by Andrew Lane
“Okay, we rely on those monsters for food and water. How the hell do we escape? Persuade one of them to give us a lift?”
“You’re wrong,” said Mariana, her face made haggard by grief and fear. “Those killings, we don’t know… maybe the Cancri don’t see it as… maybe death isn’t… maybe they don’t…”
She stopped as Tatia walked towards her.
“We can only deal with what we know,” Tatia said sharply. “No room for ‘what if’ or ‘maybe’.”
“You’re wrong.” Mariana’s voice was sharpened by desperation. “You’ll…”
Crack! The slap sent Mariana reeling to the hard floor. She landed in a pool of condensed sweat that had trickled off the nearest wall. She looked bewildered and very alone.
Tatia looked calmly around. “Unless anyone has something sensible to say, shut the hell up. We don’t have time for discussion and being nice to each other.”
“Maybe,” said Perry. “But we still don’t have transport.”
“Are you sure?”
He moved out of slapping distance. “You’re thinking of the alien SUT?”
“It could have the same sideslip-field generator and updown-field generator as ours, right?”
He shrugged. “I’ve heard rumours.”
“More than that.” She paused then spoke slowly. “There’s only one way of finding out. Someone has to get on board that SUT.”
“Someone who knows what they’re looking for,” Perry pointed out.
Tatia smiled at him. “I was hoping you’d volunteer,” she all but purred. “Now let’s figure out how to do it.” Her voice took on more authority, more certainty, but inside she was weeping. “One other thing. When we leave, we take our dead with us. Understood?”
There was a general murmur of agreement. Give a desperate people hope, any hope, and they’ll take it. She’d learned that from Juan.
9
Space travel was boring.
Long periods of waiting around in netherspace while the SUT imperceptibly moved and the vid screens were locked down followed by shorter stretches of time in realspace while Nikki’s computer algorithms calculated, based on the spectra of the observable stars, exactly where they had actually emerged and precisely what settings Tate had to make on the Gliese sideslip-field generator to speed them towards their final destination as defined by Tse’s pre-cog input. The two different phases of boredom were punctuated each time by a few seconds when the SUT was transitioning from netherspace to realspace or realspace to netherspace, and the novelty of those moments had quickly worn off. Now they were no more exotic or romantic than the way a lift might judder slightly as it came to a halt on the next floor.
The first time they’d left netherspace, Kara, Tse and Marc had clustered around the screen in the canteen like kids once watched that old thing called television, before personal chips turned any audience into a group of solitary individuals. Kara had confessed she was hoping to see the RIL-FIJ-DOQ moving past a planet with rings glittering in starlight. Or perhaps moving towards a vast, multi-coloured gas cloud that reared above them for millions of miles. Tse said he was hoping for a jewel-like planet orbiting twin suns, although not sure why, only that it had occasionally featured in his dreams. And Marc had hoped – well, for anything that would astound and amaze.
They’d got nothing. Infinite, black nothing except for the pinpricks of light that were the local stars. It was no good pointing out, as Tse had, that in fact they were looking at an incredibly vibrant sea of quantum foam where subatomic particles jumped instantaneously into existence and just as quickly vanished, cancelled out by their antiparticles. All they had was blackness. The only exciting moment was when a grey rock-like thing, all angles and sharp edges and the size of a small football, appeared. One day it might be a meteor; for now it wandered space. Marc asked if they could bring it on board and make it the SUT’s official mascot. The staff as one said no, because You Never Knew. There could be frozen alien viruses that would be woken up by the SUT’s warmth and make their eyes melt. The RIL-FIJ-DOQ wasn’t an exploration SUT, it had no way of handling alien stuff. Marc should just enjoy the incredibly rare sighting: a one in three billion chance. Of its own accord the SUT’s AI calculated the rock’s general direction. At the current velocity and trajectory the rock might reach the edge of the galaxy in two billion years. The AI had sounded hurt when Marc asked, “So what?” And that was that for the glory, the majesty of space. Tse had said he preferred his pre-cog world. Kara had said she’d never again watch those old films set in the future that she’d enjoyed so much. Marc sympathised. The more he looked at space the more he went into himself.
