Osiris (osiris project)

by E. J. Swift

  “Are you alright?”

  It was Tyr. She averted her face. She could not look at him.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Feodor sent me.”

  “That’s ironic.” Not quite as ironic as Feodor’s speech, embracing one delinquent child as he erased another. In sudden anger she said, “How can you stand it?”

  He cupped her face, turned it gently towards him. “I have to work, Adie. I’m not like you. I don’t come from a great family.”

  “You’re part of one now. One way or another. Aren’t you glad?”

  “In some ways,” he said soberly.

  She knew she should draw away but found herself pushing into his hand. When she spoke her lips moved against his palm.

  “Cover for me? Ten minutes and I’ll be gone.”

  “Is that wise? Your being here tonight is an olive branch to Feodor. It will be worse than reversed if you leave now.” His grey eyes were concerned.

  “Tyr,” she pleaded.

  “Alright,” he said softly.

  She kissed his palm and felt him tense. They stood there in the empty lamplit hallway, equally aware of the currents conflicting one another. Their situation was what it was; she had never thought of it as unjust, because she could not imagine permanence with anyone, not even with Tyr. The heat of her own breath came back to her lips, trapped by his palm. Why was tonight different? She felt close to giving up. She was ready to ask. Let me come over later, let me stay. I don’t care if they find out.

  Tyr dropped his hand.

  “Better go,” he said.

  The words she might have said edged away. She took off her shoes and ran. She did not look back. Vikram had fastened the shoes earlier, when her hands were shaking. He had sat her on the bed and said give in a voice that brooked no argument. Watching his hands do up the buckles, one part of her mind had warned that this was not part of the bargain; it was not sex and it was not information. It was something else.

  She ran to the end of the hallway. Heaved the doors open. The floor was slippery in her stockings. She passed the drapes, the alcoves, the Alaskan paintings. Old friends, old enemies. Here was a favourite hiding place, there a tunnel exit where the twins had been caught, Adelaide’s sandal sticking out under the curtain. Goran found them. He always did. He grabbed her foot and hauled her shrieking into the corridor whilst Axel hung onto her arms, Adelaide screaming, Axel yelling, no, don’t, don’t hurt her!

  Goran would be loitering nearby. She picked up speed down the galleries. She couldn’t let him catch her. An archway neared on her right. A silk curtain sighed in its frame. Flouting all reason, her feet slowed. Behind that curtain was a passage to the twins’ old bedrooms. The twins thought they had discovered all the secrets of the Domain, but what if they hadn’t? What if the family had Axel right here, under her nose? What if he was straitjacketed, sedated, unable to call out?

  Close to the ground, the silk wavered. Adelaide’s heart beat faster. The swelling folds gave way to the triangular head of a large orange cat. Its nose wrinkled as it sniffed the air. She sighed.

  “Oh, you.”

  Out of habit, she scooped the animal up, hugging it awkwardly with one arm, her shoes gripped in the other hand. The cat was warm and heavy; it had grown fat. The feel of its soft fur alleviated her panic. Now she felt silly to have been running, silly for her ideas. What could the family do to her, anyway? She wasn’t mad.

  They reached the second floor unscathed. There was a strip of light under the door of her grandfather’s study. Quietly, Adelaide turned the handle. Leonid was in his favourite armchair. He wore a tartan dressing gown over his flannel trousers and his bare feet were propped up on a stool. A book lay open on his lap. His spectacles had slipped down the bridge of his nose.

  She lowered the cat to the floor and gave it an encouraging nudge. It stalked inside. She pulled the door gently back. Soon, someone would come to look for her. Goran was patrolling. She could not stay.

  “Who is it?”

  She paused, the door ajar. “Feodor said you weren’t well.”

  Her grandfather’s eyelids lifted. “Adie?” A smile pulled his lips back from his teeth. “My back’s been playing up a little, that’s all. I have some injections for when it gets difficult.”

