Landfall: Tales From the Flood/Ark Universe (11 page)

‘To the satisfaction of you Polars, at least -’

‘- that this world is real. It’s no Simulation. And that humans came here, somehow, from somewhere else.’

‘I thought you Polars were rationalists.’

‘Well, we have to be. We think the fact that we have to mine for a living has made us deeper natural philosophers than you farmers. We’re favoured for astronomy, too; from here you rarely even see the lesser stars beyond the Star. We like to believe we rediscovered science.’

‘Yet you accept the authority of a long-dead and semi-mythical figure like Helen Gray!’

Tripp pushed away the pages crossly. ‘Not just that, woman! Anybody who looks around at this world we live in –
really
looks – will see that humans don’t belong here. There are whole layers of life here, Maryam, one laid atop another, as immiscible as oil and water! We humans and our trees and grass and cows and sheep are latecomers. Before we came you had the tractors and the tunnel-moles and the mirror-birds, animals which seem to have been
engineered
to do specific jobs, engineered and then abandoned. The Slime seems to be a bacterial life form which may be a true native of this planet. And under all
that
you have the Substrate, as it’s called, relics that may be older than life itself, or anyhow the kinds of life we see now. The tractors and even the Slime are
like
our kind of life, relying on carbon and water and nitrogen – if we hadn’t forgotten everything Helen knew, we could probably say how alike. But we can’t eat the tractors, and the tractors can’t eat the Slime – that fact alone proves we’re different! – even if we’re from the same wider family, and we have some interesting ideas about that.’

Maryam tried to provoke her. ‘The Speakers say the Substrate buildings are elements of the vast Sim chamber that generates the world.’

‘Phooey. They are clearly relics of some culture that was here long before we humans arrived. And yet they were drawn to the same pivotal locations we were, for surely the geometry of the planet hasn’t changed. This, in fact, is what I came to talk to you about. We’ve another proposal for you to consider.’
 

Maryam felt faintly uneasy, wondering what was coming.

Tripp picked an apple out of the bowl on the table. ‘Earth III orbits close to its Star, which is small and cool – according to Helen – compared to other stars in the sky.’ She made the apple orbit her fist, turning it steadily. ‘The world is locked, and turns so that a single hemisphere always faces the Star.’

‘That’s elementary -’
 

‘Yes. But because of that elementary fact, our world is blessed with a certain number of unique locations. The Substellar point – right here. The Poles, for our world does have an axis about which it turns, even if the rotation is locked – or at least our north Pole, for there is only ocean at the south Pole. The Equator – especially those points on the Terminator, east and west, standing between dark and light. All these places the builders of the Substrate visited, for surely they were as attracted by their geometric significance as we are. There are hints in Helen’s document that the ship’s crew found structures at geometric points
off
the planet as well as on it – places of orbital stability … All this was built a long, long time ago. You can tell that by the rock layers that have formed
over
some of the structures. As much as a billion Great Years ago, perhaps.’

In an effort to regain control of the conversation, Maryam took the apple off her and bit into it. ‘Fascinating. So what is your proposal?’

Tripp smiled. ‘from my list of significant points, here in this static little system of ours, I omitted one.’

‘Where?’

‘
The Antistellar.
The point which is precisely opposite the Navel, the Substellar, on the other side of the world – the point at the heart of Darkside.’

‘There’s nothing there but ice.’

‘Maybe. We know nothing about it save mentions in Helen’s record – a record many dispute as authentic.’ She leaned forward. ‘But what is surely true is that the Substrate builders must have gone there. And surely they built something there. Perhaps we Polars, we burrowing miners, will be able to understand it. Perhaps we’ll be able to
use
it. And there’s the matter of scientific curiosity, which Helen Gray counsels us to cultivate. Who knows what we might learn, about the world and ourselves? And anyhow it’s surely better we get to it before it occurs to the Speakers to go there.’

Maryam sat back. ‘So this is what you’re planning? Some kind of trek to the Antistellar? Surely it’s impossible. The bitter cold of Darkside -’

‘There has been a significant volcanic eruption this Great Year, far to the south.’

‘We know. We heard it! Half the dust and ash on the planet seemed to wash out on top of Port Wilson.’

