Icarus Descending w-3

by Elizabeth Hand

  “Is this where Dr. Burdock lived? Here in the Caverns? Before—well, before things happened to him?”

  Our guide shook his curly head. “Oh, no. He lived up there, in Cassandra with the rest of us.”

  He stopped, pointing at the ceiling, then explained, “I mean, I wasn’t alive, all those years ago; but my great-great-great-grandfather was. Ran the toll booth there at the Shenandoah Bridge. Dr. Burdock had a place outside of town. Big research facility, and a house too. It’s all still there, at least the ruins are—they burnt it before the Third Ascension. You know, when the fanatics took him and his girls and killed ’em.”

  His wide blue eyes glinted in the shadows as he went on. “You know, Dr. Burdock is a real important person in these parts. He was a very great man, but he was a kind man, too. Cassandra was just a poor hollow in the mountains back then, but when he started his laboratory here, he gave jobs to a lot of people. We have ’files here of his work,” he said reverently, “you know, the first experiments with Cybele Burdock and Lacey—that was his dog—and all sorts of other records as well. He always took very good care of the people who worked for him. My family never did, but just about everyone else here is descended from people who worked for Luther Burdock. The survivors, I mean, those who weren’t killed when the fundamentalists came into power and tried to put a stop to his work. So you have to understand, when the Doctor came back—well, it was like Elvis or Jesus or one of the other Prophets rose clear up from the dead.”

  I thought of the Paphians’ cult of the Gaping One and tried not to grimace. “Who brought him back?”

  Edward stared at his feet, moving the tip of one worn canvas shoe to trace something indecipherable on the stone floor.

  “Other scientists,” he said at last. He glanced furtively up the passage before continuing. “People who’d fled the Ascendants—oh, a long, long time ago, well after the Third Shining at least. They’d been carrying on Dr. Burdock’s work long after his death—trying to bring him back, you know. They came here, I guess, because Cassandra has always been a place where we don’t like other people telling us what to do.”

  I thought of Trevor hunched over the steel tables bearing his gruesome harvest. “Trevor Mallory. Have you ever heard of him?”

  Edward slitted his eyes thoughtfully. “No-oo, I don’t think I have,” he said at last. “Is he somehow related to Cadence?”

  “She’s his daughter.”

  “Hmm. Well, I guess someone might know him, but I don’t. But that doesn’t mean anything. Most of those people—the scientists—they came from away. I mean, they weren’t native to here originally, though they’ve lived here for a long time now; and they’ve always kept to themselves a good deal.”

  “They’re still here?” asked Jane, incredulous.

  Edward ducked his head, his blue eyes darkening. “Some of them,” he ended shortly, and stared into the darkness.

  Jane and I glanced at each other, but Edward said nothing more. From somewhere came the faint plink plink of water dripping, and a dull rustling that might have been bats. After a minute I asked, “So you live up there, then?” I crooked a thumb at the ceiling.

  Edward rubbed his head. “No; not anymore. For the last year I’ve been down here. Oh, I get up abovegrounds sometimes, but it’s funny, you get used to it down here, you forget all about there’s another place, another way of living.”

  He sucked his lower lip thoughtfully, as though trying to figure out if he could confide in us or not. At last he said, “You know, the Doctor says this is all preparing us for what happens next.”

  “Oh, yes?” Jane raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

  “Well, you know. Living in a confined space, the darkness, getting used to the genesl—I mean, the aardmen and energumens and the rest of ’em. Once Icarus comes, it’ll be different from what we’re all accustomed to. I mean, not so different for me, I grew up on a farm and we always had lots of animals—not that these other, um, people are animals, but you understand. It does take some getting used to, especially never seeing the sun.”

  “I see,” Jane said doubtfully. “But—well, what does happen next? What was that he was saying about an ark?”

  Edward Dean sighed, as though he were trying to explain something to a pair of thick-witted children. “Dr. Burdock has told us there is to be a Coming.”

  The way he said it made my flesh creep. “A Coming? What do you mean? Like the Final Ascension the Paphians talk about?”

