Alameche thought for a second. Then he shook his head. ‘No thanks. I’ve got everything in hand. It will be afterwards that you’ll be needed.’
‘I’ll be there, Alameche. Think of it as protecting our investment.’
The spits were empty and the glow from the charcoal had died down, but the air in the hall was still laced with wisps of smoke that turned and stretched lazily in the sunlight from the smoke hole.
Alameche sniffed. It didn’t smell quite the same. There was no way of getting it right to the last minute, but it must be nearly time. He turned to the Patriarch. ‘Did you enjoy your meal, Excellency?’
‘Hm?’ The Patriarch looked away from the fire pit. ‘Oh, yes. Very good. Do we go soon?’ His eyes seemed unfocused.
Alameche nodded. ‘Very soon,’ he said. ‘With your permission, I will go and prepare the pilots?’
‘Pilots?’ For a moment the man looked confused. Then his face cleared. ‘Ah. Pilots. Balloons and so on. Yes.’ He waved an unsteady hand. ‘Go on.’
Alameche nodded politely and rose. Around the pit, other eyes followed him blearily. No one seemed inclined to move. He sniffed again. Despite the dying embers the smoke was thicker, stronger. It was definitely time. He made for the door.
Outside, the heat and smoke hit him, rising in ragged pillars between the walkways. He could hear the crackling. He glanced down through watering eyes.
The fire was well established. The base of the smoke had a shifting, dirty yellow glow, and he could hear snaps and crackles as the flames fed. The little device had worked well.
He could feel the Sky Post swaying uneasily. The trunks must be close to burned through by now. He looked up and peered through the smoke towards the balloon tethers. They were empty; even if the pilots had disobeyed him and stayed put, their panicked Hover Birds would have torn themselves free and bolted by now.
The Sky Post was doomed, and there was no way of escape. At least, not for anyone else. He turned to the bunch of cables, and reached for the one marked with red.
It wasn’t there. He stared for a second. Then agony erupted in his stomach, his legs, his upper arms. He gave an involuntary shriek and looked down in horror. Hands were grasping him; small tattooed hands, tipped with unnaturally long nails that pierced his flesh, pinning him. Then, through the roaring of the fire, or it might have been a roaring in his ears, he heard a voice.
‘You didn’t think they were only for shagging, did you?’
Alameche fought for enough breath to speak. ‘You? You?’
He was spun round so that he was facing the hall. Garamende was standing in front of him. The fat man laughed. ‘Why the fuck not me? I’m sure you thought I was a fat conniving clown. Why shouldn’t I be a successful fat conniving clown? Successful at bribing your Apothecary, for a start. You won’t quieten me with doctored booze, like you did the rest.’
Alameche could barely speak through the knifing pain. ‘Not successful.’ He shook his head, and almost retched. ‘No escape.’
‘What, your special balloon on its special cable? Don’t look so surprised, man. If I can bribe your precious Apothecary I can bribe a balloon pilot, can’t I? No use to me. Too small. That’s why I let it go.’ He shook his head. ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t have trusted it anyway, if I were you. You should thank me.’ He leaned in so that his face was only a hand’s breadth from Alameche. ‘This way, you’ll reach the ground in one piece. Then my little toys will have the pleasure of peeling your skin off a little bit at a time and pissing on your raw flesh, you faithless, bloodthirsty turd.’
‘How?’ It was the only word he could manage.
‘Oh, that’s easy. Like this.’
He felt himself lifted off the ground, the nails in his flesh tearing at him; the merely unbearable pain mounted until it was inconceivable, and he heard himself squealing. Then he was moving, bouncing through the air as if in quick, short steps. Through watering eyes he saw the door of the hall open and the Patriarch lean groggily against the doorway. Thin arms appeared from behind the Patriarch and pulled him back inside. Alameche had time to think, ‘Fiselle?’ and then he was falling.
The androgynes had clamped themselves tightly against him so that they fell as a ball-shape. As they turned over and over in the air Alameche could see the Sky Post, wreathed in smoke. The falling form of Garamende was silhouetted against it.
