Iron Gods

by Andrew Bannister

  She nodded.

  ‘Supervisor, thank you. We’ll be glad to share our stories soon, although they don’t seem any more dramatic than some of the stories you could tell us. As for our plan, well, maybe it falls a bit short of a plan. We wanted out from the Hive, and we want you guys to know what goes on there. We want a new place to be, and we were kind of hoping it would be here. Maybe one day we’ll find a way to reach the million people who are still in the Hive. Maybe one day our potent friend, as you call it, will help, if it wants to. We came here thinking you would feel the same.’ She paused and took a deep breath. ‘But maybe you have other things to distract you at the moment.’

  It was a very deep silence.

  Eventually Patras spoke. ‘We are not at war with the Inside. Not openly. Perhaps we should be, but we aren’t. We are following another course, as you probably know. We restrict trade, we constrain resources, we make alliances with others elsewhere in the Spin who have aligned ambitions.’

  Seldyan nodded. ‘You squeeze them. We know. But the more you squeeze them, the worse things get. The Hive is what happens if you squeeze. The wealthy don’t feel the pressure, but the squeezed people get more squeezed. More pressure equals more slavery.’

  ‘In the short term, perhaps, but we are playing a longer game.’

  Seldyan looked at Kot, whose face was set. ‘How long?’

  Patras smiled. ‘As long as it takes, which I’m sure is a disappointing answer. But it may not be as long as you fear.’

  Kot leaned forward. ‘Look, we’ve got a ship. You’ve got others, right? Why not just go right in there?’

  Seldyan had wondered who would object first. Slightly to her surprise the speaker was part of the group on Patras’s left – a small androgynous figure who sat oddly still so that they were almost without body language.

  ‘Patras has told you that we aren’t at war, but you’re certainly proposing an attack which could lead to war. At best that would risk the political structure of the Inside imploding. At worst you’d end up being dragged into a proxy war between every player in the Spin.’

  Seldyan glanced at Kot. ‘We know that. Look, it’s not a proposal. For the moment we just came to join you, not to start a fight.’ With anyone, she thought.

  The still figure said nothing. Seldyan looked around the crescent of faces. She had expected nods, but instead she got eyes sliding away. Only Patras and the robed woman met her eye. The woman was smiling.

  Eventually Patras sat back. ‘I believe that,’ he said. ‘You’ve made, frankly, an unbelievable escape from somewhere that sounds atrocious. I’m sure we all understand the urge to do something.’

  Kot shook her head. ‘You can understand all you like. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Go on playing our long game that might not be very long. But listen – we have a strategy team. When you’ve settled in, maybe you’d like to meet them. They’re good people. They’ll listen, and I have no doubt you’ll add to their knowledge. Maybe you can shorten the game even further.’

  Seldyan looked at Kot and Hufsza. Kot’s face was still set and dark, but they both nodded very slightly. She turned to Patras. ‘I’d like to consult our other friends first.’

  ‘Of course.’ Patras stood up. ‘I’m sure there will be a way. When will you finish consulting?’

  ‘Not long. We’ll let you know. Can you arrange transport for us?’ Seldyan rose to her feet; so did the other two.

  ‘Of course. If you would care to wait over there?’

  And that was it, except for one thing. ‘Over there’ was an anteroom to the conference chamber, formed by one of the last intrusions of the mining fungus before the space reverted to simple steel. For some reason it was particularly vividly coloured here, but that wasn’t the one thing.

  For the last few seconds of the exchange Seldyan hadn’t really been watching Patras. She had been watching the robed woman. And the robed woman had never quite stopped smiling, the only smile on show from any of the City Fathers apart from Patras.

  Seldyan found herself wanting very badly to know why.

  They were delivered back to their guest suite by another of the robed people. This one was deeply hooded and so quiet that the only thing Seldyan could be certain of was that it walked upright on two legs. They didn’t meet many people. Of those they did, a few appeared to recognize them, presumably from whatever news channels they had access to. Most ignored them; one or two looked actively hostile, but Seldyan had the impression that the hostility was directed at their guide, not at them. Maybe that was a good enough reason to stay buried in your hood, at that.

