Authors: John Meaney

Absorption (36 page)

‘Girl talk,’ said Rekka.

Three months later, just past four a.m. on a Friday, a Pilot with glittering black eyes walked along an unlit corridor in Desert One. Then he paused before a locked door to which he did not have the code.

In his eyes, tiny golden sparks danced like fireflies. They faded as the door clicked open.

‘Hello,’ he said.

Inside, seated on a large couch, Sharp turned to see his visitor, his antlers looking hard and massive in the half-light.

‘You are the Pilot.’ The words came from his chest speaker. ‘It is good to meet you.’

‘Yes, Sharp. My name is Luís Delgado, and I’m honoured to be taking you home later.’

‘I will not see you during the voyage?’

‘No, that’s why I’m here now.’

‘Do you know Rekka?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Luís smiled. ‘And I like her very much.’

‘So do I.’

‘I’m glad I talked to you. Farewell, Sharp.’

‘Farewell, Luís Delgado.’

Luís nodded, and then walked out. The door automatically locked behind him.

Continuing through the xeno complex, he came to a door leading to an equipment bay. No automatic lights, as he walked the corridors, had activated. Now, the door failed to scan the person standing before it.

Once more, golden sparks glimmered in his eyes. The door slid open.

Big TAV cranes looked like giant silver scorpions, their tails capable of lifting enormous loads. In six hours, they would be loading equipment aboard Luís’s vessel. He looked around for the stacked white crates, and found them.

He walked closer.

One of the crates came up to his chest. After a few seconds, he pressed his fingertips against it and closed his eyes. Then he smiled slowly.

Then he walked back among the shadows, slipped out of the bay, and into the night.

At 9:38, Mary Stelanko was standing next to Simon in the control tower, staring down at the gleaming white-and-silver delta-winged ship that shone on the runway.

The TAV cranes were moving out of sight, their cargo already aboard the ship. Then a smaller vehicle rolled slowly across the tarmac, and came to a halt beneath a massive wing.

Sharp and Rekka alighted.

The ship’s own carry-arm extended from the hold, providing a small platform for them to step on to. Then it carried them up, and they disappeared inside.

Simon turned to a holodisplay on one of the controllers’ consoles. It showed Rekka checking Sharp was on his couch, then pressing the tailored delta-band across his forehead and activating it. She watched the status displays for a while - they were reproduced on the console, and Simon could see they were normal for Sharp - then she climbed onto her own couch, put delta-band to forehead, and pressed it.

Her hand dropped to the couch. She was deep in sleep.

Neither Mary nor Simon said anything as the remaining minutes elapsed. At exactly ten o’clock, one of the controllers said, ‘It’s a go,’ and blue flame brightened at the ship’s rear. Then it began to roll.

‘And . . .
now,
’ said the controller.

The craft blasted along the runway, pulled impossibly fast up into the sky, and disappeared in a blaze of whiteness.

‘Godspeed,’ said Mary.

‘Come back safe,’ said Simon.

Above Desert One, the sapphire sky was empty.

TWENTY-SEVEN

FULGOR, 2603 AD

So how was he supposed to pretend everything was normal? Roger commanded his bedroom window to swell outwards and open down, forming a balcony; then he stepped out on to the quickglass. He stared across campus, remembering golden space and the endless elegance of Labyrinth. Not to mention strange, dark dreams that kept popping into his head.

Gavriela. You’re only in my mind.

From above, a voice called: ‘You okay down there?’

‘Huh? Sure.’

‘So, do I need to open Skein comms?’ It was Stef, leaning from her own balcony. ‘Or shall I come down in person?’

It wasn’t like her to be friendly.

‘If you want to,’ he said. ‘Would you like a cup of daistral?’

‘You bet. See you in a second.’

He half-expected her to morph her balcony into a ramp, leading down to his own. Instead she disappeared inside, presumably to descend indoors like a civilized person. He requested drinks from the house system, and he had a cup in each hand by the time the door melted open and Stef came in.

‘Here you are.’

‘Thank you, Mr Blackstone. So, did I catch you staring into space, thinking of your girlfriend?’

For a moment he thought she meant Gavriela, which was insane.

‘Are you talking about Alisha? Because she’s not—’

‘That’s who I’m talking about, and I’ve been pretty snotty with her, haven’t I?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Can we sit down?’ Stef gestured for chairs to sprout from the floor. ‘Maybe I’ve been a bit short with everyone.’

They both sat.

