Exurbia: A Novel About Caterpillars (An Infinite Triptych Book 1) Read online

  Exurbia: A Novel About Caterpillars

  Alex McKechnie

  Visit the author's website www.sdbrp.com – Home of the Slightly Drunken Book Review Podcast for book giveaways, reviews, and general thoughts about writing.

  Also by Alex Mckechnie:

  Three Things I Did When My Father Died

  But Thomas Aiken is Dead

  How to Build a God: The Last of the Biologicals

  The Vegetarian and Other Stories

  Thank you to -

  Fox Villa whose staunch but friendly German criticism helped me to iron out the main idea.

  Alan Irwing, Jasmine Tall, Samantha Martin, Ellie Angelova, and Maria Danailova, for kindly volunteering to read and critique the early drafts.

  Alice Wilson for pointing out massive scientific flaws.

  J.B. Markes and Alexandra Engellmann for their kind help and editing expertise.

  And Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose ideas I have been shamelessly stealing for years now.

  Copyright © 2015 by Alex McKechnie. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any written or electronic format without written permission of the author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the author.

  For Ahmed

  Introduction

  I was having an argument with a friend a year or so ago. He was saying something along the lines of, ‘Everything has been done in science fiction: time travel, wormholes, interstellar empires, nanotechnology, genetic engineering. What's left but to just rewrite the old stories?’

  I sat on that for a while. It was a good point. Once you've conquered space and time with your keyboard, where do you want to go from there?

  Artificial intelligence subjugates humanity. Extraterrestrials visit. A time machine materialises. All the same tropes, told again and again but with feminist twists and updated science.

  Have we really run out of novel science fiction?

  It hit me a few months later that there is a new myth for our time, not yet done to death, and it relies on old tropes just as heavily as recent tropes. It isn't about technology, but it concerns technology. It isn't about space but it travels through it. It isn't even about humans, not really, but it certainly involves them. And I suppose it can really be captured in the question, ‘What are we going to become?’

  I'm sure that with enough time and perseverance our little species will spread its colonies throughout the universe. Relativity allows for forwards time travel, and maybe a future physics will allow travel backwards too. Perhaps those pernicious parallel universes will even be accessible one day and herald the dawn of a new phase in humanity's expansion. But who's to say we're even going to stay human? To me, that's real the kicker here.

  We're quite sentimental about these two-legged skin suits and grey biological brain computers. Both of them have allowed us to develop an advanced technological civilisation. But it seems ridiculous to think that we'll remain in this shape, or even in this medium, forever. More likely, it seems to me, that whether it be through technology or some other means yet to be invented, we'll use our ingenuity to either spread our will through space, or merge with matter, returning to some primordial state of cosmic unity.

  That sounded like a new tale worth telling; the story not just of the coming millennia but the deep future, when technology is completely unrecognisable, when biological humanity is a distant memory, and when consciousness has migrated into the stars themselves. When we have long evolved past our current condition.

  There is already a school of thought called 'transhumanism' which is keenly promoting values like technological self-improvement with implants and treatments. But this only concerns the short term. Whatever comes after that transformation, after uploading our minds into silicon, after extending our lifespans well over hundreds of years, after merging with artificial intelligence, is the part that really interests me. By then I imagine we'll look back on our time as talking monkeys and wonder just how it was that we even managed to make it through, living with such destructive compulsions, on a planet so fragile, in a universe so seemingly apathetic.

  We're in this for the long game, I hope. There's something sobering about that. All the daily trivia of living, the political pantomime, the civil unrest, the drama, will pale in comparison to the millions of years ahead of us, if we're wise enough to avoid a nuclear holocaust, ecological collapse, or some other hideous end. We're thought to have split off from our genetic cousins about 10 million years ago. It's exhilarating to at least admit that we may well have another 10 million ahead of us, if not more, and to try to imagine just what what those 10 million years will look like. Any guess is as good as any other, and what you're reading now is mine. I have always imagined our future as either total extinction, or a bold journey into what Francois Rabelais called ‘a Great Perhaps.’ Plenty of people have written stories about the first scenario. I, for one, have always held more hope for the second.

  A Cursory Syndicate Galactica Timeline of Old Erde to Interstellar Era

  Compiled by Grand Socratic Herodotus, Fifth Historian of the Syndicate Hub

  2349 - Saint Pergrin extinguishes all life from Cato the Wiremind of Old Erde.

  2351 - The Pergrin Decree is signed and ratified, specifying a minimum penalty of lifetime imprisonment for those who seek to research, extol the virtues of, or build wireminds.

  2522 - T'assali is synthesised for the first time at CREM (Centre for Research of Exotic Materials).

  2528 - First t'assali explosive device is successfully detonated over the Indian Ocean.

  2532 - Guangzhou city becomes the first target of a t'assali attack, courtesy of the New Mexican Syndicalist Conglomerate after China refuses to curb research into wiremind physics.

