The Rig

by Levy, Roger

  It took Hoob a moment to realise that. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s move on. What do you know about the rigs?’

  ‘I didn’t think I needed to know that much.’

  ‘No. What do you do, exactly?’ He was holding the application in his free hand.

  ‘I’m a fixer. Stuff that’s too expensive or difficult to replace, sometimes I can fix it. Though I don’t seem to have the concentration for it any more. Since what happened.’

  Hoob said, ‘Okay. You know why we ask for handwritten applications?’

  ‘Graphology. Filtering crazies like me.’

  ‘Graphology?’ He laughed. ‘No. It gives us DNA. We trawl your experiential history and your genetic and epigenetic imperatives. Of course a few forms come back to us machine-clean, but we don’t interview those applicants. You know what we got from your application?’

  ‘That I’m applying for a job working on a rig.’

  ‘A history of this attitude, yes. We know your life, everything. You think it was that attitude got you assaulted?’

  ‘It didn’t get me – assaulted, as you call it.’ Tallen closed his mouth, realising how badly he wanted this job, even though he didn’t exactly know why, then said, ‘I need some time to think. Being alone doesn’t concern me, never has, but after that, I find I need… I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to change.’

  ‘Not goddery, though. You don’t need that?’ Hoob looked at the ceiling. ‘One of our filters is for theistic tendencies. The sea has an effect on people. Disorientation, scale, isolation. These things make some people want to believe in something. It’s simply too much. Sometimes they try to destroy the rig. Sometimes they jump.’

  ‘Not me. I nearly died, Hoob. It made me… it made me think.’

  ‘It made you think what?’

  ‘I don’t want to die.’

  Hoob sat back and laughed. ‘You don’t want to die? You, Tallen? You want me to have you shot in the head, and you don’t want to die?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Tallen said as evenly as he could. ‘It’s the idea of it. The knowledge that I can have it, that it’s under my control.’

  ‘Right.’ Hoob chuckled. ‘And you want to work on a rig because, actually because you don’t want to die? Have I got that straight?’

  ‘Yes.’ Though in truth, Tallen didn’t really know why he wanted to work on a rig. It had just struck him that this was the only thing he was suited for, any more.

  ‘Hell,’ Hoob said, wiping a tear away. ‘Hell, Tallen, you are just perfect.’

  ‘Once you’ve got me set up, I can’t pull out, like I told you. I think this thing, this problem, gives me a sense of control over myself. That’s how I see it.’

  Tallen picked up the little rig again, which seemed to sober Hoob.

  ‘Okay,’ Hoob said, and raised an image of a rig onto the wall, and swivelled his chair so they were both facing the image. ‘That’s a rig on the Southern Sea. Tell me what you think you know about the rigs. You want a tasse?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Sweetener?’ Hoob grinned. ‘Maybe a lethal toxin? Or do you just imagine the possibility of that?’

  ‘I’ve been out a while. I’ve heard all the jokes.’

  ‘Don’t be so sensitive. Or maybe you’re goading me into…’ He ran a finger across his throat, lolling his tongue. Tallen closed his eyes, opened them to Hoob muttering sourly, ‘Your tasse is on the way. The rigs, then. What do you know?’

  ‘Under the sea, there are faultlines. At some of those, core’s close to the surface. The rigs locate, drill and extract it.’

  A knock on the door, and steam looped into the airconned room as Hoob’s assistant put the tray down, keeping his eyes professionally away from Tallen. Tallen wondered reflexively how much of a burn he could give himself. Not enough. He wasn’t interested in pain.

  ‘Go on,’ Hoob said.

  ‘The core gets piped to the shore stations. That’s it.’

  ‘That’s it, Tallen?’

  ‘You want me to tell you about the rig processors?’

  ‘Everything you think you know.’

  ‘I don’t. The rest is rumour.’

  ‘So tell me the rumours.’

  ‘They say the sea acts as a preservative. That’s why people want to be cast there in death, even the unregistered, and why AfterLife drops the sarcs there. One story is that the source of the preservative is core leaching from the bottom of the sea. The rumour is that the rigs don’t just extract core, they separate and purify the preservative element. The rumour is that Ronen’s discovered the secret of eternal life.’

