Only Forward

by Michael Marshall Smith

  When we eventually got a grip I unzipped my inside pocket and got out a cigarette. Alkland retrieved his glasses and put them on. Both thus armed with our aids to thought, we gazed slowly round the area we found ourselves in.

  We were in a low dark room the size of the whole of Stable Neighbourhood. The ceiling was about ten feet high, and tiny bulbs set into the floor shed a little light at intervals, enough to give an impression of how the thing worked.

  In front of us and to the left was the end of the water column. Water pumped out of it at a constant rate, and after a moment one of the barrels, closely followed by the others, popped out like corks and fell with a drum roll to the floor. The table came up in pieces, which was good. It could have jammed round the bottom of the tube, which sooner or later would have alerted whoever maintained this set-up. The water dropped into the wide conduit we’d scraped across.

  This conduit was in two parts: one led by our side and behind us, and the other went off into the distance. Both were slightly angled to keep the water moving. At intervals along the conduit’s length were small let-off pipes, which released what was presumably a gauged amount of water onto the floor. The room, I saw, looking round, stretched as far as we could see to the front and to the right. It was divided into channels about six feet across by low ridges like the one we were perched on. Although it was too gentle to sense, I realised that the floor must slope very slightly from where we were to the other side of Stable.

  In fact, it was the one permutation I hadn’t tried to work out in the column of water. Instead of pumping the water back across in a narrow pipe, or letting it flow at a river’s width, they had the opposite arrangement. Water fell into the conduits and was dispersed across the width of the Neighbourhood, falling into the channels. There, at a depth of no more than an inch, it flowed across to the other side, where presumably it was funnelled into a chute that dropped it down at the source of the Stable river.

  ‘Peculiar,’ observed Alkland. It transpired that he’d gone through similar calculations in the tube, and, zappy can-do over-achiever that he was, had been able to work the thing out in his head. He’d known exactly how narrow the pipe was going to have to be for us to survive, realised how unlikely that was, and was pleasantly surprised to still be alive. I was too, I guess, and the mood, though subdued, was buoyant. Alkland shook his head briefly like a venerable old dog, spraying some of the water out of his hair and making him look like he’d just been electrocuted. While taking off his squelchy shoes he turned and looked up at me. ‘What now, Mr Stark?’

  ‘Just call me Stark,’ I said. I liked Alkland, I decided. From the purely business point of view, he was good to work with. He did what he was told, didn’t endlessly pipe up with unworkable suggestions and disturb my flow of thought, and didn’t complain much either. He was also pretty relaxed for someone of his age and background. I’m used to finding myself in strange places. It’s the story of my life. Most Actioneers, with a few honourable exceptions, would have needed months of therapy after this sort of thing, and yet here he was, just patiently waiting for the next bit. Liking him was going to complicate the issue if and when we ever got back home, of course, but that problem was some way back in the queue.

  ‘What happens now,’ I said, standing, ‘is that we walk.’

  ‘Where?’ Alkland frowned, peering eloquently out into the gloom.

  ‘Anywhere. There’s no way out sitting here. Any move in any direction increases the probability of us finding a solution.’

  He nodded approvingly.

  ‘You’re not an Actioneer, are you?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I smiled. ‘Not my sort of thing.’

  ‘Pity.’

  Shoes in hand, we walked along the ridge, which was just wide enough not to involve a major high-wire balancing act. It was still rather tiring, and after a while we climbed down and traipsed along the channel instead, feet slushing through the shallow water. I was trying to decide whether it was better to head back for the side of the room, or keep going for the centre, when Alkland pointed at the floor.

  ‘Look,’ he said.

  Bending down, I saw what he meant. A thin stream of tiny bubbles was rising from the floor.

  ‘Looks as if they’ve got a leak.’

  ‘I wonder,’ I replied, and crawled a few feet up the channel, staring down into the water. Sure enough, I soon found another stream of bubbles, and within a minute had established that the channel was full of them, at regular one-yard intervals. ‘I think they’re having a little rain in Stable this morning.’

