‘This is an extraordinarily unusual request,’ Jindabyne informed us when we had taken seats facing her desk. ‘You must understand my natural scepticism. Gentian Line has never shown much interest in this world, yet all of a sudden you want access to our deepest mysteries.’ There was a complicated, hookah-like apparatus perched on Jindabyne’s desk - a painted kettle, hissing and burbling, festooned with pipes and valves. Now and then the fine-furred magistrate would inhale from a mouthpiece on the end of a segmented hose. Campion and I had been given two cups of watery, ginger-flavoured tea - the crockery kept chinking in our hands. ‘You flatter us with your attention,’ Jindabyne went on, ‘but I can’t help feeling like a woman receiving insincere compliments because she has something someone wants. What do your troves tell you about the Spirit?’
‘That it is also known as the Fracto-Coagulation,’ I said. ‘That it is an airborne entity composed of many individual elements; that it was once a human mind, a human being, a man who may once have been called Valmik, who was alive in the Golden Hour.’
‘Then it would seem that you are wasting your time.’
Campion spoke now. ‘The trove also tells us that the Spirit of the Air has occasionally interceded to raise the dead, both biological and machine.’
‘It has also killed many individuals who were not dead to begin with.’
‘But the trove also says that many of the incidents could be blamed on provocation by the involved parties,’ Campion replied, ‘by them acting in a way that was known to irritate the Spirit.’
‘No one went to the Spirit intending to provoke it, shatterling. They all thought they were being cleverer than those who’d come before.’
‘We don’,’ I said. ‘We’re fully aware of the risks, and that we might not survive a direct encounter. But we still have to do this. We owe it to our friend.’
Jindabyne sucked on her pipe. The kettle bubbled furiously. ‘The Machine Person. Shouldn’t he be entrusted to Cadence and Cascade?’
‘They’ll be consulted, obviously,’ I said, ‘but Hesperus must have known that the Spirit offered his best chance of survival, not his fellow machines.’
Jindabyne scratched the honey-coloured fur on the side of her cheek. Until the light caught her at a certain angle, the fur could have been mistaken for human skin. ‘You put me in an invidious position.’
‘All we’re asking for is the same access privileges that have already been granted to countless travellers in the past,’ I said.
‘Times were different then. The Spirit was more predictable. Lately - I’ m talking of recent centuries, not years - it has grown more capricious. There were some unpleasant incidents. The scientific council convinced the combined authorities that there should be no more casual encounters. So far the Spirit has confined its displeasure to individuals or small groups of individuals, but what if it should tire of human presence on Neume? They say it brought down the Plastic, and later the Providers.’
‘If it didn’t want your company, I imagine it would have got rid of you already,’ Campion said.
‘Easy for you to say. You’re just guests here - you can leave any time you want. You don’t depend on the Spirit for the air you breathe.’
‘We understand,’ I said, soothingly. ‘We’re making an unusual request, and you’re perfectly entitled to turn us down. But I promise you that we won’t do anything without the guidance of the scientific council. If there is any hint that the Spirit is being displeased, we’ll stop immediately.’
‘You know I cannot refuse you,’ Jindabyne said.
‘Of course you can,’ I said.
‘Really? With the full weight of Gentian Line watching my every move? There may be fewer than fifty ships in orbit around Neume, but we all know what those ships could do to Neume if we refuse to cooperate. You could turn these towers to dust, scour everything back to the last relics of the Benevolence.’
‘It isn’t like that at all,’ Campion said. ‘We didn’t come here to bully our way into anything.’
‘You may not think so. Privately, it may even be true. But you are a Line, a member of the Commonality. The Lines always get what they want. There are never exceptions.’
‘But we
asked,’
I said, plaintively.
‘In the full and certain knowledge of my eventual compliance.’
‘Not Gentian Line,’ Campion said. ‘That’s never been how we do things.’
‘Then if I refused, that would be an end to it?’
Campion and I exchanged wary looks. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Absolutely. You have sovereignty here. We don’t.’
