‘What do I do with it?’ Geoffrey asked, feeling awkward. He could speak and see freely: the breathing apparatus was still hinged away from his mouth and nose, and the goggles had yet to clamp down onto his eye sockets.
‘Step into the water. The harness will sense your intentions and operate accordingly.’ With this, Gilbert divested herself of the exo. She slipped out of it and slid into the water, sleek as an otter. Released from the exo she was effectively naked, but her form was so thoroughly alien that Geoffrey might as well have been watching a wildlife documentary.
He took one of the sloping ramps and walked into the blood-warm water. When he was up to his waist, the harness latched on to his legs and coaxed them gently together. Without any apparent conscious volition on his part, the harness then pushed him into a horizontal swimming posture. Before he had a chance to gag on the water the mask and goggles had covered his face. The view through the goggles was as bright and clear as day, lacking any optical distortion or cloudiness.
‘Follow me,’ Gilbert said, and he heard her clearly through the water. She flexed her body and torpedoed past him, executing an exuberant barrel-roll.
He kicked his legs and paddled his arms. Miraculously, he surged forwards, the harness flexing all the way along its spine, taking his legs with it. The feeble paddling of his arms was amplified a dozen- or hundredfold by the elegant wide-spread flippers, which extended a good two metres either side of him.
Gilbert was still ahead, swimming underwater at least as fast as someone might jog on dry land, but Geoffrey was only a body length or so behind her. For all the power she put into her swimming, it was evidently a very efficient process, judging by the lack of turbulence in her wake.
‘Not claustrophobic, are you?’ she asked.
‘If I was, now would be a bit late to find out.’
‘We’ll take the express tube. You’ll like this.’
Around the pool’s submerged walls were several tunnel mouths, each ringed by a hoop of glowing primary colour. ‘Red are the exit tubes, we don’t take those,’ Gilbert said. ‘Wouldn’t be able to swim against the up-current anyway, even with power-assist.’
She aimed for the tunnel mouth ringed in glowing purple, appearing to accelerate into the maw at the last moment. Geoffrey followed, muscularly signalling his intention to steer and feeling the harness respond almost instantly. Indeed, it appeared to be adapting to him as quickly as he was adapting to it. He was swimming underwater as effortlessly as a dolphin.
He grinned. It would be madness not to enjoy this.
He felt the surge as the tunnel’s current seized him, and then he was racing along it, glassy walls speeding by, Gilbert not far ahead. As the tube twisted and turned, the water inside it flowing up and down, he wondered what drove that flow: he couldn’t see any visible fans or pumps, unless they retracted out of the way as the swimmers passed. Perhaps it was peristalsis, a gentle but continuous impulsion, driven by the walls themselves.
He had no sooner formulated that idea than they were, startlingly, outside – crossing between one part of Tiamaat and another, with only the tube’s glass between them and the crush of the surrounding water. They were crossing through a forest of night-lit towers, turreted and flanged and cupolaed, submarine skyscrapers pushing up from black depths, garlanded with myriad coloured lights. The buildings were cross-linked and buttressed by huge windowed arches, many stories high, and the whole city-district, as far as he could see, lay entwined in a bird’s-nest tangle of water-filled tubes. He could, in fact, make out one or two tiny moving forms, far above and far below – swimmers carrying their own illumination, so that they became glowing corpuscles in some godlike arterial system. Elsewhere there were ocean-swimming aquatics, moving outside of the tubes, and all manner of submersible vehicles, ranging from person-sized miniature submarines to servicing craft at least as large as one of the cyberclippers he had seen from the air.
Geoffrey reeled. He knew about Tiamaat; he knew about the United Aquatic Nations and had some idea of what they were getting up to under the waves. But the scale of the thing was startling.
He realised that he’d been operating under a gross misapprehension. Living on dry land, it was easy to think that the aquatics constituted no more than a faltering experiment in undersea living, like an early moonbase.
But this was a kingdom. For a moment, dizzied, he began to wonder if it was his existence that was the failed experiment.
