Permafrost(12)
“Just four, after all the trouble you’ve gone to?”
“I would gladly wish for more. But we are limited by factors outside our control, including our access to neural nanotechnology.” For a moment Cho, too, showed something of the strain life had put on him. “Such things are in very short supply these days, and we’ve had to fight hard to consolidate what we have. That is true of the project as a whole, from our secondhand ships to the time-probes themselves. Everything is make-do-and-mend, and we cannot be too choosy.” But he flashed an encouraging smile. “What we can be is resourceful and adaptable—and I think we have been.”
The canteen was quiet, except for a small group at one of the tables near a main window. They were leaning into each other, engaged in low, urgent conversation. Young and early-middle-aged people, men and women both, a blend of accents. Remains of food on their trays, half-finished drinks, beer bottles, a pack of cards, a paperback book. There was no chance that this little room was capable of providing for twelve hundred people, even with staggered shifts, so I guessed this was what amounted to the VIP dining area.
Cho knocked on the serving hatch and got them to open up for us.
“It’s still dried or frozen food, for the most part,” he said. “But we are very fortunate in having the pick of the available rations flown in for us, from all areas of World Health. They’ve been made to understand the importance of our effort, if not its precise nature.”
Once we’d gotten our food he steered me to the table where the other people were seated.
“That said, we work like dogs.” He pulled out a seat for me, while balancing his tray single-handedly. “There are twelve hundred people stationed here at Permafrost, all exceptional individuals. All valued. But there are fewer than a dozen of us that I would describe as truly irreplaceable—and you are now one of them. We are up against time, Miss Lidova—in all senses. If it takes us ten years to safeguard those seeds, it’ll be too late for our food scientists and agronomists to put them to effective use. In fact we have much less time than that. The Brothers tell us that we have about six to nine months to make a difference—a year at the most. After that, we’re wasting time. Quite literally.”
“The Brothers?”
“Dmitri, Ivan, Alexei and Pavel. The Brothers Karamazov. Artificial intelligences, assisting with our endeavour. More make-do-and-mend. They’re on the Nerva, so you’ll meet them eventually.” Cho and I took our places, squeezing into orange plastic chairs between the other people. “This is Miss Valentina Lidova,” he said, extending a hand to me. “Would you mind introducing yourselves? I assure you she doesn’t bite.”
A woman leaned over and shook my hand. She had a confident grip. She was about twenty years younger than me, with long black hair and a wide, friendly face, with prominent freckles across the cheekbones.
“I am Antti,” she said, speaking slightly accented Russian. “Originally from Finland, one of the pilots.” She gave Cho a wary, questioning look. “Does she know, Director?”
“A little,” Cho said. He used an opener to work the top off a bottle of beer, and drank directly from the bottle. “You may speak freely, in any case.”
“They’re trying to send us back in time,” Antti said. “Us four pilots. We won’t actually go back, really—we’ll always be aboard the Vaymyr, hooked up to the equipment in the Admiral Nerva. We’ll just take over hosts in the past, driving their bodies by remote control. That’s why they call us pilots. But it’ll feel like going back, when we’re time-embedded.”
“If it works,” said a handsome, dark-skinned man, hair greying slightly at the temples.
“Of course it’ll damn well work,” Antti answered. “Why wouldn’t it, when the individual steps are all feasible?”
“I am Vikram,” said the handsome man, smiling stiffly. “From New Delhi, originally. I hope my Russian isn’t too shabby?”
“Oh, stop showing off,” Antti said, flashing him an irritated look, as if they were all more than fed up with Vikram’s transparent self-deprecation.
“We’ve sent stuff back,” said another man, grinning to lighten the mood, passing me a beer whether I wanted one or not. “Small things, up to about the size of a pollen grain, or an initiating spore of nanotechnology. We know we can do it. It’s just a question of putting the final pieces together.” He shook my hand. “Christos, from Greece. Or what’s left of Greece. Where have you come from, Valentina?”
“Kogalym,” I answered. “You won’t have heard of it. It’s quite a way south, really a nothing sort of place.”
“Everywhere is a nothing place soon,” said the man next to Christos, who was the only one approaching my own age. Just as well-built as the Greek, but with wrinkles, age spots and mostly silver hair, combed back from his brow. “I am Miguel,” he said, speaking Russian but more slowly and stiffly than his comrades. “I am glad they bring you to station.” He dropped his voice. “What you know of experiment so far?”
“Director Cho showed me the brochure,” I answered truthfully. “Beyond that, almost nothing.”
“You’ll catch on quickly,” said the fifth person at the table, who was a small woman with glasses and a severe black fringe. “I’m Margaret. Margaret Arbetsumian, mathematical physicist.”