Blue Remembered Earth (41 page)

‘Welcome, Sunday,’ she heard. ‘How was your journey?’

‘No complaints, apart from the friendly welcome at Crommelin.’

‘You’ll have to excuse our customs and immigration staff: they preach courtesy and respect while demonstrating exactly the opposite.’

Sunday took a nervous step sideways, distrusting the flooring. Even in ching it was hard to suppress vertigo, or the instinctive urge for self-preservation. This was especially the case when the proxy was a living, breathing human organism.

The warmblood belonged to a woman of about her age and build, although the skin was paler than her own. She wore a business outfit: colour-coordinated skirt and blouse, dark green offset with silver piping, black stockings and sensible low-heeled black shoes.

Sunday certainly wouldn’t have trusted heels on that floor.

She flexed the warmblood’s fingers. She’d only chinged this way a couple of times before but had already cultivated an intense loathing for the arrangement.

‘Where am I?’

‘The Pan outpost at Valles Marineris,’ the voice said. ‘We’re on the very edge of the deepest canyon, the greatest rift valley anywhere in the solar system. I thought you would appreciate seeing the view through human eyes. My transform-surgeon, Magdalena, consented to be driven.’

‘It’s very thoughtful.’

‘Entirely appropriate, too. You’re both sculptresses. You work with stone and clay, Magdalena with the living flesh. Now you are as one.’

Sunday turned from the view of Valles Marineris. Her speaker faced her from a kind of bed, resting on an oblong of white self-sterilising frond-carpet. The bed was as heavy and complicated-looking as some ghastly iron lung or CAT scanner from the medical Dark Ages. It was plumbed into the wall behind it, and it hummed and gurgled like an espresso machine. It was actually more like a bath than a bed, for the occupant was mostly immersed in fluid, contained by high-walled, slosh-proof sides. The treacle-thick fluid had a bluish chemical tint.

‘Come closer,’ the patient said. ‘I won’t bite. Biting is one of the very many things not presently an option for me.’

Two green-uniformed female nurses stood by the bedside: one with a surgical trolley, the other with a kind of Pan-compliant clipboard and stylus computer. Without a word they took their leave, striding like catwalk models, one of them pushing the trolley before her. A door in the rear of the room snicked open and shut like an iris.

Sunday came closer. She couldn’t smell anything through the ching bind, but wondered if the fluid – or indeed the patient – had a strong odour.

‘I am Holroyd,’ the voice said. ‘You mustn’t be alarmed. I’m actually in no great distress, and despite appearances I do not believe success to be completely ruled out, at least not yet.’

There was a man in the fluid, but only just. Her first thought had been: cactus. His form, what she could see of it, was covered with jagged dark growths, erupting from every inch of his skin. They were glossy and leaflike, sharp-edged, studded with barbs and thorns. His upper torso, his submerged limbs, his head and face . . . there was no part of him where the growths were not rampant. His eyes peered through tunnels of pruned-back growth. She wondered how much of the world he could see.

‘What happened to you, Mister Holroyd?’

He did not sound in the least bit upset by the directness of her question. ‘Hubris, I suppose. Or impatience. Or some combination of the two.’ She couldn’t see a mouth making the words. ‘I was a genetic volunteer. A Pan, of course – an old friend of Truro’s, too, though I doubt we’ll ever meet again. Our paths have taken us in very different directions. His to the oceans. Mine to . . . well, this.’

‘Did Magdalena do this to you?’

‘Magdalena was part of the team that, with my consent, proceeded with the genetic intervention . . . now she is part of the team attempting to undo the effects of that intervention.’ A hand, spined and spiked to the point of uselessness, like a cross between a mace and a gauntlet, emerged from the cloying fluid. There were wounds in the armour, pale healed-over scars and white-seeping gashes. ‘The intention was to change my body, to armour it to the point where, with only the minimum of additional life-support measures, I could survive outside without a surface suit. Thermal insulation, pressure and moisture containment . . . they were within our grasp. I’d still need an air supply, of course, and there’d always be parts of Mars that would be unendurable, even for me, but it was worth attempting. A gesture of intent, if nothing else. A sign that we are here for good. That we’ll do whatever we can to make this work. Even change our basic humanity.’

