Feersum Endjinn

by Iain M. Banks

  ‘Asura,’ she said, nodding. ‘And you?’

  ‘Hortis,’ he said. He turned and looked around and behind him. ‘I thought I was alone here. They don’t usually . . .’ his voice trailed off as he looked back at her, eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘What do you want here?’ he asked her.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘They all want something,’ he said, sounding bitter. ‘You must, too. What is it?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what I want,’ she admitted. ‘I wanted to be here, and I’m here.’ She thought. ‘I can’t go anywhere else. They keep trying to make me answer questions. Apart from—’

  ‘And you’re not ill or sick or needing to be rescued?’ he asked, a sneer on his face.

  ‘No,’ she told him, puzzled. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Only from this nonsense,’ he said, not looking at her, but checking the angle of the claw-oars. He levered them back and flicked them down into the ice. ‘Tell them nice try; at least they’re getting more subtle.’ He pulled on the claw-oars and the A-shaped frame rumbled off across the ice, gaining speed with each sweep of the oars the man made.

  She hesitated, then set off after him, skating smoothly in his wake. He looked annoyed. He lengthened his stroke, trying to outdistance her, but she kept up with him. She loved the feel of the ice under the blades on her feet and the cold air on her face. Warmth spread from her legs as she pushed after the man in his strange, spindly craft. He was pulling quite hard now and she was struggling to keep up, but he didn’t look comfortable with the pace he’d set either. His face grew more angry-looking.

  She wanted to laugh, but did not.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ she asked him.

  She thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, ‘Too damn long.’ He gave one explosive sigh and settled back to a more steady rowing rhythm, seemingly giving up his attempt to pull away from her.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours,’ he said, smiling humourlessly, and shook his head as he watched his claw-oars flick and bite.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ she asked patiently.

  Again, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. It looked like he was thinking hard. Finally he said - suddenly looking straight at her - ‘The tower.’

  She ceased to push after him and glided on for some time, skates parallel, then felt herself brake gently. The man had stopped rowing, though his own momentum was still drawing him further away over the ice from her. He was frowning.

  She came to a stop.

  ‘The tower,’ she whispered to herself.

  The man who had called himself Hortis slowed and stopped the fragile-looking ice-boat, some distance off. He was looking at her strangely, his head tipped to one side. Then he angled one oar behind him and the other in front and pulled them together to turn the craft and come back to her.

  The small craft rumbled a length past her and stopped. He shipped the claw-oars, leaning forward and looking intently at her. He gazed at her for a while, then appeared to come to a decision.

  ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ve been in here too long, or maybe I just can’t resist a pretty face, but I suppose it can’t do any harm.’ He gave a small smile. ‘I was one of a small group of scientists and mathematicians who opposed the Consistory. We believed their desire to hold on to power had entirely superseded any duty to govern for the general good; our conspiracy - which had started at university and never really been more than a secret club - became more serious when the Encroachment was discovered and we began to suspect that the Consistory - with the King as its puppet - was doing less than it might to find a solution to the emergency.

  ‘We pursued many different courses. We tried to contact the Cryptosphere’s chaotic levels, believing that at least part of the so-called chaos was in fact an AI nexus at odds with the Consistory’s philosophy. We set up secret transmitters in an attempt to contact the deep-space monitoring system the Diaspora was supposed to have left in watch over us, and we tried to elicit some sort of response from the fast-tower, where rumours had it that either an uncorrupted crypt core existed, or, again, elements remained which were still in touch with the Diaspora.

  ‘A couple of days ago, in base-time, we apparently received a signal from the heights of the fast-tower. It was . . . couched in slightly eccentric terms, but appeared to be genuine.

  ‘The signal confirmed some of our suspicions concerning the Consistory’s lack of sincerity in finding a way to defeat the Encroachment. It did not seem to indicate that it was in touch with whatever remains of our space-going ancestors, though it did talk of some system left behind by the Diaspora which might ensure the survival of all of us. The message - or at least its ramifications - led . . .’ the man sighed, and looked sad, ‘to our conspiracy being betrayed and me ending up here, and,’ he said, looking straight into her eyes, ‘it talked of another part of the crypt, some uncorrupted section which contained the key to the Diaspora-donated survival system. This key would be sent here, to Serehfa, and it would come in the form of something called an asura ...’ - he smiled, and in that smile she saw a kind of sadness, some defensive cynicism, and an unspoken hope - ‘. . . Asura,’ he finished. He shrugged. ‘Your turn.’

  She looked down at him, while inside her mind what felt like great slabs of ice slipped and slotted, colliding, joining, fusing and interconnecting.

  She took a deep breath.

  2

  ‘Chief Scientist Gadfia?’

  The voice had come from the scrawny-necked bird squatting on the shoulders of the ape-human who in turn sat behind the head of the chimeric mammoth. The ape-human glared down at her, grinning inanely. The other mammoths to either side shuffled a little in the darkness, pale human faces looking down from each of them as well. She gulped. ‘Well, sort of,’ she said.

  —Hello? she said, inside, trying to find her own voice, but within was only silence.

