A Gluttony of Plutocrats (The Respite Trilogy Book 1)

by Ella Swift Arbok

  She pushed my hand a way and stood. “Come. This is getting maudlin.”

  We sat in the cabin, side by side.

  How many of our most intimate conversations had taken place side by side, without eye contact, without seeing the other’s face? Like the primitive telephones of Respite, which had only audio, or the confession boxes on faraway Earth, it focused attention on the words.

  “Lemuel, I like you, as a friend. You’ve probably worked that out already. And if you don’t like me, you need to do some serious work on your body language. But I haven’t trusted a man for twenty years. Well, there’s Dick of course, but he doesn’t count.” She picked up her coffee and wrapped both hands around the mug.

  I leaned closer until we were shoulder to shoulder. “Are you asking me to leave?”

  She sipped her coffee. “I could ask you to be patient, but that wouldn’t be fair to you. It’s not going to happen. Ever. And no, I want you to stay, here in the cabin. Don’t ask why.”

  We spoke for a few more minutes. Sy forced the conversation to the subject of the juggling club. Any nice ladies there? Were they pretty? She yawned when I mentioned my five-ball cascade, and was soon asleep in her berth.

  I slept little on the bench, tormented by strange dreams of a young Sy whose face often took on features of another tortured child long dead. I couldn’t imagine how either had suffered. I could only pray to help, with no one to hear my prayer.

  The door to Sy’s berth swung open. She stood silhouetted against the light. “Do I smell coffee? Hmm, I thought not.”

  I struggled to my feet and rubbed my eyes. “I’ve been in these clothes longer than I care to imagine.”

  Sy rubbed her hand against mine, back to back. “Thank you, Lemuel. Now go home.”

  I sat at my desk, four days after my interview with Ronnie Bile. A pile of test results in front of me would take all day to check in detail, although first signs were encouraging.

  Booby Giltstein called me over. “Lemuel, you are to be in the boardroom at four o’clock. You’ll get a security escort. I think it’s your interview being broadcast, but what do I know? I’m just the manager of this department. And your move to Analysis has been blocked. You still get the raise, though. I have no idea why.”

  My concentration fluctuated during the day. I didn’t trust Bile, and we hadn’t parted as friends. Even in the days when tape had to be cut and reconnected, it was possible to create illusions. Didn’t Charlie Chaplin once film a scene backward?

  In the afternoon, two men in the gray of Draco security, unarmed, led me to the boardroom on the third floor. I was the first to enter, apart from a couple of technicians fiddling with a television set.

  A long mahogany table with a dozen seats around it occupied the center of the room. It smelled of beeswax. On the table in front of each seat was a glass of ice water and an ashtray.

  A solid, ornately carved wooden seat stood in the middle of one side, facing the television. It was the only seat honored with a silver ashtray. The others had to make do with gold.

  I opened a window in anticipation of forthcoming smoke and hung my jacket over the seat nearest to it. I paced for ten minutes, during which time the technicians managed to get a flickering black-and-white picture and sound adequate in volume but wavering in clarity. Four men entered. The heads of Trading and Finance, I had met before. The others introduced themselves as the heads of Administration and of Legal.

  They sat. I took my seat by the window. The chairman entered just as I was sitting. Everyone else leaped to their feet. I, last to stand, received a frown from Bandstorm.

  Almost as soon as we had settled and Bandstorm had selected a flame for his cigar, Ronnie Bile’s face appeared on the screen.

  I could see little from my position, but I didn’t feel the need to watch. I had been there. What I did see surprised me. Bile wore a tracksuit, not the semiformal suit he had worn at the time of recording. And we sat, or appeared to sit, face-to-face in a split-screen display. Why should it matter? Yet I felt uneasy.

  Bile’s voice, warm and friendly, began. “Well, here we are then, girls and boys—the interview I promised you. Am I the best, or am I the very best? Are you ready to meet our first-ever spaceman? The one and only Lemuel Oneway is here.”

  I hadn’t heard those words on the day. Intrigued, I leaned to my side for a better view of the screen.

