Valhai (The Ammonite Galaxy) (3 page)

Air, she was relieved to see, was being pumped in through one of the tubes, and out through another. But there was no way out. The ceiling that she had fallen through had closed behind her, and now presented a perfectly smooth aspect. In any case, gravity would ensure that she couldn’t get out the way she came in.

In the bigger bubble she saw a chair and a central table, which surrounded a column of orthogel suspended above it. She sat down, and immediately a screen lit up. To her amazement a complex picture formed, until she was looking at a three dimensional face.

“Welcome to Valhai.” The man’s face – Sellite – smiled at her.

Diva turned her head to one side, suspicious of the thing in front of her. Could it hear her? Did it really exist? The face continued to smile, but insisted, “Identify yourself please, for the records.” It was speaking to her in Coriolan, so it must know who she was, mustn’t it?

“Divina Senate Magmus of Coriolis,”

“Excellent. I am Atheron, and I am to be your tutor for the next few years.” His eyes were expectant. He, at least, appeared to be looking forward to the experience.

Diva slumped into the chair. She was a prisoner! In some sort of a bubble that might collapse around her at any moment, engulfing her forever in this weird substance. She felt as if the air was already running out and found herself taking big hasty gulps of it.

The face was unimpressed by her problems. “There is no need to breathe so fast,” It informed her severely. “You will end up hyperventilating and that would be most prejudicial.”

“And then what?” she shouted back. “Would you come and get me out of this . . . this . . . trap?”

“That would not be possible. It is part of the indentures which you signed that you agreed to participate proactively in all tasks. Anything less than full cooperation will be taken as a breach of contract, with the corresponding forfeiture of counterpayment on Coriolis. You will therefore do as I ask you, because it is my job to keep you healthy and to help you attain the academic and physical level you need to become a
Valhai
.”

Gradually the meaning of his words worked their way inside Diva’s head and she started to acknowledge their truth. She
had
signed the articles, she was obliged to do her best. She lifted a resigned face towards the column.“What do I have to do?”

Atheron acknowledged her submission with a satisfied nod of his head, which was all she could see of him. If, that is, he was real and not a computer program. Not that it mattered to Diva. He was the only other thing that spoke in this bubble so he was real enough to her.

“It is not so difficult as all that. You will be spending about half the day working at your academic training, just over a fifth on your physical training, and the rest sleeping and eating. If both you and your neighbour have made satisfactory progress, you may be allowed to visit for up to half an hour, once a month.”

“And I’m supposed to be grateful for that?” asked Diva. “I get to see one person for thirty minutes each month?”

“Only if you meet my criteria for that month,” the head warned her. “And I shall only accept your very best. It will not be enough to sit in that chair and listen. I need your concentration, I need you to actively
try
to understand everything I explain to you.”

“How many hours a day?” she asked

He raised an eyebrow. “Hours on Coriolis or hours here?” he asked her, then went on to answer his own question. “Your day on Coriolis was twenty-four hours, wasn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Well, we spend twelve hours studying, five on physical training, and you will sleep for seven hours. You will need three brief breaks in that time to eat, one to bathe and you will be allowed about forty minutes of your time to relax.”

Diva’s eyes widened. Twelve hours study?“E . . . everyday?” She stuttered.

The Sellite inclined his head. “Naturally.”

“Without any days off?” Perhaps she had misunderstood him.

“On Sell it is not the custom to take days off.”

“Oh.”

“You will be amazed at how quickly you progress with this way of learning. In a short time you will become most proficient at all sorts of things that even your so-called Elders are ignorant of. You are very lucky to have been selected.”

Diva nodded without conviction. Being dropped into a lake of gel was not high on the list of things which made her happy.

“Anyway. Since it is late today, we will allow you to sleep a little more than usual and begin with our routine tomorrow morning. You may eat something and then take a shower and go to bed. It will enable you to approach tomorrow with a positive frame of mind.”

You wish! Diva had the distinct feeling that a positive frame of mind wasn’t going to form any part of her life for the next few years. Which made her ask another question, “How many years?”

“You will be eligible when you are sixteen Coriolan years old, so you will be studying here with us for the next . . .” he looked down at a piece of paper obviously checking her age,“two Coriolan years.”

