Deucalion (20 page)

28

THE PICTURE AND THE SONG

From every village in every Clanspace, they began to move. Not in ones and twos, not as nervous individuals, but as a race. Confident. Following a Dream. Choosing a future.

They carried little. Some food, some clothing, some skins to spread upon the Ocra for shelter. There was nothing else. Nothing else was important. Nothing else that they could carry would sustain them on their journey.

They walked off the Reserves, past the Security guards who stood and watched them go, powerless to stop the line of family after family, face after face, all moving with eyes fixed on the distant horizon. All heading south and east. Towards a spot just west of Edison.

News flashed to New Geneva, to the Department of Native Affairs, who notified the Office of the President. But Dimitri Gaston was busy with problems of his own, and put the communication aside until later. Whenever that might be.

Presidential Complex

New Geneva (City Central)

17/14/101 Standard

GASTON

‘Where did it come from?' Gaston stared at the Plastisheet poster, and boiled.

‘It was tacked to one of the trees in the central Greenspace.' Kennedy sounded nervous, and the nervousness carried over to his stance. He shifted from foot to foot in front of his superior's desk. ‘And . . . it wasn't the only one. We have reports of hundreds of them, identical, appearing all over the city.'

Gaston threw it away from him, and it settled slowly on the carpet, face up.

‘They're just bluffing, sir.' Kennedy attempted to sound confident, and failed miserably. ‘People will dismiss them as cranks. We should just ignore it.'

‘Of
course
we ignore it. Publicly. But I want to find the people responsible. I want to know if they
are
bluffing. Or how much they know. I—'

A knock on the door silenced him.

‘Come
in
!'
The door slid open and a young woman appeared, carrying two sheets similar to the one which lay on the floor. ‘Excuse me, sir, but Security sent these down. They said there were more put up in the Greenspace in the last hour.

Kennedy took them and passed them to Gaston as the woman left the room, shaking her head.

‘Find them!' he screamed. ‘Now! And put Security on the Greenspace.'

Kennedy nodded, but said nothing. There were times when it was more sensible to remain silent.

But as he left the room, with the sound of Plastisheets tearing behind him, the words he would have spoken, if he had possessed the courage, ran through his mind.

How do you put Security on a whole city?

Elokoi Reserve, Wieta Clan

Edison Sector (East Central)

17/14/101 Standard

SAEBI

Dotted around the flatland which bordered the village, the fires of the Clans burned like tiny stars. Every day more came, and echoes of the Dream spread like a tide across the Gathering.

Saebi stood in the doorway of the hut and watched the plain. Cael was sleeping quietly on the bed-platform, his thoughts free for once of the Pictures which had called them, originally, to follow the
haaj
.
For almost two cycles they had moved from Clan to Clan, from Cave to Cave, and each time he had recreated the Wall for them to see and know what might be lost.

Some would be found, and stolen, by the offworlders, but some, perhaps only one, would remain. A hundred generations from now, when the world had moved on, and the future was known, perhaps then it would be rediscovered, and speak to the future of the past.

Until Cael passed Beyond, Saebi knew that he would never be free of the Pictures. Nor would she want it otherwise. It was the bond that connected them. She, the Teller, teaching the words and the colours, the music and the feelings of the Stories, to the first of all the generations that stretched out beyond knowing, along the path that was the future. He, the Picture-maker, saving for those generations, on the sacred stone, all the images of the path that was the past.

As long as the generations continue,

the memories must live.

As long as the memories live,

so the generations must continue.

The final words of the Lastsong. The song that made the Teller.

Saebi gazed with love at her mate. Her onlymate. There could be no other. She had known it that day in the Cave, all those months ago. The Artist and the Singer of Songs. The present and the future and the past.

But for now, his mind was free of the Pictures, and there was no Song tugging at the corners of her mind.

With a final glance at the flickering campfires, she turned towards the bed-platform, and went to him.

29

VISIBLE SUPPORT

Carmody Island

Inland Sea (Eastern Region)

28/14/101 Standard

ELENA

As the flyer passed beyond the coast, the mind-contact faded gradually, until it was gone. This time, there would be no pick-up. This time, the mission was one which they hoped would lead to the end of their exile.

Elena stood on the beach at the northernmost tip of the island, and watched until the flyer disappeared in the distance. It was the first time since the crash that she had been more than a few hundred metres from him, and the sense of loss that she felt was physical.

She had never shown him, but in her own way she had come to depend on his presence. Daryl, the outsider, who was forever shut off from the new world she had discovered inside her mind. Cut off from the joy of the Sharing, he had remained, still, a part of her security. Though at times she was certain he did not realise it.

Now he was on the first leg of a journey which his words assured her was not dangerous, though the mind-tone he radiated told a different story.

‘Why you?' she had pleaded. Though she had known exactly why.

‘Because no one else would have the same credibility. We need someone who can make the claims and be believed – at least enough for the investigations to be considered seriously.' Then he had smiled. ‘You know, sometimes it feels odd talking to you, Elena.'

‘What do you mean, “odd”?'

‘I mean, you're eight years old, and you look eight years old, but I feel like I'm talking to someone my own age. Whatever happened to the little kid who got on that flyer with me?' The words were spoken without a sense of regret, in the tone of someone who probably knew the answer.

‘She grew up. There's no room on the island for kids, Daryl. You know that. At least I had eight years of childhood. I look at Marrie and Jonathon and the other little kids, and I wonder if it wouldn't be better for them to grow up for a few years without the Gift; without sharing the thoughts of adults all the time. I try to play with them when I can. You know, kids' games. But it's getting harder. I'm forgetting how, and I think they are too. If we ever get to lead a “normal” life, it's something we're going to have to think about.'

