Absolution Gap

by Alastair Reynolds

  He kept the lid on his anger. “All right.”

  “And I admit I was wrong.”

  “You weren’t to know what was about to happen,” he said.

  She shrugged and sighed. “No, I don’t suppose I was. No matter what they say, he walked the walk, didn’t he? When it came to putting his life on the line, he went and did it.”

  They had reached the line of boats. Most of those still left on land were wrecks: their hulls had gaping holes in them near the waterline, where they had been consumed by seaborne organisms. Sooner or later they would have been hauled away to the smelting plant, to be remade into new craft. The metalworkers were fastidious about reusing every possible scrap of recyclable metal. But the amount recovered would never have been equal to that in the original boats.

  “Look,” Urton said, pointing across the bay.

  Vasko nodded. “I know. They’ve already encircled the base of the ship.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Look a bit higher, Hawkeye. Can you see them?”

  “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Yes. My God. They’ll never make it.”

  They were tiny sparks of light around the base of the ship, slightly higher than the bobbing ring of boats Vasko had already noticed. He estimated that they could not have climbed more than a few dozen metres above the sea. There were thousands of metres of the ship above them.

  “How are they climbing?” Vasko said.

  “Hand over hand, I guess. You’ve seen what that thing looks like close-up, haven’t you? It’s like a crumbling cliff wall, full of handholds and ledges. It’s probably not that difficult.”

  “But the nearest way in must be hundreds of metres above the sea, maybe more. When the planes come and go they always land near the top.” Again he said, “They’ll never make it. They’re insane.”

  “They’re not insane,” Urton said. “They’re just scared. Really, really scared. The question is, should we be joining them?”

  Vasko said nothing. He was watching one of the tiny sparks of light fall back towards the sea.

  They stood and watched the spectacle for many minutes. Nobody else appeared to fall, but the other climbers continued their relentless slow ascent undaunted by the failure that many of them had doubtless witnessed. Around the sheer footslopes, where the boats must have been rocking and crashing against the hull, new climbers were beginning their ascent. Boats were returning from the ship, scudding slowly back across the bay, but progress was slow and tension was rising amongst those waiting on the shoreline. The Security Arm officials were increasingly outnumbered by the angry and frightened people who were waiting for passage to the ship. Vasko saw one of the SA men speaking urgently into his wrist communicator, obviously calling for assistance. He had almost finished talking when someone shoved him to the ground.

  “We should do something,” Vasko said.

  “We’re off duty, and two of us aren’t enough to make a difference. They’ll have to think of something different. It’s not as if they’re going to be able to contain this for much longer. I don’t think I want to be here any more.” She meant the shoreline. “I checked the reports before I came out. Things aren’t so bad east of the High Conch. I’m hungry and I could use a drink. Do you want to join me?”

  “I don’t have much of an appetite,” Vasko said. He had actually been starting to feel hungry again until he saw the person fall into the sea. “But a drink wouldn’t go amiss. Are you sure there’ll be somewhere still open?”

  “I know a few places we can try,” Urton said.

  “You know the area better than me, in that case.”

  “Your problem is you don’t get out enough,” she said. She pulled up the collar of her coat, then crunched down her hat. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before things turn nasty.”

  SHE TURNED OUT to be right about the zone of the settlement east of the Conch. Many Arm members lodged there, so the area had always had a tradition of loyalty to the administration. Now there was a sullen, reproachful calm about the place. The streets were no busier than they usually were at this time of night, and although many premises were closed, the bar Urton had in mind was still open.

  Urton led him through the main room to an alcove containing two chairs and a table poached from Central Amenities. Above the alcove a screen was tuned to the administration news service, but at the moment all it was showing was a picture of Clavain’s face. The picture had been taken only a few years earlier, but it might as well have been centuries ago. The man Vasko had known in the last couple of days had looked twice as old, twice as eroded by time and circumstance. Beneath Clavain’s face was a pair of calendar dates about five hundred years apart.

  “I’ll fetch us some beers,” Urton said, not giving him a chance to argue. She had removed her coat and hat, piling them on the chair opposite his.

  Vasko watched her recede into the gloom of the bar. He supposed she was a regular here. On their way to the alcove he had seen several faces he thought he half-recognised from SA training. Some of them had been smoking seaweed—the particular variety which when dried and prepared in a certain way induced mild narcotic effects. Vasko remembered the stuff from his training. It was illegal, but easier to get hold of than the black market cigarettes which were said to originate from some dwindling cache in the belly of the Nostalgia for Infinity.

  By the time Urton returned, Vasko had removed his coat. She put the beers down in front of him. Cautiously Vasko tasted his. The stuff in the glass had an unpleasant urinal tint. Produced from another variety of seaweed, it was only beer in the very loosest sense of the word.

  “I talked to Draygo,” she said, “the man who runs this place. He says the Security Arm officers on duty just went and punched holes in all the boats on the shore. No one else is being allowed to leave, and as soon as a boat returns, they impound it and arrest anyone on board.”

  Vasko sipped at his beer. “Nice to see they haven’t resorted to heavy-handed tactics, then.”

