‘I’ll be glad when she’s home,’ Geoffrey said after a while, when he’d had time to mull Eunice’s words and decide that she was probably right. ‘Glad when I know she’s only as far away as the Moon.’
‘I’m looking after her. She’ll be fine.’
For all that it was a commonplace event, the departure had drawn a small crowd of watchers, including proxies and golems. Two orange tugs pushed the liner slowly out of the way station until the engine assembly had cleared the end opening. Then the swiftship fired its own steering motors – a strobe-flicker of blue-hot pinpricks running the length of the vehicle – and began to turn, flipping end-over-end as it aimed itself at Mars, or rather the point on the ecliptic where Mars would be in four weeks.
The liner drifted slowly out of sight, the tugs still clamped on. Eunice’s ghost hand tugged at Geoffrey’s ghost sleeve. ‘Let’s go to the other window. I don’t want to miss this.’
The other watchers had drifted to an external port for a better view. Geoffrey and Eunice followed them unhurriedly. For an hour the liner just sat there, backdropped by the slowly turning Moon. Now and then a steering jet would fire, performing some micro-adjustment or last-minute systems check. Some of the spectators drifted away, their patience strained. Geoffrey waited, fully intent on seeing this through to the end. He’d almost begun to forget that his body was still back in Africa, still waiting on a warm rooftop, when some kindly insect opted to sink its mouthparts into his neck.
Presently the swiftship’s engines were activated. Three stilettos of neon-pink plasma spiked out of the drive assembly, and then brightened to a lance-like intensity. The tugs had unclamped, using steering rockets to boost quickly away from the sides of the larger ship before any part of it stood a chance of colliding with them. Geoffrey concentrated his attention on the background stars. It took nearly a minute for the swiftship to traverse its own length. And then it was clearly moving, accelerating, every second putting another metre-per-second of speed on its clock. It was like watching a house slide down a mountainside, gathering momentum with awful inevitability.
She would keep those motors burning for another day of steady acceleration, by which point the ship would be moving at a hundred kilometres per second . . . faster than anything he could easily grasp, but still – he did the sums in his head – a blistering one-thirtieth of one per cent of the speed of light. That was wrong, surely? He must have dropped a decimal point, maybe two. But no, his calculations were correct. Two hundred years of spaceflight, two hundred years of steady, methodical progress combined with bold, intuitive leaps . . . and this was still the very best the human species could do: attain a speed so slow that, in cosmic terms, it barely counted as movement at all.
‘I thought one day we’d do better than this,’ Eunice said, as if she’d been reading his thoughts. ‘They had most of my lifetime to do it in, after all.’
‘Sorry we let you down.’
‘We?’
‘The rest of the human species,’ Geoffrey said. ‘For not living up to your exacting standards.’
‘You tried,’ Eunice said. ‘I’ll give you that much.’
In the morning he returned to the elephants. Memphis came with him in the Cessna, and they landed at the semi-permanent airstrip adjacent to Geoffrey’s research station. It was a trio of modular huts set around three sides of a square compound, where an ancient zebra-striped truck and an even more ancient zebra-striped jeep stood dormant. Wheat-coloured grass fingered mudguards and armoured bumpers.
He helped the old man out of the aircraft. If he’d had any doubts about his own muscular readjustment to Earth gravity, they were silenced when he took Memphis’s weight, supporting him under the elbow as he climbed out of the cockpit. Memphis felt as light and dry as a bag of sticks.
‘Sorry,’ Geoffrey said as Memphis’s polished black lace-ups touched the ground. ‘I shouldn’t have put you through this. No reason we couldn’t have taken one of the pods.’
