Flux xs-3

by Stephen Baxter

  Now, studying Philas’s dull, silent face, she wondered what she’d been expecting to find, here among the Human Beings. Perhaps a hidden, childlike part of her had hoped to find everything restored to what it had been when she’d been a small girl… when Logue was strong, protecting her, and the world was — by comparison — a stable and safe place.

  Of course, that was an illusion. There was nowhere for her to hide, no one who could look after her.

  She raised her hands to her face. In fact, she thought with a stab of shameful selfishness, by returning here she’d only placed herself in danger of starvation, and had taken on responsibility for the Human Beings once more.

  If only I’d gone straight back to Parz. I could have found Farr, and found a way to live. Perhaps I could have forgotten that the Human Beings ever lived…

  She straightened up. Philas was waiting for her, her face grave and beautiful. “Philas, we can’t stay here,” Dura said. “We can’t live like this. It’s not viable.”

  Philas nodded gravely. “But we have no choice.”

  Dura sighed. “We do. I’ve told you about Parz City… Philas, we must go there. It’s an immense distance, and I don’t know how we’ll manage the journey. But there is food there. It’s our only hope.”

  “What will we do, in Parz City? How will we get food?”

  Dura felt like laughing. We’ll beg, she thought. We’ll be hungry freaks; if we’re lucky they will feed us rather than Wheel-Break us. And…

  “Dura!”

  Mur came crashing through the forest toward them; his eyes were wide with shock.

  Dura felt her hands slip to the knife tucked into the rope at her waist. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “There’s something outside the trees… A box of wood. Drawn by Air-pigs! Just as you’ve described it, Philas…”

  Dura turned, peering out through the thin foliage. There, easily visible beyond the stripped twigs of the forest fringe, was an Air-car, huge and sleek. It was calling, in a thin, amplified voice.

  “…Dura… upfluxer Dura… If you can hear me, show yourself. Dura…”

  * * *

  “Tell me about the Xeelee,” said Hork V.

  The Palace anteroom was a hollow sphere about five mansheights across, anchored loosely in the Garden. Fine ropes had been threaded across the interior, and light, comfortable net cocoons were suspended here and there. Smaller nets contained drinks and sweetmeats.

  Adda, Muub and Hork occupied three of the cocoons. The three of them faced each other close to the center of the room. Adda felt as if he were trapped in the web of a Crust-spider.

  Adda found Hork’s demanding tone, his stare over that bush of ludicrous face-hair, quite offensive. This was the new Chair of the Parz Committee. So what? Such titles didn’t mean a damn thing to Adda, and the day they did would be a sorry one, he reckoned.

  Let them wait. Adda allowed his gaze to slide around the opulence of this chamber.

  The painted walls were the ultimate folly, of course. They were designed to give an illusion of the open Air. He studied the drawn-in vortex lines, the purple paint that represented the Quantum Sea. How absurd, thought Adda, for these City people to close themselves away from the world in their boxes of wood and Corestuff, and then go to so much trouble to reproduce what could be found outside.

  The centerpiece of the anteroom was a tame vortex ring. And, Adda conceded, it was impressive. It was contained in nested globes of clearwood which revolved continually about three independent axs, maintaining the spin of the Air trapped within. Every child knew that if an unstable vortex line threw off a ring, the torus of voracity would rapidly lose its energy and decay away; but this trapped ring was fed with energy by the artful spinning of the globes, and so remained stable.

  Of course, it wasn’t as impressive as the million-mansheight-long vortex lines which spanned the Mantle and arced over the Garden, and which were available for viewing without charge or effort…

  “I’m glad you’re finding the room so interesting.” Hork’s tone contained patience, but with an undercurrent of threat.

  “I wasn’t aware you were in a hurry. After all, you’ve lasted ten generations without talking to the Human Beings; what’s the rush now?”

  “No games,” Hork growled. “Come on, upfluxer. You know why I’ve asked you here. I need your help.”

  Muub interposed smoothly, “You must make allowances for this old rascal, sir. He rejoices in being difficult… a privilege of age, perhaps.”

  Adda turned to glare at Muub, but the doctor would not meet his eye.

