Blue Remembered Earth Read online

  A minute or so later, Memphis appeared in person at the top of the slope. After no more than a moment’s hesitation he came down the slope, half-skidding and half-running, flailing his arms to maintain balance. When he reached Sunday’s side he touched a hand to her forehead, then examined the cuff.

  Geoffrey studied his expression. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

  ‘I think so, Geoffrey. You did very well.’ Memphis looked back at the tank, as if noticing it for the first time. ‘How close did she get to it?’

  ‘She was standing on it.’

  ‘It’s a bad machine,’ Memphis explained. ‘There was a war here once, one of the last in Africa.’

  ‘Sunday said there was a little boy in the tank.’

  Memphis lifted her from the ground, cradling her in his arms. ‘Can you climb up the slope on your own, Geoffrey?

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘We must get Sunday back to the household. She will be all right, but the sooner she is seen by a neuropractor, the better.’

  Geoffrey scrambled ahead, determined to show that he could take care of himself. ‘But what about the little boy?’

  ‘He doesn’t exist. There is nothing in that tank but more machines, some of which are very clever.’

  ‘This isn’t the first tank you’ve seen?’

  ‘No,’ Memphis said carefully. ‘Not the first. But the last time I saw one of them moving, I was very small.’ Looking back, Geoffrey caught Memphis’s quick smile. Clearly he did not wish Geoffrey to have nightmares about killing machines stalking the Earth. ‘They are gone now, except for a few left behind, buried in the earth like this one.’

  They were on the slope now, climbing. ‘How could it escape?’

  Memphis paused for breath. It must have been hard, carrying Sunday and also having to keep his own balance. ‘The artilect sensed the presence of Sunday’s machines, the ones inside her head. It worked out how to talk to them, how to make Sunday think there was someone calling.’

  The idea of a machine tricking his sister – tricking her well enough that she had nearly convinced Geoffrey as well – was enough to chill him even as he sweated uphill.

  ‘What would have happened if she hadn’t fallen?’

  ‘The tank might have tried to persuade her to help it. Or it might have been trying to exploit some deeper vulnerability. Whatever it did, it caused your sister to go into seizure.’

  ‘But the tank is very old, and Sunday’s machines are very new. How could it trick them?’

  ‘Very old things are sometimes cleverer than very new things. Or slyer, at least.’ They were climbing steadily now, almost near the top of the slope. ‘That is why they are forbidden, or at least very carefully controlled.’

  Geoffrey looked back, feeling a weird combination of fear and pity for the half-entombed thing. ‘What will happen to the tank?’

  ‘It will be taken care of,’ Memphis said gently. ‘For now, it is your sister we must concern ourselves with.’

  They’d attained level ground. A narrow trail wound through the trees. Geoffrey hadn’t seen it when they had come through, but it must have been clearly visible from the air. They set off along it, to the airpod that was waiting out of sight.

  ‘Will she be all right?’

  ‘I doubt any great harm has been done. It was good that you were there, to put the machines into shutdown. Ah.’ Without warning, Memphis had stopped.

  Geoffrey halted at his side. ‘Is it Sunday?’

  ‘No,’ the thin man said, still not raising his voice. ‘It is Mephisto. He is ahead of us, on the trail. Do you see him?’

  In the dusky shade of the trail, canopied by trees, a huge light-dappled form blocked their path. The elephant was scuffing its trunk back and forth in the dust. It had one tusk, the other snapped off. Something in its posture conveyed unmistakable belligerence, its forehead lowered like a battering ram.

  ‘Mephisto is an old bull male,’ Memphis said. ‘He is very aggressive and territorial. I saw him from the air, but he appeared to be moving away from us. I was hoping we could avoid an encounter today.’

  Geoffrey was puzzled and frightened. He’d seen plenty of elephants before, but never sensed this degree of wariness from his mentor.

  ‘We could go around,’ he said.

  ‘Mephisto will not let us. He knows this area much better than we do, and he can move more quickly than us, especially with Sunday to carry.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he want us to pass?’

