Living Hell Page 4

  On board Plexus, we didn’t have a captain. Nor did we have any windows to look out of. (With artificial gravity in place, windows weren’t really an option.) But we did have a Navigation department, and that department was centred around the Bridge.

  The Bridge was a highly specialised location. It contained an outstanding Interface Array, which included special functions available nowhere else. The Mimexis Chamber was also attached to the Bridge. Like the Depot and the pump stations, the Bridge was one of the few places on Plexus rated ‘First Level’. This meant that the door wouldn’t open automatically for every person who approached it. Your DNA signature had to be cleared by a scanner if you wanted to get in. Either that, or you had to be with someone who had First Level clearance.

  My father had First Level clearance. That’s why I was admitted. Upon entering the Bridge compartment that fateful morning, I saw that it was bursting at the seams. Every chair was filled. There must have been two dozen people there, including myself and Dad. Arkwright was there, poring over a screen. So were Merrit and Firminus.

  Merrit lifted her hand to me.

  ‘Hello, Cheney!’ said Haido, who was one of the Navvies, like Dad. A round-faced woman with crisp grey curls worn close to her head, Haido doted on all the Shifters. Even at such a tense time, she seemed happy to see me. ‘Have you come to help your dad today?’ she asked, flashing her dimples.

  ‘Uh – no.’ I gestured at Arkwright. ‘I’m with him.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, of course. You’re in Planning and Projection now, aren’t you? Lucky old boiler, she doesn’t deserve it.’

  Haido was referring to the Central Processing Unit. She was the only person I ever knew who talked about the CPU as if it were a person – a little old lady, to be precise.

  ‘Granny’s got indigestion this morning,’ Haido would say.

  Or, ‘That mean old bag ate up my selection criteria!’

  She was nice, though, was Haido. Very nice and very smart.

  ‘Off you go, then,’ she said. ‘Better not keep Arky waiting. We’re a bit busy today.’

  As if I didn’t know! Firminus, in particular, was a wreck, all hollow cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. He was hovering over one of the other Navvies, his gaze fixed on a cascade of twinkling numbers. Beside him, Arkwright was playing CAIP like a musical instrument, his long, bony fingers moving smoothly from pad to pad, node to node. I had to tap him twice on the shoulder before he noticed me.

  ‘Oh! Cheney!’

  ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Umm . . .’ Arkwright blinked. With his huge, bulbous eyes, pointed chin and long neck, he looked like a particular species of insect that evolved on Earth: I can’t remember its name, but it used to carry its front legs in a curious position, elbows crooked, wrists pressed together. You often saw Arkwright in the same kind of pose, as he sat hunched at his Array. ‘Shouldn’t you be with your mother?’ he asked, and I flushed. It wasn’t as if I was a kid any more.

  ‘She’s coming,’ I muttered. ‘She’ll be here if we go on red alert.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What should I do in the meantime?’ I glanced at his Array. ‘What are those? Probability projections?’

  Arkwright didn’t answer. He looked around. ‘Is there a chair?’ he queried.

  ‘I’ll find one. I’ll get one from across the street.’

  ‘All right, then. You can set up here, next to me.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘Cumulative frequency sampling.’

  So that was what I did for the next couple of hours: cumulative frequency sampling. There was a sub-program you could run that . . . oh, I won’t go into it now. What’s the point? I’ll just say that Lais Ulrich – who was on Arkwright’s team – had been put in charge of endless probability calculations, relating to possible outcomes of radiation impact. There was a lot of data to manage, and my job was to sift through all this stuff about the effects of primary cosmic rays on fullerenopolyimides in the hull, and so forth.

  I don’t know if it was vital work or not. It certainly wasn’t much fun. Lais probably could have handled it herself, along with everything else that she was juggling, because she had an amazing triple-track mind. Despite her nervous disposition, she was incredibly efficient; I had seen her perform a number of complex operations while talking about someone’s blood tests. (She was a chronic gossip, on top of everything else.)

