The Book of Apex: Volume 2 of Apex Magazine

by Jason Sizemore

  “Still,” she says, caressing the nape of his neck. One finger lingers on the hollow, the point where cranium and spine connect, the same place a hunter strikes when he wants to kill a rabbit. Flamsteed knows better than to tense, knows the pain it will earn him if he attempts to resist penetration. His body stiffens anyway, an ancient reflex he thought conquered years ago. He wonders if it’s a sign of age, this inability to control his base reactions. It is only a matter of time before his role is assumed by a younger man, before his wrinkled flesh will refuse to obey him or absorb the rigors required by his duties.

  “Now,” she says. His neck is stiff when she penetrates, the crisp point of her nail cutting through the taut sinew. The pain that washes through him is magnificent, a sweeping agony that leaves him with the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Something drips from his nose, making it hard to breathe. He grits his teeth and draws breath through them, waiting the pain out. The nail is removed, a swift withdrawal accompanied by the wet suck of flesh drawing closed.

  A moment later he is numb, the pain driven out by a sweep of frostbite that leaves him shuddering. The universe resolves around him, points of pale light superimposed over the walls of the room, silver-white spots that gradually congeal into familiar constellations.

  For a few brief moments, he can feel the universe spreading through his capillaries. He runs his fingers across his ebony skin, tracing the pull of the stars as they rotate around him. He understands, for the first time, the way they pull against the universe, each star determined to draw everything in and shine, alone, as a perfect centre. Once he orients himself, it’s possible to make out familiar constellations and old discoveries, the faint glow of 12 Monocerotis and 24 Tauri, the powder-bright dot of 3 Cassiopeia more distinct than he’s ever seen her.

  He wishes for a sheaf of paper, some means of annotating the exact locations while he has them in such close proximity. By the time he inks a quill they are gone, fading away until his wrinkled flesh is as pale as the moon against the midnight sheets.

  “Done,” she says. She brushes her nails against one another, sets them tinkling like crystal chimes as she rises. “Your reward, Astronomer, for all you have discovered.”

  Flamsteed simply nods, weary. He wants to say something, to thank her, but the words do not come.

  His father’s house runs on strict cycles: six days for business, one day for faith. John forfeit’s sleep to his ambition, embracing the freedom to watch the heavens while his father slumbers. He begins his career without details or training, no numbers or names or theories to build on. Life in father’s household has no room for stars, no books beyond the accounting ledger and the Bible on the shelf.

  Flamsteed builds his first star chart from the night sky visible through the bedroom window, a square frame surrounding three-hundred-and-twenty-nine sparkling dots of light, each memorized and catalogued without the help of paper. Travel with his father becomes a curious pleasure after this, allowing him to study the night through unfamiliar portals, quilting the celestial maps together like the scraps used in a patchwork. His understanding grows as the years pass, each patch constructed from the safety of a new bed, each memory as square and neat as a window frame. He tells no-one what he’s doing. The stars he studies for himself alone.

  He encounters his first book on astronomy at fourteen, its yellowing pages full of crudely sketched constellations, archaic and constructed without the benefit of the Other’s machines. John is fascinated by the childish depictions of the sky, the graceful waltz of the heavens superimposed on straight lines. He closes his eyes and transposes the dots of ink to the sky, tracing their patterns on the canvas of his mind for later study.

  He reads for an hour, savouring the experience, the elder Flamsteed discussing business in a nearby parlour, too engrossed in the deal to register John’s absence. John commits the pages to memory, as easy as breathing, aligns them with the patchwork he’s built over the years.

  He acquires his first true book on astronomy three years later, each page pristine and carefully choreographed, the work of the Royal Observatory and the Astronomers whose ranks he still dreams of joining. Flamsteed hides it under his bed, stores it in a small crate still touched with the sour scent of old grain, the book wrapped in waxed paper to protect it from mildew.

  It is not long before it’s joined by other tomes, by telescopes and star charts he constructs in the night.

