Terminal World

by Alastair Reynolds

  ‘The door into what?’ Fray persisted. ‘What door?’

  ‘It had been thousands of years. Our measurements told us it had restabilised, the annealing complete, that the tract could once again be opened for passage. But the measurements were flawed. Our data was incomplete, our interpretation incorrect. Our decision was ... disastrous. It brought calamity to Earthgate, this ancient, once-dead world. If Earth itself was spared, then that is a blessing we did not deserve. Our hubris knew no bounds. Our misjudgement brought death to this planet and shame to our birth-guild.’

  Fray, shaking with the effort of holding himself together, glanced back at Quillon. ‘This making any sense to you, Cutter?’

  ‘I think she’s telling us that they made a mistake, and it let the Eye of God break through.’

  ‘Some fucking mistake.’

  ‘I think she’s also telling us that the people who were in charge of running this thing were born into it. Like a family business, I suppose.’ Quillon smiled. ‘I wish Ricasso was here. He’d have known what to ask.’

  ‘Ten thousand years ... ten thousand Earth years ... have passed since the intrusion,’ the woman said. ‘For much of that time, all we could do was maintain the merest thread of functionality, in readiness for the time when the repair could begin. Now it has begun. The tract has undergone changes, utterly beyond our control. It has begun to recover integrity, exactly as our flawed measurements led us to believe all those thousands of years ago. We take no credit for this: how could we? But these changes have had repercussions all the way back through the network. At last, damping and containment devices have begun to reactivate and provide a measure of control. The possibility of repair is now within our grasp. The incursion may be undone, and the network made passable once more. Earthgate may be reopened for passage. But this work requires subtle guidance.’

  ‘It requires, in other words, tectomancers,’ Quillon said.

  ‘You’re ahead of me, Cutter,’ Fray said. ‘What the hell is Earthgate, anyway? Why doesn’t she just say “Earth” and be done with it?’

  ‘I don’t know. And I don’t know what she means when she says Earth was spared, either. I don’t suppose it matters much right now: we’ve come here once; we can always return, with more questions. For now this is about Nimcha, and what she’s meant to do.’

  ‘Which is?’ Fray asked.

  ‘Be like this woman. She’s another tectomancer - or at least she was, once upon a time. Like Nimcha, she was born for this work, given the right machinery in her head to enable her to talk to ... whatever it is she - they - were meant to control. The network, whatever that was. But something went wrong, and they either died out or were scattered to the four winds.’

  ‘Until another one showed up. Right?’

  ‘Right. And now Nimcha must take her place, or the strain of resisting it’s going to kill her.’ He looked at the girl apologetically, but there was no escaping the truth of it, and he was sure she was no less aware of that now than he was. ‘It’s what she was born to do, Fray. To put this mess right.’

  ‘You mean ... get into that thing?’

  ‘This must happen,’ the woman in the machine said. ‘She has come, as the others came. She is not the first. She will not be the last. More will come, now that the calling grows stronger. More will come and then the healing will be guided, and the mistake will be undone.’

  ‘I am her mother,’ Kalis said. ‘I want only to see my daughter made well again.’

  ‘There’s only one way that’s going to happen,’ Quillon said, anxious to comfort her however he could, but knowing that nothing he said or did would make this any easier. ‘She has to take her place. Until she does, the conflict will continue to eat her up inside.’

  Kalis looked at her daughter, then at the vacant sarcophagi, one of which was surely waiting for her.

  ‘Can I sleep with her?’

  ‘No,’ the woman in the machine said. ‘Only those who carry the mark may enter the composite.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It would be harmful to you. You are not equipped. And the space you would occupy must eventually be taken by another.’

  ‘How long?’ Quillon asked. ‘If she joins you, if Nimcha assumes her place in the composite, how long will it take before the work ... the healing ... is done?’

  ‘I cannot say. But the work will be difficult until the composite is complete.’

  He looked at Kalis, then Nimcha. ‘The choice has to be yours. You can’t be forced into this. But I’ve stated my medical opinion: it’s this or death, Nimcha. Nothing in my medical bag can stop what’s happening to you.’ He gestured at the wheel of waiting sarcophagi. ‘That can. And perhaps it doesn’t have to be for as long as we fear.’

