Angel Stations

by Gary Gibson

  Ursu stood and forced himself to turn. ‘Don’t you have anyone to tend to your wounds?’

  – I can attend to them myself. There is much for you to learn. The answers lie in Baul, down in the deep caverns.

  ‘There is a machine there.’

  – As I told you.

  More shouting. Was it closer? There were still so many questions he wanted to ask the Shai.

  ‘We need to speak – but not now. When will you come again?’

  – Soon.

  The creature seemed to fade back into the deep shadows from which it had risen. ‘Wait,’ cried Ursu, in frustration. It might be days before he could speak with it again.

  The Shai had come to him several times over the past few weeks, telling him secrets of the world at large, helping him understand the visions he had seen. He had even seen this city of Baul in his mind’s eye, as if from far above, and now knew it to be real. He had also seen visions of impossible places high in the sky, places filled with countless Shai.

  It seemed not all Shai were the same.

  He wanted to run, and hide, far away from the soldiers. And once he had reached Baul, whatever it was that the fates or the gods or strange visions of demons wanted him to do, he would do it, and then he would walk, until he was in no place he could recognize, in a land as far from Nubala as he could possibly be, and there, just perhaps, he might find himself a life of peace.

  Kim

  ‘We’re not going to make it, Elias.’

  ‘We’ll make it,’ he replied tersely. ‘What’s happened back there?’

  ‘The cargo bay is now in vacuum, and we had to repair the seal on the connecting crawlspace because the bugs were starting to eat through that too. I’m going to move as much stuff as we can through here and seal off the cabin.’

  She could see how much the stress of the past two days had been affecting them all. She also knew how slim their chances were, as Kasper loomed large ahead of them.

  That they had even come this close to the world that filled their viewscreens struck a note of paranoia in Kim’s mind. The international military force that supported the Kasper Angel Station was prepared to go to considerable lengths to maintain the no-go zone that surrounded the alien world. But, within a few days, the Station itself and every vessel in the system had been threatened or attacked by an unknown, unstoppable enemy. For Kim, the main question – apart from whether or not they would survive the next few hours – was whether it was all just coincidence.

  There seemed nothing to tie these events together, but some part of her mind kept playing over the details of what she knew, wondering if there might be something, anything, in amongst the few disparate facts she knew that might suggest some element of predetermination.

  Elias shook his head. ‘Leave it. This close to the planet’s surface, that isn’t going to make any difference. We’re less than maybe an hour from a touchdown.’

  Only an hour? They might be dead in an hour. Kim didn’t like the idea of dying without knowing a few things first. ‘Elias, you haven’t told us anything about this man you’re looking for.’ He hunched his shoulders and ignored her, just staring at the screens.

  The truth was, Kim had a feeling they might make it. Although she could no longer personally control the Goblin, she could still read the encyclopaedic information stored within its databases. Elias was unpleasantly right about a lot of things: the Goblin was, indeed, capable of atmospheric re-entry – once. But it had to enter the atmosphere at the right angle, at the right speed, using up almost all of its available fuel to brake.

  They were going down there, but they weren’t likely to be coming back up again.

  ‘His name is Trencher,’ Elias said eventually. Kim blinked, realizing he’d actually spoken.

  ‘Who is Trencher?’

  Another long pause. ‘You should know, I suppose. I met him after I finished my military service. We had . . . certain things in common. I didn’t then understand why. Something happened to me,’ he was looking at her now, ‘during my military service. It had something to do with Angel technology. I took part in a secret research programme: bio-genetic experimentation, augmentation.’

  I was right the first time, thought Kim, alarmed. He is crazy. There is no Trencher. It was just blind luck that he arrived at the Station when he did, that so many things seemed to happen together just then.

  ‘What did they do to you?’ she asked quietly, thinking she must humour him.

  ‘I’m not sure. I wasn’t the only one. They wanted to enhance us by using gene treatments, make us better soldiers.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I volunteered – so did the others. It seemed . . . it seemed like the right thing to do.’ He shook his head, looked away again.