  They have bypassed the formalities, the flagellation that leaves red welts spiraling across his back like the distorted arms of a newborn galaxy, his limbs crisscrossed with cuts and red lines of inflamed flesh. Flamsteed grits his teeth against the pain, against the soft suckle of her lower appendages. She is pulling herself forward on long and muscular tentacles, each looping grasp giving her new purchase, dragging her bulk through the viscous liquid until she can settle it over Flamsteed’s torso.

  Tears are permitted in this encounter; discreet trails of saltwater flowing over his craggy cheeks until they merge with the viscid muck of the pool. The salt burns at his raw skin, painfully warm against the cool weight of the sea-green slough covering his body. She moves easily through the thick liquid, reaching out with one of her lower appendages to trace the line of his tears. Flamsteed doesn’t flinch from the bone-hooked tip of her tentacle, doesn’t shudder as she runs it across his softened flesh.

  He rakes the squamous bulk of her body with his fingers, acutely aware of the futility of penetrating her scales with his blunted, human nails. One hand working its way down the double-boned ridge of her spine, the second caressing the open expanse of her torso. She thrums beneath his touch, a dull echo deep beneath the cavernous mass of her chest, extremities writhing in a politely simulated act of pleasure. Flamsteed rakes again but cannot break the thick flesh. She will be disappointed, he knows that. He remembers her from her last visit.

  They proceed, politely, playing out the exchange that’s expected of them. Flamsteed chides himself for the lack of foresight, for making contact without preparing the required prosthetics, for limiting himself to merely human physical abilities. He has reduced the exchange to simple choreography for the first time in a decade. They will replace him now, dubbing him too old. The thought terrifies him more than he can say.

  Flamsteeds nocturnal studies manifest in exhaustion, prompting others to regard him as sickly for the remainder his childhood. His father deems him too weak for college, igniting furious arguments with his son.

  Flamsteed clings to his dreams. Letters are written in secret, the necessary books acquired by friends and smuggled into the house. By the time he is permitted to walk into Cambridge Halls, twenty-three and handsome despite his nocturnal pallor, he possessed more knowledge than many who propose to instruct him in the ways of the stars.

  He petitions the Queen and the Royal Observatory every year after graduation, his letters echoing the sentiments of a hundred other astronomers who have studied and dreamed as he has. There is a call, a hunger, pervading the Empire, for the secrets of the conquering Others and the Astronomers who serve them.

  At thirty, John Flamsteed is the first man to be accepted into the ranks of the Astronomers Royal, his petitions supported by a catalogue of undiscovered stars that’s unmatched by any within or without the Royal Observatory. He is first full-grown human to be initiated, the first Astronomer raised outside with an understanding of humanity.

  He meets his first Other in the Astronomer’s tower, deemed ready after three years of training and preparation. The Other looms over him, her pale face like a narrow sliver of moon, silver stars shining from the empty canals of her eyes.

  They taught him the rituals needed to control his instincts in the face of the unknown, but he feels fear despite the training, the dry taste in his mouth and the chill running through his trembling legs. There is something primal there, a quiet voice screaming for him to flee. It takes courage to stand at the ready, to stare into the endless void of those eyes.

  He takes comfo
rt in the void, the gaze that resembles his beloved stars.

  Most Astronomers fail in this moment, unable to sublimate their fear. It is death to fail, he knows this, and Flamsteed forces himself to stay, to remain steady as the luminous hand strokes his clenched jaw. The air is thick with humidity, the Other’s wildflower scent mixing with the flickering taint of tallow. He forces himself to breath normally, to ignore the lightning-sharp tingle that accompanied the Other’s presence. He holds firm as she caresses his face, leans in to study him like a prize horse, forcing his mouth open to check his teeth.

  There is no offering in this first encounter, no contact beyond the gentle touch of her fingers, but the solemnity of the moment digs deep into Flamsteed’s chest. This, John Flamsteed is sure, lies at the very heart of the evil his father saw in the Observatory; this moment when man may brush against the divine without seeing God behind it.

  There is an afterglow with this breed, an ambient luminescence that projects the path of her stellar journey across the domed ceiling. John considers the unfamiliar stars, watching a new sky spread out, magnified by the complex array of curved lenses and glass arrays built into the dome.

