It remains the best way
 
So they’re all criminally insane, how funny is that.  All totally divorced from the reality of post Enlightenment, post creation of the free world, post Marx post Einstein post Woodstock, post Christian England.
 
Nothing major, then.
 
I said answer the fucking questions because this is a democracy and power is accountable, so just answer the fucking questions, you sly cowardly evil despicable obscene filthy traitor vermin.
 
Ooh, it makes them feel so bloody important, the pathetic sicko psychos, crawling around in the dark, coating themselves in filth and squalor, rolling around in it, sharing their lies and madness, deciding for others whose views are not required, deciding for their property, their slaves, ooh they’re so powerful, they decree and no-one may question them, sickening cowardly  scum vermin.  Say it in the open where everyone can hear it and anyone can challenge it, say it open or save your bloody breath. 
 
Absolute refusal to publicly establish the facts.  Fact would never do, would it, filth, scum, vermin, bags of diseased mad evil shit.  No, no, I have to be destroyed by your world of madness and sickness and perversion.
 
Lies are the lifeblood of the filth, eat, breathe, sweat, shit, dream lies. 
 
Pervert freak filth sickos want me to suffer and it’s not enough for them to have crippled me, foul sexually diseased old men in black dresses clutching their stinking wizened pricks and jerking themselves of on the power to injure my body.  They’re important.  They’re the people who matter. 
The State says so.  
 
On no account are they to be hurt, offended by fact, by reality.
 
Hey I’ve offended some sick psycho freak, some violent nutjob who belongs in Broadmoor, and all the sick disgusting freaks think I should suffer for rhat, offended some pervert, sexually diseased sick boy loony tune freakoid so they all fall on their faces begging to please, 
 
Don’t you, Blair filth
 
Spastic shit
 
Got Troof, have you, Linch, Whelan, McGuckin, McTierney, O’Mahony, Khwaja, Nathwani, Rismani, Mohamedbhai, all the little nutjobs thumping their Qurans and Bibles, they got Troof
Islam is not to be offended!
The Church is not to be traduced!
Oh, join the fucking real world, nut-jobs.  Busted flush, nutjobs.  Went out with the Ark.  What these mad  peasants think we all are, savages, falling down in awe.  Lo,  it is a revelation from a mighty God! Lo,  it is the Word!  It is Truth!
For a start you can’t both have Troof.
 
Impressed by a book, very very impressed.  There weren’t many books then.  Now there are millions of the things.
 
Now we have nine volume fantasy sagas.  Now we know of what the human imagination is capable.
 
Talking of answering questions, why haven’t I been paid?  I’m sure MI fucking Five are falling over themselves to explain why I have been thrown on the scrapheap and left to die.

REALITY 102
 
There is not only one book in the world defining reality. A belief-system is simply a collection of ideas that seem to make more sense to someone than other collections of ideas. Some people (they know who they are) claim everything is enshrined in their One Book, with the resultant claim that everything was fixed in one time and one place. The historical Moses is thought to have lived in around 1400 BC. In the 1500 years or so between him and Paul, a multiplicity of world-shaping events and perspectives on being human occurred elsewhere on the planet, the whole of Ancient Greece and with it the birth of democracy, most of Classical Rome, the Upanishads, Confucius, Zoroastrianism, Lao-Tzu, none of which is significant to the orthodox Christian, other than as error or sin or at best feeble gropings for troof. This is first order lunacy: discuss. It worked when there was no mass communication, when the nearest city was an alien land many leagues distant. It doesn’t work now.

It is worth being precise about what hardly anyone believes, because actually it is possible to be entirely precise about what people do not believe, whether they be hard-line materialist atheists or flutterby flower-children. We do not believe there is only one book in the world. We are not a largely illiterate society of desert tribesmen thousands of years ago to whom one book was an all-encompassing explanation. We live in a society with access to millions of books and other sources of information; if we do not read much, we may surf or watch Life on Earth. We form our views based on what we read together with our experience of other human beings. We do not believe one book dictates what we must think; clearly millions of books, the content of which is contradictory, cannot dictate what anyone thinks.

Where the content of books conflicts with reality, we do not believe reality is necessarily over-ruled. Where the content of books contains ideas conflicting with ideas in a 'holy book', we do not believe the 'holy book' necessarily true and other books false.

Indeed, we live in a society shaped by a Trinity, that Trinity being broadly symbolized by the combined content of the Philosophy, Religion and Science sections of a major bookshop.

We may prefer to believe that which is demonstrably false or distinctly less likely but on the whole I think have an awareness of the thing called fact; one of the things that distinguishes the  insane religious from the sane is whether he or she accords the Virgin Birth or Mohammed's Night Journey the status of fact, on par with water boiling when heated sufficiently.

Clearly also people who read many books, the content of which is contradictory, come across views that repel or otherwise offend them and do not run around screaming and shouting about it.

It being the case that some views on life the universe and everything directly oppose others, unless you live in a hole in the ground you are going to meet people who think what you think is nonsense.  If you then cavort and scream a) you are mad and b) your ignorance, your self-obsession and your total intellectual and emotional inadequacy are your problem. You seek to annul the external source of your distress because you have neither self-control (ability to contain your feelings) nor self-command (ability to change your feelings).
We live in a universe or possibly a multiverse described so far as at present possible by astrophysics not by the ravings of ancient Jews.
Freak boy  Blair thinks there’s something exceptionable about that, but then of course freak boy Blair lives in the world of the loony, as defined by mad old men dribbling religion is not to be mocked.  Might there not be different physical laws on the far side of a singularity?  Might there not be things we haven’t discovered yet?  What sort of nonsense is that, everything is known, they got this book, see.  They got Troof.  They got God’s Holy Word.
They don’t have a clue whether God even exists but that of course does not deter them from trying to force ‘respect’ for their fantasies.
 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Genesis 2
 
We’re good barbecued.
 
I do assure the House or for that matter the Court I am not derived from Adam’s rib.  I mean it’s a joke, right.  It’s farcical.

Ooh, ooh, I have mocked sincere beliefs.  Why is believing ape-shit always supposed to be annulled by the sincerity with which a nutter believes ape-shit?  And of course why are people who do not believe ape-shit considered insincere?
 
That tyrannosaurs have resurrected themselves from the Jurassic and any mainstream person can solemnly dribble that this crap has to be taken seriously - Jesus wept! Probably would do because unlike so many of his self-appointed representatives he was intelligent.
 
Blair is a very sick little monkey.  That the Church is bigger than the Pope is an argument I can understand.  That cradle Catholics remain within the Church despite a Pope I can understand. That anyone should wish to join a church led by this evil sick disgusting old man I do not understand. Nor that filthy bitch of his on her knees before her master. 
   In 1986, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the infamous Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. Ratzinger wrote that a homosexual orientation, even if the person is totally celibate, is a "tendency" toward an "intrinsic moral evil". Moreover, a homosexual inclination is both an "objective disorder" and a "moral disorder", which is "contrary to the creative wisdom of God". "Special concern and pastoral attention should be directed towards those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not." Ratzinger's 1986 Letter concludes that pastoral care for homosexual persons should include "the assistance of the psychological, sociological and medical sciences", and that "all support should be withdrawn from any organisations which seek to undermine the teachings of the Church, which are ambiguous about it, or which ignore it entirely".
      In July 1992, the Vatican issued a further proclamation authorised by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and by Pope John Paul II, entitled "Some Considerations Concerning the Catholic Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons".
      This document was designed to mobilise Catholic opinion against equal rights legislation for lesbians and gay men. It describes homosexuality as an "objective disorder" and a "tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil". Rejecting the concept of homosexual "human rights", it asserts there is "no right" to homosexuality; adding that the civil liberties of lesbians and gay men can be "legitimately limited for objectively disordered external conduct".
      While condemning "unjust" discrimination, the Vatican document says that some forms of antigay discrimination are "not unjust" and may even be "obligatory": especially with regard to "the consignment of children to adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or coaches, and in military recruitment".
      Most shocking of all, the 1992 document suggests that when lesbians and gay men demand civil rights, "neither the Church nor society should be surprised when ... irrational and violent reactions increase".
      This implies that by asking for human rights, lesbians and gay men encourage homophobic prejudice and violence: we bring hatred upon ourselves, and are responsible for our own suffering. The Catholic Church, it seems, blames the victims of homophobia, not the perpetrators.
https://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/rosecottage/OutRage-archives/ratzing.htm  
That alone should have them ostracized by civilized people.  Absolutely sexually diseased.  As I have pointed out the roots of the particular hatred they direct at gay men is like their hatred of women rooted in the delusion of a cosy little love-in between Man, as in Man, and God.  Love for a woman pollutes it.  Then, when all the women have been suppressed, it’s polluted by men loving each other.
 
Jesus of course understood that if men are merely told to love God they will treat people like shit and they had to be told to love their neighbours equally. 
 
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Galatians 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself
 
Liberty is a function of love. Control is a function of self-will.
You are not self-forgetting by definition if you are forcing others to obey you, placing to the fore the seedy clamourings of your self. Similarly 'God's mercy' is an exercise in self-stroking, whether attributed to God or claimed by the religious, a sitting there stroking yourself at how virtuous you are being because you are 'showing mercy'. If you love other people, you don't want to do that from which you are 'mercifully' refraining in the first place. Self-forgetting is graciousness, as in beauty of manner. Grace is paramountly not forcing oneself on others other than to restrain them from forcing themselves on others.
Thus democracy, a system of government devised to contain power in which the only legitimate use of power against others is to stop them forcing their filthy selves on others. 

And you old boy will do anything to maintain Corruption, keep them mad, afraid, ignorant, dependent, subservient and all the politicians suck your cock, certainly in the case of the bastardized fascist fake Left because they too believe people are property, to be and do what the State requires. They are funny, aren’t they. They babble about equality and demand slavery. We are equal in rights. That absolutely petrifies you, doesn’t it, the mere idea someone can address you as a fellow human being not an overlord. Can say things to you you do not wish to hear. Or of course ignore you.

They are repulsive. I am repelled. I trust I have made that clear, woodentops whose sole criterion for judging an idea is whether Master permits it, who would burn all the books if they knew what they contained, a cancer in the University, tumour cells replacing healthy tissue.

I have to say one of the areas in which I am wholly lacking in knowledge is the law governing the keeping of dangerous animals but it would seem to me likely, whether one is the Master of Longleat or a fan of poisonous snakes, that the law demands they be securely contained that they pose no threat to others. You wish your dangerous animals at liberty to molest others and politicians concur. That has to be funny. When others do not even wish to contain the savage beast but merely to comment on its bestiality you cry 'They must not be hurt!' and politicians, who are either fools or evil, rush to assist and to attempt to enforce silence but what is the hurt but the existence of other human beings who are not like them. 

You really believe you are set on high to dictate to others, that you are some kind of superior life-form endowed with rights particularly over me, either born to or given by God the power to dictate reality.

Hey it’s the Wizard of Oz.

This ain’t Kansas, bubba.

Keep them afraid, keep them animals, keep them impotent, incontinent, keep them terrified of words, monkey cannot cope with words, keep them hating and fearing human freedom, keep them enslaved, keep them convinced everyone is the property of their master. Keep them believing a psychotic frightened little monkey speaks for God, his will is God’s will, keep them incapable of question, keep them obedient, keep them intellectually incapable because if a cowardly thug represents God, then God is a cowardly thug.

Keep them FRIGHTENED. Keep them hating freedom. Keep them shit and then they’ll hate the freedom to say they’re shit. Keep them frightened of words. How can words hurt control change you? You change you. Or rather obviously not. HATE FREEDOM hate no control, hate no-one kneel HATE IT. Frightens little monkey. 

Try going down to Yasgur's Farm, man. Perfect love casts out fear.

What happens when people stop sucking your cock? Apart from your need for a hand-job of course.

What are you, apart from robe, gown, status, power. Have you a heart? Have you a mind? Are you anything besides a large baboon who hits people? When people are free to ignore you. Set moral example, persuade with reason. Why are you right? You cannot. Thus you think you need not, convince yourself you have Truth. You are morally superior. You ordain. The slave-sluts of course are utterly convinced of their intellectual superiority. They have Truth. Therefore I am lying. Convinced of their moral superiority, for they are obedient and their minds are dead. They do not cannot will not question. It terrifies. Cannot question Truth. 

Animals are obedient. I am a human being. 

Your Truth is a load of intellectually and morally indefensible ape-shit. 
All for something that could have been cleared up in five minutes if you weren’t  corrupt and bestial and fascist and  psychotic and perverted and evil.
The best way of dealing with these vermin remains publication, not least because my book is among other things a hymn to women’s rights and gay rights.  Whether I now shall – we shall see.
 
Extracts from The Anile Heir ©2006.
 
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book.
 
DEMANJI: As a gay woman, I am of course double-prey.  As Sardun, I escaped.  But you can argue it rebounds on women, all women.  Men understanding we’re seen as prey get at best over-protective.  Karula asked a question.  Haven’t seen anyone answer it yet.  Isn’t this part of it.  Their intentions are honourable!  Got a few wires crossed on the way.
SALI:  I think it all goes back to the Kadun cock-up, most things do.  As Maya’s said,
CALUNIN: I do not think I am alone in failing to find modesty and decorum a stain. Men do not flaunt our bodies.  Indeed cats and trees do not operate half-naked.  It can hardly be argued a woman needs to expose herself to be considered the equal of a man.
TIRO: Change of tune.  Thought you couldn’t tolerate a woman pilot. 
CALUNIN:  I prefer to argue one thing at a time.
TIRO: You haven’t argued anything yet.
DIBESIT: I stand by my previous comment. 
OBAYA: Well, you wouldn’t like it to run away.
CONRULAT: Five points awarded for not being a coward.  Makes the score  minus 295.
MUNZI: Do give him credit for the courage of his convictions.
CONRULAT: The defendant asked for multiple previous offences to be taken into consideration.
BOLAN:  Do you have to?  Grown-ups are talking.
OBAYA: Us or him?
CALUNIN:  It is undoubtedly one of the drawbacks of this forum that it descends into puerile adolescent repartee.
CONRULAT: Detect sense of humour failure.
CALUNIN: The sense of humour of a pervert is necessarily flawed
CONRULAT:  The only perverts in Kadun are in Corsin.  Never did credit them with much wit.
DIBESIT:  This is the conversation of the gutter!  I shall complain.
OBAYA:  Who to?
FURRIER: Yes, Firas will hang on his every word!
DIBESIT: No woman with any self-respect would flaunt her body.
FURRIER: Change the record!  You said that before.
 
MAYA:  And here is our fashion bulletin for the day…The Leotard Look is intensely practical, dress it up, dress it down, and if someone dares you race him to the next breakwater you can do that too.  You have comment, guys?  Bring it on down.
 
VEENA: Women have bodies.  This is official.   We can even use them, which may defy credibility.  Do you run regularly?
MAYA:   No.  Swim, ride, play tennis and hockey.  We climb a bit in the hills above Am-Arkna, but you can’t call them mountains.
VEENA:  Sorry to interrogate, but – you swim publicly?
MAYA:  Publicly, privately.  We’ve got a pool.  If I’m on the beach I swim in the sea.
VEENA: And you go to a public beach?
MAYA:  There isn’t any other kind.  Partly it’s security, no way part of the shore off-limits, partly it’s a feeling the sea can’t belong to a particular person.  Except of course the Fleet!  They have their enclaves.  Swimming not.
GOSA:  Interesting.  In  fact we encountered that in Carlin.  Private beaches were – requisitioned, I suppose is the word.
 
DIBESIT:  This is completely intolerable.  First, this pair of foreign interlopers, now foreign military.  I have complained to Firas.
SARAT:  Biological toss-up.  You are, yes.  How ‘foreign’ I am.  900 years of irturbi genes!  It just depends which ones are dominant.  Lot of them from Camp Five went to Kadun.  Did you hiss at that?
BARVENIN: Look but don’t touch.  The usual word is prick-teaser.
MAYA: So the only possible point so to speak of the LL is to arouse men?
BARVENIN: What a little tart you are.
MAYA:  Have you anything intelligetnt to say?  So the offence is being recognizable as a woman by those unfamiliar with the female form?  Men on the beach in Zur are not in a state of constant erection due to the presence of women on the beach in Zur.
SARAT: Civilized men of course are interested in women as individuals not as receptacles for semen.  To trash like you the LL is like the petals on a flower, an invitation to pollination.
Don’t pull your punches, lad, don’t be mealy-mouthed.  And her.  Bloody hell!
DIRENIN:  Really, can we not discuss things like civilized people.  That is grotesque. 
KARULA: I think I might think twice before describing myself as a little flower!
MAYA:  I’d imagine I feel about my lean strong fit body must the way you guys feel about yours.  It feels good to have it, it does what you want it to.  I see no need to hide it.
BARVENIN: Ridiculous nonsense.  Men do not flaunt our bodies.
MAYA:  It’s this word ‘flaunt’.  Try not ashamed of and not concealing.  [Pic of bare-chested men in shorts and long loose boleros standing around a stall in the Sa’anda Senta, in fact a NoZone stall where Sarat was trying to convince them of the necessity of signing a petition.]
SARAT:  There is a particular reason men rarely wear the close-fitting on the bottom half.
Not so on the beach of course so some guys wear swimming shorts, not trunks. 
CONRULAT: Gay men wore make-up in Azt 1300 years ago.  Whether they also got awful skin diseases because there was no safety testing, I know not but an otherwise completely harmless activity it was and is. We know the story they spin, the ‘licence’ of the empire eventually corrupted it and showed its true face.   I think some dudes here associate sex with the Cult, so they shy away from it.  As long as everything sterile and asexual we’re clean.  But sex is a perfectly healthy part of being human. Exactly what Essa said, contempt and denial of love, wherever they can. 
 
OBAYA: So the – blueprint is the heterosexual male and any variation is a pathetic striving.  Sardun, female.  Stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine.
CONRULAT: Sardun, gay.  Probably your worthless neck I saved.
CALUNIN: A lady officer.  At least no stripy socks.
A low opinion was held of the attrie of the gallant army of Dabida, who rejoiced in their stipy socks. 
OBAYA:  You have to talk about it.  What that girl said.  If you really think women can’t analyse data or run Stores, then you are out of it.  But that’s not what you think.  I still don’t know what you do think.
CALUNIN:  I cannot countenance a woman in the cockpit next to me.
VEENA: We get the reasonable stuff, guys, we really do.  We get women are not to be shot down over Cult territory, we get they are not to be posted to Cult regiments.  We even get concern about physical ability, though it never did cats any harm.  But there’s a whole underbelly that is not reasonable and we all know it.
MUNZI: Female cats taken prisoner?
VEENA: You don’t want to know.  Her choice to risk it.  Maybe that’s the basic point.
OBAYA: While you sit in your Messes, silly little girls are living rough, silly little girls are running around with great big guns, silly little girls are being obscenely tortured, though not often because we are very very good.
MUNZI: I was at Boral.
OBAYA: Shit! Apologies.  But you know it’s true of some of you.
MUNZI: Some.  And that is exactly what was wrong with that damn’ interview.  She made it sound as though we are in some last-century time bubble while Kadun has moved on.  We’re the ones most in flux.  Everything has been turned on its head.  Trust, respect for elders, for authority?  Who sold Kadun out?  Who got us into this mess?  The sacred chain of command?  Yessir, of course, sir – until we shot them and made a break for it.
VEENA: I’m guessing you’re vaudosi.  Experience must be very different in Carlin.
DIBESTI: You talk of a sell-out.  Carlin is clearly wholly corrupted.  To even think of giving time to this lamentable young man and his dreadful little tart.
SITSI: We appear to have here a screaming loon.
DIBESIT: [Pic of Maya in the Leotard Look].  Small wonder they call her the Dabidan whore.  You tell me any lady dresses like that?
BARVENIN: And the other, the San-yaega-baht woman, sold to Alzani-Meta.
SITSI: I think you stop right there.  Sarshi is a complete darling, a small blonde whirlwind.
BARVENIN: Ah, a feudal vassal.
OBAYA: Oh dear haven’t we opened the tin.  All the little squirmy wormy things crawling out.
 
SORG: Sarshi’s brother.  Who is this baboon?
 
VIRUN:  Desk-jockey.  Never heard a shot fired in anger.
DIBESIT: And what does ‘my lord of Carlin’ do?
SORG: Caniba.  The whole of Carlin knows it, so no point in pretending mustn’t say where we are.
DIBESIT:  Then you too are a ‘desk-jockey’.
SORG: Yes, but I’m brilliant and you’re not.
DIBESIT: Naked display of the intolerable arrogance of the self-styled upper classes.
FRENSAT: Not if you know what they do at Caniba.
DIBESIT: And other one, Asdinan, why is he not in uniform.  Too busy knocking up the girls in the village.  Not of course that they are regarded as fit to be my fine lady of Carlin.
SORG: As was a student in Azt for a year, all he could stand.  He met a lady.  It didn’t work out.  The House is bringing up the result.
BARVENIN: What absolute prostitute abandons her child?
MARDIS:  Uzz’n don’ ‘ole with no tark loike that.
DIBESIT: We have the yokels here now?
MARDIS:  You keep on like that, in absolute droves.  Suggest you don’t come to the Rabbiters’ any time soon.  San-yaega-baht, old boy.  Asdinan’s cousin.  For the record, As and I are both cats.
 
MIDI:  Me, pig-shit, me, I’m the mother.  You listen hard, boy.  Asdinan is about the most decent upright guy you could hope to find in this country. He wanted to make a go of it.  I didn’t.  I did not and do not see myself as Mistress of Carlin!  Of course Carlin has our child, a much better life than being alone with me in the city. Turd like you are the bloody corruption, making everything normal and human dirty and sordid.  Actually what drew us together in the first place, shared loathing of shit like you.
 
KARULA: Kudos, honey, kudos.  I too had to choose between two very different lives. 
VEENA: Yes, gentlemen, where appropriate of course, women can bloody speak.  We are not talked about as though we are defective children with no hearts and minds of our own.
 
SADIA:  Just assembling my weapons.  Physical strength.  Manual dexterity.  Intellectual proclivity.  These must vary between individual women.  Equally they must vary between individual men.  Or all men are hard-wired to drive tanks?
SITSI:  I think if we’re honest – one problem for some chaps.  You start with a woman flier.  Next thing you know she gets promoted and you have a woman in command.
MUNZI: Undoubtedly some of us would have difficulty taking an order from a woman.
SADIA: Yes but why.
KARULA: Men lead.  Women follow.  That is a Kadun essential inside the military or out.  The usual expression is pretend-men
SADIA: How interesting.
KARULA: The unreconstructed Kadun male repays close study.  The essence is that human perfection lies in masculinity.  Some women do not properly understand we are a separate species and attempt to ape men.
SADIA:  Didn’t you leave out a hyphen: ape-men.  So being fully female lies in being nurturing, supportive, etc.  Male is active, female is passive, etc.
KARULA:  They claim it’s a question of the Whole.  For sure that conceals a whole load of grunting and knuckle-walking.
MUTAN: You can’t deny male and female are the two halves of the Whole.
SADIA: Looks more like 80:20 to me.
KARULA: ROTFL.  But each of us is both male and female. All the ‘hard’ attributes are assigned to men, strong, rational, hard, leaving women weak, irrational, soft.  But we are all equally human.  Each of us is a continuum from strong to weak, rational to irrational.  I am a real soft Mom, but if anyone threatened our children, I should not bleat and scream for Mitch to do something but simply blow his brains out.
SOBRENIN That much surely anyone can understand.
FILI: And we know of individual acts of heroism by women.  Unfortunately, for the purposes of the discussion, they were civilian women.  Couldn’t be anything else could they.  What do I mean, perfectly ordinary women.
SOBRENIN: Ludicrously, from the perspective of the discussion.  I think you probably mean ‘real soft Moms’.  That’s how Var-sega’ speaks these days?!
ZITAN:  Or the girls at the college in Boolan.  I’m wondering vaguely something in the idea, it’s OK for women to defend.  Attack is ‘unfeminine’.
MUTAN: I think that’s a really interesting one.  Just thinking.  Yes, we like the idea of our grisl being safe but if the line collapsed and our homes were under attack – think we rather expect/hope they’d defend themselves and our kids.
SADIA: By the time she’s blown out the brains of a few rats….
CONRULAT (Sardun, male, gay):  This of course is the root of the objections of some to gays.  That it affronts the Whole.  I certainly should not bleat and scream if anyone threatened me.  Whether I blew his brains out possibly depends on whether his name was Ban-tisol.
 
“Bomb just went off, Mitch.”
“I shall be most interested in the response.”
 
MUNZI:  No prejudice personally.  Know some here have.  Kudos for raising the matter.  I feel I half-understand, but we do have bodies.  Can you discount bodies?  There are of course aspects we would not discuss in mixed company.
SADIA: Maybe you should start trying.
DITSI: Gay. 
CONRULAT: The argument is the male unites with the female but that’s ‘male’ and ‘female’ as Karula said, he’s hard – so to speak, she’s soft, he’s rational, she’s irrational, etc.
 
CONRULAT: It doesn’t seem to have been considered that women and gays both have more at stake, more to fight for.
MUNZI: I am  unsure about that.  Not so stupid that I do not understand your fate is worse.  If we say we face absolute evil, how can it be more absolute. 
CONRULAT: I actually understand that.  Just torture us for longer before letting us die.  There is nothing they do to us they do not do to the heterosexual.male, bar of course rape of women, but as has been said you get it for what you do.  We get it for what we are.  It’s a question also of the future.  Under Cult rule we should have no future. 
OBAYA: Nor any woman who doesn’t think of herself as a stuffed toy.
KARULA: It is sure the case that, imperfect though some things are, we are all at least capable of civilized conversation.
OBAYA: Meaning they are.  OK, gentlemen, I think you probably are, you are having this conversation because you recognize things have to change.  Sensible bunnies. As touched on above, if you think females can’t be trusted with data analysis, catering, cleaning the freaking latrines, you’re out of it.  But you don’t think that.  I still don’t understand what you do think.
SADIA: Probably a lot of you haven’t – what’s funny in all this is what Airoch looks like.  Yea, under those pretty shawls is a mind like a freaking laser.  [Pic of sweet little old lady fiddling with her beads, draped in fringed dusky pink shawl.]
KARULA: ROTFLMAO if that is not disrespectful!  To one of the most powerful women in the world.  That raises questions does it not of women feeling it necessary to pretend in some respect to be men in order to succeed. 
MAYA: Airoch is superificially repeat superficially your dear old aunt.  She calls everyone darling and offers smoky tea out of bone china cups.  Then she kills you.  I shan’t tell you the name out of respect for the dead, but there was one rather senior Dabida politico who was irritated with Fidub over some obscure point of maritime law, can’t remember the details.  May he rest in peace.  Probably the Straits.  We’ve been grumbling at each other over whose Straits for 600 years and we’re not going to stop now.  Yes, dear irturbi, Fidub can be irritating!  But we love them anyway.
SADIA: Of course they’re our Straits.  Grin, duck, run.
 
But it was announced Mel and Hass were off to Var-sega’
You can see that.  Of course your cousins must visit.
Immediately? asked Seani.  “While Sarat’s stll there?”
Oh.  No low profile, then Hass?
Hass in riot in Var-sega’!
You’ll remember that gay guy Sarat met at the House who, it transpired, was shortly hosting a meeting.  Hass could chair it, said Sarat, not wholly seriously.  Clearly that was a very good idea indeed and naturally Hass honed his claws and started packing.
And here is a homely scene from the streets of Giraga.  A large square brick building with steps leading up to double doors, one of which is open.  T is surrounded by tarmac, parking-spaces.  A crowd of people are blocking the way to the doors, holding up posters with legends such as NO! TO PERVERSION.  NOT IN VAR-SEGA’.  THEY SHOULD BE SHOT.  There is a number of trucks on the tarmac, not parked in the designated spaces but facing the doors. 
Bloody foreigner aren’t you
Honorary irtubi, suggested Hass.  Maya’s cousin.  Then we hold the meeting at the House.  Either way, we hold the meeting.  Proved you ware rational, you are of course welcome to attend.  I would ask you what the hell business it is of yours how others conduct their private lives.
The demeanour, observed the for, the against and the undecided is not that of someone to mess with.
“What usually happens around this point,” said Mitch, “is someone calls for arrests for disturbing  public order.”
“They are, yes,” said Hass.  “I do not of course know local law.  Is it possible to have them removed for impeding lawful progress?  Or something.
“No-one wants anyone arrested,” said Mel, “just quietly put aside.”  He went back to twisting a couple of strands of wire together, a sort of physical doodle.  Another one, thought Mitch, not a curl ruffled. 
“Or we hold the meeting here in the open,” continued Hass.  “OK, I shall start.  We are gathered here, in a carpark, on a not particularly balmy evening, to discuss – what are we here to discuss – stupidity, ignorance, malice – will that do for a start.  The stupidity ignorance and malice that mars the lives of LBGT people in Kadun and other places in the world. Which alas we so clearly see around us.  Or in other words, guys, what is your little problem?
Flashpoint.  How do you bloody dare! You’re not in bloody Zur now, boy.  Talking about decent people defending their country, defending their kiddies.  You do not talk about it in the open!
“Has anyone anything sensible to say?” asked Hass in a lull.
There was nearly an hour of it, there would probably have been five hours of it, but it started to rain so the demonstrators were left to get wet and the meeting went back to the House.
 
What else d’you think you’re going to dribble, the intellectual excellence of bloody nurses?
 
Or of course the perv stuff about how I must do what I’m told.  If you want to physically abuse me, well, who am I to argue?  IF you want to cripple me, what does my view matter?  I think the courts might have a small problem with that. 
 
 
DEMANJI: As a gay woman, I am of course double-prey.  As Sardun, I escaped.  But you can argue it rebounds on women, all women.  Men understanding we’re seen as prey get at best over-protective.  Karula asked a question.  Haven’t seen anyone answer it yet.  Isn’t this part of it.  Their intentions are honourable!  Got a few wires crossed on the way.
 
