Stone Clock

by Andrew Bannister

  There was a noisy flapping behind him. He sighed, as quietly as he could, and turned to face the angry bundle of feathers that flapped at head height.

  ‘Hello,’ he told it.

  ‘You vandal!’ It was a furious screech. ‘Do you know what that was?’

  ‘Three metal spheres joined by a sort of web. So?’

  ‘Three spheres? Spheres? It was an antique, you lunatic. It was the giro hub from a Glass Freighter, it was a million years old, and you just dropped it into the core of a planet that’s going to fall apart in a couple of years?’

  Skarbo nodded. ‘So what would have happened to it when the planet did fall apart?’

  ‘I’d have saved it!’

  ‘I doubt it.’ He shook his head. ‘Face it, bird. This planet’s over, with all its ridiculous antiques, and so are you and so, goodness knows, am I.’

  The creature narrowed its eyes. ‘I am not a bird.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  He watched the creature that was sure it wasn’t a bird flap away across the parapet towards the darkness of the outer Burrow. Just outside the entrance it wheeled round and hovered.

  ‘Forgot; you’ve got a visitor.’

  ‘Really?’ Skarbo felt a stab of unease. Visitors were rare; he’d prefer it if they didn’t exist. ‘Who?’

  ‘How should I know? Biped. Talks. What else do you need?’

  He bit back his first response. ‘Where is it waiting?’

  ‘The Machine Room. I said you wouldn’t mind.’ It flapped forwards and regarded him with its head on one side. ‘Problem?’

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  ‘Oh well. Better go then! Good luck, insect.’ It wheeled round in a noisy bundle of wings and flew off, muttering to itself.

  Skarbo watched it go and then forgot about it. He was trying not to panic.

  The Machine Room was his. More: in some ways, it was him. Had been so for most of his lives, as The Bird knew perfectly well. And now someone else was in it, for the first time in all those hundreds of years.

  He gave in to the panic and ran. The Machine Room? Why had the bloody bird told whoever it was to wait there?

  Most planets were called what they were because they always had been, or because the name commemorated some glorious conqueror or other.

  Experiment had neither of those problems, but it did have others.

  It had been an ordinary-looking little planet, one of only two orbiting a middle-sized star that was far enough from anywhere pleasant to have been left alone for a very long time.

  Then a survey ship had wandered past, done a few cursory surface assays, and stopped dead while it checked the results. There was no doubt: the planet’s crust contained as much heavy metals as a hundred ordinary planets put together, all the way from lead to uranium and beyond.

  It was an unprecedented find. It was also rather embarrassing; the ship was not only off its official course, but actually outside the formal territory of its parent civilization.

  The ship and her crew had consulted, a little guiltily. They had considered contacting the home planet but decided against it because such signals might be noticed and tracked. In the end they opted, in effect, to bank the find. They seeded the planet with a slow-acting mining fungus that would digest the crust over a period of a few centuries, concentrating the metals in its mass and making them easy to recover in a quick fly-by grab. Then they wandered off, looking as casual as possible.

  After all, they reasoned, metals were still going to be useful in half a millennium.

  It would have worked, except that some of that uranium was just sufficiently concentrated for it to start its own chain reaction – an irregular little blob of a natural geo-reactor puttering along at about a hundred kilowatts thermal, and giving off lots of interesting particles, rays and fission products.

  The radiation-tender genes of the mining fungus had gone wild, zipping through a few million years’ worth of mutations in a single decade.

  It changed, and changed, and changed.

  Then it ate the planet.

  In an orgy lasting little more than a century it bred and bored and powdered its way through the whole of the crust and deep into the mantle, converting the metal-rich rocks into vast fruiting bodies that made the planet look from space as if it had broken out in warts.

  Then it died, and followed what was left of its original genetic design by turning into a rich and conveniently processed metallic dust.

