The Inverted World

1

The storm raged all night and none of us got much sleep. Our camp was half a mile from the bridge, and as the waves came crashing in the sound reached us as a dull, muted roar, almost obliterated by the howling gale. In our imaginations, at least, we heard the splintering of timber in every temporary lull.

Towards dawn the wind abated, and we were able to sleep. Not for long, for soon after sunrise the kitchen was manned and we were given our food. No one talked as we ate; there would be only one topic of conversation, and none wished to speak of that.

We set off towards the bridge. We had gone only fifty yards when someone pointed to a piece of broken timber lying washed up on the river-bank. It was a grim foreboding and, as it turned out, an accurate one. There was nothing left of the bridge beyond the four main piles that were planted in the solid ground nearest to the water’s edge.

I glanced at Lerouex who, for this shift, was in charge of all operations.

“We need more timber,” he said. “Barter Norris… take thirty men, and start felling trees.”

I waited for Norris’s reaction; of all the guildsmen on the site he had been the most reluctant to work, and had complained loud and long during the early stages of the work. Now he showed no rebellion; we were all past that. He simply nodded to Lerouex, picked a body of men and headed back towards the camp to collect the tree-felling saws.

“So we start again,” I said to Lerouex.

“Of course.”

“Will this one be strong enough?”

“If we build it properly.”

He turned away, and started to organize the clearing up of the site. In the background the waves, still huge in the aftermath of the storm, crashed against the river-bank.

We worked all day, and by evening the site had been cleared and Norris and his men had hauled fourteen tree-trunks over to the site. The next morning we could start work yet again.

Before then, during the evening, I sought out Lerouex. He was sitting alone in his tent, apparently checking through his designs of the bridge, but in fact I realized his stare was vacant.

He did not seem pleased to see me, but he and I were the two senior men on the site and he knew I would not come without purpose. We were now of roughly equal age: by the nature of my work in the north I had passed many subjective years. It was a matter of some discomfort between us that he was the father of my former wife, and yet we were now contemporaries. Neither of us had ever referred directly to it. Victoria herself was still only comparatively few miles older than she had been when we were married, and the gulf between us was now so wide that everything we knew of each other was totally irretrievable.

“I know what you’ve come to say,” he said. “You’re going to tell me that we can never build a bridge.”

“It’s going to be difficult,” I said.

“No… impossible is what you mean.”

“What do you think?”

“I’m a Bridge-Builder, Helward. I’m not supposed to think.”

“That’s as much crap as you know it is.”

“All right… but a bridge is needed, I build it. No questions.”

I said: “You’ve always had an opposite bank.”

“That makes no difference. We can build a pontoon.”

“And when we’re mid-river, where do we get the timber? Where do we plant the cable-stays?” I sat down unbidden, opposite him. “You were wrong, incidentally. I didn’t come to see you about this.”

“Well?”

“The opposite bank,” I said. “Where is it?”

“Out there somewhere.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you know there is one?”

“There must be.”

“Then why can’t we see it?” I said. “We’re striking away from this bank a few degrees from perpendicular, but even so we should be able to see the bank. The curvature—”

“Is concave. I know. Don’t you think I haven’t thought about that? In theory we can see forever. What about atmospheric haze? Twenty or thirty miles is all we can see, even on a clear day.”

“You’re going to build a bridge thirty miles long?”

“I don’t think we’ll have to,” he said. “I think we’re going to be O.K. Why else do you think I persevere?”

I shook my head. “I’ve no idea.”

He said: “Did you know they’re going to make me a Navigator?” Again, I shook my head. “They are. Last time I was in the city we had a long conference. The general feeling is that the river might not be as wide as it appears. Remember, north of optimum dimensions are distorted linearly. That is, to north and south. It’s obvious that this is a major river, but reason demands that there’s an opposite bank. The Navigators think that when the movement of the ground takes the river as far as optimum we should be able to see the opposite bank. Granted, it might then still be too wide to cross safely, but all we need to do is keep waiting. The further south the ground takes us, the narrower the river will become. Then a bridge would be feasible.”

“That’s a hell of a risk,” I said. “The centrifugal force would—”

“I know.”

“And what if the opposite bank doesn’t appear then?”

“Helward, it has to.”

