The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 2 Read online

  His parents had always been distant. They were loving in a remote, stern kind of way, solicitous for the welfare of their sons, but wary of showing emotion, still less anything so exhibitionist as physical affection.

  Unlike Yancy’s parents, Yarrek thought, who showered the girl with such gestures of love that he found their displays embarrassing, not to say impious. But then Yancy’s folks were from the Hub, where tradition was lax.

  “The time has come,” his father said, “to speak of what lies ahead. For so long now the future was college, and the attaining of success in your studies. Now that you have achieved more than we could ever have hoped, together we take the next step.”

  Yarrek swallowed nervously. “I have considered my future,” he said. “I thought perhaps… well, I’d like to study to become an architect.”

  Silence greeted his words. His father’s grim expression did not waver; his thin face might have been carved from wood.

  His mother said, “Of course you have dreamed, Yarrek. Such boyish fancies are to be expected, and are excusable. But as the Church says, one’s destiny is often beyond the scope of the individual. There comes a time when the experience of Elders must shape the course of disciples.”

  Yarrek bowed his head. “My plans are more than dreams, mother. I’ve heard that architectural offices in the Hub are crying out for skilled draftsmen.”

  “Yarrek,” his father said, in a tone that stopped him dead. “Hub City is a den of vice, the playground of the heathen. No son of mine will venture there.”

  “But,” Yarrek said, resenting the note of desperation in that single word, “you know yourself that I am pious. I attend regular church. Why, to deny me the right to go to Hub City suggests that you think me weak, your instructions insufficient.”

  His mother stared at him. “My son, we of flesh are forever weak. Do you not consort with the daughter of the Garrishes?”

  “Yancy is a friend,” he began, angry at the disdain his mother had loaded onto the word consort.

  “She is the product of the Hub,” said his mother, “and the thought of your being surrounded by crowds of such people…”

  Yarrek stared from his father to his mother. “Then where else might I study to become an architect?”

  His mother allowed herself a minimal smile.

  His father said, “Tomorrow at mid-brightness you will take the sail-rail Edgeward to Icefast.”

  He echoed, “Icefast,” in horror. The very name of the city, perched on the very margin of the Edge, filled him with cold dread. The sun would be distant there; the outside temperature intolerable without layers of protective garments; his shadow eerily long…

  “And there I can study - ?” Yarrek began.

  His father said, “It has been arranged for you to sit an entrance examination for the office of the Inquisitor General.”

  His mother allowed another smile to crack her features; she could not conceal her pride. His father’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

  Icefast and the Inquisitor’s office? His parents’ plans for him were so contrary to his own that Yarrek was unable to grasp his sudden change of destiny. He thought of Yancy, and wanted nothing so much then as the consolation of her arms around him.

  “I have no say in the matter?” he asked.

  His father reached out and, with a hand as strong as a bailing iron, gripped Yarrek’s upper arm. “It is an honour to be so chosen, as you will come to appreciate.”

  Yarrek bowed his head and whispered, “I’ve heard that the methods of Inquisitors are Draconian.

  His father said, “Since Prelate Zeremy came to office, things have changed. He has curbed the power of the Inquisitors, put an end to their worst excesses. Now they truly are a force for good, instead of causing a conflicting schism within the Church itself.”

  Yarrek nodded. “May I now go to my room?”

  “Go,” his mother said, “and pack in preparation for your leave-taking.”

  He stood and hurried from the deck, making his way through the cool, dark house, and reached the refuge of his room. There he lay on his bed, too gripped by shock even to cry.

  He knew, even then, that he would do as his parents wished; he knew that Hub City was the dream of a juvenile, that his true destiny was in the icefields of the Edge, in the office of the Inquisitor General.

  The door creaked open. It was his father. He had doffed his Blacks, and now stood above Yarrek in his homely farmer’s garb.

