Chasm
by Nick Land
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[00-17]
§00 — Nothing was to have taken place. Less, even, than usual, or than standard procedure recommended. That was clear.
The way Qasm put it was ‘clean’.
“It has to be perfectly clean. You get that?” She didn’t really need to ask, and knew it.
“Of course.”
She waited, offering me an opportunity to contaminate the moment of pure understanding. I took a sip of water. Studied her professionally. Said nothing.
“Any questions?” she asked, knowing I hadn’t.
I hadn’t.
“No,” I said.
“Nothing more, then.”
“No, nothing. It’s all clear.” No threads of personal identification. No electronic records. No guns. As she watched, I skimmed through the contract one more time, just to show that I cared. The money transfer was complete. The mission profile was simple. There was a one-time-use hard-delete application to scramble all associated data into noise before setting out.
“You won’t need to contact us when it’s done.”
“Understood.”
“Good luck then,” she concluded meaninglessly.
The empty shell of a smile, then I left. She didn’t look up.
§01 — As Qasm had snuggled ever deeper into the bed of government security contracting, it had begun to give its activities military-style names. This one was ‘Pits-Drop’. The mangled pun was far more informative than any sound protocol would have permitted it to be. It was an information-preserving compression, rather than code in any cryptographic sense. Still, no one was listening, so I guessed it didn’t matter.
The final syllable of the name abbreviated ‘operation’ – or seemed to. There had been Floor-Mop, then Full-Stop, and now this. Floor-Mop had been tidy, and only marginally illegal. Full-Stop was a bloody fiasco. It astounded (and seriously impressed) me that no one had been arrested after it. The descent path so far had been precipitous, and it led with some ominousness to ‘Pits-Drop’. Fortunately, there weren’t enough data-points to plot a convincing trend.
§02 — I hiked the last few miles to the dock, along the cliff-road in pre-dawn darkness. It was still not yet five when I arrived. Our vessel, The Pythoness, was moored to a private pier at the edge of the dock. Even at a distance, she looked small, neat, and expensive. Two bored, cold security guards kept watch at the check-point. Another two stood by the boat. All four were heavily armed. There was a fifth figure, standing perfectly immobile apart from the rest, staring out to sea. From his bearing alone – which, despite being pulled into itself against the cold, radiated indomitable purpose – I knew with complete confidence that this had to be our man.
I watched him for a while, before approaching.
“James Frazer?”
“Yup,” he replied, scanning me efficiently with icy gray eyes. “You have to be the company guy.”
“Tom Symns.” I extended my hand, and he shook it readily emough. “Good to meet you at last, captain.”
“James Frazer?”
“Yup,” he replied, scanning me efficiently with icy gray eyes. “You have to be the company guy.”
“Tom Symns.” I extended my hand, and he shook it readily emough. “Good to meet you at last, captain.”
“So what is this all about?” he asked immediately.
“The mission?”
He said nothing, silenced, perhaps, by an intolerance for recursive or superfluous questions. His eyes narrowed and perceptibly hardened, searching my face for signs of evasion.
“You know what I do,” I told him. “The company runs everything on a ‘need-to-know’ basis. Like you, I’m an outside contractor. There’s a piece of cargo to dispose of. That’s the mission.”
“‘Cargo.’” The repetition was derisive, but undemanding. He didn’t like the obscurity, but I could tell that he’d already given up on me as a source of information. The speed and clarity of that call was impressive.
“Pre-sealed. Confidential. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Yeah, I figured,” he sighed. “You want to see the boat?”
“Sure.”
He said nothing, silenced, perhaps, by an intolerance for recursive or superfluous questions. His eyes narrowed and perceptibly hardened, searching my face for signs of evasion.
“You know what I do,” I told him. “The company runs everything on a ‘need-to-know’ basis. Like you, I’m an outside contractor. There’s a piece of cargo to dispose of. That’s the mission.”
“‘Cargo.’” The repetition was derisive, but undemanding. He didn’t like the obscurity, but I could tell that he’d already given up on me as a source of information. The speed and clarity of that call was impressive.
“Pre-sealed. Confidential. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Yeah, I figured,” he sighed. “You want to see the boat?”
“Sure.”
§03 — The Pythoness had been provided by the company. No one else had been allowed to touch her. Due to her unusual functional specifications, the construction process had required close oversight.
The boat wasn’t large, but the usage of space approached optimality. There were no rough edges. Some millions of pieces were fused into the single entity that was The Pythoness, with a seamless perfection owing less to mechanical combination than organic integrity. Her shape emerged from a confluence of ungraspably intricate but unbroken curves. It looked as if she had been printed as a coherent unit, like a droplet of pure design extracted directly from the immaculate realm of ideas, still glistening from a sudden condensation into actuality. Perhaps she had been.
I whistled in admiration.
“Quite something, isn’t she?” Frazer concurred. Still, there was an unmistakable ambiguity in his tone.
“Worried that she won’t leave you anything to do?” I guessed.
His silence was confirmation enough.
“On the positive side, it will mean there’s time to think,” I added.
“That’s ‘positive’ how?”
The predictive insight packed into that surly response would later come to astound me.
The Pythoness was a boat-shaped intelligent machine. Insofar as we could trust what we’d been told, this vessel bobbing gently in the water beside the quay was an elaborate trash-disposal system. She existed solely for this mission, assembled especially for it, less than a month before. No one had ever sailed in her. She was unlived in. Her usage was untested. She was pure – except for the single dark secret she had been built around.
A crew of five would fit a little too neatly for comfort. Exploring the Pythoness was an undertaking so limited in scope that it dramatized our impending confinement. It took no more than twenty minutes to complete the inspection with reasonable thoroughness. A casual tour would have required less than ten. These few moments would define the boundaries of our world.
The boat wasn’t large, but the usage of space approached optimality. There were no rough edges. Some millions of pieces were fused into the single entity that was The Pythoness, with a seamless perfection owing less to mechanical combination than organic integrity. Her shape emerged from a confluence of ungraspably intricate but unbroken curves. It looked as if she had been printed as a coherent unit, like a droplet of pure design extracted directly from the immaculate realm of ideas, still glistening from a sudden condensation into actuality. Perhaps she had been.
I whistled in admiration.
“Quite something, isn’t she?” Frazer concurred. Still, there was an unmistakable ambiguity in his tone.
“Worried that she won’t leave you anything to do?” I guessed.
His silence was confirmation enough.
“On the positive side, it will mean there’s time to think,” I added.
“That’s ‘positive’ how?”
The predictive insight packed into that surly response would later come to astound me.
The Pythoness was a boat-shaped intelligent machine. Insofar as we could trust what we’d been told, this vessel bobbing gently in the water beside the quay was an elaborate trash-disposal system. She existed solely for this mission, assembled especially for it, less than a month before. No one had ever sailed in her. She was unlived in. Her usage was untested. She was pure – except for the single dark secret she had been built around.
A crew of five would fit a little too neatly for comfort. Exploring the Pythoness was an undertaking so limited in scope that it dramatized our impending confinement. It took no more than twenty minutes to complete the inspection with reasonable thoroughness. A casual tour would have required less than ten. These few moments would define the boundaries of our world.
Excluding the two compact toilet and shower units, there were only four enclosed spaces in total. Two below deck, and two above. Beside the workshop / storage compartment where the cargo was confined, at the rear, the lower area consisted of a single cabin lined with bunks and attached lockers. A miniature galley occupied the aft section, while a horseshoe curve of comfortable seating wrapped itself neatly around a large table at the bow end. It didn’t add-up to much diverting complexity.
Above deck, the bridge was divided vertically. The lower section was larger and served as an electronic control hub. Five different computer screens gave it the appearance of a media room, as if taunting us with our structural passivity. Input devices were devoted – almost entirely – to navigating through dimensions of information. The smaller, upper section, was nominally the center of command. More realistically, it was a look-out post. Nothing would happen there.
Above deck, the bridge was divided vertically. The lower section was larger and served as an electronic control hub. Five different computer screens gave it the appearance of a media room, as if taunting us with our structural passivity. Input devices were devoted – almost entirely – to navigating through dimensions of information. The smaller, upper section, was nominally the center of command. More realistically, it was a look-out post. Nothing would happen there.
§04 — James Frazer was to be my key companion for almost a month, so it was important to get a sense of him. Too much command entitlement in a small space spelt trouble, and the formalization of authority in this case had been left concerningly ragged. Yet the initial impression was encouraging. He appeared to be taciturn, wry, capable – they were all traits that would help us to get along, or at least off each other’s throats. He’d been a saturation diver for five years, which already said a lot. Silence, darkness, pressure – he had been immersed in all of them, to depths normally judged unfathomable.
There were to be three other members of the crew. All were in their mid-to late-twenties –younger than both of us by roughly a decade – but otherwise they seemed to have little in common.
“You’ve worked with these three guys before?” I asked. The documentation had been vague about it.
“Some.”
“Nothing to worry about?”
“They all do what they’re told. No complex stuff.” He clearly saw both points as obvious virtues.
“Nothing to worry about?”
“They all do what they’re told. No complex stuff.” He clearly saw both points as obvious virtues.
Robert Bolton and Joseph Scruggs composed a study in contrasts. They epitomized the two sides of the tracks.
Bolton’s educational credentials were extraordinary. They were what I would have expected of somebody building an experimental nuclear fusion reactor.
“With these qualifications he’s working on boats?”
“He’s ‘between things’. Says the sea helps him think.”
A spy would have hidden this expertise, so it didn’t look like a security risk. Besides, in the event of any kind of technical problem, he’d be an asset. It still didn’t add up, but there was no time for that now. HR wasn’t my responsibility.
Scruggs was the anti-Bolton. In another age, he would have been called a ‘wharf rat’. His family background wasn’t so much broken as shattered. It had been a circus of abuse. Even from the highly-abbreviated version made available for convenient inspection, his criminal record was an impenetrably tangle of astounding density. Yet, at some point deep into the descending glide-path that was his life, he’d discovered religion and – by all socioeconomic indications – been saved. He’d managed to make the transition from petty dockside larceny to working on boats. The salvation story was dramatic enough, but it only very marginally nudged my default hypothesis that Scruggs was bad to the bone. He was going to be trouble.
The last of the three was a more perplexing choice, at least initially. Had central casting set out to provide us with a Queequeg it would have had cause for self-congratulation.
“This guy ‘Zodh’ – that’s all the name we’ve got?”
“It’s all I’ve ever had.”
“It says he’s from Guam.”
“That’s where he found us.”
The attached photograph was not selling him hard. It would have been a conspicuously singular face, even without the hideous grooves of ritualistic scarring, and the dense spatter of tattoos that swirled across it. The individual it portrayed was socially and ethnically dubious – partially Polynesian I suspected, but speculation quickly subsided into randomness. The stare he had cast into the camera lens delicately balanced an unsettling combination of amusement and coldness.
