by Lee Murray
Moments later, the image reappeared. It showed exactly how the block would look in situ. The Architect made some quick adjustments and the view changed. He was now looking at the entire tower revealed in three dimensions. All the graceful curves were firm and intact and the Diamond Room at the apex shone with a bright inner light. The tower turned slowly before him. From all points of view it retained its symmetry. He had designed the tower to be partly translucent – a special technique he had developed – and shafts of clear light, projected from the roof of the dome, split into all the colours of the spectrum as they passed through the ice. The central column could now be seen for what it was: a lift shaft. As he watched, the platform began to rise up the central column slowly as though it were lifting people to the viewing gallery. When it reached the top, the platform became the floor of the diamond-shaped chamber. Here, visitors would be able to move around and even under the last block. They could also view The City in all its splendour.
The Architect made another small adjustment and, when the screen cleared, it was as though he were standing inches away from the last block and able to see every detail. It was covered with carefully etched writing: quotations and poems from the literature he loved.
Another small adjustment and he was outside the building drifting slowly down. Here again, was writing inscribed on the blocks. It was the story of the city written by the Architect himself, describing progress from the first plan up to the present moment. Occasionally he passed narrow openings shaped like feathers and leaves. On one occasion, there was the frozen shape of an eye staring out. It was his eye. Several times, there were images of his hands. And then he reached the ground.
‘The rest,’ murmured the Architect to himself, ‘is mechanical.’ He moved down the design bench and flipped open the cover of a small panel. Beneath the panel was a single red button. He pressed it with his thumb, holding it until a message flashed on the design screen:
CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMME ACTIVE.
From deep within the bowels of the building, from somewhere far beneath him, there came a growling. The growling grew to a muted roar which made small objects tremble. The forces which would fashion all the final pieces had been unleashed. It was indeed a historic moment and the Architect decided to go and watch.
After glancing round to make sure that all was in order, the Architect left the design chamber. He entered a narrow and damp passage which led downwards. It had been hewn from the solid rock. Immediately the roaring from below was louder.
Well, at least them upstairs will know I am at work. The concrete floored path was lit by overhead lamps which cast a cold light. The hardness of the stone underfoot was softened somewhat by a worn carpet of raffia which the Architect had brought back after one of his rare journeys away from Meredith. Occasionally, when he had been constructing a lot of blocks, this passage had become frosty and the carpet stopped him from slipping.
After several twists, the path ended at a steel door similar to those used in banks to protect their wealth. The door was painted bright red, and was the first of two doors which served as a temperature lock. The Architect tapped in a code. He heard the magnetic bolts withdraw and the door opened slowly, pulled from within by a hydraulic arm. He entered, pressed a bright green switch and the door closed behind him. This was always a bit unnerving, for if the mechanism ever failed or the power faltered, and the emergency phone went dead, he could be trapped here for … But it had never failed. The engineers who had planned and built the entire chamber and all the mechanisms it contained had been careful and thorough – as indeed was the Architect who came after them. He thought of them as his brothers – in philosophy, if not in trade – for they built to last … for all eternity.
When the first door had closed, the second door opened automatically. In contrast to the first door, this one was painted blue. The Architect stepped through. He entered a vast chamber eerily lit by high incandescent lamps. Everything was stark and blunt and functional. The chamber had been blasted and then quarried from the living rock of the planet. The walls streamed with water. Stanchions rose from the floor and crisscrossed before disappearing into the gloom of the ceiling.
