Sideshow

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Fringe swallowed the lump behind her breastbone and said with an expressionless face, “Since it eliminates my debt risk, I ought to be grateful.” Despite her words, she was still thinking it might be some kind of mistake.

  She took up Char’s Book to look again, but it wasn’t a mistake. The new daughter really was the only family member named, as well as the sole heir. Fringe felt a cold wash of sadness, like a flash flood down a long dry gully, not for the inheritance (she’d never thought there’d be anything to inherit) but because there was no word there for her. And because the Book said Char had adopted the new daughter and written off his natural one at a time he had made a promise of quite a different kind to Fringe.

  She took a deep breath and put the Book down, the little chain that linked it to the claim desk rattling noisily. One of the uniformed assemblers frowned up from his workstation, then went back to the figures rolling by on his tabletop display. Someone’s lifetime transactions being put together there. Everything came here, in the end. Whatever you hoped or dreamed or actually managed to accomplish; whatever you failed at or fell short of, it all came to Final Equity, where creditors, friends, and kinfolk, who could be creditors of a different sort, looked over the result amid confused murmurs and muffled sobs and angry mutters. The vaulted hall soaked up the sounds, softened them. There were always deaths and killings, so there were always books set out for people to examine. They came and went, their feet making shuffly whispers in the quiet. It was all very ordinary, Fringe told herself sternly. No cause for tears or guilt or sentimentalism. He’s dead, that’s all. He left you no word, but then, if he didn’t talk to you while you were alive, why should you expect a word after he died?

  When Fringe looked up again, she caught the woman, Yil-land, staring at her with an avid, restless expression, like some hungry animal in too small a cage. Fringe let her glance slide across the woman’s face, and then back to the book, wondering whether the balance in it would be enough to satisfy the claimants against Char’s Book, or whether the woman across the room would be asked to make satisfaction. Heirs were sometimes sold, entire or in parts, to cover the debts of a deceased. Creditors had been known to get nasty carving up an heir. Fringe had paid out a good bit on debt insurance over the last fifteen years. She’d been more than a little anxious, knowing Pa as she did. Well, wasted credit. She needn’t have worried. She was out of it.

  And Yilland so-called Dorwalk was in.

  Fringe nodded a farewell to the bald ogre, then turned and walked away, eyes straight ahead, striding from the Hall like a woman with somewhere to go, only to be accosted by a uniformed flunky at the portal. The Final Equity Exec begged the courtesy of an interview, said he. She glared in disbelief, but he nodded and beckoned and pressed his lips together impatiently until she followed him. Curvis, the giant, was watching this encounter from across the room, head cocked to one side. She cocked her own in reply, and shrugged. Who knew what Execs wanted?

  She was led down the echoing corridor into the office wing behind the Hall, where the flunky paused at a tall door, rapped on it, opened it, and bowed her through. The Exec sat behind a desk that looked carved from a single block of chalcedony, though Fringe, mentally computing weight and noting the relatively fragile structure on which it rested, believed it a fake, symbolic, an accoutrement of Executive class. No other class handled money matters so well, no other class displayed such elegant contempt. People born Executives didn’t need money, so they could disdain it. No other class could pretend to justice so convincingly, for Executives didn’t need that, either. This man was classly dignified and alert too, she could see that; but then, Executives were the only class that could and did declassify members for being stupid.

  He turned a serene gaze upon her and took his time assessing what he saw. “Char Dorwalk’s Book came up on the Files to be approved by this office,” he said. “The scanner advised me you were present in the Hall. Examining the record, it occurs to me you may wish to make a death claim against the estate of your natural father. Disinheritance is always subject to review by this office, and so far as I can see from your father’s Book, you were cut off for no valid reason. I find no record you were ever notified or given a chance to object. You’re entitled to file a death claim.”

  “By this office,” indeed. Why couldn’t the damned Execs just say me, like anyone else? They were always “this office,” or “this council,” or “this governing body.”

  “Shit,” she said, allowing herself to sound more like a Trasher than usual, “why should I?”

