Laminated nanotech, vacuum-fixed in resin and ready for action. Road stares at the package with its shiny holograms promising manufacture of anything from enhanced breasts to high-performance batteries for sports cars. Literally nothing is out of his reach, so long as he has the pattern, the molecular spray that activates and constrains, a kind of proto-shape, an imaginary framework around which to build. It will become the nanites sole understanding of the world. Without it the package is just a useless lump of flastic.
Road tucks it back into his jacket. Overhead the central line stretches out of sight, its lights gently illuminating the baroque architecture of the docks, casting a haze over the loaders sucking and pushing cargo through the low-g. He checks the street is empty before heading out from the alley, barely casting a look backwards at the two kids who sold him the package. If they have suckered him he can find them again. He has to get to the next meeting.
THe nanotech is a controlled substance on the station. The enclosed, tiny eco-system is jealously protected from any potential imbalance, but there are ways. There have been any number of plagues testament to that, like the one that killed Road's parents and left him as trash sifting the dump for recyclables. Road finds a tunnel outwards, heading towards rim. Climbing down ladders and stairs there are only the metallic echoes of his feet and the dull rasp of his breath. It gets colder. The light becomes blue. He must be planet-side, the reflected sunshine bleeding through ports to be captured by mirrors and injected through the fibre-optic infrastructure lining the walls to carry it to the hydroponic gardens and the homes of the middle classes.
He turns a corner. A lone woman is stood, all leather and attitude. The leather is fake, grown from pig cells and textured to look like the real thing.
"You got it?" Road says, getting her attention.
She nods.
He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a cash card. He thumbs the recognition pad, prepping it for transfer. The woman passes him a small glass vial. He has no way of authenticating this without using it. His heart pounds. He has been stung before. The woman holds up her card. Road wills himself to have some way to know whether this is a valid knot. There is nothing. He holds his breath and finishes the transaction with a sweep, his conscious mind screaming no.
The woman turns, walks around a corner and is gone. Road rushes home. Crouched in his little pod he splits open the package and removes the little block. He has put together a small pile of old clothes, ready food for the assembler. Shaking his hand opens the knot and squirts it. The liquid soaks into the gunmetal surface of the nanites, turning it to quicksilver. There is a flash, a heat that flares from it. He closes his eyes until it is done. Within a few minutes there is darkness again. He opens his eyes and sees the suit in front of him. A perfect replica, down to every thread. The fibres of the jacket and trousers repel dirt and marks of any kind. The fabric is self-repairing, the nanites embedded within it and powered by piezo energy generated by the wearer. A black-market knock-off of a suit that he could never afford and the ticket to getting the job that will get him out. Out of the dump, and away from the station.
Showing posts with label sf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sf. Show all posts
Monday, 30 August 2010
Sunday, 13 June 2010
castaway
Frenton watches the planet grow larger. Its atmosphere a thread of glare around the green circumference partially lit by the distant sun. Scattered lights in the black tell of the colony below. Frenton tries once again to pull his hands free, then his legs, struggling with a renewed energy marked by the visible changes in the planet as he is drawn deeper into its gravity well. His arms and legs are firmly fixed, the suit that provides him with his only air and security from the vacuum has been welded to the rock.
He gives up again. Becomes still. He blinks to try and activate the suit comm unit, then probes the switch panel with his tongue but nothing works. He is tired and exhausted. He has had nothing to eat since he was cast adrift. No sense of time although he knows that he has drifted in and out of consciousness. The orb has featured heavily in his dreams, of falling into its atmosphere and the fast burn that would vapourise him. Sometimes he dreams that he cannot breath, that the air has been misjudged and he is to be lucky enough to die an early death. But still the planet grows larger.
He does not even know the planet's name. It looks unreal to him. There is no sense of presence, no tug of gravity that would tell him that any of this is real. Only the feel of the suit material and the immobility of his limbs. He turns his head but he cannot even make out any part of the asteroid he has been fixed to.
The world starts to fill his vision. As it grows he starts to realise that he has not been fired straight at the planet. He is off-centred. A longer, slower journey. He starts to do calculations in his head but he cannot make sense of them. The planet is roughly Earth-sized. Its rate of growth must be of use in calculating his own speed. But he has no real data. Only a glimmer of hope. That maybe they got their trajectory wrong. Maybe he will not fall into the planet but will be slung around it. Perhaps even noticed by one of the emergency support satellites for the colony. Rescued.
It is too good a thought to be true. Even if a mistake had been made he would only drift until his air ran out. Instead, he finds himself wondering if it is true that a human can die by biting off their own tongue. He is not sure he would have the will power and the thought of drowning in his own blood is no more appealing than the real options.
He starts to imagine the roar. The buffeting of the atmosphere against the rock. The drag that will bounce him, aero-braking, heating, burning. He finds himself willing it to happen. A last chance to feel something other than the weightlessness of the past however many hours or days. He an see nothing but the planet now. It cannot be long
And yet it does not happen. Almost imperceptible except to his painful study he realises that the planet has started to recede. That maybe the wild hope of earlier has become true. Then there is a jolt. He spins. No, he realises, now it is happening. The planet rolls away from him. He is turning away from it. Instead he is looking at blackness. And then the ship. The pirates are right up against him. Maybe they want to watch every last moment. There is a short glare of thrust and the ship comes closer, arms stretched out and ready to grab him. With horror Frenton realises that they are rescuing him. That this has all been an extended torture. A proof of what they will do. He does not know if he has the will to resist a second time.
He gives up again. Becomes still. He blinks to try and activate the suit comm unit, then probes the switch panel with his tongue but nothing works. He is tired and exhausted. He has had nothing to eat since he was cast adrift. No sense of time although he knows that he has drifted in and out of consciousness. The orb has featured heavily in his dreams, of falling into its atmosphere and the fast burn that would vapourise him. Sometimes he dreams that he cannot breath, that the air has been misjudged and he is to be lucky enough to die an early death. But still the planet grows larger.
He does not even know the planet's name. It looks unreal to him. There is no sense of presence, no tug of gravity that would tell him that any of this is real. Only the feel of the suit material and the immobility of his limbs. He turns his head but he cannot even make out any part of the asteroid he has been fixed to.
The world starts to fill his vision. As it grows he starts to realise that he has not been fired straight at the planet. He is off-centred. A longer, slower journey. He starts to do calculations in his head but he cannot make sense of them. The planet is roughly Earth-sized. Its rate of growth must be of use in calculating his own speed. But he has no real data. Only a glimmer of hope. That maybe they got their trajectory wrong. Maybe he will not fall into the planet but will be slung around it. Perhaps even noticed by one of the emergency support satellites for the colony. Rescued.
It is too good a thought to be true. Even if a mistake had been made he would only drift until his air ran out. Instead, he finds himself wondering if it is true that a human can die by biting off their own tongue. He is not sure he would have the will power and the thought of drowning in his own blood is no more appealing than the real options.
He starts to imagine the roar. The buffeting of the atmosphere against the rock. The drag that will bounce him, aero-braking, heating, burning. He finds himself willing it to happen. A last chance to feel something other than the weightlessness of the past however many hours or days. He an see nothing but the planet now. It cannot be long
And yet it does not happen. Almost imperceptible except to his painful study he realises that the planet has started to recede. That maybe the wild hope of earlier has become true. Then there is a jolt. He spins. No, he realises, now it is happening. The planet rolls away from him. He is turning away from it. Instead he is looking at blackness. And then the ship. The pirates are right up against him. Maybe they want to watch every last moment. There is a short glare of thrust and the ship comes closer, arms stretched out and ready to grab him. With horror Frenton realises that they are rescuing him. That this has all been an extended torture. A proof of what they will do. He does not know if he has the will to resist a second time.
