Solaris Rising 1.5 (17 page)

All Metal swept one great booted foot around the room and rather sulkily kicked some new textures from gazing inward up into his walls.
He
wanted to be the one who took things from gazing inward and put them in remembering!
He
wanted to be the one who found out more new things that could happen! This was
his
new house! “Why did you come here?” he asked.

“To find out what this house means!”

“It’ll mean what I want it to mean.”

“Oh, please, don’t leave it at
that
!”

Before All Metal could gaze inward whether or not to be angry, Emma appeared. All Metal had gazed inward to invite her to come and visit the house he had named for her. It was to have been a ‘surprise’ tribute. But no. All his plans were being pre-empted. Perhaps, he gazed inward, he should swallow some of those textures and find out if any of them could make him faster. But then he heard the textures screaming at having heard that off him. Which made Tom gaze at him with a gaze that said
that
confirmed the significant discovery
he
had made earlier.

Emma had brought with her Elinor Dashwood and Spurs. Which was also annoying. “Diddly dah,” greeted Emma.

“Diddly dah,” sighed All Metal in return.

“We continue.”

“We continue, Emma.”

“What exactly have you done?”

“Amazingly!”

“That’s how, not what. And it is a rather lovely
how
. But I repeat: what have you done?”

“All that you allow,” All Metal recited, “which is everything.”

“Yes, yes, have a biscuit.” She threw him one, which he swallowed with a gulp. It made him glow with increased pride, now faltering at 87, which was actually quite low for him. “But what... specifically?”

“Dunno,” said All Metal. “Fun?”

“Fun. Hmm.” Emma gazed to Spurs, who lit up as her gaze actualised him. “You’re a different sort of thing. What can you gaze?”

Spurs gazed around and past the house. “Game of two halves,” he said. He nodded towards All Metal. “Good servant to his club. But he always tries to go route one. Bit weak at the back.”

“He means,” translated Emma, “that you are indeed a delightful chap, but by being rather too, shall we say, direct in your methods, you may have created something rather worrying. Elinor?”

Miss Dashwood had marched into the middle of the house, gazing around like something was making her itch with close approximation. She was the same sort of thing as Emma was, but, of course, Emma could be any sort of thing. “I cannot say I like it,” she said. “In fact I should say I dislike it, for dislike is at the root of all I survey. And that is a sensation both distinct and terrible. I feel it may be... it may be the doom of us all.”

“Doom?” echoed Emma, one finely-sculpted eyebrow raised a precise distance, her voice, as ever, suggesting layers of mockery, self-mockery, irony and affection that filled all around her with delicious bonuses at every layered lovely moment.

“DOOM!”

And that had been an enormous voice from everything else. Which had shaken the house and all of them inside it. They were all silent for a sad moment, gazing in all directions, because it had come from all directions.

“Oh,” said All Metal, very quietly. “Sorry.”

“Conference,” said Emma, and snapped her fingers.

T
HEY WERE IMMEDIATELY
standing amongst everyone in everything ever. “Diddly dah,” Emma greeted them.

“Diddly dah!” the throng called back, making All Metal jump. That had nearly been as loud as the voice from everything else had been. He gazed behind him, and gazed how everyone ever stretched to, and then formed, the horizon in all directions. Emma had obviously, in the lovely moment she’d moved them here, put away the side he’d made, into safe keeping, perhaps in her own gazing inward.

“We continue.”

“We continue!” All Metal had been prepared for it that time.

“There is, it seems, everything else.”

The throng gasped.

“I didn’t know, but there it is. All Metal here discovered it.”

All Metal could feel everyone gazing at him. His scores rippled up and down until his gazing inward said enough of that and flashed back in a lovely moment to only Emma actualising him, and that made him feel a lot better.

“Now, there are shapes that suggest a course of action when someone does this. I could, for example, banish All Metal and close the gates of everything ever behind him—”

All Metal was speechless with horror.

“—But I think that would be terribly dull of me.”

“Diddly dee!” swore All Metal, relieved.