SALI:  I think it all goes back to the Kadun cock-up, most things do.  As Maya’s said,
CALUNIN: I do not think I am alone in failing to find modesty and decorum a stain. Men do not flaunt our bodies.  Indeed cats and trees do not operate half-naked.  It can hardly be argued a woman needs to expose herself to be considered the equal of a man.
TIRO: Change of tune.  Thought you couldn’t tolerate a woman pilot. 
CALUNIN:  I prefer to argue one thing at a time.
TIRO: You haven’t argued anything yet.
DIBESIT: I stand by my previous comment. 
OBAYA: Well, you wouldn’t like it to run away.
CONRULAT: Five points awarded for not being a coward.  Makes the score  minus 295.
MUNZI: Do give him credit for the courage of his convictions.
CONRULAT: The defendant asked for multiple previous offences to be taken into consideration.
BOLAN:  Do you have to?  Grown-ups are talking.
OBAYA: Us or him?
CALUNIN:  It is undoubtedly one of the drawbacks of this forum that it descends into puerile adolescent repartee.
CONRULAT: Detect sense of humour failure.
CALUNIN: The sense of humour of a pervert is necessarily flawed
CONRULAT:  The only perverts in Kadun are in Corsin.  Never did credit them with much wit.
DIBESIT:  This is the conversation of the gutter!  I shall complain.
OBAYA:  Who to?
FURRIER: Yes, Firas will hang on his every word!
DIBESIT: No woman with any self-respect would flaunt her body.
FURRIER: Change the record!  You said that before.
 
MAYA:  And here is our fashion bulletin for the day…The Leotard Look is intensely practical, dress it up, dress it down, and if someone dares you race him to the next breakwater you can do that too.  You have comment, guys?  Bring it on down.
 
VEENA: Women have bodies.  This is official.   We can even use them, which may defy credibility.  Do you run regularly?
MAYA:   No.  Swim, ride, play tennis and hockey.  We climb a bit in the hills above Am-Arkna, but you can’t call them mountains.
VEENA:  Sorry to interrogate, but – you swim publicly?
MAYA:  Publicly, privately.  We’ve got a pool.  If I’m on the beach I swim in the sea.
VEENA: And you go to a public beach?
MAYA:  There isn’t any other kind.  Partly it’s security, no way part of the shore off-limits, partly it’s a feeling the sea can’t belong to a particular person.  Except of course the Fleet!  They have their enclaves.  Swimming not.
GOSA:  Interesting.  In  fact we encountered that in Carlin.  Private beaches were – requisitioned, I suppose is the word.
 
DIBESIT:  This is completely intolerable.  First, this pair of foreign interlopers, now foreign military.  I have complained to Firas.
SARAT:  Biological toss-up.  You are, yes.  How ‘foreign’ I am.  900 years of irturbi genes!  It just depends which ones are dominant.  Lot of them from Camp Five went to Kadun.  Did you hiss at that?
BARVENIN: Look but don’t touch.  The usual word is prick-teaser.
MAYA: So the only possible point so to speak of the LL is to arouse men?
BARVENIN: What a little tart you are.
MAYA:  Have you anything intelligetnt to say?  So the offence is being recognizable as a woman by those unfamiliar with the female form?  Men on the beach in Zur are not in a state of constant erection due to the presence of women on the beach in Zur.
SARAT: Civilized men of course are interested in women as individuals not as receptacles for semen.  To trash like you the LL is like the petals on a flower, an invitation to pollination.
Don’t pull your punches, lad, don’t be mealy-mouthed.  And her.  Bloody hell!
DIRENIN:  Really, can we not discuss things like civilized people.  That is grotesque. 
KARULA: I think I might think twice before describing myself as a little flower!
MAYA:  I’d imagine I feel about my lean strong fit body must the way you guys feel about yours.  It feels good to have it, it does what you want it to.  I see no need to hide it.
BARVENIN: Ridiculous nonsense.  Men do not flaunt our bodies.
MAYA:  It’s this word ‘flaunt’.  Try not ashamed of and not concealing.  [Pic of bare-chested men in shorts and long loose boleros standing around a stall in the Sa’anda Senta, in fact a NoZone stall where Sarat was trying to convince them of the necessity of signing a petition.]
SARAT:  There is a particular reason men rarely wear the close-fitting on the bottom half.
Not so on the beach of course so some guys wear swimming shorts, not trunks. 
CONRULAT: Gay men wore make-up in Azt 1300 years ago.  Whether they also got awful skin diseases because there was no safety testing, I know not but an otherwise completely harmless activity it was and is. We know the story they spin, the ‘licence’ of the empire eventually corrupted it and showed its true face.   I think some dudes here associate sex with the Cult, so they shy away from it.  As long as everything sterile and asexual we’re clean.  But sex is a perfectly healthy part of being human. Exactly what Essa said, contempt and denial of love, wherever they can. 
 
OBAYA: So the – blueprint is the heterosexual male and any variation is a pathetic striving.  Sardun, female.  Stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine.
CONRULAT: Sardun, gay.  Probably your worthless neck I saved.
CALUNIN: A lady officer.  At least no stripy socks.
A low opinion was held of the attrie of the gallant army of Dabida, who rejoiced in their stipy socks. 
OBAYA:  You have to talk about it.  What that girl said.  If you really think women can’t analyse data or run Stores, then you are out of it.  But that’s not what you think.  I still don’t know what you do think.
CALUNIN:  I cannot countenance a woman in the cockpit next to me.
VEENA: We get the reasonable stuff, guys, we really do.  We get women are not to be shot down over Cult territory, we get they are not to be posted to Cult regiments.  We even get concern about physical ability, though it never did cats any harm.  But there’s a whole underbelly that is not reasonable and we all know it.
MUNZI: Female cats taken prisoner?
VEENA: You don’t want to know.  Her choice to risk it.  Maybe that’s the basic point.
OBAYA: While you sit in your Messes, silly little girls are living rough, silly little girls are running around with great big guns, silly little girls are being obscenely tortured, though not often because we are very very good.
MUNZI: I was at Boral.
OBAYA: Shit! Apologies.  But you know it’s true of some of you.
MUNZI: Some.  And that is exactly what was wrong with that damn’ interview.  She made it sound as though we are in some last-century time bubble while Kadun has moved on.  We’re the ones most in flux.  Everything has been turned on its head.  Trust, respect for elders, for authority?  Who sold Kadun out?  Who got us into this mess?  The sacred chain of command?  Yessir, of course, sir – until we shot them and made a break for it.
VEENA: I’m guessing you’re vaudosi.  Experience must be very different in Carlin.
DIBESTI: You talk of a sell-out.  Carlin is clearly wholly corrupted.  To even think of giving time to this lamentable young man and his dreadful little tart.
SITSI: We appear to have here a screaming loon.
DIBESIT: [Pic of Maya in the Leotard Look].  Small wonder they call her the Dabidan whore.  You tell me any lady dresses like that?
BARVENIN: And the other, the San-yaega-baht woman, sold to Alzani-Meta.
SITSI: I think you stop right there.  Sarshi is a complete darling, a small blonde whirlwind.
BARVENIN: Ah, a feudal vassal.
OBAYA: Oh dear haven’t we opened the tin.  All the little squirmy wormy things crawling out.
 
SORG: Sarshi’s brother.  Who is this baboon?
 
VIRUN:  Desk-jockey.  Never heard a shot fired in anger.
DIBESIT: And what does ‘my lord of Carlin’ do?
SORG: Caniba.  The whole of Carlin knows it, so no point in pretending mustn’t say where we are.
DIBESIT:  Then you too are a ‘desk-jockey’.
SORG: Yes, but I’m brilliant and you’re not.
DIBESIT: Naked display of the intolerable arrogance of the self-styled upper classes.
FRENSAT: Not if you know what they do at Caniba.
DIBESIT: And other one, Asdinan, why is he not in uniform.  Too busy knocking up the girls in the village.  Not of course that they are regarded as fit to be my fine lady of Carlin.
SORG: As was a student in Azt for a year, all he could stand.  He met a lady.  It didn’t work out.  The House is bringing up the result.
BARVENIN: What absolute prostitute abandons her child?
MARDIS:  Uzz’n don’ ‘ole with no tark loike that.
DIBESIT: We have the yokels here now?
MARDIS:  You keep on like that, in absolute droves.  Suggest you don’t come to the Rabbiters’ any time soon.  San-yaega-baht, old boy.  Asdinan’s cousin.  For the record, As and I are both cats.
 
MIDI:  Me, pig-shit, me, I’m the mother.  You listen hard, boy.  Asdinan is about the most decent upright guy you could hope to find in this country. He wanted to make a go of it.  I didn’t.  I did not and do not see myself as Mistress of Carlin!  Of course Carlin has our child, a much better life than being alone with me in the city. Turd like you are the bloody corruption, making everything normal and human dirty and sordid.  Actually what drew us together in the first place, shared loathing of shit like you.
 
KARULA: Kudos, honey, kudos.  I too had to choose between two very different lives. 
VEENA: Yes, gentlemen, where appropriate of course, women can bloody speak.  We are not talked about as though we are defective children with no hearts and minds of our own.
 
SADIA:  Just assembling my weapons.  Physical strength.  Manual dexterity.  Intellectual proclivity.  These must vary between individual women.  Equally they must vary between individual men.  Or all men are hard-wired to drive tanks?
SITSI:  I think if we’re honest – one problem for some chaps.  You start with a woman flier.  Next thing you know she gets promoted and you have a woman in command.
MUNZI: Undoubtedly some of us would have difficulty taking an order from a woman.
SADIA: Yes but why.
KARULA: Men lead.  Women follow.  That is a Kadun essential inside the military or out.  The usual expression is pretend-men
SADIA: How interesting.
KARULA: The unreconstructed Kadun male repays close study.  The essence is that human perfection lies in masculinity.  Some women do not properly understand we are a separate species and attempt to ape men.
SADIA:  Didn’t you leave out a hyphen: ape-men.  So being fully female lies in being nurturing, supportive, etc.  Male is active, female is passive, etc.
KARULA:  They claim it’s a question of the Whole.  For sure that conceals a whole load of grunting and knuckle-walking.
MUTAN: You can’t deny male and female are the two halves of the Whole.
SADIA: Looks more like 80:20 to me.
KARULA: ROTFL.  But each of us is both male and female. All the ‘hard’ attributes are assigned to men, strong, rational, hard, leaving women weak, irrational, soft.  But we are all equally human.  Each of us is a continuum from strong to weak, rational to irrational.  I am a real soft Mom, but if anyone threatened our children, I should not bleat and scream for Mitch to do something but simply blow his brains out.
SOBRENIN That much surely anyone can understand.
FILI: And we know of individual acts of heroism by women.  Unfortunately, for the purposes of the discussion, they were civilian women.  Couldn’t be anything else could they.  What do I mean, perfectly ordinary women.
SOBRENIN: Ludicrously, from the perspective of the discussion.  I think you probably mean ‘real soft Moms’.  That’s how Var-sega’ speaks these days?!
ZITAN:  Or the girls at the college in Boolan.  I’m wondering vaguely something in the idea, it’s OK for women to defend.  Attack is ‘unfeminine’.
MUTAN: I think that’s a really interesting one.  Just thinking.  Yes, we like the idea of our grisl being safe but if the line collapsed and our homes were under attack – think we rather expect/hope they’d defend themselves and our kids.
SADIA: By the time she’s blown out the brains of a few rats….
CONRULAT (Sardun, male, gay):  This of course is the root of the objections of some to gays.  That it affronts the Whole.  I certainly should not bleat and scream if anyone threatened me.  Whether I blew his brains out possibly depends on whether his name was Ban-tisol.
 
“Bomb just went off, Mitch.”
“I shall be most interested in the response.”
 
MUNZI:  No prejudice personally.  Know some here have.  Kudos for raising the matter.  I feel I half-understand, but we do have bodies.  Can you discount bodies?  There are of course aspects we would not discuss in mixed company.
SADIA: Maybe you should start trying.
DITSI: Gay. 
CONRULAT: The argument is the male unites with the female but that’s ‘male’ and ‘female’ as Karula said, he’s hard – so to speak, she’s soft, he’s rational, she’s irrational, etc.
 
CONRULAT: It doesn’t seem to have been considered that women and gays both have more at stake, more to fight for.
MUNZI: I am  unsure about that.  Not so stupid that I do not understand your fate is worse.  If we say we face absolute evil, how can it be more absolute. 
CONRULAT: I actually understand that.  Just torture us for longer before letting us die.  There is nothing they do to us they do not do to the heterosexual.male, bar of course rape of women, but as has been said you get it for what you do.  We get it for what we are.  It’s a question also of the future.  Under Cult rule we should have no future. 
OBAYA: Nor any woman who doesn’t think of herself as a stuffed toy.
KARULA: It is sure the case that, imperfect though some things are, we are all at least capable of civilized conversation.
OBAYA: Meaning they are.  OK, gentlemen, I think you probably are, you are having this conversation because you recognize things have to change.  Sensible bunnies. As touched on above, if you think females can’t be trusted with data analysis, catering, cleaning the freaking latrines, you’re out of it.  But you don’t think that.  I still don’t understand what you do think.
SADIA: Probably a lot of you haven’t – what’s funny in all this is what Airoch looks like.  Yea, under those pretty shawls is a mind like a freaking laser.  [Pic of sweet little old lady fiddling with her beads, draped in fringed dusky pink shawl.]
KARULA: ROTFLMAO if that is not disrespectful!  To one of the most powerful women in the world.  That raises questions does it not of women feeling it necessary to pretend in some respect to be men in order to succeed. 
MAYA: Airoch is superificially repeat superficially your dear old aunt.  She calls everyone darling and offers smoky tea out of bone china cups.  Then she kills you.  I shan’t tell you the name out of respect for the dead, but there was one rather senior Dabida politico who was irritated with Fidub over some obscure point of maritime law, can’t remember the details.  May he rest in peace.  Probably the Straits.  We’ve been grumbling at each other over whose Straits for 600 years and we’re not going to stop now.  Yes, dear irturbi, Fidub can be irritating!  But we love them anyway.
SADIA: Of course they’re our Straits.  Grin, duck, run.
 
But it was announced Mel and Hass were off to Var-sega’
You can see that.  Of course your cousins must visit.
Immediately? asked Seani.  “While Sarat’s stll there?”
Oh.  No low profile, then Hass?
Hass in riot in Var-sega’!
You’ll remember that gay guy Sarat met at the House who, it transpired, was shortly hosting a meeting.  Hass could chair it, said Sarat, not wholly seriously.  Clearly that was a very good idea indeed and naturally Hass honed his claws and started packing.
And here is a homely scene from the streets of Giraga.  A large square brick building with steps leading up to double doors, one of which is open.  T is surrounded by tarmac, parking-spaces.  A crowd of people are blocking the way to the doors, holding up posters with legends such as NO! TO PERVERSION.  NOT IN VAR-SEGA’.  THEY SHOULD BE SHOT.  There is a number of trucks on the tarmac, not parked in the designated spaces but facing the doors. 
Bloody foreigner aren’t you
Honorary irtubi, suggested Hass.  Maya’s cousin.  Then we hold the meeting at the House.  Either way, we hold the meeting.  Proved you ware rational, you are of course welcome to attend.  I would ask you what the hell business it is of yours how others conduct their private lives.
The demeanour, observed the for, the against and the undecided is not that of someone to mess with.
“What usually happens around this point,” said Mitch, “is someone calls for arrests for disturbing  public order.”
“They are, yes,” said Hass.  “I do not of course know local law.  Is it possible to have them removed for impeding lawful progress?  Or something.
“No-one wants anyone arrested,” said Mel, “just quietly put aside.”  He went back to twisting a couple of strands of wire together, a sort of physical doodle.  Another one, thought Mitch, not a curl ruffled. 
“Or we hold the meeting here in the open,” continued Hass.  “OK, I shall start.  We are gathered here, in a carpark, on a not particularly balmy evening, to discuss – what are we here to discuss – stupidity, ignorance, malice – will that do for a start.  The stupidity ignorance and malice that mars the lives of LBGT people in Kadun and other places in the world. Which alas we so clearly see around us.  Or in other words, guys, what is your little problem?
Flashpoint.  How do you bloody dare! You’re not in bloody Zur now, boy.  Talking about decent people defending their country, defending their kiddies.  You do not talk about it in the open!
“Has anyone anything sensible to say?” asked Hass in a lull.
There was nearly an hour of it, there would probably have been five hours of it, but it started to rain so the demonstrators were left to get wet and the meeting went back to the House.
 
What else d’you think you’re going to dribble, the intellectual excellence of bloody nurses?
Or of course the perv stuff about how I must do what I’m told.  If you want to physically abuse me, well, who am I to argue?  IF you want to cripple me, what does my view matter?  I think the courts might have a small problem with that. 
 
And of course the hysteric freaks who in a society the two pillars of which are Athens and Nazareth start to throw themselves around at the mention of goddesses.
 
There is a saying in Carlin, Never ask them to strip.” Carlini were observed attempting to retain grave and serious demeanour.  “It derives from this.  Cartoon strip in three frames.  Two onlookers, one saying to the other ‘Never ask them to strip!” observing 1, a trio or Corsin officers, foul but magnificent in black leather.  2.  This trio apparently relaxing at the end of the day’s work about to remove helmet, jacket, boots. 3.  Legs, feet torsos disintegrating into a foul blood strained mucosal ooze forming a puddle around them.
Really, Ardeshna, is it the leathers, is it the shouting?  They’re stripped.  All that remains are puddles of foul poisonous acidic ooze.
 
The cartoonist at Purple Prose, Zur’s gay paper definitely got something further from it: Varchulan as a snorting bull, tail raised having emitted a steaming heap.  At the other end the ring through his nose was attached to a chain attached in turn to a grinning skeleton labelled HOMOPHOBIA – SEXISM – TORTURE – MURDER – CORRUPTION.  To his amazement it instantly went viral.
 
Ah, but will it go viral?
So the next on-line edition of the Azt Star was naturally gross? Well, no, actually, more  remarkably, startlingly,  obscene, even for that collection of used toilet-paper soaked in infected vomit.  Maya in leotard split open at the crotch, the top of her thighs bare and bloodied, legs splayed, face contorted into porn star fake orgasm, caption ‘Come and get it!’
 
Baz of course got the short straw.  Sarat was chatting away.
“Sorry to interrupt.  There’s something Sarat needs – “ Wrong word but there isn’t a bloody right one.  “ – to see.  Can we just step aside a minute.”
Sarat was surprised but stepped.
“You really really aren’t going to like this.  Deep breaths.”  After a moment he said, “You’ve never really wanted to strangle before, have you.”
Sarat rang Maya then returned to the chattering throng and called for silence.
“The Azt Star has responded with a piece of pornography I shall not project.  Who the hell do they think they impress?”
Maya among Carlutan’s adoring young men, both acutely embarrassed and totally livid, said calmly, “Take it you have tailors, guys who can sew a seam.”
Run that up for you in two ticks, Miss Maya.
“I have been in Carlin 24 hours,” said Sarat, “and I haven’t yet been to the Rabbiters’.  I don’t think they can stop us laughing.”
All catapulted to their feet.
              Sarat waved his hand.
              “It’s cool, guys. How are we doing?”
              “Toast to His Imperial Majesty!” said Vishtu.
              Sarat realized this had as much to do with Smudge as with empire.
              “It was PANTHER.  They moved like greased cats!”
              They toasted him anyway.
              Baz periodically checked his phone until he said, “Big fat grin.”  He passed the phone over.
              “Maya has responded to Azt,” said Sarat.  “Can we project – wall will do.”
              People hastily shifted themselves to clear the way.
The cammo leotard didn’t fit terribly well but it didn’t have to, fur gilet atop and combat boots at the bottom. Maya sat on a tank slightly forward of a great many other thanks.  She also wore an Army cap and cradled a machine-pistol.  Around her were an Imperial Guard of Rewn’s guys.  Legend: How to talk to men who hate women.
Whistling didn’t seem appropriate and nor did any formal response so the gathering in the Rabbiters’ burst out clapping.
Baz got a further text.  He showed it to Sarat.
Sarat smiled almost shyly and stood up.
“Duty calls.  Please do come and watch if you like.  A small ceremony.”
“Not telling,” said Baz, “but I think you’ll like it.”
“We are agog!”
A convoy of trucks, cars and bicycles meandered back to the House.  Yea, from afar was it perceived the House was floodlight.  From closer to was it perceived the drive was lined with military rigidly at attention.  What the - ?!
Sarat had grinned to himself: There can’t be any protocol of which I am dismally ignorant for this one.   I think it should be on behalf of, symbolic.
Baz got out first and had a word with the military.
Sarat got out and began to walk up the drive.  Half a dozen men tailed off and fell in behind him.
Follow, Baz judged, at a distance.  The throng obeyed.
The military band at the front of the House began to play the imperial anthem.
People said after the whole of Kadun got to its feet, an obvious exaggeration, of course, but concealing a deeper truth (wrote some newshound or other).  Thought you were a republican.  It’s not about that, it’s about Kadun.  About a mad kid with a supreme talent for telling Azt to go fuck themselves. Nonetheless and heretofore in bars and offices, barracks and factroies, streets and squares the omnipresent camera saw Kadun stop and stand.
You want Kadun’s answer? asked Airoch.  That is Kadun’s answer.
At the end of the drive was a small table covered by a black velvet cloth.  On it lay Narulis’ sword.  Behind it stood Saryulin.
“Imperial Majesty!”
“My lord of Carlin,” replied Sarat.
“My lords, my ladies, ladies and gentlemen, I present to Sarat-ban-essa-eban-Narulis, Anile Emperor, Master of Kadun, Narulis’ sword. It is our honour to serve Narulis’ heir.”
Saryulin picked up the sword by its heft and held it high, then placed it across his outstretched palms.
Sarat carefully took it.  Whether a chorus of dancing bears high-kicked across the floor of the Ciletij Senate is not recorded – I think we should be told – and nor did the sword appear to possess any alarming properties such as those associated with the throne, but Sarat said after he felt something, call it history.
He turned and laughed.
“And now, Madam Minister?”
Then he said rather quiet unSaratish things about the honour being his, unlooked-for and truly not yet deserved, things that were totally Saratish about accepting the sword on behalf of Kadun’s fighting men, and things that were also Saratish but from deep within him, things he had not thought to say in public, or at any rate not today, about the weight of history and the responsibility of representing Va, and some fiend played with the lighting and the startlingly good-looking young emperor stood silhouetted against the House, sword in hand and he is bloody Narulis.
Amida held Cho’s hand very tightly and with her other hand wiped away his tear.  She kissed his cheek. 
Sarat laughed again and made a couple of experimental swipes with the sword.
“Yes, I can see why guys liked them. If ever there was a reminder there is work to be done.”  He grinned.  “If I had a home I could hang it on the wall, but I don’t right now have a permanent residence.  The Jumesit will do fine.  I think it should hang in the camp, on the wall of the canteen.”   He laughed again and gave another swipe.  “It feels part of me, but I suspect wearing one has to be learned.”  He turned to the soldiers.  “Could you do that please, have it hung on the wall.”
On this auspicious occasion…What he wanted to say, what he had to say, welled up inside him and just this once he was a tiny bit anxious about getting it right.  Really not so good at the eso stuff,  can we talk about the drains.
“My lords, my ladies, ladies and gentlemen, once again I thank you. I think now we should party.  Is that appropriate?  Some might ask it.  I’m asking it.  On a day that has seen great horror and misery.  Yes, because that is the message of Va.  Maya said it.  They came the skull-faces, but we laughed.  Va is the music they cannot silence, the dance they cannot terminate, the laughter they cannot make haunted and afraid, the triumph of life over death, the light without shadow. That is the point, that was Narulis’ point.  Or there is no point  There is no dark. You can say it’s crazy.  You can say how very evidently real is evil.  I’m a scientist, a biologist.  I’m the first to tell you blood is real, pain is real, death is real.  But somewhere it’s still the point.  We can still live unshadowed.”  Baz cooed internally, it’s all right, you’re doing fine, everyone understands. Well, as much as anyone ever does.   Sarat would have felt well rewarded by just one irturbi saying, know what you’re trying to say, lad. Not sure if I believe it meself, but I know what you’re saying. Of course, you’re a scientist, you’re not going to be silly about this stuff. He wasn’t.  He found his thread.  “Of course we as humans can’t do anything about mortality, accident, but the shadows of hunger, of violence, of endemic disease, these can be, must be, will be destroyed.  Living in fear can be eradicated.  People age and eventually die.  That is natural.  Dying at 40 of a readily treatable disease is not natural.  It is the result of human evil.  That evil is contempt, contempt for the being of others.  And so – “ He grinned.  “ – that impeccably practical and scientific sense I’m saying this empire stands for a Kadun where there is no dark.”
Sarat still wasn’t quite sure how to terminate this oration, so yeah, let’s all go and have a drink didn’t seem quite  the right note.    He walked over to the bandmaster.  Not exactly a band-piece.  If they couldn’t do it, he’d have to find it on his phone. 
Ah, said the more reflective reaches of Kadun.  Not just a pretty face.  So that’s the point.
“Now he is Anile Emperor,” said Cho.
Baya gave a naughty laugh, knowing how deeply Sarat preferred not to talk about that kind of stuff.
“This,” said Sarat. 
The notes of a lone trumpet soared into the night, followed rapidly by drums saying leap! Dance! Vault the heavens! Girdle the earth! The flutes joined in, the delighted gurgling of a thousand streams. 
And far away in the hospital at Car-sandis, Smudge by the bedside of the unconscious Midi took out his headphones and adjusted the volume and let the music dance over her.  “There is no dark,” he said softly, “stupid, ridiculous and true. Or there is no point.”  Then he knew he had to draw the music.  On a phone?  Later, but draw it he would.
And far, far far away in a bar in Girag Mitch bubbled over and grabbed Karula by the waist and began the wild dance, which is probably what Sarat would have done if Maya had been with him. In Zur Vij was a tad more decorous about it, taking Sarshi’s hand and leading her ceremoniously into the middle of the Sa’aanda Senta.  The wild dance, you will have gathered, is performed with one’s partner.  It’s not exactly, people try to explain rather feebly, that it’s erotic, it’s that it’s alive.  It’s generally described as naked life, the act of generation, someone once remarked drily, without physical contact.  Life that will not be gainsaid. Someone once described it as like a tree pushing up through the ground, from seedling to mighty lord of the forest in ten minutes flat.  Nothing is less like a tree than a couple twirling and spinning but everyone knew what he meant.  Someone else said it’s like an electric shock.  Divaldin looked at his young men and thought, the night is ended, Kadun is alive.  Stupid, ridiculous and mad.  Or perhaps not.  We have more urgent questions than metaphysics.  Or perhaps not. 
“I understand everything,” pronounced Ritawa.  Not surprisingly, the others choked.
“We all know you’re gifted.”
“Earthpower is latent.  Of course it’s earthpower, but it’s blatant.”
Munzi grinned.
“Insolent.  I sort of know what you mean.”
“The next bit,” said Ritawa.  “Break-out!”
“I really don’t know very much,” said Inyulat, “but I’m not sure Sardun would agree.  They’re pretty blatant.”
“But that’s here in the west,” said Ritawa.  “This is what Narulis brought to Carlin, this is why.”
It just sort of gets you, said those with fewer words.
Sarat walked over to the guys on parade, thanked them and asked them if they’d like to join him in the Rabbiters’
Baz, who of course thinks of everything, quietly had Narulis’ sword returned to the House for safe-keeping over what looked like being a long night.
Midnight  came and went.    Sarat thought it was time quiet came to the village and retreated to the canteen at the camp with those around him.  No sword.  Baz explained. The guys grinned and some of them formed themselves into a sword party which would go to the House in the morning to retrieve the relic.
So this is home, is it.  It’s a lovely little hut, purred Paw, better than the Falsit by a long chalk.  Ah me, the luxuries of rank.  Sarat saw that his clothes had been unpacked and neatly hung or otherwise stored  and made a note to thank someone (they included by the way the lemon flip-flops, which now assumed the role at very least of slippers; if the weather stayed mild he would – and did – wear them outside; besides clothes, razor, comb, toothbrush he had brought almost nothing. He saw appreciatively he had been provided with things like scissors, a scribble-pad, a selection of pens.   His sparse collection  of artefacts had been carefully laid out on the table.  Mirror shades (he thought people should always be able to see his eyes, 98% of the time, unless he felt very difficult indeed), a tiny model aircraft of dated model that amused him as a sort of totem, since Airoch had given it to him when he was seven; there was a small silver tray given him by Cho of the kind you might put on your hall table and dump your keys on when you came in, but wallet, keys, cards, all that belonged in another life; the only thing that had wowed the unpackers was an a small and exquisite silver panther, muscles rippling, clearly prowling, also from Cho.  The imperial laptop, the pulsating hub of the empire had been taken to another part of the NO GO complex, that labelled Ops, where he had his very own office.  Most of it was in any case in the cloud known as cat heaven.  Baz sat on the bed.
“You went and did and done it.”
“Quite a day,” said Sarat.
“Kadun is at your feet, you do know that.”
“Bit of an exaggeration,” said Sarat, snorting at a mail from Hass beginning ‘Dear Narulis…’  “Ring Maya.”
“And how has your day been?  Anything interesting happen?”
They evaporated off.
Others continued to toil into the night, even if it was a labour of love.  We too have a sense of humour and know how to use it.
“There!  First thing the Press blokes will see in the morning.”
“Of course we’ll take it down if Sarat doesn’t like it.”
At breakfast it was remarked that a mural had appeared.
Black screen.  The Anile Emperor in letters of imperial silver 
‘They came, the skull-faces, but we laughed.’  Narulis’ Journal.
Or as we say today: “You, off my planet!”
Screen fades. We are at the Great Gates. Death the guardian sits on the Anile throne.  A garbage-truck appears.  Sarat and Maya get out. “Yuck!” says Sarat.  “What is that! That’s my chair.”  A ring of shimmering silver is thrown at him from off-stage (detail, detail).  He catches it and throws it over the throne.  It falls to the ground. Death tries to lunge at them but is clearly contained by the circlet.  Death exhibits cartoon signs of rage, jumping up and down, smoke coming out of ears. “Terribly antsy,” remarks Sarat.  He and Maya confer.  “How’d it go?” asks Sarat.  “Begone, foul spawn of desecration,” says Maya.  “That’s the one,” says Sarat.  “Remember now.”  He turns to Death. ‘Begone, foul spawn of desecration.  Creature of slime and destruction, fell servant of dark and despair, I say to you, begone!’”  “It really pays to read,” says Maya.  “Pick up some awfully good lines.”  Sarat says, “You just never know when you might need a line like that.  Didn’t you hear me the first time?” “Me the second,” says Maya.  Little arrows appear on the screen identifying them; Narulis’ heir.  Zani’s heir..  “Need a hoist,” says Sarat and gets out his phone.  Another truck draws up emblazoned with ANILE ENTERPRISES INC, a black paw with silver claws on one side of the lettering and a silver birch on the other.  A giant hook descends, lifts Death from the Throne and drops him at Sarat’s feet with a truly satisfying cracking and crumbling of bone. “Needs a broom,” says Maya.  “I’ll get,” says Sarat.  He returns from the truck wearing rubber gloves and carrying a small vacuum cleaner, a second pair of rubber gloves and a broom, which he hands to Maya, and a bin bag.  Maya puts on the rubber gloves and sweeps the fragments up into a heap, while Sarat picks up the bigger pieces of bone and throws them in the bag.  Sarat switches on the vac and sucks up the crumbs then empties the vac into the bin bag, which he throws in the back of the refuse truck while Maya gets in the front seat and fiddles with levers.  The grinders start up and pulverize the garbage.  Meanwhile the hoist has collected the throne and the circlet and deposited them gently besides the garbage-truck.  Sarat and Maya load them into the cab then get in themselves and start the engine.  They fast forward through the Great Gates into Azt, pull up in the Colonnade, get out. “Needs a good spring-clean,” says Sarat.  They get out of the truck two buckets, two mops and a collection of bottles variously labelled PESTICIDE, RAT POISON, DISINFECTANT.  Azt is transformed, only it doesn’t look shimmering, unearthly, ethereal so much as like an advertisement for washing-up liquid, Screen goes whooshy then again black with silver lettering.  NARULIS’ RULES, OK!  (Punctuation is terribly important.)
Democracy – transparency – oversight
We do not do private deals.  We do not do hole in the corner. 
Free elections – equality of rights – minimum wage – healthcare for all
We do not do people frightened to speak. 
We do not do starvation wages.  We do not do rat-infested slums.
We do not do swanning around at Blatni.  We do not do criminals out of reach, untouchable.
(Inset of Searc and Sar-fenan dining at Blatni, heavy white linen tablecloth, crystal chandeliers, etc.)
Screen goes whoosh again.  Sarat and Maya are just finishing polishing a shimmering luminescent silver chair.  “Good as new,” said Sarat.  He sits on it.  “Room for two.”  “Hudge up, then!” says Maya.  He hudges and she sits beside him.  He puts his arm around her.  “You have a problem, my lord Krarlik, you have a big, big problem.  In fact two problems.
Screen fades to a black furry paw under which are strugglingly fruitlessly a number of rats with the faces of the government in Azt.
Final screen.  Death broken at the foot of the Anile throne.  Speech bubble: “I got it wrong again.”
 
