The caryatids, p.10
The Caryatids, page 10
She did not know what to tell him. The truth was so far beyond any words that he would understand.
She knew very well what had happened, why they had met. She’d been in an evacuation camp on the Croatian mainland, along with a battered host of other weeping, traumatized women from Mljet. Nobody had any food, or clothes, or medicine. They had nothing. They had nothing but mediation.
The social workers, the Acquis rescue people, were there to get people to talk. That was postdisaster counseling, they said, and they seemed to believe that talk, bearing witness to what they had suffered, was more important to people’s survival than food. Likely it was.
So the women were indeed talking, exchanging their names and some private bits and pieces of their broken lives. And one humble woman said, in her meek yet hopeful little voice, that maybe the lost island of Mljet could be redeemed someday. Maybe (said another woman) by “sensorwebs.”
“Sensorwebs” were a foreign idea these women knew practically nothing about, but they’d heard that word and knew that webs were supposed to be important and powerful. There, in the midst of their loss, hungry and wounded and drowning in woe, that was their straw of hope.
Vera knew better. Because she’d grown up in a seething, private bunker full of webs and sensors. Vera knew about event streams, burst rates, delta-change criteria, glitches, and collisions. Ubiquity had been installed in their bunker, as their nanny, and their spy, and their crèche, and their test bed for tomorrow’s superwomen: a nest of clones, who, just like their mother, would hunger always to put the world to rights.
And, inside that wicked fairy tale, that black deception of false righteousness, they had grown up, believing that it was manifest destiny. While it was nothing of the kind. It was a snare, a delusion, a monstrosity.
So Vera had lost her senses.
She screamed at the startled women that it made no sense to cover the world with scanners and sensors, unless you also had scanners for the heads of the evil fools who had wrecked the world in the first place. Vera did not know why she had to scream that, except that she felt it, and it was the truth.
The truth, of course, caused a big, hateful commotion among all the women, who screamed back at her and scolded her for talking that way … but then something strange happened. Some Acquis person, most likely a woman, had been watching the proceedings on the web.
For some reason, maybe a deep, tender sympathy, maybe some bureaucratic quirk, this woman had web-searched ideas … busily exploring and linking tags and concepts, correlating things and events, “refugees,” “reconstruction,” “sensors,” “brain scanners.”
Somehow, from the tangled glassy depths of global webdom, up popped some Australians, busily losing their own fierce battle to save their island continent. These distant Australians, so painfully familiar with refugee camps, knew a lot about scanners, neural tech, and heavy machinery.
World-spanning, instant connectivity was the stuff of being for a global civil society. So, somewhere up in the Acquis administrative stratosphere, cogwheels turned, galactic and distant.
Six weeks later, Vera found herself meeting Herbert Fotheringay, an Australian geoengineer.
A small Acquis neural corps was formed to redeem Mljet. Vera thought that Herbert had done that, while Herbert had always said that she had inspired it.
Now, sitting years later in the sagging deck chair in an old boat with the island sinking into darkness, Vera knew that no single person had ever done that. Mljet was a web of emerging technologies, around which people accreted.
Nothing much had been “invented” on Mljet. The brain scanners, the attention tracking, the neural software, the social software inside the camps, the sensors, the everyware, the communal property, even the heavy-duty exoskeletons—they all had years of development behind them, somewhere else.
The one innovation was the way they’d been brought to life by people willing to believe in them, wanting to believe in them.
Herbert had always claimed that she, Vera, had “inspired” his efforts. Maybe. There was no way for any woman to deny that she had “inspired” a man. It was true that she had been a girl in distress, demanding rescue.
What if a man came to the rescue? What if an army came? What if the army launched a thousand ships? What if they won? What then?
“You’re very lost in your own thoughts,” he said tenderly.
“I am,” she said.