“You know there’s an alternative?” I said.

“I’ve heard what the men have been saying. We abandon the city, and build a ship. I could never approve that.”

“Guild pride?”

“No!” His face reddened in spite of the denial. “Practicalities. We couldn’t build one large enough or safe enough.”

“We’re having the same difficulty with the bridge.”

“I know… but we understand bridges. Who in the city would know how to design a ship? Anyway, we’re learning by our mistakes. We just have to keep building until the bridge is strong enough.”

“And time’s running out.”

“How far north of optimum are we?”

“Less than twelve miles.”

“City-time, that’s a hundred and twenty days,” he said. “How long do we have up here?”

“Subjectively, about twice that.”

“That’s plenty.”

I stood up, headed for the flap. I was unconvinced.

“By the way,” I said. “Congratulations on the Navigatorship.”

“Thanks. They’ve put your name forward too.”

2

A few days later Lerouex and I were relieved by the new shift, and we set off for the city. The repaired bridge was well under way, and under the circumstances the mood at the site was optimistic. We now had ten yards of platform ready for the track-layers.

The horses were in use with the tree-felling crews, and so we had to walk. Once away from the river-bank the wind dropped, and the temperature rose. It had been so easy to forget how hot the land was.

We walked some distance, then I said to Lerouex: “How’s Victoria?”

“She’s well.”

“I don’t see her very often now.”

“Neither do I.”

I decided to say no more; Victoria was clearly an embarrassment to him. In the last few miles the news about the river had inevitably leaked to the people as a whole, and the Terminators — of whom Victoria was now a leading figure — had emerged as a vociferously critical faction. They claimed that they had eighty per cent of the non-guildsmen on their side, and that the city should now be halted. I had been unable to attend Navigators’ Council meetings recently, but I gathered that they were preoccupied with this problem. In another break with their former traditions, they had started a second campaign to educate the non-guildsmen about the true nature of the world, but the essentially obscure and abstract explanations did not have the simple emotional appeal of the Terminators.

Psychologically, the Terminators had already scored one victory. With the concentration of manpower on the building of the bridge, the work of track-laying had been left to one crew only, and although the city was still under continuous propulsion it had been forced to slow up, and was now half a mile behind optimum. The Militia had foiled an attempt by the Terminators to cut the cables, but not much was made of this. The real danger, fully appreciated by the Navigators, was the erosion of traditional political power within the city.

Victoria, and presumably the other overt Terminators, still carried out nominal tasks on behalf of the city, but perhaps it was a sign of their influence that much of the day-to-day routines of the city were falling behind. Officially, the Navigators put this down to the re-deployment of so many men to the bridge, but few were in doubt as to the real causes.

Within guild circles, the resolution was almost complete. There was much complaining and some dissent with decisions, but in general there was complete acceptance that the bridge must be built. Halting the city would be unthinkable.

“Are you going to accept the Navigatorship?” I said.

“I think so. I don’t want to retire, but—”

“Retire? There’s no question of that.”

“It means retirement from active guild work,” he said. “It’s new Navigator policy. They believe that by bringing on to the Council men who have been playing an active role they will acquire a more forceful voice. That, incidentally, is why they want you on the Council.”

“My work’s up north,” I said.

“So is mine. But we reach an age—”

“You shouldn’t think of retiring,” I said. “You’re the best Bridge man in the city.”

“So they say. No one has the tactlessness to point out that my last three bridges have been unsuccessful.”

“You mean the ones that were damaged at this river?”

“Yes. And the new one will go as soon as there’s another storm.”

“You said yourself—”

“Helward… I’m not the man to build that bridge. It needs young blood. A new approach. Perhaps a ship is the answer.”

Lerouex and I both understood what that admission meant to him. The Bridge-Builders guild was the proudest in the city. No bridge had ever failed.

We walked on.

Almost as soon as I arrived in the city I was fretting to return to the north. I did not like the present atmosphere; it was now as if the people had replaced the old system of guild suppression with a self-inflicted blindness to reality. Terminator slogans were everywhere, and crudely printed leaflets littered the corridors. People talked of the bridge, and they talked fearfully. Men returning from a work shift told of the failures, spoke of building a bridge towards a further bank that could not be seen. Rumours, presumably originated by the Terminators, told of dozens of men being killed, more took attacks.

