by Neal Asher
Beheshti sat opposite her pulling at the two chief strands of his beard alternately with each hand. All his rage felt pure now, focused, brought to a shining point. It wasn’t Baru, it wasn’t even Gupta. It wasn’t the faceless Westerners manning the American ice-submarines, trying to kill him. They, after all, were doing a job. As he looked into the eyes of this woman, he understood the point of the hate, and that in itself it was a clean thing. It was not going to provoke him to violence. That was not the way it worked. It would instead inspire him, bring a new strength of will to his work. That this woman could sit here with a defiant expression on her face, as if some ruins underneath the ice were more important than the war being fought. He could lecture her, but what would be the point in that? They were fighting for no small extension of territory or material greed; they were fighting for the actual souls of humanity. For God, and God would answer all scientists’ questions soon enough when they encountered him. Did actual people, real souls, matter less than some old bones and bricks?
“Tell her,” he said to Baru, “that if God had wanted people to discover this old rubbish he would not have buried it under five kilometres of ice.” He stood. There was some shouting coming from above, in the bridge.
The voice of the Chief Technician came from overhead. “Sir, sir.” Beheshti scrambled up the ladder.
Gupta was out on the top. “Sir,” he bellowed through the hatch. “The roof is tumbling.”
Even as he climbed out to see for himself Beheshti was struck by the odd literariness of Gupta’s tumbling.
For a moment it wasn’t clear what was happening. But out past the spaces illuminated by the arc-lights Beheshti could see that torches, each one marking a man, were scattering from the ice-face. Streaming like fireflies back towards the submarine. There was a shuddering thud, and then another one. A huge hunk of ice appeared from above in one of the lit areas, and crashed to the floor with a strange elegance. The body of the block seemed to flex as it struck the earth. The sky was breaking to pieces, and the huge weight of the five kilometres of ice overhead was forcing destruction downwards. “Back to the submarine,” yelled Beheshti, straining over the lip of the platform to shout to his men. They needed no telling, were swarming back to the ship, but the words were bursting from the Captain’s mouth, like an explosion, like the ice blocks shattering into shards of ice-shrapnel. “Back to the submarine! Run! Run!”
If you trace the western Antarctic peninsula from Queen Maud Mountains in at the Ross shelf, along to the end of the western peninsular and the last of the Graham mountains, it spells نعم, the Arabic for 'yes': na’am. It is the world, it is affirmation. As he runs through the ruins of a place forty times older than the prophet, the captain hears a voice inside his head. The voice is reciting the Qu'ran, the eighty-first sura, about the end of the world. And is the world not ending? And all he can think is: it is her, it is the Western girl, it is her. When the sun is overthrown, and when the stars fall, and when the camels big with young are abandoned, and when the wild beasts are herded together, and when the seas rise, and when souls are reunited, and when the girl-child that was buried alive is asked for what sin she was slain, and when the pages are laid open, and when the sky is torn away, and when hell is lighted, then every soul will know what it has made ready.
What has he made ready? Yes, he thinks. Yes, he thinks. He has almost reached the flank of the submarine when the first piece of the ceiling strikes him.
War Without End
Una McCormack
“As flowers turn toward the sun, by dint of a secret heliotropism the past strives to turn toward that sun which is rising in the sky of history.”
— Walter Benjamin
For Ika
Liberation +40 years
Roby’s sun was behind them. The planet itself gleamed dimly against the black, pocked and marked like a target. The jump here had been swift but pitiless, and Shard had been violently sick. His constitution – his strength – was not what it once had been. Now he sat limp and passive in his seat, his cheek resting clammily against the cold porthole, directing all his will towards heading off the tremors that coursed through his body and threatened him with further indignities.
Beside him, Lowe rattled on about arrival times, departure times, transportation to the city, agendas… At some point, Shard thought, this trip would end. At some point, by extension, Lowe would stop talking. Shard pointed his fingertips at the world below, aimed, fired… The shuttle banked and he missed. Roby was gone from view – but it was still there, he knew. It had always been there. Shard snapped, “I’m not so far gone I can’t remember what you’ve told me three times already.”