 
Baz pulled his woolly hat further down over his ears.  Maps didn’t show that Da-conan, in a wide valley at the meeting of two rivers, got the wind straight from the Arctic.
“I have never in my life felt this much enthusiasm for a shopping mall.”
Double doors excluded the polar blast.
A mooch around the IT store confirmed all state of the art.  If there’s anything they need up here it’s comms. 
A seductive pile of sweaters caught their eye.  They walked firmly into The Great Outdoors.
“We’re visitors,” said Baz cheerfully.  Obviously.  Paw, chisel profile, long straight black hair, earrings, walnut tan, screamed Fidub.  “We’re really not sure we’ve got enough clothes for this weather.  We’ve got our thermals but we still weren’t exactly  warm.  Any tips?”
“Especially around the ears,” said Paw.
She examined their jackets and pronounced them good but recommended another layer, and hats with ear-flaps.  Fur hats.  They grinned at each other both thinking Sarat’d kill us. 
Tough, kill the whole of Van-senok.  Survival fur and fashion fur are clearly morally different.
“Got ice-grips?” she asked.
“No.”
 They came away with fur hats, oiled double-knit woollens and two vicious-looking pairs of ice-grips for their boots.
              “I’m sure there’s a man-made equivalent,” said Paw, imitating Sarat.
              “Ah,” said Baz, “but think of the natural resources that go into its manufacture.”
              Now for Loni’s Mart.  See what they eat around here.
              In-te-res-ting!  Frozen fruit, canned fruit, yes.  Fresh fruit, no.
              This is a peach-free zone.  Can we survive! Maybe in high summer.
              Hang on, there are no veggies, either.  Must have to go to a greengrocer.  Hope yet.
              Baz examined a few labels.  Not AMI!  None of the nutritional stuff you get in the south.  Probably 50% sugar.  Frozen won’t be.
              They checked a few more labels, especially those of a hearty stew to keep the family glowing and calcium is essential for strong bones and teeth, help your children grow tall and straight with our delicious yoghurt dessert.  Just doesn’t say how much calcium.  Defo no food regs.
              Our delicious yoghurt dessert came in a variety of flavours.  They selected blackcurrant and raspberry, and decided what went with their picnic-lunch, yeah right, we’re going to recline under a tree sheltered from the sun’s burning rays, was bread and cold meat. Similarly a butcher and a baker were required.  Convenience shopping in Da-conan extends, we hope, to all in one mall, not all in one store.  Home-delivery, they wondered.  Local shops have always done that.  Presumably if they can reach you through the snow-drifts. 
They found a scrumptious smelling baker, bought a loaf and asked where they could get some cold meat, smoked beef, maybe, a bit of ham.  While the assistant was slicing and wrapping, they surveyed the goods.  Woo-hoo, beef labelled not pre-frozen is twice the price.  Somewhere, presumably south a bit, is a prize herd.  Ah, a greengrocer.  You can tell that by all the greens.  Clearly senoki get their veggies.  There were many varieties of cabbage and onions, leeks, a sort of frondy lacy thing on a stalk which reminded them of seaweed but surely couldn’t be. There were large pink and green apples in plenty and a few oranges.  The woman in front of them was paying cash in small denomination coins, and apparently her eyesight was not good. The shopkeeper was being kindly. 
“We’re foreigners,” said Paw, “and this is going to seem a stupid question. Do you get soft fruit up here at all?”
“Is it because of the war?” added Baz.
The shopkeeper bellowed with laughter.
“You are from the south?  It is very different here.”
“Fidub.”
“I think Fidubi do not shop.  They pluck the peaches from the trees.”
“Bit like that,” said Paw.
“I have been.  When I was younger, merchant fleet.” We didn’t think of the sea.  Stupid of us.  “In season we get a little from Var-sega’  Mostly it goes to children and the Army.”
In-te-res-ting!  We didn’t have the Imperial Miltiary down as fructivores, though we have heard that for a lot of the lads the Army is the first decent meal they’ve had.
“Of course!” said Baz.  “Guess it’s apples or apples.  Don’t mean to be rude, but where do the oranges come from?”
“Harn.”
The sea, the sea!  Think hard about that one, wonder what else comes from Harn and it’s not necessarily edible.
“Could we have six apples and an orange, please.”
The shopkeeper gestured to them to help themselves. Not worried about transferring bugs.  Probably too bloody cold.
They arrived back at the double doors, where a small crowd was assembled, through which weaved their way a larger number of people coming in.  It had started to snow.  Women with shopping-trolleys were on their phones.  Can you come and collect me, guessed Baz.  It can’t do this!  It’s spring!  OK, the total Van-senok experience.  Snow-cats!  It’s not far to the inn. 
So. This – is – snow. It’d be all right if the polar blast wasn’t lashing it into their faces.
“Brrr!” said Baz.  “Afternoon!  Would you have two rooms for two nights, please.”
“Good afternoon to you!” said the receptionist.  “Will that be with dinner?”
“Yes, please,” said Paw.
They filled in the register.
“Wow!” she said, “Fidub!  I’ll need to see your passports.”  She sounded very apologetic about it.
They reached in their jackets and produced the circular, apple-green (yes, well, they stand out) passports of the Republic of Fidub.  Even Fidubi think the circles on the cover are weird, pretty, but weird: top left, off-centre and bottom right are embossed concentric silver circles.  She flipped through their passports.  All PANTHER passports have diplomatic stamps.  If she noticed, she didn’t say anything.
“Would there be lunch?” asked Paw, yoghurt desserts abandoned at the prospect of hot food. 
“Need to go to the bar for that,” she said.  “Plenty of time yet, finish lunches at half-two.  Show you to your rooms.”
The rooms were about the width of three beds and little longer with low ceilings and ye olde beams that were probably real.  They were also warm.  They sat on Baz’ bed.  Paw tore a hunk off the loaf. 
“No trace,” said Baz.
“How can you tell!” said Paw.
Whatever they saw and heard would get back to Sarat.  They assumed Sardun would track them out of an intelligent curiosity as to what that would be.  They also assumed that, this near to both House and Camp, anyone and possibly everyone could be Sardun.  Swaddled in fur and padding, senoki were not easy to tell apart. Since they enjoyed the thought of Saban being regaled by their interest in agriculture, they didn’t bother to get serious about whether they were being followed.
“Thought-experiment.  If Marula had been wandering around the mall, could you tell.”
“Rich, poor,” said Baz, “all swaddled under padding and fur.  Fur might be better quality!”
“We can assume no-one’s perishing of hypothermia in Da-conan.  Vaconik might be different.”
“Clean Air Act,” said Baz.  “I mean let’s assume everyone’s got a grate.  Every house here is going to have been built with a grate.  Modern housing maybe not.”
“Ciletij has masses of coal,” said Paw.  “No way anyone’s flying in coal.”
“Non-perishable.  Rail?”
They decided to stick to plain food, not because they weren’t adventurous but because there was no disguising what it was. After looking at the menu, they realized this was just as well because plain food was all there was.   Baz had a steak in a huge roll with fried onions on the side and Paw had tench and potatoes with mint and butter.
“Guzzling,” said Baz between mouthfuls.
“So fresh it’s wriggling,” said Paw.
“Don’t do gourmet specialties.”
“Bar lunch.  Maybe at dinner.”
Dinner indeed proved more exacting.  There was a choice of four main courses, one was grilled pork, one was fried shark, and the other two were written in irturbi. 
“Do a few things well?  This must be where the locals come when they want to dine out.”
“And the plain stuff is for aliens?”
“Really sorry,” said Baz, “we’d love to try something new, but what is it?”
“Moose.  It is a stew.”
“I’ll have that please.  Do you eat it with potatoes?”
“Bread.”
“Whatever’s usual, please.”
“I’ll have the shark please,” said Paw.
After they’d completed their order, Baz said, “That didn’t swim in any local river!”
“That’s the interesting bit,” said Paw.
Baz’ phone gave a small meow to indicate he had mail.
Taja to Baz:  What the pluperfect iridescent 3D quintessential hell are you two doing?  The vid is all over the Army!
Baz: Don’t exaggerate.  I gave Saban the distribution list.  WYSIWYG. 
Taja: That at least is true!  Where are you?
Baz: Da-conan. A Delightful Town In the Middle of Van-Senok.  Would be if it wasn’t brass monkeys.  We are hardy.  We are valiant.  We have been out in SNOW.  Doing a little recce-ing. 
Meow.
People around looked up once more.  I think Vibrate mode.  Did not expect to be in demand.
Cho to Baz: Excellent.  Double brownie points with crossed paws.
Baz: Get Deelan [Cho’s cook] to cook you up some figisi-jahsonan. It’s really yummy. If she can get the ingredients, which I doubt.
Cho: ROTFLMAO.  You are at the camp?
Baz: Doing good by stealth.  Looking at the local shops, seeing what’s available to eat round here.  I’m just working out how to break it to Sarat.  Fresh fruit, not a lot of.  Make that soft fruit nil.
Cho: I’m sure he will survive.
Baz: Lots of veggies.  Get their vits.
Five trains a day run from Vaconik to Ge’at in Var-sega’, a journey of thirteen hours.  The train stopped at This Halt and That Junction only if required.  Seems sensible, don’t suppose the numbers hold it up.  Oh right, think I get it, leave work in Vaconik, pick up your backpack, catch the 19.32 and you’re in Ge’at at a reasonable time to get some work done.  Sounds less aggro than flying.  Do it in reverse but who uses it the rest of the time?  From Da-Conan to Vaconik, the journey is three hours and 22 minutes according to the timetable.  Clearly not for commuters, then.    What do people go to Vaconik for, a day in the city, must be museums, theatres, big shops of course.  All the same, seven hours travelling.  S’pose you can sleep. The last train back to Da-conan was at a highly respectable 23.20.  Go to the theatre, if you want to get home at 3 in the morning.  Maybe not something to do all that often.  Paw differentiated firmly between 3 in the morning in a bloody blizzard when it was probably -200 and 3 in the morning on the Leolisle.  When they arrived at the station for the 8.47 they thought there’d be maybe half a dozen other travellers.  More like 20, 25.   Even Baz can’t walk up to total strangers and demand their purposes. After all, he didn’t have a clipboard.  Just doing a survey… Added to the list of find out more about.  The train was warm and comfortable with a buffet car in which they sat and watched Van-senok speed by.  At last the trees thinned out and gave way to heath, and then the beginnings of a built-up area, at first sparse, then modern housing, builders’ merchants, hoardings, a park, a playing-field.  Vaconik Central possessed what they ticked off as attributes of main-line stations, restaurants, a grand hotel, cash machines, a pharmacy, a newsagent and stationer’s, a coffee-shop, a food-store and senoki and presumably also some segani quietly availed themselves of these facilities.  Buzz, it did not.  Frivolity, such as art, music, entertainers, was absent.  Well, they are at war.  Paw gazed at the departures board and thought somewhere underneath this is wow!  Down to Wintawa, up and round to G-T, reach the whole continent.  Then they go to Vasucula and Vasuculi arrive.  A quick look round espied no obvious Vasuculat.  Train came in some time ago?   Central it certainly was and within minutes they were in Gava-san, the hub, a broad and ancient highway, still cobbled, closed to traffic, down which they slowly ambled.  Again, ‘everything’ was there, movie-houses, theatres, department stores, a music-shop or perhaps more exactly a shop for musicians, for it was huge, a department store in its own right, and, unusually, appeared to sell everything from grand pianos and exquisite violins to the latest drum-kits, synthesizers and amps.  Hip young men with green hair argued vociferously about guitar strings, but it didn’t break the tone, the mood of the place, which Baz thought decidedly subdued.  They wandered into a network of alleys and found ‘usual shops for alleys’, specialist book-sellers,   jeweller’s, shops selling items of the ilk of incense-burners, floor cushions, rugs, tapestries, scented candles and cheap sets of bowls and cutlery, which Paw designated ‘furnish your student lodgings shops’ together with grocery-stores and a bicycle-shop.  They must, they thought, be very near the Collegium: ‘usual shops for student quarter’.  We cannot have come this far and not see the ocean.  Their alley ended in a large plaza.  Oh.
              “The Shrine,” said Paw softly.
              “Maybe they don’t call it that,” said Baz cautiously, suddenly feeling totally ignorant of earthpower.
              “Old, old, old,” said Paw, “maybe as old as M-P.”
              It looked like but of course couldn’t have been a single block of marbled grey stone the length of the plaza, two storeys, two rows of round windows, a steep over-hanging roof, the edge of which was carved with leaves and flowers.  In the centre, the door, nearly the height of the building, had carved in it a silver birch and two women, one in armour bearing a sword and one with a bow.  Gaurding the door were two stone bears.
              Hasty consultation of phones.
              ‘The Viledeen is the oldest building on the continent still in use today.  The foundations were laid in 6700.’ 
              ‘The Ladies, as they are called, were once believed goddesses, one of the fight and the other of the word.’
              ‘The inscription at the foot of the door reads ‘Enter, who can.’  The meaning of this has long puzzled historians and archaeologists.’  Baz frowned.  ‘Perhaps ironically, the Great Door is now kept sealed.  Entrance is at the side.’
              “There’s a side-door on the left.”
              The side-door led through a long  passage to a (warm, covered) courtyard with noticeboards on the walls, benches and a single large slatted wooden doors with great black hinges opposite the Great Door. A couple wrapped round each other consulted their phones.  There was no centre-piece.  A tree before it got warm and covered? Can’t believe they’d have felled a tree! 
              The two rows of windows on each side lit the grey chamber.  They saw the roof was supported by pillars.  The walls were intricately carved, with trees, with flowers, with bears, with wolves, with stranger things, fantastic creatures, half-stag half-man, giants with many heads. Fragments of paint remained. There were inscriptions but in irturbi, so they didn’t understand.  There were thick dark green carpet (added? replaced?) and benches cut into the walls on which were thick dark green velvet cushions (added? replaced?)
              What, thought Baz, do you do here, what did people do?  He liked the absence of any plaques, sign-posts, translations, it made it current, not just a museum-piece, but they clearly didn’t expect strangers.  Right now, any way.  He thought that before the war Vaconik had probably enjoyed a steady stream of travellers if not tourists eager to partake of their ancient culture and doubtless knowledgeable about it. 
              It must have had some rites and rituals.  Mel would know.  There’s no centre, no centre-piece, focus.  It is the centre-piece.  You’re ye ancient trader, come in out of the forest with your skins or meat or whatever and this is the meaning of Van-senok.  What is? 
If you have the forest, you don’t need pictures of the forest.  Go back, back, back, impossibly far back.  What else was here in 6700? Probably nothing. It would have stood majestic, alone.  Don’t understand.  People who worship goddesses don’t do it sitting on benches.  Then he wondered if he did.  A house for them? Of course it was all painted.  Must be a reconstruction on the Grid. No furniture?
              Paw had already let go.  Time loosened not slipping.  Shadows of the past.  Green, green, their robes were forest green and they had flowers in their hair.  Then death, blood, such violence, pain, then tiny flowers, everywhere, the walls, the ceiling, a carpet, a canape of tiny red flowers
              Something happened, he said rather feebly.
              I know, said Baz. Not human…
              The violence was that of animals, grizzlies ripping and tearing, wolves devouring still living flesh.  And trees drinking blood.
              They had a zoo here?  Trees in zoos don’t drink blood. People were sacrificed to wild animals?  Not unheard of but the venue, no, the venue does not mesh with that. 
              At the First Turn, the pain, blood, death were gone.  I think I see, do I see, an attempt to conquer, an enemy repelled, the enemy? Now the carvings on the walls were all of trees and flowers, great trees, small trees, trees of fantastic size and shape, leaves and branches in spirals, leaves climbing up the walls, leaves in circlets as no leaves ever grew.  For a moment he saw it as it was, a magic forest of brown and green and gold. 
At the Second turn they are in what was probably a starry vault, painted, painted, remember it was painted.  Stars, constellations, spheres, sun and moon are carved into walls. Look up! hissed Paw. The ceiling gave the illusion of open sky, all grey but distinctly full of cloud in more shades of grey than they had thought existed.  
At the Third Turn they are in the sea, fish, crustacea, seaweed, crashing waves, and great ice-floes, seals, polar bears.  Totally amazing.  Why has my sadly limited Fidubi education not told me about the Viledeen.
The woman with the bow came to meet them.  Baz smiled, suddenly feeling he understood everything about earthpower, everything, nothing, it didn’t matter, all he needed to know.
              But of course there was no-one there.
              “I think,” said Baz. A succession of wild thoughts came to him.  Sarat must come.  He must meet her.  Narulis met her.  That explains everything.
              They emerged shaken back into the courtyard. For a while they just sat.  Whew! 
              They padded off to see what lay behind the Viledeen and followed the path round.  You can walk all the way round the outside too.  Does that mean anything to you?  At the back was cluster of single-storey buildings also of grey stone.  Clearly it was thought fitting modernity impinge on them for covered walkways linked them and there were signs directing you to conference rooms and café.  They made a beeline for the caff. The furnishings included the sort of hyper-hip chairs that don’t have individual legs, instead consist of a curved metal frame that is three sides of a rectangle.  A poster covered in diamonds in various shades of pink, red and purple, against which some rock hero unknown to them strutted his stuff was entirely in irturbi.
              They sipped coffee thoughtful.
              “An eye-opener,” said Baz.
              “Broadening of perspective,” said Paw.
He consulted a map of Vaconik, then brooded over a larger map of the coast.  “So the port is there but we’re well inland.  Flooding?”
              Baz said: “Funny.  Earthpower.  Has to include water!  I was thinking – did Narulis represent the sea?  Like the two halves of the Whole.  Can we get a bus?”
              “Oh, this is mega,” said Paw.  “The Cult marched in from the sea and headed for the Viledeen.  Vaconikans or whatever the word is apparently sat back polishing their nails and having another coffee.  The Cult had – like a totem, the IoD, they carried before them. 
After a while senoki wandered in to remove the corpses, all of which if not stricken by arrows – as well as being stricken by arrows – bore the marks of wild beasts.  History of course tells it as an ambush, hidden archers, couple of tame bears.  The totem was smashed and covered with tiny red flowers.
              “I have just had the Viledeen Experience,” said Baz.  “At this moment I’d believe anything.  Whether I do believe anything – does it say anything about her?”
              Paw was grinning.
              “Don’t laugh.  The general belief is she was a construction-worker.”
              “Say that again slowly.”
“Yes, she looks as the goddess was depicted, but the goddess was depicted as an upper-class senoki huntress.  They even have a name for her, Mivalia za-plenit, It seems she was killed in an accident on the site, as happens on the best regulated building-sites. And some people see her ghost.”
“I want,” said Baz, “to say that was no ghost!  However, my experience of ghosts is zero, so what do I know!”
“This is interesting.  Apparently the people who built it were all exiles, rebels, whose concept of earthpower was more sophisticated than that current at the time.”
“If there’s one thing for sure,” said Baz, “this place does not function on the level tree not like fire.”
Consultation with the girl behind the counter revealed a bus linking Vaconik to the next town on the coast, more of a suburb really.  Of course it’s really nice in the summer.  Nothing going on there right now.
              The bus-driver said cheerfully that he stopped on the promenade.  He did.  Baz and Paw pulled their hats down to their eyelashes and their scarves up to the tops of their noses and leant against the railings of the sea-wall watching a malevolent dark-grey ocean batter the shore and smash onto ancient groynes.
              Visibilty was good and far on the horizon were frigates.  Makes you think, doesn’t it, said Baz.  Coastal security, must be a freaking nightmare.  Anyone could slip ashore.  Don’t really think about the Fleet, admitted Paw.  A particularly vicious gust assailed them.  Don’t think we need to linger.  Behind them shops and cafes were heavily boarded up and battered hoardings gave glimpses of another world, half a smiling brown child wearing water-wings.  A quick circuit of Hinsinil told them its core was another Da-conan, neat grey stone houses, with modern bungalows on the outskirts.  Guess you don’t build high. Baz continued to mutter about the antithesis between sea and land.  I mean, sea is basically lethal.  You can’t drink it, you can’t water your pot-plants.  There’s something there and I’m missing it.  Paw pulled up pictures of Hinsinil in the season, unrecognizable, a fun fair with a roundabout with highly painted horses, families on the beach in swim-gear, the shops along the promenade adorned with tubs of shrimp-nets and flip-flops.  
              “There’s a documentary I saw once about the tundra.  How it comes alive in summer, covered in flowers.  I think it’s all like that.”
              Baz grinned.
              “Senoki?  They’re little green shoots just below the surface.”
              “It really throws us, doesn’t it, no street-life.”
              “Commuter-land, either working or at school.”
              Two men passed them, accompanied by large, thickly furred and very lupine-looking pooches.
              “hmm.  Nice fluffy pet for the kids.”
              “Cross-breeds?”
              “Dunno how it works.  If you let your bitch in season into the wilds, does she saunter back in an orgasmic glow?”
              “Is there abortion for dogs?  I mean seriously.  Do you sincerely want a litter of wolf-cubs?”
              “A few tame semi-wolves.  In the Viledeen?”
              Baz was chortling to himself.
              “Just thinking, vet up here, maybe Sarat just needed something a bit more dangerous.”
              “Steel gauntlets to talk to your patients?”
              “Bet you anything they’re fish fans,” said Baz.  Paw’s face said yer what? “Tropical aquaria, exotic jewel fins darting about the room.  Or else they like everything grey.”
              “Tundra,” said Paw again.
              A large square van decorated with pictures of baskets of veg and bread, smiling cows presiding over pitchers of milk, a cheeseboard with crackers slowly passed them.
              “Bet you that’s home-delivery.  They just don’t have to go out.”
“What about exercise?  Can’t have pools in the basement, can they?”
“I run.  You run.  I just do not have the urge.”
Baz slowly lowered his scarf.
“Mainly cos I feel the air would be ripped from my lungs.”
“They must get used to it.  Be used to it.  Think if you grew up here.”
They returned to the  train-station.
              “We could go all the way down to Wintawa.”
              “Recline in the sun-soaked lagoons of the archipelago.”
              “It’s the job,” said Paw sorrowfully.
              “How do we get from this Ge’at to the House?”
They returned to Da-conan for the night, resolved upon a day of wandering around (if it didn’t snow again) followed by the 17.09, which, they noted, had the decency not to get to Ge’at until 6.40.  Did it pause for a rest, did it just dawdle?  They suspected, rightly, that the view would be mostly trees. 
Thirteen hours of train, in which to sleep, read-up, watch the changing landscape (has to change eventually)  and catch up on email. Taza had gone silent so Baz decided to wake him up.
Baz to Taja: Was Narulis ever associated with the sea, particularly in Van-senok?  Thinks: earth/sea, two halves of Whole.
Taja: Diligent cats if somewhat wayward…Yes. The prince of water.
Baz: Meaning unity?
Taja: Yes.  Fidubi are/were called the People of the Sea.
Baz: We went and saw the western ocean.  Had thoughts.
Taja: You have never seen the sea?
Baz: Not after the Viledeen.  Did Narulis meet her?
Taja: !!! Yes. You – went – Viledeen?
Baz: Bloody amazing.  Enter, who can?
Taja: I understand, he said drily, the level of experience may be different.  The Cult attempted desecration.
Baz: Read that bit, lacerated corpses.
Taja: No comment.  Have you seen the Fortress?
Baz: Eek, no.  They knew about us, then, Fidub, before Narulis, I mean.  Got this far.
Taja: Or we got that far!  Not sure egg/chicken.
Baz: ‘There are many Fidubi artefacts in the museum at Car-sandis.’  Not sure that’s the important bit.   Shit, missed the museum.  Must be on-line.
Taja: Not in Vaconik?
Baz: On a choo-choo.
OK, museums Vaconik.  The National.  Why do I think that does not mean the nation of Kadun.  The National is the preserve of Van-senok’s historic.  Baz entered ‘Fidub’ in the search-box.  Woo-hoo! Of course there would be zillions of entries, silly of me.  Narrow it down.  Sea-faring? Why would they have sea-fared?  Turn south-east and start walking.  Riding.  Probably quicker. ‘Contact with Fidub.’    ‘During the Sirenian – ‘ the what? Quick detour. 
“The Si-turnit dynasty ruled Van-senok between 5903 and 6427.  They were overthrown by Sibenis za-fenan.  Marula’s lot.  I didn’t know that!”
Paw said: “What was the grouse?”
“Hang on…Slightly weird.  ‘The Sirenians occupied – conquered is too strong a word given that these regions were almost entirely uninhabited – ‘ Conquerors would say that.  “ – much of the north of what is now Var-sega’ and the north-west of what is now Vaudos.’  What is now?”
“We’ve always known the borders shifted a lot.”
“Za-fenan’s crew saw that as a dilution of earthpower, the strength of which lay in the trees. Actually wasn’t what I.”  He flipped back.  “Oh, double yikes.”  He silently passed the phone to Paw.
“As you say….”
‘This pair of exquisite silver dolphins was a gift from Fidub to the Suzerain of Van-senok.  Fidubi sailed the length and breadth of the continent but never settled in Van-senok, as they did further south, doubtless finding the climate not to their taste.’ 
“All right, all right!”
“You do just have to wonder exactly what they made of Narulis.”
“Wonder a lot of things.  If they were gung-ho for the integrity of their borders.”
“Empire fixed the borders?”
“Fidubi settlements in Var-sega’?”
They felt a bit subdued themselves: there’s such a hell of a lot we don’t know. At least it’s all ancient history.  See how Mel’s Place is doing.
 
…………….
 
Thanks for the suggestion I become a mindless animal, a creature of your making, but I’d really far rather be me, intelligent, learned, witty, literate, female me.  Love the notion I’m unacceptable in my own country.  You just get funnier and funnier.  Ridiculous little animal. 
 
I laugh at you daily. 
Can’t create, can you, poor sad sick little bags of mindless pus.
WENDIN:  So if you were around, you’d eat with us, right.
SARAT: Sure.
GUNTA:  If there was anything you eat!  I’m not talking about cuisine, I’m talking about fish and fruit! 
WENDIN: Army food is good, right, no rat, no crap, but it is a  bit – solid, you could say.  We get apples and chard.  Pears.  Any fruit there is, we get first choice, which is basically why the cats told you none in the shops.  If it grows in Var-sega’, we eat it. 
SITSI: Patsito fried with bacon is just about the yummiest thing you could dream of.  I think it’s pretty solid, fat and calories.
 
Sitsi and others saluted Varna sharply. 
“We are a delegation, sir!”
“And?”
“Fact-finding mission.  Permission to go to Zur again.”
“And meet Sarat?”
“Well, if he should cross our path – not exactly inconspicuous.  Seriously, sir, no, well, maybe, but we’ve got a much clearer idea how things work now.  We think we’ll look at this differently. With more understanding.”
“Initiative,” said Varna, drily.  “They have not attacked for 137 days.  I see no reason they should choose your absence – unless you cause such mayhem in Zur as comes to their attention, of course.”
They pretended to look shocked.
“Three days,” continued Varna.
“Days!  That’s brilliant!  Thank you, sir.  Thought you might say three hours.”
“It matters,” said Varna.  “Zur neat will not transport to the Colonnade.  Essential Zur, quite possibly.”
 
“That side of the border,” said Sitsi, “he’s a Fidubi student living in Zur.”
“Can’t play that one.  Why’d we want to meet one of those?”
“Is there anything wrong with saying, lok, well, we just wanted to meet you.  Doesn’t sound very dynamic.”
“We don’t have to be dynamic that side of the border.”
“He sounds a straight kind of guy.  Just tell it straight.”
“What’s that?”
 
SITSI TO SARAT PM
Varna has agreed to leta group of  us loose in Zur again.  We did just wonder if we might meet you at some point, if you were around.  It’ll be 25th to 28th and we’re staying at Colbin’s, which I’m sure you know.
 
“SArat in in depth talks with Kadun military,” drawled Baz.
“Yup,” said Paw, “the younger and less elevated the better.  Front for Varna?”
“Wanna meet,” said Maya.
“Pretty inevitable,” said Baz, “anyone who can wangle the trip.”
“Tell the exact truth,” said Sarat, “there’s a forum we’re all on.”
“Of course we could always go to Carlin,” said Maya.
“Sarat on state visit to Burunda!”
 
