Expatria: The Box Set (35 page)
Read Expatria: The Box Set Online
Authors: Keith Brooke
Noise returned to the scene with a cry of 'Hari-hari, Hari-hari,' from nearby, and a buzz arose from all around, the buzz of words, of chatter, of excitement.
So this is Expatria
, thought Katya. She looked at the people, at the distant hills, back at the people and their chaotic blend of styles and types and phenos, listening to their cries and their talk, looking at the wonder on their faces, the disbelief in their eyes.
All sense of
déjà vu
had drained away. How could a sim ever prepare her for something like this?
CHAPTER 10
The lander's burning halo dissipated into a shimmering heat haze as the vessel came to hang approximately three metres from the ground. After three seconds the shuttle dropped slowly, coming to rest halfway between the Conventists on one side and the Death Krishnas, Jesus-Buddhists and pageanteers by the Deadacre's entrance.
Kasimir Sukui stared at the lander. It was a cylinder, some hundred metres in length, resting on one side that had been flattened out to create two small wings, about thirty metres across. At one end there were great covings, propulsion units of some type; at the other there were smaller manoeuvring jets.
Sukui had seen a picture book in Prime Salvo's library, a relic from the technological past. The book had shown ancient shuttles much like this one. Terran engineering had clearly made little progress in recent centuries.
A cordon of Conventist Guards surrounded Sukui as he stood with the Prime and Mathias and the others Maye Cyclades had called from the crowd of captives. The probability of a leak of information had been high, but it had been a necessary risk. They had to be prepared.
Beyond the cordon, Sukui could see the mayhem the shuttle's arrival had caused. Captives were running around, their guards not knowing what they should do. Some of the prisoners had been recaptured but, even now, Sukui could see Lettie Sebokeng and Vincente Pallas helping each other over the cemetery wall to freedom.
In the distance, the Death Krishnas and the pageanteers had returned to the Deadacre, some reseating themselves in the mud, others edging forward after a vanguard of running, yelling, laughing children.
He looked again at the shuttle but there was no sign that anything was about to happen.
He looked at Maye Cyclades, noted how the squareness of her jawline gave her a look of strength and decisiveness.
Prime Edward Olfarssen-Hanrahan straightened almost imperceptibly and took a deep breath. Then he stepped forward and pushed his way free of the cordon. The guards raised their bully-sticks as if to beat him back but they were uncertain and they looked to their Matre for guidance. Cyclades gave a brief sideways movement of her head and they lowered their sticks and stood to attention.
'Come along,' said the Prime. 'Mathias, Lars, Natalia.' He began to walk towards the shuttle. Mathias hesitated and then joined him, followed by Captain Anderson and Natalia Olfarssen.
Sukui glanced at Lucilla and Sala Pedralis and Tobias Macari, the three remaining captives. Maye Cyclades hurried after Prime Edward, and Sukui could see the two other Matres rushing out to join her. He reached for Lucilla's arm, nodded at Sala and Justice Macari and said, 'The good lord may require our support.'
Fifty metres short of the shuttle, Sukui caught up with the Prime. Glancing back over his shoulder he noted that the disturbance had subsided and people were standing and watching, their own predicaments temporarily forgotten. Beyond the shuttle, the people of Newest Delhi had begun to stir. The chanting had resumed and now a small delegation was heading out to join Prime Edward at the centre of the Deadacre.
Sukui smiled. One of the approaching figures was short and fat, cradling a clay bottle in his arms. Chet Alpha. Mono was there, too, along with some Death Krishnas, a wailing momma, a neck-tied Mason and three Nano-Hippies, waving their hands in the movement of the mystical snake and humming their bee cadence.
Sukui bumped into the back of Mathias. He looked up at the shuttle and saw that a door was opening upwards, a step-way descending towards the uneven surface of the cemetery.
'Greta,' whispered the Prime, his voice tight and pained.
The shuttle had landed on Greta Olfarssen-Hanrahan's new grave. The Conventist cross with its weeping madonna poked cheekily out from under the lander, its back broken and crushed by the vessel's weight.
Sukui looked at Edward, but the Prime was staring at the opening door of the shuttle, the matter of his wife's grave put firmly aside.
'A new chapter of history has begun,' said the Prime. 'The future awaits.'
It could never escape
, thought Sukui, but he kept the observation to himself. He was in a foreign land, in the presence of a foreign Prime.
