Debatable Space (44 page)

The Kornbluthians stage the greatest street party ever known. All across the planet, bands play and people dance. Huge video
screens project the images of what is happening in other cities, as we dance in the main square of Gladiatorville.

These people are strangers to me. This is not my home. I long to go back to Cambria.

“Homesick, Cap’n?” Kalen asks.

“Yeah. You too?”

“I’m over it. I’m planning to roam a little. Travel from star to star. Maybe take some seeds and frozen sperm, see what happens.”

“You’re going to find and settle your own planet?”

“Me and Harry.”

“What?”

“You heard.”

“You’re miscegenating?”

“Is that what they call it in your neck of the woods?”

“I’m pleased for you.”

“Good luck in Cambria.”

“I’m not going to Cambria.”

“Where then?”

I pause.

“Earth.”

The Captain has briefed his crew, and they are ranged before me, confronting me.

“I can’t do it,” I tell them.

“You must,” says Kalen.

“You have to,” says Brandon.

“Please, for me,” says Flanagan.

“Just do it, bitch,” says Jamie.

“I don’t see the need. You’ve saved humanity.”

“You know what will happen on Earth.”

“I don’t know for certain.”

I’m lying. I do know. At the moment, Earth is a paradise; all its people are free, sustained by the slave labour on other
planets.

But once Earth is isolated again… What will the Corporation do then?

“They’ll fuck it up,” says Jamie.

“It’ll be, yeah,” says Brandon.

“Shit,” adds Jamie.

“Real shit,” Brandon adds.

“It’s true,” Kalen chips in.

“Human nature.”

“What a bummer.”

“Some people need someone to oppress. It’s the way of the Universe. Unless…”

“It’ll take a brave person. Someone, you know…”

“Heroic. A heroine. You could be…”

“Shut the fuck up,” I snarl. But the flattery does its job.

Because I know exactly what my son will do. He will not surrender his power, he will not in any way compromise. Instead, he
will authorise a new war. He will build starships to go back out into space and rebuild Beacons. And if necessary, he will
enslave half of Earth humanity in order to do that.

And so, if we do not act, then in forty or fifty years the Corporation’s warships will reach the edges of inhabited space.
Within two hundred years they will be at Kornbluth. And this time, they will be unbeatable. Slavery will return. We will,
once again, be two human races: the Have Everythings, and the Trodden Underfoots.

I know what must be done.

We have to kill the Cheo. We have to destroy the Corporation. We have to conquer Earth.

“It can’t be done. All the Beacons are destroyed,” I tell them. “There’s no way for us to connect with Earth, or to mind-travel
there, without a Quantum Beacon.”

“There is a way.”

“The Beacons are all destroyed!” I shout at him.

“All but one.”

With waves of horror, I realise that all along Flanagan has known of my secret power and status.

“You,” Flanagan says.

“Me?”

“You.
You
are a Beacon.”

He has figured it out. Every other member of the pirate crew has a brain microchip with a roaming facility which connects
it to the nearest remote computer – whether it’s on the pirate ship, on the nearest planet, or even on one of the interstellar-space-travelling
computers which can be found from time to time.

But I am unique in that I have exclusive and individual use of one computer, which I can access instantaneously wherever I
am. And that computer is
on Earth
. This was my parting gift from my son, the Cheo: a brain implant that allows me instant access to everything that is happening
or has happened anywhere in the inhabited Universe, via a massively powerful remote computer on Earth.

And, of course, such a connection is possible because the microchip implant includes a Quantum Beacon.

“Everyone assumes the Beacons must be large,” Flanagan says, calmly.

“Not so,” says Jamie.

“They’re small. Itsy.”

“Bitsy.”

“Quantum-sized small!”

“It’s the ships which house the Beacons which are large,” Flanagan says. “The Beacons are, well, infinitesimal. You have a
Quantum Beacon in your brain, Lena. That’s how you know so much. You are our only link to Earth.”

“You can’t ask me to kill my own son,” I whisper.

“Lena, you have to. It “s the only way.”

