Expatria: The Box Set (49 page)

He could hear hammering noises coming from the stable, metal on metal. He stopped by a tall door, moved it ajar and peered inside. Working in the light of the roof windows was a thin young man with black hair, a wide mouth, a wisp of a moustache. It could almost have been Sukui forty years earlier. The similarity was only in looks, though; in manner and attitude Lui Tsang had retained the coarseness of his Orlyons street upbringing. He still had a distance to travel.

Sukui cleared his throat and entered the stable, keeping his head bowed.

Lui Tsang looked up, startled, then leapt down from the vehicle upon which he had been working. It was a large digger, its meth engine exposed, its metal scoop held high in salute.

'Sukui-san!' said Tsang. 'You're back!'

Sukui kept his head bowed. 'Please,' he said. 'Just Sukui. I am no longer a man of importance. I am—' he laughed grimly '—a free spirit.' He hated feeling this sorry for himself. For a moment he tried to focus on the rational aspects of his situation but it was no good any more, he was a Charity... he was a huminal.

'Sukui-san, you're safe.' Lui Tsang was beside him, slapping him on the arm, grinning all over his face. 'This place has sure missed you being around. The Prime—'

'—has dispensed with my services.'

Tsang's mouth fell open. 'The Prime is as dumb as my dead mother. He's got rid of you? All this time he says "Where's a Sukui when you need one" and now this?'

'Lui,' said Sukui. 'You must not be so quick to judge your betters. Audibly, at least. You still have a lot to learn.' The youth looked worn out, as did so many people these days. 'Lui, what has been happening?'

'The Prime is... Well, he's the Prime. You know what I mean. He's terrified that some kind of superhuman assassin is going to break through all his defences and kill him in the dead of night. He's paranoid.' Tsang shrugged and leaned back against the jalopy. 'I've been going trifax in orbit a lot,' he continued. 'GenGen have really taken over up there. It used to be a kind of constructive anarchy—just like a green field to a building gang. GenGen have moved in, taken over.

'I've been getting to know the orbital computer system, ArcNetwork 37CoHandy.'

'I know of the ArcNet.'

'I've been going into direct trifacsimile link with ArcNet,' said Tsang. 'My neural impulses are translated into light maps and the 'Net interprets them, I can get right inside the system, work my way around.'

'You have encountered the MetaPlex?' said Sukui. It was the next rational step.

'Sure. You can get around there a bit, you can hide up as an autonome. ArcNet has a primitive psylogue of me now. It's been using it to lever its way into the MetaPlex, only it isn't subtle. The Meta's on guard now, I can't get in.'

'And?'

Tsang looked at him strangely, continued. Talking seemed to be helping him shape his thoughts, a process with which Sukui was achingly familiar. 'I think I can get my way in there again, in amongst the psylogues—the Meta' is so schizoid that once I'm in there I can do almost whatever I want and the psylogues will blame each other. I can use ArcNet to get in, but the 'Net can use
me
just as much. Listen, Sukui-san, I don't know if what I'm doing is right. The consequences are too much to even think about. I don't know where to go from here.' Tsang tossed a screwdriver into an open bag and looked around the stable disconsolately.

'Lui,' said Sukui. 'You are far more capable than you claim. You are the closest I have come to discovering genius. You have a grand future in the Primal service, if that is your choice. A person must make their own decisions. If you are scared, then desist; it may be for the best.

'But I do not think you will, Lui. I do not think you could ever turn away from discovery.'

He bowed, he turned, he walked away into the streets of Alabama City, wondering what he should do with his unexpected liberty, knowing he had only one choice.

~

The old attendant at Hitachi Tower had recognised him. After the earlier part of the day, Sukui had doubted even that much. The attendant had welcomed him back with a hug so powerful it had reminded Sukui of Lucilla, then she had led him ceremoniously up the three familiar flights of stairs and left him outside the door to his old apartment.

