Expatria: The Box Set (36 page)

CHAPTER 12

She cut her blood pressure by forty over ten, dropped her pulse by twenty, held her breathing steady. She looked around, straightened her shoulders, checked the map that the MetaPlex had fed into her templar implants during the shuttle trip. They were less than a kilometre from Newest Delhi. Once round the next bend she would almost certainly see some sign of the city.

Katya looked ahead to where Director Roux had locked his autonomic floater into place at the front of the platform; he was turned to one side, in conversation with Prime Edward Olfarssen-Hanrahan and his mother, Natalia. Next to them, Petra was attempting conversation with the tattooed monk. One of the nuns was listening intently to both conversations but contributing nothing to either. The tensions between these barbarians were, as yet, unfathomable. The variety of physical forms was staggering to Katya; how did they even organise without the genetic stratification of zygotes? How could they ever know what to expect from a person?

Sugratski and Cora stood together behind the autonome, watching the people around them. A small man, apparently intoxicated, kept tugging at Cora's arm and saying things to her but all she could do was smile and give the universal shrug. 'I can't register your accent,' she kept saying, helpless against the rapid slur of the man's syllables. Katya knew his face: the MetaPlex had learnt of him through the orbital colonies' computer system. His name was Chet Alpha; he was the founder of a new religion, he was the Prophet for his Holy Charities; when he died he would probably become a saint. Katya dismissed him. He was a drunk, no more.

There were others she did not recognise. There was a man with a thin black tie around his neck, who looked as if he didn't really want to be there. There was a short woman with mid-brown skin and long blue-black hair that made her look like a Corinthian prayer wife; she was hanging on to Mathias Hanrahan, the Prime's brother. Katya looked at him, caught his eye and held it; he met the blank grey of her mask with a nonchalance she hadn't expected. He had black locks of hair heaped up on his head, he had wide eyes like Turkut, he had the kind of magnetism that directors would stake their life-capital on if it could be bought through gene-therapy. She moved her head first, breaking the contact.

Next to Mathias was the old oriental, Kasimir Sukui, in his skull-cap and gowns. He looked thin and tired, but there was a wiriness to his body, a resilience to his movements, that made Katya correct her initial judgement as she fed it into templar memory.

Standing next to Katya, pressing against her right arm, was an Asiatic woman. Her hair was knotted up in a waxed silk scarf, her face was round and engraved with deep lines, her eyes so deeply slit and folded that the pupils barely showed. She wore long tight skirtings, wound spirally up to lose themselves beneath her heavily quilted jacket. She was mumbling incomprehensibly and she kept kissing one of the small wooden crucifixes which hung from her jacket.

'My name is RoKatya Tatin,' she said to the woman. 'I am on active duty with the Roman band of the Holy Corporation of GenGen. Your acquaintance is noted.' She tipped her head, partly humbling herself before the woman.

The woman squinted at her. The moment extended itself and Katya observed with curiosity. And then the woman tipped her head back and gave the most blood-curdling wail Katya had ever heard. It started as a moan, dragged itself up the scale, cranking up volume as it ascended, reaching its heights, stretching itself, subsiding.

Katya took a deep breath as she guided her bodily indicators back down to manageable levels.
Expect the unexpected
, she reminded herself. She was in an alien world; these were an alien, ungodly people.

The woman's head plopped forwards again and she wiped a trail of saliva away from the corner of her mouth.

'Control of the body is control of the mind,' Katya muttered to herself, allowing the Maxim to finish the job of restoring calmness to her spirit.

'There is a degree of truth in what you say,' said Kasimir Sukui, moving back to join Katya and the woman. 'Self-control is an admirable quality.'

He stopped and nodded his greeting to the woman; then he turned to face Katya. 'It is an honour to you,' he said. 'The wailing momma gives you the Cry of the Hellbound to remind you of the tortures that await the sinner on his or her journey through the eight great hells of the almighty. They are sincere.' He bowed his head briefly and said, 'My name is Sukui-san, principal scientific adviser to Prime Salvo Andric of Alabama City. We live, as young Mathias continually reminds us, in interesting times.'

