The Kanshou (Earthkeep) (18 page)

"Right."

"And it's blowing sky-high?"

"Yeah.  Too high."

"You hate it.  You hate the violence."

"I hate it," Stone responded.  "Kanshou don't have to die.  Nobody has to die.  The take-over ought to be bloodless."

Stone formed with his lips the words he was assigning to Tanya.  "
Like you beating up on Ángel."

"Foul, Tanya!  Foul!"

"You bastard," he made her say, "nothing made you happier than smashing in Ángel's face.  You loved it."

Stone paused in his script.  "I loved it."

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"We're getting nowhere!"  He clenched and unclenched his fists.  "So I love it and I hate it.  So what's new, Tanya?"  He shifted his body.  "I dream the frigging dreams, I do the frigging exercises, and I still love it!  I love the ooze and the crunch of that head busting apart!  It's a high.  It's a pure burn!  I can't help it, do you hear?"  He was striking the bunk beside him.  "I love mashing faces!"

"Even Petar's."

Something moved in his gut.

He gave Tanya her voice again.  "Tell me about the Crossover, habitante."

For the thousandth time Stone described the Crossover, how his sly psyche secretly plotted it for hours or days before it happened.  The cycle always began with mounting irritation at small occurrences, a friend's innocent gesture, an insignificant word from Aleska.  Then like a donation from the gods, some unsuspecting person would step into his pathway and make a casual remark.  Sometimes, just before the Crossover clicked into place, Stone teased himself: "If his mouth starts even a little trip toward a smile, I'll lay it on him."  Or "If he moves one inch closer. . ." or "If he blinks. . . ."  Step by tiny relentless step, he would drive the person to make the ultimate move.  So he could cross over.  And strike.

"And then comes the exhilaration and the letting go," Tanya prompted.  Stone nodded.  "Now, tell how you crossed over with Petar."  He had cued himself almost before he was ready.  "Do it now!" Tanya ordered.

Stone swallowed.  His buddy Vasi had recognized the symptoms.  "You are cruising for a bruising, Stone, man."  Stone had almost crossed over with Vasi that morning, but he'd resisted, escalating through three more incidents that day, until in the kitchen after supper, Petar had dared to toss his headful of brown hair.  Stone saw his own hand rise.  "I told you to get a haircut!"

"I swatted him hard!" he blurted.  He moved his hand with the words.  "He made me do it!  His hair--"

Tanya stepped in.  "But you stopped, Baragiali.  Yes, you crossed over and you hit him, but you stopped before you got that surge of pleasure.  Remember that."

"I stopped."

"Say how you stopped the surge."

"Because it was Petar," he recited.  "And he forgave me."  The tears again.

"Where is all that exhilaration now?"

"Waiting."

"Acknowledge it."

"I acknowledge it."

"Bless it." 

Stone hesitated.

"Bless it, Baragiali!  It's yours."

"I bless it."

"Feel it now."

"I fucking feel it!" he roared.

"And now get beside yourself!"

Immediately Stone lay in his softself, next to and outside of his supine physical body, watching that body tighten, its   mouth curving upward.

"Breathe!"

"I'm breathing!"

"And what do you see, breathing?"

Stone watched his tensing body, watched the fury and the rapture rising there.  He felt the whole sequence in his softer self, like a shadow.

He caught the exhilaration just before it crested, and held it there in a holy conversation for which he had no words.  Childhood scenes played themselves out with savageness, outrage, and uproar; other scenes passed in montage, each carrying its payload of pain. 

Through the waves of anguish Stone spoke the litany he had formulated for this moment, and for every moment like it.  "This is my violence," he said, "and this is my hurt.  This is what I did to Petar.  This is what I have given my Spirit over to."  He spoke louder.  "But now I reclaim my Spirit!  Come home, Spirit."

"Good!" Tanya said.  "Stay with your softself!  Call Spirit home again!"

"Home, Spirit, home!  Come home. . . ."

"Spirit loves that violence, Baragiali.  Spirit loves it from its different place.  And you love it now, from Spirit.  Love that violence, love that ecstasy!"  When Stone hesitated, the voice came again: "Love it like a father!" 

Stone's softself reached out, cradling the vicious joy, talking to it, loving it tenderly.  The images flared and faded.  Then there was only breath, and the easy ebbing of the joy.  He was back in his body.  And he was calm. 

Eagle and Snake were calm too, both of them glowing, both of them vibrating with well-being.  Stone held them against his chest.

Tanya's voice was soft: "You think you can live without that exhilaration, Habitante Baragiali?  Without that high, that pure burn?"