Sunday, 23 May 2010
In the woods
Overhead tower blocks gently swing, waving in the breeze like fruit hanging on a tree. Wavebox and Sandy lie in the orange light of the fading sun, waiting for shutdown. A nearby tree tries to start up a conversation but Wavebox shushes it politely.
"Tree's are fun but they can be quite slow as the sun goes down." Wavebox explains to Sandy. It is his younger brother's first trip into the parkland. Sandy is just ten, Wavebox is in his teens and an impossibly romantic and large figure to Sandy.
The light starts to fade from the trees. Slowly they start to sleep.
"Listen." Wavebox says.
In the space left by the trees and plants there is a gentler hum, a slower, deeper sound.
"The rocks." Sandy says.
Wavebox nods, sitting up. The rocks sound so different from the apartment wood, from the trees. There is a stillness to their thought. Wavebox smiles. He is glad his brother has come with him.
"It is time to go." He says.
Sandy nods. They get up and walk together along the path, lit gently by the over head lights of the city. Wavebox listens to the rocks, letting them guide him. Since he and his friends learned to listen to the rocks and used them to pass messages they have begun to organise the parties.
Further up the path darkened figures stand, waiting. Sandy feels nervous. Wavebox queries ahead and puts his hand on Sandy's shoulders. It's ok, they're with us. We're nearly there."
Wavebox nods at the two sentries. One of them he knows. A girl from his class, pretty and dressed well with bright pink hair woven with soft pulse light. She smiles at him and he feels a warm nervous glow. Beyond them is a clearing. The overhead is covered with woven trees, the result of a month of gentle negotiation to create an arena that will be hidden from above. He clearing is already half filled with people, mostly young, around Wavebox's age or slightly older. No-one over twenty, that's the rule.
Ambient music plays, punctuated by random pop hits that fade in and out. Wavebox looks around for someone he knows. He finds Steel, already mixing it with a few of the others. He doesn't know Steel so well, an state of ambivalence has already existed between them. But Steel sees him and waves him over. Wavebox, realising he cannot walk away, goes to his group.
"Who's the little one?" Steel asks.
"This is Sandy, my kid brother."
Steel nods. "Good to met you." He says.
Sandy feels timid. Everyone is larger than him. He has not seen anyone his own age. He feels a little angry towards his brother but excited at the same time.
The music starts to change. It gets faster and louder. A few people start to dance. Others stand around, collecting juice from the trees and passing it around. Sandy tries some. It is sweeter, deeper than the stuff in the blocks.
"It's not so diluted when you get it from the source." Steel explains.
The music suddenly stops. There are hollers and shouts of approval as everyone sits down. Their hands run through the grass, the rough earth. Everyone becomes silent. Listening. Sandy copies Wavebox. He has been told what to do but the strangeness has forced the explanation from his memory. He is mostly terrified of making a fool of himself.
The murmur of the stones seems to grow, becoming louder until there is nothing else. Each person seems to take on the call, creating impossible sounds from their mouths, from their throats, from their bones and flesh. The world begins to melt away. Sandy feels himself begin to sink. All becomes dark. The rough feel of rock against all his skin. But then it ends. There is no movement, no sense of falling. Sandy opens his eyes.
They are outside. He cannot see the others but he knows that they are there. He can feel them, supporting him like knots in a net. He looks about. There are only stars, a thousand million pins of light, textured clouds of coloured gas. The feel of exotic particles against whatever he has become, an eternal wind of quantum foam breaking against the bow of the ship. He tries to turn, to look back at the ship. Its pitted surface stretches outwards below him. He cannot see its length.
It's all true. He thinks.
Sandy suddenly feels himself pulled back inwards. Quicker than before he finds himself sat back on the grass, his hands in the dirt. He feels the grin on his face. His eyes open to look around at everyone else. They are all the same. Looking at each other with the same sense of wonder and magic. Grinning and moving towards each other with a pleasure and openness none has experienced outside this. A girl hugs Sandy and he hugs her back.
The music starts up again, this time louder and faster. They start to dance. Everyone dances. Sandy laughs at his brother, who has found the sentry girl and is dancing with her, with everyone really. The feel of the universe a powerful scent between them, binding them together.
Suddenly there are lights, reds and blues, piercing through the canopy, from the sides. Sirens wail. A raid. Sandy panics. Looks again for his brother, but he cannot see him. A few people near the edge decide to run. Others sit down. Sandy desparately tries to remember what his brother told him about raids, words he repeated to himself over and over again. -The best thing is just to sit. Most of the time they just frisk everyone, take down a few names and let everyone go. They don't like it but there's not a lot they can really do. But Sandy does not feel so confident. Something in him takes over and he runs, heading for the thickest part of the wood, where there are no lights.
"Tree's are fun but they can be quite slow as the sun goes down." Wavebox explains to Sandy. It is his younger brother's first trip into the parkland. Sandy is just ten, Wavebox is in his teens and an impossibly romantic and large figure to Sandy.
The light starts to fade from the trees. Slowly they start to sleep.
"Listen." Wavebox says.
In the space left by the trees and plants there is a gentler hum, a slower, deeper sound.
"The rocks." Sandy says.
Wavebox nods, sitting up. The rocks sound so different from the apartment wood, from the trees. There is a stillness to their thought. Wavebox smiles. He is glad his brother has come with him.
"It is time to go." He says.
Sandy nods. They get up and walk together along the path, lit gently by the over head lights of the city. Wavebox listens to the rocks, letting them guide him. Since he and his friends learned to listen to the rocks and used them to pass messages they have begun to organise the parties.
Further up the path darkened figures stand, waiting. Sandy feels nervous. Wavebox queries ahead and puts his hand on Sandy's shoulders. It's ok, they're with us. We're nearly there."
Wavebox nods at the two sentries. One of them he knows. A girl from his class, pretty and dressed well with bright pink hair woven with soft pulse light. She smiles at him and he feels a warm nervous glow. Beyond them is a clearing. The overhead is covered with woven trees, the result of a month of gentle negotiation to create an arena that will be hidden from above. He clearing is already half filled with people, mostly young, around Wavebox's age or slightly older. No-one over twenty, that's the rule.
Ambient music plays, punctuated by random pop hits that fade in and out. Wavebox looks around for someone he knows. He finds Steel, already mixing it with a few of the others. He doesn't know Steel so well, an state of ambivalence has already existed between them. But Steel sees him and waves him over. Wavebox, realising he cannot walk away, goes to his group.
"Who's the little one?" Steel asks.
"This is Sandy, my kid brother."
Steel nods. "Good to met you." He says.
Sandy feels timid. Everyone is larger than him. He has not seen anyone his own age. He feels a little angry towards his brother but excited at the same time.
The music starts to change. It gets faster and louder. A few people start to dance. Others stand around, collecting juice from the trees and passing it around. Sandy tries some. It is sweeter, deeper than the stuff in the blocks.
"It's not so diluted when you get it from the source." Steel explains.
