Jack Glass

by Adam Roberts

  And of the Strangers all but eighty-odd were wiped or dead,

  And half of them were wrecked by Som and drink and mad with dread,

  With little I could add to their torment.

  But of the sound of mind, I captured each and every one;

  I had them brought before me; told them each what they had done

  (For most of them could not recall specifics in among

  Their many evil doings from before).

  They wailed and begged me mercy, poured out water from the eye,

  And prayed forgiveness, though they knew they all deserved to die.

  I said they’d have as much of mercy, each, as they could buy,

  Since money was the logic of the Law.

  I set the price: a million credits for each year that passed;

  Instalment-paid, without remit, until they’d breathed their last;

  And if they didn’t pay me, death would catch them lightbeam-fast.

  This doom was on them; they could not remove it.

  They wept and called it hopeless—but they took the deal, of course.

  They’d learned life’s sovereign lesson: do not fight superior force,

  And I acquired a motivated, lucrative workforce;

  And it’s their lives at stake if they don’t prove it.

  The Ulanovs, in all their pomp, deigned to stoop down and praise:

  I had found a way (they said) of helping villains change their ways,

  And turned delinquents into types who worked hard all their days.

  I’m mostly glad this Justice brings me riches.

  They’ve given me a Silver Star to pin upon my cloak,

  And now I move at ease amongst the richest gentlefolk,

  And these are truest of the many wisdom-words I spoke:

  Do not be poor, all you poor sons-of-bitches.

  McAuley’s Hymn

  Lord, I know the cosmos is but shadow thrown off by your light,

  And I’ve learned the truth—man’s sphere is interplanetary flight.

  Once there was a conflict in my heart, I do confess it so:

  But to reach the stars is further than the Lord permits us go.

  Coupler-snaps to spindle-poles and thrust: I see Your Hand, O God—

  Yours the grace and wrath that drives the spinning antimatter-rod.

  The Bible’s a complex machine, Lord—many million parts intact,

  And Man can barely ken the myriad ways they mesh and interact.

  Every verse and word is placed within the working of the whole,

  To form a spiritual motor meant to launch and fire and guide the soul.

  Accelerate escape velocity beyond the pull of sin,

  And take us to the final coupling gate where God’s Love pulls us in!

  And as an engineer can’t pick and choose components of his ship,

  Maintain these few, but let those others rust or seize or slip,

  Just so a soul can’t pick and choose amongst Bible commands,

  He takes the whole book up, or lets the whole tumble from his hands.

  **

  I can’t get my sleep to-night; old bones and limbs are hard to settle;

  So I’ll stand the watch up here—alone with God and spaceship metal.

  My engines whirr: a hundred days of thrust and delta-v and strain

  Interpenetrating space, around Thy Sun and home again.

  It is too much—the driveshaft moans—and all the angeljets are loose;

  Twenty billion miles of thrust has given them fair excuse.

  The perfect dark of God outside: the black of blacks that baffles sight

  The mystic void, infinity, the Ancient of all Days—at Night.

  Here’s Ferguson relieving me. Three years gone by since his home pass:

  His wife’s back there with both their kids; an outdome domicile on Mars.

  He yearns towards his planetfall ... and who of us can blame the man?

  It’s been a long and homesick time since his contracted time began.

  There’s none on any world for me, no-one to fly to, fast or slow,

  At least since Mia Chong went on to Thee, Lord, thirty years ago.

  And since that time I’ve found Thy medium’s truly neither void nor ’cuum

  But a flower of awe and grace, infinitude as a black bloom.

  I recall Mkoko most, whose habitation now is space

  And whose corpse, if found, could reignite the interstellar race.

  God will not permit mankind to find him: and my work’s secure!

  His chilled corpse will circulate in darkness and for evermore.

  Nor yet alone; the spaceways throng with bodies in grim circulation,

  Prizeless jetsam of our mortal-danger spaceflight occupation.

