Context (34 page)

The
next morning was strange: the start of the annual holiday, after which the
relaxed and revitalized merchanalysts would be expected to renew their
indentures.

And Tom had agreed to go with the
others downstratum for three days—a decision which no longer made sense to him.
But he knew only that he was ready for a change, in a way that meant more than
a brief time away from the mundane work which was killing him with boredom.

He was getting no closer to Elva
while he remained here.

On the way out, he could not help
but look inside the dusty merchanalyst hall—Master Grenshin was there, bent
over a solitary workstation; Tom backed out quietly—before meeting the rest of
the little party. They were waiting beyond the Light Maze, at an octagonal
archway which led through to the realm of Bilyarck Gébeet.

‘Hi, Gazhe.’ Mivkin’s lisp seemed
more pronounced, and he grinned like a schoolboy. ‘Time off at last, eh?’

‘Finally.’

Mivkin was cloaked in plain grey,
not unlike Tom, but Jasirah was decked out in bright joyful scarlet. Dour
Quilvox had threaded tiny coloured beads into his long beard, and his quilted
surcoat was embroidered with intricate patterns. Ryban, shifty-eyed, wore a
tattered brown cloak which might have been made from sacking, perhaps stolen
from a godown storage chamber.

‘This way.’ Jasirah pointed,
taking charge.

Mivkin winked at Tom.

Their travel-tags authorized them
to descend at one point only, so they followed a festive penrose-tiled corridor—red,
green and cream predominating—through to a wide piazza in which long silk
streamers floated, and exotic scents moved upon the air.

There were grim expressions among
the people who thronged the piazza, despite their brightly coloured tunics and
soft, floppy caps: standard costume for local holidays. Still, Jasirah pushed
her way through the crowd in a straight line, without deviation, for all her
lack of height. Tom followed with the others, smiling slightly as they made
mock salutes behind Jasirah’s back.

Off
to one side, a musical mendicant group was playing the Grilvin Fantasia on
pipes and aerolutes. It was an ode to their order’s founding martyr, and their
robes bore woven representations of the active macromolecule in the poison St Grilvin
had been forced to drink. Their clothes and skin were impregnated with doses of
the actual toxin, steadily increasing as their immunity built.

Which was why ordinary passers-by
kept clear of them, giving Tom a glimpse along a grey colonnade. At its far end
was a piazzetta whose floor was tiled in metre-wide squares: white silver-shot
marble alternating with black obsidian.

Men were standing on the squares,
but it was the two others, seated on opposite lev-chairs overhead—opponents,
facing each other across the piazzetta’s width—who caught Tom’s attention. One
was an ordinary merchant, he guessed, with a flushed face and worried eyes. But
the other...

Clad in black, with white lace at
throat and cuffs, the elegant man sat with chin on fist, regarding the
thirty-two people who stood below: his liveried servitors, face to face with
the merchant’s barefoot vassals.

Schachmati game,
Tom realized.
With people as
the pieces.

And yet none of it made sense.

There was none of the celebratory
atmosphere one would expect, given such an unusual event. And it
was
remarkable
that a Lord should visit this far down, in Bilyarck Gébeet’s Seventh Stratum.
Yet there was no mistaking the man’s noble origins, from the cut of his clothes
to the studied arrogance and ennui as he floated above his plebeian inferiors.

There was a scent pedlar nearby,
carrying a tray of small stoppered bottles. Above the tray, cheerfully bright
holo-labels advertised exotic fragrant oils at reasonable prices. But the
pedlar’s expression was grim.

‘Who is that, over there?’ Tom
stepped closer, keeping his voice low. ‘A Lord?’

‘Viscount Trevalkin.’

‘And the game they’re playing?’

‘With people’s lives.’ The pedlar
spoke in a sour whisper. ‘That trader boss may be a traitor, but there’s no
need to draw things out.’

‘Traitor?’

There were spearmen standing at
watchful attention along the colonnade, and while their ceremonial weapons and
dress uniforms were in keeping with a noble visitation, the graser pistols
tagged to their hips were purely functional. Every one of them looked lean and
fit. And two officers, off to one side, were blatantly watching the piazza’s
crowd.

Looking this way.

Tom turned quickly away from the
pedlar. Behind him, he could hear the man taking the hint, his scuffling
footsteps disappearing as he faded into the throng. If he had any sense, the
pedlar would extinguish the hololabels and get rid of the tray.

Jasirah and the others were
already beyond the piazza, walking along a grey corridor lined with golden
glowclusters. Tom followed, tugging off his grey cloak as he moved among the
crowd—a simple change in appearance—and bundled it under his arm. Then he was
in clear space, into the corridor, and lengthening his stride.

Around a bend, and no sign of
anyone following. So he had not alarmed the soldiers that much.

‘Gazhe? Are you coming?’

Some holiday.

Tom smiled then, to reassure his
friends who were in need of this break as much as he was. And he wondered, as
he walked faster to catch up, whether he should have learned something from the
carls’ custom of total relaxation: each evening a celebration of the day that
had passed. For Tom allowed himself no opportunity simply to relax and do
nothing: every moment was a time for preparation or for action, born from the
knowledge that life is too short and fragile to waste, and that if Destiny
deals a hand, there is no choice but to play the game and play it hard, doing
everything to win.

In his case, failure would mean despair,
an end to driven purpose; and victory would be defined by seeing Elva once
again.

~ * ~

20

TERRA
AD 2142

<Story>>

[5]

In
one corner of the dimly lit gym, a narrow-shouldered black man was working a
solo fighting form: sudden shifts of motion, dropping to the floor, striking in
odd directions; nothing acrobatic or overtly violent about it.

‘Most people,’ said Lily Degas, ‘don’t
rate pentjak silat too much.’

‘In which case’—Ro regarded the
strange techniques, the subtle oblique attack angles—‘most people don’t know
shit.’

‘Girlfriend, you got that right.’

Degas was the owner:
thick-waisted, with grey-flecked hair, but hard-looking, a little scarred
around the eyes. Even without the holo in the foyer—Degas with championship
belt held aloft—Ro would have known that she had fought in the ring.

‘Come on,’ Degas added. ‘I’ll
show you the locker rooms.’

No
frills. Sweat and effort. Ro pounded on air pads and electromag shields, then
sparred with an older woman, and finally a young hispanic guy with loads of
spirit but none of Ro’s tactical awareness. Afterwards, Ro touched gloves with her
sparring partners, and limped off towards the showers, stripping off helmet and
chest pad as she walked.

Later, heading out into the warm
night and feeling good, her hair still damp, Ro retrieved her new bicycle. She
thumbed the handgrip, releasing the security locks, then mounted the saddle.
Breathed in the clean air, then glanced back at the floating holo sign—
LILY’S
KICKBOX:
Kick-
Ass Good, but Humble
—
and grinned.
It was a far cry from Mother’s clean, tranquil dojo: different path, same goal.