Descent (37 page)

I push against the flow, stumbling and apologising, and join the stream in the opposite direction. The three I’m following are already about five metres ahead of me, heads bobbing above the crowd. I weave and dodge through, trying to catch up, but they stay ahead of me. I know I’m going the wrong way.

We pass the chute I came down, and several others. The look and feel of the corridor has changed. The surroundings have a naval cast. The steel walls are bare; the air has a tang of rust; there’s a metal grille rather than pliant plastic floor tiles underfoot. There are fewer people around, and they’re stranger than the strangers I saw earlier. These are no aliens, no Greys, just people, but they look as if they come from countries and continents that aren’t on any map. Some of them give me curious glances. The exits and entrances of the chutes with their rolling ladders have notices in languages I don’t know, in letters I can’t read, that remind me of some strange alphabet I’ve seen before.

I know what the inscriptions mean. They are the names of destinations, of worlds and stars.

Behind me, I hear shouts. I hear my name called. I don’t look back. I quicken my pace. I’ve almost caught up.

The Space Sister looks over her shoulder, sees me and frowns and shakes her head. I shake mine, negating her negation. She looks forward again, then back; smiles and shrugs. On your own head be it, she seems to say.

The three reach the hatchway that leads to a chute. One by one they step inside, grab on and get carried up. The Sister is the last. She looks over her shoulder again, and nods, and rises away.

I follow. I step into the chute and look up. On one side a rolling ladder ascends, on the other it descends, in endless belts. I know where this one goes. It goes where I must and cannot follow, to the starship dock.

I grab on, and rise, and fall.

Thanks, as always, to Carol for love and support.

I wrote most of this book while in the post of Writer in Residence on the MA Creative Writing course at Edinburgh Napier University. Many thanks to the course and the university for providing a congenial and stimulating place to work, and especially to Sam Kelly for all her help, advice and encouragement.

Thanks to Sharon MacLeod, Sam Kelly and Farah Mendlesohn for reading and commenting on the draft.