‘How could she have
‘Get out of here,’ he snapped. ‘Leave. Now. Before I rip you out of my head with a rock.’
‘I came to tell you something important. I’ve just learned the news from my counterpart up on the Moon. Your sister’s on her way to Mars.’
‘What?’
‘Mars,’ the construct repeated. ‘There’s a Maersk Intersolar swiftship leaving tomorrow and the Pans have bought her a slot aboard it. That’s all.’
The figment vanished, leaving him alone with the elephants.
Matilda might have been the only elephant neurally linked to Geoffrey, but it hadn’t taken more than a couple of seconds for her agitation to communicate itself to the others. They had seen nothing, but when the matriarch alerted them that there was a problem, they took her at her word. Geoffrey couldn’t see their eyes, but their postures told him that they were directing their attention to the same patch of ground where Eunice had appeared. There was no guessing what they thought Matilda might have seen or sensed there, but they were very clearly not taking any chances.
He thought of opening the link again, and doing his best to project calming reassurance . . . but with his mind in its present state, that was about the worst thing he could have tried.
Mars. What was Sunday playing at, after what she’d promised him?
No rash decisions.
He held up his hands. ‘I’m sorry, Matilda. There’s nothing wrong, but I don’t expect you to understand that now. And it was my fault.’ He began to back up, barely giving a thought to what might be behind him in the darkness. ‘I think it’s best if I leave you alone now, let you sort this out on your own. I’m truly sorry.’
She trumpeted at him then, an answering blast that he could not help but interpret as fury. He did not doubt that it was directed at him. He, after all, was the only alien presence in this environment. And if she grasped that the figment was in some sense unreal, then it was also the case that she had been made to look foolish, jumping at something that wasn’t there, in the presence of the rest of the herd. She was matriarch, but only until the next female rose to challenge her.
He left the elephants to their grumbling, still feeling Matilda’s disgruntlement even as he risked turning his back on her. He found his way to the Cessna, letting the aug light his path, and it was only when he was aloft that his hands stopped shaking. He had, he realised, left his bag down by the waterhole, along with the drawings: he’d forgotten it when the figment appeared.
Under other circumstances he might have circled down and retrieved it. Not tonight, though.
He’d done enough damage as it was.
CHAPTER TEN
Sunday was just wondering what the time was in Africa – or, to be precise, at the household – when her brother placed a ching request. A coincidence like that should have left her reeling, but she’d long since learned to take such things in her stride.
She went to a leafy corner of the departure lounge, while Jitendra wandered over to poke at one of the maintenance bots, which was locked in some kind of pathological behaviour loop.
‘Just thinking of calling you,’ she told her brother as his figment popped into reality.
After the usual two-and-a-bit seconds of time lag he answered, ‘Good, I’m very glad to hear it.’
She studied his reaction. ‘You don’t sound overjoyed, Geoffrey. Have I done something wrong?’
‘I’m not sure where to begin. You’re on your way to Mars without telling me, despite everything we talked about, and all of a sudden I’ve got my grandmother inside my head.’
‘You two have already made your acquaintance, then.’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
‘Look, I should probably have warned you, but . . . well, what are surprises if you can’t spring them on people now and again? Besides, I thought it would be useful for the construct. She needs to see a bit more of the world, and I’m obviously not going to be much help in that regard. So I took the liberty.’
‘You certainly did.’
‘I thought you’d appreciate the gesture. She’s a . . . very useful resource.’
‘Good. Now you can tell me what you think you’re doing. According to your tag you’re already at the departure station.’
‘We are. Jitendra and I are just about to board the swiftship.’ They’d come up by surface-to-orbit liner, spent a couple of hours in the freefall and spun sections of the station, eaten a meal, drunk too much coffee and passed the final medical tests prior to cryosleep. ‘They’ll put us under soon,’ she went on. ‘Lights out until Phobos.’
‘And where the hell did the money for this come from?’
‘Plexus funds,’ Sunday answered. ‘June Wing’s paying for Jitendra to go and do field work for the R&D division.’
‘I hear the Pans are paying your fare.’
‘Yeah. They want an artist in the loop, someone who can communicate their big ideas to the wider public. Because I know the zookeepers, I sort of got the job. Or at least a try-out, to see how it goes. There are Pans on Mars – they’ve got some start-up venture going on there.’
‘And none of this comes with strings.’
‘Oh, a few. But I don’t have to buy into the ideology; I just have to wear it for a while.’
‘And how long are you going to be away?’
