The Ships of Aleph Read online

  It has occurred to me that if a complete re-creation of my village is enclosed by this endless expanse of corridors and rooms, then perhaps the entire world I once knew also exists within the same, vast space. Could the roaring waters I heard at a distance be the sound of the very sea I once sailed, cascading over what I once thought of as the edge of the world? When I asked the angel this question it said, in its unhelpful way, that such a possibility was ‘quite feasible’.

  Though I continue to explore, there is one place I keep returning to: the starry window.

  I found the window two years and sixteen days after my first foray from the village. I call it a window, but that is merely a theory, formulated after much observation. It is located in a stretch of straight corridor located approximately ten thousand paces from my home. The corridor has a patch of wall forty-five paces long which is not like any other wall I have seen: it shows darkness relieved by scattered lights. This view bears a passing resemblance to the night sky I remember from my old life, but it is a night never relieved by dawn and many of the ‘stars’ do not rotate around the zenith but wander in a random fashion. Or not entirely random: many leave and return periodically, and some of these have a most unusual motion, and a hint of colour. Other stars come and go quickly enough that a patient observer can map, if not understand, their chaotic path.

  I return to the village to rest, as it is still my home and the changes it undergoes, whilst illusory, are a comfort to me. I still study too; these days, I spend more time with my books than I do exploring. I have seen enough to know that this place is too big for me to chart, and too incomprehensible for me to understand. The only location beyond the bounds of my home that I return to regularly is the starry window. I confess I have become a little obsessed with it.

  Every ten days the angel – an angel – still comes to me, and we talk. Sometimes in my wanderings I encounter other angels; they ignore me unless I question them, in which case they usually provide an explanation full of words I have never encountered, despite my wide reading.

  If I ask about the starry window they give the usual frustrating response: ‘That is not a question I can answer’.

  ***

  I have now lived here for almost seventeen years – as long as I lived in the real village before I sailed with the Duke. It has been a good life in many ways, but the approaching anniversary of my arrival has made me restless. I keep coming back to that foolish question I can never know the answer to: whether I would have been more content had I chosen to remain in ignorance in my village.

  So, when the angel last visited nine days ago, I asked it two difficult questions, both of which I had given up enquiring about some years ago. The first was about my obsession: ‘What is the starry window?’

  To my surprise it replied with a question of its own: ‘What do you think it is?’

  That threw me for a moment. Then I said, ‘I believe it may show the truth of the world, though I cannot prove it. Am I right in this?’

  The angel said nothing. I remembered the only other time it had refused to answer, when I had voiced my suspicions about ‘Merel’. The memory made me uneasy.

  Finally I could bear the silence no longer. ‘I will take that as assent, then,’ I snapped. Then, propelled by my frustration I voiced my second, more dangerous question. ‘In my years here I have seen many angels, but not felt any closer to God than I did in my life before. Does God actually exist?’

  ‘That would depend,’ said the angel, ‘on your definition of God.’

  The strange response sounded almost frivolous. I thought of the arguments for and against the existence of a truly divine power. I had certainly experienced miracles: that I lived after falling off the world was one, my healed leg another, this whole place arguably a third. Yet the re-creation of my village was not perfect, and more than once I had acted in ways that – as far as I could tell – surprised the angel.

  I chose my next words with care. ‘I sometimes wonder if everything I have seen and experienced in my life is some great machine, running faultlessly, but mindlessly.’

  Though I had not asked a question, the angel responded as though I had. ‘Be assured that there is a mind at work here.’

  ‘But not an omnipotent being?’

  Once more, silence.

  Which I broke, again. ‘I’m not the first, am I? There have been others who have been plucked from the world to live in this place.’ I did not say like some pet – if God truly knew my mind He would know what I was thinking. And if He chose to punish such blasphemy I would at least have my answer.

  ‘You are correct,’ said the angel. ‘There have been other rare enquiring souls who have lived for a while beyond the world of men.’

  ‘And they have not satisfied this mind you speak of either, have they?’

  ‘All have come upon insights of interest.’

  ‘Have any returned to the world with these insights?’

  ‘Some, though they had little success in passing on their wisdom. Others have lived out their lives here.’

  I had no taste for further discussion, and told the angel so. It left without a word.

  I considered for a full day before reaching my decision. In my musings I concluded that God – or rather, the mind behind the world – might know more answers than I, but he – or it – had far more questions too. It also occurred to me that this mind might be lonely, with only the cold, logical angels for company, and that this, as much as anything, could be why frail, transitory beings such as I were sometimes brought here.

