Newton's Aliens: Tales From the Anti-Ice Universe

by Stephen Baxter

  They walked up a gravel path illuminated by a line of low electric lanterns. Cedric could see little of the fields that evidently spread away to either side, or of the Academy buildings themselves, massive blocks illuminated here and there by the pinpricks of electric lamps. Still, despite his tiredness, he was excited to be here at last, at the famous Academy of Empire.

  But as they approached a large, ornate main door, there came a hiss from the shadows, a beckoning finger, a half-turned face caught by a splinter of light. ‘Verity. Verity!’

  Chapter III

  Harry Merrell

  Verity set down her cases and, carrying only her carpet bag, followed the beckoning finger. Cedric could do nothing but follow her lead.

  ‘You have it,’ said the shadowed figure – a boy evidently no older than Cedric.

  ‘Yes, Master Merrell.’ Verity handed over the carpet bag.

  Merrell drew out the silver flask and planted a kiss on its smooth surface. ‘You beauty.’ Then he seemed to notice Cedric for the first time. He grinned, and in the partial light Cedric saw a flash of white teeth, a mop of hair, regular, handsome features. ‘You’re the new bug, I take it.’ He stuck out a hand.

  Cedric shook it – shook the hand of a boy who had travelled to the moon. ‘Cedric Stubbs, sir.’

  ‘Harry Merrell. Oh, don’t call me “sir”; I’m Merrell to you, you’re Stubbs to me. Got it?’ He hefted the flask, as if weighing a football. ‘I take it you know what this is.’

  Verity said, ‘He did ask, sir, and I couldn’t very well deny him.’

  ‘Quite all right, Verity, this fellow seems straight enough for me. Anyhow I’ve got just the nest for this little egg.’ He dangled a key. ‘Come on.’

  The three of them slipped through a warren of outbuildings. In the dark, Cedric could only guess at their purposes: a stables, perhaps, a food store, a cookhouse, a gymnasium, a bathhouse. At last Merrell brought them to a door which he carefully unlocked. ‘Don’t worry, Verity, this is a copy of old Kennet’s key, I made it in the machine shop …’ The key evidently didn’t quite fit true, for it took him a couple of tries to get the lock to turn. Then he held the handle. ‘Brace yourself!’

  When he opened the door cold air washed over them. Merrell snapped on a light and walked in boldly. This was a meat store, evidently refrigerated; great carcasses of pig and cow, glistening with frost, hung from hooks. ‘Just the place for an egg from the Little Moon. You do understand why anti-ice has to be kept cool, I suppose, new bug?’

  ‘Of course,’ Cedric said, bridling. ‘It’s all to do with Enhanced Conductance …’

  Within a sample of anti-ice, the active substance which sought so ardently to bond explosively with normal matter was kept bottled up by powerful magnetic fields, induced by endlessly flowing electrical currents. These currents could flow only so long as the anti-ice was kept chilled; warm your anti-ice and electrical resistance mounted, the currents failed, the magnetic fields collapsed – bang. That was why the earth’s largest lode of anti-ice had been discovered preserved in the Antarctic’s chill, to be discovered, fortuitously, by British explorers; that was why every anti-ice engine contained Dewar flasks to keep its precious fuel cool until needed.

  Cedric stammered out his understanding.

  ‘Good, good. So you’re not entirely wet behind the ears! And a good sport, evidently. You’ll fit in here all right. Now look here.’ Merrell took them to a corner of the store room, and cleared away a bit of straw. The concrete floor was broken up into rubble, in an area a couple of feet across. ‘You can see I’ve been busy, with pickaxe and sledgehammer. But I’ve made a kind of nest, do you see?’

  ‘A nest of rock?’ Cedric asked.

  Merrell carefully opened the flask and, with gloved hands, lifted out its contents from a cushioned interior: it really was an egg of dirty ice, if too symmetrical to resemble any bird’s egg, and big, just too large to hold in one hand. ‘Yes, a nest of rock, Stubbs, for that’s where such formations are found on the moon – whose surface, you may know, is dust and rubble, smashed up by meteorites over countless aeons.’

  ‘And you’re trying to reproduce such conditions here. But why?’

