Feast and Famine

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  All sorts of alarms were going off, because we had come away on a variant trajectory that would have run us into something in an hour or so, but a little jockeying from Osman had us back on track, and we were headed home for Mother.

  Around us, the wheeling shapes of Syrenka’s debris field danced on, heedless. The scattered flowers of Anchorite glittered like eyes as they watched us go, the almost-life within out vessel taking us away from the almost-life without.

  * * *

  My full-length writing to date has been entirely in the epic fantasy genre, but I have both a great respect for and a keen interest in serious hard science fiction. At the same time, one of the things I’ve imported from my childhood is a love of aliens. I was always more interested in the aliens than the humans, in most SF films. Aliens in popular SF tend to be humans with little more than a forehead prosthetic and a personality stereotype slapped on, though. What I wanted to explore in this story was alien life at the boundary of what we could recognize as life: and not super-intelligent Boltzman Brains or godlike energy creatures that can stoop to our level, but something that is completely other to us – and to which we might as well not exist, but that we can recognise because it obeys the elegant logic of evolution.

  I also owe a considerable debt to my father, Michael Czajkowski, for helping me with some of the science in this story, in his capacity as lecturer in planetary geology for the Open University. So if the science in that field is wonky you can blame him…

  The Artificial Man

  “Thenard?” The Toad pushed into the room cautiously.

  “Come in, Toady.”

  The bounty hunter was stretched out full-length on his bed, shirt undone almost to the navel and chin furred with stubble. There was a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. One leg was heavily splinted, pitched up at an odd angle. The Toad hunkered down by his side immediately and poked thick-fingered hands at the limb.

  “Ouch,” Thenard said pointedly. “Listen –”

  “It’s been well cared for,” the Toad told him clinically. “In truth, I don’t think there’s much I can do for you. I’m flattered, of course.”

  “Listen, Toady,” Thenard said. “Damn the leg. Forget the leg. Tht’s not why I sent for you.”

  The Toad straightened up and shrugged his sagging shoulders. “Perhaps not so flattered then.” A brief smile trawled his lipless mouth. “News? I’m afraid I’ve been out of touch.”

  “Not news neither. Forget news.” Thenard shifted uncomfortably. “Just listen to me for a moment.”

  “All right. Sorry.”

  “Sit down,” the hunter added. “I’m getting a stiff neck.”

  The Toad sat down awkwardly and made a short, fat steeple of his fingers. “Go on.”

  “Listen, as you see I managed to get myself laid up,” Thenard said.

  “How did you do it?”

  “Goddamn, will you listen to me? I fell off a mountain. I was born where you can see the horizons properly, without all this highland stuff. When I come to a place where everything’s tilted up like crazy, I fall off, right? Satisfied? If I can continue, I need someone to do me a favour, and as you’re in the area…”

  “Save for patching you up sometimes, our lines of work don’t cross much,” the Toad said dubiously.

  “Don’t worry,” Thenard assured him, waving a long arm magnanimously. “I don’t expect you to arm up and go chasing bandits. I just need a little look-seeing done for me.”

  The Toad assumed a look of suspicion. Thenard sighed.

  “You heard of the shake-up happened back in Jacupa State?” he said. “Tyrant out, people in, kind of thing. Long live freedom forever?”

  “I received some word,” the Toad acknowledged. “I can’t say I was unhappy.”

  “Exactly, friend-of-my-youth, exactly.” Thenard hitched himself up again, more animated. “You remember, spring, three years back. Tyrell’s birthday revels? Of course you do. Who could forget?”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” the Toad said grimly.

  “Exactly.” Thenard’s smile slipped slightly. “I mean, most people reckon I’m a hard case, but I never crucified anyone. I’m proud to say it. Not one for each year, anyway.”

  “So there was a revolution,” the Toad prompted. “What then?”

