The Water Bear

by Groucho Jones

  “Not if you call me Red Lady again.”

  “What do I call you?”

  “If you’re going to fuck me, you better call me Ophelia.”

  She hadn’t slept with anyone for over a year, and Marius was a gentle and sensitive lover, nothing like the bruising weightlifter she half expected. Almost as soon as his finger found its way between her swollen lips, after what felt like an orgy of touching, she came, and came again.

  After a while, they were joined by Alis and Viki, wanting to make amends for beating her that morning with sticks, and her night was filled with hot, sliding flesh, and soft, hungry mouths, and she had the new best time of her life.

  The next day, there were preparations for a feast; a celebration of the last full moon before Dark. Box watched garlands of flowers being hung in the Chancery hall, and joined in the work. It felt good to be a part of the rhythms of the house. The kitchens were filled with noise, and laughter, and children were everywhere.

  Chancery society seemed to be a functional anarchy, with people contributing according to their desires. Leadership coalesced around the most able. Amelia Chance seemed to have no skills, apart from a mercurial mind, so she was a laborer for the day. Box helped her move chairs.

  “It hasn’t always been like this,” said Amelia, seeing Box’s pleasure at the people working together. “Once there were wars.”

  Amelia explained that the first Reanimated were farmers and engineers. “They were hard times,” she said. “A struggle to build without tools in a wilderness, and many were lost. But it was when we began to download our political class that events unraveled. We made war on the Blue, to take control of limited resources, and despite our superiority in numbers, we lost. That’s when the Enemy appeared. I believe he was attracted by the smell of war.”

  Amelia Chance was thickset and short, with an acerbic intelligence. A direct, capable woman. Not a leader she would’ve expected from a society of politicians.

  “You say ‘he’”.

  “Yes, the Enemy has a male persona, called Kronus.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  “I have.”

  She wanted to hear more, but Brin and Kitou came and spirited her away. They’d found a young boy who played an instrument, called the Ottir (which resembled a bagpipe, and sounded to Box’s ear like a Roland TB-303 synthesizer) and they’d been teaching him reggae. He was an impressive musician. To her delight and surprise, he played a note-perfect Africa Unite. Then they bustled him out of the room, and discussed what to wear to the party. Kitou had begged bolts of cloth, and with impressive deftness, pinned up two cocktail dresses: one in black for Brin, and a shiny grey one for herself, like they’d worn in Brixton.

  “I’ll have these sewn,” she said. “There’s a woman who promised to help me, but I have no idea how to make your combats.”

  Box said, “I’d like a party frock please, if you can make me one in green.”

  She took off her clothes, and looked at herself in the mirror. She was never a narcissist, but she knew she looked good. Better than she’d ever looked before. Where she’d been scrawny, now she was sleek. Full breasts, as before, with coral pink nipples. Willowy arms: no amount of training would ever change that. Curved hips and bum, a real woman’s body; a tuft of strawberry down, and her legs, always her best feature, now become long levers of muscle. A spray of freckles at her cheeks, like the hint of a nebula.

  Brin came and stood beside her, and by God, apart from a few well-earned wrinkles, and a half-head in height, she gave nothing away to the soldier.

  In just a few minutes, Kitou had a third cocktail dress in sea green, and disappeared to find her seamstress.

  Box was as excited as a teenage girl, before a party.

  The dress was perfect. Kitou’s wetware and the Horu clothier - Box made a mental note to thank her - had combined to make a simple but glamorous dress, that clung to her like water. She’d never have been able to afford one like it on a professeur’s salary on Earth.

  She felt sexy.

  The dinner was like the feast laid on for them at Stratego. First there was music, then the boy played his pitch-perfect reggae, to widespread consternation. It was the first alien music most of them had heard, and there was a heated debate about whether it was closer to Horu or Blue. Then he played drum ‘n bass, to even greater amazement. Then, Ito and Marius agreed to perform an exhibition. As in Stratego, a circle was made, and the crowd cheered the men as they stripped to their trousers.

