Exodus, page 44
“We don’t know,” Ellie said. “And I don’t suppose we ever will. A lot of people want a ZPZ generator.”
“Well, you’re safe now. Nobody shoots at anyone in the Crown Dominion.”
Finn indicated Josias, who was talking to his fellow council members. “That’s quite impressive. I was never nominated for this council.”
“Big surprise.” Laughing, Otylia waved frantically at Josias. As soon as he caught sight of them, Josias broke off and came over, smiling broadly. He hugged Ellie tight. “You made it.”
“Of course we did,” she said, mildly annoyed.
“My boy,” Josias said loudly, and put his hand out.
Finn took it and—the self-perceptual greeting took him completely by surprise. It was weak and lacked the focus he was used to, but the signature of Josias’s personality was authentic enough: good humor tempered by an overwhelming self-belief. Finn responded with his standard signature.
“How…?” he gasped.
A grinning Josias held up his hand. There were slim ridges in the skin running from his wrist to the center of his palm where they formed a tight whorl in exactly the place a uranic’s neural pad would be. They had the dark hue of a fading bruise. “Some kind of bioware, apparently,” Josias said. “Cost me a goddamn fortune, but so worth it. Even if it does phantom itch the whole time.”
Finn glanced at Otylia for help.
“I’ve been up at High Rosa a lot for the Gath,” she said. “I found a visiting Traveler who sold me the bioware package. It’s from Lidon. Apparently, their biotech wizards developed it so they could control livestone. They’ve found some way to use the stuff aggressively—something to do with killing the core layer. Sounds awful, but it works. I’ve been training him.” She squeezed her husband’s arm fondly.
“Well…okay, then,” Finn said. “I’ve heard of bioware neural connectors. Haven’t seen one before.”
“Indispensable, my dear boy,” Josias said. “I mainly use it to interface with Gondiar’s network. It’s a real boon. Nothing’s impossible in the Crown Dominion, eh?”
“Right. Uh, congratulations, by the way.”
“Thank you, brother-in-law. Your sister’s the best thing that’s happened to me in centuries.” Josias winked.
“I meant on being admitted to the Human Affairs Advisory Council.”
“Hey!” Otylia slapped Finn on the side of his head. It wasn’t playful.
“Ow.”
“You deserved that,” Ellie told him.
Finn grinned. “Seriously, well done, both of you. When do I get to see my niece and nephew?”
“Laurella and Dushan are at home in Hafnir,” Otylia said. “I’ve told them all about you, the dashing starship-captain-to-be. Come out and meet them.”
“First I’ve got to get back up to High Rosa. Gyvoy said he’s getting ready to complete the deal.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Otylia said. “Get your arse out there; I want you to see your biggest success for yourself. You deserve it. You too, Ellie.”
“Fine by me,” Ellie said.
“The new arrow train runs there direct from the city,” Josias said. “It only takes a couple of hours.”
“There’s a train?” Finn vaguely remembered talking to Munani about her family partnering up to build a maglev line out to Hafnir. Had that been at a party?
Otylia gave him a sympathetic smile. “Eight years, remember?”
“I remember. But the reality of that is going to take some getting used to.”
* * *
—
Finn left Ellie talking to Josias and Otylia and went over to his mother and Zelinda. He opened his arms to give his mother a hug and exchange a self-perceptual, but her expression stopped him with the force of a punch on the nose.
“Hello, Finbar,” she said. Her lips parted in a brief smile that looked alien on her face. “Did you have a successful trip?”
“Did I have a successful trip? Oh, for…I’ve been away for eight years, mother!”
“Quite. That gives you time to make sure everything went well, does it not?”
“Yes, mother. After a terrifying spaceship battle and the attempt to murder us on Terrik Papuan, we secured a ZPZ generator for the Diligent. I won’t be around to disgrace the family for much longer.”
His mother actually blushed. “It was a genuine inquiry, Finbar. I am glad to see you. Why must you always be so awkward?”
“I didn’t…Oh, shit.” He turned to Zelinda and kissed her on the cheek. His elder sister was pregnant again; this time he wasn’t surprised. “Congratulations.” He made a quick neural contact so he could show her he was genuinely pleased to see her. “Our family seems to be multiplying.”
Zelinda produced an unaffected smile. “Yes. Everett is engaged now, as well.”
“Oh, that’s good.” Finn had endured an even worse relationship with his elder brother than with Zelinda.
“To Variaka Richelieu-Travere,” Zelinda said, holding Finn’s gaze. “I’m sure you must remember her. Weren’t the two of you about the same age?”
It was all Finn could do not to flinch, though he suspected his cheeks might be flushed. He and Variaka had been a thing before his time with Graça—two young uranics of good family in the capital together and both stupendously bored with their formulaic lives. It was not so much a cliché as inevitable.
“Not anymore,” he said. “I lost the last eight chronological years to Gate travel.”
“The wedding is in seven months,” the marchioness said. “I trust you won’t be missing this one?”
“Oh, I expect he might,” Zelinda said in a sweetly neutral tone.
