Windup Girl

by Bacigalupi, Paolo

  “More Niche Teachings.” Anderson peels another fruit. “There must be a niche for money somewhere in Grahamite orthodoxy. Your cardinals are fat enough.”

  “The teachings are sound, even if the flock strays.” Hagg stands abruptly. “Thank you for the company.” He frowns at Anderson, but reaches across the table and grabs one more fruit before stalking away.

  As soon as he’s gone, everyone relaxes. “Christ, Lucy, why’d you do that?” Otto asks. “That man creeps me out. I left the Compact so I could get away from Grahamite priests looking over my shoulder. And you have to call one over?”

  Quoile nods morosely. “I heard there’s another priest here at the joint embassy now.”

  “They’re everywhere. Like maggots.” Lucy waves at them. “Toss me another fruit.”

  They return to their gorging. Anderson watches them, curious to see if these well-travelled creatures will have any other ideas about its provenance. The rambutan is an interesting possibility, though. Already, despite the bad news about the destroyed algae tanks and nutrient cultures, the day is turning out better than expected. Rambutan. A word to send back to Des Moines and the researchers. A route of investigation into the origins of this mysterious botanic object. Somewhere, there will be a historical record of it. He’ll have to go back to his books and see if he can find—

  “Look who’s here,” Quoile mutters.

  Everyone turns. Richard Carlyle, in a perfectly pressed linen suit, is climbing the stairs. He takes off his hat as he reaches the shade, fanning himself.

  “I fucking hate that man,” Lucy mutters. She lights another pipe, draws hard.

  “What’s he smiling about?” Otto asks.

  “Hell if I know. He lost a dirigible, didn’t he?”

  Carlyle pauses in the shade, scans the patrons across the room, nods at all of them. “Pretty hot one,” he calls out.

  Otto stares at him, red-faced and bullet-eyed, and mutters, “If it hadn’t been for his fucking politicking, I’d be a rich man today.”

  “Don’t be dramatic.” Anderson pops another ngaw into his mouth. “Lucy, give the man a puff of your pipe. I don’t feel like having Sir Francis kick us out into the heat for brawling.”

  Lucy’s eyes have gone glassy with opium, but she waves the pipe in Otto’s general direction. Anderson reaches across and plucks it from her fingers and gives it to Otto, before standing and picking up his empty glass. “Anyone else want something?” Desultory shakes of the head.

  Carlyle grins as he arrives at the bar. “You get poor old Otto sorted out?”

  Anderson glances back. “Lucy smokes serious opium. I doubt he’ll be able to walk, let alone fight anyone.”

  “Devil’s drug, that.”

  Anderson toasts him with his empty glass. “That, and booze.” He peers over the edge of the bar. “Where the hell’s Sir Francis?”

  “I thought you were here to answer that question.”

  “I guess not,” Anderson says. “You lose much?”

  “Some.”

  “Really? You don’t seem bothered.” Anderson gestures back at the rest of the Phalanx. “Everyone else is pissing and moaning about how you keep interfering with politics, cozying up with Akkarat and the Trade Ministry. But here you are smiling ear to ear. You could be a Thai.”

  Carlyle shrugs. Sir Francis, elegantly dressed, carefully coiffed, emerges from a back room. Carlyle asks for whiskey and Anderson holds up his own empty glass.

  “No ice,” Sir Francis says. “The mulie men want more money to run the pump.”

  “Pay them, then.”

  Sir Francis shakes his head as he takes Anderson’s glass. “If you bargain when they squeeze your balls, they will only squeeze again. And I cannot bribe the Environment Ministry to give me access to the coal grid like you farang.”

  He turns away and pulls down a bottle of Khmer whiskey, pours an immaculate shot. Anderson wonders if any of the rumors about the man are true.

  Otto, now mumbling incoherently about “fugging dribigles,” claims that Sir Francis was an old Chaopraya, a high assistant to the crown, forced out of the palace in a power play. This theory has as much merit as the idea that he is former servant of the Dung Lord, retired, or that he is a Khmer prince, displaced and living incognito ever since the Thai Kingdom was enlarged to swallow the East. Everyone agrees he must have been of high rank—it’s the only thing that explains his disdain for his patrons.

  “Pay now,” he says as he sets the shots on the bar.

