The gradual curve of the wall’s base increased until the slope finally became undeniable, and difficult to negotiate. More and more clusters of carbon tubes ran roughly parallel to the floor, which was already, by this point, far below. Drifting banks of polymers caused him distraction: there was construction afoot, or would be soon. Higher up, ambients indicated a shift, an addition or texture to the composite. Curtains swept across. Not far from the cluttered portion he clung to, the vertical expanse extended into clouds so distant he could see no details or discern scaffolding there, no evidence of hard lines.
Over his shoulder, in the distance, a darker mass had accumulated at the horizon; Crospinal predicted a squall of some magnitude. Rains were not enhanced water, like water from spigots, or in the pool, but untreated, oily accretions, trapping inorganic compounds that drifted through the atmosphere and gathered in the upper reaches; he did not want to get caught in such a storm. Not here. Clouds like this—real clouds—gathering in smaller rooms around the pen (which he had thought at the time were immense) had sent him scurrying into the covered safety of enclaves or local cupboards.
Climbing obliquely, Crospinal tried to keep focused on what his feet and hands touched. Since being revived, in spite of his transformation, he felt he had plodded, almost blindly, without truly registering where he was headed or where he had come from. His thoughts now were stilling.
Using the stems of tubes as handholds, and placing his feet carefully on the shallow ledges in the formations, he found he was surprised again and again by the abilities of his new limbs, by his latent power.
He came to a narrow, slotted opening. The icon of a daybed, rotating slowly, rose before him. This was a sustenance station of sorts. A resting place. Relieved that he had managed to find or call forth this place, he said, “Hello?”
No controller came to greet him. No response. No thumb plates, either, to validate his prints.
So he just entered.
Light bloomed.
A small station. No holes, no console at all. Crospinal felt his heart sink, and was again surprised, this time by his own reaction. There was a standard food dispenser, with standard pellets and a water spigot. Daybeds, off to one side. The station smelled . . . new.
Along the far wall shimmered the energy of a bank, and for the first time he saw how similar the sheen was to that of a drone, or a data orb. Or the paladin, in the metal rat’s haptic. There was no recess for a gate here, not of any capacity. Nonetheless, a smart room, with all the amenities.
If these accommodations were not for Crospinal—if they’d remain when he was gone, and existed before he arrived—then who, he wondered, slept here? Who was the food for? Luella? Or the boy who had stolen his girlfriend?
He touched a small table, which, sensing his heat, drifted out.
He sat on a stool.
“Hey,” he said. “Got a voice? Hello?”
No answer.
The daybeds were identical to his own, back in the pen. Made, of course, covers crisp and ironed. The sight suddenly had enormous impact upon Crospinal and he just sat there, staring, trying not to cry again. When he got up, and was finally able to take a step closer, dust crackled and vanished with a brief aura of blue sparks as a cleansing surge passed over the mattress from head to foot. Covering his eyes, Crospinal had felt a brief quiver to be standing so close. He wished a dog or two was with him, by his feet, rambling on and on, or just panting, because electrostatic made apparitions crackle and the dogs would whine and sputter and run madly back to father. He smiled at the strength of his reverie and managed to swallow.
Holding his mitt out, under the beak of a timid spigot, he accepted a small cup filling with water as it dropped into his palm. He looked around again. The station was clearly functional, at some capacity, despite its silence and lack of controller, but maybe that was the way stations would be from now on. He drank four cups of water and held the empty in his fist until the molecules dispersed. There was invigoration, inside him: each cup catered a little more to what ailed him.
A haptic source, hidden in a small alcove; a set of battery chargers behind the main table. There was a uniform dispenser—like the one at harmer’s corner, maybe somewhat bigger—staying low, between the daybeds. Crospinal approached, thumbed the plate, and withdrew, after a moment, from the damp nest, a fresh and moist uniform. Perfect. Made expressly for him. Lifting the newly baked material to his face, and holding it there, still hot, he breathed in the smell of fresh nylons and neoprenes. The processor was humming already against his cheek, wanting to be worn, to meld with him.
Then, from the already congealing soup that would become the next uniform, like a shimmering skull, or a rising orb over windblown ash, the top of a pristine polycarbonate helmet presented itself, slowly, in offering.
“One’s ready, Crospie. One’s ready.”
“I saw it.”
“You did? Why didn’t you pluck it? My dogs came running back, all excited. Go, Crospie, bring it here. Go get it while it’s fresh. Why aren’t you excited?”
“I don’t want to get it, dad. My legs are sore.”
“Crospie. There are fewer and fewer helmets. The ones that do appear are breaking down quicker. You know that. You need to take your uniform seriously. There’ll come a time when the air gets sucked away.”
“Dad, I know.”
“We need to gather helmets. They make us whole. The shield might protect you from most microbes but only a helmet can truly save you.”
“Dad.”
“Put one on again. Let’s run a drill. Every part cleaned and functioning. You could put a new uniform on, Crospinal. Let’s start at the inside. Right up against our fragile skin?”
“Not now.”
“The maximum . . . ?”
“Please, dad.”
