On the Steel Breeze

by Alastair Reynolds

  She tucked the helmet under her arm and continued her descent. But she had not gone more than a few dozen paces further down the trail when she became aware of a thin, artificial keening. It was at the limit of hearing – she would never have heard it with the helmet on.

  Chiku halted. The bird was now long gone, but the sound appeared to be coming from the air. She turned around slowly, trying to localise the noise. It had turned from an insect sound to a steady electric buzz, fixed in pitch but raising in amplitude.

  Then she saw it. Skimming along the side of the valley to her right, a small flying machine, silver or white, approaching rapidly. She watched it with misgivings. There were few flying machines anywhere in Zanzibar. She wondered if this one was a drone or toy, abandoned to circle this chamber in purposeless circuits.

  She got a better look at the craft when it tilted to steer around a bluff. It had one large pair of wings near the front, a smaller pair near the rear, and an upright fin, a vicious whirring mechanism at the front.

  Chiku could not move. It was not fear so much as paralysing indecision. Bushes and trees whipped aside as the machine gusted past, wing almost touching the valley’s side. Snapping out of her immobility, she stepped back as the machine shot by. It continued up the valley, then turned sharply to the right, curving out over the forest floor. Then it executed a steep turn and came right back at her.

  Chiku raised a hand – offering surrender or greeting, depending on how it was interpreted. The machine snarled as it approached, its whisking mechanism throwing back bright chips of reflected sky. Chiku squatted down, presenting the smallest possible target.

  In her haste to get low, she lost her footing. She recovered, but only at the expense of dropping her helmet. It hit the dirt and bounced down the path, clattering off a stone and disappearing into bushes. The machine sculled past, close enough now that its wing really did cleave through the undergrowth. And in the moment of its passing, Chiku saw a figure, looking at her through the dark glass of a cockpit tucked beneath the shadow of the wing.

  The machine sped up the valley, peeled left, made another sharp turn. It was coming back. Chiku staggered to her feet. A little further along the track, an overhanging boulder offered shelter. She scrambled towards it, wondering if there would be time to find the helmet as well.

  She had not managed to reach the overhang when the ground gave way under her feet. Her leg twisted, and in an instant she was tumbling through bushes, the incline steepening as she fell. There was no hope of slowing herself. As her view wheeled, she caught one final glimpse of the returning machine. And then there was nothing.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Don’t move,’ a voice said. ‘You’ve had a fall. I don’t think anything’s seriously damaged, but I want to be sure first.’

  Chiku allowed her eyes to find bleary focus. She was lying flat on her back. The sky was a blazing blue quilt, cross-hatched with areas of geometric darkness. Off in the middle distance, a thick curtain of trees. Behind the trees, dense green rising terrain, curving back up to the sky. She was somewhere down on the valley floor.

  A figure leaned down and touched a hand to her forehead. She risked moving her head. The figure was a slight-framed woman.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Never mind me. What’s your name?’

  She had to think for a moment, but the answer was only momentarily out of reach. ‘Chiku. Chiku Akinya. You’ll know my name from the Assembly.’

  ‘Very good,’ the woman answered quietly. ‘And how did you get here, Chiku Akinya from the Assembly? I need to know what you remember.’

  ‘I . . . came by pod.’ It was the truth, but it gave nothing vital away. Until she knew who she was speaking to, Chiku thought it wise to keep her answers guarded. ‘I was coming down a path. Something attacked me. I was trying to take cover. That’s the last thing I remember.’

  The woman lifted her hand from Chiku’s forehead and began to pass it up and down Chiku’s chest and abdomen, the fingers tensed, but without actually touching her. ‘A few cuts and bruises on your head and face, a pulled muscle in your leg. But you’ll live. Why did you panic?’

  ‘You mean when that machine tried to kill me?’

  ‘I got a bit close with the aircraft. You’ll forgive me. I just wanted a better look at you.’

  Chiku tried to raise herself. Her chest hurt. She grunted into a sitting position, inspecting limbs for evidence of damage. She still had the suit on. ‘You might want to revise your welcoming routine. Did you find my helmet?’

