Emissaries from the Dead

13. ABYSS

The tether I’d used to connect myself to the hammock’s solid rib pulled me up short just before I could decide that I was dead.

It jerked taut at the base of my spine, startling the breath out of me and arresting the plunge of my midsection even as my upper torso, and limbs, attempted to continue falling. I bent over double, grunted, thrashed in panic as I spun like a toy at the end of my line, and came close to fainting in shock.

All at once I knew someone was trying to kill me.

I’d like to report that my rage was all by itself enough to keep away the terror.

I can’t say that.

I think I vomited before it occurred to me to scream.

I’m not sure whether I did or not because I didn’t remember doing anything, and while I tasted the acid in my throat, there wasn’t anything anywhere on me. Whatever I’d lost was now well on its way to the lower atmosphere of One One One.

I gagged, tasted blood, realized I was spinning, and only then tried to scream, without any success at summoning voice.

Far below, the clouds of One One One rumbled from another internal storm. One formation lit up, backlighting the outline of another dragon in flight. I had the lunatic thought that it didn’t deserve to have such fine wings, almost surrendered to hysteria again, and in a single burst of sheer frenzy whipped my head around to see if anything at all remained solid above me.

Not much did.

The hammock’s circular spine was still intact, as were most of the bundles still attached to it; a few, containing items I’d never bothered to investigate, had gone missing. My own bag, with all its personal treasures, still hung from its tether. Everything below the circular spine was missing, and (now that I looked), much above it. The upper regions of the hammock were covered with little black spots.

I don’t eat apples. But the black spots made me think of one, infested with worm trails.

I found voice and screamed.

“HELP! FOR JUJE SAKE, SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

Silence.

No response whatsoever.

I screamed again, this time requesting specific people. Lastogne; no answer. Oscin and Skye; no answer. Oskar Levine, on the grounds that us outcasts needed to stick together. Nobody answered. The only sounds were my own ragged breath and the wind brushing over the sections of canvas that still remained.

I started cursing them.

Still nothing.

Maybe I was the last one left.

Maybe all the tents had failed, the same way mine had, and all of Gibb’s people were already dead and falling.

Maybe the AIsource had exercised their claimed ability to kill every human being on One One One.

Maybe I should just wriggle free of this tether and let myself fall.

I bit my lip in anger. No, dammit. Use your head. There was still light shining from up above, both through the holes in the canvas and through the canvas itself. Its only likely source was the superstructure of Hammocktown. There hadn’t been any of the changes in the quality or the intensity of that light, which suggested that the nets and rope bridges were still intact. I had to believe that Hammocktown was intact as well, if for no other reason than because the unknown assassin we blamed for the deaths of Warmuth and Santiago had thus far seemed happy enough to claim victims one at a time.

If the camp couldn’t hear me, there had to be another reason.

I listened, and realized that much of what I’d taken for wind was instead a soft hiss.

The bastard. Or bitch. Whatever.

They’d hiss-screened the entire hammock, to cut me off from any would-be rescuers.

I could cry for help until I scraped my throat raw, and nobody would ever hear me.

For the next few seconds, that didn’t stop me from trying.

Afterward, running out of breath, managing another look above me to confirm that the holes in the canvas had grown larger and more numerous, I became angry enough to do something about it.

Had to take this one step at a time.

The tether was the only thing keeping me alive. Getting a grip on it, behind my back, was difficult as I was bobbing and spinning from my initial fall, but I managed it. It was a thin line, but a strong one, with just enough texture to make a firm grip possible. It wasn’t the kind of rope I would have chosen to climb, but then I’d never allowed my life to depend on climbing a rope before.

I pulled and with tremendous strain managed to lift my body a few centimeters before exhaustion made me let go and fall again.

That was okay. I’d learned what I wanted to learn.

I reached behind my back and grabbed the line with both hands, with my favored hand, the right, uppermost. Holding on with both hands was not quite as difficult as maintaining a grip with only one, but still more than I could manage for very long.

This would have been easier facing the tether. The blood wouldn’t be rushing to my head, for one thing. But I didn’t need this to be easy. I needed it to be possible.

All I had to do was release the line with my left hand, move that hand just a few centimeters to a new hold directly above my right.

My left hand didn’t want to let go until I screamed at it for being so fucking useless.

Then it complied.

I rose a few worthless centimeters. The strain on my arms and lower back was horrible, but at least now there was some slack on the line.

The clouds of One One One’s lower atmosphere called to me. This is stupid, Andrea, why don’t you just let go and come to us? It’s not like you have anything special to live for.

Climbing just this little bit had taken more out of me than I could really afford. The position was just too difficult. One of Gibb’s monkeys might have managed it, but I was not built like them. I didn’t have that kind of climbing experience or upper-body strength.

To have any chance at all I had to find a way to turn around and face the line.

