‘I just got on the first one that came in. That was what Holroyd told me to do. Said our guide would make their presence known eventually.’
‘Fine. Nothing to do but wait and see, then, is there?’
The scenery, she had to admit, was something. No, she hadn’t come to play tourist – but she had come to
In Crommelin, billions of years of ancient and secret Martian history had been flensed open for inspection, naked to the sky. Over time, over unimaginable and dreary Noachian ages, wind and water had laid down layers of sedimentary rock, one on top of the other, deposition after deposition, until they formed immense and ancient strata, as dusty and forbidding as the pages of some long-unopened history book. Crommelin’s interior – wide enough to swallow Nairobi or Lagos whole – was a mosaic of these sedimentary layers. Here, though, something remarkable and fortuitous had happened. Not so long ago – aeons in human terms, a mere Martian eye-blink – an asteroid or shard of comet had rammed into the ground, drilling down through Crommelin’s layers.
The impactor, whatever it had been, had made stark and visible the sedimentary deposits, exposing them as a grand series of horizontal steps, dozens upon dozens in height. Awesome and patient weathering processes had toiled on this scene to produce a landscape of alien strangeness. Flat-topped mesas, pyramids and sphinxlike formations rose from a dark floor, tiered sides contoured in neat horizontal steps as if they’d been laser-cut from mile-thick plywood. Some of the formations were bony, making Sunday imagine the calcified vertebrae of colossal dead monsters, half-swallowed into the Martian crust.
Others had the random, swirling complexity of partly stirred coffee, or caramel syrup in vanilla or pecan ice cream. It was gorgeous, moving, seductive. But like everywhere else on Mars, it was also both deadly and dead.
The cable car dipped again – Sunday felt the descent this time as its suspending line spooled out a little more – and they sailed over the edge of a tawny cliff as high as any building in the Zone. Her stomach did a little butterfly flutter. Tiny bright-green and yellow multilimbed robots clung to the cliff’s side, glued like geckos. She voked a scale-grid. Actually, they weren’t tiny at all, but as large as bulldozers. Not rock climbers, or even ching proxies, she was given to understand, but scientific machines, still conducting sampling operations.
The cable car rose and dipped again, clearing a long stepped ridge. Another line came in from the north-east, intersecting theirs at an angle. Sunday watched as a car on the other line lowered down to a railinged platform buttressed off the side of one of the rock formations. A handful of suited figures were waiting on the platform to board; others got off the cable car and began to follow a meandering metal path bolted to the cliffside. The cable car climbed away, reeling in its line to gain height, and soon it was lost in the butterscotch dust.
A sharp voice asked, ‘Sunday Akinya?’
The voice belonged to a proxy, a brass-coloured robot chassis with many gears and ratchets ticking and whirring in the open cage of its skull. Its eyes were like museum-piece telescopes, goggling out of its dialled face.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Since you’re obviously not Holroyd, I’m guessing you’re our guide?’
Sunday was alone. Jitendra had wandered off to use one of the swivel-mounted binoculars situated around the promenade deck.
‘Gribelin will meet you in Vishniac. He knows the Evolvarium. He’s already been very well paid, so don’t let him talk you into any extra fees. Here are your train tickets.’
The proxy offered her its hand to shake and Sunday slipped her hand into its brass grip. The ruby-nailed fingers tightened. An icon appeared in her left visual field, signifying that she was now in possession of the relevant documents. Two seats, a private compartment on the overnight bullet from Crommelin to Vishniac, leaving tomorrow.
‘This Gribelin doesn’t sound very trustworthy.’
‘Gribelin’s mercenary, but he’s also dependable. There’s a coffee bar in the public concourse at Vishniac – he will be waiting for you.’
Sunday studied the bind tag. The proxy was being chinged from Shalbatana, but with the Pans’ expertise in manipulating quangle paths that meant little.
‘Did Holroyd mention the golem?’
‘We know about that and we’ll do what we can to slow it down, but beyond that there are no guarantees.’
‘Can’t you just . . . stop it? Have someone break its legs?’
‘It wouldn’t achieve anything, other than drawing the wrong sort of attention. Your cousin could easily obtain another body, even if it didn’t look like him. We can stop him chinging ahead to Vishniac by renting all available proxies at that end, but we can’t be seen to act in open opposition to Akinya interests.’ The proxy looked around, its telescope-eyes clicking and rotating. ‘We’ve block-booked half the train, so the golem won’t be able to buy a ticket at the last minute. All the same, you mustn’t give it the chance. The station isn’t far from your hotel, so don’t arrive any earlier than you need to.’
‘We won’t,’ Sunday said.
‘Holroyd will be in touch when you return. I was told to let you know that he’s very satisfied with the work so far.’
‘I’m . . . glad to hear it,’ Sunday said.
The brass proxy nodded and walked away, melting into the milling tourists.
‘Give them credit,’ Eunice said. ‘They’ve covered all the bases, or as many as they’re able to. Block-booking the train, renting the proxies in Vishniac . . . that’s only the half of it, too. I’ve been having difficulties synching with my Earthside counterpart ever since we arrived. It’s not just that your brother’s in Tiamaat, either. Someone’s going to a lot of trouble to tie up Earth–Mars comms by all legal means available.’
‘Then they’re on our side, even if it inconveniences you.’
‘My suspicion,’ the construct said, ‘is that they’re on whichever side works best for them from one moment to the next.’
Sunday felt a touch on her arm. She turned, expecting it to be Jitendra, or just possibly the proxy, back to tell
