Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring (80 page)

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ the woman cut in. ‘But . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Is he . . .’

‘Broken in?’ Dura interrupted heavily.

‘Dura,’ Toba warned her.

‘Lady, he is a Human Being, not a wild boar. And he can speak for himself.’

Toba said rapidly, ‘Madam, I can vouch for the boy’s good nature. He’s been living in my home. Eating with my family. And besides, he represents good value at . . .’ - his face puffed out, and he seemed to be calculating rapidly - ‘at fifty skins.’

The woman frowned, but her fat, broad face showed interest. ‘For what? The standard ten years?’

‘With the usual penalty clauses, of course,’ Toba said.

The woman hesitated.

A crowd was gathering around the Market’s central Wheel. The noise level was rising and there was an air of excitement . . . of dangerous excitement, Dura felt; suddenly she wished the booth formed a more substantial cage around her.

‘Look, I don’t have time to haggle; I want to watch the execution. Forty-five, and I’ll take his option.’

Toba hesitated for barely a moment. ‘Done.’

The woman melted into the crowd, with a final intrigued glance at Farr.

Dura reached out of the booth-cage and touched Toba’s arm. ‘
Ten years?’

‘That’s the standard condition.’

‘And the work?’

Toba looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s hard. I’ll not try to hide that. They’ll put him in the Bells . . . But he’s strong, and he’ll survive it.’

‘And after he’s too weak to work?’

He pursed his lips. ‘He won’t be in the Bells forever. He could become a Supervisor, maybe; or some kind of specialist. Look, Dura, I know this must seem strange to you, but this is our way, here in Parz. It’s a system that’s endured for generations . . . And it’s a system you accepted, implicitly, when you agreed to come here in the car, to find a way to pay for Adda’s treatment. I did try to warn you.’ His round, dull face became defiant. ‘You understood that, didn’t you?’

She sighed. ‘Yes. Of course I did. Not in every detail, but . . . I couldn’t see any choice.’

‘No,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘Well, you don’t have, any choice, now.’

She hesitated before going on. She hated to beg. But at least Toba and his home were fixed points in this new world, nodes of comparative familiarity. ‘Toba Mixxax. Couldn’t
you
buy us . . . our labour? You have a ceiling-farm at the Crust. And . . .’

‘No,’ he said sharply. Then, more sympathetically, he went on, ‘I’m sorry, Dura, but I’m not a prosperous man. I simply couldn’t afford you . . . Or rather, I couldn’t afford a fair price for you. You wouldn’t be able to pay off Adda’s bills. Do you understand? Listen, forty-five skins for ten prime years of Farr, unskilled as he is, may seem a fortune to you; but believe me, that woman got a bargain, and she knew it. And . . .’

His voice was drowned by a sudden roar from the crowd around the huge Wheel. People jostled and barged each other as they swarmed along guide ropes and rails. Dura - listless, barely interested - looked through the crowd, seeking the focus of excitement.

A man was being hauled through the crowd. His two escorts, Waving strongly, were dressed in a uniform similar to the guards at Muub’s Hospital, with their faces made supernaturally menacing by heavy leather masks. Their captive was a good ten years older than Dura, with a thick mane of yellowing hair and a gaunt, patient face. He was stripped to the waist and seemed to have his hands tied behind his back.

The crowds flinched as he passed, even as they roared encouragement to his captors.

Dura rubbed her nose, depressed and confused. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. How are forty-five skins a fortune? Skins of what?’

He had to shout to make himself heard. ‘It means, ah, forty-five Air-pig skins.’

That seemed clearer. ‘So you’re saying Farr’s labour is worth as much as forty-five Air-pigs?’

‘No, of course not.’

A new buyer came by the booth, a man who briefly asked about Farr. Toba had to turn him away but indicated Dura was available. The buyer - a coarse, heavy-set man dressed in a close-clinging robe - glanced over Dura cursorily before moving on.

Dura shuddered. There had been nothing threatening in the man’s appraisal, still less anything sexual. In fact - and this was the ghastly, dispiriting part of it - there had been nothing personal in it at all. He had looked at her -
her
, Dura, daughter of Logue and leader of the Human Beings - the way she might weigh up a spear or knife, a carved piece of wood.

As a tool, not a person.

