Proxima (54 page)

‘The Chinese got it wrong,’ King growled as they approached. ‘If they wanted to make some gesture of space power they should have stuck to slamming a rock into the moon. But to
strike at the Earth itself like this – it’s hit people at a visceral level. You know, there’s a theory that the whole scheme was cooked up offworld, in some think tank on Ceres or
Mars, maybe by second-generation colonist types who have no real sympathy for the Earth, who don’t understand how things are down here. As a geopolitical statement it might have seemed a
logical thing to do, a finely engineered stunt. But as a human gesture they got it completely wrong.’

‘Well, not completely,’ Earthshine murmured. ‘We are still talking; we have still avoided all-out war.’

‘True. But that’s thanks to you and your siblings. And we’re not out of the woods yet.’ As usual when he felt under pressure, King looked tense, angry; Penny had learned
he got restless in any situation he wasn’t fully in control of. ‘The Council of Worlds session is about to make some kind of statement.’ He glanced up at the screen. ‘Bah.
Come with me.’ He led the way towards his own quarters.

She followed, reluctantly. ‘We both have duties. The school—’

‘What are you, Kalinski, suddenly some slave to routine?
This
is more important than anything else going on down here. And as for the school, Earthshine here can just send in a
partial . . . Come on.’

K
ing’s quarters were like a villa, compared to the cramped single room Penny shared with Jiang. He had four roomy interconnected chambers,
each fitted out with screens and decent furniture, as well as a luxurious bathroom and kitchen that Penny had only ever glimpsed. Then again, it had largely been King’s money and influence
that had got this old tunnel up and running as a survival shelter so quickly; Earthshine had huge resources, but of a more specialised and distributed kind. Even Earthshine owed King favours.

As they entered, the room’s big display screen was dominated by a central image of an empty podium with a microphone stand, the centuries-old signal of a press conference waiting to
happen. Penny wondered where the podium was, where this event was due to take place; it could be anywhere on the planet, even on the moon.

Penny took a seat alongside Earthshine. As ever, a servo-robot rolled around offering them coffees.

Penny asked, ‘So how far have they got?’

King sat upright on an armchair, hands wrapped around his walking stick. He glared at Earthshine. ‘
He
knows, better than I do, probably. Ask him. The UN Deputy Secretary General
has a statement to make. Remember, you met her on Ceres.’

Penny was no politics junkie; she frowned, trying to think this through. ‘That means she’s making some kind of unilateral statement. Right? If she and the Chinese delegates
aren’t appearing together. I’m guessing that’s not a good sign.’

‘You wouldn’t think so, would you?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘She’s overrunning. That’s probably a
good
sign, if they’re still talking. Or not.
Ah, what the hell.’ He rubbed his fleshy face, briefly seeming exhausted. Then he seemed to pull himself together with an effort. He turned on Penny. ‘So how are you?’

She grinned. ‘How do you think I am?’

‘No word from your sister, I guess. Even now, at this time of crisis.’

She shrugged. ‘Why should there be? The news of all this won’t even reach Proxima for four years.’

‘It’s a shame she’s so far away.’

She sensed he was probing for a reaction. She also sensed that he was only talking to fill up some blank time, before the Deputy Secretary General stepped up to that podium. ‘A shame,
yeah.’

‘Of course you must miss her. You’re twins. You were supposed to share your lives.’

She shrugged. ‘To Stef, in some sense I didn’t even exist before she stepped into the Hatch. By going off to Proxima the first chance she had, she was saying goodbye to me, loud and
clear.’

‘Tough break.’

‘You could say that. We talked about this before. I’m too old now; I have a leathery hide.’

Earthshine, sipping his own virtual coffee, said gravely, ‘I believe I can sympathise. I remember being human, but I am no longer human.
My
consciousness can easily be modified,
reworked, replayed, edited . . . As perhaps yours has, or your sister’s. It is your unique misfortune, Penelope Kalinski, yours and your sister’s, that your personal timeline has
somehow been tangled up in the mysteries of kernel physics.’

Penny thought that over. ‘Thanks. I think.’

