‘No.’
It was Keff’s voice.
They both sat up. The being was sitting cross-legged on the other side of the clearing.
Hels took a deep breath. ‘What the fuck?’
Keff waved round the clearing. ‘He asked if this was natural. Well, it isn’t. As you know.’ It gave Zeb a thin smile. ‘She made it, as a matter of fact. I always assumed she had in mind the sort of thing you have just been doing.’
Hels stood up. ‘Keff, that is it. I am so going to complain to someone about you.’
‘Why? I waited until it seemed reasonable to engage with you.’
‘You waited? Meaning you actually watched?’
‘Not really. I kept out of it after you started eating each other’s faces, right up to just now. I didn’t want to intrude.’
‘Oh good.’ Hels looked down at Zeb. ‘I’m sorry. Like, really sorry. That thing has so gone too far. Come on.’ She reached out a hand. He took it and allowed himself to be helped upright, but then pulled gently free.
‘Just a minute.’ He walked over to Keff. ‘What are you actually doing here?’
Keff moved slightly and was suddenly upright, as if it had been kept in a sitting position by some invisible tension that had just been abruptly released. ‘Waiting for you. She has certain patterns of behaviour. I felt sure you would end up here sooner or later.’
Hels sighed. ‘Right, well, I’m beyond offended so I’m going inside before I try to hurt something. Zeb, I hope I’ll see you when you’re done. Keff, if I see you, you’re in trouble.’ She turned and walked out of the clearing.
Zeb watched her go, then turned to Keff. ‘I expect you don’t have many friends?’
‘No. You met Retslamb earlier.’
The abruptness made Zeb blink. He stared at Keff. ‘What are you?’
‘You’re finding out. You met Retslamb earlier.’
‘You said. Are we having that head-to-head you mentioned?’
‘What did you think of him?’
Zeb paused before answering. The afterglow of sex had faded and the fuzziness of the party smoke was long gone; his instincts were awake and prickling. Eventually he said, ‘I gather he’s suffering from ingrowing Illusionism.’
To his surprise Keff laughed, a short explosive bark that sent the Skin Beetles whizzing up through the trees in a startled swarm. ‘Very, very good! I admire you, among other reactions.’ It looked around, then gestured towards the edge of the clearing. ‘Shall we walk?’
The forest surrounding the Rockblossom was close to a monoculture. Slender trees with grey-blue limbs dropped fine, hair-like needles that formed peaty stratified drifts. If you walked very carefully you stayed on a soft covering with a springy layer beneath it, but if you let a foot fall too hard you went through the top layer and into older leaf-fall which made a noise halfway between a crack and a squelch, and which gave off a thick, tarry smell when your foot sank into it. Zeb was breaking through with every other step, but Keff walked quickly without even indenting the top cover.
It was hard to keep up, and Zeb was beginning to fall behind. He paused to catch his breath.
Immediately, Keff stopped. Without turning, it said, ‘Tired?’
‘No. I’m just not playing games.’
‘Really? Not mine, perhaps.’ Keff turned round. ‘You have no idea what an Illusionist is, have you?’
Zeb met the alien gaze for a moment. Then he grinned. ‘Okay, fine. So I’m from out of town.’
To his surprise, Keff grinned back. ‘I know that. It’s something we have in common. More than you guess, I should think. We’ll stop here while I tell you about Illusionists. Feel free to lean on a tree.’
‘Thanks, I’ll stand.’
‘Fine. They’re recent. I first heard of them two hundred years ago.’ The pale eyes rested on him. ‘Maybe that’s why you don’t know about them.’
The implication hung in the air. Zeb shrugged. ‘I told you. I’m from out of town.’
‘Yes … well, while you were – out of town, some people started to believe a thing. A bit of philosophy, if you like. That the world they live in is an illusion.’
Zeb raised his eyebrows. ‘So what? Everyone wonders about that sometimes.’
‘They do, but a few people took it further than just wondering. They really believed it. And you know what happens when you humans start believing something?’
A shape began to form in Zeb’s mind. He leaned against a tree after all. ‘Go on.’
