“What is not clear,” said Julius, “is precisely what sort of human creatures are inside the womb.”
To Bezile’s astonishment, Orela had allowed a snake to slip its tail between her legs. She was moving against it, pressing its coils against her belly.
“We’re aware,” Julius was saying, “that there is a small body of opinion within the Noocracy itself that has a certain sympathy with the Augmenters, that might like to readmit them to full citizenship. Perhaps you yourself might be inclined to show, let us say, a degree of charity towards them?”
This was too much. “With great respect, I find it remarkable that you should consider that. I’ve never had any truck with Augmenters.”
“Good,” Orela said. It was like a moan of pleasure. Her eyes were half-closed, the snake slithering at her groin … Bezile had to force herself not to look.
“It was not a serious suggestion,” Julius said, “but there’s no harm in clarifying such matters. These days many loyalties are ambiguous.”
Bezile nodded, said, “Indeed,” and was unable to resist glancing at Luis. He still sat with his eyes downcast, not daring to look at anyone.
To her relief, Orela appeared to have exhausted her diversion with the snake, though one of her breasts was quite bared. At least Julius was maintaining a degree of proper dignity. But then he thrust a finger up one nostril and began rummaging around. She couldn’t help her astonished stare. He quite ignored her.
“We were concerned to clarify your position,” Orela said, “because an Augmenter assault is imminent.”
This was merely repeating their rhetoric at the council. They had not actually specified the exact nature of the threat.
“It’s important we show you the extent of the danger,” Julius remarked. “To that end, we’ve arranged a little diversion.”
Bezile had already noticed that the light coming through the portals beyond the privacy veil had begun to turn blue. Orela nulled the veil.
The entire hospitality chamber was flooded with azure light. Directly below them was Earth.
Julius smiled at her surprise.
“The home of our species,” he said. “Birthplace of us all.”
Bezile had never been this close to the planet. No doubt the flier was using it as a gravity slingshot for the final short hop to the Noosphere. Yet even as she thought this, she saw from the expressions on the Advocates’ faces that this was not the case.
“We’re landing there?”
“A brief sojourn,” Julius informed her. “As Prime Arbiter it’s important you understand what the Augmenters are capable of.”
She did her best to sound composed. “There are Augmented there? On Earth?”
Julius wafted a hand, as if it were a moot point. “Of a sort. Contained, naturally, so no mischief is possible. You and your secretary will be quite protected.”
The revelation made sense, in a horrible sort of way. Earth, the very source of the human race and the place where many of its bioforms were first fashioned, had been irreparably contaminated by them and had been abandoned once the other worlds of the Noosphere were settled. It had long been used as a dumping ground for failed or maverick species: unruly houseplants, rogue vehicles, degenerate strains of everything from bacteria to behemoths had been sent there, along with shiploads of plasma slurry doubtless containing every manner of microorganisms that might by now have metamorphosed into heaven knew what.
The planet had long been uninhabitable in the normal human sense of the word with that sort of mess lying around. Generations before Bezile’s time there had been a great debate throughout the Inner Planets as to whether the dumping should be stopped, the unwanted strains destroyed at source or sent into the sun as a matter of permanent policy; Earth could then be cleansed and resettled. Ultimately, though, this was deemed impossible to carry out. Firstly, there was the widespread aversion to the wilful destruction of protoplasm, especially on a planetary scale. And consider the cost, let alone the practicality, of sterilizing a whole world! Secondly, there had always been independent operators who were ready to evacuate cargos of any kind practically anywhere as long as no one was looking: an official dumping ground would marginalize that sort of illicit activity. And finally, it was suggested that a useful if chaotic gene pool would always be present on Earth should it be needed in the future.
But no one landed on Earth, had not done, as far as Bezile was aware, for centuries. Junks skirted its atmosphere, launching their waste from high orbit or, better still, during distant flybys. If any fugitives had attempted to hide there, they had never been heard of again. Earth had long been the pariah planet of the Noospace.