He didn’t even have sex. Nikki had been suitably enthusiastic about his prowess – difficult to say otherwise, given her reactions at the time – but showed no sign of wanting a repeat. Nor had he again experienced the wild lightness of being that had made him try to see netherspace and discuss reality with a possibly insane AI. To cap it all, Kara had told both Marc and Tse that, in future, fraternising with the staff best be confined to bright smiles and chit-chat, at most an invigorating game of draughts. Normally Marc would have done his best to break the rule for the hell of it. Now he was a little glad not to have sex with Nikki again. At the height of her passion, Nikki’s eyes had changed colour. Colours, actually. And faintly glowed. Flattering, but still weird. When he’d asked her about it, Nikki had said it ran in the family. Maybe, but it wasn’t a family Marc wanted to know. He’d mentioned it to Kara who’d looked wise, said something about long-term exposure to exotic radiation, maybe, then changed the subject. Marc could have sworn she was embarrassed, except the idea was absurd. Kara didn’t do embarrassment. She’d throttle it.
Meanwhile he had nothing to read.
In the rush to leave Earth Marc had been unable to pack any reading material. He’d never bothered to download books or magazines into the storage section of his cortical implant, on the basis that wherever he went he had access to the public access AI, Omninet, which contained all the literature ever written and various ongoing stories that it was writing itself. It was Omninet’s open ambition to win the Apple-Booker literary prize that dominated the English-speaking world. Sadly, Omninet’s inability to understand the complexities of human middle-class angst meant that it had never achieved “literary” status. Its crime novels were good, though, if a little cynical. Whatever the literary set thought, Omninet knew human nature only too well.
The SUT’s computer was woefully short of interesting things to read or watch but quite heavy on pornographic vids left behind by previous staff members. They were fun for ten minutes but the actors’ bodies were so standardly boring they quickly lost their appeal. The playback system was old and creaky, and lacked the full immersion application that came close to making the viewer an active player. Even with cortical input it was almost as bad as an ancient flatscreen with the viewer merely a voyeur. And the actors were too perfect for Marc’s taste: see one perfect breast, buttock or thigh, seen ’em all. Deep down, Marc felt uneasy when sex was recorded and reproduced by a series of ones and zeros even if his own art also so often relied on binary code. Perhaps his future was to be the last non-digital human, locked inside his studio while the cyborg mob outside demanded surrender and conversion to a shallow but logical world.
Even so, the lack of good tech on the RIL-FIJ-DOQ was more than annoying. For sure, there was the AI, although Marc suspected it wasn’t the shiniest spanner in the box. But the rest of the tech was positively clunky. Was this the best Greenaway could get? Surely one of the explorer SUTs would have been better than an SUT that had been confined to the solar system… and Marc had made a mental note to ask the staff what had happened to their previous one.
Most of the time Marc ended up in the canteen making notes on a new piece of art that he wanted to start. He wasn’t sure what it was yet, but if they were on an important mission then he ought to commemorate it in some way. Artist-in-Residence on the RIL-FIJ-DOQ
. After all, he was there because the Cancri had bartered for some of his previous artworks, so he had form in the area. Skin in the game, as they used to say. He could legitimately regard himself as a war artist – and wondered why he’d thought of that expression and concept; war artists were rare since countries had given way to city states where AIs ran alliances and treaties; there was little concept of nationhood; and personal chips could so easily record and express the bitter romance of war. Perhaps it was that weird simulity putting knowledge in his mind. He liked the idea, although there was little comparison with the mud and carnage of the battlefield and the cold neutrality of deep space. The problem was Kara’s throwaway comment about yesterday’s piss and today’s coffee. It had set a seed growing in his mind about a piece that constantly recycled itself, taking its own waste products – whatever the hell they were – and turning them into something new and interesting, but he wasn’t sure how that related to their mission. Something was there, like Leonardo’s sculpture hidden within a block of stone. He merely had to chip away the stupid, the trivial, the boring and the reasonably interesting ideas of other people to find the unique Marc Keislack artwork hidden at the core. And that was proving difficult.
