CHAPTER 36

THE SURFACE HE was lying on was hard and cold, yet obviously not the frozen ground of a Siberian winter. His head thrummed with a low bass note unutterable by human voice.

Then Va remembered. He dragged in a gasp of breath. Something scuttled away from him, and all he could see for a moment was a great steel spider, daggers for feet, as it spun and stabbed its way through the Kenyan emperor’s guards.

He saw a dull black crab-thing wave its antennae and hurry away through a hole in the distant wall.

‘Am I in Hell?’ The witch had killed him with sorcery, and this place was no heaven: full of shadow, evil and unnatural shapes, machines for company. He’d fallen and failed. The past five years of austere holiness hadn’t been enough to counter a lifetime’s worth of slaughter and sin.

He started to cry.

The voice in his head told him not to. It told him that he had to be strong, not to fear, that no one or nothing would hurt him.

Only when the voice switched to Old Russian did he pay it any attention.

‘Brother. Stand up.’

It sounded like the voice of God.

‘Lord?’ He hurried to his feet.

‘Listen to me, Va. You are not dead, and this is not the afterlife. Neither am I your god. My name is Ariadne, and I want to help you.’

Va darted his head this way and that, looking for the source of the voice. He realized that it came from above him.

‘Where are you? Why can’t I see you?’

‘You can see me. I am the room you are in, and every other place here. The walls are my bones.’

‘Show yourself. I can’t tell where you are.’ Va twirled around. ‘Where am I?’

‘This will be difficult for you, Brother Va. You are less adaptable than the others. Neither have you had time to become accustomed to acts of casual magic. One thing I cannot allow you to do is harm me. I will defend myself against you. Whatever your reaction, you must not attempt violence.’

‘I couldn’t hurt you. I wouldn’t.’

‘I wish I could believe you,’ said Ariadne. ‘but your first instinct is destruction. You would try and kill me simply because of who I am.’

‘I’m trying to be good. With God’s help, I’m trying. Why won’t you come out and talk to me?’

‘You hear but you don’t understand. You are on a ship, a special ship that sails between the stars as easily as a boat goes from port to port. When you were in the emperor’s garden and looked up, what did you see?’

‘I . . . I thought I saw a bird. It must have been a big bird, as big as a whale.’

‘That was me. I am the ship. This is my body, Va. I’m not human like you, but I’m still a person.’

Va looked for a door. There was an archway leading out into a corridor, but Ariadne closed it off before he could get through.

‘How did you do that?’ He looked for a latch, something to open it with. ‘Where are you?’

‘You are confined for your own safety, Va. We must reach an understanding before I can let you roam about me at will. There is a great deal of damage you could do that would endanger both me and your companions.’

Va scrabbled around, circling the room like a caged wolf, looking for the slightest opening. Ariadne’s constant conversation with him did nothing to stop the rising panic. He eventually fell to his knees and wrapped his head in his arms, cackling and weeping.

‘Do you remember?’

‘No,’ said Va. ‘I want to forget.’

‘This is important, Va. When you were in the garden, what happened?’

‘You’re a voice in my head. I won’t answer you.’

‘Perhaps this will help. Look up.’

Light started to penetrate between the cracks in Va’s fingers. Slowly he uncurled. There was an angel, wings unfurled, bending down over him. She held out her hand and beckoned him to rise.

‘Is that what you are?’

‘No. I am the ship. I’m just trying to give you a focus, something you recognize as part of your world-view. I could appear as Saint Basil or the Holy Mother if you prefer.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Va. ‘If you’re not an angel, then who are you?’

‘The ship, Va. The ship. I am the ship. It’s who I am. Ariadne Shipsister. This angel is an avatar, an image I can choose, but what I am is a ship. You can choose to believe me or not,’ she said, ‘but that doesn’t change what I am.’

‘A person can’t be a thing. That’s wrong. This place is full of evil spirits, tormenting me. I am in Hell, I must be.’