He had spent the night in there and it had seemed so familiar, but simultaneously it had felt false, as if he was trying to slip into some past life. It had not felt like the apartment, or the objects it contained, had actually belonged to Sukui. He had made himself sleep on his old hair mattress and all the familiar lumps and hollows made themselves felt to him as if he had never slept there before. He had half-expected the dream to return but it had not and for that he was grateful.

The next morning his course had been determined. He had left Hitachi Tower with no regrets. He had walked at a steady pace along Grand Rue Street, through the pre-dawn crowds of traders and hustlers. He had stopped in an eaterette on Ruby Way for some ginseng tea and then he had made his way to the docks. It had been difficult to find a boat that would take him any distance but he had made his enquiries and eventually he had secured himself a passage.

Now, he sat at the prow of the yacht, a stiff breeze forcing him to narrow his eyes as he looked ahead. The boat was barely larger than the one that had brought him to within a kilometre of Alabama City. He licked his salty lips and focused on the horizon and the approaching bulk of the island of Clermont.

The wind was in their favour and the journey had taken two hours less than Sukui had expected. The sun was low in the sky, an amber orb about to sink into the ocean. He wondered what tonight would bring. Night or MidNight? He hoped it would be the latter: a night that was not a night, a night when almost the entire populace of Orlyons would be out on the streets of the Gentian Quarter. He felt the animal in his psyche rising, as it always did when he came to Orlyons; he recognised it, he embraced it. Control of the body.

They found a place to dock amongst a plethora of fishing boats, tiny, large, single or twin-hulled. Sukui paid his captain and walked rapidly into the town's heart, eager to sample its atmosphere.

All around there were the signs of conflict. Before the Treaty of Accord the island of Clermont had been the site of intense fighting.

The Andricci had kept their distance, proclaiming the island's independent status, but Hanrahan forces had moved straight in and claimed most of the territory as their own. They had been fought by guerrillas, a disciplined accretion of street-people known as the Musical Underground.

Now, as Sukui passed through these familiar streets, there was rubble where he had known rooming houses and bars and shops; a number of burnt-out buildings marked his route, multiplying as he approached the Gentian Quarter, the heart of the underground.

In small groupings, on street corners and gathered in the occasional pockets of greenery, Sukui spotted Terrans. They preached or sang to whoever would listen, but mostly the people just walked on by. They didn't look so out of place on the streets of Orlyons: buskers and preachers had always been commonplace here.

Apart from the Terrans, the people around him were the familiar people of Orlyons. Their worn clothing indicated that hard times had hit the town, but their faces, their movements, showed their true character. The excitability, the edginess, the exuberance. This had to be a MidNight, he realised. It was in the air, it hung all around him. But there was more than that, something he had never noticed before.

Sukui knew this people-dense fishing port like no other place. He had studied the crowds, analysed their flows, their currents, weighed this peculiar phenomenon of Orlyons carefully in his mind. Now he could discern new currents, flowing all around him, a sense of static poised to discharge. It was like a fire next to an explosives store, there was a violence waiting to happen.

He tasted the air on his tongue, breathed deeply. The night in Orlyons was like some exotic animal, he realised. It was alive, waiting to stir, to pounce.

He came through the Playa de l'Or, its market stalls jostling for attention in his peripheral vision. Traders were selling clothing and hot, spicy foods, there were prostitutes and sandwich board advertisers, trying to draw the crowd-animal's attention to the bars and clubs tucked away in hidden corners of the Gentian Quarter.

He emerged on the Rue de la Patterdois and there was a voice rising above the background buzz. A woman singing with hardened tones, backed by guitar and saxophone.

He looked for her and found her—Mono with her Monotones—playing outside a boarded-up building that had once been a food-store. He smiled. It all seemed so familiar.

'Hey, Sukui-san!'

Another familiar voice. He had to remind himself that he had not taken a step back in time.