SARAT TO SITSI PM
Coolest!  D’you want to come to dinner one evening?  Let me know which day
 
SITSI TO SARAT
Yes please!  Thank you very much.  The Vaneday, the 27th
 
SARAT TO SITSI?
Shall I invite Shav and Petrush?
 
SITSI TO SARAT
Again, yes please.  Brill.
“I’ll get it! shouted Petrush and flung open the door.  “Gentlemen, welcome to chaos!”
Maya, crossing the hallway, stopped, said, “Darlings, lovely to meet you,” and continued on her way.
“You will gather,” said Petrush, “an event has taken place.  A cat, a real one of the four-legged variety, has chosen this moment to have kittens.  Sarat of course constitutes the attending physician.   I suggest we repair to the tranquillity of the garden.  Unless any of you is a specialist in feline obstetrics. I of course have the misfortunate to be Petrush.”
They introduced themselves.
“I’m Baz, he’s Paw.”
“I’m a cub,” said a cub dolefully.  “That means I get all the crap work.  What would people like to drink?  We offer a variety of fine wines from the sun-drendched vineyards of Fidub.  Got that off the label. Else there’s beer, orange juice, peach juice, lemon juice, tea, coffee, mineral water, and probably anything you can name.  Including applestock.  Maya says she’s dressed for kitten duty and will just wash and brush up and be with you in a tick.”
“Peach juice,” said Frensat in tones of awe and wonder.
 
KAF love FAF!  Ciletij fury as FAF entertains our real allies!  KAF officers in lightning raid on Camp Five (I’ll bring the wine)!
 
And it seems Shavli-ban-essa, Cho’s grand-daughter, is staying at the House in Carlin!  Naturally rumour is rife but if we go now to Carlin…
 
“Car-sandis Gazette.  Imperial Highness!  Or do I mean Flight Captain?  History plays strange tricks on us.  If we ask very nicely, would it be possible to tell us what the hell is going on here?”
“Shavli will do.  It’s actually all very straightforward.”
“It is?”
“Would you just confirm for viewers in Kadun that you are a pilot.”
“I am.”
“Our guys do not look like that!”
“That’s exactly the point,” said Shav.  “It’s simply part of the on-going debate on women in the Kadun military.”
“We can certainly see that – a foot in both camps, you might say.”
“Some guys Sarat met online said they’d be in Zur and would love to meet him.  Cool, he said, and Shav and Pretush – my partner – too.  So we had a peaceful delightul dinner in the garden.  Then Petrush had the idea.  We cleared it with Varna and Skyhawk.  Everyone knows Fidub shares military intelligence with Kadun.  This is really a complete non-event.  I mean what the guys wanted to see was the practical stuff, how it works on the ground, showers, sleeping accommodation.”
“FAF’s showers, top-secret, I think we can all see that!”
“Everyone knows – they do, they do, that is of course why the howling.”
“Skyhawk said fine, so long as the guys are back in Kadun before you guys get on to it, and I could fly them back, so I went to Burunda.  Then Duvi invited me to stay over the weekend here.  I’m sure the House can provide fine china tea-cups to put the storm in.”
“So you have visited Burunda – “
“Sadia and I.  She’s my boss.”
“I may stop laughing in a minute.  So – Skyhawk and Varna despatched two female pilots to Burunda.”
“Hospitality,” said Shav, “should be reciprocated.”
“I guess they weren’t too rude, you being.”
“They weren’t rude at all.  That was one of the things we talk about.  Not being rude to us!  About – normal levels of boyish high spirits being – changed by the presence of females.”
“Male conversation.  This is actually important, isn’t it.”
 
A laconic message was conveyed to the press-fiends at the gats of Camp Five: Sadia and Petrush might talk to you, when they’ve finished work, if they feel benevolent.
 
“Impressions of Burunda, Sadia?”
“One state of the art base is much like another.  They have birds.  They have hangars.  They have beds.  Like ours they’re pre-moulded.”  She grinned.  “The question was of course location.”
“You’d say it had a masculine air.”
“Pretty surprising if it had a feminine one.”
“Sure, sure.  You know what I mean?”
“Do I?”
“I play mixed hockey.  I also play all-male hockey. Atmosphere, Sadia, surely everyone agrees, all boys, all girls for that matter, is slightly different to mixed.”
“We tend to be cleaner.  That does not apply.  Burunda is spotless. That is of course exactly.  Changing-rooms were discussed freely and frankly. As in they don’t exist.  Some form of partition is hardly a huge deal.”
“Unless it’s glass!”
“And everything is state of the art?  We all know the propaganda.”
“They’d hardly have won every round if it wasn’t.”
“At the political level, this is a clear statement of alliance between Fidub and Kadun.”
“At the political level,” said Sadia, “you need to talk to someone else.”
“May we bring the cameras in?  I’m thinking for the benefit of a wider audience in Kadun.”
“That too is someone else,” said Sadia.
 
Sure, said Skyhawk.  At their convenience not yours.
 
“Sarat has been talking to the Kadun military,” said Seani, dead-pan.
“I think it’s easy enough to see that one.  Wanders Grid, finds guys slagging off women in uniform.  Excuse me….”
“Only he is Anile heir.”
“Guys slagging off women in uniform who are opting for empire!  He’s not going to say nothing, is he.”
“I wonder if he displayed his customary tact,” said Seani.  “So how about you guys join the real world, fast.  See if you can find it.”
“Are they allowed on line?”
“That’s an interesting one.  Not exactly secret, the location of Burunda.”
“Any airbase.  Doesn’t move in the night like an army.  Maybe it’s different for KAF.”
The lizard hissed.  Hard to say which is more intolerable, the presence of foreign agents, the presence of the former imperial family, pretend-men pretending to fly.
 
So bomb us to ashes, said Varna, the way you have failed to do for ten years.
Varna is a happy man right now.  He has found out Sadia is both straight and single.  Of how to pursue this he is less sure, but he has imagination and initiative.  He will find a way!
 
“The house,” began Sitsi to a rapt audience, “it’s a detached, but it’s a town-house, not like a mansion.  Surrounded by trees so the neighbours can’t see in!  There’s a wide hall.  So far as we could tell there are only two rooms on the ground floor, two that matter, I mean there’s a downstairs loo, cloakroom.  Both looking out onto the garden, opening out, French doors, patio.  My mum would go ape over that kitchen.  Obviously it’s enormous and there’s a counter in the middle with like bar-stools,  Everything built in of course.  The other room it’s like living and dining.  There’s one huge polished dining-table.  I don’t know anything about antiques except I know one when I see one.  Rest is two huge black corner sofas, a few floor cushions, an AV unit, telly, sound systems, occasional tables.  One or two things I suspect would pay our salaries for ten years.  Kept trying not to stare and – well, felt stupid.  We’ve all seen ancient and valuable at the  House, but this.”
“Well?” they said.
“Lifesize silver panther, absolutely phenomenal, practically see it breathing.”
Sarma looked up sharply.
“I’m just wondering – the Buconin Panther?  Reputedly lost wonder of the empire.”
“Maybe it’s a nearly as ancient replica?” said Frensat.  “I do not see how they could have got that out of Azt.”
“Other thing is a painting, huge landscape.  The colours are entrancing.  Hadn’t a clue where it is and thought I could ask that.  It’s the Sohenisle.”
“We don’t really know what happened when the empire collapsed.  Maybe they said take what is yours!  OK, I doubt it!”
“As for the garden, imagine you’re relaxing in a beautiful orchard in Carlin!  Only it’s not an apple-orchard, it’s an orange-orchard.  Grove, is grove the word.  There’s a hammock and a couple of loungers and a wrought-ron table and chairs and a long table for food and drink.”
“We all helped ourselves from bowls of deliciousness.  You know Sarat is WYSIWIG, because he behaved like any normal well-brought-up host would.  Do you need a spoon?  Pass you the patsito!  It is actually rather good.”
“Yes, bur what was the dliciousness.”
Fillets of habia, six different kinds of mixed salad, lots of little bowls of dips, dressing, sort of, except they had real live pieces of orange and peach in them, .cheeses, fresh crunchy rolls and butter
“Nothing that came out of packet then!”
“We stuffed ourselves, frankly.  Of course there’s plenty of salad in Carlin.  Call it winter salad.  This was summer salad.”
“Servants?”
“Cubs.”
“Behaviour to the boss?”
“Quite hard to describe really.  Offhand but intensely willing.”
“We were addressed thus.  I’m a cub.  That means I’m supposed to know what you want before you do, but I’m a failure.  What would you like to drink?  We offer a wide range of fine wines from the sun-drenched vineyards of Fidub – got that off a label – and practically anything else you care to mention, including applestock.”
“I trust you weren’t pissed by the time you got to Fidub!”
“Day to sober up.  We did finish a little inebriated.  Decorous I hasten to add.”
“In front of Sarat?”
“Baz and Paw.  Who are quite something.  Don’t expect Sarat to know everything about Kadun.  I rather got the impression they do!”
“Cats, aren’t they.”
“What did you actually talk about?”
“Anything.  Everything.  Including fixed wings!  But we didn’t talk shop long enough for it to – you know what I mean.”
Frensat grinned.
“Long enough to know Flight Captain Ban-essa knows her stuff.”
“I don’t really think any of us said anything more exciting than anything we’ve said at the forum.”
“yes, well, the forum’s quite an exciting place!”
“Just thinking.  Hi.  I’m the ADC around here.  That means I get to do all the crap – you mean it doesn’t?  How may I help you?  I can see my way to that.”
“Who do you think did the cooking?”
“That’s an interesting one.  State of the art electronic devices is probably a good part of the answer to that.  I mean if you just put it all in the blender and whizz, it stops looking difficult, doesn’t it.  All those wonderful dips and dressings.”
“You do have to know what to put in the blender.”
“Probably borrowed a chef.  Must be enough around to borrow!”
“Didn’t think of that.  I reckon if it’s just the pair of them they look after themselves.”
“He’s a self-starter, all right.  They all are.  You can always tell.”
“Let us heigh to yonder fair Isles of FIdub!”
“Well, that too.  When you run out of ice and your host jumps up and gets more.  It’s kind of a clue.
 
Hospitality is to reciprocated.  Naturally Sarat is welcome in Burunda.
“Or you could just declare empire,” mused Essa.
“Dad!”
“What is the key fact here?”
Sarat sighed.
“If I were just some Fidubi student.”
“If you behave as HIH, you must expect people to think you are HIH.”
“I could stay at the House and visit Burunda.”
“Wander in and out of Carlin as though it were your back garden.”
“You said about people’s assumptions.”
“So?”
“So – if the whole of Carlin is assuming something – no, that doesn’t work.  Why is this so complicated!  Like – I’m in a little bubble and the assuming is over there somewhere.  The – the weight of the assuming squeezes the bubble, but the bubble is vulnerable, because me is also the assumptions!”
“Something of the kind,” agreed Essa gravely.  “What will you talk about?”
Sarat repeated Sitsi.
“It couldn’t be hairier than the forum!”
“Understood,” said Essa, “but wrong.  Guard of honour?”
Sarat was silent a minute.
“If – if Cho’s going to be emperor, then I guess – I mean I think they’d see it as – not exactly just a bit of fun but – but that’s then not now.” Then, “Ths is – not sure I can put it exactly.  Not manipulation.  Maybe visualization!  But it’s fake.”
“You’ll do, kid, you’ll do.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
“Behave as if empire is given.  And if the whole of Kadun sees you reviewing the troops in Carlin?”
“Oh no?”
“How would you politely decline?”
“I refuse to believe most guys would be deeply disappointed at not standing in the rain so I can walk past them.”
Essa laughed.
“When the alternative is chatting to you about their kids’ health, I should say undoubtedly.”
“I call the shots,” said Sarat.
“As a guest?”
“They can’t have it both ways.  If I’m HIH, I’m not an intruder.  I belong.  WYSIWIG.”
“Better they know now,” agreed Essa.  “I look forward to the comments on the forum.”
“Still thinking,” said Sarat.
 
Baz to Firas, c.c. Cho, Tar, Sarat, Maya. 
Sarat has decided to go to Burunda.  Lot of nattering.  Upshot: ‘not appropriate’ (Tar) for the H-W to gallop beside her.  Rearing, throwing back their manes – oh no, wait, that’s Sarat.  Two female felines, please.
Firas: JD?
Baz:  Ha! 
Paw:  We’ll keep a diary for a couple of days, give you the idea.  Remember this is Zur and Maya’s A-M, so people bend her ear about the oddest things.
Baz: Framework: .  Only places invitation-only are bedrooms and lairs, theirs, ours.  Lair is like private sitting-room or in their case study room.  Whole family can be downstairs but if Sarat has a project to finish or something he’s in the lair.  They’re students, they don’t get up or go to bed at a set time.  Evenings we’re in and essay-free. the four make that six of us are mostly lounging around on the ground floor, kitchen, sitting-room, garden, pool.  Scenario could include close friends. Here are some pix.  You can see it’s fairly open plan.  ‘Course we’ve got our own tellies in case of vile dissent, but none of us watches much and some of the natural history documentaries are really good.
Cho: There was really quite extraordinary footage of the Archipelago.
Paw: Thank you for that helpful comment. 
Firas: Food?
Baz: We eat, yes.  Three of us do.  And I don’t mean Maya’s dieting. It’s the Sarat Diet.  Bears no relation to any fad or carefully analysed biochemistry.  Name me a raw food freak who starts with coffee, cream and sugar. He devised it.  He keeps incredibly fit on it.  Do assure impeccable as both guest and host – eats and serves normal food.
Firas: How is the housekeeping organized?
Baz: Midnight trips to the Megamart.  We have a standing delivery of non-perishables with the standing claws he or she who takes the last loo roll is responsible for ordering more.  We have a daily delivery of bread, milk, cream, fruit and veg.  Masses of it.  Lot of it gets juiced, of course. Blended.  Sarat doesn’t approve of juicers, says they leave out the good bits.  We have two million volt blenders. Chuck whole oranges in.  We have a selection of eats in the freezer, from the hill.  When Tulon, that’s Tar’s chef, found they had to feed half the adolescents in Zur they got very good at interesting things that could live in the freezer until the ravening hordes arrived.  There are eight bars, caffs, restaurants within a ten-minute walk.  No circs in which we starve.  Additionally we have delivery of whatever we feel like, whenever we feel like.  We share the login and add what we want.  As and when we get fish off the quay and choccie biks from the Megamart.  I’m the only one who can really cook so I’m the chef if it’s just Vij and Sarsh, say.  If there are hordes we scrounge help from the hill.  Or proper grown-up people like Cho and Amida.  Maya makes a mean masali.
Tar: Zur is 24/7.  Evil grin.  AMI had not previously marketed ready meals.
Firas: A different world. You all of course know each other very very well.
Paw: We’ve talked about it.  We think we’re easy to get along with.
Sarat: I grew up in a large family.
Firas: My concern is constant allusion to people and places that mean nothing to irturbi.  Housework?
Maya: I sort of grew up in a large family.  The hill.  Total strangers.  Masses of H-W.  Impromptu meetings.  Organized chaos.  Colts come in once a week to do the place top to bottom.  Otherwise we clean up as we go along. 
Baz: Grin.  Sarat does the garden.  Good little citizen mows the lawn once a week or when it’s up to our ankles.  Serious.  Sarat likes green things and green things like Sarat.
Firas: And you two.  Leave, refreshers.  I understand it’s handled by Vax.
Baz: Wd on’t like to miss anything interesting.  Mostly we pootle off when it’s exam-time and they’re bent over their screens.  Mostly work out wherever we are.  If it’s Zur with the H-W, at Cho’s with Vax and Fox.  Etc.
 
Cho to Baz, Paw, Sarat, Maya: And everything gets back to Firas?
Sarat: We’ve talked about it.  Tough patsito.
Cho: Sarshi?  Mel?  Suddenly you entertain your closest friends and family upstairs?
Sarat: I really don’t think any of us has anything to hide, at least not from Firas.  He’s not going to go to Glitz, is he.  Carlin’s swarming with cats.
Cho: Or you want a full-frontal?
Sarat: That too occurred!
 
“Hi,” said Baz.  “Baz.”
“And this is me with my best party manners. May I see your ID, please, sir.”  Baz grinned.  “Jaizi.  She’s Mellow.”
“I am, I am.”
“This is it?” asked Paw, looking at two backpacks.
“We have been living in a camp.  We thought we’d get new clothes instead of bringing.”
“Got my toothbrush,” said Mellow.
“So Sarat and Maya are - ?”
“With mum and dad in Fidub.  We thought we’d give you a whistle-stop tour, go and pick them up, drop in on Cho, but we also thought jet-lag and finding your way around first.”
 
“They were guest rooms,” said Paw, “so the décor isn’t exciting.  Obviously feel free to decorate to taste.”
“So you’ve both got double-beds,” said Baz.  “We didn’t think you’d mind that.”
“A real bed,” said Mellow.
“And walls!” said Jaizi.  “I’ve never had a room of my own.  Mum and Dad weren’t exactly rolling, shared with my sister.”  She grinned.  “Till I ran away.”
“So do you want to settle in, come and find us downstairs at your leisure.”
“Shower!  Yes please.”
 
Mellow emerged from the shower and stood naked in the middle of the bedroom, revelling in the warmth.
“Don’t get carried away.  There are men in the house!”
“Goddess be thanked, no frilly lacy girly curtains.”
“You didn’t really think – “
“I thought if guys tried to be welcoming they might think something feminine.”
“There is Maya.”
 
 
“We have an urgent practical need to go shopping,” said Mellow.  “else it’s roast cat.”
“Only lightweight things we have are Ts.”
“Firas said he’d opened us bank accounts.  We have to go in person and sign on the dotted line.”
“Tell ‘em to give you smartcards,” said Paw.  “We’ll sort the other stuff.”
“Half Zur commutes to M-P and vice versa.  So there was an urgent need not to faff around changing money, presenting papers and all the rest of it.  Everything goes on the smartcard.”
“That is wow!”
“We are expert on everything ‘cept the coolest place for female attire.  Start with Pritta’s, it’s a department store, at least you’ll get shorts and sandals.”
“What’s the name of this road?  So we can get back!”
Jaizi to Firas: And here we all are on the beach at Fidub…This is work?  Having a wonderful time, wish you were here!  We’ll say more when we’re in the swing of it. 
Mellow to Firas: Not good at describing things.  Pix, kitchen, lounge, our rooms (which we can decorate how we like, when we get around to it), garden, pool. Robot.  If you make crumbs you just languidly reach for the remote.  Tech.  Very.  Gather similar in reach most income levels.
Long long talk about automation, culminating in guided-tour of AMI!  Like we were VIPs or something.  Slightly mind-bending, great halls of bustle and activity but no people.  And your question for the day is – what do people do instead?  First, Zur did it slowly, so kids in school learned the jobs their mums and dads did wouldn’t be there, so they had to start to think differently.  Second if there’s a ground rule you have to be able to talk to a human.  Like your robot vacuum starts to spit the crumbs out instead of sucking them in, you can instanter connect with human beings.  Third, choice. You land in Zur, you can hire a car to drive yourself, you can hire a robot driven vehicle, or you can have a good old-fashioned cabby.  Plenty of guys who still sweep the streets, in Fidub, I’m told.  They like it.  It gets them out in the sunshine and they get to chat to people.  As a ground-rule, all the basic shit jobs have gone, but anything that people actually might enjoy is flexible.  And Zuri make things.  They make home-made this morning that really is.  They make carved from a single log – not sure Sarat approves that one, but you get the idea. And they all need helpers.  People who are less talented cart the logs around.  You have to take account of climate.  Giraga in mid-winter, carting logs around is pretty shit.  But there’s one very basic.  People are expected to be ert!  Not inert I mean.  Like I said, not good at description.  Something like - capable of having their interest caught  in a normal way, whatever that means.  Think we all know the opposite, people who are just flattened. 
Jaizi to Firas: Pic of me and Paw.  We know the script.  In Kadun people are who dark like us (!) are assumed to be Fidubi, least if we’re cats.  When they know you’re gypsy, then they get stupid.  As far as Zur goes I’m yet another Fidubi.  So we’re talking.  Far too polite, by the way to give us the third degree, now tell us all about yourselves, but we’re talking about Kadun, women in Kadun, what we’ve been doing, just general and I give them the whole works.  Mum’s what they call a ‘good gypsy’, Dad fell for her and she got respectable, but the crap is always there, so he’s very protective, and even more protective – like the guys say, ook after our grils, gypsy girls fair game to anyone in some circles, gyppos, whores, thieves.  He’s got a shop. Haberdasher’s, he and mum know their stuff, they’re (nearly) accepted.  And they want me to work in the shop.  Safe.  And I’m not having any.  Dad’s dead straight.  One of the reasons they’ll never be totally accepted is because he won’t cut mum off from her family, so when they’re around they drop in and it’s brilliant and oh the hissing and spitting.  And I get the idea.  I know Gran’ll never go along with it, so I have to make her, don’t I.  I say I want to see the world, safety in numbers, not stupid, wouldn’t run off on my own, like a holiday, right.  Never had one of those, unless you count picnics on The Ridge.  So Gran talks to Mum and Dad.  Now, bless them, they know I don’t have the most interesting life, get a bit of fresh air, but of course they’re anxious, you stay on the road.  That means there’s basically no shit if we stay away from ‘good people’ and of course the caravans know who’s a real good ‘un and who isn’t, the farms that’ll sell you eggs, meat, milk, bread.  Cats always used to keep an eye open for us, but of course they’ve got other things to do these days.  But I get my holiday and we run into a group of cats and I just know this is what I want to do.  Snag: I’m 16.  Just 16.  So I had to stick it out in the shop for a whole year, but I did because now I had a future.  What I did not say was can I tell mum and Dad what I’m doing now, they’ll be over the moon, they won’t believe me!  Didn’t want to sound about 10, after which I realized that in Kadun I’ll be on camera and they really won’t believe it!  Is that our Jaiz?  Can’t be!
Then we got onto the hard stuff.  Like most places we have no rights, no fixed abode, vagrants.Like there was a movement for gypsy rights, but it sort of got pushed under the carpet.  So Sarat (of course!) said healthcare and I was pretty much on my hobbyhorse and said what’s that?  Serious, I said, if we’re sick, we either look after ourselves, call it folk medicine, but ome of it works, or if we’ve got any sense we find cats to help.  Of course not all docs are turds, some treat anyone poor for free, but if it’s something major cats can generally break the door down.
He really cares, about people being fucked over, he really, really does.
 
Forwarded to Mitch:
Your comments?
There are some amazing young women in Kadun.   Gypsies are welcome at the House. I have friends in CLIK who know them well.  They say to praraphrase they only steal from total bastards and CLIK would steal from everyone.  It may entertain you to learn some members of CLIK get twitched about that, insisting they’d only take it off the rich, whereas a farmer who has mysteriously lost chickens and eggs in the night may have very little himself.  I shall assuredly book my guided tour of AMI.  I do not know anything about the interior of Dabida but I know Fidub is much like us in that it has huge metropolitan centres amidst large more sparsely populated areas with small communities – which would be destroyed if routine work such as street sweeping were automated and the inhabitants had to seek work elsewhere. As we both know many streets in our metropolitan centres are not cleaned in any manner and to enforce that level of civic responsibility overall might indeed raise the possibility of labour shortage; from mending the roads to painting public buildings, many things are not happening, partly because of war, partly because of neglect.  A small sleepy town I think has little need of automation to render it clean and effective, but automation is not merely a problem for the working-classes.  Software now resolves many basic book-keeping and accounting issues.  I am not entirely sure I think software an infallible guide to diagnosis but certainly it is preferable to an incompetent or over-worked doctor.  A doctor of course is central in small sleepy towns.  Where he or she knows families as his or her parents knew them.  HE or she brings something irreplaceable.  But healthcare in cities could only benefit from technology.  Kid’s got a rash.  Here’s a pic.  Again as we both know, Kadun is not fully wired and that must surely be a priority.  I leave you to guess whom I think wold mke it a priority!
 Firas: Can he do it?
Mitch: That will become clearer after Burunda.
Baz to Cho:  OK, you want me to stay at Burunda.  That is absolutely delightful and kind of you.  I shall stay at Burunda.  Of course after 24 hours you may ask me to leave.
Cho: He has decided to be difficult?
Baz: He does not like being neither one nor the other and has I think decided therefore to be unflinchingly both.
 
Unflinchingly both pitched up at Burunda in a grey silk polo, a black faux fur gilet, black silk loons and lemon flip-flops.  Maya was similarly attired, other than feet clad in plain black sandals.
Don’t they make a lovely couple!  Sistenda and As exchanged glances.
Someone’s taking the piss!
Sitsi – well, at least you know him – is not good at keeping a straight face.  Valiantly he succeeded.
“Welcome to Burunda!  This of course is AC Varna.  Asdinan you know, Sistenda of course is Leader of the Chamber.  Think you’ve met at the forum.”
“Shouldn’t miss this for the world,” said Sistenda.  “Delighted to meet.  The toes are not cold?”
“I have good circulation,” said Sarat.  “Lovely to meet you.”
“My lady Maya,” said Sistenda.  “Your cousins of course have often visited.”
Rehearsal, thought As, for the real thing.  Can we cope with the real thing?
“Mel speaks warmly of you all,” said Maya demurely. 
Jaizi and Mellow wore PANTHER Ts and combat trousers and boots.  Consequently a number of young male eyes were not wholly fixed on Sarat.  Baz and Paw had grinned.  “Entering enemy territory?”
“Jaizi, Mellow, Baz and Paw,” said Sarat.
  “Let us go inside,” said Varna.  “Coffee, I am sure, will be welcome.”
Baz to Cho: So we are walking through two lines of guys, not rigidly at attention, just standing easy, and I can see little thought-bubble forming: Fuck this for a game of soldiers.  When they get to the end of the row, he turns and says to the guys, “Thanks for turning out.  It’s really good to be here.  Catch up with you later.”  So we proceed indoors to have coffee and soon we’re all nattering, nothing particularly intense, Sarat says Shav’s told me a lot.  I’d really love to look around.  That’s when the fun begins.  Half an hour later Sarat’s sitting on a truck chatting to some guys fixing a truck and Maya’s on the flight control deck  learning how it works.  Three-quarters of an hour later, the sirens go.  Didn’t take long,
 
