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Chapter 1
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October 27, 2008
August 3, 2008
A sharp contraction of terror gripped Sam Fitzpatrick’s bowel as the hollow tube swung the other way, its thick electrical cable was torn from his grasp and he was hurled out of the tube, his suit jacket flapping against his body like slow hand-claps. So it was true. Time really does seem to slow down when your life is at stake. Coloured raindrops stung his face one at a time like a swarm of lazy wasps as he tried to stop himself shitting his pants.
The rain sprayed from a dense spiders web of pipes surrounding him. The pipes appeared to be transparent for he could see the coloured raindrops moving along inside them. As he spun slowly through the air he saw the web curving away into the distance like a thick blanket surrounding the planet. Sam’s incontinence problem got worse as his field of vision moved and he saw how high he was. The pink planet was so far away it looked as smooth as a billiard ball. The thick legs supporting the spiders web seemed to dwindle away to nothing as they ran down to it.
Sam kept spinning and something else came into view, a long white oval shape floating in the air below him like an airship. Two human-looking arms and legs stuck out sideways from its long curving flanks. One of the hands was holding the tube he had been hiding in. Sam saw the hand swing the tube and smash it into one of the rain pipes. Fragments of broken pipe fell away towards the distant ocean in a long line of tiny sparkling dots.
Sam’s stomach heaved as gravity pulled him over the smooth apex of his flight and he began to accelerate downwards. A moment later the whole scene was lit by a white flash so bright it hurt his eyes. All the pipes surrounding the planet had lit up as if somebody had thrown a switch on an enormous neon sign. He closed his lids tight against the blinding light but still he saw every detail, black against a white background; the row of dots, the oval airship, the spiders web of pipes, the thick legs.
Then something brushed gently against Sam’s chest, he put out his arms and pushed the thing away. Whatever was touching him pressed harder against his body. It felt like a long smooth cylinder with many flat sides. It had to be one of the rain pipes. It was the wrong shape to be part of the airship. Sam made himself relax, giving himself up to it, realising that this was his only hope of salvation. He opened his eyes. The rain had stopped.
He was sliding head-first at high speed along the smooth pipe. The flash was fading from his retinas revealing a faint blue glow within the pipe beneath him. The coloured raindrops had all gone. The pipe was as transparent as blue glass. Dead ahead, about a kilometre along the pipe, was a place where dozens of other blue pipes met this one. They radiated out from a central point like a star-burst. If he fell into that junction Sam knew he was going to be crushed in the narrowing crevice between the pipes.
As he neared the junction he felt the pipe he was sliding along bend so that he began going up hill and slowing down. By the time he reached the junction he was moving very slowly. At the centre of the star-burst he saw a gap, a place where one pipe was missing. The junction appeared to be hollow. At the last moment the pipe he was on tilted over and dropped him through the gap into the hollow space. The crystal directly below him moved to break his fall. He slithered across the floor and finally came to rest against one wall.
He lay still, dazed and amazed, looking around. He was in a sort of crystal cave made from the flat ends of many transparent pipes. Through them he could see how they radiated away into the distance. Their far ends joined other pipes forming further star-burst junctions. There was just one gap in the cave high above him, the gap he had dropped through, a place where one pipe appeared to be missing. He was certain that these pipes had caught him, stopped him falling to his death and deposited him safely in this place, but how and why? But uppermost in Sam’s mind was Catriona. The last time he had seen his step-daughter she had been looking down at him from a balcony high up on the cavern wall. Was she still alive, or had she too been absorbed by the black hole?
Sam felt the wall beside his arm move away and turned to see the wall swing out, turn and move quickly back. Before he had time to move it hit the floor beside him and sliced a neat strip out of his jacket sleeve with a ringing musical chime. If his hand had been a few centimetres further along it would have been chopped off. He pulled his arm away from the wall and looked around in alarm.
All the pipes around him were moving, gently striking one another. Even the floor was rocking, lifting and falling. This motion was accompanied by more musical tones, like a child playing a glockenspiel. The wall beside him moved again, a yawning gap opened up and slammed closed. Frightened of falling through or having an arm or leg chopped away, he chose his moment and pushed himself away from the wall. The pipes’ movements were growing more violent all the time. Within a minute they were hammering into each other with the deafening clangs of cathedral bells. The floor was shaking so much that Sam was tossed about like a pea on a drum, his balding head and crumpled suit unable to stop him sliding across the smooth surface, slippery as ice, towards the edges where the walls were crashing into the floor like guillotines.
The noise from the clashing pipes was so loud that Sam hardly noticed the other noise at first, but when he did it resonated in his soul. It was a primordial blast of pure hate, the angry bellow of an insane bull, so frightful he turned his head, unable to stop himself searching for the thing that was sending out this terrible siren of disaster. The airship was bending and thrashing about franticly trying to escape from a dense net which surrounded it. The spiders web had collapsed around it and was now holding it fast. The metal tube had fallen from the airship’s hand and the little arms and legs protruding from its curving flanks were pulling and kicking the web. It was almost doubling up as it bent from side to side, twisting and distorting the net. It was this struggle, transmitted through the network of pipes, which was causing his crystal cave to shake. As the airship almost doubled up, Sam glimpsed both ends of its long white body and each was a vision of horror.
On one end was a face, huge as a monument carved into a mountain. A man’s face. A Chinese man’s face. It was unmistakably the face of Dr. Michael Zhang. Sam’s heart almost stopped when he saw it. How had Zhang’s face been blown up to such enormous proportions and fixed on the airship like the figure-head on a Viking warship? Then the airship bent the other way and the rear end of its body came into view. Sam stared at it, unable to believe his eyes. It was shaped like a pair of buttocks, human buttocks, and there was a dark dot in the cleft between them. This was not an airship, it was some sort of animal.
Disbelief turned to horror when he saw the gondola hanging below them in the shape of a man’s private parts. They were huge, much larger than the legs sticking out above, and were swinging from side to side as the airship tried to escape from the net. Sam tried to swallow down the vomit that rose in his throat but his mouth was completely dry. He watched the monster thrash about for a few more seconds, white, naked, bloated as a dead whale, its futile efforts to escape shaking even the little hollow cave in which he lay.
He looked at the monster and with an effort called ‘Stop!’ The sound came out of his dried lips as a stifled gasp. Even as he tried once more he felt the floor lift like a trampoline and he was airborne, hurtling across the cave towards one crystal wall surrounded by gaps. The noise that erupted from his throat surprised him; the visceral shriek of an animal being taken to slaughter. It echoed around the crystal cave. The monster heard him and stopped struggling. The last wave of vibration travelled across the network, the walls of the cave hammered together for the final time, the shaking ceased and silence descended, broken only by the dull thud as Sam’s head crashed into the wall, followed by the crumpled mass of his limp body. With a groan he slid down the wall, across the smooth floor and a short way up the opposite wall before falling back and gliding gently to a halt, trembling and breathless, battered and bruised, but still alive.
Then a voice like thunder rolled around inside the crystal cave. ‘Get up, Samuel!’
Sam turned his head. The distant monster was still trapped in the crystal net but it had stopped struggling.
‘I know you can hear me, Samuel. Come on, get up! I need your help and we don’t have much time. Stand up! Don’t you want to save the world?’
‘Of course I do, Dr. Zhang, but how–’
‘Do not use that name!’ A darkness suffused Michael’s gigantic face. ‘I used to be Michael Zhang, but now you will call me Lord.’
‘You? I certainly will not!’ You were odd before, Sam thought, but now you’ve gone totally insane.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am as wise as what you would call a god. You don’t believe me? I can easily prove it. For example, I know everything about you. You are Samuel James Fitzpatrick. You were born in a labourer’s cottage on Paddy O’Hearns’ Farm at Ballycallen, near Cork, at 2:54 in the afternoon of 7th of July 1959. You were the second child of an alcoholic called James Rossiman Fitzpatrick and a depressive woman Irene Juliet Fitzpatrick, nee Blanding. Your family lived there for the first six years of your life. On August 9th, 1965…’
Sam couldn’t believe it as every detail of his past was reeled out, including many facts he didn’t even know himself but which all had the ring of truth. And when Michael described his father’s infidelity with a neighbour, a close family secret, and correctly stated the woman’s name, Sam was convinced. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘I know everything, Samuel. Everything! The things I have told you so far are trivial. I know the deepest secrets of what man calls the Universe. Every secret that science struggled to understand has been revealed to me. Now call me Lord.’
Sam stared at Michael’s enormous face, his bloated body trapped in the crystal network, helpless, naked and obscene. How can I use such a word for such a monster? But Michael has clearly been changed physically and he certainly knows a lot about me. Who knows, perhaps he really is a god. And I haven’t got a clue what to do, so I need him as much as he seems to need me. ‘Very well,’ Sam said, ‘I will call you Lord if that’s what you want. Now tell me, Lord, is Catriona still alive?’
‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out.’
‘You mean you don’t know? I thought you knew everything?’
‘I know everything that happened in the Universe from its creation until the moment we left. I do not know–’
‘We left…’ Sam couldn’t take this in. ‘We’ve left the Universe?’
‘That is the Universe.’ Sam looked at Michael. His little arm was pointing straight down at the pink planet. ‘But I do not know what happened to it after we were sucked into the black hole.’
‘Was the Earth absorbed too?’ Sam said, afraid of the answer.
‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out. Stand up! We don’t have much time.’
Sam tried to get to his feet. Immediately he slipped and fell heavily back onto the shiny crystal floor.
‘Take your shoes and socks off,’ Michael said.
Sam removed his footwear and managed to stand.
‘Look down the middle of each crystal,’ Michael told him. ‘If the Earth is still there you should be able to see it.’
Sam chose one of the crystal walls at random and moved his head sideways, not sure where the middle of the wall was. At first he saw nothing but the long pipe tapering away into the distance. It had seven flat sides and their edges seemed to meet in a point. He moved his head so the converging lines looked symmetrical and for a moment he glimpsed a small rectangular shape floating like a ghost far down inside the pipe. Slowly he moved back and saw it again. It was only visible when one eye was in exactly the right position. It was very small, as if it was very far away. What was it?
He put his hand inside his jacket. He was surprised and somehow comforted, to feel his spectacles still safely tucked away in his shirt pocket. He put them on and saw it slightly more clearly, a blue metal cabinet with two doors, the sort you might see in a smart garage workshop, but it was still very small and very far away. At the sight of it Sam’s heart stopped beating for a second. This was beyond his wildest hopes. It obviously belonged on the Earth, not on this weird pink planet. He leaned forward, trying to get a better view, and the cabinet moved towards him so rapidly he gasped and moved back, afraid of being hit. The cabinet moved away from him. Its movement, he realised, was some sort of optical illusion. He leaned forward again and once more the cabinet moved towards him, so close that he could see marks on its doors; four deep dents, two marked with a scratch.
Eagerly he turned and looked into another crystal. Once more he moved his head so the vanishing perspective of the pipe’s edges looked symmetrical and a red metal box came into view, fixed to a white concrete wall, a cone sticking out of one end and some pipes out of the other. Sam stared at it. How could he see things which seemed so earthly when he clearly was not on the Earth? Eager to see more, Sam began looking around at the other crystal walls. In one he saw a yellow metal girder, the sort you might see a crane moving along in a warehouse. In another wall there was a red cabinet with Savox on the glass door. Another showed thick cables and a blue metal balcony. Sam’s heart soared. The last time he had seen Catriona she had been standing on a balcony, half-way up the tall cavern wall. He was leaning forward, eager to see more, when Michael’s voice boomed across the sky like a thunderclap.