  ‘How clever,’ said Alkland, getting it at once.

  I guess it was, really. It hadn’t occurred to me at first, because most Neighbourhoods with roofs put them on specifically to do away with the weather. The last thing they’d be doing was developing complicated work-arounds so they could have it back again. In Stable, of course, things were different. They still wanted weather, it was just the outside world they’d renounced. So instead of pumping the water across in the quickest time possible, they killed two birds with one stone. Alkland walked over to the next channel and peered down into the water there.

  ‘No bubbles in this one,’ he observed. That must be how they control it. For a sunny day they set the outlets out there to just send water down channels without the holes. For a downpour, they just send it down the ones with holes. Today must be a light shower.’

  ‘No wonder they need such a flash computer,’ I said, shaking my head. I couldn’t get my mind round so much pointless ingenuity. If they could just get a grip on the way the world was now and come to terms with things outside, they could have normal rain without all this high-tech dicking around. It was all very clever, but kind of stupid too. Then a thought struck me.

  ‘I have an idea,’ I said, and Alkland’s face immediately brightened. It was touching, really, to see his developing faith. I like that in a client. ‘We’re going to separate and walk in different directions, looking up at the ceiling.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, sagely. ‘Why?’

  ‘No system is perfect. There’s no perpetual motion. With condensation, spillage, evaporation, tiny amounts of water must be lost out of the cycle either up here or down there. Over time, the whole thing would run dry, unless there’s water coming in too. Either they purify water out of Royle, or they get it from somewhere else. I’m plumping for the latter, because I can only see one input tube.’

  ‘Then where do you think they get it from?’

  ‘Same place as everywhere else,’ I said, pointing up at the ceiling. ‘Rain falls on that roof, pure water falling from the sky. They’d be insane not to make use of it. Maybe there’s a way of getting out the way that it gets in.’

  We split up and walked quickly, staring up at the ceiling, which was grey, featureless and intermittently covered with algae. Alkland tripped once over a ridge and went splat down into the water, but I pretended I hadn’t noticed. I don’t think you can find that kind of thing funny once you’ve realised how fragile most men’s dignity is. Take mine for instance. You can almost see through it.

  When Alkland shouted we were so far apart I couldn’t even see him. The tiny bulbs attached to the ridges cast little pools of light across the water, but the glow didn’t reach very far. He shouted again out of the gloom and I headed towards the sound, hoping that the system up here ran itself and there wasn’t some engineer monitoring the whole thing.

  The Actioneer was standing on a ridge when I found him, squinting upwards. I joined him and followed his gaze. I saw light, and clapped Alkland so hard on the back that I had to grab him to prevent him from ending face-up in the water again. When he’d recovered his balance he grinned at me, and then we both stared upwards.

  Above us was a hole, about three feet square and covered with a grille. The mesh was too fine to show what lay beyond, but I could guess. The outside world.

  I hoisted Alkland onto my shoulders with some difficulty and he reached up to poke the grille. It didn�
��t move immediately, and I had time to wish I’d found my Furt before leaving the apartment two hundred years ago. Then he shoved it harder, and one end moved. Another push sent it up like a little trapdoor, revealing what lay beyond.

  Life is seldom easy. Despite the evidence of the last couple of days, the gods of fate rarely go out of their way to help me, and they certainly hadn’t here. The god in charge of ‘giving Stark a break’ was tied up in meetings, or taking a long weekend. We were looking up into a square well that was at least twelve feet deep. I’d realised that the Stable wall would be thick, but not that thick. The sides were absolutely featureless, with no handholds, ladder or elevator to be seen. At the top was another grille.

  I let Alkland back down again and stood for a moment, head drooping. The pads were gone. Even if one of them had made it up here it would take hours to find, and it was far more likely that they were stuck fast to something down below. For a moment I felt very, very tired.

  ‘So,’ said Alkland cheerily, ‘who’s going up first?’

  I looked up slowly, and saw that he was joking.

