “Think that was a dyin’ electricity sub station,” she remarked.

Joanna laughed. “Did you see that? Indigo turned to face it.”

Pouncey halted the soltruck. “You sure about that?”

“Certain. There must have been an electromagnetic flash too.”

Pouncey drove on. “Good news, I guess,” she said.

Joanna petted Indigo as if the bi was an animal. Which, Pouncey thought, it was... in a way.

After Baker and La Grande they were well into the Blue Mountains, only four hundred kilometres east of Portland. The road worsened, forcing Pouncey to dodge pot-holes and debris, including many ruined telegraph poles. Her pace slowed. They kept two crates in the front comp at all times, allowing the bis plenty of opportunity to watch and listen. Manfred tried to locate local stations on the radio, but all he found was static.

Night fell as they approached Arlington, but Pouncey didn’t like the look of it. “Too many watch posts for my likin’,” she said, pointing. “See that dome? There’s a barrel pokin’ out of it.” She took a pair of binoculars and scanned the Arlington roofscape. “Let’s get outa here before someone shoots.”

Twenty kilometres on they halted, parking on the side of the road. Pouncey wandered across the ruined tarmac but saw no tread marks.

“This’ll do,” she said.

~

They slept without break until dawn, Manfred and Joanna shivering in the back, though they lay together wrapped in blankets: clear night and frost. After breakfast they sat outside the soltruck, waiting for the sun to clear the mountain peaks. Pouncey took tissues and vanished behind some bushes.

Manfred and Joanna locked seven of the bi crates in the back, then put the other two in the comp, alongside Indigo. Manfred strolled to the crest of the road, from where he saw what looked like a carcass just a few metres away. Meat. He walked on, waving Joanna to follow.

It was a calf, freshly killed. “Reckon we could butcher and cook this?” he said.

There was a click. A dark figure appeared from behind a tree.

“Reckon you fell right into my trap, mister.”

An old man, armed with a rifle, pointing at him.

“Hey, we’re just passing through,” Manfred said. “We didn’t know this was yours.”

“Ain’t nobody passes through here these days,” the old man replied. “What you doing here? That your truck over there?”

Manfred glanced over his shoulder. “Er...”

The old man walked on. “Reckon you better show me,” he said.

He hurried them along. No sign of Pouncey.

“What you got in there?” the old man asked, indicating the front of the truck with his rifle.

“Just toys.”

“And the back? Unlock it.”

The old man pointed his rifle at Manfred as he unlocked the back doors. “Just more toys, you see? We don’t mean you any harm.”

“That’s what they all say. Move back.
Now!
”

Manfred moved away. The old man peered into the crates, then undid the catches on the front three and popped open the lids.

Before Manfred had time to react the bis jumped free and leaped out of the van. He yelled and tried to catch the nearest. The old man fired at one. Missed. Manfred screamed, “No!” and ran at the old man, but at once the rifle turned on him. He skidded to a halt.

“Eh, eh?” said the old man.

“Don’t shoot them!” Manfred implored. “They’re valuable.”

“To me? Maybe. What are they, boy?”

“Just toys. Expensive toys, yeah? For rich people in Portland.” Manfred raised his hands to his head and turned, shouting, “Jo! We’ve got to
catch
them!”

“You two!” the old man shouted. “You don’t do anything without my say so. Stand still.”

Manfred turned. “You shoot any of them and...”

“I’ll do what the hell I like, mister. This is
my
land.”

With that the old man walked around the soltruck and peered into the scrubby land beside the road. Manfred listened. Surely Pouncey would be alert to the danger by now? Five minutes had passed since she had gone. She must have heard their voices.

“Okay!” he called out, in a voice loud, but not so loud the old man would be suspicious. “We’ll stand still. But we need to get our toys back.”

There was a rustle from the bushes. The old man span, rifle raised. Manfred knew that could not be Pouncey. It must be a bi. He looked, one hand raised to his forehead to shield his eyes from the rising sun, but saw only thick bushes and trees.

The old man crept along the road. More rustling. Manfred watched. It was creepily like a hunting scene in a film.

The old man glanced over his shoulder to check on Manfred and Joanna, then turned back and raised his rifle, aiming low into the bushes. Yet more rustling. He crept on into the shadow of a tree, then stopped. Froze: his rifle raised. Waited. Not breathing.

A shot.

Manfred screamed and leaped forward.

The old man fell, blood fountaining out of his head.

Pouncey jumped down from the tree.

Then the bis appeared: Red, Violet and White. “Jo!” Manfred yelled.

He approached the bis. They stared at him, mesmerised it seemed. He knelt and they approached. Five seconds later Joanna clutched two and he had the other one.

Pouncey swore. “You see what they
did?
” she said.

