by Rexx Deane
‘Yes, they did. They would be a marvel of modern science if I could find them. I lost a t-shirt somewhere.’
‘They didn’t turn visible when you attempted to fix the problem?’
‘Oh yes, the ones I wore at the time did, even though I didn’t … Which I don’t quite understand …’ The skeletal hand brushed week-old stubble on his chin. ‘What were we talking about?’
‘You were going to tell me how you could help me solve this case.’
‘Ah, yes. If there were traces of carbyne at the scene, you’re either looking for a thaumaturge or someone who handled carbyne immediately beforehand. What you need is a way of finding out exactly what happened in that lab.’
‘There’s no footage from inside. We have video from the corridor, but the perpetrator is blurred.’
‘It sounds like magic to me, but at the time I would have been mostly invisible, and here. I haven’t left this place for weeks.’ He ran a hand an inch over his head and the short, white stubble flexed subtly. ‘As you can see, this is a week’s growth of visible hair, from the last time I tried to make myself normal.’
‘I believe you. The infoslate scans just now showed only what I see, and it wasn’t blurry. But if it wasn’t you, who was it? The strange thing is, it was a similar effect to what I saw when a friend of mine took pictures of a Folian ship. The Folians themselves weren’t blurry, so I don’t think it was one of them, but whoever did it might have access to the same technology that hides their ships.’
The Paper Man gave a peculiar smile. ‘So, you’ve met the Folians too, eh?’
‘Yes. Odd people. Peaceful and elegant, though.’
‘Odd … indeed. They can probably help you, as they understand the art of thaumaturgy and may be able to help determine events in the lab. They won’t aid you on your station, though. You’ll have to go to them.’
‘Nobody knows where their homeworld is.’
‘I used to know. I’ve been there in the past, but voluntarily had the knowledge of its location erased from my memory.’
Sebastian shifted in his seat, becoming restless with excitement. He’d never heard of anyone having their memory wiped. ‘Erased? Why? Was it hypnosis?’
‘Magic. They are a very insular people, and with good reason. It was for their security. Contact with them must be on their terms.’
‘So, how do I find the place?’
‘I used to live in an outpost called Chopwood on Tradescantia, a world close to their homeworld, Achene. I lived with them for a few months while learning the art. I already knew of thaumaturgy but was unable to perform it before I met them due to a lack of information. Afterwards, they dropped me off at Chopwood and updated my knowledge of the galaxy. I was intrigued to find out what had happened to Humanity in my absence, so I took a runner – a small ship that was left behind in Chopwood – and they pointed me in the direction of the nearest acceleration node, then I ventured back into modern space’
‘Modern space?’
‘Our colony ship set out from Earth in 2053. This was about a decade before what you know of as the Ecological Crux. We set out to find natural resources that could be brought back to Earth. Long-range telescopes had picked up indications of a world that might harbour massive amounts of plant life, so we made our way to it in the hope that there would be wood that could be used for building materials. Earth was running out of metal long before the asteroid belt got mined, you know, and not everything could be made from concrete.
‘We travelled at relativistic speeds and didn’t experience time the same as the rest of the universe. We journeyed for an incredibly long time, but of course to us it felt like weeks while the ship accelerated to lightspeed. This was before the discovery of the acceleration nodes, and that’s why I call this modern space. I’m a little out of my time.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘In the space within reach of the acceleration nodes, about fifty years, give or take a few. I don’t keep track of time well.’
‘So how old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘I was born in 2029. I was twenty-six when I left Chopwood … I feel about fifty-something, but I’m probably eighty or more. Like I said, I’m not counting, and it’s all relative.’
‘You don’t sound that old. Of course, I can’t judge by sight.’
‘Hmm,’ The Paper Man grumbled. ‘Probably one of the side effects of the spell. Maybe it prevents me from ageing so fast. I don’t absorb UV-A. Regardless, I’d rather be normal, and dead.’
