by Gary Gibson
Then it hit: a wave of nausea and pain, and then the visions. Not the tiniest fraction of the power of precognition Trencher had been blessed or cursed with, but an overwhelming experience nonetheless. A tiny scrap of the future tumbled out of the sky, and fell between Elias’s eyes.
Nothing. Darkness. The negation of being. He howled with pain and terror, as his altered cells showed him the end of everything.
Vincent
‘Hey, Vincent.’
Eddie Gabarra. Vincent Lani hadn’t seen Eddie in years. He grinned despite himself. They’d worked together, briefly, at Arecibo, before Gabarra had been moved upstairs, literally.
‘Eddie.’ Vincent leaned his bicycle against the door to his office and shook the other man’s hand. ‘Long time, no see. I thought you were—’ Vincent made an upwards-pointing motion with his hand.
‘Still ILA? Yeah, I still am. This is my first time back in, oh, two years.’ Somehow, in the surprise of finding Eddie waiting for him outside his office at the University, Vincent had neglected to notice the pair of crutches Eddie was leaning on.
‘Oh, you’re . . .’ Injured? ‘I’m sorry, I had my mind on other things . . .’
‘Thank you, Vincent. Yes, I’ll be just fine,’ Eddie said, deadpan.
Vincent thought for a moment. One of the problems with working in low-gee had always been the deleterious effect on the human anatomy. The longer you had to live in low or zero gravity, the harder it got to deal with normal gravitational levels. But these days there were medical techniques that could deal with that kind of thing: tailored viruses and medical processes that could more or less rebuild your skeleton from the inside, with relatively little pain or fuss.
Expensive, though. As far as Vincent knew, the treatment cost about the same as getting someone up to the ILA and keeping them there for a couple of years. The ILA was the International Lunar Array, a complex on the dark side of the moon, which itself formed part of the Deep Space Observation Array. Eddie was Head of Operations for the Array, one of the sweetest jobs an astrophysicist could have.
The refectory was bright and busy, stark polar light slanting in through tall angled windows. If you stood at the room’s east side, you could see the rows of wind turbines stretching off into the distance, like an army of giants encamped on their way to torture a Spanish knight. The rest of the view was blocked off by an extension to one side of an Arcology, one of the seven Arcologies that housed the three million population of Antarctica City.
Inside the refectory, palm trees brushed the thick, protective glass, bathing in sunlight. Vincent deposited Eddie at a table there and fetched a couple of coffees for them both.
‘How long you been back?’ Vincent asked, sitting across from Eddie. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, it seems a little mysterious, you turning up out of the blue like that.’
‘I pree-fer to be . . . mysterious,’ Eddie replied, in mock-sinister tones. ‘Well, I guess I didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself. Besides, I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Vincent sipped at his coffee, and thought about that reply for a couple of moments. ‘So let’s see. You came all the way – from the moon – because you wanted to talk to me?’
Eddie shrugged. ‘Sure, why not?’
‘There are easier ways. Phone? The Grid?’
Eddie just looked at him calmly and waited.
‘Okay, then, why are you down here?’
‘Well, put it this way, you know I run the ILA. It’s a pretty demanding job, and more about politics and not enough science for my taste, but the money and the prestige that come with it are just ridiculous,’ he said with a smile. ‘Every now and then, though, something comes up which really blows your mind. I mean the big stuff, Vincent. Up there with finding the Angel Stations big.’
Vincent nodded and leaned back. He glanced around the cafeteria, where students milled about, and he could see a couple of other lecturers in the distance, getting fuelled up for their morning classes. Vincent liked real science, but he liked teaching as well. Sometimes, while explaining things, he could work something out in his head, often connected to what he was actually teaching at the time by only the most tenuous link.
Eddie, on the other hand, was the kind of guy you’d have at a party because you knew he was someone people could connect to, who could make things happen socially, but he was also a brilliant scientist, renowned for his abilities, on Earth and other places too. Vincent knew Eddie well enough to know that when he said something like this, he really didn’t mean it lightly.
