Skyfall Read online

  ‘Is that really how you see this, Janil? That’s what you think we’re doing here? Sharing out glory?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Lari stared from his father to his brother and back again. They’d never argued like this, never. Janil had always been the shining star – the one who’d followed compliantly into the family field, the son Dernan Mann never criticised.

  ‘You know it’s nothing to do with praise or reward, Janil. What we’re dealing with here is bigger than mere recognition. Your entropy report made that perfectly clear.’

  ‘Are you suggesting he’s got something to do with that, too?’ Janil’s tone was a mixture of scorn and incredulity.

  ‘He’s got everything to do with it, son. He was conceived on the chance, however remote, that he might be able to stop it happening.’

  Janil’s retort died in his throat. He stood, mouth half open, staring in disbelief while their father continued.

  ‘The entropy scenario isn’t new, Janil. You didn’t invent it. You were just the first to give it a name – to codify and give voice to what we all knew was happening. But it’s not a new idea, and your brother was your mother’s and my last attempt to deal with it, to create within our family’s field of expertise the resources we knew we might need to face what’s coming. He was a tool we created in desperation and without even being certain that we’d get a chance to use him. And now, when it’s almost too late …’

  ‘You don’t need to go on. I get the picture.’ Janil slumped back into his chair.

  ‘What do you mean, I was born to be a “tool”?’ Lari didn’t try to hide his anger. ‘Is that all I am to you?’

  ‘It’s not like that, Larinan.’ Dernan Mann turned back to his younger son. ‘That was an unfortunate choice of words, but this is a complex situation and it’s not easy to know where to begin to explain.’

  ‘I know where to start.’ Janil spoke quietly, soft malice behind his words. ‘I still think you’re being deluded and I think you’re clutching at straws, Father. You’re letting your emotional desperation override your scientific training, and it’s going to undermine everything we’ve been working towards.’

  ‘Janil—’

  ‘But, as you made so clear earlier, at the moment there isn’t a damn thing I can do to stop you, so for what it’s worth, if you’re serious about bringing the copygen into this project, I know where to start.’

  Their father raised his eyebrows, questioningly. ‘Where?’

  ‘Out there.’ Janil nodded towards the eastern wall of the office.

  ‘What?’ Lari stared at Janil, wondering if his brother had gone even more mad than usual. Their father, however, looked thoughtful.

  ‘He has to do field acclimatisation if he’s going to be inducted,’ Janil continued, ‘and it seems to me that he needs to see the wider perspective. You and I both know that starts out there.’

  Dernan Mann nodded.

  ‘You’re right, of course.’ It was the first time since entering the office that Lari had seen anything like the normal relationship between his father and his brother. ‘We’ll have to move fast, though. We really don’t have time to waste.’

  Janil looked at the timer on the wall.

  ‘It’s coming up on third shift. Sundown’s in a little over fifteen minutes. I can get prepped and we can be gone within ten minutes of the sun hitting the low horizon.’

  ‘Do it.’

  Without another word, his brother left. As the door slid shut behind him, Lari turned on his father.

  ‘So are you going to tell me what’s going on? All afternoon people have been talking around me and it’s getting tiresome. Where’s Janil gone?’

  ‘To prep a flyer.’

  ‘A flyer?’ Lari stopped. He’d never been in one. Most people never would. Intercity services had been shut down centuries ago. As each of the skycities reached stability, hundreds of years earlier, most people had quickly decided that the risks of travel, of exposure, outweighed the benefits, and soon the only flyers still in service were those used by DGAP. ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re going on a field trip, Larinan. It’s something you’d have to do anyway as part of your induction. Every member of DGAP does at least one, so we might as well get yours done now.’

  ‘So we’re going to the Darklands?’

  ‘Janil still doesn’t really understand why it’s so important that we bring you into DGAP, but even so, he’s right when he says that everything I need to explain starts out there, so that’s where we’ll go.’