‘How did it go wrong?’

‘There are no catastrophes in science, Sunday, only lessons. I’d far rather live in a universe capable of producing monsters like me than one where we understood all the rules, down to the last tedious footnote. I’m evidence that reality is still capable of tripping us up. As I said, I am not in pain. And recently we have made . . . I won’t call it “progress”, that’s too big a word. But there have been intimations, hints of the possibility of a modest therapeutic breakthrough. The game is not yet lost!’

‘I hope things work out for you, Mister Holroyd.’

‘I try to look on the bright side. That’s vital, don’t you think?’ The hand and arm sank beneath the surface of the fluid. The bed made a decisive clicking noise and the fluid began to bubble vigorously. ‘Well, to business, I suppose – and you’ll excuse the abrupt shift in tone, I hope. I’m delighted you’ve made it to Mars, and you have my assurance that the Initiative will do all in its power to facilitate your . . . enquiries. You will spend the next two nights in Crommelin Edge, and I hope you’ll take the time to see something of the city and the crater, get your Mars legs. After that, we’ve arranged transportation to Pavonis Mons, or as close as we can reasonably take you. We will of course assist with any further logistical requirements that might arise, within the limits of funds and resources, of course. I hardly need add that there must be some reciprocity, however crass that sounds.’

‘I understand, Mister Holroyd. I wouldn’t have been able to get to Mars without Pan sponsorship. I agreed to take on some commissions, and I’m ready and willing to fulfil that commitment.’

‘Very good, Sunday. I’ve been looking at some of your work, did you know?’

‘I didn’t, sir.’

‘I’m no expert, but I like what I see. There are visible and public ways that you can help the Initiative, and we’ll come to those in due course. But to begin with, I wonder if we might consider a more personal study, as a kind of warm-up exercise?’

‘I’m open to ideas.’

‘I never doubted it. But you may not . . .’ Holroyd faltered. ‘I appreciate that this may not be easy for you, but I wonder if you’d consider a piece that drew its inspiration . . . from me?’

‘As you were, sir, or as you’re meant to be?’

‘No,’ Holroyd corrected gently. ‘As I am, here and now. In all my splendid ugliness. A monument to ignorance and possibility. Hubris and hope. There: I’ve already given you a title. How can you possibly say no?’

Sunday had never felt less enthusiastic about a commission, or less bothered about the title. ‘I don’t suppose I can, sir.’

The door opened and one of the green-uniformed nurses came back in with a trolley. Gleaming chrome instruments rested on it, including something that looked very much like a pair of pruning shears.

‘I really need that drink now,’ Sunday said, when she’d come out of ching.

‘Difficult client?’

‘A prickly customer.’

They found a bar called the Red Menace, on the edge of a glassed-over mall filled with high-end boutiques and expensive souvenir shops. The Red Menace’s stock-in-trade was bad-taste Martian-invasion kitsch, from the slime-green cocktails to the skull-masked bartenders and clanking steam-actuated Wellsian tripods that brought the drinks, clutching glasses in their tentacles and carrying bar-snacks in baskets tucked under their bodies. Heat-rays pulsed through puffs of dry ice, while portentous military music throbbed from underfloor bass speakers.

Sunday should have been appalled, but in fact the bar suited her mood exactly. She was just wiping the salt off the rim of her second Silver Locust – Jitendra was on his third – when she became aware that someone was looking at them from the entrance, standing very still and peering through the scudding gouts of dry ice clouding the bar.

Studying the tall black-skinned man, a sense of profound wrongness washed over her in a clammy wave, as if her every waking assumption had just been annihilated. The shock stole her breath. The universe appeared to stall, stretching a moment into a lifetime.

The shape of his face, the light on the cheekbones, the wide imperial brow. It was one of the cousins.

She touched Jitendra’s hand, and although the effort was almost unbearable, forced herself to breathe and then to speak. ‘Look.’

