Terminal World

by Alastair Reynolds

  She must have seen his reflection in the window, for he had not announced his arrival.

  ‘I trust everyone’s taken their medicine?’

  ‘Like good little children.’ She lifted the oxygen mask to her face and took a few nourishing breaths. ‘When can we expect the pills to kick in?’

  ‘This is as good as you’re going to feel, I’m afraid. On the plus side, you shouldn’t feel much worse than you do now.’

  ‘I feel like someone’s tightening a vice on my head, while spinning me round and round in a barrel.’

  ‘If you can’t function, I can administer a higher dose. But you’ll pay for it when we cross back over.’

  ‘Pass, in that case. I’m going to need to be sharp all the way into Spearpoint.’ For the first time she looked over her shoulder, only for an instant, before snapping her attention back to the controls and the view in front of her. ‘Kalis and Nimcha - I wasn’t expecting you on the bridge. Wouldn’t you rather be back in your quarters? It’s going to get a little ... tense in here.’

  ‘You mean that I should protect the child from things she might find upsetting?’ Kalis asked.

  ‘You want to put it like that, then yes.’

  ‘You have no idea of the things she has already lived through. This is nothing to her.’

  ‘Fine; stay if you want to, I won’t argue. But keep away from the instruments and windows.’

  The big guns roared, the gondola jolting from the recoil.

  ‘Balloons are loose and rising,’ the periscope operator called at almost the same time. ‘Three, no four, ascending quickly. Skullboys are aboard ... I make it five or six per balloon. Fully armoured air-raiders, strapped to the outside of the basket.’

  ‘Belly turret, concentrate fire on those balloons,’ Curtana said.

  ‘Over-temperature condition on engine three,’ Agraffe said excitedly. ‘All other engines running normally.’

  ‘She’s beginning to cook,’ Curtana said. ‘Feather three to fine pitch. I’m cutting her down to two thousand revs, see if we can make her last a little longer. Deep breaths, everybody. This is where it gets interesting.’

  Agraffe raised a speaking tube to his lips to give the order to alter the propeller pitch, a rarely made adjustment that could only be performed by someone stationed at the end of the outrigger. His voice would be relayed in chains out to the shivering airman.

  ‘Pitch adjusted,’ he reported, ten or twenty seconds later.

  ‘Adjusting trim vanes,’ Curtana said, tugging at stiff, wire-linked levers, the exertion showing in the tendons of her neck. ‘Damn things are so heavy ... here she comes. Nose straight again. Losing some airspeed, but I don’t want to start shedding height just yet.’ She reached for her own speaking tube. ‘Ballast drop, five bags, immediate.’

  Quillon felt the floor lurch up as Painted Lady shed weight, regaining the equilibrium she had lost when her forward speed decreased. Curtana made another precise trim adjustment. For now the craft was flying straight and level again, but everyone on the bridge knew that this was only a temporary state of affairs.

  Quillon sensed the tension as a quivering, gelid presence in the air.

  At least it was daylight, he thought. Visibility was excellent, as good as it had ever been even on the clearest days in the Bane, and every detail of Spearpoint sparkled with hallucinatory clarity, the city breathing like a living thing in the corkscrewing mirage of spiralling thermals. Because it was day - rather than night, when the absence of lights would have been telling - there was very little to suggest that anything catastrophic had happened to Spearpoint. Even though they still had leagues to cross, he felt as if he could reach out and seize their destination, hauling them in across the gap with only his strength.

  ‘Two balloons down with all raiders,’ the periscope man reported. ‘Belly gun maintaining fire. Looks like they’re preparing to release the next line of balloons as soon as we pass over.’ He drew breath, his face still pressed to the hooded eyepiece of his instrument. ‘One more balloon down. Fourth is still rising.’

  ‘Over-temperature condition on one,’ Agraffe said, his voice hollow with dread inevitability. He had the earpiece of his speaking tube pressed to the side of his head.

  ‘Feather her,’ Curtana said. ‘I’ll cut revs again.’

  ‘No use. Fire control engaged. We’ve lost one for good.’

