Consider Phlebas

by Iain M. Banks

  ‘God, that thing’s big,’ Neisin whispered. The shuttle continued to rise, and above it there appeared through the wall a glow of light, a shining expanse of blue.

  Into sunlight, hardly filtered through the transparent wall, the shuttle climbed in empty space beside the Edgewall. Two kilometres away there was air, even if it was thin air, but the shuttle climbed in nothing, angling out along with the wall as it sloped towards its line of summit. The shuttle crossed that knife-edge, two thousand kilometres up from the base of the Orbital, then started to follow the slope of wall back down on the inside; it passed through the Orbital’s magnetic field, a region where small magnetised particles of artificial dust blocked out some of the sun’s rays, so making the sea below it cooler than elsewhere on the world, producing Vavatch’s different climates. The shuttle continued to fall: through ions, then thin gases, finally into thin and cloudless air, shuddering in a coriolis jetstream. The sky above turned from black to blue. The Orbital of Vavatch, a fourteen million kilometre hoop of water seemingly hung naked in space, spread out before the falling craft like some vast circular painting.

  ‘Well, at least we’re in daylight,’ Yalson said. ‘Let’s just hope our captain’s information about exactly where this wonderful ship is turns out to be accurate.’ The screen showed clouds. As the shuttle fell and flew, it was coming down onto a false landscape of water vapour. The clouds seemed to stretch for ever, along the curved inside surface of the Orbital, which even from that height looked flat, then sweeping up into the black sky above. Only much further away could they see the blue expanse of real ocean, though there were hints of smaller patches closer to hand.

  ‘Don’t worry about the cloud,’ Kraiklyn said over the cabin speaker. ‘That’ll shift as the morning wears on.’

  The shuttle was still dropping, still flying forward through the thickening atmosphere. After a while they started going through the first few very high altitude clouds. Horza shifted slightly in his suit; ever since the CAT had matched velocities and curve with the big Orbital, and turned off its own AG, the craft and the Company had been under the same fake gravity of the construction’s spin – slightly more, in fact, because they were stationary relative to the base but further out from it. Vavatch, whose original builders had come from a higher-G planet, was spun to produce about twenty per cent more ‘gravity’ than the accepted human average which the CAT’s generator was set for. So Horza, like the rest of the Company, felt heavier than he was used to. His suit was chafing already.

  Clouds filled the cabin screen with grey.

  ‘There it is!’ Kraiklyn shouted, not trying to keep the excitement from his voice. He had been quiet for almost a quarter of an hour, and people had started to get restless. The shuttle had banked a few times, this way and that, apparently searching for the Olmedreca. Sometimes the screen had been clear, showing layers of cloud beneath; sometimes it hazed over with grey again as they entered another bank or pillar of vapour. Once it had iced over. ‘I can see the topmost towers!’

  The Company crowded forward in the cabin, getting out of their seats and coming closer to the screen. Only Lamm and Jandraligeli stayed sitting down.

  ‘About fucking time,’ Lamm said. ‘How the hell do you have to look all this time for something four K long?’

  ‘It’s easy when you’ve no radar,’ Jandraligeli said. ‘I’m just thankful we didn’t hit the damn thing while we were flying through those awful clouds.’

  ‘Shit,’ Lamm said, and inspected his rifle again.

  ‘. . . Look at that,’ Neisin said.

  In a wasteland of clouds, like some vast canyon torn in a planet made of vapour, through kilometres of levels and in a space so long and wide that even in the clear air between the piled clouds the view simply faded rather than ended, the Olmedreca moved.

  Its lower levels of superstructure were quite hidden, invisible in the ocean-hugging bank of mist, but from its unseen decks rose immense towers and structures of glass and light metal, rearing hundreds of metres into the clear air. Seemingly unconnected, they moved slowly and smoothly over the flat surface of the low bank of cloud like pieces on an endless game board, casting dim and watery shadows on the opaque top of the mist as the sun of Vavatch’s system shone through layers of cloud ten kilometres above.

