Expatria: The Box Set (40 page)

CHAPTER 16

Katya Tatin sat with her back to a great off-white crag and looked out across the sea. She wished she was alone, but instead she was accompanied by two Roman evangelicals. They were armed with snipes and the native bully-sticks. Things were a lot calmer now—a number of Black-Handers had been rounded up on the streets of Newest Delhi, the attacker's accomplices had been identified and imprisoned—but it would still be irresponsible for an active to expose herself alone.

She took a deep breath and held it, savouring the alien scents: the blend of sweetness and an acrid, vegetable tang which she was still to identify.

It was good to be free of the mask. Cora had wanted the actives to maintain their barrier defences; she pointed to the comatose form of Kasimir Sukui to support her case. 'It works either way,' she had said. 'We could be just as susceptible to Expatrian pathogens as he is to ours.'

But Katya had a guilty secret, one her eidetic memory would not let her forget. Katya had already removed her mask, exposed herself to the air of Expatria.

Mika Pakram, just down with the third wave of landings, had stepped in before Katya could confess. 'Cora, that's not true,' she said. 'You may be chief medico but we all know our immu-types are far superior to anything native. The evangelicals are already exposing themselves and all they've had is a few allergies.' That had settled the matter and they had removed their masks immediately; so far, no active had fallen ill.

Now Katya made her heart beat faster. She was feeling lazy and she knew that was a sin. 'The wages of sin are death.' The Maxim was on her lips before she knew it; it was her least favourite of the Holy Roman Sound-Bites, it scared her.

She forced her eyes to close, stilled her mind with a brief prayer to the All. She had a report to file, she had to order her impressions, the director was relying on her for guidance.
Know thine enemy
.

She prompted her templar memory, settled herself. Closed her eyes.

The power structure in the city of Newest Delhi was primitive. The Prime, an anachronistic monarch figure, ruling by decree; equally out-dated ideas of democracy had also worked their way into the ruling system—the clans were based on genetic inheritance, but the biological distinctions had long been blurred by transfer and popular election.

The entire system of government was open to all forms of abuse and misuse of influence. The array of primal advisers and family was riddled with Conventists and Masons, some open, others hiding their allegiances with varying degrees of success. In her three days on Expatria, Katya had already identified the Chief Justice, Tobias Macari, and the Captain of the Primal Guard, Lars Anderson, as high-ranking Masons; they had been appointed by the previous Prime, Edward and Mathias's father, and rumour suggested that he, too, may have been bound by the tie.

The Masons appeared benign, but the Conventist influence was far more sinister. Since the attack on Director Roux's autonome, Prime Edward's guards had taken over from those of the Convent; Katya suspected that they had been imprisoned somewhere during the disturbances, but that had never been confirmed. The Conventist influence remained a potent force. There were clear signs of Little Sisters lurking in the lower reaches of Primal society—surreptitious crossings, kissing the air in greeting and farewell—but higher up their presence was also evident. Now that Edward Olfarssen-Hanrahan was wresting control back from Maye Cyclades, Katya wondered just how the Convent would respond.

During report sessions such as this, Katya thought she probably dwelt a little too much on the Convent. Repeatedly she had to reign in her distrust of their methods, they were far too Thessalonian for her own taste, far too manipulative. The sorority were powerful and they had been fighting with Edward for control, but perhaps they would now settle back into what was apparently their tradition, a casual manipulation of the Primacy only where it affected their activities directly.

Like the Consumers might have held back in Prague. When Katya had been withdrawn from TransCarpathia there had still been hope, although her reports had always focused on the possible sources of conflict—she had known her job. Then the leaders of the Consumers' underground had been murdered, amidst rumours of corporate death squads, and the whole thing had descended into one more chaotic replay of the Consumption Wars.

She opened her eyes and watched one of the native cutters skimming the crests of the green-tipped waves. She had studied them before. They often came close in to the docks at Newest Delhi, sometimes sitting in special alcoves set into West Wall. They were covered in golden fur and their wings were made up of huge membranes of skin, stretched stiffly between bony fingers. They had looked totally alien, sat in their stony alcoves, but out over the sea they looked familiar, like the urban fruit-bats of Kuala Lumpur, scavenging for garbage in the Kelang river.

