Skyfall (11 page)

The three continued their meal in silence, until Eyna Mann reentered the kitchen, dressed now in her field suit. She had calmed down.

‘I should be back before first shift.'

‘Where are you headed?'

‘East. Out towards the far side.'

Dernan Mann looked into his wife's eyes. ‘Eyna, I know I can't stop you going, but please, if you're going that far out on your own, don't leave the flyer.'

‘You know I'm always careful.' Her reply was cool.

‘I know you always used to be. But… just don't go breaking any field protocols, okay?'

Eyna Mann didn't answer, but crossed the kitchen and kissed her husband quickly, a perfunctory peck on the forehead that Lari suspected was more for his and Janil's benefit than their father's.

‘I'll be careful.' She'd turned to the two boys and kissed them both. Now her smile was genuine and Lari remembered the feel of her cool lips through his hair. ‘Be good boys. I'll look in on the two of you when I get back, all right?'

‘Bye, Mum.'

‘Bye.'

They listened to the front door hiss closed behind her and the faint hum of the descending elevator.

And they'd never seen her again.

Equipment failure – cause and specifics unknown.
That was the verdict of the enquiry. She'd taken to turning off her transponder, so they'd never received any telemetry, and by the time they'd located the wreck, far out in the Eastern field, its parts had been scavenged. There was no body anywhere, and the investigators came to the inevitable conclusion that either Eyna Mann had died in the initial crash and her body had been taken by the subjects or she'd survived the impact, wandered away, and died from critical exposure afterwards.

Dernan Mann had never really enjoyed fieldwork and Lari knew that after their mother's disappearance he hadn't been back to the Darklands again. Now, all these years later, Lari stared across the desk at his father with suspicion.

‘And you're coming?'

‘Of course.'

Lari stood and walked slowly around the office, running his forefinger absently along one wall. The Darklands. He couldn't believe he was actually going to see them. The thought sent a nervous shiver down his back. The Darklands were something like the moon; everyone knew about them and could recite all the facts and stats, but to actually see them – visit them – that was an experience well beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen.

Lari turned back to his father, who was now punching commands into his desk terminal.

‘What's the entropy scenario?'

Dernan Mann looked up. ‘It's your brother's idea of a joke, Larinan. Not a particularly funny one, I'm afraid.'

‘But what is it?'

‘It's the second law of thermodynamics and one of the most constantly misapplied scientific theories in human history, which is why Janil chose it to describe, in broad terms, a phenomenon we believe is impacting on the city at the moment.'

‘What phenomenon?'

‘The movement away from order to chaos, Lari, or at least the appearance of it. It's all subjective.'

The com unit chimed.

‘You'd better get down here and suit up.' Janil still sounded disgruntled.

‘On our way.' Dernan Mann led Lari out and along the passageway.

‘So, this entropy scenario …' Lari began, but his father shook his head.

‘Not out here, Larinan. You heard the Prelate. It's not something to be discussed openly. Even here within the walls of the division.'

The two rode the lift down in silence and emerged into an enormous hangar, the largest enclosed space Lari had ever been in. It took up the entire underside of the Port North Central Dome. Optic diffusers mounted high in the vaulted roof cast a bright line of light down the middle, along which squatted two rows of DGAP flyers. The walls of the hangar, into which were set the six circular outer doors, curved out from the floor, making the diameter of the ceiling almost double that of the deck.

‘Over here.' Janil was waiting at the door of a small anteroom, already in his silver field suit. ‘Stay within the yellow lines.'

Lari and his father followed a cross-hatched pathway marked on the floor. Their footsteps echoed briefly, but were soon lost in the enormous space.

‘Why is it so quiet?'

Lari had expected much more activity as DGAP personnel prepared for their nightly fieldwork.

‘New developments, Larinan. In the last twenty-four hours we've wound up the bulk of our field-based projects. Most of these flyers will probably never see the outside of Port North Central again.'

‘You say that like it's a good thing, Father,' Janil growled, then nodded through the door behind him. ‘Come on.'

They followed him into a kind of locker room with long metal benches and clothes pegs arrayed around the walls. Two more field suits had been flung onto the bench opposite the doors.

‘Those should fit, more or less. I couldn't find one small enough for the copygen, so he'll have to make do with a woman's suit. Even that'll probably be too big, but we won't be leaving the flyer.'

Lari struggled to pull the one-piece suit on over his clothes.

‘Careful!' Janil snapped. ‘Tear it and it's ruined. Here …'

He grudgingly assisted Lari into the suit. The material was surprisingly light and Lari flexed his arms experimentally, feeling it slide against his skin.

Janil clicked a small box onto a clip mounted on the chest of the suit.

‘What's that?'

‘External communication box. We won't need it, so don't worry about it.'

‘Why wear it, then?'

‘Protocol … Here.'

He thrust a helmet at Lari, who caught a brief, distorted glimpse of himself in the mirrored faceplate as he took it.

‘How do I put it on?'

‘It doesn't matter. If you need to, I'll show you.'

‘All ready?' Dernan Mann picked up his own helmet from the bench.

‘This way.' Janil walked out and started across the hangar deck towards the nearest flyer.

‘Are you okay, Larinan?' his father asked.