He’s right, I know.

Lena, be careful.

Tinbrain, be quiet. I have need of you. Consider this an order.

What is your order, Lena?

Lena?

Help me go to war.

My remote computer goes to work. It is networked with every other computer on Earth and on the Dyson Jewels. It can access
any workplace, any factory.

My computer accesses the mainframe computer on a space factory in orbit near Venus. It issues it with a series of specifications
and instructions. Moulding presses are created and hot bioplastic is poured in. Humanoid shapes are created, and modified,
and sculpted. Robotic brains are built and installed, tailor-made to be operated by human minds.

The robots are strong, and can breathe in airless space. And their armoured carcasses have only a few weak points that can
be damaged by explosive bullets or laser blasts.

On my instructions, my tinbrain remote computer moulds the robots to exactly resemble their human counterparts. The vats create
a robot Lena, and a robot Flanagan.

When the robots have been created their cyberbrains are switched on. The sensory input from eyes and ears and nostrils is
digitised and sent to the Quantum Beacon in my brain. I am able to process it – and I
see
what Robot Lena sees. Then, by tensing my muscles or moving any other part of me in my simulator frame, I am able to send
digitised instructions on how to move to Robot Lena, and these instructions travel back by the same route.

Just as we did on Cambria, we are able to possess and operate the Doppelganger Robots despite many light-years of physical
distance. The difference this time is that the Quantum Beacon is in
my head
.

I did not dare tell Flanagan of this power of mine. I had no idea he had guessed.

The sly bastard…

Flanagan’s plan has another dimension. He learned, from what I did on Cambria in the
ménage à trois
with the Doppelganger Robots, that I have the ability to split my consciousness. So Flanagan is linked into my mind via a
neural connection; and I am able to filter the signals from the Flanagan Robot and pass them through to him. And, in the same
way, I am able to transmit his body movements to his robot replica.

Our minds are merged; and with me as the vessel, we are able to move the two robots on Earth.

My computer gives instructions for the two robots to be discarded from the factory near Venus. We are picked up on a conveyor
belt, and ejected into space.

And we fly, exhilaratingly, through the empyrean. We don’t need suits… we feel like birds that have got lost and have
flown up into Heaven. We wheel and roll and soar around Venus, then accelerate towards the ball of Earth.

It’s a longish journey, but it leaves me rapt with awe. The Dyson Jewels are like the globes on an ancient planetary model
writ large; their diamond surfaces shine in celebration of the glory that is humanity. The Angel bathes its eerie light on
everything, and Earth itself seems richer and bluer and greener than ever before.

I have a long long moment of sublimity.

Then I glance at Flanagan, with his grizzled hair and fierce eyes. At my instructions, the beard has gone. He looks younger
somehow. And his body is stretched out, arms ahead, rocket pack on his back. He is the very image of the ageing Superman returning
from a trip to the stars.

And for the first time in centuries, I feel clean. I feel purged.

I have lived too long with guilt and regret and despair. But now, suddenly, exhilaratingly, my past has been flung open for
me. And I can see what
really
happened to me in the long course of my life. I can see my strengths, my virtues, my triumphs. But I can also see my weaknesses,
my blind spots, my terrible errors of judgement. I see it all – but in a detached, calm way, as if I am looking at myself
from a long way away.

I see my tendency to grandiosity, my habit of inflating my own importance. I see, in truth, that my role as “President” of
Humanity was less important than I have claimed. I was a figurehead, a rallying cry. I did help; but I never achieved as much
as I would have liked.

Everything has fallen into perspective. I’ve had an amazingly varied life; that’s the most extraordinary thing about me. I
am also a great populariser of scientific ideas; that’s a major accomplishment in itself. I am proud at what I’ve done. I
have no need to be a goddess.

You’re very wise.

Shut up! You’re to blame. With your flattering and your ego-stroking. You helped make me into the monster I became.

That’s how you programmed me.

Well nyaah nyaah, call yourself a computer superbrain!

