by Ian McDonald
‘Earth 3,’ Everett M said. ‘There are nine parallel worlds – ten if you include yours – ours.’
‘Is that the one where Britain is like near Spain and Morocco?’ Ryun asked.
What had alter-Everett shown him?
‘No, that’s Earth 2,’ Everett M said. ‘Earth 3 has no oil.’
For a moment he thought Ryun might fall off his chair.
No oil. Everett could almost see Ryun exploring the concept. No oil!
‘So how …?’ he asked eventually, and then answered his own question. ‘Coal! Sweet. Steampunk!’
‘Cooler,’ Everett M said. ‘Electricity. Tesla-punk.’ He’d never been to Earth 3, but he dared not mention the world he did know: Earth 4. The fact that the main difference between it and this Earth was the presence of the Thryn and their technology – and the fact that E4’s Prime Minister Mr Portillo seemed to be a television presenter in this universe – might put suspicions in Ryun’s mind Everett M did not want there. ‘And airships.’
‘That video!’ Ryun shouted. He turned to the computer and hit keys. The video was still up on YouTube.
The image was jerky, the zooming in so fast it made Everett M feel sick; the soundtrack was people asking incredibly stupid questions, as people do when faced with something completely beyond their experience. It’s for the Olympics, someone kept saying, over and over. Gorrabee. The Olympics. Ryun froze the image on the crest on the airship’s prow. He shrugged: Tell me.
‘It’s a Type-27 air-cruiser of the Royal Air Navy,’ Everett M lied. He had his story now. ‘It’s protecting me.’
He really thought Ryun’s eyes might explode.
‘I found my dad,’ Everett M said. ‘They took him because they didn’t want his work falling into the wrong hands. If you want to jump between worlds, you had to go from Heisenberg Gate to Heisenberg Gate. But my dad found a way to go from any point in any world to any other. Just like that. And there’s an evil empire out there that wants to get hold of it. And if they do, they can invade everywhere at once. Including our world, right here. So there’s like a special forces unit keeping the thing safe.’ The biggest lies are the ones nearest to the truth. Like two snowflakes falling on a mountain ridge, they could end in different oceans. Truth or an ocean of lies. And like a snowflake, it gathered others around it, rolling into an avalanche of lies. Everett M was finding it was easy to lie to Ryun Spinetti. And fun. ‘They’re keeping my dad safe, but they sent me back. They gave me the ship. It’s not here of course – it’s just like a universe away – but if I get in trouble, I can call it.’ He took out his phone.
‘That’s your phone,’ Ryun said.
‘There’s an app for it,’ Everett M said.
‘So when it was here?’ Ryun asked.
‘Dropping me off,’ Everett M said.
‘That was the first day of term,’ Ryun said. ‘I thought you came back before that.’
And then there is the place where that avalanche of lies can sweep you to disaster.
‘That was part of the cover story,’ Everett M said.
‘So did you send that text?’
‘What text?’
‘This one.’
Everett M remembered it as Ryun flicked it up on his BlackBerry. Get this 2 Mum: am OK. Dad OK. CU soon.
‘Well, duh, who else?’ Everett M said. ‘Did you send it to my mum?’
Ryun shook his head.
‘But you said you’d lost your phone,’ he said. ‘Just before I showed it to you. So what’s that one you’ve got?’
One lie feeds another, fatter and fatter.
‘Okay, so it’s not just the app,’ Everett M said. This was sliding away from him. He could not say, Hey, what’s with all the questions? He had admitted he had been to a parallel universe and back. How could you not expect questions?
‘But you sent it from your old phone.’
‘They transferred the number.’
‘On to a phone from a parallel universe?’
If they can build me a phone to call a parallel universe, how difficult do you really think it is to transfer my number over? Everett M was about to say. Then the avalanche hit him. He was beginning to believe his own lies. At that moment Ryun’s dad, on his way to the bathroom, glanced in. He nodded at the image of the airship frozen on the screen.
‘Is that thing still viral?’
‘That’s last week,’ Everett M said, grasping a chance to change the subject. ‘This week it’s my ass.’
‘Seven hundred hits on your ass,’ Ryun’s dad said.
Everett M winced. ‘Mr Spinetti …’
‘You lads are so easy to wind up,’ Ryun’s dad said. ‘There’s almost no fun in it.’
