Way Down Dark

Book 1: The Australia Trilogy

by James P. Smythe

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Dystopian; Science Fiction

Synopsis

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD

Imagine a nightmare from which there is no escape. Seventeen-year-old Chan's ancestors left a dying Earth hundreds of years ago, in search of a new home. They never found one.

This is a hell where no one can hide. The only life that Chan's ever known is one of violence, of fighting. Of trying to survive.

This is a ship of death, of murderers and cults and gangs. But there might be a way to escape. In order to find it, Chan must head way down into the darkness - a place of buried secrets, long-forgotten lies, and the abandoned bodies of the dead.

This is Australia. Seventeen-year-old Chan, fiercely independent and self-sufficient, keeps her head down and lives quietly, careful not to draw attention to herself amidst the violence and disorder. Until the day she makes an extraordinary discovery - a way to return the Australia to Earth. But doing so would bring her to the attention of the fanatics and the murderers who control life aboard the ship, putting her and everyone she loves in terrible danger.

And a safe return to Earth is by no means certain.

(P)2016 Hodder & Stoughton

Release date: July 2, 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 288

Sample

Agatha

You want to hear a story? Then I will tell you a story.

I was seventeen, really only a few months older than you are now. The ship was a very different place then, because the gangs were not like this. There was death, of course – there has always been death, and there’s no way for that to change, not with the balance being the way that it is – but it was somehow more chaotic. There was less structure. If that sounds as though I like the way things are now, I don’t; but now, you know who to fear. That makes it easier, maybe. Back then (thirty-five years ago, if I haven’t lost track) anybody could be the one who would stab you in the back. There were no safe havens, none at all.

Your mother was ten, and she was a pain in your grandmother’s side: a thorn that your grandmother couldn’t pick out. Your mother was wild, always went wandering where she shouldn’t. This is when I met her for the first time: when she went missing, and I was tasked with finding her.

Back then, I worked for whoever would pay me. It wasn’t like now, as I say. The arboretum was closed off to outsiders, still controlled by the family who ran it when this all began; and I never fancied seaming or sewing. I never had the patience for it. Your mother had been missing for two days when your grandfather came to me, showed me a drawing of her and offered me a stipend at his stall. He sold leathers, real skin leathers: he was quite the craftsman. I was angry and selfish, and I wanted more than I probably deserved. But that didn’t stop him, because I had a reputation. Not like the Lows do now, nothing like that; but a reputation nonetheless. I knew how to look after myself. So we haggled, your grandfather and I, and I went up in price – up and up. I stopped when he began to sweat. I knew I had him, then.

I knew your grandfather, of course. He was the best leather craftsman on the ship. Everybody knew him. And your grandmother, she had her own reputation. Stories about her told us that she was a witch. She could make smoke come from her fingers. She learned the craft from her mother, and her mother before that, all the way back before our ancestors even got onto this ship. Everyone was scared of her. So your father was respected all the more. So to have their respect? That would mean a lot for me. It would get me things. Didn’t take long before I stopped pushing and I took the job.

 

Your mother had been playing some stupid game, some imaginary treasure hunt or other, and they last saw her amongst the traders as she passed through their stalls. That night she hadn’t returned, so they worried. They searched as much as they could, going to the ends of the ship – so they thought – but they couldn’t find her. So they went to their berth and they stayed there, in case she returned. They tried to sleep, but you know how it is: hard at the best of times. Your grandfather apparently couldn’t even shut his eyes. That’s what he said to me when they found me, at the end of the second day, as they returned home again. Another night of no sleep ahead of him. I was taking advantage of their situation – of your mother’s stupidity – but back then, I didn’t care about these things. I cared about the leather. I took gloves first, as a down payment, and wore those as I went. My hands were softer than they are now. Look, you see? These scars? They were from those days.

I started at the top. This was during the night, when so much of the ship was trying to sleep. I woke people, to ask what they had seen, if they had seen anything at all. Of course, your grandfather had already been there, past all of them. Nobody knew anything, or nobody told him anything: one or the other. For with their respect came fear. More than likely, people were terrified of getting involved. No sense in being a part of something that (with your grandmother’s reputation being what it was) could have turned very nasty indeed. So when he gave up, I took up the search.

