Shamanspace Read Free Page A

to a few people, let them know it ’ s about to end, and do the job. ’
    ‘ The stars of reason corrupt your sky, Alix. You ’ re too coolheaded. You ’ ll need anger that would turn sand to glass. God depends on our becoming distracted — as you have, with your style, as the Prevail have, with their politics. It knows you ’ re coming. ’
    ‘ We take precautions — we ’ re hidden here. ’
    ‘ The Keep ’ s made of anglematter — antimatter reversed through its own dimensions to make a near-neutral greyspace. Tied off sidelong to society with false entrances of whole years. Normally the body eats space equal to its size. Not here. The Keep ’ s not camouflaged. In fact it stands out like a scar that won ’ t tan. ’
    ‘ If it knows, why doesn ’ t it stop us? ’
    Quinas smiled winterly. Geometrics whirled through the albescent walls. He was a fine one to accuse me of a lack of passion. The man had been ghostburnt to ice.
    ‘ Without consciousness there ’ s no cruelty — only objects without pain. God made us conscious for a reason. It knew that when its cells became self-aware, they ’ d experience a pitch of pain that ’ d send them for revenge. We ’ re nano-assassins. It just takes one of us little viruses to get to the right place. In our capacity as god ’ s suicidal impulse the idea ’ s always been to work covert, like a drink habit — god ’ s cowardly, it doesn ’ t want to know or take responsibility for what it ’ s doing. That ’ s why it delegated in the first place, yes? A part of it knows what we ’ re doing, because we are that part of it. Just don ’ t make too much noise. It ’ ll let us sneak up. A telescope is god looking at itself. We are god cursing at itself. When we kill it, we ’ ll be god killing itself. ’
    Behind him was the image of a nerve in earth growing a grassblade thin and already dying.
    ‘ Well, ’ I said, ‘ it ’ s been good, Mr Quinas. ’ I stood, feeling headachy. Not good.
    ‘ You like books — let me give you a going-away gift, ’ he said, standing as an opalescent shelf extruded from the wall. Amid the junk I noticed curse needles and a very rare spinelight camera. He took down a book of mirrors, flipping through it in an absorbed sort of way — I thought he ’ d forgotten me. Then he handed it over, his dead silver eyes knowing exactly where I stood. ‘ Acqueville ’ s Flightless Land Without Clouds . It ’ s said this book learned the ultimate secret, lain in sun on the tiles for a million years — the pages extracting a store of the mystery, closing. Truth revealed, the sky one big X-ray. ’
    ‘ Thank you, Mr Quinas. Goodbye. ’
    I passed through the security sweetwall and glanced back. Quinas was flickering, his body fading to a tintype image. His voice rasped right against my ear. ‘ Maybe you didn ’ t hear me. You expect the stars to know you? We ’ re nothing, snuff-zeroes in a vacuum. ’
    I knew it — he was creating a diversion. An etheric exertion was throbbing in the air. ‘ What ’ s this, ’ I said, stupid. Quinas was a red electric outline scrambling from the mirror book — I dropped it as he formed up with a sort of dazed laugh and sprang toward a fast clearing in the outer sweetwall. He hung aside from the crackling gap, behind him a city glittering distant as beads. Phenomenal effects banged past him — he winked his eye and let go, vanishing. The wall closed.
    So it was to be human drama and delay after all.
     

4 ETHERIC SPEEDWAY
    The threat of ending has been taken as a promise
     
    Quinas valved down in Paris and this suggested he had some business with the Prevail. I should have known when he called the world god ’ s ‘ moulted material ’— Prevail philosophy. Lockhart was saying I should regenerate and keep my powder dry, whatever the hell that meant. But there was a chance I could stop Quinas from blowing the surprise. I joined Melody in a safe house in the rue Fromentin, loving her