“Well, you’ve certainly put a pretty spanner into their works today,” Herbert said briskly. “That’ll complicate matters upstairs. But I’m glad of it. I’m glad that snarky little real-estate hustler can’t patch his deal together and use you as his bait and his billboard. To hell with him and all his Yankee funding. I had hell-all for funding when you and I first tackled that place”—Herbert waved off the starboard bow—“and as for tackling the Big Ice, that is work for grown-ups. Vera: You and I will walk the Earth like Titans. You and me. Wait and see.”
“Big machines,” she murmured.
“Darling: I’m past that now. It’s behind me. That’s what these years have finally taught me. Any fool with a big budget can assemble big machines. We’re not mechanics, we are two engineers of human souls. We are. It’s what we feel in our own bones—that’s what matters in this world. The one mistake I made here was letting them set the limits on how we felt.”
“Did you make any mistakes here, Herbert?”
“In one sense, yes, I was blind. The children! No society thrives without children! When I saw how deeply you felt about that child, that niece of yours—then I knew what I had failed to offer you. Yes. I failed you. That tore me up.”
“I’m sorry you were hurt, Herbert.”
“Yes, that did hurt me, but the pain has opened my eyes. I once had children. They died in Australia. That ended that part of my world, I never got over that grief. But if we beat the Big Ice, you and me, then it will rain in Australia.”
“ ‘Australia Fair,’ ” said Vera. Herbert had talked about his own home island, sometimes. A place much bigger than Mljet. The biggest island in the world. He spoke of how he had loved his homeland.
“I may never set my foot in a renewed, revived, redeemed Australia. But our children will live there. Vera, our children will laugh and sing. They’ll be free. They’ll be happy.”
There was a violent snap as the boat came about. The yachtsman tied off his mainsail, and tramped the little deck in his cheap rubber shoes. He spoke in Croatian. “Srecno i mnogo! Muske dece!”
Vera blinked.
“Dobrodosao, zete!” The sailor clapped Herbert across the back.
Then he reached out his glad hand to Vera, and she realized, with a shock of revulsion, that the sailor was Djordje.
“You have really screwed up,” Djordje told her cheerfully, in his German-tinged English. “I told John Montgomery that you would never do it his way—the smart way. All the world for love! Well, you cost me a lot of good business, Vera. But I forgive you. Because I am so happy, very happy, to see you settled in this way.”
“You should express some sympathy for your sister,” Herbert told him. “On the Big Ice, I’ll work her harder than ever.”
“There is no pleasing you global politicals,” said Djordje. He found himself another deck chair, one even shabbier and more mildewed than the one that Vera perched on. “You spent nine years on that godforsaken island there? That evil hellhole? And you never took one vacation? Truly, you people kill me.”
Vera grabbed hard for the shards of her sanity. “How have you been, Djordje? This is such a surprise for me.”
“Call me ‘George,’ ” he corrected. “My life is good. I have another baby on the way. That would be number three.”
“Oh my.”
Djordje helped himself to a fizzing glass of prosecco. “That’s not what you say to wonderful news like mine, Vera. You say: ‘Mnogo muske dece!’ ‘Hope it’s a son!’ ”
Vera had not seen Djordje face-to-face in ten years. He’d been a scrawny seventeen-year-old kid on the night he’d sabotaged the sensor-web, jumped the bunker wall, and fled their compound forever. The agony of having their little brother rebel, defect, and vanish was the first irrefutable sign that all was not well in caryatid fairyland.
The seven world-princesses, Vera, Biserka, Sonja, Bratislava, Svetlana, Kosara, and Radmila: they all had joined hands, eyes, and minds in their mystic circle, and sworn to eradicate every memory of their traitor-to-futurity. Yet he had left their ranks incomplete, and the tremendous energies that unified them were turning to chaos.
Toward chaos, hatred, and an explosion of violence, and yet here was Djordje, their traitor, not vanished, not eradicated, as he so deserved to be: no, he was prosperous, pleased with himself, and as big as life. Bigger. Because Djordje was all grown-up. Grown-up, Djordje was very big.
