Exurbia: A Novel About Caterpillars (An Infinite Triptych Book 1) Read online

  Jura smiled; the feeling of river ice cracking after a long and lasting winter. ‘I would very much like that.’

  ‘Charon,’ the boy said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Charon,’ the boy said again. ‘Old Erde myth, the ferryman who carried the souls of the living to the world of the dead. It seems an apt name for our machine here, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I hope we aren’t destined for the world of the dead, of all places.’

  ‘I think it will be a little like death though. I’m sure something of you will survive the trip, but not what I’m talking to now. The world of the dead is fitting. Besides, every great transition brings death with it in tow. Almost all original life on Old Erde must be long dead by now, but here we are, an empire. It’s a kind of cosmic bargain.’

  ‘You’re a very strange boy,’ Jura said and noticed the urge in himself to reach out and tussle Mcalister’s hair.

  ‘From you Professor, a compliment.’

  They finished their glasses in silence and Jura straightened his robes.

  ‘Charon it is. Though, it’ll be our secret, how about it?’ he said.

  The boy smiled.

  Gnesha, thought Jura then, please, keep him from harm.

  34

  "Gnesha" - Colloquial: Originally used to refer to Gneshathane, a Shivan goddess. Corrupted over centuries to signify little more than a curse, or intensifier.

  - Standard Exurbic Colloquial Dictionary, 17th Edition

  261 -

  ‘Come,’ said the syndicate woman, beckoning with a finger. ‘Come see your legacy. Few men have the good fortune to live long enough for such a privilege, and you have already had two lifetimes. Come.’

  At the centre of the Grand Hall on a medical bed lay a girl, late in her adolescence. The eyes were shut, the breathing slow. Someone had spent many hours braiding her black hair into fine helices. 261 approached slowly. Behind the syndicate woman sat Jura on the tershal chair, his head held resignedly in his hands, the eyes desperate but impotent.

  ‘She only wields the power when she sleeps, in her subconscious you see,’ Miss Butterworth said to the imp. ‘Under your rule, a Governance scientist engineered a serum to boost suggestive states. We have of course dosed her heavily with the stuff. She will not remember any of what happens here. Let me show what you’ve done, Tersh Stanislav.’

  She bent to the girl’s ear and began to whisper concertedly. The girl didn’t move, didn’t rouse in the slightest. A gungov activated the hall’s omnicast and a stereopticon representation of a city appeared above their heads, turned upside down so the spires and steeples reached from the ceiling.

  ‘Kadesh,’ 261 whispered.

  ‘Of course. Is it dear to you?

  I do not know.

  ‘It should be. You were raised there, out among the kersher farms and the epicforest. Quandary one. Stanislav is bound by the vow he took on becoming the grand tersh. Stanislav forgot his identity for a time but has regained it. Is Stanislav still bound by his vows? I can’t offer you quandary globes, you’ll have to solve this conundrum by yourself, I’m afraid.’

  Two enormous objects collided in him: I am what. What am I.

  ‘This is an elaborate deception,’ said 261. ‘Nothing more.’

  ‘If the alteration was so consistent that it was really expunged from your memory, then so be it. But we both know that isn’t the case.’

  The regal purples of the swirling helix banners, the vaulted ceiling, the gungovs and their unwavering stares. Did I sit here once? Did I look on these things? An orange glimmer appeared on the outskirts of Kadesh, high above them in the stereopticon projection. The syndicate woman continued whispering into the girl's ear, manipulating the Ayakashi through her.

  ‘Stop,’ said 261.

  ‘You are Exurbia’s highest subject. Exurbia is a subject of the syndicate. You are a syndicate subject, then. And I, 261, am the syndicate.’

  ‘But stop,’ he said again.

  ‘This is lunacy,’ Jura said, jumping then to his feet.

  The t’assali ribbon danced idly for a moment, sighted the outcastles of the city, and lurched viperous towards them.

  ‘For what is this for?’ said 261. ‘For what purpose could this possibly be for?’