‘Shatterling Betony is a determined man. If you took news of my refusal to him, how do you think he’d respond? Not well, I suspect. You may have principles, shatterlings, but acting collectively, you are monsters. I have seen it, from other Lines.’
‘We’re not monsters,’ I said. ‘If you don’t believe me, turn us down. I swear no harm will come to you.’
‘And a thousand years from now? Ten thousand? Nothing to you.’
‘Everything’s different now,’ Campion said. ‘Even if we did act like that in the past, we’re not the same now.’
Jindabyne placed her mouthpiece in the clawed hook of a malachite desk-stand. ‘Go now,’ she said, picking up a sheet of paper from her desk. ‘You will have word of my decision later today.’
Cadence and Cascade met me on a private balcony of the tower where we had our rooms. It was noon. Campion reclined in a low chair with an apple in his hand, saying as little as he could get away with.
‘Thank you for agreeing to come,’ I said, nodding at the two flawless creatures.
Cadence, the silver one with the female anatomy, nodded. ‘It is the least we could do, Purslane. Cascade and I are most anxious to visit Hesperus, and see what may be done for him. It may surprise you that we have feelings of compassion towards our fellow machines, but that is how we are. It tears at us to think that Hesperus may be suffering.’
‘Do you die?’ I asked.
‘Of course we die,’ Cascade said. ‘We are not indestructible. Far from home, far from the support systems of our culture, we are scarcely less vulnerable to injury than human beings.’ He touched a white finger to his chest. ‘With the right weapon, you could kill me now.’
‘But your experiences have been recorded somewhere else, back in the Monoceros Ring.’
‘The nearest part of the Ring is tens of thousands of lights away. Much has happened to me since my departure, very little of which has been communicated back home. If I were to die now, it would take tens of thousands of years for news of my death to reach the Ring. Then they might activate a copy of me, with my last full set of memories. But I would not consider that entity to be me, merely an entity with whom I have certain things in common.’ He bowed his beautiful head. ‘You must understand, being a shatterling. Each of you carries a very similar set of memories, but that does not mean you would think lightly of dying.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We wouldn’t. But what about Hesperus? Could he really die?’
‘Undoubtedly. Until we examine him, we can only speculate about the nature of his injuries. What is certain is that his chances of being repaired will be greatest if he is returned to the Ring.’
‘We would need a ship for that,’ Cadence said.
‘You don’t have one?’
‘Sainfoin brought us here. We have no vehicle of our own.’
Campion crunched noisily on his apple, the ancient human sound punctuating my thoughts. He was observing things very carefully, though giving every impression of studied indifference.
‘You must have had a ship at some point,’ I said.
‘Once,’ Cadence said offhandedly. ‘It was destroyed long before we reached the Dorcus reunion. Since then we have been at the mercy of human charity.’ The robot waved a hand as if to wipe away the problem. ‘It is of no matter. Ships are mute machines with no more sentience than a pebble. They have no intrinsic value to us.’
‘It would be good if you could look at Hesperus,’ I said. ‘At the very least, help me get him down to Neume in one piece. I’m afraid of moving him now.’
‘There is no need for him to come here,’ Cascade said. ‘Whatever we can do for him, we can do aboard your ship.’
‘You don’t need the resources of Ymir?’ I asked.
Cadence made a tiny clucking sound, which I took to be the Machine Person equivalent of a derisive snort. ‘The citizens of Neume mean well, but using their machines to repair Hesperus would be like trying to perform brain surgery on you with a few pieces of flint.’
‘If flint’s all you have, you go with flint.’
Cascade’s ivory mask shaped a thin smile. ‘But we can do better than that. We are flexible machines. The humanoid forms we assume now are mere conveniences. It would be a simple matter for us to form the necessary interfaces to assist Hesperus. But first we must be aboard your ship.’
‘That can be arranged. But I’d still like to bring him down to Neume.’
‘There is no need,’ Cascade said again.
‘For me there is. It’s complicated, but Hesperus asked us to do something for him.’ I took a deep breath. ‘You’ve already spent time on Neume - doubtless you know of the Spirit of the Air.’
‘Yes,’ Cadence said guardedly.
