The Abyss Beyond Dreams (42 page)

Javier clapped his hands down on both their shoulders. ‘I say this is fortuitous timing. Tomorrow morning, every stallholder in Wellfield is going to be taking on new workers. Human
workers.’

‘That are all going to become union members,’ Slvasta said. ‘And there were more mod-apes than humans at the Wellfield.’

‘Uracus, the unemployed will be out there tonight asking for work if they have any sense,’ Coulan said. ‘We have to make sure they all know to sign on with the
union.’

‘I don’t,’ Javier said. ‘I’m a stallholder now, one of the oppressor class.’ He smirked. ‘Slvasta should go.’

‘Bryan-Anthony knows what to do,’ Slvasta said. ‘He’s at the Wellfield right now, with several loyal union supporters, making it very clear to stallholders that any new
cutter has to be signed up with the union first.’

‘And Ryszard is still at the sheriff station,’ Coulan said. ‘There’s some senior Citizens’ Dawn members there as well; two of them came along from the district
headquarters. People in high places are getting very nervous about the Nalani borough elections.’

‘Now, there’s a sentence you don’t often hear,’ Bethaneve said with a relaxed smile.

‘It’s still three weeks away,’ Slvasta said. ‘There’s a lot can go wrong before that.’

She shook her head ruefully. ‘You’re such an optimist.’

‘Anyway, Javier and I are off to Coval Road tonight. We’re addressing a meeting, pulling in a few more voters.’

‘Isn’t the Ellington pub on Coval Road?’ Bethaneve asked.

‘Life is a constant Uracus for us politicians.’

*

Even though it was election day, Slvasta still kept to the usual routine. Up early, take a cart with Pabel to Plessey station to collect the day’s meat. Back to Wellfield
to package it for customers. He didn’t get to vote until after midday.

His local voting station had set up in a shabby old community hall on Footscray Avenue, just round the corner from Tarleton Gardens. A bored, uniformed sheriff standing outside nodded
impassively as he went through the doorway.

The election officials had set up five voting booths inside. Two women were sitting behind a desk, with a huge leather-bound voting ledger. The line to vote stretched the length of the hall,
which apparently was rare. Normally turnout was about twenty per cent. Slvasta joined the queue. One or two people recognized him as a candidate and nodded or grinned. It took five minutes for him
to reach the desk; the line behind him was still back to the door. ‘Busy?’ he said to the woman who checked his name off before handing him a voting slip. She gave him a disapproving
look and beckoned the next voter forward.

As he drew the flimsy curtain across the booth he realized how much he wanted Bethaneve here with him, how much nicer it would have been for them to have voted together. But she was busy, and
appearances must be kept to protect themselves from discovery and danger. Slvasta looked down at the voting sheet. There were eight parties competing to run Nalani’s borough council.
Citizens’ Dawn and Democratic Unity were the largest and best organized, followed by the usual collection of eccentric independent candidates who had some burning local issue to promote. It
was an unusually large number. Even some of the pamphlets they didn’t have contacts with had noted it. Everyone was interested in the emergence of a workers’ union again. Many thought
Bryan-Anthony was a political genius for developing a political base so quickly.

It was a strange feeling, seeing his own name on the ballot. This, then, was the leap into the abyss, he thought; after this there can be no going back. He just had to have the courage –
another reason he wished Bethaneve was here. How she would scorn his pathetic doubts. He closed his eyes, and saw Ingmar’s face.

I was weak before. I will not be again.

He placed his cross against his own party, pressing the pencil down hard so it left a firm dark mark that could never be disputed.

The world outside was so ordinary for such a momentous day. Bright sunlight shone down, prickling his face as he left the hall. A few high strands of cloud ribbed the sapphire sky above the
city. As Slvasta started down Footscray Avenue, he saw a man at the end of the road, sitting on a bench which gave him a perfect view of everyone going into the hall. He’d been there when
Slvasta walked to the hall as well: ordinary clothes, ordinary features, unobtrusively reading a gazette. Not quite fuzzed, but giving off a subtle psychic impression of insignificance. A tiny
’path that wheedled:
ignore me
, just below conscious thought – unless you hunted for the emanation.

