The Face of Heaven: The Realms of Tartarus, Book One

by Brian Stableford

  It would have been impossible to hear the soft bump as the suitcase hit bottom, but Burstone knew almost to the inch how much of the chain to let out. He was ready for it to go slack, and he wasted no time. The economy of his motions, the fluid efficiency of the whole enterprise, provided a fair measure of the kick. He heaved himself over the edge of the catwalk, placing his feet comfortably into the metal rungs of the slender ladder, and began to descend comfortably and easily.

  Joth moved to the head of the ladder. He gripped the rail of the catwalk hard on either side of the gap, squeezed, and then eased his body forward so that he could peer down into the abyss. It scared him. Height, darkness, uncertainty—all these things were relative strangers to his senses. He had every right and reason to be frightened. He waited for a full minute longer than prudence demanded, gathering his courage and determination, before he followed Burstone into the depths.

  He could feel the beating of his heart, and it seemed to be racing ever faster by comparison with the deep, steady beat of the machine. He did not know the purpose of the machine. He took machines for granted. Machines were everywhere, and no one asked how they integrated themselves into the complex web of function which supplied human need in almost every way. Machines were the substance of life itself.

  Burstone reached the bottom. He was alone in a tiny pool of light, surrounded by an illimitable darkness. Hiding in the darkness was the machine, and machines parasitic upon it, and machines parasitic upon them. There were pipes and wires and bolts and welds. He knew almost nothing about their outlay or their role. He had never felt the need to explore at this level. This level was dead, with nothing to offer a connoisseur’s curiosity. Electronic anatomy and mechanical physiology were not his subjects any more than they were Joth’s. What Burstone was interested in was life, and life was a long way below him yet.

  With complete assurance, needing no light, Burstone moved away from the foot of the ladder, dragging the suitcase behind him.

  By the time Joth reached the foot of the ladder Burstone was long gone. Joth cursed his reluctance to descend and crushed a suddenly flowering urge to retrace his path. The anxiety which had made him cling with such fierce determination to the ladder at every step now held his hands tight, and it took a real effort to make them let go and leave him standing on his own feet. He realized now that he was at the very bottom of the world, and the knowledge that space and the Underworld might be only mere inches beneath his feet made him think that he was in imminent danger, somehow, of falling through the floor. He strained his ears, but he could hear nothing. He knew he would have to use his torch.

  Even by the dim light of the lampcell set in the side of the machine he could see which way Burstone had gone. There was only one blurred pathway through the thick-layered dust—one worn clean by many journeys, but only one pair of feet. And a suitcase.

  Joth switched on his torch. It was a tiny device, with a crystal as small as an eyeball. The beam it shone was pencil-thin. It would have been invisible to the human eye. He set out to follow the path through the dust, hoping that Burstone would have already passed on to the next stage of his descent, but certain in any case that the other could not see the tiny glow that was following him even if he cared to look back.

  Ahead of him, Joth saw a quick flicker of light which died away to a soft glow almost imperceptible to his retuned eyes.

  At the end of the pathway in the dust was a circular hole in the floor. A cover which had been clamped to it had been removed to one side. Another windlass was positioned beside the hole—bigger and stronger than the one which Burstone had used to lower the suitcase from the catwalk. It was whirring softly—operating automatically. Joth guessed that the strong double chain which unwound with leisurely steadiness supported a cage or basket of some kind, in which both Burstone and the suitcase were riding. They were on their way to the Underworld—to the surface of the ancient Earth.

  Joth switched off his torch. The soft pearl-white glow which limned the black rim of the hole surprised him. He had always thought of the Underworld as being pitch dark. He reached up to adjust his eyes, setting them to take the maximum benefit from the light of the Underworld’s stars.

  He got down on to his hands and knees and crept close to the lip of the hole. He looked into the Underworld, from the viewpoint of one of its own stars.

  He could see a long way...hills, forests of weird fleshy plants, intermingled with others of a squatter, more varied nature.

  Wilderness, broken and confused, but most definitely not dead. Very much alive, even rich. But he could see no sign of human habitation. Except, perhaps, for the low and even ridge which ran alongside a stretch of water away to his right. That might...just might...be a wall.

  Far below him, the cage was still descending.

  Joth nodded, reassuring himself that all was well. Then he readjusted his eyes, switched on the ultraviolet torch, and looked around for somewhere convenient to hide.

  Chapter 8

  Burstone and Ermold haggled for an hour or more—though the time meant little or nothing to the man of the Underworld. Two warriors from Walgo, Fortex and Theogon, gave some desultory help to Ermold in his arguments, but were really only along for the ride.

  The girl, on the other hand, was something different. Burstone had never seen the girl before. She was tied to Ermold—actually, physically tied. The cord was round her neck and his wrist. Occasionally, when she thought Ermold wasn’t paying any attention, she would pick at the cord with her fingernails. Ermold usually caught on and swatted her within a minute or so. Once he kicked her.

  From Burstone’s point of view, the haggling was virtually a waste of time. It always dragged on too long. But he stood to gain nothing by it—the price he received for the goods in the case went to the supplier. So far as he was concerned, the material transaction was just an exchange of garbage. He was in it for quite different reasons. For the experience, in fact.

