Throughout, the Pearl remained stable. Viewed as a false-colour display, the folds of its metallic gown fluttered in undetectable drafts. A faint zone of refraction surrounded it, causing the image – now perhaps twice life size – to ripple as if underwater. Its face looked human, then more like a cat’s face. After some minutes there came a shift in the index of refraction, like a little step-change in energy states. At the same time the main research tool came to life: elements of the labyrinth began to realign themselves; a grinding vibration could be felt in the floor. Hologram schematics flickered. Seismic arrays were picking up action at the scale of plate tectonics. ‘VF14/2b is warming up,’ someone announced, and began to reel off phase-space data. Case’s operator said in a calm voice, ‘There’s something massive in the tunnels.’ The overhead lights dimmed and shifted towards the red. ‘You may have to extract me,’ the operator said.

Then it shouted, ‘Look, look! In the maze! Deep time!’ Nothing was heard from it after that.

Meanwhile the Pearl opened and closed its mouth, waving its arms above its head in a kind of boneless, astonished panic. It seemed to be falling faster. Thousands of small objects tumbled along with it, as if the air itself were unloading them, glowing embers or stained-glass fragments, bouncing and rattling as energetically as Entreflex dice where they fell. Waves of perfume – cheap, old fashioned and bizarrely sexual, something you might smell on Pierpoint Street at four in the morning – billowed through The Old Control Room. As if disheartened by this display, the policewoman tired visibly. She made a last effort to break Gaines’ behavioural constraints, then raised her left fist to her mouth and bit at the knuckles. She stared over her shoulder at him.

‘Help!’ she called (once).

Then she jumped into the Pearl and vanished. After that, the Pearl vanished too, and everything went dark.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Gaines into the silence.

He was working out how to distance himself from the project and move on when he saw the tall white flower of light slowly beginning to bloom, and heard the voices and sounds which, to him at least, sounded like the voices and sounds of something, as he put it to himself, arriving, and began to run like everyone else for the back door of the facility and the debatable safety of the labyrinth beyond, trampling as they did so the ageing Case, who had lost both his sticks.

27 The Medium is Not the Message

TWENTY SEVEN

The Medium is Not the Message

Aspodoto, Tienes mi Corazon, Backstep Cindy: a name, in the Halo, is everything. You are no one without a name. Fortunata, Ceres, Berenice. Queenie Key, Calder & Arp, Washburn Guitar. Mani Pedi, Wellness Lux, Fedy Pantera, REX-ISOLDE, Ogou Feray, Restylane and Anicet . . .