by Paul Stewart
Day has become night, just like that. No dusk. We’re plunged into darkness.
It’s like the rainmaker back in the rainforest. Like the crack in the visiglass tank. Everything seems to be getting sluiced up in this part of the Biosphere.
A single arc-light shines down brightly. I guess it must look like the moon did back on Earth.
It’s kind of spooky.
Another zoid flies close, and is destroyed by a burst of white noise from the globe-shaped weapon. Ears ringing, I watch as it spirals down out of the air and explodes far below.
We’re flying over broad-leaf forest now. The single arc-light shines on the canopy, making it look like water.
The noises are loud here. Hissing. Hooting. Howling . . .
And I realize that the winged creature is coming down lower in the sky. Just up ahead is a large, pitch-black circle, and it’s this it is heading for – the opening to a vast chimney.
We plunge down inside it.
I look up. The creature’s gliding now, its wings outstretched and head in shadow as it circles round and round, dropping ever deeper into the chimney. Then it releases its grip.
I strike the ground with a painful thud. I lie there, winded. The winged creature touches down lightly beside me. It prods me in the back. Then, apparently satisfied that I’m still alive, it steps back.
It is only then that I realize we are not alone.
The air smells foul, a disgusting mixture of damp and waste and oily smoke. There’s a babble of noise I can’t make out. My ears are still ringing from the white noise. I squint round. It’s dark, but I get the feeling the place is vast.
Suddenly there’s a blinding flash.
The whole cavernous interior is lit up. Pillars standing in rows. Box-shaped generators lining the walls. Platforms and gantries looming overhead, along with power-masts and aerial stacks. To my left is a large convection pool, the water still and black.
And figures. Weird, deformed figures that stare back at me.
Then, as quickly as everything was illuminated, it’s dark again, the sudden brightness making it seem darker than ever.
My head’s throbbing and my muscles are cramped up. I stretch my legs, roll my shoulders. I brace my hands behind my head; turn my neck one way, then the other. I climb to my feet, my eyes adjusting to the gloom.
The figures are standing in a circle around me. They’re keeping their distance, staying in the shadows. But I can see enough to know something’s definitely not right.
They’re a hotch-potch of heights and sizes, black shapes silhouetted against the gloom behind them. There are squat, heavy-set men and women and long-limbed giants, three metres tall or more. One looks scaly. Another is covered in thick fur.
They seem to be human, but like the creatures I’ve seen outside in the zones of the Mid Deck, they’ve mutated. And they don’t look friendly.
I turn to see a winged creature standing behind me. The shock of the deformed body, with its jutting breastbone and knot of shoulder muscles, hits me all over again. It cranes its head forward, and I see that it does have a human head.
His lips move. But with my ears still buzzing from the white noise, I can’t make sense of the sounds he’s making.
Then I see a ripple of movement. A man is emerging from the rectangular pool. He’s powerfully built, with broad shoulders and a flat stomach. He pulls himself up onto the metal surround and I notice his paddle-like hands and feet, webbed skin stretched between splayed fingers and toes. And, as he walks closer, I stare at the row of curious flaps of skin down either side of his neck.
I’ve seen him before, I realize. This is the figure I glimpsed deep in the ocean, or someone like him.
A gill-man.
He says something to the wing-man, then the two of them start to examine me. They take my backcan, search my flakcoat. Caliph chitters in protest, but they don’t seem interested in him. No, it’s me they’re checking. They’re feeling under my arms, down my back; checking between my fingers and behind my ears. One of them forces my mouth open and the pair of them look inside; then, using a small pocket-light, they peer into my eyes, up my nose . . .
‘What are you looking for?’ I ask, but they ignore me.
They’re being rough. Poking and prodding. Treating me like some kind of critter. And all the while they’re muttering to one another, like they’re ticking items off a list.
‘I’m human,’ I say. ‘I . . .’