  The girl was interesting. The girl could make this whole trip worthwhile. Her presence did something for the occasion, though none of the men ever mentioned her or referred to her presence. Burstone never touched her, never attempted to talk to her and never asked any questions about her, but he was aware of her, and aware of the cord which attached her to Ermold, which she seemed resolved to break. Ermold was breaking her in. He was a sadist.

  The warrior had aged quite noticeably over the last couple of intervals. It seemed such a short time ago that he had been, by Burstone’s standards of judgment, a young man. Now he was past middle age. Time moved faster in the Underworld, if it could be said to move at all. Men aged faster, packed up their lives more economically, wound up their existence more tightly.

  Ermold’s voice was cracked, he punctuated all his sentences with curses, and his temper seemed inordinately short. Burstone carried a gun, of course, but he knew that Ermold and his men were fast enough to have him in slices before he could kill one of them. So he was frightened. He fed on that fear, as if it was his only pleasure.

  Burstone gathered from the excess of bitterness and nastiness which flowed out of Ermold that the chieftain was sick of the whole silly business. But both men knew that Ermold couldn’t do without Burstone, and in the end he had to accept Burstone’s terms. If there had been any alternative at all...but there wasn’t.

  So Ermold fingered the sharp edge of his knife—a knife which Burstone had provided for him—and thought dark thoughts, indulging himself in crude fantasies of what he might do to the man from Heaven...but dared not.

  In the end, however, the deal was completed, and the two parties went their separate ways. Burstone took his parcel, Ermold made Fortex carry the heavy suitcase.

  Hauling himself back up to the Overworld was a long and laborious job. The hoist was properly counterbalanced and the machinery was in perfect order, but Burstone had seen a gradual deterioration in the performance of the machine over a period of time. Whether the decline was due to a failure of the operating m
echanism or a failure of his own patience he was not sure. He was not mechanically minded.

  Up at the top, in the roof of the Underworld and the deepest cellars of Euchronia, Burstone carefully secured the hoist and clamped the circular cap over the hole. He lit a flicker briefly to make sure of the exact direction of the path back to the ladder. It was a cursory, almost unnecessary gesture motivated by long habit. Normally he let the flame sputter for only a couple of seconds. This time, it lasted longer while he noticed the second set of footprints which led away from his doorway into Hell.

  Then, giving no indication of the fact that he knew someone else was there, or that he cared, he walked away into the darkness.

  Chapter 9

  Half an hour later he came back. The hoist was down, the cables were slack. He wound the cage back up again, and found to his utmost satisfaction that it arrived empty. He secured it for a second time, clamped down the cover, and ignited his flicker for a couple of seconds. Then he walked away. This time he went all the way back up to the sunlit spaces of the civilized world, wondering whether his route was still viable.

  Whoever had followed him was trapped in the world below. It was some time before he would be making another trip, and the spy would undoubtedly be dead long before then. The only problem was whether anyone else knew about him and, if so, why they were interested.

  Chapter 10

  The Underworld did not, of course, begin all at once. The eclipse of the old surface by the new was a gradual affair, taking several thousands of years. What is more, the platform which was to become the Overworld was started in several sections. Thus the perimetric borderlines between the two worlds were both extensive and slow-moving.

  Gradually, the life-system of Earth moved across those borders. Under each section of the covered world some kind of ecosystem survived from the ancient world. The surface was already spoiled and communities of organisms had been in a state of dynamic imbalance for some time before the light of the sun was gradually cut out. The extra pressure imposed by the theft of the sun was great, but not ultimately decisive. When the sections of the platform joined up, so did the two struggling—and not necessarily similar—communities which had grown beneath them. The comingling of the communities induced competition and complementation, and assisted the evolutionary adaptation of the new whole.

  Homo sapiens was the species which adapted most easily to the new régime, and by his active interference he encouraged and assisted many other species to do likewise. Not all men belonged to Euchronia. Some preferred their own concept of freedom: freedom from a plan which would demand their total commitment and pay them—individually speaking—absolutely nothing. There were a good many men who regarded the New World as a dream—castles in the air—and who thought it both right and wise to commit themselves to the Old World, and to dedicate themselves to making what they could of it.

  Despite a certain amount of mutual dislike and resentment, a good deal of trade went on between the Euchronians and the Groundmen for many centuries while the platform was under construction. Without the food supplies, and to a lesser extent the mineral supplies provided by the men who were committed to the ground, the early years would have been far more difficult for the Planners. But as the platform grew, it grew over the lands which were used by the Groundmen—and it swallowed up the lands of the cooperative just as it swallowed up the lands of the hostile. For many centuries there was a bitter war fought on the expanding frontiers of the Overworld. The Men of the Old World thought they had dealt fairly with Euchronia, and that the theft of their sun was the harshest of evil treatment. The Euchronians believed that the Plan was all-important, that there could be no compromises, and they offered the only compensation they had to offer to all those on the ground—the opportunity to join the Plan. Most of the Groundmen refused, and most of them migrated before the advancing world of darkness, until there was nowhere else left to run, except to the islands which were too tiny to interest the Planners. Many of the islands were already incapable of sustaining human life—there was a poor living to be made from the desolated sea—and many more became so as the hordes descended on their shores. Some island colonies were successful, but for the vast majority of men there were only two choices which mattered: Heaven and Hell. When the platform finally closed its grip on the world, the larger number capitulated, and ascended to Heaven and commitment to the Plan (which was still millennia away from completion). A substantial number, however—perhaps a surprising number—stayed with the Old World, accepting the pale electric stars as a permanent substitute for the garish sun. Their motives were many, and usually mixed. Bitterness and sheer hatred for the Planners were prominent, but not paramount. The dominant reason for the human race refusing to quit the Old World was a commitment to it and an identification with it that was as powerful as the commitment of Euchronia to its Plan.

