Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds Page B

The cab slowed as the driver swerved it around the wrecks of abandoned cars still parked on the deserted street, fender kissing metal with a series of agonised squeals. Each time they lost momentum, the flywheel unable to push the cab back up to its previous speed. The only consolation was that the other cab had to negotiate the same set of obstacles.
    ‘Can’t go any further,’ the driver said, desperation in his voice. ‘Shoot me if you want, but we’re about to hit the no-man’s-land. From now we’ll start to feel it.’
    ‘Keep driving,’ Meroka said.
    ‘I’ll black out. I’m not good with zone shifts.’
    Quillon placed down the angel gun - he wasn’t certain it was going to be much more use to him anyway - and dived into his medical bag. He produced a stoppered vial of small white pills. He tipped six into his hand and passed two through the hole in the glass screen. ‘Take these,’ he said, with as much commanding authority as he could muster.
    ‘You trying to poison me?’
    ‘These are antizonals. You’re going to cross the zone anyway. You may as well take them.’
    Meroka snatched two of the pills for herself. ‘Do what the nice man says,’ she told the cabman.
    With one hand on the wheel he held the pills up to his lips, hesitated for an instant, then popped them down.
    ‘We just need to get to the other side,’ Quillon said. ‘After that, you can make your way back to Neon Heights. The pills will stave off the worst effects of the zone transition.’
    ‘I already feel weird.’
    ‘That’s the transition coming up, not the pills. They’ll take a few minutes to have any effect.’
    As he spoke one of the electric watches on Quillon’s sleeve began to buzz, alerting him to an imminent transition. He could already feel the physiological effects gaining in strength. He felt light-headed, he was sweating and his heart was beginning to race. The transition from Neon Heights to Steamville was mild in comparison to the hell that the angel had gone through when it plummeted from the Celestial Levels. All Quillon could hope for was that it would prove too much for the ghoul, already stressed by the time it had spent in Neon Heights. But if the ghoul had once been an angel, then so too had Quillon. He had no idea how he was going to take the transition. All he could do was place maximum faith in his physical resilience, his medical judgement and the arsenal of potions in his bag.
    It would have to suffice.
    The high whine of the flywheel had become a low, complaining moan. The car was bouncing along at half the speed it had been maintaining before coming off the slot. At the end of the road, the remaining buildings thinned out to the desolate urban no-man’s-land. Almost nothing stood intact; any buildings that had been here before the last zone shift had long since succumbed to weather and rot and fire - not to mention the occasional intrepid pillager - with only the barest shells remaining. On the other side of the wasteland - a strip running away in either direction, more or less concentric with the gentle curvature of the shelf - was the outskirts of Steamville, a tentative margin of low, dark buildings lit predominantly by gaslight.
    Quillon looked back again, hoping to see some sign that the other car was abandoning the chase. But it was still behind them, and if anything it was gaining ground. The rutted, barely serviceable road had now reduced their speed to little more than a brisk running pace. Vehicular traffic between zones was rare, most people preferring to use the trains, elevators and other public transit systems, all of which had been carefully engineered to tolerate many crossings.
    Quillon tensed. The feelings of transition intensified, sharp nausea rising in his throat. There was a moment of absolute cosmic cold, as if a billion tiny doors had opened in every cell of his body, letting in the draught of creation. The cab lurched and stalled and then resumed its ailing progress.