The Abyss Beyond Dreams (57 page)

‘That’s just to
start
?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Giu. So what happens after that?’

‘Whatever needs to happen. That’s the whole point of being strategic.’

*

This version of his personality was strange. Not unpleasant, but definitely different. Nigel knew they were his own thoughts running through the ANAdroid’s bioconstruct
brain. The inbuilt gaiamotes still connected him to his real self as he went upstairs to the hotel suite with Kysandra, just as they simultaneously linked him with the second ANAdroid sharing a
room in the hotel’s servants’ quarters with Madeline and Russell. Identity wasn’t the problem. It was the responses that were difficult. For all its excellent duplication of his
own neural pathways, the bioconstruct brain didn’t facilitate spontaneous emotion. Instead he had to analyse situations and extrapolate what he should be feeling. The bioconstruct brain was
fast enough and the secondary routines good enough to produce appropriate expressions without delay. Ironically, of course, not having emotions didn’t bother the ANAdroid; he simply knew that
any real version of himself would be bothered.

There was also the problem of ex-sight perception. Without a shell (which this artificial brain could generate perfectly), anyone on Bienvenido would know his thoughts were different, wrong.
Best case scenario they’d think him a psychopath, unfeeling and cold, disconnected from his fellow humans. More likely they’d assume he was a Faller. But then, as the ANAdroid
didn’t sleep, he was never likely to be caught with his shell down. In fact, maintaining it constantly was handled by a secondary routine.

He was confident he could pass for human in the city. Kysandra had certainly never realized the ANAdroids were all Nigel-copy personalities. A subtle variation in the emotional responses of each
one was easy enough, making them appear distinct and different. But she was young and naive. Living in Varlan would be the real test.

As Nigel and Kysandra said goodnight and retired to their separate rooms upstairs (Kysandra claimed the huge bed in the master bedroom, of course), he walked into the Rasheeda’s lounge
bar. At this time of the evening, coming up on midnight, the room was quite full, with most of the booths occupied. He sat at the bar, choosing the middle one of three empty stools.

‘Dirantio,’ he told the barman. An almond-flavoured spirit his real self enjoyed the taste of. Taste made no difference to him, and the ANAdroid body would never metabolize the
alcohol, but he should sound as if he knew what he liked.

‘Ice with that, sir?’ the barman asked.

‘Yes, please.’

There was the distinctive
swish
sound of silk as she sat on the stool next to him. He turned to look at her. Fresh mascara had been added. He wondered if she’d been crying,
slapped about by her pimp back in the booth for her earlier failure.

‘Now, where’s that barman gone?’ she asked, not quite to herself.

‘Getting me some ice. He’ll be back in a moment.’

‘Oh, good. I like my drink chilled.’

‘Really? What do you like to drink?’

‘Me? Oh, white wine, mostly. Sometimes a Finns. When I’m in the mood.’

‘I would love to buy you one of those.’

She did the slow appraising blink. ‘Can you afford one? You seem rather young.’

‘I’ve just arrived in the city today. It’s kind of a tradition for the men in our family. We spend a couple of years at the university partying and making contacts and maybe
even going to a lecture or two before we get dragged back home to manage the estates like every other boring ancestor since the landing.’

‘Oh, really? Where is home?’

‘Kassell. Ever been?’

‘No.’

‘Well, maybe one day. I’d be happy to show you round.’

‘If that offer is still open, I think I’ll risk a Finns.’

‘Glad I caught you in the right mood, er . . . ’

‘Bethaneve.’

‘Hello, Bethaneve. I’m Coulan.’

From Varlan, they took the express to Portlynn, which sat at the end of the Great Central Line, three thousand miles as the mantahawk flew, but the track headed north to Adice
first, then curved round the Guelp mountains as it sliced through the middle of Lamaran. By the time they finally pulled in at Portlynn, the train had travelled closer to four thousand miles,
stopping twenty times and taking four days.

Portlynn had sprung up as a trading town at the end of Nilsson Sound, a huge inlet slicing deep into the heart of Lamaran. It was also the estuary to the river Mozal, whose massive tributary
network multiplied across the wetland basin which stretched right across to the Bouge mountains a thousand miles to the east, and down to the Transo mountains in the south. This close to the
equator, and with guaranteed rainfall, the rich soil was perfect for stonefruit, banana, breadfruit and citrus plantations, as well as extensive rice paddies. The river network made travel easy and
cheap, with no need to invest in expensive train lines that would have needed a multitude of bridges.

