Newton's Aliens: Tales From the Anti-Ice Universe Read online

  Newton’s Aliens:

  Tales from the Anti-Ice Universe

  by

  Stephen Baxter

  Published by

  Roadswell Editions

  P.O. Box 56

  Planetarium Station

  New York, NY 10024-0056

  November 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by Stephen Baxter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including posting text or links to text online, printing, photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher.

  ‘The Ice War’ first appeared in Asimov’s, September 2008. Copyright © 2009 by Stephen Baxter

  ‘The Phoebean Egg’ first appeared in Postscripts 20/21, 2009. Copyright © 2009 by Stephen Baxter

  ‘The Ice Line’ first appeared in Asimov’s, February 2010. Copyright © 2010 by Stephen Baxter

  These three stories previously appeared in the UNIVERSES omnibus from PS Publishing, 2013.

  Introduction

  In common with many science fiction writers, the universes I invent and inhabit tend to sprawl over several books and short stories. For me, this goes back a quarter of a century to my first published story, the beginning of my ongoing Xeelee Sequence.

  My novel Anti-Ice, a drama of a different nineteenth century, was first published in 1993, though I’d first begun drafting it some years earlier. The term ‘steampunk’ seems to have been coined by KW Jeter in a letter to Locus in 1987. I didn’t think of Anti-Ice as steampunk at the time; rather, I thought of it as alternate history, and I was more influenced by pre-steampunk latter-day ‘scientific romances’ such as Michael Moorcock’s Warlord of the Air (1971) and A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! (1973) by the late lamented Harry Harrison – as well as boyhood readings of Verne and Wells (and actually the idea came from a bit of scientific speculation, about anti-matter comets entering the solar system: what if a Victorian scientist got hold of one of those? ...). Retrospectively however Anti-Ice clearly fits into the emerging steampunk genre. In recent years, having read a lot of modern steampunk in my role as a judge of the Sidewise Award for alternate history fiction, my mind turned back to the Anti-Ice universe. The result was one piece continuing the novel’s timeline, and two other pieces exploring an alternative version of that universe: an alternate history of an alternate history. Regarding ‘The Ice Line’, in our timeline Admiral Collingwood did fight beside Nelson at Trafalgar, and Robert Fulton’s Nautilus was built and trialled though never used in war.

  Stephen Baxter

  Northumberland, September 2014

  www.stephen-baxter.com

  The Phoebean Egg

  Chapter I

  Displacements

  It was in the very last month of the nineteenth century that Cedric Stubbs was to begin his studies at the Academy of Empire. And if his departure for Wales had not been delayed by a day so he could travel with Verity Fletcher, he would not have been there to see his home destroyed by the mining company.

  For weeks the road-laying tractors had laboured noisily across the Northumberland countryside, chewing up turf and gravel and bedrock in mighty mechanical jaws and excreting a strip of tarmacadam road behind, properly constructed right down to the camber and the painted traffic markings. And now, early this December morning, with the roads cooled to hardness, along came the strip-miners, machines like immense lobsters that crawled off the road into the fields around Ulgham and tore into their green surface to get at the coal seams beneath. There was none of the smoke and dirt of coal-driven steam engines; these huge machines worked silently save for the hiss of hydraulic fluids in their closed cycles, the tearing of wood and rock, and the shouts of the men who drove them. This was anti-ice technology, each engine powered by no more than a few ounces of that strange substance that, when combined with bits of Northumberland dirt, released immense pulses of heat energy.

  The village itself had to go, of course. When the machines moved in they made short work of the houses over which they towered.

  The family stood and watched. Cedric’s mother clutched his arm tight, and he knew why; she had been born there, and her father before her, and his father. His mother said to Cedric, ‘We hoped you would be safely away at Academy before it started …’

  Cedric’s father huffed. Albert Stubbs was a portly man who habitually wore jacket, tie and watch fob; he had been a supervisor in the deep mine, now closed down, and he was waiting to be allocated a new position. ‘And why is he still here at all? Because you thought he wasn’t capable of travelling to Wales on his own, but should wait for a slip of a girl to hold his hand. You coddle him, mother!’