  That morning, however, even Lais was quiet. It was strange to see her curled up at her Array like Arkwright, glum and silent and attentive. She didn’t even ask me about Haemon’s party. She just nodded at me, once; after that, we communicated solely through CAIP. I transmitted my data to her, and she channelled it through to Sustainable Services, or Technical Fault Protection, or whatever other department required information updates.

  Though we never once opened our mouths, we still had plenty to say.

  About twenty minutes after I arrived, Dad came up with a final trajectory for the emission wave. This meant that Firminus had to calculate a change of course – for the first time in forty-three years. He then had to initiate a burn: the longest burn in Plexus history.

  No wonder he looked like a death’s-head.

  Thinking back now, I realise how momentous that burn actually was. For the first time, my whole world was shifting on its axis. All my life I’d been travelling in one direction, at a constant speed. Now that was about to change. Yet as Firminus barked orders, and the status reports rolled in, I couldn’t quite grasp the full import of what was happening. I had a job to do, after all. I had data to process. And everyone around me was busily working away in an atmosphere of total concentration. Is it any wonder that I took my cue from the adults, and failed to give this unprecedented event the appreciation that was due to it?

  When we were finally told to brace, I didn’t even shut my eyes for the countdown.

  Not that there was the slightest cause for concern. Firminus knew exactly what he was doing. He had a firm grip on every aspect of the manoeuvre: the Trajectory Orientation Sensors, the Reaction Control System, the Rotation Stabilisers . . . absolutely everything. The thrust, when it came, was hardly noticeable – just a slight judder. There was no power-drain. No obvious gravimetric problems.

  After a few, taut seconds, everyone broke into applause.

  ‘There’s nothing to celebrate,’ said Firminus dryly.

  ‘Not yet.’

  And he was right, of course. Because despite the burn – despite four thousand, two hundred and twenty-five kilo-newtons of thrust, and a perfectly calibrated trajectory shift – we had no chance of reaching the speed of light. We had no chance of outstripping that emission wave. All we achieved, with our burn, was to change our point of impact. Instead of hitting the centre of the stream, we would be grazing its weaker, narrower, outer limits.

  That, at least, is what Merrit told me.

  We met up at the food dispenser, and exchanged a few quiet words. This was at zero-nine-fifteen. I noticed that her hairstyle was a lot less elaborate than usual. I also noticed the slightly bewildered look in her eyes.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Lemonade?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I’m having one, too.’

  But when she tried to order herself a lemonade, CAIP wouldn’t dispense it. She had already used up her entire weekly quota.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she growled. ‘You’d think on today, of all days . . !’

  ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Have mine.’

  ‘What?’ She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was paying us any attention. ‘Well . . . all right. Thanks,’ she murmured. ‘Much obliged.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Okay. I guess.’ She watched me order an orange juice.

  ‘Tuddor’s amazing.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem too worried,’ she said, and we exchanged a long glance over the rims of our cups.

  ‘It’ll be a
ll right,’ I told her at last. ‘We still might outrun this thing.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head.

  ‘Are you sure? Because -’

  ‘I’m sure. So are they.’ She jerked her thumb at the rest of the Navvies. ‘We’re nowhere near outrunning it. All we can do is nick one of the edges, where the stream isn’t as thick or as strong.’

  ‘Oh.’ That was bad news. ‘So there will be a red alert?’

  ‘For sure. Won’t be long now.’ Merrit hesitated. ‘I’ve got to leave before then,’ she added. ‘My parents will both be in Technical Fault Protection. At the Depot. They want me back in TFP with them.’

  ‘Of course.’ I drained my cup, and returned it to the dispenser. ‘My mum’s the same. She’ll be joining us here.’

  ‘So if I don’t get another chance, Cheney . . .’ She put down her own cup, before presenting me with a shy and hesitant smile. ‘Take care.’

  She didn’t say goodbye. Hardly anyone ever said goodbye, on Plexus. Why bother? We had nowhere else to go. Yet as I watched Merrit return briskly to her station, it dawned on me that maybe I should have said goodbye. Theoretically, we might be facing the end of everything. The end of the human race, even. We had long ago lost contact with Earth; what if life on that planet was finally extinct? It was unlikely, but not impossible.

