Paragaea

by Chris Roberson

  With that, their audience with the foreman was apparently at an end. Without another word, he turned and sauntered off towards his offices.

  “He was certainly helpful,” Benu said, “I shouldn't think.”

  “No doubt,” Balam said, his eyes narrowed as he watched the foreman's retreating back. “I can't say that I care for his patently condescending attitudes towards metamen.”

  “To say nothing for his penchant for emphasizing random words in his speech,” Hieronymus said. “Most unpleasant.”

  “Well,” Leena said, slinging her pack onto her shoulders. “I'm pretty sure I heard the word ‘tavern' in there somewhere, which suggests to me that we might find something to drink, if we look hard enough.”

  “Little sister,” Hieronymus said with a smile, hooking his arm through hers, “I believe you've just said the magic word.”

  Beyond the entrance to the terminus, they found a path that led to the main gates of the city. The stevedores with whom they'd labored on the tram were now lined up at the gate in an orderly queue, identification chits in hand, each being inspected by the city guards in turn. At random intervals, one of the stevedores, invariably a metaman of one kind or another, was taken out of the line to a fenced-off area a short distance away, stripped naked, and thoroughly searched.

  “What are they looking for?” Leena asked, whispering behind her hand as the company joined the end of the queue.

  “The foreman said something about agitators, and a coronation,” Hieronymus answered, watching the guards and their motions carefully, “but I didn't follow his whole meaning.”

  “They should take care not to drag me out for such an examination,” Balam growled, eyes flashing as a Canid was led to the enclosure. Once the dog man's clothes had been stripped from his body, he was bent over a low table, and his snout twisted in a grimace of pain as one of the guards used a short, wicked-looking ceramic instrument to probe his nether regions, doubtless searching for some type of contraband.

  “Strange that they don't object to such treatment,” Hieronymus said.

  “I have found, over my long years,” Benu observed, “that there are no indignities which beings will not suffer, if they believe the ends are justified. These metamen have traveled great distances and at considerable risk, hoping to claim a small portion of the riches of Hele for their own. That few if any immigrants are ever granted full Helean citizenship is apparently not a deterrent, and so with visions of mineral wealth and luxury dancing before their eyes, they allow themselves to suffer privations they would otherwise find abhorrent.”

  “Such is the way in decadent capitalist societies,” Leena said scornfully.

  “Perhaps.” Benu nodded thoughtfully. “But I have seen similar in cultures which have rejected monetary exchange for other economic structures. The Bacharian Polity, for example, ostensibly shares all property in common, and yet I've seen hungry mothers and starving children lined up for days on end for their dole of bread and weak soup. Is that really so different?”

  Leena shot a hard glance at the artificial man, her mouth drawn into a line. “That is hardly the same thing. Such shortages are invariably the result of interference from without, a burden shared among all the populace when the state stands against the capitalist oligarchies of decadent empires.”

  “So you would hold a system like the Polity's unaccountable for its own shortcomings?” Hieronymus asked. “A government that sends spies against its neighbors, brigands who think nothing of raising a hand against honest wayfarers who happen to differ in species from their genetic purity?”

  Before Leena could respond, they reached the head of the queue.

  “Next!” The guard snapped his fingers, motioning impatiently for them to approach. His green skin stood in stark contrast to the bright reds and blues of his uniform, a cuirass of polished ceramic across his chest, and beneath his helmet his hair was the same light blond as his mustache and beard.

  Hieronymus went first, presenting the ceramic badge the foreman had issued him. After regarding it closely, the guard asked Hieronymus a few questions about his country of origin, his reasons for coming to Hele, and so forth. Hieronymus answered as simply as possible, saying simply that he came from an island far away, and that he came in search of work to which his hands could be turned.

  The guard looked Hieronymus up and down, appraisingly, and then handed him back the ceramic badge.

  “Next.”

  The others of the company were each in turn interviewed, their temporary access chits inspected closely. Leena and Hieronymus both sighed with relief when Balam was waved through without being taken to the enclosure for further examination, and when Benu was passed through, the company was on their way.

  They passed under the high gate and, crossing the threshold, found themselves in Hele.

  They were in the ninth and lowest of the nine rings of the city. It was constructed as one broad avenue that curved back on itself to their left and right, lined on both sides with buildings. Behind the buildings on the inner curve rose the retaining wall of the eighth ring, beyond which they could just glimpse the other rings, while the spire of the coregents' palace towered above all.

  Directly before them, opposite the entrance through which they'd passed, rose a wide ramp that zigzagged in switchbacks up the steep slope of the inner wall, terminating at the edge of the eighth ring above them. Men and metamen, vehicles and beasts, moved slowly up and down this winding ramp, about the business of the city.

  The majority of beings that passed them on the avenue, or that jostled up and down the ramp, were metamen, but what humans the company did see had skin that ranged from the pale white of Leena's own to the dark ebony of Yasen Kai-Mustaf, with only a scattered handful whose pigmentation was the dark green of the foreman and the city guards.

  “So few green faces,” Leena observed.