In the Futures’ room I was approached by Clausewitz, who was himself now a Navigator. He presented me with a formal letter from the Council of Navigators, naming a proposer (Clausewitz) and a seconder (McMahon) who requested me to join tLem.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t accept this.”

“We need you, Helward. You’re one of our most experienced men.”

“Maybe. I’m needed on the bridge.”

“You could do better work here.”

“I don’t think so.”

Clausewitz took me aside, and spoke confidentially. “The Council is setting up a working party to deal with the Terminators,” he said. “We want you on that.”

“How can you deal with them? Suppress their voices?”

“No… we’re going to have to compromise with them. They want to abandon the city for good. We’re going to meet them half-way, abandon the bridge.”

I stared at him incredulously.

“I can’t be a party to that,” I said.

“Instead we build a ship. Not a big one, not nearly as complex as the city. Just large enough to get us to the opposite bank, when we’ll rebuild the city.”

I handed back the letter and turned away.

“No,” I said. “That’s my final word.”

3

I prepared to leave the city forthwith, determined to return to the north and carry out yet another survey of the river. Our survey reports had confirmed that the river was indeed such, that the banks were not circular and that it was not a lake. Lakes can be circled, rivers have to be crossed. I remembered Lerouex’s one optimistic remark, that the opposite bank might come into view as the river neared optimum. It was a desperate hope, but if I could locate that opposite bank there could be no further argument against the bridge.

I walked down through the city realizing that by my words and intents I had made certain my actions. I had committed myself to the bridge, even though I had alienated myself from the instrument of its construction: the Council. In a sense I was on my own, in spirit and in fact. If a compromise was planned with the Terminators, I would have to subscribe to it eventually, but for the moment the bridge was the only tangible reality, however improbable.

I remembered something Blayne had once said. He described the city as a fanatical society, and I questioned this. He said that one definition of a fanatic was a man who continued to struggle against the odds when all hope was lost. The city had been struggling against the odds since Destaine’s day, and there were seven thousand miles of recorded history, none of which had been easily won. It was impossible for mankind to survive in this environment, Blayne had said, and yet the city continued to do so.

Perhaps I had inherited that fanaticism, for now I felt that only I maintained the city’s sense of survival. For me it was given substance in the building of the bridge, however hopeless that task might. seem.

In one of the corridors I met Gelman Jase. He was now many subjective miles younger than me, because he had been north only infrequently.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“Up north. There’s nothing for me in the city at the moment.”

“Aren’t you going to the meeting?”

“Which meeting?”

“The Terminators’.”

“Are you going?” I said.

My voice had obviously reflected the disapproval I felt, for he said defensively: “Yes. Why not? It’s the first time they’ve come into the open.”

“Are you with them?” I said.

“No… but I want to hear what they say.”

“And what if they persuade you?”

“That’s not likely,” said Jase.

“Then why go?”

Jase said: “Is your mind totally closed, Helward?”

I opened my mouth to deny it… but said nothing. The fact was that my mind was closed.

“Don’t you believe in another point of view?” he said.

“Yes… but there’s no debate on this issue. They’re in the wrong, and you know it as well as I do.”

“Just because a man’s wrong doesn’t mean he’s a fool.”

I said: “Gelman, you’ve been down past. You know what happens there. You know the city would be taken there by the movement of the ground. Surely there’s no question about what the city should do.”

“I know. But they have the ear of a large percentage of the people. We should hear them out.”

“They’re enemies of the city’s security.”

“O.K… but to defeat an enemy one should know him. I’m going to the meeting because this is the first time their views are being publicly expressed. I want to know what I’m up against. If we’re going to go across that bridge, it’s going to be people like me who will see us across. If the Terminators have got an alternative, I want to hear it. If not, I want to know it.”

“I’m going up north,” I said.

Jase shook his head. We argued a while longer, and then we went to the meeting.

Some miles before, the work on rebuilding the crèche had been abandoned. The damage had long since been cleared leaving bare the broad metal base of the city, open on three sides to the countryside. At the northern side of this area, against the bulk of the rest of the city, some reconstruction work had been done, and the timber facings afforded the speakers a suitable background and a slightly raised platform from which to address the crowd.

