Flux xs-3

by Stephen Baxter

  But he couldn’t deny Cris’s skill as he expertly levered his mass and inertia against the soft resistance of the Magfield. The speed and grace of Cris’s motion, with electron gas crackling around the Corestuff strips embedded in the board, was nonchalant and spectacular.

  They were climbing up and around the City’s Skin, generally away from the sewage founts at the base but on a diagonal line across the face. They crossed one of the huge Longitude anchor-bands. Farr saw how the band was fixed to the Skin by pegs of Corestuff at intervals along its length. The gleaming Corestuff strip was wider than a mansheight, and — in response to the huge currents surging through the band’s superconducting core — electron gas played unceasingly over its smooth surface. The Magfield here was distorted, constricted by the band’s field; it felt uneven, harsh, tight around Farr’s chest.

  Cris clambered off his board and joined Farr in Waving away from the Skin, working cautiously past the anchor-band. “Magfield’s too spiky here,” Cris said curtly. “You can’t get a proper grip.”

  Past the anchor-band, the Skin unfolded before Farr’s gaze. He’d expected the Skinscape to be featureless, uniform, except for the random blemishes of its construction. But it was much too huge to allow such uniformity, he soon realized. As they climbed toward the City’s equator, toward the Upside areas, the huge cargo ports and public Air-shafts became more sparse, to be replaced by smaller, tidier doorways evidently meant for humans and Air-cars, and by small portals which must be windows or light-shafts for private dwellings. A man leaned out of a window and hurled out a bowl of what looked like sewage; the stuff sparkled as it dispersed. Cris cupped his hands around his mouth and called down a greeting. The man — squat and yellow-haired — peered out into the sky, startled. When he spotted the boys he shook his fist at them, shouting something angry but indistinguishable. Cris yelled abuse back, and Farr joined in, shaking his fist in return. He laughed, exhilarated by this display of disrespect; he felt free, young, healthy, released from the confines of the City, and the comparison with the sour old man in his windowed cell made his condition all the sweeter.

  They flew past an area of hull covered by a crude framework, a rectangular lattice of wood. Behind the framework the Skin was broken open, exposing small chambers within the City lit by dim green wood-lamps. Huge sections of wooden paneling drifted in the Air outside the City, attached loosely to the framework by lengths of rope; men and women clambered over the framework, hauling at the panels and hammering them into place in the gaps in the Skin.

  “Repairs,” said Cris in uninterested response to Farr’s question. “They go on all the time. My father says the City’s never really been finished; there’s always some section of it that needs rebuilding.”

  They arced high across a comparatively blank area of hull, unblemished by door, window or port. Farr looked back to see the last small portals recede over the City’s tightly curving horizon, and soon there was no break in the Skin in sight. Cris Surfed on in silence, subdued. Moving over this featureless Skinscape Farr felt absurdly as if he had been rejected by the City, thrown out and shunned — as if it had turned its back.

  Now they passed another group of humans clambering over the Skin. At first Farr thought this must be another set of repair workers, but the Skin here was unbroken, clearly undamaged. And there was no repair scaffolding — just a loose net spread across the Skin. A group of perhaps twenty adults were huddled in one corner of their net, engaged in some unidentifiable project. Peering down as they passed, Farr saw how belongings had been stuffed loosely into the net; he saw spears, crude clothing and smaller folded-up nets that wouldn’t have seemed out of place among the belongings of the Human Beings. There was even a small colony of Air-pigs which jostled slowly against the wooden wall, bound by ropes to a peg which had been hammered into the Skin. An infant child squirmed inside the net, crying; its wails, sweet and distant, carried through the silent Air to Farr.

  A woman, fat and naked, turned from whatever she was engaged in with her companions, and peered up at the boys. Farr saw how her fists were clenched. He looked to Cris for a lead, but the City boy simply Waved on with his board, keeping his eyes averted from the little colony below.

  Farr, burning with curiosity, glanced down again. To his relief he saw that the woman had turned away and was returning to her companions, evidently forgetting the boys.