  Hoob sipped delicately at his tasse. ‘And what do you think of the rumours, Mr Tallen?’

  ‘I’m not a scientist.’

  ‘You’ll have an opinion.’

  ‘The Song’s full of stories. Even if there’s any truth, the solution won’t be simple. There won’t be an end to death. Money will be involved. It won’t make any difference to me.’

  ‘You’re a cynical man. Maybe you’ll be closer to the secret of eternal life on a rig. Have you thought of that?’

  ‘First you say I’m unsuitable because I’m trying to kill myself, and now I’m unsuitable because I’m looking for eternal life. I don’t want either, Hoob.’

  ‘There are people who would pay a lot of money for the secret, if someone could get it for them.’

  ‘I expect your security is effective.’

  ‘That isn’t an answer, Mr Tallen.’

  ‘You didn’t ask me a question, Hoob. But I have no interest in money. I’m not an industrial spy. You can check on me.’

  ‘We have checked on you, Mr Tallen, as I have already told you, and I am checking your responses as we speak, and our psych will be looking at this interview and checking further on you. We’ll talk to MedTech. Presumably one of their concerns was that you might kill yourself on their premises and incur legal costs. Mine would be that you might want to sabotage a rig. Do you want to sabotage a rig?’

  ‘I thought we’d established I don’t want to die.’

  ‘You might still want to sabotage a rig. Someone once had that idea, setting explosives, casting herself into the sea and imagining she’d be preserved and become immortal. Crazy logic.’

  Tallen smiled. ‘Your security failed, then.’

  ‘I should have phrased that differently. That was her intention. It was extracted by Dr Veale at the next stage of the interview process. The applicant got past me. Very few people have ever reached a rig and succeeded in carrying out anything unexpected.’

  ‘I thought many of your workers die on the rigs.’

  ‘Not unexpectedly.’

  ‘You expect some to die, then?’

  ‘We expect everyone to die, Mr Tallen. A few don’t, and that is a bonus. Every applicant – every successful applicant – imagines they will be the exception. You, of course, might not, with your, ah, condition. Do you have any more questions?’

  ‘Not right now.’

  ‘You only get now.’

  ‘Then no,’ Tallen said.

  ‘Okay. You have no relatives? Next of kin?’

  ‘No. No one.’

  ‘That’s always easier. Minimum tour’s five years, with no return in that period for any reason. Our investment in you is too much. The whole rig and its support system has to be configured to your neural and psych statuses.’ Hoob swivelled his chair and said, ‘Before you go, let me show you something. This happened recently.’

  Tallen realised the image on the wall wasn’t a snapture at all, as it began to move. The weather around the structure looked as hard as the rig itself. Sleeting rain, and thundercloud like clods of hammered iron. The rig was slightly off horizontal, but the only fixed point was the frame of the image, so it was impossible to be sure; the sea had no visible surface, whipping and crashing into black-shadowed troughs and grinding slabs of ice-white foam.

  The rig shifted abruptly, settling back towards horizontal but then continuing to move.
The clouds began to surge and the sea came up and down.

  Hoob said, ‘This was shot from the nearest rig. The image has been cleaned as much as possible, but it was across fifty kils of sea and hard weather. At this point the storm’s about two days high.’

  The storm carried on. After a while, the rig started to tilt more, and then it lurched. Around it were black dots – sarcs, Tallen realised – tossed high. In another ten seconds the rig tipped over, splintering, and was gone. Sound and fury, Tallen thought, and wondered where the words had come from. Had there been a woman?

  ‘We lose about two every year like this,’ Hoob said. ‘It’s seldom the structure that initiates failure. It’s the software, and that would be you, Mr Tallen. You still want to work on a rig?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He nodded. ‘Okay. You’re a long way from an offer, but I’m prepared to put you forward for the pre-acceptance psychs. Before you say yes, you must understand that there’s a significant morbidity rate to the investigations, morbidity meaning permanent disability and/or death, of three point eight per cent. This risk is entirely yours and uninsurable. Do you understand and accept this?’

