Terminal World

by Alastair Reynolds

  He held up his own bandage mittens. ‘You know I’d be doing this, if I could still pull a lever.’

  ‘You can’t, and I can.’

  ‘Sky Princess has made her point,’ Meroka said, buttoning the coat she had donated for use as Quillon’s pillow. ‘And it’s a good one. No damn doubt about it. But I’ve got two hands, which kind of settles the argument.’

  ‘You’ve never flown a balloon before,’ Curtana said.

  ‘No. But like you said, it goes up or down. Reckon I can get my head around that, if I try really hard. And there’s another point, one that won’t mean much to you but means a hell of a lot to me.’

  ‘Which is?’ Agraffe asked.

  ‘Quillon’s still my package. I do the delivering around here.’ She finished putting on the coat, pausing only to draw the collar higher around her neck. ‘Now show me how to work those God-damned levers, before I have to get argumentative about it.’

  Agraffe looked at Curtana. ‘If it’s a choice between sending Meroka and sending you, you know which side I’m going to come down on. No offence, Meroka.’

  ‘None fucking taken. You carry on.’

  ‘She only needs to know how to slow her ascent, when she reaches the Levels. If the angels are there to meet her, they’ll find a way to bring her in. And if they’re not, she can turn off the burner and drop down again.’

  ‘And hope she hits the civilised part of Spearpoint, not the part still occupied by Skulls,’ Curtana said.

  ‘Same risk would apply to you,’ Agraffe pointed out.

  ‘Yeah, and at least I’m prepared for it,’ Meroka said, patting her coat, metal chinking through the leather. ‘But, you know, it’s not coming to that. If the good angels aren’t yanking our chains, I’ll bring Cutter to them. Just make sure they know we’re on our way.’

  Kalis nodded at Curtana. ‘Let her do this. It is her wish. She has travelled far with Cutter. Let her continue the journey.’

  Malkin walked over to Meroka and drew a revolver out of his pocket. He passed it butt-first to Meroka and reached out his own hand to close hers around the grip. ‘Take this. Used to belong to Fray, when he was in the force. Then it became mine. Never let me down when push came to shove. If it comes to it, take out a few of them flutter-winged bastards for me.’

  ‘If it comes to it,’ Meroka said, ‘I’ll be aiming to take out more than just a few.’ But she took the gun and slipped it into one of her own coat pockets, where it would be ready for immediate use.

  ‘Pulls a little to the left,’ Malkin said.

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ She gave a heavy shrug under the coat. ‘You ready to show me how to fly this thing, Curtana? ‘Cause if you don’t, I’m taking it anyway. We don’t want to keep Quillon waiting much longer.’

  Curtana helped Meroka into the cabin, jabbing a finger at the very few salient points of interest, while Meroka buckled herself in for the ascent. ‘Altimeter. Firesap burner. Ballast drop. Gas release - go easy on that, because you’ll sink faster than you can get hot air back into the envelope.’

  ‘I’ll figure it out.’

  ‘The cabin’s pressurised, but you’ll only have two hours of breathable air. Admission valve is here, but don’t even think of opening it unless you’re below at least Circuit City.’

  ‘I guess what we’re saying here is, the angels better be on our side up there. Or Quillon and I are both screwed.’

  ‘If we don’t have friends up there,’ Curtana said, ‘I think that goes for most of us. You’ll just be the first to find out.’

  ‘Seal me in. Got me a sudden hankering to do some ballooning.’

  ‘Good luck, Meroka.’

  ‘Same to you, Sky Princess. Hope they give you another blimp. You’ve earned it.’

  Curtana’s eyes met Meroka’s; there was an unspoken exchange between them, and then she closed the door and motioned for Meroka to work the internal latch.

  Curtana stepped back. While they had been talking, the team had achieved inflation of the balloon. It was straining to lift the cabin off the roof, into the wild heights above. She realised she had forgotten to demonstrate the release catch to Meroka. She pointed through the glass at the heavy lever to Meroka’s right. Meroka nodded and reached down to work the control. And then, with a swiftness that always startled Curtana, for all the balloon deployments she had witnessed, the cabin was rising. Perhaps it was her imagination, but it seemed to her that Quillon stirred from unconsciousness at precisely the moment of release, coming to wakefulness long enough to take in his surroundings and find Curtana beyond the glass, watching as he ascended. And then he was gone, as the balloon rose and took its occupants out of view.

  ‘Come back,’ she whispered. ‘We could use you.’

  She was still craning to follow the balloon’s progress when Agraffe joined her and wrapped his arm around her side, taking care not to apply pressure to any of her bandages. ‘She’s in the thermals,’ he said, cupping a hand over his eyes. ‘Non-stop all the way to the Celestial Levels.’

  Someone fired a single desultory shot; it clanged uselessly off the underside of the cabin.

  ‘I wonder if we’ll ever see either of them again,’ Curtana wondered.

  ‘We couldn’t have left Quillon in safer hands. You know that. And at least he has a chance now.’

  ‘It could have been me up there, not Meroka.’

  ‘Like she said, Quillon was her responsibility, not yours. Anyway, you and I have more than enough to be getting on with here. We have to signal Ricasso, so he can let the angels know what’s coming up to them. And find out what his plans are.’

  ‘He’ll be sorry he didn’t get a chance to talk to Quillon again.’

  ‘Maybe he will,’ Agraffe said. ‘That’s the thing. Nothing’s certain now. The only thing I’m sure of - if that isn’t a contradiction - is that nothing is going to be the same. I mean, look at us - we grew up in Swarm, educated from birth to spit on the memory of this place. And now we’ve risked our lives to get here and damn it all if I don’t want to see it survive.’ He was, despite everything, quite unable not to grin. ‘Maybe Swarm’s finished, at least the one we knew. But if that’s the case then Spearpoint isn’t going to be the same either. I want it to make it through this - somehow I know it will - but I also know it’s going to come out the other end different.’

  ‘Why stop at Spearpoint?’ Curtana said. ‘If Nimcha and the rest do their work, the world itself won’t be the same. And if the world changes, so does that.’

  ‘What?’ Agraffe asked.

  She was pointing at the sky, but not at the balloon, which had climbed so rapidly that it was now little more than a tiny brassy speck against the sheer, ever-climbing face of Spearpoint. She wasn’t even pointing at the Celestial Levels, where the balloon was headed.

  She was pointing into the empty, angel-less heavens beyond.

  Everything else. The universe.