Cosmonaut Keep (39 page)

Behind the maze of partitions was a corner office on a raised concrete dais with two glass walls. From its convenient supervisory vantage Gregor could see about a dozen people within the partitioned spaces, working at drawing-boards or keyboards or calculating-machines. Volkov spun a well-worn castor chair over to Gregor and sat behind the desk.

"When are you expecting the merchants?" Gregor asked.

"Any minute now, so make it quick."

"I'm here because we're after the old computing-tech for navigation, as I mentioned, and quite frankly we think the merchants are after the same thing. We're also concerned that the merchants just might find it very tempting to take one of you with them and, uh, extract the life-extension tech from you one way or another. For that they might make you an offer you couldn't refuse."

"And Matt thought I'd set him up for that? Well, well." Volkov shook his head again. "As for your other concern, I doubt if anyone has any functioning tech from the ship. I certainly don't."

He stood up and stepped to the glass wall. "If I had it, I would use it -- secretly, of course -- to get an edge on my competitors, instead of paying people to crank out calculations on the clunking monsters down there."

"This firm is yours?"

"No, no. I have this office, various contracts with the staff -- I do most of my work at sea. I'm genuinely interested in what the de Tenebres have to offer. Speak of the devil, here they are."

He left, to return a minute later with Marcus de Tenebre and one of his crewmen. Marcus gave Gregor a raised eyebrow, and Gregor moved to leave.

Volkov raised his hand. "Gregor, I'd like you to stay. This is not confidential. I want you to report on this meeting to Matt, and to your colleagues, and to the Families." He shrugged. "And the news-sheets and the radio if you like."

Marcus took the chair Gregor had vacated, Volkov sat back down at the desk, and Gregor followed the crewman's lead and slouched against the wall.

"Gentlemen," said Volkov, "am I right in thinking that you aren't here to sell fine-grade lubricants?"

Marcus nodded.

"Good. So let's not waste time. I gather you intend to leave shortly. I would like to leave with you. In return for my passage, and obviously for some hospitality and initial assistance in Nova Babylonia, I offer you my full cooperation in rediscovering the medical procedures which have enabled me to live as long as I have."

Marcus's face remained impassive. The crewman simply gaped.

"That's a generous offer," said Marcus. "It seems almost too generous. You offer us the long life, in exchange for your passage? a house? some help in finding a
job?"

"I ask more than that," said Volkov. "I ask for a guarantee of my freedom." He waved a hand. "I'm not afraid of being cut up in a laboratory -- I've met enough Nova Terrans and emigrants over the years to know that I have nothing like that to fear. But I don't wish to be tied to your family, or to your ship, though of course you will get the first benefits of any success we may have. And I offer less, by the way -- I have no guarantee that the research will be successful."

"That's reasonable," Marcus said. "How do you expect to hold us to this?"

Volkov slid a piece of paper across the desk. "I have a contract. Naturally, it's not explicit as to the nature of the knowledge, but it's watertight enough. I know it's in your interests to honor contracts, because for you repeat business depends on a
very
long-term good reputation. Copies have been lodged with my solicitors, and young Gregor here can witness it and take one too."

Marcus scanned the document and nodded.

"I'll sign," he said.

Volkov signed, Gregor witnessed. Then they all signed the copies.

"You have no one you wish to take with you?" the crewman asked.

Volkov's lips compressed. "No," he said. "The long life can be a lonely business."

"And your practice here?" Marcus glanced around the busy office, evidently impressed.

"I'm happy to leave it." Volkov stood up. "Are we ready, gentlemen?"

"In a moment," said Marcus. He rose, propped himself on the edge of the desk, and turned to Gregor. "You are skilled in the life sciences, perhaps more than our philosophers. You could help us in the research. In Nova Babylonia, you could become a great scientist, a man of renown. I know of your conversation with my uncle. I can assure you that he would regard this both as a proper use of your gifts, and a gift worthy of his daughter."

Gregor didn't doubt a word of it. He could imagine it all, clear and vivid, glowing and glorious. He shook his head.

"What I want is here."

Marcus extended an open hand.