‘You really ought to get seen by a doctor. No pun intended,’ Sebastian said, putting his hands up.
‘No offence taken.’ The translucent head shook. ‘Can you imagine how much of a scientific spectacle I’d become? I want none of that. I’d rather live out my last days in peace and quiet than being picked apart by scalpel-wielding zealots.’
‘I can understand that. So, what about the—’ Sebastian’s suit comms bleeped. ‘Sorry, just a moment.’ He put a finger to his ear.
The suit computer spoke. ‘Incoming pre-recorded message from Ultima Thule.’
‘Play back.’ He listened to the message from Aryx. ‘It sounds like the ship’s taking a beating up there. I’ll have to go shortly. I’m afraid we’ve upset the rotation of your comet.’
‘It’s not a problem. It’ll take some hours, but I can stabilise it when you’ve gone. It’s not really intended for surface landings.’
He was about to ask what he meant, but remembered he’d not cleared up a more pressing issue. ‘You were about to tell me how the Folians might be able to help, and how to find them.’
‘Of course I was. As I said, they taught me the art of thaumaturgy, and they have the uncanny ability to use the art to tap into the fabric of the universe to divine the nature of things. They might be able to tell you what went on inside the lab and, maybe, who caused the explosion. I don’t have the location of Chopwood anymore. It was erased from my ship’s logs and my memory.’
‘Yes, you said that.’
‘Alright. My memory of the location has gone, that’s all. I’ve not got Alzheimer’s. I have the locator beacon frequency of Chopwood. Find Chopwood and you’ll find the Folians.’
‘Locator beacons? Everything is located by timing beacons, maps and star positions now.’
‘Yes, and probably the reason why nobody has found it since. Modern ships don’t monitor those old radio frequencies as a matter of course.’ He laughed. ‘Ah, the trouble your maps cause those poor sods on Sollers Hope. Mind you, they do take it to heart a bit too much if you ask me … You should be able to follow the beacon signal and track the planet down that way. And I advise against logging the trip.’ The Paper Man got up from the couch and walked to a door opposite the one Sebastian had entered. ‘I’ll go and get the frequency for you. Wait here – and don’t touch anything!’
Sebastian waited on the couch, nibbling on a thumbnail. How had this place been built? Was the comet natural? It hadn’t been in the Yazor system long enough to have been recorded in the Galactic maps.
He brushed the question aside when the man came back through the door and strode over clutching a tatty piece of paper.
The hermit held the scrap out. ‘I’d made a note of it just in case the need ever arose. I’d forgotten about it until now.’
A long sequence of digits was scrawled onto the paper, along with the name Pegasus. ‘What’s that?’ Sebastian asked.
‘Not the name of a ship – ours was the Iceni. I’m assuming I was referring to the constellation when I wrote it.’
Sebastian tucked the paper into a pouch on his belt. ‘Thank you.’
‘Glad to do anything I can to help. Whilst I may not have been to your station, and even though I’m not a fan of crowded places, I have no urge to see innocents hurt by mindless destruction, and I certainly don’t want to see thaumaturgy revealed to the world as something dangerous and evil.’
‘Thanks.’ He gave a tight smile.
It was good to be a little farther along in the investigation, but what help might the Folians provide? ‘How does this magic, thaumaturgy, work anyway?’
‘I can’t explain it to you fully, and it’s wasteful to demonstrate unnecessarily, but it takes a certain mindset to be able to work it. The basic principle, as I understand it, is that the carbyne acts as a catalyst, enabling the transformation of energy forms. You chant, or make a specific sound whilst holding certain images in your mind, and sometimes it needs to be coupled with a gesture. The carbyne is used up in the process.’
Sebastian’s mouth dropped open. Of course, that was it! ‘The acceleration nodes transform energy. I wonder if that’s why carbyne is found alongside the false bornite ore … But why isn’t the existence of magic widely known, given that it’s real?’