  The Old World was past redemption in terms of the human civilization which had grown up in it. But that did not mean that life was doomed to extinction, nor even that there was any realistic possibility that life would become extinct. It merely meant that most of the old species had to die, and that hitherto unimportant species would become vital to the system, and also that new species would have to be discovered. A whole new contract for the interaction of life with environment had to be drawn up and negotiated—negotiated largely (but not entirely, thanks to the presence of man) by trial and error.

  The lowest stratum of the biotic hierarchy, the stratum of primary production, underwent the greatest changes. The priority enjoyed by photosynthetic forms was lost. Plant evolution virtually abandoned the angiosperms and reverted to a more primitive state in order to rebuild. The stars were vital in that they allowed the bridge a small extra margin, but in the end they were quite useless as sources of energy (save to a few fugitive species of little importance). Their only real function was to provide for the senses of much higher organisms—man, in particular.

  Obviously, it was the fungi and the nonphotosynthetic algae which proved most readily adaptable to the new conditions. They underwent an evolutionary renaissance with great alacrity.

  The specialists of the second stratum—the primary consumers—went the way of their diet. The generalists, however, simply reordered their personal priorities. Man had no chance at all of saving the cow, the sheep, or the hen, but he could and did save the pig.

  In the higher strata, the percentage devastation decreased serially. Secondary consumers tended to be much less particular than primaries, and had an advantage because of the relative success of some primary species. The more secondaries that were successful, the easier it became for the tertiaries. There was change in the higher regions of life’s hierarchy—of course there was change—but there was a relatively low level of extinction. In terms of appearance, change was slow but eventually drastic, but in terms of evolutionary continuity there was nothing like the cataclysmic reorganization suffered in the lower strata. Only the specialist insectivores and some of the carnivores disappeared from the scene that was visible to the naked eye. Microbiotically, things were slightly more complicated, but the principle remained the same.

  The omnivores were in no real trouble (in terms of racial survival) at any time. Any species which had survived the rigors of the second dark age was unlikely to be troubled by the roofing of the world. Man’s ancient allies the cat and the dog both survived—but independently of man. His ancient rivals, the rat and the cockroach, also survived—indeed, they thrived.

  Extinction was responsible for very few of the changes which took place in the tertiary strata. Adaptation, on the other hand, demanded that vast changes in behavioral patterns—and often vast changes in physical form—must take place.

  Under the circumstances of such a vast reorganization evolution was permitted—forced, in fact—to work very quickly indeed. The rate of evolution, not just in one or a group of species but throughout the life-system, passed into tachytelic mode.

  Evolution by natur
al selection can be immensely costly. In order to replace erstwhile-useful genes by now-useful genes, vast numbers of individuals in a number of generations have to die. The load on the species becomes tremendous. This demands great fecundity and the acceptance of a very high mortality rate. When unusual requirements are placed on a species the gross numbers of that species inevitably shrink. The more the numbers shrink the faster the turnover of genes proceeds. But there is a threshold beyond which the species cannot replenish itself no matter how fast its rate of evolution. At or near that threshold the evolutionary process is capable of incredible bursts of change. Below it, extinction becomes inevitable and the species dies amid a truly frantic burst of adaptive attempts. If, however, the evolutionary burst at threshold is successful in providing a whole new schema of adaptation without taking the absolute numbers of the standing population too low, the evolutionary burst is followed by a rapid increase in numbers, during which selection still continues to foster a rate of evolution faster than the “normal” horotelic mode characteristic of a stable species in a stable environment. Relatively rare species with a high degree of genetic homogeneity existing in ultra-stable environments may slip into the third mode of evolutionary pace—the bradytelic—whereby change slows down drastically and the species retains little capacity for change.

  During the thousands of years that the Euchronians were taking their Plan to ultimate completion the tachytelic evolution which embraced the entire Underworld life-system completely changed the face of the lower Earth. A few thousand years is a very brief interval in evolutionary terms but the circumstances were highly unusual, and the process was—to some extent—stimulated and guided by the efforts of mankind. Man himself was by no means immune from the changes he helped to bring about, and the human race—or races, to be strictly accurate—which survived in the Underworld were very different in many ways from the race which survived up above. Even that race—Euchronian man—underwent some evolution during the millennia of the Plan, for the circumstances of that race also necessitated a rate of change somewhat higher than horotelic.