Expatria: The Box Set (53 page)

CHAPTER 33

Her mouth tasted of ash. Soot. Charcoal. She swallowed... wished she hadn't.

The pain was still with Katya Tatin; it was as if her insides had been pulled away, the tearing of the MetaPlex from its contact with her templar interfaces. It was the worst feeling she had ever known.

She knew it was gone. Forever. And yet she wondered just what it was that had left her. She knew there could be no more Maxing—although she cowered from that thought, that recognition—but there was more, far more. It was so confusing... so tiring...

She made herself open her eyes, Roman discipline overcoming her distress.

A Charity was looking down at her, smiling uncertainly. 'You want some water?' said the boy. 'Maybe some liquor? I got some real cheap.'

She closed her eyes. She was lying on the ground on a street somewhere. Orlyons, she remembered. Orlyons. She was lying in the street in Orlyons and she could sense people all around her, strange currents in the night, this un-night that the Orloisee called MidNight.

~

She didn't remember sleeping but the next time she opened her eyes it was morning.

'Control of the body,' said a familiar voice, 'leads inevitably to an element of mental control.'

She twisted, squinted, saw Kasimir Sukui looming over her.

'Alexander told me that you had been awake,' he said. 'You look better than many of your colleagues.'

'How is everybody?' Her voice sounded awful, no control whatsoever, the modulation of her tones was all over the place. 'What's been happening? Will you tell me?'

Sukui squatted beside her, helped her into a sitting position. 'Your god, your MetaPlex, is dead,' he said. Katya appreciated his directness. 'You must know that already. Whatever its electronic pathogen, it has been broadcast to Expatria and you all suffered to some extent. The menials were unaffected—Pieter Sugratski tells me they have no implanted circuitry. The evangelicals were affected although they are mostly recovered; their current distress stems more from a realisation of their predicament than from any internal damage. Actives, such as yourself and Pieter, suffered more, they—'

'We have more implants,' said Katya. 'What about the directors? Director Roux?'

'There were only two directors in Orlyons during the broadcast. Director Falheit died during the display. Director Roux is unaccounted for. There has been much to do—we have been unable to assess the extent of the GenGen casualties at this point.'

'Why can I smell burning?' asked Katya. 'I thought it was part of a dream but it's not, it... ' She stared at Sukui, seeing him properly for the first time since she had awoken. His face was smudged with black, his clothing hung in tatters, his left arm rested loosely in a sling. 'What's been
happening?
'

'A fire,' said Sukui. 'Only a fire.'

~

'
When I find myself in times of trouble, Spiritual insolvency. Lead me through to wisdom, Shine on me
.' The company hymn seemed to fill a gap in Katya's head. Sugratski had given a short sermon on the corporate benefits of self-discipline and then the gathering had chanted psalms and sections of the gospel. And now the coming together, the hymn.

'
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
.' The group was a mixture of actives, evangelicals, even menials, all seated amongst the debris, the charred remains of the jailhouse, Magpie Street to one side, the Rue de la Patterdois to the other. Some Krishna novices were seated in a group at the edge of the congregation, humming along to the parts they knew, beating time on the rocks and the ground.

Near to half of Orlyons had been burnt down in the fire, yet the town's people continued with their lives, they shared what little food and shelter they had with the corporate refugees, they persisted against all odds.

'
I can see it shinin' on me, Oh I can see, oh gee-gee
.' She closed her eyes and forced the essence of her soul out through the words of the hymn. '
In the light of GenGen, I will be, I will see
.'

The holy staff stopped singing, but the menials and the Krishna novices moved straight into the first verse, once again.

Katya smiled uncomfortably. The menials were designed for conformity—all flexibility had been bred out of them, all independence of spirit—yet here they were, adapting to this corporate disaster better than any evangelical, better than any
active
.

She rose, feeling a little better, still needing to Max. She staggered across the rubble and onto the clearer surface of Magpie Street.

And it was there that she saw him. Wandering up from the direction of the docks, a bag over his shoulder, staring dumbly all around. His clothes looked dirty and he had several days' growth of beard. She hurried over and stopped before him, wrinkling her nose at the smell of stale sweat. 'Mathias Hanrahan,' she said. 'I thought...'

