The Lowest Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page A

vehicle, fuel tank and pressure module, cut-and-shut into rococo dwellings. Sails, banners and penants whipped high into the airless black. On one platform travelled the huge, lacy outline of a two hundred metre high stallion. Inside the horse’s geodesic chest cavity, tiny figures worked with nova-bright welding torches. Another form, equally tall, was a naked human woman balancing on one leg. She had her arms cantilevered out for balance, one ahead and one behind. Jammed into her torso at odd, disruptive angles were repurposed cargo modules.
    One of the cyborgs broke from the pack and jogged out to meet him. Beneath its knees, the cyborg’s legs were springy prosthetics that sent it metres into the sky with each stride.
    “Welcome, Oleg,” said a synthetic voice. “We spoke earlier. I am Gris. Have you been to Mercury before?”
    “No, this is my first time. Thank you for allowing me to land.”
    “That is a very impressive suit,” Gris said. “I imagine it could keep you alive for quite a while?”
    “Not as long as yours, I’d wager,” Oleg said.
    “Ah, but we don’t think of our suits as suits .” Gris touched a fist to its chest, in a kind of salute. “This is my skin, now and forever. I’m wired into it on a profound sensory level – full haptic and proprioceptive integration. I don’t just live in it – it’s part of me. I trust that doesn’t unsettle you?”
    “If it did, I’d be the wrong person to come to Mercury. And definitely the wrong person to speak to the Cyborg Artistic Collective.”
    Gris’s suit – or skin, if that was the proper way to think of it – was a mechanical integument giving little hint of the organic contents within. The armour was multicoloured and baroquely patterned. Gris’s helmet had become a beak-faced gargoyle, with multiple cameras wedged into its eye-sockets. There was no glass or visor.
    “I know you’ve come a long away,” Gris said. “But you mustn’t take Rhawn’s disinterest personally.”
    They walked under the Sun. In Oleg’s view it had no business being that big or that bright . The intensity of its illumination, averaged over an orbit, was a hundred times stronger than he was normally used to. That bloated inflamed Sun was an affront to his sensibilities. It would be very good to be on his way from Mercury, back to the civilised polities of Jovian Space.
    But not without the thing he had come for.
    “Rhawn’s star has risen,” he observed.
    “It makes no difference to her. Mercury is her home now. The sooner people accept that, the happier everyone will be. Are those your tradeables?”
    “It’s not much, I know. But there are some rare alloys and composites in there, which you may find of value.”
    When they were at the caravan cyborgs were waiting to pick through his offerings. A value would be placed on the items, which Oleg was free to accept or decline.
    “You can come aboard,” Gris said casually. “We have provision for guests, if you wish to get out of the suit. It will take a little while to give you a value for your goods, so you may as well.”
    “Thank you,” Oleg agreed.
    Gris brought him to one of the sliding, sledge-like platforms. They vaulted up onto a catwalk, then found an airlock leading into the side of a chequered structure made from an old fuel tank. Oleg satisfied himself by just removing the helmet and gloves, placing them next to him on a kind of combination sofa and padded mattress. Gris, squatting on the other side of a table, had removed no part of its suit except the spring extensions of its legs, presently racked by the door. Now it busied itself pouring herbal infusions into little alloy cups.
    “Were you an artist before you came here?” Oleg asked, to be making conversation.
    “Not at all. In fact I came to trade, just like you. My spaceship needed some repairs, so my stay turned from days into weeks. I had no intention of becoming part of the Collective.”
    “Were you… like