Terminal World

by Alastair Reynolds

  ‘I guess we’ll find out. I’m not planning to mutiny. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘At least it gets you out of Swarm again. You may not have liked the idea of crossing the Bane, but you liked the idea of someone else leading the mission even less.’

  ‘My father would have done it. Doesn’t mean I’m living in his shadow, incidentally, or trying to live up to his achievements. Any more than he was trying to live up to his father’s, or his father’s before that. It’s the ship, Quillon. She demands it of us, makes us rise to the occasion. If I backed out now, I’d be letting down Painted Lady more than anyone else.’

  ‘I’d like to be aboard, if that isn’t a problem.’

  ‘I was planning on insisting on that anyway. You know about zone transitions, and their effects on human and animal physiology. Gambeson’s staff can deal with the routine sick and injured aboard Purple Emperor, and you’ll always be within heliograph range should your opinion be needed. Will Ricasso miss you in his laboratory?’

  ‘Almost certainly, but I think I’ll be of greater value aboard Painted Lady. If Gambeson is feeling a little stronger, he can return to his work in the laboratory.’

  ‘Fine - I’ll leave you to argue the fine points with Ricasso. I’m afraid you’ll be the only medical man on the ship - think you can handle it?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Good. I’m running a tight ship - we’ll be down to the bones, operationally speaking. There’ll be no one aboard who doesn’t need to be.’

  ‘What about Commander Spatha?’

  ‘He’ll be enjoying the crossing from a different vantage point. You have my word.’

  ‘In which case I think Kalis and Nimcha should travel with us, aboard Painted Lady.’

  She frowned slightly. ‘Wouldn’t Purple Emperor be safer? That way they’ll have advance warning if we run into a zone boundary; we’ll have almost none at all.’

  ‘It’s not the zones I’m concerned about,’ Quillon said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Bane was a scuffed margin on the horizon, pale as the foaming, breakered edge of an ocean. As the sun sank, the ebbing light stained the hulls of the airships in fiery shades of brass and copper, catching the hard edges of longitudinal ridges, navigation vanes and stabilising fins. Lights had begun to come on in some of the gondolas and along the pennanted bridges, ladders and ropeways that spanned the gaps between the ships. He watched figures move behind the lit windows, or cross from ship to ship on errands, and detected nothing out of the ordinary - no sense of crisis or disharmony. The picture was one of grand order and continuity, conveying a sense of stolid civic permanence - something that had been around for many centuries and might last even longer. And yet as he watched from the balcony Quillon grasped with renewed force how utterly transient and vulnerable this aerial squadron actually was. The darkening skies were empty of visible enemies for now, but that did not mean they would be untroubled before they reached the questionable sanctuary of Spearpoint. Each and every ship in Swarm was a perilously delicate thing, and the whole was no stronger than any of its constituents.

  By now news of Ricasso’s intentions had reached the entire fleet. His plan was to make the turn towards the Bane in the early hours of the morning and to cross the zone’s former boundary by sunrise. That would give his navigators several hours to assess the nature of the terrain and evaluate its tectomorphic stability. If it was decided that the zone was unstable, then Swarm could still return to the other side of the former boundary without losing too much headway. There had been no show-of-flags, and as yet any disquiet about the decision was simmering rather than overt. Quillon found this lack of obvious dissent more troubling than he had expected.

  Never mind; he would soon be free of the main body of Swarm.

  It suited him well to be assigned to Painted Lady. She would be travelling with more instruments, fuel and weaponry aboard than she normally carried, and the trade-off for that was that she was, perforce, obliged to carry fewer rations and therefore fewer crew. Because of this, Curtana had been at liberty to draw up a rota that excluded anyone she didn’t want aboard.

