“Okay,” Celeste said, not sure where this was going.
“Here.” Perl reached out and knocked on the module’s airlock. A long, slow pause. It opened with a greasy hiss of decompression. The air inside smelled of animal leavings and unwashed hair.
Celeste shook her head. “I’m not going in there.”
“You are,” said Perl. “No wants to see you.”
“Who?”
“No name to him, so we call him No.” He paused, and then shouted, “No, you got the guest you wanted.”
There was a shuffling and hissing.
Perl took Celeste by the hand and tried to lead her inside. She pulled away. He sighed. “No, you’re gonna have to come out more. She’s not budging much for you.”
The hissing resolved into ragged breathing.
“S’okay, No. Lights are down low. Bulbs went out hereabouts yesterday. I asked ’em not to fix. Day cycle won’t hurt your eyes when it kicks in.”
The inner door of the airlock opened.
A tall figure squatted on the other side, in the dark, arms clasped over its head, looking like it was in pain. Its skin was grey and there was not a trace of hair on its smooth, naked flesh. The arms gradually unfolded from around the head.
“You be careful, Walker,” Perl said, readying himself to leave.
“Why’d you bring me here to leave me?” she asked. “Is this thing safe?”
“No-one’s safe around No. Because he’s No, and you don’t say no to No. He’ll have questions for you. Give smart answers and you’ll be okay. Trust the Perl. I gotta go.”
Celeste watched him leave, wishing she could go with him. She turned her attention back to the strange, nude creature. When Perl’s departure was complete, No lowered his arms completely, revealing himself. His face was angular and long with heavy brows and an elongated nose. Like the nose and shape of his face, his ears were long and rectangular. His lips protruded in a thin, ridged pout and he had a prognathous jaw. Blunt depressions were carved where his eyes should have been. He was born blind. There was nothing comely about him and an odour hung between them that made Celeste think of empty underground vaults, time, dust, and the unburied dead.
As if to mock him and the life he might’ve had, No was blessed, or cursed, with broad, well-formed genitalia that swung heavily as he shuffled towards Celeste. His long-fingered hands were outstretched, groping the air as if it were something tangible. She backed away. He took her hands in his own, despite her protests, and spoke. His voice was soft, gentle. Old man wise. “Welcome home, Celeste Walker.”
“This isn’t my home.”
“It could be, though it will not be.”
“Fine. Why do they call you No?”
“Because it was the first word I learned. The first sound made when eyes were laid upon me. My mother’s first word to me. You are like her. We connected, and you have been on your way here ever since.”
She recognised the voice then. “It was you on my Mickey Mouse phone.”
“Yes, it was. Though I am here, alone in darkness, without sight. I am everywhere also where those who are different exist, be they n-born or v-born. We are all errors, perfect mistakes, and they do not want us above, so we survive as we can below.”
“Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven?”
“I do not reign here. I merely shelter and protect those around me. I ward the Roaches. Blind the systems of the Crawl as I am blind myself, so they leave our sector in peace.”
“Perl seemed scared of you, and he doesn’t look like a man who scares easy.”
“Most are scared of me, always have been. I have no eyes.” He put his fingers to the unbroken skin where eyes should have formed. “I am more different than most down here, so therefore it is my duty to help those who cannot help themselves.”
“Can you see at all?”
“Yes, I see, but not as you do. My friends are the quark, the tau meson, the higgs-boson, the electron, and the gluino. They speak to me. I listen. I see the super-strings that bind us all together and the d-branes that set us so far apart. The layers upon layers of reality the Flood is but a pale shadow of, casting itself upon the Deep.
“You might say I am a thing adrift, trying to grasp at reality so I can know it is there, what it feels like close to me, no more, the coldest comfort of all.”
“Reality’s difficult to work out these days,” Celeste said. “I used to think it was easy. It was this thing separate from the Flood and the streams, overlays and the channels. I’m no longer as sure as I was, because they all have their own reality, don’t they? Real is as real as you want it to be, or not. It’s a choice we make. Each in our own self-reflexive bubble. Truth is optional and lies are multitude.”
“To ignore reality is what humanity has done since it began,” said No, “it has woven its own designs out of whole cloth so many times over that the original threads can no longer be undone.” His tone became harder, “And what would you do about this, Celeste Walker?”
“Do? I don’t understand.”
“We are not a part of your world. Though you are different, you are not as we are. You have been a chaser. Born higher than we have climbed. Our beginnings were low until we sank even lower.”
No touched her forehead. His fingertips were cool and smooth. No texture of grain on his skin. No fingerprints. Nothing. “The traces you have seen. The places you have gone. There is so much more. The man in the moon knows you. For some, the Flood is better than reality. For you, it is the way to leaving the shadows behind. Casting off the world as it is and no longer being bound by its chains.” He paused to catch his breath. “And you come to us with our extinction in your wake.”
“I’m not here to kill anybody.”
“Perhaps not with your own hands, but our blood will flow. Our time was always limited. I know Perl told you and he was not being dramatic for effect. Freedom has a price. It must end. In exchange for my mutancy, I have been able to shield my fellow zeroes from sight. I fear that time is over because there is a way to break the shield.”
“How’s that?”
No reached out for Celeste again. “Love. Mine for you. Since I first spoke to you on the phone. The man in the moon sent you here. This is his design, to ensure our undoing.”
“How can he do that?”
“How else?” No held out his hand, palm up. A brown slice of something rested there. “Will you take communion with me?”
“What is it?”
“Whosoever eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood shall have eternal life.”
“You’re not one for clear answers, are you?”
“Some things cannot be explained. Feeling is the path to understanding. You have seen much against your will. Would you not rather walk the path at your own behest and have the unnatural thing inside you purged away?”
“So, you’re the one who removes soulwires?”
No inclined his monolithic head.
“You’re a surgeon.”
He shook his head slowly from side to side once, “I am a healer.”
Celeste looked at the slice of dark matter he proffered. “Are you sure?”
No said nothing.
It’s my choice, not his. I decide this.
Tentatively, Celeste picked up the stuff. She sniffed at it. The odour was pungent, rich and herbal. She bit off a small piece. It tasted slightly spicy.
“All or nothing, Celeste Walker.” No said. “What more do you have to lose in exchange for being free?”
She finished eating the rest of it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It hurt to breathe, at first. Pins and needles spread throughout her body and became a rhythmic aching – like the beating of a failing heart. Vertigo made her skull pound and the muscles of her diaphragm spasm. Falling, falling, falling; the ground was not there beneath her feet and light was retreating from her surroundings. There were aches deep inside her; growing toothless mouths and fingers groping their way free from those mouths. Shades of black and dismal grey erupted across her vision. There was a pressure building inside her ears. A great weight closed around her like a titanic fist, dragging her down into some other place. Some other dark.