Expatria: The Box Set (32 page)

CHAPTER 8

The Holy Corporation of GenGen had moved into one of the vacant hangars in Station Yellow. Stopp had kept up with all ArcNet's coverage. She'd seen them swarming in from the series of shuttles that had passed between the
Third Testament
and Yellow ever since the first contact. Supplies and equipment had been dragged inside by what looked like some kind of alien race. The GenGen people called them 'menials'.

By careful instruction of ArcNet, Stopp had found a close-up of a menial in trifax. It hung before her in a false space in the wall of her blister, a full-length image, grunting as the menial guided its drifting load of bibles towards the hangar. Its features were human but it wasn't much bigger than Stopp. Its head rested directly on its muscular shoulders and its hairless skull looked waxy and was laced with a network of pulsing blood vessels.

Stopp had watched them for ages, fascinated by their solid, gravity-based limbs. Menials didn't seem to get tired at all, despite the heavy nature of their work. None of it looked natural... all this in an ark only a few kay-ems from where she sat.

A footnote caught her attention and she acknowledged it and then smiled as ArcNet cast up a trifax of Zither before her. 'Hi, Fans,' he said, the traditional FanClub greeting. 'Any of you in Babeloah might like to know that ArcNet has picked up a piece of information for us: you can see the Holy Corporation at work in Yellow, but how'd you like to see 'em skin-to-skin? There's a shuttle headed for Babeloah as I'm recording—' a footnote indicated that this was seven minutes ago '—so any of you wants to make a welcome party will know where it's at. Grady Cesar will be there for the establishment so let's be there in numbers, OK?' With a V for peace Zither was gone from Stopp's blister.

'They're coming!' cried Stopp, out loud. She felt silly but the hatch was sealed and nobody could hear. More quietly, this time: 'They're coming.'

Without a prompt, ArcNet cast up a holo of the approaching shuttle against the blister's surface. It was wingless, basic in design, not built for the stresses of a planetary landing. In the background, the great torus of the
Third Testament
hung, the slow movement of its spokes communicating its occupants' requirement for some kind of gravity.

Freeing the exit, she left the blister, allowing the hatch to swing shut behind her with a clank. A few metres along the chute she passed into an air-lock, took a deep breath and then exhaled as the air drained away. Through another hatch, she pushed herself down an external tube, guiding her progress by toe-grabs and well-timed nudges of the tube's walls. This section had been damaged by space garbage years before. No one had ever felt the need to fix it. Eventually she came to another lock and passed inside, taking an easy breath of air, savouring the warmth.

She came out into a large internal space and spotted two more Fans at the far side. She headed over to join them.

Gradually, the reception committee increased in numbers. Grady Cesar arrived, his paralysed legs tied up behind him like strips of cloth. He had been one of the last to believe in the broadcasts from the
Third Testament
—for a long time he had stuck by his belief that they were ents shows, no more. Later, he had claimed that he didn't really care in any case, he had his own personal space, he had been here before even Ha'an so he could take anything that came.

Yet here he was, waiting for the shuttle to arrive.

Others came too. Members of the older generations were turning up, the mutants in their forties and a few in their seventies, the normal ones born away from the solar peaks. Freaks like Stopp.

Pretty soon all the Fans in Babeloah had appeared, sixteen of them in total. Stopp hung in the background and let Mordecai and Zither and Palomino do all the talking.

And ArcNet signalled that the shuttle had arrived.

There was a pause for a few seconds, as the shuttle matched itself to the docking mechanism of Babeloah and then the tall doors slid slowly open.

The first people to push out into the open bay were tall and powerful-looking, the ones that called themselves 'actives'. Stopp had never seen people like it, not skin-to-skin like this. Even the people on Expatria, with their gravity-trained bodies, weren't built like this.

They pushed out with a ballistic grace, slowing themselves with a rotation of the body and a spreading of the limbs. They were clothed in shiny skin-suits, with some kind of air filter taped across the lower parts of their faces and grey masks wrapped around their eyes. Stopp looked at their thighs and—like in the pictures—they had what looked like guns strapped on tight.

