Aurorarama (2 page)

What puzzled him most was that the sled seemed to have come straight from the North. And he knew that north of here there was nothing, and maybe not even that.

Book One

Qarrtsiluni

S
trange as it seemed, Brentford Orsini had never been to Frobisher Fortress, and on the whole, especially now that he was freezing himself at the back of the speeding, shaking Dorset Dragoons’ aerosled that had been sent, with a chauffeur, to fetch him, he felt he could have got through his life without ever going there.

The fortress was located some miles away from New Venice, as both Administration and Council had—untypically—agreed on the idea that the fewer soldiers you have hanging around in the city the less trouble you are going to have to deal with. The antics of the Navy Cadets (among whom Brentford had done
his own service in some glittering, flickering past) surely enlivened many drab New Venice evenings, but the authorities did not deem it desirable to have more of the same. Brentford, on that grey, windy morning, almost regretted it, or, more exactly, he regretted that he had insisted on the meeting taking place so far away.

The silvery aerosled was noisily scraping west, following a track of snow-covered permafrost, which under the present cheerless light would have been dull unto death, except for the moving panorama it unfurled roaringly on each side of Brentford.

On his left, on the first slopes that led to the mainland mountains and glaciers, the “whirly woods” of the purring city wind vanes soothed him as he was propelled past their ever changing perspectives: they seemed to him like winged creatures of angelical nature waving semaphores of protection and peace.

But, if he turned his eyes to the right, toward the frozen ocean and the bristly white outlines of New Venice itself, he could still see the mysterious black airship that had been hanging over the city for a week or so like a dark cloud brooding and threatening to burst: it looked as if New Venice was in a bad mood, which, indeed, could well be said to be the case.

The fortress, he saw as he approached, barely deserved its name. There was a little fort at one end, but the place mostly consisted of rows of wooden barracks, each one decorated with the coat of arms of the units they housed. Brentford knew and recognized the insignia of the Northern Light Brigade (Dorset Dragoons, Lancaster Lancers, and Sirius Scout Squadron), the Sea and Land Battalion (the famous Sea Lions), the Ellesmere Engineers’ Construction Corps, the Alert Armoured and Anti-Aircraft Artillery, the Boreal Weather Warfare Battery, and, in its own Tesla tower, the Tactical Transmission Team. From what he knew, the whole amounted to a force of a mere two
thousand men, but it had been sufficient so far. The best defence of the city was its Arctic location, a challenge no invaders had so far chosen to take up.

Though the weather was rather chilly and wet, soldiers in fur-lined trapper hats, mittens, and kamiks were loitering in front of the barracks, playing curling or some rather clumsy soccer, with an air of relaxed resignation to the well-known drabness of the soldiering life. Brentford remembered with somewhat exaggerated nostalgia the time of his own military service, when life had seemed more romantic, full of fancy uniforms, dazzling waltzes, and half-serious duels fought with serious hangovers. Things were now less fanciful, and probably better adjusted to the time and place, however uncertain those notions could be in North Wasteland.

The aerosled swerved toward the fort, and Brentford could now perceive the hangars—where two immense Van der Graaff generators were being serviced—as well as the building site of his own brainchild, the new greenhouse, which would ensure the autonomy of the fortress in terms of food supply. On the whole, the Frobisher Fortress added to the sobriety of its military purpose the stripped-bare severity of an Arctic base, and Brentford really hoped that he would be back before nightfall in his safe, warm hothouse of a house.

The vehicle stopped at the entrance to the fort and a nauseated Brentford, the propeller still whirring in his head, was led by a sentinel to the Headquarters House. Captain-General Frank Mason, Brentford was informed, was waiting for him in his office.

The first time he had met with Mason over this greenhouse business, Brentford had felt something uncanny, as if the officer were a slightly older mirror image of himself—a possible Brentford Orsini who so far had not been allowed to happen, in spite of the prophecy, which he had heard in his youth from the
mouth of an old fortune-teller, that he would spend or end his life among men in uniforms. (“I suppose she spoke of nuthouse wardens,” as his friend Gabriel d’Allier always said, in a joke that had become rather tired.)

This apparent kinship went beyond their common tall frame, short-trimmed hair, and small, silver-sprinkled sideburns, even beyond a similar decency of demeanour that could sometimes border on a defiant stiffness. It was more the moral meaning of these hieroglyphs that Brentford could relate to: Mason was dutiful, determined, dependable, sound without being sententious, brave without being a daredevil, had a sense of honour without any vanity, and could even convincingly convey the impression that he found some civilians worthy interlocutors. He was, in many ways, the epitome of that bizarre, ill-understood breed of the human species usually known as “soldiers.”

But if he was careful never to let the warrior out of the bag in public meetings, Mason also revealed some deep-seated traits that Brentford found a little harder to cope with. The officer had at times, in his sun-dried, cold-bitten, weather-beaten face, the stare of a man who had been once or twice splattered with the brains of a best friend, or who had himself plunged a few inches of solid steel in a total stranger’s throat. If he was polite enough to make one believe that he thought his job was the “dirty” kind that “someone had to do,” one could feel that that he was prepared to do it to the bitter end. Probably, his conscience would draw the line somewhere, but Brentford was not too curious to know where that would be. And he could presume that, were he to become the enemy, Mason’s way of showing his respect would be to leave him no second chance.

So far, there had been no cause for alarm. Though officially taking orders from the Council of Seven, Mason had been clever enough not to meddle in the ongoing internal strife that pitted the Council against the Arctic Administration, to which
Brentford belonged. In a sense, the captain-general relished the isolation of Frobisher Fortress, and would rather be among his men than playing at “poletics.”

Impeccably attired as usual in his grey and light blue battle-dress uniform, he welcomed Brentford in a courteous yet business-like way, thanking him for the wedding invitation and congratulating him on the happy event.

“I hope you will be able to make it to the banquet,” said Brentford, sitting down.

“I hope so, believe me,” answered Mason, with a noncommittal bow.

Brentford actually did not care that much if he came or not and had no intention, no more than Mason had, of discussing his oncoming wedding. He was, for one thing, unsure of how the bride came across socially and did not especially wish to dwell on the matter.

“The Inuit delegation has not yet arrived?” he asked instead, though he knew what the answer would be.

“I do not know if the notion of being on time has any meaning for them,” said Mason, wincing, as if he had not sent an aerosled to pick them up from Flagler Fjord and bring them back to the fortress. Brentford pretended he had not heard this typical remark and quickly changed the subject again.

“I see the Greenhouse is well on its way.”

“We’ll be ready for the spring, don’t worry,” Mason assured him, almost dismissively. Brentford’s plan settled the question of the food supply without involving any road to watch over and protect, but Mason had yet to develop an interest in discussing the positive effects of Pleasanton Blue glass on tomato plants. Looking out the window, his hands clenched behind his back, he clearly signalled that he had other food for thoughts. Since the big black airship had been looming there, all New Venetian attempts at communicating, or at simply gathering information,
had proved unfruitful. Seen from any kind of field glasses or observation balloon, it remained opaque and mute, a suspended meteorite that always seemed about to fall.