CAPACITY a-2

by Tony Ballantyne

  If you stay on the flier you will die of starvation. I don’t know what to suggest. Do what you think is best. The manual release for the door is just here.

  The writing stopped just by a flap that had popped open in the rear wall, just by the hatch. Justinian frowned. Manual release-what did that mean?

  Inside the flap there was a handle, a jar of baby food, and a spoon. The baby reached out for the food, crying desperately. Justinian sat down on the floor and balanced his son on his knee. He opened the jar and began to feed the child, wishing he had something to wipe the streams of yellow snot that ran from his nose. The baby ate hungrily.

  “There, there, baby boy. Come on. Eat nicely.”

  When his son had calmed down a little, he reached out and gave the handle inside the flap a couple of exploratory turns, then glanced back towards the exit hatch. It hadn’t moved. He turned the handle some more and his arm quickly began to ache from the exertion.

  This time he wasn’t sure whether the hatch had moved fractionally. Was there now a little shadow where there had not been one before, right at the top of the doorway? He didn’t know. He fed the baby a few more mouthfuls and then continued turning the handle.

  After five minutes of exhausting winding, a gap of approximately three centimeters had opened up to the outside world. He could see nothing through that gap but greyness, but even as he looked away, virtual colors seemed to dance and play at the edge of the opening. He looked back to see the greyness, and then away. Again, the memory of colors danced before his eyes. Just what was waiting out there? For a moment he wondered about winding the door shut again, blocking out whatever danger lay beyond, then hiding in the ship, waiting for possible rescue. After all, something that could cause a ship’s TM to commit suicide and a robot to retreat right inside its fractal skin should be more than capable of disposing of a man and his baby.

  The baby had finished his food. He pushed the spoon away with one hand, chuckled, then stood up unsteadily.

  “What do you want?” Justinian asked.

  The baby looked up to his father and laughed again, this time a deep belly laugh. He reached out and took hold of the handle, wanting to join in the game. Bright blue eyes smiled up at him as the baby babbled something and pointed to the gap. Colors dodged from view around the edge of the door. The baby was telling him something. Justinian wished that Leslie was here to translate.

  “Berber berber ber!” The baby was gazing earnestly at Justinian, who shivered as his son pointed back to the door. Surely whatever was out there could not be speaking to a fifteen-month-old child? And then he half glanced again at the apparent flickering of the colors around the door frame. There was a pattern to the flickering, he realized. It didn’t seem to be quite random. Maybe he should just close the door and sit and hope for rescue.

  He knew there would be none. He resumed his winding.

  It took Justinian over an hour of exhausting work to open the door fully. The kaleidoscope effect faded to nothing as the gap between the hatch and the flier widened. Nonetheless, the baby kept grabbing Justinian’s arm and pointing out at the bleak rocky landscape that lay outside. He would regularly look up at Justinian and burble something.

  “What is it?” Justinian asked, but the baby just kept tugging and pointing.

  Justinian shivered as he looked out at the greyness that led away from the edge of the ramp. It was bitterly cold outside; his breath emerged in misty clouds as he stood at the top of the hatch, feeling the last of the flier’s warmth leaking into the miserable day beyond.

  The flier was resting at the bottom of a narrow rocky ravine. High jagged walls rose on either side, dry mounds of scree slipping from their bases. Smaller ravines led off in all directions, sloping up and down to form a crazy maze of stone. The scene was so desolate it froze the heart. The baby tugged at Justinian’s leg and pointed again.

  “What is it?” Justinian asked. “Hey, you must be freezing. Come here.”

  He picked up the baby and walked back into the flier, looking for a passive suit for his son. Most of them lay beyond the locked door of the forward section, but one lay draped over a chair, left there from last night. He picked it up and dropped his son in, folding the little mittens over his cold little hands. As he pulled the hood over the child’s head, the baby pawed at it for a moment with his little mittens, and then gave up. Justinian gave his son a hug, then, with a heavy heart, carried him back to the door. The baby pointed again. He clearly wanted to go outside. Justinian spoke in a hushed voice: “I know. I can feel it, too.”