  Even at this point, however, I had no real sense of impending doom. My heart refused to accept what my mind was telling it. We had survived the burn, and that had been an historic turning point. It seemed natural to assume that we would also survive the emission wave.

  Nevertheless, my thoughts fixed on Caromy. It occurred to me that this would be the perfect time to tell her how I felt. At last I had a good excuse; how could she blame me for speaking out, when we were facing the greatest peril of our lives? She wouldn’t, I felt sure.

  No one really needed me on the Bridge. I knew that. All the same, I asked Arkwright for permission to go to the toilet, which was located in a cubicle just inside the door. Arkwright nodded. (I don’t think he even heard.) Dad threw me an inquiring look, but seemed satisfied when I mouthed ‘toilet’. I slipped away without attracting any other kind of attention.

  Once in the cubicle, however, I sat for a moment. My sense of responsibility had suddenly ambushed me; I knew that, before communicating with Caromy, I should do the right thing and call some other people. Dygall, for instance, who was my Little Brother. Yestin, my fellow Shifter. I had a duty to these people, I realised. They had to know that I was watching out for them.

  So I patched through to Dygall, who was with his parents in the food processing area.

  ‘Cheney?’ he said. ‘What’s up?

  ’ ‘How are things with you, Dygall?’

  ‘Oh – I’m having a great time.’ Dygall spoke sarcastically.

  ‘We’re all just sitting around, twiddling our thumbs. It’s real exciting.’

  ‘Don’t you think we’ve had enough excitement for one day?’

  ‘You might have. You’re on the Bridge, aren’t you? I hope they know what they’re doing up there.’

  ‘Of course they do. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Can’t they dodge this thing? ’

  ‘No. It’s too fast. And too big.’

  ‘I wish I was with you. No one knows anything, around here.’

  ‘You stay with your parents, Dygall.’

  ‘If my father tries to counsel me, I’ll break his teeth.’

  ‘Don’t say that. It’s not funny.’

  ‘He’s got us playing games, Cheney.’

  ‘Well – that sounds like fun.’

  ‘I tell you, if it keeps on like this, we’ll all be happy to die.

  Just to escape from his riddles.’

  I had to laugh. I couldn’t help it. ‘Dygall, we’re not going to die,’ I said. ‘The chances are so slim. Really. Come on, now – you’re always complaining about how bored you are. Isn’t this exciting enough for you?’

  ‘It would be more exciting on the Bridge.’

  ‘Just call me,’ I told him. ‘If you need me, just call.’

  I finally managed to sign off. Then I called Yestin, who didn’t seem terribly interested in the yellow alert. He kept talking about his rodog, which he had named Bam. Bam still had a glitch in his circuits – something about electron flows. We discussed that for a while. Then I asked Yestin if the burn had affected him in any way; I knew that he would be sensitive to the slightest change in our gravitational forces.

  ‘Oh – I was feeling a bit sick,’ Yestin admitted.

  ‘Really? That’s tough. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Hey, it’s no big deal. I’m always sick. Anyway, I feel fine now. Mum gave me something.’ The rodog barked. ‘You know, he doesn’t jump so well. I think I’ll put springs in his legs.’

  ‘Where are you, anyway?’

  ‘GeoLab. With Dad.

  ’ ‘And your mother?’

  ‘She’s here too.’

  ‘Well – that’s good. So you’re all right, then.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m okay. I guess. Thanks for asking.’

  ‘Take care, Yestin.’

  ‘Cheney!

  ’ ‘What?’

  A pause. At last Yestin said, ‘It’s weird, isn’t it?

  ’ ‘What?’

  ‘All this. The alert, and everything.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. It’s certainly unusual.’ I tried to sound positive, and it wasn’t so hard. ‘But we’re going to be fine. Don’t worry.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Look after yourself.’

  ‘You too.

  ’ ‘Linkdown.’

