Part 7 (1/2)
”Isn't it obvious?” I looked at her, and Poole, who I think was guessing what I was going to say, and Harry, who looked away as he usually did at moments of crisis. Suddenly, after days of pointless wonders, I was in my element, the murky world of human relations.h.i.+ps, and I could see a way forward where they could not. ”Destroy this” I said. I waved a hand. ”All of it. You have your grenades, Miriam. You could bring this cavern down.” I said. I waved a hand. ”All of it. You have your grenades, Miriam. You could bring this cavern down.”
”Or,” Harry said, ”there is the GUTdrive. If that were detonated, if unified-field energies were loosed in here, the wormhole interface too would surely be disrupted. I'd imagine that the connection between t.i.tan and the pocket universe would be broken altogether.”
I nodded. ”I hadn't thought of that, but I like your style, Harry. Do it. Let this place be covered up by hundreds of kilometers of ice and water. Destroy your records. It will make no difference to the surface, what's going on in the atmosphere, not immediately. n.o.body will ever know all this was here.”
Harry Poole said, ”That's true. Even if methane generation stops immediately the residual would persist in the atmosphere for maybe ten million years. I venture to suggest that if the various multi-domain critters haven't learned to cooperate in that time, they never will. Ten megayears is surely enough.”
Miriam looked at him, horrified by his words. ”You're suggesting a monstrous crime,” she breathed. ”To think of destroying such a wonder as this, the product of a billion years to destroy it for personal gain! Michael, Lethe, leave aside the morality, surely you're too much of a scientist to countenance this.”
But Poole sounded anguished. ”I'm not a scientist anymore, Miriam. I'm an engineer. I build things. I think I sympathize with the goals of the spider makers. What I'm building is a better future for the whole of mankind that's what I believe. And if I have to make compromises to achieve that future-well. Maybe the spider makers had to make the same kind of choices. Who knows what they found here on t.i.tan before they went to work on it...”
And in that little speech, I believe, you have encapsulated both the magnificence and the grandiose folly of Michael Poole. I wondered then how much damage this man might do to us all in the future, with his wormholes and his time-hopping stars.h.i.+ps what horrors he, blinded by his vision, might unleash.
Harry said unexpectedly, ”Let's vote on it. If you're in favor of destroying the chamber, say yes.”
”No!” snapped Miriam.
”Yes,” said Harry and Poole together.
”Yes,” said I, but they all turned on me and told me I didn't have a vote.
It made no difference. The vote was carried. They stood looking at each other, as if horrified by what they had done.
”Welcome to my world,” I said cynically.
Poole went off to prepare the GUT engine for its last task. Miriam, furious and upset, gathered together our equipment, such as it was, her pack with her science samples, our tangles of rope.
And Harry popped into the air in front of me. ”Thanks,” he said.
”You wanted me to make that suggestion, didn't you?”
”Well, I hoped you would. If I'd made it they'd have refused. And Michael would never have forgiven me.” He grinned. ”I knew there was a reason I wanted to have you along, Jovik Emry. Well done. You've served your purpose.”
Virtual Poole, still in his baby universe, spoke again. ”Miriam.”
She straightened up. ”I'm here, Michael.”
”I'm not sure how long I have left. What will happen when the power goes?”
”I programmed the simulation to seem authentic, internally consistent. It will be as if the power in the Crab Crab life-dome is failing.” She took a breath, and said, ”Of course you have other options to end it before then.” life-dome is failing.” She took a breath, and said, ”Of course you have other options to end it before then.”
”I know. Thank you. Who were they, do you think? Whoever made the spiders. Did they build this pocket universe too? Or was it built for built for them? Like a haven?” them? Like a haven?”
”I don't suppose we'll ever know. Michael, I'm sorry. I ”
”Don't be. You know I would have chosen this. But I'm sorry to leave you behind. Miriam-look after him. Michael. I, we, need you.”
She looked at the original Poole, who was working at the GUT engine. ”We'll see,” she said.
”And tell Harry-well. You know.”
She held a hand up to the empty air. ”Michael, please ”
”It's enough.” The Virtuals he had been projecting broke up into blocks of pixels, and a faint hiss, the carrier of his voice, disappeared from my hearing. Alone in his universe, he had cut himself off.
The original Poole approached her, uncertain of her reaction. ”It's done. The GUT engine has been programmed. We're ready to go, Miriam. Soon as we're out of here ”
She turned away from him, her face showing something close to hatred.
XVI Ascension
So, harnessed to a spider oblivious of the impending fate of its vast and ancient project, we rose into the dark. It had taken us days to descend to this place, and would take us days to return to the surface, where, Harry promised, he would have a fresh balloon waiting to pick us up.
This time, though I was offered escape into unconsciousness, I stayed awake. I had a feeling that the last act of this little drama had yet to play itself out. I wanted to be around to see it.
We were beyond the lower ice layers and rising through 250 kilometers of sea when Miriam's timer informed us that the GUT engine had detonated, far beneath us. Insulated by the ice layer, we felt nothing. But I imagined that the spider that carried us up towards the light hesitated, just fractionally.
”It's done,” Poole said firmly. ”No going back.”
Miriam had barely spoken to him since the cavern. She had said more words tome. Now she said, ”I've been thinking. I won't accept it, Michael. I don't care about you and Harry and your d.a.m.n vote. As soon as we get home I'm going to report what we found.” Now she said, ”I've been thinking. I won't accept it, Michael. I don't care about you and Harry and your d.a.m.n vote. As soon as we get home I'm going to report what we found.”
”You've no evidence ”
”I'll be taken seriously enough. And someday somebody will mount another expedition, and confirm the truth.”
”All right.” That was all he said. But I knew the matter was not over. He would not meet my mocking eyes.
I wasn't surprised when, twelve hours later, as Miriam slept cradled in the net draped from the spider's back, Poole took vials from her pack and pressed them into her flesh, one by a valve on her leg, another at the base of her spine.
I watched him. ”You're going to edit her. Plan this with Dad, did you?”
”Shut up,” he snarled, edgy, angry.
”You're taking her out of her own head, and you'll mess with her memories, with her very personality, and then you'll load her back. What will you make her believe-that she stayed up on the Crab Crab with Harry the whole time, while you went exploring and found nothing? That would work, I guess.” with Harry the whole time, while you went exploring and found nothing? That would work, I guess.”
”I've got nothing to say to you.”
But I had plenty to say to him. I am no saint myself, and Poole disgusted me as only a man without morality himself can be disgusted. ”I think you love her. I even think she loves you. Yet you are prepared to mess with her head and her heart, to serve your grandiose ambitions. Let me tell you something. The Poole she left behind in that pocket universe, the one she said goodbye to, he was a better man than you will ever be again. Because he was not tainted by the great crime you committed when you destroyed the cavern. And because he was not tainted by this. by this.
”And let me make some predictions. No matter what you achieve in the future, Michael Poole, this crime will always be at the root of you, gnawing away. And Miriam will never love you. Miriam will never love you. Even though you wipe out her memory of these events, there will always be something between you; she will sense the lie. She will leave you, and then you will leave her. And you have killed t.i.tan. One day, millions of years into the future, the very air will freeze and rain out, and everything alive here will die. All because of what you have done today. And, Poole, maybe those whose work you have wrecked will some day force you to a reckoning.” Even though you wipe out her memory of these events, there will always be something between you; she will sense the lie. She will leave you, and then you will leave her. And you have killed t.i.tan. One day, millions of years into the future, the very air will freeze and rain out, and everything alive here will die. All because of what you have done today. And, Poole, maybe those whose work you have wrecked will some day force you to a reckoning.”