Ring xs-4

by Stephen Baxter

  Spinner took hold of the frame of the open hatch and vaulted neatly into the shaft. She twisted, grabbed onto the rungs beneath the door frame, and clambered down out of sight.

  “Now you, Morrow,” Arrow Maker hissed.

  Morrow put his hands, now sweating profusely, on the door frame. Damn it, he was five hundred years older than Spinner. And even when he’d been fifteen he’d never been lithe…

  “Move!”

  He raised one leg and hoisted it over the lip of the door frame. The frame dug into his crotch. He tried to bring his second leg over — and almost lost his grip in the process. He clung to the frame with both hands, feeling as if the entire surface of his skin was drenched in cold sweat.

  He tried again, more slowly, and this time managed to get both legs over. For a moment he sat there, feet dangling over a drop whose depth was hidden by darkness.

  If the shaft was open all the way to the bottom of the life-dome, there was a mile’s drop below him.

  He thought, briefly, of climbing back out of the shaft. Could he really face this? He could try surrendering, after all… But, oddly, it was the thought of the consequent shame in the face of Arrow Maker and Spinner made that option impossible.

  He reached out and down, cautiously, with his right foot. It seemed a long way to the first rung, but at last he caught it with his heel. The rung felt fat and reassuringly solid. He got both feet onto the rung and straightened up. Then, still being minutely careful, he turned around, letting the soles of his feet swivel over the metal rung.

  He bent his knees and reached out for the next rung. It was about eighteen inches below the first. Once he’d gone down two or three rungs and he started to settle into a routine, with both hands and feet fixed to the rungs, the going got easier -

  Until he suddenly became aware that he was climbing down into the dark.

  He couldn’t see a damn thing, not even the metal shaft surface before his face, or the whiteness of his own hands on the rungs.

  He stopped dead and looked up, suddenly desperate even for the dim light of Deck One. Instantly he felt warm, bare feet trampling over the backs of his hands on the rungs, and the clumsy pressure of Arrow Maker’s legs on his shoulders and head; something clattered against his back — Uvarov’s feet, presumably.

  Spinner’s voice drifted up from the shaft. “What’s going on?”

  “What in Lethe are you doing?” Arrow Maker hissed.

  “I’m sorry. It was dark. I — ”

  “Morrow, your friends are going to reach the shaft any moment — ”

  Something metallic rattled from the walls of the shaft, the resounding bounces coming further apart as it fell.

  Uvarov’s voice sounded from the region of Maker’s upper legs. “Correction,” he said drily. “They have reached the shaft…”

  Desperately, urgently, Morrow began to climb down once more.

  Lieserl lay back in the glowing hydrogen-helium mix with arms outstretched and eyes closed, and felt fusion-product photons dance slowly around her. Following their minutes-long orbits around the core of the Sun, the long, lenticular forms of the photino birds flowed past Lieserl. She let the swarming birds cushion her as she sank into the choking heart of the Sun, floating as if in a dream.

  And, at last, she came to a region, deep inside the Sun, in which no new photons were produced.

  She and Scholes had been right, all those years ago. The core had gone out.

  The persistent leeching-out of energy from the Sun’s hydrogen-fusing core, by the flocks of photino birds, had at last become untenable. A long time ago — probably before Lieserl’s birth — the temperature of the core had dropped so far that the fusion of hydrogen into helium flickered out, died.

  Now, its heart already stilled, the Sun was working through its megayear death throes. Despite the slow, continuing migration of the last photons outward from the stilled fusion processes, there was little radiation pressure, here at the heart of the Sun, to balance the core’s tendency to collapse under gravity. So the extinguished core fell in on itself further, seeking a new equilibrium, its temperature rising as its mass compressed.

  Lieserl knew that in the heart of every star of the Sun’s mass, these processes would at last take place — even without the intervention of an agent like the dark matter photino birds. Once the core hydrogen was exhausted, hydrogen fusion processes would die there, and this final subsidence, of a helium-soaked core, would begin.

