Iron Gods

by Andrew Bannister

  There were sounds of conflict. She had heard them before but this time they seemed more acute. There was a struggle and a couple of voices she thought she recognized. Then one of the voices was muffled and stopped, but the struggle continued. It sounded quieter. If she listened with a cautious ear, quieter sounded worse.

  She swung off the bed and walked to the partition. It was a set of slim foam-board panels that didn’t completely divide the room; there were adult-squeezable gaps at either end. Seldyan didn’t have to squeeze. It was enough to turn a little sideways, and there was plenty of room for her to pause halfway through.

  She paused and looked.

  The dim light was enough. It showed a shadowy group around a bed. There were two shadows on the bed, one above and one below. The one above was making movements she recognized. She felt a little sick.

  She marched towards them, using her feet like weapons so the floor thumped. The shadows stopped moving. The group around the bed separated and moved towards her.

  She elbowed through them. There was resistance, but not enough to stop her. At the bedside she nodded. The boy called Merish was the one underneath. There was just enough light for her to tell that he was crying.

  Her arm had drawn back and swung forwards before she knew it. The boy on top – she didn’t know his name – barely had time to start looking surprised before the blow connected. It knocked him backwards off the bed and he landed head first. Seldyan watched him for a moment to see if he was going to get up. He didn’t, and she lost interest in him.

  Merish had curled into an unmoving ball. His silent sobs had stopped. She sat down next to him and reached out a hand. It hovered in the air – she didn’t know about touching people – and then settled on his shoulder. He twitched, uncurled and turned his head so he could see her.

  She smiled and gestured towards the partition. He nodded and rolled off the bed. Even in the poor light she could see spots of blood in the hollow left by his hips. She compressed her lips.

  Behind her someone snickered. She spun round and glared at the group of boys who had formed a semicircle. They shrank back a little and then stopped. One of them leaned forwards, and she realized he was the one she had knocked over. His nose was bleeding.

  ‘You won’t get anywhere with him, sweetheart. He’s men only.’ He spread his arms. ‘We were just giving him what he wants.’

  There was laughter. Then one of the others shook his head.

  ‘She’s not taking him for that. That’s Seldyan, remember? She doesn’t play with anyone any more. The old Super took her little flower.’

  ‘Yeah, and she cut off his stalk. You’re lucky she only bust your nose.’ More laughter. The group broke up.

  She pointed Merish towards the gap at the end of the partition. Before she followed him through she looked straight up. There was a monitor globe on the ceiling, placed to cover both halves of the room. It would usually have been a translucent hemisphere. Now it was blackened and crazed. She nodded to herself – that would have been the noise that had roused her – and followed him through.

  There was just room for both of them in her bed as long as they didn’t mind touching from knee to shoulder. Merish didn’t seem to; he gave a deep sigh and closed his eyes almost immediately. And Seldyan didn’t mind at all. She lay awake, feeling the warmth of the boy next to her and listening to the small animal noises of his sleep.

  She spent most of the night like that, her eyes wide with surprise. She hadn’t realized that there was an empty space next to her until someone filled it.

  Oblong

  SELDYAN LAY IN the soft bed, with her head full of recollected pictures and some extrapolated ones. She wasn’t sure which bothered her most.

  She wondered for a moment whether she should check out the news channels again, but there didn’t seem any point. She had made her decision while she slept.

  She would go and find out for herself.

  Her head hurt. She raised it carefully from its place next to Merish, sat up and rolled softly off the bed into a standing position that lasted through a few seconds of ear-swirling nausea and then settled down. When she trusted herself she crossed to the door into the main area, slipped through and let it close behind her, baffling the last few centimetres with a hand. There was no need to wake anyone, and besides, she wanted to be alone.

  She hadn’t operated the screen herself last night, but she had watched Merish closely and it looked simple. The controls were elaborate fingernail-sized glyphs floating just above the glass surface of the pad. She studied them and then reached out a hand. After a few false starts she managed to navigate past the news channels and into a search engine. She grinned to herself and went searching.

