Flux xs-3

by Stephen Baxter

  As the car veered around the City — Toba, braying incoherently into his Speaker tube, was evidently looking for a port to enter — Dura caught tantalizing glimpses through the many wide shafts of complex structures, layers of buildings within the bulk of the City itself. A complex set of buildings perched on the crown of the City, grand and elegant even to Dura’s half-baffled eyes. There were even small Crust-trees arcing into the Air from among those upper buildings. When she pointed this out to Toba he grinned and shrugged. “That’s the Committee Palace,” he said. “Expense is little object if you live that far Upside…”

  Light filled the City, shining from its many ports and casting beams across the dusty Air surrounding it, so that Parz was surrounded by a rich, complex mesh of green-yellow illumination. The City was immense — almost beyond Dura’s imagination — but it seemed to her bright, Air-filled, full of light and motion. People swarmed around the buildings, and streams of Air-cars laced around the spires of the Palace. Even the “arm” below the City-fist, the Spine (as Toba called it) that grew down toward the Pole, bore tiny cars which clambered constantly up and down ropes threaded along the Spine’s length.

  The City grew as they approached — growing so huge, at last, that it more than filled the small window of the car. Dura began to find the whole assemblage overwhelming in detail and complexity. She recalled — with a strange feeling of nostalgia — her feelings of panic on first encountering Toba’s car. She’d soon learned to master her panic then, and had come to feel almost in control of this strange, weak person, Toba Mixxax. But now she was confronted by strangeness on an unimaginably huger scale. Could she ever come to terms with all this — ever again take control over her own destiny, let alone influence events around her?

  Her discomfiture must have shown in her expression. Toba grinned at her, not unsympathetically. “It must be pretty overwhelming,” he said. “Do you know how big the City is? Ten thousand mansheights, from side to side. And that’s not counting the Spine.” The little car continued to edge its way, cautiously, around the City, like a timid Air-piglet looking for a place to suckle. Toba shook his head. “Even the Ur-humans would have been impressed by ten thousand mansheights, I’ll bet. Why, that’s almost a centimeter…”

  * * *

  The car entered — at last — a narrow rectangular port which seemed to Dura to be already filled with jostling traffic. The car pushed deeper into the bulk of the City along a narrow tunnel — a “street,” Toba Mixxax called it — through which cars and people thronged. These citizens of Parz were all dressed in thick, heavy, bright clothing, and all seemed to Dura utterly without fear of the streams of cars around them. Dura’s impressions from without of the airiness and brightness of the City evaporated now; the walls of the street closed in around her, and the car seemed to be pushing deeper into a clammy darkness.

  At last they came to a gap in the wall of the street, a port leading to a brighter place. This was the entrance to the Hospital, Toba said. Dura watched, silent, as Toba with unconscious skill slid his car through the last few layers of traffic and encouraged the pigs to draw the car gently into the Hospital bay. When the car had been brought to rest against a floor of polished wood, Toba knotted the reins together, pushed his way out of his chair and stretched in the Air.

  Farr looked at him strangely. “You’re tired? But the pigs did all the work.”

  Toba laughed and turned bruised-looking eyes to the boy. “Learn to drive, kid, and you’ll know what tiredness is.” He looked to Dura. “Anyway, now comes the hard part. Come on; I’ll need you to help me explain.”

  Toba reached for the door of the car. As he released its catch Dura flinched, half-expecting another explosive change of pressure. But the door simply glided open, barely making a noise. Heat washed into the opened interior of the car; Dura felt the prickle of cooling superfluid capillaries opening all over her body.

  Toba led Dura and Farr out of the car, wriggling stiffly through the doorway. Dura put her hands on the rim of the doorway, pulled — and found herself plunging forward, her face ramming into Toba’s back hard enough to make her nose ache.

  Toba staggered in the Air. “Hey, take it easy. What’s the rush?”

  Dura apologized. She looked down at her arms uncertainly. What had that been all about? She hadn’t misjudged her own strength like that since she was a child. It was as if she had suddenly become immensely strong… or else as light as a child. She felt clumsy, off balance; the heat of this place seemed overwhelming.

