Valhai (The Ammonite Galaxy)

by Gillian Andrews

  “OK. Let’s make a start. You’re right, we don’t want to take too long, even if we do have two spare mask packs each.” She put her hand on Diva’s elbow and the two girls set off in the direction of the skyrises, only pausing to give Arcan a wave of thanks. Grace wasn’t sure whether he could perceive it or not, but she would thank him properly once they were safe in the lift.

  To her surprise they made quite good time. In a little over twice the time it would have taken her on her own they were standing on the terrace of the ground floor of the 256th skyrise. Grace activated the biolock and ushered Diva in. Diva pulled off her mask, following Grace’s example. She looked around.

  “Wow!”

  “I know. Where do you want to live?”

  “I have a choice?”

  “Sure. There are currently 47 floors not being used. You can pick any of those.”

  “You’re kidding me!”

  “No. Seriously. It is part of Sell custom for each generation to build another floor to the family property. So the previous floors end up empty, except for the sarcophagi, of course.”

  Diva’s eyes were like plates. “And you don’t use all that space?”

  Grace shook her head. “No. They are just storage areas for each generation’s artifacts now. Though luckily for you the air system is still fully functional in them all. It helps to preserve some of the delicate art work that my ancestors bought.”

  “So I get to pick my floor? What do you think?”

  “I would pick between fifteen and twenty-nine. Sort of middle of the range, you know?”

  “Fine. Let’s make it twenty-one, then. That is when they give you an of-age party on Coriolis, and that may be as near as I will get to it.” She sighed.

  “Don’t be sad. You are safe, now.” Grace thought again. “Well; moderately safe. We will have fun. I’m glad you are here.”

  “Me too!”

  “Come this way, Honourable Visitor! I’ll show you around your new home!” Grace escorted Diva to the lift. “If you want to chat to Arcan you can always call him from here.” She showed how she was placing her hands against the lift wall.

  “Grace! Are you all right? Diva?” The walls of the lift erupted into speech.

  “We are fine. Tell Six, will you?”

  “Done. How is Diva?”

  “I am fine Arcan. Thank you for saving my life. I owe you.”

  The lift wall shimmered. “Yes. You do. I will . . . call it in one day?”

  Diva laughed. “That’s fine, Arcan. I see Six has been teaching you a few things.”

  “Very few. I find I often don’t understand his way of thinking.”

  “Nobody does! Don’t worry about it. Six has an original way of looking at the rest of the world.”

  “In that he emulates me. I am an original.” Arcan pointed out.

  “You are THE original!” Grace signed.

  The lift came to a halt on the twenty-first floor, and with a quick ‘bye’ to Arcan the girls tumbled out. When she saw the size of the place Diva gave a slow whistle.

  “Thank Lumina!” she said. “I was terrified I would have to go back into another bubble.”

  “No, you have four thousand and fifty square metres of area to get lost in. It is enough, you will see. Come.” Together the girls wandered over the twenty-first floor. The private areas first: eating, study, family, sleeping and viewing, which took up fifteen hundred and seventy-four square metres. Then the impressive voting room with its four high chairs. Diva gave a squeal of delight and insisted on climbing up the tallest one.

  “Don’t push any buttons on the top, whatever you do.” Grace laughed. “You would cause havoc. It would mean that one of my predecessors had come out of his tomb to vote!”

  Diva snatched her hands back.

  Grace continued with the tour. The music room, four hundred square metres in its own right. Then the visitor’s chamber, and then the tanato and adjoining medical chambers. That only left the running track, which ran all the way around the outside of the chambers. The only interruption in its smooth outer walls were the two lifts, and four doors - one leading to the main terrace and the other three to minor vantage points on the other three sides of the building.

  “Now I can see why my people think the Sellites are Gods!” Diva exclaimed. “Until now I have only seen the worst of them.”

  “You can say that again!” Grace agreed. Then she softly touched Diva’s arm. “I must tell you something.” She licked her lips. “It was my brother, Xenon, head of house, who ordered your death.”

