Strata (28 page)

‘You allowed him to land, though.’

UNFORTUNATELY
HIS
SHIP
ATTRACTED
THE ATTENTION
OF
A
ROC
DURING
THE
DESCENT
.

‘A roc?’

A
LARGE
BIRD
.

* * *

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Marco. ‘I see it, but I don’t believe it. It’s going to take us home, is that it?’

Below them land flashed past in a dusty blur. There was a brief impression of surf and then the roc was arrowing out to sea.

‘Didn’t you see the big egg in that garden where you were caged?’ said Kin weakly. ‘Didn’t you wonder what laid it? Of course it can’t take us home, it’s just a big bird. I saw the specifications, back in the Hub.’

‘It seems a little stupid to say this in the circumstances,’ said Silver, ‘but such a creature could not exist in flesh and blood. It would collapse under its own weight.’

‘It doesn’t weigh more than five tonnes,’ said Kin. ‘It’s one of the Disc builders’ finest constructions. It’s alive. It’s got sinews like Line cord and its bones are pneumatic. Just tubes filled with gas under pressure. The Computers showed me. Marvellous, isn’t it?’

‘Why is it losing height? We’ll land in the sea,’ said Marco.

‘Yes,’ said Kin. ‘I should get back into your couch if I were you.’

‘You mean we
are
going to land in the sea?’

Marco looked down at the rushing waves. They were low enough for every crest to be visible. Then he looked at what, on the Disc, had to be called the horizon. The sun was just a red glow, half hidden by strips of cloud, tipping the wave tops with fire. Marco thought.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you’re not planning to do what I think you are planning to do …’

‘If it helps you any,’ said Kin, ‘Jago Jalo was insane even by the standards of an insane age.’

IT
BECAME
OBVIOUS.
WE
HAD
NOT
CONSIDERED THAT
ANY
RACE
WOULD
SEND
ITS
MADMEN
INTO SPACE
.

‘In a ship like this, only a madman would go.’

HE
CAME
TO
THE
HUB
WITH
A
DEMOUNTED GEOLOGICAL
LASER,
HE
KILLED
THE
CHAIRMAN
OF THE
TIME
.

‘You didn’t try to stop him?’

WE
WERE
NOT
INSTRUCTED
TO
DO
SO.
BESIDES, THE
MAN
WAS
OBVIOUSLY
FROM
A
TECHNOLOGICAL
CULTURE.
WE
HAD
TO
WEIGH
THE
FUTURE
OF THE
DISC.
HE
ORDERED
US
TO
BUILD
HIM
A
SHIP.
IT WAS
NOT
DIFFICULT.
WE
CALCULATED
THAT
IF
WE ASSISTED
JAGO
JALO
BACK
TO
HIS
HOME
WORLD
IT WOULD
NOT
BE
LONG
BEFORE
WE
HAD
FURTHER VISITORS.
THEREFORE
WE
SENT
WITH
HIM
ONE
OF OUR
SPY
BIRDS
-
THE
RAVENS,
THE
EYES
OF
GOD, OUR
BEAUTIFULLY
CREATED
BIRDS
.

‘Then why didn’t you contact us as soon as we arrived? Hell, I’ve had fleas, I’ve nearly been burned alive, I was shoved in a seraglio—’

WE
DECIDED
TO
OBSERVE
YOU
FIRST.
WE
COULD NOT
BE
SURE
THAT
JALO
WAS
AN
EXCEPTION.
AND THEN
THE
FOUR-ARMED
CREATURE
ADDED
WEIGHT TO
OUR
SUSPICIONS
.

Kin watched the letters fade. She said: ‘You know that we can build worlds. Proper worlds. Planets. We could build a planet for the Disc people. You know it is a fair copy of my home world?’

YES
.

‘Do you know why?’

YES
.

‘Will you tell me?’

The screen stayed blank for several seconds. Then it was filled with words, so many that the Computers had had to reduce the size of the letters. Kin stood up and read:

YOU
WISH
TO
KNOW
ABOUT
THE
DISC
BUILDERS. YOU
WISH
TO
KNOW
THE
REASONS
BEHIND
THE CONSTRUCTION
OF
THE
DISC.
WE
CAN
TELL
YOU. BUT
IT
IS
OUR
ONLY
BARGAINING
COUNTER
ON BEHALF
OF
OUR
CHILDREN.
IT
IS
POSSIBLE
THAT YOU
COULD
LEAVE
AND
RETURN
TO
PLUNDER
THE DISC,
AS
JALO
HAD
INTENDED.
WE
COULD
NOT STOP
YOU.
YET
WE
REALIZE
THAT
KNOWLEDGE
IS
A PRIZE
YOU
GREATLY
DESIRE.
WE
WILL
GIVE
YOU KNOWLEDGE.
YOU
WILL
BUILD
A
NEW
WORLD
FOR OUR
PEOPLE
.