The music suddenly stops. There are hollers and shouts of approval as everyone sits down. Their hands run through the grass, the rough earth. Everyone becomes silent. Listening. Sandy copies Wavebox. He has been told what to do but the strangeness has forced the explanation from his memory. He is mostly terrified of making a fool of himself.
The murmur of the stones seems to grow, becoming louder until there is nothing else. Each person seems to take on the call, creating impossible sounds from their mouths, from their throats, from their bones and flesh. The world begins to melt away. Sandy feels himself begin to sink. All becomes dark. The rough feel of rock against all his skin. But then it ends. There is no movement, no sense of falling. Sandy opens his eyes.
They are outside. He cannot see the others but he knows that they are there. He can feel them, supporting him like knots in a net. He looks about. There are only stars, a thousand million pins of light, textured clouds of coloured gas. The feel of exotic particles against whatever he has become, an eternal wind of quantum foam breaking against the bow of the ship. He tries to turn, to look back at the ship. Its pitted surface stretches outwards below him. He cannot see its length.
It's all true. He thinks.
Sandy suddenly feels himself pulled back inwards. Quicker than before he finds himself sat back on the grass, his hands in the dirt. He feels the grin on his face. His eyes open to look around at everyone else. They are all the same. Looking at each other with the same sense of wonder and magic. Grinning and moving towards each other with a pleasure and openness none has experienced outside this. A girl hugs Sandy and he hugs her back.
The music starts up again, this time louder and faster. They start to dance. Everyone dances. Sandy laughs at his brother, who has found the sentry girl and is dancing with her, with everyone really. The feel of the universe a powerful scent between them, binding them together.
Suddenly there are lights, reds and blues, piercing through the canopy, from the sides. Sirens wail. A raid. Sandy panics. Looks again for his brother, but he cannot see him. A few people near the edge decide to run. Others sit down. Sandy desparately tries to remember what his brother told him about raids, words he repeated to himself over and over again. -The best thing is just to sit. Most of the time they just frisk everyone, take down a few names and let everyone go. They don't like it but there's not a lot they can really do. But Sandy does not feel so confident. Something in him takes over and he runs, heading for the thickest part of the wood, where there are no lights.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
life in a vacuum
The shattered spine of the ship stretches out into the darkness. Haloes of blue light flicker and burst from its cracks. It falls away from view, hidden by the tilted spin of the command section. I turn away from the viewport and sit down on the wall that has become a floor. That leaves me with only the ruin to look at. I only want to close my eyes and wait for the dark cold to seep into the ship and take me away.
I do not have the luxury of the time it will take to die. They will be here long before, scouring for survivors and technology, and it is my duty now to find a way to stop them. I look over the command, the large open space, a hundred metres long and nearly as wide, broken with torn metal and the dead reamins of my colleagues. I hold my breath, listening to the silence for a sense of a moan, of life. There is none.
Weapons and tools are my first priority. I crawl under a piece of fallen floor to where the emergency locker is kept. It remains undamaged. Inside there are swords and crossbows, tipped with neurotoxins designed to drop most species of attacker. Boarding a ship is almost always a bloody and difficult affair. I blink away a memory and select one of each, as well tucking a small knife into a pocket in my trousers.
Next I will need food and water. Enough to keep me on the run for several weeks. Even if our emergency buoy manages to make it back home there will be no rescue for at least that long.
I do not have the luxury of the time it will take to die. They will be here long before, scouring for survivors and technology, and it is my duty now to find a way to stop them. I look over the command, the large open space, a hundred metres long and nearly as wide, broken with torn metal and the dead reamins of my colleagues. I hold my breath, listening to the silence for a sense of a moan, of life. There is none.
Weapons and tools are my first priority. I crawl under a piece of fallen floor to where the emergency locker is kept. It remains undamaged. Inside there are swords and crossbows, tipped with neurotoxins designed to drop most species of attacker. Boarding a ship is almost always a bloody and difficult affair. I blink away a memory and select one of each, as well tucking a small knife into a pocket in my trousers.
Next I will need food and water. Enough to keep me on the run for several weeks. Even if our emergency buoy manages to make it back home there will be no rescue for at least that long.
Monday, 19 April 2010
Sleep
The lack of sleep tears at my eyes. They are pushed and pulled with distortions of vision, causing gaps to appear in the floor in front of me, bending and warping it. I stand still, close my eyes and wait for it to pass. When I open them again there is only the ripple at the edges, the corners of my vision, but at least I can fold enough reality around me that I don't slip through the cracks and get carried away again. I've spent a lot of time re-building my life in this world and I am not keen on the idea of losing it all again.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Five minutes
My best calculations are that I now have only minutes but it's hard to be accurate, the macro conversion of time being subject to too many fluctuations to be sure. Maybe if I had access to the kind of quantum computing power that is only dreamed of in this backwards place I could be more accurate. Instead I have to wait.
I look back on my life. With so little time left it seemed inevitable that I'd start to fall into reminiscence instead of action. It seems so little compared to my previous life. I arrived here thirty years ago, got a job, met a woman. We settled down. We didn't have kids and the cancer took my wife too early. I cry when it is night sometimes and my thoughts are only of her. But life was good. Better than I could have hoped, despite how primitive it has been. Perhaps that gave me an advantage. I think it maybe harder to find, giving me a couple of extra seconds that have made all the difference. This could have happened ten years ago, while Sarah was still alive. I almost thought it was going to, the signs were so strong.
When it happens I don't even notice. Just one moment I'm looking at old photo albums, plastic wrapped pages that stick to your fingers and blur the images, and the next I'm looking back at the scrawny, ugly face of my hunter like those thirty years never happened.
To the hunter I guess they didn't. Only five minutes have passed here. That's as long as I could escape this prison for. How long it took him to track down my location. But on that other plane, that multiversal parallel, time is more compressed, more tightly wound. Those five minutes gave me more freedom than I could ever have hoped for. The hunter spits in my face and raises a hand to strike me.
"You'll never get away, physicist. We'll always get you back. Your sentence will be fulfilled."
The alarms in the prison are shut down, order falls again like a comforting blanket smothering all. A couple of guards come in to the portal room and cuff my hands and legs before leading me out to return me to my cell.
I only smile and think of a summer's afternoon with Sarah. Five minutes bought me a lifetime of memories. I feel I never truly thanked her enough for that.
I look back on my life. With so little time left it seemed inevitable that I'd start to fall into reminiscence instead of action. It seems so little compared to my previous life. I arrived here thirty years ago, got a job, met a woman. We settled down. We didn't have kids and the cancer took my wife too early. I cry when it is night sometimes and my thoughts are only of her. But life was good. Better than I could have hoped, despite how primitive it has been. Perhaps that gave me an advantage. I think it maybe harder to find, giving me a couple of extra seconds that have made all the difference. This could have happened ten years ago, while Sarah was still alive. I almost thought it was going to, the signs were so strong.
When it happens I don't even notice. Just one moment I'm looking at old photo albums, plastic wrapped pages that stick to your fingers and blur the images, and the next I'm looking back at the scrawny, ugly face of my hunter like those thirty years never happened.
To the hunter I guess they didn't. Only five minutes have passed here. That's as long as I could escape this prison for. How long it took him to track down my location. But on that other plane, that multiversal parallel, time is more compressed, more tightly wound. Those five minutes gave me more freedom than I could ever have hoped for. The hunter spits in my face and raises a hand to strike me.
"You'll never get away, physicist. We'll always get you back. Your sentence will be fulfilled."