The Pale Women were the first that I visited, highest up in the ship, just as they are now. They scared me even then, you know. They’re hard to understand, even harder to predict. The Lows? They’re savages. Vicious, nasty, the basest parts of us run wild. The Bells? They’re idiots. Lunks. Driven by impulse rather than anything resembling logic. But the Pale Women are something else. They have faith, which makes them tricky. Back then, more than now, they tried to save us. They walked the ship, trying to convert whoever would listen to them. They had their books – their three Testaments – and they thought that faith was enough. It’s never enough.

I met with them first. Their envoy then was Sister Calliope, who was reasonable enough. I knew her from the Shopkeeper floors, because that was where she preached, reading passages aloud while everybody else pushed fabric and food. I asked if she had seen you, but she hadn’t. That’s something you’re guaranteed from them, thanks to those bloody commandments: they won’t lie to you. They might have their own agenda, just like everybody else on the ship, but at least they’re honest.

I worked my way down the floors, through the sick and infirm – none of them had a clue who your mother was. Hard enough to get them to look at her picture, that’s true. But still, I had to believe them. I wasn’t being paid to find her. I was being paid to look, so that’s what I did.

Your grandparents watched me the whole time. I knew it – I could see them, sometimes, peering out across the darkness, keeping an eye on me. Not that I blame them. In their position, I would have watched me too. They watched as I worked my way through the markets; some of the vendors peered at the photo, knowing who she was, trying to work out when they had last seen her. Was it yesterday? None of them could be sure. Almost everybody knew everybody else, because how could you not? There’s not nearly enough of us here for anybody to be a stranger. So they knew her – some by name, some by face – but nobody had seen her that day.

I went to the Bells, who all protested and wouldn’t make eye contact. One, in particular, was shifty with me. Wouldn’t even look at the picture. Your grandparents watched me kick him, hit him, drag him to the markets – he was far bigger than I was, but stupid, and that helped – and then beat him some more. He had seen her. He was the breakthrough: she had been there the night before, trying to convince them of something. He said that she made smoke from her fingertips; that she told them she was a witch. One of them had hit her, lashing out, scared of her. Your grandparents’ reputation ran to her, of course it did. They said that they came from a line of darkness: Riadne must have been the same. When he had lost most of his teeth, he finally told me where she had gone afterwards. Down, to the Lows.

I can’t remember when we started calling them that, you know. My memory isn’t what it was. The Lows, before they were so united, were just the people that you didn’t mess with. Before, the Lows referred to where they lived, not who they were. The people who lived on the bottom floors of their section, they were the ones you avoided; the ones who used to look at you in ways that made your gut churn and your head swim. Over time, the people in the Lows became the Lows. The Bells was some joke that got out of hand. I’m not even sure that they were a gang before we laughed them into being. ‘Heads as empty as . . .’, that was the idea. Nothing in there but an idiot tongue that occasionally made noise ring out. But, as I say, they were harmless. The Lows? I traded with them when I had to, but stayed away the rest of the time. It’s not like you would go for a walk in Low territory and hope to come out unflayed.

But I had made a deal to find your mother. I thought, at that point, that I would only find her body, and even I didn’t want to be the one who delivered that back to your grandparents. But better dead than never found. If somebody you love goes missing here, all you can do is imagine what might have happened to them. Chances are, your imagination will conjure up worse things than the truth.

I climbed down into the Lows’ territory, as I had done before. Back then, they only inhabited one of the ship’s sections. Now, they’ve got three; half of the ship is in their hands. But then, they were a nuisance. We didn’t see their strength growing. Had we, I don’t know what we would have done. Probably nothing. That’s the way on Australia: ignore it until you can’t anymore.

I went into the Low territory as if I had something to trade, head held high. They knew I could take care of myself, so the ones on the outskirts – the weakest, furthest from their Rex – they let me pass. Snarled and postured at me, sure, but they let me through. I was amazed at how quickly they had abandoned so much of our language, our customs. Our morals. It’s as if they willfully forgot those last remnants of who we were before Australia. Or maybe they regressed, went back further. I don’t know. But I got a few floors in before one of them had the nerve to ask me why I was there.

‘I’m here to trade,’ I told her.

‘What you got?’ And of course I didn’t have anything, because anything that I could have traded had already gone. Then I remembered: the gloves. Your grandfather’s handiwork meant that they were practical and beautiful in equal measure, delicate stitching that held up under incredible amounts of pressure. We never asked where the leather came from, but we all knew. Everything on the ship is recycled; nothing can be wasted. He made miracles with the material he had access to. Climbing through the ship – admittedly, there was less to climb, because there were still quite a few stairwells intact back then – was so much easier with the gloves on. But I was there on a mission, and I knew that if I found your mother’s body, your grandfather would give me another pair. If I brought her back, dead or alive, he would give me pretty much anything that I asked for. So I held them up.