  ‘You,’ I smiled, and he laughed, and that was enough.

  I got Alkland to stand with his feet a yard apart and angled slightly, to make him as firm a base as possible. He cupped his hands and I stepped into them. Placing my left foot lightly on his shoulder I checked my balance, and then quickly pulled the right up and planted it on his other shoulder, simultaneously straightening.

  So far, so good. I was standing with my torso up in the well. The next bit was going to be a bastard, and knowing that Alkland wouldn’t be able to hold me up indefinitely, I got to it.

  ‘Hold my feet,’ I said, and felt his hands clamp round my ankles. I let myself sway back so that my shoulders were leaning against the wall. Then I very carefully raised my right foot, pulling my knee as far into my body as possible. Alkland stumbled slightly and for a heart-stopping moment I thought I was going to drop down onto the ridge back first, but he regained his balance and altered his position so that he was bracing me in the right direction, my left foot now pushing against the top of his chest.

  I reached down and took my right foot in my hand, and then very slowly pulled it up towards me. It was a struggle, but I just managed to bring it into the well. Once it was past the lip I planted it squarely onto the opposite wall and pushed hard. When I was as sure as I was going to be that I was adequately braced I pulled my other foot up. Carefully slipping that in and planting it next to the other one, I felt relatively secure for the first time. Slowly, arching my back, I wriggled my shoulders while pushing hard with my legs, trying to edge my back up the wall. From below I heard the sound of faint giggling.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, will you?’ I said, trying not to laugh. This isn’t as easy as it looks.’

  The tide began to turn, and I could feel my shoulders slowly raising above the level of my feet. After a while it became a little easier, and within a minute I was in a sort of sitting position, back straight against the wall and legs rigid in front of me. I negotiated myself round until my back was pressed into one of the corners, turning the well into a diamond, which would be easier to climb up. With one foot on each of the opposite walls, and getting what purchase I could with my hands, I began to ease my way up the well an inch at a time.

  It took about half an hour. Twice I felt my back slipping and was sure I was going straight back down again, to land on top of Alkland’s anxiously upturned face. By expanding my chest as far as possible I was able to halt the slide and continue, but by the time I got to the top my heart was beating at a dangerous rate and my legs were shaking violently, the muscles ready to give out. Angling my back so as to jam myself as best I could, I reached up and shoved the grille. It didn’t give. Not even a little bit.

  ‘Bastard,’ I wailed quietly.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Alkland called up.

  ‘Badly.’

  ‘Good,’ he said optimistically. ‘That’s always been an encouraging sign so far.’

  I realised there was something I could try, and reaching carefully into my pocket I pulled out the gun. I set the energy output to maximum diffusion, covered my face, and fired at the grille. There was a phut and a few droplets of molten metal sprinkled over me.

  Even before I opened my eyes the increase in light told me it had worked. There was a hole in the grille about a foot in diameter through which sunlight was streaming, and a quiet whoop from below told me Alkland knew what had happened. A couple more phuts expanded the hole and I reached out and put one arm out, scrabbling to get some purchase. The other arm went out the other way and I manfully hauled my head out, followed by my shoulders. The rest was easy.

  I rolled to one side and lay for a moment, panting. Around me all I could see was white stone and above me was the sky, the real sky. After a while I levered myself to a sitting position and looked around, feeling slightly dizzy. I was sitting at the bottom of a large and shallow depression, obviously designed to funnel rainwater towards the grille. The stone stretched for acres in every direction but one: behind me it came to an abrupt halt about two hundred yards away.

  Dragging myself wearily to the hole, I called down to Alkland, ‘Take your jacket off and wrap it round your hands!’

  While he did so I took the microcable out and fed the end down to him. I wasn’t terribly confident that this was going to work. The retractor in a microcable dispenser is strong enough to handle small loads. Alkland, though neither big nor fat, was a whole human being, and they were not designed with that kind of thing in mind.

  ‘This is going to be touch and go,’ I said, and Alkland nodded, as if he had expected no less. ‘As soon as you can, wedge yourself in.’ He grabbed the end of the cable and wrapped it several times round his heavily padded hands.