  ‘But a flyer …’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be safe. Your brother is an excellent pilot and DGAP has been flying out to the subjects for a lot longer than either of us has been around. We know what we’re doing, and it’s a routine procedure with very little danger.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Lari replied, but they both knew it was a lie. The silence grew between them and Lari fancied he could almost hear his mother’s voice, laughing at him from the past.

  You shouldn’t be so worried, Lari. They’re the same as every other machine. As long as I follow the protocols, I’ll be perfectly safe …

  But she hadn’t been. Lari recalled that night – the last time she’d flown out – so well it might have been yesterday. One glance at his father’s face told him that Dernan Mann was thinking about it too. No doubt the final conversation between him and his wife was etched as deeply into his memory as it was in Lari’s.

  When he’d come down for dinner, he could tell they’d been arguing again. It was always clear from the way his mother sat at the table with her back straight and her chin defiant, and from the way his father talked as though there was nothing wrong – while every word dripped with fake, exaggerated politeness.

  ‘Are you working tonight, Mum?’ Even Janil, usually oblivious to tensions between their parents, had realised something was wrong.

  ‘Yes, darling. I’ll be heading out after dinner.’

  ‘Eyna, I wish you’d stop and think about this.’

  ‘We don’t need to discuss it now, Dernan.’

  ‘Then when, Eyna?’ His father put his knife and fork down just a little harder than was necessary, and pushed away his plate of hydro and synthetein meat. ‘If not now, when? After you’ve gone? After you’ve flown off again to put your life at risk chasing a ghost?’

  Lari and Janil made startled eye contact across the table. Even in their worst fights, their parents had always been careful not to actually argue in front of the boys.

  ‘I’ve told you, Dernan, she’s out there.’

  Their father rolled his eyes.

  ‘If she is, we haven’t been able to find her. Not with scans, not with skyeyes, not with patrols. If – and I don’t for a moment believe that she is – but if this girl is out there, Eyna, then someone or something is hiding her so well that even with all the resources of DGAP we haven’t been able to track her down. Which is unlikely, you must admit.’

  ‘Only in your limited, scientific imagination, Dernan.’

  ‘Don’t start that!’ their father snapped. ‘Eyna, isn’t it time you admitted that you’ve been chasing a shadow these last six years, and no matter how much you believe in this little bit of mythology, that’s all it is? A story told to you by a bunch of illiterate savages who’ve been forgotten by evolution.’

  ‘Forgotten?’ Now their mother stood up, her eyes ablaze with an anger that Lari had never seen there before. ‘Forgotten? That’s rich, coming from the man whose entire career is being built on fixing up our genetic mistakes by using these so-called savages any way he can.’

  ‘Eyna, enough.’ Suddenly their father became aware of Lari and Janil watching in wide-eyed astonishment. ‘There’s no point going over all this now.’

  ‘You’re right, there isn’t. So don’t bring it up again. I’m going to get ready.’

  Their mother strode from the room, leaving her meal half-eaten, and as soon as she’d gone the two boys stared at their father.

>   ‘What savages?’ Janil’s eyes had narrowed. ‘Do you mean the subjects?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have used that word, Janil.’ Their father rubbed two fingers in small circles over his temples, as though trying to relieve pressure. ‘They’re not savages. They’re just people who haven’t had a chance to develop with the rest of the world and who could be very dangerous to our culture. You know the story.’

  Janil nodded. Being children of DGAP parents, both boys had been brought up knowing about the importance of maintaining genetic stability, and the risk posed to it by those people who’d been exposed.

  ‘Why is Mummy angry?’ Lari asked, still confused at her outburst and sudden departure.

  ‘Shut up, copygen!’

  ‘Janil! You do not talk to your brother like that, even if you’re upset. Apologise.’

  ‘Sorry.’ His brother had the false apology down to an art form. Lari knew there was nothing behind it.

  ‘That’s better.’

  The three continued their meal in silence, until Eyna Mann reentered the kitchen, dressed now in her field suit. She had calmed down.