It was usually at this point in planning a piece of art that Marc would talk to his agent. But after Greenaway had explained about being sealed in a box Marc had given up all thought of phoning home. This was sad. He had few friends but part of him would have liked to leave behind a message explaining something, in case he didn’t come back. In case? Like there was a realistic chance of coming out of this alive? Without realising it, Marc had become vulnerable.
One other person had noticed, however.
Late at night, according to Earth-Euro time, and two days into netherspace. Marc had been brooding alone in the canteen for a while before deciding on bed. As he walked along the accommodation corridor, a door opened and he saw Henk.
“Hey, you. Fancy a drink?”
Booze was banned and Marc’s simulity training said he should set an example. Bollocks. “What you got?”
“Antique bourbon. Smooth as they come.”
“Since you insist.”
Henk’s room was much like Marc’s own except for a large vid screen against the far wall. He sat down on the bed as Henk poured from a squat, round bottle into two plastic mugs. The whisky was smooth as promised. Neither man spoke, each busy with his own thoughts.
“You’ll have another.” Not a question or an order. A statement of fact.
Now they began talking – at least, Marc did, about the life of an artist and his time in the Wild. Two more drinks later he looked at Henk and said: “Why do you do it? Exploring?”
Henk put his mug down and sighed. “Always the same question. Okay. It’s very well paid. I have seen things not even an artist could imagine. We explore this galaxy. And the next one. One time we found ourselves, best as we could figure it, two thousand light years from Earth.” He paused as if making a decision. “And then there’s that,” pointing at the far wall.
Marc knew Henk didn’t mean the vid screen. “You mean space?”
“I mean netherspace, Marc. You ever seen it? No. Of course not. Do you want to see it?”
The atmosphere had become tense. Marc looked directly at Henk, noticing how the man’s eyes were much bluer than he’d thought. “I’d be interested. How?”
“That vid screen. I bypassed the security system first day on board. There’s a timer, so the screen can only show outside for 4.5 minutes at a time when we’re in netherspace. Thing is, anyone watching doesn’t go back to default as it were. The effect keeps on mounting, but you don’t go mad.” He saw Marc’s indecision. “If I want you insane or dead, Marc, I got drugs that will do it without leaving so much as a trace.” He stood up, locked the door then walked to the vid and switched it on. “Welcome to my world.” He sat down next to Marc.
Colour. More than Marc had ever seen. Swirling and melting one into the other. Shapes that held form for milliseconds. Patterns that seemed to be definitive before proving to be only the start of something infinitely more complex. Colours screaming for release. Colours laughing at him. The sense that somewhere behind the colours lay the base design of the universe, if only he could find it.
The screen went blank.
Marc found himself leaning against Henk’s shoulder, glad of the human contact. “That’s… that’s…”
“Don’t,” Henk hushed him. “Just go with it.”
The screen burst into life.
And it was life. The life that underlies the universe. Self-awareness as an emergent phenomenon from the fractal complexity engendered by the gravitational fields of the universe. All possible emotions stalking through the cosmos like gods.
Blankness.
Life.
Somehow Marc was naked, leaning against Henk skin to skin. Felt a hand stroke him, aware he was hard.
Colours that drive, exalt. Ecstasy. Life.
Blankness.
“Enough for now,” Henk said thickly. And then, as Marc’s arms tightened around him. “Got to tell you. Mustn’t worry. My eyes go like n-space when I fuck.”
“Not worried,” Marc breathed. “I’ll be looking at the back of your head.”
* * *
It wasn’t, Marc decided afterwards, just the best same-sex he’d ever had. It was the most incredible. “Thought you were after Kara,” he said, trying for a lightness of tone.
“And you Nikki,” Henk said, lying naked on the bed.
Marc said nothing as he put on his trousers. Only a short walk to his own room, but best to do it clothed.
“Ashamed of me?” Henk teased.
