Expatria: The Box Set

PART ONE

Into the Night

Chapter 1

The voice seemed to come from nowhere. 'People! Welcome to the Newest Delhi open-air market.' A pause, then: 'Idi Mondata wants you to know about his sea-fish: he has mawfish, doggies, mirrorbait and,
yes
, the finest blue bass you could ever taste. Idi tells me it came in only...'

From his concealed position, Mathias Hanrahan didn't notice the effect of his disembodied words on the people who filled the market-place.

He didn't sense the wave of awe that swept over the throng, shopper and trader alike.

He didn't sense the panic.

After telling the good people about Idi Mondata's fresh seafish, Mathias moved on to Mica Akhra's newly crafted implements—the finest tools this side of Orlyons, Mica had called them.

As he spoke into the microphone, Mathias marvelled at how his own voice was being transformed into tiny electrical impulses to be multiplied and converted back to sound by the loudspeakers. Now he knew why the book had called them loudspeakers.

Mathias and Mica had constructed the public address system in secret, relying on components and a manual they had found in an abandoned storeroom in the Primal Manse.

They had placed the two loudspeakers high up on one of the balustrades that were set against West Wall. Concealed cables led back to a heavy-duty cell and the amplifier unit which they had positioned under the back awning of Mica's stall.

When they had finished, Mathias had wanted to search out Greta Beckett and tell her of his plan—explain to her about the little packets of energy that would carry his words—but he had held back. Greta was going through a Conventist phase and she disliked his fondness for the ancient ideas and technologies.

The previous week, Mathias had come across a music box in his rummagings through the closed-off rooms of the Manse. He'd taken it out to Gorra Point, concealed in his cloak; Greta had arrived a short time later and they had stood watching the great brown cutters skimming the sunset-reddened waves. Leading Greta beyond the hearing of their chaperone, Mathias had given his fiancée the box. She had taken it curiously, studying its design, too intricate for a native product. She had tipped it to one side and instantly a coloured ball of light had sprung dancing from the box and strange music had started, halfway through its tune.

When he had found the box, Mathias had thought it beautiful.

Greta had thrown it away and it had broken on the rocks. She had shuddered and tugged her sun-white hair away from her face. 'Thank you, Matti,' she had said sadly. 'But it's not of this world. It's not ours to give or receive.'

And so Mathias had not involved Greta in his plans to modernise the market-place in the city of Newest Delhi. The Convent had clouded her judgement in recent weeks so that now it appeared that her every action had to be considered in terms of the sorority and the lessons of Mary/Deus.

Only Mica Akhra and Idi Mondata had known of Mathias's plans today and neither of them had believed the technology could be made to work. 'Voices in the wires?' Idi had said. 'More like voices in your head. Go see Doctor O'Grade, Matt, you're going crazy!'

Even Mica had not really believed in the public address system. Mica used the old technology every day: a terran microfurnace could cast tools of a higher calibre than any other method, well worth the price the Manse charged for power, as she always said. You can never overestimate the wonders of the old ways, she always said. But she had not believed the wires would carry Mathias's words. That was just too much.

'Vera Lugubé's greens are freshly picked every morning, grown along the banks of the purest mountain streams...'

Now Mathias was moving on to cover the stall-holders who did not know of his scheme. By next market-day they would be queuing up for his services and the city of Newest Delhi would be one more step into the future.

As Mathias talked—Chet Alpha's walk-in peep-show had a new star and the price was just the same—he marvelled at how clearly his words rose above the clamour of the market-place. His voice sounded so clear, so powerful.

Mica Akhra lifted a flap at the back of her stall and hissed at him. 'I think you'd better look,' she said. Her mid-brown face had turned as pale as Mathias's.

Mathias stopped talking into his microphone and instantly he realised why his voice had carried so clearly. Apart from the occasional cries of caged animals the market-place was quiet. Mathias had never heard such a silence.

With a hollow feeling in his stomach, he stood and raised the flap at the back of Mica's stall.

It all seemed unreal.

