Terminal World

by Alastair Reynolds

  He woke to colourless, wintery daylight pushing through the curtains. Meroka was gone. He could still see the imprint of her head on the pillow she had been using. The room key was still on the nightstand, along with his medical bag. He rose from the bed, stretching the stiffness out of his bones. He stripped to the waist, tolerating the cold long enough to wash. He turned until he could see his back in the tarnished mirror over the basin, spinal column showing through his skin with anatomical clarity, his wing-buds soft and obscene, like a pair of tiny clenched fists growing out of his back. He dressed again and was settling his hat on his head when he saw the little black book by Meroka’s bedside.

  Something compelled him to pick it up. The Testament was bound in black leather, creased and worn like his medical bag. He opened it gently, half-expecting some kind of trap to spring out into his face. The pages were translucently thin, the ink on one side showing through the other. Dense columns of scripture, with numbers at the start of every paragraph, some parts in plain font, others italicised or printed in boldface. The book looked older than Meroka, though he could not say precisely why he was certain of this. He turned the pages, something furtive in the sound the sheets made as they whisked against each other.

  And in that time, before the gates of paradise were closed to them, men and women were as children. And so plentiful were the fruits and bounties of paradise that they lived for four-score years, and some lived longer than that. And in that time the Earth was warm and blue and green and many were its provinces.

  He closed the book, hearing footsteps coming up the creaking staircase from below, then along the landing. There was a knock at the door.

  He put the Testament down on the table as Meroka entered, subtly conscious that it was not quite as he had found it, and that she could not fail to notice this.

  ‘Time to ship,’ she said. ‘Got us some horses.’

  Meroka reached for the Testament and slipped it into a deep pocket of her coat, without giving it a second glance.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Quillon had never been close to a horse before. The ghost-white creatures, with their preposterously slender legs, blade-sharp faces, nervous dark eyes and scarlet flaring nostrils, seemed not quite of a part with the rest of the world. He tucked his bag into a vacant pocket in one of the panniers, jammed a boot into one of the stirrups and - inelegantly, he was sure - managed to lever himself astride. Although there was a saddle between his posterior and the horse’s back, he could nonetheless feel the sinuous undulation of its spine as it hoofed the ground, willing and eager to get going. There was a tiny mind in that skull, he knew, but it was attached to a large, strong animal, and it was capable of entertaining at least one idea. The stable owner showed him how to take the reins, giving him just enough tuition to be able to stop the horse if needed. Meroka would ride ahead, and his horse, he was assured, would follow hers over a cliff.

  They had taken antizonals and were symptom-free for the time being. Soon they were ambling through Horsetown, following the descending curve of the ledge all the way to the ground. The cobbled streets were treacherous with ice, so there was never any prospect of breaking into a trot. Occasionally his horse stumbled, Quillon seizing the reins in panic. The horse seemed to resent this intrusion of human authority into its business, so he soon learned to leave well alone.

  They had been riding for two hours when it occurred to Quillon that the road was no longer sloping to any visible degree, that there was little sense of the ground level beyond the surrounding buildings being lower than their present elevation. He supposed, with a shiver of realisation, that they were now riding on the face of the Earth itself, having completed the descent of Spearpoint. There had been no obvious point of transition to mark this passage. Even if there had been a clearly defined foundation, some point where the spiral shelf reached a definite termination, thousands of years of weathering and human habitation had smothered it under rubble and windblown dirt. They were still very clearly in Horsetown, and therefore still potentially in reach of his enemies. The Godscraper’s effective domain extended much further than the geometric limit of its base.

  But as they rode on, even Horsetown became more attenuated. The streets widened, increasingly large gaps appearing between the buildings. Trees began to assert the presence of forest beyond the city’s margins. The landscape was rocky and undulating, broken here and there by the pale sentry of a semaphore tower, the cranked arms moving constantly, sending information to the next tower in the chain, relaying news and intelligence far beyond Spearpoint.