‘You test it. Monkey curiosity, Zeb. You take the idea and you pull it and twist it and rub it and taste it and hit it against the rocks until it breaks apart and you can see inside it; what it’s really made of.’ The being paused, looked around and leaned back against a tree. ‘But this idea didn’t break.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘Uh-huh. It got stronger.’
Zeb studied his hands. ‘So? Everyone believes it?’
Keff laughed again. ‘No! Most people don’t believe anything, most of the time. A few, though, yes. They truly believe they live in an illusion. More than that – a simulation. I suppose you can work out what that means.’
‘No, I can’t.’ It was time to stop this. Zeb pushed himself away from the tree. ‘And I don’t intend to try. You know what I think? We all hallucinate. All the time. It’s how we perceive things, how we process them, how we make sense of them. And you’re doing it right now—’
‘I’m not—’
‘—because the world makes you angry. You think the world’s senseless and that makes you angry. Right?’
Keff looked at him, and then past him. ‘I see the world exactly as it is, Zeb. Most of the time I’m the only one. Right now I might not be. I have the impression that you have been seeing things for a long time.’
It was still gazing past Zeb’s shoulder. He turned, and realized that someone was watching them.
It was Retslamb. He looked uncertainly from Zeb to Keff. ‘Uh, sorry. I went off, before, and I felt, you know. Then Hels said you were out here somewhere. Is this a bad time?’
Zeb shrugged and gestured over his shoulder. ‘Ask that.’
The barking laugh came again. ‘It’s probably an ideal time. I’ll leave you to it, shall I? I’m sure at least one of you has plenty to talk about.’
Retslamb grinned uncertainly. ‘Sure. Thanks. So, uh, I’m not good outside, you know. Can we …?’
The man needed help, almost as badly as Zeb needed not to be near Keff. Zeb stitched a wide smile on to his face and strode forward, one arm outstretched to sweep the other man into a hug. ‘By all means. Back to the Rockblossom, and tell me about stuff.’
He didn’t look back to see what Keff was doing. And he didn’t take his arm from Retslamb’s unresisting shoulder until he had walked the man safely back to his smoke – and when they were both inside he allowed himself to take several deep breaths of the soothing, stoning stuff.
But he didn’t forget the emphasis Keff had placed on the end of that sentence.
It was time to get himself out of this vreality. Discreetly, for sure, and without pissing people off as far as that was possible. Especially Hels, not that either of them had promised long term.
But soon.
Experiment
SOMETHING WOKE SKARBO. Something very familiar and at the same time altogether wrong.
He prised open most of his eyes and looked around. He shouldn’t have slept, needn’t have slept. Why had he?
Then he remembered Hemfrets. I took the liberty of checking your metabolism. And if it can select food for me, he thought, it can select soporifics …
His eyes felt scratchy and his vision seemed blurred. He closed and opened them a few times but the haze persisted.
Then he saw the shaft of sunlight glancing down across the room – a shaft marked by a restless pink swirl.
Not haze, then. Dust.
The familiar smell of dust had woken him. It shouldn’t be dusty in here. The place was seal
ed.
He was on his way to the stairs before he knew it, turning his awkward body around because descending them forwards was no longer possible – not with his legs in their current state – and taking one shuddering step after another, all the time trying desperately not to fall down because he was panicking, far worse than he had when The Bird, may it moult, had announced his visitors.
At the bottom of the stairs he turned round. The dust in the air was thick enough to blot out the dim light almost completely but he didn’t need to see it; he could feel it.
He could hear something now, even through the heavy door. An urgent rattle, with a background that sounded like high winds.
He opened the door. The rattling grew much louder, and then something was battering him and shrieking.
‘Tried to tell you! Tried to find you! And you choose now to disappear? Now? Idiot!’
‘I didn’t disappear. What’s happening?’ He couldn’t see – the wretched creature was in his way. He tried to bat it aside but it was too fast. It flicked away from the blow and then flew even closer.
‘Not happening – happened! Everything going. All ground to powder, all your precious toys, while you hide and snore! All. Look!’
