A Night Without Stars (23 page)

The lights from the farmhouse and the trucks quickly fell behind. The empty night sky and dark land merged into one, leaving him alone. And for the first time he could actually stop to consider what had happened, the crazy thing he'd agreed to do. Hide a Commonwealth baby for a month by avoiding the PSR, the most ruthless, most efficient force on the planet?

“Oh, crud, what have I done?” It had all happened so fast.

Of course, the whole encounter was madly exciting, and he was defying the PSR bastards. But that burst of exhilaration, the yearning for defiance, might well be a side effect of the Commonwealth drug.

I'll never know now
.

The baby finished guzzling the bladder and let the teat drop from her slack mouth with a contented smile. Florian held the flaccid bladder up in puzzlement. It was practically empty. The baby couldn't possibly have drunk that much.
Has the bladder got a
leak?

“What are you going to do?” Mooray asked.

Holding the child very carefully under one arm, Florian put the flute between his lips and blew a quiet answer. “I'm not sure. Keep her safe like I told the Commonwealth machine I would. I really don't want the government to get her.”

“Why not?”

“I suppose because she's from the Commonwealth. Government people don't like that. They're always saying how bad it is.”

“How do they know?”

“They don't. The last person from the Commonwealth was Nigel and he triggered the Great Transition, which Slvasta hated. But then Eliters always claim we should make contact with the Commonwealth because it will save us. Only they don't know that for sure, either, if I'm being honest.”

“What do you think?”

“I guess I just want things to change.” He looked down at the baby in the crook of his arm. “And it sounds like she might do that for us.”

They were halfway across the lake to the Vatni village when the baby woke and started crying—really bawling. The noise was incredible. Florian was convinced she'd wake the whole county. Any Air Force planes searching would hear her above their propeller roar.

“Is she ill? Have you damaged her?” Mooray asked.

“I don't know,” Florian replied. He held the baby up, looking beseechingly into her scrunched-up, distraught face, hoping beyond reason she'd give him some kind of clue what was wrong.
That weird thing stuck to her head?

He bounced her softly on his knee. “What is it? What's wrong, sweetheart?”

The wailing continued. He began to move her a little more. “Please, please. It's all right. Just…What is it?”

She came down on his knee—and let out the biggest burp he'd ever heard. A mouthful of richmilk splattered on his hand. It was disgustingly warm and tacky. He couldn't move his hand to wipe it off, or she might topple over.

“Oh.” Now he understood.
You have to burp babies after they've had milk,
he remembered.

She still didn't look happy, so he tentatively bounced her about again. Two burps later, she seemed calmer. So he supposed he ought to check the diaper—

“Oh, great crudding Giu!” Florian thought he might throw up. The
smell
. And surely it shouldn't be so
liquid
? He winced, and looked away, trying to inhale some clean lake air.

“Friend—”

“Don't ask! Just…get us to the village. Fast, please!”

But it had to be dealt with. So balancing the baby on one knee, which was now suspiciously damp, he felt around in the bag for the wipes and a fresh diaper.

It took forever, and the unsteady boat didn't help. But just before they reached the little jetty she was clean and dry and wrapped in a new diaper. He actually felt rather pleased with himself for coping. And he'd know how to do it better next time.

The boat knocked into the jetty and Mooray heaved himself out of the water. “What now?” the Vatni asked. “Do you wish to stay here with us?”

“No. You have been more than kind, my friend. But I cannot stay here, for to do so would be to put you in danger. My government would not take kindly to you aiding me.”

“Please be careful.”

“Don't worry, I will be the most careful person on the planet.” He lifted his head, looking to the north. The breeze was growing stronger. Thin scattered clouds were starting to build across the horizon. The weather would slow any search. He would have time to prepare, to work out what he was going to do, and where to go.
Aunt Terannia first. She'll know what to do.

He drove the Openland back up to his lodge, again not switching on the headlights. By the time he got back, he was exhausted and the headache was getting even worse. All he wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep.

