Going Under

by Justina Robson

  “… appear to be remodelling and growing spontaneously. Rate of increase of adaptation jumped to cubic progression. Subject reports lessening of interface distinctions once again. Analysis protocols still effective. Spyware providing bit torrent rate in excess of processable levels within Otopian technology. Cannot assess risks within timely limits… suspect alien infiltration… possible consciousness… war for control… sublimation of subject… irresponsible and unpredictable behaviours unfitting to an agent… contamination irreversible… controlware unreliable…

  “Action Recommended: immediate termination.”

  Delaware’s signature appeared in the records to verify that she had read this document. It was the last entry of hers before Williams had managed to have her thrown out.

  There were other things in there Lila hadn’t known, but she pushed them aside for the time being. She closed down the files and squashed the chip to a smear of basic materials, pumping enough electrons through it to remove any suggestion it had ever held data. She put it in her pocket. Malachi met her gaze and they sat in silence for a while, drinking Faery Lite and listening to the rain patter on the yurt.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I released them,” Malachi said in reply to Lila’s question about the Mothkin. He shrugged and put his head back against the yurt pole. They were on their third bottle each. “It was the only thing I could think of that would provide a safe but annoying distraction for the Agency. I thought it would give us time to seize your control system or, well, at least we got this chip. But it’s worse than I intended. And now I can’t get them back in.”

  “And nobody knows about this? Why is that? Why doesn’t anyone spy on you?”

  “Oh they do, they do,” grinned Malachi and flicked his fingers around at various points in the room, indicating symbols, objects, signs. “But I have methods for getting around it.”

  “The Hoodoo,” she said, just repeating the word she’d heard Zal use.

  “Useful for many things as long as you use it wisely,” he rubbed his fingers and thumb together and laughed. “Zal knows. He likes to gamble, unfortunately. Best he not try it himself.”

  “Why not?”

  “The Hoodoo always collects.”

  “What is it?”

  “A force,” he shrugged again and let his head hang forward. “A game.” He smiled a little smile and she decided to drop it, because she wouldn’t understand and she knew the smile too well.

  “Well, what do we do now?”

  “I thought that once we had secured you, we would recall the moths,” he said, slow and quiet, “but actually there may be benefits to delaying that. I think maybe they’re all that’s preventing the Agency from putting more effort into you and me. Of course, no doubt they’re hanging fire with your execution because they believe you’re the best hope to finish off the moth problem. Best they keep believing that. And anyway, it’s true enough.”

  “I’ll go along with the first part.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re going into Faery to get the ability to recall them. Once we have it, then we can decide what to do with it.”

  “Hold them to ransom.”

  “Maybe. No telling until we get back.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Things get strange when you spend time in Faery,” he said. “A logical course, like the one you just described, when you get back it doesn’t seem so straight. So, let’s just go with what we have. In the meantime, before…” he glanced at the clock on his desk, “… before Williams wakes up I’ll let you talk to Jones.”

  “The Strandloper.”

  “Yes.”

  Lila started to get up.

  “No need,” Malachi waved her down. “I’ll call her.”

  He flickered, literally. She stared at him, believing her eyes because she could replay the event an infinite number of times, but still openmouthed. He faded. Then he vanished. Mal had never done this before, as far as she knew. Except obviously he had. Who knew? She was reasonably sure that the Agency didn’t. For a few seconds there was a shadow where he’d been, and sometimes it seemed that it had ears, whiskers, and a tail. Then he was back, just like that.

  “She’ll be right along,” he said hoarsely, wiping at a gleam of perspiration on his forehead and chugging the final half of his beer with unusual relish.

  Lila took a swig from her bottle, noted its ever-changing delicious gingery notes, and nodded as though this was all quite regular. She felt a familiar type of air push, as when Teazle teleported in, but a little bit softer by some micro-order. Then there were three of them in the tent.

  “Yo,” said the girl in the corner.

