Brown, Eric

by Helix [v1. 0] [epub]

  “I think I would have liked Chrissie,” Kaluchek said. She sipped her drink, staring across the room. Hendry took another tube of brandy. He lay back in the bunker and thought about his last meeting with Chrissie, the pain he’d felt when he’d said goodbye.

  He slept eventually, and dreamed, and in his dreams Chrissie was five again, and they were playing snakes and ladders, Chrissie bewailing her luck when she landed on a snake...

  He woke up suddenly, cut to the core by the realisation of his daughter’s death. He sat up. Sissy was comatose across the bunker from him, sprawled out with a brandy tube clutched possessively to her chest. Carrelli was curled in a far bunker, quietly sleeping. At the far end of the lounge, Olembe sat hunched over a screen.

  Chrissie was dead: all his time with her was in the past, now. The future he’d envisioned, with his daughter a major part in it, would remain nothing but a dream.

  He looked up, and only then did he realise that it was no longer night-time beyond the viewscreen. While he’d slept, daylight had come to the planet. A weak, watery daylight, granted, but nevertheless a light that perhaps betokened some small measure of hope.

  He stood and crossed to the viewscreen, realising as he did so that he would be the first human being to witness sunrise on an alien world. He looked out across a vast white-blue ice plain, as smooth a regular as the surface of a mirror. He scanned the horizon, looking for the sun—then lifted his gaze.

  Zeta Ophiuchi was a small point high in the sky, almost directly overhead. He tried to work out the physics of so rapid a sunrise, and then gave up.

  Then he saw something, but couldn’t quite work out what he was looking at. He had never seen anything like it before, and it was as if his brain was having difficulty processing the unfamiliar data relayed by his staring eyes.

  He leaned forward, gripped the rail and tried to make sense of the celestial display above him.

  Weakly he called out, “Sissy. Sis, look at this.”

  He heard a tired, “What?”

  He said, “Get yourself over here.”

  He heard her climb from the bunker and pad towards him. He glanced at her, not wanting to miss the look of wonder that spread across her face.

  “Gina!” Sissy almost screamed.

  Olembe looked up from his workstation, then hurried over. Across the lounge, Carrelli woke up and stretched. She joined them and said, “What is it, Sissy?”

  Olembe could only stare, eyes wide, before he began to laugh.

  Carrelli smiled quietly to herself, her optimism vindicated.

  Hendry gazed through the viewscreen. “Salvation?” he said to himself.

  * * * *

  FOUR /// THE WESTERN EXPEDITION

  1

  The launch ofa dirigible never failed to fill Ehrin with excitement.

  As a child he had watched from the launch berths, hand in hand with his father, as the magnificent beasts nosed their way from the hangar into the open air, huge and ponderous and some of them far vaster than anything in creation, larger even than the central city blocks. To his infant eyes they had seemed to fill half the sky, the gaudy ellipses of their envelopes the only splash of colour against the permanent grey overcast.

  As the years progressed, and the launches and his attendance became more frequent, he never lost that strange inward thrill recollected from childhood. Then there came the time when he piloted the dirigibles on their maiden flights, and in his twenties he was transported back in time, was a child again watching with pride and awe as his father regaled him with the fascinating details of each new skyship.

  Now he was at the controls of the Expeditor as it left the foundry hangar and inched out over the city, the thrum of the multiple engines conducting a thrilling vibration through his bones. Kahran was beside him, monitoring the controls; they would pilot the skyship turn and turn about over the next few days. Sereth, as excited as a schoolgirl—this was only her second time aboard a dirigible— curled in a window seat and stared out through the thickened glass windows that lined the gondola, commenting from time to time at the sights she could see far below.

  Ehrin smiled as he gazed down at the city, reduced at this elevation to the appearance of an architect’s scale model. The monolithic city blocks were foreshortened, dark cubes against the long slashes of silver that were the ice canals. He saw crowds lining the canals, tiny beetle-like figures gazing up at the skyships and waving. He had no doubt that they were cheering, too. A public holiday had been announced to commemorate the auspicious launch of the Western Expedition, as the Church had titled it. The authorities made much of the fact that the expedition would return with the information necessary to begin mining operations beyond the fastness of the central mountains, and it was as if the crowds below were celebrating their triumphant return ahead of time. The sight of the two dirigibles, the smaller lead ship piloted by Ehrin followed by the gigantic red liveried freighter, must have made a stirring sight as they processed slowly over the city towards the pass notched in the ramparts of the western mountains.

  The events leading up to the launch had not been without incident. While Prelate Hykell stood on the platform and gave a dull, sententious speech, Ehrin and Kahran had busied themselves with the pre-flight sequences. It was while they were in the control gondola that none other than Velkor Cannak had burst through the swing door carrying his travel case, incensed that Ehrin had allocated him a berth in the freighter. He would, he said, be accompanying them in the lead gondola. Ehrin had exchanged a silent glance with Kahran, but said nothing. There was a spare berth aboard their ship, though the journey would have been pleasanter without Cannak’s dour presence. Diplomatically, Ehrin had asked Sereth if she would be kind enough to show Elder Cannak to the spare berth, and there he had remained throughout the launch. Perhaps, Kahran had quipped as they left the hangar, the official suffered from airsickness.

