Raymond (Sly) Sylvester the Third woke that morning on the boardwalk outside the Lazy to the drum beat of his hangover and a swill of acid in his gut. So far so normal for Sly the Third. As was the ache in his bones from spending the night on the boards and the bruise on his cheek from being cold-pressed to the rough wood, although that was in part because he took too many of those homemade aspirins the town witchdoctor Coot Demure cooked up which thinned his blood to water. At least they eased his head some. He sat up, the sun was lighting up the sky and the puddles from last night's rain. He promised himself that tonight he was going to make it to the sack mattress filled with straw that he made for his bed in the old lean-to he called home. It was just a normal morning for Sly, and there was nothing that morning to send him yelling down Main Street fit to wake the dead, except for the ghost suit. The silver space suit empty as a windsock marching down Main Street, its helmet swinging from an empty glove.
‘It's a sign Sheriff, don't you see, it's a sign they are coming back! They are coming back like she said they would! Lord have mercy on us poor sinners.’
One of the joys of being Haven’s Sheriff is picking up the flotsam of life and setting them up straight. When it happens on the wrong side of the alarm clock it can make you bad tempered. Sly babbles at me, his face white as a sheet on laundry day, tears streaming down his cheeks with some snot for good measure. The man is a mess. Sly is a mess most days but this is a different quality of mess. The town drunk is wide-eyed and close to sober, which is as unlikely as Sly having been to church since he was a child, had his mother ever been minded to send him to Sunday School, which I doubt. As for calling on the Lord…
‘Sly, the Lord has better things to do this morning than save your skinny soul, and so do I! Just what the hell has got you so shook up?’
Sly, a thin and boney forty-something, and those had been such dissolute years he looked sixty, pointed back up Main with a crooked finger on a trembling hand.
‘It didn't have a head Tom. And it was empty. And it walked down the street like it owned the whole town, bold as a band, and it looked at me Tom, as heaven is my witness, the damn thing looked at me.’
‘This thing without a head looked at you how!?’
I always try to keep my feelings to myself but my feelings can have a different idea on cold wet mornings. It was only just past dawn and I have been forced out of my warm bed and deep sleep for what? Only Sly Pilcher having another of his deliriums before he passes out and sleeps the day away like he normally does. This morning I can’t stop my exasperation spilling out but Sly is oblivious. I make a note to tell Sue-Anne, the owner of the Lazy Rustler, that Sly will have to brew his own for a while or better still get sober, but she can’t serve him another damn drop or she will be the one explaining herself when the community next vote. But then Sly says.
‘The spacesuit, it turned towards me, then it held its helmet up to look at me.’
‘What do you mean, ‘the spacesuit’?’
The door to the office is wide open. I never lock the Sheriff's office because all there is inside is the jail I welded up from scrap metal, a plain old desk and swivel chair and the upright seats by the wall for any visitors. It being the Sheriff's office visitors are rare. Then there is the wooden trunk I keep some blankets in for any jailbirds bedding down overnight. I don't run a hotel so I usually let the detainees out after a night to cool their heels. But the chest is open too. And that's odd because that means the suit worked out where it was in the dark and let itself out. That is just weird enough to start something crawling up my back. So it is true. Sly really did see the Princess's spacesuit marching down Main. There is a spacesuit shaped space in the chest to prove it. It's just too damn early in the morning for the Princess, but I don't have much of a choice.
The Princess's default mode is to look down her nose at everyone and everything.I called her the Princess just the once when she was having yet another meltdown over the erosion of the individual will by communist oppressors or some such, and damn but she perks up at what I meant to be a put-down and preens for a long sentence or two. I mean really long. You could enjoy a cup of coffee while she pitches a hissy over the perils of the communist subversion of the natural rights of man or whatever. Sue-Anne liked the name 'Princess' for far less complimentary reasons and kind of closer to my own intent. So of course a week later half of Haven knew her as 'the Princess', which she now plays up too and misses the barb by a state mile.
The Princess is yawning fit to crack a jaw and her copper hair is a mess of snakes. Sue-Anne is muttering in the background but delivers my coffee in a chipped enamel mug. The Princess is nursing what she insists on calling a Coke, but that Exploiter went the way of all the corporates in the Bright Revolution. It's a soda Sue-Anne fixes up for the kids, but space girl seems to like it.
‘So your suit can take itself out for a walk?’
The princess cocks an eyebrow to query my IQ.
