Walking to Aldebaran

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SO AFTER BEING stripped down and remade by the Mother Machine, I – actually, you know the rest of it, Toto. I mean there’s more, obviously; there’s detail and circumstance, but is any of it really important? The scale of the Crypts renders us all meaningless, so does it matter precisely where I went, what obstacles I cleared, what strange faces and non-faces I met? You can pretty much construct it from all the usual snippets: seen things you people wouldn’t believe, boldy gone, sought out strange new worlds, galaxy far, far away, trying to find a way home. I am the most travelled human being in the history of the species. I have met aliens beyond your imagination – no forehead ridges or Halloween costume masks here, but hot and cold running aliens in every corner of this convoluted place. Some of them were going about business as usual, having tamed a corner of the Crypts to suit them, walking to other worlds like the Makers intended. Others were lost, like me. And I ate hardly any of them, Toto; only the ones like Clive who were dead already. It’s only since the scritchy started that my temper’s gone sour and I’ve started picking fights. I’m a man more sinned against than sinning.

And yes, the scritchy is my fault, in the end. I didn’t know it at the time, but the Monkey’s Paw surely put a finger in my eye when I wished to find my folks again. What else is it that’s letting me home in on them but the changes Mother made? And it’s not my fault they make me so angry, with their constant jabber and chatter. It’s not my fault I’m strong now, and they can’t stop me.

I’m sensing a certain criticism from you, Toto, but you’d have done the same in my position. You’re a figment of my imagination, after all. Of course you would.

But enough of the backstory. I carried you from Madrid and the launch of Kaveney all the way to the Mother Machine, the story of how I was made and remade. It’s time to bring things to a conclusion. That whispery whine in my head is still there, and although it’s far away, I know it’s the rest of them, all of them that made it into the Crypts, all those rescue parties and expeditions and scientists. I wonder who they even left on the Quixote. And what that skeleton crew did, when the Crypts finally swallowed everyone. Or perhaps most of them are still on the ship, already on their way home, and I’m only homing in on a few luckless castaways. I mean, that would be narratively more satisfying, wouldn’t it? Not from my perspective, not from those luckless sods left behind, but for those on the ship, they’d feel a real sense of achievement. They’d get the requisite sadness about those who couldn’t make it combined with the satisfaction of making it home to tell the tale. But at heart, I know, wherever they get back to, it won’t be home. Not the same river, not the same man, right?

I make my approach a leisurely one. I want to give the runners time to tell tales of the return of Gary Rendell, back from the dead, come to tell you all – I shall tell you all… what? Like the man in the poem, I’m lost for words, and not only because my means of communication has become steadily more monstrous. What, really, could I tell you? What moral lesson has all this suffering taught me? Don’t go into the Crypts? The universe is full of aliens just as dumb as you? Astronaut is delicious once you get the wrapper off?

Don’t go. I want to look back in time and speak to young Doctor Naish, or young Gary Rendell. Don’t go into space, I’d tell him; don’t send me into space, I’d tell her. There are plenty of others who want the honour. Don’t send this bright young thing from Stevenage, please. So much could be avoided.

The best way not to get mired in same-man/same-river paradoxes is not to cross the river the first time.

And then, with the buzzing of the minds now painfully clear in mine, I lounge round the corner and discover that this is the mother lode. This is the entrance/exit, the eye of the Frog God that we so recklessly stared into. I look out and see the stars, and maybe one of them’s the Sun.

There is a particular awe in coming across an exit from the Crypts. It’s a rare thing – I’ve done it maybe a half-dozen times in all my wanderings. Mostly there are just stars, the Frog God leering at a distant sun from some remote part of its solar system. Twice there was a planet hanging there, close enough that the locals would have marked the Frog God with their early telescopes, if they ever invented them. On one of those worlds I saw long strands of light across the almost sea-less surface; not the busy clusters of cities, just long strands that might have been the work of hands or some colossal natural show. There were moving lights in orbit too, though, darting between shadows that might have been dockyards, or space stations, or captured asteroids. The other world looked dead, mottled grey, hanging in the firmament like a spent bullet. Probably it had always been that way, but I couldn’t shake the thought that the Crypts sought out intelligences that might appreciate them and come walk their ways. So perhaps there had been life on that grey world, and perhaps there had been rival Frog God sects or a war over who might control the goggling visage that dominated their night sky. Perhaps they went where we so nearly went, desperate that the other guy shouldn’t get the prize.

