Expatria: The Box Set (28 page)

CHAPTER 4

There were two messages from Decker. Both were tagged for anyone involved with the work on Expatria and the arrival of GenGen. Stopp called one up.

'Hi, everybody.' A trifacsimile of Decker leapt up in a false space beyond Stopp's screen. 'This is pretty heavy, OK? Reports are confused but we can safely say there's some kind of trouble in Newest Delhi, something pretty big. There's fighting reported from Joplin and Arro-Mackie quarters, some kind of rally in the central marketplace. No clear reports from the Primal Manse. I don't know if it's an attack or an uprising or just a riot. I guess it could be any combination of those things. Or something different, who knows?' Decker shrugged and Stopp wished he would get on with the message. 'Best thing we can do is get down there and see what's going on, keep in touch with each other through ArcNet, try and trace whoever we can.'

As he spoke, ArcNet scrolled up a footnote:
27 Activated Trifacsimile-Links
. It flipped to
28
as Stopp read.

'Good luck.' And Decker was gone, his space taken up by the screen and part of an interior partition.

She called up the second message, Decker again. The time signal showed that this was logged three minutes before the previous one. 'Hi, everybody. Just drawing your attention to the fact that ArcNet's updated the transit projections. I think it's time we consulted Prime Edward about some kind of response—can anybody get through to him?'

Decker vanished and Stopp called for the update.
Arrival estimate for Terran vessel: Holy Corporation of GenGen. Three days (symmetrical error: eighteen hours)
.

Stopp's heart was racing and she couldn't slow it. She didn't
want
to slow it. They were almost here! The error set arrival at any time from 24 to 60 hours—that would be only one Terran day, at the shortest. She wondered if GenGen would keep Terran or Expatrian time when they arrived.

Forty-two hours
.

She checked the time, then called up the list of channels. A footnote scrolled up, telling her that there were thirty-six activated links with Newest Delhi alone. That was close to the highest number of angels any one part of Expatria had ever seen.

She scanned the list, recognised a few of the names. There was no Sukui or Mathias or Chet Alpha, they must all be in link already.

As she was deciding who to join up with the footnote flipped back to thirty-five and she saw Jeanna Lüngstrom's name enter the list. Quickly, she spoke the name into her mike.

A picture slid up. A gloomy interior, a narrow window-slit in thick stone walls. Jeanna nodded to the camera and prevented the trifax from materialising. 'It might be safer if there are less of us for them to spot,' she said.

'Here,' Jeanna continued, 'have a look out.' The view moved across to the window-slit. They were high up, something like two or three storeys. The surrounding buildings were low and grey, constructed out of mismatched boards and patched with tarpaulin. Closer, there was an open area, some kind of square or parade ground.

It was full of people. They were surging forwards, pushing up against the building. 'What's happening?' said Stopp. The message had indicated trouble in Newest Delhi but, somehow, she hadn't imagined anything on this scale.

'It's OK, for now,' said Jeanna. 'They have a ram but the door they're attacking is a false one. It's set against two metres of granite. Decker was with me but he had to go. He wanted to find Prime Edward or Mathias, someone in authority. He told me GenGen would be in orbit within four and a half days—look what they'll find!'

'It's OK,' said Stopp. 'They'll help us work things out, they'll help you to rebuild.'

'Yes,' said Jeanna. She pulled herself upright and carried the viewpoint away from the window. 'Listen to me. The situation is this. We're in a militia block in the Joplin quarter. I heard the trouble and came to look and the next thing I knew some Black-Handers had seen my old Guard leathers and they were after me. Jerzy Lazario shot his four-bore over their heads and dragged me into the block. I don't know what they'd have done if...'

ArcNet barely suppressed the shudder Jeanna passed on to the camera.

'And now they're trying to break in through two metres of granite.'

'The building's been evacuated.' Jeanna's voice was steadier now. 'There were only six militia troopers here anyway—everywhere is understaffed at present, they're all out on Clermont, keeping the islanders at bay. The others slipped out a while ago. Now there's just us.'

'Why are you waiting there, then?'

Jeanna shrugged. 'I think I'm trying to work it all out in my head. Things like why are they rioting? And why now? If I can understand it better then maybe I can decide what to do.'

'Have you been talking to Sukui-san recently?'

