Iron Gods

by Andrew Bannister

  ‘Is that what it is?’ Vess shook his head. ‘If anyone else says they’re going to support me I’ll assume it’s all over and hand myself in for composting.’

  Fiffithiss extended the foreclaw and patted him on the shoulder. It felt like being tapped sharply with a twig. ‘I wouldn’t do that. I’ve heard it’s a messy end. You’re Admin grade, Harbour Master, same as me. Take my advice. Leave the blood and guts to the Praetors and the Board. Protect your pension. You have no family, have you?’

  ‘No. No, there’s just me.’

  ‘Good man. Less to worry about. Come on. Let’s get in there and show them how grey and uninteresting we Administrators can be.’

  It turned and headed for the entrance to the Palace, using all nine limbs in a complex syncopation like a straight-line dance. It looked like hard work. Vess remembered reading that the species had evolved – or had been engineered, according to some – for light-gravity environments where walking only needed four limbs. Some of them never mastered using the full set, and those never left the home planet.

  Just at the moment leaving your home planet looked like a very good idea to Vess. He shrugged and followed Clo Fiffithiss up a shallow ramp and into the Daily Entrance of the palace. Not the Main Entrance; that was for important people.

  Important. That word again.

  Vess shifted in his seat. It was a massive, deeply upholstered half-globe covered in a pleated animal hide, and like every waiting-room seat he had ever sat on it had the trick of being far less comfortable than it looked. He glanced towards Clo Fiffithiss. ‘Much longer, you think?’

  The being rustled a little as if it had been stirred by a breeze. ‘No idea. We get there when we get there. Try to relax.’

  Vess raised his eyebrows. ‘Why? You haven’t.’

  ‘You can tell?’

  ‘I looked it up.’ He looked at Fiffithiss, who had draped itself limply from the frame of one of the chairs. Its body was hanging at the end of a bundle of legs, the three foreclaws swinging freely below it so that they almost brushed the floor. To a careless observer it looked a bit like a clump of vines, and it would go on doing so right up to the moment when it let go its hold and dropped like streamlined death on to a piece of prey, claws first. It was about the least relaxed pose the species could adopt.

  ‘Sorry. Genes.’ Fiffithiss wriggled free of the chair and dropped to the floor. ‘The point stands, though: try to relax. I’ll try too. If I fail then we can be nervous together.’

  ‘All right, I’ll try.’ A thought struck Vess. He hesitated. ‘Look, sorry if this is intrusive, but have you ever … Hunted?’

  There was a long silence. Fiffithiss hunkered low to the floor, its body swaying in the cradle of its legs. Eventually it said, ‘Well, that helped with the tension. Have I ever Hunted? Meaning, have I ever got stoned out of both of my brains on an ancient plant extract and taken part in a ritual hunt to the death with members of my own brood?’

  Vess felt his face colouring. ‘I didn’t mean …’

  ‘Oh yes you did. You look things up.’ Fiffithiss tapped a claw. ‘I’ll save you the trouble of looking up my name. I’m not some fucking baby-eater, human. Fiffithiss means Abstainer. Among my people it’s not a compliment, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t live among my people. Does that help?’

  ‘Yes. Look, I’m sorry …’

  ‘Good. Now stop beating yourself up. I’m sure other people are forming a queue.’

  Vess was almost relieved when the door to the main chamber opened. A globe-shaped dirigible bell-hop about twice the size of Vess’s head floated through, wobbling a little. It gave off a faint hiss.

  ‘Agenda point five?’ Its voice sounded like modulated static.

  Clo Fiffithiss gave an affirmative bob. ‘We believe so.’

  The bell-hop didn’t move. ‘Ambiguous. Agenda point five? Confirm or deny.’

  Fiffithiss drew itself upright, straightening all nine legs so that it looked like a narrow tripod, squared. One foreclaw clicked against its body in a pastiche of a salute. ‘Agenda point five, confirmed.’

  ‘Follow.’ The machine wobbled back through the door.

  They followed.