  “I ask you again,” Hork said quietly. “Tell me of the Xeelee.”

  “Not until you tell me that my friends will be returned from their exile.”

  “From their indentures,” Muub said impatiently. “Damn it, Adda, I’ve already assured you that they’ve been sent for.”

  Adda watched Hork, his mouth set firm.

  Hork nodded, the motion an impatient spasm which caused ripples to flow over the front of his chest. “Their debts are dissolved. Now give me my answer.”

  “I’ll tell you all you need to know in five words.”

  Hork tilted his head back, his nostrils glowing.

  Adda said slowly, “You — can — not — fight — Xeelee.”

  Hork growled.

  “That’s your intention, isn’t it?” Adda asked evenly. “You want to find a way to beat off Xeelee as if they were rampaging Air-boars; you want to find a way to stop them smashing up your beautiful Palace…”

  “They are killing the people I am responsible for.”

  Adda leaned forward in his sling. “City man, they don’t even know we’re here. Nothing you could do would even raise you to their attention.”

  Muub was shaking his head. “How can you respect such — such primal monsters? Explain that, Adda.”

  “The Xeelee have their own goals,” said Adda. “Goals which we do not share, and cannot even comprehend…”

  The Xeelee — moving behind mists of legend — were immense. They were to the Ur-humans as Ur-humans were to Human Beings, perhaps. They were like gods — and yet lower than gods.

  Perhaps gods could have been tolerated, by the Ur-human soul. Not the Xeelee. The Xeelee had been rivals.

  Hork twisted in his sling, angry and impatient. “So the Ur-humans, unable to endure the aloof grandeur of these Xeelee, challenged them…”

  “Yes. There were great wars.”

  Billions had died. The destruction of the Xeelee had become a racial goal for the Ur-humans.

  “…But not for everyone,” Adda said. “As the venom of the assaults grew, so did Ur-human understanding of the Xeelee’s great Projects. For instance the Ring was discovered…”

  “The Ring?” Hork growled.

  “Bolder’s Ring,” Adda said. “A huge construct which one day will form a gateway between universes…”

  “What is this old fool babbling about, Physician? What are these universes of which he speaks? Are they in other parts of the Star?”

  Muub spread his long, fine hands and smiled. “I’m as mystified as you are, sir. Perhaps the universes reside in other Stars. If such exist.”

  Adda grunted. “If I knew all the answers I’d have spent my life doing a lot more than carve spears and hunt pigs,” he said sourly. “Look, Hork, I will tell you what I know; I’m telling you what my father told me. But if you ask stupid questions you are only going to get stupid answers.”

  “Get on with it,” Muub murmured.

  “Even if they could have been successful,” Adda said, “wise Ur-men came to see that to destroy the Xeelee might be as unwise as for a child to destroy its father. The Xeelee are working on our behalf, waging immense, invisible battles in order to save us from unknown danger. We cannot understand their ways; we are as dust in the Air to them. But they are our best hope.”

  Hork glared at him, raking his fat fingers through his beard. “What evidence is there for any of this?
It’s all legend and hearsay…”

  “That’s true,” Muub said, “but we couldn’t expect any more from such a source, sir…”

  Hork shoved himself out of his sling, his bulk quivering in the Air like a sac of liquid. “You’re too damn patient, Physician. Legend and hearsay. The ramblings of a senile old fool.” He Waved to the captive vortex ring and slammed his fist into the elegant spheres encasing it. The outermost sphere splintered in a star around his fist, and the vortex ring broke up into a chain of smaller rings which rapidly diminished in size, swooping around each other. “Am I supposed to gamble the future of the City, of my people, on such gibberish? And what about us, upfluxer? Forget these mythical men on other worlds. Why are the Xeelee interested in us?… and what am I to do about it?”

  Past Hork’s wide, angry face, Adda watched the captive vortex ring struggling to re-form.

  15

  Bzya invited Farr to visit him at his home, deep in the Downside belly of the City.

