Flux xs-3

by Stephen Baxter

  What sport! It was wonderful! He roared aloud, yelling out his exhilaration.

  The City was ahead of him now. It seemed to balloon out of the Air, its Skin swelling before him, uneven, ugly, as if being inflated from within.

  He was almost home.

  By the blood of the Ur-humans, he thought. I might actually live through this. And if he did, what a tale he would have to tell. What a hero he would become…

  But now the Magfield surged again, betraying him.

  This time he fell back; his spine was slammed against his board. The breath was knocked out of him, and he tumbled off the board, vainly clutching for its rim.

  The board fell away from him, tumbling across the face of the City.

  Falling naked through the Air, he watched the board recede. He tried to Wave, to rock his legs through the Air, but his strength was gone; he could get no purchase on the Magfield.

  He was moving too fast, in any case.

  Oddly he felt no fear, only a kind of regret. To have come so close and not to have made it…

  The Skin of Parz was huge before him, a wall across the sky.

  23

  All around the City, cooling fragments of the Quantum Sea, huge and threatening, streamed upward from the Pole.

  In the Stadium, there was panic.

  Adda leaned forward in his cocoon and peered down. The bulk of the Stadium was a turbulent mass of human torsos and struggling limbs; even as he watched, the network of delicate guide ropes which had crisscrossed the Stadium collapsed, engendering still more chaos as a thousand people struggled to escape. The crowd, screaming, sounded like trapped animals. Lost in the melee, Adda saw the purple uniforms of stewards and food vendors scrambling along with the rest.

  They all wanted to get out, obviously. But get out to what? Where was safety to be found — inside the cozy Skin of the City? But that Skin was just a shell of wood and Corestuff ribs; it would burst like scraped leather if…

  He was kicked in the back, hard. He gasped as the Air was forced out of his lungs, and he fell forward; then the rope fixing his cocoon on one side parted, and he was spun around.

  He struggled out of his cocoon, ignoring the protests of stiff joints, and prepared to take on whoever had struck him. But it was impossible to tell. The Committee Box was full of panicking courtiers, their made-up faces twisted with fear, fighting free of cocoons and restrictive robes. Adda opened his mouth and laughed at them. So all their finery, and fine titles, offered no protection from mortal terror. Where was their power now?

  Muub was struggling out of his own cocoon with every expression of urgency.

  Adda said, “Where will you go?”

  “The Hospital, of course.” Muub gathered his robes tight around his legs and glanced around the Box, looking for the fastest way out. “It’s going to be a long day’s work…” Apparently on impulse, he grabbed Adda’s arm. “Upfluxer. Come with me. Help me.”

  Adda felt like laughing again, but he recognized earnestness in Muub’s eyes. “Why me?”

  Muub gestured to the scrambling courtiers. “Look at these people,” he said wearily. “Not many cope well in a crisis, Adda.” He glanced at the upfluxer appraisingly. “You think I’m a little inhuman — a cold man, remote from people. Perhaps I am. But I’ve worked long enough as a Physician to gain a functional understanding of who can be relied on. And you’re one of them, Adda. Please.”

  Adda was surprisingly moved by this, but he pulled his arm free of Muub’s grasp. “I’ll come if I can. I promise. But first I have to find Farr — my kinsman.”

  Muub nodded briskly. Without another word he began to work his way through the crowd of courtiers still blocking the Box’s exit, using his elbows and knees quite efficiently.

  Adda glanced down at the crowded Stadium once more. The crush there was becoming deadly now; he saw imploded chests, limp limbs, Air-starved faces like white flowers in the mass of bodies.

  He turned away and launched himself toward the exit.

  * * *

  Farr could be in any of a number of places — with the Skin-riders outside the City itself, or up somewhere near the Surfer race, or down in the Harbor with his old work-friends — but he would surely make for the Mixxaxes’ to find Adda. The Mixxaxes’ part of the mid-Upside was on the opposite side of Parz, and Adda began the long journey across a City in turmoil.

