by Ian McDonald
“Believe me!”
“Convince me.”
Something only Dad and I know, Everett thought.
“We were going to the ICA to hear a talk on nanotechnology.”
“They know that. They took me from there.”
“White Hart Lane. Second of November. We beat Inter Milan 3 to 1. Gareth Bale scored a hat-trick.”
“Half of London remembers that game.”
“Vinny took a photograph of us. With pies.”
There was a silence.
“I need more,” Tejendra said.
“Cuisine nights!” Everett exclaimed. “You'd cook Thai.”
“Yes.”
“I'd cook Mexican.”
“What did you cook?”
“Chilli. With…”
“With what?”
“Chocolate.” Chocolate in the chilli. Chilli in the chocolate.
The lamp fell from Tejendra's hands.
“Son,” he said simply. “I'm sorry. I had to be sure.”
And Everett had no idea what to do, what to say. Maybe a hello. Maybe a good handshake. Maybe a cool line, like a character in a game. Maybe he should just punch him on the arm, Hey Dad. Then he went beyond knowing what to do and not knowing to what he felt. They hugged. They just hugged. They parted; they looked at each other. They hugged again. Everett crushed his dad to him, crushed him to him with all his strength, a never-letting-you-go hug. But it ended. It must always end, and it's embarrassing then. They stepped away from each other.
“You made it work,” Tejendra said. “The data set.”
“The Infundibulum,” Everett said. “Tying your shoelaces.”
Tejendra waggled his head, the old Punjabi gesture that meant yes/good/sort-of.
“I thought you'd get that.”
“And if I hadn't?”
“You'd have worked it out another way. Your dad knows you. Can I see it?”
Everett set Dr. Quantum on the desk. He clicked open the Infundibulum icon. The screen filled with the slow-turning, glowing knot-work of the Panoply of all worlds. Tejendra leaned over it. The display lit his face green.
“Fractal seven-dimensional sealed knots,” Tejendra said. There was a look in his eyes Everett had seen when Tejendra was explaining how the universe really worked to him. It didn't matter if Everett understood or not, what mattered was that Everett caught the light, felt some of the heat of his excitement. Science eyes: Tejendra was seeing the bigger universe, the way it all fit together: the wonder stuff. “Beautiful, beautiful work, Ev. Beautiful.”
This was a scientist's beautiful. Beauty was at the heart of physics: the laws of reality, the mathematics that explained them so precisely, were always simple, elegant, beautiful. True. Everett's heart swelled. There was no higher praise.
“Gentlemen, I don't mean to hurry you,” Captain Anastasia said.
Tejendra did not look up.
“Dad, we have to get out of here,” Everett said. “We have to get up to the gates.” Still, it was not over. He had to get up to the gate level. He had to power up a Heisenberg Gate and open it. He had to go through to Roding Road, step out of nothingness on Christmas Eve in his own living room, while Tejendra held the gate open. He had to bring them back, and go through the gate a final time, to a world far away, a place they would never be found.
“Dad!”
Tejendra snapped out of his fascination.
“Yes, let's go. I have the operating codes—I need them for the work they think I'm doing.” Still he hesitated. He picked up Dr. Quantum. “Everett, Captain, you gentlemen; whatever happens, don't let her have this. Charlotte Villiers. She would become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. There is a group inside the Plenitude; they call themselves the Order. They're politicians, diplomats, big businesspeople, media folk, military, some scientists, some religious. They want the Infundibulum. That's why they took me and tried to get me to re-create my work here. It would give them control over the Plenitude, control over the whole Panoply. They could project their power anywhere in the multiverse. There is something out there, something they stumbled across, something they must keep secret from us, but it's big and it's coming. They say they need the Infundibulum to give us the edge, to keep us secure. They always say that; it's to keep us safe, keep us secure. For our own good. Whatever happens, Ev, she must not have the Infundibulum.”
Tejendra handed the tablet to Everett.
The windows exploded inwards. Everett covered his head as glass showered around him. Figures in black swung through the shattered bedroom windows on lines and dropped to the floor. In the same instant more dark figures burst through the open doorway. Laser beams danced through the air. Mchynlyth dived, rolled, came up with his thumper drawn. Sharkey, only a heartbeat behind, went for his shotguns. His hands froze halfway to his holsters. A laser-sight drew a red dot at the centre of his forehead.