He stepped through and stood beside Mica. The market was packed with people, as was always the case. Children, mothers, traders, geriatrics, fathers who normally stood tall and proud, heads above the mass of ordinary folk. All stood pale and open-mouthed. All looked up at the sky, trying to see where the Voice had come from. Clusters of Masons stood plucking uneasily at their neckties, waving Hiram handshakes at acquaintances in the crowd. Even the wailing momma who fronted the Jesus-Buddha stall—'penny a prayer, a quarter for minor forgiveness'—had halted her Cry of the Hellbound.

A crackle of static came from the speakers and echoed around the gathering. A child's scream broke loose to be muffled by someone's hand.

'Why are they scared?' whispered Mathias. 'Why have they stopped trading?' Mica didn't answer and Mathias wondered if the success of the system had affected her too. He had expected
some
sort of reaction—none of these people had ever heard an amplified voice—but nothing like this. He could see the look on the wailing momma's face: it was a blend of fear and something like rapture, as if her Jesus-Buddha had spoken to her through one of the wooden statuettes she sold from her stall. The others, too, showed fear tinged with awe: a voice they didn't understand, a voice they didn't
want
to understand.

'They're crazy,' he muttered. 'Crazy.'

He turned his back on Mica and returned to the rear of her stall. He picked up the microphone and heard a moan from the crowd as another crackle came from the loudspeakers.

Holding up the flap so he could see, he spoke into his public address system.

'This is Mathias Hanrahan, heir to the Primacy of Newest Delhi. I am speaking to you over a voice-multiplication system. Its outlets are set in West Wall. If the system proves useful it will become a familiar feature of the market-place.'

The crowd was stirring. Ripples of movement ran through the throng, colour returned to faces, noises resumed their babble.

'Listen to the voice and you will find the best bargains, the finest fresh foods, the crispest cloths and linens! Yes, we will have the finest market-place on all Expatria!'

But Mathias had misread the crowd's reaction. The ripples of movement turned into waves that broke against the stalls, the colouring of the faces was fuelled by the adrenalin of rage, the sounds rose to drown out the words carried by Mathias Hanrahan's miraculous public address system.

Bodies pressed against the frontage of Mica Akhra's Finest Metal Implements stall, breaking one of the uprights away so that the striped canvas roof fell in on Mica and Mathias. Struggling free of the stall, Mathias saw that they had not turned against
him
, the perpetrator of the Voice. It was more complex than that. He stared at the frenzied faces. The crowd was a mindless animal, moving under its own momentum, surging around the market-place and bringing down everything in its path. The beast had been awoken.

The first stall to go under was the wailing momma's. She rode free with the flow, clutching an armful of Jesus-Buddha statuettes to her chest; but then, as part of the crowd, she was taken over, absorbed, and she began to throw the carved figures with the rest. Stones, too, were flying, along with greens from Vera Lugubé's stall and chunks of fish from Idi Mondata's.

Mica Akhra clutched Mathias's arm. 'Come on,' she said. 'This is
not
the place to be.' At times the small age difference between Mathias and Mica did not matter, at others it gave her a seniority that he instantly accepted and obeyed. Now, he followed her without thinking into the fringes of the rampaging crowd.

Instantly there were hands pulling at him, bodies pushing, jostling, a current that was pulling him in a direction he didn't want to take. He fought the flow, shrugged free of the hands and tried to follow Mica.

Something wet and heavy hit him across the shoulders, a huge steak of blue bass. Stunned, he looked around but he had lost track of Mica. His head fuzzy, he let the crowd take him, pulling him through the shapes it drew in what had once been the market-place of Newest Delhi.

Rough stone against his face, the taste of it in his mouth. Mathias clung to the wall, realised where he was. He edged along the obstacle, fearful of being crushed by the crowd-creature but fearful, also, of losing contact with the solidity of West Wall.

A hand curled around his face and pulled his head back. He bit hard on an index finger and the hand disappeared. Tasting blood in his mouth, he struggled along the face of the wall and finally he reached the opening that he knew must be there. Without the wall to support him, the weight of the crowd pushed Mathias through the gap and he clambered up the steep steps and away from the madness that he had somehow inspired.

