Gradisil (GollanczF.)

by Adam Roberts

  All his years of comiŋ to the Uplands, he has never before visited this 10-year-old luxury hotel; and so he is as agog as any first-time Upper to come into this vast open space, reachiŋ hundreds of metres up (or along, or down), lined with bars and boutiques and eateries all the length of its cavernous shaft. The twin central lines, in constant motion up and down respectively, gently drag visitors through this space that looks, to Hope’s still ground-adapted perceptions, like a cathedral-tall tower stretchiŋ dizziŋly up, through which fly angelic people in blue and green and red and white. He tells himself not to be foolish; it’s just a very large house, with lots of rooms of varyiŋ sizes, from bee-cells to whole expensive suites, and a few shops to tease more money from visitors. He snap-twanged his way across the floor (or wall, or ceiling) of this blue-steel, plasglass atrium, headiŋ towards the bar on the far side of the podium in which the two cables, with their feathery hand-holds like sprouts on the central stalk, sink into the infrastructure.

  ‘I’d like a whisky,’ he says to the barman - and that’s right, an actual barman, in a blak and white suit with elasticated sleeves and leggiŋs, waitiŋ behind the bar! That’s how luxurious the Worldview is. He presents Hope with a globe-and-straw, cliks the panel on Hope’s proffered chip (but Hope’s thum is not pressiŋ against the proper place on the plastic and so the procedure must be repeated), and smiles at his customer. Hope hooks himself onto a seat, and watches the comiŋs and goiŋs in the hotel atrium.

  ‘Up here on business, sir?’ the barman asks. ‘Sort of business are you in, sir?’

  Hope looks at him. ‘Assassination,’ he says, glumly.

  ‘That so?’

  But this is too close to the horrible truth. ‘No, not really. I’m the director of a company. It’s a company called Moving Mercury.’

  ‘That so, sir?’

  ‘I’m lookiŋ for possible investors. It’s really the biggest project humanity has ever contemplated.’ But why is he selliŋ the project to a barman, of all people? He shifts gear. ‘You don’t happen to have two hundred billion euros to invest, do you?’ He is tryiŋ, with this mild joke, and with a lopsided, hook-shaped smile, to draw the barman into his dank world; conversation, the shariŋ troubles, directionless talk. He sips the whisky again. Many people don’t like drinkiŋ whisky from globes. The argument goes that the odour is a significant component of the flavour and with a globe you can’t smell anything. But Hope can still taste it, and it still tastes to him of russet and amber and the colour of rosé wine in sunlight. His blood-filled head registers the incipient intoxication.

  ‘It’s interestiŋ you should talk about money,’ says the barman, comiŋ a little closer. ‘Because with HighHouse Incorporated you can own your own little piece of the Uplands, for as little as eight thousand euros a month - that’s on a share-scheme model - for individual ownership it’s a little pricier, but we can cut you a deal with AmAir to arrange a cut-price season-tiket for flights up. Eight thousand euros a month - that’s less than the hire purchase of a new energCar! Why not ask me about our special terms for first-time buyers . . .’

  Hope, distracted and a little detuned, mentally, by the alcohol takes as long as this to work out wat a more observant (or, more precisely, wat a less self-absorbed) man would have noticed immediately: the barman is not human, he is an advertisiŋ automaton. Hope takes a closer look. They are certainly gettiŋ more lifelike, but the face still has the texture and shade of plastic, the movements still don’t quite inhabit the physical idiom of real people, the lips aren’t quite mobile enuff. He tries to remember wat the protocols are for shuttiŋ them up. ‘ . . . all the freedom and the splendour of an Uplands house, the perfect getaway when gravity is gettiŋ you down . . .’ ‘I’m not interested,’ Hope says, loud and clear; but the thing keeps talkiŋ and it pops into Hope’s head that he needs to repeat this phrase 3 times. With European automata it’s enuff simply to turn your bak. ‘... and all for less than the price of an average city rent in . . .’

  ‘I’m not interested!’ Hope cries. ‘I’m not interested! I’m not interested!’

  The barman (barthing) retreats, shuts up, though with a wounded expression that must, Hope realises, have been programmed by its designers for no other purpose than to wound the feeliŋs of punters who decline the machine’s pitch. That seems mean-spirited, somehow. Hope doesn’t dwell on it.

