White Queen (2 page)

Good for Josh. This room was livespace, of course, like any public office. Not much chance that anyone was grabbing, but it’s always worth turning your good profile.

“But you are one of them, Johnny. It looks like your side gets to win this time. If it helps, think of yourself as a human sacrifice. In a great cause.”

Johnny nodded dully. His allegiance was complicated, but who cared.

Mint pushed a couple of envelopes across the screen. One contained Johnny’s regular pocket-money, in Asa pound notes. The other was from home. Since Johnny didn’t have a phone number now, the only communications he received came by freight.

“Mail for you. There’s a picture of your little girl. She’s very sweet.”

“Thanks.”

The Ambassador pondered. Johnny, feeling undismissed, could not control a throb of hope.

“One thing puzzles me Johnny. What exactly are you doing in Africa: in Gerardville? You’ve been here, what, three months?”

“No reason. It’s as good as anywhere.”

“Nothing political, I hope?”

Johnny laughed. “Not in the least.”

“Good. Goodbye, Johnny. Thanks for dropping in.”

When Johnny and Izabel decided to get married, Johnny took her out into the open (real wilderness, no theme park), and told her that he was a trade union activist. They were both nineteen. He’d been the pampered property of a media corporation for years, talent-scouted out of high school. He was an eejay, an engineer-journalist: Johnny Guglioli with his little backpack of fantastic equipment, one of the few actual human beings who brought the World Outside home to the USA. He loved his work, but he wanted artistic control. He believed, naively, that in fighting for the right to report honestly he was doing all anyone in the bleeding crowd could ask.

Izzy had always been scared. But she surely hadn’t turned him in. Probably he would never know who had done that. The puzzle wasn’t high on his agenda. He didn’t blame her for the divorce. He didn’t even miss her, not in any way that made sense. He missed their child, Bella, horribly. And without hope, because the baby who had been the light of his life didn’t exist anymore. It was two years now. Two years.

It would have been better for Johnny if the revolution hadn’t happened. At least then he’d still be a political exile, able to dream of the day when all injustice would be undone.

He tossed his letters unread. He nearly chucked the picture too, but some stubborn instinct of self-preservation prevented him. He walked about under the Gromyko bridge, social center for the dregs of Fo society. It was raining hard now; the New City and the old had both vanished.

He studied the down and outs, and took grim warning.

Rationally he knew that he would never see his baby again. But he also knew that he had done nothing wrong. Something deeper than all his pain told him to hang on. The innocent are not punished forever. Everything would be restored to him, somehow. Until that day he must use whatever means necessary to survive intact: to remain Johnny Guglioli.

ii

Outside some workshops a fight had broken out. The two principals and their supporters screamed at each other and scuffled under the streaming rain. Meanwhile a caterpillar truck loaded with goods was stuck in a pothole. It struggled, signaling doggedly for human assistance. The trader finally pointed this out, his round, gaudily wrapped body shaking with indignation. The gawky driver broke off the quarrel to swing himself into the cab and cut out the alarm. Both of them callously returned to the fray.

No one was taking any notice of the explorers. They weren’t behaving any differently from the local bystanders—who were standing around, nervous and excited. But they were convinced that STRANGER was written all over them. The explorers’ captain was just about holding them together, when the truckers suddenly decided to use the struggling machine as an excuse to back down. They converged on it, shoving and cursing. The driver gunned the engine, eliciting dreadful cries. Everyone felt awful: but the captain, that person whose aspect is always tenderness for the helpless, couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

His sudden articulate yell panicked the others. As their leader ran back they scurried, confessing their fear and giving up all attempt at passing for normal. They hid behind some sheds on a dirt access road that led down to the big highway. In a short while the captain joined them, spattered with mud from head to foot. Luckily, no one seemed to have noticed the odd behavior of a small group of non-combatants. The others were shamed by the reminder of how quickly the small decencies of life had been muddied out of sight by adversity. That person whose obligation to principled action is unaffected by circumstance hadn’t meant to embarrass anyone. He was embarrassed himself, now; but unrepentant.

sighed his guardian.

Those who used fixed names had adopted, near as they could make out, equivalents in the local dialect. It would have been a friendly diplomatic compliment, except that the locals didn’t know. The captain was determined to remain in hiding

It wasn’t really the captain’s fault. The long term effects of the crash were coming to the surface, not only in proliferating practical problems but also in low morale. People were afraid to be left alone. Whenever the person they depended on went foraging a search party would soon follow him, and become a liability. It was a silly situation. But someone had to go and do the shopping, and who else could it be?

He put his arm around his guardian as they piled into the car, and brandished one of his parcels.

Benoit hugged him.

What a charming presence it was, though nothing in Agnès’s pleasantly irregular features deserved to be called beauty. The people here had a poetic term for the effect.
You’re so sexy when you’re angry.
It was a neat observation, the one arousal being physically near the other. Agnès was so often angry. Was it the way the world’s pain drew sparks that made people want to be near this forever youthful soul? Or was it the sexy symptoms—the bright eyes, flushed skin, pouting nasal?

The joke fell rather flat, and not only with those who didn’t understand the Spoken Words. The crew struggled to make out that Benoit was conflating personality with physical appearance, to be funny. Finally they laughed, one after another, an absurd descant. The infection took hold, they all laughed together, for no reason; and felt better. Their captain felt worse.