  “Well, as it so happened they didn’t want the Tyrant quite so far out as that.” Seeing the Toad’s frown, Thenard elaborated. “Haves Tyrell. Our old mate the Tyrant: they kicked him off the throne and had quite a serious go at him. Fighting in the palace, so I heard. They had him banged up in the tower for weeks, deciding how to execute him, and didn’t make it a pleasant stay neither. Wanted to make the end of him a big day, I guess.”

  “And he got out,” the Toad finished.

  “Sure he did, and they hired me, and I reckon I’m close.”

  “And you fell off a mountain.”

  “And I fell off a mountain before I could be sure. You go and be sure for me. Ten percent if it’s him.” Thenard smiled winningly.

  “If it isn’t?”

  “Hey, old friend, old pal, old comrade-in-arms.” Thenard grinned. “You wouldn’t begrudge me this little thing?”

  “I’m a healer, not a hunter.”

  “No previous experience required.”

  I’m going to regret this, the Toad thought distinctly. “What’s the lead?” he asked.

  *

  Three days later, he was already regretting it.

  The bounty hunter had explained that a man matching the description of Haves Tyrell passed through the area a couple of months before (“Oh didn’t I tell you that this trail’s kind of old? It’s a long way from Jacupa State.”) According to the word of a solitary tinker, this alleged Tyrant was dwelling in ‘some kind of old villa’ on the ridge road. The road led to nowhere anyone wanted to go any more. The locals would confirm that the villa had been there ‘forever’, but never went near the place. It was a long way from anywhere.

  I don’t have the stamina for this, the Toad told himself. Next time Thenard wants a favour he can ask someone else.

  Thenard, being devious, had been on the mountainside itself. The Toad took the road. The aforementioned old villa was clear ahead of him: a solid, flat-roofed building that time would have to work hard to grind down.

  There’s a little light from inside. Somebody’s home. The Toad sat for a moment on a partly-collapsed cairn to examine the building and get his breath back. It was old, certainly, well-built for a rich patron with a fair degree of taste. The style could have been two hundred years old or five, or more. It was an odd place to put a villa, here on the roof of the world.

  When this was built, the Toad thought, there can’t have been another stone on stone for miles. Somebody wanted to be alone.

  What the hell does Thenard expect me to do? Just walk up and knock on the door?

  He stared at the house for a long time, as the sky darkened into evening, and then stood up, shuffled to the porch and rapped briskly away.

  No response. The Toad sagged slightly and shifted his pack to the floor. If he just stood here and knocked, and the Tyrant sat inside and refused to answer the door, an impasse would develop. He knocked again and the door was opened silently. The Toad’s bulging eyes goggled to the full.

  It’s a construct, he told himself frantically. It’s only a construct, surely. It has to be.

  The Toad had been born into an artificer’s laboratory. His father, a dwarfish, long-armed savant of a man, had been a tinkerer of some skill. The Toad was used to automata, but not like this. This was the dream of every artificer, ever since the great master of the trade, Vans Serten, had first built a machine that resembled, and moved, like a man. Like this.

  It was old, the Toad saw, and poorly cared-for, but well-made just the same. Copper, brass, steel and less recognisable metals had been incorporated into its construction. In some sections the inner gears and workings could be dimly seen. The Toad stared up into a face cast from one piec
e of bronze, eyes that saw nothing.

  “Yes?” The voice issued out of old bellows and pipes, deep within the rusted torso.

  “…” the Toad said, through dry lips.

  The construct made to close the door. Wordlessly the Toad put up a pudgy hand to stop it.

  “Can I – Is there anyone in there I can speak to?”

  “Speak,” the construct wheezed. Its voice had a faint musical quality, like the wind in the high passes.

  Somewhat of a loss before this paragon of engineering, the Toad shifted slightly. This creation could not have fuelled the tinker’s rumours. There must be someone within the house. For Thenard’s sake he had to get in and find out.

  “I’m a traveller,” he said slowly. “I was wondering if I could spend the night in your… this house.”