“He speaks English?” I asked, hoping the question was unnecessary.
“Yeah … of a sort.”
“Christ.”
“It hasn’t been a problem, up to now.”
“You know, the whole ‘mystery man’ aura here isn’t working for me. It looks far too much like gratuitous risk. Why do we need him?”
Frazer cocked his head back slightly. By all appearance, it was a gesture designed to signal a radical lack of interest – even mild contempt. “Adaptability? Mental flexibility? I don’t know. It’s your call.”
I looked at the photo again, and sighed. “Okay, what the hell.” There wasn’t enough information here to support a sound decision. The company had seen all these files, and green-lighted the crew. Why complicate things? I deleted all the documents. It was what it was.
The Qasm SUV had a kill-cradle for the tablet. After a perfunctory check, I placed mine inside, and pressed the ‘wipe’ button.
“Really?” commented Frazer, who’d been watching the process.
“It’s in the contract. ‘No communication or information-storage devices to be taken on board’,” I recited from memory.
“But nothing about extinguishing all related data.”
“Habit.”
He shrugged. That was all he was going to get, and he knew it. He switched tack.
“Do they have some superstitious objection to the thirteenth?” Terra firma was burning the soles of his feet. He wanted us to be already underway, but that wasn’t the way Qasm understood time.
“No. And they don’t care about St. Valentine’s Day, either.”
“Everybody’s here.”
That was true. The other crew members were lodged in a small hotel on the bluff.
“There’s a schedule,” I said. It shouldn’t have been necessary.
We had another twelve hours to kill. Nothing was going to erode and then eliminate any of them except tolerated duration.
A subtle tremor of resignation passed through him. Loss of control was something
he already knew about, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Bolton’s educational credentials were extraordinary. They were what I would have expected of somebody building an experimental nuclear fusion reactor.
“With these qualifications he’s working on boats?”
“He’s ‘between things’. Says the sea helps him think.”
A spy would have hidden this expertise, so it didn’t look like a security risk. Besides, in the event of any kind of technical problem, he’d be an asset. It still didn’t add up, but there was no time for that now. HR wasn’t my responsibility.
Scruggs was the anti-Bolton. In another age, he would have been called a ‘wharf rat’. His family background wasn’t so much broken as shattered. It had been a circus of abuse. Even from the highly-abbreviated version made available for convenient inspection, his criminal record was an impenetrably tangle of astounding density. Yet, at some point deep into the descending glide-path that was his life, he’d discovered religion and – by all socioeconomic indications – been saved. He’d managed to make the transition from petty dockside larceny to working on boats. The salvation story was dramatic enough, but it only very marginally nudged my default hypothesis that Scruggs was bad to the bone. He was going to be trouble.
The last of the three was a more perplexing choice, at least initially. Had central casting set out to provide us with a Queequeg it would have had cause for self-congratulation.
“This guy ‘Zodh’ – that’s all the name we’ve got?”
“It’s all I’ve ever had.”
“It says he’s from Guam.”
“That’s where he found us.”
The attached photograph was not selling him hard. It would have been a conspicuously singular face, even without the hideous grooves of ritualistic scarring, and the dense spatter of tattoos that swirled across it. The individual it portrayed was socially and ethnically dubious – partially Polynesian I suspected, but speculation quickly subsided into randomness. The stare he had cast into the camera lens delicately balanced an unsettling combination of amusement and coldness.
“He speaks English?” I asked, hoping the question was unnecessary.
“Yeah … of a sort.”
“Christ.”
“It hasn’t been a problem, up to now.”
“You know, the whole ‘mystery man’ aura here isn’t working for me. It looks far too much like gratuitous risk. Why do we need him?”
Frazer cocked his head back slightly. By all appearance, it was a gesture designed to signal a radical lack of interest – even mild contempt. “Adaptability? Mental flexibility? I don’t know. It’s your call.”
I looked at the photo again, and sighed. “Okay, what the hell.” There wasn’t enough information here to support a sound decision. The company had seen all these files, and green-lighted the crew. Why complicate things? I deleted all the documents. It was what it was.
The Qasm SUV had a kill-cradle for the tablet. After a perfunctory check, I placed mine inside, and pressed the ‘wipe’ button.
“Really?” commented Frazer, who’d been watching the process.
“It’s in the contract. ‘No communication or information-storage devices to be taken on board’,” I recited from memory.
“But nothing about extinguishing all related data.”
“Habit.”
He shrugged. That was all he was going to get, and he knew it. He switched tack.
“Do they have some superstitious objection to the thirteenth?” Terra firma was burning the soles of his feet. He wanted us to be already underway, but that wasn’t the way Qasm understood time.
“No. And they don’t care about St. Valentine’s Day, either.”
“Everybody’s here.”
That was true. The other crew members were lodged in a small hotel on the bluff.
“There’s a schedule,” I said. It shouldn’t have been necessary.
We had another twelve hours to kill. Nothing was going to erode and then eliminate any of them except tolerated duration.
A subtle tremor of resignation passed through him. Loss of control was something
he already knew about, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
§05 — Nestled into the cliff, close to the dock, was a small, atmospheric bar, called The Crab Pot. The name made it sound like a restaurant, but the little food that was served there looked inedible. It had settled itself confidently upon the sharp cusp between authenticity and simulation. This was the kind of place a million bars around the world wanted to be, but since it grasped the fact, whatever innocence it might once have had was now gone. It had adjusted itself neatly to its own stereotype, with netting and crab traps complicating a softly illuminated, cave-like interior, unsullied by audiovisual technology. There wasn’t even a jukebox. Dock hands and tourists patronized it in roughly comparable numbers.
Even at midday it was half-full. Most of the patrons were clustered around the bar, laconically swapping jokes and sea stories. The dark rum – which everyone already seemed to be drinking – looked good. We ordered two coffees, which weren’t terrible.
The periphery was mostly empty. It was easy to find a quiet corner.
“So, the company …?” Frazer began. The formless stub of a question was already tilting forward, towards the cargo. That was understandable. Realizing that frontal engagement was futile, he had set out now upon a more patient and indirect route, although it was nowhere close to being indirect enough.
I sipped at my coffee, waited.
“Thing is,” he continued, in a slow, cautious drawl, “I’ve no idea what ‘QASM’ stands for, what it is, or what it does. It’s strangely difficult to find out. I’m assuming it’s a business, with customers, but if so, it’s not exactly broadcasting the fact. Say I wanted to buy something from them …”
“You don’t.”
“On the web, the company says it’s selling ‘deep technology solutions’,” he persisted. “Okay, that sounds like a business – like marketing spin – but it isn’t really telling me anything at all.”
“This is coming up now?” It wasn’t at all where I wanted our conversation to be. I’d somehow imagined he would know that.
“First chance I’ve had to raise the question.”
“In person?”
“It’s not exactly email material.”
Even at midday it was half-full. Most of the patrons were clustered around the bar, laconically swapping jokes and sea stories. The dark rum – which everyone already seemed to be drinking – looked good. We ordered two coffees, which weren’t terrible.
The periphery was mostly empty. It was easy to find a quiet corner.
“So, the company …?” Frazer began. The formless stub of a question was already tilting forward, towards the cargo. That was understandable. Realizing that frontal engagement was futile, he had set out now upon a more patient and indirect route, although it was nowhere close to being indirect enough.
I sipped at my coffee, waited.
“Thing is,” he continued, in a slow, cautious drawl, “I’ve no idea what ‘QASM’ stands for, what it is, or what it does. It’s strangely difficult to find out. I’m assuming it’s a business, with customers, but if so, it’s not exactly broadcasting the fact. Say I wanted to buy something from them …”
“You don’t.”
“On the web, the company says it’s selling ‘deep technology solutions’,” he persisted. “Okay, that sounds like a business – like marketing spin – but it isn’t really telling me anything at all.”
“This is coming up now?” It wasn’t at all where I wanted our conversation to be. I’d somehow imagined he would know that.
“First chance I’ve had to raise the question.”
“In person?”
“It’s not exactly email material.”
I let that pass. The communication channel wasn’t going to matter a damn to this stuff. There was what could be said, and what couldn’t. A meatspace encounter made no difference to any of it.
“Let’s take a step back.” Regression wasn’t really the direction to be followed, because progression wasn’t an option on this map. We weren’t going anywhere with this. Rather, it seemed necessary to move the conversation sideways, into a more realistic context.
“What I do for Qasm – what they pay me for – has a lot to do with not asking questions. It’s a professional ethos. Or exactly the opposite, whichever you prefer. They contract me to make problems disappear. So you can see how this mission slots into that, I’m sure. Crucially, doing nothing – ever – that could contribute to their information risks is where it begins.”
“You’d rather not know?” he summarized, at an angle. He seemed genuinely curious, rather than judgmental.
“It’s my job not to know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“It’s what I do.”
“So interrogating you further would be completely pointless?”
“That is the only point.”
“Yeah, I’m beginning to get it.” He even smiled, but only a little, and only for an instant. “They’re putting you on the boat to keep me in the dark.”
“You know, that’s probably true – but they’d never tell me, and I’d never ask.”
He shrugged, not quite amused, but not conspicuously annoyed by my flippancy, either. I had no idea how much money he was going to make for the next three weeks of work, but it had to be abnormal. He was being paid for acceptance, in the absence of understanding. We all were.
“Let’s take a step back.” Regression wasn’t really the direction to be followed, because progression wasn’t an option on this map. We weren’t going anywhere with this. Rather, it seemed necessary to move the conversation sideways, into a more realistic context.
“What I do for Qasm – what they pay me for – has a lot to do with not asking questions. It’s a professional ethos. Or exactly the opposite, whichever you prefer. They contract me to make problems disappear. So you can see how this mission slots into that, I’m sure. Crucially, doing nothing – ever – that could contribute to their information risks is where it begins.”
“You’d rather not know?” he summarized, at an angle. He seemed genuinely curious, rather than judgmental.
“It’s my job not to know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“It’s what I do.”
“So interrogating you further would be completely pointless?”
“That is the only point.”
“Yeah, I’m beginning to get it.” He even smiled, but only a little, and only for an instant. “They’re putting you on the boat to keep me in the dark.”
“You know, that’s probably true – but they’d never tell me, and I’d never ask.”
He shrugged, not quite amused, but not conspicuously annoyed by my flippancy, either. I had no idea how much money he was going to make for the next three weeks of work, but it had to be abnormal. He was being paid for acceptance, in the absence of understanding. We all were.
