Skies Discrowned and An Epitaph in Rust

by Tim Powers

  Why, they’d check the bird-men taken in the city nets the next night, and if the memory bank didn’t show up there, they’d find out if anyone was sky-fishing that night. And if they found out someone was, they’d lose no time, spare no expense, in tracking that person down…

  That’s it, Thomas thought. That is certainly it. The only problem is that I didn’t happen to find an android memory bank in the damned creature’s pouch. The police, Albers, everybody, have been wasting their time.

  Maybe, though, I could bluff them by pretending to have found it…?

  One thing is certain—I’ve got to get back to the Bellamy Theatre and get this information to Gladhand.

  He left room four after blowing out the lamp, and descended the outside stairs to the ground. The Santa Ana wind was still sighing through the city, and carried now the voice of a woman a street or so away who was singing “Bill Bailey.” Thomas made his way to the street and read a signpost at the corner. Frank Court I’m on, he saw, and here’s Fourth Street. So they’ve got the Bellamy staked out, have they? Let’s see—I’ll go west to Hill Street, north to Beverly, and then see if I can’t sneak in from the back somehow.

  God, what a weary night it’s been, and looks like continuing to be.

  When he reached the roof of the four-storey Castello Bank on Beverly Boulevard, Thomas painfully flexed his nine fingers and brushed flakes of rust off on his shirt. Stepping away from the fire escape, he padded across the moonlit roof to the southern side, and looked longingly across a fifteen-foot gap at the Bellamy Theatre, its dark massiveness relieved here and there by the yellow glow of a window. The alley directly below, Thomas saw as he peered down cautiously, was shrouded in total darkness—but he could imagine the android sentries that crouched, watchful and patient, in those deep shadows.

  He gently broke off a bit of brick from the bank’s roof-wall, and flung it down the alley to his left, in the direction of the theatre’s stables. After three seconds it clicked against pavement—and several sets of quick footsteps converged on the spot where it had hit. There were a few muttered words and then silence once again.

  Thomas pulled his head back and worried for a while. Maybe, he thought crazily, I could break a lock, descend into this bank and find a rope and a few gallons of gasoline. Then I’d just pour the gasoline down on those blasted cops, fling a match (which I’ll also have to find) after the gasoline, and then swing across to the Bellamy roof on the rope.

  Sure, he nodded bitterly—and even if you could do all that, the other policemen on guard would know what happened, and would just burst into the theatre and drag you out. No, lad; this calls for something more subtle.

  Thomas sat down, resting his back against a ten-foot antenna that dated from the lost days of television. The sky was a glittering, infinite gallery of stars, dominated but not overwhelmed by the crescent moon overhead. To the north, Thomas noticed, the dark ramparts of the storm-clouds had swollen considerably. He raised his maimed hand and was chilled to see how ragged and mutable it looked against the eternal ranks of stars in the cathedral of the sky. I don’t want to cover the moon with my hand, he thought—I’m afraid the light would shine through the flesh, as if it were just an accumulation of cobwebs.

  Objects were moving, flying, high in the air. The bird-men, the halfwit tax collectors, Thomas realized, winging their way north, back up Laurel Canyon to their nests; carrying in their pouches whatever trash they’ve found attractive today.

  That’s the solution, by God, Thomas thought, leaping to his feet. I’ll fly across to the Bellamy roof. Put my life in the hands of the god of winds. He set about rocking the tall antenna loose from its moorings, and after a few minutes a bolt snapped and the pole was leaning on him. He tore it free from a section of tarpaper that had been tacked around its base, and then laid it down and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  I’ll just stretch my shirt over the horizontal cross-prongs on the antenna, and then grip the pole firmly and leap off the wall—the roof of the theatre is one storey below me, and I’ll silently glide across onto it. Or else I’ll fall, and drink the cold claret of hell tonight with Spencer, Jean, Gardener Jenkins and poor Robert Negri.

  When he’d knotted the shirt securely across the metal rods, he strode bravely to the edge of the roof, stepped up onto the coping, raised the antenna over his head—and paused. He thought, What if I fall but don’t die? It’s only four storeys, after all; I might just wind up in some hideous interrogation chamber with two shattered legs.