  Quillon looked out of the starboard window and saw the propeller blades winding down, curds of black smoke coiling from the engine slats, almost enveloping the airman who had been tending it. The airman began to negotiate the strut, returning from his vigil. There seemed to be something almost cowardly in the haste with which he had abandoned it, but Quillon reminded himself that the engine had not simply failed, it had ceased, in every sense of the word, to be an engine. Parts that had once fitted with precision tightness would now be welded seamlessly together, as if that was the way they had come out of the forge. The engine could perhaps be made to work again, but only by melting it down and starting from scratch.

  ‘Two and four holding,’ Agraffe reported. ‘Three still running hot.’

  ‘Feather all remaining engines to fine pitch,’ Curtana said. ‘I’ll nurse what I can from them before they turn to scrap on me.’

  ‘Fourth balloon is down,’ said the periscope operator. ‘We’ll be above the second wave in just over a minute.’

  ‘Flash from Cinnabar,’ said Targe. ‘She’s lost an engine. Iron Prominent also reports loss of hydraulic turret control on forward spingun battery. Presently able to effect manual steering, but it’s stiffening up quickly.’

  ‘Tell them to lock at forty-five degrees below horizontal before it seizes on them completely. At least they’ll be able to shoot at something.’ Curtana grabbed her speaking tube again. ‘Ballast drop, ten bags, immediate.’

  The floor lurched up again. Curtana worked levers, still standing rigid, taut with concentration, at the control pedestal. ‘No good. Can’t get enough nose-up trim. We’re descending.’

  ‘Too fast?’ Quillon asked.

  Curtana lowered her head to squint at cross hairs. ‘No, we’re still good for landing, provided we can hold this vector. Wind’s still on our side, even if nothing else is.’

  ‘Is your ship dying?’ Nimcha asked, in exactly the tone a child might have used to enquire about the colour of the sky.

  ‘No,’ Curtana said. ‘She’s just becoming a different kind of ship. No better, no worse. Just different.’

  ‘Then why do you sound like you’re crying?’ Nimcha asked.

  ‘Engine three is dead,’ Agraffe reported.

  ‘Trimming,’ Curtana said, and Quillon heard it in her voice as well, the crack as she tried to hold herself together.

  ‘Second wave is loose and rising,’ the periscope operator said. ‘Ascending just behind us. Wind’s carrying them forwards, but we still have faster ground-speed.’

  ‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’ Quillon asked. ‘If they’ve misjudged their ascent, they can’t possibly get ahead of us.’

  ‘Not what they have in mind,’ Curtana said.

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘Standard Skull attack pattern, Doctor. Rising behind, then swooping down on us with the wind against their backs.’ She grabbed the speaking tube. ‘Belly guns: maintain fire on those balloons. Aim for the bags rather than the baskets, no matter how tempted you are to splatter a few Skullboys.’

  ‘Balloons still can’t touch us, though, can they?’ Quillon asked. ‘I mean, not with everything we have on this ship, the guns, the armour?’

  ‘Pretty soon, Doctor, we’re all going to be ballooning.’ She slammed a lever hard over, biting her lip with the effort of concentration. ‘And pretty soon those guns won’t be worth anything more than their value as ballast.’ She grinned without turning around. ‘But never mind. I like an even fight best of all. Makes the winning all the sweeter.’

  ‘Over-temperature condition on two,’ Agraffe called ou
t.

  ‘Oh, thank you very fucking much.’ She twisted around to inspect the ailing engine. ‘No point even thinking of trying to save that one. Ballast drop! Ten bags, immediate. And tell the crew to start preparing to ditch those dead engines.’

  ‘Two balloons from the second wave down,’ the periscope operator said. ‘Two still rising, but with damage to one of the baskets.’

  ‘Cinnabar and Iron Prominent report further engine failures,’ interjected Targe, compounding Curtana’s anguish.

  ‘I should be over there with them,’ Agraffe said.

  ‘Nothing you could do about it if you were,’ Curtana replied. ‘Tell them to lay down a deflection pattern over those balloons, but to watch their own backs as well.’

  The periscope operator called out, ‘Third balloon wave now lifting under us. Four units, six raiders per basket.’

  ‘How many more lines before we’re clear?’ Curtana asked.