  2560 - Carlos Boncheva successfully pioneers the first working t'assali HECSLD (high-energy concussive spatial logistics device) or 'weld drive' at Barcelona University.

  2569 - Over a quarter of Old Erde's population can now be considered 'genetically augmented beyond all reasonable limit.'

  2572 - The Spanish-crewed Bucephalus reaches Old Erde's nearest star system Alpha Centauri using Boncheva's weld drive. Craft is officially declared missing by Old Erde Governance after failing to return some two years later.

  2576 - Collapse of Earth Governance, mainly attributed to warring augmented factions. Sharp intellectual divide materialises between augmented human clans.

  2584 - Fifteen major capitals are vapourised by orbitally-delivered t'assali strikes. The attack is attributed to a nondescript nascent augmented species.

  2594 - Augmented human tribe, the 'Anari' (official designation LN39C) declare themselves the dominant Old Erde species and initiate the Second Renaissance. T'assali assisted space exploration program is resumed.

  2622 - First Anari outpost settled on Chalcolitha and declared the first non-Old Erde planet in the Syndicate Galactica.

  Prologue

  It was too much of a force, almost unbearable, like trying to fit an ocean into a wine bottle.

  A condensing of sorts.

  Breath.

  Then She was.

  Hands. She turned them about, the palms up, then the palms down. Long, slender. Skin chalk pale. Feet. Yes, those also.

  Breath.

  This would be an uncomfortable format to grow accustomed to, but She found no difficulty in focusing Her eyes. Save for the two spyles the interior of the craft was completely bare. But there were spyles at least, just a
s the Others had said there would be, floating at eye level, staring with their pupilless looking-parts.

  ‘Welcome,’ said the closer of the two. ‘Now, is it a chrysalis or a worm? They wouldn’t tell us.’

  ‘You know full well,’ She said, ‘there are no worms in our profession.’

  Her voice was feminine and sultry. She listened for the Others. Nothing. Her thoughts were Her own now. More than that, Her memories of the Up were scattering like startled insects already. Only fragments left. I am fragile now. Breakable. Softly softly.

  Evidently they had almost arrived. Exurbia was tiny as a marble from their distance, turning silently beyond the craft's wall-transparency. The atmosphere had a slightly too-greenish tint for a world of its kind, but then it might as well have been Old Erde if She wasn’t looking carefully. The orange fractals of the city lights could be seen on the night side of the planet. How many billions must dwell down there?

  ‘They live like animals, don’t they?’ said one of the spyles, as though reading Her mind. Perhaps it was. ‘All huddled together like that, I mean.’

  ‘Safety in numbers,’ She said under her breath, eyes still on the planet.

  ‘Like scared animals,’ muttered the spyle.

  There was the capital, Bucephalia: all neon orange with its night lights, the city districts laid out higgledy as though by a child. That would be an ideal spot to set down, the centre of power.

  Are the Others watching now, or am I to do this all alone? They have not left much in me. I remember fragments of the gestalt though. Hopefully it is enough.

  The Exurbians were fairly uneducated at least. That would make the job easier, but She was under no illusions about the populace’s temperament. Their kind had often been prone to sudden outbursts. Old Erde had almost perished on countless occasions before the Up thanks to pointless wars and famine. Softly softly then. The spyle pointed with a cutting-part to a spot on the world’s south continent. A ribbon of coral orange was moving slowly towards a city.

  ‘I see we are just in time,’ said the spyle. ‘Many of them will die now, I should think.’

  She knew the ribbon by sight. Of course they would die, some of them. It would tear the city walls open like wet tissue. Then the cityfolk would be seared and evaporated. Sure enough, it had reached a cluster of lights already. Which city is that? Kadesh? Or Xianxi perhaps. Both have populations over a million. I would prefer not to watch this.

  ‘They must be really fearing for their lives down there,’ said the spyle. ‘Like animals. Or worms.’

  ‘They are neither animals,’ She said, 'nor worms.’

  ‘Then they are the chrysalis after all?’ it said excitedly.

  ‘I think the Others made you too abrasive. Or They thought your irritancies would be motivating for me. Either way, you can’t say these things after we land. You’re aware of that?’

  ‘I wasn’t told anything of the sort.’

  ‘Then I am telling you now. There are facts which can be apparent and facts which cannot be apparent, and the gestalt is the latter. Am I quite clear?’

  ‘You are.’

  Yes, it is Xianxi I think. The former capital.

  Absolute silence, the starfield and slow-turning Exurbia hanging chimeral in the far distance, the orange effervescence of the Ayakashi ripping into the city below.

  ‘Nothing of the gestalt,’ She said again. ‘Am I quite clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the spyle.

  She put Her eye to its stalk-lens. What a black pupil it has, dark all the way down to the core. Is there a mind in there, or is it just an elaborate illusion?

  ‘Have the Others taken your memories?’ said the spyle then.

  ‘I remember enough,’ She said.

  ‘But not everything.’