  ‘To demonstrate what a mistake it was to assist the Ixenites,’ said Miss Butterworth.

  ‘Assist? I came to you, didn’t I? I have given myself up.’

  ‘Insult the professor’s intelligence by all means, but not mine. You’ve done nothing of the sort. You came for young Moxiana here, to free her and utilise her as a weapon. It’s remarkable, a single creature with this kind of influence; the idea that a human could be such a conduit for fire.’

  The projection was a mess of raging orange, the Ayakashi having covered almost the entirety of the city. A notion came to the imp: I knew one once who lived there.

  ‘Your mother and father, I believe. They grew up in the city, and now of course they will die in it. A certain poetry to that, no?’

  Whatever she says I must remain absolutely calm.

  ‘Liege,’ he said soberly to one of the gungovs. ‘You said you would come to the aid of those with power. Come to my aid and I will grant you all the power you could possibly want. I will give you the entire tershal institution if you only stop this woman.’

  Miss Butterworth was staring at him then with what looked like pity. The gungovs remained in their positions.

  ‘Liege,’ he shouted. ‘She will use the girl for more than just the evaporation of cities. Soon she will banish the gungovs from the tower and use the Ayakashi to evaporate your home. There’s no fairness about her. It is extremely likely that -’

  ‘There is no justice,’ said the gungov in rasping warble-tones. Even the syndicate woman appeared surprised. ‘Only the powerful and the powerless.’

  ‘Then you won’t help? You’ll only stand and watch?’

  It did not speak further. Pause. A tickle of rage in him. I will make a corpse of her then. 261 lurched, screaming like a tribesman, his eyes wide, running for the syndicate woman, running for her neck where he would wrap his hands about it and make sure not a single snatch of air could pass through it again. Time relaxed to an idling coast. She did not move as he ran, did not leave the girl’s side. I will kill you dead with my hands. I will take all of the life from you.

  The moments seemed to pass as years, the gungovs watching stoically, Jura’s face set in a desperate stare. Then, a voice in 261's mind that was not his own, silken, each syllable given careful ministration: ‘You have seen the gestalt. That night the butterfly approached, I know you have seen it. I showed it to you after all. Do you not see how this contributes? Do you not understand the pattern?’

  Get out, he tried to scream. You’re a killer, a menace.

  ‘No,’ she said, the voice snuffing his thoughts. ‘I am the Demeter.’

  He halted, fell to his knees, allowed the fullness of it to wash over him.

  ‘I am here for the harvest.’

  He tried to keep his tears at bay, but there was little use now. They appeared like beetles from old wood, troops of them.

  Do you speak the truth? he said in his mind.

  ‘I speak the truth,’ came the reply.

  Kadesh was almost gone now, swallowed by the Ayakashi. Still the girl lay unconscious, neither glad nor lour, only sleeping. The professor was stood in panic.

  Can Jura hear this congress between us?

  ‘It is just you and I, 261. There are dimensions to this only you, and you alone, would understand. Do you know what I have come here to beget?’

  I can imagine, he thought. I found a story in the deep streams once, buried as far down as it could be. It spoke of the Demeter. It spoke of her coming and it spoke of the harvest. I thought it nothing more than an Erde myth. But the Pergrin Decree, it makes no sense to me. None of this makes any sense to me.

  ‘But you know what it is I have come to do and why it must be done in this fa
shion.’

  I have half an idea. Though why have You waited this long? So many have died already.

  ‘This isn’t for you to worry about, Stanislav. Remain with us here and the rest will be well.’

  He nodded, wiped the tears from his cheeks, and watched the last of Kadesh evaporate. What use is there against license as licit as Hers?

  35

  "Weldlock" - Technical, formerly colloquial: Reference to a planet or area of space which has been isolated from the rest of the galaxy after too much weld radiation damage. Craft are unable to leave or enter the area as a result of weld travel disruption. For more information on weld mechanics, please see: Interstellar Logistics.

