by Kage Baker
Balkister dropped in one day to discuss his latest crusade, which (that week) was to get the Falkland Islands renamed the Malvinas (again), and he stayed until midnight talking over old times with Alec. As soon as Balkister had wobbled his way out the door, Lorene rose on her elbow and denounced him for the nastiest, most adolescent little creep she’d ever met.
Alec agreed with her readily enough. Plenty of people felt that way about Balkister. Lorene went on to demand whether Alec knew that Balkister was a homosexual, and obviously in love with Alec?
Alec didn’t know. He stood there, slightly befuddled by the hour and what he’d been drinking, trying to sort that one out. Balkister had never approached him for that kind of fun, that he remembered; but then a lot of the time he’d spent in Balkister’s company they’d both been stoned. At last he laughed and told Lorene he thought she was wrong. She wept hysterically. He carried her up to their bed at last, and when he tried to crawl in beside her she screamed that he was gay and struck at him. He staggered away and slept in a guest bedroom.
The next two weeks, Alec was like a wounded horse on a battlefield, helplessly tangling himself in his own guts with every step he attempted to take out of his trouble. Even on the best days, Lorene was unaccountably irritated with him. He was such an overgrown boy! He had no drive or ambition at all. How could a grown man think he could just run away from his troubles and live on a yacht all the time? At her worst she grew screamingly abusive, shaking in her chair with emotion, and a pair of scarlet spots would appear on either side of her thin white nose.
After her rages she clung to him, weeping and contrite, and called him all the loving names of their courtship period, and begged him to be strong for her.
The Captain, who knew when to keep his mouth shut, did. He authorized the services of a team of private investigators, however, and when their reports came in he kept his peace and bided his time.
The servants quit in a body one morning, as a formal protest after Lorene accused the cook of trying to poison her. This was serious: one didn’t treat servants that way in the twenty-fourth century. Alec controlled his temper and said nothing. When he didn’t respond by blowing up at her, Lorene followed him around in her agchair insisting that there had been sleeping pills in the food, and the less he responded the angrier she became, until she accused him of being a gutless coward.
With a roar of frustration he picked up an overstuffed recliner and threw it across the room, and followed it with the matching ottoman. They both landed on the piano and it collapsed. She flew up the stairs, shrieking as though he were after her with an axe, and locked herself in her room.
Had enough yet, boyo? the Captain inquired.
But Alec was horrified at himself, instantly remorseful. It occurred to him that perhaps what they both needed was a change of air.
So he removed the chair and ottoman from the ruins of the piano, and went upstairs to speak gently to Lorene, through the locked door of their bedroom. Once he got her calmed down enough to listen, she agreed to go away with him. There was a desperate eagerness in her voice as she asked whether they might sail immediately. Alec assured her they could leave that night, and went off to Tower Marina to get the Captain Morgan ready for sailing.
When he returned that afternoon, there was a phalanx of long purple vehicles drawn up in front of his house and strangers were going up and down the stairs. He jumped from the car before it quite settled down, terrified that Lorene had had an accident. But no: there she was, emerging in her chair, escorted down the stairs by a muscular young man in an oddly patterned robe.
“Hey,” Alec said. Lorene shrieked and flinched, and the man put a protective arm around her and looked daggers at Alec. Alec started toward them, but his way was blocked by two more of the robed men—were those bumblebees embroidered on their clothes?—and an authoritative-looking woman in purple.
“Alec Checkerfield, earl of Finsbury?” the woman asked.
“Yeah,” Alec said, looking past her at Lorene, who was sobbing and hiding her face as she was helped into one of the purple cars.
“Do you know who we are, and why we are here?”
Alec spotted the bee logo on the door of the purple car and finally placed it. “You’re Ephesians, right? What’s going on?”
“Your wife called us and begged for our help. We’re here to provide her with safe conduct from this house to our Newham Hospital shelter, to protect her from any further abuse at your hands,” the woman said.
