Expatria: The Box Set (14 page)

After a time, she stood and replaced her glass on the drinks shelf. She smiled at Sukui and said, 'I'm glad you invited me, Kasimir. You must show me your Project and try to win me over. I have to go now.'

She went.

He was desperately glad that she had gone. He could have taken little more. The first time he had met Lucilla Ngota she had made him feel tiny, insignificant. She could have killed him and it would have meant nothing to her. Now she was charming and diplomatic; he felt at ease with her pragmatic view of the world and the discipline of her thoughts. A genuine friendship was in prospect. And she made him feel terrible. He felt weak, he felt empty when she left the room, he felt totally under her power when she was with him.

Worse still, he liked it, this animal urge that was clouding his senses.

He stopped himself. He stood and walked around the small office. Lucilla was clearly unattainable; he should forget her. But he felt constricted—he had no outlet for his feelings, no Orlyons to drain his urges and help him regain his self-control.

For long minutes, Kasimir Sukui paced around that borrowed office in Merchant Chapel, wondering what he should do. Then a repeated cry from the Traders' Gallery finally filtered through the layers of his confused mind.

'Chet Alpha's Pageant of the Holy Charities has come to Alabama City!'

Sukui hurried across to the window and looked out over the packed trading place.

'Your munificent host, Chet Alpha, invites you all to come and see his Glorious Pageant!'

There was a horse-drawn caravan inching its way through the masses, the same brightly painted caravan Sukui knew from Orlyons. Alpha's women were sitting in the caravan and on top of it, staring out at the writhing shapes of the crowd.

Sukui spotted the man who was doing all the shouting. Chet Alpha had come to Alabama City.

Sukui smiled. Maybe things were beginning to work out in a positive fashion, after all. He left the office. It was, perhaps, an appropriate time to renew some old acquaintances.

~

The tightly packed bodies and the curious expressions reminded Sukui uncomfortably of his last encounter with a crowd, below Siggy Axelmeyer's balcony. This time the people were looking at the gaudy little caravan being pulled in their midst by a pair of bony horses, they were looking at the confident little man who pushed his way through, shouting, 'Come around and see what's here—it's Chet Alpha's Pageant of the Holy Charities and it's setting up right here in the Traders' Gallery!'

Immediately, Sukui noted the differences in Alpha's appearance. He was wearing a long, dark cloak, tied around his bulging waistline with a length of cord. His hair was cleaner and longer, flowing in blue-silver strands to his shoulders, and his face had been shaved accurately, without the occasional missed tufts of stubble that had been his fashion in Orlyons. The women were wearing pastel-coloured robes and were clean-faced; not the exotically clad, painted whores of the Rue de la Patterdois Sukui had frequented before. Alpha had cleaned up his act, a sensible precaution when arriving in a new city.

Chet Alpha turned and put his hand out to stop the horses. 'Here, girls,' he barked. 'This is the place. I can feel it in my bladder.' The procession came to a halt and the girls busied themselves removing boards and cases from the caravan and giving corn to the horses.

'Chet Alpha, I see you have taken up my offer,' said Sukui, emerging from the crowd. 'You have come to Alabama City.'

Alpha turned and squinted at Sukui, then he nodded and smiled. 'Sukui-san,' he said. 'A familiar face, that's nice.' Alpha's skin was flushed, his eyes wide, but he did not smell of alcohol. That was something else that was new, since he had been Orlyons's foremost Purveyor of Pleasure. 'Offer?' he asked. 'What offer?'

'Your memory fails you,' said Sukui. 'In Orlyons you were concerned about the political climate and I suggested that you come to Alabama City in order to continue your trade. I told you of the Lord Salvo Andric's interest in the arts. Do you recall?'

'Mister Sukui,' said Alpha, patting him jovially on the arm. 'I remember what you said, but I'm not here because of that. I'm here because the hand of fate has brought me here.'

Alpha smiled and accepted a mug of beer from one of the women.

Sukui remembered her and nodded. Her name was Larinda and, despite her sharp tongue, he liked her. He had money with him and for once he had time to spare. Larinda smiled meekly and returned to grooming the horses.

'Chet,' he said. 'Are you in a position to begin business at the moment, or shall I make an appointment?' He smiled politely.