The three stilt-mounted huts, soap-like plastic structures with rounded corners, were respectively an accommodation module, research area and storage building. In practice Geoffrey only needed the research hut, since that was where he usually ended up sleeping and cooking for himself. All his equipment, samples, veterinary medicines and documentation only filled a third of the storage unit, with the rest set aside for utilisation by the graduate or postgraduate assistants Geoffrey’s research budget had not yet made possible. He supposed that was all going to change now. The new funds would certainly pay for one helper, probably two, as well as a mountain of gleaming new study tools. He’d have to move his domestic arrangements back into the accommodation shack, to free up room and lend a semblance of order to the research space. The place could use some sprucing up, that was true. But it was only now that he realised that the days of solitude, the peace and quiet, might be numbered.
For now they were just passing through. Geoffrey made chai for Memphis and sat him down in the research hut while he sorted out equipment, packing gear into boxes which he then secured in the Cessna. He walked out to one of the perimeter towers and swapped a module in the solar collector, then replaced a cable leading from another. All the while his mind was turning over, wondering how he was going to raise the subject of Eunice with Memphis.
In the end Memphis made it easy. They were up in the air again, buzzing west a hundred metres above the treetops.
‘I might be mistaken,’ he said, ‘but something tells me this trip isn’t entirely about visiting the elephants.’
Geoffrey tried to smile the remark away, glancing at his passenger before snapping his attention back to the controls. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘You have been thinking of tasks you need to do, but which could easily be put off for a week or a month. As if you feel you need an excuse for this whole day.’
‘I can only put things off so long,’ Geoffrey said. ‘You know how it is.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Memphis said. He looked out of the window, spotting some giraffe in the distance and following them with his gaze. They were loping, crossing the ground in great scissoring strides, like pairs of draughtsmen’s compasses being walked across a map. They’d been seeing flying machines for two hundred and fifty years and still acted as if each time was the first. Panicked bundles of instinct and fear, forever startled by their own shadows.
‘Actually, there is something.’
‘Of course,’ Memphis said. ‘And one must presume it relates to your recent journey. And that it is also something you didn’t wish to talk about in the household, for fear of being overheard.’
‘You know me too well, I’m afraid. Look, I’m sorry for the subterfuge, but I couldn’t think of any other way to have this conversation.’
‘You need not apologise, Geoffrey. I think we both understand each other perfectly well.’
Geoffrey cast around for his next landing site and put the Cessna down with barely a bump, paying extra attention because of his passenger. They got out, Memphis helping himself down unassisted this time. They were nowhere near any of the herds but that was intentional. Geoffrey did not want the elephants to associate him with the work that was about to be done.
One of the equipment boxes disclosed a delicate, translucent thing like a giant prehistoric dragonfly. Geoffrey held it carefully between his fingers, gripping it under the black keel of its carbon-fibre thorax. He tipped the dragonfly upside down, flipped open a cover and loaded six target-seeking darts from another box. The darts resembled miniature avatars of the same creature, down to the complex origami of their switchblade-folded wings.
‘Do you know why the cousins sent me to the Moon?’
‘A family matter.’ Memphis propped his left foot up on the undercarriage fairing and began to redo one of his laces. ‘That was as much as Hector and Lucas wished me to know, Geoffrey. For your sake, it might not be wise to tell me any more than that.’
‘Because you think they’d have a way of finding ou
t?’
‘Because there is at least the chance of that. One also assumes that there was an incentive behind this errand?’
‘Yes, and there’s no harm in me telling you about that, at least. You know what kind of budget I work under, so you’d be the first to notice when more cash started flowing in.’
‘You may find this rather difficult to credit,’ Memphis said, swapping to the other shoe, ‘but your cousins mean well.’
‘That’s what I usually end up convincing myself.’ Geoffrey sealed the belly-door and turned the dragonfly the right way up. ‘They’re venal and manipulative, and their only real interest is profit margins, but they’re not actually evil. And I don’t think even they knew what they were getting me into.’ He gave the dragonfly a vigorous flick, causing its wings to deploy to their fullest extent. Save for a fine veining of whiskerlike supports, they were almost invisible. ‘If they’d known, they’d never have involved me.’
