Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring

by Stephen Baxter

  Farr looked at Ray. She smiled at him. ‘Come on, it’ll be fun.’ She took the board from him - her fingers brushed the back of his hand, lightly, sending a thrill through him which caused his penis to stir again - and laid the board along the Magfield, flat. She patted its surface with its criss-cross inlay of Corestuff strips. ‘Surfing’s easy. It’s just like Waving, but with your feet and your board instead of your legs. All you have to remember is to keep contact with your board, to keep pushing against the Magfield . . .’

  With Ray’s help, and Cris’s, Farr clambered onto the board and learned how to rock it with his toes and heels. At first it seemed impossible - he kept kicking the board away, clumsily - and he was aware of the eyes of Ray on every galumphing movement. But each time he fell away he retrieved the board and climbed back on.

  Then, suddenly, he had it. The secret was not strength, really, but gentleness, suppleness, a sensitivity to the soft resistance of the Magfield. It was enough to rock the board steadily and evenly across the Magfield flux paths, to keep the pressure of his feet less than the counterpressure of the Magfield so that the board stayed attached to the soles of his bare feet. When a downstroke with one foot was completed, he bent his legs slowly and pushed the other end of the board down in its turn. Gradually he learned to build up the tempo of this rocking motion, and wisps of electron gas curled about his toes as induced current began to flow in the Corestuff inlays.

  The board - Waving just as the girl had said - carried him gracefully, effortlessly across the flux lines.

  He learned to slow, to turn, to accelerate. He learned when to stop rocking the board, simply to allow his momentum to carry him arcing across the Magfield.

  He had no idea how long it took him to learn the basics of Surfing. He was only peripherally aware of Cris’s continuing patience, and he even forgot, for quite long periods, the nearness of Ray’s bare, lithe body. He sailed across the sky. It was, he thought, like learning to Wave for the first time. The board felt natural beneath his feet, as if it had always been there, and he suspected that a small, inner part of him - no matter what he did or where he went - would always cling to the memory of this experience, utterly addicted.

  Ray swooped down before him, inverted and with hands on bare hips. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the basics. Now let’s really Surf. Come on!’

  High over the Pole, Farr surged along the corridors of light marked out by hexagonal arrays of vortex lines. The lines surged past him with immense, unimaginable speed. The soft bodies of floating spin-spider eggs padded at his face and legs as he flew, and the Air brushed at his cheeks, the tiny viscosity of its non-superfluid component resisting him feebly. The Quantum Sea was a purple floor far below him, delimiting the yellow Air; and the City was a vast, complex block of wood and light, hanging over the Pole, huge yet dwarfed by the Mantlescape.

  Ahead of him the girl Ray looped around vortex lines with unconscious skill, electron light shimmering from her calves and buttocks.

  His face was stretched into a fierce grin. He knew the grin was there, he knew Ray must be able to see it, and yet he couldn’t keep it from his face. Surfing was glorious. His head rattled with the elements of complex, unrealistic schemes by which he might acquire his own board, join this odd, irregular little troupe of Skin-based Surfers, maybe even enter some future Games himself.

  Ray turned and swept close to him. ‘You’re doing fine,’ she shouted.

  ‘I still feel as if I might fall off any moment.’

  She laughed. ‘But you’re strong. That makes up for a lot. Come on. Try a spiral.’

  She showed him how to angle his body back and push the board across the Magfield, so that he moved in slow, uneven, sweeping curves around a vortex line. Still he was hurtling forward through the sky, but now the huge panorama wheeled steadily around him. He stared down at his body, at the board; blue highlights from the corridors of vortex lines and the soft purple glow of the Sea cast complex shadows across his board.

  He pushed at the Air harder, trying like Ray to tighten his spirals around the vortex lines. This was the most difficult manoeuvre he’d attempted, and he was forced to concentrate, to think about each motion of his arms and legs.

  His foot slipped on the board’s ridges. He stumbled through the Air, upwards towards the vortex line at the axis of his spiral. The board fell away from his feet. As he came within a mansheight of the vortex line he felt the Air thicken, drag at his chest and limbs. He was picked up and hurled around the vortex singularity, and sent tumbling away into the Air.

