Sam’s tiny device circled and circled, preceding Deidre from the grove and over the wheatgrass field, wanting her to move. Don’t get caught! Hurry! Hurry!
She thought she heard her name being called, faintly, in her father’s flat baritone.
A giant water filter, standing high over them, turned its head to watch the girl and the bird dash across fallow soil and through a tiny wood, to pause in the radish fields. Stretching to the north, and fading into the last of the morning mists: other plantations, jurisdictions of other Orchard Keepers. And two more lift shafts, mere guy wires from this distance. Beyond were lands unknown. Renegade settlements. Strange people, those the Orchard Keeper called barbarians. Civilized people, such as Deidre’s family, lived above, in estates, directly under the suns. This level was for farming. And below?
Deidre shivered.
Among the tubers hovered three workers, spraying fertilizer. Light glinted off their flanks. They bade Deidre good morning with nodding motions. Pressing on once more, she tried to ignore them. Drudges like these would never think to inform the Orchard Keeper they had seen Deidre passing, a bag clenched tight in her hands and one of the supervisor’s birds flying frenetically at her side. Certainly her father would never condescend to ask them if they’d seen anything.
Her sanctum was beyond the radish fields. She had discovered the place several summers ago, while exploring the plantations, shortly after her father had been elected to the position of Orchard Keeper. A narrow aperture between two boulders opened up into a crooked hall, the kind with hard, smooth walls, and a low ceiling, just like a hall inside a small house. From this budded five successively smaller rooms, an arrangement seemingly designed expressly for children or very tiny adults. When she had first found the sanctum, these rooms were devoid of anything except dust. Now she kept her moth collection in the last chamber, which was an area barely big enough for the short counter and knee-high cabinet she had dragged in. Deidre had to stand with the door forced open, stooped, her backside sticking out.
After gradually befriending the bizarre and lonely plantation supervisor that summer, Deidre had asked about the rooms. Sam, as the console had asked to be called, assured her that, to the best of his knowledge, no machines or people had been inside the area for as long as he had been aware. At least, not that he could remember. In fact, he had seemed surprised to learn of the rooms’ existence and had no good ideas as to what the area had been constructed for in the first place, nor even if he had ever been aware of them before Deidre’s inquiry. Unable to see within, he had bluebirds flutter inside and out for a full day, mapping and investigating, and reporting back.
Deidre moved in right away, bringing some light furniture, a few notebooks, a doll or two. Artefacts brought down from Elegia that made her feel more comfortable. She drew a mandala, her personal glyph — selected from an ancient printout — carefully over the walls, so that the chain of tiny rooms became a palace in the kingdom over which Deidre reigned, a place where she was princess, a home where she was the eldest sister.
Cramped inside, breathless from the run, but grinning, she put her satchel down on the small counter. Taking out the killing jar, rolling it slowly, so she could see the moth better: the body thumped softly against the glass. She placed the jar next to the satchel and carefully folded back the sleeves of her blouse. Catacola bianca would require her largest spreading board. She retrieved this, which she had made herself, from under the counter, plus two thin strips of paper, and some pins, to hold the wings in place until they dried. Lifting her hooked spreading needle, her tools arrayed before her, she was filled with the contentment that comes from being in her sanctum with a productive task at hand. Her limbs tingled from the morning’s excitement. She began to work.
However, a short while after setting the left-hand pair of wings, staring dreamily at the exposed white shapes and delicate system of veins, Deidre heard a very faint sound. She had the immediate and disconcerting impression that this voice — for it was indeed a voice — might have been speaking for some time but she had only just now registered it. When did it start? Had the muted tones been whispering the entire time she’d been here, working on the bianca? She strained to listen. The source did not seem far away, certainly not from the fields outside, but as if someone infinitesimally tiny were calling out from within the sanctum itself. She was unable to discern any words, nor tell if they issued from man or woman, human or machine. Nor even if they were in the language she knew and spoke.