  When the New Apollo burned! What then was our space-voyage worth?

  Venus out to Neptune on a long ellipse, and back to earth,

  What worth?—if as soon as docked at Orbital, waiting at bulkhead,

  A flash fire burst straight through and left most of us carbonblack and dead?

  Not but that they’re not civil in the Merchants. I heard Ivanov say:

  ‘Engineer, McAuley! How’s the Tachyon Thrust machine to-day?"

  True he gets the tech-talk wrong, but at least he leaves me clear

  To coax the best from thrust and slew—I am the lead House Engineer.

  So they phrase it: ‘still with engines? Weren’t you top of Phys at Cape?

  Named ‘most promising’ and feted, sashed with ‘top of class’ blue tape?

  Planet-beating scientist at school, and Uni star at Thrust?

  How did your bright prospects turn to engineering grime and rust?’

  True, I won the scholarships; I topped exams and glowed inside,

  Then I kenned the hook that Satan hoped to snag me with was—pride.

  So I left the Cape Space School, walked straight out the lecture hall,

  Signed a fifty year full contract with a freightline for space haul.

  There I started as a fuel-whelp—regulating engine feed,

  In the old-style bucket spaceships, with the old-school pilot breed.

  Ten-a-second was the fastest then—eh!—inefficient drive;

  To think that now our haulers manage in excess of fifty-five!

  Soon we’ll move yet faster: the advances made since I began!

  No, I do not doubt machines—but what about the soul of man?

  Faster’s good, but there’s a limit—set by God and space and time;

  And only fools could miss it, only sinners hope to cross its line.

  I’m a man that’s travelled far, I’ve gone a goodly chunk of c,

  Two light years in all I’ve ventured .... far, how far, O Lord, from Thee?

  You were with me night and day. I still recall that first frag hit,

  When the sensors missed the debris and the main compartment split—

  All those shards came shooting through us faster than artillery rounds,

  Twenty breaches in the hull and banshee decompression sounds;

  Fire, alarm and panic; Anson lost her leg and lost her life,

  Amputated—half a gram of space ice was the surgeon’s knife.

  All her lifeblood shot and clouded, filled the cabin with red fog

  And I felt Satanic presence, the evil breath of Gog-Magog.

  So I prayed, and prayed it double: spoke the words, but acted too:

  For the nearest prayer to You is work—words good, but deed is true.

  Sealed the breaches, damped the yawing, set the engines to reboot,

  Lacking even time to wipe my comrade’s blood from off my ’suit.

  Never seen a ship take damage like it and come back again to O:

  None of it was possible without that You had willed it so.

  And how did I repay your mercy? Entered on that Orbital,

  Showered, drank a tub of whisky, found a whore and paid her full.

 
I’ve still scorch marks from the flare-ups on my arms and on my back,

  But I’ve worse than scorchmarks on me—deep inside my soul is black.

  All the sun’s atomic fire could never burn this sin from me;

  My one hope is strive to lose myself in Thy Stellar Immensity.

  Sins of five and fifty years: Apollo, Pug and Hesperus.

  Can even God’s forgiveness match the orbits of my trespasses?

  Voyages I’d wank myself into a stupor all month long,

  Years when every dock I stopped at turned my Right around to Wrong.

  Nights when I’d observe my crewmates, ire and envy in my gaze,

  Hating them for loving, filled with fury rather than Thy Praise.

  Blot the wicked hours of mine, Lord! when I spent my time ashore,

  Som’d in Pataweyo’s Moon-house, thinking less and sinning more.

  Worse than all—my crowning sins—were foulest blasphemy and pride.

  Stoker ten years, hardened to it: bad without and bad inside.

  I saw Saturn’s cities built: new fruit beneath the ring’s great arc

  I was dazzled by those Christmas baubles shining in the dark.

  Coming round the darkside—there were miracles to fill my eyes:

  All the cosmos’ stars were shining weldspot bright in oil-black skies.