  “Skin-riders,” Cris said dismissively. “Scavengers. There are whole colonies of them, living off remote bits of the Skin like this.”

  “But how do they survive?”

  “They take stuff from the sewage founts, mostly. Filter it out with those nets of theirs. Some of it they consume themselves, and some they use to feed their pigs. Many of them hunt.”

  “Doesn’t anybody mind?”

  Cris shrugged. “Why should they? The Skin-riders are out of the way in places like this, and they don’t absorb any of the City’s resources. You could say they make Parz more efficient by extracting what they can out of everyone else’s waste. The Committee only takes action against them when they go rogue. Turn bandit. Some tribes do, you know. They ring the exit portals, waiting to descend on slower-moving cars. They kill the drivers and steal the pigs; they’ve no use for the cars themselves. And sometimes they turn on each other, fighting stupid little Skin-wars no one else understands. Then the guards step in. But apart from that, I guess the City is big enough to support a few leeches on its face.” He grinned. “Anyway, there’ll always be Skin-riders; you could never wipe them out. Not everyone can live their lives inside six wooden walls.” He bent his knees, flourishing the board. “Which is one reason I’m out here today. I’d have thought you’d understand that, Farr. Maybe the Skin-riders are a little like your people.”

  Farr frowned. Maybe there was a surface comparison, he thought. But Human Beings would never allow themselves to become so — so filthy, he thought, so poor, to live so badly — as the Skin-riders he had seen.

  And no Human Being would accept the indignity of living by scavenging the waste of others.

  * * *

  The squalid little colony of Skin-riders was soon hidden by the wooden limb of the City face, and Cris led Farr further across the featureless Skin.

  Farr spotted the girl before Cris saw her.

  She was a compact, lithe shape swooping around the vortex lines, high above the City. Electron gas sparkled around her Surfboard, underlighting the contours of her body. There was a grace, a naturalness about her movements which far eclipsed even Cris’s proficiency, Farr thought. The girl saw them approaching and waved her arms in greeting, shouted something inaudible.

  They came to another net, stretched over the wooden Skin between a series of pegs, just as the Skin-riders’ had been. But this net was evidently abandoned: torn and fraying, the net flapped emptily, containing nothing but what looked like the sections of a Surfboard snapped in half, a few clothes tucked behind knots in the net, and some crude-looking tools.

  Cris drifted to a halt over the net and locked an anchoring hand comfortably into a loop of rope. “That’s Ray,” he said enviously. “The girl. That’s what she calls herself anyway… after the rays of the Crust-forests, you see.”

  Farr squinted up at the girl; she was spiraling lazily around a vortex line as she approached them, electron glow dazzling from her skin. “She looks good.”

  “She is good. Too bloody good,” Cris said with a touch of sourness. “And she’s a year younger than me… My hope is there’s going to be room for both of us in the Games.”

  “What is this place?”

  Cris flipped his Surfboard in the Air and watched it somersault. “Nowhere,” he said. His voice was deliberately casual. “Just an old Skin-rider net, in a bit of the Skinscape that’s hardly ever visited. We just use it as a base. You know, a place to meet, to Surf from, to keep a few tools for the boards.”

  Just a base to Surf from… Cris’s tone made it sound a lot more important than that, to him. Farr watched t
he girl approach, casually skillful, slowing as she rode the Magfield toward the Skin. He thought of what it must be like to be accepted by a group of people like Cris and this girl Ray — to have a place like this to come to, hidden from the gaze of families and the rest of the City.

  He could barely imagine it. He realized suddenly that he’d never even been out of sight of his family before the Glitch that killed his father. A place like this must mean a great deal.

  He wanted to ask Cris more questions. Who were these Surfers? What were they like? How many of them were there?… But he kept quiet. He didn’t want to be the clumsy outsider from the upflux — not here, not with these two. He wanted them to accept him, to make him one of theirs — even just for a day.

  Maybe if he kept his mouth shut as much as possible they would think he knew more than he did.

