Reality Dysfunction — Emergence

As the planet moved towards midsummer a squadron from the Confederation Navy’s 6th Fleet was assigned to protection duties, paid for by the planetary government. It was a popular duty with the crews; after the cargo starships departed they were allowed shore leave, where they were entertained in grand style, and all the crews were presented with a special half-sized bottle of Norfolk Tears by the grateful government.

The Lady Macbeth ’s main communication dish servos spun round once, then packed up. Power-loss signals appeared across the schematic the flight computer was datavising into Joshua’s brain. “I don’t fucking believe it. Sarha, get that bastard dish sorted out!” Out of the corner of his eye he saw her activate the console by her couch. He routed the Lady Mac ’s identification code through her omnidirectional antenna.

An inter-ship radio channel came alive, and the communication console routed the datavise into Joshua’s neural nanonics. “Starship Lady Macbeth , this is Confederation Navy ship Pestravka . You have emerged outside this planet’s designated starship emergence zones, are you in trouble?”

“Thank you, Pestravka ,” Joshua datavised in reply. “We’ve been having some system malfunctions, my apologies for causing any panic.”

“What is the nature of your malfunction?”

“Sensor error.”

“That’s simple enough to sort out; you should know better than to jump insystem with inaccurate guidance information.”

“Up yours,” Melvin Ducharme grumbled from his couch.

“The error percentage has only just become apparent,” Joshua said. “We’re updating now.”

“What’s wrong with your main communications dish?”

“Overloaded servo, it’s scheduled for replacement.”

“Well, activate your back-up.”

Sarha let out an indignant snort. “I’ll point one of the masers at him if he likes. They’ll receive that blast loud and bloody clear.”

“Complying now, Pestravka .” Joshua glared at Sarha.

He launched a quiet prayer as the ribbed silver pencil of the second dish slid out of Lady Macbeth ’s dark silicon hull, and opened like a flower. It tracked round to point at the Pestravka .

“I’m datavising a copy of this incident to the Confederation Astronautics Board office on Norfolk,” the Pestravka ’s officer continued. “And I’ll add a strong recommendation that they inspect your spaceworthiness certificate.”

“Thank you so much, Pestravka . Are we now cleared to contact civil flight control for an approach vector? I’d hate to be shot at for not asking your permission first.”

“Don’t push your luck, Calvert. I can easily take a fortnight searching your cargo holds.”

“Looks like your reputation’s preceding you, Joshua,” Dahybi Yadev said after the Pestravka cut the link.

“Let’s hope it hasn’t reached the planet’s surface yet,” Sarha said.

Joshua aligned the secondary dish on the civil flight control’s communication satellite, and received permission to enter a parking orbit. Lady Mac ’s three fusion tubes came alive, sending out long rivers of hazy plasma, and the starship accelerated in towards the gaudy planet at a tenth of a gee.

Chinks of light were glinting down into Quinn Dexter’s vacant world, accompanied by faint scratchy sounds. It was like intermittent squalls of luminous rain falling through fissures from an external universe. Some beams of light flickered in the far distance, others splashed across him. When they did, he saw the images they carried.

A boat. One of the grotty traders on the Quallheim, little more than a bodged-together raft. Speeding downriver.

A town of wooden buildings. Durringham in the rain.

A girl.

He knew her. Marie Skibbow, naked, tied to a bed with rope.

His heartbeat thudded in the silence.

“Yes,” said the voice he knew from before, from the clearing in the jungle, the voice which came out of Night. “I thought you’d like this.”

Marie was tugging frantically at her bonds, her figure every bit as lush as his imagination had once conceived it.

“What would you do with her, Quinn?”

What would he do? What couldn’t he do with such an exquisite body. How oh how she would suffer beneath him.

“You are bloody repugnant, Quinn. But so terribly useful.”

Energy twisted eagerly inside his body, and a phantasm come forth to overlay reality. Quinn’s interpretation of the physical form which God’s Brother might assume should He ever choose to manifest Himself in the flesh. And what flesh. Capable of the most wondrous assaults, amplifying every degradation the sect had ever taught him.

The flux of sorcerous power reached a triumphal peak, opening a rift into the terrible empty beyond, and so another emerged to take possession as Marie pleaded and wept.

“Back you go, Quinn.”

And the images shrank back to the dry wispy beams of flickering light. “You’re not the Light Brother!” Quinn shouted into the nothingness. Fury at the acknowledgement of betrayal heightened his perception, the light became brighter, sound louder.

“Of course not, Quinn. I’m worse than that, worse than any mythical devil. All of us are.”

Laughter echoed through the prison universe, tormenting him.

Time was so different in here . . .

A spaceplane.

A starship.

Uncertainty. Quinn felt it run through him like a hormonal surge. The electrical machinery upon which he was now dependent recoiled from his estranged body, which made his dependence still deeper as the delicate apparatuses broke down one by one. Uncertainty gave way to fear. His body trembled as it tried desperately to quieten the currents of exotic energy which infiltrated every cell.

It wasn’t omnipotent, Quinn realized, this thing which controlled his body, it had limits. He let the dribs and drabs of light soak into what was left of his mind, concentrating on what he saw, the words he heard. Watching, waiting. Trying to understand.

Syrinx thought Boston was the most delightful city she had seen in fourteen years of travelling about the Confederation, and that included the sheltered enclaves of houses in the Saturn-orbiting habitats of her birth. Every house was built from stone, with thick walls to keep the heat out during the long summer, then keep it in for the equally long winter. Most of them were two storeys high, with some of the larger ones having three; they had small railed gardens at the front, and rows of stables along the back. Terrestrial honeysuckle and ivy were popular creepers for covering the stonework, while hanging baskets provided cheerful dabs of colour to most porches. Roofs were always steep to withstand the heavy snow, and grey slate tiles alternated with jet-black solar panels in pleasing geometric patterns. Wood was burnt to provide warmth and sometimes for cooking, which produced a forest of chimneys thrusting out of the gable ends, topped by red clay pots with elaborate crowns. Every building, be it private, civic, or commercial, was individual, possessing the kind of character impossible on worlds where mass-production facilities were commonplace. Wide streets were all cobbled, with tall cast-iron street lights spaced along them. It was only after a while she realized that as there were no mechanoids or servitors each of the little granite cubes must have been laid by human hand—the time and effort that must have entailed! There were trees lining each pavement, mainly Norfolk’s pine-analogues, with some geneered terrestrial evergreens for variety. Traffic was comprised entirely of bicycles, trike scooters (very few, and mostly with adolescent riders), horses, and