“If I am in the Kelowan system, you can be sure I’ll attend,” Finn said. “But, mother, you know I will likely be gone in just a few weeks. Everett will have to find himself another best man.”
“That will hurt him, I’m sure,” Zelinda said.
Finn didn’t know how to respond to her teasing him. She’s changed—and for the better. How did that happen? Does having children do that to you? It didn’t with mother. Is it from time, the eight years? Asteria’s arse, I just don’t understand my family.
“And you?” Zelinda asked. “How serious is it between you and Ellie nowadays? If you marry her, what would that make you and Josias, I wonder? I mean, Otylia would be your step-grandmother-in-law, wouldn’t she?”
“Zelinda!” the marchioness said disapprovingly. She gave Finn a sharp look. “Are you going to marry her?”
“I…I’ve no idea. I’m just focused on getting the Diligent flying again. Not thinking about other things yet.”
“Still a commitment-phobe then?” Zelinda mocked.
“Strange as it may sound, I actually approve,” the marchioness said.
“Of Ellie?”
“Your acquisition of a ZPZ stasis generator. I would very much like to see the Diligent fly.”
“Thank you, mother.” He didn’t have the courage to ask: And your opinion of Otylia and Josias?
“Unsurprisingly, now that the Gath are living on board, your sister has invested in it—too much in my view.”
“Invested?”
“The raw materials needed to bring the life support spheres up to a decent standard are not cheap.”
“The Diligent has the capacity to build any component it needs,” he said, irritated at how defensive he sounded. Or, actually, the fact he had to be defensive at all.
“Indeed. But as your extensive schooling must have made clear, to build these components you have to have the basic compounds to begin with. And before that, the ship’s manufacturing systems had to be refurbished to perform what is essentially a complete overhaul. After all, you can only lift yourself so far by your own bootstraps. Then there are the simple yet essential replacements. Do you have any idea how unsavory the on-board water had become after being recycled through filters for hundreds of years? Not that water is particularly expensive at High Rosa, but still bills mount up. New seeds for the agronomy plants, spores for the bioreactors. I could go on.”
“No need, I get it,” he said, and looked over to where Otylia was in earnest conversation with Ellie. She caught his eye and smiled. Finn’s return smile didn’t quite manage her intensity. Of course she’d go all out to give the Gath a decent sanctuary. “She’s a saint,” he said softly.
The marchioness wrinkled her nose in disapproval. “So people claim. And now you are going to fly away from me.”
Finally, it was too much. “Well, what have I ever had here to look forward to?”
“Finbar!” Zelinda chided.
“My life has been devoted to doing my duty for the empress,” his mother replied stoically. “As has all of our line since humans arrived in this system. Because of that, because of our commitment to the people of Santa Rosa they all have a home, a job, medical care, their children are educated, and they sleep easy at night knowing their future is safe in a way no human of Old Earth ever knew. That is the cost of being a Jalgori-Tobu, Finbar—a cost you do not have to pay because your sister will pay it for you.”
“Mother, I—”
“No. I failed to show you how important—how vital—our role is for everyone on this planet. The time when you would come into your true inheritance—an inheritance that has nothing to do with money or privilege—has long gone now. The Jalgori-Tobus are not born to have an easy life, not on this world. So I consider it’s for the best that you are leaving to find your own way out among the stars of the Centauri Cluster. Go with my blessing, Finbar, and know that I have, and always will, love you.”
The shock of hearing his mother saying those words left him dazed. For one moment he thought he might cry. “Thank you, mother. That means everything to me.”
This time he put his arms around her and hugged for a glorious moment. Then he turned and gave Zelinda a farewell nod. The expression on her face was chilling, because he understood it perfectly, he’d worn it himself for so many years: a prisoner glimpsing the world on the other side of the jail bars, and knowing they were never going to escape.
* * *
—
Hafnir was nothing like Finn expected. That was probably because he’d never seen anything like it before. The small city was so different from the conformist architecture of Santa Rosa, and even Zaita City. For a start, the streets didn’t have a grid system. The city planners (if there were any) had delighted in making all the roads curve or intersect at sharp angles. Parks—of which there were many—followed the natural contours of the landscape rather than slicing through it. Nor were there any multi-story blocks of apartments. Every house was individual, with its own garden.
“Like baby mansions,” he muttered as the globecab (thankfully they were the same as always) carried him from the train station to Otylia’s house.
“That’s the idea,” his sister told him. “All these houses are only a few years old, remember; they’ll be growing for centuries. And there’s so much experimentation, too. The uranics who’ve turned up to be our architects are all determined to innovate.”
“The Diligent settlers have got records of Old Earth architecture from the sublime to the gross,” Josias said. “It’s been a revelation to anyone brought up here.”
“I see that,” Finn said as they drove past a building that was a clutter of oblong boxes, one of which had a small waterfall pouring off its roof into a moat.
Hafnir had spread out along the coastline, which was a series of long, white, sandy beaches. Big ocean breakers pummeled the shore. There were a lot of surfers riding them. Finn watched them enviously.
Otylia and Josias had claimed a small peninsula for themselves. Their house made Finn think of a cluster of mushrooms that hadn’t quite finished bursting out of the loam.
