The Revelation Space Collection (342 page)

‘It isn’t possible to study there,’ she said. ‘No one cares what the relics signify as long as they’re able to get good money for them. No one’s interested in the bigger picture.’

‘And you are, I take it?’

‘I have theories concerning the scuttlers,’ she said, fully aware of how precocious she sounded, ‘but to make further progress I need access to proper data, the kind in the possession of the church-sponsored archaeological groups.’

‘Yes, we all know about those groups. But aren’t they in a position to form theories of their own? Begging your pardon, Miss Els, but why do you imagine that you - a seventeen-year-old - are likely to bring a fresh perspective to the matter?’

‘Because I have no vested interest in maintaining the Quaicheist view,’ Rashmika said.

‘Which would be?’

‘That the scuttlers are an incidental detail, unrelated to the deeper matter of the vanishings, or at best a reminder of what’s likely to happen to us if we don’t follow the Quaicheist route to salvation.’

‘There’s no doubt that they were denied salvation,’ the quaestor said, ‘but then so were eight or nine other alien cultures. I forget what the latest count is. There’s clearly no particular mystery here. Local details about this particular vanished species, their history and society and so on, still need to be researched, of course, but what happened to them in the end isn’t in doubt. We’ve all heard those pilgrims’ tales from the evacuated systems, Miss Els, the stories about machines emerging from the dark between the stars. Now, it seems, it’s our turn.’

‘The supposition being that the scuttlers were wiped out by the Inhibitors?’ she asked.

He popped a crumb into the intricate little mouth of his animal. ‘Draw your own conclusions.’

‘That’s all I’ve ever done,’ she said. ‘And my conclusion is that what happened here was different.’

‘Something wiped them out,’ the quaestor said. ‘Isn’t that enough for you?’

‘I’m not sure it was the same thing that wiped out the Amarantin, or any of those other cultures. If the Inhibitors had been involved, do you think they’d have left this moon intact? They might have compunctions about destroying a world, a place with an established biosphere, but an airless moon like Hela? They’d have turned it into a ring system, or a cloud of radioactive steam. Yet whoever or whatever finished off the scuttlers wasn’t anywhere near that thorough.’ She paused, fearful of revealing too much of her cherished thesis. ‘It was a rush job. They left behind too much. It’s almost as if they wanted to leave a message, maybe a warning.’

‘You’re invoking an entirely new agency of cosmic extinction, is that it?’

Rashmika shrugged. ‘If the facts demand it.’

‘You’re not greatly troubled by self-doubt, are you, Miss Els?’

‘I know only that the vanishings and the scuttlers must be related. So does everyone else. They’re just too scared and intimidated to admit it.’

‘And you’re not?’

‘I was put on Hela for a reason,’ she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth as if spoken by someone else.

The quaestor looked at her for a long, uncomfortable moment. ‘And this crusade,’ he said, ‘this quest to uncover the truth no matter how many enemies it makes you - is that why you’re so intent on reaching the Permanent Way?’

‘There’s another reason,’ she said, quietly.

The quaestor appeared not to have heard her. ‘You have a particular interest in the First Adventists, don’t you? I noticed it when I mentioned my role as legate.’

‘It’s the oldest of the churches,’ Rashmika said. ‘And one of the largest, I’d imagine.’

‘
The
largest. The First Adventist order runs three cathedrals, including the largest and heaviest on the Way.’

‘I know they have an archaeological study group,’ she said. ‘I’ve written to them. Surely there’d be some work for me there.’

‘So you can advance your theory and rub everyone up the wrong way?’

She shook her head. ‘I’d work quietly, doing what was needed. It wouldn’t stop me examining material. I just need a job, so that I can send some money home and make some enquiries.’

He sighed, as if the world and all its troubles were now his responsibility. ‘What exactly do you know of the cathedrals, Miss Els? I mean in the physical sense.’