  The room was on Level Sixteen, the second-highest level of the ziggurat. At this height the palace was still wide enough to be very big, but narrow enough to encompass one room with windows on all four sides. It felt like a long walk from the entrance to the far end where the Board waited.

  By tradition there were five of them – four Praetors and the Chairman, and instead of sitting they stood at lecterns, each one shaped differently to represent the Guild of its user. The Chairman stood at the central lectern, leaning well back to balance his vast belly. Vess had a theory that Alst Or-Shls kept on the lectern tradition because if he ever sat down he would never be able to rise unaided.

  The lectern on the far right of the group, shaped like a darkly twisted vine dotted with cancerous growths, looked empty, but Vess had no doubt it was not empty at all. He shuddered a little.

  They halted in front of a pale line inlaid in the near-black wooden floor. There were no seats for visitors, either. Vess hated that. Standing still without looking awkward was hard enough when you were calm, and he was not calm.

  Or-Shls wore thick lenses in front of his eyes, an archaic affectation. Now he reached up and did something to the frame that carried them. They slid quickly sideways and disappeared round the back of his head on tiny runners built into the frame. Without them his eyes looked much larger, and they bulged. He glanced round at the Praetors.

  ‘All ready?’ His voice was gravelly, and even from where Vess was standing it smelled of tobacco smoke – an even more ridiculous, not to say dangerous, affectation.

  The Praetors nodded.

  ‘Good. Well, Administrators, we’re ready to hear you. The last of the Great Ships has been taken without a fight. I expect you can tell us why.’

  Vess felt himself exhale. It felt like relief, as if all the tension he hadn’t realized he was containing had left him. This was it – he was off the cliff and falling. ‘Because we are no longer able to maintain a viable deterrent near the periphery, Mr Chairman.’

  At first there was silence. Or-Shls glared at him. ‘Why not?’

  Vess shrugged. ‘I can only administer what is there. The last four Shareholder meetings in succession have ordered ships to be withdrawn from the Border zones and concentrated around the Home systems. The gaps are too great.’

  ‘And Sunskimmer was in one of these gaps?’

  Vess nodded. ‘Was in one of them, and made her escape through another of them.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ The soft voice came from the lectern on Vess’s far left. The lectern itself was a blocky thing formed of different-sized oolite cubes piled on top of each other to make a cream-coloured column that seemed solid and rickety at the same time. It was a complete contrast to the sinuously muscled quadruped that stood upright behind it, heavy front paws resting on the top roughly on a level with Vess’s eyes.

  One of the paws lifted lazily. ‘The Shareholder meetings acted on the advice of this Board, didn’t they? And we consulted on our recommendations. The doctrine of Holding the Centre? I’m sure you were on the mailing list. Both of you.’

  Clo Fiffithiss stirred. ‘We were, Garash. I don’t know about Vess, but for my part I sent back a series of models that gamed the results of the Doctrine. I think the risks were clear.’ It turned towards Garash. ‘I’m certain you were on that mailing list.’

  Vess felt himself tensing. The silence seemed to go on for a long time. Then Or-Shls gave a tight smile.

  ‘We know about your games, thank you,’ he said. ‘You identified risk. Unfortunately risk has been allowed to turn into outcome. Rather a lot of outcome. More than you know, I suspect.’ He gestured towards the apparently empty lectern. ‘Over to you.’

  Vess caught his breath.

  The lectern crawled. The things which had looked like growths moved, sta
nding out from the twisted column on hundreds of hair-fine legs. They flowed, that was the word, up the lectern and collected in a growing mass at the top where they formed the approximate outline of a human face.

  A hole opened in the middle of the face. It wasn’t really mouth-shaped. Vess wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. The voice of the gestalt entity called Vut would have been almost a purr if it hadn’t been for a sibilant edge.

  ‘You noted, and questioned, the Doctrine of Holding the Centre. Based on your knowledge at the time your questions were reasonable, but your knowledge was incomplete. Observe.’

  The windows dimmed, not gently but fast so the room went black with a snap that was almost tangible. Vess thought he could feel his irises trying to keep up. At his side, Clo Fiffithiss rustled uneasily. Its night sight was far better than his, he knew, but darkness was Hunting territory; the being would be on edge.