  ‘Of course not. They left me with what I need.’ Like trying to fit an ocean into a wine bottle.

  She tried to force recollection, back to before the pale skin and the thin fingers and the approaching world beyond the wall-transparency. Only fragments were left. The caterpillar. The chrysalis. The butterfly. The orange ribbon was a sprawling blanket now, covering the entirety of the city. What an unlikely little engine drove that monster.

  ‘They call it the Ayakashi,’ She murmured. ‘The orange phenomenon, I mean.’

  ‘An Old Erde name. How do they know it?’ said one of the spyles.

  ‘Certain things persist. Myths are smuggled.’

  Do they know the myth of Demeter too, down there? For here comes your harvest, a goddess from on high.

  ‘Is it important to the stratagem?’ said the spyle.

  ‘The Ayakashi? Very.’ More than you could possibly realise.

  ‘Then,’ it said in a chastising parent’s voice, ‘I only hope you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Come. The Others would not have sent me otherwise.’

  The spyle considered this in silence for a moment, did a full lap about Her, then put its seeing-parts to Her face.

  ‘I like you like this,’ it said. ‘All anthropoid. Pulpy. Did you choose the appearance yourself?’

  I don’t remember. ‘No,’ She said. Perhaps I did. This is how a goddess should look after all; deathly pale, a little scant. Softly softly.

  Exurbia was close enough then to almost fill the entire wall-transparency, the Ayakashi thrashing and wriggling across the northmost continent, laying great waste.

  ‘Well, it shan’t be long now,’ She said. ‘Not long at all.’

  Part I - Miss Butterworth

  In which the moralising imp is kissed,

  a visitor arrives,

  and Jura misses his wife.

  1

  “…you sprout all your worth and you woof your wings, so if you want to be Phoenixed, come and be parked.”

  - James Joyce, Old Erde word artisan

  Moxie -

  More than that though, more than Her, the tersh is eternal, as you will be too.

  The voices came to Moxiana in the night and sometimes in the morning also, distant but always audible. Terrified, she leapt from the leaf bed.

  ‘Come,’ said the crone from somewhere in the dark. ‘It’s only another bad dream. Pay it no mind.’

  ‘Pay it no mind,’ echoed the girl.

  ‘What did they say this time?’

  ‘“The tersh is eternal, as you will be too.” And there was a town, Xianxi I think, and the Ayakashi was there and it ate everything.’

  The crone sat up, her creased face catching the light of the moons then. ‘Is there more?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘Just that. Why?’

  ‘No visions? Or music?’

  ‘Nothing. Just that.’

  The crone nodded. A long silence, then: ‘Have I done it again?’ said the girl.

  ‘Don’t say such things. Pay it no mind.’

  ‘Xianxi is gone. Did I make Xianxi gone?’

  ‘Pay it no mind.’

  The scallixes were warbling already. Morning wasn’t so distant now.

  ‘What do you think it means?’ said the girl. ‘It’s different isn’t it, different to what the voices usually say.’

  ‘It’s different,’ said the crone. ‘And it could mean ten thousand things. Or nothing at all, little one. Nothing at all. Day is near. Be calm.’

  They wouldn’t be sleeping any further. That much was obvious now. The crone rose from her leaf bed and made to the utensil tree, taking the tea pot and strainer and going through the breakfast motions.

  ‘If I’ve done it again…’ said the girl.

  ‘Just stop it with that nonsense. Everything is well. Come, help an old woman with breakfast.’

  ‘I will, but there’s something else.’

  ‘The dream?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well out with it, come on.’

  ‘I saw a machine come from the sky with a woman in it,’ said the girl.

  The crone nodded, standing perfectly still then.

  ‘Perhaps it was a scene from the
past.’

  ‘No, I know it wasn’t. She helped take the tersh away. And she whispered strange things into a man’s ear.’

  ‘All right,’ said the crone, nodding. ‘And did you see either of us in the visions?’

  ‘Yes.’

  'And are we both well?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know I can’t stand it when you lie to me,’ said the crone, filling the kettle with water. ‘I’ll ask you again. Are we both well?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s better. What does this woman want?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is she ill-meaning?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘All right.’

  Strange futures are parking themselves in this girl still. No way to oust them that I know of.

  ‘She calls me something,’ said the girl.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The strange woman. She calls me the Wielder.’

  ‘That’s a ghastly title.’ The crone left a strategic pause, letting the girl's thoughts settle, then: ‘Is that the entirety, or is there yet more?’

  ‘Another dream,’ said the girl reluctantly, knitting her fingers. ‘Last week, on the night of the moons.’

  ‘Well, out with it.’

  ‘Others will come here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Men with weapons.’

  ‘Then we must leave before that happens.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘They find us here.’

  The crone knew better than to argue with the visions. They were nothing if not invariable. ‘If that is the case, little one, then we should enjoy breakfast to its fullest and not dwell too much on the days ahead.’

  Especially, thought the crone, since I have a very limited number of said ahead days, it seems.