‘Perhaps it would be better if you said no more on the matter,’ Memphis replied.
Geoffrey touched a contact node on the dragonfly’s head and the wings began to beat the air, a leisurely pulse that gradually quickened to a steady clockwork whirr. ‘Memphis, did something happen to Eunice before she went into exile?’
‘Rather a lot of things,’ Memphis said.
‘I mean, apart from the stuff we already know about.’
Geoffrey let the dragonfly go, allowing it to hover away from his hand. A metre or so higher than his head, it halted and awaited further instructions. Squinting against the brightness of the sky, he could only just see it. The wings were a butterfly-shaped nimbus of flickering, and the elongated body – with its cargo of darts – just a smudgelike blemish on his vision.
‘I’m not talking about all the adventures and exploits already in the public record,’ Geoffrey went on.
‘I am not sure that I can help you.’
‘Eunice did something,’ Geoffrey said. ‘No need to go into details, but it’s as if she set something up, a series of clues that weren’t meant to come to light until after her death.’
‘Sunday’s trip to Mars,’ Memphis said thoughtfully. ‘Would that be related to this matter?’
‘Draw your own conclusions.’
‘I shall.’
‘The cousins sent me to the Moon to look into something, a detail they weren’t expecting to lead to anything significant.’
‘I take it you confided in your sister?’
‘What I found up there was . . . not what the cousins were expecting. I couldn’t keep it a secret from Sunday.’
‘Are you going to tell me what it was?’
‘I don’t want any of this to come back and hurt you, and if I tell you too much it might.’ Geoffrey paused to send the dragonfly on its way, in the direction where the herd had last been sighted. An aug window had already opened in his upper-centre visual field, showing the dragonfly’s view of things as it scudded over the terrain. ‘All I want to know, Memphis, is one thing. Before she came back from deep space in 2101 – days, months or years, I don’t know which – she must have gone around putting these clues in place. Either she did it all on her own, or she had help. Right now I’m not sure which. But if ever there was one person she’d have turned to for assistance, I’m talking to him now.’
‘You refer to these things as clues. Can you be certain that this is what they are?’
‘If they’re not, then we’re all imagining connections where none exist. Here’s what I think, though. The loose end, the thing the cousins sent me to investigate, didn’t come to light by accident. Eunice must have planned it this way. She’d have known there’d be a thorough audit of her assets after her death, conducted from inside the family.’
‘If she wished to convey a message beyond the grave . . . why not just convey that message directly?’
Geoffrey had sighted the herd, about a kilometre from the dragonfly. ‘Maybe things will be clearer when Sunday gets back from Mars.’
‘Until then, though, you are wondering whether I might be able to shed light on the matter.’
‘I’m sorry to do this to you, Memphis.’
‘And I wish I could be of more assistance.’
Geoffrey’s spirits dipped. Perhaps it had been unrealistic, but he’d been hoping for something more than that. Yet after all the years of service, how likely had it ever been that Memphis was just going to cave in at the first gentle interrogation?
Assuming he knew anything at all.
‘If there’s something she said or did . . . anything at all that might be relevant . . . you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’
‘It would help if I had the slightest idea what form these clues might have taken.’ Memphis looked stern, then offered a consoling smile. ‘But I understand your reticence. Merely raising the subject has placed a considerable strain on you.’
‘Last thing I want to do is damage our friendship.’
‘It would take more than this, Geoffrey.’ Memphis gave him a bony hand-pat on his shoulder. ‘There is no danger of that.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Nonetheless, you are disappointed.’
‘I was hoping you’d know more. Then you might be able to tell me where I stand, what I should do next.’
‘It sounds as if Sunday has made her own mind up.’
‘I’d have gone with her, if it wasn’t for the elephants. Not that I didn’t think you’d be able to a good job looking after them, but—’
‘There is a difference between being away for a week and several months. It’s all right, Geoffrey – you don’t have to explain yourself to me. These elephants need you.’