‘What can you see?’
‘I can see the cavern.’
‘Call me Lord.’
‘I can see the cavern, Lord.’
‘I knew it!’ Michael’s voice was triumphant. ‘Which parts?’
Sam described each image in turn.
‘Can you see any people?’ Michael asked.
‘No, Lord.’
‘Have you looked through every crystal?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You must look into all of them. Be quick!’
Sam longed to see Catriona. If only she was alive, it would give him something to live for. Once again he began peering into the crystals, wondering why this urgency, checking them all methodically. It was after about a dozen crystals, as he was looking at a sheet of white plastic punctured by large rivets, that he heard a woman scream.
June 24, 2008
Chapter 1: Festival of Science (23 June 2008)
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Free Universes — Today Only
Cjingha Itoodoo could hardly believe her eye as it read the headline, but then it was not one of her best and it seemed to have a mind of its own this morning. Dark and sullen, the eye crouched on the lower left of her face, near her eater, and kept straying away from the screen it was supposed to be reading. All her other eyes were obediently scanning every word on every page of the Sedtia Morning Herald, but not this one.
She was busy, deliberately busy, eating breakfast and simultaneously processing the data from all of her eyes so she did not always notice when this eye’s gaze went wandering off the screen and down the bright yellow dressing robe she wore, following the voluptuous curves of her six bulging baby-feeders. Each time she realised where this recalcitrant orb was looking she would force it away from her breasts and back onto the browser with a shudder.
Normally Cjingha did not read every part of the Herald. She usually just scanned the News and then read the Business Section in detail, but today was not a normal day. This morning she was forcing herself to read everything, immersing herself in the news, blotting out everything else, even her daughter’s moans about having to go back to school. It was in the Science Section that the eye read this headline. Cjingha was shocked.
Free Universes? Impossible! Universes were notoriously expensive, play-things for the spoilt children of the cream of Entroilian society, or a gambling investment for the poor who borrowed money to buy one, hoping to get rich quick. Universes were so expensive she had never even considered giving them to her children. A university lecturer’s salary was not large, even for a senior professor. Her economic instinct was piqued and her ego outraged. How could something that expensive be given away free? She swivelled her best eye (the big one just above her talker) to the foot of the browser, checking she was not mistaken. When it saw the same headline she read the short article below.
The first few lucky visitors at the Macroverse Festival of Science this morning will be given their very own free universe! ‘This is a wonderful opportunity for several hundred children to acquire a valuable gift,’ said Professor Karolinda, the President of the Macroverse Science Association. ‘We are grateful to the generosity of the Moshendiar Foundation for giving children a life-long interest and a marvellous learning opportunity.’
That’s all it said, apart from giving the telespeaker I.D. and opening hours of the ticket office. Cjingha’s mind was churning, her professional curiosity washing away the fears that had been clinging to her since she came out of the shower this morning. Her other eyes stopped scanning the screen, all focussing now on this one article. How much does it cost to manufacture a universe, she wondered. What’s the Moshendiar Foundation? I never heard of it. A few of her eyes swivelled across the kitchen to the door of the video room and she called ‘Glagnump!’
Her son’s face appeared in the doorway, a bowl, a spoon and a game controller in his tentacles, his eater chewing.
‘Didn’t one of your friends get a universe last New Year?’ she asked him.
‘Yes Mum, Koddlezine did. Why?’
Cjingha already knew his name. His mother was one of the richest Entroilians in this part of town. ‘Do you know how much his mother paid for it?’
‘About a thousand tribrenha I think. Why?’
‘Oh nothing,’ Cjingha said, trying not to show how jealous she was. Koddlezine’s mother ran a luxury underwear shop in the centre of Sedtia. During the weeks leading up to the New Year Festival you couldn’t move in there for naked Entroilians trying on sexy underwear. For her a thousand tribrenha would be small change whereas for Cjingha it was over a month’s salary.
‘But why, Mum, really?’
‘It’s just that they’re giving free universes away at the Festival of Science today and I was wondering how much–’
‘Universes?’ Glagnump dropped the game controller and flew across the kitchen. ‘Free ones? Really? Can I have one?’ He pushed his mother’s tentacles aside and looked over her shoulder at the browser screen. His eager eyes quickly found the article. ‘Is that the Festival thing they’re advertising all over town? The one at the University?’
Cjingha nodded. ‘Umm hmm.’
‘Then you can get me one on your way to work!’ He was obviously enthralled at the prospect.
‘No I can’t. I’m in meetings all morning and it says they’ve only got a few hundred. They’ll probably all be gone by lunchtime. And anyway I don’t think you’re old enough to look after one yet, Glagnump,’ she said when she saw the disappointment on his face. ‘Now hurry up and finish your breakfast. You don’t want to be late for school on the first day of term.’
‘But I’ll be ten thousand next year. That’s old enough!’ Glagnump snorted indignantly, fragments of cereal shooting out of his eater onto the multiweb browser screen. ‘Koddlezine’s the same age as me and he’s already got three. It isn’t that much work. He said he only checks them once a day.’ Her son’s tentacles began waving excitedly. ‘Please can I have one?’
‘What about me?’ The voice came from the other side of the breakfast table.
One of Cjingha’s eyes, black and dour, flicked across at her daughter. The girl was peering at herself in a little mirror, a brush poised in a delicate tentacle.
‘You’re not wearing make-up to school!’ Cjingha snapped, aghast. ‘You know it’s not allowed. Go and wash it off.’
Oesirisi stared defiantly at her mother but did not move. ‘It’s only a bit of blusher. Nobody will notice.’
All Cjingha’s eyes turned and scowled at her daughter. ‘I’m not going to argue with you, Oesirisi. I’ve already got enough on my plate this morning. If you want to get into trouble on the first day back at school then just carry on.’
‘So can I have a universe?’ Oesirisi said dabbing the red powder onto her cheeks. ‘I look after Glagnump when you’re not here. Looking after a universe would be much easier than him.’
‘But why do you both want one?’ Cjingha spoke as if she didn’t already know. ‘There’s nothing you could do with it except look at it and you’d have to check it every day.’
‘But just imagine what it would be like to find an Emergent, Mum!’ Glagnump said. ‘I’d love to have my very own being from another universe!’
Cjingha couldn’t argue with that. She had seen them on the televiewer, those children who were lucky enough to own a universe where beings had evolved, beings who were sufficiently intelligent to find their way out. The experience of looking after these Emergents had transformed those children’s lives, making them rich and famous overnight.
But is that what I want for my kids? There’s more to life than being a celebrity. They need a solid career behind them, not overnight fame. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I know exactly what would happen. If you didn’t find one in the first week you’d both get bored and I’d have to monitor them myself. You know how busy I am.’ She got up and began to clear the table. ‘And you can’t leave a universe more than a day without checking for Emergents.’
‘Of course not!’ Oesirisi said, running a pencil over the brows of her largest and most beautiful eye. ‘That would be worse than leaving a heffletward to starve to death in a trap! I promise I’ll check mine every day. Honestly!’
‘And me!’ Glagnump said.
Cjingha sighed. She knew that if one of her children did actually find an Emergent it would be an incredible learning opportunity. At the very least they would get to visit the Council, to appear on Entroilian televiewer and maybe even to meet the Being. After that, she thought, they could either sell the Emergent or go with it, becoming its proxy parent as it was educated in the ways of the Macroverse. And anyway (she thought, brushing crumbs off the table) the discipline of checking a universe every day without fail would be good for them, especially for Glagnump. He seldom does anything except play video games. And if they’re free, how can I refuse when the Festival is right on my doorstep in Sedtia University?
‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘But I just can’t do anything this morning. I’ll see what I can do at lunchtime, but I’m sure they’ll all be gone by then. I suggest you make your minds up you aren’t going to get one. Now hurry up you two. You’ll be late for school.’
She began loading the breakfast dishes into the washer, still not certain she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want to discourage her children’s enthusiasm. They were getting to an age, especially Oesirisi, where going out with friends and having fun were beginning to look more interesting than doing homework. And as for Glagnump, at least watching a universe would get him away from playing stupid adventure games for a minute every day.
She went into her sleep-room, slipped out of her dressing robe and stood for a moment looking at her naked body in the mirror. A round face surrounded by long and strong tentacles. She had often been told she was beautiful, so she had to believe it. Her black skin was shining and with almost no creases or wrinkles. She spread out her large leathery black wings and let her tentacles run over them. They felt in perfect condition. She folded them and let her eyes move down over her baby-feeders. She had always been proud of them, large and heavy with prominent dugs. Below them two long, strong legs reached down to a set of carefully manicured hooves.
Not bad for an Entroilian of your age, she told herself. It wouldn’t be difficult to attract an Argolath at the next New Year Festival, if that’s what you wanted. But she dismissed the idea immediately. She had decided when Glagnump was born that she did not want any more children. Two was enough, and she already had one of each.
Then she felt it again. Without her realising what it was doing, one of her tentacles had moved down her body and found again the lump in one of her baby-feeders. No, she had not been mistaken in the shower this morning; it was still there. She lifted the breast, trying to see the spot in the mirror but it was on the bottom left, near her ngja, in a very difficult place to see. She would have to go to the doctor, but this was not the right time. There was too much to do today, and anyway the implications were so horrible she just could not think about it. She shuddered, let the baby feeder fall from her grip and forced the lump out of her mind.
She pulled on her underwear and yanked her new blue satin skirt and her favourite pale pink blouse out of the wardrobe. She put them on and checked herself once again in the mirror. As she had suspected, they not only matched perfectly but also brought out the beauty of her eyes. She slipped her long dark grey professor’s gown over them and pouted at the mirror to check the lipstick on her talker and her eater, then stood back for one last check.
‘What would your children think of you if you didn’t get them a free universe?’ she asked herself. The thought of what Oesirisi would say made her tentacles writhe around her shoulders in anxiety. It just might be the trigger that would turn her daughter against her. There had already been signs of rebellion. She could not risk losing control now, with so many other things on her mind. When she went back to the kitchen she was astonished to find her children washed, dressed and ready to go. Oesirisi had even washed off the make-up! They were obviously making a big effort to impress her.
They all flew together to the school and when she dropped them off they begged her once again to fetch them a universe each. She promised she would try and they went through the gate waving and flipping summersaults like new-born vandricks. She spread her large black wings and flew on to the University feeling quite pleased that they were so enthusiastic about something, but still with misgivings over the wisdom of giving such a responsibility to such young children.
Black smoke billowed around her from the tall chimneys as she flew over the industrial sector. Entroilians in overalls were flying down through the smoke to work in the factories and workshops. Sedtia was renown for its heavy industry. Not far beyond it lay the river, oily black with pollution from these industrial estates. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of it as she flew over to the University on the far side. Just before she flew down to the Economics Building she paused and hovered in mid-air, staring in amazement at the huge white structure that stood on the playing fields at the back of the campus, her first glimpse of the magnificent marquee which had been erected during the holiday for the annual jamboree known as the Macroverse Festival of Science.
June 12, 2008
Following feedback from Tehun, made a few small changes.
‘They’re giving universes away at the Festival of Science today,’ Cjingha said and immediately regretted it.