Kin had already been considering it. It would mean building a G-type star within a few light-minutes of the Disc, unless there was a suitable one that could be moved …

‘We’d need access to Disc technology,’ she said. ‘Teleportation, the force-grow vat theories, the lot.’

YOU
WOULD
HAVE
IT,
OF
COURSE
.

‘Then you will have your new world. If the Company won’t do it, I could float a Company of my own with that bait. I could go to one of the small operators – yes, I’ll do it.’

WE
HAVE
A
BARGAIN
.

‘Just like that? You don’t need any – well, I guess I can’t give you any sureties,’ said Kin, surprised.

WE
HAVE
OBSERVED
YOU.
WE
ESTIMATE
THERE
IS
A
99.87
PER
CENT
CHANCE THAT YOU WILL HONOUR
THE
BARGAIN.
DON
THE
HELMET
.

Kin looked up at the padded metal rim above her head.

WE
TRUST
YOU.
TRUST
US.
THE
HELMET
WILL LINK
YOU
TO
CERTAIN
CIRCUITS
DESIGNED
FOR THIS
SITUATION.
WE
CAN
GIVE
YOU
NOT
INFORMATION
BUT
KNOWLEDGE,
THAT
YOU
WILL
OBTAIN NOWHERE
ELSE
IN
THE
UNIVERSE
.

‘The purpose of life is to find things out,’ said Kin doubtfully.

YES.
WHO
WOULD
SHUN
KNOWLEDGE
?

Kin sighed, reached up, grasped, pulled.

The robots were busy in the centre of the deck. One of them rolled towards the horseshoe panel, trailing a cable behind it. The rest were clustered around an oddly-bent piece of mirror-bright rod. When Kin looked at it her eyes ached. It seemed to be twisted in ways that normal matter just couldn’t go, which meant she was looking at the heart of a matrix drive.

She was glad – she’d had a horrible thought about what would happen if one didn’t get built.

The robots had also built a proper pilot’s seat in front of the controls. Marco was sitting in it, swearing.

‘It’ll be like finding a hole in fog,’ he said. ‘I hope your tin friend builds good jets.’

‘The hole will show up on the screen,’ suggested Silver.

‘Yeah. But we’ll be going at a hell of a lick. Kin, are you sure it’s all worked out?’

Kin smiled. ‘Right down to the Disc’s tumbling speed and the rotation of the Vault of Heaven. Don’t you believe that machines capable of running the Disc for seventy thousand years are capable of—’

‘—threading a needle ten thousand miles away by dropping the thread over a
waterfall
? No. I want a chance to experiment with the jets.’

‘You’ll have it.’

The roc’s wingbeats thundered in the night as it wheeled about and skimmed across the dark water. It dropped the ship, fought frantically for height again, wingtips brushing the waves.

There was a moment of free-fall, then a slap as the ship hit. It bobbed, and spun slowly.

The roc passed across the stars, wings booming, heading back to its secret valleys. And Kin relaxed. Through the hull of the ship there came a new sound, a soft murmur as of distant engines. The Rimfall.

She waited, with the soft padding of the helmet pressing against her closed eyes. Nothing happened.

Then she
remembered
. It came as a shock, but that dwindled as She took control over the body. How could She have forgotten? Then She remembered about that, too. Unless One forgot, how could One learn?

She could feel Kin somewhere in Her mind, a little flask of tastes and textures, senses and experiences. Around Her She could experience the Disc, and She knew there was danger there. It would be too easy to lose Herself in the sheer exhilarating enjoyment of it. She turned her mind back to the Computers.

You have done well.

THAT
WAS
MY
TASK
.

I will allow some recollection to Kin Arad. She is Me, after all. She will awake knowing something about Us. And she will understand about the Disc.

YES
.

She reached into the mind within Her and made certain amendments. Then, contented, She let Herself forget …

Kin remembered. The memories were there, cold, hard, real, like shards of ice in the mind. She recalled the Disc.

‘The Disc’, she said, her voice flat in the shock of it, ‘is the boot in the coal measure, the coin in the crystal. The filling in the tooth of the tricera-tops. The secret mark that reveals the maker. They couldn’t resist it. They built a perfect universe to specifications, but they couldn’t resist adding the Disc out here, hard to find, but a clue.
How do I know
?’ she shouted.

The screen stayed blank.

‘I
know
it. They weren’t just the Disc builders. They built the lot – the real Earth, kung, all the stars. They laid down our fossils. We thought maybe the Great Spindle Kings had done that, but the Spindle Kings never existed. They were all part of the false strata of the new universe. We wondered if we’d evolved with the help of the Kings. We never evolved! We were created, just like we recreate whales and elephants for our colony worlds.

‘We’re a colony universe. The Builders just moved in and built it, and because everyone needs a history, they gave us a history. Just as we do with the new worlds. Ancient bones. Fabulous monsters. Great Spindle Kings, Wheelers. And we never realized it. We did it ourselves, and we never tumbled to it.