Nights Dawn (№1) - Reality Dysfunction — Emergence

He saw the captain’s son, Karl, making his way down the side of the superstructure. The boy was wearing a pair of white canvas shorts, and rubber-soled plimsolls. Swithland was riding some choppy water, but Karl’s balance was uncanny, he could anticipate the slightest degree of pitch.

“There you are,” he said to Marie. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, I thought you’d be at the service the priest’s giving.”

“I’m not helping to bless this trip,” she said smartly.

Karl grinned broadly, his teeth showing a gleam in the deepening twilight. He was a head shorter than Jackson, which put him a few centimetres below Marie’s height, and his torso was muscled like a medical text illustration. His family must have had plenty of geneering, he was too perfect. Jackson watched in growing bewilderment as he held his hand out expectantly to the girl.

“Are you ready to go?” Karl asked. “My cabin’s up forward, just below the bridge.”

Marie accepted the boy’s hand. “Sure.”

Jackson was given a lurid wink from Karl as he led Marie down the deck. They disappeared into the superstructure, and Jackson was sure he heard Marie giggle. He couldn’t believe it. She preferred Karl? The boy was five years younger than him! His fists clenched in anger. It was being an Ivet, he knew it was. The little bitch!

Karl’s cabin was a compact compartment overlooking the prow, definitely a teenager’s room. A couple of processor blocks lay on the desk, along with some micro-tool units and a half-dismantled electronics stack from one of the bridge systems. There were holograms on the wall showing starfields and planets; clothes, shoes, and towels were scattered about on the deck planks. It had about ten times as much space as the cabin the Skibbows and Kavas were forced to share.

The door shut behind Marie, muting the sound of the congregation gathered on the aft deck. Karl immediately kicked off his plimsolls, and unlatched a broad bunk which had been folded flat against the wall.

He’s only fifteen years old, Marie thought, but he has got a tremendous body, and that smile . . . God, I shouldn’t have allowed him to smooth talk me in here, never mind be thinking of bedding him. Which only made her feel even randier.

The congregation started to sing a hymn, their voices bringing a rich enthusiasm to the slow melody. She thought of her father out there, his eager-to-make-amends expression this morning, telling her how the river trip would show her the wholesome satisfaction to be earned from the quieter side of life and honest labours. So please, darling, try to understand Lalonde is our future now, and a fine future at that.

Marie unbuttoned her shirt under Karl’s triumphant gaze, then started on her shorts.

The settlements along the Juliffe changed subtly after the third day. The Swithland passed the end of the Hultain Marsh, and villages began to appear on the distant northern bank. They lacked the trimness of the earlier buildings, there were fewer animals and cultivated fields; less jungle had been cleared, and the trees standing so close to the cabins looked far more imposing.

The river branched, but the Swithland sailed on purposefully down the main channel. The water traffic began to fall off. These villages were still hard at work to tame the land, they couldn’t afford the time it took to make sailing boats. Big barges were chugging down the river, loaded mainly with mayope timber cut by new settlements to sell to the shipyards in the city. But by the end of the first week even the barges were left behind. It simply wasn’t economical to carry timber to the capital over such a distance.

There were tributary forks every hour now. The Juliffe was narrower, down to a couple of kilometres, its fast waters almost clear. Sometimes they would sail for five or six hours without seeing a village.

Horst felt the mood on board turning, and prayed that the despondency would end once they made landfall. The devil makes work for idle hands, and it had never been truer than out here. Once they were busy building their village and preparing the land Group Seven would have no time for brooding. But the second week seemed to last for ever, and the daily rains had returned with a vengeance. People were muttering about why they had to travel quite this far from the city for their allocated land.

The jungle had become an oppressive presence on either side, hemming them in, trees and undergrowth packed so tightly that the riverbanks created a solid barricade of leaves extending right down to the water. Foltwine, a tenacious freshwater aquatic plant, was a progressive nuisance. Its long, brown ribbonlike fronds grew just below the surface right across the width of the river. Rosemary avoided the larger clumps with ease, but strands would inevitably wrap themselves around the paddles. The Swithland made frequent stops while Karl and his younger sister clambered over them, cutting the tough slippery fronds free with the radiant yellow blades of fission knives.

