Creation Machine (37 page)

They had landed in a Keep Net. Moments later it rippled and shuddered as it wrapped itself round Garamende’s bulk.

The slowly receding Sky Post was still in Alameche’s field of vision. It moved queasily, so that at first he thought his head was swimming. He felt himself getting ready to retch. Then his inner ear corrected him. It was the Sky Post that was moving. With flames now licking up out of the column of smoke the stand fell, canting over to one side in eerie slow motion as it dragged the distended canopy of balloons with it. The last thing he saw was the hall, sliding off the platform and tumbling away. The dots that followed it could have been bodies.

The world inside Alameche’s head contained no frame of reference for time. He could only measure the journey back to the artefact as a drawn-out hell, full of shuddering pain.

The Patriarch’s guards were waiting for them. They seemed unsurprised when their charge didn’t return, simply falling in wordlessly behind Garamende as he rolled off the net, hauled himself upright and strode off. The androgynes fell in behind the guards, trotting with Alameche suspended between them on needles of agony. He kept his eyes shut.

The motion stopped, and he heard a voice. ‘Ah. Things seem to have transpired. May I take it that there has been a terrible accident?’

It was a familiar voice. Alameche opened his eyes and found himself looking at Eskjog.

Garamende replied. ‘Quite terrible,’ he said. ‘We are the only survivors, and, as you can see, My Lord Alameche is injured. I am very afraid he will not recover.’

‘What a shame. I’m sure there will be . . .’ Eskjog paused, ‘some mourners.’

Alameche felt his terror rising. ‘No,’ he managed, ‘I will—’ Then he felt an appalling tearing in his side. One of the androgynes had dragged its nails out of his flesh. The next moment it hovered in front of his face. He had time to scream just once before it clawed out his left eye.

His stomach rose and he vomited acid through a scream. Through a growing haze he heard Garamende’s voice. ‘Be quiet or lose the other one.’

He managed to be quiet. Something hot was trickling down his cheek.

Eskjog spoke as if nothing had happened. ‘Should I let it be known that you will unwillingly but dutifully step in until a new government can be formed?’

‘Please do. And please stop talking like a fucking dictionary. Alameche may have liked it; I don’t.’

‘I’ll do my best. Do you want to visit the artefact?’

‘Of course.’ Garamende turned to glance over his shoulder. ‘Pets? Bring him. If he causes any trouble, don’t do anything to the other eye. Tear one of his balls off, or something. His dick, maybe. If you can find it.’

The androgynes giggled.

They propped him upright, his arms and legs stretched into a taut X-shape, his ankles and wrists transfixed by those same lengthened fingernails. They had split his bones like rotten wood. He could feel hot blood cooling as it trickled down his arms and dripped from his feet. He would have screamed with every breath, except that the way his arms were stretched above his head prevented his ribcage expanding enough to get the air.

In front of him, the slim anonymous ovoid of the artefact lay on a simple cradle, two-dimensional through his one eye. Robbed of parallax vision, his brain made constant changes to the perceived size of the thing, so that it seemed to swell and shrink as he watched.

Also swelling and shrinking in front of it was Garamende. He stared at it for a long time, shaking his head slowly. ‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘it doesn’t look much. Are you sure it can do what you suspect?’

‘Well, I’m sure it could once. Perhaps it can again, although the implications of the fact that it apparently fell out of orbit and crashed into a nuclear reactor seem to have escaped people. A certain amount of damage is possible, wouldn’t you say? But whether it was damaged or not turned out to be irrelevant, and who knew what you were starting when you smuggled out the story? And frankly, who would have thought you were so clever? Even I didn’t suspect you at first, and I’d still love to know who helped you.’

‘Why should I have needed any help?’ Even through the mists of pain Alameche thought Garamende sounded defensive.

‘Because whether you realize it or not, you couldn’t have done it alone. The sim wouldn’t have let you – you must have had some cooperation from someone who knew the territory. Should I take it you
didn’t
realize?’

Garamende didn’t reply.

‘How interesting. I think you should assume that whoever it was might come calling when they can see how things have turned out.’ Eskjog drifted into Alameche’s field of view. ‘As for that thing, what it can certainly do is make people think. Witness the fleet above our heads which, you will be glad to hear, has dispersed somewhat since I sent out your news.’