  It took almost a thousand years for a specially formed corporation of local enterprises to harvest the planet. When they had finished, it had lost its warts and looked instead like a dried-up worm-ravaged fruit, scarred across by mantle-deep cracks floored with coughing lava vents. The fungus had been random in its attentions, leaving everything from vast collapse-prone caverns to areas of rock that looked undisturbed, but were actually bored out on a microscopic scale so they were as fragile as rotten paper.

  Slowly, but faster as the years ran short, they too were collapsing to dust.

  And the years were running short indeed. In more than one way, and in more than one place.

  ‘So, tell me about these machines.’ The being calling itself Hemfrets waved an arm round the room.

  Skarbo suppressed the urge to throw himself between the arm and the mechanism it had almost hit. He breathed out carefully. ‘They are all clocks. That is, they are all representations of the same clock …’

  ‘Which you continue to call a clock. Everyone else calls it the Spin.’

  Patience. Patience … ‘I know that. I acknowledge the name, but that is all it is – a name. Names may mean anything and nothing. “Clock” is a description of a thing, and this thing is a clock, no matter what else it may be. Its orbits, its geometry, are neither natural nor accidental. I believe that one of its functions may be to keep time.’

  Hemfrets nodded. ‘And you made these – representations.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And so they call you Skarbo the Horologist.’ Hemfrets wandered over to a low pedestal and leaned down to inspect the thing that was suspended above it. ‘You made even this?’

  ‘Yes. That’s one of the oldest. It’s more schematic than accurate.’

  ‘I’d never know.’ Hemfrets leaned in closer. ‘How many planets did you say?’

  ‘Eighty-eight permanent planetary bodies and five visitors, in four concentric shells. This model doesn’t show the visitors.’

  ‘And twenty-one suns. It’s beautiful. Very fine … What are they made of?’

  Skarbo pointed. ‘The inner-shell planets are hollow invar. The second, titanium with a filling of bromine, pressurized to a solid. The third, solid copper–tungsten alloy; and the fourth are gold.’

  ‘What holds them together?’

  ‘For this one, strings of woven carbyne threads. The suns are various gems. Diamond, sapphire. That one there,’ and his finger hovered above a small sparkling blue-green sphere, ‘is artificial trichroic tanzanite. It changes colour when you move.’ He added apologetically, ‘That one had to be imported.’

  Hemfrets nodded. Then it – Skarbo was always bad at gender – straightened up and stared. ‘Wait. Are you saying that everything else didn’t?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘But the planet was mined out!’ Hemfrets waved round the cavern as if presenting evidence.

  Skarbo was beginning to regret the conversation. ‘Yes, on the gross scale. But the fungus preferred low concentrations; it tended to ignore pure seams and intrusive veins. I think they were too rich for it.’

  ‘Too rich … So there’s resource left here?’

  Skarbo said nothing. Hemfrets gazed at him for a moment, then shook its head. ‘We live and learn … but, well, to live we must eat. I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of checking your metabolism. Despite appearances we are surprisingly compatible, you and I – but then you seem to be compatible with almost anything. Was that deliberate?’

  ‘Yes.’
/>
  ‘Fascinating. Well, forgive my presumption but I have had food brought into the next chamber. Will you join me?’

  Skarbo nodded, and followed the beckoning limb – presumably a hand – towards what he would have sworn was his private laboratory.

  Even if Hemfrets had been his only visitor, the laboratory somehow felt less private – there was something entitled about Hemfrets – but there was the other visitor, the one Hemfrets had airily referred to as ‘my Companion’.

  Skarbo didn’t like the Companion.

  Skarbo didn’t really like anyone, of course. He was quite content with that self-knowledge. Why else had he spent nearly nine lifetimes tucked away on this crumbling shell of a planet with most of his attention focused on a stellar artefact so far away that to visit it on any affordable ship would take another lifetime?

  The Bird didn’t really count as ‘anyone’. There were always exceptions. And he enjoyed having something to annoy.

  But he really, truly did not like the Companion, for what he suspected were far better reasons.

  It looked like something he would dearly like to throw over the Edge.