§06 — The cargo had been pre-installed within a technologically-sophisticated closed unit,
whose design had followed a smooth, asymptotic curve to the edge of the absolute. It was like the Pythoness herself, but to a higher power. Upon arrival at the destination – as confirmed by the inbuilt satellite navigation system – my responsibility was to enter the activation code and initiate the release sequence. Three weeks on a boat, for nine keystrokes. After a ninety-second delay, the thing we were transporting would then be dropped into the earth’s deepest submarine abyss. Execution of this simple task would be the culmination of the mission, completely exhausting whatever meaning it might have. In any case, by the end, we’d probably still have learnt next to nothing about it.
whose design had followed a smooth, asymptotic curve to the edge of the absolute. It was like the Pythoness herself, but to a higher power. Upon arrival at the destination – as confirmed by the inbuilt satellite navigation system – my responsibility was to enter the activation code and initiate the release sequence. Three weeks on a boat, for nine keystrokes. After a ninety-second delay, the thing we were transporting would then be dropped into the earth’s deepest submarine abyss. Execution of this simple task would be the culmination of the mission, completely exhausting whatever meaning it might have. In any case, by the end, we’d probably still have learnt next to nothing about it.
The cargo disposal unit occupied a compartment, situated below deck, and accessed from the main cabin, that doubled-up as a compact storage bay and workshop, encroached upon by the fuel tanks and engine cowlings. The entire crew could fit inside, but it was a crush. There was no way more than two people would have been able to do anything productive there at a time.
The unit was located on the port side of the compartment, balanced by two of the three fuel tanks. Its containment sheath was a seamless polycarbon shell, perfectly rigid, yet peculiarly neutral in tactile quality. It had no color at all. The matt black substance was so unreflective it appeared almost as a hole in space. The sensible absence tempted me to touch it again, and it still felt like a hardened – vaguely repulsive – void. Nobody else wanted to make any kind of contact with it whatsoever. We stood, crammed together, in silence for a moment, as if absorbing its imperceptible, tense hush. It wasn’t quite coffin-shaped, but to an over-active imagination it might have suggested the casket for an alien child.
The unit was located on the port side of the compartment, balanced by two of the three fuel tanks. Its containment sheath was a seamless polycarbon shell, perfectly rigid, yet peculiarly neutral in tactile quality. It had no color at all. The matt black substance was so unreflective it appeared almost as a hole in space. The sensible absence tempted me to touch it again, and it still felt like a hardened – vaguely repulsive – void. Nobody else wanted to make any kind of contact with it whatsoever. We stood, crammed together, in silence for a moment, as if absorbing its imperceptible, tense hush. It wasn’t quite coffin-shaped, but to an over-active imagination it might have suggested the casket for an alien child.
“So that’s it,” Frazer said eventually.
“Not much to look at,” Scruggs added, perhaps as a dry joke.
I carefully examined the faces of my four companions, one by one, trying to extract what I could about their initial responses to our task. No one was transparently thrilled, but beyond that it was difficult to say. Frazer looked quietly determined, folded into himself, in a way I already suspected was typical. He was adapting to a situation that was not, in the slightest degree, responsive to any of our wishes. Scruggs might have been silently praying, his lips moving, scarcely perceptibly. Other than that, he seemed calm enough, or at least accepting. Zodh was smiling cryptically, unreadable.
“Not much to look at,” Scruggs added, perhaps as a dry joke.
I carefully examined the faces of my four companions, one by one, trying to extract what I could about their initial responses to our task. No one was transparently thrilled, but beyond that it was difficult to say. Frazer looked quietly determined, folded into himself, in a way I already suspected was typical. He was adapting to a situation that was not, in the slightest degree, responsive to any of our wishes. Scruggs might have been silently praying, his lips moving, scarcely perceptibly. Other than that, he seemed calm enough, or at least accepting. Zodh was smiling cryptically, unreadable.
It fell upon Bolton to represent everyone’s doubts.
“What do you think is in there?” he asked. He wasn’t making any effort to hide his disquiet.
“Do you care?” answered Frazer. In less than a day, he’d already passed surreptitiouly into a miniature occult circle. It was now his unreflective instinct to preserve the integrity of the unknown against encroachment. I would have smiled, if I had thought – even for a moment – that he might not notice.
“Sure I care,” Bolton responded irritably. “It could be anything. I mean, if it isn’t hazardous, why is it locked away from us like this? No one said …”
“This is the job,” Frazer interrupted. “If you have problems with it, you’ve still got …” he looked at his watch “… an hour and seventeen minutes in which to quit. Bale out now, and you might avoid being sued for breach of contract.”
Bolton scowled, but said nothing. Like the rest of the crew, he was being paid enough to cover a lot of unhappiness.
Frazer passed me a strange sideways glance. Silencing Bolton didn’t mean he had no questions of his own, and they’d be back. His support had been strictly tactical. The silent communication didn’t compromise my gratitude. One step at a time was alright with me. It had to be.
§07 — We set out into calm, miserable weather. The wind was no more than a breeze, but its icy teeth were wounding. Chill mist, tending to drizzle that never quite fell, deepened the elusiveness of a dull gray sky. According to all primitive intuition, we were heading on a meaningless course into formless infinity. Our prospects were awesome in their uninterrupted obscurity.
“What do you think is in there?” he asked. He wasn’t making any effort to hide his disquiet.
“Do you care?” answered Frazer. In less than a day, he’d already passed surreptitiouly into a miniature occult circle. It was now his unreflective instinct to preserve the integrity of the unknown against encroachment. I would have smiled, if I had thought – even for a moment – that he might not notice.
“Sure I care,” Bolton responded irritably. “It could be anything. I mean, if it isn’t hazardous, why is it locked away from us like this? No one said …”
“This is the job,” Frazer interrupted. “If you have problems with it, you’ve still got …” he looked at his watch “… an hour and seventeen minutes in which to quit. Bale out now, and you might avoid being sued for breach of contract.”
Bolton scowled, but said nothing. Like the rest of the crew, he was being paid enough to cover a lot of unhappiness.
Frazer passed me a strange sideways glance. Silencing Bolton didn’t mean he had no questions of his own, and they’d be back. His support had been strictly tactical. The silent communication didn’t compromise my gratitude. One step at a time was alright with me. It had to be.
§07 — We set out into calm, miserable weather. The wind was no more than a breeze, but its icy teeth were wounding. Chill mist, tending to drizzle that never quite fell, deepened the elusiveness of a dull gray sky. According to all primitive intuition, we were heading on a meaningless course into formless infinity. Our prospects were awesome in their uninterrupted obscurity.
For an hour or so we stood, each apart, scattered along the guardrail. No one spoke.
The coast behind us gradually receded into invisibility.
The steady thrum of the engine smoothed further, as it withdrew into the subliminal constancy of an auditory ground-state. Like insects, we were now hearing it through our feet.
Eventually Bolton broke the silence.
“So it begins,” he said. His tone of voice, in its dull vacancy, was a sonic translation of the sky-shades. ‘Leaden’ perhaps, with heavy vagueness muffling an encroaching blackness. It alluded to storms, rather than announcing one. Still, there would be a storm.
“Thy Will be done,” Scruggs added, speaking into the nebulous oblivion. “On Earth as it is in Heaven.” It was hard to know which seemed more distant. ‘Limbo’ had never meant anything to me before. Now it was palpable.
“Zommoddybpskhattao,” Zodh contributed, solemnly. Each alien syllable was slowly and precisely intoned. His gaze was rigidly locked onto the horizon, where he was seeing something nobody else did. “Zommo,” he repeated, with still deeper, languid sonorousness. “You open the Old Way. You close Great Gates of Sleep.”
“So it begins,” he said. His tone of voice, in its dull vacancy, was a sonic translation of the sky-shades. ‘Leaden’ perhaps, with heavy vagueness muffling an encroaching blackness. It alluded to storms, rather than announcing one. Still, there would be a storm.
“Thy Will be done,” Scruggs added, speaking into the nebulous oblivion. “On Earth as it is in Heaven.” It was hard to know which seemed more distant. ‘Limbo’ had never meant anything to me before. Now it was palpable.
“Zommoddybpskhattao,” Zodh contributed, solemnly. Each alien syllable was slowly and precisely intoned. His gaze was rigidly locked onto the horizon, where he was seeing something nobody else did. “Zommo,” he repeated, with still deeper, languid sonorousness. “You open the Old Way. You close Great Gates of Sleep.”
“What the fuck?” Bolton mumbled, softly, aghast at what his simple remark had avalanched into, as it passed like a stray wave down the relay chain.
Scruggs edged towards him – and away from Zodh – back along the guardrail. They exchanged glances, wordlessly communicating some message I was unable to interpret and didn’t want to guess at.
Frazer had already left, I now noticed. I’d missed him slip away. How much of this had he caught? His absence spoke – if elliptically.
“No complex stuff,” he had said. I came close to laughing at that now.
Was he on drugs? howled some nagging, hallucinated jester. It doesn’t matter, because he will be soon enough. Backstage a clown chorus snickered in appreciation. Since Full-Stop had crashed, the mind smurfs had become noisier, but they would be easy enough to ignore. The cold was already killing them, I suspected. The ocean would finish it.
Bolton and Scruggs left the deck together, exchanging a few awkward words.
Scruggs edged towards him – and away from Zodh – back along the guardrail. They exchanged glances, wordlessly communicating some message I was unable to interpret and didn’t want to guess at.
Frazer had already left, I now noticed. I’d missed him slip away. How much of this had he caught? His absence spoke – if elliptically.
“No complex stuff,” he had said. I came close to laughing at that now.
Was he on drugs? howled some nagging, hallucinated jester. It doesn’t matter, because he will be soon enough. Backstage a clown chorus snickered in appreciation. Since Full-Stop had crashed, the mind smurfs had become noisier, but they would be easy enough to ignore. The cold was already killing them, I suspected. The ocean would finish it.
Bolton and Scruggs left the deck together, exchanging a few awkward words.
Zodh pushed further into his raptures.
I watched for a while, but eventually my attention was vacuumed back out to the empty horizon. It fused into hazed memories of other journeys, associated intimately through nothing but their common indefiniteness. None of them had been anything in themselves, or at least anything that could be recalled, other than cloudy allusions to alternative voyages, each fading into its own immemorability. They had been dreams, probably, or stories encountered long ago. Muffled echoes – vividly indistinct – returned from some freezing fogbank of forgetting.
Out there, somewhere, was recall. It would all come back, in its own time, or not. It made no difference. Ahead of us lay a pre-set course towards some absolute annihilation of purpose. We were getting rid of something. When it was done, we still wouldn’t know what it had been.
Something over 5,000 nautical miles away, West South-West, our destination simmered in the distant tropics. The lazy curve of our route had been plotted to miss out everything in between. The cargo was to be released into the Challenger Deep, where the Mariana Trench lurched down into its nethermost extremity. It came to its end in the Western Pacific, 210 miles South-West of Guam.
I watched for a while, but eventually my attention was vacuumed back out to the empty horizon. It fused into hazed memories of other journeys, associated intimately through nothing but their common indefiniteness. None of them had been anything in themselves, or at least anything that could be recalled, other than cloudy allusions to alternative voyages, each fading into its own immemorability. They had been dreams, probably, or stories encountered long ago. Muffled echoes – vividly indistinct – returned from some freezing fogbank of forgetting.
