‘You've been gone dangerously long.’
‘It was worth it.’ Peteru removed the headset and rubbed his eyes. Even the muted daylight that seeped into their room seemed overwhelming after five hours of ‘seeing’ through digital pulses fed directly to his brain’s sight centre. He detached the tabs from the base of his cranium, stood, stretched and grinned.
‘It had better be worth it!’ Uretep growled. ‘You know that three hours attached to that thing is the absolute max! I was going bonkers! Five hours you were away! At least have something to eat.’
‘Not hungry. Perhaps later. Sorry to worry you, but I chanced on an archive and had to explore.’
‘What was so exciting you felt compelled to risk permanent brain damage?’ Uretep couldn’t keep the irritation from his voice. He’d all but given up hope of seeing Peteru alive again.
‘Look out the window—what do you see?’
‘What’s to see? Same old same old…’
‘Humour me. Look, and describe what you see.’
Uretep wandered to the window and stared out at the familiar scene. About a hundred metres below, people in greyish-brown, coarse hooded overalls swarmed with no apparent aim around and through a vast space dotted with small shrubs, freeform sculptures, kiosks, park benches and pavilions. Nothing unusual. Pressing his nose against the glass he peered right and then left. The walls of the vast edifice he called home curved away into the hazy air, completing its circle a kilometre away. Details of the facades on the far side of the structure were impossible to make out through the shimmering fog.
He had no idea of the identities, occupation or any other details of the people in the park—not because it didn’t interest him, but because the system decreed that there should be no social interaction between castes. In his entire sixteen years the only parts of the great circular city he had visited other than the floors of the module in which he lived, were Central Park, and the Arena. He had even less idea of what it was like outside the city. He knew it was a very dangerous place, but that was all. One day he’d ask someone. At the moment he was contented and comfortable enough living where he was with Peteru and working together on their research. He didn’t even enjoy the company of the other Science Aristocrats who inhabited the same levels of their apartment module. As far as he was concerned, the noisy, crowded, compulsory public functions in the Arena were more than enough contact with other humans.
Since the age of six, the two young men had been given carte blanche to research and investigate whatever they felt like. Funding had never been a problem and their request five years previously for their own superbly equipped facilities attached to their private apartment had been granted without a murmur, despite the existence of magnificently equipped, state of the art laboratories only a floor above them, which they could share with other Scientists and have all the technicians they desired. In his youthful ignorance, Uretep imagined everyone in the city of Oasis lived like him and Peteru in relatively luxurious surroundings with good food, enough living space, privacy, the right to choose celibacy or companionship with whoever they pleased.
Although he’d never been there, he knew the top dozen floors of the Aristocratic module were the preserve of the Mages, where security was impenetrable and few were invited. Below the Mages lived the Emperor and his entourage in, according to vidgrams, fairytale splendour. Beneath them, and for several levels above Peteru and Uretep, were the offices and residences of the Aristocratic Chiefs of the various arms of administration that ensured the peaceful running of Oasis: maintenance, health, education, breeding, accommodation, employment, transport, surveillance and enforcement.
The bureaucracies and living quarters of the Overseer Aristocrats charged with the day to day running of Oasis were arranged in descending order of importance—population control, nursery and education, food, sanitation, work, and transport.
‘What am I looking for?’ Uretep asked impatiently.
‘Look up.’
‘OK…I’m looking up…’
‘What do you see?’
Uretep stared without interest at the softly glowing beige firmament that filled the world with a diffused, warm amber light creating no shadows. He turned back to Peteru. ‘Only the ceiling.’
‘Why’s it called that?’
‘Who cares?’
‘I do.’
‘Well I don’t! What’s this all about—I can usually guess what’s going on in your head, but today you’re an enigma.’
‘Things are not what they seem…’ Peteru’s voice trailed away.
‘Peteru, I’m renowned for my patience, for my understanding. I know you as well as I know myself—at least I should! But I’m tired, so tell me why I am staring out the window at the world? As far as I can see it hasn’t changed in the last hour, and will probably remain the same for the next thousand years.’
‘That’s it! The sameness. There’s something not right. Something we have to learn—to understand…’
‘Not right?’
Peteru shook his head as if to clear it. ‘I’m not sure what, but doubts about everything we assume to be reality are clogging my thinking. After what I’ve seen today I know there’s something wrong with this place…this life...It…’
‘What?’
‘It’s unnatural.’
‘Unnatural? How can the ideal environment for humans to develop and live be unnatural? Nothing could be more natural.’
‘You reckon? Today I learned that the word ceiling comes from an ancient word, ‘ciel’ meaning all the gasses outside Oasis—above and beyond the ceiling.’
‘There’s nothing outside but barren rock, poisonous air, lethal solar radiation. No life, nothing.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Everyone knows it. It’s why we live in Oasis and no one leaves.’