  With a snarl of impatience and despair, he whirled in a circle on the coping bricks and flung his antenna glider away from him. It crashed into the alley below in the same area his pebble had landed in, and this time the footsteps that went to investigate were not quiet. By God, Thomas thought suddenly, that’s a diversion. Now’s your chance, lad, if there’ll ever be one. Do it quick, without thinking.

  He leaped back down onto the bank roof, loped halfway across it, then turned around; he took a deep breath and ran for the edge of the roof, digging in with his toes to muster every possible bit of speed. At the last moment he leaped with one leg, kicked off from the coping with the other, and hurled himself forward through the warm night air.

  He hit, with a wrenching jolt, the edge of the Bellamy roof, and managed to crook his skinned fingers over the top before he would have fallen. There was no air in his lungs, and the muscles that could have drawn some in were in shock. Blood poured from Thomas’ nose, and ran ticklingly down his neck.

  Hop up, lad! screamed the small section of his mind that was still working. Swing up over this parapet before one of those androids glances up! No, he thought. I’ve done as much as could be expected of anyone. I’ll drop, try to land on my head. He tried to release his grip, but his body resisted his decision and clung more tightly.

  I guess, he thought, tears mixing with the blood on his face, I guess I can’t rest even now. He slowly pulled himself up, swung one leaden leg over the coping, and dropped heavily onto the surface of the Bellamy roof.

  “A big antenna with a shirt on it,” a voice echoed up from the alley. “Nobody around.”

  “I don’t like it. Trot up that fire escape and take a look at the theatre roof.”

  “Okay, sir.”

  Thomas now heard footsteps clanging rapidly up a fire escape. This isn’t fair! he thought. I never noticed an alley-side fire escape on this building. He rolled to his feet and limped over to the stairway door.

  It was locked. And the banging footsteps were much higher, and mounting fast.

  The deck is stacked against me, he thought despairingly. He’ll be up over the edge of the roof in eight seconds. I’ve got to do something decisive, fast.

  A wide-mouthed brick chimney poked its yard height out of the roof only a few feet away, and Thomas crossed to it and peered desperately into its inky depths. Then he heard, much clearer now, the android’s boots rattling the bolts of the last length of ladder—and Thomas extended his arms in front of himself and dove headfirst into the chimney shaft, trying to slow his fall by pressing his legs outward against the walls.

  His arms buckled under him when his fists cracked against a metal plate ten feet below; the whole weight of his body pressed his head into his throbbing shoulder, and his nose-bleed now threatened to choke him.

  The echoes of his own bubbling, gasping breath filled the shaft, and he could hear nothing else. The damned android could be playing an accordion up there, he thought, and I couldn’t tell. He waited, while his twisted arm grew numb from lack of circulation and blood trickled up into his hair. How truly awful this is, he reflected.

  When a good measure of time had passed, and he felt the android must certainly have returned to the alley, Thomas began to think dizzily about getting out of the chimney. No hope of climbing back out, he told himself—my arms are as numb as if they belonged to someone else. All I can move are my legs, and they only have a foot or two of space to twitch in.

  Like an electric sho
ck, claustrophobia seized every nerve of him. I can’t get out, his mind gibbered, I’ll die and rot jammed up in here, I can’t move. He began screaming and thrashing about as much as he could in the confined space; his head was being twisted even worse as more of his weight shifted onto it, but he wasn’t even aware. He was nothing now but a mindless, trapped, screaming animal, absolutely dominated by pure fear.

  CHAPTER 10

  “With This Memory Bank…”

  GLADHAND WAS UNHAPPILY SIPPING a glass of port in the greenroom when the screaming abruptly began. They were wild, ragged shrieks that suddenly disrupted the evening calm, and they seemed to come from everywhere at once.

  Lambert and Jeff, pale and wild-eyed, leaped out of the chairs they’d been slouched in. “What the hell is that?” they both yelled at once.

