Galaxias, page 21
‘We heard.’
‘The original idea for today, 1957 Day, came from the Russians – did you know that? – who pointed out that this year is the hundredth anniversary of Sputnik 1, the first space probe to reach Earth orbit. An anniversary of us, humanity, doing something magnificent. Even if it was all about the Cold War, back then. There’s a display somewhere . . . Let’s all big up Russia for a day!’
Mel said, ‘I suppose you could see it as another act of defiance against Galaxias. We did that.’
‘Maybe. But then other people starting digging up other anniversaries to tack on. Births of famous people. Writers and such. I can see why.’
Tash nodded. ‘In the middle of a bad time, look back to the good.’
‘Well, it felt like the right thing, to me. To celebrate all we have done. How far we have come. Whatever that damn Galaxias does to us, we mustn’t forget. Not ever.’
Tash thought that sounded like the authentic Zhi. Not nostalgic. Angry.
‘Anyhow,’ he said now, ‘one of today’s hundredth anniversaries is the signing of the treaty that established the European Union. Or its precursor organisation, not the one that was re-established a few years back – whatever. It was a big deal in terms of international cooperation, in its time. And their anthem was the Ode to Joy. Beethoven’s Ninth. So, right now, people are voting on their phones for preferences for music to be played later. Big scale stuff. First option: either the Ode to Joy, the famous 2036 all-mech performance, or Elvis doing “Always On My Mind”.’
Mel hummed a phrase. ‘I think I know that one.’
Zhi said, ‘Well, cast your vote. It’s just over the hill, by the way.’
‘What is?’ Tash asked.
‘The slave market.’
‘You’ve been posting about that,’ Tash said. ‘How you wanted to see that particularly . . . Your public posts on the Jones sites, I mean. I have been following you, Zhi. So, how is Pioneer?’
‘Well enough. Test flight in September, they are saying now. October maybe.’
‘That soon?’
‘Progress is smooth. I mean, it’s mostly standard components, the Jones Shelters, the secondary drive systems. It’s just the dark energy propulsion system that’s novel. But we’re confident the theory will work out.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Mel murmured. ‘Since your ass will be on the line.’
Zhi shrugged. ‘If I’m fit and ready. Of course the mission has to be crewed, whether by me or not. Humans have to go. It’s a – gesture. For our kids. Our generation’s, anyhow. What kind of world we want them to grow up in. What kind of regime. You’ll know more about this than I do, Tash – our generation isn’t having a lot of kids. Not even at the replacement level, globally. Even before the Blink. Look at the three of us.
‘You can see why. Our parents grew up somewhere around peak population, and we were born into a world where we felt like we were in the way, just another burden on a creaking planet. And I have a feeling we passed that on to the next generation.’ He looked away. ‘Jim and I were planning to do something, sometime in the future. Maybe surrogacy, maybe an adoption. We wanted to be parents, I think.’
Mel and Tash exchanged a glance. Without a word, they grasped Zhi’s hands, one on each side.
And they walked on until they crested the hill.
Where they paused, panting.
They were overlooking another broad hollow in the Appalachian landscape. A shallow lake. A tent city on the far shore, festival goers camping out.
And in the foreground, before the lake, was a strange tableau: a kind of wooden stage on which stood rows of human beings, old, young, many ethnicities. All naked, shackles around their ankles.
People were walking past this, staring, smiling uneasily, looking away. The ‘actors’ kept their eyes downcast, Tash saw. Camera drones hovered overhead, but nobody was taking pictures.
‘My God,’ Mel said.
Zhi nodded. ‘The one thing I really wanted to see, today. This is the two hundredth anniversary of the largest slave auction ever held in US history. They called it “The Weeping Time”. These people will stand here all day, without food or drink. Whatever the weather. All day.’
‘Quietly magnificent,’ Tash said, moved.
Mel grunted. ‘I wonder if Galaxias is watching somehow. And if it understands.’
Zhi glanced at her. ‘Good thought. Look, you two – I know you think I have got myself lost in the project, the work.’
Tash eyed him. ‘Well, haven’t you?’