  The difference was, the Sun’s core was still replete with unburned hydrogen; fusion processes had died, not because of hydrogen exhaustion, but because of the theft of energy by untiring flocks of photino birds.

  And, of course, the Sun should have enjoyed ten billion years of Main Sequence life before reaching this dire state. The photino birds had allowed Sol mere millions of years, before forcing this decrepitude.

  Around him there was the noise of his own breathing, the soft, ringing sound of his hands and feet on the metal rungs, and — further away, and distorted by echo — the subtle noises of the forest folk as they climbed. There was an all pervading smell of metal, overlaid by a tang of staleness.

  In the darkness Morrow had no way of judging time, and only the growing ache in his muscles to measure the distance he’d traveled. But slowly — to his surprise — his vision began to return, adapting to the gloom. There was actually quite a lot of light in here: there was the open portal at the top, on Deck One, and fine seams in the walls of the shaft shone like arrows of gray silver in the darkness. He could see the dim, foreshortened silhouettes of Arrow Maker and Spinner, above and below him; they climbed with a limber grace, like animals. And in the shaft itself he could see the shadow of cables, dangling, useless.

  As he worked his muscles seemed to lose some of their stiffness. He was, he realized with surprise, enjoying this…

  “Stop.” Spinner’s voice, softened by echo, came up to him.

  He halted, clinging to the rungs, and hissed a warning up to Arrow Maker.

  “What is it?”

  “We’re in trouble,” Spinner said softly.

  “No, we’re not,” Maker said. “We’re descending more quickly than those thugs with the cross-bows. They didn’t follow us down here. So they have to follow the ramps; we’re going straight down.”

  Spinner sighed. “Damn it, Maker, I wish you’d listen to me. Look down. See?”

  Arrow Maker straightened his arms and leaned out over the shaft; Uvarov, passive, dangled against his frame. “Oh.”

  Morrow twisted his head to see.

  There was a rough framework crossing the shaft, some distance below them. He felt a sudden surge of hope; was his climb nearly done? “Is that the base of the shaft?”

  He saw the flash of Spinner’s teeth in the gloom as she grinned up at her father. “No,” she said. “No, not exactly.”

  Maker said, “How far would you say we’ve descended, Spinner? Five hundred yards?… Barely a third of the way to the base of the lifedome, if Uvarov’s dimensions are correct.”

  Five hundred yards… They were scarcely past Deck Four, Morrow realized: beyond the scuffed walls of the shaft here were the shops to which he strolled to work every shift. Or had, before he’d become a hunted criminal.

  The transient enjoyment leached out of him; a trembling ache descended on his legs and upper arms. There was still twice as far to go as he’d traveled already…

  “Do you understand their amusement, Morrow?” Uvarov asked acidly, his voice obscured by his limp posture. “The shaft has been blocked.”

  “Maker,” Spinner whispered. “I can see someone moving down there.”

  Morrow hooked his arm across a rung and looked down more carefully.

  The platform blocking the shaft was quite a crude thing, of beams and plates lashed quickly together, roughly welded. A shadow crawled cautiously across the platform; there was a flare of laser-weld light, a small shower of sparks.

  Spinner is right. Someone is moving down the
re — building the thing even as we watch. Deliberately blocking off the shaft, to stop us. How many times had he used laser tools like that? Thousands? It could easily have been him down there.

  …In fact, he realized suddenly, he ought to know who that worker was.

  He leaned further out and stared, squinting, trying to make out more of the stocky figure. He saw a sleeveless tunic, brawny arms and torso, surprisingly wasted legs…

  “Constancy-of-Purpose. Constancy-of-Purpose.”

  At the sound of Morrow’s voice, floating out of the gloom above her, Constancy-of-Purpose started. She dropped her laser weld, which died immediately, and scrambled backwards across the platform she’d been building. Morrow saw how she held her wounded arm away from her body, stiffly.

  Morrow clambered briskly down the ladder, shouldering Spinner aside. He reached the platform and jumped down onto it. “Constancy-of-Purpose,” he whispered. “It’s me, Morrow.”