  A familiar starscape blurred and solidified in front of them. He nodded. ‘The Inside and the Boundary. So?’

  ‘The Inside, yes. Our eleven planets. A precarious economy at the best of times, as is any completely enclosed economic unit. But these are not the best of times. Before you are told more you will need to agree to non-disclosure.’

  ‘I thought we both had already.’ Clo Fiffithiss sounded confused.

  Or-Shls cut in. ‘Not to anything like the level required for this. Turn around please.’

  The room lightened a little. They turned and found the dirigible – or another identical one – behind them, floating level with Vess’s head about an arm’s length from him. In the dim light it gave off a soft violet glow and it was bobbing up and down very slightly; after a second he realized that he was nodding in time with it. He stopped himself.

  The globe-shaped body split horizontally. The lower half dropped away to hang from the upper by slim articulated rods of dull silver metal. In the space between the two halves the air glowed smokily.

  Or-Shls spoke from behind them. ‘Look into the light please. Vess first.’

  Vess looked. At first it was hard to focus, but then a point of white light grew within the smoke, and as soon as he had seen it his eyes were captured and he found he couldn’t look away. There was a brief moment of dislocation and then his head was full of words.

  … agree to terms of non-disclosure regarding Praetor briefing at the Lay Palace, Counterweight Basin …

  It made his head ache. He fought off the temptation to look away. Besides, he suspected that to try would be to tear his eyes out of their sockets. There was nothing optional about this.

  … my understanding that sanctions for non-compliance may include physical recovery of all knowledge imparted. Confirm?

  He frowned. Without breaking eye contact with the machine he said, ‘Physical recovery?’

  ‘It means we will recover the material mechanically from your brain.’ Or-Shls’s voice was level. ‘Reliable and fatal.’

  Confirm? Second request of three.

  Vess didn’t like to think what might happen if he used up all three requests. ‘Confirm.’

  The point of light vanished and his eyes snapped away. The headache was fading already.

  He watched as Clo Fiffithiss went through the same process. Then the dirigible snapped itself shut and floated off. They turned back towards the Praetors and the lights faded.

  ‘We hope that wasn’t too uncomfortable?’ Vut didn’t sound concerned. ‘It was necessary in any case. What we are about to tell you has been kept to Board level until now. For five hundred years. We take it we have your attention?’

  Vess nodded dumbly. A faint rustle told him Clo Fiffithiss had done its version of the same thing.

  ‘Good. So, five hundred years ago we had just lost the twelfth planet. In response the Border was established as a hard boundary between us and the rest, and the modern status quo was established. Except that there was nothing static about it. The Board of the day ordered the situation to be gamed.’

  Clo Fiffithiss stirred. ‘That must have been one of the first uses of gaming as a policy tool?’

  ‘It was. And still one of the most influential. The result indicated that the Inside of those days was not durable. The response was to set up a structure that could be defended even in decline. Hence, the Inside Federation. But now that has changed. The most recent gaming suggests that the situation is no longer viable.’

  There was a short silence. Then Clo Fiffithiss spoke.

  ‘I don’t understand. The loss of the ships is serious, but how does it make us unviable?’

  ‘Your own gaming lacks data. On its own, the loss of the last legacy Main Battle Unit would not be fatal – although it is a symptom of a wider decline which has been going on for generations. We need not consider historical problems; the modern beginning of the end set in five years ago.’

  The starscape changed, zooming out to show many more systems. Most of them were greyed out, but a cluster some way outside the Boundary glowed brightly. The view zoomed in to show three planets – Vess assumed they were planets – in a tight ring around a small blue-white star.

  ‘That is the Tri-Gyre. We are sure you already have questions.’

  Vess frowned at the image. The star was well outside the plane of the ring, so that it formed an apex rather than a centre.

  ‘Why is the sun off to the side?’

