by Eric Brown
The sun had set by the time I awoke, and the orange glow of the night sky filled the chamber. I took the persona-cube from my travelling bag and activated it. An electric blue glow filled the room. The miniature representation of my father was in a gym, dealing swift jabs to a hovering punchbag. I watched him, saying nothing, as he put all his strength into the punches and grunted with each thrust. Often, in my early years, I had watched him for hours in his world within the cube, almost content with this substitute father figure. When I was seven or eight, a part of me - that part which could not come to terms with his abandonment - began to confide in him, tell him my worries and problems, hopes and fears. In return, like a true father, he had given advice and encouragement, praise, and, naturally, criticism and reproof. Consequently, I had grown up with the fixation that the personality within the cube was a bona fide, independent intelligence, even though I knew in my heart that it was nothing more than a fake, a clever, programmed copy. The result was that even now I could not interface with my father’s persona without feeling something for the ridiculous little figure locked within the cube; longing, resentment, a gut feeling that might have been love, and of course the burning pain of hatred.
I felt hatred now as I watched him pummel the punchbag.
‘Father.’
He caught the swinging bag, winked at me. ‘Sinclair. Still on Tartarus?’
‘Of course. Did you think I’d turn back, go home?’
‘It’s a tough planet. You’re not exactly—’
I interrupted. ‘I found out what happened to you,’ I said.
He gave the bag one last, almost friendly punch and walked away from it, mopping the sweat from his face with a towel. ‘Yeah? So, what happened?’
‘You died.’ I stared at him, wondering how he might react. Would the programme be concerned for the welfare of his real self, or did he consider his original as nothing more than a stranger?
He nodded. ‘In battle?’ he asked at last.
‘No . . .’ I said, and told him about the Charybdis race. I added, ‘I also found out something else.’
‘Go on.’
‘Before the race, you renounced your life as a soldier. You wanted to make amends, gain absolution.’
He just stared at me, as if suspicious. ‘Absolution?’
I told him what the old lawyer had told me, about the boy who was killed, my father’s defection from the private army, his desire to take part in the Charybdis race.
I finished, ‘By your actions, you admitted that you’d been wrong all along, that your beliefs counted for nothing. You as good as admitted that your life had been a mistake—’
His response enraged me. He laughed, as if unconcerned. ‘Hey, Sinclair - you’ve only got that lawyer’s word on what happened. For that matter, I’ve only got your goddamned word!’
I stared at him as he returned to the punchbag and resumed torturing it with swift, sharp jabs.
‘Don’t you feel anything?’ I said, anger seething inside me. ‘Can’t I hurt you?’
He chose to ignore me, concentrated on the hovering bag.
Then I whispered, ‘But I think I’d hurt you if I turned you off. I mean for good, wiped your cube clean.’
He caught the bag. ‘You wouldn’t dare switch me off,’ he said, grinning out at me, ‘because, Sinclair, I’m all you’ve got.’
Quickly, unable to bear the look of triumph on his face, I deactivated the cube. The glow died, leaving me alone in the burnt orange light of the Tartarean night. I lay in silence for a long, long time, considering what he had said.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs from the deck above. Blackman stepped into the room, stooping to avoid the low lintel.
I sat up. ‘How did it go?’
‘He drank his fill and more, told me that it was an honour to drink with a Blackman. We’ll see whether he still thinks the same tomorrow.’
‘We’ll rescue the Messenger then?’
‘Tomorrow evening at this time the Messenger will be free.’ He sat down on his bed and looked across at me. ‘Is something wrong?’
I gave a short laugh that contained no humour, just bitterness and self-pity. I activated the cube and threw it over to him. He caught it, turned it the right way up. He stared at the tiny, ridiculous figure boxing within the cube, then glanced across at me.
I surprised myself by saying, ‘I came to Tartarus to find out how my father died.’
Then I told Blackman all about my father and his profession, his volte face and his decision to join the boat race.
Blackman was silent for a while, staring into the cube which he held in his hands between his knees. ‘If he took part in the race,’ he said, ‘then there will be records in the race museum of St Benedict’s island, off Charybdis in the Sapphire sea. You should go there when we arrive.’
He returned the cube to me.
‘And in the meantime, if I were you I’d try not to hate your father so.’
‘That’s easy for you to say!’
He shrugged. ‘You hate what your father was, very well. But you told me that he was brought up on Marathon, in a Spartan fighting college.’
‘So?’ I said. ‘I don’t see—’
‘Your father was a product of his conditioning,’ he said, ‘and because of that he should be pitied.’
I made no reply. Blackman lay on his bed, as unmoving in the orange twilight as the bas-relief of a knight on some sarcophagus.
That night I woke to find my travelling companion consumed in a familiar crimson glow. ‘Blackman,’ I whispered, sitting up in bed.
From his seated, cross-legged position, he said, ‘Do not be alarmed, Sinclair.’ He did not take his gaze off the black box he held before his face.
‘What are you doing?’
