“How did this happen?” Quill asked. No answer came, just helpless looks. Quill went closer and sat down beside the boy. “Did anything happen when you flew out to The Turn?” he asked.
The boy shook his head. Even that small effort seemed to tire him.
“Did you fly up high, to see past the wall?"
“No,” he said. “It's forbid..."
Quill held up his hand to assure the boy he was not being accused of anything. It just seemed too much of a coincidence that he should grow sick now. Sickness was such a rare thing. “Did you land, perhaps? To rest?"
Now the boy hesitated in answering. “It was a long flight,” he said at last. “I did rest a moment at the base of The Wall."
Quill nodded. “That's all right, Oat, get some rest now. In the morning I will see us round The Turn, and then I will be here to tell you how it was. Straight after, I promise."
Oat said, “I wanted to see the Chorus, but there was no sign of them."
Quill pressed the palm of his hand to the boy's head, which was slick with sweat. “If they are immortals, as the legends claim, then I am sure they will show themselves."
“Are they better than us, Quill?"
“All living things are equal, Oat. Now rest."
Oat nodded and closed his eyes.
Equally powerless, Quill thought, but he kept it to himself. Realizing the women watched him closely, he forced a smile till he could retreat back above deck. He would spread word that no one should leave The Raft till The Turn was completed. Best if they all stayed onboard and they raced away from this place as fast as they could.
A black horizontal line was just discernible ahead, still far in the distance, impossible to make out any detail yet. The Turn was supposed to be a joyous occasion, and perhaps when, if, the Chorus showed themselves, then it would indeed be so. But still, he felt a growing sense of unease.
He slept no better that second night. Voices were hushed. The mood had changed.
* * * *
The Wall was a massive obstacle before them, made of uneven stone boulders set in a black mortar. The Raft progressed towards it, carrying Quill and everything he knew and loved. At the moment of truth, he felt clumsy and unprepared.
He had allowed some of the scouts into the air, but with instructions not to land anywhere except back on The Raft. The Turning Post had been sighted, just as foretold, a thick column of silver rising as tall as The Wall, with a single hole several feet across cut through at the height of The Raft's upper deck.
There was no sign of the Chorus.
Quill waited. He had personally inspected every inch of the rope tied to the arrow; it was sound, but he did not see how it could support the entire weight of The Raft. Yet, the history books told that all would be well.
In the Engine Room they had increased their rate of pull, heaving on the Chorus Chains every four beats of the nome. Now Quill gave the order to double their speed again. The Turning Post came closer. The Wall came closer. Quill could see the shadowed hole within the silver column. He would not be able to see clear through till The Raft came right alongside it.
He waited for The Raft to lurch, as it surely must in that terrible moment when the Chorus Chains ran out. When the men in the Engine Room pulled the last link in from the void. The momentum they had built up would carry The Raft onwards, and the last links would snake back through the aft void.
There. The Raft lurched violently, as if struck by a powerful blow. Quill stood firm on the deck. He drew back the arrow and took aim. He had one chance at this, to fulfill his duty: to everyone on The Raft, now and for generations past, to his father and his father's father.
In the periphery of his vision he saw flashes of amber. He knew what this might be, but he did not allow himself to be distracted. He let fly the arrow. It sailed out, carrying the rope with it. It flew through the hole in the Turning Post, which immediately closed up as if grabbing hold of the rope.
“Secure the line,” Quill called out, but the dregs were already in motion. They hauled the rope onto the drum of the capstan and wound it quickly, before it could be snatched out of their hands.
Something was happening to the rope, starting at the far end. It seemed to be growing thicker, as if silver snakes were climbing along it, from the Turning Post back to The Raft. Within moments the full length of the rope had been transformed into chain. The Raft's momentum carried it forward, taking up the slack in this tether.
“Come away from the edge,” Quill yelled. Everyone retreated back. Some lost their footing when the chain snapped taut, but no one went overboard. The Raft shook, creaking and discharging smoke into the wind.
Quill now had time to look away from the rope that had become chain, away from the Turning Post, to inspect the flashes of amber he had seen moments before. Golden figures hung suspended in the air all around. The Chorus. They looked like men, like archers, with no scout wings, no dreg tail.
The Raft charged around the Turning Post, tethered by the chain, decelerating but having enough momentum to carry it round.
Then the Chorus all began to sing. Their harmony and splendor filled the air, like nothing he had ever heard, and they shone with a golden glow; cumulatively they were brighter than the sun. Quill watched and heard, spellbound for a time. He recovered his wits just as The Raft completed its turn, facing away from The Wall now.
“Release the tether, quickly!” he called out, but the others were too stunned to react. He ran over and released the lock on the capstan, and the chain's own weight dragged it down over the side rail. The heavy links fell into the dust below, but the sound of it could not be heard over the song of the Chorus.
Some of them now came toward The Raft, while others stayed motionless. Those that came closer went inside, passing through the walls as if they did not exist.
The Raft continued to slow. One of the Chorus came to rest facing Quill, directly in front of him. It smiled briefly, and then all of them disappeared in the blink of an eye.