  It was as if some malevolent giant, laughing like a spin storm, had taken the City and shaken it. People, young and old, the well-dressed rich and drab manual workers alike, fled through the corridor-streets; screams echoed along the avenues and Air-shafts. Perhaps each of these scurrying folk had some dim purpose of their own in the face of the Glitch — just as Adda did. But collectively, they swarmed.

  To Adda it was like a journey through hell. Never before had he felt so confined, so enclosed in this box built by lunatics to contain lunatics; he longed to be in the open Air where he could see what the Star was doing. He reached Pall Mall. The great vertical avenue was full of noise and light; people and cars swarmed over each other, Speakers blaring. Shop-fronts had been smashed open, and men and women were hastening through the crowds with arms full of goods — clothes, jewelry. Above his head, at the top of the Mall — the uppermost Upside — the golden light of the Palace Garden filtered down through the miniature bushes and ponds, as peaceful and opulent as ever. But now lines of guards fenced off the grounds of the Palace from any citizen who thought that might be a good direction to flee.

  Adda, close to the center of the Mall now, felt an absurd impulse to laugh. Guards. Looters… What did these people hope to achieve? What did they think was happening to the world around them? It would be a triumph if their precious City survived this disaster intact enough for the looters to find an opportunity to flaunt their ill-gotten wealth.

  As if in response to his thought, the City lurched.

  The Mall — the huge vertical shaft of light and people around him — leaned to the right. He flailed at the Air, scrabbling for balance. The street had shifted with shocking suddenness. There was an immense groan; he heard wood splintering, clearwood cracking, a high-pitched scream which must be the sound of a Corestuff rib failing.

  People rained through the Air.

  Helpless, they didn’t even look human — they were like inanimate things, carvings of wood, perhaps. Their bodies hailed against shop-fronts and structural pillars; the Mall echoed with screams, with small, sickening crunches.

  A woman slammed against Adda’s rib-cage, knocking away his breath once more. She clung to him with desperate strength, as if she thought he might somehow save her from all this. She must have been as old as Adda himself. She wore a rich, heavy robe which was now torn open, revealing a nude torso swathed in fat, her loose dugs dangling; her hair was a tangled mess of blue-dyed strands with yellow roots. “What’s happening? Oh, what’s happening?”

  He pulled the woman away from his body, disengaging her as kindly as he could. “It’s a Glitch. Do you understand? The Magfield must be shifting — distorted by the charged material erupting from the Quantum Sea. The City is trying to find a new, stable…”

  He stopped. Her eyes were fixed on his face, but she wasn’t listening to a word.

  He pulled her robe closed and tied it shut. Then he half-dragged her across the Mall and left her clinging to a pillar before a shop-front. Perhaps she’d recover her wits, find her way to her home. If not, there was little Adda could do for her.

  He found an exit to a side-street. He Waved his way down it with brisk thrusts of his legs, trying to ignore the devastation around him.

  * * *

  The journey through the wormhole lasted only heartbeats, but it seemed an eternity to Dura. She clung to her place, feeling as helpless and as terrified as the squealing pigs.

  Out of control, despite all Hork’s vain heavings at the console, the “Flying Pig” rattled against the near-invisible walls of the corridor. Spectacular flashes burst all around the clumsy vessel
.

  The end came suddenly.

  Light — electric blue — blossomed from the infinity point, beneath the plummeting craft at the terminus of the corridor. The light hurtled up the corridor like a fist, unavoidable. Dura stared into it, feeling its intensity sting her eyes.

  The light exploded around them, flooding the ship and turning the cabin’s lanterns into green wraiths. The pigs screamed.

  Then the light died away — no, she realized; the light had congealed into a framework around them, another tetrahedral Interface. The finely drawn cage of light turned around them with stately grace; evidently the “Pig,” spewed out of the wormhole, had been brought almost to rest, and was now tumbling slowly.

  Beyond the cage of light there was only darkness.

  Dura glanced around the ship. There wasn’t any obvious sign of damage to the hull, and the turbine was still firmly fixed in place. The squeals of the pigs, the stink of their futile escape-farts, slowly subsided.