Holding the spreading needle in one hand, she stepped back into the hallway; the voice became slightly louder. She crept down the narrow hall, anxious but not especially nervous. From the second room of the chain, where she kept her paper and sketching charcoals, there came a flicker of bluegrey light, the colour of static. Nothing in that room could give off light — other than the ceiling. Certainly nothing could emit a flicker like this.
The murmured voice, unreal — ceasing when she held her breath, resuming when she shifted — came from in there.
“Sam?” Deidre whispered. “Sam? Is that you? Who’s in there?”
No answer. The light continued to flicker. The voice continued to whisper. She curled her fists, took a deep breath, and stepped forward —
The tiny man was fifteen centimetres tall. Dressed in an outfit such as a pilot might wear — hood pulled up over the back of his head, leaving his face, which was turned to the ceiling, exposed — he stood with both hands at his sides. He did not look her way. Over his eyes he wore goggles, and a thin mask covered his mouth, as if there was dust, or perhaps a virus, borne in the air. Deidre got down on her haunches and moved closer; the man wavered, blurred, coalesced.
A gram.
She felt disappointment. Elegia showed her grams of all sorts, whenever she asked. They were boring and mostly acted out dumb plays or tried to teach her stuff. Granted, this particular one did seem more detailed than those she normally viewed — its face more expressive, the concern near palpable — but it was a gram nonetheless. She waved her hand over the tiny, luminous figure, coming at it from various angles until it eclipsed and only the quiet voice remained. Squinting, she looked up, scanning for the source.
She stood and searched the walls with her fingertips, searched the counter, feeling for the patch that controlled the size and volume of the projection. She had never found any in this room before but she had never had reason to look. And there it was, under the rim of the countertop, a small wet spot. Rubbing it caused the figure to erupt until the man suddenly filled the room, surpassed it, one glaring boot massive at eye-level —
“Damn . . .”
Managing to adjust the figure to her own height, Deidre sought the volume with a second finger. The insubstantial whisper became a loud voice:
“ — had lost two cows from his flock. They wandered off when his son fell asleep.”
Yes, Deidre’s own language, but spoken with a strange accent. Someone from far away? The man did not seem like an actor, or a teacher. Nor, for that matter, anyone particularly barbarous.
“The patrol was searching for indications of the breach. Coming up over Amusement Ridge, looking for debris on the ground, Captain Elrion spotted what looked to be massive scorch marks. Yes, sir, twin trails of scorched dirt and brush. In one place, the base structure had been exposed, rocks melted away, right down to the frame.”
The man paused. Was he listening to something?
Deidre could tell he wore a scarf but it was hard to discern what colour. And there was a device strapped to the man’s waist, on the right-hand side, the likes of which she had never seen before. He turned toward her now but did not look at her, of course: he looked right through her. But at whom? His boss? Someone he called ‘sir.’
“The coast was clear. We circled the area and landed nearby. There was a light breeze from the north and visibility was great. We found the missing cows. They had been roasted. Not eaten, sir, but roasted to cinders. As if in sport. I have never seen any
thing like it.”
Deidre stepped back. She did not know what a cow was but unpleasant images were certainly forming.
“Exploring the area on foot, we found a small camp, a hut and such, presumably that of a solitaire. We knocked, identified ourselves. There was no response. When we entered, we discovered the body. The victim had been tied to a chair and tortured. I prefer . . . prefer not to describe the nature of his injuries, sir, but refer you to a series of images that our camera took at the scene.
“Yes. That’s right. Ensign Conway found the footprints. Uh, yes, sir, Ensign Conway. The one and only. He was with us because no one expected our assignment to become so, so sensitive. He’d been tucked out of the way where he couldn’t cause any trouble and instead he found himself in the thick of it. Trouble found him. Trouble found all of us.
“The prints? They were huge, two individuals, not of biological origin. A new form of staff, we wondered. A new position? Undiscovered for centuries? That’s what we thought too. Regardless, the bootprint was double the size of a human man’s boot but very much a bootprint. We also found the casing of an unidentified armament. Pardon me, sir? Yes, that’s right, the flame-throwing device.”