  My heart was in my mouth when I called Caromy. You won’t believe this, but the prospect of talking to her frightened me more than the emission wave did. I had to clear my throat several times before patching through.

  She seemed surprised to hear my voice.

  ‘Cheney? Where are you?’ she said.

  ‘The Bridge. Where are you?’

  ‘Pump station one, of course. What’s the matter?

  ’ ‘Well . . .’ I took a deep breath. ‘You see . . . I just . . .’

  ‘It’ll be all right, honey. You’ll see.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But – I mean, if it isn’t -’ ‘It will.’ She spoke firmly. ‘I know this crew. I trust this crew. This crew will get us through, and so will Plexus.’

  It could have been me talking. Caromy was doing her duty as a Big Sister to every Shifter on board. But that’s not what I wanted.

  ‘Caromy, that’s not why I called you.’ I suddenly thought: Why didn’t I do this on Vindow? I need to see her face! ‘Can we switch to Vindow, Caromy?’

  ‘Oh, Cheney, it’s not a good time. I’m inputting, right now.

  What did you want to say? Is that naughty Dygall bothering you again?

  ’ ‘No, no. It’s nothing like that.’

  ‘What, then?

  ’ I cleared my throat. ‘If something bad happens -’ ‘It won’t.’

  ‘But if it does, Caromy! If it does, just in case, I wanted to tell you . . .’ What? I tried to find the words. ‘You’re an inspiration!’ I blurted out. ‘To all of us! Especially me.’

  ‘Oh, Cheney. That’s so sweet. But you’re pretty inspirational yourself, you know. All the little kids look up to you, I know they do. You’re a great role model. You’re always so kind and thoughtful, and you never lose your temper, or forget about our ultimate goals -’

  ‘No, no!’ She had misunderstood. I wasn’t talking about the Brotherhood program. I wasn’t talking about civic duty. ‘That’s not the point! What I want to say is this . . .’

  But I never did say it. Because at that moment, Plexus was put on red alert.

  And Caromy had to sign off.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  Things started to happen very quickly. When I left the cubicle, I discovered that my portable chair was no longer considered safe. Instead, Haido had yanked open a series of emergency hatches in the fl
oor, out of which had sprung five extra chairs. One of these was given to me. It didn’t automatically adapt itself to my contours, like the other seats in the compartment, but it was fitted with straps and buckles, and wouldn’t slide around if we faced a bumpy ride.

  Unfortunately, my new seat was nowhere near an Array. So I had to sit doing nothing, while all around me the Bridge buzzed with activity.

  Estimated time of impact was in exactly one hour. Before then, every loose article had to be packed away or strapped down. Every emergency procedure had to be checked and re-checked. Every person on board had to report to his or her emergency station, wherever that might be.

  Within minutes, the Bridge was flooded with new arrivals. Before they appeared, however, Merrit left. She passed me on her way out, but she couldn’t stop. She didn’t have time.

  Our eyes met, and then she was gone.

  Rarely had I ever heard the Public Address System being used. I gasped at the sound of that cool, female voice:

  ‘Attention. This is a red alert. Please lock down and brace. All crew stand by for impact.’

  I felt as if CAIP itself was speaking to me.

  My mother arrived with Sloan and Sadira. The moment I saw them, I immediately felt better – and then wondered if the happy gas might be to blame. Could it have kicked in already? When Sloan seated himself next to me, on one of the fold-out chairs, I asked him for his opinion.

  ‘It’s possible,’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘I don’t feel as scared as I thought I would. Do you?’

  Sloan smiled, his inky gaze roaming the compartment.

  ‘Nothing to be scared of,’ he replied.

  ‘I called Dygall. And Yestin. To make sure they were all right.’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘Caromy, too. She was really calm.’

  A grunt.

  ‘Merrit’s gone to Technical Fault Protection. She says we’re going to graze the edge of this thing.’ Sloan’s smile broadened until I could actually see his teeth. ‘What is it?’ I demanded. ‘What’s so funny?’