‘But you and she?’
‘Sure. Me and she. No change.’ She watched him. ‘Is that a problem?’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Good. So, any intention of helping her out?’
‘If I’m asked.’
She stared at him for a moment. Then her face darkened and her lips compressed. ‘Oh, get over yourself. This is not about you!’
He shook his head. ‘When did I say it was?’
‘Well, you never behave as if it wasn’t. Look, I haven’t got time for this. You can add up as well as anyone here, so you know we have a major problem. One that could put us out of this business and right off this planet, Zeb.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘So? Get involved with it!’
‘In what way am I not? I helped out today, didn’t I?’ Then he shrugged. ‘Oh, don’t bother. This is about vrealities, isn’t it?’
Shol looked away, pointing her gaze at the lightshow that was the Skylid. Strobing colours flicked across her face. ‘A bit. Aish thinks that’s more of a symptom than a cause. That you’re disengaged; maybe even depressed.’ She turned back to him and rested a hand on his arm. ‘You’d hardly be the first person in history to retreat to the virtual spaces to get away from the problems of the real one.’
‘Well, thanks.’ It was getting colder; he pulled away from her hand and wrapped his arms round his chest.
She took a breath, began to speak, stopped, and tried again. ‘What is it, in there?’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t explain.’
‘You need to. Look, people say you have a problem. That you’re addicted. Zeb? I think they’re right. People get addicted to vrealities just like they get addicted to anything else.’
The word stung. He waved a hand to bat it away. ‘You’re wrong, but even if you’re right, so what? Where’s the harm?’
‘Ask Aish. Remember her? You used to be lovers.’
‘Fuck you, Shol. We didn’t split up because I went into the vrealities. It was the other way round. Things were bad between us, and I needed somewhere to go.’
‘That’s not what she says.’
‘No shit.’
They were silent for a moment. The tight ball in Zeb’s stomach was mostly anger, he told himself. Because there was no way it was going to be guilt.
Then Shol looked down at her hands. ‘I can’t protect you if you won’t open up.’
‘Protect me from who?’
‘Everyone else. Zeb? How can you be so, so dumb?’
‘I don’t understand. I thought Aish was on side.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘Aish is on side, just. But it’s getting to the point where it doesn’t matter if she’s on side or not. And I’m getting to the point where I don’t care enough about whatever it is you’ve got going on in there that I’m ready to see you drag her down. Get this: I care more about Aish than I do about this Collective, and believe me, right now I care a fucking sight more about this Collective than I do about you. So give!’
‘Okay!’ He realized he had shouted, and forced himself to pause, to breathe. At least to act calm, while he found the words.
She was watching him with waiting eyes. He sighed. ‘Right. First, tell me this: when did you last visit a vreality?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Months ago. Why?’
‘Humour me. Which was it?’
‘Some gaming deck. You know? Some R ’n’ R. I was in there a week, v-time.’ Her expression hardened. ‘I was back in ten minutes local.’
‘Yeah. Same as everyone.’
‘Everyone except you.’
He shook his head, ignoring the implied criticism. ‘That’s it. Drop in to the top level, fool around, game a little, maybe fulfil a few fantasies, and bounce out. That’s all we do.’
‘Sure it is. What else should we do?’ Then she bit her lip. ‘Oh, man … tell me you don’t go into the full sim. Zeb?’
He said nothing.
‘That’s not our world, Zeb. You go right in, don’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Shit.’ She looked down, and spoke at her feet. ‘Why?’
‘Why not? There’s no law.’
‘Oh, sure, and that makes it fine? It’s just so, so … intrusive. Just wrong.’
They were both silent for a while. Then Zeb sat up straight. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what would be wrong. A few lousy million of us, out here, burning up the last of our little lives feeding the servers and scratching a miserable living out of the bits of the planet that ever see the sun; half the planets in the Spin mined out or sucked dry, the other half fighting each other to death, actually killing stars for energy just so they can have another stupid war over the bones of some moon; the Cluster sitting up there counting their money and grinning their fat asses off – all for people who outnumber us a billion to one and live fifty generations in one of our days and don’t actually fucking exist, and we never even get to see them? Find out what we’re supporting? Feel something for them? Oh yeah. That’d be wrong, Shol.’
