The Revelation Space Collection by Alastair Reynolds Page B
Authors: Alastair Reynolds
Tags: Science-Fiction
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molecules. They foraged for waste, eating virtually anything organic which was not nailed down or still breathing. Then they ran some rudimentary preprocessing in their guts before going elsewhere in the ship, excreting pellets into larger recycler systems. Some of them had even been equipped with voiceboxes and a small hardwired lexicon of useful phrases, triggered into vocalisation when external stimuli satisfied biochemically programmed conditions.
In Volyova’s case, she had programmed the rats to alert her as soon as they began to process human detritrus - dead skin cells, and the like - which had not come from her. She would know when the other crew members were awake, even if she was in a completely different district of the ship.
‘Company,’ the rat squeaked again.
‘Yes, I heard first time.’ She lowered the little rodent to the deck, and then swore in all the languages at her disposal.
The defensive wasp which had accompanied Pascale buzzed a little nearer to Sylveste as it picked up the stress overtones in his voice. ‘You want to know about the Eighty? I’ll tell you. I don’t feel the slightest hint of remorse for any of them. They all knew the risks. And there were seventy-nine volunteers, not eighty. People conveniently forget that the eightieth was my father.’
‘You can hardly blame them.’
‘Assuming stupidity is an inherited trait, then no, I can’t.’ Sylveste tried to relax himself. It was difficult. At some point in the conversation, the militia had begun to dust the domed-in air outside with fear gas. It was staining the reddened daylight to something nearer black. ‘Look,’ Sylveste said evenly. ‘The government appropriated Calvin when I was arrested. He’s quite capable of defending his own actions.’
‘It isn’t his actions I want to ask you about.’
Pascale made an annotation in her compad. ‘It’s what became of him - his alpha-level simulation - afterwards. Now, each of the alphas comprised in the region of ten to the power eighteen bytes of information,’ she said, circling something. ‘The records from Yellowstone are patchy, but I was able to learn a little. I found that sixty-six of the alphas resided in orbital data reservoirs around Yellowstone; carousels, chandelier cities and various Skyjack and Ultra havens. Most had crashed, of course, but no one was going to erase them. Another ten I traced to corrupted surface archives, which leaves four missing. Three of those four are members of the seventy-nine, affiliated to either very poor or very extinct family lines. The other is the alpha recording of Calvin.’
‘Is there a point to this?’ he asked, trying not to sound as if the issue particularly concerned him.
‘I just can’t accept that Calvin was lost in the same way as the others. It doesn’t add up. The Sylveste Institute didn’t need creditors or trustees to safeguard their heirlooms. It was one of the wealthiest organisations on the planet right up until the plague hit. So what became of Calvin?’
‘You think I brought it to Resurgam?’
‘No; the evidence suggests it was already long lost by then. In fact, the last time it was definitely present in the system was more than a century before the Resurgam expedition departed.’
‘I think you’re wrong,’ Sylveste said. ‘Check the records more closely and you’ll see that the alpha was moved into an orbital data cache in the late twenty-fourth. The Institute relocated premises thirty years later, so it was certainly moved then. Then in ’39 or ’40 the Institute was attacked by House Reivich. They wiped the data cores.’
‘No,’ Pascale said. ‘I excluded those instances. I’m well aware that in 2390 around ten to the eighteen bytes of something was moved into orbit by the Sylveste Institute, and the same amount relocated thirty-seven years later. But ten to the eighteen bytes of information doesn’t have to be Calvin. It could as easily be ten to the eighteen bytes of
In Volyova’s case, she had programmed the rats to alert her as soon as they began to process human detritrus - dead skin cells, and the like - which had not come from her. She would know when the other crew members were awake, even if she was in a completely different district of the ship.
‘Company,’ the rat squeaked again.
‘Yes, I heard first time.’ She lowered the little rodent to the deck, and then swore in all the languages at her disposal.
The defensive wasp which had accompanied Pascale buzzed a little nearer to Sylveste as it picked up the stress overtones in his voice. ‘You want to know about the Eighty? I’ll tell you. I don’t feel the slightest hint of remorse for any of them. They all knew the risks. And there were seventy-nine volunteers, not eighty. People conveniently forget that the eightieth was my father.’
‘You can hardly blame them.’
‘Assuming stupidity is an inherited trait, then no, I can’t.’ Sylveste tried to relax himself. It was difficult. At some point in the conversation, the militia had begun to dust the domed-in air outside with fear gas. It was staining the reddened daylight to something nearer black. ‘Look,’ Sylveste said evenly. ‘The government appropriated Calvin when I was arrested. He’s quite capable of defending his own actions.’
‘It isn’t his actions I want to ask you about.’
Pascale made an annotation in her compad. ‘It’s what became of him - his alpha-level simulation - afterwards. Now, each of the alphas comprised in the region of ten to the power eighteen bytes of information,’ she said, circling something. ‘The records from Yellowstone are patchy, but I was able to learn a little. I found that sixty-six of the alphas resided in orbital data reservoirs around Yellowstone; carousels, chandelier cities and various Skyjack and Ultra havens. Most had crashed, of course, but no one was going to erase them. Another ten I traced to corrupted surface archives, which leaves four missing. Three of those four are members of the seventy-nine, affiliated to either very poor or very extinct family lines. The other is the alpha recording of Calvin.’
‘Is there a point to this?’ he asked, trying not to sound as if the issue particularly concerned him.
‘I just can’t accept that Calvin was lost in the same way as the others. It doesn’t add up. The Sylveste Institute didn’t need creditors or trustees to safeguard their heirlooms. It was one of the wealthiest organisations on the planet right up until the plague hit. So what became of Calvin?’
‘You think I brought it to Resurgam?’
‘No; the evidence suggests it was already long lost by then. In fact, the last time it was definitely present in the system was more than a century before the Resurgam expedition departed.’
‘I think you’re wrong,’ Sylveste said. ‘Check the records more closely and you’ll see that the alpha was moved into an orbital data cache in the late twenty-fourth. The Institute relocated premises thirty years later, so it was certainly moved then. Then in ’39 or ’40 the Institute was attacked by House Reivich. They wiped the data cores.’
‘No,’ Pascale said. ‘I excluded those instances. I’m well aware that in 2390 around ten to the eighteen bytes of something was moved into orbit by the Sylveste Institute, and the same amount relocated thirty-seven years later. But ten to the eighteen bytes of information doesn’t have to be Calvin. It could as easily be ten to the eighteen bytes of
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