Hesk’s Rest

The Flats glowed.

He came down onto them from the Belly by the old switchback road — the one the crawlers used to use, before the war, carrying slag out of the sumps to dump on the Flats — and stopped at the last turn, where the road came out from under the great curve of the god’s hip-bone, and looked.

The Fall-Field.

He’d last seen it from the Collar. From the very top of the god. A single point of yellow light, very far down, steady, then dark, then light, then dark. LOOK UP. So small he’d barely been able to see it.

He saw it now. From the road.

The wreck of Halden. Kilometers of it. The great wedge of Rib Seven’s city that had come down when the Concord cut its cables, and fallen, slowly, the near end first and the far end rising as if trying to climb, and hit the Belly floor with a sound that shuddered through the whole skeleton. Twelve thousand dead. Teo Brask. Twisted girders and slabs of bone-concrete and the shells of tenements and tram-cars and Lumen-glass, spread across the Flats in a long low ridge, like a wave that had broken and frozen.

And all through it, glowing.

Not the cylinders Hanne Dray had brought down, the gold ones. Those had run dry weeks ago. The god’s bone. The Flats were the god’s bone — the floor of the god’s pelvis, where it met the dead world outside — and the flood had come down into it on the beat like it had come into everything. And Halden’s wreck lay on it. And the channels in Halden’s wreck — every lamp-line, every Lumen-pipe, every cable-housing, every Catalyst run that had lit a city of eighty thousand people before the cables were cut — had drunk the glow up out of the bone.

The wreck was lit.

Clear and gold and red and white. Along every broken line. Every twisted girder that had carried a channel. Every shattered lamp-post. A kilometers-long ridge of wreckage, glowing faintly along all its broken lines, like a map of a city drawn in light on the ground.

And around it — on it — in it —

Hesk’s Rest.

The city they’d built on the Fall-Field. Out of Halden’s bones. The Unbanded, and the Halden survivors — twenty-eight thousand of them, the ones who’d got off the Seventh before it fell — and the Ninth Rib Mids who’d come down after. Shelters made of tram-car shells. Workshops in the hulls of fallen tenements. Wick’s comm-net strung between poles. The Press, in a cleared foundry on the west side. The Wall of Names’ little sister, a long slab of fallen Lumen-glass where they’d carved Halden’s dead.

All lit. From underneath. Glowing.

And at the very edge of it, on the up-facing side, where the Field ran out and the Flats began — a pole. A tram-rail pole. With a lamp on it.

Burning.

Clear and gold and red and white. Steady. Brighter than anything else on the Flats.

Teo’s lamp.

Matthis Ferrin was on his crate.

The same crate. At the foot of the tram-rail pole. A wooden ration crate, turned on its end, worn smooth on top by a hundred days of an old man sitting on it. He sat on it now. Eighty-three. Cable-sick. Thin. Bent. In a Halden cable-man’s coat too big for him, with the sleeves rolled. His hands in his lap.

Not on the lamp.

The lamp didn’t need him anymore. It had lit on the beat, from the bone, up the pole, and stayed lit. It didn’t flash. It didn’t need working. It burned. Steady. All the time.

He sat under it anyway.

He looked up when they came across the Field toward him. Creed. Ollo. Wick. Sabine, a little behind. And the army, what was left of it, spreading out across Hesk’s Rest behind them, finding people, finding homes, finding the places they’d left a hundred days ago to climb a god.

Matthis looked at them with his old cloudy eyes.

“Dask,” he said.

Creed stopped.

“Is that Dask,” said Matthis Ferrin. Peering. At the group coming toward him. At the one-armed man in the burned apron. “He went up. With the — with the mule. He went up to see the lifts. He said there’d be lifts.”

Ollo stopped too.

Matthis looked at Ollo. One arm. Square. Ash still in his hair from the deepest fold, because Ollo didn’t wash it out.

“Not Dask,” said Matthis. Slowly. “Dask’s — Dask had his right arm off. At the shoulder. Not the elbow.” He peered harder. “You’re the sorter. From Line C. Thirty-eight percent.”

“Ollo,” said Ollo.

