The Lowest Heaven

by Alastair Reynolds

  “One of the recreational channels. Have a good time there.”

  Morning star, evening star, bright beautiful planet. I somehow knew it would be more hospitable to life than Mars. More fecund.

  “It won’t be like the last channel,” Christopher confirmed. “You can talk to anyone who takes your fancy, there.”

  “There’ll be people?”

  “Plenty of people.”

  “Venus-ians?” I shuddered slightly at the nomenclature of the dread Wells.

  “Travellers. Like yourself.”

  “Will you stay and speak to them?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t think that would even work. I’m just moving you over. I’d best head off.”

  Venus was thick like soup with heat.

  A cluster of figures stood not far from me. Again, wholly astral creatures. I extended my – interest? Sight? Soul? - to them. Several were women, the first naked women I’d ever seen and more naked than they could be in the flesh. But we were beyond reserve or modesty.

  They turned on me. Their lust washed over me. The heat of it bubbled and blistered me. I was eyed up without eyes, handled without hands.

  “Ladies!” I responded, to prevent a misunderstanding. “I do not desire you!”

  The soupy heat of Venus grew chilly.

  “I mean no offense! I am a disciple of another love, in which the female has no part!”

  I was spat out. They turned their backs-not-backs on me. It was exactly like being cut at a party. As I made further protests, I was astonished to hear them refer to me as an arsehole, a complete cock, and other epithets.

  My anger took form. I was more adept than the last time I’d tried it, on Mars; walls flew up around me, almost before I knew I was their architect. The women exploded the walls by flooding them with lava. I sprouted a pillar from the ground beneath me to lift me above the red flow, and I rained grey fog all over my opponents. The lava around their legs coagulated into greyish rock. I was quite merciless, scrutinising their agonised coils, reminiscent of those who perished at Pompeii.

  Their thoughtforms reached out to drag me down. I streaked away in disgust at myself and them.

  The airs above Venus were far cooler than the surface. I became aware of other fliers, an escort surrounding me. Their forms were minimal, their greetings like chirping or cooing.

  hullo!

  who are you!

  I introduced myself and asked, in wonder, who they were.

  just mods!

  “Like that vision of Christopher? But you don’t look...”

  who’s Christopher?

  just here to keep the channel friendly!

  had reports about you

  losing us custom!

  terms of service!

  who’s your account provider?

  A friendly hailstorm. A floating conscience, almost. How could I have been so violent, so cruel? I had been contaminated by Venusian feelings, of the body rather than the mind. I apologised profusely for my behaviour.

  no problem!

  where you coming in from?

  “Earth,” I said. Their giggles were icicles.

  don’t know your way around the channels!

  not the right place at all

  you’d rather be with the boys!

  are we right? we’re right!

  try another channel!

  They sprang away across space and I knew what they referred to, where I needed to go.

  The luminous pale blue planet. My namesake. Far out away from the sun, but it might shed its own light (Christopher’s small book told me), and it might also be heated from within. I’d always hoped its colour was the blue of a year-round Spring sky.

  Could I get there?

  But fear prevented me, and I let the silver cord pull me back. Snap!

  I had to hunt Christopher all over the ship before I found him in a bar with a crowd of other passengers, chattering in German and drinking Schnaps. I thought it unfair he hadn’t told me his friends would be aboard, but then I realised he’d only met them that morning. I sat on the edge of the group. An Englishman with a walrus moustache enthused about how there would soon be larger and better ships than this mammoth transatlantic liner. I, dizzy from another kind of travel, could not share his excitement.

  I saw that Christopher had become more and more interesting over his ten year in exile, while I’d stagnated. Had he made peace with being a Uranian? Perhaps brotherly love was enough for him, the brief, intense connections that form between travellers. Maybe he was never tempted. Maybe he frolicked nightly with his chess opponents. I didn’t think he was still grubbing around in Whitman’s poems looking for a solution. Unlike me.

  Eventually, I had drunk enough that my friend had to help me to my cabin and my bed. He poured me a glass of water. I was melancholy and I had to concentrate to remember that this Christopher hadn’t steered me across the void. I’d never held his hand.

  “Are you alright? Do you need the ship’s doctor?”

  “It’s not that.”

  He was the spit and image of my celestial guide. My heart poured out of me despite myself.

  “Christopher, if you have a great longing for a – thing, a feeling of great kinship with this thing, and then you realise that it might actually be possible to see it, to feel...”

  “What thing?”

  But I could not speak the name of my planet. He would think me ridiculous, again. Or he’d enthusiastically tell me to dream, again, for dreaming was all I’d done. I tried to describe my dilemma in less specific terms.

  “Chris, is it normal to feel wary – to not even know if you should try to approach...”

  I suddenly feared that he might misunderstand me, and think I was declaring a long-overdue love. Then his raised eyebrow deflated that notion. I blustered on.

  “Because what if it’s not the answer? What if you’re stuck with being lonely, and not at ease, and it’s not because you have any particular connection to – this thing. What if it’s nothing to do with...?”