‘Good leather,’ I told her, ‘and I want to give them to your king. In tribute.’ I wasn’t sure that it would work – they were just as likely to try and take the gloves off me, there and then, which would have led to blood – but they relented and let me through.

I made my way down to the fifth floor, where the leader was. He was a nasty piece of work, that one. Leaders tended to last a year or so, nothing more, but he had four years under his belt. Perhaps he’s the reason that the Lows grew so quickly. When I think on that, I think about how this could have ended. Maybe I could have saved more people on the ship by doing something different. But, your mother . . .

He smiled when I showed him the picture. It stretched across his face, bending his flesh, making the scars around his lips stretch into an exaggeration of a grin.

‘That girl,’ he said, ‘I have her.’ As simple as that.

‘Alive?’ I asked. I wasn’t expecting his admission.

‘You want?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You can’t have.’ Everything about him was broken. I remember stories about back home, back on Earth, about how we were in the oldest days: like animals, scrabbling in the mud, beating each other with the bones left over after our hunts. He spoke like he wasn’t even raised by humans: the words the same as anybody else would use, but hollow, like there was nothing behind them. They might as well have been nothing more than noises. ‘She’s mine.’

‘She’s not yours,’ I said. ‘I want to trade for her.’ He held out his hands and I peeled the gloves off. ‘They’re leather,’ I said, ‘and very strong. Good gloves. The best.’

It wasn’t enough. I knew that. I had never bought a person on the ship, but I knew that they went for a lot more than a pair of well-made gloves. ‘There’s more where that comes from,’ I told him. ‘So much more. You give me the girl, I’ll get you many pairs of gloves. Boots, as well.’ He stayed quiet, turning my gloves over in his hands. He pulled at them, tugging them larger, and then forced his big fingers into them, one by one. The soft skin stretched over his own skin – it didn’t tear, even though his hands were much bigger than mine, and I thanked your grandfather’s skills for that – and then he flexed them, and he watched his fingers as he did it.

I looked around. She wouldn’t be far, I knew that. I looked, and I listened, and I heard something coming from below. Mewling, I thought. Your mother was ten; she would have been terrified. What they would have done to her . . . What might already have been done to her. I didn’t know.

‘No good,’ their leader said. ‘No deal.’ I was worried: the situation was just as likely to end badly for me as for your mother. The room was swarming with Lows. You’ve never been to their section of the ship – thank God – but it’s not like the threat of them when they wander into our territory. It’s far closer. Like a change in the atmosphere. I couldn’t take them, not that many.

‘Get out,’ he said, ‘or I kill you,’ and he waved his hand. It’s a miracle he let me leave. His minions escorted me, leaving me at the edge of their section. I climbed up the ship through the other sections, all the while knowing that your grandparents were watching me returning empty-handed. When I got back to them, their eyes told me everything I needed to know. They were done, despairing. They assumed the worst. When I said that your mother was still alive, that changed. Your grandfather pulled a weapon from his bunk, a knife he’d carved himself. Huge thing. I told him to wait: that it wouldn’t help, and he would just get himself killed. We needed a plan, I said. I don’t know why I helped them, then: I had done my part. But they cared, Chan. They wanted your mother back more than anything else in the world. Seeing your grandfather’s face when I said that he would die in saving her . . . He didn’t care.

It was your grandmother who decided what we should do. She wasn’t a fighter, and never had been. She’d had no need for it. All the stories about your family and their witchcraft, Chan: they came from her, and her mother before her, and back, and back. I didn’t believe them, but only just. Some of the stories were persuasive. That’s when she told me how she did what she did; the tricks that she knew. She told me how her witchcraft worked, and she gave me some of the pellets that she crafted. They were how she made smoke come from her fingers: a trick, a lie – nothing more. They were made from parts of the soil, of sugars that we otherwise used for cooking, with a piece of rope. I had never seen anything like them before. She said that the smoke would confuse them; that using the pellets would allow me to pass into Low territory and get your mother before they even knew that I was there. I would have to go to the bottom of the ship, of course – to the Pit, which I sincerely hope you never have to visit. But I agreed. It was important to me by then. Your grandmother gave me the pellets, and your grandfather his knife. I promised them that I would return with you, and I could see in their eyes that they believed me. They had faith in me.