It filled the entire chamber now, bathing the four of them in its light. It made Julius and Orela appear even stranger than usual, shadows pooling under their eyes, giving them a demonic air. The snakes were writhing again, baring their fangs then jetting out a gauzy substance which formed veils over the Advocates’ bodies, covering the more blatant features of their physicality. A novel way of donning undergarments, Bezile thought, trying to see the ludicrous, stage-managed side of it. The trouble was, it was no longer simply theatre. They were going down to the planet of the damned under the guidance of lunatics.
Leanderic appeared with the dove and scarlet vestments of their office. Grey was supposed to represent mentality, scarlet the emotional heart of humanity. Brain and blood. Bezile could not shake a graphic image of both. Suitably clothed, Julius and Orela managed to restore a certain sense of their proper status. But Bezile would not easily forget the snake at Orela’s groin, the nostril bulging with Julius’s finger.
Then a wardrobe waddled in, opening its midriff to reveal black leatherene bodysuits. The five of them—Leanderic included—were made to suit up so that another transformation took place: they looked like absurd stormtroopers out of Augmenter Alert! Bezile felt especially ridiculous, a lump in black plasticized armour.
Leanderic led them down to the bay in the underside of the ship. Luis would not meet her eye, and as much as Bezile would have welcomed the familiar routines of his company she could not think of him as anything other than a worm.
A scarab scouter sat in the main bay, its emerald flanks ornately filigreed with gold. Bulbous antennae sprouted from its head like reeds frozen with dew. The image surprised her: it had come from Mars, from a chill lakeside morning during one of her courtesy visits many years before. Terror made you sentimental.
They were taken on board and seated behind the Advocates in the control dome. Besides the four of them and Leanderic, there was a crew of only three. This was another departure: normally the Advocates were surrounded by a host of attendants and guards. The bulging eye blisters gave them an ample view of their destination.
Julius turned and laid a hand on Bezile’s arm; she almost flinched at the contact. The scouter gave a slight lurch, and it was moments before Bezile realized that they had already launched, were dropping down towards the blue planet.
Julius began talking about the thunderstorms he had experienced on Earth, fierce torrents of water falling from enormous dark clouds, lightning splitting the sky, winds churning the sea into a frenzy of white-capped motion. He spoke of the fragrant air, the myriad ever-changing cloud-forms, the impenetrable green forests clamorous with life.
“Do you go there often?” Bezile asked, incredulous.
“Not as often as we would like,” Orela interjected. “There’s always so much else to do.”
She joined in, extolling the virtues of Earth’s polar regions with their crags of floating ice and ultramarine waters in which she liked to swim naked, despite the chill and the strange organisms in the waters that sometimes caressed her flesh. Bezile was sure this was a joke. There was no reason to smile, either way. To her enormous surprise, Luis actually spoke:
“You have no fear of the … creatures there?”
Orela’s smile was so lofty it was beyond patronizing.
“We take precautions,” she said. “As
you will see. Consider it a little adventure.”
Earlier there had been a buffeting, swiftly damped: they had obviously entered the atmosphere. Now the eyelids closed, blotting out the cloud-pocked oceans and the blotches of tawny-green land. The pale surfaces of the control dome shone instead, an eerie, doleful light.
Orela took Luis’s palm and proceeded to study it, tracing its lines with the nail of her index finger. Luis froze like a marmosite in thrall to a jackadder. It was clear that, although he may have been their spy, he knew no more than Bezile about what was going to happen. Orela began to babble that palmistry was an ancient art, that much could be gleaned from the intimate details of the skin, its folds and lines, the spirals and arches on the fingertips.
“You have no children,” she announced. “No wife.”
Luis nodded mechanically, in awe.
“You are an extremely diligent servant of the Noosphere. Sometimes you work too hard.”
Luis did not contradict this.
“To you, loyalty and industry are the prime personal virtues. You believe in decency, dignity and honour.”