  ‘You do not know this,’ Kalis said.

  ‘No, I don’t. And I can’t make any promises. But things have been happening quicker lately and that has to be a sign. You’ve already made a difference, Nimcha, just by existing. Spearpoint felt and responded to you long before you got here, so imagine what you’re going to be able to do once you’re part of it. You’ve moved zones already, Nimcha. I shudder to think what else you’re capable of.’

  ‘But the others must come,’ Kalis said. ‘It told us.’

  Quillon nodded again. ‘So we’ll make it easier. We’ll go looking for them. Swarm - what’s left of Swarm - needs a new purpose now. What could be better than scouring the Earth looking for other tectomancers? Chasing after them not because they’re witches, something to be feared, but because they’re the most precious, vital people alive?’

  ‘Cutter’s right,’ Fray said. ‘It’s the way it has to be. And you have to go back out there and help Cutter do this. You know what it’s like to bring up a tectomancer - such knowledge will be invaluable.’

  ‘I will not leave my daughter alone.’

  ‘She won’t be alone.’ Fray made an effort to stand up straight, without leaning on his knee for support. ‘I’ll stay down here. Not much chance of me surviving that return trip, anyway, so I’m not making much of a sacrifice. But I’ll be here, for as long as I’m able.’

  Until you die, Quillon thought. But even Fray wasn’t able to state his prospects that bluntly.

  ‘You don’t have anything,’ Quillon said. ‘I can give you my medicine bag, what’s in it, but even then—’

  ‘I’ll make do. I’ve dealt with Juggernaut before, remember? Juggernaut can find me food and water, and probably just about anything else I care to name. Main thing is, I can stay alive down here, and I’ll be with Nimcha. That’s my promise to you, Kalis. I know it won’t make this much easier for you, but at least you won’t be leaving Nimcha on her own down here. I’ll be watching over her.’

  ‘You would do this?’

  ‘Part of me would like nothing better than to rip Tulwar’s steam supply out of his backside and watch him keel over. But that’s not really an option, I’m afraid. Best leave that kind of thing to Meroka and Malkin. They won’t let me down, I’m sure of that.’

  ‘They won’t,’ Quillon said.

  Fray’s tone turned cautionary. ‘Same goes for you, Cutter. Know it won’t be easy for you, back on the outside. But you’ve survived until now, so I figure you must have learned a thing or two from me. What we just talked about, finding the other ones like Nimcha? Don’t let me down on this, all right? Scour the planet for them, as if they’re precious jewels, and bring them back to Spearpoint. You know the drill now.’ He raised a finger. ‘And remember, you’re doing this as much for Kalis as you are for me. Sooner they fix this mess, whatever it is, sooner she gets her daughter back.’

  ‘We’ll find them. You have my word on it.’

  ‘We never did break our word to each other, did we? Guess now wouldn’t be the time to start.’

  ‘Definitely not,’ Quillon said.

  ‘Nimcha,’ Fray said, beckoning her to come over to him. ‘Say goodbye to your mother now. You and I have work to do.’ And he wrapped his powerful arm a
round her shoulders, and for a moment, only a moment, the shaking was gone and he looked to Quillon like the strongest friend he could ever have known.

  They left the Hall of the Mad Machines, Juggernaut taking Quillon and Kalis back to the vault where they had first encountered it. Kalis was numb and silent during the return journey, still reeling from having to part with her daughter. The more he reflected on events, the more certain Quillon became that there had been no other option, and that Kalis also knew this to be true. It was a course she had been on since they had arrived in Swarm, perhaps for even longer than that, and she must always have known that the end would be harrowing. Yet he kept telling himself that it could have been worse. It had been a separation, not death, and in that there was always hope. If they had not yet saved Spearpoint, they had started a process that might lead to something close to salvation, and perhaps the opening of great doors that had been closed longer than history remembered.

