The Fallow Orbits, Chapter 1

Episode 1, in which Nathan loses everything

Behind him, flames wrapped the spires and turrets of his ancestral home. Nathaneal Osman Demirci, the youngest son of the House of Demirci, ran for a narrow slot in the stone wall encircling his Istanbul estate with his pursuers hard on his heels.

He had no weapon. Rather than grabbing up an ancient sword like Tanaer, or machine pistols like his other brothers, Nathan held back, judging the situation. From the chaos of voices, it was clear this was no mere hit squad sent by a rival trade faction. His family was clattering down the steps, half-dressed from the lateness of the hour, into the jaws of a vast, unhinged mob.

So, instead of snatching a gun or cutlass from their glass cases, Nathan pulled together the official papers signifying his degrees, and ran for the back stairs.

He'd escaped only seconds before the manor caught fire. The others hadn't so much as gotten off a shot. But if he could just get to the gap in the wall—

"There he is!"

Hurling murderous bellows back and forth, they came for him.

You couldn't tell from the house, but the gap turned into a long narrow alley, completely black now except for a sliver of dusk light far overhead. The stone wall Nathan touched with his right hand was over two thousand years old. The aluminum cladding he bumped with his left shoulder had once graced the side of a Modernist office tower, six hundred years ago. The alley ended in a barred gate, but Tanaer had shown him how to unlatch that on one of those rare occasions when he and his eldest brother had actually played together. He made it through and slammed the grill shut.

As they rattled and banged at it, Nathan agonized over a choice. To the left was the university, his real home for five years now, the one place in the world that he felt accepted him. Yet they had no way to defend him, and perhaps—he thrust the thought aside--no reason to now.

Nowhere in the ancient city was safe if the mob had decided that the Demirci family had betrayed the scriptures. Maybe the Congregation's tight grip on society was loosening; true, half the watchtowers of the Congregation were empty. He could still spot six from the cobbled street where he stood.

Behind him his attackers piled up against the bars, jeering and snarling. If these men were true believers, there was only one place Nathan could be safe. It lay tantalizingly out of reach, just one great block of buildings over from this avenue. To get there he would have to go right, and he could see a swirl of figures down there and hear more shouting coming from that direction. That left him only one choice.

He ran up the street while the rattling on the gate became a determined banging, until he found a well of deep shadow on the other side. Nathan shucked his shoes and tied them around his neck. Nowhere for the papers to go; he jammed them into his belt and began climbing the stone-block wall.

He'd come this way thousands of times, usually observing the sidewalks through the tinted windows of a chauffeured groundcar. He admired this particular section of exposed Byzantine workmanship. The mortar had receded so far that you might easily thrust your fingers and toes between the stones. Once or twice, he'd rolled down the window to see what lay above. Before University, he'd dreamed of escaping the weight of his heritage by climbing into the sky.

The hand- and toe-holes were even easier to grip than he'd hoped. Encouraged, he climbed the wall like a ladder; the red light of the fire showed him where to reach.

Halfway up, just as the barred gate collapsed under an onslaught of drunken fanatics, his degrees worked their way out of his belt and fluttered into the shadowed canyon of the street.

"No, no." Half-blinded by tears, his world narrowed to his toes and fingertips, and the desperate effort to haul himself upwards. Then Nathan's reaching hand grasped empty air; he'd made it to the top of the wall. After wiping his eyes he looked around. The verdigrised copper rooftops made a new maze, of blocks and slides. He'd never been up here but there was no time to explore. He ran up a pitched roof and slid down into its gutter, nearly toppling into the interior courtyard. Focus, he told himself, and, putting one foot in front of the other, he skirted the courtyard, then scrambled up the roofs beyond.

Part of him wondered at himself; he'd always dreamed of being adventurous, but that was a privilege reserved for the second and third sons. Nathan had been groomed to be a researcher or esteemed professor, not to skulk on rooftops.

The next street wasn't as familiar as the ones that circled the estate, but he knew what lay below him. It was a simple matter of dropping onto a balcony possibly cluttered with furniture, in the dark, and then hanging off it while groping with his feet for the rail of the one under that. And then again, and again. This had not been part of his fantasies of escape.

Before stepping into the blackness, he made one mistake: he looked back. The orange gouts of fire like licking tongues and windows like blazing eyes each signified a thousand memories--of warm rooms in winter, conversations, study, balls and weddings hosted by his father. All gone.

He let himself fall.

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Ankle throbbing from twisting it on that first drop, he limped away from the foot of the apartments. His pursuers would still be trying to find him a block over, but they'd be here soon. That was okay. His goal was in sight.

