Helix (8 page)

He
was still daydreaming about the voyage as he passed from the portals of the
council building. The sudden appearance of a figure, emerging from the shadow
of a freezing frame, startled him. It was Cannak, his fur as grey as the
ancient timber and his eyes just as cold. He swooped on Ehrin and gripped his
arm with a trenchant claw.

Ehrin
could only cower at the severity of the onslaught and peer timorously up at the
official’s thin grey face. He noticed that the fur around Cannak’s forehead was
bristling, a clear indication of his rage.

“You
are no doubt very satisfied with proceedings so far,” the Elder spat.

“I...
I have no idea what—”

Cannak’s
grip tightened. “Assume disingenuousness at your peril, Telsa. You might think
you have convinced Hykell of your piety, but be warned—the Church is all-seeing
and all-powerful.”

Ehrin
gathered himself and pulled his arm from Cannak’s painful custody. “And if the
Church conducts all its business with the subtlety of your approach, then the
Church is all-stupid.”

Cannak’s
lips thinned even further, and he barked a sudden laugh. “There is a line in
the sacred texts, to the effect that the sins of the father will be perpetuated
by the foolish son. I can see much of your father in you, Telsa, and I don’t
like what I see.”

Ehrin
stared at the quivering Elder, considering a reply, before reasoning that the
best reply of all would be to smile graciously and withdraw. He would gain
nothing by further angering the old fool.

He
inclined his head. “I will see you on the sixth,” he said, and turned to go.

“Your
father was a heretic,” Cannak barked after him. “The family name is stained
forever with the dishonour of his ungodliness.”

Ehrin
stopped in his tracks, and turned slowly to face the sanctimonious Elder. “The
family name is one that makes Agstarn great,” he said. “My father’s beliefs, or
lack of, are of no moment beside the fact of his achievements.”

This
sent the Church official into a spitting ferment of rage. Ehrin smiled and
turned on his heel.

“You
deserve to meet the same end as your blasphemous father!” Cannak called by way
of a parting shot. “Verily, he reaped what he sowed.”

Ehrin
strode on, then stopped. He turned. Perhaps five yards separated him from the
Elder. He said, “My father died bravely working for the good of the city and
the people.”

Cannak’s
response was surprising, and at the same time unsettling. He merely smiled, a
self-satisfied expression foreign to such austere features.

Not
trusting himself to remain in the vicinity of the Elder, Ehrin hurried across
the cobbles, strapped on his skates, and pushed off down the ice canal at speed.
The image he retained of Cannak was of a tall figure standing upright before
the freezing frame, as bleak as the tenets of his Church.

He
pumped his legs, working off his anger as he sped down a main boulevard and
whipped around a corner into a residential district of tall mansions. The grey
cloudrace overhead was darkening towards night, bringing a premature end to the
short winter day, and the temperature was plummeting accordingly. Not many
citizens were abroad, and even the occasional zeer beast seen on the canal was
harrumphing in protest at the icy chill.

Ehrin
skated towards Sereth’s mansion, or rather the building in which she shared a
penthouse suite with her father. He had planned to tell his fiancée of the good
news anyway, but now he found himself in need of her affection, as if to banish
the vitriol of Cannak’s words.

A
liveried doorman let him into the foyer, and removing his skates and hanging
them around his neck, Ehrin hurried up the six flights of stairs to Sereth’s
room. He imagined her tired after a day’s lectures at the university, curled on
the divan with a steaming beaker of tisane.

He
knocked on the door and entered, eager now to tell her of the good news.

She
was standing by the window, looking out of the darkening city, and turned
quickly at the sound of his entry.

They
had been together three years now, and the sight of her still quickened his
pulse. She was tall and slight, her blue pelt lustrous with youth and health.
Her eyes, set wide apart, gave her an expression of infinite compassion and at
the same time a childlike wonder.

He
moved into her arms and stroked her cheek with his.

“You’ve
won the tender,” she said. “I can tell. You’re like a child promised the run of
the sweetmeat arcade.”

He
laughed. “And that’s exactly how I feel, Ser. Can you imagine—to explore the
western plain? How many people have ventured beyond the mountains?”

Her
smile was indulgent. “How many? You tell me—it’s you who always has your nose
in accounts of desperate travels by footloose souls.”

“Two
dozen, maybe a few more,” Ehrin said. “Think of it, two dozen travellers in
what, five thousand years of documented history?”

She
pulled him to the divan, and watched him with that mischievous twinkle in her
eyes. “And perhaps there have been so few for a good reason, Ehrin the
Impatient Explorer?”

He
grunted. They’d had this debate before. “We’re curious beasts,” he said. “It
isn’t in our nature to remain imprisoned in this mountain fastness. The very
fact that we’re running out of iron and gas from the mountains impels our
outward exploration. Even your benighted Church recognises that!”

She
swiped at him. “Such blasphemy! If Prelate Hykell could hear you!”

“My
little pious bishop’s daughter,” he jibed. “You’d rather we stay in Agstarn,
learn nothing of the outer world?”

He
knew she did not think this; she was too intelligent to take the isolationist
view, but at the same time there remained in her a core of fear at what lay
beyond.

She
stroked the fur of his cheek. “Of course not,” she said softly. “We must expand
if we’re to prosper, materially and intellectually. It’s merely that...”

He
squeezed her hand. “It’s because we’re enclosed, shut off from the universe, in
more than one way: the mountains enclose us, and above our heads the grey
clouds hide the realms beyond.”

She
shivered. “Don’t,” she said. “The very thought...”

“The
very thought,” he said, “fills me with awe. Have I told you,” he went on,
knowing that he had never mentioned it to her before, “that I dream of
penetrating the sky?”

She
pulled away and looked at him. “Don’t you do that already, with your skyships?”

