Angel Stations

by Gary Gibson

  ‘Commander Holmes, sir, I appreciate the limits of my role on the Station,’ said Pierce, ‘but the fact is, I must insist that you now have no choice but to abandon the Angel Station, at least temporarily. We don’t know if these things are a threat or not, whether they mean us harm or not.’ Pierce turned to look at Tomason and Mansell in turn, looking from one to the other, his voice rising as if to a question.

  ‘Professor Tomason, do these things mean us any harm?’ asked Holmes. He’s out of his depth, thought Pierce. This isn’t the kind of thing he ever expected to deal with. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? We became complacent even after returning post-Hiatus and finding an Angel Station abandoned by its original crew, vanished, with no trace of them anywhere in the system. And now it’s happening again.

  ‘Sir, I don’t know,’ said Tomason. ‘All this is brand new. What I can say is that if these things are replicating – and I believe that they are – then they must be obtaining their raw material from somewhere else. That means either the original Angel Station itself, or else the human-habitable portion of it.’

  ‘They’re eating the Station?’ said Johoba.

  Tomason shrugged. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t have the resources—’

  ‘There is one other matter to consider,’ said the Asian Commander, stepping forward. ‘Abandoning the Station may not be a choice we’re able to make.’

  Holmes stared at him. ‘Can you explain that?’

  ‘Okay, put it this way. We – or rather the Station, plus hopefully only a few of the escort vehicles guarding the Station – are infected with some kind of plague, possibly alien, possibly even intelligent. That’s as much as we know, and apart from that we’re in the dark. For the majority of people living and working on board this Station, the only immediate alternative is to return through this Station to the next Station in the chain, the one at Hellas. That would almost certainly mean infecting that Station as well, and so on, until finally these creatures would be delivered to the Sol System. And if they do turn out to be non-benign, and if they somehow arrive on Earth—’

  Pandemonium erupted.

  People were yelling all around Pierce, and he was surprised at how calm he felt. He wondered why, and then he realized. It was too late already.

  He’d glanced down once more at his feet, and noticed something that hadn’t been there before. There was a tiny little hole in the floor, right next to his shoe. Something small and shiny was pushing its way through. And it did look like an insect, at least at first glance.

  There was something almost endearing about the way it probed and heaved its way through, its tiny legs – at least a dozen of them – waving and scraping at the hole. Had that hole been there before? Unless his foot had been over it, Pierce certainly hadn’t noticed it before. The thing pushed its way right through, then seemed to orient itself by turning in a full circle, something like an insect’s feelers waving at the front of it.

  On closer inspection, of course, it wasn’t really an insect: more an artefact, or a machine with insect-like properties. It looked strangely half-formed, as if it had been assembled carelessly in a hurry.

  Another insect machine next pushed its way through. This one joined the first in looking around itself. Then they scurried off alongside one wall, destination unknown.

  Pierce wondered how he could get his hands on a Goblin at short notice.

  Vincent

  They had gone down to the arrivals bay, near the hub of the Angel Station. It looked as if it had originally been designed with pomp and circumstance in mind, for the arrival of dignitaries or politicians or such. Seats were bolted to the floor (this area being near enough to the Station’s central core for its curious pseudo-gravity to exert a gentle but not insubstantial pull), and a wide viewport through which the complexity of the Station’s human-built add-ons could be viewed in comfort. They were alone here, although Vincent kept expecting someone to walk in on them at any second. He had folded his arms and crossed his legs, prey to a permanent vague uncertainty of how he should arrange his limbs when at rest.

  ‘So when did all this start?’

  ‘When do you think? It was just after . . .’ Kim waved a hand at him without actually looking at him. She stared out of the viewport instead. ‘I had a hard time. A really hard time. I didn’t think I could cope. In fact I couldn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps the money would have helped,’ said Vincent gently. ‘I know how much money was due to you after your discoveries were catalogued, studied. You’d be amazed at what’s been achieved but, of course,’ he said with a grin, ‘I can’t really tell you that.’ She turned to him with a frown. ‘It’s a secret,’ he continued, thinking of tiny starships flitting about the galaxy, all without the aid of the Angel Stations. The universe is really ours now, he thought for maybe the millionth time. We’ll be able to go where we want. He looked at her.

  ‘I will tell you, but just not yet. When this is all over.’ He would, since she deserved to know, had to know.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He’d told her everything he could about the radiation now approaching the Station. In turn, she’d told him about Pasquale’s claim of seeing some kind of artificial insect. Now it seemed that lots of other people had seen them.

  What you were doing, he wanted to say to her, was suicide. She had told him about the Books, about her attempts at exorcizing the knowledge of her lover’s death by becoming her, albeit only for a little while. A long, protracted suicide of the mind.

  He remembered Susan, for he had known them both when they had been involved in post-graduate work at the University, a long time ago. It had been an interesting time, and they had crossed paths time and time again at interdepartmental parties and also through mutual friends. There had been . . .

