Skarbo took a deep breath. ‘Are you machines that can build planets?’
‘Yes. We are Creation Machines.’
Skarbo felt something like a spark pass through him. ‘Can you see information?’
A sensation of something exploring – a subtle fuzziness, as if parts of his mind were being dislocated, examined, reconnected.
‘Yes. We have it.’
He nodded. ‘Can you do it?’
‘Yes. It is our purpose. It will complete the work. Do you wish?’
Well, did he? Skarbo looked up at the raging energies outside. Utter destruction; but then, that beckoned either way.
He had had a thousand years to think about the question, and in all that time he had only ever answered it one way.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I wish.’
‘We hear.’
And so do I. Goodbye, Skarbo.
The Orbiter dropped the field. Air belched out through the opening, and Skarbo felt his body swelling into the vacuum.
Then it stopped swelling – there was something surrounding him, close like tight clothing. He looked down at himself and saw a shimmer, like and at the same time unlike a field. A few metres from him, The Bird floated, its wings folded tightly to its body. It looked surprised.
The ovoids were surrounded by the same stuff.
‘WITHDRAW!’
The word was like an explosion, like the crash of falling rock celebrated by a thousand voices.
‘WITHDRAW! DANGER! BEWARE!’
It was the machines. They were rising out of the Orbiter, and closing into a formation like some complicated molecule.
‘BE READY!’
Then the ring of surrounding ships dropped their own field.
Energy ripped through the ring. It hammered into the Orbiter like lava.
The old ship melted, and flowed, and was gone.
The space around the ring of ships flowered with plasma as they turned their ancient weapons outwards. The inside of the wall formed by the ships of the Warfront flared and halted, and for a second Skarbo thought the old warships might prevail after all.
But then one of them stuttered, and incandesced, and was gone. And then another.
Then there was one more vast howl from the machines.
‘WE BEGIN!’
The last of the old ships became blue vapour. The firestorm swept in.
And space around him twisted.
The storm front slowed, stopped, and reversed, hammering out through the mass of ships.
The inner edge of the Warfront began to burn, like a flame creeping along the edge of a piece of paper.
The ships dispersed, pulling back. The bubble of space around Skarbo began to expand, and emptied.
The machines flickered, just once. Then, all but one of them were gone.
The remaining machine floated in front of Skarbo. Its image was beginning to fade. It turns out I can’t exist in a vacuum, he thought. Or perhaps it would have faded anyway?
With an effort he formed words. ‘Is that it?’
‘That is a beginning. The work is not instant.’
‘I see. How long will it take?’
‘Perhaps ten thousand years.’
Disappointment flooded him. ‘I won’t see it then.’
‘You can see the beginning.’
‘But I’m dying …’
‘Not yet.’
And, with no sense of movement, he was moving. The planet dropped away below him, and the star receded, and then he was in clear space.
‘Watch.’
A tiny, bright spot formed in the distance. It pulsed once and then, too fast for his eyes to follow, it swelled into a fierce blue-white ball. He had no idea of scale, but there was something about the thing that made his instincts scream vastness. The surface raced towards him so that he wanted to flinch – and then it stopped, reddened, and, as quickly as it had expanded, shrank to a point and vanished.
Skarbo tried to point, but nothing moved. He managed to speak. ‘Where did it go?’
‘It is still there, although some of it is in multiple dimensions. The part that remains in this dimension is a micro black hole. I will use it to accrete a planet. See …’
The vanished point became a blacker point against space, outlined by a faint white ring. The point became a disc, swelling quickly. Then the white halo flared, and suddenly it contained a bright yellow sphere which grew, slowly at first, then faster, and now if Skarbo strained his eyes he thought he could see a tiny swirl of something, spiralling inwards.
‘That is star-stuff, from this dimension and others. A new planet is growing; the first of many.’
He sighed. ‘I wish I understood. I wish I could see it finished.’
‘You have seen the birth of a planet. Would you like to see the birth of a star? It is faster – a tiny version of the birth of a universe.’
‘Oh yes. Yes please.’
And a section of space became first an unbearably bright spark, and then a silent explosion that boiled and consumed space.
Skarbo watched the inferno. Then he managed to move his eyes towards the machine. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I can die now.’
The machine didn’t answer. It seemed to move closer, or maybe that was his vision playing tricks. A pool of darker space was forming in front of it. He smiled, and closed his eyes, and let himself fall into it.
Place, place
ZEB STUDIED KEFF. The creature seemed – what? Worried? Without turning his gaze he said, ‘What can we do with it?’
Chvids grinned. ‘I should think between us we could make its life hell.’
Keff shook its head. ‘Love to see you try. I tell you what, we could spend the next ten millennia pissing each other off, how would that be? I’m game.’
‘I don’t think I can be bothered.’ Zeb shook his head, and sat down slowly. It was still sinking in that Aish and the others were dead – somehow that hit him harder than the certainty he was too.
Chvids walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Probably not.’ He looked up at Keff. ‘Okay, you won. You kept me here until there was nothing left. Do what you like.’
