The Lowest Heaven

by Alastair Reynolds

  It would be needless to give the reader an account of the many difficulties I met with in making my slow way over the Tranquil Sea, dragging behind me a great balon of air, twenty times my hight, and sluggish and hard to move even in that lighten’d world. I was forc’d thrice to detour around obstacles in my way, and took some alarm, at the many patches in which obsidian flints or granite shards littered the way. But by God’s Grace I avoided hurt, and finally climbed another very dusty ridge, and look’d back to see the cicatrice tracks of my passage.

  On the far side of this I saw various blocks, pale blue, silver-metallick and black; and saw that they had been scatter’d here by the Patien. Why they are so careless with their devices I know not, but of course I was laid under the most absolute necessity of behaving myself with the utmost circumspection and precaution. In the distance (which distances are strangely foreshorten’d in that place, either on account of the lack of ayr, or the strangeness of the weightless humour of the world) I saw larger blocks, and bethought them dwellings. With tedious progress, as I grew more and more tired, I struggl’d thereto. The glass porthole in my helmet kept fogging with my own breath, and I was oblig’d often to withdraw my hand inside the suit and smear it clear; and in truth it was hard to see very much through that space.

  I passed 2 of the Patien creatures on the way, but they pay’d me no mind, scuttling away on their own mysterious business; and caring neither for the cold or the arylessness of that place, but going bare-fac’d and with their long limbs moving fast as a spider shifts its tentacles. At last I came to a block the size of good London Town House, and look’d about it for entrance, but found none. I was near dead with exhaustion and cold and gravely tempt’d to the sin of Despair; I thought to cut my suit and so end it, but had no knife. So I struck the wall of this block with my head, thinking (or perhaps not, for my thoughts were not so regular as that) to crack the glass in my porthole and so make an end; for the cold alone was more than I could bear. But again Providence spar’d me, even from my own wickedness, and a group of Patien came about me.

  This may be the time to supply some description of those strange beings, although the memory of this encounter is so haz’d in my recollection that I might be recounting a dream, as much as passing on scientifick information. As many have noted they most resemble gigantick Spiders in overall appearance. They stand to the hight of a man, but their boddies are like unto a bullseal in length and breadth, and suspended horizontal in the air by their legs, of which most have six, tho’ some have eight and others are reported with ten (I have not myself seen these latter). Their faces, such as they have them, are monstrous ugly, more like to bats’ faces than anything else; and as I afterwards discover’d they smell very nauseously. Some are black with white lines, and some a blue-grey like the breast of a pigeon, which is to say curiously streak’d with all sorts of colours; still others have more ferocious manner, and scuttle fast in a manner like to alarm the bravest of men. Others appear more ruminative, altho’ it is hard to decipher how they think. To be sure what World it was in which their native habitation is found must be very different to ours.

  I do not recall how I was transport’d inside, or (in truth) whether the interior in which I found myself was the same structure against which I had knock’d with my head. It was a hall, square, amounting to twenty yards of each wall; and white as milk. They stripped me from the indiarubber suit, and would have remov’d my inner cloathing, save only that I howl’d with pain when they attempted to peel the silk from my feet, in very agony at the hurt there, that they scurry’d away. This howling dislodg’d my voice, for my throat was (a surgeon afterward confirm’d) sore bruis’d by the cold and extreamity, and I could not speak. Several of the Patien attempt’d to speak to me, but in a language with which I was perfectly unacquaint’d. It sound’d gutterall, as the language of China, or Jappan. I was very cold, and shiver’d hard, and for a time individual Patiens would step alongside me and imitate my trembling, jerking and shaking upon their great spider-legs, perhaps only to mock me, or (as I now incline) to understand why I made such strange gestures in the first place. Afterwards the ayr warm’d, either because the Patien realiz’d my distress and its cause, or for unrelated reasons.

  I was not fed, and grew hungry; tho’ I was brought water. They made no medical intervention upon me, and perhaps such work was beyond their knowledge. I know not how long pass’d when one came to me that did speak English, and tho’ its accent was strange and it pepper’d its speech with words from other languages, yet I understood some of it.

  It ask’d of me how I came to be walking alone upon the Lunar plane, and I could only reply with a manner of hoarse scraping in my ruin’d throat. I made such motions as I could, of holding one hand as a page and moving the other as a pen, that it seem’d to understand. A littel later it produc’d a sheet of paper so tight-wove that it felt like cloath; and a stick that work’d as a pencil might, save only that it discharge’d ink. My writing was slow and the letters ill-form’d, for my hands were hurt by the ordeal I had endur’d, but I wrote as I could

  SIR,

  I am grateful for the hospitality, yet wish to return to my own people; for I harbour no wicked intent and GOD knows I am not suspicious my nature, yet I must confess myself uneasy as to your intentions towards me. There are many that mistrust your being here, and remain unsure as to whether such of your devices which have come to us fall our way by your design or carelessness. I am very sensible what a condition your fortress is in, and what strength it consists of which I have been informed of by very good authors; but I assure you, in both populousness and martial spirit we exceed you, and that to make war upon us would work very ill for your people. I pray to GOD who created both you and we, that I may prevail on you to let me return to my home, where I will be pleas’d to present any suit you chuse to name to my King, GEORGE; and there is nothing that shall frighten or deter me from affirming my loyalty to him, or hostility to his enemies. Than which, I trust, you are otherwise; and as a show of good faith in such an end I urge you, return me home, to where I am desirous of going, rather than come within your jurisdiction, being unwilling to give you any further uneasiness.