  Constancy-of-Purpose got to her feet, warily. She pushed goggles up from her eyes. Morrow saw sweat gleam from her wide shoulders; where the goggles had been, dirt ringed her eyes. “What in Lethe — ”

  “It’s all right. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  “Morrow. What’s going on?”

  “You have to let us through.”

  “Us?” Constancy-of-Purpose glanced up into the darkness nervously.

  “I have the forest folk with me. You remember.”

  “Of course I damn well remember.” Constancy-of-Purpose reflexively rubbed her stiff arm and backed toward the wall of the shaft. “That little criminal shot me.”

  “Yes, but — well, she was scared. Listen to me — you must let us through. Past this barrier.”

  Constancy-of-Purpose looked at him, bafflement and suspicion evident in her face. “Why? What are you doing?”

  “Don’t you know?” Actually, Morrow reflected, Constancy-of-Purpose probably didn’t know… The Planners had most likely sent out instructions to block off all the old shafts, without explanation. All to trap him, and these forest folk. I was just lucky to find Constancy-of-Purpose…

  “I’m not stupid, Morrow,” Constancy-of-Purpose said. “I don’t know what’s going on, quite. But the Planners are obviously trying to trap these tree people. And I’m not surprised. They’re killers. And if you’re helping them — ”

  “Listen. The Planners are the killers. Or at least, they’re trying to turn the likes of us into killers.” Morrow described the crossbows and sharpened pitons, weapons created from horribly mundane objects.

  As he talked, Morrow’s mind seemed to race, making leaps of induction. He remembered how Uvarov had taunted him for naiveté. Was it really possible that Superet had machined these weapons so quickly, in response to the arrival of the forest folk?

  No, he decided. There hadn’t been time. Superet must have weapons stockpiled.

  But Constancy-of-Purpose was shaking her head. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “Believe it,” Morrow snapped. “Spinner — the tree girl — got shot in the arm. By a piton, for Lethe’s sake. Do you want me to show you the wound?”

  Constancy-of-Purpose looked up uncertainly. “I… no.”

  “Constancy-of-Purpose, if you let us past we’ll be home free. The Planners surely won’t pursue us below Deck Four; this is the last point they can stop us… But if you keep us here, you’ll kill us, just as surely as if you wielded the crossbow yourself…”

  Morrow tried to keep control of his own ragged breathing, not to let Constancy-of-Purpose be aware of his mounting fear.

  “…All right.” Suddenly Constancy-of-Purpose, symbolically, moved aside. “Hurry. I’ll say I didn’t see you.”

  Morrow reached out his hand, then let it drop. “Thank you.”

  Constancy-of-Purpose frowned. “Just go, man.” She bent and, with the strength of her uninjured arm, began to prize up a partially welded plate, making a narrow gateway through the blocking platform.

  After a moment’s hesitation the forest folk scrambled down the ladder and dropped to the platform, lightly. Constancy-of-Purpose glared at Spinner-of Rope. Spinner returned her stare, thoughtfully stroking the blowpipe at her waist.

  “Go on,” Morrow told Spinner. “Through that plate.”

  The forest folk hurried across the platform, their bare feet padding, and Spinner began to work her way through the hole.

  Now Constancy-of-Purpose stared at Uvarov, still slung over Maker’s shoulder.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Who? The old man? Not quite, but as near as — damn it, I suppose… If I come by this way again, I’ll explain.”

  “But you won’t be coming back, will you?” Constancy-of-Purpose’s blunt face was serious.

  “…No. I don’t suppose I will.”

  Constancy-of-Purpose backed away, her hands upraised. “You’re crazy. Maybe I should have stopped you after all.”

  Arrow Maker, with Uvarov, was already through the platform, and Morrow sat down on the edge of the hole. He looked up. “Wish me luck.”

  But Constancy-of-Purpose had already gone, out of the shaft and back to the mundane world of the Decks: to Morrow’s old life.

  Morrow eased himself through the platform.

  Before long Morrow’s shoulders and legs stiffened up again and began to hurt, seriously, and he was forced to take longer and longer breaks. The base of the shaft — illuminated by a ring of open ports — was a remote island of light that climbed toward him with infinite, cruel slowness.