He
laughed. “I mean, I dream of taking a ship—an adapted ship, mind—higher than
the sky, to
beyond
the sky, to chart whatever might lie out there.”

Her
expression flickered between indulgence and indignation. “But Ehrin, there’s
nothing
beyond the sky. At least, nothing that might sustain life. The
Church—”

“The
Church knows absolutely nothing about the beyond! Their conjecture is merely
formulated to keep the populace frightened and in their place.”

“You
dispute the idea of a platform world, floating in the grey void?”

He
said, exasperatedly, “I dispute nothing. That might very well be the case. But
just as logically, any other theory is just as tenable.”

“And
you’d like to take a skyship and leave this world behind you!”

He
grinned, “Well, why not?”

“Oh!
My darling Ehrin! This is why I love you, because you’re so like an impatient
child!” She attacked him, tearing off his jerkin and biting his pelt. He
responded by pulling off her robe. They made love in the bedchamber, beneath
the sloping roof window that looked up into the everlasting greyness.

Later,
as midnight approached, they lay in each other’s arms and stared through the
thick glass. After a long silence, he whispered, “My piety was called into
question at the council meeting today.”

She
started. “What?”

“Prelate
Hykell asked if I held the views of my father.”

“I
hope you lied!”

“Of
course—do you think I’d jeopardise the mission on a point of principle? Anyway,
a martinet called Cannak doubted my word. He accused me of impiety to my face.
Unfortunately, he’ll be accompanying us on the expedition.”

“Cannak...”
Sereth said. “My father knows him. I think they worked together. He’s a
hardliner, and close to Hykell.”

“He’s
a fool,” Ehrin said. “He accosted me in the courtyard after the meeting.” He
stopped, wondering whether to tell Sereth what had passed between them then.
“He... he more or less told me that I deserved to die like my father.”‘

Sereth
stiffened in his arms. “You should be wary of making an enemy of a man as
powerful as Cannak.”

“He
doesn’t worry me, Sereth. I... just wonder what turned him against my father.”

“Isn’t
that obvious? Your father was a disbeliever. Cannak is a fervent servant of
God. The two aren’t compatible, to say the least!”

Ehrin
shook his head. “It’s more than that... They were on the ‘65 expedition
together. Something happened there. My father saw something.” He told her about
the letter his father had written to his mother. “I’m sure that that’s what
turned Cannak so against my father.”

After
a short silence, Sereth hugged him and whispered, “Be careful, my darling. Be
careful.”

He
thought about what Hykell had said about Bishop Jaspariot allowing his
daughter’s hand in marriage to a disbeliever, and the implied threat of his
words. He shared everything with Sereth, but this threat he would keep to
himself.

Later,
he said, “There is a place on the expedition for you, if you wish to come with
me. Think of the research opportunities...”

Sereth
was a linguist, whose speciality was the dialects of the remote mountain
peoples. They had discussed how her research might be advanced by studying the
language of the scattered tribes, which populated the western plains.

She
squeezed him. “I still don’t know, Ehrin. I want to come. I want to be with
you. But the thought of leaving behind all that I know, and venturing into the
unknown...”

He
silenced her with a kiss. “You have a week to think it over, okay?

She
kissed him. “I’ll think about it, Ehrin,” she said.

In
the morning Ehrin made his way to the foundry and discovered Kahran at his
desk. The old man looked up, weariness in his eyes. Ehrin guessed that he had
been in the office since the early hours, filling his time in the only way he
knew how. Ehrin wondered if that was sad, or commendable... or perhaps both.

Kahran
said, “And was I right? The Church imposed swinging restrictions, or declared
an exorbitant tax?”

Ehrin
smiled. “You were right, Kahran. But nothing as bad as that. Come upstairs.
We’ll talk about it over a drink.”

They
made their way upstairs, Ehrin walking slowly behind the oldster as Kahran
climbed the stairs with the painful precision of the infirm. They sat beside
the semicircular window and Ehrin poured the drinks.

He
told his partner of his meeting with the Council. As soon as he mentioned
Velkor Cannak’s name, the old man stiffened.

“What
did he say?”

“He
was with you in ‘65. He said you ‘crossed swords’.” Ehrin waited, then said,
“Are you going to tell me about it?”

Kahran
looked up, into the younger man’s eyes. “And risk the militia finding out that
you know? And risk their torturing you...” He held up his right hand,
displaying the thin fingers bereft of nails.

“They
did that? But I thought—”

“That,
and worse.”

Ehrin
winced. “And to my father?”

Kahran
nodded and took a mouthful of spirit. “I don’t want to see you suffer the same
fate.”

Ehrin
felt anger swell in his chest. He said, “The proviso, Kahran—the Council are
sending an agent along with us, to keep us in check.”

The
old man looked up, understanding in his eyes. “Tell me,” he said.

Ehrin
nodded. “Velkor Cannak.”

Kahran
was silent for a while. At least he said, “You asked me, months ago, if I’d
care to accompany you on the journey.”

“And
you refused, claiming age and infirmity.”

Kahran
fixed him with his grey eyes. “Well, claiming the prerogative of the old, I’ve
changed my mind. If the offer is still open, I would like to come along. I
don’t like to think of you alone with the likes of Cannak.”

Ehrin
was of a mind to protest that he could handle himself in any situation, but
said instead, “Of course it’s still open, you old fool.”

“To
think, Velkor Cannak, after all these years,” Kahran said, his eyes misting as
he recollected the past. He looked up. “It should,” he said, “prove an
interesting expedition.”

The
Lovelock
began
to disintegrate while cruising at just under the speed of light. An
explosion sheared the main drive from the starboard sponson and seconds later
the port drive blew. The starship hurtled through the emptiness of space,
breaking up and shedding a hail of debris in its wake.