Taj's Early Years

by Lotta Bangs

  Very gently, I placed a hand on his left temple and traced it down his face feeling his firm, soft skin and almost invisible upper lip bristles. I had never touched Paul’s face before.

  I had been fascinated by his skin from the first. It was so pale and translucent, but not pink as you might expect, very fine textured and glowing with health. Any woman would be pleased to have such skin. It was very sun-sensitive, but he knew to guard it outdoors.

  With that radiant skin, his height, good looks and glossy pale hair, Paul was very distinctive, a lambent candle drawing every eye, especially with his hair loose. I could easily follow his movements through a crowded room. But then, my eyes seemed to follow him naturally.

  He turned his head when my fingers reached the corner of his mouth and quickly captured them, sucking and licking them delicately. His eyes opened. He released my fingers.

  Paul’s eyes were a deep blue, yet I’d always thought them gray. Even as I watched, they changed color, back to gray. That was fascinating.

  “You taste chalky. Am I in your bed, or you in mine?” His voice was a little husky.

  “We’re both in mine, Paul. Did one of your eager admirers knock on the door and drive you to me for protection?”

  He grinned. “No. Nobody has propositioned me since the girls arrived. Maybe they know my heart has already been claimed?”

  This was the first time he had hinted at his feelings. I would have preferred to leave things unspoken for much longer, but it would have been crass and dishonest not to acknowledge them. I think Paul needed to know how I felt.

  “I’m sorry you’ll have such a long wait, Paul. Working and living so closely makes it even harder for you. Until I grow up you probably should hook up with someone else to ease your tension. I won’t mind. Really.

  “As it is, I’ve already promised to marry four other boys when we’re grown.”

  “So, despite getting in so early, I’m already too late?”

  I smiled, showing him the feelings I didn’t wish to speak of. “Never. But you might have to learn to share me. I do love each of them too.”

  “At least that will be easy. I already have to share you with so many people who want a part of you. But didn’t you know that marriage is supposed to be between two people only?”

  “No, we didn’t. We had very unnatural lives. All we understood was that people who loved each other married when they grew up, and then lived happily for ever after. It gave us a reason to try harder to survive—a reward to look forward to.

  “We were raised in a truly dreadful place and looked out for each other. They and Horrie saved my life numerous times, giving me an alibi to be out of bed when I’d been spying on the adults.

  “Our attrition rate was very high. Over thirty of our group didn’t survive the first five years. Few of the older ones reached twenty. We were culled like meat animals.

  “The guards all loved Horrie and did what they could to keep him calm. His poor brain short-circuited occasionally. I was the only one who could ease him then. We just cuddled up in his big wing chair under a blanket and watched that video until we fell asleep.

  “Twice I was chosen for the annual medical check nobody ever returned from. They liked to weed out the less attractive ones, and with my high forehead, big nose and ears, I was considered a funny-looking runt. Only Horrie’s having a major screaming fit saved me.

  “He’d had one before when I was undergoing surgery. He went berserk for three days, destroyed a lot of property and hurt himself badly. They had to put us in adjacent hospital beds to recover. Nobody wanted that again, so two other children died in my place those years.

  “Horrie did pretend his damage was worse than it was. He deliberately babbled, drooled and acted foolish, picking up a lot of info we couldn’t have obtained otherwise. He made our spy cells work more effectively too and helped plan and organize our escape.

  “We broke out, got away, separated, and lost each other. I don’t even know who else made it, who was recaptured, nor if any others are still alive.

  “Maggie arranged my ID as Alessandra, who is a real person, two and a half years my junior. She moved to Galen with her family. Maggie has kept an eye on me since.

  “I actually turned nine four months back, so you won’t have as long to wait as you expected.”

  “Still more than long enough. But we’ll make it. I’m certain of that.”

  “Yes. I too believe we were destined to be together, Paul. The time will pass.”

  “So, is Taj really your name?”

  “Yes, my birth mother called me that.”