  He shrugged and looked furtively down the passageway. “I don’t know about that,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t know much about Paphians, although maybe they’ve heard of it too.”

  “So what is it that’s coming?” broke in Jane.

  “Well, I don’t understand it all that well, but Dr. Burdock says it’s a sort of star. He knows about these things—he remembers from before, you see, back when he was first alive. He’s seen it. When he was a young man, he said. Once every four hundred years or so it comes. Only this time he says it will be different. He says it will be dangerous. That’s why they’re trying to gather all these starships—you know, the elÿon, the Ascendant’s transport fleet. You understand?”

  Jane looked at me blankly. “Not really. Wendy?”

  I leaned against the wall, the chill from the stone leaching into me. Inside my head I could feel a pounding, the dull pain that had once presaged a seizure but now seemed only to bring a blankness, a darkness where once visions had held sway.

  “I don’t know what this means,” I said slowly. Dread seeped through my body, numbing as the cavern’s cold. “But it sounds like—well, what kind of star did he say it was?”

  Edward shook his head. “I don’t know. But you understand, don’t you—the Doctor remembers things from a very long time ago, from before we lost the power to see into the sky. Up there”—he made a circling motion with his finger—“up where the Ascendant Tyrants lived, they could still see things, although Metatron says they didn’t understand what they were seeing. And because they didn’t understand, they didn’t warn us when they should have. And now Dr. Burdock says it’s too late—for everyone but us. The chosen ones; the Asterine Alliance. Ad astra aspera —you know what that means? To the stars through great hardship. That’s where we’re going. To the stars.”

  Jane’s ruddy face went dead white. “What do you mean, to the stars ?”

  “And Icarus?” I urged. “Who’s that?”

  He didn’t reply; only turned and walked quickly down the tunnel. Jane swore and reached for my hand.

  “Damn it, what the hell does all this mean? Stars falling once every four hundred years—I’ve never heard anything like it. If it’s such a terrible danger, why didn’t Trevor or Giles warn us? They seem to have known an awful lot about this place.”

  I bit my lip, recalling Giles’s reluctance my first morning at Seven Chimneys, when I had asked him about the symbol and strange lettering on a cigarette pack from Cassandra. “Maybe they didn’t know,” I said doubtfully. “Or maybe they didn’t want us to know.”

  Jane said, “What’s this star, then? Is it a kind of Shining?” She rubbed her forehead, her eyes dark-shadowed in her pale face. “God, I wish we knew where Scarlet was.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know.” My head ached horribly, and I could hardly bear the touch of her hand upon mine. I pulled away, heedless of Jane’s hurt look, and hurried after Edward.

  We followed him for several more minutes in near-darkness, the passage narrowing until we walked in single file with our hands groping at the walls. Ahead I could see a line of very bright lights and hear muffled voices.

  “This here will be where you’ll sleep.” Edward’s voice echoed loudly as we finally stepped out of the narrow passage. Before us a large chamber seemed to have been carved out of the ocher walls, and in it many blue-clad figures sat or stood talking in earnest groups. Aardmen, energumens, even one of the profoundly strong and somber-looking starboks, its un
iform torn where its massive shoulders had strained the fabric. But there were few humans. Only two that I could see, a man and a woman seated by themselves at a makeshift table against the wall.

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” said Edward. He stopped where the tunnel opened into the chamber and rested his hand on the stone wall. “Can I answer any more questions?” he added dutifully.

  “Oh no, you’ve done a fine job of that already,” Jane snapped. “I guess if we want to learn anything, we’ll just have to ask Dr. Burdock himself.”

  Edward gave a small gasp. “But we don’t bother the Doctor about things like that!” he said, aghast. “Especially about Icarus, or his”—he lowered his voice, looking past us to the energumens looming above the other geneslaves—“his daughter. He’s very sensitive, you see.”

  “I’m starting to feel a little sensitive myself,” Jane said threateningly.

  Edward shook his head. “You’ve got to be patient —it will all be different after tomorrow. It won’t just be the Doctor anymore. There’ll be others we can all talk to, enough for everybody, enough to lead us all to the stars.”