  “I don’t know!” shouted Gladhand, dabbing at the port he’d spilled on himself. “Go find out! Hurry!” The two young men ran out of the room as the screaming went on. Several terrified actors and actresses dashed by in the hallway.

  Pat ran into the greenroom, her blouse dusted with brown powder and a big fear in her eyes. “Did you hear that?” she yelled.

  “Yes,” Gladhand said, loudly to be heard over the shrieking.

  “Thank God,” Pat gasped, and left the room.

  Gladhand leaned back in his wheelchair, his hands clenched on the arms, and stared at the cracked ceiling until, an eternal, deafening four minutes later, the hoarse yells ceased. Slow footsteps sounded in the hall a minute or so later and then Jeff and Lambert edged into the greenroom, carrying between them a bleeding, shirtless wretch, shivering and powdered thickly with soot.

  “Who is this?” Gladhand demanded.

  “Rufus,” Lambert answered as he and Jeff laid the twitching body on the couch. “He was jammed upside-down in that little chimney behind the upstairs stove. Had to pull that old blower out of the wall to get him.”

  “He apparently got hysterical in there,” Jeff added.

  “Apparently. Rufus? Here, Jeff, give him some port. Lock the door, will you, Lambert?”

  Jeff pried open Thomas’ jaws and poured a dribble of the fortified wine into his mouth. Thomas swallowed it. “More,” he croaked. Jeff obligingly tipped up the bottle and let Thomas drink as much as he cared to. Finally Thomas shivered, opened his eyes, and slowly sat up. His hair was matted with blood, and his face was wet with blood, tears and port. His arms and chest were everywhere cut and scraped, as if he’d fallen from a racing horse.

  “Uh, hi,” he rasped hoarsely.

  “Hi,” said Gladhand. “How in the devil’s own name did you wind up in the chimney?”

  Thomas leaned his head back and sighed. “Spencer’s dead,” he whispered. Gladhand stiffened. “He apparently,” Thomas went on, “caught a sword in the belly. He was far gone when I found him. When he found me. He was waiting by the side of the road to tell me that the police… know who I am, and have the theatre staked out.”

  “I don’t get it,” Lambert said. “Who are you?”

  “Tell you later. Listen, now. Turned out to be true. Cops in the alley. I climbed up on top of the Castello Bank and then jumped across onto the roof here. One of ’em thought he heard something, and climbed up the fire escape to our roof. The stairway door was locked and he was about to step onto the roof, so I dove down the chimney.”

  Gladhand picked up his own glass from the carpet and held it out for Jeff to refill. “Jeff,” he said, “go explain, to the android who will shortly be knocking at our door, that the screams he heard were part of the rehearsal. Uh… Celia’s grief at Rosalind’s exile, tell him.”

  “I found a letter,” Thomas continued wearily, pulling the battered envelope out of his pocket and handling it to the theatre manager. “It was written ten years ago by Strogoff the android-maker, and he says that the assassination attempt of seventy-nine was successful, and that major-domo Hancock replaced the dead, genuine Pelias with an android. So your bombs a week ago only blew up an android copy. Somebody got the real Pelias ten years ago.”

  Jeff and Lambert looked astonished, but Gladhand only nodded sadly. “A fairly accurate statement,” he said.

  “And Spencer told me why the police are after me—they think I found an android’s memory bank last Friday morning when I was sky-fishing. I didn’t, but they think I might have.” He sighed. “Now here’s my theory: I think your Thursday morning bombs damaged the PADMU of this Pelias android, and a bird-man flew in while technicians were repairing the mayor, and flew away with the memory bank. That’s why they say Pelias has had a stroke. Now if there was—and clearly there must have been—something very important in that memory bank, that would explain why the police have been searching for me so desperately.”

  “There was something important in it,” Gladhand said. He took a sip of port and went on, “Do you recall McGregor, Jeff?”

  “Yeah,” Jeff answered. “I haven’t seen him around within the last week, though.”