  There is a beauty to its endless tranquility, to the stars that twinkle in the boundless regions of space, and in their absence are spaces that even the Others do not visit. Even after all these years, after all the homage and services he’s performed, this sight awakens the same quiet awe within him.

  The Others tell the Astronomers that the darkness was infinite, stretching on forever in an eternity of empty space. It is only in this room that Flamsteed can comprehend what that may mean. He thinks about the endless, the subtle thrill of pleasure with every new quasar that is found. Thirty years in the observatory and there is still no end to it, no point in the eternal distance that could be the end of a long journey.

  And for the first time he wonders if the Others truly do come from stars, all of them connected as the Others claim.

  Or whether the gaps in their knowledge speak of some other truth entirely.

  John Flamsteed delights in charting unfamiliar stars, studying them and recording them in the neat ledgers that line the walls of his cell. Innumerable ledgers, leather-bound and hand-crafted, their pages filled with neat script and a careful record of what has been found. The legacy of three-dozen years of Astronomy in the name of the Queen, so many years of research and still so much to find.

  He is forty-five when he meets the first Astronomer to train as he has trained, another outsider named Edmund Halley whose brilliance has given him access to the tower just as John earned his own place among the Astronomer’s Royal. Flamsteed is forty-seven when he first hears the name Terra Optimus whispered in the halls, forty-eight before he realizes that the dissidents have sympathizers amongst the ranks of the Astronomers. John Flamsteed struggles to comprehend the logic behind such a group, to comprehend a world without the Others and their gifts of the stars and the Observatory; it seems tantamount to madness.

  Yet he contemplates the possibilities late at night, ignoring the insistent tug of sleep just as he’s done since childhood. He fills his journals with sketches in addition to the charts and the stars, recording notes about all the Others he’s encountered. Every night he considers the question, what if, conceiving of ways to continue his work if he was suddenly bereft of the Observatory and the Others and the gifts they have offered him.

  Later still, in the moments before sleep, he offers up silent prayers that his plans are never needed.

  He finds Edmund Halley waiting for him in the main Observatory, the younger man paging through Flamsteed’s journal. There is something about Halley that Flamsteed finds disagreeable, an unfamiliar cockiness that seems unseemly, even here. The sight of him touching the annotated pages of the journal fills Flamsteed with fear. He fights the itching need to slap the leather covers closed on Halley’s fingers.

  “Halley,” Flamsteed says, the deep croak of his voice causing the younger astronomer to start. Despite his five years of service in the tower, Edmund Halley is not yet ready for anything. It isn’t a good sign; the ability to react, to adapt without surprise, is vital to the astronomer.

  “John,” Halley says nervously, one hand scratching the back of his head. He shuffles across the room, right hand extended, thin lips drawn into a tight, controlled smile. Flamsteed takes the offered hand, shaking it with disdain, his skin crawling as he makes contact. As though Halley were one of the Others, Flamsteed thinks. As if he were just as alien as they.

  “I’ve been reading your journals,” Halley says. “Impressive work, I must say. You’re to be commended on your diligence.”

  There is no passion in Flamsteed’s cold stare, just a quiet distaste that the conversation has lasted this long. Halley refuses to wither beneath John’s gaze when Flamsteed doesn’t respond.

  “Well, yes,” Halley says. “Impressive; a work of genius, if you’d prefer. There has been talk, among the younger astronomers. Some rumbles about distributing your notes.”

  “For the good of the Empire?” Flamsteed says.

  Halley smiles and nods, ignoring the dangerous tone. “Yes, for the good of the Empire. Quite right.”

  It is a cool day, even behind the insulated stone of the Astronomers’ tower. John Flamsteed blinks in the momentary silence.

  “No,” he says.

  “John.” Halley looks around, as though preparing to share a secret. “John, this is important. This isn’t about us, the astronomers. Your journal represents the most significant catalogue of Other forms known, details beyond the dreaming of any Astronomer half your age. We need this information, urgently.”

  John Flamsteed’s anger is a quiet spark, smouldering with urgency. “No,” he says firmly, leaving no room for discussion.