  The Exec raised one high-bred nostril. Such language was not often directed at top castes, certainly not by shapely, red-haired, light-eyed women of middling-young years and uncertain classification. What was she? He could usually tell, but not with this one. Despite her language, she wasn’t Trasher class, that was sure. Trashers tended to be either obsequious or defiant, but he detected neither in Fringe. She showed neither Wage-earner servility nor Professional-class hauteur. The quality of her clothing was almost Executive, but if she had been Executive he’d have known her. Besides, the weapon on her hip was not the usual Executive toy. Maybe she was Out-caste, one of those interesting oddities who didn’t fit the system. An artist or entrepreneur, perhaps.

  Fringe laughed openly at his puzzled expression and almost winked as she said, “Offended, sir? I do beg your pardon. Hell, I don’t want anything from him. Let his classly adopted daughter have what she can salvage.”

  The Manager had enough sensitivity to realize she might be distressed. His expression softened. “His wives both died some time ago. And you’re entitled—”

  “To nothing,” she said firmly, surprised by the pain she was feeling. She had forgotten that pain, mostly. Now she ignored it as she explained: “He did not approve of me, good sir. I disappointed him. If I take nothing from him, I am free of that. Owed nothing, I owe nothing. I may go my own way.”

  “I have the feeling”—smiled the Manager, suddenly taken with her—”that you’ve always done that.”

  “And well, perhaps I have,” Fringe said, her eyes fixed on some distant scene that only she could see. “There were times it seemed there was no other way to go.” She was thinking that there had been Dorwalk on her father’s side and Troms on her mother’s side; she couldn’t be both, so she had ended up neither.

  The Equity Exec had been watching her musing face with complete attention. “I know it’s a personal question, but what’s your classification?”

  “Born to, earned, or claimed?” she asked.

  “They’re usually the same thing.” He gestured sameness.

  “Born Professional, earned and claimed Outcaste,” she said with a matching gesture.

  “You’re an artist then?” he asked, charmingly, to show how sympathetic he could be, how open-minded. Even Executives associated with certain Outcastes, like artists and singers. “Or an actor, perhaps?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, the weapon she wore on her hip seeming to leap of itself into her hand. “What I do is, I Attend to Situations.” The eye of the weapon stared at him as her thumb twitched above the power stud.

  The Exec swallowed, stood up quietly, opened the door for her, and stood aside, bowing very slightly as she left. When he sat back down at his desk, he noted with some astonishment that he was trembling. The weapon had been aimed between his eyes. If she had wanted him dead, she could have pushed the button and he’d have been scattered atoms or fried meat, depending on how tidy she was. He touched the ornamental weapon at his own belt, almost with revulsion. It was good for little. High-class persons carried weapons mostly as costume accessories. It was the custom to carry them, but no one ever used them. Well, hardly ever.

  He licked his lips. It was a matter of pride with Executives not to be caught off guard. Someone should have warned him. He should have been more careful in checking before he invited her in. The Files had said merely Fringe…. Fringe Dorwalk. He keyed through the records before him. AKA,
blinked the small codiforms squeezed in between two other things he hadn’t bothered to look at. AKA: Professional Name…. She had rearranged the letters in her name to spell something she liked better.

  And she was a licensed Enforcer.

  In Tolerance, Supervisor Syrilla had invited her young protégé, Jacent, to lunch. Jacent was a mere boy, only recently arrived from Heaven for his first tour of duty at Tolerance, but he was part of her “family” and therefore her responsibility.

  “What do you make of this Arbai Door arrival?” asked the Supervisor of her young kinsman. “Do you believe it?”

  “One believes one’s eyes,” he said firmly, tossing up one hand in an ebullient gesture. “You believe yours, Aunt Syrilla. You saw them come through.”

  Syrilla frowned. Among themselves Council members cultivated a languid and unruffled demeanor, one which sought to convey they had seen it all and were not surprised at anything. Seeing her expression, Jacent flushed and put his hands in his lap. He had been warned not to wave his arms about except in public. When on display, yes, be shrill and mannered as a cageful of birds, but not when closeted, as now.