  They began to argue. Cedric kept his counsel.

  He was fourteen years old. He wasn’t sure what he felt about seeing his home ripped up by giant mechanical claws, but he was fascinated by the machines themselves, and the uses to which they were being put. Indeed, it was that curiosity that had brought him to the attention of the Academy scouts in the first place.

  At last the machines moved in on the village church, which had been deconsecrated in preparation. The workmen threw up a screen before the diggers reached the graveyard.

  The watching villagers dispersed to the tents where they were to reside until alternative arrangements were made. The day was so young the Little Moon was still bright in the clear sky.

  A girl approached the family. ‘Mr and Mrs Stubbs? I’m Verity Fletcher. I’m so sorry I’m late.’

  Cedric’s mother gave herself a little shake to distract herself, and smiled. ‘Oh, my dear, never mind that. It’s so good of you to come out of your way like this.’

  ‘Not at all. I had to come home to visit my mother in Heaton; my brother has been ill …’

  Verity had stepped down from a coach that had pulled up unnoticed during the final demolition. The coach drivers were bundled up against the cold. The girl herself was slim. She wore a heavy black woollen overcoat that reached down to her ankles, and a sensible black beret over thick brown hair. Though luggage was piled up on the coach she carried one heavy-looking carpet bag herself, clutching it closely. She wasn’t pretty, not exactly, but she had clear blue eyes and ruddy, healthy cheeks. She looked adult, Cedric thought, though she couldn’t be a year older than he was.

  And she had a delicate Newcastle accent, subtly different from the rural tone of the area. ‘It was my fault I’m late, though. I didn’t know how to say the village’s name! I confused the driver by asking for “Oogle-ham.”’

  ‘“Uff-ham,”’ said Cedric’s father. ‘That’s how you pronounce it. Funny, I know.’

  ‘It’s an Anglo-Saxon name,’ Cedric found himself blurting out.

  Verity curtseyed as if he was royalty. ‘Master Stubbs.’

  She was, after all, only a serving girl from the Academy. But Cedric found himself thoroughly confused. Nobody had curtseyed to him in his life, or called him ‘master.’ A blush burned his cheeks. ‘The name means “the vale haunted by owls.”’

  Verity smiled. ‘Well, that’s pretty.’

  ‘But it doesn’t matter now,’ Cedric’s mother said. ‘We had a letter. In future this place will have a district number allocated by the government, not some old name.’

  ‘Everything has to change, mother,’ Cedric’s father said, sticking his chest out. ‘We’re on the verge of a new century. A lot of clutter’s got to be cleared away, that’s all.’ He clapped Cedric on the back. ‘And now our only son’s joining the cadre of young gentlemen who are to be trained up to do tha
t clearing-out – eh?’ But Cedric thought he sounded uncertain, even afraid.

  One of the coach drivers called a soft ‘Hall-oo.’

  Verity bent and picked up one of Cedric’s cases. ‘We must go. The drivers don’t like to stop long.’

  ‘Of course.’ Cedric’s mother was on the verge of tears, and suddenly, to his horror, so was he; he let her embrace him, praying she wouldn’t cry.

  Cedric’s father handed a packet of sandwiches to Cedric, and an envelope to Verity. ‘His tickets are in here, and a bit of spare money for the journey.’

  Cedric evidently wasn’t to be trusted even with his own tickets. He was mortified.

  Verity took the packet graciously. ‘Thank you. Are you ready?’

  ‘Let’s get on with it,’ Cedric said with a briskness that came out like a bark.

  They handed his suitcases to the coach drivers, who stacked them on the roof, and then clambered aboard. With a blast on the horn and a snap of reins, the coach pulled away. Cedric looked back to see his parents and neighbours, but they were soon lost in a landscape dominated by immense prowling machines.