As quickly as it had been disclosed, the view of Tiamaat was snatched away and he was back inside, the tube hairpinning again, ducking and diving with joyous abandon through a series of vertical S-bends until it deposited the two of them in another swimming pool – or rather what he now appreciated to be a kind of interchange between the various tube systems, with its own colour-coded portals. It was a bigger junction, and they were not alone this time. Other aquatics loitered in the pool, not too close to the entrance/exit points with their strong currents. There were even some visitors or newcomers, wearing harnesses like his own. They were gathered into groups, talking and laughing.
Some were fully aqua-formed, like Gilbert, but there were others who still retained basic lubber anatomy, with a normal complement of limbs. Some of these borderline cases appeared happy with prolonged submersion, while others wore lightweight breathing devices of various kinds. From what Geoffrey had gathered, the process of full aqua-transformation wasn’t an overnight thing; there were many way stations along the route, and not everyone opted to proceed with further surgery once they’d received the basic modifications.
Gilbert swam to an orange portal, and then they were rushing down another tube – not as far, this time – until they came out into another junction, this one not much larger than the first. This pool had its share of portals, but there were also colour-coded exits that were not yet open to the water. Gilbert swam to one of these exits and pressed a webbed hand into the panel to its right; the circular door rolled aside, revealing an illuminated, water-filled corridor.
After a short distance they emerged into a pool that was scarcely larger than a private jacuzzi. It occupied a curving, green-walled room with windows set into one side. Geoffrey made to stand up, pushing his head into open air, the mask and goggles unclasping automatically with a soft pop of released suction. Water stampeded off him in a thousand beetle-sized droplets.
Through the windows in one half of the room he saw another aspect of Tiamaat’s abundant underwater sprawl: towers, a fungal growth of geodesic domes, glowing from within with floodlit greenery. Tiamaat went on for kilometres.
A kind of channel or ditch ran away from the jacuzzi, through an arch, into an adjoining room. Gilbert swam ahead, but with her face and upper body mostly out of the water. Geoffrey, now upright, shuffled behind. The harness retracted its flippers, tucking them away like folded angel’s wings. He’d only been aquatic for a few minutes, and already walking felt like an absurd evolutionary dead end.
The water-filled ditch led them into Truro’s presence.
‘So very glad you accepted my invitation,’ he said grandly. ‘You were, of course, never under any binding obligation to deal with us again.’
‘That’s not how it felt,’ Geoffrey said.
‘Well, let’s look on the positive side. You’re here now, and we have every likelihood of finding common ground.’
Truro had changed. He wasn’t the man in the sea-green suit any more.
Now he floated in a green-tiled, kidney-shaped pool, bubbling with scented froth. His head merged seamlessly with the smooth ovoid of his torso, all details of his underlying skeleton and musculature rendered cryptic beneath layers of insulating blubber. His grey skin, which was completely hairless, shone with waxy pearlescence. He had no external ears and scarcely any nose. His nostrils were two muscle-activated slits that opened and closed with each breath. He had large, almost round eyes, very dark and penetrating. They blinked a complicated double-membrane blink.
‘Why didn’t your
figment look like this?’
‘It would only have complicated the issue further, I think. Besides, when I manifest I tend to revert to my former anatomy. Call it a nostalgic attachment.’ Truro touched a web-fingered hand against the area where, prior to his surgery, his nose must have been. ‘Not that I have any regrets. But sometimes, you know, for old time’s sake.’
Consoles and data displays with chunky waterproof keypads bobbed in the water like brightly coloured bath toys. Geoffrey couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen actual, solid data-visualisation and interface systems outside of a museum. Books were more common than screens and keypads.
Truro barged the yoke of a keypad aside, clearing room in front of him. ‘Come in. Join me,’ he said, ushering them forward. ‘We’ve much to talk about.’
‘May I leave you now, sir?’ asked Gilbert.
‘Of course. Thank you, Mira.’
When they were alone, Geoffrey divested himself of the mobility harness, leaving it propped against a wall while he returned to the pool. He eased into the turbulent, fizzing waters, sitting cross-legged opposite the merman.
