Tony Ballantyne - CAPACITY

“That’s where we’re going,” Justinian said sadly. “I know, baby, I know.”

He picked his son up and gave him a hug. The boy wriggled to be put down again.

“I know. We’ll go in a moment. But I don’t think we can go on like this. We need to finish things up first. You need a name.”

Can’t die without a name . Justinian quickly squashed the treacherous thought. He looked around. What names lay here, at the end of the galaxy?

None. There was nothing here but dry stone and gravel, the unliving evolution of the land, the cracks and fissures that were working their way into the skin of a planet far from the baby’s home. There was no help out there, only pitiless indifference. Even the bright orange of the cabin now seemed an alien place, drained as it was of all warmth as the freezing air of the planet seeped inside.

The baby smiled, and Justinian felt a welling pang of despair that he could seem so happy. His only son, and the child didn’t know how little time he had left to live.

He needed a name.

“Not Leslie,” Justinian said. “Never Leslie. But what shall we call you? What would your mummy have wanted?”

And then a warm feeling came over him as he remembered his dream. Anya had woken up and spoken to him. She had heard the baby crying through his, Justinian’s, sleep. What had she said?

“ Isn’t that Jesse ?”

Justinian smiled. Jesse. It was an odd name, but he liked it. Jesse.

He held his son at arms’ length and smiled. “Jesse,” he said. “Do you like that name? Jesse?”

Jesse wriggled again, eager to be off to the crack in the rocks and the secondary infection.

“Okay,” Justinian said, “Okay, Jesse, we’re going. Now is there anything else we can take with us?”

He took a last look up the ramp, into the cabin of the flier. Strange how he could already be nostalgic about surroundings that he had hated so much during the time he had spent there.

“Right, Jesse,” he said, “let’s go.”

They were in no hurry.

Justinian held Jesse’s hand as they walked the external length of the flier, the white hull of the ship smooth above them. As they came to a gentle slope of scree, Justinian carefully picked his way up to the dark crack in the rock ahead, his son now cradled in his arms. Swirling blue-green patterns danced at the edge of his vision.

They paused at the entrance to the cave, and Justinian took a last look back at the friendly white shape of the flier.

“Okay,” he said, and he turned away from the daylight and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He could make out the beginning of a tunnel, sloping downwards into the earth. Something was moving within its midnight throat, black figures dancing.

Jesse giggled. “Hallur ellur ellur…” he said, pointing deep into the darkness.

“You understand, don’t you?” Justinian said. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“Hallur ellur elluble!” said the baby urgently.

Justinian took a step forward and the darkness seemed to pull away from him. Black shapes formed in his vision: black floor, black walls, black ceiling. He could see into the darkness, all in shades of black. The baby giggled again.

“I don’t think we’re really seeing at all, Jesse,” said Justinian. “I don’t think this is our eyes’ doing.”

But it still looked real: a mapping of the inside of the cave picked out in darkness. A smooth floor sloping downwards, following a winding fissure in the rock, black stalactites hanging silently above.

Tantalizing shapes danced at the limit of his vision, beckoning him on. Jesse struggled in his arms, urging him forward.

Justinian followed the path downwards and the daylight faded to nothing. Turning, he saw the entrance to the cave had gone. He felt claustrophobic, adrift in a dark tunnel, his eyes seeing without light.

The last AI pod must have traveled this way, he realized. After Pod 16 had sealed itself in the Bottle, it must have come down here to look at the Schrödinger boxes. The occasional broken stalagmite or chipped corner showed where it had passed. What had it called into being down here?

Jesse was still speaking in Jargon, the official language of children about to make the leap into proper speech. Whatever was ahead was connecting with his son, Justinian realized. Connecting to him on an absolutely basic level, somewhere at the place where language began. The idea filled Justinian with such fear that he immediately turned to retreat from the cave. He would have walked out, too, but peering back up the tunnel he could see nothing. The pictures that ran across his retina only worked when he faced forward. His last semblance of free will had been taken from him. The only way he could go was down. Realization dawned. That was why he was here. That was why he had been dragged across the universe to this lonely planet far from home. Dragged along so that his son could speak to whatever lay down here.

Jesse was wriggling uncomfortably in his arms. In his fear Justinian was clutching him too tightly. He relaxed his grip a little and continued walking, brushing tears from his own cheeks as he went. It wasn’t Justinian they really wanted, it was his child!

They had all been in on it. Leslie, the pods, the EA-even the Watcher!

What if the Watcher had openly asked him to sacrifice a son? Justinian was no Abraham; he would have refused. The EA must have known that. Any father would have done the same. How could it be otherwise, in a world where Social Care vetted potential parents so carefully? No one was allowed to have a child unless it was judged that he or she would take proper care of it.

So how could the pods arrange for a child to come to Gateway? They had tricked Justinian, made him believe it was himself they wanted here.

As Jesse spoke again, Justinian caught the urgency in the child’s voice. Jesse knew what was going on here. He was telling his father.

Justinian hugged his son close and kissed his head softly. He felt his own tears on his son’s downy hair.

“Oh, Jesse, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Oblivious to his anguish, Jesse wrestled in his grasp and again pointed down the tunnel, jerking up and down like a rider urging a horse onwards. Justinian let him go, let him slide to the ground. He took his son’s hand and they walked together towards the Source.

How many planets lay throughout the galaxy, how many cave systems lay beneath their surfaces? How many dark places were there lurking throughout the universe, their existence never validated by the liberating gaze of intelligence?

And if, someday, they were gazed upon, what could be called into existence by the very act of observation?

Down and down and down.

And then Justinian heard the drip-drip-drip of water, echoing along the passage. Shortly after that a dim grey glow rose; the dim light of dreams when you walk into a room and turn on the light, and everything goes a little darker and harder to see.

The passage began to widen and Justinian felt a little warmth ahead. He had the impression of an enormous space lying before him, just out of sight. He smelled old cabbage and roses.

And then he stepped from the tunnel into a huge open space, an enormous bubble of air rising at geological speed through the stone. He could make out a shape in the distance, and he instantly knew what he was looking at: the final AI pod. He felt a wave of relief. It was a familiar, friendly sight in this strange dream world. And yet this pod had grown considerably larger than the others. From here, illuminated in grey dream-light, it resembled a human sitting at the edge of a sudden precipice. Long black vines gripped the edge of the drop, extending from something growing down there in the pit of the cavern. Something big and alien. Justinian felt sick at the thought of what lay beyond the lip of the precipice, and yet at the same time he was fascinated.