  When they got back, they found Merish and Lyste had been busy.

  ‘How many?’ Seldyan sat up and stared at Merish.

  He nodded. ‘About a million. They don’t exactly keep a public register, but it’s there or thereabouts.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘Economics, mostly. How does any religion grow? It moves into a space. Remember all those millions of people they said were arriving? They came from all over, and most of them left everything behind except their problems. When they get here, they need somewhere to put those problems.’

  Seldyan nodded slowly. ‘And the Green guys mop them up.’

  Lyste shook her head. ‘They don’t just mop them up. They help them. They run crèches, housing co-ops, soup kitchens, family courts. They do jobs no one else is doing.’

  Hufsza spread his arms. ‘So, what’s not to like?’

  Lyste’s toy clicked.

  Seldyan looked from Lyste to Merish. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘What is not to like?’

  Lyste compressed her lips. Merish threw her a look and then turned to the others. ‘Apart from the fact that they worship a green light in the sky? From our point of view, lots. For a start, they’re reactionary, socially conservative and isolationist, Sel, and they exert an unhealthy kind of control over a lot of Web City. Did you get anywhere with the City Fathers?’

  ‘Not really. I think I’m beginning to understand why.’ Seldyan told them about the meeting.

  When she had finished, Merish nodded. ‘That fits,’ he said. ‘More than you know. Patras was only voted in a week ago, right? Well, that was his second go. The first time, a year ago, he lost by nearly a million votes.’

  Seldyan stared at him. ‘A million? And you just said they had a million members …’

  He nodded again. ‘He got the Green vote. He made lots of soothing noises, but some of the noises sounded like promises. There are some very impatient people out there, Sel. I’d say he’s got days, not longer, to come good on those promises.’

  ‘Right.’ She stood up, and sat down again. ‘Patras suggested we meet his strategists. Knowing what you two know, do you think they’ll say anything we want to hear?’

  Merish and Lyste looked at each other. Then they both shook their heads.

  ‘Right. So, as far as we are concerned, the Green guys are in charge?’

  They nodded.

  ‘Okay.’ Seldyan stared at nothing for a moment. Then she stood up again. ‘You know, I’m not comfortable with that – religious maniacs with big influence – and I’m not comfortable with any of this.’

  Merish grinned. ‘We guessed that. We’re just waiting to see what you decide to do about it.’

  ‘I know.’ She drummed her fingers on her hip bone. Then she flung her hand up and pointed at the frozen image of the green planet. ‘That thing; has anyone actually been to look?’

  Lyste shook her head. ‘The Verse says it’s forbidden.’

  ‘The Verse?’ Seldyan raised her eyebrows, and Lyste coloured slightly.

  ‘You asked me to research it? The Verse is the instruction manual for the Green Star people. It’s supposed to be an ancient text.’

  Seldyan felt her eyebrows climbing. ‘How can it be ancient? The thing only went green a thousand days ago!’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lyste’s voice tailed off and her gaze dropped. Click, click.

&n
bsp; Seldyan looked down at her for a moment. Then she looked up at the others, smiled brightly and said: ‘What’s to stop us?’

  ‘Ah, guys?’ Kot was looking at one of the screens. Now she turned to the others. ‘You need to see this.’

  They looked.

  It was the same news channel they had seen the day before. At first Seldyan thought it showed another riot, but that wasn’t right. It was too orderly; more like a demonstration. The demonstrators were nearly all hooded and there were hundreds of them. She couldn’t decipher the background – it was starkly white and seemed featureless. Then the view pulled back and Seldyan’s stomach flipped. Partly because it wasn’t hundreds: the expanded view showed thousands. At least.

  But mainly because the white background was Suck on This.

  Seldyan opened her mouth to demand audio but this time Kot got there first, reaching out and swiping the controls.

