Fall

by Rod Rees

  ‘I’m … I’m not sure that I understand.’

  Maria stood up and stretched out her hand to Moynahan. ‘I wish thee to love me, Dean, I wish thee to make me a woman … thy woman. Thou sayest that the SS will attack at dawn, therefore I would suggest that we use the few hours we have left in this world to good purpose.’

  Moynahan rose to his feet and stared into Maria’s eyes. ‘You make me very proud, Maria, that a woman as beautiful and as intelligent as you would say something like that to a man like me.’

  ‘No, Dean, the honour of being thy lady is mine.’

  *

  A disheartened Norma joined Shelley at his table, the two of them sitting in silence for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts. Finally Shelley looked up and smiled. ‘Tell me, Norma, what will you do when you have weturned to your world?’

  Norma tried to return the smile but failed. She had forgotten how to smile, happiness having been replaced by a weary fatalism. Instead she shrugged. ‘That question is academic now, Percy, given that I won’t be going back.’

  ‘Oh, I do not believe ABBA would be so churlish as to deny such a beautiful flower as you a chance to blossom.’

  ‘You’re very kind, Percy, and the answer to your question is that I’m not sure. Oh, I’d have needed to sort out just what Aaliz Heydrich has been doing with my body for the last six months, but other than that, I really haven’t a clue.’

  ‘What about the Normalist movement?’

  Another shrug. ‘Percy, it’s difficult for me to explain just how difficult it is to change things in the Real World. I’d love to be able to sit here and tell you I’d be able to convince people that living in peace and harmony is the only way for civilisation to flourish, but I think that’s just a pipe dream. There are just too many entrenched interests and power blocs which would see Normalism as a threat to the status quo. There is just too much hatred in the world – in the Real World – for a movement preaching non-violence to flourish.’

  ‘You are forgetting the discussion we had a while ago, when I opined that for a wevolution such as Normalism to succeed, mankind must be changed … that they must be given the facility to understand how they are being manipulated.’ Shelley took a sip of his coffee. ‘This is a lesson that I learnt through much gwief and pain, being that I was similarly betwayed by UnFun-DaMentalism. And the weason why Heydwich’s wevolution mutated into the cowwupt howwor it is today was that the thinkers who supported the wevolution didn’t understand that to have a truly classless society – which was the avowed aim of UnFunDaMentalism – it is necessary to wecognise that the most important of all the commanding heights of the economy isn’t iwon or coal, isn’t agwiculture … it’s information.’

  ‘I’m not with you, Percy.’

  ‘Like all tywants, Heydwich understood that without fweedom of information there is no weal fweedom. He knew that his wevolution was just a sham, that it was just a squalid power gwab, but by contwolling the information given to the people of the ForthWight he transformed it into something which seemed noble and honouwable.’

  ‘I understand, Percy, but it still doesn’t tell me how revolutionaries like Heydrich can be stopped.’

  ‘By ensuring that all citizens have equal access to all information. By the destwuction of pwivacy.’

  Norma gawped. ‘What?’

  ‘A fwee people have no use for pwivacy!’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because the desire for pwivacy is not a natural inclination of HumanKind: it is inculcated. Pwivacy is just a polite name for secwecy and it is the acceptance of secwecy as the natural order of things which allows politicians to deceive their people. It is perhaps no coincidence that you wefer to Demi-Mondians as Dupes, but I wonder if that is an epithet which might also be applied to you Weal Worlders. In the society I envisage evewybody would have free and untwammelled access to all information … nobody would be a Dupe. Everyone would know – or be able to find out – evewything. In an InfoCialist Sector evewybody would know evewything about evewybody.’

  ‘InfoCialist?’

  ‘InfoCialism is my name for a political and social system within which all the citizens of a Sector enjoy collective ownership of the information gathered and held by those who govern them.’

  ‘Impossible!’

  ‘Not impossible. My idea is that all information would be made available for public examination. InfoCialism would wender the twaditional concept of pwivacy obsolete and by doing this it would make it impossible for politicians – wascals that they all are – to dupe the people.’