"Your friend Elizabeth can come too, if she wishes. Or if you prefer to depart without good-byes -- our skiff is on the quay out the back."

"No," said Gregor. He felt slightly dizzy. "No, thank you."

He picked up the document, and paused a moment until his mouth was no longer dry.

"Perhaps it would be best if I leave before you, gentlemen. Give Lydia my love, all the same. If I see her again, it'll be in one of our own ships."

Marcus nodded, Volkov smiled skeptically, the crewman stood aside.

It seemed a long walk through the office. As he came around the partition into the reception area, he saw Elizabeth and Salasso sitting on the sofa. Elizabeth jumped up.

"Everything all right?"

"Everything's fine," he said.

"We were keeping an eye on you," said Salasso. "Matt told us it was a bad idea, but we disagreed."

Gregor clapped them both on the shoulders. "Thanks. It wasn't necessary, but thanks. Where's Matt?"

"Still in the cafe, I hope."

"Good," said Gregor. "I have some questions for him."

"Well, that's it," said Matt. "Nothing to be done about it now."

They had left the cafe and walked to the end of the quay, and had conducted most of their conversation sitting around on bollards, out of earshot of anyone. The ship was about to lift. Their hair prickled. Odd currents of wind whirled scraps of news-sheet and fishwrap into small vortices.

"Nothing to be done about what?" Elizabeth sounded edgy.

Matt gestured at the ship, rising above a bulge of water. The last of its skiffs scooted to the long slits in its side.

"Volkov," he said. "You've done Nova Terra no favors, letting him go. Nor your friends the merchants, for that matter. Nor us, in the long run."

"He seemed a reasonable-enough man to me," said Gregor.

"Of course he fucking did! When you've lived as long as I have, you'll know that anyone can seem reasonable if they want to."

Yes, but why would anyone want to seem like a paranoid git?
Gregor felt like asking.

"You," said Salasso, "do not seem very reasonable. Is that because you don't want to?"

"Maybe I will when I've lived as long as you," said Matt. "Or maybe not. Us monkeys don't get any better from living longer. We learn nothing and forget nothing. We get worse. My way of getting worse is a lot better than Grigory Volkov's, believe you me."

The ship floated upward, like the airship it so blatantly wasn't. High in the sky it began to move forward, on a horizontal line that would soon take it out of the atmosphere, and which much sooner took it out of sight.

"Gone to Croatan," said Salasso. "I know the course."

"What do you mean, you're better than Volkov?" said Gregor, in a sudden gale of disappointment and rage at his ancestor. "Volkov's a successful businessman. You're a bum."

"Volkov's been a bum in his time," said Matt. "And I've been rich.
C'est la
fucking
vie."

He stood up, still staring after the ship. "The point is, Volkov could be a successful politician. What a man who doesn't age could do to the politics of Nova Babylonia is a bit worrying. Still. What's done is done."

He turned around. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"For a start," said Elizabeth, "you can tell us whether you do in fact have any of the old tech."

"Yeah," said Matt. He dug into a deep pocket and pulled out an aluminum case that Gregor had seen already among the knives, pistols, and key-rings. "Come and have a look."

They gathered around the bollard he was sitting on.

He opened the case and passed a pair of wraparound sunglasses to Gregor.

"Go on, try them."

Gregor's hand shook a little as he opened them. The earpieces had tiny speaker-grilles at their curved ends, and still-bright copper and optical connections at their hinges. He slid the glasses on. When he looked at the sea it sparkled with tiny, perfect reflections of the sun.

"Wow," he said. "They really cut down the glare."

"Exactly," said Matt. He held out his hand for them. "That's all they do. Anyone else want a go?"

"What happened to them?"

Matt shrugged as he folded them away.

"Accumulated errors, radiation damage, general fouling-up of the directories ... in short, everything that didn't happen to me."

He stood up. "Look, we didn't know," he said, sounding defensive. "We didn't know how well the fucking treatments worked. They hadn't been running long enough, I mean, sure, the biotech companies made big boasts, but they always do. The telomere tabs were one-shot things, right, most people got them in their early twenties. Fix and forget. We didn't have them on the ship, and we didn't have the spec for them. It's not like we kept something back from you."

