Planetfall (13 page)

AFTER A COUPLE
of hours at Mack's place, being actively taught by another human being for the first time in years, I decide to go to God's city via the proper entrance. I won't go inside—I can't from this direction—but I want to embed some of the details he showed me via the projector and an immersive gaming platform adapted for that purpose.

I walk through the eastern gate, one I usually avoid, and follow the only path that crosses the boundary out of the colony. The crystal is laid right up to the outer edge of God's city. The path stops about three meters away from where the first tendrils of the city rise up from the ground. Its end point is just in front of the city's natural entrance through the outer perimeter, formed by the space between two of the thickest tendrils, which make an organic pointed archway.

I still pause, even after all these years and the twenty-odd times I've been forced to parade into here with everyone else for the annual circus. Those times within the crowd, among their
excitement and anticipation, haven't been enough to scrub away the very first time we walked through this alien archway.

I retrace the steps I took then. This time I'm not looking up at God's city with wonder and apprehension; instead I'm mapping what Mack showed me onto the structure looming ahead of me and reinforcing the route I'll need to take tonight. It helps to look at it this way. It distances me from that time before.

I cross the central courtyard—a grand name for nothing more than an area of compacted earth between the archway in and the entrance to the main city. I avoid looking at that as long as I can. It always makes me feel sick and I don't want to engage with the people on duty today unless I have to.

I'm used to them being there now. At first I hated it and voted against the motion to post people at the entrance, when it was debated in the early months of the colony. Once people had got the essentials of colony life in place, they had time to think about Suh's return. Nick was worried she would emerge from God's city and think no one cared about her return if she wasn't greeted immediately. I argued that she wouldn't mind, but this wasn't good enough and Mack spotted an opportunity to start growing the mythos that fed into the seed ceremony. He backed the people who wanted to maintain a vigil around the clock. A senseless waste of time and energy, but the majority worked its magic again and now no one wants to be the one to say it was a mistake.

This is why I don't come here. It always makes me bad-tempered.

The courtyard is large enough for us all to fit in, standing room only, and it's a bit of a crush toward the front. In only four days we'll all be packed in here, staring at Marco as he climbs the slope to the entrance. It's the time I feel the most lonely.

“Hello, Ren!” Pasha calls from his post near the entrance. I try to hide my reluctance to engage as he jumps down from the platform that holds him level with the door without touching God's city.

I wave and mumble a greeting as the other person on duty—Dr. Lincoln, as my luck would have it—complains to Pasha for abandoning his post.

Pasha ignores him. “This is a nice surprise,” he says, enveloping me in one of his giant, loving embraces that even the most surly of citizens are subjected to on a regular basis. Even the doctor will have had one at the start of their shift.

“Just wanted to make sure everything was in order before the ceremony,” I say, having prepared the lie beforehand. “I was thinking about the rain we had last week and the ground here . . .”

“It's all good,” he says, tugging gently at his thick black beard as he looks around the courtyard with me. “It's so sheltered and the ground is so compacted it would take a lot more than that to cause any problems.” He tilts his head. “Anxious?”

I shrug and he smiles.

“Dear Ren,” he says, sucking me back into his bear hug. “Always worrying for everyone else.” He kisses the top of my head as I return the embrace. His size and bulk make me feel childlike again, held in the security of a paternal hug.

The silk of his salwar kameez feels as soft as its shade of peach and he smells faintly of cinnamon. “Has Neela been baking?” My voice is muffled, but he can still hear me.

“Cinnamon rolls,” he says and I hear his stomach rumble at the thought of them. “She's a true artist.”

I wish I could be more like them. They are so . . . light and easily contented. They laugh and work together, are dependent on each other but not dangerously so. Could I have something like that with Kay, if I tried?

Dr. Lincoln is calling him back and Pasha releases me. “I'd better go back. He'd have my head if the Pathfinder chose this moment to come back and not be greeted properly.” He starts off, then turns to face me, walking backward. “And come for dinner, for goodness' sake—you look like you need a good meal.”

“Soon,” I say. Perhaps when all this is over, that would be good. They're both excellent cooks and good company, when I'm in a state to handle that.

I watch him climb back up onto the platform and stand with his chest puffed out. His long black hair is being teased away from his shoulders by the breeze coming through the archway. I have to stop myself from going over and saying, “You should go home; there's no point in your being here.” I can't allow myself to give in to that need to tell the truth. It's one of the pillars that supports Mack's elaborate ruse. If I destroyed it, the rest would come crashing down and we'd be crushed beneath it.