“'As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time,” he said. He slowly raised his hands. The soldiers moved quickly to encircle Tejendra and the Everness crew in a ring of gun muzzles and red laser light. Their weapons were black; their uniforms were black; they wore black soft caps on their heads. One of them, a woman with a blonde ponytail under her black cap, seemed familiar to Everett. Then he remembered where he had seen her before: one of the guards at the Channel Tunnel gate facility back on his Earth.
“Sharpies,” Mchynlyth said. “I hate sharpies.” Captain Anastasia did not speak at all.
The circle of soldiers parted. Two figures entered the suite. The first was a short, badly moving man in a shapeless coat and unpolished shoes: Paul McCabe. The second was Charlotte Villiers. She wore a wasp-waisted suit with a ruffle at one shoulder. Her small, severe hat had a short veil over her face. She looked like death in heels.
“At ease, soldiers.”
The SWAT team put up their weapons but stayed alert, ready for action.
“Everett, Everett, Everett,” Paul McCabe said. The tone of false sorrow in his voice made Everett want to punch him. “If only you'd been honest with me, if only you'd trusted me from the start. None of this is necessary. I'll take you home. Come on.”
“Silence, McCabe,” Charlotte Villiers snapped. “I could explain to you that your father grossly misrepresents us, Everett. Yes, of course we heard everything. Our world is threatened, your world is threatened, all our worlds are threatened. We are honest. We are good. We are right. But ultimately, why should I bother? I have all the power here. It is necessary that I have the device. Give it to me.”
“No,” Everett said. He clutched Dr. Quantum tightly to his chest.
“Oh, Mr. Singh, please. This is not the movies. Sergeant.” The SWAT team raised their guns. “Start with the woman. Then the American who is so fond of the Bible. He can find out the truth of the words he quotes.” The guns clicked round onto Captain Anastasia. “Mr. Singh?”
“She'll do it, Everett,” Paul McCabe said.
“Dad?” Everett said.
“Ev, give it to her.”
“But you said…”
“She can take it from us any time she wants. Give it to her.”
Everett set Dr. Quantum down on the floor and pushed it towards Charlotte Villiers.
“Sense has prevailed. Thank you.” Charlotte Villiers opened her little clutch bag. Suddenly, the jumpgun was in her hand. “Now, I've had quite enough of the Singh family.” She levelled it at Everett and Tejendra. “Good-bye.”
Everett went sprawling as Tejendra pushed him away as hard as he could. There was a flash of light. Tejendra was gone.
Charlotte Villiers gave a little animal shriek of anger, like a street cat facing off over a kill, and brought the jumpgun to bear on Everett. There was a sound like a mechanical cough. The jumpgun flew from Charlotte Villiers's fingers. She cried out in pain and grasped her wrist. A thumper bag lay on the ground next to the jumpgun. In the centre of the smashed win
dow Sen hung in a drop-line harness, thumper in her hand. Laser beams danced in the air as every SWAT-team gun came to bear on her. She gave a little squeak. In the moment of distraction Sharkey pulled out his shotguns, Mchynlyth raised his thumper, and Everett rolled, grabbed the jumpgun. Everett aimed the jumpgun at Charlotte Villiers.
“Bring him back.”
“You know I can't do that.”
The SWAT team swung their laser sights onto the Everness crew. It was a standoff.
“I'll shoot.”
“And? I will live elsewhere, but you will all die. And we shall have the device. Your equation does not balance.”
Tejendra was gone. Tejendra was gone.
Everett scooped up Dr. Quantum and turned the jumpgun on it.
“It's gone forever. You'll never find it.”
“Now Everett, I need you to know that I do not condone…,” Paul McCabe began.
“Shut up, you buffoon,” Charlotte Villiers snapped.
“I'll do it,” Everett said.
“I believe you would, Everett,” Charlotte Villiers said.
“I've drop lines here!” Sen shouted from the window. She reeled the thumper bag back into her weapon. “Come on!”