The wavering figure contracted as if stricken, its image sliced up and then complete again. Jumping forward, temporally, the man held his goggles now, and seemed a trifle more at ease.
“ — told no one about it, but my wife believes there’s something bad coming. She had her cards read. Says this woman’s never wrong. Couldn’t sleep and kept asking me about war, and if I thought there could ever be another one. What do I know about war? I told her that every moment you’re alive something bad is coming.” He grinned. “I told her to go to sleep and to stop worrying. But maybe this woman’s right. I know, sir, I’m also pragmatic, but it’s unsettling, you must admit.”
The man ceased moving, then repeated the gesture Deidre had seen when she’d first looked in.
“A local livestock farmer had lost two cows from his flock. They wandered off when his son fell asleep.”
She diminished the gram to thumbnail size and the voice faded to nothing. She knew she had better finish mounting the bianca before it stiffened too much, but her feelings of contentment were displaced. When she got back to her setting board she did a rushed job and lost some of the white scales in her clumsiness.
After putting her equipment away, she hurried out of her sanctum; it suddenly seemed a good idea to seek out her father, to walk by his side while he made his stern morning rounds.
MEREZIAH, L23-24
Despite the fact that it was Mereziah’s birthday, he spent the early part of his shift as he spent most of his workdays now: suspended quietly, head-down, side by side with his silent brother. In the quasidarkness of the shaft, neither moved much. Not any more. Hardly a muscle twitched between them. When they breathed, it was deep, in unison, and at a very slow rate. Had anyone been watching, the distinction between this stasis and death might have been hard to detect.
No one was watching.
Nearby lift pods, inactive for ages, nestled into the curved wall, virtually sealed into place. Few would be capable of motion again, even if their services were required — a situation which seemed less and less likely.
Occasionally, gusts of warm, foul-smelling air rose from the lowest depths of the world to buffet the brothers; as Mereziah rotated slowly in the fibers he clung to, peering out through rheumy, slitted eyes, he had few expectations from this day.
Portions of the wall behind him flickered with pale light as phosphorescent microfauna fought or loved one another there. During these glimmers, Mereziah saw clearer glimpses of the inert form hanging next to him, like a reflection of himself: his stigmata, his brother Merezath.
Contrary to what most people assumed when meeting the siblings — those few that had encountered them here in the lift shaft, or at home in the grotto — the pair were not twins; Merezath was younger than Mereziah by over fourteen months. He would not turn one hundred for some time yet.
The light also caught highlights of the myriad cables and tubes lining the circumference of the shaft. Some, carrying liquids and pneumatics up, to stations far above, and down, to stations below, were as big around as Mereziah’s torso.
Tilting his head back, all he saw were fuligin depths. But he had never been interested in areas beneath him. He would be at the bottom of the shaft soon enough. Arching forward — pulling with one hand in the mesh, as if beginning to right himself — he looked up. There, he detected what were, he believed, signs from the topmost stations: a faint sound; a tremor in the fibers; the hazy, shimmering glow of active pod lights.
Merezath, of course, claimed that no indication of life from the upper levels would be possible to detect this far down — their station was too distant from activity for any trace to be seen or felt. Mereziah knew better. Yes. Looking up, he could distinguish evidence of that remote, more fortunate humanity, kindling for years of imagination, impetus for all his youthful yearnings.
But now, at this late point in life, he could no longer afford time for these idle thoughts. He’d already wasted a good chunk of his existence imagining the fabled population of the upper levels. So he had stopped practicing witty repartee, meant to prepare him for encounters that, he knew now, would never happen. He had stopped forming fantasies of glorious balls and social gatherings, of walking through bustling marketplaces and squares, teeming with people. He had ceased imagining sophisticated machinations and glittering cities, all built on the horizontal, and lit up by brilliant suns. The quiet serenity of healthy forests and glens, and maybe even one or two people to stroll and talk with, perhaps touch — these dreams he also relinquished. His upside-down guts no longer churned, as they once had, with feelings that events had passed him by, as he lived and worked down here, in the lower regions of the dark lift shaft, ignorant brother at his side. The abandoned station, inherited from his dead parents, was his lot. This was his place.
