The Night's Dawn Trilogy (44 page)

“That’s a form of immortality, although I consider it somewhat unsatisfactory. Identity fades after a few centuries. The will
to live, if you like, is lost. Understandable, really, there are no human activities to maintain the spark of vitality which
goads us on, all that’s left is observation, living your life through your descendants’ achievements. Hardly inspiring. So
I began to explore the option of simply transferring my memories into a fresh body. There are several immediate problems which
prevent a direct transfer. Firstly you require an empty brain capable of storing an adult’s memories. An infant brain would
be empty, but the capacity to retain an adult personality, the century and a half of accumulated memories that go towards
making us who we are, that simply isn’t there. So I began looking at the neuron structure to see if it could be improved.
It’s not an area that’s been well researched. Brain size has been increased to provide a memory capacity capable of seeing
you through a century and a half, and IQ has been raised a few points, but the actual structure is something the geneticists
have left alone. I started to examine the idea of human parallel thought-processing, just like the Edenist habitats. They
can hold a million conversations at once, as well as regulating their environment, acting as an administrative executive,
and a thousand other functions, although they have only the one consciousness. Yet we poor mortal humans can only ever think
about or do one thing at a time. I sought to reprofile a neural network so that it could conduct several operations simultaneously.
That was the key. I realized that as there was no limit to the number of operations which could be conducted, you could even
have multiple independent units, bonded by affinity, and sharing a single identity. That way, when one dies, there is no identity
loss, the consciousness remains intact and a new unit is grown to replace it.”

“Unit?” Quinn said heavily. “You mean a person?”

“I mean a human body with a modified brain, bonded to any number of cloned replicas via affinity. That is the project to which
I have devoted my energies here in this exile. With some considerable degree of success, I might add, despite the difficulties
of isolation. A parallel-processing brain has been designed, and my colleagues are currently sequencing it into my germ plasm’s
DNA. After that, my clones will be grown in exowombs. Our thoughts will be linked right from the moment of conception, they
will feel what I feel, see what I see. My personality will reside in each of us equally, a homogenized presence. Ultimately,
this original body will wither away to nothing, but I shall remain. Death shall become a thing of the past for me. Death will
die. I intend to spread out through this world until its resources belong to me, its industries and its population. Then a
new form of human society will take shape, one which is not governed by the blind overwhelming biological imperative to reproduce.
We shall be more ordered, more deliberate. Ultimately I envisage incorporating bitek constructs into myself; as well as human
bodies I will be starships and habitats. Life without temporal limit nor physical restriction. I shall transcend, Quinn; isn’t
that a dream worth chasing? And now I offer it to you. The homestead girls can provide enough ova for all of us to be cloned.
Modifying your DNA is a simple matter, and each of your clones will breed true. You can join us, Quinn, you can live for ever.
You can even deal with this Banneth person; ten of you, twenty, an army of your mirrorselves can descend on her arcology to
effect your revenge. Now doesn’t that appeal, Quinn? Hasn’t that got more style than rushing round a jungle at night carving
people’s guts out for a few thousand fuseodollars?”

Sheer willpower kept Quinn’s face composed into an indifferent mask. He wished he had never come, wished he had never figured
out the kestrel. God’s Brother, how he wished. Banneth was nothing compared to this crazo, Ban-neth was pure reasoned sanity.
Yet all the shit Laton sprouted had a terrible logic, drawing him in like the dance of the black widow. Telling him he could
be immortal was the same trick he had used against the Ivets, but with such demonic panache, blooding him in conspiracy, making
sure there was no turning back. He knew Laton would never let him get to Durringham’s spaceport, let alone reach an orbiting
starship. Not now, not with him knowing. The only way out of this tree—this room!—with his brain still his own was by agreeing.
And it was going to have to be the most convincing agreement he had ever made in his life.

“This spreading your mind around gimmick, would I have to give up my belief?” he asked.