  Two powerfully built women, both dressed in suits of deep blue across which larks seem to flit in an endlessly pouriŋ flok, are approachiŋ the bar; but they’ve been stopped by Hope’s raised voice. They hesitate, look around; do they want to share a bar with a shoutiŋ idiot? But the other bar is axessible up the central dragline, and the blonder of the two shakes her head. Hope cringes a little inside. He is horribly conscious of makiŋ a fool of himself in front of women, and most especially attractive women, as these are. As they settle themselves with their knees hooked under the bar, he angles his face down. They’re both splendid physical specimens, they really are. One of them has her hand restiŋ on top of the other’s, on top of the bar. The barman cliks 2 globes (of wat? Wine? Beer? Fizzee? It’s not possible to tell) onto the surface before them, and leans in. Are you ladies up here on business? Wat sort of business are you in, might I ask?

  Hope tries to take surreptitious little looks at the 2 of them. Very attractive, very. A couple, he estimates, together, well-off, perhaps business as well as sexual partners. Savvy, too: they dismiss the barman immediately he starts up and fall deeply into a murmuriŋ conversation with one another.

  Hope risks invitiŋ another automated sales lecture by orderiŋ a second drink. Why not? Get drunk, sure. All this blood overfilling his head, until his body rearranges the pressure, it delivers alcohol to the loci of consciousness quiker than usual. Sol will be here in hours, and then they’ll both be dippiŋ their hands in blood, scatteriŋ blood like miniature planets and stars through the space of this hotel so why not? The drink comes, and the sales pitch does not come, so perhaps the thing’s software protocols do not permit him to approach a customer whom has instructed him thrice to desist.

  The women are chattiŋ to one another. He thinks to himself: if only they knew the murder that is in my heart! But this is false; the murder is in Sol’s heart, not his. All there is in his heart is the guilt. Sol gets all the assassin’s strength of will, and he gets all the guilt, that’s the properly familial distribution alas, always has been like that. It’s only fair that these quantities be shared out, he thinks to himself, which (of course) was one of his father’s mantras. It’s only fair. You’ve had the toy for an hour, you must let Sol have it now, it’s only fair. Share and share, that’s wat it means to be part of a family. The women are chattiŋ to one another. Hope looks again. It has occurred to him before, on comiŋ into the uplands, that xero g, by removing that sense of one’s cok and balls as weighty pendulum excressions, works as a mode of virtual castration. Your genitals no longer tug at your abdomen, or rub and pull at your trousers. As the blood pressure rearranges itself they tend to shrink, and as the gravity is removed they become rather floaty and insubstantial. With his left hand Hope, surreptitiously (everything he does in his life is surreptitious) slides his left hand between his thighs, rubbiŋ a single downstroke against his crotch. It’s still there, the disgustiŋ worm of it. How revolted these women would be if it were drawn to their attention! Hope’s heart is pulsiŋ more rapidly. He withdraws his hand, rubbiŋ an upstroke rub against his crotch on the way out, and usiŋ that hand to unsnik the globe from the bar and raise it to his lips, all in one smooth motion. How revolted these women would be, this decent, well-presented loving partnership of women, if it were drawn to or forced upon their attention. Hope imagines their ire. He imagines the disdain, the dismissal, himself apologisiŋ, he imagines himself stretchiŋ out his long and disgustiŋ body before them as nude as the Moon, as open as the sky itself. He can almost hear their disgust, the uh!s, as they exchange shakes of the head and sour looks. The lacquered xero-g-proof blonde scu
lptured hairdos that look so sharp-edged and handsome. The unyieldiŋ blueness of the eyes. But perhaps they’ll know, on some level, that he is with them, that he shares their revulsions. He can almost see the taller of them slippiŋ her shoe off, and graspiŋ its heel to raise it, club-like, and bring it hard down upon —

  He finishes his globe with a slurp. The whisky, the empty stomach, the extra pressure of blood in his head, it’s all dizzyish and intoxicationesque. Time to go, before he makes a fool of himself.