  ‘It can’t have gone very far. Why are you dressed in vacuum gear, Chiku Akinya?’ She had the feeling the woman knew the answer already and was engaged in playful interrogation for the sake of it. Chiku looked at her face again, struck now by the sense that she did know her after all, despite first impressions. She was an African woman of indeterminate age, delicately boned, with black hair shorn almost to the scalp.

  She came back with a question of her own. ‘Do you know where we are? The name of this chamber?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do. Chamber Thirty-Seven is what they used to call it, although of course it was never part of the documented architecture of the holoship. Fewer than twenty people knew about it, all told. Nowadays we just call it “the chamber”.’ The woman paused. ‘Something happened, didn’t it? A few days ago? I felt the vibration, a shudder through the entire fabric of the holoship. As if we’d hit an iceberg.’

  ‘You felt that?’

  ‘Let’s just say I’ve developed a knack for these things. Do you think you can try to stand?’

  Since she had no intention of staying in this place for the rest of her life, Chiku decided that standing was an excellent idea. She grimaced as her weight fell on her injured leg, but it was bearable. The suit’s armour had obviously cushioned her from serious harm.

  The woman was right to focus on Chiku’s head: that had been the only truly vulnerable part of her body.

  The woman was shorter than Chiku, though strong for her size. She supported Chiku until she was able to find her own balance, then stood back with arms folded across her chest. She was dressed for field work, like an agricultural technician or botanist: tight brown leggings, thigh-high boots with many lace-holes, a short-sleeved brown sweater. Over the sweater she wore a dun-coloured utility vest with multiple pockets and pouches.

  ‘Tell me what happened a few days ago.’

  ‘There was an explosion,’ Chiku said. ‘In Kappa Chamber, or in Kappa’s outer skin. Breached the hull. A physics experiment went wrong.’

  ‘How bad was the damage?’

  ‘Pretty bad, but it could have been a lot worse. The effects were confined to Kappa, and we didn’t have many people there. Still lost more than two hundred, but when you think how many more it could have been, had the explosion occurred in one of the community cores . . . It’s still a big bloody mess, though.’

  ‘And how did you get here? It can’t be coincidence, this soon after the explosion.’

  ‘We’ve been searching for survivors. And evidence. Mainly evidence. In the process, I found . . .’ Chiku hesitated. ‘Something that didn’t belong. I followed up on it, and it brought me here. Wherever here is.’ She walked a few paces, unsteady at first, then with gathering confidence. ‘Never mind me: how did you get here? You must travel between this chamber and the rest of Zanzibar.’

  ‘I can’t say I make a habit of it.’

  ‘But I know you. I’m sure I’ve seen you around. You obviously can’t live here all the time.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Chiku looked around. There were no buildings or facilities; no signs of civilisation at all, in fact, other than the flying machine – what the woman had called her ‘aircraft’ – resting on plump black wheels a few dozen metres away. On the ground, it looked remarkably placid and harmless.

  ‘There’s nothing here. No amenities, no houses, nothing. You can’t live off trees and rain.’

  ‘I have modest needs.’r />
  ‘Do you have anything to do with the elephants?’

  The woman looked pleased. ‘You saw them, did you?’

  ‘Just a glimpse. I know about our elephants, and there shouldn’t be a hidden group aboard that no one’s heard about. How many are there?’

  ‘About fifty. Numbers go up and down.’

  ‘And are you their keeper?’

  The woman winced slightly. ‘I look after them, if that’s what you mean. Although I much prefer to think of us as sharing the space on equal terms.’

  ‘You said “we” back then, when you were talking about what you called this chamber, so there must be other people here.’

  The woman cocked her head before giving a nod of agreement. ‘I did.’

  ‘How many of you live here? You’ve got to have medicine, food, basic amenities. You look healthy.’

  ‘Fit as a fiddle, apart from some memory issues. But there’s only me here, and I don’t get out into the rest of the ship very often. I’ll ask again: why the vacuum suit? Has the tunnel lost pressure?’ Then she closed her eyes, as if something that should have been screamingly obvious had just clicked into space. ‘Of course – the breach you mentioned. If it sucked all the air out of Kappa, it probably drained the access tunnel as well.’

