Flux xs-3

by Stephen Baxter

Hork raised his fists to his chest. “No wonder the Xeelee have been attacking the Star; they’re trying to destroy it before it gets to the Ring. Dura, the Star has been launched on this trajectory, straight at the Xeelee artifact, as a missile.” His tone had become hushed, almost reverent. Dura looked at him curiously; his eyes were locked on the images of distant battle, evidently fascinated.

  She wondered if he were still quite sane. The thought disturbed her.

  So that is why we are here, she thought. That’s the purpose of the whole project. The Colonists, the manufacture of Star-humans… That is the meaning, the purpose of my race. My life.

  We are expendable weapons’ manufacturers, serving a huge war beyond our comprehension.

  And when the Star destroyed itself against the Ring — or was destroyed first, by the Xeelee starbreakers — then they would all die with it, their purpose fulfilled.

  No.

  The word was like a shout in the turmoil of her mind. She had to do something.

  Without allowing herself to think about the consequences, she Waved briskly across the chamber toward the floating control seat.

  “What are you doing? Dura, there’s nothing we can do here. We’re in the grip of immense forces; forces we barely understand. And…”

  She took her place in the seat. Around her the ghostly Ur-human seat swiveled, trembling in response to her touch. She grasped the twin handles fixed to the seat’s arms.

  A globe swelled into existence in the Air, fat and sullen red; a neat grid covered its surface, laid out like the anchor-bands around Parz City.

  Dura, startled by this sudden apparition, lost her nerve; she screamed.

  Hork laughed at her. His voice, thin and shrill, betrayed his own tension. “Damn it, Dura, you’ve just witnessed a battle, immense beyond our capacity to comprehend. You’ve learned that our world is doomed. And yet you’re scared by a simple conjuring trick like this!”

  “But what is it?”

  The globe was about a mansheight across; it hovered just in front of the seat. “Isn’t it obvious?” Hork snapped. “Take your hands off the levers.” She did so; the globe persisted for a few seconds, then deflated gracelessly, finally disappearing. “It’s an aid,” Hork said briskly. “Like…” He gestured vaguely. “Like a window in an Air-car. An aid to a pilot.”

  She tried to focus on this new puzzle. She glanced across the chamber and out at the Star, that scowling yellow-red speck at the center of its immense setting of gas and light. “But that globe looked like the Star itself.”

  Hork laughed, the shrill edge still present in his voice; his eyecups were wide with excitement. “Of course it did! Don’t you see? Dura, one is meant to pilot the Star with these wonderful levers…”

  “But that’s absurd,” she protested. “How can a Star — a whole world — be driven, directed like one of your Air-cars?”

  “But, my dear, someone has already done so. The Star has been launched at the Ring, with deliberate intent. That we have found a device to do this is hardly a surprise. And this is a map-Star, to help you pilot a world…”

  She grasped the handles again and the globe sprang into existence, wide, delicate and ominous. She gathered her scattered courage. “Hork, we can’t let our world be destroyed.”

  He moved closer to her. His eyecups were wide and empty, his breathing shallow. He seemed huge. His hands were held away from his body. She closed her fingers tighter around the chair handles, watching, half-expecting him to lunge at her.

  “Dura, get out of the chair. For a thousand years our Star has crossed space. We have a duty to fulfill, a destiny.”

  She shook her head. “You’ve lost yourself in this, Hork. In the glamor of it all… It’s not our battle.”

  He frowned at her, his bearded face a ferocious mask. “If it wasn’t for the battle we wouldn’t even exist. Generations of humans have lived, died and suffered for this moment. This is the purpose of our race, its apotheosis! I see this now… How can a person like you take the fate of a world in your hands?”

  “But I can’t — accept — this. I’ve got to try something. We must try to save ourselves.”

  Doubt — a kind of longing — spread across Hork’s broad face. “Then consider this. Suppose we’re right. Suppose our world really is a missile aimed at the Xeelee. Then — if it really is possible to aim the Star with this device — why is the device here?”

  She was frightened of him — not just physically, but of this new, unexpected side of his character, this self-immolating fanaticism.

