Expatria: The Box Set (30 page)
Read Expatria: The Box Set Online
Authors: Keith Brooke
'Ah, Kasimir.' Edward bowed his head in a gesture that made Sukui flush with honour. 'I will always try to find time for the representative of a Prime of Alabama City.' He patted Sukui on the shoulder and the three of them walked slowly onwards. 'You have been studying our predicament closely, Kasimir. Tell me how we will turn it around to favour ourselves.'
'Forgive me, my Lord, but is Captain Anderson not the one to whom you should turn for such advice?'
Anderson laughed. He was a tall man, with lines on his face that suggested the bark of a tree, his body its trunk. 'Go on, Sukui-san. Do you think I've not made my suggestions?' There was a trace of bitterness in the captain's voice. His advice had not been taken.
'Go on, Kasimir.' The Prime was watching him.
'Prime Salvo always used to remind me that inaction is most certainly a form of action: an issue cannot be avoided. Currently, I feel that inaction can be our only course of action. The imbalance of numbers militates against any other course, either aggressive or pacific. There appears to be no way that more than one or two could slip away and such a choice would most certainly bring retribution against those who remain.
'You sound like my mother.' The Prime laughed.
'From all accounts your mother is a talented adviser.'
Since Greta's death Natalia Olfarssen had assumed a vital supporting role in Edward's leadership. She had achieved a great deal of respect in a remarkably short time. If her advice corresponded with Sukui's then he could see why this should be so.
'There is another reason for my caution,' said Sukui. 'One that overrides all others.' He bowed his head and waited for Prime Edward to ask him to continue.
'Go on.'
'This is clearly not an isolated incident,' he said. 'The Convent must be staging some kind of takeover in Newest Delhi itself. We would gain little by breaking out if we were to find the city in Conventist hands. However. If they are unsuccessful in the city then they will certainly be unsuccessful here. That is why I suggest a studied course of inaction, my lord.'
'Hmm,' said Edward, looking around, trying to peer into the open tents. 'You may be right, but as Lars here says, we must be cautious of a hostage situation arising. Ah! There they are.'
He raised a hand in greeting as his mother and his two half-sisters, Elleman and Monica, appeared around a tent. 'Natalia,' he called. 'We have been looking for you. I thought we could pray as a family tonight. The wailing momma is waiting.'
'My lord,' said Natalia. Elleman and Monica bent their knees in greeting and smiled meekly at Anderson and Sukui. They were close in age, barely carrying the secondary characters of their sex; Sukui put Elleman at eighteen, Monica a year or so less. 'We haven't met,' Natalia added, nodding towards Sukui.
At a gesture from the Prime, Sukui bowed and said, 'My name is Kasimir Sukui. I am special adviser to Prime Salvo Andric.' She gave him her hand and he kissed her knuckles, mumbling, 'I am honoured, madam.'
She smiled at him, and then at Captain Anderson and her son. 'I feel in need of some prayer,' she said. 'Would the Prime mind if Lars and Kasimir joined us?'
Anderson immediately excused himself, saying that he must visit the injured members of the Guard. Following Anderson's prompt, Sukui said, 'Please excuse me, my lord. But I am not a religious man, despite the ministrations of Chet Alpha.' Edward and his mother laughed; Elleman and Monica smiled and looked at each other—the look of a younger generation.
'You are excused the prayers, Kasimir. Go and study our captors again, see if you can spot their fatal weakness.'
Sukui kept his head bowed until Edward and his companions had disappeared beyond the banks of canvas. He had heard a lot about Natalia Olfarssen. He had not expected her to be such a pleasant-mannered person. Sukui prided himself on his judgement of character and now he felt an increased confidence in the primacy of Edward Olfarssen-Hanrahan. After this encounter he decided that the chances of a favourable outcome were improved—the primacy's chances of survival had risen to almost thirty per cent, in Sukui's reckoning. Once again, he longed for his diary and a pencil. Then he could estimate the likely outcome to a far greater degree of accuracy.
~
As darkness fell, the captives came together around the fire, talking and laughing, a sound that had recently become unfamiliar; the flames appeared to be giving some kind of sustenance to their spirits. Kasimir Sukui had been fascinated at first, but now he stood and walked slowly away from the gathering. By morning the fire would be gone and the situation would be no better, despite the false optimism engendered by the wood-smoke.
