Oh you silly fool Bascule, I think to myself. I look down the shaft. How am I going to get back down now? Still got the parachute but without the balloon to slow me down initially the lammergeiers reckon the parachute’s nearly useless. Oh well, might as well leave the damn thing here. I take it off and dump it by the doorway.
Blimey it’s cold. I peer into the darkness beyond the door.
There’s another door and a sort of control-panel looking thing. Could be a lift I suppose but I should be so lucky. Sure enough, nothing happens when I press the symbols. I try crypting, very carefully and short-range, so it’s really not like crypting at all. Blimey; there’s nothing here! Not even any electrics nearby! I never been so far away from the crypt, from civilisation.
Anyway, the point is, this elevator’s dead.
There’s another door to one side. It isn’t quite closed. I push it open. Very dark, but there’s steps there all right. Very dark indeed. Wish I still had that torch. Spiral steps. Bloody big deep steps, too; must be only three to a metre. Oh well, I think, trying to encourage myself; I didn’t have any other plans for today.
I start climbing.
I count the steps in hundreds, trying to keep to a steady rhythm. It doesn’t get any darker or any brighter.
I try not to think about how high I am, even though there’s a kind of pride in me that I’ve got this far. I also try not to think about how I’m going to get down, or about the people who shot the rocket at me and whether they will still be there if I am able to find a way back down. I pass another side door; it’s locked. 500 steps and another door. It’s locked too. I also try not to think of the things you hear about the fast-tower; about real ghosts or monsters from before the Diaspora or from the depths of space or just put here to guard it and stop silly bags from attempting to explore it. I spend quite a lot of my time trying not to think about all these things.
Another doorway. The doors are spaced every 256 steps. All locked so far.
1000 steps.
Suddenly there’s something ahead of me, round the turn of the stair; something that looks like it’s alive and waiting and crouched looking at me.
It’s still almost pitch black but this thing’s blacker, and it’s huge and it’s poised over me like some avenging angel of darkness. I feel for my knife. The thing above me on the steps doesn’t move. I’d like to kid myself it isn’t really there but it is. Can’t find my knife. It’s hanging on a bit of string somewhere here but I can’t find it; oh blimey, oh fuck.
I find the knife and hold it out in front of me with one shaking hand. The black thing still doesn’t move. I glance behind me. I can’t go back. I stare at the motionless thing blocking my way.
It takes a few more moments for me to realise.
It’s the frozen dead body of the lammergeier they sent up before. I breathe a bit easier (if you can be said to be breathing easier when your lungs feel like they’re about to come out down your nose and your skin feels tight and about to split like a ripe fruit), but when I go up past the bird I try not to touch it.
I keep going.
There’s a door at 1024 steps, blocking the way up. I try crypting but the doors electrically dead. There’s a big sort of wheel thing on the front so I spin it and after sticking at first, it turns. After a awful lot of wheel whirling there’s a click. The door sticks too but it opens eventually, hissing and scraping.
On and up.
1500 steps.
I have to switch to the third and last oxygen bottle at 1540 steps.
Keep going, keep going, keep going. Round and round and round and round forever and ever and ever…
2000. Keep climbing. Roaring ears, flashing eyes, sickness in my stomach, coppery taste of blood in my mouth.
I’m expecting something at 2048 steps but I can’t remember what it is. I get there and it’s a closed door. I remember the last one. Same performance here except this one sticks worse and I can hardly move the bugger.
2200. 2202. 2222. I want to stop here, I keep bashing into the walls and I’m frightened of falling all the way back down to wherever it was I started from. It’s so cold. I can’t feel my feet or my hands. Just my nose with my glove and can’t feel that neither. Hack and spit. Spit goes crick in mid-air. That means something but I can’t remember what. Something bad, I think. 2300. 2303. 2333. Not such a good place to stop. Think I’ll keep going.
2444. 2555. 2666.
I don’t know where I’m going nor barely where I am any more. I’m in a huge screw thing what is winding down into the earth as I climb up inside it.
2777. 2888. 2999, 3000.
Then there’s an emptiness in my lungs. I try hard to think.
I’m in the fast-tower, in a stairway. 3000 steps. I can see some lights, but they’re just in my eyes. Nothing in the tank, nothing in my lungs, nothing in my head.
256, something keeps telling me. 256. 256. 256. I don’t know what it is but it keeps bleeding banging on about 256 256 256 all the damn time. 2560; there wasn’t anything there was there? I stand there, swaying, suddenly thinking, Oh no! What if I missed a open door? What if I’ve gone past wherever it was I was supposed to be going?
256 256 256.
Oh shut up.
256 256 256.
Oh hell, all right; 256; what’s 12 times 256?
Buggered if I know. Too difficult to work out.
256 256 256.
Fucking hell I’m going to keep going just to get away from this damn noise in my head.
256 256 256.
3050. Tunnel vision. No noise but roar. 3055. Sparks gone. Not sure if I’m still climbing or not. 3060. Highest corpse in the castle maybe. Shit, I’m going to die and I’m out of reach of the bleeding crypt; I’m going to really really die, forever.
Try crypting but it’s hard, just like keeping my eyes open is hard. Get a hint of a reply though. A wee tiny small voice going:
Bascule! Keep going! Keep going! We’re almost there!
Oh, it’s Ergates. Ergates the little ant. Come back to me now.
That’s nice. But I have to break the connection, it’s too hard to maintain.
3065. Taking off the harness now; it’s useless, like the crypt. I can see to do it though. Very cold now. Very very cold.
3070. More light.
3071. Light; doorway. Doorway to the side. Don’t believe it. Just another hallucination.
3072. Open doorway, bright and warm. Lungs on fire. Going to keep going.
Fall.
Fall into the doorway. Hit the floor.
It’s good to lie down.
Lights light up, sounds sound.
Flash!-flash!-flash! Hiss. Vhoot!-vhoot!-vhoot! Clunk. Flash!-flash!-flash! Hiss. Vhoot!-vhoot!-vhoot!
Blimey, I think, closing my eyes, I didn’t know dying involved such a bleeding commotion…
Next original section
* * *
TRANSLATION – TEN – 5
Original text
It’s a very strange feeling waking up alive when you were fully expecting to be dead. Especially when you thought you were really really dead, like completely utterly and finally. You sort of come round slowly thinking; I must be dead, but I’m thinking, so I can’t be, so what’s going on here then? You are even a bit frightened about waking up any more in case there’s some sort of unpleasant surprise in store, but then you think, well, I’m never going know what’s going on unless I do wake up, and so you do.
I open my eyes.
Glory bleeding be, it’s bright and warm. I’m lying on my back looking up at some sort of sculpture or mobile or something; a bloody huge one, too. There’s this great big planet thing suspended right above me and all these others suspended from the ceiling and connected with hoops and stuff. I sit up. I’m in some kind of big circular room with dark windows; stars out of one side, the Encroachment on the other. The thing above me seems to be a model of the solar system and it takes up most of the space in the room. In the middle of the room, under the big globe of the sun, there’s a bunch of couches, seats and desks and stuff. There’s a guy there, standing on a desk, holding his hand up to the model sun. He says something, nods, then gets down and comes over to me. He’s got blond hair and golden eyes and skin like dark polished wood. He’s wearing a pair of shorts and a little waistcoat. He waves to me.