Tony Ballantyne - Recursion

“The Necropolis?” Herb came to a halt and looked around. He gave a thoughtful nod. “An apt name. What’s the matter with this place? It looks like someone took a picture of a city and then smeared it down a wall. What are we doing here?”

“Spying on the Enemy. We must be careful not to be seen.”

At that, Johnston began creeping forward on tiptoes, his hands raised close to his chest. Herb remained where he was.

“Come on,” Johnston called over his shoulder. “This way.” He continued his exaggerated movement down the road.

Herb sighed and began to follow. He wondered if he was dreaming. He had no recollection of arriving on this planet.

He remembered going to sleep on his ship, thoughts of Johnston’s descriptions of the Enemy Domain spinning through his mind. Five minutes ago he had woken to find himself standing, gazing up at the endless tiers of spaceships. Maybe Johnston had drugged him again, slipped something extra into the whisky. Herb certainly felt as if he was still under the influence of something, walking along a rubbery road, twisting between strangely warped buildings, beneath those pale static disks far above.

Johnston had abandoned his exaggerated gait and was now walking normally, seemingly heading for the heart of the city. The buildings ahead loomed taller; they seemed to be draped with thick steel cobwebs that connected their roofs to each other and spilled to the ground. They had the look of melting toffee that had been pulled and stretched so that long sticky strands ran drooping in all directions. A low note sounded through the air and Herb thought he saw a flicker of movement in the distance, barely seen through the crowded misshapes of the buildings. He broke into a run to catch up with Johnston.

“What was that?” he hissed.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Johnston pushed his hands into his pockets and continued strolling, singing softly to himself as he went. Herb fell into step next to him, glancing around nervously. They rounded a corner.

Johnston broke off his singing unexpectedly. “Look!” he said, pointing upward, a cufflink made of four balls of multicolored metal peeping from the edge of his suit. Herb felt his stomach sink as he looked up.

A tower stretched up into the very sky, rising higher and higher above the rest of the city, dwarfing all the other buildings. A tapering needle of steel piercing the clouds of silver spaceships that hung silently above them. Herb wondered how it could remain standing; it seemed too thin to support itself. He had a sudden urge to run, convinced it was going to come crashing down on him-

Johnston interrupted his thoughts. “We need to get up to where the spaceships are. I’m guessing that building is a space elevator.”

“Oh.” Herb bit his lip thoughtfully. “You said we were spying. What are we looking for?”

“Lots of things. Size of Enemy resources, possible intentions, possible weaknesses, but mostly we’re looking for a way back.”

“A way back? I still don’t understand how we got here.”

Before Johnston could answer, the humming noise was heard again, only closer. A yellow pod with black stripes appeared in a gap between two buildings, only a couple of hundred meters away. It rotated 360 degrees on its axis and then moved off again, vanishing from their view among the forest of towers.

“What was that?” whispered Herb. “It looked like a giant bumblebee. I think it was looking for us. Should we hide?”

“I don’t think so,” said Johnston. “Not yet anyway. Now…look at that. That’s interesting.” He pointed to the building next to them.

Herb gazed at it, puzzled. “I don’t understand,” he said. “It just looks like the entrance to a shopping center.”

He was led by Johnston to a wide portico. It was too high, of course, like everything else in the Necropolis. Away above them, a silver-grey pediment seemed to melt into a colonnade that oozed down around them to merge with the ground. Herb felt as if he was standing in a rib cage. They peered through tall windows into a brightly lit atrium, lined on all sides by small glass-fronted rooms. Deformed escalators climbed the walls at too steep an angle. Herb shivered at the thought of what goods might be sold in such a place.

Johnston seemed delighted, however. “It does look like a shopping center, doesn’t it?” he said. “Now doesn’t that suggest something?”

“Yeah,” muttered Herb. “This would not be a good place to ask for a refund.”

The strangeness of his surroundings was making Herb light-headed.

“Was that supposed to be funny?” Johnston said sharply. “I do the comedy stylings: you just listen and learn. No. The fact that this place looks like a shopping center suggests that this planet is intended for a civilian population. Furthermore, one that resembles an Earthlike society. Do you think they have shops on Delta Scuti 4?”

“You’d be astonished how rarely I think about such things.”

Johnston gave him a withering look.

“No, I don’t,” Herb said, chastened.

Johnston stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Now that changes things considerably. This is not what we were expecting at all.” He lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

The humming sound rose in volume so quickly that Herb instinctively leaped forward to grab Johnston’s jacket. He caught a flash of yellow and black reflected in the glass before him as a bumblebee pod whisked down the street behind them.

“It’s seen us,” he gasped.

Johnston shook Herb’s hand from his sleeve.

“Don’t be so silly,” he said, then pointed into the atrium. “Come on. We’re going in there.”

Herb didn’t know whether to feel relief at avoiding their pursuer or fear at entering the eerie mall. Johnston seemed completely unconcerned about either. He placed a hand on one of the tall glass doors and pushed gently.

“Stuck. I should have guessed as much.”

Herb could see that the doors were not so much fused together as imprints in the front of the building. They seemed to be one piece of glass that had not managed to separate in two. Wondering what Johnston was going to do next, he suddenly found himself standing inside, right in the center of the atrium, looking up at the high-vaulted ceiling. Silver metal creepers hung above his head. Like everything outside, the building’s interior had the look of stretched and melting toffee. Herb’s mind caught up with events.

“What happened there?” asked Herb, astonished.

“I readjusted our position to be inside the building.”

“How? Hyperspace jump?” Herb was impressed despite himself. “I didn’t think anyone was capable of that degree of control.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Johnston. “Haven’t you realized yet that we’re not really here? Do you think I’d bring our physical bodies into the Enemy Domain? Now come on, we need to get our report back to the EA.”

“What report?”

“The report confirming the fact that the Domain contains-or will contain-civilians. Haven’t you wondered where they’re going to come from?”

“No.”

Johnston gave an exasperated sigh and walked on, past the squashed retail units that surrounded them, heading toward an arch at the rear of the atrium. The walls back here seemed to have melted drastically; they hung down like great folds of cloth. Herb gazed uneasily at the narrow corridor beyond the arch. If he didn’t know better, he would have said they were walking into the building’s throat.

“Are you sure about this?” he murmured.

“We’re heading for the space elevator, right? This is a shopping mall. How do you think the shoppers are going to get here?” Johnston rolled his eyes. “Hyperspace jumps?”

They passed through the arch, Herb’s uneasiness passing along with him. A high-ceilinged hallway lay beyond; four unmoving escalators disgorged from subterranean depths grasping its walls with long metallic strands.