It was a second before he replied. ‘I am charging myself for the task ahead. Now, sleep.’
And as if I were under hypnosis, I lay down at his command and slept.
* * * *
I awoke late again - something in the heat and the lulling motion of the train promoting sleep - and it was mid-afternoon by the time I took my place beneath the shade of the dining cart. I ordered a long, refreshing fruit juice and watched the ingenious means by which the train pulled into the station platform.
A hundred metres before the stop, a cart appeared on the tracks ahead, pedalled by six labourers and pulling a long trailer filled with grain for the vench. Sighting the cart, the creatures descended, alighted on the trailer and devoured the food. Robbed of motive power, the train rolled slowly to a halt before the station. Immediately the noisy business of boarding and alighting, and stocking the train with provisions, began.
The station served a small township situated in a clearing in the jungle, white-painted buildings set out along streets in a grid pattern. Down below, new passengers supervised the prolonged loading of their goods, trunks and boxes hauled aboard by toiling, bare-chested porters. A hundred vendors swarmed along the platform, selling goods through the barred windows of the carriages and shouting up to the passengers on the top deck. I ignored all offers of food, wooden carvings and bangles.
One hour later the grain cart was shunted onto a tangential stretch of track. One by one the vench took to the air. The train, slowly at first and with much straining and creaking, rolled from the station. Ahead, the impressive range of the central mountains, still two days away, rose jagged against the clear blue sky.
Blackman appeared and joined me, slipping into the opposite seat. ‘Sinclair,’ he said. ‘Tonight we act.’
‘The Messenger?’ I asked, my pulse racing.
He nodded. ‘At sunset, Buzatti and I will begin our grand binge.’
‘And then?’
He held out his hand, on the blackened palm of which was a small white pill. It rolled into his fingers, and I half expected to see it covered in soot. ‘The sedative I take nightly,’ he informed me. ‘Introduced into Buzatti’s ale, it will induce a long, deep sleep.’
�
��Then we enter his chamber and liberate the Messenger?’ I said. ‘But what of Buzatti - he’ll naturally suspect you when he finds her gone.’
Blackman waved aside this trivial detail. ‘Leave that to me. What I want you to do is simple: return here at midnight, and bring my travelling bag with you.’
‘What do you plan—?’
But my question was halted by the arrival, at the tables around us, of a dozen passengers come for their evening meal.
‘I’ll apprise you of my plans at midnight,’ Blackman said. ‘Now, how about dinner?’
We ordered boiled fish and salad, with a carafe of the wine we had enjoyed last night. The fish when it arrived was the length of my arm, included a ferocious-looking headpiece, and was sweet and succulent to the taste.
We ate and watched the sun drop towards the horizon. The sky turned red, then mellowed to orange. As the sun dipped finally over the jungle horizon, it flung back fiery bolts of illumination in a display that seemed especially contrived for our benefit. Tropical birds gave vent to continuous song, left their nests and wheeled in silhouette against the sun’s posthumous glory.
After the meal, Blackman excused himself and moved to an empty table. I was about to take my leave, so as to avoid Buzatti, when the man himself emerged from below. He was outfitted in an elegant, off-white suit and a pastel-pink cravat. He carried a swagger stick, and it was this, as he strolled into the dining area and took his place across from Blackman with a loud greeting, which emphasised his arrogance. He was revelling in the attention he was attracting as the guest of a Blackman, and so did not see me as I slipped from the dining carriage and made for the stateroom.
I lay on my bed and thought about summoning the image of my father, wondering if this time I might initiate a dialogue that would be other than rancorous and mutually hostile, if I might detect in his simulated personality some scintilla of humanity. I told myself that I was drunk, and stared instead through the window at the passing jungle.
At a quarter to twelve I could wait no longer. Blackman’s travelling bag stood at the end of his bed; although no larger than mine, it was three times as heavy. I had to use both hands to drag it from the bed-chamber and up the steps. The light in the sky had dimmed, though there was still sufficient illumination to make out the figures of Blackman and Buzatti seated at their table five coaches ahead. I proceeded carefully along the swaying walkway, sweating in the rank night-time humidity. When I reached the dining carriage I saw that one other drinker was present, an old man staring morosely into his beer at a corner table. I seated myself at a table behind my friend and Buzatti, and prepared to wait for the other traveller to drink up and retire.
Buzatti was slumped against the enclosing rail of the carriage, silent and unmoving. If he were still conscious, he was giving a fine performance as a comatose drunkard. For the benefit of the third party, Blackman was speaking. I heard Buzatti reply, his words slurred beyond comprehension.
Just as I was beginning to think that the old man might remain seated all night, he drained his glass, nodded to Blackman and myself, and moved off down the walkway. Blackman beckoned me over.
‘I’d like to introduce you to someone, Buzatti,’ my friend said. ‘Meet Sinclair Singer - though you might have met him before.’
