Terminal World

by Alastair Reynolds

  The conversation took on a more formal tone as the other officers and airmen filed in. Even Agraffe, who had been posted to Painted Lady at Curtana’s specific insistence, had to maintain appearances. He called Curtana ‘captain’ most of the time, only slipping out her name when his guard was down, and then looking flush-cheeked at the indiscretion, even though none of the other skeleton staffers were in any way annoyed by it. Agraffe, for his own part, appeared completely willing to submit to Curtana’s command; it was, he said, doing him a world of good to get his fingers dirty again, tinkering with engines and instruments, relearning hands-on crafts he had almost forgotten since assuming command of Iron Prominent. Quillon liked the man and was glad he was aboard during the crossing.

  Curtana had seemed awake and energetic during their earlier conversations, but now that he had time to study her discreetly, while she was engaged in discussion with one of the other officers, he noticed how strained she really looked. He wondered if she had slept at all, even if only for a couple of hours.

  There was a knock at the door. One of the watch officers entered, visibly anxious about something. Quillon’s heart sank. What could it be, but an indication from one of the instruments that a transition had been detected?

  ‘What’s the bad news?’ Curtana asked. ‘I thought everything was normal half an hour ago. Please don’t tell me the finches have decided to stop singing.’

  ‘It’s not the finches, Captain, or any of the clocks. Everything’s still giving the same readings we had last night, flat as can be. It’s what’s ahead.’

  ‘The horizon was clear. No mountains or weather systems.’

  ‘It’s not like that, Captain. It’s a thing, an object, lying more or less directly in our path, about fifteen leagues ahead of us. At our present speed we’ll be over it inside the hour.’

  ‘And this thing just popped up in front of us?’

  ‘It was hidden from view. The terrain’s very gentle, but it only took a shallow ridge to block the object until now.’

  ‘All right. What kind of thing are we looking at?’

  ‘You’d better see for yourself, Captain - none of us have a clue what it might be.’

  Curtana stood up from the table, taking the napkin from her lap. ‘Guess I’d better do what the man says.’

  Quillon followed her onto the bridge, where one of the officers was peering through the forward-mounted telescope, the barrel aimed slightly downwards. Quillon could tell where the telescope was aimed since there was a twinkling point of light in the rocky landscape ahead, a few degrees below the horizon. It was too concentrated and bright to be the reflection from water; rather it resembled a mirror or a piece of highly polished metal being held up at them. The light wavered, shimmering like a mirage, but there was nothing to suggest that it was any kind of signal or attempt to communicate.

  ‘Can they see this from Swarm yet?’ Curtana asked.

  ‘Pretty certain they can’t,’ the officer answered. ‘We didn’t notice it until a league back, and we were sweeping the horizon constantly. By the time they get to our present position, the sun angle will have changed as well, so it may not be as prominent. But unless it’s small it’ll be hard to miss if we keep on this heading; whatever it is, we’ll be passing within a league of it.’

  ‘That’s rather a big coincidence, don’t you think? All this empty vastness, and something pops up right in our path?’

  ‘There’s coincidence,’ Meroka said, ‘and then there’s someone jerking our chain.’

  ‘Unless it’s the only one of these things we can see,’ Quillon said quietly. ‘Because of the sun angle, and so forth. It might not be unique, or intended specifically for us. The landscape could be dotted with them, and we just happen to see that one.’

  ‘Whatever it is, I still don’t like it. Book says there’s nothing out here - not a single bacterium. Let me look through the scope.’ Curtana took the eyepiece and made a tiny, finicky adjustment to the focus wheel, squinting with her other eye, her mouth open in expectation.

  ‘Can you make out anything?’ the officer asked.

  ‘Could you?’

  ‘Not much, Captain. Maybe a hint of elongation, but that’s about all. I’d estimate the size to be no more than ten to fifteen spans across. Do you have any idea what it might be?’

