Flux xs-3

by Stephen Baxter

  He hesitated, then felt his grin return. “One more.”

  Suddenly he twisted the board in the Air, bent his knees and slipped the board under his feet. He thrust at the length of wood as rapidly as he could, and soared away through a tunnel of vortex lines. Behind him he heard her laugh and clamber onto her own board.

  He sailed over the Pole, over the passive bulk of Parz City once more. He thrust at the board, still awkwardly he knew, but using all his upfluxer strength now. The vortex lines seemed to shoot past like spears, slowly curving, and the weak breeze of the Air plucked at his hair.

  The corridor of vortex light was infinite before him. The ease of movement, after the restriction of spiraling, was exhilarating. He was moving faster than he’d ever moved in his life. He opened his mouth and yelled.

  He heard Ray shouting behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. She was still chasing him, but he’d given himself a good lead. It would take her a while to catch him yet. She was cupping a hand around her mouth and calling something, even as she Surfed. He frowned and looked more closely, but he couldn’t make out what she was trying to tell him. Now she was pointing at him — no, past him.

  He turned his head again, to face the direction of his flight. There was something in his path.

  Spin-web.

  The fine, shining threads seemed to cover the sky before him. He could see where the web was suspended from the vortex line array by small, tight rings of webbing which encircled the vortex lines without quite touching the glowing spin-singularities. Between the anchor rings, long lengths of thread looped across the vortex arrays. The complex mats of threads were almost invisible individually, but they caught the yellow and purple glow of the Mantle, so that lines of light formed a complex tapestry across the sky ahead.

  It was really very beautiful, Farr thought abstractedly. But it was a wall across the sky.

  The spin-spider itself was a dark mass in the upper left corner of his vision. It looked like an expanded, splayed-open Air-pig. Each of its six legs was a mansheight long, and its open maw would be wide enough to enfold his torso. It seemed to be working at its web, repairing broken threads perhaps. He wondered if it had spotted him — if it had started moving already toward the point where he would impact the net, or if it would wait until he was embedded in its sticky threads.

  Only a couple of heartbeats had passed since he’d seen the web, and yet already he’d visibly reduced his distance to it.

  He swiveled his hips and beat at the Magfield with his Surfboard, trying to shed his velocity. But he wouldn’t be able to stop in time. He looked quickly around the sky, seeking the edges of the web. Perhaps he could divert rather than stop, fly safely around the trap. But he couldn’t even see the edges of the web. Spin-spider webs could be hundreds of mansheights across.

  Maybe he could break through the web, burst through to the other side before the spider could reach him. It had to be impossible — there were layers to the web, a great depth of sticky threads before him — but it seemed his only chance.

  How could he have been so stupid as to fall into such a trap? He was supposed to be the upfluxer, the wild boy; and yet he’d made one of the most basic mistakes a Human Being could make. Ray and Cris would think him a fool. His sister would think him a fool, when she heard. He imagined her voice, tinged with the tones of their father: “Always look up- and downflux. Always. If you scare an Air-piglet, which way does it move? Downflux, or upflux, along the flux paths, because it can move quickest that way. That’s the easiest direction to move for any animal — cut across the flux paths and the Magfield resists your motion. And that’s why predators set their traps across the flux paths, waiting for anything stupid enough to come fleeing along the flux direction, straight into an open mouth…”

  The web exploded out of the sky. He could see more detail now — thick knots at the intersection of the threads, the glistening stickiness of the threads themselves. He turned in the Air and thrust with the board, trying to pick up as much speed as he could. He crouched over the board, his knees and ankles still working frantically, and tucked his arms over his head.

  He’d remain conscious after he was caught in the thread. Uninjured, probably. He wondered how long the spin-spider would take to clamber down to him. Would he still be aware when it began its work on his body?

  A mass came hurtling over his head, toward the web. He flinched, almost losing his board, and looked up. Had the spider left its web and come for him already?…

  But it was the girl, Ray. She’d chased him and passed him. Now she dived, ahead of Farr, deep into the tangle of webbing. She moved in a tight spiral as she entered the web, and the edge of her board cut through the glistening threads. Farr could see the dangling threads brushing against her arms and shoulders, one by one growing taut and then slackening as she moved on, burrowing through the layers of web.