“Tell them to put down their guns,” Everett said. He picked up Dr. Quantum and held it out at arm's length, the jumpgun pointed at it.
“As he says, Sergeant,” Charlotte Villiers said. “You have rewritten the terms of the equation, young man.”
Sharkey covered Everett with his shotguns as Captain Anastasia pushed him to the waiting drop line. The jumpgun was cumbersome and impossibly heavy in Everett's hand, as if it had taken into it all the wrong it had ever dealt out. He kept it trained on Dr. Quantum. The sheer adrenaline burn, the goalkeeper reflex, that let him dive to safety, see the spinning jumpgun, scoop it up and aim it all without conscious thought, all by pure physical instinct, was fading. The shakes, the fear were creeping over him. He had made the save of his life. No, he hadn't saved anything. He hadn't saved what mattered. Tejendra was gone. His dad was gone. His dad had been there for a moment, and that moment had been real, so real that it made all the other incredible things real. And in a flash of light, he was gone. Gone where no one could ever find him. He was dead to Everett. And nothing was real now.
“Hand here, foot there,” Captain Anastasia said. “You know how to do it, Everett. You know how to do it.”
She fastened him onto the line beneath Sen. Everett kept the jumpgun trained on Dr. Quantum though every muscle and sinew screamed with pain.
“Everett,” Paul McCabe said, “I'm so sorry.” His voice sounded to Everett like a yappy little dog, the kind you want to kick. For him there was only one person in the room. He met Charlotte Villiers eye to eye. Her eyes were cold and they were pale and they were blue as the Atlantic and they held not one atom of pity. He saw respect there, and therefore hate. No one had ever bested her before, and for that she would be his undying enemy. She would hunt him to the edge of the multiverse to correct that error.
“Miss Sixsmyth, I expressly said that you were to remain with the ship,” Captain Anastasia bellowed as she strapped in.
“You also expressly said that I's had command,” Sen said.
“Yes I did. And you took command. Smartly done, Miss Sixsmyth.”
“Love you, Ma.” Sen grinned. “Going up fast in three, two…” She hit the wrist control. Everett was jerked out of the window and into the air so hard he almost dropped the jumpgun. Flying. He was flying up through the cold black night, through the flurrying snow. He looked up. Above him, seeming poised on the pinnacle of the Tyrone Tower, lit up by the tower's floodlights, was Everness. Below was the black Gothic facade of the tower, yellow light pouring from the shattered twenty-second floor apartment.
“Dad!” he screamed down into the dark. “Dad! Dad! Dad!”
Sen dropped into her seat behind the thrust controls. Sharkey took his position at the communications desk. The monitors showed a distorted close-up of Mchynlyth down on the engineering deck, grinning into the camera, both thumbs up. Captain Anastasia bent over a comptator, tapping keys.
“Your heading, Miss Sixsmyth.”
“Yes, ma'am,” Sen said. She tapped the bearing that had just appeared on her screen and slid it into the navigation comptator.
“Ahead full.”
Sen pushed the thrust levers to the furthest extent of their travel. Everness trembled as the impellers bit deep into the air. Mchynlyth had taken an engine from the starboard side and—in a thrilling operation involving ropes, slings, and abseiling—fixed it to one of the engine mounts in the port side damaged in the fight against the Arthur P. Everness was flying on six of her eight impellers, but she was trim and balanced, and Mchynlyth had spares in the engineering bay that he boasted he could rig in an hour each, if the ship needed to run. The story about refitting in Bristol had been a fiction to allow them to tack in across central London, within zip-line distance of the Tyrone Tower.
“Take us up into the cloud. Radar off, and observe radio silence, Mr. Sharkey. We go to dark running.”
“We will be flying blind, forgive me my insouciance, ma'am,” Sharkey said.
“Noted, Mr. Sharkey, and forgiven. All exterior cameras on monitors, please. Let's keep our eyes open. Sen, bona speed for the coast of Deutschland.”
“'And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch,'” Sharkey muttered as Sen turned to the lift levers and drew them slowly up. Wisps of cloud, flecked with snow, fringed the upper edge of the window; then Everness vanished into grey blankness.