He found he was breathing hard. He lay back abruptly. A nub of rock dug into the small of his back. He ignored it, and turned his head a little so he could see Shol out of the corner of his eye.
She was looking at him sourly. ‘You’re talking like a Switcher.’
‘No! No way.’ He sat back up. ‘The opposite. Isn’t that obvious?’
‘No. You said they don’t exist. Isn’t that what they say? Switch them off, they’re not real?’
‘They do. Not me. I care about what happens in there.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘More than you care what happens out here?’
‘Not more. Different, I guess. And I have obligations, Shol. Obligations to the vrealities, and obligations in them.’
She sighed. ‘Damn, Zeb, how stupid can you get? That’s the addiction talking. You can’t have obligations in the vrealities. It’s philosophical nonsense. They’re a simulation for a start. They’re not real.’
‘And we are?’
She gave him a level look. ‘Just don’t. Okay? And, your only obligation to them isn’t to them at all. It’s to the Cluster. They’re the ones who keep the servers running, remember?’
‘Yeah. And their friends Orbital Joule. The ones who just extended the Skylid? And all the other orbital companies across the Spin? They care so much about these not-real people that they’re prepared to turn the so-called real worlds to bones and dust to keep them going? And I dunno, Shol. That sounds like a pretty major responsibility to me.’ He looked at her. ‘Maybe you could share it? You know – get involved?’
‘Fuck you!’ Shol got to her feet. For a while she stood like an angry pillar, silhouetted against the Lidlight. Then she looked down at him. ‘I am not going to watch Aish work herself to death for you, you hear me? She can’t run the place alone, and she can’t fight off Orbital Joule alone either. I am going to drag your miserable hide into this no matter what you think. If the rest of you is still attached to it, fine. That’s your choice.’
Zeb felt a grin breaking out. He stood up and turned to her. ‘You mean, this is really about people after all? Well, shit, I’m in. You only had to say.’
For a moment he thought she was going to hit him; tension rippled through her in a human-scale reflection of the pulsing lights overhead. Then her shoulders dropped. ‘I do not know how Aish put up with you.’
He laughed. ‘In the end she didn’t. You should thank me.’
‘Patronizing is never good. She still wears that pendant thing you gave her.’
Zeb nodded. It had been a joke, almost: a dark red mineral sliver with the image of a star on it. He had meant it to remind her that there were still suns up there. He hadn’t expected her to take it. Especially, he hadn’t expected her to keep it now they weren’t – whatever they had been. He knew that annoyed Shol.
He reached out a hand to the woman. ‘Sorry. I’ll do my best.’
‘Does this mean you’re going to spend less time in the vrealities?’
‘No.’ She stiffened, and he held up his hands, palms outward. ‘You think I’m addicted, and I think I’m not. We aren’t going to agree about that. But I’ll lean into this one. Deal?’
She hesitated. Then she nodded. ‘Deal.’
‘Okay, good. Now, tell me something. What happened, that meant Orbital got permission to expand the lid?’
‘How do you know they got permission?’
‘How do you think they did it without? Orbital construction needs authorization from the Cluster, therefore they must have permission. Come on, Shol. Tell.’
‘Okay. So, you’re right that they got permission, but we don’t know why.’
‘Did anyone ask what we thought about it?’
‘Kind of.’ She sat down and rested her elbows on her knees. ‘We were consulted, and we objected.’
‘I take it we were ignored?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t remember hearing about this?’
She frowned, and the Lidlight made deep shadows in the furrows on her face. ‘Yes, well, you were probably … busy.’
He stared straight ahead.