  Happily, the Companion had absented itself while they ate. Skarbo preferred not to think about what it might be up to. Besides, he was finding Hemfrets more engaging than he had suspected.

  His guest was an androgynous biped, a full head shorter than human average. It was dressed in a short, lightweight-looking jacket made of matt dark grey material, and a narrow wrap of the same material that covered it from waist to floor. The jacket was open, showing hairless, uniformly ochre-coloured skin. There were no secondary sex characteristics Skarbo could see, without being intrusive.

  At least it had an interesting title: Regional Representative of the Crown Nebula (‘The Blade is Hidden’ faction). Skarbo had never heard of either the Crown Nebula or any factions. Few news channels reached Experiment and he didn’t bother consulting them, so his knowledge of sector politics was very slight, and Hemfrets didn’t seem inclined to explain.

  Something demanded his attention. He focused on Hemfrets. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I asked if it was truly a clock?’

  Skarbo shook his head carefully. ‘That is just my shorthand for it. It functions as one.’

  ‘By what definition?’

  ‘A clock is an instrument for measuring and recording time, especially by mechanical means.’ He shrugged. ‘It does that, beyond any doubt. What else it does, I don’t know.’

  ‘I believe there is the small matter of people living on it … But if it does that, why do you need the machines?’

  ‘They are models. Means of analysis.’ He struggled. ‘People have always thought the clock to be inexplicable. I sought to explain it.’

  ‘And you succeeded, I believe. I have been shown your paper. On modelling the predictable effects of multiple internal perturbations on the long-term periodicity of the object known as the Spin. I was told it was a seminal work. I barely understood the title, I’m afraid.’ Hemfrets studied the platter in front of it, reached out and selected a morsel which wriggled briefly between its fingers. Then it looked up, and its eyes were sharp. ‘But that was two hundred years ago.’

  ‘Yes. I used my calculations to produce the best models yet. I thought I had succeeded.’ Skarbo sighed and stood up, with a little difficulty. ‘Come with me. I’ll show you.’

  He walked unsteadily back into the Machine Room. He didn’t look back to check if Hemfrets was following – he already had the impression that the creature was hard to shake off – and when he reached the end of the room and turned round, there it was, wearing an attentive expression. One with a hint of patience. ‘You were going to show me something?’

  Skarbo nodded. ‘It’s not in here,’ he said. He swiped a hand over the wall and it opened. He made to go through, then hesitated. ‘You are the first to see this. The Bird, the Janitors – they’re all excluded.’

  ‘Ah. So why do you honour me with it?’

  Skarbo had been wondering that. He didn’t have the slightest doubt, but equally he didn’t know where the idea had come from.

  Eventually he said, ‘I receive few visitors. I will receive no more. My work is mature. And, as you probably know, my lives are almost over.’

  ‘So you have decided to share your inner sanctum? It must be very precious to you.’ Hemfrets laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘If it helps you, I give you my promise that I will never breathe a word about what lies beyond this door.’

  Still Skarbo hesitated. ‘Nor write one?’

  Hemfrets tightened the grip on his shoulder. ‘Nor write, nor post, nor leave a glyph for my lawyers, nor whisper to a lover. I’ll keep the secret, Skarbo, and more than that, I’ll personally answer for every atom of the place. Is that enough for you?’

  Skarbo nodded slowly, and stepped through the opening. He watched until he was sure Hemfrets had followed him, and made the signal that closed it. It took most of the light with it.

  Then he waited.

  Hemfrets obviously had good night vision. It only took ten seconds.

  ‘Ah …’

  Skarbo nodded. ‘You see it?’

  ‘Yes. You made this too?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘How long did it take?’

  ‘A hundred years. A little more. And fifty before that for the enclosure.’

  In the dim false starlight he saw Hemfrets turning towards him. It raised an arm, stood for a moment with the limb upraised as if unsure what to do next, and let it fall. Skarbo thought he could make out a shaken head.

  ‘That is an astonishing feat.’