King winked at her again. ‘You’re here, in this room, with me. You’re real enough. Forget the existential crap. You’ll be fine—’

And now there was movement on the screen, and they turned to watch. The Deputy Secretary General, slim, smart, very sombre, stepped up, holding a slate. She began to speak, and English, Spanish,
Russian and Chinese subtitles peppered the screen. But a headline strap at the bottom, scrolling by, was all Penny needed to know what had happened.

Earth was to be protected. That was the only agreed conclusion of talks which had once again broken down. Otherwise all bets were off. There was no declaration of hostilities, not yet,
but—

Earthshine stood up. He flickered, oddly, as if massive processing resources were being diverted. ‘The talks are finished. There will be war. It is obvious, a Cold War logic, like the
twentieth century. Each side now has an interest in striking first, before the other destroys its capability. Take me off Earth.’

Penny glanced at King, who was staring at the screen, ashen-faced; evidently this news was worse than he’d expected. He quickly pulled himself together, and looked up at Earthshine.
‘Very well. I have a ship. You can use it. But let my family stay here.’

Penny was astounded by the suddenness of these negotiations. ‘
Off Earth?
But . . .’ But if anybody understood the implications of what was happening, this shadow play of
delayed press conferences and ambiguous statements, it was these two. She thought it over, then stood up. ‘I’ll help you, Earthshine. I can continue to advise you. Take me with you, on
the ship.’

Earthshine nodded. ‘Done.’

‘And Jiang Youwei,’ she added hurriedly.

‘Agreed.’

I
t had taken the expedition two weeks to skirt the island continent.

Then they cut away from the coast, and headed once more over the ice-covered ocean, the vehicles rolling smoothly side by side. In this flat emptiness, again Yuri’s sense of time seemed to
dissolve. He dozed, watched the stars, and played chess with Liu. Whole days went by without him even leaving the rover cabin.

It was almost a surprise when the ColU called a warning that another landfall was imminent. After nearly a hundred days, more or less on schedule, they approached the rising ground of the frozen
rock-tide bulge that supported the antistellar point.

They proceeded with caution, as ever. But this time they wouldn’t stick to the coast; they were heading for the heart of this peculiar star-born continent. Soon the vehicles were
clambering up onto the rising flanks of an ice sheet, with the summits of worn mountains protruding, shadows in the starlight. The ColU led the way, nosing through passes, pushing ahead on
stretches of open country. The ColU said it was navigating using the stars, as well as its own internal dead-reckoning gyroscopic systems, feeling its way towards the precise antistellar point, the
summit of this ice cap.

Stef, meanwhile, became increasingly fascinated by the anomalous star-that-wasn’t-a-star that hung high in the sky above. Eventually, almost as they arrived at the substellar point, it
occurred to her to examine its light with a spectroscope.

She immediately called a halt.

They pulled on their cold-weather gear, clambered out onto the ice, and stood together, peering up at the star, almost directly overhead. Stef held up a mittened hand, holding
a small radio transmitter.

Yuri stood with her. ‘Tell me, then. What about your star?’

‘It’s not a star at all. I think I know what it is. All this way I watched it rise, like a naked-eye astronomer five hundred years ago. I was puzzled. It just didn’t fit . . .
Finally I checked it out spectroscopically.’ She pointed upwards. ‘That’s Proxima light.’

Yuri did a double-take. He looked up. ‘It can’t be. Oh. Yes, it can – reflected, right? Then it’s a mirror.’

‘Or a solar sail. Something like that. Yes.’

‘But it’s just hanging there. How come it’s not in orbit?’

‘I think it’s at an equilibrium point. The pressure of Proxima’s light, pushing it away, is balanced by the pull of gravity, drawing it in. I’m not sure it’s
stable, but with some conscious management—’

‘
Conscious?
You know what this is?’

‘I think so. Excuse me.’ She raised her radio. ‘Come in, Angelia. I think I have the right frequency . . .’

‘I am Angelia 310999,’ came a faint reply, a female voice, a kind of clipped accent very like Stef’s own. ‘Hello, Stephanie. It is good to see you again. I remember our
time on Mercury very well.’

Yuri and Lu just stared, at Stef, at the bauble hanging in the sky.