‘They need us,’ Geoffrey corrected gently. ‘Human stewards. We don’t own them, and we don’t have any claims on moral superiority. But after all we’ve done to them in the past we do have an obligation to shepherd them through to better times.’ He smiled, catching himself. ‘Damn, I almost sound like a Panspermian. That’s what spending time with Sunday’s friends does to you.’
‘I’m sure it did you no harm.’ Memphis coughed lightly. ‘Now, may I be of some practical assistance? That was the intended purpose of this trip, after all.’
‘I’m nearly over the herd,’ Geoffrey said. ‘The aug will show you the infants that still need implanting. Designate them with the dragonfly, then let the darts find their own way. It’s the same protocol as last time.’
‘I shall endeavour to remember.’ Memphis halted his progress and assumed a posture of upright concentration, his hands laced behind his back, his face lifted slightly to the sky. ‘Are you certain you trust me with this?’
‘No one else I’d let anywhere near it. Assigning the dragonfly to you . . . now.’
Memphis allowed his eyelids to drop nearly shut. ‘I have it. I’m circling over the herd now. The view is marvellous. Will they see me?’
‘Some of them, but they won’t connect the dragonfly or the darts with either of us. They don’t feel much when the machines go in, but it’s always best to play safe and avoid any negative associations.’
‘I have the first of the infants designated now. That is Melissa, I think.’
‘Two closely spaced notches on the right ear, that’s her.’
Memphis released the first of the darts, which deployed its wings and locked on to the target infant. The aug dropped a clarifying tag, a box with accompanying sub-icons denoting the presence of potentially harmful nanomachinery, along with the serial numbers and codes that established the legal status of that nanomachinery under various USN conventions and intergovernmental veterinary-medical protocols.
Memphis waited until Melissa was at least a body length from any other elephants and then brought the dart in. It landed on top of her neck, just below the base of her skull, and clamped into position like some tiny replica of an asteroid-mining robot, sinking barbed landing legs into the yielding crust of living tissue. The next step was for the dart to push a blood-sampling surface penetrator into
the tissue, a quick-burrowing telescopic drill that, having collected and rapid-assayed a DNA sample, was able to verify that this really was an elephant it had landed on, and not some other organism it had selected in error. This took another three hundred milliseconds, by which point nearly half a second had elapsed since the dart’s touchdown. Somewhere else in the world, having been notified of the results of the DNA assay, a USN biomedical watchdog system gave final authorisation for nanoculation to proceed.
Although the delivery probe was releasing anaesthetic as it tunnelled down, Melissa still felt it happening. Two seconds into the process, she trumpeted and began to curl her trunk back, seeking to remove the offending object.
By then the quicksilver rush of nanomachinery had commenced, a liquid army of submicroscopic medical engines invading foreign territory. The machines knew their way around a brain, even an elephant brain. They began to replicate, spinning a web of glistening connectivity.
All this took time. Although the seed population had been established within seconds, it would be weeks before complete neural integration had been achieved. Even then, only a thousandth part of Melissa’s brain volume would have been co-opted into the new network. That was all it took to give Geoffrey a window – and a door – into her mind.
Less than five seconds after its arrival, the dart’s work was done. It withdrew its self-cauterizing probes, unmoored itself from the elephant’s skin and returned to the sky. Melissa stopped trumpeting and lowered her trunk in a distracted manner, as if not quite sure what had been bothering her. The other elephants, momentarily troubled, returned to their own concerns. Melissa wandered back to her mother, one of the high-ranking females. Memphis sent a command authorising the dart to dismantle itself.
There were four more elephants to inject, but Geoffrey had no doubt that Memphis was up to the task. He was relieved that his old friend and mentor hadn’t taken obvious offence at the questions posed to him. At least, he didn’t think he had.
Memphis had told the truth, too. Geoffrey had never been more certain of anything in his life.