‘It is known, to an extent, but the belief is another matter. Some non-Human races have stories of thaumaturgy, under different names, but there seems to be a general taboo, and many cultures shun its use, so it has largely died out in the galaxy. I have no idea why. Maybe those races have attached the same sort of stigma to it as we did in medieval times.’
‘I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around it.’
‘You might understand it in time.’ The smoky-glass eyes looked down at Sebastian’s neck.
He brought his hand up and felt his necklace – the Mjölnir, Thor’s hammer – which must have ridden up his neck and caught The Paper Man’s eye. Why was he looking at it?
‘Do you have a faith?’
Sebastian’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. ‘Yes. I was brought up as Ásatrú, but I admit I don’t always follow it.’
‘Ah, that explains the hammer. It’s a reconstruction of the Old Norse faith, isn’t it? You look at your religion, even if you don’t believe it literally. You’ll find some truth in it, if you think about it long enough. When your investigation is over, come back and we can talk about it some more. I occasionally like the company.’
He wasn’t entirely convinced of the relevance of his religion, and his mind was no longer on the topic of conversation. ‘Yes, well … Thank you for the help,’ he said. ‘I have to be going now, I’m up against time.’
The Paper Man nodded. ‘By all means, go. I would be grateful if you could keep me up to speed, should you discover anything in the course of your investigation. The idea that someone else might be using the art is … interesting, to say the least.’ The man walked to the entrance door, pulled a remote out of a pocket in his robes and pointed it at the screens in the lounge. A monitor flicked on, showing the outside of the entrance crater: the surface was still, and in shadow. ‘You’re safe to go,’ he said. ‘Hurry, though! I fear we’ve talked a little too long.’
They shook hands and Sebastian said goodbye and picked up the pistol from the walkway as he passed. Jogging in the pressure suit was uncomfortable, and before he’d reached the airlock he was sweating profusely. In the confines of the pressure suit, there was only so much that the N-suit could do to keep him cool.
As the airlock doors opened, he clamped his helmet into place and stepped through. In moments, the whoosh of air ended and he was left in the impending silence of hard vacuum. The doors opened into the antechamber where he’d arrived. He stepped out of the airlock and a long panel slid aside in the floor to reveal a ladder heading towards the secret crater door. This was where he’d gone wrong; the manual actuator must have prevented the ladder activating. Crouching on all fours at the far end, he waited for gravity to shift and gripped the rungs ready to climb out. The lights went off and he slipped, but hung on as the doors – now above – parted, revealing not the black, star-spattered view of space trimmed with ice, but a hazy grey fuzz. A cold shiver ran down his spine as he climbed out.
The streams of ice on the horizon were no longer vertical; the comet was still rotating, and now the ice flowed past at a shallow angle. The Ultima sat in the distance, roughly a mile off, beneath it. If he didn’t hurry, he’d be ripped to shreds by the icy dust tearing across the surface.
He ran.
‘Aryx,’ he shouted breathlessly into the comms, ‘warm up the shield. I’m coming!’
‘Already on it! You don’t have much time. About six minutes and it’ll be on us!’
Six-minute mile was the record in a pressure suit – for a veteran wearer. There was no way he’d make it that far, lumbering along in the low gravity. His feet slipped and scraped over the glassy rock surface, and loose rubble crumbled as he bounded along. He was a fool for taking the job and getting into these stupid situations. He could have waited in the airlock until it passed.
How long had he got before the stream hit him? He looked to one side … A bad idea: the stream of debris was nearly horizontal. He lost his footing and fell. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but while the N-suit protected him from the worst of it, it took a moment to get his breath back. He heaved himself up and looked down.
The ragged edge of a tiny rip in the fabric billowed and flapped as air escaped from the pressure suit.
‘Shit!’ he screamed. He was going to die from suffocation.
Tiny tapping sounds came from the back of his helmet. Oh Gods.
He paused for a moment, a second, to regain his composure. Closed his eyes. Took the last deep breath of air from the suit before the tanks ran out. The ship was only a couple of hundred yards away now, at most.