Lowe stopped, perplexed rather than cowed. He was a careful young man, well-informed and attentive to detail, untroubled by any broader passions, making up in precision what he lacked in perception. Usually Shard preferred it that way; not now.
“On arrival at the port,” Shard said, “a car will be waiting to take us to the capital, where accommodation has been arranged for the duration of our stay in the fourth tower. Tomorrow morning – eighth hour, free standard – another car will take us to the Archive. After which –” this said bitterly, “– I’m on my own.”
“Exactly so.” Lowe, content, returned to his briefings, with no apparent appreciation of Shard’s irony. Shard’s hatred peaked – then passed, like his nausea, like all things.
It all unfolded much as Lowe had sketched, with the single notable exception of the protest that was waiting for them between the port and the first of the promised cars. Under siege in the arrival hall, Shard looked out to see upwards of fifty people, few of them old enough to remember the war, carrying banners executed with an otherwise uplifting degree of competence and literacy, chanting their complaint with no small grasp of rhythmic structure. Their unifying theme was their hatred of Shard. The local police watched affably from the side and showed no particular interest in moving them. Grimly, Shard said, “Now this wasn’t in the itinerary.”
Lowe did not reply. He was deep in the grip of that paralysis that overwhelms functionaries when their best-laid plans prove susceptible to simple human irrationality. He was not, Shard saw, going to be any use.
After thorough consideration of the terrain, the nature of the enemy, and the men and materiel at his disposal, Shard was in a position to offer a professional appraisal of their situation. “I suggest, Mr Lowe, that we make a run for it.” Seeing Lowe baulk, he hastened to explain. “All we have to do is get through the crowd and across the road.”
“That’s all?”
“The passenger doors are on this side of the car, see? You make for the front and I’ll head for the back. Keep your head down and your forearms up – like this, see? Don’t stop. It’s me they’re after, anyway.”
Lowe was not measurably comforted. Shard took hold of his elbow and marshalled him through the doors, into the hard light and cold air of Roby, amongst the signs and voices calling him evil and butcher and murderer.
The doors closed behind them. Shard surveyed the mob and the mob stared back. Then it moved in, with a single purpose.
Battle was joined. Shard lost hold of Lowe within seconds. In the crush and the chaos, he stumbled, falling forwards with a gasp, an old man on his knees. Somebody laughed. Just before he hit the ground, the police intervened, swooping in as if to relieve a falling city. Two of them gathered up the visitors, while the rest formed a barrier to let them pass, calling to the crowd that it was over, that they had had their fun.
They deposited them on the far side of the road and would not accept thanks. In the sanctuary of the car, Lowe inspected the marks on his arm which would shortly become bruises. “I had not anticipated that.”
Shard was too busy trying to slow his heart rate to be able to point out that such was Lowe’s entire purpose. By the time he had his breath back, the moment had passed, but he was able to communicate enough silent fury to penetrate even Lowe’s thick skin. They journeyed to the ca
pital in silence. Shard brooded on his reception. It was the youth of his assailants that troubled him most; how long this hatred had lasted, how deep it must still run, down even to this generation, which had not been born when he was last here and could only know him through the medium of history lessons, propaganda. Was there to be no end?
Full darkness had fallen by the time the car landed at their accommodation. Shard’s room was functional but clean. By this point all he cared about was the bed. “Marshal,” Lowe said, “we should go through the agenda for tomorrow.”
It was too much. Shard – sick in heart and body, wearied almost beyond relief from the journey, from the events of the day, from all that had brought him back here so late in life – snapped. He strode over to the door and threw it open. “Get out! You bloody halfwit! Get the hell out!”
Lowe, bewildered, blinked twice and then withdrew. With peace of a kind restored, Shard could devote himself again to throwing up, in privacy if not in comfort. This done, he drew the curtains, blocking out any sight of the city beyond. Then he lay down on his bed and returned to that solitary contemplation of our mortality which is the nightly pursuit of many, not simply sick old men, and in which we should all on occasion be indulged – even those of Shard’s stripe.
