North Wind (17 page)

He turned his hand from side to side in the empty, dimly lit air. “The information is the reality, and it is not bound by time or space or material. Nothing possessing mass can move faster than light. Or “faster than life,” if one approaches the boundary from an Aleutian viewpoint, yet perceiving the same limit As the ‘speed’ of the body approaches that boundary its mass become infinite. To move it ‘faster’ would require an infinite force, which is nonsense. What Buonarotti suggests is that an informational self, under certain conditions, might be freed from the constraints of physics. The implications are tremendous. The humans think in terms of fabulous speed of transit. To you and me,
non-location
is the vital point. If our selves could escape from space and time, we could be everywhere at once. That would have to include being home again. Do you see?”

Seeker-after-truth chuckled. He lifted his blunt face, listening. He reached out his smoky hand and pulled the librarian close in a warm hug.

Bella had risen to leave, respectfully: showing throat.

ii

Bella had not mentioned the ghost. But he found that Seeker-after-truth had somehow disarmed it, making a deadworld apparition seem a matter-of-fact and harmless thing. So Sid had tracked Bella down. But he was helpless. He could only pester his escaped prisoner with the local trickery. Bella was safe from him. There were other dangers. Hafzan Zamani the deprogrammer, the cricketer from the temple approach, had discovered that the Pillais had nabbed a repentant halfcaste. She came to the house daily, to investigate the “new human.” At first Bella had managed to be too ill for visitors. But as her incongruous health and strength increased, and B.K. encouraged the friendship, things became more difficult.

Hafzan took Bella home and showed her round the Zamanis’ sumptuous biosphere house, domed over like an Aleutian Trading Post. They watched truly disgusting Gender War atrocity records: rape, liposuction, clitoridectomy, footbinding. Hafzan showed Bella round the meadow and the desert suites: the “main hall” with its miniature forest, the river that ran down through the house in cooling waterfalls and pools. She explained it wasn’t pointless luxury, biosphere houses were a preparation for life on Mars: and this was Bella’s downfall.

“Why Mars? It would take so much work. Why not fix-up this place?”

Bella spoke without thought, caught in the trap of casual formal speech. She was instantly transfixed in horror.

Hafzan gave her a hard stare. “That’s halfcaste talk.”

“I didn’t mean anything. I love the Himalayas.”

“You’re lucky to be alive, you know that don’t you? You know what we did to the aliens? We dragged them out and raped them, the way they raped…ah….”

“Johnny Guglioli,” supplied the librarian, helpless to his obligation.

“Yeah, him. We raped them and we burned them, we had our revenge. In some places they’re still dragging halfcastes out of hiding. They pretend they want to be human, to save their skins. But then they start talking like halfcastes, and they get burned alive!”

“Serve them right!,” cried Bella

Next afternoon, Hafzan invited Bella to come with her into town, and Bella didn’t dare refuse. They traveled by bus: past the temple, past the high-class software house where Katalamma ‘worked’ (where she could occasionally be found, that is, gossiping with her friends about the two great topics, politics and how to stay unmarried). They got down in Man Town, among the tall, shimmering street-displays. It was a rare rainless day in the monsoon, and hot. The unveiled Woman-town girl strode along, affecting not to notice the hungry stares of Man town young men. Bella followed, huddled under the chador, clutching a copy of her deprogramming application in the pocket of her chemise; repeating frantically

Hafzan led her into a side street. A single deadworld display stood in front of a narrow entrance in a long blank wall. It was a free-standing image of two huge blue-skinned humans, with rolling red eyes and red tongues lolling in fanged mouths. They were armed with broad glittering blades, like giant versions of the ceremonial dead-knife used by an Aleutian executioner.