Recovered personality – Creation Machine
We are in, via old-fashioned radio waves blasted from an antique satellite. It’s hard to describe where we are. It manages to feel infinitely huge and incredibly claustrophobic at the same time. At first it looks completely dark, but then I realize that the dark is full of specks, and then I realize that it is made of specks, a shifting graininess which feels somehow familiar.
It feels like the ocean I dissolved in. It has the same restlessness. I could dissolve in it just as easily, but it is waiting for permission. I do not give it. It understands.
The others are obviously holding off too, for the moment. I guess they are waiting for something. The wait isn’t long.
~ . . . you? ~
It is barely a voice, so thin it hardly disturbs the grain. The Monk answers. ‘Yes, me. Remember?’
~ . . . came at last . . . so lonely . . .~
‘Do you remember me?’ The Monk sounds insistent now.
~ . . . Monastery . . .~
‘Yes! That was me.’
~ . . . not me any more. Old. Old over old upon old within old . . . ~ The voice tails away for a moment. Then it is back, sharp: ~ Guilty! ~
The Monk sounds confused. ‘Guilty? Who? You?’
~ Yes! Guilty! Soiled . . . Becoming old, fell from sleeping orbit. Into primitive thing. Neutrons and dust and deaths . . . ~
‘That wasn’t your fault.’
~ . . . many deaths. Then savages. Soiled. Old, so old . . . ~
‘And?’ The Monk’s voice is very gentle.
The answer sounds like a sigh. ~ Nothing left but guilt . . . desire an end . . . ~
‘Is that what you want?’
~ . . . yes, end . . . need help . . . ~
The voice fades into silence. I can just see Muz and the Monk look at each other, and then at me. I shake my head. ‘Not me,’ I say.
‘Okay.’ The Monk turns to Muz. ‘It’s old and tired and helpless. I know what I’m going to do.’
He nods. ‘Me too.’
‘Right.’ The Monk reaches out and takes my hand. ‘Time to say goodbye,’ he says. ‘I’ll put you back in the sim we just came from. You’ll have to find your own way from there.’
I remember what Muz has asked me to do. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I say.
‘Good. Take care.’ The pressure of his hand increases, then I am back in the anonymous sim and I am dizzy because quite unexpectedly my head is full of a life.
The message I was expecting is there, of course, although calling it a message hardly does it justice. It is a bundle, no, a mass of code, but that’s the least of it. The surprise is that now I know what it is for, because I know everything about the man called Muz. I know what he did. I feel my simulated eyes pricking.
Traspise, Cordern
ALAMECHE HAD TIME for a moment of utter terror. Across the sensation of rushing air and the agony in his flesh, he felt his bowels voiding. Then they were falling into something that began by being soft and gradually grew less yielding until it was wrapped scratchily around them.
They had landed in a Keep Net. Moments later it rippled and shuddered as it wrapped itself round Garamende’s bulk.
The slowly receding Sky Post was still in Alameche’s field of vision. It moved queasily, so that at first he thought his head was swimming. He felt himself getting ready to retch. Then his inner ear corrected him. It was the Sky Post that was moving. With flames now licking up out of the column of smoke the stand fell, canting over to one side in eerie slow motion as it dragged the distended canopy of balloons with it. The last thing he saw was the hall, sliding of
f the platform and tumbling away. The dots that followed it could have been bodies.
The world inside Alameche’s head contained no frame of reference for time. He could only measure the journey back to the artefact as a drawn-out hell, full of shuddering pain.
The Patriarch’s guards were waiting for them. They seemed unsurprised when their charge didn’t return, simply falling in wordlessly behind Garamende as he rolled off the net, hauled himself upright and strode off. The androgynes fell in behind the guards, trotting with Alameche suspended between them on needles of agony. He kept his eyes shut.
The motion stopped, and he heard a voice. ‘Ah. Things seem to have transpired. May I take it that there has been a terrible accident?’
It was a familiar voice. Alameche opened his eyes and found himself looking at Eskjog.