  She was cutting a tunnel through the web for him, he realized. The ragged-walled tunnel was already closing up — the web seemed to be designed for self-repair — but he had no choice but to accept the chance she’d given him.

  He hurtled deep into the web.

  It was all around him, a complex, three-dimensional mesh of light. Threads descended before his face and laid themselves across his shoulders, arms and face; they tore at the fabric of his coverall and his skin and hair, and came loose with small, painful rips. He cried out, but he dared not drop his face into his hands, or close his eyes, or lift his arms to bat away the threads, for fear of losing his tenuous control of the board.

  Suddenly, as rapidly as he had entered it, he was through the web. The last threads parted softly before him with a soft, sucking sigh, and he was released into empty Air.

  Ray was waiting for him a hundred mansheights from the border of the web, with her board tucked neatly under her arm. He brought his board to a halt beside her and allowed himself to tumble off gracelessly.

  He turned and looked back. The tunnel in the web had already closed — all that remained of it was a dark, cylindrical path through the layers of webbing, showing where their passage had disrupted the structure of the web — and the spin-spider itself was making its slow, patient way past the vortex lines on its way to investigate this disturbance in its realm.

  Farr felt himself shuddering; he didn’t bother trying to hide his reaction. He turned to Ray. “Thank you…”

  “No. Don’t say it.” She was grinning. She was showing no fear, he realized. Her pores were wide open and her eyecups staring, and again she exuded the vivid, unbearably attractive aliveness which had struck him when he’d first met her. She grabbed his arms and shook him. “Wasn’t it fantastic? What a ride. Wait till I tell Cris about this…”

  She jumped on her board and surged away into the Air.

  As he watched her supple legs work the board, and as the reaction from his brush with death worked through his shocked mind, Farr once again felt an unwelcome erection push its way out of his cache.

  He climbed onto his board and set off, steering a wide, slow course around the web.

  9

  After a few days Toba returned, and told Dura and Farr that he had booked them into a labor stall in the Market. Dura was given to understand that Toba had done them yet another favor by this, and yet he kept his eyes averted as he discussed it with them, and when they ate Cris seemed embarrassed into an unusual silence. Ito fussed around the upfluxers, her eyecups deep and dark.

  Dura and Farr dressed as usual in the clothes the family had loaned them. But Toba told them quietly that, this time, they should go unclothed. Dura peeled off the thick material of her coverall with an odd reluctance; she could hardly say she had grown used to it, but in the bustling streets she knew she would feel exposed — conspicuously naked.

  Toba pointed, embarrassed, to Dura’s waist. “You’d better leave that behind.”

  Dura looked down. Her frayed length of rope was knotted, as always, at her waist, and her small knife and scraper were comforting, hard p
resences just above her hips at her back. Reflexively her hands flew to the rope.

  Toba looked at Ito helplessly. Ito came to Dura hesitantly, her hands folded together. “It really would be better if you left your things here, Dura. I think I understand how you feel. I can’t imagine how I’d cope in your position. But you don’t need those things of yours, your weapons. You do understand they couldn’t really be much protection to you here anyway…”

  “That’s not the point,” Dura said. In her own ears her voice sounded ragged and a little wild. “The point is…”

  Toba pushed forward impatiently. “The point is we’re getting late. And if you want to be successful today, Dura — and I assume you do — you’re going to have to think about the effect those crude artifacts of yours would have on a prospective purchaser. Most people in Parz think you’re some kind of half-tamed animal already.”

  “Toba…” Ito began.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. And if she goes down the Mall with a knife at her waist — well, we’ll be lucky not to be picked up by the guards before we even reach the Market.”

  Farr moved closer to Dura, but she waved him away. “It’s all right, Farr.” Her voice was steadier now. More rational. “He’s right. What use is this stuff anyway? It’s only junk from the upflux.”