The regional capital extended over across dozens of estuary mud islands. Its buildings were all wooden, which came as quite a change for Kysandra after all the stone and brick towns the express
had just travelled through. Wood imposed natural limits on the height of the buildings, so instead of going up, the town sprawled outwards, colonizing the marshy ground. There were bridges between
the islands, but there was no logic to their positions, and they were all narrow – for pedestrians, not carts. Sometimes you’d have to go round three or four islands before reaching the
one neighbouring the one you started at. All real travel in Portlynn was by boat along the channels, which were constantly being dredged clear. The buildings themselves were all built on stilts,
thick hardwood trunks driven deep into the alluvial silt to provide stability and protection from the monsoon season floods.

Nigel booked them into the Baylee Hotel, a big three-storey structure close to the east bank docks, where the town’s largest warehouses stood at the end of long wharfs. Fast sailing
clippers and steam-powered sea barges were berthed along them, with teams of mod-dwarfs and stevedores loading and unloading cargoes all day long.

It took two days to gather supplies then hire a boat to take them upstream. But at daybreak on the third morning Nigel, Kysandra, Fergus, Madeline and Russell walked along the rickety bridges to
Kate’s Lagoon at the south end of the city. Nigel had hired the
Gothora
, a sturdy steam-powered cargo boat, with a hull built out of anbor planks, one of the hardest woods on
Bienvenido. A tiny crew cabin at the rear had berths for Captain Migray and his three crew: Sancal, Jymoar and the engineer Avinus. They certainly couldn’t fit Nigel and the rest in with
them, so they’d rigged the first of
Gothora
’s two holds with a simple bamboo frame covered in canvas, allowing the passengers to spend the trip under cover, along with their
trunks and supplies. The other hold was rigged with a simple open-sided awning, and used as a stable for the five terrestrial horses which they would ride across the desert, and the three
mod-horses that would go with them, carrying their provisions.

Portlynn was just coming to life when Migray cast off and steered them out of Kate’s Lagoon into the three-kilometre-wide mouth of the Mozal. The water was a thick ochre red from the silt
it carried, and it flowed so swiftly at the centre that boats going upstream had to travel close to the side where the current wasn’t as tenacious. Even so,
Gothora
burnt a lot of
logs and didn’t make much headway for the morning of the first day.

The riverbanks for the first fifteen kilometres up from the mouth were still wild despite the heavy cultivation a few kilometres inland.
Gothora
chugged past a continuous wall of
marshes and jugobush swamps, one boat in a long procession of cargo vessels setting off upstream. Five hundred metres to starboard, vessels laden with freshly picked crops were racing past,
catching the current downstream to dock in Portlynn where their payload would be transferred to trains or the big seagoing ships.

By mid-afternoon they were seeing the first plantations and pastures encroaching through the flood meadows. Big white-painted manor houses were glimpsed amid the dense groves. Then the villages
began to appear on the banks; like Portlynn, the houses were all built from wood and stood on stilts. Landing jetties extended out into the river, with boats docked and stevedores busy.

‘It all looks so lovely,’ Kysandra said wistfully as the pretty little communities slid past. Nearly all the original jungle had been cleared, surrendering the land to cultivation.
Rigid lines of citrus trees stood proud in their groves. Small armies of mod-dwarfs moved through them, picking the colourful globes. Big carts stacked high with wicker crates full of fruit wound
along the dirt tracks lined with tall fandapalms to the jetties. Paddy fields glinted rose gold in the afternoon sun, with even smaller mod-dwarfs wading through them, planting rice. Cattle and
ostriches grazed long lush meadows. Humans walked about or rode horses, all wearing wide-brimmed hats against the powerful sun. It looked such a settled, easy life.

‘Would you like to live here, señorita?’ Jymoar asked.

