Divergence a-3

by Tony Ballantyne

  The crates stacked on the wall in front of them were starting to move, sliding in four directions.

  “The gravity is going! Those VNMs must be eating the generators in the walls.”

  There was a creaking noise and a stack of crates began to tilt. Crystals wrapped in foam sheeting began to tumble to the floor below.

  “It’s happening above us, too,” said Judy in composed tones. “Look, we’re back down now.” The viewing platform folded itself back into the floor. “Come on, out of here. Steadily. Calmly. Come on.”

  Craning their necks upwards, they followed Judy towards the door. Three crates fell to the floor behind them, one by one, in brilliant diamond showers of crystal shards. A hollow thud reverberated throughout the hold—resonating deep inside their stomachs.

  “Run,” said Saskia, pushing Maurice ahead. A rain of colored pebbles was falling with a lovely clattering noise.

  “Stay calm…” soothed Judy. There was another crash and a sound of tearing paper. Quickly they walked to the exit. Maurice unclenched his fists as they stepped out of the hold. A wave of green apples rolled past their feet as the door slid shut behind them.

  “Aleph!” Judy’s voice suddenly sounded muffled in the calm of the carpeted corridor. “Can you hear us?”

  “Yes, Aleph,” Saskia said. “Why didn’t I think of him? Aleph, do something to stop this!”

  Aleph’s voice spoke from Maurice’s console.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think there is anything I can do. I’m a systems repair robot, not a counterincursion specialist. I suggest you get yourself into those active suits you had delivered as quickly as possible.”

  “Of course,” said Maurice, “the active suits!”

  Saskia’s eyes were wide. “The suits? Do you think that FE knew we would need them?”

  Aleph was still speaking. “…the outer hull of your ship is already disappearing. Do you want to see?”

  A viewing field sprang to life right in the middle of the corridor. The black-and-white checked teardrop of the Eva Rye appeared, an expanding cloud of silver VNMs clinging to its side.

  “Oh, hell,” whispered Saskia. “Maurice, what have you done? They’re eating up the hull. Look. You can almost see straight into the little hold!”

  As she spoke, the door to the little hold seemed to creak slightly and a pattern of black-and-white stripes came to life upon it, coming up into existence from nothing. Letters formed in the center. HULL

  INTEGRITY BREACHED. DO NOT ENTER.

  “Maurice, think!” said Judy. “There must be something we can do?”

  Maurice gave a shrug. He felt strangely calm, now that all of his decisions had been taken away.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I told you, I have no idea. I think we should get away from this corridor, however. Those VNMs could be through the door in no time.”

  “The active suits,” said Saskia. “Edward got them to stow themselves in the locker near the living area. Oh, hell. Edward.”

  “Yes, what about Edward and Miss Rose?” Judy asked quietly. Maurice and Saskia exchanged looks; they hadn’t been thinking about the other two.

  Maurice spoke up. “We should get the suits first, they’re closest. Then I’ll go to Edward’s room. You fetch Miss Rose, Judy.”

  They ran. On past the conference room, into the living area. Edward was there already, wringing his big hands together. A glass lay on its side by his feet, apple juice soaking into the dark carpet.

  “What’s happening, Judy?” he called out.

  “Don’t worry,” replied Judy. “We’re all going to put on active suits. Saskia, you come with me. Maurice, you stay here with Edward and help him.”

  “Active suits? But I thought they were dangerous!” Edward was now dancing back and forth. Judy had already opened the locker and taken out three suits. She passed one to Saskia.

  “You carry this. I might need help to dress Miss Rose.”

  Maurice pulled two more suits from the locker, their thin material sticky beneath his fingers.

  “You have to be completely naked under the suit,” explained Maurice. “It needs to interface with you totally. Don’t force it on: stroke it gently; let it get used to you.”

  Quickly he undressed. Edward did the same.

  Maurice’s suit was green. He fiddled with the neck, trying to get it to expand. It did so, but oh, so slowly. Edward watched him, and then did the same with his own yellow suit. There was a loud bang.

  “What’s that?” called Edward, dropping the suit and clapping his hands to his head. “My ears hurt!”