  ‘There is something wrong in his head.’ Memphis paused. ‘Geoffrey, would you look away, please? I must do something that I would rather not.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Look away and close your eyes.’

  Geoffrey did as he was told, for there was no mistaking the severity of that command. There was silence, broken only by the rustling of leaves. And then a soft, dusty thump, accompanied by a fusillade of dry cracks as branches and tree-trunks snapped.

  ‘Hold on to my jacket and follow me,’ Memphis said. ‘But do not look until I have told you it is safe. Will you promise me this?’

  ‘Yes,’ Geoffrey said.

  But he did not keep his word. As they passed into the cool of the trees, Memphis veered around an obstacle, drawing Geoffrey with him. He opened his eyes, squinting against dust still hovering in the air. Mephisto was on the ground, lying on his side. The bull’s one visible eye was open, but devoid of life. The huge grey, elaborately wrinkled form was perfectly still, perfectly dead.

  ‘Did you kill Mephisto?’ Geoffrey asked when they had reached the airpod.

  Memphis loaded Sunday into the rear passenger compartment, placing her gently onto the padded seat. He said nothing, not even when they were in the air, on their way back to the household. Memphis knows, Geoffrey thought. Memphis knew Geoffrey had looked and nothing was ever going to be quite the same between them.

  It was only later that he realised he had left the red wooden aeroplane down in the hole.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  He was on his way back from the edge of the study area towards the research station, just him and the Cessna and the open skies above the Amboseli basin, his mood better than it had been in weeks, when the call arrived.

  ‘Geoffrey,’ a voice said in his skull. ‘You must come to the household immediately.’

  Geoffrey sighed. He should have known better than to expect this untroubled state of mind to last.

  He was over the property ten minutes later, searching the white-walled and blue-tiled buildings for evidence of disruption. Nothing struck him as out of the ordinary. Everything about the A-shaped residence, from its secluded courtyards and gardens to its swimming pools, tennis courts and polo field, was as neat and orderly as an architect’s model.

  Geoffrey lined up with the rough track that served as his runway and brought the Cessna home. He bounced down, the fat-tyred wheels kicking up dirt and dust, braked hard and taxied to a vacant spot at the end of the row of airpods belonging to the household and its guests.

  He let the engine die and sat in the cockpit for a few moments, gathering his thoughts.

  He knew what it was, deep down. This day had been in his future for so long that it had taken on the solidity and permanence of a geographical feature. He was just surprised that it was finally upon him.

  He disembarked into the morning heat, the aeroplane issuing quiet, ruminative sounds as it cooled down. Geoffrey took off his faded old Cessna baseball cap and used it to fan his face.

  From the arched gatehouse in the wall emerged a figure, walking towards Geoffrey with slumped shoulders, solemn pace and grave demeanour.

  ‘I am very sorry,’ he said, raising his voice only when they were almost close enough to speak normally.

  ‘It’s Eunice, isn’t it?’

  ‘I am afraid she has passed away.’

  Geoffrey tried to think of something to say. ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Six hours ago, according to the medical report. But it only came to my attention an hour ago. Since then I’ve been busy verifying matters and informing close family.’

  ‘And how?’

  ‘In her sleep, peacefully’

  ‘One hundred and thirty’s a pretty good age, I guess.’

  ‘One hundred and thirty-one, by her last birthday,’ Memphis said, without reproach. ‘And yes, it is a good age. Had she returned to Earth, she might even have lived longer. But she chose her own path. Living all alone up there, with just her machines for company . . . the wonder is that she lasted as long as she did. But then she always did say that you Akinyas are like lions.’

  Or vultures, Geoffrey thought. Aloud, he said, ‘What happens now?’

  Memphis draped an arm around his shoulders and steered him towards the gatehouse. ‘You are the first to arrive back at the household. Some of the others will begin chinging in shortly. Within the day, some may begin to arrive in person. The others, those who are in space . . . it will take much longer, if they are able to come at all. They will not all be able to.’

