by Jaine Fenn
EXPECTED OBEISANCE
Some systems - spur theocracies, anarch worlds and the like - have little or no Sidhe contamination.
Even where the Sidhe have a presence, it’s not generally in system governments. There are a few, in locations that are strategically important to them, but not many.
What they do have is people in the trans-system companies, especially those involved with technology or communication.
They concentrate their efforts on stifling the development of new tech, controlling our access to exisUng tech - especially shiftships - and maintaining a position from which they can subtly influence large-scale decisions.
She made herself step out into the light, keeping her gaze focused on the pale grey paving while her comshades guided her to a row of boxlike white groundcars. She got into one, put her case on the seat, put the cigrene she was still holding in the tray provided, and used her shades to tell the cab where she wanted to go. Then she leaned back into the comfortable upholstery - for all of about a second. The cab accelerated away quickly enough to make Bez reach for the handle recessed into the door. Her cigrene went flying. She grabbed it then ground out the lit end in the tray.
The cab swung on to a wide highway, where sparse but equally speedy traffic kept pace. After the initial hair-raising manoeuvre, the ride became smoother.
The highway was enclosed by a high, wire fence; Bez was unsure why, given the surrounding red-brown landscape was empty except for odd outbreaks of sun-bleached vegetation clustering around brightly painted truncated pyramids. These structures were the entrances to extensive underground complexes of shops, offices and housing. This city, Meneske, was home to nearly two million people, and though she could not see anyone above ground aside from travellers in other vehicles, there were thousands of people within a few hundred metres of her right now. Even as she had that thought, she spotted a robed figure bent double on one of the spots of cultivated ground. The cab whisked her past before she could get a proper look.
It occurred to her that, with skin paler than the human norm, the locals might be particularly susceptible to their world’s harm-ful solar radiation. When the Sidhe had first transported humanity off their dying homeworld and distributed them throughout this part of the galaxy, they had taken a perverse delight in setting up colonies of a given human culture in a place that was unsuitable, or in settling two or more cultural groups with a strong antipathy in the same system, or even on the same world.
She focused on the structures she was passing, while her shades informed her what she was seeing using cursive lettering and terse phraseology: that large pyramid was the entrance to a men’s col-lege (education: adult, post-pubescent, (male)); the smaller one just along from it was an extensive complex of high-priced apartments for mixed-sex married couples and sets (accommodation (30 units): private, high rent, hetero-bonded); the slightly asymmetrical pyramid next to that was an office shared by a trio of companies (businesses, non-industrial: Karsene Publications (fem); Element Private Transport (mixed); Sana’s Dye Emporium (fem). She drilled down for more data on one of the listed companies, getting results that were less comprehensive, not to mention comprehensible, than she would expect in the hubs. Even the local infoscape was alien.
Her destination was coming up. The cab made an abrupt turn into a side road before decelerating to stop at a gate in the fence.
Bez paid from the local account set up by the travel company then got out, moving slowly to give her clothing time to adjust to the heat.
When she reached the gate, it slid open for her. Beyond was a path of the same grey stone she had seen outside the starport; on one side the reddish ground was swept clean and covered by an intricate pattern of round stones coloured black, grey and white; on the other side a yellowish lawn of grass-analogue stretched away to another fence.
Bez walked up the path slowly, eyes down. She would have to look at the limitless turquoise sky at some point but she would get acclimatised to the other environmental differences first. She did spare a glance for the multicoloured decor of the building ahead, which included the sensual squiggle of the Aesir, the Salvatine subsect the Graceni followed.
The door, although barely visible among the murals and inlaid coloured stones, opened at her approach to reveal a lobby decorated relatively tastefully in pale yellow and soothing green. They probably painted their pyramids in those garish colours to make them show up in that awful burning sunlight. There was one outbreak of tastelessness, in the form of a larger-than-life-sized metal arm, encrusted with jewels in shades from citrine to emerald. This peculiar item sat upright in a well-lit alcove near the door, one finger pointing to the ceiling and the others loosely curled.
The woman standing in the lobby had her hood down - no men here to see her thick blonde hair - and she smiled as Bez came in.
Bez, who had been hoping for an automated checkin, lowered her own hood.
The woman’s gaze flicked towards the metal arm. Bez went over to the item - the ulna of Saint Tana, according to her comshades - then leaned forward with pursed lips to kiss the reliquary’s open palm. In preparation for such rituals, she had liberally applied lipseal before disembarking, one of a number of prophylactic measures sold on the starliner.
The woman’s smile widened at the sight of an outsider carrying out the expected obeisance, after which she came forward for her own kiss and greeting. Bez forced herself to go through the motions with a smile of her own.
‘Thou art welcome in my house,’ said the woman, stepping back.
Bez gave the correct response, ‘Thy hospitality honours me,’ then added, ‘You’re Dena,’ trying to mimic the local non-questioning intonation. Interest from curious locals was one of the risks of venturing off the beaten track; Bez was determined to behave correctly without being patronising.
‘I am. Kindly follow me.’