As Jase and I came out of the last building and walked across the space there were already a considerable number of people there. I was surprised that so many were here; the resident population of the city had already been considerably depleted by the men drafted to work on the bridge, but at a rough estimate it seemed to me that there were at least three or four hundred people present. Surely there could be few people who were not here? The workers on the bridge, the Navigators, and a few proud guildsmen?

A speech was already in progress, and the crowd was listening without much response. The main text of the speech — made by a man I recognized as one of the food synthesists — was a description of the physical environment through which the city was currently passing.

“…the soil is rich, and there is a good chance that we could grow our own crops. We have abundant water, both locally and to the north of us.” Laughter. “The climate is agreeable. The local people are not hostile, nor need we make them so—”

After a few minutes, he stood down to a ripple of applause. Without preamble, the next speaker came forward. It was Victoria.

“People of the city, we face another crisis brought upon us by the Council of Navigators. For thousands of miles we have been making our way across this land, indulging ourselves in all that is inhuman to stay alive. Our way of staying alive has been to move forward, towards the north. Behind us—” and she waved her hand to encompass the broad stretch of countryside that lay beyond the southern edge of the platform “—is that period of our existence. Ahead of us they tell us there is a river. One we must cross to further ensure our survival. What is beyond that river they do not tell us, because they do not know.”

Victoria talked for a long time, and I confess I was prejudiced against her from her first words. It sounded to me like cheap rhetoric, but the crowd seemed to appreciate it. Perhaps I was not as indifferent as I supposed, for when she described the building of the bridge and threw in the accusation that many men had died, I started forward to protest. Jase caught my arm.

“Helward… don’t.”

“She’s talking rubbish!” I said, but already a few voices in the crowd shouted that that was rumour. Victoria conceded it neatly, but added that there was probably more going on at the bridge site than was generally known; this was greeted with some approval.

Victoria brought her speech to an unexpected conclusion.

“I say that not only is this bridge unnecessary, but that it is dangerous too. In this I have an expert opinion. As many of you know, my father is Chief Guildsman of the Bridge-Builders. He it is who designed the bridge. I ask you now to listen to what he has to say.”

“God… she couldn’t do that!” I said.

Jase said: “Lerouex is not a Terminator.”

“I know. But he’s lost faith.”

Bridges Lerouex was already on the platform. He stood by the side of his daughter, waiting for the applause to die down. He did not look directly at the crowd, but stared down at the floor. He looked tired, old, and beaten.

“Come on, Jase. I’m not going to watch him be humiliated.”

Jase looked at me uncertainly. Lerouex was preparing to speak.

I pushed forward through the crowd, wanting to be away before he said anything. I had learned to respect Lerouex, and did not wish to be present in his moment of defeat.

A few yards forward, I stopped again.

Standing behind Victoria and her father, I had recognized someone else. For a moment I couldn’t place either the name or the face… then it came. It was Elizabeth Khan.

I was shocked to see her again. It had been many miles since she had left: at least eighteen miles in city-time, many more in my own subjective time. After she had left I had tried to put her from my mind.

Lerouex had started to address the crowd. He spoke softly, and his words did not carry.

I was staring at Elizabeth. I knew why she was there. When Lerouex had finished humiliating himself, she was going to speak. I knew already what she would say.

I started forward again, but suddenly my arm was caught. It was Jase.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“That girl,” I said. “I know her. She’s from outside the city. We mustn’t let her speak.”

People around us were telling us to be quiet. I struggled to release myself from Jase but he held me back.

Suddenly, there was a burst of applause, and I realized that Lerouex had finished.

I said to Jase: “Look… you’ve got to help me. You don’t know who that girl is!”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Blayne coming towards us.

“Helward… have you seen who’s here?”

“Blayne! For God’s sake help me!”

I struggled again, and Jase fought to hold me. Blayne moved over quickly, took my other arm. Together they pulled me backwards, out of the crowd to the very edge of the city’s metal base.

“Listen, Helward,” said Jase. “Stay here and listen to her.”

“I know what she’s going to say!”

“Then allow the others to hear.”

Victoria stepped forward to the edge of the platform.

“People of the city, we have one more person to speak to you. She is not known to many of us, because she is not of our city. But what she has to say is of great importance, and afterwards there will no longer be any doubt in your minds as to what we must do.”