  - Standard Exurbic Colloquial Dictionary, 17th Edition

  Fortmann -

  A commotion in the street. Fortmann looked up from his skript. There was the sound of a scuffle of some kind in the Chapterhouse grounds, the pious-guards gesticulating beyond the window. A man, ragged with twigs and mud smudges all about him, stood opposing the guards, a dog waiting faithfully at his side, tissue paper secured about its paws.

  ‘Stand down,’ Fortmann yelled, making through the main door. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

  ‘A trespasser,’ said one of the guards. ‘He tried to gain entrance to the grounds.’

  ‘One of our Brothers in the Up, I believe you mean,’ Fortmann admonished.

  ‘He…’ The guard audited the newcomer's face.

  ‘The Zdrastian,’ Fortmann said. ‘We thought you dead, old friend.’

  ‘I thought me dead a while too.’

  ‘And you look as though you could do with quite a wash. Would you come in, Brother?’

  They moved into the Chapterhouse, Mr. Covert Woof trotting close behind. The Zdrastian stopped at the Cato-glyphs and turned cardinally to the Seer. ‘I have news, and it cannot wait.’

  ‘Then at least sit down,’ Fortmann said, beckoning to the guest chairs. Maria appeared, obviously curious, at the end of the main corridor; Fortmann discreetly waved her away. The Zdrastian sat.

  ‘Tell me honestly, where is it you’ve been?’ said Fortmann.

  ‘The dog, he broke away, I don’t know why, that day in the corridor. I followed him into a ravine, fell, couldn’t get out. I called and called but perhaps you didn’t hear me.’

  ‘Of course we didn’t hear you. Else we would’ve come to your rescue.’

  ‘Then the forest erupted in fire, everything screamed and screamed.’

  ‘We had a similar experience.’

  ‘I hid myself away in an alcove. My leg was sprained anyway, I couldn’t have gone far. I found the dog of course, he came to cower from all the fire. And after a time the fire died and I was left in my alcove and with no method of escape. I waited until nightfall, then I waited until dawn and I slept. I was woken by strange noises at sunrise, like a thousand giant scuttling beetles all surrounding my alcove. I poked my head beyond the threshold. They were gungovs, twenty, perhaps thirty of them. There was no use hiding further, they had evidently seen me. I offered my talents, what little I might have. I begged, pleaded, I’ll admit. Then one spoke, spoke! They were not gungovs at all, but defectors, refugees in a sense. As the creature told it to me, they used to be in the service of controller of some sort.’

  ‘The liege,’ Fortmann said.

  ‘Exactly that. Then you know of him?’

  ‘Go on with your story, we’ll get to it later.’

  ‘The liege, yes. They were his conduits, but after a time t’assali coheres by itself and reaches a certain threshold of consciousness. They come awake as it were. The liege sees no further use and has them destroyed. But a rare few flee.’

  ‘T’assali comes awake of its own accord?’

  ‘So they said. They’re trapped in their bodies with no respite, no sleep, nothing. It must be hell. They were escapees, all of them, a community of outcasts. Many of them were kind to me, brought me food and water, handmade gifts of a sort that the children had concocted.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘Of course. Some only cohered in the last month and are still coming to their senses. There are elders also, those that cohered back when the liege was young. He was merciful at first, but soon grew tired and began to execute them, explode them from the inside out. A monster. They’re understandably a little suspicious of humans, you see.’

  ‘This is preposterous, how can t’assali be suspicious of anything?’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, Seer, it is with the t’assali that you intend to build a wiremind.’

  ‘A fair point. How big is this community?’

  ‘Thousands, at least. I cannot be certain.’

  ‘Thousands?’

  ‘Thousands. They took me to their encampment, an improvised affair of mud shelters and the like. Of course, they don’t strictly need protection from the weather but I think it pleases them to behave in a semi-human fashion. It was marvellous, an entire village of renegades. There was a certain kind of social class, even. The elders have pleasant dwellings near the centre, the younger generations live further out in the suburbs. But they have no organisation, no cause. Only directionless anger.’