  Lila was startled by how young she was and how exhausted she looked. What used to be a T-shirt and jeans had been added to with an elvish jacket and various belts and bits of leather armour until she resembled an odd kind of forest ranger. She was grubby, but her eyes were bright. Lila wondered if she were on drugs but felt Tath’s reaction and realised it was aether.

  Malachi handed out fresh drinks and said, “Lila, this is Jones. Jones, Lila Black.”

  “Hey,” Jones said. She sat on the floor. “So, what’s the deal?”

  Lila squinted, she was sure Jones was human, or used to be. Tath uncoiled and crept as far as he dared to the surface. He and Lila still weren’t talking.

  “Do you remember I told you about the Ghost Hunters?” Malachi asked Lila.

  She nodded. The entire thing made her flesh crawl. With her free hand she picked up and held out the amulet. “Can you tell me anything about this?”

  Jones sniffed and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand before shuffling closer. As she neared Tath slid away. For a moment Lila thought she saw Malachi right through the woman’s head but then she was close. She smelled of stale sweat. She held the amulet but didn’t try to pull it closer or off of Lila’s neck.

  “Leather strap, wooden circle—driftwood, seaworn, no carvingsinset stone, some kind of carnelian, uncut—a found object. Some kind of warding charm, very primitive to look at. So far so dull, but we are in bloody Otopia and I am human, so what were you expecting?”

  “Isn’t there anything unusual about it?”

  “Not that I can see. Why, did some faery tell you it would raise the dead or something?” Jones glanced at Malachi with a sly smile and Mal rolled his eyes.

  “No,” Lila said, disappointed. “What about this one?” She held out the silver spiral.

  Jones took it the same way and turned it around and around. When she reached the open end and tried to pull it back she found the fine chain it was on firmly back in the centre, which is what always happened. She dropped it with a start and then peered at it again. “I don’t know,” she said, but her brashness had gone, replaced by interest. “I never saw anything like this before.”

  “That’s because you don’t know many fey,” Malachi said, shifting uncomfortably.

  “But the magic worked right here,” Jones said, looking up at him, puzzled. She abruptly swept her ratty dreadlocks out of her face and back over her shoulders. “I mean, some things kind of work here, but in their own place that means…”

  “They’re very powerful. I know,” he said. “I don’t know what it is either, except it must come from before the fall, when we lost the greater magics.”

  Both women looked up at him now, waiting.

  “It was a long time ago, I guess,” he said. “Before human recorded history, well, actually about the same time as the Lascaux cave painters daubed the Wall. Which isn’t unrelated… but that’s off the point. Another brew?”

  They nodded silently and he went to get three more bottles and hand them out, talking all the while.

  “Before the fall Faery had the greatest aetheric power of all the known worlds and the elves and the demons spent most of their time in various plots trying to get more of it for themselves. So we fought with them some. And at the same time human beings were embroiled in their own history, into which they occasio
nally bribed, bought, charmed, won, or were generously given a great deal of our help. After a time it was clear that too much was being lost and misused, so we decided that we would lose the greater magics until a bit later on when things looked more reasonable.”

  “Lose?” Lila repeated.

  “It was better to lose it ourselves than see it plundered and used to create very bad things,” Malachi said. “So we took them and pushed them over the edge. Hence, the fall.”

  “Edge of what?”

  But Jones was nodding slowly, her eyes narrowing with thought, “Over the edge of the world.”

  “Yes, except in Faery it isn’t like a dinner plate with an edge that bleeds off into the Void. Faery has aetheric gravitation. It’s like a black hole in the physical universe. The Void bends into Faery. Anyway, we pushed the magic off the edge and it was lost below, in Under.”

  “So, how were you ever going to get it back?”

  “Ah, it’s like trying to drown pixies, these things pop up when they feel like it,” Malachi said, with a dismissive wave. “My only point is that your necklace there seems to be from around that time. We’d never waste so much force on a charm these days when it’s more peaceful.”

