Swallow the Sky: A Space Opera (4 page)

“Yes” Carson muttered
miserably as Aiyana continued to glare at him like something she had found on
the sole of her shoe.

“We believe that someone
else has been running similar tests. You and our honored witness are extremely
compatible, hence the use of her body and personality as a template. It appears
that the replicant was designed to entrap you then programmed to destruct – to
die if you wish – after having sexual intercourse.”

Aiyana let out a cry of
horror and turned her back on the group.

“I’m sorry” the
Commissioner said to her “this must be very hard for you. Would you like to
wait in the anteroom?”

Aiyana shook her head. “Thanks,
no, I want to hear all this.”

“We were extremely lucky
to get a lead” interjected Asima “The scientist the Service uses as a
pathologist happens to study of the history of ancient diseases. He diagnosed
heart failure, whatever that is. Apparently replicants were particularly prone
to it. Anyway, he conducted more tests. Then the whole case broke open.”

Zhou held up her hand. “Excuse
me, before we continue I must speak with our witness in private.” She led
Aiyana to a corner of the room where they talked in a low whisper.

“Wasn’t someone going to
notice two identical women walking around?” Carson asked Asima as they waited
for the Commissioner to finish her conversation.

“Aiyana was off planet –
I tracked her down in the asteroid belt. She had been on Kaimana last week for
a meeting but by the time I found her she was in a solo ship in the back of beyond. I returned with her less than an hour ago in a Service speedboat.”

Asima seemed overwhelmed.
“This is the biggest crime any of us have ever dealt with. And it gets worse”
she added quietly.

“That solo ship she was on when we tracked her down – it had a hidden explosive device. They had no
intention of trying to explain away her resurrection.”

The two women rejoined
them. Carson was alarmed to see that Aiyana appeared even more distressed than
before.

“I have been explaining
to our honored witness that while stealing a person’s genome is easy,
duplicating her personality must have involved keeping her under close
observation for a considerable period of time. Probably the criminals broke
into her personal data. We must assume they are still active and as a
consequence we plan to keep her presence on Kaimana secret, under the
protection of the security service.

“So as things stand now, Carson, it appears that someone has gone to enormous trouble and expense to place you in a
very difficult situation. If it wasn’t for our pathologist and officer Asima’s
diligence – and your own precautions – you would now be trying to explain a
dead Mitan citizen and a stolen mail packet. I don’t suppose you have any idea
why someone would do all this?”

He shook his head. “God
knows. I’d never stepped foot on this planet until yesterday.”

“You were planning to
stay here for some time where you not?”

He nodded.

“Continue with that plan.
Go about your business. Officially you will be what is termed ‘a person of
interest’ in the death of Aiyana of clan Aniko. We believe there will be
further developments. Possibly the criminals will try to make contact, they
must have some sort of a plan for you. Needless to say you will be under the
Service’s surveillance. In addition we will fit you with a clandestine
recording device that cannot be detected by civilian scanning equipment.

“Oh, and Carson, under the authority of section five of the Mitan Security Code, we have cancelled
that attorney of yours, though you will still be able to keep your regular
valet. I’m sorry, but this is a matter of national importance – the most
serious crime I have encountered in my career – a direct, willful violation of
articles of the Covenant.”

“Great, so if you decide
to throw me into jail I’ll have no legal counsel?”

“At this point there are
no plans to file charges against you – the formal examination has been
cancelled. If charges are ever brought, you will have representation. Officer
Asima will take you to be fitted with the recording device.” As far as the
commissioner was concerned the meeting was over.

For the first time since
entering the room, Carson spoke directly to Aiyana.

“Look, I’m incredibly
sorry that you’ve been caught up in all this. It’s clearly me they were trying
to get at, it’s just bad luck that you…”

Aiyana opened her mouth
to say something then thought better of it.

“I know” she finally
whispered, fluttering her hands. “This is terrible for both of us.” She even
managed the briefest of smiles.

Cheered by the tiny
flicker warmth, Carson left the room with Asima.

Carson did not have to wait long. That evening
while he ate alone in a restaurant near the hotel he was astonished to glimpse
a figure sporting a deep brown birthday suit identical to his own standing at
the entrance to the dining room. The newcomer walked directly over to his
table.

“Carson is it not?” he
asked, smiling broadly. “My name is Shin of clan Aniko, welcome to Kaimana.”

Registering his stare he
added “Yes, I too have just arrived from Procyon c.”

“How did I ever miss
you?”

Shin chuckled and slid
into a chair.

“We could start a new
fashion.”

Carson startled. The
stranger had used exactly the same phrase as Aiyana’s replicant.

Unfazed, the new arrival
continued.

“I represent a
distinguished, and if I may be candid, very wealthy collector of ancient
artifacts. He would like to invite you enjoy a nightcap with him this evening
to discuss the antique trade and the possibility of enhancing his collection.”

Under normal
circumstances Carson would have leapt at such an invitation so it was easy for
him to ape a smile and accept.