  “Good, I’m pleased to know your true name. You can tell me more over the next nine years. A little at a time, so we won’t run out of things to talk about.”

  “Oh you!” I sat up and threw my pillow at him as he rose.

  “I’ll take first shower.” Paul tossed the pillow back, grinning.

  “You have plaster dust in your hair. Give it an extra shampoo.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  He hadn’t offered to help wash my hair. So, now our feelings had been admitted, albeit obliquely, he had set up new boundaries. That was so thoughtful of Paul, but I’d miss our comfortable old ease with each other’s nudity.

  Chapter 24

  Planning the French Dojo

  I felt a little nervous at breakfast, expecting a great fuss from the two men.

  Julius came over and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Thank you Taj. I am honored that you thought me a worthy subject. I’m also a little overwhelmed at all the qualities you portrayed. I’ve always had a good opinion of myself, but you’ve turned me into a saint.

  “If I ran for President with that bust on my posters, I’d be a walk-in.”

  “Nah, you wouldn’t have a hope. It shows all your vulnerabilities too. If you weren’t assassinated before the election, they’d manage to corrupt or blackmail you their way. That’s how the world is run nowadays.”

  He gave me a sharp look. “You’re too young to be so cynical, but I can’t say you’re wrong either. So I’ll stay safely unimportant and try to live up to that image. Thank you, again.”

  Armando just nodded approvingly. Meeting a man who talked more than he did had improved him.

  Emil looked rather bleary-eyed when he appeared, but brightened when Lorna offered him the place she’d saved alongside her. He also kissed me before sitting down.

  “We’ll need to have a talk later, Emil, to discuss the new site.”

  “At first break? I should be more awake by then. I’m not too bright early in the day.”

  * * *

  The karate training went well. We began with the usual workout of heavy calisthenics to loosen up, then the early kata in each style. Many of the students broke through in the first three kata repeats which inspired the others. The entire class reached second dan black belt in each karate type in the first session.

  * * *

  Emil, Paul, Ron and I ate in my apartment so we could talk to Maggie in private.

  Maggie showed a video of the site on a wall screen. A large industrial park had been built in a flat-bottomed cup-shaped valley surrounded by rolling hills. A small town had grown slowly out of the former village on one hill and was spreading outwards. A well-planned university was laid out on an opposite hill.

  The little valley had been farmed or grazed for centuries. Nothing had ever been built there before and there had been warnings that the ground was unstable. But the weather had been very dry for a long time—near twelve years—and no problems had arisen until three very wet seasons followed. The complex not only flooded, but the heavy concrete base slab tilted and sank into the swamp beneath, slowly enough so that anything of value could be saved.

  The land had been available very cheaply. But because the swamp had a large build-up of DDT and still bred Anopheles mosquitoes, it required major rehabilitation.

  ^^The soil underneath is incredibly rich and deep,?? said Maggie. ??Onc
e the DDT has been eaten, it will be replaced with rocks, gravel and sand to make a fresh-water aquifer around a deep large tower. The good dirt will be removed and used to improve poor soils elsewhere.^^

  “What on earth eats DDT?” asked Ron, before I could.

  ^^Galen has bred a DDT-phage—bugs which eat the poison and in three stages, turn it into a type of fertilizer. We have bought up lots of DDT-polluted land at rock bottom prices because nobody else could use it. It’s all been rehabilitated and is now farmed organically.^^

  “That’s great, Maggie. Now you need something that eats radioactivity and you can buy up enormous swathes of Russia.

  “After that, talk China out of their terrible industrial pollution—they’re poisoning American farmland as well as their own people, soil and the ocean and islands in between.

  “Try a combination of diplomacy and blackmail. Threaten to undercut the prices of all their goods and flood their markets if they don’t immediately change their ways.”

  ^^Great minds . . . , Taj. Galen already owns the poisoned Russian land and we do have a radiation-phage, but it’s still very slow. We’re working to improve it.