But they don’t want to hear. I’m tied up and shoved to the floor. I thrash about helplessly.
Suddenly the place is lit up again. Two flashes this time, as blinding as the one before.
This time, the babble grows agitated. Some of the mutants take cover; others scatter, running off into the shadows.
Then someone appears beside us. I’ve never seen anyone more powerfully built. His neck’s thick and cabled. He’s got a barrel-chest, fists like rocks, limbs like tree trunks. His skin is leathery and scaled.
He leans down and picks me up by the front of my flakcoat as though I was no heavier than a feather. He holds me up in front of him, glaring fiercely, his dark eyes narrowed and mouth hard. He turns and grunts something to the others, who nod vigorously, then he shoves me under one massive arm and carries me up to the top of a gantry, where he dumps me on the floor. Then he leaves.
And there’s nothing I can do.
I roll over and peer down at the mutants below. I can smell their unwashed bodies. I crane my neck for a better look, and – hot swarf! – I wish I hadn’t.
With their wings, their gills, their scales or thick glossy fur, each of them is weird and frightening.
And when one of them – a giant with leathery skin – looks up and starts shouting and waving his fist, I shrink back and turn away.
Just then, I feel movement inside my flakcoat. I look down and see Caliph emerging from my pocket. He scrambles up the front and his whiskers tickle my chin. I nuzzle my cheek against him as best I can, mumbling through the gag how glad I am to see him.
And I am glad.
But then he’s off again, scampering along my arm. He sniffs at the cords binding my wrists and I feel a soft vibrating as he starts to gnaw through the leather. I keep my arms flexed and all at once, it snaps. Hands free at last. I realize my ears have cleared too. I can hear again.
‘Good boy!’ I whisper as I untie the cords at my ankles.
All at once, from high above our heads, there is a third blinding flash. It’s bigger and brighter than the others – and it keeps on going.
The mutants are in disarray. Below me, they scatter in all directions.
Wing-men – dozens of them – have taken up positions at the tops of the tallest gantries. Scale-men and fur-men are hurrying across the floor of the chamber, darting from pillar to pillar towards different points close to the outer walls. A separate group is taking up position near the bottom of the chimney I came in through. They’re all holding the white-noise weapons – small globes that glow in their hands.
Suddenly a panel in the wall of the chamber bursts open. A zoid steps through, its lasers blazing.
It’s not like the maintenance zoids that Belle and I saw putting out the fire. No, this one is like some kind of simple humanoid. It’s big, with two arms, two legs, a visored head and heavy body armour. If my recon-sight was working, I bet it would be showing the red heat-sig of a killer.
Behind it, buzzing like angry flies, are the small zoids with the lens-heads. They dart through the air as the lumbering zoid rakes the chamber with laser fire.
A fur-man falls to the ground, his chest smoking. A wing-man is shot from an upper gantry, falls screeching through the air and lands with a sickening crunch.
The mutants respond with their weapons. The globes in their hands glow brightly and the chamber fills with white noise. I shield my ears as the small zoids start to spin out of control and crash to the floor. But the humanoid zoid doesn’t seem to be affected. It strides across the chamber on
armoured legs, and begins to climb the ladder towards the gantry I’m crouching on.
Just then a mutant drops down onto the gantry from above and lands beside me. He’s thin and wiry, with scaled skin. Black, unblinking eyes fix themselves on mine.
They’re filled with hate and rage, like he’s blaming me for the attack.
The zoid appears behind him. Its arm jerks and thrums, and a beam of laser light shoots from it. It hisses through the air and slams into the scale-man’s back. He looks puzzled for a moment and looks down to see smoke exploding from his chest – then, arms and legs splayed, he falls heavily on his front. Dead.
The zoid comes closer and I can see just how big it is. Two metres tall, at least.
I scuttle backwards, my arms raised to protect myself.
The zoid doesn’t shoot. Instead it extends an arm towards me.