  Carlyle laughs. “You know our credit’s good.”

  Sir Francis shakes his head. “You both lost plenty at the anchor pads. Everyone knows it. Pay now.”

  Carlyle and Anderson shell out coins. “I thought we had a better relationship than that,” Anderson complains.

  “This is politics.” Sir Francis smiles. “Maybe you are here tomorrow. Maybe you are swept away like Expansion plastic on a beach. There are whisper sheets on all the street corners, calling for Captain Jaidee to be made a chaopraya advisor to the palace. If he rises, then all you farang …” he makes a shooing motion with his hand, “all gone.” He shrugs. “General Pracha’s radio stations are calling Jaidee a tiger and hero, and the student associations have been calling for the Trade Ministry to be closed down and placed under the white shirts. The Trade Ministry lost face. Farang and Trade are close like farang and fleas.”

  “Nice.”

  Sir Francis shrugs. “You do smell.”

  Carlyle scowls. “Everyone smells. It’s the goddamn hot season.”

  Anderson intercedes. “I suppose Trade is seething, losing face like that.” He takes a sip of the warm whiskey and grimaces. He used to like room-temperature liquor, before he came here.

  Sir Francis counts their coins into his cash box. “Minister Akkarat is still smiling, but the Japanese want reparations for their losses and the white shirts will never give them. So either Akkarat will pay to make up for what the Tiger of Bangkok has done, or he will lose face to the Japanese as well.”

  “You think the Japanese will leave?”

  Sir Francis makes a face of disgust. “The Japanese are like the calorie companies, always looking for a way in. They will never go away.” He moves to the other end of the bar, leaving them once again isolated.

  Anderson pulls out a ngaw and offers it Carlyle. “Want one?”

  Carlyle takes the fruit and holds it up for examination. “What the hell is this?”

  “Ngaw.”

  “It reminds me of cockroaches.” He makes a face. “You’re an experimental bastard. I’ll give you that.” He pushes the ngaw back across to Anderson and carefully wipes his hand on his trousers.

  “Afraid?” Anderson goads.

  “My wife liked eating new things, too. Couldn’t stop herself. Had the madness for flavor. Just couldn’t resist trying new foods.” Carlyle shrugs. “I’ll wait and see if you’re spitting up blood next week.”

  They lean back on their stools and gaze across the dust and heat to where the Victory Hotel gleams white. Down an alley a washing woman has set out laundry in pans near the rubble of an old high-rise. Another is washing her body, carefully scrubbing under her sarong, its fabric clinging to her skin. Children run naked through the dirt, jumping over bits of broken concrete that were laid down more than a hundred years ago in the old Expansion. Far down the street the levees rise, holding back the sea.

  “How much did you lose?” Carlyle finally asks.

  “Plenty. Thanks to you.”

  Carlyle doesn’t respond to the jab. He finishes his shot and waves for another. “Really no ice?” he asks Sir Francis. “Or is this just because you think we’ll be gone tomorrow?”

  “Ask me tomorrow.”

  “If I’m still here tomorrow will you have ice then?” Carlyle asks.

  Sir Francis flashes a grin. “Depends how much you keep paying mulies and megodonts for unloading freight. Everyone talks about getting rich burning calories for farang … so no ice for Sir
Francis.”

  “But if we’re gone, no drinkers. Even if Sir Francis has got all the ice in the world.”

  Sir Francis shrugs. “As you say.”

  Carlyle scowls at the Thai man’s back. “Megodont unions, white shirts, Sir Francis. Everywhere you turn, there’s another open hand.”

  “Price of doing business,” Anderson says. “Still, the way you were smiling when you came in, I thought you hadn’t lost anything at all.”

  Carlyle takes his new whiskey. “I just like seeing all of you on the veranda looking like your dogs died from cibiscosis. Anyway, even if we’ve had losses, no one’s chained us in a Khlong Prem sweat cell. No reason not to smile about that.” He leans close. “This isn’t the last of the story. Not by a long shot. Akkarat’s still got some tricks up his sleeve.”

  “If you push hard enough on the white shirts, they always bite back,” Anderson warns. “You and Akkarat made a lot of noise, talking about tariff and pollution credit changes. Windups, even. And now my assistant is telling me the same things that Sir Francis just said: all the Thai newspapers are calling our friend Jaidee a Queen’s Tiger. Celebrating him.”

