Camera Obscura

by Lavie Tidhar

  And this one led to another world.

  Ninety-nine point six percent. Initiating quantum hookup.

  Kai, distant: "Help me!"

  Screams from the cars. The wheel was moving faster and faster. Darkness over the Fair – torches offered sporadic illumination.

  The wheel was almost three hundred feet high. There was no way up there.

  Unless…

  She said: "Stay here. There was one way to get up there–

  She ran.

  The plane was where she'd last seen it. There was no one around. The Du Temple monoplane, looking like a moth, wings too delicate to work, the body tiny–

  But it did work. Thirteen metre wingspan, a light carriage weighing a mere eighty kilograms – she had to add her own weight, hope the ramp was high enough – but she'd seen it fly. A flash boiler–

  It was loaded – the pilot must have expected to make another flight. She lit the flame, climbed into the seat – the engine came alive behind her. Steam burst through a network of tubes, compressed water heated by the flame – no time to think now, no time for anything but–

  A jet of pressured steam came roaring out of the engine and the plane glided forward, gathering speed–

  She flew down the ramp. Wind and smoke stung her face. The roar of the engine filled the night–

  The plane reached the end of the ramp and flew over it–

  The ground came very close and missed her.

  The plane rose.

  She coaxed it, talking to it – she rose, slowly, slowly – the ground grew distant. She turned, swerving – saw the plane's reflection in the lagoon. She found a pair of aviator glasses and put them on. Circling, the wheel rising impossibly high, the air inside it changing now, the mirror becoming a lens, through which she saw…

  The voices said, Quantum signature verified. Opening entanglement channels. Handshake protocols response correct! Correct!

  And – Ninety-nine point seven percent. Ninety-nine point eight.

  She could feel their elation. She took the plane in a wide circuit, the Manufacturers and Fine Arts building rising on one side, the lizards' pyramid on the other, and she flew the monoplane straight–

  She could no longer see the spokes of the wheel. The structure of the wheel was no longer there, or – not exactly.

  It was overlaid. She saw through jade – Kai huddled on the main axis, the statue bathed in flames – the sky behind them disappeared and was replaced with–

  The voices said, Ninety-nine point nine – triumphantly. Behind her the air was full of steam. She aimed for the centre of the wheel–

  Where there was a deep blackness, filled with stars.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  The Gateway

  The size of the thing did not make sense. And the engine had begun to splutter, and she was losing power – rapidly. The monoplane could glide – but she did not fancy her odds.

  And something was climbing, inhumanly fast, from one hanging car to another.

  Take things one at a time…

  Inside the wheel, the universe.

  Stars glared at her. A field of stars brighter than any that could be seen in the sky. They shone bright, were overwhelmed by–

  An immense structure floated in space. A sun rose, a ball of fire almost blinding her, and in its light she could see the ring.

  It was enormous, ancient – strange. Its surface was pockmarked with the scars of countless impacts. It turned – slowly, rotating not unlike the Ferris wheel itself. Imagine a Ferris wheel lying on its side, floating in space, backlit by stars. Turning – she saw flecks of light rising from it and somehow realised they were craft, related to her monoplane the way ants were related to humans. The voices babbled, Contact initiated! and transferring informational matrix to source and home!

  Flashes of jade – every dead person the silver streaks have ever touched was somehow still alive inside the beam that she was piggy-backing: memories, dreams, knowledge, all going through that hole punched into space, going towards that impossible structure no human could have built–

  The engine, faltering. She was high above the axis and now she glided down, knowing the monoplane could only go one way now–

  Sensing rather than seeing the movement of the thing climbing the wheel – the Phantom roaring rage, shouting: "Mine! Mine!"

  The flecks of lights from the other side of the screen came closer, became ships – if ships could sail in space. They were growing closer in this Camera Obscura, coming towards the lens–

  One hundred percent.

  She screamed – "No!"

  The engine died. She glided – down.

  Tômas had reached the axle. For a moment he tottered, for the first time aware of the gulf of space lying inches away. He made a grab for the statue–

  Kai fought him. She watched through goggles, half-real sight, half-jade. The statue was falling apart – the jade peeling, a machine unbending inside, opening translucent wings, ready to take flight–

  An alien fleet approaching, closer and closer, tiny against the ring behind it, yet each craft easily the size of the white city itself. The plane was on a collision course – she raised herself from her seat, cursed–

  Kai and Tômas below her, fighting on the axle–

  She jumped.

  The moment stretched, forever.

  She was lost in the darkness. The space inside the wheel seemed to expand, spread out until it blocked out the entire sky – became the sky.

  Perspective shifted–

  A sun, rising, and in its light she saw not one ring but hundreds. They revolved around the sun, a ring of rings. Each must have been hundreds of kilometres across. Ships travelled between the rings, strangely shaped vessels, a cloud of moving lights.

  Voices: Unidentified communiqué on antiquated frequency – identify, identify!

  The statue: Probe reporting completed survey – emergent life form identified–

  Milady: Emergent life form?

  A stream of confused images: memory/images/data – the city of Oxford, a signal from deep below – the statue awakening, initiating ancient, lumbering instructions – searching.

  For what?

  Voices: Identify – sounding confused.

