“I understand,” he replied. “I understand that you may have done more damage than you can possibly realize. But you know more about computers and AI than I do! You know what interfering with the prime programming can do, and you did that. Is anything Cassandra tells us reliable?”
“We got through the mainland wars all right,” Jennifer said. “Cassandra was very reliable, and the new boards were already in place then.”
“She didn’t warn you about the bees, did she, Aaron?”
Aaron glared. Jennifer said, “Cadzie, Cassandra’s all right, she just can’t tell some people anything about nonhuman intelligence.”
“Such as an approaching spacecraft?”
“Well, that might cause a conflicting orders dilemma because of all these requirements about who to tell this or not tell that. That’s how you got in the loop. By agreement, Carlos couldn’t tell you before he told Aaron. Carlos resolved that by getting you to act as messenger, no big deal, but Cassandra can’t resolve conflicting orders that easily. Especially if one of the conflicts is in the prime programming.” Jennifer spoke with a confidence Cadzie didn’t think she had. “Cassandra is reliable. Really. Look, we won the mainland wars without any of this coming out.”
Tears made Joanie’s blue eyes shimmer. “Cadzie, please. Wait until Landing Day.”
Cadzie sighed. If he admitted no empathy for her position, he’d be lying. “Fine. Fine. You have your two days.”
“Good choice,” Aaron muttered.
The school was together again, assembled on the high side of the dam. The water tasted too fresh: they would need brackish, too soon. The voices of the dam roared, drowning out thought. Roar of water, roar of magnetic flow.
The dam’s magnetic voice was deep inside its structure. The school could not penetrate, not even from here, not even by diving deep underwater. Whast could make out nothing of the dam’s thoughts, no matter how hard he listened.
What was this thing that the walkers had built?
Magnetic force was the essence of thought. The dipole in Whast’s belly amplified his voice, joined him to the school. What was being amplified by this thrumming thought, inside this immense curved stone wall? Whast could only wonder, like the rest: What were the walkers trying to say?
♦ ChaptEr 4 ♦
awakening
Narrator Marco Shantel came alive in stages. First tactile: he was lying on something metallic and cold. Then auditory: a low hum. Whispered human voices. The sound of his own breathing. Then finally visual as he opened his eyes. For a moment he wondered if he was on a movie set. That would have made sense, would have matched a life he knew quite well. Then he realized he was a trillion miles from Hollywood, on the colony ship Messenger, on its way to fulfill destiny.
Then he lapsed from consciousness again, as if it had taken all his strength just to absorb his surroundings: the line of recessed lights along the white-tiled ceiling was the last thing he knew before blackness. This time his descent was shallow, and he swam back to the surface quickly, to see the warm, lovely face of Evelyn Welsh, a medic he recognized. She was waiting for him patiently, and he smelled something: protein broth. Not chicken, not beef. Like liquid shwarma, a blend for optimal nutrition and taste, and his taste buds awakened with a vengeance.
She helped him sit up, and slipped the first spoonful between his lips. He thought he was passing out again, but held on for another sip. “Coffee,” he whispered. “Feels like I need coffee, Evelyn. A double mocha latte, please?” He’d only met her briefly on Earth, and found her unremarkable. But Evelyn was the first human female he’d seen in frozen decades, and some parts of his body were perking up faster than others. Her short black hair and heart-shaped face were suddenly angelic. He grinned toothily, applying a little of his wattage. With any luck he’d be laid within the next couple of hours.
“Not yet,” an unfamiliar voice said. “No stimulants. Just try to focus. You’ve been asleep for eighty years and a bit. And call me Major Stype. I will supervise your recovery, sir. Evelyn will continue as nurse.”
Who was that? He wondered if she’d been in the interviews that got him selected to go with Messenger. There had been a half dozen, maybe more. But they were only voices from a computer, and he couldn’t be sure.
“What are we doing now, Major?” He listened with his body. One gravity, he thought: it felt like Earth, except for a sort of pulse he could feel in the floor. He knew that pulse from before they put him to sleep. He was still aboard the starship Messenger, and Messenger was under thrust.
“We’re decelerating,” Major Stype said. “Less than two months before we—well, I’m not sure what the captain has in mind. Things have turned a little weird.”
“Weird? A story I can tell?” Coming alive: the Marco Shantel, actor turned interstellar astronaut. “Narrator” for the documentary that would tell future generations of this great adventure. He couldn’t see a mirror. He wondered what he looked like, how much muscle mass he had lost.
“You tell me, Narrator Shantel. We were observing a world we’re sure is Avalon. Looking for intelligent life. Trying to contact Geographic’s computer. We found a big island that matches the description of Camelot in those early—were you awake when the first messages came through from Tau Ceti?”
Avalon? Avalon? That was where the ship Geographic was heading. Their own destination, Hypereden, had been light-years distant. His mind rebelled. Was he hallucinating?
“Frozen like a rock,” Marco said. Better think of himself as Narrator Shantel. Act like the star he had been. Godsons liked their celebrities. They also liked their leaders strong and certain. This was no time to show doubt. “When I went to sleep, I don’t think Avalon was where we were going.”
“It wasn’t then. It is now, and you’ll learn why another time.”
“But—Don’t I have to tell the story?”
“We haven’t decided what story you’ll tell.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, indeed, Narrator Shantel.”
“Avalon—the Geographic expedition.” His voice made it a question.
Major Stype came into view. Deeply tanned Mediterranean skin, with a face that would have been lovely if not so stern. Piercing eyes. Well-fitting one-piece coverall, officer insignia. Middle-aged—if she’d been one of those selection committee voices, she’d been in cold sleep just like him. “How long have I been out?”
“Nearly eighty years.”
“You, too, then? Because I think I met you.”
“You did. Briefly. Surprised you remember.” Her smile was frozen. “Their plan was to find an island and make first landing there. They did that. Camelot is about the size of both New Zealands. The continent is not far, ninety miles or so, and they should be colonizing that too by now, so we looked.”
Narrator smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. Might take an extra hour, he thought. He said, “Pregnant pause? You know, we’ll be cutting this into my record.”
She smiled now. “You’ve really got your work cut out for you. Eighty years of cameras all over the ship. You’ll have to view all of that, and pick and choose what goes into the log. Take you years.”