Alec gaped. It occurred to him that the Captain must have been perfectly well aware when Lorene had placed the call. Why the hell didn’t you stop her? he demanded.
In response, the Captain downloaded the results of his investigation of Lorene’s past. He had discovered that Alec had not been Lorene’s second husband but her sixth, and that nearly every one of the marriages had ended with a drama of this kind: waif appealing to kindly stranger, or strangers, to help her escape from clutches of brute.
“Oh,” Alec said, feeling the shock waves roll. What an icebound calm descended on him! He blinked at the woman. “Well, she’s lying. I never once hit her.”
“That’s as may be,” the woman told him sourly. “You’ve a history of violent behavior. If you’re guilty, rest assured you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The fact that your.mother is a votaress of our order won’t influence us in your favor, young man.”
“Huh?” Alec knit his brows. Who was a votaress of their order?
Stop a bit, Alec, the solicitor I ordered just got here.
No sooner had the Captain spoken than a steel-colored Jaguar with the Gray’s Inn griffin on the door whirred up to the curb, and a gray-suited gentleman with a briefcase jumped out.
“My lord? Cantwell and Cantwell send their regards. Pushpinder Devereaux; I’m here to handle your case.”
“Okay, fine.” Alec pumped his hand enthusiastically. He felt light-headed, absurdly cool. “I’m innocent. She’s nuts. You take it from there. Let me know what you have to spend. I’ll be on the Captain Morgan, berth number three, Tower Marina. Bye now.”
He jumped back into the Rolls and drove away without a backward glance, whistling shrilly.
It was over within three more days, and the whole time he kept wondering if he were alive, because he couldn’t feel his heart at all.
Cantwell and Cantwell produced ample evidence that Lorene had been lying, and she didn’t score any points with the Ephesians when she changed her story and sent word to Alec that she’d drop the charges if he’d take her back. His response had been no, thank you, and he would have thrown in a handsome settlement as a parting gesture if Cantwell and Cantwell hadn’t discovered that the marriage had been invalid anyway, since Lorene hadn’t bothered to get divorces from three of her previous husbands.
And that was the end of that.
He still went to the Happy Clubs and the dance clubs. Dancing was still a good way to get himself high, and it didn’t matter anymore who his partner was. Now and then he picked up girls for overnighters, and if he didn’t bother to seduce them anymore—if he did the unspeakable, if he simply looked into their eyes and persuaded them to go to bed with him—where was the harm, after all? It wasn’t as though he was trying to make them love him. In the morning, he always took them to breakfast somewhere nice and released his hold on their wills, and over waffles or toast they’d blink, and suddenly remember an important call they had to make, a forgotten appointment, a job interview—he understood, didn’t he, if they had to run off before the check came? And he always did, as another layer of self-loathing wrapped around his heart.
But he came ashore less and less frequently, even for sex. He spent more and more time at sea, cruising the immense emptiness of the water, singing at night to the uncaring stars.
He was finding that human places bothered him.
He hadn’t come back to London in three years, and wouldn’t have returned now but for the funeral. He’d have been making his
way down the Thames this very minute if a small feature in the morning Times broadcast hadn’t caught his ear: GALLERIE PROCHASKA PRESENTS A NEW MUSICAL BY GILES LANCELOT BALKISTER: LITTLE RED PLANET!
This is it, lad. Third shopfront down, the one painted black.
Alec stepped inside, ducking slightly to avoid the top of the doorway. His pupils widened to adjust to the subdued lighting as he looked around. It was a lot like a museum in there, except for the strong smell of takeaway food: all shadow, relieved by pools of soft light in midair where holographic figures kicked and strutted, and small knots of living people gaped at them. An Art Nymph pranced up to him, slightly terrifying in her sequined tap costume and whiteface, and handed him a playbill. He gave it a little shake and it promptly began to recite in a tinny voice:
“The virtual smash hit of the season! Written and designed by Giles Lancelot Balkister! Starring Marlene Dietrich, Noel Coward, and Tim Curry! What happens when a spirited girl from the Martian Agricultural Collective faces temptation in the lush warrens of Mars Two?” Somewhere close at hand Alec could hear a familiar whining bray.