‘We’ve both come a long way from Mercury. Although nobody calls me Stephanie any more. In fact, they didn’t back when I last spoke to you, I’m Stef to my friends . . .
Can you see us?’

‘Oh, yes. Your vehicles are quite clearly visible; my optical systems continue to function well. Although I could not identify you, of course, until you spoke to me. How is your
father?’

‘Passed away, I’m afraid, Angelia. Long ago.’

‘Ah. He was a visionary, though morally flawed.’

‘Yes. Angelia, I can see that you succeeded in your mission.’

‘It was very difficult. Much was lost.’

‘Why didn’t you report to Earth? Why not contact the
Ad Astra
, when it arrived?’

‘
It
did not contact
me
.’

‘I doubt they even noticed some defunct lightsail space probe,’ Liu murmured.

‘Less of the “defunct”,’ Angelia snapped.

Liu, surprised, laughed.

‘Stef, humanity did nothing for me. I, and my equally sentient sisters, were thrown into the fire in the hope that a handful of us would succeed in a mission ordained by others.’

‘Hm,’ Yuri said. ‘Sounds familiar.’

‘Why should I obey the orders of those who intentionally harmed me and my sisters?’

Liu rolled his eyes at Yuri. ‘Another bit of too-smart AI. Why do these things never do what they are supposed to?’ Shaking his head he walked away, tentatively exploring, pushing
deeper into the dark, his flashlight casting a glow on the ice at his feet.

Stef said, ‘All right, Angelia. I guess I understand. My father had his problems, but he was still my father.
Our
father, I guess. And you were one sibling I never
resented.’

‘Stef? I don’t understand that last remark. I remember how you and your sister, Penelope—’

‘Never mind. Long story. We’ll talk about it some other time. Angelia, what are you
doing
up there?’

‘It is a good place for me to stay. Me and my surviving sisters. Obviously it is a point of stability. And we serve a purpose.’

‘A purpose?’

‘Lighting the way to the point very close to where you stand. The antistellar. The most significant point on the planet.’

Yuri looked up again. ‘It is?’

Stef said, ‘So we didn’t really need to navigate, did we? All we had to do was look for you. Follow the star. Just like Bethlehem.’

‘And of course I sought out the one who came before me . . .’

‘Who do you mean?’

Liu came running back, breathing hard. ‘You need to come. I found something. Get the rover.’

T
hey bundled back into the rover, and the ColU followed. They’d only travelled a short way when, picked out in the vehicles’ lights,
they all saw something ahead, on the ice, picked out by Liu’s ageing but still sharp eyes.

A flag, hanging limp on a pole. UN blue.

They pulled the vehicles up short, suited up, and climbed out onto the ice once more. The air was bitterly cold, and their breath misted around their heads. The three of them stood side by side,
illuminated by the lights of the rover and the ColU.

And before them, clearly visible in the glow of the lights, was the flag, and what looked like a tent, slumped. Beyond the tent the ice surface fell away, perhaps into some kind of crater. None
of them had an idea what any of this meant.

They walked forward, over hard, rough ice. The ColU followed, its lights dipped. The flag was fixed to a kind of improvised ski pole, stuck in the ice. They walked past it, staring.

At the tent, Yuri lifted a flap, stiff with ice. In the light of his hand torch he saw a body, inside the tent. He stepped back.

Wordlessly, Liu went inside to inspect the body.

Yuri and Stef walked around the rest of the site. Aside from the tent, there was a heap of scattered equipment on a frozen groundsheet, a pair of homemade-looking skis, a kind of improvised
ice-bike, a heap of stores – and a gadget about a metre tall with an inlet hopper, an outlet compartment that looked like a miniature intensive-care chamber, and finely inscribed instructions
on the casing.

‘What’s this?’ Yuri asked. ‘Some kind of iron cow?’

‘Not that,’ said the ColU.

Liu called them over.

Reluctantly they returned to the tent, where Liu stood over the body. It was a man. He lay wearing only an antique military uniform, no protective clothing. There was no sign of decay. But then,
Yuri realised, he must have frozen solid before the bacteria in his body could have begun to consume him – and on Per Ardua, there was nothing yet that could consume a human corpse. The very
processes of death were alien, on this alien world.