Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [109]
The machine disappeared from sight.
‘What?’
‘Don’t worry about the ’mote,’ Bleibtreu-Fèvre said grimly. ‘Worry about the beam.’
14
Spectres of Albion
Peace surrounded him. Silence rang in his ears.
Kohn leaned on the veranda railing and took some deep breaths of clean air, the scents of pine and creosote mingling. The reflection of the nearest range of hills across the sea-loch made slowly moving sine waves on the water. Behind that range other hills receded, rank on rank, each paler and less substantial until the last was invisible on the shining grey of the sky. Long banks of cloud lurked in the glens between the hills, like airships awaiting a heliographed signal to rise. The forested slope on which the low wooden house stood dropped sharply away before him, down to the raised beach with another scatter of houses – stone and concrete this time – and then there was another slope down about ten metres to the shore.
His coughing fit echoed like gunfire.
The ride in the humvee and the helicopter hop that had brought them here had been accompanied by absolutely no explanations. MacLennan and Van had assured them that all would be made plain. In the helicopter Van had lapsed into a tense, jumpy, rauchen verboten silence, while MacLennan had talked about the international situation. The Japanese were taking heavy losses in Siberia. A coalition of communistans from both sides of the Ussuri had fielded a force that grandly called itself the Sino-Soviet Union. Ragtag remnants of Red armies…MacLennan had been enthusiastic about it. He particularly admired the way na Sìnesov (as they were called around here) had struck hardest while the Japanese were preoccupied over an arms-control dispute with the Yanks.
‘Kyoto suburbs,’ Janis had mumbled. ‘Lasers, precision munition attrition.’ She fell asleep unnoticed against Kohn’s shoulder while MacLennan praised her erudition. Kohn could barely remember going to sleep himself, but he did remember his dreams, full of colour and pain. Dreams might turn out to be a problem. He could recall every last one from every sleep since he’d interfaced with the mind in the machine. All meaningless, all random reconfigurations of the events of the day or things that had been in his thoughts: he could match them up like a data dictionary. He wondered if the AI had had an analogous problem since it had looked into his reflection. Do AIS dream in electric sleep?
He hoped it had nanosecond nightmares.
‘Hi,’ said a thick voice behind him. He stepped back through the sliding glass doors into the bedroom. Janis was sitting up, the duvet hauled around her. She gave him a brief, gummy kiss, then asked for coffee and disappeared again under the quilt. Kohn went into the kitchen and poured two mugs from the just-filled jug on the coffee-maker. Probably the sound and smell had woken her.
‘God,’ Janis said some minutes later. ‘That’s better. Where are we?’
‘Wester Ross, I think,’ Kohn said. ‘There are a dozen other houses just like this one around here. Probably oil-company office-workers’ housing, once.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Eight-thirty-two.’
‘Oh.’ Janis looked at him, eyes quirking. ‘Shouldn’t you put some clothes on?’
‘Not just yet.’
Her disorderly red hair around her on the pillow, her white skin transformed by a mounting flush, her green eyes that did not close even when her mouth opened in that high-g smile that said, we have ignition, we have lift-off…He loved her for all of that.
It was Janis who woke with a start, half an hour after, waking him at the same moment.
‘What—?’
She sat up and looked down at him with a flicker of triumph, a shadow of alarm. ‘I remember now. Dr Nguyen Thanh Van. I knew it sounded familiar!’
Kohn raised himself on one elbow, bringing his skin into range of the warmth of hers. ‘Explain.’
She lay back beside him and stared up at the ceiling, as if reading off it. ‘Nguyen Thanh Van. PhD,