After a moment she sighed. ‘Actually I was being unfair. No one heard about it, except Aish and me. People are feeling a bit unsure of things at the moment. We’ve lost numbers, everything seems hard going. You know?’
‘Yeah. There was an atmosphere at that meeting.’
‘I know. So we thought it was better to keep the problem quiet, until we were sure it was going to be a problem.’
He shook his head. ‘I think that’s a mistake, Shol. You don’t get buy-in to anything by shutting people out of it. Seems to me you and Aish maybe need to climb out of your silo, before the rest of the team decide to drop a bomb in it.’
‘Maybe. Aish has been very – strong. But she needs help, Zeb. We all need help, and since for some reason you seem to be still here, and although I really don’t know why, Aish has some faith in you …’
She tailed off. He grinned at her. ‘You know, for the first time I actually believe that she didn’t send you.’
‘Why, thank you.’ Shol stood up, shivering. ‘It’s too cold for me. I’m going inside.’
‘I’ll stay out for a while.’
‘And stare at that thing?’ She gestured upwards.
‘Yeah, well. Know your enemy.’
‘Whatever. But Zeb? Don’t forget your friends.’
He nodded. Then he said, ‘Shol? Why does this matter so much?’
She smiled, a little sadly. ‘It matters to Aish. You get that? And she matters to me. So I can’t kick you off a cliff or drop you into a solar, much as I’d like to. Simple.’
This was getting too serious. Zeb mimed a sob. ‘Oh, Shol. I thought …’
‘Fuck off.’
He was going to say something else, but she had already turned and was walking away across the roof. Her boots crunched faintly over the frost-fractured layers of rock-flour and gravel. He listened until the sound faded, then lay back with his hands behind his head and gazed up at the Skylid. The air was freezing, and ice-haloes were beginning to form around the edges of the light. It was even more beautiful.
He barely noticed.
Freelance Charter (unnamed), Ice Blade, SCIOR
EXPERIMENT AND ITS guttering little sun had lain just inside the edge of a constellation called the Ice Blade. When Skarbo had first arrived it had been newly won Baschet space, but it was nothing they much cared about and he had been allowed free choice in where he settled.
Since then it seemed to have changed hands, often. A resurgent Mandate had won it back, and then lost it, and then won it, and then lost it for the last time. It had briefly been owned – or claimed – by empires, collectives, industrial combines and, most recently, by a thing called the Sesqui-partite Council for the Improvement of the Outer Regions. But SCIOR, as it called itself, never met as a Council and did no improving, and Experiment went on being left to itself.
Now the Council was gone and the Baschet were back – again. And so was something calling itself the Mandate, which didn’t look at all like the last Mandate, and so were a dozen others, and they were joining together, and hundreds of years of inert watchfulness had flown before them, leaving armed ships to fill the void.
The ships of the vast, combined fleet calling itself the Warfront.
Sleep had come for Skarbo in the end, but it was full of noise and the smell of burning. Now he was jolted awake. Alarms were blaring, a multitonal wide-spectrum noise that would have worked on any ear. He was trembling. He looked round, blinking. The soft light was gone, replaced by an unpleasant sharp blue that seared the eyes, and the mossy decoration on the walls and ceiling was swelling into something bulbous and squashy-looking. It was swelling quickly; already it had reduced the width of the space by half.
‘Waaaark! Fuck …’
Skarbo’s head snapped round. The cross-bar perch was encased in its own swelling balloon. The Bird’s legs had been engulfed as well. It flapped furiously.
‘Get off! Filthy … get off!’
There was a tearing sound and the legs came free. The Bird shot upwards, disappeared briefly into one of the growths on the ceiling and was expelled downwards like a surreal birth. It dropped to hover next to Skarbo. ‘Bastard stuff! Don’t need protecting.’
‘Protecting?’ Skarbo looked around. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Ha! Miserable prey was right to be scared. Under attack! Ship’s gone into impact mode.’
‘Attack?’
‘Must be. Serve them right.’
