Fractions (42 page)

The selection that the fetch displayed included a complete chart of Donovan's organization, right down to the names of its members and the locations of its cells. And fragmentary, cryptic records of his work on the Kohn case: his cooperation with the Stasis agents and with Mrs Lawson in Beulah City, and with Dr Van. Just as Van had described it to her and Moh, in a chain-smoking summary on the balcony of a wooden house in Wester Ross…Janis smiled to see the first scratches of suspicion that Van wasn't cooperating.

There were no records from after the Dissembler disaster, but from the traces immediately before it Janis worked out what had happened, how close a call the world had had with Space Defense and how Mrs Lawson's systems had held off Donovan's until the last moment, when she changed her mind.

So it was her doing in the end, Janis thought. Her fists clenched. She remembered Jordan's description of her: a dangerous, devious woman. More dangerous and devious than he'd ever imagined.

She thought for a moment of doing in Beulah City what they'd done in the rig: invading the systems, possessing the machinery, using it to kill the last person in the line of enemies that had killed Moh. And then she realized it would be
wrong.

Simple as that. Donovan and the Man In Black were outlaws, scoundrels, scum, whereas this woman was – what was it Moh had said about the time when she'd been about to slaughter the fallen horseman? – ‘just a grunt like us, basically'.

Let the Republic deal with Lawson, as it would deal with everybody on the
CLA
's membership list.

 

When Wills came in Janis was slumped over the gun, her face on her arms. All the screens in the office had been switched on. Janis had been crying.

‘What is it?' he asked.

She looked up.

‘A new release,' she said.

He looked at her, frowning. ‘Oh, yeah, that. It's good news. I meant—'

‘It's all right,' Janis said.

‘Sure?'

‘Sure.'

Wills smiled, as though relieved she wasn't going to go to pieces on him. ‘There's some more good news,' he said. ‘That bastard Donovan is dead. Blown out of the water!'

‘There's more than Donovan blown out of the water,' Janis said. ‘Somebody's been hacking
him
for a change, and seems to want us all to know. Have a look at this!'

Wills looked at the charts.

‘Where did this come from?'

‘I've no idea,' Janis said. ‘Come on. We got death to deliver.'

 

Deliver it they did. By the end of January they were taking on last year's new citizens in this year's housing projects.

‘You can put the boy into the slum,' Wills said, ‘but you can't put the slum into the boy.'

They all laughed, except Janis. They rested in the ruins of a gutted gas-station, smoking. There was no danger; there was no petrol.

‘We've done it,' Janis grated. ‘We fucking did it ourselves.' She saw the fetch nodding vigorously, in a patch of sunlight. ‘We pushed the barb into the cities. It's in the blood now. In the bone. Like radioactivity. “Barb”, ha, ha. Can't get them out.' She felt dizzy and weak and reckless. She looked around at faces that faded like fetches in the sunlight.

Dark now, even the sunlight. Everything tipped sideways.

When she came round she was in a camp-bed. Wills came in and told her she was at least five weeks overdue for leave.

‘You should have told me, Taine.'

‘I didn't know,' she said surprised at herself. ‘I thought we just had to keep going.'

‘Yeah, we do,' Wills said. ‘But not
all the time.
' He grinned. ‘Enjoy your leave, soldier.'

 

She made her way back to Uxbridge, astonished at how normality itself had shifted, at how much everything cost. Transport took tattered wads of her star-stamped sterling dollars: the Republic's currency, stellars. Good for astronomical prices, the joke went. She arrived at the flat early in the morning, reached in her pocket for a key, then laughed at herself and rang the bell. Sonya came to the door, blinking, and stared at Janis before bursting into smiles and tears and giving her an awkward, leaning-over hug; she was four months pregnant. Jerome joined them a moment later, and made breakfast.

She tried to eat slowly, like a civilian, half-listening to Sonya's resumé of all that had happened to all their acquaintances, half-answering her questions, while scanning the cable channels with a sharper hunger. She paused at a suddenly familiar name…

‘…would you advise, Mr Wilde?'

Wilde. Moh had talked about him…she'd come across articles here and there that Jordan had written, arguing or agreeing with him…

Cut to a face like an Amerind tribal elder, looking directly at the camera, not at the interviewer: ‘There may come a day for a last stand. But this is not it. I appeal to all who may be considering it: don't. Don't destroy our town to save it. Remember how the West saw off the Stalinists and the Islamists. The fun-loving, freedom-loving decadent West undermined and subverted its enemies by making them be like itself, not by becoming grim and hard and serious like them. Those who had the most laughs had the last laugh. So when the soldiers come in, let them be welcome, and life may surprise us.'