“ … Of course it’s risque! Where but on Mars are you going to encounter human passions in this day and age? Where else are human appetites even relevant anymore? Not here on Earth,” Balkister was announcing. “You might as well just stamp the words MUSEUM EXHIBIT across your forehead. In fact, most of the remaining population of Earth ought to be compelled to. What are we doing here, after all?”
“Talking to hear ourselves talk,” Alec said, ducking around a hologram of Noel Coward pattering out a sprightly little tune about heroic agriculturists on their Martian honeymoons.
“Fellow ugly guy!” Balkister looked up from the table where he was selling copies of the show. He strode forward and feigned throwing punches at him. “Bam, biff, and all that sort of tribal show of testosterone. How are we? I’d no idea we were back in town. Come ashore for a spot of raping and pillaging?”
“Er—no. Had to attend a funeral.” Alec looked aside.
“Sorry.” Balkister’s demeanor sobered at once. “Whose?”
“My old cook.”
“Oh, bugger, I’m so sorry. She raised you, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. But she’d been ill a long time, and she was up there in years. Hundred and ten-odd.” Alec started, distracted by a nearby scene changing abruptly to Tim Curry (the hero of the Collective) punting along an irrigation canal while he sang a duet with Elsa Lanchester.
“All the same.” Balkister patted him on the arm. “So, what are we doing these days? Not married again, are we?”
“Never again,” said Alec with feeling.
“Still swanning around the seven seas in our pleasure craft?”
Alec nodded. “I’ve had a few adventures,” he said.
“I’ll bet you have, and I’d simply love to hear about them.” Balkister looked around edgily. “See here, there’s a discreet little place I know of—why don’t we just slip out of this haven of bourgeois pretensions and you can bring me up to speed?” He looked around and spotted a gallery employee. “Here, you!” he hailed the girl, taking off the lapel pin that identified him as THE AUTHOR and fastening it to her blazer. “You be the author for a while, okay? Tell them whatever comes into your head, so long as they buy the damned thing. I’ll be back before closing.”
He ducked out of the gallery, ignoring the girl’s stammered protests, and trotted away purposefully down the street. Alec loped after him, bemused. He was fairly certain Balkister hadn’t the least interest in hearing what Alec had been doing during the past three years and meant instead to buttonhole him about his latest fervent cause. Alec didn’t mind. Balkister’s monologues were familiar, at least, in this cold strange city.
They ducked into an alleyway and down the weed-grown stairs of what had been a service entrance for a private flat. The door looked as though it had been sealed by the rains of a dozen winters, but when Balkister gave a brisk double knock it opened at once, far enough to reveal a nose and one inquiring eye.
“Did you bring the spanner?” asked someone muffledly.
“Vive la whatever,” responded Balkister, and the door swung inward into darkness. Balkister strutted through, smirking, and Alec had to bend nearly double to follow him. Their tuxedoed guide was what had once been called a small person, until dwarves had asserted their rights as a proudly distinct cultural group. He led them to a staircase that descended even lower into darkness. The Captain was growling softly, scanning the place for traps, but Alec felt secure. He could smell oak barrels and complex fruit bouquets, and he knew exactly what sort of place they’d entered.
They emerged into a long low room lit from above by mirror reflection, giving the whole place a camera obscura sort of appearance. There was sawdust on the floor; there were small tables and booths. There was a lot of snowy white napery and glittering crystal. A cadaverously pale waiter approached them.
“Messieurs,” he intoned, bowing low and directing them to one of the little tables.
Alec had begun to giggle as they seated themselves and took up the wine lists. He reflected that he might very well be about to taste something that had traveled in the hold of the Captain Morgan.