Thirteen days after they departed from Durringham they had left the Juliffe itself behind and started to sail along the Quallheim tributary. It was three hundred metres wide, fast flowing, with vine-swamped trees thirty metres high forming a stockade on both banks. Away to the south, the colonists could just make out the purple and grey peaks of a distant mountain range. They stared in wonder at the snowcaps shining brightly in the sun; ice seemed to belong to an alien planet, not native to Lalonde.

In the early morning of the fourteenth day after leaving Durringham, a village crept into view as they edged their way up the river, the first they had seen for thirty-six hours. It was set in a semicircular clearing, a bite into the jungle nearly a kilometre deep. Felled trees lay everywhere. Thin towers of smoke rose from a few fire pits. The shacks were crude parodies of the cottages belonging to villages downriver; lashed-up frames with walls and roofs made from panels of woven palm fronds. There was a single jetty that looked terribly unsafe, with three hollowed-out log canoes tied up to it. A small stream trickling through the middle of the clearing into the river was an open sewer. Goats were tied to stakes, foraging in the short grass. Emaciated chickens scratched around in the mud and sawdust. The inhabitants stood about listlessly and watched the Swithland go past with numb, hooded eyes. Most of them were wearing shorts and boots, their skin a deep brown, whether from the sun or dirt it was hard to say. Even the apparently eternal chittering of the jungle creatures was hushed.

“Welcome to the town of Schuster,” Rosemary said with some irony. She was standing on the bridge, one eye permanently on the forward-sweep mass-detector, watching out for foltwine and submerged snags.

Group Seven’s council and Powel Manani were ranged around the bridge behind her, grateful to be in the shade.

“This is it?” Rai Molvi asked, aghast.

“The county capital, yeah,” Powel said. “They’ve been going for about a year now.”

“Don’t worry,” Rosemary said. “The land you’ve been allocated is another twelve kilometres upriver. You won’t have to have much contact with them. No bad thing, too, if you ask me. I’ve seen communities like this before, they infect their neighbours. Better you have a fresh start.”

Rai Molvi nodded briefly, not trusting himself to speak. The three rivercraft sailed on slowly, leaving behind the shanty town and its torpid inhabitants. The colonists gathered on Swithland ’s aft deck watched them disappear as the boat rounded a bend in the river, silent and contemplative.

Horst made the sign of the cross, muttering an invocation. Perhaps a requiem would be more appropriate, he thought.

Jay Hilton turned to her mother. “Will we have to live like that, Mummy?”

“No,” she said firmly. “Never.”

Two hours later, with the river down to a hundred and fifty metre width, Rosemary watched the digits on the inertial-guidance block flick round to match the coordinates the Land Allocation Office had given her. Karl stood on the prow as the Swithland crept along at a walking pace, his keen eyes searching the impenetrable green barrier of vegetation along the southern bank. The jungle was steaming softly from the rain of an hour earlier, white tendrils wafting out of the treetops, then spiralling away into the burning azure sky. Small, colourful birds darted about between the branches, shrieking brazenly.

Karl suddenly jumped up and waved to his mother, pointing at the bank. Rosemary saw the tarnished silver pillar with its hexagonal sign on top. It was stuck in the soil five metres above the water. Vines with big purple flowers had already climbed halfway up it.

She gave the horn a triumphant hoot. “End of the line,” she sang out. “This is Aberdale. Last stop.”

“All right,” Powel said, holding up his hands for silence. He was standing on a barrel to address the assembled colonists on the foredeck. “You’ve seen what can be done with a little bit of determination and hard work, and you’ve also seen how easy it is to fail. Which road you go down is entirely up to you. I’m here to help you for eighteen months, which is the period your future will be settled in. That’s the make or break time. Now, tell me, are you going to make a go of it?”

He received a throaty cheer, and smiled round. “Fine. Our first job is going to be building a jetty so that Captain Lambourne and the other two river-boats can dock. That way we can unload your gear properly, without getting it wet. Now a jetty is an important part of any village on this river. It tells a visitor straight away what sort of community you want to carve out for yourselves. You’ll notice our good captain wasn’t too eager to stop at Schuster. Not surprising, is it? A good jetty is one that the boats are always going to stop at, even out here. It’s a statement that you want to take part in what the planet has to offer. It says you want to trade and grow rich. It says that there are opportunities here for clever captains. It makes you a part of civilization. So I think it would be a good idea if we start off as we mean to go on, and build ourselves a solid decent jetty that’s going to last out your grandchildren. That’s what I think. Am I right?”