  ‘We will return,’ he told her. ‘We’ll find the others, and we’ll bring them here. You’ll see Nimcha again.’

  ‘Do not make promises you cannot keep, Quillon.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘Not now, not ever.’

  She nodded, not so much because she believed him, he sensed, but because she wanted to, and that was better than nothing.

  Fray had given him his set of keys when they parted, so that Quillon would be able to pass through the tunnel system’s doors on his way out, but he had been able to give Quillon only the sketchiest of indications as to how he might find his way to the other exit, the one that Meroka and Malkin had been headed towards. He was gloomily resigned to getting lost, even with Kalis to share the burden of interpreting Fray’s instructions. But he need not have worried.

  ‘Figured I’d wait a while,’ Meroka said. ‘Just in case you decided you hadn’t had enough of me for one lifetime.’

  Quillon laughed. He was delighted to see her. It felt like centuries since Juggernaut had carried him away. ‘Where’s Malkin?’

  ‘Sent him on ahead. It won’t make much difference, and it’ll give him time to load up the guns. Probably going to need them.’ She paused. ‘Um ... can’t help noticing there’s only two of you.’

  ‘Fray and Nimcha decided to stay a while,’ Quillon said.

  He didn’t need to say anything else. Meroka looked at him, and she understood.

  ‘Did it work out?’

  ‘I think so, but we won’t know for sure for some time.’ He was holding Kalis’s hand, he realised. ‘Which is good. We still need to get that Serum- 15 delivered and distributed. If the Mire closed now, it would be worse than the storm. But I don’t think it’s going to happen for a little while. We have time to prepare, time to get stronger.’

  ‘We have work to do,’ Kalis said, speaking clearly, strongly, echoing Fray’s words to Nimcha. ‘All of us.’

  As they emerged from the concealed tunnel entrance, near the silent, tomblike mass of the Second District Gas and Electric substation, the air snapped against Quillon’s skin like a flap of airship canvas and he knew that the wind direction had not changed since the day before. It was, astonishingly, not long after noon. The streets were empty, but from only a few blocks away, and perhaps a little further down the gentle slope of the ledge, came a brief exchange of gunfire. The fighting was still going on. Quillon didn’t know if this was a part of the city controlled by the angels, or by Tulwar’s militia. In a little while, he fervently hoped, it would make very little difference.

  ‘I can get us to the bathhouse,’ Meroka said. ‘I know enough rat runs and back alleys to avoid most of the heat. Not saying it’ll be easy, but I think I can get us there.’

  ‘Think you should send that signal first?’ Quillon asked.

  ‘Let’s be optimistic and assume we’ll do it later. Nice view from the roof of the bathhouse, so I gather.’

  ‘Hope you weren’t planning to shoot your way inside when you arrive, because I don’t think you’ll get much further than the hatstand.’

  ‘Even Fray wouldn’t be that rash,’ Meroka said. ‘Besides, plenty of people in there we don’t want to hit if we can help it.’

  ‘So we just ... stroll up, and ask to be let in? Pretty please? With Tulwar crossing his fingers we’re already dead?’

  ‘No,’ Quillon said. ‘We don’t need to do that. If we’re lucky, and they haven’t finished with Iron Prominent, there’s still a way we can get right inside.’

  Malkin narrowed his eyes. ‘Run that by me one more time, Cutter.’

  So he did, and when he was done they had a plan. What pleased him most of all was that Meroka said it was a good one.

