Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring (99 page)

For a moment there was an element of hurt in his face, and his lips parted as if he were about to protest; but then he smiled, and she saw his defensive front enclose him once more. ‘Now, now. Let’s not bicker. We don’t want to be found at odds when our host from the Core comes to meet us, do we?’

‘I don’t think I can restrain myself for such a long wait,’ she said with contempt, and she turned back to her pigs, stroking and soothing them.

There was another thud at the hull, a scrape along the length of the ship. This one was softer than before, but still Dura found herself shuddering. She calmed the nervous pigs with quiet words, and wondered if she had been right - if it really would be such a long wait, after all.

Electron gas crackling from its superconducting hoops, the tiny wooden ship laboured centimetre after centimetre into the thickening depths of the neutron star.

Bzya was to be put on double shifts, inside the Bells. He didn’t know when he would next have enough free time to get away from the Harbour between dives. So he invited Adda and Farr to come see him off, in a place he called a ‘bar’.

Adda found the place with some difficulty. The bar was a small, cramped chamber tucked deep inside the Downside. The only light came from guttering wood-lamps on the walls; in the green, poky gloom Adda was strongly aware of how deep inside the carcass of the City he was buried.

In one corner of the bar was a counter where a couple of people were apparently serving something, some kind of food. Rails criss-crossed the chamber with no apparent pattern; men and women clustered together in small groups on the rails, slowly eating their way through bowls of what looked like bread, and talking desultorily. Adda saw heavy workers’ tunics, scarred flesh, thick, twisted limbs. One or two appraising stares were directed at the upfluxer.

Bzya was alone at a length of rail, close to the far wall. He saw Adda and raised an arm, beckoning him over; three small bowls were fixed to the rail beside him.

Adda pushed forward, feeling self-conscious in his bandages, and clambered stiffly through the crowded place, aware of the babble of conversation all around him.

‘Adda.’ Bzya smiled through his distorted face, and waved Adda to a clear space of rail. Adda hooked one arm over the rail, hooking himself comfortably into place. ‘Thanks for coming down.’ Bzya glanced, once, past Adda towards the door, then turned back to his bowls.

Adda caught the look. ‘No Farr,’ he said heavily. ‘I’m sorry, Bzya. I couldn’t find him.’

Bzya nodded. ‘I expect he’s Surfing again.’

‘I know you did a lot for him, when he was working in the Harbour; he should have ...’

Bzya held up his thick palm. ‘Forget it. Look, if I was his age I’d rather be losing myself in the sky with the Surfers than sitting in a poky place like this with two battered old fogeys. And with the Games coming up in a couple of days, they’ll only have one thing on their minds. Or maybe two,’ he said slyly. He nodded at the three bowls on the rail. ‘Anyway, it just means there’s more of this stuff for us.’

Adda looked down at the row of bowls. They were crudely carved of wood and were little larger than his cupped palm, and they were fixed to the rail by stubs of wood. The bowls contained small slices of what might have been bread. Adda, cautiously, pulled out a small, round slice; it was dense, warm and moist to the touch. He turned it over doubtfully. ‘What the hell’s this?’

Bzya laughed, looking pleased with himself. ‘I didn’t think you’d have heard of it yet. No bars in the upflux, eh, my friend?’

Adda glared. ‘I’m supposed to eat this stuff?’

Bzya extended his fingers, inviting Adda to do so.

Adda sniffed at the plastic stuff, squeezed it, and finally took a small nibble. It was as hot, dense and soggy as it looked - unpleasant inside the mouth - and the taste was sour, unidentifiable. Adda swallowed the fragment. ‘Disgusting.’

‘But you’ve got to treat it right.’ Bzya dipped into the bowl, drew out a thick handful of the stuff, and crammed it into his mouth. His big jaws worked as he chewed the stuff twice, then swallowed it down in one go. He closed his eyes as the hot food passed down his throat; and after a few seconds he shuddered briefly, suppressing a sigh. Then he belched. ‘
That’s
how you take beercake.’

‘Beercake?’

‘Try it again.’

Adda reached into the second bowl and lifted a healthy handful of cake to his mouth. It sat in his mouth, hot, dense and eminently indigestible; but, with determination; he bit into it a couple of times and then swallowed, forcing his throat to accept the incompressible stuff. The cake passed down his throat, a hard, painful lump. ‘Fabulous,’ he said when it was gone. ‘I’m so glad I came.’