•   •   •

I
spend the rest of the day making Sung-Soo's projector. It's just absorbing enough to put the last task of the day out of my mind. If only everything else could be as straightforward as this.

I check whether anyone else is at his place when it's ready. No one with their location settings set to public is there at the moment, so there's a risk, but I decide to take it. If someone else is there, I can just drop it off and leave.

Cradling the unit in my arms, I leave the communal workshop and make my way over. The sun is setting behind God's city, creating long shadows across the path. Now that I'm not building, I'm worrying again, so I walk faster.

I press the sensor beside his door and cast my critical eye
over the exterior of the house. It looks good: the lower portion of the dome running around the bottom edge is made of shiny black solar cells; then there's a layer of aquarium windows with the rest of the dome covered by partially reflective plasglass windows. They're less harsh on the eyes than a mirrored surface and just as good at maintaining privacy.

The door opens and he grins at me. “I was hoping you'd come,” he says, beckoning me in.

The room is warm and there's a fire in the pit at the center of it. He invites me to take off my shoes and I do so, seeing that he's barefoot. The new moss has a superb springy softness to it.

The room feels completely different from the last time I was here just after completion. It has a homeyness to it and a cozy, inviting security as well. There are several pieces of furniture and I recognize a couple of Neela's pieces displayed in pride of place against one of the walls. There's a circular sofa, which Pasha probably made or at least contributed to, that reaches most of the way around the fire pit.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“It's lovely.”

“Really?”

“Yes! I made you a projector. I'll hook it up to the network if you want?”

“Thank you. And yes, please; I'd like that.”

I unroll my tool wrap and get to work. He stands nearby, curious as always, but I think it's also a reluctance to relax while I work.

“It feels strange,” he says after a couple of minutes of silent industry. “Like it's someone else's home.”

“You'll settle in.”

“And it will stay here and not be moved. That's strange too.”

“It'll be fine,” I say and realize I'm trotting out the same old shit that people say without thinking. I put down the screwdriver and look at him properly for the first time since I arrived. “I can only imagine how weird it must be. But don't worry. If there's one thing human beings are good at, it's adaptation.”

I don't think I'm very good at reassuring people. His expression doesn't change anyway. I go back to what I am good at.

“Have you ever been to Korea?” he asks.

“No.”

“My father says that's where my family came from.”

“A fair way back,” I reply. “Your great-grandparents were born there, but they left when they were pretty young. Suh only went there once, when she was a teenager, and she hated it.”

“Why?”

I smile. “The humidity, mostly. She said it was okay to visit, but she couldn't live there. It was too different from what she was used to.”

“Father said it was a wonderful place.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I don't think he ever went there.”

“Then why say that?”

I shrug. I stop myself from saying the first thing that comes to mind: that he was probably half mad with grief and nostalgia when he said it. “Well . . . it was a wonderful place. But he was just as European as Suh and I were.” I've lost him again. “On Earth, people often lived a long way from where they were born, or their parents or grandparents. Lots of places couldn't cope with the number of people there and the demand for water. So people moved on.”

“Like I used to?”

“Yes, I suppose so. But on a much bigger scale. Sometimes it was because of war; sometimes it was to find work or avoid persecution. It was pretty chaotic there.”

He seems interested. “Go on.”

“My dad's family came from Ghana and we lived there a while. My mum came from England, but she lived in France. So did my dad, for a few years, but he moved all over the place because of his job. So I ended up speaking different languages and feeling part of lots of places, rather than just one. That was the same for Suh. She spoke Korean at home but English and French everywhere else. She used to laugh that I liked Korean food more than she did when we both went to visit her parents.”

“Do you miss Earth?”

“Sometimes.”

“Can you go back?”

“It's complicated.” I don't want to go into the details; none of it will make sense and it will only confuse him and make me miserable. It would take years of preparation and the efforts of the entire colony, there would be risk—and what would we return to? Would there even be anything recognizable left?

It hits me that everyone I knew on Earth will be dead now. And not only the people I knew, but the music and the games and all the other transient cultural references that used to make the world familiar. Technology would have evolved along different routes; the omnipresent threat of war might have finally been realized. It would be like going back to an alien planet, in many ways.

“This is home now,” I say, hearing Suh's echo.

The conversation ebbs as I focus on connecting the projector to the network and testing its interface with the dozens of sensors embedded in his home. He laughs as I ask him to stand in different places and try to hit a virtual ball so I can calibrate it.

When it's done, I slide the tools back into their places and roll the container up.