For a while longer, she stared at the point in the sky where the flyer had disappeared. Then she sat down in the sand, and watched the waves washing gently onto the shore of her wall-less prison.

New Geneva

(Southwest Suburban Sector)

27/14/101 Standard

DENNY

The room was full. A good sign. During the past weeks, the numbers of the group had gradually been swelling. Sometimes Denny worried that they could not screen the new members as thoroughly as he would like – but that, he told himself, was just his Security training. He trusted the intelligence of his core of recruiters. Most of them had been trained under the demanding regime of the Black Market. Their discipline was remarkable, and their sense of humour in tense situations refreshing.

He stood up. There was no need to call the meeting to order. Nothing about the group required – or allowed – that kind of formality.

‘Welcome. And to any new members, thanks for coming. Stage One of the campaign is well under way, and judging from the number of conflicting orders coming down to Security from the top, it's having its effect already.' He looked across the room at Ricky Nguyen and nodded. The young man acknowledged the gesture with a wink.

Ricky was his ‘organiser', the one who had distributed the posters and coordinated the lookouts and the diversionary squads to keep the Security patrols busy. He was a natural. Denny suspected it was Ricky himself who had stuck the posters on the entrance door of the Security Corps Residentials, though the young man had smiled and said nothing when he had raised the question.

He went on, ‘For the next couple of days, we're going to change focus. We want the citizens to have time to think; to talk among themselves about the questions on the posters. Time for the suspicions to take hold, before we introduce Stage Two.'

Denny reached down into a box behind the table, and pulled out three different sheets, placing them face down on the surface. ‘You are all here because I, or one of my recruiters, trust you. We trust you to want the truth to come out. And we trust you not to make judgements based on anything but the facts. That's the reason we began this campaign with questions, not accusations. That's the reason I'm about to ask for your help in another matter altogether.' He paused, and moved his gaze from face to face around the room before continuing.

‘I assume you all know, by now, that we are about to be “invaded”. How could any one of you
not
know? There's been almost nothing else on the tube for the last few days. But it will be a peaceful invasion, and I'm here tonight to explain its purpose, and to ask you to help us.

‘I say “us”, because although the Elokoi and we are very different, what we are both, humans and Elokoi, about to fight for is essentially the same thing. I am here to ask you to take part in a revolution. Not to overthrow the government, but to change the way the people in this society think. Or don't think.

‘I don't ask it lightly. If you choose to help, you will very likely meet the kind of resistance that the Elokoi have been facing for over a century. But I believe we are all here because we believe in freedom. And if we do, how can we deny it to a whole race? The Elokoi are coming to ask for the right to be free on their own planet, to return to the land of their origins and live there in peace.

‘What I am asking of you is
visible
support. And some help to put up a few posters.'

He picked up the three posters, holding them up one at a time so that the whole room could see them. This was the moment of truth, the instant when everything could fall apart under a barrage of negative questions. But the room remained silent.

Then Ricky stood up and moved towards the table. He said nothing. He simply knelt down and took a handful of posters from the box. He turned and held them out to a girl in the front row, who stood up to take them from him. Then, together, they began to move through the room, handing out more posters. Nobody refused. When the first small supply had run out, he returned to the table, picked up the whole box, and moved into the centre of the room. Soon he was surrounded by young people, each waiting patiently to reach into the box and pull out a handful of the coloured sheets.

When the box was empty, he tossed it into the corner, and looked across at Denny. He winked, but for once his face was serious.

After the others had left, and just the two of them remained, Denny sat down at the table and reached for a glass of water. He sipped it before speaking. ‘Thanks, Rick.'

‘No probs.' The young man smiled. ‘Nice speech, Denny. You rehearse it?'

Denny shrugged. ‘Nah. It just comes naturally. But seriously, Ricky, I don't know what I'd do without you. All of you.'

‘You'd be running around all night trying to put all these up yourself.' He waved a sheaf of the posters in front of him.

‘It's more than that. I need to know that I'm not bashing my head against a wall. That someone else thinks the way I do.'

Ricky sat down at the table opposite him and reached across, taking a sip from Denny's glass. ‘The way I see it, you're going to get a lot more support than you might imagine. Maybe not from the Old Earthers. Not all of them, anyway. But the Deucs are different.
We
don't owe anything to the mother-planet or to the DMC. We've seen what their “charity” did for our parents or grandparents. My grandfather died pulling copper out of the ground somewhere on the Northern Fringes. He was sixty-two, and they'd kept him working for twenty-five years, after the dust-bowl they called a land grant sent him broke. What hope did he have?

‘That's why I
knew
the election was rigged. Why would we vote for more of the same? They just couldn't trust us. Not after the way they used us.'

For a moment they were both silent. Then Denny spoke. ‘About the Elokoi . . . I don't think I pointed out just how much opposition they might get. The whole march and the protest is a gamble. But I just couldn't see any other way to win. They don't understand our politics, and I know Gaston. He's not going to let them out of his control, unless we force his hand.'

‘Trust the people, Den. They're not as stupid as most politicians like to think. And most of them don't hate without a reason. Play it smart, and they just might surprise you.'

‘I hope you're right, Ricky.' Suddenly tired, Denny rested his chin on his folded arms and closed his eyes.

‘Did you ever know me to be wrong?' Denny could hear the smile in his young friend's voice.

He opened his eyes. ‘Only when you stuck the posters on the door of the Security Residentials. What would I have done if they'd caught you?'

Ricky looked straight at him, his face serious. ‘No offence to your profession, Denny, but Security couldn't catch a cold in a snowstorm. They're too predictable.'

‘I hope you're right, Rick. For all our sakes.'

‘I told you. I'm always right.'

Outside, a patrol car cruised the empty street, and a stray cat ran for the cover of the shadows.

Denny leaned his head on his arms and drifted.