  “Lemuel Oneway, you’re the first person I’ve had on the show from a fictional land. So kind of you to travel those zillions of miles to greet my viewers. Why don’t you tell us about Earth?”

  I watched myself reply. “I haven’t seen Earth for two centuries, but it’s like Respite in many ways. Perhaps twice as much land. A hundred times the population. But a similar size beneath a similar sun.”

  “Fascinating. So you’re hundreds of years old. Who’d have guessed?”

  “Well, most of that time was spent in cryonic suspension. It’s like sleep, but the body doesn’t age.”

  Bile smiled at the camera then turned back to me, or so it appeared. “Now tell me, Lemuel, my good friend. I know my viewers will be fascinated by this thing you call cryonic suspension. You must dream a lot. Icebergs, blizzards, snowmen.”

  Then came an answer I had recorded at Bile’s request after the interview. “That’s exactly how it is, Ronnie. Dreams of snowballs and sleds, and hot chocolate with toasted marshmallows to follow.”

  Once again, Bile stared directly at the camera. “Lemuel, you’re teasing me, aren’t you?” A trademark flicker of his eyebrows, aimed directly at the camera, showed he was in control. He turned to me. “See, this is what my young friends are going to ask. Does Respite seem backward to you? Do we seem—what should I say?—primitive?”

  I had thought for some while before answering a question similar to that, but my response appeared immediate. “Yes, of course it does. Your road transport is several centuries behind that of the Earth I remember. You don’t have airplanes, although Eden and Elysium are racing to develop manned flight. But mostly it’s the computers, so massive and basic. When I first held a toothbrush in Cragglemouth and discovered it couldn’t understand the simplest of instructions, I realized how different our words were.”

  Bile laughed. “Hey, that’s exciting. Girls and boys, you heard it here first. The Talking Toothbrush, a cartoon series with yours truly as the toothpaste tube. I hope, Lemuel, you’ll stay long enough to see it on air.”

  “I have friends in Cragglemouth now, a good job at Draco Trading, and every reason to feel good about the future. I couldn’t go back to Earth if I wanted to, at least not for another two hundred years, and then I’d be facing a land I knew no better than I know Respite.”

  Bile grinned at me. “You’ll be happy at Draco. The chairman’s a deeply caring person.”

  “He’s a funny man. Odd. Spooky at first, I thought, but he’s funny.”

  Bodies shuffled on seats. I didn’t look around. I had spoken those words about Oliver Arkbuckle, not Hector Bandstorm.

  Bile leaned forward, grinning broadly. “Well, it’s been a real pleasure having you here, Lemuel Oneway. Perhaps you’ll pop in again, next time you’re in this backwater of the galaxy.”

  That was it. My day’s work in three minutes.

  A technician turned the set off.

  The head of Legal walked around the table. “Well, that seemed harmless enough. Comments?”

  No one spoke. I waved an arm.

  “Yes, Lemuel?”

  “Perhaps I should say that isn’t the way I remember things. I spoke those words, of course, but not always to the questions you just heard.”

  The man shrugged. “That’s show business. But no harm done.” He looked at the chairman, then back at me. “Lemuel, stay. For the rest of us, I’m delighted to say it’s back to work.”

  Bandstorm and I were alone in the boardroom. He drummed his fingers on the table, clenching the cigar in his mouth.

  I stood, walked a few paces, and sat faci
ng him. I pointed to the cigar. “That’s bad for your health, you know.”

  He laughed. “Nonsense, it kills germs in the throat.” He peered at me, his eyes narrowed. “We had a bet, Ronnie and I. Did he tell you?”

  “We didn’t exactly chat.”

  “He said he’d get you to say something that made me look silly. Seems he won.”

  I looked at my hands. “That was edited, of course. I spoke those words, but not about you.”

  He grunted. “That devious little worm. Well, I should have expected as much. Never trust what you see on the screen or read in the news. Remember that.” He flicked ash close to the ashtray. “Oneway, I tried to put a bonus into your pay last week. It was rejected, ‘Refer to Chairman.’”

  Maybe I should have told him before. “Sir, the list Ms. Pikowood gave me included my own trading account. Too risky. Too easy to trace back.”