He was merely an observer.
~
A woman emerged. She was tall and strong, wearing a shiny blue-black outfit that clung to every surface of her body. The powerful flow of her movements reminded Sukui of Lucilla, although the woman was twenty centimetres taller. There was a plastic mesh across her mouth and nose and a shiny grey mask across her eyes.
'They're actives,' whispered Lucilla. 'They look just like Decker told me. The evangelicals don't get so much protection.'
The woman, the
active
, stopped at the bottom of the step-way and turned to one side, her actions mirrored by the second active, a man. Six others stopped on either side of the step-way.
Prime Edward took a step forward and halted. His move had been copied by Maye Cyclades. She met his challenging look and then bowed her head in submission and crossed herself.
Sukui watched them, fascinated by the unspoken battle for supremacy.
The moment drew out and nothing happened. Then there was a sound from the top of the step-way and the actives turned their heads upwards in unison. A man appeared in the opening. His hair was black, tinged with silver, his blue gaze steady and imperious. He looked to be in his middle years, yet Sukui felt that he must be far older. The lower part of his body was obscured by the machine upon which he rode. It was a seat, encased in a shield of some kind of plastic. It hung approximately twenty centimetres from the surface of the step-way and moved smoothly down towards ground level at a little faster than walking pace. The air beneath the contraption was unclean, the ground under it looked blurred and indistinct. Sukui was fascinated. The device had no means of support, yet it carried the failing body of this man!
'His name is Director Roux, I think,' said Lucilla. 'He's their front person. He's riding an autonome.'
'It is, I believe, a trifacsimile of Director Roux,' said Sukui. Initially, the image had deceived him, but now, in the direct light of the sun, Sukui could identify the unnatural lighting and shadows. It was an effective image, nonetheless.
'In the name of the Holy Corporation of GenGen,' said the director, hanging before the audience of Expatrians, 'I give you my greeting.'
He made his autonome dip slightly and Prime Edward bowed his head and stepped forward to speak.
'Welcome to Expatria, and to the jurisdistrict of Newest Delhi,' said Edward. 'I greet you. I invite you to my home. I am Edward Olfarssen-Hanrahan, Prime of Newest Delhi and the amalgamated regions of influence.' He bowed his head again.
Sukui was watching Maye Cyclades closely. Her eyes darted from Edward to Roux, to the actives and to her fellow Matres and then back again, to Edward and to Roux. There had been little she could do, so she had allowed Edward to take over once again. The Convent must have some sort of hold in Newest Delhi, he thought; Cyclades would use that in their bargaining. Immediately he could see the triune in action again: the takeover was past, the present was here and only through the present could they hope to influence the future.
He looked around as the small grouping was joined by Chet Alpha and his companions. Mono came to Mathias's side and put an arm around his waist. One of the Krishnas nodded at Lucilla and she smiled in return; Sukui recalled that she had travelled with a carnival of Death Krishnas and he wondered if this tall, lame Kardinal had been with that group.
Beyond the immediate gathering, the crowds were closing, curiously, in. Death Krishnas and Charities of the Holy Pageant, nervous citizens of Newest Delhi, Masons in their neck-ties. On the other side there were Conventist Guards and Little Sisters, Daughters and kleiner and their erstwhile prisoners. All crowded closer, all had to see, had to be nearby, had to be part of the great contact experience.
A group of Krishna children were chanting Hari-haris to the tune of a Jesus-Buddhist hymn and a wailing momma joined in with the correct words. '
Let all the plenitudes of light, Their songs together raising, Sing, lotus flowers, join up, unite, The risen Saviour praising!'
Her voice had a frenzied edge that stilled the Krishna children and sent a silence breaking like a wave across the gathered crowd, eventually quieting even the wailing momma, herself.
The trifax of Director Roux executed a turn from side to side on his autonome and then looked inquisitively at Prime Edward.
'Welcome to Expatria,' repeated Edward. 'We have awaited your arrival with keen anticipation.' He stepped aside, turning and waving a hand to encompass his citizens, the Charities, the Nano-Hippies and the Jesus-Buddhists, the Death Krishnas, the Conventists and the Masons, the military and the civilian, young and old, woman and man. 'These,' he said, waving his arm once again. 'These are my people, these are the people of Newest Delhi, the descendants of the colonisation of Expatria. In the name of all my people, I invite you to join us in equality and freedom.' He bowed his head and stepped backwards, joining his immediate crowd.