Toba was still trying to explain
skins
to her. ‘You see, we’re not talking about real pigs.’ He smiled, patronizing. ‘That would be absurd. Can you imagine people carting around fifty, a hundred Air-pigs, to barter with each other? It’s all based on credit, you see. A skin is equivalent to the value of one pig. So you can exchange skins - or rather, amounts of credit in skins - and it’s equivalent to bartering in pigs.’ He nodded brightly at her. ‘Do you see?’

‘So if I had a credit of one skin - I could exchange it for one pig.’

He opened his mouth to agree, and then his face fell. ‘Ah - not quite. Actually, a pig - a healthy, fertile adult - would cost you about four and a half skins at today’s prices. But the cost of an actual
pig
is irrelevant . . . That isn’t the point at all. Can’t you see that? It’s all to do with inflation. The Air-pig is the base of the currency, but . . .’

She turned her face away. She knew it was important to make sense of the ways of these people, if she were ever to extricate herself and her charges from this mess, but the flux lines of understanding across which she would have to Wave were daunting.

Now another man came to inspect her. This one was short, fussy and dressed in a loose suit; his hair-tubes were dyed a pale pink. He and Toba shook hands. They seemed to know each other. The man called her out of the booth and, to her shame, began to subject her to the intimate examination which Farr had suffered earlier.

Dura tried not to think about the strange little man’s probing fingers. She watched the captive, who had now been led to the wooden Wheel. His arms and legs were crudely outstretched by the guards and fixed by ropes to four of the spokes, while a thong was drawn around his neck to attach his head to the fifth spoke. Dura, even as she endured her own humiliation, winced as the thong cut into the man’s flesh.

The crowd bellowed, squirming around the Wheel in a frenzy of anticipation; despite the finery of their clothes, Dura was reminded of feeding Air-pigs.

Toba Mixxax touched her shoulder. ‘Dura. This is Qos Frenk. He’s interested in your labour . . . Only five years, though, I’m afraid.’

Qos Frenk, the pink-haired buyer, had finished his inspection. ‘Age catches up with us all,’ he said with sad sympathy. ‘But my price is fair at fifteen skins.’

‘Toba Mixxax, will this cover the costs of Adda, with Farr’s fee?’

He nodded. ‘Just about. Of course, Adda himself will have to find work once he’s fit. And . . .’

‘I’ll take the offer,’ she told Toba dully. ‘Tell him.’

The Wheel started to turn about its axis.

The crowd screamed. At first the revolutions were slow, and the man pinned to it seemed to smile. But momentum soon gathered, and Dura could see how the man’s head rattled against its spoke.

‘Dura, I know Qos,’ Toba said. ‘He’ll treat you well.’

Qos Frenk nodded at her, not unkindly.

‘How close will I be to Farr?’

Toba hesitated, looking at her strangely. Qos Frenk seemed confused.

Now the victim’s eyecups had closed; his fists were clenched against the pain of the rotation. Memories of Adda’s attack by the sow returned to Dura. As the man was spun around, the Air in his capillaries would lose its superfluidity, begin to coagulate and slow; a sphere of agonizing pain would expand out through his body from the pit of his stomach, surrounding a shell of numbness. And...

‘Dura, you don’t understand. Qos owns a ceiling-farm which borders on mine. So you’ll be working at the Crust . . . as a coolie. I explained to Qos how well adapted you upfluxers are for such work; in fact I found you at the Crust, and . . .’

‘What about Farr?’

‘He will be in the Harbour. He will be a Fisherman. Didn’t you understand that? Dura . . .’

Now the man was rotating so fast that his limbs had become a blur. He must be unconscious already, Dura thought, and it was a mercy not to be able to see his face.

‘Where is the Harbour, Toba Mixxax?’

He frowned. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding genuinely contrite. ‘I forget sometimes how new all this is for you. The Harbour is at the base of the City, at the top of the Spine . . . the pillar of wood which descends from the base of the City. Bells from the Harbour follow the length of the Spine, diving deep into the underMantle. And . . .’

‘And it’s not acceptable,’ she snarled. Qos Frenk flinched from her, eyecups wide. ‘I must be with Farr.’

‘No. Listen to me, Dura.
That’s not an option
. Farr is ideal for the Harbour; he’s young and light but immensely strong. You’re too old for such work. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.’

‘We won’t be parted.’