The plan was this: I would climb straight down to the Pit, then cross it to sneak into the Lows’ section. It was a stupid idea, which was why I thought it might work. No one ever goes down into the Pit. They would never see me coming.

I went that evening. The bottom of the ship was a sad, lonely place. No lights; all of them were broken because that served those who lived down there better. The floors closest to the Pit have always been where the true degenerates live, because we wouldn’t allow them up here. They tried – lying about what they were, their . . . tastes – but we knew. So we made them stay down there, and they stayed. And I went down, slipping through their floors, and to the Pit.

Chan, I can’t even describe travelling through that. Pushing through the remnants of those we’d lost: their clothes, their bones, their blood. Nothing can prepare you for it. But nobody was watching me, and when I climbed out on the Lows’ side, they didn’t see me. There were no guards, nobody to set off alarms. Just some older Lows, fast asleep, but I made it past them. I knew from my visit earlier that your mother was being kept one floor up. It almost seemed too easy.

Of course, I was a fool. I was young and stupid and full of myself. When I reached the berth where your mother was being kept – her and three other children, all just as terrified, all mewling because their throats were sore from the crying that they had been doing – the Lows attacked. I was untying the ropes that held the metal cage front to the berth and they ambushed me. Flames lit up all around us, and in their glow I could see their leader smiling. He had known that I would come for them.

They rushed me, and I fell to my knees, huddled into a ball. They kicked at me and I made the right noises, to let them think that they were winning; that I was done. In truth, I was fumbling with the pellets that your grandmother had given me. As I felt my ribs cracking under the Lows’ feet, I shouted at your mother to cover her eyes, and I slammed my hand down onto the gantry. The pellet exploded and the room filled, a cloud of thick grey powder swarming over everything. The Lows coughed and sputtered and panicked, and I had my chance. I have never been in so much pain as when I stood, then; and when I tried to breathe, to gasp for air, I took in only a lungful of that cloud. But that didn’t stop me. I grabbed your mother and bundled her into my arms, holding her close to my body, and I ran. I kicked and fought my way out, clutching her to me, and I slashed with your grandfather’s knife, and I escaped. Still, to this day, I’m not sure exactly how. When I try to picture it, all I remember is the smoke. I don’t know how we got off that floor, away from them; or how I got your mother back to her parents. All I remember is putting her down as we approached, and their tears as she ran towards them. How grateful they were.

I left them. I went back to my life. I went back to whatever I was doing before. And then, a week later, your grandmother tracked me down.

‘She’s been asking for you,’ she said. ‘Riadne wants to thank you in person.’

How could I refuse that?

Agatha

Your mother was a pain in the backside. I think that’s fair to say. She was a nightmare, and your grandparents couldn’t control her, so they asked me to help. I was treated as a part of the family after I rescued her – maybe a distant relative, coming every so often for food and company – and they needed help. She was inquisitive. Here, people change, but she was different. There used to be a saying: a leopard never changes its spots. You’ve seen drawings of tigers? A leopard was like them, but spots, not stripes. That was your mother. She was twelve or thirteen, and she wanted more than Australia could offer her. She wanted some degree of freedom, which . . . She managed to forget what she was like, I think, when she was dealing with you. You were your own person, and yet so like her.

She was going out a lot in the mornings and then not coming home. Your grandmother wanted to teach her – they had bargained for books, and they wanted to give her something like an education, as much as they could manage – and she refused. She had better things to be doing, she told them. So they asked me to watch over her, to make sure she was alright. What they meant was: find out what she is doing. They were worried. People should worry; it’s a sign that they care.

So I followed her, and she had no idea. I’m good at it. I know the ship like the back of my hand, and I know where to hide. I knew what paths to take to be able to watch her as she went without being seen, and I got to watch everything that she did. Meeting with her friends, talking, sitting. The games that they played, daring each other to go to places in the ship that they weren’t supposed to go to. Climb high, visit the Pale Women; walk into Bell territory and tell them a joke; go into the Lows’ section and steal something. The dares got worse and worse, the children pushing themselves as far as they could go. One of them was caught by a Low one time, and killed. I didn’t intervene. I stood back and watched their horror, and I thought, this will be the lesson. This will be what stops them.

Of course, it didn’t. You know what your mother was like: you told her no. . .