A Gluttony of Plutocrats (The Respite Trilogy Book 1)

by Ella Swift Arbok

  Instead, he displayed an aerial view of Respite, outline only, with the two main continents filling the screen. He showed greater sensitivity to Sy’s needs than I had.

  Sy whispered their names.

  The globe turned. Before the land Sy knew had disappeared over the horizon, another large island came into view. A little color had crept into the globe, and its image seemed less grainy.

  Sy reached a hand toward the screen, but the screen withdrew to protect its delicate frame. She jerked her hand back. “It’s alive.”

  “No, just vulnerable in this form. It would do the same if I reached out.” I showed her. “I can touch the base. That’s how I release it.”

  I demonstrated that, also. My scarf lay crumpled. I reached out a hand to reconnect it then withdrew the hand. There was an easier way while I had the combi. “Newton, join us please.”

  Screen and base reformed.

  Madagascar showed in its emerald glory. Sy pointed but kept her hand from the screen. “There’s legend of another land. Is it real? Is this it?”

  I leaned back, settling into a corner. “Yes, Sy, it’s real. Two hundred thousand square miles of fertile land. And Newton could take us there at a moment’s notice. Newton, what progress with the robotics?”

  The screen changed. On one side, the island appeared in outline with three circles superimposed, each near to the coast. On the other side was Newton’s face.

  “Three sites I have chosen, each at a different latitude. If you are planning to stay there for long, I recommend developing all three for the varied farming opportunities. But at the moment, I’m working on the most easterly, see there on the coast. One home is ready, but the farms won’t be productive until next summer.”

  I examined the map with its grid lines marked. “I can see no reason to prefer one over the others.”

  Two boxes appeared by each site. One box showed monthly rainfall, the other, monthly mean temperatures. “The most significant difference apart from their distance from the coast is the level of rainfall. These graphs are based on incomplete data, especially regarding ocean currents, but I believe they represent a reasonable estimate.”

  “Mediterranean to subtropical?”

  “More or less, yes, and off the main hurricane path. Lemuel, as you have worked out, I am aware what goes on in the vicinity of your combi. That puts me in an ideal position to anticipate your needs. I’m also primed with considerable knowledge of colony structure and human needs. Let me know your requirements, but you must trust me for the details.”

  Sy shuffled across on the bench and leaned against me. “Explain.”

  The screen faded to blackness.

  I waited. “Newton?” No response. It was his way of telling me that the explanation was my job.

  Where to begin? With my own needs. “Sy, I had a scare yesterday. I didn’t think I’d live to see you again. This island Madagascar represents a safe haven if I need one, for me, for my friends. Newton is building houses, farms, whatever we need.”

  “A dock?”

  Rain clattered on the roof.

  Sy drained her cup and stood. “No run today. We have to talk.” She took both cups to the coffeepot. “Think what Linnet could do with base like this. Tell me about transport. How could we get there from Eden? How could we get back?

  “Tell me about communication. Could we phone Barford? Could we write? Lemuel, can’t you see how this would benefit my sister?”

  I sat back. “It isn’t as simple as you think. With Eden and Elysium racing for flight, Madagascar won’t remain secret for long. Transport? Communication? I hadn’t thought. I just wanted a place I could be safe for a few weeks, but now I see it could provide so much more. Let me call Newton back.”

  He appeared together with the map without needing my request. “Ms. Heyho, Lemuel, you two need to talk about what you want from this island, but I know enough now to continue. To link into the telephones of Eden, I shall need an isolated line with its bill paid on time. I shall also need coordinates of that phone so my drone can drop an interface. Let me work out the details.”

  Sy examined the screen. “Those temperatures, they look wrong. Warmer in the winter?”

  “It’s in the southern hemisphere,” Newton said. “Its summer would be your winter.” He turned to me. “Lemuel, I had planned a dock in two years, but I can raise its priority.”

  “Do that, please. A dock, twenty homes at the coastal location, and automated farms. We’ll talk again soon.”

  I collapsed the machine.