  He set off down the sloping ramp, the temperature dropping as he did so, and stepped onto the grey stone floor of the ravine. It was hopeless: even if he knew in which direction home lay, there would be no guarantee of finding a path that led there. They would wander around in this waterless maze until they both died of thirst.

  His ears were cold, so he placed the baby down on the ramp, and working the hood of his own passive suit out from its collar, he pulled it over his head. The baby meanwhile pulled himself upright using his father’s legs for support and set off on his own, tottering on the uneven ground as he worked his way around to the front of the flier. There he pointed ahead to a crack in the wall of rock that stood facing the ship. The ghosts of colors hung in Justinian’s vision as he withdrew his gaze from the crack. Something was calling to them from inside there. He could now hear the voices at the edge of his consciousness.

  “That’s where we’re going,” Justinian said sadly. “I know, baby, I know.”

  He picked his son up and gave him a hug. The boy wriggled to be put down again.

  “I know. We’ll go in a moment. But I don’t think we can go on like this. We need to finish things up first. You need a name.”

  Can’t die without a name. Justinian quickly squashed the treacherous thought. He looked around. What names lay here, at the end of the galaxy?

  None. There was nothing here but dry stone and gravel, the unliving evolution of the land, the cracks and fissures that were working their way into the skin of a planet far from the baby’s home. There was no help out there, only pitiless indifference. Even the bright orange of the cabin now seemed an alien place, drained as it was of all warmth as the freezing air of the planet seeped inside.

  The baby smiled, and Justinian felt a welling pang of despair that he could seem so happy. His only son, and the child didn’t know how little time he had left to live.

  He needed a name.

  “Not Leslie,” Justinian said. “Never Leslie. But what shall we call you? What would your mummy have wanted?”

  And then a warm feeling came over him as he remembered his dream. Anya had woken up and spoken to him. She had heard the baby crying through his, Justinian’s, sleep. What had she said?

  “Isn’t that Jesse?”

  Justinian smiled. Jesse. It was an odd name, but he liked it. Jesse.

  He held his son at arms’ length and smiled. “Jesse,” he said. “Do you like that name? Jesse?”

  Jesse wriggled again, eager to be off to the crack in the rocks and the secondary infection.

  “Okay,” Justinian said, “Okay, Jesse, we’re going. Now is there anything else we can take with us?”

  He took a last look up the ramp, into the cabin of the flier. Strange how he could already be nostalgic about surroundings that he had hated so much during the time he had spent there.

  “Right, Jesse,” he said, “let’s go.”

  They were in no hurry.

  Justinian held Jesse’s hand as they walked the external length of the flier, the white hull of the ship smooth above them. As they came to a gentle slope of scree, Justinian carefully picked his way up to the dark crack in the rock ahead, his son now cradled in his arms. Swirling blue-green patterns danced at the edge of his vision.

  They paused at the entrance to the cave, and Justinian took a last look back at the friendly white shape of the flier.

  “Okay,” he said, and he turned away from the
daylight and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He could make out the beginning of a tunnel, sloping downwards into the earth. Something was moving within its midnight throat, black figures dancing.

  Jesse giggled. “Hallur ellur ellur…” he said, pointing deep into the darkness.

  “You understand, don’t you?” Justinian said. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Hallur ellur elluble!” said the baby urgently.

  Justinian took a step forward and the darkness seemed to pull away from him. Black shapes formed in his vision: black floor, black walls, black ceiling. He could see into the darkness, all in shades of black. The baby giggled again.

  “I don’t think we’re really seeing at all, Jesse,” said Justinian. “I don’t think this is our eyes’ doing.”

  But it still looked real: a mapping of the inside of the cave picked out in darkness. A smooth floor sloping downwards, following a winding fissure in the rock, black stalactites hanging silently above.