‘Thank you, Mr Wilde. Of course we'll be following this situation very closely, but right now we have to take a break—'

Breakfast-food commercial.

‘Any idea what that was about?'

Sonya frowned. ‘Politics?' she suggested.

 

Janis found her room as she'd left it, still a mess. She checked her mail: most of it had been forwarded from the university. Offprints were still coming from Da Nang Phytochemicals. And the grant cheque, in B-marks: a fortune. She figured she was owed it – the project had been a success. She would cash it hurriedly to gold, body-belt the Slovorands.

She found an invitation to a wedding. She looked at it, took in the date. She looked at the time, looked at herself in the mirror, then went to look for Sonya.

Some things didn't change.

She pushed open the heavy door of the Lord Carrington, flashed her invitation at the door heavy, and walked into a haze of smoke and a tolerable volume of music. The Precentors were on the stage, their images faint in the filtering sunlight of a February afternoon.

She smiled to herself, remembering, and looked over the crowd as she absently passed her coat – and a bag containing the dismantled parts of the gun – to a small woman sitting between two overloaded racks of coats and weapons. She slung the small leather bag containing the gun's
CPU
over one shoulder. Glancing down, she saw sensors peering over the edge of the bag, hooded by its flap. She brushed her hands over her dress – black velvet bodice, short bottle-green taffeta skirt over black net – feeling strange and exposed in it. It had been months since she'd worn anything but combat gear or put anything on her face that wasn't meant to hide it.

Jordan was sitting at a table talking to some people she vaguely recognized from the Collective. He saw her, stared at her for a moment and then jumped up and bounded over to her. They threw their arms around each other.

‘Oh, wow, Janis! It's great to see you. Good of you to make it.'

‘Hey, good of you to ask me, man. Congratulations.' She caught his shoulder and held him at arm's-length, looking him up and down critically. He had lost weight and seemed to have gained height. Black boots, black jeans, black leather coat, plain white cotton shirt with a black bootlace tie. ‘Very smart you look too. Kinda like a gamblin' mahn…or a preacher mahn…hey!' she added with mock suspicion. ‘You didn't do it in a
church
, did you?'

‘Haill, no!' said Jordan. ‘We got a ceremony from the British Humanist Association.' He laughed, and repeated, as if amused and amazed by the whole idea, ‘The British Humanist Association! God, I had no idea atheism could be respectable.'

‘Songs by Carly Simon, readings from Alex Comfort, that sort of thing?'

‘That sort of thing.'

‘I wish I could have been there,' Janis said. ‘But I only got back this morning to my old flat in Uxbridge and found the invite. This is my first leave. Uh, thanks for your letter. Did you get—?'

‘Yeah, I did, Janis. Thanks.'

He looked at her so sadly that she wanted to grab him and tell him everything, but instead she squeezed his shoulder and said, ‘I'm all right, Jordan. Now come on, take me to see your—'

She saw the bride coming round the corner of the bar and walking towards them; she held the image, taking it all in, storing it not only for the ghost that shared her vision but for herself. The girl was eye-wateringly beautiful; in her wedding dress she looked like a princess of the galaxy from an improbable future. Her hair, a nimbus around her head and falling back between her shoulderblades, made any veil redundant. Her dress fitted closely to her arms, breasts, waist and hips, twined with flower and leaves, re-embroidered in blazing natural colour on white lace. The lace flowed away into a crepe skirt which flared from above the knee, floating freely when she walked, hanging almost vertical when she stood still.

Janis blinked and took the hand that had been held out to her.

‘Hello, Janis.'

‘Hello, Cat. It's wonderful to meet you. And today. I don't know what to say. Congratulations.' She hugged Cat and Jordan together. ‘Goddess, Cat, you look incredible. I've never seen a dress like that anywhere.'

‘Thank you.' Cat smiled, stretching and flexing her arms. ‘I feel as if I could do anything in it. Run, swim, walk up walls. Fly.'

Jordan answered the unstated question. ‘She's not telling,' he said. ‘I suspect an arrangement with a colony of nimble-fingered faerie folk.' He looked past Cat. ‘Just a minute.' He plunged into the crowd and tapped a young woman on the shoulder and started talking to her.