  “Pressure doors,” said Maurice, feeling as if he had just drunk a liter of icy-cold water. What was going on? Only five minutes ago they had been watching the pretty orange flowers. Now the Eva Rye was disintegrating around them. It was too much to take in, in such a short time. Edward was standing fully naked, his hands still to his ears, his active suit lying in a sticky heap on the floor before him.

  “Get into your suit, Edward!” yelled Maurice.

  The neck on his own suit was expanding ever larger as he stroked it. Impatiently, he stabbed at his console and brought up another view of the ship.

  “Oh, shit!” he moaned. The entire rear of the Eva Rye had gone. The teardrop’s read end had ablated in a cloud of silver spiders that rained back down on the swollen front end of the ship, devouring the rest of the hull. He looked away from the console to see Edward still standing there, hands clasped to his ears. Maurice shouted at him, his voice cracking with fear. “Your suit, Edward!”

  Finally the big man began moving. He bent down and began to stroke the suit, opening its neck. Maurice turned back to his own active suit and saw that at last, it was big enough to step into. He pushed in one naked leg and then the other, the sticky, rubbery material fighting against him as he tried to pull it on. He forgot everything he had been told and began to jerk at the suit.

  “Stay calm, Maurice.” That was Edward speaking. He was looking earnestly across at Maurice as he slowly, methodically, pulled on his own suit. “You’re rushing it and it’s fighting back. Do it slowly, like you told me.”

  Maurice paused and took three slow breaths. He tried meanwhile not to look at the view of the Eva Rye floating over the dining table, the black-and-white pattern of its hull almost stripped clean by the devouring cloud. Many of the VNMs were now black-and-white themselves, dancing poisonously amongst the rest of the jostling silver crowd. That’s our ship turned traitor against itself. Don’t think about it! Another three breaths and he eased his left leg slowly forward, then, all of a sudden, the resistance was gone: the active suit was a part of his body, his foot and calf alive and tingling with a new awareness.

  “Thank you, Edward,” said Maurice. “Thank you. We can do this together, can’t we?” Edward gave him a big beam of delight.

  And then there was another bang, and black-and-white wasp-striped doors slammed over the entrances to the living area.

  Now Edward was panicking.

  “No!” called Maurice. “Remember what you said, Edward. Take it slowly. Keep it calm.”

  Edward paused, stopped thrashing. “Maurice?”

  “Yes, Edward.”

  “Let’s both take three breaths, and then we can pull on the suit bodies.”

  It was terrifying. At any moment, Maurice was expecting the walls to dissolve in a tangle of silver legs and for the atmosphere to boil away into space. Still, breathing slowly, they gently pulled the sticky material up their bodies and felt the sudden loss of resistance, the tingle and awakening that said the suits were correctly in place.

  “Now the arms,” said Maurice and Edward together. “Just a wriggle of the fingers. No need to panic.”

  There was a shout and a scream.

  “Miss Rose!” exclaimed Edward. He began to whimper. “Somebody has hurt her!”

  Another bang. Maurice turned off his console’s sound channel.

  “Easy. Pull the suit on slowly, Edward, then we c
an go looking for her.”

  Sobbing, Edward did as he was told.

  “Maurice, this is Aleph. I’m overriding your console to tell you that something has just appeared out here….”

  Miss Rose screamed again, her voice finding its way over the opened channel. Edward gave a shrill cry in return. Maurice slammed the lockout button on his console. He was shaking as well. What was wrong with Miss Rose? He had never heard anybody sound in such pain.

  “Edward, the arms! Pull up the gloves and slip in your hands….”

  Shaking, they both tried to force their hands into the sleeves, their flesh resisting, the stickiness gripping, and Miss Rose’s pain still echoing in their heads. And then Maurice felt a blessed relief and tingling. He was finally dressed. Quickly, he pulled the active suit’s hood over his head and turned to Edward.

  “I can’t do it, Maurice.”

  Tears splashed down Edward’s brown chest. The big man was tugging and tugging at the suit with one hand, burning his skin as he tried to force his other hand into the sleeve. There was another bang and the floor shook. Edward kept gasping and pulling.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” shouted Maurice, panicking himself. “Stop it!”