Resistance is futile. There’s nothing I can do.
The zoid’s hand closes around my arm in a vice-like lock. It pulls me down the ladder and back across the smoke-filled chamber. The white noise dies away as the mutants cease firing.
They’re letting us go.
The zoid steps through the hole it blasted in the chamber wall and drags me after it. Only as I enter the darkness do I realize that something is missing. There is no small warm body curled up inside my flakcoat.
I have left Caliph behind.
The zoid heads swiftly down a dark tunnel – some sort of air duct or ventilation shaft. It’s taking me with it. Behind us, the surviving flying zoids hover and buzz, their lens-heads swivelling in constant surveillance.
Far ahead, I see a light. We keep on towards it.
The zoid is moving slowly and steadily now, lurching from side to side as it continues up the sloping tunnel. By the time we arrive at the entrance, I’m feeling queasy with motion-sickness. And it doesn’t get any better when we step outside. It’s stifling hot here. The air’s heavy and humid and sickly sweet.
We’re in some kind of swamp zone.
The grow-troughs here are long and narrow, and laid out in lines that stretch far into the distance. They contain mud that is as brown and thin as soup. Tangles of fat-leafed bushes with stilt-like roots are growing out of it.
A sharp-toothed creature with angular green scales appears from the shadows and lurches towards us. But the zoid zaps its laser at it, and it spins round and splashes away. Somewhere close by, a pair of birds are screeching at one another.
And there are insects. Thousands . . . millions of insects, hovering over this wetland, buzzing and humming. They’re attacking one another, or dive-bombing the grow-troughs for food – until they realize there’s something even better to feast on.
Me.
Suddenly they’re all over me. I can feel them. In my hair, on my face, crawling into my ears and up my nose. I spit and wriggle, but it’s hopeless. There’s nothing I can do to keep them from biting me, stinging me; eating me alive.
One of the flying zoids approaches. The clear lens at the front of its head is pointing directly at me. The iris focuses.
All at once a section at the top of the zoid’s tubular body slides back and a nozzle appears. I feel a damp spray on my skin and close my eyes. The spray is cool and soothing, and the stinging of the insect bites disappears. I open my eyes to see that the insects have all retreated. They’re still there, but keeping their distance. It’s as though I’m in some kind of force-field that’s keeping them at bay.
We continue through the swamp.
Our progress has slowed right down. The zoid’s legs have extended and it’s plodding through the grow-troughs, testing the firmness of the bottom with each step before putting its weight down. The mud gloops and gurgles. Bubbles of gas rise up from the depths and pop at the surface, filling the air with that sickly sweet odour I first smelled when we emerged from the tunnel.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I ask.
But the zoid doesn’t answer. I’m not even sure it can.
We come to some kind of a walkway. It’s raised up on a criss-cross framework and jutting out over the rows of grow-troughs. The end is jagged and splintered. Once, it extended from one side of the swamp zone to the other. But some time in the past, something must have smashed into it, causing half of it to break off and sink into the muddy troughs below.
The robot grips the two side-rails and, using its hydraulic arms and legs, pulls us up onto the walkway. Then it does something that really surprises me. Leaning forward, it lowers me till my feet touch the surface of the walkway, and releases its grip.
I rub life back into my arm. Gradually feeling returns to my numb, tingly limbs.
The zoid motions for me to walk ahead. It prods me with the laser, which is pointed squarely at my back.
Suddenly the zilched walkway starts moving under my feet and we’re speeding over the swamp. The insects come with us. But then, abruptly, the swamp is behind us, and they’re gone. We’re in a dry flat landscape now, fine dust and huge balls of tangleweed blowing in and out of the derelict buildings we speed past.
Several minutes later, the walkway comes to an end and we step onto the next one. And we’re off again.
We’re passing through a scarred landscape of broken tower-blocks and twisted masts set in bleached gravel, and rows of warehouse units, their visiglass windows smashed and rusted walls collapsing. Everything’s in drab shades of brown and grey. The arc-lights are full on and the air above the parched earth shimmers with heat.