  He rolled on his back and kicked easily at the Air, Waving himself to a stop. He lay against the soft resistance of the Magfield, laughing softly, his chest dragging at the Air.

  Ray came slithering across the Magfield on her board; she carried Cris’s board under her arm. ‘I bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried.’

  He took the board from her. ‘I guess I should take this back to Cris. He’s been very patient.’

  She shrugged, and pushed a stray length of hair away from her face. ‘I suppose so. You want one more run first?’

  He hesitated, then felt his grin return. ‘One more.’

  Suddenly he twisted the board in the Air, bent his knees and slipped the board under his feet. He thrust at the length of wood as rapidly as he could, and soared away through a tunnel of vortex lines. Behind him he heard her laugh and clamber onto her own board.

  He sailed over the Pole, over the passive bulk of Parz City once more. He thrust at the board, still awkwardly he knew, but using all his upfluxer strength now. The vortex lines seemed to shoot past like spears, slowly curving, and the weak breeze of the Air plucked at his hair.

  The corridor of vortex light was infinite before him. The ease of movement, after the restriction of spiralling, was exhilarating. He was moving faster than he’d ever moved in his life. He opened his mouth and yelled.

  He heard Ray shouting behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. She was still chasing him, but he’d given himself a good lead. It would take her a while to catch him yet. She was cupping a hand around her mouth and calling something, even as she Surfed. He frowned and looked more closely, but he couldn’t make out what she was trying to tell him. Now she was pointing at him - no, past him.

  He turned his head again, to face the direction of his flight. There was something in his path.

  Spin-web.

  The fine, shining threads seemed to cover the sky before him. He could see where the web was suspended from the vortex line array by small, tight rings of webbing which encircled the vortex lines without quite touching the glowing spin-singularities. Between the anchor rings, long lengths of thread looped across the vortex arrays. The complex mats of threads were almost invisible individually, but they caught the yellow and purple glow of the Mantle, so that lines of light formed a complex tapestry across the sky ahead.

  It was really very beautiful, Farr thought abstractedly. But it was a wall across the sky.

  The spin-spider itself was a dark mass in the upper left corner of his vision. It looked like an expanded, splayed-open Air-pig. Each of its six legs was a mansheight long, and its open maw would be wide enough to enfold his torso. It seemed to be working at its web, repairing broken threads perhaps. He wondered if it had spotted him - if it had started moving already towards the point where he would impact the net, or if it would wait until he was embedded in its sticky threads.

  Only a couple of heartbeats had passed since he’d seen the web, and yet already he’d visibly reduced his distance to it.

  He swivelled his hips and beat at the Magfield with his Surfboard, trying to shed his velocity. But he wouldn’t be able to stop in time. He looked quickly around the sky, seeking the edges of the web. Perhaps he could divert rather than stop, fly safely around the trap. But he couldn’t even see the edges of the web. Spin-spider webs could be hundreds of mansheights across.

  Maybe he could break through the web, burst through to the other side
before the spider could reach him. It had to be impossible - there were layers to the web, a great depth of sticky threads before him - but it seemed his only chance.

  How could he have been so stupid as to fall into such a trap? He was supposed to be the upfluxer, the wild boy; and yet he’d made one of the most basic mistakes a Human Being could make. Ray and Cris would think him a fool. His sister would think him a fool, when she heard. He imagined her voice, tinged with the tones of their father: ‘Always look up- and downflux. Always. If you scare an Air-piglet, which way does it move? Downflux, or upflux, along the flux paths, because it can move quickest that way. That’s the easiest direction to move for any animal - cut across the flux paths and the Magfield resists your motion. And that’s why predators set their traps across the flux paths, waiting for anything stupid enough to come fleeing along the flux direction, straight into an open mouth . . .’