'Business? You mean...?' Alpha laughed and slapped Sukui's arm again. 'Excuse me, Sukui-san,' he finally said. 'It's good to be reminded of the old times in Orlyons. You see... you see my purpose in Alabama City is more of a
recruitment
campaign. We are looking for people to join us.'

'Business is expanding?'

Alpha laughed again. 'Would you like to join us, Sukui-san? The girls will give you all the training you need.'

Sukui was not accustomed to Alpha joking in this manner. Then he realised that it had been a serious suggestion. 'Me?' he spluttered. 'But...'

'You see, Sukui-san, I am here to pursue a higher goal. I've seen the light. I had this dream one night. I was being spoken to. First I thought it was Larinda, then I thought maybe the chillis—my old mother used to blame everything on the chillis—and then I saw the Truth.

'I was
chosen
, Mister Sukui. Chosen to spread the Word. In my vision I learnt that my function in the current life is to travel the settled lands of Expatria, telling people... well, telling them the
Word
. You want a beer? Benasrit brews it in a tank under the Caravan of the Holy Charities. That's what they are, you see. The girls, they're not whores no more. No, they're
Charities
, consorts of the gods. But the goddesses must need consorts too, so I'm looking for a few boys as well. You'd get a nice robe if you joined, Mister Sukui. You want to try out for a trial period?'

Sukui glanced across at Chet Alpha's Charities. Suddenly they seemed so pure, in their pastel robes and their unpainted faces. He looked back at Alpha and tried to decide if he had been driven entirely insane or if it was only a temporary setback. 'I would need to understand your theology,' said Sukui. Alpha looked blank. 'Your divine purpose. Tell me, what is this message you have been chosen to spread? What is this
Word?
'

Alpha looked smug. He grinned broadly and then took another swallow of his beer. 'Sukui-san,' he said. 'You are truly a man of wisdom. Your intellect shines through like a... well, it does, anyway. You are—'

'What is your Word?' prompted Sukui.

'God didn't tell me that.' Alpha shrugged. 'He just told me to spread it. Said He'd tell me the Word some other time. Shit, I'm in no hurry, Mister Sukui. The Guy wants time, I
give
Him some time.'

Sukui smiled; he bowed his head and made ready to leave. He had business that required his attention.

'Now,' said Alpha. 'Which of the Charities was it you wanted to fuck?'

~

Lui Tsang had acted against Sukui's directions but now Sukui was eager to see the results. Sukui had told him to concentrate on a simple visual link; Tsang had wanted to be more innovative. Tsang had wanted to use the Toshiba trifacsimile as the basis for their communication system.

'You've got a trifax?' Decker had said, as reported by Sanjit Borodin. 'Then we're in business. And it's a
Tosh?
That's amazing. I'll tell you what to do and we'll be fixed up in zero time. OK?' It appeared that the Toshiba unit was the basis of the standard means of communication in orbit—'It's kind of like a quasi-hologrammatic real-time simulator,' Tsang had said, one time when he had failed to explain it to Sukui. The initial broadcast had only utilised TV to keep things simple.

Now, half of the hut had been transformed into what Lui Tsang was calling a 'Com-studio'. The windows had been covered over—darkness improving the clarity of the trifax—and the adapted Toshiba had been arranged on a four-legged stand, cables trailing across the floor in an unruly tangle.

The TV screen was filled with a face Sukui had not seen before. 'Hi, I'm Decker's and Mathias's and Edward's cousin,' she had said, when Sukui had enquired. 'Who are you? You've gotten a screwy voice.'

'He's OK,' Sun-Ray Sidhu had said over Sukui's shoulder. 'He's the boss.' Then to Sukui he had added, 'She meant she liked your voice, sir. By when she said "screwy", I mean. She's cover for Decker. He's working on the trifax.' So was everyone in the hut with the exception of Sukui.

Sukui said, 'Call me,' and then went outside and sat on the damp grass. He drew the diary from his robe and the pencil from his skullcap. There was much to add, he was growing lax. Soon he was adrift in the world of memory, sorting, sifting, deciding what was important and what could be forgotten.

He paused to push the lead further out of his pencil stalk and noticed that there was no noise coming from the hut. He turned just as Helena Lubycz emerged and waved at him. 'It's time,' she said, then turned and vanished inside the hut.

