I STAY AT the party longer than I thought I would. Sung-Soo has an infectious laugh and it is refreshing to see someone other than Mack hold court. Everyone loves him and not just because of the connection to Suh.
There was a sense of awe surrounding him because of that, something he worked hard to dispel. He was delighted by everyone and everything and so drunk by the time I left that Mack had to steer him home, singing all the way.
I stopped after one drink and danced a lot, mostly with Sung-Soo, sometimes with Kay, who was trying to tell me about the model results at the same time. She gave up soon enough and we almost kissed at one point, but I pulled away, not wanting Sung-Soo to see. Kay wasn’t bothered, thankfully, probably thinking it was my tendency toward privacy. It wasn’t, and the reason has been bothering me since.
I didn’t want Sung-Soo to think I was attached to someone.
As I pull on my black gloves, pressing the seal between them and the edges of my sleeves, I’m annoyed with myself. I’m not some teenager, swept off my feet easily. I’m more than three times his age, for heaven’s sake! It’s just because he reminds me of her. And that in and of itself is appalling. I heft my pack into place, sickened by my attraction to him. Another reason why a trip to God’s city is all the more imperative now.
The colony is just as quiet as it was when I left my house earlier that evening, but now it’s because everyone is at home, either carrying on the party with a few friends in private or collapsed on their beds. At least the days of hangovers are over. I set my status to “asleep,” just in case, and then move as quickly and silently as I can to the eastern gate.
Even in the starlight I can see its polished metal gleaming. There’s titanium, gold, silver and all manner of other metals that make up its different parts. I’ve never liked it. It’s too busy and ostentatious. I won’t pass through it to avoid the sensors; I’ll cut through between Nick’s and Pasha’s houses. There’s no physical boundary to cross, no wire to cut, just the barrier of sacred trust to push myself through.
It’s nights like these that I miss the moon. All those years I barely paid attention to it, giving it nothing more than a glance or perhaps a quiet moment when it was particularly full and golden, hanging low over the Champs-Élysées. Sometimes I find myself looking for it before I remember there isn’t one to be found.
The stars are amazing though. People still lie outside their houses on some of the warmest nights, just to look up at them. Before arriving here, we’d never known the pleasure of looking up into such a full sky. On Earth there was too much light pollution and on Atlas there was only one observation window. On the journey there were very strict rules about how long someone could stay on the viewing deck over the trip. It wasn’t just the matter of sharing with a ship full of people; it was the radiation too. We were so deprived of sky by the time we arrived, so starved of gazing into the distance. We had the simulation rooms, of course, designed to stop us from going mad and giving our eyes and brains scenery to process as we always had, but it wasn’t the same. Full immersion playbacks of time outdoors were only any good for solo cravings.
I think the sky helped all of us in those early days. There were a few who found it too much, staying in the landing pods for days until the rest of us realized and coaxed them out. When we all got used to it, the nighttime sky and its crushed diamond brilliance was something we never wanted to lose. We voted unanimously against any kind of bright lighting outside the homes—even the Dome can be made opaque on nights when only a small number of people are using it.
Tonight, the stars are gradually being covered by cloud and the darkness is welcome. I don’t need anything to guide me; the path glows with its own soft phosphorescence and I know the point to leave it without getting too close to Nick’s house. Once away from the walkway I stoop a little and hurry along like someone obviously up to no good. It’s a habit probably acquired from all the games I’ve played over the years. Some part of my brain believes this is what my body should do in these circumstances, and I don’t fight it.
Both Nick’s and Pasha’s houses are dark. In moments I’m past them, and the short, springy heather-like plant that covers most of the colony outside of the paths is replaced by the longer grass I associate with the wild space beyond the boundary.
God’s city is still lit in places, and will be so until the last hour before the dawn. The tendrils that grew from the nodules during the day are now fully retracted, some visible only by the way they obscure the stars.
Its base is like the foot of a black mountain made of thousands of rubberlike roots twisted and tangled around one another. In the daylight, it looks like it’s growing out of the ground, but in the starlight it looks like rock, like it has always been there and always will be. I know this place better than anyone in the colony, and if any of them knew what I’m doing, I have no doubt I would be expelled, regardless of how much they need my skills.