  It was even the same reporter. ‘… said yesterday the election in Phhol was only the beginning? Well, what you’re looking at here might be Act Two – the emergence of the Green Star as a real grass-roots force. Their spokesperson is Kaplif Demts Shahatiel. Kaplif, to put it plainly, what’s the problem?’

  Seldyan stared for a moment, then snapped her fingers. ‘Shahatiel? She was the guide! On our first day. Remember?’

  Merish nodded. ‘Sure. The bony religious freedom lady.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Seldyan frowned at the screen. ‘Could be a coincidence …’

  ‘… simple really. We welcome our new friends, but not the lethal weapon they brought with them.’

  The reporter managed to look nonplussed. ‘Why would we mind being brought lethal weapons?’

  ‘Well, you might not, but some of us do. Some of us,’ and she reached up and touched the green smudge on her forehead, ‘are trying to live differently. Besides, they haven’t brought it for us, even if we wanted it. It brought them, as they have said very clearly. So we are taking it into our care.’

  The reporter nodded. ‘Or seizing it, as some people might say. What do you want from them?’

  Kaplif spread her arms. ‘A conversation. That’s all we ask. They’ve spoken to the City Fathers; now it’s our turn.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope they’re watching.’ The reporter turned to face the camera. ‘If you are, guys, that sounded like an invitation. And, to state the obvious, these people seem to be between you and your ride out of here, if that’s where you want to go. Over to you – and back to the studio.’

  ‘And switch those bastards off!’ Seldyan swung away from the screen. ‘Right. Analysis. Anyone?’

  Lyste shrugged. ‘Power games. The Green Star are on the up. They’re using their momentum.’

  ‘Okay, but what for? They’re holding our ship hostage.’ She balled her fists, driving her nails into her palms. ‘Shit, I should have seen this coming.’

  Merish shook his head. ‘It’s not I, it’s we, and I don’t see how anyone could.’

  ‘Well, at least we should have left one person on board. Then we wouldn’t be isolated.’ She realized she was trembling. It’s anger, she told herself, or frustration. It’s not fear – and knew she was half right. It wasn’t fear for her.

  She made herself look up at Merish and saw that he was smiling. ‘What’s funny?’

  He shook his head quickly. ‘Nothing’s funny. But here we are, with the most intelligent ship in the Spin out there, mopping up data at terabits a second – and we think we can’t talk to it?’

  Seldyan stared at him. Then, very slowly, she began to smile. ‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘maybe we should think about holding a news conference.’

  Merish nodded. ‘That’s where I’m coming from.’

  They had selected an atrium just outside their quarters. It was a circular space about fifty paces across covered by a shallow dome. When they had arrived the night before the dome had seemed transparent, showing a star field which looked like the real one and a lot of sparkling space junk. Today it showed a cloudy bluish-green sky which looked slightly animated.

  Seldyan hoped the star field had been real. It meant they were near the surface.

  The air in front of them was busy. It looked a bit like a cloud of insects, except that the insects were large and purposeful and had AV equipment hanging from their – claws? Seldyan mused on the word and decided it would do. There were people behind the cloud. They looked attentive. She scanned them as well as she could through the floating metalwork and realized that a short figure off to one side was Patras. He seemed to be unaccompanied, which struck her as unlikely. She took a breath.

  ‘Um, thanks for coming … we wanted to say a couple of things. First, thanks for the welcome. Especially Supervisor Patras. Some of you know we’ve come straight from a Hive, and this is such an improvement.’ She took another breath. ‘In many ways. But you all have to understand something. We left a bad place. We seem to have come to a complicated place – and we aren’t sure yet that it’s the right place. So we’ve decided to leave for a while. Just while we think about it.’

  For a moment nothing happened. Then the cloud blurred as if someone had boiled it. When it stopped, it had rearranged itself into a sort of cone with the sharp end pointing at Seldyan. A thing like a bundle of metal twigs hanging from three propellers was at the front; it extended two lenses towards her. She resisted the urge to take a hurried step back.

  ‘How do you expect to do that? Your ship has been seized.’ The voice was obviously human. She supposed there was a real operator sitting somewhere.