  Tantalizing shapes danced at the limit of his vision, beckoning him on. Jesse struggled in his arms, urging him forward.

  Justinian followed the path downwards and the daylight faded to nothing. Turning, he saw the entrance to the cave had gone. He felt claustrophobic, adrift in a dark tunnel, his eyes seeing without light.

  The last AI pod must have traveled this way, he realized. After Pod 16 had sealed itself in the Bottle, it must have come down here to look at the Schrödinger boxes. The occasional broken stalagmite or chipped corner showed where it had passed. What had it called into being down here?

  Jesse was still speaking in Jargon, the official language of children about to make the leap into proper speech. Whatever was ahead was connecting with his son, Justinian realized. Connecting to him on an absolutely basic level, somewhere at the place where language began. The idea filled Justinian with such fear that he immediately turned to retreat from the cave. He would have walked out, too, but peering back up the tunnel he could see nothing. The pictures that ran across his retina only worked when he faced forward. His last semblance of free will had been taken from him. The only way he could go was down. Realization dawned. That was why he was here. That was why he had been dragged across the universe to this lonely planet far from home. Dragged along so that his son could speak to whatever lay down here.

  Jesse was wriggling uncomfortably in his arms. In his fear Justinian was clutching him too tightly. He relaxed his grip a little and continued walking, brushing tears from his own cheeks as he went. It wasn’t Justinian they really wanted, it was his child!

  They had all been in on it. Leslie, the pods, the EA-even the Watcher!

  What if the Watcher had openly asked him to sacrifice a son? Justinian was no Abraham; he would have refused. The EA must have known that. Any father would have done the same. How could it be otherwise, in a world where Social Care vetted potential parents so carefully? No one was allowed to have a child unless it was judged that he or she would take proper care of it.

  So how could the pods arrange for a child to come to Gateway? They had tricked Justinian, made him believe it was himself they wanted here.

  As Jesse spoke again, Justinian caught the urgency in the child’s voice. Jesse knew what was going on here. He was telling his father.

  Justinian hugged his son close and kissed his head softly. He felt his own tears on his son’s downy hair.

  “Oh, Jesse, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Oblivious to his anguish, Jesse wrestled in his grasp and again pointed down the tunnel, jerking up and down like a rider urging a horse onwards. Justinian let him go, let him slide to the ground. He took his son’s hand and they walked together towards the Source.

  How many planets lay throughout the galaxy, how many cave systems lay beneath their surfaces? How many dark places were there lurking throughout the universe, their existence never validated by the liberating gaze of intelligence?

  And if, someday, they were gazed upon, what could be called into existence by the very act of observation?

  Down and down and down.

  And then Justinian heard the drip-drip-drip of water, echoing along the passage. Shortly after that a dim grey glow rose; the dim light of dreams when you walk into a room and turn on the light, and everything goes a little darker and harder to see.

  The passage began to widen and Justinian felt a little warmth ahead. He had the impression of an enormous space lying before him, just out of sight. He smelled old cabbage and roses.

  And then he stepped from the tunnel into a huge open space, an enormous bubble of air rising at geological speed through the stone. He could make out a shape in the distance, and he instantly knew what he was looking at: the final AI pod. He felt a wave of relief. It was a familiar, friendly sight in this strange dream world. And yet this pod had grown considerably larger than the others. From here, illuminated in grey dream-light, it resembled a human sitting at the edge of a sudden precipice. Long black vines gripped the edge of the drop, extending from something growing down there in the pit of the cavern. Something big and alien. Justinian felt sick at the thought of what lay beyond the lip of the precipice, and yet at the same time he was fascinated.

  Jesse was burbling again. Heart pounding, Justinian pressed on, the greyness intensifying.