  “Your assistant? You mean that paranoid yellow card spider you keep in your offices?” Carlyle laughs. “That’s the problem with you. You all sit around, bitching and wishing, and meanwhile I’m changing the rules of the game. You’re all Contraction thinkers.”

  “I’m not the one who lost a dirigible.”

  “Cost of doing business.”

  “I’d think losing a fifth of your fleet would be more than just a cost.”

  Carlyle makes a face. He leans close and lowers his voice. “Come on, Anderson. This tiff with the white shirts isn’t what it seems. Some people have been waiting for them to go too far.” He pauses, making sure his words are understood. “Some of us have been working toward it, even. I’ve just come from speaking with Akkarat himself, and I can assure you the news is about to turn in our favor.”

  Anderson almost laughs, but Carlyle wags an admonishing finger. “Go ahead, shake your head now, but before I’m done you’ll be kissing my ass and thanking me for the new tariff structures, and we’ll all have reparations in our bank accounts.”

  “The white shirts never pay reparations. Not when they burn a farm, not when they confiscate a cargo. Never.”

  Carlyle shrugs. He looks out toward the hot light of the veranda and observes, “The monsoons are coming.”

  “Not likely.” Anderson gives the blazing day a sour look. “They’re already late by two months.”

  “Oh, they’re coming all right. Maybe not this month. Maybe not next, but they’re coming.”

  “And?”

  “The Environment Ministry is expecting replacement equipment for the city’s levee pumps. Critical equipment. For seven pumps.” He pauses. “Now, where do you think that equipment is sitting?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “All the way across the Indian Ocean.” Carlyle flashes a sudden shark-like smile. “In a certain Kolkata hanger that I happen to own.”

  The air seems to have left the bar. Anderson glances around, making sure no one is close. “Christ, you silly bastard. Are you serious?”

  It all makes sense, now. Carlyle’s bragging, his certainty. The man has always had a freebooter’s willingness to take risks. But it’s difficult to distinguish bluster from sincerity with Carlyle. If he says he has Akkarat’s ear, perhaps he only speaks with secretaries. It’s all talk. But this ….

  Anderson starts to speak but sees Sir Francis approaching and turns away instead, grimacing. Carlyle’s eyes sparkle with mischief. Sir Francis sets a new whiskey beside his hand, but Anderson doesn’t care about drinks anymore. As soon as Sir Francis retreats, he leans forward.

  “You’re holding the city hostage?”

  “The white shirts seem to have forgotten they need outsiders. We’re in the middle of a new Expansion and every string is connected to every other string, and yet they’re still thinking like a Contraction ministry. They don’t understand how dependent they’ve already become on farang.” He shrugs. “At this point, they’re just pawns on a chess board. They have no idea who moves them, and couldn’t stop us even if they tried.”

  He tosses back another shot of whiskey, grimaces and slaps it down on the bar. “We should all send flowers to that Jaidee white shirt bastard.

  He’s done his job perfectly. With half the city’s coal pumps offline …” He shrugs. “The nice thing about dealing with the Thais is that they’re really a very sensitive people. I won’t even have to make a threat. They’ll figure it out all on their own, and make things right.”

  “Quite a gamble.”

  “Isn’t everything?” Carlyle favors Anderson with a cynical smile. “Maybe we’re all dead tomorrow from a blister rust rewrite. Or maybe we’re the richest men in the Kingdom. It’s all a gamble. The Thais play for keeps. So should we.”

  “I’d just put a spring gun to your head and trade your brains for the pumps.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Carlyle laughs. “Now you’re thinking like a Thai. But I’ve got myself covered there, too.”

  “What? With the Trade Ministry?” Anderson makes a face. “Akkarat doesn’t have the muscle to protect you.”

  “Better than that. He’s got generals.”

  “You’re drunk. General Pracha’s friends run every part of the military.

  The only reason the white shirts don’t run the entire country already is because the old King stepped in before Pracha could squash Akkarat the last time.”

  “Times change. Pracha’s white shirts and his payoffs have made a lot of people angry. People want a change.”

  “You’re talking revolution, now?”