  “Think,” he demanded. “If you were the designer, the Ur-human who planned this fantastic mission, what would you intend the occupant of that seat to do, now, at the climax of the project?”

  She hesitated, thinking. “It’s meant to be used to refine the trajectory. To direct the Star even more precisely at its goal.”

  He threw his arms wide. “Exactly. Perhaps there are devices lying dormant here, messages instructing us — or whoever was planned to be here — how to do just that. And what if we don’t, Dura? What if we don’t complete our mission? Perhaps the Ur-humans themselves will intervene, to punish our arrogance.”

  Her palms were slick with sweat; his words were like the articulation of the conflict inside her. Who was she to decide the fate of a world, of generations?

  She thought back over her life, the extraordinary, unfolding sequence of events that had led her to this point. Once, not a very large fraction of her life ago, she had been adrift in the Mantle, at the mercy of the smallest stray Glitch along with the rest of the Human Beings. Stage by stage, as events had taken her so far from her home, her understanding of the Mantle, the Star, and the role of mankind had opened out, like the layers of perception opened up gradually by the seeing-walls of this Ur-human construct.

  And now she was here, with more power over events than any human since the days of the Core Wars. She was dizzy, vertiginous, a feeling she remembered from her first trips to the fringes of the Crust-forest, as a little girl with her father.

  Her awareness seemed to implode. She became aware of her body — of the wide, dilated pores over her skin, the tension in her muscles, the knife still tucked into the frayed rope tight around her waist. She looked into Hork’s wide, staring eyes. She saw recklessness there, exhilaration, intoxication, the fringes of insanity. Hork, overwhelmed by the journey, the realm of Ur-humans, Colonists and stars, had forgotten who he was. She hadn’t. She knew who she was: Dura, Human Being, daughter of Logue — no more, and no less. And she was no more, no less qualified to speak for the peoples of the Star, at this moment, than anyone else. And that was why it was she who would have to act, now.

  Her uncertainty congealed into determination. “Hork, I don’t care about the goals of these damn monster-men from the past. All I care about are my people — Farr, my family, the rest of the Human Beings. I won’t sacrifice them for some ancient conflict; not while I have some hope of changing things.”

  The wide, distorted mouth of Karen Macrae was opening again; as she spoke, Dura saw, distracted by the detail, that Karen’s lips were not quite synchronized with her rustling words.

  Time is long, inside our virtual world. But still, it is coming to an end. The Glitches have damaged us. Some have already lost coherence.

  Stop the flight. We discover we do not want to die.

  Dura closed her eyes and shuddered. The Colonists could no longer act. And so they had brought Star-humans — they had brought her — to this place, to save their world.

  When she looked at Hork he was grinning, throwing his head back like some animal. “Very well, upfluxer. It seems I am outvoted, and not for the first time — although it doesn’t usually stop me. We are humans too, whatever our origins, and we must act, rather than die meekly as pawns in somebody else’s war!” He shouted, “Do it!”

  She cried out; she felt remote, numb. She hauled on the levers as hard as she could.

  Crimson fire erupted from the base of the map-S
tar.

  27

  Blue Xeelee light illuminated the Air. Fragments of shattered vortex lines hailed around Adda. He Waved furiously, squirming in the Air to avoid the deadly sleet, disregarding the pain in his back and legs. But even Waving wasn’t reliable; the strength and direction of the Magfield was changing almost whimsically, and he had to be constantly aware of its newest orientation, of which way his Waving would take him among the lethal vortex fragments.

  He came to a clearer patch of Air. He twisted, his hips and lower back protesting, and Waved to a halt. He looked back toward the City, now about a thousand mansheights away. The great wooden carcass was tilting noticeably, leaning across a Magfield which no longer cradled it. Its Skin was still a hive of activity, of kicked-out panels and scrambled evacuations; Adda was reminded of corruption, of swarms of insects picking over a dying face.

  There was no sign of Farr.

  Adda looked back to the upper Downside, to the location of the Hospital. He could see motion inside that widened gash in the Skin, but he couldn’t make out Farr himself. Damn, damn… He shouldn’t have let go of the boy; he should have dragged him physically away from the City, from the damn Hospital, until either his strength ran out or the City fell apart anyway.