  But this was all so long in the past now, and after Kim had travelled here with the woman who had become her lover, to study the ruins that Vincent knew had fascinated her since she was a child, he had heard of them only through professional connections as his and their personal lives had diverged. And then, finally, only through the main news channels on the Grid, as early triumph had rapidly dissolved into disaster.

  You were the love of my life, he wanted to say to her, realizing, even as he thought it, that it was indeed true. He had not expressed himself well enough at the time to communicate this either through deed or word, and he had – he suspected – paid the price. And now here they were again, both so far from home.

  ‘About the bugs,’ he said, casting for something else to think about. ‘If they’re real, I think I know who might have something to do with them.’ Kim stared at him. ‘There’s a woman called Tomason.’

  Kim nodded like she’d heard the name. ‘She’s head of the exoscience research facilities on the other side of the Station. I met her a couple of times.’

  ‘Well, I went looking for her. I knew her name through some academic papers she’d published, and I’d even requested research material from her directly at different times while I was still back home, so she also knows who I am.’ Kim nodded, watching him with interest. ‘Of course, we’d never actually met, but I have all my requisite credentials with me.’

  ‘None of which have actually helped you get anywhere since you arrived here,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly. So I thought, if there’s anyone I can talk to about this stuff, it’s Tomason. She’s high enough in the scale of things to have the ear of the Commander here, or at least that much I was hoping.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing. They’ve locked down that secure facility you mentioned.’ He gave her a significant look. ‘Neither Tomason nor any members of her core research staff are currently available, and the only place they could be is—’

  ‘The Central Command facility,’ Kim finished for him. ‘That’s the centre of everything around here. That’s where all the decisions are made. You can’t get in without a pass.’

  ‘I don’t have a pass,’ said Vincent, ‘and it doesn�
�t look likely I’ll acquire one.’

  ‘You really think the Kaspians are doomed?’

  ‘I’m not a defeatist by nature,’ he said after several seconds, ‘but I don’t know what can be done to help. They obviously have their own emergency to deal with here. Maybe it’s got something to do with what happened post-Hiatus, when the Station was abandoned the first time.’

  ‘The first time?’ said Kim, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘As opposed to the second time, yes. But we should be making plans.’

  ‘There hasn’t been an evacuation order. I haven’t even seen any of these bugs myself, so I can’t quite believe they exist. I can’t help thinking they’re the product of some kind of mass hysteria, or . . . oh.’

  She fell silent and followed Vincent as he took her gently by the wrist and led her closer to the viewport. It provided a realtime display of the environs of the Station. Three of the military escorts were visible, far beyond the Station’s boundaries. There was a set of controls next to the viewport that allowed you to zoom in on different sections of the Station. She had just noticed something that looked like mercury flowing across the outer surface of a habitat pod, one of the big ones housing part of the Hub. Vincent played with the controls, finally bringing them to focus at extreme magnification.

  ‘I came down here the other day,’ he said. ‘Not many people seem to pass through this part of the Station nowadays, and I find I can think here. I started playing with the controls. They really are everywhere, I’m afraid.’

  She could see them clearly now, flowing across the outer surface of the Station. They were small and shiny, their carapaces rough-hued. For the first time in a very long time, she felt truly afraid.

  ‘Where the hell did they come from?’ she breathed.

  ‘Well, what are the two places I can’t get into just now?’

  ‘Central Command and – oh, right.’ The secure facility, where they’d brought the Angel artefacts. Great. Where else would they have come from?

  Or not so great. I don’t know who I am anymore, she thought. I don’t feel ready to be Kim, to deal with – the things that happened. I want to be Susan, strong, capable Susan. But the Books – her supply was running low. She ached even to think of them. She could be Susan again with them, could feel that strength and clarity and courage in her.

  Just being herself, Kim thought, seemed something of a disappointment. She walked over to the memorial plaque set into the far wall. It was silver and huge, measuring six feet high by maybe ten wide. It listed the names of all the disappeared: the original crew of the Angel Station. There are people much worse off than me, she reflected.

  There had to be a plan of action. As first the rumours and then confirmed sightings of the insects had spread, she had expected some kind of an evacuation order to be announced. There were military escorts on permanent patrol, of course, for exactly this kind of eventuality. To transport people from the Station out to them would require no great feat of organization. There were a couple of hundred Goblins as well, not even counting the ones currently out in the depths of the Kaspian System, hoping to become the next Pasquale.

  Vincent joined her, standing next to her to study the plaque. He’d examined it several times himself already, on previous visits. Somehow, sharing this moment with someone he knew made it seem all the more real. ‘It’s strange to think it really happened.’ She looked at him as if she didn’t understand what he meant. ‘What I mean is, it’s one thing to know what happened here in the abstract. It’s another to come here and stand in front of real, solid evidence that something so bizarre could really take place. It beggars the imagination, you know what I mean?’

  ‘Oh, yes, very much so,’ she replied. She suddenly thought of stars like clouds of mist drifting past her, of a great and eternal darkness swallowing her until she fell forever. It did, indeed, beggar the imagination that more than a thousand individuals could simply up and vanish, all, it seemed, within the space of a few hours, leaving a mystery that might remain unsolved until the end of time.

