<Wow!> I would be flummoxed later, but in the moment I felt dazzled. <Sheba built a spaceship!>
And her spaceship had a name etched into its sleek flank: ESCAPE.
<Escape where?> I wondered.
<Indeed.> Medusa took me on a tour of the outside of the ship, which was about the same size as one of the luxury shuttles the Executives had used to go back and forth between Titania and Olympia. <Your ghost was right. This is what the numbers in Sheba’s diary were really about. I didn’t solve the puzzle until right before they blew you out of the air lock.>
Escape had small thrusters for maneuvering. But as we approached the rear of the craft, where one would certainly expect a main engine nozzle to be, we found only more small thrusters. <Something’s fishy here,> I said.
<Yes. Look more closely at these.> She used her own thruster to zoom up a curved structure that looked more decorative than practical, and perched in a spot that allowed us to look at the thing, but also to see what appeared to be its mate on the other side of the ship. There were four other structures, very much like it, in opposite pairs.
<Odd,> I said. <From this angle, it looks like one of the spiny sea creatures from my mother’s nature database. But what are these structures for?>
<I think they move the ship,> said Medusa.
The only engines I understood (and then only with the most basic grasp) were the chemical engines that drove our generation ships. They were marvels, to be sure, but mostly because they were so gigantic. The whole idea behind a generation ship is that you can’t go faster than light, and therefore it’s going to take a very long time to get to the closest solar system, let alone the one that you’re trying to reach. I had seen the elementary star charts on my education screen, and the computations that had been used to calculate how long it would take us to reach our new home (which was as unnamed as the one we had allegedly left behind), but I had never received formal education about any other kind of propulsion system. So I couldn’t imagine how the elegant gizmos that adorned Escape could propel it.
On the other hand, Medusa had said move, not propel, and those might be two very different ideas. <Do they generate some sort of field?> I asked.
<Maybe.> Medusa caressed the structure with her tentacles. <I can’t help thinking about the gravity bombs. They represent a technology far more advanced than the kind that produced our propulsion engines. When I see this vessel inside this comparatively primitive engine, the dissonance makes me wonder why we’ve made our journey inside a generation ship—grand though it may be. Because this vessel is named Escape, and that suggests it may be capable of taking its passengers very far, very fast.>
<Well,> I said, <I don’t know if this will shed light on the subject, but I learned two things during my adventure as Sezen Koto.> And I told Medusa about the Weapons Clan and the Engineered.
<If we’re engineered,> said Medusa, <someone made us. I don’t suppose Gennady mentioned why…?>
<Nope. But I got the impression that he either belongs to the Weapons Clan or he answers to them. Yet he also seems to be double-crossing them, somehow. Or double-crossing the Charmaynes.>
<There’s no reason he couldn’t do both at the same time.> Medusa slithered down the possible-field-generating thing and across Escape’s hull. <This lovely vessel is a few magnitudes higher in concept than our shuttles. I think I’m in love.>
Escape was large enough to hold perhaps fifty passengers. I wondered how much food and water it could store. Or would they rely on deepsleep units?
Was it possible that it could get somewhere so fast, they wouldn’t have to take many supplies? If so, it would carry at least twice as many passengers.
<The gravity bombs that killed Titania generated strong fields in relatively small spots,> I said. <In some of Nuruddin’s movies, they speak of creating wormholes in space–time and using them to create—I don’t know—a sort of shortcut.>
<Because space would be folded around a singularity,> said Medusa. <Rather like a fold in clothing, so you could jump from one part of the fold to the next instead of taking the long way around.>
We climbed up another of the structures and gazed down at the marvelous ship. Escape gleamed under the starlight. Hella Major and Minor seemed to be feasting their bright eyes on her, and their distant partner, Charon, lined up with her nose.
<So,> I said at last, <Sheba was going to escape somewhere. Of all people, why would she need to do that? Escape from whom?>
Where will you be when it goes down? Baylor had asked Gennady. This shuttle won’t take you far.
<The answer is on Olympia,> said Medusa.
Which meant I had to find it.
What a pain in the butt.
* * *
A week later, I floated with my mother’s ghost, having accomplished absolutely nothing. I didn’t know if Medusa and I should continue with our music/implant project, even though she had worked out a code we could use to introduce our false Sheba messages. Should we answer the big questions first, about Escape and the Engineered and blah-blah-blah? If we didn’t get those answers, would we make fatal mistakes by blundering ahead?
Medusa wasn’t idle—she prepared a timetable and a list of recipients for the Sheba Communiqués. The recent echo from the general direction of the wreckage of Titania would help convince Executives that those bits and pieces were authentic.
Nefertari looked through Nuruddin’s movie database for more references to wormhole space travel, and she had already found quite a few, though most of them were pretty sketchy and seemed designed more for entertainment value than as scientific hypotheses.
Kumiko spent most of her time trying to track Gennady, whom she considered to be a possible threat to Terry—for which I could not blame her.
And I—floated. My mother’s hair swirled like seaweed in our undersea fantasy. Light penetrated from overhead, and seemed to bend in the blue and green ripples. The sirens sang, Debussy’s music played inside my head, and a whimsical undersea kingdom began to emerge.