'Sukui-san, you old rogue.' Alya Kik shuffled over to him and hugged him hard. 'You couldn't stay away, could you then, hah? Couldn't stay away from Mama Kik.' She held him at arms' length, shook her head. 'You look rough, Sukui-san. You need to sleep, MidNight or no.'

She kept a tight grip on his arm and started to lead him down a crowded alleyway, away from the Patterdois.

'Alya,' he gasped. 'I knew Mono would be in Orlyons, but I thought you were with the Pageant in Newest Delhi? Who else is here?'

'We're all here now. Krishnas, Hippies, everybody. Pageant's moved out of ND,' said Alya. 'They killed Larinda and Pom-Pom, you hear? It was GenGen. They making people fight amongst themselves. They don't like us 'cos we won't lie down and let 'em take us. So we come home to Orlyons an' we're gonna hold out.'

'Are you sure it was GenGen?' asked Sukui. 'Could it not have been the Convent or perhaps the Black-Handers?'

'Pah! It's GenGen, I tell you. You know what else they did, Sukui-san? You know what they did to old Alya Kik?'

Sukui shrugged, waited. Alya was leading him towards the Woodrow Gates, one of the entrances into Greene Gardens. The Gardens formed a series of rough areas, unsuitable for building; they had been left as parkland, for the birds and the prostitutes and the lovers with nowhere else to go.

'One of the bastards tried to kill me.' Alya shook her head. 'I saw him coming and I slugged him with a barrel of wine. I was
this
close—' she held a finger and thumb a few millimetres apart—this close to getting cut up.' She shook her head again. 'Here,' she said, brightening. They had come to a clearing in the Gardens, a circular pool that was overhung by a twenty metre crag, a large grassy area that had been overrun with the familiar graffitised tents of the Pageant of the Holy Charities. 'Here,' she repeated, raising her voice so that Sukui could hear her above the sounds of partying. 'You got to stay and have a sleep and some food and maybe some sex or something. You're a Charity, Sukui-san, you're one of us.' She slapped him on the back and bustled away, leaving him standing to one side of the encampment.

He looked around, smelt the marijuana on the air, the scent of alcohol and wood-smoke. She was right—it was time he had some rest—but he did not want to settle. The atmosphere of tension was still there, all around, waiting to happen.

The camp was a single, turbulent mass of humanity. Charities and others, dancing, singing, making generally merry. There was a short-lived fight at the far side of the gathering, broken up by the intervention of a burly Charity intent on finding some fun.

Sukui heard a sound from somewhere above him. He looked up and spotted a figure at the top of the crag. 'Mis'
Sukui?
' It was Chet Alpha. There was not a person on all Expatria who could slur their speech as fluently as Chet Alpha.

'Please,' said Sukui. 'Do not attempt to come down. I will join you.'

He followed a footpath that threaded its way between the boulders, working its way up around one side of the main crag. 'Excuse me,' he said, passing through a small mixed group of evangelicals and Charities. He smiled. Perhaps the charms of the Charities could spread some kind of understanding.

He paused near the top to control his breathing, then stepped out. 'Chet Alpha,' he said. 'It is good to see that you are still alive.'

'Phah!' snorted Alpha. 'Not you, too.' He took another drink from his bottle.

'Pardon?' said Sukui. What had he said?

'They're tryin' to kill us. Killin' all the top people. De-... de-... destabling us, makin' so they can take over, so we don't have any leaders is what they're doin'.'

'Yes?' Sukui glanced behind him, wondering if they could be overheard.

'So tell me—' Chet Alpha spread his arms wide, dropped his bottle with a crash down the side of the crag '—so tell me why they don't want to kill
me?
I'm the leader of the Pageant: aren't I important, Sukui-san? Don't I make no difference?'

Sukui bowed his head to disguise his smile. He found Chet Alpha's egotism touching.

Then he looked up sharply, stared at Alpha. 'I believe,' said Sukui, 'that your time has arrived.'

And then he stepped forward and pushed the startled Chet Alpha over the edge of the crag.