  “Yarrek,” he said. “Yarrek, I must tell you something.” He sat down on the bed next to his son. Yarrek stiffened at his father’s unaccustomed proximity.

  He stared into the old man’s face, wondering at his father’s nervousness.

  And the farmer, pained by a duty he would rather have forgone, told him the truth.

  “Twenty cycles ago,” he began in a voice heavy with weariness, “a family in Icefast, a rich and influential family high up in the hierarchy of power, broke the edict of the Church and sired three children. “ Yarrek did not yet comprehend the import of his father’s words; the thought of a rich family contravening Church Edict was shocking enough.

  “Had the Church discovered the birth,” his father went on, “the child would have been put to death according to the Law of Conservation. But the family had power, as I said. They managed to spirit this child, a boy, out of Icefast in the depth of dimming and send it with paid agents Hubward.”

  His father could not bring himself to look Yarrek in the eye. “These agents arranged for a family to take in the boy, to raise him as their own.”

  Yarrek said, “No…”

  “The truth, Yarrek, is sometimes almost impossible to bear. But remember this: that truth, duly weighed and considered, makes a man stronger.”

  “You…” Yarrek said. “I… I am that child? You took me in? I am not…?” It was too vast a concept. His parents were not his parents? Jarrel was not his brother? He felt the certainty of the world tilt beneath him.

  And then his father - or rather the man who was not his father, but had acted as such for twenty cycles - did something which he had never done before: he reached out and took Yarrek’s shoulder in compassion. In a small voice he said, “Your mother had just miscarried. A son. She was grieving. We were poor then. The farm was yet to prosper. When the agents of aristocrats called and made their offer, we could not refuse. They paid us well, but money was not our motive. We looked upon you and knew that if we were to refuse, then you would die.”

  His father paused, and went on, “Your progress at college was monitored by the interested party in Icefast, and they arranged for your apprenticeship.”

  The irony! He, the illegal third child of aristocrats, was to be seconded into the very arm of the Church responsible for the policing of such edicts!

  The hand tightened on his shoulder. “But be assured of this, Yarrek. Despite everything, we love you as our own.”

  It was the first time his father had ever spoken such words of affection. With that, his face averted, he stood and left the room.

  Yarrek lay on his bed, staring through the open window at the baleful eye of the rapidly dimming sun. Unable to sleep, he thought ahead to his time in Icefast. Though much of what lay ahead would be a mystery, he resolved upon a course of action that would give his future some purpose: during his time in Icefast he would attempt to track down the people who were his rightful parents.

  Much later he was awakened by a sound.

  He sat up quickly, the revelations of his past and his future brimming in him like sour wine. He blinked. It was still dark, though the sun had reached the extent of its dimming and was little by little beginning to brighten.

  It came again, the sound…

  “Yarrek!” A mere whisper, from the direction of the window. He turned on the bed and saw, beside the nodding dark-blooms that wound in around the window-frame, Yancy’s round face staring in at him.

  “Yancy?”

  “I heard that you’re leaving for
Icefast. Jarrel told me over at the platform. When you didn’t turn up, I thought… Well” - she shrugged - ”here I am.”

  He hurried across the room and embraced her. She was standing on a thick twist of vine that clung to the facade of the manse. Her presence here, as it did every time she came for him, amazed Yarrek, for Yancy Garrish was blind. Her massive eyes were skinned over with a milky meniscus that only served to accentuate the beauty of her face.

  She raised a small flagon. “I’ve brought some yail acid, from my father’s locked cupboard,” she grinned. “Come to the platform and tell me everything.”

  She was already shinning down the vine; he straddled the window sill and followed her.

  He jumped the last meter and ran after Yancy as she disappeared through the yail stalks. Minutes later they emerged at the platform. It stood stark and empty in the umber light of the slowly brightening sun. Full brightening was hours away. He would have plenty of time with his friend before returning home.