‘Universes? What, free ones?’ Oesirisi pushed her mother’s tentacles aside and looked over her shoulder at the front page of the Sedtia Morning Herald. ‘Can I have one?’
‘I don’t think you’re old enough to look after one yet, darling,’ Cjingha said quietly. Idiot, she told herself. Why didn’t I keep my talker shut?
‘Of course I am!’ Oesirisi snorted indignantly. Fragments of breakfast cereal shot out of the child’s eater onto the multiweb browser screen. ‘I look after Fuzzdark all by myself, and he takes a lot of work. Looking after a universe would be much easier than him.’
‘That’s true,’ Glagnump called from the video room. ‘Koddlezine only checks his once a day.’ He peered through the doorway, his tentacles waving excitedly. ‘Can I have one too? I’ll be ten thousand next year. That’s old enough.’ He went back to playing his adventure game.
‘But why do you want one?’ Cjingha said to her daughter, as if she didn’t already know. ‘There’s nothing you could do with it except look at it. And you’d have to check it every day.’
‘I know,’ Oesirisi said. ‘But Rokyh’s got one, and lots of my other friends. They say it only takes a minute every day, and just imagine what it would be like to find an Emergent, Mum! I’d love to have my very own being from another universe!’
Cjingha couldn’t argue with that. She had seen them on the televiewer, those children and adults who were lucky enough to own a universe where beings had evolved who were sufficiently intelligent to find their way out. It had transformed their lives, making them rich and famous overnight. But is that what I want for my kids?
‘I know exactly what would happen,’ she said, getting up to clear the table. ‘If you didn’t find one in the first week you’d both get bored and I’d have to monitor them myself. You know how busy I am, and you can’t leave a universe more than a day without checking for Emergents.’
‘Of course not!’ Oesirisi said. ‘That would be worse than leaving a heffletward to starve to death in a trap! I promise I’ll check mine every day. Honestly!’
‘And me!’ Glagnump called.
Cjingha sighed. She knew that, if one of her children did actually find an Emergent, it would be an incredible learning opportunity. At the very least they would get to visit the Council, appear on Entroilian television and maybe even meet the Being. Then they could either sell the creature or go with it, becoming its proxy parent as it was educated in the ways of the Macroverse. And the discipline of checking them without fail would be good, especially for Glagnump, who seldom did anything except play on his computer.
But universes were very expensive, and only one in a billion would produce an Emergent, so she had never considered it worthwhile to buy her children one. However, if they were free, how could she refuse?
‘All right,’ she said at last, brushing crumbs off the table. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Now hurry up you two. You’ll be late for school.’
She began loading the breakfast dishes into the washer, still not certain she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want to discourage her children’s enthusiasm. They were getting to an age, especially Oesirisi, where going out with friends and having fun were beginning to look more interesting than doing homework. And as for Glagnump, at least watching a universe would get him away from playing stupid adventure games for a minute every day.
She went into her sleep-room and pulled her new blue satin skirt and her favourite pale pink blouse out of the wardrobe. She slipped out of her dressing robe, put them on and checked herself in the mirror. As she had suspected, they not only matched perfectly but also brought out the beauty of her shining black skin. She slipped her long dark grey professor’s gown over them and pouted at the mirror to check the lipstick on her talker and her eater, then stood back for one last check.
Her tentacles were long and strong, her wings in perfect condition. Her baby-feeders were large and heavy, her sitters small and neat. Not bad for an Entroilian of your age, she told herself. It wouldn’t be difficult to attract an Argolath at the next summer mating, if that’s what you wanted. But she dismissed the idea immediately. She had decided when Glagnump was born that she did not want any more children. Two was enough, and she already had one of each.
But what would they think of you if you didn’t get them a free universe? The thought of what Oesirisi would say made her tentacles writhe around her shoulders in anxiety. It just might even be the trigger that would turn her daughter against her. There had already been signs of rebellion. She could not risk losing control now, with so many other things on her mind.
When she dropped her children off at school they begged her once again to fetch them a universe each. She promised she would try and they went through the gate waving and flipping summersaults like new-born vandricks. She spread her large black wings and flew on to the University feeling quite pleased that they were so enthusiastic, but still with misgivings about the wisdom of giving such a responsibility to such young children.
She was in faculty meetings all morning. After cramming her lunch into her eater while checking her video mails, she flew out of her office into the autumn szemzion-shine, her long professor’s gown flapping behind her. She decided to keep it on despite the heat, hoping it would be her passport into the Festival of Science, gaining her priority ahead of the general public. She did not have much time. This afternoon she had to prepare for the start of term next week.
With strong sweeps of her sleek black wings she flew to the entrance marked ‘Ticket Office’ in the vast marquee the Macroverse Science Association had erected on the sports fields at the back of the Sedtia University campus. She found the shortest queue and while she waited for the two elderly Entroilians to buy their tickets she browsed a nearby poster listing dozens of lectures for this afternoon.
- How does Science affect the Being?
- Alcohol-induced sterility among Argolaths and their future reproductive viability.
- Our life-giving Szemzion: the flow of energy to Entroilia.
- Why Argolaths degenerate at puberty but Entroilians do not.
They all look interesting, she thought, wishing she had time to attend some of them. The elderly Entroilians moved away and she stepped towards the counter. A young female sat on the other side, pretty and casually dressed but with multiple pins, rings, badges, animated gizmos and decorations piercing her tentacles, face and body. Cjingha felt her lunch rise in her throat. She had only ever seen this kind of thing on the multiweb. It was not the kind of things students did at Sedtia University. She swallowed hard. Well now I’ve seen them in the flesh, she thought and smiled at the unintended pun.
The girl directed her to entrance 34C, which she said was round the back of the marquee. Cjingha flew off still feeling queasy. I hope Oesirisi doesn’t start asking for rings through her timbrails, she thought. And if she ever has a pin through her ngja I’ll murder her. She had heard this was one of the latest fashions, piercing of the reproductive organs both among females and males. She could understand a drunken Argolath having it done, but not a sensible Entroilian.
Hundreds of children, both Entroilians and Argolaths, were streaming out of the huge marquee, accompanied by their teachers. Thousands were already lying around on the grass, eating their packed lunches or playing games as they enjoyed the unseasonally warm szemzion. Cjingha wondered why her local school hadn’t organised a visit. Oesirisi and Glagnump would have loved all this. I wish I’d known about it before. I could have mentioned it to their teachers. But then science isn’t my subject and I never realised what a big event this Festival was going to be.
Cjingha was struck by how excited the children here were, even the Argolaths. Why was it, she wondered, that when these boys reach the age of thirteen or fourteen thousand they would lose all interest in any intellectual pursuits? It saddened her to think that Glagnump would soon reach that age, and change from being an inquiring, lively intelligent boy to a dull, drunken moron. She still hoped that somehow she could stop him going to Argolathia.
Once more she thanked her lucky szemzions that she had been born an Entroilian. Females never lost their sense of magic and wonder. Perhaps it was because we have to bear children and raise them, she thought as she flew towards entrance 34C, whereas the Argolaths have nothing more to do than father our children once a year and get drunk and fight the rest of the time. But it all seemed such a waste of their intellectual potential. She had never felt comfortable with this way of organising society, and now it was about to affect her own son, she felt an increasing desire to do something about it. But how? I’m just one Entroilian in the whole Macroverse. What can I do to change anything?
Nobody challenged her as she flew into the marquee. Inside it seemed even larger than it had looked from the outside. She hovered near the entrance, searching for the place where the universes were being given out. Thousands of stalls lined the walls, each showing hundreds of different scientific and engineering toys, gifts, ornaments, synthesized foods, lifestyle-products, brain enhancers, tentacle extenders, transcendental games, multiweb worlds, science and engineering careers, hobbies and holidays. With the children having gone outside, most of the stalls were quiet, the staff sitting around eating their lunches. Eventually she spotted a long queue winding towards a booth on the far wall.
She could make out the words on a printed banner hanging above it.
- Cosmogenist Moshendiar
She frowned, not recognising either of these words. After thinking for a seconds she worked out that a cosmogenist must be somebody who made cosmoses. Pinned beneath that sign was another, improvised banner she could not read from this distance, but she had no doubt that it was the place she was looking for. She flew across the marquee and the words became clearer as she approached the booth:
- Today only – Free Universes
The queue consisted mostly of Argolath children, and it was growing longer all the time as others finished their lunches and came it to collect their free gift. There were a few adult Entroilians waiting patiently too; teachers, Cjingha thought. She spread out her grey gown and flew over their heads to the head of the queue. She had no time to wait. She had a lot of work to do this afternoon.
Behind the counter stood an Argolath, his tentacles grey with age, pushing little boxes over the counter into the eager clutches of excited children. Cjingha landed nearby and stood watching him in utter astonishment. He was the strangest Argolath she had ever seen. She had never seen an adult Argolath do any work before. Also he appeared to be totally sober. His robes were as grey as his tentacles, not white like most males. Even though they were usually drunk, Argolaths were so vain they normally managed to keep their clothes spotlessly clean, but not this one. His robes looked as if he had not washed them for weeks, perhaps months. His feet were bare, his wings looked tattered and moth-eaten. He obviously cared nothing about his appearance.
When she recovered from her surprise she moved closer, deeply curious about who he was and where he had come from. She noticed that he did not smell of alcohol, as most Argolaths did, nor could she see any apple-brandy bottles nearby. He was truly an extraordinary specimen. She read his name again, Moshendiar, resolving to look him up on the multiweb. He was lifting the little boxes out of a large crate. Cjingha looked into it. It was almost empty. There were just a few dozen left. I got here just in time, she thought.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Can I take two of those for my children?’
The Argolath frowned at her, glanced down at her professor’s gown, nodded and turned back to his work.
She bent and lifted two boxes in her tentacles. She had never actually held a universe before. Her expertise lay in economics, not science. Until this moment she had felt no interest in cosmogeny, but the enthusiasm of her children and the appearance of this strange Argolath pricked her curiosity. She studied them closely.
Each universe was enclosed in a little metal-edged box about the size of a heffletward-trap, but unlike a trap these boxes had six clear windows and no door. They were dark inside, as if they were filled with black ink, but that was obviously not the case because within the centre of each box she could see something small, floating in the darkness. She brought one box close to her strongest eye and peered inside.
There was a spherical blue ball. It was only as big as the tip of one of her thinnest tentacles, and quite difficult to see, but by squinting she could just make out a tangle of what looked like blue threads. That must be the universe. She was surprised at how tiny it was, like a tiny ball of coloured cotton wool.
The box itself was elaborately made. Each metallic edge was engraved with intricate markings, so fine they were on the edge of her vision. How can he afford to give this away free, she wondered. It’s obviously cost a lot to make. He doesn’t look rich. Perhaps he got a grant from somebody? But which charity or research council would sponsor–
Her thoughts were interrupted by the Argolath saying loudly ‘I am sorry.’ She looked up. Moshendiar was standing with his tentacles raised over his head. ‘All the universes have gone now,’ he said.
A river of sighs and groans ran down the queue. The Entroilians and children began to clamour around the stall, asking whether there would be any more tomorrow. ‘No. There will be no more,’ he said and began to dismantle his stall and pack it into the crate. Some of the adults seemed quite put-out and many of the children were in tears, but after a few minutes the crowd reluctantly dispersed.
