“Isn’t that changing a probability matrix, big time?” He saw her surprised expression. “I’m not just a pretty-faced artist. Seriously, pre-cog is only seeing the possibilities and probabilities. You insert or see a desired outcome and the possies and probies adapt to suit.”
“Possies? Probies?”
“I hate long words. Seriously, though. The event line you want to disrupt is huge. It belongs to the Originators and whoever’s behind them. To the poor bloody Gliese, the Cancri, and every other race in this empire. Soon as we make a change here, the line adjusts. That’s what Tse said, right? So what the hell can we do? You, me and hopefully Tatia? Just show up and voilà! everything changes, the bad guys are defeated?”
Kara was silent for a while and then sighed. “I know. It must seem far-fetched. But you can win a war by killing a general and his battlefield AI. And perhaps this pre-cog empire is too inflexible, which is how most empires die.”
“I did graduate kindergarten. What do we do?”
“We’re always ready for the actions that can change the event line. We discover the top-dog pre-cog and destroy them.”
“That’s fantasy again.”
Kara shook her head. “A long time ago a wise man said the best generals defeat an enemy without killing anyone. Manoeuvre them in such a way that they defeat themselves. Get them into an arms race and their economy crumbles…”
“... but seeing defeat,” he interrupted, “they say what the fuck and go out in death and glory.”
“There’s always that.”
“Saviours of the universe, that’s us.”
She sighed and looked at him with mixed annoyance and pity. “You just don’t fucking get it, do you? If we’re so insignificant, why has the enemy tried to stop us?”
“Not that much...”
“Marc,” she said patiently, and it took an effort, “the psychic attack on Tse. Earth Primus trying to take down GalDiv. Now the chaos. Those ships we just destroyed. It’s open war, idiot, aimed at Earth and us in particular.” Her voice hardened. “You might think us pointless but sure as hell that fucking empire doesn’t.” She touched his arm. “I once heard a soldiers’ song from nearly two hundred years ago.” She nodded to herself as if recollecting the tune and sang in a warm contralto, “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.”
“A soldier’s lament,” Marc said. “We have to make the best of it. I never knew you could sing.”
“I had help.”
< Just call me Svengali.
“Let’s go find Tatia,” Kara said. “Ishmael, take us down.”
11
So they came down to the place where they’d last seen Tatia Nerein. Rounded white buildings like pebbles in fields of red and green. No alien craft in the landing zone. No movement on the roads, those low-loaders with squishy balloon tyres, used to collect Gliese newly emerged from shiny black pods hanging from the trees. The truth about the Gliese was one of the strangest and most upsetting of all. The Gliese, apparent source of the star and anti-grav drives, and therefore controllers of human space, were born as low-hanging fruit. It wasn’t an evolutionary path that made much sense. The only explanation was that the Gliese were genetically engineered as the perfect gofer. Ferrying tech throughout the galaxy, never any danger of wanting a more independent life. Obviously some intelligence, but perhaps controlled by an alien AI on board their own craft. Perhaps. Aliens, who knew? The perfect servitors. Vegetable robots – no, Kara had said how she felt one die in her arms, the one she’d killed to prevent live vivisection. Why not mechanical? Because you don’t need a factory to produce them, only a patch of earth. Because if they were mechanical, they could be used against their makers, or give up too many high-tech secrets. Plants are also more resilient and adaptable than metal. And AIs can go a bit strange.
The ideal, alien pre-cog universe would probably be populated by safe, friendly, reliable plants.
Marc sat in the rec room, watching the descent through a patch of transparent hull. Although the ship could fly down in a matter of seconds, Kara had said to take it slow, to check the landing zone and immediate area before landing.
He thought about Kara and what she’d said about a war that wasn’t, only a mission. About him missing Earth. About all three of them having been chosen long before their grandparents were born... was “chosen” the right word? Would “noticed” be more accurate? Noticed by a good pre-cog viewing the best way to defeat aliens hundreds of years in the future? Was that how it worked? Did he really care? His road pointed away from Earth. But why was Kara so accepting? He thought he knew: Greenaway. Kara hadn’t mentioned him much, strange considering the part Greenaway had played. And when Marc had pushed, she’d all but admitted that she and Greenaway now had a thing, much as she’d derided the expression.
He had his netherspace obsession, she had a new man. For Marc, sex with Kara would be little more than adolescent mutual masturbation. He was glad for her. Always better to face death with good memories.
To die sad about what’s been lost, rather than for what could have been but never was.
No more will we, won’t we, when? It was a relief.
They touched down in a mid-morning made bright to the extreme by the two suns. Remembered how they’d watched Tatia walk towards an alien spacecraft that resembled a modern version of a mad king’s many-turreted palace. How it had left as soon as she’d gone on board, leaving both Kara and Marc bereft and guilty.
Now the entire area felt abandoned. No sign of Gliese life in any of the buildings. Humans had been there little more than a month ago yet plants like black cacti with long spines were already claiming the roads. A sharp point had to be the most common weapon in the universe.
There was life by the tree where they’d