Jitendra looked at the man and put down his drink. With a calm that felt far out of place, he said, ‘It’s not a person.’

She turned up her own aug threshold, letting the tag inform her that the figure was a golem.

‘Hello,’ it said, arriving at their table. ‘I’m glad you made it here safely. Do you mind if I take a seat?’ The golem tilted its face towards the third chair, the one nobody was sitting in.

‘What do you want with us?’ Sunday asked.

The golem lowered itself into the seat. ‘I am Lucas Akinya’s designated legal presence on Mars.’

‘It’s autonomous,’ Jitendra whispered. ‘Do you think it was here all along, or came with us on the same ship?’

‘Who knows? Lucas and Hector probably have thousands of the fucking things, all over the system, ready to pop up like a slice of toast whenever they need a legal presence.’ She glared at it. ‘I’ll ask you again: what do you want with us?’

‘This visit of yours,’ the golem said, ‘has raised a number of flags. We’ve spoken to Geoffrey. Keeping secrets is not one of his core skills.’

She could see the trap she was being steered into, of disclosing more than she needed to. ‘And what secrets would those be?’

The golem was keeping its voice very low, smiling all the while. ‘You claim to be here on Panspermian business.’

‘I don’t “claim” anything.’

‘How would you characterise your ongoing business relationship with these people?’

‘I’m an artist. The Pans need art to get their ideas across. Doesn’t mean I’ve bought the T-shirt’

The golem paused. Its cleverness was paper-thin. It could emit statements and responses that sounded plausible, but the swerves and hairpins of normal human conversation left it befuddled. ‘This visit to Mars comes hard on the heels of your brother’s visit to the Moon. Even the most casual observer might reasonably posit a causative link between the two developments.’

‘Conclude what you like. Not my problem.’

‘Geoffrey was tasked to investigate a matter on behalf of the family. Whatever he may have told you, visiting you was not the sole purpose of his trip.’

‘In which case you’ve just made a big fucking mistake in mentioning it now, haven’t you?’

The golem’s face became a death mask pulled too tight. ‘There is something else,’ it continued, after a pause. ‘An incident on the Chinese Lunar border, and a demonstrable Panspermian connection. Your associate Chama was arrested and then released, under terms of restraint.’

‘It was nothing to do with me.’

‘The incident took place near Eunice’s crash site.’ The golem leaned forwards and spoke with particular intensity. ‘What did Geoffrey find in the Central African Bank? Apart from the glove, which we know about.’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘It behoves you to show responsibility, Sunday. In these times of economic uncertainty, the continued good standing of the Akinya name must be paramount in our concerns.’

‘Good standing?’ She was thinking back to her treatment at immigration. ‘They hate our name, even here. You think I give a damn about preserving that?’

Again the golem appeared unsure how to respond. ‘Akinya Space is a building block,’ it declared. ‘Thousands depend on us directly for employment and welfare. Millions indirectly, through secondary contracts and business transactions. Billions more, by dint of our mere existence. Our machines bring valuable raw materials from across the system, from the main belt to the Trans-Neptunian iceteroids. Without that dependable flow, the entire infrastructure of human settlement and colonisation would falter.’

‘I’m not trying to bring down human civilisation, Lucas. That would imply that I give a shit about it.’

‘Our concern is that Eunice may have had self-destructive impulses. We worry that whatever was in that box was a metaphorical time bomb, planted under the family by a bitter, resentful old woman.’

‘You don’t believe that.’

‘Please do not doubt the seriousness of my concerns, or the lengths Hector and I will go to to protect this family.’

Sunday sat in silence, as if she was giving the golem’s words due consideration. Only when a suitable interval had passed did she allow herself to start speaking. ‘Cousin, we’re not in Africa any more. This is not the household. We’re on Mars now, a long way from home. I owe you nothing. This is my life and I do what I want with it. I do not want to speak to you again while I’m here. I do not even want to see you again. So please leave us alone, before I make exactly the kind of scene you’d really like to avoid.’