‘Fine.'

The closer they came, though, the more Lari's stomach churned. He'd never seen a flyer up close, only from the balcony in the mornings: distant lights returning to Port North Central. The machine looked squat and bug-like, gleaming black, crouching on three stumpy legs, with two searchlights mounted on either side of its bulbous nose dome.

‘Watch your heads.' Janil ducked under the belly and waved his wrist against a scanning plate flush-mounted on the hull. A hatch slid open with an hydraulic hiss and Janil's silver legs vanished up inside.

‘You go next,' his father said.

Inside, the flyer was roomier than Lari had expected. He could stand almost upright in the space behind the forward dome, where three seats were arrayed in a triangular formation, two in front and one behind and slightly higher. Janil was strapping himself into the front left-hand one.

‘Put your helmet on the rack and then sit here, copygen.' Janil pointed at the seat beside him. And don't touch anything.'

Their father climbed in behind.

‘You clear?'

‘Yes.'

Janil flicked a switch and Lari heard the thump of the hatch closing.

‘How do these fit?' Lari struggled with the seat straps.

‘Let me.' Janil loosened his own harness and leaned over, roughly shoving Lari back into his chair and pulling the straps over Lari's shoulders and hips, clasping them together into a magnetic buckle. ‘There.' He pulled them hard.

‘Oww!'

‘Stop complaining. They need to be tight.' He turned back to the glowing instrument panel and entered a couple of commands. ‘You ready, Father?'

‘Whenever you are, Janil.'

Janil touched an icon on the control display, and immediately Lari felt the flyer tremble slightly. A low whine began to build somewhere below and behind him.

‘What's that?'

‘The resonators spooling up. Now shut up and let me concentrate.'

The whining built until it became a throbbing hum, then Janil touched a small joystick mounted on the arm of his chair.

‘Hold on.'

‘Flying on manual?' his father asked.

A quick grin flickered across Janil's face. ‘It's the only way.'

Outside, the hangar seemed to move as the flyer lifted suddenly from the deck. Lari closed his eyes and tried not to think about the uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his belly. Turning the flyer towards the nearest of the outer doors, Janil threw his brother a sideways glance.

‘You look a little white, copygen. You okay?'

‘Fine.' Lari wasn't going to give Janil any more satisfaction than he had to.

‘Good.' Janil touched another icon and ahead of them the round door wound slowly open to reveal Port city, gleaming and blinking in the twilight. While they waited for the door to open, Janil said, ‘You know, a lot of people get sick their first time up. It's pretty scary …'

‘That will do, Janil,' snapped their father, but Janil just laughed.

‘If you say so, Father.'

Without warning, he pushed forward on the joystick and, engines rising to a scream, the flyer dropped its nose towards the deck then surged through the round door into the sky. The city and the fading horizon lurched sickeningly as the flyer dropped towards the lower levels like a stone. Lari kept his eyes closed.

‘Janil!' Dernan Mann growled from behind. ‘Fly properly.'

‘I'm the pilot, Father.'

Lari's stomach surged again as Janil snapped the flyer out of its plunge and swung it through a tight gap between two domestems. Around and above them, the city was rushing past – maglift shafts and conduits flicking past far too close for comfort.

‘Isn't this fun?' Janil offered. ‘If you're going to throw up, there's a bag in the pocket on the side of your seat.'

‘I'll be okay,' Lari muttered through gritted teeth.

‘If you say so.' The flyer heaved quickly up and over a low-level dome, then dropped further into the smoky tangle of the old city.

‘It's not safe to fly like this inside the city, Janil.' His father was really angry now. ‘And if you don't want me to have you grounded, you'll stop immediately.'

With a sigh, Janil pulled back on the control column and the flyer steadied in the air.

‘Much better,' muttered Dernan Mann.

‘Just trying to have a little fun.'

Gradually, the flyer climbed back up until they were sliding through the upper layer of domes into clear night sky. Above, stars glittered, their faint incandescence lost in the glow from below as the flyer skimmed across the city, flying slightly higher than the uppermost domes. From up here, the city's size became obvious, and in spite of his churning stomach Lari was transfixed. Skydomes, each lit from inside, sparkled out to the horizon in every direction.

‘It's so big.'

‘Not as big as you'd think, copygen. Certainly not as big as it needs to be.' Janil's tone was superior.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Don't worry, you wouldn't understand.'

‘Try me.'

‘Later, perhaps. Look!' Janil pointed ahead, to where a sharp line of darkness indicated the eastern edge of the city.

‘Is that the start of the Darklands?'

‘No,' his father answered from the back seat. ‘Just where Port City finishes, Larinan.

‘What's out there, then?'

‘Nothing. Nothing for a very long way. Then there's the wall, then the Darklands.'

In silence, with only the dull glow of the stars and the instrument panel for illumination, the flyer thrummed east into the night.

It's like there are two lands.

Inside her head is the falling land. The cold, white, falling land. That's where she spends most of her time.

Sometimes, though, she finds herself in the round room.

There's not a lot of difference between the two. They're both cold.

They're both white.

But more and more often, now, she finds herself in the room, where the light feels strange and the sounds are wrong.

But at least there, she isn't falling.