The Tropic of Eternity

by Tom Toner

  Dinner tonight was a few plums found on the Artery, holed where the wasps had got to them. Billyup munched the fruit stones and all, then spat some into his grimy hand and fingered it into the Babbo’s mouth. She didn’t seem to mind the sight of him—lidless yellow eyes, mangy, balding fur and missing teeth—as most cultivated peoples did, and he watched her try to chew, examining her plump little hands and glistening cheeks. She was supposed to be more valuable than a Province of silk, but he couldn’t see why. If they got there and she wasn’t wanted, he supposed he’d gobble her up straight away, bones and all. He’d never tasted anything but old dead Melius meat before, two summers ago when he’d found a man murdered in the palm forest. Of course, by then Gheals and Lummeys and all the whatnot of the woods had eaten their fill of the soft parts, so he’d not sampled the best of it. The Babbo was something like a Secondling, though the people he’d stolen it from didn’t look Secondish. He remembered the woman, giving him her dinner. Nice-looking, fuckable. Billyup stiffened at the thought. He’d fuck anything, though; fucked a barrel with a hole in it once, fucked a week-old dolfish caught in the harbour. He’d done the Awger these clothes had belonged to, back in the isles; it was how he’d heard about the contract, how he’d discovered the bounty on this little Babbo here.

  “Com’ere,” he muttered, bringing the Babbo to him and licking his lips. She wriggled and grumbled as his tongue slid over her, lathering her in saliva. He sat her back down, thinking he might quite like the taste of a fresh one, but promising himself he’d wait, just to see what they’d pay.

  Billyup made no fire that night, watching the Greenmoon rise over the meadow and drift away to the south. Stars churned in the gibbering darkness. He peered at the Babbo for a while as it slumbered, thinking about the country beyond the meadow: great hot paddy fields belonging to the Westerly Prince Amure, places he hadn’t seen in a decade. He was wanted in Amure’s lands, for theft and various other crimes he couldn’t much remember, but as long as he stayed off the Arteries, the West was a wild enough place to pass through unobserved. He licked his lips, realising that he might just make it, after all.

  SNOWFLAKE

  A Hedron Star, floating motionless in the black, like an ice crystal left over from the first galactic frost. Flat slivers of porcelain extended outwards, each a hundred miles long, tarnished with age and stained dark within their fissures—what Maril now knew were vast belts of ancient black forest. Its five points were like flat, geometrically perfect mountains extending in each direction, their white summits capped with exquisite pointed structures like miniature stars. All across the bulk of its forested body, patterns of gold and russet appeared to drift with the world’s strange winds, an odd oceanic silt that muddied the spars of white before moving on, bound by unnatural gravity to the gently curved, leaf-like form.

  These Snowflake worlds, Maril was told, had not been made by the Osseresis—the ancient, Old World mammals that now inhabited them—but by an unknown, vanished species; people born beneath an older generation of suns. The notion made sense to him now, as he looked out at the towering crown of the Snowflake’s far edge. There was a foreign feel to the design of the world, as if it had been built by minds quite alien from his own.

  Gramps hurried them along with his herd of excited Bie, explaining the necessaries as they scampered across the black branches of the

  canopy, his sinuous grey-green tail flicking out behind him. Maril and his crew did their best to keep up, following as fast as they dared, conscious of the enormous drop to either side. The huge, suede-black beast that had met them upon arrival—Sussh, he seemed to remember, was its name—waited ahead, its burnished eyes surveying them.

  “There were once hundreds of Thresholds into the next galaxy,” Gramps explained, counting the following Vulgar under his breath. “Now only the Quetterel appear to have any real idea where they are.”

  “The Quetterel come here?” Maril asked, breathless at the pace.

  “The oldest monks sneak across sometimes, to die. They assume they have the Snowflake all to themselves; it would take a Prism ship over fifty years to get here after all.”

  “Wilemo,” Jospor hissed, a little further back. “How much longer?”

  “Here,” the Bie said, abruptly stopping short and working his way across a notched section of trunk. Maril could see that the grooves led down to a wider, sawn-off section of branch that appeared to have been capped with metal. The great wide trunk of the tree was notched with a spiral of them, winding all the way up. The black creature tensed on its haunches and leapt into the air, opening its great wings in a gust of flotsam-filled breeze and sweeping up through the branches. “See those steps?” Gramps said, indicating the rickety, winding stair chiselled into the trunk. “It’s just up there.”

