So why was he hesitating? It was Mina, of course. Naqi had given a name to the faceless library of stored minds he was prepared to erase. By naming her sister, Naqi had removed the onesidedness of the moral equation, and now Weir had to accept that his own actions could never be entirely blameless. He was no longer purely objective.
‘I should just do this,’ he said. ‘By hesitating even for a second, I’m betraying the trust of the people who sent me here, people who have probably been tormented to extinction by Ormazd’s followers by now.’
Naqi shook her head. ‘If you didn’t show doubt, you’d be as bad as the disciples.’
‘You almost sound as if you want me to do it.’
She groped for something resembling the truth, as painful as that might be. ‘Perhaps I do.’
‘Even though it would mean killing whatever part of Mina survived?’
‘I’ve lived in her shadow my entire life. Even after she died… I always felt she was still watching me, still observing my every mistake, still being faintly disappointed that I wasn’t living up to all she had imagined I could be.’
‘You’re being harsh on yourself. Harsh on Mina too, by the sound of things.’
‘I know,’ Naqi said angrily. ‘I’m just telling you how I feel.’
The boat edged into a curving inlet that pushed deep into the node. Naqi felt less vulnerable now: there was a significant depth of organic matter to screen the boat from any sideways-looking sensors that the shuttle might have deployed, even though the evidence suggested that the shuttle’s sensors were mainly focused down from its hull. The disadvantage was that it was no longer possible to keep a constant vigil on the shuttle’s movements. It could be on its way already.
She brought the boat to a halt and stood up in her control seat.
‘What’s happening?’ Weir asked.
‘I’ve come to a decision.’
‘Isn’t that my job?’
Her anger — brief as it was, and directed less at Weir than at the hopelessness of the situation — had evaporated. ‘I mean about swimming. It’s the one thing we haven’t considered yet, Rafael. That there might be a third way: a choice between accepting the disciples and letting the ocean die.’
‘I don’t see what that could be.’
‘Nor do I. But the ocean might find a way. It just needs the knowledge of what’s at stake.’ She stroked her forearm again, marvelling at the sudden eruption of fungal patterns. They must have been latent for many years, but now something had caused them to flare up.
Even in daylight, emeralds and blues shone against her skin. She suspected that the biochemical changes had been triggered when she entered the water to snatch the globe. Given that, she could not help but view it as a message. An invitation, perhaps. Or was it a warning, reminding her of the dangers of swimming?
She had no idea, but for her peace of mind, however — and given the lack of alternatives — she chose to view it as an invitation.
But she did not dare wonder who was inviting her.
‘You think the ocean can understand external events?’ Weir asked.
‘You said it yourself, Rafaeclass="underline" the night they told us the ship was coming, somehow that information reached the sea — via a swimmer’s memories, perhaps. And the Jugglers knew then that this was something significant. Perhaps it was Ormazd’s personality, rising to the fore.’
Or maybe it was merely the vast, choral mind of the ocean, apprehending only that something was going to happen.
‘Either way,’ Naqi said. ‘It still makes me think that there might be a chance.’
‘I only wish I shared your optimism.’
‘Give me this chance, Rafael. That’s all I ask.’
Naqi removed her clothes, less concerned that Weir would see her naked now than that she should have something to wear when she emerged. But although Weir studied her with unconcealed fascination, there was nothing prurient about it. What commanded his attention, Naqi realised, were the elaborate and florid patterning of the fungal markings. They curled and twined about her chest and abdomen and thighs, shining with a hypnotic intensity.
‘You’re changing,’ he said.
‘We all change,’ Naqi answered.
Then she stepped from the side of the boat, into the water.
The process of descending into the ocean’s embrace was much as she remembered it that first time, with Mina beside her. She willed her body to submit to the biochemical invasion, forcing down her fear and apprehension, knowing that she had been through this once before and that it was something that she could survive again. She did her best not to think about what it would mean to survive beyond this day, when all else had been shattered, every certainty crumbled.
Mina came to her with merciful speed.
Naqi?
I’m here. Oh, Mina, I’m here. There was terror and there was joy, alloyed together. It’s been so long.
Naqi felt her sister’s presence edge in and out of proximity and focus. Sometimes she appeared to share the same physical space. At other times she was scarcely more than a vague feeling of attentiveness.
How long?
Two years, Mina.
Mina’s answer took an eternity to come. In that dreadful hiatus Naqi felt other minds crowd against her own, some of which were so far from human that she gasped at their oddity. Mina was only one of the conformal minds that had noticed her arrival, and not all were as benignly curious or glad.
It doesn’t feel like two years to me.
How long?
Days… hours… It changes.
What do you remember?
Mina’s presence danced around Naqi. I remember what I remember. That we swam, when we weren’t meant to. That something happened to me, and I never left the ocean.
You became part of it, Mina.
The triumphalism of her answer shocked Naqi to the marrow. Yes!
You wanted this?
You would want it, if you knew what it was like. You could have stayed, Naqi. You could have let it happen to you, the way it happened to me. We were so alike.
I was scared.
Yes, I remember.
Naqi knew that she had to get to the heart of things. Time was passing differently here — witness Mina’s confusion about how long she had been part of the ocean — and there was no telling how patient Weir would be. He might not wait until Naqi re-emerged before deploying the Juggler killer.
There was another mind, Mina. We encountered it, and it scared me. Enough that I had to leave the ocean. Enough that I never wanted to go back.
You’ve come back now.
It’s because of that other mind. It belonged to a man called Ormazd. Something very bad is going to happen because of him. One way or the other.
There was a moment then that transcended anything Naqi had experienced before. She felt herself and Mina become inseparable. She could not only not say where one began and the other ended, but it was entirely pointless to even think in those terms. If only fleetingly, Mina had become her. Every thought, every memory, was open to equal scrutiny by both of them.
Naqi understood what it was like for Mina. Her sister’s memories were rapturous. She might only have sensed the passing of hours or days, but that belied the richness of her experience since merging with the ocean. She had exchanged experience with countless alien minds, drinking in entire histories beyond normal human comprehension. And in that moment of sharing, Naqi appreciated something of the reason for her sister having been taken in the first place. Conformals were the ocean’s way of managing itself. Now and then the maintenance of the vaster archive of static minds required stewardship — the drawing-in of independent intelligences. Mina had been selected and utilised, and given rewards beyond imagining for her efforts. The ocean had tapped the structure of her intelligence at a subconscious level. Only now and then had she ever felt that she was being directly petitioned on a matter of importance.