  ‘Put them down there,’ Tulwar told his men, as they sweated and grunted under the burden of the crates. There were three in all: the last of the supplies to be recovered from the spilled cargo of the airship, whatever it was called. Until the other ships arrived - if the other ships arrived, he corrected himself - this would be the last batch of good medicine to reach Spearpoint. Looking through the steam-filled room at the buckled and crushed crates, he wondered how much could have reasonably survived. The medicine had its uses - you couldn’t control the city without it, on some level - but it was very much a case of less is more, as far as Tulwar was concerned. He was surprised at how easily Quillon and the others had believed his story about wanting to inspect the crates personally, to make sure none of the flasks had been contaminated or tampered with by the Skullboys down on the lower level. Fact was, the purity of the medicine was not exactly central in his concerns. He was much more anxious to make sure that not too much of it got out there in one go. Yes, his militia needed it to help them in their push against the Skulls. But there was no reason why the rest of it had to be recklessly squandered on the sick and needy. They’d get it in good time, when it suited his requirements, not theirs. For the moment he was intent on stockpiling good flasks here in the bathhouse, until such time as he felt it expedient to dispense them. The airship spilling its guts - making it hard for the Swarmers to track the crates and their cargo - had been the kind of fateful intervention he could never have planned for. Sometimes life just played out like that. For all that had happened to him - for all that half of what made him human had been ripped away - he still considered himself an unusually lucky man. But then you made your own luck. That was the part that Fray had never got, the hopeless fool.

  ‘You can leave now,’ he told the men. ‘And tell the stoker to come back in twenty minutes.’

  ‘You can last until then?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Pressure’s fine. I can last.’

  When the heavy doors were closed he moved to the first crate. The umbilical tightened and he felt the calliope creep along behind him. He glanced at the quivering needles in his belly gauges. The music had been playing so repetitively that he was scarcely aware of it now. If he ever got silence again it would be silence filled with the cavernous holes where the music used to fit.

  He levered the lid off the first crate, leaned in to dig through the padding of straw until his wooden hand touched glass. He pulled out a flask, observed the clear fluid filling it nearly to the stopper. Lives in the palm of his hand, quite literally. He moved to place the flask to one side - he would decide later whether to send it out or stockpile it - but some impulse gripped him and he opted instead to smash the flask against the side of the crate. The medicine treacled through the hinge-points of his wooden fingers. He couldn’t say that it had felt good to destroy the Serum-15, but it had certainly felt significant.

  Something came out of the straw.

  He didn’t have time to react, only to register the fact that it was happening. He had not even begun to take a step back when the figure uncurled to its full height, still covered head to toe in straw, but recognisable, very recognisable.

  ‘Figured there was some unfinished business,’ Meroka said.

  She already had a gun aimed at him. She fired it point blank into one of his steam-pressure dials. Then she
fired again, and again, directing each shot into a different part of him. Tulwar staggered back, the umbilical sagging behind him. A jet of hot white vapour speared out of his belly, only adding more steam to the room.

  ‘Those first three were for Fray,’ Meroka said, stepping out of the crate, flinging open her coat, discarding one gun and drawing another. ‘The rest’re on me.’ She aimed something heavy and black and semi-automatic and opened up on him. Now he was geysering steam in six or seven directions, squealing like a kettle on the boil. He raised his wooden arm against her and she turned it into a splintered, fingerless stump. Tulwar collapsed back onto the thick tail of his umbilical.

  The double doors opened. From his vantage point he made out two or three of his men coming back into the room, drawn by the ruction. His eyes were watering and he couldn’t make them out clearly. One of them was trying to bat the steam away from his face. Another pointed a gun barrel vaguely in his direction, and then swung it onto Meroka.

  ‘Shoot!’ Tulwar cried.

  The man - he didn’t even know his name, couldn’t recognise his face either - only had time to fire off one shot before Meroka took care of him and whoever else had come through the door. The bodies - there were three, he was sure of it now - slumped to the ground, their guns clattering as they hit the hard wooden flooring.

  ‘Fray’s dead,’ he said, the words coming out wet and bloody, something bubbling down in his windpipe.

  ‘No,’ Meroka answered, pausing to change a magazine. ‘Fray’s just doing some babysitting. The last time I saw him he was just fine. Ain’t that a bummer? Exactly the news you don’t want to hear on your deathbed.’

  She strolled to the doors, kicked them shut again and made a point of securing the internal lock. Then she started shooting him again, concentrating on his legs this time.

  There was a splinter in one eye and spitting steam in the other, each as painful as the other, but he still had enough vision to see the other crates opening up, the figures coming out. Two thin men, both of whom he knew, neither of whom he’d expected to see alive again. Malkin was one; Quillon the other.