Katya nodded and looked around at the trees, the road, searching for any sign of danger. Behind them, the ranks of evangelicals took up a beat psalm, their leaders counting time and echoing the refrains.

'This is,' said Sukui, 'an effective vehicle. Terran technology must be full of such wonders.'

He was transparently fishing for information. Katya bowed her head. 'The platform is kept afloat by bank upon bank of fine air-jet ground effect units,' she said. 'They enliven the air-cushion beneath with their energy, they set the air molecules humming; a gaseous manifestation we call the Saint Segré's Dance.'

Round the next bend Katya saw the city spread out before her. The trees parted as if they were holo-cast scenery being separated by their animator and there it was, Newest Delhi, perhaps the largest settlement on Expatria. Its population could be as high as thirty or forty thousand, if ArcNet's information was reliable.

They were high up above the city as they approached it on the transport platform. It looked too big, it had spread outwards as it had grown, not up and down, like the cities she knew in Eurecon. They had too much space on Expatria; it was a criminal waste.

Beyond Newest Delhi there was the sea, the land extending itself out into a promontory north of the city. The visibility was remarkable, with the sky as cloudy as it was; the only haze was kilometres out, blurring the junction between sea and sky. It looked unnatural, the clarity of the view.

Katya looked back to the banks of trees on either side of the road, her mind nagging away at her, keeping her vigilance up. It was all too easy, she thought. Far too easy.

~

They passed through a rickety wooden barricade and then Katya saw, close up, the first buildings of Newest Delhi. They were little more than huts, their walls made from rough planks of timber, their roofs from thick leathery leaves. People stared from their doorways and Katya wondered what they must think, how many of them understood what they were seeing.

Soon, there were people rushing out from the buildings, thronging the edges of the streets, chattering and calling and throwing paper lotus flowers into the air.

Buildings rose up on either side, now two storey, now three. There were trees, too. Trees in a city! They passed a tall building with a cross strung above its entrance, the figure of a woman carved onto it out of the same piece of wood. Katya noted that the nun crossed herself, discreetly turning away from Prime Edward as she did so.

As the platform moved deeper into the city, the crowds steadily increased. Ahead of them as they went, Katya could hear cries being raised, street-callers alerting people to the news, mommas wailing about the discomforts of the hells, children screaming for the fun of it.

The buildings grew more solid, this far into the city. They were cast of stone and hardened clay, they had tiny glazed windows and larger ones with shutters, they had slates or overlapping wooden panels on their roofs, chimneys too. Thousands of tiny triangular pennants flew from the windows and chimneys, larger flags hung from poles and trees; they bore inscriptions, stylised drawings of lotus flowers and crucifixes and smily faces.

'They've hang the prayer flags for you, Miz,' said the wailing momma in a garbled voice, speaking for the first time. Katya had almost decided that she must save herself exclusively for the Cry of the Hellbound. 'They're burning
om
sticks, too. Can you smell 'em, huh, can you?'

Katya shrugged and pointing to her breather unit, said, 'My air is purified.' The old woman looked away and then suddenly gave her cry again, letting the world know that history was here and a wailing momma was a part of it.

They emerged on a wide square and before them was the largest building of all, its architecture modestly understated, leaving only its scale to express its import. They reached some tall gates, cast out of a black metal, and there they paused.

The atmosphere had changed as soon as the building appeared before them. Now, Prime Edward stood by the director, holding himself as tall as he could. This must be his palace, yet the guards seemed unsure about whether or not they should open the gates. Katya remembered the talk of conflict in Newest Delhi but there had been no sign of this in the rest of the city.

In response to a quick hand signal from Petra the evangelicals fanned out from behind the transport platform. The guards grew noticeably more agitated but still the gates remained shut.

'Open the gates for your Prime,' said Edward, controlling the tones of his voice, making it carry, making it boom off the walls of his palace and come bouncing back in a faint echo.

Then the nun gave a brief nod of her head and the gates were opened. The tensions between Edward and the nun and others on the platform cast the air into a gelid thickness. It recalled Katya's own edginess, left her confused for a moment between sim and reality. She gave herself a templar prompt and mumbled a Maxim, renewing her vigilance in one big surge.