  ‘Some kind of machine, or metal structure. Doesn’t seem to be doing anything, or going anywhere.’

  ‘Concur, Captain. Nothing’s changed since we sighted it. Whatever it is, of course, should easily be able to see us by now.’

  ‘If it’s looking.’ She pulled away from the eyepiece and offered the view to Quillon. ‘Take a gander, see if anything leaps out at you.’

  Quillon peered through the telescope, but all he could make out was a kind of bright silvery smudge, dancing and flexing with thermal distortion from the warming landscape. He had no idea how large it might be, except by reference to the graduated scale on the telescope’s cross hairs. But it could clearly not be any kind of city or settlement, for even at this distance a small community would still have spread across a larger apparent area than the bright object.

  Curtana was right. Unless it was some kind of highly reflective geological feature, it could only be a single building, or some kind of machine.

  ‘Has anyone else reported this?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Captain,’ the officer said.

  ‘And have we flashed anyone else about it?’

  The officer shook his head. ‘Thought you ought to see it first, Captain.’

  ‘You were right. But you can alert the other escort ships now, and tell them to keep quiet about it until I say otherwise. I’d like to know if they can see anything we can’t. Also signal Swarm, for Ricasso’s eyes only. Tell him we’ve seen something ahead and are evaluating our response.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Captain. And in the meantime, should we hold this course?’

  ‘Did I say anything about changing it?’

  ‘No, Captain.’

  Ricasso’s response came back within five minutes of the outgoing signal being flashed. Curtana read the transcription with steely impassiveness, then mumbled something under her breath that sounded to Quillon like, ‘Orders are orders.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

  ‘Ricasso’s signalled all the other captains to change course. He’s taking Swarm to the left of the object, while we stay on this heading.’

  ‘Does that mean he’s already gone public about it?’

  ‘No, he’s just hoping none of the captains question his orders and that the citizenry don’t think there’s anything unusual in a course change.’

  ‘Will they notice?’ Quillon asked.

  ‘These people were born in the air. They feel it when the watch changes, let alone when Swarm changes direction deliberately. But they won’t necessarily assume the worst. In the meantime, we’ll stay on this heading, snoop whatever it is, then fall back into position at the head of the fleet.’

  Quillon glanced around the bridge. ‘Might we speak in confidence?’

  ‘It’s a medical matter, I presume?’

  ‘Not unrelated.’

  They retired to Curtana’s quarters, she closing the door behind them then standing against one of the walls, conspicuously not inviting Quillon to take a seat. ‘Better make this quick - I need to supervise our drop in altitude.’

  ‘Then I’ll get straight to the point: it’s about Ricasso. I think he knows something he’s not telling us.’

  ‘About the Bane?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Curtana looked at him guardedly then gave a small nod. ‘I’ve had that feeling ever since he hatched this plan.’

  ‘Then I’m not the only one. I’m not sure if that makes me pleased or worried.’

  ‘I’d go with worried if I were you. But you’re right - he’s hiding something, definitely. Our maps are just big sheets of blank paper, but he knows something, or at least thinks he does.’

  ‘A
bout the thing lying ahead?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. But he gave that order to change course pretty damn quickly, and it was very detailed in the specifics. Almost as if he was half-expecting us to run into something, and already had a scheme worked out.’

  ‘Does that change your stance with regard to his orders?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would,’ Quillon said.

  They returned to the front of the gondola. In the time since he had first seen it, the glint had come visibly nearer, beginning to take on the same extended attribute that had until then only been apparent through the telescope. It was a little less like a mirror, a little more like a large piece of silvery metal tossed onto the landscape.

  Curtana strode to the command pedestal and took control of the airship, her stance - back straight, legs braced apart - communicating authority. ‘We’re descending,’ she announced loudly. ‘We’ll drop altitude to two hundred spans above the surface and resume a level trajectory until I say otherwise. All engines at normal cruise power; all navigational and tectomorphic readings to continue as before.’ She turned sharply to Quillon. ‘There’s no reason to expect any zone transition between here and there, but I’d appreciate it if you could be scrupulously vigilant for symptoms, Doctor.’