Bzya grinned and held up his palm.

... And a heat seemed to surge smoothly out from Adda’s stomach, flooding his body and head; his palms and feet tingled, as if being worked by invisible fingers, and his skull seemed to swell in size, filling up with a roomy, comfortable warmth. He looked down at his body, astonished, half-expecting to see electron gas sparking around his fingertips, to hear his skin sighing with the new warmth. But there was no outward change.

After a few seconds the heat-surge wore away, but when it had receded it left Adda feeling subtly altered. The bar seemed cosier - friendlier - than even a moment before, and the smell of the remaining beercake was pleasing, harmonious, enticing.

‘Welcome to beercake, my friend, and a new lifelong relationship.’

The pleasing warmth induced by the cake still permeated Adda. He poked at the cake with a new wonder. ‘Well, I’ve not eaten anything with such an impact before, up- or downflux.’

‘I didn’t think so.’ Bzya picked up a piece of cake and compressed it between his fingers. ‘Farr is developing a taste too, I ought to say. It’s a mash, mostly of Crust-tree leaf. But it’s fermented - in huge Corestuff vessels, for days ...’

‘Fermented?’

‘Spin-spider web is put into the vats with the mash. There’s something in the webbing, maybe in the glistening stuff that makes it sticky, which reacts with the mash and changes it to beercake. Magic.’

‘Sure.’ Adda took another mouthful of the beercake now; it was as revolting as before, but the anticipation of its after-effects made the taste much easier to bear. He swallowed it down and allowed the warmth to filter through his being.

‘What does the stuff cost?’

‘Nothing.’ Bzya shrugged. ‘The Harbour authorities provide it for us. As much as we want, as long as we’re able to do our jobs.’

‘What do you mean? Is it bad for you?’

‘If you overdo it, yes.’ Bzya rubbed his face. ‘It works on the capillaries in your flesh - dilates them - and some of the major pneumatic vessels in the brain. The flow of Air is subtly altered, you see, and ...’

‘And you feel wonderful.’

‘Yeah. But if you use it too often, you can’t recover. The capillaries stay dilated ...’

Adda gazed around the bar, at this safe, marvellous place. ‘That seems all right to me.’

‘Sure. Your head would be a wonderful place to live in. But you couldn’t function, Adda; you couldn’t do a job. And if it gets bad enough you couldn’t even feed yourself, without prompting. But, yes, you’d feel wonderful about it.’

‘And I don’t suppose this City is so forgiving of people who can’t hold down jobs.’

‘Not much.’

‘Don’t the Harbour managers worry they’re going to lose too many of their Fishermen, to this cake stuff? Why dole it out free?’

Bzya shrugged. ‘They lose a few. But they don’t care. Adda, we’re expendable. It doesn’t take long to train up a new Fisherman, and there’re always plenty of recruits, in the Downside. And they know the cake keeps us here in the bars, happy, quiet, and available. They gain more than they lose.’ He chomped another mouthful. ‘And so do I.’

Adda worked his way slowly through the bowl, cautiously observing the cake’s increasing effects on him. Every so often he moved his fingers and feet, testing his coordination. If he got to the point where he even thought he might be losing control, he promised himself, he’d stop.

The Fisherman had fallen silent; his huge fingers toyed with the cake.

‘I hear you’re on double shifts. Whatever that means.’

Bzya smiled, indulgent. ‘It means I’m assigned to the Bells twice as frequently as usual. It’s because they’re running twice as many dives as usual.’

‘Why?’

‘The upflux Glitch. No wood coming into the City. Not enough, anyway. People bitch about food rationing, but the wood shortage is just as important in the longer term. And let’s hope the day never comes when they have to ration beercake ... Anyway, they want more Corestuff metal, to use as building material. ’

‘Building? Are they extending the City?’

‘Rebuilding. It goes on all the time, Adda, mostly deep in the guts of the place. Small repairs, maintenance. Although,’ he said, leaning forward conspiratorially, ‘there are rumours that it isn’t just the need to keep up routine repairs that’s prompted this increased demand.’

‘What, then?’