  Verity sat with her carpet bag on her lap. She immediately handed him the envelope with the tickets. ‘Here.’

  He hesitated, but took it. ‘Thank you. Look, about my parents -’

  ‘I won’t breathe a word.’ She said this without irony or teasing. As the coach picked up speed she opened her bag, pulled out a cheap-looking book – it was a scientific romance called The New Carthage by Sir George Holden, Cedric knew it – and began to read, unperturbed by the jolting of the carriage, or the cold of the December air that whipped through the unglazed windows.

  It was not yet nine in the morning.

  Chapter II

  The Journey

  The coach stopped once during its short trip to Morpeth, to pick up mail. Cedric timed the stop; they were off again in forty-five seconds. At Morpeth Verity and Cedric transferred to the steam-train line to Newcastle. Cedric had travelled this way many times and he strode out boldly, showing Verity he was capable of taking the lead.

  Newcastle station was a grand building, its glass roof curving to match the sweep of the steam-train lines. But the space was dominated by Light Rail tracks, bands of gleaming steel twenty feet above Cedric’s head.

  To reach the tracks they took a Mechanical Staircase; it was like rising up inside a vast machine. The train, when it arrived, suspended from its single rail, was sleek and powerful, and silent save for the hiss of the bogies on the track. It was done out in the livery of the rail company, and had a name stencilled to its nose: Hadrian’s Flyer. To step from stagecoach and steam train into such a machine was like walking from past into future, Cedric thought, thrilled.

  They found an empty compartment, and the train set off. Away from the station it soon reached its maximum velocity of eighty miles per hour; it fairly flashed over the English countryside. Everywhere Cedric saw the mark of newness, the roads and Light Rail lines sweeping over ancient field boundaries, a few air boats sliding across the December sky, and sprawling industrial developments everywhere, the brown scars of mines, the black smoke of factories. There was little traffic on the roads, however, horse-drawn or not; the great speeds of the Light Rail, and the freedom of travel afforded by air boats and aerial yachts, had stymied the development of road transport. It was ironic that in a country transformed by anti-ice technology, stagecoach services still survived, for lack of competition on the most remote routes.

  From York the train cut south-west, making for Manchester, the capital and beating heart of industrial England.

  Verity Fletcher sat silently opposite Cedric, reading her romance. Even now she kept her carpet bag beside her, while the rest of their luggage was piled on the rack above. She piqued his curiosity, and gradually, as the journey wore on, he shed his shyness.

  He broke open the food packet his mother had prepared: a sandwich each, an apple, a bottle of weak beer. Sharing the food was an excuse to talk. He waved at the landscape outside the window. ‘Remarkable how much change is going on. Everything dug up and rebuilt.’

  She put down her book. ‘Indeed. They say that if you look down at England through a telescope from the moon, it is like an ant’s nest, such is the industry.’

  ‘The moon? The old moon?’ His eyes widened. ‘Have you been there?’ And he instantly regretted his naïveté.

  ‘No,’ she said, with no sign of mockery. ‘But I know people who have. Perhaps you know there is an Academy up there too. The young gentlemen who have been there talk of great rock beasts – Phoebeans, they call them, with anti-ice for muscles – I don’t pretend to understand it. They say that if those beasts could be tamed, perhaps they could be brought to the earth, their tremendous strength harnessed for mining, and there would be even more ferment.’

  He stared at her. He had read of explorers on the moon since the time of Sir Josiah Traveller’s first journey there in 1870. ‘What are they like, these boys who have walked on the moon?’

  ‘They’re just like the other young gentlemen.’

  ‘And what’s the Academy like? I can’t imagine it’s like the village school in Ulgham!’

  ‘It’s not my place to say, sir. You’ll see soon enough.’

  ‘What’s in your carpet bag?’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m entitled to my privacy.’

  ‘Of course.’ He subsided, utterly crushed. ‘Forgive me. I’ve always been nosy.’

