Armwrestling the Dead

by Andrew McEwan

to seem younger, more annoyingly youthful. A cousin of Cleo’s, he strode the stone corridors with an exaggerated gait, arms flapping and chin turning, privately criticizing the paintings, tapestries, drapes. ‘The trouble with antiques,’ he often said (or words thereof), ‘is there outmoded context, their stubborn adhesion to an irrelevant frame of reference.’

  The governor took this to mean himself.

  The past was dead, Lydon insisted, its relics an unending epitaph.

  ‘Drink, Markus?’

  The man laughed. ‘Yes!’

  ‘How was your trip?’

  ‘Dull. Space is always dull. You know that.’

  Irving poured. The sat in the buttery either side of a wooden table, Lydon shifting on his bench.

  ‘I got here early,’ the plutocrat said, ‘in the hope of making you see sense.’

  ‘Sense, Markus?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Right. Exhausting the supply. Greed, Markus. Whether water or wine, you always want too much. You’d bleed the planet dry. It needs a chance to recuperate. Or that’s it, finished.’

  Lydon produced a knife and began carving his initials in the table. ‘Balls,’ he said. ‘You’re using that as an excuse for keeping prices high.

  You could easily double production with your present setup. Quadruple it even. But you won’t. And you’re joint owner; fifty-fifty.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ For the first time Courtney felt threatened. The argument was old, something of a ritual up until this point; steered toward the rocks, a ship of amity that had many historical leaks, but none he believed serious enough to sink it.

  ‘Cleo, she owns the remainder of the stock.’ The blade stuck in the wood. ‘How can you be sure she doesn’t think differently, Irving? Maybe she’d like to sell.’

  He got to his feet. The crunch had come. All hands to the pumps...

  And no accident.

  i

  The face appeared uncertain, as if searching for itself, its true identity amid the bustle of inchoate features. A nose formed and then a mouth, boned and fleshed, slopes of cheek and forehead, ears, chin, teeth. The hint of a smile, hair flowing and dark, the eyes last, shut.

  We are the company, he remembered thinking, its many incarnations, corporations, trusts.

  The face reminded him of Manda Heluski; illusive Heluski, her cool and tranquil beauty. She was his neighbour, on Jupiter, a famous recluse.

  They had been close once. The image, her image, seemed to bring the face to life.

  ii

  The orange sweated juice, huge factory bubbles packaging an array of elements from rare lanthanides to commonplace hydrogen. Irving had always contested that to boost production exponentially would lead to instability within the vast ball of gas. You could only remove so many hairs from a sleeping bear’s back. You proceeded with care. More than care, respect.

  Lydon failed to understand.

  The others? This banquet was one of the few occasions when all would be present, to argue and debate. All save Manda...

  All, he prefigured, against him.

  But Cleo?

  His powerful spouse.

  iii

  Preparations were well under way in the spacious kitchen, a succession of cooks overseeing copper bowls and pans, sauces and creams blended side by side, ovens scorched, meats and pastries palmed and buffed, cutlery polished, silver waxed to a shine, fish and fowl packed and steamed, vegetables cut, diced and poised for immersion. The smell was glorious, the butler scrutinizing his thin reflection in an eight-stemmed candelabrum. Russo was his name, imagining his moustache to look out of place, another’s less than convincing lip-shadow.

  It had been Gloria’s idea he grow it. Gloria the giggling housemaid.

  Something moved in his mind. Nudged him.

  iv

  He discussed futures in his dream.

  Was sympathetic.

  Her eyes had opened at last, stunning him.

  He held his breath.

  Seeing...

  ‘Me, Irving? Me? You’re the one who’s been acting strange of late, and you’re asking me if I have a problem?’

  ‘Well, do you?’

  ‘This really isn’t the time. I have business to attend to. We have guests.’

  He blocked her path to the door.

  Cleo scowled. ‘Let me past.’

  He absorbed her countenance, seeing another floating behind, the projected features of her betrayal.

  ‘Irving, don’t be childish.’

  ‘Have you had talks with Lydon? Just answer me that.’

  She hesitated, then, ‘Of course; we’re cousins. We share a number of interests.

  ‘And blood is thicker than water.’

