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still inside; still working his way to whatever lay at the summit.
And I wondered.
What ultimate function did the Spire serve? Was it possible that it served none but its own self-
preservation? Perhaps it simply lured the curious into it, and forced them to adapt -becoming more like
machines themselves - until they reached the point when they were of use to it.
At which point it harvested them.
Was it possible that the Spire was no more purposeful than a flytrap?
I had no answers. And I did not want to remain on Golgotha pondering such things. I did not trust
myself not to return to the Spire. I still felt its feral pull.
So we left.
'Promise me,' Celestine said.
'What?'
'That whatever happens when we get home - whatever's become of the city - you won't go back to the
Spire.'
'I won't go back,' I said. 'And I promise you that. I can even have the memory of it suppressed, so it
doesn't haunt my dreams.'
'Why not,' she said. 'You've done it before, after all.'
But when we returned to Chasm City we found that Childe had not been lying. Things had changed, but
not for the better. The thing that they called the Melding Plague had plunged our city back into a
festering, technologically-decadent dark age. The wealth we had accrued on Childe's expedition meant
nothing now, and what small influence my family had possessed before the crisis had diminished even
further.
In better days, Trintignant's work could probably have been undone. It would not have been simple, but
there were those who relished such a challenge, and I would probably have had to fight off several
competing offers: rival cyberneticists vying for the prestige of tackling such a difficult project. Things
were different. Even the crudest kinds of surgery were now difficult or impossibly expensive. Only a
handful of specialists retained the means to even attempt such work, and they were free to charge
whatever they liked.
Even Celestine, who had been wealthier than me, could only afford to have me repaired, not rectified.
That - and the other matter - almost bankrupted us.
And yet she cared for me.
There were those who saw us and imagined that the creature with her - the thing that trotted by her like
a stiff, diamond-skinned, grotesque mechanical dog - was merely a strange choice of pet. Sometimes they
sensed something unusual in our relationship - the way she might whisper an aside to me, or the way I
might appear to be leading her - and they would look at me, intently, before I stared into their eyes with
the blinding red scrutiny of my vision.
Then they would always look away.
And for a long time - until the dreams became too much -that was how it was.
Yet now I pad into the night, Celestine unaware that I have left our apartment. Outside, dangerous
gangs infiltrate the shadowed, half-flooded streets. They call this part of Chasm City the Mulch and it is
the only place where we can afford to live now. Certainly we could have afforded something better -
something much better - if I had not been forced to put aside money in readiness for this day. But
Celestine knows nothing of that.
The Mulch is not as bad as it used to be, but it would still have struck the earlier me as a vile place in
which to exist. Even now I am instinctively wary, my enhanced eyes dwelling on the various crudely
fashioned blades and crossbows that the gangs flaunt. Not all of the creatures who haunt the night are
technically human. There are things with gills that can barely breathe in open air. There are other things
that resemble pigs, and they are the worst of all.
But I do not fear them.
I slink between shadows, my thin, doglike form confusing them. I squeeze through the gaps in
collapsed buildings, effortlessly escaping the few who are foolish enough to chase me. Now and then I
even stop and confront them, standing with my back arched.
My red gaze stabs through them.
I continue on my way.
Presently I reach the appointed area. At first it looks deserted - there are no gangs here - but then a
figure emerges from the gloom, trudging through ankle-deep caramel-brown flood-water. The figure is
thin and dark, and with each step it makes there is a small, precise whine. It comes into view and I
observe that the woman - for it is a woman, I think - is wearing an exoskeleton. Her skin is the black of
interstellar space, and her small, exquisitely featured head is perched above a neck which has been
extended by several vertebrae. She wears copper rings around her neck, and her fingernails - which I see
clicking against the thighs of her exoskeleton - are as long as stilettos.
I think she is strange, but she sees me and flinches.
'Are you . . . ?' she starts to say.
'I am Richard Swift,' I answer.
She nods almost imperceptibly - it cannot be easy, bending that neck - and introduces herself. 'I am
Triumvir Verika Abebi, of the lighthugger Poseidon. I sincerely hope you are not wasting my time.'
'I can pay you, don't you worry.'
She looks at me with something between pity and awe. 'You haven't even told me what it is you want.'
'That's easy,' I say. 'I want you to take me somewhere.' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]