‘That will have helped heat the air, globally … It may be that because of the volcano’s gift of warmth an expedition soon would have the best chance of succeeding in many Great Years.’

‘And you want us to help? How? With funding, manpower, ships?’

‘All of those things. And you understand why we want to cut the Speakers out of this? If we do find something at the Antistellar -’

‘You would possess a sacred site - grounds to challenge their hegemony.’ She glanced around, uneasily remembering that they might be overheard.

‘There you have it. It’s only the bare bones of a scheme for now, but … You Wilsonians are adventurers.’

‘We’re often called worse than that.’

‘You often
behave
worse than that. If anybody can do this, you could – with us.’

‘Flattery won’t help.’

‘Then what will?’

‘Time.’ Maryam dropped her apple core on the table, and stood. ‘Time to think.’

‘Very well.’ Tripp stood, brushing down her cloak. ‘I’ll take my leave. I will see you at the Opening of the Eye at the end of the Colloquy. Perhaps we can talk further …’

‘We’ll see.’
 

As her visitor left, Maryam turned away and looked out on the city. The light had closed in a little; the clouds were thickening, and there was a grey haze of volcanic dust in the air. Yet the Star hung as still as ever, directly over her head. Looking up at its mighty face, glimpsed through the clouds, she saw how it was pocked with spots like disease scars, and its flesh crawled with electrical storms, like lightning.
 

Tripp’s ideas swirled in her head. The thought of crossing the Terminator and travelling all the way through the dark to the precise antipode of this place was an intriguing one – yet scary, for how would it be to have the whole thickness of the planet between her and this sole source of warmth and light?
 

But from the city there rose up distant shouting, a pealing bell, and the crack of what sounded like a gunshot – fuelled, no doubt, by powder from the Pole. Her thoughts returned to the grubbier plane of politics, trade, power and influence. There was another watch of talks to get through before the Opening of the Eye, the ceremony that would end the formal part of this Tithe Colloquy.
 

And Brod was still missing, she reminded herself, her son and the Sapphire girl. She hoped beyond hope that that was just a coincidence.

She shook herself, turned, and went to wash and change, and ready herself for the final sessions.

III

The watch bells sounded. The Tithe Colloquy was over for another Great Year.
 

Elios, Speaker of Speakers, led his attendants and the Colloquy’s senior delegates out of the Tenth Temple where they had been meeting and up wide ceremonial staircases, every step carved laboriously out of pink basalt, towards the roof of this building where, like most of the island’s grander structures, it abutted the great Substrate pillar that contained the Eye. The rest followed in silence, or speaking only quietly.
 

Maryam, with growing unease, walked with the others - hoping that none of them had spotted, as she had, the bright red handkerchief dropped beside the stair, for it belonged to her son Brod, who had now been missing for more than a whole watch, as had the Speaker’s daughter Vala.

They emerged onto the roof, and crossed a carved platform towards the central tower - a structure several times a person’s height, a human-built shell of basalt blocks that cradled the enigmatic Substrate tower known as the Eye. Smoke curled above it, evidently coming from several fires.
 

At the tower, the dignitaries in their cloaks and robes and other finery had to line up to climb the ladders of rungs set into the wall. Few had any difficulty with the climb.

‘Good strong Polar steel,’ Tripp murmured to Maryam. ‘And good strong folk too. We’re a robust breed, you know, Maryam. Helen Gray says we all weigh more here than we would where she came from, and so over the generations we’ve all grown stocky as a result …’

Maryam found this sort of talk irritating. ‘How can a person weigh more or less, in one place or another? I sometimes wonder if you really can discriminate children’s stories from any semblance of reality.’

Tripp just laughed.

When it was her turn Maryam climbed easily up the ladder, and followed dignitaries from halfway across the world along the walkway at the top of the wall. It turned out that the smoke came from fires burning in pots of oil, attended by black-robed acolytes, and it hung over the Eye like a cloud, shading it from the Star above.
 

And the Eye itself was now revealed to her for the first time. Cleaned of greasy Slime, it gleamed, a curved bowl of a mirror, shining and perfect – and, if Tripp was right, perhaps of tremendous age.