‘They’re trying to strengthen the City’s structure. Rebuild the skeleton with more Corestuff. They’re not shouting about it for fear of causing panic; but they’re endeavouring to make it more robust in the face of future problems. Like a closer Glitch.’

Adda frowned. ‘Can they do that? Will it work?’

‘I’m not an engineer. I don’t know.’ Bzya chewed on the cake, absently. ‘But I doubt it,’ he said without emotion. ‘The City’s so huge; you’d have to rip most of its guts out to strengthen it significantly. And it’s a ramshackle structure. I mean, it
grew;
it was never planned. It was built for space, not strength.’

Parz had been one of the first permanent settlements founded after humanity was scattered through the Mantle following the Core Wars. At first Parz was a random construct of ropes and wood, no more significant than a dozen others, drifting freely above the Pole. But at the Pole the bodies of men and women were significantly stronger, and so Parz grew rapidly; and its position at the only geographically unique point in the southern hemisphere of the Mantle gave it strategic and psychological significance. Soon it had become a trading centre, and had wealth enough to afford a ruling class - the first in the Mantle since the Wars. The Committee had been founded, and the growth and unification of Parz had proceeded apace.

Parz’s wealth exploded when the Harbour was established - Parz was the first and only community in the Mantle able to extract and exploit the valuable Corestuff. Soon the scattered community of the cap of Mantle around Parz, the region eventually to be called the hinterland, fell under Parz’s economic influence. Eventually the hinterland and City worked as a single economic unit, with the raw materials and taxes of the hinterland flowing into Parz, with Corestuff and - more importantly - the stability and regulation provided by Parz’s law washing back in return. Eventually only the far upflux, bleak and inhospitable, remained disunited from Parz, home to a few tribes of hunters, and bands of Parz exiles like the Human Beings themselves.

Adda bit into more cake. ‘I’m surprised people accepted being taken over like that. Didn’t anybody fight?’

Bzya shook his head. ‘It wasn’t seen as a conquest. Parz is not an empire, although it might seem that way to you. Adda, people remembered the time before the Wars, when humans lived in safety and security throughout the Mantle. We couldn’t return to those times; we’d lost too much. But Parz was better than nothing: it offered stability, regulation, a framework to live in. People gripe about their tithes - and nobody’s going to pretend that the Committee get it right all the time - but most of us would prefer taxes to living wild. With all respect to you, my friend.’ He bit into his cake. ‘And that’s still true today; as true as it ever was.’

Two of the bowls were already empty. Adda felt the seduction of this place, that he could have sat here in this companionable glow with Bzya for a long time. ‘Do you really believe that? Look at your own position, Fisherman; look at the dangers you face daily. Is this really the best of all possible lives for you?’

Bzya grinned. ‘Well, I’d exchange places with Hork any day, if I thought I could do his job. Of course I would. And there are plenty of people closer to me, in the Harbour, who I’d happily throttle, if I thought it would make the world a better place. If I didn’t think they’d just bring in somebody worse. I accept I’m at the bottom of the heap, here, Adda. Or close to it. But I believe it’s the way of things. I will fight injustice and inequity - but I accept the need for the existence of the heap itself.’ He looked carefully at Adda. ‘Does that make sense?’

Adda thought it over. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘But it doesn’t seem to matter much.’

Bzya laughed. ‘Now you see why they give us this stuff for free. Here.’ He held out the third bowl. ‘Your good health, my friend.’

Adda reached for the cake.

A couple of days later Bzya’s shifts should have allowed him another break. Adda searched for Farr, but couldn’t find him, so he went down to the bar alone. He entered, awkward and self-conscious in his dressings, peering into the gloomier corners.

He couldn’t find Bzya, and he didn’t stay.

I
n the interior of the Star there were no sharp boundaries, merely gradual changes in the dominant form of matter as pressures and densities increased. So there was no dramatic plunge, no great impacts as the ‘Flying Pig’ hauled itself deeper: just a slow, depressing diminution of the last vestiges of Air-light. And the glow cast by the wood-lamps fixed to the walls was no substitute; with its smoky greenness and long, flickering shadows, the gloom in the cabin was quite sinister.

To Dura, hunched over herself in her corner of the ship, this long, slow descent into darkness was like a lingering death.