  He reconnects his feet to one of the many paths in the floor. He has made a decision, notified himself internally with a Well! - well, since he’s got a room now, at absurd and deflatiŋ expense, he might as well use it. Since he’s already spent 3 times wat he’d planned to spend, out of the fortune which, once substantial, he has managed over 15 years to dissipate entirely in his flibbertigibbet Mercury project - well (says the whisky) he might as well spend even more. Spend your own money, and the pile of your money gets smaller. But spend somebody else’s money and the pile gets bigger. Isn’t that a curious observation? Of course, it’s the other guy’s pile that’s swelliŋ, not yours, but that hardly matters, we’re all 1 under the solar eye of God, after all.

  The snap-twang thing is much harder to negotiate when you’re a little drunk. He makes his way across the enormous atrium, to an AI information point. ‘I require,’ he speaks into the grille with exaggerated precision, ‘a female - heterosexual - prostitute - right away, right away, can you recommend . . . ?’

  ‘I’m sorry sir,’ comes the chirpy-voiced reply. ‘That service is unavailable at this present time.’

  ‘Hi there, Hope!’ says somebody. It is Wilfrid Laurier.

  ‘Well,’ says Hope. He tries, mentally, to pull the string at both ends, to try and tighten the knot of his concentration, but it is hard. ‘Howdy there.’

  ‘Settled in?’

  ‘Actually, yes, I’ll tell you,’ says Hope, feeliŋ an axess of volubility, ‘I decided to upgrade my room, I’ve changed my bookiŋ from a tube to a double room with a window, and I’ll be stayiŋ for a little longer too, so perhaps I’ll be here for the openiŋ of your — ’ He cannot, momently, remember wat it is that Wilfrid Laurier is openiŋ.

  ‘I couldn’t help overheariŋ,’ says Laurier, leaniŋ in, ‘and I just wanted to say to you that, well, not to put too fine a point on it, I could arrange for you to — ’

  Hope really doesn’t know wat Laurier means. He really doesn’t. It does not occur to his brain to connect his enquiry at the AIpoint with Wilfrid Laurier. He can’t compute wat Laurier is sayiŋ, he doesn’t understand at all, and then he does understand, in a sort of rush. ‘Oh no, oh not necess - no that’s alright.’

  ‘Nothing illegal,’ says Wilfrid Laurier, beamiŋ. ‘I’m talkiŋ legit, top-of-the-range, hetero, eager workers with pharmakos-enhanced libidos. There’s 3 of them workiŋ here. The hotel, I happen to know, is in legal dispute with them over the rights to their advertisiŋ, which is why the AI is so unforthcomiŋ, but I’d be happy to arrange an introduction — ’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ says Hope, with ridiculous and maladroit hauteur, ‘I need to go and place a phone call to my wife, who is downbelow with my 4 childrens. Childs.’ He wobbles off, snap-twang, snap-twang, the alcohol arraŋiŋ the atrium lights inside the jelly of his brain as impossibly beautiful and eye-dazzliŋ constellations of sparkles.

  three

  That night he sleeps very poorly, partly because of the weightlessness and partly because his conscience is doiŋ the thing that bad consciences do - worryiŋ him, troubliŋ him, prikkiŋ him, like a medic performiŋ the biopsy that confirms a diagnosis of cancer. Or, no; cancer is not severe enuff a malady for Hope’s state of mind; something much worse. I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed. I can’t sleep. I’ll get up.

  It’s a large room; tall, broad - although of course small enuff compared to the average Uplander’s place. But the average Uplander doesn’t have axess to the atrium, the gym, the 2 bars, the shop, the hyperdenominational chapel, the medical officer and so on. But Hope is painfully aware that, cubic-metre by cubic-metre, it is one of the most expensive hotel rooms available to the human consumer. He floats to the window. Above this portal is the winkiŋ Worldview logo, and beneath it the glisteniŋ 3D legend 32 dawns every day projected, he discovers by runniŋ his thum around the rim of the window, from a nubbin on the top. There’s a similar message over the door: Remember Your Sleep Tube! and underneath in smaller letters Worldview Inc Are Not Liable for Customers Who Omit to Wear Their CO2 Dispersers.

  Lookiŋ through the window he sees the great curviŋ whale of the Earth drift up and float in front of the sun, snuffiŋ its glare into a saint’s-head spread of shards of beams, and then nothing at all. He looks for the Moon, but he can’t see it. It has always troubled him, obscurely, that the Moon still goes through phases, here in space. But it does. He also used to expect it to look somehow bigger from space. But an object a quarter of a million miles away does not increase in perceived size just because you have moved 60 miles towards it. The deeper truth is his desire, of course; not the physical universe. His desire is that he wants this land, his mother’s own land, to declare its incommensurateness with the clumsily heavy world below. But the truth is it’s a land pretty much like any other land. That’s the way of all new things; they seem radical and strange, and then you live with them for a day and they are folded into the continuous tapestry of the ordinary and the already known.