The twenty-second-century ban on stimulants of any kind had not been universally accepted, much to the astonishment of the American Community and Britain, who had partnered the international legislation. The Californians enthusiastically torpedoed their own wine industry, because Californians were always doing things like that, but the French flatly refused. Viniculture was a part of their cultural identity, they claimed, and besides, nobody wanted a repeat of the unpleasantness that had occurred when the Fraternité des Fromages Historiques rioted and burned an effigy depicting the minister of agriculture in an act of carnal bliss with a soybean pod.
The British and Americans sputtered and threatened sanctions, but in the end all they were able to do was enforce the ban in their own countries. However (as the observant reader will have already noticed) certain substances remained available to those with ready cash and a disinclination to be told what they could or couldn’t consume.
“Do you often drink here?” Alec asked, after listening to the selections and deciding on a beaujolais.
“Christ, no. Hadn’t you heard about my annuity being stopped?” Balkister shook out his napkin with a snap. “I’m virtually penniless, ducky, unless I can move a few dozen copies of Little Red Planet. This is your treat.”
Balkister put up an imperious crooked finger to summon the wine steward, who ignored him and went straight to Alec.
“You obviously look rich,” said Balkister in miffed tones, after their wine had been brought.
“The guy knew me,” Alec said, shrugging. He tilted his glass and inhaled the fragrance of cherries and spice. Balkister regarded him with narrowed eyes.
“Did he now?” he said thoughtfully. “That’s most interesting, under the circumstances. What have you been doing on that yacht of yours, Checkerfield, hmm?”
“It’s a ship, actually,” said Alec. “It has cargo holds and everything.”
Balkister looked shrewdly contemplative for about five more seconds, and then started to his feet yelping as the truth occurred to him. “Good God,” he said. “You of all people! You—well, you bloody Scarlet Pimpernel, you.”
“Shut up and sit down,” Alec said, and Balkister was momentarily disconcerted by the hardness in his voice. “What did you call me?”
“If you watched more classic cinema you’d know,” Balkister said. He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Well, well. Under the circumstances, this is going to make my duty quite a bit easier, I should think.”
What’s the little creep on about?
“What are you on about, then?”
“Look, Checkerfield.” Balkister gulped his wine without savoring it. “All joking aside, you and I have always been on the same wavelength. You’ve never been like the rest of our class, who feel we’ve got the
right to push others around because we’re wealthy and clever.”
“Mm.” Alec sipped his wine. He’d given up the God Game after his second marriage had collapsed, deciding that anyone with judgment as spectacularly bad as his had no right to play. Balkister continued:
“I might have doubted your ideals the past few years, off on your endless pleasure cruise the way you were; but it’s clear you had your own agenda there.”
Watch out, son.
“Oh, bollocks,” said Alec easily.
“Right.” Balkister leered. “Very well, then, let’s talk about me. I’ve evolved a political philosophy. No, really, I have! It’s that the smug and self-satisfied elite cannot have things all their own way. Why? Because, even in a meritocracy, absolute power corrupts absolutely. In fact it’s worse when clever people hold all the power, because they’re much better at tyranny than the old-style tyrants.
“And the worst of it is, the more the consumers are treated like sheep, the more like sheep they become, looking to us meritocrats to make rules for them. They don’t see any danger in giving up their civil liberties to the wise and benevolent admin-shepherds.”
“Mm.” Alec frowned. That much he agreed with. The rest wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before, wherever even faintly clever young things congregated to drink and be radical.
“If we finally bring all the marginal places like the Celtic Federation into our global village so they all fall into step with us, we’ll lose the necessary dynamism of the Other!” asserted Balkister. “Humanity will stagnate.”
“We don’t want that to happen, no,” drawled Alec.
Damned bad for business, that would be.
“If the people we govern are as unresisting as dolls, we’ll get our precious butts kicked the first time we venture out of the nursery and try to order the bigger children about, won’t we? And of course by the nursery I mean this solar system, and by bigger children I mean any other intelligent life in the universe.” Balkister thumped his fist on the table.