'What's that got to do with it?'

'Oh nothing. Just that you're beginning to sound something like him. Listen, Jeanna: what was your first response?'

'Get out.' No hesitation.

'Then
do
it. Before they find they've been pounding granite, before they decide to look for some other way in.'

'You're right. Trust my instincts, yes.' Viewpoint turned to an open doorway, passed through. 'It's only a small militia post,' said Jeanna, as she trotted along a plaster-board corridor. 'It backs onto Drade Wall, the northern extension of West Wall. Do you know Newest Delhi at all?'

'Sure,' said Stopp. 'I'm a regular.'

They came to a tight spiral of steps and Stopp had to fight her impatience at Expatria's gravity. Staircases were redundant in orbit.

Jeanna hurried down the stairs, passing four levels of doorways. She came to a wide basement area, rows of wooden tables and benches in disarray. Ornamental swords hung from the walls and a banner had been stretched across the far end of the room.

Viewpoint approached a fireplace. A bible skewered on a pair of compasses hung over the mantle. 'Masons,' said Jeanna, by way of explanation. 'They used militia buildings a lot until they built their new lodge on Tarabalus Row.' She ducked and stepped into the fireplace. When she stood up again Stopp's screen was blank.

A footnote scrolled up—
Ambience Boost
—and the screen began to resolve some kind of grainy detail once again.

'This tunnel tracks the foundations of Drade Wall,' said Jeanna. 'Come on.'

The screen remained a dark grey, but every so often a few details could be resolved. Once, Jeanna looked up to show Stopp a chink of light high above. 'Light-holes in the masonry,' she said. 'It's better than pitch black.' She continued on her way.

After a time Jeanna started to climb some steps. At the top she followed a rough passage for a short distance and then emerged behind a clump of goitre bushes.

'Jerzy must have taken off,' she said. She began to walk, the sun to her right casting long shadows. Boondog trees clustered by the track and flycatchers darted out from their sagging fronds. Stopp was always curious about the trees and animals. This was how they were meant to be, she thought; but they still looked wrong. Birds didn't need strong wings like that when there was no gravity to fight; trees didn't have to grow upwards and straight when there was nothing to drag them down.

There were people up ahead, talking animatedly. 'Jerzy,' said Jeanna. 'It's OK.'

'We've got to
do
something,' said a small, dark-haired woman. Three edgy-looking militia troopers stood listening.

The woman was wearing a servant's jacket and trousers with traces of tinsel around the cuffs. The mark of an entertainer. Stopp wondered if...

'Come on, Jeanna,' said the woman. '
You
must know that we have to act. Jerzy wants to just lie low and hope it'll sort itself out. Jay-Bee! There are Conventists all over—this isn't a bout of high spirits. It's the Little Sisters taking over where Greta jumped off.'

This was Mono, it had to be. She had come to Newest Delhi twenty days ago to save Mathias Hanrahan from execution. Her phenomenal energies had become legend in such a short time.

Jeanna seemed to be thinking.

'Intuition,' Stopp reminded her. Her voice suddenly drew Mono's attention to the trifax pack on Jeanna's back.

'Hey, you've got communications,' she said. 'Can you tell us what's going on?'

'The picture is vague,' said Stopp. She had wanted to call her 'Mono', but her nerves held her back. 'You appear to know more than me.'

'What happened at the funeral? Has any of this reached Matt or Sukui-san?'

'Decker left a short time ago to investigate,' said Jeanna. 'You said we had to do something, Mono. What do you suggest?'

~

'Hey, Stopp's playing board!'

Stopp cursed quietly. She had meant to listen out for the others, cut out before they could see what she was doing.

She looked around, craned to see through the archway and out of the console bay. Mordecai and Waltz had drifted into Zagreb Complex, Mordecai pointing at Stopp and laughing. There were sounds of others beyond the entrance...

'Listen,' she said quietly into her mike. 'I'm not doing much for you down there. I have to go now. I'll try to find out some more for you and then I'll be back in touch. Adios, Jeanna, Mono.' She slumped in her restrainer, told ArcNet to cut. The screen scrolled black.

'Mordecai, Waltz,' she said, pointing at a control that sent current through the restrainer's plastic, destroying its rigidity. 'Hi.'