  ‘After this one, three, maybe four, depending on how many decoy positions they have.’

  The spinguns, which had only been fired in short, snarling bursts to keep their barrels warm, were now firing almost continuously. Quillon could hear them, feel them through his bones, but he could only trust that they were firing in a useful direction. The wind was carrying the remnants of the second wave of balloons astern of Painted Lady, so they were all but invisible from the gondola’s bridge. Punctuating the spinguns came the heavy chug of the long-range guns, aimed low to smash the Skullboy emplacements. The shells scooped monstrous craters in the terrain ahead of the airship, but it was clear from their random spread that it was all but impossible to achieve precision hits. The best Curtana could hope for were a few lucky strikes, in the expectation that they might be sufficient to demoralise and scatter the other Skullboys. Quillon wasn’t even sure that Skullboys were capable of being demoralised.

  It was only in the intervals when the spinguns were being reloaded, and the big guns were silent, that he realised how much quieter the airship had become. She was running on one engine now, an engine that had been throttled back from its usual power. The ground was still racing under them, but most of that forward progress was now due to the wind pushing against Painted Lady’s hull. Had Curtana wanted to turn around, she would not have had the power to do so; she would still have been driven towards Spearpoint.

  ‘Second wave is now finished,’ Agraffe reported, relaying observations from the rear of the gondola, since the rising balloons were now out of the periscope operator’s line of sight. ‘Clear hits - they’re both going down with all raiders.’

  ‘And the third wave?’

  ‘Possible strike on one basket; all four units still rising.’

  ‘How the hell can they hit the basket and not the bag?’ Curtana asked, her exasperation breaking through.

  ‘Could have been stray fire from the ground,’ Agraffe replied.

  ‘Fourth wave is rising,’ the periscope operator said. ‘Four units, usual lading.’

  Because it was the only engine he had to listen to, Quillon heard the dying cough of engine four quite distinctly. Agraffe didn’t even bother reporting it this time: he just exchanged a loaded glance with Curtana, both of them knowing that the ship had given them all she could. And then in the intervals between the guns being fired it wasn’t just quiet; it was eerily, beautifully silent. There wasn’t even the nail-scrape of wind against the gondola, the martial drumming of it against the envelope. Painted Lady had been fighting the elements of the sky since the moment she first took to the air; she had now become their willing slave.

  ‘Maintaining descent slope,’ Curtana said, finally relinquishing control of the wheel. It was all but pointless now; she could no more steer Painted Lady than a leaf could navigate its own path down a river. ‘Ballast drop: one bag, every twenty seconds, unless I say otherwise. Gas crews: prepare to vent on my order.’

  The long-range guns roared, but on the second discharge something went audibly, catastrophically wrong. The recoil felt more savage than usual, the sound more ragged and clanging.

  ‘HE shell jammed in barrel!’ Agraffe shouted.

  Curtana inhaled to say something, to swear or exclaim, but on the point of speaking she halted, her mouth open. The moment stretched, second upon second. Quillon looked around, but all he saw were frozen faces slowly melting into anger and frustration rather than the absolute, staring-into-the-void terror that had been there for an instant.

  ‘We’re all right,’ she said, barely raising her voice above a whisper. ‘If it was going to blow—’

  ‘We can’t risk a breech burst from the other gun,’ Agraffe said.

  ‘You’re right - stand it down.’ She hammered the heel of her hand against the control pedestal. ‘Damn; we needed those guns. What I wouldn’t give for a muzzle-loading cannon right now.’

  ‘What just happened?’ Quillon asked.

  ‘Shell jammed,’ Agraffe said. ‘It’s a very tight fit down the barrel. Has to be, or else the combustion gases won’t work efficiently and the rifling won’t give the projectile enough spin. Problem is it just became fractionally too tight. Tolerance shifted, locking the shell in place. Welding it, most probably.’

  ‘Will it go off?’

  ‘Would have, if it was going to. But we can’t chance another; sometimes they do detonate.’

  ‘It was always a risk,’ Curtana said. ‘Just hoped I’d know when to stop using the guns before it happened.’

  ‘Two balloons down from the third wave,’ Agraffe said. ‘Two still rising. One unit from the fourth wave down; three still rising.’