‘Good.’ Garamende puffed out his cheeks. ‘What do we do now?’

‘Form a government. Begin to talk. Decide what terms you can best drive, using this thing as a bargaining chip. Your long game has succeeded, Garamende. Now capitalize on it.’

‘All right.’ Garamende looked at Eskjog. ‘How much can you help?’

‘As much as . . . wait.’ The little machine fell silent for a moment. Then it rose abruptly until it was just above head height. ‘Alert! There has been a development.’

Garamende stared at it, the expression on his face so comical that under any other circumstances Alameche would have laughed out loud. ‘Well,’ he demanded eventually. ‘What is it?’

‘Data.’ Eskjog swivelled quickly from side to side. ‘Highpower signal, old-fashioned radio, and very
very
data-dense. Many petabytes of information, broadcast from orbit. The target was here.’

It fell silent again, but still swivelled from side to side as if looking for something.

Then Alameche felt it. Through the hypersensitive instruments of his speared wrists and ankles, a vibration, soft and insistent like a saw through the smallest bone. He saw Garamende looking round, his eyes wide. The big man’s voice was high and hoarse. ‘Can you feel that? Can you?’

‘The vibration? Yes.’ Eskjog swivelled, spun, stopped. ‘The source is the artefact. I—’

Then it was gone. Dust drifted down from a fresh hole in the roof; from above came the sound of a sonic boom.

The vibration grew stronger, deepening until it was like the final chord of a great requiem. In defiance of his ribs Alameche’s body tried to laugh, the remaining breath wheezing out of his body in hoarse sobs that cruelly drained his lungs. He was still laughing when the simple white ovoid grew and flared like a sun.

The pain melted away with the rest of him.

Clipper, Distal orbit Traspise

JEZ HAD MADE
her comfortable. She hadn’t wanted to speak to begin with, but after a while the words began to flow and with them came the tears and the anger – and in the end, a sort of stillness. Jez had listened with a face that aged years in minutes. She spent a lot of the time shaking her head.

When Fleare had finally fallen silent Jez sat with her lips compressed. ‘Oh, Fleare. What a bastard. All those years.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’ She felt herself smile, and wondered what was in charge of her face. ‘Because he was male, I guess.’ She looked up at Jez. ‘What other reason do they need, in the end?’

‘And now he’s down there?’

‘Yeah. Doing what, I don’t know.’

Excuse me?

They both jumped. The voice had come from the comms. Jez stared at it and shook her head. ‘It’s not a signal,’ she said. ‘More like a visitor. Who are you?’

I can’t stay long. I’ve got something for you, if you’re Fleare.

‘I’m not. She is. Now who the fuck are you?’

Fleare? Hi. I’m the one you pulled out of Rudi’s head. I’ve got a packet of code for you. I don’t know what it is, but Muz said it would be useful. I’ve dumped it in the ship’s memory. See?

‘Muz?’ Fleare sat up. ‘You met him?’

Yes. He said to say he’s doing what you said. Look, I have to go. I’ll try and find you later, when it’s over.

‘When what’s over?’

You’ll know in about a minute, I should think. Oh, someone else wanted to be remembered to you.

‘Who?’

He says you can climb his tower any time. I think he’s kidding; check out the news. Look, I have to go. Good luck. And, I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll see you again.

Fleare looked up at Jez, who shrugged and flicked on a news channel.

‘. . . distracted from the growing tension in the Cordern by the news that a moon has disappeared. That’s right, disappeared. The moon is, or rather was, Obel, and fifteen minutes ago it turned into a cloud of dust. No explosion, no attack. Obel had only one claim to fame, and she escaped; it was the place where heiress Fleare Haas had apparently been in retreat before being kidnapped . . .’

The news fell silent. Jez had closed it down. Now she looked at Fleare. ‘Anything to do with you?’

Fleare shrugged. ‘Maybe. Climbing his tower sounds like a reference, doesn’t it?’

‘I know what it sounds like.’ Jez smiled ruefully. ‘I’d be sorry too, if I had to pass on that kind of shit. What did you tell Muz to do?’

She shook her head. ‘I told him to fuck off and redeem himself.’

‘And how exactly do you expect him to do that?’

‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘I wish I hadn’t, Jez.’

‘Look, he’s in charge of himself. All the choices were his, Fle, even if he made some of them with his dick.’

‘I guess.’ She was about to say she didn’t know. Then something caught the corner of her eye and she looked round at the screen. It still showed the starscape and the expanding cloud of ships, but now they were being drowned out by a tiny point of light in the middle of the screen. She pointed wordlessly. Jez’s head snapped round, and together they watched the point of light swell and boil and brighten until it looked like the birth of a star. Even as the screen snapped to dark mode Fleare shut her eyes.

It didn’t make any difference. She doubted if it ever would.

Epilogue

It feels good to be walking along a real beach using real feet. The shingle crunches and scratches my toes. To one side of me, pines march down almost to the edge of the shingle. To the other, a grey-green sea swells and lands, and swells and lands. It smells good.

This is possible because the people who design sims are lazy. Why invent scenery from scratch when you can plagiarize it from reality? So I set out to find the place that whoever it was used as the deal for the beach where I met the girl. Where she told me who I wasn’t, and where she gave me back my past.

It was surprisingly easy. And here I am. I’m not alone; apart from my company here on the beach, there’s an old Orbiter hanging around at one of this place’s Lagrange points. It’s full of rare species. It says it’s checking this place out as a possible host planet for some of them. I guess it knows what it’s doing.

They told me that, before, I wouldn’t have been allowed to grow a new body. The Heg’ had banned it, apparently. But that was before the Creation Machine and Muz and the Monk joined hands in immolation; before a spiky little AI flew out of the wreckage and spilled its guts to the first people who looked like they might get rough with it.

Finally, it was before the collapse of something called the Haas Corporation, which then took most of the Hegemony with it. What’s left behind is sort of chaotic, but it’s fun. I’m glad I stayed around. I’m thinking of getting involved in the remediation of Silthx. I know it can’t really be put back to the state it was before the people we used to know as the Fortunate raped it. Maybe it will become some sort of memorial. I like that idea.

They refer to them as the Filth now. They’re mainly history too; there were over five hundred ships surrounding Traspise, most of them far enough out to survive the destruction. A lot of scores got dusted off and settled, all the way. No one seems particularly sorry.

I have another reason for being glad, of course. I did the job Muz asked me to.

I watch the girl walking along the beach. She moves carefully, as if she’s having to do a lot of thinking about her muscles. She probably is. Whatever it was that the big packet of code helped fix up, it was well advanced. The other woman from the ship told me afterwards that Fleare was mostly dead by the time they worked out how to undo the damage.

I know how she feels. I am getting used to my own new body. In one way I hope I never do get used to it. I still love the newness. I didn’t have to get a new body. The Monk restarted the sim of Sallah’s world. I think he was expecting me to dive back in gratefully but I’m done with being virtual.

I did take a look. Sallah’s career survived after all. She’s in line for promotion. Rudi has stayed safely dead as far as she’s concerned.

I haven’t told Fleare everything I found out about Muz and her. It feels private. Anyway, she looks as though she is managing to move on a bit. I am too. Now I’ve got a body again, I’m back to an ordinary lifespan. I’m glad about that because virtual immortality looks like it sucks, but it does mean I have the urge not to waste time.

I watch as Fleare reaches down and picks up a handful of stones. She sorts through them, selects one and transfers it to her other hand. She hefts it and tosses it a few times then winds her arm back and skims it out over the water. It starts out well but the angle is wrong; it falls into a trough between waves and disappears.

She tries again. This time the stone is spinning wrong, or something, because it banks away along a curving path and flies sideways into a wave.

She compresses her lips and sorts through the remaining stones, frowning. She chooses one, and lets the others drop with a series of clicks. She closes her eyes for a moment, then skims the stone, her arm whisking through a flat arc. Her effort is so great that her feet briefly leave the ground. She lands in a predator’s crouch, her eyes staring fiercely out to sea.

The stone flies, and skims, and goes on skimming, leaving a dead straight line of tiny circles, so slight that it seems hardly to be touching the water at all. Then, just as it begins to slow down, it catches the crest of a wave and leaps up in a little spray of foam. As it drops Fleare turns to me, her face triumphant.