‘The next bit of evidence comes from around three thousand years back, when a Natural Philosopher called HuroEldon established new centres of scholarship, at Foro and down on the Lowland . . . Once again we started keeping good astronomical records. And not long after Huro’s time, the astronomers observed in the sky—’
‘Another band of stars.’
‘No. A spiral – a spiral of stars, ragged, the stars burning and dying, a wheel turning around a point of intense brightness. This object swam towards us, so it seemed, and at its closest approach there was another flare of dazzling new stars, speckled over the sky – but there was no Caress, not this time. The spiral receded into the dark.’
‘Tell us what you believe this means.’
‘I think it’s clear. This other spiral is a galaxy like our own. The two orbit each other.’ He mimed this with his fists, but his hands were shaking; shamed before the boy’s steady gaze, he lowered his arms. ‘As twin stars may orbit one another. But unlike stars galaxies are big, diffuse structures. They must tear at each other, ripping open those lacy spirals. Perhaps when they brush, they create bursts of starbirth. A Formidable Caress indeed.
‘The last Caress was a first pass, when the second galaxy came close enough to our part of our spiral to cause a great flaring of stars – and that flaring, a rain of light falling from the blue, was what shattered our world. Then after HuroEldon’s time, two billion years later externally, there was another approach – this one not so close, not a true Caress; it was spectacular but did no damage, not to us. And then . . .’
‘Yes?’
He shrugged, peering up at the Construction-Material roof of the cell. ‘The sky is ragged, full of ripped-apart spiral arms. The two galaxies continue to circle each other, perhaps heading for a full merger, a final smash. And that, perhaps, will cause a new starburst flare, a new Caress.’
The boy stood silently, considering this, though one leg quivered, as if itchy. He asked: ‘When?’
‘That I couldn’t calculate. I tried to do some mathematics on the orbit. Long time since I stayed sober enough to see that through. But there’s one more scrap of information in the archaeology. There was always a tradition that the second Caress would follow ten thousand years after the first, Shelf time. Maybe that’s a memory of what the smart folk who lived before the first Caress were able to calculate. They knew, not only about the Caress that threatened them, but also what would follow. Remarkable, really.’
‘Ten thousand years,’ the boy said. ‘Which is—’
‘About now.’ Telni grinned. ‘If the world ends, do you think they will let me out of here to see the show?’
‘You have done remarkable work, Telni. This is a body of evidence extracted from human culture that we could not have assembled for ourselves.’ Even as he spoke these calm words, the boy trembled, and Telni saw piss drip down his bare leg.
Telni snorted. ‘You really aren’t too good at running the people you herd, are you, machine?’
Ignoring the dribble on his leg, Powpy spoke on. ‘Regarding the work, however. We are adept at calculation. Perhaps we can take these hints and reconstruct the ancients’ computations, or even improve on them.’
‘So you’ll know the precise date of the end of the world? That will help. Come back and tell me what you figure out.’
‘We will.’ The boy turned and walked away, leaving piss-footprints on the smooth floor.
Telni laughed at him, lay back on his bunk, and tried to sleep.
It was to be a very long time before Telni saw the Weapon and its human attendant again.
‘He refuses to die. It’s as simple as that. There’s nothing but his own stubbornness keeping him alive . . .’
His hearing was so bad now that it was as if his ears were stuffed full of wool. But, lying there on his pallet, he could hear every word they said.
And, though he needed a lot of sleep these days, he was aware when they moved him into the Morgue, ready for him to die, ready to capture his Effigy-spirit when it was released from his seventy-seven-year-old body.
‘Leave me in here if you like, you bastards.’ He tried to laugh, but it just made him cough. ‘I’m just going to lie here as long as necessary.’
‘As long as necessary for what?’
‘For it to come back again.’
But, more than thirty years since the last visitation, only a handful of the medical staff knew what he was talking about.
In the end, of course, it came.
He woke from another drugged sleep to find a little boy standing beside his bed.
He struggled to sit up. ‘Hey, Powpy. How’s it going with you? You’ve grown, a little. You’re not afraid of me, are you? Look, I’m old and disgusting, but at least I can’t slap you around the head any more, can I?’
He thought he saw a flicker of something in the boy’s eyes. Forgiveness? Pity? Fear? Contempt? Well, he deserved the latter. But then Powpy spoke in that odd monotone, so familiar even after all these years. ‘We were here at the beginning of your life. Now here we are at the end.’
‘Yes.’ He tried to snap his fingers, failed. ‘Just another spark in the flames for you, right? And now you’ve come to see me give up my Effigy so you can trap it in this box of yours.’
‘We would not describe it as—’
He grabbed the boy’s arm, trying to grip hard. ‘Listen, Weapon. You can have my Effigy. What do I care? But I’m not going to die like this. Not here, not now.’
‘Then where, and when?’
‘Fifty years,’ he whispered. He glanced at the medical staff, who hovered at the edges of the Building. ‘I did my own calculations. Took me ten years. Well, I had nothing better to do . . . Fifty years, right? That’s all the time we’ve got left, until the fireworks.’
The boy said gravely, ‘We imagine our model of the galaxies’ interaction is somewhat more sophisticated than yours. But your answer is substantially correct. You understand that this Caress will be different. Those on the Platform will survive. The Construction Material of the Buildings will shelter them. That was always one long-term purpose of the Platform project, to provide refuge. And from this seed, the recovery of civilisation after the Caress should be much more rapid.’
Telni cackled weakly. ‘You built us a shelter from a Formidable Caress? Well, well, you do care. But the cities of the Shelf – Foro, Puul—’
‘People will survive in caves, underground. But the vast loss of life, the destruction of the ecology, of their agriculture—’
‘Serves those bastards right. They lost interest in talking to me decades ago.’ Which was true. But since the Creationist-Mechanist Wars, there had been centuries of peace on the Shelf – and they had built something beautiful and splendid up there, a chain of cities like jewels in the night, cities that sparkled in the time-accelerated view of witnesses on the Platform. In his head Telni imagined a race of blueshifted Minas, beautiful, clear-eyed, laughing. ‘Well. There’s nothing I can do for them.’ He struggled to sit straighter. ‘But there’s something I want you to do for me. You owe me, artefact. Now you’re going to take away my soul. Well, you can have it. But you can give me something back in return. I want to see the Caress.’
‘You have only weeks to live. Days, perhaps.’
‘Then take me down into the red. No matter how little time I have left, you can find a pit deep enough on this time-shifted world to squeeze in fifty Platform years.’ Exhausted, he fell back coughing; a nurse hurried over to lower him gently to his blankets. ‘And one more thing.’