‘Everyone has their own mannerisms,’ said Roger.

‘You’re very polite. Truth is, I’ve been a bit mixed up. I had an older boyfriend, you see. Long-term, and we split up as part of my coming here.’

‘Oh.’

‘The bust-up was . . . I don’t know. He told me I was only something because of him. Without him, I was useless.’

‘He was wrong.’

‘Thank you. I think I know that. But without him, I’d never have dragged myself out of the mess I—Look, I was mixed up since I was ten, starting when—’

What she related was the story of a childhood formed by self-involved parents who never noticed their daughter sampling amphetamist and booze left over from their frequent parties. At school, she had become a bully, a nasty piece of work - in her own words - and the kind of subversive pupil every teacher hated: intelligent and nuts.

Accidental pregnancy was so primitive and stupid a mistake that it wasn’t even a cliché. There was some legal trouble that she skated over, a succession of boyfriends, then the one stable relationship that pulled her out of chaos.

‘Not that anyone else approved, you understand.’

‘But you came out if it,’ said Roger. ‘You’ve been through the mill, and come out a stronger person.’

‘Maybe.’ Her smile was sad. ‘You’re sweet.’

‘Not really.’

‘You are.’ She leaned over, and pressed her palm against his cheek. ‘You understand why I can’t be with you, don’t you?’

‘Er—’

‘So, look.’ She stood up. ‘I want to see you going out on a date with Alisha Spalding, or you’re in big trouble. Understand me?’

‘I guess.’

‘Good. Then I’m off.’ She walked to the opening door, blew him a kiss, and left. ‘Ciao.’

The quickglass flowed back into place.

What was that all about?

He remembered a conversation with Dad, perhaps a year ago.

‘
Son, no matter how much cognosemantics and neurocoding you learn, women are a mystery. And some of them are strange attractors.
’

‘Isn’t that some kind of archaic gender stereotyping?
’

‘It certainly is.
’

Obviously Dad hadn’t told him half of it.

In the sports hall, he stared down at the wrestling area, watching people roll on the mats, wishing he could join them. His solo exercises might have combat applications, but without practising live, he was never going to feel confident. The problem was the additional deepscanning that athletes went through - both for health and to prevent cheating - and the danger of revealing his true nature.

Being here was like picking at a scab. What he ought to do was call Alisha, as Stef had pretty much commanded, or else put her out of his mind. He felt about as decisive as Hamlet, the protagonist of the most boring holodrama he had seen. According to Alisha, it was all in the poor translation; but English was about as accessible as Sanskrit. To be fair, among old Earth languages it had some nice characteristics - more verb tenses than some, more subtly different verbs, so reducing the need for qualifying adverbs - but it lacked the tonality or symbolic resonance that made allusions and multiple meanings so easy. Other ancestral usage, from Old Norse kennings to Mandarin numerology, allowed subtle simultaneous messages to be delivered in a single—

He forced the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, shutting himself up.

Then his tu-ring chimed. It was Alisha.

‘
Got a moment?
’

‘Sure.’

‘
You know Lupus Festival starts tomorrow, right?
’

‘I guess so.’

‘
So we’re building a mannequin for the parade. Our gang, plus some friends of Stef ’s.
’

‘Did she ask you to call me?’

‘
Not directly. Why-? Never mind. We’ve all got studies today, so we’re pulling an all-nighter in the labs to do the construction.
’

‘You mean, no sleep?’

‘
Sure, unless you can sleepwalk. It’s Rick’s design, and he’s done a good job.
’

‘That’s nuts.’

‘
Part of the fun. Oh, and . . . the parade’s tomorrow afternoon, so it’ll be a long haul.
’

‘Also, totally insane.’

‘
Hope you make it. Endit.
’

The holo shrank to a point, was gone.

Mannequins. Carnival parades. First day of Lupus.

What am I doing here?

This was supposed to be the centre of learning, of leading intellectual activity. Instead, Alisha wanted him to hang around with a bunch of giggling people, working through the night to achieve nothing serious, just for the hell of it.

It’s stupid.

Or maybe he was the stupid one, brooding by himself about things that mattered only to him, while the world continued to flow around him, and people could enjoy or be miserable as they wished, none of it making a difference to anyone but themselves.

They worked in a bay designed to receive large transport vehicles. Roger turned up when the project was well underway, his friends hanging off a half-constructed silver skeleton, or dangling from the scaffolding around it. The mannequin’s joints were complex cogs. Once finished, it would be four times taller than a person.

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