  Merrell glanced at him sharply. ‘Well, why do you think? To see what happens! The clumsy navvies who mine anti-ice up there just chuck such eggs as they find into their refrigerated skips. But I often wondered about the eggs. And when I noticed one in that shipment of ice, down not from the moon but the Little Moon, I couldn’t resist trying out this experiment.’ Merrell straightened up and kicked the straw back in place over his nest. ‘So much for that. Thank you, Verity – you’re a brick. I’m certain the eggs would have been discovered, by the likes of Fitzwilliam if not by a master, if you hadn’t smuggled it away for me.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ She curtseyed to them both, and withdrew. ‘Goodnight, sirs.’

  Merrell clapped Cedric on the shoulder and walked him out of the store. ‘Come on, I’ll show you to the dorm. You don’t need to see the Reverend tonight; as long as old Kennet knows you’re on the grounds you’ll keep until morning. Are these all the bags you have? …’

  Merrell led him through the dark to a door set in the wall of the main building. This was locked, but Merrell had no difficulty picking it with a bit of metal.

  Inside was a warren of corridors, with parquet floors and heavy heating pipes and thickly painted walls, illuminated by a scattering of electric bulbs. Merrell led Cedric up a flight of stairs to a dormitory, a row of bunk beds in the dark. Cedric saw blankets rise and fall with breathing, and somebody snored softly.

  Merrell closed the door to, allowing in a little light from the corridor. ‘This is your bunk,’ he whispered, pointing to a lower berth. ‘You can unpack properly in the morning. I’ll show you where you empty your bedpan …’

  ‘Well, well,’ came a gruff voice from the dark. A huge hand closed on the back of Cedric’s collar, dragged him up until he was almost off his feet, and shook him. ‘What’s this tiddler?’

  Merrell sighed. ‘Oh, let him alone, Fitzwilliam.’

  Fitzwilliam, only dimly seen in the dark, breathed beer fumes in Cedric’s face. ‘Name?’ He shook Cedric again when he didn’t answer immediately.

  ‘Stubbs!’

  ‘That’s better. You are a bit of a stub, aren’t you, boy? And what kind of accent’s that? Scotch, are you? Let’s see what you’ve got.’ Another great hand went rummaging inside Cedric’s jacket, and drew out the envelope with his parents’ cash.

  Cedric struggled. ‘Leave that be!’ His reward was a punch in the stomach that folded him over.

  ‘This will do for now. Welcome to the Academy, Stubby.’ And he dropped Cedric and walked away.

  Cedric was all for going after Fitzwilliam, but Merrell restrained him. ‘There’s no point. Fitz will beat you up, and a praepostor or a master will come, and you’ll be gated before you’ve said your hellos. I’ll show you to that lavatory. Come on.’

  As they padded down the silent corridor, Merrell whispered, ‘Let me give you some advice. Number one. Forget about money; you don’t need it in here. Even Fitz only spends it on beer and fags. Number two. Never show Fitz he’s hurt you, it only makes him worse. I think you’ll be all right at that. Number three. There are worse than Fitz, believe it or not. Keep away from the ones who want to make a pet of you – you know.’

  Actually Cedric didn’t know, but he resolved to remember.

  They stopped at a door. ‘Here’s the bog. I’ll wait to show you the way back.’

  And Cedric closed the door behind himself, relishing the first bit of privacy he had had since leaving home. He tried to ignore the ache in his punched stomach, and the humiliation in his heart.

  Chapter IV

  The Reverend

  The boys were woken by a bell at six.

  Electric lights snapped on. Outside it was still dark. Through a window Cedric saw a spark slide across the sky: a mail rocket bringing the Academy its first post
of the day.

  He pushed out of bed reluctantly. The boys each had a pan of warm water to wash with, all save the one sixth-former in this room of a dozen boys, who had a bed of his own with a curtain around it, and a sink with hot water from a tap.

  As he brought in his own pan from the corridor, Cedric got his first good look at Fitzwilliam. The boy was a fifth-former, younger than the supervising sixth-former but heftier, with the frame of a rugger player. No wonder the sixth-former had not intervened last night. But Fitz looked soft to Cedric, carrying a layer of fat. A man his own size would beat him in a fair fight, Cedric thought; but that was no consolation to Cedric, six inches shorter and stones lighter.