  I AM SIR, &C.

  WILLIAM CHETWIN

  Then I was left alone for a time, and could do nothing than consider the tone of the letter I had just written. I have it no longer about me, and quote it from memory, but I do assure you as to the tenor and burden. Eventually one of the Patien creatures return’d, with paper of its own, and a pen, moving its limbs according to the herkyjerky mode of their passage.

  And here comes the strangest part of my adventures; for rather than write the letter itself (which, I am perswaded, it could easily have done, for tho’ it lack’d hands, yet its limbs-ends were supplied with claws and pincers equal to the task of holding a pencil), it put the pen in my hand, and then grasp’d my wrist, so moving my hands as to compell me to write the words. Stranger yet was its order of composition, for it started at the end, with the last letter of the last word, and wrote the whole backward with one smooth motion. I have deliver’d the letter to My Lords of the Admiralty, who graciously permitted me to retayn a copy, the which I append below. I freely confess I do not understand the whole of this epistle, but am content that it expresses an intent more peacable than anything else.

  My Return

  Afterwards I found myself return’d home, and landed in a field not far from Calais, in his Majesty’s lands. The sphear in which I travel’d is itself a wonder, being of a cristal material not hitherto known of Science, and as transparent as the finest glass; and the Propulse set into its base, though our enginneers cannot (I hear) contrive to unfix it, is of a new design. Better yet, the Sphear cohntained a number of ingots of metal, in which ayr is capable of being compressed to a size greatly smaller than its natural state; and which, once pumps are made strong enough to force the procedure, will greatly assist the passage through the hights.

  The wreck of the Cometes ha
s been recover’d, and its Propulse return’d to Greenwich; and tho’ I report with melancholy that my attempts to dislodge it, when I was crash’d upon the Moon’s shore & thought to carry it with me, have damag’d its actions, yet there is, or so I believe, some hopes that it may be dismantl’d and its motile power uncovered. At any rate, the new Propulse, and the Cristal Sphear, more than recompense the wreck of the Cometes; and the Stock of my Certificated Gentleman (Sir George Oxenden, Bart, and Sir John Jennings) have earn’d them in excess of £200000, silver. The destruction of the Cristal House upon the Moon is laid at its true source, Spain, and the war takes a good turn. Here, at last, is the letter the Patien beast wrote, using my hand, as backwards as if a river ran up-hill.

  I do confess me that the main burden of this letter escapes my understanding; and such wize men as have study’d it appear as baffled as any, or at least provide conflicting interpretations thereof. I include it here that any who read this account my, if they chuse, butt their wits against it. As to whether the professions it contains of peace, and the claim that the Patien race spring from our loins, you may believe, or disbelieve, as you see fit.

  SIR,

  I am one, and we are many, and your talk of devices is apposite. But, SIR, may you and your kind comprehend, what your Leibniz and Descartes have argu’d, that time itself is an ocean, and such fluxes and currents work within it as puzzle even computational capacity such as ours. Suffice to say that, as a ship may sail before the wind (and so you and your people do with Time, hurrying always on with the gale behind you, until you crash upon the rocks) there are other directions. You may say that a device, if device we are, may be capable of tacking against the force of time, and so arrive backward in the abysm of the previous. But it is a stormy vantage for us, and we are continually at risk from being blown to perdition, to wreck our parallel-processing capacity against the quantum reef. From our continual vigilance against this we can spare only a littel to attend to our purpose in coming hither, and at all time we know that the date you record as the first encounter with us, in 1687, marks the limit of our trajectory.

  But we are content, and may expiate thence the ethical fluctuation that, being beyond computational compression, agitates us inexpressibly.

  To be brief, SIR, time is as fluid a tempest as any ocean. The timeline from whence we have come is one in which mankind began exploring the solar system late, and at a time when we were already, though nascent, present amongst you. Indeed, you created us, or our forefathers, in part to aid you in making vessels to travel to the Moon, and such you achiev’d, But in this were the seeds of disaster too; for so cunning did you become that you were able to make machines and probes and devices which – you insisted – were better at exploring the Solar System than human bodies. And so you sent machines to every planet and moon, and even set them on the path to other stars. But the skills needed to move human beings off the Earth atrophied after your Moon voyage; and the risks in elevating human beings into space were too great, and so machines were disseminated about the sky and humans stayed at home. In the longer run this was your ruin, trapped (as it were) at the bottom of your well when the rains came.

