Rainbow Bridge (7 page)

‘You don’t have to do the dirty work, Sir!’ shouted a regular soldier. ‘Just point us in the right direction, we’ll handle it!’

There was a burst of laughter.

Ax grinned, and shook his head. ‘Thanks, but that doesn’t work for me.’

Colonel Kent sprang to his feet: suddenly, obviously, a man over the brink.

‘Oh God, I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it could be true!’

He looked wildly from side to side, baring his teeth. Ax stood up too. He took his old friend, brother-in-arms, by the shoulders.

‘Rich, listen to me
, listen
.’

‘I’m listening, I’m listening, I’m listening. I can’t believe what I’m hearing—’

‘They came three-quarters of the way around the world, in ships, and using fuel, so far beyond us that they might as well be flying saucers. Leave aside their massive technical superiority, they brought two hundred thousand troops, at our best informed estimate. That’s twice the entire standing armed forces of the three British mainland nations—last time I looked, a few months ago when I was President of England. And
d’you think they haven’t more at home?
Okay, I’ll stop trying to convince you that what you want should not be done.
It can’t be done
. Use your head. They’ve been moderate, so far. They’ll destroy us if they have to.’

‘You think they have
magic
?’ cried Richard, pulling away from Ax’s hands, his eyes bulging, bloodshot white all round the iris. ‘Is that it? Oh, God, is that it?’

‘No,’ snapped Ax, beginning to lose hold. ‘I think they’re Venusians.
No
, I don’t think they have magic. No way, absolutely not. Magic is the delusion.’

‘So you refuse. You refuse, you’re not going to lead us?’

‘I’ll lead you to peace,’ said Ax. He noticed that the barmies showed no unease or surprise at Richard’s hysteria. Fuck: that’s a bad sign. ‘I have a plan, I know what I’m doing. I can get us out of this, and I will.’

‘They’re at the end of their reach,’ announced Cornelius suddenly.

This was the wise old soldier, distinguished military analyst, who’d been a China watcher for decades of his long career. The chiefs straightened, paying attention and
shit
, thought Ax, that’s it. They don’t care that Rich is nuts, this is Corny’s show—

‘There will be cracks in the regime at home by now, it’s a law of nature, after such rapid growth. The Expeditionary Force is far from the centre of power; it can be harried. Each officer here can raise a thousand seasoned troops, and there’ll be more. We’ll have in the region of twenty thousand actives. Oliver Cromwell showed what can be done with numbers like that. Shi Huangdi is an energy-auditor. Wherever he has met determined resistance he has abandoned the difficult ground. There is no Chinese authority in Free Queensland, or Irian Jaya. Or Tamil Nadu.’

‘There are plenty of regions where there’s no direct Chinese rule,’ countered Ax, though he knew it was useless. ‘The BigTen, the Sphere nations, are not ruled. They’re partners in the Great Peace. But leave that aside: this isn’t Queensland, Corny. This is their beachhead in Europe. Shi Huangdi will not be defeated here.’

‘I believe resistance is possible,’ said the old soldier, with finality.

He got to his feet, moving like a much younger man, and looked Ax dead in the eye, with a cold smile. He was lying. The old man was bare-faced lying, they both knew it. But he wasn’t going to back down, and that’s the end of this conversation.

Fiorinda sighed, pulled her boots out from under the camp-bed and put them on. Against suicide warriors the gods themselves contend in vain.

‘What are you doing?’ exclaimed Richard.

‘I’m leaving. I have a gig soon.’

‘But, Fiorinda,
you
can’t just walk out,
you
must have something to say—’

‘Must I really? Okay, if you insist, I’ll say something. We’re going to work with the Chinese, Rich, the way we’ve always worked with whatever government. We’re going to make love not war, keep the home fires burning, play our music and secure the best deal we can for the people of England in a Chinese world. Now I’m off. I don’t belong in your counsels. I’m a non-combatant.’

‘Goes for me too,’ Sage unfolded himself. ‘Non-combatant.’

‘Sorry, Richard,’ said Ax. ‘They’re right. I have other sessions to visit. You and your people are welcome to come along, unarmed. You might learn something—’

Richard was not listening. He was staring at Sage Pender’s hands, at present engaged in pulling on Sage Pender’s muddy boots. Nothing special about these hands, except that they were beautiful: weather-tanned, honed by use, with broad-tipped artist’s fingers. Nothing special, except that until Sage completed the Zen Self experiment, and became the first person to break the barrier between mind and matter, his hands had been crippled paws; destroyed by infant meningitis. Forbidden science, forbidden topics. Did those things happen? The history that has been wiped out; was that real? Does England have appalling secret power at her command, a weapon too terrible to use? Or was it all delusion, as the Chinese have decreed—?

A change came over the Colonel’s face. He looked from the queen to the Minister, and they returned his gaze, the grey eyes and the blue; impenetrable.

‘I suppose you’ll turn the Scots against us,’ he said, slowly, in a voice that cut Ax deep, because it was
Richard
speaking, not a raving automaton. ‘Your new allies.’

Ax shook his head. ‘The Scots have made up their own minds.’

So the great confrontation ended. Ax refused to lead the guerrillas. He argued for non-violence: when the barmies wouldn’t listen, the Triumvirate and the Few walked out, and the Islamics went with them. The armed resistance party was left in possession of the field, bewildered, bereft; but utterly determined.

Sage watched Fiorinda from the dark side of the stage: the national sweetheart in a drab rainjacket, a tattered skirt that took colour, soft purple, under the lights, bare brown legs and army boots. His throat was raw, his head was thick and ringing, the face-off with Richard adding misery to a terrible helpless panic about Marlon. The faithful in the mosh cried out her name, like lost children found. She gave them her calm little wildcat grin, and he felt the same.

A voice murmured,
How’s that for Sugar Magnolia
,
Sage?

In the corner of his mind’s eye a slim figure turned. He caught the gleam of dark shining eyes, the Mixmaster General’s teasing smile of fellow-feeling. Dilip, that was
Dilip
… He looked sharply around, but of course there was nobody there, his friend was burned to ashes, months ago. And this is mourning. Your dead flicker on the edge of vision, recalled by the nets of fire; by an angle of light, a shadow, a tone of voice. It’s natural, it will fade all too soon.

Allie and the Powerbabes detached Fiorinda from her hulking minder—that’s Sage—and took her out on the town, to celebrate her triumphant comeback. Fleeing their adoring fans, which was not too hard, they swanned off to Anansi’s Jamaica Kitchen. Rupert the White Van Man had been obliged to leave the van offsite, but he had his bbq fired up, and was dispensing hot corn patties with jam, and dandelion coffee with optional cognac; for its medicinal properties

The Powerbabes’ bright winter coats, yellow and green and blue, Allie’s red Gucci jacket, made a brave blaze in the November gloom. They talked about the Fox Force Five, a fantasy band the Babes and Allie had made up to comfort themselves in the Buckingham Palace siege. Fiorinda included, of course, although they hadn’t known if she was alive. Allie would learn to play bass, Fiorinda would do keyboards and sing, with two saxophones and a trumpet, hey, that’s a proper little band.

‘D’you really think I could learn to play guitar?’ said Allie, wistfully.

The professionals looked at each other, and decided not to tell bassist jokes. ‘’Course you can,’ said Dora. ‘All you need is three chords.’ Cherry began to draw sketches on her notepad. ‘We’ll have jackets with FOX FORCE FIVE in silver glitter on the back. Or DayGlo pink. We’ll have neon-coloured cowboy boots—’

I worry about Ax, thought Fiorinda. Sage is sick but he’ll be okay, he’s strong as a horse. Ax’s mother was a refugee, she nearly starved too often, it’s maternal nutrition that counts. If people get stressed by underfeeding, the hidden problems surface… You learn about these things, working with the homeless, and then you can’t switch them off. She worried about Cherry too. The rest of the Few seemed fine, but Chez had lost a lot of weight. She had a weary little cough, and
no
energy, though she tried her best. Unpremeditated, Fiorinda reached out and squeezed the junior powerbabe’s hand.
Bless you
, she thought. It does no harm, wishing people well: she’d been blessing the crowd all day. Cherry smiled, the moment passed.

‘Let’s get another round in,’ suggested Dora. ‘Maybe skip the fake coffee, have the straight brandy, if Rupert’ll do that. Could I tempt you to another patty, Fio?’

‘You bet.’

Another fantastic hot golden blob of maizey goodness, oozing something sweet and red. Rupert, you are as a god—

‘Fio?’ But what’s this? Suddenly they’d all turned serious. Felice leaned across the table. ‘
You got to come in from the cold
, baby. Even if it means leaving your guys. You can’t go on sleeping under a hedge. You’re three months pregnant.’

‘Oh, no, that’s cool.’ The rock and roll princess quickly brushed off this threat. ‘You should have seen me when I was pregnant the first time. I was a string bean with a football on the front, and the baby was fine, he was big and strong.’

‘Until he died at three months,’ said Felice. ‘It was pneumonia, wasn’t it?’

Allie looked grave. Dora and Cherry drew in their breath. Fiorinda took the cruel blow, and felt her mouth begin to tremble.

‘T-that was because I was thirteen. He got ill, and I didn’t know what to do.’

Allie and the Babes did not blame anyone. They knew how desperate Fiorinda had been to have a baby, and how stubborn she could be. But without laying blame, you had to wonder what the fuck those two beautiful guys had been thinking of, to let this happen. Felice compressed her generous lips, a frown between fine-arched brows (an expression which caused her fellow-babes to quail, just a little bit). Fiorinda is a living goddess, no lie, but sometimes, I swear she behaves as if she’s four years old.

She produced a treasure from the rose-fur lining of her parakeet coat.

‘What’s that?’

‘This is a bottle of Guinness. Hey, Rupert, you got an opener?’

Rastaman came over, with his beautiful wide smile, and cranked off the cap.

‘But, but that’s
alcohol
… I know it’s carbs, but!’

‘No alcohol is an old whitey-man wives’ tales. A pint of stout a day is good medicine for a woman with a baby to build. Your mama isn’t here, so we are going to look after you, like it or not. Down it, baby.’

Rupert’s stand was far from mainstage but it was on a thoroughfare, and the Utopians streamed by, some newly arrived. You peer into every face: looking for Charlie Middleton, Allie’s personal assistant, missing since the day of the invasion. For Charm Dudley’s dyke-rockers; or anyone at all from the North East. You know it’s useless but you can’t stop. Everybody was doing it, all the time. Fiorinda stood up, the Guinness bottle in her hand, doubtful and then transfigured—

‘
Marlon—
?
Silver—?
Silver and Pearl!’

A boy of about sixteen, medium height, with black hair in stubby silver-bound braids, emerged from the crowd, two girls in tow. The smaller of the girls had a dirty shawl wrapped round her head like a turban, the taller girl was crying hard.

It was Marlon. It was really Marlon, and really Silver and Pearl.

‘Mum’s dead,’ sobbed Silver. ‘Mum’s dead, did you know our mum’s dead?’

‘They shaved my head,’ announced Pearl, matter-of-fact. ‘I dunno why. They were going to cut our eyes out, so we wouldn’t get sent to Guangzhou. We have Chinese eyes, you know, like Mum. So we ran away, and Marlon came and found us. Silver just cries all the time, she’s all right, don’t worry. Is our old man dead too?’

‘I left Mum a note,’ said Marlon. ‘Is my dad about?’

The Chinese had taken the elementary precaution of blocking access to the airwaves and the datasphere, from any location on the Reich site. There’d be no bootleg broadcasts, no Ashdown coverage except through their censorship. Sage had to lurk around the trailers and snag a good-willed VIP (
not
Dian Buckley, no thanks), who allowed him to make a vital call to his ex-girlfriend. At nightfall he sat with his son outside the Stanger’s Farm Cider stall, and heard the whole story. Or some of it, who knows. It turned out that the parents were to blame, of course—

‘I thought Silver was dead.
You
’d sent her back to Reading campground, to her mum’s bender, when you sent me back to Wales. She had to be dead. Then I saw a programme about bounty hunters, and hippy kids who’d got away at the last minute. They were sleeping in ditches, being rounded up by the bounty hunters, and sent to China as slaves. So I had to try and find her.’

‘Why did you tell your mother that you’d come to find me?’

‘I thought it would make less trouble. You both hated me being with Silver.’

Silver Wing’s daffy parents had wanted Sage to take her as a concubine a few years ago, and the child had been willing and eager; if Fiorinda didn’t mind. But let’s not get into that morass, post-civilised hippy culture, augh—

‘I didn’t hate you being with her. I just think you’re both very young.’

‘Well, Mum did. I don’t think you’ve any right to talk, either of you.
You
were only seventeen when I was born. Anyway, I got to England but I didn’t get as far as Reading. I ran into some soldiers, English soldiers helping the Chinese to mop up. Then I realised they were the bounty hunters, so I went with them to Newbury. There was a detention centre, not a building, a kind of camp, and the girls weren’t there but they’d
been
there, so I cast around until I found them. It was easy. People were heading for Ashdown on the underground, I got on that trail, I kept asking for two English girls with Chinese eyes, one of them with a cracked head. They’d been with some fucked-up Counterculturals before the bounty hunters got them, who tested them for magic and were going to cut their eyes out. I think that’s the part that broke Silver, more than anything. She’s usually so incredibly tough.’