Out there, somewhere, was recall. It would all come back, in its own time, or not. It made no difference. Ahead of us lay a pre-set course towards some absolute annihilation of purpose. We were getting rid of something. When it was done, we still wouldn’t know what it had been.
Something over 5,000 nautical miles away, West South-West, our destination simmered in the distant tropics. The lazy curve of our route had been plotted to miss out everything in between. The cargo was to be released into the Challenger Deep, where the Mariana Trench lurched down into its nethermost extremity. It came to its end in the Western Pacific, 210 miles South-West of Guam.
§08 — No one said much. On the one topic worthy of discussion there was nothing to be said. Already, it seemed, the crew had come to think of me as an additional layer of shielding, strategically placed between them and the object of their morbid fascination. They understood that I had not been set among them to clarify their near-term fate, but far more nearly the opposite. If they had questions about what lay in store for them, I would be the last one to hear them.
The distance made observation easier. The boat was too small for them to withdraw themselves from my attention without continuous effort. They were bottled specimens, within convenient visual and auditory range. There was no need to expend energy pursuing them. Like a spider – or something far less common but still spider-like – it was sufficient to quietly wait for my prey to appear. Even if time was to be an enemy (of unknown potency), space was on my side.
Scruggs, who had already singled himself out by the intensity of his aversion to my presence, was also the easiest to catch. When he stumbled upon me, his pride kept him from the path of immediate retreat. He wanted to communicate his defiance and animosity, along with his refusal to acknowledge any right on my part to a piece of the boat’s limited space. This territorial obstinacy continually lured him into the dissection-zone.
Perhaps, initially, he imagined I would shift out of his way, randomly displaced by discomfort. Instead, I smiled emptily at him, before returning to what I pretended were consuming private thoughts. That was a torment to him, and he handled it badly. He fed me every day.
It was difficult not to admire him, however distantly. He’d pulled himself out of a trajectory that had touched the edge of a black-hole. If not quite a breakage of fate, it looked much the same from outside. He was human gristle that the world had been forced to spit out.
Scruggs was inseparable from his King James Bible, a grim, leather-bound volume that had been pored over – or pawed through – to the edge of disintegration. On the rare occasions when it wasn’t in his hands, he kept it in a black canvas pouch that seemed to have been specially designed for the purpose. He spent a lot of time praying. His religiosity wasn’t quite exhibitionistic, but it was so entirely lacking in inhibitory self-consciousness that it might as well have been. It was to whatever he’d found in this book that he owed his difference from zero. There was no way he could hide his gratitude for that. There was something mustily glorious about it – a fragment of grim seventeenth century piety reanimated as a twenty-first century sport of nature.
“Steer us, each day, closer to the course of your Will, Lord,” he mumbled softly. “Help us to bind more tightly the evil in our hearts. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit that glides across the great water, shelter these wretched sinners from the storm of your wrath …”
He stared at me intently as he said this, and much else like it. I smiled back.
After a couple of days had passed, I took it up a notch.
“Scruggy,” I said as he passed, knowing the stupid nickname would annoy him.
“Scruggs,” he shot back, automatically.
“You have a moment?”
“No.” But he’d paused, instinctively.
“I was hoping to borrow your Bible – just for an hour or two – if you’re not looking at it right now.”
His arrested stroll transitioned into full paralysis.
I had been tweaking the barbed hook for thirty minutes or so, before deploying it. For a few seconds, I indulged myself in smug recognition of its genius. Once it had sunk in, the inter-angled acuities made it impossible to wriggle from, without it digging in further from another direction.
“Why?” he managed eventually.
“Why read the Bible?” The distorted echo could only have been maddening.
He glowered, arms folded across his chest defensively. Yet beneath the infuriation I could see something else – the thing I was counting on – obliging him, crushingly, to share the Word.
Scruggs, who had already singled himself out by the intensity of his aversion to my presence, was also the easiest to catch. When he stumbled upon me, his pride kept him from the path of immediate retreat. He wanted to communicate his defiance and animosity, along with his refusal to acknowledge any right on my part to a piece of the boat’s limited space. This territorial obstinacy continually lured him into the dissection-zone.
Perhaps, initially, he imagined I would shift out of his way, randomly displaced by discomfort. Instead, I smiled emptily at him, before returning to what I pretended were consuming private thoughts. That was a torment to him, and he handled it badly. He fed me every day.
It was difficult not to admire him, however distantly. He’d pulled himself out of a trajectory that had touched the edge of a black-hole. If not quite a breakage of fate, it looked much the same from outside. He was human gristle that the world had been forced to spit out.
Scruggs was inseparable from his King James Bible, a grim, leather-bound volume that had been pored over – or pawed through – to the edge of disintegration. On the rare occasions when it wasn’t in his hands, he kept it in a black canvas pouch that seemed to have been specially designed for the purpose. He spent a lot of time praying. His religiosity wasn’t quite exhibitionistic, but it was so entirely lacking in inhibitory self-consciousness that it might as well have been. It was to whatever he’d found in this book that he owed his difference from zero. There was no way he could hide his gratitude for that. There was something mustily glorious about it – a fragment of grim seventeenth century piety reanimated as a twenty-first century sport of nature.
“Steer us, each day, closer to the course of your Will, Lord,” he mumbled softly. “Help us to bind more tightly the evil in our hearts. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit that glides across the great water, shelter these wretched sinners from the storm of your wrath …”
He stared at me intently as he said this, and much else like it. I smiled back.
After a couple of days had passed, I took it up a notch.
“Scruggy,” I said as he passed, knowing the stupid nickname would annoy him.
“Scruggs,” he shot back, automatically.
“You have a moment?”
“No.” But he’d paused, instinctively.
“I was hoping to borrow your Bible – just for an hour or two – if you’re not looking at it right now.”
His arrested stroll transitioned into full paralysis.
I had been tweaking the barbed hook for thirty minutes or so, before deploying it. For a few seconds, I indulged myself in smug recognition of its genius. Once it had sunk in, the inter-angled acuities made it impossible to wriggle from, without it digging in further from another direction.
“Why?” he managed eventually.
“Why read the Bible?” The distorted echo could only have been maddening.
He glowered, arms folded across his chest defensively. Yet beneath the infuriation I could see something else – the thing I was counting on – obliging him, crushingly, to share the Word.
“The abyss,” I said, and then, as if in painstaking explanation to an idiot: “I want to
see what it says about the abyss.”
He pulled out the book. “This is a King James,” he said. “It never uses the word.”
“It isn’t the word that matters.”
“‘The deep’, ‘the bottomless pit’, ‘the abode of demons’ …” he guessed. “That’s what you’re after?”
Was the ambivalence deliberate? If so, it was impressive. His face betrayed no guile.
“What I’m after?” I repeated, as a test.
“What you’re looking for.” The displacement clarified nothing. “Why do you care?”
“About what’s in there?” I gestured towards the book, tugging again on the initial request – twisting the hook still deeper into the neuralgic zone of his conflicted possessiveness. “You don’t think it has anything to tell us about where we’re going?”
“You don’t care about what’s in here,” he snapped, succumbing to his hostility.
“About what’s inside?” Tugging again, slowly.
“It’s not ‘inside’.”
“You think I disagree?”
He turned to leave, dazed with vague rage.
“Come on Scuggs,” I asked, again. “The book. Just for an hour.”
He froze once more, turned back, twisting on the line. He couldn’t lend it to me. He couldn’t not.
“It’s okay,” I said, letting it go. “Later.”
Weeks stretched ahead. He had nowhere to flee.
see what it says about the abyss.”
He pulled out the book. “This is a King James,” he said. “It never uses the word.”
“It isn’t the word that matters.”
“‘The deep’, ‘the bottomless pit’, ‘the abode of demons’ …” he guessed. “That’s what you’re after?”
Was the ambivalence deliberate? If so, it was impressive. His face betrayed no guile.
“What I’m after?” I repeated, as a test.
“What you’re looking for.” The displacement clarified nothing. “Why do you care?”
“About what’s in there?” I gestured towards the book, tugging again on the initial request – twisting the hook still deeper into the neuralgic zone of his conflicted possessiveness. “You don’t think it has anything to tell us about where we’re going?”
“You don’t care about what’s in here,” he snapped, succumbing to his hostility.
“About what’s inside?” Tugging again, slowly.
“It’s not ‘inside’.”
“You think I disagree?”
He turned to leave, dazed with vague rage.
“Come on Scuggs,” I asked, again. “The book. Just for an hour.”
He froze once more, turned back, twisting on the line. He couldn’t lend it to me. He couldn’t not.
“It’s okay,” I said, letting it go. “Later.”
Weeks stretched ahead. He had nowhere to flee.
§09 — A blind spot is a hole in perception that conceals itself. It’s the thing you don’t see. The cargo – the thought of the cargo – was like that. It was perfectly hidden, in every normal respect. Yet in some other and excessive dimension it loomed. It was impossible to contemplate directly, and perhaps even indirectly, but it overshadowed everything. Oppressively close, yet absolutely elsewhere, it intimately engaged with us, on terms that were not ours. It enveloped our thoughts, and words, even our movements. We were caught in its absolutely ungraspable proximity, as if in a subtle web.
It had not occurred to me that it could be anything we might understand. That was a pre-emptive defense mechanism, I had already begun to recognize. Otherwise, the tantalization would have been intolerable, consuming all thought, without remainder. None of my crewmates were as well protected. It sucked upon them.
I had brought nothing to read, and could no longer understand why. How had I thought I was going to divert myself? It was already hard to remember. Even if there was more time to kill than I could have expected, that had already been plenty – 350 hours or so by any reasonable guess. It wasn’t going to conveniently compress itself.
Still, there were threads of recollection to tug at. Guarding the cargo was to have been the time sink. I had assumed it would be a serious matter – requiring continuous vigilance, even something akin to patrolling, or aggressive reconnaissance, although of a subtle variety. Deliberate diversion hadn’t been a consideration. It would have been like taking a fat beach-holiday novel to a competitive chess match – but then, the match had in some still indefinite sense been cancelled. There was a gaping, unexpected hole, which the containment unit echoed unilluminously.
I had brought nothing to read, and could no longer understand why. How had I thought I was going to divert myself? It was already hard to remember. Even if there was more time to kill than I could have expected, that had already been plenty – 350 hours or so by any reasonable guess. It wasn’t going to conveniently compress itself.
Still, there were threads of recollection to tug at. Guarding the cargo was to have been the time sink. I had assumed it would be a serious matter – requiring continuous vigilance, even something akin to patrolling, or aggressive reconnaissance, although of a subtle variety. Deliberate diversion hadn’t been a consideration. It would have been like taking a fat beach-holiday novel to a competitive chess match – but then, the match had in some still indefinite sense been cancelled. There was a gaping, unexpected hole, which the containment unit echoed unilluminously.