At the top of the steps, Mathias paused for breath. The city's ramparts were wide here, the sea thundering on one side, the crowd on the other. Hands seized him roughly.

'When will you ever learn?' said a tired voice that he instantly recognised. Lucilla Ngota, consort of March Hanrahan, his father; the woman who had sworn to shape Mathias into something that might just be worthy of inheriting March's Primacy when the time came.

The hands—those of a guard—released him and he turned.

'But...' The words were suddenly difficult for Mathias to find. 'They shouldn't have...'

Lucilla was looking at him with an expression that told him exactly what she thought. He would never make it, he would never be a worthy heir.

Rifle shots rang out from around West Wall, fired into the air. Mathias looked at Lucilla and at the mix of Primal Guards and militia troopers that surrounded them on the ramparts. More shots rang out. His shoulders slumped. Why did nobody understand?

'Come along,' said Lucilla. 'The militia can handle the rest. I think March might want to discuss this with you.'

~

The Primal Manse formed a rough crescent of interconnected buildings close to the market-place and the stone curtain of West Wall. The original prefabricated colony M-frames had been overbuilt with masonry and extended over the years with an array of mismatched blocks and wings, leaving the Primal gardens to the north, and a square known as the Playa Cruzo to the east. Lucilla left Mathias in his room in the private western wing of the Manse, the oldest part of the complex.

He sat on his bed, staring at the shelves of ancient documents, most of which he could not even read. He opened his windows so he could hear the distant swell of the sea. Whenever he was in torment he turned to the sea; its fathomless age helped him to see things in perspective, helped him to shrug things off.

After a time, there was a knock at the door.

He was in another world but eventually the persistent tap-tap-tap broke through and he strode over and opened the door himself. A servant, masked for the customary anonymity of the serving classes, said, 'Sir, the Prime of Newest Delhi awaits your company in the Court of Sighs.'

The Court of Sighs was a high-roofed hall, its sides lined with pillars. March Hanrahan sat casually towards one end, just one of the two dozen or so present, yet clearly marked as different by the people around him. His face was lined and greyed, years ahead of time; his hair was white already. Again, Mathias wondered at the pressures of the Primacy.

The Prime was talking to Edward Olfarssen-Hanrahan, Mathias's half-brother by one of March's early mistresses. March often said publicly that he regretted bedding Natalia Olfarssen. She was a tough negotiator. She had carried his son, only three months younger than Mathias, and insisted that he be recognised as the Prime's second child. Natalia Olfarssen had friends in irksome places and there had been only one way to placate her: grudgingly, Edward had been brought up as a member of the Primal household. Although the clan was large, its growth had been by affiliation and takeover; Mathias and Edward were the only members of their generation to bear the family name.

March Hanrahan ignored Mathias as he approached but all the others in the court paused in their conversations and watched. Mathias felt good. He knew he was about to be publicly humiliated but that mattered little in the run of things.

The Prime said something sharply and Edward backed away, his face pale. Mathias stopped before his father and said, 'You requested my presence, March.'

The Prime stared at his son, as if he was trying to see through him. 'I have warned you before,' he said, spacing his words. 'You are irresponsible. Immature. You have no sense of your own position.'

Mathias looked around. They were all lapping it up. They couldn't wait to slither away and spread word of the hopelessly irresponsible heir. He smiled at them and then stopped, aware that March might get the wrong impression.

His father continued. 'We have yet to discover the monetary cost of your little escapade. Stalls were wrecked, their produce destroyed. People were hurt, fourteen are still under doctor's supervision. Someone could have been
killed
today. And all because you wanted to be louder than anyone else.' The Prime shook his head. 'I sometimes have trouble identifying myself in you, son. You make things difficult for no good reason.'

Mathias spoke into the silence. 'Sir. I see now that I handled it badly. I should have guessed what might happen. But it was the
people
who did this, not me. They reacted out of ignorance and injured themselves in consequence. Confronted with something they didn't understand, they panicked. Next time, things will be different.'