  The girl, Ray, performed one last roll through the Air and stepped lightly off her board before them. With one small ankle she flipped the board up, caught it in one hand, and tucked it into a gap in the net. She hooked a hand into the net, close to Cris’s, and smiled at him and Farr. She was nude, and her long hair was tied back from her face; there were streaks of yellow dye across her scalp, just as Cris affected.

  “You’re on your own today?” Cris asked.

  She shrugged, breathing heavily. “Sometimes I prefer it that way. You can get some real work done.” She turned to Farr, a look of lively interest on her face. “Who’s this?”

  Cris grinned and clapped a hand on Farr’s shoulder. “He’s called Farr. He’s staying with us. He’s from a tribe called the Human Beings.”

  “Human Beings?”

  “Upfluxers,” Cris said with an apologetic glance at Farr.

  The girl’s smile broadened, and Farr was aware of her light gaze flicking over him with new interest. “An upfluxer? Really? So what do you make of Parz? Dump, isn’t it?”

  Farr tried to find something to say.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off the girl. Her face was broad, intelligent, vividly alive, her perfect nostrils shining. She was still breathing deeply after her exertions, and her chest and shoulders were rising and falling smoothly. The capillary pores across her chest and between her small breasts were wide and dark.

  Cris was staring at him strangely, and Ray was watching him, interested, amused. He had to find something to say. “It’s okay. Parz is fine. Interesting.” Interesting. What a stupid thing to say. His voice sounded booming and uncontrolled, and he was aware of his bulky, overmuscled body, his hands huge and useless at his side.

  She let herself drift a little closer to him. He tried to keep his eyes on her face. Her nakedness was spectacular. But that didn’t make sense; the Human Beings had always gone naked, save for occasional toolbelts or ponchos, so why should he be so disturbed now? He must have become accustomed to bodies hidden by City clothes, like the light coveralls he and Cris were wearing; Ray’s sudden nudity by contrast was impossible to ignore. Yes, that must be it…

  But now he felt a deep warmth in his lower belly. Oh, blood of the Xeelee, help me. Like an independent creature — utterly without his volition — his penis was trying to push out of its cache. He leaned forward, hoping that folds in the cloth of his coveralls would hide him. But the girl’s eyes were wide and appraising, and he could see a smile forming on her small mouth. She knew. She knew all about him.

  ” ‘Interesting,’ ” she repeated. “Maybe, if you haven’t had to grow up in it.”

  “We saw you practicing,” Cris said. “You’re looking good.”

  “Thanks.” She looked at Cris awkwardly. “I’ve been selected for the Games. Had you heard that?”

  “Already?” Farr could see envy battling with affection for the girl on Cris’s face. “No, I — I mean, I’m pleased for you. Really, I am.”

  She brushed Cris’s shoulder with her fingertips. “I know. And it’s not too late for you.” She took her board from the net. “Come on, let’s practice.”

  Cris glanced at Farr. “Yes, soon. But first…” He held out his board to Farr. “Would you like to try it?”

  Farr took the board hesitantly. He ran the palm of his hand across its surface. The wood was more finely worked than any object he’d ever held, and the inlaid strips of Corestuff were cold and smooth. “Don’t you mind?”

  Cris laughed easily. “As long as you bring it back whole, no. Go with Ray — she’s a better Surfer than me, and a better teacher. I’ll wait here until you’re done.”

  Farr looked at Ray. She smiled at him. “Come on, it’ll be fun.” She took the board from him — her fingers brushed the back of his hand, lightly, sending a thrill through him which caused his penis to stir again — and laid the board along the Magfield, flat. She patted its surface with its crisscross inlay of Corestuff strips. “Surfing’s easy. It’s just like Waving, but with your feet and your board instead of your legs. All you have to remember is to keep contact with your board, to keep pushing against the Magfield…”

  With Ray’s help, and Cris’s, Farr clambered onto the board and learned how to rock it with his toes and heels. At first it seemed impossible — he kept kicking the board away, clumsily — and he was aware of the eyes of Ray on every galumphing movement. But each time he fell away he retrieved the board and climbed back on.