Cjingha stepped forward. ‘I am Professor Itoodoo. I don’t remember seeing you before, Doctor Moshendiar.’ She called him doctor out of habit. ‘Do you work at this University?’ She was certain he did not, of course. If an Argolath had worked here, or anywhere else in Entroilia for that matter, he would have been famous and she would already have heard about him. Argolaths never worked.
Moshendiar shook his head once, closed the crate and loaded it onto a small trolley.
‘So where do you come from?’ she asked.
‘Argolathia,’ he said with a tone of finality and began laboriously to pull the trolley across the uneven marquee floor towards the door.
Cjingha was appalled. Most Argolaths were charming when they spoke to Entroilians, even when drunk, but Moshendiar’s manners were no better than his dress sense. She flew after him. ‘Which part?’ she said.
He did not answer.
‘I didn’t know there were any scientists in Argolathia,’ she said, walking beside him and waiting for a reply which did not come. ‘I am a professor in the Economics Department here,’ she persisted, spreading her gown to show him her authority. ‘I was wondering how you manage to finance these gifts. Do you receive a grant from the Council?’
The longer she waited for an answer, the more exasperation and frustration tightened in her chest. She quickly controlled these base emotions, telling herself that she needed to know the answer. It was a matter of professional research now, not just idle curiosity. He was obviously hiding something. His silence made her all the more determined to find out about him. Was he trustworthy? Were these universes safe? Should she report him to the authorities, ask them to issue a recall on all free universes?
As Cjingha watched him with these thoughts running round in her head, the heavy crate wobbled and began to topple sideways. Moshendiar gasped. Seeing an opportunity to gain his favour, Cjingha ran forward, put her tentacles on the crate and steadied it. Then she helped him to heave the trolley out of the rut and continued to push from behind as he pulled it across the marquee. Their eyes met and he nodded a silent thank you.
Cjingha switched to a more friendly tone. ‘You’re giving away a small fortune here, my dear chap.’ His eyes were fixed on her. ‘The mother of one of my son’s friends paid over a thousand tribrenha for a universe after the mating last New Year. I haven’t seen it myself but from what he told me I don’t think it’s such good quality as yours. The materials alone must have cost you a thousand each.’
Still he did not speak. She kept talking, explaining how excited her children were about getting one, but nothing she said elicited any response from him except veiled glances through his tangled grey tentacles.
Eventually they reached the marquee exit, he turned left and began wheeling the crate along the path. It was smooth and he could cope without her. Cjingha’s office lay in the opposite direction and she knew she would have to go back to work soon.
‘How do I contact you, if my children happen to find an Emergent?’ she called after him.
He paused and, to her great surprise, spread his huge grey ragged wings and flew back to her.
‘Show me your universes,’ he said.
She held them out to him. He took one and brought it close to his face. At the same time one of his tentacles dipped into a pocket of his grey robe and came out curled around something very small. Cjingha thought she saw one of the windows of the universe’s case flip open for a second, but within the grey tangle of his tentacles she could not be sure. The curled tentacle passed in front of the others, there was a flash of light and a click.
Moshendiar handed the box back to her. ‘If they find an Emergent there will be no need to call me,’ he said. ‘The container will let me know.’
She reached out to take the box off him, but he held on to it and for a moment their tentacles touched. ‘Thank you for helping me with the trolley,’ he said, then let go of the universe. ‘Good luck with this.’ A twisted smile crossed his face, then he flew back to his crate, pulled the trolley along the path and in a few seconds disappeared from sight round the end of the marquee.
Cjingha watched him go, still intensely curious about him, then looked at the universe he had held, examining it closely. She could not see the door. She tried pulling on all the edges but still could not find it. She repeated the search on the other box, with the same result. The two boxes looked identical. She was not even sure which one he had taken off her. She sighed, put them into her pocket and flew towards her office.
She was halfway back to work when she realised that here was a possible subject of study for one of her post-graduate students. She began to think of suitable titles.
- The financing of science engagement.
- Cosmogenical economics and Council budgets.
- What price communicating science with children?
Something like that would do, and she had several students who would be able to work on this type of project. However none of them would return to the University until next week and by that time the Festival would be over, the organisers would have left town. She had to find out as much about Moshendiar as she could now, while these people were on her doorstep. If possible she wanted to meet him again. She flew back towards the ticket office. Somebody there must know where he came from.
June 12, 2008
‘They’re giving universes away at the Festival of Science today,’ Cjingha said and immediately regretted it. She said it because she was surprised, almost speaking to herself, but her daughter heard her.
‘Universes? What, free ones?’ Oesirisi pushed her mother’s tentacles aside and looked over her shoulder at the front page of the Sedtia Morning Herald. ‘Can I have one?’
‘I don’t think you’re old enough to look after one yet, darling,’ Cjingha said quietly. Idiot, she told herself. Why didn’t I keep my talker shut?
‘Of course I am!’ Oesirisi snorted indignantly. Fragments of breakfast cereal shot out of the child’s eater onto the multiweb browser screen. ‘I look after Fuzzdark all by myself, and he takes a lot of work. Looking after a universe would be much easier than him.’
‘That’s true,’ Glagnump called from the video room. ‘Koddlezine only checks his once a day.’ He peered through the doorway, his tentacles waving excitedly. ‘Can I have one too? I’ll be ten thousand next year. That’s old enough.’ He went back to playing his adventure game.
‘But why do you want one?’ Cjingha said to her daughter, as if she didn’t already know. ‘There’s nothing you could do with it except look at it. And you’d have to check it every day.’
‘I know,’ Oesirisi said. ‘But Rokyh’s got one, and lots of my other friends. They say it only takes a minute every day, and just imagine what it would be like to find an Emergent, Mum! I’d love to have my very own being from another universe!’
Cjingha couldn’t argue with that. She had seen them on the televiewer, those children and adults who were lucky enough to own a universe where beings had evolved who were sufficiently intelligent to find their way out. It had transformed their lives, making them rich and famous overnight. But is that what she want for my kids?
‘I know exactly what would happen,’ she said, getting up to clear the table. ‘If you didn’t find one in the first week you’d both get bored and I’d have to monitor them myself. You know how busy I am, and you can’t leave a universe more than a day without checking for Emergents.’
‘Of course not!’ Oesirisi said. ‘That would be worse than leaving a heffletward to starve to death in a trap! I promise I’ll check mine every day. Honestly!’
‘And me!’ Glagnump called.
Cjingha sighed. She knew that, if one of her children did actually find an Emergent, it would be an incredible learning opportunity. At the very least they would get to visit the Council, appear on Entroilian television and maybe even meet the Being. Then they could either sell the creature or go with it, becoming its proxy parent as it was educated in the ways of the Macroverse. And the discipline of checking them without fail would be good, especially for Glagnump, who seldom did anything except play on his computer.
But universes were very expensive, and only one in a billion would produce an Emergent, so she had never considered it worthwhile to buy her children one. However, if they were free, how could she refuse?
‘All right,’ she said at last, brushing crumbs off the table. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Now hurry up you two. You’ll be late for school.’
She began loading the breakfast dishes into the washer, still not certain she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want to discourage her children’s enthusiasm. They were getting to an age, especially Oesirisi, where going out with friends and having fun were beginning to look more interesting than doing homework. And as for Glagnump, at least watching a universe would get him away from playing stupid adventure games for a minute every day.
She went into her sleep-room and pulled her new blue satin skirt and her favourite pale pink blouse out of the wardrobe. She slipped out of her dressing robe, put them on and checked herself in the mirror. As she had suspected, they not only matched perfectly but also brought out the beauty of her shining black skin. She slipped her long dark grey professor’s gown over them and pouted at the mirror to check the lipstick on her talker and her eater, then stood back for one last check.
Her tentacles were long and strong, her wings in perfect condition. Her baby-feeders were large and heavy, her sitters small and neat. Not bad for an Entroilian of your age, she told herself. It wouldn’t be difficult to attract an Argolath at the next summer mating, if that’s what you wanted. But she dismissed the idea immediately. She had decided when Glagnump was born that she did not want any more children. Two was enough, and she already had one of each.
But what would they think of you if you didn’t get them a free universe? The thought of what Oesirisi would say made her tentacles writhe around her shoulders in anxiety. It just might even be the trigger that would turn her daughter against her. There had already been signs of rebellion. She could not risk losing control now, with so many other things on her mind.
When she dropped her children off at school they begged her once again to fetch them a universe each. She promised she would try and they went through the gate waving and flipping summersaults like new-born vandricks. She spread her large black wings and flew on to the University feeling quite pleased that they were so enthusiastic, but still with misgivings about the wisdom of giving such a responsibility to such young children.
She was in faculty meetings all morning. After cramming her lunch into her eater while checking her video mails, she flew out of her office into the autumn szemzion-shine, her long professor’s gown flapping behind her. She decided to keep it on despite the heat, hoping it would be her passport into the Festival of Science, gaining her priority ahead of the general public. She did not have much time. This afternoon she had to prepare for the start of term next week.
With strong sweeps of her sleek black wings she flew to the entrance marked ‘Ticket Office’ in the vast marquee the Macroverse Science Association had erected on the sports fields at the back of the Sedtia University campus. She found the shortest queue and while she waited for the two elderly Entroilians to buy their tickets she browsed a nearby poster listing dozens of lectures for this afternoon.
- How does Science affect the Being?
- Alcohol-induced sterility among Argolaths and their future reproductive viability.
- Our life-giving Szemzion: the flow of energy to Entroilia.
- Why Argolaths degenerate at puberty but Entroilians do not.
They all look interesting, she thought, wishing she had time to attend some of them. The elderly Entroilians moved away and she stepped towards the counter. A young female sat on the other side, pretty and casually dressed but with multiple pins, rings, badges, animated gizmos and decorations piercing her tentacles, face and body. Cjingha felt her lunch rise in her throat. She had only ever seen this kind of thing on the multiweb. It was not the kind of things students did at Sedtia University. She swallowed hard. Well now I’ve seen them in the flesh, she thought and smiled at the unintended pun.
The girl directed her to entrance 34C, which she said was round the back of the marquee. Cjingha flew off still feeling queasy. I hope Oesirisi doesn’t start asking for rings through her timbrails, she thought. And if she ever has a pin through her ngja I’ll murder her. She had heard this was one of the latest fashions, piercing of the reproductive organs both among females and males. She could understand a drunken Argolath having it done, but not a sensible Entroilian.
Hundreds of children, both Entroilians and Argolaths, were streaming out of the huge marquee, accompanied by their teachers. Thousands were already lying around on the grass, eating their packed lunches or playing games as they enjoyed the unseasonally warm szemzion. Cjingha wondered why her local school hadn’t organised a visit. Oesirisi and Glagnump would have loved all this. I wish I’d known about it before. I could have mentioned it to their teachers. But then science isn’t my subject and I never realised what a big event this Festival was going to be.
Cjingha was struck by how excited the children here were, even the Argolaths. Why was it, she wondered, that when these boys reach the age of thirteen or fourteen thousand they would lose all interest in any intellectual pursuits? It saddened her to think that Glagnump would soon reach that age, and change from being an inquiring, lively intelligent boy to a dull, drunken moron. She still hoped that somehow she could stop him going to Argolathia.