  She evidently took pity on him. ‘I don’t suppose it matters. Not that there’s much to see.’ She opened the bag, and from within a bundle of clothing she produced a silver egg – like a rugby ball, but smaller. ‘Be careful with it,’ she said, passing it to him. ‘And don’t try to open it.’

  The egg was surprisingly heavy, as if solid. It had a seam around its long circumference, fine hinges, and a clasp with a small padlock. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A kind of Dewar flask. Especially made for its purpose by Master Merrell.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘The owner of what’s inside.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  She glanced around, as if she thought she might be overhead. ‘Master Merrell calls it a Phoebean egg.’

  ‘“Phoebean” – to do with the moon?’

  ‘Master Merrell noticed it in a shipment of anti-ice brought down from the Little Moon, for use in the Academy’s workshops.’

  Cedric marvelled at this detail, that he was being sent to a school where the boys were allowed to handle raw anti-ice.

  Verity went on, ‘He says he saw similar formations in anti-ice lodes on the moon – I mean the big moon. He picked it out and put it aside. Knowing I was coming away, Master Merrell gave me the egg to keep safe for a few days, until he finds a safer place to cache it on my return.’

  Cedric handed back the Dewar gingerly. ‘If this formation is so interesting, why not tell the masters about it? Why keep it a secret?’

  She smiled. ‘The Academy isn’t like a regular school. Not that I’ve been to school since I was five. The young gentlemen are expected to sort things out for themselves.’ She slipped the Dewar back into her bag.

  He fell silent, considering what he had learned. Verity returned to her book with every expression of relief.

  The Light slowed as it approached Rochdale, north of Manchester, and slid cautiously past a kind of marshalling yard, where before vast warehouses a row of bullet-shaped craft stood on heat-scarred concrete aprons. These were transatmospheric broughams, ships dedicated to bringing down anti-ice from the Little Moon to feed the capital’s vast appetite for energy. Cedric gazed at the space port, longing to see one of those fine silvery fish leap into the sky on a trail of superheated steam.

  It was late afternoon by the time they approached the centre of Manchester itself. Cedric had never been to the capital of Britain before, and he peered out, his nose pressed to the glass. The city fairly glowed from its electrical streetlamps; it was s
aid that nowhere on earth was so densely illuminated. There was motion everywhere, in the roads, along a webbing of Light Rail lines, and even in a sky crowded with air boats and laced with the arcing sparks of mail rockets.

  At a glance Cedric could see the busyness of a capital of nation and empire. Manchester was the hub of a transport network that reached west through Liverpool and then via mile-long ocean-going freighters to the New World, east through Hull and across the Dogger Bridge to Hamburg for links to north Europe and Russia, and south through London and across the Channel bridges to the nations of a divided Europe. And then further still to India and Asia, and even south over the new Gibraltar bridges into an Africa that was almost wholly British-owned ... Cedric thought that in the brilliance and fluidity of the traffic he could see the vast collective purpose that maintained Britain’s world dominance. And he was thrilled at the idea that his time at the Academy might be the start of a career in which he himself might swim in this vast current of conscience, enterprise and courage, even shape its flow.

  From Victoria Station they took a local Light service down the glowing length of Deansgate to Central Station, to catch another long-haul train that would take them south-west via Bristol to Swansea in South Wales. After supper in a restaurant car, Verity continued to read by the light of a small electric lamp. Sailing through darkened country, in the comfortable silence of the anti-ice train, Cedric gladly submitted to sleep.

  The Academy was on the Gower Peninsula, close to a town called Llanrhidian. In a reverse of the morning journey they had to transfer to a steam train to travel a few miles beyond Swansea, and then a coach for the last haul to the Academy itself from Llanrhidian, out into darkened open country.

  It was almost midnight by the time the coach dropped them off at the Academy gates. A porter came out of his box to tick Cedric’s name off a list. Verity greeted him as Mister Kennet. The coach clattered away, abandoning them.