“I do,” he managed to say.
And so it went on: a facile and factitious character portrait that merely reiterated common knowledge. How much longer would Bezile have to suffer this? Here she was, in the presence of the two humans who were the vessels through which the people expressed their wishes, the symbols of their governance and spiritual guidance: self-absorbed and spouting banalities.
One of the crew announced that they would soon be at sea level.
“You must excuse us,” Julius said. “We shall not be long.”
He and Orela rose and departed down a corridor.
Bezile decided to ignore Luis, turning instead to Leanderic.
“Is there anything we should know?” she asked. “So that we can be prepared?”
Leanderic hesitated for an instant, and Bezile thought that for once he might set his dutiful aplomb aside. But the moment passed.
“There’s nothing I can tell you,” he said.
Something in his tone made Bezile say, “Is this the first time you’ve accompanied the Advocates here?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it all about?”
“I know no more than you.”
Bezile was sure it was the truth. Leanderic, though a faithful servant of Orela and Julius, was not renowned for guile or dissembling.
He rose and went to attend the Advocates, as if he risked disloyalty should he stay. As soon as he was gone, Bezile turned on Luis:
“Do you have any idea?”
He stared at her as if astonished.
“No,” he spluttered. “None, I promise you. I’m as much in the dark as anyone.”
She gave him her evil eye, and he withered.
“You know I never trusted you,” she said.
This was not true; what irked her most was that she had. But it was easy to induce a sense of guilt in someone as conscientious as Luis: excessive diligence was always a mask for deep feelings of personal inadequacy.
“How long have you been their spy?”
He didn’t like the word, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to deny it. He looked away.
“I was simply asked to report confidentially on the running of your Arbitration direct to the Advocates’ office. I assumed it was common practice. I did not consider I was being disloyal.”
She gazed long at him and sighed. “No. I don’t suppose you did. That’s why people like you are so invaluable to people like them.”
It was the closest she had ever come to speaking with outright disloyalty; but Luis was too wrapped up in his own anxieties to notice.
“You knew I had acquired the womb?” she asked.
He couldn’t resist a certain smugness. “That was obvious.”
“Did you think I couldn’t be trusted?”
“It wasn’t a question of that. It was felt—I was led to believe—that you might not always be in full possession of the facts that would allow you to work in the best interests of the Noosphere.”
She made a scornful sound. “That’s mealy-mouthed!”
He kept his head lowered. “I only did as I saw best. For the interests of us all.”
She had no desire to berate him further. He was simply an efficient functionary, one of the many dutiful and unimaginative types whom those in power could always make use of. She had done so herself on endless occasions.
Julius and Orela returned. They were wearing black helmets with viewfinders and flared gauntlets. As if to complete the transformation into toy soldiers, Orela was shouldering a squat rifle with a dark hole at its bulbous end. Julius had belted a holster on to his armour. It held a long-barrelled pistol.
Leanderic settled them in their seats, still treating them like icons even though they looked like thugs. Their seats span webbing around them as the ship began to decelerate.
“Do you always arm yourselves on these visits?” Bezile asked with what she hoped was conversational innocence.
“There’s nothing to fear,” Orela said. “You’re under our protection.”
Presently the eyelids opened, and Bezile saw that they were flying over a vast expanse of ocean. The sky above was bluer than she could have imagined, an infinite depthless blue. There was no land in sight, nothing but water. But as she stared she could see swirling patches of colour in the aquamarine, like clouds of animate mud. As the ship slowed, she glimpsed a pale shape snaking through the water, then a mass of tendrilled jelly that seemed to squirm and pulse as they flew by low and slow, too close to the waves for her comfort. Something erupted from the water, splattering the blister with blood-brown effusions. The lids blinked it away. There were things like knotted green ribbons coiling in the air surrounded by darting curlicued creatures that were attacking and perhaps eating them, Bezile didn’t care to know precisely. They flew through a swarm of insectoids that clung briefly to the blisters like small black sunbursts, then were gone.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” said Orela.