  Quillon still had unfinished business in Ricasso’s laboratory. He had conducted sufficient tests on the concentrated Serum-15 to know that it could be prepared for use as a general, broad-spectrum antizonal with no serious side effects. But it was not simply a question of diluting it, sucking it into hypodermics and then injecting away. The secretion had to be refined; other reagents had to be mixed into it at trace dosages, and at every stage the quantities involved had to be measured precisely. Looking weeks or months into the future - long after Swarm’s presumed arrival at Spearpoint - Quillon could envisage the development of a method of batch production that would enable medical-grade serum to be produced in useful quantities. But he was not at that point yet, and until he was the preparation of the end-stage serum was intensely laborious, involving several steps where a small error would spoil that entire sample. More than once, he cursed Ricasso for tormenting the vorgs into going beyond Serum-15, when Serum-16 was all but useless except as a stepping stone. Of course Ricasso had his sights set on something better than a mere antizonal, but the social utility of Serum- 15 - a cheap, potentially mass-producible substitute for Morphax-55 - was beyond calculation. Perhaps with time the vorgs could be goaded into making more of the stuff. But for now there was no hope of that, and Swarm would have to make do with what it already had.

  Recognising this, Ricasso and Quillon had agreed that the unprocessed Serum-15 was too valuable to be stored in one place, even aboard an airship as well defended as Purple Emperor. Quillon had therefore divided the flasks up into quantities that could be crated and hidden elsewhere in the fleet, in the trusted care of captains sympathetic to Ricasso’s cause. It was a matter of debate whether or not one of those ships would be Painted Lady. Trust was not the issue there; of course Curtana would protect the drugs as best she could. But if the Bane contained trouble, Painted Lady would be the first ship to encounter it, and so there was a very real risk of losing not only the dirigible but her irreplaceable cargo. Weighed against that were two other factors. Knowing Curtana, Painted Lady would be amongst the first ships to reach Spearpoint - she would not have it any other way - and would therefore be best placed to provide early dispensation of the drug. The medicines could be transferred between ships later, but who knew what complications might ensue once the fleet had cleared the Bane? Better to have at least some Serum-15 aboard her now, Curtana argued, in case Swarm became dispersed or weather conditions prohibited ship-to-ship transfers. And as Quillon pointed out, it would not be too difficult to continue the processing work aboard the smaller ship, if he equipped himself with the necessary potions and glassware before they set off for the Bane.

  It was finally decided that Painted Lady would carry both processed serum, which would need only a single-stage dilution before it was ready for human use, and a quantity of the unrefined material. Quillon would continue his processing work, and by the time they reached Spearpoint, there was every expectation that the unrefined serum would be completely processed. It was risky, certainly, but so were the alternatives.

  But once he was aboard Painted Lady and she had pulled away from Swarm, he’d be stuck there for the duration without access to any chemical or piece of tubing he’d neglected to bring along for the trip. It was imperative, therefore, that he neglect nothing that would be required. Alone in Ricasso’s laboratory, observed by the crouching steel-and-offal forms of the vorgs, he emptied his medical bag to the bottom of its black guts, spread its contents on the bench and began to refill it with the systematic care of a surgeon putting organs back into a patient. Next to the bag was also a wooden, straw-filled crate that would contain the larger glass and ceramic items and any drug-filled vessels too bulky or fragile for the bag. Curtana had provided him with a list of the crew, and because he had already tested each of them individually and had access to their medical histories, he knew th
eir precise antizonal tolerances and therefore the drugs that would serve no purpose aboard Painted Lady, other than to add dead weight.

  It took him an hour to fill the bag and the crate, and as much time again to reflect on his choices. The crate was too cumbersome to manage at the same time as the bag, so he left the bag locked in the laboratory while he carried the crate to the quartermaster who was supervising the loading of Curtana’s airship. ‘Be gentle with it,’ Quillon advised, at the risk of insulting the man’s competence. ‘You’re holding human lives, not just glass and chemicals.’

  ‘Spearpointer lives,’ the man said, as if there was a distinction.

  ‘I’ve cut enough of you open to know we all bleed the same colour,’ Quillon answered.

  Night had fallen when he returned to Purple Emperor′s under-levels. He didn’t relish his visits to the laboratory under any circumstances, but night was his least favourite time. The vorgs never slept. They just waited and watched, and smelled of maggoty, fly-ridden meat that should have been thrown out days ago. At night the space between his bench and the cages seemed to contract, bringing the horrors closer.

  He slid the key into the lock and turned it. Except the key wouldn’t turn, as if he had already unlocked the door.

  With a terrible sense of dread, Quillon pushed the door. For all its heaviness, for all that it was designed to keep in fire and vorgs and keep out the curious and malicious, it swung open with almost insolent ease.