In the centre of the chamber was a large circular pit. Other smaller pits surrounded it. These contained the specially treated water which would form the ice blocks from which the tower would be constructed. The sloping sides of the pits and the metal walkways connecting them gleamed in the harsh light and were glossy with a jelly-like slime. This was one of the consequences of the construction process and of the laminate chemicals which coated the finished blocks and stopped them from melting. The jelly was not only slippery, but caustic. Before going any further, the Architect slipped his feet into a pair of clogs which stood just inside the door. These clumsy-looking over-shoes contained a strong magnet which was activated by his weight. When the pressure sensors felt his weight, the magnets locked on, anchoring his feet to the metal pathway. When he lifted his foot the magnet released. Thus he was able to walk, albeit in an ungainly fashion, regardless of how slippery the metal grid beneath his feet had become. One of his regular maintenance tasks was to hose down the glossy slime from time to time and send it slithering down into the vast pits where it would dissolve and separate from the water, ready to be used again. He had not done this clearance for some time and the slime now coated all the stanchions and walkways. All in good time. That will be my last task.
Safely shod, the Architect advanced across the narrow bridge that led to the large central pit. Plumes of water vapour rose into the air. From the pit came the roaring. The Architect gripped the iron fence that ran round the perimeter. Looking down he could see the tumble of dark water churning as it poured into the pit. While he watched, the level of the water gradually rose, until finally it was just a few feet below the lip of the pit. Then the nozzles cut off.
The Architect began to clunk his way round the pit. He thought about ice. What a wonderful construction material it was! Given a steady temperature and constant pressure it could be shaped into almost any design. On a planet such as Meredith, ice was the ideal building material. Almost all the individual blocks required for the construction of the tower could be made in this one large freeze-pit.
Deep within the dark water, there was a sudden swirling as though giant fish were swimming there. Thousands of small rubber vanes, each impregnated with ceramic ferrite, shifted away from the sides of the pit and began to lock together magnetically forming complex patterns. They were joining in a specific sequence derived from the calculations of the design computers, and as they joined and locked, they formed the moulds for every block the Architect had designed.
Staring down through the water, the Architect observed the separate blocks for the roof of his tower taking shape. He lifted his gaze to the centre, where a clutch of vanes were stirring up the water as they busily locked together. When the freezing was complete, these blocks would be the supports for the final block at the pinnacle of the tower. Meanwhile, the final block would be fashioned separately in one of the smaller pits which was equipped with special micro-vanes for detailed work and electrical fittings.
The Architect, like a fond parent, smiled as the vanes fluttered in the water, finding their final position and locking in.
Eventually, however, the water became still. All the vanes were in place. Then there came a raucous sucking and a gurgling and the surplus water surrounding the moulds began to drain away. When the water was gone, a klaxon began to clamour and a red warning light just inside the door flashed.
The next stage of creation could not take place until that switch was closed and the blue door was shut. Reluctantly, the Architect clumped back to the entrance and slipped off the clogs. He closed the switch and the flashing stopped. He entered the temperature lock and closed the blue door. There would now be a pause of five minutes while the mechanism built its energy for the freezing blast. The Architect passed through the re
d door which closed behind him, and as it did the magnetic locks slammed home. No going back now. The temperature beyond the doors would already be falling.
The Architect knew exactly what was happening. He had viewed it often from the security of his design room. The temperature would drop to about the freezing point of water. Holding steady at that temperature, there would be a hush. Perfect silence and stillness. Nothing moving. Then, moments later, would come an immense discharge of heat as the water within the vanes was suddenly deep frozen into clear blocks and plates of ice. But the heat would be short-lived, swiftly replaced with a bitter and biting cold.
Freezing, and its resultant expansion complete, the vanes would detach progressively. The polarity would change and each vane would return to its unique position clamped to the side of the cistern. Revealed, standing in the middle would be the crude blocks of his tower.
Immediately, the glossy laminate would be released from spray nozzles to flow over the blocks, hardening as it touched the ice, seeping into every crevice and following every curve; locking in the cold while excluding any warmth. This process complete, the temperature would be slowly raised. Any cracks or gaps in the ice would be quickly revealed, and sealed.
All this took time, of course.
The Architect re-entered the design room. ‘Time now,’ he murmured, ‘for communication.’
He climbed up to his room where the red warning light was still flashing. At his leisure he began to open contact.