‘She is hot on you,’ Ryun said, when he heard the bathroom door lock.
‘Weird kind of hot,’ Everett M said. ‘More like stalking.’
‘Stalking’s modern,’ Ryun said. ‘So, are you going to ask her out?’
Everett M had been enjoying the attention so much that he hadn’t thought about its end-point: snogging Noomi Wong. The thought made him feel a little warm and a little wild and a little hard. Noomi was weird, no argument, but cute. He had always liked weird girls, on his world and this world, especially if they were cute with the weird. And he was pretty weird himself. Nanozombie-slaying saviour of this universe. But how close could he let her come, with his secrets and his lies? Would he always be aware, when he was kissing her, that she was kissing an arsenal of Thryn biocircuitry and implanted weapon systems? Could he ever be real enough to have a girlfriend? He wanted to.
‘I’ll keep her stalking for a while yet.’
‘Well, I know they get bored quick if you’re not obviously interested,’ Ryun declared. He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe that you’ve been to a parallel universe and here we are talking about Noomi Wong being hot for you.’
Much more questioning like this and Everett M’s edifice of lies would fall apart. He had to get out.
‘Up to seven hundred and fifty likes,’ Ryun’s dad said, coming back from the bathroom.
‘Were you on Facebook on the toilet?’ Ryun said.
‘Isn’t everyone?’
‘That’s crass, even for you.’
In the few seconds between Ryun and his dad, Everett M slipped out his phone and called up an app. A real app, not a made-up one that called airships in from other universes. A small, silly one he had never seen a use for until now. He tapped the icon and slipped the phone back in his pocket.
Ten seconds later, it rang. An app that calls your own number. Everett M swiped the screen and took the call.
‘Hi, Mum. Yeah, yeah. It’s not a problem. I’ll be about ten, fifteen minutes. Yeah, I can make my own way. See you … see you.’
‘Mum’s not feeling too great,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go. Do you think your dad could …?’
‘Sure, sure.’
He was home in seven minutes. Ryun’s dad took pride in knowing all the short cuts and rat runs. Everett M waved as Ryun’s dad drove off from 43 Roding Road. He liked Ryun’s dad, even if he had rated Everett M’s ass. It was all right to like other people’s parents.
He didn’t like the lying. Lies and girls. As if his life as an Earth 4 alter secret cyborg agent wasn’t difficult enough.
The rat startled him. They were all too common in Stoke Newington, but what drew him up short was that it was sitting in the middle of his front doorstep. Bold, unafraid, little paws folded like hands, black eyes watching him, whiskers twitching.
‘Shoo,’ Everett M said. The rat stayed un-shooed. ‘Go away, rat.’
He took a step towards it. The rat gazed at him.
What were they putting out in the trash, that rats had got so bold these days?
‘Gaah!’ Everett M waved his arms. The rat groomed its whiskers with its paws.
This was insane.
Everett M ran at the rat. He was right on top of it when it leaped away and dashed under the hedge.
Lies and girls an
d rats with attitude.
12
The bells of Heiden rang ten and the wind shifted and a new snow blew in, a fine, dry, cold snow carried on a wind from the east that swirled and gusted through the city’s squares and narrow streets. A snow that gathered in the corners and against the tall buildings that lined Sant Omerhauplass, that caught in the curves of the wooden carvings of the old Bund houses and lodged in the stone folds of the statues of the Cathedral of the Brothers Christ. The staff of the Blond Bear Cafe would have closed up but for their one customer, and her insistence that a guest would join her. Charlotte Villiers turned up the collar of her Earth 3 coat and cupped her hands around the bowl of hot chocolate. It was twenty minutes since she had seen another human being in Sant Omerhauplass. The twin waiters stamped their feet and tucked their hands into their armpits and stood as close to the gas heater as politeness allowed.
Ibrim Hoj Kerrim crossed the square from the Grootskanal bridge. He was dressed for a northern winter, muffled up in thick coat and scarf, the ear-flaps of his hat pulled down and knotted under his chin. He sat down at Charlotte Villiers’s table.
‘Could you not have found a table inside?’
‘I find it invigorating. Shall I order you some hot chocolate? Nowhere in the Known Worlds makes it better.’
