Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring (64 page)

Farr said, ‘We can’t escape that. Can we, Dura?’

There was a moment of stillness, almost of calm. Farr’s voice, though still cracked by adolescence, had sounded suddenly full of a premature wisdom. It was some comfort that Dura wasn’t going to have to lie to him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘We’ve been too slow. I think it’s going to hit the Net.’ She felt distant from the danger around her, as if she were recalling events from long ago, far away.

Even as it rushed up towards them the ripple bowed away from the trend of the vortex line in ever more elaborate, fantastic shapes. It was as if some elastic limit had been passed and the vortex line, under intolerable strain, was yielding.

It was almost beautiful, captivating to watch. And it was only mansheights away.

She heard the thin voice of old Adda, from somewhere on the other side of the Net. ‘Get away from the Net. Oh, get away from the Net!’

‘Do as he says. Come on.’

The boy slowly lifted his head; he still clung to the rope, and his eyes were empty, as if beyond fear or wonder. She drove a fist into one of his hands. ‘Come on!’

The boy cried out and withdrew his hands and legs from the Net, staring at her with a round face full of betrayal ... but a face that looked once more like that of an alert child rather than a bemused, petrified adult. Dura grabbed his hand. ‘Farr, you have to Wave as you’ve never Waved before. Hold my hand; we’ll stay together ...’

With a thrust of her legs she pushed away. For the first moments she seemed to be dragging Farr behind her; but soon his body was Waving in synchronization with hers, wriggling against the cloying thickness of the Magfield, and the two of them hurried away from the doomed Net.

As she Waved, gasping, Dura looked back. The spin instability, recoiling, wafted through the Air like a deadly, blue-white wand. It scythed towards the Net with its cargo of wriggling humans. It was like some wonderful toy, Dura thought; it glowed intensely brightly, and the heat-noise it emitted was a roar, almost drowning out thought itself. The bleating of trapped Air-pigs was cold-thin, and Dura thought briefly of the old animal with whom she had shared that brief, odd moment of half-communication; she wondered how much that poor creature understood of what was to happen.

Maybe half the Human Beings had heeded Adda’s advice to get away. The rest, apparently paralysed by fear and awe, still clung to the Net. The pregnant Dia was lumbering away into the Air with Mur; the woman Philas still picked frantically, uselessly, at the Net, despite the pleas of her husband Esk to come away. It was as if, Dura thought, Philas imagined that the work was a magic spell which would drive the instability away.

Dura knew that rotation instabilities lost energy rapidly. Soon, very soon, this fantastic demon would wither to nothing, leaving the Air calm and empty once more. And, glowing, roaring, stinking of sour photons, the instability was indeed visibly shrinking as it bore down on the Net.

But, it was immediately obvious, not shrinking fast enough ...

With a heat-wail like a thousand voices the instability tore into the Net.

It was like a fist driving into cloth.

The Air inside the Net ceased to be superfluid and became a stiff, turbulent mass, whipping and whorling around the vortex instability like some demented animal. Dura saw knots burst open; the Net, almost gracefully, disintegrated into fragments of rope, into rough mats to which adults and children clung.

The Air-pig herd was hurled away into the Air as if scattered by a giant hand. Dura could see how some of the beasts, evidently dead or dying, hung where they were thrown, limply suspended against the Magfield; the rest squirted away through the Air, their bellow-guts puffing out farts of blue gas.

One man, clinging alone to a raft of rope, was sucked towards the instability itself.

It was too far away to be sure, but Dura thought she recognized Esk. Dozens of mansheights from the site of the Net, she was much too far away even to call to him - let alone to help - but nevertheless she seemed to see what followed as clearly as if she rode at her lost lover’s shoulder towards the deadly arch.

Esk, with his mat of rope, tumbled through the plane of the quivering, arch-shaped instability and was hurled around the arch itself, as limp as a doll. His trajectory rapidly lost energy and, unresisting, he spiralled inwards, orbiting the arch like some demented Air-piglet.

Esk’s body burst open, the chest and abdominal cavities peeling back like opening eyes, the limbs coming free almost easily, like a toy’s.

Farr cried out, wordless. It was the first sound he’d made since they’d pushed away from the Net.

