Joana waved two fingers in the air in a gesture Viekko interpreted as 'no big deal'. “Desleixado. Very sloppy.”
Cronus looked harder and pointed to a piece. “These transistors probably burn out quite frequently, yes?”
Joana tilted her head with incomprehension. Isra translated. “Aquela peca, o transistor, derrete com frequencia, sim?”
Joana nodded. “Sim. Very often. Replace…every two hour while I use. Very much time it takes to make. That last one I have.”
Cronus continued examining the components. “We could experiment with different materials. Also, if we could find a converter, we could reduce the strain on the system...”
Joana's eyes lit up. “Could you stay? Help build something better?”
Cronus looked back at her with wide-eyed terror. For a moment, he was a small, helpless animal caught in the bright lights of Joana’s soft blue-grey gaze.
“I… uh… well…” he stammered.
“He’d love to,” said Viekko, walking to where he stood and slapping him on the back. “With her majesty’s permission, of course. I think there is much he could learn here.” He gave Cronus a conspiratorial grin.
“If that is your wish,” said the Rainha. “Joana has done many incredible things here. If this man possesses knowledge of this ancient technology, the possibilities are endless. We should go,” Rainha Isabel finished, and she made her way back to the tunnel entrance through which they had arrived. “There is something else we must see now.”
Viekko, Isra, and Althea started to follow when Cronus called him back. “Viekko. A moment, please.”
Viekko made his way back to Cronus, who stood nervously wringing his hands. “What’s up?”
Cronus risked a glance at Joana who gave him a kind, friendly smile. “I’m not sure what to do.”
Viekko grinned. “Just do what you were intendin’ to do. Help the girl get that hunk workin’ again. The rest will just happen in due time.”
He started back to the tunnel and risked a glance back at the two with heads together, examining the makeshift motherboard. Watching their awkward mating dance made him think of himself and Althea. He turned and disappeared down the tunnel.
****
Isra and the Rainha walked down the path toward the inclined railcar still perched on the side of the peak of the Maxwell Mons. Althea followed a few steps behind, and Viekko rushed to catch up. As he did, he caught a few Cytherean words of Isra and Isabel’s conversation.
“So, Joana is the only one working there?” Isra asked.
“Sim. It is a life she took upon herself. For her, it was important that the Cytherean people know their history,” the Rainha replied.
“It does not sound like you agree.”
“Our people do not spend energy considering what has passed…”
“Althea,” said Viekko, arriving beside her. “A word?”
Althea shook her head and slowed her pace to give them room to talk. “I don’t understand why my neural programming didn’t work. You can understand them?”
Viekko shrugged. “You ain’t missin’ much. Listen, Althea, I’m sorry about things said on the station yesterday… or a few months ago, or whatever.”
"Things said?" Althea laughed a little.
"Possibly by me. To you."
“You don’t even know what you are apologizing for.”
“Everything? Anything? I don’t think before I open my trap, I know that. Maybe we can just forget I said anythin’. Failin’ that, can you just slap my face or maybe a good swift kick in the...”
"It won’t be necessary. You didn't do anything wrong."
Viekko nearly stumbled over the concept. "I didn’t?"
"You were trying to help, and I was acting like…”
“Pretty, pretty princess bitch-a-lot? I’m sorry for that as well,” Viekko added.
“Not in those words, but yes.”
“I may have pushed you into sayin’ things… I don’t think either of us is exactly happy about what went down up there.”
Althea smiled slightly. “I guess I can forgive you.”
They passed by the inclined rail, still perched on the cliff overlooking the white-walled city; the sun, low on the horizon, cast tendrils of red and purple through the mountain peaks. Isra and the Rainha idly chatted. The only other sound was the wind blowing up from the city below.
“So, what happens now?” Viekko kicked a stone out of his path.
“What do you mean?” Althea, distracted, looked up at the swirling clouds.
“I mean between you and me. Us.”
Althea glanced back down the mountain as if she were avoiding his eyes. “I don’t see any reason for there to be an ‘us’. What we had all those years ago wasn’t a relationship. It wasn’t even enough to be considered a fling. It was just two damaged humans behaving like wild apes. And last night… or… whenever. It was nothing but me trying to repeat that. At your expense.”
Whereas Althea’s eyes kept wandering, Viekko couldn’t take his off her. “Maybe I needed that. Althea, when you came over that night, I was in a bad way. I wasn’t gonna go back to the ‘T’ but, I’d be lyin’ if I wasn’t thinkin’ ‘bout it. I just wanted to feel something. Anythin’. And when I saw you… I felt everything.”
Althea sighed. There was a slight staccato in her breath as if she were holding back tears.
Up ahead, Isra spoke to Isabel with a measure of disbelief. “Forgive me, Rainha. But I do not understand. If Cytherean citizens are not meant for physical labor, what do they do?”