What was one to say? “I presume Luis and I will also need protection when we go outside.”
“That won’t be necessary, I assure you. We’ll be landing somewhere a little less … active. There’s no reason for you to be concerned.”
In fact it was all designed precisely with that purpose in mind. And it was working, most demonstrably on Luis, who had the frozen stare and the twitching hands of the thoroughly mortified.
In the near distance was a smear of land. The shuttle accelerated again, and they approached it rapidly, flying in over a littoral that looked clogged with dense pink and crimson foam. Trees reared up, branches bent and corkscrewed, leaves like flaps of rotting hide. Then they were crossing clearer ground punctuated everywhere with pools and small lakes, now climbing again, up the flanks of a low mountain whose dimpled top held a small greenish lake. The scarab ship banked, circled, hovered. Descended.
The landing was faultless: they settled as if the scouter had been laid to rest on a pillow. The engine pulse dimmed, died. As the dust cleared, Bezile saw that they were perched on the ledge of the crater rim overlooking the lake.
The Advocates were already released from their webbing. Leanderic helped Bezile out of her seat. Luis asked again if they were to be given helmets, gloves, more protection.
“Not necessary,” Julius assured him. “This is merely a stopover. We simply want you to see the sights.”
“What about masks, air filters?” he persisted, his fear quite overcoming his normal sense of decorum.
“And miss the smells of Earth?” said Orela blithely. “Its tastes and textures? You’ll be fully scanned when we return. We’ll put you in a purger and have your bodily fluids replaced if necessary. Don’t be alarmed, it’s quite a stimulating experience. We’ve undergone it several times and it’s hardly damaged us, has it?”
In that jaunty moment, Bezile knew that they were truly mad. Fluid exchange was standard medical interven
tion when systemic infection was suspected, but a mask would have obviated the need for such protracted treatment. It was clear that the Advocates enjoyed this sort of indignity. It was part of their patent urge to court danger and discomfort.
The main airvalve was already open, waiting for them.
“Are we walking?” Bezile said, still not quite able to believe it.
“A leisurely stroll on the mother of worlds,” said Julius. “Think of yourself as a sightseer.”
Only the five of them descended the ramp; the crew remained with the ship. Orela toted her rifle and Julius commented soothingly that their “excursion” would be constantly monitored from the scouter: it could come instantly to their rescue in the unlikely event that they got into difficulties. Luis was already huddling as close to Bezile as her disapproval would allow.
The air was warm, redolent of sickly blossoms and rank vegetation. Overhead the sun shone down dazzlingly from the serene white-streaked blue. They descended a gradual slope towards the lake, rock giving way to patchy vegetation, spiked and flapped, hung with mortifying bruised white flowers. Spinning things rasped past them and veils of amber vapour drifted by—pollen, Bezile supposed, unable to prevent herself from inhaling it. They were still walking on bare rock, following a rough path that kept them clear of vegetation; but tiny creatures were skittering around her booted feet. She did not glance down.
After a short while they approached the margins of the lake. The stench of aquatic decay was overpowering now, the tangled vegetation alive with clouds of insects.
“Here we need to be a little more circumspect,” Orela said conversationally, leading them forward. “It’s important to look before you tread.”
But then, to Bezile’s complete surprise, she levelled her rifle and unleashed a torrent of fire.
Both Bezile and Luis leapt back in alarm, and even Leanderic was startled. The rifle gave off a hoarse roar, and the flame kept jetting out of its end as Orela swung it back and forth in an arc, smothering everything in the vicinity of the lake. Above the roar, Bezile heard a terrified animal shriek, and something large, like a many-winged bat, whirled up into the air, its leathery limbs blazing. It tried to flee across the water, but Julius, who had been clapping with delight while Orela doused the ground with fire, unholstered his pistol. The viewfinders dropped down over his eyes and he took careful aim.
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