Permafrost(27)

He nodded slowly. “It’s been the same with Tibor. Not always easy, but . . . we understand each other. After eight months, what else could we do?”

“Tatiana’s a good person. I told her about the biographical arc, the data the Brothers passed to Director Cho. She knows the score.”

A certain alarm showed in his face, as if he worried that I had been too candid, too soon.

“And?”

“She wants to help. She wants to be a willing part of this, not just an involuntary puppet. She can resist me—I found that out in the hospital—but I’d much rather we were in this together. So I’ve shared what I know, and we agreed that you had to be in on this as well.”

Antti studied my face. “Is she there now?”

Yes.

“Yes,” I answered. “She’s here.”

Tell him his coffee tastes awful, and I’d rather have tea next time.

“She says your coffee needs improvement.”

“It does,” Antti admitted, as if this realisation had only just struck him.

“She’s seen the Vaymyr. She’s seen Margaret. She’s had flashes, glimpses of upstream.”

“Tibor said the same.”

“Then something’s not working the way it should.”

“Are you terribly surprised? These control structures were a barely tested experimental technology before we started trying to operate them across fifty-two years of time-separation. Cho’s nanotechnology was second-grade ex-military, the only thing anyone could get their hands on now. It’s no wonder it went wrong inside Christos, no wonder it’s not working quite the way it should now. But if that ia the only thing that goes wrong with them . . .”

Ask him about the other one, your friend Miguel.

“Tatiana wants to know what’s up with Miguel.”

“So do I. Truth is, I don’t really know. Did you ever have any reason to distrust him, from the outset?”

I thought of the stoic, professionally minded Miguel. There had always been a slight barrier between us because his Russian was a little stiff, but beyond that I’d never had cause to doubt his commitment to the project. Just as Antti and Vikram had bristled against each other upstream, so Miguel and Christos had become good friends, engaged in a friendly rivalry over who got to achieve the first time-injection. He had been really upset when Christos was taken ill and moved off the pilot squad, but Miguel was the one who’d shown the least resentment at my taking over Christos’s slot. More a warm acceptance and encouragement, Miguel understanding that the needs of the experiment outweighed any personal loyalties. He had been supportive of me all along, and when I was the first to go back, it was not frustration I saw in him, but relief that our scheme had a chance of success after all.

“No. He was totally committed. Totally dedicated to the experiment, just like the rest of us.”

“I agree. But something got into him. Some influence coming from further up, upstream from upstream. It’s something. We’ve both felt it, Vikram and I. A tickle in our heads, as if something’s trying to get inside us. A whiteness. It’s faint, and we can fight it. With Miguel, it must have planted itself more strongly. I don’t think Miguel is Miguel anymore. Something’s running him, the way we were meant to be running our hosts.”

“Then it’s three against one.”

“Two against one, really. Vikram isn’t going to be able to help us. But if we move fast, and get north quickly, we can give Miguel the slip. The target seed vault is a private facility, quite near the Yenisei Gulf.”

Now it was my turn to frown.

“Near Permafrost?”

“Where Permafrost will come to be. But fifty-two years early. That’s beneficial, though. It means Cho won’t have to go very far to find the seeds, even if he has to dig them out from an abandoned vault under several metres of ice.”

I pinched at the bridge of my nose. “Tell him to go now. If the seeds are where they’re meant to be upstream, we’ll know it’s the right decision.”

“I can’t contact Cho.” Antti looked down at his coffee. “That’s the other thing that’s gone wrong. We can’t abort, can’t get back to the Vaymyr.”

I stared in horror and astonishment, as the implication of his words hit home.

“How, when, did this happen?”

Antti’s answer had the dry matter-of-factness of someone who had long ago absorbed their fate. “Within a few weeks of my time-embedding. I tried to abort, and I couldn’t. What does that mean, exactly?” He looked at me with a hard, searching intensity, as if I was his last and best hope for an answer. “Where is my consciousness now? Is it running in my body upstream, in the Vaymyr, or is it marooned here, piggybacking Tibor?” He paused, scratched at the red-veined bridge of his nose. “You’ve got to make sure you abort and stay aborted before the same thing happens.”

I closed the case and lowered it back under the table.

“If I can still go back, I’ll try and resolve this mess. Tell Cho to run an additional series of tests on the control structures, before they try to send you and Vikram back.”

Antti shook his head sharply. “No. You can’t risk giving Cho any destabilising information. Look after yourself, optimise the chances of success, but don’t say or do anything that threatens to grandfather us. Before you know it, we’ll be up to our necks in paradox. At the moment we’re close to success—really close. We can’t endanger this. You can’t mention any part of this—not Tatiana, not Miguel, not even the fact that you’ve already made contact with me.” He turned and raised his voice louder than before. “Vikram! It’s Valentina! Come and see her before she tries going back to the station!”