Something like a metro station gate stood between the figures. Hafzan fed it with a sheet of film out of her waistbag. Bella remembered Sid’s explanation. A
handprint
was an identifying signal, carrying information about a person’s status and right to services. In Kerala, she’d gathered, every adult had a print on record, and nobody used the secondary ‘cash’ system they had in Greece. Some of the film-copies were perfectly legal. But Hafzan’s expression inspired Bella to ask:

“Does your mother know you’re using that?”

Hafzan grinned, seeing through this gambit at once. “You have to be accompanied by an adult, it’s a formality. Come on, inside.”

The entrance hall was full of moving colored light. “Are you a Christian?”

Christian, Muslim, Hindu
referred to local societies or guilds, possibly academic schools of thought: their significance was obscure. Bella didn’t know what to answer.

“I’m feeling ill,” she pleaded. “I should go home.”

“Mama says most halfcastes come from Christian backgrounds. Its because your religion doesn’t give you a stable social framework. Chota Lal Benedict, who married B.K. Pillai’s elder daughter, Hammerhead’s sister, is a Christian. None of it means much, except for the holidays. I don’t believe in God, do you? But you’d better be a Muslim. I’ll convert you.” She grinned slowly. “You don’t know what this place is, do you?
That’s
why I asked if you were a Christian. They go to hell if they play the games. This is a virtuality mall.”

In Bella’s memory forgotten tourist information muttered of unspeakable orgies.

“Don’t be scared. It used to be worse than this. In the old days, you had to get into a body-bag and lie down with sensors sticking all over you. The bag would paralyze your body and your mind would go off into the game world, and if anything happened to that bag you were dead. If you got too scared in there: Yeccch, disgusting! It’s different now, it’s done with visors. Take off your cloak, you can’t play in a chador.”

They passed through a double door, that opened at a touch and closed behind them. They had entered a blue-lit narrow gallery that seemed to circle a large space of darkness. It was lined with high backed chairs. Bella could hear a soft rustling: the sound of cries, of running footsteps. It was coming from headwraps that hung from the backs of the chairs.

“This is the spectators’ gallery.” They seemed to be alone, but suddenly Hafzan was whispering. “It’s not much of a mall. In Old Earth they have games that suck your mind out. Wait there.”

Bella could not have moved; she was too horrified. She felt certain the whole human population of earth was aware of her, was watching. She was being tested. She would have to go through with this, or she was done for. But what
was
this? She had no idea. The terms
game
and
mall
and
virtuality
wouldn’t resolve in her frightened mind. Hafzan reappeared, bristling with furtive malice and daring

“We’re sorted, come on.”

Bella tried to seem eager: and walked slap into an invisible barrier hard enough to sting.

“Not like that! You have to get your kit on!”

Minutely, from the gallery seats, came an inarticulate babble: mad wails, whimpers of horrid pleasure, pounding hearts, orgiastic panting. “You have to be eighteen,” whispered Hafzan. “You can get in the Gallery on an adult contact, but you can’t buy a game without showing proof of ID. So we get in here, and we wait by the arena exits. When someone comes out with spare time, we take their kit before they rack it. The gamers let us. They know the system’s not fair. I’m thirteen, and this is a kids’ game really. I could play it legally almost anywhere but Kerala.”

“Why do they ‘come out with spare time’?”

Hafzan laughed. “Try it and see.”

Bella took the odd-looking wrap and put it around her eyes. No screen appeared in front of her eyes. The world vanished.

Hafzan’s voice spoke, inside her head.

“If you try to take off the visor while you’re inside, the sensei will stop the game and we’ll be in big fat trouble, so DON’T DO IT. If you want to get out, head for an exit. You can always do that, you’ll see. You’ll find yourself out of the game and then you can take off the visor. If you score well enough, you get more time indefinitely, but you won’t have to worry about that. You have three minutes and nearly ten secs, it’s long enough. When your time’s up, your wounds will stop regenerating—and you’ll find yourself exiting. Hold out your hands.”

Something hard and long slapped across her outstretched palms. Bella was turned, and pushed backwards into the darkness. The voice in her head shouted “GO!”