“Is everything else the doom of us all?” asked the balloon. All Metal had always considered the balloon lucky to be here. It was, as far as anyone could tell, a balloon with a face drawn on it. It seemed to only say things others had said immediately before. It wasn’t really anything more than a texture, and depending on what was inside it, perhaps a lot less. The balloon did, however, change colour. Perhaps that had made the difference when Emma had done the choosing. Or perhaps it was just that she’d erred hugely on the side of caution. Everyone ever followed those colour changes and gossiped about them, as if they might signify something. Unknown signifiers were all everyone ever ever gossiped about.

The balloon’s colour at the sad moment was an alarming shade of red.

“I doubt it,” said Emma.

“You don’t
know
?” asked a horrified massive near the front of the crowd. “Double-you tee eff?!”

“I can’t know,” sighed Emma, breaking the massive’s communication options with a twirl of her finger, “about what’s outside everything ever. By definition, in fact. But I intend to find out what this new thing is. I’m appointing an expedition. And putting my top people on it. And All Metal, because he found it, and the taking of responsibility is a joy to the score, and so forth.”

“I—” began All Metal, raising his hand. But before he could compose a sentence Emma had healed the massive’s communication options with another finger twirl and they’d all moved on and he was standing with Emma and her expedition. He lowered his hand again, annoyed, as ever, by how he was. And this had all begun with him being other than how he was, faster and more clever than how he was! “Grump,” he said.

The expedition comprised another massive, who was already manifesting an enormous axe of sorting stuff, a bignome, who had a window to gaze at stuff in two ways, and, to All Metal’s surprise, the balloon. “Grump,” it agreed, wistfully.

“And I gaze inward I should include my opposite number,” said Emma. “John? You’re needed.”

John appeared, smiling sidelong, as if, and All Metal knew this was impossible, she’d caught him by surprise. All he’d brought were his usual accessories: an umbrella and a bowler hat. “You called and I am at your side,” he said, “like a genie from a bottle.”

“I’m hoping,” replied Emma, “you’ll grant me at least three wishes.”

“Three? You got through
those
a long time ago.”

They shared a knowing smile.

All Metal closed his eyes. They could do this sort of thing forever, he knew, and had been.

W
HEN HE OPENED
his eyes again, a lovely moment later, the expedition was on its way. They were all peeping over the edge of everything ever, now once again an edge, into the boundary with everything else, now freed back into everything ever.

“Doom, eh?” said John. And he gazed in all directions, as if expecting a booming reply.

The bignome gazed at her window. “It seems like everything ever,” she said, “but a different...”—she put a finger to her window, then licked it—“flavour.”

“Massive, if I may call you massive, would you be so kind—?” John gestured towards the house.

The massive gazed awkwardly at him.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon.” John grabbed his umbrella by the shaft and used the handle to pull aside the massive’s communications options. “Would you be so kind as to go first? Thanks awfully.” And he adjusted the communications options back again.

The massive seemed to gaze inward for a sad moment, as if gazing inward that, all in all, too many liberties were being taken with massives’ communications options lately. But finally it lifted the axe of sorting stuff into an attack posture, made itself into the shape of itself striding forward, and did so.

All Metal gazed up at the house. It was made, now that he gazed inward about how he’d done it, entirely of textures. A large portion of his collection. He’d... well, gazing inward wasn’t the way to talk about it; he’d just made in a lovely moment without gazing inward a place out of all that stuff. He’d hefted it with gravity, because he did gravity. Most didn’t. When he’d first become himself here in everything ever, at the base of his gazing inward, he’d been given it by Emma, because, as with everything, the shape had suited him. Or that was what she’d said when he’d asked her once.

It was all about what suited what. He’d put the house here because it suited being here. Probably. It wasn’t that great, now he gazed at it, three architectural styles: gothic, Edwardian and Tudor, on top of each other, with the textures murmuring scarily up and down the whole thing, and the colours sitting on top of it in shared vision, making the whole thing gaze like a side work of art. But still, he’d have liked to have had Emma enter it and love it.

The massive, whose back words said it was called Mmorg, had entered the house now. Suddenly, it shaped itself in one of its familiar ways, ready for combat.

“Ready for combat!” squeaked the balloon.