  The horses now travelled on roads of compacted dirt rather than cobbles. Now that their footing was surer, Meroka even broke them into the occasional trot. Quillon bounced around in the saddle until, more by accident than intention, he settled into a rhythm, putting weight through his legs into the stirrups to absorb the rise and fall of the horse’s back. He wasn’t cold now; there was enough heat boiling off the animal to keep him nicely warmed, and his own exertions helped. They were following the line of an aerial ropeway, suspended from wooden pylons. An endless succession of buckets, laden with freshly cut wood, was being hauled to Spearpoint. There were hundreds of ropeways like this, feeding the structure’s unquenchable appetite for fuel. They came in from all directions, stretching away to the great woods and forests beyond the horizon. Some of the wood would be burned in stoves in Horsetown, some would end up in Tulwar’s boiler, more still would feed the electricity-generating power stations of Neon Heights. As the buckets creaked overhead it was easy to imagine that the supply was limitless.

  They had been riding for nearly three hours when he felt the first suggestion that the antizonals were wearing off. He took another pill and called ahead for Meroka to do likewise, but even after he had swallowed and digested his, the effects of zone sickness lingered. Belatedly he checked his watches, the clockwork ones Tulwar had given him, and saw the hands beginning to diverge. There was no question but that they were approaching the end of the zone.

  It was nearing midday, the sun a cold yellow coin that had climbed as high as it was going to get. Ahead lay a rustic trading post, with a dozen or so horses hitched around it. Beyond, the road deteriorated even more severely. Quillon saw weed-choked cracks and cavernous potholes that looked a hundred years old.

  This was as far as the horses could go, it transpired. Animals were even worse at tolerating zone shifts than humans, and there remained comparatively little scholarship on the arcane matter of veterinarian antizonals. Quillon was certain that nothing in his bag would do more good than harm, and besides, Meroka had only paid to ride the horses this far. They dismounted, hitched the horses to vacant posts, removed their gear from the panniers and went inside to eat. They washed the meal down with strong coffee and collected their belongings.

  They crossed the boundary via the ropeway, riding one of the empty buckets returning to the forests. It was quicker than walking, even if it did mean climbing a rickety platform and timing their entry into the moving receptacle. There was a door in the side, which made it easier. From on high, clutching his hat to his head against the wind, Quillon saw that the staging post was also helping the buckets move. Behind the compound, teams of horses were driving a huge wheel, which was in turn coupled to the ropeway.

  ‘I should at least examine you for zone sickness before we attempt the crossing,’ Quillon said, as the bucket bobbed on its way.

  ‘We’ll be fine. Gets easier on the other side. If you could take Steamville, you’ll cope.’

  ‘Do machines work there?’

  ‘Mostly. But there aren’t that many of them, and them that exist tend to end up in the wrong hands. You aren’t in the clear just yet.’

  It was his third crossing since leaving Neon Heights, and perhaps the easiest. For the first time, the shift was in the opposite direction, taking him closer to the conditions he had grown accustomed to. Although there would still be a need to monitor the two of them for zone sickness, he could feel his body bre
athing a colossal sigh of sub-cellular relief. It was as if they had scaled a high mountain, breathed perilously thin air and were now descending again. The blood sang gladly in his veins.

  ‘I don’t even know where we are now,’ he said, smiling at the depth of his own ignorance. ‘What this place is called, how far it extends, who runs it.’

  ‘Ain’t much to say, Cutter. Out here there are just zones. They go on for hundreds of leagues, most of ’em. Some go on further than that. The one with the Bane in ... Well, never mind that for now. Ain’t no government or Boundary Commission, neither. Ain’t much resembling law and order, come to think of it. You got a few townships, places like Fortune’s Landing, that make a living cutting and exporting wood and firesap to the ‘scraper, and you got a few caravans that live off trading. That’s about as far as civilisation goes, though. We sure as fuck aren’t including the Skullboys.’