Spare time wasn’t anything familiar, professionally speaking. I had become habituated to continuous acceleration, to an extent that I only now clearly acknowledged. Up to this point, there had always been a little more complexity in a little less time. Full-Stop, the last job, had been especially difficult. There had been too many moving parts, and too many players. It had begun smoothly enough, but it had ended with crawling about in the dark, knives, gunfire, and screaming. It had also involved a boat, though it had not set out to sea. By the end, it had been a floating morgue. Under such conditions, and beyond very strict limits, redundancy was slackness to be excised. I had been unprepared for our new microuniverse, where superfluity was enthroned, without challenge.
Bolton had tilted the other way. He had brought three substantial volumes with him on our voyage. The first was a densely-technical analysis of memristor architecture, the second a somewhat more discursive – but still imposingly-mathematical – introduction to holographic universe cosmology. His third book was of far greater obvious relevance to our undertaking. He lent it to me without reluctance, perhaps anticipating a modestly informed conversation in the days ahead.
The book was an introduction to hydrothermal vent eco-systems – what it called ‘dark ecologies’. It wasn’t especially impenetrable – easy reading for Bolton, I guessed – so I was able to partially digest its contents over the few hours of the loan. Life without light was the theme. Since the topic wasn’t anything I had turned my mind to before, it was enlightening from the start. Anaerobic bacteria were the constructors. In the absence of sunlight, the extremophile-based ecologies of the ocean depths fueled themselves by extracting usable energy from heat, methane, and sulfur compounds through chemosynthesis. This produced the foundations of a food-chain. Insofar as terrestrial biology was concerned, this was the Old Road. The sun was nothing to the denizens of the abyss except a geochemical legacy, and a distant invisible mass. It would have been dream fuel, if there had still been dreams.
“Active hydrothermal vents are thought to exist on some of the gas giant moons,” Bolton said. “On Jupiter’s Europa, probably, and Saturn’s Enceladus. There have even been scientific speculations that ancient hydrothermal vents once existed on Mars.”
“This place we’re going?” I asked Bolton. “It has this night life?”
“Sure,” he replied. “A long way down. It’s not as if we’re going to see any of this stuff.”
Bolton had tilted the other way. He had brought three substantial volumes with him on our voyage. The first was a densely-technical analysis of memristor architecture, the second a somewhat more discursive – but still imposingly-mathematical – introduction to holographic universe cosmology. His third book was of far greater obvious relevance to our undertaking. He lent it to me without reluctance, perhaps anticipating a modestly informed conversation in the days ahead.
The book was an introduction to hydrothermal vent eco-systems – what it called ‘dark ecologies’. It wasn’t especially impenetrable – easy reading for Bolton, I guessed – so I was able to partially digest its contents over the few hours of the loan. Life without light was the theme. Since the topic wasn’t anything I had turned my mind to before, it was enlightening from the start. Anaerobic bacteria were the constructors. In the absence of sunlight, the extremophile-based ecologies of the ocean depths fueled themselves by extracting usable energy from heat, methane, and sulfur compounds through chemosynthesis. This produced the foundations of a food-chain. Insofar as terrestrial biology was concerned, this was the Old Road. The sun was nothing to the denizens of the abyss except a geochemical legacy, and a distant invisible mass. It would have been dream fuel, if there had still been dreams.
“Active hydrothermal vents are thought to exist on some of the gas giant moons,” Bolton said. “On Jupiter’s Europa, probably, and Saturn’s Enceladus. There have even been scientific speculations that ancient hydrothermal vents once existed on Mars.”
“This place we’re going?” I asked Bolton. “It has this night life?”
“Sure,” he replied. “A long way down. It’s not as if we’re going to see any of this stuff.”
“No,” I agreed. “But it’s there.”
§10 — The Pythoness was so highly automated it was basically a robot. There wasn’t much for any of us to do. Frazer was the only one of us to be badly affected by that, initially, and in any obvious way. He drifted around the vessel in a state of unsuppressed agitation, his senses straining for anything that could absorb his attention. Every half hour or so he re-visited the bridge, scrupulously checked the computer monitors, tried to find some point of insertion for expert human judgment, and failed. Then he returned to the deck to prowl around moodily, intermittently gazing out into the gray confusion of sea and sky. His sense of frustrated obligation was palpable.
The three others appeared undisturbed by the inescapable idleness, which worried me more. What The Pythoness was inflicting upon us – the basic thing here – was time glut. If it wasn’t a mistake, it was worse. To leave the crew so unoccupied was an invitation to chaos. Eventually, this compulsory liberation from the constraints of practical routine would turn into something.
For an hour or so I amused myself with thoughts of pointless duties and diversions that could be invented, and wondered – but only vaguely, and momentarily – whether it was something I should try to throw myself into. The idea was deeply unrealistic. Even were I capable of inventing plausible tasks to mop up everyone’s time, I had no authority to impose them. Frazer alone could do that. Besides, it was already far too late to begin now. The situation was set.
Directionless self-entertainment would be no real substitute for a sense of purpose, not for long. The Pythoness was a time bomb. She was far too self-contained, but it didn’t end there. Whatever she could not do herself, could be done instead remotely, from the Port Sidon Qasm facility. The final abolition of our practical relevance took the form of the
‘snakes’. Qasm had decided upon the name, which made enough sense to stick with. There were two. Each was an extendable tele-control cable with a multifunctional tool-head. One would have been plenty, but pairing them was another example of redundant design. There was one located on the port side of the upper bridge, another on the starboard side, but either was capable of reaching any place on the boat. We didn’t see much of them, for the first few days.
“Nihilism is nothing but too much time,” Brad Miller had said, as Full-Stop was going south. “When people without enough to do begin to look for something – that’s when the problems begin.” That was roughly 36-hours before he was tortured to death in a soundproofed San Francisco basement by Robert Philcarius – ‘The Entertainer’ – whose Morons’ Law anarchist hacker-cult had trojaned itself into the Qasm servers ‘for kicks’. It was another two days before I found the body, and by then it had begun to smell bad. “Full-Stop for Brad,” the clowns had laughed. Eight of the Morons died – three very horribly – before it was clear there was nothing behind the prank. The outcome was “acceptable” in Qasm’s estimation. After that, it no longer felt as if I was being over-paid.
The three others appeared undisturbed by the inescapable idleness, which worried me more. What The Pythoness was inflicting upon us – the basic thing here – was time glut. If it wasn’t a mistake, it was worse. To leave the crew so unoccupied was an invitation to chaos. Eventually, this compulsory liberation from the constraints of practical routine would turn into something.
For an hour or so I amused myself with thoughts of pointless duties and diversions that could be invented, and wondered – but only vaguely, and momentarily – whether it was something I should try to throw myself into. The idea was deeply unrealistic. Even were I capable of inventing plausible tasks to mop up everyone’s time, I had no authority to impose them. Frazer alone could do that. Besides, it was already far too late to begin now. The situation was set.
Directionless self-entertainment would be no real substitute for a sense of purpose, not for long. The Pythoness was a time bomb. She was far too self-contained, but it didn’t end there. Whatever she could not do herself, could be done instead remotely, from the Port Sidon Qasm facility. The final abolition of our practical relevance took the form of the
‘snakes’. Qasm had decided upon the name, which made enough sense to stick with. There were two. Each was an extendable tele-control cable with a multifunctional tool-head. One would have been plenty, but pairing them was another example of redundant design. There was one located on the port side of the upper bridge, another on the starboard side, but either was capable of reaching any place on the boat. We didn’t see much of them, for the first few days.
“Nihilism is nothing but too much time,” Brad Miller had said, as Full-Stop was going south. “When people without enough to do begin to look for something – that’s when the problems begin.” That was roughly 36-hours before he was tortured to death in a soundproofed San Francisco basement by Robert Philcarius – ‘The Entertainer’ – whose Morons’ Law anarchist hacker-cult had trojaned itself into the Qasm servers ‘for kicks’. It was another two days before I found the body, and by then it had begun to smell bad. “Full-Stop for Brad,” the clowns had laughed. Eight of the Morons died – three very horribly – before it was clear there was nothing behind the prank. The outcome was “acceptable” in Qasm’s estimation. After that, it no longer felt as if I was being over-paid.
I didn’t – at that point – expect anything like Philcarius-style full-spectrum insanity to afflict us out here, but what would occupy our time? The question became more intriguing when reversed. Why had a crew been needed at all? Might sheer institutional inertia have accounted for it? That was certainly conceivable. But if one man – even two – had been considered prudent, as security against contingencies, why five? Our redundancy was so extravagant it was impossible to ignore. This was a mission demanding next to nothing from any of us.
It was a social experiment, even if an accidental one. There would still have been an explosive abundance of time if it had been neatly disintegrated by sleep, but that isn’t what happened. What happened was the other thing.
§11 — It would have been possible, no doubt, to select five men less inclined to the bonds of mutual companionship, but it would not have been easy. Between each of us, and every other, stood formidable walls of incomprehension, and actually latent antagonism. The only thing we shared was disconnection. Three weeks without Internet had begun, and nobody had yet mentioned it. Clearly, none of my companions were connective types.
§11 — It would have been possible, no doubt, to select five men less inclined to the bonds of mutual companionship, but it would not have been easy. Between each of us, and every other, stood formidable walls of incomprehension, and actually latent antagonism. The only thing we shared was disconnection. Three weeks without Internet had begun, and nobody had yet mentioned it. Clearly, none of my companions were connective types.
I had to remind myself that these four had worked together before, more than once. The acknowledgement was instantly amusing. They had all, immediately, disappeared almost entirely into themselves. Frazer was lost in the solitude of command, Bolton in his technical calculations, Scruggs in the mysteries of prayer, and Zodh in whatever heathenish horrors seethed secretly in his brain. None had any solid ground for communion with any of his fellows. They were all following separate paths that led only inward. The intimacy with the sea – which they did hold in common – only distanced them further from each other. The Pacific they crossed was not a place of contact, or commercial intercourse, but for each a very different, essentially incommunicable thing. I could already make out the rough outlines. For Frazer it was a challenge, for Bolton an insulator, and for Scruggs a prospect of final redemption. A gradual erosion of motivation gnawed upon all three. Zodh was the outlier. Alone among the crew, his sense of purpose was in no obvious way attenuated. If anything, it seemed peculiarly intensified, screwed up to a wild and alien pitch. The behavior through which it manifested itself was initially unintelligible. He spent six-hour blocks of time in swirling motion. The overall tendency of his meanderings was a counter-clockwise circumambulation of The Pythoness, in slow gyrations whose consistency emerged from a turbulence of sub-loops and gestural complexities. He appeared to be in the early stage of some artistic or architectural endeavour, encompassing the entire vessel. At first I suspected he was engaged in a process of measurement, since at certain points he stopped dead in his tracks, as if to mentally digest the completion of some arcane metric unit. Gradually, however, these moments of concentration resolved themselves into the performance of a ritual. “Pits-Drop, Pits-Drop,” he repeated, over and over, exploring the syllables, summoning something through them. After the first hundred micro-cycles of the chant, it had become indistinguishable from a dull headache. I tuned it out, to the best of my ability.