  ‘But society couldn’t function without privacy.’

  ‘Pwivacy – weal pwivacy, that is – is only enjoyed by those with weal power. Why do you think there are so many laws to pwotect the wich and the powerful fwom the enquiwies of the newspapers? Why do you think government censorship is so pwevalent and why libel laws are so dwaconian? The answer: to pwotect the wich and the powerful from the attentions of the man in the stweet! But for the ordinary person there is no pwivacy. The government knows or can find out evewything they wish about us, the masses, but the masses are denied the opportunity to weciprocate by knowing all there is to know about their leaders.’

  ‘I can’t agree with you, Percy. Most people want to prevent the spread of the government’s control of information by curtailing surveillance. They want more privacy, not less.’

  ‘That is because society teaches that pwivacy is a good thing, and hence people come to think that secwecy is the natural state of affairs. This must change … pwivacy must be consigned to the wastebasket of histowy.’

  ‘All I can say, Percy, is that this InfoCialism of yours is an extraordinarily radical theory.’

  ‘Wadical but inevitable if we are to secure weal fweedom. The wuling elite have awwanged things so that only they – the Lords of Information – have access to the arcana imperii … the secret knowledge of the state, knowledge and information denied to the lower orders.’

  ‘Okay, Percy, let’s say for the sake of argument that I agree with you. The question is: what’s this got to do with Normalism?’

  ‘Because, my dear Norma, if you can socialise information then no one will be able to deny or to twaduce the truth inhewent in a cweed pwomoting peace and non-violence.’

  ‘Well, Percy, that’s all very interesting but it ain’t gonna happen. Like Moynahan says, it’s gonna take a miracle for me to get back to the Real World.’

  All Shelley did was smile.

  1:29

  Terror Incognita

  The Demi-Monde: 51st Day of Fall, 1005

  The first attribute of a subMISSive woeMan is to be Mute, one who is seen but not heard. Muteness in woeMen can be best achieved by following these precepts:

  In public, a woeMan should never speak to strangers, be they Man, woeMan or sheMan.

  A woeMan should always speak with a dulcet tone and never raise her voice in anger. Her words should be honeyed. She should never be shrill or demanding.

  A woeMan should never complain. She should be thankful for her lot in life no matter how trying or uncomfortable it might be.

  A woeMan should listen before she speaks and should never instigate a conversation. A woeMan should never speak to a Man before he has spoken to her.

  A woeMan should never contradict a Man and her opinions should mirror those of her father or her husband. Indeed, a woeMan should never have opinions of her own; and,

  A woeMan should not be educated, as education will only encourage her to contradict or dispute with her father or her husband.

  A Fool’s Guide to HimPerialism: Selim the Grim, Bust Your Conk Publications

  It had been Trixie’s father who had come up with the idea of how to keep them out of the clutches of the SS. On the basis that the best place to hide a tree was in a forest, he had advised them to conceal themselves as close to the workers’ encampment as they could, wait until the next bargeload of draftee labourers was landed and then join them. A sim
ple enough procedure: the SS guards were, after all, intent on stopping the Poles escaping from the forced-labour gang, not stopping people volunteering to join it. And, after all their adventures, the five fugitives – Trixie, Wysochi, Cassidy, Crockett and Trixie’s father – were dirty enough and ragged enough to pass as labourers. The only problem Trixie could see with this ruse was that she was a girl and in her experience labourers tended to be big men, but she needn’t have worried. A fair proportion of the workers the SS had selected to help with the construction of their railway line had been chosen not so much for their strength but for their looks: the SS had obviously decided that if they were to be posted to Terror Incognita there might as well be some attractive women on hand to help them better enjoy their off-duty moments.

  But whilst Trixie was confident that the liberal coating of muck she had smeared over her face and clothes – and her stubble of hair – would make her a less than tempting target for the amorous attentions of the SS, she was less confident about her father’s ability to survive. He was fifty-three years old and wasn’t built for hard manual work. Now, after seven weeks of back-breaking toil, as the five of them lined up for the bowl of porridge the SS called breakfast, he looked emaciated, tired and was racked by a quite horrible cough.