I am but one of my people
, the gesture appeared to say, but it revealed far more, it showed that he was Prime, it showed that he was in such a position that he
could
make that gesture. It showed that he, Prime Edward Olfarssen-Hanrahan, was in control.
Sukui glanced at Maye Cyclades but she had retreated, too, perhaps grateful that Edward had included her sisters in his gesture.
'And so the world keeps spinning,' said Lucilla to Sukui.
He smiled at her and took her arm. 'Indeed it does,' he said. 'Its rotary motion should not cease for some time.'
PART TWO
Behind the Mask
CHAPTER 11
'Hey, Samizdat. Can you hear me?' Stopp's trifacsimile was crouching in a hollow, looking back at the camera on the boy's shoulder. 'Come on, let's see what's happening.'
Viewpoint moved and the boy groaned. 'He nearly bust my ribs,' he said. Kardinal Mondata had dumped Samizdat in the hollow as he ran from the descending shuttle.
'Does it hurt when you breathe?' asked Stopp. 'No? Can you spit me some blood?' Samizdat spat straight through the trifax, his spittle clear and healthy. 'Come on,' said Stopp. 'Or do you want me to find another projector?' She let her image begin to fade and the boy leapt up and scrambled out of the dip.
They had been left behind by the crowd. Everybody had headed towards the resting bulk of the GenGen shuttle.
'Beautiful or
beautiful?
' said Samizdat. 'It's so big!'
Viewpoint hurried forward as the boy began to run.
Instead of trying to push through the crowd, Samizdat stopped by a tall tomb and pulled himself up to sit astride the horizontal arms of its cross. From there he could see clean over the heads of the crowd. Stopp sat her trifax out of the way at the tomb's base.
The crowd was thinning already. Evangelicals were fanning out, copies of
The Third Testament
in their hands and now in the hands of the people of Expatria. Stopp had tried to read her own copy of the book but she hadn't got much past the contents sheet. It had chapters by the Venerable Adam and Clayton McDowell and others, including a panel called the Corporate Theorists. There were songs and poems, too, the corporate hymn, the Psalms of the Invisible Hand, the Corporation Carols of the Holy Congress. It was heavy going. Stopp had never read much that wasn't on a screen before—she thought that must be a part of her trouble.
A panel lifted in the side of the shuttle and a hovering platform drifted out and waited as Director Roux floated up and anchored himself at its forwardmost point. Four actives joined him, followed tentatively by Prime Edward and his companions. The last to mount the platform was Sukui-san, who paused and looked beneath the vehicle before climbing on board.
The platform began to move and the crowds parted before it. It headed for the cemetery gates, followed by a contingent of trotting evangelicals, and it had soon disappeared from Stopp's screen.
There was a shout from near to Samizdat and the screen dipped to show a Thessalonian at the foot of the tomb. She tossed one of her books up to Samizdat and the boy reached for it and missed, hung precariously for what seemed like minutes and then fell.
Suddenly Stopp realised what it must be like to
fall
. It scared her, the rushing sound of the air, the dizzying approach of the ground. Samizdat landed and immediately the view lifted as he sprang to his feet and darted over to retrieve his copy of
The Third Testament
. He hugged it to his chest as the Thessalonian laughed and continued on her way.
People stood around in little groupings, talking, gesturing, listening to an evangelical if they had been lucky enough to attract one.
Samizdat threaded his way through the groups.
Close to the shuttle he stopped and looked all around. Nobody seemed to be paying him any attention. Suddenly, he was running, his feet springing up the step-way, hands on its railing, pausing at the door, swinging his way in.
Viewpoint switched to ambience boost as it adjusted to the dim interior. 'What are you
doing?
' hissed Stopp.
'I don't know,' said Samizdat. 'But I bet no one else has done it.'
~
The next day, with morning light slanting in from Red, Stopp called for a console. 'ArcNet,' she said. 'Can you find Zither for me, please?' The screen flashed acknowledgement and she waited while the computer carried out a search.
Zither was in a cluster off Yellow known as Honshu Island. She should have guessed.
The Philemonics had taken Honshu the previous day while everybody had been focused on the Deadacre. They'd driven out the resident families, not by force or coercion but by an incessant onslaught of decibels. A night of the company hymn and its associated commercial psalms and jingles had been enough to move the orbitals out.