After a time he came upon a large Celtic cross thrust up against the sky, lit by the stars and one of Expatria's two moons. It had been engraved in exquisite detail but its crafter must have been impoverished: the wood was poor, split, flaking away; in perhaps five years' time this monument would no longer stand.
Sukui shook his head and walked on. Everywhere he looked there was death, decay, something that would stir up memories of his dream. He looked at the clear sky and wondered if he could survive another night without surrendering to sleep.
A figure loomed, standing by a low tomb. A soldier of the Primal Guard, on duty.
Sukui nodded to her and passed by. He found the Prime leaning against a tree, mumbling to himself, gently hitting his head against his arm on the trunk. Sukui scuffed his feet in the leafmould.
'Wha—? Oh, Sukui-san.' This afternoon Prime Edward had looked sure in his role, but now he looked distraught, although he attempted to conceal it; Sukui thought again of how young he was for such responsibilities. 'I came here to think...'
'I will go.' Sukui turned and then paused momentarily.
'No. No, Kasimir, stay. Please.'
Sukui waited, his head bowed.
'There have been... I... I've spoken with the Convent, with Maye Cyclades,' said Edward. 'Or rather, she's spoken with me.' Now he leaned with his back to the trunk of the tree, his eyes wandering across the ground. His primal self-control appeared to have retreated with the fall of day. 'She says they've taken Newest Delhi: the Convent has the Manse, the barracks, the strongholds of West Wall and Drade Wall; the Black-Handers have the streets. She says everything is under control, she says the takeover was easy, as if the people were only too grateful for a change at the top.'
Edward had clearly taken the Matre's words at surface value, he had been too shaken to explore them, to penetrate their subtext, their true meaning.
'Why did she tell you this?'
'She offered me a deal, Kasimir. The Convent will support my Primacy in return for a number of conditions. One: that the Primal Guards and militias are dismantled to be replaced by the Conventist Guard. Two: that there should be a council of "sororial advisers" with powers of veto. Three: that all moral and religious teachings should be subject to official scrutiny. And four: that these changes should be implemented immediately. I've spoken with Sala Pedralis and she says I should consider their terms—even Sala has given up! I am to be their puppet, Kasimir, there's no way out.'
Clearly it was not only the Prime's self-control that had deserted him—it was his reason, too. 'The takeover in your capital city was straightforward?' Sukui asked.
Prime Edward nodded disconsolately.
'In that case,' said Sukui, 'why do we still live in tents at this miserable cemetery? Why does
Maye Cyclades?
' The thought had clearly not occurred to the Prime.
'She offers you a deal, my lord. Why? If she approaches you thus then you must still be in a position of some power: the Conventists
need
you. They need you to establish their authority, they need you as a publicly acceptable figurehead. Their grip in Newest Delhi must be weak indeed, if they make you such an offer. Prime Hanrahan, by approaching you in this manner they are admitting their own failure.'
His words had penetrated. Edward Olfarssen-Hanrahan's shoulders were still slumped, but he seemed to have regained something of a positive air.
'Your advice is noted, Sukui-san.' Edward's words, as he headed back towards the tents, carried a renewed air of authority; the young man had become Prime again.
~
Kasimir Sukui sat with his back to the Deadacre's boundary wall. The fire had burnt too rapidly for its meagre supply of wood and now only a few embers remained, glowing in the shadows.
Sukui was fighting the weight of his eyelids, determined that the night would not win. He wondered if he stayed awake for long enough a sleep of pure exhaustion might rid him of that awful dream. He decided it would be worth the experiment if he still suffered when he was free of this miserable graveyard.
'Kasimir.'
He took his eyes away from the last embers of the fire. He knew that whisper, he knew that...
He sprang to his feet as a figure slithered across a low part of the wall. 'Lucilla, Lucilla,' he moaned as they held each other tight.
'
Lucilla
. What are you doing here?' His words were muffled by the bulk of Lucilla Ngota's shoulder but she heard them, nonetheless.
'Come on, Kasimir,' she said, pulling him back down to the ground and then kissing him firmly on the mouth. 'We mustn't draw their attention. It was easy to get in—they're focused on stopping two hundred getting
out
, not me getting in. I've been talking to Decker and Anatek—they've been monitoring Newest Delhi, they say it's pretty chaotic in there, they say the Convent doesn't seem to have much control over things. But I had to get here, Kasimir, I had to see you in one piece.' She kissed him again.
'But why did you come?'
