White Queen (9 page)

If there were factory girls running riot in the alleys of Liverpool, I suppose I’d be more enthusiastic, thought Ellen cynically. There’d be votes in KT attendance, then.

But the riots were in Karachi, Lagos, Jakarta, New Delhi—in monstrous outback glasshouses with names like Black Stump and Lizard’s Knee. (Though why on earth they should be frightening? Such tiny sticks of flailing arms, all hampered in tattered mummy-cloths. Such shrill and feeble defiance). Ellen sighed. An army of mice can be alarming, just because it seems so unnatural. The WOCWOM annoyed her because, lifelong feminist as she was, she knew how that sexual-politics label obscures the real issues. This was basically a conference about global labor conditions—which the so-called liberal nations did not feel obliged to attend. You could see it at a glance. The crowded blocks belonged to India, Pakistan, the Middle East and Federated Europe; Oz and Africa. The real powers in the world: China, the Pacific Rim, the Corporations, the Russian Feds and the EU, didn’t bother. They could have as much influence on this affair as they wanted to have, through the ‘protected economies’; partners in energy audit trade-offs. Today, as usual, Ellen was all alone in the EU block.

At least you couldn’t blame the Americans. They were busy with their internal affairs. Or they had been. She tried for her release again: nothing available.

Funny how things turn out, thought Ellen. The ’04 was supposed to be the great catastrophe, God’s punishment for all out misdeeds, to make us change our ways. Thirty years on and it was plain to see, the really significant thing was that China and Japan became one. And my goodness, didn’t the world feel it. The world of power, that is. Surprisingly little had changed as far as the powerless were concerned.

She pushed aside the butterfly wings of cosmic order, mangled into nonsense by the Office of Statistics. “Innocently chaotic, indeed! Robin, my lad, I can’t be bothered with this. From now on, don’t take anything out of the hopper. You watch. Give it a year or two and every reform fought for in the great Krung Thep Wigwam will be down the toilet. Nothing left but a few scraps of legislation so obvious and minor they were passed without a murmur.”

Pity for the mouse-army pierced her. Thoughts of her own people, lost generations, beaten down in the service of King Cotton. She heard the cynicism in her own voice: it depressed her.

She straightened her shoulders.” Women are the poor of the world. The last working-class. They’re causing a ruckus now because they’re a little stronger. We can’t help them at all, nature must take its course. You can’t stop struggling, Robin. But while you’re at it you have to remember you’re only a symptom, not a cure. Politically imposed progress is never worthwhile.”

“Then what is?” grumbled Robin gently.

“My revenge. Let’s have the horoscope.”

“Plan your day with care,” Robin read aloud, tackling the
Bangkok Post’s
post-English with aplomb. “This could be a disturb week, so you will need to think carefully about what you want to do. It could be easy to be saddle with a bad bargain. Also, you may believe rumors that are unfounded. Stick to routine jobs if you can.”

Now that was what Ellen called proper international communication: disrespectful, casual, perfectly intelligible.” Good. The techs over there will make sure we have a quiet session. Hand me some real work.”

Robin did as he was told. He was accustomed to Ellen’s blunt manner. She meant no offence. He watched her, a dumpy old lady with more than a passing resemblance to the late Queen Elizabeth II: the same crumpled jowls, the same unchanging hairstyle (defiantly dark, in Ellen’s case). Robin’s friends pitied his plight. He took the sympathy, finding it useful. But loyalty to Ellen had been a calculated decision. He was young, he had time to spare. From now on he was well in the black in a certain system of credit. He was the boy who was safe to have behind you in a foxhole: these things matter. There were less tangible benefits.
Ellen is my Hermit,
thought Robin, a passionate Gamesplayer if he ever had the time. To earn what she’s got cost her too much, she’s off the board. But in her service I’ll gain Enlightenment, without being battered to bits in the process.