“Mr. Singh.”
What was that? Sounds, voices, people moved around Everett like the snow in the cloud through which Everness flew. Nothing was real; nothing was solid. He knew he was on the bridge of the airship, that he was fleeing across a winter cityscape to the open sea, and beyond it Deutschland and safety, flying low and dark to avoid detection, but he had no idea how he had got there from hurtling up the drop line into the London night. He knew that the figures moving through the dazed numbness in his head were people he knew and cared about, trying to save their lives and their ship. He knew it, but he could not connect to it. He could not make it feel real. He should not be with these people. He should be with his dad, with Mum and Victory-Rose. Again and again his memory went back to the room on the twenty-second floor, to Charlotte Villiers, feet apart, the jumpgun clutched in both hands, the strange little emission-head—not like any gun muzzle at all—pointed at him. He could see the curl on her red red lips as she squeezed the firing stud. He could see hotel room carpet—so new it still had fluff-balls, but still ugly as all hotel carpet is ugly—loom up as Tejendra sent him sprawling towards it. He could see the flash of light as the jump-gate opened. What he could not see was the moment Tejendra went from there to not there. Not there. Never there. Never would be there again. Flicked out to some random world in the ten to the eighty of the Panoply. That sound again. His name. Captain Anastasia calling his name.
“Captain?”
“I'd like to see that weapon you took.” She beckoned Everett to the empty flight engineer station. Mchynlyth liked to be close and dirty with his machinery. It kept him a safe distance from Captain Anastasia.
Everett set the jumpgun on the desk. He wiped his fingers on the hem of his shorts. He imagined that it left a film of oil on his fingers that he would never quite get out, stained down to the skin cells like a tattoo. He never wanted to touch it again. Captain Anastasia carefully picked the jumpgun up with her fingertips. She studied it with distaste. It was small, squat, chubby, but it sat in the hand as if it changed shape to fit the contours of the individual palm and fingers. There were two thumb-wheel controls on the top, a trigger contact on the handle, and a data port in the rear. None were marked; none gave any sign as to how they operated. The barrel was a short, thick cylinder that ended in a small concave dish.
“Unhallowed thing. Mr. Singh—Everett—I need your help. I need to know ever
ything about this device. Can you do that for me?” She looked Everett full in the eye, daring him to look away, daring him to push her away into something foggy and blurred and unreal. “Will you do that for me?”
Then the floor tilted. Engines screamed. Everness pitched nose-up. Everett reeled towards the open door. He grabbed the edge of the desk and clung on. The jumpgun slid. Captain Anastasia lunged across the engineering station and grabbed it with both hands. The nose pitched higher. Loose debris avalanched across the floor. Everett saw Sen hauling back on the control yoke with all her strength. The ship shuddered. Every switch, every screen, every dial and magnifier rattled. Everett hung on to the desk for his life. Through the great window he saw the snow-covered back of an airship. It filled the glass. Still Everness climbed, metre by metre, trying to clear the airship crossing its flight path. There was a sound like the steel jaws of the wolf that ate the sun closing. The ship shook to its very atoms. Then Sen pushed the yoke forwards. Captain Anastasia fought her way to the intercom, handhold by handhold.
“What was that?” she said.
“Iberian Skylines 2202 Infanta Isabel, on route Madrid—London,” Sharkey said. “Close enough to read El Capitano's shoulder tags.”
“It just came up out of nowhere,” Sen said. Her face was whiter than pale. Her voice was thin as winter.
Captain Anastasia thumbed open the intercom. “Mr. Mchynlyth, status?”
On the monitor, Mchynlyth threw up his hands in resignation.
“Ach, between Bromleys and the sharpies and the Plenitude, the Goodwin Sands and the Tyrone Tower, what's a couple of centimetres off the rudder? We'll live; we'll fly.”
“Captain.” Every head turned to Sharkey's communication post. No one had ever heard him call Anastasia by her title. “They know we're here now. The Iberian put out a near-miss report.”
Captain Anastasia grimaced. She pressed her hands to the glass and looked out into the fog and snow.
“We're not even over the Smoke Ring.”