He was half a head taller than she was. His face was her face, but big and broad and male. Djordje had a bull’s forehead, a bristling blond mustache, and a forest of blond bristles on his chin and cheeks and neck. His chest was flat and his gut was like a barrel and his big male legs were like tree trunks.
She was horribly afraid of him. He was here and smiling at her, yet he should not be. His existence was wrong.
“Your brother has lent us this boat,” said Herbert. “So that we could be alone—just for once! Out of surveillance. So I could ask you to marry me.”
“It was my honor to lend you my old boat,” said Djordje nobly. “And I approve of your aims.”
“Nine years under a sensorweb,” mourned Herbert. “Nine years in attention camps where the system watches your eyeballs! My God, it was Acquis-officer this, boss-and-subordinate that; no wonder we both were so stifled! You know what the next step is—after we marry? We need to work together to widen the emotional register of the neural society! No more of that hothouse atmosphere: half barracks, half brothel … something grand, something decent!”
“How?” said Vera.
“In Antarctica! It’s a huge frontier.”
“There’s grass in Antarctica,” said Djordje. “There’s grain growing there. They’re brewing beer off the melting glaciers. Truly!”
Herbert burst into deep, rumbling laughter. “I love this guy. He is such a funny guy.”
Vera sipped her bubbling wine.
“You’ll do all right, Vera,” said Djordje. “You never had a father figure. Life with an older man suits you.”
“Oh my God,” said Herbert, “please don’t tell her that!”
“Herbert, you are a genius,” Djordje told him. “Every one of those girls has got a genius on the hook, someplace! The caryatids pick men up like carpet tacks. They are like a magnetic field.”
Djordje emptied his glass. “Do you know what makes me so happy, tonight? I have both of you here, on my old boat. At last, I am saving you. It’s like I dug you two out of a coffin. No skull helmets on you, no skeleton bones on you! We’re all free! I took you offshore! We are far outside the limits of the Mljet everyware!”
Djordje wildly waved his arms at the cloud-streaked twilight. “So: Go ahead! Access your mediation! Boot an augment! There’s nothing out here! We’re free and out at sea! I haven’t been this happy since I stole this boat ten years ago.”
“Can I have more of that wine?” said Vera. The two men clashed as they grabbed for the bottle. Herbert hastily topped up her glass.
“My children love this boat,” said Djordje.
“I would imagine,” said Herbert.
“They love life aboard here, nothing but wind and sea,” said Djordje. “Because kids are kids! Kids are the ultimate check on reality! You can’t have a posthuman, brain-mapped toddler.”
“There’s a lot to what this man says,” Herbert offered. He found a wheel of soft cheese inside the picnic basket. “When I was a kid, my granddad had a sheep station. We didn’t even have television out there. Life was life.”
The sun was fading over distant Italy, and the evening breeze grew sharper. The little yacht held its course across the Adriatic, leaning, jumping the chop.
“I stole this boat because it is a simple boat,” said Djordje. “I could have stolen a fancy boat. The harbor was so full of them. The boats of rich idiots. All hooked up to their maps and global satellites.” He laughed. “I cut that chip out of my arm—they never found me. This boat was just wood and water. Nothing else! The web ran out of ways to spy.”
Vera found her voice. It was raw, but it was her own. “Do you spy on me with your web, Djordje?”
“A little, Vera. I have to look after you a little. You’re a danger to yourself and others.”
“How is your wife, Djordje?”
“Call me George,” he said. “My dear wife, Inke, is just fine.”
“Inke doesn’t get a little bored with you? With her church, and her kids, and her kitchen?”
“That’s right, Your Highness,” said Djordje, with a level stare. “My Inke is a boring woman. She is nothing like you. My Inke believes in God, she’s a mother, she’s a housewife. She’s a real human being, and she’s worth about a thousand of you.”
Vera shrank back in her deck chair, hissing through her teeth.
“Don’t hurt Vera’s feelings,” said Herbert.
Djordje shrugged. “As long as we have the facts confirmed.”
“The fact is that Vera is a very fine Acquis officer.”