  Sy picked the scarf up and turned it in her hands. “Where does he live? I’d like to meet him.”

  Meet Newton? Tricky. I sat next to her and took her hand. “Would it upset you if I said he doesn’t exist in any physical form?”

  Sy took my hand, lifted it to her mouth, and bit across the middle finger. She folded her arms. “Cut out the weird bits, will you?”

  “Oh. In that case, Newton has a fruit farm to the south of Barford where he lives with his life partner and two textbook children.” I fingered the combi around my neck. “Newton and I talk through this, when I don’t have my scarf. It can also record sound and vision for several hours, project pictures, and kill at a considerable range.”

  Sy put the scarf around my neck. “And of course I believe every word. You’d best get out of those crumpled clothes.” She kissed me on the mouth—a touch, no more. “I’ll try to get a run in at lunchtime. You don’t need to be there.”

  I jogged alone through Godbest Park, oblivious of the storm.

  Dempster opened his front door as I fumbled with my key. “Hang your coat in the porch to drip. And those pants. And I’ll get a wrap.” He stepped back. “There are some papers on the table. I think you’ll be interested.”

  “Let me shower first.”

  “Good idea.”

  Once I had dried and dressed, I settled down by the kitchen table. Printed sheets lay fanned. I picked up the first: an application for a patent. The heading alone told me why Dempster wanted me to see them. The patents were for bricks, brick molds, and a brick furnace, all based on data Newton had supplied, although he believed it came from my memory.

  By the time Dempster set a full plate in front of me, I had read enough. “What about finance?”

  “Meeting, Heyho Bank, two weeks’ time. I need to register these first.”

  A patent for house bricks? Brilliant. Once an important building material on Earth, their potential on Respite was enormous.

  How many things had I grown up with that didn’t exist on Respite? My newspaper clippings had become difficult to manage. There were no ring binders, and the local alternative—a sort of clipboard with a lever clasp—was awkward in comparison. Bicycles? I hadn’t seen one.

  On the final page, my name and Dempster’s were shown as equal partners. Dempster held out a pen. “You can join me, if you like.” He offered me a chance of wealth without having to contribute more than I had already given him. He had no need to do so.

  Less than a day after my trial, I had no desire for a long stay in Eden, but I had learned how quickly things could change. Apart from my income as a Draco employee, Bandstorm’s first bonus had been generous, and my investment in the land consortium held great promise. With one honest and two borderline criminal sources of income, a second honest one, even one that would take years to develop, couldn’t be ignored.

  I pushed the plate away and picked up the final page where Dempster had signed. “I’ll join you as a partner.” I added my signature. “Will you do the rest?”

  I saw little of Sy over the next few days. She said she wanted time to herself.

  On Tuesday afternoon, she ran past me as I climbed Draco’s stairs, a brush of her hand against mine making it clear she wasn’t angry. The next day, when I arrived at my desk, I found a note in her handwriting leaning against a cherry muffin.

  Dinner tomorrow? I’m cooking.

  She took my phone call, but only long enough to arrange
where and when to meet—in the lobby, after work.

  On Thursday, I woke refreshed after one dream of Sy and none of the phantom noose.

  For the first time that week, I managed to concentrate on my work throughout the day. At five o’clock, I hurried to Trading. Sy had already left. I ran down the stairs. She wasn’t in the lobby. I checked outside. She stood in the square at the base of her great-grandfather’s statue.

  The titanic effigy rested on a shoulder-high stone plinth—godlike, elevated above mere mortals. Ernst Heyho smiled from on high. Simple five-petaled Earth roses coiled around the plinth, their scent lifting in the breeze.

  Sun shone on Sy’s dark arms as she gazed up at her ancestor.

  I moved behind her, not wishing to interrupt her thoughts.

  She sighed. “You’re doing it again, Lemuel. I can see your shadow.”

  I put an arm around her now-familiar waist and looked up at the old man. “You come from a powerful line.”

  “Yes. Bastards, every one.”

  “Your mother too?”

  “Who knows? I killed her.”

  Killed her? “No. Why would you say that?”