  As those huge towers moved through the air, they left behind them wisps and strands of vapour, ruffled from the mist’s smooth top by the passage of the great ship beneath. In the small, clear spaces that the towers and higher levels of superstructure left in the mist, lower levels could be seen: walkways and promenades, the linked arches of a monorail system, pools and small parks with trees, even a few pieces of equipment like small flyers and bits of tiny, doll’s-house-like furniture. As the eye and brain grasped the scene, they could, from that height, make out the overall bulge in the surface of the cloud that the ship made – an area of slight uplift in the mist four kilometres long and nearly three wide, and shaped like a stubby pointed leaf or an arrowhead.

  The shuttle came lower. The towers, with their glinting windows, their suspended bridges, flyer pads, ariels, railings, decks and flapping awnings, sailed by alongside, silent and dark.

  ‘Well,’ Kraiklyn’s voice said in a businesslike way, ‘looks like we’ll have a bit of a walk to the bows, team. I can’t take us under this lot. Still, we’re a good hundred kilometres away from the Edgewall, so we’ve got plenty of time. The ship isn’t heading straight for it anyway. I’ll put us down as close as I can.’

  ‘Fuck. Here we go,’ Lamm said angrily. ‘I might have known.’

  ‘A long walk in this gravity is just what I need,’ Jandraligeli said.

  ‘It’s vast!’ Lenipobra was still staring at the screen. ‘That thing is huge!’ He was shaking his head. Lamm got up from his seat, pushed the youth out of the way and banged on the door of the shuttle flight deck.

  ‘What is it?’ Kraiklyn said over the cabin speaker. ‘I’m looking for a place to put down. If that’s you, Lamm, just sit down.’

  Lamm stared at the door with a look first of surprise, then of annoyance. He snorted and went back to his seat, shoving past Lenipobra again. ‘Bastard,’ he muttered, then put his helmet visor down and turned it to mirror.

  ‘Right,’ Kraiklyn said. ‘We’re putting down.’ Those still standing sat again, and in a few seconds the shuttle bumped carefully down. The doors jawed and a cold gust of air entered through them. They filed out slowly, into the wide views of the silent, rock-steady Megaship. Horza sat in the shuttle waiting for the rest to go, then saw Lamm watching him. Horza stood and gave a mock bow to the darksuited figure.

  ‘After you,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Lamm said. ‘You first.’ He nodded his head to one side towards the open doors. Horza went out of the shuttle, followed by Lamm. Lamm always made a point of being last out of the shuttle; it was lucky for him.

  They stood on a flyer landing pad, near the base of a large rectangular tower of superstructure, perhaps sixty metres tail. The decks of the tower soared into the sky above, while over the surface of the cloud bank in front, and to all sides of the pad, towers and small bulges in the mist showed where the rest of the ship was, though where it ended it was impossible to tell now that they were so low down. They couldn’t even see where the nuke had gone off; there was no list, not a tremor to reveal that they were really on a damaged ship travelling over an ocean, not standing in a deserted city with clouds moving smoothly past.

  Horza joined some of the others by a low restraining wall at the edge of the pad, looking down about twenty metres to a deck just visible now and again through the thin surface of the mist. Streamers of vapour flowed across the area below in long sinuous waves, sometimes revealing, sometimes obscuring a deck covered with patches of earth planted with small bushes, with little canopies and chairs scattered about and small tent-like buildings on the surface. It all looked deserted and forlorn, like a resort in winter, and Horza shivered inside his suit. Ahead of them
, the view led to an implied point about a kilometre away, where a few small, skinny towers poked out of the cloud bank, near the unseen bows of the craft.

  ‘Looks like we’re heading into even more cloud,’ Wubslin said, pointing in the direction they were heading. There a great canyon wall of cloud hung in the air, stretching from one side of the horizon to the other, and higher than any tower on the Megaship. It shone for them in the increasing sunlight.

  ‘Maybe it’ll go away as it gets warmer,’ Dorolow said, not sounding convinced.

  ‘If we hit that lot we can forget about these lasers,’ Horza said, looking round from the rest towards the shuttle, where Kraiklyn was talking to Mipp, who was to stay on guard at the shuttle craft while the rest went forward to the bows. ‘With no radar we’ll have to lift off before we go into the cloud bank.’

  ‘Maybe—’ Yalson began.

  ‘Well, I’m going to take a look down there,’ Lenipobra said, bringing his visor down and putting one hand on the low parapet. Horza looked across at him.

