The House of Styx

by Derek Künsken

  The probe lay on its dorsal side, exposing its underside. Pascal felt bad about the saw marks in the hull, but there had been no other way to really see inside. Broken manipulator arms, or just stubby remains, lay limp. Gabriel-Antoine ran his glove along the ventral side, hunching to look at the surface from an angle.

  “This is a small sample intake hatch, and here’s the camera lens,” Pascal said, indicating both the open space near the attachment points for the manipulator arms, and the abraded glass lens on the front.

  Gabriel-Antoine gratefully accepted an offered flashlight and peered into all the holes.

  “I couldn’t find the camera’s guts,” Pascal continued, a little more comfortable inviting Gabriel-Antoine’s attention to the engineering puzzle, “although there’s a lot of space in there. For all we know, before it shut down in that cave, it might have ejected its memory and some of the more valuable equipment.”

  “That doesn’t make sense if it’s Russian or American or Chinese,” Gabriel-Antoine said.

  “I don’t think it is.”

  Gabriel-Antoine straightened, his eyes narrowing. “Someone out there?” he mocked.

  “Humans didn’t build this.”

  “Did aliens help your bad video splicing?”

  Pascal opened a drawer and took out a block of ceramic about two centimeters thick and ten centimeters on a side. It was inlaid on one surface with metal fibers, while the cut edges showed cross-sections of other metallic threads, edge-on.

  “This is part of the ventral section of the hull,” Pascal said. “It’s ceramic. I think the metal running through it is circuitry, but not laid out in any way that humanity has ever printed its circuits.”

  Gabriel-Antoine looked at the sample from different angles.

  “How would they have laid down conducting metals before firing?” he asked.

  “It’s not material science we’re familiar with,” Pascal said.

  “Just ‘cause we don’t know doesn’t mean it’s little green men,” Gabriel-Antoine said. “Venus will never catch up to the tech the Banks are producing, or the Chinese. How far ahead of us is everyone else?”

  “If whoever it was knew about the cave, why didn’t they establish a research presence in the clouds before Québec ever colonized Venus?” Pascal asked.

  Gabriel-Antoine shook his head doubtfully, peering into the cut in the underside of the little probe.

  “Stars!” he said contemptuously. “What do you take us for?”

  “It’s a wormhole!” Pascal insisted.

  Gabriel-Antoine stood straighter. He was breathing hard, almost panting. Sweat sheened his face. Pascal put a hand on his shoulder, feeling something electric in the touch.

  “Take it slow,” Pascal said. “You’ve been under two atmospheres and high heat for hours. I don’t know how good your suit is. You could be risking heat exhaustion.”

  “Look,” Gabriel-Antoine said, taking a deep breath. “I get the whole ‘rugged intellectual outdoorsman’ cute thing you’ve got going on. I’m into it, and I’m really impressed with your talent for living in the depths, and that you made it to the surface. But I don’t buy the stars. There are no such things as wormholes. So just tell me what your family is really looking for.”

  “You saw the video of the wind!” Pascal said. “Going into Venus. How else would you explain that?”

  Gabriel-Antoine huffed, fogging the inside of his faceplate.

  Pascal turned him around. “Come on. Let’s get you inside before you pass out.” He felt strange taking the lead, touching Gabriel-Antoine, even through their suits. He felt like another person was running his body, speaking confidently. He kept one eye on his guest as he covered the probe again.

  They hadn’t been under the sulfuric acid, but Gabriel-Antoine’s instincts weren’t bad; he was already slicking the front of his suit with bicarbonate paste again. Pascal came up behind him and rubbed the paste on his back. Gabriel-Antoine did the same and his hands felt like they were stroking Pascal’s legs and back and arms, making him tingle.

  They cycled in and Pascal felt like Marthe was looking at him, even though she probably wasn’t. He felt exposed and flushed. He helped Gabriel-Antoine out of his helmet and touched his forehead, then his neck.

  “Everything okay?” George-Étienne asked.

  “Pressure and heat can get to people when they first come down,” Pascal said, “and I already brought Gabriel-Antoine deeper today than we’d planned.”