She sensed that the question, for once, was a sincere one. ‘They are moving structures,’ she said, ‘much larger than this caravan, much slower . . . but machines, all the same. They travel around Hela on the equatorial road we call the Permanent Way, completing a revolution once every three hundred and twenty standard days.’

‘And the point of this circumnavigation?’

‘Is to ensure that Haldora is always in the sky, always at the zenith. The world moves beneath the cathedrals, but the cathedrals cancel out that motion.’

A smile ghosted the quaestor’s lips. ‘And what do you know about the motion of the cathedrals?’

‘It’s slow,’ she said. ‘On average, the cathedrals only have to move at a baby’s crawl to complete a circuit of Hela in three hundred and twenty days. A third of a metre a second is enough.’

‘That doesn’t seem fast, does it?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘I assure you it does when you have a few hundred vertical metres of metal sliding towards you and you have a job to do that involves stepping out of the way at the last possible moment, before you fall under the traction plates.’ Quaestor Rutland Jones leant forwards, compressing the bulk of his belly against the table and lacing his fingers before him. ‘The Permanent Way is a road of compacted ice. With one or two complications, it encircles the planet like a ribbon. It is never wider than two hundred metres, and is frequently much narrower than that. Yet even a small cathedral may be fifty metres across. The largest of them - the Lady Morwenna, for instance - are double that. And since the cathedrals all wish to situate themselves under the mathematically exact spot on the Way that corresponds to Haldora being precisely at the zenith, directly overhead, there is a certain degree of . . .’ His voice became mockingly playful. ‘. . . competition for the available space. Between rival churches, even those bound by the ecumenical protocols, it can be surprisingly fierce. Sabotage and trickery are not unheard of. Even amongst cathedrals belonging to one church, there is still a degree of playful jockeying.’

‘I’m not sure I see your point, Quaestor.’

‘I mean that damage to the Way - deliberately inflicted vandalism - is not unusual. Cathedrals may leave obstacles in their wake, or they may tamper with the integrity of the Way itself. And Hela itself does its share of harm. Rock blizzards . . . ice-flows . . . volcanic eruptions . . . all these can render the Way temporarily impassable. That is why cathedrals have Permanent Way gangs.’ He looked at Rashmika sharply. ‘The gangs work ahead of the cathedrals. Not too far ahead, or they risk their good work being exploited by rivals, but just far enough to enable their tasks to be completed before their cathedrals arrive. I’ll make no bones about it: the work is difficult and dangerous. But it is work that requires some of the skills you have mentioned.’ He tapped pudgy fingers against the table. ‘Working under vacuum, on ice. Using cutting and blasting tools. Programming servitors for the most hazardous tasks.’

‘That’s not the kind of work I had in mind,’ Rashmika said.

‘No?’

‘Like I said, I think my skills would be put to far better use in a clerical context, such as one of the archaeological study groups.’

‘That may be so, but vacancies in those groups are rare indeed. On the other hand, by the very nature of the work, vacancies do tend to keep opening up in clearance gangs.’

‘Because people keep dying?’

‘It’s tough work. But it
is
work. And there are degrees of risk even in clearance duty. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find you something slightly less hazardous than fuse-laying, something where you might not even have to wear a surface suit all day long. And it might keep you occupied until something opens up in one of the study groups.’

Rashmika read the quaestor’s face. He had not lied to her so far. ‘It’s not what I wanted,’ she said, ‘but if it’s all that’s on offer, I’ll have to take it. If I said I was prepared to do such work, could you find me a vacancy?’

‘If I felt I could live with myself afterwards . . . then yes, I dare say I could.’

‘I’m sure you’d sleep fine at night, Quaestor.’

‘And you are certain that this is what you want?’

She nodded, before her own doubt began to show. ‘If you could start making the arrangements, I would be grateful.’