‘Does he often rush off and talk to strange girls in pubs?' Janis asked.

‘All the time.'

Janis had worried about this moment. If she and Jordan were affected by Moh's death, how must it be for Cat, who had known him longer than either of them, loved him for years? She wanted to acknowledge this, yet didn't want to cloud Cat's happiness. Just standing next to the woman was like being in a sunlit garden.

‘Drink?' Cat asked.

‘Uh, vodka-cola, thanks.'

Cat made some mystic gestures and two drinks appeared beside them.

‘Shall we sit?'

She strode to the nearest table, which by the time they sat down had become unoccupied, wiped clean and furnished with a translucent ashtray.

‘Cheers.'

‘Live long and prosper.'

‘I—'

‘I—'

‘No, you—'

Cat smiled. ‘All right. This probably sounds terrible, but if I don't say it now it'll be on our minds, you know? Moh's death was a shock to all of us. It just came up on our screen, against his name. Well, that's how it does,' she added, defensively. ‘Killed in action. Soldier of the Republic. Sincere condolences and
hasta la
victory and all that…' She blinked hard and sipped her drink. ‘The thing is, Janis, we—' She stopped again. ‘These things happen to us, to people like us. Like Moh. You get used to knowing it'll happen – hell, you get used to it happening. No, you never get used to it, but…you get to have ways of dealing with it. And you, you were just sort of thrown into it. I mean, I want to say I understand you must have felt it so much more—'

‘Aw, Cat, don't say that. But I know what you're saying, and—' She clasped Cat's hand. ‘I loved him, and I know you loved him.'

Cat took a deep breath through her nose and smiled. ‘Yes. And I'm sure you know how he thought. Last thing he'd've wanted would be for two of his old girlfriends to be crying in each other's drinks about him. He loved life so much because he knew and believed so strongly that it'd go on without him. That's how he responded to other people's deaths: comrades, people he was close to. Mourn them and…go on. Don't act as if they're hanging around like ghosts, watching what you do and resenting you having a good time.'

Janis nodded. That sounded like Moh all right. She sighed, relaxing, and raised her glass. Cat nodded and raised hers, too, and they both drank, smiling at each other.

‘Well, Cat,' Janis said, ‘what you been doing since the revolution?'

Cat was about to reply when some other guests crowded around the table and led her off. ‘Long story,' she called over her shoulder. ‘Catch you later, Janis.'

 

Janis stood up, saw her glass was empty and went to the bar. Once the glass had been filled the table was no longer vacant.

Jordan appeared again.

‘Hi, Janis,' he said. ‘There's someone I want you to meet.'

The woman he'd been talking to stepped forward and stopped just beside him. Janis took an instant liking to her. She had rough-cut red-brown hair and a sun-exposed, freckle-dusted face, and she was wearing as her only jewellery a blue enamel star pinned to the shoulder of her red silk shift. At the moment the expression on her frank, open face was one of frank, open reserve.

‘Janis, Sylvia,' Jordan said. ‘Sylvia's the first person I met in Norlonto. She actually pointed me towards this pub.' He looked at Sylvia, apparently oblivious to how she felt. ‘I'd probably never have met you, or Cat, if it hadn't been for her. Talk about chance, huh? The blind matchmaker.' He grinned, then seemed to realize that the phrase had painful echoes. ‘Anyway, she's in the space-movement militia.'

He waved a hand between them and turned away.

Sylvia leaned an elbow on the bar and ordered a beer.

‘Well, hi there, soldier,' she said. ‘So how does it feel to be doing me out of a job?'

‘What?' Janis stared at her, bewildered.

‘Don't tell me you don't
know
,' Sylvia said. She raised her mug and said with heavy sarcasm, ‘Ladies and gentlemen: the Republic!'

‘Oh,
Christ
!' Janis put her drink down on the bar and stared at it for a moment. She shook her head and looked up. ‘Believe me, Sylvia, I didn't know. And I don't agree with it.'

‘OK.' Sylvia gave a guarded smile. ‘Are you free to talk about it?'

‘Sure.' Sure.

‘Well,' – Sylvia slid up on to a tall stool – ‘the militia's been ordered to disband and merge with the army. We don't like it, but all the movement leaders say we don't have much choice. Any day now, the army' – so that was what people called it now! – ‘is going to move in and enforce it. Put an end to Norlonto's so-called anomalous status.'