‘Not totally.’ He seemed to force a smile. ‘I’m glad we decided to do this. Us. We ought to cherish each other more. If not today, when? From what I understand, it’s believed that Galaxias is alone. Right? A cohesive entity, maybe even a single individual.’
Mel nodded. ‘That’s what Charlie has argued from the beginning. You’d need a tightly integrated culture at least, to maintain your hold across a Galaxy—’
‘So Galaxias has no friends. Only potential enemies, like humanity. And that’s its problem.’
Mel held them both back, and they clasped hands in a ring. ‘Quite right. And we mustn’t forget who we are.’
‘Right,’ Tash said.
Zhi grunted. ‘Damn right.’
A ripple passed through the crowd. Suddenly everybody was watching their phones. Some started swarming over the crest of the neighbouring hills, heading back towards the centre of New Diaspora.
Zhi glanced at his own phone, scrolled quickly through it. ‘The result of the plebiscite is in. Look at this.’
They all peered into his phone. Once again Tash was looking over the park at the centre of New Diaspora, the looming Council Hall behind it.
And that tremendous statue suddenly stood up, swaying, smiling, fifty metres tall.
‘Ha!’ Zhi said. ‘People are running and screaming . . . The Elvis monster comes to life.’ He put his arms around Mel and Tash. ‘Take that, Beethoven!’
And, over a lilting piano phrase, Elvis began to sing. As the words scrolled in the air before them, the In-Jokes sang along.
As did everybody in the landscape, as far as Tash could tell.
But at that strange moment of togetherness she had a stab of doubt. A doubt about whether, when this day was done, the In-Jokes would ever stand together like this again.
25
July 2057
Tash learned early that the much-anticipated FIS-sponsored international science conference on the Galaxias crisis, and the highest-profile such event so far, was to be held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, opening on 1 July. A cooperative effort by the English and Scottish governments. This was basically a technical-level session meant to provide input to a heads of government session in November, tentatively planned for New Aberdeen – if the British governments could swing that one too.
A couple of days before the event a memo from Fred Bowles’s office informed his staff that a single helicopter would be travelling up to Edinburgh from Newcastle – and anybody who didn’t get a place on that flight could either make their own way, or watch online.
Tash knew she had to be there. If anything came out of these conferences relating immediately to English government policy, it would have to be absorbed first by Fred, as science minister, and then interpreted and implemented by his team. So the closer to the source she got, the better.
And Tash had to be there for another reason. Because the increasingly controversial Jones, Inc. space mission was to be debated: in an international forum for the first time. And because of that Zhi had promised to come, along with Mel enabling, another In-Joke reunion – and Zhi’s mother, Wu Yan, back from the Moon, would be one of the Chinese team joining in the global debate. In the middle of a worldwide trauma, and given Zhi’s involvement in the Pioneer project, Tash and Mel feared that this might be the last chance for mother and son to attempt a rapprochement. Or, Tash thought more cynically, if Fred Bowles and others had their way, a last chance to exploit a relationship that might end up being crucial to East–West relations. But she thought even more cynically that probably the Chinese wouldn’t have put up Wu Yan once again if she hadn’t already proven how good she was at polite deflection.
So Tash made damn sure she was on that chopper flight.
Only to find that the Royal Society of Edinburgh wasn’t in Edinburgh any more.
Tash had known Edinburgh a little. Her father had Scottish relatives – an excuse to go north of the border sometimes, although Noel hadn’t tried for dual citizenship after the break-up of the Union. Since then there had been drastic changes. In the closing stages of her flight, low over the city, Tash saw gondolas working their way around the castle mound, and along the straight-line canal that marked the route of what had once been Princes Street. As the climate had decayed, the swamp that had been drained to make room for the New Town centuries before had slowly and stubbornly returned.