‘Fine. I’ll do my best to think of something.’
‘That lacked conviction,’ Chvids said.
‘So what? Piss off.’
‘Keff? How long have you been dead?’
‘Fuck off.’
She nodded. ‘Thought so. A long time, I’m guessing?’
‘I said fuck off.’
‘Long enough to have had time to work out how the place functions, right? Do you even remember how long?’
Keff spun round. For the first time, Zeb saw anger in its face. ‘Oh, yes. I remember. I remember every … fucking … day, okay? I remember every smiling, happy idiot I ever met, and I remember what I did to piss them off. I’ve wiped the smirks off a thousand faces and he’s the one I’m proudest of.’ It jabbed a finger towards Zeb.
Zeb nodded slowly. ‘And now I’m dead, you’ve won, and that means you’ve lost.’
It glared at him. Then it looked away. ‘Have it your way.’
‘I think I will. We’re stuck with each other, Keff.’ He grinned more widely. ‘Okay, we won’t actually see each other much, but you’ll know I’m around, won’t you. Every few thousand years we’ll run into each other. Or maybe I’ll stalk you? I mean, thanks to you I don’t have any other options. It’s almost as if you made me.’ He thought back, and the phrase came to him. ‘Are you proud yet?’
It looked at him. ‘You know, maybe I am.’
Chvids shook her head. ‘You aren’t nice,’ she said.
‘You tell me? You burned down Skarbo’s toys.’
‘That was for his own good.’
‘Again, you tell me? That makes it okay then. I tell you what, let’s say I was pissing Zeb off for a thousand years for his own good, how about that?’
She stared at Keff. Then she shook her head. ‘Don’t try to
tell me we’re the same,’ she said.
‘Fuck off.’
Chvids laughed. ‘On the other hand, there is something …’ She turned to Zeb. ‘I have a suspicion.’
‘Which is what?’
She gestured towards Keff. ‘That thing kept you here. What if it stops keeping you here?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m willing to bet it could send you back.’
He stared at it. ‘What? To reality?’
‘Yes. For a given value of reality.’ She glanced at Keff, which was gazing straight ahead.
‘You have to be kidding. I’m dead.’
Chvids said nothing, but kept her eyes fixed on Keff.
The creature stood up and flicked an irritated hand. ‘Yes, all right. It could be done.’
Zeb felt his chest tighten. ‘How? Time is …’ He tailed off, trying not to hope.
Chvids took over. ‘Time is one thing out there and another in here. Try not to over-think things. Keff?’
‘Oh all right. Zeb? Fuck off.’
And with no transition at all he was – somewhere – and there were images in front of him. They began to move, but slowly, so he had time to see detail.
There was the Rockblossom …
There was the rear view of a female whose name he couldn’t remember, and his body twitched in response and his mind performed a dual backflip of shame and self-satisfaction …
There were scenes from the thousands of years he had spent wandering the vrealities …
There was …
‘Stop!’
The images froze.
‘Seen something you like?’
It was Keff.
‘Yes, but I don’t understand.’ He gestured at the page. ‘That wasn’t vreality. That was true …’
‘Was it? By what definition?’
Zeb stared at the scene. It was a blurred still picture of Aish, sitting behind her desk. She was wearing her usual worried look. He spread his arms. ‘By the definition that I was there! I remember those people.’
‘Fine. Do you remember Chvids?’
‘Well, yes, but that was—’ He stopped, as confusion lapped around his ankles.
The voice finished the phrase for him. ‘Different?’
Zeb watched the image of Aish. It wasn’t a still picture, he realized. She was moving, so slowly that he could only be sure by looking away and looking back to catch the tiny dislocations. One hand was sweeping outwards, in a glacial replay of her I’m making a point here gesture. He wondered what point she was making.
There was something different about her. He studied the image for a moment. Then he saw it.
She wasn’t wearing the pendant.
Presumably he must finally have annoyed her so badly that she had thrown it away. At least Shol would be relieved.
Without turning away, he asked, ‘Why is it so slow?’
‘You’re a layer above. The shallower the level, the faster. Things get more data-compressed the deeper you go. Less data, less speed.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Nor do most people. But most people don’t get beyond the surface layers. I believe someone made that point to you once.’
He nodded. ‘I remember. I was paying back, you know.’
‘I know. And you did, in the end. And maybe I finally got over my thousand-year tantrum. Or maybe I’m going to inflict it on Chvids. Zeb? What do you want to do?’
Zeb watched the image of Aish very gradually standing upright. Even more emphatic … and he found his cheek was wet.
A layer above …
‘Keff?’ he said. ‘I think I know what you’re doing, but I don’t care. I want to forget.’
And immediately he was falling.
Wall Energy Collective
ZEB OPENED HIS eyes.
He was sitting among the remains of the pod, which was smashed open like a hollow fruit. He must have hit the planet hard.
He couldn’t move his legs. He looked down and saw that he was encased in soft, off-white stuff. It had a dry, chemical smell.
Crash-foam. Someone had told him once that it was chemically triggered. He didn’t remember it happening, which struck him as odd, but maybe it was just very fast.