  “You can’t really blame them. They say three people have already drowned just crossing the bay. Another two have fallen off the ship while climbing.”

  “I suppose you’re right, but it seems to me that the people should have a right to do what they like, even if it kills him.”

  “They’re worried about mass panic. Sooner or later someone is bound to try swimming it, and then you might have hundreds of people following after. How many do you think would make it?”

  “Let them,” Vasko said. “So what if they drown? So what if they contaminate the Jugglers? Does anyone honestly think it makes a shred of difference now?”

  “We’ve maintained social order on Ararat for more than twenty years,” Urton said. “We can’t let it go to hell in a handcart in one night. Those people using the boats are taking irre-placeable colony property without authorisation. It’s unfair on the citizens who don’t want to flee to the ship.”

  “But we’re not giving them an alternative. They’ve been told Clavain’s dead, but no one’s told them what those lights in the sky are all about. Is it any wonder they’re scared?”

  “You think telling them about the war would make things any better?”

  Vasko wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, where the seaweed beer had left a white rime. “I don’t know, but I’m fed up with everyone being lied to just because the administration thinks it’s in our best interests not to know all the facts. The same thing happened with Clavain when he disappeared. Scorpio and the others decided we couldn’t deal with the fact that Clavain was suicidal, so they made up some story about him going around the world. Now they don’t think the people can deal with knowing how he died, or what it was all for in the first place, so they’re not telling anyone anything.”

  “You think Scorpio should be taking a firmer lead?”

  “I respect Scorpio,” Vasko said, “but where is he now, when we need him?”

  “You’re not the only one wondering that,” Urton said.

  Som
ething caught Vasko’s eye. The picture on the screen had changed. Clavain’s face was gone, replaced for a moment by the administration logo. Urton turned around in her seat, still drinking her beer.

  “Something’s happening,” she said.

  The logo flickered and vanished. They were looking at Scorpio, surrounded by the curved rose-pink interior of the High Conch. The pig wore his usual unofficial uniform of padded black leather, the squat dome of his head a largely neckless outgrowth of his massive barrelled torso.

  “You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?” Vasko asked.

  “Draygo told me he’d heard that there was an announcement scheduled for around this time. But I don’t know what it’ll be about and I didn’t know Scorpio was going to show his face.”

  The pig was speaking. Vasko was about to find a way to make the screen louder when Scorpio’s voice rang out loudly throughout the maze of alcoves, piped through on some general-address system.

  “Your attention, please,” he said. “You all know who I am. I speak now as the acting leader of this colony. With regret, I must again report that Nevil Clavain was killed today while on a mission of maximum importance for the strategic security of Ararat. Having participated in the same operation, I can assure you that without Clavain’s bravery and self-sacrifice the current situation would be enormously more grave than is the case. As things stand, and despite Clavain’s death, the mission was successful. It is my intention to inform you of what was accomplished in that operation in due course. But first I must speak about the current disturbances in all sectors of First Camp, and the actions that the Security Arm is taking to restore social order. Please listen carefully, because all our lives depend on it. There will be no more unauthorised crossings to the Nostalgia for Infinity. Finite colony resources cannot be risked in this manner. All unofficial attempts to reach the ship will therefore be punished by immediate execution.”

  Vasko glanced at Urton, but he couldn’t tell if her expression was one of disgust or quiet approval.

  The pig waited a breath before continuing. Something was wrong with the transmission, for the earlier image of Clavain had begun to reappear, overlaying Scorpio’s face like a faint nimbus. “There will, however, be an alternative. The administration recommends that all citizens go about their business as usual and do not attempt to leave the island. Nonetheless it recognises that a minority wish to relocate to the Nostalgia for Infinity. Beginning at noon tomorrow, therefore, and continuing for as long as necessary, the administration will provide safe authorised transportation to the ship. Designated aircraft will take groups of one hundred people at a time to the Infinity. As of six a.m. tomorrow, rules of conveyance, including personal effects allocations, will be available from the High Conch and all other administrative centres, or from uniformed Security Arm personnel. There is no need to panic about being on the first available transport, since—to repeat—the flights will continue until demand is exhausted.”

  “They had no choice,” Vasko said quietly. “Scorp’s doing the right thing.”

  But the pig was still talking. “For those who wish to board the Infinity, understand die following: conditions aboard the ship will be atrocious. For the last twenty-three years, there have seldom been more than a few dozen people aboard it at any one time. Much of me ship is now uninhabitable or simply unmapped. In order to accommodate an influx of hundreds, possibly even thousands, of refugees, me Security Arm will have to enforce strict emergency rule. If you think the crisis measures in the First Camp are Draconian, you have no idea how much worse tilings will be on the ship. Your sole right will be the right of survival, and we will dictate how that is interpreted.”

  “What does he mean by that?” Vasko asked, while Scorpio continued with the arrangements for the transportation.

  “He means they’ll have to freeze people,” Urton said. “Squeeze them into those sleep coffins, like they did when the ship came here in the first place.”

  “He should tell them, in that case.”

  “Obviously he doesn’t want to.”