  “She died having me. I thought you knew. And that’s why I’m a Heyho, not a Throse.”

  Could Dick have got it wrong? “That’s not what Dick said.” Surely Sy would know about her own mother’s death. “He says she fell from a horse a few days after you were born.”

  Sy shuddered. “Let’s go.” She pushed from me and ran from the square.

  I followed. Once we reached Revelation Road, we settled to a stroll.

  Sy banged a fist against my hand and groaned. “How many times has that dreadful man whose name I won’t say told me I killed my mother? Over and over again, he told me how worthless I was, how I would never make anything of my life. Was it just to make me need him?”

  We reached the line of handcarts where once I had bought an apple and a pojo.

  Sy ignored them. “There’s an evening market down this lane.”

  We bought a shoulder of goat, seasonal vegetables, and a bottle of green wine. Sy stopped in the middle of Revelation Bridge. We stood with our hands on the rail, facing downriver, with the ocean visible in the distance.

  Sy gazed out to sea. “When I was at school, they taught about the legendary Ernst Heyho, a great hero for the way he brought the world closer together. They still do, as if he had personally built the canal. But he was an economist, not an engineer.”

  Sy slid her hand along the rail until it touched mine. “I’ve thought a lot about Sunday night. Maybe I overreacted.”

  I had thought more about the horrors of Sunday evening than the joy of that night. But with her hand beside mine, and the healing power of time, only one thought occupied my mind. “I’ve had no more nightmares.” True, in a way. I’d had many fewer nightmares.

  “Ah.”

  The waters of the Craggle rushed to the sea, full and heavy after the previous night’s storm.

  Sy pointed downriver. “See those weatherworn timbers? They’re what’s left of an old dock. Much of the wood has been taken for house building, but the structure remains. There’s a new dock now, north of town.

  “My famous ancestor was working on an academic paper, so his biography says. I haven’t read it, but Linnet told me it’s a theoretical work examining the effects of a canal that had long been debated. After he had spent a couple of days trying to find what was wrong with the figures—you can stay tonight, if you like—he felt, if I remember the words correctly, as if his life’s purpose had been revealed to him.”

  Ernst Heyho, a man of power and wealth. An aggressive pedophile. Hector Bandstorm. Ronnie Bile. The senators for justice and equality.

  I could stay? For the night?

  Wealth. Power. Pain. Control. “Sy, are all the powerful men on Respite pedophiles?”

  She stared along the river. “You must ask Linnet. Many are. Worse, many times a pedophile becomes powerful, as though their perversion makes them a useful member of the club. Or, so Linnet believes, a man often realizes a desire for children after he becomes powerful. Unleashing a latent desire? Conforming to a newfound norm? I don’t know.” She stepped back from the rail. “Let’s talk about something more cheerful.”

  My hand settled on Sy’s waist as we walked to the houseboat. “How long will this meat take to cook?”

  “That depends on our fire.”

  Sy had me collecting wood while she unfolded a metal spit and stand.

  Cooking over an open fire, why did I think of the film Blazing Saddles? At least we hadn’t bought beans.

  I built the fire, or so I thought.

  Sy came out with a pan of prepared vegetables and the joint of meat, put them on the ground, knocked down my random pile of wood, and began to rebuild, explaining as she went. “You start with the tinder—very dry, very small—then build. This is enough. The bigger stuff will go on later.”

  After a final check of her handiwork, she stood. “I’ll get matches.”

  “No need.” I lifted the combi over my head and held it to the wood. Raising flame was a function I hadn’t used since training, but it was a basic maneuver, difficult to forget. Soon, the pile glowed and smoldered.

  Once the fire had developed to her satisfaction, with a bed of embers and some more wood to keep it going, Sy raised the meat on its spit. “It should be turned every few minutes, so the book says, but I don’t suppose half an hour will ruin it.”

  We stepped onto the deck. I opened the cabin door. “Wine?”

  “Why not? Give me two minutes then take it to the berth.”

  I struggled to remove the cork. Had I drunk alcohol on a Thursday before? Not since my student days.