Buzatti tried to focus on me. His cravat was askew and he was drooling down his chin. At last his eyes registered something. He sat back with shock, the combination of ale and sedative giving the movement an aspect of pantomime alarm. ‘You . . .’
‘So you recognise my friend,’ Blackman said. ‘Perhaps you recall the circumstances in which you first made his acquaintance?’
A flicker of fear showed in the con-man’s eyes.
‘Sinclair, I think you’ll find Mr Buzatti’s credit chip in his left jacket pocket.’
I dipped my hand into the pocket and sure enough came out with the chip. I coupled it with mine and transferred ten thousand new credits, gladly restoring my finances. Watching me, the drug inhibiting stronger protest, Buzatti let out a strangled splutter.
‘Sinclair, search him for the key to his cabin.’
I returned his credit chip, then located a wooden key in an inside pocket. The con-man tried to resist my search, but he was hardly able to move in his seat.
‘Open my bag,’ Blackman said. ‘You’ll find two metal spars inside.’
I did as instructed. The spars were heavy silver bars more like ingots, a dozen jacks projecting from each one. I passed them to Blackman, still without knowing what he intended.
My friend reached behind him and snapped the first spar, then the second, into the socket arrangement I had seen implanted in his back the night before. Instantly, a shimmering jet black membrane sprang up from each shoulder, like a sheet of oil in the shape of delta-wings. He flexed the wings experimentally, lifting himself a matter of centimetres above the deck.
‘Now go and free the Messenger,’ Blackman instructed. ‘Take her to our quarters and see that she is rested.’
He seized Buzatti under his arms, hefting the slumped con-man until satisfied that his grip was secure. Buzatti put up a feeble struggle and mouthed slurred protests.
‘Where are you taking him?’ I asked.
‘Don’t worry - a long way from here.’
‘But if he gets word to his accomplices that it was we who saved the Messenger—’
‘Sinclair, stop your gibbering. He will get word to no one. Trust me.’
And so saying, he rose into the air, his midnight wings a blur behind him, Buzatti hanging from his grasp with a look of terror on his face. Blackman hovered away from the dining carriage, out over the darkened jungle. I rushed to the rail and leaned over. Against the orange light of the sky, my friend and the dependent con-man made a bizarre silhouette indeed. I watched them head out over the jungle and recede into the distance until they were no more than a tiny speck that might have been a bird.
I recalled that I had my own duties to perform. I picked up Blackman’s bag, thankfully much lightened now, and quickly returned it to our cabin. Then I made my way to Buzatti’s stateroom and fumbled in the semi-darkness of the stairwell until I located the keyhole. My heart pounding, I turned the key and pushed open the door. The lounge was illuminated by the orange light streaming in through the low window; there was no sign of the Messenger in this room. I crossed to the bed-chamber and flung open the door. The room was in darkness. I opened the shutters on the window and turned, expecting to behold the diminutive Messenger revealed in the sudden wash of light. This room, too, was empty. I returned to the lounge in a quandary.
Then I saw the trunk.
‘No!’ I gasped. Surely he had not kept the girl incarcerated all this time? I dropped to my knees before the trunk and knocked upon its polished timber lid. ‘Hello? Are you still . . .’ Realising the foolishness of the question, I looked about for the key - as if Buzatti would keep it in view! I found no key, but I did see the long iron spar used to lodge open the window. I grabbed it and set to work prising open the thick metal hasps. At last the final lock sprang open and, tentatively, I eased back the lid and peered inside, a little apprehensive as to the state of the Messenger. All I could make out was a grey mass of crumpled wings, and then, through this diaphanous membrane, the curled shape of the girl beneath.
Hardly knowing how to proceed, lest I inadvertently damage her wings still further, I eased my hands down the side of the trunk, coaxing out the dry, gossamer-light material. Soon they overflowed the trunk, limp and pathetic, and at last I revealed their owner. To my relief she was breathing, though unconscious, her tiny ribcage rising and falling. I slipped my arms beneath her neck and knees and lifted.
She came free of the chest as light as a bundle of clothes.
She gave a small, mewling cry, and began to struggle feebly. She hit out at me, beating my chest with tiny fists. I was forced to lower her to the floor, in case she damaged her wings. She stood weakly, dressed in leggings and a trim yellow jacket.
/>
Tears streaked her pale, elfin face. ‘Leave me alone! What do you want!’
‘I’ve come to save you - take you away from the man who kidnapped you in Baudelaire. I’m taking you to the cabin I share with a member of the Guild of Blackmen.’
She was terribly weakened; even as I spoke, her knees gave way. I caught her again, lifted her into my arms.
‘A Blackman?’ she whispered up at me. ‘You travel with a Blackman?’
‘Quiet now,’ I said.
Her eyes fluttered shut. Mindful of her trailing, crumpled wings, I carried her through the door and up the steps. I negotiated the walkway, thankful that the Messenger was as light as she was, and descended to the stateroom. Once inside I kicked open the door to the bed-chamber, crossed to my bed and laid the Messenger down on her stomach.