  Lenipobra waved. ‘See you at the b-bows; ya-hoo!’

  He vaulted cleanly over the parapet and started to fall towards the deck five storeys below. Horza had opened his mouth to shout, and started forward to grab the youth, but, like the rest of them, he had realised too late what Lenipobra was doing.

  One second he was there, the next he had leapt over.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Leni—!’ Those not already looking down rushed to the parapet; the tiny figure was tumbling. Horza saw it and hoped that somehow it could pull up, stop, do something. The scream started in their helmets when Lenipobra was less than ten metres from the deck below; it ended abruptly the instant the spread-eagled figure crashed onto the border of a small earthed area. It bounced slackly for about a metre over the deck, then lay still.

  ‘Oh my God . . .’ Neisin suddenly sat down, took off his helmet and put his hand to his eyes. Dorolow put her head down and started to unfasten her helmet.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Kraiklyn was running over from the shuttle, Mipp behind him. Horza was still looking over the parapet, down at the still, doll-like figure crumpled on the deck below. Mist thickened around it as the wisps and streamers grew thicker for a while.

  ‘Lenipobra! Lenipobra!’ Wubslin shouted into his helmet microphone. Yalson turned away and swore to herself softly, turning off her transmit intercom. Aviger stood, shaking, his face blank inside his helmet visor. Kraiklyn skidded to a halt at the parapet, then looked over.

  ‘Leni—?’ He looked round at the others. ‘Is that—? What happened? What was he doing? If any of you were fooling—’

  ‘He jumped,’ Jandraligeli said. His voice was shaky. He tried to laugh. ‘Guess kids these days just can’t tell their gravity from their rotating frame of reference.’

  ‘He jumped?’ Kraiklyn shouted. He grabbed Jandraligeli by the suit collar. ‘How could he jump? I told you AG wouldn’t work, I told you all, when we were in the hangar . . .’

  ‘He was late,’ Lamm broke in. He kicked at the thin metal of the parapet, failing to dent it. ‘The stupid little bastard was late. None of us thought to tell him.’

  Kraiklyn let go of Jandraligeli and looked around the rest.

  ‘It’s true,’ Horza said. He shook his head. ‘I just didn’t think. None of us did. Lamm and Jandraligeli were even complaining about having to walk to the bows when Leni was in the shuttle, and you mentioned it, but I suppose he just didn’t hear.’ Horza shrugged. ‘He was excited.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘We all fucked up,’ Yalson said heavily. She had turned her communicator back on. Nobody spoke for a while. Kraiklyn stood and looked round them, then went to the parapet, put both hands on it and looked down.

  ‘Leni?’ Wubslin said into his communicator, looking down too. His voice was quiet.

  ‘Chicel horhava,’ Dorolow made the Circle of Flame sign, closed her eyes and said, ‘Sweet lady, accept his soul in peace.’

  ‘Wormshit,’ Lamm swore, and turned away. He started firing the laser at distant, higher parts of the tower above them.

  ‘Dorolow,’ Kraiklyn said, ‘you, Wubslin and Yalson head down there. See what . . . ah, shit . . .’ Kraiklyn turned round. ‘Get down there. Mipp, you drop them a line or the medkit, whatever. The rest of us . . . we’re going forward to the bows, all right?’ He looked around them, challenging. ‘You might want to go back, but that just means he’s died for nothing.’

  Yalson turned away, switching off her transmit button again.

  ‘Might as well,’ Jandraligeli said. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Not me,’ Neisin said. ‘I’m not. I’m staying here, with the shuttle.’ He sat with his head bowed between his shoulders, his helmet on the deck. He stared at the deck and shook his head. ‘Not me. No sir, not me. I’ve had it for today. I’m staying here.’

  Kraiklyn looked at Mipp and nodded at Neisin. ‘Look after him.’ He turned to Dorolow and Wubslin. ‘Get going. You never know; you might be able to do something. Yalson – you, too.’ Yalson wasn’t looking at Kraiklyn but she turned and followed Wubslin and the other woman when they set off to find a way down to the lower deck.