  He takes breakfast in a coffee parlour, and then makes his way down to the lobby to await the arrival of the next charter flight: this one from the Uplands to the Worldview, a much smaller plane than the Up-Down charters.

  And here is Sol, compact, moving with the ease of somebody very familiar with xero g. He is looking at the crowd as he walks towards it, scopiŋ each member with brisk, appraisive, I-could-snap-your-nek-like-a-breadstik looks. No smartcloth for him; blak trousers and top, like a 3nimation ballet-fighter. ‘Brother,’ says Hope, steppiŋ forward and feeliŋ double shambolic and ill-coordinated.

  ‘We must talk,’ replies Sol, omittiŋ, as is his way, all pleasantries, all how-are-yous, smiles, handclasps or shoulder-slaps.

  ‘Come to the room I have booked,’ says Hope. ‘My room - our room, I mean.’ It really is as if Sol’s alarmiŋ self-possession bleaches all sense of rightful possession from Hope’s consciousness, as if he cannot have anything just to himself whilst his brother is there.

  ‘It may be bugged,’ says Sol, snap-twangiŋ onward. Hope tries to keep up. ‘Let us talk in the atrium.’

  ‘Then people may overhear,’ Hope points out. ‘Passers-by.’

  ‘Let them.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make any sense. If you’re worried about people buggiŋ the — ’

  ‘That would be special services, buggiŋ. If passers-by overhear, they’re just passers-by.’

  ‘We could still get arrested,’ hisses Hope, as the two of them move out of the lobby and into the atrium. On his second day in the Worldview Hope finds that he is now unimpressed with the place; habit has shrunk the atrium into the proportions of a large glass shed; but Sol, for whom this is his first sight, cannot conceal a fliker of admiration crossiŋ his face.

  ‘Nobody will arrest us,’ he says, runniŋ his gaze up the crystal length of the structure.

  ‘You shouldn’t be so cavalier,’ frets Hope. ‘This is an American hotel, it’s not the regular Uplands. This is American territory.’

  Sol makes a ptch! noise. ‘They’re here on sufferance,’ he says, grandly. ‘We permit them to be here in the Uplands. American territory? It’s all our territory, and they rent this space from us.’

  ‘Nevertheless — ’ Hope starts to say.

  Sol completes the sentence for him with ‘ — nothing. I’m a member of the Upland government. This is our land, not theirs. I refuse to be cowed in my own nation.’

  ‘Upland government,’ Hope repeats. ‘Like there’s anything as organised as
an Upland government. But Sol has spotted the bar at which Hope had, the previous day, beheld the handsome couple and drunk 2 whiskies. ‘Here,’ he says. ‘We’ll talk here.’ He strides with improbably speed and has ordered 2 beers by the time Hope, awkwardly tryiŋ to get the rhythm of calf-muscle, thigh-muscle, tip foot up, angle foot down, into an optimum onward-moving arrangement, stumbles into the bar area. Sol is at one of the tall-stalked tight-headed mushroom-shaped tables. Hope sniks himself in.

  There is music playiŋ in the atrium, a long piece by Dog Lyre that sounds like birdsoŋ, quivery and frou-frou, and might even be mistaken for a recordiŋ of downbelow birds if it weren’t for the fact of a kettle-bell percussion runniŋ alongside the semitone warble of the melody; and the fact that the words Today’s Music: Dog Lyre’s New Suite, Shoal are circliŋ the rim of the atrium in unmissable spring-green projection. People are driftiŋ in and out of shops.

  ‘Do you know which room he is stayiŋ in?’ Sol asks.

  ‘No,’ says Hope, fretfully. ‘No, no. How would I know that? I have to tell you,’ droppiŋ his voice into a more conspiratorial register, ‘this represents spectacularly bad timiŋ. I’ve been angliŋ for this meetiŋ - today’s meetiŋ for months. I’ve finally got an in. Months of work - years. This is a real possibility, real investment might come out of this, it could be a lifesaver for the project.’