The baby was fitful when he took her from the passenger seat. When he bent over her, he caught a whiff of—“Not again? I just changed you.”

But when he got her inside and unwrapped the cloth on the kitchen table, sure enough the diaper was full. He changed her, more quickly and efficiently this time.

The baby lay on her back, wide awake. Her little arms were raised, hands clawing at the air, as if she was searching for something. The beginnings of a frown crinkled up her face.

“Now what?”

Her mouth was opening and closing like a fish.

“What? More milk?' It didn't seem possible. But when he produced the second bladder she started guzzling immediately. Teal curled up on his blanket beside the range cooker and watched quietly.

And of course, after the feed, she needed to be burped. It wasn't anything like as easy as last time. Then, just as she seemed to settle, she had to be changed.

“Great Giu.” Florian could barely keep his eyes open; he'd never been so tired before. Dawn was only a couple of hours away now. His headache had evolved to a hot burn that thumped away behind his eyes with every heartbeat.

He put the baby down in the middle of his bed. Then, worried she'd wiggle her way off, he put the pillow on one side and lay down on the other. Sleep came fast.

Equally fast, he was awake as soon as she started crying. Another change!

Sleep.

Dawn and more crying combined. The headache had mercifully abated, but his neck was stiff from not having a pillow. And he couldn't have had more than an hour's sleep in total.

“All right, all right,” he groaned, close to weeping himself now. The third bladder of richmilk.
Crud, I've only got two left. How can she drink so much?

When he held her in the crook of his arm to feed, he saw that the cloth she was wrapped in was uncomfortably tight around her skin.
Must be from squirming around in her sleep.

Change her. Wrap her up again, but there wasn't as much cloth. “Huh?” Looking at her, he could have sworn she'd grown several centimeters overnight, which was weird. But…
Kids have growth spurts…I think?
Nothing else could explain it, and Joey said he would need more cloth soon, so nothing was wrong. She'd survived the night. “I did it right,” he told the dozing infant with a proud smile. “I actually did it.” Then he thought about having an entire month of nights identical to the one he'd just survived, and his skin turned cold.

It was raining. A low cloud roofed the valley, reducing the morning sunlight to a dour gray glimmer as if twilight had already arrived. Florian switched on the light in the living room. The range cooker was cooling, but the embers were still glowing, so he put some fresh logs in. Before long they'd caught, and he left the air vent fully open so they would burn fast and hot.

The baby was asleep on the ancient sofa, safe surrounded by cushions to make a kind of nest. He knew he'd only have an hour at most before she'd need changing again. Probably a feed, too.

There was still some of yesterday's bread left, so he cut some slices and spread raspberry jam over them. Only then did he realize how hungry he was. The kettle took a long time to boil. He put some more logs on, knowing the oven temperature would be all wrong—and just not caring.

He sat on the rocking chair and stared at the baby. The enormity of what he'd done was starting to register. He'd be lucky if he could manage to look after her, never mind keep her away from the PSR.

That drug. It must have been the drug. I'd never agree—

There was a mild flash. Florian looked up at the window, thinking lightning was plaguing the valley, but it was a very weak flash and there was no thunder.

“What?”

More flashes—but they were coming from behind his eyes. Like a broken icographic, except this was brighter. The flashes quickly stabilized into five stars in a pentagon formation.

“Huh?”

Shapes began to emerge from each of the stars, so much sharper and clearer than the icographics he was used to. A green pyramid, turning slowly in midair. Spheres made up of smaller spheres, multiplying from the center. A sinkhole of concentric lavender circles that led back to infinity. A sphere of rippling yellow sine waves. Rainbow star cluster.

The space machine's code.

Florian smiled, entranced. Then someone spoke fractured juddering words that made no sense, fading in and out like shortwave radio in a storm. He twisted around in shock, but there was nobody in the room. It was inside his head, part of the new code.

