Poseidon's Wake by Alastair Reynolds

Author:Alastair Reynolds [Reynolds, Alastair]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780575090491
Goodreads: 21097454
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2015-04-28T23:00:00+00:00

Their arrival had interrupted her work, and Eunice said she could not leave until she had set down in stone the thread of her most recent insight. Goma wondered why she did not just write it down on paper, or record herself for posterity.

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘I could try.’

Eunice put on her spacesuit, the one with the heavy utility belt, and Goma followed her out through the lock, although she had not been specifically invited to do so. Wordlessly, Eunice set off for the cliff where they had first encountered her. She picked her way around one of the high stone cairns, then stopped at the base of the cliff. She inspected it for a moment, hand shading her helmet like a visor, and then chose a confident route up through the cracks and shelves of the face.

Goma watched from below. Eunice took out the cutting tool, made its tip flare bright and then began cutting meticulous angular marks into the rock.

Feeling herself on the brink of some momentous, life-changing disclosure, Goma swallowed hard and said: ‘I’ve seen these symbols before.’

Eunice carried on working in silence. She completed a section, then traversed gingerly to the right, her toes resting on the merest wrinkle of out-jutting rock. She cut another series of markings.

‘I very much doubt it.’

‘And I’m pretty sure I have. It’s the Mandala grammar – the same pattern as the one cut into Mandala’s sides, like long chains of dominoes, zigzagging and branching. Only there’s something more, isn’t there? You’re mixing in other types of symbol.’

‘You are very clever. Now why don’t you run along and play?’

‘That’s the Chibesa syntax. You’re combining statements from the Chibesa syntax with the Mandala grammar, as if they’re part of the same hierarchical language, or at least deeply connected.’

Eunice stopped what she was doing. She turned off the cutting tool and returned it to her pouch, then shimmied back down to the ground.

‘And you’d know that how, exactly?’

‘Because my mother showed me. After you left us, Ndege spent thirty years finding connections between the two forms. Eventually she used her knowledge of the Chibesa syntax as a key to unlock the Mandala grammar. That was how she learned to talk to Mandala.’

‘I always knew Ndege had promise.’

‘Never mind my mother – how can you be coming up with the same connections? I know what you are. Your memories aren’t Eunice’s actual memories – you’re made up from her public utterances, the outside facts of her life. Mother said these connections were a deep family secret – too deep for you to know about.’

‘Your mother was correct. She also does me a modest injustice – there is more to me than the posterity engines ever provided – but the essential truth is beyond dispute. I know that the Chibesa syntax is a mathematical formalism, a gateway into new physics, and I also know – or suspect, at least – that it has its origin in the rock scratchings of a passing alien tourist. I also

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.