A Second Chance at Eden (20 page)

Do you believe I murdered Penny Maowkavitz, Chief Parfitt?

You’re the alleged psychology expert. Why don’t you tell me what a girl with your history would feel about Penny Maowkavitz? Have you got a candidate with a better motive?

I can tell you exactly what I thought about her. If I had met her ten years ago I would have killed her without even hesitating. You cannot even begin to imagine how vile my life was, although you were correct about my heightened intellect. My mind was the supreme punishment Penny Maowkavitz inflicted upon me, it set me aloof, forcing me to watch the uses to which my body was put by Soyana, understanding that there was never to be any escape, and that every thought which I had for myself was utterly irrelevant. Ignorance and stupidity would have been a blessing, a kindness. I should have been a dumb blonde. But instead she gave me intelligence. The other girls and I were kept out of the way in an arcology crèche until we reached puberty, and our education covered just one topic. Was that in my file, Chief Parfitt? Did you read how the joyful spirit of a five-year-old girl was meticulously broken to prepare me for the life I was to lead? I only learnt to read when I was fourteen. I found an entertainment deck’s instruction booklet at the home of my master, and asked him to explain it to me. It was in German, the first written words I had ever seen. He taught me the meaning of the letters because he thought it was amusing to have me talk in German, another trick in my repertoire. In one month I could read and speak the language better than he.
Her back was held pridefully rigid, shoulders squared. But those wonderful gold-brown eyes weren’t seeing anything in this universe, they were boring straight into the past. Tears had begun to trickle down her cheeks.

‘Oh, Christ.’ I was beginning to regret ever coming out here. You just can’t imagine anything bad happening to someone so beautiful. The data was all there in her file, but that’s all it was: data. Not living pain.
And Chong took you away,
I said gingerly.

Yes. When I was sixteen, I was assigned to the Vice-President of Soyana’s Astronautics Division. Wing-Tsit Chong was his guest for dinner on several occasions. This was the time when Eden’s seed was being germinated out here, his last trip to Earth. He was kind, for I was so ignorant, yet I thirsted for knowledge. It surprised him, that a simple geisha should understand the concepts of which he spoke. I had learnt how to operate a terminal by then, it was way of exploring the world beyond my master’s house, beyond the Soyana arcology. The only window my mind had.

Ten days after he met me, Wing-Tsit Chong asked that I be assigned to him. Soyana could not offer me to him fast enough; after all, the company fortune was built on the foundation stone of affinity.

And you’ve been with him ever since,
I said.

I have. He told me later he accessed my record, and saw what I was. He said he was angered that a life such as mine should be so wasted. It is he who birthed me, Chief Parfitt, not Penny Maowkavitz. My mind is free now thanks to him. He is my spirit father. I love him.

Hoi Yin, all you’ve told me . . . it just makes you look even more guilty.

I am guilty of one thing, Chief Parfitt; I have not yet reached the purity of thought to which Wing-Tsit Chong has tried to raise me. I will never be worthy of his patronage, because I hate. I hate Penny Maowkavitz in a fashion which shames me. But I can never exorcize the knowledge of what she did. And that is why I would never kill her. I don’t follow.

Hoi Yin wiped the tears with the back of her hand. It was such a delicate childish action, betraying her terrible vulnerability, that I ached to put my arms round her. I wanted, needed, to draw the hurt out of her. Any male would.

I would not kill Maowkavitz, because she was dying of cancer,
Hoi Yin said.
Her last months of life were to be spent screaming as her body rotted away. That, I thought, was Kamma. She would have suffered through it all, for she is a soulless inhuman selfish monster, and she would have fought her decay, stretching out her torment at the hands of those clinically caring doctors. If today I could save her from that bullet wound I would do so, in order that she might undergo that horrendous final ordeal which was her ordained destiny. Penny Maowkavitz never deserved anything so quick and clean as a bullet through the brain. Whoever did that cheated me.
‘They cheated me!’ she yelled, face screwed up in passionate rage.

I stepped up to her as she started sobbing, cradling her as I often did Nicolette. She was trembling softly in my embrace. Her skin below my hands was textured as smooth as silk, I felt the warmth of her, the residual dampness. She clung to me tightly, open mouth searching blindly across my chin. Then we were kissing with an almost painful urgency.

