by John Meaney
Clothing played a part, indicating preference. Carl wore pure black like the majority, as if determined to gain a ship. Commander Gould had insisted on it.
But I’m going to fail.
Others wore yellow, green or red patches: those who wanted to live on a planet (usually because they were raised on a realspace world among ordinary humans); those who wanted to remain in Labyrinth, shipless; and those who professed no ambition but to accept judgement.
It’s going to be awful.
For a second, he fantasized about faking sudden illness. But the local scan nodes would check him over without even contacting MedCentral; and besides, half the Pilot Candidates looked ready to throw up.
‘Look at chickenshit Anderson.’ Riley, bluff and square-jawed, gestured towards a candidate with scarlet epaulettes. ‘Accepting judgement, my ass. He doesn’t deserve a ship, no way, and he knows it.’
‘Who can know what will happen?’ Soo Lin looked calm. ‘Perhaps acceptance is wise.’
‘Yeah? So how come you’re wearing black, my friend?’
‘I know who I am.’
‘And you know you’re going to fly, cos you is a Pilot, right? Exactly my point. Even Blackstone agrees, don’t you, pal?’
‘Er, sure,’ said Carl.
‘You could be more positive.’
‘It’s just—’
But then Lianna was walking towards them. Riley fell silent. Most of the males nearby were looking.
‘Are we all supporting each other?’ Her voice was gentle in the way a whip is soft. ‘So where is Eleanor? Who’s watching out for her?’
From the tearful conversations of the past few days, Eleanor’s confidence was lower than anyone’s, her stress levels higher.
‘Come on, guys.’ Lianna, as she turned around, looked lean and very fit. ‘Can’t anyone see her?’
She was the fastest runner in their year, but dismissed all compliments on her athleticism, respecting only academic achievement. Around her, the air was only faintly amber, the distortions from Euclidean reality scarcely apparent.
They might almost have been in realspace, instead of an annexe of Hilbert Hall in the heart of Labyrinth.
No pressure, making this a public ceremony.
If only he had remained on Molsin, or some other human world. Some of those young Pilots never even came here, believing that Labyrinth and the rest of mu-space held nothing for them. They might be wrong, but at least they would avoid the humiliation about to be inflicted on him.
A message reverberated through their minds.
=Pilot Candidates, make ready.=
Soundless, it thrummed inside them.
=Fifteen minutes remain in which to compose yourselves. =
Riley rubbed his face.
‘Another fifteen shitting minutes. I want my ship now.’
But the shakiness in his voice was obvious, and the words finished with a rising note tending toward a squeak. When Lianna put her hand on his shoulder, he blushed.
Carl blinked. She was his best friend, sort of, with long conversations and him treating her as an equal. It was only at night, alone, that he had dreamed other kinds of thought, but the thing was that none of them could come true, not with his impending humiliation.
And she was the instructors’ favourite, destined for a proud future, already favoured with access to certain restricted sections of the Logos Library. Meanwhile he was the quirky one with odd views, so often out of step with his classmates, self-sufficient and possibly too stubborn.
‘Oh,’ said Lianna. ‘There’s Eleanor. Come on, you three.’
Riley and Soo Lin followed her, with Carl trailing. But he was the first to stop, realizing what Eleanor was up to. By the time the others reached her, the air around Eleanor was filled with sliding shards of glass-like nothingness, spiralling through rotations that could not occur in realspace.
‘So she’s impatient,’ said Riley. ‘Do we blame her?’
Now only a shivering distortion remained, as Eleanor was outside normal timeflow, sidestepping the least-action geodesic, experiencing the tense remaining minutes in a few subjective seconds.
Riley looked envious. Carl wished he’d thought of Eleanor’s ruse himself; but he didn’t think he could summon the concentration, not now.
So they passed the remaining time in the normal way, with nervous murmurs here and there among the waiting candidates. Finally, Eleanor rotated back into normal timeflow and smiled at her friends.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Was I the only one to—?’
=Pilot Candidates, move out.=
‘I think you were,’ answered Lianna. ‘And we’re jealous as hell.’
‘That makes me feel better.’
Jostling, they lined up four abreast, before the massive sealed archway. Then the great doors began to open, furling back into a myriad polygons, revealing a shining walkway that led down to the magnificence of Borges Boulevard: the most notable thoroughfare in Labyrinth, contained within the city bounds yet infinite in length.
Then they began to walk out, all one hundred and seventy-three of them, every one of them scared. Even the downramp, short though it was, felt infinite as they descended its length and finally, in formation, stood on the boulevard proper, gleaming sidewalks and rails on either side, and then a drop, for Borges Boulevard ran on mountain-high buttresses in this part of the city. Far overhead, the city’s ceiling was a complex mosaic of dwellings and the city’s own physical self; while off to one side floated several tiers of spectator seats, currently occupied by several thousand Pilots who had specifically arranged their schedules so they could be in Labyrinth at this time.
