No Life But This (20 page)

Rose looked over to me, and then back to Xavier. ‘Yes,’ she said, but she held his hand tightly.

We took our positions where the man I couldn’t help but think of as the Master of Ceremonies had indicated, and the hatch in the icebreaker opened.

A vast roar echoed as the crowd at the edges realized the captain
was approaching. Quin and I found each other’s hands in silence as we both realized we’d just walked unwillingly into a state reception. For once, Quin’s mind wasn’t jarring. We both felt exactly the same.

The platform was carpeted in a muted brownish red – probably another product made out of RayonEuropa – and a banner had been hung above our heads, with the UniCorp unicorn rampant shining garishly
under a bright light. There were cameras on the stage, too – hovering spherical holovid cameras, blasting our images in 3D to Europa HN. Rose hated cameras, but Xavier’s hand on her back held her steady.

‘Just smile,’ Xavier said,
sotto voce
, to all three of us.

Rose was shaking, and I wasn’t surprised.

Captain Jagan exited the hatch and made a gesture for the crowd. Beside him stood his wife,
and a girl about twelve, who I took to be Jamal’s sister, Nila. He’d mentioned her, in passing. She’d be going to UniPrep in a few more years. Beside them stood three things which definitely wouldn’t have been seen on Earth. The first two were Plastine bodyguards. Their shiny, surreal-looking faces stared blankly ahead, and they each carried stumble sticks on their hips, and cruel-looking rifles
in their arms. My arm ached with an unpleasant memory. I didn’t know how they could bear to have them so close. The other paced peacefully beside the girl, nearly as tall as she was, fur sleek and muscles liquid strength. It was a black panther.

Captain Jagan strode forward to meet Xavier, who took his arm warmly. ‘Captain Jagan. So pleased to see you again. I would like to introduce you to my
ward, Miss Rose Fitzroy.’

‘You can’t believe how pleased I am to finally meet you, Miss Fitzroy,’ Captain Jagan said. ‘I’ve been anxious to hear about you from the moment the news reports reached us.’

‘And of course these are Mr Otto Sextus and Quin Essential, whose arrival I’m sure you have been anxiously anticipating.’

‘It is truly an honour,’ said Captain Jagan, nodding his head respectfully
in my direction as he held out his hand.

I stepped back. No. Absolutely not him. His son was one thing, but Jamal was young. His mind was still malleable, and I didn’t even like everything I saw there. Quin kindly covered my blunder by taking the hand himself. ‘The honour is entirely yours,’ Quin said bluntly. Nila’s huge smile faltered.

Xavier interposed himself between them before Captain
Jagan caught that. ‘Please, introduce me to your lovely daughter. You had not yet been blessed with her when I last saw you.’

The girl came forward and politely introduced herself to Xavier and Rose. ‘My name is Nila Jagan. And this is Bagheera,’ she added, proudly.

Xavier smiled at the big cat. ‘Charming. Named for Kipling?’

‘Who?’ the girl asked.

‘Bagheera. The panther in Kipling’s
Jungle
Book
,’ Xavier said.

‘Never read it,’ the girl said. ‘He came with the name.’

Yep. That was Jamal’s sister. I could tell.

Quin eyed the beast with suspicion. ‘Is he, ah … declawed?’

‘What? Oh, no, he’s just a Geemo.’

‘A what?’

‘Genetically modified organism,’ the girl said. ‘Are you stupid?’ Her mother tried to hush her.

Quin blinked at her, incredulous. ‘Don’t try to match wits with me,
hon. I know goldfish who can insult me better than that.’ Well, Quin was getting on wonderfully. ‘What’s Geemo about your kitty cat?’

She glared at him. ‘Bagheera is Geemo nonaggressive. If he even wanted to hurt something he’d fall over in a faint.’ She tousled the fur on the big cat’s head. ‘Daddy got him for me as a cub last year. I wanted a griffin, but Daddy says the design isn’t finished
yet, and they’re not safe. Baggy’ll be dead in a year or so, and then we’ll see. Right, Daddy?’

Captain Jagan chuckled and said, ‘We’ll see, darling.’

I blinked. Were they saying what I thought they were saying?