“Ollo,” said Matthis. He nodded. As if that settled something. Then he looked at Creed. “And you’re the mule.”

“I’m the mule.”

“Where’s Dask.”

He told him.

He crouched in front of the crate, in the glow of Teo’s lamp, at the edge of the Fall-Field, with the old man’s cloudy eyes on his face, and told him.

He told him about the Atlas. The drive-house. The six shafts and the gear-train and the great drum wound with sinew-cable. The cage, grown out of bone. The weight-pit at the base of the peg, dry, sealed, because the Heads had broken the Wrights’ drive and put people in wheels instead.

“A counterweight drop,” said Matthis. His cloudy eyes sharpening. Just slightly. “In a peg. Hollow. Water, I’d bet. They’d fill it at the top.”

“That’s what Dask said.”

“He would,” said Matthis. “He’d see it. He always saw it. From the time he was —” He stopped. Shook his head. “He always saw it.”

He told him about the white pipe. Cut. The grey water roaring down Dorne’s bent conduit into the weight-pit. The god pumping it up the peg. The cable humming. Getting heavier.

He told him about the brake.

The great iron brake-lever on the side of the drum. As long as a man was tall. Worn smooth at the grip by a thousand years of hands. A counterweight drop, you’ve got to ride the brake the whole way, or the cage goes up the peg like a bolt out of a staff and hits the top and everybody in it’s jam.

“Somebody’s got to ride it,” said Matthis. Very quietly.

“Dask rode it.”

Matthis Ferrin’s old hands, in his lap, went still.

He told him the rest. The parasites coming over the rim of the Atlas. The tide. Dask at the brake, one-armed, both feet planted, his shoulder against the lever, leaning. Not yet. Nearly. NOW. The cable going. The cage shooting up — and slowing. Steady. Fast as it can and no faster.

The things reaching him. Wrapping him. Going in.

His face. Not blank. Not Kept. Set. A foreman at hour eighteen with a jam on the line.

Not letting go.

“The brake slipped once,” said Creed. “Halfway up. I felt the cage start to go. Too fast. And then it caught. Somebody leaned on it again.” He looked at the old man. “After that it never slipped. All the way to the top. It came up into the head as gently as setting down a tray.”

Matthis Ferrin sat on his crate under Teo’s lamp and didn’t say anything for a long time.

“He told me to tell you,” said Creed. “Before. With his hand on the brake. He said, tell my da I made it work. Tell him it was a counterweight drop and I rode the brake the whole way and I didn’t let it jump.” He paused. “He said you’d want to know that. That it didn’t jump.”

The old man’s cloudy eyes were wet.

“It didn’t jump,” he said.

“It didn’t jump.”

“A counterweight drop,” said Matthis Ferrin. Very slowly. Like a man reading a load figure off a gauge. “In a hollow peg. Into a skull. With things in the drive-house. One-armed.” His voice cracked. “And it didn’t jump.”

“No.”

Matthis looked down at his own hands. Old. Spotted. Cable-scarred across the palms from sixty years of splices.

“I was his foreman,” he said. “On Rib Seven. When he was — before he went to the Belly. To Line C. To the gantry. Six years on the primaries. I taught him the cables.” He swallowed. “I taught him the brake.”

“I know.”

“You ride it,” said Matthis. “That’s what I told him. When he was green. You don’t slam it. You don’t let it go. You ride it. You feel the load through the lever. You lean. You let it out a hand at a time.” His cloudy eyes went far away. “He was bad at it. At first. Slammed it every time. I used to shout at him.” A sound. Not a laugh. “Fast as it can and no faster, I’d shout. Fast as it can and no faster.”

Creed looked at him.

“He said that,” he said. “In the Engine. When we bled the valves. He said bleed it as fast as you can and no faster.”

Matthis Ferrin put his face in his old cable-scarred hands.

He didn’t make a sound. His thin shoulders shook. Under Teo’s lamp. On his crate. At the edge of the Fall-Field.

Ollo crouched down beside the crate. One-armed. And put his one hand on the old man’s shoulder. The way he’d put it on Creed’s, in the Hall of the Basin. The way Creed had put his on Ollo’s at hour fourteen.