The alarms in the prison are shut down, order falls again like a comforting blanket smothering all. A couple of guards come in to the portal room and cuff my hands and legs before leading me out to return me to my cell.
I only smile and think of a summer's afternoon with Sarah. Five minutes bought me a lifetime of memories. I feel I never truly thanked her enough for that.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
reason
I stare out through the window at the slow moving Martian landscape. The view is fuzzy and distorted with the constant scratching of red dust and fines over the diamond pane that forms the outer layer. It is a subtle new vista, evolved overnight by the steady three kph crawl of our base. I chew the last of my breakfast eager to get out.
Science rarely offers last chances. If you've searched in nine places and there is only one remaining, then experience tells you that the thing you are looking for will not be there. It has nothing to do with probability, just that's how it goes. We have one last site to prepare, one last science station to plant into the red soil. To be honest, while disappointing, this does not distract from what we have achieved. Being here, mapping, exploring, finding what a robot never can. Our footprints will be erased in the coming storm, but the fact of our being here will remain.
I turn back inwards, looking at the other three sat at the table with me. Wei, the eager, young Chinese geologist. Adoyo, our engineer, is bleary and irritated. He has been arguing with the boss again. The boss being sat opposite me, eyes fixed on the latest download package describing his business empire as he prepares his responses to be sent back in the evening reports. Maxwell Johnson, the richest man on Mars. That was the tagline they were using back on Earth. I don't know if they still do, or whether the sheer tedium of real exploration and science has been knocked off the news feeds. I haven't been keeping up.
*
The muffled noise of tires crackling over the regolith helps to clear my head as Wei races me to the horizon, the lip of an oversize crater. I follow his tracks, nipping at his heels occasionally, while checking that the delivery of breadcrumb transponders is active and tracing our way back. The metal tube we call home is out of sight, but it emits its own beacon, reflected on the display in my rear-view mirror. The breadcrumbs are in case that beacon stops working, which has happened twice in the months that we have been here.
We slow down after twenty k, waiting for the triangulation messages from the positioning satellites overhead to provide us with more resolution on our destination. Wei comes to a stop and I slide alongside him. Looking over he seems troubled. Unusual for him. He's been pretty positive all the way through, even despite the conflicts between Adoyo and Johnson.
"What you thinking?" I ask.
"Nothing. Just, you know. This is the last time."
"Yeah. But there's still plenty of work to do. And the data is going to keep us busy for years."
His fingers click at his equipment. He's just toying with it, switching things off and on again.
"Lal, do you think we're going to find anything now?"
I wonder how to answer that before choosing honest.
"No. We've given it a good try, but this is a puzzle that has been going on since the first ESA orbiter told us the methane was here. Even with confirmation of the Carbon-12 there's no guarantee we will find out where this life actually is, or if it's actually here. Looking back at the planning I did it seems hopelessly naïve now, faced with the reality of being here. Live is buried deep, it must be if its going to survive. The real science is going to be done over the years that these stations are here and working, not by us. Maybe that's not a bad thing."
"What do you mean?"
"For all that machines can tell us what we need to know, we needed to come here. And if we still have no answers then there's maybe a reason to come back. If we do find life then there's going to be so much opposition to colonisation it will probably stop any attempt. Whether it's from fear or a desire to preserve. There'll just be more robotic missions while it gets debated in the UN."
"I don't think that would stop my government. Or men like Johnson."
I shrug.
"That might be true." I reply. "But there still has to be a reason, a purpose for spending the money it would take for humans to live here. Having somewhere to dump surplus population is one thing, but there needs to be a way to support them, and there needs to be a way to make a profit. That's why Johnson is here. Sure he gets the kick out of being the big explorer but everything that man does is to make a profit."
Wei is quiet suddenly. Even his breathing is paused.
"You've never talked like this before."
"No. Because it doesn't matter. Look around us. We're here. Nothing else compares to that. We're the first people to land successfully on Mars. I don't even care if we get home at this point."
My comm beeps. The triangulation overlays on the map and I flick on the electric engine of my rover.
"Let's go." I shout, hitting my accelerator before Wei has even had chance to get started.
Science rarely offers last chances. If you've searched in nine places and there is only one remaining, then experience tells you that the thing you are looking for will not be there. It has nothing to do with probability, just that's how it goes. We have one last site to prepare, one last science station to plant into the red soil. To be honest, while disappointing, this does not distract from what we have achieved. Being here, mapping, exploring, finding what a robot never can. Our footprints will be erased in the coming storm, but the fact of our being here will remain.
I turn back inwards, looking at the other three sat at the table with me. Wei, the eager, young Chinese geologist. Adoyo, our engineer, is bleary and irritated. He has been arguing with the boss again. The boss being sat opposite me, eyes fixed on the latest download package describing his business empire as he prepares his responses to be sent back in the evening reports. Maxwell Johnson, the richest man on Mars. That was the tagline they were using back on Earth. I don't know if they still do, or whether the sheer tedium of real exploration and science has been knocked off the news feeds. I haven't been keeping up.
*
The muffled noise of tires crackling over the regolith helps to clear my head as Wei races me to the horizon, the lip of an oversize crater. I follow his tracks, nipping at his heels occasionally, while checking that the delivery of breadcrumb transponders is active and tracing our way back. The metal tube we call home is out of sight, but it emits its own beacon, reflected on the display in my rear-view mirror. The breadcrumbs are in case that beacon stops working, which has happened twice in the months that we have been here.
We slow down after twenty k, waiting for the triangulation messages from the positioning satellites overhead to provide us with more resolution on our destination. Wei comes to a stop and I slide alongside him. Looking over he seems troubled. Unusual for him. He's been pretty positive all the way through, even despite the conflicts between Adoyo and Johnson.
"What you thinking?" I ask.
"Nothing. Just, you know. This is the last time."
"Yeah. But there's still plenty of work to do. And the data is going to keep us busy for years."
His fingers click at his equipment. He's just toying with it, switching things off and on again.
"Lal, do you think we're going to find anything now?"
I wonder how to answer that before choosing honest.
"No. We've given it a good try, but this is a puzzle that has been going on since the first ESA orbiter told us the methane was here. Even with confirmation of the Carbon-12 there's no guarantee we will find out where this life actually is, or if it's actually here. Looking back at the planning I did it seems hopelessly naïve now, faced with the reality of being here. Live is buried deep, it must be if its going to survive. The real science is going to be done over the years that these stations are here and working, not by us. Maybe that's not a bad thing."
"What do you mean?"
"For all that machines can tell us what we need to know, we needed to come here. And if we still have no answers then there's maybe a reason to come back. If we do find life then there's going to be so much opposition to colonisation it will probably stop any attempt. Whether it's from fear or a desire to preserve. There'll just be more robotic missions while it gets debated in the UN."
"I don't think that would stop my government. Or men like Johnson."
I shrug.
"That might be true." I reply. "But there still has to be a reason, a purpose for spending the money it would take for humans to live here. Having somewhere to dump surplus population is one thing, but there needs to be a way to support them, and there needs to be a way to make a profit. That's why Johnson is here. Sure he gets the kick out of being the big explorer but everything that man does is to make a profit."
Wei is quiet suddenly. Even his breathing is paused.
"You've never talked like this before."
"No. Because it doesn't matter. Look around us. We're here. Nothing else compares to that. We're the first people to land successfully on Mars. I don't even care if we get home at this point."