“Hey, Zodh,” I called out, softly but distinctly, as a test. He ignored me, as I had guessed he would. I let it go. There was time.
“Hey, Zodh,” I called out, softly but distinctly, as a test. He ignored me, as I had guessed he would. I let it go. There was time.
§12 — Do you kill people for a living? asked an unrecognized voice, high-pitched, and sarcastic. Is that what you do? It was jarringly textured, and extravagantly vital – in a way that was only possible for something that had never been alive. The jolt of synthetic animation induced queasiness. Memories are best eaten dead.
I turned around, automatically, but no one was there. It wasn’t that I had expected there to be, upon even split-second cursory reflection. The absence was a confirmation, rather than a surprise. Almost certainly, it was an auditory phantasm, woven opportunistically into atmospheric noise. Such verbal apparitions were not unfamiliar to me, or even particularly mysterious – voices that were not quite thoughts, but which guided thought, to intolerable destinations. They were advance symptoms of psychological dissociation, and probably no more than an indication of gathering sleep-loss craziness in this case. Still, distractions – I had seen vicariously – could be death-traps. It would be necessary to keep a tight grip on them.
§13 — Nothing is hazardous without time, without the opportunity for things to happen. In any game, when estimating the menace posed by the enemy, one asks: how much time do they have?
Who was the enemy here? I wasn’t ready to assume that we lacked one.
§13 — Nothing is hazardous without time, without the opportunity for things to happen. In any game, when estimating the menace posed by the enemy, one asks: how much time do they have?
Who was the enemy here? I wasn’t ready to assume that we lacked one.
Zodh was attempting to teach Bolton and Scruggs a card game. It was something he’d picked up from fishermen in the Sunda Strait according to the tale he was weaving – in hideously broken English – around the edge of the demonstration. The cards were ‘bets’ or ‘beasts’ (it was hard to tell) lashed together by elementary arithmetic. I tried to get some sense of the rules, while pretending to pay no attention. After perhaps a quarter of an hour of such lurking, the impression I had gathered was only barely compatible with the diversion being a game at all. It appeared to be far less about winning or losing – in any conventional sense – than about something else entirely, and whatever that was, neither Bolton nor Scruggs seemed to have any greater purchase upon it than I did. Zodh was being drawn ever deeper into the cryptic circulation of the cards, but Scruggs and Bolton had been lost along the way. Scruggs gave up first, muttering something I couldn’t catch, and then drifting off, directionlessly. Bolton followed a couple of minutes later. Zodh seemed scarcely to notice.
I wandered over and squatted down in what had been Scruggs’ place. Zodh didn’t notice that, either. I hadn’t expected to extract significant pattern from the cards, and I didn’t. It was impossible, nevertheless, to miss the fact that something was there. It was an abstract engine. Some kind of sub-decimal fusion process drove flakes of fate around a central three-phase circuit, in a turbular cascade.
After perhaps twenty minutes, Zodh looked up, at and through me.
“Storm coming,” he said, without discernible affect.
§14 — Mid-afternoon on the third day, with nothing obvious to do, it occurred to me that it would make sense to try and catch up on missed sleep. No one would miss me, or anybody else. It wasn’t that I felt particularly tired, even after a succession of nights that had seemed completely sleepless. The feeling of detachment had persisted, toppling over at times into an impression of general unreality, but there was still no suggestion whatsoever of an inclination to unconsciousness.
After perhaps twenty minutes, Zodh looked up, at and through me.
“Storm coming,” he said, without discernible affect.
§14 — Mid-afternoon on the third day, with nothing obvious to do, it occurred to me that it would make sense to try and catch up on missed sleep. No one would miss me, or anybody else. It wasn’t that I felt particularly tired, even after a succession of nights that had seemed completely sleepless. The feeling of detachment had persisted, toppling over at times into an impression of general unreality, but there was still no suggestion whatsoever of an inclination to unconsciousness.
I went below deck, took off my shoes, clambered up into my bunk, and lay on my back. Closing my eyes shut down far less awareness than it was meant to. Indeterminate thoughts ground like restless gears. After perhaps fifteen minutes I gave up, climbed down from the bunk, put my shoes on, and went back outside.
It was a little after half-past three in the afternoon, local time. The sea and sky were still, bleak, and indistinct. Our distance from the destination had to be shrinking steadily, but there was no corresponding intuition. Motion had resolved itself into a changeless condition, without any frame of reference. The Pacific was the closest thing to a terrestrial image of endlessness, a vastness released – reluctantly – from some small fraction of the horizon. There was nothing to compare it to. It defied estimation even relative to itself.
Contemplation of the unbounded sea and sky was unsettling after a while. Each was interrupted only by the other, in a shimmering remoteness of uncertain definition. The continuous flight of the horizon from apprehension – into a line at once attractive and intangible – was psychologically exhausting. When exposed to those untrammeled magnitudes for too long, the mind ached from overstretch.
It was a little after half-past three in the afternoon, local time. The sea and sky were still, bleak, and indistinct. Our distance from the destination had to be shrinking steadily, but there was no corresponding intuition. Motion had resolved itself into a changeless condition, without any frame of reference. The Pacific was the closest thing to a terrestrial image of endlessness, a vastness released – reluctantly – from some small fraction of the horizon. There was nothing to compare it to. It defied estimation even relative to itself.
Contemplation of the unbounded sea and sky was unsettling after a while. Each was interrupted only by the other, in a shimmering remoteness of uncertain definition. The continuous flight of the horizon from apprehension – into a line at once attractive and intangible – was psychologically exhausting. When exposed to those untrammeled magnitudes for too long, the mind ached from overstretch.
The cargo containment unit called silently, so I went to it. There was at least one absolute non-event in the universe. It was absorbing beyond all reason.
After some time, the door opened and closed behind me. It was Bolton.
“The Captain sent me,” he said.
I nodded, uninterestedly.
“He wanted to know what you were doing.”
This deserved less than a nod. It was pointless irritation.
“There’s a camera.” He pointed to the mechanical eye in the corner. “It feeds to the local core, in the bridge. You’ve been standing here for over an hour, just staring at it.”
“At what?”
“At …” He broke off, and looked again, long enough to remember there was nothing to see.
The absence pulled at him, until he turned away.
From certain, very specific angles, the merest hint of reflectivity swam up out of the blackness, hinting remotely at shadows. Perhaps he could catch some cryptic trace of his drowned image, cast down into the gulf of obliteration. It was unlikely, though. The scraps of escaping light had been chewed into abstraction by some buried turbular agitation.
“So what are you doing here?” he pressed.
“Watching over it. Doing my job.”
“You’re expecting it to move?” It was probably intended as a humorous remark. “I don’t like it,” he added, in a smaller voice.
“This?” I asked unnecessarily, with a minimalistic gesture into the encapsulating void. “What’s not to like?” Then, with a little less flippancy: “It’s a box.”
“I guess.” He turned to go, pausing at the hatch. “You’re staying here?”
“For a while.”
“The Captain sent me,” he said.
I nodded, uninterestedly.
“He wanted to know what you were doing.”
This deserved less than a nod. It was pointless irritation.
“There’s a camera.” He pointed to the mechanical eye in the corner. “It feeds to the local core, in the bridge. You’ve been standing here for over an hour, just staring at it.”
“At what?”
“At …” He broke off, and looked again, long enough to remember there was nothing to see.
The absence pulled at him, until he turned away.
From certain, very specific angles, the merest hint of reflectivity swam up out of the blackness, hinting remotely at shadows. Perhaps he could catch some cryptic trace of his drowned image, cast down into the gulf of obliteration. It was unlikely, though. The scraps of escaping light had been chewed into abstraction by some buried turbular agitation.
“So what are you doing here?” he pressed.
“Watching over it. Doing my job.”
“You’re expecting it to move?” It was probably intended as a humorous remark. “I don’t like it,” he added, in a smaller voice.
“This?” I asked unnecessarily, with a minimalistic gesture into the encapsulating void. “What’s not to like?” Then, with a little less flippancy: “It’s a box.”
“I guess.” He turned to go, pausing at the hatch. “You’re staying here?”
“For a while.”
§15 — Each night was the same. Descent into unconsciousness was impossible. I was trapped at the surface of awareness, as if by some stubborn positive buoyancy. With each downward struggle the imposition of sentience seemed – if anything – to intensify.
The sleeplessness of previous nights had long ceased to be dismissable as an aberration. It was the way things were now – an architectural component of out shrunken world.After an hour or so I abandoned the pointless trial and climbed out of my berth, as quietly as possible. The consideration was unnecessary. Nobody was sleeping.
The sleeplessness of previous nights had long ceased to be dismissable as an aberration. It was the way things were now – an architectural component of out shrunken world.After an hour or so I abandoned the pointless trial and climbed out of my berth, as quietly as possible. The consideration was unnecessary. Nobody was sleeping.
Only Zodh still lay in his bunk. He was fully dressed and uncovered, flat on his back, with his eyes wide open. His lips, I thought, were breathlessly animated. If some whisper was emerging, however, I could not hear any of it. Rather than hallucinate random utterances into the sonic vacancy, I turned away, to look around the cabin.
Bolton and Scruggs sat side by side on the horseshoe, as if positioned for a conversation that was not taking place. Their exhaustion was so palpable it seemed to sit beside, and between them.
Frazer came in from outside. He looked a lot worse than I felt. Even in the gloom of the cabin it was easy to see that his eyes were bloodshot, and recessed among dark rings, as if sunk deep into folds of heavy bruising.
“You look like crap,” I told him.
He squinted at me grumpily.
“Just one more week,” I said.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “If the weather doesn’t deteriorate any further. Coffee ready?”
Like everything else on The Pythoness, caffeine provision was an automated function. We’d set the allocation schedule within hours of setting out, and had since found no pressing reason to change it. To seize upon the option to re-set the coffee machine as a chance to assert our residual autonomy would have been too degrading to bear.
“Do you know what we have in the medical locker?” I asked him. “You think there might be something in there for sleep prevention?”
He regarded me quizzically. “How is sleep prevention in any way the problem we have?” But he was already getting it. If we were going to be imprisoned in sleeplessness, it made sense to sharpen the condition. That would mean taking a dubious journey to its end, but our choices in that regard were – in any case – brutally constrained. “It has to be worth a look, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, okay,” he agreed, without further resistance.
We pulled out the medicine chest and emptied it, methodically, onto the floor.