  Half an hour later she sat back and pursed her lips. Web City was energetic, and enthralling, and large parts of it seemed opaque to scrutiny.

  She was still staring at the display when Merish tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up and glared at him.

  ‘You’re supposed to be asleep.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, you were supposed to be asleep, but now it’s morning. How long have you been sitting here?’

  ‘Morning? Shit … a while, then.’ She sat up and stretched. ‘I found out lots. We have things to talk about. Are the others up?’

  ‘Getting up. Tell us all together. You need to eat.’

  She waved a hand. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Okay, well I need to eat. You can watch.’

  Breakfast, when everyone was properly awake for it, was a selection of fruit she didn’t recognize and some sort of deep yellow yoghurt with a fat salty taste. The combination worked; it turned out she was hungry after all. She let herself enjoy a few mouthfuls, then tapped on the table in front of her.

  ‘I did some research. The green-smudge guys worship a star, a green one.’

  Lyste frowned. ‘Green’s a pretty unusual colour for a star.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s something else. It’s a new star. It just appeared out of nowhere, a few years ago.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Kot looked doubtful.

  ‘Sure. There was some screen of it …’ She shoved her plate off the screen panel and the control glyphs bobbed up. ‘Here. Look.’

  The room dimmed and the screen sharpened into focus. It showed a sparse starscape. Seldyan waved at it. ‘Watch the centre of the field.’ She flicked at a glyph and a time code in the corner of the screen unfroze and blurred upwards. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then, with no transition, a bright green point blinked into being. Seldyan flicked the glyph again and the time code stopped. She turned to the others.

  ‘Well?’

  Kot raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s it?’

  Seldyan nodded.

  Kot walked up to the screen and frowned at it. ‘Let’s see it again.’

  Seldyan wound the view back and forwards a few times, slowing the track down and increasing the magnification each time until the green dot had become a blurred disc the size of a thumbnail. Kot watched, her hands on her hips. Eventually she shook her head.

  ‘It’s not a star. Stars don’t switch on like that.’

  Seldyan nodded again. ‘I know. So what is it?’

  Merish had been sitting in silence. Now he stood up and touched Seldyan on the shoulder. ‘Let me try.’

  ‘Try what?’

  ‘Something. I’ll know when I’ve tried it.’ He reached for the controls. New glyphs rose under his fingers; suddenly the board looked a lot more complex.

  She watched him for a second. ‘How do you know how to do that stuff?’

  ‘I’m better at stuff than I am at people. You know that.’ He glanced over his shoulder and gave her a half-smile. She met his eyes for a moment and then smiled back. She tried not to make it look sad.

  His fingers hadn’t stopped moving. Now he gave a little ‘yes!’ of satisfaction and did something to the controls that was too fast for her eyes to follow. ‘Watch this.’

  They watched. The view scrolled f
orwards and stopped. Merish pointed at where the green star ought to be. ‘I’m going to go frame by frame. Ready?’

  They nodded.

  ‘Right. Watch.’

  At first Seldyan thought nothing was happening. Then Lyste pointed at the screen.

  ‘Look; there’s something …’

  There was. Seldyan stared. Not a disc, but a tiny hint of something – the faintest green trace, like a short horizontal hairline crack in the starscape. Frame by frame it stabbed out from nothing she could see until it stopped at a bright green point.

  The frames paused. Seldyan glanced at Merish, an eyebrow raised. ‘And?’

  ‘See what you think. The next bit’s quick.’

  The image began to move again. The point grew, spreading to a disc and curling to encircle something. The something became a green globe.

  Seldyan sat back. ‘That’s it?’

  Merish grinned. ‘It’s a pretty big it. About a hundred thousand klicks across – the size of a biggish gas giant.’

  Seldyan looked at him. ‘So, not a star, then?’

  ‘Seems not.’

  Lyste stood up. ‘Whoa, wait a minute. That beam, whatever it is – it lit up a whole gas giant?’