  ‘That’s probably what happened. Is that tunnel the only way in and out?’

  ‘The only connection to Kappa. But there are other tunnels.’

  Chiku marvelled. It was another landslip to her certainties, to learn that Zanzibar was wormholed with these hidden tunnels, decades-old secrets entombed in rock. She asked: ‘Where do the others come out?’

  ‘I don’t remember all the details. The entrance you found, though – it was hidden until this accident?’

  ‘I’d never have found it, if not for the collapse.’

  ‘And your colleagues . . . they’ll not be long behind you? You didn’t come alone, did you?’

  ‘Will it make any difference what I say to you? You might as well do whatever you intend to do now.’

  ‘And what would that be, exactly?’

  ‘Kill me, or keep me here hostage, I suppose. Because you obviously don’t want anyone else to know about this place.’

  ‘I’ve done some extreme things,’ the woman mused. ‘Killing, though, that’s out of my league. I’d far rather we arrived at a mutually beneficial arrangement.’

  ‘You could start by telling me your name. I know we’ve met before.’

  ‘You know my face, that’s all. You’ve probably seen it thousands of times, on the statue in the grounds of the Assembly building.’

  Chiku saw it then.

  The woman was right: her face was strikingly similar to that of the bronze casting. A little younger, the hair shorter, but the bone structure otherwise unmistakable.

  ‘You’re one of us, then. An Akinya.’

  ‘Not just one of you, Chiku. I’m Eunice Akinya.’

  Chiku shook her head. ‘You’re lying, or deluded.’

  ‘I concede that the truth may be slightly more complicated than it looks.’ The woman cocked her head at the waiting aircraft. ‘I must insist on showing you some basic hospitality. Will you come with me in the Sess-na?’

  Chiku had no idea what that last word meant. Perhaps it was the woman’s pet name for the aircraft.

  ‘Come on – it’s only a short hop from here, and then you can meet the others, and I promise I’ll bring you right back here in good time.’

  ‘How about we find my helmet first?’ Chiku said. ‘Then I’ll decide.’

  ‘An excellent proposition.’

  The woman found the helmet very easily, as if she had always known where it lay. She scooped it from the ground like a rugby ball and tossed it towards Chiku. She caught it awkwardly, surprised at the strength the woman had put into the throw. Chiku spun the helmet between her gloves. It looked intact, save for some dirt and dust and a few scratches that might well have been present before her fall.

  She doubted that there was anything wrong with it, but decided against wearing it for now.

  The propeller had quickened into a tinted blur, like a glass disc bolted onto the front of the machine.

  ‘What did you call this thing?’ Chiku asked, as she worked the complicated arrangement of belts and latches inside the machine. The interior smelled hot and leathery and old.

  ‘Sess-na,’ the woman said. ‘It’s an old Masai phrase – means “extremely reliable thing”. It’s been in the family quite a long time. Had a few improvements over the years, of course – cut it open, it nearly bleeds. It’s grown itself an entirely new self-repairing nervous system – infiltrates the entire airframe, strengthening it, healing microfractures.’

  They bounced along the ground for a short distance before rising into the air. To Chiku, it felt as though the aircraft was balanced on a wobbling tower of mattresses rather than flying.

  ‘I’m surprised you see the need,’ she said. The helmet rested in her lap, like an egg. It had been a struggle, contorting herself into the tiny cockpit.

  ‘The need for what?’

  ‘To fly. Nowhere in Zanzibar’s very far from anywhere else.’

  ‘It’s not about needing to fly.’ The woman yanked the control stick sharply, banking them to the right. ‘Anyway, consider yourself honoured – this machine used to belong to Geoffrey.’

  Chiku recalled, distantly, some image of her aged uncle, a photo pinned among his later paintings of elephants – Geoffrey standing next to a toylike white flying machine backdropped by sun-bleached veldt. More out of disbelief than reverence, she touched the padded curve of the cockpit console, wondering if it could be true. There was a good chance that every word out of this woman’s mouth so far was a lie.