As if Graduation were not intrinsically bad enough, the Pilot Candidates were beneath the gaze of those who had passed the test with ease.
How do they feel?
Perhaps the mature Pilots did not really see their younger counterparts. Possibly what happened inside their heads was merely vivid memory, as their minds took them back to their own triumphs, to the nova-burst of elation when they met their ships for the first time. For these were the true winners: the Pilots who lived for voyaging.
I can’t do this.
But of course he had to.
Beside him, Lianna’s face was shining with pride and excitement, her obsidian black-on-black eyes filled with the certainty that today was going to be the most notable day of her life.
Mine too.
Not in the same way, however.
Fuck it.
Sickness was building up inside him. However much he had trembled and dreaded this moment earlier, being in the moment was so much worse.
Then the massed Pilot Candidates began to walk on, heading toward judgement, to the end of their cosy years in Labyrinth, the beginning of real adulthood.
Not long now.
Call it a walk of shame.
There was a rhythm to their walk, as the candidates marched in time - left, right, left, right, fail-ure, fail-ure - while the tiers of watching Pilots hovered over them, and the worst thing was - Gods, no - the observers included Carl’s parents, though he had begged them to stay away.
A watery haze of shame and stress filled his vision. Hadn’t Dad already apologized for his commitments in the Halberg Nebula, and Mum for being with him on board?
I can’t endure it.
Could he simply break formation and run?
No, I can’t.
‘Relax.’ Lianna had fallen in step beside him. ‘You’ll be all right.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yes, you will.’
He could have argued but that would be stupid. Everything hurt. Commander Gould was a monster, forcing him to go through this.
After an unreckonable time spent marching on that gleaming surface, they exited Borges Boulevard, and descended to a wide platform that overlooked a bluish chasm. On the far side was the cliff-like Great Shield, an outer wall of Ascension Annexe.
Along the titanic wall, scallop shapes were arra
nged in rows, each a doorway that was tiny-looking from here, but in reality huge.
=Make ready.=
They spread out along the platform, all hundred and seventy-three of them, separated by psychological more than physical distance: they were each on their own.
For this was it: Graduation.
He remembered his childhood on Molsin, the wonder of its sky-cities and the harshness of its underworld and acid seas, followed by the youthful return to his birthplace. Rediscovering Labyrinth had been a joy. And then the growing sense of purpose, the learning and the internalization of discipline, the notion of his destiny in life. A cascade of memories tumbled through him, making him want to cry.
This is impossible.
High up on the Great Shield, one of the scallop-doors moved.
Too late. I can’t run now.
Graduation was starting, and he would simply have to endure. All he could do was watch as a white frosty ribbon-path extended from the scallop-door like a vast serpent, snaking its way through the air toward the platform, toward him and the other waiting candidates.
It touched, and shivered into stillness.
=Pilot Candidate Ruís Alfredo, step forward.=
A slight-looking candidate advanced a pace, stopped, then continued to the platform’s edge where the ribbon-path began.
=Rise and be judged.=
One more step and he was on the path. Though it remained in place as a bridge, its surface began to flow, carrying Alfredo over the beautiful abyss - the Labyrinthine structures far below were a marvel - upward to the Great Shield, high up where the scallop-door was retracting.
Off to one side, a huge holo grew, displaying Alfredo’s progress for the watching Pilots, showing him in close-up. They could see the fear and wonder on his face as he stepped through the opened door, entered a great pale hangar, then froze below the beautiful thing that hung there.
The ship was luscious purple and rich cobalt blue, and its lines were strong; but no one applauded yet.
Tiny beneath the ship, Alfredo advanced. Finally he reached up to touch her hull - her under-surface hung close - with tentative fingers.
The ship’s hull shivered, and Alfredo bowed his head.
Then a carry-tendril snaked down, wrapped around his waist, and bore him upwards, all the way to the top of the ship, where it lowered him through the dorsal opening, into the Pilot’s cabin, on to the control couch he was born to occupy.
Finally the tendril retracted and the dorsal hatch sealed up.
And now the Pilots cheered, their applause washing through the serene abyssal space, echoing in the cool air, while on the Great Shield the scallop-door lowered into place. There was another way out of the pale hangar, and the big holo displayed it now.
The new ship turned in place and began to fly along a blue-lined tunnel that passed all the way through Ascension Annexe. Everyone grew quiet.