  Vut sounded amused. ‘Given that this is the Spin, why is unknowable. Pure whimsy, probably. As to how, there is a counterbalancing micro black hole on the opposite side of the ring. The black hole and the star are kept apart by a field generator. It is not an elegant solution, and that was not the important question.’

  Vess stared at the image. There was something just below it: a sort of ghostly curve with a green dot at its end. He pointed. ‘That?’

  ‘Yes, that. A large cloud of debris where nothing previously existed, and beyond it a green star – also where nothing previously existed.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  Or-Shls took a wheezy breath. ‘The green star, we don’t know. But the other feature we suspect to be an effort at new planetary engineering. Not carried out by us. Not carried out by anyone for a hundred millennia. Carried out by someone else less than a thousand days ago. That’s just the beginning. Go on, Vut. You’re the economist.’

  The not-mouth opened again. ‘The beginning, yes, or perhaps better a marker of the beginning. We are one ninth of the Spin, but allowing for the Hive we have closer to one fifth of the population and rather less than one eleventh of the resources. We therefore depend on trade. These were our trade routes six years ago.’

  The starscape pulled back so that the Inside was a glittering patch in the centre. Scores of curving lines glowed into life, originating all over the Spin but all of them either passing through or ending within the Inside.

  About a third of them were yellow and the rest cerise. Vess frowned. ‘What do the colours mean?’

  ‘Yellow means a positive balance of payments. Pink, the opposite.’

  ‘So we’re overall negative?’

  ‘Correction. Six years ago we were overall negative, by a modest margin. This is the situation today.’

  The image changed. Vess stared at it.

  Most of the lines were gone. The only ones left were cerise.

  Vut went on speaking. ‘We are almost cut off. Our routes have been concentrated into fewer and fewer superhighways, each of them many times more vulnerable and expensive to run than before. We are leaking money. It won’t be long before shortages can’t be disguised any longer.’

  Clo Fiffithiss tapped an intricate three-limb tattoo on the floor. Vess recognized it as the equivalent of a baffled shake of the head. ‘I don’t understand. What’s the connection between someone making planets and us losing trade routes?’

  ‘Technological development. The ability to project power, Gamer. And as this information was not available to you, you are not held to blame.’

  Or-Shls nodded. ‘You can leave
us. The Harbour Master will remain.’

  There was the tiniest hesitation and then a sound like a syncopated drum roll. Clo Fiffithiss had retreated at speed, but it had waited for a fraction of a second. Even such a brief pause was a dangerous display in the face of so direct a dismissal. It was as much support as the being could have dared express.

  It didn’t help. The room was still very lonely when it had gone.

  Vess cleared his throat. ‘Am I held to blame, then?’

  To his surprise, Or-Shls grinned. ‘Not exactly. But the total loss of the major fleet has not merely left us without viable means of aggression – it has left us diminished. We look like fools, Vess, unable even to pretend to project power; unable to hold on to what little we have. And, it has left you without a role. We have selected you a new one.’

  ‘Thank you, Chairman.’

  ‘I wouldn’t, not yet. Madam Garash?’

  The heavy paws tightened a little on the edge of the lectern so that Vess half expected to hear it creaking.

  ‘You are an interesting character, Hevalansa Vess. You come from Ground Level, but you have risen far without making enemies or leaving a trail of bodies. You get on well with your peers, but you have few friends. You are legendarily private and you have no intimate relationships. Your profile indicates that you are a pronounced insectophobe and yet you maintain your composure in the presence of our friends Vut and you seem positively close to Clo Fiffithiss. In short, you have all the attributes of a spy.’

  ‘A what?’ Vess felt slightly dizzy. He shook his head.

  ‘A spy. We need information, Vess. We need to know how the hijackers of the last Great Ship broke out from the Hive. That should not have been possible. They should not have been able to break out. They should not have been able to buy tickets. They should not have been able to steal the ship – even if ships of that scale are designed to be run by small crews. You are the kind of person who can find that out.’

  The dizziness was worse. Vess spoke carefully. ‘What must I do?’

  ‘For the moment, nothing. Are you feeling unwell?’

  ‘Yes. What …?’

  ‘Good. Don’t move.’