  ‘Are you all right, Father?’

  ‘Not really, Trixie, but thank you for your concern. I am afraid that a career as a commissar hasn’t equipped me for life as a labourer’ – he looked down to the contents of his bowl – ‘especially when the cuisine is so woefully inadequate.’ He gave Trixie an attempt at a smile. ‘But I am delighted you have evaded the attentions of the SS. They obviously lack an eye for beauty.’

  Trixie laughed, but her opinion was that the SS were simply too tired to think of matters carnal, and had precious little time to indulge them. Clement had come to Terror Incognita to build a railway and to this end Labour Gang #2 – the poor sods who had drawn the night-shift – had been forced to work twelve hours each night, felling trees, hauling sleepers and laying tracks … and of course the SS had to be on hand to guard them. It was exhausting work for both captors and captives but it got results, and now, with the railway line complete, the moment when they had to ‘do something’ to disrupt the erection of the Column and to foil Crowley’s plans was at hand. The question was how? And the answer to this dilemma came to her in her sleep.

  After finishing her breakfast, Trixie had slumped exhausted onto her paillasse and immediately fallen asleep, only to be woken a few moments later by a hideous shrieking noise. Gingerly she eased her eyes open and looked around to see Wysochi, Crockett, Cassidy and her father standing at the tent flap peering out.

  ‘What’s happening, Feliks?’

  Wysochi waved her over. ‘Crowley’s attempted an experiment with the Pyramid … an experiment which has gone wrong.’ When Trixie looked, she saw Captain Roberts urgently waving a team of orderlies up the Pyramid’s staircase. ‘Lieutenant Poe went up to the summit a few minutes ago, then all Hel broke loose. I’ve a feeling that the Lieutenant’s toast … and I mean that literally.’

  Trixie shook her head trying to get her sleep-befuddled mind working. ‘Experiment? But why would Crowley be doing that?’

  Her father gave a wry laugh which immediately mutated into a racking cough. ‘Because the man’s foxed! He doesn’t know how to get two hundred tons of Column onto a plinth standing two hundred and fifty feet above the ground. I’ve been watching for a few days now: Crowley and his cronies have been coming out every morning to study the Pyramid and to consult with Captain Roberts, then they retreat back into their tent for a conference. I think they’re bamboozled.’

  ‘But surely they could just drag it up there. They could use a steam winch?’

  Her father laughed. ‘It’s a little more tricky than that, Trixie. Hauling two hundred tons of uncooperative Column up a sixty-degree slope is one Hel of a task and it’s one that’s stumped Crowley.’

  ‘What about his magic?’

  ‘It seems his magic has failed, so I’m guessing that he’s looking for an engineering solution. That’s why he’s been consulting with Captain Roberts. I think Roberts has been tasked with discovering how the Pre-Folk lifted the Column.’

  ‘And what’s the answer?’

  ‘My belief is that the three different colours of the Mantle-ite slabs covering the Pyramid have some relevance to the activation of the Pyramid … that they aren’t simply decorative. The lucky thing is that the significance of the colours seems to be lost on Crowley and that’s why he’s asked Captain Roberts to help.’

  Standing there, Trixie had to admit that what her father said made eminent good sense … she also had to admit to being annoyed with herself. While she’d been sleeping, he had been plotting.

  ‘They’re bringing Lieutenant Poe’s body down,’ Cassidy observed. ‘Captain Roberts doesn’t look a very happy bunny.’

  And what happened next did nothing to make him any happier. As Trixie watched, the captain was called over by Crowley and there followed five minutes of Crowley shouting and waving his arms while a cowed Roberts pointed to a piece of paper in his hand and made several references to a large and very weighty-looking book that one of Crowley’s minions was carrying.

  ‘What’s the book?’ Trixie asked.

  ‘I’m guessing it’s the Flagellum Hominum,’ answered her father, ‘which, I suspect, contains clues as to how the Column might be raised.’