  The Harbor workers were expected to sleep inside the Harbor itself, in the huge, stinking dormitories. The authorities preferred to have their staff where they could call them out quickly in the event of some disaster — and where they had an outside chance of keeping them fit for work. To get access to the rest of the City, outside the Harbor walls, Bzya and Farr needed to arrange not only coincident off-shifts but also coincident out-passes, and they had to wait some weeks before Hosch — grudgingly and reluctantly — allowed the arrangement.

  The Harbor, a huge spherical construction embedded in the base of the City, was enclosed by its own Skin and had its own skeleton of Corestuff, strengthened to withstand the forces exerted by the Bell winches. The Harbor was well designed for its function, Farr had come to realize, but the interior was damned claustrophobic, even by Parz standards. So he felt a mild relief as he emerged from the Harbor’s huge, daunting gates and entered the maze of Parz streets once more.

  The streets — narrow, branching, indecipherably complex — twisted away in all directions. Farr looked around, feeling lost already; he knew he’d have little hope of finding his way through this three-dimensional maze.

  Bzya rubbed his hands, grinned, and Waved off down one of the streets. He moved rapidly despite his huge, scarred bulk. Farr studied the street. It looked the same to him as a dozen others. Why that one? How had Bzya recognized it? And…

  And Bzya was almost out of sight already, around the street’s first bend.

  Farr kicked away from the outer Harbor wall and plunged after Bzya.

  The area around the Harbor was one of the shabbiest in the City. The streets were cramped, old and twisting. The noise of the dynamo sheds, which were just above this area, was a constant, dull throb. The dwelling-places were dark mouths, most of them with doors or pieces of wall missing; as he hurried after Bzya, Farr was aware of curious, hungry eyecups peering out at him. Here and there people Waved unevenly past — men and women, some of them Harbor workers, and many of them in the strange state called “drunkenness.” Nobody spoke, to him or anybody else. Farr shivered, feeling clumsy and conspicuous; this was like being lost in a Crust-forest.

  After a short time’s brisk Waving, Bzya began to slow. They must be nearly at his home. Farr looked around curiously. They were still in the deepest Downside, almost on top of the Harbor, and the buildings here had the shrunken meanness of the areas closest to the Harbor itself. But in this area there was a difference, Farr saw slowly. The walls and doors were patched, but mostly intact. And there were no “drunks.” It was astonishing to him how in such a short distance the character of Parz could change so completely.

  Bzya grinned and pushed open a doorway — a doorway among thousands in these twisting corridors. Once again Farr wondered how Bzya knew how to find his way around with such unerring accuracy.

  He climbed after Bzya through the doorway. The interior of the home was a single room — a rough sphere, dimly illuminated by wood-lamps fixed seemingly at random to the walls. He felt his cup-retinas stretch, adjusting to the low level of light.

  A globe-bowl of tiny leaves was thrust into his chest.

  He stumbled back in the Air. There was a wide, grinning face apparently suspended over the bowl — startlingly like Bzya’s, but half-bald, nose flattened and misshapen, the nostrils dulled. “You’re the upfluxer. Bzya’s told me about you. Have a petal.”

  Bzya pushed past Farr and into the little home. “Let the poor lad in first, woman,” he grumbled good-naturedly.

  “All right, all right.”

  The woman withdrew, clutching her petal-globe and still grinning. Bzya wrapped a huge hand around Farr’s forearm and dragged him into the room, away from the door, then closed the door behind them.

  The three of them hovered in a rough circle. The woman dropped the petal-globe in the Air and thrust out a hand. “I’m Jool. Bzya’s my husband. You are welcome here.”

  Farr took her hand. It was almost the size of Bzya’s, and as strong. “Bzya told me about you, too.”

  Bzya kissed Jool. Then, sighing and stretching, he drifted away to the dim rear of the little home, leaving Farr with his wife.

  Jool’s body was square, a compact — if misshapen — mass of muscles. She wore what looked like the all-purpose coverall of the Harbor, much patched. One side of her body was quite damaged — her hair was missing down one side of her scalp in wide swathes, and her arm on that side was twisted, atrophied. Her leg was missing, below the knee.

  He was staring at the stump of the leg, the tied-off trouser leg below the knee. Suddenly unbearably self-conscious, he lifted his eyes to Jool’s face.

