Каарон Уоррен - The Lowest Heaven

One of the cyborgs broke from the pack and jogged out to meet him. Beneath its knees, the cyborg’s legs were springy prosthetics that sent it metres into the sky with each stride.

“Welcome, Oleg,” said a synthetic voice. “We spoke earlier. I am Gris. Have you been to Mercury before?”

“No, this is my first time. Thank you for allowing me to land.”

“That is a very impressive suit,” Gris said. “I imagine it could keep you alive for quite a while?”

“Not as long as yours, I’d wager,” Oleg said.

“Ah, but we don’t think of our suits as suits .” Gris touched a fist to its chest, in a kind of salute. “This is my skin, now and forever. I’m wired into it on a profound sensory level◦– full haptic and proprioceptive integration. I don’t just live in it◦– it’s part of me. I trust that doesn’t unsettle you?”

“If it did, I’d be the wrong person to come to Mercury. And definitely the wrong person to speak to the Cyborg Artistic Collective.”

Gris’s suit◦– or skin, if that was the proper way to think of it◦– was a mechanical integument giving little hint of the organic contents within. The armour was multicoloured and baroquely patterned. Gris’s helmet had become a beak-faced gargoyle, with multiple cameras wedged into its eye-sockets. There was no glass or visor.

“I know you’ve come a long away,” Gris said. “But you mustn’t take Rhawn’s disinterest personally.”

They walked under the Sun. In Oleg’s view it had no business being that big or that bright . The intensity of its illumination, averaged over an orbit, was a hundred times stronger than he was normally used to. That bloated inflamed Sun was an affront to his sensibilities. It would be very good to be on his way from Mercury, back to the civilised polities of Jovian Space.

But not without the thing he had come for.

“Rhawn’s star has risen,” he observed.

“It makes no difference to her. Mercury is her home now. The sooner people accept that, the happier everyone will be. Are those your tradeables?”

“It’s not much, I know. But there are some rare alloys and composites in there, which you may find of value.”

When they were at the caravan cyborgs were waiting to pick through his offerings. A value would be placed on the items, which Oleg was free to accept or decline.

“You can come aboard,” Gris said casually. “We have provision for guests, if you wish to get out of the suit. It will take a little while to give you a value for your goods, so you may as well.”

“Thank you,” Oleg agreed.

Gris brought him to one of the sliding, sledge-like platforms. They vaulted up onto a catwalk, then found an airlock leading into the side of a chequered structure made from an old fuel tank. Oleg satisfied himself by just removing the helmet and gloves, placing them next to him on a kind of combination sofa and padded mattress. Gris, squatting on the other side of a table, had removed no part of its suit except the spring extensions of its legs, presently racked by the door. Now it busied itself pouring herbal infusions into little alloy cups.

“Were you an artist before you came here?” Oleg asked, to be making conversation.

“Not at all. In fact I came to trade, just like you. My spaceship needed some repairs, so my stay turned from days into weeks. I had no intention of becoming part of the Collective.”

“Were you… like this?”

“Cyborgized, you mean? No, not at all. A few simple implants, but they don’t really count.” The goggled face was inscrutable, even as it decanted tea into a little receptacle on the end of its beaklike mandible. “It was a difficult decision to stay, but one that in hindsight was almost inevitable. There’s nowhere like this anywhere else in the system, Oleg◦– nowhere as simultaneously lawless and civilised. Around Jupiter, you’re bound up in rigid hierarchies of wealth and power. Here we have no money, no legal apparatus, no government.”

“But to become what you are now… that can’t have been something you took lightly.”

“There’s no going back,” Gris admitted. “The crossing◦– that’s what we call it◦– is far too thorough for that. I sold my skin to the flesh banks around Venus! But the benefits are incalculable. On Mars, they’re remaking the world to fit people. Here, we’re doing something much nobler: remaking ourselves to fit Mercury.”

“And was Rhawn already here, when you were transformed?”

“Ah,” Gris said, with a miff of disappointment. “Back to that now, are we?”

“I’ve been sent to make contact. My masters will be very disappointed in me if I fail.”

“Masters,” Gris dismissed. “Why would you ever work for someone, if you had a choice?”

“I had no choice.”

“Then I am afraid you had best prepare to disappoint your masters.”

Oleg smiled and sipped at his tea. It was quite sweet, although not as warm as he would have liked. He presumed that Gris still had enough of a digestive tract to process fluids. “Rhawn’s early work, what she did before she came here, was just too original and unsettling to fit into anyone’s existing critical framework. They wanted her to be something she was not◦– more like the artists they already valued. In time, of course, they began to realise her worth. Her stock began to rise. But by then Rhawn had joined your Collective.”

“None of this is disputed, Oleg. But Rhawn has had her crossing◦– become one of us. She has no interest in your world of investors and speculators, of critics and reputations.”

“Nonetheless, my masters have a final offer. I would be remiss if I did not try everything in my power to bring it to Rhawn’s attention.”

“Forget dangling money before her.”

“It isn’t money.” Oleg, knowing he had the momentary advantage, continued to sip his tea. “They know that wouldn’t work. What they are offering, what they have secured, is something money almost couldn’t buy◦– not without all the right connections, anyway. A private moon, a place of her own◦– the space to work unobstructed, with limitless resources. More than that, she’ll have the attentions of the system’s best surgeons. Their retro-transformative capabilities are easily sufficient to undo her crossing, if that’s what she desires.”

“I assure you it would not be.”

“When she completed the crossing,” Oleg said patiently, “she would have surrendered to the total impossibility of ever undoing that work. But the landscape has changed! The economics of her reputation now allow what was forbidden. She must be informed of this.”

“She’ll say no.”

“Then let her! All I request◦– all my masters ask of me◦– is that Rhawn gives me her answer in person. Will you allow me that, Gris? Will you let me meet with Rhawn, just the once?”

Gris took its time answering. Oleg speculated that some dialogue might be taking place beyond his immediate ken, Gris communing with its fellow artists, perhaps even Rhawn herself. Perhaps they were working out the best way to give him a brush-off. The Collective needed to trade with outsiders, so they would not want to be too brusque. Equally, they were obviously very protective of their most feted member.

But at length Gris said: “There is a difficulty.”

Oleg stirred on his mattress. The suit was starting to chafe◦– it was not built for lounging around in. “What sort? I’m here, aren’t I? Why can’t I have a moment with Rhawn? Is she unwell?”

“No,” Gris answered carefully. “Rhawn is perfectly well. But she is not here.”

“I don’t understand. She can’t have left Mercury◦– no one would have missed that. And the Collective is all there is. Has she gone off on her own?”