  ‘I should be back before first shift.’

  ‘Where are you headed?’

  ‘East. Out towards the far side.’

  Dernan Mann looked into his wife’s eyes. ‘Eyna, I know I can’t stop you going, but please, if you’re going that far out on your own, don’t leave the flyer.’

  ‘You know I’m always careful.’ Her reply was cool.

  ‘I know you always used to be. But… just don’t go breaking any field protocols, okay?’

  Eyna Mann didn’t answer, but crossed the kitchen and kissed her husband quickly, a perfunctory peck on the forehead that Lari suspected was more for his and Janil’s benefit than their father’s.

  ‘I’ll be careful.’ She’d turned to the two boys and kissed them both. Now her smile was genuine and Lari remembered the feel of her cool lips through his hair. ‘Be good boys. I’ll look in on the two of you when I get back, all right?’

  ‘Bye, Mum.’

  ‘Bye.’

  They listened to the front door hiss closed behind her and the faint hum of the descending elevator.

  And they’d never seen her again.

  Equipment failure – cause and specifics unknown. That was the verdict of the enquiry. She’d taken to turning off her transponder, so they’d never received any telemetry, and by the time they’d located the wreck, far out in the Eastern field, its parts had been scavenged. There was no body anywhere, and the investigators came to the inevitable conclusion that either Eyna Mann had died in the initial crash and her body had been taken by the subjects or she’d survived the impact, wandered away, and died from critical exposure afterwards.

  Dernan Mann had never really enjoyed fieldwork and Lari knew that after their mother’s disappearance he hadn’t been back to the Darklands again. Now, all these years later, Lari stared across the desk at his father with suspicion.

  ‘And you’re coming?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Lari stood and walked slowly around the office, running his forefinger absently along one wall. The Darklands. He couldn’t believe he was actually going to see them. The thought sent a nervous shiver down his back. The Darklands were something like the moon; everyone knew about them and could recite all the facts and stats, but to actually see them – visit them – that was an experience well beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen.

  Lari turned back to his father, who was now punching commands into his desk terminal.

  ‘What’s the entropy scenario?’

  Dernan Mann looked up. ‘It’s your brother’s idea of a joke, Larinan. Not a particularly funny one, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But what is it?’

  ‘It’s the second law of thermodynamics and one of the most constantly misapplied scientific theories in human history, which is why Janil chose it to describe, in broad terms, a phenomenon we believe is impacting on the city at the moment.’

  ‘What phenomenon?’

  ‘The movement away from order to chaos, Lari, or at least the appearance of it. It’s all subjective.’

  The com unit chimed.

  ‘You’d better get down here and suit up.’ Janil still sounded disgruntled.

  ‘On our way.’ Dernan Mann led Lari out and along the passageway.

  ‘So, this entropy scenario …’ Lari began, but his father shook his head.

  ‘Not out here, Larinan. You heard the Prelate. It’s not something to be discussed openly. Even here within the walls of the division.’

  The two rode the lift down in silence and emerged into an enormous hangar, the largest enclosed space Lari had ever been in. It took up the entire underside of the Port North Central Dome. Optic diffusers mounted high in the vaulted roof cast a bright line of light down the middle, along which squatted two rows of DGAP flyers. The walls of the hangar, into which were set the six circular outer doors, curved out from the floor, making the diameter of the ceiling almost double that of the deck.

  ‘Over here.’ Janil was waiting at the door of a small anteroom, already in his silver field suit. ‘Stay within the yellow lines.’

  Lari and his father followed a cross-hatched pathway marked on the floor. Their footsteps echoed briefly, but were soon lost in the enormous space.

  ‘Why is it so quiet?’

  Lari had expected much more activity as DGAP personnel prepared for their nightly fieldwork.

  ‘New developments, Larinan. In the last twenty-four hours we’ve wound up the bulk of our field-based projects. Most of these flyers will probably never see the outside of Port North Central again.’