  ‘Then we’ve got to get a look at it!’

  Wysochi laughed. ‘Easier said than done, Trixie. I’ve been watching Roberts and that book only leaves his tent when he comes out to attend the morning conferences with Crowley. The rest of the time it’s kept in his tent and his tent is always kept under guard.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to unguard it!’

  ‘Yeah, but how?’

  ‘With the help of some hot water.’

  *

  As he lit a surreptitious cigarette, SS StormTrooper First Class Bert Baker decided that this Comrade Captain he had been set to guard was an odd sort. Polite enough, but decidedly odd. Every night, just before midnight Roberts left his tent and walked over to the Pyramid and stood there for an hour silently gazing at the bloody thing while smoking cigarette after cigarette. What he found so interesting about the Pyramid, Baker hadn’t a bloody clue, but what he did know was that it was a dangerous occupation. His mate Percy Elmer who worked as an orderly in the field hospital had told him that Lieutenant Poe’s body looked as though it had been roasted when they brought it in. Fooling around with the Pyramid was, Baker decided, something best left to officers.

  ‘Hello, soldier.’

  Baker snapped out of his reverie and brought his rifle to bear on the voice.

  ‘Who goes there?’

  There was a giggle. ‘Just me,’ and the ‘me’ in question stepped out of the darkness and into the halo of light cast by the lantern hanging from a branch of the tree next to Captain Roberts’ tent. The girl was young – Baker thought she couldn’t have been much older than eighteen – and was a bit skinny for his taste but there was no denying that she was a looker and a very clean looker at that. There was also a mischievous twinkle in her eye and a pout on her full mouth that drove any consideration of how unfeminine she looked in her trousers, work shirt and scrub of hair from Baker’s thoughts. Anyway, as he hadn’t had a woman since he’d come to Terror Incognita he wasn’t inclined to be picky.

  ‘What you doing here?’ he snapped as he desperately tried to avoid looking at the hint of cleavage peeping out at him from beneath the girl’s unbuttoned shirt.

  The girl gave a coquettish little hitch of her hip. ‘Well, now the Column has been brought up to the Pyramid, all us labourers have been given the night off so I’ve come looking for some company.’

  Baker looked nervously around. If he was found chatting with a girl while he was on duty he’d be up before the major on a charge, but the way the girl was toying with the buttons of her shirt per
suaded him that it wouldn’t harm to be polite.

  ‘Oh, yeah? So wot’s your name?’

  ‘Bella.’

  ‘Nice name. Mine’s Bert.’

  The girl edged closer. ‘I like your uniform, Bert,’ she purred as she ran her fingers down the lapel of his jacket. ‘I’ve always had a soft spot for soldiers in uniform. They always make me go weak at the knees.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Would you like to kiss me, Bert?’

  Bert Baker decided that he would like that very much indeed but a voice at the back of his head began chirping a warning. It was one thing to be brought up before the major for talking with a girl on duty, but to be found kissing her …

  ‘Nah, I can’t. I’m on duty, see.’

  ‘Such a shame,’ Bella crooned as she stepped away from the lantern’s penumbra so that once again she was hidden in shadow.

  Unfortunately for Bert’s peace of mind, she wasn’t so hidden that he couldn’t see her continuing the slow unbuttoning of her shirt.

  ‘When do you get off duty, Bert?’

  Bert gulped. ‘Er … tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock.’

  More buttons opened and Bert edged away from the tent’s entrance to get a better look at the wonders the girl was intent on displaying.

  ‘Do you smoke, Bert?’

  A funny question. ‘Yeah, cors.’

  ‘We labourers don’t get a cigarette ration. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for a packet of cigarettes. So if I came to your tent in the morning, would you have a packet of cigarettes for me, Bert?’

  Bert stood there transfixed by the twin emotions of lust and fear. ‘Yeah,’ he finally said in a strangled voice, ‘maybe even two packs.’

  *

  ‘So what did you find out, Wysochi?’ Trixie asked when they were safely back in their tent.