  In the end it comes down to a simple choice: to live alone in a machine I can never understand or with others of my kind who will never understand me.

  When the angel returns tomorrow I will ask to be put back in the world, though not in the village. I would like to see Omphalos, the city I have read so much about. I do not know how I will fare there: all I can do is try.

  Before that I will leave this account at the starry window. Call it an odd indulgence, of significance only to myself.

  Perhaps the angels will find this book, and I will not have to state my decision boldly. Or perhaps they, or God, really do see my every act, and know already that I have failed to find whatever answers they brought me here to provide.

  ***

  When I went to the starry window, clutching the book containing my story to my chest, I found the window had disappeared. The wall was blank.

  My first reaction was fear; I have tested God more than once these last seventeen years, but he has never punished me. (Merel was not a punishment but an experiment.) Now I have made an irrevocable decision: have I finally damned myself in the process?

  Yet no angel came to me, no clarion sounded, no force struck me down. I felt, if anything, rather foolish. I left the book anyway, and headed back to my cottage to sleep.

  As I made my way through the mist I thought there was something odd about the village square. I hurried forward, straining to see. A figure stood by the well, a woman dressed in peculiar clothes that managed to be both tight and modest. Her skin was unusually dark, almost reddish in hue. She stood casually, arms crossed, a friendly smile on her face.

  I was in no mood for games. I strode past her, waving a hand. ‘I see you did work out my intent after all,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Her accent was odd, though her voice was perfectly understandable. I wondered where ‘she’ would claim to be from – the Sunrise Veldt perhaps, or the Parsan Traps? Some writers had recorded strange skin tones in those high places.

  I stopped. ‘I’m not sure what you think to achieve by adopting this form; we may as well just get on with it. Yes, I wish to go home – to Omphalos actually. Tonight would be fine, thank-you.’ A sudden, awful realisation began to grow. What if I had missed my chance to return to the world? Perhaps the option had been revoked. Perhaps instead I was being given a real person from the world to keep me company. I looked at her more closely. She was a little younger than me, not physically attract
ive but with the look of intellect about her. This was no construct.

  Her smile changed, becoming something more complex. ‘Ah, I see. The avatars didn’t tell you, then?’

  Now it was my turn to be confused. ‘The avatars?’

  ‘You call them angels.’

  ‘You know of the angels?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sounded uncertain. ‘I assumed they’d discussed this with you. Obviously not.’ Then, almost to herself, she added, ‘Well, your patron is a little eccentric.’

  ‘Madam, I have no idea what you are talking about.’ I found it hard to maintain my tone of hurt pride given how fascinating this all was.

  ‘Of course not, there’s no reason you should. Let me start by introducing myself: I’m Captain Estrides.’

  Interest gave way to confusion. Some of the corsair schooners in the Blood Sea had female captains, but somehow I didn’t think my visitor was a corsair. ‘My name is Lachin,’ I murmured.

  From her expression, this was not news to her. ‘I’m here with a proposition, Lachin. Before I put it to you I need to ask you something.’

  ‘Please do.’ What else was there to say? I had no idea what was going on.

  ‘Do you know where you are? By that I mean not just the reconstruction of your village, but what this place you live in actually is?’

  ‘I am aware that this village, and quite probably the entire world I knew in my youth, are contained in a machine too great for me – perhaps for any mortal mind – to fully comprehend, though I am told that there is a mind at the heart of it.’

  ‘That’s correct, as far as it goes.’

  ‘You sound very certain for – forgive my presumption – another mere mortal. Assuming that’s what you are.’

  ‘I’m as mortal as you. I just have access to information you don’t.’ Her tone was sympathetic. Pitying, almost.

  I laughed, a little bitterly, ‘And here I was thinking I had been given all the knowledge in the world in order to ... ’ to what, though?

  She completed my sentence gently, ‘ ... to give a unique perspective. Come up with unexpected insights.Your patron – the being you think of as God – is powerful and immortal. But he’s not omnipotent. He seeks answers, and he uses his subjects to work towards them. He watches over you, but he also watches you.’

  ‘So you are saying that I, no, everyone in the world, is an experiment?’ It was preposterous, yet now she stated it, entirely logical.

  ‘Not exactly. There is a word that would be closer – computer – but you won’t know that term.’

  ‘You’re right. I don’t. What does it mean?’

  ‘It’s ... this is going to sound odd but I don’t think I can tell you what a computer is, because I’m using one in order to talk to you. Some of the concepts simply won’t translate.’