The voice spoke again, and this time the fragments came together in a mellow tone. “Can you understand this? If you can, please say yes out loud.”

“Yes!”

“I am the basic operational memory package for macrocellular cluster operation. I have run tests on your neural functionality, and configured myself accordingly. There is a red diamond icon positioned at the top of the display in your exovision. Please locate it.”

“Sure. I got it.”

“In order for this package to download from your lacuna and into your main cluster, you must visualize the diamond expanding. When it has done this, please rotate it one hundred and eighty degrees clockwise. To cancel the download, please rotate it the other way. Please confirm you understand.”

“Yeah. Uh, right.” He needed to take a breath. This commitment was as big as picking up the baby.
Commonwealth knowledge! The one thing the Eliters have wanted for centuries.
“I understand.”

“Please make your choice.”

Florian concentrated on the diamond, wanting it to be bigger. When it expanded, he thought of it turning rapidly clockwise.

The sensation that followed was akin to the drug he'd taken last night, but confined to his skull. Information like silver light was glowing inside him, shining through his gray matter to nestle snugly inside a billion neurons, elevating them. It was as if his brain had never been truly alive before, and now it sang with knowledge.

The operating system downloaded and installed, bringing a revelation of
understanding.
Instinctively, he grasped the functions behind the exovision icons; he knew what exovision was, too, and its parameters. There were formatting tools for sight, sound, and sensation. There were files decompressing into his storage lacuna. Encyclopedia files. Specialist files. Even entertainment files. Medical routines started monitoring his physiology, showing him body temperature, heart rate, blood-oxygen levels, toxin levels, hormone secretion, muscle performance, nerve paths, neural activity.

“Oh, crudding Uracus,” he breathed in glorious amazement.

The baby started crying.

“Seriously?” he growled at her. “Now?”

But she needed feeding, and was as insistent about it as only she could be. With a small martyred sigh, he postponed exploring his newfound wealth and reached for the next bladder.
Crud, only one left after this.
So while she sucked down the entire contents, he sat on the settee and accessed the file on richmilk. It was like ordinary milk, but with a massively high protein and vitamin content, along with concentrated specialist fats and hormones. He started to cross-index their functions with encyclopedia files, and quickly got lost in terms he didn't understand. For all the information now filling his storage lacuna, comprehension was lacking. The space machine hadn't given him any education packages.

“Uracus!” It was like being able to see an orchestra playing, but not hearing it.

So the Commonwealth baby needed richmilk. He didn't know why she was different from Bienvenido babies, but that explanation was probably somewhere in the files, too. He could work on refining the search function later. He called up operational files on the nutrient processors, and shot an activation code at one of them. The top opened, its
malmetal
expanding, allowing the
plyplastic
hopper to swell up and form a big cone. Florian laughed in delight and made the cylinder repeat that several times before he sheepishly admitted to himself it was a bit childish.

He burped the baby while looking up what kind of food to put in the hopper. Plenty of vegetation, the goat's milk would also do, some protein (there was a little bit of rabbit stew left), water, jam for sugar.

While she was sleeping—it wouldn't be long before another change was due—he ran around collecting the ingredients and dropping them in the smooth conical hopper. The nutrient processor's micronet asked for a bladder to be attached. Florian had to use all the water he'd boiled to sterilize the used bladders, so he still hadn't managed to make a cup of tea for himself. The kettle went on again. He sterilized the used bladders in a big copper pot, and connected one to the bottom of the nutrient processor. Then watched in satisfaction as the mush of food in the hopper was slowly ingested, and a trickle of richmilk filled the bladder.

I made it work!

Then the baby needed changing, and then the bladder on the nutrient processor was full, so he attached a second one. And he realized Teal hadn't been fed, so he took care of that. And the kettle was whistling loudly, which woke the baby. So he soothed her back to sleep. Then the hopper needed cleaning, the undigested slop flushing out of the processor ready for the next batch.