Elios, tall, his head clean-shaven, climbed a podium to a small stage set up at one point of the circular wall. His aides stood along the wall at intervals beside him, acolytes and lay servants of the Speakerhood. Among these stood the Sapphires, the dedicated virgins of the temple – beautiful, almost shining in their white robes, and each standing beside a cage filled with birds whose wings glistened as they stirred.

‘Mirror-birds,’ Tripp murmured to Maryam. ‘Another gift from the Pole ...’

But Maryam was busy counting the Sapphires. There were eleven of them – and there should have been twelve, and she saw an unattended bird cage, and uneasy-looking officials glancing nervously around. Well they might have been nervous, for the missing girl was Vala, and gone as long as her own son had been gone, and Maryam was starting to feel very worried indeed.

Elios spoke now, his voice carrying across the Eye’s gleaming surface. ‘I, Elios son of Elios, Speaker of Speakers and forty-first occupant of the Left Hand Seat, welcome you all to this place. As you know we hold our Tithe Colloquy every Great Year, which is twenty-four of the years of Earth III as measured by the astronomers, and which matches the Duty Cycles of the Controllers who watch over the Simulation which envelops and sustains us all. And now, with another Great Year of Simulated life having been granted to us all, let us give thanks - and let the Controllers’ Eye open!’ He brought his hand down with a sharp chop.

The acolytes doused their fires with buckets of water, and the smoke began to clear. The Sapphire girls, the eleven who were present, opened their cages, and mirror-birds rattled into the air, their wings gleaming; confused by the smoke they wheeled and darted, cawing softly.

But there was a murmur, and a disturbance worked its way along the circular wall. ‘Out of my way – out of my way, you cretin!’

‘Khilli,’ murmured Tripp. ‘And he doesn’t look happy.’

Maryam saw Elios’s son approach his father. Khilli turned, a broad, powerful man dressed entirely in black, with his massive fists bunched, his face clenched in a glare. ‘Gone! She’s gone! Vala – he took her away on that ship of his, the Wilsonian tub, back across the sea. He took her! Wilsonians! Maryam, mother of Brod! Where are you? You have some explaining to do.’

Tripp tugged Maryam back into the crowd. ‘It may be better to be discreet for a while …’

The smoke cleared, and the pale pink-white light of the Star fell on the Eye in beams, dead vertical and shining in the smoky air. Where they struck the mirror they were reflected to a perfect focus, high above their heads.
 

‘It must be parabolic to make a focus like that,’ Tripp murmured. ‘This is my fourth Colloquy, but the first time I’ve been invited up here … What a display.’ She leaned back and lifted her head, and gasped. ‘And – oh, look! Up in the sky!’
 

Maryam, squinting up, saw a kind of shadow form against the broad face of the Star, something in the sky, grey and translucent, and rippling with obviously artificial patterns, like waves.

‘More Substrate!’ said Tripp. ‘I told you Helen and the others saw orbital structures. Perhaps whatever is up there is somehow controlled by this “Eye”. But what can it have been for? …’

The mirror-birds, fluttering and cawing, were drawn up along the reflected beams by their natural affinity for light. One by one, as they reached the focus, they flew into brilliance and were extinguished in a crisping of flame.

IV

Tripp the Polar found Brod outside Port Wilson, ploughing a hilltop. It was nearly half a Great Year after the debacle of the last Tithe Colloquy on the Navel – and nearly as long since the allies of the Speakers had laid siege to Port Wilson, in the war spat that had flared up after Brod’s abduction of Vala the Sapphire.

‘But it was no abduction,’ Brod said. He straightened up, sweating hard despite what felt like a cool watch to Tripp. He was one of dozens of men and women labouring with hand-held hoes and ploughs in this roughly marked out field. Coated with mud like the others, he’d been difficult to find. ‘She wanted it as much as me. More, maybe. No matter what the Speaker of Speakers says, or his tractor-spawned son Khilli. Sometimes I think …’

‘What?’ Tripp was closer in age to Brod’s mother than to Brod himself. It was wickedly funny to see this big strutting soldier boy put to work in a field, and so evidently confused. ‘Tell me, Brod. What do you think?’