Dura reached for him and clutched his hand, hard. ‘Listen to me,’ she shouted over the arch’s continuing heat-clamour. ‘It looked worse than it was. Esk was dead long before he hit the arch.’ And that was true; as soon as he had entered the region in which superfluidity broke down, the processes of Esk’s body - his breathing, his circulatory system, his very muscles, all reliant on the exploitation of the Air’s superfluidity - would have collapsed. To Esk, as the strength left his limbs, as the Air coagulated in the superleak capillaries of his brain, it must have been like falling gently asleep.

She thought. She hoped.

The instability passed through the site of the Net and sailed on into the sky, continuing its futile mission towards the South. But even as Dura watched, the arch shape was dwindling, shrinking, its energy expended.

It left behind an encampment which had been torn apart as effectively as poor Esk’s body.

Dura pulled Farr closer to her, easily overcoming the gentle resistance of the Magfield, and stroked his hair. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s over now. Let’s go back, and see what we can do.’

‘No,’ he said, clinging to his sister. ‘It’s never over. Is it, Dura?’

Little knots of people moved through the glistening, newly stable vortex lines, calling to each other. Dura Waved between the struggling groups, searching for Logue, or news of Logue; she kept a tight grip on Farr’s hand.

‘Dura, help us! Oh, by the blood of the Xeelee, help us!’

The voice came to her from a dozen mansheights away; it was a man’s - thin, high and desperate. She turned in the Air, searching for its source.

Farr took her arm and pointed. ‘There. It’s Mur, over by that chunk of Net. See? And it looks as if he’s got Dia with him.’

Heavily pregnant Dia ... Dura pulled at her brother’s hand and Waved rapidly through the Air.

Mur and Dia hung alone in the Air, naked and without tools. Mur was holding his wife’s shoulders and cradling her head. Dia was stretched out, her legs parting softly, her hands locked around the base of her distended belly.

Mur’s young face was hard, cold and determined; his eyes were pits of darkness as he peered at Dura and Farr. ‘It’s her time. She’s early, but the Glitch ... You’ll have to help me.’

‘All right.’ Dura lifted Dia’s hands away from her belly, gently but firmly, and ran her fingers quickly over the uneven bulge. She could feel the baby’s limbs pushing feebly at the walls which still restrained it. The head was low, deep in the pelvis. ‘I think the head’s engaged,’ she said. Dia’s young, thin face was fixed on hers, contorted with pain; Dura tried to smile at her. ‘It feels fine. A little while longer ...’

Dia hissed, her face creased with pain, ‘Get on with it, damn you.’

‘Yes.’

Dura looked around desperately; the Air around them was still empty, the nearest Human Beings dozens of mansheights away. They were on their own.

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to resist the temptation to search the Air for Logue. She delved deep inside herself, looking for strength.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said. ‘Mur, hold her neck and shoulders. You’ll have to brace her there; if you Wave a little you’ll hold yourself in place, and ...’

‘I know what to do,’ Mur snapped. Still holding Dia’s small head against his chest, he grasped her shoulders and Waved slowly, his strong legs beating at the Air.

Dura felt awkward, inadequate.
Damn it
, she thought, aware of the pettiness of her own reaction,
damn it, I’ve never done this on my own before. What do they expect?

What next? ‘Farr, you’ll have to help me.’

The boy hovered in the Air a mansheight away, his mouth gaping. ‘Dura, I ...’

‘Come on, Farr, there’s nobody else,’ Dura said. As he came close to her she whispered, ‘I know you’re frightened. I’m frightened too. But not as much as Dia. It’s not so difficult as all that, anyway. We’ll do fine ...’

As long as nothing goes wrong, she thought.

‘All right,’ Farr said. ‘What do I do?’

Dura took hold of Dia’s right leg, wrapping her fingers tightly around the lower calf. The woman’s muscles were trembling and slick with Air-sweat, and Dura could feel the legs pushing apart; Dia’s vagina was opening like a small mouth, popping softly. ‘Take her other leg,’ she told Farr. ‘Like I’ve done. Get a tight hold; you’re going to have to pull hard.’

Farr, hesitant and obviously scared, did as he was told.

The baby moved, visibly, further into the pelvic area. It was like watching a morsel of food disappear down some huge neck. Dia arched back her head and moaned; the muscles in her neck were stiff and prominent.