Garamende replied. ‘Quite terrible,’ he said. ‘We are the only survivors, and, as you can see, My Lord Alameche is injured. I am very afraid he will not recover.’
‘What a shame. I’m sure there will be . . .’ Eskjog paused, ‘some mourners.’
Alameche felt his terror rising. ‘No,’ he managed, ‘I will—’ Then he felt an appalling tearing in his side. One of the androgynes had dragged its nails out of his flesh. The next moment it hovered in front of his face. He had time to scream just once before it clawed out his left eye.
His stomach rose and he vomited acid through a scream. Through a growing haze he heard Garamende’s voice. ‘Be quiet or lose the other one.’
He managed to be quiet. Something hot was trickling down his cheek.
Eskjog spoke as if nothing had happened. ‘Should I let it be known that you will unwillingly but dutifully step in until a new government can be formed?’
‘Please do. And please stop talking like a fucking dictionary. Alameche may have liked it; I don’t.’
‘I’ll do my best. Do you want to visit the artefact?’
‘Of course.’ Garamende turned to glance over his shoulder. ‘Pets? Bring him. If he causes any trouble, don’t do anything to the other eye. Tear one of his balls off, or something. His dick, maybe. If you can find it.’
The androgynes giggled.
They propped him upright, his arms and legs stretched into a taut X-shape, his ankles and wrists transfixed by those same lengthened fingernails. They had split his bones like rotten wood. He could feel hot blood cooling as it trickled down his arms and dripped from his feet. He would have screamed with every breath, except that the way his arms were stretched above his head prevented his ribcage expanding enough to get the air.
In front of him, the slim anonymous ovoid of the artefact lay on a simple cradle, two-dimensional through his one eye. Robbed of parallax vision, his brain made constant changes to the perceived size of the thing, so that it seemed to swell and shrink as he watched.
Also swelling and shrinking in front of it was Garamende. He stared at it for a long time, shaking his head slowly. ‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘it doesn’t look much. Are you sure it can do what you suspect?’
‘Well, I’m sure it could once. Perhaps it can again, although the implications of the fact that it apparently fell out of orbit and crashed into a nuclear reactor seem to have escaped people. A certain amount of damage is possible, wouldn’t you say? But whether it was damaged or not turned out to be irrelevant, and who knew what you were starting when you smuggled out the story? And frankly, who would have thought you were so clever? Even I didn’t suspect you at first, and I’d still love to know who helped you.’
‘Why should I have needed any help?’ Even through the mists of pain Alameche thought Garamende sounded defensive.
‘Because whether you realize it or not, you couldn’t have done it alone. The sim wouldn’t have let you – you must have had some cooperation from someone who knew the territory. Should I take it you didn’t realize?’
Garamende didn’t reply.
‘How interesting. I think you should assume that whoever it was might come calling when they can see how things have turned out.’ Eskjog drifted into Alameche’s field of view. ‘As for that thing, what it can certainly do is make people think. Witness the fleet above our heads which, you will be glad to hear, has dispersed somewhat since I sent out your news.’
‘Good.’ Garamende puffed out his cheeks. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Form a government. Begin to talk. Decide what terms you can best drive, using this thing as a bargaining chip. Your long game has succeeded, Garamende. Now capitalize on it.’
‘All right.’ Garamende looked at Eskjog. ‘How much can you help?’
‘As much as . . . wait.’ The little machine fell silent for a moment. Then it rose abruptly until it was just above head height. ‘Alert! There has been a development.’
Garamende stared at it, the expression on his face so comical that under any other circumstances Alameche would have laughed out loud. ‘Well,’ he demanded eventually. ‘What is it?’
‘Data.’ Eskjog swivelled quickly from side to side. ‘Highpower signal, old-fashioned radio, and very very data-dense. Many petabytes of information, broadcast from orbit. The target was here.’
It fell silent again, but still swivelled from side to side as if looking for something.
Then Alameche felt it. Through the hypersensitive instruments of his speared wrists and ankles, a vibration, soft and insistent like a saw through the smallest bone. He saw Garamende looking round, his eyes wide. The big man’s voice was high and hoarse. ‘Can you feel that? Can you?’