‘Are you sure this is where we want to talk?’ Vincent asked him. ‘It’s kind of public.’
‘If anybody really wanted to listen in to our conversation, they’d have bugged your office. If they’ve bugged you personally, we’re screwed anyway. But here we can just sit and talk and nobody will pay much attention.’
Vincent nodded, not really thinking about how he had gone all the way from greeting an old friend to worrying about surveillance in the time it took to drink a cup of coffee. ‘Okay,’ he said carefully.
‘Okay, first your research.’ My research? thought Vincent. ‘How’s it going?’
Vincent blinked. ‘Are we talking about the important thing now?’
Eddie wore a very patient look. ‘Yes.’
‘Fine, I guess,’ Vincent said with a shrug. ‘Most of it’s just librarianship, keeping up with the data coming in from the other deep-space arrays, collating and cross-referencing it all, comparing it with other information gathered by other people over the centuries since they found the first couple of Angel Stations.’
‘Discovered anything interesting?’
‘Lots,’ Vincent said immediately. ‘The most important finding would involve fluctuations in levels of gamma radiation on a galaxy-wide basis. The Angel Stations aren’t spread evenly enough to provide a truly accurate picture of how the galaxy’s evolved over the past couple of hundred million years, but, using the Array here, and at the moon, along with the Arrays they’ve re-established out at the other Stations now, what you get is pretty remarkable. Sudden surges of gamma radiation, separated by huge periods of time. More than might be accounted for by typical burster activity.’
‘Big surges, right?’
‘Yes,’ Vincent said carefully, wondering where all this was leading. Eddie maintained an intense expression, while Vincent kept talking. ‘Big surges – more like explosive.’ Explosive? That was the word he’d been looking for. ‘That’s what you basically have. Maybe some kind of a super-burster. Evidence seems to suggest there are regular explosions of lethal gamma radiation, emanating from the core region of the galaxy, and spreading outwards from there over periods of thousands of years.’
‘Lethal?’
‘Sure, almost certainly. But it’s hard to be accurate. We found the first Angel Station out in the Oort Cloud at the end of the twenty-first century. Now, that let us jump to other Angel Stations at different points throughout the galaxy. Some are closer to the galactic core, others are further away. The one in the Kasper system is the closest to the core. So that gives us several vantage points from which we can measure these fluctuations.’ Vincent beamed at him.
‘Go on.’
‘Okay,’ said Vincent. He could feel himself slipping comfortably into lecturer mode. ‘When the Oort Angel Station failed three centuries ago, we lost contact with all the other Stations and their associated human colonies for two hundred years.’
‘The Hiatus.’
Vincent nodded. ‘Observations from those other Angel Stations resumed a century ago, when the Oort Station’s singularity was successfully reactivated. Now, the Hiatus made for some big gaps in our knowledge. I’ve been correlating data gathered before the Hiatus along with data obtained since we re-established contact. It’s long been thought that similar surges or explosions might have been responsible for mass extinctions here on Earth. The geological evidence is there, in the rock. That’s also part of my research.’<
br />
‘And how certain of that are you?’
‘Pretty certain. Can’t test it out, obviously, but I’d say all the evidence is strongly in favour.’
‘I’d agree.’ Eddie nodded. ‘I’ve got something you should take a look at. No, make that have to look at.’ He reached inside his jacket and brought out a smartsheet with bright red edging. He rolled it up and put it in Vincent’s hand. ‘I want you to take a good look at that. But, before you do, I want to ask you not to show it to anyone else, or talk about it to anyone. When I say the stuff on that is confidential, I really mean it. And once you’ve finished reading it, I want you to dispose of it, carefully.’
Vincent laughed nervously, but Eddie’s face remained grim. ‘Oh, come on, Eddie, what do you expect me to do – eat it? I mean, grilled or boiled?’
Vincent caught the glimmer of a grin at that remark, but immediately it was gone. Still, Eddie had relaxed a little. This was not like the man he knew, and Vincent had an inkling of the kind of pressure the other’s job must put him under. ‘So can you give me any idea of what’s on this thing?’
