Angel Stations

by Gary Gibson

  Whenever Sam reached the top of the steep path leading to the top of the cliff, he found food and water left on a shelf within a stone cairn that had been built specifically for that purpose. He ate and drank what he could as fast as possible, knowing time would be short. While he did so, he could look around.

  The plateau stretched for a couple of miles, a high rocky shelf with a steep slope. From space, the Teive Mountains looked like a double row of teeth, a narrow valley lying between the two chains, which broadened out two or three hundred kilometres further east, before the land dropped towards the sea and became an island chain.

  On the eastern flank of the plateau stood New Coventry, the name Vaughn had picked for their settlement. A dozen narrow streets, with a tiny town square paved with blocks of dark marble. Beyond that, the plateau fell rapidly away to steep cliffs. On the other side of the town, and below the cliffs there, were situated the deep caves Vaughn intended to hide in, along with everybody else, when the radiation came.

  ‘Who’s watching us?’ asked Sam as Matthew came up to him, his face partly hidden behind the fur trim of a parka.

  ‘I’ve got someone I can trust on duty today,’ said Matthew. It had been several years since they had last spoken to each other. The boy Sam remembered was gone. There was bitterness and anger on the face of the man who had replaced him, and a narrow scar ran along the edge of his jaw.

  ‘I don’t believe your father’s suddenly become so complacent,’ said Sam. ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten what happened last time?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ snapped Matthew. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his tone softer. ‘I’m a little nervous.’

  ‘If he had any idea we’re speaking to each other, he’d kill you. And I wouldn’t be so lucky.’

  ‘He doesn’t have any idea. He’s caught up in preparations for . . . for what’s going to happen.’ The shadow of a smile crossed Matthew’s face, then vanished in the darkness under his parka’s hood. ‘You know what he calls it? God’s Holy Light.’

  ‘Matthew, you’d better tell me what you need to tell me, then get out of here, for your own sake. He only let you live as an example. Remember that.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten. Don’t underestimate me, Sam. I know what I’m doing now. There’s nothing like the desire for revenge to get you motivated.’

  How true, thought Sam. How true.

  Sam glanced behind Matthew. ‘You’ve brought the truck with you. Are you taking me back down the slope?’

  Matthew grinned this time, and Sam saw a brief shadow of the boy he remembered. ‘As far as you’re concerned, I’m Luke.’ Luke was one of Vaughn’s most trusted soldiers. ‘So yeah, I’m taking you down.’

  Sam was suitably thunderstruck. ‘What happened to Luke?’

  Matthew’s grin got wider. ‘Let’s just say Luke’s not been quite the good little Primalist that Vaughn thought he was.’ Matthew glanced at him curiously. ‘You mean you didn’t foresee that? I thought you could foresee everything.’

  ‘The general events, yes; the specific details not so often, but sometimes. I know how most things are going to turn out, but the exact mechanism isn’t always clear.’

  ‘Well, anyway, Luke’s going to do what I tell him from now on, because if Dad ever has any idea what he’s been up to, Luke is a dead man.’

  ‘So what should I say next time I see him? Luke, I mean?’

  Matthew shrugged. He gestured at the truck – a large, prefab snowmobile with an open trailer behind it – and walked towards it. Sam watched as he climbed into the truck’s cabin and reversed it next to where Sam stood with the great stone ball.

  ‘Here, let me help you,’ said Matthew, flipping down the tailboard of the trailer. He started to lay his hands on the stone.

  ‘No, don’t,’ said Sam hurriedly. He grappled with the sides of the stone, heaving and pushing until it rolled up the dropped down tailboard and into the trailer. Matthew had stepped back, looking slightly puzzled. ‘It’s just . . . a personal thing,’ said Sam, not sure why he’d felt so uncomfortable with it. ‘I need to do it myself.’ Because I’ve forgotten how to be any other way? Sam wondered. How strange.

  Sam hunkered down by the stone. ‘So what do you intend to do now, Matthew?’

  ‘Tell me, Sam. You’re the one who can see so much. Can you really see so much more of the future than my father?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sam. ‘That’s why he’s happier with me well out of the way of the rest of you.’

  Matthew stood by the open trailer, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his parka, against the bitter, freezing cold. ‘But he doesn’t kill you – or take you somewhere really far away, where nobody could ever find you.’

  ‘We’ve been over this already, Matthew, a long time ago.’

  ‘Because he’s terrified of you. Because if he can’t see you—’

  ‘And he can’t kill me either.’

  ‘He could drop you in a volcano?’

  ‘Careful there, Matthew. You don’t want him getting any ideas. He doesn’t because he knows he won’t. He can see that much. He can see me there, at the end. His greatest talent lies elsewhere.’

  ‘The far-casting.’

  ‘Yes, he can do it across astonishing distances, you know.’

  ‘Tell me what’s going to happen.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘I won’t do that. Trust me, Matthew, there are some things you’re better off not knowing about until you get there.’

  ‘Then we need to talk – about the Plan.’

  ‘So you’ll help me? Help me make it happen?’

  ‘My God, yes,’ said Matthew, fervour filling his voice. ‘I want to hurt him so badly, Sam.’

  ‘Take me back down now. Do we have enough time to talk once we’re there?’

  ‘A little while, yes. There are things you should know. He found something inside the Citadel . . . some kind of reproductive machine. I think he’s intending to use it against the Station up there.’

  ‘Angel tech?’

  ‘Yeah. Sometimes I hear things, even things Dad doesn’t want me to know about. You know how most of the shuttles had their orbital capacity disabled? He put one back together, a while back.’

  ‘Who went off planet?’ asked Sam.

  ‘I’m not sure anybody did. I think it was done by remote – like he meant to plant something up there.’

  Matthew pushed the tailboard back up and locked it in place. Sam watched clouds drifting between the distant mountain peaks as Matthew ferried him back to the bottom of the path.

  Ten

  Vincent

  It had been some years since Vincent had experienced zero gravity. Okay, not quite zero gravity, since the exotic material the Station was constructed of had a tiny, almost imperceptible pull, but it was close to zero. He was here for a purpose, but he knew he needed an ally. Except the last time he’d encountered anyone who seemed like a potential ally, she’d run away from him as fast as she could.

  There were maybe several dozen children on board the Station. At first he’d assumed they were all here with their families, but one or two had this weirdly feral look about them that made him wonder. When they propelled themselves through the tunnels, they did so in a way that brought the words animal grace to mind. They literally sailed through and around the crowds of adults all around them. He saw one girl, in a heavily customized jump-suit, work a kind of corkscrew pattern through a roughly circular tunnel with plenty of handholds, using them to boost herself up to an astonishing speed. She had flickered past Vincent in the blink of an eye.

  Vincent watched them carefully. He’d always been a fast learner.

  He’d never understood what it meant to feel powerless until now. He’d managed to speak to Commander Holmes on just two occasions, each time catching him briefly outside of his office. Holmes had listened with patience for a few moments, clearly distracted, before excusing himself by saying they were in the middle of an emergency. The armed soldiers accompanying him
had made it clear that a few moments was exactly as long as Vincent was going to get. Holmes hadn’t reacted the way Vincent had hoped.

  Vincent had certainly noticed an increased presence of armed military in the corridors over the past forty-eight hours. Something was clearly up. The problem was, every time he tried to speak to someone, anyone, he sounded completely crazy. The end of the world is coming!

  It was surprisingly difficult to get through to even the scientists on board, and it became depressingly clear the Station lay on a kind of interstellar lunatic’s highway of seers and prophets, all inflicting their own religious visions on their fellow Station-dwellers. The problem was the absence of Eddie. Eddie had clout. If Eddie had been here, it would be impossible to ignore him. He could pull too many strings, knew too many people for that to happen.

  If only Eddie had been here.

  So Vincent spent time watching children shooting down the corridors like bullets down the barrel of a gun, sometimes several moving at once, their bodies describing a peculiar airborne ballet as they sailed by.

  It was another few days before he saw Kim again. This time he wasn’t going to lose her. Once more, she was at the far end of a crowded corridor, at a kind of nexus where several gutted hulls had been welded together to create a kind of pedestrian highway. Vincent had practised a little during the Quiet Time. He kicked himself effortlessly up in the air, and slapped both his feet off a cushioned projection with a thump. This sent him sailing forward, and he grabbed another handhold to propel himself forward even faster.

  He’d been worried about crashing into people, but they moved out of his way without seeming entirely aware he was there, so he needn’t have worried. Kim looked up and spotted him, an alarmed expression appearing on her face. It’s been years and she still looks beautiful, thought Vincent.

  She didn’t try to run away. How do I stop now? thought Vincent, panicking. It had been easy during the Quiet Time, when he’d had near-empty corridors to practise in. Then he’d sort of skidded to a halt, braking himself by bumping along the walls until he could grab on to something. She’s definitely not going to run away this time, he realized with alarm. In fact, she looked rooted to the spot. What’s going to happen when I get to her?

  He found out a few seconds later, as she ducked.

  He hit the wall behind her hard enough to hear a faint ringing in his ears, finally ending up in an ungainly pile at her feet. The inhabitants of the Station seemed to have an uncanny ability to avoid airbound astrophysicists. People just cut around him, many casting amused and slightly superior glances. He blinked, and thought, Hope I didn’t hit my head too hard.

  ‘Vincent! For God’s sake, are you all right?’

  Kim pulled him to his feet. ‘I thought you were going to run away from me,’ he said, feeling a little unsteady. She looked away from him for a moment, then turned back just as he was about to speak again.

  ‘Don’t say anything. I know,’ she said quickly. ‘Really, I know. I just panicked when I first saw you.’

  ‘I’ll have to admit I did wonder why—’

  ‘Things have been difficult,’ she interrupted tersely. ‘I’m sure you understand.’ He did, all too well, and it hadn’t changed his opinion of her one bit. He’d been entirely aware of the pressures on her. ‘So,’ she said, with what sounded to Vincent like false levity, ‘what brings you all the way out here?’

  At last, someone he could talk to.

  Elias

  On the surface, the Angel Station seemed the focus for a cross-political power-sharing. This was a way of guaranteeing that no one nation held absolute power over any one Angel Station, and thereby gaining potentially unlimited military superiority through any Angel tech discovered. Which was the reason, Elias had discovered, why security gave every appearance of being incredibly tight, enough so as to make him feel nervous.

  He was therefore reassured, upon further enquiry, to discern high levels of corruption just below the well-polished, regimented surface. His introduction to Bill, by Eduardez, had indeed proved only the tip of the iceberg.

  It had been years since Elias had last worn a space-suit. He had a plan already worked out in his head, and the closer he got to his goal, the more excited he felt. He breathed deeply, staring out through the curving glass of his helmet, calming himself, focusing. He reached out, touched a button. A door slid open just in front of him. Somewhere, Elias could hear a hissing, something like a brief whisper or a sharp intake of breath, then he was in vacuum. He waited to see if anything went wrong, but there was nothing but silence. He gazed beyond the open airlock door and saw only blackness.

  A radio crackled. ‘Hey, Murray, you there?’ It was Eduardez.

  A few days earlier, Eduardez had shown him an external view of the Jager. The photograph was blurry, out of focus. ‘Aren’t they going to realize the instant someone comes near?’

  ‘Sure, but the point is making certain they think you’re a friend, not foe,’ explained Eduardez. ‘They got guys buzzing all over it just now, making repairs. Security ain’t so tight as they’d like.’

  ‘I don’t want to take any more chances than I have to.’

  ‘Sure, I understand that. Things are fine. Me and Bill go back a long way. I do him little favours – share and share alike, right? Otherwise life gets pretty boring out here. Look at this little gizmo here. You see that?’ A slim black box, roughly soldered. ‘This contains the same software used to run automated security routines on the Jager. This identifies you as a member of the repair crew, so you keep it on the back of your suit and you’ll be fine.’

  Elias eyed the little black box with suspicion.