'I had to see you were OK,' she said, 'but there was more than that. Like I said, I've been talking to Decker. Listen, Kasimir: the GenGen ship has arrived in orbit.' She looked up at the dark sky, clouds now obscuring the heavens. 'Decker's seen them in the flesh.'
Sukui kept control of his senses. 'Continue,' he said. 'Please, Lucilla.'
'They're going to send down a landing party,' said Lucilla. 'Decker's told them that Newest Delhi is the place to make for. Respects to your Prime, Kasimir, but he's not the most likely person to give a welcoming party, is he?'
Sukui nodded and Lucilla continued.
'They'll be putting down in about seven hours. Somewhere near to Newest Delhi—Decker's trying to direct them to the Deadacre. It's going to be one hell of a shock to the Convent,' said Lucilla. 'We thought that if all the hostages were prepared then we might be able to take advantage of the confusion. Come on, Kasimir, we have to be ready for them.' She tugged him to his feet and, dumbly, he followed.
Sometimes, he thought, events could be too daunting even for a man of science. 'I'm coming,' he said. 'Please, Lucilla, just give me some time to catch up.' And so he followed her towards the tents.
CHAPTER 6
Petra's prediction had been an accurate one. The team of actives that filed towards the ferry comprised entirely of Romans. Katya Tatin followed Pieter Sugratski towards the lock, suffering the usual dislocation of zero gravity, wondering if, even now, she was being studied, assessed.
The core seemed crowded. It always did. But there was still plenty of volume for the staff to pass between the shuttles and the spoke lifts which would take them out to the centrifugal gravity of the rim. The core had an atmosphere like nowhere else Katya knew. The core was home to the MetaPlex's primary network of processing ganglia, it was the MetaPlex's brains, the MetaPlex's guts and heart. Also, the core was where the
Third Testament
's great posanti drivers were attached to the ship, on their 800 metre quarantine stalk. Katya felt as if she could squeeze the atmosphere between finger and thumb, wring out its power, its sense of age, its sense of potential.
She caught the latch and swung herself in behind Sugratski; she was one of the last actives to enter the ferry. As she floated through the main gallery, the first evangelicals drifted in behind her, chattering excitedly, calling to each other, jostling for position. Passing the nets of sealed volumes of
The Third Testament
, Katya entered the lounge and relaxed, clear of the tension being cast up by the evangelicals.
'Control of the body is control of the mind,' she muttered, calming herself with the familiar shape of the primary Maxim. 'Hey, Turk,' she said, louder, drifting towards her friend, glad that he had made selection to the team. 'You OK?'
'Top order,' he said promptly, eyes wide. 'Just a mite nervous is all. Don't know if I'm cut out for this kind of thing. What if they've become monsters?'
Turkut was acting way out of character, his nerves skewing the imposed self-control of his templar implants. 'You've seen the pictures,' said Katya. 'You've heard their voices.
'Sure, but their ArcNet is only one step short of MetaPlexity,' said Turkut. 'What if it's gone rogue and painted us up all those pics and audios?'
'The MetaPlex would have detected anomalies,' said Katya, frustrated by his doubt, bringing the feeling back down with a prompt from her templars. 'Don't forget, the Meta' is one step further up the scale than ArcNet.' Turkut appeared to relax a little; she hoped her words had reassured him. A few minutes after the first tele-contact between the orbitals and the Holy Corporation, there had been a link-up between their two computer networks. They had investigated each other, spotted where they had each branched from the evolutionary tree of artificial intelligence. ArcNet had been the best of its day but it had been superseded by MetaPlexity, the welding of persona constructs within the system as a means of uniting and moulding the various facets that comprised the computer network. The systems had swapped limited packages of information: now ArcNet had access to the principles of Corporate Universalism whilst the MetaPlex knew the tales of Ha'an and the resurgence of the orbital colonies; ArcNet had the concise history of the Consumer Wars and how they had delayed all progress for generations, whilst the MetaPlex had the valuable information that there were further colonies surviving on Expatria's surface.
The data swap had been limited, at the request of the MetaPlex. Information was valuable, it could be traded at a later date if that should prove desirable or necessary. Until then, contact would remain polite and distant.
The MetaPlex could not have been fooled; ArcNet lacked the sophistication.
'Prepare for acceleration,' said a voice from ferry control. 'Three seconds, two seconds, one second, acceleration, one, two, three, four, five and end of acceleration. Thank you.'