Two years! If he had told her that she would be required to fight Cesan catumbas with her bare hands, she could have coped. But to sit here day after day for two years doing nothing but schoolwork? That was not heroic, that was plain torture. Diva had always hated school, even on Coriolis. She gave a sigh. And her father had been convinced that he was sending her off to a land of opportunity! No wonder the Sellite had seemed surprised when the Elder had offered his own daughter. It was beginning to look like an extremely bad idea. And to cap it all, the only person she was going to talk to for the next two years was bound to be that abominable boy from Kwaide. He would have been the following candidate to come down to Valhai; ten to one he would be the occupant of the next bubble. She looked up, tempted for a brief moment to ask for a change of bubble, and then gave the idea up. Nothing she had seen so far led her to believe that her status was any different from all the other candidates. Who was going to listen to her?

There was a sound off to her left and she dragged her eyelids open again. A bowl of food had appeared. It was a mixture of fruit and staples, and there was a flask of water beside it.

“Get your food and eat,” Atheron instructed her gently. “You will need to keep your strength up.”

Numbly, she stood up and went to collect the food. There were no utensils with it . . . perhaps they thought she might damage herself? Though that would also constitute a breach of contract, no doubt, and bring disgrace down upon her family and her world. She forced herself to pick out one morsel at a time and to make her way through the bowl. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how she felt. The Sellite watched her in silence.

“Can’t I turn you off?” she demanded.

“Certainly you can. Within the guidelines I have laid out for you,

you are responsible for your training. Naturally you will switch off the interscreen before you shower and when you use the toilet facilities or sleep. At other times, I expect you will prefer to leave it on. We will be good company for each other, won’t we?”

She gazed at the face, but found she wasn’t able to answer. He went on, “Beside the shower area you will find a small wardrobe folded into the orthogel, and you will find suitable clothing for a candidate. You are asked to be as clean and tidy as possible at all times. You will be responsible for cleaning your own garments. Our sessions are recorded automatically and prospective investors may want to see specific training sessions. I must also inform you that even with the interscreen switched off, your heartbeat is continually monitored and I am authorized to override the controls of the interscreen if there is any doubt about your state of health.”

“‘Prospective investors’?” she questioned.

“We will go into all that at a later date,” he assured her. “I think that the most important thing now is that you finish eating and get some rest. You will want to switch off the interscreen now.”

As he had predicted, Diva immediately felt swamped with loneliness as soon as she had carried out this suggestion. Still, she forced herself to shower and then went towards the orthogel bed. She lay down, and pulled a thin sheet of the same material up around her neck. The bed felt comfortable but unsafe. She sank partially into it, and it was easy to imagine the bed suddenly giving way to absorb her totally in an asphyxiating silence. She lay warily in the semi-darkness, afraid to move. There was only a dull washing noise like water lapping on a distant shore. That, at least, was comforting and finally she dropped into a deep sleep, disturbed only by her dreams. In her sleep, she was running free on Coriolis vanquishing single-handedly an army of untouchables from Kwaide. It was a pleasant dream.

GRACE CHECKED THE bodywrap she had donned and the spare mask pack she had carefully threaded through her belt. Although there was nobody on the 48
^th
floor to witness her descent, she looked around her rather apprehensively. She would have to take the back lift to get outside. The front lift would take her directly to the horizontal orthogel tubes. They would take her outside, certainly, but only to the fully covered and oxygenated park or zoo areas, where her oxygen masks would not be needed. If she went there she would find a smattering of other Sellites, especially those with young children. Mothers sometimes forced themselves to take their children to spend a few minutes “outside”. But the force field which held the air in would obviously keep her corralled in too. No, she had to take the back lift down to the first level, and then use the stairs set into the rexelene in order to climb down to planet level. Then she would truly be bare planet.

She pressed a button to summon up an ortholift to take her down to the first floor. Within seconds the slightest hiss told her that it had arrived. She stepped through the thin membrane, marveling as she did at the technology which had enabled orthogel to be used as a transport service.

The lift arrived on the ground floor, and she made her way back out through the membrane, and as she did so she seemed to hear a faint sigh.

“Is there anybody here?”

Of course there wasn’t. The only people on this level had been dead and entombed for over forty generations!

As in all the skyrises, the lay-out was identical from floor to floor, so she was able to make her way directly to the outside terrace. Stopping now only long enough to push the first mask pack over her face, she found the metal steps leading from the terrace downwards, and swung herself out over them. There were more than she had thought. Not only did they cover the last floor down, but they skirted the enormous blocks of rexelene which served to protect the building from any tectonic activity nearby. The rexelene was as high as two of the normal skyrise floors, so it took her quite a lot longer than she had thought before she was able to step down onto the planet.

