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A fault?

  Or a reading of something much higher than the default was set to record?

  Right up there? A low point on the reading?

  He called up the numbers that underlay the graphics. When he saw them he grunted aloud.

  They were high. They were far higher than he had expected – or wanted – to see. He stared at them helplessly. The numbers reeled away in impossible quantities.

  Impossible?

  Consult!

  Lewis was on watch. He called up Lewis’s chamber.

  ‘Lewis!’

  ‘Paul?’ said Lewis’s voice. ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘The field readings!’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They are … too big.’

  ‘Let’s see what you’re looking at.’ There was a short silence as Lewis adjusted his workstation to let him see what was on Paul’s.

  ‘I have changed the scale,’ said Paul. ‘But …’

  ‘You should change it again,’ said Lewis. ‘I find one point eight to minus one point two captures most of it.’

  ‘This is normal?’

  ‘We’re traversing the tail of the planetary field. We observe these fluctuations every time. So yes, it’s normal. But it’s also unique. You don’t get this structure anywhere else in the solar system – not stable, like this. Impressive, isn’t it?’

  The reading dropped sharply. It plunged past the horizontal axis and carried on down.

  ‘That flow has … changed!’

  ‘Reversed. Yes, it does. Keep watching and it will reverse again.’

  ‘It is harmful?’

  ‘Harmful?’ Lewis seemed to think for a moment. ‘Eventually, yes. The field traps particles from the solar wind. It whips them up to high levels of energy, as you see. Prolonged exposure to that would certainly be harmful. It came as a shock to Earth when it finally understood just what levels we could experience in this region. Early observations of the tail had made it seem pretty quiet.’

  ‘If it was harmful, they would have aborted?’

  ‘Earth wasn’t going to abort – not after it had got as far as it had. It put an extra gas layer onto the station to give us that bit more stopping distance. The in-place systems got some extra shielding and the station as a whole got some extra redundancy. The one thing it couldn’t shield was the World Ear. There’s no way a World Ear can interact with the nervous system through half a centimetre of metal, is there? So this station, alone of all the stations in the solar system, runs without it. And we run fine – except that every now and then it gets too much for the radio systems and our comms to Earth get interrupted—’

  ‘That is not the field,’ said Paul.

  ‘I don’t know what else it could be, Paul.’

  ‘Earth does not think it is the field!’

  There was a pause.

  ‘You’d better come over,’ said Lewis. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘If it was the field, I would not have been sent.’

  ‘Paul … this is difficult. When you and I see something happen to someone, we look for a cause, and we expect that cause to make sense to us. Why not? We are still humans, after all. What we have to understand is that Earth looks at things very differently. Just because our loss happened to be the telemetry executive doesn’t mean—’

  ‘Stop!’ said Paul roughly.

  Silence. He swallowed. ‘You say we are still human. You mean everyone else is not?’

  Again Lewis paused.

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean, Paul,’ he said slowly. ‘We – the four of us here – are, or soon will be, the only humans left.’

  Paul said nothing.

  ‘We are the only humans left,’ Lewis repeated. ‘The billions on Earth are no longer humans. They are no longer rational beings who think for themselves. They have become joined into something much larger. They have become part of a single, gigantic consciousness. That is the World Ear.’

  Silence, so thick that Paul could hear the faint hum of his wall-display. He heard Lewis draw breath over the intercom. He drew breath himself and held it.

  ‘I don’t agree,’ he said.

  ‘Then you’d better come over,’ snapped Lewis. ‘You may not need eye contact for this, but I do!’

  Lewis needed eye contact, Paul thought, because without it his words would only be words – easily considered and dismissed. But his eyes added to what he said. Paul felt them waiting for him even as he crossed the common room. Powerful and grey, circled in their rings of flesh, they met him as he entered Lewis’s work-chamber. They pointed him towards the inflated seat. (‘Sit down,’ said Lewis.) And when he had sunk into it, feeling hollow and a little tense, they rested upon him like hands placed lightly on his shoulders, as if they could lock with great strength and pin him down when he tried to rise. Paul looked away. He looked around the room.