There’s no planet now, of course. The Frog God’s out past Pluto, always has been, always will be. The starscape isn’t empty, though. The Red Rocket is there. It’s still incomplete; in fact it’s less complete than before, still in the early stages of construction. There’s no sign of the Quixote, but then I wasn’t expecting it. Looks like Naish landed quite a proportion of the ship’s compliment at the brink of the Crypts, though, so either there was a skeleton crew left on the old girl or something bad happened to her and this was all they could save. I decide on the latter. After all, they’re determinedly building the Red Rocket rather than waiting for the Quixote to reappear. And then I realise the cruellest twist of fate in all of this. Why did Magda Proshkin have the fatal luck to cross my bloody path? If not for that ill chance, then she might have built the thing herself and fulfilled her own prophecies.

You seem bemused, Toto. Surely you understand that if something plays hob with space and gravity like the Crypts do, then they must necessarily play the same games with other dimensions? We thought the Artefact was as old as the universe, but it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to twist time about it until it can be seen and reached from forever and now, all at the same time. And I know there must be a way of going in and out without ending up your own grandfather or past the heat death of the cosmos, because I’ve seen plenty of aliens using this place as their personal galactic shortcut. And if their destination is astray from their home timeframe by a few hundred million years, why, that doesn’t matter a bit! Because time doesn’t care, time is relative and personal, which is how I can have been wandering in these bloody Crypts so long and still make it here.

And who knows, maybe some of them’ll survive to finish the Red Rocket in the end. Just because we found it derelict and incomplete doesn’t mean it can’t also be complete later, or earlier. Let them finish it and blast off for Earth even if it’s not the Earth they want to find. What if they do end up in 5^th-century Scandinavia or something? At least everyone has a working knowledge of Danish to help them tell stories to the locals.

But I don’t think they’ll survive that long. I have a feeling that a former colleague is going to dine on their bones tonight.

There is a chamber cut from the stone here, just behind the Frog God’s eye. It’s neater than the caves of the Pyramid People, but I know it’s man-made. Naish has played it safe and made her base in sight of the stars, in case they go anywhere. I see maybe a dozen people, some sleeping, some upright, all suited, but most without helmets. They see me.

I recognise Doctor Naish. I should probably feel an additional stab of ire at her pasty Scottish face. She’s the one who got me into this nonsense in the first place, after all. Why couldn’t she have gone to study Mercury or something, and left gravitational anomalies well alone? I don’t hate her, though. She’s the person left here who I knew longer than anyone else, back from before the mission, before training, back when I did odd jobs for the Madrid branch of the ESA. I feel almost fond of her, an old friend. We should catch up, chew the fat.

Just let me see everyone else off first.

There’s a little gunfire, but I shake it off irritably. Nobody’s much keen to go toe-to-toe with me now, not since Li and Diaz got theirs. Naish is shouting, though. It sounds as though she’s calling in the cavalry, so I guess another salvage team’s in earshot. The more the merrier. Let’s make this a proper farewell party. Everyone’s invited.

Except what comes out of a tunnel at the far end of the chamber isn’t just another goblin, it’s an ogre, head and shoulders above these mewling little chitterers, these stunted runts, these humans. I roll my shoulders, standing tall for once thanks to the space Doctor Naish has cut for me. Across the room is a metal shape with bandy legs and big, curving arms, four blank lenses for eyes and a row of chattering cogs for teeth.

I almost feel relief. I thought that scrap we had was meaningless, the clue of the food bar wrapper a mystery I’d never unravel, but here it is, the Iron Hunchback itself. It hands something off to one of my former compatriots, a device that looks unfamiliar and half-complete. Has it been trading with them, helping them? Is it a true Crypt-traveller, wise to all the paths and the tricks the place plays with time? Or perhaps just another lost exile seeking common cause? It lurches forward swiftly enough, though, joyous for the battle, the goblins running to hide beyond it. I see some dents in its armour that I gave it, and no doubt it remembers the pounding it gave me.

It tries its energy weapon first. Now, you can’t dodge lasers, no matter what the sci-fi films say. You can’t dodge them, because they move at the speed of light, and if you see them coming then you’ve already taken one through the eye. You can fake them out, though. I saw the direction its big arm was pointing in, and ran forward in an erratic zigzag, feeling the fire of it warm my hide but nothing more.

The others, Naish, Ostrom, they’re all cowering in its shadow. My people, fellow humans of Earth, and they’re hiding behind the Iron Hunchback like it’s going to save them. I’m going to rip off that dome and use its body as a dustbin. How dare it stand between me and my repatriation? I will not be denied my rightful prey.

The anger rises so hot in me that I forget the next dodge and take a charcoal weal across my shoulder. The pain only fortifies me. I will bloody have this alien tosser. ‘Iron Hunchback’ is giving the bastard way too much dignity.

“Eat it, you git!” I howl and then I’m on it, leaping forward and clinging to its shell with fingers and toes as I try to pry it open.