She raised her hand, and Elizabeth stepped forward.

Elizabeth spoke softly, but her voice carried clearly to all present.

“I am a stranger to you here,” she said, “because I was not born as you were within the walls of the city. However, you and I are of one kind: we are human, and we are of a planet called Earth. You have survived in this city for nearly two hundred years, or seven thousand miles by your way of measuring time. About you has been a world in anarchy and ruins. The people are ignorant, uneducated, stricken with poverty. But not all people of this world are in this state. I am from England, a country where we are beginning to reconstruct a kind of civilization. There are other countries too, bigger and more powerful than England. So your stable and organized existence is not unique.”

She paused, testing the reaction of the crowd so far. There was silence.

“I came across your city by accident, and lived here for a while within your transference section.” There was some surprised reaction to this. “I have talked with some of you, I know how you live. Then I left the city, and returned to England. I’ve spent nearly six months there, trying to understand your city and its history. I know much more now than I did on my first visit.”

She paused again. Somewhere in the crowd a man shouted: “England is on Earth!”

Elizabeth did not respond. Instead she said: “I have a question. Is there anyone here responsible for the city’s engines?”

There was a short silence, then Jase said: “I am a Traction guildsman.”

Heads turned in our direction.

“Then you can tell us what powers the engines.”

“A nuclear reactor.”

“Describe how the fuel is inserted.”

Jase released me and moved to one side. I felt Blayne’s hold on me loosen, and I could have escaped him. But like everyone else listening, my attention had been caught by the curious questions.

Jase said: “I don’t know. I have never seen it done.”

“Then before you can stop your city, you must find out.”

Elizabeth moved back, and spoke quietly to Victoria. A moment later she came forward again.

“Your reactor is no such thing. Unwittingly, the men you call your Traction guildsmen have been misleading you. The reactor is not functioning, and has not done so for thousands of miles.”

Blayne said to Jase: “Well?”

“She’s talking nonsense.”

“Do you know what fuels it?”

“No,” said Jase quietly, although many of the people around us were listening. “Our guild believes that it will run indefinitely without attention.”

“Your reactor is no such thing,” Elizabeth said again.

I said: “Don’t listen to her. The fact that we have electrical power means the reactor is working. Where else do we get the power?”

From the platform, Elizabeth said: “Listen to me.”

Elizabeth said she was going to tell us about Destaine. I listened with the others.

Francis Destaine was a particle physicist who lived and worked in Britain, on Earth planet. He lived at a time when Earth was running critically short of electrical energy. Elizabeth recited the reasons, which were essentially that fossil fuels were burnt to provide heat, which was converted into energy. When the fuel deposits ran out there would be no more energy.

Destaine, Elizabeth said, claimed to have devised a process whereby apparently unlimited amounts of energy could be produced without any kind of fuel. His work had been discredited by most scientists. In due course the energy that was derived from fossil fuels had run out, and there followed on Earth planet a long period now known as the Crash. It had brought to an end the advanced technological civilization that had dominated Earth.

She said that the people on Earth were now beginning to rebuild, and Destaine’s work was instrumental in this. His process as originally outlined was crude and dangerous, but a more sophisticated development was manageable and successful.

“What has this to do with halting the city?” someone shouted.

Elizabeth said: “Listen.”

Destaine had discovered a generator which created an artificial field of energy which, when existing in close proximity to another similar field, caused a flow of electricity. His discreditors based their criticisms on the fact that this had no practical use as the two generators consumed more electricity than they produced.

Destaine was unable to obtain either financial or intellectual support for his work. Even when he claimed to have discovered a natural field — a translateration window, as he called it — and could thus produce his effect without the need of a second generator, he was still ignored.

He claimed that this natural window of potential energy was moving slowly across the surface of the Earth, following a line which Elizabeth described as the great circle.

Destaine eventually managed to raise money from private sponsors, had a mobile research station built, and with a large team of hired assistants set off for the Kuantung province of southern China where, he claimed, the natural translateration window existed.

Elizabeth said: “Destaine was never heard from again.”

Elizabeth said that we were on Earth planet, that we had never left Earth.