Kysandra gave a small furtive smile and glanced round. Jymoar was standing beside the small wheelhouse, looking at her. He caught her eye and grinned happily. She blushed and turned back to
stare at the riverbank. Jymoar was maybe nineteen, serving his apprenticeship with his uncle Migray. Cute enough, but . . .
No thanks.

‘I already have a home, thank you.’ Even as she said it, she regretted it. The lad gave her an apologetic nod and turned to go.

‘But I could be persuaded to move.’ She gave Nigel a sly glance. ‘My guardian won’t be able to order me around forever.’

‘Guardian?’ Jymoar said in confusion.

Nigel tipped his hat at Jymoar. ‘That would be me. But I’m going to check on the horses, or something; you kids have fun.’ With a private ’path, he added, ‘Play
nice, now,’ to Kysandra.

‘So have you travelled this far east before?’ she asked.

Jymoar hurried forward to be with her. ‘Never so far, no. But I have only been on the
Gothora
for seven months. One day I will have my own boat.’

She gave him an encouraging smile. ‘Really? What sort?’

*

As night came, lights from the villages and more isolated manors shimmered across the fast quiet water as the
Gothora
kept a steady course upstream. They stopped at a
village the next day to replenish their logs and buy fresh food for the galley. After less than four hours, they set off again.

It took eight days to navigate the length of the Mozal. Fortunately the main river extended almost all the way to the southern end of the Bouge mountain range, a thousand miles due east from
Portlynn. Only the last fifty miles saw them turning down a tributary river, the Woular, heading north again. The mountains had grown steadily up from the horizon for the last two days.

The land on either side of the Woular had reverted to long stretches of raw jungle and scrub. Estates and villages were spaced further and further apart. This was wilderness country, devoid of
any terrestrial vegetation. Native natell and quasso trees grew tall along the riverbanks, festooned with vines decorated in an abundance of white and purple flowers. The water was getting clogged
with rotting fallen branches and long vine tendrils. Tough bakku weed grew along the edges, forming large wiry mats. Captain Migray had to reduce speed, while he and Sancal used their ex-sight
diligently, probing the river for snags. They hadn’t seen another boat for hours.

Finally, Croixtown slipped into view round a long curve. The village was made up from about fifty houses, none of which had a second storey. They were huddled together at the centre of an array
of big pens, whose high, strong fences contained bison and wild boar. Smaller pens contained neuts. Kysandra craned her neck forward, her retinas zooming in.

‘Are those camels?’

‘You have good eyes,’ Jymoar said, smiling worshipfully. He’d spent most of the voyage flirting hopefully with her and was now badly smitten.

‘Thank you.’

‘And, yes, those are probably camels. The rancheros, they don’t care what they drive into their corrals, as long as it fetches a shining coin from the markets.’

‘That’s a lot of livestock out there,’ Nigel said, regarding the pens attentively.

Jymoar didn’t flinch quite as much as he had at the start of the trip whenever Nigel said something. ‘Si, señor. The savannah is home to many beasts; they run wild here. There
are few predators, just mantahawks and roxwolves and dingoes – and the rancheros hunt them down to protect the herds.’ He looked round furtively, then lowered his voice.
‘I’ve heard that the people of Shansville like dingo meat.’

Kysandra stared past the pens. Beyond them, the land rose slowly to the foothills of the Bouge range, a vast open region of savannah where the blue-green native gangrass rippled away like some
sluggish sea. The occasional ebony whipwoor tree stood proud, thorny blemishes speckling the endless shifting gangrass. ‘Is that where the Desert of Bone is?’ she asked.

‘Beyond the mountains, yes,’ Jymoar said. ‘I wish you were not going there, señorita. It is a bad place.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Everybody knows. Not even the Fallers dare to travel there. They say there are ten thousand bodies piled up in the centre, their bones are a monster’s treasure hoard and their souls
haunt the desert, weeping tears of grey light into the sand.’

‘Fascinating,’ Nigel said. ‘What sort of monster?’

‘Nobody knows, señor. If you encounter it, you do not survive. Those that do manage to avoid its clutches are scarred for life by what they have seen; many go mad
afterwards.’

‘Ten thousand bodies? That’s a lot of people. Where did they come from?’

‘Nigel,’ Kysandra chided, frowning at him. It wasn’t fair to mock the poor boy’s superstition.