  “You mean morphine,” she said accusingly. His face had lost weight; the papery skin stretched taut over the egg of his head. “It must be bad.”

  “I don’t need them often.” He patted the arm of the chair. “Why don’t you come and sit a minute.”

  She curled her fingers around the door frame, reluctant to enter when she had been about to make her escape. Then she came in, shutting the door behind her. The room had not altered. It still smelt of tobacco and pine cones; it was still crowded with blueprints and piano scores.

  Adelaide glanced to the piano in the corner, which her grandfather had played often when she was a child and less often as she grew older and his hands grew arthritic. The cat had slumped upon the stool. Its stomach began to rise and fall in contented waves of purrs.

  “I’m amazed he’s still alive,” she said.

  “I think he will outlive me,” her grandfather replied.

  She went to sit at the foot of the armchair.

  “You should renounce the rest of the family, Grandfather.” She tilted her head back, smiling. “Hiding out here, complaining of back pain… I think you’re trying to escape.”

  He chuckled.

  “It is the duty of the young to rebel. I am too old for all that, Adie. I need my pipe, and a good bottle of octopya.” He gestured to the table. “Perhaps you will do the honours.”

  She prepared two measures of liqueur. Her grandfather inhaled deeply before taking a sip. Adelaide nestled her glass between her knees. She had always loved this room. It felt both old and ageless. A thing treated with attentive care. A thing from a time before Osiris. Now the room seemed smaller too, or herself too large for it.

  “This house is my bequest to you all,” said her grandfather softly. “But you, Adie. I know what the Domain means to you. You feel as though you have surrendered your agency. You prefer to live in a cage of your own making rather than one designed by somebody else. Tell me, what brings you here tonight?”

  The heater was warm on her face and neck. “I don’t know, Grandfather. It’s a peace gesture, isn’t it. And partly for information-Vikram thought it would be useful. And… Axel. I suppose I thought it might help, to come back.”

  “Did you?”

  She fell silent.

  “You don’t believe Axel is dead,” he said.

  Careful, she thought. She realized then how far she had come. This was her grandfather who she loved and trusted.

  “I don’t feel that he is,” she said. “In my heart.”

  “Sanjay Hanif will find out. He is a good man.”

  “So everyone says.”

  The marmalade cat woke, arched its back so that all of the hairs separated along its spine, and hopped off the stool. It regarded Adelaide with blank eyes. She stroked its head automatically.

  “I find it hard to believe that the boy would go away without any communication to you, Adie. Even through his delirium, he was aware that there was someone he should remember.”

  “You saw him after Radir’s last session, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. That was the last visit I made and he was very secretive. There was one room in the apartment which was locked. Axel did not respond when I asked him what was inside. Now, I think perhaps he was planning something.”

  Oh, he was. He was.

  “I should have gone,” she said. “I just-I couldn’t.”

  “You took care of him in other ways.” He paused. “The bond between you twins was so strong, a break was bound to be dramatic. If he had regained his mind, I suspect the reunification would have been as abrupt.”

  She imagined the scene: Axel’s return, healthy, jubilant. But almost at once another image replaced it: Axel in a bal
loon, at the heart of a storm, flung this way and that. Her grandfather packed another layer of tobacco into his pipe and lit it.

  “Bring me the photograph, Adelaide.”

  She knew at once which photograph he meant and went to get it from a drawer in the cabinet. The image was faded with age but the construct was still clear: a man, a woman and a small child standing in front of a huge stone building. The building was hewn out of a mountain, and the mountain rose upward in striates of grey and green.

  Leonid held the photograph in both hands.

  “Do you know where this was taken?”

  “Yes, grandfather. That’s the Osiris Facility, in Patagonia.”

  “I was born in that town. For a few years, the whole of our family lived there whilst the City was under construction. Imagine it Adie, to see the pyramids rising from the sea for the first time-what a sight that must have been!”

  Adelaide leaned on the arm of Leonid’s chair, resting her chin upon her hands.