  ‘Consider it done.’

  ‘The slightest twitch or hiccough and we’re out of here.’

  ‘For the record, I feel absolutely normal right now, and I see no evidence of illness amongst the crew.’

  ‘And the finches are still singing. All the same, I don’t want to lose a second if we have to turn tail.’

  Heliograph signalling continued unabated, despite the change in disposition of the fleet. Quillon watched Curtana scan the incoming transmissions even more alertly than usual. He learned that Swarm had completed its gentle turn, deviating from its original heading by a mere five degrees - enough that it would miss the object by a comfortable margin. The other escort ships had made the same course change, leaving Painted Lady alone in following the original line. So far there were no reports that the course change had led to any disagreement or consternation amongst the captains and ordinary citizens. If pressed, officers were under instructions to refer to a developing weather system that had been sighted by the forward scouts, around which Swarm needed to steer. The fact that the horizon was still as clear and unbroken by cloud as ever was obviously a detail Ricasso hoped no one would notice.

  The descent to two hundred spans was uneventful. The landscape was so monotonous, so absent of obvious markers for scale, that it was only the airship’s growing shadow that gave any indication that they were lowering at all. Quillon watched it ripple and flow over the rocky surface like some eager fish skimming the ocean bed. The object remained ahead, its form becoming steadily clearer in the telescope. It was a slender metal tube, lying on the ground as if it had been dropped there and then crushed, with smaller pieces surrounding it.

  ‘It’s dead wreckage now, whatever it was,’ Curtana said, taking her eye from the telescope. ‘Still doesn’t explain what it’s doing here, but I don’t think there’s anyone alive in it.’

  ‘If a machine managed to make it into the Bane under its own power, our assumptions about what does and doesn’t work here might need adjustment,’ Quillon said.

  Curtana pulled one of the speaking tubes to her lips and said, ‘Nose-gunner. You see something you don’t like, you have my permission to respond immediately.’

  ‘This wasn’t always the Bane,’ Quillon said quietly. ‘A long time ago, before the last shift, things could have survived here. We might just be seeing ancient wreckage.’

  ‘There’s still weather here,’ Curtana answered, hanging the speaking tube back on its peg. ‘Rain and dust storms. Lightning. Maybe I’m wrong, but I figure something that’s been here for five thousand years ought to look a little less shiny.’ Then she turned to one of the other officers. ‘Range and status?’

  ‘Two leagues, Captain. All clocks and gauges normal; all mechanical systems functioning well. Finches still singing.’

  ‘Thank you. Maintain present speed and altitude.’

  Quillon felt his nervousness rise by slow degrees as the two leagues of unremittingly bleak landscape crawled underneath. He had reviewed the possibilities many times since learning of the glint, and each time he had come to the conclusion that there could be nothing harmful out there. And yet his fears lingered. The mere existence of something in this long-dead place was profoundly anomalous. There was no reason to assume that logic and reason had any further say in the matter.

  When they were less than a league out, Curtana surprised him by ordering the airship to descend half the remaining distance to the ground. As Painted Lady sank even lower, he wondered whether Curtana was making a clear-headed tactical decision, a rational response to improved data, or whether her ingrained fear of the Bane was compelling her to act in a bold or even cavalier fashion. But even when Painted Lady had reached its new cruising height, there was no change in the status of the object. At a range of half a league, its nature was now clear even to the naked eye. The cylinder was flared at one end and tapered at the other, and the broken things around it had the blade-like sharpness of wings, or the shattered pieces of wings.

  The object must once have been a flying machine, or a missile.

  ‘It could have come from outside, maybe,’ he said. ‘Like a stone lobbed into water.’