  It was like Jaasper and Pax: a bravura display, but these were different fighters. Marius was powerful, a young brute, probing and fast. What he lacked in skills he made up for with athleticism. Ito was graceful, unhurried, a poised technician. Box was amazed by the degree to which he was able to practice his art. At the end of every lunge by Marius, Ito was in a perfect position to reply.

  It was like Kitou against the overblown youths in the barfight on Avalon, except that the spirals of the Geometry Game had a real, physical effect here. Space seemed to bend around Ito.

  In the end, Marius held up his hands and laughed.

  “Who will ever beat you, prophet?”

  “When I was small,” said Kitou, “I used to think Pax was made of steel, and Ito was made of air. It was the way they fought. Pax was so unbending, and Ito so elusive. But that wasn’t fair on either of them. Pax is full of love, and Ito’s as tough as you can imagine.

  “Did Pax ever tell you about his mandala?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a Lo thing. A temple of the mind, consisting of four pillars, open to the air. The pillars are love, honor, duty and peace. Pax says that between those four pillars, his soul will be safe, wherever he is in the cosmos.”

  “That’s beautiful,” said Box.

  “Pax says the thing soldiers struggle to find is peace. We do hard things, Dr Box. Never intentionally bad things, but expedient.

  “Hard on the people who do it.

  “Hard on the people who have it done to them.

  “Ito, I fear he isn’t quite right in this place.”

  There, it was out in the open. Box had been waiting for it, and now it was said. He seemed… lost in the strangeness.

  “Who wins?” Box said, changing the subject.

  “Between Ito and Pax?” asked Kitou. “Who wins between a shark and a bear?”

  “The shark.”

  Kitou laughed. “They’re about equal in the contests I’ve seen,” she said.

  “But you hurt Pax, that day.”

  “Oh, Pax was fighting down to my level.”

  “You mean, he let you hurt him?”

  “No, it’s not as simple as that. He allowed the possibility.”

  “What about when he fought Jaasper?”

  “That was an exhibition, done to please the crowd. My heart was beating double. A real fight wouldn’t be nearly as pretty.”

  “Who’d win that one?”

  “The bear.”

  Box smiled. “And you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Jaasper couldn’t get near you, that day in Stratego.”

  “No, he couldn’t. It was the old song. He sang it for me. It filled me with power and grace.”

  “His song helped you fight him?”

  “It wasn’t his song. There’s only one song.”

  “The old song? I heard it too.”

  “Really? That’s strange, Dr Box.”

  “Why strange?”

  “Of all the humans I know, only the people of Earth aren’t descended from the Pursang.”

  “We’re not?”

  “Earth people evolved separately.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Kitou shrugged. “Ask the Xap.”

  “Are you suggesting they... what? Bred us there?”

  “They allowed the possibility.”

  Box frowned. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

  “I think you should feel flattered. The Xap are an ancient
and wonderful people.”

  “Your gods?”

  “Also our symbionts.”

  She smiled. “You know, it’s funny.”

  “What is?”

  “It’s us who think we cultivated the trees.”

  Kitou laughed. “Yes,” she said. “That is funny.”

  “How’s your undine?”

  Kitou opened her hand. “Oh, he’s coming along fine.”

  Blue music was like the music of Stratego, discordant and strange, but Horu music was more tuneful, so people got up and danced, and the night soon became a blur. Like in Stratego, the dancefloor belonged to the children, darting between the adults’ feet. Brin let down her newly grown hair, and danced with men and women alike.

  The elderly Blue and Horu told tall stories. A half-drunk Amelia Chance explained how the bone breastplates were made. Box had wondered about that. What kind of animal has such big, flat bones?

  Dinosaurs, or local analogues.

  A Blue man in his cups expounded on the topic, describing how once the thunder lizards had been set on the zooms, which was followed by a lengthy discussion of strategy.

  Box stayed sober. She had plans for the night.

  Ito asked her to dance, and she felt the sly grins, from other couples on the dancefloor. He took her to his rooms, which she’d never seen. They were monastically plain, dominated by a single artwork: a marbled sun, in an indigo sky, that covered almost a wall.