Zither was there, with Credo and Dutresco and several others. As with everywhere GenGen went, evangelicals had located a lot of the cameras and directed menials to remove or disable them; but some of the cameras in Honshu Island remained undetected, their fibre optic lenses embedded in the basic structure of the biosphere.
Zither was practising a new psalm. His Philemonic teachers scolded him and laughed at him but Stopp couldn't tell why. To her, his pronunciation was indistinguishable from the Philemonics', his timing, too, and the ardent clarity of his voice. The only thing that marked him apart was his atrophied body, looking so weak set against those of his new friends.
She blanked the screen. She hadn't spoken with Zither since the
Third Testament
had arrived in orbit. Like most of the Fans he had thrown himself at the new arrivals.
Stopp had hidden herself away, either in Babeloah or here in the FanClub's Complex in Ark Red. She'd been hit by one of the viruses that had been passing around, but she was young, she'd fought it off. She knew it was no excuse.
She was letting the FanClub down. Letting herself down, too. She should be out there, making sure the Club had influence over the early days with the Holy Corporation. That was why they had formed the Club to begin with.
She released her restrainer and headed for the exit. She had to do something. She couldn't cope with herself when she got this way.
~
Starlings sang their mechanical songs from the branches of Ark Red's implosion of greenery. Frogs whistled and screeched in reply, their sounds punctuated by the occasional crashes of colliding aerophytes and fruits and free-floating branches of wych-fir. Stopp had never realised quite how noisy Red was.
She pulled herself along a liana and spat at a rat that was floating up behind a tiny, unsuspecting lizard. Her gob of spittle smeared along the rat's back, raising its fur, and the lizard cut away with an arrogant flick of its wide, flat tail.
She smiled and swung herself onto a branch of one of the main gum trees. She plucked a clump of pap moss and squeezed its trapped water into her mouth, enjoying its sweetness.
Sounds of working menials drifted across to her, amidst the birdsong and all the other sounds of life. She liked their slow pronunciation, their half-speed version of the company hymn. They were using its beat to set the rhythm of their work. It seemed to mean so much more when it was sung like that.
She guided herself through the tree to a position that overlooked the new mission house. There were only a few menials, but they had such strong voices. She had watched them working here before, clearing vegetation, setting the building's anchor points, pumping up its walls and domes.
Now she could see how big the mission house had become, its domes and sloping roofs cutting harsh white contrasts against the lushness of Red's interior. To all appearances the structure was now complete.
She drifted farther down towards the new building. There were evangelicals there, in addition to the menials. Some were supervising, others talking and making idle—something they never did when there was an active around.
She recognised one of them, the soft brown face, the tousled golden hair, the smile, the laughter. It was the Ephesian, Hermann Tunnicliffe.
Suddenly his wide, happy face seemed a welcoming thought. She could make like Zither, she thought.
She pushed herself into the clear and drifted slowly towards the group of Ephesian evangelicals. 'Hi,' she said, forgetting for a moment that she was here in person and not just on trifax. 'I'm Stopp. Can you... I mean...' She slowed, her hands fluttering nervously all around, making her wobble precariously as she came to a halt. 'Um, hi,' she finished up. She wished her skin would stop burning like it did, she knew how foolish she must look.
'Stopp,' said Hermann. He managed to make her name sound like something alien, the way he pronounced it. 'Are you still singing the hymn out of time, off key, wrong words?'
They all laughed and Stopp forced a cautious smile onto her face. 'No,' she said, keeping her hands still by her sides. 'My friends are doing other things. Zither's having singing lessons in Honshu Island. With the Philemonics.'
Hermann's two friends laughed, and Stopp noted how like him they looked. Hermann broke his grin and said, 'You should watch the Philemonics, Stopp. Don't go boogie with them, OK? OK.' Then his smile returned. 'Come on, I'll show you the mission house. Come on.'
He put a hand on Stopp's arm and guided her towards the building's entrance. She wondered if he could feel the heat of her burning skin through the sleeve of her sari, then she decided she didn't really care.
They stopped before a long wall and Hermann said, 'EpheHermann plus one,' and the wall slid in on itself to let them through. The first room was a vast, low hall, lit by an even light from its walls and ceiling. Rows of pews looked as if they had grown up from the floor, their forms were flowing and smooth, organic. Some kind of an altar stood at the far side, under a raised dome, the light falling through its multi-coloured glazing casting weird shadows that seemed to move, to merge, to infuse the room.
