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CHAPTER ONE

April, 2515 

The sulfuric acid clouds of Venus floated beyond the window, their ochre puffs and hollows and shadows expanding and contracting as winds pulled them. The Scarecrow hadn’t spoken for long moments, which wasn’t strange for these AIs and their secretive human souls, but this one hummed tunelessly. Lieutenant-Colonel Bareilles had never heard one hum and didn’t know what to think. The Scarecrow might not even know it was doing it; the humming had overlapped with a lengthy assessment of Bareilles’ career. A swivelling lens eye zoomed audibly on Bareilles. The Scarecrows were designed to unsettle observers, but the humming hinted that the Scarecrow might not be entirely stable, as if a parallel track of information processed in the artificial intelligence without its knowledge, as if the AI were haunted.

“You performed quite satisfactorily in Epsilon Indi for the last four years,” the Scarecrow said.

Her gravelly, feminine voice sounded distant, reaching from the other side of a death. The impression of femininity might be genuine although Scarecrows carried little of their identity past the death of the spies they’d once been. 

“Thank you,” she said.

This Scarecrow’s lines of logic seemed to follow more indirect paths than the one she’d worked with in Epsilon Indi. That vanished one had been pragmatic, focused, dogged and rarely mysterious. This one reasoned in elliptical arcs, following multi-layered, musical logic.

The winds outside became ghostly sounds to those in the mid-levels of the Ministry of Intelligence. The globe building followed the winds at various altitudes, its location at any time a state secret. The Scarecrow lumbered to the window, sounding of flexing piezoceramic musculature and carbon steel joints. Floppy gloved fingers adjusted a button on the plain carbon-weave shirt.

“I appreciated your espionage findings on the Puppets,” the Scarecrow said. Her tone was sweet and ghastly, and her accent an antique French from last century. “Your post-graduate work in biotechnology made you uniquely insightful in the field.”

“I could be out there again,” Bareilles said. “I didn’t apply for this promotion and I haven’t been to staff college. And I like field work.” 

She hadn’t found her rhythm in this new role in the last three weeks either. It felt like an ill-fitting tunic. And even if she could go back, Epsilon Indi was different now. 

“The disappearance of the Scarecrow is unfortunate,” the spectral voice continued. Her statement didn’t surprise Bareilles. The emotion-reading software in the interrogation suites was powerful, and they read facial expressions constantly, especially their own people. One became accustomed to feeling exposed.

“I should be continuing his work,” Bareilles said. 

“That would be a waste,” she said with a flat, definitive tone that belied the winsome and flighty feel in the humming. “Your three years under the Epsilon Indi Scarecrow were testing.”

“What kind of testing?” 

“The kind of testing that never relents.”

金星的硫酸云漂浮在窗外，赭红色的浮尘、空洞和阴影随着风的牵引不断膨胀和收缩。稻草人已经很久没有说话了，这对这些人工智能和它们神秘的人类灵魂来说并不奇怪，但这个稻草人却在无声地哼唱。巴瑞尔斯中校从未听过这种哼声，不知道该怎么想。稻草人甚至可能不知道它在哼歌；哼歌声与对巴瑞勒斯职业生涯的冗长评估重叠在一起。一只转动的镜头眼在巴雷耶斯身上有声有色地放大。稻草人的设计目的是让观察者感到不安，但嗡嗡声暗示稻草人可能并不完全稳定，就好像人工智能在不知情的情况下处理了平行轨道的信息，就好像人工智能在闹鬼。

“稻草人说："过去四年，你在 Epsilon Indi 的表现令人满意。

她沙哑而女性化的声音听起来很遥远，从死亡的另一端传来。虽然稻草人的身份已经超越了他们曾经是间谍的死亡，但这种女性化的印象可能是真实的。

“谢谢你，"她说。

这个稻草人的逻辑思路似乎比她在 Epsilon Indi 与之共事的那个稻草人更间接。那个消失了的稻草人务实、专注、执着，很少有神秘感。而这个人的推理是椭圆形的，遵循多层次的音乐逻辑。

对于情报部中层的人来说，外面的风声成了幽灵的声音。地球仪大楼在不同的高度随风飘动，它的位置在任何时候都是国家机密。稻草人蹒跚地走到窗前，发出压电陶瓷肌肉和碳钢关节弯曲的声音。戴着手套的软绵绵的手指调整着普通碳织衬衫上的一颗纽扣。