She said that the world on which we existed was Earth planet, that our perception of it was distorted by the translateration generator which, self-powering as long as it was running, continued to produce the field about us.

She said that Destaine had ignored the side-effects that other scientists had warned him of: that it could permanently affect perception, that it could have genetic and hereditary effects.

She said that the translateration window still existed on Earth, that many others had been found.

She said that the window Destaine had discovered in China was the one our own generator was still tapping.

That following the great circle it had travelled through Asia, through Europe.

That we were now at the edge of Europe and that before us lay an ocean several thousand miles wide.

She said… and the people listened…

Elizabeth finished speaking. Jase walked slowly through the crowd towards her.

I headed back towards the entrance to the rest of the city. I passed within a few feet of the platform, and Elizabeth noticed me.

She called out: “Helward!”

I took no notice, pushed on through the crowd and into the interior of the city. I went down a flight of steps, walked through the passageway beneath the city and out again into the daylight.

I headed north, moving between the tracks and cables.

4

Half an hour later I heard the sound of a horse, and I turned. Elizabeth caught up with me.

“Where are you going?” she said.

“Back to the bridge.”

“Don’t. There’s no need. The Traction guild have disconnected the generator.”

I pointed up at the sun. “And that is now a sphere.”

“Yes.”

I walked on.

Elizabeth repeated what she had said before. She pleaded with me to see reason. She said again and again that it was only my perception of the world that was distorted.

I kept my silence.

She had not been down past. She had never been farther away from the city than a few miles north or south. She hadn’t been with me when I saw the realities of this world.

Was it perception that changed the physical dimensions of Lucia, Rosario, and Caterina? Our bodies had been locked in sexual embrace: I knew the real effects of that perception. Was it the baby’s perception that had made it reject Rosario’s milk? Was it only my perception that caused the girls’ city-made clothes to tear as their bodies distorted inside them?

“Why didn’t you tell me what you’ve just said when you were in the city before?” I said.

“Because I didn’t know then. I had to go back to England. And you know something? No one cared in England. I tried to find someone, anyone, who could be made to find some concern for you and your city… but no one was interested. There’s a lot going on in this world, big and exciting changes are taking place. No one cares about the city and its people.”

“You came back,” I said.

“I had seen your city myself. I knew what you and the others were planning to do. I had to find out about Destaine… someone had to explain translateration to me. It’s a dull, everyday technology now, but I didn’t know how it worked.”

“That’s self-evident,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“If the generator’s off, as you say, then there’s no further problem. I just have to keep looking at the sun and telling myself that it’s a sphere, whatever else it might look like.”

“But it’s only your perception,” she said.

“And I perceive that you are wrong. I know what I see.”

“But you don’t.”

A few minutes later a large crowd of men passed us, heading south towards the city. Most of them were carrying the possessions they had taken with them to the bridge site. None of them acknowledged us.

I walked faster, trying to leave her behind. She followed, leading her horse by its harness.

The bridge site was deserted. I walked down the river-bank to the soft, yellow soil and walked out along the surface of the bridge. Beneath me the water was calm and clear, although waves still broke on the bank behind me.

I turned and looked back. Elizabeth was standing on the bank with her horse, watching me. I stared at her for a few seconds, then reached down and took off my boots. I moved away from her, to the very end of the bridge.

I looked over at the sun. It was dipping down towards the north-eastern horizon. It was beautiful in its own way. A graceful, enigmatic shape, far more aesthetically satisfying than a simple sphere. My only regret was that I had never been able to draw it successfully.

I dived from the bridge head first. The water was cold, but not unpleasantly so. As soon as I surfaced an incoming wave pushed me back against the nearest bridge pile, and I kicked myself away from it. With strong, steady strokes I swam northwards.

I was curious to know if Elizabeth was still watching, so I turned on my back and floated. She had moved away froni the ridge and was now riding her horse slowly along the uneven surface of the bridge. When she reached the end she stopped.

She sat in the saddle and looked in my direction.

I continued to tread water, waiting to see if she would make any gesture towards me. The sun was bathing her in a rich yellow light, stark against the deep blue of the sky behind her.

I turned, and looked towards the north. The sun was setting, and already most of its broad disk was out of sight. I waited until its northern spire of light had slipped down below the horizon. As darkness fell I swam back through the surf to the beach.