I had to admit, the fantasy had some allure. I had seen plenty of images from my mother’s database, some of them static and some of them moving, but I had never been immersed in one before. My mother’s ghost could have been responsible for that—she had woven immersive experiences for me before, many of which had a dreamlike quality. Understandable, considering that she was asleep.
But she had never used Debussy for her music before. Had it truly been her idea? Because she seemed as dazzled by the undersea kingdom that was emerging from the shadows as I was. These waters were shallow; the sunlight played on coral reefs that looked like castles made out of living creatures. Starfish, octopuses, rainbow-colored fish, and sea horses moved on the terraces and between the spires. We swam toward them hand in hand to get a better look—and that was when we saw other figures darting between the reefs, playing tag with each other, creatures with human heads and hands, but also flippers and fins.
<Mermaids?> I asked my mother’s ghost. <Why are you showing me this?>
“I’m not. I thought it was your fantasy.” Her hair drifted like clouds parting to reveal the moon. I glimpsed the ghost’s true face. It was even less human than mine, though she was beautiful. Perhaps it was the face of the beings who had created her, the ones who were long dead. It was a countenance devoid of emotion, until she looked past me and saw something that transformed her, first with wonder, and then with something transcendent, an emotion so glorious, I almost forgot to turn and see what it was that had inspired her.
A smiling creature swam toward us, his otter-ish body cleaving effortlessly through the water. He had long, webbed fingers and the face of a boy.
“This is no database.” My mother’s voice was oddly pitched as it passed through the liquid medium. “This is a progra
m.”
Turbulence obscured the scene for a moment, and then the otter boy emerged from a burst of bubbles. He planted a kiss on my cheek. <Hello, Oichi. My name is Ashur.>
Nuruddin’s son.
Ashur grinned impishly and disappeared in another burst of bubbles.
<How did he do that?> I asked my mother’s ghost.
She had no answer. Like Lady Sheba’s ghost, she had encountered something that had shaken her. She drifted away from me, and her hair obscured her features again, until I was left to wonder if I had dreamed that marvelous countenance and the emotion I had seen lighting her from within, one that I could interpret because there was some of her in me, if Gennady was to be believed.
Was it love?
Before she disappeared, I glimpsed the orb that was normally hidden, but no eye looked back at me. Instead, I saw the light of a star.
Then it winked out. It was as if my mother’s ghost had become an icon on a screen, a symbol of something that was there rather than a presence.
I didn’t call to her. If she chose to go away, she must have a good reason.
And I had other things to worry about.
23
The Mermaid Program
<Nuruddin,> I said cautiously, <I don’t wish to alarm you—>
<In that case,> he said, <I should be even more alarmed.>
<Do you know about the mermaid program?>
<The what?> And that told me all I needed to know about Nuruddin’s lack of complicity. The parents are always the last to know.
<Ashur has contacted me through a program, the mermaid program, that he seems to have designed around Debussy’s “Sirènes.”>
He paused for a long moment. <Well,> he said at last, <I’m not surprised at his ingenuity, but I suspect that the other shoe has yet to drop.>
<He used our secret network, Nuruddin. The one to which he should have no access—unless he has our implants.>
<But he doesn’t! How could he?>
I wanted very much to ask Ashur that myself. But I didn’t want to frighten him, or his father. <Please ask him,> I said.
<He’ll be home within the half hour,> said Nuruddin. <I’ll get to the bottom of it.>
Somehow I doubted that. But at least the conversation could begin. And then I would get to the bottom of it. A good way to do that would be to figure out just where the blazes Ashur got an implant.
Medusa, Nefertari, and Kumiko prowled through the research towers, counting our supply of ready implants. <I don’t want to taint our search with preconceptions,> said Medusa, <but I am skeptical that anyone but us has been in here.>
They counted each implant. My father and his cohorts had manufactured thousands of them. When Titania was destroyed, I had assumed they were lost, but the Medusa units moved them to Olympia when they rescued themselves, and had hidden them in the research towers. Since that time, we had made more of them (well, Medusa had) because we were moving forward with the fake Sheba messages, which would promote my father’s music database and the interface hidden therein.
But no one outside our circle had accessed those towers in many decades. And that raised some unhappy suspicions.
<Kumiko,> I said, <you mustn’t tell Terry what’s going on until I’ve had a chance to speak with him personally.>
<Terry did not steal implants!> she said. <He could not do so without my help!>
<I’m sure you’re right,> I said. <For one thing, I can’t think why he’d give them to a child. But I must dot my i’s and cross my t’s.>
Kumiko’s mother-hen impulses caused her distress. So I set up a meeting with Terry as quickly as possible. I waited for him in the same room we had used to give him his own implants, and he wasted no time joining me there. I got right to the point. <Did you give implants to Nuruddin’s son?>
His face revealed no comprehension. <Did I what?>
As Medusa had warned, preconceptions could blind you in an investigation. But I doubted Terry could fake the bafflement he was showing. Or his alarm when I told him what was going on.