  ‘I’m already uninsurable.’

  ‘Please answer.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your acceptance is recorded and confirmed. This is now a contractual arrangement, Mr Tallen. Should you be, at the end of the investigations and induction, undamaged and able to carry out the job of rig maintenance, you will be given one day’s accompanied leave before being taken to the rig. Once on the rig, for security reasons, there will be no communication externally other than via the company’s links and by company agreement. Do you have any questions, or anything to say?’

  Tallen told him, ‘Just that I won’t need the day.’

  Sixteen

  ALEF

  SigEv 20 A return

  Other than a few times in passing, I hadn’t seen Pellonhorc since we had arrived on his father’s world. I had sunk myself into Solaman’s lessons. Ethan Drame had not mentioned Pellonhorc, nor had anyone else.

  And then I saw him again. I’d had a long day, almost nineteen hours working, and I was tired.

  I was sitting at the small table in my kitchen when he arrived. I knew immediately that it was him. Three raps of equal weight and at exact intervals on my door, as he had always announced himself at my parents’ house on Gehenna. My heart was pounding by the third rap.

  He looked pale and I could see he’d lost weight, too. I felt uncomfortable with him looking at me with such intensity, so I visualised the comforting, shivering glitter of my weave. I could see him through it, though, standing there. I realised with a shock that he was and had always been there in my head, that he was an irremovable part of me.

  ‘Come inside,’ I said, and then, when he didn’t speak, I added, ‘Where have you been?’

  Inside, he didn’t sit down. ‘You’ve been helping my father, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘Like your father did. And you’re doing well.’

  I felt I was missing something. I often felt that, though, except when I was thinking of the weave.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, trying to remain safe. It was harder, now. Pellonhorc was a sudden reminder of my parents, and I felt churned. ‘I have putery that can carry out as many calculations in a second as –’

  ‘Shut up, Alef. You haven’t changed at all. I need to talk to you.’

  I looked away. ‘Guess which is the larger number: the number of calculations per second that my putery can make, or the number –’

  An odd sound was coming from Pellonhorc. I looked at him and I shut up. I’d never seen him cry before. It snapped me out of the maths.

  ‘Oh, you poor child,’ I said, instinctively remembering what to do. ‘Come here.’ I opened my arms, as my mother had done for me so many times. Pellonhorc stood rigid for an instant – what on Earth did he think, I wonder, at my attempt to mothercomfort him? – and then he collapsed into my arms.

  I didn’t kiss his forehead as my mother had kissed mine – he was too tall, in any case – but we held each other, and I felt his tears on my cheek. I felt an odd sense of completeness. I know exactly how long we stood there.

  We stepped away from each other.

  ‘I want to talk to you, Alef. Not here.’

  Other than to The Floor, I hadn’t been out with any purpose for months. If I wanted anything, someone would get it for me. I’d walk, though, from time to time, just wander through the streets and watch the day come and go around me, counting the people, the windows, vehicles, calculating and comparing.

  It was late evening and the streetlumes were bright as we walked together. Pellonhorc kept glancing back, and stopped frequently to let store displays wash over him, and made us backtrack a few times, though it was clear he wasn’t lost or interested in what might be bought. I asked if something was the matter, and he just said, ‘Nothing. Habit.’

  Eventually we went into a small bar, the Drinkery. The music was loud and the owner seemed to know Pellonhorc, showing us to a table in the corner. Pellonhorc sat with his back to the wall, drumming a finger on the table.

  ‘Have you ever wondered why we came to Gehenna, Alef? My mother and I?’

  A memory suddenly returned to me, triggered by the question. I, who forgot nothing, had almost forgotten this. I said, ‘I asked you once. Just after you arrived.’ There was music playing in the café. The rhythm was urgent, almost a hum. ‘You wouldn’t say.’ He’d beaten me for even asking. I said, ‘Don’t you remember?’

  Without looking at me, he said, ‘No.’