“Excellent!” Shin beamed
“As soon as you’re ready. I have a limousine waiting outside. No, please – I
insist on picking up the check.”

A few minutes later the
limo deposited them outside of a black glass tower that stretched halfway up to
the shield.

“This is the head office
of clan Aniko” Shin explained as he strode through the entrance. Carson gasped.
The giant atrium was dominated by a three dimensional image floating above
their heads. The display depicted a cluster of huge parallel cylinders joined
by an intricate network of girders and ductways. He could make out tiny
spacecraft weaving their way between the gigantic structures. Periodically one
of the cylinder heads erupted with a titanic bolt of energy. He guessed that
the real thing was several kilometers long.

“The Aniko black hole
foundry” Shin said proudly. “Within two years the clan will have the first
production facility in the Mita system.”

Carson made suitably-impressed
noises as a private elevator took them to the top floor.

Shin led the way through
a pair of gilt doors into a very large office.

“I’ll leave you here to
await your host. It has been a pleasure to meet you Carson.” He unleashed
another dazzler and strode out, closing the doors behind him. Carson was not
surprised to discover that the moment the doors had shut his access to the net
had been cut.

He gazed around the
softly lit room. One wall opened onto a nighttime vista of the city. The other
three were paneled in Lacaille petal wood, their rich surfaces shimmering as he
moved. Dotted throughout the room in warm pools of light were a series of
exquisite antiques. Here was a Ross diamond fabricator in such good condition
that it seemed it could manufacture a gemstone on the spot. And there was a
second millennium environment suit poised ready to launch itself into the void.

In the center of room,
resting upon a lectern in a circle of golden light was the jewel of the
collection: a superb eighth century reproduction of The Book. Carson smiled as
he gently turned the pages. The title on the cover was probably the most famous
in the galaxy.
A Child’s Encyclopedia
it said.

“A marvelous artifact, is
it not?”

He turned round and for a
moment the sight of the speaker made him forget the wonderful collection. To
begin with his slight frame was wrapped in a black silk kimono – the first
person he had seen on Kaimana actually wearing clothes. Then as he stepped into
the light Carson could see that he was
old
. In a world where illness and
death were strangers the man’s white hair and dry wrinkled skin made him as
shocking as if he had been three meters tall.

“I’m told it’s virtually
identical to the original” the old man said. “But then of course you are one of
the very few people who has had the privilege of examining the real thing.”

“It’s a wonderful
facsimile” agreed Carson “but check the margin of page 114 where Cissokho’s
daughter hand-wrote some notes. She used a scribing instrument that dispensed
pigment by rolling a tiny tungsten carbide sphere at its tip. The pressure
caused by the writing action was sufficient to compress the paper substrate. If
you looked at the corresponding area on the other side of the page in the real
Book – he flipped to page 113 and held it up to the light at an angle – you
would see a faint indentation showing a mirror-image of the writing. In this
copy the surface is flat.”

The old man took the
book, squinted at it the way Carson had indicated, and laughed hoarsely.

“I knew we chose the
right man!”

“I am Juro, senior elder
of clan Aniko” he said, finally introducing himself.

“You’re wondering why I appear
so old.”

He shuffled to an
elaborate drinks cabinet.

“You’ll take some brandy.
It’s distilled from grapes grown in my vineyard on the northern slopes of the
caldera. They’re drinking better on New Bordeaux but it’ll do.”

He handed Carson a glass.

“I look old because I am
old. Nearly two thousand standard years. How can I be senior elder with the
face of a twenty-five year old boy? Ironic, don’t you think? At one point in
human history men desperately sought immortality and I had a hell of a time
finding someone who could help me grow old.”

Juro wheezed with
laughter at thought. Then, nodding towards the lectern asked “How much do you
think it would sell for at auction?”

“A beautiful eighth
century copy in such fine condition? I would estimate a least seven million.”

“No” Juro murmured “How
much would the original Book fetch?”

“Oh come on!”

“Indulge me.”

“Well” said Carson, thinking about the unthinkable “I guess the Huan Federation would bid for it. They
like to think of themselves as equals to the Commonwealth, and to own The Book…
they’d probably pay whatever it would take.”

“And that would be…?”

Carson shrugged. “We’re
talking fantasy – billions no doubt, maybe tens of billions.”

“Oh, billions at the very
least. Of course it will never be for sale but doesn’t it strike you as strange
that literally one book, one miserable child’s reference book, is the sole
surviving fragment of Old Earth culture?”

“But they had so little
time. They thought they had weeks to finish loading the Yongding, then the Melt
accelerated and they ended up fleeing in just a few hours. It’s a miracle they
had enough to survive.”

“I know, I know, but even
then The Book was just a nostalgic piece of obsolescent technology. They should
have managed to save something using the storage techniques of the time. We
know Old Earth had an extraordinarily rich prehistoric culture and yet nothing
else survived? You will have heard of Shakespeare – the greatest writer of
Ancient English according to the Encyclopedia. Thirty-eight divine plays we’re told,
one hundred and fifty-four sonnets, and what do we have left? A four-line
quote!