The building might once have been a church, built sometime in the millennia of Byzantine rule, when this city was named Constantinople. It had been converted to a mosque by the Ottomans, but during the turbulent century before the Congregation conquered all of Earth, ancient sects and long-suppressed cults had flourished again. One had turned this steep pile of stones into a temple of the Jinn. The cult had never quite been stamped out, and the locals feared this place. Most never learned their numbers much less how to read and write, so their school was rumor. Rumor said that anyone who made it through these doors was under the protection of the Jinn for two days. After that, they were fair game.

Nathan limped up the crooked steps and pounded on the recessed, arched wooden door. For long moments nothing happened. Then, slowly it creaked open.

He stepped into perfect darkness. "Hello? I—I seek sanctuary."

After ten or twelve breaths the door thumped closed behind him, and the wan light of a candle appeared far away across a gulf of darkness. He gingerly moved forward, sweeping out his hands and feet for obstacles. Nathan had never been in here. He had never met anyone who had.

The candle burned in a niche at the entrance to a stone corridor. Another lit a corner about five meters ahead. He followed these guides and soon found himself in a small cell, about four steps wide, that contained a cot, a writing desk, a jug of water and cup, and a chamberpot. Above the bed was a single narrow window, more of an arrow slit. He could see stars through it.

The door closed, and he heard a lock click.

If legend was true, he had two days to find a way to save his own life. Nathan sat on the cot and put his head in his hands.

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Nathan's thoughts became a great wheel, as plans, hopes, and impossibilities followed one another with inexorable logic. He heard only his own breathing, the rustle of his clothes when he moved, the distant barking of dogs, and the occasional roar of a takeoff from the Instanbul Spaceport. 

If he'd taken up some weapon, even if he didn't use it, maybe his mere presence in solidarity with his brothers might have given the crowd pause. Or together they might have fought them off. He imagined himself saving Tanaer, how things might change between them if he'd done that. Perhaps he could have—after all, he'd made that amazing climb, hard as it was to believe. He was a Demirci.

But the mob had been too big. He couldn't escape that fact. Had he stayed, he too would be dead now.

If they knew he was in here, they would be expecting him to try to sneak out. The Congregation would have this place ringed with watchers.

So maybe he should have taken up a weapon and died with honor...

It went on and on like this as he lay staring at the shadows of the vaulted stone ceiling. He smelled mildew. The bed was hard. Sleep might be a refuge, but sleep wouldn't come.

It was absolutely silent, so when a faint scratching sound started, he heard it instantly. In the darkness, it was all he could focus on; it came from somewhere outside his cell. It continued for several minutes; rats, he assumed--until suddenly it stopped, and there was a creak, like hinges moving.

He rose and went to the door. This had a small barred window in it, through which the sound had come; there was no light on the other side. Yet he seemed to make out a scuffing, as of cautious footsteps on the ancient stone floor.

This faded. Then a man shouted, "Balcon Kedisi! How did you get out of your contemplation chamber?"

Balcon kedisi. That meant "balcony cat" in the local tongue. The man had said the rest in Tradelang, which the Congregation had long ago made the official language of Earth.

"I just wanted to see if they were still out there." It was the voice of a girl, a very young one, it seemed.

"Back, go back, it is not our Way for you to wander about the temple!" Dim candlelight silhouetted two moving figures. One disappeared into a black rectangle opposite his cell. He made out that the other was a robed man, who was carrying the candle. He closed the door and latched it, muttering, "How did you do that? The latch is on the outside."

"I guess you didn't lock it properly."

The devotee of the Jinns growled suspiciously but soon wandered away. That left darkness and silence again, punctuated only by the creative curses of the girl. Her desperate tone seemed to ring something in Nathan, like a tuning fork was being tapped. The quaver in her voice echoed the terror and grief of his endless night of fire and flight. He blinked back more tears.

Crying was forbidden for the Demircis. He gulped air, but could only imagine his brothers jeering at him. They had taken up arms; they had nobly defended their home even though it meant certain death. Nathan had run. He was a coward. What would Father say if he were here? Nothing; there would only be cold contempt from that direction.

There was no way to make up for his cowardice. But if he had any dignity or honor left, he had to use it, if only to help this girl. He went to the door.

"Were they?" he called softly.

A long silence followed. Then he heard her say, "What?"

"Were they still out there?"

Another long silence. Then, in a deepened, tough-guy tone that wouldn't have fooled the most credulous carnival-goer, she said, "What's it to ya?" 

"Well, it just seems to me that we're in the same situation."

"You're not... one of the Jinn guys?"

"I don't even know the Jinn guys. This was just the only place open at this time of night."

She didn't laugh.

Nathan put his forehead against the bars and let his shoulders slump. "My family's dead," he admitted. "My house is a funeral pyre. I barely made it here ahead of the mob. I guess I've got two days to plan my daring escape." His voice cracked on the last word. "My name's Nathan, by the way. What's yours?"

