Каарон Уоррен - The Lowest Heaven

ellis?

bathroom break

The form that had just spoken melted into translucence

every time

has he got some kind of medical condition

we’ll miss our window

Which of these tired youngsters was the general? Perhaps they were all civil servants. I moved closer. The translucent one became more substantial again.

I’m back but my visuals are weird, anyone else?

ours are fine

your machine’s pathetic, ellis

I can see right down the valley to the encampment

well I’ve got some crappy space theme or a desert maybe

so have I, now

it’s really cheap-ass

One of the men of war turned and noticed me.

someone else just checked in

did you invite him?

god no

it’s a closed group, isn’t it? who invited him?

he’s the one messing up the visuals

this is supposed to be a private room

they’re never secure

jesus get the mods to lock him out

and throw up some earthworks while we’re waiting

A wall of Martian rock reared up in front of my feet. But it had no substance, and I stepped through it.

jesus

The men of war threw their weapons at me. Bombs flew, bullets whizzed through me. When their objects failed to touch me, they sent other, uncanny attacks. They blasted out their knowledge of past atrocities and it crumbled my bones. Like a disorientating cloud, I was surrounded by their indifference to suffering. I stumbled back.

But I also instinctively sent a scathing retaliation: flying barbs, then acid drops falling from the Martian clouds. I saw them flinch.

“I mean you no harm!” I called. Could men of war understand such a sentiment? The sound of my voice sent them into new confusion.

where’s he coming in from

tell the mods to block his account

can’t see who his provider is

this is a nightmare

we could change channel?

why should we have to go anywhere?

tell the mods to push him on

call off the raid?

we’ll miss our window!

we’ve missed it, we’re screwed

The men turned to steam. Their walls and bombs and clouds faded with them.

And my silver cord pulled me back, because someone was shaking my physical body, hard.

Whipped back through thousands of miles of space. It felt like the air was sucked out of my lungs, but I had none.

I opened my eyes and saw a crinkled face, bending down into my own. A hairy hand on my chest, shaking me.

“Oh, thank the Lord, I thought you’d died.” Christopher sat with a thump on the bed next to my feet. “Did you take a sleeping draught?”

I found my mouth and tongue where I’d left them. “Sorry. I sleep deeply, these days.” Should I tell him where I’d been? I couldn’t stand him dismissing me again. “Where are we, please?”

“Fifty miles out of Liverpool into the Irish Sea. Heading for the Atlantic.” His frown had lifted. He’d become more accustomed to exile than to England. We were both going to strange lands, but he was also heading home.

Later that night, as I approached Mars for the second time, I wasn’t alone.

“Christopher!”

He flew next to me, wearing a vivid blue necktie I’d never seen in the flesh.

I was delighted◦– vindicated! I wondered how I’d brought him along. But his substance was different from mine, and different from the warmongers on Mars: crisper, brighter. Had he been here before?

“Oh, I’m not Christopher.” He said it with absolute assurance, in his usual nasal voice. It was as eerie as if he’d said: “I’m dead, of course.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a mod, actually.”

“A what?”

“A guide. Keeping the channels secure.”

He made a little dip in the air and took my hand to tow me along. His hand felt warm.

“I don’t…”

“I’m just steering you away from where you’re not supposed to be.” He smiled away my uncertainty. “Come on, I know this place better than you.”

“Why do you look like my friend?”

“I don’t look any way in particular. You’re making me look like this.”

Of course! The explanation I’d given Christopher, years ago◦– that my mind was interpreting what I could see. “Because you’re the last person I saw? Or because I think of you as my guide?” I’d always been a passive traveller. It was Christopher who booked the tickets and read aloud from the Baedeker .

“It could be that. Or perhaps you’re anxious? You’ve picked something comforting.” He sounded embarrassed for me. “It really all depends on your settings.”

We sailed over a waterfall of asteroids. Christopher’s new necktie glowed in the reflected light of Mars. I was amazed that I’d remembered so many details of him as to make this charming waxwork.

“So do you have any relation to my friend? Are any parts of you him?”

“Well, what parts were you interested in?”

Flying together loosened my tongue. Nothing ventured! Although, perhaps, in this confusing cosmology, nothing could be gained. Could he answer a question to which I didn’t know the answer?

“I’d wondered if you’re happier, these days◦– and how we stand…”

He laughed again. “How thoughtful!” If I was imagining him, was I mocking myself? “No time to talk, though. You’re being bumped over to the next channel.”

“I don’t…”

Ahead of us reared a clean, silver planet, white caps at its poles.

“One of the recreational channels. Have a good time there.”

Morning star, evening star, bright beautiful planet. I somehow knew it would be more hospitable to life than Mars. More fecund.

“It won’t be like the last channel,” Christopher confirmed. “You can talk to anyone who takes your fancy, there.”

“There’ll be people?”

“Plenty of people.”

“Venus-ians?” I shuddered slightly at the nomenclature of the dread Wells.

“Travellers. Like yourself.”

“Will you stay and speak to them?”

He shook his head. “Don’t think that would even work. I’m just moving you over. I’d best head off.”

Venus was thick like soup with heat.

A cluster of figures stood not far from me. Again, wholly astral creatures. I extended my◦– interest? Sight? Soul?◦– to them. Several were women, the first naked women I’d ever seen and more naked than they could be in the flesh. But we were beyond reserve or modesty.

They turned on me. Their lust washed over me. The heat of it bubbled and blistered me. I was eyed up without eyes, handled without hands.

“Ladies!” I responded, to prevent a misunderstanding. “I do not desire you!”

The soupy heat of Venus grew chilly.

“I mean no offense! I am a disciple of another love, in which the female has no part!”

I was spat out. They turned their backs-not-backs on me. It was exactly like being cut at a party. As I made further protests, I was astonished to hear them refer to me as an arsehole, a complete cock, and other epithets.

My anger took form. I was more adept than the last time I’d tried it, on Mars; walls flew up around me, almost before I knew I was their architect. The women exploded the walls by flooding them with lava. I sprouted a pillar from the ground beneath me to lift me above the red flow, and I rained grey fog all over my opponents. The lava around their legs coagulated into greyish rock. I was quite merciless, scrutinising their agonised coils, reminiscent of those who perished at Pompeii.