She pulled my uniform off as we tumbled onto the thick grass. Her towel came free with one fast tug from my hand. Suddenly we were locked together, rolling over and over with her hair flying free around us. She was strong, and magnificently supple, and dangerously knowledgeable. And affinity was blinding me with desire; I could feel my hands squeezing her breasts and stroking her thighs, and at the same time I could taste the rapture each movement brought her as she surrendered her thoughts to me. All I could think of was doing whatever I could to bring her more ecstasy. Then I let her discover my enjoyment. The whole world detonated into orgasm.

*

I woke to find myself lying on my back in the grass beside the lake. Hoi Yin was snuggled up beside me, one finger stroking my chin.

She smiled lazily, which was like watching sunrise over heaven. ‘I haven’t done that for twelve years,’ she said huskily.

‘I know the feeling.’ Christ, what was I saying.

‘And I have never been with a man from my own choice before. Not once. How strange that it should be you.’ She kissed me lightly, and ran her finger along the line of my jawbone. ‘Don’t be guilty. Please. This is Eden, only one step down from paradise.’

‘And I’m one step from hell. I am married, Hoi Yin.’

‘I won’t spoil your happiness. I promise, Harvey.’

First time you’ve called me that.

Because this is the first time you have been Harvey to me. I’m not entirely sure I like Chief Parfitt. He can be cold.
Her lips started to work down my throat.

‘You don’t love me, do you?’ I’m not quite sure for whose benefit the hopeful tone was included in that question. The confusion raging round in my mind made clear thinking very difficult.

No, Harvey. I enjoy you. At this moment we are right for each other. Yesterday we were not. Tomorrow, who knows? But now is perfect, and should be rejoiced in. That is the magic of Eden, where human hearts are open to each other. Here honesty rules.

Ah.

Do you enjoy me, Harvey?

I’m old enough to be your father.

A very young father.
Her tongue put in an impish appearance at the corner of her mouth.
I accessed your file long before you accessed mine. Wing-Tsit Chong’s authority can open any JSKP file for me.

Christ.

So answer the question, do you enjoy me?

Yes.

Good.

She swung a leg over my belly, and straddled me. Her corona of wild blonde hair caught the light, shimmering brightly. A splendidly erotic angel.

I’m on duty,
I protested.

She laughed, then held herself perfectly still. Her mind released a surge of desire, revealing the places where she adored to be touched.

My hands moved up to caress her, seemingly of their own accord.

When it comes to guilt, who better to consult than a priest? Except for the fact that I would never ever dream of telling Father Cooke about me and Hoi Yin.

Christ, Jocelyn and I have our first pleasant civilized evening together for I don’t know how long, and first thing next morning I’m making love to the most beautiful girl the world has ever known. And not just twice, either. Her youth and voracity proved a powerful aphrodisiac.

We had parted without any promises of commitment. All very bohemian and fashionable. In one respect she was right about Eden, or at least affinity; we could see right into each other’s hearts. There and then our emotions had harmonized. She desperate and anguished; me appalled, wanting to comfort, and weighted down with a sense of isolation. There and then, what we did was right.

Only in Eden.

Where else would I make love in a field like some uncontrollably randy teenager? Where else would I make love to a girl who is physical perfection?

Who also happens to be my principal suspect. Whose expertise the police had called upon to examine, in private, the chimp which pulled the trigger. Who reported back that there was no visual memory of the murderer, nor could ever be one.

Oh, crap.

*

There was no one in the main section of the church, but Eden directed me to the small suite of rooms at the back where Father Cooke lived. I found the priest sitting in his lounge, watching the cloudscoop-lowering operation on a hologram screen.

‘It’s supposed to be my morning for Bible class at school,’ he said with a contrite grin. ‘But the kids are like everyone else today, watching the cloudscoop. It gives me an excuse to tune in like the rest of them.’ He indicated a chair, then frowned. ‘Did you fall over, Chief?’

I brushed self-consciously at the smear of mud on the sleeve of my jacket. My trousers still had some broken blades of grass clinging to them. And the fabric was a mass of creases. The whole uniform had been cleanly pressed when I left the house that morning.

‘Yes. But nothing broken.’ I sat hurriedly and pointed at the large wall-mounted screen. ‘How’s it going?’