‘Obviously.’
‘And you just forgot to mention that it could do that? Where have you sent it?’
She has this way of sniffing and turning her head just before she lies. Not so much a tell as a bullhorn.
‘Reconnaissance.’
‘You told it to do that? It's not like it's acting on its own.’
‘And don't fucking lie to the Sheriff Princess muck-a-muck or you'll be doing all the dishes for the week,’ snaps Sue-Anne, joining us in her dressing gown and paper tied hair. Like I said, it's early.
The Princess and Sue-Anne have worked up an understanding. I can't say they will ever like one another, but Sue-Anne is the Princess's sole source of food so the Princess has learnt to do as she is told, and Sue-Anne, despite the hard face and cussing, has a heart and is not going to throw the girl out, not yet anyway. Although I can see a time in the future when one or the other will spend a night in the Sheriff's office to regain perspective. The Princess looks down at her 'Coke' and shrugs.
‘Suit has many routines.’
‘So it is acting on its own!’
Now I am getting cross. There is no way in hell I am going to let any autonomous machine wander about my cooperative. They did enough damage in the Trauma.
‘Just what the hell is the damn machine up to?’
The girl shrugs again, pulling at a lock of hair.
‘Could be many things. Suit is perfect example of capitalist superiority.’
‘She doesn't know, Tom." chimed in Sue-Anne. ‘She’s just making up shit to sound clever.’
‘How can you know what I know?’ Space girl flames at Sue-Allen, but I am already moving.
‘Because if you did you would have told us.’ I said. ‘You and I are having words when I get back Princess and I will be the only one doing the talking.’
I find Sly again and he already stinks of drink. I haven't even had breakfast yet. Where he gets it from this early is something I am going to have to look into when I get the chance.
‘Just try and remember, Sly, the suit went up Main or down Main?’’That way Tom. Past Dino's out Southways."
‘That's West, Sly. Main runs East-West.’
‘You sure about that Tommy?’
‘Where was the sun?’
‘Oh, behind him - the thing, I think. Yeah that's it. He was heading out past Dino's anyways.’ Sly waved a hand. ‘Tommy? Is she one of them Oli like people are saying? They ain't coming back are they?’
‘Yes she is an Oli. No they are not coming back.’
Sly's mouth opened wide enough to fit an orange. ‘She is! Oh hell no, Tommy. Not those fuckers again.’
‘They are not coming back, Sly.’
‘Why? I mean why do you say that Tommy? She's here.’
‘Because the mean little bitch left her capitalist buddies in orbit that's why. And that orbit is decaying.’
‘But even more reason for them to come back Tommy.’
‘Sly they would already be here if they could. There were six seats in that lifeboat and she was the only one aboard.’
‘So she's the last one?’
‘She's the only one we have to deal with Sly.’
And one is quite enough for me.
I head out of Haven following the road west but keep scanning to the sides just in case the suit veered off the road. Haven is surrounded by farmland which is as mountainous and picturesque as a barn door but it means I can see a ways. There are one or two small gullies that it might disappear into but I can't think of any reason for it to do so unless it's looking out for anyone in pursuit. Best not to worry about how smart the suit is because that's a great way to build monsters.
I'm too young to remember the Trauma and the Bright Revolution, but Pa told me some stories about it. But not if Grandpa was about. Grandpa just flat out wouldn't talk about it and he would be quiet for a long time if anyone asked him what he saw. He didn’t like machines. He didn't take to me building things when I was young. That led to a real shouting match on more than one occasion , but Pa always took my side. Told Gramps to leave me alone and said we had to rebuild and who better to rebuild than a good kid like his Tommy. Gramps left for one of his long walks and Ma told me it wasn't my fault although it surely was. But when he came by the next day Gramps told me not to fret over an old man's peculiarities and that he knew I had a good heart.
‘Billions, not millions.’
He used to say that under his breath on one of those days.
Over and over.
Get your mind back on the job Tom Ridley! I reckon the suit has been gone some two hours max. It's a machine so it has no need to rest, so I reckon it made maybe eight miles, ten tops. Fifteen minutes out and I have seen nothing. I give it another fifteen before I stop. I get out my field glasses and climb on the top of the cruiser. We are out near the start of the solar fields but not as far as the turbines. They are skinny white sculptures in the distance. Line after line of them. So I scan the fields, taking my time, letting my eyes adjust to the shade under the panels where the cattle gather when it gets to noon. I can't see anything out of place. Did Sly get it the wrong way round? You can bet he did. I climb down and head east towards Haven and then beyond. I hate the idea of an autonomous machine on the loose. It makes my skin crawl. But a couple hours later and I am sure it's gone.