  “Is it revolution if the palace asks for it?” Carlyle reaches nonchalantly across the bar for the bottle of whiskey and pours. He upends it and gets less than half a shot from the bottle. He raises an eyebrow to Anderson. “Ah. Now you’re paying attention.” He points to Anderson’s tumbler. “Are you going to drink that?”

  “How far does this go?”

  “You want in on the deal?”

  “Why would you offer?”

  “You have to ask?” Carlyle shrugs. “When Yates set up your factory, he tripled the Megodont Union’s fees for joules. Threw money everywhere. Hard not to notice that kind of funding.”

  He nods at the other expatriates, now playing a listless game of poker and waiting for the heat of the day to abate so that they can go on with their work or their whoring or their passive wait for the next day. “Everyone else, they’re children. Little kids wearing adult clothes. You’re different.”

  “You think we’re rich?”

  “Oh stop the theatrics. My dirigibles haul your cargo.” Carlyle regards him. “I’ve seen where your supply shipments originate from,” he looks at Anderson significantly, “before they arrive in Kolkata.”

  Anderson pretends nonchalance. “So?”

  “An awful lot of material coming from Des Moines.”

  “You think I’m worth talking to because I’ve got Midwestern investors? Doesn’t everyone get their investors where the money is? So what if a rich widow wants to experiment with kink-springs. You read too much into small things.”

  “Do I?” Carlyle looks around the bar and leans close. “People are talking about you.”

  “How so?”

  “They say you’re quite interested in seeds.” He looks significantly at the rind of the ngaw between them. “We’re all genespotters, these days. But you’re the only one who pays for your intelligence. The only one who asks about white shirts and generippers.”

  Anderson smiles coldly. “You’ve been talking to Raleigh.”

  Carlyle inclines his head. “If it’s any consolation, it wasn’t easy. He didn’t want to talk about you. Not at all.”

  “He should have thought a little harder.”

  “He can’t get his aging treatments without me.” Carlyle shrugs. “We ha
ve shipping representatives in Japan. You weren’t offering him another decade of easy living.”

  Anderson forces a laugh. “Of course.” He smiles, but inside he is seething. He’ll have to deal with Raleigh. And now perhaps Carlyle as well. He’s been sloppy. He eyes the ngaw with disgust. He’s been waving his latest interest in front of everyone. Grahamites, even, and now this. It’s too easy to get comfortable. To forget all the lines of exposure. And then one day in a bar, someone slaps you in the face.

  Carlyle is saying, “If I could just speak with certain people. Discuss certain propositions …” he trails off, brown eyes hunting for a sign of agreement in Anderson’s expression. “I don’t care which company you’re working for. If I understand your interests correctly, then we might find our goals lie in similar directions.”

  Anderson drums his fingers on the bar, thoughtful. If Carlyle were to disappear, would it rouse any interest at all? He might even be able to blame it on overzealous white shirts …

  “You think you’ve got a chance?” Anderson asks.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time the Thais have reformed their government with force. The Victory Hotel wouldn’t exist if Prime Minister Surawong hadn’t lost his head and his mansion in the December 12 coup. Thai history is littered with changes in administration.”

  “I’m a little concerned that if you’re talking to me, you’re talking to others. Maybe too many others.”

  “Who else would I talk to?” Carlyle jerks his head toward the rest of the Farang Phalanx. “They’re nothing. Wouldn’t consider them for a second. Your people though …” Carlyle trails off, considering his words, then leans forward.

  “Look, Akkarat has some experience with these matters. The white shirts have created a number of enemies. And not just farang. All our project requires is a bit of help gathering momentum.” He takes a sip of his whiskey, considers the taste for a moment before setting the glass down. “The consequences would be quite favorable for us if it succeeds.” He locks eyes with Anderson. “Quite favorable for you. For your friends in the Midwest.”

  “What do you get out of it?”

  “Trade, of course.” Carlyle grins. “If the Thais face outward instead of living in this absurd defensive crouch of theirs, my company expands. It’s just good business. I can’t imagine that your people enjoy cooling their heels on Koh Angrit, begging to be allowed to sell a few tons of U-Tex or SoyPRO to the Kingdom when there’s a crop failure. You could have free trade, instead of sitting out on that quarantine island. I’d think that would be attractive to you. It certainly would benefit me.”