  They entered the shade of the gatehouse, where whitewashed walls cast cool indigo shadows.

  ‘It feels odd to be meeting here, when this isn’t the place where she died.’

  ‘Eunice left specific instructions.’

  ‘No one told me about them.’

  ‘I have only just become aware of them myself, Geoffrey. You would have been informed, had I known earlier.’

  Beyond the gatehouse, fountains hissed and burbled from the ornamental ponds. Geoffrey shoed aside an armadillo-sized gardening robot. ‘I know this is as difficult for you as it is for the family, Memphis.’

  ‘There may be a difficult period of transition. The family . . . the business . .
. will have to adjust to the absence of a figurehead.’

  ‘Fortunately, that doesn’t really concern me.’

  ‘You may not think so. But even on the periphery of things, you are still an Akinya. That goes for your sister as well.’

  Geoffrey said nothing until they were standing in the spacious entrance lobby of the household’s left wing. The place was as crypt-silent and forbidding as a locked museum. Glass cabinets, minor shrines to his grandmother’s illustriousness, trapped her past under slanted sunlight. Spacesuit components, rock and ice samples gathered from all over the solar system, even an antiquated ‘computer’, a hinged grey box still fixed together with yellow and black duct tape. Printed books, with dusty, time-faded covers. A dismal assortment of childhood toys, no longer loved, abandoned.

  ‘I don’t think you realise how little effect this is going to have on Sunday and me,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Eunice was never that interested in either of us, once we strayed from the path.’

  ‘You are quite wrong about Sunday. Eunice meant a great deal to her.’

  Geoffrey decided not to press Memphis on that. ‘Do my mother and father know?’

  ‘They’re still on Titan, visiting your Uncle Edison.’

  He smiled quickly. ‘That’s not something I’d forget.’

  ‘It will be a couple of hours before we are likely to hear from them. Perhaps longer, if they are occupied.’

  They had nearly reached the ground-floor office where Memphis spent most of his time, managing the household’s affairs – and by implication a business empire as wide as the solar system – from a room not much larger than a decent-sized broom cupboard.

  ‘Anything I can do?’ Geoffrey asked, feeling awkwardly as if there was some role he was expected to play, but which no one had told him about.

  ‘Nothing immediately. I shall be going up to the Winter Palace in due course, but I can take care of that on my own.’

  ‘To bring back her body?’

  Memphis gave a half-nod. ‘She wishes her remains to be scattered in Africa.’

  ‘I could go with you.’

  ‘Very kind, Geoffrey, but I am not too old for spaceflight just yet. And you must be very busy with your elephants.’ He lingered at the threshold of his office, clearly anxious to return to his duties. ‘It’s good that you are back here now. If you could stay a day, that would be even better.’

  ‘I feel like a loose end.’

  ‘Be here for the rest of your family. You will all need to draw strength from each other.’

  Geoffrey offered a sceptical smile. ‘Even Hector and Lucas?’

  ‘Even them,’ Memphis said. ‘I know that you do not get on, but perhaps now you will be able to find some common ground. They are not bad men, Geoffrey. It may feel like a long time ago to you, but I can still remember when you were all young enough not to hate the sight of each other.’

  ‘Times change,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Still, I’ll make an effort.’

  He sat on the edge of his crisply made bed, in the room he had spent hardly any time in these recent years. In his hands was one of the wooden elephants Eunice had given him as a birthday gift. It was the bull, one of a set of six, diminishing in size down to the baby. The other five were still on the shelf where he had left them the last time he’d handled them. They stood on black plinths of some flinty, coal-like material.

  He couldn’t remember how old he had been when the elephants arrived, packed in a stout wooden box with tissue paper to protect them. Five or six, maybe. The time when the nanny from Djibouti was still taking care of his education and upbringing. The same year he stepped on the scorpion, perhaps?

