Futurity said, ‘But what would be the point? What would be the function of these post-humans?’
‘Weapons,’ Poole said simply.
Even when Greyworld was ripped away and destroyed by Chandra’s tides, the satellite black hole would sail on, laden with its accretion disc and its atmosphere – and carrying the plasma ghosts that lived in that atmosphere, surviving where no normal human could. Perhaps the ghosts could ride the satellite hole all the way into Chandra itself, and perhaps, as the small hole was gobbled up by the voracious central monster, they would be able to transfer to Chandra’s own much more extensive atmosphere.
‘Once aliens infested Chandra,’ Poole said. ‘It took us three thousand years to get them out. So the Ideocrats decided they were going to seed Chandra with humans – or at least post-humans. Then Chandra will be ours for ever.’
Captain Tahget shook his head, grumbling about ranting theorists and rewritings of history.
Futurity thought all this was a wonderful story, whether or not it was true. But he couldn’t forget there was still a bomb on board the ship. Cautiously, he said to Mara, ‘And one of these – uh, post-humans – is your daughter?’
‘Yes,’ Mara said.
Tahget was increasingly impatient with all this. ‘But, woman! Can’t you see that even supposing this antiquated Virtual is right about pantropy and post-humans, whatever might have been projected into the black hole atmosphere can no more be your daughter than Poole here can be your son? You are carbon and water, it is a filmy wisp of plasma. Whatever sentimental ties you have, the light show in that cloud has nothing to do with you.’
‘Not sentimental,’ she said clearly. ‘The ties are real, Captain. The person they sent into that black hole is my daughter. It’s all to do with loyalty, you see.’
The Ideocrats, comparative masters when it came to dominating their fellow humans, had no experience in dealing with post-humans. They had no idea how to enforce discipline and loyalty over creatures to whom ‘real’ humans might seem as alien as a fly to a fish. So they took precautions. Each candidate pantropic was born as a fully biological human, from a mother’s womb, and each spent her first fifteen years living a normal a life – normal, given she had been born on a tent-world in orbit around a black hole.
‘Then, on her sixteenth birthday, Sharn was taken,’ Mara said. ‘And she was copied.’
‘Like making a Virtual,’ Poole mused. ‘The copying must have been a quantum process. And the data was injected into the plasma structures in the black hole atmosphere.’ He grinned. ‘You can’t fault the Ideocrats for not thinking big! And that’s why there are people here in the first place – I mean, a colony with families – so that these wretched exiles would have a grounding in humanity, and stay loyal. Ingenious.’
‘It sounds horribly manipulative,’ said Futurity.
‘Yes. Obey us or your family gets it…’
Mara said, ‘We knew we were going to lose her, from the day Sharn was born. We knew it would be hard. But we knew our duty. Anyhow we weren’t really losing her. We would always have her, up there in the sky.’
‘I don’t understand,’ groused the Captain. ‘After your daughter was “copied”, why didn’t she just walk out of the copying booth?’
‘Because quantum information can’t be cloned, Captain,’ Poole said gently. ‘If you make a copy you have to destroy the original. Which is why young Futurity’s superiors were so agitated when I was transferred into this ship’s data store: there is only ever one copy of me. Sharn could never have walked out of that booth. She had been destroyed in the process.’
Futurity gazed out at the wispy black hole air. ‘Then – if this is all true – somewhere in those wisps is your daughter. The only copy of your daughter.’
Poole said, ‘In a deep philosophical sense, that’s true. It really is her daughter, rendered in light.’
Futurity said, ‘Can she speak to you?’
‘It was never allowed,’ Mara said wistfully. ‘Only the commanders had access, on secure channels. I must say I found that hard. I don’t even know how she feels. Is she in pain? What does it feel like to be her now?’
‘How sad,’ Poole said. ‘You have your duty – to colonise a new world, the strange air of the black hole. But you can’t go there; instead you have to lose your children to it. You are transitional, belonging neither to your ancestors’ world or your children’s. You are stranded between worlds.’
That seemed to be too much for Mara. She sniffed, and pulled herself upright. ‘It was a military operation, you know. We all accepted it. I told you, we had our duty. But then the Kard’s ships came along,’ she said bitterly. ‘They just swept us up and took us away, and we didn’t even get to say goodbye.’
Tahget glared. ‘Which is why you hijacked my ship and dragged us all to the centre of the Galaxy!’
She smiled weakly. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
Futurity held his hands up. ‘I think what we need now is to find an exit strategy.’
Poole grinned. ‘At last you’re talking like an engineer, not a priest.’
Futurity said, ‘Mara, we’ve brought you here as we promised. You can see your daughter, I guess. What now? If we take you to the planetoid, would you be able to talk to her?’
‘Not likely,’ Mara said. ‘The Kardish troops were stealing the old Ideocracy gear even before we lifted off. I think they thought the whole project was somehow unhealthy.’
‘Yes,’ said Poole. ‘I can imagine they will use this as a propaganda tool in their battle with the Ideocracy.’
‘Pah,’ spat Tahget. ‘Never mind politics! What the acolyte is asking, madam, is whether you will now relinquish your bomb, so we can all get on with our lives.’
Mara looked up at the black hole, hesitating. ‘I don’t want to be any trouble.’
Tahget laughed bitterly.
‘I just wish I could speak to Sharn.’
‘If we can’t manage that, maybe we can send a message,’ said Michael Poole. He grinned, snapped his fingers, and disappeared.
And reappeared in his skinsuit, out in space, on the other side of the blister.
Captain Tahget raged, ‘How do you do that? After your last stunt I ordered your core processors to be locked down!’
‘Don’t blame your crew, Captain,’ came Poole’s muffled voice. ‘I hacked my way back in. After all, nobody knows me as well as I do. And I was once an engineer.’
Tahget clenched his fists uselessly. ‘Damn you, Poole, I ought to shut you down for good.’
‘Too late for that,’ Poole said cheerfully.
Futurity said, ‘Michael Poole, what are you going to do?’
Mara was the first to see it. ‘He’s going to follow Sharn. He’s going to download himself into the black hole air.’
Futurity stared at Poole. ‘Is she right?’
‘I’m going to try. Of course I’m making this up as I’m going along. My procedure is untested; it’s all or nothing.’
Tahget snorted. ‘You’re probably an even bigger fool than you were alive, Poole.’
‘Oh?’
‘All this is surmise. Even if it was the Ideocracy’s intention to seed the black hole with post-humans, we have no proof it worked. There may be nothing alive in those thin gases. And even if there is, it may no longer be human! Have you thought of that?’