  “There will be few Heleans found here in the lower rings, I would imagine,” Benu answered. “As one ascends the rings of the city, one also ascends the social strata. Down here at the bottom are the poorest of the city dwellers, most of whom, like us, are immigrants to the hidden city.”

  “I'm fairly certain someone mentioned something about getting a bite to eat,” Balam interrupted, becoming impatient with the conversation. “I've been on my feet hauling crates for who knows how long, and I want a bed, a meal, and a drink, though not necessarily in that order.”

  “I would take any and all of the three, in any order,” Hieronymus agreed.

  “This way, then,” Benu said, starting to walk towards the right around the avenue's curve. “If I read the signage correctly, and I do, then the Immigrant's Quarter will be found a short distance ahead.”

  The first three establishments they tried refused them admittance, with one tavern even refusing to open its doors to them. At an overpriced hotel along the avenue, they were told that there were no vacancies, though the corridors echoed empty and dark. A restaurant shuttered its windows as they approached, only a bare handful of green-skinned patrons glimpsed momentarily through the panes of glass. And as they walked on, the avenue seemed to become more and more vacated, fewer pedestrians and vehicles passing them by the moment.

  “You there,” shouted one of a pair of green-skinned guards, approaching them from across the avenue, each with a half-meter long trident in hand. There was, by now, no one else in sight, only shuttered windows and barred doors lining the way. “What are you about?”

  “We're just looking for food and lodging,” Hieronymus answered casually.

  “Not past curfew you aren't,” replied the other of the guards.

  “Curfew?” Leena said.

  “We were told about no curfew on our entry.” Benu glanced at his companions and shrugged.

  “Ignorance of the law is no defense.” The guard tightened his grip on the trident, menacingly. “Get indoors, and there won't be any trouble.”

  “But we can't find anywhere that will take us,” Leena objected.r />
  “Try the House of Mama Jahannam,” the other guard said, not without a slight trace of compassion. He pointed up the road, to a red lantern swinging above an open doorway. “They'll take anybody.”

  “Well, we are most definitely anybody,” Hieronymus said, on his face a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “I suppose we'll be on our way.”

  “Watch yourselves,” warned the first guard, pointing to the company with his three-pronged trident.

  “We will,” Balam growled ominously.

  “Come along, friend,” Hieronymus said, taking the jaguar man by the elbow and dragging him down the avenue. “Let's get indoors, shall we?”

  When they had gone a few dozen steps, Leena glanced back over her shoulder and saw that the two guards were still standing in place, watching them. “What does it mean,” she asked in a low voice, “to have a curfew when no one can say what the hour is with any certainty?”

  “Curfews are never about the hours of a clock,” Benu said, his opalescent eyes glinting dully in the gloomy twilight, “but are only about control. It would seem that the Heleans are afraid of something, but that they are not precisely sure what that something is.”

  As they drew near the red lantern, they could hear voices raised in laughter, and saw a warm glow spilling out from the open doorway.

  “Ah,” Hieronymus said, his chest swelling with a deep breath. “Signs of life, at last.”

  Mama Jahannam's proved to be a tavern such as could be found near wharfs or warehouses or loading docks in any city, Earthly or Paragaean. It had a low ceiling, hung with lanterns that produced a ruddy glow, and was crowded with pitted tables and wobbly chairs, nearly all of them occupied. The laughing, singing, boisterous crowd included every species and variety of sentient being imaginable: human, Kobolt, Sheeog, Rephaim, Struthio, Canid, Arcas, Sinaa, Tapiri, even a handful of Ichthyandaro in damp robes in a far corner, and a pair of Nagas playing bone flutes while sitting cross-legged on a table. Only a few of the patrons seemed dour and sullen, metamen who invariably sat in small groups apart from everyone else.

  The company found an open table, and ordered food and drink from a waiter who drifted by with a tray of beverages, all of which he seemed to be sampling before serving, which left his speech and his locomotion notably impaired. After a brief delay, though, their order arrived, more or less correct, and they fell to sating their appetites.

  Once they had worked their way through the rough meal, and had a couple of drinks in them, Hieronymus and Balam began to scan the tavern patrons studiously.

  “What are you doing?” Leena asked, noting their careful attention.

  “In every establishment of this sort,” Hieronymus explained, “one is likely to find individuals who have a willingness to answer questions when suitably inspired.”

  Leena drew a sharp breath. “You're not going to torture someone for information, are you?”

  Balam looked at her with a shocked expression on his face, while Hieronymus just chuckled.

  “What do you think we are, Leena?” Balam asked, horrified. “Savages?”

  “No, of course not, little sister.” Hieronymus took a sip from his mug, and licked his lips appreciatively. “We'll just get them drunk, and then start asking questions.”

  In short order, they found their mark. A human, his skin a pale white with a slight tinge of green that indicated, Benu explained, that he had been in Hele for some time, but was not a native-born citizen. He introduced himself as Alfe, and was apparently desperate for conversation, as he started answering the company's questions before his first drink had even been poured.

  “What's this coronation business all about, anyway?” Balam asked.

  Alfe looked at the jaguar man askance. “Blind me, did you just fall off the tram today, or what?”

  “Yes,” Hieronymus said, nodding, “as a matter of fact, we did.”