  “I wish I could have seen it.”

  “As do I. As do I… but much of the footage was lost. A great tragedy. I often wonder how they first found the site, those entrepreneurs of the Board. There were old sea maps, of course, but even then, navigation was almost impossible. The sea was ravenous. The winds were wild. Instruments ran haywire, driven mad by all the broken currents in the atmosphere-oh, it must have been an adventure, Adie. But they found it-the fabled Atum Shelf.”

  A wistful expression occupied his face and Adelaide knew that he was seeing those strange, wonderful visions from decades ago. The cat’s purrs reverberated against her legs, a warm, steady rhythm that reminded her of time moving on. But she could not tear herself away. Not yet.

  “Tell me more about Patagonia, Grandfather.”

  “Ah, Patagonia… it was a beautiful place. Yes, I remember land. I remember the rocks, especially. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore. Of course, even then the storms were terrible and pirates were forever raiding the local towns. My grandparents died there, they were too nervous to take to sea. So they never saw Osiris. But I believe they were happy, and proud.”

  He pushed the photograph abruptly towards Adelaide.

  “All those people will be dead now,” he muttered.

  “But some of the refugees must have come from Patagonia?”

  “They came from everywhere, Adie, everywhere. Every place was destroyed. You’ve been taught all of this.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  He passed a hand over his face. Adelaide put the photograph back, afraid that it was distressing him. She regretted now that she had kept him talking.

  “You still miss Second Grandmother, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

  “Every day. I miss a lot of things, Adie.”

  “Land?”

  “Land, yes. The things that were… the things that should have been.”

  She waited, aware that there was more, not wishing to rush him. The pipe clacked between his teeth.

  “Osiris was an experiment,” he said. “To herald a new era. Osiris was meant to reunite nations in a way that had long been lost. To bring the hemispheres together again. That was the intention.” He was silent for a moment. “But the world changed too quickly to see if it worked. And the City has changed because of that.”

  She looked at him, not understanding. He said, “Your generation is the evidence of it.”

  The words were gentle, but without comfort. Adelaide felt as though he was trying to explain something to her, something important, but he wanted her to work out what it was for herself. She was ashamed to ask; to confirm her ignorance.

  “I should leave before Feodor finds me here,” she said.

  “Come and visit again some time.”

  She crouched, and took her grandfather’s mottled hand.

  “You could always visit me.”

  He chuckled. “At your fancy apartment? I hope you are enjoying it, by the way. But no. I can keep an eye from afar. I follow your adventures rather avidly in the feed of-what is it, that rag-the Daily Flotsam.”

  “Magda Linn.”

  “That’s the woman. She has a void where some of us have a semblance of moral integrity. One has to admire her for it.”

  “Admire, and destroy,” said Adelaide, standing. She dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “I really must go.”

  Leonid’s hand curled around hers, holding it fast. The joints were swollen. They looked painful.

  “Before you go,” he said. “I would like you to promise me one thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’re a smart girl. Young, impulsive. You must be wise as well. Don’t be too quick to judge, when the time comes. Don’t be too quick to judge me.”

  “Why would I judge you, Grandfather?”

  He squeezed her hand with his trembling one.

  “Adelaide.” Her name alone seemed to cost him a great effort. She was startled to see the change in his expression-as though he were abruptly battling great pain.

  “Grandfather, do you need the morphine? Where is it?”

  The words rushed out of him.

  “Adie, the truth is this family has done some terrible things. Terrible things.”

  “Do you mean the execution, is that it? You mean the west?” Her heart pounded. “Axel?”

  Leonid shook his head, impatiently. Still clinging to Adelaide’s hand, he pulled her very close. He lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “I have to tell you something, Adie. I have to tell you. There was a boat. Years and years ago. Long before you were born. But after-after the Silence. There was a boat.”

  A tingling sensation spread from Adelaide’s scalp, to her neck, one by one down her vertebrae. When she spoke, she struggled to keep her voice steady.