  I said, ‘After Ligate… well, after that, I just assumed your father had been trying to keep you both safe from him.’

  ‘We’d have been safer from Ligate here.’ He was constantly looking around. I was feeling nervous.

  Pellonhorc went on, ‘My father did things to me. You can imagine, I expect.’

  Images from the pornosphere flicked through my mind. I remembered the first time Pellonhorc and I had plunged into it, in my father’s office, and the sites he had exposed me to. Did he mean that?

  ‘He used to hit my mother, too.’ His voice was extraordinarily steady, telling me this. I recognised in it the way that I spoke. It startled me to realise he had modelled his veneer of control on my own.

  ‘My mother said she’d take me from him,’ Pellonhorc said. ‘She was the only one he ever paid attention to, Alef. He needed her. He let her take me to Gehenna just to keep from losing her forever.’ His voice broke. ‘But now she’s dead and I’m back with him.’

  ‘Can Madelene do anything?’

  He shot me a look of scorn. ‘Madelene always wanted my father to herself. But with my mother dead, she has what she deserves. He needs someone to beat as well as someone to fuck and spend money on. Now she’s everything to him.’

  He said this as if it was natural, as if I’d understand it. ‘She blames me for it. She shouts at him, and he –’ Pellonhorc looked directly at me. ‘He doesn’t always take it out on her. He knows she’d walk out.’ In the sharp light of the café he looked hollow-eyed and ill. He said, ‘We have to do something.’

  ‘It isn’t so simple.’

  He laughed so loudly that a few people turned to look, though they turned away again quickly enough. In an instant Pellonhorc had gone from terror to laughter, and I was confused. I’d forgotten how swiftly his mood could change.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Of course it isn’t simple. My father is who he is.’

  I realised at last why we were here. Pellonhorc had arranged that it was safe to talk here.

  ‘What are you thinking of doing?’ I said.

  He looked at me carefully, leaning towards me so that the music cocooned us. ‘He killed your parents, as good as. You think we should kill him?’

  I felt sick. I hadn’t realised how scared I was of Drame until now. I saw how ludicrous all my thoughts of biding my time had been. I knew I’d never dare do anything to hurt him. As a
child I’d been scared of Pellonhorc, but that fear was nothing compared to my terror of Ethan Drame. And the bizarre thing about it was that Drame had done nothing personally to me. The threat was just there. It was the memory of his face on that tiny screen in my father’s office, and my failure to turn the screen off or flee, and Ethan Drame’s voice telling me, ‘I can reach you.’

  ‘No,’ said Pellonhorc after a moment, with a sigh. ‘We’ll never do that, Alef. Don’t worry. But one day I’ll prove myself. I’ll prove to him that I’m worth more than he thinks. Then his attitude will change.’ He smiled at me. ‘I’ll be his son again, and in time, in good time, I’ll inherit his empire. What about that? Will you help me?’

  My heart was returning to normal. ‘Yes. Yes. I will.’

  ‘Good. I knew I could rely on you. You know something, Alef?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have a special bond, you and I. My father had it with your father, and I have it with you.’

  I remembered what my father’s bond with Ethan Drame had done for him, and for me, though I knew Pellonhorc hadn’t meant that.

  He ordered drinks. When they came, the waiter slopping them onto the table, we raised the glasses to each other and we drank.

  ‘I have no one else, Alef. You and I, we have to stick tight.’

  I nodded, flushed with the alcohol and this renewal of our bond. For a few minutes we sat together and let the music thump around us.

  ‘So. What have you been doing?’ I asked him when the beat slackened.

  ‘I check the businesses. I keep people in line.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re good at that,’ I said, meaning nothing by it.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ he said, glancing around. He swiped his payflake over the reader and waited for it to clear, then said, ‘I’m sure you’re good, too.’ He drained his drink and stood up. ‘It was good to see you again, Alef. We’ll talk again soon. I wouldn’t mention this to my father. But if he says anything, don’t deny you saw me, and say we talked of old times. Drop by here a few times a month. Establish a routine.’

  And he was gone.

  * * *

  SigEv 21 The weave catches me