Liberation +39.5 years
When the message arrived from the Archive, Shard was raking over the leaves in his garden. Autumn had come early to this part of Mount Pleasant. Soon it would be too wet to work outside on a daily basis, but Shard had a bonfire planned first, an innocent and agreeable pleasure. Shard could be found in his garden most days. He liked the nature of the tasks, which required total attention and absorption, and to which he was entirely committed. His dedication over the years had reaped rewards: his lawn was smooth and uniform, and his flowerbeds triumphant in competition. Moreover, as he liked to say, the exercise kept him fit.
There was a low wall at the far end of the lawn, separating the more cultivated part of the garden from a patch of ground that Shard had left deliberately untouched, for the sake of spring’s unruly spread of bright wild flowers. On the wall stood a portable comm: Shard usually brought one out with him to listen to while he worked. All morning, it had been peacefully burbling out news and other nonsense.
A soft chord interrupted the flow, signalling the arrival of a message. With a short puff, Shard stopped work. A few joints cracked. He removed his gardening gloves and wiped his forehead. “Play,” he said, and walked over to the comm.
A woman was speaking; an old woman, talking as if from a pre-prepared script. “Marshal,” she said. “My name is Ines de Souza. I am the co-ordinator of the Archive of Public Memory on Roby. Next year will be the fortieth anniversary of the Liberation. Gaps remain in our records – as they always will and always must – and yet I remain curious that you have never given an interview about your time on Roby.” He heard a rustling of papers, like the crackle of flames, and then the woman sighed. “We grow old, Marshal. Time passes, not much remains – for us, at least. Whatever contribution the former commander of the Commonwealth’s forces would be willing to make, the Archive will most gladly receive it.”
The message ended. Shard stared down at the comm. His heart had begun to pound and his face was burning. The message began to repeat, as he had it set to do. “My name is Ines de Souza. I am the co-ordinator of the Archive of Public Memory on Roby –”
With a roar of untrammelled rage, Shard kicked the comm off the wall. It soared high into the air, free as a bird in flight, coming to land deep, deep into the wilderness he had made. That finished him for the day. He retreated indoors. Mid-afternoon it rained, heavily, and all his plans came to nothing.
Once upon a time, Shard had believed in loyalty. By this point in his life he still believed in discretion, and for this reason he did not reply to de Souza’s message. What purpose would it serve? What could he say about Roby that had not been said already, by both sides? Why pick over the corpse? But during the winter he had no work and few distractions. Instead, he looked out at his modest garden and brooded about his place in history. In the spring, his sense of grievance flowered like a cactus. He contacted Forshaw, and was granted an audience.
These days Forshaw lived on Xanadu, in the humid confines of the biodomes. It was not cheap to retire here. Gabriel Forshaw, a veteran of nothing more brutal than the press conference and the lecture circuit, could afford it. Mark Shard, who had kept a loyal silence, could not. Inside the dome, it was lush, protected, secluded. Outside, interminable dust storms screamed across empty land indifferent to human suffering. Yet that is all there is.
Abundance – of wealth, of talent, of connections – was what Shard had chiefly associated with Forshaw. Now all spent. Forshaw was a sick man; shrunken. His skin was grey and papery, and his eyes lacked hope and lustre. Not even gerontotherapy could combat the cancer; cosmetic surgery could no longer conceal the decline. Forshaw was dying – and the sheer extravagance of the environment in which he would spend his last days only served to reinforce how cruelly.
Once, in a busier and more active life than either of them now led, Shard and Forshaw had conferred on an almost daily basis. The whole business of putting down a revolt required the military at least to go through the motions of informing the political arm what it was up to, although Forshaw had been particularly adept at not hearing anything that might incriminate. His fitness for the political life had been boundless: he had been snake clever, capable of aping authenticity, and blessed with the moral compass of a tiger. His genius, his trick, had been to make this animal behaviour appear urbane – likeable, even. He was one of a very few from that time to have retired undefeated and all-but-untarnished. Yet this was how it was going to end.