  They scrabbled up the gluey steps, boots sticking on thick sap, gloves and fingers stained brown with the climb. The Bie outpaced them swiftly, their claws perfectly suited to the ascent, and were soon lost up among the higher branches. Maril motioned for his men to pause, exhausted, while they took their bearings. Each Vulgar claimed a step for himself, little legs dangling over the drop.

  Maril counted them all once again, convinced the number had shrunk. There was plump, wall-eyed Jospor, his second, sitting just below. Then Furto, the scrawny, long-armed youth—his arms really were longer than his body, Maril noticed, mind already fogged by the count. Drazlo, sitting below, a loyal half-Lacaille with more brains in his head than the lot of them put together. Little Veril and squat Slupe, packed together on the same step, Veril already leaning fast asleep on his friend’s shoulder, and Guirm bringing up the rear, the good lumen rifle perched on his lap, green eyes wide and watching.

  The dim light of the place drenched them all, dulling the pallor of their skin and casting a hazy penumbra of shadows beneath the leaves. Maril saw how they might appear to the mammals here: ugly, shrunken and pointy-eared, the runtish off-casts of the family line, left to stagnate back in the small collection of worlds from which they’d once come. Going by what he’d seen of Sussh, the creatures here were huge and elegant, great black bats that rode the flotsam-dense thermals, distant relatives of the Vulgar in name only.

  From his vantage point, Maril could see down into the dark, twisted limbs of the neighbouring tree, the view blurred by the seething populations of zipping flotsam creatures. The hanging soup of tiny beasts had thinned a little now they were higher up, tickling his lungs only when he took a particularly deep breath. A charcoal-grey leaf the size of a Vulgar drifted languidly past, and Maril watched it fall the hundreds of feet into the shadows of the forest floor. Looking back the way they’d come, he saw that the scarlet vault of sky was stippled with faint white objects, like stars hewn from blocks of marble. More Snowflakes, each quite different from the last, aligned in a string like a dozen stepping stones.

  A tingling giddiness overcame him as a flotsam-filled burp slid up his throat; earlier that day, they were all being held prisoner, realistically expecting to be flayed alive by the Quetterel, and now here they were, catapulted—if Gramps was to be believed—twenty thousand light-years from the Investiture and onto this ancient collection of monuments at the galaxy’s edge. Maril felt the grin spreading on his face, the exhaustion turning into a strange inebriation. He rummaged through his pockets, his gaze taking in the parched and sallow faces of his crew, their ears and noses crawling with the minuscule flotsam, the Glumatis ash still lodged in the creases of their ragged Voidsuits. They fiddled with some tin containers of spare parts, replacing batteries and checking their suit collars for hissing, useless radio channels, what was left of the ship’s cache of cheap weapons poking out of their waistbands and bandoliers. Furto took out his broken pipe stem and sucked on it, little yellow fangs clamped tight.

  Maril found the surgery tin and opened it, his trembling fingers locating the dainty bottle of limewine, packed snug between some wads of pus-stained cloth. He unscrewed the lid and drank, his shaking hand steadying
, then spat a few times before he spoke, clearing his mouth of the flitting little beasts.

  “You know, there might be some money to be made here.”

  Jospor and Furto glanced up at him, their eyes straying to the limewine in his hand. “You think so?” Jospor asked.

  Maril took another swig and passed the bottle down. “Well, we’re not seeing that Amaranthine contract again, are we? And from what we were hearing on the way to Coriopil, the Lacaille were already winning the war.”

  “All Filgurbirund could be aflame by now,” Drazlo said from three steps down, the bottle arriving in his hand.

  “Either way,” Maril said, wishing Jospor hadn’t passed the bottle on, “keep those eyes open.” He glanced down the cut steps at his men, stomach turning once again at the sight of the drop below them. “Who’s got the pouch?”

  “Here,” Slupe said weakly, hoisting an elasticated rubber sack and waking a grumbling Veril in the process.

  He nodded. “Well, start collecting things. Things they wouldn’t miss.”

  “Hello down there?” It was Gramps, scrambling backwards as best he could down the steps. He dug his claws into the step above Maril and gazed at them, his broad, scaly face concerned. “Rest is ahead. You cannot wait here.”

