Каарон Уоррен - The Lowest Heaven

The Houses, therefore, sought a compromise…

It was late at night, in Shereen’s apartment. That special silence that comes with deep night, when even the birds sleep. When I-loops all across and down the city processed slowly, neural networks embedded in a grey mass within a bone skull, billions of neurons firing together into the illusion of an “I”, a “me”, all sinking, momentarily, into a dream or dreamless state, the one akin to hallucination, the other to death.

They had made love; the bedsheets clung to their skin with the sweat. A single candle burned on Shereen’s windowsill. Aliyah said, “The old cell, the One-times-One: her health is better.”

“I see.”

“You are happy?”

Shereen pulled herself up, the light from the candle threw shadows on the wall. “I don’t want you to become one of them,” she said. The words cost her everything. Getting them out at last felt like a revelation. Aliyah laughed, softly. “Do you think I don’t know?”

“Then why do you do it? Do you not love me?”

“You know I do.”

“Then why ?”

“Because I want to. I need to. Because there is more to life than you or me. I want to be a part of something bigger than either of us.”

“But why?” all the pain inside her came out in that voice.

“I don’t know why,” Aliyah said, but gently. That night she was very gentle, even her love-making was filled with care; it contrasted with Shereen’s urgency. “I just know.”

“But they will not take you. Not the Three-times-Threes. Not when they have all their parts–”

“Yes–”

“What?” Shereen said◦– demanded. Suspicion, hurt, in her eyes.

“I have been going to the House of Domicile,” Aliyah said quietly.

“When?” Shereen’s voice, too, was low. “I did not see you there.”

“I know. I went when you were not working. I did not want to upset you.”

“And now?”

“You’re upset. We can talk about it in the morning.”

“We can talk about it now.”

Aliyah sighed.

“Why have you been going to the House of Domicile?” That suspicion, again. “You want to join another Sisterhood?”

“Not… exactly.”

“Then what? I don’t–”

“Don’t you?”

It was so quiet in the room. The candle fluttered in invisible wind from outside. “They won’t,” Shereen said. “They can’t.”

Aliyah moved to her; Shereen moved away. “Don’t,” she said.

“They can. We can. Shereen–”

“Don’t!”

“It is better that I do this. It is better than conflict. Better than war. We cannot afford it, not again, not so soon. Not the city, not the world. The Houses have too much power, now.”

“It should never have come to that.”

“What would you have instead? Others?”

“People,” Shereen said.

“Oh, grow up, Shereen.” She made as if to push back a lock of hair, then found that, of course, it wasn’t there. There was something innocent, human, about that gesture. At that moment Shereen couldn’t help but love her very much. “And we are people, too.”

“Since when is it we?” Shereen said; but she sounded defeated. “When?” she said.

“Soon.”

“And they agree? Both of them?”

“They agree to try.”

“We would not see each other.”

“No.”

“Would you even know who I was?”

“Of course I would. We would. You would always live on, Shereen. In my◦– in our◦– memory. Even when my body and yours are back in the ground, fertilisers of new life in the gardens.”

“Trust you to bring the conversation back to death, and fertiliser?” Shereen tried to laugh; it came out choked. “Were you always so obsessed with death?”

“Not with death but with not dying,” Aliyah said; her body shook, and it took Shereen a moment to realise she was crying.

“Come here,” she said, awkwardly. Aliyah came to her and nestled in Shereen’s arms. Shereen could feel her heart beating, inside the fragile, human frame of her. “Is it really so bad?” she said, but even as she spoke, she knew it was futile; that Aliyah had already decided, decided long ago, perhaps; and that this was simply her choosing of a time to finally say goodbye.

The Initiation and the end of Aliyah’s Novitiate came some two weeks later, at a private ceremony in the House of Forgetting, which was historically the least affiliated◦– and the weakest◦– of the Houses. A Three-times-Three from the House of Mirth was there, and an Eight-times-Eight from the House of Domicile. And there, in between them, was Aliyah◦– dressed in a plain white shift, her head unscarfed and bare, the fine blue veins of filaments running underneath her translucent skin.

Shereen, too, was there◦– not as a guest, but unobtrusive, cleaning. She saw the Sisterhoods meet, half-heard as they conversed, aware of the high-bandwidth transfer of data around her, and the half-understood words, and subtle signals of physical signs. She daren’t watch too much, there was something in her eyes, it must have been the chemicals in the new cleaning fluid, its smell made it hard for her to breathe.

Aliyah shone brightly, like an angel. Light suffused her, it rose from her skin, from her eyes. The Houses could not fight and so they’d reached a compromise, a way of speaking which was a way of sharing: and a One-times-One became a point linking two networks, became a router and a hub, became a One-times-Eight-times-Eight-times-Three-times-Three, was cleaved in two; and spliced together.

When it was over there was no discernible sign; only the act of both Sisterhoods slowly departing, without words; only their hosts remaining, and the newest Sister, the one who belonged to two Sisterhoods, and had once known Shereen.

Shereen scrubbed the surface of the table, scrubbed it until its wooden surface shone. When she raised her head again even the host Sisters were gone; when she turned back to the surface of the table, she saw Aliyah, momentarily, reflected in it. She turned her head. Aliyah stood there, watching her. Shereen raised her hand. Her fingers brushed Aliyah’s cheek, the skin of her face. Aliyah bore it without words. Her eyes watched Shereen, and yet they didn’t see her. After a moment she inched her head, as if acknowledging, or settling, something. Then she, too, were gone.

There are four Three-times-Three Sisters in the House of Mirth, and five in the House of Heaven and Hell, and two in the House of Shelter. Four plus five plus two Three-by-Threes, and they represent one faction of the city.

There are two Five-time-Six Sisters in the House of Forgetting, and five Eight-by-Eights in the House of Domicile, and they represent a second faction of the city.

There is a bridge between them, now. An understanding, and cargo continues to come and go through Polyphemus Port. And Shereen who is a one, and will one day be zero, continues to work in the House of Mirth, and in the House of Domicile, and she watches the Sisters on their silent comings and goings; and she wonders, sometimes, of what could have been, and of what didn’t; but to do that is, after all, only human.