  ‘Who are the Skullboys?’

  ‘With luck on our side, you won’t get to find out.’

  The bucket bobbed its way to the trading post on the other side of the boundary. It was similar to the one they had left behind, if a little more rustic and run-down. Meroka threw open the door as the bucket approached the platform, and they stepped off - Meroka catching Quillon’s sleeve as he nearly lost his balance and keeled over the low-railinged side.

  ‘You’re all skin and bones under that suit,’ she said, letting go slowly.

  They rented new horses and rode for the rest of the day, travelling west from Spearpoint. The lowering sun bestowed a pale honeyed light but offered nothing that Quillon would have dignified by calling warmth. He nestled into his coats and tugged his hat down further on his head. His hands were numb on the reins.

  He had drifted into something like sleep, lulled by the horse’s motion, when Meroka drew her ride to a halt. Quillon’s horse stopped before he had a chance to tug on the reins. It snuffled the dry, cold ground and snorted disappointedly, as if until that moment it had been expecting a verdant green meadow. A breeze stirred dirt around the animals’ hooves.

  They must have come a long way. At some point the track had pulled away from the line of the ropeway, forging its own meandering path across the plain. They had passed the occasional hamlet, the occasional copse or small wood, but the forests were still far away. The ground had risen slightly in the last couple of leagues and was now descending, littered with rocks and boulders. A few hundred spans further on their trail met a wider path, one that showed evidence of heavy and frequent traffic. Wagon ruts etched its chalky yellow surface. But no one was moving on it now.

  ‘This is the place,’ Meroka said with sudden decisiveness. ‘Come morning, they’ll be along for you. Next stop, Fortune’s Landing.’

  ‘Assuming Fray got word through.’

  ‘He won’t let us down. Regardless, we’ll figure something out.’ She dismounted, swinging off the saddle and thudding to the ground. ‘We’ll camp here. Ain’t gonna be the height of luxury, but you’ll cope.’ She set about unpacking the saddlebags. ‘Anyone or anything comes along, keep out of sight.’

  Quillon nodded and - less elegantly - got off his own horse, and began to empty the bags of what they needed for the night. The horse snorted and started to walk away but he grabbed the bridle and gave it a sharp yank, as he had seen Meroka do. She was already scouting a sheltered spot in the shadow of a house-sized boulder, tucked away from easy visibility of anyone on either the pass or the wider road.

  They spread groundsheets, made pillows out of the saddlebags, preparing to sleep under the stars. It would be cold, even with thermal blankets, but Quillon told himself that he would only have to put up with it for one night.

  ‘You can sleep now if you want,’ Meroka said, sounding as if that was the last thing she had in mind. ‘Or you can tuck in to the rations. Long as you don’t mind eating cold. Can’t risk a fire.’

  Quillon understood. The darkening air was perfectly clear. Venus was already bright in the western sky, and the cold eye of Mars shone balefully in the east. Soon one of the Moon’s two halves would rise, but until then the Milky Way was quite visible, numberless stars describing a spine of pearly luminescence across the vault of the heavens. It was a glorious evening for stargazing, but not one for subterfuge. Even if they concealed the flames, the column of smoke would be visible from afar, and it would stand every chance of drawing unwanted attention.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Fine, Cutter. You worry about yourself.’ Meroka was by her horse, taking off its bridle and slipping on a leather halter that would allow it to graze on what meagre pickings it could find. She let the rope trail on the ground, not tied to anything. The horse would take it as a signal not to stray too far.

  Meroka didn’t seem to have an appetite, so Quillon tucked into the rations by himself, not caring that the food was neither warm nor particularly fresh. As he ate, the day’s light diminished still further. Occasionally a bat or nocturnal bird flitted overhead, and now and then he heard the inquisitive snuffling of some small mammal, foraging in the darkness. There were undoubtedly wild things out there that could do them real harm, but Meroka seemed unconcerned and so he took that as an indication that he need not be too troubled himself. In any case the horses would give them fair warning of any predators.