Toba Mixxax’s face was hard now, his weak chin thrust forward. ‘You listen to me, Dura. I’ve done my best to help you. And Ito and Cris have grown fond of you; I can see that. But I’ve my own life to lead. Accept this now or I just Wave away out of here. And leave you, and your precious brother, to the mercy of the Guards . . . and within half a day you’ll be joining that man on the Wheel, two more unemployable vagrants.’

Now the Wheel was a blur. The crowd bellowed its excitement.

There was a popping sound, soft and obscene. The Wheel rapidly slowed; the man’s hands, feet and head dangled as the Wheel turned through its final revolutions.

The prisoner’s stomach cavity had burst; Air-vessels dangled amid folds of flesh like fat, bloody hair-tubes. The crowd, as if awed, grew silent.

Toba, oblivious, still stared into Dura’s face. ‘What’s it to be, Dura?’ he hissed.

The guards cut the Broken man down from the Wheel. The crowd, with a rising buzz of conversation, started to disperse.

Dura and Farr were allowed to visit Adda in his Hospital room - his
ward
, Dura remembered.

A huge fan turned slowly on one wall and the ward was pleasantly cool - it was almost like the open Air. The Hospital was close to the City’s outer wall and the ward was connected to the outside world by only a short duct and was comparatively bright; entering it, Dura had an impression of cheerfulness, of competence.

But these initial impressions were rapidly dispelled by the sight of Adda, who was suspended at the centre of the room in a maze of ropes, webbings and bandages, almost all of his battered body obscured by gauzy material. A doctor - called Deni Maxx, a round, prissy-looking woman whose belt and pockets bristled with mysterious equipment - fussed around the suspended Human Being.

Adda peered at Dura and Farr from his nest of gauze. His right upper arm, which had been broken, was coated in a mound of bandages, and his lower legs were strapped together inside a cage of splints. Someone had scraped the pus from his good eye, and applied an ointment to keep out symbiotes.

Dura, oddly, felt more squeamish about Adda’s wounds now than when she had been trying to cope with them with her bare hands in the Crust-forest. She was reminded, distressingly, of the dead, displayed animals in the Museum. ‘You’re looking well,’ she said.

‘Lying sow,’ Adda growled. ‘What by the bones of the Xeelee am I doing here? And why haven’t you got out while you can?’

The doctor clucked her tongue, tweaking a bandage. ‘You know why you’re here.’ She spoke loudly, as if Adda were a deaf child. ‘You’re here to heal.’

Farr said, ‘Anyway, we’ll be gone soon. I’m off to work in the Harbour. And Dura is going to the ceiling-farm.’

Adda fixed Dura with a one-eyed, venomous stare. ‘You stupid bitch.’

‘It’s done now, Adda; I won’t argue about it.’

‘You should have let me die, rather than turn yourselves into slaves.’ He tried to raise gauze-wrapped arms. ‘What kind of life do you think I’m going to have now?’

Dura found Adda’s tone repellent. It seemed wild, unconstructed, out of place in this huge, ordered environment. She found herself contrasting Adda’s violence with the quiet timidity of Ito, who was living out her life in a series of tiny movements as if barely aware of the constraints of the crush of people around her. Dura would not have exchanged places with Ito, but she felt she understood her now. Adda’s rage was crass, uncomprehending. ‘Adda,’ she said sharply. ‘Leave it. It’s done. We have to make the best of it.’

‘Indeed we do,’ the doctor sighed philosophically. ‘Isn’t that always the way of things?’

Adda stared at the woman. ‘Why don’t you keep out of it, you hideous old hag?’

Deni Maxx shook her head with no more than mild disapproval.

Dura, angry and unsettled, asked the doctor if Adda was healing.

‘He’s doing as well as we could expect.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Why can’t you people talk straight?’

The doctor’s smile thinned. ‘I mean that he’s going to live. And it looks as if his broken bones are knitting - slowly, because of his age, but knitting. And I’ve sewn up the ruptured vessels; most of his capillaries are capable of sustaining pressure now . . .’

‘But?’

‘He’s never going to be strong again. And he might not be able to leave the City.’

Dura frowned; brief, selfish thoughts of extended periods of fee-paying crossed her mind. ‘Why not? If he’s healing up as you say . . .’

‘Yes, but he won’t be able to generate the same level of pneumatic pressure.’ Maxx frowned quizzically. ‘Do you understand what that means?’