Bandages went into one pile, surgical instruments into another. When the first stage was complete, and the pharmaceuticals had been isolated, we returned everything else to the chest, in tolerable order.
Sorting out the drugs was only a little more complicated. Everything was neatly labeled.
“Is this what we want?” Frazer asked, after only a few seconds of sieving.
It only took a quick look. I nodded. There were three packets, each containing two foil and bubble-sealed sheets of 24 capsules. It was called Zommodrine.
“What the hell is that?” he muttered. I had never heard of the substance before, either. The label included a warning not to consume more than three tablets within any 24-hour period, noting the additional risks for those with high blood-pressure or heart conditions, and then, in large, dramatically emphasized type: prolonged sleep deprivation can produce a range of serious physical and psychological effects. This was totally our stuff.
“We should dish it out,” I suggested.
He was less sure. “Do we know what we’re doing?” he asked.
I ignored the absurd question and went to fetch a cup of water. Dosage instructions were hazy, so I popped two of the plastic blisters, downing the green-and-black caps.
“I’ve got stuff to do,” I said.
§16 — A few hours later Frazer stepped in to the machine room. His pupils were fully dilated, which had to be the zommodrine.
“How did I guess you’d be here?” The sarcasm was grating, pointlessly abusive.
“It’s not a large boat.”
He stared – just for a moment – into the compact nothingness. The he pulled a scrap of yellow carbon-copy paper from his pocket, and held it up.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
“‘Laboratory waste’,” he recited from the manifest by memory, as he waved it at me.
“What the fuck is that?”
“You ask too many questions,” I said. “It’s annoying you.”
“You’re not interested?” There was a hard edge to the question, which glinted with more unrefined hostility than I had noticed before.
“We’ve done that.”
“You think?” He paused, just for a second. “Why are you here, Symns? Really?”
“Talking to you now?”
“On this boat.”
I thought about it, again. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Why are any of us here?”
“Bolton is a serene nihilist,” he responded, at a tangent. “He fills his free time with
equations, endlessly reformulating zero. I wouldn’t call that ‘prayer’ – not usually – but I will now. Scruggs prays, every spare moment, the old way. Even Zodh prays – almost ceaselessly – to whatever hoodoo hideousnesses he thinks might be noticing. And then there’s you. … You come here.”
The machine room was a quiet place to be alone in, but I didn’t want to help him make his point.
“So what do you pray to, Frazer?” I asked, instead.
We stood together, staring at the near-perfect patch of blackness, as if before a self-concealing shrine to negative existence.
“Do you want to open it?” he asked, eventually.
“You mean, force it open?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me, unless at the most subliminal level. It had simply seemed impossible. It was impossible.
“Christ, no.”
“We could ditch it now,” he suggested, with an eagerness rooted more in brain-stem chemistry than reflection. The idea was – of course – instantly appealing, but only for that half-second of mental inertia, before the cognitive machinery re-engaged practicalities. Then it reverted to transparent senselessness.
“Two problems,” I said. “Start with mechanics. The release control has a GPS lock. Activation permission is rigidly location-dependent. So we don’t really get to the second problem, although it goes a lot deeper. The company thinks this thing – whatever the fuck it is – belongs in an ocean trench. I can only assume they have good reasons for that. …”
“Why did this become our problem?” Frazer asked. Even his current state of profound psychological erosion had failed to subvert his inner toughness – still expressed through his frame and bearing – so it was disappointing to see him now switching to a tack this pathetic. Countless hours of decompression could only have taught him patience, but to be caged in an enforced vacation among unexorcized command responsibilities was different.
Bolton and Scruggs sat side by side on the horseshoe, as if positioned for a conversation that was not taking place. Their exhaustion was so palpable it seemed to sit beside, and between them.
Frazer came in from outside. He looked a lot worse than I felt. Even in the gloom of the cabin it was easy to see that his eyes were bloodshot, and recessed among dark rings, as if sunk deep into folds of heavy bruising.
“You look like crap,” I told him.
He squinted at me grumpily.
“Just one more week,” I said.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “If the weather doesn’t deteriorate any further. Coffee ready?”
Like everything else on The Pythoness, caffeine provision was an automated function. We’d set the allocation schedule within hours of setting out, and had since found no pressing reason to change it. To seize upon the option to re-set the coffee machine as a chance to assert our residual autonomy would have been too degrading to bear.
“Do you know what we have in the medical locker?” I asked him. “You think there might be something in there for sleep prevention?”
He regarded me quizzically. “How is sleep prevention in any way the problem we have?” But he was already getting it. If we were going to be imprisoned in sleeplessness, it made sense to sharpen the condition. That would mean taking a dubious journey to its end, but our choices in that regard were – in any case – brutally constrained. “It has to be worth a look, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, okay,” he agreed, without further resistance.
We pulled out the medicine chest and emptied it, methodically, onto the floor.
Bandages went into one pile, surgical instruments into another. When the first stage was complete, and the pharmaceuticals had been isolated, we returned everything else to the chest, in tolerable order.
Sorting out the drugs was only a little more complicated. Everything was neatly labeled.
“Is this what we want?” Frazer asked, after only a few seconds of sieving.
It only took a quick look. I nodded. There were three packets, each containing two foil and bubble-sealed sheets of 24 capsules. It was called Zommodrine.
“What the hell is that?” he muttered. I had never heard of the substance before, either. The label included a warning not to consume more than three tablets within any 24-hour period, noting the additional risks for those with high blood-pressure or heart conditions, and then, in large, dramatically emphasized type: prolonged sleep deprivation can produce a range of serious physical and psychological effects. This was totally our stuff.
“We should dish it out,” I suggested.
He was less sure. “Do we know what we’re doing?” he asked.
I ignored the absurd question and went to fetch a cup of water. Dosage instructions were hazy, so I popped two of the plastic blisters, downing the green-and-black caps.
“I’ve got stuff to do,” I said.
§16 — A few hours later Frazer stepped in to the machine room. His pupils were fully dilated, which had to be the zommodrine.
“How did I guess you’d be here?” The sarcasm was grating, pointlessly abusive.
“It’s not a large boat.”
He stared – just for a moment – into the compact nothingness. The he pulled a scrap of yellow carbon-copy paper from his pocket, and held it up.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
“‘Laboratory waste’,” he recited from the manifest by memory, as he waved it at me.
“What the fuck is that?”
“You ask too many questions,” I said. “It’s annoying you.”
“You’re not interested?” There was a hard edge to the question, which glinted with more unrefined hostility than I had noticed before.
“We’ve done that.”
“You think?” He paused, just for a second. “Why are you here, Symns? Really?”
“Talking to you now?”
“On this boat.”
I thought about it, again. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Why are any of us here?”
“Bolton is a serene nihilist,” he responded, at a tangent. “He fills his free time with
equations, endlessly reformulating zero. I wouldn’t call that ‘prayer’ – not usually – but I will now. Scruggs prays, every spare moment, the old way. Even Zodh prays – almost ceaselessly – to whatever hoodoo hideousnesses he thinks might be noticing. And then there’s you. … You come here.”
The machine room was a quiet place to be alone in, but I didn’t want to help him make his point.
“So what do you pray to, Frazer?” I asked, instead.
We stood together, staring at the near-perfect patch of blackness, as if before a self-concealing shrine to negative existence.
“Do you want to open it?” he asked, eventually.
“You mean, force it open?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me, unless at the most subliminal level. It had simply seemed impossible. It was impossible.
“Christ, no.”
“We could ditch it now,” he suggested, with an eagerness rooted more in brain-stem chemistry than reflection. The idea was – of course – instantly appealing, but only for that half-second of mental inertia, before the cognitive machinery re-engaged practicalities. Then it reverted to transparent senselessness.
“Two problems,” I said. “Start with mechanics. The release control has a GPS lock. Activation permission is rigidly location-dependent. So we don’t really get to the second problem, although it goes a lot deeper. The company thinks this thing – whatever the fuck it is – belongs in an ocean trench. I can only assume they have good reasons for that. …”
“Why did this become our problem?” Frazer asked. Even his current state of profound psychological erosion had failed to subvert his inner toughness – still expressed through his frame and bearing – so it was disappointing to see him now switching to a tack this pathetic. Countless hours of decompression could only have taught him patience, but to be caged in an enforced vacation among unexorcized command responsibilities was different.
The absence of any opportunity for action was a torture for him. It had brought him this low, if only momentarily. He had arrived at his moral nadir.
I stared at him coldly. “It is our problem.”
There was simply no denying it, and he didn’t try.
After permitting him a few more seconds of silent submission to reality, I continued: “Unless we get this boat to the right coordinates, there’s no separating ourselves from whatever that thing is.”
There was simply no denying it, and he didn’t try.
After permitting him a few more seconds of silent submission to reality, I continued: “Unless we get this boat to the right coordinates, there’s no separating ourselves from whatever that thing is.”
He was struggling to pull himself together against the undertow of sleep starvation. Crucially, he was ashamed, even though he would never be able to admit it. Seeing his spiritual collapse arrested, I permitted myself a thin smile.
“How confident are you that there’s anything inside at all?” he asked, after a while.
This was a new twist. There was a grain of coarse genius to the question. If he was testing me, it was merely cunning, but I heard something else. He was exploring an inner horizon.
“Why would Qasm pay us to do nothing?” I parried, fully confident he wouldn’t know, or even try to guess.
“Why would they do any of this shit?”
He was back. I smiled sympathetically. “We’ll think about it, okay?”
A week to go.
§17 — All four of them were squatting together on the deck, the parasitic micro-community of The Pythoness gathered in a tight cluster. It would almost have composed a semi-circle, arranged around Frazer, if not for Zodh, who somehow strayed out beyond its natural boundary.
“How confident are you that there’s anything inside at all?” he asked, after a while.
This was a new twist. There was a grain of coarse genius to the question. If he was testing me, it was merely cunning, but I heard something else. He was exploring an inner horizon.
“Why would Qasm pay us to do nothing?” I parried, fully confident he wouldn’t know, or even try to guess.
“Why would they do any of this shit?”
He was back. I smiled sympathetically. “We’ll think about it, okay?”
A week to go.
§17 — All four of them were squatting together on the deck, the parasitic micro-community of The Pythoness gathered in a tight cluster. It would almost have composed a semi-circle, arranged around Frazer, if not for Zodh, who somehow strayed out beyond its natural boundary.
“A meeting?” I asked, pointedly.
Since the gathering could hardly have occurred spontaneously, it vividly exhibited my exclusion from the crew. I was an unknown factor, set firmly outside the central communication loop by a wall of structural suspicion. The point was too obvious for anyone to mention. Nobody tried to hide, or deny it.
Frazer looked up as I approached, his expression unreadable. “No one has slept,” he said. “Not since we set out.”
“How sure are you?”
