North Wind (21 page)

Aditya laughed merrily. “It’s a marvelous idea,” he crowed. “Every household has to hive off part of the company resources into a common store, to be spent on public works. Yudi absolutely hates it. He thinks it promotes economic growth.”

Hate was hardly a strong enough word. Economic growth was Yudisthara’s nightmare. He lived in terror of seeing this cancer of the giant planet transferred to Aleutia. The economic world is a plenum. How can any part of it have net growth, except by devouring its neighbors: shrinking markets, destroying diversity, killing trade? The prospect was horrific.

he pleaded.

Aditya laughed. The minor royal was waiting impatiently, ignorant non-trader greed glinting in his eye. Yudisthara bowed to necessity. He nudged his speechmaker.

And Bella’s chance was gone. The tissue money felt evil against his palm. He was trapped forever, alone in a hateful crowd. He could not bear it. With a muttered excuse, he got up and fled.

His room was in the hospital wing, beside the Character Shrine. He reached the open gallery that linked the main hall to the Shrine and had to stop to recover, leaning on a low carved rail. The doors of the Chapels of Rest were behind him, a dull garden in front. The “carved rail” was an artisan’s imitation of local woodwork.

Long before the Protest, Aleutian commensals had replaced most of the wildlife of the Uji valley. The same minor life was coming back, covering the scars. The river—the melancholy river Clavel had loved—was channeled and hidden, the whole valley roofed over with the membrane the locals had agreed to accept as quarantine. Outside that barrier lay the heliport, where freight from the Government of the World arrived; where Maitri’s librarian had touched down, a lifetime ago. His throat filled to choking with Aleutian life, he encountered like a long lost friend the disappointment of that day. When the magical Uji turned out to be a place that looked, smelled and tasted just like home.

How impossible his wild adventure seemed, since he’d been breathing Aleutian air again. Immersed in this medium he couldn’t be anybody but Maitri’s librarian, the dim invalid. He couldn’t understand how he’d survived at all, and seriously wished he had not. He found it very difficult to believe that he’d ever had those long interviews with Seeker-after-truth: about plots against the state, secret history and mythical treasure.

It was Aditya, alone.

began Bella. The beauty stopped him.

Bella was touched. It was kind of the Beauty to come after him, kinder still for him to come alone. Though Aditya had no absurd train of walking appliances, he was rarely without his retinue of friends. But he had divined, as few people did, that for an isolate a group conversation is stressful and confusing. He drew Bella from the rail, a hand tucked comfortingly into his arm.

He touched a door, and led Bella into the dry chill of the funerary rooms. The cold tables lay empty: the dead of the Protest had been burned to black ash by their killers. There had been ceremonies. But no bodies from the massacres would lie here, desiccating and crumbling: returning, particle by particle through the slow commerce of the air, into the life of Aleutia.

said Aditya, grimly.

People who wanted or needed personalized possessions grew them from cultures of their own mobile cells, doped with artisan secretions. It was an absorbing hobby, if you had the knack: though the results that filled the halls at Uji right now were tasteless and clumsy.

Aditya grinned ferociously: as if the idea of building weapons of mass destruction struck him as a wild, exciting game. He loved excess.

said Bella.

agreed Aditya, almost regretfully.

The walls of the funerary rooms were lined with memorials to members of the Expedition who had died on Earth. Clavel was there: and Bhairava, the security officer who had once been Maitri’s marriage partner. Spaces were being prepared for a host of others. Aditya’s name did not feature on this roll of honor.

he sighed. He shrugged. splendid
when we were the Landing Parties. Then something goes wrong—the sabotage crisis, you know. To humor the faint hearts, you bring in some ‘reliable’ people, and before you know it, the dull and sensible have taken over. Romance is gone.> (Aditya’s disdain for the sensible was a sting in the air.)

While Maitri had been shunted off to the frontier and abandoned to a horrible death, Aditya—long time confederate of Rajath the trickster; and even Rajath’s marriage partner in his last life—had been welcomed with open arms by “sensible” regime. It was unfair, but inevitable. Nobody ever had to worry about Aditya’s loyalties. Aditya the Beauty, too lazy and too wild to covet power for himself, liked to be near it. He had been Rajath’s lover, when Rajath was in command. Now he was dull Yudi’s partner: and no one thought it strange. The Beauty’s whims were famous, but his tastes never varied.

Aditya stopped halfway along the honor roll wall.

Bella had been thinking that Uji’s sensible generation had made a vulgar error. Aditya was deeply loyal, in his fashion. Lying with important people was his hobby: yet if Rajath turned up here in rags tomorrow, with one of his crazy schemes, Aditya would be part of it instantly. That was always the way, with those two. But he didn’t want to spoil Aditya’s fun. What’s the use of being a daring rebel, if nobody disapproves?

He swiveled around, his back to the librarian. His hands shaped the nipped waist and swelling buttocks of a female local: he cast a sultry look over one shoulder in a perfect Jessica Rabbit.

“I’m not bad.” he drawled. “I’m just drawn that way.”

Bella laughed. The Beauty became himself again, grinning in triumph.

He crossed the chapel, and recaptured Bella’s arm.

Aditya’s wit was universally revered, so Bella refrained from pointing out a couple of errors in this joke. He was not immune to the famous charm. He was suspicious, and felt distinctly foolish, to be singled out like this. He still didn’t want the conversation to end. He’d been heading for his room: this was forgotten. Arm in arm, they strolled gently. Aditya’s darting informal chatter, peppered with spoken English, reminded Bella of Maitri. It was very soothing.

<“Paris”!> sighed Bella, hungrily.

Aditya took on an air of mystery.

Aditya paused:

Aditya squeezed Bella’s arm. He stroked the isolate’s wan cheek. “Wee sleekit cowering, timorous beastie.” You peep out of your lair so shyly. But there’s someone special inside. I’m pleased with myself for having spotted that. You’re like a secret riddle no one else has guessed.>

They had reached the covered bridge that had once spanned the river. They looked down to where the water ran, buried and silent. said Aditya softly.

like
the Pure One. But one feels that he’s necessary.> Aditya grinned.

Bella said nothing. Aditya glanced at him sidelong. He changed the subject.

Bella stiffened. Aditya caught his nape and gently shook him.

He had vowed to tell no one. But after what had happened in hall, it was useless to lie. he admitted.

supplied Aditya.

said
I won’t ask.> He frowned: a lovely disturbance of his alluring face. Run away and play,
is their response to a mere Signifier. But one of my own Silent has a friend in the delivery office. Bella, will you let me take this in hand? You needn’t be involved.>

Bella was ready to agree to anything that meant the subject was closed. he muttered. He felt Aditya studying his averted face, with curiosity.

He shrugged.

Aditya’s laughter was a glorious explosion.

He took hold of Bella’s meager shoulders, turned him around and smoothed the folds of his modest, borrowed robe. he smiled. He slid Bella an oblique glance.

our
occult beliefs, that is, not theirs, which are simply “mumbo-jumbo.” You can judge for yourself. I’m sure he’ll interest you.>

The tropic heat of Karen was tempered in this valley, and the sunlight muted. It was late afternoon. Light had left the tinted membrane and indigo shadows filled the soft air. Bella stared at the buried river and felt the blood drum in his temples.