  I’m an old man, damn it. He’d had enough; he’d seen enough. Now all he wanted was rest.

  Well, it looked as if he still had work to do. Shaking his head, he dipped his body in the Air and Waved back toward the groaning City.

  In the Hospital of the Common Good, patients continued to be brought to the exit. Another dull explosion sounded somewhere in the guts of the City, but — to Adda’s disbelief — the laboring volunteers scarcely looked up. He wanted to scream at them, to slap faces, to force these brave, foolish people to accept the reality of what was happening around them.

  There were no cars returning to the port now. But nevertheless a volunteer hauled a helpless bundle — age and sex unidentifiable — to the breached Skin. The volunteer climbed out after the patient, gripped the bandaging with both hands, and, Waving backward, began to drag the patient away from the collapsing City. The volunteer was a young man, nude, his skin painted with elaborate, curling designs. This was evidently one of the acrobats who should have been taking part in the great Games spectacle today; instead here he was, his body-paint smeared and stained with pus, dragging a half-dead patient out from a dying City. Adda stared at the boy’s face, trying to make out how the acrobat must feel at this implosion of his life, his hopes; but he read only fatigue, a dull incomprehension, determination.

  “Adda!”

  It was Farr’s voice. Adda peered into the gloom of the ward, blinking to clear his one working eyecup.

  “Adda — you must help me…”

  There. Farr was close to the rear of the ward; he was hovering over another patient, a massive, still form wrapped in a cocoon. The boy seemed unharmed still, Adda saw with relief.

  He pushed his way over the heads of the crowd.

  The patient was lost in the cocoon with only a little flesh showing: a huge, crumpled fist, an area of shoulder or chest about the size of Adda’s palm. The exposed flesh was surfaceless, chewed up.

  Adda suppressed a shudder and looked at Farr. The boy’s face was drawn, the fatigue showing in his eyecups, the dilated Air-pores like craters on his cheeks.

  “I’m glad you returned.”

  “You’re a damn fool, boy. I want you to know that now, in case I don’t get a chance to tell you later.”

  “But I had to return. I heard Bzya’s voice. I…”

  Something moved deep inside the cocoon — a head turning, perhaps? — and a claw-like finger protruded from the lip of the material, to pull the neck of the cocoon tighter closed. The tiny motion was redolent of shame.

  “This is Bzya?”

  “They had to pull him up from the underMantle. He was nearly lost — Adda, he had to abandon his Bell. He dragged back Hosch, but he was dead.” The boy looked down at his friend, his hands twisting together. “We’ve got to get him out of here — away from the City.”

  “But…”

  There was another dull impact, deep in the guts of the City. The very Air seemed to shake with it, and the ceiling of the ward settled, wood splintering with a series of snaps. Then a mansheight-square section of the ceiling imploded, raining sharp wood splinters. This time the workers and patients had to take notice; screams were added to the bedlam of orders and frantic activity, and patients threw bare or bandaged arms over their faces.

  “All right,” Adda said. “You take the head; I’ll push at the feet. Move, damn you…”

  They scrambled for the entrance to the ward, hauling the cocoon beneath the splintered ceiling. They had to work through the melee, pushing with their feet at slow-moving limbs and heads.

  Deni was nowhere to be seen.

  It seemed to take a lifetime to reach the open mouth of the ward. They bundled Bzya out into the Air, over the port’s splintered lip; Bzya rolled in the Air, helpless in his cocoon. Adda and Farr scrambled after him. Farr made to grab the head end of Bzya’s cocoon once more, but Adda stopped him. He hauled Bzya around lengthways, so that the Fisherman was almost lying across their laps. “We’ll take him like this,” Adda said. “Get hold. We’ll both Wave backward…”

  Farr nodded, understanding quickly. He took handfuls of the cocoon, and soon he and Adda were kicking backward in parallel through the Air, hauling the massive cocoon after them.