‘No one knows it—they believe it because the Mages say it is so. They also tell us we were chosen by gods Domino and Domina to inhabit this barren planet as a test of our worthiness, so that after we die we will return to the land of our ancestors. Everyone believes this; but a belief is what you have when you don’t know something. No one knows what’s outside. No one knows what happens after death. At least no one I know knows.’
‘Keep your voice down!’ Uretep’s voice held an edge of panic. ‘You said you learned it today? Where? How? What were you doing so long in the hood?’
‘When I told the Grand Science Master I’d like to research prehistoric relics he sneered and said to go ahead because the greatest minds haven’t been able to break the codes, or work the machines of the ancients, and neither would I. The consensus among the Elite is that the artefacts aren’t scientific tools, but artworks—fake implements built for decoration by our ancestors in previous ages.’ Peteru’s grin merely increased Uretep’s anxiety.
‘But…?’
‘But I discovered a way to read them.’
‘And?’
‘They’re the most amazing records of the distant past—our history.’
‘You haven’t told anyone?’ Uretep’s voice held an edge of panic.
‘No way! They’d destroy the machines in case other people learned to read them, began to think, and then challenged the beliefs!’ He fixed Uretep with a solemn stare. ‘We’ve been lied to! The real ciel is translucent blue during the day and you can see the source of our heat and light. It’s called the sun and it’s like a great ball of fire floating in space, but its radiation hasn’t always been lethal to life. At night the ciel is black and anyone looking up can see millions of tiny lights called stars that are other suns.’
Uretep was unable to conceal his nervousness. ‘This is blasphemy, Peteru. Too dangerous to even think about. We were given permission to do research because we convinced them it might be useful for NumbaCruncha. You’re risking everything by studying myths and legends that undermine the great truths. You know the punishment!’ His voice had sunk to a whisper and he looked around in fear of eavesdroppers.’
‘Nobody would believe I managed to read the old records, because they’re convinced it’s impossible, so stop fussing. I want you to join me and see for yourself.’
‘I’m not sure I want to know. Anyway, we’ve only just time to put something in our stomachs before we’re due to give the demo! Have you forgotten?’
‘Of course not. Stop being such a fusspot. Everything's prepared.’
They showered, drank a bowl of sweet soup and were checking the contents of the demonstration trolley when, with scarcely a pause between light knock and entry, Augur, the red-faced, beefy young Mage with whom they’d been liaising in preparation for the demonstration of their invention, burst in and glared impatiently from one to the other. ‘You’re not ready!’
‘We are. We’re just checking we’ve got everything.’
‘Have you a death wish?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re not wearing your cloaks! Have you spent so long cloistered in this room you’ve forgotten the penalty for exposing yourselves in public? Get yourselves decent! Their holinesses are waiting!’
‘Of course we hadn’t forgotten, it’s just so hot everywhere nowadays because the air conditioning’s so often on the blink, it’s more comfortable working like this.’ Peteru’s voice betrayed his irritation.
Augur’s eyes became slits of fury. He drew a hissing breath in preparation for a severe rebuke.
Uretep quickly interrupted, his voice earnest and placating. ‘We apologise sincerely, Mage, for keeping you waiting.’ Peteru had never been good at remembering to grovel to people more powerful than he, usually leaving it to Uretep to extricate them from the gruesome consequences of annoying a Mage.
Augur sniffed irritably while the young men slipped their feet into soft shoes, pulled fine fabric gloves onto their hands, enveloped their bodies in long pale blue cloaks and concealed their heads with matching blue hoods. With only their faces exposed they turned to the increasingly irritable Augur, ‘OK, let’s go.’
He eyed them up and down, grunted satisfaction, reminded them to be silent unless spoken to, and to show suitable gratitude at being granted special security status to visit the Upper Levels.
The two young men nodded, unwilling to risk pointing out that surely they were the ones owed gratitude, not the other way round.
‘I sincerely hope, for your sakes, that this…thing you’re demonstrating is a hundred percent safe, especially as the Emperor and Empress will be the first to demonstrate whatever it is you’ve been working on, in front of all their subjects.’
‘Its perfectly safe, but how you’ll convince the plebs, let alone the Mages that it’s a good idea beats me.’
‘That’s because you are not a Mage,’ Augur snapped. ‘Hurry along, everyone’s waiting!’ He stalked out of the room.
‘I wish the little runt would wash,’ Peteru whispered.
‘Mmm…smells like death. It’s odd; he looks young but acts like a cranky old bastard. I hope the rest are less obnoxious or it’s going to be a long afternoon.’
‘Nervous?’
‘Shit scared, actually.’
‘Me too.’
Dragging the trolley they followed the irritable little man along a short corridor to a negrav chute that disappeared above and below into the shadows. Augur entered a code, they stepped into space and were thrust swiftly up fifty floors to the domain of Domino and Domina and their human representatives, the Mages.