In Heaven and Earth (2 page)

He had never seen
anything like it.

“
Eskil,” he
said. “You near a wallscreen? I need a consult.”

“
Sure. Anything
to turn my back on the death toll.”

“
Any more
survivors?”

“
No.”

“
Damn. Sending
you a brain projection. Any chance you can tell me what I’m looking
at?”

Eskil was their resident
cybernetic expert. Reuben knew more about flesh than
circuits.

“
Open up for
me, baby,” Eskil murmured to himself. “Sorry, Coop. Screen up here
is on the blink again. Now, let’s have a look— well, fuck me
sideways with a hypercortex!”

“
Rather not,”
Reuben said. “What’s that about?”

“
ID!” Eskil
said, sounding suddenly shrill. “Have you got an ID
yet?”

“
No. Is it
dangerous?”

“
Not if— get
the ID, man. Get it
now
.”

Reuben reached up to tap
the DNA scan data, activating the search function. “Waiting for the
database. What’s your problem?”

“
You,” Eskil
returned, but he clearly wasn’t trying. “Come on, you antique
crapsack of technology. Talk to Eskil, darling.”

“
There are some
things I don’t need to know about you and the computer,” Reuben
said. Eskil’s reactions were making him nervous, and he rubbed his
wrist, feeling the ridge of the tracking implant beneath the skin.
He couldn’t afford to be involved in another disaster, not with his
history.

The database chimed
softly, and the cyborg’s personal data appeared on the wall. From
Eskil’s indrawn breath, he could see it too.

Designated
Name:
Vairya

Sentience
category:
Cyborg, TC4

Citizen
number:
CL00000000001

Place of
manufacture:
Terra

Date of
manufacture:
-1 Galactic Era

Specialist
category:
Archival unit

Current
employment:
Gardener

“
A gardener?”
Reuben said incredulously and then took in the data again.
“From
Old Earth
?”

“
That’s
Vairya.” Eskil sounded like he was on the verge of a religious
experience. What was it about machine life that sent so many people
off the edge of rationality?

“
No
surname?”

“
He doesn’t
need one. He’s a TC4. A real live TC4 in our sickbay.”

“
Why don’t you
help us both out by assuming I have no idea what you’re talking
about?”

“
T for Terran,
C for Codex, 4 for the final generation.” Eskil spoke with the slow
condescension Reuben had last heard from the Senate War Crimes
Lawyer on Alpha Centauri, right before Reuben started to produce
the evidence to support his statement. “Jogged your memory
yet?”

“
Because Rigel
has always been known for its expertise on artificial life,
clearly,” Reuben pointed out and regretted it as soon as he heard
Eskil draw breath. He had alienated the women within weeks of
joining the
Juniper
, maybe because he wasn’t humble and contrite enough to
satisfy their outrage, maybe because he couldn’t be bothered with
all the social niceties they seemed to think were necessary. Eskil,
on the other hand, was easy to talk to, mostly because he saw
humans as a minor distraction from his true love. Reuben knew he
mattered less than the ship in Eskil’s mind, but he’d be damned if
he lost his last bit of tolerable human company.

“
Sorry,” he
muttered reluctantly. “Forget I said that. What’s so special about
a TC4, then?”

“
They were made
on Old Earth,” Eskil said, and that note of awe was back in his
voice. “Look at
when
he was made, Coop. They were the
last
Terran cyborgs ever made. His
mind contains everything humanity ever knew: history, science,
literature, music, art,
everything
. They thought humanity was
doomed by then, and the TC4s were… well, humanity’s final record,
the thing that would outlast us.”

Humanity was doomed to
repeat the same mistakes, Reuben knew, and they had never stopped
chasing after immortality. And somewhere, somehow, surrounded by
nanites who responded to every human whim, someone had expressed
the wish that everything should be preserved, made as strong as
diamonds, made to last forever, and uttered that command aloud, out
of madness or carelessness or who knew what strange
whim.

And the nanites had. At
first slowly and then at ever-increasing speed, everything on Earth
had been transformed, carbon to carbon, flesh and earth and leaf,
all changed into diamond. Some semblance of life had still
flickered on, but all the subtleties of thought had faded as the
relentless flood rolled over every living thing.

The only desire left in
the gleaming creatures which had once been human was to follow that
first imperative, to preserve everything as they had been
preserved.

The last survivors of
humanity had been those who had been off planet in those last
desperate months: spacers, miners, crazy colonists in sleeper
ships.

And, as Eskil explained,
a handful of cyborgs, sent hurtling off planet as the last
scientists on Earth sealed the atmosphere behind them, trapping
themselves and humanity’s doom together.

“‘
Look on my
works, ye mighty, and despair,’” Reuben said softly. Ahrima had
quoted that little fragment of Old Earth at him countless times. It
had been years before he searched out the whole poem and realised
just how bitter the irony was.

“
What’s
that?”

“
Something your
borg here would know, if you’re right. How the hell did he end up
as a gardener in Caelestia?”

“
The stories
said he was dead. They’re fucking
myths
, Coop. Only thirty ever made,
and less than twenty of those even made it off Earth. Humanity was
fucked, or so everyone thought, and by the time the survivors
started paying attention, half of the TC4s had vanished beyond
human space. Those that were left— well, six of them suicided once
they realised humanity was going to make it.”

Reuben cast a worried
glance towards his patient, who was still sleeping peacefully. He
looked as young and innocent as an angel, one of the pure and
wrathful type they had venerated on Rigel platform, maybe, but just
as unsullied by life as those blazing creatures. Satisfied that his
patient, this Vairya, wasn’t about to hurt himself, he asked,
“Why?”