  Gabriel-Antoine pushed at fussing hands and took off his suit. Marthe gave him water and a soup from the cold box. At the table, George-Étienne picked up the piece of ceramic from the probe.

  “What did you think of it?” he asked Gabriel-Antoine. He passed the piece to Marie-Pier.

  “The probe is very nice and well worth studying,” Gabriel-Antoine said. “I’m half convinced of it. But I certainly don’t buy the stars.”

  “What do you mean?” George-Étienne said.

  “You saw the film!”

  “Video can be doctored,” Gabriel-Antoine said dryly, trying the soup. He made a face.

  “Deep cooking,” Marthe said apologetically.

  “Well, this one wasn’t doctored,” George-Étienne said.

  Gabriel-Antoine shrugged. George-Étienne’s face screwed tight.

  “If it was true,” Marthe said calmly, “what then?”

  “If it was true?” Gabriel-Antoine said, leaning back. “If you really found a real wormhole, in violation of the laws of physics, then this is a discovery on the scale of the invention of agriculture or fire. Its value would be incalculable.”

  Pride swelled in Pascal’s chest. He’d known that it was that big. And Gabriel-Antoine did too, despite his outward flippancy. Marie-Pier squinted uncertainly. This was new to her. Even Pa looked a bit taken back. He knew what they’d found, but had focused on the immediate possibility of feeding his family, giving them what he thought they deserved. And vindication. But the wormhole itself eclipsed anything they could selfishly imagine.

  “Let’s park your objections for now,” Marthe said. “Let’s just talk about what we could do if it was true.”

  “If something of incalculable value was in the surface of Venus,” Marie-Pier said, “the government would nationalize it, probably without paying those who found it.”

  “And quickly realizing that they have no idea what to do with it,” Marthe said, “the government would invite the Bank to lease it.”

  “For whatever pittance the Bank of Pallas offers, because they know the government has few options and cash problems,” George-Étienne said.

  “Hence the secrecy,” Marie-Pier said. “But what can you do with it?”

  “We,” Marthe said.

  “We can go down there,” Pascal said, “and really mine the surface, and if there are asteroids on the other side, those too.”

  George-Étienne slapped the table with his palm. “Asteroids that no Bank has staked out! For us, right here around the table.”

  “Mine the surface at ninety atmospheres of pressure and five hundred degrees?” Marie-Pier asked.

  “We’ve got the wormhole,” Pascal said. “If we cap the cave, we can create a vacuum, or any pressure we want.”

  Gabriel-Antoine frowned.

  “Even if you had the materials to cap the cave mouth,” Marie-Pier said, “you’d have a vacuum on one side and ninety atmospheres on the other. Even the strongest metals wouldn’t last long, especially at those temperatures.”

  “We’d have several caps, one after the other,” Pascal said, “each one dropping the pressure ten or twenty atmospheres. And we could connect them with turbines to produce electricity.”

  “But it would still be too hot,” Marie-Pier said. “Hell.”

  “Non.” Gabriel-Antoine looked at Pascal suddenly, smiling. He explained to her how the refrigeration would work.

  “And if there are metals in the crust around that cave, we could mine them,” Pascal said.


  “Even a little bit,” George-Étienne said.

  Pascal took the ceramic hull plate section from Marie-Pier. “We found radioisotopes in these probes,” he said. “They might have used them to heat reaction mass for propulsion, and maybe even run the electrical systems. We could do the same, taking compressed carbon dioxide and heating it to use as a propellant on the other side.”

  “The other side?” Gabriel-Antoine said dubiously, but he seemed to be fighting the communal enthusiasm.

  “The government is going to notice metal circulating in the black market,” Marie-Pier said. “People will know and wonder where we got it all. Legally, they have a right to it.”

  Marthe tipped her hand side-to-side in a comme ci, comme ça gesture.

  “I’ve checked the laws,” Marthe said. “They’re vague. L’Accord de Colonisation says that the surface of Venus can’t be owned, but some kinds of prospecting and exploitation are legal. I doubt they ever expected anyone to try to mine the surface.”

  “They can and will withhold permits if they’d rather do it themselves,” George-Étienne said, “or to screw the D’Aquillon family.”