“Quite sure,” he said. “Unless somebody is lying.” The last words were marked by a tone of contemptuous dismissal.
“You don’t think anybody is lying?” I asked, inclined to awkwardness.
Frazer refused the bait. “Not about this.” He paused, before resuming more aggressively, his stare boring into me, carbonized to blackness by implicit accusation: “Why would they?”
“Confusion, stupidity, fear ...”
“You’re not wanted here Symns,” Scruggs interrupted. “Scram. We’re talking.”
I ignored him. If the topic of their discussion mattered at all, it mattered to me.
“The cargo, the insomnia, they’re one thing – aren’t they?” Frazer asked me, as if I might know. Despite the profound suspicion built into the words, his tone had shifted, becoming more conciliatory, as if implicitly snubbing Scruggs’ demand for my expulsion.
I could only throw up my hands, refusing commitment. The hypothesis was roughly plausible, but nothing more.
“So, whatever it is, it’s keeping us awake,” Frazer pushed on.
“We don’t know that,” I objected.
He scowled. “So what do we know?”
Bolton and Scruggs edged even closer to him, as if to physically reinforce his question.
Their adamant solidarity was a provocation.
“Forget sleep for a moment. How’s memory working for you guys?” I probed.
They exchanged glances, blankly.
“Let’s assume you’re right, and everyone here has been sleep-stripped for a week now. That’s 170 hours of continuous awareness, roughly speaking. Think of it as a dilating consciousness bubble, stretching ever thinner. What do you remember from before that? You could start with something easy, like the eleventh of February.”
Encouraged by gathering signs of uneasiness, I pushed further. “Or how about the last dream you can recall?”
“Who remembers dreams?” Bolton objected. “They’re designed to erase themselves.”
“I remember them,” Scruggs dissented, drawn in despite himself. “Usually.”
“But not recently?” I asked, pressing my advantage.
“No,” he accepted.
The most recent dreams I could remember had been about sleep. I had been surprised they could exist, on the assumption that dreams were a place for unconsciousness to hide itself. Perhaps they were fake recollections.
“It’s supposed to be impossible to die in a dream, isn’t it?” I asked, diagonally.
“Does anyone still believe that?”
“There were dreams I never had,” Scruggs said, cutting across me. “Instead.”
As a disruption gambit, it was the worst move he could have made. This was the admission I had been waiting for. Yet to have my tentative speculations confirmed so smoothly was deeply troubling, in a way I had not foreseen. Peversely, I was tempted to challenge him. Perhaps it isn’t what you think? His mind was finally in its own place, and the words poured out in a torrent.
“There was no light, only burning darkness,” he began. “It was a realm of total blindness, and yet it could be vividly – crushingly – sensed. The foundations of the earth were being ripped apart, and from that ceaseless, Titanic ruin the great city rose, its towers blacker still than the eternal night, smoking pyres of endless sacrifice without meaning or limit, seething with abominations. Gravity had been extinguished, until there was only pressure, and the taste of constant incineration. From beneath the absolute silence, ground upwards from depths below absymal depths, an immense rumbling din crashed through the dense medium, in shattering waves.” He turned to Bolton. “That’s what it’s like down there, isn’t it?”
Everyone retreated into silence, until Scruggs spoke up again. “Yes,” he said, as if to an unasked question. “I thought it was some place else.”
“Hell?” Frazer guessed.
Scruggs visibly prickled, in anticipation of an attack that didn’t come.
“It’s hellish enough,” Frazer continued, the placation judged to near-perfection. “But
what has it to do with us? This isn’t a diving expedition. Nobody is going down there.”
Since the gathering could hardly have occurred spontaneously, it vividly exhibited my exclusion from the crew. I was an unknown factor, set firmly outside the central communication loop by a wall of structural suspicion. The point was too obvious for anyone to mention. Nobody tried to hide, or deny it.
Frazer looked up as I approached, his expression unreadable. “No one has slept,” he said. “Not since we set out.”
“How sure are you?”
“Quite sure,” he said. “Unless somebody is lying.” The last words were marked by a tone of contemptuous dismissal.
“You don’t think anybody is lying?” I asked, inclined to awkwardness.
Frazer refused the bait. “Not about this.” He paused, before resuming more aggressively, his stare boring into me, carbonized to blackness by implicit accusation: “Why would they?”
“Confusion, stupidity, fear ...”
“You’re not wanted here Symns,” Scruggs interrupted. “Scram. We’re talking.”
I ignored him. If the topic of their discussion mattered at all, it mattered to me.
“The cargo, the insomnia, they’re one thing – aren’t they?” Frazer asked me, as if I might know. Despite the profound suspicion built into the words, his tone had shifted, becoming more conciliatory, as if implicitly snubbing Scruggs’ demand for my expulsion.
I could only throw up my hands, refusing commitment. The hypothesis was roughly plausible, but nothing more.
“So, whatever it is, it’s keeping us awake,” Frazer pushed on.
“We don’t know that,” I objected.
He scowled. “So what do we know?”
Bolton and Scruggs edged even closer to him, as if to physically reinforce his question.
Their adamant solidarity was a provocation.
“Forget sleep for a moment. How’s memory working for you guys?” I probed.
They exchanged glances, blankly.
“Let’s assume you’re right, and everyone here has been sleep-stripped for a week now. That’s 170 hours of continuous awareness, roughly speaking. Think of it as a dilating consciousness bubble, stretching ever thinner. What do you remember from before that? You could start with something easy, like the eleventh of February.”
Encouraged by gathering signs of uneasiness, I pushed further. “Or how about the last dream you can recall?”
“Who remembers dreams?” Bolton objected. “They’re designed to erase themselves.”
“I remember them,” Scruggs dissented, drawn in despite himself. “Usually.”
“But not recently?” I asked, pressing my advantage.
“No,” he accepted.
The most recent dreams I could remember had been about sleep. I had been surprised they could exist, on the assumption that dreams were a place for unconsciousness to hide itself. Perhaps they were fake recollections.
“It’s supposed to be impossible to die in a dream, isn’t it?” I asked, diagonally.
“Does anyone still believe that?”
“There were dreams I never had,” Scruggs said, cutting across me. “Instead.”
As a disruption gambit, it was the worst move he could have made. This was the admission I had been waiting for. Yet to have my tentative speculations confirmed so smoothly was deeply troubling, in a way I had not foreseen. Peversely, I was tempted to challenge him. Perhaps it isn’t what you think? His mind was finally in its own place, and the words poured out in a torrent.
“There was no light, only burning darkness,” he began. “It was a realm of total blindness, and yet it could be vividly – crushingly – sensed. The foundations of the earth were being ripped apart, and from that ceaseless, Titanic ruin the great city rose, its towers blacker still than the eternal night, smoking pyres of endless sacrifice without meaning or limit, seething with abominations. Gravity had been extinguished, until there was only pressure, and the taste of constant incineration. From beneath the absolute silence, ground upwards from depths below absymal depths, an immense rumbling din crashed through the dense medium, in shattering waves.” He turned to Bolton. “That’s what it’s like down there, isn’t it?”
Everyone retreated into silence, until Scruggs spoke up again. “Yes,” he said, as if to an unasked question. “I thought it was some place else.”
“Hell?” Frazer guessed.
Scruggs visibly prickled, in anticipation of an attack that didn’t come.
“It’s hellish enough,” Frazer continued, the placation judged to near-perfection. “But
what has it to do with us? This isn’t a diving expedition. Nobody is going down there.”
“Unless it’s coming up to us,” Scruggs muttered.
“And we’re dropping something into it,” Bolton added.
“Do you guys always take dreams this seriously?” I asked.
“Except it isn’t a dream,” Bolton countered. “No one has been sleeping.”
“So what is it then?” I pressed further. This was the place I had wanted to take us.
Now we were here, I’d lost all sense of what came next.
“Don’t you see? It’s the obstacle,” he said. “The barrier.”
I could make no sense of the statement, and looked around to see if anyone else was following. No one seemed to be.
“Would it necessarily be so horrible to sleep?” Bolton continued. To everyone other than himself, it was a question that came from nowhere, out of the gray. Time spinning uselessly on stripped gears.
“You think that’s the problem?” I replied, inattentively. Nothing seemed more obvious to me than the irrelevance of this line of inquiry.
Bolton ignored me, and turned towards Scruggs – an easier mark. “We could take turns,” he insisted, clutching desperately. “Monitor each other. Set up a shift system. Break through the wall of fear.”
“Christ,” I mumbled in disgust.
Bolton fidgeted shiftily. If he believed his own bullshit he was hiding it well.
“It could work,” he said. “Think about it. It has to be this.”
“Assume, just for comedy’s sake, that having someone holding your hand is going to get you across the sleep barrier,” I growled, infuriated that we were wasting words on the suggestion. “How many minutes before you wake screaming in terror? How much refreshing sleep do you expect to get? Or do we escalate to lullabies?”
“You finished?” Frazer asked. It was clear to me from his tone that he knew what I’d said had been necessary – even if ideally communicated with less harshness.
Bolton looked as if he was close to tears, but I could tell that his moment of grasping at childish hopes was done. “Okay,” he said softly, rocking slightly. “Okay.”
It seemed like the right moment to leave.
“And we’re dropping something into it,” Bolton added.
“Do you guys always take dreams this seriously?” I asked.
“Except it isn’t a dream,” Bolton countered. “No one has been sleeping.”
“So what is it then?” I pressed further. This was the place I had wanted to take us.
Now we were here, I’d lost all sense of what came next.
“Don’t you see? It’s the obstacle,” he said. “The barrier.”
I could make no sense of the statement, and looked around to see if anyone else was following. No one seemed to be.
“Would it necessarily be so horrible to sleep?” Bolton continued. To everyone other than himself, it was a question that came from nowhere, out of the gray. Time spinning uselessly on stripped gears.
“You think that’s the problem?” I replied, inattentively. Nothing seemed more obvious to me than the irrelevance of this line of inquiry.
Bolton ignored me, and turned towards Scruggs – an easier mark. “We could take turns,” he insisted, clutching desperately. “Monitor each other. Set up a shift system. Break through the wall of fear.”
“Christ,” I mumbled in disgust.
Bolton fidgeted shiftily. If he believed his own bullshit he was hiding it well.
“It could work,” he said. “Think about it. It has to be this.”
“Assume, just for comedy’s sake, that having someone holding your hand is going to get you across the sleep barrier,” I growled, infuriated that we were wasting words on the suggestion. “How many minutes before you wake screaming in terror? How much refreshing sleep do you expect to get? Or do we escalate to lullabies?”
“You finished?” Frazer asked. It was clear to me from his tone that he knew what I’d said had been necessary – even if ideally communicated with less harshness.
Bolton looked as if he was close to tears, but I could tell that his moment of grasping at childish hopes was done. “Okay,” he said softly, rocking slightly. “Okay.”
It seemed like the right moment to leave.
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