  “Hah, I thought so.” He removed an envelope from his briefcase and tossed it on the table. “Take this, and don’t open it until you get home.”

  I put it into my inside pocket.

  “One more thing, Oneway. I like the way you build your image. Hooking up with the Heyho dyke was inspired, but you can do more. Apply for citizenship. I’ll sponsor you. Be seen at the temple. That sort of thing.”

  He beckoned a guard by the door. “Show him back to Computing.”

  I kept my jacket on all day, despite the heat. I counted the bonus that evening, pleased I had shown caution. It didn’t take long to count—two one-hundred-cupro notes.

  Easy money. Perhaps too easy.

  Chapter 11

  On the Sunday after Sy’s birthday, we walked along a road that left Cragglemouth and headed north. According to handwritten posters put up the evening before, Lord High Templar Burl Blitzen, on a rare visit from the state of Elysium, would give an address at Revelation Temple at two-hour intervals. Sy showed no enthusiasm for his words but welcomed a walk in the sunshine.

  I had no interest in religion. Earth’s history reverberated with horrors done in the name of one god or another, of one ultimate truth, unprovable and taken on a faith that itself became a fundament of the creed. I had no interest in Darken or its templars, except to the extent that they were a part of the culture of Respite. How could I understand a people without knowing their god?

  On Sundays, motorized traffic wasn’t allowed along the road, to protect the thousands of pilgrims who made the journey on foot or on horseback. According to an ancient law, every citizen of the town must visit the holy chamber each week, but the law could no longer be enforced. The population of Cragglemouth had grown to many times the chamber’s capacity.

  After a mile or two, the road turned to the left and began a steady incline to the hills, where friary and temple had been built. The sun blazed through a cloudless sky. Piko trees stood at regular intervals beside the road. Their spreading fronds created an informal canopy. A scent from their flowers, lemon and cedarwood, filled the air. Bees buzzed from apiaries every few hundred yards, sucking their nectar.

  Families walked together, as did groups of friends. They formed a joyful throng. From time to time, a stranger would call out to Sy, congratulating her for some past success or wishing her good luck for a forthcoming event. I’d grown used to it.

  My own skin, still unusually pale but no longer deathlike, had singled me out as an object of curiosity since my first day on Respite. But after the broadcast of my interview three days earlier, I found myself receiving an occasional greeting from a stranger. Mostly children would call, “Hi, Earthman,” or, from those whose wit had started to bud, “My toothbrush says, ‘Hi.’”

  One voice called out as we climbed the hill. I couldn’t make out the source, but the words were clear enough. “Hey, look who’s with the Ice Maiden.”

  I hadn’t heard that name before. I glanced at Sy.

  She smiled. “Just a nickname. Dick used to call me that in his paper. It served a purpose.”

  We walked on, using the shade of a tree where we could.

  The one-hundred-cupro note had an image of a piko tree. Beneath its umbrella of leaves stood two goatherds and, in the background, their charges. A hazy figure of unfathomable height represented the god Darken, revealing itself to humankind for the first time. I still had two of those notes in my room.

  Sy pointed. “There’s the temple, on that mound. The friary to our left. Down there, one of the country’s largest turkey farms. More farmlands. A bakery that sells its surplus in town. Revelation Shop with its own café. All local foods. We could spend a day here and not see it all.”

  These were the hilly farmlands I had seen on the first long run. I looked around. Fields of cereal interspersed with fenced orchards, some of which also held turkeys. I reached for Sy’s hand. “I love it here. Space to breathe.”

  Sy raised an eyebrow. “We can walk around, if you want to.”

  “No. If I start, we’ll never get to hear the big man.”

  We neared the friary. A plainsong chant, at first no more than an occasional tone, grew to form a haunting theme as we passed—familiar, yet not so. Earthlike, but reinvented.

  We paused in the shade of a wooden notice board. I read, as my eyes adjusted.

  no picnicking

  I had seen many such signs but many more picnickers.

  Chambers available for prayer and meditation. No charge. Consideration for others expected.

  Underground chambers by prior arrangement. Donation negotiable. Booking forms at the shop.