Once more she thanked her lucky szemzions that she had been born an Entroilian. Females never lost their sense of magic and wonder. Perhaps it was because we have to bear children and raise them, she thought as she flew towards entrance 34C, whereas the Argolaths have nothing more to do than father our children once a year and get drunk and fight the rest of the time. But it all seemed such a waste of their intellectual potential. She had never felt comfortable with this way of organising society, and now it was about to affect her own son, she felt an increasing desire to do something about it. But how? I’m just one Entroilian in the whole Macroverse. What can I do to change anything?
Nobody challenged her as she flew into the marquee. Inside it seemed even larger than it had looked from the outside. She hovered near the entrance, searching for the place where the universes were being given out. Thousands of stalls lined the walls, each showing hundreds of different scientific and engineering toys, gifts, ornaments, synthesized foods, lifestyle-products, brain enhancers, tentacle extenders, transcendental games, multiweb worlds, science and engineering careers, hobbies and holidays. With the children having gone outside, most of the stalls were quiet, the staff sitting around eating their lunches. Eventually she spotted a long queue winding towards a booth on the far wall.
She could make out the words on a printed banner hanging above it.
- Cosmogenist Moshendiar
She frowned, not recognising either of these words. After thinking for a seconds she worked out that a cosmogenist must be somebody who made cosmoses. Pinned beneath that sign was another, improvised banner she could not read from this distance, but she had no doubt that it was the place she was looking for. She flew across the marquee and the words became clearer as she approached the booth:
- Today only – Free Universes
The queue consisted mostly of Argolath children, and it was growing longer all the time as others finished their lunches and came it to collect their free gift. There were a few adult Entroilians waiting patiently too; teachers, Cjingha thought. She spread out her grey gown and flew over their heads to the head of the queue. She had no time to wait. She had a lot of work to do this afternoon.
Behind the counter stood an Argolath, his tentacles grey with age, pushing little boxes over the counter into the eager clutches of excited children. Cjingha landed nearby and stood watching him in utter astonishment. He was the strangest Argolath she had ever seen. She had never seen an adult Argolath do any work before. Also he appeared to be totally sober. His robes were as grey as his tentacles, not white like most males. Even though they were usually drunk, Argolaths were so vain they normally managed to keep their clothes spotlessly clean, but not this one. His robes looked as if he had not washed them for weeks, perhaps months. His feet were bare, his wings looked tattered and moth-eaten. He obviously cared nothing about his appearance.
When she recovered from her surprise she moved closer, deeply curious about who he was and where he had come from. She noticed that he did not smell of alcohol, as most Argolaths did, nor could she see any apple-brandy bottles nearby. He was truly an extraordinary specimen. She read his name again, Moshendiar, resolving to look him up on the multiweb. He was lifting the little boxes out of a large crate. Cjingha looked into it. It was almost empty. There were just a few dozen left. I got here just in time, she thought.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Can I take two of those for my children?’
The Argolath frowned at her, glanced down at her professor’s gown, nodded and turned back to his work.
She bent and lifted two boxes in her tentacles. She had never actually held a universe before. Her expertise lay in economics, not science. Until this moment she had felt no interest in cosmogeny, but the enthusiasm of her children and the appearance of this strange Argolath pricked her curiosity. She studied them closely.
Each universe was enclosed in a little metal-edged box about the size of a heffletward-trap, but unlike a trap these boxes had six clear windows and no door. They were dark inside, as if they were filled with black ink, but that was obviously not the case because within the centre of each box she could see something small, floating in the darkness. She brought one box close to her strongest eye and peered inside.
There was a spherical blue ball. It was only as big as the tip of one of her thinnest tentacles, and quite difficult to see, but by squinting she could just make out a tangle of what looked like blue threads. That must be the universe. She was surprised at how tiny it was, like a tiny ball of coloured cotton wool.
The box itself was elaborately made. Each metallic edge was engraved with intricate markings, so fine they were on the edge of her vision. How can he afford to give this away free, she wondered. It’s obviously cost a lot to make. He doesn’t look rich. Perhaps he got a grant from somebody? But which charity or research council would sponsor–
Her thoughts were interrupted by the Argolath saying loudly ‘I am sorry.’ She looked up. Moshendiar was standing with his tentacles raised over his head. ‘All the universes have gone now,’ he said.
A river of sighs and groans ran down the queue. The Entroilians and children began to clamour around the stall, asking whether there would be any more tomorrow. ‘No. There will be no more,’ he said and began to dismantle his stall and pack it into the crate. Some of the adults seemed quite put-out and many of the children were in tears, but after a few minutes the crowd reluctantly dispersed.
Cjingha stepped forward. ‘I am Professor Itoodoo. I don’t remember seeing you before, Doctor Moshendiar.’ She called him doctor out of habit. ‘Do you work at this University?’ She was certain he did not, of course. If an Argolath had worked here, or anywhere else in Entroilia for that matter, he would have been famous and she would already have heard about him. Argolaths never worked.
Moshendiar shook his head once, closed the crate and loaded it onto a small trolley.
‘So where do you come from?’ she asked.
‘Argolathia,’ he said with a tone of finality and began laboriously to pull the trolley across the uneven marquee floor towards the door. Cjingha was appalled. Most Argolaths were charming when they spoke to Entroilians, even when drunk, but Moshendiar’s manners were no better than his dress sense. She flew after him. ‘Which part?’ she said. He continued to pull his load towards the door but did not answer.
‘I didn’t know there were any scientists in Argolathia,’ she said, walking beside him and waiting for a reply which did not come. ‘I am a professor in the Economics Department here,’ she persisted, spreading her gown to show him her authority. ‘I was wondering how you manage to finance these gifts. Do you receive a grant from the Council?’
The longer she waited for an answer, the more exasperation and frustration tightened in her chest. She quickly controlled these base emotions, telling herself that she needed to know the answer. It was a matter of professional research now, not just idle curiosity. He was obviously hiding something. His silence made her all the more determined to find out about him. Was he trustworthy? Were these universes safe? Should she report him to the authorities, ask them to issue a recall on all free universes?
As Cjingha watched him with these thoughts running round in her head, the heavy crate wobbled and began to topple sideways. Moshendiar gasped. Seeing an opportunity to gain his favour, Cjingha ran forward, put her tentacles on the crate and steadied it. Then she helped him to heave the trolley out of the rut and continued to push from behind as he pulled it across the marquee. Their eyes met and he nodded a silent thank you.
Cjingha switched to a more friendly tone. ‘You’re giving away a small fortune here, my dear chap.’ His eyes were fixed on her. ‘The mother of one of my son’s friends paid over a thousand tribrenha for a universe after the mating last New Year. I haven’t seen it myself but from what he told me I don’t think it’s such good quality as yours. The materials alone must have cost you a thousand each.’
Still he did not speak. She kept talking, explaining how excited her children were about getting one, but nothing she said elicited any response from him except veiled glances through his tangled grey tentacles.
Eventually they reached the marquee exit, he turned left and began wheeling the crate along the path. It was smooth and he could cope without her. Cjingha’s office lay in the opposite direction and she knew she would have to go back to work soon.
‘How do I contact you, if my children happen to find an Emergent?’ she called after him.
He paused and, to her great surprise, spread his huge grey ragged wings and flew back to her.
‘Show me your universes,’ he said.
She held them out to him. He took one and brought it close to his face. At the same time one of his tentacles dipped into a pocket of his grey robe and came out curled around something very small. Cjingha thought she saw one of the windows of the universe’s case flip open for a second, but within the grey tangle of his tentacles she could not be sure. The curled tentacle passed in front of the others, there was a flash of light and a click.
Moshendiar handed the box back to her. ‘If they find an Emergent there will be no need to call me,’ he said. ‘The container will let me know.’
She reached out to take the box off him, but he held on to it and for a moment their tentacles touched. ‘Thank you for helping me with the trolley,’ he said, then let go of the universe. ‘Good luck with this.’ A twisted smile crossed his face, then he flew back to his crate, pulled the trolley along the path and in a few seconds disappeared from sight round the end of the marquee.
Cjingha watched him go, still intensely curious about him, then looked at the universe he had held, examining it closely. She could not see the door. She tried pulling on all the edges but still could not find it. She repeated the search on the other box, with the same result. The two boxes looked identical. She was not even sure which one he had taken off her. She sighed, put them into her pocket and flew towards her office.
She was halfway back to work when she realised that here was a possible subject of study for one of her post-graduate students. She began to think of suitable titles.
- The financing of science engagement.
- Cosmogenical economics and Council budgets.
- What price communicating science with children?
Something like that would do, and she had several students who would be able to work on this type of project. However none of them would return to the University until next week and by that time the Festival would be over, the organisers would have left town. She had to find out as much about Moshendiar as she could now, while these people were on her doorstep. If possible she wanted to meet him again. She flew back towards the ticket office. Somebody there must know where he came from.
June 12, 2008
[Tehun commented on this when it was on the main Chapter 1 page. Unfortunately I had not make a copy onto a post, so when the page was update I had to extract this from Google cache in order to put his post in the right place. It's all bit of a pain, trying to keep historical versions.]
Something was shaking every crystal in the vast network. The one Sam Fitzpatrick lay on was lifted, hammering him in the stomach, and he went hurtling through the air, balding head spinning over steel-tipped heels, towards one of the crystal walls. Oh God, Sam thought, this is going to hurt.
As he spun he caught a distant glimpse of a gigantic white body, naked and bloated as a dead whale, thrashing from side to side in its frantic efforts to escape from the crystal net which entrapped it. Little arms and legs protruded from its curving flanks, grabbing and kicking at the long crystal shards surrounding it. Its monstrous face, huge as a monument carved on a mountain, was twisted with fury. It was unmistakably the face of Michael Zhang. His private parts swung about below his rear end. Sam felt nauseous.
Mercifully Sam’s head crashed into the crystal wall, followed quickly by his crumpled body, and he lost sight of the monster. Then the wall shot sideways and he was thrown into the air once more. He landed heavily, bounced twice across the flat shiny floor and slithered rapidly towards a gap that was opening between floor and wall, like a mouth ready to swallow him. In a moment of horrible anticipation, Sam imagined himself being cut in half as the gap snapped closed. The two parts of himself would go falling and tumbling into that ocean far below. There was no way he could save himself.
Then he heard a voice, deeper than hades, echoing up from the pink ocean far below.
‘Samuel!’
A moment later the crystals stopped shaking, the gaps between them slammed closed and Sam slithered up the wall. He dropped back onto the floor and finally came to rest, trembling and breathless, battered and bruised, but still alive.
‘Get up, Samuel,’ Michael said, his voice rolling across the sky like thunder.
Sam ignored him. He lay on his back waiting for his heart to stop pounding, knowing that at any moment the shaking could start again. Above him, layer upon layer of transparent blue polygons overlapped, crossed and twisted at crazy angles. Over them arched the black dome of the sky dotted with millions of pink planets. Most were tiny but one was so close he felt he could reach out and touch its little blue clouds, could dip his fingers into its pink ocean. Wherever this is, Sam thought, it’s certainly not the Earth.
‘I know you can hear me, Samuel,’ Michael said. ‘Come on, get up! We don’t have much time. Don’t you want to save the world?’
Sam’s rage boiled over. ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he screamed. ‘It was you put the Earth in danger in the first place!’ Sam lifted his head and looked round. He did not see Michael, but what he saw sent a shiver of fear down his spine.