  She clapped him on the shoulder. “Not much point looking for that leg; you’ll never find it.” She smiled kindly. “Here. Have a petal. I meant it.”

  He dug his hand into the globe, pulled out a fistful of the little leaves, and jammed them into his mouth. They were insubstantial, like all leaf-matter, and strongly flavored — so strong that his head seemed to fill up with their sweet aroma. He coughed, spluttering leaf fragments all over his hostess.

  Jool tilted back her head and laughed. “Your upfluxer friend hasn’t got very sophisticated tastes, Bzya.”

  Bzya had gone to work in one corner of the cramped little room, beneath two crumpled sleeping-cocoons; his arms were immersed in a large globe-barrel full of fragments — chips of some substance — which crunched and ground against each other as he closed his fists around pieces of cloth. “Neither have we, Jool, so stop teasing the boy.”

  Farr picked up a petal. “Is it a leaf?”

  “Yes.” Jool popped one in her mouth and chewed noisily. “Yes, and no. It’s from a flower… a small, ornamental plant. They’ve been bred, here in Parz. You don’t get them in the wild, do you?”

  “They grow in the Palace, don’t they? In their Garden. Is that where you work?” He studied her. From the way Cris had described the Committee Palace to him, Jool seemed a little rough to be acceptable there.

  “No, not the Palace. There are other parts of the Skin, a little further Downside, where flowers, and bonsai trees, are cultivated. But not really for show, like in the Garden.”

  “Why, then?”

  She crunched on another leaf. “For food. And not for humans. For pigs. I wait on Air-pigs, young Farr.” Her eyes were bright and amused.

  Farr was puzzled. “But these leaves — petals — can’t be very nutritious.”

  “They don’t make the pigs as strong as they could be, no,” she said. “But they have other advantages.”

  “Oh, stop teasing the lad,” Bzya called again. “You know, she used to work in the Harbor.”

  “We met there. I was his supervisor, before that cretin Hosch was promoted. At the expense of this huge dolt Bzya, I’m afraid. Farr, do you want some beercake?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, no thank you. I don’t think I’d better.”

  “Oh, try a little.” Jool turned to a cupboard set in the wall and opened its door. The door was ill-fitting
, but the food store within was well stocked and clean. “I’ll bet you’ve never tried it. Well, see what it’s like. What the hell. We won’t let you get drunk, don’t worry.” She withdrew a slab of thick, sticky-looking cake wrapped in thin cloth; she broke off a handful and passed it to Farr.

  Bzya called, “Cake is fine as long as you chew it slowly, and know when to stop.”

  Farr bit into the cake cautiously. After the pungency of the petals it tasted sour, thick, almost indigestible. He chewed it carefully — the taste didn’t improve — and swallowed.

  Nothing happened.

  Jool hung in the Air before him, huge arms folded. “Just wait,” she said.

  “Funny thing,” Bzya called, still working at his globe of crunching chips. “Beercake is an invention of the deep Downside. I guess we evolved it to stave off boredom, lack of variety, lack of stimulation. The poor man’s flower garden, eh, Jool?”

  “But now it’s a delicacy,” Jool said. “They take it in the Palace, from globes of clearwood. Can you believe it?”

  Warmth exploded in the pit of Farr’s stomach. It spread out like an opening hand, suffusing his torso and racing along his limbs like currents induced by some new Magfield; his fingers and toes tingled, and he felt his pores ache deliciously as they opened.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “Well put.” Jool reached out and took the beercake from his numb fingers. “I think that’s enough for now.” She wrapped the cake in a fragment of cloth and stowed it away in its cupboard.

  Farr, still tingling, drifted across the room to join Bzya. The big Fisherman’s arms were still buried in the barrel of chips, and his broad hands were working at a garment — an outsize tunic — inside the chips, rubbing surfaces together and scraping the cloth through the chips. Bzya hauled the tunic out of the globe and added it to a rough sphere of clothes, wadded together, which orbited close to his wide back. Bzya grinned at Farr, rubbed his hands, and plunged a pair of trousers into the chips. “Jool has been looking forward to meeting you.”