  ‘I wonder what it was like to be here when the Station shut down but nobody could go home. They must have thought of going to Kasper. It would have been the most obvious place.’ She shook her head. ‘You know, every year or two, another documentary team arrives here to try and dig up something new, and all they ever find is the same as everybody else did. There’s no sign of anyone human on Kasper itself.’

  Vincent didn’t look convinced. ‘A planet is a big place.’

  ‘Not when you’ve got surveillance satellites like Central Command do. They’d know.’ She leaned in closer to study one particular entry. ‘Imagine being him.’ She was pointing to a name at the beginning of the list, which was accorded particular prominence along with several others. ‘In charge of a place like this, and the whole world falling around your ears.’

  Falling indeed, thought Vincent, leaning in closer. The name had been inscribed clearly and carefully.

  The words inscribed in the silver read: Commander Ernst Vaughn.

  Vaughn

  ‘Sir?’

  Vaughn turned. The air cut like a knife at this time of year: a chill blast of wind that sliced through the mountainous pass that extended below him, spilling like an invisible river from the high peaks behind him to the fallow grasslands far below. Half a mile or so distant, on the edge of a craggy cliff, rose one of the great shield generators that hid them from lens and eye alike.

  Strange, he’d never quite got used to the smell of the air here. The rest of them, though, they were born here, so they knew nothing else. They were the true inheritors of God’s purpose. But I’m still luckier than Moses, he thought. At least I got to see the Promised Land.

  He turned to see a young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, standing a short but respectful distance behind him. A path stretched out beyond, leading down to the streets of New Coventry. Jonathan, that was his name. And wasn’t he due to be married off to that girl Elizabeth? Ah yes, that was the one. Strange, but he remembered well the time when he had automatically known the name of every individual in their little colony. But times had changed, Kasper was changing, with the glaciers retreating and the long millennia of ice already fading into the native Kaspians’ ancestral history.

  ‘Sir, we’re intercepting reports from the Angel Station, sir. It looks like the replicators have self-activated.’

  ‘Details?’

  ‘We picked up several transmissions, on both the Goblin frequencies and the encrypted military channels. It seems the Station itself is riddled with them, and the military channels have raised a lot of speculation about abandoned Angel weapons. They seriously think it’s to do with the Angels, sir.’

  Interesting, thought Vaughn. Events really were moving at quite a pace now. ‘Thank you, Jonathan. Keep me informed. And tell Ann I’ll be down within the hour to take personal charge of the monitoring operation. In the meantime, I don’t want to be disturbed unless it’s news of equal importance, understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The young man started to turn back down the path.

  All they needed now was to locate the last god. And then, and only then, could Vaughn be assured of the cleansing fires that would sweep the aliens away and leave the new Eden fresh for God’s children. For he had foreseen it, and it would come to pass.

  Ursu

  When he had attended Raisings in the past, it had been more as a witness than an active participant. The learned ones of the House of Shecumpeh had believed early demonstration of what the god could do for them was a good way of capturing an acolyte’s heart. There were words to be said, rituals to be observed, and then, if the god looked into the hearts and minds of the dead or dying and saw sufficient goodness in them, it might just deign to bring them back.

  He leaned over one of the bundled figures lying in the great tent he had been brought to and saw it was only a child. He didn’t ask where its mother was. I need the god, he thought. I can’t do this without Shecumpeh. What
would he need to say to make them understand?

  Ursu heard voices behind him as others entered the tent. They then stepped aside to let their totem-reader enter, cradling the god in his arms like it was a baby. He seemed to walk with difficulty, his limbs perhaps seizing up under the influence of the plague.

  Even the air in here smelled diseased, thought Ursu. But it was better to see Shecumpeh here, even amongst barbarians and enemies, than to think of it lying at the bottom of some pool. The totem-reader carried the god over to him, and laid it reverentially at the feet of the last remaining priest of the House of Shecumpeh.

  Ursu awkwardly nodded thanks. They all watched him expectantly. He felt like an actor about to perform. What if nothing happened?

  He picked up the god, and studied the side of it where a crack had appeared. Again something glinted from inside. He feared to look too closely, afraid of what he might see. It had never occurred to him before that there might be something inside the god.

  Then he saw something he had not spotted earlier, when he had first noticed the damage to Shecumpeh. A glow, so faint as to seem almost imaginary, and tinged with blue, was emerging from the crack. He looked up and saw expectant eyes watching him, then he turned to the child.

  Ursu laid one hand on the god seated on the ground before him. He recited the ritual words, repeating each verse three times. By the second recitation, he began to feel slightly dizzy. By the third, his lips moved, but the words themselves had turned to internal sense impressions, much as the god’s voice became whenever it spoke to him. He next saw something that he had only heard of, never experienced.

  The child coughed, its lungs labouring hard under his hand. Ursu closed his eyes and recited the verse of Raising over and over again. Someone – one of the other acolytes, who was given to whispered blasphemies? – once told him that he had overheard two of the elderly priests confiding that the words really meant nothing, that their ritual only made it seem as if the priests were taking part, when in fact they were entirely surplus to requirement.