A small smile lifted Slvasta’s lips and he scanned round with his ex-sight. Sure enough, there was a mod-bird perched on a chimney stack, its keen eyes gazing along Footscray Avenue,
exposing the road’s traffic to its hidden owner.

So you are worried about us
, Slvasta thought as he walked past the watcher, studiously disregarding him.
As you should be.

Looking round the Nalani council chamber, Slvasta wasn’t quite sure they’d won such a big victory after all. The chamber had a pretty standard layout, but degraded
by age and cheapened by generations of dispirited councillors. Those councillors who did turn up sat in rows at long benches, facing a dais from which the mayor ran the proceedings. The wood
panelling on the walls was old and dark, helping to amplify the gloom, while the glass cupola in the middle of the roof was so grimy it barely let any light through. The borough clerk had given
Slvasta a copy of the council’s current financial accounts. Which, after one of the most depressing hours of his life reading it, Slvasta was surprised the council could afford to print in
the first place.

Bethaneve and Coulan were up in the public gallery, along with over a hundred Democratic Unity supporters and several reporters from gazettes across the city. Slvasta winked up at Bethaneve just
as the county clerk called the meeting to order. First order of business was to appoint a new mayor. Out of the seventeen seats, fourteen had been won by Democratic Unity, with Citizens’ Dawn
keeping just two, while one had gone to an independent road-improvement campaigner. Bryan-Anthony was nominated to be mayor, and quickly seconded. The vote was unanimous, and Bryan-Anthony walked
up to the dais amid a lot of cheering and applause from the public gallery. He was given the robe with its fur-lined collar, and a heavy gold chain of office. Then he was sworn in as a faithful and
loyal subject of the Captain, an oath he recited without any trace of irony.

‘Well done,’ Slvasta muttered under his breath. Bryan-Anthony was a good choice as their frontman, though he was impressively passionate about the cause, with a heated radical streak
which too often manifested in tirades against authority, especially after a few pints. But tonight he was stone-cold sober – Javier had made sure about that.

There was an official agenda for the meeting, starting with the appointment of new councillors to the borough’s various portfolios. Slvasta himself was given the office responsible for
drain and sewer maintenance (which gave him access to a lot of information on the water utilities), and a second portfolio for the maintenance of public trees. Bryan-Anthony even graciously
allocated one of the Citizens’ Dawn councillors the office which was responsible for licensing the borough’s cabs.

Then there was a debate on the accounts. Five Democratic Unity councillors spoke condemning the financial state which the last council had left the borough in. ‘We’re effectively
bankrupt,’ one stormed.

At which both Citizens’ Dawn councillors stomped out. Cue booing and jeers from Democratic Unity supporters in the public gallery.

It was agreed to form a special task force to review finances and the options available, which would report back to the full council in a week. Slvasta was one of the five members of the task
force. It was tough keeping his shell hard enough to contain his dismay.

‘I now open the floor to any new business,’ Bryan-Anthony said.

‘I would like to propose a licence suspension,’ Jerill said.

The crowd in the public gallery finally perked up. Slvasta kept his face and mind composed, while inside he was praying to Giu that Jerill wouldn’t screw up; they’d certainly spent
long enough briefing him for this moment.

‘I represent a ward with, like, a great load of . . . um . . . unemployment,’ Jerill continued, glancing round edgily. ‘Them families live under a . . . er . . . hardship
unknown and unrecognized in them boroughs stuffed with rich toffs. Nothing is done for them. The sheriffs are bloody harsh when any of us, like, fall behind on our rent. The city doesn’t give
a toss for us. Well, I do care, see, for I know what hardship is really like. Er . . . Yeah, I was elected to help the poorest folks, and that is what I will do, no matter what vested interests I
have to fight.’

Jerill was given a couple of loud whoops from the public gallery. Slvasta wished they’d given him a shorter speech; the man wasn’t the best orator, and clearly hadn’t rehearsed
enough.