  He dressed in a school uniform of shirt, black trousers and blue blazer, scarlet waistcoat and straw hat; the garments had been sent to his parents’ home so his mother could adjust them to fit. Then he followed Merrell and the other boys out of the dorm to begin his first day at the Academy.

  In a big, gloomy refectory the boys snatched a hasty breakfast of porridge, toast and tea. Then they converged on an assembly hall. En route Cedric got an idea of the layout of the school. The main building was set out around a grassy quadrangle. The big assembly hall dominated one side; elsewhere were dormitories, studies and classrooms. Merrell said the most interesting buildings were the outbuildings, where as well as the infirmary and the chapel could be found such treasure houses as the library and the machine shops. Beyond that were the playing fields.

  The whole Academy, boys, masters and servants, gathered in the big hall for morning assembly. There were eight hundred boys here in all, shifting and restless. The masters in their gowns on the stage were like a row of rooks. The servants stood to one side, silent and demure; Cedric spotted Verity in her maid’s uniform.

  The headmaster came to the front of the stage. A big man who walked with a stick, he had a cleric’s dogcollar at his neck, and a row of campaign ribbons on his chest. This was the Reverend Elijah Cook. He was, Cedric’s father had assured him, something of a celebrity in the newspapers for his achievements in public life as well as his innovative leadership of this unique school.

  The Reverend glared around at the boys, enforcing silence with a stare through his pince-nez. He rattled through a few announcements in a schoolhouse jargon that meant nothing to Cedric. He led them in belting out a psalm, to the accompaniment of a wheezing organ.

  Then the Reverend looked around again, as if searching. ‘Stubbs, Cedric – new boy.’

  Cedric made to stand, but Merrell pulled him down. ‘My office, ten minutes.’ And Cook turned and stalked from the stage.

  Merrell walked Cedric to the Reverend’s office, and then scarpered fast. Cedric knocked, and was called in.

  The Reverend sat behind his desk, working through post; he held up a hand.

  Cedric waited, uncertain, standing to attention in the middle of the carpet. The office was well appointed, with a thick purple carpet and flock wallpaper, and the furniture was polished oak. But there was no ostentation here, no ornamentation: only rows of photographs on the wall showing smiling young men, many of them in military uniform.

  The Reverend had discarded his mortar board. His head was almost entirely bald, and he had a small metal plate riveted to his skull, just above the hair line over his right eye.

  At length the Reverend closed up his blotter with a snap, and fixed Cedric with a glare. ‘So – Stubbs, is it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Surprised to find yourself here?’

  Cedric thought that over. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here at the start of the term -’

  The Reverend waved that away. ‘We like our boys to come up as soon as the inspectors pick them out. You’ll find that such things as terms don’t matter much here. Nor is the formal curriculum so important either. You’ll pick it up as you go along – or you won’t, in which case you’ll be packed off back home with no hard feelings, eh?’ He grinned, a powerful, intimidating expression. ‘In any event, here you are for now. But why, boy? Why are you here?’

  Cedric blinked, and thought. ‘For the country, sir.’

  ‘Precisely. For King and Country.’ He glanced at the photographs on the wall. ‘Believe it or not we aren’t trying to turn you into a soldier – but it sometimes feels as if the whole world is a war zone, if you’re British, what? But that’s inevitable. It’s rather like being cock of the school, I suppose. All we can do about it is stay strong, and committed to our core values and our Christian faith. Where would you say the strength of our nation lies, Stubbs?’

  ‘In anti-ice, sir.’

  ‘Well, that’s true. And we have used our monopoly of that strange blessing wisely, on the whole, in building up the industry and transport systems and so forth that have secured us unrivalled economic dominance, and the clout that comes with it.

  ‘When it comes to military power, though, it’s another matter. We have used anti-ice in war only sparingly, you know. An all-out anti-ice war would be so destructive it would turn any victory to ashes in our mouths. No, one must not consider anti-ice as a weapon of war, but as a means to keep the peace – a peace weighted in our favour, of course.