My comm beeps. The triangulation overlays on the map and I flick on the electric engine of my rover.
"Let's go." I shout, hitting my accelerator before Wei has even had chance to get started.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Chewed up and spat out
I chew the gum cautiously, wincing at the bitter taste seeping through the mint overtones. The engineers assured me there is no risk of it exploding without the chemical stimulus of the detonator, but they've been wrong before. I curse the rules that say we can only use appropriate tech for the parallel we are active in. If it's not nanotech the engineers seem to treat it like some kind of game, an academic experiment in antiquity. As soon as the gum turns sweet I extract it from my mouth and push it gently into the lock. I take the packet of cigarettes from my pocket and pull one out, checking it to make sure it is one of the ones that I need. I lick the paper wrapper and gently break it apart. I tease out the dark, thin thread hidden within it and push it into the gum. Next I take off my watch and wrap the thread around the diver's face which I twist ninety degrees. A push of the wind-up knob sets the timer going and I quickly run around the oversize desk and duck behind it.
Unseen by me there is a fizzing and a sharp crack. I wince. I'm hoping the sound of the party below will cover up the noise of my break-in but there are plenty of guards patrolling around, keeping an eye out for people like me. I lift my head over the desk. The safe door is open, a small wisp of smoke caught in the moonlight crack of the curtain. Running back to the safe I start to explore its contents, pocketing the jewelry, putting the folders with documents to one side. The theft of the trinkets will help to provide a cover for my real reason for the burglary as well as inject some much needed local cash into the project's coffers. I spread the documents on the desk and begin to quickly identify those that might be of use. Plans for rockets, buildings and other assorted hardware, signatures on deals and contracts. I quickly photograph them all and then scatter them around the safe to give the impression that the have been discarded and thrown to the side. It won't fool the Professor, but there won't be enough evidence to prove we were here, either.
I clip the camera back onto my belt buckle, rearrange my bow tie and brush down the tuxedo jacket. I check the hallway outside. Still no-one. I need to get back to the party unnoticed and get out of here before the robbery is noticed. Always the fun part. A door opens and my hand slides to my gun. Agent Kowalski steps out of a side room, messing her hair a little. I take her arm and, turning the corner we begin to stagger down the hall with our best drunken walks. It's all going well until we reach the stairs to almost walk straight in to the guards forming a wall blocking our path. Behind us the Professors gentle voice speaks.
"Kill them."
Kowalski and I both launch ourselves at the guards, drawing our guns, but we are too slow to get off a shot and, deafened by the sound of shots, we fall. The pain and blood mix into my senses into a single flailing cry of annoyance.
Back at the base Kowalski, now back in her normal body, is cursing. Staggering around the office space as she paces through the adjustment exercises. I watch her, waiting for the hangover kick of the transmission to peel away before I start my own exercises.
"Not only did we not get anything, he also knows we are here. He's going to find the bloody camera and know it was us."
I shrug.
"We can still pull the images from my mind. Won't be as good, but it's something. And the Professor would have known anyway. It's not stupid."
Jung, the blue brain consciousness currently in charge of us, watches from his screen silently. He's a patient one, and he already has a plan in place, I can tell from looking at him.
Unseen by me there is a fizzing and a sharp crack. I wince. I'm hoping the sound of the party below will cover up the noise of my break-in but there are plenty of guards patrolling around, keeping an eye out for people like me. I lift my head over the desk. The safe door is open, a small wisp of smoke caught in the moonlight crack of the curtain. Running back to the safe I start to explore its contents, pocketing the jewelry, putting the folders with documents to one side. The theft of the trinkets will help to provide a cover for my real reason for the burglary as well as inject some much needed local cash into the project's coffers. I spread the documents on the desk and begin to quickly identify those that might be of use. Plans for rockets, buildings and other assorted hardware, signatures on deals and contracts. I quickly photograph them all and then scatter them around the safe to give the impression that the have been discarded and thrown to the side. It won't fool the Professor, but there won't be enough evidence to prove we were here, either.
I clip the camera back onto my belt buckle, rearrange my bow tie and brush down the tuxedo jacket. I check the hallway outside. Still no-one. I need to get back to the party unnoticed and get out of here before the robbery is noticed. Always the fun part. A door opens and my hand slides to my gun. Agent Kowalski steps out of a side room, messing her hair a little. I take her arm and, turning the corner we begin to stagger down the hall with our best drunken walks. It's all going well until we reach the stairs to almost walk straight in to the guards forming a wall blocking our path. Behind us the Professors gentle voice speaks.
"Kill them."
Kowalski and I both launch ourselves at the guards, drawing our guns, but we are too slow to get off a shot and, deafened by the sound of shots, we fall. The pain and blood mix into my senses into a single flailing cry of annoyance.
Back at the base Kowalski, now back in her normal body, is cursing. Staggering around the office space as she paces through the adjustment exercises. I watch her, waiting for the hangover kick of the transmission to peel away before I start my own exercises.
"Not only did we not get anything, he also knows we are here. He's going to find the bloody camera and know it was us."
I shrug.
"We can still pull the images from my mind. Won't be as good, but it's something. And the Professor would have known anyway. It's not stupid."
Jung, the blue brain consciousness currently in charge of us, watches from his screen silently. He's a patient one, and he already has a plan in place, I can tell from looking at him.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
System fall
Fifteen years out. The array of sensors poking out from the shield send an electrical pulse to the core which takes the decision to begin the rotation, turning the engines to start the deceleration of the starship so that it will be slow enough to be caught by the gravity of the growing, pinprick yellow sun. As the engines cycle through their tests before they dare to reignite, the rows of tanks buried deep within the protective shell of the ship are filled with gelatinous growth mixtures while three thousand zygotes are checked for flaws that would cause them to be discarded. Eggs that pass the test, that have not been damaged by cosmic rays, radiation or age, are injected into the gel along with the alchemical mix of fluids that will prompt the growth of the cells into humans.
The core, meanwhile, starts its slow communications with the chaperones leading the way. Over the course of months evidence is checked and rechecked, compared with the observations taken at the start of the journey, two hundred years distant, and corrected. Aboard the pathfinder vessels robots are readied and prepared; on arrival, five years before the starship, they will fall into orbit around the largest gas giant in the system and begin to dismantle several of its moons for raw materials. These will be used to construct the station habitat and the mining equipment required to extract the brief flickers of anti-matter generated by the collision of the sun’s rays with the power of the gas giant’s magnetosphere.
By the time the humans are fully grown, and the neuronal and chemical components of their brains encouraged into the configuration of the memories of their original bodies, their new home will have been constructed, their starship gently nudging itself into a local parking orbit, ready for them to disembark to their new lives.
The core, meanwhile, starts its slow communications with the chaperones leading the way. Over the course of months evidence is checked and rechecked, compared with the observations taken at the start of the journey, two hundred years distant, and corrected. Aboard the pathfinder vessels robots are readied and prepared; on arrival, five years before the starship, they will fall into orbit around the largest gas giant in the system and begin to dismantle several of its moons for raw materials. These will be used to construct the station habitat and the mining equipment required to extract the brief flickers of anti-matter generated by the collision of the sun’s rays with the power of the gas giant’s magnetosphere.