‘In light of that, mayor, I would urge this council to support a moratorium on issuing any further mod-keeping licences for newly purchased mods in this borough. If, and only if, full
human employment is restored, then we can consider approving any new licences.’

They didn’t get it. Slvasta smirked to himself as he glanced round the blank and puzzled faces in the public gallery. The only one smiling was Bethaneve. But then, she was the one who
discovered there was a city-wide law that said you needed a licence to own and keep a mod, with every borough responsible for enforcing it within their boundary.

The law had been introduced by Captain Ephraim two thousand five hundred years ago, when mods were nothing like as common as they were today. It had never been repealed, but as mod usage
increased, the licence fee was reduced under political pressure from adaptor stables and business owners and most householders, until eventually the cost of collecting the fees far outweighed the
monies it raised. It remained purely as a historical quirk on the statute book, along with other relics like the Brocklage Square horseshoe tax or the Taylor Avenue flower tithe.

As Bethaneve told them, an existing law – especially one as old as this – could never be challenged legally. All the council had to do was carry out its duty and enforce the law.
And, as no one had a licence, the next stage was going to be setting the licence fee and forcing people to apply for the mods they already had. The money due would solve the borough’s
financial woes at a stroke – providing they could collect it, of course. But there were plenty of unemployed people who would relish the job of licence regulation officer – especially
when they were encouraged by the cells and the unions.

The proposal was seconded, and passed.

That was when Slvasta caught sight of him. The same man who’d been sitting on Footscray Avenue. He was standing at the back, not far from Bethaneve. His eyes were narrowed slightly, as if
he was just coming to the realization of what had happened.

*

Trevene stood in his usual place, between the two plush chairs in front of the Captain’s desk, waiting while Philious absorbed that latest news. Delivering unwelcome
announcements was becoming a habit he didn’t like. He was reacting to events, not controlling them as he should be.

The last few weeks had seen some definite progress. His informants had embedded themselves in both the Wellfield union and Democratic Unity, they’d even been out on the streets canvassing
for votes. Two of the newly elected Democratic Unity councillors belonged to him. There was nothing the party said or planned at their meetings that he did not know about within the hour.

But that was one of his biggest problems. Nothing Democratic Unity did was surprising or relevant. They were a political party for poor people, which was rare enough, but apart from having
absurd quantities of ambition and deluded goals of rivalling Citizens’ Dawn and becoming a major opposition party, they weren’t planning anything untoward. That left him with what
they’d come to call
the core
: Slvasta, Bethaneve, Javier and Coulan. He’d built comprehensive files on all of them. Had them under constant surveillance. Interviewed people who
used to know them before they turned political. Slvasta was the key, of course. A good ex-officer (he’d read the reports from the Cham regiment, and how his diligence was a problem for them)
galvanized by his friend Arnice’s death. Which, when Trevene read the Justice Office file, he had to agree with Slvasta, was a phenomenal act of stupidity on officialdom’s part. The
others were basically a support group to their leader – and Slvasta was smart enough to keep in the background. Bryan-Anthony, for all his good intentions, was a simple figurehead.

It was the core who planned everything in private, who pulled the strings that controlled Democratic Unity and the ever-expanding unions. They were impressively good at it, too. Slvasta was
clearly a natural politician. Trevene had even slipped into a public meeting in a pub to observe the man first hand. By the end there was no doubting Slvasta’s genuine commitment to improving
life for the underdog.

It was the methods that were proving a giant headache.

Captain Philious looked up from the file Trevene had delivered. ‘But . . . I never signed an order to license mods.’

‘No sir. That was Captain Ephraim.’

‘Er, which . . . ?’

‘Two thousand years ago. He was Captain for seven years. Not terribly remarkable, by all accounts. Unfortunately, his law hasn’t been removed from the statute books. It’s still
valid. Nobody has bothered enforcing it for centuries.’

‘Oh crud!’ Philious dropped the file on his desk and slumped back in his chair. After a moment’s contemplation, a grin of admiration lifted his thin lips. ‘He’s
good, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Shame, he’d make a superb First Speaker for me.’

‘Slvasta has his own agenda. It’s not one which embraces you or me.’