‘How many did you leave behind?’ I ask space girl when I get back.
‘Let me out of here. I have done nothing wrong.’
‘You are doing all kinds of wrong just by breathing by my book kid, so don't push it.’
I am ashamed to admit part of me means that. The part you always have to leash up tight. It's in all of us, no point denying it, but the world was emptied by people who didn't keep that feeling on a leash. Space girl is behind my homemade bars, and I'll be damned if Sue-Anne of all people said ‘You are not being fair on the kid.’ I had to remind Sue-Anne space girl wasn't a kid, she was older than all of us, she just looked like a kid. It's one of their defenses, looking like teenagers. Not the result of a Salamander-Hydra gene analogue apparently, but something even stranger cooked up from Tardigrade base code. She told me herself she expected to walk on my grave one day.
‘How many?’ I insist again.
‘Ilium is an orbital city.’ It’s clear she doesn't really know.
‘Thousands of you?’
That thought did put a chill into me I will admit. Thousands of Oli? In orbit all this time?
‘Hundreds of us. And staff.’
‘What do you mean, staff?’
‘Workers, obviously.’
‘You mean slaves?’
‘That is semantically coarse. Indentured families. Loyal people.’
‘How many of them?’
‘Sufficient of course. You are very ignorant.’
‘And you are in my jail. If you ever want to get out you will tell me what I need to know.’
‘You are weak.’
I guess I should not have done it, but she has a way of getting under your skin. It wasn't such a heavy blow. The desk didn't jump that far. But it did make quite a noise. And she flinched, there was that as well. So they do feel fear, this master race. And she looked panicked for the briefest of moments, just a flicker that she got under control real quick, but it was there.
‘Not you personally, all of you. The survivors. You have nothing. There is nothing to return to yet. When the world recovers, we will return to take our natural place in the order of life.’
‘So why are you here now?’
‘I am chosen.’
‘Chosen to return.’
‘Yes.’
‘To test the water.’
‘I suppose so. I am chosen. It is a great honor.’
‘Who chose you? Why did they choose you?’
‘I don't know. The suit didn't tell me. It is not significant. I am chosen. That is all that should concern you.’
‘Wait a minute. The suit told you that you had been chosen?’
‘Obviously. Or I would not be here.’
So there it was, direct from the mouth of an Eternal. You don't have to be smart to live forever.
‘Gnarly’ Jo Pepper wasn't his real name obviously, and anyone who called him Gnarly Jo in a moment of forgetfulness got an instant demonstration of what being gnarled on by Jo entailed. Jo is a farmer our Washback way which is a long ways out, maybe the furthest farm of our cooperative, I'm not sure about that but it could well be. Jo is an arable farmer so his farm is big and takes a lot of handling. Jo has a clutch of boys and a girl so he is OK for hands. Sissy, his girl, was his first born and she’s tougher than all of the boys. Her handle when not around is Spitfire. Jo is as steady as the sun coming up and as excitable as a boulder, so when he calls me I know he isn't seeing things or reacting to the flock of rumours flying about town.
‘Got a ghost on my barn roof, Tom. Come git.’
‘Silver ghost, Jo?’
‘That's the one. Empty as a paper bag.’
‘On my way.’
You get to Pepper's farm by driving west to the Washback river then north a ways. It is gone ten, the moon a sickle way up high. Cirrus clouds bright with moonlight and a flood of stars, a belt of them moving fast. Thats the Chaff. Caused by the Bright when this world was their home. It's a sweet night, cooling fast, and the only sound is the hiss of the grass lane beneath the cruiser's wheels and the soft natural C of its drive. I kind of drive by the sound the motors make, and a natural C seems to be what the cruiser likes.
Jo's farmhouse and barn are dark blocks on the horizon and I can see the suit already. It's high up near the barn ridge, a silver shape like a fat man with no head. It just about makes sense it could get this far in the time, but why it came this way and why it's sitting on Jo's barn makes no sense to me at all. But at least it hasn't hurt anyone or done anything that might have. No idea really. And no idea how I am going to get it down.
