‘Collius? ColU?’ Beth pushed her way between them and made her way to the slave boy, who stood passively, head lowered, eyes downcast – a gesture Penny had learned to recognise, and hate. Beth cupped his chin and raised his head. ‘Why, you’re not much older than my Mardina, are you? What is your name?’
The boy glanced at Titus Valerius, who growled, ‘Answer the lady. You’re not in any trouble.’
‘My name is Chu Yuen, lady.’
‘Collius? You mean the ColU? You’re really carrying around the ColU in your backpack?’
‘What’s left of me,’ came a mournful voice from the backpack.
Beth’s face lit up. ‘ColU – it is you! Oh, I could hug you. But—’
‘Yuri Eden saved my processor unit and memory store. My interfacing is provided by slate technology. I am afraid I am not very huggable.’
‘Maybe I should hug this slave of yours.’
‘Please, Beth Eden Jones. Not in front of the Romans. Did I hear you mention a Mardina?’
‘Yes. My daughter, named after my mother. Mardina – come here.’
Mardina came up, but with every expression of reluctance, and Penny, still feeling bruised from her own encounter with the complicated past, could only sympathise.
The ColU said, ‘Chu Yuen. Please turn a little to the right.’
The boy obeyed, and Penny observed how he stuck his chest out as he did so, tilting the slate. That was evidently how the ColU ‘saw’ the world.
‘Mardina,’ the ColU said gravely. ‘I’m pleased to meet you. You have your grandmother’s name, and something of her looks.’
‘I never knew her.’ Mardina looked wildly at her mother. ‘I feel like I’m talking into thin air, talking to a ghost!’
‘Lieutenant Mardina Jones was a brave and strong human being, and I would be honoured to talk to you about her.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Mardina snarled back.
Beth said hurriedly, ‘It’s all right, ColU, it’s difficult for her.’
‘I understand,’ the ColU said gently. ‘Beth, as for your father, Yuri Eden …’
Stef walked up to Beth and took her hand. ‘You know that we went through the Hatch to Romulus together. Yuri and I. Just the two of us, and the ColU – the surviving bit of it. But—’
‘He hasn’t made it home, has he?’
‘His illness seemed to have been caused by his century in cryo suspension. “Freezer burn” he called it. I’m sorry, Beth.’
The ColU said, ‘I was with him in his last hours. I can tell you as much about that as you wish. Beth Eden Jones, he made me promise to find you. And so I have. And he instructed me to make sure you understand that, under his will as drawn up under Roman law, I am now your property, Beth.’
Penny could see that Beth was holding back tears. She hobbled forward on her stick. ‘Well, I for one have done enough standing for one day. And my throat’s as dry as the dust of Luna.’
With a glance at the provincial official, Quintus Fabius stepped forward, hands held wide, generously. ‘Let me be your host.’
The Romans showed remarkable sensitivity towards the gathered survivors of the UN-China Culture, Penny thought. They were allowed space and time to talk, to get over the shock of meeting.
But in the end they had to get down to business.
‘Earthshine,’ Stef said simply. ‘That’s the top and bottom of it. Earthshine.’
Quintus Fabius said, ‘Earthshine. If I understand you, this is the – machine – that you brought with you from your old world, and is now on Mars—’
Kerys said, ‘I have had years to get used to these ideas, Centurion. You’ve had days. And I barely understand it. We’ll have to let them talk this through. And then, I suspect, we’re going to have to make our superiors understand too.’
‘I look forward to that, nauarchus,’ he said drily. ‘Very well – Earthshine. Tell me why we must discuss this.’
‘For one thing,’ Penny said, ‘he is the reason we are here. I mean, we survivors of the jonbar-hinge event, the destruction of the worlds of our own timeline …’
Quintus looked helplessly at Kerys. ‘Do they always talk like this?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
The ColU said, ‘The jonbar hinge came with a great surge of energy, when the UN-China war erupted, and the kernels on Mercury were opened by the Nail, the Chinese missile … Perhaps such a surge, involving kernels, is necessary to create a hinge. Meanwhile you, Stef, were with Yuri and myself in a Hatch, en route to Romulus-Remus. And you, Beth, Penny, were with Lex McGregor, fleeing the solar system behind a bank of kernels.’
Stef said, ‘You’re suggesting that somehow the kernels, the Hatches, preserved us.’
The ColU said, ‘Yes. I think Earthshine moved us to where he wanted us to be, like chess pieces on a board, Colonel Kalinski. At least the key pieces. Consider. Who survived the jonbar hinge? Earthshine himself. And his son, Yuri Eden. Or at least, the son of Robert Braemann, one of the input personalities that became Earthshine. And his granddaughter, Beth Eden Jones. Everybody Earthshine might have cared about personally—’
Mardina turned on her mother. ‘His son? His granddaughter? What new horror is this? That thing on Mars – are you telling me that it’s somehow my great-grandfather? Mother – did you know?’
Beth sighed. ‘I knew. He told me his name on the Tatania, as we fled from the moon. And my father, Yuri, told me his true name before we parted, on Mercury. And when I put the two together—’
‘You never told me?’
‘You’ve spent your life rejecting your past, Mardina. Are you saying you would have wanted to know?’
Quintus Fabius leaned forward. ‘I can see why this is difficult for you all. This talk of the past – but now we must speak of the future. Collius, tell us of the ice ball, the world you Brikanti call Höd. And the observations we have been making of Earthshine’s activities.’
Penny frowned. ‘ “We”? Who’s “we”, the Empire?’
‘No. We of the Malleus Jesu,’ the ColU said. ‘Academician, during the journey back I was privileged to work with the ship’s team of navigators and observers. They are Moslems, mostly Arab. A product of a high civilisation, though one subsumed within the Roman system in this timeline.’
‘I’m guessing you had them observe Ceres,’ Penny prompted.
The ColU said, ‘I had a feeling that the tracking of the object, and the projection of its future motion, might be beyond observers on Earth. Especially give the erratic pattern of the kernel-bank burns they are applying. You can’t be sure where it’s heading. I, however—’
Beth laughed. ‘With your superior computational powers, you know exactly what’s going on. You always were conceited, ColU.’
‘Liu Tao once said to me that for a farm machine I have ideas above my station. And I replied by pointing out that a sentient mind refuses to be confined by the parameters of its programming—’
‘Get to the point!’ Quintus was almost shouting now. ‘Where is this ice block heading, o engine of glass?’
‘Towards an impact on Mars,’ Penny said tiredly. ‘Am I right, ColU? Not a close approach, a grazing encounter with the atmosphere—’
‘I’m afraid you are correct, Penelope Kalinski.’
Stef nodded dumbly. ‘Very well. But why? What is he intending to achieve?’
‘I can think of only dire and destructive possibilities,’ the ColU said.
Quintus and Kerys shared grim glances. Kerys said, ‘And whatever else he does achieve, he’ll probably trigger a war, in the Skull of Ymir as on Terra. Rome and Xiu will probably believe this is some ploy by Brikanti, who sent Earthshine to Mars.’