I know a
bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where
oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite
over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With
sweet musk-roses and with eglantine

Juro’s command of the
dead language was impeccable.

“Has it occurred to you
Carson that the absence of any cultural or historical material may have been
deliberate? Cissokho and her cohorts were determined to break with the past,
were they not?”

“Yeah, I know the theory,
but I still think it’s more plausible that they simply had no chance to collect
anything in the panic. And who knows what the Techs took with them after they
refused to ratify the Covenant.”

“The Covenant!” Juro
snorted “what a high price we’ve paid for that document.”

Seeing Carson’s frown he
went on “Do you realize that you could pluck a man from prehistoric Earth,
bring him to our present time and he would be perfectly comfortable? Doesn’t
that astound you? Eight thousand years and we still live like primitives!

“Oh I suppose a few
advances would impress him – FTL travel, push drives, indefinite life extension
– but where are the revolutionary leaps? Where are the matter transmitters? Where
are the machines with minds like gods? Where is FTL communication? If I want to
consult with my people on New Earth I have to – I mean no personal slight –
write them a goddamn letter!

“The Clan’s black hole
foundry – how absurd!” By now he was almost shouting. “One point eight billion
Ecus for transportation alone. Why? Because it’s too big for an Alcubierre
Drive. Twenty years – twenty years of accumulating interest payments – to bring
it from New Earth at sub-light speed. It should have arrived as a nanoseed the
size of your glass. Plant the seed in an iron asteroid and let the foundry
build itself.”

“Most people would say
we’ve enjoyed eight thousand years of peace and prosperity precisely because we
haven’t
been creating nano-seeds and the like” Carson said.

“Oh I know, I know – the
Melt. Does an eight thousand year old accident have to dictate everything we do
today?”

“That accident virtually
wiped out the only space-faring species in the galaxy.”

“So what? Suppose another
Melt occurred – today there are countless inhabited systems.

“We could afford to lose
a few” he added with a chuckle.

“I think we could do
better than that” Carson said “imagine that we broke the Covenant and learned
how to synthesize the kind of gamma ray burst that occurs when two neutron
stars collide – that would sterilize every planet within a thousand light
years.”

Juro ignored him and
turned to the copy of The Book.

“Perhaps” he continued
more quietly “some other material has survived. Suppose there were many Books. Not
copies you understand, but other texts, works of art, perhaps other artifacts.”

“But how, where?”

In fact Carson had heard
it all before. The mouth-watering prospect of discovering more Old Earth
material was a favorite topic among antique dealers at the end of an evening’s
drinking. In the sober light of day the whole idea struck him as absurd.

“Do you know a New Earth
historian named Kalidas?”

“I know of him. He’s one
of the proponents of the idea that there is more Old Earth stuff to be found. He
has a checkered reputation.”

“True, but interesting work.”

Juro put down his glass.

“You next scheduled delivery is New Earth. When you get there I want you to work with Kalidas. He’s done some interesting
new research but has regrettably hit a roadblock – his access privileges to the
artifacts were withdrawn last year. You on the other hand retain full rights.”

“Why were they
withdrawn?” Carson asked, and with sudden insight added “Did he try to steal
something?”

Juro shrugged and picked
up his glass. Carson knew he had guessed right. By now it was obvious where all
this was leading although he could see no option but to play it straight.

“Frankly, my honored
host, I’m not sure where the advantage is for me. Associating with a disgraced
academic isn’t likely to enhance my own standing.”

“If any new prehistoric
material were found you would be entitled to a commission. Just one percent
would make you a very wealthy man.”

“But this is fantasy. The
idea that after eight thousand years something could have been overlooked…”

“Quite an adventure
you’ve been having since your arrival” Juro said, apparently changing the
subject.

Here we go
thought
Carson.

“Aiyana, a promising
young member of my clan, dead with you laying at her side. Missing mail…”

Carson furiously tried to
think how he would react if he did not know more.

“Aiyana’s death is a
terrible tragedy, but I swear upon my honor that I had nothing to do with it. I’m
certain that I’ll be exonerated. As for the mail, I have backups that can
easily be retrieved.”

“Perhaps” said Juro “but
if the clan made a fuss you could be confined here on Kaimana for months,
unable to complete your deliveries. That would be a violation of your Post
Office contract, would it not? You would lose you license.”

Carson glowered at him. The
old bastard was right.

Juro smiled, or to be
more accurate pulled back his lips and displayed yellowed teeth.

“But I see no reason to
take such a course of action. You will proceed to New Earth and work with
Kalidas. I will even make my private yacht available to transport you. Shin and
another member of the clan will accompany you and help with the research
effort.”

He pretended to think
about it.

“How soon would we be
able to leave?”

“I estimate it will take
a few days to pacify the authorities.”

“Do I have any choice?”

“A choice?” rasped Juro,
genuinely amused “it’s been a very long time honored guest since I offered
anyone a choice.”