  ^^But we hadn’t thought of blackmailing China into changing. I’ll put people onto that.^^

  “You may even be able to get the whole country into Galen by showing the people in charge how you rehabilitate other places that were badly polluted. Show them workers wearing visible protective gear to imply noxious gases.

  “Of course, you’d have to temporarily rehouse the population and animals in your towers while accomplishing the work. Can’t have them poisoned by those lethal fumes, you know.

  “Then it’s up to you to win them over quickly so they have no interest in returning. The politicos won’t be able to keep power with nobody to lord it over.”

  ^^You make it sound so simple, Taj. I don’t believe it could be done quite so easily.^^

  “That depends on how fast you can get all the towers up and the people moved in. China’s biggest problem has always been overpopulation. They wouldn’t care if you removed a few or many. But if you took the lot . . .”

  ^^If we plan it all out before starting negotiations, we can put up enough towers overnight and move everybody in the following day.

  ^^You’re a dangerous person, Taj. The world is fortunate that you’re not interested in power.^^

  “Who says I’m not?” I put on my most evil grin and made my eyes glitter. “How do you know that I’m not planning to take over the world after Galen tames it?”

  “I say you’re not,” said Paul. “Stop trying to scare Maggie, Taj. We all know that you’re too altruistic to be power hungry.

  “However Maggie, I do believe that her idea is feasible. It will take cunning and guile, but if your negotiators pretend to be completely altruistic and naïve they just might pull it off.”

  “Yeah, that really would be terrific. How are you handling the mosquitoes, Maggie?”

  ^^Galen makes sonic air cleaners which fence off our organic farms and collect all the pollution muck, asbestos fibers, viruses, bacteria, GMO pollen, fungus and mold spores and unwanted pest insects out of the air so the soil isn’t polluted again.

  ^^We can program them to catch any species of insect we choose while allowing bees and other beneficial bugs free access. We’ll soon be selling versions for vehicles, and portable individual ones for people and animals to wear when outside.^^

  “Sound good. Now, how long is all this going to take before we can use the tower?”

  ^^About a month. Six weeks at most.^^

  “And you can guarantee that there will be no more Anopheles? We don’t want clients catching malaria—that’s a nasty disease and you can’t always tell who’s carrying it.”

  ^^The Anopheles have already been vacuumed up. Our bots have removed the lower soil levels and made a galenite cave roof over the area. They fill it loosely with rocks to check the quantity of water seepage. The site is only thirty miles from the ocean, so we need a positive ground water pressure there to keep out sea water.

  ^^The DDT-phages are working through the upper soil. The bots remove the cleansed soil and raise the roof periodically.

  ^^Because this is a major work, I’ve come up with a different property arrangement. Galen had already bought the whole valley, some of the hills, and property in the town. We’re still uncertain whether or not to fill the valley with a lake, leaving several towers as islands joined by bridges to each other, the town and the university. Or we might retain the galenite cave roof and have gardens in between several towers.

  ^^Whatever we do, the dojo tower will be leased to you for life and then probably revert to Galen.^^

  “It sounds likely to be a great tourist attraction, Maggie. Can you ring the whole area with your sonic cleansers and ban petroleum-sucking vehicles, lawn mowers and power tools completely? We can use bicycles and an electric shuttle system on the bridges and have a large protected garaging place outside the town to park tourist buses and motor vehicles for those who want to drive outside the area.

  “With the loss of the industrial park, and now a malaria scare and a stinking swamp, the town economy will be depressed.

  “If we addressed a town meeting and explained our plans, I’m certain everybody would be eager to live with really clean air, a pretty view and a thriving tourist industry. You could advertise the place as a microcosm of what Galen plans to do with our world.”

  Paul was concerned. “Removing all the soil clear down to bedrock, could prevent a return of the swamp, but you also need to add life forms which could aerate the new soil and prevent stagnancy and stink. With such a large buildup of groundwater draining from those hills, that would be difficult. A lake would be easier to monitor.”