They were. ‘There are few regulations on genetically modified organisms up here,’ Mr Zellwegger explained to us at Rose’s look. ‘The Ganymede colony was recently refounded about fifteen
years ago, to provide a safe environment for genetic experimentation. This panther would have come out of those programmes.’

My eyes widened in horror. This cat had been genetically modified, like I had. And it had been designed with a limited life span … planned obsolescence on a living being, so customers would have to purchase newer models of pet. How many other animals and plants were being
spliced together in some lab, here or on Ganymede? For each successful organism, how many were mutated, unviable or dangerous? I suddenly felt nauseated.

And the old man just took it in his stride. My hatred for him spiked.

Rose jumped forward and took hold of my arm.
‘Hang on,’
she thought to me.
‘Just hang on.’
She was appalled, too. Quin was looking at the cat as if it were a bloody corpse.
I gripped Rose’s hand tightly.

And Captain Jagan just chatted on, oblivious. ‘I am so glad to see you are recovering nicely from yesterday’s unpleasantness. It is a pity that something so upsetting had to mar your visit to our fair moon, but rest assured, such a thing is easily dealt with. I have arranged for a ball this evening in honour of your visit. It really is almost fortunate that this
happened. The Crystal Village is ideal for a fairy-tale evening. A fairy-tale evening for our Sleeping Beauty, yes?’ He beamed at Rose. ‘And I understand you’ve been going to Unity Preparatory? My son goes there, I understand you know him? I cannot wait to converse more this evening.’

‘You know something?’ Quin said suddenly. Rose blanched, and debated trying to put her hand over his mouth. She
ultimately decided she couldn’t afford to replace the fingers, but it was a tough call. ‘We just travelled six hundred and thirty million kilometres over the last five months because my brother is dying. Not so you could play tea party with the UniCorp execs. If you please, I would much prefer you and your barbarous family could quit with your semi-diplomatic chats and get us to your ever so beneficent
lab, so that I can get out of your benighted company as soon as humanly, or inhumanly, possible.’

‘Quin!’ Rose cried.

‘
It was the panther,’
I told her.
‘He’d have held his tongue but for that.’

Jamal’s family looked shocked. Quin could be pretty shocking to people who didn’t know him. ‘You’ll have to excuse Mr Essential,’ Xavier said calmly. ‘He’s been in a constant state of worry for some
time now.’

‘No call to be rude,’ Nila muttered.

‘I’m not being rude. You’re just insignificant.’

She blushed. She was the daughter of the captain of the
Minos
. I don’t think anyone had ever dared to call her something like that before.

‘And contemptible,’ he added, and Nila’s eyes shone with tears of embarrassment.

‘Could you at least
try
to be polite?’ Rose asked.

Quin looked at her, eyebrow
raised. ‘I could try. I would fail.’

‘Yes,’ said Captain Jagan. ‘Well. I am sure that we can solve any difficulties at the reception.’

‘Yeah. When you receive my fist in your face, maybe,’ Quin muttered.

Xavier took up the conversation as if Quin hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing more of Europa’s hospitality,’ Xavier said. ‘Shall we, then?’ He turned to the people and took Rose’s
hand. ‘Bow,’ he said to her, Quin and myself. He stepped forward with Rose and made a respectful greeting, to the cheer of the crowds.

It looked wrong, the old man beside her fresh, young face. Neither I nor Quin bothered to bow. We followed Dr Zellwegger back to the lift. When Rose caught up to me and took my arm, I sighed with relief.

‘That was a very reckless public display, Quin,’ said Dr Zellwegger as we all piled into the lobby.

‘I don’t like them.’

‘So you couldn’t keep your mouth shut for ten minutes? The cameras have all of that, you know. It’ll be all around the colonies in half an hour.’

‘Not if the cell tower is still out of commission.’

‘We have a message link in the bay,’ Dr Zellwegger said. ‘That
meeting was being broadcast live back to the
Minos
, and there are other feeds from each of the villages. What were you thinking!’

‘What were they thinking?’ Quin shouted. ‘Parading that panther around, bragging about how it’s about to die. Do they talk like that about us, too?’

‘I’m not here to get into GMO politics with you, Quin. My job is to try and save your brother.’