Ariadne fluttered her wings noiselessly. ‘You think you know where you are. For you, it’s a place worse than any hell, which is why you try to explain it using the only words you understand. If you were in Hell, there would be demons and devils and souls in torment, and you would recognize it as such. No one in Hell would ever mistake their surroundings for somewhere else.’

Va knew that what the angel said was true. ‘Then you are . . .’ His voice failed.

‘Say it.’

‘No.’

‘You’re wrong, but say it anyway. You have to get past this point and move on to greater understanding.’

‘You’re Users.’ Va spat the word out. He looked around again, for anything he could use as a weapon. Wrecking was God’s work, and this place needed burning as badly as Akisi’s tower in An Cobh.

‘We are not those people you call Users. If you’ll let me, I’ll explain. If you attempt to damage any of my systems, I will subdue you.’ The angel folded her arms. ‘Which is it to be?’

‘The Users were the masters of lies.’

‘And we are not Users. I haven’t lied to you yet. Neither do I intend to do so. It’s not in my nature.’

‘The Users were destroyed by God. How did you escape?’

‘Va, you have to listen to me. My name is Ariadne Shipsister. I am a starship. I was not made by the culture you call Users, and Benzamir is not a User either. The Users are gone, their bones are dust; they only live on in your memory.’ The angel started to lose its shape. ‘I’ll leave you to think on these things. When you are ready, we can talk again.’

‘Wait!’ Va reached out and his hand passed through the angel’s robe. He stared at his hand. ‘How?’

‘It’s a projection, beamed into your eyes. You see it as real; it’s nothing but an illusion. But this is not important. Don’t get distracted by the detail, Va. I need you to concentrate.’ Ariadne’s angel took shape again. ‘Are you ready?’

Va sat back on his haunches, a haunted look on his face. ‘What if I’m not?’

‘Then I will keep you unconscious until we have the opportunity to leave you somewhere safe. Time has run out. As soon as he’s finished helping me sew Princess Elenya’s small intestine back together, Benzamir will finish the job he came to do.’

‘Elenya?’

‘You were there. Wahir had led you to the garden. You were surrounded by the emperor’s guard, and Elenya had her knife pressed against the emperor’s neck. Benzamir and the remotes came to find you. You must remember what happened next.’

Va started to tremble. Memories of a many-armed monster rising from the ground, of Mahmood killing it with a gesture, and metal balls that darted like silver fish, and soldiers falling to the ground. Of Va trying to protect the emperor by holding onto Elenya’s knife, of her folding in on herself, bright blood staining her front, of a sudden explosion of light and sound that made his whole body melt. None of it made sense; everything seemed disconnected and unreal.

He opened his hand and there was a bloody cut across his palm. As he flexed it, fresh blood and fresh pain leaked out.

‘Who will save me from myself?’ he asked.

‘So you do remember.’ Ariadne sat on the floor in front of Va. ‘I have no arms to comfort you, but take heart. Elenya will live, at least for today. And by a strange turn of events, it seems that Benzamir’s mission and yours are the same. You want to take the User books back home? Benzamir will find them for you. You want to keep their knowledge inside their covers? So does Benzamir. You want to save the world? That’s why we’re here.’

‘You’d help me?’

‘If we can. If you like, we have been sent by your God in answer to your prayers. Who are you to tell Him how He should respond?’

‘I . . .’ He was at a loss for words.

‘Now listen. Somewhere on this world is a ship, like me. The people with it came with the best of motives. They want to feed the hungry, heal the sick, shelter the homeless, fill your lives with such wonder and light that you will curse them that they did not come sooner. Their power is a hundred times greater than that of the Users. They want to change the way you live utterly. The people of Earth will reach up again to the stars, and claim them for their own.

‘And anyone who opposes them will be killed, out of hand. You lost forty brothers to them, for no other reason than they were in the way: that was just the start. How many did they kill today? Hundreds. If the empire falls, which it still might, there will be ten thousand more corpses and a million lives in ruin.