  Slowly she unraveled the rope from her waist.

  * * *

  The noise of the Market heated the Air even above the stifling clamminess of the Pole. People swarmed among the stalls which thronged about the huge central Wheel, the colors of their costumes extravagant and clashing. Dura folded her arms across her breasts and belly, intimidated by the layers of staring faces around her.

  Farr was quiet, but he seemed calm and watchful.

  Toba brought them to a booth — a volume cordoned off from the rest of the Market by a framework of wooden bars. Inside the booth were ten or a dozen adults and children, all subdued, unkempt and shabbily dressed compared to most of the Market’s inhabitants; they stared with dull curiosity at the nakedness of Dura and Farr.

  Toba bade the Human Beings enter the booth.

  “Now,” he said anxiously, “you do understand what’s happening here, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Farr, his eyes tight. “You’re going to sell us.”

  Toba shook his round head. “Not at all. Anyhow, it’s nothing to do with me. This is a Market for work. Here, you are going to sell your labor — not yourselves.”

  Four prosperous-looking individuals — three men and a woman — had already emerged from the Market’s throng and come over to the booth. They were studying both the Human Beings curiously but seemed particularly interested in Farr. Dura said to Toba, “I doubt it’s going to make much practical difference. Is it?”

  “It’s all the difference in the world. You sign up for a fixed-term contract… Your liberty remains your own. And at the end of it…”

  “Excuse me.” The woman buyer had interrupted Toba. “I want to take a look at the boy.”

  Toba smiled back. “Farr. Come on out. Don’t be afraid.”

  Farr turned to Dura, his mouth open. She closed her eyes, suddenly ashamed that she could do so little to protect her brother from this. “Go on, Farr. They won’t hurt you.”

  Farr slid through the wooden bars and out of the booth.

  The woman was about Dura’s age but a good deal plumper; her hair-tubes were elaborately knotted into a gold-and-white bun, and layers of fat showed over her cheekbones. With the air of a professional she peered into the boy’s eyecups, ears and nostrils; she bade him open his mouth and ran a finger around his gums, inspecting the scrapings she extracted. Then she poked at Farr’s armpits, anus and penis-cache.

  Dura turned away from her brother’s misery.

  The woman said to Toba, “He’s healthy enough, if underfed. But he doesn’t look too strong.”

  Toba frowned. “You’re considering him for Fishing?”

  “Yes… He’s obviously slim and light. But…”

  “Madam, he’s an upfluxer,” Toba said complacently.

  “Really?” The woman stared at Farr with new curiosity. She actually pulled away from him a little, wiping her hands on her garment.

  “And that means, of course, for his size and mass he’s immensely strong, here at the Pole. Ideal for the Bells.” Toba turned to Dura, and his voice was smooth and practiced. “You see, Dura, the material of our bodies is changed, here at the Pole, because the Magfield is stronger.” He seemed to be talking for the sake of it — to be filling in the silence while the woman pondered Farr’s destiny. “The bonds between nuclei are made stronger. That’s why it feels hotter here to you, and why your muscles are…”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” the woman cut in. “But…” She hesitated. “Is he…”

  “Broken in?” Dura interrupted heavily.

  “Dura,” Toba warned her.

  “Lady, he is a Human Being, not a wild boar. And he can speak for himself.”

  Toba said rapidly, “Madam, I can vouch for the boy’s good nature. He’s been living in my home. Eating with my family. And besides, he represents good value at…” — his face puffed out, and he seemed to be calculating rapidly — “at fifty skins.”

  The woman frowned, but her fat, broad face showed interest. “For what? The standard ten years?”

  “With the usual penalty clauses, of course,” Toba said.

  The woman hesitated.

  A crowd was gathering around the Market’s central Wheel. The noise level was rising and there was an air of excitement… of dangerous excitement, Dura felt; suddenly she wished the booth formed a more substantial cage around her.

  “Look, I don’t have time to haggle; I want to watch the execution. Forty-five, and I’ll take his option.”

  “Toba hesitated for barely a moment. “Done.”