  ‘All praise,’ the bird said, its voice echoing in the complex of hidden tunnels and galleries around them. The creature hopped to and fro from one foot to the other. ‘Love is god. Well met by darkness, truth-seeker Gadfia. For darkness gives birth to light. All here are hallowed, hallowed in hollow, the hollowness that supports, the centre that is the absence that gives strength, the hollow darkness that underlies supporting light, seeker-after-illumination Gadfia. Please (Hiddier: trunk!); come with us. There is work to do.’

  The mammoth extended its trunk towards her; a giant, tapered hairy snake with a naked, glistening double orifice at the end from which a damp, subtly fetid gust of air issued.

  She stared.

  —Back.

  —Thank goodness. Where did you—?

  —I was snooping where I shouldn’t have been and I was almost caught by Security. Cut me off for a while.

  —Good grief. Do you know where—?

  —You’re riding through vast dark dripping tunnels on the back of a chimeric mammoth with a dumb, naked and deformed semi-human and a lammergeier that talks like some ancient preacher and reminds you of the message from the fast-tower.

  —Correct. And I can’t get sense out of anybody. The bird spouts religious balderdash and the humanoid just grins, hoots and dribbles. I was thinking of asking the mammoth what was going on next.

  —At least you went with them.

  —Did I have a choice?

  —I suppose you forgot about the gun.

  —Oh.

  —It doesn’t matter. You did the right thing. Never mind; guess who I’ve been talking to.

  —Surprise me.

  —The fast-tower.

  —What?

  —Well, an emissary thereof; it can’t get back in touch with the tower for fear of chaotic contamination, but it represents it.

  —How? Where? What’s—?

  —The representation just appeared in the crypt; an old white man with white hair and flowing white robes. The thing prolifer
ated illegally - set off system crashes everywhere; everybody thought it was some vast attack from the chaos until they found how easy it was to trap and kill; I don’t think the tower is very good with humans. Anyway, the copies all started trying to talk to anybody who’d listen. The Cryptographers mopped most of them up and they’re tracking down the others but I was able to find one of the copies and quiz it.

  —And?

  —There is an asura and it’s here, it’s in Serehfa, it’s on its way, but it’s being held up. The tower seems pretty confused itself about who and what it is, but it believes it’s here somewhere and it needs help.

  —Are you sure this isn’t some Security or Cryptographers’ trick?

  —Fairly. There is another aspect to all this.

  —What?

  —We have an ally.

  —Who?

  —Myself, ma’am, said another voice, a male voice, in her head, startling her. - How do you do.

  —Oh. Hello, she thought, and felt flustered. Who are you?

  —Call me Alan. Pleased to meet you, madam Chief Scientist, though in fact we have met before, in a sense. Whatever; I dare say we shall communicate again.

  —Ah, right, yes, she thought, still not sure how to respond.

  —That was him, said her own voice again.

  —I guessed that, but who—?

  —Another planētēs, Gadfium, another wanderer in the system, though this one’s been here a lot longer than I. He’s kind of cagey about revealing who he really is but I get the impression his human original was pretty powerful and important. His current self is extremely well informed and knows his way about the crypt better than the Cryptographers. It would seem he came to the same conclusion the tower did about the efficacy of using chimeric agents rather than humans to slip past Security.

  —I hate to sound a note of caution again, but—

  —No, I don’t think he’s a plant for Security. He found me, lurking around where they’re holding the asura. If it hadn’t been for him Security would have got me.

  —So you think.

  —I know. Look, it was he who put me on to the chimerics you’re with.

  Gadfium looked at the back of the half-human thing in front of her. It was dark and matted and she suspected if the light had been better she’d have seen things crawling in the creature’s hair. The giant bird which had been perched on the thing’s shoulders had flown off down the black tunnel, cackling. Below her, the mammoth swayed from side to side with a surprisingly rapid motion as it led the twenty-strong herd down the huge tunnel. The other humanoids riding, legs clenched behind the heads of the mammoths, grinned widely and made excited fist-clenching gestures at her when she turned to look at them.

  Gadfium scratched and tried not to think how far down the ground was.

  —Well, tell him thanks for that, I think, she told her crypt self. But where exactly are we going and what precisely are we supposed to do?

  —You’re the cavalry; we’re riding to the rescue, Gadfium! her other self said, excited.

  —I thought I was the one needing to be rescued.

  —Well, you’ve become the rescuer, Gad. We’re going to free the asura.

  —We’re what?

  —You’re on your way to Oubliette, the sea-port under the fastness. That’s where Security are holding the asura. Alan and I can do most of it, but physically, to rescue the girl, we may need you. And the chimerics, of course. The mammoths and the semi-humans seem to be under the influence of our friend, the lammergeier ... Well, I’m still trying to work it out. Could be connected with the tower.’

  Gadfium couldn’t think what to say for a while. She stared into the darkness ahead, where she could just make out the heat signature of the returning lammergeier. She imagined the dark, buried city of Oubliette coming closer ahead, and herself riding with a preaching bird, twenty cretinous semi-humans and as many house-high mammoths to do battle with the elite of Security and probably the Cryptographers too.

  The scaly-necked bird flapped and settled on the broad hairy shoulders of the creature ahead of her.