‘And a great job you’re
doing of it, too, poncing about this tourist trap like it’s heaven on Europa. Why don’t you get on with it?’

‘I’m trying!’ Dr Zellwegger said. ‘We’d be on the
Minos
already, prepping Otto for the procedure as we speak, if those terrorists hadn’t mucked everything up.’

‘They did exactly what everyone expected them to do,’ Quin said. ‘They did what they’re
designed
to do! It’s not the so-called
terrorists keeping us in limbo, here, it’s your wretched security!’

‘It’s not my security,’ Dr Zellwegger said. ‘I’m just a scientist.’

‘It’s mine,’ Xavier said evenly. ‘And it isn’t safe for us to leave yet, Quin.’

‘But it’s safe for Captain Jag-off to parade around like the second coming?’

‘That was his call. My first priority is to keep you, all of you, alive. Otto will not be saved if
he’s killed on the way.’

‘You don’t care what happens to us,’ Quin snapped. ‘You’re just worried about your precious underage princess, you sicko.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Xavier said. ‘I care very much what happens to you and Otto. You’re more valuable than you realize.’

I saw Quin stiffen when the word ‘value’ was applied. He didn’t like thinking of us as commodities. ‘Right. Am I to
take it you actually gave a rodent’s posterior before your pretty trophy child began whimpering at your heels for her favourite toy?’

‘Please do not speak of Rose that way. I have done everything in my power for you, Mr Essential,’ Xavier said quietly. I was worried. I knew this old man very well – I felt I was him, in a strange, mad, way. And in the same way I knew how dangerous Quin could be,
I was certain that the old man could be even more deadly. ‘If I am to continue with this dangerous venture on behalf of your brother, whom you purport to care about, I expect a certain level of respect from you towards myself and the officials of this moon. You do not have to like them. You do not even have to speak to them. But I would appreciate it if you could curb your tongue until the cameras
are turned off. Is that understood?’

‘I don’t care what you’d
appreciate
,’ Quin said.

‘Then you are banned from tonight’s festivities, until I feel I can trust you in public.’

‘Oh!’ Quin cringed as if he’d been shot, staggering back several steps. ‘My heart is breaking! In case that wasn’t clear, that was sarcasm,’ he added. ‘I hadn’t planned on going to your kennel club show in the first
place. And since we are neither prisoners nor pets, I suggest you take that answer at whatever
value
you think it’s worth.’

‘You appear to value yourself at a considerably lower rate than anyone else in the system,’ Xavier said to him coolly. ‘You appear to believe yourself expendable. I have tended to disagree in the past, but perhaps I’m mistaken. The billions spent in your daily upkeep was
perhaps a wasted investment, but to your good fortune I have never been one inclined to cut his losses and move on. Unlike many other executives of my acquaintance.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean, old man?’ Quin snarled.

‘It means you are both alive only at my discretion, and you are only here because there is someone who has a vested interest in keeping you that way,’ he said. ‘I suggest
you treat her with some measure of respect.’

‘Is that a threat?’ Quin asked.

‘It doesn’t need to be,’ Xavier said evenly. ‘And you know that as well as I do.’

‘Xavier,’ said Rose. ‘Let it go. It’s just Quin. He’s always like this.’

‘Yes,’ Xavier said, without taking his eyes from Quin’s. ‘He is.’ To my surprise, it was Quin who looked away first.

Xavier turned to Rose. ‘I’ve arranged for
clothing for all of you. You can find something to do with Quin’s suit, I’m sure. Toilet paper is in short supply on this moon, I understand.’

Rose chuckled.

He turned to Quin, who was sulking. ‘You,’ he said to Quin, ‘should guard yourself and your tongue with more care.’

‘Remind me to pretend to give a squitch,’ Quin muttered.

Xavier only gazed at him for a long moment and then shook his
head. He left without another word.

Rose rounded on Quin. ‘And what’s up your butt?’ she snapped.

I laughed. Rose’s prim little antiquated accent sounded so pristine in contrast to her words.

‘Seriously!’ she said to both of us, leading us back to her suite. ‘Don’t tick Xavier off, you have no
idea
how hard it was to get you two up here!’ She shook her head in disbelief and rubbed her face.