“
They used to
programme pacifism into their cyborgs, back on the old planet,”
Eskil said, sounding disapproving. “They couldn’t fight back, even
to save themselves—”

“
Fucking
hell.”

“
Yeah. The
TC4s, on the other hand,
could
fight, seeing as they were humanity’s last hope,
but they gave them an overdose of compassion, just to stop them
from becoming monsters.”

“
Compassion and
the entirety of human history? Poor bastards.”

“
Yeah. There’s
Jibrail on Sirius, and Zaphkiel on Deneb. Binah was last seen on
Alpha Centauri station a century ago, and everyone knew Vairya was
here, but no one knew exactly where.”

Angels indeed, thought
Reuben, who had spent a year in protective custody with nothing to
do but read and seek absolution. Fascinated and disturbed, he
walked over to the bed and looked down at his rescued cybernetic
angel with unease.

As a child, Reuben had
been taught to see the melding of flesh and skin as anathema. It
had taken long years to overcome that prejudice, but now it held a
strange fascination for him. He had always wondered what it would
feel like to touch a cyborg’s skin, whether he would feel the
shiver of cold electricity where a warm pulse should be, but over
the years the revolted fascination he had felt as a boy had become
something else, something that still made him ashamed. A truly
open-minded man would not eroticise it, either, but simply accept
that all sentient beings were human, regardless of their
origin.

This particular sentient
being was pale skinned and golden haired, so rare in the
descendants of Earth’s last survivors. Reuben held his own hand
out, marvelling at the contrast between his own brown skin and the
weird variation of the cyborg, flushed where his blood ran close to
the skin and milk pale in other places. Pretty, Reuben thought, but
strange. Had he been sent off from Old Earth unfinished, without
proper pigmentation? His skin did not cover him completely, but in
places vanished to reveal articulated plates of metal or throbbing
pistons. His chest was half made, certainly, the underplates
showing there and at his sides. How much of that was cold
damage?

He had a human-enough
cock, pink, and curled up primly against his belly. Did it function
for more than just urine disposal, Reuben wondered. He’d never
actually spoken to a full cyborg. Those who knew his name refused
to speak to him.

The polluted
must be redeemed
, Ahrima’s voice whispered
in his memory, and he shuddered and stepped back.

“
Any ideas on
that brain scan?” he asked Eskil.

“
Memory damage,
possibly. I’ve got a search going, but I’m going to have to wait
for results from Sirius. We don’t have anything in the onboard
manuals.”

The patient sighed
softly, his eyelashes flickering.

“
He’s rousing,”
Reuben said. “Let’s see if he’s any more coherent here.”

“
I’ve got you
on camera,” Eskil said.

Not hugely reassured,
Reuben went to the bed, softening his voice to say, “Vairya, you
are safe. Wake up slowly, now.”

Vairya opened his eyes,
blinking slowly. His eyes were blue, too bright a colour to be
human, but the little sigh he gave was all misery.

“
Hey there,”
Reuben said. “You’re okay. I’m Dr Cooper, this is the Medical
Explorer
Juniper
,
and you are safe. If you can talk, say yes. If you can’t,
blink.”

Vairya just stared at
him, his eyes wide.

Memory damage, Eskil had
said. Very carefully, Reuben asked, “Do you know who you
are?”

Vairya wet his lips, but
didn’t speak, still staring at Reuben. He looked
frightened.

“
What do you
remember, Vairya?”

“
Remember,”
Vairya echoed, and Reuben swallowed back a gasp. Vairya’s voice was
surprisingly deep and husky.

Probably, Reuben reminded
himself firmly, because he’d been standing in an airless city for
God knew how long. “Do you need water?” He turned away a little to
reach for a cup.

Vairya sat up fast,
whipping his hand out to seize Reuben’s wrist. “Remember!” he said,
his breath catching.

“
What do you
remember?” Reuben asked, feeling his pulse beat against the
strength of Vairya’s grip.

Vairya gasped, shuddering
hard, before he choked out, “It could happen again!”

Chapter Two

“WHAT could?” Reuben
said. “What happened to the city?”

“
Again. It
could… again. Again… againagainagain. It could happen— happen
again. Happen.” He blinked, all the panic fading from his face as
it went completely blank. He sank back a little, his grip
softening. Then, with a jerk, he sat up and repeated, “It could
happen again! Again. It could… again. Again… againagainagain. It
could happen— happen—”

“
Sssh,” Reuben
said, his heart clenching as Vairya gasped his way through exactly
the same loop again. “Sounds like your memory needs some work.
Eskil? Any luck identifying that damage?”

“
Getting the
file open now. Come on you slow hunk of silicon, talk to
Daddy.”

“…
could… again.
Again… againagainagain. It could…”

“
Quickly, or
I’m just going to sedate him again. He can’t communicate like this,
and there’s no point letting him stay scared.” Reuben glanced at
the wall, where flickering numbers showed that Vairya’s pulse rate
was rising rapidly.

“
Got it! Short
term memory, but nothing here about how to fix it, except— uh
oh.”

“
What?”

Eskil’s voice sounded
small and hopeless. “Knock him out, Coop. If he doesn’t heal on his
own, there’s only one way to fix him.”

“
How?” Reuben
demanded, pressing Vairya back against the bed firmly and pressing
the sedation icon on the wall, holding his hand there so it could
check his fingerprint for verification. The bed hummed a little,
vibrating at just the right speed to lull Vairya. Reuben unpeeled
Vairya’s hand from his wrist and pressed it softly against the
bedframe to receive the rest of the sedative.