She wondered what Patrische was doing at that moment. She didn't know where he had gone after Gaza City; by then she had been in preparation on the
Third Testament
and she hadn't really wanted to know. Sometimes eidetic memory could be a major hindrance. Why couldn't she forget him? She didn't even
like
the piece of shit.

She stopped herself, closed her eyes. Focused.

The Convent was clearly dependent on its hidden leader or leaders: their chains of command had been carefully accreted over the years of infiltration. Katya decided that she must identify their leader, the person her informers had called the 'Matre Dee'.

The Prime worked hard, but he clearly wasn't born to the job. His pheno didn't slot in at all. He was incapable of looking at the big picture, so instead he focused his attention on the details; he played life scene by scene, his mode of command was bluff. She could see it in the lie of his jaw. He needed his ring of advisers to fall back upon, his Andersons, his Natalias, his Mathiases. Set against the infiltrative powers of the Convent and the Masons, this kind of Prime was one of the worst.

But there was more to the power tangle of Newest Delhi than the Convent and the inadequacy of the incumbent Prime. There were the open challenges, too, the quasi-religious cults. Jesus-Buddhism was the main religion of Newest Delhi, a belief-system so vague and ill-defined that its mass of adherents were an obvious target for conversion and ReEducation. But the Death Krishnas, the Pageant of the Holy Charities, the Black-Handers... they sustained a deeper sense of commitment, their challenges were open and hostile, they existed beyond the control of the governmental hierarchy.

It was difficult to believe that a planet of perhaps a quarter of a million people could organise itself in any fashion at all when it was shackled by this chaos of cults and factions and by a generations-old distrust of technology. She had studied this new world so closely, yet it remained an alien construct, a planet of arcane forces fighting their mysterious battles just beyond her view. 'A thousand years,' she muttered. Would it ever be enough?

She finished her report, prompted her templar implants to relay it to one of Director Roux's autonomes, back in the city. She rubbed her forehead and looked out over the huge expanse of the ocean. The pressure was getting to her, the constant need to be alert.

There were more cutters out there now, chasing each other, diving through the waves and emerging to shake the moisture from their bodies and wings. The wailing momma, Sunset, had described them as holy birds in the bodies of mammals; Katya did not know if this was a personal or an official belief.

Katya heard voices, approaching from farther out on Gorra Point. She had been out there the previous day, out to where a set of rocks stood spear-like, up to fourteen metres high, volcanic extrusions that had remained when the rock around them was eroded away by the rains and winds. One of the voices belonged to Mathias Hanrahan, the other to his companion, Mono. They were arguing.

Katya stayed where she was. Just when she could make out some of the words they stopped speaking. They had emerged from a set of straggling bushes that bounded a path just below Katya's perch; they were looking up towards her, they had seen the evangelicals.

Katya raised a hand, said, 'Mathias, Mono. Hello.'

They muttered a few words and Mathias scrambled up the scree towards Katya. Mono watched him and then hurried on her way back to the city.

'She doesn't like our company?' said Katya.

Mathias spotted her double meaning and shook his head. 'Right now she doesn't seem to like
any
company.' He squatted just below her and looked up into her face. Katya was in the dominant position yet he still managed to make her feel inferior. 'She's singing in Joplin quarter. She has a couple of the original Monotones here to play along. I said, great, let's play for Edward and GenGen, show them some gut feeling...'

'It would be interesting,' said Katya. 'It might foster a sense of unity.'

'She said no.' He shrugged. 'She says artists are cursed to perpetual opposition. Something like that. She says I'm getting too establishment. I don't get it... she never used to be that way.' He stopped himself, opened up his easy smile. 'Do you know what Edward thinks? He thinks I'm plotting a revolution. Well,' he corrected himself, 'he doesn't really think it, but Maye Cyclades has sown the seed in his thick head. We've never got on, you see—little things like he wanted me hung—but it had improved. We'd worked at it. Now he won't trust me again. Mind you, he isn't trusting anyone at present.' He laughed. 'And Mono says I'm too establishment!'