  The woman melted into the crowd, with a final intrigued glance at Farr.

  Dura reached out of the booth-cage and touched Toba’s arm. “Ten years?”

  “That’s the standard condition.”

  “And the work?”

  Toba looked uncomfortable. “It’s hard. I’ll not try to hide that. They’ll put him in the Bells… But he’s strong, and he’ll survive it.”

  “And after he’s too weak to work?”

  He pursed his lips. “He won’t be in the Bells forever. He could become a Supervisor, maybe; or some kind of specialist. Look, Dura, I know this must seem strange to you, but this is our way, here in Parz. It’s a system that’s endured for generations… And it’s a system you accepted, implicitly, when you agreed to come here in the car, to find a way to pay for Adda’s treatment. I did try to warn you.” His round, dull face became defiant. “You understood that, didn’t you?”

  She sighed. “Yes. Of course I did. Not in every detail, but… I couldn’t see any choice.”

  “No,” he said, his voice hard. “Well, you don’t have any choice, now.”

  She hesitated before going on. She hated to beg. But at least Toba and his home were fixed points in this new world, nodes of comparative familiarity. “Toba Mixxax. Couldn’t you buy us… our labor? You have a ceiling-farm at the Crust. And…”

  “No,” he said sharply. Then, more sympathetically, he went on, “I’m sorry, Dura, but I’m not a prosperous man. I simply couldn’t afford you… Or rather, I couldn’t afford a fair price for you. You wouldn’t be able to pay off Adda’s bills. Do you understand? Listen, forty-five skins for ten prime years of Farr, unskilled as he is, may seem a fortune to you; but believe me, that woman got a bargain, and she knew it. And…”

  His voice was drowned by a sudden roar from the crowd around the huge Wheel. People jostled and barged each other as they swarmed along guide ropes and rails. Dura — listless, barely interested — looked through the crowd, seeking the focus of excitement.

  A man was being hauled through the crowd. His two escorts, Waving strongly, were dressed in a uniform similar to the guards at Muub�
��s Hospital, with their faces made supernaturally menacing by heavy leather masks. Their captive was a good ten years older than Dura, with a thick mane of yellowing hair and a gaunt, patient face. He was stripped to the waist and seemed to have his hands tied behind his back.

  The crowds flinched as he passed, even as they roared encouragement to his captors.

  Dura rubbed her nose, depressed and confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. How are forty-five skins a fortune? Skins of what?”

  He had to shout to make himself heard. “It means, ah, forty-five Air-pig skins.”

  That seemed clearer. “So you’re saying Farr’s labor is worth as much as forty-five Air-pigs?”

  “No, of course not.”

  A new buyer came by the booth, a man who briefly asked about Farr. Toba had to turn him away but indicated Dura was available. The buyer — a coarse, heavy-set man dressed in a close-clinging robe — glanced over Dura cursorily before moving on.

  Dura shuddered. There had been nothing threatening in the man’s appraisal, still less anything sexual. In fact — and this was the ghastly, dispiriting part of it — there had been nothing personal in it at all. He had looked at her — her, Dura, daughter of Logue and leader of the Human Beings — the way she might weigh up a spear or knife, a carved piece of wood.

  As a tool, not a person.

  Toba was still trying to explain skins to her. “You see, we’re not talking about real pigs.” He smiled, patronizing. “That would be absurd. Can you imagine people carting around fifty, a hundred Air-pigs, to barter with each other? It’s all based on credit, you see. A skin is equivalent to the value of one pig. So you can exchange skins — or rather, amounts of credit in skins — and it’s equivalent to bartering in pigs.” He nodded brightly at her. “Do you see?”

  “So if I had a credit of one skin — I could exchange it for one pig.”

  He opened his mouth to agree, and then his face fell. “Ah — not quite. Actually, a pig — a healthy, fertile adult — would cost you about four and a half skins at today’s prices. But the cost of an actual pig is irrelevant… That isn’t the point at all. Can’t you see that? It’s all to do with inflation. The Air-pig is the base of the currency, but…”