  She struck him. Proof enough.

  v

  The eyes spoke volumes, rich seams of dialogue, bright coral passages and illuminated margins, words like footprints on a deserted beach. Flickering, bejewelled memories, the tide to swallow, wiping, washing away, a forgotten history of a forgotten race. A civilization that had ridden astride stars reduced to begging favours from a species resolved to conquer all life, as if that were learning, a favour bestowed rather than asked.

  He did not know what to make of any request. Assistance? Help? Today and tomorrow, to carry the fight - back home, the unselfish company exec.

  He sat in the library with Imar Madruk. Portly Imar, a gloss to his chin, brow and neck.

  ‘When was the last time you visited Earth?’ he inquired of the governor.

  Irving shrugged. ‘Six, eight months.’

  ‘That’s a long time.’

  ‘I keep in touch.’

  Imar crossed his legs. ‘Do you? In person or through your brokers? Irving, do you even know the shit you’re in?’

  He smiled. ‘I keep in touch.’

  ‘So you say. But events move fast. I consider myself your friend, so I can tell you this. There are those who pay close attention, who study every detail, no matter how seemingly insignificant. Not only to Earth, either, but to Saturn and yourself. They study you. They watch you minutely, Irving, not just the globe beneath your feet. They observe. And you know what they see? A weakening, an unwillingness on your part to pursue the advantage, a gradual blunting of the edge. You were a driving force, a potent adversary, a man to be wary of. At one time; but not any more.’

  He was silent, contemplative. His mind filled with her face. His body given to her will.

  Madruk exhaled nosily. ‘The pot is close to boiling, eh? You see that. You must. The company, like a snake, is making ready to slough its skin, to take on a new girth, with a commensurate increase in appetite. Lydon for one, is bored. Never satisfied, Lydon and his clique search among the grist of stars for a world of honey and white bread. And now, perhaps, they’ve found it.’

  He got up and left.

  vi

  It surprised him how things could come together, how apparent disorder could manifest a string of daisies, a line of poetry, a sunset. He stood on Tunstal’s gallery overlooking the courtyard, watching the arrival of Fenmore and Potter, first names David and Anna-Louise, their combined retinues filing in under the ancient gatehouse.

  Irving decided not to greet them. Let Cleo explain his absence. He took the steps down to the adjoining chapel, paused briefly in its cool space, then continued via a covered walkway to the keep.

  She was waiting in the shadows, a young woman inspecting the cracked porcelain face of an old clock.

  She greeted him with a nod.

  vii

  And here was Heluski, seemingly not out of place, unexpectantly filling her seat with flesh.

  Sat round a table in the Great Hall, minstrels playing and dishes parading through the servery doors, wives and entourages, a husband, several concubines of indiscriminate sex, two leopards and a blue orang-utan safely out of the picture, they got down to business.

  ‘Why,’
said Markus Lydon, ‘are you standing in our way?’

  ‘Is that what you think?’ Courtney defended, peeling his eyes off Manda Heluski.

  She examined her food: smoked kippers.

  ‘You’ve no vision, Irving. You’re out of date.’

  A delicacy.

  Had she smiled then? he thought. What did she know?

  ‘We took a vote earlier,’ Lydon added, indicating his co-conspirators hovering over and deep within their platters, ladling soup from passing tureens and arranging strips of cabbage, ‘and it was unanimous.’

  Courtney absorbed the familiar faces. Not all appeared to be paying attention.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, distracted.

  ‘Damn you, Irving! Listen - we’re stripping you and your family of all powers; your heirs will be without title. We’re replacing you as governor and seizing, with immediate effect, all your assets. We...’

  ‘There’s a little moon we’ve set aside for you, dear,’ Anna-Louise Potter interjected. ‘There are palm trees and a gazebo. Marshall tells me the sunsets are wonderful.’

  Marshall Kay nodded and poured wine from a pitcher. ‘Good beef,’ he stated.

  ‘You still have your contacts.’

  Irving acknowledged him.

  Markus was furious.

  Seymour Niaan breathed on a spoon and hung it on his nose.

  Markus started to get up but Imar Madruk restrained him.

  David Fenmore stood instead. ‘Irving, you understand this is nothing personal, but as defacto head of the company you’re a lame duck. It was only a matter of time before new and affordable sources of wealth were discovered, and on a planet that is positively benign. You do not possess a monopoly on these elements. The galaxy holds many storehouses. And now a great treasure has been uncovered.’

  A poisoned chalice, he