Another few inches gained, and the slack in the line began to curl against my waist. Black spots swarmed at the edges of my vision. I hissed through gritted teeth and knew, with as much certainty as I’ve ever known anything, that I’d only have one shot at this.

Still holding on with my left hand, I released the hold I had with my right and allowed myself to roll. Throwing all my weight into the spin, I put everything I had, and a little bit more, into whipping my right arm around.

I don’t know what I would have done if I’d missed it. The tether would have arrested my fall again, but I’d have been back where I started, too exhausted to start again, with the only safety line still attached to my back and still almost impossible to reach.

But my right hand found the line.

I spun, gasped as my grip almost failed to survive the counterswing, then gasped again as I righted and the line now curling in front of me whipped across my face, drawing a nasty friction burn on my cheek.

But once I stopped spinning, my body was no longer an inverted V, bent at the waist and trapped with a view of the clouds. Now I had my back to them and my eyes fixed on the remains of my hammock. The material of the upper structure had further deteriorated in the long minutes since my last close look. It was now marred by big gaping holes surrounded by clusters of smaller ones. I could see additional ribs of the same material, composing the central spine, descending from the hammock’s highest point like a pair of interlocking arches, to anchor the rib in four places.

Anything I could hold on to was good news.

All I had to do now was climb up, hook my legs around the circular spine, and scramble up and over.

That was still going to be difficult, but the hard part was done, I thought.

I was wrong.

By the time I straddled the circular spine, grateful for the substantial comfort I found in contact with such a solid object, the air around me was flecked with falling snow.

Not water-snow. This was another phenomenon, resembling little flakes of ash. They tumbled around me in thin flurries, captives of One One One’s high-altitude breezes, each speck a little pinprick of tan color I was only able to discern because of all the lights of Hammocktown, shining through the wreckage above me.

I didn’t know what the specks were until one came to rest on the back of my hand. It was an irregular square about half the size of my pinky fingernail, neutral in texture, so light I wouldn’t have been aware of its arrival at all had I not been watching at the moment. There were probably any number of flakes just like it already dotting my skin and in my hair. This one seemed to be sizzling, though I couldn’t feel any difference between its temperature and that of the surrounding air. Even as I watched, a small hole formed in its center, and the straight lines of the outer perimeter turned saw-toothed as bits and pieces of it dissolved into nothingness.

It was a piece of my hammock.

The process responsible for dissolving the lower half was still hard at work on the upper portions.

The loose canvas at my side rippled in the wind. I tightened my thighs around the thin rail and probed the cloth with my left hand.

It felt softer. Fuzzier. The more it broke down, the more pitted and rutted its surface became. The imperfections may not have been visible to the naked eye, but they did change the texture, and my fingertips could feel the difference.

Whatever was happening here didn’t seem to be affecting the hammock ribs, yet, but I had no guarantee that they’d remain intact forever.

I yelled again, testing the hiss screen: “HEY! HELP! I’M OVER HERE!”

Then listened.

Nothing.

I couldn’t tell whether I was still within the hiss field, or outside it in a Hammocktown where everybody else had died, but either way, my options remained limited.

I had to get to solid ground.

Unfortunately, I was on the far side of the circular spine, opposite the bridge to the rest of the community. To get there I’d have to use the spine as a tightrope. The sections of hammock still remaining intact would only hinder me in that attempt. I couldn’t straddle the spine, let alone walk upright, in any of the places where material flapped. Nor was I sure I had enough will left to move at all. I couldn’t think of the emptiness below me without wanting to close my eyes and shut myself down.

The only solution to that was to start moving.

First things first: retrieving my bag. I’d tethered it before tethering myself, and I wasn’t willing to surrender it.

I reached over, grabbed the shoulder strap, and looped it over my head.

Then I undid its tether.

Fear flared when I realized that it was as vulnerable now as I was…and that there were any number of ways it could unbalance me and pull me over the side.

I didn’t allow that thought to lead to considerations of dropping it.

More snow flurries around my head.

Canvas shrapnel tumbled past me, and into the void.

The tent above me had deteriorated enough to reveal the Uppergrowth. Three Brachiators dangled in plain sight, their broad, shaggy backs blind to me. One bore a little baby Brachiator, one-tenth the size of its mother, clinging to her back with equal determination.

I considered finding some way to signal them, maybe getting some help, but changed my mind as soon as I realized that any one of them could have been responsible for what was happening to me. Even if not, just what could they do to help anyway? They weren’t exactly the most agile creatures I’d ever known.

I had to do this myself.

Another flurry of canvas snow.

Somebody right behind me said, “Why don’t you just fall?”

It wasn’t an implanted thought but an implanted sound, unmuffled by static or distance.

It was neither male nor female, young or old, mad or sane: just a slick, measured everyvoice, flensed of everything that might have given it character. Only the words themselves betrayed its malicious nature.

