The Galaxy Game (4 page)

The reply was pleasingly blunt, if typical. ‘It’s boring. I could cover twice the work in half the time on the homestead.’

‘I know,’ murmured Silyan. ‘It’s almost as if we wanted to keep you here for as long as possible.’ He met Rafi’s suddenly horrified stare with an amused gaze.

‘Your mother and sister have moved to Tlaxce City,’ he continued. ‘Your grandmother is away most weekends – sailing season on Tlaxce Lake, I understand. These are not, however, the only reasons you are now a Saturday boy.

‘You’ve been with us for a while and . . . well . . . we can’t quite figure you out, Abowen. You’re not helping. You don’t speak to the school therapists, you’re friends with no one but friendly to everyone, and you’re ordinary. You overdo ordinariness. You wouldn’t be here if you were ordinary, Abowen. What are you keeping from us?’

The boy blinked at him and said nothing. Anger, fear, uncertainty . . . what was the origin of that tension that kept his face so still? It was impossible to tell.

Silyan sighed. ‘We will have to cap you.’

‘No,’ Abowen replied instantly. ‘I won’t accept it.’

‘Ah, there’s the problem. We do need your permission. You haven’t done anything wrong, after all. Boy, where do you think you are?’

Silent confusion.

The master pressed on. ‘A school? A prison? A hospital?’

‘Is there a choice?’ Abowen retorted.

‘There is,’ Silyan said gravely, ‘and I encourage you to choose wisely. The Lyceum has one mandate: to bring together all the rogue and random psi gifted of Cygnus Beta and teach them ethics, restraint and community. In that we are supported by Central Government and some of the oldest Ntshune families on the planet. If you need help, let us help you. Prove you’re not dangerous and show us what you can do. If you want to learn, you can learn from us.’

Abowen studied the mess on the table and began fidgeting with the strategy board. Silyan did not stop him. He suspected there were tears on the boy’s averted face.

‘You like the game?’

Abowen nodded and cleared his throat before saying in a steady voice, ‘We call it snakes and ladders.’ He smiled. ‘No one else calls it that.’

‘Messenger, Wallrunning, Cliffchase,’ Silyan listed. ‘Of course, the original name in Traditional Ntshune is unpronounceable unless you’re very musical, but it roughly translates as “messenger”.’

‘ “Those who go before”,’ Abowen corrected quietly. ‘ “Vanguard”, perhaps? Or “herald”?’

Silyan watched as he flicked the flags and pins into a common formation and then quickly disassembled the grouping with a tap to the corner of the grid. ‘Forerunner,’ he said, and added, ‘Do you play?’

‘Never in real life,’ Abowen said, looking up at him with clear eyes and a calm expression.

‘Would you like to?’

His eyes widened. ‘With the Dailies? I’m not that good.’

‘They won’t mind someone stumbling around during training drills. It’ll keep them alert, at least.’

‘They’ll never accept someone with a cap.’

‘Wear it after hours and don’t tell them.’

Abowen looked at the strategy board again, his gaze distant and dreaming. He glanced, frowning, at the walls of the room, then met Silyan’s eyes. ‘I’ll take the bribe and the cap. But what does the cap do?’

‘That depends on you, boy. That entirely depends on you. Go and get your cap and come back at two – no, make that three. I’ll find some work for you to do.’

*

The door to the schoolmaster’s office opened and closed and there was my dear and callow friend Rafi, also known as Moo, unscathed by all appearances, but very strange-faced, as if he had a lot of excitement he didn’t know what to do with. Then he saw me and went all-angry with no doubts.

‘Tinman, what in all blasted Earth are you doing in halls on a Saturday?’ he said, shouting with his hands, whispering with his mouth.

‘Making sure the master doesn’t disappear you. It’s happened before, you know.’

Moo hustled me ’round the corner with his fist wrapped up in my sleeve. ‘They’ll disappear
you
.’

‘Calm down, you’re all aflitter. Come to the back gate. I flew. No nav, no trace.’

He opened his mouth, he shut his mouth. He tried again. ‘You what?’

‘Flew. Padr got me an aerolight to celebrate my ageday. Two-seater. Scared? It’s higher than an elephant’s eye.’

He thumped my shoulder. ‘Never scared! But I can’t. I’ve just agreed to be capped.’