  Merish nodded. ‘Or something that size.’

  ‘How?’ The wooden toy lay on the table in front of Lyste. She picked it up. Click, click.

  Merish shrugged. ‘Not my expertise. Kot?’

  Kot pursed her lips. ‘Speed,’ she said. ‘That’s the thing. If that’s a gas-giant-sized object, the green colour spread at light-speed, near enough. So, it wasn’t mechanical or chemical. That doesn’t leave much.’

  Seldyan felt her eyebrows climbing. ‘Light-speed, you said. So that must be what it was. Light. Fuck, are we saying the atmosphere of a gas giant is lasing?’

  There was silence. Then Hufsza blew out a breath. ‘No wonder it started a religion.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Seldyan made up her mind. ‘Right. Merish? You’re Mr Numbers. Find out how easily these guys could do something radical, like taking over. Lyste? Find out what would happen if they did. What do they stand for? Would we like it?’

  Kot nodded. ‘What about us?’

  Seldyan grinned. ‘You and Huf are coming with me. We’re due to meet some more people today. These City Fathers. Try to look – muscular.’

  Kot and Hufsza looked at each other. Then they both smiled, and nodded very slowly.

  Oblong, plus the Web, had a full-time population of seventy million, leaving aside the fifty million more who already passed through every year on their way to other destinations.

  There were eleven City Fathers, including the Supervisor. That didn’t seem very many to represent seventy million, as far as Seldyan was concerned, but then what did she know about democracy? Just what she’d seen on the news channels. Even so, it was a surprise when one of the City Fathers turned out to be a short squat female in tan robes, with a green smudge above one eye.

  Despite herself, she must have looked perplexed.

  The woman smiled. ‘You were wondering how I came to be elected?’

  Seldyan thought fast. ‘Well, no, not exactly … I knew you guys were standing. I just didn’t know you’d already stood.’

  It seemed to be the right approach, because the woman smiled again. ‘We haven’t. I converted after I was elected. The truth can strike at any time.’ She nodded at Seldyan. ‘Perhaps it will strike you too. When you are ready.’

  She nodded again, a little more deeply so that it looked like the sketch of a bow, and moved away.

  Well, that’s me told, thought Seldyan. But what if I saw the truth already? She breathed out, took a step backwards and bumped into someone. She spun round and found herself looking down into Patras’s face. His eyebrows were raised.

  ‘Are you converted yet?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t even know where I’m starting, Supervisor. Let alone where I’m going to end up.’

  The one good eye studied her from its florid landscape of tattoos for what felt like a long time. Then it broke away, and the mouth below grinned. ‘Oh, I think you know where you’re going, Seldyan. I expect you always know that. I think I know people, and you’re that kind of person. But perhaps I can help with the how and the why?’

  She studied his face, keeping her own carefully neutral. There was nothing but friendly enquiry. Eventually she said, ‘It seems to me, Supervisor Patras, that you’re the one who needs the help. The question is, should I – should we – give it?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll make your own mind up about that. And when you’re ready, you’ll let me know.’ The voice sounded the same but the shape of the grin had changed a little, as if he was having to use different muscles to get nearly the same effect. He kept it up for a few seconds longer, then dipped his head and turned away.

  Seldyan stood still for a moment, thinking. Then she shrugged and went to find Kot and Hufsza. It wasn’t that easy.

  Oblong had had a busy history, even if not a very long one. For much of the time it had been isolated, so there had been no real alternative to a rather inventive self-sufficiency. The front end of the City Fathers’ conference space had been an ore hopper, a pitted, rock-scored metal cube about ten metres on a side. Seldyan wasn’t sure at first what the other, larger part was. The metal walls of the hopper, still gouged and pitted by the abrasive ore it had once held, merged into some sort of mottled brown material shot through with streaks and knots of red and gold and orange. It looked a bit like an elaborately grained wood, but that didn’t seem right, and it didn’t explain the shape either; from the back end of the hopper it first bulged upwards, forming a tall bulbously vaulted space that held a central conference table. On the other side of the table the ceiling lowered and then abruptly dropped to the floor in waves of irregular columns and cells to produce a space that looked as if it had been bored out by some vast worm.