‘He doesn’t care,’ Quin said.

‘Yes, he does. He was already angry when you snuck off this morning.’

‘
What?
’ I signed.

‘Yeah, he vanished while you were asleep,’ Rose told me. We followed Rose into her room as she unlocked it. ‘Caused quite the buzz when he dodged security.’

‘
What were you doing?’
I signed.

‘I was seeing Europa. You know. The reason we came here.’

‘The reason we came here
was to cure Otto,’ Rose snapped. ‘You disappeared just after a bombing!’

‘They happen all the time,’ Quin said. He flung himself down casually on Rose’s couch. ‘No one’s happy in this village. They’re all starving or freezing to death, or both.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Who do you think I was talking with?’ Quin asked.

Both Rose and I turned to him. ‘
What?
’

‘How did you find them?’

‘They found
me,’ Quin said. ‘I thought at first they were going to kidnap me or something, but they told me they don’t do that. Not unless someone deserves it.’

‘As if Xavier deserved to be attacked,’ Rose said with scorn.

‘You’d be surprised, princess,’ Quin said.

‘Stop it,’ Rose said. ‘I know Xavier. He’s the kindest, loyalist, most generous person you could imagine.’

‘
Thank you,
’ I signed automatically.

She ignored me. ‘If those criminals you were playing with think he deserves to die just because he’s head of UniCorp, they’re wrong.
You’re
wrong!’

‘The poor aren’t criminals, they’re just stuck,’ Quin said. ‘Just because they agree with the
Harvestaras
mission doesn’t mean they all agree with their methods.’

‘Wait,’ Rose said. ‘Wait, that means you know where they are! You need to tell Xavier.
We’ll catch them, and then we can get down to the
Minos
, and Otto will be—’

‘I can’t tell them anything,’ Quin said. ‘I didn’t see their faces, and I don’t know where they base. They have tunnels, all through the walls around here, did you know? I’d get lost before the second turning. It’s a labyrinth in there. What you see of this village is just, well, the tip of the ice-burg.’ He laughed at
his own joke.

‘
Wait a minute,’
I signed. ‘
Slow down. Quin, where have you been?’

‘I was hoping you’d ask, bro,’ Quin said. He jumped up and grabbed my head.

His thoughts were spiked with anger. He had never felt so strongly about anything in his life, and it was like being hit by a jackhammer. Some of the memories were actually from yesterday, before the bombing.
Bang!
He’d been wandering the
tourist trap in disgust until he found the hole in the wall.
Bang!
Disappearing into dark tunnels like worm holes. Lost, alone, frightened and cold, until he was found,
Bang!
by a knot of people on their way through the tunnels, who recognized him immediately. Some of them even spoke English, and
Bang!
he was taken under their wing, shown the poverty of the village. People, hundreds of people,
thin and pale and ragged, infesting the walls like maggots.
Bang!
Tiny warm rooms where a dozen people lived almost atop each other for warmth.
Bang!
Hungry children eating hard dry cakes of unprocessed plankton.
Bang!
Jerry-rigged stabilizers and oxygen filters, failing NeoFusion batteries, flickering dying lights, dim corridors.
Bang!
A room of metal cylinders,
Bang!
a religious ceremony in
a darkened room, open to the ocean.
Bang!
Hungry faces of abandoned children.

‘Stop it!’ Rose grabbed at Quin’s arms, yanking him off me in terror. Each of Quin’s disconnected images had jolted through me like electric shocks, and I’d been flinching at each one, as if in pain. Rose pushed him away and took hold of my face, gently staring into my eyes. She was horrified.

‘
I’m not hurt,’
I told
her. ‘
Quin just has a very powerful mind. I don’t touch him often.’

Rose sighed, but looked daggers at Quin. ‘Your brother is sick! He doesn’t need you mentally shouting at him.’

‘I was just telling him about the village,’ Quin said. ‘Or the villagers. You should come with me.’ He stared at her. ‘They’re starving, and they’re uneducated, and they’re freezing to death, and no one gives a squitch.
Princess.’

‘Of course they are,’ Rose said.

Quin and I both blinked at her. Rose, eternally compassionate Rose, was so matter-of-fact about Quin’s revelation that we were both taken aback. She looked back and forth between us and shrugged. ‘Well, what did you expect to find?’ she asked. ‘It’s a colony.’