“Ren,” he says, coming over. “I know you don't want to talk about your house, but I think we should.”

Just when I thought it was going to be glossed over for the sake of least resistance, he brings it up. I clutch the tool roll to my chest.

“There's no need.” I head toward the door.

“But don't you want to be able to live somewhere like this?” I don't reply. “It just doesn't seem right for me to be somewhere so nice—that you made for me—and for you to go back to that . . . place.”

I make it to the door and open it. “It's all fine,” I say, too stupid with panic to think of anything more intelligent. The only thing that stops me from losing it completely is the fact that he doesn't follow me out.

FOUR HOURS LATER,
when the majority of the colony is asleep and I'm kitted out with another protective coverall, my smart-goggles and freshly cleaned filter mask, I leave the house.

Initially it feels like I'm headed for my secret hollow, only with more fear mixed into the excitement than usual. Now that it's time to actually plant the seed, I'm more focused on the practicalities of what I need to achieve, rather than the ethics tangled up in it all. I just hope everything goes as smoothly as Mack thinks it should.

I pass the curved tendrils hiding my secret entrance and walk farther around to the back of the city.

We argued when I practiced this climb at his house. It has to be one of the most difficult and inefficient routes to the front entrance, but, as Mack said, it isn't about efficiency; it's about not being seen by the people holding the vigil outside the entrance. Climbing over the top from the back of the city means no one will see me as I make my ascent, and once I'm
at the top, my descent down the other side will be masked by the lower tendrils and the darkness. Mack showed me various simulations he'd run, proving that, thanks to the angles involved, the route makes it very unlikely that I'll be seen by either the people on duty or a random passerby who happens to look up at the wrong time. Like he said, he's been doing this for years. It's still inefficient as hell though.

God's city towers above me, directly between me and the colony now, the grasslands at my back. I don't have any filters or enhancements active on the goggles at the moment, but my eyes have dark-adapted sufficiently during the walk to pick out more details at the base of the tendril I'm standing in front of. I shrug the pack off my back and kneel down to sort the contents. Inside there are three climbing ropes, clips and a climbing harness. Underneath those are crampons that I can strap over my boots, capped with the roughened surface of ultra-velcro instead of the metal spikes we'd use on the mountain, and a small box with the seed inside. I had to smuggle it out of Mack's house once he was finished with it, for fear of Carmen's watchful gaze spotting him delivering something to me.

I resist the temptation to open the box and check that it's in there. I put it in there less than an hour ago. I have to redirect that nervous energy toward getting my climbing gear on and checking the harness straps, buckles and crampons. Twice.

Once I'm satisfied, I kick the tendril I'm standing next to very gently and don't pull my foot away after contact. Instead, I move as if that foot is on the first rung of a ladder, to see if the friction provided by the u-velcro is good enough to prevent my foot from sliding down to the ground.

It holds. With a twist and bit of effort I detach, satisfied they'll do the job. I won't be depending on them anyway if Mack's securing hexes are where he said they are.

I heft the rucksack into place and feel the hard edge of the box inside dig into my lower back. After a slight readjustment I fasten the security straps over my chest and waist so it doesn't slide off at just the wrong moment. Then two of the coiled ropes go over my head and shoulders, with the third just slung onto one shoulder for ready access. I won't need it yet, but soon I will.

I check all the clasps. Twice. When I start the third round of checking, I realize I just need to get started.

I fumble for the handholds I felt in the game version and they're only millimeters from where I think they should be. A good sign. My right foot finds the place where the tendril butts against another, forming a V shape about a meter off the ground. It stretches my leg uncomfortably as I manage to lift myself onto the structure. Now that I've left the ground, I've committed myself.

I climb, but there's no exhilaration or sense of adventure that usually accompanies the activity. I curse myself for forgetting to enhance the data coming into the goggles and resort to whispered voice commands to boost the signal. In the enhanced view the two tendrils I'm climbing between are like obsidian tree trunks against a pale gray sky. There isn't much for the goggles to work with here; the starlight seems to be absorbed more than reflected by the surface. It's like climbing with my eyes closed when I try to look for the hand – and footholds. There's no way I could have done this without the training at Mack's place beforehand.

It's slow progress and the shaking doesn't help, but I finally reach the first hex. I'm relieved and appalled in equal measure. It will get easier now, but the fact that Mack sullied the surface of God's city with semipermanent climbing gear makes me
angry. Still, I connect my rope to it with a carabiner and test the strength as the sensor inside it acknowledges the presence of the rope and beeps softly in response.

