The Deserter Page 23

The image moved away from the hatch, and Stopmouth had the impression that Indrani too was moving.

  Before I was shot down over the surface, the Wardens were already using simpler technology to get through the Crisis. Like those guns Hanuman’s men fired at us in the Upstairs. Non-intelligent machines that the Roof gave us instructions to build. The Virus didn’t attack those. But even the manufacture of such simple tools has been an enormous effort for a society unused to work and gripped by the thought that the Crisis must soon come to an end. Now … watch this.

  She had moved into a new room full of chairs. A table lay before her, and on it what Indrani called ‘another simple tool’ – a thin roll of hide known as paper. Pictures of boxes covered most of it. A few little oblongs reminded him of something.

  ‘Capsules!’ he exclaimed out loud. Sorry. But it’s where they keep the sleeping beasts!

  Exactly. Her voice in his mind was a whisper. Somebody is planning on sleeping a long time. Do you see, love? They’re planning to leave the Roof. To Desert. And that means … can only mean one thing …

  He felt a chill settle on his bones, and bile rose into his throat. Outside the dream, his whole body had started to shake as he tried to digest what he had just learned.

  There is no cure for the Virus, he said, shocked. A few chosen ones would escape on the warship. Everybody else in the Roof – everybody – would die. His mind whirled with the thought of it. Sunshine Park alone held more people than he’d ever seen in his entire life before leaving the surface. Pretty girls and toddlers and laughing old men. All of them, all of them gone. Rotting and wasted flesh, the worst obscenity his tribe could imagine, on a scale none of them would ever comprehend. If the people heard about this, they’d turn on the masters, surely. Even the Wardens would. No wonder the Commission needed to keep this secret!

  But why, Indrani? he said at last. Why did they want you back here? Why not just have you killed? Varaha could have done it on the surface. They deliberately kept you alive.

  For an answer she brought the paper into focus again and enlarged one tiny part of it, where random numbers and letters jostled together all higgledy-piggledy. There are just enough uncontaminated nano packs and energy reserves for a few hundred people to launch themselves into space and sleep through the rest of the Crisis, she said. Viruses burn themselves out when there’s nothing left to feed on.

  Like people, he said.

  Yes. Like people. The numbers and letters stood out sharply now in their shared vision. I must be the only one left alive with a record of this paper, said Indrani. Otherwise, why hunt me? And yet a few others at the very least must have seen it too. I just wish I knew what had happened to them. A Rebel attack? Or purged maybe. Killed like I was supposed to be? Until the Commission realized they’d been too zealous and didn’t have anybody else who had access to the codes.

  And these … these numbers are magical?

  She smiled – not a nice smile, not at all. More of a snarl. Dear Stopmouth. Yes. To the ones who plan to escape, leaving the rest of us to die … Yes, these numbers are magic of a sort. They’re what we call a ‘launch code’. The ship won’t fly without it. You understand? The scum are terrified they’re going to be stuck here with the rest of us when the end comes.

  17. THE GREAT MAN

  A PAIR OF augmented Wardens had separated Hiresh from Tarini and each held him firmly right above the elbow. The two men thought they had him trapped, but both were too old to know how to navigate a crowd, and he could see a dozen ways to trip them up and scamper off if he had wanted to. But he’d come a long way with them on a shuttle and it was really his own curiosity that kept him prisoner.

  They brought him under a huge dome, so high that its top part might well form a hill in the Upstairs. Fish seemed to be swimming there – projected by the Roof, of course, a whole ocean seen from below – and as Hiresh watched, a massive whale emerged from one side of the dome and floated quietly away.

  Nobody else cared. Dreamers could do better just by closing their eyes; worshippers were busy at their ceremonies, their prayers and chants competing with the Roar and the laughter of children. Soon the whale disappeared into a part of the dome where the projectors no longer worked.

  ‘Who are we going to meet?’ Hiresh asked his guards. They said nothing, only gripped him tighter until his sore arm had him begging them to ease off.

  These two mean business! he sent to Tarini. Where have they got you?

  Take a look! She sent him an image of a platform with a great drop on one side and a mountain of packaged food on the other.