  Sleep still out of the question, he walked around the perimeter of their little camp until he came to a rise that took him half a dozen spans higher.

  ‘Don’t go far,’ Meroka said, raising her voice only as much as was necessary.

  ‘I just want to see how far we’ve come,’ Quillon replied.

  He had barely given Spearpoint a glance since leaving, preferring to concentrate on the rigours of the journey ahead and not be reminded of the pitifully small progress they had made. Now, though, sensing that the first phase of his exodus was nearing its end, he felt ready to face the truth. In the morning he would be with friends, or at least people who would give him shelter and value his talents.

  They had come no more than fifteen leagues from the base of Spearpoint, which was itself fifteen leagues across at its widest point. From its base it soared into the sky, gently tapering as it rose, until, fifty leagues above the ground, it was no more than a third of a league wide. But it kept on rising beyond that point, never narrowing beyond a thickness of one-third of a league, a quill-thin black column pushing beyond the veil of the atmosphere itself, into the impassable vacuum of space. Had the whole thing been dark it would still have stood out against the deepening purple of the eastern sky. Most of it, however, was gloriously aglow with evidence of inhabitation.

  The city lights twinkled. Quillon tracked up from the base, striving to identify the zones and their interior districts against the mental map he carried, mindful that it would be easy to misjudge familiar scales and heights from this new perspective. He thought he could see the band of Spearpoint that was Neon Heights, beginning five or six leagues from the base and rising until the neon glow met the brighter but colder lights of Circuit City. Beneath Neon Heights was the much fainter, ember-like glow of Steamville, and beneath that, Horsetown was almost lost in darkness, its fires and torches scarcely visible at this distance. The spiral structure of Spearpoint’s outer skin - the ever-winding shelf that rose in a continuous, clockwise gradient from the base to the very summit, beyond the air itself - was only intermittently discernible, where it was traced by a line of buildings or delineated by the faint, ascending thread of an electric train. Very few buildings were tall enough to reach from one level of the shelf to the next.

  The shelf was widest at the base, and narrowed in width in harmony with Spearpoint’s own tapering form. Even seen from this modest distance, the city-districts appeared to be little more than a coating of light, a phosphorescent daub on the rising, screwlike structure. It seemed impossible that people could live and work in those perched communities and not be constantly assailed by the thought that they were a dizzying number of leagues from the ground, teetering on
the edge of oblivion. But that was simply not how it felt when one was up there, in Neon Heights or Steamville or even within the glittering plasma-light precincts of Circuit City. For even as it diminished in width, the ledge remained more than wide enough to support a teeming grid of streets, and with the edge usually screened from view by at least one row of buildings, it required no great effort of will to put it out of mind. True, there was always the wall that supported the shelf on its next coil around Spearpoint, but for the most part that was either a dark cliff leaning over the streets and houses, or simply hidden behind a barricade of taller structures, traversed by elevators and funiculars. It too could be ignored most of the time, as could the levels of Spearpoint soaring far above.

  The Mire, that node of confusion where the zones tended towards a state of unimaginable, unmappable compactedness, was somewhere level with Quillon’s viewpoint, inside Spearpoint’s awesome base. He imagined it as a boiling, seething knot. The zones radiated out from that focus, becoming larger and more tectomorphically stable with increasing distance, but their essential nature - whether they supported high or low degrees of technological sophistication - was, insofar as anyone had been able to ascertain, determined according to entirely random factors. And yet, had randomness been the sole factor, high and low societies should have been mingled together, with no regard for their vertical placement. There was no reason why the angels should claim the high reaches of the Celestial Levels, or why horses should be the primary form of motive power near the base. But there was more to the present order of things than fortuitous happenstance. This was clear from the profoundly dark blotches in Spearpoint’s illumination, the places where nothing lived and nothing moved. There were blotches at all levels, right up to the Celestial.