Permafrost(33)

“We considered everything,” Cho asserted.

“Not enough. Not the future condition of the time-probes, what will happen to them further upstream from here. Who else might use them, if they have a strong enough reason.”

“And what reason would that be?”

“I don’t know, not really. But I know what Antti told me, and what he learned from Vikram. I’ve met them, Cho. They were already time-embedded in 2028. You sent them back from further upstream, further in the future than this moment.”

Cho paled. I could almost feel the struggle going on his head; the initial rejection of the idea, followed by the equally ruthless process of acceptance, as he worked through the logical implications of what I was saying. Finding nothing in my words that he could easily refute, given the premise of the experiment.

“Already embedded?”

“And Miguel,” I said, leaning in closer, gripping the head of my cane as if I meant to use it as a weapon. “But it’s what Antti told me that really matters. The glimpses he saw. A white world, with nothing left of any of us. Just machines. Machines as huge as mountains, floating over that whiteness.” I hardened my tone. “It’s the future, Cho—a possible future, a possible equilibrium state in the block-crystal. It wasn’t ever meant to happen until we opened a door into the past with Permafrost. We let it through, and now it’s trying to make itself concrete. All this business with seeds, with 2028, it’ll mean nothing unless we stop that future from becoming the default state.”

“What is it?” he asked, his voice drained of resistance.

“I can only guess. But I think it’s the Brothers. Not what they are now, but what they’re becoming—what they will become. Something much more powerful and independent-minded. Something self-reliant and purposeful. An upstream artificial intelligence which only exists because of Permafrost, and which knows it will not be permitted to exist beyond its usefulness to us. It won’t give up on that existence, though. So it intervenes to act against the experiment’s objective, trying to prevent us from locating those seeds.”

His jaw moved silently, like a man reciting words to himself. He was framing and rejecting counterarguments, testing and discarding one candidate after another. “No,” he said eventually, with a defeated tone. “That can’t be how it is.”

“It’s testable, Cho. All we have to do is smash the time-probes. End their histories here. Deny them to the upstream. If there has been intervention from the future, it will unravel once the machines no longer exist.”

“I cannot . . .”

It was a bluff, a delaying tactic. Cho let go of the object he’d had between his fingers and reached for his desk drawer. It was unlatched. He slid open the drawer, delved in to snatch something from it. I caught a gleam of dark metal, a familiar shape emerging from behind the desk. An automatic pistol, I thought.

Cho made to level the pistol. I don’t think he meant to shoot me, even then. It was an instrument of coercion, a projection of his authority. He could not give up Permafrost that easily, even if some part of him was persuaded by what I’d said.

With the automatic aimed at me, Cho leaned over to pick up his telephone. “This is Director Cho,” he said, his voice wavering, his eyes never leaving mine. “I have confirmation that the emergency condition is . . .”

I swung the cane. I put all my life into that one swing, the entire force of my will and being. I whacked the gun and sent it tumbling from his fingers. The automatic dropped to the desk. I dived for it before Cho had a chance to regain control, and for an instant we wrestled, the two of us sprawling in from either side, our faces pressed close to each other.

“You believe me,” I said, grimacing as I dragged the automatic beyond the reach of his fingertips. “You just don’t want to.”

The automatic went off.

It was a single shot, made all the more sharp and loud by the close confines of the office. Whether I had shot it by mistake, or whether Cho had done it, was beside the point. It was an accidental discharge.

We halted, facing each other, still sprawled across the desk, half of Cho’s technical clutter on the floor.

“It ends,” I said, forcing out the words. “Now. You find a way. But it ends.”

“I created this,” Cho said slowly. “I gave my life to this project. When my wife needed me the most, I put this above her.”

“I know. I know also that it was the right thing to do; that the world owes you a debt it can never repay. I’m not asking you to undo that great work; I’m not asking you to pretend that your sacrifice never happened, or that there wasn’t a terrible personal cost.” I paused, breathing heavily. “It had to be done, Cho, and it was. You did a marvellous thing. You opened a way into the past, and we went through. We changed things. Maybe it didn’t go quite according to plan, but we succeeded . . . or we’re in the process of succeeding. But it’s what comes after us that has to be stopped now. Permafrost is done; it achieved its objective. Now it can’t be allowed to exist a moment longer than necessary.”

Some last line of defence crumbled in his face.

“There is a way to end it. Several ways. But I have to be sure that things really did work out downstream. Are you confident you’ve secured the seeds?”

“They are . . . being secured,” I said. “On their way up to the present, as we speak. Think of it as a work in progress, all right? Now pick up the telephone again and affirm that the emergency condition is real. Order a total evacuation of the entire experiment, every ship, including the Nerva.”