She was falling, through infinite space.

She was standing, a strange weapon in her hands, in a paved courtyard. It was night, fire-lit. Around her rose the walls, towers, battlements of a vast fortress. The sounds that she had heard in the gallery had grown to fill a flame-shadowed immensity with the cries and clamor of battle. Hafzan was with her, but the girl had put on a mask like the Kali mask. She had acquired a fanged muzzle, and the stance of a creature that runs on four feet though it can walk on two. She looked almost Aleutian, apart from the coat of hair. Red flames flickered behind her, and danced in her gaping pupils. As the voice spoke in Bella’s head, Hafzan’s fanged mouth moved.

“If you stand there doing nothing, the sensei’ll start feeding you the book. Don’t bother, you don’t need it. There are no rules. All you have to remember is—we’re monkeys. Monkeys are the ones with tails. Demons are the enemy and they look fancy, bright colors. Let’s go.”

They ran and loped, knuckling the knobbly stones. The night was hot; there was a smell of singed hide. From somewhere close came the dull thumping of a battering ram. They joined a huddle around a monkey officer. Accepted at once, they were sent to attack the fire-arrow demons on the west stair. Bella was appalled, fascinated, horrified. She was in the deadworld!

A player ran at her. His mask was gaudier than Hafzan’s, he had no tail. He must be a demon. Bella stepped out of the way of his weapon, aimed her own at where his head was going to be in a moment. The demon fell.

No one answered. They were monkeys. They were gone.

She was in the deadworld. Dead things,
void force things,
surrounded her mind, separating it from the real. But the world was still out there, it had to be. As her stunned impressions settled, Bella began to grasp the conditions. The deadworld entity that had taken over her perception managed the space of a real arena as a three dimensional maze. There were some material fittings—ladders, chutes, suspended walkways. The demons and monkeys were marshaled round and around a circuit, kept apart or allowed to rush together, experiencing a huge bewildering castle.

Something arbitrary as a shift in a dream happened to the attack on the west stair. Bella found herself high on the battlements alone, and saw a demon far away firing at her. She put up a hand automatically to fend off the missile, and was clutching an arrow shaft. It was on fire. Her hand was burning! Sticky fire clung to her palm. Bella screamed. She saw her monkey flesh burst into raw red and black blisters, glimpsed the white glisten of bone, felt the intolerable pain.

Then she was on her knees, crouched against a wall, whimpering, watching the skin reform.

This is
fun?

After that, she took care to avoid injury. She killed demons with her club, which became with practice more than a blunt instrument. It began to spout accurate fire when she pointed it. She discovered that in certain spots the castle was permeable. There were places where walls could be walked through. There were appalling-looking drops that didn’t exist. There was an invisible staircase. You could use these trick-trapdoors to sneak up on the opposition, or vanish out of trouble. She began to kill more demons. It was, in a strange way, relaxing. There was no room in your mind for grief, fear or anxiety about the real.

She started to wonder vaguely, what had become of Hafzan.

AIEEEEEENEEEEEENEEEEE!

It sounded like a fire alarm. But the violent red glow was coming from her own weapon.
Head for an exit.
In a panic, Bella ran for the gateway she saw ahead of her. She passed through the wreckage of a pair of massive metal-bound doors.

The castle vanished. She was in nothingness. She pulled off the visor and floor materialized under her feet. She was in the Spectators’ Gallery. She was standing in a bay between racks of visors and weapons. Figures converged out of the gloom. A crowd pressed around her; there was a confusion of voices and Common Tongue. People laughed. Someone said “Congratulations, kid.” A hand patted her shoulder, eyes smiled. The crowd dispersed. Some tossed their kit negligently into the racks and walked away. Others revisored and dropped back into that other world. Bella was left facing a small group of players, all of them young, definitely under eighteen. Hafzan was among them. Bella gathered these were Hafzan’s friends. One had the sliced, concave face of a genuine halfcaste.