<How old is Ashur?> he asked.
<I believe he’s nine.>
<Who the blazes would give our implant to a child that young?>
<Well, actually,> I said, <we will, eventually. But, yes, this seems an odd thing for someone else to do. Judging from Ashur’s expertise with the mermaid program he designed, he’s making the best of it, which is what we were all supposed to do—find new ways to use the interface and design new Medusa units.>
From his abstract expression, I could tell Terry was talking to Kumiko. He focused on me again. <It’s been helpful to him, then?>
<It’s been helpful, pretty much in the way my father always predicted it would be. But we didn’t do it. So who did it?>
<Who, besides us, would be able to?> said Terry. <What are we missing?>
<We’re missing Gennady Mironenko.> Medusa spoke to both of us. <And we’re missing messages written on paper. And messages delivered by messengers. And Schnebly and whatever he is doing these days. And the two deepsleep units that had people in them until recently. Our answer could be related to any of those things.>
Terry had been curious when he arrived at our meeting, and then baffled. But now he looked certain. <This is it, Oichi. I don’t know what we’re going to do about Ashur’s situation, but we can’t just sit on our hands while someone works around us. Not unless we want a civil war on our hands.>
He was right. But I didn’t add my suspicion that we were going to get one of those, no matter what we did.
And if we did, we wanted to get the one we would win.
* * *
Ashur was not a shy boy. In fact, he was a bit of a flirt. And he had no lack of confidence.
But he felt terrible about breaking a promise. <We weren’t supposed to talk about the implants,> he said.
I sat facing him and his father in their tiny social room. The three of us had the place to ourselves because Jon was at work and Ashur’s sister was attending an event with her math club. I harbored serious concerns, but Nuruddin guided the questioning. He was not my subordinate; he was my cohort. He had a right to lead the questioning.
<Ashur,> he said, <I’ll let you in on a little secret. You were made to promise not to talk about it, because if adults found out what was going on, they would put a stop to it.>
Ashur lit up. <Exactly! And they would kill us! It’s all very dangerous, because we’re helping to shape the future.>
Well, that was true—as far as it went. <Ashur,> I said, <the adults your father was referring to are not going to kill you; we’re sitting in this room with you. We would not have consented to give you the implants before everybody else got them.>
Ashur looked confused. <But—you knew all along. It was your idea not to talk about it with each other. My team and I do projects together, but we never talk about—you know—the thing we don’t talk about. We just talk about our projects, just as you told Sultana and Tetsuko we should.>
Nuruddin frowned, because he had never heard the names Sultana and Tetsuko. But I recognized them immediately. I had seen them in a message to Baylor Charmayne, after he tried to have me and other immigrants from Titania killed:
So far have located only three targets. Med techs Sultana Smith and Tetsuko Finnegan eliminated. Servant Oichi Angelis in progress. Will use Lock 113.
<We’re learning to find ways to design things together, in that virtual space we share.> Ashur brightened again. <We designed that underwater city. We like to listen to the music together and see what it will inspire.>
Nuruddin’s face was admirably calm. <How many of you are there?>
<Thirteen,> said Ashur. <Most of us are my age, but Ortwin is only eight. We live all over Olympia. We never see each other, you know, with our real eyes, but we spend hours together in our virtual space when we’re not working on school and stuff, and we’re always talking.>
<How long have you had them?> I said.
<For seventy-five cycles. E
xactly. It took me about half that time to design the mermaid program—it was my side project, because it’s just for fun and not for anything useful, and I never talked to you about it, Father, even though I was very excited, because I wanted to keep everyone safe.
<But then—> Ashur gave me a wistful look. <—two beautiful ladies swam into my mermaid program, and I thought you would be so pleased, Oichi—to see what was being done, and to hear your father’s music, and we weren’t talking about it, we didn’t break that part of the promise, so I just thought it would be fine.… >
<I’m glad we met,> I told him. <And I love your mermaid program.>
<It’s just that people work all day long, and we don’t get to go in the Habitat Sector, and we never see anything different, and I never swam before, so I made the mermaid program and now I swim like a fish! Like an otter! Like an otter-fish!>
<It seemed so real,> I said. <I’d like to visit your program again, Ashur, but I have some big concerns. The number one thing is—when did you last speak with Sultana and Tetsuko?>
He frowned. <Um—not for a while. I tried to call them when I finished the mermaid program, but they didn’t answer. They haven’t talked to us for—for most of the time, really. We had a big talk with them right before and after we got the implants, and then that was it.>
<They told you some lies,> I said.
He fidgeted for a long moment. <Do I have to give up the mermaid program?>
<Goodness, no! That bell can’t be unrung. You have what you have and you are what you are. And they did tell the truth about one thing—you would probably lose your lives if you told anyone else about this. And we would lose ours, too. But this situation may not be all bad.>
Nuruddin raised an eyebrow. <Really? You see an upside?>
I sighed. <This wasn’t in our projected timeline, but it is what we wanted for the children on Olympia. So, Ashur—you must stay quiet about it. And once the other children get their implants, you will have to pretend that you didn’t already have it.>