He charged towards it in a headlong run, stumbling over large rocks and slipping on smaller ones. His lungs burnt and he gasped for air … Thin air. His throat tightened.
The ship swam in front of him. He stumbled up the steps and as he hit the button to open the door he blacked out.
Chapter 15
Aryx stared in horror through the inner airlock window as Sebastian collapsed, his body lying half in, half out of the ship. The rock-ice spray of the comets tail was almost upon them, but there was no way he could close the outer door, not with him in the way. A pressure suit wouldn’t fit Aryx without boots, so he couldn’t override the mechanism and open the inner door safely. How was he going to get him aboard?
‘Computer!’ he shouted. ‘Reconfigure the CFD steps. Alter the shape – change it into a scoop.’
‘Please specify.’
‘I don’t have time for this shit. Just a fucking scoop. An upside-down version of the ramp, anything! Get him in the door. Do it now!’
The computer, in its inability to assess the situation, turned the steps into a flat wedge, which swung upwards, flinging Sebastian’s limp body unceremoniously into the chamber with a loud thud.
Aryx hammered the switch. ‘Come on, come on!’
The ship began to rock, and the external door, clear of the obstruction, slammed shut as a cloud of dust and rock filled the chamber.
‘Activate the shield cycle!’
The ship replayed the last set of commands just in time to deflect the scouring winds as they attained full force. Pressurisation completed and the airlock door finally opened.
He slid out of his chair onto the floor beside Sebastian’s body and felt for a pulse on his neck. He couldn’t find one. Leaning forwards, he put all his weight on Sebastian’s chest and pressed down rhythmically with both hands. He pumped his chest four times, pinched his nose shut as he took a deep breath and forced it deeply into his lungs.
No response.
He repeated the process. He couldn’t be dead!
Once more. He couldn’t leave him there alone!
As he pounded on Sebastian’s chest, his fingers hooked a hole in the suit and it tore easily. ‘You stupid bastard! All you had to do was take a different suit, but you couldn’t be bothered and you wore the damaged one and now you’re going to die just because you were too ashamed to admit you’d ruined it and thought I’d shout at you for risking your life – now wake up!’ He forced in a third lungful.
Sebastian’s eyes fluttered open and he coughed. ‘I … never knew … you cared,’ he croaked.
‘Sh
ut up, you stupid, irresponsible bastard.’ Aryx pushed him down and his head thudded against the floor. ‘I told you to be careful, and what did you do? You died!’
Sebastian propped himself up on his elbows. ‘You’re telling me,’ he said, poking at the hole in the suit. ‘I fell over and ripped it.’
Aryx punched him in the chest. ‘It’s a good job we’ve got two spare!’
Sebastian got up and started taking off the damaged pressure suit. ‘Thank you,’ he said, staring at the floor.
‘You’d do the same for me.’ Aryx wiped his eyes. ‘I thought I’d lost you. I’m not a medic.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He folded his arms. How dare he think that sorry was good enough.
‘Aryx, don’t.’
He climbed back into his chair.
‘I said I’m sorry.’
‘Next time, think before you do something stupid. Actually, just think and don’t do something stupid. Think about who you might leave behind.’
Sebastian’s head hung as he took the pistol from the holster, pulled off the rest of the pressure suit and threw it into the corner of the alcove. He put the helmet back on the hook. The back was deeply pitted.
‘You were lucky to get back in time,’ Aryx said.
‘I know. Sorry about the ship’s paintwork.’ Sebastian laughed, and coughed dryly.
‘I’m not repainting it … At least you’re well enough to joke. There can’t be any permanent damage, although I’m sure you’re already brain damaged, judging by how clumsy you are.’ Aryx folded his arms. ‘So, what happened out there?’
‘I met an invisible man in a cave inside the comet. He uses magic – I’ve even got scans.’ Sebastian bent to pick up the infoslate. ‘Oh … No, I deleted them.’