Then the chopper headed back south, passing over the new suburbs on higher ground that had sprawled out from the old city in the wake of the climate adjustments, and then expanded further, with increasing confidence, since the political independence of Scotland in the 2040s. The venerable Royal Society of Edinburgh, itself a precious relic of the Scottish Enlightenment, had ended up relocated to a kind of business park called New Fala, in the foothills of the Lammermuirs. From the air, the new main building was a sprawling monument of smartwood and steel, with smaller satellite installations around it – specialist labs and libraries, Tash saw from her phone map.
She felt a twinge of disappointment. This was a fine piece of architecture, but could have been anywhere. Maybe as she got older she might have to get used to similar twinges. A nostalgia for an erased past.
The chopper descended towards a concrete apron close to the main facility, and landed smoothly. The passengers debarked, accompanied by rolling smart suitcases, and lugging carry-on bags. Tash emerged under a Sun that was high, bright, and shed some decent warmth. Even if it was further away from the Earth than it should be on this July day.
And Mel was here, waiting on the tarmac, with Jane, her daughter. A pale redhead like her mother, but with darker eyes – perhaps her father’s, who none of the other In-Jokes had met – Jane smiled politely enough at Tash, her mother’s old frat friend.
‘Come on,’ Mel said, briskly splitting Tash off from the rest of the Bowles party and leading the way into the nearest of the buildings. ‘I know you’re running a little late, I’ll get you through. Any luggage?’
‘It can find its own way.’ She glanced back uneasily, hoping that was true.
At gate security, the formal entrance to independent Scotland, Tash had to pass through DNA and retinal scans – and give that day’s English Federation four-digit pass code, a new but old-fashioned procedure that still had a chance of working when the power went down.
Then, inside the building, Mel led Tash and Jane away from the main group and through a broad concourse.
Mel said as they hurried on, ‘The conference is already in session. The introductory remarks. Yes, you’re that late. Charlie Marlowe is handling it actually. I figured you could skip that.’
Tash had to smile. ‘You did, did you? So where are we going?’
‘To see Yan and Zhi, of course. I waylaid them both when they landed – just like you – Charlie figured it was the only way to get them in the same room, by just descending on them first chance I got. And I figured you would want to be there. If that’s a problem—’
Tash grinned. ‘It’s exactly what Fred Bowles would have wanted. I’ll need to send a couple of texts.’ She pulled out her phone to do so as she walked, to Grace Butterworth, to others of Fred’s aides.
Mel went on, ‘Charlie Marlowe has promised to look in on us when she’s done – did I say she’s giving the conference introduction? Everything’s bound to be a scramble, these things always are. Actually, today, if Charlie had her choice, she’d have been watching the eclipse.’
That puzzled Tash. ‘What eclipse?’
‘Precisely. What eclipse? There should have been an annular solar eclipse today, visible in some parts of the world. Which happens – happened – when the Moon crossed in front of the Sun, but a little further from the Earth in its orbit. I mean the old orbit, and even that was slightly elliptical. And because the Moon’s disc was too small to cover the Sun’s disc completely—’
‘Oh. You got a ring of sunlight around the Moon? An annulus, a ring. So, an annular eclipse. I remember.’
‘Not as spectacular as a total, but still quite impressive. Now all that is gone. Cancelled, by Galaxias. The Moon will clip the face of the Sun this time – but no more total eclipses, ever again, and we haven’t even got a finalised timetable yet for when the next eclipse of any kind will happen. Anyhow I think Charlie wanted to be out there as she would have been before, with her eclipse glasses and so on. Kind of a symbolic defiance.’
Very visual. ‘The press would love it.’
Mel led them through a door into a long, brightly lit corridor.
‘I booked a green room down here. Zhi and Yan should be there, if they haven’t already found a way to escape . . .’
Jane was staring at her phone as she followed. ‘It’s trending, actually, Mum.’
‘What is?’
‘What you were talking about. Eclipse-watching. It’s a thing. Especially if you’re under the track that the eclipse should have been seen from. Which is . . . Don’t know where that is.’
‘Geography,’ Mel muttered to Tash. ‘Just a disaster area at school. And I’m no help, what with the way the borders have all washed to and fro in our lifetimes.’