  He smiled and turned down my cabin light. We were used to helping one another when worse for wear. He wasn’t waiting for my revelation; he had given up on loving me, years ago. But, I realised, I had not given up the idea that he loved me. He’d go back to his deck friends as soon as I fell asleep. I closed my eyes.

  Brave again in the dark, I decided to tell him. I murmured:

  “I still want to. I want it. I want to touch...”

  My knuckles struck the cabin wall. My hand had been foraging about without my volition.

  Christopher had already gone.

  Later, I went back, drunker, to the deck. I shouted: “The female has no part!” Christopher’s friends stared at me. Christopher helped me to bed, again.

  It was no hardship, the following morning, to leave my body.

  As soon as I was moving among the planets, my companions from Venus re-joined me.

  you again!

  we lost you!

  we like you!

  can’t let you back in there though

  sorry!

  Their feather-light push speeded me on. And I heard-without-ears the voices of my warmonger foes:

  my view’s gone fuzzy

  it’s him again

  call in the supermod

  have him shut down

  Christopher appeared, for a brief moment, in the air before me, waving his arms in warning. Overtaking him was something like a flock of carnivorous birds, or a rock fall that twisted in space to chase me. They called to one another in a grating crackle.

  how is he moving across the damn channels

  can’t cut him off through his provider

  provider’s unclear

  I sped on but the missiles dogged me. I raced them; they were hard put to keep up with me. I only need to outpace them for a little longer! We swung together around the enormous bulk of Jupiter, dodged between the rings of Saturn. I was out of breath, I had no breath, they were shouting behind me.
r />   wandering all over

  not a user, it can’t be

  only an error

  clean it up

  The blue planet came into sight. I knew at once that I’d been right – that it was a warm planet, a perpetual spring morning.

  I went lower and dropped through the blue.

  The planet wasn’t featureless at all. There was a wood, a great greenwood, moss paths dusted with pollen.

  where is it now

  there, in that empty channel

  looks busy in there

  it’s coming from him

  he’s populating the place

  There was dew on the grass, and I delighted in it, and the dark in among the trees was homelike and wholesome.

  we should lock him in

  cut the account off from the machine

  just disconnect it

  lock him in there

  yeah try it

  And in a clearing of the woods was a college quad and the quad was the agora of Greece, and a crowd of young men smiled to see me come to join their conversation. My college friends, unencumbered by wives and children, stood with other men I had not yet met.

  I felt pain all through me. The hideous mod-birds were above me, tearing at my silver rope with metal teeth. I knew they wanted to stop me from travelling. If I hurried, I could still use the rope, still let it pull me, and I might manage to get home.

  I didn’t want to go home. I’d come home. Christopher would understand. I took up the tight-stretched silver cord in my hands, near to my not-body, and wrapped it neatly around each not-fist. It would only take one quick –

  locked him in

  done it

  Snap!

  The wind picks up and he is pieces now, carried on the current, through the mist, into an icy nothing.

  * * *

  A glass slide, depicting the shapes of four different galaxies (erroneously labelled as nebulae). (c1900)

  FROM THIS DAY FORWARD

  DAVID BRYHER

  Ted had always preferred his own company, but this was ridiculous.

  “What should I call you?”

  “Ted.”

  “That’s a bit weird.”

  “Was this not explained to you in orientation? FentiCorp don’t let clones mix with friends and relatives of the donor. There’s no need to…”

  Ted raised his hand. “No, it’s okay. I remember. It’s still weird. I mean, I can’t call you Ted.”

  “You don’t need to call me anything. You’ll depart in a day or two. We don’t need to see each other again.”

  “After this,” Ted said, glancing at the steaming pot of coffee on the white plastic table, at the empty sofa opposite his own.

  “After this,” his clone replied with a nod. “May I…?”

  “Oh, feel free.” Ted waved at the other sofa, then slumped back into the cushions. He puffed out his cheeks and ignored the cold knot that was developing in his stomach. He didn’t know what to say next.

  “Coffee?” his clone asked, leaning forward to pour two cups anyway. He handed one to Ted. “So, as you understand, we’re here to discuss any physical or mental peculiarities of this body. The kind of thing that only an experienced user would know. What can you tell me?”

  Ted sipped from his cup and the coffee tasted dark and rich and chocolatey. The Trident had the best coffee he’d tasted in the solar system. He was going to miss that, for a start. He wondered if he could take some with him.

  He licked his lips, then replied, “Your knees are going to ache in wet weather. Don’t ask me why – they always have. And if you’re going to be sat down a lot, get a chair with lumbar support.”

  “FentiCorp do not currently deploy their clones in office positions.”

  Ted stared hard at the black liquid in his cup. “No,” he said, his voice soft. “I’m sorry, of course they don’t.”

  “You’re sorry? Are you feeling guilty?” The clone’s voice was light, almost surprised.

  “You don’t even talk like me.”

  “That’s not answering the question.”

  “So what am I now, some sort of counsellor?”

  “In FentiCorp’s experience, donors sometimes find it easier to open up to their clones.”

  “A counsellor who talks like I’m in marketing or something.”

  There was a brief pause. The clone was trying not to smile. Ted looked away.