  He saw that the chamber was the same size and shape as every other work-chamber in the station. But every square metre of wall was set to display a different image. There were tall white buildings, shining in the sun against a blue sky. There were ships under sail on a wide sea. There was a man directing other men, who walked in rows and wore the same old-fashioned clothes. There was a courtyard of an old brickbuilt house, with yellow-painted woodwork and the sunlight filtering down through dusty air and a woman sitting doing something that involved straw. From time to time one would change to another, unhurriedly, but with a lazy power that implied a million other images waiting to be shown, all things that had been done by people, great things and little things that the watching eye must never forget.

  Paul wondered why so many of the images were from long ago.

  ‘So,’ said Lewis. ‘Tell me what you think.’

  ‘On Earth,’ said Paul, ‘I knew who I was. I thought. I was not a … a …’

  ‘Slave?’

  ‘Slave, yes. I was not a slave. That is one point.’

  ‘That was your perception. But—’

  Paul hurried on. ‘I know. You say I could not “consent”. Of course I did “consent”. I came. I did not fight.’

  ‘Neither did any of us,’ said Lewis dryly.

  ‘Lewis – the World Ear is a tool! A’ – he fumbled for the words – ‘a communications tool. It is not even a computer. It is—’

  He broke off, still hunting for words that would not come. Lewis supplied them.

  ‘It is simply a fusion of earlier technologies: the internet, mobile telephone, computing, look-up displays and speakers that resonate against the earbones – a useful device and no more. Is that what you want to say?’

  ‘Yes. A machine. We built it. We switch it on. We control it. It is not a brain. You cannot build and switch on brains. They are because of—’ He stopped again, frustrated. ‘I am bad at this!’ he hissed.

  ‘For someone who could barely speak only a few days ago, you’re doing very well. And the word you want is “Evolution”. Generations of adaptation and feedback from the environment – that’s what makes a brain. Yes?’

  ‘Yes. And not everyone has a World Ear. Only half, when I left Earth.’

  Lewis bowed his head. The wrinkles ran like little waves at his neck. His cheeks were hollow.

  ‘When I left Earth, Paul, it was just under thirty per cent. So it had doubled, nearly, in ten years. It has been another eight years since then. Judging by the downloads that came in while you were on your way, I should say that coverage is around eighty per cent and increasing. Of course there are still rejectionists and isolated communities. There are people who would die rather than accept the World Ear. But they will die, and their children or their grandchildren will accept it. A rejectionist community on Earth has no more hope of long-term survival now than did the Stone Age jungle tribes we were still trying to preserve at the start of this century. Before long every capable adult will be participating in these networks. And the We is being fitted to children at around their first birthday. Generations are growing up with no need to speak, Paul. What will
that do to their evolving brains?’

  ‘The We?’

  ‘The We. W-E. World Ear. That’s what we call it here. Although when we say “the We” we really mean the thing that is created when billions of brains are all linked by the World Ear.’ He pulled a face. ‘You can imagine why it’s happening. With simple self-training programs designed for children, the World Ear can allow an infant to begin communicating at a basic level within a few months. How long does it take a child to learn to talk? Do you know – I’ve no idea! I’m looking forward—’

  He checked himself and shook his head. For a moment he simply floated, bouncing lightly upon his toes, staring into the air. His face was set. Then he began to skip gently around the room.

  ‘You are looking forward … ?’ Paul prompted. He was intrigued by Lewis’s momentary loss of concentration.

  Lewis ignored him. ‘May says that when you first spoke with her, you could only answer “Yes” or “No”. Do you remember?’

  Paul shifted in his seat. ‘I was not used to talking. As you said.’