  ‘Let’s get something straight. You can’t be who you say you are.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I know my history. You died somewhere out in deep space. Me . . . I . . . one of us . . . we went out there, to find you. But Chiku Red never came back. There’s no way you could have ended up on Zanzibar – physics doesn’t allow it. You took Winter Queen off in a totally different direction.’

  ‘Did you just say “one of us”?’

  ‘It’s complicated. The point is, though, you can’t be here. That just doesn’t work.’

  They were passing the sheer stone wall Chiku had seen from the path. Its grey lustre, she now realised, was the result not of weather or geology but columns of dense inscription worked into it from the ground up. They had been executed with astonishing neatness and regularity. She blinked, trying to focus on the details. The inscriptions resembled mad hieroglyphics.

  The Sess-na banked again.

  ‘Well, you’re right about physics. Although if anyone could have pulled it off, it would probably have been me.’

  ‘You’re not Eunice. Maybe you’re delusional – someone called Eunice who happens to look a little like my ancestor, but that doesn’t make you her.’

  The woman steered the aircraft towards what appeared to be a dead end at the valley’s limit. The chamber was bathtub-shaped: a strip of flat ground hemmed in on all sides by rising terrain. Eunice – Chiku decided she would think of her as such, for now – pushed the stick down to dip the Sess-na’s nose, and then banked sharply to slip between two molar-like rock formations that looked ready to gnash together on the tangle of vegetation filling the gap between them. Astonishingly, there was a hole in the wall of greenery ahead, and the aircraft slipped through this green-lipped mouth with what appeared to be mere atomic monolayers of clearance. Chiku heard the fast scissoring of foliage being torn away by the wings and the furious whirling scythe of the propeller. She sank into her neck ring. The Sess-na slipped down a short connecting throat of rough-hewn rock wider than it was tall, and then they were out, flying free into another space.

  ‘My god,’ Chiku said, straining to look around. ‘Where are we now?’

  ‘It’s all the same chamber,’ Eunice said, ‘just
divided into three lobes. You came out in the middle one. There’s a trail up the valley side to the connecting passage, big enough for elephants, but it’s a long trek and flying is quicker. The Sess-na does have its uses after all.’

  Chiku saw more dense swathes of forest below, the same blue sky cross-hatched with ribbons of blackness above. Eunice banked the Sess-na fiercely, shedding height and speed in a tight spiral. They skimmed tree-tops, then threaded a reckless, weaving course through the canopy itself. Eunice was as calm as if she had done this a million times, working the stick and waggling the wings, correcting and recorrecting faster than Chiku could think.

  Eunice finally brought the aircraft down on a stretch of level ground where the grass had been worn away to bare dry soil. They disembarked.

  ‘If you’re comfortable in that suit, I won’t argue with you,’ Eunice said, taking hold of the aircraft by its tail and turning the whole thing as if was folded up from paper. ‘But I’m not going to harm you. Harming you would be pointless, but most of all boring.’ She added imperiously: ‘Come.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘If I’m going to be a gracious host, the least I can do is offer you chai. And a chance to meet the others.’

  She headed off into the woods and Chiku followed, her curiosity getting the better of her fear. They walked a short way through the trees along a dusty path and soon came upon a clearing. A dwelling occupied the middle of the area, surrounded by something approximating a garden. The house was a clover-leaf of four tented domes, dun-brown in colour, sides zipped open and peeled back. Within the shady tents, Chiku saw furniture – tables and chairs, cabinets and shelves – and a tremendous assortment of tools and instruments. A proxy of ancient design stood slump-shouldered in the corner.

  Eunice bid her take a seat at one of the tables. The seat was flimsy, a metal frame with canvas stretched across it. Chiku sat down carefully, still in her vacuum suit. Everything around her looked scrupulously well-maintained. There were medical kits, rations boxes, odd items of surgical equipment, vacuum-suit parts. Evidence of careful repair and ingenious improvisation.