  Her confidence sank even more. She shook her head, irritated and afraid, and tried to put the little incident out of her mind.

  The Hospital bay was a hemisphere fifty mansheights across. Dozens of cars were suspended here, mostly empty and bereft of their teams: harnesses and restraints dangled limply in the Air, and one corner had been netted off as a pen for Air-pigs. One car, much larger than Toba’s, was being unloaded of patients: injured, even dead-looking people, tied into bundles like Adda’s. A tall man was supervising; he was quite hairless and dressed in a long, fine robe. People — all clothed — moved between the cars, hurrying and bearing expressions of unfathomable concern. A few of them found time to glance curiously at Dura and Farr.

  The walls, of polished wood, were so clean that they gleamed, reflecting curved images of the bustle within the bay. Wide shafts pierced the walls and admitted the brightness of the Air outside to this loading bay. Huge rimless wheels — fans, Toba told her — turned in the shafts, pushing Air around the bay. Dura breathed in slowly, assessing the quality of the Air. It was fresh, although clammy-hot and permeated by the stench-photons of pigs. But there was something else, an aroma that was at once familiar and yet strange, out of context…

  People.

  That was it; the Air was filled with the all-pervading, stale smell of people. It was like being a little girl again and stuck at the heart of the Net, surrounded by the perspiring bodies of adults, of other children. She was hot and claustrophobic, suddenly aware that she was surrounded, here in the City, by more people than had lived out their lives in her tiny tribe of Human Beings in many generations. She felt naked and out of place.

  Toba touched her shoulder. “Come on,” he said anxiously. “Let’s get the stretcher out of the car. And then we’ll find someone to…”

  “Well. What have we here?” The voice was harsh, amused, and shared Toba’s stilted accent.

  Dura turned. Two men were approaching, Waving stiffly through the Air. They were short, blocky and wore identical suits of thick leather; they carried what looked like coiled whips, and wore masks of stiffened leather which muffled their voices and made it impossible to read their expressions.

  The eyes of these anonymous beings raked over Dura and Farr.

  She dropped her hands to her hips. The rope she’d taken Crust-hunting was still wrapped around her waist, and she could feel the gentle pressure of her knife, her cleaning scraper, tucked into the rope at her back. She found the presence of these familiar things comforting, but — apart from that little knife — all their weapons were still in the car. Stupid, stupid; what would Logue have said? She edged backward through the Air, trying to find a clear path back to the car.

  Toba said, “Sirs, I am Citizen Mixxax. I have a patient for the Hospital. And…”

  The guard who had spoken earlier growled, “Where’s the patient?”

  Toba waved him to the car. The man peered in suspiciously. Then he withdrew his head from the car, visibly wrinkling his nose under his mask. “I don’t see a patient. I see an upfluxer. And here…” — he waved the butt of his whip toward Dura and Farr — “I see two more upfluxers. Plus a pig’s-ass in his underpants. But no patients.”

  “It’s true,” Toba said patiently, “that these people are from the upflux. But the old man’s badly hurt. And…”

  “This is a Hospital,” the guard said neutrally. “Not a damn zoo. So get these animals out of here.”

  Toba sighed and held out his hand
s, apparently trying to find more words.

  The guard was losing patience. He reached out and poked at Dura’s shoulder with one gloved finger. “I said get them out of here. I won’t tell…”

  Farr moved forward. “Stop that,” he said. And he shoved, apparently gently, at the guard.

  The man flew backward through the Air, at last colliding with a wooden-paneled wall. His whip trailed ineffectually behind him.

  Farr tipped backward with the reaction; he looked down at his own hands with astonishment.

  The second guard started to uncoil his whip. “Well,” he said softly, “maybe a few spins of the Wheel would help you learn your place, little boy.”

  “Look, this is all going wrong,” Toba said. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Please; I…”

  “Shut up.”