  ‘Is this true?’

  ‘Of course it’s true,’ he snapped. ‘You said you wanted to know.’

  ‘This man Trencher, was he part of this programme?’

  Elias shook his head. ‘No, he was born that way, but it was due to the same basic approach: he was made, created. We found each other because I needed someone to show me how to live with what I now had, what I couldn’t give away.’ He glared at her. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  ‘You haven’t really told me much, Elias. What did this research programme do to you?’

  ‘If I told you,’ he said carefully, ‘you’d have every right to think me completely insane, so I’m not going to, okay? But I will tell you this: Trencher knew something was going to happen. He didn’t know exactly where or exactly when, but that certain events were going to take place, and that when they did he wanted me to do something for him.’

  ‘Is this what you had to do – follow him here?’

  ‘Yes.’ He stared at her. ‘You still think I’m crazy, right?’ He nodded gently, turned his attention back to the screens. ‘Can’t say I blame you.’

  ‘Elias, do you have any real idea of the kind of people who wind up on Angel Stations? There are about fifty lunatics for every one person with a legitimate reason for being there. I’m not necessarily saying that’s true of you, but—’

  ‘I heard about those experiments,’ said Vincent from behind her. Kim turned with a start; he’d come through from the cabin without a sound. ‘I resealed the crawlspace, but I don’t think we have long,’ he said to them both.

  Elias looked at Vincent. ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘Nothing ever got put on public record, but there’ve always been stories floating around the Grid concerning experiments with Angel-based gene treatments. Crazy stuff, but no way to prove any of it’s true.’ He shrugged. ‘But I do know it’s not the first time it’s happened, either.’

  ‘Who else?’ asked Elias.

  ‘Take your pick. Once the Angel alterations to human DNA were identified, it didn’t take a great deal of investment or equipment before pretty much anyone could start tweaking the appropriate genes to see what happened.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ groaned Kim. ‘We don’t have time for this. These are fairy tales. Nobody believes this stuff.’

  Vincent squinted at her. ‘Don’t you remember the big biotech bust a couple of years ago?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I—’

  ‘Some South American biotech firm, with labs in North America and Europe, turned out to have strong financial links with the Primalist religion. There were enough financial irregularities for the authorities to end up raiding a couple of facilities, where they found illegal biotech work was being done using Angel gene sequences. The whole thing blew up into a huge scandal, when a bunch of governments were caught dabbling in very black biotech research. So finding out that someone like Elias had a bunch of shit pumped into him while he was in the army doesn’t surprise me, or anyone else. Now do you understand why I might be rather interested in what Elias is saying?’

  Kim shook her head, confused. ‘I’m lost, Vince.’ She raised her hands, then dropped them down by her sides in a gesture of defeat. ‘I’ve been out here for
a while, remember? I wasn’t paying so much attention to the news.’

  ‘Because you keep punishing yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘Let’s not get into that – not here, not now,’ said Kim, holding up a warning hand.

  ‘Look here,’ said Elias suddenly. He tapped at the console and they saw a bright flash of light at the edge of the Kaspian atmosphere. ‘That’s the shuttle in re-entry.’

  Vincent leaned over his shoulder. ‘Where’s it going?’

  ‘Looks like it’s heading for that mountain range,’ Elias said, ‘there, at the edge of the continent. Big, too, like the Alps, or the Andes.’

  The Goblin shook just then, and there was the sound of screeching metal. Low vibrations rippled through the ship’s hull, building in intensity for a few seconds. Vincent grabbed the edge of Elias’s seat and held on for dear life.

  ‘Okay, that wasn’t good,’ said Kim, her face pale. She’d retreated across the cockpit by grabbing on to handholds.

