Paradox

by John Meaney

  They helped him to run faster.

  He could not afford to buy an infotablet, but old Narvan who ran the antique shop had a battered Laksheesh holoterminal; he rented it to Tom for only a minim per week. And lent him some of the classics, though they were all in Laksheesh.

  With a reference from Vosie, Tom was allowed to join the lending-library; for a small hall in a tiny community, its array of crystals was impressive.

  Tenth tenday: an entire hectoday had passed.

  By the time Tom had completed his fifteenth tenday in Vosie’s employment, he was running five kilometres, fast, every morning. He would stretch; do his chin-ups from the solid clothes rail in his chamber; do press-ups with hand on the floor, feet on the bed; work his abdominal crunches and leg-raises. Shower, dress. Go early to work—it was usually Tom who opened up, nowadays—and clean the café thoroughly before making breakfast for himself and Gérard.

  Vosie would eat at home: not, she assured Tom, because of his cooking.

  “You’re not the same man,” she said one morning, “who came in here half a year ago.”

  Tom stopped, mop in hand. “You took a chance, Vosie.”

  “Well.” She looked into one of the broad mirrors which ran along the café wall, and patted her short white hair into place. “Guess I did good, didn’t I?”

  “I don’t know how I . . .” Tom stopped, voice thickening.

  “You want a way to repay me, honey?”

  What could he say? Tom nodded.

  “Some day, for somebody else—help them out when they’re in need. OK?”

  “I will, Vosie.” He leaned forwards and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Good boy. Now go and help Gérard with the flans, why don’t you. Make sure he doesn’t burn them.”

  ~ * ~

  60

  NULAPEIRON AD 3417

  Restday. Leaning back on the steps, eyes closed, listening to the ripples. Children playing.

  Rippling outwards:

  Bursting onwards,

  Entropy and Destiny.

  Moving waveform

  Traces outlines

  Diabolic and divine;

  Only children

  Brave and foolish

  Cast their laughter against time . . .

  It had been such a long time since he had composed a poem.

  “Mister, mister.”

  “Hello.” He looked at them: girl and boy, maybe seven SY old. Stuffed white unicorn in the girl’s small grasp.

  “What happened to your arm, mister?”

  Glanced at his left shoulder. “Lost it. Pretty careless of me, don’t you think?”

  The little girl giggled; the boy grinned.

  “I lost Fredo”—the unicorn—”but Mummy found him for me.”

  “Oh, right.” Tom kept his face straight. “See if she can find my arm, will you?”

  “OK.”

  More giggles. Behind them, two slender adults appeared—with the similar gaits of long-married couples, hair tied back with identical bandannas—followed by more children, perhaps twenty of them.

  “Have you been bothering the gentleman, Linya?”

  Solemn shake of the head.

  “They’ve been fine, ma’am,” said Tom, and nodded a greeting to the man.

  “That’s good. Come along, children.”

  “You bastard!”

  Tom flinched and turned, but there was laughter as the two youths tussled on the ground, close to the waves. Three others watched, then one of them tried to deliver a playful jumping-kick—as Tom winced: terrible technique, a threat only to the kicker’s own ligaments—and all five of them mock-fought while Tom shook his head, smiling.

  One of them had had some lessons, and afterwards they all tried to perform a traditional form-—-awkwardly, without balance—until they got bored and wandered off.

  That evening, on the way home, Tom bought a second-hand cylindrical canvas bag—military-issue duffel, supposedly—from Narvan’s store.

  It took a few days to find sufficient rags to stuff it tightly. On the eighth day, after his morning run, he carried the bag to the shore and hung it, by one end, from the underside of the elevated footbridge which ran out to the Pavilion School.

  Alone on the smooth stone, underneath the bridge, he worked the bag: circling around, keeping his footwork mobile as he dug in with the punches, whipped the curved elbow-strikes, threw kick after spinning kick into the thing—counting in his head: two-hundred-second rounds with forty-second rest intervals—over and over until he could barely stand.

  “Izvinitye…” Gaunt woman standing in the doorway.

  “We’re not—” Tom paused, mop in hand.

  Two thin children were behind her.

  Blinking, he gestured them inside, made them sit. Digging a cred-sliver from his waistband, he inserted it in the socket behind the counter; then he fetched rolls and fruit from the kitchen and put them down before the starving trio.

  “Waifs and strays?” Vosie, her big form almost filling the doorway.

  Tom shrugged.

  “Good man,” said Vosie. “But I’m afraid they’re not the last we’ll see.”

  News of distant events was slow to arrive, but Tom had heard the rumours. Far upstratum, fighting and chaos. Vosie might be right: if trouble was on all sides, where could refugees go but downwards?