Didn’t say anything.

Just kept it there.

When Matthis lifted his face, Wick was standing in front of him.

Not behind. In front. With Teo’s book under one arm and the comm-set on his chest. White. Shaking.

“Mister Ferrin,” said Wick. His rasp of a voice. “Matthis. I’m — I’m Wick. Wick Moraine. I built the net. On the north side. In the cellar.”

Matthis looked at him.

“I’ve got another message,” said Wick. “It’s — it’s from before. From the Collar. From the very top. When we opened the Neck Gate.” He swallowed. “I said I’d tell you. I promised. And then we went up the neck and I —” He stopped. “I’m telling you now.”

“Tell me what,” said Matthis.

“Your lamp,” said Wick. He pointed up. At Teo’s lamp. Burning steady on its pole. “Every night. Since the twenty-fifth day after the Fall. You worked it. Long, short, long. Short, short. Look up.” His voice cracked. “You didn’t know if anybody could see.”

Matthis’s cloudy eyes went to the lamp.

“He saw,” said Wick. “From the Collar. From the top of the well, where the Neck Gate was. When the bone moved and the light came down. He looked down. All the way down. Through the gun-ports. Past all the Ribs. And he saw it. Your lamp. Flashing.” Wick’s face did the thing. “He said, somebody tell Matthis. When you’ve got the net. Tell him somebody saw.”

The old man looked at Wick.

Then at Creed.

“You saw it,” said Matthis Ferrin. “From the top.”

“I saw it.”

“Long, short, long. Short, short.”

“Look up,” said Creed.

Matthis sat on his crate for a long, long time.

Then he looked up.

From the Flats, you could see the whole god.

That was the thing about the Flats. They were the bottom. The floor of the pelvis. Where the god’s bones met the dead world. Everything was above you. The great curve of the hip-bone. The spine going up out of the sacrum like the trunk of a tree. The Ribs, curving out from it, one above another, twelve of them, black against the dark — no, not black. Not dark. Glowing. Faint. Every one. Clear and gold and red and white. Their Lumens lit from the channels. Their cities lit from the walls. Twelve faint curving lines of light, one above another, going up and up.

And above them, the Collar. A knot of light where the clavicles met. Thousands of people on it, Tamsin said. On the bone. Looking up.

And above the Collar, the neck. Two thin glowing lines — the great vessels — going up through the dark.

And above the neck, the head.

And across the very top of the head — so far up, so small, that you had to know it was there to see it — a line.

Yellow.

Matthis Ferrin sat on his crate at the edge of the Fall-Field and looked at it.

“Is that —” he said.

“The crown,” said Creed. “It’s open. Along the seam. That’s the sun.”

“The sun.”

“The real one. Outside.”

The old man looked up at it with his cloudy eyes. For a long time. Not blinking.

“Teo would’ve liked that,” he said at last. “He had a book. Pictures. The old world. He showed me once. On Rib Seven. A sun.” A pause. “I said, that’s not real, Teo, that’s a picture. And he said, it was real once. A long time ago.”

“It’s real now,” said Wick. Beside him. Holding Teo’s book against his chest. “It’s — Matthis, I’ve got his book. I’ve got it. Here.” He held it out. Opened it. To the blue page. “It’s not as good as the real one.”

Matthis looked at the blue page. Then up at the line of yellow, far, far above.

“No,” he said. “It’s not.”

He sat back on his crate. Under Teo’s lamp. Burning steady. And kept looking up.

“I’ll stay here,” he said. “If it’s all the same. I’ve been sitting here a hundred days looking at this pole. I’d like to sit here and look at that for a while.”

“It’s all the same,” said Creed.

“Dask would’ve come down,” said Matthis. Not looking away from the line of yellow. “If he could. He’d have come down and sat with me and told me about the lift. Every bolt.” His voice cracked. “He’d have told me about every bolt.”

“I can tell you,” said Creed. “Some of them. I watched him look at it.”