An unfamiliar icon pops up, bright and garish at the edge of my vision, and I open it, checking that the interface between me and the first hex is working as it should.

“Climbing route Mack006a is available for use. Would you like help with your climb today?”

I select “yes” and look back up toward the next part of the climb. The next hex is shining out into the darkness, thanks to the climbing software's enhanced-reality mode. I can see a route for the first time since I began and my movements become more confident.

The first ten meters or so is practically a vertical climb between the tendrils until I reach the bottom of the first nodule. There's a clip that helps me scrabble onto the top of it with a combination of swinging (which leaves my heart in my throat) and then gripping the surface with the u-velcro crampons at its widest point. By the time I've maneuvered myself onto the top of it, I'm panting with fear and exertion. What the fuck am I doing?

A message arrives from Mack.
That's the hardest bit done n
ow.

I should have known he'd be following along through the climbing software. I lie flat on top of the pod, its top directly below my stomach. Even though the rope and harness and the carabiners are uncomfortable to lie on, it's all I can do for a moment.

Keep going, Ren. It's easier from there. I promise.

Fuck off, Mack.

A picture of a laughing face pops up and I swipe it away with a sharp leftward glance. Bastard.

A prompt for voice contact appears and after a few moments of intending to snub him for the entirety of this sorry affair, I accept. I might need him.

“Are you okay?”

“What the fuck do you think?” I keep my voice to a whisper. Even on the other side of God's city I'm scared someone will hear me.

“Catch your breath. All the climbing gear is working as it should. I can guide you over any tricky bits.”

“You said it would be easier now.”

“It's going to be fine. You're a better climber than you think.”

“If you're going to pep talk me, I'll cut off now.”

He laughs again, and as much as I don't want to, I smile. It's a nice sound. It almost makes me feel like we're doing something normal.

“Ready to carry on?”

“I suppose so,” I reply.

“Before you do, make sure you sit on top and look away from God's city, goggles off.”

My thigh muscles complain and twitch as I shift my position, moving first onto hands and knees, then twisting to plop unceremoniously on top of the nodule.

I lift the goggles to rest them against my forehead and take in the view. Even though I'm only a few meters above the ground, the vista is transformed.

The sky is just as it always is: crowded with stars, swathes of the sky as pale as milk in patches, and obscenely beautiful. My new vantage point has nothing to add to its majesty.

The pure blackness created by the edge of the mountain range
to my right and the ground below looks like it's been caused by someone tearing off a piece of creation and revealing the void beyond. But not even that is the reason why he told me to do this.

It's the river in the distance, one that I've walked along several times. On this peaceful night it looks like a crack in the world, exposing a planetary interior of stars rather than molten rock and metal. It makes everything else feel like a scene cut out of black paper. Being the only one who can see it makes me feel simultaneously magnificent and insignificant.

How did I get to this point? How can I be climbing the outside of a holy place like a criminal, perpetuating this absurd cycle of lies? Where did I go wrong?

“Are you with me, Ren?”

The gun wasn't pointing at me when he said that. But it might as well have been.

“Ready to carry on?” His voice, here in the present, makes me jump.

“Do you regret it?” I'm able to ask the question without him in front of me.

There's a pause. “Which part?”

What a question. There's so much to choose from.

“Yes. And no.” Evidently there's no need to distinguish between different items in the reprehensible list. “I wish none of it had happened.”

“Do you wish we never left Earth?”

I've never asked anyone that, not even myself. It's such a pointless question, but something about the torn sky and cracked earth in front of me is making me want to prod that despair and see if it wakes or turns out to be nothing.

“Only once. You?”

I look up at the stars. “I don't think so. I can't imagine knowing Suh and staying behind.”

“Do you wish you'd never met her?”

The breath catches in my chest. I can barely imagine what life would have been like had I missed that appointment to view the flat. I ran to catch the train. If I'd missed it, would I be in some research facility now? Would I have been a better daughter? Would I have saved thousands of lives like my father predicted?

The guilt stirs inside me like a slumbering snake needing to feed soon. I see my father's face from the window after I said good-bye for the last time, how his hand came up to cover his eyes, how he crumpled when the taxi pulled away and I watched him sob. Because of me.

I almost told the driver to stop. But the words never quite made it out of my heart. I try to remember what it was like to think it was more important to find God than to console the man who, in many ways more than my mother did, gave me life.

Do I wish I'd never met Suh? “Yes,” I reply, but my voice doesn't sound like my own.