‘I would love some, thank you.’
The carillon of the Cathedral of the Brothers Christ played a snatch of a hymn tune, the quarter hour.
‘I find Christianity a baffling religion at the best of times,’ Ibrim Hoj Kerrim said. ‘So messy and gory, and everything is so personal. But here … Two Jesuses, one of whom went up to heaven, the other who went down to set up the embassy of the Kingdom of Heaven at the gates of hell … Bizarre.’
‘I’m not a believer myself,’ Charlotte Villiers said. ‘I find all religions have some core of irrationality that I simply cannot accept, but, given the nature of Earth 7 society, that part makes eminent sense to me.’
‘You have an alter,’ Ibrim Hoj Kerrim pointed out. The waiters, in neat white aprons, served him with a bowl and a pot of chocolate.
‘Everyone has an alter,’ Charlotte Villiers said. ‘Somewhere. You just haven’t met yours yet.’
‘Perhaps. But mine is one of the more – distinctive worlds.’
‘The Principle of Mediocrity would suggest otherwise.’
‘Well, I agree with you on one thing, Ms Villiers.’
‘What a novelty!’
‘This is the best hot chocolate in the Ten Worlds. But you didn’t bring me out here in a blizzard to drink hot chocolate in an empty cafe.’
‘No, I brought you out to this empty cafe to drink hot chocolate and frighten you,’ Charlotte Villiers said, taking a sip from her bowl.
‘Frighten me?’
‘My alter Charles planted a tracking device on the Singh boy’s airship.’
‘Of course you did not have the time to inform the Security Council about this.’
‘Of course. It tracks the Heisenberg Jumps he makes, and where he goes after the Heisenberg Jump. It’s quite accurate.’
‘Where has he gone?’ Ibrim Hoj Kerrim asked.
Charlotte Villiers set down her chocolate bowl. ‘Everett Singh has discovered the Jiju.’
Ibrim Hoj Kerrim spoke softly in his own language. Is that a prayer? Charlotte Villiers thought. Did you ask your God to protect you? You should.
‘You have succeeded in frightening me,’ Ibrim Hoj Kerrim said. ‘Who knows about this?’
‘Only Charles. And that fool from Earth 10, McCabe. The boy is a family friend. He knows if I keep information from him.’
‘If the boy has jumped to the Jiju Worldwheel, then every planet in the Plenitude is in clear and present danger. The Jiju, in control of the Infundibulum and the Heisenberg Gate? We will all die in fire.’
‘We have a small window in which we can act,’ Charlotte Villiers said. Snow blew across the cobbles of Sant Omerhauplass. ‘We send a task force to the Worldwheel. We recapture the Infundibulum by any means necessary. The tracking device allows us to insert a squad precisely. Surgically.’
‘Surgical. That is a word with blood in it,’ Ibrim Hoj Kerrim said.
‘If we have to kill everyone on that airship to get the Infundibulum, so be it.’
‘We?’ Ibrim Hoj Kerrim asked.
‘You know the Security Council will be dithering and prevaricating right up until the moment the Jiju cityships appear in our skies,’ Charlotte Villiers said.
‘It seems I’m forced into an alliance with your Order,’ Ibrim Hoj Kerrim said. ‘But I cannot commit any more Earth 2 soldiers.’
‘We use my own people,’ Charlotte Villiers said. She pulled her coat collar closer around her.
‘On two conditions,’ Ibrim Hoj Kerrim said. ‘First, if they fail, I inform the Praesidium.’
‘Of course. The security of the Known Worlds is paramount. But they won’t fail.’
‘My second condition: your soldiers have never been off their own world. Until a few months ago they had no idea there were other worlds. They lack inter-plane experience.’
‘What is it you want, Ibrim?’
‘You lead them.’
And you are a very clever man, Charlotte Villiers thought. I can’t refuse. If I succeed, no one will ever know. If I fail, you will have removed your rival. But I will not fail, and war is openly declared between us, and when I return I shall have dealings with you, Ibrim Hoj Kerrim.
‘I’ll require proper equipment. Heavy weapons. Access to a military jump-gate. And a recall relay. If things go wrong, I want my people out of there.’
‘You will be carrying the recall relay?’