  As I reached for two glasses in the wall cupboard, my hand brushed against the window blind. Its cord, with a hardwood acorn tag attached, swung from side to side.

  I put a hand to my throat. I felt my body swinging from a rope, legs thrashing, face contorted by fear and agony. Damn you, Boniface.

  Yet somehow that intimate reminder of my own mortality brought peace. I had faced death and overcome it, with a little help. Anything beyond was a bonus to be treasured, to be used for a purpose more worthy than mere survival. The change in me didn’t happen all at once. But looking back, it’s easy to identify those hours at Revelation Temple as a fulcrum in my development.

  I put a finger on the swinging cord, halting its motion. Then I flicked it again, turned my back, grabbed the glasses, and pushed the door to Sy’s berth.

  She sat on her bed, wrapped in her pink gown, which she hadn’t bothered to belt. What did I care about how perfectly a shoulder of goat was cooked when Sy and I could cling together and move as gently or as wildly as we chose—as she chose—rocked by the rumbustious Craggle? The outside world faded from my thoughts, returning only with the smell of burning chevon.

  Sy laughed. She ran, grabbing her gown along the way. By the time I had dressed and joined her, she had turned the spit, revealing blackened meat on the top.

  She shuffled the pan of vegetables into the bed of embers. “We lost a little, but there’s plenty.”

  An hour later, we sat on folding seats by the fire piled high with fresh wood. Why? Not for the heat. We had pulled our seats far enough from the fire to feel the merest glow. Was it some primitive act of worship?

  Apart from our heaped plates and full glasses, sophisticated clothes, which Sy’s gown of dyed cotton qualified as because it was woven, and a communication device around my neck, which could work miracles, this could have been a typical Stone Age family scene—apart from the lack of children, threat from wild beasts, or many other things.

  Sy sipped her wine. “No more nightmares?” A flicker of firelight reflected in her dark eyes. “Good. The money I spent on a spare toothbrush won’t be wasted.”

  I had one in my pocket but saw no need to mention it.

  Chapter 14

  Darken’s Day, September 31, fell on a Friday. On its
eve, the commercial district ground to a halt at midday, with no further activity planned until the following Tuesday. Only cafés and bars remained open. They filled with revelers.

  Sy had left work early and was on the team bus, heading for a four-day athletics meet at Barford.

  From the north, a cool, blustery wind gave relief from what had been a week of oppressive heat.

  I hurried home with Beau, who had taken lodging in the road before mine. “You and Polly still together?”

  He shook his head. “She said I only wanted her ’cause she was easier than Candy.”

  I laughed. “She said that?”

  Beau kicked at a stone on the sidewalk and watched as it skipped ahead. “I suppose I shouldn’t have agreed with her. That’s what really put a flame in her eyes. Well, it’s back to the street children for me.”

  He turned down his street, leaving me openmouthed. I stared after him. He must be joking. He’ll turn and grin at me in a moment for being so gullible. He didn’t turn.

  I checked my watch. No time to run after him, but we’d talk soon.

  At Dempster’s, I rushed past Mabel in the hall, wishing her a happy Darken’s Eve with as much sincerity as I could muster. I showered and changed, packed a few essentials, and carried my baggage down the stairs. A motor cab, booked a month earlier because of the festivities, was due in a few minutes.

  Mabel stood by the kitchen sink, grim-faced, chopping enough vegetables for four.

  I dropped my case in the hall and sat by the table. “Where’s Al?”

  Mabel shrugged. “Never seen him sober on Darken’s Eve.” She tossed some chunks of turkey and things I didn’t recognize around in a pan. “He’s left me, after thirty-two years.”

  “Left you?”

  “Well, can you blame him?” She rubbed a sleeve against her face.

  “Did he say why?”

  “No. He said I was fat and ugly, but I’ve never been pretty. Neither has he.”

  “Where’s he gone?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. No going back.” Mabel turned her back to me, stirring with great force. “He’s been weird lately. Flashing money around for weeks. I thought you two were up to something.”