END OF PART 1
Hood of Bone
Debbie Cowens
He was standing at the ocean’s edge. I knew the back of his jacket, an oilskin of dark seaweed green, and the short grey hair smoothed below the herringbone golf cap. He was one of the few, the dog walkers and early risers. Before seven, the beach belonged to us. We roamed the wide stretch of sand, gazed over the beckoning waves and wondered why the sea appeared such a murky blue if it only reflected an insipid morning sky.
Sylvia, inquisitive and outgoing even for a Fox Terrier, yapped and scampered in his direction. I called her back, fearing she might be an unwelcome intrusion, but mid-route something else caught Sylvia’s eye, or rather nose, and she swerved and darted towards a patch of sea mulch on the shoreline. I jogged after her and saw what had captured her attention: a dead fish.
‘Sylvia!’ I called, and with reluctant obedience she returned to me with a sheepish expression. I clipped on her lead, not entirely trusting her to resist the temptation of a fish breakfast (or worse, fish perfume), and we resumed our usual walk.
It was a chilly autumn morning and the last week had been unusually rainy for Kapiti, but today was bright and cloudless. It could have passed for early spring except for the bite of cold in the air, hinting of a fierce winter ahead. As it was Sunday there were fewer people on the beach than other days and for many long minutes we saw no other soul. Once the dead fish was a safe distance behind us, I unclipped Sylvia and let her run freely, darting around to sniff the redolent delights of driftwood, seaweed, and tracks in the sand, and chase seagulls as they scoured the beach for food. My thoughts roamed erratically from the warm cup of coffee I would have once home, to the four houses I was showing that afternoon, to whether I should make a cheesecake to take for dessert to Pete’s parents for dinner or just pick up a bottle of wine. My mother-in-law could find a sugared phrase to criticise any dish I made. On the other hand, an offering of wine might prompt her to jokingly check I wasn’t pregnant and then not-so-jokingly imply I should be. Yet for all the distractions and anxieties niggling my mind, the sea could eclipse them all, like the tide coming in and sweeping away footprints and detritus. There was something hypnotic in the waves. The tide’s ceaseless rhythm of rise and fall, distant edifices unfurling into white foam, their shallow vanguard drawing fingers across the sand before slipping back into the sea.
The sea had always held fascination and foreboding for me in equal measure. My mother’s younger brother had drowned in a riptide when she was a child and through her zealous warnings and her taut ashen face whenever we saw the ocean something of her fears had been passed on. My brothers and I learned to swim in the safe, still waters of chlorinated pools. I hadn’t more than dipped my toes in the sea before I was thirteen and the beach started to become a summertime haunt for my friends. Then long hours of lying in the hot sand gossiping were followed with sprinting into the waves and swimming out as far as we dared. My fear of missing out on the fun or looking ridiculous far outweighed any inculcated dread of the sea. We would rush into the waves, laughing and jumping up when they threatened to break over our heads, and we shrieked with delight as the force of cascading water rolled us backward as though we were no more than ragdolls. There’s giddiness in sensing the insignificance of your weight and strength in the face of nature. It was exhilarating to wade deep into the onslaught of waves and know that the next one could knock you down or drag you under.
I had lost the taste for thrills of that sort as an adult but looking at the sea I still felt the strength of the tides, the vastness of the ocean. It stretched far beyond the horizon and no one had yet ventured to its utmost depths. I knew my smallness when I watched the sea and it filled me with a fear I didn’t understand. How could anyone endure it for days, weeks at an end? Kupe, Cook, how had they ever had the faith or courage to risk so vast a journey through turbulent seas into the unknown? What made them believe that land or anything at all lay beyond the unfathomable stretch of ocean?
Sylvia’s excited yapping broke my thoughts. I’d wandered closer to the shoreline, my feet treading deep prints in the compact, wet sand. My excited foxy was ten metres or so ahead, barking and circling a silvery fish carcass as long in the body as she was.