  ‘Nothing could have flown this far into the Bane,’ Curtana said. ‘Even if the adjoining zones allowed someone to make a heavier-than-air flying machine with a range of more than a few leagues, it would never have got this far inside. The pilot would have died as soon as it crossed the Deadening. Everything else would have stopped working soon after.’

  ‘Could something have glided in, even if every mechanical system was dead, and the pilot incapacitated?’

  ‘Maybe, if that looked like a glider, which it doesn’t.’

  ‘You think it’s a rocket, or a jet.’

  ‘Either of which didn’t get this far by gliding, or coming in ballistically.’

  ‘I’m inclined to agree. Which really leaves only one possibility, as I see it. That it came from somewhere inside the Bane, not from outside.’

  ‘Range to object now one-quarter league,’ called the officer.

  ‘All engines to dead slow and reduce altitude to fifty spans. We’re going to get this close anyway, may as well make it count.’

  The next six minutes dragged excruciatingly. Even when they were almost on top of the fallen machine, he still could not entirely shake the feeling that it was about to lash out at Painted Lady, spearing her out of the sky in some fierce demonstration of concealed potency.

  When they were directly overhead, there was still no response. Cameras clicked. Machine guns tracked from their bubble-turrets, aimed straight down. Seen from above, the object had clearly been an aircraft of some kind. The wings had sheared off and shattered, but their elegant, swept-back form was still evident. And there was a dark porthole in the visible side of the hull which seemed to imply the presence of a pilot or crew when the machine had flown.

  ‘Flash Ricasso,’ Curtana called to her signals officer. ‘Tell him it’s just a wreck. The position’s logged, so someone can come back and have a better look after we’ve reached Spearpoint.’

  In a low voice Quillon said, ‘There could be things inside that wreck that Swarm can use.’

  ‘We’re not stopping. The objective was to short-cut our way back to your city, not stop off at every point of interest along the way. Unless Ricasso’s got other ideas.’

  But when Ricasso’s reply came back he had no such requests. He thanked Curtana for diverting her ship, and requested that the undeveloped photographic plates be conveyed to Purple Emperor at the earliest opportunity, for his inspection.

  An hour later, Painted Lady had resumed her position at the head of the fleet, which was now moving parallel to its earlier heading. So
far as Quillon could tell, no significance had been attached to the course change, the citizens neither more nor less alarmed and agitated than they had been before noon. As the sun went down, and normal conditions continued, Quillon even sensed an easing in the onboard tension. The birds had fallen silent, but that was only because they were sleeping. The instruments in the chart room recorded nothing of concern. The engines droned a steady, melodic song, like a well-schooled choir. Quillon read through the medical summaries flashed through from Swarm - terse to the point of cryptograms, given that they needed to be laboriously encoded and decoded - and concluded that there were no more than the expected number of citizens reporting symptoms of zone sickness, all of which could be safely assumed to be phantom cases. Aboard Painted Lady, the crew were still healthy, their collective morale restored by the uneventful passage over the mysterious wreck. As he dined with the others (Kalis joined them, having left Nimcha asleep) he felt some of that ease rub off on him as well, glad to have his rational instincts confirmed. The question of who had launched that ill-fated machine was one for another expedition, in which Quillon would be happy to decline participation.

  He slept well, and woke refreshed. He felt no ill effects: quite the contrary, in fact, since he was alert and curious as to what the day would bring. He washed and groomed himself, dressed and made his way to the front of the gondola. The crew and their polished instruments were bathed in the golden light of the early sun.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said.

  No one answered, not even Curtana, who had her back to him. She was leaning against one of the windows, while another of her officers sighted through the telescope. Another was busy with the heliograph, sending a long and evidently complicated transmission. It was only then that Quillon noticed that the usual drone of the engines had been replaced by a quiet purr. The crew were intense and focused, as if engaged in a silent battle, one that required absolute concentration and the readiness to act with deadly speed. Even Meroka was there, looking through binoculars, seemingly fixated on a steep-sided mountain looming on the horizon, its base sliced through with a line of atmospheric haze.