  Wow! My mouth is watering …

  After the dome, they entered a corridor guarded by a group of at least twenty Wardens. Grim men and women armed with a whole variety of weapons, including a rare and precious laser, surely an antique.

  Rumours of rebellion were rife, and images of whole sectors full of fighting were being transmitted from mind to mind all over the Roof. But nobody would be getting past here, and Hiresh wondered what – or even who – was so precious that so many Wardens could be spared to guard it.

  They parted to let him and his minders pass. Beyond stood a huge shaft, hundreds of metres across and rising up and up as far as the eye could see. Tunnels converged on the shaft at several levels and from every direction. They all ended in a yawning drop, but that wasn’t what captured Hiresh’s attention. Directly across from him lay a giant sphere: the warship! The famous warship that people, ordinary humans, had been building by hand ever since the supply of new nanos had dried up.

  He tried to show Tarini what he was looking at, but somebody was jamming him now. What a shame! He would have to play it back for her later instead. Thousands of primitive tubes and wires connected the warship to the walls of the shaft, and an army of Globes swarmed between and around them. Great engines hung underneath, and in places people could be seen clinging to the surface and working at goddess knew what.

  One of the Globes descended to hang right between the end of the tunnel in which Hiresh now stood and the warship. A door formed in the side.

  ‘You’re to get in,’ said one of his guards.

  ‘Into the Globe?’ He’d never had the opportunity to see one, not in real life, and more than ever he resented the loss of contact with Tarini.

  ‘Hurry up,’ said the Warden again, using augmented muscles to give him a far from gentle shove. The Globe’s door had turned itself into a handy set of steps for him, but no sooner had he placed his full weight on it than it closed again, dumping him into a seat.

  ‘Strap yourself in,’ said a familiar voice.

  ‘By the goddess!’ said Hiresh. His stomach told him they were already beginning to rise, but that wasn’t what had taken his breath away.

  The High Commissioner’s mouth formed into that famous half-smile of his. ‘Call me Dharam, Sergeant.’

  ‘Sergeant?’ Hiresh had heard that before. But he was just repeating words. Babbling. Why was he here? Out of billions, maybe trillions, who lived in the Roof. Why was he here with the High Commissioner? It was impossible, impossible.

  ‘Look at this,’ said the man. ‘Drink in the sight of it.’

  One side of the craft became transparent.

  Tiny lights throbbed and flickered in the walls of the shaft, splitting to run around docked Globes, and each of these hung snugly next to the surface, glowing gently blue. In other places, sheets of burnished metal turned whole sections into giant mirrors that reflected their craft as they rose ever higher.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ whispered Hiresh. ‘The Roof is so beautiful and I forget that sometimes.’

  ‘It’s a shame the founders made such a hash of the design then, is it not?’

  Hiresh turned away from the wall. The High Commissioner’s easy blasphemy had shocked him, although he didn’t believe in that kind of stuff any more. At least he wasn’t supposed to. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘Keep watching.’

  Further up, and many of t
he Globes were dead. The tiny lights blinked only erratically, and tendrils of slime passed between one machine and the next, not dripping, but … but lurching, crawling, easing along in a way that made him sick to his stomach. Dharam flew higher until they reached a point where darkness reigned and only a beam of light from their own craft allowed them to see the glistening film that coated everything.

  ‘It’s not like the muck you blow from your Crisis baby nose,’ said Dharam, his voice quiet. ‘This substance is intelligent enough to know what it wants. More nanos to subvert, to turn into more of itself. That’s all it desires. More of itself. Same as the rest of us. And it won’t die until it runs out of food.’

  ‘But …’ said Hiresh. ‘But that would mean …’

  ‘The whole Roof,’ agreed Dharam. ‘Well, not the structure of it. The slime – goo, we’re calling it – it only dissolves metal that gets in its way when searching for food. Just as well, or the whole of the Upstairs might have collapsed on us already and we’d be dead. We’d also be dead if it were interested in us at all. It’s not, but you’d do well not to take a bath in it. Its caustic nature would dissolve you eventually.’