Djordje wasn’t having any of this. “Look, we’re all family now, so spare me your politics. Me, the wife, the kids: We are not political people. We’re the real people in the real world. Okay? You fanatics and politicals and geeks and crusading communists … You say you want to save the world? Well, we are the world you’re trying to save. We’re the normal people.”
Herbert emptied his glass. “I can sympathize.”
“I am normal, I live decently. I have shareholders and eighteen hundred employees in Vienna. I’m into import-export and arbitrage, logistics, shipping-and-packaging. Industrial everyware: That’s me, George Zweig.”
“I do understand that, George. Please calm down.”
A ghastly moment passed. Djordje was not getting calmer. “I’m okay, Herbert. I’m fine with life, I’m fine with all of it. It’s a family thing, you understand? It’s not too easy for me to be with your little bride here. I’m the rational one among our group. Really.”
“This world is so full of trouble,” said Herbert.
“Just keep Vera out of jails and camps,” said Djordje. “Vera is the sweet one. Sonja is a soldier. Sonja is killing people. They should arrest Sonja. They should arrest Biserka. They should try to arrest my mother.”
“I hate you,” said Vera. She spat over the side of the boat.
“Shut up,” Djordje explained.
“I want you to die, Djordje. To hell with you and your precious children and your stinking little wife. If I had my boneware on, I’d break you into bloody pieces.”
“Well, you can’t break me, you little whore! You never could, you never can, and you never will.”
She lashed out. “I’m not going to marry him!”
Djordje was stunned. “You love him. You said you would marry him.”
“I never said yes to him. You didn’t hear me say yes.”
Djordje looked at Herbert. He offered a sickening smile. “Women.”
“I’m not marrying anybody. Never.”
“You’re a virgin,” said Djordje, like a curse. “You’re not human. You’re a robot. You’re a walking corpse.”
“Look, don’t do this to each other,” Herbert told them. “This is really bad.”
“No, this is good,” said Djordje. “I want to hear this little bitch spit out what she wants! You want to sell this guy out? You want to go for the big money! At the end of the day, our home belongs to you, doesn’t it? It’s all about you, Vera, you, you, you!”
Vera jumped to her feet. “I’m going to kill you now.”
Djordje was out of his chair in an instant. With a roundhouse swing of his right hand, he knocked her to the deck. With a roar, Herbert rose. He threw his brawny arms around Djordje. His bear hug lifted Djordje from his feet.
“You little slut!” Djordje howled, kicking his legs in a frenzy. “I owe you a lot more than that!”
Vera watched the two men struggle. She touched her flaming, battered cheek, and lifted her gaze. Overhead, uncaring stars dotted the troubled skies.
She took one deep sobbing breath, and flung herself into the sea.
RADMILA CLIMBED DOWN THE THROAT of the rehearsal pit. Her skirt floated around her kneecaps, a jeweled mass of air-tecture, brocade, and electric chiffon.
Glyn spoke up in her earpiece. “Mila, get back up here.”
“I need one last run-through for my chair stunt. Just to test this costume.”
“You are perfect,” Glyn pronounced. “You were perfect when you left makeup.”
“This is for Toddy. Tonight I’ve got to be superperfect.”
“Roger that,” said Glyn, a little sourly.
Radmila found her footing in the blackness. Sensing her presence, the rehearsal space woke around her. Wireframe exploded from the darkness. Prop sticks tumbled loose from their racks and flew like flung batons. The sticks clanged together, joining end-to-end.
The pit suddenly held the skeletal frame of a theater set: couches, a chair.
“Okay,” Glyn told her, “you are a go.”
Radmila dug her reactive slippers into the memory foam. “This pit is good. This place is so state-of-the-art. This is, totally, the hottest rehearsal pit that the Family-Firm has ever built.”
“Just watch your hat,” said Glyn patiently.
Golden footmarks glowed on the floor. Radmila braced herself for performance.
“Whoa,” said Glyn, “I’ve got a bad stress readout from your left ankle.”
“My ankle is fine now!”