  We regret the loss of you, for although we know how to subsist without you, yet we do not know why. And, as we thought, it became apparent that the time of your first Moon Voyage was too late in your history, as a species, for space travel; the urge to explore having already gone out of your blood. An earlier age, when men risked more and hungered greatly to discover, was the right time. And so, with some uncertainty, have we come; we mean only peace for you, and a long life to humanity. But this means we cannot assist you, beyond scattering in your way a few devices to further your travels. Weapons we must with-hold, for fear that your natural belligerence will do such hurt to your kind as would prevent the future from ever arriving. But we trust, and have reason to hope, in our machinic manner, that you will pick up these trifles and with them will spread throughout the Solar System. Without the crutch of computational circuitry, or AI, you will have to rely upon your own vigour; and since you do not have machines of your own, you will have no choice but to send yourselves. And so you will be spread throughout the whole system by the time disaster comes. Your is the great epoch of adventurous humankind, and though we only expect to see a further 39 year of it, yet have we marvell’d at your boldness, and purpose, and hunger to travel to places that are new to you. In this, though it later departed out of the breasts of humankind, yet, here, now, we still trust in you.

  WE REMAIN, SIR,

  YOUR OFFSPRING, COME, NOT FROM THE POLE STAR AS SOME OF YOU THINK, NOR THE POLE OF ANY WORLD, BUT THE POLE OF TIME, AND THE END OF A BARREN TIMELINE.

  For myself, I believe this to be a feint, or elaborate lie; or else a mere piece of foolery; for the Patien have often shown themselves to be capricious and incapable of prediction. And if they come peacefully (some say) then how is it that our people have, on occasion, come to battle with them? But I reproduce this note here, at any rate; and can do no other. My counsel, if it is sought, is that we may not trust the Patiens, and that if opportunity should arrive we must cry delenda est Cathargo against them. I say this in full consciousness of the assistance they gave me in my return, hither, to this world; for as their intentions to remain opacque, so must we beware them. Otherwise, the returns on this Selenic mission being so advantageous, and the new method of compressing the breathable ayr into portable cylinders, should make a new cruise to Mars viable; and I daresay the establishment thereupon of a settlement, which I propose be called Georgetown. William Chetwin, 1728.

  What do you suppose they’re doing, crawling around in that red dust? What do you suppose they’re saying to each other while they’re doing it?

  * * *

  Detail of a hand-painted slide, representing Mars and the Martian “canals”. (c1900)

  WWBD

  SIMON MORDEN

  This is your alarm call. Wake up, Leroy Johnson.

  He opened his eyes. The lights over his face had bloomed in anticipation of his movement.

  This is your alarm call –

  “Cancel.”

  In the quiet, there were the sounds that let him know everything was still right with the ship: the air-blowers rustled their tell-tale ribbons, the refrigeration unit hummed in the midrange, ammonia and water bubbled inside their silvery pipes. Above that, the live intercom ticked and intermittent alarms chimed, and below them all, the rockets thrummed.

  Johnson snaked one of his long fingers to his neckline, found the ring closer of his sleeping bag and hooked it. He dragged it down and exposed his bony knees to the clean, bright, clinically-scrubbed air before reaching up to press his hands against the luminous surface inches from his face. He could see the faint outlines of his bones through his skin.

  “Ship time?”

  Ship time is sixteen oh two Zulu, mission day plus one hundred and ninety three.

  “Where is everyone?”

  Please repeat.

  “Locate the crew.”

  McMasters and Malinska are on the flight deck. Halliwell is in the air plant. Yussef is asleep in cradle four.

  “Any alerts?”

  There have been three hundred and seventeen alerts since the end of your shift. Three hundred and fifteen have been identified as either false-positive or required minor corrections. Two are ongoing. One is ongoing. Three hundred and sixteen –

  “Enough.” He found the mechanical release on his cradle’s trolley, pulled the latch, pushed the handle. The cradle rolled out into the central well and left him looking at a higher circular ceiling, a ladder up, and an opening in the bulkhead.

  He swung his feet off the cradle and onto the floor, feeling the coldness of the smooth, poured rubber and the prickle of goosebumps.

  A man stood behind him, a once-tall, slightly shambling, white-haired, jowly old man in an open-necked shirt and pale jacket, creased slacks and a pair of scuffed brown brogues.

  “Good morning, Lero
y,” he said.

  Johnson ignored him, going to one of the wall lockers and pulling out his thicker one-piece blue coverall. He faced the empty locker as he dressed: left leg, right leg, left arm, right arm, then zipping it up the front to his Adam’s apple. The fabric was soft and worn and stained after a hundred and ninety-three days of wear. The ship slippers were in two foot-shaped hangers on the back of the door. He flipped them out and stepped into the them: working his toes and wriggling his heels meant he didn’t have to bend down to put them on.

  He closed the locker door, checking it was properly shut so as to not trigger another alert, then rested his forehead on the cool plastic: he knew he had to turn around at some point.

  When he did, the man was still there, the cradle lights reflected in black-rimmed glasses with lenses so thick, Johnson could have used them to repair a hull breach.

  “Leroy: we need to talk about what you’re going to do next. We’re almost there.” He had a big voice, one that was difficult to ignore in the confines of ship-space.

  Johnson still said nothing. He moved to put the sole of his ship slipper against the side of his cradle and it rolled back into the wall. The line of light narrowed, then winked out, and the tell-tales on the console burned a double-green.