The screen showed a picture of the anchor asteroid traversing Jupiter’s choppy cloudscape. A thin spear of stellar-bright fusion plasma was emerging from the centre of the radiator panels. It looked as though it could be braided, but the screen’s resolution wasn’t sharp enough for me to be sure. Cooke had turned the sound down, muting the newscable commentator’s voice to a monotonous insect buzz.

‘It’s going fine by all accounts,’ he said. ‘Look at that clustered fusion drive unit, ten thousand tonnes of thrust. Imagine that! Sometimes I think we’re challenging the Almighty Himself with these stunts. Rearranging the cosmos to suit ourselves. What boldness.’

‘You don’t approve?’

‘On the contrary, my son, I love this aspect of being up here, right out where the cutting edge of engineering is happening. Spaceflight and high technology have always fascinated me. That’s one of the main reasons Eden was given to me as my parish. The bishop thought I was unhealthy on the subject, but my enthusiasm works to the Church’s advantage.’

‘But you don’t have neural symbionts.’

‘Of course not, but I talk to Eden through my PNC wafer. And the servitor chimps respond to verbal orders when I need any tasks performing round the house. The only thing I miss out on is this glorified mental telephone ability to converse with someone away down the other end of the habitat. But then, when people need to talk to me, I prefer it to be face to face. There are some traditions which should be maintained.’ He was smiling with soft expectancy, a thousand lines crinkling his humane face.

‘Jocelyn and I talked last night,’ I began lamely. ‘We haven’t done that for quite a while.’

‘That’s good, then. That’s encouraging.’

‘Possibly. You see, the twins told us in no uncertain terms how much they enjoy being in Eden. They want to stay.’

‘Well, I could have told you that was going to happen; I’ve seen it a hundred times. Do you know why the majority of the population supports Boston? It’s because if Eden becomes an independent nation, they will be its legal citizens. In other words, they won’t be sent back to Earth when their contract with the JSKP runs out.’

I hadn’t considered that aspect of grassroots support. Trust a priest to see the true motivation factor behind all the fine words about destiny and liberty. ‘The thing is, the twins want neuron symbiont implants. They say they’ll be left out if they’re not affinity capable.’

‘Which they will, and you know that. Your children especially, I don’t suppose they had it easy back on Earth.’

‘Christ, you must be psychic.’

‘No, my son, I’m not. I wish I were, it would make my job a lot simpler, given the way people hedge and squirm in the confessional. What I have is a terrible weight of experience. I know the way police and company security men are regarded on Earth. It’s becoming clear to me that the price of an industrialized society is an almost total collapse of civil and moral behaviour. Urbanization blunts our responsibilities as citizens. Eden is a complete reversal of that, the pastoral ideal.’

‘Yeah, I expect you’re right. But what do we do, Jocelyn and me? She’s completely torn; more than anything she wants the twins to be happy, but she doesn’t want them to be happy here.’

‘And you do.’

‘I don’t mind where they are as long as they have that chance at happiness. But I can’t imagine them ever being happy back on Earth, not now they’ve seen Eden, seen how it doesn’t have to be like the arcology.’

‘That’s understandable. When urban kids are let loose to run around up here, they really do believe it’s paradise.’

‘You’re saying it again, how much you approve of Eden.’

‘Like every human society, there is much to admire, and much to regret. Physically, materialistically, Eden is far superior to Earth. I suspect your children really won’t be swayed by arguments of spiritual fulfilment. People under fifty rarely are.’

‘If it was just me, I’d stay,’ I told him earnestly. ‘I’d love to stay. You know that. But what about Jocelyn? Affinity is the biggest barrier between us, ironic as that sounds. I just can’t ever see her fitting in here. Not now. I had it all planned out so beautifully before we came. She was going to take a job in the Governor’s office; she used to work in the Delph arcology administration back in London. JSKP are quite good about that kind of thing, finding family partners employment. But she’s obviously not going to be able to do that now, because you need affinity for any job where you have to interface with other people. If I’ve learnt nothing else in the last couple of days, I’ve learnt that. And she won’t have the implant, which means she’ll have to sit around at home all day long. Imagine how demeaning that will be for her, not to mention depressing.’