  The cells, where she could see into them, were furnished. Whatever the stuff was, it obviously made for useful private break-out spaces.

  As she walked into one of the cells, she realized it had another property: instead of ringing quietly on the exposed metal floor as they had done in the rest of the old hopper, her footsteps sounded dull and flat. She experimentally snapped her fingers and the sound fell away with no trace of an echo. Even the sound of voices from the main space behind her seemed faint.

  The walls were as good as acoustically dead.

  It took her five minutes of wandering through the disconcertingly organic-looking labyrinth before she found Kot and Hufsza, sitting together in a little alcove where the wall bulged out at the base to form a natural seat. Or possibly not natural; Seldyan frowned and gestured around her. ‘What is this stuff? It looks as if it was grown, or something.’

  ‘It was. Or it grew by itself.’ Hufsza jabbed a finger at Kot. ‘She recognized it.’

  Kot nodded. ‘It’s a mining fungus. That’s the bit you can see – this stuff.’ She tapped the wall. ‘Genetically engineered to concentrate metals out of low-grade ore.’

  Seldyan frowned again. ‘What’s it doing here?’

  ‘Who knows? It probably turned up as a tiny contaminant on a bit of rock and then spent a century gorging itself. That’s why there’s all the bright colours: huge concentrations of minerals. In a real mine it would be mud-coloured with maybe a few sparkly bits on a good day. Anyway, it’s dead. Ate itself to death, likely enough.’

  Seldyan looked at the riotously whorled surface. For a ridiculous second she almost felt sorry for this dumb space mushroom that had bloated itself so prettily. Then she shrugged it off. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it makes good talking space. Unless?’ She glanced pointedly around and then raised her eyebrows at the other two.

  Hufsza nodded and put a thick finger to his lips. Then he quickly touched the finger to one ear and drew it away in a rapid spiralling motion.

  Hive talk. The place is wired for sound.

  Seldyan made a similar gesture but s
tarting at the corner of her eye. Vision too?

  He shrugged and nodded. Not even Hive talk – universal human body language for yeah, probably.

  Seldyan smiled brightly and spoke out loud. ‘Has it occurred to you that we are doing too much of that lately?’

  They both nodded.

  A gong rang behind them, the sound somehow penetrating their quiet burrow. Seldyan took a breath.

  ‘Right, well that is probably our signal to go back on display, so let’s go.’

  She began to retrace her steps out of the labyrinth. As she went, she half turned and spoke over her shoulder. ‘Guys? Remember that we are on display, yeah?’

  Then they were back in the main space, and a lot of people were waiting for them.

  The conference table was crescent-shaped. The City Fathers sat round the long arc, and their guests sat at the focus of the shorter one. Seldyan felt examined.

  She felt something else too, similar to what she had felt when they first arrived in Web City. The atmosphere was alive with … atmosphere.

  Patras sat in the middle, flanked by five on each side. The five to his left were mimicking his body language – leaning forward, elbows on table, hands clasped, eyes engaged.

  The five to his right were not. They sat back, but not relaxed back. Challenging back – ‘show us what you’ve got’ back. Some of them had their arms folded. One of them was the woman who wore robes and had a green mark.

  Fuck me, thought Seldyan. It’s fifty-fifty with Patras in the middle. She mentally crossed her fingers and hoped that the new Supervisor would make some kind of speech. She needed time to think.

  She got her wish. Patras smiled and opened his arms.

  ‘Seldyan, Kot, Hufsza – welcome. You have made a remarkable escape from the repressive forces of the Inside, and we will look forward to hearing your stories of that. You have also brought with you something rather potent, and we would like to talk to you about that even more. But perhaps you have come here with a plan, and that we would like to discuss more than anything.’

  He had – just – given Seldyan enough time.