The State of the Art(16)

on the scale of what's around and tripped out drunk

on starlike possibilities

I find that I'm staring at the stars, my eyes wide and

burning.I shake myself, tear my sight away from the

view outside, turn back to the camera.

I look at a group photograph from the

orbital.People I knew; friends, lovers, relations,

children; all standing in the sunlight of a late

summer's day, outside the main building.Recalled

names and faces and voices, smells and

touches.Behind them, almost finished, is - as it was

then - the new wing.Some of the wood we used to

build it still lies in the garden, white and dark

brown on the green.Smiles.The smell of sawdust

and the feel of pushing a plane; hardened skin on

my hands and the sight and sound of the planed

wood curling from the blade.

Tears again.How can I help but be sentimental?I

didn't expect all of this, back then.I can't cope with

the distance between us all now, that awful gap of

slow years.

I flick through other pictures; general views of the

orbital, its fields and towns and seas and

mountains.Maybe everything can be seen as a

symbol in the end; perhaps with our limited grasp

we can't help but find similarities, talismans but

that inward facing plate of orbital looks false to me

now, down here, so far away and lonely.This

globe of ordinary, soft, accidental planet seems the

cutting edge and the flat knife of twinned

adamantine thoroughness, our clever, efficient little

orbitals, lacking that fundamental reality.

I wish I could sleep.I want to sleep and forget

about everything, but I can't, tired though I still

am.The suit can't help me there, either.I don't even

remember dreaming, as though that facility, too, is

damaged.

Maybe I'm the artificial one, not the suit, which

doesn't try to pretend.People have said I'm cold,

which hurt me; which still hurts me.All I can do is

feel what I can and tell myself it's all anyone can

ask of me.

I turn over painfully, face away from the

treacherous stars.I close my eyes and my mind to

their remindful study, and try to sleep.



'Wake up'

I feel very sleepy, the rhythms all wrong, tired

again.

'Time to go; come on.'

I come to, rubbing my eyes, breathing through my

mouth to get rid of the stale taste in it.The dawn

looks cold and perfect, very thin and wide through

this inhospitable covering of gas.And the slope is

still here, of course.

It's the suit's turn to walk, so I can rest on.We

redeploy the legs and arms again, the chest

deflates.The suit stands up and starts walking,

gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the

bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.

The suit walks faster than I do.It reckons it is only

twenty percent stronger than the average

human.Something of a come-down for it.Even

having to walk must be galling for it (if it feels

galled).

If only the AG worked.We'd do the whole trip in a

day.One day.

We stride out over the sloped plain, heading for

the edge.The stars disappear slowly, one by one,

washed out of the wide skies by the sunlight.The

suit gains a little speed as the light falls harder on

its trailed photopanels.We stop and squat for a

moment, inspecting a discoloured rock; it is just

possible, if we find an oxide of some sort but the

stone holds no more trapped oxygen than the rest,

and we move on.

'When and if we get back, what will happen to

you?'

'Because I'm damaged?' the suit says. 'I imagine

they'll just throw the body away, it's so badly

damaged.'

'You'll get a new one?'

'Yes, of course.'

'A better one?'

'I expect so.'

'What will they keep?Just the brain?'

'Plus about a metre of secondary column and a few

subunits.'

I want us to get there.I want us to be found.I want

to live.



We come to the edge of the escarpment about mid-

morning.Even though I am not walking I feel very

tired and sleepy, and my appetite has

disappeared.The view ought to be impressive, but

I'm only aware that it's a long, difficult way

down.The escarpment lip is crumbly and

dangerous, cut with many runnels and channels,

which lower down become steep, shadowy ravines

separating sharp-edged ridges and jagged

spires.Scree spreads out beyond, far below, in the

landscape at the cliff's foot; it is the colour of old,

dried blood.

I am suitably depressed.

We sit on a rock and rest before making our way

down.The horizon is very clear and sharp.There

are mountains in the far distance, and many broad,

shallow channels on the wide plain that lies

between the mountains and us.

I don't feel well.My guts ache continually and

breathing deeply hurts too, as though I've broken a

rib.I think it is just the taste of the recycler's soup

that is putting me off eating, but I'm not

certain.There are a few stars in the sky.