  They were on the terrace outside Syrilla’s living quarters: she standing at the railing, he seated at the table where he lingered over the delicacies Syrilla’s Frickian cook had provided. Frickians made excellent servants as well as soldiers; there were several thousand of them employed at Tolerance, and a great many more employed back at Heaven. Jacent was fond of Frickian food, though he was not fond of much else he’d found at Tolerance.

  Syrilla persevered. “I mean, do you believe they are primitives? Really? From before first dispersion?” She sounded not only puzzled but apprehensive, and Jacent looked at her covertly from beneath his abundant lashes, wondering at her tone. Why apprehensive? The creatures, however spidery and archaic, could do no harm.

  “Well, of course, we’ve all asked Files what Files thinks,” he admitted, meaning we, the youngsters, the lower orders, the dilettantes and chatterers who had not yet learned discretion, those who did the routine work of maintenance and monitoring until they were old enough to do something essential and even more boring. “Files does not disbelieve it. Files went searching through the old, old records and found several widely separated accounts of contacts with this Celerian race. A very old, old race, or so Files extrapolates, who were leaving our little spiral on their way somewhere else, who said, according to the strange twins, they had been granted the concession to do so!” He laughed. The idea was amusing. Who and what had granted this supposed concession? They had talked about that a great deal, down in the warren below the Great Rotunda.

  He sobered at her expression and went on, “Also, joined human beings are occasionally born in primitive societies, even here on Elsewhere. Files has found references to that, as well.”

  “I know all that,” said the Supervisor fretfully. “But I have never heard it theorized that the Arbai Doors could be used for time travel. In fact, I’ve always been assured that time travel is impossible!” She whined, perhaps a little hysterically.

  Why should the subject of time travel be so upsetting? Particularly when there was quite enough here in Tolerance to be upset about without borrowing trouble?

  “Well, of course, the technicians have talked that to shreds. The current theory seems to be that when these persons demanifested the Arbai Door on Earth all those millennia ago, they caused some kind of malfunction that prohibited their going anywhere at all. They were simply sidetracked into nothingness for some thousands of years … on their way here.”

  She turned and stared at him. “There was no time travel?”

  “No. No time travel. Merely an extremely lengthy hiatus in their awareness.” He smiled, noting the tension going out of her shoulders, her neck. Interesting. “Files tells us there have been other strange incidents with Arbai Doors. For example: A woman went into one on a planet called Grass millennia ago and turned up a thousand years or so later (absolute time) on a planet called Thyker. She had aged a great deal but was not, you know, mummified or anything. The only way she could have lived all that time was through some such lapse or series of lapses. The Door engineers and technicians are greatly agitated and interested. I am told they have not been so wrought up since the machines in City Fifteen came up with a cure for our newest plague before we’d even used it.”

  Syrilla stiffened. It was considered not nice to mention such matters except during official sessions. Plagues and assassinations and small, limited wars were necessary in maintaining diversity, but casual talk about them could make one seem coarse and unfeeling. She made a moue at the boy, shaking her head very slightly.

  “Sorry, Aunt Syrilla,” he murmured, flushing, aware he’d breached convention again. There were so damned many things one didn’t say! Or do! At least, not in social contexts. Sometimes he doubted he would ever learn to behave properly. Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly resentful about this place, he doubted he wanted to! There was something very wrong here at Tolerance, something that none of the old folks would identify or admit to, but something that made them jumpy and peevish nonetheless. Jacent kept his facial expression pleasant, giving Aunt Syrilla no hint of what he was thinking.

  She waved away his apology and turned to the forest once more.

  “Something about this troubles you?” he said in his prettiest voice, hoping the tone would excuse the presumption and make her forget he had been gauche. He very much wanted to know why she cared.