At last the thing moved out of the way and Skarbo could see into the Machine Room.
It was like looking into a dust storm, a whirl of smoke and haze and debris spiralling in towards something in the centre of the room.
It was the Companion, and it was no longer hiding. Through the storm Skarbo could see a lumpy grey casing covered with blisters and bulges. Through a mist of horror and rage he realized it looked like a miniature version of Hemfrets’s ship.
He heard himself shout something incoherent, the sound snatched away by the raging wind. He tried to take a step into the Machine Room but the force of the wind caught him and threw him against the open door. He felt, rather than heard, part of his carapace crack.
Then, quite suddenly, the cloud formed itself into a neat sphere which collapsed to a point centred on the Companion and vanished.
There was a faint pop. A layer of dust fell from the Companion’s surface, collected itself into a tiny version of the whirlwind and disappeared into the grey casing without anything seeming to have opened to let it in. The machine was on its own. There was a second of clanging silence and then a flat voice that seemed to come from nowhere said:
‘Processing complete.’
Skarbo looked around the room. It was empty – the models had gone, and the walls and floor had a smoothly scoured look. He looked at the Companion. ‘Processing?’ His voice sounded scoured, too. ‘Processing what?’
But the device flicked out of sight.
Skarbo stared in horror. Then his fury boiled and he launched himself at the space it had occupied, his claws scrabbling at the floor.
He was less than halfway to it when The Bird slammed into him, knocking him to the side so that he had to brace his legs to stay upright. He glared at it.
‘What?’
‘Not safe! Not for you. Look …’
It wheeled round in the air and flew straight at where the Companion had been. When it was about a metre from the spot, it froze in mid-flap; there was a soft, almost soothing hum, and the air around The Bird seemed to flicker for a moment. Then the hum stopped and The Bird dropped to the floor and landed in a messy heap.
Skarbo stooped down and made to reach out for the body, but stopped as an acrid smell rose to him. He placed it immediately, although he knew he had never smelled it before. It was burnt feathers.
He watched the motionless sprawl for a while. One of the wings was sticking out at an odd angle. He thought of straightening it but it seemed – disrespectful. But he went on watching. The thought was growing that this was probably the last link to his old world. Besides, he didn’t want to look anywhere else, and he was suddenly too tired to stand.
It occurred to him that in all the hundreds of years it had been here, he had never asked The Bird its name.
A while later he heard footsteps, and looked up. Hemfrets was standing a few paces away, looking down at him with what might have been sympathy. ‘I’m sorry,’ it said.
Skarbo looked away. ‘Is it all—’ He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.
‘Processed? Yes.’
Skarbo nodded. ‘You lied.’
‘I did not.’
‘Yes, you did.’ Somehow he found the strength to rise. ‘You said you would tell no one. You said you would keep it safe!’
‘I did tell no one, but things changed. And to live, one must eat.’
Standing had been a mistake. Skarbo felt his legs weakening, and looked round automatically to find something to sit on. There was nothing – all processed, he told himself and felt dizzy at the thought – so he let himself fold down into a crouch on the floor. ‘What changed?’
‘Everything. We’re at war, Skarbo. Have you heard of the Warfront?’
‘No. What does it matter?’ Nothing mattered, nothing.
‘It matters because it is coming. It will sweep across the Bubble and burst it.’ Hemfrets squatted down next to him and looked at The Bird. ‘That seems to be taking a long time to recover.’
For a moment Skarbo imagined lashing out – sending a limb round in the fastest arc he could manage. Opening the face of a claw. Raking through flesh. The expression on Hemfrets’s face as it fell back, wounded, with its tasteless remark punished.
But imagination was all he could manage. He sighed. ‘It’s dead.’
‘I’d be amazed if it was. It wasn’t last time.’
‘Last time?’
‘Yes. It became rather – defensive, when the processing began. Ah. See?’
There was a faint crackle. Reddish light flickered across the feathers, and The Bird raised its head.
‘Ow.’
Skarbo sat back from his crouch. ‘You’re alive?’