  They climbed onto the platform and fell back onto piled sacks of yail. Yancy unplugged the flagon, took a quick slug, and then passed it to Yarrek. The spirit burned his throat, filled his belly with strangely comforting fire.

  He said, “What did Jarrel tell you?”

  She chose to ignore him. “Are the kite-fish swarming?” she asked, her sightless eyes staring in the direction of the brooding sun and the flotilla of kite-fish that basked in its gentle pre-brightening warmth.

  He took her hand. “Perhaps twenty, maybe thirty. Massive ones, mostly male, putting on a show.” He watched the intricacy of their aerial dance. “They’re performing their mating rituals, flying circles around the sun.”

  Yancy sighed and squeezed his hand. “And on the other side,” she said. “What can you see there?”

  Yarrek narrowed his eyes, peering past the sun and focussing on the other side of the world. Directly above him he could see that side’s Hub City, and radiating from it the web of lines that were the sail-rail tracks, with a great checkerboard of farmland in between. Overland, as his people called it, was a mirror image of the plain on which Yarrek lived; he had never met anyone who had ventured there, though he knew that ships plied back and forth across the frozen seas of the Edge.

  He described it to Yancy in great detail, omitting nothing.

  She snuggled close to him, her warmth in turn warming him, banishing his fears.

  He asked again, “Yancy, what did Jarrel tell you?”

  She was a while before replying. “He said you were to go to the Edge, to Icefast, at mid-brightening. There you had a job awaiting you. A very important job.”

  “Did he tell you what it was?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t know. Your parents had told him only so much, to prepare him for your leave-taking.”

  His silence prompted her question. “Well, Yarrek, will you tell me?”

  He braced himself for her ridicule, even her disgust. “I will sit an exam for the office of the Inquisitor General.”

  He turned and stared at her broad, pretty face in the light of the brightening. It was as if her features were frozen. Her hand remained on his, though her grip had slackened appreciably.

  “Yancy?”

  “You’ll be a lackey of the Church?” she said. “And an Inquisitor at that!”

  He shrugged. “I have no say in the matter. Do you think I want to leave here, leave you?” And he felt a twinge of treachery at these words, for he had planned to venture to Hub City without her. Though, he told himself, he would have seen her when he returned home, and she could have visited him often enough.

  She was silent for a long time. He watched the kite-fish perform convoluted arabesques with vast, lethargic grace.

  He wanted to tell Yancy that he was not a true Merwell - that his blood family were aristocrats in Icefast - but he could not bring himself to do so.

  “You’ll change,” she whispered. “You’ll become like them. Hard. Unforgiving. You’ll forget what it is to love, to feel compassion. For how can those that rule by the Edict of the Church have room in their hearts for the forgiveness of human frailty?”

  He took her hand. “I won’t change, Yancy.”

  She turned to face him, and her soured eyes seemed to be staring at him. “But you already believe, in your heart, Yarrek. You have been indoctrinated by your parents. And from belief, it is only a short step to pressing your belief onto others, by force if necessary.”

  “No!”

  She laughed. “But you take in every word the Church spouts and believe it for the ultimate truth!”

  Yancy and her family belonged to the caste of Weavers. From an early age Yancy had woven fabulous tapestries of such color and intricacy that they left Yarrek breathless. He had wondered how someone without sight could create such things of visual beauty. She had explained that she felt the colors, and kept the complex patterns in her head as she weaved.

  The Weavers were renowned for their lack of convention, their irreverence, but because of the importance of their position in society, producing carpets both aesthetic and utilitarian, the Church chose to ignore their heterodoxy.

  “Tell me again what the Church believes.” Yancy whispered now, mocking him. “Tell me that we are a bubble of air in a vast rock that goes on for ever and ever without end…”

  He thought about that, even as she laughed at him, and as ever the concept of infinity dizzied him. “Tell me,” she went on, “that the Church believes that the bubble was formed from the breath of God, as He breathed life into dead rock, creating us and the animals and everything else in existence!”