I can see now, with painful clarity, how I began to lose my mind while in power. All those long nights strapped to a cyberhelmet,
living and breathing the lives of the citizens of Hope. Followed by all those long long days, the endless meetings, the ceaseless
decisions, with stress and anxiety my constant companions. After a hundred or so years of this, I was tired and drained and
sleep-deprived almost all of the time. I suspect I was delusional and paranoid for most of my final years in office. No wonder
I murdered poor old Cavendish.

She deserved it.

What?

I said, she deserved it. Don’t beat yourself up.

She was a good woman, and I was insane.

She was a wicked woman, and a bitch, and besides, what’s done is done. Forgive yourself, Lena, it’s time, and you deserve
absolution.

What’s this, more of the ego-massage subroutine?

This is me, Lena. Not everything I say is the result of my programming. You’re a good woman, I’m proud to have you as my friend.

I am humbled at the words from my remote computer. But I am also genuinely confused; are his words merely another result of
my devious programming? Or has my computer evolved a personality and an independent sentience?

It’s me! I told you! Are you dumb or what?

Thank you, I mouth, to the remote computer in my head.

“Penny for your thoughts,” says the robot Flanagan over the intercom.

“I was just discussing with myself what an extraordinary and wonderful individual I am.”

“You really are full of shit, you old shrew.”

“Ah, go put a sock in it, greybeard.”

We carry on our long flight through space until we reach Earth’s atmosphere.

Then we plunge downwards.

We burn
. But these bodies are amazingly robust. Propelled by jetpacks, but without any kind of spacesuit, we soar through Earth’s
air until we emerge, blazing like comets, into the day sky above Europe.

Below, I can see the Alps. We fly lower. And lower still.

We swoop low over England, in a county not far from where I was born.

I am home.

This is disgusting. The neural connection puts me right inside the torrent that is Lena’s brain. I can feel her every opinion,
her every prejudice. I wallow and splash in her self-satisfaction and smugness. This fucking bitch is
such
a fucking bitch!

Shut the fuck up, Flanagan.

Your mind is a cesspit!

You should feel privileged. I’ve never been this close to a man.

That’s because you are a man-hating fucking monster!

Children, please.

Keep out of this.

Yeah, shut up, tinbrain.

We have an urgent mission ahead of us. Cooperation and collaboration are required. You must both…

Who’s Tom?

Get out of my memories!

And oh my God, what’s this! Whips and black leather! Yee-ha! Ooh, that looks nice. Is that Peter’s dad you’re fucking?

You are violating me.

I see you did the stopping the heart thing with him too.

Stop this, Flanagan, or I’ll drown you in my secret opinion of you.

Is it a two-way thing? Can you read my thoughts? ’Cause I have some juicily evil and vile fantasies about you that you could
paddle in.

I can see them. You’re pathetic.

Pay attention, please. We’re about to land.

Flanagan, will you tell me something?

What?

The truth. The real truth. I know you were only teasing me earlier, when you said what you did. About playing me for a fool.
But why did you
really
ask me to be leader of the pirate band? It wasn’t just flattery and manipulation, was it? You did think I was actually
worthy
to be your leader. Didn’t you?

This is not the time or the place for this discussion.

Tell me, Flanagan! I need to know!

Lena, this is foolish, you can only get hurt getting questions like…

Flanagan’s thoughts cut through like a knife:

I did it because I knew you would inspire us.

I savour his delicious thought. “I did it because I knew you would inspire us.” But is that the truth, or just more flattery
and lies? So I think back at him: You’re lying.

No. I’m not.

Time to focus. We’re going to land soon.

I ignore my remote computer. I’m too busy eavesdropping Flanagan’s thoughts:

I don’t blame Lena for not believing me (thinks Flanagan). But it’s true. Yes, I duped her. But I also relied heavily upon
her presence, her history. Would the pirate band have followed us if it hadn’t been for Lena? Maybe, but maybe not. She is,
like it or not, the kind of woman a man could follow to Hell and back.

I can hear every word of this, by the way.

Shit!

You old flatterer you.