  He sighed, as though remembering a painful memory. “You see, it’s always much easier for him in the very beginning. Before he remembers it all. After a few months it gets difficult, and by the time a year’s gone by—well, that’s when we have the retirement party and start all over again. Only this time it will be different—”

  “ Retirement party?” My voice cracked in disbelief.

  “Well, of course,” Edward said, aggrieved. “ You’ll see—but I really have to go.” He started to turn away, stopped and looked back at us one last time, his plain face creased with concern.

  “You do understand how hard this all is for him, don’t you? I mean, you understand that he’s not the first one?”

  I tilted my head, staring into his grave blue eyes. “You mean Luther Burdock?”

  Edward Dean nodded. “That’s right.” But before I could ask anything else, he spun and hurried down the dank passage, the pad-pad of his footsteps echoing long after he was lost to sight.

  “Well, of course he’s not the first one,” Jane said peevishly. “Not unless he’s about five hundred years old.”

  I thought of Trevor Mallory and his cerebrimus mushrooms, and said, “Well, no. He’s a clone, that’s obvious. Trevor and Giles said Luther Burdock practically invented the whole clonal procedure they used with the first generation of geneslaves. He must have stored some of his own tissue, in case something happened to him.”

  “Why don’t these people just stay dead?” Jane said darkly.

  “Shh—” I looked over to where the energumens had turned to watch us. “We’d best go in.”

  When we entered the chamber the geneslaves stared at us, the aardmen with reserved amber eyes, the energumens with a black intensity. We skirted them nervously, and Jane said, “It doesn’t look to me like they’re very happy we’ve joined their Alliance.”

  I nodded. Overhead a few electric bulbs hung from twisted strands, casting a weak white glare over the shadowy figures below. A few filthy pallets of straw or old cloth were strewn across the floor, along with battered pots and split wooden casks. At a table by the far wall the two humans we had first glimpsed looked at us guardedly. When we stopped in the middle of the room, at a loss as to where to go, the woman raised her hand and with a curt motion beckoned us over.

  “Sit down,” she coughed, flapping a hand in front of her mouth. Beside her the man nodded once in greeting.

  “Thanks,” said Jane in relief. There were a few spindly metal folding chairs leaning against the wall, and we pulled these over to the rickety table. “We’re not—well, we’re not really sure what’s going on here.”

  The woman and man exchanged a look. Now that we were sitting with them, I saw how old they were, nearly as old as Cadence. Oily gray hair lay flat against their skulls, and their dark faces were mottled with sunspots and small lesions. A sour smell hung about them, rancid oil and urine and raw fear. They might have been brother and sister, or it might have been that age alone had stripped them of whatever had once differentiated them. After we sat, the woman clutched at the table, leaning forward and whispering hoarsely, “What have you heard?”

  I shrugged and glanced at Jane. “Heard? We haven’t heard anything. We just got here.”

  “We were hoping you could tell us what’s going on,” Jane added.

  The man gave a little yelp and slammed his hands against the edge of the table. “I told you!” he cried, and the woman frantically slapped at him until he lowered his voice. “I told you,” he wheezed, jabbing at the air with one skeletal finger. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was unshaven and so thin that his wrists protruded from his uniform like raw bones. “More prisoners, that’s all they are—nothing but prisoners!”

  “What do you mean, prisoners?” I looked at the woman. She shook her head, gesturing for me to be silent, then looked pointedly over to where the energumens continued to watch us. One of them laughed when it saw me staring, then, still laughing, turned back to its work. “They’re holding you prisoner here?” I whispered.

  The man’s head bobbled eagerly on his skinny neck, and Jane stared at him in disgust.

  “It’s true,” the woman choked. She reached across the table to grab my hands. Hers were gnarled as from much labor, but incredibly strong for one so thin and old. “After the harvest they dragged us from our farm and brought us here. They said we’re too old, said we can’t work anymore. Truth is, they don’t want us to work anymore—they’ve brought us down here to die. It’s only the young ones they keep alive—for breeders, ” she whispered venomously. “They need some of us, you know, they can’t go on without some of us.”