Right, fuckers, said Sitsi.  They all grinned, knowing they were all thinking the same thing: done it a million times, of course Sarat here doesn’t make an difference, of course.
Sarat in air-raid in Carlin!  How thick are they? thought Mitch, meaning Azt.  If they really want to focus attention.
There are a number of Press-persons at the gate. 
I’ll talk to them, said Sarat.
“What do we call you?”
“Sarat.”
“Why?”
“It’s my name.  Ilike it.”
“OK.  Sarat.  You have just sat through an air-raid.”
“Balls.  It was nani away.”
“You have a reputation for speaking plainly.”
“Do we look bombed?  Does anyone?”
“You have not lost your boots?”
“If I should be splashing through a muddy field, I’ll wear them.”
“Losers,” said Maya.  “Azt.  Spent ten years losing.”
Laughter,
“We realize of course Alzani-Meta is no more kindly disposed to our foe than we!”
“Correct.”
“But you are hardly here as Alzani-Meta!”
“I am not.”
“In what capacity would you say you are here?”
“Sarat’s other half.”
“In what capacity are you here, Sarat?”
“Anile heir.”
“Some people might find that a pretty breathtaking answer.”
“Don’t see why.  If Narulis’ heir can’t wander around Carlin, who can!”
“I grant it is a little hard to question that!”
“Or indeed Zani’s.”
“Or that!  It was a very long time ago.”
“Not as far as Azt is concerned.”
“You would not by any chance be here to make Azt unhappy?”
“Would I, would I!  Usually I object to cruelty to animals.  Unless they have names like Krarlik.”
“Ban-varsit,” said Maya.  “If ever a dumb animal was asking to be taunted.”
“There’s a lot of imperial property in Azt,” said Sarat.  “Not totally surprisingly, no-one ever paid us for it.  Magnificent row of houses on the waterfront, 25-40 Galena.  We even have the deeds.  Most of the rest is some Ministry for Desecration or other.  We look forward to serving the eviction orders.  Thought we’d give it to the people of Kadun as homes for disabled kids, things like that.”
Silence.
“You – own – your family owns – “
“Corsin HQ, yup.”
“And you have the deeds?  I don’t think I believe I’m hearing this!”
“Truly?  I mean you wouldn’t want to wind us but.”
“It really wasn’t worth the hassle,” said Sarat.  “What would we do with it if we repossessed?  Now it is.”
“Truly, the deeds?”
“PANTHER got out what they regarded as critical paperwork.”
“Sell it!  A whole load of lawyers and ill-feeling – further ill-feeling!  I do take the circumstances into account. Then the people who were living in it to go back living in it?”
“Something like that. I’ve made it sound simple and it wasn’t.  Some of it was sold.  The people who took it over offered to pay, but they weren’t strictly speaking paying us, they were paying Sohenoil.  Contriubtion to the upkeep of PANTHER.  There’s always been a lot of toing and froing, at least once the dust had settled.  Asdinan’s great-great-great-great-grandfather was huge pals with my great-great etc. 
“What you learn from the horse’s mouth!”
What’s in the forum stays in the forum, unless you see an opportunity to innocently get it out.
“You’re dining of course in the officers’ mess.”
“Tonight, yes.  I have other invitations.”
“I bet you do!”
“Dinner in the canteen tomorrow.”
“Good for you.”
“The food’s good, no question.  You might find it a bit short on the green and leafy.”
“And the fins!  Hope you eat meat.”
“I eat meat.”
“You do?  Lot of greenies would shudder.”
“Not at home.  Or for that matter when it’s self-service, like in the student caff.  When I’m a guest, I eat what I’m given.”
Unexpectedly gales of laughter.
“Glad to see some young people are still properly brought up!”
“I wasn’t when I was 16.  I had to decide, was I going to be civilized or was I going to be a pain in the.”I had to decide, when I got political, when I was mixing with a whole load of different people, was I going to be civilized or was I going to be a pain in the.”
“I admit to being a veggie.  Some people would say eating meat isn’t civilized.”
“Sure, but you change that – higher up the food chain!  Not by irritating the hell out of a mate’s mum.  Sarat doesn’t eat this, Sarat doesn’t eat that  - what is this crap?”
“Not meat, fish!  Silly of me. 
“All of them had little dietary foibles,” said Baz.  “Baya, that’s their mum, just said fine.  No-one else is going to buy it, no-one else is going to prepare it or cook it, you’re on your own, kiddos.”
`Possibly not a continent-wide conversation Sarat intended to start, the one where parents directed highly significant glares at their young and the young rallied forcefully: but eating meat is really wrong, Dad.
“You yourself are most correctly attired, of course, apart from.  What point do you seek to make with the footwear?”
“I’m quite hardy,” said Sarat, “resistant to cold.”
“Is it not ridiculously flippant, adolescent, one might say?  Have you entirely grown up?”
“One may say whatever one pleases,” said Sarat.
“Perhaps you convey a silent message.  You will do your duty, but your heart is on the beaches of Fidub?”
“Conversation-piece?” suggested Sarat.  “How much drivel can I provoke?  This is a social visit and as such a fundamentally light-hearted occasion.  If it’ll make you feel happier, I should not wear flip-flops to a funeral.  If it’ll make you feel happier, I do assure you I should not wear flip-flops to a funeral.  Do you actually have nothing better to talk about than my toes?”
“You have lovely toes,” said Maya.
“Someone appreciates me!”
“We all know you have fundamentally serious interests.”
“Good!”
“I imagine you’ll be sharing your politics with the guys, even on a light-hearted occasion.”
“If they’re interested.”
“That possibly depends!”
Sarat grinned.
“Polluted drinking water, yes, the number of wild fungi close to extinction maybe less so.”
“Precisely.  I think the feedback from this occasion will be most revealing.”
“Maya, you must have visited many Dabida military installations.  Would you say what you notice here is there is no space for the feminine.”
“I am honestly not sure,” said Maya, “what space for the feminine is
“If half the personnel were female,” said Sarat, “would they take up more space?”
“Tampon machines in the loo,” said Baz.  He looked around at them.  “Was it something I said?”
“We don’t usually – “
“But we should.  I’s exactly the basics that matter.”
“Perhaps I didn’t put that well.  I did not mean lacy frilly curtains!”
“We’re irturbi,” said Mellow.  “Maybe what’s interesting is the military installations we haven’t visited!  Worked with them in the field, of course.”
“You ladies are field-agents.”
“Done a bit.”
“We all train together,” said Mellow.  “Girls need food, they need sleep.  They do not need to get up at 4 am and go on some mad exercise, but nor does anyone else sane.”
“In that there is some truth.  Cats of course have to be – fighting fit, just like the guys in uniform?”
“I’d hazard a guess,” said Maya, “the word ‘comfortable’ sneaks in somewhere.  Depends, doesn’t it.  The mess strikes me as quite luxuriously comfortable.  If the guys craved comfort on BT, they could of course whistle for it.”
“Blokes really love sleeping on stony beaches,” said Baz, “and any crabs involved are of the most elevated crustacean kind.  With sharp pincers.”
“They make you sleep on the beach?  With the wildlife? That is callous!”
 “I thought Fidub was endless sand!”
“They seek out the bits that aren’t.”
“you’re not winding us up, are you?”
“Would I!  Actually no. Search rock-pools, Fidub.”
“The seaweed’s fascinating,” said Sarat.  “Also highly edible.  Whatever we eat, it’ll be different.”
“Seaweed?”
“Cultivated for human consumption.”
“Well I’m - !”
“There is one serious matter I should like to raise if I may?”
“Sure.”
“As we all know, empire is one of the options open to Kadun and as we also know, there is a great deal of hostility to empire in Ciletij.  I may say we take this with a pinch of salt.  Irturbi will decide the future of Kadun.  Clearly your grandfather is not Jaizal and anything to the contrary is loony-tune.  But there is also a great deal of hostility to you personally over certain trees.  I wondered if you had anything to say to soothe the savage bear?”
“No.”
“Nothing if not succinct.”
“I’m a scientist.  I deal in fact.  I presented facts.  They don’t like facts.  Tough patsito.”
“We’ve all read it,” said Maya.  “Spoilt stripling of the privileged classes, ripping the bread from the mouths of honest Ciletij workers.”
“Don’t forget probably gay,” said Sarat.
“I do assure you he isn’t!  Interference with the internal affairs of Ciletij.  And where are they selling the timber?  Yes, Vaudos!”
“Interfering with a few fat-cats who pay, actually when it comes to it, rubbish-wages to those honest workmen they pretend to care about, profiting from the Cult.”
“Cho wants to muscle in on the timber trade, that’s another good one.  Have you seen Fidub?  It’s a treeless desert!  At least in comparison.  I will not bend your ears for five hours on this.  Promise!  All the facts are on the NoZone site.”
“I am sure they are greatly appeased.  Coming closer to home, questions are of course raised as to whether Sohenoil can profit from empire.”
“How?” asked Sarat.  “What could Cho do that he can’t do now?”
“Buy Vaudos!  Buy into at least.”
“Sure, but there are things we can assume about industry in Vaudos.  Wage-levels, health and safety.  Any civilized national government is going to establish a minimum wage and HandS.  Employee health insurance.  The works.  Why buy and land ourselves with all the extra costs?”
“That is an interesting point which of course goes way beyond Sohenoil. Just the entire structure of Kadun!  Obviously we have a lot of thinking to do about the way ahead.”
Sarat said: “The important thing is that everyone is involved.  As I understand it, that means a whole lot more people need to be wired than are now.  Also as I understand it, there are thought to be bigger priorities. I personally am not 100% sure about that, people should not have decisions taken for them, in which they’ve had no say.  I think where there’s a will there’s a way.  Computer caffs would be an obvious start.”
“That of course is basic democracy and equally of course there are parts of Kadun from which it is entirely absent. How and this indeed is a general question which many of us are addressing would you hope to engage people who are currently divorced from political processes?”
“Talking to them.  In bars, factories, wherever.”
“You personally?”
“I personally am happy to talk to anyone anywhere, give or take the obvious!  I mean I’m really happy to talk to Krarlik in Azt, but maybe not over a beer.”
“If I can just stick my oar in,” said Jaiz.  “You want to take certain things into account here.  Divorced from political processes.  What does that actually mean?  1.  They think no-one’s listening.  2.  They’re scared to speak in case someone thumps them.  3.  It’s deliberately made hard for them.  I’m not saying here in Carlin.  You don’t go back to a meeting where you’re made to feel stupid, made to feel dirty, made to feel poor, made to feel gypsy.”
“You are, aren’t you!  I mean I think that’s brill – “
“Maya better watch her jewellery then!”
Maya, who had appeared almost to be dozing, snapped to battle-stations.
“Who said that?”
“Oh come on, it was a joke!”
“Watch her with Sarat too.”
“Everyone knows gypsies have a certain reputation – “
“Do they really?” asked Sarat.  “I judge people on the ground.”
“Alwasys loved, ‘everyone knows’,” said Maya.  Everyone knows women are this gays are, that.  IT’s crap.”
“We were having an intelligent conversation,” said Sarat.  “Anyone got an intelligent response to Jaizi’s points?”
“Only that it’s straight down the line.  Of course there are some people who are – apathetic.”
“Flattened is my word,” said Mellow. 
“Flattened is a good word.  They don’t believe anything will ever change, so not unnaturally they don’t see any point in trying.”
“So that’s back to Question One  - how to engage them.”
“Seems to me that if Sarat walks into a bar – people aren’t going to yawn, are they!”
“Might do,” said Sarat.  “Some rich kid who doesn’t know from a from e – “
“You have a reasonably vibrant personality.  You may be able to convince them that you do.  Especially since you actually do.  The health side, I mean.”
“We should not deny that it is – if not commonplace, then certainly it happens, that the more affluent and articulate dismiss as exaggerated the complaints of the working-class.  To be able to say firmly this pollutant causes that disease is actually pretty important.”
Maya grinned.
“No, no, it’s not lysantium, it’s just your imagination.  Lysantium is a mould that flourishes in rotting wood.  Its spores give rises to chronic respiratory impairment – one picks up some truly fascinating things living with Sarat.”
“He’s just so romantic,” cooed Baz.
Sarat put his arm round Maya.
“Can be.  Lysantium is actually deeply obvious but I guess if you didn’t know any biology you could dismiss it as stains on the wood.”
“Found a pic on my phone.”
 
“Think we’ll leave you to it,” said Sarat.  “We are guests.  Supposed to be in there, not out here.”
“Found something else too.  Endemic in housing riddled with damp.”
“What practically can be done about that?  I mean the best will in the world can’t tear down all the slum housing.”
“Haven’t gone into this one,” said Sarat, “but I do know 3D printing can create a house in 24 hours.  Not the world’s most fantastic house, but maybe better than lysantium.  Print an apartment block.”
“Say that again slowly.  Some of us aren’t very – print?”
“Print,” said Sarat.
 
High five, miss cat, high five.
Sarma beamed at Jaizi.
“Not me personally, but some of the guys.  You have a little fan-club.” 
“I just learned something,” said Jaizi.  “Not sure what.  It’s got to do with class and being heard.”
 
Varulin studied Ritawa then pulled up one of Kar’s Toons on his phone, where the male bunny sees a completely adorable female bunny and his eyes turn into little hearts.
“I assure you, sir,” said Munzi, “his intentions are entirely honourable.”
“None of us,” said Ritawa, “wants old fogeys with quills.”
“Can it seriously be done?” asked Inyulat.  “Maybe I mean how seriously can it be done?  The worst places.”
 
Builders, by the way,  were sanguine, even upbeat, seeing that much work would be demanded on premises not bad enough to be torn down. 
 
“I rather enjoyed that,” said Sistenda.  “You wouldn’t like to host a meeting on public health, would you.”
“I can do that,” said Sarat.
 
“Born for it,” said Furrier
 
“Just thinking about those wonderful salads,” said Sitsi.  “Thoughtful.”
“Reflective,” said Frensat.
“If it hasn’t poisoned Sarat.”
“I love crab,” said Sarma.  “Any time I get to the coast.”
“Never had it,” said Sitsi.  “Why have I never had it!  Do crabs shun our shores?”
 
”Baz and Paw,” said Furrier.
Firas frowned.
“The chances of Cho entrusting his baa-lamb to dodos.”
“All the same.”
“A pretty soft life?”
 
“Should I make it weaker for the lady, sir?”
“I think that would be wise,” said Frensat.
 
A waiter solemnly approached them bearing a small silver tray on which were two flute glasses filled to the brim with what looked like tomato-juice.
“It’s our special, guv.  We call it rat-blood.”
“Yum!” said Sarat.  “Thank  you.  What actually is it?”
“Chiefly,” said As, “tomato-juice and applestock.  To which is added a secret blend of spices, including ginger and pepper.  It can be quite.”
“Thereby masking its highly aocoholic nature,” observed Varna.
Sarat was sipping cautiously.
“It’s quite.  Hot spiced tomatoes.”
 
Baz was kneeling on the floor, apparently immersed in explaining something.
Aren’t we all completely at home. 
Just want to see.
Prepared to abase, grovel!
Darts, good ones, from a foursome in the corner, two of whom were now looking shattered, one of whom had slid off his chair and was retching, one of whom got to his feet meaning to apologize, then slumped back into his chair looking bewildered.
“Not drunk, sir,” managed the retching one.  “Much worse.”
“Cat-stuff,” said Sarat, exchanging glances with Baz that said, we are guests, they started it, better you!
Sarat got up and went over to the perps..
“We don’t do that, we just don’t do that.”
They went very red, quite as red as rat-blood.
“Get up,” he said to the guy on the floor.  “That was about what?”
“We just wanted to see.”
“Total awe.”
“Can someone get them a bowl of arsenic,” said Baz.  “I mean a coffee.”
Varna snorted.
“Rubbishes everything we’re taught.”
Paw laughed.
“Actually it doesn’t, but that’s advanced stuff.”
Sarat grinned.
“Multi-tasking?”
“Exactly. Focus, don’t split your attention.  You’re listenng to well, everyone, basically, you’re talking to three people – “
“And every cell of my body,” said Baz,  “is focused on Sarat and Maya.  Repeat after me, I shall never behave like a plonker again.”
“Honestly, we had a speech of grovelling apology ready.”
“And you thought you’d have time to give it?”
“Thought you might just well hold us.”
“This is not a training-session, sonny.”
“It’s a party,” said Sarat.  “Or was.”
“We’re waiting,” said Paw.
“You’re amazing!”
“I know,” said Paw. 
“Flattery,” said Sarat, “will get you nowhere.”
“Consider yourselves,” said Maya, “small squeaking kittens under the massive paws of.”
“We’ve all been there,” said Baz.
“We have,” said Sarat.
“I shall never behave like a plonker again.”
Pirli entered.
“I missed the fun!”  He grinned at Maya.  “More kitten-duty?  I am Pirli, their boss.”
“They’re good,” said Baz.
Pirli’s grin broadened.
“Only you are rather better.”
“They are spectacular,” said Frenshal.
“No-one thought the Anile heir surrounded by dodos.”
Didn’t they just, wondered Baz.
“You think Cho would let him out of the house?”
“Not a lot.  You four.  An exact report.  Written.  Now.”  He turned to Baz.  “Who trained you?”
“Vax and Fox.”
“Why did I ask!”
“Yeah,” said Baz, “why did you?”
“Sorted,” said Paw.
 
“Bloody masterclass,” said Firas.
 
The next day Sarat’s attire was politely deemed smart casual, being a thick grey roll-neck sweater, until he removed the sweater to reveal a cap sleeved PANTHER T.  In this he mooched around Burunda.
 
Really, really techy.  No offence but he actually understands what you say to him.
Sistenda chuckled.
“Not my strongest subject, science.”
“And polite with it.”
Sistenda made a moue.
“You mean I’m not?”
“Understands ‘working’, blokes might not have time to gab.  Not that they wouldn’t rather gab, but you know what I mean.”
 
News of the T reached the press-fiends at the gate.  A message was sent.
A message was sent back: who do you think I am, Bilaaya? (a well-known fashion model.)
Sarat thought a bit then sent another message: there’s no point you guys hanging around getting cold toes.  Varna won’t let you in and I’m not coming out.  Meet you at the House just before I go back? 
Deal!
Of course some of them hung around anyway.
 
Sarat jumped from the truck, swung down a rucksack and swung it over his shoulder, helped Maya down with a grace suited to a more formal occasion.  Thanks, guys, it’s been really great.  Good to meet you all.  He put his arm round Maya and walked slowly through the Press-fiends into the House.
“No, Sarat, no,” said Cho, choking with laughter.
He wore the PANTHER T, the black loons, black riding boots, a silver headband and mirror-shades.
They sat on the bottom stairs.  Sarat slowly removed the shades.
“I’m going to get such hell in college tomorrow.”
“Who do you think you are, Narulis or something!”
“I don’t think in Narulis’ time…”
“Fun this, isn’t it,” said Sarat.  “Actually I like people  seeing my eyes.  Unless I’m feeling really difficult.”
“Where’s the banana-skin?”
Sarat gave a quick hoot of laughter but others didn’t get it.
“I guess I need to explain, at least for people in the west.  The hip Cat is Zur’s most famous or notorious restaurant.  Named after a cartoon character taking the urine out of cool.  The Hip Cat has mirror shades.  But the Hip Cat is not wholly – successful.  The Hip Cat saunters straight onto a banana skin.  When a silver salver is placed before him and the lid removed there’s just a fish skeleton.  He cunningly conceals himself outside a mousehole and a friendly gull tells him, They’ve moved to Fidub.
 
Spetzi to Fana:  Eeeeeeek!   
 
“I’m sure they are bad for young eyes,” said Karula firmly.
“You don’t know that, Mom, you’re making it up.”
 
Otherwise good-looking young men muttered, it’s the bloody tan!  Ah, but he will perish early of skin cancer.  Others wondered about that.  I mean, if I went to Fidub for a fortnight and scorched myself but you must get used to it, your skin must.
 
Iconic, said Mitch, what is cool, hip, modern Kadun.  Not only that but he has a brain.  For some of course that was alas, he also has a tongue and a brain.  No dumbfuck crap about being a figurehead, then.
Icon, said Mitch.
“We have to bear in mind, Mitch, not everyone will wish to be represented by a hip cat.”
“Then they must be persuaded!”
“A young man who so utterly deflates himself is perhaps a little hard to resist.”
“No, no,” said Mitch.  “Deflating oneself is easy.  Dress up, dress down. Deflating oneself while continuing to look like damn’ Narulis is a one-off.”
 
“Ultimate cool,” pronounced Sorg, “is of course taking the piss out of cool.”
“Just ordered some mirror-shades,” said Vrin.  “Oft have I been tempted but the expression piss-artist occurred to me.  Now I have been raised to a higher level of understanding.”
“We shall duly serve you the scales and fins.”
 
“He’s winding up the entire world,” surmised Seani, correctly.  “Sarat, we have never doubted you are good-looking.”
“Or,” grunted Venzat, “that a most successful career on the stage would await you.”
Num grinned.
“When the music stops, does he have a chair?”
“Polarization,” said Seani.  Sarat would have beamed in approval. 
“WYSIWYG.” 
“Oh that certainly.  Sarat neat.”
“So 50% are shuddering with horror and the other 50 – “
“What’s in a number?” asked Seani.
“Doesn’t that just so depend.”
“Get him when he gets back to Zur.”
 
 “Could we at least reach our front door?” said Maya, loudly.
“Come on, Sarat, WTF?”
“WE’re going inside,” said Baz, “to put our stuff down and have a coffee and then we’ll come out again, all right?”
“Promise?”  Baz just looked at him.  “OK, OK…”
“Nice time with KAF, Sarat?”
“Wonderful.”
“Somewhere in the Constitution,” said Maya, “is the right to physically remove those who impede lawful progress.”
“Can you put those shades on again?  Just for me.”
 
“They’re saying you’re the world’s sexiest man, Sarat.”
“Bit of an exaggeration?”
“How do you feel about that, Maya?  Sarat the world’s pin-up.”
“Mine, all mine,” said Maya.
“Correction,” said Sarat.  “We’ll come out again if you have anything sensible to say.”
“Ciletij going ape, Sarat.”
“I said sensible.”
“Vera-jat, Times of Ciletij.  Come on, you have to admit it’s more than trees.”
“Talk to you in a min, OK.”
 
Sarat came out again and sat himself on the wall.
“What’s more than trees?”
“Oh come on, Sarat!”
“The Rape, man!”
“It didn’t happen.  Every reputable school of learning you can name says either it didn’t happen or it’s open, Schools in Harn, Collegium in M-P, Collegium here in Zur.  Like I said, some guys don’t like facts.”
“And the Academy in G-T is not reputable.  Don’t give me that shit!”
“The empire enslaved, tortured and murdered Ciletij.  You’re going to deny that?”
“Of course I’m not. At the end the empire was a crock of shit.”
“The empire was a crock of shit, period.”
“Bollocks.  The whole continent knows that’s bollocks.  What is the foundation for Dabida?  Imperial law.”
“As the guy said in Carlin, anyone who thinks Cho is a second Jaizal is playing loony-tunes, but Sarat, you have to understand a real sense of grievance.”
“Do I?  Isn’t that the problem?  There’s a lot of stuff that’s common knowledge, like infiltration of the Ciletij military and G-T refusing to do anytning about it.  Not my problem, but how do I tell the difference between a nice ordinary guy and Cult-backed propaganda against me and my family.  Because I am sure anything not going to understand Azt.  You clear out your rats and then we can all see the real picture.”
“I’ve never heard such bloody slime – what the hell do you mean, refuse to do anything about it.  Be saying we’re run by Azt next.”
“You mean you’re not!”  Pause for hysteria.  “You really want to read.  What I know, as in know, is that Dabida, Vasucula and Fidub have been on at you for years.  It’s been in the papers and yes, sorry to have contacts, but I’ve heard it from Vanya, at dinner, Airoch, at dinner, PANTHER, all the time.”
“Oh shit, Sarat!”
Maya said: Heard it from Tar, heard it from the H-W, heard it in the student bar.  You guys need to face facts.  The south is very fed up with you.”
“Worst of all,” said Sarat, “I’ve heard it from the whole of Camp Five.  FAF is very very fed up with you.  You’re using them to keep you safe so you can go on licking Azt’s arse.  Playing both ends against the middle.”
“I do not want to hear this!”
“I do,” said Num, loudly and distinctly.  “Straight down the line, Sarat, Camp Five?”
“Half of them were in Kadun – the obvious half! Flip flap fly, fought the Cult.  And FAF sit in a frozen waste so G-T can play palsy-walsy with Searc and get away it?  Azt’d be all over Ciletij if it weren’t for FAF.”
“Profiting from timber sales to Vaudos!”
“Comes into it,” said Sarat.
“OF course Fidub is biased in favour of Kadun.”
Maya said: “I think if you ask around you will find Zuri very very biased.  Not hard.  If it weren’t for Varna, for Prog, for Ban-vesit, for Divaldin, Carlin would have fallen.  Do you actually understand what that means?”
“Azt at the border, most of us are not quite that thick.”
 
Kailo: “Perhaps the words Airoch uses are too long.”
“You guys are hostile to our gallant allies in Ciletij.
“Yes.  Not of course so hostile that we shan’t save their miserable skins.”
 
Airoch: “I understand there is a Plain Speech Movement, a campaign for lucidity in public life, which of course I back fully.”
 
Air-Commander  (Ciletij Air Fleet).  I have often thought most politicians extremely stupid.  I have to confess Airoch-cha makes a welcome exception.
 
“We in the west must meet them.” Rewn
“That is undoubtedly the case,” said Mitch, “but I do not think our questions are any better F2F.  Are you prepared to step into the firing-line?  Are you prepared indeed to place Maya in the firing-line?”
“Have to talk to the parents,” said Carlutan.
Rewn nodded.
“I should go ape and I am not Alzani-Meta.”
“Can’t believe they haven’t discussed.”
 
Carlutan thought then announced he was happy to have a quick chat with the Press, perhaps at Volti’s.  The local Press choked slightly, Volti’s being the nearest place of refreshment to Siba Base and generally regarded as one up from a muddy natural spring contaminated by sheep droppings.  Log-distance lorry-drivers stopped there.  Carlutan sat sipping something brown and swirling from a plastic cup, surrounded by three of his pilots.  Indeed there are some very cool guys in Kadun.
“Air-Commander, I think we can guess to what we owe this invitation.”
“I doubt it.”
“Us two, we’re Ciletij,” said one of the pilots.  “Not saying there are millions of us, more like five, but that’s not really the point.  A lot of Ciletij generally do recognize who are the good guys here.”
“OK, I did not guess.  So you ran away to KAF!”
“Of course we were vetted by PANTHER.”
“I myself,” said the third pilot, “am a good citizen of Vasucula.”
The journos screwed up their brows.  Definitely were not aware.”
“By the way we like trees!  Seriously, a lot of the – divisions in Ciletij are geographical.  It’s the long border with Cult Kadun.  Up in the north  and to the west – two things.  We’ve always mixed with segani and senoki, it’s a load of garbage there’s ingrained hostility.  And we’re just normal citizens of a democracy, like Fidubi and Dabidans.”
“A few of them in KAF too,” noted Carlutan.   “I actually looked up the numbers.  There are 37 Dabidans, 85 Fidubi and 47 Ciletij.  And 93 Vasuculi.”
The Vasuculi allowed himself a small smirk.
“That is pretty wow, a substantial number of fliers, right.”
“They’re not all pilots.”
“Well, just a substantial number, then.  Are you able to tell us more about the situation in the Ciletij Air Fleet?”
“I can hear the screams of traitor! before I even start.  Everyone in Kadun knows the spiel and of course people feel vulnerable.  Not making excuses for anyone but – 20 nani from Azt isn’t a cosy place to be.”
“We have to accept we are a more conventional people than say Zuri.  Partly climate, I mean we wear more clothes because it’s damn’ cold.  But that just makes us like segani.  When people say – Sarat has said – we’re infiltrated, don’t think that’s really the right word, sounds as if we’re full of irturbi.  Corrupted is the word.  I’m going to make a lot of senior officers very angry but they’d be hard pressed to deny it’s true.  1, you have to understand there are many women in the Ciletij military.  2.  I was in the Air Fleet for my national service, so I saw a bit on the ground and I actually also worked with FAF.  I assure you they are not prissy.  There’s a line.  I don’t know, kind of no-one can define it but everyone knows where it is.  Like the so-called joke in Carlin.  Unfunny.  More porn.  The guys got coarser.  Women who complained and they did, loudly, were fobbed off.  Yeah, yeah, it was a joke.  One of the awful things was it was so obvious.  If a woman asked for a transfer.  Yes of course, delighted, where would you like to go, line of least resistance.  Nobody wanted it but nobody stopped it, either.   And the rest of us seethed, being bloody handed over to them on a plate.  We all think there were pay-offs of course, civ, military, anyone with sticky fingers.  It’s a really busy border with Vaudos.”
“That I find really interesting.”
“Thought you might,” said Carlutan.
“And of course there’s a lot of propaganda.  Some of it’s hard-on, fulsome praise of Azt, lot that’s slimier and more subtle.  What we say here is exaggerated – is propaganda.  Look at the benefits to Vaudos of stable government – “
As you say, we know this song!
“Something else I want to say.  We’re all taught about the Rape at school.  Can’t not be, whole history of Ciletij is tied up with the empire.  We’re not.  Well, I wasn’t anyway, taught to hate Kadun today.  It’s history.  Like most history, most people don’t bother much with it.  Except maybe when someone says empire.  I want to say – it’s a bit complicated.  Not that I agree with Sarat, but he’s coming from a genuine place.  Decent sensible people think it happened  and Sarat dismissing them really annoys me.  But I saw in the papers a total toad, my ex-CO to be exact, pretending to be a decent Ciletij officer, mouthing off.  People in Kadun can’t tell the difference.  People in the south can’t.”
“So Ciletij need to name and shame?  I would guess fear is an element, as of course it has been here in Kadun.”
“Yes.  Both bits.”
“The name of the gentleman in question?”
“I can think of other words.  G-T Gazette, don’t suppose you read it.  Air-Colonel Simbali-ran.”
“I think we can all look out for further pronouncements!”
“Bomb us.  Now.” Said Carlutan cheerfully.  “They would of course have no more hope than the vamps.”
“On a wider front, Air-Commander, that was a purely spectacular fail in Carlin.  They just made themselves look ridiculous.  Can you think of any reason for it?”
“It was a purely spectacular affront.  It is of course a hell of a flight but certainly Sarat and Maya are welcome at Siba.  It was – that about which they could not do nothing.”
“I have wondered.  Diplomatic channels, protest to Fidub and Dabida?  Useless of course, but – no more useless.”
“I thought – just my two cents.  If they started a political row, they’d have to keep saying who Sarat is.”
“That is surely an interesting point, reinforcing again and again - ?”
 
 
Cho rang Essa.
“I can hear you sighing from here.”
Mitch looked at Heela.
“More than welcome, of course.”
Sarat looked at a map.
How different can one airbase be from another?  Very.  Maya likened Burunda to a panther lounging on a tree after a successful kill; Siba she thought more of a ratter prowling the granaries.  It wasn’t that Siba was any less prosperous – it’s hunger, isn’t it, she said to Jaizi. Don’t know they’re alive in Carlin, said Jaiz.  These guys have had it rough.  They had their moments, said Maya.  Vaudosi?  Later she had a more complex perception.
“They want something from you,” she said to Sarat.
Baz grinned.
“Just be the adorable you.”
“Shoot your mouth off,” said Paw, “that’s all they ask.”
“There are some quite conservative guys here.”
“Doesn’t matter.  They know which side they’re on.”
“Slight mismatch,” said Jaizi.  “They think you bothered to come.  You think try keeping me away.”
After three days at Siba the heli landed on the flat bit behind the House, called the grounds for convenience, though more the back garden; the sides and front have no perimeter fence.  There is however a moat.  No drawbridge, the bridge is fixed, bridges for the moat encircles the House, which is approximately five rooms long by three deep; it is for the most part a bungalow or if you are feeling more forgiving a chalet.  However the side walls rear into towers reaching to the heavens: look-out posts. Althugh there is no first floor, there is in the wide entrance hall a grand staircase, which leads to a half-landing off which are doors to the gallery of the Great Hall.  The House has been described as ‘a most curious edifice’.  Mitch grins and says it is what realtors mean by ‘a character property’. 
And so the bonds were forged that were to shake the continent to its foundations, etc, etc.
Love at first sight?  It was.
“We meet at last!” said Sarat.
“Gee,” said Mitch, “I have heard so much about you.”
The back yard, ever a bustle of activity, stopped to frankly stare, but there was no ra-ra-ra.  Just another one of Mitch’s radical pals.  Like hell! Let the lad put his feet up first. Do it proper later Changri had decreed. Been reading it ip.  Mitch had felt cautious, reasoning Changri’s idea of doing it proper might not be Sarat’s, which he presumed to be Maya’s.  Things can change in a thousand years.  Sounds impeccable to me, Heela had said.   Formal but not extravagant, Mitch agreed.  For the moment Sarat met only Great Aunt Asaa and Uncle Wilan, both of whom had invited themselves to stay.  Asaa looked him up and down.  Ah, Cho’s cub.  “I am he!” said Sarat. “You intend to get arrested?”  she asked with some enthusiasm. It was revealed this small stooped old lady of some 88 years was quite possibly worse than Mitch and had been notorious.
Marula also had invited herself, along with Vannina and Cantilip, but was not arriving until tomorrow.
 
Dill  had absorbed ‘real modern young guy’ and prepared a small entertainment.  Baria had sidled up to her grandmother.  We’ve got something to show you.  Kyle had laughed all the way through and pronounced it delectable, entirely fit for public viewing.   
“Our children,” said Mitch, “have prepared a short topical presentation.  Our subject is the use of smartphones by teens.”    Dill had thought it prudent he attend rehearsal to make doubly sure it would be OK.  Karula, chief foe in this respect, had not been let in.
Enter Dill
Mom disapproves of how much time we spend on our phones.  She says we shall develop the concentration spans of headless chickens.  We wish to show we can understand words of more than three letters.  The Var-sega’ Players present an excerpt from Silently She Trod.
Qirl stepped forward and unrolled a short scroll.  Baria crosses the room behind him holding up a placard and pointing to it: IT’S ALL ON THE GRID
The scene is a room in the House at Var-sega’.  Samia ban-sarndit-vaq a most eru- - eru – I can never prounce that – “
Erudite said Dill in a stage whisper
Erudite and learned lady sits surrounded by many volumes of enormous cultural significance and historic moment  –
I got that from the Guidebook, murmured Dill.  Baria crossed back waving her placard, then held up another one: SOLILOQUY BY DILL.  MIME BY QIRL.
These words so crowd my mind that I do hear in dreams distant voices calling
[Picture of someone addressing a crowd – hand to ear – head to one side, resting on hands together – hand to ear.  Baria returns to walking back and forth with IT’S ALL ON THE GRID]
Thus directed do I ride league on league and see great cities, empty plains and men
[Finger pointing – hands making galloping motion – hand above eyes as though gazing into distance]
Who do with argument abound and reason most enchantingly upon high matters
[Graphic of question-marks, ‘But’, ‘If’, ‘And’ – 2+2 = 4  -
How best to steer the ship of state, while flowers dance, the very earth gives rise
[Rowing movement – as though holding girl in arms to dance -  pointing frantically at the floor]
To visions
[Wide eyes]
That which cannot be …
[Shakes head, obviously didn’t see what I thought I saw]
 
Just freeze that frame, that small and merry gathering of what you might call extended family.  In ten years’ time the unimaginable will have befallen them.
 