We know so little about God’s city, and that’s a travesty, considering how the vast majority of the colony is made up of scientists. I find it hard to believe that I’m the only one who sneaks in there—surely my curiosity burns just as much as the next person’s. Somehow Mack’s manipulation, right from Planetfall, has managed to keep the colony’s curiosity in check. He’s managed to find a way to keep people reverent enough to stay out of that place without tipping them over into religious dogma—at least he had until Sung-Soo arrived. Still, it’s not like his arrival is pushing people to demand access to the city. They’ve bought into the circus so entirely, so deeply, they’re not even questioning it anymore. But I know the truth. I’m immune.
Even so, I still don’t understand God’s city, and I agree with his desire to keep people out. It’s dangerous, in more ways than one. It looms over the colony and remains just as mysterious as the first day I saw it. I may know what is at the top of it, and I may know what the interior is like in places, but I can’t say I understand it. Everyone else seems happy to wait for Suh to return and deliver an explanation to them on a platter. Perhaps it’s easier to do that than to face the fear of what they could find in there. Perhaps Mack is too good at what he does.
The base of the city is only twenty meters or so from the colony boundary and I cross the distance quickly. My heart is pumping faster now, my body filled with the thrill of the illicit. Soon any thoughts of possible punishment are crowded out by the anticipation of what I’ll find within. I’m already feeling better, more focused and less anxious. Now it’s all about finding the particular bunch of three tendrils twisted and looped slightly farther out than most.
I find it by touch as much as by sight. My hands know the bumps and gnarls as well as I know the colony and soon I’m standing in front of the giant loop that pushes out from the mass like an arched flying buttress. I don’t know if it was designed to do that or if it’s a flaw. Either way it helps me to find a way into the tangle.
Contorting myself to slip between the gap made by the arch and the rest of the base isn’t a problem. There’s a hollow large enough for me to stand, albeit a little stooped. I’m not looking forward to the next part and have to ready myself for the inevitable claustrophobia as I feel for the circular shape and its central depression.
I happened across it by chance only a week or so after Planetfall. We were all scouting and working out the best location for a permanent colony rather than the temporary camp formed by the pods we’d landed in. Mercifully I’d been by myself; otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret. When I was asked if I’d found anything of note, I said no. I was already withdrawing then, so worried about letting anything slip out that I just kept everything to myself.
That was the second major lie I told that week. It gets easier, in some ways; now I lie without expending any effort. But I think each one has its own weight. One alone may barely register, like a grain of sand in the palm of one’s hand. But soon enough there’s more than can be held and they start to slip through our grasp if we’re not careful.
I’m always careful.
Once I’ve found the large dimple I’m looking for, it’s simply a matter of taking off my glove and pressing my hand against its center. It opens, the dimple revealing itself as the point of closure for a ring of muscle-like mechanisms that open on contact.
The tube beyond isn’t lit until I touch its edge. The same ethereal glow that radiates from some of the nodules above appears at intervals, revealing the interior. It pulsates slightly and is covered in a thin coating of a clear, mucus-like substance. It reminds me of an esophagus, only curving upward instead of down.
As I put my glove back on I take a deep breath and then roll the edge of my hat down until the thin fabric covers my face and all my hair. I cover the gap in the fabric for my eyes with a pair of goggles and make sure the seal is tight against my skin. I pull the respirator from the clip on my belt and put that on over the fabric covering my mouth and nose. It sends a ping confirming the air filtration mechanism is functioning correctly. But even though I know I’m protected and that the climbing ropes will still be there once I get inside, I pause. I shouldn’t be doing this.
“This is wrong, Renata.”
My father’s voice had dropped to a lower register, one within the vocal domain of disappointment. Even though I was in my late twenties I still felt the same twinge in my chest that his disapproval elicited when I was much younger. It irritated me. When would I stop being a child?
“Wrong? That’s a bit judgmental, isn’t it? You make it sound immoral.”
