by Paul McAuley
Captain Neves told Loc stories about her childhood; he told her edited stories about his adventures in the Outer System. And while they’d been stuck in Camelot, Mimas, for almost a week, waiting for permission to deliver Berry to his mother, one thing had quickly led to another.
Loc always thought of her as Captain Neves rather than Bethany or Beth; she called him Mr Ifrahim even in their most intimate moments. Their lovemaking was a series of negotiations and concessions. Captain Neves liked to take charge, and Loc liked to play along with her dominance games, liked to pretend to be helpless as she hurt him in various small and ingenious ways: by surrendering to her, sweetly, tenderly, utterly, he found a temporary release from the pressure of maintaining his cool, carefully ambivalent demeanour. And although their affair must have been obvious to everyone around them, he found that he didn’t care. For the first time in his life he didn’t care what other people thought of him. He wondered now, studying her sharp profile against the glow of chandelier light, if this was what love was like.
They were waiting to meet with Colonel Faustino Malarte, the military governor of Mimas. They needed his permission to travel outside the city, but the man had dodged them when they’d first arrived in the city and then had disappeared off to Paris, to attend the ceremony that welcomed Euclides Peixoto to the Saturn System. And no doubt to consult with the new administration, check whether or not he should allow Berry to be returned to his mother.
Now, at last, the colonel’s secretary came to fetch Loc and Captain Neves, and led them through tall double doors into a hangar-sized office. Dim lamps were scattered around a floor of crimson halflife turf that reacted to footfalls by generating silvery patterns that raced out like ripples on a pond and reflected from the walls in clashing filigrees; walls painted dark green and hung with works of art. Paintings, exotic masks, wooden and resin sculptures like clutches of breasts or phalluses, or the nests of alien creatures, drooping from the false ceiling . . . All of it loot, no doubt. At the far end of the room was a huge fireplace with what looked like but couldn’t possibly be a log fire burning in it, throwing warm yellow light halfway across the room. On one side was a desk the size of a car; on the other a T-stand displaying the chestplate of a pressure suit.
Colonel Faustino Malarte was studying or pretending to study the chestplate, turning as Loc and Captain Neves came down the length of the huge room towards him. A dark-skinned man with curly black hair worn collar-length and moist eyes set close together over a nose that had been broken once upon a time and skewed slightly to the left, his sky-blue uniform woven from spidersilk and immaculately pressed, his shoulders laden with braid, five ranks of medal ribbons splashed across his chest. He was a scion of the Pessanha family, one-eighth consanguineous, a political appointee who’d escaped the OSS purge because he’d never been especially close to Arvam Peixoto. Loc automatically loathed him, as he loathed everyone who had gained a position of power by virtue of birth rather than by talent and hard work.
‘I’ve heard that you have extensive knowledge of Outer culture, Mr Ifrahim,’ the colonel said. ‘Perhaps you recognise this.’
He clicked his fingers and a spotlight sprang on, its narrow beam burning on the painting splashed across the convex surface of the chestplate. A great crowd of crystalline rocks shaped like human heads, every one different, dwindled into a misty lane that curved into infinity.
Loc knew at once what it was, but stepped on his excitement, gave the painting his best bored, blank glance and said, ‘It looks like one of Munk’s Seven Transformations of the Ring System. Is it real, or did you have it made for you?’
While Colonel Malarte had kept him waiting, Loc had reached out to his old contacts in Camelot and done a little in-depth research. Amongst other things, he’d learned that the colonel had taken an Outer as a mistress, and the woman was an artist who’d served her apprenticeship in Munk’s workshop.
‘It’s no fake,’ the colonel said, frowning hard at Loc. ‘As you’ll see if you care to study the detail. It’s the last in the series. Number Seven. It’s said that every person who was living in Camelot at the time Munk made this is portrayed here. You need a microscope to appreciate it properly.’
‘I confess a profound regret that I was trained exclusively in practical matters,’ Loc said. ‘I can understand the work that went into something like this, but I have little training in the appreciation of art.’