  Hiresh felt light-headed. Why me? he wondered again. Why did he have to hear all this? ‘Did the aliens make it intelligent on purpose?’

  One side of Dharam’s mouth quirked upwards. Was he imagining a hint of respect there? From the most important man in the world?

  ‘You know for certain it was aliens, do you, Sergeant?’ said the High Commissioner. ‘Don’t you think a dozen simple nukes would have been a more logical means of destroying the Roof?’ He waited for the boy’s uncertain nod before continuing, and when he did, he leaned forward in his seat. ‘Sergeant of the Wardens, Hiresh … Somebody, some person or persons, made this virus. Humans made it. And they had a reason.’

  ‘Humans? That can’t be—’

  ‘You see, the Roof treats us all like children. It obeys its own laws and not ours. Thus, when your father so callously began starving your mother—’

  Hiresh jumped. ‘How did you—?’

  ‘Spies, of course. The Roof would not report such a crime to us, and that in a way is its downfall. And ours too. It keeps the secrets and the privacy of even the monsters who live amongst us, and so, Sergeant Hiresh, you and others like you had to grow up in suffering … That’s why the temptation is always there to … to meddle with the workings of the Roof.

  ‘No aliens did this, I am afraid. It’s just a story we put out after Indrani’s father was murdered. He was investigating a plot. A plot to create nanos that would subvert all others to the commands of a shady group, giving them full control of the Roof. Even I as Commissioner can only dream of such power. But the fools didn’t know what they were doing and lost control of their creation.’

  ‘Rebels …’ whispered Hiresh.

  ‘Of course.’ Why was the man grinning so much? ‘Who else would dream of it? So clever, so daring a plan. But when the previous High Commissioner found them out, they murdered him, and poor Indrani hasn’t been the same since.’

  Hiresh nodded. How strange that Dharam should admire the plan so much, almost as though he were proud of the enemy’s cunning. But not nearly so strange as the fact that the Commissioner would confide in a mere boy. ‘What about the Cure?’ he asked. ‘You kept saying you had a Cure.’

  Dharam nodded. ‘Oh, we certainly have. Or we almost do. That’s what the whole warship is about, you know? It’s not really a ship at all – it can’t even fly.’

  ‘It can’t? But it has engines!’

  Dharam shook his head. ‘We needed to make a laboratory. One consisting only of the most primitive machines. Ones we could build ourselves by copying records from the Roof’s archives. The goo cannot subvert that kind of stuff … And so, when we first spotted the Crisis, we began working on a way to end it. And now, finally … finally … we are at a point where we can save humanity from total destruction.

  ‘But there is one crucial piece of information we are missing. A technician got herself killed during the Rebellion, and her work, carelessly left lying about, was destroyed.’ Dharam leaned across and grabbed Hiresh by the front of his uniform. His eyes stared into those of the boy. ‘We don’t have time. Do you understand me? Have you seen the quakes? We don’t have time to repeat the idiot’s research, and only one other person has seen it and might have a record of it in her memories. Only one person can save us all – every man, woman and child on the Roof.’

  ‘In … Indrani?’

  Dharam released him at once. It was all so clear now why Hiresh had been chosen for this. ‘She got away?’ he asked. ‘And Stopmouth too?’

  ‘A dangerous creature,’ said Dharam. ‘And I should know, for he attacked me when I interrogated him.’

  That did not sound like the Stopmouth Hiresh knew. There must have been some kind of misunderstanding. ‘But why did you question him personally?’

  ‘For the same reason I have taken a Globe, filled with delicious nanos, on a little jaunt around these goo-covered walls.’

  Hiresh blinked. He had not realized they were in such danger. But they had a long way to fall if the machine they were riding in became infected.

  ‘And,’ continued Dharam, ‘it’s also the reason Indrani’s … very valuable father went after that conspiracy all by himself. Some of us have lived a long time, my friend. Hundreds of years in some cases. Or more. At my age, you have to roll that dice every chance you get so your heart can be bothered to keep pumping. Now’ – he leaned forward again – ‘here’s my offer for the boy who befriended a wild cannibal and lived to tell the tale. Here it is.’ He gestured, and the inner surface of the Globe filled with images, a hundred of them. Everywhere Hiresh looked he saw violence, rebellion, burning and death.