‘But why?' She knew why.

‘Officially, it's because it's a security risk, full of refugees and conspirators from the Free States.'

‘Hah!' If she knew anything about Norlonto the objection was that its militias and defence agencies
could
maintain law and order, could stamp on any terrorism or other clear and present danger, and do it a lot more effectively than any occupying army.

‘Indeed,' said Sylvia. ‘It's because it's outside their control and they don't like it. A decadent blot on the face of the earth.'

‘Yeah. A fun-loving, freedom-loving decadent blot.'

‘You said it.'

‘Well, actually, Wilde said it,' Janis acknowledged. ‘And now they're going to wreck the only good thing to come out of the Settlement. Goodbye to the fifth-colour country.'

Sylvia looked surprised, then smiled in agreement.

Janis noticed Jordan standing just a metre away, listening, and decided she'd underestimated his awareness of what was going on. She swung her head to indicate to him to come closer, and leaned inward to talk in a low voice to them both.

‘I know what you think I'm thinking. That it's all very well doing this sort of thing to unpleasant little Free States, breeding grounds of reaction, but Norlonto's different, Norlonto's special because Norlonto's free.

‘That's not what I think at all.' She took a long swallow, enjoying the looks they were giving her. ‘I think what we're doing is wrong all down the line.' There, she'd said it.

‘So what do you want then?' Jordan asked, frowning. ‘Another Settlement? Let places like
BC
go on tyrannizing their inhabitants, poisoning their minds and screwing up their personalities? God, Janis, you don't know what that kind of power is like!'

‘You don't—' she began. Then she recognized the song The Precentors were playing, just starting into the refrain again. She held up her hand. ‘Listen.'

They heard it out. Jordan turned to her, his ears burning.

‘Point taken,' he said.

‘Is it that bad?' Sylvia asked.

‘It's bad,' Janis said. ‘Don't get me wrong – it's not like it's Afghanistan. I'm not talking about atrocities. But people's lives are being
devastated
just to make a political point.'

‘But we had all of that under the Hanoverians,' Jordan said. ‘The enclaves fought all the time—' He stopped and shook his head. ‘Not all the time, and not like this. OK, OK. But it's hard to stop. There's a big sentiment for national unity, and against the mini-states.'

‘If the Republic wins,' Janis said, ‘it isn't going to be like Norlonto with taxes. It's going to be like one big mini-state!'

She laughed for a moment at her own contradictory phrases, but Jordan looked at her sharply.

‘If—'

Janis felt her shoulders slump. ‘The fact is,' she said, ‘we're losing.'

‘Oh, yes,' Jordan said lightly, catching someone's eye and moving away. ‘I knew
that.
'

 

‘So what do we do?' Janis said.

Syvlia snorted. ‘I know what I'm going to do. Move out.'

‘Move out – oh! To space.'

‘Yeah, while this place is still a spaceport, where you can hook on to something moving. While we still
have
space.'

Janis stared at her. ‘What do you mean?'

‘There's a lot of talk about cutting back. A good deal of the space effort was a Space Defense boondoggle, let's face it. Now they've suddenly realized how vulnerable they are to the space unions. Space is still bloody expensive. Maybe if we'd had the steam-beams – ah, shit.'

‘So why go there?'

Sylvia grinned all over her face. ‘We'll be there. The settlements can survive. There just won't be much coming up. Maybe none.' She swirled what remained of her litre moodily, and added as if changing the subject, ‘You hear the Khmer Vertes hit Bangkok?'

 

‘You getting all this?'

‘Yes.'

‘You OK?'

‘Yeah, I'm fine, Janis. Gotta admit it's fucking weird, though.'

She touched the tiny phone behind her ear, smiling.

‘Take your word for it, gun.'

She circulated. There were a lot of space-movement people here, the comrades, some of Jordan's…she didn't know what to call them. Not, she hoped, followers. She talked, she drank, and sometimes she talked to herself without moving her lips.

Turing said if you could talk to it and you couldn't tell if it was a person or not, it was a person. Searle said, suppose you had a man in a room who didn't understand a language, say Chinese, and the room was full of books of rules for combining words in that language, and you shoved some writing in that language under the door, would…?

And Korzybski said a difference that
makes
no difference
is
no difference.

She could live with that.