The chorus of “Yes!” was deafening.

He clapped his hands together, and hopped down off the barrel. “Quinn?” He beckoned to the lad, who was in the group of quiet Ivets standing in the shade of the superstructure.

Quinn trotted forward. “Yes, sir?”

The respectful tone didn’t fool Powel for a second. “The captain is holding station against the current for now. But it’s costing her power, so we have to secure the Swithland if we want her to stay for any length of time. I want you to ferry a cable out to the shore, and tie it onto a tree large enough to take the strain. Think you can manage that?”

Quinn looked from Powel to the mass of dark green vegetation on the bank then back to Powel. “How do I get over there?”

“Swim, boy! And don’t try telling me you can’t. It’s only thirty-five metres.”

Karl came over, uncoiling a rope. “Once you’ve secured it, we’ll haul the Swithland into the shallows, and rig a proper mooring,” the boy said. “Everyone else can wade ashore from there.”

“Great,” Quinn said sourly. He took his shoes off, then started to shrug out of his jump suit. Vorix nosed around the two shoes, sniffing eagerly.

Quinn left his shorts on, and sat on the decking to put his shoes back on. “Can Vorix come with me, please?” he asked.

The dog looked round, long tongue hanging out of the side of its big jaw.

“What the hell do you want him with you for?” Powel asked.

Quinn gestured to the jungle with its barrage of animal sounds. “To take care of any wild sayce.”

“Get in the water, Quinn, and stop whingeing. There aren’t any wild sayce around here.” Powel watched as the lad eased himself over the side of the deck and into the river. Jackson Gael lay flat on the deck, and handed the rope down.

Quinn started swimming for the shore with a powerful sidestroke, dragging the rope behind him.

“The kroclions ate all the sayce,” Powel yelled after him; then, laughing heartily, went aft to get the jetty-building team organized.

Chapter 08

Tranquillity: a polyp cylinder with hemispherical endcaps, its shell the colour of fired unglazed clay, sixty-five kilometres long, seventeen kilometres in diameter, the largest of all bitek habitats ever to be germinated within the Confederation. It was drab and uninviting in appearance, and difficult to see from a distance; what little sunlight eventually reached it from the F3 primary one-point-seven billion kilometres away seemed to be repulsed, preferring to flow around the curving shell rather than strike the surface. It was the only human settlement in the star system, orbiting seven thousand kilometres above the Ruin Ring. The shattered remnants of those very remote xenoc cousins were its sole companions. A permanent reminder that for all its size and power, it was terribly mortal. Lonely, isolated, and politically impotent, there should be few people who would choose to live in such a place.

And yet . . .

Starships and scavenger vessels on an approach trajectory could discern a stippled haze of light hovering around the endcap orientated to galactic north. A cluster of industrial stations floated in attendance. Owned by some of the largest astroengineering companies in the Confederation, they were permanently busy serving the constant stream of starships arriving and departing. Cargo tugs, fuel tankers, personnel carriers, and multipurpose service vehicles shuttled around them, their reaction drives pulsing out a smog of hot blue ions.

A three-kilometre spindle connected Tranquillity’s northern endcap to a non-rotating spaceport: a disc of metal girders, four and a half kilometres in diameter, with a confusing jumble of support facilities, tanks, and docking bays arrayed across its surface, resembling a gigantic metal cobweb that had snagged a swarm of fantastic cybernetic insects. It was as busy as any Edenist habitat, with Adamist starships loading and unloading their cargoes, taking on fuel, embarking passengers.

Behind the tarnished silver-white disc, three circular ledges stood out proud from the endcap: havens for the bitek starships which came and went with quick, graceful agility. Their geometrical diversity fascinated the entire spaceport, and most of the habitat’s population; observation lounges overlooking the ledges were popular among the young and not-so-young. Mirchusko was where the blackhawks mated and died and gestated. Tranquillity offered itself as one of their few legitimate home bases. Their eggs could be bought here, changing hands for upwards of twenty million fuseodollars and absolutely no questions.