  “Nor will you ever. I had Spencer kill him at the same time you and Negri were planting the bombs in the mayor’s chambers. McGregor was a spy, and managed—by a really respectable program of research and inspired guesswork—to learn quite a bit about the guerrilla side of our operation. He even found out who it is that I plan to appoint as mayor when we overthrow the present government. He got to this android Pelias with all the information before we could stop him, and that’s why we had to kill both of them immediately.”

  “Ah,” Thomas nodded. “And that’s why they want his memory bank—because it contains the location and strengths of the resistance force.”

  “That, yes, but the most important thing is the name and location of this proposed successor. The present government would be much safer if that man were dead.”

  “Oh, come on,” Lambert said skeptically; “a lot of people have more-or-less valid claims to the mayor’s office, and the city manages to squelch them pretty well. What’s so different about this boy of yours?”

  Gladhand smiled. “‘My boy,’” he said, “is Mayor Pelias himself. The real one.”

  “I thought,” Jeff said, dizzied by these rapid-fire revelations, “I thought you just got through saying the real Pelias was killed ten years ago.”

  “No. He was injured by that grenade, quite severely injured, and he was replaced by an android which that treacherous swine Hancock happened to have on hand. As a matter of fact, I think Hancock ordered the grenade attack. But no, Pelias didn’t die. He’s alive today, and in this city—and Tabasco would give anything to have him killed once and for all.”

  There came a knock at the greenroom door. “Who is it?” Gladhand barked.

  “It’s me—Pat.”

  “Come in,” The door opened and Pat strode in. She looked very startled when she saw Thomas on the couch.

  “Was that you, in the chimney?” she asked.

  He nodded sheepishly. “Yes.”

  She shook her head wonderingly. “What a voice you’ve got. And how did you get so messed up?”

  “Spencer’s dead,” Thomas said.

  “He is? You look like a cheap crucifix, all bloody and your hair sticking up like that.”

  Thomas felt nauseated. He turned to Gladhand. “Sir, I was thinking—the police believe I have the Pelias android’s memory bank. Maybe we could accomplish something in the way of a bluff? Pretend to have it, you know.”

  “Hmm. It might be a good thing to fall back on,” Gladhand admitted, scratching his beard. “Everything’s happening so damned fast.”

  Thomas nodded sympathetically. “What would an android’s memory bank look like, anyway? A metal box with wires sticking out all over?”

  Gladhand chuckled. “Oh no,” he said. “They’re much more sophisticated than that. The new ones use a crystal, but ten years ago it would have been a length of wire, about three inches long.”

  “Good God!” Thomas gasped. “I did have it!”

  “What?” Gladhand snapped, sudden
ly alert. “Where is it?”

  “I repaired my sandal with it. And then my sandals were given to Ben Corwin. I suppose he’s still wearing them.”

  “We’ve got to get it and destroy it,” Gladhand said. “First thing in the morning, Jeff, you find Corwin, take the wire away from him and melt it immediately. It’s soft metal, a match should do the trick.”

  “Wouldn’t it be pretty well wrecked already?” Thomas asked. “Tied in a knot, covered with mud…”

  The theatre manager shook his bald head. “No. The memories are coded on the very molecules. Melting it is the only way to break it down.”

  “I’ve got to go powder my nose,” Pat said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She walked out of the room.

  “Then that’s what this week-long ‘coma’ is,” Lambert said. “The absence of that wire.”

  “Right,” Gladhand said. “And even if the android we blew up last week is too messed up to use, they’ve got several new Peliases brewing, into whose PADMUs they could slip that memory bank. We can’t let that wire fall into Tabasco’s hands. Of course, who’d think of looking for it on the sandal of the most disreputable beggar in the city?”

  “That’s true,” Thomas said. “They aren’t likely to look there.”

  “Nonetheless, I—” Gladhand turned pale. “Jeff! Get Pat! Find her and hold her. Lambert, you too. Go!” The two young men leaped out of their chairs for the second time that night and ran out of the room.

  “Why?” Thomas asked, suddenly worried. “Is she in any danger?”

  “Hah! If I catch her she is! Where’s my mind tonight?” Gladhand pounded his forehead. “Why don’t I notice things when they happen?”

  “What are you talking about?”