  Alfe shrugged, and reached for his mug of lager. “Fair enough. So it's the coronation you're wanting to hear about, is it? Well, you see, Underlord Akeronh has recently died, and his coregent, Underlady Persefonh, now holds the throne only as steward, waiting for a pair of worthies to pass the rites of coronation. Already, though, two pair of green-skinned children, boy and girl, have marched into the cave tunnels, the juice of the royal pomegranates still staining their chins. It remains to be seen if they come back out again, but if they don't, another pair'll go in after them, and another after them, and so on, until Hele's got itself a new set of monarchs, and things can get back to normal for a while.”

  “What about these agitators we've heard about?” Leena asked, leaning forward.

  “Oh, them,” Alfe said with a sneer. “There's a mess of foreigners being held for trial, metamen arrested for fomenting revolution among the others of their kind in the city. Their trial has been postponed until a new underlord and underlady take up the Carneol and mount the throne, but it's all over but the shouting, at this point. Those agitators are as dead as dead, and have no doubt.”

  “Where do they come from, these agitators?” Benu asked. “Whence do they come?”

  “They're from among the numbers of the Black Sun Genesis,” Alfe said, “or so I'm told. There's more of them arriving every day, agitating for their captive brethren to be released.” He took a long sip of his lager, and then pointed past Hieronymus at the open door. “There's some of them newly arrived ones now, who've no doubt been off pestering the upper-ring nabobs about their fellows' release.”

  The company glanced over, and saw a small group of metamen: a Canid, a Struthio, and an Arcas, with a young Sinaa female at their vanguard.

  “It can't be!” Balam shouted, leaping to his feet. “Menchit!”

  Balam rushed forward, his arms wide, but when he was within a meter of the young Sinaa, she held her hands up, claws out, warding him off.

  “But Menchit,” Balam said, eyes wide and confused. “Don't you know me?”

  Balam drew nearer, and the young female swiped her claws at his face, forcing him to pull back or lose an eye.

  “Menchit, I'm your father!”

  The young Sinaa regarded him coolly. “I know no father but Per.”

  Balam took a step backwards, stunned, and the young Sinaa swept past him, the other Per-followers in her wake.

  The following morning, in the same unending twilight, the company set out for the Ministry of Foreign Labor, as instructed.

  Balam had scarcely spoken since his encounter with his long-lost daughter the night before, and when Leena suggested they make for the Ministry building, he objected, saying that he preferred to stay in the tavern, in the hopes of meeting again with his daughter.

  “Come on, friend,” Hieronymus said, placing an arm around his shoulders. “It would do no good to be deported for lack of proper identification before we even came near the palace.”

  “Very well,” Balam grumbled, arms crossed over his chest. “But I'm back here at my earliest opportunity.”

  The company made their way through the thronged avenue of the ninth ring, back to the long ramp they'd seen the night before. The Ministry of Foreign Labor, a helpful patron of Mama Jahannam's had explained after Hieronymus had bought him a dram of lager, could be found in the first quarter of the eighth ring. The building, once they located it, proved to be an unimposing structure of white stone that looked dilapidated and aged.

  “One assumes that, despite its evident value to their culture, the Heleans place little stock in Foreign Labor,” Benu observed.

  In the vestibule of the Ministry building, they found an ancient Helean sitting in a stall, his white hair like wisps of cloud against his dark green skin, his uniform stained and threadbare.

  “Yes?” the official asked disinterestedly.

  “We were given these,” Leena held out her ceramic badge, “and told to come here to find work.”

  The official reached out a wrinkled hand, covered in dark viridian liver spots, and took the ceramic badge from Leena. “Well, you won
't be able to get work with these. This is just a temporary access chit. In order for anyone in Hele to hire you on, you'd need a provisional employment chit.”

  “And where might we get one of those?” Hieronymus asked.

  “You'd need to go to the Ministry of Immigration Control,” the official said. He pointed back towards the open door, and handed Leena back her ceramic badge. “Sixth ring, second quarter, you can't miss it.”

  “And with this employment chit, we don't run the risk of deportation?” Leena asked.

  “No,” the official answered with a sigh, “any nonproductive immigrant is liable to be expelled from the city, whether they have a provisional employment chit or not. The temporary access chit gives you free passage throughout the unrestricted areas of the city, until such time as you are able to find employment. The provisional employment chit, however, merely indicates that you are eligible to be employed, but does not guarantee employment. That determination is made by the Ministry of Foreign Labor on a case-by-case basis.”

  “So can you tell us whether you have work for us, then?” Hieronymus asked.

  “Not with just a temporary access chit, I can't.” The official waved them once more towards the door, and then turned his attention away, their audience evidently at an end.

  “I don't have time for this nonsense,” Balam growled as they stepped back out into the eighth-ring avenue. He began to pace, extending and retracting his claws anxiously. “I've not seen my daughter since she was a bare cub, and now she's grown, and refuses to recognize me. I'll not waste any more time dallying with the unnecessarily complex bureaucracies of this stagnant culture, when we're on some damned idiotic quest, resident here only temporarily to steal the crown jewel!”