  Dura clenched her fists, ready to move forward. She had no doubt that she and Farr could account for this man, leather armor or not — especially with the immense new strength they seemed to have acquired here. Of course, there were more than two guards in Parz City; and beyond the next few minutes she could envisage a hundred dim and dark ways for events to unfold, flowering like deadly Crust-flowers out of this incident… But this moment was all she could influence.

  The guard raised the whip to her brother. She reached for her knife and prepared to spring…

  “Wait. Stop this.”

  Dura turned, slowly; the guard was lowering his whip.

  The man who had been supervising the unloading of the other car — tall, commanding, dressed in a fine but begrimed robe, and with a head shockingly denuded of hair-tubes — was coming toward them.

  Dura was aware of Toba cringing backward. The guard looked at Farr and Dura with frustrated hunger.

  Dura said, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  The newcomer frowned. He was about Logue’s age, she judged. “Who am I? It’s a long time since I was asked that. My name is Muub, my dear. I am the Administrator of this Hospital.” He studied her curiously. “And you’re an upfluxer, aren’t you?”

  “No,” she said, suddenly heartily sick of that word. “I am a Human Being.”

  He smiled. “Indeed.” Muub glanced at the guards, and then turned to Toba Mixxax. “Citizen, what is happening here? I don’t welcome disturbances in my Hospital; we have enough to cope with without that.”

  Toba bowed; he seemed to be trembling. His hands moved across the front of his body, as if he were suddenly embarrassed by his underwear. “Yes. I’m sorry, sir. I am Toba Mixxax; I run a ceiling-farm about thirty meters upflux, and I…”

  “Get on with it,” Muub said mildly.

  “I found an injured upfluxer… an injured man. I brought him back. He’s in the car.”

  Muub frowned. Then he slid across to the car and pulled his head and shoulders through the doorway. Dura could see the Administrator efficiently inspecting Adda. He seemed fascinated by the spears and nets of the Human Beings, the artifacts which had been used to improvise splints for Adda.

  Adda opened one eye. “Bugger off,” he whispered to Muub.

  The Administrator studied Adda, Dura thought, as one might consider a leech, or a damaged spider.

  Muub withdrew from the car. “This man’s seriously hurt. That right arm…”

  “I know, sir,” Toba said miserably. “That was why I thought…”

  “Damn it, man,” Muub said, not unkindly, “how do you expect them to be able to pay? They’re upfluxers!”

  Toba dropped his head. “Sir,” he said, his voice wavering but dogged, “there is the Market. Both the woman and the boy are strong and fit. And they’re used to hard work. I found them at the Crust, working in conditions no coolie would withstand.” He fell silent, keeping his head averted from the others.

  Muub brushed his soiled fingers against his robe and gazed vacantly into the car. At length he said mildly, “All right. Bring him in, Citizen Mixxax… Guard, help him. And bring the woman and the boy. Keep your eye on them, Mixxax; if they run wild, or foul the place, I’ll hold you responsible.”

  Mixxax’s misery seemed to lift a little. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  Another car sailed into the bay, evidently bringing in more patients for the Hospital; Muub Waved away, tired responsibility etched into his face.

  7

  Toba grudgingly offered to let Dura and Farr stay at his home in the City while Adda’s injuries were treated at the Hospital. At first Dura refused, but Toba gave her a look of exasperation. “You haven’t any choice,” he said heavily. “Believe me. If you had, I’d tell you about it; I’ve got my own life to get back to, eventually… Look, you’ve nowhere to go, you’ve no money — not even any clothes.”

  “We don’t need charity.”

  “The noble savage,” Toba replied sourly. “Do you know how long it would take for you to be picked up as vagrants? You saw the guards at the Hospital. And at the Hospital, they’re picked specially for their warm bedside manner. Vagrants aren’t popular. No tithes to the Committee, no room in the City, as the saying goes… You’d be on a Committee-run ceiling-farm doing forced labor, or worse, before you could turn around. And then who’s going to pay poor old Adda’s bills?”

  Dura could see there was indeed no choice. In fact, she thought, they had every reason to be grateful to this irritable little man — if he weren’t offering to take them in, they could be in real difficulty. So she nodded, and tried, embarrassed, to form a phrase of thanks.