  “I thought it must have been. Don’t worry, Grace. You have saved my life, and I won’t forget. If you think about it, it was my father who got us all into this mess by falsifying my exam results. Families!” And she shrugged.

  “He lives upstairs.”

  “Does he now? Interesting. So I had better not wander about too much on my own, hmm?”

  “I wouldn’t like you to bump into him in the lift.” She thought. “Or his wife, Amanita, either.”

  “Poisonous, is she? I know the sort.”

  “She is not my favourite person,” admitted Grace. “I don’t trust her. I think she wants to get rid of my mother and me – send us to Cesis, perhaps.”

  “Your mother?”

  Grace told her the story of her father’s death, and how Xenon 49 had had to take over the house immediately. How her mother had had some sort of a crisis. How Grace herself was being pushed to make up her mind about university.

  “I’m sorry.” She suddenly realized that she was talking to somebody who had lost their home, family, future and prospective children. “I didn’t think. I . . .”

  Diva touched her hand. “It is nice to know who you are, Grace. After all, you know an awful lot about everything that has ever happened to me!”

  “If you put it that way . . .”

  “Definitely. I would really like us to be friends. And that means being able to talk about everything. In any case, I just spent two months lying on a bed feeling sorry for myself, and I made a promise when I saw those stars that I would leave all that behind me with the bubble. By the way, can’t I go out to look at the stars?”

  “You can go onto the three vantage points; they are glassed in and so you don’t need biosigns to get in and out. None of the Sellites ever use them: our race has developed a fear of open spaces or views.”

  “Then that is where I shall sleep. Will you help me move a sleeping pallet into one of them? Which one shall I choose?”

  “The one near the back lift would probably be best. You could talk to Arcan if you get lonely and you would be able to hear the lift if it came with anybody else in it.”

  “That one, then.” Between them, they managed to drag a heavy sleeping pallet to the closed door to the vantage point. Diva held the door open and Grace dragged the pallet inside. The space was small, about the size of the bubble, but there was quite a patch of sky visible, studded with stars.

  “You can’t see Cian from this side,” Grace told her, “that’s why they build the biggest terrace on the other side of the lift.”

  “That doesn’t matter. It’s space and the stars that I need to see.”

  “I’ll show you the bathing area, and the wardrobes. The clothes are always kept so there should be something you can wear.”

  When she saw the available wardrobe, Diva opened her eyes wide. “Sacras! You could clothe a whole town!”

  “And you would call up your food here.” Grace took her back to the eating area. “But we can’t use the food lift because they would know somebody was here. So I will dial up some extra food upstairs, and bring it down for you every day.”

  “Fine. No problem.”

  “It won’t be much . . .”

  Diva gave her a hug. “Stop worrying! It will be fine. I don’t need very much. Thank you. Now go off to bed and get some sleep.”

  “I will bring you the portable interscreen Vion gave me tomorrow. You can use that if you want withou
t my brother finding out. Six hacked into it tonight, and spoke to me, but I don’t know if he can do that very much.”

  “Vion? Is he Doctor Nice?”

  Grace giggled. “I guess. He has been very nice to me anyway. But he doesn’t know anything about Arcan, or you escaping. I couldn’t risk telling him.”

  “Never mind. Maybe we shall meet again someday. He was kind.”

  Chapter 18

  THE GIRLS MADE their way down the metal ladder. Diva had already settled in on the twenty-first floor, and it was the first time Grace had been able to go bare planet since the Coriolan girl’s arrival, a week earlier.

  As she stepped down to the surface of the planet, Diva stopped, transfixed by the sight of the stars and of Cian’s stunning blue-purple semicircle hanging overhead.

  “Hey, watch out!” Grace had sprung down onto the planet, only to find her way blocked.

  “That is quite something. Can we just look at it for a moment?”

  “Sure. We have masses of air.”

