Ultima by Stephen Baxter

Author:Stephen Baxter [Baxter, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2014-11-26T20:00:00+00:00

She got to work hauling her pressure suit and pack up from the Hatch with her rope.

In the pack she had a pop-up inflatable shelter, emergency blankets, a small stove, and scrunched-up disposable clothes: a space-age Roman legionary’s survival gear, all she needed to endure a few days in the wilderness. She soon had the shelter erected. She shoved the rest of her gear, the pack, the pressure suit, the helmet, inside the tent, and began to haul the whole lot towards the nearest dense-looking clump of trees, seeking anchorage.

Earthlight grunted. ‘I apologise I can’t help with your chores.’ He rubbed his palms together and glanced at the sky. ‘If this is Per Ardua, and I still reserve judgement, it is a quieter Per Ardua. Look at the ground, the soil. The rust colour, like Australia, like Mars. Per Ardua always had a peculiar way of letting out its tectonic energy …’

The continents did not drift on Per Ardua. Perhaps that was something to do with the way this world was tidally locked to its star, the same hemisphere forever bathed in the light, the other forever dark. But there had been internal heat that needed release, as on Earth, and the result had been volcanic provinces, as the ColU had identified them. Every so often a whole chunk of some continent or sea floor would dissolve into chaotic geological upheavals, releasing heat, ash, lava, even building new mountains to be eroded away by the rain.

But, Beth saw, Earthshine was right; this dirt looked old. And that dusty Martian colour in the sky wasn’t the way she remembered it either. It was a long time since any mountains had got built here.

A small voice asked again, How long? And how could that be?

‘But there’s still weather here,’ Earthshine said. ‘Which is logical. The substellar point, directly beneath the star, will always be the hottest place on the planet, always a centre of low pressure, like a permanent storm system. And the antistellar, the opposite point, will always be the coldest – ouch.’ The first few heavy drops of rain fell, pattering on the broad, dead leaves around them, and slicing through Earthshine’s body. ‘I don’t get wet in the rain, but it hurts.’

‘Your software’s consistency protocols.’

She dragged the tent over the ground, trying to get to the shelter of the trees. She saw that the upright cylindrical carcass of the support unit had sprouted open panels, from which manipulator arms had emerged. Small components were being lifted out of the interior of the carcass, while net-like structures were being used to scrape together heaps of dirt. ‘What is it doing?’

‘Wheels,’ Earthshine said, walking slowly beside her. ‘It’s making wheels.’

‘Planning a journey, are you?’

‘Obviously.’

‘Where to?’

‘Away from here. Away from this wrong place.’ His anger was evident now; he said this with a snarl.

She reminded herself that he wasn’t human. Everything about him was the product of software logic of some kind. Yet she wondered too if he had the artificial equivalent of a subconscious.

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