‘You think that’s
right?’
Quin asked.

Rose shrugged again. ‘I don’t know.’

‘
You knew,
’ I signed. Then a dark, world weary fatigue gripped me, and I sank onto the sofa. Of course she knew. I already knew she’d known. Or part of me did.

Quin laughed cruelly. ‘You’re surprised?’ he asked me. ‘Of course she knew.’ He stared at her. ‘She’s one of them. Give her another two years, she’ll be just like them.’

‘Just like who?’ Rose snapped at him. ‘Like you? Like Otto? You both knew too.
It’s not as if Jamal is quiet about what it’s like up here, and there’s stuff about Europa on the net. I’ve never heard you moaning about the injustices of the universe before.’

‘But you knew how bad this was?’ Quin demanded.

‘Not exactly,’ Rose said, yawning. ‘It just doesn’t surprise me, is all.’

Quin’s rage boiled behind his eyes. The yawn was misplaced – it made Rose seem bored, rather
than exhausted with the stress of the afternoon and the Europan gravity compounded with her stass fatigue. I held my hand out at Quin, as if I were holding him in his chair, though I didn’t even touch him.
‘Rose. Tell Quin what you mean,’
I signed.

She blinked in confusion for a moment and then sighed in sudden understanding. ‘I told you this place reminded me of my mom,’ she told me. ‘It’s not
just her, this whole place reminds me of … back then. The opinions of the people, the structure of the village itself. It’s all to make money for the corporation. This is pre Dark Time mentality. This is just …’ She held her hand up helplessly. ‘What it was like.’

‘That’s disgusting,’ Quin said.

Rose shrugged. ‘Well, yes, but what do you expect? It’s a problem they don’t really care about, so
their solutions are callous, and they don’t work very well. They think if you put the poor out of sight, they stop existing. That’s what those tunnels are. If you beat and starve and work the lower classes into submission, they won’t interrupt your holiday. But then the under-served get angry and riot or go rogue. So you need to suppress them more to make them pay. One of those vicious cycles. This
was my childhood. Beautiful and decadent on one hand, and slimy and hopeless on the other.’

‘And you’re okay with this,
princess?
’ Quin growled.

‘I didn’t do it.’

‘This colony was founded by your father.’

Rose looked down. ‘I know.’

The guilt was heavy on her face. I glared at Quin, and he glared right back. This wasn’t Rose’s fault, but all her life she had been reared to take the blame
onto herself for her parents’ wrongdoings. Finally, very gently, I touched her hand. Her thoughts had turned to her parents, and they were dark and conflicted.

‘Yeah, but you’re like gods out here,’ Quin went on. ‘You’re telling me there’s nothing you can do?’

‘Xavier’s trying,’ Rose said, pulling away. ‘He doesn’t feel he has a lot of power out here.’

‘Yeah, right. You can do everything else.
Do you know how hard it is to get a passport to the colonies? I’m not talking Luna. Out here, do you know what it takes to get permission to enter the Jovian system? It takes a year-long application process. We got up here in a
week
.’

‘And you’re complaining about this?’ Rose asked. ‘That’s red tape, this is economics!’

‘And that makes it okay?’ Quin was infuriated.

‘No, it makes it complicated,’
Rose said. ‘And I don’t have the training yet to know how to fix it. And neither do you!’

‘I know we have to do
something
. You seem content to just let it go on.’

‘I have no choice! Xavier explained it to me before we left. The colony was set up and then kind of left to go on its own momentum. Remember, the Dark Times didn’t happen up here. There were no plagues, no wars. All that happened was
that each of the colonies grew more isolated, more cut off from Earth, and less reliant on Earth’s orders and policies. Europa is the bread-basket of the outer colonies. There’s enough water to provide Callisto and Ganymede with ample supplies, and a lot of its produce even gets shipped all the way to Titan – and not just the plankton, the hydroponics produce, too, grown in the cities. These villages
are only way stations. The tourist sections were actually a concession by the ruling families, an attempt to make these transportation blocks less distasteful to those who had to travel through them. They do supply the villages with an economy, of a kind.’