Behind these leaders came a less disciplined procession of the 'evangelicals', forming their own little groups, distinguished by their looser, more varied clothing and their chaotic chatter. The evangelicals only had air masks strapped to their faces and already one of the louder groups—dressed in bright colours, laughing, testing this new air-space with little spins and tumbles—were discarding them and taunting their more cautious companions.

Grady Cesar swam out into the space and executed a graceful stop before one of the new arrivals, his tied-up feet bouncing against his shoulders as he came to a halt. 'Well,' he said. 'I'd just like to—'

'Are we ready, Fans?' called Mordecai, drifting out in front of the gathering FanClub. 'A one, a two, a one, two, three,
four
.' ArcNet piped in a bonebell intro from a nearby speaker and then the Fan Club started to sing.

'
When I find myself in times of trouble, Spiritual insolvency
.' Stopp knew the words like they'd been etched onto her meninges. '
Lead me through to wisdom, Shine on me
.' ArcNet was feeding their voices back to them, building up the choral effect, making the docking bay
ring
with sound.

Grady Cesar did a quick one-eighty and glowered at the FanClub. Their timing had been perfect, they'd caught him when he was puffed up to his fullest.

'
And in my heart of darkness I can see the Lord ahead of me. Lead me through to wisdom, Shine on me, oh gee-gee
.' Stopp's throat was straining. She hadn't sung so hard since any time she could remember.

The GenGen staff had appeared confused when the Fans started to sing, but suddenly they seemed to recognise their corporate hymn. Whilst the actives held their ground in the centre and Grady Cesar tried helplessly to talk with them, the evangelicals spread out, encountering the first of Babeloah's waiting inhabitants, handing out copies of
The Third Testament
, talking and laughing. More of the evangelicals drifted towards the FanClub, smiling, chattering, staring.

'
I can see it shinin' on me, Oh I can see, Oh gee-gee. In the light of GenGen, I will be, I will see
.'

An unmasked evangelical was drifting before them now, followed closely by four of his companions. He had a mid-brown face, curly blond hair, blue eyes. He was laughing, too. Not at the Fans, Stopp decided—he was laughing because he was pleased to get such a reception.

His friends were pleased with the singing, too.

He stopped by Mordecai, managed to control his laughter. 'Got the timing wrong in the chorus,' he said. His accent was barely intelligible, he was putting emphasis on all the wrong syllables, dragging them out like they were on a rack.

Stopp was fascinated by the casual strength that ran through every movement he made, even when he blinked. He had a charisma, a charm, that seemed to be burrowing down inside her.

He saw her looking and she flushed.

'Hey you,' he said. At least, that's what Stopp thought he said. She had spent a long time with recordings but sometimes she still had trouble with their speech. 'Do you want a copy of
The Third Testament
? It might make life worth the effort.' Without waiting for her hesitant response, he sent a copy of the book sailing towards Stopp and she reached for it ... caught it and hugged it to her chest, wishing her skin would stop burning.

'Hey, Dutresco, Credo, come over here when an Ephesian calls you!' He had spun around and stopped himself with a precision rare even amongst the orbitals. 'The choir wants some lessons in the dirge. Come on.' He turned back to the expectant fans. 'If you want to sing that thing properly you ask a Philemonic. Hey, Dutresco!'

The two Philemonics stopped before the Fans. 'OK,' said one. 'Let's head for a comfortable key, OK? Let's teach you some spontaneity. OK, after me: lahhhh.' And so the choir sang.

~

Dutresco and Credo had schooled them rigorously in the tune and the emphases they should use. 'You have to feel it in your heart,' Credo had kept on saying. 'Make it resonate. Once again.'

After a time Stopp had followed Zither out towards one of Babeloah's main through-tubes. She wanted to feel close to him, just then, but she didn't know how. They had met Dutresco at the mouth of the tube and all Zither had said to Stopp was, 'I'll see you around, maybe.'

Later she had met the Ephesian who had first approached the FanClub. His name was EpheHermann Tunnicliffe, he had said, or just Hermann to her. He'd offered to go over some scripture with her but she had just blushed and hurried away down a tube she had known he couldn't use, the size of him.

Somehow she had expected more than this, but she felt herself to be out on the fringes, watching it all go by.

Now, she was in Ark Red. Hooking a toe or a finger around the trailing vines and guiding herself through the jungle.