  I positioned myself over the hole, legs firmly planted either side, and flicked the retractor switch. For a moment it worked smoothly, pulling Alkland swiftly up until his head and shoulders were in the well. Then the soft humming started to veer towards a buzzing, and the rate of climb decreased markedly. Slowly Alkland spiralled higher until I could see one hand groping up for the edge of the grille. As his fingers scrabbled against it the retractor gave up the ghost with a fizzpt and I lunged down and grabbed the Actioneer’s hand, nearly joining him in a quick ride back down to the bottom. The jacket slipped but I grabbed his wrist with my other hand and slowly hauled him up until his head and shoulders were through the hole. I helped him until he was out and then we both fell back in separate directions.

  We lay on our backs for quite some time. It seemed to be the thing to do.

  8

  You know those thoughts you get sometimes, the ones where you know something’s not right, that there’s something you ought to be thinking about that you can’t quite put your finger on? And what happens is you forget about it, and then a bit later on it comes back to haunt you in a very big way?

  For one brief second I had one of those.

  I forgot about it.

  I dozed off for a few minutes, lulled by hot stone and extreme tiredness, and when I came to Alkland was sitting nearby, gazing at his hands. Climbing to a more upright position I looked at the Actioneer, rather disturbed by what I saw. This was the first time I’d seen his face in anything approaching normal light since the restaurant in the Powers twelve hours ago, and the change in that time was remarkable. It wasn’t just that he looked exhausted: he looked very ill as well. His skin was extremely pale beneath the vestiges of his compulsory tan, and the patches under his eyes were dark and sallow. I coughed to signify that I was awake, and, startled, he turned to look at me, for a moment looking like a much younger and very troubled man. Then he smiled vaguely, and became just a worried person in his sixties.

  ‘I’ve been to the edge,’ he said. ‘It’s a very long way down, you know. Are we going to have to dive off it, or something?’

  I nearly choked laughing at this. Stable Neighbourhood is about eight hundred yards high.
He smiled tentatively, as if suspecting that I might say of course we weren’t going to dive, I was going to teach him how to fly. To put him out of his misery I pulled my vidiphone out.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Hopefully we’ll be leaving in comfort.’

  I called Shelby’s number in Brandfield Neighbourhood and after no more than five rings was rewarded by her beaming face.

  ‘Ohmygod, Stark! How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. How’s tricks?’

  ‘They’re good, Stark, they’re like really…where are you, Stark?’

  ‘I’m on top of Stable Neighbourhood.’

  ‘Oh my Guwaud…’

  ‘I know, I know. Listen, Shelby. I need a big favour.’

  ‘You’ve got it Stark, like, totally.’

  ‘I need a lift.’

  ‘Sure. Can do. That’s affirmative. Completely.’

  ‘One problem, Shelby.’

  ‘Uh-huh? Work with me.’

  ‘There’s two of us.’

  ‘No big whoop. It’ll be way cosy, and I won’t be able to take you so far, but it’ll happen.’

  I felt my entire body sag to the floor with relief.

  ‘Shelby? You’re a good person, and I value your friendship and support.’

  ‘It’s a mutual thing, Stark, it’s a mutual thing. You’re looking at a half hour here. Ciao!’

  I put the vidiphone away. Alkland was looking considerably more relaxed.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Friend of mine. She has a heliporter.’

  ‘She sounds a little…intense.’

  ‘She’s fine. She’s from Brandfield, that’s all.’

  Brandfield is a Neighbourhood for rich people, pure and simple. Every single adult in the Neighbourhood is either a doctor, lawyer, orthodontist or wife, and their beautifully poised daughters just float around, having parties, power shopping and waiting for their turn to be a doctor, lawyer or orthodontist’s wife. Just under a third of the Neighbourhood’s area consists of golf courses, and the competition to be the most exclusive club is unbelievably fierce. The top three won’t let anyone at all be members.