  I spent all my downtime porthole gazing, tracing constellations, each

  And every star (I thought) should be within man’s reach.

  Pride, pure pride! I know it. The whole cosmos only hymns Thy Will.

  Thou set distances to put the voyage far beyond man’s skill!

  Blasphemy and disobedience if I doubt the speed of light!

  Thou could set it otherwise, and Wrong; Thou set it thus, and Right!

  The clearest scripture written there: that our lot’s Solar—and that’s all.

  But in Saturn’s orbit I heard, silken-voiced, a devil’s call.

  Warm as heated milk, beguiling: ‘See, McAuley! Pick a star!

  Set your course now, engineer—make it near although it’s far!’

  Firm and clear and low—no haste, no boast—the ghostly whisper went,

  Laying out the evidential facts beyond man’s argument:

  ‘Though it takes you twice a generation, you must go!

  Worship me, God Hyperspatial—spurn the Deity of Slow.

  Speed, now! Go still faster yet—learn new Elysian mysteries!

  The FTL prize hanging low: McAuley—it is yours to seize!’

  **

  A spaceship is a million pieces, working all together true,

  And the Bible’s a machine as complex, made by God to do.

  Starts off clear: ‘let there be light.’ Yes, that is what the Good Book says.

  God began the universe, and light speed-limited its ways.

  Light! It is the same as God: it’s Holy, not to be denied;

  And the voice that whispers different comes from mankind’s sinful pride.

  But I was just in my twenties, head all dazzled with my dreams

  And I thrilled to think that c was not the limit that it seems.

  It shone in my thoughts aurora-like; it racked me through and through:

  Tempted far beyond the show of speech, unnameable and new—

  Thou knowst all my heart and mind, Thou knowest, Lord, how far I fell—

  Second Engineer upon the Hesperus, but the first in Hell!

  It came to me in a lightning strike, the way to make it yield:

  Generate a cross-spun singularity inside a Bergson field—

  And counterspin a second shell of strung-grav matter pitched outside

  Using sub-quantum inertia to arc-tune that second’s ride.

  With both Hawking thresholds moving spinwise close enough to c

  Gravitational cross-shearing would work to break a bubble free!

  And inside the envelope—a ship! A heavy-shielded hull;

  Balanced where the shearing forces cancelled each and each to null.

  And inside that ship a crew, made up by men and women’s souls,

  Adams there, and Eves, new-tempted by my low transgressive goals:

  Truly they might reach the stars in weeks instead of centuries—or

  It were closer to the truth to say: could reach beyond God’s Law.

  Young and wicked as I was I didn’t see behind the mask,

  So instead I set myself to earn enough to fund the task.

  The Merchant Houses had but lately finished all their battles off

  The Lex Ulanova was a new thing: fair, said some; but harsh and rough.

  Either way, I didn’t trust to patent office copyright,

  Though I worked out all the specs, I kept my notion close and tight.

  Dreamt of riches; had no thought to gift it to the human race.

  At the time it felt like greed; but now I only see Thy Grace.

  Now I feel Thy hand about me: and about my feet Thy care—

  From cold Saturn to hot Venus, through the transit of despair,

  Hesperus came to the fieldlands, hundred-thousand globes of green

  All in solar orbit, basking in God’s sunlight, bright and clean.

  There we worked as mission tug, with ten million protein cargo tonnes

  Up the invisible slope to Earth-Moon docking at Lagrange A1.

  Slow work in the old days, in old ships without the Tachyon Thrust,

  But it gave me time to ponder whether clever can be just—.

  And the opening verses of the Bible echoed once more in my head.

  ‘I made Cosmos out of Light, inviolate so,’ the great book said.

  I was drowsing in my billet—sick with self-doubt, drink and tire:

  ‘Better to rip out your eyeballs than watch stars with Sin’s desire!’

  And the countervoice said: ‘lo, the universal open road!