  ‘This is what I’m going to do,’ said Elias, urgency in his tone. ‘There are set emergency landing procedures the Goblin can follow. That means the ship can take itself down with minimum or no intervention from us. However, that doesn’t necessarily take the bugs into account.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Kim.

  ‘I’m setting the ship to take us in now,’ said Elias, tapping at the console. ‘Thing is, I don’t have too much control over where we land.’

  ‘How come?’ asked Vincent.

  ‘I’ve only ever done this in a training simulation,’ Elias said. ‘The Goblin can take certain things into account, second to second; things like air pressure, wind speed, the terrain, that kind of thing. As long as we don’t land in the middle of one of their cities, we should be okay – I hope.’

  The ship shook again. ‘Elias, I hope you’re right and I hope we’re down soon, because those little things are going to tear this ship apart,’ said Kim. The planet filled the screens now, and Kim felt damp sweat on her shoulders and hands. Her teeth hurt from clenching her jaw. She thought longingly of the last few Susan Books, still in the cabin.

  She’d realized, soon after much of the Station had been destroyed, that the one distillation unit in the whole System had probably been destroyed with it. She had no remaining distillate outside of the few Books that remained in her possession. All that remained of Susan, of her mind, her memories, was contained in a tiny plastic cylinder just a few feet away. She had to preserve it at all costs, until more could be made.

  In the meantime, she might be able to draw some extra strength by eating just one. Enough to get her by, until she acquired more – assuming they came out of this alive.

  She glanced at a screen, and saw that clouds now filled all the displays. They were on the edge of the atmosphere, she realized. Elias started to strap himself in. ‘Screens are going to go blank in a minute. Strap yourselves in. It’s going to be a rough ride.’

  She pulled herself into the pilot’s seat, gave Elias a long, hard stare. ‘If we ever get out of this, don’t expect either of us to help you.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  I’m back, Kim realized with a start. I spent years keeping away from the Citadel, only remembering the things I wanted to remember. But now I’m back. She remembered the air at the Kaspian north pole, cold and clean and sharp. It occurred to her that if they survived, they would have automatic responsibilities: avoiding contact with the Kaspians was a priority. She had to believe they might be rescued eventually.

  There was a research station at the Citadel, she reminded herself. If they could get there, they would have a chance of rescue. They’d probably soon know we were here anyway. Kasper was ringed with surveillance satellites that would have little difficulty detecting their passage.

  And if they were finally rescued, there would be boards of enquiry, complex legal issues to be dealt with concerning interference with a culture that was regarded as untouchable. She tried to imagine how their situation would look to such a board: a pushy scientist who’d previously managed to get people killed through her professional incompetence.

  Once the matter of how they had come to be on board the Goblin with Elias, and the precise circumstances of their business arrangement, came to light, they would be excellent candidates for becoming scapegoats, whatever happened to Elias himself. Kim wanted to make sure their chances of surviving Kasper without a criminal record were as high as possible, and that meant playing things by the book as far as she could.

  ‘Okay,’ said Elias, ‘make sure you’re buckled in good and tight.’

  ‘Kim,’ Vincent said, ‘we’re going to need booster shots before we go down – something to help us deal with the gravity. I don’t have so much of a problem, but you’ve been in zero gee for a long time. I want you to come through to the medical unit now.’

  ‘I will, Vince.’ She had been worried about that too. She had kept up taking regular treatments in case she found herself in the deep end of a gravity well, and was now glad she had. She stood up. ‘Let’s get this done, then we’re going to have to all strap in.’

  They returned fifteen minutes later, just in time to see the screens flare red for a moment, before finally going completely blank.

  They all stared at each other. ‘That wasn’t it,’ said Elias, studying the flickering icons and images in front of him. Kim locked herself into her seat, and Vincent did the same behind her, hooking himself into protective webbing. She scanned the console, then her eyes widened in alarm.

  ‘Elias!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s an integrity breach. Look!’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Vincent, his voice strangely high. The view on the screens had begun to change. The smooth curve of Kasper had begun to slide to one side, the screens showing an increasingly larger area of space and stars. They were preparing for re-entry, she realized, a thrill of excitement and terror rolling down her spine.