So what if his destiny was not as exciting as that of others? He was an integral cog in the functioning of the world. He was staff.
Could life have been worse? Sure it could: he had existed for a long, long time and had seldom gone hungry. He slept well, and ate well, and had regular bowel movements. So what if the dark days ran together, and the nights, too. In this last stretch of life, Mereziah was content —
But today was his damned birthday! Shouldn’t today be different?
No matter how hard he tried to convince himself he was at peace, he did feel disconcerted. He could not deny it. Dissatisfactions of his youth had gained ground again inside him, and traces bubbled downwards through his blood like a recurring illness.
Another sudden crackle of light, and Mereziah was surprised from his brooding to see a giant sloth, frozen in the glare, huge eyes staring at him. One furry knuckle, a foot or so from his face, shifted in the strands as a curved claw, big as an arm, retreated slowly. Vivid in that instant, little green symbiotes, living oblivious in the animal’s rough hair.
How, Mereziah wondered, shocked, had the huge beast approached so close without his knowing? Clearly, he had missed the vibrations. Was his hearing also going? And his sense of touch? Maybe they were gone already. Who knew? He was rusty with old age. Rusty. Far beyond the time to retire but there was no one to pass the station to. No heirs. Nobody.
Grunting to dismiss these dire thoughts — for he did not like to imagine the condition of the station after he and his brother had fallen to the bottom — he thought instead about how nice it would be to eat the sloth as a birthday treat, a feast like never before. One final celebration. A last, messy huzzah. He had not eaten meat for months. Maybe a full year or more. He could not remember the last time he had tasted flesh.
He probably would not have been able to chew the slothmeat had it been presented to him, sliced up and steaming, on a platter.
“Pah,” he said to no one, adjusting his old bones in the net.
A hundred
years. A century of life. A monumental chunk of time. Unheard of. And the only person who had been with him through all those years had forgotten about the anniversary. No gift, no mention. Merezath hung there, lost in his own self-indulgent dreams. In fact, now that Mereziah thought about it, Merezath had not said a word since they’d started their shift, not even good morning —
Actually, once he had cleared his throat and spit phlegm into the void. Another time he had farted. Happy birthday, brother! Happy birthday!
Grumbling, Mereziah closed his eyes and took a short nap, during which he dreamed of a giant sloth, with damp eyes, reaching out one claw to caress his cheek and whisper benign encouragements into his failing ears.
He woke in a worse mood. Though he knew Merezath could barely see him, he glared over to where his younger brother hung. Merezath had started to hum — he always did around break time, and Mereziah decided, for the sake of his own health, that it would be prudent to speak up, to vent his feelings:
“Our dear mother, rest her bones,” he began, clearing his throat, for he liked his voice to be mellifluous when he related his parables and wisdoms, “after returning one day from this station, when we were knee-high sprats and your face ran with snot — like it probably would now, if you weren’t upside-down — imparted words of such august wisdom that I will never forget them.” Mereziah could even see his mother’s beautiful face before him now, though it had been decades since she’d fallen. His cheeks warmed. “There were many pods then, a steady flow up and down, each filled with migrants passing through, seeking fortunes and employment in the last years of the great — ”
Merezath began to snore.
“Son of a bitch,” Mereziah said. Resolved, of a sudden, to be alone, to get away from his brother, he turned angrily in the net, hooking his long fingers and bare feet in the meshing. Unfortunately, since he had hurt himself in many falls as a younger man, and with his advanced age, his exit was not as dramatic as he would have liked. Creaking and cracking, he moved slowly. These aches would never leave him. Not until the final fall.
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