He looked at her, then. Smiled his disarming smile. 'Winds turned around,' he said. 'Brought me right back here.' He let his bag drop to the ground, waved his hands at the carnage all about, said, 'What's been happening? Have I missed something?'

~

Katya Tatin stopped before the building, the bar. The crowd was too much for the small drinking club and it had overflowed onto the street. Salomo and his servers were rushing from group to group with drinks and food and orders. 'It's free 'til we run out,' he yelled, as he hurried past Katya, huge mugs of beer hooked around each of his short fingers.

She had discussed the situation with Sugratski and EpheDrew, the only other actives to have made any real kind of recovery. 'The choice is yours, RoKatya,' Sugratski had said. 'You're two years my senior and Drew has only been active since the
Third Testament
arrived in Expatrian orbit. You're our superior, Katya, you're our director designate.' He had been joking, but at the same time they all knew that he was effectively handing the responsibility over to Katya; he had never liked taking decisions.

Sukui would be here at Salomo's: he had to be, she felt so certain.

He was. He bowed his head as she approached, and his companions—Kardinal Mondata, Lucilla Ngota, Vera-Lynne Perse, Alya Kik and Chet Alpha—nodded in a similar fashion.

'Sukui-san,' she said, as she squatted by his boulder. 'Do you have any means of televisual broadcast? It's important; it's my responsibility now. We have to send a message back to Earth, tell them what we have found. They'll be preparing to send another wave of colonists, but first they're waiting for us to send them information about Expatria. Their decision will depend on the broadcast. It has to be made.'

Kardinal Mondata was the first to speak. 'You want us to help you invite more Terrans? You're
serious?
She's crazy—hey, Salomo! We got a crazy over here! D'you serve crazies? Huh?'

'What you gonna tell 'em? Eh?' said Alya Kik, but she was interrupted by Chet Alpha.

'She has the right,' he said, quietly. 'We gonna keep her prisoner to stop her? We don't let her express herself how she wants, then we're none of us Charities.' He drank from his mug and ignored Mondata's protestations that he never had
been
a Charity.

'We do not have anything for you in Orlyons,' said Sukui. He raised his hands to indicate the shambles all around him. 'You did not expect us to have anything for you in Orlyons, I presume.' He glanced at his friends and then back into Katya's eyes, fixing her to the spot. 'I am going home, Katya. I am going to Alabama City. The Prime Salvo has nurtured his people's technologies. If you were to accompany me then it might be possible to arrange something.' He bowed his head, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.

'You hear that, everybody?' shouted Chet Alpha suddenly, leaping to his feet and waving his arms. 'We're going to AC. We're all going to Alabama City with Mis' Sukui and his Roman! Let's all cheer for Mis' Sukui. Hip
hay!
Hip
hay!
Hip
hay!'

~

She was shivering, although the temperature was only northern Europe autumnal. Sukui had offered her a blanket but she had refused. Now she reached for it, pulled it around her shoulders.

It didn't help. She needed to Max, she needed to feel that familiar buzz in her Glory Chip. She needed it now. She had tried plusRem but even that had done little to calm her nerves. She pulled the blanket tighter, focusing her mind on the coarse texture of its weave.

Their little boat was at the head of the convoy. 'It is a dunkirk of small vessels,' Sukui had told her; she often failed to understand his references.

She opened her eyes, anything to free her thoughts. She counted the boats, occupying her mind. There were thirty-six that she could see, none of them more than twelve metres in length, most of them, like her own, only six or seven metres from prow to stern.

She sat on the wooden bench, her feet down amongst the mollusc traps and coils of line. An evangelical called CoLee sat at the farthest end of the bench, chattering incessantly to the captain of the boat, a small fisherperson from a village to the south of Orlyons. Kasimir Sukui sat between CoLee and Katya, his eyes fixed unerringly on the approaching shoreline. 'We will land three kilometres to the north of Alabama City,' he had told her, as the convoy left Orlyons. 'The Prime Salvo's defences are somewhat erratic: they might be liable to fire upon a grouping such as our own.