She said nothing for a few minutes and he thought that was the end of their conversation. Then: "You heard him. They all just call me the Balkon Kedisi." The meaning of that nickname was clear: the cats of Istanbul ran free, and it was not uncommon for a third-floor resident to find one sauntering in from the balcony to beg for scraps.

"I see. But what does your family call you? What did your parents name you?"

A long, awkward pause. "I dunno."

He contemplated the history that implied, then said, "Surely you've given yourself one."

"Yeah," she said guardedly. "But why would I tell you?"

"...Fair enough. How did you end up in here, Kedisi?"

She sniffed and coughed until she got control of her voice. "This old librarian used to tell me stories. She made me want to be more than I was. I wanted to learn how to read, so I snuck into the Congregation's grand library. I stole a book that looked pretty. The guards saw me and chased me here. When the Congregation comes tomorrow, they're going to cut off my hands!"

She burst into open tears.

Nathan sat on the cot again. He was overwhelmed by a cold outrage; he wished he had grabbed a gun like the others because at least then he could have taken a few of the attackers down with him.

He knew the strict laws of the Congregation, he'd learned them all when very young. They were easy to follow—if you had the means. But they weren't supposed to be enforced anymore.

All across the world, the Congregation were being swept aside, in revolts and revolutions. There were rumors of entire cities destroyed, but since the Congregation still controlled much of the news media, there was no reliable source for such tales. The exiles said it had happened, but who trusted them? They were, for better or worse, the reason the Congregation was getting more desperate and brutal in its repression.

Father had been so optimistic. "You'll inherit a new world," he'd told Tanaer. He usually spoke only to the eldest, his heir. The other boys listened. "We can help make that happen. The spaceships they're building—I'm investing. The exiles are bringing us things we could never make for ourselves. There are fortunes to be made reselling that, but we have to aim higher. It's time this family moved out of the shadows, and into the halls of power."

Yet billions still believed in the Congregation's lies, the more so the greater the disproof. Father hadn't understood this; neither had Tanaer. Nathaneal, the youngest, consigned to University where he could be conveniently forgotten... he'd heard about the pogroms, the backlash, the terrors the Congregation were bringing to bear to secure a decade or a century more of rule. For the past two years, he'd been filled with a growing sense of unease. It was shameful that tonight had not been altogether a surprise. Surely he should have tried harder to convince Father to be more diplomatic.

He would have had to go through Tanaer to convey any such message, and his eldest brother barely gave him any notice. Once again, Nathan's mind ran in useless circles of self-recrimination, regret, rational reassessment, and resignation.

Eventually the girl stopped crying. Nathan felt ashamed that he'd stayed silent while she wept, but he was wrapped in helplessness. He just sat there in the dark as the minutes stretched into hours.

 In the deepness of the night, when all was quiet and the candle had gone out, a kind of icy clarity settled over him. This little room held one source of hope: the writing desk. There was a pencil there, and paper. Whoever took refuge here had that one lifeline, apparently—he could get a message out. Nathan wracked his brains trying to think of who he could contact. Not his uncle. Not the city protectors, everybody knew they were in the pocket of the Congregation. Not the University. Perhaps one of Father's investors? Nathan was the heir to the family's fortunes and businesses. He had immense leverage—if only he could figure out how to use it.

He had to try something, so he used one of the three remaining matches to relight the candle. Then he drafted a letter to his uncle. He started to describe what had happened, but stopped in mid-sentence; how could he describe the fury of the mob without justifying everything Uncle had said to Father about his new business ventures? "The streets are not ready for this," he had warned them all at dinner just a few nights ago. "They barely tolerate the presence of the secular police! You need to stop parading alien trinkets at your parties, people have a superstitious fear of them. Word gets around.  Whispers are coming back to us, that you're a sorcerer building a library of demons' weapons."

Nathan tore up the first sheet and wrote a simple note explaining that he still lived, and where he was. Find a way to free me from the mob, and you can have half my estate, he ended.

Staring at this sentence, he realized that the smartest thing his Uncle could do when he received this letter, was to burn it.

  Still, this was his only hope. He folded the letter into an origami that could only be reversed by tearing it. Then he went to the door and shouted, "Hey! I want to send a message!"

Shuffling footsteps heralded the arrival of the cowled acolyte of the Jinns. Nathan held out the paper, and it was snatched from his fingers.

For the first time since the mob had stormed the front gates, he felt calm.

"Nathan?" It was the girl's voice. "Are you leaving?"

"Not tonight, I think."

"What time is it?"

He went to look through the arrow-slit window. "Getting near dawn."

"How can you tell? Have you got a watch?"

"No, a window. You don't have a window?"

"No." She sounded utterly wretched. "What does it look like? The sky?"

"It's silver.

“And full of angels."

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