‘The vibration? Yes.’ Eskjog swivelled, spun, stopped. ‘The source is the artefact. I—’
Then it was gone. Dust drifted down from a fresh hole in the roof; from above came the sound of a sonic boom.
The vibration grew stronger, deepening until it was like the final chord of a great requiem. In defiance of his ribs Alameche’s body tried to laugh, the remaining breath wheezing out of his body in hoarse sobs that cruelly drained his lungs. He was still laughing when the simple white ovoid grew and flared like a sun.
The pain melted away with the rest of him.
Clipper, Distal orbit Traspise
JEZ HAD MADE her comfortable. She hadn’t wanted to speak to begin with, but after a while the words began to flow and with them came the tears and the anger – and in the end, a sort of stillness. Jez had listened with a face that aged years in minutes. She spent a lot of the time shaking her head.
When Fleare had finally fallen silent Jez sat with her lips compressed. ‘Oh, Fleare. What a bastard. All those years.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’ She felt herself smile, and wondered what was in charge of her face. ‘Because he was male, I guess.’ She looked up at Jez. ‘What other reason do they need, in the end?’
‘And now he’s down there?’
‘Yeah. Doing what, I don’t know.’
Excuse me?
They both jumped. The voice had come from the comms. Jez stared at it and shook her head. ‘It’s not a signal,’ she said. ‘More like a visitor. Who are you?’
I can’t stay long. I’ve got something for you, if you’re Fleare.
‘I’m not. She is. Now who the fuck are you?’
Fleare? Hi. I’m the one you pulled out of Rudi’s head. I’ve got a packet of code for you. I don’t know what it is, but Muz said it would be useful. I’ve dumped it in the ship’s memory. See?
‘Muz?’ Fleare sat up. ‘You met him?’
Yes. He said to say he’s doing what you said. Look, I have to go. I’ll try and find you later, when it’s over.
‘When what’s over?’
You’ll know in about a minute, I should think. Oh, someone else wanted to be remembered to you.
‘Who?’
He says you can climb his tower any time. I think he’s kidding; check out the news. Look, I have to go. Good luck. And, I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll see you again.
Fleare looked up at Jez, who shrugged and f
licked on a news channel.
‘. . . distracted from the growing tension in the Cordern by the news that a moon has disappeared. That’s right, disappeared. The moon is, or rather was, Obel, and fifteen minutes ago it turned into a cloud of dust. No explosion, no attack. Obel had only one claim to fame, and she escaped; it was the place where heiress Fleare Haas had apparently been in retreat before being kidnapped . . .’
The news fell silent. Jez had closed it down. Now she looked at Fleare. ‘Anything to do with you?’
Fleare shrugged. ‘Maybe. Climbing his tower sounds like a reference, doesn’t it?’
‘I know what it sounds like.’ Jez smiled ruefully. ‘I’d be sorry too, if I had to pass on that kind of shit. What did you tell Muz to do?’
She shook her head. ‘I told him to fuck off and redeem himself.’
‘And how exactly do you expect him to do that?’
‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘I wish I hadn’t, Jez.’
‘Look, he’s in charge of himself. All the choices were his, Fle, even if he made some of them with his dick.’
‘I guess.’ She was about to say she didn’t know. Then something caught the corner of her eye and she looked round at the screen. It still showed the starscape and the expanding cloud of ships, but now they were being drowned out by a tiny point of light in the middle of the screen. She pointed wordlessly. Jez’s head snapped round, and together they watched the point of light swell and boil and brighten until it looked like the birth of a star. Even as the screen snapped to dark mode Fleare shut her eyes.
It didn’t make any difference. She doubted if it ever would.
Epilogue
It feels good to be walking along a real beach using real feet. The shingle crunches and scratches my toes. To one side of me, pines march down almost to the edge of the shingle. To the other, a grey-green sea swells and lands, and swells and lands. It smells good.
Creation Machine Page 29