‘So what do you think of the old place?’ Truro asked, leaning back with his muscular arms resting along the pool’s tiled edge, webbed fingers trailing in the water.
‘The tiny part of it I’ve seen is impressive enough.’
‘It’s a wonderful life, down here. We’re aquatic apes, at heart. Returning to the seas is only the expression of something deep within us. A calling, if you will. And each year, more people respond to that call.’
‘I thought you Pans wanted a migration outwards, not back into the oceans.’
‘Many paths to the one goal. We can return to the seas and take the seas with us to the stars.’ Truro smiled quickly, as if his own words had betrayed him. ‘Sometimes rhetoric gets the better of me. Please don’t take anything I say too seriously. That wouldn’t do at all.’
‘I’m happy on dry land, thanks.’ Geoffrey paused, sensing that the quickest way to get this over and done with was to go straight to the point. ‘Can we talk about the phyletic dwarves, since that’s obviously why I’m here?’
Truro’s unusual countenance evinced pain at this abrupt curtailment of preliminaries. ‘That’s part of it, certainly. Matter of fact, I’ve Chama on hold right now. Said I’d let him know when you got in.’
‘I didn’t think Chama was meant to have any contact with the world beyond the Descrutinised Zone.’
‘And what are private quangle paths for, if not for circumventing such tedious legal constraints?’ Truro reached for the floating keypad and depressed one of the spongy controls. ‘Chama, you can manifest now. Geoffrey Akinya is here.’ Turning to Geoffrey he added: ‘I’m giving you local aug access. Excuse me while I make my own arrangements.’
The merman fumbled in the water for a pair of lurid yellow goggles, which he slipped over his dark, seal-like eyes with elastic straps.
‘You don’t have retinal implants,’ Geoffrey said, startled.
‘Removed at the time of my aqua-forming. Does that appal you?’ Truro looked to his left, towards an area of tiled flooring where Chama’s figment was now standing. ‘Ah,’ he said, beaming magnanimously. ‘Good to see you.’
Chama looked at Geoffrey. ‘How are the elephants?’
‘They’re doing fine. They barely noticed I was gone.’
Time lag slowed Chama’s response. ‘Gleb and I’ve had a lot of time to talk things over, and we’re even more convinced that this is the way forward.’
‘Chama’s already filled me in on the background,’ said Truro. ‘From our standpoint, there are no insurmountable technical challenges. We would need to extend neural intervention to all the elephants in your study group, with the exception of perhaps the very youngest calves, and limit the interaction with non-augmented herd members wherever possible. But from what I gather, as things stand we can proceed immediately, on a trial basis.’
‘Quangle paths are allocated?’ Chama asked, as if they were merely fussing over details.
‘Already in place,’ the merman said. ‘The anticipated load isn’t exorbitant, and we should be able to manage things without drawing undue attention.’
‘There’s a lot more to it than that,’ Geoffrey said, alarmed by how readily his consent was being assumed. ‘The ethical considerations, for a start.’
The merman scratched under one of his blubbery, hairless armpits. ‘My dear fellow, there could hardly be anything more ethical than actively furthering the welfare of a species, surely.’
Geoffrey smiled, suddenly grasping his place in things. ‘This is how you operate, isn’t it? Always going a bit too far, always counting on people falling for your arguments that what’s done is done, that the best thing they can do is cooperate.’
‘Look at it this way,’ Chama said. ‘When it comes to long-term funding, who’d you rather do business with – us or your family? We’re in it for the seriously long game. And we’ve every incentive to protect you and the Amboseli herds from outside interference.’
‘You’re good at this,’ Geoffrey said.
‘We have to be,’ Truro said. ‘It’s how things get done.’
‘We can begin almost immediately,’ Chama said briskly, ‘starting with some simple test figments: dropping ghost images of other elephants into their visual fields, distant enough that olfactory and auditory hallucinations won’t be required. We’ll run exactly the same assessment protocols on the Lunar dwarves.’