  Edward took hold of Maurice by the arms and began to squeeze. Maurice tried to break free, but he couldn’t. Strong as he was, Edward was stronger.

  “Edward, you’ve got to let go of me. I can’t help you if you hold my arms.”

  He looked at Edward, at his big brown chest and bare arms, at the silver tears streaming down his face. There was a rattling sensation. Then a flash of silver at the corner of Maurice’s vision.

  “Edward! They’re coming through the walls! Let go so that I can help you!”

  And then one of the walls dissolved in a flurry of silver legs.

  Maurice stood sobbing in the middle of the room, feeling Edward’s grip weakening. He had his eyes tightly closed; he couldn’t bring himself to look at Edward as he died. What had happened? In the space of a few minutes they had gone from everything to nothing. The ship had been eaten up. Edward was dying, Miss Rose was…what? What had happened to her?

  Edward’s grip finally loosened, and Maurice tried to open his eyes. He didn’t want to look. Okay, count to three and then…he opened his eyes.

  The living area remained untouched. The black carpet, the dining table, the neat stacks of black-and-white dishes in the kitchen were all unchanged. Even Edward’s glass, lying on the floor where he had dropped it.

  “What happened?” asked Edward, still standing before him, looking puzzled. Before he had time to think about it, Maurice helped Edward shrug his way into the arms of his active suit. Only when Edward had pulled the hood over his head did Maurice speak.

  “I don’t know what happened. Look over there.”

  They looked towards the wall where the VNMs had entered. There was a long empty corridor beyond that had not been there before. It led downwards.

  “What happened?” asked Edward. “What’s going on?”

  To Edward it was obvious what they had to do, so Maurice gave in and followed him down the corridor. There was nowhere else to go. Edward hated confusion, Maurice had noted. Whenever he was uncertain about what was going on, that was when he felt most ill at ease. When his choices were clear, he was happy. Edward felt that now their path was clear; they simply followed the seamless black corridor in front of them downwards.

  “I think I can see something,” Edward said boldly, and then he stumbled and began to fall forward. Maurice made a grab for him and felt a stomach-wrenching surge of nausea as the world tumbled around him, leaving him floating free in the long tunnel.

  “Help!” Edward called. “Maurice, help me.”

  Weightlessness made Maurice feel sick. He was gulping down the thick acid bile that threatened to rise up and fill the hood of his active suit.

  “Stay calm,” he gagged, then he clamped his mouth shut again and tried to overcome the nausea. A cool breath of scented air refreshed his face. The active suit was picking up on his distress. “The gravity’s gone,” he gasped. “We’ve left the zone of the Eva Rye .”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know, Edward.”

  He was tumbling head over heels now. Back in the direction from which they had come, he saw the tube contracting. The view of the living area vanished. A pattern of expanding dots flashed into life before his eyes, a projection from his active suit.

  “The Eva Rye has gone,” said Maurice. “It’s been totally converted to VNMs.” He wiggled his fingers, tapping at an imaginary console. The active suit picked up the gestures and flashed up the information he had requested.

  “And all in just under eight minutes,” he said.

  They floated on through the black tube.

  “I can see a light up ahead,” said Edward.

  Maurice saw it too: a pale light, the color of snow in moonlight. For a moment he had a flash of something, a memory from his childhood, then it was gone.

  They floated on.

  “The tube’s getting bigger,” Edward said, and it began to widen like a trumpet’s bell, then they floated out into a vast space that froze the breath in their lungs. They were now apparently drifting upwards, rising from a hole in some vast plain. They looked down and saw white patterns of frost curling in flames of fern beneath them, incredibly complex shapes curling around themselves in recursive patterns, painting pictures of cold fire across the ground.

  “Where are we?” asked Edward.

  “I don’t know,” repeated Maurice.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  They rose higher and higher. Now they could make out distant walls and a wide ceiling above them, shining in the pale blue light that illuminated the arctic volume of emptiness around them.

  “I thought we were in space,” said Edward. “How can we be underground?”