‘I think there’s a sort of flash protest,’ Jane said. ‘I think. People are saying, we want our eclipses back.’ She giggled. ‘I bet half of them never knew what an eclipse was in the first place. Without a mother who hangs around with astronomers, lucky me.’
Tash coughed back a laugh.
Mel pursed her lips. ‘A mother who is an astronomer, actually. Tell your friends to wait until 26 December.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that day there should have been another total eclipse.’
Tash said, ‘Really? Two in one year? I didn’t think that was possible.’
‘It’s rare, but possible. Or was. The Christmas eclipse. That’s what we would have called it, probably.’
Jane hastily manipulated message holograms above the surface of her phone. ‘Wow. I put that in, and I’m trending already.’
Mel said with a grin, ‘Mothers never get any credit.’ She paused at a door. ‘Here we are.’
Tash and Jane followed her into a small, brightly lit room, which Tash assessed quickly, with an experienced eye.
Airless. Hard upright chairs. A long table with bottles of water, plates of some kind of snack covered in paper. Even a few bottles of wine, the obligatory alcohol. It was a classic green room, thought Tash, being a veteran of many such establishments after having supported Fred Bowles at venue after venue.
And here sat Wu Yan. Alone.
Zhi’s mother was grave, dressed all in black, her lined face framed by short-cut hair, black streaked with a little grey. She looked tired, Tash thought, as a first impression. Calm – she always was calm in Tash’s experience – calm, tall, elegant. But tired.
She smiled, though, as they came in. Smiled and nodded. ‘Hello, Tash, Mel. You must be Jane! Nice to see you again, and to meet you, Jane. Take a seat. Have some water. Some of these . . . biscuits, on this plate. I think that is what they are.’
And before they had a chance to reply, Wu Zhi burst in through a second door.
He stood there in the doorway. He gave a nod of acknowledgement, but didn’t speak, didn’t sit. Instead he started to walk up and down at the head of the room. Tash recognised the stiffness of his posture, the curt, angular movements. The usual astronaut’s exoskeletal support, under his clothes. He seemed distracted, perhaps listening to a private feed in his ear.
Wu Yan, however, smiled sadly. ‘Now he returns. Just in time for biscuits.’
‘I’ll pass,’ Jane said, sitting briskly. Mel sat beside her.
Tash, dumping her carry-on bag, sat near them. ‘So why don’t you come sit down too, Zhi? Still wearing that darn exo suit? More comfortable standing, is it?’
Zhi raised a hand, flexed his fingers; the arm made a whirring sound.
Jane stared.
Zhi grinned at her. ‘I only do that to show off, you know.’
Wu Yan sniffed. ‘Exos are bad for you to wear too long. You know that. You’ll atrophy.’
‘Yes, Mother. And they are bad for you too if you put them on and off too often, the way you do. Anyhow I won’t be here long before I’m back in microgravity at the Lodestone . . . Tell you what, Mother, I’ll leave you this exo. When I’m out in deep space you can make it march up and down and bark commands at it and pretend it’s me.’
Mel frowned. ‘Zhi, don’t speak to her like that.’
Mel was a mother herself, Tash reflected.
‘And I heard that too.’
Charlie Marlowe came bustling into the room. She wore a smart trouser suit – well, Tash conceded, as smart as the Astronomer Royal ever got. ‘Sorry to be late. Got away as quick as I could, though I’ll have to be back soon, I’m supposed to be chairing the second session. It turned into a Q&A. Who the hell asks questions at introductory remarks? I had to skip the fire exit instructions.’
‘I should be there too,’ Yan said quietly.
‘We’ll make sure you don’t miss your slot,’ Marlowe said. She glanced at Mel. ‘I’m not sure if I’d ever have spoken to a friend that way. Not without falling out. You characters really are close.’
‘They are,’ Jane said, staring at her phone again. ‘All I got when I was growing up was Auntie Tash and Uncle Zhi.’
Even Zhi had to laugh at that. ‘Well, you’re still growing up,’ he said.
She glanced up at him. ‘I made you smile. Who’s the grown-up now?’
Yan angled her head. ‘Has she got a point, Zhi?’