  “Yes,” she cried. “Yes, Jacent. No one seems to have thought what time travel would mean. It would mean that the Hobbs Land Gods could go back in time and get here before our people came, and then … It could mean they are here now. On Panubi. That possibility has been mentioned, but I didn’t take it, well, you know, seriously. But now, well … we don’t know what’s on Panubi, so they could be there. Boarmus is concerned about Panubi. He has sent Danivon Luze to find out about … all this business of dragons. It could be enslaved ones, you know. Not dragons at all. We don’t really know what enslaved ones might look like.” She shuddered, her face becoming momentarily skull-like and horrid with fear.

  He gasped silently, terrified by her terror, then waited, holding his breath.

  At last she spoke again. “It’s disturbing, Jacent. The idea that the Hobbs Land Gods might actually be here, now. Just waiting to leap out at us, take us over, enslave us as well….” She sighed, patted her forehead, and then whispered, “I have dreams about it sometimes. Like smothering. Like not being able to breathe. Like being stuffed into some impossibly small space until I’m all … smashed.” She swallowed, painfully, tried to smile.

  “Of course, if there is no time travel, my concerns are … without foundation. The people from the past are merely … as you say … harmless.” She laughed, lightly, while fear danced madly behind her eyes.

  Jacent was more than merely interested. He was intrigued! He did not think he had ever been as afraid as she obviously was. And though he’d learned in school to dread the Hobbs Land Gods, he’d never really thought about them. Oh, he’d seen the docudramas, all about how Elsewhere was set up as a refuge from the Gods, about Lady Professor Mintier Thob and Madame Therabas Bland, about Subble Clore and Orimar Breaze and the rest of the committee members, how they’d come here all that long time ago. None of it had ever frightened him.

  It obviously frightened Aunt Syrilla. He felt it best not to pursue the matter. So, he said nothing, and the silence extended.

  “What is to be done with the strange twins?” she asked at last. “I haven’t heard what has been decided. Are they to be sent to Heaven?” Though the subtropical island of Heaven was reserved as a homeland for Supervisors and their Frickian servants, a few members of other races were allowed to live there also, if they were harmless or interesting or had talents the machines couldn’t duplicate.

  “Rumor is that Danivon Luze has a use for them,” Jacent replied. In the lower regions, that rumor was causin
g endless speculation. In the lower regions, Danivon Luze himself caused endless speculation. The mystery of his origins made him quite the romantic figure, somewhat to Jacent’s annoyance. “Only a rumor, of course.”

  “Oh, my,” whispered Syrilla, remembering what Boarmus had said about Danivon Luze. Such a complicated knot that would make: Danivon, and Panubi, and dragons that were maybe really enslaved by the Hobbs Land Gods, and the strange twins from the past.

  “Oh, my,” she said again.

  Fringe had intended to startle the Executive at the Hall of Final Equity. Meant to scare the piss out of him, if truth be told. Executives and Professionals, by and large, gave her the gripes. She understood why this was so, but understanding did nothing to change her feelings. She resented the Executive and Professional classes in their entirety, and had done so as long as she could remember—at least since she’d been given those damned E&P dolls as a child.

  She had privately acknowledged the resentment when she turned sixteen and realized, suddenly and undeniably, that though she’d always been told she was a Professional, there was no chance she could retain that class. For most of a year she had heard her schoolmates talk of the Professional training they would be starting, the businesses they had been bought into, the apprenticeships their families had paid for. Though Grandma Gregoria had always talked of the Professional class as being governed by a kind of natural law that guaranteed that its children became Professionals in their turn, no training, no business, no apprenticeship had been arranged for Fringe. No start-up money had been set aside. Some essential part of the natural law had been left out in her case.

  It was ironic, Fringe reflected, that Souile had been born Trasher and had rebelled against that class early to raise herself up, while Fringe had been born Professional class and had not realized she had to rebel against anything until it was too late! Now she had only a short time of free schooling left and no resources beyond her own energy and determination. Being honest with herself, as continuing association with Zasper was teaching her to be, she knew the best she could do for herself at this late date was retain the level Souile had achieved. If she was unwilling to be a Trasher, which she was, she would have to be a Wage-earner. Though it wasn’t admirable, it was respectable.