‘Only a little. It’s information that corroborates and supports your theories, too much so for my liking. But it’s really important you don’t spread this around, okay? I can’t say that often enough.’ Vincent raised his hands, palms displayed towards Eddie, in a placating gesture: point taken. Eddie rolled his eyes and swirled the coffee around in the bottom of his paper cup, then put it down again.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’m only down here for a few days. I’m not even officially here, kind of, so I’ll have to come back. I’m going to shake some hands and do some politics, and I’ll be back here in two days’ time. Then you can tell me what you think of what’s on that smart-sheet.’
Ursu
More days passed, and Ursu waited for some further sign that he suspected, in his more candid reflections, would never come to pass.
He spent more time with Turthe, fulfilling his new duties as a Master-in-Waiting, but with less fervour or pleasure than he might have otherwise done.
‘Did I ever tell you how I came to be the Guardian of the Book of Shecumpeh?’ Turthe began one time, while Ursu studied some of the ancillary texts Turthe kept stored on shelves in his workroom. Most of those other works recorded events in other cities, other lands, information gained through trading or war.
‘No, I don’t think you ever did,’ said Ursu. He had earlier been helping Turthe grind down a particular form of stiff, puttylike fungi – called icewort – which grew mostly under the eaves of buildings, particularly after it had been raining. It was slimy to the touch and possessed a foul smell, but was a vital ingredient for producing ink.
Rumours continued that the army outside the walls was preparing for a grand assault any day now. There had been an exchange of messages during the last two days, and Ursu had been there when Nubala’s own message-bearer had re-entered the gates of the city. Ursu noticed how the messenger’s face had looked drawn, his ears spread flat and stiff across the back of his skull.
The icebeasts in their stables had finally been sacrificed to the needs of the people, and were even now being roasted, their meat cut into long strips and salted to preserve it. The hardships of siege had long since made Turthe painfully thin, and Ursu worried lest the old Master was too frail to survive much more of it.
‘It happened when I was young,’ Turthe continued, watching his pupil work.
‘Shecumpeh showed you the Great Book and told you that you were to be its Guardian?’ Ursu spoke more sharply than he had intended. ‘You told me so.’
‘So I did,’ he said. ‘But I lied, you know.’
Ursu looked up. ‘You did?’
He nodded. ‘Shecumpeh in fact showed me something quite different. But you never told me what Shecumpeh revealed to you. Did he ask you, too, to guard the Great Book?’
Ursu blinked and almost dropped the bowl of half-mashed weed in his hands. ‘Turthe!’ he erupted, briefly forgetting the elderly scholar was by far his superior within the House of Shecumpeh. ‘You know I can’t speak of that! It’s—’
‘One of the sacred bonds between a priest and the god he worships? Piss and excrement, my lad.’ Ursu simply stared at him, dumbfounded. ‘The enemy is at the gates, and we may all be dead within days. We’ve kept them waiting too long, so say rumours from the Council. They may exact revenge on us, as a lesson to others.’
Ursu made to leave. ‘I can’t stay and hear any more of this,’ he said, with an irrational fear that someone might be listening.
‘You really don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,’ said Turthe. ‘If Shecumpeh has directed you to be my replacement, fine. But otherwise, I think you are being less than honest with me.’
Ursu stared at him. ‘I’m sorry, Master Turthe. I have had so much on my mind. The siege and everything.’
‘Will you be leaving the city?’
He knew! He had to. Otherwise, why would he ask such a question?
‘I – am a loyal citizen, Master Turthe.’
‘But not a soldier, eh? Where’s the use in sticking around for a bloodbath? You’re young, so it’s not right for you to burn with the rest when the time of retribution comes. Besides, I suspect Shecumpeh has something special in store for you.’
Ursu kept silent, waiting to see what would emerge next. He felt how his ears had flattened themselves to his head, the unmistakeable indication of being trapped and cornered.