  “I don’t understand. There were no boats after the Silence. There was no contact.”

  There couldn’t have been.

  “That’s what they all think. But there was one. It came many miles-an inconceivable feat of seafaring! They had been at sea for over two hundred days. And they got almost as far as the ring-net. And then-everyone on board-every one of them-killed! Shot in the dark. The boat was sunk, out beyond the Atum Shelf. We couldn’t let them go. We couldn’t bring them in. It was a great secret, d’you see, a secret. No-one can ever know about that boat. No-one. No-one can find out.”

  He’s starting to ramble, she realized. He’s old. He’s old, and his imagination is bringing dark things into the room. That’s what it is. It must be. And yet “Where was the boat from, Grandfather?”

  There was an almost cunning look about the old man now.

  “The Boreal States,” he whispered. “From Siberia. They came to look-”

  A cough seized his throat.

  “Grandfather.” Her own voice was trembling now. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Nothing more to tell.” He coughed. “Nothing but the white-”

  His eyes bulged. Adelaide ran to get him a glass of water. She held it to his lips, but the coughs still hacked at his throat, and he could not swallow.

  “I’ll get someone-”

  “No.” He grabbed her wrist. “No-no.” The fit subsided. He drank a little water. The gulps resounded in the room. The cat’s purrs grew stronger. “Nothing but the white fly,” Leonid muttered.

  “You’re talking in riddles, Grandfather. What is the white fly?”

  He interrupted. “No, that’s not important. Not what I meant to say at all. What I meant to say is, whatever our family has done, they would not hurt Axel. No one would ever hurt your brother. Believe that, if you believe nothing else.” His face was open again; relaxed and smiling. She could not quite believe that the last couple of minutes had been real.

  Leonid tapped her hand. “Goran is upstairs. I know his tread. Go now, Adie, if you don’t want them to find you.”

  “But the boat-”

  “What boat? What are you talking about?” He looked confused. “Remember, my girl, m
y darling girl. No decision is lightly undertaken. Reversal is-impossible.”

  “I’ll remember.” She was worried and frightened, and wanted to say more, but there seemed no conceivable response. She doubted her own sanity. She needed to get out. “I promise. Goodbye, Grandfather.”

  She checked there was nobody in the corridor outside before shutting the door behind her. She was no closer to finding out what had happened to Axel; if he had left or if he had been taken. And now, it appeared, there were other secrets that her grandfather wanted her to know-secrets, if he was to be believed, too terrible to speak. Secrets that had walked the deepest trenches of his mind for years, the way cantering horses had followed Axel across the waves.

  There was no sign of Goran.

  Barefoot, Adelaide ran down the staircase. The Domain was quiet, as though it awaited a long overdue arrival. Or a departure, she thought.

  “Axel?” she whispered. Her voice echoed back at her: Axel Axel Axel Axel. She called again, louder.

  “Axel!”

  Nothing. She stepped out of the front door and was faintly surprised, as always, to find the lift before her. The cables clunked. The glass car began to rise. Adelaide slipped on her shoes, leaving the straps undone. She had a terrifying sense of things diminishing. A pan of events from before her time receding into the distance, like stills from an archive reel being blotted out: pixel by pixel, image by image. At the very end, last to disappear, was a tiny Siberian boat.

  30 VIKRAM

  Winter had Osiris under siege. Daylight was fleeting. The entire city glittered, like an ice ship dredged up from a century’s slumber in the deeps. At the shelter, people arrived with ice in their hair and beards. The doctors treated cases of frostbite. Sometimes they had to cut off fingers, toes, parts of limbs. The nights were loud and long with the sounds of hacking coughs. Vikram and Shadiyah did the bed rounds with extra blankets, tucking them tightly around the thin shivering bodies, feeding bowls of soup where hands were too shaky to hold a spoon. Not everyone who came in made it through to the morning.

  Late one night he arrived at the Red Rooms. Adelaide opened the door and exclaimed.