  The metal face regarded him impassively and he resisted the urge to shrink from it. There was in him both an awe and a fear of this intricate human machine.

  The faint sound of mechanisms ticked away. The construct appeared to be considering him, though it had neither eyes nor any true mind. It must be a fantastically complex piece of machinery, the Toad decided, far greater than anything he had seen back home. Out of the blue his trump card came to him.

  “If there’s anyone within who might benefit from my skills, I am a healer of some note. If there’s anyone beside yourself, of course…” His eyes searched the various signs of wear and tear across the man-made body and wondered. “You’re a little out of my field of expertise.”

  “Come in,” the construct told him, and stepped back. When he was inside, it silently closed the door on him, sealing him in the villa.

  *

  The light inside was dim. The windows were small and the walls were lined with lanterns that were mostly long burnt-out. There was little sense of the place being lived in. The construct walked slightly unevenly, and the Toad followed the sound of it through echoing, empty halls and gloomy corridors.

  “Who is the master of this house?” he asked.

  “My master,” the creation replied implacably. They entered another hall, lit by the sullen, fading light from a row of slit windows in one wall.

  “Your creator?” the Toad pressed. The construct stopped dead with one beam of old light burnishing its pitted shoulder. Its face turned to him, bleak and pitiless as a temple icon.

  “Yes,” the soulless voice told him, but it was a long time before it moved again.

  Does it think? the Toad wondered. What thoughts would go through that artificial skull?

  The room beyond was furnished and lit with lanterns. Everything was old, in poor repair, but there was a distinct sense of presence that could not be credited to the construct.

  “Be seated,” it invited. “I will inform my master that a guest has arrived.”

  The Toad nodded cautiously and settled himself into an old chair. It creaked ominously. He had been born into a castle on the Cetslan border, and some of the unused rooms of that place had contained furniture younger than this. How old was this place and its mechanical denizen?

  His eyes scanned the room and found more strangeness. On one wall was something that might have been art, and might have been a technical diagram of fantastic complexity. It had been etched into a thin sheet of metal by a process the Toad could not guess at. Thanks to his father’s preoccupations the Toad had been brought up on fables of old Vans Serten. The unsung genius who lived in this lonely house must surely rival that engineering legend.

  An irregular scraping sound heralded the return of his guide. To his straining ears it was the only sound in the house besides his heartbeat.

  “My master is in his laboratory,” the construct announced.

  The Toad nodded uncertainly. A silence developed.

  “Ye-es?” he advanced eventually.

  The construct stared at him, or at least he assumed it did. The Toad had faced up to some strange and intimidating people, and creatures, in his life, but this metal mask was getting the better of him.

  “You are a healer,” the construct stated.

  “Yes.” If it were human, the Toad thought, If it were alive, even, I’d say it was being indecisive. On the face of it the idea was ridiculous, but then he had never seen a mere device built on this level of intricacy.

  The shadows shifted slightly in the room as the lamps guttered, giving a false impression of movement to the automaton standing in the doorway.

  “Your master has need of a healer?” the Toad asked gently.

  “My master.” The words were spoken without qualifiers, but again the Toad gained the impression of uncertainty. A moment later, with no obvious recognition of the break, the sentence was taken up again. “Is unwell.”

  “He wants my help?” Silence. “You want my help on his behalf?”

  The construct regarded him. “Follow me,” it said, turned, and left.

  *

  The Toad had spent his childhood in his father’s laboratory. He knew what an artificer’s workshop looked like. This was the problem.

  The room he was ushered into was cluttered to an impractical degree with convoluted glassware, racks of vials, half-assembled mechanisms and other articles of the trade, so much so that the figure at the far end was difficult to make out. The Toad squinted in the smoky air and stared at a slight form, back turned, draped in a baggy white coat.

  “Master,” the construct intoned. The figure twitched nervously and turned, almost flinching. The Toad saw a gaunt, ravaged face, fair hair falling almost to cover it, a prominent chin. He remembered.