It was electrifying! As if she were the first person ever to come out here! She thought of all the other Sellite families, unknowingly carrying out their tasks shut up in their respective skyrises and knew straight away what it was that had been bothering her. She had been suffering from claustrophobia. She had needed to get out onto the surface of the planet, experience it first hand, even if through a bodywrap. At last. It felt right, a homecoming.

In this euphoric state she made her way down past the line of skyrises towards the valley. She made good speed. There was little impediment to walking here in the valley, and the light gravity made it easy to move her slim body.

About an hour later she decided to stop for a rest. She had reached the hill slope above the main orthogel lake and the view down to the inky liquid below was stunning. She sat down on the dry sandy ground and sipped some water out of the bottle she had brought with her. It wasn’t easy, but there was a special vent in the mask pack designed for that purpose. The two mask packs she had brought with her were good for at least five hours, so she was in no hurry. She sat happily back, enjoying the view over the lake. It was absolutely silent out there, a true silence she couldn’t ever remember hearing before. It was very soothing.

She must have nearly nodded off in her reverie, because she became suddenly aware of a noise, and saw that two figures had disembarked from the orthogel cabin onto the central jetty. One was small and thin, of unknown origin. The other was her brother, Xenon. The new head of the 256th house. Why was she finding it so hard to adapt to the new circumstances?

She tried to make herself smaller, and hoped that she wouldn’t be seen. She hated to think what would happen if her brother found out that she was out of house.

She watched, idly, as they advanced along the jetty and then took a turn to the left. Suddenly she frowned, for her brother had taken the boy by the arm and appeared to be remonstrating with him. The boy was shouting; they must have been closer than they looked for the thin atmosphere was sufficient to bring her his words:
“Let me go! Let me go!”,
although it transformed the shout into a whisper and delivered the sound with a noticeable time delay.

Grace felt strangely detached from the scene that was being carried out in front of her. It clearly hadn’t occurred to her brother that somebody could possibly have gone bare planet, and be studying his actions at that moment. He had slipped naturally into his new position, it seemed. Of course, he had been genetically modified so as to maximize the abilities he would need as head of house. Xenon 48 had insisted upon it. And Xenon 48 had not been a man to cross. He was the perfect result of honing genes until the man was completely adapted to the job he was to carry out in Sellite society. Now, from Grace’s vantage point on top of the hill she realized that her brother must also be genetically ideal for the job he had inherited. It was a sad realization for her. As he was growing up she had been able to ignore the small indications that he would be very like his father. Suddenly, seeing him here, she was forced to acknowledge how little they had in common. It gave her a horrid feeling of disappointment in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps the little boy she had loved so much had never existed?

She saw the man pick the boy up and give him a shake. The boy was clearly terrified, yet she was forced to smile because his body language was full of bravado and spunk. It was odd to feel more empathy for a complete stranger, one who was not even Sellite, than for her own brother. There must be something wrong with her. Surely all these conflicting emotions were not normal? Was she going to end up like her mother?

The man dropped the boy, who slowly sank out of sight. Grace, who had never been in one of the bubbles, wondered what it felt like. It couldn’t be a very agreeable experience even if you knew what to expect. And if you didn’t it must be horrifying. At that moment Grace suddenly forgot to breathe. In a split-second that simple thought caused a cascade of others which annihilated the very foundations of her being. Her blood ran cold.

These apprentices are terrified of us. We, the Sellites, are the tyrants.
How could this have happened? When did it happen? Grace watched as her brother turned and headed back to the cabin track.
She found she was holding her hands up to her face in shock. How had she been able to think that the Sellites were the heroes? She had quite happily accepted that the apprentices came willingly, eager to learn so many new things that were not available to them on their own planets.

But that boy had not been willing. Every fibre of his body had been screaming, feelings she could detect even at such a distance. Grace forced herself to breathe evenly, through hands which were shaking slightly. She watched her own flesh and blood walk calmly away, his posture indicating satisfaction with a job well done. She closed her eyes. She had seen enough.

How many children were in the lake now? She wondered. And how long would they stay there for? She couldn’t even begin to imagine what they would be feeling. She herself felt claustrophobic living in four thousand and fifty square metres with full use of the lower forty-seven floors!