“You designed it,” he guessed.
“Certainly did,” Otylia said cheerfully.
As the globecab pulled up outside the glass archway that was the main entrance, Laurella and Dushan came running out. Finn had three hours with the kids before they were finally taken up to bed.
“They’re the best,” he told Otylia.
“They are. So would you like to take care of them all day tomorrow?”
“Asteria, no, not a chance!”
She laughed. “Don’t be a bachelor uncle all your life.”
They sat on the veranda overlooking the beach as the sun sank toward the horizon. “We should have a good view from here when Dolod finally comes insystem,” Otylia said, as she smiled up at the night sky. Above the ocean, the georing was a golden band bisecting the nebula, with a slim crescent of Atapedia shining bright behind it.
“View of Dolod?” Ellie asked. “What’s that?”
“Haven’t you heard? There’s a new planet heading into the Kelowan system.”
“Uh?”
“Probably some kind of late arrival from the Dawn Era,” Otylia said. “The Elohim made all the Green Worlds in the Centauri Cluster. That involved a lot of shifting planets around into decent orbits before they were terraformed. I mean, you’ve seen Kelowan has two orbital belts of habitable planets. Nothing here is cosmologically natural.”
“So what’s this new one going to be?”
“Nobody knows. It will be at closest approach to Kelowan’s star in about another thirty years, at which point the Archimedes Engine controlling its flight will perform a momentum transfer. When that happens, there are two possible outcomes. It either goes into orbit somewhere around Kelowan, or it slingshots around the star and heads outsystem to another solar system.”
“Now I’ve really heard it all,” Ellie muttered.
“But seeing it all,” Otylia said happily, “now that’s the thing.” She turned to implore Finn and Ellie. “You will be back for that, won’t you? You have to be, Finn. It’s a once in a thousand lifetimes event.”
“Sure.”
“Promise.” She held up her hand. “Proper promise.”
With a sigh he put his palm against hers. “Promise,” he told her over their connection and meant it.
Otylia pouted. “I caught that thought, Finbar Jalgori-Tobu. I’m not a bully.”
“Ha!”
“Well…only when you deserve it.”
“I’m going to have to go now,” Josias told them. “I’ve got to get to the party.”
“Aren’t we invited?” Finn asked, disappointment not entirely feigned.
“Not that sort of party, my boy. This is a finance meeting of Regal Democrats. Money’s tight, but then that’s what every political campaign pleads since the day Brutus got together with some friends for a quick stabby regime change.”
“What the hell is Regal Democrats?”
“It’s a political party. Local based, but with grand plans for expansion. It’s a reflection of what Hafnir is all about. Our candidates are the majority on the local council.”
“He’s the party president,” Otylia said in exasperation. “The whole thing was his idea.”
“I just feel people should be able to have a say on issues,” Josias said with a not-very-modest shrug. “All viewpoints should be put forward and debated openly.”
Otylia turned to Finn. “There are twenty-five people sitting in the Hafnir assembly, and all but two of them are Regal Democrats.”
“Pays to have popular policies.”
“So what does the council have authority over?” Ellie asked.
“Local issues and tax spending. It’s hot stuff. Right now we’re dealing with the proposed Hartcliffe High School campus project. Huge argument: Do we have the sports fields behind the buildings, or out in front?”
“Right. Riveting,” Finn agreed.
“That’s it?” Ellie asked. “Local amenities?”
“Ha!” Otylia groaned. “What do you think?”
“We’re also lobbying the governor for more up-to-date financial regulations,” Josias said.
“He means liberal,” Otylia translated. “Especially when it comes to relaxing credit limits.”
“They’re restricting growth. Existing legislation works fine for long-established commerce centers like Santa Rosa, but we’re different.”
“Only for now.”
“Yeah, but other people are looking at our example and asking why they’re not allowed the same unrestricted market-driven growth.”
“And this is why he was invited to join the Human Affairs Advisory Council,” Otylia said, giving Finn a knowing look. “Get it?”
“Oh, yeah. Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. It’s a standard neutralization strategy they’ve employed here, Josias; you flatter the rebel with legitimacy and bring them into the mainstream. That way there is no opposition to the status quo. It’s worked for hundreds of years.”
“The key to this is legitimacy,” Josias said. “Yeah, they put me in a prominent establishment position because, like you say, that brings me in from the cold. But now, if they dismiss me from the council, that’s a huge deal. People will wonder what they were so frightened of. I’ll be happy to tell them—very loudly and in great detail. If they let me stay, I can effect change from within. Win-win. Your politics here is practically nonexistent after eight centuries of blandness. Maybe that should be challenged. Did you know that every regulation the governor has signed into law in the entire human history on Gondiar is still law?”
“Well, yes.”
“Don’t you find that incredible? That not one single law has been reviewed and found lacking—has ever been reviewed, come to that? That’s not the stability the queens boast about, that’s stagnation. And it won’t end well.”
“Are you really thinking of putting up candidates in Santa Rosa’s districts?” Finn asked in fascination.
“Anyone anywhere can join the party, and if they want to stand for election—wherever they are—they’ll certainly have my support.”