  It had taken him a little while to realise that his grandmother lived in orbit around the Moon, not on or in it, and even longer to appreciate that her infrequent gifts did not actually come from space. They were made somewhere on Earth; all she did was arrange for them to be sent to him. Later it had even occurred to him that someone else in the family – the nanny, perhaps Memphis – was choosing them on her behalf.

  He’d been disappointed with the elephants when he opened the box, but not quite adult enough to hide that disappointment. He had wanted an aeroplane, not useless wooden animals that didn’t do anything. Later, after a gentle reprimand, he had been made to speak to Eunice’s figment and tell her how grateful he was. She had addressed him from the green jungle core of the Winter Palace.

  He wondered how good a job of it he had made.

  He was reaching to put the bull back on the shelf when the request began pulsing with gentle insistence in his visual field.

  >>open: quangled bind

  >>via: Maiduguri-Nyala backbone

  >>carrier: Lufthansa Telepresence

  >>incept: 23/12/2161 13:44:11 UTC

  >>origin: Lagos, Nigeria, WAF

  >>client: Jumai Lule

  >>accept/decline ching?

  He placed the bull back at the head of its family and returned to the bed, accepting Jumai’s call with a single voked command. The bind established. Geoffrey’s preference was always for inbound ching, remaining in his local sensorium, and Jumai would have expected that. He placed her figment by the door, allowing her a moment to adjust to her surroundings.

  ‘Hello, Jumai,’ he said quietly. ‘I guess I know why you’re calling.’

  ‘I just got the news. I’m really sorry, Geoffrey. It must be a big blow to the family.’

  ‘We’ll weather it,’ he said. ‘It’s not exactly unexpected.’

  Jumai Lule was wearing brown overalls, hair messy and tied up in a meshwork dust cap, marks on her face from the goggles and breathing gear now hanging around her neck. She was in Lagos working on high-risk data archaeology, digging through the city’s buried, century-old catacombs for nuggets of commercially valuable information. It was dangerous, exacting work: exactly the kind of thing she thrived on, and which he hadn’t been able to offer her.

  ‘I know you weren’t that close to her, but—’ Jumai began.

  ‘She was still my grandmother,’ Geoffrey countered defensively, as if she was accusing him of indifference to the matter of Eunice’s death

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way, as you well know.’

  ‘So how’s work?’ Geoffrey asked, trying to sound as if it mattered to him.

  ‘Work is . . . fine. Always more than we can keep up with. New challenges, most of the time. I probably need to move on at some point, but . . .’ Jumai let the sentence hang.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re getting bored already?’

  ‘Lagos is close to being tapped out. I thought maybe Brazilia, even further afield. Like, maybe space. Still a lot of militarised crap left lying around the system, nasty shit they could use people like me to break into and decommission. And I hear the Gearheads pay pretty well.’

  ‘Because it’s dangerous.’

  Jumai offered the palm of her hand to the ceiling. ‘What, and this isn’t? We hit Sarin nerve gas last week. Anti-tamper triggers, linked to what we thought was part of a mainframe’s cryogenic cooling reservoir.’ She grinned impishly. ‘Not the kind of mistake you make twice.’

  ‘Anyone hurt?’

  ‘Nothing they couldn’t fix, and they upped our hazard bonus as a consequence.’ She looked around the room again, scanning it as if she half-expected booby traps in the made bed, or lurking on the neat white shelves. But anyway, this isn’t about me – are you all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. And I’m sorry – I shouldn’t have snapped. You’re right – Eunice and I were never that close. I just don’t really like having my face rubbed in it.’

  ‘What about your sister?’

  ‘I’m sure she feels the same way I do.’

  ‘You never did take me up to meet Sunday. I always wanted to meet her. I mean properly, face to face.’

  He shifted on the bed. ‘Full of broken promises, that’s me.’

  ‘You can’t help the way you are.’

  ‘Maybe not. But that doesn’t stop people telling me I should broaden my horizons.’

  ‘That’s your business, no one else’s. Look, we’re still friends, aren’t we? If we weren’t, we wouldn’t keep in touch like this.’