  “I think I would prefer the lake too, Maggie, with gardens around the shore. You already make the outside of every tower into a garden. That should be sufficient.

  “You could build a futuristic-looking aerial ring road inside the lake with short offshoots approaching each tower. Another ring road inside, or above the vehicular one would be reserved for pedestrian traffic—joggers, runners, people walking their dogs, with inbuilt human and canine comfort stations of course.

  “I’m sure Galen residents would also like somewhere pleasant to exercise their pets. It would be a place where people on the outside could meet everyday residents of Galen and see for themselves that these people were as normal as outsiders think we are.

  “I know, Maggie, that the main reason you’ve been helping me expand my dojos lately is to attract more people to Galen. You’ll get more custom if you deëmphasize the criminal rehabilitation and show the happy ordinary people doing normal everyday things like walking their pets.”

  “But wouldn’t the lake bring back mosquitos and the malaria?” asked Emil. “How high do mosquitos fly? I wouldn’t want to be eaten alive while out walking, and with all respect to La Tabanita, I’d prefer no horse flies or other biting insects.”

  ^^Good point Emil. Mosquito larvae are an important base food in a lake ecology. We can completely filter out the Anopheles and others which are known to harbor disease and fit Taj’s walking track with sonic bug repellants so neither walkers nor their pets get bitten.??

  “Can we persuade the next Tour de France to be run on our ring road? Do you have the political connections for that, Maggie? Maybe if you donated an air cleaner to each participant?”

  ^^More great ideas, Emil. Our founder is the one with political connections. I’ll put it to her.

  ^^Anyone have anything else to add?^^

  “Yes, Maggie. You may as well make the dojo tower with all the plants usual for a Galen tower, just with wider walkways.

  “I think everybody is curious about what exactly is inside one of your towers, but doesn’t want to risk joining and being trapped just to satisfy their curiosity. So you should reserve another tower as a hotel for tourist accommodation, plus whatever the town organizes. Keep jobs in that for the tow
nspeople. I don’t want our recovering ladies to be turned into something for the tourists to gawk at. They have enough adjustments to make without suffering that too.”

  ^^Those are also good points, Taj.^^

  “Maggie, I dislike to bring this up, but what happens to my interest in the dojo tower if the next assassination attempt succeeds and Taj is killed?”

  “Don’t be embarrassed, Emil. That’s an important point. We’ve been planning this for a while and you’ve put a lot of research into the project. I’d expect you to inherit my lifetime lease and run the place yourself. That will work, won’t it, Maggie?”

  ^^Yes, I can arrange that. But rest easy Emil, nobody will get to Taj while I exist. She’s my lucky charm. I look after her.^^

  * * *

  Maggie wouldn’t explain what she had meant by my being her ‘lucky charm.’ It seemed odd phrasing. Perhaps it was that I had given her so many ideas for getting people into Galen. I puzzled over it the rest of the day without coming up with anything clearer.

  Paul’s setting us new barriers had made him more proprietary. Now he felt secure enough to correct my inappropriate mischief. More interesting was discovering that I liked this.

  Nobody else had ever attempted to set me limits. Fermina passed on what was appropriate behavior for a well brought up high class Portuguese girl, but she did not insist that I act that way except around unreconstructed Latin men.

  Before Fermina, my circumstances had constrained me. My risk-taking then was confined mostly to essential spying.

  I had always felt guilty over the two children who had been butchered in my stead. They had been friends. Helping Dena and Lorne recover from the ordeal which should have been mine and Vene’s, had helped ease that guilt, so wasn’t completely altruistic.

  Helping Horrie through his bad times had also set me up for future alibis. His nightmares gave him little restful sleep, so he was nearly always awake and willing to help. Evan would always warn me when the guards discovered my bed empty and I would race to Horrie’s room, where we both curled up in his chair under the blanket and pretended to be asleep. The video was always in the machine ready.