It’s strong, I know, but I’m stronger than I was the last time we slugged it out, and that was an even match. I am the Crypts’ darling, you metal twat, and you are going to be hearing from my lawyers. Oh, I am going to write to the editor of the Times about you, Mr Tin Tosspot, signed Angry from Stevenage.

Iron Git goes flailing back, off balance on those silly little feet. I grip the rim of its dome with one hand and pound away with the other, bringing to bear all the leverage of my long arms and dense muscles. It staggers and I knock a handful of dents in the metal, but the clear portholes remain unbroken, made of something far more resilient than glass or plastic. Then it brings a steel fist arcing down into my jaw. I feel a tooth explode from my lips with the force, and lose my grip. It’s after me with the energy gun as I hit the floor, but I land on hands and feet and spring right back. I will sort you out, son. You’re going home in an ambulance, you see if you’re not.

I give it a double-handed smash across the chest to unbalance it, and then go for its legs, hoping to upend it like a turtle. The Git’s surprisingly light on its toes, though, and it gets another jackhammer punch to my head that’s going to leave a bruise. Something about the mechanical advantage of its limbs and its armoured shell mean it punches even harder than I do. Probably I’m tougher, but it’s a mug’s game when I can grapple. Let’s see how those daft arms work then.

And so I get it in a hold, one hand prying at its lid again, the other buckling the plate at the lower edge of its barrel torso. Its hands lock at my shoulder and neck, but I’m right, it doesn’t have the strength that way, better at landing quick-twitch blows than sustained effort. I grunt and strain, feeling rivets and seams start to give. Let’s open up this can and find out what colour the soup is.

But I’ve forgotten the other arms, the little arms. My chest is right there, for them, and they unfold from the alien’s body and tear into me with a whole autopsy kit of moving blades and saws. I try to pull away when I feel them go in, but the Git is holding me tight, even if he can’t do much else in the clinch. It rips me up, carving through meat and organs and juddering off bone until I shriek with the injustice of it. I’m the Mother Machine’s favourite son. I was supposed to win. I was supposed to –

It shifts the angle of its arms and flexes its grip, and abruptly the horrible pain of having a great gash carved in me becomes the even worse pain of having that gash widened by the appalling power of the Git’s arms working against one another. I howl my defiance, poor monster that I am, and then its servos whine with effort and it rips my arm off.

My arm. My bloody arm, and a fair chunk of shoulder from the far side of that line it cut in me. My arm is gone. I was using that!

It’s fair to say the fight has gone out of me. Pain and fear are now the dominant emotions holding court in my brain. The Git is up for more fight – perhaps it wants to beat me to death with the wet end. I’m not sticking around for that. I leg it, back into the Crypts. Another day, I promise Doctor Naish and her alien house guest. I let my agonised shrieks swear revenge for me: I will be back, for the whole pack of you!

I will. I will! And yet, whenever I stop, the blood starts, as though only my constant racked shambling can keep the life inside me. As if I’m truly condemned now, to stagger through these midnight halls like the Flying Dutchman, an endless life of pointless travel. Except even that’s optimistic, because a strange feeling is creeping on me. I remember it from a long time back, a lifetime ago. Gary Rendell of Stevenage knew it, but it’s not been my companion for an age. Weakness is walking in my red footsteps, Toto, creeping closer with every step. I can’t keep going indefinitely. The strength I thought was limitless now gouts from me when I pause to take a breath, the ragged edges of one torn lung fluttering and fluting as I do.

Toto, I… I don’t think I’m going to make it. And as you’re a figment of my imagination, I guess you’re stuffed too.

But I can’t just lie down and die. That part of me was stripped away with the other fallible bits, like my fussy stomach. I need a place to go, and in all the Crypts there is only one Place worthy of the name.

I can feel the Mother Machine out there, my benefactor, my torturer, waiting for another fool to step into it so it can bestow its help. Am I grateful for that help? Would I rather have died the first time? No! I have set foot on distant worlds. I have battled monsters. Although, to Neitzsche’s smug satisfaction, I may also have become one. I’m replaying my last few days and I can’t quite shake a whiff of the monstrous about what I’ve thought and done. What with the cannibalism and murder. But I was provoked, Toto.

Mother, Mother, can you hear me, your son, your creation? I’m coming, but you’re a long way away and I grow weak. Mother, they have slain me! Send help! No, there’s no help that can come in time, only vengeance. Rise from your bed in the Crypts and hunt them down. Avenge me, Mother, avenge me!

I stop. I sway. The blood is coming out of me no matter what I do. Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him, eh? Where was I keeping it all? The weakness, that eminently human Gary Rendell sort of a feeling, rises up in me like a spring tide, and I know I’m done. But even as I fade, I feel Mother shift in answer to my prayer. I feel her shudder to life somewhere in the Crypts to grant my final wish, and with that happy knowledge, I know I can let go.