By the time the humans are fully grown, and the neuronal and chemical components of their brains encouraged into the configuration of the memories of their original bodies, their new home will have been constructed, their starship gently nudging itself into a local parking orbit, ready for them to disembark to their new lives.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Ambassador
A dusting of snow lies on the just-frozen surface of the water garden. A bird flies across the surface, landing briefly in a display of all four of its wings before launching itself back into the air. The sky overhead continues to lighten, the weak, yellow sun occasionally breaking through the low cloud. I sit on the cold wood of the observation deck, a tea slowly cooling in its vacuum cup, the steam rising elegantly from its bowl. To be asked to sit here, to wait, is something of an honour and a test.
There is a sound like the tearing of paper behind me and I slowly turn to see Weran coming out form the door to the main complex. He is short for a Renonsian, only seven foot, but he has all the casual elegance of his species that always makes me feel inadequate to the light gravity of their moon. He clasps his forearms together in greeting, bowing slightly to expose his rear wings. Although they are not able to support any Renonsian in flight they are elegant, well-looked after, the feathers falling along his back in a short cascade of muted colours.
“Ambassador.” He says, in English. I understand their language well enough to be able to speak it flawlessly, the twenty year flight gave me plenty of time for study, but they always insist that dialogue be conducted in our tongue. None of the reasons that I have heard have convinced me why.
Behind Weran another Renonsian emerges, taller, dressed in the light armour of their warrior caste. Finally, I think. This is turning out to be a very interesting day.
I have seen many soldiers while I have been here. Although they nominally fall under the command of the civilian authority they conduct themselves with a disdain for any that are not of their caste. The civilian administration defers to them in a great deal, although there is a separation of concerns between economics and politics that has been proving particularly difficult to navigate.
There is a sound like the tearing of paper behind me and I slowly turn to see Weran coming out form the door to the main complex. He is short for a Renonsian, only seven foot, but he has all the casual elegance of his species that always makes me feel inadequate to the light gravity of their moon. He clasps his forearms together in greeting, bowing slightly to expose his rear wings. Although they are not able to support any Renonsian in flight they are elegant, well-looked after, the feathers falling along his back in a short cascade of muted colours.
“Ambassador.” He says, in English. I understand their language well enough to be able to speak it flawlessly, the twenty year flight gave me plenty of time for study, but they always insist that dialogue be conducted in our tongue. None of the reasons that I have heard have convinced me why.
Behind Weran another Renonsian emerges, taller, dressed in the light armour of their warrior caste. Finally, I think. This is turning out to be a very interesting day.
I have seen many soldiers while I have been here. Although they nominally fall under the command of the civilian authority they conduct themselves with a disdain for any that are not of their caste. The civilian administration defers to them in a great deal, although there is a separation of concerns between economics and politics that has been proving particularly difficult to navigate.
Sunday, 24 January 2010
terror, even when overcast
You see, I was there. All you know, you saw on television, through the internet, blurred with commentary and idiotic rambling by people who knew nothing about what was happening. Filling others’ ignorance with their own base desires and cravings. I didn’t see any journalists, just the suffering. I can only think that the journalists stayed away, reporting by looking inwards from their hotels and the fly-over footage provided by the UAVs while they stayed safe in the knowledge that no-one could possibly contradict them.
I was going to work. It had already started and none of us standing on the platforms knew. I had seen it and not understood.
The sky is always open, even when patterned with the flowing underside of clouds piled over each other, sliced by the arcing paths of darkly silhouetted birds. It is the sky of a flat land, not hemmed in with hills or mountains, stretching and filling the mind of those willing to look upwards. The shapes above tear and fight leaving wounded pictures of emptiness. Only when the tram arrived did I look down, back at the earth.
I was jammed against the doors once they closed, as usual. Trying to avoid the press of strangers bodies, find enough space to be able to place my feet in balance against the jagged movement of the tram. I turned myself around to look through the window, through the condensation forming on the glass, at the speeding scenery; The blank spaces between people melt. The tram passed under the twin concrete flyovers of the M62. The gap between them a grey shaft of light punctuated by the upward flight of a startled pigeon and the illumination of an inane and brilliantly coloured graffiti. Beyond it the industrial estates, the tarmac retail park, the endless lines of garages selling cars hidden behind industrial scrubland.
It was as the tram descended into Manchester that I realised the colour had gone. Then the tram stopped, shaking to a sudden halt with the application of the emergency brake. The carriage mood split into annoyance and the usual expectation of shoddy service. Then the doors opened. I almost fell out. After checking that there was nothing coming that might injure me, and irritated at the way I had almost fallen from the tram, I jumped down already composing the letter to the company in my head.
It is not so simple a thing to describe. What happened next, I mean. A few on the tram had followed me down. The rest were stoic, watching me from the window with impassive faces. Looking down the road towards Piccadilly I caught sight of its head, rising and falling above the buildings. A shade of non-colour, almost the same as the sky but of a different light, a feeling of reality broken and ground under foot. A daikaiju imagined by Escher. Then it screamed, crying with a scent of destruction, dust billowing around it even as the scream began to try and infiltrate my own mind. It feels now like it was a reflexive, animal instinct that caused it to destroy the city. It was not a judgement, or a warning. It was not summoned by some ancient Mayan treasure brought to the museum, or physical experiment at the university. It wasn’t some super-dimensional rift caused by City’s win in the derby. Watching it I knew that it had always been there. We had just never seen it before.
I turned and ran.
I was going to work. It had already started and none of us standing on the platforms knew. I had seen it and not understood.
The sky is always open, even when patterned with the flowing underside of clouds piled over each other, sliced by the arcing paths of darkly silhouetted birds. It is the sky of a flat land, not hemmed in with hills or mountains, stretching and filling the mind of those willing to look upwards. The shapes above tear and fight leaving wounded pictures of emptiness. Only when the tram arrived did I look down, back at the earth.
I was jammed against the doors once they closed, as usual. Trying to avoid the press of strangers bodies, find enough space to be able to place my feet in balance against the jagged movement of the tram. I turned myself around to look through the window, through the condensation forming on the glass, at the speeding scenery; The blank spaces between people melt. The tram passed under the twin concrete flyovers of the M62. The gap between them a grey shaft of light punctuated by the upward flight of a startled pigeon and the illumination of an inane and brilliantly coloured graffiti. Beyond it the industrial estates, the tarmac retail park, the endless lines of garages selling cars hidden behind industrial scrubland.
It was as the tram descended into Manchester that I realised the colour had gone. Then the tram stopped, shaking to a sudden halt with the application of the emergency brake. The carriage mood split into annoyance and the usual expectation of shoddy service. Then the doors opened. I almost fell out. After checking that there was nothing coming that might injure me, and irritated at the way I had almost fallen from the tram, I jumped down already composing the letter to the company in my head.
It is not so simple a thing to describe. What happened next, I mean. A few on the tram had followed me down. The rest were stoic, watching me from the window with impassive faces. Looking down the road towards Piccadilly I caught sight of its head, rising and falling above the buildings. A shade of non-colour, almost the same as the sky but of a different light, a feeling of reality broken and ground under foot. A daikaiju imagined by Escher. Then it screamed, crying with a scent of destruction, dust billowing around it even as the scream began to try and infiltrate my own mind. It feels now like it was a reflexive, animal instinct that caused it to destroy the city. It was not a judgement, or a warning. It was not summoned by some ancient Mayan treasure brought to the museum, or physical experiment at the university. It wasn’t some super-dimensional rift caused by City’s win in the derby. Watching it I knew that it had always been there. We had just never seen it before.