“Maximum . . . ?”
“Absorption garment. Spandex underwear. Chestplate and tricot. The catheter. The processor.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
When Crospinal went back to retrieve the glistening globe from the dispenser, father took it, and cradled it, as if the helmet were another baby, another chance, pressing the smooth plastic against his cheek. There were tears in his eyes. Father could never wear a full helmet like this, because of his tethers; the mass of conduits entered father’s head at the base of his occipital bone and precluded coverage. Crospinal knew that father—eyes closed now, trembling mitts stroking the dome—was straining to make sense of his life, to understand why a helmet could mean so much, and move him so much, to understand how he had come to be in this situation, isolated, fractured into ghosts and spirits, living in a shrinking pen at the end of the world with a crippled son. His unreliable son.
And though Crospinal had been convinced to pull one of the snug covers over his head many times as a younger child—hearing the wet snick as the seals closed, the hiss of the shield cutting off, pressure building in his sinuses as filters and visors and screens and comms kicked in—he could not shake the restrictive feeling of impending suffocation, and ended the ceremony by fumbling with the rings that held the helmet in place, tearing the entire destroyed assembly from his head, and gasping at the pen’s stale air while father looked on, mortified.
Crospinal motioned to the stool again, so he could sit. He had dropped the uniform. It was already disintegrating. He had not touched the helmet. The station reeked of recycling. He drew a deep breath, exposed to all microbes: his shield had not returned. When he called for a sustenance dispenser, the station startled him by speaking at last, bidding Crospinal a cold, taciturn welcome.
“No controller,” said Crospinal. “You don’t have that capacity?” Some chambers in the pen, below opal centre, had a general interface. The voice shimmered all around. He had certainly picked up on this room’s attitude. Father had used sarcasm sometimes, when he was tired, or strung out. Crospinal found it hurtful; he was not ple
ased.
“I figured you were watching me,” he said. “I’ve been walking around a long time. I was starting to think you were busted or something, or that all stations out here were just dumb. Are those daybeds for me?” Pointing. “Are they waiting for me? Was everything here created for me?”
“What egotistical nonsense.”
“Father showed me a story once, about a hard daybed, a soft daybed, and a daybed that was just right.”
“Your father?”
Crospinal winced. Another reaction to a reference about his dad. Part of a pattern, and Crospinal was defensive. “That’s right,” he said. But to avoid further questions or snide comments, which he did not want to deal with, which he could not deal with, he called out again to the food dispenser, hand outstretched, to change the subject.
After a moment, probably consulting the station, the sustenance device turned, extended its neck, and dropped two soft pellets into the palm of Crospinal’s waiting mitt.
“They’ve heard about the vandalism,” explained the station. “We all have. We’re reticent.”
Crospinal let the food sit on his tongue until it started to disintegrate. He tried to remember how the story about the daybeds had ended but could not. Fox and Bear? Were they characters in it? The pellet was sour. “What’s vandalism?”
“To be honest, you do seem earnest, and we must welcome all crew equally.”
“That would be good of you.” Crospinal ate another pellet. The flavour of this one was different, spicier. The station was indeed busted, or maybe it was just unprepared for visitors. There was still a chance, he supposed, that he was the first guest the station had ever had. “You have a prayer mat here?”
“To what,” said the station, “my antediluvian friend, or to whom, do you expect to pray?”
Crospinal would not get baited any more by this flawed avatar. “We prayed every night. We prayed for food, and for the strength of the pen around us.” He paused, but there was no reply, at least not on any wavelength he could interpret. “We gave thanks for his memories and prayed for more to return. I could pray for you, if you want, station. I could tell you everything I’ve seen today.”
“What? No thanks. Some runners kiss non-existent asses, others worship their own turds. Stations don’t need adoration. We have no insecurities.”
Crospinal licked food paste from inside his cheek and from between his molars. He was unsure what the station was getting at. Was it angry at him? He didn’t believe that any efforts to discover motives or reasons would be well spent. Still, wanting to hide his irritation, rise above it, he stared, flustered nonetheless, toward the far end of the room, trying to keep his mouth shut. But the station had ruined his meal and the pellets just sat in his stomach like heaps of composite slag.
A moment later, though, Crospinal stood. “Holy shit.” Crumbs fell from his lap.
The same colour and texture as the walls, incongruous, the camouflaged elemental was easily as large as Fox had been, but sleeker, almost invisible. Resting, charging, on all fours. Father had not trusted any sort of smart machine, though he had no choice but to rely upon them when they showed up. Crospinal put a threadbare mitt on the finely finished flank and whistled under his breath; the shell was smooth, with an oily patina, and warm as flesh.
“Look at this thing.”
“Obey all cardinal rules,” warned the station. “Eyes of the world are upon you. Even here. Don’t press your luck.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Low to the floor, with slim, braced legs, the machine could only be for riding, and riding fast. There was a saddle patch, and safety straps, and a slot where a shield would emerge, to protect him.
Asleep now, the broad, flat face was turned away—
A quick chop of his hand interrupted the current and the machine shuddered awake, opening one red eye to regard him intently.