Grace sat in a stupor for some time, until the warning buzzer she had pre-programmed before leaving the skyrise began to sound. It was time to change the mask pack, which meant that she should begin to make her way back to her home. She made the switch successfully and then got to her feet. Two things were obvious to her. Firstly, that she would never again be able to feel quite so proud of being Sellite. And secondly, that she would have to find out more about the donor program. As she made her way back her whole body felt heavier than it had done on the way out. Her steps were slower, her feet less keen to respond. The stars gently illuminated the solitary person tracking slowly back to the skyrises.

Six rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers. His first night’s sleep in the bubble had not been particularly successful. He had been staring at this stupid column for over ten hours, and his eyes felt grainy. Everything kept fading in and out of focus, and his head was hurting. He had never in his whole life had to put up with anything like this. Ten hours of class. Purgatory! And it wasn’t over yet. According to this dried up old stick there were still two hours to go.

Life, he thought grimly. Either you were bitterly cold looking for somewhere to get warm, or you were nice and warm and longed to be back on your own planet, bitterly cold or not. He glared at the three dimensional screen in front of him. He had found more interesting things under a rock on Kwaide than this so-called teacher. Old whatever-his-name had quite a knack for making things totally unintelligible. He seemed to take rather a pride in it. There, the man was droning on again.

“Point five six, Tell me something about Kwaide?”

It had taken Six only an hour to determine the modus operandi of his venerable teacher. It consisted in asking interminable questions which the teacher already knew the answer to. This enabled the educator to interrupt with ‘I don’t think that’s exactly how I understand it . . . perhaps we should look it up in the records,’ which led to long boring explanations that he, Six, was expected to understand and retain. Every so often his understanding was tested by little ‘problems’ the ancient slipped in ‘for a bit of fun’. If he resolved the problems the whole process was repeated again with another topic, and if he made a mistake the whole process was repeated again with the same topic. All this, surrounded by a possibly man-eating bubble under a lake of goo on a planet with an unbreathably thin atmosphere. Great! He should have known the way things were going to go when that first Elder had held up one hand and told him to stop. It was all his own fault. He should have known better. He should never have put a foot in Benefice.

“Point five six, I believe you are not attending.” Atheron’s benign expression had slipped a little. “Just a short time more,
if
you don’t mind and then we can move on to the day’s exercise program.”

Six closed his eyes. Death was beginning to look like an attractive alternative. He couldn’t care less what happened to his own planet, either. If it weren’t for his two twin sisters! He knew how hard they would be finding it to manage without him. No, if it weren’t for his sisters there was no way he would have endured all this! Gloomily, he forced himself to listen to Atheron.

Three hours later Six was wishing his teacher at the centre of Sacras. Any faint hopes he had had that the exercise period would enable him to get out of this cage had dissipated. No. He gave a dry bark of a laugh. No. A bubble door simply opened into this bubble torture chamber and led him into another bubble room, this time devoted to exercising. Here he was to spend a merry five hours on the walking machine, running machine, cycling machine, rowing machine, hanging machine. He could think of one or two good candidates for hanging, right now. After those few delights, it appeared he would then be required to actually dance on some awful-looking coloured squares which each made a different sound according to the colour. What fun that would be! Something to really look forward to! He gave a deep, heartfelt sigh.

And the old misery was still there, invigilating away. It was impossible to get a moment’s peace away from the man. Six couldn’t even be sure that he wasn’t being watched when he went to the bathroom.

It appeared however, that his physical level pleased his mentor. Atheron was transmitting pleasure to the best of his ability.

“Most commendable,” the teacher nodded, “I think . . . yes . . . I think I will award you commontime today, even though the progress on the music squares has not been . . . well, let’s just say it could have been better.”

“Commontime?” Six echoed. It was the first he had heard about it. Was something good about to happen?

“Yes. You will be allowed some short time to have a conversation with one of your fellow apprentices. It has been long noted that occasional peer exchanges are beneficial in the life of an apprentice.” Atheron lifted an admonitory finger. “Though if you want to enjoy this occasional privilege I shall expect a
little
more effort on the musical side of things. I can see that you are unused to so much schooling, but it really is absolutely necessary if we are to attain our objectives for you. You should know that this is all being done to improve you as a person. You will gain enormously from the experience.”

Six pounded away at the running belt, wishing a certain someone’s head was down there. For a moment he enjoyed fantasizing that every step was bludgeoning that head into pulp.