‘It’s absolutely necessary if you want to deal with the tweaks,’ the colonel said. ‘They’re passionate about authenticity and the intrinsic worth of skilled labour and artistic vision. Before the war Camelot was famous for its pressure suits and Munk was the best of the artisans who specialised in decorating pressure-suit chestplates. If I wasn’t so busy today I would be delighted to educate you in the nuances of his work.’
‘Perhaps another time,’ Loc said.
He was amused by Colonel Malarte’s pompous assumption of superiority, and the corny theatricality of the business with the spotlight. The man was as boastful as advertised, a bubble of vanity and hot air waiting the needle’s prick. As for his prized piece of loot, Loc thought that it was as obvious and sentimental as a greeting card. But still, it might be useful, by and by . . .
The colonel ushered Loc and Captain Neves to couches set either side of a thick sheet of translucent plastic that floated with no visible means of support above the halflife grass - it was laced with iron and levitated by superconducting magnets, the colonel explained - and his secretary served little porcelain cups of frothy bitter chocolate.
Loc mentioned the display outside the building and said that he found it very interesting.
‘The protests can be a little noisy, but they’re mostly harmless,’ the colonel said. ‘The tweaks blow off pressure, and we keep watch on potential troublemakers. Everyone benefits.’
‘An admirably enlightened attitude,’ Loc said. ‘Does Euclides Peixoto approve? I’ve heard that he’s very keen to show that he is better than the general at controlling the Outers. That he likes the sound of a cracked whip.’
‘You admit that you do not appreciate the nuances of art. Perhaps you do not appreciate the nuances of command either.’
Colonel Malarte’s smile was a work of art in itself.
Loc said, ‘My work in the diplomatic service allowed me to visit almost every city on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. I believe that it gave me some small appreciation of the nuances of the minds of the Outers.’
Captain Neves sat prim and neat on the other side of the couch, drinking everything in.
‘This was before the war,’ Colonel Malarte said.
‘In which I had the honour of playing a small part.’
Colonel Malarte had arrived at the Saturn System six months after the end of the Quiet War, parachuted into a prime job courtesy of his bloodline.
‘I think you will find that things are different now,’ the colonel said. ‘Now that the so-called superiority of the tweaks has been shown to be nothing of the kind. Now that they have been brought back into the fold, so to speak.’
‘Their displays and demonstrations look amusing to us,’ Loc said. ‘Harmless entertainment. But as far as the Outers are concerned, they are deadly serious. They are not simply expressing frustration, Colonel. They are making a political point, at your expense.’
‘I know how to deal with troublemakers, Mr Ifrahim,’ the colonel said, with some flint in his gaze now. ‘And I make sure that the tweaks know, too.’
‘Don’t take offence, Colonel. I was merely making an observation, based on my travels amongst the Outers.’
There was a small space of silence. Captain Neves fed her subtle smile a sip of hot chocolate. At last the colonel said, ‘Much as I would like to discuss the fine points of Outer politics with you, my time is limited. Let’s get our business out of the way. You want to go to Herschel Crater.’
‘My colleague and I are escorting the son of Professor Doctor Sri Hong-Owen. Returning him to his
mother. A simple task which has taken rather longer than I thought it would.’
‘I am responsible not only for this city but for everything else on this moon,’ the colonel said. ‘It makes for a great deal of work. Sometimes thing slip. And contact with Professor Doctor Hong-Owen and her crew has been at best intermittent. She seems to think that she isn’t obliged to make the usual reports, or show any sign of cooperation. But I’m pleased to be able to tell you that my office has made the necessary arrangements. Transit to Herschel Crater and return. Do you know when you will return, by the way? Your travel plans are somewhat vague.’
‘I’ll come back as soon as I have discharged my duty towards the boy. As to how long that takes, well, as you have pointed out, the Professor Doctor is something of an unknown quantity.’
‘We’ll talk again, when you return. You can tell me all about your adventures.’
Loc had no intention of giving Colonel Malarte information that could be put to profitable use higher up the chain of command. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But I should warn you that it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be able to understand any of the Professor Doctor’s work. She is irresponsible and arrogant, yes, and causes all kinds of problems to those who are supposed to have authority over her. But she is also a genius.’