 “I would not think that critical,” said Karula, “considering the most run-down areas are the poorest.  Start on the doorstep.”
“But who is to pay? The State?”
Mitch smiled.
“You call in a private company to fix the road outside your door because no-one else will.  I think it is the case that throughout the south public thoroughfares are considered at least a municipal responsibility.”
“Persons of middling income will not vote for increased taxation.”
“Maybe,” said Mitch and smiled at Sarat.
Sarat said: “The highways were under public control under imperial law.  It comes from the bit about living without hindrance.  If a road is private, then you may be barred from using it.”
“A considerable amount of hooey,” said Mitch, “is uttered with the purpose of indicating that the standards of the civilized world are alien to Kadun, but that is not of course the case.”
Heela smiled.
“WE have of course here at expert in imperial law.”
“No way!” said Sarat.  “But we do have – the Constitution of Dabida is derived from imperial law and A-M have to learn it inside out and back to front.”
“You are where in the succession?” demanded Asaa.
“Was,” said Maya.  “Fifth. Mel, Hass, Pietri, my father, Vij.  Until Mel has kids. It was never going to happen anyway, but Tar said he didn’t quite think Sarat would do as King of Dabida, so I gave it up.”
“Indeed,” said Heela, failing to keep a straight face.
“The reverse, of course,” pursued Asaa.
“It’s a possibility,” said Maya.
“I am sure you can tell us much about the Dabidan model.”
Very old ladies, thought Sarat, are allowed to issue orders.
 
They had noticed immediately that there were no dogs and it became apparent there were no cats, rabbits or hamsters either.  They invented reasons: allergy?  There had indeed when he was 12 been a girl in Sarat’s class who claimed she couldn’t sit next to him because he brought on her asthma.  Of course you must come to Fidub!  Only…
Sarat found he felt strangely off about approaching the subject, as though it were indelicate but plunged in.
“Obviously lovely if you stayed in Fidub, only we can’t help noticing – does someone have a fur allergy?”
“First thing you meet,” said Maya, “is Essa’s wolfhounds.  Of course you can always stay with Cho.”
“WE have stables,” said Mitch.
“And no ratters?  Four-footed ones.”
Not sure it’s the epitome of courtesy to grill the House on whether it has a kitchen-cat.
“Tell you later,” said Mitch.
 
Mitch took Sarat and Maya out to see some of the sights of Var-sega’, for instance the foaming Biril, a notoriously polluted river.
Sarat looked at it sorrowfully.  “I just don’t fancy a swim.”  Then he warmed to his subject.  Counter-productive.  Source of recreation.  Source of food.  Danger to wildlife, danger to livestock.  Danger to people.  Danger to the very oceans.  Because Barbantin, who are not short of a buck, refuses to deal with its garbage.  The wanton discharge of toxic waste into the public arena.  Absolute contempt for people, for the planet, for anything except the next dollar. 
Not scared of being sued, then, Sarat
No legislation demanding they clear up their own garbage. Puh-lease weren’t they toilet-trained. Yes I’m equating this with human waste, except in some ways it’s worse, such as not being bio-degradable.
“Perhaps we should not quite pursue that one, at least publicly. I am sure Mitch has tld ou the back drp, the exigencies of war.  Further, to engage staff on this ‘trivialty’ would take men awy from vital military production lines.
“Or military service itself,” added Mitch.
“Mitch has told me a lot about Barbantin, not least that they have a near monopoly and think they run the joint.  It occurred to me a little healthy competition might focus them better.”
“Employ women?” suggested Maya.
“My lady Maya!  This is men’s work. Caapital M, capital W.”
“So it’s OK for kids to fall into this sewer, but not OKfor women to – got it.  No legislation protecting them or anyone else.”
Mitch nodded sagely.
“You may be getting the hang of this.”
“Bah!  What Sarat said.  Arms need twisting. The larger concern of course is the poor guys who work unprotected.  A guy who developed tumours on his kidneys got backed by CLIK to sue.  Of course the House backed him too.  Everyone thought the medical evidence was cast-iron.  It was – “
Through murmurmuring of you know about that, hey.  We are not exactly uninformed.
“You might not have heard of See Piss, as it is lamentably called.  It’s a PANTHER organization, C-P-I-S, Committee for Probity in Science.  Dad’s part of it.  He was livid.  He thought – they all thought Futura Labs falsified data on behalf of Barbantin – “
“They’ll sue you.  No joke.”
“They all thought Futura falsified data on behalf of Barbantin.  It made the Times.  On their Grid-site.”
“The Straits Times?  Very much in the public arena.”
“The case failed.  It’s pretty much given that if you’re exposed to x microns human cells go waaah! and turn cancerous. Pretty much, by the way, mean the idiosyncrasies of the individual human body.  You can probably always find an exception, people who smoke or work with toxic substances and don’t get sick.  These things take their time.  Like – suppose you lived till 80 and never got sick.  Your resistance might have give up by the time you were 90 or a post-mortem would show the beginnings of sickness.  Barbantin were clever. They said that level of exposure is a nonsense and here is the evidence independently assessed to prove it. So all the evidence was circumstantial.  Given the processes and machines used, in the notorious absence of any health and safety provision it follows that the level of exposure will be…They said the notorious absence was garbage and they had a special filtration system.  The guys working there never noticed it but they weren’t expert witnesses and PANTHER took a look but their evidence was thrown out on the grounds of illegal entry.”
“A filtration system invisible to the human eye!  Among a lot of things, I think many of us were not aware PANTHER had other -  branches or is that Sardun!”
“Other fish to fry?”
“Always did,” said Baz.  “Empire’s social workers.”
“Cease and desist in the emperor’s name!” carolled Paw.
“About the size of it,” said Sarat.
“Good headline?” suggested Mitch. 
“Serious,” said Sarat.  “Of each we uphold the right to live without hindrance.  Imperial law.  In fairness I don’t tink it applied to fish but I am sure guys being made sick by their work are being badly hindered.”
“The core point of course,” said Mitch, “is there is what I think we may call a meme or perhaps a flavour indicating the standards of civilized people are alien to Kadun, and that of course is nonsense.”
“To none in need shall physic be withheld,” said Baz.
“Does that mean what I think it means – you are seriously telling me the empire offered free healthcare?  I really don’t think I believe that.”
“Tough,” said Sarat.  “Obviously there were no antibiotics, x-rays.  What treatments there were had to be available to all, even if all that could be done was alleviate suffering.”
“The public hospital in Sinva is in fact an ancient foundation,” said Mitch. “Go read their statutes.”
“So part of the problem is in fact – advances in medical science, pushing the cost up.”
“Kadun is not poor,” said Sarat.
“Part of the problem is Big Pharma,” said Mitch.  “I can cite you 300% profit on basic drugs, Vivala for blood pressure.”
“We know they’re rats, Mitch.”
“I’m a cat,” said Sarat.
“Going back to – surely trained chemists would be required.  Whatever you think of it, I suspect we don’t have many women chemists.”
 
“Take Nelotides,” said Maya.  “They make armaments for the Quadrant. We know there are a number of fantasies circulating about southern industry moving into Kadun.  That’s probably not going to happen because of the A-word, automation.  I mean it wouldn’t be Day One, you’re in a dirty factory with unsafe machinery and Day Two you’re in a clean factory with safe machinery doing exactly the same thing, because the work you did in the dirty factory doesn’t exist in the new one.  None of us is about putting irturbi out of work.  Kadun has to sort herself out first.”
“I would think Mitch’s friends in CLIK are very much about protecting jobs.”
“It has to come and they know it has to come,” said Mitch.  “The question is managing it.”
“So the Quadrant’s fine armaments are not actually made by people.”
  “Of course there was one hell of a row – one specialist system is not snatching bread from the mouths of our workers, but there is the question of patriotism.  Of course we must support our own industries.  Was that Nelotides?”
“A missile detcction system,” explained Mitch.  “Rewn said he bought the best.  And it is not good to accuse Rewn of lack of patriotism.”
“He laughs too loudly,” said one of the journos enthusiastically. 
 
MIAOW!
Persons turned, startled. 
Secret PANTHER call-sign, said Baz, looking at his phone.  He snorted.
“Mail from Hass.  Dear Narulis, couple of cartoons from the Zur Gazette. TTT if you will stalk Kadun quoting imperial law.”
He passed the phone to Maya, who also snorted and passed it without comment to Sarat, while of  the throng all searched Zur Gazette.
Raya  in Azt, stars in her eyes, hugging herself in ecstasy, standing in front of a building labelled Imperial Library.  “Mine, all mine!”
Maya in Azt sitting on the Anile Throne.  Zani inset: “Well, now, there’s a turn-up!  Of course I wasn’t paired with Narulis.”
“Oh for,” said Sarat.  “Zani.”
Some weren’t quite sure how it was appropriate to react and others who didn’t give a damn about that.
“A reputation as something of a bookworm?”
“We must assume Zani and Susheela was never a possibility!”
“Still, I have thought it strange she found no-one else, some dashing young Fidubi.”
“There would surely have been – difficulties.”
“Oh, there would,” said Sarat.
“I suppose the poor lady was somewhat traumatized.”
Sarat was very taken aback.
“Obviously she’d had a hairy time.  Not too traumatized to found Sohenoil!  She was quite a lady.”
“The House bathes in reflected glory,” said Mitch.  “I have to confess we know very little of Susheela’s life in Fidub.  Other considerations at the time.”
Eeek.  Fortunately distraction was at hand.
“Sohenoil is that ancient?  I think they did not then drill for oil.”
“Oh,” said Sarat.  “No.  Not that kind of oil.  In the retail trade like AMI, sort of cousins.  Cooking oil.  The oil from the sira.”
“And Susheela – “
“She and Falnos, her eldest.  They had to fund PANTHER.”
Baz retold the story with bells on. 
From this Sarat deduced that Var-sega’s journos were not forumites.  Reasonable.  Like putting an alcoholic in a brewery.
 
Here we are back at the House, the evening drawing to a close, dinner-guests departed, Asaa indeed retired for the night, but Wilan going strong.
 
Sarat waffled away in bed.
“Can’t work it out.  I know Cho was close to Heela’s father.  Does Heela not know?”
Maya persisted in being reasonable.
“Even if Heela does know, Mitch has been in the City.  Nothing I know about him suggests he would have had the faintest interest in ancient history before he left!  It’s only a subject because we’re here.”
“I’ll call Cho.”
“Greetings,” said Cho. “You wish me to post bail?”
“Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.  Want to ask you sometime.  Mitch expressed vague interest in learning what happened to Susheela.”
“Ah.”
“He is Sardun.”
“Who were of course closely involved at the time.  This may be more readily digested in V-k.”
“Heela doesn’t know?  Marula’s pitching up tomorrow.”
“Excellent.  Heela knows.  Better from you.”
“We couldn’t see anywhere in Mitch’s life where the subject would have come up!”
“All of it,” said Cho laughing, “down to the last molecule of Fidubi silver.”
“It’s not really my field, he bleated.  What does Marula know?”
“Suddenly you are very far from home.”
“Nonsnese, all the best people live in Casin-ruhn.  Stop laughing like that.  Yes.  I know exactly nothing about Sardun at the eso level.”
“Then you too will learn.”
“Does Heela know about the chair?”
“Oh yes.  Possibly he has sat on it.  And Marula, of course.”
“Sat on Marula?”
“That is not possible.”
“May I show them the documents.”
“Yes.  And download.  You are being unusually sensitive about this.”
“It’s very very personal to me.  It  - is me, everything I am.”
“Think about that,” said Cho.
But Marula was not arriving until late afternoon.  Our star of the following day was a waste disposal facility that failed to dispose of biological waste, specifically that from hospitals, amputated limbs, organs.  So Sarat was told.  The stink helped.  High fences PRIVATE BEWARED OF THE DOGS prevented entry. 
Back to the House.  Marula reclined, Cantilip knelt on the floor talking to Qirl.  Saban stood by the window.  Behna chatted amiably to Heela and Dill.  Vannina was doing a jigsaw with Baria.  A delegation.
“Ah, here they are,” said Kyle.
Marula smiled.
“Should there not be a fanfare of trumpets?”
“Maya can do guitar,” said Sarat.  “I’m quite good on drums.”
Saban laughed out loud.
Cantilip had jumped up.
“Delicious.  So pleased.”
Yup, Cantilip is pretty delicious, in what would have been bottle-green fatigues, had they not been made of heavy silk, shining dark green hair cascading down her back.  Kyle was among the first to contemplate how fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your perspective) Sarat was already paired.
“The revolutionaries,” said Behna enthusiastically.
“We try,” said Mitch.
Well isn’t this just a happy family reunion.  At one point Sarat and Cantilip were arguing about the seeding of Derera’s pine.  Complex glances were exchanged and it wasn’t a reproach that conversatoin be more general. 
“You have to come!” said Cantilip.
“Of course I have to come!” said Sarat, “In other words thank you for your kind invitation.”
Dinner was held.  The children went reluctantly to bed. Sarat felt that he metaphorically cleared his throat.
“Mitch said you didn’t know what happened to Susheela.  I do!  She kept a journal.  Don’t know if you’d like to hear the story.”
“You have Susheela’s journal.  That would be superb.”
“We are agog,” said Kyle. Heela, who knew, just smiled.
Sarat said: “I think I need first to say – it’s the wildest craziest other matter story.  I’m a scientist.  There are parts of it I flatly don’t believe.  Which means.  I believe people say what they think happened.  Whether it actually happened and wasn’t a further layer of illusion is something else.”
“What on earth – “ began Mitch.
Sarat gave way to laughter.
“Good question.”
“Lemme set the scene,” said Maya.  “Zani defeated Jaizal before the Great Gates!  It’s Zur’s favourite story, only of course he didn’t, he defeated Corsin.  Jaizal was nowhere around.”
“First Event was before that,” said Sarat.
“Just getting there.  Jaizal hath sent a mighty army forth to conquer Fidub.  Only the guys in the mighty army didn’t much like Jaizal and joined with the guys in the south.  We call it the First Event.  So they turned round and went back.  News of this reached Azt and turmoil began. In the midst of which Jaizal quietly vanished.”
“They said, the rat has fled!  They said he was murdered, they said he’d escaped by sea.  None of these is actually true.  He went to look for his chair.  My chair.”
“You – “ began Heela, then let Sarat continue. 
“As you know, I think you know, some of you know, the actual throne is in Casin-ruhn – “
“What!” said Mitch.
“I think you have their attention,” murmured Maya.
“Van-senok nicked it,” said Sarat.
“We are forgiven?” asked Marula with something close to a giggle.
“You weren’t to know it would end up in Ciletij.”
“Dear Varchulan,” said Maya, “you have something of ours, please may we have it back.”
“Why,” said Sarat, “is I think unclear.  Obviously something to do with Casin-ruhn, maybe some kind of purification?”
“The goddess lives in an ice-palace at the bottom of the lake,” said Cantilip cheerfully.  “Mummy thinks it’s sort of rededicating the land to her, recrowning her queen.”
“At least they didn’t chuck it in the lake!”  Mitch.  “I am understanding the throne is buried among the trees?”
“Oh no,” said Sarat.  “There’s a cabin, a rather strange cabin, get to that later.  Yea, many legends surround the Anile Throne.  It sings, dances, plays the piano.  Possibly a chorus of dancing-bears high-kicks across the floor of the Ciletij Senate when someone sits on it.  The problem with all this stuff is at least some of it is true.  When you sit on the chair – we call it the chair because it looks like a kitchen chair, total absence of scrolls or clawed feet – you trip, in the modern sense, take a mental journey.”
“I cling to the practical,” said Mitch.  “I wondered how on earth it was possible to get it out of Azt, but if it – nondescript, presumably it would not have been hard to load it onto a cart.”
“It’s solid silver,” sighed Sarat, “but sure, tarnished, covered in mud.  OK, there we are, a might army is advancing on Azt.  Susheela was not in Azt either.  He kept her and her children away from it all in the Summer Palace. He understood she was special and she understood – she understood he needed her, she was his last – sole – foothold on sanity.  Her brothers tred to rescues her but she wouldn’t leave.  What she said was taking her children, the youngest then just a baby, would endanger them all.  She wouldn’t leave her children.  She would not leave Jaizal – “
“I trust you will not feed us southern psycho-babble claiming he was misunderstood?”
“First hear the story,” said Sarat. 
“I for one will not hear such nonsense.”
“Then listen and learn,” said Sarat.  “t’s a really exciting story.  Jaizal had a younger brother and a sister, so there were three people he trusted, Vargilia, Samas and Susheela, all of whom he kept locked up, but what are locks to – any of us.  Oh dear, Samas has escaped, the brother.  Corsin of course launched amn-hunt, fearing people would rally to him.  They looked in the wrong direction.  Samas had gone to Fidub.  Long and complicated story.  Jaizal surmised correctly that PANTHER knew where the chair was.  Samas feared to deliver himself to PANTHER thinking, also possibly correctly, they’d kill him.  Jaizal had to have the real chair.  He thought it might heal him and was more likely to kill him but that was a rightful death, the emperor on the throne, unlike other possible demises.  Yea, many legends surround the throne!  It’s silver, Fidubi silver.  As we know, Fidub is geologically bizarre.  The Institute of Geophysics on Arit spent ten years trying to find out why the Isles sing.  Also burns the tootsies of the bad guys.  These properties are contained, it is said, in the throne.  If I sat Krarlik on it, he’d burn.  Possibly.  If I sat on it, it’d sing.  Possibly.  Samas had the sense to go to the shrine at M-P.  They hadn’t known the throne had been swapped and were curious.  They made enquiries…Alas, it is in Van-senok. Something of a downer for Jaizal, but they could see no harm in his knowing and let Samas return to Kadun. Fidub, Fidub, Isles of the Blest, Jewel of the East, Star of the West.  He winced.  He was a cultured man.  It’s all the same story.  He had no interest whatever in what is now Dabida.  If he could conquer Fidub, then the shrine would either kill or cure.  Corsin of course simply wanted Fidub under the heel. 
When it became clear the army wasn’t going to get anywhere, he made his last public appearance on this earth, addressing the Senate, lot of guff about the necessity of total victory, entrusted Susheela to Samas, and vanished.  He was just about the most hated man on the continent, but he still had his powers and he was going away from the war.  He thought he had a chance.  He wanted of course to take Susheela but that would just have made it more likely they’d all be murdered, by bandits if nothing else. Two things.  Increasing cries of The empire is dead!  Not fruitful ground for her, Zani, her son, any – contender for the throne.  The other thing is the mob in Azt doesn’t seem to have thought of her.  Loot was what was on its mind.  PANTHER thought of her.  The staff, guards either fled or loved her, basically.  She was just that sort of lady.  They understood she was as much a prisoner as they.  Had been.  Jaizal had always arrived by water, in the imperial barge. They were close to the river.  PANTHER pitched up in a much cruder barge and apparently that bit was quite easy.  See a woman with three kids in old and dirty clothes on an old and dirty barge and you don’t particularly think – lo, it is the Empress!  The docks were in chaos, trade disrupted, food rotting, rats fleeing.  Rumour of a fleet coming up from the south.  That bit’s total garbage, the battle between the Imperial Fleet and Fidub was far to the south.”
I am hypnotized, thought Mitch, this is my history.
“They did not change sides?” asked Heela.
“Some surrendered, but what they called the black ships of course didn’t.  Not so many surrendering.  Of course they had no news of the about-turn.  Now, as Cho puts it, the House of Fire really did not want to know that Sonny that screwed up, but they were decent people and took them in.  So there she was in a foreign country with her cats and they were already saying, never, ever, ever again dependent, on anyone, ever, never.  For a time of course they were getting constant news from Kadun but then the dust settled and cat-future had to be settled too.  Jaizal reached Casin-ruhn – “
“He what!  Sorry, pray continue…”
Saban smiled.
“Sardun know this story.”
Marula looked at him sharply but said nothing.  Karula said unexpectedly, “There is an old myth that Jaizal haunts Casin-ruhn.  It is part of its being a place of pure evil.  I find I am on the edge of my seat as to – what element of truth!”
“Susheela began her journal, a very private one.  I guess it helped her debrief.”
“So you know – exactly what passed.”
 “Everything they did to Jaizal.  He knew, you see, he knew what had been done to him.  That’s why he kept her locked away, the one part of him that was still Jaizal.  She was the only person in the world who called him Jaizal.  He talked sometimes in his sleep.  Sometimes he screamed.  He had to have the chair. So he went to find it. They said, he was killed by his own guards, but no body was found.  They said, he escaped by water and died at sea, and no wreckage could be found.  They said, the rat has fled.  Disguise accent, disguise body language, to disguise the profile is hard but he still had his power, blurring vision, erasure of what you just saw, and Kadun was not densely populated.  Nonetheless he was the single most hated man on the continent.  He arrived at Casin-ruhn and sat on the chair.  He had no idea what if anything would happen.  At first it seemed that he was burning and then the dross was burned away and he tripped, in the modern sense, visions of past and present and who knows where and – ss if I can remember it, ‘then it seemed to me like unto death, but it was only sleep and wakefulness found me on a couch of furs and a great man did tend the fire but must this not be another dream.”  He wrote to Susheela.
“Sarat! You – have – Jaizal’s letter.”  Mitch.
“We have Jaizal’s love-letters.  They’re amazing, he managed to both pour out his wounded heart to her and be totally without self-pity or self-justification.  He saw everything with painful clarity.  Sarat grinned wildl y at Saban.  “Sardun dropped in from time to time, even then.  From them he got news and quill and parchment. And they said, let her forget. And he said, no, she must know from me I am alive and whole and at peace and that is her peace. So he wrote to Susheela.  My love.  And she wrote back.  They corresponded so far as was possible. I mean this wasn’t pop to the post-box.  Sardun were the couriers.  And when the youngest was 18, she said, I go now, and she took ship, which was a lot safer than crossing Kadun, for anyone,  and went to him.  It gets worse.  The great man in furs was Kaminua and with him my lady Asyrion.”
“Sarat!”
“Casin-ruhn, abode of dead emperors.  Even Jaizal was not entirely – ‘But I did become persuaded they had found immortality among the trees, though a strange immortality where one’s needs are those of men for assuredly they eat and drink as mortals do and this is beyond my understanding.”  Yes, that is the nub!  There is just something about supposedly immortal people roasting haunch of moose.  We think they’re Denzine shape-changers, but no-one has ever been able to break the illusion and no-one has a clue why it has been kept up for nearly a thousand years. Cho’s met Kaminua too. You may well say, why didn’t Jaizal ask them?  He did!  Why don’t I~ - ?  You have meetings here, there must be a screen. Another question of course is why didn’t Sardun kill him. Then they really are lost to history. Sardun escorted them to the coast.  It is thought they set sail for Harn.  Of course after everything they might have foundered at sea.”
“Thank you so much!” said Karula.  “That is the most amazing story I have heard in my life!”
“A screen?” asked Mitch.  “This is on-line, a private archive.”
Sarat laughed
“As soon as it was possible to scan things we scanned everything, for the simple reason that the only guys interested were in Kadun.  Historians have always trekked to Fidub.”
“We repairto the Library!” declared Heela.  “Absolutely riveting.  I thank you also.  The history of this House is enriched by this story.”
Kyle asked one question: “how old was she?”
Sarat smiled.  “Young enough.  There has been a great deal of sniffing around.  If they had more children, no-one knows whose children they were.”
“You have met Tima in the forum,” said Rewn.  “His antecedent of course was Samas.”
My lady Susheela, my love.
I would wish you know me alive and well and in safety.  There is much mystery in this place and my understanding fails me but I have sat on the throne and it seemed to me a great anguish in my heart such that it was bursting, breaking out of my chest and I was burning in pain beyond imagining, and many strange visions.  The stars shrivelled and died, and I so I thought myself with them, and I was content, but it was only sleep and wakefulness found me on a couch of furs and a great man did tend the fire but must this not be another dream.  I say only here that this lor of the wilderness, guardian of the throne knew me and bears me no ill will…
“Later,” said Sarat, “when he was sure of her and more confident in his couriers, he wrote freely.”
And I said I must ask it, for are we not taught that to die is to leave the body, and yet you feast.  He said, what point bereft of life’s pleasures.  In that I saw reason but scarce explanation.  But how came you to perceive this gift?  I was sick unto death, said my lady, and it was taught me.  I beseeched but one thing, that it be shared with my beloved.  But you wish to know by whom!  They came from a world they called Sug, from beyond the stars.  Nor were they as men, but smaller and more rounded in form.  They had a vessel that crossed the skies.  Fleeing from their homeland, they sought sanctuary elsewhere and so came to rest among the trees.  They say Death pursued them but always they outran him, and it was they the Cult sought to destroy. 
“When you think it really can’t get any worse, “ said Maya, “it gets worse.”
“Oh yes,” said Sarat.  “Ciletij.  Trees.  I was roaming the Grid looking at good solid worthy stuff, the incidence of Yata’s pine – “ The wild grin again, this time directed at Cantilip.  “ – which I do appreciate is entirely distinct from Dira’s pine, when I followed a link and fell off the edge.”
“Jaaba-Sen?” asked Saban.
“Jaaba-Sen indeed.  That piece of the planet has quite a reputation.”
“Including of course aliens,” said Maya.  “I really thought about this.  Decided I had no problem with the principle of aliens, the possibility, just an awful lot with them popping down to Casin-ruhn and not otherwise introducing themselves.”
“Is that polite!” demanded Sarat.  “See why Van-senok got shot of it, at least.  When a border with Ciletij was drawn up, V-k, said take it, it’s yours! Goes far beyond just giving them Casin-ruhn.”
Cantilip looked startled.
“It was originally V-k?  I did not know that.”
“Nor I,” said Behna.
“Old news,” said Marula.
“If you look at the old maps, V-k goes right up to the ice,” said Heela.  He smiled.  “We gave nothing to Vasucula.”
 “That is all very fine and laudable,” said Karula, “let there be peace between our two tribes.  It is surely a little surprising that they left the throne there.”
“I thought that,” said Sarat.  “Then I thought, well OK, they didn’t exactly what it back in Azt, did they.  I’m guessing they thought – like a memorial to the empire.”
“If it is there,” said Maya with a particularly deep sigh.  “To those of normal perception, I mean.”
Just enjoy, thought Saban.
“The trouble is normal people go there.  There’s a Commemoration Society and it gathers every year.  I’ve seen the vids.  If we look at the satellite pix…Lake.  Building.  If we go now to the vids….Lake.  Building. There’s  a shack there.  I don’t suppose the Ciletij worthies even think about it.  It’s described as a log-store.  But there was one year – a blizzard descended out of the blue and so any shelter is better than no shelter, the door was opened – and they were confronted by piles of logs.  Evertything about this story is impossible!”
“How do they get there?” asked Mitch
“Good question!  Although it’s a national day of remembrance, not many people actually attend because it’s practically impossible.  Someone represents the government, someone represents the military, there’re members of the Commemoration Committee, an obligatory film-crew and that’s that.  Sea-plane.  Land on the lake.”
Behna grinned.
“Bet the goddess loves that!”
Sarat tutted.
“Most disruptive!”
“Sub-plot,” said Maya, “attempted Cult infiltration of the Committee.  Hats off to them they said go hang.  The H-W work with SIS.  Please continue.”
 
Look, everyone, do look at all the illiterate mongs, they ain’t fucking stupid, right, and they ain’t fucking illitrit and to prove their giant intellects and superior grasp of language they’ll beat you up and cripple you.  Ain’t yer fucking illitrit, skivvy=boy, ain’t yer, an’t yer really.
 
And of course Ners has a vastly superior qualification and is more than capable of judging it perfectly appropriate that I be used to do heavy manual labour, the damage to my spinal fusion being a bonus, and naturally it is evil to question the judgement of Ners, because Ners know everything, and so of course I am disobedient and arrogant and insolent and why haven’t the smelly mongs been publicly crucified.
 
But the best bit is no-one thinks there’s anything wrong in that, no-one thinks anything need be said or done about it.  How things are, ain’t it, women making trouble, you knock the stupid cunts around until they learn who’s boss.   Everyone knows that. 
 
Just don’t learn, do I, vermin.    Welcome to human obscenity, where every fact of history, every act about me, every fact about England today is dismissed out of hand, that madness and evil rule. 
 
When the government has kicked you in the face and left you to be crippled and die, when MI5 has kicked you in the face and left you to be crippled and die, there really isn’t anywhere to go.  Get the head of MI5 on it too on camera saying it is quite right that Miss Howard’s spinal fusion was repeatedly routinely assaulted in punishment and that she should have been crippled and left to suffer.
It remains the best way
 
So they’re all criminally insane, how funny is that.  All totally divorced from the reality of post Enlightenment, post creation of the free world, post Marx post Einstein post Woodstock, post Christian England.
 
Nothing major, then.
 
I said answer the fucking questions because this is a democracy and power is accountable, so just answer the fucking questions, you sly cowardly evil despicable obscene filthy traitor vermin.
 
Ooh, it makes them feel so bloody important, the pathetic sicko psychos, crawling around in the dark, coating themselves in filth and squalor, rolling around in it, sharing their lies and madness, deciding for others whose views are not required, deciding for their property, their slaves, ooh they’re so powerful, they decree and no-one may question them, sickening cowardly  scum vermin.  Say it in the open where everyone can hear it and anyone can challenge it, say it open or save your bloody breath. 
 
Absolute refusal to publicly establish the facts.  Fact would never do, would it, filth, scum, vermin, bags of diseased mad evil shit.  No, no, I have to be destroyed by your world of madness and sickness and perversion.
 
Lies are the lifeblood of the filth, eat, breathe, sweat, shit, dream lies. 
 
Pervert freak filth sickos want me to suffer and it’s not enough for them to have crippled me, foul sexually diseased old men in black dresses clutching their stinking wizened pricks and jerking themselves of on the power to injure my body.  They’re important.  They’re the people who matter. 
The State says so.  
 