  Hork remained in the pilot’s seat. He stared out of the windows, his large mouth gaping like a third eyecup in the middle of his beard.

  Dura drifted down toward him. “Are you all right?”

  At first her question seemed not to register; then, slowly, his head swiveled toward her. “I’m not injured.” His face twisted into a smile. “After that little trip, I’m not sure how healthy I am, but I’m not injured. You? The pigs?”

  “I’m not damaged. Nor are the animals.”

  “And the turbine?”

  She admired his brisk dismissal of the wonders of the journey, his focus on the practical. She shrugged.

  He nodded. “Good. Then we have the means to move.”

  “…Yes,” she said slowly. “I suppose so. But only if the Magfield extends this far.”

  He studied her face, then peered out of the craft uncertainly. “You think it mightn’t? That we’ve moved beyond the Magfield?”

  “We’ve come a long way, Hork.”

  She turned away, dropping her eyes to her hands. The shadows cast on her skin were soft, silvery; the diffuse glow seemed to smooth over the age-blemishes of her flesh, the wrinkles and the minute scars.

  …Silvery?

  Outside the ship, the light had changed.

  She moved away from Hork and peered out of the ship. The vortex-blue tetrahedron had disappeared. There was a room around the ship now, a tetrahedral box constructed of some sheer gray material. It was as if this skin-smooth substance had plated over the framework, turning the Interface from an open cage into a four-sided box which encased the “Pig.”

  The walls weren’t featureless, though. There was some form of decoration — circular, multicolored patches — on one wall, and, cut in another, a round-edged rectangle which could only be a door.

  …A door to what?

  Hork scratched his scalp. “Well. What now? Did you see where these walls came from?”

  Dura pressed her face to a clearwood window. “Hork, I don’t think we’re in the underMantle any more.”

  “You’re guessing.” His face was creased with frustration.

  She pointed to the room beyond the window. “I think that’s Air out there. I think we could live out there.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Of course I can’t know.” Dura felt a calm certainty fill her. She was starting to feel safe, she realized, to trust the powers into whose hands she’d delivered herself. “But why would we be brought to a place which is lethal for us? What would be the point?”

  He frowned. “You think this is all — designed? That our journey was meant to be this way, to bring us here?”

  “Yes. Since we entered the wormhole we’ve been in the hands of the ancient machines of the Ur-humans. Surely they built their machines to protect us. I think we have to trust them.”

  Hork took a deep breath, the fine fabric of his costume scratching over his chest. “You’re saying we should go out there. Shut down the turbine and our magnetic shell — leave the ‘Pig’ and go outside.”

  “Why else did we come here?” She smiled. “Anyway, I want to see what those markings on the wall are.”

  “All right. If we’re not crushed in the first instant we’ll know you’re right.” The decision made, his manner was brisk and pragmatic. “And I guess the pigs need a rest anyway.”

  “Yes,” Dura said. “I believe they do.”

  Hork turned to his control console and threw switches. Dura tended to the pigs, providing them with healthy handfuls of leaves. As they fed, their flight-farts died to a trickle and the turbine slowed with a weary whirr.

  The cabin fell silent, for the first time since the departure from Parz.

  Hork whispered, “It’s gone. Our magnetic field. It’s shut down.”

  For a moment Hork and Dura stared at each other. Dura’s heart pounded and she found it impossible to take a breath.

  Nothing had changed; the ship still tumbled slowly within the cool gray walls of the wormhole chamber.

  Hork grinned. “Well, we’re still alive. You were right, it seems. And now…” He pointed to the hatch in the upper end of the craft. “You first,” he said.

  * * *

  The hatch opened with a soft pop.

  Dura winced as gas — Air? — puffed into the ship past her face. She found herself holding her breath. With an effort of will she exhaled, emptying her lungs, and opened her mouth to breathe deeply.

  “Are you all right?”