He was balanced precariously on the tops of several long thin slivers of crystal. Looking down through their transparent blueness Sam could see them tapering away below him, like the legs of a gigantic insect. Their feet rested on a horizontal mesh of crystal tubes which encircled the planet like a web woven by a swarm of drunken spiders.
The whole network was several miles thick and Sam was in the middle of it. It was suspended between hundreds of huge blue crystal cylinders, like the canopy of a rain forest. These pipes dwindled away into the pink ocean far below.
From this height the ocean looked as smooth as a billiard ball. Its only visible feature was a long oval shadow, bending with the curvature of the planet. Sam looked down and shivered again, imagining what would happen if the crystals moved and he fell through the gap. He remembered vividly how that jelly had felt on his face: cold, slimy and suffocating. If he fell from this height–
‘I’m over here, Sam,’ he heard Michael say.
Sam turned to see Michael’s gigantic oval body hanging, white and bloated, enclosed by the blue web. He was surrounded by a mass of crystal shards. They joined together to form a strong mesh, a delicate net trapping a whale. Then the heavy, oriental eyes turned towards him, the thin cruel lips opened and Sam heard Michael’s voice say ‘Now stand up. I need your help and there’s not much time.’
‘My help?’ Sam said in disbelief. ‘I’m not helping you, Zhang, after everything you’ve done–’
‘Do not use that name!’ A darkness suffused Michael’s gigantic face. ‘I used to be Michael Zhang, but now you will call me Lord.’
‘You? I certainly will not!’ You were odd before, Sam thought, but now you’ve gone totally insane.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am as wise as what you would call a god. You don’t believe me? I can easily prove it. For example, I know everything about you. You are Samuel James Fitzpatrick. You were born at 23 Old Blackrock Road, Cork, at 2:54 in the afternoon of 7th of July 1959. You were the second child of James Rossiman Fitzpatrick and Irene Juliet Fitzpatrick, nee Blanding. Your family lived there for the first six years of your life. Then on August 9th, 1965 they moved to Limerick and you went…’
Sam couldn’t believe it as every detail of his past was reeled out, including many facts he didn’t even know himself but which all had the ring of truth. And when Michael described his father’s infidelity with a neighbour, a close family secret, and correctly stated the woman’s name, Sam was convinced. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘I know everything, Samuel. Everything! The things I have told you so far are trivial. I know the deepest secrets of what man calls the Universe. Every secret that science struggled to understand has been revealed to me. Now call me Lord.’
Sam stared at Michael’s bloated body trapped in the crystal network, helpless, naked and obscene. How could he use such a word for such a monster?
‘If you do not acknowledge me as your Lord then I will shake this tree until you fall out of your little nest.’
It took Sam a moment to work out what he meant. ‘Please do! I don’t care. I’ve lost everything. Death would be a mercy.’
‘So you do not want to save the world? You do not care about your wife and family?’
Michael’s words cut into Sam’s heart. He suddenly saw his step-daughter’s face, her ginger hair sticking out in wild disarray, her eyes lost and confused. ‘You mean the world hasn’t been destroyed?’
‘Not yet, but it will be if we do not act fast. Now are you going to help me or not?’
‘Is Catriona still alive?’
‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out. Stand up!’
Sam had no choice. If the world could still be saved, if Catriona was still alive, then he had to help her, no matter how much he hated Michael. He pushed against the smooth crystal faces and tried to get to his feet. Immediately he slipped and fell heavily back into the little valley between the huge crystals. He lay as still as he could, terrified they would separate and he would fall through the gap.
‘Take your shoes and socks off,’ Michael said softly.
Sam removed his footwear and managed to stand with one foot on each crystal face, afraid his weight would push them apart and much relieved when they did not move.
‘Look down the middle of each crystal,’ Michael told him.
As Sam looked around he began to understand what he was seeing. He was inside a hollow crystal ball with flat faces, like a large football but with many more sides. It was formed by the flat ends of dozens of crystal shards which pointed inwards towards him. Their edges fitted neatly together except for a gap just above his head, where one crystal appeared to be missing. He could see the black sky through the triangular hole. He guessed the absent crystal was the one that Michael had smashed.
‘Look into the centres of the crystals, Sam. What can you see?’
Sam’s eyes moved across the crystal faces, uncertain what he was supposed to see. To his astonishment he caught a glimpse of a small rectangular shape floating like a ghost far down inside one of the crystals surrounding him. He leaned sideways to get a better view and lost sight of it. It was only visible when his head was in exactly the right position, looking straight down the centre of the shard. What was it?
Carefully, trying not to overbalance, he felt inside his jacket. He was surprised and somehow comforted, to feel his spectacles still safely tucked away in his shirt pocket. He put them on and saw a blue metal cabinet with two doors, the sort you might see in a smart garage workshop, either very small or very far away. He could just make out that its doors were dented, as if they had been hit several times.
It was obvious he was seeing something that belonged on the Earth. At the sight of it Sam’s heart stopped beating for a second, then started again with a such a thump he almost fell over. This was beyond his wildest hopes. Eagerly he turned and looked into another crystal. At first he saw nothing but by moving his head and closing one eye he found a red metal box with a cone sticking out of one end and some pipes out of the other. It was fixed to a white concrete wall.
A dozen thoughts crowded into Sam’s mind as he stared at it. How could he see things which seemed so earthly, so human, when he clearly was not on the Earth? Was he having a heart attack? If Michael knew everything, why was he asking Sam to look down these crystals? Sam could not solve any of these puzzles. He began looking quickly into the other crystals.
In one he saw a yellow metal girder, in another some tapering flat brown plates. Other crystals showed thick cables and a blue metal balcony. The more he saw, the more he had a feeling these were parts of the ATLAS cavern. It was not a place he was familiar with. He had only spent a half-hour or so in there, it had been dark and a lot had been going on, but when he saw a red cabinet with the word ‘Savox’ on the door he was sure it must be the cavern. They had passed a cabinet like this when they had first come into the cavern and walked along the balcony. These were almost certainly images of the same place. He was astonished. How was it possible–
‘What can you see, Sam?’ The anxiety in Michael’s voice was palpable.
‘I think I can see the cavern.’
‘Call me Lord.’
‘I think I can see the cavern, Lord.’
‘I knew it!’ Michael’s voice was triumphant. ‘Which parts?’
Sam was beginning to tire, his legs spread between the sloping crystal faces, his arms outstretched to balance, but he managed to find again the blue cabinet with the dented doors, the red box hanging from the wall, the yellow girder, and described each one in turn. He was still looking for the Savox cabinet when his legs gave way and he fell, trembling with exhaustion, to the crystal floor.
‘Did you see any people?’ Michael asked.
‘No.’
‘Have you looked through every crystal?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You must look into all of them.’
Sam longed to see Catriona. If only she was alive, it would give him something to live for. Once again he struggled to his feet, wondering why there was this urgency, and began to peer into the crystals, moving around and trying to check them all methodically. It was after about ten or a dozen crystals that he heard a woman scream.
April 11, 2008
The long enormous fragments of blue crystal were all moving and shaking. Yawning gaps opened between them, then slammed closed with thuds that rang like the beating of hammers. The crystal on which Sam Fitzpatrick lay rose like a bucking bronco and he was airborne. A million constellations of pink planets orbited overhead. A distant pink ocean swam beneath him as he hurtled across the cave towards one wall. Oh God, he thought, this is going to hurt.
He caught a distant glimpse of the object that was causing this chaos. A gigantic white body, oval as an airship, was bending and thrashing from side to side, was like a monstrous fly in a spiders web. Its futile efforts to escape were shaking the whole vast crystal network. The monumental face carved on one end was distorted by a furious scowl. The gondola that hung below the other end in the shape of a man’s private parts was swinging about violently. The little arms and legs which stuck out the sides where grabbing and kicking the crystals which enclosed and trapped it.
Mercifully, the jacket of Sam’s new Marks and Spencer suit flapped across his face, hiding the horrible sight, just before his head crashed into the wall, followed by the crumpled mass of his bruise-covered body. He began to slide down, then the wall hammered sideways and he was thrown into the air once more. He landed heavily, bounced twice across the flat shiny floor and slithered rapidly towards a gap that was opening between floor and wall, like a mouth ready to swallow him. In a moment of horrible anticipation, Sam imagined himself being cut in half as the gap snapped closed. The two parts of himself would go falling and tumbling into that ocean far below. There was no way he could save himself.
Then he heard a voice, deep as an ocean, call ‘Samuel!’ and a moment later the cave stopped shaking. Just in time the wall came crashing down to join the floor and Sam slid up its sloping surface before turning and heading back down. He glided gently across the floor, trembling and breathless, battered and bruised, but still alive.
‘Get up, Samuel,’ Michael said, his voice rolling across the sky like thunder.
Sam ignored him. He lay on his back waiting for his heart to stop pounding, knowing that at any moment the shaking could start again. Above him, layer upon layer of transparent blue polygons overlapped, crossed and twisted at crazy angles. Over them arched the black dome of the sky dotted with millions of pink planets. Most were tiny but one was so close he felt he could reach out and touch its little blue clouds, could dip his fingers into its pink ocean. Wherever this is, Sam thought, it’s certainly not the Earth.
‘I know you can hear me, Samuel,’ Michael said. ‘Come on, get up! We don’t have much time. Don’t you want to save the world?’
Sam’s rage boiled over. ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he screamed. ‘It was you put the Earth in danger in the first place!’ Sam lifted his head and looked round. He did not see Michael, but what he saw sent a shiver of fear down his spine.
He was balanced precariously on the tops of several long thin slivers of crystal. Looking down through their transparent blueness Sam could see them tapering away below him, like the legs of a gigantic insect. Their feet rested on a horizontal mesh of crystal tubes which encircled the planet like a web woven by a swarm of drunken spiders.
The whole network was several miles thick and Sam was in the middle of it. It was suspended between hundreds of huge blue crystal cylinders, like the canopy of a rain forest. These pipes dwindled away into the pink ocean far below.
From this height the ocean looked as smooth as a billiard ball. Its only visible feature was a long oval shadow, bending with the curvature of the planet. Sam looked down and shivered again, imagining what would happen if the crystals moved and he fell through the gap. He remembered vividly how that jelly had felt on his face: cold, slimy and suffocating. If he fell from this height–
‘I’m over here, Sam,’ he heard Michael say.
Sam turned to see Michael’s gigantic oval body hanging, white and bloated, enclosed by the blue web. He was surrounded by a mass of crystal shards. They joined together to form a strong mesh, a delicate net trapping a whale. Then the heavy, oriental eyes turned towards him, the thin cruel lips opened and Sam heard Michael’s voice say ‘Now stand up. I need your help and there’s not much time.’
‘My help?’ Sam said in disbelief. ‘I’m not helping you, Zhang, after everything you’ve done–’
‘Do not use that name!’ A darkness suffused Michael’s gigantic face. ‘I used to be Michael Zhang, but now you will call me Lord.’
‘You? I certainly will not!’ You were odd before, Sam thought, but now you’ve gone totally insane.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am as wise as what you would call a god. You don’t believe me? I can easily prove it. For example, I know everything about you. You are Samuel James Fitzpatrick. You were born at 23 Old Blackrock Road, Cork, at 2:54 in the afternoon of 7th of July 1959. You were the second child of James Rossiman Fitzpatrick and Irene Juliet Fitzpatrick, nee Blanding. Your family lived there for the first six years of your life. Then on August 9th, 1965 they moved to Limerick and you went…’
Sam couldn’t believe it as every detail of his past was reeled out, including many facts he didn’t even know himself but which all had the ring of truth. And when Michael described his father’s infidelity with a neighbour, a close family secret, and correctly stated the woman’s name, Sam was convinced. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘I know everything, Samuel. Everything! The things I have told you so far are trivial. I know the deepest secrets of what man calls the Universe. Every secret that science struggled to understand has been revealed to me. Now call me Lord.’