  ‘Fifth wave loose and rising,’ the periscope operator said.

  ‘Four balloons,’ Curtana said. ‘Right, I get it now.’ She snatched up the speaking tube. ‘How are those severance crews coming along? I want those engines ditched and falling inside thirty seconds!’

  ‘You’re cutting the engines away?’ Quillon asked.

  ‘Damn-all use to us now, Doctor. They’re only deadweight, steepening our descent slope. Bit of luck, they’ll squash some Skulls on the way down.’

  ‘Always good to maintain a positive attitude,’ Quillon said.

  The airmen were at work on the ends of the struts, still labouring in their enormous coats, masked and goggled forms all but indistinguishable from each other as they battled with mammoth shears and spanners to unharness the engines. Doubtless the disconnection had been anticipated in their design and installation, the severance made as easy as it could possibly be given the complexities of control and fuel linkages, but it still struck Quillon as desperate work to be doing in the middle of a battle. One blessing was they didn’t have the wind to contend with now. Nonetheless the bravery of the men impressed him with renewed force. They loved Curtana and would do anything for her.

  At least the spinguns were still working. They sounded much louder now, and in the intervals of silence he heard, distantly, the booming of Skullboy artillery and what he guessed to be the remaining weapons of Cinnabar and Iron Prominent. The Skullboys had the advantage that they could still fire heavy guns from the ground, but Painted Lady was still much too high for their shells to touch, and if Curtana held her course she would never fall within range of them. He supposed that they were only firing the guns now to intimidate; to leave Swarm’s citizens in no doubt that the Skullboys owned the ground and the airspace immediately above it.

  ‘Balloon down,’ Agraffe called. ‘Only one left from the third wave now.’

  ‘One more than I’d like,’ Curtana said.

  ‘She’s passing level with us about now. Dorsal and flanking guns should be able to start picking her up,’ Agraffe said.

  ‘All spingun units to continuous fire,’ Curtana shouted into the speaking tube. ‘If you can’t see anything to shoot at, aim at the ground. I want you to run out of ammunition before your guns seize on you. It’s no use afterwards.’

  Quillon turned to the front windows, peering through the narrow armoured slits at Spe
arpoint. Not only was it larger than when he had last looked, it was clear that they had shed at least one shelf turn’s worth of altitude. They were still far above what had once been Circuit City, the air still treacherously thin and cold, but there was no doubt that they were sinking. He had no option but to trust that Curtana had done her calculations correctly, and that their present rate of descent would not slam Painted Lady into the ground short of the city. If that happened, crashing would be the least of their problems.

  ‘Spingun hit on the fourth wave,’ Agraffe said. ‘One down, Captain. Fifth wave still intact.’

  ‘Sixth wave loose and rising,’ the periscope operator said. ‘Reckon that’s it, Captain. Only two balloons in the sixth wave. Cannon must have got the rest.’

  Curtana asked, ‘How many balloons still in the air?’

  ‘Nine in all: six from the fifth and sixth waves, three from the fourth and third waves.’

  ‘So a mere fifty-four Skullboy raiders, assuming none of them took a bullet on the way up.’ A sudden lurch signalled the jettisoning of one of the useless engines. Curtana was still adjusting trim when two more engines dropped off their struts. Freed of tons of dead metal, the airship rebounded upwards. ‘That’ll buy us some time,’ she said, just as the fourth engine was cut free. ‘I don’t mind coming in too shallowly. We can always vent at the last minute and drop hard. But I won’t give those bastards the luxury of picking us off with their howitzers. How are we doing with that last balloon of the third wave?’

  ‘Dorsal gun’s giving it all she’s got,’ Agraffe said.

  Just then there was a terrible, aching silence. Neither the dorsal nor flanking spinguns were firing.

  ‘Please tell me they’re just changing a belt,’ Curtana said.

  One of the guns - Quillon couldn’t tell which - sputtered back into venomous, fire-spitting life. But it was only one gun he was hearing. The gunners had missed their chance, he thought. If they couldn’t hit the rising balloon when it was level with Painted Lady, the task would only get harder as it climbed above them.