  The web exploded out of the sky. He could see more detail now - thick knots at the intersection of the threads, the glistening stickiness of the threads themselves. He turned in the Air and thrust with the board, trying to pick up as much speed as he could. He crouched over the board, his knees and ankles still working frantically, and tucked his arms over his head.

  He’d remain conscious after he was caught in the thread. Uninjured, probably. He wondered how long the spin-spider would take to clamber down to him. Would he still be aware when it began its work on his body?

  A mass came hurtling over his head, towards the web. He flinched, almost losing his board, and looked up. Had the spider left its web and come for him already? . . .

  But it was the girl, Ray. She’d chased him and passed him. Now she dived, ahead of Farr, deep into the tangle of webbing. She moved in a tight spiral as she entered the web, and the edge of her board cut through the glistening threads. Farr could see the dangling threads brushing against her arms and shoulders, one by one growing taut and then slackening as she moved on, burrowing through the layers of web.

  She was cutting a tunnel through the web for him, he realized. The ragged-walled tunnel was already closing up - the web seemed to be designed for self-repair - but he had no choice but to accept the chance she’d given him.

  He hurtled deep into the web.

  It was all around him, a complex, three-dimensional mesh of light. Threads descended before his face and laid themselves across his shoulders, arms and face; they tore at the fabric of his coverall and his skin and hair, and came loose with small, painful rips. He cried out, but he dared not drop his face into his hands, or close his eyes, or lift his arms to bat away the threads, for fear of losing his tenuous control of the board.

  Suddenly, as rapidly as he had entered it, he was through the web. The last threads parted softly before him with a soft, sucking sigh, and he was released into empty Air.

  Ray was waiting for him a hundred mansheights from the border of the web, with her board tucked neatly under her arm. He brought his board to a halt beside her and allowed himself to tumble off gracelessly.

  He turned and looked back. The tunnel in the web had already closed - all that remained of it was a dark, cylindrical path through the layers of webbing, showing where their passage had disrupted the structure of the web - and the spin- spider itself was making its slow, patient way past the vortex lines on its way to investigate this disturbance in its realm.

  Farr felt himself shuddering; he didn’t bother trying to hide his reaction. He turned to Ray. ‘Thank you . . .’

  ‘No. Don’t say it.’ She was grinning. She was showing no fear, he realized. Her pores were wide open and her eyecups staring, and again she exuded the vivid, unbearably attractive aliveness which had struck him when he’d first met her. She grabbed his arms and shook him. ‘Wasn’t it fantastic? What a ride. Wait till I tell Cris about this . . .’

  She jumped on her board and surged away into the Air.

  As he watched her supple legs work the board, and as the reaction from his brush with death worked through his shocked mind, Farr once again felt an unwelcome erection push its way out of his cache.

  He climbed onto his board and set off, steering a wide, slow course around the web.

  9

  After a few days Toba returned, and told Dura and Farr that he had booked them into a labour stall in the Market. Dura was given to understand that Toba had done them yet another favour by this, and yet he kept his eyes averted as he discussed it with them and, when they ate, Cris seemed embarrassed into an unusual silence. Ito fussed around the upfluxers, her eyecups deep and dark.

  Dura and Farr dressed as usual in the clothes the family had loaned them. But Toba told them quietly that, this time, they should go unclothed. Dura peeled off the thick material of her coverall with an odd reluctance; she could hardly say she had grown used to it, but in the bustling streets she knew she would feel exposed - conspicuously naked.

  Toba pointed, embarrassed, to Dura’s waist. ‘You’d better leave that behind.’

  Dura looked down. Her frayed length of rope was knotted, as always, at her waist, and her small knife and scraper were comforting, hard presences just above her hips at her back. Reflexively her hands flew to the rope.

  Toba looked at Ito helplessly. Ito came to Dura hesitantly, her hands folded together. ‘It really would be better if you left your things here, Dura. I think I understand how you feel. I can’t imagine how I’d cope in your position. But you don’t need those things of yours, your weapons. You do understand they couldn’t really be much protection to you here anyway . . .’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Dura said. In her own ears her voice sounded ragged and a little wild. ‘The point is . . .’