Manfred ignored her, running back to the soltruck to put the bis into their crates, then taking the third one from Joanna and crating it. He sobbed, knelt down to lean against the back of the soltruck.

Pouncey ran up and tapped him on the shoulder. He span around, stood up.

“You see what they did?” she repeated.

“No?”

“They teamed up! They lured him on. They knew I was in the fuckin’ tree!”

“What?”

“Manfred, let her tell us,” Joanna said, taking his hand in hers and stroking it.

Pouncey stood a handsbreadth away from him, only shock in her face: no anger. “I
watched
them, Manfred. They teamed up. They knew where the old guy was. They knew where I was. They drew him on to me.” She shook her head, turning to look at the old man’s body. “They didn’t know what I’d do, but they must’ve known I’d do
somethin’.
”

Manfred could only repeat, “What?”

She turned back to face him. “I saw it with my own eyes, I promise. I climbed the tree ’cos I couldn’t see you guys, though I heard you. And I saw what the bis did. I think maybe Jo’s right. They are communicatin’.”

Manfred put his hands to his face. “Jeez...”

“Yeah,” Pouncey said. “But it’s good, right?”

Manfred turned to stare at the crates. “Yeah... yeah, it is. I just wasn’t ready for it.”

“They are growing up,” Joanna said in a quiet voice.

He nodded. “I was right, Jo, this whole trip
proves
it.” He gestured into the soltruck and continued, “They’re being forced to use themselves as exemplars to understand the behaviour of the others. They’re using themselves as archetypes. They assume that what they do, other bis do too. It’s the beginnings of consciousness – and it means they can work as a team... as a
society.
”

“Then they must be communicating with one another,” she replied. “It
must
be a gestural language. Eye movements, skin movements, things too subtle for us to notice... even for a chimp watcher like me. Perhaps they will never speak English. Perhaps they will never need to. It means Indigo is crucial to us.”

“Maybe they don’t realise
we’re
like them?” Pouncey said. “’Cos them and us are so different. They’re focussin’ on themselves.”

He nodded. “What have I made here?” he said.

In the plantation hut, Hound explained the next stage of his plan.

“I’ve got a new fake data incarnation keyed to my new look,” he said. “There was a small possibility that when I saw Tsuneko June in the village, she saw me. Or people following her – or watching her – saw me. I’ll be wearing spex all the time beneath my fly-shades – man, too risky not to. But you won’t need to. So don’t, except in emergencies. Your fake data incarnations won’t have been seen by Aritomo. We’ll be crossing the desert naked so no nexus info-trail builds up. In Algeria, maybe Morocco, we’ll make a new hide. Then get back to learning Zeug.”

“Teaching Zeug,” Leonora corrected.

“Whatever. Sandman Entré will lead us up to the Tunisian border. Then we’ll be on our own. You better get your camel legs sorted by then.”

They did not look happy.

Sandman Entré grinned. “You are nervous? Don’t be nervous. The camel only spits at the coward, oui?”

Hound laughed. Nobody else did.

But the camels lay some distance away. Sandman Entré led them through Hound’s plastic-producing plants for a kilometre or so, before they entered open land, rocky, hot and sand-blasted. To the north great fields of mirrors gleamed in the sun.

“That is the muscle of the new Afrique,” Sandman Entré explained with a smug grin.

Only Leonora and Hound took an interest, the other three following at some distance. “What are they?” Leonora asked.

“Solar energy farm, Madame. Since twenty-forty Afrique has exported much energy, to our great economic benefit.”

“How much exactly?”

“It is difficult to say, Madame. Much energy reaching Earth becomes unusable, in form of heat. Some energy goes to make wind and wave. Human uses one ten thousandth of all energy reaching the Earth. But exploiting wind and wave affects the currents atmosphérique in a negative way.”

“You mean the energy we’d extract from them is actually comparable to the total usable energy?”

“Oui, Madame. Once the ingénieur Afrique grasp this, they convince Pan Afrique to concentrate on solar panels. By then, we did not need indium or tellurium – rare substances. We make the kesterite cells, which use common elements, plus selenium. But now, the ingénieur Afrique need to make cells that reflect light. Otherwise too much heat is being added to our desert.”

“Man, what about plants?” Hound asked.

“That is the second way of using free energy. Greening the desert, they call it. Bon! The green wall Afrique was a start, oui? Photosynthesis, it is a way of receiving free energy without adding heat to the desert. So, many tribes, they make the greenery.”

“They say the Sahara was green thousands of years ago,” Leonora mused.

“Exactement. It can become green once again.”

As afternoon progressed into evening they reached the camel station, which was run by Sandman Entré’s half brother Rockfish. Rockfish was dumb as a result of having his tongue cut out by Tunis mash kids, so he communicated by writing with a sharpened forefinger nail on a piece of e-paper, in English so that his guests could read him.