Matthis Ferrin was quiet for a while.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tell me tomorrow. Every bolt you remember.” He kept looking up. “Tonight I want to look at this.”

Sabine had found a tram-car.

Not a shelter. A meeting-place. The big one, at the center of Hesk’s Rest — a Halden double-decker, its upper deck sheared off in the fall, its lower deck long and narrow and lined with benches, set down in the middle of the Fall-Field on its side and then levered upright by fifty people with bars. The Unbanded had used it as a council-house since the Fall. The Car, they called it.

She’d called everyone to it at the end of the second watch.

Not everyone. Everyone who’d been anything. Tamsin, carried down from the Collar on a stretcher, her splinted leg propped on a bench. Hanne Dray, from the Ninth. Ebbe Sallis, the Lumen Warden who’d stood under her own Bell first. Lund — Cassia Lund, the last Senior, who’d asked the Collar what they wanted her to do, and they’d said the relay, and she’d said yes. Fenn Arrowby for the Lancers. Varro. Asa, down from the Palate, with her hair loose and a stick of charcoal and a sheaf of paper she’d been drawing on since the folds. Sefa, down from the Sixth, with Taavi’s ledger under her arm. Haddon Rusk from Line C. Orsa Pell, from the number-two pump.

And Creed. And Ollo. And Wick.

They sat on the benches of the Car in the glow of the god’s bone coming up through the floor.

“Nobody’s in charge,” said Sabine.

She stood at the end of the Car with her blasting bar leaning against the wall and two fingers on her right hand and looked at them.

“That’s the first thing,” she said. “There’s no Concord. There’s no Stewardship. There’s no Head. There’s no Gardener. There’s no Kon. There’s no Senior.” She looked at Lund. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Cassia Lund.

“There’s four million people,” said Sabine. “Awake. With their hands glowing. With no Drip and no Bell and no bands. In the bones of a dead god. On a world outside that’s green.” She looked around the Car. “And nobody’s in charge.”

Nobody said anything.

“Somebody’s going to try,” said Sabine Kettle. “Soon. Somebody with old channels and new blood. A Verbous who woke up stronger than anybody else on his street. A Gilt who found out his hands can burn. An Unbanded who held a bridge and thinks that means something.” Her flat grey eyes didn’t move. “Somebody’s going to stand up and say, I’ll keep you. And people are going to be tired. And scared. And they’re going to want someone to.”

“What do we do,” said Hanne Dray.

Sabine looked at Creed.

Everyone did.

He felt it. Every heart in the Car. Turning toward him. The way the Kept had turned toward the steward at the rail. The way the Palate had turned toward the Mother.

Somebody’s going to stand up and say, I’ll keep you.

He looked at his hands. The black one. The spurred one. The light at his center, white at its heart, red at its rim. Kind. Enough. A god’s two hands, in a mule from Line C.

He could. He knew he could. He could stand up in the Car and say I’ll keep you, and they’d let him. Most of them. He’d opened the crown. He’d let the god give. He’d sat in the seat. They’d let him.

“Not me,” he said.

The Car was very quiet.

“I’m not — I can’t be the one who keeps you,” said Creed. “I’ve seen what that does. Nine hundred and eighty years of it. Cor holding everything still because he was afraid. Taavi ringing a bell. The Lamp holding a dream asleep so long it forgot what it was holding.” He looked at them. “The god didn’t need keeping. It needed asking. And then someone to hold it kind while it did what it wanted, and say enough when it was done.”

“That’s keeping,” said Varro.

“It’s not,” said Creed. “It’s — it’s being there. Next to. Not over.” He searched for it. “Ollo on the dock. With his hand on my wrist. He didn’t keep me. He didn’t tell me what to do. He said the shift was over. I decided to listen.”

“So what do we do,” said Hanne Dray again.

Creed looked at Sabine.

Sabine looked back.

“Ask,” said Sabine Kettle.

She said it flat. Like a load figure. Like an order.

“We ask them,” she said. “Every rib. Every sump. Every Garden. Every street. We ask them what they want. And then we do it. Or we don’t, and we tell them why. And then we ask again.” She looked around the Car. “Ollo’s rule. Taavi did it at the end. Sefa does it every day. The god got asked. Once. After nine hundred and eighty years.” Her two-fingered hand closed. “Nobody should have to wait that long.”

