Part 12 (2/2)
Caitlin wondered if her symbiont couldn't at least do a little something about the headache. She set her armor to provide more back and neck support, and said, ”Put him on.”
Because he was communicating with a high-ranking Engineer, Samael did her the courtesy of generating only a partial avatar-a gleaming focal point that materialized with a polite chirp. Quickly and efficiently, he explained that the world appeared to have reset in some fas.h.i.+on, and as part of its last-ditch effort at survival, it was not only releasing life-forms selected at random from its genetic banks, but altering them.
”The biosphere is mutating under stress,” Caitlin restated, to be sure she understood.
”That appears to have been what the Builders intended.”
If he were material, or possibly just present, she would have thrown something at him. ”Well, stop it, Samael.”
”I haven't the strength anymore for ventures such as that.” When Caitlin glared at Samael's avatar, he added, ”I am not equipped to lie to you.”
”Right,” she said, and restructured her to-do list. ”Give me back to Nova, please.”
Samael's confident, glowing polyhedral winked out, to be replaced by Nova's silver-haired avatar. Whether the young angel thought her crew would be more comforted by a face to respond to or whether she sought the rea.s.surance of a human seeming for herself, Caitlin did not know. She was simply grateful that Nova had chosen a form so unlike any of her component parts. It broke her heart enough to look in the angel's alien eyes and catch a fleeting expression that reminded her of Rien. She did not care to imagine how she would have borne it if the features that wore that manner resembled her adopted daughter's. Better for Nova to be as different as she could.
Then she wondered when she had begun thinking of the angel as a she. There was nothing about Nova to indicate or imply a s.e.x, and as Caitlin knew them, the vast majority of angels had always been he by courtesy, much as s.h.i.+ps were she.
Focus, Chief Engineer, she reprimanded herself. Funny how the alienation of a t.i.tle could make you hold yourself together in the face of the impossible.
Caitlin said, ”Thank you, Nova. I'm going to list off our immediate complex of problems as I understand it, and I'd appreciate it if you'd check my logic and see if I've missed anything.”
Frowning, the angel nodded. ”Carry on.”
Verbalization was a slow and monodimensional means of exchanging information, but it demanded linearity and precision, so Caitlin chose to speak out loud rather than to transmit a problem matrix. In a measured fas.h.i.+on, she listed everything she'd previously considered, added Samael's intelligence on the Jacob's Ladder's biosphere reboot process as an immediate concern, mentioned the pursuit of Arianrhod and Asrafil, and finished, ”And there are the other denizens of the world to consider. Not everyone and everything who didn't make it into tanks will have died. The biosphere-especially the synbiotic and Exalt biosphere-is proving to possess remarkable resilience. Perceval needs to understand that there are probably people out there who have no understanding of their environment or the realities of the situation. People who will, unfortunately, need to be ... educated. And then governed.”
The euphemisms felt gritty on her tongue. She worked her mouth around where they'd pa.s.sed as if to rid herself of the taste.
”Disaster mitigation is an ongoing process,” Nova said blandly, leading Caitlin to wonder (again) exactly what the angel's facade concealed. When she had time, she was going to procure the Captain's approval to pin Nova into a corner and do some serious spelunking around the inside of her program.
It was possible that the angel might even approve of her interference. If Caitlin had enough una.s.similated bits of other people kicking around the inside of her skull, she'd be crying for a competent code intervention.
The angel said, ”It's a problem of management as much as anything. The pendulum could still tip us into catastrophic collapse.”
The angel's words conjured an image of the world as a ghost world, burning lifeless between the stars, bored and aimless angels at play among its silent struts and habitats.
Caitlin said, ”You'd survive it.”
”I would be lonely.”
Whether she had timed it to make Caitlin laugh or not, it worked, and the break in tension allowed Caitlin to turn her attention back to the problem at hand.
”Right. We're not out of the event horizon, as it were,” Caitlin said. ”And we can't afford to work on these problems in isolation. Any functional solution will be a systemic one. Can you maintain the current level of habitability? If necessary, what if we pull back to the core and allow individual anch.o.r.es, holdes, and domaines to maintain for themselves as they can?”
It was what the world had been built for, and that ability to compartmentalize was what had allowed it to remain a viable organism through the past five hundred years, despite crippling trauma. The world was modeled on a living thing-and life was stubborn.
But that compartmentalization was also what had led to so many of their current problems.
”I can fall back into myself as necessary,” the angel agreed. ”However, that leaves many a beachhead for the power or powers behind the null zones. We still haven't managed to obtain any evidence one way or the other about the possibility that if the world's idiot systems are attempting to reboot the biospheres, they may also have available backup versions of the original angel. We need to determine if the null zones are areas where Israfel is attempting to resp.a.w.n from backup. None of that, however, explains the disa.s.sembly incidents.”
”Given how far our goals, and your program, have diverged from the Builders' intent, that's not a rea.s.suring scenario.”
The angel skinned lips back from imaginary teeth. ”He would eat me in a heartbeat. We are not without advantages, however. The houses of Rule and Engine are unified at last.”
Caitlin snorted. ”Because the houses of Rule and Engine are decimated. No, Nova, I'm sorry. You're right. It is an advantage.” She rubbed her armored wrist with her armored palm. ”If we can find a way to work together. And trust each other.”
”You are thinking of my Captain's father.”
Caitlin's smile felt thin and stretched across her skull. ”Of course I'm thinking of Bened.i.c.k. I've sent him out there alone, hunting a woman who was his ally in a scheme to keep Rule and Engine from each other's throats. A woman who was his friend and lover.” She stopped herself before she said: But not his partner. There was nothing uglier than a self-justification.
Instead, she continued, ”She is my great-grandniece, and also the mother and ally of the woman who is responsible for the decimation of Rule. His daughter with her has died and metamorphosed into a fragment of you, my dear Nova. His daughter and mine is your Captain. Are you still human enough, a little, to understand why I am worried what he'll do?”
”You must,” said the angel, ”reach out to him.”
”You're a fine one to give relations.h.i.+p advice,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. She turned away.
She was old enough to know it for a useless display even as she did so, but it made her feel better.
She closed her eyes and shook her head. ”What else?” she asked, when her eyes had stopped stinging.
The angel's avatar reappeared before her, s.h.i.+fting orientation to match her. ”Chief Engineer-” The angel lifted her chin, folded her arms, and spat the words out as if she expected Caitlin to argue. ”My Captain is not emotionally well.”
”I know,” Caitlin said. The angel's tone made her want to reach out and lay a hand on its immaterial nape, pull its face into her neck, and stroke it down the spine. As she would have done for her daughter, once. ”We shall carry on for her as we can, and buy her time to heal enough to shoulder the burdens she must bear.”
”Is that the mother talking, or the Chief Engineer?”
”What can we do about the null zones, if we're not surrendering them?” Caitlin said, as if it were an answer. Perhaps it was, of sorts.
”Prince Bened.i.c.k and Princess Chelsea are approaching the largest one,” Nova said, ”in the far south of the world. It is where Arianrhod-and Asrafil, if Samael can be believed-have taken shelter. Bened.i.c.k and Chelsea have the toolkit, their armor, and their own colonies; odds are good I will be able to remain in contact. I will ask them to reconnoiter. Perhaps they will provide us with some intelligence on what, exactly, is blocking my access to the area.”
”If it doesn't eat them.”
”Or-perhaps more likely-subvert their colonies.”
”Belly of the beast,” Caitlin said, and bit the back of her hand.
Without your mate, your fathers, your brothers, your sons, you are as nothing. You are as a calf, all but blinded.
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