10
Eli watched the two young men out on the quay, facing each other over their picnic like a pair of beautiful, capricious demigods from some ancient play. Against the silver-grey backdrop of the river their red heads sparkled, one bright, one dark. Gulls dipped and soared over the water behind them, shrieking as they veered ever closer; Rhys tossed a crust to one, intersecting its vector so precisely that the bird snatched it out of the air with barely a twitch of its wings, and said something that made Callan throw his head back and laugh. Eli blinked. To see Callan so relaxed, especially out in the open, was rare indeed.
He was tempted to join them, at least go over and say hello, but he decided against it. Though they were surrounded by others strolling or sitting in the midday sunshine, there was something intimate about the picture they made; an aura of privacy about the way they met each other’s eyes and laughed at each other’s jokes, and leaned in just a tiny bit closer than necessary to speak. Eli, more attuned than most to the subtleties of human behaviour, smiled and left them to it.
He had other business in any case, and turned his back on the quay as he trudged up the high street to a large and unprepossessing building that squatted at the back of a small plaza, like a lumpen brown package set down to one side but never unwrapped and put properly away. The old leisure centre, long since remade into the town hall and cultural hub of the Squats community, would have won no architectural prizes in any era.
Eli went through to the main foyer, passing Lyriam along the way. The musician was being interviewed, backed artistically against a window with a view of the sun-drenched street behind.
‘Of course it was the middle of winter then, before we got here we were always so cold,’ Eli heard him say. He glanced over, catching the younger man’s eye, seeing the spark of shared memory as for a moment they both relived that refugee’s advent. Bethany, standing off to the side, favoured him with a distracted simper. He smiled back, thinking that Aryel had as usual been right, and passed swiftly through.
Mikal was rarely to be found manning the reception desk these days; probably, Eli reflected, never would again. He waved a greeting and mouthed a question to the young woman with shimmering teal-green hair whose hands flickered across a tablet bank as she murmured into her earset. She waved back, nodding and pointing in the direction he was headed.
The giant gem was in his office, multi-tasking with earset and tablet, and he beckoned Eli forward as he hesitated in the doorway.
He stepped inside and dropped into a chair.
‘Yes, I understand that, Sharon took their statements.’ Mikal spoke into the earset, rolling his eyes wearily. ‘No, nothing to do with you, we hadn’t thought so … we know you know any religious association is incidental … Lyriam has no intention of being bullied, I’m sure you understand his position … Quite.’ A longish pause. Mikal’s narrow, mobile face twitched with amusement. ‘A lovely song … yes, there is that … very talented. I couldn’t say. Always good to talk to you.’
His fingers halted in the act of reaching to flick the earset back to standby. He stared vacantly at Eli, blinking that patient, double-lidded blink. Eli grinned in anticipation.
‘The impact of faith is certainly appreciable, if not always appreciated,’ Mikal said smoothly, into what must have been a pause for breath on the other end. ‘One could hardly overstate it.’ He smiled gently, waited a polite half-second in case there was a comeback, and concluded, ‘I’ll keep you posted, of course, if there’s anything further at our end. You’ll do the same? Thanks so much. Right. All the best,’ and he flicked off and pulled the earset away, tossing it onto the desk with a sigh and shaking his head at Eli’s chuckles.
‘You shouldn’t encourage me, you know.’
‘As if you needed it. Who was that, Tobias?’
‘Nope, Bishop Maloney herself. Our friends at the UC are quite rattled.’ He grinned. ‘Also enchanted with young Gwen. Mairead’s nurturing a hope that she might actually be a believer. I was simply declining to comment.’
‘So what did she have to say about it?’
‘The idiots at the concert? Not much. Sharon found out they’re from a congregation near Oxford, and the good bishop recalled hearing some Reversionist rumblings from out that way. The usual complaints about cultural shifts and the death of evangelism. No hint of an anti-gem stance, so they let it slip under the radar.’
‘Mairead Maloney probably agrees with them.’
‘No doubt, but she understands how dangerous any kind of aggressive proselytising could be. It’s a very delicate balance for them, given that most of the godgangs were found to have had links with the UC – they’re still trying to live down the association. But on the other hand, I think she’s also elated that Gwen’s intervention means thousands of people ended up hearing a hymn for the first time.’ He sighed and stretched. ‘The truth is she gave it far more exposure than it would have got otherwise. The only bit of the show that’s had more hits is the elegy.’
‘Not many more. The streams are going mad for her. “Aryel Morningstar’s little sister, with a voice to match those wings!’” Eli shook his head ruefully. ‘If you’re trying to revive religion for the modern age that connection doesn’t hurt. I don’t imagine Gwen realises quite what she’s stepped into.’
‘She’ll work it out soon enough. Lyriam will help. And Aryel knows how to navigate that channel better than anyone.’ He took in the look on Eli’s face. ‘It still really bothers you, doesn’t it? Even though you were part of it.’
‘Maybe because I’m part of it. It’s just … the reaction to Aryel is deeply illogical. If you had told me the day before Newhope Tower that people en masse would have such an atavistic response to her, regardless of their backgrounds or beliefs, regardless of history, I would have laughed at you. But when it happened it felt … natural. Obvious. Inevitable. It sort of bothers me that it doesn’t bother me, if that makes any sense.’