Once they were outside, making their way along the cordway reserved for the exclusive use of members of the occupying force, Loc told Captain Neves that the colonel was a depressingly familiar mixture of unbridled confidence and sheer stupidity. ‘A typical specimen of the old-fashioned oligarchy. His ancestors made their reputations and fortunes by piracy and pillage; he expects to do the same. According to my contacts, he’s smuggling works of art back to Earth. Every senior officer is sending back a few souvenirs, of course, but the colonel is sending back cargo pods stuffed with loot. He takes by main force anything that attracts his fancy, and if the owners make a fuss he throws them into prison. In short, he treats Mimas as if it was his personal fiefdom, and that’s why he wants me to tell him all about the garden that Sri Hong-Owen is investigating. He’s wondering why she and her crew have spent so long out there. He’s wondering what she has found, and whether he can profit from it. And he probably thinks that returning Berry to his mother is a subterfuge. That I’m really going out there to make a deal with Sri Hong-Owen behind his back. So that little bit of theatre was all about making sure that I knew that he suspected I was up to no good, and that he expected me to cooperate with him.’
‘If she’s been keeping her work secret, perhaps she really has found something valuable,’ Captain Neves said.
‘Valuable to her, perhaps. Because of the intellectual challenge. Because of what it tells her about Avernus. But I very much doubt that her investigations will yield anything of immediate commercial value.’
They’d reached a platform where another cordway intersected the one they were following. Loc, badly out of breath, heart thumping, suggested that they stop for a minute. He’d spent too much time in zero gravity, and had been skimping on his sessions in the centrifuge gymnasium. At this rate he’d never be able to walk on Earth again. . . .
The platform was slung between the crowns of a trio of tall pines. Treetops spread all around them under the diamond light of the cluster of chandeliers hung from the dome’s apex. Camelot’s cluster of pressure domes was filled edge to edge with a forest of tweaked banyans interplanted with pines and giant redwoods. Streets had been built along tiers of broad branches, and cordways, ziplines and slides linked homes and workshops that spiralled around tree trunks or hung from sturdy branches like exotic fruit. An arboreal low-gravity city, green, hushed, primeval.
‘The gardens left behind by Avernus are experiments,’ Loc said. ‘Games. There’s no point in plundering them for a few trivial tweaks and cuts. It would be like smashing a Fabergé egg and selling the gems used to decorate it. Not that Sri Hong-Owen isn’t above doing that, of course. It is how she justifies her work. How she survives. It makes her useful to whoever is in charge. But it isn’t why she’s doing what she’s doing.’
‘Still, if you told the colonel what she’s found,’ Captain Neves said, ‘wouldn’t that make you useful to him?’
‘What good would that do me? People like Faustino Malarte haven’t earned their authority, and they express it by bullying and intimidation because they have no insight into how other people think,’ Loc said. ‘And because they have utterly failed to understand the Outers, sooner or later they will make some colossal blunder that will threaten everything we’ve done out here. I think you should stay in the city while I take Berry to his mother. I think you should find out how Malarte gets his loot back to Earth.’
‘Are you planning to disgrace him, sir?’
‘Of course not. It would be suicidal for me to make any kind of move against him, what with him being in charge of an entire moon, not to mention belonging to the upper echelons of the Pessanha family. No, all I want is information, Captain. That’s what people like the colonel don’t understand. How important information is.’
The gig’s cabin was a fullerene shell perched on top of its motor platform, a claustrophobic closet with no room for seats or couches. Loc stood next to the pilot, with Berry Hong-Owen crammed in behind them, all three strapped into the webs of their crash harnesses and bulked out in pressure suits, globular helmets screwed on, as the frail craft arced halfway around Mimas in a free-fall trajectory.