  ‘It means something’s happened to the ablation shield,’ explained Kim. ‘We can’t land, Elias. We’re going to have to think of something else.’

  ‘There is nothing else,’ said Elias. His voice sounded deliberately controlled and calm, but there was a brittleness there that betrayed him. He was staring at the console as if he could summon forth renewed hope by sheer force of will.

  We’re going to die, Kim realized.

  ‘Okay,’ said Vincent, ‘listen. When you say integrity breach, you mean that’s it? They’ve eaten through?’

  ‘The cargo unit has an ablation shield that inflates outside of the aft hull,’ she said. ‘But something’s affecting it. It could be the bugs.’

  ‘How can we be sure it’s the bugs?’

  She looked at him with a hopeless expression. ‘We can’t. Not without actually going out there and looking.’

  Vincent had seen the bugs, the way they worked at things. If they were responsible for the breach, it wouldn’t take them long to cause it irreparable damage. ‘But they’re not through it yet.’ He was already out of his protective webbing. ‘Until then, we can still use the ablation shield to get through the atmosphere, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Elias, ‘but only if we can figure out a way to stop them now. Jesus, I really hope you’ve got something in . . .’ Vincent was gone. Elias could hear him pushing through into the cabin behind. Kim jerked around in alarm.

  She unbuckled and followed him through, nervously eyeing the seal they’d put over the cargo-unit crawlspace. ‘Vincent, what are you doing?’

  Vincent removed a wide panel flush with the cabin bulkhead. Then he yanked out the Goblin’s one pressure suit and started to put it on, adjusting it for his smaller frame. ‘We’ve still got twenty minutes before we actually hit the atmosphere, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kim slowly. ‘You’re not going out there, Vincent. It’d be suicide.’

  ‘Tell me you’ve got a better idea?’

  ‘Just tell me what you’ve got
in mind.’

  ‘Nothing that’s a big deal. I won’t be in any danger. The bugs won’t attack me. I’ll just brush them off the shield. I’ll stay hooked to the hull. Then I come in. Then we meet some aliens. Then we get rescued. No problem.’

  She was thunderstruck. She had wondered if, in some screwed-up subconscious way, she herself had enabled all this to happen, because of the way she had lost Susan. She lived every day with the memory of people who had died under her leadership.

  But it wasn’t the same now. This time there was no easy way out, no obvious path to safety. She could think of no other solution.

  ‘Let Elias do it,’ she said. ‘He’s a soldier. He knows how to deal with these things.’

  ‘Kim, shut the fuck up!’ She blinked, staring at him with a frightened expression. ‘This is serious. If we don’t do something now, we’re all going to die. We’re not going to draw straws, we’re not going to argue.’ He already had the suit on, started to lift the helmet over his head, then paused. ‘I’m not trying to be a hero. I’m just trying to get out of this mess alive. Feel free to make alternative suggestions.’

  She said nothing, just stared at him.

  ‘Good,’ he said, clamping the helmet over his head. Moving numbly, she turned him around, checked his pressure seals and got an ‘okay’ from the computer readout on the suit’s backpack. She wasn’t sure if he had his radio on, so she gave him two quick slaps on the shoulder to say You’re ready now.

  He crawled back through to the cockpit, on hands and knees, briefly startling Elias, who nodded, seeming to grasp the situation immediately. ‘You’ve got fifteen minutes, Vincent,’ he said. Vincent nodded, and unlocked the inner door of the airlock. Kim followed him, sealing it shut behind him.

  Vincent

  Vincent didn’t allow himself time to think, once the inner airlock door was sealed behind him. He used the airlock’s console to open the outer door, and stared out into infinity as it swung open. I know what I’m doing, he thought. No time to hesitate. He clipped his line onto a hook in the hull, and pulled himself out.