Snake and Eagle hummed with affirmation.  "Sure," Stone answered, "sure, I can handle it."  Big tears bathed his temples.  "Tanya, when I'm in this place I can handle anything."

"Let it come."

Stone choked and swallowed and cried.  Eagle and Snake sang praises in his head.  "What a place, what a place," he blubbered.  "Why can't I stay here?"

Tanya's voice soothed him.  "You can.  You can stay right here in this place.  And let Ángel and Gabe pull off their bailiwick revolt without you."

Stone froze.

"You don't have to be a part of it, Baragiali," Tanya added.

Habitante Lucio Baragiali clasped his tattoos tighter.  Snake and Eagle danced with joy, threatening to fly off his arms and wake the whole bailiwick with celebration.  Stone's tears flooded his cot, his chest heaved.  "Tanya, I . . . I might, I might. . . if . . . ."

"If what, Baragiali?"

"If only . . . they'll stay with me!"

"Who?  If only who--"

"The animals," he sobbed, "if they'll help me, if . . . ."  He held his arms close, rocking left and right.

"Where are they, Baragiali, where are the animals?"

He eased a little.  "Sometimes . . . I feel like they're here -- all of them.  Well, not here, but close."  He eased his grip on his forearms, letting them tingle without restriction.  "Like maybe just on the other side of my skin."

"What would bring them through, Stone?"

Stone shook his head.  "They'll come when it's safe,"  he whispered, tears still streaming.

"Safe."

He nodded.  "They'll come when there's no more violence.  Anywhere."  He listened for her response.  "Tanya?"  Silence.  He thought he could hear her smile.  He shouted aloud.  "Tanya!"

His reverie broken, Stone lurched to his feet and held his arms wide from his body.  He could feel Eagle and Snake dancing -- and probably Tanya, too.  He moved toward the small window, not daring to look at his arms.  In the black night, the bailiwick was peaceful, the sodium light a misty glow. 

"No more violence, anywhere," he repeated.  He rubbed his bald pate, then thrust his arms up in front of his face, focusing directly on his tattoos.  "Okay," he said aloud, "okay!  I'll tell Ángel!"  Eagle's wings lapsed into composure.  "And I'll tell Gabe, too," he said, watching Snake ease into a languorous stretch.  He felt lighter, like he'd lost a burden. 

He was turning back to his bunk when his cell door clicked and swung ajar.  Simultaneously the call box keyed to his cell came to life.  "Baragiali, Habitante Baragiali!  Report to cushcar ops now!"  Stone swore and seized the squawk box.  "It's not even daylight!" he howled into it.

"Hot foot it, mister," rasped the Femmedarme's voice.  "We're on to dispatch thirty cushcars downriver before seven, all at peak operation status.  You get to clean them up, Baragiali!  Sun-bus leaves in five.  Move!"

* * * * * * * *

Four hours later Habitante Baragiali was flat on his back under two tons of suspended cushcar, patiently manipulating the last one of the craft's forty-eight air jets into a full circle, assuring himself of its mobility.  He grunted with satisfaction and flipped up his goggles so he could survey the whole range of his work.  "Done!" he exclaimed.

"Baldy!"  Gabriel Girardon was flat on his belly shouting at his friend.  "You wanted to talk to me, Baldy?"

Stone touched the hydraulic and shot out from under the cushcar. "Gabe, I got passes to walk, all the way back to the mess.  You okay to come with me?"

"Si bon vous semble!"  Gabe took Stone's tool sheath and goggles, as both men stood.  He set them in front of the uniformed woman at the workstation. 

Stone handed Gabe one of the white caps that would identify them to any Femmedarme as habitantes-en-route.  He pulled the other cap onto the back of his own head, then signed a magnopad for the Kanshou.  She glanced at him, at the pad, and at Girardon, then nodded and waved them on their way.

Still in her earshot, Stone slapped Gabe's shoulder.  "Let's go, monsieur!" 

"Good to see you, Baldy."

The two men emerged from the maintenance berths and set out toward the food rotunda.  The narrow road wound through tracts of grain, resting fields of sweet crimson clover, and groves of trees.

Stone felt at ease, almost happy.  He'd liked and trusted Gabriel Giradon from the moment he'd met him a few months ago.  They walked together now, two big men casually scanning the early morning sky as if their only concern was getting to the coffee at the mess hall.  "Anytime soon?" Stone asked lightly, setting their pace.

"Got to be," Gabe answered, equally casually.  They walked ten steps without speaking.  Then Gabe peeled a gnawstalk and stuck the end of it in his mouth.  "So what's up, Big Stone?"