As the platform floated in through the gates Katya squinted all around, ready for ambush, ready for any sign of danger.

They drifted onwards, now surrounded by a cordon of nuns, armed with pointed sticks and rifles. Some of the nuns were men, but they all had the same grim expression, the same hostile jizz overlaying their phenos.

Some of the evangelicals had peeled off in the city, the Ephesians, the Thessalonians; this entire population had never heard the gospel of Corporate Universalism, had never known redemption, had never seen the name of the Church of the Latter Day Industrialist. There were souls to be saved, belief to be fostered. The rest of the evangelicals—the Romans, the Corinthians—closed in around the transport platform, ready for anything.

They stopped at the foot of a wide sweep of stairs, flanked on either side by pillars. 'Please,' said the nun who had come with them from the landing site. 'Wait here.' She jumped down from the platform with unexpected agility and strode across to speak with two others.

Katya turned to Sukui. 'Please,' she said, careful to space her words so that he would understand. 'Is there an explanation?' She flicked her head towards the nuns, the palace, the wary evangelicals. 'Or is it merely a formality?'

Sukui dipped his head. 'There has been some... political intrigue,' he said. 'The Sisters of the Convent wished to increase their influence over the management of the state. Your arrival appears to have altered their plans. You must excuse me: I am merely a guest, I may be ignorant of the complexities of the situation. Ah! The Matre approaches, maybe we shall learn what is to happen.' He steepled his hands in front of his chest and said no more.

Katya watched as the Matre stopped before the transport and said, 'Please, my Sisters welcome your return, my lord.' She bowed generously to Prime Edward, then turned to Director Roux. 'We look forward to hearing you, facilities have been prepared.'

Edward stepped down from the platform, followed by the director in his autonome. Katya climbed down, keeping her eyes on the Conventist Guards that still surrounded them. She reached up to help the wailing momma to the ground, but still she monitored the guards.

Edward appeared flustered, looking around at the lines of Conventists. At the top of the steps he halted and turned to the director, hovering politely by his side. 'Director Roux,' he said. 'Welcome to my home.'

The director's trif gave a twitch of a smile and the floater dipped. 'I think we should talk,' it said.

The small procession entered the palace. Katya was the last to enter, scanning the guards, searching for any signs of deviance, any threat, any challenge.

~

'As you are aware, my name is Director Roux.'

The room was decadently large. Pillars lined the two opposing long walls, a row of archways was at one end, a raised floor with seating and tables at the other.

Light angled in from high windows with coloured glass, burning torches flickered from cavities in the walls, staining the air with tinted smoke that made Katya feel grateful for her breather. Sukui had told her that the place was called August Hall, after an earlier Prime, the grandfather of Mathias and Edward.

They sat in solid wooden seats, with backs higher than the sitters' heads. Director Roux settled by the seated Petra, across a low table from Prime Edward and Natalia, Mathias and the black-haired Mono and Sukui-san; in an arc to one side was the Matre of the Convent, Maye Cyclades, along with Kardinal Mondata and Chet Alpha, an adviser called Sala Pedralis, the Mason they called Daniel, the wailing momma called Sunset. Some of the evangelicals had filed in to occupy the main part of the hall, matched by an equal number of Expatrian guards.

Katya sat with Cora and Sugratski, not liking the way the back-rest of her chair limited peripheral vision.

'You have told me your names.' The director spoke carefully, adding an Expatrian lilt to his voice so that what he said was clear to both sides. 'I would be grateful if you would explain to me your roles so that I may know who to address.'

Edward leaned forward. 'I am Prime of Newest Delhi,' he said. It was as if there were electric currents, magnetic forces, bolts of disc lightning, coursing through the air, the words merely a prop to his real message. He was not talking to the director, he was talking to the Expatrians. Katya watched, listened, fixed it in her memory. 'And these—' he waved a hand '—are my subjects. It is a simple matter.'

Katya studied their faces intently, ranging through infrared to ultraviolet. There were no signs of surgical manipulation on any of them; it appeared that levels of technology were as low as ArcNet had led them to expect.