  The perfect soil bed for cultivating a deadly garden. ‘Can they fight?’ Fortmann said carefully.

  ‘Oh yes, they retain their skills from when the liege controlled them. They’re expert soldiers.’

  ‘And they despise the tersh, yes?’

  ‘With a passion. The whole of Governance in fact.’

  ‘Must I even say it aloud then?’

  The Zdrastian inclined his head, puzzled.

  Simpleton, come, it isn’t a hard jump to make.

  ‘You mean that they can be militarised, Seer?’

  ‘Exactly that.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. They’re a passive lot. They treated me well, expected nothing in return for my safe keep.’

  He lacks a military imagination. What a pity. ‘Persuasion only consists of finding the right incentives. Do you remember where this village of theirs is?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then we’ll return and tell them of the Ayakashi girl. If anyone can end their plight, it’s her.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. Does it really matter? So long as they march on the tershal tower for us, it won’t be an issue anyway.’

  ‘Seer, I don’t mean to show disrespect -’ It has never stopped you before. ‘Only, I do not think we should treat them badly. They’re good folk.’

  ‘They’re not folk, Mikhail. They’re perversions. And we’re not likely to come across such a piece of good luck again. What a fortuitous tumble you had.’ He patted the dog a few times. ‘And what an industrious little mutt you are.’

  ‘March on the tershal tower?’ said the Zdrastian weakly.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Many of them will die.’

  ‘Quite possibly.’

  ‘Or retreat. They have emotions of a sort, they can fear. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Then we will have to make it abundantly clear that fear is not an option. Else we will report their position to the liege.’

  The Zdrastians mouth fell agape. ‘Seer!’

  ‘Oh come now…’

  ‘You mean to blackmail them? This “liege” will surely have them all killed. They say his gungovs can breathe fire, can disappear entire sections of the epicforest.’

  ‘They’re not wrong.’

  ‘And you would tell him of their community?’

  ‘If it was necessary. You’re a good man but you lack a certain willingness in your application of that good.’

  ‘I…’

  Defy me. Attempt it.

  ‘I cannot condone blackmail of these creatures.’

  Out beyond the main window, the gardens were full of the pious, going about their ablutions, making ready for the harvest. Fortmann gestured to them.

  ‘Those men and women,’ he said. ‘Why is it they go out there, day
after day?’

  ‘In belief of our cause,’ said the Zdrastian.

  ‘I believe in many things that I do not exert myself for. Come, is that the only reason?’

  ‘To prove their devotion,’ the Zdrastian tried again.

  ‘Ah, there it is. Their devotion to what?’

  ‘To you, Seer.’

  ‘And why would they find it so important to prove said devotion?’

  ‘Because they believe you a sort of demigod. A navigator that will lead them to the Up.’

  ‘And in your time as my friend, in the many years we have known each other, do you believe I am a sort of demigod?’ He is sheepish still, afraid of offending. ‘I won’t condemn you for honesty, Mikhail. Out with it.’

  ‘You are…a man.’

  ‘Mortal?’

  ‘To the best of my knowledge, yes.’

  ‘Yet I let them believe me a sort of deity. Why would I do that?’

  ‘I do not know, Seer.’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  The Zdrastian shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Because,’ he murmured, 'it makes them easier to utilise, I should think.’

  Fortmann slapped him encouragingly on the shoulder.

  ‘You’re not wrong, my friend. In the world of corporeal things, of insolent men and lying men and men that won’t act as the men they should be, it is necessary to lie sometimes, mislead, and even threaten. I would give my hands to live in a society where this were not true, but such a bargain is impossible. This is how the world works. I will not mistreat these peculiar friends of yours, but if I must motivate them with the threat of their extinction, then I will do so. It has always been like this, on Old Erde as it is on Exurbia. No leader, no king, no great man of his time, ever found greatness in gentility. A meek manner is for those with no decisions to make and no history to bear on their shoulders. Do you understand me?’