“稻草人说："我很欣赏你关于傀儡的间谍发现。她的语调甜美而阴森，口音是上个世纪的古法语。“你在生物技术方面的研究生工作使你在这一领域具有独特的洞察力。”

“我可能又要出去了。"巴雷勒斯说。“我没有申请这次晋升，也没有上过职工大学。我喜欢野外工作。

在过去的三周里，她也没有找到新角色的节奏。感觉就像一件不合身的外衣。即使她能回到过去，Epsilon Indi 现在也不一样了。

“稻草人的消失是不幸的，"幽灵的声音继续说道。她的话并没有让巴瑞莉斯感到惊讶。审讯室里的情绪读取软件非常强大，他们会不断读取面部表情，尤其是自己人的表情。人们已经习惯了这种暴露的感觉。

“我应该继续他的工作，"巴雷勒说。

“那就太浪费了。"她用平淡、肯定的语气说，掩盖了哼唱中的胜券在握和飞扬跋扈。“你在伊普西隆-因迪稻草人手下的三年是一种考验。”

“什么样的考验？” 

“那种永不松懈的考验。”

That was a euphemism about the living Venus, the kind of things grandmothers say as they tuck children into bed during bucking winds.

“Your new posting,” the Scarecrow finally said, “it is good?”

Upon her transfer back to Venus, Bareilles had been installed at the head of a new division in the Future Threats Branch of the Analysis Sector.

“It feels like a desk job.”

The second lens whirred and zoomed onto Bareilles. The mouth on the metal cloth had been painted uneven and expressionless, but the humming and the higher register of the voice gave it some illusory implied motion. Another Scarecrow trick of psychology. 

“You’ve been given policy influence here, and the ability to task units in the field,” the Scarecrow said. The humming tune, on some other channel, slipped its way under the AI’s answer, lonely, lost. “We know we want you, but our wanting only goes so far. At some point, you need to want it.”

“What do you hope I’ll want?”

“A broader canvas for your talents.”

“What does that mean?”

“Sometimes meanings have to come when they’re ready,” the gravelly voice said. “Learn more and we’ll talk again.”

Despite the dismissal, Bareilles didn’t salute. Scarecrows existed outside formal chains of command, like political officers, commissars and les petits saints. Bareilles walked back through the gray and white carbon corridors of the Ministry of Intelligence. She had guesses of what her test was, but she didn’t know what she was testing for, which was very Venusian. Venus taught her children many subtle and easily misunderstood lessons. Sometimes she taught the questions after the answers.

The strangely unfulfilling feeling suddenly gave her an awkward idea. Maybe she was mourning. She missed the Epsilon Indi Scarecrow, the half-machine, half-petrified person, the inhuman thing of performative gears and vengeful thoughts. But that was hard to credit. How could a person miss an intelligent weapon? What did that say about her?

Lieutenant Rivard, one of her deputies, waited outside her office. Rivard was dark haired and blue-eyed, twenty-six years old, a bit plain and academic in his demeanor, but a good analyst who knew how to make junior analysts work hard. He saluted and followed her in. The window looked out onto the hazy, coiling mists of the middle cloud decks of Venus from another angle, a subtly different canvas upon which meaning could write itself before being blown away. The door closed and the security seal went green. 

“I analyzed the reports you wanted, madame,” he said. “It’s not promising.”

She indicated one of the chairs. He sat, unrolled his data scroll and turned it to face her. 

“There are three mentions of time travel,” he said with a professional wince. “The captured Homo quantus say that Arjona and Mejía told them that they had a time travel device and that they’d come from a few weeks into the future. All tell the same story, but they’re simply reporting what they heard someone else say, someone they didn’t believe.”

Her stomach tingled, like the start of an elevator descent. Beyond the window, gaseous striations of brown and yellow, textured in indistinctness, were edging downward. They’d entered a pressure cell big enough to lift even a building as big as the Ministry of Intelligence.

“We don’t know exactly what capabilities the Homo quantus have,” Rivard said. “The Banks might not even know. Arjona may have laid down this story to misdirect us and the other Homo quantus from guessing his full abilities.”

“So you’re saying Arjona and Mejía guessed that Les Rapides de Lachine would be deployed to the Garret and told their own people that they knew because of time travel?” Bareilles said.

“No one has measured the full mathematical modelling abilities of the Homo quantus. The ones in detention aren’t fully functional. They might have calculated a prediction. The other possibility is that Arjona or the Banks, with years of preparation, placed some intelligence assets on Les Rapides de Lachine or at Epsilon Indi command.”