  Lila frowned and thought of the sights in Bathshebat. “But faeries are collecting magic. Isn’t that for… some kind of… ” she suddenly didn’t want to say war.

  “It’s the War Effort,” Malachi surprised her. “Periodically we go out and try to get back what we lost before, and anything new that looks too dangerous.”

  “Why?” Jones said.

  “It’s better we lose it than you use it.”

  “Why didn’t you lose nuclear weapons then?” Lila asked. “If you’re so patronisingly sure that nobody else can be trusted with anything?”

  “They’re physical only, I’m afraid,” the black faery said. “And inanimate to boot. Can’t touch ‘em. As for being so trustworthy, I think a quick glance in a mirror might answer your questions there.” He quirked an eyebrow at her but he was only reflecting her own annoyance.

  “Bit harsh,” Jones said.

  Lila shrugged. “You don’t know anything. That’s okay. It’s fine.”

  “Have you tried taking it off?” Malachi said and mimed lifting something up over his head.

  “No,” she hooked the line with her fingers and pulled. It caught on her chin. She eased it there and it caught on her ear; she lifted it there and it snagged in her hair. Whichever way she moved it it was always just a bit too small to come off.

  She flicked a blade out of one finger…

  “Hold y’er horses!” Jones exclaimed, moving back sharply and almost falling over at the sight.

  …and cut through the thin leather but somehow it wasn’t cut through after the blade had passed.

  Malachi nodded. “It’s old.”

  Lila held the cord, not quite believing it. She didn’t want to cut it one more time and look like some newbie unbeliever, and resolved to try again later, when she was alone. But a chill had gone through her, from heart to the soles of her heavy boots. She dismissed it. Quite ridiculous. Of course it would come off. Later.

  “So, is that the reason I’m here wasting time with you and drinking your expensive headwash?” Jones asked, fixing her ferocious eyes on Malachi, then inclining her head in Lila’s direction, looking at her hand.

  “Did you ever see things like that on your travels?” he asked in response.

  “I hardly seen anything now,” Jones said, leaning back from Lila slightly.

  Lila glanced at Malachi and he gave her a small nod. She decided that if he trusted Jones enough she would too and raised her right arm. She didn’t even have to create an image in her mind’s eye. The changes came as simply to her as opening and closing her fingers.

  “Demon hunting: long range.”

  The near invisible whir and click, the dance of the atoms… from shoulder on down she was missile launcher, empty of ammunition.

  “Close range, honour weapons.”

  Fssss. Blades and something more resembling an arm and hand. Fingers, but not all of them.

  “Sniping.” Rifle.

  “Midrange.” Hand cannon. Pistol set under.

  “Aerial.” Missiles again.

  “Elven.” She got her arm and hand back, plus a longbow that almost speared the top of the tent.

  “Can you do anything that’s not a weapon?” Jones asked as Lila sat back.

  Lila felt tired, slightly greasy. “Joke things.” Bottle opener. Lighter. Torch. Fan.

  “And do ya ever get tired?”

  Lila frowned, not understanding where this was going. “No.”

  Jones sat back and pushed her drink aside half finished. She scowled and rocked a little, then said, “You know how hard it is to do that kind of thing in physical space…” It was a leading statement, half a question.

  “It’s not possible by any known forces in physical space-time at this scale,” Lila said.

  “And it’s not easy in the aetherical expansions either. Almost instantaneous transmutation. Is there a mass loss and gain?”

  “Yes,” Lila said, easily answering because the differing weights of things was so obvious.

  “But no changes of element?”

  “Maybe the metals…”

  “I mean you can’t make a bunch of flowers.”

  “No.”

  Jones stood up. “I’m gonna head out now,” she said and the long tendrils of her wild hair started to rise and glow.

  “Just hang on a minute,” Malachi said, reaching out towards her. “We had a deal.”