  She sighed. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. It’s Air all right, Hork… We were expected, it seems.” She sniffed. “The Air’s cool — cooler than the ship. And it’s — I don’t know how to describe it — it’s fresh. Clean.” Clean, in comparison to the murky Air of the City to which she’d grown accustomed. When she closed her eyes and drew in the strange Air it was almost like being back with the Human Beings in the upflux.

  …Almost. Yet the Air here had a flat, lifeless, artificial quality to it. It was scrubbed clean of scents, she realized slowly.

  Hork pushed past her and out into the room beyond. He looked around with fists clenched, aggressively inquisitive, his robe garish against the soft gray light of the walls. Dura, suppressing pangs of fear, followed him away from the wooden ship’s illusory protection.

  They hung in the Air of the wormhole chamber. The “Flying Pig” tumbled slowly beside them, a scarred wooden cylinder crude and incongruous within the walls of this finely constructed room.

  “If the Ur-human builders could see us now, I wonder what they would say?”

  Hork grunted. “Probably, ‘Where have you been all this time?’ ” He Waved experimentally and moved forward a mansheight or so. “Hey. There’s a magnetic field here.”

  “Is it the Magfield?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell. If it is, it’s weaker than I’ve ever felt it before.”

  “Maybe it’s artificial… put here to help us move around.”

  Hork grinned, his confidence growing visibly. “I think you’re right, Dura. These people really were expecting us, weren’t they?” He looked over his shoulder at the “Pig,” inspecting the ship briskly. He pointed, his embroidered sleeve flapping. “Look at that. We’ve brought a passenger.”

  Dura turned. There was something clinging to the side of the craft; it was like a huge, metallic leech, spoiling the clean cylindrical lines of the ship. “It’s Corestuff,” she said. “We’ve brought a Corestuff berg with us, all the way through the wormhole. It must have stuck to our field-bands…”

  “Yes,” Hork said. “But by no accident.” He made a mock salute to the lump of Corestuff. “Karen Macrae. So glad you could accompany us!”

  “You think she’s in there? In that berg?”

  “Why not?” He grinned at her, his eyecups dark with excitement. “It’s possible. Anything’s possible.”

  “But why?”

  “Because this trip is as important to Karen Macrae as it is to us, my dear.”

  Dura flexed her legs; the Waving ca
rried her easily through the Air. She moved away from the hulk of the “Pig” and toward the walls of the chamber. Tentatively she reached out a hand, placed it cautiously on the gray wall material. Beneath her fingers and palm its smooth perfection was unbroken. It was cool to the touch — not uncomfortably so, but a little cooler than her body.

  “Dura.” Hork sounded excited; he was inspecting the wall display Dura had seen from within the “Pig.” “Come and look at this.”

  Dura Waved briskly to Hork; side by side they stared at the display.

  Two circles, differing in size, had been painted on the wall. The larger was colored yellow and was perhaps a micron wide. The color was deepest at the heart of the circle and lightened, becoming almost washed out, as the eye followed the color out to the edge of the circle. The disc was marred by a series of blue threads which swept through its interior — a little like vortex lines, Dura thought, except that these lines did not all run in parallel, and in places even crossed each other.

  Each blue line was terminated by a pair of tiny pink tetrahedra, one at each end. Most of the tetrahedra had been gathered into the center of the disc, so that the lines looped around the heavy amber heart of the disc. But five or six of the lines broke free of the knot at the center. One of them terminated at a pole of the disc, just inside its surface. The rest of the lines led, in wavering spirals, out of the disc itself, and crossed the empty space of the intervening wall to the second, smaller circle; a half-dozen tetrahedra jostled within the small circle like insects.

  Dura frowned, baffled. “I don’t understand. Perhaps these little tetrahedra have something to do with the wormholes…”

  “Of course they do!” Hork’s voice was brisk and confident. “Can’t you see it? It’s a map — a map of the entire Star.” He traced features of the diagram with his fingertip. “Here’s the Crust; and within it — this outermost, lighter band — is the Mantle, which contains the Air we breathe. All the world we know.” His fingertip gouged a path into the heart of the Star image. “These darker sections are the underMantle and the Quantum Sea — and here’s the Core.”