‘Pest and perdition, no!’ I gasped.

He nodded. ‘Going to pick it up now.’

‘You should be crying. Why not?’

‘Compensation is I get to play with the Dailies.’

‘Poxy liar, no!’ I shouted.

‘Shh. Truth. Now fly back home and I’ll see you Monday.’

He left me gaping and flapping in the corridor as if
I
were the
moujin
and not him. He’s three years younger and acts superior. I should hate him, but he took me elephant riding last break, so I owe him, even if he doesn’t want to be owed. But capped! That’s for the crazies, the criminals and the ones who’d set themselves on fire by accident if they weren’t watched. How could he be so calm about that?

I didn’t come all that distance to fly alone. I went and banged on the window of the next best thing. She was deep in study, slate in hand, and she dropped it and almost fell out of her chair when I rattled the metalwork and glass.

She opened the window fully and gave me a bad-look. ‘You’re so uncouth.’

‘You’re not in the convent any more. Adjust. Come flying with me.’

‘I’m busy,’ she snapped and turned away. Halfway away. I stopped her.

‘Moo is going to be capped.’

She froze a moment and turned back. ‘What?’ she whispered. She sounded truly upset. ‘Why would they cap Rafi?’

‘I have no idea. Fly with me and let’s discuss it.’

She gave me more bad-looks, but she came. She sat on the sill, swung her feet daintily over and jumped down onto the pebble path, ignoring my outstretched helping hand. As we walked, I tried small talk to soften her up. ‘So, you’ve been here a few months now. What is your opinion of this fine establishment?’

‘Sad,’ she said brutally. ‘By all sacred waters, I am grateful I never came here as a child.’

‘Don’t judge it by me, sweet Serendipity,’ I told her. ‘I am an indifferent student, a less than stellar example, the despair of my illustrious tutors. On the other hand, your home is truly a blessed place for the bright-minded. I cannot blame you for your high standards. Here we learn how not to disturb the common man; there you learn to sing and soar with the highest.’

We were walking shoulder-to-shoulder, close enough to touch hands. I touched her hand. She shook me off absently, like brushing away a fly. I was too cheerful to feel hurt. My gift and freedom was before us: smooth lines, cool mint-green trim, graceful wings.

‘My lady’s wingèd chariot,’ I proclaimed, offering her again the hand she’d scorned. She scorned it a second time and scrambled in. I tumbled in myself and sealed up the canopy. ‘We’ll have to trundle for a bit,’ I explained apologetically as I keyed it awake with a short code. ‘Too many trees in the vicinity.’

I kept quiet as we taxied silently to open space. I knew she was thinking. I didn’t know what she was thinking. She always hated it when I tried to look. I merely recognised the expression, the mild worry that reminded me she was concerned about greater matters than the latest game score or the career her padr had picked for her.

‘I don’t think you need fret. Rafi won’t tell, and neither will I.’ I spoke seriously, partly because I was serious and partly because I was starting my preparation for take-off, something that always makes me stop skylarking.

She bit her lip, looking irritated. ‘There’s little to tell, and soon there will be nothing to tell. The day of secrets is over. I just don’t trust those caps.’

‘He’s tried too hard to seem harmless. They probably want to check that he’s not harbouring murderous urges.’

She kindly waited until I had taken off and levelled out the aircraft before glaring at me.

I smiled back half-heartedly. ‘That’s why we’re here. What can you do? What are you going to do with it? Are you safe? Work with us. Are you useful? Work for us. Are you a mess? We’ll work on you.’

‘Blue, Yellow, Red,’ she noted, naming our school teams. ‘The safe, the useful and the dangerous.’

‘And Green for the day students, from which happy cadre I do hail. We’ve already been raised right, or we’re too weak to be much trouble. I suppose you’re a resident Green, given your origins.’ I almost bit my lip. Her secrets remained strong.

‘Rafi’s in Blue,’ she said.

‘For now,’ I replied.

She liked Rafi. She worried about Rafi, she thought about Rafi, she watched Rafi. She did all that quietly enough that whenever I opened my mouth to ask, ‘So, are you in love with Rafi,’ I found myself shutting my mouth in foolish silence. I could admit jealousy to myself, but I didn’t want her to accuse me of being an idiot.