‘Sylvia!’ I yelled, but she lunged at the fish as though my voice were a call to charge. I jogged forward with the lead, ready to drag Sylvia away before the dead fish became a combined doggy breakfast and roll-on perfume. By the time I reached her, she had the fish’s head in her jaws and was shaking it in a frenzy of growls like it was one of her squeaky toys. Its decaying body snapped off at the spine and fell on the sand as Sylvia continued to thrash her head back and forth.
‘Drop it!’ I ordered.
Sylvia spat out the fish-head. She raised one paw and looked at me with expectant hope as though perhaps I might throw the fish head for her to fetch. I bent to clip the lead on her collar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. A long pale worm emerged through the cavity of the fish’s eye socket. I jerked back in fright. I grabbed Sylvia’s collar and clipped on her lead without shifting my gaze. I’m not particularly squeamish about creepy-crawlies in general but this unsettled me. It was too big for a maggot yet it filled me with the same instinctive revulsion. It was no thicker than a pencil, its body was sickly white with translucent silvery rings at each segmentation. It slithered, or rather glided as though moving through water, over the fish’s skull and coiled around above the eyes, settling into a grotesque, pulsating wreath. Its faceless head opened to reveal two disproportionately large jaws, and more hideous yet, a second smaller horizontally opening maw further in. It latched onto the fish’s flesh and I heard, or imagined I heard, a terrible scraping, like fingernails on blackboards. Sylvia whined and pulled on the lead, straining in the direction of the fish’s body. I glanced over and saw two more of these worms, sliding through the scaffold of fishbone and half-stripped flesh.
I kicked sand over the fish head. I had to bury it. Sylvia barked and darted around, yanking on the lead, but I didn’t stop shovelling sand with my foot until there was a substantial mound over both the fish’s head and body, and nothing remained but the rolling waves, the circling gulls and the excited yapping of my terrier.
I paused, out of breath. I chuckled inwardly, embarrassed, though alone, that I had got into such a panic over some sort of larvae or sea worm or whatever they were. Ridiculous. I’d managed to get sand inside my sneaker. B
alancing on my left foot, I took off my right shoe and shook out about a half-a-cup of sand before slipping it back on.
‘Come on, Sylvia. Let’s go,’ I gave her a quick pat and we turned to head back on our usual route home. ‘And no telling Dad that your mum freaked out over a bug, okay?’
Sylvia looked up at me as she trotted along. I took it as an agreement.
‘That’s right. What goes on the beach, stays on the beach. And I won’t tell him about your little escapade with the dead fish.’
The old man was still standing at the edge of the sea when we passed by again. He didn’t appear to have moved an inch in twenty or twenty-five minutes.
‘Hello!’ I called out, but he didn’t turn or move.
‘Hello? Are you okay?’ I walked towards him. Sylvia strained against the lead, reluctant to diverge from our usual path. Had he had a heart attack or a stroke or something? Was it possible to have a seizure of some sort standing up and remain paralysed in that position? He didn’t move as I approached.
‘I see you here most mornings – one of the regulars, like me. I’m Barbara, by the way. I pass by your house on our way to the beach most days, actually. It’s the grey bungalow on Manly Street, isn’t it? Lovely place. Lots of character. Beautiful garden out front. I’ve seen you gardening when I’ve driven past sometimes.’ I was babbling, filling the tense void with speech. His shoulders and the back of his head remained steadfast. My words sounded hollow, pathetic over the backdrop of gushing waves and crying seagulls in the distance. ‘I guess you’re the green-fingers of the house, eh?’
I was only a few feet away when I paused for breath. Sylvia whined. My heart thumped. Calm down, I told myself, taking another step forward, virtually dragging Sylvia now. Maybe he’s hard of hearing. The thought cheered me. The old man was fine, and he wouldn’t have heard me rabbiting on like a drivelling, slightly stalkerish real estate agent. Besides, I had my cell phone if I had to call an ambulance. I’d done a first-aid course a few years ago. Another step, another yank on Sylvia’s lead. Or maybe it was five years, but I still knew how to do CPR. Another step. I remembered the basics anyhow. That’d be enough.