  ‘You say that like it’s a good thing, Father,’ Janil growled, then nodded through the door behind him. ‘Come on.’

  They followed him into a kind of locker room with long metal benches and clothes pegs arrayed around the walls. Two more field suits had been flung onto the bench opposite the doors.

  ‘Those should fit, more or less. I couldn’t find one small enough for the copygen, so he’ll have to make do with a woman’s suit. Even that’ll probably be too big, but we won’t be leaving the flyer.’

  Lari struggled to pull the one-piece suit on over his clothes.

  ‘Careful!’ Janil snapped. ‘Tear it and it’s ruined. Here …’

  He grudgingly assisted Lari into the suit. The material was surprisingly light and Lari flexed his arms experimentally, feeling it slide against his skin.

  Janil clicked a small box onto a clip mounted on the chest of the suit.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘External communication box. We won’t need it, so don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Why wear it, then?’

  ‘Protocol … Here.’

  He thrust a helmet at Lari, who caught a brief, distorted glimpse of himself in the mirrored faceplate as he took it.

  ‘How do I put it on?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. If you need to, I’ll show you.’

  ‘All ready?’ Dernan Mann picked up his own helmet from the bench.

  ‘This way.’ Janil walked out and started across the hangar deck towards the nearest flyer.

  ‘Are you okay, Larinan?’ his father asked.

  ‘Fine.’

  The closer they came, though, the more Lari’s stomach churned. He’d never seen a flyer up close, only from the balcony in the mornings: distant lights returning to Port North Central. The machine looked squat and bug-like, gleaming black, crouching on three stumpy legs, with two searchlights mounted on either side of its bulbous nose dome.

  ‘Watch your heads.’ Janil ducked under the belly and waved his wrist against a scanning plate flush-mounted on the hull. A hatch slid open with an hydraulic hiss and Janil’s silver legs vanished up inside.

  ‘You go next,’ his father said.

  Inside, the flyer was roomier than Lari had expected. He could stand almost upright in the space behind the forward dome, where three seats were arrayed
in a triangular formation, two in front and one behind and slightly higher. Janil was strapping himself into the front left-hand one.

  ‘Put your helmet on the rack and then sit here, copygen.’ Janil pointed at the seat beside him. And don’t touch anything.’

  Their father climbed in behind.

  ‘You clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Janil flicked a switch and Lari heard the thump of the hatch closing.

  ‘How do these fit?’ Lari struggled with the seat straps.

  ‘Let me.’ Janil loosened his own harness and leaned over, roughly shoving Lari back into his chair and pulling the straps over Lari’s shoulders and hips, clasping them together into a magnetic buckle. ‘There.’ He pulled them hard.

  ‘Oww!’

  ‘Stop complaining. They need to be tight.’ He turned back to the glowing instrument panel and entered a couple of commands. ‘You ready, Father?’

  ‘Whenever you are, Janil.’

  Janil touched an icon on the control display, and immediately Lari felt the flyer tremble slightly. A low whine began to build somewhere below and behind him.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The resonators spooling up. Now shut up and let me concentrate.’

  The whining built until it became a throbbing hum, then Janil touched a small joystick mounted on the arm of his chair.

  ‘Hold on.’

  ‘Flying on manual?’ his father asked.

  A quick grin flickered across Janil’s face. ‘It’s the only way.’

  Outside, the hangar seemed to move as the flyer lifted suddenly from the deck. Lari closed his eyes and tried not to think about the uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his belly. Turning the flyer towards the nearest of the outer doors, Janil threw his brother a sideways glance.

  ‘You look a little white, copygen. You okay?’

  ‘Fine.’ Lari wasn’t going to give Janil any more satisfaction than he had to.

  ‘Good.’ Janil touched another icon and ahead of them the round door wound slowly open to reveal Port city, gleaming and blinking in the twilight. While they waited for the door to open, Janil said, ‘You know, a lot of people get sick their first time up. It’s pretty scary …’