Around the rim of the endcap hundreds of organic conductor cables stretched out into space; subject to constant dust abrasion and particle impact, they were extruded on a permanent basis by specialist glands to compensate for the near-daily breakages. The habitat’s rotation kept the cables perfectly straight, radiating away from the shell like the leaden-grey spokes of some cosmic bicycle wheel. They sliced through the flux lines of Mirchusko’s prodigious magnetosphere, generating a gigantic electrical current which powered the biological processes of Tranquillity’s mitosis layer as well as the axial light-tube and the domestic demands of its inhabitants. Tranquillity ingested thousands of tonnes of asteroidal minerals each year to regenerate its own polyp structure and invigorate the biosphere, but chemical reactions alone could never produce a fraction of the energy it needed to nurture its human occupants.

Beyond the endcap and the induction cables, exactly halfway down the cylinder, there was a city, home to over three million people: a band of starscrapers wrapped around the median equator, five-hundred-metre-long towers projecting out of the shell, studded with long, curving transparencies that radiated warm yellow light out into space. The view from the luxurious apartments inside was breathtaking; stars alternated with the storm-wracked gas giant and its little empire of rings and moons, eternal yet ever-changing as the cylinder rotated to provide an Earth-standard gravity at the base of the towers. Here, Adamists were granted the sight which was every Edenist’s birthright.

Small wonder, then, that Tranquillity, with its liberal banking laws, low income tax, the availability of blackhawks to charter, and an impartial habitat-personality which policed the interior to ensure a crime-free environment (essential for the peace of mind of the millionaires and billionaires who resided within), had prospered, becoming one of the Confederation’s premier independent trading and finance centres.

But it hadn’t been designed as a tax haven, not at first; that came later, born out of desperate necessity. Tranquillity was germinated in 2428, on the order of the then Crown Prince of Kulu, Michael Saldana, as a modified version of an Edenist habitat, with a number of unique attributes the Prince himself requested. He intended it to act as a base from which the cream of Kulu’s xenoc specialists could study the Laymil, and determine what fate had befallen them. It was an action which brought down the considerable wrath of his entire family.

Kulu was a Christian-ethnic culture, and very devout. The King of Kulu was the principal guardian of that faith throughout the kingdom; and because of bitek’s synonymous association with Edenists, Adamists (especially good Christian ones) had virtually abandoned that particular branch of technology. Possibly Prince Michael could have got away with bringing Tranquillity into existence; a self-sustaining bitek habitat was a logical solution for an isolated academic research project, and astute propaganda could have smoothed over the scandal. Royalty is no stranger to controversy, if anything it adds to its mystique, especially when relatively harmless.

But the whitewash option never arose; having germinated the habitat, Prince Michael went and compounded his original “crime” (in the eyes of the Church, and more importantly the Privy Council) by having neuron symbionts implanted enabling him to establish an affinity bond with the young Tranquillity.

His final act of defiance, condemned as heretical by Kulu’s conclave of bishops, came in 2432, the year his father, King James, died. Michael had a modified affinity gene spliced into his first son, Maurice, so that he too might commune with the kingdom’s newest, and most unusual, subject.

Both were excommunicated (Maurice was a three-month-old embryo residing in an exowomb at the time). Michael abdicated before his coronation in favour of his brother, Prince Lukas. And father and son were unceremoniously exiled to Tranquillity, which was granted to them in perpetuity as a duchy.

One of the most ambitious xenoc research projects ever mounted, the unravelling of an entire species from its chromosomes to whatever pinnacles of culture it achieved, virtually collapsed overnight as its royal treasury funds were withdrawn and staff recalled.

And as for Michael: from being the rightful monarch of the seven wealthiest star systems in the Confederation, he became the de facto owner of a half-grown bitek habitat. From commanding a navy of seven hundred warships, the third most powerful military force in existence, he had at his disposal five ex-navy transports, all over twenty-five years old. From having the absolute power of life and death over a population of one and three-quarter billion loyal human subjects, he became an administrator of seventeen thousand abandoned, shit-listed technicians and their families, resentful at their circumstances. From being First Lord of the Treasury dealing in trillion-pound budgets, he was left to write a tax-haven constitution in the hope of attracting the idle rich so he could live off their surplus.