  “I have never seen anything like it in my life. It is as if I came home. They are the same stars I can see from Coriolis, but they are so different. So much bigger –they fill my whole mind. Since I spent all that time shut up in the bubble, it is as if my very soul cries out for this view.”

  Grace nodded. “There is only a low atmosphere on Valhai. So the stars are much more visible than they must be on Coriolis.”

  “Grace?”

  “What?”

  “Who does this planet actually belong to?”

  Grace wrinkled her forehead. “Us. The Sellites. Why?”

  “I don’t think it does,” Diva said. “I think that if Arcan has lived here for thirty thousand years then it must be his planet.”

  Grace sat down suddenly. There was a long silence.

  “Then we will have to go,” she said, in a small voice. “And I will have been to blame.”

  “I don’t know.” Diva was thoughtful. “But Arcan is aware now, and I guess that sooner or later he is going to want to have some say in the future of his planet. We might have started out something that nobody is going to be able to stop. And yes, I think things might get very bad for you too. Your brother isn’t going to be best pleased about the help you have given me, for a start.”

  “We can’t put Arcan back in a box!”

  “No. Change is inevitable now, I think. I knew it was for me, but now I think it will be for all of us.”

  “But I love this planet!” cried Grace.

  “So do I,” said Diva. “—Although it isn’t Coriolis, of course.”

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t mention any of this to Arcan?” Suggested Grace, rather tentatively.

  “No. We won’t. But that isn’t going to affect the outcome.” And the two girls exchanged glances. The future suddenly seemed very cold. Grace shivered.

  When they reached the lake their spirits had improved. They were looking forward to seeing Arcan. Grace raced Diva down to the shore, and then they both placed their hands on the surface of the lake.

  Concentric circles of light spun out from their hands, to lose themselves in the distance. The girls exclaimed. A huge fountain sprung into life nearby, and then another and another.

  “I am happy to see you.” The surface moved.

  “Thank you Arcan. We can see that. How are you?” Grace signed.

  “As always, Grace. Happy to see that you are both well. I have been studying with Six. I am now able to understand the interscreen that he uses. It is much faster.”

  “That is great. Is Six all right?”

  There was a pause. “He is in class with Atheron. I can’t patch you through this time. He will be most annoyed with us.”

  “I know!”

  “But I have some excellent news to tell you. I think that you will be surprised.”

  “Six passed his own exams?” suggested Diva with a giggle.

  “I am sorry?”

  “Nothing. Tell us about your news.”

  “Very well. I can now move all of the old bubbles at once, and wherever I want to!”

  “That is exceptional, Arcan.”

  “So I want you to help me. Now that I can move all the bubbles, I can bring them to shore, and I would like you to take care of the apprentices inside – bury them or entomb them or whatever you think is the best way to deal with their bodies respectfully.”

  The girls looked at each other. “That is good news, but I am not sure that we can – it would take a lot of physical strength to dig graves for such a lot of people . . .” Grace told him slowly. Diva nodded her agreement.

  “Now that I can remove them, I find their presence is not acceptable.” The surface darkened ominously. “I cannot continue to harbour these poor victims of Sellite crimes. They must be put to rest in the appropriate way.”

  “But Arcan, I don’t think we can do that on our own . . . how many are there ?”

  “There are two hundred and sixty-seven.”

  Grace’s face showed consternation. “I don’t see how we can do that without all Valhai finding out, even if we could work out the how and the where,” she said.

  “You will find a way, Grace,” Arcan said confidently. “You are the one who finds the solutions. That is your strength.”

  Grace was sidetracked. “Do you think so? I have a strength? Really?”

  “Most emphatically. I am sure you will find a way to do this thing. It is necessary for me. I cannot continue with these decaying bodies hidden inside me.”

  “But I would have to tell other Sellites that you exist!”