I turned and ran.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Winter Hunt
A melody of snowflakes plays across the large cockpit window. The Captain steps from around the wheel, passing control with a touch on his First Mate’s shoulder, moving forwards into the bubble frame of the window. Some of the snow catches and melts against the glass, some sticks in little piles. Beyond the flickering white leaves there is only the dark, grey sky. To the Captain’s senses the rest of the world has disappeared. Only their instruments tell them where they are.
The Captain sighs, lightly, rubbing a finger along his forehead, wiping at the irritation where the band of his cap clings tightly.
“How are we suppose to find anything in this?” He asks. Neither the First Mate nor the navigator bother to answer. Each just keeps their eyes focused on the panels in front of them. “Sergeant.” He calls out.
A young, squat man with dark hair and a scar running along the side of his face, distorting its natural and beautiful symmetry, enters through the heavy door that passes joins the cabin to the rest of the command gondola.
“Sir?” The Sergeant asks.
“Fetch me the passenger. Tell her we are in need of her assistance.”
The sergeant does not stop to ask which passenger, even though there are more than twenty civilians and a small platoon of Red Army soldiers on board. Only one would be summoned to see the Captain and only one is a woman.
The Captain sighs, lightly, rubbing a finger along his forehead, wiping at the irritation where the band of his cap clings tightly.
“How are we suppose to find anything in this?” He asks. Neither the First Mate nor the navigator bother to answer. Each just keeps their eyes focused on the panels in front of them. “Sergeant.” He calls out.
A young, squat man with dark hair and a scar running along the side of his face, distorting its natural and beautiful symmetry, enters through the heavy door that passes joins the cabin to the rest of the command gondola.
“Sir?” The Sergeant asks.
“Fetch me the passenger. Tell her we are in need of her assistance.”
The sergeant does not stop to ask which passenger, even though there are more than twenty civilians and a small platoon of Red Army soldiers on board. Only one would be summoned to see the Captain and only one is a woman.
Sunday, 4 January 2009
UFO
The first feeling I get is one of inquiry, a gentle interest like that of a Buddhist monk looking to understand the world that is in front of him by simply sitting and watching. Then the lights start to move away, a spiralling and intricate dance leaving a smell of dying autumn leaves. They shrink, briefly illuminating the clouds, and suddenly disappear in the dark sky to leave only after-images, the fading false glow of memory.
The sight has been increasingly common, reported on local news channels across the world, but it is still dismissed by the major nationals, apart from Fox who have run it as a nut piece. No-one understands it yet, no one has thought about it enough yet. The truth is, people seem unwilling to really acknowledge that it might be real. Fear, I guess, keeps it hidden in plain view. Despite all those films the truth we all know is that alien invaders would win. Apple computers, cold viruses and good, old-fashioned, human ingenuity will not win us a war against creatures so advanced that they could probably just wipe the planet clean of life and start again if they chose.
The sight has been increasingly common, reported on local news channels across the world, but it is still dismissed by the major nationals, apart from Fox who have run it as a nut piece. No-one understands it yet, no one has thought about it enough yet. The truth is, people seem unwilling to really acknowledge that it might be real. Fear, I guess, keeps it hidden in plain view. Despite all those films the truth we all know is that alien invaders would win. Apple computers, cold viruses and good, old-fashioned, human ingenuity will not win us a war against creatures so advanced that they could probably just wipe the planet clean of life and start again if they chose.
Monday, 1 September 2008
funghi
The room is full of a mixture of people already sat in various states, talking and admiring each other's foliage. I neck the pill and walk through, looking for someone I know. I see Edgar sitting in an alcove, unmoving, with a small crowd sitting and watching him while chatting. Mushrooms are sprouting from his face and there are even the buds of flowers starting to form around his neck. -It's like the Jane Experiment. I hear one of them say but I move on before I can hear the response. I feel the tingle on my face as the drug starts to take hold. I touch my cheek and look at the dusting of mould already starting to form from my cells as they change. I decide to sit down. Movement slows the transformation. A woman walks by with ferns pouring down her face where her hair had been, green moss highlighting her cheekbones, then I recognise her from the grey eyes. -Mary, I say. She looks over at me and smiles. -How are you? I ask. -Amazing. She replies. This is my best time ever. I notice the edges of the fern leaves are starting to curl and brown. She tugs at one, crumbling it in her fingers. -I guess it's coming to an end now.
Monday, 4 August 2008
shiny new thing
The scrape of my shovel against soil is reassuring. I tilt the assorted garbage; sticky, old rice, torn cardboard, some faded scraps of cloth and rotten fruits into the back of the truck. I stop to adjust the handkerchief tied over my face as inadequate protection against the dust and the smell. Despite the morning cool my forehead is already beaded with sweat and I grab the corner of my flourescent vest to wipe my forehead.
As I lean forward again, shovel extended, I see it. Panic hits me quick, the fear that this is the time. It has been months since one of us last encountered something and the tension had almost gone. Sensing my fear my team also suddenly stop and turn to face me, I am stuck in a tableau, bent forwards, muscles straining as though i am posing for one of the Dictator's celebrations of the workers.
My team assemble in a semi-circle of orange jackets around me to inspect it. Many start to exchange and light cigarettes, their smell bitter over the acrid, rotting food.
Pretty quickly there are two major opinions. The first quickly concludes that it is a militia IED, like the one that claimed Hassan a couple of months back. But the second faction quickly weighs in pointing out how shiny, how manufactured and secretive its design is. American, they say.
I look at it. It is oval, like a pebble worn by a river, with a quicksilver glow marred only by a little fleck of egg stuck to its side. It looks like a bomb but it doesn't feel like one. I stretch upwards, relieving the growing pains in my back and reach out for it. As one the semi-circle take a couple of steps back. I pick it up. It feels cold and heavy. It doesn't explode. Somewhere deep inside my chest my heart picks up its rhythm again.
As I lean forward again, shovel extended, I see it. Panic hits me quick, the fear that this is the time. It has been months since one of us last encountered something and the tension had almost gone. Sensing my fear my team also suddenly stop and turn to face me, I am stuck in a tableau, bent forwards, muscles straining as though i am posing for one of the Dictator's celebrations of the workers.
My team assemble in a semi-circle of orange jackets around me to inspect it. Many start to exchange and light cigarettes, their smell bitter over the acrid, rotting food.
Pretty quickly there are two major opinions. The first quickly concludes that it is a militia IED, like the one that claimed Hassan a couple of months back. But the second faction quickly weighs in pointing out how shiny, how manufactured and secretive its design is. American, they say.
I look at it. It is oval, like a pebble worn by a river, with a quicksilver glow marred only by a little fleck of egg stuck to its side. It looks like a bomb but it doesn't feel like one. I stretch upwards, relieving the growing pains in my back and reach out for it. As one the semi-circle take a couple of steps back. I pick it up. It feels cold and heavy. It doesn't explode. Somewhere deep inside my chest my heart picks up its rhythm again.