For time evermore, Michael Saldana was known as the Lord of Ruin.

“I am bid three hundred thousand fuseodollars for this excellent plant. Really, ladies and gentlemen, this is a remarkable specimen. There are over five intact leaves, and it is of a type never seen before, completely unclassified.” The plant sat in a glass vacuum bubble on the auctioneer’s table: a dusty grey stalk, sprouting five long drooping fern-like leaves with frayed edges. The audience gazed at it in unappreciative silence. “Come along now, that protuberance at the top may well be a flower bud. Its cloning will be such a simple matter, and the genome patent will remain exclusively in your hands, an incalculable font of wealth.”

Someone datavised another ten thousand fuseodollars.

Joshua Calvert didn’t try to see who. This crowd were experts, facial expressions like poker players running downer programs. And they were all here today, packing the room, there wasn’t a spare chair to be had. People stood four deep around the walls, spilling down the aisles; the casuals, billionaires looking for a spark of excitement, the serious collectors, consortium bidders, even some industrial company reps hoping for technological templates.

Here because of me.

Barrington Grier’s outfit wasn’t the largest auction house in Tranquillity, and it dealt in art as much as Laymil artefacts, but it was a tight, polished operation. And Barrington Grier had treated a nineteen-year-old Joshua Calvert who had just returned from his first scavenging flight as an equal, as a professional. With respect. He had used the house ever since.

The bidding room was on the fiftieth floor of the StMary’s starscraper, its polyp walls overlaid by dark oak panelling, with velvet burgundy curtains on either side of the entrance arches and thick royal-blue carpets. Elaborate crystal lights cast a bright glow on the proceedings. Joshua could almost imagine himself in some Victorian London establishment. Barrington Grier had told him once that was the effect he wanted, quiet and dignified, fostering an atmosphere of confidence. The broad window behind the auctioneer spoilt the period effect somewhat; stars spun lazily outside, while Falsia, Mirchusko’s sixth moon, slowly traversed the panorama, a sliver of aquamarine.

“Three hundred and fifty thousand, once.”

Falsia was eclipsed by the auctioneer’s chest.

“Three hundred and fifty thousand, twice.”

The antique wooden gavel was raised. Falsia reappeared, peeping out over the man’s shoulder.

“Final time.”

There was a smack as the gavel came down. “Sold to Ms Melissa Strandberg.”

The room buzzed with voices as the glass bubble was carried away, excitement and nervousness throttling the air. In his second-row seat, with his nerves alight, Joshua felt it build around him, and shifted round uncomfortably, careful not to knock his legs against those of his neighbours. His feet were still painful if he applied pressure too quickly. Medical nanonic packages had swallowed both legs up to his knees, looking like strange green-leather boots, five sizes too large. The packages had a spongy texture, and he felt as though he was bouncing as he walked.

Three auctioneer’s assistants carried a new bubble over to the table, it was a metre and a half high, with a dull gold crown of thermo-dump fins on top, keeping the internal temperature below freezing. A faint patina of condensation misted the glass. The voices in the room chopped off dead.

Joshua caught sight of Barrington Grier standing at the side of the stage, a middle-aged man with chubby red cheeks and a ginger moustache. He wore a sober navy-blue suit with baggy trousers and neck-sealed jacket with flared arms, the faintest of orange lines glowing on the satin material in a spiral pattern. He caught Joshua’s eye, and gave him a wink.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the final item of the day, lot 127. I think I can safely say that it is unique in my experience; a module stack of Laymil circuitry which has been preserved in ice since the cataclysm. We have identified both processor chips, and a considerable number of solid-state crystal memories inside. All of them in pristine condition. In this one cylinder there are more than five times the number of crystals we have recovered since the discovery of the Ruin Ring itself. I will leave it to you to imagine the sheer wealth of information stored within. This is undoubtedly the greatest find since the first intact Laymil body, over a century ago. And it is my great privilege to open the bidding at the reserve price of two million Edenist fuseodollars.”

Joshua had been bracing himself, but there wasn’t even a murmur of protest from the crowd.