‘You just have to give us the ching codes,’ Truro said. ‘Then we can really start to make things happen.’
‘Collaborate with us,’ Chama said pleadingly. ‘Do something bigger than your family. Something that’ll still have meaning centuries from now.’
‘Join the Pans,’ Geoffrey said, his own voice sounding hollow and drained of fight.
‘Become a fellow traveller, that’s all. No one’s asking you to swallow the ideology in its entirety.’ Truro was speaking now. ‘Still, I won’t insult you by reminding you that there’s a debt to be paid, for what Chama did for you on the Moon. It was all to do with your grandmother, wasn’t it?’
Geoffrey saw no purpose in lies or evasion. ‘I’m sure Chama’s told you enough.’
‘The basics. Just when we thought we had Eunice Akinya pinned down . . . she surprises us all. She was close to us once, did you know?’
‘I’ve heard about her Pan involvement.’
‘That business on Mercury . . . such a tragedy it ended the way it did. There’s so much we could have done together, but Eunice had to go and betray Lin.’
Geoffrey saw his moment. ‘Did you know Lin Wei? My sister was hoping to find out what really went on there.’
‘No, I never had the pleasure of meeting the first Prime Pan . . . Lin Wei drowned, of course. They told you that.’
‘Yes,’ Geoffrey said.
‘Arethusa knew her very well indeed. When the current Prime Pan learned of your . . . interest, you became of . . . shall we say reciprocal interest to Arethusa.’ Truro appeared to be having difficulty finding the appropriate words. ‘No disrespect to Chama or the elephants, but that’s really why you’re here. Arethusa demands an audience.’
‘Since I’ve already been dragged here,’ Geoffrey said, ‘I may as well speak to anyone who wants a conversation. Will the Prime Pan be coming here?’
Truro’s minimalist features nonetheless evinced apology. ‘The mountain must go to Mohammed, I’m afraid. Are you up for a bit more swimming?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
According to the aug they were somewhere over the equatorial highlands of Syrtis Major, on the other side of Mars from Pavonis Mons.
They had gone down in the cheapest kind of cut-price shuttle. Sunday had no regrets about taking the fast way: she was too excited for that. Jitendra shared her anticipation, his grin only intensifying as re-entry commenced. They’d gone from Stickney’s centrifugal gravity to the free fall of the shuttle, and now w
eight was returning as the shuttle hit atmosphere and enveloped itself in a blistering cocoon of neon-pink plasma. As the deceleration peaked, the seats adjusted to provide fullbody support. It was more gravity than Sunday had experienced in years. She loved watching the plasma snap and ripple around the hull, like a flag in a stiff breeze.
And then it eased, and they were flying as much as falling. The shuttle’s hull was reshaping itself all the while, optimising to the changing conditions, resisting gravity to the last instant. Gullies and craters slid underneath, sharp-shadowed, Sunday certain that she could stretch out her hand and feel the leathery texture of the surface, scraping beneath her palm like the cover of an old book. So far, at least, there was nothing down there to suggest that they were anything other than the very first people to reach this world. No settlements, no roads, not even the glint of some long-abandoned mechanical envoy, dust-bound for centuries. It was staggering, all that emptiness.
Jitendra saw something, pointing excitedly at a dark worming trail, the furiously gyring knot at its head etching a meandering track across the surface. ‘It’s a vehicle, I think. A Mars rover, or maybe some kind of low-altitude aircraft.’
Sunday had already voked the mag to maximum. ‘Kicking up a lot of dust. Moving pretty quickly, too.’
‘It’s a dust-devil,’ Eunice said, cutting into Sunday’s thoughts. ‘Just a whirlwind.’
She turned to Jitendra, and repeated Eunice’s words.
‘Oh,’ he said, on a falling note.
‘Raised on the Moon,’ Eunice said disapprovingly. ‘Doesn’t have the first foggiest notion of terrestrial planet weather systems.’
Sunday voked, ‘Didn’t think you’d show up until we were down, Eunice.’