'Your friend should be introduced to the Philemonics,' said Katya. 'A corporate division, like my own Romans. They would show her how an artist can retain her integrity within a formal hierarchy. Their music has spirit.'

'Try telling her yourself,' said Mathias. 'I'm not hitting that track again.'

Katya checked her personal time signal and calculated how long it would be until her next Maxing. She didn't want to be stranded out here when the Max poked her Glory Chip. 'I have to go,' she said. 'I have people to see.' She stood and moved down the slope, paused level with Mathias. 'Tell me, Matt,' she said; she thought it safe to try the version of his name used by his friends. 'Tell me. Are you establishment? Or are you an artist, are you going to oppose the Holy Corporation along with Mono and her street-friends?'

He looked away, across the sea. She could see his eyes following the pack of cutters as they dived, splashed, chased across the algae-ridden waves. 'I used to play slap-drums with the Monotones,' he said. 'I was on the street with Mono for near to three years. But I was never really one of them ... I suppose I always had something holding me back, my up-bringing or something.'

'Your breeding predestined you for an alternative,' said Katya. He had known his own phenotype.

'Some of that, maybe,' he said. 'It's just the way things have worked, that's all. I do what I think is right; I'm not street
or
establishment—'

'You were born to be Prime.'

'Sure.' His gaze dropped away to the jumble of fallen rocks on the slope below, 'But it didn't happen.'

'You would make a good Prime,' said Katya. 'People would follow you.'

'Come on,' he said. His face subsided, he smiled, he tossed his hair in the breeze. 'I had a friend in Orlyons used to tell me that one, she wanted me to join the underground and lead the fight against the occupying militias. But I don't fit the role any more—I've seen too much. I'm no Prime. If Eddie hears you saying that, he's really going to believe Maye Cyclades. He'll want me hung again!'

He didn't believe his own words, that had rung clearly through his short speech. Katya fixed her eyes on his, locked him into her gaze until he finally looked away. Then she turned and headed back for Newest Delhi. She had twelve minutes before the next Maxing; she didn't want to blank it out again, as she had before when her attention had been required elsewhere. She needed the holy buzz: just the thought of it made her mouth water and her pulse race; there was nothing she could do about it. She began to run.

~

Just outside Drade Wall Director Roux came to her. Since the latest wave of landings Roux's autonomes could be seen frequently around the city of Newest Delhi. Other directors were here too—Moroni, the Corinthian; Saluka, the Philippian; Stakis, the Philemonic—although none had landed in person, as yet.

She looked closely and then realised that he was an hallucination. He hung before her in her head, dipped his autonome, smiled. 'Your report is noted,' he said.

She felt that special thrill at the realisation that this was a one-to-one and not a broadcast to all the actives. She looked about her, the image moving with her view. Her evangelicals had stopped nearby when Katya had come to a halt. They were looking at each other uncertainly. The evangelicals didn't have templar facilities like the actives; they only had basic carpals and Glory Chips; they didn't like it when the actives played up, as they called it.

She locked herself into an upright stance, kept one level of her consciousness alert, and then focused on the hallucination.

'The MetaPlex has analysed your observations. We think it central to explore the Convent: their influence is too mysterious; we could not, easily, do business with them. In addition, all actives should be aware that the atheist Death Krishna cult-group have been identified as hostile to our presence on Expatria. They had a conference at a rabble house called Strawberry Fields; a number of orbital Expatrians attended in trifacsimile. One of the Holy Corporation's strategists has set up a monitor of these communications links. The Death Krishnas have expressed their hostility towards the Holy Corporation in direct and provocative terms. We must be prepared. You have seven minutes.' He dipped his phantom floater, smiled, cut out.

Katya broke into an instant run. She was only three minutes from the Primal Manse, but suddenly she liked the feel of the dirt pounding away under her feet and the smell of her own carefully controlled sweat in her nose so she ran, nonetheless.