  Was it the Prime Strike? Or had plans changed since Tom’s time?

  Behind Vosie, two others: Tom recognized the bandannas.

  “We heard”—the woman spoke hurriedly—”that they were here, and only spoke Laksheesh. Are they all—?”

  “Sprazitne mir Laksheesh” said Tom, and smiled at the startled family at the table. “But we haven’t needed it so far.”

  A grin widened across Vosie’s broad face. “Tom? Do you know Rislana and Trilvun, the school principals?”

  “Only by sight.”

  They shook hands all round, then reassured the nervous woman with her children, and sat down to draw up plans for their welfare.

  “Hee-ya!”

  Tom spoke without thinking: “Keep your back straight. Twist your hips.”

  The youths—there were seven of them this time—stared at Tom. One of them, who had been carrying a small pebble in his hand, turned and threw it out across the waves; it vanished with a small splash.

  “So what do you know about it, mate?”

  “This.”

  Tom was standing side-on to the youth. Murderously fast, his leg whipped out: hooked over the boy’s head, flicked back—instep against temple—hooked heel against the other temple—then lightly tapped the blade-edge of his foot against kneecap, hip and—as the boy involuntarily stepped back—stopped his foot just millimetres from the boy’s throat.

  Stunned silence.

  Then, “Bleedin’ Dissolution!”

  The youths looked at Tom as he lowered his leg.

  “Er, mister, could you teach us how to do that?”

  “See you tomorrow night, Tom!” “Yeah, we’ll be here.” “Tomorrow!” “Thanks, Tom!”

  Tom called after them: “Don’t be late.”

  And turned away, grinning, to find the school principals, Rislana and Trilvun, looking at him.

  “So,” said Trilvun. “Fighter and linguist.”

  “Teacher, too,” his wife said.

  “I—” Tom shrugged. “I guess so.” Looking back at the seven youths in the distance. “Guess I’ve got a commitment now.”

  “And they’ll bring more of their friends tomorrow.” Trilvun looked to Rislana for confirmation and she nodded.

  “How many languages do you speak, Tom?”

  A pause, then, “Seven fluently. Some smatterings.”

  Indrawn breath, but the couple did not look greatly surprised. “Anything else?”

  “Logosophy ...” Tom looked out across the sea, at the reflected ripples on the cavern ceiling. “All disciplines.”

  “Er ...” Exchanged glances. Rislana said: “Only Lords
study every branch of logosophy.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  Tom let the silence stand.

  He watched as the couple communicated in the near-telepathy of long-term partners. Then they looked at him.

  “Did you know,” asked Rislana, “that Niltiva”—she meant the refugee woman—”used to be a cook?”

  “Ah, no.”

  “Thing is,” said Trilvun, “she needs a job, and Vosie’s place would be ideal ...”

  “. . . and it’s really time,” Rislana finished for him, “that you moved on, Tom.”

  “I don’t ...”

  The ground seemed to shift beneath Tom’s feet.

  “So you’re starting with us tomorrow.” Rislana.

  “In at the deep end.” Trilvun, grinning. “You’ll be teaching the seven-year-olds. Poor you.”

  “I . . .”

  “The phrase you’re looking for,” said Rislana, “is thank you.”

  Tom swallowed. “Thank you.”

  ~ * ~

  61

  NULAPEIRON AD 3417-3418

  And he loved it.

  Teaching. Academic classes during the day—the youngest children at first, then the older ones, with a chance to extend the curricula—and the physical arts in the evenings. At first only the boys learned to fight, then some girls—fascinated by Tom’s regained lean good looks, giggling when they had to practise with the boys.

  After a while, though, some of the girls took to the art for its own sake; soon groin-protectors as well as gum-shields were mandatory for the males.

  Four times, Tom refused principalship of the Pavilion School when Rislana and Trilvun tried to step down in his favour.

  But he kept reworking the curriculum: another three years, and he would have all the foundations in place. The eleven-year-olds who started on his accelerated programme at that time would eventually, aged eighteen, leave with an education equal to any Lord or Lady of the Primum Stratum.

  A decade until the first of those students graduated. Tom looked forward to the day.

  Only one year after Tom’s arrival, though, his morning class was interrupted by a breathless student skidding to a halt in the room’s archway.

  “Sir, sir—”

  “What is it, Filgrave?”

  “It’s . . .” Catching his breath. “Soldiers, sir. Down at the waterfront.”

  “Show me.”

  Outside Vosie’s, the four soldiers were mirror-visored and heavily armed, guarding the doorway. They made no attempt to stop Tom as he strode inside.

