Parz’s wealth exploded when the Harbor was established — Parz was the first and only community in the Mantle able to extract and exploit the valuable Corestuff. Soon the scattered community of the cap of Mantle around Parz, the region eventually to be called the hinterland, fell under Parz’s economic influence. Eventually the hinterland and City worked as a single economic unit, with the raw materials and taxes of the hinterland flowing into Parz, with Corestuff and — more importantly — the stability and regulation provided by Parz’s law washing back in return. Eventually only the far upflux, bleak and inhospitable, remained disunited from Parz, home to a few tribes of hunters, and bands of Parz exiles like the Human Beings themselves.
Adda bit into more cake. “I’m surprised people accepted being taken over like that. Didn’t anybody fight?”
Bzya shook his head. “It wasn’t seen as a conquest. Parz is not an empire, although it might seem that way to you. Adda, people remembered the time before the Wars, when humans lived in safety and security throughout the Mantle. We couldn’t return to those times; we’d lost too much. But Parz was better than nothing: it offered stability, regulation, a framework to live in. People gripe about their tithes — and nobody’s going to pretend that the Committee get it right all the time — but most of us would prefer taxes to living wild. With all respect to you, my friend.” He bit into his cake. “And that’s still true today; as true as it ever was.”
Two of the bowls were already empty. Adda felt the seduction of this place, that he could have sat here in this companionable glow with Bzya for a long time. “Do you really believe that? Look at your own position, Fisherman; look at the dangers you face daily. Is this really the best of all possible lives for you?”
Bzya grinned. “Well, I’d exchange places with Hork any day, if I thought I could do his job. Of course I would. And there are plenty of people closer to me, in the Harbor, who I’d happily throttle, if I thought it would make the world a better place. If I didn’t think they’d just bring in somebody worse. I accept I’m at the bottom of the heap, here, Adda. Or close to it. But I believe it’s the way of things. I will fight injustice and inequity — but I accept the need for the existence of the heap itself.” He looked carefully at Adda. “Does that make sense?”
Adda thought it over. “No,” he said at last. “But it doesn’t seem to matter much.”
Bzya laughed. “Now you see why they give us this stuff for free. Here.” He held out the third bowl. “Your good health, my friend.”
Adda reached for the cake.
A couple of days later Bzya’s shifts should have allowed him another break. Adda searched for Farr, but couldn’t find him, so he went down to the bar alone. He entered, awkward and self-conscious in his dressings, peering into the gloomier corners.
He couldn’t find Bzya, and he didn’t stay.
21
In the interior of the Star there were no sharp boundaries, merely gradual changes in the dominant form of matter as pressures and densities increased. So there was no dramatic plunge, no great impacts as the “Flying Pig” hauled itself deeper: just a slow, depressing diminution of the last vestiges of Air-light. And the glow cast by the wood-lamps fixed to the walls was no substitute; with its smoky greenness and long, flickering shadows, the gloom in the cabin was quite sinister.
To Dura, hunched over herself in her corner of the ship, this long, slow descent into darkness was like a lingering death.
Soon, though, the ride became much less even. The ship swayed alarmingly and at one point was nearly upended. The laboring pigs, their shadows huge on the ship’s roof, bleated pathetically; Hork laughed, his eyecups pools of green darkness.
Dura’s fingers scrabbled over the smooth wooden walls in search of purchase. “What’s happening? Why are we being pummeled like this?”
“Every Bell hits underMantle currents. The only difference is, we’ve no Spine to steady us.” Hork spoke to her slowly, as if she were stupid. Since their single physical encounter, his aloof hostility had been marked. “The substance of the Mantle at these depths is different from our Air… or so my tutors used to tell me. It’s still a superfluid of neutrons, apparently, but of a different mode from the Air: it’s anisotropic — it has different properties in different directions.”
Dura frowned. “So in some directions it’s like the Air, and it doesn’t impede our progress. But in others…”
“…it feels thick and viscous, and it batters against our magnetic shield. Yes.”
“But how can you tell which directions it’s Air-like?”
“You can’t.” Hork grinned. “That’s the fun of it.”
“But that’s dangerous,” she said, uneasily aware of how childlike she sounded.
“Of course it is. That’s why the Harbor suffers so many losses.”
…And this is where I sent my brother, she thought with a shiver. She felt strangely, retrospectively fearful. Here, drifting through this anisotropic nightmare, it was as if she were fearing for her brother for the first time.
Still, after a while Dura found she could ignore — almost — the constant, uneven buffeting. Immersed in the hot, fetid atmosphere of the ship, with the warm stink of the pig-farts and the patient, silent work of Hork at his control box, she was even able to doze.
Something slammed into the side of the ship.
Dura screamed and jolted fully awake. She felt herself quiver from the blow, as if someone had punched her own skull; she looked around, wild-eyed, for the source of the disaster. The pigs were squealing furiously. Hork, still at his controls, was laughing at her.
“Damn you. What was that?”
He spread his hands. “Just a little welcoming card from the Quantum Sea.” He pointed. “Look out of the window.”
She turned to stare through the clearwood. The Mantle here was utterly dark, but the lamps of the ship cast a green glow for a few microns through the murky, turbulent stuff. And there were forms drifting through that dim ocean — blocky, irregular shapes, many of them islands large enough to swallow up this tiny craft. The blocks slid silently upward past the ship and toward the distant Mantle — or rather, Dura realized, the “Pig” herself was hurtling down past them on her way toward the Core.
“Corestuff bergs… Islands of hyperonic matter,” Hork said. “No Fisherman would tackle bergs of such a size… but then, no Fisherman has ever been so deep.”
Dura stared gloomily out at the vast, slow-moving bulks of hyperonic matter. If they were unlucky enough, she realized — if they were caught by a combination of a large enough mass and an adverse current — their little ship would be crushed like a child’s skull, magnetic protection or no. “How deep are we?”
Hork peered at the crude meters on his control panel; his beard scratched softly at the meters’ clearwood covers. “Hard to say,” he said dismissively. “Our tame experts were very clever at finding ways for us to travel so far, but not so clever at letting us know where we are. But I’d guess…” He scowled. “Perhaps five meters below the City.”
Dura gasped. Five meters… Five hundred thousand mansheights. Why, surely even an Ur-human would be awed by such a journey.
“Of course, we’ve no real control over our position. All we’ve the capability to do is to descend and, if we live through that, to come up again. But we could emerge anywhere; we’ve no idea where these currents are taking us.”
“We’ve discussed this problem. Wherever we emerge we need only follow the Magfield to the South Pole.”
Hork smiled at her. “But that could be tens of meters from the City… It could take months to return. And then we will rely on your upfluxer survival skills to enable us to endure, in the remote wilds of the Star. I will place myself in your hands, and I anticipate that the journey home will be… interesting.”