  ‘Have faith in the nothing,’ it said in a quiet screech. ‘Faith is the eye that sees nothing and rejoices in it. Unknowingness absolves the future path of danger. The eye sees, sees nothing, and so has faith. Fair set, all are hallowed. Shanti.’

  Gadfium shook her head and looked down at the matted fur of the huge animal she bestrode, feeling its damp, rank heat welling up around her like doubt.

  - Are we both mad? she asked her crypt self, - Or is it just you?

  3

  The angel was tall and sleek and sensually asexual; its eyes and hair were gold, its skin shone like liquid bronze. Its clothes were confined to a loincloth and a small waistcoat. Its wings varied from the coppery tint of its body at their roots through every shade of blue to white at the very tips of the feathers. It flew with an elegant effortlessness and landed lightly in front of him.

  He had stopped laughing, not wanting to appear impolite.

  The angel bowed slowly and deeply to him.

  When it spoke its voice was like something beyond music, each phoneme, syllable and word at once utterly clear and yet setting off a symphony of tones which fanned instantly out from the primary expression like an avalanche down a pristine slope.

  ‘Welcome, sir. You have travelled a long way to be here with us at last.’

  He nodded. ‘Thank you. Had we met during any other day of my journey I would have greeted you somewhat better dressed.’

  The angel smiled, but did not look at his nakedness. ‘Please, sir,’ it said, and like a conjurer flourished one hand, and was suddenly holding a large black cape, which it held out to him.

  ‘I’m grateful for the gesture,’ he said, not taking the cape. ‘But if its utility is restricted to saving my blushes, I’d prefer to remain as I am.’

  ‘As you wish,’ the angel said, and the cape was gone.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Did I misinterpret something, or was I summoned here?’

  ‘You were, sir. We would ask something of you.’

  ‘Who is this “we”?’

  ‘A one-time part of the data corpus charged with overseeing the functioning of the rest, and with the monitoring of our world’s welfare.’

  ‘No small brief. And your current intentions?’

  ‘We will attempt to contact a system set up long ago which may help deliver us from what has been called the Encroachment.’

  ‘And how exactly is it supposed to do that?’

  The angel smiled dazzlingly. ‘We have no idea.’

  He could not help but smile too. ‘And what part may I play?’

  The angel lowered its head, its gaze still fastened on him. ‘You can give us your soul, Alandre,’ it said, and Sessine felt something quail within him.

  ‘What?’ he said, crossing his arms. ‘Aren’t we being rather metaphysical?’

  ‘It is the most meaningful way to express what we’d ask of you.’

  ‘My soul,’ he said, hoping he sounded sceptical.

  The angel nodded slowly. ‘Yes; the essence of who you are. If you are to help us you must surrender that.’

  ‘Such things may be copied.’

  ‘They may. But is that what you want?’

  He looked into the angel’s eyes for some time. He sighed. ‘Will I still be me?’

  The angel shook its head. ‘No.’

  ‘Then whom?’

  ‘What will exist is what we create from you, and with you.’ The angel shrugged; a magnificent and beautiful flutter of shoulders and wings. ‘Another person, with aspects of yourself within them, and more you than anybody else, but not you.’

  ‘But will something of me remain that will remember this, and my time here, and who I was, and so know what became of me from this point, and whether I ... did any good?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You can put it no more strongly than that?’

  ‘I cannot. Partly, that aspect would d
epend on you, but I’d lie if I told you the chances are good.’

  ‘And if I refuse to help you?’

  ‘Then you may walk away. We can furnish you with items to replace those you lost in the water and you may resume your travels. On your funeral, in another fifty or so years of crypt-time, I assume you will have the usual courtesies accorded you and so take your place within the Cryptosphere. Twenty thousand years of crypt-time await even before the Encroachment is complete; there will be far, far longer than that before matters become desperate in the physical world.’

  He felt he had to insist, even though he listened to himself speak and felt ashamed: ‘There is a chance of some continuity though; some element of me might survive which will remember this and know the connection, know what I did?’

  ‘Indeed,’ the angel said, with what was almost a bow. ‘A chance.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Oh well, it’s been a long life.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘Lives.’ He smiled at the angel, but it looked sad.

  Strangely, he felt sad for it, too. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Come with me,’ the angel said, and was suddenly a small dark-haired, white-skinned man dapperly dressed in a three-piece suit and carrying a hat, cane and gloves. He flourished the hand holding his pair of spotless white gloves, indicating the path back through the garden.

  Sessine went with him, walking side by side along the path to where a rotunda set on a small hill was revolving slowly and rising; its revealed base was in the shape of a huge cylindrical screw, and gradually an aperture came into view, rotating with the rotunda, its full size being revealed after a few more revolutions.

  They climbed the path to the now motionless rotunda. The doorway faced them. It was dark at first, then it began to glow with a warm orange-yellow light, like side-lit fog.

  ‘Merely enter, and you will have done all we ask of you. If you carry something of your being through what awaits here, you may do what you ask of yourself.’

  He took a step forward. The doorway shone like hazy sunlight. He smelled the sea again. He hesitated and turned to the little man who had been in the form of an angel.