  ‘So we have our orbital stations, where the Royal Observer Corps endlessly watches for armies massing in Prussia or China or South Africa. We have our wonderful Light Rail and air boats so that we can transport troops rapidly to snuff out any trouble. And so forth: that’s the bones of the national strategy. To watch over the rest, to keep the peace, and to promote trade. You’ve arrived at a fortuitous time, in fact. We’re to be blessed by a visit from the King at New Year, when he will make a speech addressed to the world from this very spot, proclaiming a Pax Britannica for the new century.

  ‘But to continue to pursue such goals it is not anti-ice we need so much as another raw material altogether.’ He tapped his temple. ‘I think you know what I mean.’

  ‘Brains, sir?’

  ‘Precisely. And that’s what I’m hoping to discover in you, Stubbs. That is the entire purpose of the Academy of Empire: to develop a scientific elite able to run the country and indeed the world in the best British and Christian manner, delivering a peace and prosperity that will benefit all. Well! That’s all. And don’t let me see you back in here any time soon, because it won’t be for another pleasant chat.’ The Reverend glanced down at his desk, pulling papers towards himself.

  Cedric hurried out, being careful not to slam the door behind him.

  Chapter V

  Classes

  Cedric had to ask the way to his first class. It was a mixed group ranging in age from Cedric and Merrell, the youngest, and included a few fifth-formers.

  If he had expected some sort of super-stinks session with vials of anti-ice, Cedric was disappointed. Latin and Greek!

  They studied the lives of the Caesars in Latin, and Aristotelian logic in the original classical Greek. Then they moved on to physics, to Cedric’s intense relief; but the class turned out to be an esoteric exploration of Maxwell’s theories concerning Enhanced Conductance, spiced with some ferocious mathematics - and held in Latin. Everybody struggled, save, surprisingly, for the bully Fitzwilliam, who skipped through the equations, though he stumbled on some of the Latin.

  But after a while another master, called Mister Godwin, came and called Fitz out of the class. Fitz went with every expression of impatience, pausing only for a surreptitious clout on the back of the head of a small boy near the door.

  ‘Special assignment,’ Merrell whispered to Cedric. ‘In a Hole, they call it, out in the field. Fitz does hate to leave behind his mathematics, bless him.’

  ‘But he’s a thug.’

  ‘And a bit of a genius with it. A paradox, isn’t it? You always think of the bullying type as thick in the skull. Not in Fitz’s case – I suppose he wouldn’t be here otherwise. Although he does mostly use that brain of his to come up with unique ways to torture the weak in body and mind …’

  Lunch was served in the big refe
ctory, an affair of cold meat, roast potatoes and steamed vegetables. Some of the little boys, perpetually hungry, licked the greasy plates the potatoes had been served on.

  After lunch there were to be no timetabled lessons, and nor were there any afternoon of the week, Cedric was surprised to find; learning itself was largely a matter of initiative here. Most of the boys tumbled outdoors into the bright, fresh air of a clear December day. Cedric lost track of Merrell, who went haring off to the outbuildings. Cedric wandered off, exploring. A gull winged overhead. Cedric knew nothing of this part of Wales, and he wondered how close to the sea he was.

  The playing fields were extensive, and stretched away to a bank of woodland. All seemed to be open for the boys to use and explore – save one corner of a field that was fenced off by a high mesh fence. Cedric saw a porter there, bundled up and sat on a shooting-stick, reading a newspaper and guarding the fence, though no boys were nearby. And Cedric glimpsed Fitzwilliam’s stocky frame, moving within the fence. Perhaps that was the Hole, the site of Fitz’s mysterious project that so intrigued Merrell.

  Some of the boys were organising a rough game of soccer, piling up coats, hats and waistcoats as goalposts. At home Cedric had been able to play a fair game, if he was given a bit of space to run with the ball. He ran over, adding his coat and hat to the piles and arriving in time to be picked for one of the teams, fourteen or fifteen a side. One older lad appointed himself referee, and started the match with a wave of a white handkerchief.

  The game was fast, competitive and expansive. Cedric launched himself into it, chasing, tackling and dribbling, and he enjoyed the way his heart pounded, his blood tingled under his cold skin; he felt like an animal let loose from a cage.