Sam stared at Michael’s bloated body trapped in the crystal network, helpless, naked and obscene. How could he use such a word for such a monster?
‘If you do not acknowledge me as your Lord then I will shake this tree until you fall out of your little nest.’
It took Sam a moment to work out what he meant. ‘Please do! I don’t care. I’ve lost everything. Death would be a mercy.’
‘So you do not want to save the world? You do not care about your wife and family?’
Michael’s words cut into Sam’s heart. He suddenly saw his step-daughter’s face, her ginger hair sticking out in wild disarray, her eyes lost and confused. ‘You mean the world hasn’t been destroyed?’
‘Not yet, but it will be if we do not act fast. Now are you going to help me or not?’
‘Is Catriona still alive?’
‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out. Stand up!’
Sam had no choice. If the world could still be saved, if Catriona was still alive, then he had to help her, no matter how much he hated Michael. He pushed against the smooth crystal faces and tried to get to his feet. Immediately he slipped and fell heavily back into the little valley between the huge crystals. He lay as still as he could, terrified they would separate and he would fall through the gap.
‘Take your shoes and socks off,’ Michael said softly.
Sam removed his footwear and managed to stand with one foot on each crystal face, afraid his weight would push them apart and much relieved when they did not move. He was at the junction of dozens of blue crystal shards.
‘Look down the middle of each crystal,’ Michael told him.
As Sam looked around he began to understand what he was seeing. He was inside a hollow crystal ball with flat faces, like a large football but with many more sides. It was formed by the flat ends of dozens of crystal shards which pointed inwards towards him. Their edges fitted neatly together except for a gap just above his head, where one crystal appeared to be missing. He could see the black sky through the triangular hole. He guessed the absent crystal was the one that Michael had smashed.
‘Look into the centres of the crystals, Sam. What can you see?’
Sam’s eyes moved across the crystal faces, uncertain what he was supposed to see. To his astonishment he caught a glimpse of a small rectangular shape floating like a ghost far down inside one of the crystals surrounding him. He leaned sideways to get a better view and lost sight of it. It was only visible when his head was in exactly the right position, looking straight down the centre of the shard. What was it?
Carefully, trying not to overbalance, he felt inside his jacket. He was surprised and somehow comforted, to feel his spectacles still safely tucked away in his shirt pocket. He put them on and saw a blue metal cabinet with two doors, the sort you might see in a smart garage workshop, either very small or very far away. He could just make out that its doors were dented, as if they had been hit several times.
It was obvious he was seeing something that belonged on the Earth. At the sight of it Sam’s heart stopped beating for a second, then started again with a such a thump he almost fell over. This was beyond his wildest hopes. Eagerly he turned and looked into another crystal. At first he saw nothing but by moving his head and closing one eye he found a red metal box with a cone sticking out of one end and some pipes out of the other. It was fixed to a white concrete wall.
A dozen thoughts crowded into Sam’s mind as he stared at it. How could he see things which seemed so earthly, so human, when he clearly was not on the Earth? Was he having a heart attack? If Michael knew everything, why was he asking Sam to look down these crystals? Sam could not solve any of these puzzles. He began looking quickly into the other crystals.
In one he saw a yellow metal girder, in another some tapering flat brown plates. Other crystals showed thick cables and a blue metal balcony. The more he saw, the more he had a feeling these were parts of the ATLAS cavern. It was not a place he was familiar with. He had only spent a half-hour or so in there, it had been dark and a lot had been going on, but when he saw a red cabinet with the word ‘Savox’ on the door he was sure it must be the cavern. They had passed a cabinet like this when they had first come into the cavern and walked along the balcony. These were almost certainly images of the same place. He was astonished. How was it possible–
‘What can you see, Sam?’ The anxiety in Michael’s voice was palpable.
‘I think I can see the cavern.’
‘Call me Lord.’
‘I think I can see the cavern, Lord.’
‘I knew it!’ Michael’s voice was triumphant. ‘Which parts?’
Sam was beginning to tire, his legs spread between the sloping crystal faces, his arms outstretched to balance, but he managed to find again the blue cabinet with the dented doors, the red box hanging from the wall, the yellow girder, and described each one in turn. He was still looking for the Savox cabinet when his legs gave way and he fell, trembling with exhaustion, to the crystal floor.
‘Did you see any people?’ Michael asked.
‘No.’
‘Have you looked through every crystal?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You must look into all of them.’
Sam longed to see Catriona. If only she was alive, it would give him something to live for. Once again he struggled to his feet, wondering why there was this urgency, and began to peer into the crystals, moving around and trying to check them all methodically. It was after about ten or a dozen crystals that he heard a woman scream.
April 7, 2008
The jacket of Sam Fitzpatrick’s new Marks and Spencer suit flapped around his ears as he flew, head over heels, across the crystal cave. Oh God, Sam thought, this is going to hurt. Through the transparent walls he could see the black sky above and pink ocean below spinning rapidly around him. Sam felt nauseous. Between the black and the pink lay the thick layer of blue crystal he was trapped inside. It curved around the planet, fading into the horizon.
Then his head smashed painfully into the cave and the rest of his limp body crumpled itself against the hard, polished surface. Then the wall moved away from him and for a moment he hung in space. Every crystal that made up this cavity was moving and shaking violently. Yawning gaps opened between them, then slammed closed with thuds that rang like the beating of hammers.
He caught a distant glimpse of the object that was causing this disturbance. A gigantic shape, oval as an airship, large as an ocean liner, trapped by a mass of blue crystal shards, like a monstrous fly in a spiders web. It shook the whole vast crystal network as it thrashed about in its futile effort to escape.
Then the wall thumped him in the back and he was airborne once more. He landed heavily, bounced twice across the flat shiny floor and slithered rapidly towards a gap that was opening between floor and wall, like a mouth ready to swallow him. Far below he saw the pink ocean. In a moment of horrible anticipation, Sam could imagine himself being cut in half as the gap snapped closed. He saw the two parts of himself falling and tumbling into that ocean far below. There was no way he could save himself.
Then he heard somebody shout ‘Samuel!’ and at the same moment the shaking of the web suddenly ceased. Just in time the wall came crashing down to join the floor and Sam slid up its sloping surface before turning and heading back down. He glided gently across the floor, trembling and breathless, battered and bruised, but still alive.
‘Get up, Samuel,’ he heard Michael say.
Sam ignored him. He lay on his back waiting for his heart to stop pounding, knowing that at any moment the shaking could start again. Above him, layer upon layer of transparent blue polygons overlapped, crossed and twisted at crazy angles. Over them arched the black dome of the sky dotted with millions of pink planets. Most were tiny but one was so close he felt he could reach out and touch its little blue clouds, could dip his fingers into its pink ocean. Wherever this is, Sam thought, it’s certainly not the Earth.
‘I know you can hear me, Samuel,’ Michael said. ‘Come on, get up! We don’t have much time. Don’t you want to save the world?’
Sam’s rage boiled over. ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he screamed. ‘It was you put the Earth in danger in the first place!’ Sam lifted his head and looked round. He did not see Michael, but what he saw sent a shiver of fear down his spine.
He was balanced precariously on the tops of several long thin slivers of crystal. Looking down through their transparent blueness Sam could see them tapering away below him, like the legs of a gigantic insect. Their feet rested on a horizontal mesh of crystal tubes which encircled the planet like a web woven by a swarm of drunken spiders.
The whole network was several miles thick and Sam was in the middle of it. It was suspended between hundreds of huge blue crystal cylinders, like the canopy of a rain forest. These pipes dwindled away into the pink ocean far below.
From this height the ocean looked as smooth as a billiard ball. Its only visible feature was a long oval shadow, bending with the curvature of the planet. Sam looked down and shivered again, imagining what would happen if the crystals moved and he fell through the gap. He remembered vividly how that jelly had felt on his face: cold, slimy and suffocating. If he fell from this height–
‘I’m over here, Sam,’ he heard Michael say.
Sam turned to see Michael’s gigantic oval body hanging, white and bloated, enclosed by the blue web. Sam could see two tiny arms and legs sticking out of his smooth curving flanks like fins. A gondola hung down near the back in the shape of a man’s private parts. A monumental face was carved on the front like a ship’s figure-head. It belonged unmistakably to Michael Zhang.
He was surrounded by a mass of crystal shards. They joined together to form a strong mesh, a delicate strong net trapping a whale. Then the heavy, oriental eyes turned towards him, the thin cruel lips opened and Sam heard Michael’s voice say ‘Now stand up. I need your help and there’s not much time.’
‘My help?’ Sam said in disbelief. ‘I’m not helping you, Zhang, after everything you’ve done–’
‘Do not use that name!’ A darkness suffused Michael’s gigantic face. ‘I used to be Michael Zhang, but now you will call me Lord.’
‘You? I certainly will not!’ You were odd before, Sam thought, but now you’ve gone totally insane.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am as wise as what you would call a god. You don’t believe me? I can easily prove it. For example, I know everything about you. You are Samuel James Fitzpatrick. You were born at 23 Old Blackrock Road, Cork, at 2:54 in the afternoon of 7th of July 1959. You were the second child of James Rossiman Fitzpatrick and Irene Juliet Fitzpatrick, nee Blanding. Your family lived there for the first six years of your life. Then on August 9th, 1965 they moved to Limerick and you went…’
Sam couldn’t believe it as every detail of his past was reeled out, including many facts he didn’t even know himself but which all had the ring of truth. And when Michael described his father’s infidelity with a neighbour, a close family secret, and correctly stated the woman’s name, Sam was convinced. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘I know everything, Samuel. Everything! The things I have told you so far are trivial. I know the deepest secrets of what man calls the Universe. Every secret that science struggled to understand has been revealed to me. Now call me Lord.’
Sam stared at Michael’s bloated body trapped in the crystal network, helpless, naked and obscene. How could he use such a word for such a monster?
‘If you do not acknowledge me as your Lord then when I get free from these crystals I will destroy you.’
‘Please do! I don’t care. I’ve lost everything. Death would be a mercy.’
‘So you do not want to save the world? You do not care about your wife and family?’
Michael’s words cut into Sam’s heart. He suddenly saw his step-daughter’s face, her ginger hair sticking out in wild disarray, her eyes lost and confused. ‘You mean the world hasn’t been destroyed?’
‘Not yet, but it will be if we do not act fast. Now are you going to help me or not?’
‘Is Catriona still alive?’
‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out. Stand up!’
Sam had no choice. If the world could still be saved, if Catriona was still alive, then he had to help her, no matter how much he hated Michael. He pushed against the smooth crystal faces and tried to get to his feet. Immediately he slipped and fell heavily back into the little valley between the huge crystals. He lay as still as he could, terrified they would separate and he would fall through the gap.
‘Take your shoes and socks off,’ Michael said softly.
Sam removed his footwear and managed to stand with one foot on each crystal face, afraid his weight would push them apart and much relieved when they did not move. He was at the junction of dozens of blue crystal shards.