“It’s not like you haven’t considered the option,” the voice continued. “The Dip Corps knows how much of your waking time you spend thinking about it. In the files they never let you see, they call you a third-tier suicidal personality, of the sort that automatically imagines self-destruction as the easiest possible solution to every serious problem, before your intelligence kicks in and you concoct another solution you like more. The analysts among your keepers like to credit that tension between your self-destructiveness and your self-preservation for your success as an investigator.”

I didn’t know who this unknown Heckler was. There was nothing in the voice to recognize. But the arrogance was familiar. This was the same cruel bitch, or bastard, who had sent me those hate mails. If it was also the perpetrator responsible for killing Warmuth and Santiago, then my current lifespan was probably measurable in minutes.

Good. Minutes were an improvement when fighting seconds. Now all I had to keep was the shithead talking. “N-nice to know.”

“They also compile yearly studies on your emotional state, as well as the immediate likelihood of your self-destructive side ever getting what it wants, in order to maximize your potential as a diplomatic asset. Would you like to know your current stats, Counselor? Would you enjoy a pie-chart measuring just how much you think your life is worth?”

I used the nearest vertical rib to guide myself to a standing position. After about ten seconds of sheer hell, I managed to get to my feet without killing myself. I didn’t straighten up all the way, as there was still loose material billowing around just over my head, and one flap in the face could have knocked me over the edge and sent me on an unwanted tour of the lower atmosphere. But I did manage an uneasy crouch, with knees bent and feet balanced.

My training had never covered tightrope walking. Even if it had, it wouldn’t have covered walking a beam that curved. When fighting vertigo, a straight line requiring a forward stride is about a hundred times easier than a curve requiring a miniature course correction with every step.

But all I had to worry about right now was the distance between me and the next vertical support. That wasn’t too far. It gave me something to aim for. I could manage both speed and accuracy that long.

I stood there, trembling, rehearsing my moves a thousand times in the space of a second.

Just as I took the first step, the Heckler spoke again.

“There’s even a contingency plan. You should know about this one, Andrea. It’s really quite clever. You see, the people who use you, who rely on your skills and reap the benefits of your accomplishments, who have sheltered you from the same fate afforded the rest of the surviving Bocaian colonists, do value you, in the way they’d value any other useful tool. They intend to hold on to you for as long as they can. But they also know that you might not always be as useful as you are now, and foresee any number of circumstances where you might, someday, become a liability. In such an event they know any number of ways to turn your third-tier personality to their advantage. They’ve considered how to arrange circumstances where you’d be likely to turn that famous anger of yours inward. And the second you surrender to the inevitable, they’ll gnash their teeth and wring their hands and wax rhapsodic about the deeds of the public servant who had overcome such a tragic beginning to accomplish so much. They might even feel bad. But they won’t mourn. Because nobody mourns a monster, Andrea.”

I was on my knees, hugging the vertical rib I’d aimed for. “Nobody…asked them to.”

The twenty steps had taken only a few seconds to travel. Recovering from the sheer terror of the journey had kept me mute and paralyzed a full minute after that. My belly had become a pit of ice, my heart a runaway engine intent on ripping free of my chest.

“I should tell you everything,” the Heckler continued.

I rose to my feet, balancing myself on that last section of rib, trying not to wobble and knowing I would anyway, working up enough nerve for the last rush to safety.

“Because that’s the way your mind works. You’ve survived this long because you refuse to die when there’s still something left to know. You can’t go without knowing the faces of your Unseen Demons.”

Juje! Is there anybody here who doesn’t know that phrase?

No. Forget that. That’s just an attempt to rattle you. Concentrate on the road ahead. There won’t be a perfect moment. The more I stay here trying to work up sufficient nerve, the more hopelessly spastic I’ll become. The only choice is to go.

But my arms refused to relinquish their grip.

“But if I tell you everything, you lose that excuse for living. Should I tell you, Andrea? Would that give you an excuse to jump?”

I balanced myself as best as I could and launched myself on my journey across that final quarter-section of rib.

Five steps in and I knew I was in trouble. I was already leaning far too far to my left, and beginning to lose my balance. Momentum still propelled me forward, but I was not so much running as falling in slow motion.

My right foot caught the rib at a glancing angle instead of a secure one and it went out from under me and gravity took hold, and I pinwheeled my arms and for just one moment managed to avoid toppling—and in that second pivoted almost one hundred and eighty degrees while catching sight of a pair of familiar figures hopping off the edge of a rope bridge that I would never survive to reach.

I recognized them as the Porrinyards.

The gesture pissed me off. Why were they so eagerly killing themselves? This was my moment to die.

Then I was in free fall and I knew that these last several minutes had been nothing but a delaying action, because I was dead, and that stupid hateful voice had been right about me not wanting to die with so many questions unanswered.

I never fainted. Had I continued to fall, I would have remained wide-eyed and terrified, recording every millimeter of that endless, inevitable plunge to dissolution in the storms below.

But I never saw the arc of the other bodies, falling up to meet mine.