  A crash they felt through their soles made them all jump. They turned round to see Lamm, a distant figure against the far-away clouds, firing up at flyer-pad supports five or six decks above, the invisible beam licking flame around the stressed metal. Another pad gave way, flapping and spinning like a huge playing-card, smashing into the level they stood on with another deck-quivering thump. ‘Lamm!’ Kraiklyn burst out. ‘Stop that!’

  The black suit with the raised rifle pretended not to hear, and Kraiklyn lifted his own heavy laser and flicked the trigger. A section of deck five metres in front of Lamm ruptured in flame and glowing metal, heaving up, then collapsing back down, a blister of gases blowing out from it rocking Lamm off his feet so that he staggered and almost fell. He steadied and stood, visibly shaking with rage, even from that distance. Kraiklyn still had the gun pointing towards him. Lamm straightened and shouldered his own gun, coming back almost at a saunter, as though nothing had happened. The others relaxed slightly.

  Kraiklyn got them all together; then they set off, following Dorolow, Yalson and Wubslin to the inside of the tower and a broad sweeping spiral of carpeted staircase which led down, into the Megaship the Olmedreca.

  ‘Dead as a fossil,’ Yalson’s voice said bitterly in their helmet speakers, when they were about halfway down. ‘Dead as a goddamned fossil.’

  When they passed them on their way to the bows, Yalson and Wubslin were waiting by the body for the winch line Mipp was lowering from above. Dorolow was praying.

  They crossed over the deck level Lenipobra had died on, down into the mist and along a narrow gangway with nothing but empty space on either side. ‘Just five metres,’ Kraiklyn said, using the light needle radar in his Rairch suit to plumb the depths of vapour below them. The mist was getting slowly thinner as they went on, up again onto another deck, now clear, then down again, by outside stairs and long ramps. The sun was hazily visible a few times, a red disc which sometimes brightened and sometimes dimmed. They crossed decks, skirted swimming pools, traversed promenades and landing pads, went past tables and chairs, through groves and under awnings, arcades and arches. They saw towers above them through the mist, and a couple of times looked down into huge pits carved out of the ship and lined with yet more decks and opened areas, from the bottom of which they thought they could hear the sea. The swirling mist lay in the bottom of such great bowls like a broth of dreams.

  They stopped at a line of small, open, wheeled vehicles with seats and gaily striped awnings for roofs. Kraiklyn looked around, getting his bearings. Wubslin tried starting the vehicles, but none of the small cars were working.

  ‘There are two ways to go here,’ Kraiklyn said, frowning as he looked forward. The sun was briefly bright above, turning the vapour over them and to each side golden with its rays. The lines of so
me unknown sport or game lay drawn out on the deck under their feet. A tower forced out of the mist to one side, the curls and whorls of mist moving like huge arms, dimming the sun again. Its shadow cut across the path in front of them. ‘We’ll split up.’ Kraiklyn looked around. ‘I’ll go that way with Aviger and Jandraligeli. Horza and Lamm, you go that way.’ He pointed to one side. ‘That’s leading down to one of the side prows. There ought to be something there; just keep looking.’ He touched a wrist button. ‘Yalson?’

  ‘Hello,’ Yalson said over the intercom. She, Wubslin and Dorolow had watched Lenipobra’s body being winched up to the shuttle and then left, following the rest.

  ‘Right,’ Kraiklyn said, looking at one of the helmet screens, ‘you’re only about three hundred metres away.’ He turned and looked back the way they had come. A collection of towers, some kilometres away, were strung out behind them now, mostly starting at higher levels. They could see more and more of the Olmedreca. Mist streamed quietly past them in the silence. ‘Oh yeah,’ Kraiklyn said, ‘I see you.’ He waved.

  Some small figures on a distant deck at the side of one of the great mist-filled bowls waved back. ‘I see you, too,’ Yalson said.

  ‘When you get to where we are now, head over to the left for the other side prow; there are subsidiary lasers there. Horza and Lamm will—’

  ‘Yeah, we heard,’ Yalson said.

  ‘Right. We’ll be able to bring the shuttle closer, maybe right down to wherever we find anything soon. Let’s go. Keep your eyes open.’ He nodded at Aviger and Jandraligeli, and they went forward. Lamm and Horza looked at each other, then set off in the direction Kraiklyn had indicated. Lamm motioned to Horza to switch off his communicator transmit and open his visor.