  Toba pushed forward impatiently. ‘The point is we’re getting late. And if you want to be successful today, Dura - and I assume you do - you’re going to have to think about the effect those crude artifacts of yours would have on a prospective purchaser. Most people in Parz think you’re some kind of half-tamed animal already.’

  ‘Toba . . .’ Ito began.

  ‘I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. And if she goes down the Mall with a knife at her waist - well, we’ll be lucky not to be picked up by the guards before we even reach the Market.’

  Farr moved closer to Dura, but she waved him away. ‘It’s all right, Farr.’ Her voice was steadier now. More rational. ‘He’s right. What use is this stuff anyway? It’s only junk from the upflux.’

  Slowly she unravelled the rope from her waist.

  The noise of the Market heated the Air even above the stifling clamminess of the Pole. People swarmed among the stalls which thronged about the huge central Wheel, the colours of their costumes extravagant and clashing. Dura folded her arms across her breasts and belly, intimidated by the layers of staring faces around her.

  Farr was quiet, but he seemed calm and watchful.

  Toba brought them to a booth - a volume cordoned off from the rest of the Market by a framework of wooden bars. Inside the booth were ten or a dozen adults and children, all subdued, unkempt and shabbily dressed compared to most of the Market’s inhabitants; they stared with dull curiosity at the nakedness of Dura and Farr.

  Toba bade the Human Beings enter the booth.

  ‘Now,’ he said anxiously, ‘you do understand what’s happening here, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Farr, his eyes tight. ‘You’re going to sell us.’

  Toba shook his round head. ‘Not at all. Anyhow, it’s nothing to do with me. This is a Market for work. Here, you are going to sell your labour - not yourselves.’

  Four prosperous-looking individuals - three men and a woman - had already emerged from the Market’s throng and come over to the booth. They were studying both the Human Beings curiously but seemed particularly interested in Farr. Dura said to Toba, ‘I doubt it’s going to make much practical difference. Is it?’

  ‘It’s all the difference in the world. You sign up for a fixed-term contract . . . Your liberty remains your own. And at the end of it . . .�
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  ‘Excuse me.’ The woman buyer had interrupted Toba. ‘I want to take a look at the boy.’

  Toba smiled back. ‘Farr. Come on out. Don’t be afraid.’

  Farr turned to Dura, his mouth open. She closed her eyes, suddenly ashamed that she could do so little to protect her brother from this. ‘Go on, Farr. They won’t hurt you.’

  Farr slid through the wooden bars and out of the booth.

  The woman was about Dura’s age but a good deal plumper; her hair-tubes were elaborately knotted into a gold-and-white bun, and layers of fat showed over her cheekbones. With the air of a professional she peered into the boy’s eyecups, ears and nostrils; she bade him open his mouth and ran a finger around his gums, inspecting the scrapings she extracted. Then she poked at Farr’s armpits, anus and penis-cache.

  Dura turned away from her brother’s misery.

  The woman said to Toba, ‘He’s healthy enough, if underfed. But he doesn’t look too strong.’

  Toba frowned. ‘You’re considering him for Fishing?’

  ‘Yes . . . He’s obviously slim and light. But . . .’

  ‘Madam, he’s an upfluxer,’ Toba said complacently.

  ‘Really?’ The woman stared at Farr with new curiosity. She actually pulled away from him a little, wiping her hands on her garment.

  ‘And that means, of course, for his size and mass he’s immensely strong, here at the Pole. Ideal for the Bells.’ Toba turned to Dura, and his voice was smooth and practised. ‘You see, Dura, the material of our bodies is changed, here at the Pole, because the Magfield is stronger.’ He seemed to be talking for the sake of it - to be filling in the silence while the woman pondered Farr’s destiny. ‘The bonds between nuclei are made stronger. That’s why it feels hotter here to you, and why your muscles are . . .’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ the woman cut in. ‘But . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Is he . . .’

  ‘Broken in?’ Dura interrupted heavily.

  ‘Dura,’ Toba warned her.