It had only been a light surge of gees—they didn't have far to go; the
Third Testament
had slotted into an orbit fifteen kilometres back of the orbital cluster. Katya had expected them to move in closer but the scattering of small-scale biospheres and agropetites would have been endangered by a closer approach.
Why hadn't they cleared the way for the Corporation? In the solar system that would have been standard but out here everything was different. She allowed her templars to call up the codes, reminding herself that she should expect the unusual.
For the thrust, Katya had tagged herself to a cushioned wall; now she released the handle and drifted nosewards to look at a tri-dee of the cluster. The shuttle was under Director Roux's autonomous control and he had labelled the holo, using information lifted from ArcNet during the data-swap. Blurs between each biosphere indicated that distances had been artificially compressed in order to fit the colonies into the same tri-dee. Instead of crowding together, as they appeared to do, the major units were a minimum of eight kilometres apart. The biospheres ranged in size from what could only be personal units, indicated on the holo as simple spheroid specks, to the original generation ships—Ark Red, Ark Blue, Ark Green, Station Yellow—and other large conglomerations with the more poetic names Gable Ends, Babeloah, Lafayette.
She looked more closely at Station Yellow, waved a carpal under the tri-dee's reader and called for a blow-up. An enlarged Yellow hung to one side of the main holo. With an effort, Katya could make out the original structure of the ark ship, a cylinder 812 metres long by 252 diameter; over the years it had been added to—plastic blisters pocked the surface, tubes and living blocks stuck out at improbable angles, one end appeared to have been overgrown by a network of pipes and columns, with tiny living-bubbles embedded in the heart of the tangle. If the cylinder were to spin again, most of these additions would be cast away by the angular thrust. The entire structure looked unsafe, as did so many no-gravity constructions.
She wondered what Patrische would have made of such a scene. He had been a physical engineer to begin with, before his sub-director had pushed him into social construction. She shuddered and drifted away, trying to focus on the task ahead.
The existence of orbital colonies had been a surprise to her and, apparently, to the MetaPlex—the sims had only ever focused on a ground-based encounter. Cora had spent some time in company law so she had asked her about the question of jurisdiction. Almost thirty years ago, under the third Stockholm Agreement, GenGen, through its holding interest in Eurecon, had bought out the European Space Agency and Kosmoskya, its principal funding partners in the original Expatrian colonisation effort. By that time the ESA was little more than a digital letterhead and Kosmoskya had been easily persuaded to take its role of selling the Confederate Russian Republic's space science to the extreme.
The result was that the Holy Corporation owned all rights to Expatria. But what about the orbital colonies? Were they included?
Cora had said yes, of course they were. 'Their arks were paid for by the UN consortium, now run by GenGen. All their original stock, genetic and otherwise, was funded by the consortium. We own it all, Katya, we can do what we want.' Her confidence had shocked Katya: ownership was not the real issue—what mattered was that these Expatrians had missed the Second Coming on Earth, they did not know of the new gospel. They were not yet a part of the culture of belief.
Katya drifted across to a cafe-panel, flashed her carpal implant at its scanner and selected a tube of hi-balance juice to suck on. She could feel the tension all around her, hanging in the air without gravity to drag it down, make it settle. She felt twitchy, so she made her heart slow down, cut her blood pressure by twenty-five over ten.
She had Maxed thirty minutes before entering the shuttle, but again the buzz had not lasted long. Now, the hi-balance juice hit her stomach lining and began to fizz through her blood system, revitalising her nanomedical heterocytes in a dizzying rush; now she began to feel a similar kind of high to the Max—her nerve-endings weren't singing, but they felt like they might just hum a bit, a Philemonic buzz. She smiled.
And stopped.
Director Roux was with her, hanging ethereally before her face, his body strong and virile, not his usual wasted, amputated stump, lodged in its floater home. His face was hard-looking and framed with silvered black hair, a look modelled on the Maxwell Riesling template, masking his true age. He must be well into his eighth decade by now.
No one else could see him, they were all chattering or staring blankly ahead in their various versions of anticipation. Katya tapped her left temple in acknowledgement: Roux was calling her direct, appearing to her through an hallucination induced by her templar implants.
'RoKatya Tatin,' he said. The personal introduction confirmed that this was a one-to-one with one of the facets of Roux's psyche, no projection for the masses. Other parts of his mind would be working on other things back on the
Third Testament
; the ability to split the brain into different, independent channels was one of the early steps from human to psylogue. One day, in a century or two, he would enter the MetaPlex, an equal with Max and Tamsin and Stuardine, a single element in the universal All. Until then he was director in control of all Romans in the Expatrian system. 'Control the body,' he said, waiting for the response.