“No,” Marc said honestly. “Or the sex. But this has to be a one-off. I can’t afford to get involved. And you’d make it too easy.” He hoped Henk would swallow the lie, along with the bourbon he was pouring into his mug.
“Well, if you ever change your mind.” Henk saluted with the mug. “And now you know why I go Up. Netherspace is the truth about everything. And gives great sex, right?”
Marc nodded. Great but dangerous. “Thanks. You were both great.”
Back in his room he took a shower then sat on the bed and wondered how he could have been so stupid. Henk wasn’t the first same-sex he’d had, probably wouldn’t be the last. But to combine it with netherspace? He felt like he’d been walking along a precipice for the past hour. A wonderful, majestic view, but one false step…
It was an experience he’d push to the back of his mind. Not one he’d share with Kara. He doubted she’d understand. Or perhaps he didn’t want her to think him a fool.
* * *
Kara was woken by her AI.
< Something you should see. Got this from Marc’s AI. It doesn’t know.
She watched a few minutes replay, Marc’s-eye view. She was surprised that aside from anger at him being a fool, her other emotion was concern for him.
> Think it’ll happen again?
< Doubtful. His AI recorded regret. He knows Henk set him up. As in seduced with netherspace and booze.
> He’s good at that. Any netherspace damage?
< Nothing permanent. You going to say anything?
> No. The guilt will do him good.
* * *
During the next return to realspace Leeman-Smith held the threatened briefing in the conference room. He was as pompous, bombastic and pointless as Marc expected. Leeman-Smith’s agenda covered in detail everything that everyone already knew, apparently to ensure nobody had forgotten anything since leaving Earth. On occasion he turned to Kara and asked for input on some aspect of her and Marc’s mission. Kara fobbed him off each time with either generalised statements or contemptuous silence. At the end of the briefing Leeman-Smith stalked off, seething, to his quarters – a shipping container in the middle of the RIL-FIJ-DOQ, far from the unknown terrors of netherspace. Except it wasn’t. If there was one thing Marc understood, there was no safe place in netherspace. Netherspace was intr
insically dangerous and weird. Especially weird when combined with sex.
During the briefing Marc had sat near one end of the table, Kara on his left, Tse next to her. Tate, Henk and Nikki were opposite – the classic “old guard” versus “newcomers” arrangement – and no hint that they’d been having sex not long before. Leeman-Smith had sat at the other end, head coming dangerously close to the coffee machine whenever he leaned back in his chair with a lordly air to patronise someone. It happened a lot. There was an empty chair to Marc’s right, but strangely he kept getting the impression that someone was sitting there. The suspicion came when he turned his face away from the chair to look at Leeman-Smith or one of the others. When he turned back, the chair was empty.
Maybe his brain was suffering side effects from the simulity. From netherspace sex. Or maybe he needed sleep.
After Leeman-Smith flounced out, Tate smiled at Tse and left. Nikki smiled at him and Kara and left. Henk winked at him. Marc shifted awkwardly on his seat, relieved when Kara went to check equipment, saying she’d be quicker on her own.
Marc sat for a few moments to see whether he still thought there was someone else in the room. Stared at the chair but it was obviously empty. Stared at the wall straight ahead, chair still empty. But a couple of times, as he turned his head to look at the end of the table where Leeman-Smith had been sitting, he thought he detected a flicker of movement, a sensation of darkness just at the edge of his vision. When he turned back there was nothing there. Eventually he gave it up as a bad job. There were no ghosts, only information lost in the quantum foam. Marc wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but he’d been impressed when someone had said it at a gallery opening and now found it a comfort.
One thing that did interest Marc was the moment after their emergence into realspace when the screens were unlocked and he could see the stars again. The first time, the stars had looked pretty much the same as they had on Earth, but as they moved further and further into the galaxy the stars changed. Marc wasn’t clear what the change actually was – maybe it was the colours, maybe the differing and illusory constellations formed by their apparent nearness to one another, or maybe it was something more psychological, but he knew they were moving into uncharted territory.