  Now they were far below the deepest inhabited level. Beyond the shaft’s cold walls, he knew, there was only darkness, stale air, abandoned homes. The cold seemed to pervade the shaft; he felt small, fragile, isolated.

  They found ledges on which it was possible to rest — to stretch out, and even doze a little. Arrow Maker laid Uvarov down flat on the hard metal surfaces, and he showed Morrow how to massage his own muscles to stop them seizing up. Spinner produced food — dried fruit and meat — from a pouch at her waist; Morrow tried to eat but his stomach was a knot.

  He counted the Decks as they passed them. Ten… Eleven… Twelve… The Decks above Four — all the world he had known, really — were an increasingly distant bubble of light and warmth, far above him.

  And yet, if this journey was strange and disturbing for him, how much more difficult must it be for the forest folk? At least Morrow was used to metal walls. Spinner and her father had grown up with trees — animals, birds — living things. They must wonder if they would ever see their home again.

  At last, though, the time came when he could count the last twenty rungs; then the last dozen; and then -

  He staggered a few paces away from the ladder and laid himself out against a metal floor, spread-eagled. Here at the base of the shaft, a series of open, illuminated hatchways pierced the walls. “By Lethe’s waters,” he said. “What a day. I never thought I’d be so happy simply not to be in danger of falling.”

  Arrow Maker lifted Uvarov from his shoulder and gently rested him, like a doll, against the wall of the elevator shaft. Morrow saw how Uvarov’s hand continued its endless, pendular tremble, and his mouth opened and closed with soft, obscene sounds. “Are we there? Are we down?”

  Maker flexed his unburdened shoulder, swinging his arm around. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, we’re there…” He approached one of the hatchways, but slowed nervously as he approached the light.

  Morrow got to his feet. He tried to remember how alien all this must be to these people; perhaps it was time for him to take charge. Picking a hatchway at random he walked confidently out of the shaft, and into bright, sourceless light.

  The brightness, after the gloom of the shaft, was dazzling and huge. For a moment he stood there, by the entrance to the shaft, his hands shading his watering eyes.

  He was in a bright, clean chamber. It must have been a mile wide and a fifth of a mile deep. The underside of the lowest Deck was a ceiling far above him, a tangle of pipes and
cables, dark with age. The chamber was quite empty, although there were some dark, anonymous devices — cargo handlers? — stored in slings from the walls and upper bulkhead. Morrow felt himself quail; the emptiness of this huge enclosed space seemed to bear down on him. And below him -

  He looked down.

  The floor was transparent. Below his feet, there were stars.

  12

  After an unknowable, dreamlike interval, Lieserl became aware of a vague sense of discomfort — not pain, exactly, but a non-localized ache that permeated her body.

  She sighed. If the discomfort wasn’t specific to any part of her Virtual body, there had to be something wrong with the autonomic systems that maintained her awareness — the basic refrigeration systems embedded in the wormhole throat, or maybe the shielded processor banks within which her consciousness resided.

  Reluctantly she called up diagnostics from her central systems. Damn…

  There had been a change, she realized quickly. But the problem wasn’t actually with her own systems. The change was in the external environment. There was a much greater flux of photons, from the Solar material, into her wormhole Interface. Her refrigeration units could cope with this greater influx of energy, but they’d had to adjust their working to do it — and that autonomic adjustment was what she had registered as a vague discomfort.

  The increased photon flux puzzled her. Why should it be so? She ran some brief, brisk studies of the Solar environment. The remnant photons still diffused out on their million-year random walks toward the photosphere. Could it be that the core-killing action of the birds, their continual leaching away of core energy, was having some effect on the photon flux?

  She looked for, and found, a structure to the increased flux. The flux strength was strongest, by far, in the direction of the orbits of the photino birds. That correlation couldn’t be a coincidence, surely; somehow the birds were influencing the flux rates.

  And — she learned — the increased flux was quite localized. It didn’t show up more than a few miles from her own position.

  Understanding came slowly, almost painfully.