The “Autonomists” who had maneuvered Ellen into jail were up to their usual tricks. Ellen began a hostile perusal of certain documents in the private files of a prominent Little Englander. She knew the boy found her lawless tactics highly entertaining, and ignored his silent, amused attention for as long as she could.

“Well, what’s up with you?”

“Don’t you want to know about the aliens?”

“What aliens?”

“The ones I was telling you about. They’ve been taken to see the Queen, Poonsuk said. No one in the chamber knows what to make of it, but I don’t believe Poonsuk ever plays the fool. No blague, ma’am. I think they’re here.”

“If this is a wind-up, you young monkey—”

She returned to KT…. Revenge is musk and amber, but she liked to be teased by Robin. There was a stir in the chamber. Empty chairs sprouted as video-conferencers searched for better camera-angles. Realtime bodies pressed to the aisles. A troop of girl-soldiers, beautifully turned out, entered Ellen’s view. In their midst there were several people in light brown coveralls. They marched towards the dais, and towards their own image on the screen behind. Censorship was breaking down all round. Odd figures scurried, machinery and trailing cables became visible. In Westminster Ellen’s headset roared like the sea in a shell: Babel reborn. The techs were probably planning to sue the stargazer of the
Bangkok Post.

“…in the interim, all Aleutian visitors will speak from the USSA.” quacked the Multiphon, suddenly reduced to the blatting tone of a novelty domestic appliance.

Ellen’s request finally came back, in print on one of her subscreens.
Delegation Name Change. The release you have requested—

Mainscreen view swooped to the ci-devant USA. More brown coveralls winked into existence there. Faces. For the first time, she saw what the fuss was about.

“Apparently there were three landings,” said Robin, demurely, from his own desk. “One in a little country near the Cameroon, I’ve forgotten the name. One in formerly Burma, I mean Karen, up beyond Chiangmai. One in Alaska. The Alaskan group seems to be in charge.”

My dear, you look very odd. Good heavens, what have you done with your underwear?

Ellen clutched her ear as if an insect had bitten her. Aliens! Suddenly there was nothing available but a close up of the dais. She saw a senseless heap of brightly packaged objects. Lace trimmed handkerchiefs. Velvet jewel cases, tvs with global translator facility and zapback, a group virtuality set, suits curled like crisp black pupae around the desk; a blanket of vatgrown sable. All kinds of expensive and nasty giftables.

“Beads for the natives,” said Robin’s voice in her headset.” What d’you suppose they want in return? Hawaii?”

Ellen muttered and slapped keys, to no effect.” Get out and switch on the telly, Robin. You’ll probably find out more that way.”

But the Multiphon pulled itself together. The chamber reappeared, the Convener on the dais and a slender elderly gentleman in a black kimono, seated beside her couch.

“The government of the world.” said Poonsuk.

Ellen’s mail box was flashing merrily. Naturally. She was the only active EU delegate. Conscientious from the habit of a lifetime, she had often been the only delegate in the chamber from the whole White North. She watched the flashing from the corner of her eye, the signal taking on delightful meaning. Now there were empty desks, dishevelment. Some delegates seemed in a state of emotional collapse. Scraps of précis wrote themselves up. The old man in the kimono was the visitors’ go-between. He was a Mr. Kaoru, retired businessman living on a private estate in the tiny State of Karen (not to be confused with Karen State, next door in Reformed Federal Burma). He had been acting as host to one of the groups of aliens. The Aleutians (the Multiphon appeared to have decided that Aleutia was the name of the alien planet) had just agreed they would all accept his extended offer of hospitality.

(What? she thought. But surely they’ve been in touch with each other? )

“Kaoru is one of those bloody
noms de guerre,”
Robin provided. “This Jap is up to no good, if you ask me—”

“Ex-Japanese, please Robin.”

They were in livespace. Accidental rudeness is a daft waste of ammunition.