  “Did you paint that?”

  He nodded.

  He put a finger on her lips.

  “Would you like me to make love to you?” he asked.

  “Is it... appropriate now?”

  “I think it’s time.”

  His lips found hers, and then they were on her breasts, and between her legs, urgently drinking her in. He was as skillful at this as everything else, and within a few minutes she was wracked by an orgasm. Then he was inside her, and it was like her dreams of sex. At first, he was slow like a woman, barely touching her, playing her rhythms, her breathing, the involuntary sounds she made; then thrusting hard, until she could burst in another hot rush of bliss.

  Box was never a noisy lover, but she couldn’t help but moan and laugh out loud.

  A few hours later, they did it over again.

  That night, Box dreamed. She saw herself in the charnel field of her Threnody dreams, except it wasn’t. Instead of a carpet of broiled bones, there was deep snow, and instead of a bloodstained sky, it was the starless Möbius night. What light there was seemed to leak from the air.

  As in her dreams, she was riding her white stallion, and Kitou was across the field, dressed in her training gear, picking her way over the pillowy drifts.

  “Kitou,” she called, and the girl waved.

  Box was wearing Blue finery, like she’d seen the women of the Ride wear at the dinner that evening. Her red hair was braided in beads. She wore a carved bone breastplate, and carried a bone shield, painted with the sigil of a bear. Over her shoulders was a heavy cloak. For the first time in her life, she felt powerful, and not to be fucked with.

  Kitou made her way over, and grinned.

  “My God,” said Box. “Kitou, you have no shoes.”

  Her own voice surprised her. It came as if through a tunnel, and rang with cool authority.

  “No,” said Kitou, “but I’m not cold.” She opened her hand and the clearing was washed with silvery light. A salt breeze lifted the leaves on the trees.

  “Still,” said Box. “Climb up here and get inside this fur coat with me.”

  “Look,” said Kitou. Through the trees was an answering light, a pale blue glow, flickering between the black trunks of the trees. Soon a Blue riding party appeared: four young women, dressed for the deep winter. Predictably, more riders emerged from the trees at the other points of the compass in an encircling maneuver. Box opened her cloak, to show she carried no weapons. Whoever she was in this dream, she knew what she was doing.

  “Are you the Red Lady?” asked the Blue leader, a dark-haired, green-eyed woman, lips gone pale with the cold. She wore the eye-shaped sigils of a Blue scout, painted in Cerulean blue on her breastplate and cheeks.

  “And you must be the Goddess,” she said to Kitou, who had leapt up behind Box, and was now snuggled in Box’s cloak.

  “I’m Kitou,” said Kitou.

  “I’m honored to meet you,” said the girl, touching her reins to her lips. “I’m Iris, and we’re outriders of the Eagle. You’re far from home.”

  “How far?” asked Box.

  “Four hundred kilometers anti-Spinwards,” she said. “And halfway to Farside, headed west, although in this place, who can be sure?”

  “Where are we?”

  “We call it the Dreaming. This the Forest of Dreams. We’re on a pilgrimage to make an offering.”

  “An offering to who?”

  “To the Ghost.”

  “I’d offer you my sword,” said Iris, “but I have none.”

  They were snaking single file through thick woods, with springy saplings spearing up through the deep snow, making it hard to progress. Up close, the trees were paper skinned like eucalypts. Iris’s horse seemed to know the way, and she was twisted around in the saddle, with impressive flexibility, facing the riders behind her.

  “You’re unarmed?” said Box.

  “Yes, the ghost likes it that way. We’d never find him, armed.”

  “Who’s this ghost?”

  “A wise spirit of our Dreaming.”

  “Are we dreaming?”

  “We all enter this place through our dreams.”

  “It feels real enough,” said Box. Seabiscuit’s hooves sank shuddering into the depths of the snow, and their breath hung in clouds in the still air. Kitou clung to her back, a parcel of warmth.

  “It is real,” said Iris.