Isabel glanced behind her as if checking to see if Althea and Viekko were still following. “I have brought you here so that you may see.”
“What do you want me to do with that information, Viekko?” said Althea looking straight ahead, her face stony and emotionless. She usually had the same expression when she was examining a patient.
“I’m just thinkin’,” Viekko started, “that we give it a try.”
For the first time during their conversation, Althea looked at him. Though her eyes shone with a few tears, her look made him feel about half as tall as he was.
“What are you saying? You want to use me because you can’t have drugs anymore?”
Viekko’s mind flashed back to Captain Colton on the bridge of the shuttle, right before re-entry made things weird. “You can't use another human as a substitute for the 'T', friend. Dropping it is all about freedom, and you can't be free if you force your dependency on another.”
“That’s not what I’m sayin’,” Viekko said defensively. “I’m just…. Somethin’ happened to me that night.”
“You have to be responsible for your own life Viekko. And I’ve got to do the same with mine.”
“We are nearly there,” said the Rainha this time in English. “We must hurry. Provacao begins soon.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The midnight assault on a prison in deserts of the Southern United States left only a few personnel dead or wounded. And the image of Diana Adriana waving the Brazilian flag over prisoners cheering in the yard as a helicopter landed nearby, became the symbol of her own force of will and the movement that would lead to the Global Revolution.
-From The Fall: The Decline and Failure of 21st Century Civilization by Martin Raffe
The Rainha, Isra, Viekko and Althea crested a hill that dropped down to an oval-shaped amphitheater cut into the hard, burnt-orange rock of the mountain. The seats, just stone carved into a staircase pattern, were already filling with people. About three quarters were women, but there were a few older men as well. All wore red cloaks over their white dresses and belted tunics. The seating area circled half of the sand-covered arena; a flimsy wooden railing surrounded the rest. After that, there was nothing but a cliff. The whole amphitheater perched on the side of the mountain overlooking the gleaming white city several hundred meters below.
As they approached, they found the emissary waiting for them near a row of seats positioned in the center
, and about halfway up the stands where she invited them to sit. Isra sat first, followed by Althea, then Viekko. Celia continued to stand to their left, and Isabel stood in front of them. Once they were all seated, the Rainha began her presentation.
“My friends from Earth, you must know this about Cytherea. The power does not come from mines or fields. It is not in orchards or made in workshops.”
There was a sound that cut through Viekko’s lingering triple-T withdrawal and struck something deep and primal inside him. It was the footsteps of maybe fifty or sixty people with the precise, staccato rhythm of a military march.
Isabel continued as the sound got louder. “The military is the strength of Cytherea.”
As if on cue, a formation of soldiers poured onto the floor of the amphitheater, marching in lines of four. Their breastplates gleamed in the sun. They carried swords on their belts and a spear in hand and walked in perfect lockstep with not one detail out of place. No helmet was missing, no belt slightly askew, even the way they wore their cloaks slung over their left shoulder was identical to the last man. They marched onto the floor, came to a halt and turned to attention in perfect unison.
Isabel addressed the group again. “One is not born Cytherean. A Cytherean is made like steel and sharpened like a sword. Cytherean soldiers will be made today. You will watch.”
More synchronized footsteps. Another formation appeared at the side of the theater and marched in. They wore the same white tunics and belts but no cloak and no weapons. Viekko also noted with some dismay that not one looked over the age of fifteen.
“This is Provacao,” Isabel said, with more than a touch of pride. “The young will show their training today. If they can defend Cytherea, they will wear the red. They will join the citizens.”
“And if they don’t?” Althea asked with a touch of concern. If Isabel heard her, she didn’t care or acknowledge the question. She merely sat down to the left of the rest of the group with her emissary beside her.
The children lined up and stood at attention. One of the older soldiers, with an impressive red crest on his helmet, stepped front and center. He removed his helmet, and Viekko grumbled as he recognized the Captain of the Guard, Gabriel, the same guy who had been harassing him as they marched into the city. Gabriel locked eyes with Isabel and made a sharp gesture where he extended his right arm straight out to the side at about a forty-five-degree angle and then swung it back until the side of his hand touched his heart with the palm down.
Isabel stood and repeated the gesture. Once she did, Gabriel stood at attention and announced in Cytherean, “Rainha Isabel. These children of Cytherea have proven themselves worthy to undergo Provacao. They wish to don the red on this day.”
Isabel lowered her hand and announced back in a voice loud enough to echo through the amphitheater. “You have my permission. Those that be citizens of Cytherea, rest here among your people and bear witness.”
The soldiers who wore the red cloaks marched forward, mounted their spears, shields, and swords on wooden racks that stood along the side of the arena. They went back into formation and repeated the same salute as Gabriel and stood there, with their hands hovering over the space above their heart. Only when Isabel repeated the salute again, did the soldiers break ranks and walk up the stairs to sit in the stands.