  Then, suddenly, he had it. The secret was not strength, really, but gentleness, suppleness, a sensitivity to the soft resistance of the Magfield. It was enough to rock the board steadily and evenly across the Magfield flux paths, to keep the pressure of his feet less than the counterpressure of the Magfield so that the board stayed attached to the soles of his bare feet. When a downstroke with one foot was completed, he bent his legs slowly and pushed the other end of the board down in its turn. Gradually he learned to build up the tempo of this rocking motion, and wisps of electron gas curled about his toes as induced current began to flow in the Corestuff inlays.

  The board — Waving just as the girl had said — carried him gracefully, effortlessly across the flux lines.

  He learned to slow, to turn, to accelerate. He learned when to stop rocking the board, simply to allow his momentum to carry him arcing across the Magfield.

  He had no idea how long it took him to learn the basics of Surfing. He was only peripherally aware of Cris’s continuing patience, and he even forgot, for quite long periods, the nearness of Ray’s bare, lithe body. He sailed across the sky. It was, he thought, like learning to Wave for the first time. The board felt natural beneath his feet, as if it had always been there, and he suspected that a small, inner part of him — no matter what he did or where he went — would always cling to the memory of this experience, utterly addicted.

  Ray swooped down before him, inverted and with hands on bare hips. “All right,” she said. “You’ve got the basics. Now let’s really Surf. Come on!”

  * * *

  High over the Pole, Farr surged along the corridors of light marked out by hexagonal arrays of vortex lines. The lines surged past him with immense, unimaginable speed. The soft bodies of floating spin-spider eggs padded at his face and legs as he flew, and the Air brushed at his cheeks, the tiny viscosity of its non-superfluid component resisting him feebly. The Quantum Sea was a purple floor far below him, delimiting the yellow Air; and the City was a vast, complex block of wood and light, hanging over the Pole, huge yet dwarfed by the Mantlescape.

  Ahead of him the girl Ray looped around vortex lines with unconscious skill, electron light shimmering from her calves and buttocks.

  His face was stretched into a fierce grin. He knew the grin was there, he knew Ray must be able to see it, and yet he couldn’t keep it from his face. Surfing was glorious. His head rattled with the elements of complex, unrealistic schemes by which he might acquire his own board, join this odd, irregular little troupe of Skin-based Surfers, maybe even enter some future Games himself.

  Ray turned and swept close to him. “You’re doing fine,” she shouted.

  “I still feel as if
I might fall off any moment.”

  She laughed. “But you’re strong. That makes up for a lot. Come on. Try a spiral.”

  She showed him how to angle his body back and push the board across the Magfield, so that he moved in slow, uneven, sweeping curves around a vortex line. Still he was hurtling forward through the sky, but now the huge panorama wheeled steadily around him. He stared down at his body, at the board; blue highlights from the corridors of vortex lines and the soft purple glow of the Sea cast complex shadows across his board.

  He pushed at the Air harder, trying like Ray to tighten his spirals around the vortex lines. This was the most difficult maneuver he’d attempted, and he was forced to concentrate, to think about each motion of his arms and legs.

  His foot slipped on the board’s ridges. He stumbled through the Air, upward toward the vortex line at the axis of his spiral. The board fell away from his feet. As he came within a mansheight of the vortex line he felt the Air thicken, drag at his chest and limbs. He was picked up and hurled around the vortex singularity, and sent tumbling away into the Air.

  He rolled on his back and kicked easily at the Air, Waving himself to a stop. He lay against the soft resistance of the Magfield, laughing softly, his chest dragging at the Air.

  Ray came slithering across the Magfield on her board; she carried Cris’s board under her arm. “I bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried.”

  He took the board from her. “I guess I should take this back to Cris. He’s been very patient.”

  She shrugged, and pushed a stray length of hair away from her face. “I suppose so. You want one more run first?”