  Maril exhaled, blowing out a turbulent cloud of glinting gold flotsam, the others cursing and muttering under their breath, whatever brief high the limewine had provided turning quickly to drowsiness. Everyone had the sniffles. They clambered up amid much snorting and coughing. Tin clattered, boots shuffled and clumped. The sour stink of their sweat rose in the warm air around them. Maril kept his back to the step, inching around until he could get a foothold, catching another brief glimpse of the dizzying drop.

  Gramps, it transpired, hadn’t exaggerated, and Maril felt a certain embarrassment as he came to the dwelling—one of the hollowed-out, bulbous nuts—at the top of the stair after only another few minutes’ climb.

  The house had been built in a rambling, eccentric sort of way and secured firmly to the branch with globs of dried tree resin. As Maril approached it, the entire branch wobbled and began to rise, working its way ponderously skywards. He staggered, gazing up. A long-limbed mammal, black as Sussh, was climbing the tree, hauling the branch after it on strings tied to its enormous fingers and tying it off at every higher branch it reached. Maril’s eyes followed the thing’s many-jointed digits, observing that they wrapped almost halfway around the great trunk.

  “You can stay here for now, Maril,” said Gramps, smiling at him from an aperture in the dwelling. “The woodsmen have food and drink.”

  At the mention of food, Furto dashed forward, followed by the others. Maril could see in their posture and mutterings that they were close to mutinous: hunted and imprisoned without sustenance, without sleep. One of his eyelids spasmed as he yawned, an incessant fluttering he experienced more frequently as the day wore on. They all needed rest, at the very least, and some kind of liquid other than wine. Maril gazed back the way they’d come, wary of losing sight of the steps.

  The hollow dwelling appeared to be used for little save the storage of large loaves of fungus—apparently their dinner that evening. Only the pink light from a small, funnel-shaped window illuminated them as they squatted down together and took their various bits and pieces from their stores.

  At that moment, the branch began to move again, rising jerkily and tilting after the long-fingered beast as it continued its climb. Maril peered through the window, watching Gramps rounding up his Bie. The sky was darkening, great branches sliding past. Tiny things swirled in, filling the space for a moment and clogging their mouths and noses as they ate, then exhaled away into the evening. It was the smell, especially, that impressed on him how far from home they were. He’d never smelled anything like it, in all his years in the Void, and it triggered something in him, a revulsion like vertigo, as if his body knew innately how far it had strayed from safety and comfort. He closed his eyes and slumped in his corner, gently aware that they were trying to speak to him, from some other place and time.

  THE FINER INTERIOR

  The lightwire in the hangar fizzled out before Lycaste had a chance to cram his legs in. He struggled inside the wobbling body of the jet’s bucket-shaped gun seat, thumping his funny bone.

  He almost hadn’t come, despite being told they needed his superior Melius eyes; he’d turned back at the hangar doors, spun around again, hesitated, shuffled his feet, the noises of the Epsilon preparing its descent drilling a shrill note of panic through his earholes. Then Maneker had swept by and grabbed his sleeve, just like that, dragging him towards the jet. It was the story of his life.

  The darkness inside the hangar was complete. He could hear Huerepo’s harsh muttering just in front of him, and Maneker’s hiss from somewhere deeper inside, cranking the little motor. Lycaste’s breathing sounded very loud as he pulled down the faceplate of his helmet, its rubber flanges sucking tight, and yet he felt absurdly safe for once, crammed into the back seat of this ramshackle little thing: just the three of them together again. He wished Perception could have joined them, too, but it had a greater role here than any of them.

  Maneker’s voice grew less muffled as he struggled out of the footwell and took Huerepo’s place, the Vulgar clambering across to the nose-gun. Lycaste checked his pockets and gripped the open sides of the jet, his heart thumping abruptly into life just as Maneker started the thing up.

  The rear of the jet exploded into spluttering, popping percussions, vibrating Lycaste’s bones through his thick metal suit and casting a dim furnace light around the hangar. The noise was colossal, almost too painful to bear, so he cut his feed by thumbing a switch over his ear. Inside his helmet, the sounds of Maneker’s and Huerepo’s fast breathing suddenly drowned out the roar. Huerepo gave a loud cough. Lycaste’s skin chafed inside his vibrating suit, beginning to itch all over. His teeth clattered together, slamming shut on his tongue. Blood filled his mouth; the taste of grave mistakes.