Monday, 21 July 2008
bees (6)
See all parts
The nurse is young and pretty but irritatingly patronising. She seems slightly in awe of me, in the way that seems to prohibit my being able to accomplish anything on my own. She assures me at one point that she has read every one of the stories and even asks me to sign my autograph. She asks me what it was like working with the great detective. Holmes' true nature has never been public knowledge and is now protected under the Official Secrets Act. I mumble a little, about him being a good friend and comrade. In the afternoon I manage to get up and find Lestrade's room. The walls are the same thickly painted green, the bed metal framed with a generous enough mattress, but he also has flowers by the side of his bed, and grapes, no doubt a gift from his wife and children. I feel a small stab of memory at the loss of my own wife but shuffle over without betraying myself apart from to lean slightly more heavily on the cane. "Watson!" He says. His eyes have the unfocused stare of someone on morphine. "How are you?" "Sore, and bruised, but I got off lightly. I hear you will live too." He nods. "I won't be playing any tennis this summer, but I was luckier than poor Wilson. He was a good man." A sadness crosses his face. His head tilts with the memory of regret before he looks straight at me. "They say they'll let me out in a few days." "That's good." "Then we can get down to the business of hunting these bastards, whereever they are." "I take it that you have no further news?" "No. Been asked a lot of questions by some young oik from the ministry and got a little in return. They got clean away." There is a sudden, efficient rap at the door. I turn with a wince at the stocky, middle-aged man standing at the doorway in an uncomfortable-looking suit. "Major Lestrade. Dr Watson, sir. A pleasure to meet you again." I nod my head, although I cannot immediately recall his name. Something I choose to put down to stress and the medication I am on, rather than old age. He looks something of a bruiser, one of the quiet, hard men that His Majesty's Service uses as its dark backbone. "My orders are to collect you, sir." He says, looking at me. "Mycroft wishes to talk with you."
The nurse is young and pretty but irritatingly patronising. She seems slightly in awe of me, in the way that seems to prohibit my being able to accomplish anything on my own. She assures me at one point that she has read every one of the stories and even asks me to sign my autograph. She asks me what it was like working with the great detective. Holmes' true nature has never been public knowledge and is now protected under the Official Secrets Act. I mumble a little, about him being a good friend and comrade. In the afternoon I manage to get up and find Lestrade's room. The walls are the same thickly painted green, the bed metal framed with a generous enough mattress, but he also has flowers by the side of his bed, and grapes, no doubt a gift from his wife and children. I feel a small stab of memory at the loss of my own wife but shuffle over without betraying myself apart from to lean slightly more heavily on the cane. "Watson!" He says. His eyes have the unfocused stare of someone on morphine. "How are you?" "Sore, and bruised, but I got off lightly. I hear you will live too." He nods. "I won't be playing any tennis this summer, but I was luckier than poor Wilson. He was a good man." A sadness crosses his face. His head tilts with the memory of regret before he looks straight at me. "They say they'll let me out in a few days." "That's good." "Then we can get down to the business of hunting these bastards, whereever they are." "I take it that you have no further news?" "No. Been asked a lot of questions by some young oik from the ministry and got a little in return. They got clean away." There is a sudden, efficient rap at the door. I turn with a wince at the stocky, middle-aged man standing at the doorway in an uncomfortable-looking suit. "Major Lestrade. Dr Watson, sir. A pleasure to meet you again." I nod my head, although I cannot immediately recall his name. Something I choose to put down to stress and the medication I am on, rather than old age. He looks something of a bruiser, one of the quiet, hard men that His Majesty's Service uses as its dark backbone. "My orders are to collect you, sir." He says, looking at me. "Mycroft wishes to talk with you."
Monday, 7 July 2008
Over Leningrad
The sky over Leningrad is full of airships. Their fascist grey fabric reflects a dull October sky. From the windows of the gondolas slung at their bellies a thousand cameras point downwards, the world's press is floating above us mingled, undoubtedly, with a few special observers from various governments, all keen to capture the events below. To be frank, it makes me nervous. Security on the ground is hard enough to manage without also having to worry about some nihilist bomber floating overhead, unseen until it's too late and a primed grenade is falling to the ground.
And if it were only the nihilists I have to worry about I wouldn't be smoking my fiftieth cigarette since the morning, my lungs hacking their protest as the cold bites into my face, and the reports from my men that need constant attention. Despite my warnings Chairman Trotsky insists that all of this should go ahead. He has something big prepared. Something he wants the world to see.
And if it were only the nihilists I have to worry about I wouldn't be smoking my fiftieth cigarette since the morning, my lungs hacking their protest as the cold bites into my face, and the reports from my men that need constant attention. Despite my warnings Chairman Trotsky insists that all of this should go ahead. He has something big prepared. Something he wants the world to see.
Sunday, 22 June 2008
Making a deal
Following on from last week - Possibly part of a series.
He stops in front of her, crouching down to examine her. She looks into eyes etched deep within a heavy forehead.
"I don't know you." She says. "You're new. You can't tell me what I can do. I've been here a long time. People know me."
"I'm waiting for a boat." He says. "Probably the same one you are looking for. The thing is, I know where it is, because unlike you I didn't sit here while it rained hoping for luck to come with me."
She shakes her head.
"I don't believe you."
"The trouble is, as you say, I'm new here. I have no-one to sell to. You do. Sounds like we can make a deal."
She looks around, the rain is dying off, the boats are moving slowly, their crews busy with preparations, cursing each other as they collide, their horses getting into each other's way.
"How can I trust you?" She asks.
"I'm the one with something to lose." He replies. "You're looking for the Fragrance of Philanthropic Dissonance." He scratches at the greying stubble on his chin. "I'll tell you where it is."
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
watching the boats
The rain splatters on the ground in heavy, crushing smacks. The scent of it seeps through the woman's cloak as she clutches her body with spindle thin arms. Dark, blue eyes look out at the passing carts, the people ignoring her with unfocused glances, while she scratches herself with a sly grin. She is watching the canal, lodged tight with narrow boats waiting to unload their cargoes. She examines the etchings on their solar panels, dim in the darkening light, looking for the sign of the boat she is waiting for. The one that she will be paid to spot if she can find it and then get to Jarrod before any of the others.
"Hey, you." A man's voice calls out and she feels that it is directed at her. She looks for the source: A man dressed in a faded and torn overcoat is looking right at her. "You've got no right to be here."
"On the man's business. You got no right talking to me like that." She replies.
He moves towards her and the ordinary folk move out of his way, as invisible to them as she is.
"Hey, you." A man's voice calls out and she feels that it is directed at her. She looks for the source: A man dressed in a faded and torn overcoat is looking right at her. "You've got no right to be here."
"On the man's business. You got no right talking to me like that." She replies.
He moves towards her and the ordinary folk move out of his way, as invisible to them as she is.
Sunday, 8 June 2008
in progress
She walks into a room shaded in dark browns, punctuated with ripples of grey light that fold themselves around the odd shapes contained within but without illuminating any of them. As she moves further in she realises the pieces are mechanical instruments, a ghost orchestra of gears and cogs matched to notches in metal and paper, poised to play. The effect of the room is obviously meant to impress, to test the visitor as they wait for their audience. She examines each one slowly, tracing the delicate working of wood, the engraved silver, bronze and gold that signify makers, companies, owners and lovers in languages documented only in libraries. She pauses at one topped with tin automata, one sat with hands over a piano while the other is frozen halfway through a chord on a violin.
"That's my favourite." Says a man's voice, quietly. "Although its repertoire is even more limited than most."
She makes a show of finishing her inspection before looking back up again to see the source of the voice.
"That's my favourite." Says a man's voice, quietly. "Although its repertoire is even more limited than most."
She makes a show of finishing her inspection before looking back up again to see the source of the voice.
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