He decided not to get hung up on that.
He needed to pee. For a second he wondered if the crash-foam had any negative interactions with human urine. Then he shook his head, and shoved his hands down into the stuff.
It tore easily. After a few minutes he had dug himself free. He pulled himself upright and stood, swaying, while he mentally explored his body. Mostly good, to his surprise. Some bruising but nothing serious. He took a step and—
… something moved, just out of his vision …
—and for a second thought his ankle was going to give way, but it was just some kind of twitch. He gave it a look, but it went on working.
Whatever. The need to pee was still there. He managed not to wet the remains of the pod; presumably someone would want to examine it.
What was going on? He had been climbing, and now he was on the ground … He looked around, and raised his eyebrows. One of the guy-wires was lying on the ground, an almost invisibly thin line snaking away to somewhere out of sight. The other two, unbalanced by the loss of the third, had skewed wildly out of position.
Presumably the broken guy-wire explained what he was doing on the ground. He blinked, and ran his eye up the guys to the lens arrays. Then he stared.
They were whole kilometres from where they should have been, pulled away by the unbalanced force of the two remaining guys. And on their way there, they had pulled the guys through a long, shallow arc of the Skylid so that a huge, crescent-shaped section of the fluttering membrane was dull, drifting away from the rest.
He watched the thing dying for a while before looking away.
Well, on the plus side it would help a lot with their power problems, for as long as it took to fix it.
On the other hand, Orbital Joule would be furious.
He grinned.
Right. Time to report in. The pod comms were covered in foam, but even through the mess he could see the sickly glimmer of a dead-battery tell-tale.
Better walk, then. And face the music, because Aish would be pissed off that he had somehow broken not only a Bug but also a guy-wire and, collaterally, the Skylid. And so Shol would be pissed off because Aish was pissed off.
Well, he was just pissing everyone off today, even if he couldn’t remember how he’d done it. But there was stuff to do, and after a while Shol and Aish might remember to be glad he hadn’t broken himself as well.
Might.
Zeb shook his head, and began to walk back down to the Wall, not sure what he was going to find.
Could things be made permanently okay? He doubted it. The suns would fade and the planet would die, sooner or later. Even if he swore off the vrealities for ever, his presence would not stop that. No human endeavour could.
But perhaps it could be okay for a while. Perhaps that would have to do.
Unknown
SKARBO WAS SOMEWHERE familiar. Air moved softly through woven walls that curved up and over to form a dome. The walls were lined with shelves and pigeon holes.
The shelves were empty.
He sat up, and was unsurprised to find himself in human form. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around.
‘Hello?’
He was on a pallet. He swung his legs round and off, and stood up. He felt good.
‘Hello? I’m awake.’ Amazing, he thought. Awake.
‘Hello.’ The voice was behind him. He turned, and saw a tall, slim woman smiling at him. For a moment he thought it was Chvids, and the thought tugged at him. But then he realized the resemblance was superficial.
‘How do you feel?’ the woman asked.
‘Fine.’ He stopped to check. ‘Yes; fine. I assume this is a vreality?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s all real. We pulled the de
sign of this place out of your head. Some of us thought it would make it easier for you to adapt – a soft transition. You’ve been away for a while.’
‘Real?’ He walked over to the wall, found a window, and looked out. ‘Oh. Yes.’
He wasn’t in a Seatree, but in a real tree. Instead of the ocean, he was looking down on a forest canopy – a long way down; his own tree must be much taller than the rest. Black dots of birds wheeled below him.
He turned to the woman. ‘What happened?’
There was a stool next to her. She snagged it with a foot and sat down. ‘We found you,’ she said. ‘We think you were called Skarbo. Is that right?’
‘Were?’ He shrugged. ‘Still am, I suppose. Why change? But I wasn’t in this body.’
‘No. You were in insect form. A very durable insect form! But when we had a look round your memories things got complicated. Half of them said you’d spent the longest as an insect but another set said you’d lived even longer as a human. This human, more or less. We chose the human. You can always change it, if you like?’
He thought about that. Then he said, ‘No, I don’t think so. Time to settle down. I guess I was dead when you found me? I should have been.’
‘Not quite. You had closed down; you seem to have had some very good long-term survival strategies built in to that body. And we wonder if something may have helped you, too; but we’ll never know that.’
There was something about the way she said long-term that made him pause. He looked at her for a moment; her mouth was turned down at the corners as if she was trying not to smile.
Then he asked, ‘When is it?’
She did smile. ‘You’re going to need it explaining, I guess. Just to confirm, is this yours?’
She reached down behind her and picked up a box of dark, polished wood. She held it out.
He took it.
It contained something that looked like a ball of black cloth. He poked it – not cloth; something much more fragile. He withdrew the finger and inspected it.
Feathers. Broken, and falling to dust, but definitely feathers.
He looked up at the woman. ‘It was never mine, but I knew it. It’s dead, then.’
‘It was never alive. It’s more machine than animal. Pretty fancy mechanisms. My technical friends tell me we couldn’t replicate it.’
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