  Let man be a soaring eagle, and no more a pond-stuck toad!’

  God and devil battled for my conscience as I lay midship:

  And my right hand clutched my whole life’s work—upon one data chip.

  On that chip and nowhere else: the superluminal data was:

  Heresy and sin, all written in the neutral tongue of maths.

  Should I just destroy it, or disseminate it all instead?

  Would my actions kill the living spirit, or restore the dead?

  Then the alarm gonged, loud, incessant: everything was frantic rout;

  Then a stopper-field explosion tore the main drive chamber out

  And the guidance software flared and died, and all the ship was seared.

  Every scrap of power plain vanished; every light just disappeared.

  The explosion killed Mkoko; Wei Hu Cho was blast-concussed,

  We were venting air and losing heat as fast as we lost thrust.

  Everywhere and everything was blacker than a soul in sin;

  Space was dark as death outside, but darker still the soul within.

  We were coming round about behind the moon’s unsunlit face

  Not a single photon hit my eyes or pierced the dark’s embrace.

  Not until we cleared the lunar arc, and sunrise gleamed again

  And by Thy sweet grace I had the Light to see my duty plain.

  One porthole, bright-lit—no more—bright as any welder’s flame.

  Just at the right time to save the ship, illumination came.

  Closed the bulkheads with my muscles (since the pisomotors failed),

  Reset mainframes B and C and brace-rebooted core mainrail.

  Saved the ship and all our lives—(except Mkoko, scorched and dead)—

  And all because of God’s good Sun, and the soul-saving light it shed!

  Afterward I dressed Mkoko’s corpse, for burial in space,

  And I slipped my data chip inside his Mortis Carapace.

  I sprayed all his body with the stuff, and sealed my chip inside

  Because I couldn’t quite destroy it—ther
e, alas, you see my pride.

  But at least I knew I couldn’t keep it, couldn’t follow through.

  I had seen the light and seen my sin, and for that I thank You.

  Thus I wrestled with Apollyon—Ah!—I fretted like a bairn—

  Threw away the working-plans at last with all I hoped to earn.

  Dropped my years of labour into space’s infinite wellhole,

  Lost the sweat and lost a fortune, but at least I saved my soul.

  **

  The human engine is entropic, ruled for sure by waste and slip,

  And accordingly mankind will never build the Perfect Ship.

  I will never last to judge her lines or take her curve—not I!

  But I’ve lived and I have flown in space. All thanks to Thee, Most High!

  And I’ve done what I have done—Thou’ll judge it soon if ill or well—

  Not complacent of a place in Heaven, thinking hard of Hell.

  But when I have outflown the mortal grav-well and my soul is free,

  I may hope to ride the perfect starship, in excess of c.

  It will fly by Grace—and God will pilot: light years by the million

  Flitting quickly by towards our home: the sky’s Avillion.

  **

  Still they pester, still they question: ‘Where, McAuley, are your notes?

  Your ideas—you’ll reconstruct them? Plan your interstellar boats!

  ‘Start afresh from first positions! Join your dots and sketch the line

  Tell at least the core idea, your means for besting old Einstein.’

  I was prideful, too much boasting, and I told the world my plans;

  Would to God I’d cut my tongue instead, and severed both my hands!

  ‘Don’t deprive mankind of this new shortcut through spacetime;

  Do not swallow future humanity’s prospects in your crime!’

  I could tell them; somewhere out there is the chip that you crave,

  Locked inside a corpse’s shroud, buried in a vacuum grave;

  You could seek it, but that’s not a quest you ever can fulfil:

  Nothing happens in our solar-country contrary to His will.

  Yes, the physics of it works: but that does not mean that it’s good.

  And a jealous God must be served by a fierce priesthood,

  Engineers—His truest priests! For who else better knows his Law?

  We know how it’s shaped, and how it tells man: thus far go—no more.

  Also by Adam Roberts from Gollancz: