Authors: Gwyneth Jones
Ax Preston will never have no work to do, she thought. They may take his guitar, they may throw him in a concentration, sorry, re-education camp, he’ll be hustling for the people’s right to a better class of peelings with his last breath. It’s different for my pilgrim. But she’d known this mercurial character a long time.
‘You never remember being depressed between times, it’ll pass. I used to think you were like a kindly uncle when you were wringing your incontinence pads out over the mosh, Aoxomoxoa. You enjoyed amusing those dreadful children.’
‘Fuck off.’
She took his hand (this crippled hand, holding mine). ‘Listen. The barrier between internal and external reality did not become permeable a few years ago in a neuroscience lab. It became permeable the moment human beings were conscious.’
‘Your point is?’
‘I’ll get there. Occasionally people see ghosts, have visions, suffer psychic persecution, get cured by charms, same as they always have, and just as useless. Only your novel tech has raised the game, from annoying aberrations to a place in the knowledge base. Like the earth going round the sun.’
He loved the way she moved, carrying her gravid belly with embattled ease. He remembered her saying, at Warren Fen,
I will defend little shoot with lethal force
.
‘More like splitting the atom.’
…
‘No,’ said Fiorinda, after a sharp silence in which he cursed himself. ‘
Not
like splitting the atom, that led to nuclear warheads as the obvious application, fuck that. So-called occult superweapons
can be erased
. They
have been
erased. Mind/matter tech itself is inevitable. The Chinese can’t erase it, it will be back.’
‘I’m sure. In a couple of thousand years, you think? When we’ve been down the dark ages a few more times, an’ if we’re still around?’
This is what happens in a threesome, you form secret societies. The Chinese had taken Sage’s life when they banned immersion code. He could not talk to Ax about that, it would sound like an accusation. So he talked to Fiorinda.
‘Finding it hard to eat the shit, my Sage?’
He grimaced horribly. ‘It’s nasty stuff to get down. Oh, I will be fine.’
Ax and Sage had been called away, they were to attend a vital press conference, a major step in the reconstruction. It was the end of a long drought. The Fifth Element had vanished after she left them at Rainbow Bridge; they might have dreamed her. The Reich was in business, but there’d been no further Presidential overtures for Ax to turn down. They’d been getting worried.
‘Will
you
be okay, sweetheart, if I go to London?’
He knew she was having tiny psychotic episodes. Sometimes he would see her pause, mid-step—in the middle of a room, on stage, in his arms—for a fraction of a second. No fear, just her toughness, seeing whatever she saw and thinking
how do I deal with this?
There have always been magicians, people with mind/brains so poorly protected by the censorship that they can shift the world of matter, a little, sometimes, according to their will. There was never anyone—in nature—to touch Rufus O’Niall, who indulged that vice with a global megastar’s power over
millions
of fans. His frontal lobes must have racked up appalling damage.
Fiorinda would not go down her father’s road, but stress took its toll and now she was about to have a baby. They sat on a rough-hewn plastic bench. A pair of grebes came gliding out of the rushes, and began a stately dance with each other.
‘I’m all right,’ said the living goddess. ‘I’m blissfully happy, somewhere in the midst of all this. Of course I’ll be okay. I have Allie, and the Babes, and Chip and Verlaine, and your brother Heads. I’m not without support.’
He felt rebuked. The Few had been beside Fiorinda through the very bad time: Sage had not been there. ‘I know you’re all right,’ he said, despondently. ‘Sorry.’
‘What for? Idiot.’ She tugged his sleeve, butting her head against his shoulder. Sage wrapped his arms around her, and the baby was curled between them, wriggling. ‘She’s a horribly active child. She sleeps about half an hour a night. I hope she’s not like this all the time when she gets out.’
‘Bet she is.’
The prospective Prime Minister had come to London, for a short trip. She was meeting the media, with Hu Qinfu, Wang Xili and their aides; plus the former President and his ‘Minister for Gigs’. Rob Nelson, representing the Reich in London, was also at the table. The traditional field of alternative candidates, recruited by the Chinese from the weed-growth of post-invasion politics, were the meat in the room.
Someone in the media pack expressed concern about the forts. Would the foreign military presence be permanent?
One of the also-rans (suck-up), expressed entire willingness to co-operate with the liberators for an unlimited transitional period—
The Four Nations International candidate gallantly risked his life by saying something inflammatory, and well-nigh anti-Chinese.
The New Green Party candidate sweated in silence. It was not a comfortable role, given the association with that terrible junta, and with the proscribed Counterculturals. But the Chinese had insisted. A cleansed, right-thinking Green Party must emerge, and a few tainted souls must people it: if they hoped to be spared.
Wang Xili, smiling and elegant in his Marshal’s uniform, watched the horses being led around the paddock like a world-weary Rothschild on a spending spree. Mr Preston and his Minister were nervous. They had set this thing in motion but suddenly it was moving too fast, with their own fate still uncertain. They’d be happier when Lucy, brave woman, was safely back in Paris—
‘Did I tell you?’ murmured Sage, doodling Terry Gilliam clouds and rainbows on his scrap-pad. ‘I found out why Alain screwed up
Wood Court
?’
The Reich was in approved software radio contact with like minds in Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Oslo: Sage had taken the opportunity to yell at Alain, over his production of the Triumvirate’s invasion rez. Okay, it’d deserved to be erased, it didn’t have to look like that as it went to its grave—
Ax chewed the end of an AMID issue pencil. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘It was the Church Ales, Ax. He was
disgusted
.’ Sage gave a cartoon cherub Alain’s crisp, Breton features. ‘You, of all people, consorting with religion.’
‘Huh? How does that work? I suppose my own professed faith doesn’t count? The White Christ is religion, what’s Allah? Chopped liver?’
Two Chinese stenographer units stood on the table. They looked like semi-AIs, which was interesting, given the ban on weird science. The leaders of the Reich were convulsed by silent giggles: what do Chinese AIs make of the two of us whispering about Jesus? Hu Qinfu, the General in Command of Subduing the Capital, shifted in his seat and frowned. Rob nudged Sage. Okay, okay.
‘I wonder if we should still look on the 2
nd
AMID army as foreign military,’ said Lucy. ‘We are already, in effect, a part of that great empire.’
Hyperinflation had raised its demoralising head. The rebel leader, Richard Kent, was receiving the best of Chinese medical care… Ax made a mental note that he must explain himself: he’d needed to invoke spiritual values, and Islam had been out of the question. He couldn’t afford to lose Alain. Sage drifted off, watching Lucy Wasserman. She wore a vintage Chanel suit, combining style and austerity, that made her look like the only grown-up on the ballot. How Ax’s eyes had kindled, when he first set eyes on this woman, when all they knew of her was her whacko ideas about the fuel crisis. Appearance isn’t everything in a PM, but it’s got to be there. He would code her, if he had the chance, to bring out the Central Europe in her face (a touch of Allie Marlowe); the olive warmth in her skin. Make her look like yesterday, when all our troubles were so far away. Make her look like a cleansed, right-thinking Europa. Hey, that’s my future. I can turn a stateswoman into our liberators’ poster-girl—
‘Sage, will you
knock it off
,’ muttered Rob. ‘This isn’t funny.’
‘You don’t know what I’m thinking about.’
After the meeting, the leaders of the Reich were invited back to Wang Xili’s Chelsea flat. Ax and Sage accepted. Rob made his excuses, and went away scared he should have said yes. But the President, his Minister and their only rep in town don’t get into the same car, no matter who’s holding the door.
So this is it, this gold-curtained shimmering casket. This is where the bastard wrecked her young life. Each of them, at different times, had been obsessed with this address, neither of them had ever entered the building. We’ve done our airbrushing of history: this episode in Fiorinda’s past had been buried deep. They saw the publicity stills around the walls, just as Dian had described, and felt that they’d been brought to London to be confronted with Rufus’s love-nest: not for the press conference at all. Something terrible must be about to happen, and yet the signs were otherwise—
Dian Buckley was not around, nor any other servant. Ax and his Minister were alone with the two Generals. It was one of those strange AMID occasions where you think they’ll offer you a drink, a snack, at least a cup of tea; but they don’t. Wang baited Hu about his failure to preserve Buckingham Palace, and his stolen quarters on Brixton Hill. A little awkward now that the Triumvirate were back in circulation!
Ax felt that he should say something (nah, don’t worry, you can keep the doss, we’d never get the smell of defeat out of the rugs.) ‘It was a dull old blockhouse, tell the truth. The former Royals had cleaned out the artworks, such as they were. There was really nothing worth saving.’
General Hu, who seemed to Ax like one of those old soldiers whose chief talent is for survival, gave the President-in-Hiding a look of suspicion, and turned to Sage, inclining his gaunt body sharply forward, like a pecking bird.
‘Aoxomoxoa, Cornwall is a very beautiful country, full of ancient treasures.’
Not any more, thought Sage. It’s full of fuckin’ tourists.
‘You must be glad to know that your father has been exonerated. Haha. The cat who catches the mice will not be hung!’
Joss Pender had been under investigation for profiteering. He seemed to have got off: but this was an alarming topic. Maybe this is where we are offered a
hideous
deal, involving our families—
‘Yeah, it’s good news.’
A strained silence.
‘You are probably wondering about the portraits,’ announced General Wang.
‘I was, in fact,’ said Ax.
‘I don’t think you can possibly realise how important the stories of the Reich have been to us, in China. What an inspiration.’
‘An inspiration,’ put in rancorous Hu, showing horse-teeth in what seemed meant for an ingratiating smile.
‘No, I didn’t quite realise that.’
‘Perhaps for you this apartment has painful associations: I see myself as the custodian of a shrine. Every hour of a great woman’s life is worthy, her struggles and her triumphs are full of lessons.’ The Generals looked at each other. ‘But to the present. Today we are Elder Sister’s emissaries. We have the gifts she chose for you, just gestures, as mementoes of your Anglian adventure.’
Wang left the room and returned with two packages wrapped in pale gold tissue; which he carried in both hands, bearing them before him like sacred treasure. One parcel was long, rigid, flat and slim, the other was small. The tissue was embossed in a pattern of intertwined dragons.
‘We couldn’t,’ said Ax. ‘We really didn’t expect this.’
‘Please. As I said, these are tokens, nothing special.’
They went the rounds like car company executives, Sage being no help, Ax finding it hard to believe he had to say these lines, and struggling with a dangerous rush of relief. No, no; please. It’s the merest token. Really we couldn’t: oh, well, if you’re sure, we’re very touched and delighted. He felt somewhat duped when he discovered that one of the gifts was for Aoxomoxoa, and one was for Ms Slater. Wonder what she’s getting. It’s a box, wonder what’s inside—
‘Elder Sister would like to present your gift in person, Ax.’
‘I’ll look forward to that.’
The Generals beamed. The tension in the atmosphere collapsed, as if a mighty challenge had been successfully negotiated. On the verge of laughter Ax looked at the pictures of Fiorinda, and was sobered.
‘General Wang,’ said Sage. ‘May I use your bathroom?’
‘Of course. It’s through the bedroom.’
He crossed the bedroom, noting there was no sign of female occupation; suddenly remembering Dian’s place long ago, just one night… Took a piss for verisimilitude, and yep, there was Fiorinda, twelve years old, in her school uniform, opposite the shower stall. He stared at the young girl: who stared back, chin up, cross and wooden. He immediately wanted to take the pictures, stick them under his coat and run off with them, because it was his babe, because he didn’t want to leave her here (pub shots are nothing, just junk). But he couldn’t believe he and Ax would be in this flat, accepting gift-wrapped sweeteners, if Wang Xili was an occult monster. Who knows? Maybe the General really did have a crush; and innocent, as such things go.
I have seen her whom I lived to praise—
I will get hold of Dian, he thought. I’ll talk to her again.
In the taxi back to Lambeth—they’d politely declined an AMID car—they shook their heads and laughed. An inspiration, whoa!
Elder Sister
, invoked with open reverence by the two Marshals. All very mysterious, but we are getting somewhere!
‘I don’t know,’ said Ax. ‘History, distance. Say that was where a wicked lord kept a legendary young beauty captive, and it was far away and long ago, in another culture. Maybe it would be romantic—’
‘I can live with it. Rufus O’Niall, who he? A ghoulish tourist attraction.’
‘Yeah, chase out the ghosts… The call of nature, what was that?’
‘Nothing,’ said Sage. ‘Can’t I take a piss?’
‘Are you going to open that?’
Sage opened his present. It was a board, Chinese make, new model. Designed to do only permitted tricks, no doubt. There was a message taped to the case, in graceful Roman capitals, black on red paper. The letters stayed put instead of dancing around, which was good, but he couldn’t make sense of them.