‘There are always favours that can be called in,’ he said. ‘But there is something I need to mention. There are people looking for you, from the Vigrid badlands. The constabulary can’t touch you here, but your absence has been noted.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

‘There has been speculation about the purpose of your mission. Some say it has something to do with your brother.’ The green creature looked up, as if taking a sudden interest in the conversation. It was definitely missing one of its forelimbs, Rashmika noted. ‘Harbin Els,’ the quaestor continued. ‘That’s his name, isn’t it?’

There was clearly no point pretending otherwise. ‘My brother went to look for work on the Way,’ she said. ‘They lied to him about what would happen, said they wouldn’t put the dean’s blood in him. We never saw him again.’

‘And now you feel the need to find out what became of him?’

‘He was my brother,’ she said.

‘Then perhaps this may be of interest to you.’ The quaestor reached under his desk and produced a folded sheet of paper. He pushed it towards her. The green creature watched it slide across the desk.

She took the letter, rubbing her thumb against the red wax seal that held it closed. Embossed on the seal was a spacesuit, arms spread like a crucifix, radiating shafts of light. The seal had been broken; it only loosely adhered to the paper on one side of the join.

‘What is it?’ she asked, looking at his face very carefully.

‘It came through official channels, from the Lady Morwenna. That’s a Clocktower seal.’

That part was true, she thought. Or at least the quaestor sincerely believed that was the case. ‘When?’

‘Today.’

But that was a lie.

‘Addressed to me?’

‘I was told to make sure you saw it.’ He looked down, not wanting to meet her eyes. It made his face harder to read.

‘By whom?’

‘No one . . . I . . .’ Again, he was lying. ‘I looked at it. Don’t think ill of me - I look at all correspondence that passes through the caravan. It’s a matter of security.’

‘Then you know what it says?’

‘I think you should read it for yourself,’ he said.

SEVENTEEN

Hela, 2727

The ticking of his cane marked the surgeon-general’s progress through the iron heart of the cathedral. Even in the parts of the cathedral where the engines and traction mechanisms were audible, they heard him coming long before he arrived. His footsteps were as measured and regular as the beats of a metronome, the tap of his cane punctuating the rhythm, iron against iron. He moved with a deliberate arachnoid slowness, giving the nosy and the idle time to disperse. Occasionally he was aware of watchers secreted behind metal pillars or grilles, spying on him, thinking themselves discreet. More often than not he knew with certainty that he went about his errands unobserved. In the long years of his service to Quaiche, one thing had been made clear to the cathedral populace: Grelier’s business was not a matter for the curious.

But sometimes those who fled from him were doing so for reasons other than the edict to keep their noses out of his work.

He reached a spiral staircase, a helix of skeletal iron plunging down into the clanking depths of Motive Power. The staircase was ringing like a struck tuning fork. Either it was picking up a vibration from the machines below or someone had just employed it to get away from Grelier.

He leant over the balustrade, peering down the corkscrewing middle of the staircase. Two turns below, pudgy fingers slipped urgently along the handrail. Was that his man? Very probably.

Humming to himself, Grelier unlatched the protective gate that allowed entry to the stairwell. He flipped it shut with the sharp end of his cane and began to descend. He took his time, allowing each pair of footfalls to echo before proceeding down to the next step. He let the cane
tap, tap, tap
against the balusters, informing the man that he was coming and that there was no conceivable avenue of escape. Grelier knew the innards of Motive Power as intimately as he knew the innards of every section of the cathedral. He had sealed all the other stairwells with the Clocktower key. This was the only way up or down, and he would be sure to seal it once he reached the bottom. His heavy medical case knocked against one thigh as he descended, in perfect synchrony with the tapping of the cane.

The machines in the lower levels sang more loudly as he approached them. There was no part of the cathedral where you couldn’t hear those grinding mechanisms, if there were no other sounds. But in the high levels the noise from the motors and traction systems had to compete with organ music and the permanently singing voices of the choir. The mind soon filtered out that faint background component.