Drifting towards the Zagreb Complex, guided by some unconscious impulse, she swatted at a rat as it lunged at her from the overgrowth. Usually they only did it for fun but she had never really trusted them. Some of them even had teeth, according to rumour.

In the distance she could hear a working party, singing the hymn as they cleared scrub on the far side of the cylinder. The menials' pronunciation was even more laboured than the evangelicals' and they sang the hymn more slowly. It still sounded good though.

The menials were making room for an Ephesian mission house. ArcNet had shown Stopp the plans. It looked wonderful: it was low and wide and they were going to let the trees creep back over the building's exterior when they had finished: it was going to end up something like the Zagreb Complex.

She caught herself up by the entrance, swung herself inside.

She made straight for the console bay and said, 'Stopp-two-pees,' as the restrainer warmed itself into her shape. Her throat felt sore, as if the muscles around her neck had shrunk themselves down. The Philemonics had made them sing too hard and too long. She cleared her throat and wished she hadn't.

Interpreting what she wanted, ArcNet gave her the list of links available on Expatria. A special footnote caught her attention and she said, 'Yes, go on.'

A trifax appeared above her console's screen, a projection of another flat screen. A picture slid up onto this pseudo-screen, framed by a few green branches.
A view of the Deadacre Cemetery
, said another footnote.
Camera left by Lucilla Ngota
. The screen showed one corner of the graveyard, people crowded into it, surrounded by what looked like troops in grey uniforms. A small group of prisoners had been isolated and were even more heavily guarded than the others.

Stopp called for a close-up. Sukui-san was one of the special prisoners, along with Lucilla and someone she thought was the Prime of Newest Delhi. They had Mathias, too. She had never met him, but everybody knew his face. She stifled a sneeze and scanned her real screen to see if she could find out what was happening. She selected a link.

'Hi, my name's Stopp,' she said, as her trifax appeared on the crowded screen, facing the camera. 'It'd be great if you could give me an update, tell me what's happening.' She liked how she looked on screen, the way the cosmetics made her look more balanced, the way she didn't get nervous and let her hands fly all over. In Ark Red she sneezed, but in trifax ArcNet had filtered it out.

'Hello,' said a small voice. 'I am Samizdat Buschois. I am twelve years old and I am a Death Krishna novice. Have you met an Earth-person yet?'

'Hmm,' said Stopp. 'They're not so special. Will you tell me what's happening?' All the screen showed was a crowd of people, the saffron robes of Krishnas, the softer colours of pageanteers, the drabber colours of everyone else. Lack of height must be a real problem on Expatria: Samizdat couldn't see a thing past the nearest people. It could have been anywhere, but ArcNet had placed it on the road to the Deadacre.

'We're on the way to the boneyard,' said Samizdat. 'Kardinal Idi Mondata, the rishi, is leading us. He says the Terrans are going to land. The Convent are there. So is the Prime and his dead wife. Idi says that's where the Convent have been running things from. He says their top lady is there, the Matre Dee. I don't know what we're going to do, but Idi says the boneyard is the place to be so we're going there.'

Just then, Samizdat yelled and the viewpoint lurched suddenly. 'Hey, give her back!' he cried, but it was no good.

The screen showed a brief glimpse of the small boy, hands held out, then it pulled away and showed the face of a wailing momma, holding the projector at arms' length and pointing it back at herself. 'Ayeeeeeewahwahwah!' she cried, tipping her head back. Her Cry of the Hellbound was piercing, even with ArcNet's prompt filtering. Stopp wondered what it was like in reality.

'Hello,' she said. 'My name is Stopp. Can you show me what's happening?'

'Sure, babba,' said the woman. The viewpoint lurched and then shot up high above the crowd. ArcNet managed to control the image, swinging from sky down to the heads of the crowd. At the zenith of the projector's arc, the gathered voices came to a sudden crescendo, calls of 'Hari-hari', crying mommas, folk-singing Charities, the general hubbub of the crowd, and then the view swung down, amidst cries and ducking people, thumping to the ground.

Stopp's trifax had cut during the pack's flight. Now it flipped up again, and she said, 'Hey, will somebody take me to Idi?' She hoped he would remember her from when she had been with Lucilla in Glendower.