  Now they climbed higher, ascending to the elevation required to safely negotiate the mountain pass. Agstarn receded below, so that the buildings lost individual definition and became mere dark shapes against the grey bowl of the valley. The city came to resemble a great circle like an archery target, though one shot through radially with the grey filaments of the ice canals. Ehrin increased speed, and they gradually left the city in their wake and approached the snow-draped foothills. Ahead, he made out the isolated villages clinging to the valleys that striated the flanks of the mountains, the inhospitable hamlets inhabited by zeer breeders and hunters. Ehrin had never looked upon these sequestered collections of mean dwellings, observable from the luxury of his insulated loft, without wondering at the type of people who would gladly make these places their homes.

  “Look!” Sereth cried, pointing.

  Far below, like a silver river in full spate, a herd of perhaps a hundred zeer was being driven down the hillside towards Agstarn, bound for the slaughterhouses on the outskirts of town. Soon even this was lost to sight, dwindling to a faint ribbon, and then disappearing completely against the snow as theExpeditor rose higher and higher and edged towards the gap between the jagged peaks ahead.

  Ehrin ducked slightly, the better to view the rear mirror mounted on the flank of the gondola. Behind them, the freighter—its vast scarlet bulk filling the oval of the mirror—was rising even higher than theExpeditor in order to ease itself through the pass. The freighter carried a crew of three pilots, four engineers and as many geologists, as well as the requisite drilling equipment and machinery to carry out the preliminary boring operations.

  They came to the pass, a great gap between the peaks 20,000 feet high, scoured of snow by the constant winds. It was incredible to think that people had actually traversed this treacherous route on foot. In the days before dirigibles, the occasional expedition had set forth from Agstarn, returning after years with tales of adventures among the wild tribes inhabiting the vast western plain.

  Ehrin eased the skyship between the grey facets of rock, aware as he did so that he was exploring territory
new to him. He had travelled around the city by dirigible in the past, going as far as the bulwark of the mountains, but no further. This, below, was terra incognita, and the thought brought a smile to his lips. He exchanged a glance with Kahran, who nodded as if reading his mind. To him, Ehrin thought, this would be nothing—Kahran had travelled as far as Sorny, on the shore of the western plain, a distance almost unimaginable to a mind conditioned by the puny dimensions of Agstarn.

  Sereth came up beside him, slipping an arm around his waist and staring through the window at the depthless grey wastes ahead.

  A sound issued from along the corridor at their backs, that of a cabin door opening and closing. Kahran muttered something under his breath. Unsteady footsteps negotiated the corridor—the gondola was swaying with a slight pendulum motion—and Velkor Cannak emerged into the control room and cleared his throat.

  “Elder Cannak,” Ehrin said, determined to be civil. “Please take a seat. Can we get you a tisane?”

  “Neither will be necessary,” Cannak said. “I merely wish to issue you, as the secular leader of this expedition, with this.” He held out a long envelope to Ehrin, who looked into the Elder’s face as he took the letter. Cannak’s expression gave nothing away, as cold as the slabs of rock passing by outside.

  “I will be in my cabin if you have anything to discuss relevant to its content,” Cannak said as he turned and left the control room.

  “This should be interesting,” Ehrin said as Cannak’s door closed behind him. “Any guesses as to what it might be?”

  “A written apology for his conduct the other day,” Sereth laughed.

  Kahran spluttered. “Believe me, Cannak is not the kind who offers apologies gladly.”

  “Then some kind of pre-payment from the Church,” Ehrin joked. “A cheque for a million monits.”

  “More like a summons to appear before a court of heresy upon your return,” Kahran said.

  “Open it and find out!” Sereth cried, attempting to snatch the letter from his hand.

  Ehrin slit open the envelope, slipped out the single sheet of parchment and began reading. He looked up.

  “Well?” Kahran said.

  “An order from none other than Hykell himself,” Ehrin said. “Brief and to the point. Here.” He passed the letter to Kahran, who scanned the page and read the relevant passages aloud.

  “...hereby entrust Officer Cannak with the spiritual and physical well-being of all those embarked upon the expedition to etc., etcetera. In this capacity, Cannak’s opinion in all matters relevant to the success of the mission is to be sought at all junctures. Cannak’s word is final and is to be obeyed as that of the High Church. Any instances of insubordination will be dealt with by the High Council upon the return of the expedition, etcetera... Signed, Prelate Hykell.”

  Kahran looked up, shaking his head. ‘“All matters relevant to the success of the mission’...” he said. “What does Cannak know about the technical side of the mission, anyway? There was nothing of this in the contract!”

  “I wouldn’t let it get to you,” Ehrin said. “We reach the plains, the geologists and engineers do their drilling, and we move on... What can Cannak order us to do, other than go down on our knees and pray three times a day?”