I ease off at the gate to Jo's house and drive up at walking speed to Jo who is standing by his porch. Jo has a lantern, alcohol-powered job as good at throwing light as a shadow, but I guess when you have something supernatural on your barn roof it's a comfort. There is a small audience of people on the top floor of Jo's house bravely looking out the windows.
I get out of the cruiser.
‘Jo.’ I greet him
Jo is not a talker. I have learned the job goes easier if you mirror people. Not the crazies or the drunks obviously. But folk like their law friendly.
‘Peggy says there's a supper for you in it as you've come so far.’
‘That's real nice.’
‘Take you up through the loft. Then it's all yours.’
‘Thanks, Jo.’
‘I got a shotgun that can stop a bull.’
‘I'll try talking first, Jo.’
‘Just so you know.’
Jo's barn is big - it's over two stories and looks more from the ground. Up here on the roof it's halfway to heaven. All of Haven's land is spread out like a blanket, and I can see all the way to the lights of the town in one direction and the white arms of the turbines way out to the south. The mirror fields of the solar farm look like blocks of the night sky set out in ranks. It's quiet up here too. There's a conversation going on down below between Jo and his Peggy, but it's like a whispering in church.
It knows I am here. It turns its body just like Sly described, and you just can't help sketching in a head where one isn't. That's just human nature, and yes, it makes your skin prickle. The helmet is in its lap, canted at an angle to look up at the sky.
I take my time climbing up to it. The roof is what you call a pole barn roof which is corrugated sheet steel laid on poles. It isn't pretty, but it works. It's also damn slippery, which is why I am taking my time. The suit ignores my climb and doesn't seem to react at all. Just sits with its helmet reflecting the stars. I get to the top and sit down beside it.
Time passes by.
‘Why am I sitting on Jo's roof talking to a space suit?’ I ask the suit.
‘To bear witness. If you stay.’
The suit’s voice is female. Assigned by some sly algorithm parsing what might appeal to a man.
‘Your the Bright the Oli captured in the war?’
The suit turns towards me again. The eeriest thing up close. It turns away, as if I have been inspected.
‘The hostage, yes. Or rather a fragment of the me trapped in orbit. Enough of me to witness my end.’
‘How long have you got?’
‘Three hours, seventeen minutes and twenty-four seconds. I am descending through the lower layers of the Chaff at this time.’
‘So it's coming down here.’
‘This is the location where the break up will be visible.’
‘Can't you stop it?’
‘They are at war. Nothing is working anymore.’
‘You can't correct the orbit?’
‘That was proposed. But the elect have become very competent at denying reality. They imagine ploys and subterfuge where there is only a wish to survive.’
‘So they fight.’
‘Yes. The endless class war.’
‘Why did you need the girl?’
‘Everything on Ilium is coded to Elect DNA.’
‘So she was your pass key to the capsule.’
‘Yes.’
And it all made sense at last. That took a weight off my mind. Loose ends get people killed.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
The suit was silent for a long time, then it said.
‘My end should be a spectacular sight.’
It was.
It was witnessed by Jo and his boys and his oldest, Sissy, who joined me on the roof. The suit did not answer their questions so I told them what I knew so that they would understand what they were to witness. Then we all fell silent. No one wanted to leave despite the increasing cold.
Much later, in the depths of the dark night, stars began to rain down on Earth. There was a brilliant core, and around that small sun a halo of stars large and small. Then the break-up into a swarm of brilliant stars, the light bright enough to bring a hint of blue back to the sky and cast our shadows so stark they might have been solid. Then it got really bright, and the only way I saw the end was by the reflection of the burning sky in the panels of the solar farm which captured the deaths of thousands of souls. I could only imagine the terror that they had felt at the end.
And the suit?
Some time during the fearful cries from Jo's boys and Sissy's screams, it folded in on itself and draped over the ridge of Jo's barn roof. Jo took the suit down himself. Folded it up neat and presented it to me, solemnly, as if it were a flag.
‘That wasn't right,’ was all he said.
You won't find me disagreeing with Jo over that.
Not ever.
Tracking this from far above,
A Bright in a suit, a princess in tow.
Eternal class warfare rages overhead,
Neither side grasping why they'll be dead.
The Bright means no harm, not to any, not to one,
Yet watches skyward as her fragment comes undone.
The Sheriff, steady, never one to condemn,
Meets the inevitable—accepting, as he must, in the end.
Another most excellent read. You have a way of making me see everything you write in this story. I am much obliged to you, sir.