He sat down on the one good chair in the apartment, the only one that wasn’t patched or being held together with gaffer tape. Furniture manufacturing was still embedded in the mass production factory model then and we couldn’t afford any replacements after pouring every last penny into the project.
The seat was too low for his long legs, bringing his knees up high. He rested his elbows on them, looking like he could spring up any moment, far from relaxed. “I think it is.” As I took a breath to argue, he added: “Not the project. Whatever fools want to do with their money is up to them, and I know a lot of new advances are being made as a result of Atlas. I’ve seen the propaganda that Cillian Mackenzie is piping out. I’m talking about you going with them.”
I wasn’t expecting that. We hadn’t really talked about it in the early days. He was so busy, traveling from country to country, always embroiled in tense political negotiations between governments fighting over dwindling water supplies and failing to plan for the end of fossil fuels. I never understood how he could deal with the uncertainty of it all.
He’d come to the apartment when I told him I was planning to leave once Atlas was ready. I’d been dreading telling him and yet the words just came out right in the middle of a conversation about algae, of all things. He dropped everything and came over right away. He didn’t even do that when I graduated.
“Why would it be wrong?”
“Because you’re needed.”
“Mum doesn’t need me. She only cried because one of her vacuous friends was there and she wanted the attention. You don’t need me. I know you’ll miss me; I’ll miss you.” I had to stop then, choked by the thought of it.
“I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about the world. Bad enough that you left WHO for this, but to leave completely?”
I think I groaned then. “Dad, I’m not the only visengineer in the world, you know.”
“No, but you’re one of the best. You’ve single-handedly removed the need to depend on gene therapy and organ donation—”
“Don’t exaggerate.” I sat down, automatically keeping my weight off the back left leg of the chair that had already broken once. “I stood on the shoulders of a lot of people. Nobody does anything single-handedly anymore.”
“You’re underestimating yourself. You were the one who brought disciplines together in that particular combination. I would be dead and hundreds of other people would be dead now if it wasn’t for you. If you leave before you reach your prime, this generation loses one of its best. What you do could have such an impact on so many people, Renata. I would rather it benefit millions, rather than a cult of a thousand.”
I couldn’t sit still. “It’s not a cult!” I said as I jumped to my feet and wrapped my arms about myself. “You’ve met Suh—she’s not like that!”
“Cults come in all shapes and sizes.”
“It is not a cult.”
He didn’t pursue it. “Answer this, then: why do you want to go?”
“To see what’s there.”
“That’s selfish. And irresponsible. I’d like to go snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, but I probably won’t get a chance because there’s too much to do.”
I started to pace. “I’m not going to let your martyr complex dictate my choices! There’s evidence to suggest that this trip is what we were made for—what our evolution has been leading us toward all this time and—”
“Evidence?” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’d let yourself be sucked in like that. There have been cults saying we come from an alien planet for over a hundred years! Are you sure Atlas is actually being built up there? There was a cult in Spain that sucked millions from its members to build a spaceship and all that bastard was building was a luxury mansion on a private island!”
“Of course I’m sure! I’m part of the team. We get reports every week. And they’re not faked.”
He pulled back and stood by the window, staring out at the stone wall opposite as if it were a view of the Eiffel Tower. “Have you asked yourself if there are other reasons you want to go?”
It was the first time we’d ever really argued, and I felt sick. “There are lots of reasons.”
“Have you considered that you might be running away?” He turned and pointed at the bronze cast. “There’s nothing better to distract ourselves from grief than a new project big enough to consume every moment. Have you stopped since she died? Have you let yourself—”
“That’s got nothing to do with this. Have you thought that your being so upset about this might have everything to do with your choice instead of mine? Now that we’ve only got a year or so, are you regretting all the years you put everything else before me?”
I expected him to be angry and defensive or to cut the conversation dead and leave. Instead, he just stood there, looking so much older than I’d appreciated before. “I do regret that. But I don’t regret what I’ve done with my life, Renata. If Atlas is real, if you go with those people, will you be able to say the same?”