On the BBC, the inevitable series of dying swan acts: Heads of State crying,
well, I’m fair gobsmacked!
The arcology at last, heap of slum dwellings in the northern wilderness. The alien-lovers, converts of a new religion: incoherent losers with drug-coarsened faces, radiant; mutilated.

What must they think of us, thought Robin. Our visitors….

And the story was grabbed, caught hold like flame, ran from one domain to another until some fresh bulletin trashed it or it flared through all the billions. Robin was withholding judgement. Wary amusement seemed the appropriate response so far. He felt comfortable in the mode, could reside here indefinitely. No need to rush towards belief or disbelief.

Ellen noticed that today the United States of America had become the United Socialist States of America, and nobody in the world had a thing to say about this remarkable event. She wondered what kind of omen that was for the future. She wondered how long it would take for the rest of the building to remember Conference Room 27/2W, and come beating a track to her door. Oh, this was musk and amber indeed! Was that a man or a woman, loping up to the ceremonial lectern, at the World Conference on Women’s Affairs? It was nothing to anyone, just now, what these supposed aliens did for sex. But everything this odd-looking stranger said might mean worlds. The first words spoken in the darkness of a new creation.

“Robin, my lad, pay attention. If this isn’t the start of a tom-fool advertising campaign, things are looking up. This is
change.
What’s more, you and I are going to be very much sought after, before five o’clock this afternoon.”

iii

“Izzy was in advertising,” said Johnny. “In-house, persuading one bit of the corp to look at what was going on down the hall, that sort of thing. She couldn’t do it from home. Price-sensitive material, not allowed to leave the building. It wasn’t a great job—”

“Rows and rows of pretty young ladies, pouting by numbers.”

“Yeah. But we’d always been sure Izzy wouldn’t give up work, and we were lucky she could get a job with a Seimwa peripheral. The bastard CofI clause, you know. Bad news for a lot of marriages. When I was on a trip Bel went to daycare. Otherwise, I looked after her.” Johnny cleared his throat, rolled over and looked at the ceiling. “Bella was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was totally in love.” He laughed. “I have to be careful who I say that to. Rampant male in charge of helpless female child!”

“Don’t worry,” said Braemar. “I’m very tolerant.”

A doubtful pause.

“I’m joking,” she assured him dryly. “The sexual exploitation of children does not come within my shockingly broad definition of permissible behavior.”

A lot of other things did. Johnny lay alone on his cot in the room at The Welcome Sight, thinking about Braemar Wilson and the alien. The partnership prospered. Johnny met the alien in the Royal Botanical Gardens, in the grounds of the pagan palace. The Gardens were gently dull, the arranged greenery and the rather limp fountains suggesting a quiet plaza in an unfashionable mall. It was a setting that Johnny found reassuring, and “Agnès” felt the same. She never again seemed frightened, or quite so young as the first time. She never mentioned his daughter again. He was grateful for that. She talked about her home planet, its blue sun, its tiny moons, the parkland, the cities and the protected wilderness. As on earth there was a fairly large proportion of desert, but it did not encroach. She told him about a trip to the seaside when she was a little girl. The sea was a long way from where she lived now, she missed it. They had perfected global climate control long ago. They had no population problem: she found the concept puzzling.

She had no objection to the camcorder, which Johnny set up before them on a tripod. She was obviously familiar with this kind of technology, in some form or other. But she did not easily grasp the idea that the human race wasn’t telepathic: it seemed to her that what Johnny knew, all earth’s people knew at once. Once, she wanted to know what an old guy was doing who shuffled along and set up operations by the path with a syringe, a cigarette lighter and a spoon, and became uneasy in the course of Johnny’s potted history of the defunct drug wars.

“What do you mean?”

He reassured her, and changed the subject as soon as possible. It was hard to resist the temptation to describe a tolerant, compassionate culture like her own, where everyone was free to live exactly as they pleased; and yet everyone tenderly protected everyone else. He knew he’d have to, but he wasn’t ready to go into the things she was had to find out if she stayed, the bad stuff. He was taking things slowly.