  ‘It’s not our ship. It’s its, remember? It can do what it likes.’

  The cloud boiled again. Another, smaller machine ended up at the front. Its voice sounded reedy. ‘Will you talk to the Green Star people?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When we decide to. Frankly, we’re not expecting to be around here for long. Not long at all.’

  She allowed herself a faint emphasis on the last four words. That should do it, she thought.

  The cloud erupted with questions; she gave it a tight smile and ignored it. Merish was next to her; she turned to him and raised her eyebrows.

  He shrugged and mouthed, ‘Soon.’

  She nodded. Soon, or never, she thought.

  Then, just once, the lights flickered.

  The camera cloud turned as one and zoomed off down a walkway which Seldyan remembered led to the embarkation hall. Behind where the cloud had been, the human contingent was busy looking surprised, and then alarmed. Most of them had a hand to their ear, or a listening expression. Then, more or less as one, they left as well. Except Patras, who was still standing with his hand to his ear but wearing an expression that was amused rather than attentive. Then he dropped the hand.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘apparently your large friend has just disengaged from the dock. It’s heading this way. The Green Star crowd don’t seem to have detained it. I assume something interesting is going to happen so I thought I’d stay and watch. I take it I’m in no danger?’

  Seldyan shook her head. ‘None,’ she said, and really hoped it was true.

  ‘Good. Ah … something seems to be happening.’ He pointed upwards.

  Something was happening. The dome, which had been showing its daytime scene of clouds and sky, had gone milky.

  Then it shattered. Seldyan instinctively raised her arms to protect herself against the falling glass, but then realized that there wasn’t any. She looked up.

  The reason there was no falling glass was because it hadn’t fallen. It was all still there, each piece where it had been. Floating. Then, as she watched, the pieces near the middle began to move, sliding downwards around each other and then moving away towards the side until the centre of the dome had opened like a fractured flower. Above it, she could see the white conical hull of Suck on This.

  Next to her she heard Kot saying ‘whoa’ softly. Merish let out a breath.

  Behind Patras a wall split down a vertical s
eam, turning into doors that slammed open. A handful of guards spilled through it, looked up at the dome and stopped dead, weapons hanging loosely. One of them looked at Patras, who grinned and waved his hands downwards.

  ‘I think our friends are about to leave, and I doubt if we can do anything to stop them.’ He turned to Seldyan. ‘That was impressive. As is the fact that we are not asphyxiating. Your ship seems to be very talented. Will it mend our dome when you’ve gone, do you think?’

  She nodded. ‘I expect so. I’ll ask it.’

  ‘Thank you. What will you do next?’

  Seldyan frowned up at the dome. ‘We’ll think,’ she said. And then, ‘It looks as if we’re ready to go.’

  A circular platform was dropping from the ship. It threaded its way delicately round a couple of shards of dome that seemed not to have followed the plan, and halted a hand’s breadth above the floor. Seldyan gestured the others forward and then followed them on to the platform. It sank a little as she stepped aboard. Then it lifted smoothly, repeated its sideways shuffle past the fragments and headed up towards the ship. As they cleared the dome the surface of Oblong came into view, and Merish nudged her. ‘See the colour?’

  She looked, and realized that between her and the view was a wall of something like a very faint purplish veil. It curved round them to form a cylinder that fitted neatly around the hole where the dome had been.

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘A field?’

  ‘Yup. That must be where all the air didn’t go.’

  She nodded. ‘Very talented. What’s it going to do about the dome?’

  Lyste shook her head. ‘Not do,’ she said. ‘Done. Look.’

  They looked. Below them, the fragments of the dome had closed up into their original shape, forming a crazed surface like fractured ice. As they watched, the whole thing flared a blue-white that was almost painfully bright. Just as quickly it faded, leaving the dome pristine. At the same time, the violet field shrank abruptly until it formed a close fit round the edge of the platform.

  Oblong, Distal High-Well Parking Orbit

  IT FELT ALIVE. The process was slow, as if it was growing back into a space left by itself when – it – happened. But life, awareness, consciousness were returning.