The bids came in fast and furious, rising in units of fifty thousand fuseodollars. The background level of conversation crept up again. Heads were swivelling around, bidders trying to make eye contact with their opponents, gauge the level of determination.

Joshua gritted his teeth together as the bids rose through four million. Come on, keep going. Four million three hundred thousand. The answer could be stored in there, why the Laymil did it. Four and a half. You’ll solve the biggest problem facing science since we cracked the lightspeed barrier. Four million eight hundred thousand. You’ll be famous, they’ll name the discovery after you, not me. Come on, you bastards. Bid!

“Five million,” the auctioneer announced calmly.

Joshua sank back into the chair, a little whimper of relief leaking from his throat. Looking down he saw his fists were clenched, palms sweating.

I’ve done it. I can start repairing Lady Mac , get a crew together. The replacement patterning nodes will have to come from the Sol system. Say a month if I charter a blackhawk to collect them. She could be spaceworthy within ten weeks. Jesus!

He brought his attention back to the auctioneer just as the bidding went through six million. For a second he thought he’d misheard, but no, there was Barrington Grier grinning at him as if he was running wacko stimulant programs through his neural nanonics.

Seven million.

Joshua listened in a waking trance. He could afford more than a simple node replacement and repair job now. Lady Mac could have a complete refit, the best systems, no expense spared, new fusion generators, maybe a new spaceplane, no, better than that, an ion-field flyer from Kulu or New California. Yes!

“Seven million, four hundred and fifty thousand for the first time.” The auctioneer looked round expectantly, gavel engulfed by his meaty fist.

Rich. I’m fucking rich!

“Twice.”

Joshua closed his eyes.

“For the last time, seven million, four hundred and fifty thousand. Anybody?”

The smack the gavel made was as loud as the big bang. The start of a whole new existence for Joshua Calvert. Independent starship owner captain.

A deep chime sounded. Joshua’s eyes snapped open. Everyone had gone silent, staring at the small omnidirectional AV projector on the desk in front of the auctioneer, a slim crystal pillar one metre high. Curlicues of abstract colour swam below the surface. If anything, Barrington Grier’s grin had become even wider.

“Tranquillity reserves the right of last bid on lot 127.” A mellow male voice sounded throughout the auction room.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake—” An angry voice to Joshua’s left. The winning bidder? He hadn’t caught the name.

The auction room descended into a bedlam of shouting.

Barrington Grier was giving him a manic thumbs-up. The three assistants started to carry the bubble and its precious—seven and a half million!—contents out into the wings.

Joshua waited as the room cleared; a noisy crush of people jostling and gossiping, Tranquillity’s right to reserve the last bid their only topic for discussion.

He didn’t care, last bid meant the agreed price plus an extra five per cent. The pillar of electronics would go to the Laymil research team now, analysed by the most experienced xenoc experts in the Confederation. He felt quite good about that, virtuous, maybe it was right they should have it.

Michael Saldana had reassembled as much of the team as he could after those first few traumatic years of exile, building it up in tandem with Tranquillity’s new economy and rapidly increasing financial strength. There were currently around seven thousand specialists working on the problem, including several xenoc members of the Confederation, providing a welcome alternative viewpoint when it came to interpreting the more baroque artefacts.

Michael had died in 2513, and Maurice had assumed the title of Lord of Ruin with pride, continuing his father’s labours. As far as he was concerned, uncovering the reason behind the Laymil cataclysm was Tranquillity’s sole reason for existence. And he pursued it vigorously until his own death nine years ago in 2601.

Since then, the project had gone on apparently unabated. Tranquillity said Maurice’s heir, the third Lord of Ruin, was running things as before, but chose not to seek a high public profile. There had been a flurry of rumours at the time, saying that the habitat personality had taken over completely, that the Kulu Kingdom was trying to reclaim the habitat, that the Edenists were going to incorporate it into their culture (earlier rumour said Michael stole the habitat seed from Edenists), throwing out the Adamists. They had all come to nothing. Right from the start the habitat personality had acted as both the civil service and police force, using its servitors to preserve order, so nothing changed, taxes were still two per cent, the blackhawks continued their mating flights, commercial enterprise was encouraged, creative finance tolerated. As long as the status quo was maintained, who cared exactly which kind of neurones were running the show, human or bitek?