‘Must be. Hurts too much to be the other thing. Wing bad.’ It scrabbled with the good wing until it could get its feet under it, and stood. ‘Ow ow ow. Very bad.’
‘You were burnt, too.’
‘Yes. Ow.’ It rounded on Hemfrets. ‘Still here? Told him what you did, have you?’
Hemfrets stood up. ‘I think he can see. Skarbo, I am truly sorry, but as you see there’s nothing left here. You will come to my ship with me.’
‘For what? You’ve destroyed my life. My lives. I’ll be dead in eighty-seven days. Can’t you leave me here in peace?’
‘No, I can’t.’ There was something different about the voice that made Skarbo examine the creature properly. It looked different too, somehow stiffer and more upright, and he realized it was wearing different clothes: a dark-coloured close-fitting thing like a tunic with insignia down the centre.
Like a uniform.
Skarbo stood up carefully and faced it. ‘Why not?’
‘Because you’ll be dead a lot sooner.’
Skarbo shrugged. ‘So what?’
‘And it won’t be peaceful. Look, I can’t leave you here. I have orders. We’re at war, Skarbo. Do you understand? That is what changed. War has broken out, and everyone is grabbing whatever valuable assets they can before the Warfront gets here. Your planet was a valuable asset. You are a valuable asset. You have been grabbed, by me. You may just live long enough to be grateful you weren’t grabbed by someone else.’
‘And my models? Were they valuable too?’
‘Yes. Too valuable to leave for others. I’m sorry they had to be destroyed, but I had no choice. And now I’m afraid you have no choice either.’
‘Ah. Take me or kill me?’
‘Just take you. We didn’t discuss doing any killing.’
Skarbo looked at the creature. Its face seemed set. ‘All right. Should I bring anything?’
Hemfrets shook its head. ‘As I said, there’s nothing left. Apart from that.’ It gestured at The Bird.
Skarbo nodded. ‘If it wants. Do you?’ He addressed the last two wo
rds to The Bird.
It wagged its head from side to side. ‘Want? No. But choice? No. Coming.’
‘I feel the same.’ Skarbo sighed. ‘Very well, Hemfrets. Do whatever comes next. I don’t much care what it is. Where’s your pet?’
‘Pet?’
‘That Companion. You’re responsible for it. Aren’t you?’
Hemfrets laughed. ‘You think? Something that powerful, and you think I’m in charge?’
‘Well, what are you then?’
‘Just a tool, Skarbo. Like all of us. Just a tool.’
It had been seven and a half lifetimes since Skarbo had made a surface-to-ship transfer – or any kind of journey at all – and he had no memory of it. Hemfrets went ahead to make whatever arrangements needed making for guests, and Skarbo and The Bird were left standing in the eerie silence of God’s Eye. The place had been completely conquered by dust. It covered every surface and more was settling out of the air like heavy smoke.
There was no sign of the Companion.
After a while Skarbo turned to The Bird. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘Attacking that – thing.’
‘You were going to. Bad plan. Get yourself fried in your own shell.’
‘It’s not a shell. But thanks; especially when you already knew what would happen.’
The Bird was perching on the edge of the couch. It extended its wings and flapped noisily upwards for a few beats. Then it dropped again. ‘Ow ow ow. Yes. Better, but not all better. Lucky you. Would have let you get on with it, if I hadn’t already seen it before.’ It swivelled its head on one side and glared up at him. ‘Besides, got a guess about that. Reckon you’ve seen a ship like this before. Yes, yes?’
‘Yes. How did you know? Had I told you? I don’t remember.’
‘Ha! No. But you aren’t watching it. Biggest thing in the sky and you don’t look? So maybe you don’t need to. Maybe seen it before, see?’
‘Well, yes. You’re right.’ Skarbo told it about the ship above the Greater Bowl. It listened, still with its head on one side. When he had finished it snapped its beak.
‘The net thing. Whole city? In one go?’
‘No. Not the whole city – the whole Mandate – in those days almost one per cent of the Bubble. There were seven planets. They destroyed the biggest city on each of them.’
Stone Clock Page 6