“It’s more plausible than time travel.”

那是关于活维纳斯的委婉语，是祖母们在逆风中哄孩子睡觉时说的那种话。

“你的新职位，“稻草人最后说，”很好吗？”

巴瑞莉斯调回金星后，被任命为分析部门未来威胁处一个新部门的负责人。

“感觉就像文职工作。”

第二个镜头呼啸着放大到巴瑞莉斯身上。金属布上的嘴巴被画得凹凸不平，面无表情，但嗡嗡声和较高的音域让它有了一些虚幻的隐含动作。这又是一个稻草人的心理学把戏。

“稻草人说："在这里，你被赋予了政策影响力，以及在战场上分派任务的能力。嗡嗡作响的曲调在另一个频道，从人工智能的回答中悄然滑过，孤独而迷茫。“我们知道我们需要你，但我们的需要只能到此为止。在某些时候，你也需要它。”

“你们希望我想要什么？”

“让你的才华有更广阔的舞台”

“那是什么意思？”

“有时候，意义必须在它们准备好的时候出现，"那个沙哑的声音说。“多学点东西，我们再谈。”

尽管被解雇了，但巴瑞莉斯并没有行礼。稻草人存在于正式的指挥系统之外，就像政治官员、政委和小圣人一样。巴雷耶斯穿过情报部灰白色的碳走廊往回走。她猜到了她的测试是什么，但她不知道她在测试什么，这很有维纳斯的风格。维纳斯给她的孩子们上了许多微妙的、容易被误解的课。有时，她是先教问题后教答案。

这种奇怪的不满足感突然让她产生了一个尴尬的想法。也许她在哀悼。她怀念伊普西隆-印第稻草人，怀念那个半机械半石化的人，怀念那个充满表演性齿轮和复仇念头的非人类。但这很难让人相信。一个人怎么能错过一件智能武器呢？这说明了什么？

里瓦德中尉是她的副手之一，在她的办公室外等候。里瓦德黑发蓝眼，26 岁，举止有点平庸，有点学院派，但他是个很好的分析员，知道如何让初级分析员努力工作。他敬了个礼，跟着她走了进去。窗口从另一个角度望出去，金星中间云层的薄雾朦胧盘绕，这是一幅微妙不同的画卷，在被吹散之前，意义可以在上面书写。门关上了，安全封条变成了绿色。

“我分析了您要的报告，夫人。"他说。“情况不容乐观。”

她指了指其中一把椅子。他坐了下来，展开他的数据卷轴，转过来面对着她。

“有三处提到了时间旅行，"他带着职业性的畏缩说。“被俘的量子智人说，阿尔霍纳和梅希亚告诉他们，他们有一个时间旅行装置，他们来自几周后的未来。所有的人都说了同样的故事，但他们只是在报告他们听到别人说的话，一个他们不相信的人。”

她的胃一阵刺痛，就像电梯开始下降一样。窗外，棕色和黄色的气体条纹模糊不清，正在向下移动。他们已经进入了一个压力舱，这个压力舱大到甚至可以把像情报部这样大的建筑抬起来。

“里瓦尔德说："我们不知道智人到底有什么能力。“班克斯可能都不知道。阿尔霍纳可能编造了这个故事来误导我们和其他智人，让我们猜不出他的全部能力。”

“所以你是说，阿尔霍纳和梅希亚猜到了拉希内斯会被部署到加雷特，并告诉他们自己的人，他们是因为时间旅行才知道的？” 巴雷尔说。

“没有人测量过智人的全部数学建模能力。被拘留的智人还没有完全发挥功能。他们可能已经计算出了预测结果。另一种可能是，阿霍纳或班克斯家族经过多年准备，在拉钦河或伊普西隆-因迪指挥部布置了一些情报资产。”

“这比时间旅行更可信”

 

通过DeepL.com（免费版）翻译

“The second piece of intelligence on this is from informants in the Union Cabinet,” Rivard said. “There are several allusions, over about six months, of a time travel device associated with the Sixth Expeditionary Force. At first, these reports were euphemistic and oblique. After the break-out from the Puppet Axis, the references become less cautious and take the tone of a resource they no longer have. Something to do with Major-General Iekanjika.”

Rivard advanced his presentation to a tiled display of faces and names. The Union Major-General hovered at the center of these, among a series of officers about whom the Congregate knew almost n