Mordecai floated into the bay, looping a long, wire-like leg around a pillar and coming to a halt. His face was narrow and sharp, his nose like a toucan's beak, but nobody would ever say. 'Hi, ShortStopp,' he said. 'What's on screen?'

Stopp shrugged, nudged herself into open air. 'Nothing. Just talking to Jeanna Lüngstrom in ND.' The name didn't register on Mordecai's face. He could have been affecting disinterest, could have been genuinely ignorant, Stopp couldn't tell.

'There's trouble down there... fighting in the streets, that kind of thing.' Her hands were flapping about nervously, making her course through the air somewhat erratic. It emphasised her small size, she always thought: the way her drift could be so easily upset. She made her hands float free and waited for Mordecai's lazy response to arrive.

'Fighting? Don't say.' He shrugged, left it at that.

The FanClub weren't supposed to be interested in the Expatrians. GenGen was far more important.

GenGen was the future.

'What's happening?' asked Dippso, floating into the Complex's entrance lobby. 'Have any of you guys been trifax recently? I was down there an hour ago, trading lies with a guy called Fahrouk, when something like hell broke out at the Playa Cruzo. A crowd built up and they tried to break into the Manse grounds and when the gates opened up they were faced with would-you-believe me
Conventists
. The ones in grey, the guards. The crowd wouldn't stop until the Sisters opened up with dog-shot.'

Mordecai didn't bother to answer, he just drifted deeper into the Complex, waved
Hi
to some more Fans as they palmed their way into the lobby.

'It's like that all over,' said Stopp, catching a toe-rail next to Dippso. Dippso was one of the ones who never made much of Stopp's difference, she probably never even noticed. Others, like Mordecai, when they weren't on guard, gave Stopp the
Bad Luck
look that she remembered from her parents.

She had no right to be born a freak when the solar cycle was in a trough. No right.

'I guessed you'd have been on trifax,' said Dippso. She had nice eyes, something like the brown of an oak tree's bark where you've chipped away the outer layers. Her skin had more charcoal to it. Today she had wrapped herself in a huge lacy shawl, pinned in places but left free in others, flowing with her movements and the draughts created by others.

Stopp wished she had style like Dippso.

'I don't know exactly what's happening,' said Stopp. 'ArcNet might...' She shrugged, let her hands dance briefly in front of her.

'I'll check,' said Dippso, heading for a restrainer. Dippso didn't care what the others thought, she wouldn't hide her interest in Expatria. The vocal summary was one of Decker's sims, a holohead in a false space where the two-dee screen should have been. It was still chaos down there, nobody seemed to have a clear picture. It appeared that some kind of organised coup was behind it all, but nobody knew if it was going to plan or not.

Dippso was about to tell ArcNet to cut but Stopp pointed at the screen and she paused.

Dippso nodded and called up the GenGen update, the same as it had been when Stopp had found it. 'Forty-two hours, plus-minus eighteen,' Dippso mumbled. 'Ha'an, they're almost
here
.'

She looked at Stopp and nodded. 'Do you want to tell them?' she said.

Stopp blushed, backed away... stopped her hands in their nervous jitterbug.

'Hey, people,' called Dippso. Suddenly Stopp knew that this could be a turning point. Now there was something to focus on: the FanClub had found its cause.

Slowly, Fans drifted into the console bay to see who had been making all the noise. 'Listen up,' said Dippso, freeing herself from her restrainer. 'We have an update from ArcNet.' She paused. She knew the value of silence. 'We have a fix on the Holy Corporation's ship, we have a plus or minus error of eighteen hours.'

Her eyes were lit up with energy. Someone let go with an impatient, 'Come
on
then.'

'Best ETA is three Expatrian days. I repeat:
three days
. Less than two Terran days.'

There were a few yells of disbelief, a whoop from Waltz as Mordecai grabbed her in a skin-tight embrace. Dippso looked at Stopp, now drifting at ninety degrees to her body-line. 'What do you think, ShortStopp?'

It was an affectionate use of the name. Stopp didn't care. 'I think we should let them know we're here is what I think.' She let herself spin away and then caught herself on another toe-rail. 'Do you hear me?' she repeated aloud. 'Let's let them know we're here!'

They were all looking at her, suddenly silent. She felt her face burning, her hands dancing...