The woman led her to a door in the far wall, which opened onto a shallow spiral staircase. The stairway circled a great open space.
Bez had read about the atria at the heart of every Graceni building - if building was an accurate term for a structure that existed almost entirely below ground. Graceni architecture was largely subterranean, due to some obscure but deeply held religious belief that amounted to the easy option being ungodly.
A framework, half sculpture and half hanging garden, reached down from the roof, filling the central void. It emitted reflected sunlight and a faint musical tinkle. It was surrounded by swirling flights of winged motes that, Bez realised with a jolt, were living creatures. When she recoiled, her host said, ‘Worry thee not: the flutterflies are harmless; besides, they are contained.’
Now that she looked, Bez could see the near-invisible mesh hanging between her and the sculpture. She also noticed how, rather unnervingly, the stairway spiralled outwards as it went down, each subsequent rotation increasing in diameter to define a widening cone of empty space below. She let curiosity overcome caution and peered briefly over the guard-rail. The central sculpture extended down for five floors; a couple of floors below that was the ground, which had been transformed into a verdant garden growing up to meet the sculpture. She started when someone walked across the distant, vegetation-covered floor, then stepped back quickly, her stomach fluttering in counterpoint to the vortices of flying bugs.
Dena made two circuits of the spiral staircase before leading Bez through an archway into an ordinary and mercifully bug-free corridor. With the woman’s hood down, Bez could clearly see the line of hooped earrings she wore along the outside of each ear. As Dena turned her head she also glimpsed the top of an abstract pattern peeping above her neckline. Apparently, piercings and tattoos were as voluble as robes, and came into their own when people shed their clothing to get down to the ‘purifying congress’ - or, as one of the tourists on the liner had jokingly referred to it, ‘screwing in the name of the Lord’. Bez couldn’t help thinking how, if the activities that went on in Gracen’
s Temples of the Flesh were half as athletic and creative as she had been led to believe, dangling jewellery attached to body parts could be a serious liability.
Her room was larger than a comparably priced one on a hab, and housed a miniature shrine, though no reliquary. The green and yellow walls and furnishings were offset by what appeared to be real plants in pots on small shelves. After Dena had gone, Bez touched one of the squat green succulents to check her assumption, and felt firm yet yielding plant flesh. A fresh menthol scent filled the air, presumably from the plant, temporarily masking the ever-present aroma of old cigrene smoke.
She tried to initiate a low-level interface with the local comnet from her headware, and was alarmed when she failed to get a connection. She activated her shades and got the same result. Her eye fell on what she had initially taken to be a peculiar ornament in a niche by the door. It looked like a primitive handset, something she only recognised thanks to the retro holodramas her mother had inflicted on her during childhood. She snatched up the handset and said, ‘Hello?’
A few moments later a voice responded, ‘Greetings, sister: thy requirement is?’
‘1 don’t seem to be able to access the comnet.’
‘No, thou cannot,’ said the voice. The line was crackly and faint, and Bez was not sure whether she was speaking to her host; presumably not, unless the woman had sprinted back to her office.
‘Thou must step into the stairwell. The rock is thy comfort within thy room.’ Then, faintly disapproving, ‘Perhaps thou would be more at ease in an establishment accustomed to outsiders.’
Bez was beginning to think the woman had a point, but she just said, ‘I’m fine, thanks. 1 don’t want to be any trouble.’
She walked to the end of the corridor, from where she reconnected to the local com net using the shades. When she tried her headware, the link was solid.
Having reassured herself, she returned to her room and got cleaned up. She began to unwind a little. Despite the uncertainty and possible danger, at some deep level she relished the challenge she had taken on by coming here in person. Or perhaps the heady air was getting to her.
She would start with some datasearches to get accustomed to the local infoscape. The guidebooks claimed the Graceni were meticu-lous in their record-keeping, and freely shared non-confidential data; an excellent combination, as far as Bez was concerned. The only issue was what they considered ‘non-confidential’.
She returned to the stairwell and connected to the local net.
However, once she moved beyond asking basic questions about the function of adjacent buildings, or overall population demo-graphics, she ran into difficulties. Neither the organisation of the data nor the paths for accessing it followed the conventions used in the hubs. Gracen’s infoscape relied heavily on unexplained short-hand codes and symbols, the virtual equivalent of the visual cues given by colour and pattern. Bez had already worked out some of the local semiotics - for example, exclusively feminine objects and areas of interest had a more rounded and organic design, and favoured mid-spectrum colours - but the nuances were beyond her. It didn’t help that most non-statistical data came in the form of journals or discussion threads.
Getting to grips with the alien infoscape would take time, and working in a space like this was not ideal. It was public, but not busy enough to provide heavy com traffic as cover for her activities.
She had no intention of visiting any bars or clubs; without a full understanding of the local customs, she risked finding herself in the wrong sort of establishment. The guidebooks said there were places women met merely to socialise, rather than as precursors to visiting the Temple, but those guidebooks also suggested engaging a local if you wanted to venture outside the normal tourist stamp-ing grounds. Hiring such help would attract attention in a way private datasearches would not.
