higher levels by elevator tubes or enclosed walkways. There was no sign of the bottom of the chasm; the walls rose from a placid white cloud layer which hid the lower depths completely. Pipes stretched down into the mist, reaching towards the atmospheric processing machinery which I knew to be down there. The hidden machines supplied Chasm City with power, air and water, and were robust enough to have continued functioning even after the plague had hit.
I could see luminous things flying down in the depths, tiny bright triangles of colour. ‘Gliders,’ Sybilline said, watching my gaze. ‘It’s an old sport. I used to do it, but the thermals are insane near the walls. And the amount of breathing gear you have to wear…’ She shook her head. ‘The worst thing is the mist, though. You get a speed buzz from flying just above the mist level, but as soon as you drop into it, you lose all sense of direction. If you’re lucky, you head upwards and you make clear air before you run into the wall. If you’re not, you think down is up and you head into higher and higher pressure until you cook yourself alive. Or you get to add some interesting new coloration to the side of the chasm.’
‘Radar doesn’t work in the mist?’
‘It does — but that wouldn’t make it any fun, would it?’
The food came. I ate cautiously, not wanting to make an exhibition of myself. It was good, too. Sybilline said the best food was still grown in orbit and shipped down by behemoth. That explained the extra zeroes after almost every item.
‘Look,’ Waverly said, when we were on the final course. ‘That’s Voronoff, isn’t it?’
He was pointing discreetly across the room to where a man had just stood up from one of the tables.
‘Yes,’ Fischetti said, with a smile of self-congratulation. ‘I knew he’d be here somewhere.’
I looked at the man they were talking about. He was probably one of the least ostentatious people in the room, a small, immaculate-looking man with neatly curled black hair and the pleasingly neutral face of a mime artist.
‘Who is he?’ I said. ‘I’ve heard of him, but I’m not sure where.’
‘Voronoff’s a celebrity,’ Sybilline said. She was touching my arm again, divulging another confidence. ‘He’s a hero to some of us. He’s one of the oldest postmortals. He’s done everything; mastered every game.’
‘He’s some kind of game player?’
‘More than that,’ Waverly said. ‘He’s into every extreme situation you can imagine. He makes the rules; the rest of us just follow.’
‘I hear he’s got something planned for tonight,’ said Fischetti.
Sybilline clapped her hands together. ‘A mist jump?’
‘I think our luck could be in. Why else would he come here to eat? He must be bored shitless of the view.’
Voronoff was walking away from his table, accompanied by a man and a woman who had been sitting with him. Everyone in the room was watching them now, sensing that something was about to happen. Even the palanquins had turned.
I watched the three of them leave the room, but the air of anticipation remained. After a few minutes I understood why: Voronoff and the others had appeared on a ring-shaped balcony around the outside of the restaurant, encircling its dome. They were wearing protective clothes and masks, their faces almost hidden.
‘Are they going to fly gliders?’ I said.
‘No,’ Sybilline answered. ‘That’s entirely passe as far as Voronoff’s concerned. A mist jump’s something much, much more dangerous.’
Now they were fitting glowing harnesses around their waists. I strained to get a better view. Each harness was attached to a coiled line of rope, the other end of which was anchored to the side of the dome. By now half the diners had crowded over to this side of the restaurant for a better view.
‘You see that coil?’ Sybilline said. ‘It’s up to each jumper to calculate the length and elasticity of their line. Then they have to time the moment that they jump, based on their knowledge of the thermals in the chasm. See how they’re paying close attention to what the gliders are doing, down below?’
That was when the woman jumped over the edge. She must have decided that the moment was right for her leap.
Through the floor I watched her drop, dwindling to a tiny human speck as she fell towards the mist. The coil was almost invisibly thin as she dragged it behind her.
‘What’s the idea?’ I said.
‘It’s supposed to be pretty exciting,’ Fischetti said. ‘But the real trick is to fall enough to enter the mist; to disappear completely from view. But you don’t want to fall too much. And even if you calculate the right length of line, you can still get creamed by thermals.’
‘She’s misjudged,’ Sybilline said. ‘Oh, silly girl. She’s getting sucked closer and closer to that outcrop.’
I watched the glowing dot of the falling woman ram against the side of the chasm. There was a moment of stunned silence in the restaurant, as if the unspeakable had happened. I was expecting the silence to be broken by a cries of horror and pity. Instead there was a polite round of applause and some muted sounds of commiseration.
‘I could have told her that was going to happen,’ Sybilline said.
‘Who was she?’ Fischetti said.
‘I don’t know, Olivia something or other.’ Sybilline picked up the menu again and began scanning the desserts.
‘Careful, you’ll miss the next one. I think it’s going to be Voronoff… yes!’ Fischetti hammered the table as his hero stepped off the balcony and dropped gracefully towards the mist. ‘See how cool he was? That’s class, that is.’
Voronoff fell like an expert swimmer, his line as straight and true as if he were plunging through vacuum. It was all a matter of timing, I could see: he’d waited for the exact moment when the thermals would behave the way he wanted, working with him rather than against him. As he fell deeper it was almost as if they were nudging him helpfully away from the chasm walls. A screen in the middle of the room was relaying a side-on image of Voronoff, captured by what must have been a flying camera chasing him down the chasm. Other diners were following his trajectory with opera glasses, telescopic monocles and elegant lorgnette binoculars.
‘Is there a point to this?’ I said.
‘Risk,’ Sybilline said. ‘And the thrill of doing something new and dangerous. If there’s one thing the plague’s given us, it’s that: the opportunity to test ourselves; to stare death in the face. Biological immortality won’t help you much if you’ve just hit a rockface at two hundred kilometres per hour.’
‘Why do they do it, though? Doesn’t potential immortality make your lives all the more precious?’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean we still don’t need to be reminded of death now and then. What’s the point of beating an old enemy if you deny yourself the thrill of ever remembering what it was like in the first place? Victory loses its meaning without the memory of what you’ve vanquished.’
‘But you could die.’
She looked up from the menu. ‘All the more reason not to cock up your timing, then.’
Voronoff was nearing the end of his fall. I could barely see him now.
‘He’s picking up tension now,’ Fischetti said. ‘Beginning to slow down. See how beautifully he’s timed it?’
The line was stretched almost to its limit, now starting to arrest Voronoff’s fall. But his timing was as good as his admirers had evidently been expecting. He disappeared for three or four seconds, vanishing into the whiteness before the coil began to contract, hauling him back upwards towards us.
‘Textbook,’ Sybilline said.
There was more applause, but in contrast to before, this time it was wildly enthusiastic. People began to hammer their cutlery in appreciation of Voronoff’s fall. ‘You know what?’ Waverly said. ‘Now that he’s mastered mist-jumping, he’ll get bored and try something else even more insanely dangerous. You mark my words.’
‘There goes the other one,’ Sybilline said, as the last jumper stepped from the balcony. ‘Timing looks good — better than the woman’s, anyway. You’d have thought he’d have the decency to let Voronoff come back up first, wouldn’t you?’
‘How will he get back up?’ I said.
‘He’ll haul himself up. There’s some kind of motorised winch in his harness.’
