The Face of Heaven. Brian Stableford

usually caught on and swatted her within a minute or so. Once he kicked her.

      From Burstone’s point of view, the haggling was virtually a waste of time. It always dragged on too long. But he stood to gain nothing by it—the price he received for the goods in the case went to the supplier. So far as he was concerned, the material transaction was just an exchange of garbage. He was in it for quite different reasons. For the experience, in fact.

      The girl was interesting. The girl could make this whole trip worthwhile. Her presence did something for the occasion, though none of the men ever mentioned her or referred to her presence. Burstone never touched her, never attempted to talk to her and never asked any questions about her, but he was aware of her, and aware of the cord which attached her to Ermold, which she seemed resolved to break. Ermold was breaking her in. He was a sadist.

      The warrior had aged quite noticeably over the last couple of intervals. It seemed such a short time ago that he had been, by Burstone’s standards of judgment, a young man. Now he was past middle age. Time moved faster in the Underworld, if it could be said to move at all. Men aged faster, packed up their lives more economically, wound up their existence more tightly.

      Ermold’s voice was cracked, he punctuated all his sentences with curses, and his temper seemed inordinately short. Burstone carried a gun, of course, but he knew that Ermold and his men were fast enough to have him in slices before he could kill one of them. So he was frightened. He fed on that fear, as if it was his only pleasure.

      Burstone gathered from the excess of bitterness and nastiness which flowed out of Ermold that the chieftain was sick of the whole silly business. But both men knew that Ermold couldn’t do without Burstone, and in the end he had to accept Burstone’s terms. If there had been any alternative at all...but there wasn’t.

      So Ermold fingered the sharp edge of his knife—a knife which Burstone had provided for him—and thought dark thoughts, indulging himself in crude fantasies of what he might do to the man from Heaven...but dared not.

      In the end, however, the deal was completed, and the two parties went their separate ways. Burstone took his parcel, Ermold made Fortex carry the heavy suitcase.

      Hauling himself back up to the Overworld was a long and laborious job. The hoist was properly counterbalanced and the machinery was in perfect order, but Burstone had seen a gradual deterioration in the performance of the machine over a period of time. Whether the decline was due to a failure of the operating mechanism or a failure of his own patience he was not sure. He was not mechanically minded.

      Up at the top, in the roof of the Underworld and the deepest cellars of Euchronia, Burstone carefully secured the hoist and clamped the circular cap over the hole. He lit a flicker briefly to make sure of the exact direction of the path back to the ladder. It was a cursory, almost unnecessary gesture motivated by long habit. Normally he let the flame sputter for only a couple of seconds. This time, it lasted longer while he noticed the second set of footprints which led away from his doorway into Hell.

      Then, giving no indication of the fact that he knew someone else was there, or that he cared, he walked away into the darkness.

      Chapter 9

      Half an hour later he came back. The hoist was down, the cables were slack. He wound the cage back up again, and found to his utmost satisfaction that it arrived empty. He secured it for a second time, clamped down the cover, and ignited his flicker for a couple of seconds. Then he walked away. This time he went all the way back up to the sunlit spaces of the civilized world, wondering whether his route was still viable.

      Whoever had followed him was trapped in the world below. It was some time before he would be making another trip, and the spy would undoubtedly be dead long before then. The only problem was whether anyone else knew about him and, if so, why they were interested.

      Chapter 10

      The Underworld did not, of course, begin all at once. The eclipse of the old surface by the new was a gradual affair, taking several thousands of years. What is more, the platform which was to become the Overworld was started in several sections. Thus the perimetric borderlines between the two worlds were both extensive and slow-moving.

      Gradually, the life-system of Earth moved across those borders. Under each section of the covered world some kind of ecosystem survived from the ancient world. The surface was already spoiled and communities of organisms had been in a state of dynamic imbalance for some time before the light of the sun was gradually cut out. The extra pressure imposed by the theft of the sun was great, but not ultimately decisive. When the sections of the platform joined up, so did the two struggling—and not necessarily similar—communities which had grown beneath them. The comingling of the communities induced competition and complementation, and assisted the evolutionary adaptation of the new whole.

      Homo sapiens was the species which adapted most easily to the new régime, and by his active interference he encouraged and assisted many other species to do likewise. Not all men belonged to Euchronia. Some preferred their own concept of freedom: freedom from a plan which would demand their total commitment and pay them—individually speaking—absolutely nothing. There were a good many men who regarded the New World as a dream—castles in the air—and who thought it both right and wise to commit themselves to the Old World, and to dedicate themselves to making what they could of it.

      Despite a certain amount of mutual dislike and resentment, a good deal of trade went on between the Euchronians and the Groundmen for many centuries while the platform was under construction. Without the food supplies, and to a lesser extent the mineral supplies provided by the men who were committed to the ground, the early years would have been far more difficult for the Planners. But as the platform grew, it grew over the lands which were used by the Groundmen—and it swallowed up the lands of the cooperative just as it swallowed up the lands of the hostile. For many centuries there was a bitter war fought on the expanding frontiers of the Overworld. The Men of the Old World thought they had dealt fairly with Euchronia, and that the theft of their sun was the harshest of evil treatment. The Euchronians believed that the Plan was all-important, that there could be no compromises, and they offered the only compensation they had to offer to all those on the ground—the opportunity to join the Plan. Most of the Groundmen refused, and most of them migrated before the advancing world of darkness, until there was nowhere else left to run, except to the islands which were too tiny to interest the Planners. Many of the islands were already incapable of sustaining human life—there was a poor living to be made from the desolated sea—and many more became so as the hordes descended on their shores. Some island colonies were successful, but for the vast majority of men there were only two choices which mattered: Heaven and Hell. When the platform finally closed its grip on the world, the larger number capitulated, and ascended to Heaven and commitment to the Plan (which was still millennia away from completion). A substantial number, however—perhaps a surprising number—stayed with the Old World, accepting the pale electric stars as a permanent substitute for the garish sun. Their motives were many, and usually mixed. Bitterness and sheer hatred for the Planners were prominent, but not paramount. The dominant reason for the human race refusing to quit the Old World was a commitment to it and an identification with it that was as powerful as the commitment of Euchronia to its Plan.

      The Old World was past redemption in terms of the human civilization which had grown up in it. But that did not mean that life was doomed to extinction, nor even that there was any realistic possibility that life would become extinct. It merely meant that most of the old species had to die, and that hitherto unimportant species would become vital to the system, and also that new species would have to be discovered. A whole new contract for the interaction of life with environment had to be drawn up and negotiated—negotiated largely (but not entirely, thanks to the presence of man) by trial and error.

      The lowest stratum of the biotic hierarchy, the stratum of primary production, underwent the greatest changes. The priority enjoyed by photosynthetic forms was lost. Plant evolution virtually abandoned the angiosperms and reverted to a more primitive state in order to rebuild. The stars were vital in that they allowed the bridge a small extra margin, but in the end they were quite useless as sources of energy (save to a few fugitive species of little importance). Their only real function