The pilot sent the craft skimming along a shallow path between the low hills and then spun them around and down and they were suddenly in the midst of the construction site. She decelerated rapidly, touching the flier down near the center of a rectangular patch of mud.
The pilot spoke without turning. “Welcome to DIANA Arcology, phase one. Please check that you have all your belongings before leaving the vehicle.”
The door slid open and bright sunlight filled the passenger section, along with a wave of heat as if someone had opened an oven door. Constantine hesitated for a moment before moving out into the bright daylight. He stepped down onto a plastic duckboard laid over wet red mud. As he did so, the door slid shut and the flier rose and skimmed off in a wide circle before disappearing in the direction from which it had come.
Constantine turned in a slow circle himself. There was no sign of anyone. He was alone, abandoned in the middle of a large rectangle of reddish earth, baking under the hot sun. Already he could feel sweat running down his back. The trail of blue plastic duckboards led to the edge of the mud patch, and he began to follow them. He felt as if he was walking across the surface of a huge red swimming pool. Someone had cut down to a depth of about half a meter and then peeled back the planet’s skin to leave the earth underneath raw and exposed.
– Why hasn’t the mud dried up? It’s like an oven out here.
“That’s a good point, Red,” Constantine muttered. He crouched down and reached one hand toward the muddy surface.
– Careful. There’s something moving down there.
Something broke the surface fast, just as Red spoke; the edge of a silver cylinder flashed brightly in the powerful sunlight before dipping beneath again. Now that he looked closely, Constantine could see that there was a constant bubbling motion just below the mud’s surface. Hundreds of identical cylinders busily crawling all over each other.
– VNMs, confirmed White.-We’re looking at some sort of bounding tank, I think. The mud layer must extend beneath the ground for some distance. It’s acting as a nurturing area for the machines.
– Like a fish tank, said Blue.
– That’s right. It’s a clever idea. It delimits the area upon which the machines can act. It stops them from escaping or converting something that they shouldn’t.
– Do you think it might be a good idea to get off the duckboards? asked Blue.
“A very good idea,” agreed Constantine. He didn’t like the idea of being converted.
– Hold it, said Red.-Something’s happening.
There was a slow sucking noise, and something large and rectangular emerged from the reddish mud. An oversized yellow plastic refrigerator, by the look of it. The door swung slowly open.
– It looks like an elevator. I think you should get in.
Constantine shivered. The interior of the yellow box looked cramped and dangerously short on air. He preferred to stand out here in the blazing sunshine. Nonetheless, he knew that Red was probably right.
“All right, I’m going,” he muttered.
– Rather you than me, said Blue.
Sitting in a chair in the large conference suite, a glass of chilled water at his elbow, Constantine had to admit that it was a clever idea. Building the research center right in the middle of the VNM construction site guaranteed privacy. It wouldn’t be a secret, of course, in today’s world very little was, but anyone wishing to approach the center uninvited would have to go through a tank of hungry VNMs. And anyone trying to slip a stealthy spy leech up close to the center would quickly find that their resources had been converted into building blocks for the new DIANA Arcology. Blue had approved wholeheartedly. The setup did have a certain poetry about it, he suggested.
– And there is something else as well. Did it occur to you that there is a certain Eastern aspect to our deceptions? Lies within misdirections within frauds. We sit here within what appears to be a construction site for an arcology, ostensibly to discuss its real purpose as a Space Colony Preparatory Center, and all the while we are plotting our own deeper schemes.
– Recursion, said White.-Each lie calls for another lie. How far do we have to go until the final deception is revealed?
– And will we ever know that what we find is not just another lie? said Red.
– How trite, Blue said rudely.
Grey, as ever, said nothing.
The meeting began without ceremony. Each member introduced themselves in turn.
“Marion Lee. Chairperson.” A red-headed woman in a severe grey suit, she blinked rapidly as she spoke.
“Gillian Karajan. Oort cloud.” She was an elongated woman with a spacer’s fake tan that somehow managed to complement her fashionable white shift. Silver and gold bangles decorated her arms.
“Constantine Storey.” Constantine added nothing else. He noted Gillian Karajan looking at him inquisitively. The other members of the group showed no surprise at his reticence.
– She’s the one, said Red.-She’s the outsider to this group. Look at the way she’s sitting, nervous, as if she doesn’t belong. I wonder what they told her to get her here?
The introductions continued.
“Masaharu Jones. Mars.” A young man barely in this twenties, full of complacent self-confidence.
“Jay Apple. Orbital.” Another tanned spacewoman, this time with a broad grin and clear, piercing eyes that swept around each member of the group in turn. Introductions over, the group nodded to each other. Marion Lee began the meeting.
“Good morning. For obvious reasons, this meeting maintains no record. Everything that is said must exist in our memories only. Nonetheless, I hereby state that we are now quorate.”
Constantine felt a mixture of excitement and relief. It was true. The moment had finally arrived. His two long years of being alone were coming to an end. Marion had paused for effect. Now she continued:
“I now remind you. The quorum will meet three and only three times. The final decision must be made by the end of the third meeting. That was deemed necessary when plans were first laid down over two years ago. There can and will be no variation from this course of action.”
Constantine found himself nodding in agreement. He had been part of the original meeting: it had made perfect sense then and it still made sense now. The longer the plan existed, the greater its chance of discovery. They had all agreed that speed was of the essence. Two years had seemed such a short time in which to achieve anything back then; it seemed an eternity now.
“Gillian Karajan will begin with a brief summary of progress out in the Oort cloud.”
Gillian nodded. She was blinking quickly; Marion’s words had clearly meant nothing to her and she was trying to conceal that fact.
“Hello. As I already said, my name is Gillian Karajan.” She twisted one of the bangles on her wrist nervously for a moment and then gathered herself together. “I work at the superluminal research center. Superluminal, for those who don’t know, means faster than light.” She took a deep breath, gaining confidence. “We’ve hit big-decision time. It looks like warp drive works…”
She paused for effect, looking round each member of the group in turn, then continued in self-important tones, “…but only up to a point. Our robot ships are vanishing into deep space, they’re just not coming back. The AIs are saying that we’ve almost cracked the drive mechanism; a few more weeks and we’ll have ships that can make the return journey. The question is…”
Again, she looked significantly at each member of the group before finishing. “…should we trust them?”
Silence. Constantine half raised his hand. “A working hyperdrive? That’s not what I heard.”
Gillian Karajan frowned at Marion the Chairperson, who nodded at Gillian to answer. She shrugged.
“Obviously we don’t advertise our progress to our competitors. Capability estimates suggest that only three companies are currently working on warp drive.” She stressed the penultimate word in the sentence, pointing out Constantine’s incorrect use of terminology. “They are the newly merged company 113 Berliner Sibelius, Imagineers, and us. We believe that we have had the edge on them throughout the development period, but that advantage has probably been eroded while we sat around wringing our hands and wondering what to do next.”