  “Don’t worry about me,” the clone said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Ted nodded. Sniffed. Why was his nose runny all of a sudden? “Is this going to take long? What else do you need?”

  “Are there any psychological triggers I need to be aware of?”

  “I went through all this with the agent, like a hundred times.”

  “Of course. But in FentiCorp’s experience, donors–”

  “Or maybe I’m someone who just reads out what I’m told to?” Ted was getting a headache. Do I sound this annoying all the time?

  The clone paused. “You’re not too keen on proper procedures, I take it.”

  Ted shrugged.

  The clone looked at the bulging blue bruise on the inside of his wrist, poked it with a finger and frowned. Ted could see the small incision, where the medibot had inserted the failsafe capsule. “If you’re not happy with the arrangement–”

  “Who is?” Ted tried to ignore the buzzing waves of nausea coursing through his body. “There can’t be a single person passing through this place who’s happy about being here.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” the clone said, turning his mirror gaze straight on Ted. “I haven’t been here long.”

  The blue blur of Neptune slid by underneath them, a faintly curved horizon slanting across the gallery window in the bar. The twisting ribbons of the planet’s atmosphere glowed in the spotlights on the underside of the Trident. It was an unsettling sight. It seemed too close. Ted thought he should hear the planet roar.

  His footsteps clicked on the marble floor as he entered the room. Unidentifiable music drifted through the still, cool air. Above the bar hung an illuminated canopy, twinkling with a thousand champagne-coloured shards of glass. Glowing in the golden light beneath, there was a selection of just about every alcohol imaginable.

  The décor aimed for rich and sumptuous but it fell short. With laughter and the chink of glasses and a little bit of warmth, maybe it would get there. But the Trident wasn’t a busy hotel right now – Ted wondered if it ever was – and of the couple of dozen tables here, only one was occupied.

  As he reached the bar, he glanced out of the window again. A shadow was biting at the stars. (And he tried to ignore the one, slightly brighter dot in the distance. The Sun, so far behind him.) The silhouette of a new ship, coming in to dock. At least the Trident would have more guests soon.

  He wondered who they might be. He wondered if they’d meet. He wondered if there was any point.

  There was no server at the bar; you were supposed to just help yourself. Despite the price he had paid to stay here, and for FentiCorp’s services, he still felt awkward about that, so he poured himself a modest gin from a gem-blue bottle, then smothered it with tonic. He took a couple of deep swallows before he went to join Marco at the table.

  “How did it go?” Marco’s eyes reflected the shimmering gold light from the bar. “Everything okay?”

  “I guess. Well. It was a bit…” He put his drink down and turned the glass this way and that, staring at the clear liquid. “I mean, didn’t you find it weird?”

  Marco shrugged and sipped at his own drink. “We’re outta here,” he said, flicking his fingers towards the window. “What does it matter?”

  Ted gulped at his gin again. Marco drained his own glass, then slipped into the next chair round the table, closer to Ted. He put his hand on his knee. “Make it better?” Marco’s eyes sparkled in the dim light of the bar. Oh, those champagne eyes.

  Ted laughed. He leant over and kissed him. “Not tonight, babe.”

  Marco’s hand cl
imbed higher. “You can’t refuse a man on his last night in the solar system.”

  “Second to last.”

  “Details.” Higher still. “We’re condemned men now. Nothing left to live for. Nobody looking over our shoulder. May as well enjoy the freedom.”

  Ted shuffled his leg away. “Seriously,” he said, trying to inject amusement into his voice but – really? Condemned? “Just leave it, Marco.”

  Marco stiffened and sat upright. “Fine.”

  “Don’t be like that. It’s been a weird day.”

  “Sure it has, yeah.”

  “Marco, baby.”

  Marco pushed his empty glass into the centre of the table. “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

  Condemned. Like what? Like the way a building is condemned? Uninhabitable. Unsafe. Ready for demolition.

  Or like a soul is condemned?

  Ted hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d come back to find Marco in bed, sleeping – or, more likely, pretending to sleep. He’d lain down next to him, but his thoughts would not lie down too.

  Ted was annoyed. He didn’t like being unable to sleep, and on the rare occasions insomnia had troubled him, it was because there were too many thoughts whirling round his head. The last time, it had been when they were first talking about selling their liferights. All those things to think about: what would their friends say? Their family? Could they afford to buy passage out of the system? Did they even really want to leave, knowing they wouldn’t be welcome back? They would have to give up everything, but was it worth it? It was no wonder Ted lost a few nights’ sleep to that decision.

  But tonight, there was just the one thought. And that single thought wouldn’t let in any others, and it roared like Neptune should be roaring.

  They were leaving behind their bodies. What remained after that was condemned.

  Ted quietly got out of bed, grabbed a robe and slipped out of the room. The corridor outside was chilly and silent. The tiled floor was cold beneath his bare feet, so he headed down to the lounge, where he could grab a coffee and enjoy the deep pile of the only carpets aboard the Trident.

  He turned the corner into the lobby, and he heard the drone of a vacuum cleaner coming from the next room. There was someone in the lounge, cleaning those precious carpets, by the sounds of it. But the hotel was automated. There was no one else here. Just Ted, Marco, and their…