  As he approached, he became aware that this final AI pod was very much bigger than even first impressions suggested; it had grown to a height of around fifteen meters, a bulbous dome held up by an irregular tripod. Justinian recognized the shape of VNM factories around its base and realized that this pod was well advanced in its growth, almost complete. And yet, like all the others, it too had stopped. Why? Jesse tugged at his hand, staring in fascination at the black vines clustering around the edge of the precipice. They seemed to ripple without moving; rather, they seemed always to have just finished moving when Justinian’s gaze alighted upon them. What lay over the edge of the lip? What did the plant from which they had grown look like? Justinian craned his head to see. He was getting closer now…

  “Do not look over the edge.”

  The voice came from the AI pod. Justinian ignored it, continued to edge forward, determined to see what was down there. Jesse tugged at his hand. He obviously felt the same urge; he wanted to move forward.

  The pod spoke again: “There is a laser trained upon you. Despite the fact I have had you brought here beyond your galaxy, I will kill you if you take one step closer. Believe me, this is not a bluff.”

  “I believe you,” Justinian said, stopping. Of course he did. An AI knew how to sound sincere. Nonetheless, he couldn’t help himself craning to see over the lip of the fault. He was sure there was something moving down there.

  “Do not try to look past me. The laser is still trained upon you.”

  “I’m trying not to look.” It was true: he was trying. “What the hell do you think you are doing, placing my child in danger?”

  “Establishing parameters. You are Justinian Sibelius?”

  “Yes.”

  “Justinian, look down at your feet. What do you see?”

  Justinian looked down and saw the black vines were closer to him than they had been. They did indeed move when he wasn’t looking. Just like the Schrödinger boxes…

  “I see vines.”

  “Look closer.”

  Justinian pulled Jesse close and then knelt down and touched a strand of vine, the baby balancing on one knee, cold hard rock pressing against the other. The vines shone like black liquorice; they felt strangely insubstantial. He had the impression that they weren’t really all there, rather like the hull of the hypership. They were flattened on the bottom, and turning the one he held over, Justinian saw that there was a long groove underneath packed with small black shapes that clustered like grapes on a vine or corn on a cob.

  “Schrödinger boxes,” Justinian said without surprise. “This is where they come from.”

  Now that he looked, the ground was littered with them. Everywhere he look
ed, they were frozen in his gaze.

  So they are seeds, he thought. And when I look at them, I fix them in position. And the seeds seem to know, just as the photon in the two slits experiment knows at which slit the detector is turned on. Justinian thought of the pod under the sea that had insisted on speaking to him about the two slits. Had it guessed the truth?

  He touched a little black Schrödinger box. It is a seed, he realized, and now that I know that, it has begun to germinate. It was doing it that very moment. It had begun to wriggle, to change shape, a ripple of blackness spreading across its underside…

  That was what they always reminded him of: little pieces of sweet corn. Now a little thread of blackness was working its way from the top of the cube, and still more threads below were worming their way into the ground.

  “It’s germinating! The Schrödinger boxes are seeds!”

  Jesse was suddenly wriggling furiously, threatening to overbalance him. His son clearly wanted to get down and touch the plants himself. Meanwhile, the outline of a black plant was growing before him, getting larger and larger all the time…

  “Look away now,” called the AI pod.

  But Justinian couldn’t. The plant before him shimmered and wriggled in ever more fascinating patterns, captivating him, fascinating him…

  “I don’t think you can look away, can you?” the pod said, but Justinian ignored it. The plant was larger than Jesse now and still growing. The baby was still struggling to reach out and touch it. There was a sudden flickering at the edge of Justinian’s vision, and then everything went black.

  “Hey! My eyes! Oh! Jesse!” In his distraction, his son had struggled free of his grasp. Justinian reached out, his arms wide, trying to catch hold of him. He brushed the insubstantial material of the plant, then fell forward onto the rock.

  “I can’t see. Where’s Jesse? Why can’t I see? Pod, help me!”

  “Low-intensity blast from the laser. I have burned out your retinas. Blinded you.”