‘It’s time,’ Dura said. She glanced around quickly. She and Farr were in position, holding Dia’s ankles; Mur was already Waving, quite hard, pushing at his wife’s shoulders, so that the little ensemble drifted slowly through the Air. Both Mur’s and Farr’s eyes were locked on Dura’s face.

Dia called out again, wordlessly.

Dura leaned back, grasping Dia’s calf, and pushed firmly with her legs at the Magfield. ‘Farr! Do what I’m doing. We have to open her legs. Go on; don’t be afraid.’

Farr watched her for a moment, then leaned back and Waved in a copy of his sister’s movements. Mur cried out and shoved hard at his wife’s shoulders, balancing Farr and Dura.

Dia’s legs parted easily. She screamed.

Farr’s hands slid over Dia’s convulsing calf; in his shock he seemed to stumble in the Air, his eyes wide. Dia’s thighs twitched back towards each other, the muscles shuddering.

‘No!’ Mur shouted. ‘Farr, keep going; you mustn’t stop now!’

Farr’s distress was evident. ‘But we’re hurting her.’

‘No.’

Damn it
, Dura thought,
Farr should know what’s happening here
. Dia’s pelvis was hinged; with the birth so close the cartilage locking the two segments of the pelvis together would have dissolved into Dia’s blood, leaving her pelvis easily opened. Her birth canal and vagina were already stretching, gaping wide. Everything was working together to allow the baby’s head an easy passage from the womb to the Air.
It’s easy
, Dura thought.
And it’s easy because the Ur-humans designed it to be easy, maybe even easier than for themselves . . .

‘It’s meant to be like this,’ she shouted at Farr. ‘Believe me. You’ll hurt her if you stop now, if you don’t help us. And you’ll hurt the baby.’

Dia opened her eyes. The cups brimmed with tears. ‘Please, Farr,’ she said, reaching towards him vaguely. ‘It’s all right. Please.’

He nodded, mumbling apologies, and pulled once more at Dia’s leg.

‘Easy,’ Dura called, trying to match his motion. ‘Not too fast, and not jerkily; nice and smooth ...’

The birth canal gaped like a green-dark tunnel. Dia’s legs parted further than it would have seemed possible; Dura could see, under the thin flesh around the girl’s hips, how the pelvis had hinged wide.

Dia screamed; her stomach convulsed.

The baby came suddenly, wriggling down the birth passage like an Air-piglet. It squirted into the Air with a soft, sucking noise; droplets of dense, green-gold Air sprayed around it. As soon as it was out of the canal the baby started to Wave, instinctively but feebly, across the Magfield within which it would be embedded for all of its life.

Dura’s eyes locked on Farr. He was following the baby’s uncertain progress through the Air, his mouth slack with wonder; but he was still firmly holding Dia’s leg. ‘Farr,’ Dura commanded. ‘Come back towards me now. Slowly, steadily - that’s it ...’

Dia’s only danger now was that her hinged bones would not settle neatly back into place without dislocation; and even if all went well, for a few days she would be barely able to move as the halves of her pelvis knitted together once more. With Dura and Farr guiding them, her legs closed smoothly; Dura could see the bones around Dia’s pelvis sliding smoothly back into place.

Mur had managed to snatch a rag, a remnant of some piece of clothing, from the littered Air; now he wiped tenderly at Dia’s relaxing, half-sleeping face. Dura took some of the rag and mopped at Dia’s thighs and belly.

Farr Waved slowly towards them. He had chased after and caught the baby, Dura saw; now he held the child against his chest as proudly as if it were his own, uncaring of the birth fluid which pooled on his chest. The infant’s mouth was still distorted into the characteristic horn-shape it had needed to lock on to the womb-wall nipples which sustained it before its birth; and its tiny penis had popped out of the protective cache between its legs.

Farr, grinning, held the baby out to its mother. ‘It’s a boy,’ he said.

‘Jai,’ Dia whispered. ‘He’s Jai.’

Forty Human Beings had survived, of fifty. All but six adult Air-pigs, four of them male, were gone. The Net, torn and scattered, was irreparable.

Logue was lost.

The tribe huddled together in the Magfield, surrounded by featureless Air. Mur and Dia clung together, cradling their new, mewling baby. Dura uncomfortably led the Human Beings through a brief service of prayers, calling down the beneficence of the Xeelee. Adda stayed close to her, silent and strong despite his age, and Farr’s hand was a constant presence in hers.