‘And ultimately merge, somehow,’ Miriam said. ‘Well, it’s happened before. Each of us is a community, with once-disparate and very different life forms toiling away in each of our cells. It’s a lovely vision, Michael.’
‘More important than that, it’s plausible,’ Poole’s original self said gruffly. ‘Anyhow it’s a hypothesis that will do until something better comes along.’
I sneered at that. This dream of cosmic cooperation struck me as the romantic fantasy of a man alone and doomed to die, and soon. We all project our petty lives upon the universe. But I had no better suggestions to make. And, who knows? Perhaps Virtual Poole was right. None of us will live to find out.
‘Anyhow,’ I said, ‘charming as this is – are we done now?’
Miriam snapped, ‘We can’t abandon Michael.’
‘Go,’ whispered Virtual Poole. ‘There’s nothing you can do for me. I’ll keep observing, reporting, as long as I can.’
I gagged on his nobility.
Now Harry intruded, grabbing a little of the available Virtual projection capacity. ‘But we’ve still got business to conclude before you leave here.’
15
Poole frowned. ‘What business?’
‘We came here to prove that Titan is without sentience,’ Harry said. ‘Well, we got that wrong. Now what?’
Miriam Berg was apparently puzzled we were even having the conversation. ‘We report what we’ve found to the sentience oversight councils and elsewhere. It’s a major discovery. We’ll be rapped for making an unauthorised landing on Titan, but—’
‘Is that the sum of your ambition?’ I snapped. ‘To hope the authorities will be lenient if you reveal the discovery that is going to ruin you?’
She glared at me. ‘What’s the choice?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ I looked at her, and Poole, who I think was guessing what I was going to say, and Harry, who turned away as he usually did at moments of crisis. Suddenly, after days of existential terror and pointless wonders, I was in my own element, which is the murky world of human relationships, and I could see a way forward where they could not. ‘Destroy this,’ I said. I waved a hand. ‘All of it. You have your grenades, Miriam. You could bring this cavern down.’
‘Or,’ Harry said, ‘there is the GUTengine. If that were detonated, if unified-field energies were loosed in here, the wormhole interface too would surely be disrupted. I’d imagine that the connection between Titan and the pocket universe would be broken altogether.’
I nodded. ‘I hadn’t thought of that, but I like your style, Harry. Do it. Let this place be covered up by hundreds of kilometres of ice and water. Destroy your records. It will make no difference to the surface, what’s going on in the atmosphere, not immediately. Nobody will ever know all this was here.’
Harry Poole said, ‘That’s true. Even if methane generation stops immediately, the residual would persist in the atmosphere for maybe ten million years. I venture to suggest that if the various multi-domain critters haven’t learned to cooperate in that time, they never will. Ten megayears is surely enough.’
Miriam looked at the bizarrely drifting head, horrified by his words. ‘You’re suggesting a monstrous crime,’ she breathed. ‘To think of destroying such a wonder as this, a billion-year project – to destroy it for personal gain! Michael, Lethe, leave aside the morality, surely you’re too much of a scientist to countenance this.’
But Poole sounded anguished. ‘I’m not a scientist any more, Miriam. I’m an engineer. I build things. I think I sympathise with the goals of the spider makers. What I’m building is a better future for the whole of mankind – that’s what I believe. And if I have to make compromises to achieve that future . . . well. Maybe the spider makers had to make the same kind of choices. Who knows what they found here on Titan before the makers went to work on it – who knows what potential they destroyed?’
And in that little speech, I believe, you have encapsulated both the magnificence and the grandiose folly of Michael Poole. I wondered then how much damage this man might do to us all in the future, with his wormholes and his time-hopping starships – what horrors he, blinded by his ambition, might unleash.
Harry said unexpectedly, ‘Let’s vote on it. If you’re in favour of destroying the chamber, say yes.’
‘No!’ snapped Miriam.
‘Yes,’ said Harry and Poole together.
‘Yes,’ said I, but they all turned on me and told me I didn’t have a vote.
It made no difference. The vote was carried. They stood looking at each other, as if horrified by what they had done.
‘Welcome to my world,’ I said cynically.
Poole went off to prepare the GUTengine for its last task. Miriam, furious and upset, gathered together our equipment, such as it was, her pack with her science samples, our tangles of rope.
And Harry popped into the air in front of me. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘You wanted me to make that suggestion, didn’t you?’
‘Well, I hoped you would. If I’d made it they’d have refused, and Michael would never have forgiven me for suggesting it.’ He grinned. ‘I knew there was a reason I wanted to have you along, Jovik Emry. Well done. You’ve served your purpose.’
Virtual Poole, still in his baby universe, spoke again. ‘Miriam.’
She straightened up. ‘I’m here, Michael.’
‘I’m not sure how long I have left. What will happen when the power goes?’
‘I programmed the simulation to seem authentic, internally consistent. It will be as if the power in the Crab lifedome is failing.’ She took a breath, and said, ‘Of course you have other options to end it before then.’
‘I know. Thank you. Who were they, do you think? Whoever made the spiders? Did they build this pocket universe too? Or was it built for them? Like a haven?’
‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. Michael, I’m sorry. I—’
‘Don’t be. You know I would have chosen this. But I’m sorry to leave you behind. Miriam – look after him, the other Michael. I, we, need you.’
She looked at the original Poole, who was working at the GUTengine. ‘We’ll see,’ she said.
‘And tell Harry – well. You know.’
She held a hand up to the empty air. ‘Michael, please—’
‘It’s enough.’ The Virtuals he had been projecting broke up into blocks of pixels, and a faint hiss, the carrier of his voice, disappeared from my hearing. Alone in his universe, he had cut himself off.
The original Poole approached her, uncertain of her reaction. ‘It’s done. The GUTengine has been programmed. We’re ready to go, Miriam. As soon as we’re out of here, it will blow.’
She turned away from him, her face showing something close to hatred.
16
So, harnessed to a spider oblivious of the impending fate of its vast and ancient project, we rose into the dark. It had taken us days to descend to this place, and would take us days to return to the surface, where, Harry promised, he would have a fresh balloon waiting to pick us up.
This time, though I was offered escape into unconsciousness, I stayed awake. I had a feeling that the last act of this little drama had yet to play itself out. I wanted to be around to see it.
We were beyond the lower ice layers and rising through two hundred and fifty kilometres of sea when Miriam’s timer informed us that the GUTengine had detonated, far beneath us. Insulated by the ice layer, we felt nothing. But I imagined that the spider that carried us up towards the light hesitated, just fractionally.