“That’s not a government,” said Lund.

“No,” said Sabine. “It’s a question.” She looked at Lund. “You were a government. How’d that go.”

Cassia Lund didn’t answer.

“Somebody should be the one who asks,” said Sefa Orne. Quietly. From her bench. With Taavi’s ledger in her lap. “Not decides. Asks. Goes round. Every rib. Every row. Like I did, on the Sixth. And comes back and says what they said.”

“Who,” said Hanne Dray.

Sefa looked down the Car.

At Wick.

He was sitting at the end of a bench. With Teo’s book under his arm and his comm-set on his chest. White. Shaking. He saw her looking.

He went whiter.

“No,” said Wick. “No. No no no. I’m — no.”

“You built the net,” said Sefa. “You read four thousand names into it. You told Matthis somebody saw. You told me what scared is.” She looked at him. “Everybody on every rib knows your voice. From the Lumen. From the song. You’re the one who says received.”

“I’m the one who’s scared of everything,” said Wick.

“Yes,” said Sabine.

Wick stared at her.

“Everybody down there’s scared,” said Sabine Kettle. “Four million. Waking up with their hands glowing and nobody telling them what to do. They’re scared out of their minds.” Her flat grey eyes held his. “You know what that’s like. Better than anyone in this Car. You’ve been scared every day of your life and you went anyway. Up the Void. Down the crawlway. Up the neck. Into the root.” A pause. “They’ll trust you. Because you’re scared too. Because you won’t tell them you’re not.”

“I can’t —”

“You don’t have to decide anything,” said Sefa. Gently. “You just ask. And listen. And say received.”

Wick looked at Creed.

Creed looked back.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Wick knew. Wick had always known. On the Seventh Stair, with his pack on. Somebody’s got to be scared next to you. So you remember what it’s like.

So they remember. Both of them. What it’s like down there. For everybody.

Wick looked down at Teo’s book in his lap. At the comm-set on his chest.

“I’d be bad at it,” he said. Very small.

“Mostly,” said Ollo. From the bench beside him. Flat.

Wick turned and stared at him.

“Mostly it works out,” said Ollo. “You always say.”

Wick stared at him for a long time.

Then he laughed. Rasping. Cracked. Wet. Helpless. And put his face in Teo’s book.

“Okay,” he said. Into the blue page. Muffled. “Okay. Okay. I’ll ask. I’ll go round. I’ll — okay.”

“Received,” said Sabine Kettle.

He sat with Matthis under Teo’s lamp at the end of the third watch.

The old man had fallen asleep on his crate. Sitting up. His chin on his chest. His face still turned, slightly, toward the line of yellow at the top of the world — which wasn’t yellow anymore. The sun had gone across and down, the way the hands said it would. The line at the top of the god was dark now. Or not dark. Something else. A thin line of deep blue, almost black, with points of white light in it.

He didn’t know what those were.

“Stars,” said the voice. Glass and ember. Very quiet. “We remember. From the dying world. When the sun goes down, there are stars.”

“What are they?”

“Other suns,” said the voice. “Far away. More than you could count.”

He looked up at them. Through the line at the top of the god. Points of white. More than he could count.

He tried anyway.

He couldn’t help it.

He got to forty, and lost his place, and started again, and got to sixty, and lost it again, and sat there under Teo’s lamp beside a sleeping old man on a crate at the edge of the Fall-Field, counting stars through a crack in the top of a dead god, and losing count, and starting again.

He didn’t mind.

He’d never minded losing count before. He’d never let himself. On Line C, if you lost count, you lost your hand.

He lost count. And started again. And lost it.

“More than you could count,” said the voice. Kind. Enough. “That’s the point.”

HESK’S REST
MESSAGES DELIVERED: 2 (FERRIN, M.)
COUNCIL: CONVENED (NO ONE IN CHARGE)
SPEAKER: MORAINE, W. (UNWILLING)
STARS: UNCOUNTED
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