  The City, looming huge over them, settled once more, this time with screeches from deep within its fabric. Adda imagined the huge Corestuff girders, the bones of the great carcass, twisting, failing one by one. Explosions of shattering wood erupted all over the Skin. Huge, rectilinear creases emerged over the wooden face, as if the Skin were starting to fold over on itself.

  Adda kicked desperately at the thick Air, ignoring the numb ache of his legs, the pain of fingers which were turning into claws as they dragged at cocoon material. Vortex fragments continued to hail through the Air, rings and other fantastic forms sleeting past them.

  Suddenly Bzya’s body twisted in the Air. The Fisherman’s heavy legs thumped into Adda’s chest, causing him to lose his grip. Adda heard the Fisherman groan from within his cocoon at this latest disruption.

  Adda slithered to a halt and scrabbled at the slick, expensive material of the cocoon, trying to regain purchase.

  Farr had stopped Waving. He’d simply come to a halt in the Air and had dropped the cocoon, and was staring back at the City.

  “By the blood of the Xeelee, boy…”

  “Look.” Farr pointed back at the Hospital entrance. “I think it’s Deni.”

  Adda rubbed dirt from his good eye and stared at the figures in the port. They were dwarfed by the huge wooden panorama of Skin all around them. Yes, it was Deni Maxx; the little doctor, all energy and competence, was working in the entrance to bring out still another patient.

  There was a new sound from within the bulk of the City — a yielding sigh which slid rapidly to a higher pitch, almost as if in relief. Skin crumbled away in huge rafts of wood, revealing the Corestuff girder framework beneath. It looked like bones emerging through corrupt flesh. And, even as Adda watched, the girders, dully shining, were creasing, folding over.

  Adda grabbed at the cocoon and kicked at the Air. His hands slid over the material and the inert bulk of Bzya barely stirred in the Air; but Adda clung to the material and tried again. In a moment Farr joined him, and soon the two of them were lunging backward away from the City, their Waving ragged, spurting.

  The face of the City — huge rents gaping — collapsed under its mask of anchor-bands and folded forward over them. The Corestuff structure showed no more resistance than if it had been constructed of soft pig-leather. Splinters of wood rained forward, bursting from the crumpling Skin.

  Farr screamed: “Deni!”

  Through the chaos of the crumpling face of the Hospital port, Adda could see the compact form of t
he doctor, still working. She looked up, briefly, at the collapsing Skin above her. Then she turned back to her patients.

  The port of the Hospital ward closed like a mouth.

  In the very last heartbeat Adda saw Deni raise her arm against the huge jaw of wood and Corestuff which closed over her, as if — at last — trying to save herself. Ragged edges of wood met like meshing teeth, bursting her body. A cloud of wood fragments and dust billowed from the crushed face of the City, obscuring the Hospital from Adda’s view.

  Farr was screaming incoherently, but he was still Waving, dragging at Bzya’s cocoon.

  “Scream!” Adda yelled over the crashing roar of the City. “Scream and cry all you want, damn you! But don’t — stop — Waving!”

  * * *

  Hork pressed his face close to the surreally silent display. “It’s a jetfart,” he said wonderingly. He laughed. “I can scarcely believe it. A jetfart, from the North Pole of a Star!”

  Dura gripped the control levers, forcing her hands to remain clenched. The levers were warm, comfortable; they seemed to fit well in her palms. She felt as if she were trapped inside her head, an impotent observer of her own actions. She tried to imagine what must be happening inside the Mantle, if that map-globe really did represent the Star itself.

  Hork Waved to the transparent wall, and stared at the tiny image of the battle. Eventually he turned to Dura and shouted, “I think that’s enough… You can let go.”

  Dura stared at her hands. Her fingers wouldn’t open; she had to glare at her rebellious hands, consciously willing them to uncurl.

  Released, the levers slid gently back to their rest positions.

  The fount from the map-Star dwindled, thinning to a fine plume before dying completely; the map itself folded up and disappeared.

  “Is it over? We’re not aimed at the Ring any more?”

  Hork Waved back across the huge chamber. He turned the chair’s arrow device this way and that, alternately studying the starbow and the field of stars, trying to judge the changes Dura had made.