  “Yancy…” he pleaded, squeezing her hand.

  She embraced him quickly, and he realized with surprise that she was weeping. “Oh, Yarrek, I will never see you again, will I? And if I do, you will be so changed I’ll never recognize the boy I love.”

  He could think of no words to say in response, no gesture he could make to reassure her.

  A little later they removed their clothes and came together and made love slowly, under the eye of the quickening sun, and Yarrek wondered if it would be for the very last time.

  Yarrek stowed his luggage in the warped timber carriage of the sail-rail train and found a window seat. He stared out at the busy platform, and among the crowd picked out the unmoving trio of his father, mother, and brother. They looked solemn in the glare of the mid-brightening sun. He lifted a hand to acknowledge that he had seen them, but only Jarrel responded with a wave.

  He scanned the crowd for any sign of Yancy. Mere hours ago, as they lay limbs entwined on the yail sacks, she had promised that she would see him off at the station - but there were so many citizens swarming back and forth that he despaired of seeing her now.

  The cry went up from the ship’s captain. A team of lox were whipped into motion and chocks sprang away from the rails. The carriage creaked as the great sails took the strain and eased the train slowly, at first, along the rails.

  Desperately now Yarrek cast about the surging faces for Yancy - and then he heard the cry. “Yarrek, goodbye!”

  She had shinned up a lamp-pole and was waving furiously in the direction of the train. He called, “Yancy, farewell!” and waved even though she would be unable to see the gesture.

  She smiled, and waved all the more, and Yarrek turned to the tableau of his family and was heartened by the disapproving expressions on the faces of his mother and father. Jarrel was grinning to himself like an idiot.

  The train gained speed, the wind from the Hub sending it on its way. Yarrek felt tears stinging his eyes as he waved to his family and the small, clinging figure of the blind weaver girl.

  He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes.

  He awoke a little later to the thrumming vibration of the train’s wheels on the track.

  Yarrek had never before been further Edgeward than his farm. Now, mixed with apprehension at what should await him at Icefast, he was fired by the excitement and curiosity of adventure. The f
uture was a blank canvas on which he would paint his destiny; he knew neither what to expect from Icefast - though in books he had seen engravings of dour, stone buildings - nor what exactly might await him in the office of the Inquisitor.

  The train had gained full speed now, and fields of yail and other crops sped by in a golden blur. Yarrek slid open the window and poked his head out, staring up at the bellying sails bearing the great green circle of the Hub Line. Almost directly overhead, the sun had attained full brightness and the heat was merciless.

  He wondered how he might cope in Icefast, where the sun was a speck on the inward horizon, and the temperature never rose above freezing.

  He glanced around his compartment and tried to guess how many of his fellow passengers were bound all the way to Icefast; not many, judging by their scant luggage. Indeed, as the hours elapsed and the train stopped at the stations along the way, many travellers alighted to be replaced by others who remained aboard only for short durations.

  He began a letter to Yancy - addressed to the weaving house where she worked, and where a friend would read it out to her - describing the voyage so far, and promising that this letter would be the first of many.

  Later he ate an evening meal packed by his mother, then went for a stroll along the corridor and up a flight of steps. The view from the upper deck, beneath the taut swell of the sails, was spectacular. He could see for what seemed like hundreds of miles in every direction: a sprawling panorama of yail fields, here and there the spires and steeples of towns and villages.

  Towards dimming, as he was contemplating going below and setting up his bunk, there was a rush of activity over by the starboard rail where a dozen passengers gathered and pointed.

  In the distance, perhaps a mile away, Yarrek saw the humped remains of ancient buildings, tumbled stones upholstered by centuries of creeping grass and ferns. He recognized the ruins from picture books at school: this was the old city of Hassaver, the only existing remnant of the war that had almost brought the end of civilization on Sunworld. Dreadful weapons had been brought to bear by implacable armies, fighting for countries long forgotten.