‘And into that gap they will stride. Conquerors. Lords. Priests. They will rule over you for ever, because they cannot die of old age or disease – and don’t think you, Va, could fight against them. Even the Users would have been swept aside as if they were nothing but cattle.

‘This is the hard part, Va. We left here long ago, when the Users were at their height, to save humanity from annihilation. But we’ve spent too many centuries away from our cradle to call this our home any more. What happens here is not up to a cabal of renegades who would crush you even as they’re trying to save you. We are your children, and it’s not for children to tell their parents what to do. We’ll stop them from taking over, and then we’ll go.’

‘If all this is true, then why do they need the books? Did my brothers die for nothing?’

Ariadne bowed her head and showed her dazzling crown. ‘I do not know. This is a mystery to me, and something we need to learn the truth of before we leave you.’ She looked up. ‘Are you hungry, Va? Are you thirsty?’

‘I don’t feel hunger or thirst any more. They’re just things that people say. I eat when there’s food, drink when there’s water. If there’s nothing, it’s the will of God that I don’t eat or drink then.’

‘Don’t you love yourself?’

‘I hate myself. Everything I ever did was wrong, and I can’t change a single moment.’

Ariadne fluttered to her feet. It looked so real, Va expected to be buffeted by the wind from her wings.

‘Come and do good with us. Come and eat and drink with us and tell us your story. Then we will go and get your books and send you home.’

‘I lost one,’ he blurted. ‘I dropped it over the side of Rory macShiel’s boat so that the slavers wouldn’t get it. But it’s still there. Someone determined enough could find it again.’

‘Then perhaps we will have to be that someone, Va.’ Ariadne paused and looked sideways at him. ‘Who am I?’

‘You’re the ship, though I still don’t understand how that can be.’

The angel contracted to a glowing point of light, which hovered eye height above the floor.

‘Where have you gone?’

‘I’m still here. I’m all around you. Follow me.’

Va got up slowly, and the door slid aside. The light drifted on, and taking his courage in both bloody hands, Va walked along behind it. Even the footsteps he took reminded him that it was all made: the floor was slick and shiny, entirely without joints or edges. It flowed seamlessly up into the walls and curved overhead to vault the ceiling.

They came to a crossroads. Ahead was a door, but the light turned left, then left again when they came to another junction.

He started to hear voices: Arabic, and another he didn’t recognize at all. The light stopped in front of the door where the others were, and faded until all that was there was a small black pebble of glass.

‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,’ said Va in a whisper.

‘Go in. Greet the others. Introduce yourself. Eat bread, taste salt. Drink Benzamir’s favourite beer,’ said Ariadne with laughter in her voice. ‘Sit with the unbeliever, the woman and the child. No one is better or worse than you.’

‘But what will I say? I can’t speak to any of them but Elenya, can’t understand what they say.’

‘There’s no problem, Va. I’ve listened to you all, spoken to you all, understood you all. There’ll be no confusion. I can play Elenya’s part for everyone. I’m very smart.’

The door slid open and the pebble moved aside. Across the table sat the two Maghrebi and the Ewer woman. They had food and drink in front of them, and it was this simple thing that made him walk forward: he recognized what they were eating.

The woman looked at him, chewing slowly. He watched her swallow. The silence grew. The boy and the man glanced at each other, and Va wondered what they had been told.

The woman’s lips moved, and Va heard: ‘We were going to wait for you, but’ – and she held up a flat bread stuffed with meat and vegetables – ‘we didn’t know how long you were going to be.’

When he didn’t move, she poured him a drink and pushed it across the table towards him.

‘You’re welcome to join us.’

There was a chair. When he sat cautiously in it, it moved under him. He started, then settled again under the others’ watchful eyes. He picked up the cup, sniffed its contents. It was as the angel said: beer.

And good beer at that.