Sukui felt nervous as he brushed himself down and headed for the door. Everyone looked up as he entered. 'Stand there,' said Tsang, pointing to an open space in one corner of the hut. 'This is your camera, you have to look at it here.' He pointed to a trio of lenses, each directed at Sukui.

Sukui stood straight; it was a proud moment. Tsang flicked a switch and Sukui noticed a gasp come from the TV screen. Decker's cousin was staring to one side. 'Look at the camera,' hissed Tsang.

Decker appeared on the TV, looking in the same direction as his cousin. 'Lui,' he said. 'You've done a good job. Hello. Hello, Kasimir Sukui—you've now got yourself a twin, here in Orbital Station Blue. How does it feel?'

It felt vaguely disappointing. Sukui was still in the hut, looking at the TV screen. At least Decker appeared pleased with the results at his end of the link.

'Will you move a bit?' said Decker. 'No, not too much, you'll get out of range. You just lost an arm for a moment there. Right. OK. You'll like to know that we now have a full visual link this end. We can see you. I'll need to fix up your colour a bit—you look a little green—but that's easy enough. We'll fix your end up in a few minutes.'

'It is good that you are satisfied,' said Sukui. 'Do you have any news?'

Decker looked serious. 'How are you doing with putting word about? We've got us a definite fix on the GenGen ship. Their blue-shift has dropped drastically and they're close enough for us to look for parallax. ArcNet puts them at a little over eight months distant, but that's still inspired guessing. We have to decide on our response, Kasimir. Time's running out. And I'll tell you another thing. They've started broadcasting at us again. Only this time it's different, it's propaganda. They're telling us how GenGen has improved the lives of millions, how they're so wonderful that now they want to improve life for
us
. I'm not so sure about wanting to be improved by them when they don't even know us. Listen, we've got to do something.'

'In your conversations with Mathias you must have discussed the options,' said Sukui. 'What do
you
think?' He was stalling. With the Prime in his present frame of mind, the only thing possible was to delay.

'Mathias wanted us to land. He asked if we had shuttles that could take the trip.'

'And have you?' Sukui had not considered this possibility—it could cause problems, but on the other hand it could well be the answer to everything.

'Yes, but... it wouldn't work, I'm sorry. The shuttles could take it, it's the people that couldn't. You see, we don't live at gees out here. There are a few stations with low gravities scattered around, but they're just for industrial use. We don't need it. So you see, there's none of us who could take the gravity, it's not possible.'

'Then we must think further,' said Sukui. 'You mentioned completing the trifacsimile link. Shall we continue?'

'Yes,' said Decker. 'Yeah. I've told Lui: we're going to end this transmission and send you down a looped holo sequence, one that will repeat over and over. It'll let you set your equipment up how you want it—you set it for that and everything'll be fine. OK?' The picture on the TV cut out and Tsang deactivated the camera that pointed at Sukui.

Sukui stood to one side and watched Tsang and Sender moving about, positioning what Sukui recognised as another part of the trifacsimile, the projector. It was all very cumbersome, but he knew that, given time, they would grow accustomed to the equipment. He would have to direct the team's work towards such a goal. The way things were going, they would have to be ready to move out of the hut at short notice. Watching them set up the holo, Sukui decided to instruct Tsang and maybe Sender to devise a wholly portable communicator, even if it took two or more people to transport the device. It was a necessary precaution.

'Ready?' said Tsang. Sun-Ray Sidhu nodded. 'Right.' Tsang made a final adjustment and stepped back from the projector.

At first Sukui thought they had been tricked. A figure appeared in the centre of the hut, looking around but not meeting anyone's gaze. Was this the onset of an invasion?

Then Sukui forced himself to be rational. He studied the figure and made himself see that it was merely a projection, an image. It had no substance.

He looked at the face and saw that it was the face he knew from the TV screen. It was Decker, his features still blurred, sparks of varicoloured light flashing excitedly around his image. His body was thin and weak; Sukui could see clearly why the Orbital peoples could not land on the planetary surface. Their wasted muscles would never resist the gravity, their atrophied bones would snap under their own bodyweight. Decker's feet were twisted under him, a few centimetres clear of the floor, and he drifted occasionally, shifting position without the impediment of gravity. One hand was outstretched, holding a ghostly rail, fixing Decker's position against the perturbations of freefall.