  “What are you talking about?” demanded Jane. “I thought you were all part of this—”

  “Only the young and stupid.” The man laughed bitterly. His bleary gray eyes included us in his judgment. “Like that idiot who showed you here—he don’t see what it’s got planned for them. The rest of us, it don’t even care if we know—we’re old and dying anyway. It just takes our land and our food for provisions for the rest of them, and drags us down here to rot.”

  “Who does?” I demanded, then lowered my voice when I saw one of the aardmen glance at me with eager sly eyes.

  “That thing—” The woman made a gesture and spat. “The construct. Metatron.”

  “What have they got planned?” said Jane.

  The man bared his teeth, the flickering light causing his dull eyes to gleam like two blood-streaked stones. “That Coming. The same thing Burdock’s been talking about all these years. Just more of his craziness, is all. More of the same trouble the scientists been planning for five hundred years. Only this time they’ve brought that construct to back him up, and their Alliance, so’s all the young people bought into it. They’ve got their ships on the other side of the mountain, all packed and ready to go. Just like that! Take our children and pfft !”

  “But he’s mad,” the woman said, pounding softly at the table. Tears slid from the corner of her eyes, but she seemed not to notice she wept. “Who can believe any of it? A star coming from the sky! It’s just another part of his madness.”

  “Her son,” the man explained, leaning toward us and whispering. “Her son’s joined up with them, thinks he’s going to see the stars. But let me tell you, ain’t none of ’em’s ever going to see no stars. Ain’t none of ’em’s ever going to see anything except the inside of an Ascendant prison vessel been turned into an Alliance prison vessel.”

  The woman let out a sob. The man leaned back, his face suddenly gone slack with defeat.

  I took a deep breath. “Tell me,” I said, my voice catching, “about the ships. And Dr. Burdock. About his madness—what is it? What causes it?”

  “It’s his daughter,” the man whispered, his eyes dull. “See, it takes a while for him to figure it all out, about the energumens and all. ’Cause, of course, he
’s actually been dead for all these years, but he don’t know that, at least not at first. ’Cause he’s a clone,” he hissed, and from the flicker of fear and hatred in his gaze, I knew that he would have been one of those who would have burned Burdock and his child, all those centuries ago. “But when finally he understands what’s happened to his little girl, the craziness comes onto him, and he just goes screaming into the night. But then, of course, he just starts all over. The whole damn thing just happens again. It’s the same every time.”

  “Who’s his daughter?” asked Jane.

  “ You know,” insisted the man. “That girl, what-you-call-her. Cybele. The first one, the one in all the pictures, all the ’files. The one he cloned, the one they used for the energumens.”

  Suddenly I felt as I had when that grinning livid face had grinned up at me out of the black water beneath the bridge. “The energumens,” I murmured, and looked to where they lolled against the far wall of the dim chamber. “He—he really did clone his daughter to make them ?” And I recalled those creatures outside by the river: their immensity, the ease with which they slung upon their shoulders steel beams and sacks of grain; but also their oddly childish faces, their haunted obsidian eyes. “His daughter !”

  The man nodded. “Of course she didn’t look like that in the beginning—there were a lot of, well, improvements that the Ascendants made to the stock. Only Burdock, of course, wasn’t too happy to find out his little girl grew up to be one of those. But Jesus Christ, that was what, four hundred years ago? Seems like a man could get used to anything in four hundred years.”

  “He hasn’t been awake for four hundred years.” The woman glared at him, then turned to me. “They only found him fifty years ago,” she said, and sighed. “Fifty years and I should know: I was there. One of those scientists came out to our farm, looking for anything might have belonged to Burdock’s labs back then. He wanted to sift through the ruins back of our fields, but I wouldn’t let him. Showed him a gun and he went off quick enough,” she said, smacking her lips at the memory. “But then there were others felt differently about it, you know, a whole lot of fools here had their daddies and mamas worked for Burdock back then. Soon enough that scientist found what he wanted—”