  “I don’t think we’re underground,” said Maurice. He was trying to remember something he had read years ago: how you used an active suit. You reached out your hands like this, and you turned them like this and…

  Now he could feel the surface of the ice below. With the help of the suit’s augmented senses it was like he was running his hands along it. He could feel the cold metal that lay below the thin residue of frost, he could tap it and feel it ring hollowly through to the void beyond.

  “What is it?” asked Edward.

  Maurice was running his virtual hands along the distant floor; he was feeling the walls and ceiling, patting along them, sizing up the cavern.

  “We’re in a long, flattened cylinder made of metal. There is air in here, Earth atmosphere but a lot thinner. Too thin to breathe, and too cold. Moisture has settled on the walls and frozen there. Hold on, Edward. I’m calling up a picture of the shape of this cylinder.”

  The active suit set a mapping of the space before his eyes. Maurice knew what it was going to be even before it appeared.

  “Edward,” he announced. “We are floating inside the Bailero .”

  Edward was more confused than ever.

  “But where have all the insides gone?” he asked. “Where are the engines and everything?”

  Before Maurice had a chance to reply, a thin, unearthly sound filled the hoods of their active suits. A keening sound of utter agony, a cry of pain so pale and exhausted that it hovered on the edge of awareness, like someone trying to crawl away from life, only to find themselves tethered there by their pain.

  “Make it stop!” called Edward. “Make it stop! What is it?”

  Maurice couldn’t speak; he was vomiting, gagging. His suit was working hard to flush his hood clean, and still that dreadful screaming went on, keening above the hum of the extractors.

  “What is it what is it what is it?” chanted Edward.

  It was Miss Rose.

  judy 2: 2252

  Judy imposed her willtotally upon Saskia. She pushed the younger woman against the smooth wall of the corridor and held her there by the wrist as
she gazed into her eyes. Saskia tugged halfheartedly at her, her thin body wriggling, but it was not a genuine attempt to escape; she was too much in awe of the power of Social Care, and Judy made her aware of that. She spoke in the voice; she overwhelmed Saskia, smashed through the young woman’s veneer of sophistication and scooped out her insecurities, throwing them to one side as she rummaged through her psyche for her core competence. Only when she had totally subdued Saskia did she let her go.

  “Pull on your active suit,” she instructed.

  They stripped in the corridor, Saskia’s body very pale under the lights, her ribs outlined in shadows. They were halfway through pulling on the rubbery suits when Miss Rose’s first scream sounded, thin and agonizing. As if in a dream, Saskia began to move up the corridor, half dressed.

  “Stop,” said Judy. “We’ll be no good to her if we die of decompression.”

  “Okay,” said Saskia. It was the logical thing to do. They both dressed themselves calmly as another human died in agony nearby.

  “I’m sorry,” said Judy, as they finally shrugged their arms into the suits. “I had to do this to you, Saskia.”

  “I understand,” said Saskia, pulling the hood of the blue suit over her head.

  “You understand now, ” said Judy. “When I let you go, you won’t be so logical.”

  They finished dressing as the air around them began to drift down the corridor. There was a popping sound as metal spiders pulled themselves free of the floor.

  “Into Miss Rose’s room,” urged Judy.

  “No, I’ll get a body bag first,” said Saskia. “Listen to her scream. We’ll never get her into a suit when she’s in that much pain.”

  “Yes, good thinking.” So that’s where your self-belief comes from. You really are competent when you allow yourself to be….

  Saskia went to a nearby locker to get the body bag. Judy headed on to Miss Rose’s room. The door was covered in black-and-white stripes; a message formed in the center. DO NOT OPEN. CORRIDOR PRESSURE IS BELOW THAT OF THE ROOM BEYOND.

  “Not for long,” said Judy. “Override. Let me in there.”

  The door slid open. Judy pushed her way against the leaking air into Miss Rose’s room. The door slammed shut behind her. She was shocked at the state of the room itself, but even more shocked by the sight of Miss Rose. She lay on the bed, naked and bleeding at several points. Her arms, her thighs. Her vagina. She was screaming, writhing in agony. Her eyes looked at Judy, apparently without seeing her. Then she spoke, in a thin, bubbling voice.