It looks like liquid. But there’s no water here. Nothing grows. There’s no birdcall, no critter-cry.
This whole area must once have been living quarters, home to the bio-engineers and their families. But now it is an abandoned place.
A dead place. Up ahead, I see something gleaming. It’s small and rounded at the top, and looks as though it’s floating on an ocean.
As we come closer, the mirage melts away, and I see a dome set in the middle of a broad, raised slab of polished stone. It looks clean and cared for; so different from the derelict buildings we just passed. And it’s vast too, some seventy metres high and ten times that in width. It’s made of hexagonal pieces of visiglass, the individual panes set in an intricate framework of urilium struts. The light reflecting off the visiglass makes it impossible to see inside. As the walkway brings us nearer, I notice the series of entrances at the base of the dome.
The walkway comes to an end. We step onto the grey slab and climb a flight of broad stairs set into the stone. At the top, a circular door opens. I hesitate. The zoid shoves me forward, into the glowing white airlock, then follows me inside.
‘Decontamination sequence activated,’ says a voice.
It’s cool inside. In front of me is a second door, thick and heavy-looking. A visiglass tube appears from the ceiling above and lowers itself over me.
I feel claustrophobic. My heart thumps.
The visiglass begins to glow a deep red, and on its surface a display of moving holographic lines and circles appear. They flit and flicker in ever-shifting patterns. There’s a buzzing noise, and the tube is criss-crossed with laser light. It cuts through my clothes, which fall to the floor in a powder of ash.
Suddenly the red light turns green. The visiglass tube rises and disappears back inside the ceiling.
There’s a clunk and a hiss, and small holes in the side walls emit a fine spray. I’m surrounded by mist. Apart from the smell, which is sour and antiseptic, it’s just like a vapour shower. Then the spray stops and the airlock is filled with warm jets of air.
‘Decontamination completed,’ says the voice. ‘Prepare for genetic validation.’
Behind me, I’m aware of movement, and when I turn, I see the zoid. It does not speak. As I watch, a long black nozzle extends from its hand. It comes closer. I try to push it away, but it’s hopeless. The zoid reaches out with the other hand and pins my head against the wall.
Its metal fingers prise my eyelids apart. The nozzle whines and pulsates as it approaches my eye
ball. I want to scream, but no sound comes out. The end of the nozzle presses against my eye . . .
And everything goes black.
I don’t know how long I’ve been out for, but when I come round, everything’s changed.
I’m lying on a table in the middle of a white room. I’m dressed in a white tunic and trousers, and soft polysynth boots.
The zoid is standing over by a metal worktop. The silver surface is covered with surgical instruments, gleaming tools. I don’t know what they are, or what they’re for. But I don’t like the look of them.
The zoid turns to me. ‘You are awake,’ it says. So it can speak.
I swallow. I can hardly deny it.
It looks at a stream of holo-data hovering in the air above my head.
‘You have passed genetic validation, and you appear calm and lucid,’ it tells me. ‘Negligible threat levels. Good. We can now get acquainted properly.’
The zoid walks towards me and looks down. I see myself mirrored in the shiny visor. Then it reaches up, presses side-panels and removes the zoid helmet. Next thing I know, there’s a click and the chest armour opens.
And a human climbs out.
He doesn’t look that much older than me. He’s pale and freckled, with cropped black hair. His nose is broad, his ears are small and he’s got blue eyes that are staring at me like I’m some kind of freak.
‘Greetwell,’ he says. ‘I’m Travis.’ And he sticks out a hand.
I get up off the table and shake his hand. I’m shocked by how soft it is. This is the hand of someone who’s never done a day’s physical work in his life.
‘York,’ I tell him. I want to ask him what this place is and why he’s brought me here, but he’s in no mood to talk.