  ‘It has started again. Rebels. Murderers. And we have no Elite left to face them.’

  Hiresh was shocked. ‘None?’

  Dharam shrugged. ‘Well, a few dozen perhaps. They’ve been getting themselves killed, or falling ill.’

  ‘Ill?’ Hiresh realized he kept repeating everything the High Commissioner was saying, but couldn’t seem to help himself.

  ‘And as if that wasn’t enough, the Roof itself is failing underneath us. We are going to die. Your mother. That new girlfriend of yours. The other students at the Academy, the Religious, the pacifists, the Seculars. Everybody. The savages on the surface might live on a little longer, but without the fresh aliens we add to their food-chain, without light from the Roof, even they will succumb in a few months.’

  ‘Oh goddess,’ said Hiresh. ‘Oh goddess.’

  ‘The old goddess is dying,’ Dharam agreed. ‘There is only one chance left for any of us.’

  ‘We have to get Indrani to come in.’

  Dharam waved the screen away. ‘Exactly. We have to make her come in, and more importantly, we have to get her to co-operate. She had a bit of a thing for me once, but I knew she was far too young, and now she … distrusts me. Blames all kinds of bizarre things on me, and this will lead her to lie to you about what she knows. But’ – and now he leaned forward to grab Hiresh’s arm – ‘she must, must be brought back here.

  ‘Now, Dr Narindi tells me we have one dosage left. We can make one more Elite. And I’m prepared for that person to be you.’

  It was funny, how long and how hard Hiresh had struggled at the Academy to become Elite. He’d wanted it back then to protect his mother; to oppose his father and all who were like him, the bullies, the fanatics. But now he had a higher purpose. ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘Whatever it takes. We will take care of’ – a second’s pause to log on and check his memory – ‘Tarini for you. No harm will come to her, or anybody. If you can only bring Indrani in.’

  ‘What … what if she won’t co-operate?’

  Dharam grinned. It was as if he had no other facial expressions, as if time had worn them to nothing. ‘Unless the late Commander Krishnan gave the game away before he met his ho
rrible end, there’s a chance the savage still trusts you. That should help. It’s partly why we chose you, after all. But there’s more. Apparently Indrani has a small child with her. She will want that child to live. That alone ought to bring her in – and voluntarily too. If not, Sergeant Hiresh, you had better figure something out.’

  Yet again the Commission were going to use him to catch Indrani, to betray Stopmouth. But as the Globe began its descent and slime glittered and winked at him all down the wall, Hiresh knew that this time it was different.

  It’s for your own good, Stopmouth. We’re all dead otherwise.

  18. NOTHING LEFT TO SEE

  AFTER SHARING HER memories, Indrani fumed quietly to herself, upsetting the baby.

  ‘I’ll take her,’ said Stopmouth, relieved the horrible vision had ended, but feeling terribly shaken too. The baby’s parentage seemed less important in the dreadful light of the secret. She was just another poor child in distress. And she did look a bit like his mother.

  He whispered nonsense to the child as he’d seen countless women do in the tribe. ‘We can go back to the surface,’ he said. ‘You and me and Indrani. She’ll be mine again. No more Roof to take her away and spoil everything …’

  But all around them sat other people. Dreamers and Seculars, Religious adults and boisterous children. Corpses, all of them corpses. The thought of it made him dizzy and sick.

  Once he’d believed his tribe were the only humans in existence. He did not know what a stranger was, and his language had no word for it. He would have given his life, and gladly, to keep his people from extinction.

  He would still die for the Tribe, but the meaning of that word had changed. Now it meant Indrani, and maybe … maybe even this little girl. He’d have to see about that last part.

  A piercing sound cut through all the clamour, and every wall in the plaza turned red.

  ‘Your attention, citizens!’ boomed a voice loud enough to jolt even the deepest Dreamer and shock the fussiest child into silence. ‘A vital announcement from the Commission follows!’