  “Those reefersleep caskets aren’t safe,” Vasko said. “I know what happened the last time they used them. A lot of people didn’t make it out alive.”

  “It doesn’t matter, does it?” Urton said. “He’s still giving them better odds than if they try to make the journey themselves—even without that execution order.”

  “I still don’t understand. Why provide that option at all, if the administration doesn’t think it’s the right thing to do?”

  Urton shrugged. “Because maybe the administration isn’t sure what to do. If they declare a general evacuation to the ship, they’ll really have a panic on their hands. Looking at it from their point of view, how do they know whether it’s better for the people to evacuate to the ship or remain on the ground?”

  “They don’t,” he said. “Whichever they choose, there’ll always be a risk that it might be the wrong decision.”

  Urton nodded emphatically. She had nearly finished her beer. “At least this way Scorpio gets to split the difference. Some people will end up in the ship, some will chose to stay at home. It’s the perfect solution, if you want to maximise the chances of some people surviving.”

  “That sounds very heartless.”

  “It is.”

  “In which case I don’t think you need worry about Scorpio not being the callous leader you said we needed.”

  “No. He’s callous enough,” Urton agreed. “Of course, we could be misreading this entirely. But assuming we aren’t, does it shock you?”

  “No, I suppose not. And I think you’re right. We do need someone strong, someone prepared to think the unthinkable.” Vasko put down his glass. It was only half-empty, but his thirst had gone the same way as his appetite. “One question,” he said. “Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?”

  Urton inspected him the way a lepidopterist might examine a pinned specimen. “Because, Vasko, it occurred to me that you might be a useful ally, in the long run.”

  Hela, 2727

  THE SCRIMSHAW SUIT said, “We’ve heard the news, Quaiche.”

  The sudden voice startled him, as it always did. He was alone. Grelier had just finished seeing to his eyes, swabbing an infected abscess under one retracted eyelid. The metal clamp of the eye-opener felt unusually cruel to him today, as if, while Quaiche was sleeping, the surgeon-general had covertly sharpened all its little hooks. Not while he was really sleeping, of course. Sleep was a luxury he remembered in only the vaguest terms.

  “I don’t know about any news,” he said.

  “You made your little announcement to the congregation downstairs. We heard it. You’re taking the cathedral across Absolution Gap.”

  “And if I am, what business is it of yours?”

  “It’s insanity, Quaiche. And your mental health is very much our business.”

  He saw the suit in blurred peripheral vision, around the sharp central image of Haldora. The world was half in shadow, bands of cream and ochre and subtle turquoise plunging into the sharp terminator of the nightside.

  “You don’t care about me,” he said. “You only care about your own survival. You’re afraid I’ll destroy you when I destroy the Lady Morwenna.”

  “‘When,’ Quaiche? Frankly, that’s a little disturbing to us. We were hoping you still had some intention of actually succeeding.”

  “Perhaps I do,” he conceded.

  “Where nobody has done so before?”

  “The Lady Morwenna isn’t any old cathedral.”

  “No. It’s the heaviest and tallest on the Way. Doesn’t that give you some slight pause for thought?”

  “It will make my triumph all the more spectacular.”

  “Or your disaster, should you topple off the bridge or bring the entire thing crashing down. But why now, Quaiche, after all these revolutions around Hela?”

  “Because I feel that the time is right,” he said. “You can’t second-guess these things. No
t the work of God.”

  “You truly are a lost cause,” the scrimshaw suit said. Then the cheaply synthesised voice took on an urgency it had lacked before. “Quaiche, listen to us. Do what you will with the Lady Morwenna. We won’t stop you. But first let us out of this cage.”

  “You’re scared,” he said, pulling the stiff tissue of his face into a smile. “I’ve really put the wind up you, haven’t I?”

  “It doesn’t have to be this way. Look at the evidence, Quaiche. The vanishings are increasing in frequency. You know what mat means, don’t you?”

  “The work of God is moving towards its culmination.”

  “Or, alternatively, the concealment mechanism is failing. Take your pick. We know which interpretation we favour.”

  “I know all about your heresies,” he said. “I don’t need to hear them again.”

  “You still think we are demons, Quaiche?”

  “You call yourselves shadows. Isn’t that a bit of a giveaway?”

  “We call ourselves shadows because that is what we are, just as you are all shadows to us. It’s a statement of fact, Quaiche, not a theological standpoint.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more of it.”

  It was true: he had heard enough of their heresies. They were lies, engineered to undermine his faith. Time and again he had tried to purge them from his head, but always to no avail. As long as the scrimshaw suit remained with him—as long as the thing inside the scrimshaw suit remained—he would never be able to forget those untruths. In a moment of weakness, a lapse that had been every bit as unforgivable as the one twenty years earlier that had brought them here in the first place, he had even followed up some of their heretical claims. He had delved into the Lady Morwenna’s archives, following lines of enquiry.

  The shadows spoke of a theory. It meant nothing to him, yet when he searched the deep archives—records carried across centuries in the shattered and corrupted data troves of Ultra trade ships—he found something, glints of lost knowledge, teasing hints from which his mind was able to suggest a whole.