Turthe came towards him. ‘I think I can trust you,’ he said. ‘For there’s something you should see. But first let me tell you this. You have been the first one called by Shecumpeh in some time. And it is now almost a given that the siege will come to a head within the next few days – if not sooner. If decisions are to be made, there is not much time for them to do it. You’ve been sneaking around with your ears all flat ever since he spoke to you, so it doesn’t take a genius to realize that whatever Shecumpeh said to you, it wasn’t easy listening.’
Turthe drew back and went over to where a slightly tattered curtain screened off part of his workshop. He pulled it to one side and secured it to a hook set in the wall. As Turthe beckoned to him, Ursu stepped forward, slipping between the wall and the broad platform supporting the current Great Book of Shecumpeh. He stepped into a deep, low-ceilinged alcove which he had noticed Turthe use for storing materials.
Ursu lit a candle while Turthe kneeled down by the lowest shelf. For the first time, Ursu noticed a small door in the wall below the shelves. He wondered why he’d never noticed it before, then realized that there had always been a pile of rolled-up manuscripts stacked in front of it.
‘It’s small,’ Turthe muttered, bending low to duck under the lintel of the tiny door, ‘but even I can squeeze through it without too much trouble.’
He watched Turthe scrabble through and, after a few moments’ hesitation, he followed.
The walls beyond were cold, slimy, rough-hewn. The flickering candlelight made the space beyond feel primitive and old, as if it hadn’t been visited for a thousand years. Ursu shivered, the fur on the top of his head brushing against the ceiling. By the dim light of Turthe’s candle, he could see that beyond the door was a long, low tunnel.
‘This one runs near to the lower Temple,’ explained Turthe. ‘Look – see there?’ He stopped and raised his candle, so that Ursu could see steps, falling away into darkness just ahead. Ursu turned to look behind him: a faint, distant glow was the only hint that the tiny door leading into Turthe’s workshop still lay open.
‘Turthe, I don’t understand, where exactly are we?’
The Master Turthe raised a long digit to his wide, broad lips. ‘Voices carry farther than you’d think down here. And, in answer to your question, we are on the threshold of the deep catacombs below this part of the city. There are other caves far below here. Come further.’
Ursu gradually became aware of a distant roaring sound that only barely distinguished itself from a vibration. He
had always known caves existed below the city – as did all the citizens – but this was the first time he had ever had cause to venture into one.
Ursu noticed he could see better, in part because of his eyes adjusting to the stygian blackness of the tunnels. But a certain faint luminescence was becoming evident the farther they progressed. Aware of a familiar odour, he stopped. As he reached out to touch the wall, he realized the rock was damp.
The walls were speckled with icewort, that same foul-smelling fungus he had been mashing up only minutes before for Turthe’s benefit. Here, in these godless depths below the city, it had transformed itself into something infinitely more beautiful than the grey rot manifested by daylight.
‘You see that, yes?’ said Turthe. ‘That’s how they can make armour sparkle in the night. Now, look ahead of you.’
Turthe waved him forward, where there was just enough light for him to see he was standing on a surface of natural, uncarved rock. The passageway had given way to something like a shore; his feet were now resting on rough slimy pebbles.
Ursu looked up, and saw bare rock curving into a dome above him, also speckled with the same dimly shining icewort. Water gushed in a torrent through a great crack in the far corner of the cavern they were now in, before pouring through another great rent in the floor, and into some unknowable abyss. The darkness gave itself easily to his imagination.
‘What is this?’ Ursu asked.
‘One of the tributaries of the river Teive,’ explained Turthe. ‘It runs down from the Teive peaks, which rise beyond the valley of Nubala.’ Ursu was familiar with the Teive peaks – great rocky giants, blue with haze, at the furthest edge of the horizon; they could be seen from the top of the city walls.
Ursu stared around at the cave, feeling a certain kind of awe that this magical city he had grown up in could still, even after all these years, surprise him. The darkness was misleading; the cave was not, on closer study, so very large. No larger than some of the rooms in the House of Shecumpeh above it. Still, Ursu couldn’t help but wonder how many years, how many lifetimes, it had taken the torrent to carve the deep groove of its passing in the floor of the cave.