The trembling was worse. Skarbo tried desperately to calm down but the light and the alarm made it impossible. He gripped the side of the couch and hoped he didn’t end up pulling his own claws off. ‘Who?’
‘How should I know? Might be a good thing, might be bad. Can’t tell.’
‘What should we do?’
‘Wait it out. Nothing else to do. Probably won’t take long.’ The Bird dropped to the floor and let itself settle into a hollow in the soft stuff. ‘Ha. Pretty comfortable when it’s not trying to eat you.’
Skarbo sat back and closed his eyes. He was trying to be philosophical, but fear and anger were winning.
Then the ship shook, very gently.
The Bird looked up. ‘Was that it? Think that was it.’
‘That? How can that be it?’ Skarbo glared at The Bird.
‘Easy. Know how much energy it takes to make something this big wobble that much? That was plenty.’
Then there was another, slightly stronger shock.
The Bird wagged its head. ‘Ah. Maybe not quite over? Could be another—’
It never finished the sentence. The ship seemed almost to hesitate, and then an appalling force took Skarbo and smashed him into the wall. Even with the soft covering, he felt as if the blow had crushed him – was still crushing him, holding him jammed so hard that he couldn’t draw breath.
Another hesitation. He fell to the floor and lay winded. He had just long enough to hear The Bird saying something about field weapons before the force seized him again, wrenching him across the room. He crashed into the perch and swung round it, feeling his damaged leg tear away, and slammed into the far wall.
This time the force didn’t stop. The room shuddered and there was a sharp groaning which vibrated him even through the deep covering.
The shuddering built in a crescendo that blurred his sight and hammered at his hearing. Then it stopped. There was a fraction of a second of breathless silence followed by a shattering concussion that seemed to crush Skarbo flat. For a long moment he had no sensation at all.
Then he was floating.
It was completely dark; he strained his eyes to the limit of their gain and detected nothing, not even the grey graininess of normal darkness. And quiet, too, but not totally so. It was a restless quiet, underlaid by a queasy rustle that sounded like som
ething barely hanging together.
‘Bird?’
There was a long pause. Concern; he got ready to try again.
‘Yes.’
Skarbo breathed out. ‘What happened?’
‘Everything. Something. Something very powerful. How should I know? Stupid question. Better to ask what happens now.’
The concern was gone, replaced by a mixture of annoyance and relief. The creature sounded normal.
‘Well, what does happen now?’
‘Don’t know that either.’
‘No. I suppose not.’ Skarbo explored his body cautiously. Apart from the missing leg, he seemed in one piece – even if most of the piece hurt. ‘Can you get to the wall?’
There was a faint slur of air, like wings moving slowly. ‘Yes. Not built for zero gee. But yes. Why?’
‘To find a way out.’
‘Out to what?’
Skarbo shook his head. ‘The ship … what else?’
‘Know what state it’s in, do you? Know who’s out there?’
‘Well, no …’
‘Bad idea. Not many possibilities. At worst, a hulk full of vacuum, or a ship full of hostiles. I’d prefer the hostiles. Unless you can exist in hard vacuum?’
Skarbo thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve never tried.’
‘Save it for emergencies then.’
He wanted to laugh. ‘So what’s this?’
‘Don’t know yet. Situation unknown, until someone opens the door. Get some rest.’
‘Maybe.’ It was unlikely. Zero gee and darkness were disconcerting, and the site of his lost leg was painful. It helped to be thinking of something.
Then he opened his eyes wide. There had been a noise – and there was light, a slim, widening crescent. There was a quick hiss, and he felt his carapace flex a little. Pressure equalizing. At least that meant there was air.
‘Ah!’ The Bird clicked its beak. ‘Answers! Wonder who?’
Skarbo didn’t respond. He watched the crescent widen until it became the doorway. The light beyond it was dim, as if someone had turned the illumination in the ship down. Then his brain processed what his eyes had already known, and he felt himself go rigid with shock.
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