  He had left the laboratory unlocked. For a moment that was all he could focus on. And yet he remembered withdrawing the key on his way out with the crate. He had locked it, hadn’t he? Or had he meant to, and then been distracted by the heaviness of the supplies?

  The lights were still burning. He stepped inside and locked the door properly behind him. From his present vantage point, nothing appeared untoward. The vorgs were still in their cages, and at first glance the serum lines looked undisturbed. Still his heart was racing. He had not always heeded Ricasso’s guidance concerning the axe, and he had neglected to sign for the revolver Ricasso had promised him, but now he walked to the wall and lifted the axe from its mounting. It felt bludgeon-heavy in his hands. It would be difficult enough to hold and carry, let alone swing. With each day his muscular strength ebbed another degree. It was not something he would have needed in the Celestial Levels.

  The room was as quiet as it ever got. There was still the drone of Purple Emperor’s engines, the steady drip from the filtration apparatus, the occasional metallic sound as one of the vorgs stirred in its confinement, the soft click and whirr of the tall cabinet, going about its hidden business. But nothing had altered since his departure. He moved along the cages, getting only as close as he dared. The caged things regarded him with the open chassis-work of their gristle-filled head-assemblies. Camera eyes clicked and whirred and hypodermic fangs telescoped in and out, glistening with ropes and threads of sticky mucus. To his intense relief all was well. He still could not understand why he had not locked the door, but the mistake had not led to anything more serious. Given the rush to prepare Painted Lady, the error had been - if not forgivable - then at least human.

  He returned the axe to the wall and walked to the bench, ready to collect the bag.

  He sensed a dark, stealthy presence at his shoulder. Heard the click of a mechanism and felt cold metal touch his neck. His first thought was absurd: that one of the vorgs had escaped and was now about to sink its fangs into him. But all the cages were still occupied. The moment passed and he realised that what he had heard was a gun’s safety being clicked off, and that the hot breath on his ear was human.

  A voice breathed, ‘Careless, Doctor, leaving that door open.’

  ‘I didn’t, Spatha.’ There was no need to turn around. He knew who he was talking to.

  ‘The door unlocked itself?’

  ‘It must have, if you managed to get in here.’ Quillon swallowed, trying to regulate his breathing. ‘But then again I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You managed to get that book in and out of my bag, and those ridiculous paper angels. It can’t have been difficult for you to make a copy of Ricasso’s key, even though I thought I kept my eye on it all the time.’

  ‘For an intelligent man, you’re not very bright,’ Spatha said. ‘The key was the least of our worries. You think that would have stopped us? We could have found a way into this room any time we desired, with very little difficulty.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you?’

  ‘I’ll leave you to work that one out.’ Spatha jabbed the gun into Quillon’s skin. ‘Here’s a clue, though. If we wanted to sabotage Ricasso’s work, we needed a scapegoat. For a long time there wasn’t one. But then you came along and ... well, it’s all falling into place now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why would I sabotage this work? I’m the one who was pushing to get the medicines to Spearpoint.’

  ‘You’re also an exiled freak who has every reason in the world to hate that place. And a proven liar.’

  ‘Whatever your arguments against Ricasso, this isn’t the way to hurt him. We all need these drugs. He’s doing useful work.’

  ‘I can see you’ve been spending far too much time in his presence.’ Spatha shoved Quillon towards the door. ‘Unlock it. Leave it open. Then come back here.’

  Quillon did as he was told. He knew there was no point in running. Perhaps if he had still been holding the axe he might have been able to do something ... but no, that was just wishful thinking. Spatha would have put a bullet through his skull before he managed to swing the axe.

  He unlocked the door and pulled it open. The corridor - the clear route to the rest of the ship - beckoned.

  ‘Very good, Doctor. Now open one of the vorg cages.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Open a cage. The nearest one will do.’

  It was the vorg that Ricasso had shown to Quillon on his first visit to the laboratory, the one without hindlimbs. The keys were kept on the opposite side of the room, near the axe mounting.

  ‘Whatever you think you’ll achieve here—’

  ‘I won’t say it again. Open the cage.’