  Skarbo shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

  They both turned back to watch. Skarbo found himself wondering what it looked like through the eyes of another; eyes that worked differently from his own. Eyes that were seeing it for the first time.

  There was no theatre. Skarbo had decided that early. No exotic materials; he had got that out of his system, which was probably a sign (and about time, eight lives in) of being grown-up. The planets were made from a proper analogue of planet-stuff. Iron–uranium cores, silicate-slush mantles, rocks. He had only cheated as much as was needed to get the relative densities right.

  The stars were not proper star-stuff because that wouldn’t have worked, but they were correct as to relative mass and size. The twinkle had taken years to perfect; in the end he had settled on a bundle of phosphorescent nuclear reactions helped on their way by doses of high-energy particles fired at them by carefully programmed guns.

  And that, of course, was less than the half of it. Far less.

  But it looked realistic. He turned to Hemfrets, who was staring at the beautiful fake. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘I think it’s rather beyond my likes and dislikes. Beyond anyone’s, perhaps.’ Hemfrets pulled its attention from the sight with a visible wrench. ‘There’s a story here.’

  ‘Not really. I just wanted to get the model right.’

  ‘Just …’ Hemfrets shook its head. ‘What scale is it?’

  ‘One to ten billion. It is a mechanically accurate model in an evacuated chamber. Air resistance would interfere with the accuracy, you see. I would have preferred bigger.’

  ‘I’m sure. But if it did the job …’

  Skarbo looked at the creature, then looked away. ‘It didn’t,’ he said.

  ‘No? And you still tell me there is no story?’ Hemfrets watched him for a while, until he felt his face warming.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he muttered.

  ‘Then tell me.’ Hemfrets put an arm round his shoulder. ‘But not here. I am too overawed by your achievement – even if it isn’t quite the achievement you wanted.’

  Skarbo let himself be steered back through the Machine Room. There was a long raised viewing platform at one end of it, with padded bench seats running down its middle. If you sat one way you looked out over the Machine Room. Look the other way and you were faced with the even bigger space that was the top end of the Gr
eat Vent – the path of one of the larger magmatic excursions that had resulted from the phase of excitable vulcanism caused by the fungus. It was about a hundred metres across, and its magma-gouged walls were striated and polished and squashed and carved into abstract shapes and caves and buttresses. Nearly opposite the Machine Room some inexorable eddy in the molten rock had drilled out a wide, shallow gouge with glassily polished walls. If you stood in exactly the right place, a flat, dry version of your voice came back to you just under a second after you spoke – but the place had to be exact to the millimetre and Skarbo had never bothered marking it. These days, it took him hours to find it. He had put the viewing platform in several lifetimes ago, before he had noticed the echo. It had been at the suggestion of The Bird, he could remember that, but he had forgotten why he would ever have agreed. His present self thought it was a stupid idea.

  Hemfrets seated itself facing the Vent and looked around. ‘This is spectacular, too. This is a world of astonishments, Skarbo. I begin to see the attraction … but this is a work of nature rather than craft; I’m less overawed. So, tell me.’

  ‘Tell. Yes.’ Skarbo walked over to the edge of the Vent, and turned round. ‘I have never told. Not even to The Bird … do you still promise?’

  ‘Even more. Frankly, you have me enthralled. I would promise anything.’

  ‘Very well. That model doesn’t just reflect the present. It provides the time codes for a potentially infinite series of virtual models, stored in a separate matrix. It is like an engineering standard. A pattern, you see?’

  ‘In a way. But you already have the ultimate standard, because you have the object itself. Why do you need another?’

  ‘For proof. You see, all my earlier models were approximations. Each one better than the last, but still … approximations. And so I wasn’t surprised when they deviated from the real thing.’ He paused. ‘But I was intrigued, you see, because they all deviated in the same direction. I began to wonder. I wondered for five hundred years.’

  Hemfrets stared. ‘My goodness. And then you invested another hundred and fifty in the new model. You are nothing if not deliberate.’