‘She tried very hard to avoid it.’
‘I know she did. She’s been completely honourable. And you’d think that her not taking advantage of the situation in all the ways that she could would minimise the impact, that by now she would be just another gem. But she isn’t. And it’s curious that all the new sects and splinter groups include so few anti-Aryel factions. Almost everyone manages to mould their philosophy into a shape which treats her with enormous respect. Even the Reversionists. Especially the Reversionists. I’m glad about that, but I don’t understand it. She should be a polarising figure.’
‘It is a mystery,’ said Mikal solemnly, ‘but we’ll take them over the godgangs or the gemtechs, thank you very much. Personally I’m quite fond of the religious Reversionists, even though they are less than fond of Sharon and me. They don’t want gem-norm crossovers, but they do want peace and love between all peoples; they think artificial evolution is morally wrong, but they adore Aryel. It’s so nice to have incompetent adversaries for a change.’
Eli laughed. ‘Speaking of the gemtechs, any word from Aryel?’
‘Not yet. She’ll message us both, I imagine. I have heard from Zavcka Klist, though.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, not about their meeting. Though given the timing, I think it has everything to do with it.’ He picked up the tablet and flicked it awake in one movement, then contemplated whatever was on the screen with the mild distaste of a man peering at something suspect on the sole of his shoe.
‘“Dear Councillor Varsi”,’ he read aloud. ‘“Just a quick note following our conversation yesterday evening. In addition to the regulatory oversight we discussed, the Bel’Natur ethics and welfare team would welcome your input on appropriate standards and safeguards. I wonder if you would be available to meet with them in the first instance, perhaps to agree an ongoing advisory role? Your perspective, in terms of your public service responsibilities as well as your own personal history, would be invaluable. I hope to hear from you at your convenience. Sincerely, Zavcka”.’ He dropped the
tablet back onto its stand, and brushed imaginary dirt off his fingers. ‘Sent half an hour before she was due to meet with Aryel.’
Eli shook his head in bemusement. All he could think of to say was, ‘That’s how she signed off? “Zavcka?”’
‘We’re on a first-name basis, apparently. Best mates, I told you.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Go talk to them, of course. I can hardly refuse, can I? But I want to hear from Aryel before I reply.’
*
Gwen’s tablet pinged softly, and she raised it in front of her face without bothering to sit up. Another clutch of messages from people she’d never heard of; praise and propositions mostly, a couple of frankly bizarre references to scripture, almost all also requests for an interview. Or an exclusive snippet of song. A few more UC congregations inviting her to Sunday worship, wondering if she could be persuaded to perform for them. She sighed, flicked the tablet back to standby and dropped it onto the bed beside her.
Eli might have been surprised to discover that she was fully aware of the ripples and ramifications of what she’d done. Even as she’d rolled to her feet on that grassy bank in the park, in the first few strides down the slope, she had been calculating probabilities and evaluating options; aware of the placement of every vidcam, sight lines from the stage, the likelihood of the speaker hack working and how she would adjust her response if it didn’t. She’d judged the tuneless fools to have no weapons nor to offer any threat of violence, and been right. She’d felt the mood of the crowd around her, euphoria beginning to give way to dismay, and had known exactly what would capture their collective imagination.
But it depended as much on the actions of others, and she’d had a presentiment of folly even as she took the earset that would transmit her own voice. Surely her intention would not be clear to Lyriam; he would not, could not, possibly understand what she planned to do. Much less be willing to facilitate it. She replayed the moment, and felt again the little leap of excitement she’d felt when she realised he did and he would.
Now lying prone in the dim bedroom, alone in Aryel’s echoing flat, she was putting her operational calculus to work once more: evaluating the fallout, projecting the next array of possible outcomes. So far things could hardly, she judged, have gone any better. The furore was very much on the high end of her initial assessment, but almost universally positive. Lyriam’s laughing approval, murmured close to her ear, called out over a sea of heads and reinforced in interviews and posts to public streams, had seen to that. She had caught Bethany’s glower and knew that the blonde norm did not feel the same way.
She considered briefly whether that should bother her more than it did, and concluded that, right or wrong, she found it impossible to feel any sympathy for Bethany; close though they were in age, similar though some of their experiences must have been – a norm among gems, a gem among norms. But Bethany’s life in the Squats with Lyriam had not, Gwen thought, been the only one she had ever known, nor perhaps as stable, simple and down to earth as her and Rhys’ upbringing with Da and the rest of their Remnant tribe. Lyriam had listened to their tales from the country, of music made and stories sung around the fire on winter nights, with something that looked like longing. Bethany, visibly bored, had wandered off.
Gwen silently admitted that, in the few moments they had spent together, she had been equally bored by the girl. She seemed to lack the spark of adventure, the anarchic sense of fun, that had enabled Lyriam to appreciate Gwen’s intervention. It was her loss – and Lyriam’s relationship to manage. All was not well there, that much was evident. She would follow his lead, and if he did not feel constrained by his girlfriend’s disapproval, then neither would Gwen.