  Quillon went to the keys and selected the right one. The axe was close enough to grab, but useless against an adversary standing a dozen paces away with a gun aimed straight at him. He could see the weapon properly now - not a service revolver, but a heavy automatic with a long barrel and an under-slung magazine.

  ‘If you’re going to kill it, you don’t need me to open the cage.’

  ‘Killing it will come later. First it has to do a little damage, cause a little mayhem, just enough to make it plain that it was always a mistake to keep these things aboard ship.’

  ‘The vorg will kill me as soon as I open the cage. Then it’ll kill you.’

  ‘No, it won’t. Not while I’m aiming the gun at both of you, and not while it has a chance to make a break for freedom through that open door. They’re not clever, but they’re not stupid either. Do it, please, Doctor.’

  Quillon looked at Spatha’s weapon and mentally compared it with the heavy machine guns he remembered being used against the vorgs on the ground. Those guns had ripped the vorgs apart but he wasn’t certain that a few bullets from an automatic would have anything like the same impact. All he could do was hope that the vorg would leave quickly, enact the chaos Spatha hoped for and then be killed.

  He opened the cage, allowing the iron door to swing wide. The vorg, which had so often moved within the cage when escape was an impossibility, now appeared quite inert. It was lying down - crouching on its forelimbs, its hindlimbs gone, its segmented tail still present. The secretion line was still embedded in it, running back to the dripping apparatus on the bench.

  ‘Remove it,’ Spatha said. ‘Do whatever you have to do to make it wake up.’

  ‘It’s perfectly awake,’ Quillon said. ‘It’s just working out what to do next.’ He was guessing, of course, but he thought it was a good guess.

  ‘I won’t ask again.’
/>
  Quillon took hold of the secretion line and ripped it from the vorg. The tip of the line sprang out of the metal ribcage, dragging a gobbet of meat with it. The vorg reacted to that. It twitched, a convulsive movement running from its tail to its mechanism-packed snout. At last the blue-taloned foreclaws tensed. The vorg scraped the floor of its cage, and then heaved itself forwards. It reached the horizontal bar under the open doorway of the cage and dragged itself slowly across the threshold, metal scraping against metal, until its abdomen, limbless hindquarters and tail were free of the cage. Then it halted, as if either exhausted or disorientated, or perhaps not quite believing its luck.

  Quillon was still tense, still half-expecting to be shot at any moment, but he no longer considered the vorg to be the threat he had imagined. Forced to crawl on its belly, it was too slow to hurt anyone, provided they stayed out of reach of those foreclaws and snout-mechanisms. Little chance of it causing much mayhem, either. Perhaps the mere fact of its escape would be enough to undermine Ricasso, and to frame Quillon as a saboteur in whom Ricasso had foolishly placed his trust.

  He was wrong about the vorg, though.

  Perhaps its faculties had been dulled by the secretion process, or perhaps the sudden change in circumstances had forced it to truly think for the first time since its capture. Whatever the explanation, it was neither exhaustion nor the limitations of its anatomy that made the vorg move so slowly at first. The vorg did not gather speed; rather it exploded into motion as if a tightly wound spring had just been released. Perhaps the absence of its hindlimbs slowed it to a degree, but from Quillon’s standpoint it was difficult to imagine anything moving faster. The forelimbs worked in a blur, the claws achieving traction against the floor, biomechanical musculature hauling the rest of the creature forwards, the tail coiling and uncoiling behind, adding its own propulsive force. Out of the corner of his eye, Quillon saw the reaction in Spatha’s face: the dawning, stupefied realisation that he had set in motion something he couldn’t control. The vorg rocketed towards them, crashing through benches and equipment, its tail flicking obstacles aside with ostentatious disregard. And then it was on them, or at least ready to strike - Quillon and Spatha with their backs against the wall, Spatha aiming the gun at the looming monster but frozen into inaction, unable to decide whether shooting the vorg would help or hinder their predicament. For a long moment it crouched before them, taut, ready to pounce, its snout-mechanisms clicking and whirring with the anticipation of nourishment. Red and purple things bellowed and pulsed inside the chassis of its metal ribcage. Flies had already caught up with it, buzzing in and out through gaps in its body.