  I couldn’t decide whether to be incredulous, impressed or offended. All three, perhaps. ‘And you’re not part of this great computer?’

  ‘No. I have a patron of my own and he runs his domain in a rather different way.’

  ‘Ah. You come from beyond the starry window, don’t you?’

  ‘The starry window? Oh, I see. Yes, I do. Are you familiar with the concept of islands?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘It might help to think of this place – your world, this village, the great machine enclosing them – as one massive island. Many of the lights you see from your starry window are other such islands.’

  ‘Islands in a sea of darkness! How far do these islands extend?’

  ‘Forever. Can you imagine an endless sea with numberless islands in it?’

  I thought for a moment; it was a new concept, but until Captain Estrides corrected me I had assumed the machine containing the world must go on forever. ‘I can,’ I said.

  ‘My island – my hab, as we call it – is still part of the same ... archipelago as yours, though we use the word system. The name for this system is Aleph.’

  My mind whirled, as question piled upon question.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Captain Estrides.

  I realised I had staggered backwards. ‘Yes, I just ... this is a lot to take in.’

  ‘Of course. And there’s more, if you think you can handle it.’

  ‘Yes! I want to know it all!’

  ‘All right. Firstly, there’s something I need to show you.’

  I followed her out of the village and through the mist. A strange contraption awaited us in the corridor, like a low ox-cart with no oxen – and, I realised when I looked below it, no wheels. It floated just above the floor. She told me to get in and sit, which I did. The contraption moved, smoothly but with alarming speed. Thanks to this device – which the Captain called a ‘flitter’ – it did not take long to get to the starry window. I asked questions all the way, and she did her best to answer them. Some of her answers even made sense.

  Back at the window, we dismounted from the machine. The view had returned, but now it was dominated by a construction beyond my wildest dreams, floating in the dark. I reached for comparisons to make sense of what I was seeing, and came up with a dragonfly, a thin silver body with wings at one end. But what wings! They spread wide, yet looked thin as gossamer, so much so that I could see the brighter lights beyond them. In colour they were reddish, save for flashes of iridescence in their slow unfurling, for these great wings were not yet fully extended. This dragonfly was newly hatched and feeling its way, yet even so its magnificence was awe-inspiring.

  Captain Estrides gave me time to absorb the view before speaking.

  ‘That’s my ship. I’m the head of an expedition travelling from Aleph to another system, an unexplored one. Your patron is contributing materials to this expedition, which was why we’ve stopped off here. The mission will take many years though we’ll be asleep for most of that time. My crew are all volunteers who know they may not return; even if they do, everyone they know will be dead long before we get back to Aleph. We have sufficient crew, but only just; people willing to leave everything behind are understandably rare. That’s why I would like you to join us, if you will.’

  I managed to look away from the great ship to see the expression on her face; the ship filled her with wonder too, even though it must be familiar to her. ‘You want me to journey with you, on that?’ I asked.

  ‘If you want to. You’re still free to go back to ... Omphalos, wasn’t it? if you prefer. Or stay in the reconstruction of your village. I must warn you: if you do come with us we’ll have to speed-train you before you go into stasis, and you’ll need to be prepared for hardship and danger.’

  I thought of the Duke’s expedition. That same formless fear I’d woken with on the day of departure had returned.

  The Captain waited, then when I did not speak said, ‘It won’t take us long to conclude our main business here; we’ll be taking the cutter back to the ship in about three hours. I’m afraid that doesn’t leave you much time to decide.’

  ‘Hours? I’m not sure how long ...’

  ‘That would be under half a day, for you. I’ll come back here before we go: if you want to come with us, just be at the window when I return. I wish I could answer more of your questions or at least give you longer to consider, but I’ve got duties elsewhere and once a lightship gets going, you’re just along for the ride.’ She smiled at that thought, and I yearned to ask her to explain further.

  Instead I just said, ‘Thank you.’

  She climbed back onto the flitter, and left.

  It has been hard to make myself write. I want only to watch the ship as it sails imperceptibly slowly through the darkness, propelled by unimaginable winds. But Captain Estrides will be back soon and I must hurry to finish my account.

  It fills me with fear, this idea of a dark and endless sea, of countless worlds beyond my comprehension. My hand shakes at the thought even as I write.

  Of course, I knew my answer as soon as she asked the question. I will miss my books, but if I cannot take them all, then I will take no
ne of them, not even this one.

  There are other seas, and they extend farther than my mind can grasp. The time has come to continue my journey.

  More by Jaine Fenn

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