‘Have you had contact with it since your arrival?’
She - I could not help but think of the machine as a she - shook her slim-necked, imperious head. ‘None at all. There has been no need. It is not a true machine intelligence, and therefore of only passing interest to us.’
‘Does that apply to people as well?’
‘Quite the contrary. We find organic intelligences infinitely fascinating. All that slippery grey meat emulating consciousness - what is there not to be fascinated by?’
‘The Spirit,’ Cascade said, ‘represents an intermediate stage of sophistication between human and true machine consciousness. Its origin is obscure, its nature unstable. There are too many variables to make it amenable as a study subject.’
And,
I thought quietly,
you might fear it a little as well.
If it scared humans, then it might hold similar terrors for Machine People. Campion caught my eye from across the balcony and winked once.
‘Well, I’m interested in it,’ I said. ‘Hesperus was fully aware of our destination. It is our belief that he wished to be brought into the presence of the Spirit.’
‘What purpose do you expect that to serve?’ Cascade asked.
‘There are documented instances of the Spirit interceding to heal injured pilgrims or repair damaged machines,’ I said. ‘It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that the Spirit will do something similar for Hesperus.’
‘Or take him apart.’
‘In which case he’ll have communicated part of himself into the memory of the Spirit. He must have been willing to take that chance.’
‘This is most unorthodox,’ Cadence said.
‘Being here is unorthodox. Having an injured Machine Person for a guest is unorthodox.’
‘Nonetheless.’
There was a silence. The machines stood still, but the lights in their heads flared and spun like demented fireflies. I had the sense of some vast, inscrutable conversation taking place before me, at a speed I could scarcely comprehend. Those seconds of silence might have consumed subjective years of frenzied debate in the accelerated time frame of machine consciousness.
They are cleverer than us,
I thought.
Cleverer and stronger and faster, and soon it will come to a head, us or them.
‘We will journey to your ship and inspect Hesperus,’ Cadence said.
Cascade added, ‘We will attempt to establish a communication link with him. If that fails, you may bring him down to the surface and present him to the Spirit.’
I felt dizzy and elated in equal measure. I could not begrudge them a chance at communication first. At the very least, it might enable Hesperus to clarify his wishes.
‘Thank you,’ I said, when I had gathered my thoughts again. ‘I’m enormously grateful.’
‘You were expecting obstruction?’ Cascade asked mildly.
‘I wouldn’t have been offended if you’d refused. He’s our guest, but he’s your fellow citizen. If you felt that you had a better claim over him ... I wouldn’t have argued.’
‘But you would have been sad,’ Cadence said.
‘Yes. I’d have felt as if we’d let him down.’
‘We would not want that to happen. You have taken care of him until now, and we are grateful to you for that.’ Cascade turned to face his silver companion, then glanced back at me. ‘When may we visit your ship, Purslane?’
‘As soon as I have Line authorisation to take my shuttle back into orbit. That shouldn’t be a problem, but it may take a few hours.’
Cadence bowed. ‘Then we shall await your instructions.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In the early afternoon of our first full day on Neume, the other three shatterlings we had transported were released from abeyance. By the time they emerged into daylight, on the large landing deck where we had gathered the night before, they had the stunned, wary look of people who could not quite believe their reversal of fortune. It was as if they had woken from one dream and could not quite shake the sense that they were now in another, from which they might be roused at any moment.
When they had met the customary grouping of shatterlings, guests and civic dignitaries - fewer in number than the evening before, not that Lucerne, Melilot and Valerian would ever know - they came over to speak to Purslane and me.
‘Aconite told us what happened, Campion,’ Melilot said to me. ‘We can’t ever repay you for what you’ve done for us.’
‘You’d have done the same,’ I said.
‘I’d like to think so, but I won’t ever know for sure. The point is you
did
do it, knowing the risks. Thank you, Campion and Purslane. You make me proud to be Gentian.’
‘There’s talk of censure,’ I said, glancing over my shoulder to check whether Betony might still be in earshot. ‘Purslane and I will need all the friends we can get if it comes to a vote as to how we should be punished.’