Shard had not liked Forshaw, but he had suffered him as one of the inevitable crosses borne when one chose – as one must – to participate in public life. He had never forgiven him for the end of the war on Roby. Not even the sight of him now could move Shard beyond this. Perhaps there was a moment of tempered compassion – the fearful kind of fellow-feeling that arises from imagining oneself in such a state – but no more than a moment, and then it was gone.
Forshaw’s house was filled with literary awards and pictures of him with the other luminaries of his generation. He had Shard brought out onto the terrace, where they sat under the cover of huge, regular green leaves. Life throbbed around them in studied, well-marshalled profligacy. From deep within the foliage, songbirds of the kind designed and kept for pleasure trilled harmoniously. No mention was made of Forshaw’s condition, the open secret, the ruin in the midst of plenty. Shard expressed pleasure at seeing him after so long. Forshaw thanked him with equivalent sincerity. Silence fell, and Shard sat in appalled contemplation of Forshaw’s ravaged face.
Forshaw drew back his lips into a smile until his teeth showed, skull-fashion. “I assume there’s some purpose to your being here? I don’t recall visiting the sick being part of your religion. In fact, I don’t recall you being religious at all. But it has been some time.”
Recalled to himself, Shard drew out the file containing the message he had received from Roby, and handed it over. Forshaw read out the header. “‘From the Archive of Public Memory, Salvation, Roby; to Marshal Mark Shard, former Commander, Commonwealth Pacification Force on Roby’.”
He laughed, tossing the file and its petition unheard onto the table. “The Archive of Public Memory. They certainly know how to conjure with words out there. One might almost admire them for it – as one had to admire their tenacity.”
Shard did not comment. His own encounters with the people of Roby, which had been first-hand whereas Forshaw’s had not, did not make him want to express admiration.
“So what is it? A summons?”
Shard retrieved the file from the table. He put it away with care, as an historian might with a piece of evidence. “Nothing so crude. They want to interview me.”
“You’re not thinking of agreeing?”
“Why
not?”
“Mark, it’s done. It’s over. Nobody cares any longer.”
“They do on Roby, patently –”
“Nobody here cares. Why should they?”
“Perhaps…” Shard struggled to articulate new ideas that were as yet only half-formed in his mind. “Perhaps the record should be set straight.”
Forshaw had long since stopped listening. “An old war,” he said, “finished years ago. A lost war. The failed policies of old men, soon to be gone and then hastily, all too hastily, forgotten.” His words were like his books, Shard thought; florid and without substance. Groundless. “Besides, it all rather runs the risk of becoming something of an embarrassment. One example. What would you say, exactly, if this woman chose to ask you about the end?”
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Shard insisted, his first hint of mutiny.
A butterfly settled on Forshaw’s wrist. It was about the size of a child’s hand, and coloured deep blue. There were white spots on the larger, upper portions of its wings, and a hint of imperial purple to the lower. Forshaw sat in contemplation it for a while before gently brushing it away with a translucent finger. “Well,” he said. “I know I didn’t.”
Shard lifted his eyes, looking past the leaves at the barrier that constituted the limit of the sky. He thought he saw a faint dark line, marking the place where two pieces of the dome met. He reflected upon these joints. He imagined them widening, the dome collapsing; briefly he pictured the unspeakable, unliveable aftermath… “You son of a bitch,” he said, in wonder. “You son of a bitch.”
Forshaw closed his eyes. “At least have the decency to wait till I’m dead.”
Decency. The word was an offence coming from the mouth of this man. What, in the end, did he know about Roby? His policies had only ever been implemented at a distance; he had been protected from their consequences just as this dome protected him from the hell outside. But what would history record? A history that Forshaw had spent decades securing – while Shard had kept his loyal silence. Trembling, Shard looked upon Forshaw’s ruined face and he was glad.