  “Not yet,” Arcan told her. “I am not yet ready. And I may never be if we cannot remove the guilt I feel because of these bodies. I do not know how you can do it, Grace, but you must. You have no idea how it affects me to have been an unaware partner in their crimes. Please.”

  “I will try to think of something,” Grace promised.

  “Thank you. I believe in you. I know that you can solve this problem for me.”

  Grace and Diva were more subdued on their way back to the skyrise. How on earth were they to organize the funeral of nearly three hundred bodies on their own?

  “I think Arcan has overestimated my ability to solve problems,” Grace said ruefully. “I can’t seem to think up one single idea. We have no machines or anything . . .”

  “Could we steal one from somewhere?”

  Grace shook her head. “Impossible. Our construction machines are all managed from inside the skyrises, and in any case they are biolinked to specific operators.”

  “Look, Grace, we can do this. Arcan believes in us. So do I. So let’s just sit out here and look at the stars until one of us comes up with the solution.”

  They sat down on the starlit sand. Grace let handfuls of it run through her fingers. They were silent for a long time, their two figures sitting in ghostly illumination, under the light of Almagest reflected by Cian.

  “I can understand how Arcan feels,” said Diva, finally breaking the silence. “It must be like having gangrene – you’d rather chop your arm off than see all that putrefaction. You can’t blame him for not being able to concentrate properly on anything else.”

  “No. Tell me, Diva, How do Coriolans honour their dead? Do you bury them, or what?”

  “We bury the rich and cremate the poor,” Diva said lethargically. “On Kwaide they cremate the rich and bury the poor. I don’t see how that helps us very much. On Valhai you put your dead into hugely elaborate and very expensive sarcophagi. Also not a lot of help.”

  Grace got to her feet and brushed the sand off her clothes. “It’s no good,” she said. “I can’t think of any way to do it at all. Let’s get back to the skyrise, and we will see if we can get in touch with Six. Maybe he will be able to think of something.”

  “I don’t see how that nomus is going to come up with anything if we can’t,” grumbled Diva, but she got up anyway.

  By the time they managed to speak to Six it was late at night.


  “So kind of you to remember me, stuck here inside a bubble spending all day with quantum physics,” he complained. “Have you checked in because you are bored, or is it a social visit?”

  “We need your help,” Grace said baldly, leaning against the sides of the ortholift back on the twenty-first floor.

  “Of course. I might have known.”

  “We would have talked to you anyway . . .”

  “I’m sure . . .” His doubt was palpable.

  “No, really, Six. Oh I give up – you tell him Diva!” Grace subsided into a hurt silence.

  “Look, Kwaidian. Get your thinking cap on and get us out of this mess.”

  “Again?” he said wearily.

  Diva explained everything that Arcan had said. “And we have to come up with a plan that will work, and won’t involve anybody else,” she finished up.

  “So what is your problem? It’s obvious ain’t it?”

  “Not to us. What?”

  “Well, stands to reason. You will have to use Arcan. Two scrappy girls aren’t going to be a particle of good.”

  “Who are you calling scrappy, Mr. No-name?”

  “Let’s face it, neither of you is exactly muscle-bound!”

  “Neither are you, nomus!”

  “I could take both of you on at the same time and still be able to saddle up a vaniven before breakfast!”

  “You couldn’t even catch a vaniven!”

  “Wouldn’t have to. It would have fallen into a disbelieving stupor after seeing you!”

  “Oh, very funny!” Diva snapped.

  “Of admiration, of course. What did you think I meant?” Six asked her. “Anyway, pleasantries apart, the answer is clearly that Arcan will have to use his brute force here. You two aren’t going to be able to do anything much. Just get in the way, as usual, I guess!”

  At that, Arcan interrupted the deliberations. He must have been following the signaling. “How can you use my force? And why are you calling me a brute? I do not like it.”

  “Who called you a brute?” Then, as he thought back. “Oh. No, I said brute force, that refers to the force and not to the brute. I mean . . . oh Sacras! I am getting myself in knots here.”