  ‘Of course not. You had to simplify your messages to the very essence of what you wanted to convey. But that only makes it clearer. After half a lifetime within the World Ear your habit of thought was almost binary. You received the input, assessed it and signalled yes or no. You will be doing the same now, as I speak.’

  ‘Yes. And I am signalling “No”.’

  Lewis’s mouth twitched. ‘And that’s how the brain cell behaves. Through the World Ear you had – what – a thousand regular connections? More than that?’

  ‘What is “regular”?’

  ‘That you contacted every few days.’

  ‘Yes. Maybe as many as a thousand.’

  ‘Which is approximately the same number of connections performed by a single brain cell – not a human brain cell, to be sure, but one of a highly developed animal.’

  Paul stared at him.

  ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking a brain has to be a mass of nerve tissue, Paul. It’s a complex, restless structure of pathways, connections, feedback, some reinforced by constant use, others that are almost valueless … It’s not a computer, no. Of course not. Its operations are quite different. But, Paul – did you ever make a decision by yourself back on Earth? Without consulting? I doubt it. All your knowledge, most of your experience, was provided to you through the We. You had no meaning without it. What were you, if not part of it? What use was all your training? Who would ever consult you? Consent? How could you?’

  His eyes held Paul’s, trapped in those concentric rings of flesh.

  ‘I’ll tell you what happened, Paul. I remember my case and I saw some of yours. Sure, the astronomical observers on Earth were getting gaps in our data. They did not like that. It made their job harder. It also hurt the theoretical labs who use our readings. They reported it. They did not say, “Send Paul Munro.” They said, “Gap in data.” They kept reporting it. It came up at the teleconferences. Archives were consulted. They said, “Station has no telemetrist” – Thorsten had killed himself. Other archives said, “When we lost specialists on other stations, we sent replacements” …’

  His hand moved through the air. Behind him, the pictures shifted on to the next with the same easy rhythm.

  ‘I’m simplifying, of course. But do you see how like a brain it functions? By this time planning departments were considering the distance to our station – again consulting archives about the expedition that got us here. They could calculate what would be needed. Still the messages came out of the conferences saying, “Station is undermanned. This is important.” This is the key, Paul. Lots of things get put to conferences, but this one came up often enough and affected enough things for the networks to say, “This is important.” More networks paid attention. Other distractions were filtered out. Resources were matched to the task. And archives were consulted again – for a person, this time. One with specific qualifications, who could also pass specific personality tests. You.

  ‘At no point, Paul – at no point – did anyone say, “Is it worth sending Paul Munro off to a barren, frozen rock for the rest of his life?” There was no one with that function! Archives gave the information they were asked for. It was not their place to judge. Planners said what would be necessary. It was not their place to judge. And when the message came to you, you did not ask it either.’

  ‘My partner did,’ said Paul.

  ‘She was losing. But in the terms of the We, you were being justified.’

  ‘No!’ Paul jumped up. ‘You do not say that!’ he shouted. ‘You do not say that!’

  ‘Don’t I?’ said Lewis, without blinking. ‘I think I do.’

  ‘You are wrong!’

  ‘You are offended.’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Good. The deeper the offence, Paul, the closer we get. Sit down. I am not doing this because I like to hurt you.’

  Grimly, Paul sat.

  ‘Remember,’ said Lewis. ‘Everything that’s happened to you has also happened to each of us. We had lives back there, networks we lived in. We were pulled out, like you. Me to manage this station, May to be its doctor and Van to study that giant up there and—Hah! To look for life on the coldest object in the solar system! Paul, doesn’t it strike you as … strange that so much of the effort of this station is devoted to ST2? Fifty per cent, indeed, since you and May and I are only here to support the functions of Vandamme?’

  ‘No. That is standard.’