  ‘What if anyone asks what I’m doing there?’

  Eduardez chuckled. ‘Man, nobody going to ask you that. Little box does that for you too. Isn’t a security routine on or around the whole Station hasn’t been cracked some time or other.’

  ‘What’s with all the security, anyway? I thought the aliens were just primitive or something.’

  ‘The ones down on Kasper, yeah, but they ain’t the ones built the Station. And what do you mean, why security? Don’t you know what happened here?’

  Elias frowned. ‘I read some stuff about the Station on my way here.’

  Eduardez stared at him in unfeigned amazement. ‘Like when everybody disappeared? Elias, the whole crew that used to be here before the Hiatus, they just upped sticks and vanished centuries ago. Nobody found ’em, no trace of ’em anywhere.’

  Elias looked blank. ‘I thought that was just bullshit.’

  ‘You serious, telling me you don’t know about this? Ain’t nothing going to happen now after all this time, but, still, what kind of back and beyond you been livin’ in anyway, Elias?’

  Elias stepped forward. ‘I’m not paying you to insult me, okay?’

  ‘Okay, sorry.’ Eduardez raised a placating hand, giving Elias an up-and-down appraisal at the same time, like he was trying to see if he was armed. Elias had a couple of ceramic pistols hidden in the back of his jacket, the kind that weapons scans didn’t usually pick up. Just in case.

  A couple of hours before, Eduardez had guided him to one of the outermost reaches of the Station’s human-habitable section, a complex latticework of tubes and supporting struts. Mostly hydroponics, Eduardez informed him while leading him down long corridors filled with heat and plant life. There was even a kind of petting zoo with a couple of dogs and cats. Gerbils floated in the zero gravity like fat, furry bees, watching the men’s passage with tiny eyes from behind wire mesh. The scent of the animals, of the plants, was furious. By the time they’d emerged beyond the hydroponics, Elias was sweating from the heat.

  ‘What I don’t get,’ said Elias, ‘is why they don’t just rotate the Station and get some kind of gravity. They did it with some of the big military ships I’ve been on, so why not here?’

  ‘You kidding? Could be that’s what blew the Oort Station up in the first place.’

  ‘I thought that’s
because they jerked around with the circuitry or something.’

  ‘Yeah, that and they tried to spin the thing. Nobody’s going to spin any more Stations to see if they can find out the real reason. So zero gravity it is, for evermore, or until somebody figures out how to make our own singularities. Besides, the place is a mess in every other way that needs to be fixed before they can get around to anything else. They tried using these ’ponics to make the place more self-supporting, but almost all the food and air still gets brought in from outside. Whole thing leaks atmosphere faster than we can breathe it. Here, see that?’

  Eduardez pushed through into yet another hydroponics pod, preceding him in. Elias watched as Eduardez scrabbled at a hatch in the plate-steel flooring, under rows of tables covered in biogenetically adapted plant-life. The air smelled sweet and moist. He pulled the hatch up, and Elias reached down to help push its lid to one side. There was a space inside which Eduardez wriggled into and out of sight. After a couple of moments’ hesitation, Elias followed him.

  There was more room underneath there than he might have expected. Even enough to stand up in. ‘What is this?’ Elias asked, looking around what appeared to be some kind of storage space. It looked dark, unpainted bulkhead; the only light shone down through the hatch they had climbed through. Elias could see what looked like an airlock door set into one wall.

  ‘My little hideout,’ said Eduardez. ‘I sometimes keep stuff here I don’t want anyone else to know about.’ Smuggling, Elias guessed.

  Eduardez went over to some crates, and pulled one open. It was filled with medical pressure punches, the kind that shot stuff in without using a needle when you pressed it onto your arm. Eduardez pulled one or two out, and turned to Elias like a bon vivant offering a glass of sherry to a friend. ‘Want a shot?’

  ‘No, thanks. I want to keep my head clear.’

  ‘Suit yourself. Don’t mind if I do?’ There was a tiny squeak as he pressed the punch against his arm and hit the button. He shook his head. ‘Woof. Needed that. You’re missing out, you know.’