That left the group of young boys and girls in loose tunics standing at attention in the center. If any of them were afraid, they didn’t show it. They looked up at the audience with pride and expectation.
Gabriel turned to the small group of young soldiers and yelled, “Graciado! Cristoavo! You are first.”
Two boys stepped forward while the others lined up along the back of the arena where only a short rail separated them from a drop off the side of the mountain.
“What’s happening?” Althea had a kind of desperation in her voice. “What are they doing?”
Maybe Althea couldn’t understand Cytherean, but there was no mistaking the way the two boys looked at each other with a kind of silent intensity, like a bomb armed and ready; pure explosive energy that only needed the right trigger. It was no wonder every man Viekko had met so far looked like a bodybuilder and no wonder why the Rainha was able to ascend the mountain with ease. Only the strongest survived in this society.
“I think they mean to fight, Althea,” said Viekko, sitting up in his seat.
The ceremony continued in the center of the amphitheater. Gabriel marched around the two boys so he could speak to them and still address the crowd.
“Do you both swear to protect Cytherea?”
“Sim!” both boys yelled back in unison.
“Will you make its security your purpose in life?”
“Sim!”
“Are you willing to fight for Cytherea?”
This time the boys’ answer filled the amphitheater and echoed off the mountain peaks. “Sim!”
And that was it. Gabriel stepped away as one of the boys, slightly taller with darker brown hair, made the first move and threw a few jabs. The other, a boy with a broader, stockier stance waited until his opponent dropped his hands and then threw a punch that made the taller boy stagger backward.
“We can’t sit here and watch this! We’ve… we’ve got to stop this!” Althea started to get up, and Viekko could only guess at what she intended to do. They were in a nest of vicious killers as far as Viekko understood it, and no amount of reasoned argument was going to do anything besides incite the kind of diplomatic incident that might end with the four of them hanging from a tree.
“Please sit down, Althea,” said Isra. Her voice and face contained no emotion whatsoever.
Althea plopped back down but leaned over Viekko to hiss, “It’s barbaric!”
Isra didn’t respond but just watched the spectacle stone-faced. Viekko had seen more emotion in a high stakes gambling hall.
“Is something wrong?” asked Isabel, sitting between Isra and Celia.
“Nothing at all,” said Isra.
Just then, Viekko sensed someone sitting down next to him and glanced over to see Gabriel’s smug, smiling face.
“I am happy you could come,” said Gabriel in Cytherean. “This moment is very important for the future of Cytherea.”
“Thank you for inviting us,” said Isra, in her best diplomatic tone.
“Yeah. Nothing like watching a couple of kids pound the baas out of each other in the name of civic duty,” said Viekko. The words, even as he spoke them, were for Althea’s benefit. To be honest, when he realized what was about to happen, he got a surge of excitement.
“What is the problem, Earth man? Does combat make you ill? Make you… uncomfortable?” said Gabriel. The tone of his voice was the verbal equivalent of prodding him with a stick.
Viekko ignored him and focused on the fight. It was getting interesting. Both boys had traded several blows as evidenced by the blood dripping from their noses and lips. Now they circled each other to steal a few precious moments to rest and look for an opening. The crowd started to react. Every time one of the boys surged forward and landed a punch, the audience cheered. They didn’t seem to have a favorite; they just applauded the act of violence itself.
Viekko leaned forward. The tension grew as the two boys circled each other in the ring, and he had to resist the urge to cheer with the crowd the next time one of them landed a punch or a kick.
“The winner becomes a citizen of Cytherea. He will feast in the Sala with the greatest of Cytherean warriors. He will receive the best the city has to offer. He will get to see the honor and glory of battle,” continued Gabriel.
The shorter, stocky kid landed an uppercut. The other kid staggered backward in a spray of blood and sweat.
“The loser gets nothing,” Gabriel continued. “He works in the fields or the mines. He wears brown robes and lives without a name. Oculto.”
The fight was pure mayhem now. A wild storm of punches and kicks that came at such speed and intensity that it seemed that neither boy would make
it out in one piece. It reminded Viekko of military life on Mars. He remembered the white-hot heat of battle, the euphoric thrill of victory and other feelings long since buried at the request of a more civilized society.
“It’s disgusting,” said Althea looking away.
The crowd cheered. The smaller boy jumped up, wrapped his arms around the back of his opponent’s neck, and pulled him forward. There was the wet, sticky sound of bone against flesh as the short, stocky fighter kneed his taller opponent in the face. Then he did it again. He continued until the area was silent except the sickening sound of someone’s face being smashed in. Then the boy let go and let his opponent crumple to the ground.
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