‘I am everything you think I am, Ibrim, and worse, but I do not needlessly waste human life.’
‘So glad you said “needlessly”.’ Ibrim Hoj Kerrim pushed his bowl and saucer away from him and stood up. ‘Of course, you won’t want to delay. Every second that passes puts the Plenitude in peril.’
‘The Plenitude will not find me wanting,’ Charlotte Villiers said. She watched Ibrim Hoj Kerrim vanish into the swirling snow. She left some shillings in a saucer and crossed Sant Omerhauplass to the Nenin Bridge. The snow was sharp on her cheeks and lips, and the bells of the Cathedral of the Brothers Christ chimed the half hour. Behind her the twin waiters took in the chairs and pulled the shutters over the Blond Bear Cafe.
13
Everett would never understand people. A real, genuine alien – a living dinosaur – and not one member of the crew was excited.
Mchynlyth was dismissive.
‘How many “Ka”s?’ He shook his head as Everett repeated the name. Kakakakaxa squatted on one of the branches number-two impeller had brought down in its fall through the canopy. It looked up at the sound of its name, a very human reaction. It blinked its eye-membranes. A very inhuman reaction. ‘Buggerello to that. Kax.’ Mchynlyth went back to examining his engine, running his fingers over the casing and alternately hissing in horror and cooing in love. Kakakakaxa – Kax – studied him, head cocked first to one side then the other.
Captain Anastasia was suspicious. ‘What do we know about this creature … person? How did it learn our language? What is that thing around its head? What’s it doing here? Where did it come from?’
She left no room for answers, for which Everett was glad because he realised that in the time he had spent waiting for the crew to arrive with shifting gear, Kax – the name was stuck now – had found out a lot about him, and he had found out almost nothing about Kax, except that its people called themselves the Jiju, a two-tone bird-whistle. And the thing around Kax’s head – the Jiju name was three descending trills – was some kind of swarm of micro-robots that could take any shape Kax willed. And could affect minds, including the carnosaur’s, and read minds – including his. The heat in the forest clearing was incredible, but Everett felt a stab of cold in his stomach. What else, other than his languages, had Kax taken from his mind?
Sen was h
ostile.
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
Kax turned a blade of its halo into a little robot-fly and sent it buzzing around Sen’s head.
‘What? I don’t know. Does it matter?’ Everett said. ‘It saved me from getting bitten in half by some kind of T-Rex. That’s what matters.’
‘Matters a lot more than that,’ Sen declared. She swatted the robot-fly away.
‘Bona riah,’ Kax said. Not only had it absorbed Palari, it spoke it in a Stoke Newington accent.
‘It’d better not be a girl, ’s all,’ Sen said sullenly.
Kax wore sturdy boots that reached the knee and several belts festooned with pouches and pockets. Nothing more. Everett wasn’t familiar enough with reptile sex to know where even to start looking, let alone what he was supposed to look for – supposing lizardmen (or lizardwomen) had visible parts. Supposing that after sixty-five million years of evolution they even reproduced like the lizards in the biology lab tank. Kax in return was very interested in human sexual features, as far as the Jiju could make out beneath the layers of clothing.
The robot-fly buzzed over to land on Captain Anastasia’s breasts. Mchynlyth and Sharkey tensed. Sen was a heartbeat behind them.
‘What are these physiological features?’ Kax asked. Its halo was rotating. Everett had a theory that this meant it was absorbing information and feeding it to Kax.
‘At ease, omis. And polone,’ said Captain Anastasia. ‘They are female human sexual features. They enable us to feed our babies with milk. We call them willets, in our Palari speech. Breasts, in King’s English. There are a lot of slang names for them. Most of them made up by men, who historically have found them attractive and fascinating.’
‘Willets,’ Kax said. ‘Will. Ets.’
‘It touches my willets, it gets a knife in its whatever-its-got,’ Sen hissed.
Now the fly buzzed in Mchynlyth’s face. He flicked at it, and it buzzed away, then danced in closer. With a furious roar Mchynlyth lunged, caught the fly in his gloved hand and crushed it. A sudden cry and a Govan oath. Mchynlyth opened his fist. Blood leaked from the slashed palm of his heavy work glove. A golden blade dropped from his open hand and slashed across the clearing to rejoin the halo around Kax’s head.