  Ah Gods yes, I remember.

  Twenty-two iron crosses rampant on a hill, and each one with its burden. A slim figure, robe, crown and sceptre, icy eyes and a delicate hand brushing hair back. But was it…?

  The figure approached hesitantly. “Who is this? What is going on?” a weak voice demanded, almost pleaded. The Tyrant’s voice had bound people to his will effortlessly. This man walked with the tenderness of the broken. All around him were the machinations of a laboratory that was, with the utmost industry and show, doing nothing but fill the air with fumes.

  The face was scarred and a little burned. Par for the course for an artificer, perhaps, but this looked recent. Everything about the man seemed fragile, even the look in his eyes. Especially the look in his eyes.

  Is this Haves Tyrell, Tyrant of Jacupa State?

  “People call me the Toad,” he said. “I am a healer.”

  “Why are you here?”

  The Toad stared at him and gave up the battle. Haves Tyrell or not, this man needed his services. “Your servant seemed to think…” His words tailed off. The artificer’s eyes never focused on his face but darted about the room erratically. A muscle in his cheek ticked.

  “What?” The man caught up with him awkwardly.

  The Toad glanced nervously back at the construct. It was displaying no obvious interest, however much that might mean. “Your servant seemed to think you might be ill,” he said. The question on his mind wasn’t that the artificer was ill. He was one of the illest-looking men the Toad had seen this side of the grave. “I think I should have a look at you,” he said decisively. “Just to see. Is there somewhere we could go?”

  The man’s wild eyes danced over to the automaton, and then he walked unsteadily past the Toad. The construct was beckoning for them to follow it.

  The Toad watched the artificer dodder off out of the laboratory and wondered what was going on. He had a laboratory that did nothing, and an artificer to do nothing in it. He had an undeniably well-crafted machine as butler, and he had the hunt for Haves Tyrell.

  Is he, or is he not?

  *

  There was a fire laid when they entered the room. The Toad had no idea whether the construct had somehow effected it, or whether the house had other mechanisms still.

  “Could you take off your shirt please,” he asked the artificer.

  The man stared at him without any indication of seeing and said, “My wor
k…”

  “Can wait,” the Toad finished. Seeing that the man wasn’t about to disrobe he helped the artificer carefully out of his shirt. There was no resistance. In the corner the construct stood silently, as if it had been shut down. The Toad glanced once at it, and then returned his scrutiny to the patient and drew in a pained breath. The man’s bird-thin chest was a lattice of scars: not random whip-marks but a regular pattern, as if some darker product of the artificer’s art had been turned on him. This close, the Toad could detect a laboured quality to his breathing. The ribcage looked slightly deformed, ribs not broken but unnaturally bent.

  “Does this hurt?” the Toad asked, pressing gently on the man’s sternum.

  “Yes,” the artificer wheezed quietly, giving no indication of feeling pain.

  “What about this?” at the shoulderblade.

  “Yes.”

  “And this?”

  “Yes.”

  The Toad stepped back, a suspicion forming. “How about this?” he asked, without touching the man.

  “Yes,” came the measured reply. The Toad leant in and sniffed. Now that they were outside the reek of the laboratory he could detect a faint, sweet scent that reminded him of his mother’s herb room back home, when the lady of the house had gone into childbirth. A mixture of Splayfoot, Red-veined Jaffrey and Toadwort, he guessed, to dull the pain without taking away the sense. He looked into the man’s eyes, noting the slight contraction of the pupils, and guessed that the artificer had been taking the concoction for some time.

  A suspicion was precipitating in his mind, drop by drop.

  “Tell me,” he said, standing back from the man again and folding his arms. “How long have you lived here?”

  He heard the automaton lurch into life immediately, as he had guessed, but above it, the quiet, dull voice saying, “I… I don’t know.”

  “When did you make your servant?”

  “I… made him, yes…”