  The three other girls were called Mia, Emma and Mae, sisters or cousins, swaddled in furs. They seemed awestruck, more by Kitou than Box. The outriders shimmered and glowed in the distance, making no attempt at secrecy. Box counted nine, although she knew there’d be more. They also appeared to be children.

  Iris explained that they were riding out on a pilgrimage, and that it was the children’s coming of age. They’d come here by rising in the dead of night, while everyone slept, and traveling west for what felt like a day, except it was never quite day in this place. The nearest it got was a wintry gloaming, which alerted them they were high on the helix, near their destination. Any lighter and it’d become Farside, where they didn’t want to be.

  And now they were riding with the Red Lady, and Kitou, the Goddess, who couldn’t be beaten in battle.

  Such days!

  They reached a glade, that sloped down to where a brook trickled through ice worn into fantastical shapes. It was a fairyland scene, like a dream of a dream, with snowdrifts swimming by the light of the young riders that entered the glade from every direction. In the glade was a house, small but tidily kept. By the house was a fire, lapping hotly at the air, and by the fire was a machine.

  It was the robot, Chance.

  13 ∞ Deathcult von Engine

  2056

  Macro Ibquant Deathcult von Engine (travelling simply as Deathcult von Engine) carried a planetworth of diamonds onto Avalon Station, hidden in his vestments. Planetworth was Cultspeak for lots. No one knew what a planet was worth. That was the thing about fungibles. They were only worth what someone would pay you for them.

  This wasn’t Macro’s first time in the wild galaxy. He was first sent to a world called 9Fiero. It was a literal baptism of fire, selling derivatives during an atomic war, promising to hedge their weapons sector against an outbreak of peace. It was a bad investment. Now there was no war on 9Fiero. None of his negotiating partners knew they were dealing with an adolescent boy.

  Steering an androform Samppo.

  His precocity fit right in.

  As he walked along the thoroughfares and service malls of Avalon Station, the people there
glanced at him incuriously. He was a perfectly normal young man: generically tall, moderately handsome, nothing out of the ordinary. Even his scapular and cowl could pass for fetish partywear on Avalon. It’d be different if he was carrying his cloven-skulled staff of office. Then people would part like airflow over a wing. Nobody messed with the Cult. It was a brand of obnoxiousness that’d been nurtured over thousands of years.

  He loved Avalon Station, the gimcrack riotousness of it, the way it was thrown together from parts, the way the bulkhead doors hissed air as they opened and closed, like in an entertainment sim. He loved the frontier craziness of the people, the immanence of the vacuum. He loved the views of the planet below, glimpsed through a succession of airlocks and ports.

  He especially loved the city, with its painted towers, by a milky-white sea. One day, he promised himself, he’d stand on that beach, with the sand in his toes. Bake in the sun. Learn to catch waves.

  “Mr. von Engine,” said Felix Revelstoke.

  “Macro,” said Alois Buss.

  “Alois! What a pleasant surprise.”

  The interview room on Avalon Station looked like a place to be tortured. Alois, Macro and Felix Revelstoke sat around a polycarbonate table, like a mortuary slab, pitted and bubbled with burns. A faint smell of urine hung in the air. Macro dismissed the surroundings. It was a theme park, designed to impress the credulous.

  “Do you have the diamonds?” asked Revelstoke.

  “I do,” said Macro, fishing the bag from within the folds of his habit. “A thousand flawless, untraceable.” It was the untraceable that made them so valuable. A thousand flawless was a lot of diamond. Enough to buy a small spacecraft. A thousand untraceable was enough to buy a small planet.

  “Thank you,” said Revelstoke.

  Macro was in two minds, literally. The part he regarded as himself drifted along with the conversation, chatting inanely with his friend Alois, presenting no threat to anyone. The part he called his twin gave him a rolling sitrep.

  The twin was new. It’d come with an upgrade the Engine had given him for this mission, along with Broca transfer, and all kinds of other new toys. If he wanted, he could climb right inside it, observe his own actions, like in a warship’s gamespace.