  Toba said, “Oh, just get in the car.”

  Toba drove them through the still-crowded streets away from the Hospital. The streets — wood-lined corridors of varying widths — were a baffling maze to Dura, and after a few twists and corners her orientation was gone. Cars and people were everywhere, and more than once Toba’s team of Air-pigs came into jostling contact with others, forcing Toba to haul on his reins. Speaker-amplified voices blared. Here in the City, Toba drove with the car door open. The Air in the streets was noisy, thick, hot, and laden with the stink of people and Air-pigs; beams of brightness shone through the dust and the green clouds of jetfart.

  At length they left the busiest streets behind and came to an area which seemed quieter — less full of rushing cars and howling pigs. The corridor-streets here were wide and lined by rows of neat doors and windows which marked out small dwelling-places. Evidently these had been virtually identical when constructed, but now they had been made unique by their owners, with small plants confined in globe-baskets by the windows, elaborate carvings on the doorways, and other small changes. Many of the carved scenes depicted the Mantle outside the City: Dura recognized vortex lines, Crust trees, people Waving happily through clear Air. How strange that these people, still longing for the open Air, should closet themselves inside this stuffy box of wood.

  Toba tugged his reins and drove the car smoothly through a wide, open portal to a place he described as a “car park.” He slowed the car. “End of the line.” Dura and Farr stared back at him, confused. “Go on. Out you get. You have to Wave from here, I’m afraid.”

  The car park was a large, dingy chamber, its walls stained by pig feces and splintered from multiple collisions. There were a half-dozen cars, hanging abandoned in the Air, and thirty or forty pigs jostled together in a large area cordoned off by a loose net. The animals seemed content enough, Dura observed; they clambered slowly over each other, munching contentedly at fragments of food floating in the Air.

  Toba loosened the harnesses around his own pigs and led them one by one over to the cordoned area. He guided the pigs competently through a raised flap in the net, taking care to seal the net tight after himself each time.

  When he was done he wiped his hands on his short under-trousers. “That’s that. Someone will come by shortly to feed and scrape them.” He sniffed, peering at the grubby walls of the car park. “Tatty place, isn’t it? And you wouldn’t believe the quarterly charges. But what can you do? Since the ordinances banning so much on-street parking it’s be
come impossible to find a place. Not that it seems to stop a lot of people, of course…”

  Dura strained to follow this. But like much of Toba’s conversation it was largely meaningless to her, and — she suspected — contained little hard information anyway.

  After a while, and with no reply from the silent, staring Human Beings, Toba subsided. He led them from the car park and out into the street.

  Dura and Farr followed their host through the curving streets. It was oddly difficult to Wave here; perhaps the Magfield wasn’t as strong outside. Dura felt very conscious of people all around her, of strangers behind these oddly uniform doorways and windows. Occasionally she saw thin faces peering out at them as they passed. The stares of the people of Parz seemed to bore into her back, and it was difficult not to whirl around, to confront the invisible threats behind her.

  She kept an eye on Farr, but he seemed, if anything, less spooked than she was. He stared around wide-eyed, as if everything was unique, endlessly fascinating. His bare limbs and graceful, strong Waving looked out of place in this cramped, slightly shabby street.

  After a few minutes Toba stopped at a doorway barely distinguishable from a hundred others. “My home,” he explained, an odd note of apology in his voice. “Not as far Upside as I’d like it to be. But, still, it’s home.” He fished in a pocket of his undershorts and produced a small, finely carved wooden object. He inserted this into a hole in the door, turned it, and then pushed the door wide. From inside the house came a smell of hot food, the greenish light of woodlamps. “Ito!”

  A woman came Waving briskly to the door. She was quite short, plump and with her hair tied back from her forehead; she wore a loose suit of some brightly colored fabric. She seemed about the same age as Dura, although — oddly — there was no yellow coloration in her hair. The woman smiled at Toba, but the smile faded when she saw the upfluxers.

  Toba’s hands twisted together. “Ito, I’ve some explaining to do…”