  Images – they were a recollection: a ship moving through space – planets, rings around them – she thought them beautiful but they passed too quickly – a dead, pock-marked world – it must have been the moon. Something dropping from the ship – she watched it fall and crash into the lunar surface. Emergency procedures initiated. Prepare for crash-landing.

  A green-blue world, beautiful. And the ship was falling, falling, through white mist, clouds, a great blue sea opening below, a speck of land just visible amidst the blue – an island the dying ship was making for…

  There had been an explosion…

  Voices: Thought lost – unimportant. Emergent life form class identify?

  The statue: Not enough data.

  Voices: Sending investigatory fleet. Stand-down for gateway expansion.

  The lights growing closer – a fleet of ships approaching, the space inside the wheel growing, expanding–

  She said, "No."

  • • • •

  She fell, landing on the axle – hard. Pain flared through her.

  The plane sailed above her head, almost grazing it–

  It hit the membrane of that non-space inside the wheel–

  The air shimmered – the plane passed through and tumbled through space against a brightness of stars.

  A frozen tableau: the Phantom, Kai – herself. She stood up, righted herself.

  She said: "We have to close it."

  The statue was shedding jade flakes. A machine inside, unfurling – a delicate thing like a monoplane, spreading wings.

  The statue: Initiating target parameters. Stand by to receive.

  She blasted it with her Gatling gun arm. Kai shuddered as if the bullets were piercing him. Tômas, screaming: "Mine!"

&
nbsp; He jumped – putting himself between her and the statue. She and Kai locked eyes – his said, Do it.

  Voices: Gateway open. Coming though–

  She kicked Tômas, her artificial leg lending her power – the impact made her lose her balance. She tottered on the axle – the ground was a long way down.

  Tômas screamed. Cleo felt herself falling–

  A hand reached and caught her.

  Kai, pulling her up. She watched–

  A whoosh of hot air, scorching her face–

  Something immense and dark burst out of the space inside the wheel, just as–

  Tômas, flying – her kick had sent him at the statue and he grasped it in his arms, like a lover–

  Momentum kept him flying–

  Through the space inside the wheel and out the other side.

  Cleo watched–

  Tômas floated in that other space against a background of stars, still holding the machine to him – like a lifebuoy.

  Voices: Gateway sequence interrupted! Explain!

  Tômas screamed, but no sound came. He rolled through space – his mouth opened and closed without sound. Their eyes met, for just a moment–

  Gateway linkage shutting down.

  The statue: No!

  She did a last kind thing. She didn't think she would. She fired, the bullets travelling through the distorted surface and through it to the other side.

  They swarmed, silently, through space, and found Tômas.

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  Lights

  The wheel turned, slowing down. The image in the space inside faded, gradually. Sun, rings, ships – had they ever really existed? Tômas's twisted features growing darker – the light in his eyes going out – the monoplane was a piece of discarded junk floating in space, its engine dead. The alien stars were fading. The babble of the voices was gone.

  She stood by Kai on the axle of the Ferris wheel. A last shudder of air, like a breath, held too long, at last being exhaled, and the images flickered into nothingness, and comforting, familiar stars shone through the wheel.

  It was quiet.

  She watched the world below, the white city of the future coming alive all around them. Lights were flickering back into existence, bathing the white buildings, the lagoon, the wooded island in their soft glare. Screams from the hanging cars of the wheel turned to jubilation, then quietened down altogether.

  She stood high above the ground as the wheel turned, and watched the lights. She said, "It's beautiful–" There was something in her hand. It took her a moment to realise it was Kai's hand, and it was warm.

  He said, "It's over–" There was a terrible weariness in his voice, but something else, too, something that must have been new to him – relief? hope?

  People swarming down below – they stopped now, turned their gazes upwards, a sea of humanity welcoming the new daylight. The wheel turned behind them, sedately. She could see rescue parties forming below, beginning to offload passengers as their cars came into station.

  She said, "For now–"

  Kai looked up – following her gaze. She felt his hand tightening in hers.

  A dark saucer hovered in the air above the Fair. It rotated gently, gave nothing away. Then, like a blinking eye, it shot up, and away, growing smaller and smaller in seconds until it was gone into the night skies.

  "For now," Kai agreed. Then, abruptly, he smiled. Cleo smiled back and squeezed his hand. They stood, on top of the world, the wheel turning at their back, and watched the city, bathed in light.

  About the Author

  Israeli-born writer Lavie Tidhar has been called an "emerging master" by Locus magazine, and has quickly established a name for himself as a short fiction writer of some note. He has travelled widely, living variously in South Africa, the UK, Asia and the remote island-nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, and his work exhibits a strong sense of place and an engagement with the literary Other in all its forms.

  www.lavietidhar.com

  ANGRY ROBOT

  A member of the Osprey Group

  Midland House, West Way

  Botley, Oxford

  OX2 0HP

  UK

  www.angryrobotbooks.com

  A shot of crimson

  An Angry Robot paperback original 2011 1

  Copyright © Lavie Tidhar 2011

  Lavie Tidhar asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  EBook ISBN: 978 0 85766 095 4

  eBook set by ePub Services dot net

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  PART II

  PART III

  PART IV

  PART V

  PART VI

  PART VII