His face was bleak.

"It's all right," said Elizabeth. "We'll get there ourselves."

Matt grinned at her. "That's the spirit. Speaking of getting there ourselves, when can I see this navigation solution of yours?"

They walked up the quay, back to the city.

It was a small window, and the light came through it in a narrow beam. They followed its hot yellow pool around the floor, shifting position unconsciously as Gregor talked Matt through the calculations that summarized the Great Work. Elizabeth and Salasso filled in details of the model of the squid nervous system.

A last sheet of paper lay on the floor: the bottom of the stack. Gregor slashed a pencil line below the last line of figures, and rocked back on his heels.

"That's it," he said.

He stood up. His knees hurt a little. Matt rose more quickly, and walked to the window. The sun, low and orange, threw his dark shadow back.

"Well," said Elizabeth, "what do you think? Have we cracked it?"

"I don't know."

"What?" Gregor heard his voice crack. Salasso silently handed him a chill bottle of beer -- the local stuff; tasted of chemicals. He gulped gratefully.

"You must know," Gregor said. "You're the first navigator. You navigated the ship across ten thousand fucking light-years. You set the problem. You must know if we've solved it."

Matt stepped away from the window and sat down on the bed. It was still rumpled, as Gregor and Elizabeth had left it. The One Star Hotel, aptly named, didn't do room service. He reached for his jacket and fished out a pouch and some papers.

"Thank the gods you people had this," he said. "I never could have stood it otherwise. I'd have gone bugfuck crazy."

His hands shook a little as he wrapped the leaves.

"Knowing that the baby in your arms will get old and die before you. Knowing that your grandchildren will die before you. We made a choice, see. We were scientists, on the whole we were civilized people. We didn't want to become gods, or kings. So we had to disappear, and keep on disappearing, generation after generation, decade after decade. Some of us took ship to other suns. The rest of us ... well. Enough self-pity. Let's just say, it's been tough, and the dope and the drink help, and they don't even kill us, like they should."

He inhaled deeply. Gregor resisted the impulse to clout him, and accepted the joint. The soothing smoke dissolved his rage.

"All right," he said, after Elizabeth and Salasso had partaken. "You've got all of us mellow, Matt Cairns. Now tell us why you don't know."

"I'm an artist, not a technician," said Matt. "I'm a mathematician, a systems manager, a programmer. I've followed every step of your reasoning, and I have to say it strikes me as sound. I set up the problem for my descendants to solve, yes. I'm good at that. I think you've solved it, but I don't know for sure, because ... "

He looked down, then up. "I'm not the first navigator."

"So who
was
the first navigator?"

"There was no first navigator," said Matt. "But there is now. You are the first navigator."

20

____________

Blasphemous Geometries

Chumakova was right. Order was indeed being restored back in the European Union. While we were dealing with Volkov's abortive conspiracy, a rather better-planned coup was being launched in Brussels and the regional capitals. Oskar Jilek, a Major-General in the European Peoples' Army, popped up on screens, goggles, and desktops to announce the formation of an Emergency Committee and the honorable resignation of General Secretary Gennady Yefrimovich. Firm action would be taken against rioters, provocateurs, military-adventurist elements, revisionism, dogmatism, and corruption within the Party and state apparatus, and agents of imperialism within the state security organs. Urgent negotiations would be opened with the United States over
genuinely
collaborative access to recent advances in space exploration.

Rather cleverly, the Emergency Committee rescinded all "administrative measures" against members of elected bodies. Weber and other MEPs and councillors who'd been arrested were immediately released. This eliminated one democratic grievance and instantly clogged up the elected bodies with Party-initiated procedures to get rid of them through proper channels. It also distracted attention from a swift roundup of less well connected citizens, mostly for offenses that had long been winked at. Import controls and safety regulations shut down hardware and software bazaars like Waverley Market within hours. Corrupt officials who'd lined their pockets by allowing black-market racketeers to endanger the livelihoods and lives of E.U. citizens were exposed and arrested with a great show of shock and indignation.