On no account are they to be hurt, offended by fact, by reality.
 
Hey I’ve offended some sick psycho freak, some violent nutjob who belongs in Broadmoor, and all the sick disgusting freaks think I should suffer for rhat, offended some pervert, sexually diseased sick boy loony tune freakoid so they all fall on their faces begging to please, 
 
Don’t you, Blair filth
 
Spastic shit
 
Got Troof, have you, Linch, Whelan, McGuckin, McTierney, O’Mahony, Khwaja, Nathwani, Rismani, Mohamedbhai, all the little nutjobs thumping their Qurans and Bibles, they got Troof
Islam is not to be offended!
The Church is not to be traduced!
Oh, join the fucking real world, nut-jobs.  Busted flush, nutjobs.  Went out with the Ark.  What these mad  peasants think we all are, savages, falling down in awe.  Lo,  it is a revelation from a mighty God! Lo,  it is the Word!  It is Truth!
For a start you can’t both have Troof.
 
Impressed by a book, very very impressed.  There weren’t many books then.  Now there are millions of the things.
 
Now we have nine volume fantasy sagas.  Now we know of what the human imagination is capable.
 
Talking of answering questions, why haven’t I been paid?  I’m sure MI fucking Five are falling over themselves to explain why I have been thrown on the scrapheap and left to die.

REALITY 102
 
There is not only one book in the world defining reality. A belief-system is simply a collection of ideas that seem to make more sense to someone than other collections of ideas. Some people (they know who they are) claim everything is enshrined in their One Book, with the resultant claim that everything was fixed in one time and one place. The historical Moses is thought to have lived in around 1400 BC. In the 1500 years or so between him and Paul, a multiplicity of world-shaping events and perspectives on being human occurred elsewhere on the planet, the whole of Ancient Greece and with it the birth of democracy, most of Classical Rome, the Upanishads, Confucius, Zoroastrianism, Lao-Tzu, none of which is significant to the orthodox Christian, other than as error or sin or at best feeble gropings for troof. This is first order lunacy: discuss. It worked when there was no mass communication, when the nearest city was an alien land many leagues distant. It doesn’t work now.

It is worth being precise about what hardly anyone believes, because actually it is possible to be entirely precise about what people do not believe, whether they be hard-line materialist atheists or flutterby flower-children. We do not believe there is only one book in the world. We are not a largely illiterate society of desert tribesmen thousands of years ago to whom one book was an all-encompassing explanation. We live in a society with access to millions of books and other sources of information; if we do not read much, we may surf or watch Life on Earth. We form our views based on what we read together with our experience of other human beings. We do not believe one book dictates what we must think; clearly millions of books, the content of which is contradictory, cannot dictate what anyone thinks.

Where the content of books conflicts with reality, we do not believe reality is necessarily over-ruled. Where the content of books contains ideas conflicting with ideas in a 'holy book', we do not believe the 'holy book' necessarily true and other books false.

Indeed, we live in a society shaped by a Trinity, that Trinity being broadly symbolized by the combined content of the Philosophy, Religion and Science sections of a major bookshop.

We may prefer to believe that which is demonstrably false or distinctly less likely but on the whole I think have an awareness of the thing called fact; one of the things that distinguishes the  insane religious from the sane is whether he or she accords the Virgin Birth or Mohammed's Night Journey the status of fact, on par with water boiling when heated sufficiently.

Clearly also people who read many books, the content of which is contradictory, come across views that repel or otherwise offend them and do not run around screaming and shouting about it.

It being the case that some views on life the universe and everything directly oppose others, unless you live in a hole in the ground you are going to meet people who think what you think is nonsense.  If you then cavort and scream a) you are mad and b) your ignorance, your self-obsession and your total intellectual and emotional inadequacy are your problem. You seek to annul the external source of your distress because you have neither self-control (ability to contain your feelings) nor self-command (ability to change your feelings).
We live in a universe or possibly a multiverse described so far as at present possible by astrophysics not by the ravings of ancient Jews.
Freak boy  Blair thinks there’s something exceptionable about that, but then of course freak boy Blair lives in the world of the loony, as defined by mad old men dribbling religion is not to be mocked.  Might there not be different physical laws on the far side of a singularity?  Might there not be things we haven’t discovered yet?  What sort of nonsense is that, everything is known, they got this book, see.  They got Troof.  They got God’s Holy Word.
They don’t have a clue whether God even exists but that of course does not deter them from trying to force ‘respect’ for their fantasies.
 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Genesis 2
 
We’re good barbecued.
 
I do assure the House or for that matter the Court I am not derived from Adam’s rib.  I mean it’s a joke, right.  It’s farcical.

Ooh, ooh, I have mocked sincere beliefs.  Why is believing ape-shit always supposed to be annulled by the sincerity with which a nutter believes ape-shit?  And of course why are people who do not believe ape-shit considered insincere?
 
That tyrannosaurs have resurrected themselves from the Jurassic and any mainstream person can solemnly dribble that this crap has to be taken seriously - Jesus wept! Probably would do because unlike so many of his self-appointed representatives he was intelligent.
 
Blair is a very sick little monkey.  That the Church is bigger than the Pope is an argument I can understand.  That cradle Catholics remain within the Church despite a Pope I can understand. That anyone should wish to join a church led by this evil sick disgusting old man I do not understand. Nor that filthy bitch of his on her knees before her master. 
   In 1986, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the infamous Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. Ratzinger wrote that a homosexual orientation, even if the person is totally celibate, is a "tendency" toward an "intrinsic moral evil". Moreover, a homosexual inclination is both an "objective disorder" and a "moral disorder", which is "contrary to the creative wisdom of God". "Special concern and pastoral attention should be directed towards those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not." Ratzinger's 1986 Letter concludes that pastoral care for homosexual persons should include "the assistance of the psychological, sociological and medical sciences", and that "all support should be withdrawn from any organisations which seek to undermine the teachings of the Church, which are ambiguous about it, or which ignore it entirely".
      In July 1992, the Vatican issued a further proclamation authorised by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and by Pope John Paul II, entitled "Some Considerations Concerning the Catholic Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons".
      This document was designed to mobilise Catholic opinion against equal rights legislation for lesbians and gay men. It describes homosexuality as an "objective disorder" and a "tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil". Rejecting the concept of homosexual "human rights", it asserts there is "no right" to homosexuality; adding that the civil liberties of lesbians and gay men can be "legitimately limited for objectively disordered external conduct".
      While condemning "unjust" discrimination, the Vatican document says that some forms of antigay discrimination are "not unjust" and may even be "obligatory": especially with regard to "the consignment of children to adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or coaches, and in military recruitment".
      Most shocking of all, the 1992 document suggests that when lesbians and gay men demand civil rights, "neither the Church nor society should be surprised when ... irrational and violent reactions increase".
      This implies that by asking for human rights, lesbians and gay men encourage homophobic prejudice and violence: we bring hatred upon ourselves, and are responsible for our own suffering. The Catholic Church, it seems, blames the victims of homophobia, not the perpetrators.
https://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/rosecottage/OutRage-archives/ratzing.htm  
That alone should have them ostracized by civilized people.  Absolutely sexually diseased.  As I have pointed out the roots of the particular hatred they direct at gay men is like their hatred of women rooted in the delusion of a cosy little love-in between Man, as in Man, and God.  Love for a woman pollutes it.  Then, when all the women have been suppressed, it’s polluted by men loving each other.
 
Jesus of course understood that if men are merely told to love God they will treat people like shit and they had to be told to love their neighbours equally. 
 
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Galatians 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself
 
Liberty is a function of love. Control is a function of self-will.
You are not self-forgetting by definition if you are forcing others to obey you, placing to the fore the seedy clamourings of your self. Similarly 'God's mercy' is an exercise in self-stroking, whether attributed to God or claimed by the religious, a sitting there stroking yourself at how virtuous you are being because you are 'showing mercy'. If you love other people, you don't want to do that from which you are 'mercifully' refraining in the first place. Self-forgetting is graciousness, as in beauty of manner. Grace is paramountly not forcing oneself on others other than to restrain them from forcing themselves on others.
Thus democracy, a system of government devised to contain power in which the only legitimate use of power against others is to stop them forcing their filthy selves on others. 

And you old boy will do anything to maintain Corruption, keep them mad, afraid, ignorant, dependent, subservient and all the politicians suck your cock, certainly in the case of the bastardized fascist fake Left because they too believe people are property, to be and do what the State requires. They are funny, aren’t they. They babble about equality and demand slavery. We are equal in rights. That absolutely petrifies you, doesn’t it, the mere idea someone can address you as a fellow human being not an overlord. Can say things to you you do not wish to hear. Or of course ignore you.

They are repulsive. I am repelled. I trust I have made that clear, woodentops whose sole criterion for judging an idea is whether Master permits it, who would burn all the books if they knew what they contained, a cancer in the University, tumour cells replacing healthy tissue.

I have to say one of the areas in which I am wholly lacking in knowledge is the law governing the keeping of dangerous animals but it would seem to me likely, whether one is the Master of Longleat or a fan of poisonous snakes, that the law demands they be securely contained that they pose no threat to others. You wish your dangerous animals at liberty to molest others and politicians concur. That has to be funny. When others do not even wish to contain the savage beast but merely to comment on its bestiality you cry 'They must not be hurt!' and politicians, who are either fools or evil, rush to assist and to attempt to enforce silence but what is the hurt but the existence of other human beings who are not like them. 

You really believe you are set on high to dictate to others, that you are some kind of superior life-form endowed with rights particularly over me, either born to or given by God the power to dictate reality.

Hey it’s the Wizard of Oz.

This ain’t Kansas, bubba.

Keep them afraid, keep them animals, keep them impotent, incontinent, keep them terrified of words, monkey cannot cope with words, keep them hating and fearing human freedom, keep them enslaved, keep them convinced everyone is the property of their master. Keep them believing a psychotic frightened little monkey speaks for God, his will is God’s will, keep them incapable of question, keep them obedient, keep them intellectually incapable because if a cowardly thug represents God, then God is a cowardly thug.

Keep them FRIGHTENED. Keep them hating freedom. Keep them shit and then they’ll hate the freedom to say they’re shit. Keep them frightened of words. How can words hurt control change you? You change you. Or rather obviously not. HATE FREEDOM hate no control, hate no-one kneel HATE IT. Frightens little monkey. 

Try going down to Yasgur's Farm, man. Perfect love casts out fear.

What happens when people stop sucking your cock? Apart from your need for a hand-job of course.

What are you, apart from robe, gown, status, power. Have you a heart? Have you a mind? Are you anything besides a large baboon who hits people? When people are free to ignore you. Set moral example, persuade with reason. Why are you right? You cannot. Thus you think you need not, convince yourself you have Truth. You are morally superior. You ordain. The slave-sluts of course are utterly convinced of their intellectual superiority. They have Truth. Therefore I am lying. Convinced of their moral superiority, for they are obedient and their minds are dead. They do not cannot will not question. It terrifies. Cannot question Truth. 

Animals are obedient. I am a human being. 

Your Truth is a load of intellectually and morally indefensible ape-shit. 
All for something that could have been cleared up in five minutes if you weren’t  corrupt and bestial and fascist and  psychotic and perverted and evil.
The best way of dealing with these vermin remains publication, not least because my book is among other things a hymn to women’s rights and gay rights.  Whether I now shall – we shall see.
 
Extracts from The Anile Heir ©2006.
 
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book.
 
DEMANJI: As a gay woman, I am of course double-prey.  As Sardun, I escaped.  But you can argue it rebounds on women, all women.  Men understanding we’re seen as prey get at best over-protective.  Karula asked a question.  Haven’t seen anyone answer it yet.  Isn’t this part of it.  Their intentions are honourable!  Got a few wires crossed on the way.
SALI:  I think it all goes back to the Kadun cock-up, most things do.  As Maya’s said,
CALUNIN: I do not think I am alone in failing to find modesty and decorum a stain. Men do not flaunt our bodies.  Indeed cats and trees do not operate half-naked.  It can hardly be argued a woman needs to expose herself to be considered the equal of a man.
TIRO: Change of tune.  Thought you couldn’t tolerate a woman pilot. 
CALUNIN:  I prefer to argue one thing at a time.
TIRO: You haven’t argued anything yet.
DIBESIT: I stand by my previous comment. 
OBAYA: Well, you wouldn’t like it to run away.
CONRULAT: Five points awarded for not being a coward.  Makes the score  minus 295.
MUNZI: Do give him credit for the courage of his convictions.
CONRULAT: The defendant asked for multiple previous offences to be taken into consideration.
BOLAN:  Do you have to?  Grown-ups are talking.
OBAYA: Us or him?
CALUNIN:  It is undoubtedly one of the drawbacks of this forum that it descends into puerile adolescent repartee.
CONRULAT: Detect sense of humour failure.
CALUNIN: The sense of humour of a pervert is necessarily flawed
CONRULAT:  The only perverts in Kadun are in Corsin.  Never did credit them with much wit.
DIBESIT:  This is the conversation of the gutter!  I shall complain.
OBAYA:  Who to?
FURRIER: Yes, Firas will hang on his every word!
DIBESIT: No woman with any self-respect would flaunt her body.
FURRIER: Change the record!  You said that before.
 
MAYA:  And here is our fashion bulletin for the day…The Leotard Look is intensely practical, dress it up, dress it down, and if someone dares you race him to the next breakwater you can do that too.  You have comment, guys?  Bring it on down.
 
VEENA: Women have bodies.  This is official.   We can even use them, which may defy credibility.  Do you run regularly?
MAYA:   No.  Swim, ride, play tennis and hockey.  We climb a bit in the hills above Am-Arkna, but you can’t call them mountains.
VEENA:  Sorry to interrogate, but – you swim publicly?
MAYA:  Publicly, privately.  We’ve got a pool.  If I’m on the beach I swim in the sea.
VEENA: And you go to a public beach?
MAYA:  There isn’t any other kind.  Partly it’s security, no way part of the shore off-limits, partly it’s a feeling the sea can’t belong to a particular person.  Except of course the Fleet!  They have their enclaves.  Swimming not.
GOSA:  Interesting.  In  fact we encountered that in Carlin.  Private beaches were – requisitioned, I suppose is the word.
 
DIBESIT:  This is completely intolerable.  First, this pair of foreign interlopers, now foreign military.  I have complained to Firas.
SARAT:  Biological toss-up.  You are, yes.  How ‘foreign’ I am.  900 years of irturbi genes!  It just depends which ones are dominant.  Lot of them from Camp Five went to Kadun.  Did you hiss at that?
BARVENIN: Look but don’t touch.  The usual word is prick-teaser.
MAYA: So the only possible point so to speak of the LL is to arouse men?
BARVENIN: What a little tart you are.
MAYA:  Have you anything intelligetnt to say?  So the offence is being recognizable as a woman by those unfamiliar with the female form?  Men on the beach in Zur are not in a state of constant erection due to the presence of women on the beach in Zur.
SARAT: Civilized men of course are interested in women as individuals not as receptacles for semen.  To trash like you the LL is like the petals on a flower, an invitation to pollination.
Don’t pull your punches, lad, don’t be mealy-mouthed.  And her.  Bloody hell!
DIRENIN:  Really, can we not discuss things like civilized people.  That is grotesque. 
KARULA: I think I might think twice before describing myself as a little flower!
MAYA:  I’d imagine I feel about my lean strong fit body must the way you guys feel about yours.  It feels good to have it, it does what you want it to.  I see no need to hide it.
BARVENIN: Ridiculous nonsense.  Men do not flaunt our bodies.
MAYA:  It’s this word ‘flaunt’.  Try not ashamed of and not concealing.  [Pic of bare-chested men in shorts and long loose boleros standing around a stall in the Sa’anda Senta, in fact a NoZone stall where Sarat was trying to convince them of the necessity of signing a petition.]
SARAT:  There is a particular reason men rarely wear the close-fitting on the bottom half.
Not so on the beach of course so some guys wear swimming shorts, not trunks. 
CONRULAT: Gay men wore make-up in Azt 1300 years ago.  Whether they also got awful skin diseases because there was no safety testing, I know not but an otherwise completely harmless activity it was and is. We know the story they spin, the ‘licence’ of the empire eventually corrupted it and showed its true face.   I think some dudes here associate sex with the Cult, so they shy away from it.  As long as everything sterile and asexual we’re clean.  But sex is a perfectly healthy part of being human. Exactly what Essa said, contempt and denial of love, wherever they can. 
 
OBAYA: So the – blueprint is the heterosexual male and any variation is a pathetic striving.  Sardun, female.  Stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine.
CONRULAT: Sardun, gay.  Probably your worthless neck I saved.
CALUNIN: A lady officer.  At least no stripy socks.
A low opinion was held of the attrie of the gallant army of Dabida, who rejoiced in their stipy socks. 
OBAYA:  You have to talk about it.  What that girl said.  If you really think women can’t analyse data or run Stores, then you are out of it.  But that’s not what you think.  I still don’t know what you do think.
CALUNIN:  I cannot countenance a woman in the cockpit next to me.
VEENA: We get the reasonable stuff, guys, we really do.  We get women are not to be shot down over Cult territory, we get they are not to be posted to Cult regiments.  We even get concern about physical ability, though it never did cats any harm.  But there’s a whole underbelly that is not reasonable and we all know it.
MUNZI: Female cats taken prisoner?
VEENA: You don’t want to know.  Her choice to risk it.  Maybe that’s the basic point.
OBAYA: While you sit in your Messes, silly little girls are living rough, silly little girls are running around with great big guns, silly little girls are being obscenely tortured, though not often because we are very very good.
MUNZI: I was at Boral.
OBAYA: Shit! Apologies.  But you know it’s true of some of you.
MUNZI: Some.  And that is exactly what was wrong with that damn’ interview.  She made it sound as though we are in some last-century time bubble while Kadun has moved on.  We’re the ones most in flux.  Everything has been turned on its head.  Trust, respect for elders, for authority?  Who sold Kadun out?  Who got us into this mess?  The sacred chain of command?  Yessir, of course, sir – until we shot them and made a break for it.
VEENA: I’m guessing you’re vaudosi.  Experience must be very different in Carlin.
DIBESTI: You talk of a sell-out.  Carlin is clearly wholly corrupted.  To even think of giving time to this lamentable young man and his dreadful little tart.
SITSI: We appear to have here a screaming loon.
DIBESIT: [Pic of Maya in the Leotard Look].  Small wonder they call her the Dabidan whore.  You tell me any lady dresses like that?
BARVENIN: And the other, the San-yaega-baht woman, sold to Alzani-Meta.
SITSI: I think you stop right there.  Sarshi is a complete darling, a small blonde whirlwind.
BARVENIN: Ah, a feudal vassal.
OBAYA: Oh dear haven’t we opened the tin.  All the little squirmy wormy things crawling out.
 
SORG: Sarshi’s brother.  Who is this baboon?
 
VIRUN:  Desk-jockey.  Never heard a shot fired in anger.
DIBESIT: And what does ‘my lord of Carlin’ do?
SORG: Caniba.  The whole of Carlin knows it, so no point in pretending mustn’t say where we are.
DIBESIT:  Then you too are a ‘desk-jockey’.
SORG: Yes, but I’m brilliant and you’re not.
DIBESIT: Naked display of the intolerable arrogance of the self-styled upper classes.
FRENSAT: Not if you know what they do at Caniba.
DIBESIT: And other one, Asdinan, why is he not in uniform.  Too busy knocking up the girls in the village.  Not of course that they are regarded as fit to be my fine lady of Carlin.
SORG: As was a student in Azt for a year, all he could stand.  He met a lady.  It didn’t work out.  The House is bringing up the result.
BARVENIN: What absolute prostitute abandons her child?
MARDIS:  Uzz’n don’ ‘ole with no tark loike that.
DIBESIT: We have the yokels here now?
MARDIS:  You keep on like that, in absolute droves.  Suggest you don’t come to the Rabbiters’ any time soon.  San-yaega-baht, old boy.  Asdinan’s cousin.  For the record, As and I are both cats.
 
MIDI:  Me, pig-shit, me, I’m the mother.  You listen hard, boy.  Asdinan is about the most decent upright guy you could hope to find in this country. He wanted to make a go of it.  I didn’t.  I did not and do not see myself as Mistress of Carlin!  Of course Carlin has our child, a much better life than being alone with me in the city. Turd like you are the bloody corruption, making everything normal and human dirty and sordid.  Actually what drew us together in the first place, shared loathing of shit like you.
 
KARULA: Kudos, honey, kudos.  I too had to choose between two very different lives. 
VEENA: Yes, gentlemen, where appropriate of course, women can bloody speak.  We are not talked about as though we are defective children with no hearts and minds of our own.
 
SADIA:  Just assembling my weapons.  Physical strength.  Manual dexterity.  Intellectual proclivity.  These must vary between individual women.  Equally they must vary between individual men.  Or all men are hard-wired to drive tanks?
SITSI:  I think if we’re honest – one problem for some chaps.  You start with a woman flier.  Next thing you know she gets promoted and you have a woman in command.
MUNZI: Undoubtedly some of us would have difficulty taking an order from a woman.
SADIA: Yes but why.
KARULA: Men lead.  Women follow.  That is a Kadun essential inside the military or out.  The usual expression is pretend-men
SADIA: How interesting.
KARULA: The unreconstructed Kadun male repays close study.  The essence is that human perfection lies in masculinity.  Some women do not properly understand we are a separate species and attempt to ape men.
SADIA:  Didn’t you leave out a hyphen: ape-men.  So being fully female lies in being nurturing, supportive, etc.  Male is active, female is passive, etc.
KARULA:  They claim it’s a question of the Whole.  For sure that conceals a whole load of grunting and knuckle-walking.
MUTAN: You can’t deny male and female are the two halves of the Whole.
SADIA: Looks more like 80:20 to me.
KARULA: ROTFL.  But each of us is both male and female. All the ‘hard’ attributes are assigned to men, strong, rational, hard, leaving women weak, irrational, soft.  But we are all equally human.  Each of us is a continuum from strong to weak, rational to irrational.  I am a real soft Mom, but if anyone threatened our children, I should not bleat and scream for Mitch to do something but simply blow his brains out.
SOBRENIN That much surely anyone can understand.
FILI: And we know of individual acts of heroism by women.  Unfortunately, for the purposes of the discussion, they were civilian women.  Couldn’t be anything else could they.  What do I mean, perfectly ordinary women.
SOBRENIN: Ludicrously, from the perspective of the discussion.  I think you probably mean ‘real soft Moms’.  That’s how Var-sega’ speaks these days?!
ZITAN:  Or the girls at the college in Boolan.  I’m wondering vaguely something in the idea, it’s OK for women to defend.  Attack is ‘unfeminine’.
MUTAN: I think that’s a really interesting one.  Just thinking.  Yes, we like the idea of our grisl being safe but if the line collapsed and our homes were under attack – think we rather expect/hope they’d defend themselves and our kids.
SADIA: By the time she’s blown out the brains of a few rats….
CONRULAT (Sardun, male, gay):  This of course is the root of the objections of some to gays.  That it affronts the Whole.  I certainly should not bleat and scream if anyone threatened me.  Whether I blew his brains out possibly depends on whether his name was Ban-tisol.
 
“Bomb just went off, Mitch.”
“I shall be most interested in the response.”
 
MUNZI:  No prejudice personally.  Know some here have.  Kudos for raising the matter.  I feel I half-understand, but we do have bodies.  Can you discount bodies?  There are of course aspects we would not discuss in mixed company.
SADIA: Maybe you should start trying.
DITSI: Gay. 
CONRULAT: The argument is the male unites with the female but that’s ‘male’ and ‘female’ as Karula said, he’s hard – so to speak, she’s soft, he’s rational, she’s irrational, etc.
 
CONRULAT: It doesn’t seem to have been considered that women and gays both have more at stake, more to fight for.
MUNZI: I am  unsure about that.  Not so stupid that I do not understand your fate is worse.  If we say we face absolute evil, how can it be more absolute. 
CONRULAT: I actually understand that.  Just torture us for longer before letting us die.  There is nothing they do to us they do not do to the heterosexual.male, bar of course rape of women, but as has been said you get it for what you do.  We get it for what we are.  It’s a question also of the future.  Under Cult rule we should have no future. 
OBAYA: Nor any woman who doesn’t think of herself as a stuffed toy.
KARULA: It is sure the case that, imperfect though some things are, we are all at least capable of civilized conversation.
OBAYA: Meaning they are.  OK, gentlemen, I think you probably are, you are having this conversation because you recognize things have to change.  Sensible bunnies. As touched on above, if you think females can’t be trusted with data analysis, catering, cleaning the freaking latrines, you’re out of it.  But you don’t think that.  I still don’t understand what you do think.
SADIA: Probably a lot of you haven’t – what’s funny in all this is what Airoch looks like.  Yea, under those pretty shawls is a mind like a freaking laser.  [Pic of sweet little old lady fiddling with her beads, draped in fringed dusky pink shawl.]
KARULA: ROTFLMAO if that is not disrespectful!  To one of the most powerful women in the world.  That raises questions does it not of women feeling it necessary to pretend in some respect to be men in order to succeed. 
MAYA: Airoch is superificially repeat superficially your dear old aunt.  She calls everyone darling and offers smoky tea out of bone china cups.  Then she kills you.  I shan’t tell you the name out of respect for the dead, but there was one rather senior Dabida politico who was irritated with Fidub over some obscure point of maritime law, can’t remember the details.  May he rest in peace.  Probably the Straits.  We’ve been grumbling at each other over whose Straits for 600 years and we’re not going to stop now.  Yes, dear irturbi, Fidub can be irritating!  But we love them anyway.
SADIA: Of course they’re our Straits.  Grin, duck, run.
 
But it was announced Mel and Hass were off to Var-sega’
You can see that.  Of course your cousins must visit.
Immediately? asked Seani.  “While Sarat’s stll there?”
Oh.  No low profile, then Hass?
Hass in riot in Var-sega’!
You’ll remember that gay guy Sarat met at the House who, it transpired, was shortly hosting a meeting.  Hass could chair it, said Sarat, not wholly seriously.  Clearly that was a very good idea indeed and naturally Hass honed his claws and started packing.
And here is a homely scene from the streets of Giraga.  A large square brick building with steps leading up to double doors, one of which is open.  T is surrounded by tarmac, parking-spaces.  A crowd of people are blocking the way to the doors, holding up posters with legends such as NO! TO PERVERSION.  NOT IN VAR-SEGA’.  THEY SHOULD BE SHOT.  There is a number of trucks on the tarmac, not parked in the designated spaces but facing the doors. 
Bloody foreigner aren’t you
Honorary irtubi, suggested Hass.  Maya’s cousin.  Then we hold the meeting at the House.  Either way, we hold the meeting.  Proved you ware rational, you are of course welcome to attend.  I would ask you what the hell business it is of yours how others conduct their private lives.
The demeanour, observed the for, the against and the undecided is not that of someone to mess with.
“What usually happens around this point,” said Mitch, “is someone calls for arrests for disturbing  public order.”
“They are, yes,” said Hass.  “I do not of course know local law.  Is it possible to have them removed for impeding lawful progress?  Or something.
“No-one wants anyone arrested,” said Mel, “just quietly put aside.”  He went back to twisting a couple of strands of wire together, a sort of physical doodle.  Another one, thought Mitch, not a curl ruffled. 
“Or we hold the meeting here in the open,” continued Hass.  “OK, I shall start.  We are gathered here, in a carpark, on a not particularly balmy evening, to discuss – what are we here to discuss – stupidity, ignorance, malice – will that do for a start.  The stupidity ignorance and malice that mars the lives of LBGT people in Kadun and other places in the world. Which alas we so clearly see around us.  Or in other words, guys, what is your little problem?
Flashpoint.  How do you bloody dare! You’re not in bloody Zur now, boy.  Talking about decent people defending their country, defending their kiddies.  You do not talk about it in the open!
“Has anyone anything sensible to say?” asked Hass in a lull.
There was nearly an hour of it, there would probably have been five hours of it, but it started to rain so the demonstrators were left to get wet and the meeting went back to the House.
 
What else d’you think you’re going to dribble, the intellectual excellence of bloody nurses?
 
Or of course the perv stuff about how I must do what I’m told.  If you want to physically abuse me, well, who am I to argue?  IF you want to cripple me, what does my view matter?  I think the courts might have a small problem with that. 
 
 
DEMANJI: As a gay woman, I am of course double-prey.  As Sardun, I escaped.  But you can argue it rebounds on women, all women.  Men understanding we’re seen as prey get at best over-protective.  Karula asked a question.  Haven’t seen anyone answer it yet.  Isn’t this part of it.  Their intentions are honourable!  Got a few wires crossed on the way.
 
SALI:  I think it all goes back to the Kadun cock-up, most things do.  As Maya’s said,
CALUNIN: I do not think I am alone in failing to find modesty and decorum a stain. Men do not flaunt our bodies.  Indeed cats and trees do not operate half-naked.  It can hardly be argued a woman needs to expose herself to be considered the equal of a man.
TIRO: Change of tune.  Thought you couldn’t tolerate a woman pilot. 
CALUNIN:  I prefer to argue one thing at a time.
TIRO: You haven’t argued anything yet.
DIBESIT: I stand by my previous comment. 
OBAYA: Well, you wouldn’t like it to run away.
CONRULAT: Five points awarded for not being a coward.  Makes the score  minus 295.
MUNZI: Do give him credit for the courage of his convictions.
CONRULAT: The defendant asked for multiple previous offences to be taken into consideration.
BOLAN:  Do you have to?  Grown-ups are talking.
OBAYA: Us or him?
CALUNIN:  It is undoubtedly one of the drawbacks of this forum that it descends into puerile adolescent repartee.
CONRULAT: Detect sense of humour failure.
CALUNIN: The sense of humour of a pervert is necessarily flawed
CONRULAT:  The only perverts in Kadun are in Corsin.  Never did credit them with much wit.
DIBESIT:  This is the conversation of the gutter!  I shall complain.
OBAYA:  Who to?
FURRIER: Yes, Firas will hang on his every word!
DIBESIT: No woman with any self-respect would flaunt her body.
FURRIER: Change the record!  You said that before.
 
MAYA:  And here is our fashion bulletin for the day…The Leotard Look is intensely practical, dress it up, dress it down, and if someone dares you race him to the next breakwater you can do that too.  You have comment, guys?  Bring it on down.
 