Eagle and Snake lay at ready on Stone's swinging arms, eager for his announcement.  "Easy," he told them mentally.  "This is Gabe, my buddy.  I get to approach him gradual-like
.
"A grudging response from each arm.  "Well, Monsieur Girardon," he said aloud, "the violence re-training exercises, the em-vees -- I think they may be working for me."  Snake's head swayed with contentment.  "I had this dream--"

"And a session with your doxy, huh?  Hey, let me see her, can I?"  Gabe halted their walking.

Stone grinned and pulled up his left sleeve.  Snake lay quietly around Tanya's body. 

Gabe studied the tattoo.  He shook his head.  "Stone, man, I don't understand how your Tanya can be my Philipa.  Two women in one!"  He stroked the tattoo, then dropped Stone's arm.  He chewed happily on his gnawstalk as they resumed their progress.  "So, the re-training," he said, "sure it works.  It's the only thing that does."

"Hold on, Gabe," Stone frowned, "I just said the re-conditioning is working for me.  It may not work for others.  Maybe some people out there would rather get their brains adjusted--"

"Now
you
hold on," Gabe countered mildly.  "There's nothing there to get adjusted.  Nobody's found it yet, Big Stone, that so-called violence center in the brain.  They probably never will."  He let out a long breath.  "They'd have to use thousands of habitantes to find it.  They'd have to use you and me, Stone, 'violent offenders against society.'"  Three steps later he added a grim certitude.  "And we are not playing in that game."  He looked at the gnawstalk and returned it to his pocket.

Eagle and Snake were uneasy.  Stone's gut echoed their agitation.

"Baldy," Girardon went on, "when it comes down to dust it doesn't matter what
causes
all us 'violent offenders.'  Could be conditioning, could be genes, doesn't matter.  Even that so-called violence center in the brain --
it
doesn't matter.  They might find it, they might not.  The point is they're willing to make guinea pigs out of us to look for it.  Without our say-so.  That's the real violence, Big Stone."

He hauled them to a stop and studied Stone's face.  "That's why right this minute thirty thousand habitantes in three separate tri-satrapies are ready and waiting to blow their bailiwicks to kingdom-come. 
They
know it's an outrage."  He paused.  "And so do you, Baldy."

Stone looked back at him steadily.  "I know it, Gabe," he replied earnestly.  "What they're willing to do
without our consent,
that's the outrage."  He held Gabe's eyes.

From the west, Stone heard the purr of a surveillance cushcar moving toward them.  In a smooth unhurried motion he eased Gabe forward with a head signal, adding to his behavior an expansive laugh and a nod for the benefit of the approaching Femmedarme.  The two men started walking again -- casually, conversationally, as the cushcar slowed above them.  "Keep it sweet and light, monsieur," Stone warned, at the same time lifting his cap and wiping his bald head.  His mouth was shielded by his handkerchief.

Girardon's voice was suddenly fierce.  "Motherfucking rubbernecks!" he muttered, head down and his lips barely moving.  Then his dark face became animated again.  "So let me tell you, Big Stone, about the beautiful Philipa, about my Wicked Step-Sister."  Gabriel launched into his story-telling mode, playing not just to Stone but to the Femmedarme above who was certainly monitoring the loudest portions of their conversation by remote audio sensors. 

"Philipa," Stone prompted.  "You loved her."  He could feel to his right some of the pressure of the air jets that held the hovercraft aloft. 

"I worshipped her," Gabe said wistfully.  He stared straight ahead as he walked.  "After my father died, my mother fell in love with Dame Pola van der Weyden of Brussels.  She had three daughters, and when I was eight my mother, my real sister, and I moved into their big house in Algiers.  That's six females I got to live with, Stone.  Cheek by jaw.  Six."  Gabe's sarcasm was masked by an enthusiastic smile.

Stone nodded and chuckled.  The cushcar purred overhead.

"Philipa was the oldest girl, fourteen, pure white, and very pretty.  But she paid me no mind at all.  I used to follow her around like a puppy dog, begging for a smile, a nod, anything that would tell me she knew I existed.  One day she turned on me and said, 'Gabriel, what will you give me for a smile?'  So I said, 'Anything, Philipa, I'll give you anything!' 'Be my slave,' she said. 'Do whatever I say.'"  Gabe did not disguise his disgust.  "Then she showed me off to to her sisters and her friends, me grovelling, kissing her feet, me fetching and carrying for her while they all laughed.  So when we were alone again I said, 'My smile, Philipa.  Now I get my smile!'  She just raised her eyebrow.  No smile.  Then she walked away."