  “John,” Halley says, but he stops when he hears the hint of a growl in Flamsteed’s voice.

  He is permitted to meet Her Majesty when he is fifty-three, escorted via carriage to the aging cathedral that has become her throne room. There is a silence beneath the hammer of the horse hooves, an empty space that leaves John Flamsteed alone with his thoughts.

  He watches the great building through the window of the carriage. It was God’s place, once, but the cathedral now houses the stuff of stars. It is the home of Her Majesty, first among the Other-kin, the great lady who brought the Other to England and awarded the Astronomers her tower. As the carriage thunders into town, the great cathedral looming in the forefront of his vision, John Flamsteed is surprised to find himself weeping.

  Her Majesty is a leviathan of pale flesh, her vast bulk expanding to spill over the arms of her throne. She does not speak, but her presence weighs against Flamsteed’s mind like the roar of the ocean. You are the Astronomer Flamsteed.

  “Yes.”

  You are the first of a new breed, the first willing to sacrifice in exchange for knowledge. It is a great thing, Lord Astronomer, a step forward for your people.

  Flamsteed stands in the ancient church and stares.

  There were concerns about your appointment, about your ability to survive the rigours required of the post. Was it worth it, Lord Astronomer? The sacrifices you have made?

  Flamsteed can feel his stomach boiling, the nausea rising up like steam escaping a kettle. He keeps his mind calm, contemplating Her Majesty’s question in secluded pockets of thought, places he has learned to keep hidden from the mental prying of the Other. It occurs to him, for the first time, that he does not wish to know the answer to this.

  “It is a difficult question, Majesty. You ask me for conjecture when you have rewarded the Order for their pursuit of proof.”

  The mound of flesh boils, folds in on itself as Her Majesty rolls forward. Flamsteed watches as a great eye forms amid the flesh, a violet orb shot with a fistful of stars.

  We ask for opinion, Lord Astronomer, nothing more. Indulge us, we command you. Give us your answer.

  His scars ache, a hundred niggling bites of pain that stretch
out across his skin, the cost of too many nights in the open chambers that look up into the stars. There is a hollow feeling that accompanies the pain, an emptiness that spreads through his limbs like the endless dark of the night sky.

  “You gave us the stars, Majesty. Is there any price that is not worth that?”

  Her Majesty’s great eye stares at him, an open window to the universe. Flamsteed stares back and wonders which of the multitude of lights she descended from.

  She towers over him, her body composed of insect limbs and chitin skin that gleams in the candlelight, her faceted eyes studying him with detached interest. It is a new breed of Other, the first unfamiliar genus he’s seen in years.

  John Flamsteed holds his breath as her needle-sharp proboscis penetrates the flesh below his nipple. There is pain, there is almost always pain when dealing with the other, but he expected the heavy appendage to gash flesh like a knife-blade rather than sting like a mosquito bite. He waits with apprehension, breath burning in his lungs, offering a quiet prayer that this time the narrow length will find the space between his ribs. He watches her burrow through the flesh and the layers of muscle, searching for the fleshy sack of his right lung. He cannot breathe until the lung is penetrated, cannot draw breath until she is ready to breathe with him, but penetration takes time and he can already see the star-filled sky of his childhood encroaching on the fringes of his vision, narrowing his perception to a single tunnel that shrinks until there is nothing more than the faceted eyes that keep staring.

  The penetration occurs, a popping sensation that leaves him deflated and lethargic. He starts heaving his chest, trying to swallow air, but all he can feel is the quiet pull of her proboscis, the sucking sensation as she breathes in the air of his lungs. He forces himself to concentrate, forces his body to recognize that he isn’t choking, but the empty sensation in his chest will not be ignored. He struggles, just a little, enough to give her pleasure. He forces himself to remember the stricture, the litany that all Astronomers are taught before they are paired with their first Other: we are the servants of the universe, sacrificing ourselves for the gift of the stars; we exist for her pleasure, for our knowledge relies upon their pleasure; we do not ask, do not question, in this moment we belong to her, always to her, and we are their lovers. This is the price we pay to keep our people safe. This is the cost of learning about the darkness.