  Kahran snorted. “Let him try.”

  Sereth said reasonably, “The Church had to produce something like this, just to show us that they think they’re in control. Ehrin’s right. It means little.”

  “But the insult in thinking that he can dictate—I” Kahran began, flapping the parchment. He moved off, heading for the corridor at a shuffle. “I’m going to have a quiet word with him.”

  Ehrin reached out and caught the old man’s arm, shocked at how the slack flesh shifted on the bone. “Leave him be, Kahran. Conflict would only suit him. The response that would most rile the Elder is no response at all. We will act as if we haven’t read the missive.”

  Kahran stared into his eyes, and finally nodded. “Very well. You’re right. But allow me one futile gesture of protest...” And, not waiting for Ehrin’s response, the old man crumpled the parchment in his fist and tossed the ball across the control room.

  The Expeditor had moved beyond the mountain pass. Below, sheer slabs of rock fell away in a drop that seemed to go on forever and made Ehrin’s stomach clench with vertigo. He stared ahead and made out a great plain spreading in all directions save one. After the confines of the tiny plain on which Agstarn sat, this one seemed illimitable, its very extent inhospitable. Who or what could safely make their home here, without the shelter of enclosing mountains to shield them from the razor-sharp winds?

  They would find out, he knew. For a fact, tribes did inhabit the plain, though it had been decades since explorers had last made contact with the tribespeople. What kind of lives these people lived, what language they spoke, and even what gods if any they worshipped was something that the expedition might in time discover.

  Ehrin eased the dirigible down the mountainside, glancing in the rear-view mirror to ensure the freighter was right behind them. Its colourful bulk hove into view, eclipsing the dark V of the pass. Ehrin accelerated, set the controls to automatic and took a swivel seat before the pedestal.

  The plan was to continue at top speed for the remainder of the day, landing at nightfall to make camp—or rather to moor the ship and sleep in the gondolas. It was deemed too dangerous to sail by night, when the winds of the plains were known to become gale force. In the morning they would continue, the geologists surveying the terrain for what seemed to them a suitable drilling site.

  Then they would make camp while the engineers erected the bore, and wait upon the success or otherwise of the prospecting. If the engineers struck lucky, then they would mark the site and the expedition would return triumphant to Agstarn. Ehrin hoped that the first few test drills discovered nothing, to give them longer out here on the plain.

  If they came upon villages or settlements, then Ehrin fully intended to explore, make contact with the tribes and learn as much as he could about their lives. If, that was, such a venture did not fall within the proscription of their ecclesiastical chaperone.

  Kahran brewed a pot of tisane and they drank the steaming cups, from time to time Ehrin casting an eye over the controls.

  Kahran busied himself with a bulky camera he had set up beside a window. “I won’t let the opportunity pass to get a record ofthis journey, Ehrin.”

  Sereth said, “This journey?”

  “In 1265,” Kahran said, “my photographic plates of the expedition to Sorny were confiscated by the Church. They no doubt destroyed them all.”

  Sereth was wide-eyed. “But why would they do that?”

  “Spoken like a true bishop’s daughter,” Kahran said, but with a smile. “The Church is careful with what it allows its citizens to understand of the universe out there.”

  Ehrin, who had been watching Sereth, now saw her expression freeze as she looked beyond Kahran to the corridor.

  Velkor Cannak stood in the doorway, staring at Kahran as he fussed about the camera, oblivious. The Elder’s face was tight-lipped, as if he had been forced to suck on a bitter-fruit.

  “As ever, Kahran puts his words ahead of rational thought.” His rasping tone startled Kahran, who jumped minimally before regaining his composure and resuming his fiddling with the lens. He muttered something to himself.

  “The Church, as you say, is careful when it comes to ensuring the well-being of its citizens,” Cannak said. “If indeed your photographs were impounded, then it would be for good reasons. It would not do to spread images of the barbarous ways of the tribes of the western plains.”

  Kahran opened his mouth to reply, but bit back whatever rejoinder was on his lips and said instead, “There, that should do it.” He looked at Cannak. “I take it that the Church will allow me to photograph safe images of clouds and landscapes, Elder?”

  Cannak seemed oblivious of the implied criticism. “Aesthetic images of the journey will no do
ubt look well upon the walls of city mansions.”

  Sereth intervened, as if to lighten the mood. “Would you care to take a cup of tisane with us, Elder, and admire the view?”

  Ehrin looked for the crumpled missive, where it had fetched up against the timber panelling of the window seat, but it had vanished. He noticed the bulge in the pocket of Sereth’s jerkin.

  Cannak inclined his head. “I think I will do just that,” he said, seating himself next to Sereth and accepting a pot of scented water.

  She traded small-talk with the Elder for the next fifteen minutes, while Ehrin busied himself needlessly with the controls and Kahran composed a series of photographs.

  At length, Cannak looked up and addressed Ehrin. “I take it that you have had time to cast an eye over the edict from Prelate Hykell?”

  Ehrin feigned a complicated adjustment of the starboard rudder, and answered casually, “I have.”