The little moon was a ball of dirty water ice just under four hundred kilometres in diameter that had frozen all the way down to its silicate core soon after its formation: its ancient, unmodified surface was pocked and spattered by a chaos of craters of every size, like a boiling sea instantly turned to stone. Peering out of the gig’s slot-like window, it seemed to Loc that he was plunging headlong past a vast pale cliff printed with a random jumble of inky crescents and clefts and staves: slanting shadows cast by blocks and boulders, shadows cupped inside craters, shadows curving around crater rims. He’d patched a slow-release dose of a local smart drug, pandorph, before putting on his pressure suit. Yota McDonald had turned him on to it. It was cleaner and more effective than any of the military smart drugs they’d used back in the good old days before the war, when they’d brainstormed political and strategic scenarios for a government commission. It sharpened his perceptions and quickened his thoughts and gave him a crystalline god-like perspective, a necessary edge that would help him deal with Sri Hong-Owen, and it had the useful side effect of overlaying his usual anxiety and fright at being fired like a bullet across a hostile moonscape with a calm, semi-detached interest in the spectacular scenery unravelling beyond the gig’s window.
Mountainous ridges nested in concentric circles rose above the horizon’s sharp curve: the rim of Herschel Crater, a multiringed basin a hundred and thirty kilometres across, a third of Mimas’s diameter, created by an impact that had very nearly shattered the little moon. The gig dropped past broken terraces that stepped down to the vast scab-lands of the crater floor, and flew on for thirty kilometres before the top of the crater’s central peak appeared. With a brisk rattle of attitude jets, the gig rolled over and turned end for end. The empty desolation of the crater floor swung away into black sky, the gig’s motor flamed on with a solid thump, a brief burn that killed the last of its momentum, and the moonscape crept back into view as the gig drifted sideways above the outer slopes of the central peak’s western flank, past boulderfields and the inky lightning bolts of canyons and rifts towards a broad bench where a beacon blinked red in the monochrome landscape. Attitude jets rattled again as the gig adjusted its final approach, and then its shadow raced up to meet it and with a jarring smack it was down, perched on the edge of a landing platform the size of a football field, close to a turtle-shaped shuttle with the green flag of Greater Brazil splashed over its flank.
Captain Neves had given Berry a shot of tranquilliser before the flight, but she’d miscalculated the dose and he was still more or less comatose: it t
ook the combined efforts of Loc and the pilot to manoeuvre him out of the gig’s little hatch. A member of Sri Hong-Owen’s crew was waiting for them. A brisk young man named Antônio Maria Rodrigues, dressed in a pristine white pressure suit, he helped to carry Berry to the sled parked on the mesh roadway below the lip of the landing platform, and drove Loc and Berry towards a long slope cut by crevasses that radiated from the foot of a vertical arc of cliffs more than a kilometre high. The road slanted down into one of the crevasses, ending in a tracked and trampled apron in front of a large opaque dome pitched at the foot of a sheer wall of granitic water ice.
Loc and Antônio Maria Rodrigues hauled Berry off the sled and marched him to the oval hatch of an airlock set in the base of the dome, cycling through into a cramped antechamber with lockers, racks of pressure suits, and a dressing frame crowded along the walls, lit by glowsticks stuck at random in its spray-foam ceiling. In the greenish underwater light, Loc and Antônio Maria Rodrigues stripped off their pressure suits and, wearing only suit-liners that did little to protect them against the meat-locker chill, helped Berry out of his. The boy smiled dopily at them, asked if they could go on the ride again.
‘First we must talk with your mother,’ Loc said.
‘I don’t want to. I want to go back.’
‘You know that you can’t. Come with me, and don’t make a fuss.’
Loc and Berry followed Antônio Maria Rodrigues through a double set of pressure doors and climbed a short steep ramp to a big, roughly circular space under a vaulted roof that shed a pale glow. Paths wandered amongst layered shelves of black rocks cleverly faked up from shells of spun fullerenes, giant cushions of moss of every hue of red and yellow, clumps of tree ferns, and peaty pools of black water ringed with sedges. The air was clean and cold and damp. Winter. Yes, it smelt like winter . . . Loc felt a sudden aching swell of homesickness, sharply magnified by the pandorph. But this wasn’t home. It wasn’t Earth, or anything like it. Just another garden in a dome, a tiny bubble of life set in a vast and lifeless desolation. He looked around and declared that although it was pretty enough, he’d been expecting something rare and marvellous.