'Control the mind,' said Katya, making her voice clear and confident, cutting the laryngeal tremor before it had time to affect her words. She had the same bodily control in hallucination as she did in reality.
'RoKatya, your performance in sim has marked you out. You are independent, you are perceptive, you judge people with a talent barely short of MetaPlexity. I have read your pheno, Katya: you are an unusual Roman.'
It was what she had always longed to hear—praise, commendation, distinction from the Roman mass. But coming from Director Roux it made her wary. What did he want? What did he mean? What was he implying? Was she a
bad
Roman? Was that what he was saying? But his words had been laced with praise; he
wanted
her to be an atypical Roman. She wondered what effect this might have on her career prospects, whether she should apply for realignment, maybe to the Ephesians or the Corinthians; but that would be a major step—she didn't have the breeding for the other bands, her genes would hold her back and a major genetic retrofit was not possible out here in the Expatrian system. Anyway, she had been an active Roman for too long to change. 'Thank you,' she said, having decided on the appropriate response. 'The law is righteous.' A Maxim was always a safe option.
'You have Roman tact,' said the director, grinning like one of the avatar saints. 'I have a special role for you, Katya, one for which you are inherently suited. You are to be a member of the introductory team of Director Roux, RoPetra Odenz, RoMika Krenz, RoLeo Duval and RoKatya Tatin. You are to assess the people that you encounter, study their strengths and their weaknesses; you must determine who will be a major influence in their hierarchy. Know thine enemy, Katya; know thy partners, too. Bear witness for the Holy Corporation. Your insight is valuable.'
'To judge another is to condemn oneself?' She was not using the Maxim to question her director, more seeking assurance that his word had corporate authority.
'And so we are all condemned.' The director smiled and began to fade. In his place was blankness as the MetaPlex began to channel a sequence of re-appropriated data into Katya's templar interfaces and so into her long-term memory. Faces, names, background information, all of which she would be able to recall at will; her eidetic memory was a part of her condition, a useful tool in her underground missionary work back on Earth.
She opened her eyes and Turkut was hanging before her, where Director Roux had been a moment before. 'PlusRem?' he asked. He must have been watching.
She blinked and checked her time signal. She had been under for two seconds. 'Yes,' she said. 'Wiping my short-term. Making way for what's about to hit us.' Turkut grinned uneasily and Katya kept her pulse down to a restful level; maybe some plusRem would be a good idea.
~
Deceleration at Station Yellow took longer than the thrust from the
Third Testament
. The ferry slowed gently, tiny counter-thrusts of its positioning jets aligning it with the station's port, marginally slowing the vessel and then stopping it within millimetres of the air-lock. The old ark's lock was an appropriate size and the ferry's docking envelope sealed the gap easily.
There was a twenty second pause after the ferry stopped moving. Katya rubbed her skin-suit tight, checked that the snipe was in position, clinging to her left thigh. She slid the face-mask over her mouth and eyes, felt its tendrils burrowing into her templar interfaces. Sealed into her suit, she was ready for the vacuum, for cold and heat, for the orbital pathogens that might inhabit Station Yellow. Her air was filtered by the phage-screen in her mask, emergency oxygen supplies a part of the interior cellular structure of her body-suit. She prompted the mask to go through its spectral range, from long infrared to mid ultraviolet.
She scanned the lounge on UV, found Turkut. He looked at her and she studied his wide-open eyes. Cosmetic surgery could be masked but there was usually some kind of giveaway in UV. Turk's eyes were natch, part of his pheno. She slid her mask's spectrum back to normal and drifted out into the gallery, through the mass of humbling evangelicals, to join the introductory team by the lock. She'd hate to be an evangelical again, Katya thought, remembering her time in Prague. None of the ones in the gallery had more than a simple nose-filter to protect them from the uncertainties of Station Yellow. They didn't appear to care, though, they had their faith in the Holy Corporation, that was all they could need.
'Faith through righteousness,' Katya said softly, finding comfort in the form.
'Door opening,' said the ferry and the hatch began to lift slowly. A passageway. Circular. Three metres diameter. Walls of cracked plastic, ferns and lichens clinging to the sides of damp crevasses.
They drifted out, the introductory team taking the lead, pausing around the edge of the tunnel while Director Roux hummed out, a trif-projected head and torso on a solid autonomic floater.