The hall had a definite floor and ceiling, she suddenly realised. They were a people of gravity, they framed their thoughts, their designs, in the forms of gravity. She wondered how long it would take them to adapt.
'It's incredible,' she said. Hermann had been looking at her as if he expected something like this. 'What did they say when you asked to build this here?'
'Say, ask?' He shook his head. 'This is GenGen—' he spun three-sixty '—corporate materials, corporate work-force. Nobody asked anything. We've built it, that's all. You like it?'
He was staring at her face, she could feel his eyes working over every centimetre. 'It's good,' she said. 'It feels really big.'
'You have a beautiful array,' he said. She pinned her hands to her sides again. She felt awkward like this, him and her in this big hall. 'Shall I read your pheno?'
'What?'
'Your phenotype. The outward expression of your genome-psyche synergy. The All creates you in such a way that everything that is
you
is expressed visually in one form or another to the outside world. Your genes dictate your basic array of phenotypical structures; your experience, your conditioning, cast the tensions of each of your muscles. An Ephesian has a wide, generous mouth, a fluidity to their movements; a Roman is more precise, more measured, their features are tight, they're dull and uninspiring, it moulds their faces like that.'
'Do you want to know what stars I was born under, where Dum and Dee were? It's like that, right?'
'No.' His answer was fast, sharp.
She watched as his face subsided into its easy Ephesian lines and then she understood what he meant and she began to grow scared. How much could he tell, she wondered? Could he cast her future ahead of her, could he shake her of her bad luck reputation? What could he see?
She was scared, but she had to do it.
He saw the decision on her face and his smile broadened. 'Come on,' he said. 'I want us to be someplace we won't be disturbed. He led Stopp into one of the tunnels that led off the hall, taking her deeper into the mission house. It was strange, all this space, created by GenGen yet empty. She wondered what it would be like when they started using it.
The tunnel had a series of small rooms set off it and Hermann pulled her into one of these, letting the door shut behind him. The room was about three metres square, a metre fifty high. Six low benches protruded from the floor. 'Living quarters,' said Hermann. 'When the menials move in.'
The level of light was lower than it had been in the hall. Stopp felt her eyes fighting to stay open. She wanted to sleep again but couldn't, wanted to float, drift, keep on going like baby-down, like thistle seeds.
She reached the far wall and stopped herself. She turned and Hermann was hanging in the centre of the room, making it seem suddenly smaller. He was staring at her and she felt her skin tighten in anticipation.
He drifted down towards her, fixing her with his eyes, finally halting his vampire swoop with his head centimetres from Stopp's. His eyes searched her face and he said, 'OK. Now.'
He ran the tip of a finger delicately along the line of her nose, caressing each nostril, moving back up. 'A retroussé grade three,' he muttered. 'Hmm. Very Ephesian, very sensitive. The na'sept line only a few degrees from perpendicular. You want to be somebody special; you want to make an impression on the world. Yes.'
He ran the forefinger of each hand along her eyebrows, and then again, smoothing away the creases on her forehead. 'Neantropic brow, a mix of menial stubbornness and Roman practicality.' Around her eyes. 'Irregular ptolemaic orbital windows, marked asymmetry. You stand out from the crowd, Stopp. People mark you out as an individual but no one really knows how true that is. You're special, Stopp, more special than you know.'
His face was even closer now, his breath hot on her cheeks. 'Your jaw-line is etruscan-two, your cheek-bones an asymmetrical Lisbon-chic-four and three. You have a wonderful future, Stopp; your potential has yet to be uncovered.' His hands began to run lightly over her cheeks and then up over her forehead and through her straight, thin hair. His eyes were beautiful, they were overflowing with his sincerity, his belief in her power as a woman.
'You are tense, Stopp, you need release. You need someone to break down your barriers and release what you've been holding back.'
His hands moved down to the back of her head, her neck and he pressed his cheek to Stopp's. She let her hands rest on his chest, let his mouth work its way down her neck. Her sari came away with a gentle tug, his shorts and jacket took longer to peel back. He was stronger than Zither ever had been and he had more control. Towards the end he began to sing the company hymn and Stopp laughed and then joined him, her tempo slow and measured, like the menials when they worked.