REMILLA
(New Salem, Quondat, Quondat System)
Everyone has secrets.
Except from God, of course.
Remilla finished her prayers and reached for the bottle.
Unstoppering it without looking, she breathed deeply, retaining just enough sense to replace the cap before falling back on to the narrow bed.
Her next rational thought, some time later, was to remember what the Community Pastor had said about such intoxicants: an invitation to the Devil, he’d called them. Remilla found this highly amusing and started to giggle, until the girl in the next cubicle banged on the partition to tell her to shut up. With that, the last of the Fume dispersed from her brain and her giggles turned to quiet sobs. It was remembering the Community that did it, because that reminded her she was damned.
It had all started when her sister left to be married. She had missed Armina so much. She had barely been able to wait until Holy Day each week, when they could meet and talk.
Then her first bleed had come, and she too had left her father’s house. She was married to Pol, a man respected for his scholarly knowledge. He had read every source of the Book still extant, and was fluent in the lost languages, Lacune and Ederlische. Pol was very smart, and hardly ever beat her, even when she deserved it.
Unfortunately, his studies meant he neglected their farm, so Remilla had to work harder than most women, but such was her duty. She also maintained the weapons they needed to defend themselves against the Heretics - the ploughshares that could become swords; the household chemicals that could be combined to make bombs or poison gas. She performed her more feminine duties too, though that was hard in its own way. Knowing what she did now, she suspected Pol had little interest in sex. But he knew the Community needed to increase their numbers. This was the covenant that defined them: they had been granted marginal land and given licence to procreate freely. A double blessing, the elders called it, because the authorities had given the faithful the chance to show their mettle and the freedom to expand across new territory. Of course, the government had said the same to the damned Mithrai, with their heretical beliefs, and for years now her Community and the Heretics had been in a state of unofficial conflict, a low-key war ignored by the rest of the world provided it stayed in the unwanted northern lands.
Her husband had come to her every month, but after two years of marriage she had failed to conceive. Tongues began to wag, and she found it increasingly hard to meet the eyes of the other women on Holy Day.
Then Armina died. Pol said it was an accident, but would give her no details. There were whisperings in church among the older women who sat near the screen; they claimed there had been another man involved. And it was said that a man in the next valley had been cast out of the Community.
Remilla was torn: she mourned her sister, yet at the same time she was desperate to prove herself more worthy than Armina, to free herself from the shame that fell upon her by association. She heard the term ‘red-haired harlot’ bandied about; she shared her sister’s distinctive colouring and, like Armina, was not always scrupulous in tying her headscarf. She told herself that if only she could give Pol a son, everything would be all right.
When her husband said they should seek external help for her barrenness, Remilla had been as shocked as everyone else. Prayer should be enough. But Pol had some status in the south, and the ability to argue others in the Community around to his cause. So they had travelled to New Salem, taking a roundabout route to avoid Heretic lands, in search of a medical miracle to help manifest God’s will.
Remilla’s tears flowed more freely now, because having started to recall the past, she had no choice but to remember what happened next, after they arrived in the city.
Perhaps if her husband had invested in technology to stop them getting lost, or if he hadn’t tried to reason with the men who had cornered them in that rain-soaked alley; or if she had not stupidly fought back, once Pol had been knocked to the ground and she realised what the men intended. They had not expected a God-fearing little woman to know how to defend herself, but the injury she had inflicted on one of them had made the men treat her with ex
tra brutality. Any pain she had caused was repaid many times over in the following hours. Pol they simply killed.
In some ways her life had ended then. Certainly her old life was gone; her husband was dead, her body abused. The doctors at the charity hospital where she woke up told her she had died, briefly.
Since then, she had had plenty of cause to wish she had stayed dead.
The hospital discharged her with a week’s supply of medicine and a clean if worn set of clothes, courtesy of a church donation network. And that was it. Even if she had managed to find her way back to the Community, they would never have let her in again, not after what had been done to her. One of the charity medics had told her about the internal injuries; she would certainly never bear a child now.
Given she was already ruined, it was not such a large step to start selling herself. Not that she’d intended to fall to harlotry. She had meant to kill herself. She decided to jump from the Skylon tower, favoured spot of lovers and suicides. But as she’d squeezed through the worn fencing and out onto the ledge, a woman’s voice had called out from the shadows behind her, offering Remilla something for the pain: ‘If you’re gonna go anyway, leastways go happy, girl,’ she’d said. Remilla, having nothing left to lose, had agreed, and had discovered the glorious Fume, and since then other intoxicants, all of them capable of granting temporary oblivion while putting off the inevitable confrontation with her maker. In return, she worked. A very different sort of work to that on the farm, but all she was good for now.
Somehow, through it all, she kept her faith. A twisted version of it, perhaps, because where once she’d believed she was saved, now she knew she was damned. But even the damned might be redeemed. Perhaps her suffering was a test. A test she had failed so far, but the Manifest Son had died for everyone, saint and sinner alike. There was hope.