  You.

  His heart thumped harder. He angled his head, trying to hear through the pumping hiss of blood in his ears, but it was gone.

  The darkness shifted, his stomach heaving along with some change in direction, and Lycaste understood that the Epsilon was beginning its descent through the thunderheads, moving fast inside the world, twisting. He’d never had much of an imagination and was glad he couldn’t see out of the hangar door.

  But then pale light flew into the space and the doors were folding open, some rubbish and an old broken chair sliding across the hangar and tumbling away. Mist and water droplets drenched his faceplate, accompanied by the vibration of thunder. The Epsilon banked until Lycaste felt that the open hangar doors were now directly beneath them. The suggestions of shapes darted in the fog, but Lycaste kept his soundfeed closed.

  “Now, push!” squealed Huerepo through the comms. Lycaste spat blood into his helmet and reached out to the sliding gantry, only his arms being long enough for the task. The jet shook, unconstrained and juddery, as he yanked the pulley. They thumped out of the supports, still half-wedged in the bracket.

  “Push, push, push!”

  All three hammered against the frame until it squealed, something popping and throwing them loose. Lycaste blinked in surprise, his stomach rising into his throat as they dropped from the hangar and into the vastness of Gliese. The tiny three-man jet fell twisting through the clouds. Thunder ripped and boomed around them. Lycaste managed to keep his eyes open, his gauntleted hands gripping the wet stock of the gun, straps strangling his waist. Rain lashed them, soaking his faceplate in a glittering haze of droplets, rushing and whirling from the slick body and wings of the jet in streaming trails. Lycaste could see Maneker’s fingers frantically working at the jet’s controls, struggling with the stick. The hot pop pop of the motor at Lycaste’s back stuttered in and out of life. Huerepo’s screams drowned his helmet’s soundfeed.

  And then they were through the clouds, trailing mist and lev
elling out. Gloom bathed the wet body of the jet, rain drizzling in runnels along its sides and flowing back towards Lycaste as the vehicle accelerated. He relaxed his shoulders, hearing the cries of relief in his ears, patting Maneker happily on the back. To Lycaste’s amusement, the Amaranthine hoisted his fist in a gesture of celebration, using his other hand to steer them deeper beneath the clouds. Lycaste gazed up and around, taking in the fat, torn grey thunderheads they’d fallen through. Their violent landscape obscured the interior sun and the Vaulted Land’s other side, as if they were really on the top of the world, not within it. He leaned into the rushing wind and peered over the wing, its riveted flaps working away, loosing little trembling, flying streams of rain. Far beneath them, a wide blanket of dark, mossy jungle swept by, its valleys and hollows shrouded in ragged pools of mist. A white, rushing river wound through the mountains. Lycaste’s eyes traced it, the waters leading him to their destination.

  “There,” Maneker said over the channel, his voice almost drowned by the thump of wind and the pops of the motor.

  Lycaste stared. It was as Maneker had said it would be: a wide, star-shaped crater in the jungle, illuminated with dazzling strips of white light at each of its twenty-four points; the subterranean access tunnel of something monolithic dug into the crust.

  “The Foundry once built Firmamental ships of the line,” Maneker yelled over the wind, “dreadnoughts twelve miles long from nose to tail.”

  They banked and swung towards it. Relics of huge pieces of machinery stuck here and there out of the jungle, mossed and forested themselves so that they looked like the twisted roots of mountains pulled out of the earth. As they flew by one of the great spiked relics, Lycaste stared at the trees rising from its summit, their canopies blurred by mist. Huerepo, still manning the nose-cannon, glanced around at him, a little pale face in the oncoming rain, and gave Lycaste a smile. Lycaste returned his clapped Vulgar salute, suddenly immensely proud, his slowly resurfacing fear tamped back down. Maneker, his lank hair glossy and wet, hunched over his instruments. Lycaste could see the Amaranthine had begun to shiver. He glanced at his own moisture-beaded blue armour, the new pauldrons of copper mail rather spoiling the look. In the bucket seat around him he spotted various empty bolt casings, bones and other assorted rubbish that hadn’t been thrown loose. His Amaranthine pistol nestled snugly against his side, his Prism spring pistol clipped into the holster next to it. If only they could see him now, his friends back in the Tenth.