Laton gave him a thin smile. “Your belief would be amplified, safeguarded against loss in your multiple units, and carried
down the centuries. You could even step out of the shadows to exhort your belief. What difference would it make if individual
units were flung in jail or executed? The you that is you would remain.”

“And sex, I’d still have sex, wouldn’t I?”

“Yes, with one small difference, every gene would be dominant. Every child you sired would be another of your units.”

“How far along are you with this parallel-processor brain? Have you actually grown one to see if it works?”

“A numerical simulacrum has been run through a bitek processor array. The analysis program proved its validity. It’s a standard
technique; the one Edenist geneticists used to design the voidhawks. They work, don’t they?”

“Sure. Look, I’m interested. I can hardly deny that. God’s Brother, living for ever, who wouldn’t want it? Tell you what,
I won’t make any move to get back to Earth until after these clones of yours have popped out the exowombs. If they check out
as good as you say, I’ll be with you like a shot. If not, we’ll review where we stand. Fuck, I don’t mind waiting around a
few years if that’s what it takes to perfect it.”

“Commendable prudence,” Laton purred.

“Meantime, it’d be a good idea to bugger up Supervisor Manani’s communicator block. For both our sakes. However it turns out,
neither of us wants the villagers shouting to the capital for help. Can you let me have a flek loaded with some kind of processor-buster
virus? If I just smash it, he’s gonna know it’s me.”

Anname walked in carrying a tray with Quinn’s steak, and a half-litre glass of milk. She put it down on Quinn’s lap, and glanced
hesitantly at Laton.

“No, my dear,” Laton told her. “This is definitely not St George come to spirit you away from my fire-breathing self.”

She sniffed hard, cheeks reddening.

Quinn grinned wolfishly at her round a mouthful of steak.

“I think I can live with that arrangement,” Laton said. “I’ll have one of my people prepare a flek for you before you go.”

Quinn slurped some of his milk, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Great.”

There was something wrong with Aberdale’s church. Only half of the pews had ever been built and installed, though Horst Elwes
occasionally worked on the planks of planed wood the Ivets had cut ready for the remainder. He doubted the three pews he had
already assembled in the occasional bouts of shame-induced activity would take the weight of more than four people. But the
roof didn’t leak, there was the familiarity of hymn books and vestments, the paraphernalia of worship, and he had a vast collection
of devotional music on fleks which the audio-player block projected across the building. For all its deviant inception, it
still symbolized a form of hope. Of late, it had become his refuge. Hallowed ground or not, and Horst wasn’t stupid enough
to think that was any form of protection, the Ivets never came inside.

But something had.

Horst stood in front of the bench which served as an altar, hair on his arms pricked up as though he was standing in some
kind of massive static stream. There was a presence in the church, ethereal yet with an almost brutal strength. He could feel
it watching him. He could feel age almost beyond comprehension. The first time Horst had seen a gigantea he had spent over
an hour just looking up at it in stupefaction, a living thing that had been old when Christ walked the Earth. But the gigantea
was nothing compared to this, the tree was a mere infant. Age, real age, was a fearful thing.

Horst didn’t believe in ghosts. Besides, the presence was too real for that. It enervated the church, absorbing what scant
ration of divinity had once existed.

“What are you?” he whispered to the gentle breeze. Night was falling outside, waving treetops cast a jagged sable-black silhouette
against the gold-pink sky. The men were returning from the fields, sweaty and tired, but smiling. Voices carried through the
clearing. Aberdale was so peaceful, it looked like everything he had wanted when he left Earth.

“What are you?” Horst demanded. “This is a church, a house of God. I will have no sacrilege committed here. Only those who
truly repent are welcome.”

For a giddy moment his thoughts were rushing headlong through empty space. The velocity was terrifying. He yelled in shock,
there was nothing around him, no body, no stars. This was what he imagined the null-dimension that existed outside a starship
would look like while it jumped.

Abruptly, he was back in the church. A small ruby star burnt in the air a couple of metres in front of him.