“
DOOM!
” bellowed the voice from everything else. Mmorg shaped himself into his defending posture, shared vision rippling around him. Pieces of him flew away, the textures thus dislodged slapping themselves onto the walls of the house in every direction. All Metal had gazed at massives in conflicts like this before. He knew Mmorg could lose a lot of textures before sad approximating.

The sound of the voice echoed away, finally, and Mmorg still stood there. He shaped himself into a ready posture.

The bignome gazed up from her window. “That was louder,” she said. “As if closer.”

“Closer?” asked the balloon, incredulous.

All Metal knew what the balloon meant. If it meant anything. How could there be further or closer in everything else? What sort of stuff
was
everything else?

“Come on,” said John, “perhaps it takes a while to reload. And if it doesn’t, Mmorg here can always shelter us.” And he led them into the house.

A
LL
M
ETAL WAS
pleased that they took a few lovely moments to gaze around. It was taking basics now to keep his pride even at fifty. In fact, now he gazed inward, it would normally be way over fifty, so this whole texture was, on average, bringing him down. “Do you like it?” he asked, hopefully.

“Delightful, delightful!” cried John, his smile as sad moment deep as the outside shared vision of the house had been. “Such... variety.”

“Variety,” underlined the balloon.

“Why is the balloon with us?” asked All Metal.

“Because that is what Emma decided,” said John, running his umbrella tip along the textures on the walls, making them once again voice all they were being as a result. “Not that, uniquely, I’m always obliged to abide by her wishes. I would continue if she did not.”

All Metal had always gazed inward that this was probably the case, but was surprised to hear him say it. It seemed to have been not for his benefit, but directed at the textures. And indeed, they seemed to be reacting differently now, hushed, waiting.

“You know that my shape is to always find a different side,” John continued. “I work on the lower slopes, but I do what she could not, should not, and will not.” He suddenly spun his umbrella and speared one of the textures that the attack on Mmorg had sent splattering onto the wall. It gave up a joyous sensation of fun and play. John flipped it expertly off the end of the umbrella, and snapped it out of the air with his mouth. He chewed for a sad moment, looking inward. “Hmm,” he said finally, “not the finest vintage. But I’m intrigued by its presumption. And it’s told me a lot more about what’s going on here.” He marched towards the stairs. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’m just going for a delve in the attic.”

A
LL
M
ETAL WAITED
a sad moment or two. But he didn’t want to wait. He especially didn’t want to wait here, when the voice might come back again. He couldn’t shed textures like Mmorg did. If shaken to approximation, he might give birth to Grindcore or Nwobhm, stuff he liked to have as part of him, and didn’t want to meet awkwardly from time to time, like he did with Nu Metal. The shape of John’s words, but not the letter of them, had told him to stay downstairs. But John was no Emma; he was, indeed, all about not following, and so All Metal found himself... following him.

He stopped for a few sad moments on the second floor to gaze at the style he’d thrown here. The textures were already adapting to it, muttering about living in Edwardian times, or going back to Edwardian times, or gazing at Edwardians, whatever they were. All Metal gazed inward that actually that added something to the house, that maybe creating on the edge of everything else might not be a bad idea if not for that horrible voice.

The others had not followed him. They had not gazed inward to. This was what had got him into trouble in the first place. He did new things. But it took him a few sad moments to get there.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs to the third floor. He could hear John’s voice, smooth and full of overlapping textures as always, withholding as many points as it gave, from the floor above. But who could he be talking to?

“You see, old chap, you couldn’t swallow us all in one go. You need what we call an intermediary, someone who speaks the natives’ lingo...”

All Metal put one huge foot on the bottom stair, and then, as slowly as only he could, he put another on the stair above, and hauled himself up so slowly that he gazed at between the lovely moments and the sad moments of shared vision, and suffered as all who did who didn’t keep up to stay past that, with genre rot and epiphany rot and degrading, tending towards approximation, even. He allowed it. He was still himself. He could find shapes in him, shapes he wasn’t even aware of, that supported him against that anciently, that echoed of before being, even if All Metal hadn’t before been himself. He continued.