  I rarely practiced meditation and never prayer. I could see the advantage of a tranquil and isolated setting. But why underground?

  Further notices told of turkeys for sale, as meat or as pets. One more, weatherworn, addressed the misfortunates, detailing the days, times, and locations of free meals. None was available on a Sunday.

  We followed the main path, the mound that held Revelation Temple in clear sight. The climb grew steeper. My legs ached, already tired from the morning run. By the time we reached the base of the temple’s mound, sweat rolled from my hair. Sy glowed.

  A set of stone steps led up the mound. At their base, a metal sign informed us there were 242 steps. To one side, a wide path, divided centrally, zigzagged its way, providing a slower, gentler, and far more popular mode of ascent. One side thronged with descending pilgrims.

  Sy went through a brief routine of muscle stretches. Was she planning to run up the zigzag? She brushed her hand against mine. “See you at the top.” In her running shoes and shorts from the morning, and a brief cotton shirt that left a tantalizing gap above the shorts, she set off up the steps, two at a time.

  She moved with power and grace. A friar turned as she passed him. A group of pilgrims paused on the winding path and turned to her. Were these steps one reason she had wanted to visit the temple? Her choice of clothing—and the stopwatch in her hand, which I hadn’t noticed before—suggested they were.

  We had run eight miles that morning, and Sy still had energy for a personal challenge. I could only watch and wonder.

  We were each a product of uneasy experience. I couldn’t compare my suffering to hers. It was of a different scale. But Sy’s strength of character, her determination to rebuild her life even as a child, put my flight from Earth to shame. No man with an ordinary desire for human companionship adopts the life of a lone space drifter. No one isolates themself for years on end without a desire for isolation.

  Adventure? Excitement? These were excuses. Cowardice would be a more appropriate word.

  What I feared wasn’t Sy’s failure to make her own adjustments but my inability to support her. Only I could tackle that problem.

  By the time I reached the top of the path, Sy had recovered from her exercise. She breathed without strain.

  We joined the crowd in front of the temple. A friar stood in the middle of the main doorway behind a sign that read ‘Please Wait’.

  I’d gotten little sense of the temple’s great scale from the roadwa
y. But as we stood in its shade, the polylith towered above us.

  Once, long ago, I had visited Buckingham Palace. Not the ancient one in Europe’s Isle Britain—that was destroyed during the revolution—but the reconstruction alongside Moonbase Delta, where land was cheaper and tourists more welcome.

  Revelation Temple more than matched the palace for size. It stood taller than Draco Trading. There were no obvious trimmings of wealth, but its structure, based on two layers of stone blocks each weighing several tons, suggested sophisticated organization and engineering.

  My sketchy knowledge of Respite’s recorded history, a wonderful work of fiction, told me the building, or at least its great walls, had been assembled twenty-six centuries ago, inspired by Darken’s first revelation. The calendar of Respite rested on the same myth.

  According to Newton, Respite could not have had a human population for more than six hundred years. Because I couldn’t distinguish any of Respite’s three mammal species from those of Earth, I didn’t doubt Newton’s view.

  We waited. Another friar approached the first and nodded toward the sign. They turned it around, and placed it at the side of the doorway.

  We shuffled through a carved marble archway and were directed to the holy chamber, not as vast as I had expected but still able to hold several thousand people standing. Sy held my arm. “This takes a few minutes.”

  A pulpit carved into stone occupied one corner. Electronic speakers suspended above the second line of balconies nuzzled into the other corners.

  For an hour, minor templars took to the pulpit, read from the Holy Book, and spoke in somber tones about the consequences of disobeying this or that commandment. Two hymns, played on a raucous wind organ, interrupted rather than enlivened these talks.

  A trumpet sounded two extended notes. A procession entered the chamber, led by three gray-gowned friars. These were followed by a small man in purple-and-steel-gray robes, with a walking stick in one hand and boy friar at either side. A plainsong, hypnotic, rang through the air.

  Speakers buzzed. “Gentlemen, Ladies. Silence please, for His Worship, the Lord High Templar. Welcome him with your silence, Darken’s lord—Burlington Blitzen.”