  ‘But why is it standard? Whatever the mission and whatever the conditions? It is standard because it is important to the We. Alien life? Here? Come off it! But still it is standard. The We knows it is missing something. Locked in its makeup is the idea of social interaction, which it inherits from the individuals that compose it. Social interaction has been the key to the growth of the human brain, both through the generations and to the learning child. The We has a complex environment – think of all the adjustments and balances necessary to maintain a stable world and climate back there – but it has no one to interact with. It may be dimly aware of a range of possible actions, from mating to murder and conquest. But it is alone. There is only one of it. There only ever will be. It is a new-born, wailing in a dark room with no one to hear.’

  Behind his shoulder an image changed. It showed a man on Earth, painting a portrait of a woman who sat naked and smiling before him. The man had a long beard and wore robes from another time. Between his plump forefinger and thumb a fine brush caressed the canvas as if it were the woman’s bare skin.

  Paul brought his eyes back to Lewis’s face. ‘I think you are lying,’ he said.

  Lewis’s brows thickened on his forehead. ‘Lying? Why would I lie to you? I am not lying, Paul!’

  ‘You said humans are not human any more. That is not the truth.’

  ‘I may have simplified for effect.’

  ‘You lied.’

  ‘I did not lie. I told the truth.’

  ‘It is not the truth if you simplify things.’

  ‘Yes, it damned well is!’ Lewis leaned forward until his head filled Paul’s vision. His face was redder than Paul had ever seen it. Paul felt the unfamiliar stir of physical anxiety.

  ‘Paul – you want a purpose. I know that. You think it’s to work our communications for the We. You still want to be part of the We, even though you are cut off from it. That’s what you think will make your existence bearable. And I’m sorry for you. But let me ask you this. Why man this station at all?’

  ‘To learn!’ said Paul.

  ‘To learn what? What is there here that a machine could not measure and report back to Earth by itself?’

  Paul opened his mouth to answer. The answer seemed immediate. It was there. But …

  To learn what?

  The station had to be manned. He had known that all along. Everyone he had worked with had known it.

  But when he searched his brain he found nothing. Only the incidental advantages – the reduced turnaround ti
mes for tests and experiments, the increased capacity for self-repair, the superiority of human pattern-recognition – presented themselves. They were true but inadequate. Nothing substantial answered.

  Still he searched, as if in a nightmare, opening door after door in his mind behind which the great facts should have been stored, and still there was nothing. The walls of his mind trembled and its floor seemed to drop open and pitch him into stomach-dropping darkness. And the eyes of Lewis watched him all the time.

  ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’ said Lewis. ‘When you see that we add a vast cost, and almost no value, to what robots could do here in our place. Where’s the sense in that?’

  Paul looked at his hands, thin and brittle and bony at the end of his brittle and bony limbs.

  ‘It makes no sense because you are trying to understand it at the level of individual intellect. But the We is not an individual. It is regressive, inconsiderate of its parts, childishly selfish for the whole. You and I are just tiny extensions of itself. It perceives us no more than the ant’s nest perceives the ant. But when you add up all the little messages flickering around inside it, you come up with one tendency. A blind and basic instinct. Come on, Paul. What activity in nature demands the greatest effort – an effort that sometimes seems vastly in excess of that necessary to secure a return?’

  Paul stirred. Then he said hoarsely: ‘Making … children.’

  ‘Making children. Reproduction. Exactly. The We is trying to reproduce.’

  Paul could only stare at him.

  ‘The We is trying to reproduce, Paul. It is driven by its genes – our genes, which first made our brains and have now made the We. Genes don’t think. They feel, blindly. They try out everything – anything they can to give the next generation a better chance. What are a few losses? We’re all expendable. So the We is feeling out into space. It finds a crevice and, however unpromising it may be, it plants a seed there. Four hundred people went to Mars. For Titan it was fifty. Here it was just four. Given the distance and the conditions, it’s a wonder that it was thought worth any. But it was possible, and because it was possible, Earth just couldn’t leave it alone. So here we are – us and the other eleven stations dotted around the solar system, all struggling with our different challenges. The We does not care which lasts and which does not, as long as some do. That space escalator that’s been built. Did you see it?’