Before leaving Orlyons, Katya had spoken again with Mathias Hanrahan. 'I won't ask you to come with us,' she had said.

He had been with Mono again; she knew he would have turned her down. Instead, they spoke of his voyage, of the need to rebuild Orlyons. 'We'll drink sweet tea again,' he had promised her, before she left him, and she saw then how much he had changed.

She thought now of Vladi and she realised that her memories were no longer burdened with guilt and remorse; her memories of him were suddenly a comfort.

She trailed a hand over the side of the boat, catching water from the highest of the gentle waves. The convoy had spread out more now, but they were still within talking distance of four or five of the boats, shouting distance of maybe half of the convoy. Most were powered by wind-turbine or sail; three, perhaps four, of the larger ones had simple meth engines, their puttering voices rising above the noises of the water and the gulls that were following the boats.

She looked up to see someone ahead of them in the distance. They must have been overtaken without her noticing, she thought.

She turned to Sukui, looked at his pale face. 'What's it like to be a Charity?' she asked him quietly. 'Why does a man like you ally himself with the Pageant of the Holy Charities?'

Sukui turned to her. He seemed to be glad of the distraction. He smiled, bowed his head. 'It is a label,' he said. 'No more. It identifies a state of mind, a level of understanding between one's fellow humans. It is a sign of respect for one another, the taking of Chet Alpha's cloth. A belief in the possibility for disparate beliefs to coexist. It is something different to others, I can only give you my personal interpretation.'

Katya's attention was drawn by a shout from nearby. She looked ahead and saw that what she had thought was a boat was, in fact, an autonomic floater: a transport platform, with a crew of four and a director mounted at the rear.

She squinted, boosted the acuity of her vision with a surge of rhodol. The transport was approaching at its maximum speed of around ten kilometres per hour. The passengers were Romans, faces she knew: RoValentin was squatting at the front, ready to pounce; RoMihoko, RoBelizar and RoCrue were ready to follow him. Director Roux was mounted on his personal autonome at the rear of the vehicle.

One of the death squads had escaped from Orlyons... the fire must have set them free.

She watched as the boats and the floater edged closer together. The others had seen it now, they knew what it meant. Behind her the boat's captain was fighting frantically with the rigging, trying to slow their progress.

Katya's eyes were fixed on the approaching autonome. She wondered what they would do. A school of mawfish broke the surface up ahead, startling a resting gull into flight.

The gap grew narrower, less than a hundred metres. They had singled out Katya's boat. That much was corporate policy: go for the leaders, remove them from the contest.

She wondered what they could do to save themselves, but her head was still confused, she couldn't get her mind to function properly without a recent Maxing, it wouldn't work.

And then she heard the meth engine.

She turned, felt her stomach lurch at the speed of the approaching boat. It was one of the mid-sized vessels, about ten metres in length. Its heavy prow had risen almost clear of the water as the engine drove it on from the rear.

She released the breath she had been holding when she realised that it was going to miss them. She grabbed her seat as the bow wave threw them from side to side, threatening to submerge them.

Sukui groaned next to her. He was looking across at the speeding boat.

It was heading directly for the transport platform. Katya looked at the skipper of the boat, recognised Kardinal Mondata, his eyes alight, his saffron robes flying out behind him.

It was terrible to watch. It took so long, the approach of the transport and the boat, the realisation passing like a wave across the faces of the Roman evangelicals and their director: the mad Kardinal was not going to stop, he was not going to miss them.

Mondata's boat ploughed into the autonomic transport platform with a terrible grinding sound. The evangelicals leapt and so did the Kardinal, going down in the surf with his hands clawing at RoValentin's face. The transport had shattered like some kind of crystal and Mondata's boat was sinking slowly, his passengers jumping, one by one, into the sea.

Katya stood, stepped over to the side of the boat and leapt into the water. She didn't know what she was doing, only that it had to be done.

The water was like ice, it cut into her like a thousand tiny nanoknives. She surfaced, took a deep breath, felt alive for the first time since losing the Max.