‘Look down the middle of each crystal,’ Michael told him.
As Sam looked around he began to understand what he was seeing. He was inside a hollow crystal ball with flat faces, like a large football but with many more sides. It was formed by the flat ends of dozens of crystal shards which pointed inwards towards him. Their edges fitted neatly together except for a gap just above his head, where one crystal appeared to be missing. He could see the black sky through the triangular hole. He guessed the absent crystal was the one that Michael had smashed.
‘Look into the centres of the crystals, Sam. What can you see?’
Sam’s eyes moved across the crystal faces, uncertain what he was supposed to see. To his astonishment he caught a glimpse of a small rectangular shape floating like a ghost far down inside one of the crystals surrounding him. He leaned sideways to get a better view and lost sight of it. It was only visible when his head was in exactly the right position, looking straight down the centre of the shard. What was it?
Carefully, trying not to overbalance, he felt inside his jacket. He was surprised and somehow comforted, to feel his spectacles still safely tucked away in his shirt pocket. He put them on and saw a blue metal cabinet with two doors, the sort you might see in a smart garage workshop, either very small or very far away. He could just make out that its doors were dented, as if they had been hit several times.
It was obvious he was seeing something that belonged on the Earth. At the sight of it Sam’s heart leaped. This was beyond his wildest hopes. Eagerly he turned and looked into another crystal. At first he saw nothing but by moving his head and closing one eye he found a red metal box with a cone sticking out of one end and some pipes out of the other. It was fixed to a white concrete wall.
Sam felt a strong mixture of apprehension and excitement. How could he see things which seemed so earthly, so human, when he clearly was not on the Earth? He longed to see more. He began to glance quickly into the other crystals. In one he saw a yellow metal girder, in another some tapering flat brown plates. Other crystals showed thick cables and a blue metal balcony. The more he saw, the more he had a feeling these were parts of the ATLAS cavern. It was not a place he was familiar with. He had only spent a half-hour or so in there, it had been dark and a lot had been going on, but when he saw a red cabinet with the word ‘Savox’ on the door he was sure it must be the cavern. They had passed a cabinet like this when they had first come into the cavern and walked along the balcony. These were almost certainly images of the same place. He was astonished. How was it possible–
‘What can you see, Sam?’ The anxiety in Michael’s voice was palpable.
‘I think I can see the cavern.’
‘Call me Lord.’
‘I think I can see the cavern, Lord.’
‘I knew it!’ Michael’s voice was triumphant. ‘Which parts?’
Sam was beginning to tire, his legs spread between the sloping crystal faces, his arms outstretched to balance, but he managed to find again the blue cabinet with the dented doors, the red box hanging from the wall, the yellow girder, and described each one in turn. He was still looking for the Savox cabinet when his legs gave way and he fell, trembling with exhaustion, to the crystal floor.
‘Did you see any people?’ Michael asked.
‘No.’
‘Have you looked through every crystal?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You must look into all of them.’
Sam longed to see Catriona. If only she was alive, it would give him something to live for. Once again he struggled to his feet, wondering why there was this urgency, and began to peer into the crystals, moving around and trying to check them all methodically. It was after about ten or a dozen crystals that he heard a woman scream.
April 7, 2008
‘Get up, Samuel,’ Michael said.
Sam ignored him. He lay on his back trying to work out where he
was. Layer upon layer of transparent blue polygons overlapped
above him, crossed and twisted at crazy angles. They must be solid
objects, Sam thought, but their transparency made it impossible to
work out their shape.
Over them all arched the black dome of the sky. It was dotted with
thousands of pink planets. Most were tiny but one was so close he
felt he could reach out and touch its little blue clouds, could dip his
fingers into its pink ocean. Wherever this is, it’s certainly not the
Earth, Sam thought.
‘I know you can hear me, Sam,’ Michael said. ‘Come on, get up!
We don’t have much time. Don’t you want to save the world?’
Sam’s rage boiled over. ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he
screamed. ‘It was you put the Earth in danger in the first place!’ Sam
lifted his head and looked round. He did not see Michael, but what
he saw sent a shiver of fear down his spine.
He was balanced precariously on the tops of several long thin
slivers of crystal. Looking down through their transparent blueness
he could see them tapering away below him, like the legs of a
gigantic insect. Their feet rested on an irregular scaffold of long blue
threads which, Sam assumed, were more crystals. They formed an
enormous crystal network, like a web woven by a drunken spider. It
faded into the distance, too transparent to see, but he guessed it
probably surrounded the whole planet.
Far below he could see the pink ocean. From up here it looked as
smooth as a billiard ball. Sam wondered whether this planet might
be the same as the ones above him. This one had no blue clouds, and
those others had no framework like this; or perhaps they did, but too
faint to see.
Looking down at the ocean he saw a long oval shadow, bending
with the curvature of the planet. It was the only feature visible from
this height. Sam remembered vividly how it felt on his face, cold,
slimy and suffocating. He shivered again as he imagined what
would happen if the crystals moved and he fell through the gap.
‘I’m over here, Sam,’ he heard Michael say. Sam looked the other
way. A gigantic oval body hung, white and bloated against the black
sky. Hundreds of blue crystals enclosed it, trapping it like a fish in a
net. Sam could see two tiny arms and legs sticking out of the smooth
curving flanks like fins. A gondola hung down near the back in the
shape of a man’s private parts. A monumental face was carved on
the front like a ship’s figure-head. It still belonged unmistakably to
Michael Zhang. Then the heavy, oriental eyes turned towards him,
the thin cruel lips opened and Sam heard Michael’s voice say ‘Now
stand up. I need your help and there’s not much time.’
‘My help?’ Sam said in disbelief. ‘I’m not helping you, Zhang,
after everything you’ve done–’
‘Do not use that name!’ A darkness suffused Michael’s gigantic
face. ‘I used to be Michael Zhang, but now you will call me Lord.’
‘You? I certainly will not!’ You were odd before, Sam thought,
but now you’ve gone totally insane.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am as wise as what you would call a
god. You don’t believe me? I can easily prove it. For example, I
know everything about you. You are Samuel James Fitzpatrick.
You were born at 23 Old Blackrock Road, Cork, at 2:54 in the
afternoon of 7th of July 1959. You were the second child of James
Rossiman Fitzpatrick and Irene Juliet Fitzpatrick, nee Blanding.
Your family lived there for the first six years of your life. Then on
August 9th, 1965 they moved to Limerick and you went…’
Sam couldn’t believe it as every detail of his past was reeled out,
including many facts he didn’t even know himself but which all had
the ring of truth. And when Michael described his father’s infidelity
with a neighbour, a close family secret, and correctly stated the
woman’s name, Sam was convinced. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘How do you
know all this?’
‘I know everything, Samuel. Everything! The things I have told
you so far are trivial. I know the deepest secrets of what man calls
the Universe. Every secret that science struggled to understand has
been revealed to me. Now call me Lord.’
Sam stared at Michael’s bloated body, oval as an airship, large as a
planet, naked and obscene. How could he use such a word for such a
monster?
‘If you do not acknowledge me as your Lord then when I get free
from this mesh I will destroy you.’
‘Please do! I don’t care. I’ve lost everything. Death would be a
mercy.’
‘So you do not want to save the world? You do not care about
your wife and family?’
Michael’s words cut into Sam’s heart. He suddenly saw his stepdaughter’s
face, her ginger hair sticking out in wild disarray, her eyes
lost and confused. ‘You mean the world hasn’t been destroyed?’
‘Not yet, but it will be if we do not act fast. Now are you going to
help me or not?’
‘Is Catriona still alive?’
‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out. Stand up!’
Sam had no choice. If the world could still be saved, if Catriona
was still alive, then he had to help her, no matter how much he hated
Michael. He pushed against the smooth crystal faces and tried to get
to his feet. Immediately he slipped and fell heavily back into the
little valley between the huge crystals. He lay as still as he could,
terrified they would separate and he would fall through the gap.
‘Take your shoes and socks off,’ Michael said softly.
Sam removed his footwear and managed to stand with one foot on
each crystal face, afraid his weight would push them apart and much
relieved when they did not move. He was at the junction of dozens
of blue crystal shards.
‘Look down the middle of each crystal,’ Michael told him.
As Sam looked around he began to understand what he was seeing.
He was inside a hollow crystal ball with flat faces, like a large
football but with many more sides. It was formed by the flat ends of
dozens of crystal shards which pointed inwards towards him. Their
edges fitted neatly together except for a gap just above his head,
where one crystal appeared to be missing. He could see the black
sky through the triangular hole. He guessed the absent crystal was
the one that Michael had smashed.
‘Look into the centres of the crystals, Sam. What can you see?’
Sam’s eyes moved across the crystal faces, uncertain what he was
supposed to see. To his astonishment he caught a glimpse of a small
rectangular shape floating like a ghost far down inside one of the
crystals surrounding him. He leaned sideways to get a better view
and lost sight of it. It was only visible when his head was in exactly
the right position, looking straight down the centre of the shard.
Was it flat or solid? Carefully, trying not to overbalance, he felt
inside his jacket. He was surprised and somehow comforted, to feel
his spectacles still safely tucked away in his shirt pocket. He put
them on and saw a blue metal cabinet with two doors, the sort you
might see in a smart garage workshop, either very small or very far
away. He could just make out that its doors were dented, as if they
had been hit several times.
It was obvious he was seeing something that belonged on the Earth.
At the sight of it Sam’s heart leaped. This was beyond his wildest
hopes. Eagerly he turned and looked into another crystal. At first he
saw nothing but by moving his head and closing one eye he found a
red metal box with a cone sticking out of one end and some pipes out
of the other. It was fixed to a white concrete wall.
Sam felt a strong mixture of apprehension and excitement. How
could he see things which seemed so earthly, so human, when he
clearly was not on the Earth? He longed to see more. He began to
glance quickly into the other crystals. In one he saw a yellow metal
girder, in another some tapering flat brown plates. Other crystals
showed thick cables and a blue metal balcony. The more he saw, the
more he had a feeling these were parts of the ATLAS cavern. It was
not a place he was familiar with. He had only spent a half-hour or so
in there, it had been dark and a lot had been going on, but when he
saw a red cabinet with the word ‘Savox’ on the door he was sure it
must be the cavern. They had passed a cabinet like this when they
had first come into the cavern and walked along the balcony. These
were almost certainly images of the same place. He was astonished.
How was it possible–
‘What can you see, Sam?’ The anxiety in Michael’s voice was
palpable.
‘I think I can see the cavern.’
‘Call me Lord.’
‘I think I can see the cavern, Lord.’
‘I knew it!’ Michael’s voice was triumphant. ‘Which parts?’
Sam was beginning to tire, his legs spread between the sloping
crystal faces, his arms outstretched to balance, but he managed to
find again the blue cabinet with the dented doors, the red box
hanging from the wall, the yellow girder, and described each one in
turn. He was still looking for the Savox cabinet when his legs gave
way and he fell, trembling with exhaustion, to the crystal floor.
‘Did you see any people?’ Michael asked.
‘No.’
‘Have you looked through every crystal?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You must look into all of them.’
Sam longed to see Catriona. If only she was alive, it would give
him something to live for. Once again he struggled to his feet,
wondering why there was this urgency, and began to peer into the
crystals, moving around and trying to check them all methodically.
It was after about ten or a dozen crystals that he saw Maria Kissov.