The crew of The Raft stood numbly, unsure how to react.
Quill was the first to recover. He left at once, headed for the Engine Room.
* * * *
As he raced through the corridors, he registered that something had changed. His passage was too easy, the corridors clearer than they had been in years.
When he reached the Engine Room he was relieved to find everything in order. The men were resting after their efforts, and a new chain hung between the fore and aft voids.
“How?” he managed to say to Fraz, the steward.
“The Chorus,” Fraz said. “They flew in through the fore void carrying the new chain, and disappeared aft."
Quill nodded and put his hand on Fraz's shoulder. “Bring in a new crew and set them to work. I want to be away from here as quickly as possible."
Fraz nodded. “I'll see to it,” he said.
Quill had turned to go but paused and looked back. He called out, “Well done, all of you.” Then he hurried away.
His feeling of unease deepened. The corridors were always full. Always. And yet he only saw a third of the people he would normally see. There was nowhere for them to have gone to, no room anywhere.
He grabbed the nearest person and said, “Where is everyone?"
“Gone,” the man said. “Just gone."
Quill headed off to see Oat. He had promised the boy he would check up on him as soon as The Turn was completed. But when he came into the room where the boy was being cared for, he found only one dreg woman present. It was Sower, friend of the boy's mother, who had been so protective of him.
“Where is he?” Quill said.
“It was the Chorus. They stood over him. Then one of them touched him and he just vanished. Then they went round the room. Took them all, except for me. I don't know why I was spared. They came up to me, looked at me as if they could see right inside me, then they turned away."
The Raft lurched again. Fraz following his instructions, Quill supposed, the
Engine Room setting about its task. Eventually he left the room, hardly able to look at Sower. He went to the lift. Mons came and took him up.
Neither of them spoke at first. Then Quill said, “Good to see you, Mons."
Mons pulled hard on the ropes, putting all his formidable muscles to the task. “Same here,” he said.
“You lose anyone?"
Mons huffed. “Never had anyone to begin with,” he said. “Seems to me they took the old and the sick. Thinned us out a bit. Maybe it's for the best. It was getting difficult to feed and clothe everyone."
Quill stared at him. He wanted to scream at someone, but not at Mons. He left without saying another word and went above deck. For a long time he stood by the rail on the port side; the mist rolled in for a while and The Fin's filters extracted water from it. The sun fell toward the horizon. It wasn't right; the sun should set on the starboard side.
He turned away from the dust, threaded his way past the few dregs who had come above deck, and looked out towards the dense expanse of the jungle. A canister launched and arced away from The Raft. It was right but it was wrong. It thudded into the dirt and cast its contents over the surrounding area.
What was the point of it? To hold back the jungle? Or to bring it forward? Or something else entirely? Everyone on The Raft carried out their duties without hesitation, but no one knew why.
He took his bow from his shoulder. Sometimes there was good hunting in the last hour of the day. But on this day there was no need to hunt. They had all the food and water they needed, more than enough to feed so few.
Something came out of the trees. Quill stared at it. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It walked on four legs and was covered in a yellowish fur. It had a tail, like a dreg, but it looked strong and powerful. It stood proudly and watched The Raft as it passed.
Quill notched an arrow and drew it back, preparing to fire. He paused, waiting for ... for what? For a reason? At last he set the bow down, and as The Raft continued on its path the creature receded into the distance.
The Wall was just a thin line on the aft horizon.
And by morning, that too had gone.
He still stood by the rail, chilled deep into his bones. What would be the purpose of his life now? And if he had a son, what would be the purpose of the boy's life? And his son's son?
Where was Oat now?
He did not like the direction The Raft was headed. Nor did he like the place they had just been. But the creature he had seen, that was interesting. It stood so proudly, and it lived a life Quill knew nothing of.
He went and picked up a line of rope, secured one end and threw the rest over the side. Without saying a word to anyone, he climbed over the rail and down. Down past the base of The Raft. His feet kicked at the dust as he landed. He turned to face the jungle, searching for an entry point where the twist of the wood was not so dense.
He raced like an arrow, and did not look back.
Copyright (c) 2007 Chris Butler
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* * *
Poetry: STAYING THE COURSE
by Mark Rich
The news brings us this
that we have not done enough
entire groups vanishing beneath the pressures
we brought to bear.
-
“The last typist died today
in Loma Linda
the fungal infections encouraged by
global warming
have wiped out typists everywhere
and the last one
in a literary zoo here in the sunny West
succumbed to infection this morning."
-
We thought it was only the frogs.
Strange regional die-outs
of librarians
booksellers
even pencil manufacturers
-
have caused some of us to question
our present direction.
“We will stay the course,"
says the chapter leader
of Local Idiots Number One.
“We must not flinch in the face
of lack of progress."
-
And of course
it is in the nature of intelligent creatures
to have no choice in the matter.