Agnès had been eager to starve and wade through swamps. He hadn’t anticipated the grim test of a shipwreck in the company of artisans and merchants. Momentarily exasperated beyond kindness he grumbled something to this effect—and spent the ride back to camp feeling the sting of his own sharp comment far more sharply than said artisans and merchants themselves.

The expedition hadn’t exactly become a disaster. There had been casualties, and the three parties found themselves widely separated. But the whole venture had been such a leap into the unknown; it was nonsense to complain that things weren’t going to plan. At the landing, knowing that the other two parties had their own problems, Agnès had put a brave face on things. He had ordered the lander salvaged and led them all off to explore, carrying the injured with them and caring for them as best they could.

Most of their tradegoods were lost, but it’s amazing what people will give for an object whose only attraction is that they’ve never seen anything like it before. The cars had been hired, with unlimited mileage, in exchange for some baby toys. There had been consternation, when, after carrying them for two days, the creatures collapsed in evident need of food. The captain’s guardian had persuaded everyone to see the funny side. But the cost of the liquid feed had curtailed their exploration. For a while now they had been camped in a wooded park, just outside the city of Fo.

The more assertive members of the crew had represented to Agnès that there were surely plenty of hotels in the city. They were almost penniless, true; but there was nothing wrong with the credit of the other two parties. He had only to approach any significant local character; an arrangement must be possible. Agnès refused to consider the idea.
He had not come all this way to sit in a hotel….
They might have known. Their leader went mountaineering for fun at home.

Agnès was interested in loot and fame, in his own way. But he would never have joined this venture merely for material profit, for show; or even just for the fun of risking his neck. He was a poet. He was determined to go on as he had planned: to explore, quietly and privately, to make as little impact as possible, to see without being seen, to learn without being taught. He was
not
going to be co-opted into a State Visit, nor a Trade Delegation. He had no particular desire to meet the local people. People are the same anywhere. He had come to stare, simply to stare… To store his mind with new sensibilities, new perceptions.

The camp’s position was a compromise. It was buried deep in the park, so Agnès could get on with his famous staring, but at least the very presence of trees, grass, shrubs, assured them that civilized habitation couldn’t be far away.

They spent the rest of that day calmly. Fairly large weapons occasionally stirred in the undergrowth. None of them seemed armed for serious damage, but a weapon without provenance was an eerie thing. They didn’t attempt any form of retaliation. They had decided it was better to ignore all signs of hostility, unless absolutely forced into self defense.

The master at arms, a person with a strong sense of justice, still brooded on the liquid feed hustle, and the perfidy of car hire firms.

“Unlimited mileage!” he snarled, at intervals. “The shameless devils!”

Agnès visited the sick and then went off by himself, taking care to remain in sight. He sat between the roots of a huge tree. The wooden fans made a house around him. He laid his own hand next to the hand of a fallen leaf. Even to the stubby fifth leaflet the shape was an echo, an echo of home; an echo of Self. To give and to receive the Self makes open palms. He shook hands with the fallen leaf, wondering what tiny far away contact the local people felt. Perhaps none. Perhaps they were not obliged to perceive him at all. He tasted the populated air, but none of its tiny messengers carried news for Agnès.

The isolation was dizzying. He took out his sketchpad and began to compose.
There,
the shape and texture of loneliness, and in loneliness unity: the unity inescapable of the WorldSelf.

I came here to find the new, but there is nothing new. There is only the WorldSelf, perceiving itself. Any shelter out of which I look is that of my own body. Any leaf is my hand. I cannot escape; I can never leave home.

He was nagged by that angry exclamation. The person whose obligation was to security and vigilance (who was also the beloved partner of Agnès’s guardian), did not take to Spoken Words easily. That repeated outburst about the car-feed signaled growing concern about the future. Their lander was still providing shelter, but there was no one left who could repair it or even halt its decay. There were other daily needs, like food and clean underwear, equally beyond the skill of anyone left alive. Those who could bear to use local supplies did so: but soon there’d be no choice.

From the skin of Agnes’s bare hands and wrists, from his face and throat, tiny particles sifted away; floating on the almost nonexistent breeze, bringing the chemical touch of
Agnès,
to the others in the clearing. The captain had a fleeting notion of how frighteningly few his little wanderers were, in the vast alien crowd. He quashed it hurriedly: and luckily no one had noticed his half-remark. The idea had no hold on him: it winked out of existence. In commonsense, as in poetry, this world seemed so like home.

Gradually he fell into another round of his dispute with distant “Guillaume,” leader of one of the other two parties. No one could quarrel with “Eustache”: the third captain never worried about anything but practicalities. Between the other two there was friction. One reason why Agnès was obstinately camped in the park was that he couldn’t bear to be beholden to that shameless materialist for his mess bills. He was going to have to give in soon… The thought didn’t sweeten his temper; and of course Guillaume was crowing. Fortunately (as his guardian would often observe) they considered each other’s worst insults to be compliments: which often made for a kind of peace.

There were other thoughts, so much more pleasant. Agnes slipped away into stillness, luxury and delight.

here begins a new life.
Here, in this strange city….>

Now that person currently known as Guillaume, whose aspect is bold action, was shocked. In such a dangerous, even a desperate fix, how could the Poet sink into one of his hedonistic fugues! The Pure One, supposed to be such a goodie-goodie, so concerned for his people’s wellbeing! You’re a disgrace!

Agnès only chuckled.

He drifted further.