He stared at it in shock, then giggled. “Twinkle twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are.”

The star vanished.

His laughter turned to a strangled pule. He fled out into the dusky clearing, stumbling through the soft loam of his vegetable
garden, heedless of the shabby plants he trampled.

It was his singing which drew the villagers a few hours later. He was sitting on the jetty with a bottle of home-brew vodka.
The group that had gathered looked down at him with contempt.

“Demons!” Horst shouted when Powel Manani and a couple of the others pulled him to his feet. “They’ve only gone and summoned
bloody demons here.”

Ruth gave him one disgusted glance, and stalked off back to her cabin.

Horst was dragged back to his cot, where they administered one of his own tranquillizers. He fell asleep still mumbling warnings.

The Ly-cilph was interested in humans. Out of the hundred and seventy million sentient species it had encountered, only three
hundred thousand had been able to perceive it, either by technology or their own mentalities.

The priest had clearly been aware of its identity focus, although not understanding the nature. Humans obviously had a rudimentary
attunement to their energistic environment. It searched through the records it had compiled by accessing the few processor
blocks and memory fleks available in Aberdale, which mostly comprised the educational texts owned by Ruth Hilton. The so-called
psychic ability was largely dismissed as hallucinatory or fraud committed for financial gain. However the race had a vast
history of incidents and myths in its past. And its strong continuing religious beliefs were an indication of how widespread
the faculty was, granting the “supernatural” events a respectable orthodoxy. There was obviously a great deal of potential
for energistic perception development, which was inhibited by the rational mentality. The conflict was a familiar one to the
Ly-cilph, although it had no record of a race in which the two opposing natures were quite so antagonistic.

What do you think?
Laton asked his colleagues when the door closed behind Quinn Dexter.

He’s a psychopathic little shit, with a nasty steak of sadism thrown in,
said Waldsey, the group’s chief viral technologist.

Dexter is certainly unstable,
Camilla said.
I don’t think you can trust him to keep any agreement. His revenge obsession with this Banneth person is the dominant motivator.
Our immortality scheme is unlikely to replace it; too cerebral.

I say we should eliminate him,
Salkid said.

I’m inclined to agree,
Laton said.
Pity. It’s rather like watching a miniature version of one’s self.

You were never that gratuitous, Father,
Camilla said.

Given the circumstances, I might have been. However, that is an irrelevant speculation. Our immediate problem is our own security.
One can reasonably assume Quinn Dexter has informed most, if not all, of his fellow Ivets that something wicked lurks in the
woods. That is going to make life difficult.

So? We just take out all of them,
Salkid said. Out of all the exiles, the ex-blackhawk captain found the decades of inactivity hardest to handle.
I’ll lead the incorporated. It’ll be a pleasure.

Salkid, stop acting the oaf,
Laton said.
We can’t possibly eliminate all the Ivets ourselves. The attention such an overt action would generate would be quite intolerable
coming so soon after the homesteads.

What, then?

Firstly we shall wait until Quinn Dexter incapacitates Supervisor Manani’s communicator, then we shall have to get the villagers
to eliminate the Ivets for us.

How?
Waldsey asked.

The priest already knows the Ivets are Devil worshippers. We shall simply make the knowledge available to everyone else in
a fashion they cannot possibly ignore.

Idria traced a slightly elliptical orbit through the Lyll asteroid belt in the New Californian system, with a median distance
of a hundred and seventy million kilometres from the G5 primary star. It was a stony-iron rock, which looked like a bruised,
flaking swede, measuring seventeen kilometres across at its broadest and eleven down the short spin axis. A ring formation
of thirty-two industrial stations hung over the crinkled black rock, insatiable recipients of a never-ending flow of raw material
ferried out from Idria’s non-rotating spaceport.

It was the variety of those compounds which justified the considerable investment made in the rock. Idria’s combination of
resources was rare, and rarity always attracts money.