‘You fly really well, Ntenman.’ It sounded like a concession, a patronising, pitying compliment to break the unusual pause in my babble. Serendipity the kind-hearted. She would snap my fingers off if I got too close but pat my head when I looked beaten. Ridiculous. Why didn’t she just ignore me?

‘Thank you. We should go back now. I have to get home before sundown.’

*

In one sense, ‘serendipity’ was a word that covered many desires and expectations for the future, but for Serendipity of distant Tirtha, it was a simplified translation of a name that the students of the Tlaxce National Lyceum would find unfamiliar. Many remote and self-sufficient communities managed to evade bureaucracy, coasting on the natural Cygnian tendency to live and let live barring outright war or exploitation. It was different in the urban belt. The greater the infrastructure, the greater the scrutiny. Comforts must be paid for – the intercontinental rail, the orbital stations, the produce of the biodomes and the monitoring of the biosphere. With respect to the latter, Sadira’s fate had not increased knowledge but it had increased paranoia, so that field was flourishing with an influx of public and private funding and a bounty of fresh, keen minds.

Some things were suspiciously free, like the services of the Ministry of Family Planning and Maintenance, the Health Service (people would never forget the clone scandal, and that involved only ten specimens) and the Cygnian Military Service (conscription was rare but legal, and that fact alone still provoked healthy debate).

Even in this day and age, a community that lived simply and peaceably according to its own healing lore and bonding rituals need not be troubled by the presence of the Civil Service. Such was the village Tirtha in the forest uplands of Oleha Province.

Things change.

One thing did not change: the deep discontent that defined and narrowed Serendipity’s life. That was the only constraint. There were no barriers to leaving home. The elder monks and nuns encouraged travel at the age of majority, knowing too well that many would choose to stay and of those who left, most would return, dissatisfied with the shallow communion offered by the outside world.

Some remained in nearby villages among those whose minds could manage some small speech. There too resided those who had been born with solitary minds or faint and faltering thought-projection. The elders observed the population, the small flows in and out, monitoring the genetic heritage for improvement and decline. The arrival of a Sadiri representative from a new community of waking minds had been an unexpected gift.

Serendipity marked that day as the beginning of her discontent.

Along with the simple and humble life their community cultivated, there was also an unacknowledged but inherent belief that this life, this stability, this depth of communion and intimacy could not be found anywhere else. Leaving permanently for the outside world was for minds without speech and hearts without warmth. She had not even considered another possibility until the outside world came to her and overturned her old assumptions. She saw a man taught to speak in less than a day and saw him communicate in turn with a woman she would have viewed as an ordinary Cygnian, until something unimaginable happened between them, some connection beyond everything she had learned and experienced. She had been so thrown off balance that a day or two later, when given the opportunity to speak to the woman, she could only manage a few shy words before withdrawing in an embarrassed daze.

The reason for her diffidence was complicated. The rational part of her was intrigued by their communication, but the emotional part of her was fascinated by their intimacy – fascinated, jealous and even obsessed. They left within days, but the shock to the community and to herself lingered. Formal links were forged with the new Sadiri settlement and a slow, quiet revealing began. She could have gone with the first group of women to visit the settlement. She did not. She knew how to maintain her mind’s privacy, but she was ashamed of the fantasies that played in its secret corners and afraid to face the two people who inspired them in case they showed some other unexpected talent and read her passions like a banner spread out for public view. She kept her wild dreams and her dark discontent hidden and brooded over them.

Several months later, Rafi and Ntenman arrived. Rafi was the smaller and younger of the two students of the famous Lyceum. The community was abuzz once more, all intrigued by the concept of a school devoted to parapsychology, but at first she was unmoved. His mind’s voice was untutored, barely a child’s whisper, and she only became interested in him when she found out he was the nephew of
that
woman. She watched him closely and was rewarded when in an unguarded moment he laughed, and whatever restraints he had placed on himself unknotted and let slip a great wave of warmth and vibrant otherness that was and was not like the strange fizzing connection she had witnessed between his aunt and her companion.

To her shame and dismay, her attachment transferred smoothly from the middle-aged couple to the teenage boy.

This time, when a group of her peers were given the chance to visit the Lyceum, she went out of sheer contrariness, angry with herself and her secret, uncontrollable obsession. It was only fitting that her punishment should be Ntenman’s intense crush and Rafi’s complete obliviousness.