  “Are you OK, Vosie?”

  “I’m all right.” She nodded, clutching her white apron.

  At one of the tables, near the back, an officer was sitting. There was a glass of warm daistral in front of him, and his helmet was beside him on the bench-seat.

  “I’m a local schoolmaster,” Tom said to him. “May I ask what’s going on?”

  “A magister, eh?” Raised eyebrows, then a gestured invitation. “Please sit down.”

  Tom slid in, facing the officer across the table.

  “I’m Colonel Rashidorn,” the man added. “And I have to say, I’ve heard good things about you. The Pavilion School, that is.”

  Tom grew cold. “What about the school?”

  “That its reputation has grown somewhat . . . unusual. Excellent, of course.” The colonel sipped from his daistral. “So much so that bright children are now being sent down to attend it, from two strata above.”

  “We try our best.” Tom kept his voice neutral, watching the man’s face, but his mind was racing: plotting ways out of the trap.

  My fault, yet again . . .

  The colonel moved and Tom’s nerves screamed. Sweat broke out but he was only taking something from his pocket, that was all.

  “And your best is impressive.” If Rashidorn had noticed Tom’s reaction, he gave no sign.

  But Tom noted: there had been no blossoming of red dots across his vision. He had suspected it from his training sessions, but this was proof. His tacware was gone, disintegrated in the abuse of his two lost years.

  “As is the breadth of subjects,” added Colonel Rashidorn. “Including disciplines one would hardly expect to find this far down.”

  Clenched fist.

  “This is for you. A token.”

  Tom made no move, so Colonel Rashidorn opened his hand and laid the thing on the table between them.

  “Do you know where the Community Hall is, Mr Corcorigan?”

  Lord Corcorigan, to you.

  But, “Of course,” was all Tom said. “I live here, after all.”

  “The general will see you there tomorrow morning, at oh-eight-hundred.”

  Which general? Tom could have asked, but said nothing as Colonel Rashidorn stood.

  Then the colonel left, passing through the doorway, and his soldiers fell in step behind him. Their diminishing bootsteps echoed back from the boulevard outside.

  “Tom?” Vosie, fearfully.

  But the thing on the tabletop was a small stallion attached to a black cord, and there was only one person both subtle and knowledgeable enough to have sent that as a token.

  You found me.

  ~ * ~

  62

  TERRA AD 2142

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  [14]

  Epilogue

  They attacked from all directions.

  The backdrop: icy Alps, grey and blue, capped with breathtaking whiteness. Clean, crisp air. A panoramic window displayed the view.

  But in the blue-matted dojo, bodies were flying.

  From every conceivable angle, they made their unrehearsed attacks: fit-looking white-jacketed men and women charging with strikes and kicks and attempted grabs, but they crashed into each other, were dropped in their steps or flung suddenly through the air.

  At the centre of the maelstrom, the slender woman moved.

  Her attackers tried again, but once more the bodies became entangled as she danced among them, long, grey hair flying, and the sunlight glinted from the silver sockets where her eyes should have been.

  And then it was over.

  “Mokosu,” she ordered, as they knelt in straight ranks, and the class slipped into meditation.

  As the trainees limped to the showers, their faces were drawn and bloodless. No-one spoke. There were twenty-one of them in total; after showering, they put on white UNSA jumpsuits and, bone-tired, made their way outside to the waiting silver bus.

  “What a hard-ass!” said a young woman.

  “Kicked the shit out of me.” A big, wide-shouldered man with buzz-cut hair. “Jesus Christ! And she’s so small.”

  Footsteps crunched on the gravel.

  “Be thankful”—it was a black-jumpsuited nun who spoke, and the trainees stiffened—’that you have her as your teacher.”

  Behind her, a small boy waited silently. The UNSA trainees looked uncomfortable.

  “Sorry, Sister,” said the big man.

  “Probably no-one’s told you, but Karyn’s classes have the highest pass rates of all Pilot Candidates.”

  The trainees exchanged glances; this was news to them.

  “Can we watch Ro play now?” The little boy’s upturned face was eager. “Please, Sister?”

  “In a moment. The thing is”—a half-smile—”getting your asses kicked by a little blind grey-haired woman is the good Lord’s way of encouraging some humility. God bless you.” Then she took the little boy’s hand and led him inside the building.

  “See?” breathed one of the men. “Hard-asses. Every last one of them.”

  In single file, they trooped aboard the UNSA bus and headed back towards the Flight School.

  Wooden dagger, gleaming.

  The girl attacked.

  Effortlessly, the grey-haired woman moved, blended, pinned the girl’s arm to the ground. Then they regained their start positions, kneeling, facing each other.