Then, when the ship burst out from the city and into golden mu-space, everybody roared. This maiden flight was a triumph, as Alfredo took his ship on a soaring trajectory towards a crimson nebula. It glimmered against a speckled backdrop of black fractal stars, like coal carved into snowflakes.
Soon the holo faded to transparency, waiting to come to life again. One hundred and seventy-two candidates breathed out, trying to keep calm. Some were weeping. Alfredo’s ship was a good one, his flight a fine start to Graduation.
=Step forward, Pilot Candidate Adam Kirellin.=
The first ribbon-path was gone. Another grew, this time from low down on the Great Shield.
=Rise and be judged.=
It carried Kirellin to the waiting hangar, where his vessel was long and bronze, ringed with lustrous green. When he touched the hull, he tipped his head back and laughed; the sound reverberated from the holo display, accompanied by cheering and clapping from the massed Pilots. The ship took Kirellin inside; within a minute they had burst out of Labyrinth, aimed at a black star, and flown.
=Pilot Candidate Helena Tchal, step forward.=
Carl did not know her. She was wearing a brown tunic with yellow panels, and when her ribbon-path bore her to a hangar that stood empty, no one was surprised.
=No ship. This candidate has a different path to follow.=
There was a smaller platform off to the right, and the ribbon-path carried her to it. Soon there would be other losers to keep her company.
Whatever her alleged preference - yellow for a realspace world - she hung her head. Carl thought she might be weeping.
I wish I wasn’t wearing black.
Or perhaps clothing would make no difference to his forthcoming humiliation.
=Step forward, Pilot Candidate Riley O’Mara.=
Carl muttered: ‘Good luck.’
Riley’s shoulders looked tense as he advanced onto his ribbon-path. He let it carry him to an opening hangar, where a polished bronze-and-steel vessel awaited him.
In the holo, his tears were shining, even as he grinned.
Why am I here?
Good for Riley, but it hurt so much to watch him fly from the floating city into golden void. Another triumph, another contrast to Carl’s own situation.
Somehow, he remained standing while thirty-one more candidates - he counted - rode on ribbon-paths to hangars, twenty-nine of them containing bright new ships. The other two joined Tchal on the losers’ platform.
=Pilot Candidate Carl Blackstone, step forward.=
The ribbon-path sparkled beneath him. Blood-rush washed in his ears. Somehow he remained upright as the flow carried him out over a bluish haze, buildings and piazzas far below, a wealth of architectural constructs within the more-than-city that was Labyrinth. All of it magnificent, usually awe-inspiring; but today it seemed to mock him.
His teeth bit into his lower lip as the flow decelerated, nearing the Great Shield. Ahead, a scallop-door was edging inside, retracting.
Revealing an empty bay.
This is so awful.
The feeling was even worse than he had expected: from his tightened forehead, a sickening downward rush of nausea, a spinning sensation though his feet did not move. The watching Pilots were a blur of tiny featureless faces, splotches of colour.
=No ship. This candidate has a different path to follow.=
Awful, awful, awful.
Standing with Tchal and the other shipless candidates, Carl kept his head down, shaking and trying not to puke. He looked up only twice: once when Soo Lin gained his ship - bronze-and-turquoise with bold curves - and again when Lianna rose for judgement.
In the holo, her face was radiant. He had always known she was special, and here was the proof: her ship was of sweeping silver, a teardrop with eight narrow fins, gleaming and unusual. When she launched into golden mu-space, her first destination was the Mandelbrot Nebula, the boldest of choices for a maiden flight.
The cheering lasted long after the holo faded.
On the losers’ platform, Carl Blackstone wept.
EIGHT
EARTH, 1926 AD
Vodka, borscht and a black cigarette to follow - what could be better? Dmitri Shtemenko leaned back in the hardwood chair and scanned his fellow denizens of the café. Narrow, hard faces, some with spreading beards like his own. He himself was nineteen but looked thirty-five in his reflection, the window turned into a black mirror by the night outside. There were times when he felt ninety-nine.
He sucked smoke, glad he was alive.
‘You want more borscht, comrade?’ called the burly woman behind the counter.
‘No thanks, Ivana.’
Half of the people here knew what he did for a living - so much for secrecy. But it could be useful, and he often acted on the information his neighbours gave him.
One of the things Ivana and her husband Mikhail knew about Dmitri was his dislike of meat, though if fatty gobbets of beef or horse were the only thing available, he would force them down, fighting not to vomit. The proprietors may have had theories about this dislike; they made no attempt to
verify by asking.
Things could be hard enough here in Moscow. In the countryside, well, perhaps some of the older men here, with the long hard faces, had seen the same kinds of thing he had. Laughter was something that belonged to childhood, far behind him now.