The only question now was how best to take advantage of the moment she had not-so-accidentally created. She had set a course at the party, followed it up with carefully worded posts and private messages throughout the morning. Now she was waiting to see if the vague plans and half-made promises of the night were real. The inaction chafed at her.
The tablet chimed again. This time, as she read the message, she could feel herself beginning to smile.
He’d said he had to be interviewed for a documentary this morning: something Bethany had arranged, a puff piece on her life in the Squats. He was done with it now, had been able, she read, to escape. And he’d been thinking overnight about songs to work on together. Was she interested? When would she be free?
Her fingers slipped over the surface of the tablet even as she swung her legs down to the floor.
Right now, she wrote. I’d love to. Let’s get started.
*
She was three strides from Aryel’s front door a few minutes later when it slid open and Reginald stepped into the flat. He was frowning as he peered at the tablet in his hand, and there was a testy glint in the sharp eyes as he looked up at her from it.
‘You off somewhere?’
‘I’m going to meet Lyriam and the band. Were you up in the garden all this time, Da? I thought you’d gone over to the airwalk already.’
‘That’s where I should be. Things to do, people to meet.’ He snorted, and waved the tablet at her. ‘Instead I’ve been stuck on this thing. What are you going to do about this mess?’
‘What mess?’
‘Your mess. I keep getting messages from people about your stunt last night. I don’t even know who the hell half of them are.’
‘Why are they messaging you?’
‘Blessed if I know. They seem to have the crazy idea that I might have some special insight. Being your father and all.’ He scowled at the tablet again, and thumbed it off. ‘I’ve got everyone from priests to politicians asking me about your religious education …’
‘My what?’
‘Exactly. Most of them also imagine I must secretly agree with whatever point those idiots were trying to make. They seem to think being Remnant automatically means being Reversionist. As if.’ He snorted again.
Gwen sighed. ‘That’s a fairly logical conclusion for most people to jump to, Da.’
‘And a fairly harmless one, most of the time. Except now they’re not just assuming, they’re asking. Which means I have to say no, I think they’re a bunch of misguided, short-sighted, ancestor-worshipping nitwits.’
Gwen raised an eyebrow. ‘You haven’t actually said that, have you?’
‘Close enough.’
She chortled. ‘Well, that should get you lots of attention. You can use it to talk up the airwalk tech.’
‘Thank you for the silver lining. Is Rhys still down at Herran’s place?’
‘No, he messaged to say he and Callan were going out for a bit. He’s all right, he’s feeling good today.’
‘Let’s hope he stays that way. Especially while you’re up to whatever it is you’re up to.’
‘What makes you think I’m up to anything?’
‘Gwen, love, in the twenty years since you came into my care, you’ve never not been up to something.’ The eyes were still piercing, but, along with the voice, had turned gentle. ‘Just remember that you are not the most important thing at the moment. Rhys is.’
‘Rhys will always be my priority,’ she said softly, modulating her own voice to match his, ensuring there was no trace of edge in it. ‘But he’s going to be fine, I’m sure he is. He doesn’t need me to be with him all the time and he hates it when we hover, you know that. He’s healthy right now, and he doesn’t start at the hospital for almost a week. There’s a lot I can be doing in the meantime. You think sitting around here, staring at the walls while you and Rhys and Ari are all out on your various missions is fun for me? I have things I want to achieve too, Da.’ She stepped towards the door. ‘I’ll be there when he needs me. Whenever he needs me.’
‘Fair enough.’ He nodded acceptance, and then waved the tablet again. ‘What are you planning to do about the clamouring faithful?’
‘I’m planning to ignore them. Unless I can think of a better reason not to.’
EDUCATION
She often hears them arguing. It is almost always about her, but they do not trouble themselves overmuch to ensure that she is out of earshot. It will be some while yet before they can bring themselves to believe just how much she comprehends. In the meantime, she is learning the wisdom of guile.
She sits on the floor in a far corner, the battered tablet in her hands, and is careful to angle herself so she can see if anyone approaches. She completed the standard curriculum some time ago, working out with little trouble how to access the levels supposedly beyond her capability. Now she is in the encyclopaedia function she is not supposed to know about, flipping from one entry to another, keeping up with the conversation.
‘… I’m telling you, I think her IQ might even be normal for her age. She hits the average percentiles in every test we give her, she’s on track with the modules… look at her, she spends every waking moment with that tablet.’
They all glance in her direction. She pretends not to notice, and waits. She already knows what IQ means.
‘How bright can she be, if it takes her that long?’
‘We don’t know that it does. She doesn’t have any other toys or learning tools, or playmates for that matter. She might just be going over the lessons out of boredom.’ Dr Owen’s eyes still rest on her, and his voice is thoughtful. He is the one most interested in her cognitive development – she learned what that was, oh ages and ages ago – and he has never forgotten the lesson of that first lisping conversation. She works particularly hard to ensure he thinks just as much of her as he should, and no more.
‘I say we should open up the modules,’ he goes on. ‘Let her take a look at the next two or three, see what she goes for. Maybe even give her access to some general reading material. Assess her curiosity.’
Oh good. That would save so much trouble.
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