  “Is that what you’re looking for?” Marie-Pier asked. “Legal cover?”

  George-Étienne shook his head.

  “I have a couple of bills that I think would change the laws to our benefit if you and Gabriel-Antoine would support me in l’Assemblée,” Marthe said.

  “But secrecy is better,” George-Étienne said.

  “We need a different kind of help,” Marthe continued. “We need engineering help from Gabriel-Antoine. Pascal is good, but this kind of job needs more than one engineer.” Marthe paused, almost shyly. Pascal’s guts readied to somersault. “And we can get the metal for one, maybe two caps by dismantling the Causapscal-des-Vents.”

  “What?” Marie-Pier demanded. “It isn’t yours.”

  “We risked ourselves to find it,” George-Étienne said.

  Marie-Pier regarded him calmly.

  “That’s your view, George-Étienne,” she said, “but that won’t be everyone’s view, and certainly not l’Assemblée’s.”

  “L’Assemblée can fuck itself,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Marie-Pier said. “It’s not like anyone would fail to notice you float-docking the Causapscal and dismantling it.”

  “We’re going to sink it,” George-Étienne said. “Do the work down here, out of sight.”

  “In the acid?” Gabriel-Antoine said.

  “We can cover it with enough acid-resistant tarps,” Pascal said.

  “They’ll still see it by radar,” Marie-Pier said. “Whatever balloons you inflate to keep it from sinking are going to be pretty damn obvious. They’ll look for it.”

  “It will be harder to find if it’s hanging under a few of your trawlers,” George-Étienne said. Marie-Pier’s eyes widened slightly. “The ones the government is trying to take away from you.”

  Pascal leaned forward, drawing her attention. “We can cover the tarps with the kind of epiphytes that grow on trawlers, to further mask the radar profile.”

  “That’s phenomenally dangerous,” Marie-Pier said. “A controlled sink, even one that survived the descent through the turbulence above the clouds, could go wrong as soon as the acid rain hits. And if you hook just one or two trawlers, you might just end up ripping them apart. It would take three or four to hold up Causapscal-des-Vents. The wood shells will crack if they’re constantly colliding with each other.”

  “I didn’t hear that it was impossible,” George-Étienne said cajolingly.

  “You heard ‘phenomenally dangerous’,” Marie-Pier said.

  “Could you do it?” Marthe asked, turning to Gabriel-Antoine, who was stirring around his cold soup, probably repelled by the sulfurous smell and taste.

  “Not enough information,” he said. “Even barring the ridiculousness of your wormhole idea, I would need measurements to know if capping the cave is even possible.”

  “Why don’t I take you down?” Pascal blurted, surprised at his own words, thinking as much of those hidden stars as being cramped in the tiny bathyscaphe with Gabriel-Antoine.

  “To the surface?” Gabriel-Antoine said disbelievingly.

  “You’ll see the stars yourself and we can map the cave accurately,” Pascal said, looking imploringly at his father. “We need both the engineers to see it.”

  George-Étienne smiled slowly, proudly.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  PASCAL TOSSED AND turned before finally falling asleep. Jean-Eudes had set up his hammock with Alexis and George-Étienne in his father’s room. Marie-Pier had a hammock over Marthe’s in the storage room, leaving Gabriel-Antoine to share Pascal’s room. His nerves were electric with Gabriel-Antoine’s presence, and he guessed that Gabriel-Antoine was feeling something too. But Pascal felt ugly, unclean, unreal.

  Marthe had pulled him close by the back of his neck into a hug before bed, whispering, “Good job. You’ve done good with Gabriel-Antoine. You speak his language.” As she smiled and let him go, her palm brushed lovingly along his cheek. Her fingers had scratched along the bristle on his cheeks, sending a shiver down his spine, like nails on a chalkboard.

  “What’s wrong?” Marthe whispered behind him. She put her hands on his shoulders. “Are you nervous about Gabriel-Antoine in there?”

  He shook his head, but shrugged too. She rubbed his shoulder.

  “You’re just sharing a room,” she whispered. “But I think he likes you.”

  His cheeks got hot.

  “And it looks like it’s mutual,” she said.

  He shrugged again.