  “I came here and talked,” she retorted. Her forehead suddenly looked extremely pale and shiny in the dim light. “If it wasn’t what you wanna hear, that’s not my problem.”

  “You’re holding out on me,” Mal’s eyes became long slits of vicious red. Lila was startled, she’d never seen him so obviously angry. “I can see just by your face that you know something.”

  “Well take a good look, faery, because that’s as close to my knowledge as you’re gonna get.” She hesitated at the end of this line and reassessed their faces, like a little girl facing her parent suddenly wondering if a furious statement she’s made has gone too far. She held out her hands in the air and made defensive actions, her tone easing but speeding into a jabber, “Okay, the stone amulet I really don’t know but I guess it’s a faery thing from the old time. The spiral is clearly… well, I hardly need to tell you what it is. You don’t want to know or you’d already see it, I mean, every faery has to know. And as for the other stuff, that technology whatever, I’ll tell you this much. Just let it alone. It works, you live, you’re fine, you let it alone. Don’t go trying to find who made it or why or all that stupid orphan shit. You don’t wanna know where that came from and I am doing you such a huge favour by telling you nothing more about it that you should stick the end of the rainbow right in my pocket.” She whacked the side of her old coat where it hung empty and turned to Lila. “Really. I wish I had better news. You’re Zal’s girl, huh? You two have some interesting friends. Did Malachi tell you all about the Sisters?” She flashed Malachi a wicked stare. “No? You do surprise me. Well trust me on this one, it’s really better you stop now than go looking for those kinds of trouble. Seeya. Wouldn’ wanna be ya.” There was a snap and a smell of ozone and she was gone.

  Lila looked across a small sea of empty bottles at Malachi. “She was really scared.”

  He nodded, his mouth turned down. “That’s not good.”

  She saw his eyes moving side to side, looking down, thinking hard.

  “She must have seen the technology from I-space,” Lila said. “Somewhere out there, wherever she spends her time looking.”

  “Maybe, but you know, maybe not. Things brim up all the time, stuff washing up and down the beach of reality, then washing out.”

  Lila stood up decisively. “I have to ask her again, get her to show me.”

  “Sit down,” Malachi s
aid, soothingly.

  Lila looked at him with determination and anger.

  “Sit. Down.” He was authoritative this time, no sympathy in him. Then he added more softly, “No need to go running off yet. Whatever else she is, she’s not lying about the key. My guess is what scares her keeps her honest and she ain’t lying about the rest either. In which case you and me need to sit and talk just a bit longer. We need plans and we need to get our stories straight.”

  Lila sat down but didn’t let him off. She kept a tough look focused right on him.

  He sighed, and his shoulders sagged briefly. His voice became calm and very quiet. “I guessed that your necklace there might be the key, but then I thought it was too unlikely. Anyway, we can close the case on that one. There’s many an old demigod in Faery would give anything to have their hands on that, so you’ll carry it, and hide it, and we won’t speak of it ever again. At least not till we have to. Not till we… need it.” He matched her stare. His gaze entreated her not to argue.

  “Key to what?”

  He sighed and the invisible burden on his back grew even larger. “To Under.”

  She was so surprised and dismayed by the revelation that she agreed with him on the secrecy, even if she disliked the notion that this object had chosen her, or she had been chosen for it—possibly by Viridia and Poppy of all people. She wouldn’t have trusted them to give her street directions. It was a mistake or something. Perhaps they meant to lose it. But anyway, she nodded understanding and meant to keep her promise. Malachi had done a lot for her today.

  Inside her Tath’s slow, regular spin stalled.

  “I don’t like the direction any of this is taking,” Malachi said, twirling his bottle in his fingers. With a little flick he made the whole thing disappear behind his hand and then reappear again. It was a sleight, she was sure of it, but a damn good one. He mused for a moment, repeating his trick. “Do you trust the others? Which, I realise, seems to indicate that I don’t. I wish I could deny that but I can’t entirely. I don’t know Teazle. And where’s the other creature?”