“Hey,” said Crospinal.
“Hey yourself.”
“The station where you’re charging is low-functional, at best.” He swallowed another pellet, chewed, and popped a fifth into his mouth. The dispensers were watching him. “Can you talk? I mean, saying more than just, hey there?”
“I can.”
“You sure look fast.” He was inspecting the rear quarters: pistons; articulated rods; taut springs. “What’s your cognitive level? How high’s your vocabulary?”
A blunt and primitive wave passed through Crospinal.
“Stop that.”
Turning, to pay more attention—no doubt at what the scan had picked up, or not picked up—the elemental regarded Crospinal for a while. “I’m unable to read you without running a diagnostic. And it’s hard for me to figure out what you’re saying. I’m translating as I go, but your dialect is . . . unusual.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“And the answer to your previous question is that my vocabulary level’s pretty high.”
“Once, not too long ago, I also thought I was fairly smart.”
The elemental considered this. Then it said: “You want to go for a run?”
“What?”
“Isn’t that why you woke me? Because you want to go somewhere? You want a ride?”
“Uh, yeah.” Impetuousness felt good. “That is why I woke you.” He patted the elemental again, let his hand linger, recalling the pitted skin of Fox and Bear.
“Where to, young master?”
“Take me . . .” He furrowed his brow as the idea struck him. “Where other people are.”
“Which people?”
Taken aback, Crospinal asked, “How many are there?”
But the sustenance station spoke up, interrupting: “You have no idea what sort of number’s been done on this one. He’s not a passenger, as I first believed, but no runner, either. He asked if my station was for him alone! He has been stripped and is useless as crew. I let him eat. I wasn’t sure what else to do. He must have escaped from somewhere. I’d be careful, machine, if I were you.”
“Don’t worry about me.” The elemental continued to regard Crospinal all the while with its red eyes. “I can take care of myself. Now listen, young master, I’ll bring you as far as the cabins, on the other side of the garden. To the depot there. Acceptable?”
“You have a garden?”
“Out in the bay. It’s not mine, though. You don’t know these parts at all?” The elemental stretched its legs, rising higher. “A big garden. There was a time when this area was more populous. The trees are still alive. Had enough to eat yet, young master? You ready?”
Crospinal nodded.
Turning fluidly to leave, the elemental made no sound at all, no creaks or clanks.
“Goodbye,” said the station, as Crospinal and his ride departed. “Come again.”
“Goodbye,” said Crospinal, happy to have refrained from further comments, or losing his temper, or crying. Father, he was sure, would have been proud.
Stepping from the aperture, onto the slope outside, he felt the expanse of the world dwarf him again. While he had been inside, there was rain. Looking out, as far as he could see, over a glistening patchwork collection of tiles, the world was brighter than it had been. Above him, the wall loomed, vanishing up into polymers, which were thinner now. He hung onto a braid of cables and leaned forward, telling himself to remain brave, no matter how vast the chamber or strange the encounter.
Waiting below, flattened somewhat, the elemental appeared even faster-looking than Crospinal had at first imagined. He had not seen it descend. As he too went down—pretty nimbly—to stand next to the machine, the red eyes followed his every move.
“Don’t worry about that algorithm,” said the elemental quietly, when he arrived at its side. “The station, you called it. Up there. They’re always a little off. They all are, because they’re tangled together in the banks, and the banks are messed up. Got funny ideas. But the connection never falt
ered in there and I was usually left alone for ages. No offence. I slept very well.”
“No offence taken.” Crospinal could see the elemental clearly only if the angle was right. Moving his head to the side, a flush of pink washed rapidly over the machine, replaced equally quickly by a flush of tan. Old Fox couldn’t do that trick. Crospinal cocked a leg over the elemental’s back, moved into the saddle patch, and grasped the rough straps as they rose, seeking him from their roost. Had the station existed for years? With no visitor? Seemed unlikely.
Many occasions had he ridden piggyback on his caretakers, but they didn’t like to carry him and were nowhere near as comfortable or secure as this ride. Calibrating, the elemental made whirring adjustments while Crospinal sat there and had the flickering thought that everything might just turn out all right, whatever that meant. Squinting into the middle distance, he wound the safety straps tighter around his fists, not entirely trusting his new grip, as if it, too, might vanish, like his past, like everything else he had known.
The machine said, “For the record, I don’t really care about your credentials, young master.”
“Good.” But he was insulted.
“However, it is strange that there’s a trace of cardiopelgics in your lungs. I saw it earlier, when I scanned you.”
“What does that even mean?”
“That you’ve been in stasis. But I didn’t want to say anything. Not in the, uh, not in the station.”
“I had an operation recently. Maybe that’s why?”
“There’s no connection between the two. The solution in your lungs is from spending a long time in a stat. Which makes little sense, because, like the algorithm said, you’re not a passenger. And there’s no stats near here.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“There’s also no evidence of an operation.”
“I’m not making this up. Another elemental put me in traction. My femurs had been broken. I used to have rickets, but now they’re gone. I don’t know what else was done.”
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