  “If it isn’t, no big deal,” she continued. “Just go to sleep.”

  He made an uncertain smile and backed away. He was ugly. So ugly. He was exhausted, but it had probably been thirty hours since he’d last shaved or washed. He rubbed his arms, feeling the light bristle of hair. He’d shaved there too. He hated it. He wanted to scrape it all off now, but Gabriel-Antoine was already in the room. He felt sick to his stomach.

  He moved the curtain aside and stopped in the doorway. Gabriel-Antoine had stripped down to underwear and was laying in Jean-Eudes’s hammock, pale muscled legs and arms shining with sweat. Pascal felt sick again. Gabriel-Antoine looked up and smiled.

  “You guys seriously live in this heat?” Gabriel-Antoine asked lazily.

  “It’s only twenty-eight degrees,” Pascal said, side-stepping in.

  “This is the temperature of a habitat when something is broken.”

  Pascal sidled over to the wash stand and brushed his teeth silently, trying to be as small and inconspicuous as possible.

  His hands shook. He wouldn’t look at the mirror. Even thinking about what he probably looked like made his face hot. He looked at the tiny sink and his hands hidden there, with the beginning of dark stubble on the backs and on some fingers. If he rubbed, he’d feel it.

  “Do you mind if I turn off the light?” Pascal asked.

  Gabriel-Antoine laughed. It was an easy sound. “Are you shy?” he asked. “I’ll close my eyes.”

  He looked behind him and Gabriel-Antoine made a show of closing his eyes, allowing Pascal’s eyes to linger. Gabriel-Antoine was beautiful. His pale skin was nearly unscarred, bandaged over one thigh, where Pascal’s fingers had brushed as he’d neutralized and disinfected. Pascal shut off the light.

  “I had my eyes closed,” Gabriel-Antoine protested.

  Pascal made a grunt of agreement, taking off his shirt.

  “I wouldn’t have opened them.”

  “Right,” Pascal said. He ran a bit of water, moistening his face and arms with little taps, fast and gentle enough that he couldn’t feel any of the growing stubble.

  “What do you care if I see?” Gabriel-Antoine asked. “We’re all just guys here.”

  Pascal’s face heated again, but he gave a tiny laugh. He lathered with a bit of soap.

  “You’re really good-looking, Pascal,” Gabriel-Antoine fi
nally said. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you.”

  Pascal scraped at his face with quick strokes, feeling a weight lifting as the ugly bits of beard left him. But he wasn’t so focused that he didn’t hear Gabriel-Antoine’s words. They summoned an uncertain elation in his chest.

  “You’re shy,” Gabriel-Antoine said into the silence. “I get that. You’ve been down here all your life. Maybe you’ve never had anyone court you.”

  The scrape, scrape, scrape continued. His face was done. Pascal remoistened one arm and scraped the razor down its length, feeling around raised scars with leading fingers.

  “Or who knows? Maybe you’re rolling in boyfriends or girlfriends,” Gabriel-Antoine said. “How many coureurs live at this depth?”

  “Not many,” Pascal said, feeling the smile creeping warily onto his face.

  “Or maybe you think I’m some Lothario, cruising down every cute guy I see,” Gabriel-Antoine said. “That’s not what I’m like. My life is kind of what you saw on the Marais-des-Nuages. A lot of drafting. A lot of machines. A lot of trying to recover scrap and turn it into something else.”

  Pascal finished his other arm and then stroked it, feeling for any ugliness he’d missed. None. He dabbed with a wet hand at his chest and then lathered.

  “I go to parties sometimes, maybe some of the same ones as your older brother,” Gabriel-Antoine said, “but I’m kind of lonely.”

  Pascal took a deep silent breath, happy for the sound of Gabriel-Antoine’s voice masking the scraping of his shaving.

  “If I’d known your big brother had a cute little brother, I would have made friends with him,” Gabriel-Antoine said.

  The smoothing of his skin and the dark started to let a weird confidence leak in.

  “You talk like you’ve said these words a lot,” Pascal said.

  “They slide off my tongue when I’m inspired,” Gabriel-Antoine said.

  “Sapristi!” Pascal hissed. “Does any boy above the clouds fall for that?”