-
—Mark Rich
Copyright (c) 2007 Mark Rich
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Serial: GALAXY BLUES: PART ONE OF FOUR: DOWN AND OUT ON COYOTE
by Allen M. Steele
Galaxy Blues is set in Allen M. Steele's popular Coyote series. The author tells us that “while not a direct sequel to my last novel, Spindrift, it follows the events of the earlier book and shares a couple of its major characters. In the timeline of the Coyote series, it takes place after the original Coyote trilogy—Coyote, Coyote Rising, and Coyote Frontier—but can also be read independently.” Allen's last Coyote story for Asimov's, “The River Horses” (April/May 2006), will soon be published in hardcover by Subterranean Press.
* * * *
ONE
The narrative begins ... our protagonist leaves Earth, in a rather illicit manner ... subterfuge and the art of baseball ... fashion tips for stowaways ... suspicious minds.
* * * *
I
My name is Jules Truffaut, and this is the story of how I redeemed the human race.
It pretty much happened by accident. At the very least, it wasn't something I intended to do. But life is that way sometimes. We make our own luck, really, even when we don't mean to.
* * * *
II
Perhaps it's best that we start at the beginning, the day I came aboard the CFSS Robert E. Lee. Not as a crew member, despite the fact that I was qualified to serve as a junior officer, nor as a passenger, although I'd gone to the considerable trouble and expense of acquiring a first-class ticket. Instead, circumstances forced me to become a stowaway ... but we'll get to that later.
Hitching a ride aboard a starship isn't easy. Takes a lot of advance preparation. I'd been on Highgate for nearly ten months, working as a longshoreman, before I managed to get myself assigned to the section of Alpha Dock where ships bound for Coyote were berthed. I'd taken the job under a false identity, just the same way I got on the station in the first place. According to my phony I.D., purchased on the black market back home in the Western Hemisphere Union, my name was Lucius Guthrie, and I was just one more guy who'd left Earth in hopes of getting a decent job in space. So I schlepped freight for six months before the foreman—with whom I'd spent a lot of time in the bar, with yours truly picking up the tab—determined that I was capable of operating one of the pods that loaded cargo containers aboard ships bound for Mars and the Jovian moons. I did my job well enough that, two months later, he reassigned me to take care of the Lee when it returned from 47 Ursae Majoris.
Which was exactly what I wanted, but even then I was careful not to make my move before I was good and ready. I only had one shot at this. If I screwed up, my true identity would doubtless be revealed and I would be deported to the WHU, after which I'd spend the rest of my life in a lunar penal colony. I couldn't let that happen, so my next step was to cultivate a friendship with a member of the Lee's crew while he was on shore leave. Like my boss, I plied him with drinks and massaged his ego until he agreed to satisfy my curiosity by sneaking me aboard for an unauthorized tour. Pretending to be nothing more than a wide-eyed yokel ("Gee, this ain't nuthin’ like one of ‘em Mars ships!"), I memorized every detail of its interior, comparing what I saw against what I'd gleaned from engineering docs.
Two days later, the Robert E. Lee left port, heading out once more for Coyote. Two weeks after that, it returned again, right on schedule. Another two weeks went by, and then it was ready to make the trip again. That was when I put my plan into motion.
So there I was, seated within the cockpit of a cargo pod, gloved hands wrapped around the joysticks
of its forward manipulators. I couldn't see much through the wraparound portholes—my view was restricted by the massive container I was loading aboard the Lee—yet my radar and side-mounted cams told me that the vessel lay directly below me, its cargo hold yawning open like a small canyon. All I had to do was slide this last container into place, and...
“X-Ray Juliet Two-Four, how are we looking?” The voice of Alpha Dock's traffic controller came through my headset. “Launch in T-minus twenty-two and counting. You got a problem there?"
Nag, nag, nag. That's all traffic controllers ever did. Sure, they had their own schedule to keep, but still ... well, one of the things I liked the most about my scheme was that it gave me a chance to use their insufferance against themselves. A bit of revenge for ten months of henpecking.
“Negatory, Trafco. Putting the last container to bed now.” I tapped the sole of my right boot ever so slightly against the starboard RCS pedal. This caused the reaction control system to roll the pod a few degrees to the left. “Aw, hell,” I said, even as I compensated by nudging the left pedal. “Damn thing's getting flakey on me again."
The thrusters worked fine, but no one would know this until the maintenance crew took them apart. I'd been playing this game for the last couple of hours, though, complaining that something was wrong with the pod, thereby establishing an alibi for the precious few moments I would need.
“Bring it in when your shift's over.” The traffic controller was impatient. “Just load the can and get out of there. Lee's on final countdown."
“Roger that.” The truth of the matter was that I had perfect control of my craft. Handling a cargo pod was child's play for someone who'd been trained by the Union Astronautica to fly Athena-class shuttles. But in my role as Lucius Guthrie, I had to make this job seem more difficult than it actually was. “I'm on it. Tell Lee not to hold the count for me."
A short pause. The controller was doubtless on another channel, discussing the situation with Lee's bridge crew. Just a small problem with one of our pods. Pilot says he's getting it worked out. Meanwhile, I continued to slowly descend toward the starship. A few seconds later, I heard Trafco again. “We copy, X-Ray Juliet Two-Four. Don't stop for a coffee break."
Asimov's SF, October-November 2007 Page 28