VEENA: Women have bodies.  This is official.   We can even use them, which may defy credibility.  Do you run regularly?
MAYA:   No.  Swim, ride, play tennis and hockey.  We climb a bit in the hills above Am-Arkna, but you can’t call them mountains.
VEENA:  Sorry to interrogate, but – you swim publicly?
MAYA:  Publicly, privately.  We’ve got a pool.  If I’m on the beach I swim in the sea.
VEENA: And you go to a public beach?
MAYA:  There isn’t any other kind.  Partly it’s security, no way part of the shore off-limits, partly it’s a feeling the sea can’t belong to a particular person.  Except of course the Fleet!  They have their enclaves.  Swimming not.
GOSA:  Interesting.  In  fact we encountered that in Carlin.  Private beaches were – requisitioned, I suppose is the word.
 
DIBESIT:  This is completely intolerable.  First, this pair of foreign interlopers, now foreign military.  I have complained to Firas.
SARAT:  Biological toss-up.  You are, yes.  How ‘foreign’ I am.  900 years of irturbi genes!  It just depends which ones are dominant.  Lot of them from Camp Five went to Kadun.  Did you hiss at that?
BARVENIN: Look but don’t touch.  The usual word is prick-teaser.
MAYA: So the only possible point so to speak of the LL is to arouse men?
BARVENIN: What a little tart you are.
MAYA:  Have you anything intelligetnt to say?  So the offence is being recognizable as a woman by those unfamiliar with the female form?  Men on the beach in Zur are not in a state of constant erection due to the presence of women on the beach in Zur.
SARAT: Civilized men of course are interested in women as individuals not as receptacles for semen.  To trash like you the LL is like the petals on a flower, an invitation to pollination.
Don’t pull your punches, lad, don’t be mealy-mouthed.  And her.  Bloody hell!
DIRENIN:  Really, can we not discuss things like civilized people.  That is grotesque. 
KARULA: I think I might think twice before describing myself as a little flower!
MAYA:  I’d imagine I feel about my lean strong fit body must the way you guys feel about yours.  It feels good to have it, it does what you want it to.  I see no need to hide it.
BARVENIN: Ridiculous nonsense.  Men do not flaunt our bodies.
MAYA:  It’s this word ‘flaunt’.  Try not ashamed of and not concealing.  [Pic of bare-chested men in shorts and long loose boleros standing around a stall in the Sa’anda Senta, in fact a NoZone stall where Sarat was trying to convince them of the necessity of signing a petition.]
SARAT:  There is a particular reason men rarely wear the close-fitting on the bottom half.
Not so on the beach of course so some guys wear swimming shorts, not trunks. 
CONRULAT: Gay men wore make-up in Azt 1300 years ago.  Whether they also got awful skin diseases because there was no safety testing, I know not but an otherwise completely harmless activity it was and is. We know the story they spin, the ‘licence’ of the empire eventually corrupted it and showed its true face.   I think some dudes here associate sex with the Cult, so they shy away from it.  As long as everything sterile and asexual we’re clean.  But sex is a perfectly healthy part of being human. Exactly what Essa said, contempt and denial of love, wherever they can. 
 
OBAYA: So the – blueprint is the heterosexual male and any variation is a pathetic striving.  Sardun, female.  Stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine.
CONRULAT: Sardun, gay.  Probably your worthless neck I saved.
CALUNIN: A lady officer.  At least no stripy socks.
A low opinion was held of the attrie of the gallant army of Dabida, who rejoiced in their stipy socks. 
OBAYA:  You have to talk about it.  What that girl said.  If you really think women can’t analyse data or run Stores, then you are out of it.  But that’s not what you think.  I still don’t know what you do think.
CALUNIN:  I cannot countenance a woman in the cockpit next to me.
VEENA: We get the reasonable stuff, guys, we really do.  We get women are not to be shot down over Cult territory, we get they are not to be posted to Cult regiments.  We even get concern about physical ability, though it never did cats any harm.  But there’s a whole underbelly that is not reasonable and we all know it.
MUNZI: Female cats taken prisoner?
VEENA: You don’t want to know.  Her choice to risk it.  Maybe that’s the basic point.
OBAYA: While you sit in your Messes, silly little girls are living rough, silly little girls are running around with great big guns, silly little girls are being obscenely tortured, though not often because we are very very good.
MUNZI: I was at Boral.
OBAYA: Shit! Apologies.  But you know it’s true of some of you.
MUNZI: Some.  And that is exactly what was wrong with that damn’ interview.  She made it sound as though we are in some last-century time bubble while Kadun has moved on.  We’re the ones most in flux.  Everything has been turned on its head.  Trust, respect for elders, for authority?  Who sold Kadun out?  Who got us into this mess?  The sacred chain of command?  Yessir, of course, sir – until we shot them and made a break for it.
VEENA: I’m guessing you’re vaudosi.  Experience must be very different in Carlin.
DIBESTI: You talk of a sell-out.  Carlin is clearly wholly corrupted.  To even think of giving time to this lamentable young man and his dreadful little tart.
SITSI: We appear to have here a screaming loon.
DIBESIT: [Pic of Maya in the Leotard Look].  Small wonder they call her the Dabidan whore.  You tell me any lady dresses like that?
BARVENIN: And the other, the San-yaega-baht woman, sold to Alzani-Meta.
SITSI: I think you stop right there.  Sarshi is a complete darling, a small blonde whirlwind.
BARVENIN: Ah, a feudal vassal.
OBAYA: Oh dear haven’t we opened the tin.  All the little squirmy wormy things crawling out.
 
SORG: Sarshi’s brother.  Who is this baboon?
 
VIRUN:  Desk-jockey.  Never heard a shot fired in anger.
DIBESIT: And what does ‘my lord of Carlin’ do?
SORG: Caniba.  The whole of Carlin knows it, so no point in pretending mustn’t say where we are.
DIBESIT:  Then you too are a ‘desk-jockey’.
SORG: Yes, but I’m brilliant and you’re not.
DIBESIT: Naked display of the intolerable arrogance of the self-styled upper classes.
FRENSAT: Not if you know what they do at Caniba.
DIBESIT: And other one, Asdinan, why is he not in uniform.  Too busy knocking up the girls in the village.  Not of course that they are regarded as fit to be my fine lady of Carlin.
SORG: As was a student in Azt for a year, all he could stand.  He met a lady.  It didn’t work out.  The House is bringing up the result.
BARVENIN: What absolute prostitute abandons her child?
MARDIS:  Uzz’n don’ ‘ole with no tark loike that.
DIBESIT: We have the yokels here now?
MARDIS:  You keep on like that, in absolute droves.  Suggest you don’t come to the Rabbiters’ any time soon.  San-yaega-baht, old boy.  Asdinan’s cousin.  For the record, As and I are both cats.
 
MIDI:  Me, pig-shit, me, I’m the mother.  You listen hard, boy.  Asdinan is about the most decent upright guy you could hope to find in this country. He wanted to make a go of it.  I didn’t.  I did not and do not see myself as Mistress of Carlin!  Of course Carlin has our child, a much better life than being alone with me in the city. Turd like you are the bloody corruption, making everything normal and human dirty and sordid.  Actually what drew us together in the first place, shared loathing of shit like you.
 
KARULA: Kudos, honey, kudos.  I too had to choose between two very different lives. 
VEENA: Yes, gentlemen, where appropriate of course, women can bloody speak.  We are not talked about as though we are defective children with no hearts and minds of our own.
 
SADIA:  Just assembling my weapons.  Physical strength.  Manual dexterity.  Intellectual proclivity.  These must vary between individual women.  Equally they must vary between individual men.  Or all men are hard-wired to drive tanks?
SITSI:  I think if we’re honest – one problem for some chaps.  You start with a woman flier.  Next thing you know she gets promoted and you have a woman in command.
MUNZI: Undoubtedly some of us would have difficulty taking an order from a woman.
SADIA: Yes but why.
KARULA: Men lead.  Women follow.  That is a Kadun essential inside the military or out.  The usual expression is pretend-men
SADIA: How interesting.
KARULA: The unreconstructed Kadun male repays close study.  The essence is that human perfection lies in masculinity.  Some women do not properly understand we are a separate species and attempt to ape men.
SADIA:  Didn’t you leave out a hyphen: ape-men.  So being fully female lies in being nurturing, supportive, etc.  Male is active, female is passive, etc.
KARULA:  They claim it’s a question of the Whole.  For sure that conceals a whole load of grunting and knuckle-walking.
MUTAN: You can’t deny male and female are the two halves of the Whole.
SADIA: Looks more like 80:20 to me.
KARULA: ROTFL.  But each of us is both male and female. All the ‘hard’ attributes are assigned to men, strong, rational, hard, leaving women weak, irrational, soft.  But we are all equally human.  Each of us is a continuum from strong to weak, rational to irrational.  I am a real soft Mom, but if anyone threatened our children, I should not bleat and scream for Mitch to do something but simply blow his brains out.
SOBRENIN That much surely anyone can understand.
FILI: And we know of individual acts of heroism by women.  Unfortunately, for the purposes of the discussion, they were civilian women.  Couldn’t be anything else could they.  What do I mean, perfectly ordinary women.
SOBRENIN: Ludicrously, from the perspective of the discussion.  I think you probably mean ‘real soft Moms’.  That’s how Var-sega’ speaks these days?!
ZITAN:  Or the girls at the college in Boolan.  I’m wondering vaguely something in the idea, it’s OK for women to defend.  Attack is ‘unfeminine’.
MUTAN: I think that’s a really interesting one.  Just thinking.  Yes, we like the idea of our grisl being safe but if the line collapsed and our homes were under attack – think we rather expect/hope they’d defend themselves and our kids.
SADIA: By the time she’s blown out the brains of a few rats….
CONRULAT (Sardun, male, gay):  This of course is the root of the objections of some to gays.  That it affronts the Whole.  I certainly should not bleat and scream if anyone threatened me.  Whether I blew his brains out possibly depends on whether his name was Ban-tisol.
 
“Bomb just went off, Mitch.”
“I shall be most interested in the response.”
 
MUNZI:  No prejudice personally.  Know some here have.  Kudos for raising the matter.  I feel I half-understand, but we do have bodies.  Can you discount bodies?  There are of course aspects we would not discuss in mixed company.
SADIA: Maybe you should start trying.
DITSI: Gay. 
CONRULAT: The argument is the male unites with the female but that’s ‘male’ and ‘female’ as Karula said, he’s hard – so to speak, she’s soft, he’s rational, she’s irrational, etc.
 
CONRULAT: It doesn’t seem to have been considered that women and gays both have more at stake, more to fight for.
MUNZI: I am  unsure about that.  Not so stupid that I do not understand your fate is worse.  If we say we face absolute evil, how can it be more absolute. 
CONRULAT: I actually understand that.  Just torture us for longer before letting us die.  There is nothing they do to us they do not do to the heterosexual.male, bar of course rape of women, but as has been said you get it for what you do.  We get it for what we are.  It’s a question also of the future.  Under Cult rule we should have no future. 
OBAYA: Nor any woman who doesn’t think of herself as a stuffed toy.
KARULA: It is sure the case that, imperfect though some things are, we are all at least capable of civilized conversation.
OBAYA: Meaning they are.  OK, gentlemen, I think you probably are, you are having this conversation because you recognize things have to change.  Sensible bunnies. As touched on above, if you think females can’t be trusted with data analysis, catering, cleaning the freaking latrines, you’re out of it.  But you don’t think that.  I still don’t understand what you do think.
SADIA: Probably a lot of you haven’t – what’s funny in all this is what Airoch looks like.  Yea, under those pretty shawls is a mind like a freaking laser.  [Pic of sweet little old lady fiddling with her beads, draped in fringed dusky pink shawl.]
KARULA: ROTFLMAO if that is not disrespectful!  To one of the most powerful women in the world.  That raises questions does it not of women feeling it necessary to pretend in some respect to be men in order to succeed. 
MAYA: Airoch is superificially repeat superficially your dear old aunt.  She calls everyone darling and offers smoky tea out of bone china cups.  Then she kills you.  I shan’t tell you the name out of respect for the dead, but there was one rather senior Dabida politico who was irritated with Fidub over some obscure point of maritime law, can’t remember the details.  May he rest in peace.  Probably the Straits.  We’ve been grumbling at each other over whose Straits for 600 years and we’re not going to stop now.  Yes, dear irturbi, Fidub can be irritating!  But we love them anyway.
SADIA: Of course they’re our Straits.  Grin, duck, run.
 
But it was announced Mel and Hass were off to Var-sega’
You can see that.  Of course your cousins must visit.
Immediately? asked Seani.  “While Sarat’s stll there?”
Oh.  No low profile, then Hass?
Hass in riot in Var-sega’!
You’ll remember that gay guy Sarat met at the House who, it transpired, was shortly hosting a meeting.  Hass could chair it, said Sarat, not wholly seriously.  Clearly that was a very good idea indeed and naturally Hass honed his claws and started packing.
And here is a homely scene from the streets of Giraga.  A large square brick building with steps leading up to double doors, one of which is open.  T is surrounded by tarmac, parking-spaces.  A crowd of people are blocking the way to the doors, holding up posters with legends such as NO! TO PERVERSION.  NOT IN VAR-SEGA’.  THEY SHOULD BE SHOT.  There is a number of trucks on the tarmac, not parked in the designated spaces but facing the doors. 
Bloody foreigner aren’t you
Honorary irtubi, suggested Hass.  Maya’s cousin.  Then we hold the meeting at the House.  Either way, we hold the meeting.  Proved you ware rational, you are of course welcome to attend.  I would ask you what the hell business it is of yours how others conduct their private lives.
The demeanour, observed the for, the against and the undecided is not that of someone to mess with.
“What usually happens around this point,” said Mitch, “is someone calls for arrests for disturbing  public order.”
“They are, yes,” said Hass.  “I do not of course know local law.  Is it possible to have them removed for impeding lawful progress?  Or something.
“No-one wants anyone arrested,” said Mel, “just quietly put aside.”  He went back to twisting a couple of strands of wire together, a sort of physical doodle.  Another one, thought Mitch, not a curl ruffled. 
“Or we hold the meeting here in the open,” continued Hass.  “OK, I shall start.  We are gathered here, in a carpark, on a not particularly balmy evening, to discuss – what are we here to discuss – stupidity, ignorance, malice – will that do for a start.  The stupidity ignorance and malice that mars the lives of LBGT people in Kadun and other places in the world. Which alas we so clearly see around us.  Or in other words, guys, what is your little problem?
Flashpoint.  How do you bloody dare! You’re not in bloody Zur now, boy.  Talking about decent people defending their country, defending their kiddies.  You do not talk about it in the open!
“Has anyone anything sensible to say?” asked Hass in a lull.
There was nearly an hour of it, there would probably have been five hours of it, but it started to rain so the demonstrators were left to get wet and the meeting went back to the House.
 
What else d’you think you’re going to dribble, the intellectual excellence of bloody nurses?
Or of course the perv stuff about how I must do what I’m told.  If you want to physically abuse me, well, who am I to argue?  IF you want to cripple me, what does my view matter?  I think the courts might have a small problem with that. 
 
And of course the hysteric freaks who in a society the two pillars of which are Athens and Nazareth start to throw themselves around at the mention of goddesses.
 
There is a saying in Carlin, Never ask them to strip.” Carlini were observed attempting to retain grave and serious demeanour.  “It derives from this.  Cartoon strip in three frames.  Two onlookers, one saying to the other ‘Never ask them to strip!” observing 1, a trio or Corsin officers, foul but magnificent in black leather.  2.  This trio apparently relaxing at the end of the day’s work about to remove helmet, jacket, boots. 3.  Legs, feet torsos disintegrating into a foul blood strained mucosal ooze forming a puddle around them.
Really, Ardeshna, is it the leathers, is it the shouting?  They’re stripped.  All that remains are puddles of foul poisonous acidic ooze.
 
The cartoonist at Purple Prose, Zur’s gay paper definitely got something further from it: Varchulan as a snorting bull, tail raised having emitted a steaming heap.  At the other end the ring through his nose was attached to a chain attached in turn to a grinning skeleton labelled HOMOPHOBIA – SEXISM – TORTURE – MURDER – CORRUPTION.  To his amazement it instantly went viral.
 
Ah, but will it go viral?
So the next on-line edition of the Azt Star was naturally gross? Well, no, actually, more  remarkably, startlingly,  obscene, even for that collection of used toilet-paper soaked in infected vomit.  Maya in leotard split open at the crotch, the top of her thighs bare and bloodied, legs splayed, face contorted into porn star fake orgasm, caption ‘Come and get it!’
 
Baz of course got the short straw.  Sarat was chatting away.
“Sorry to interrupt.  There’s something Sarat needs – “ Wrong word but there isn’t a bloody right one.  “ – to see.  Can we just step aside a minute.”
Sarat was surprised but stepped.
“You really really aren’t going to like this.  Deep breaths.”  After a moment he said, “You’ve never really wanted to strangle before, have you.”
Sarat rang Maya then returned to the chattering throng and called for silence.
“The Azt Star has responded with a piece of pornography I shall not project.  Who the hell do they think they impress?”
Maya among Carlutan’s adoring young men, both acutely embarrassed and totally livid, said calmly, “Take it you have tailors, guys who can sew a seam.”
Run that up for you in two ticks, Miss Maya.
“I have been in Carlin 24 hours,” said Sarat, “and I haven’t yet been to the Rabbiters’.  I don’t think they can stop us laughing.”
All catapulted to their feet.
              Sarat waved his hand.
              “It’s cool, guys. How are we doing?”
              “Toast to His Imperial Majesty!” said Vishtu.
              Sarat realized this had as much to do with Smudge as with empire.
              “It was PANTHER.  They moved like greased cats!”
              They toasted him anyway.
              Baz periodically checked his phone until he said, “Big fat grin.”  He passed the phone over.
              “Maya has responded to Azt,” said Sarat.  “Can we project – wall will do.”
              People hastily shifted themselves to clear the way.
The cammo leotard didn’t fit terribly well but it didn’t have to, fur gilet atop and combat boots at the bottom. Maya sat on a tank slightly forward of a great many other thanks.  She also wore an Army cap and cradled a machine-pistol.  Around her were an Imperial Guard of Rewn’s guys.  Legend: How to talk to men who hate women.
Whistling didn’t seem appropriate and nor did any formal response so the gathering in the Rabbiters’ burst out clapping.
Baz got a further text.  He showed it to Sarat.
Sarat smiled almost shyly and stood up.
“Duty calls.  Please do come and watch if you like.  A small ceremony.”
“Not telling,” said Baz, “but I think you’ll like it.”
“We are agog!”
A convoy of trucks, cars and bicycles meandered back to the House.  Yea, from afar was it perceived the House was floodlight.  From closer to was it perceived the drive was lined with military rigidly at attention.  What the - ?!
Sarat had grinned to himself: There can’t be any protocol of which I am dismally ignorant for this one.   I think it should be on behalf of, symbolic.
Baz got out first and had a word with the military.
Sarat got out and began to walk up the drive.  Half a dozen men tailed off and fell in behind him.
Follow, Baz judged, at a distance.  The throng obeyed.
The military band at the front of the House began to play the imperial anthem.
People said after the whole of Kadun got to its feet, an obvious exaggeration, of course, but concealing a deeper truth (wrote some newshound or other).  Thought you were a republican.  It’s not about that, it’s about Kadun.  About a mad kid with a supreme talent for telling Azt to go fuck themselves. Nonetheless and heretofore in bars and offices, barracks and factroies, streets and squares the omnipresent camera saw Kadun stop and stand.
You want Kadun’s answer? asked Airoch.  That is Kadun’s answer.
At the end of the drive was a small table covered by a black velvet cloth.  On it lay Narulis’ sword.  Behind it stood Saryulin.
“Imperial Majesty!”
“My lord of Carlin,” replied Sarat.
“My lords, my ladies, ladies and gentlemen, I present to Sarat-ban-essa-eban-Narulis, Anile Emperor, Master of Kadun, Narulis’ sword. It is our honour to serve Narulis’ heir.”
Saryulin picked up the sword by its heft and held it high, then placed it across his outstretched palms.
Sarat carefully took it.  Whether a chorus of dancing bears high-kicked across the floor of the Ciletij Senate is not recorded – I think we should be told – and nor did the sword appear to possess any alarming properties such as those associated with the throne, but Sarat said after he felt something, call it history.
He turned and laughed.
“And now, Madam Minister?”
Then he said rather quiet unSaratish things about the honour being his, unlooked-for and truly not yet deserved, things that were totally Saratish about accepting the sword on behalf of Kadun’s fighting men, and things that were also Saratish but from deep within him, things he had not thought to say in public, or at any rate not today, about the weight of history and the responsibility of representing Va, and some fiend played with the lighting and the startlingly good-looking young emperor stood silhouetted against the House, sword in hand and he is bloody Narulis.
Amida held Cho’s hand very tightly and with her other hand wiped away his tear.  She kissed his cheek. 
Sarat laughed again and made a couple of experimental swipes with the sword.
“Yes, I can see why guys liked them. If ever there was a reminder there is work to be done.”  He grinned.  “If I had a home I could hang it on the wall, but I don’t right now have a permanent residence.  The Jumesit will do fine.  I think it should hang in the camp, on the wall of the canteen.”   He laughed again and gave another swipe.  “It feels part of me, but I suspect wearing one has to be learned.”  He turned to the soldiers.  “Could you do that please, have it hung on the wall.”
On this auspicious occasion…What he wanted to say, what he had to say, welled up inside him and just this once he was a tiny bit anxious about getting it right.  Really not so good at the eso stuff,  can we talk about the drains.
“My lords, my ladies, ladies and gentlemen, once again I thank you. I think now we should party.  Is that appropriate?  Some might ask it.  I’m asking it.  On a day that has seen great horror and misery.  Yes, because that is the message of Va.  Maya said it.  They came the skull-faces, but we laughed.  Va is the music they cannot silence, the dance they cannot terminate, the laughter they cannot make haunted and afraid, the triumph of life over death, the light without shadow. That is the point, that was Narulis’ point.  Or there is no point  There is no dark. You can say it’s crazy.  You can say how very evidently real is evil.  I’m a scientist, a biologist.  I’m the first to tell you blood is real, pain is real, death is real.  But somewhere it’s still the point.  We can still live unshadowed.”  Baz cooed internally, it’s all right, you’re doing fine, everyone understands. Well, as much as anyone ever does.   Sarat would have felt well rewarded by just one irturbi saying, know what you’re trying to say, lad. Not sure if I believe it meself, but I know what you’re saying. Of course, you’re a scientist, you’re not going to be silly about this stuff. He wasn’t.  He found his thread.  “Of course we as humans can’t do anything about mortality, accident, but the shadows of hunger, of violence, of endemic disease, these can be, must be, will be destroyed.  Living in fear can be eradicated.  People age and eventually die.  That is natural.  Dying at 40 of a readily treatable disease is not natural.  It is the result of human evil.  That evil is contempt, contempt for the being of others.  And so – “ He grinned.  “ – that impeccably practical and scientific sense I’m saying this empire stands for a Kadun where there is no dark.”
Sarat still wasn’t quite sure how to terminate this oration, so yeah, let’s all go and have a drink didn’t seem quite  the right note.    He walked over to the bandmaster.  Not exactly a band-piece.  If they couldn’t do it, he’d have to find it on his phone. 
Ah, said the more reflective reaches of Kadun.  Not just a pretty face.  So that’s the point.
“Now he is Anile Emperor,” said Cho.
Baya gave a naughty laugh, knowing how deeply Sarat preferred not to talk about that kind of stuff.
“This,” said Sarat. 
The notes of a lone trumpet soared into the night, followed rapidly by drums saying leap! Dance! Vault the heavens! Girdle the earth! The flutes joined in, the delighted gurgling of a thousand streams. 
And far away in the hospital at Car-sandis, Smudge by the bedside of the unconscious Midi took out his headphones and adjusted the volume and let the music dance over her.  “There is no dark,” he said softly, “stupid, ridiculous and true. Or there is no point.”  Then he knew he had to draw the music.  On a phone?  Later, but draw it he would.
And far, far far away in a bar in Girag Mitch bubbled over and grabbed Karula by the waist and began the wild dance, which is probably what Sarat would have done if Maya had been with him. In Zur Vij was a tad more decorous about it, taking Sarshi’s hand and leading her ceremoniously into the middle of the Sa’aanda Senta.  The wild dance, you will have gathered, is performed with one’s partner.  It’s not exactly, people try to explain rather feebly, that it’s erotic, it’s that it’s alive.  It’s generally described as naked life, the act of generation, someone once remarked drily, without physical contact.  Life that will not be gainsaid. Someone once described it as like a tree pushing up through the ground, from seedling to mighty lord of the forest in ten minutes flat.  Nothing is less like a tree than a couple twirling and spinning but everyone knew what he meant.  Someone else said it’s like an electric shock.  Divaldin looked at his young men and thought, the night is ended, Kadun is alive.  Stupid, ridiculous and mad.  Or perhaps not.  We have more urgent questions than metaphysics.  Or perhaps not. 
“I understand everything,” pronounced Ritawa.  Not surprisingly, the others choked.
“We all know you’re gifted.”
“Earthpower is latent.  Of course it’s earthpower, but it’s blatant.”
Munzi grinned.
“Insolent.  I sort of know what you mean.”
“The next bit,” said Ritawa.  “Break-out!”
“I really don’t know very much,” said Inyulat, “but I’m not sure Sardun would agree.  They’re pretty blatant.”
“But that’s here in the west,” said Ritawa.  “This is what Narulis brought to Carlin, this is why.”
It just sort of gets you, said those with fewer words.
Sarat walked over to the guys on parade, thanked them and asked them if they’d like to join him in the Rabbiters’
Baz, who of course thinks of everything, quietly had Narulis’ sword returned to the House for safe-keeping over what looked like being a long night.
Midnight  came and went.    Sarat thought it was time quiet came to the village and retreated to the canteen at the camp with those around him.  No sword.  Baz explained. The guys grinned and some of them formed themselves into a sword party which would go to the House in the morning to retrieve the relic.
So this is home, is it.  It’s a lovely little hut, purred Paw, better than the Falsit by a long chalk.  Ah me, the luxuries of rank.  Sarat saw that his clothes had been unpacked and neatly hung or otherwise stored  and made a note to thank someone (they included by the way the lemon flip-flops, which now assumed the role at very least of slippers; if the weather stayed mild he would – and did – wear them outside; besides clothes, razor, comb, toothbrush he had brought almost nothing. He saw appreciatively he had been provided with things like scissors, a scribble-pad, a selection of pens.   His sparse collection  of artefacts had been carefully laid out on the table.  Mirror shades (he thought people should always be able to see his eyes, 98% of the time, unless he felt very difficult indeed), a tiny model aircraft of dated model that amused him as a sort of totem, since Airoch had given it to him when he was seven; there was a small silver tray given him by Cho of the kind you might put on your hall table and dump your keys on when you came in, but wallet, keys, cards, all that belonged in another life; the only thing that had wowed the unpackers was an a small and exquisite silver panther, muscles rippling, clearly prowling, also from Cho.  The imperial laptop, the pulsating hub of the empire had been taken to another part of the NO GO complex, that labelled Ops, where he had his very own office.  Most of it was in any case in the cloud known as cat heaven.  Baz sat on the bed.
“You went and did and done it.”
“Quite a day,” said Sarat.
“Kadun is at your feet, you do know that.”
“Bit of an exaggeration,” said Sarat, snorting at a mail from Hass beginning ‘Dear Narulis…’  “Ring Maya.”
“And how has your day been?  Anything interesting happen?”
They evaporated off.
Others continued to toil into the night, even if it was a labour of love.  We too have a sense of humour and know how to use it.
“There!  First thing the Press blokes will see in the morning.”
“Of course we’ll take it down if Sarat doesn’t like it.”
At breakfast it was remarked that a mural had appeared.
Black screen.  The Anile Emperor in letters of imperial silver 
‘They came, the skull-faces, but we laughed.’  Narulis’ Journal.
Or as we say today: “You, off my planet!”
Screen fades. We are at the Great Gates. Death the guardian sits on the Anile throne.  A garbage-truck appears.  Sarat and Maya get out. “Yuck!” says Sarat.  “What is that! That’s my chair.”  A ring of shimmering silver is thrown at him from off-stage (detail, detail).  He catches it and throws it over the throne.  It falls to the ground. Death tries to lunge at them but is clearly contained by the circlet.  Death exhibits cartoon signs of rage, jumping up and down, smoke coming out of ears. “Terribly antsy,” remarks Sarat.  He and Maya confer.  “How’d it go?” asks Sarat.  “Begone, foul spawn of desecration,” says Maya.  “That’s the one,” says Sarat.  “Remember now.”  He turns to Death. ‘Begone, foul spawn of desecration.  Creature of slime and destruction, fell servant of dark and despair, I say to you, begone!’”  “It really pays to read,” says Maya.  “Pick up some awfully good lines.”  Sarat says, “You just never know when you might need a line like that.  Didn’t you hear me the first time?” “Me the second,” says Maya.  Little arrows appear on the screen identifying them; Narulis’ heir.  Zani’s heir..  “Need a hoist,” says Sarat and gets out his phone.  Another truck draws up emblazoned with ANILE ENTERPRISES INC, a black paw with silver claws on one side of the lettering and a silver birch on the other.  A giant hook descends, lifts Death from the Throne and drops him at Sarat’s feet with a truly satisfying cracking and crumbling of bone. “Needs a broom,” says Maya.  “I’ll get,” says Sarat.  He returns from the truck wearing rubber gloves and carrying a small vacuum cleaner, a second pair of rubber gloves and a broom, which he hands to Maya, and a bin bag.  Maya puts on the rubber gloves and sweeps the fragments up into a heap, while Sarat picks up the bigger pieces of bone and throws them in the bag.  Sarat switches on the vac and sucks up the crumbs then empties the vac into the bin bag, which he throws in the back of the refuse truck while Maya gets in the front seat and fiddles with levers.  The grinders start up and pulverize the garbage.  Meanwhile the hoist has collected the throne and the circlet and deposited them gently besides the garbage-truck.  Sarat and Maya load them into the cab then get in themselves and start the engine.  They fast forward through the Great Gates into Azt, pull up in the Colonnade, get out. “Needs a good spring-clean,” says Sarat.  They get out of the truck two buckets, two mops and a collection of bottles variously labelled PESTICIDE, RAT POISON, DISINFECTANT.  Azt is transformed, only it doesn’t look shimmering, unearthly, ethereal so much as like an advertisement for washing-up liquid, Screen goes whooshy then again black with silver lettering.  NARULIS’ RULES, OK!  (Punctuation is terribly important.)
Democracy – transparency – oversight
We do not do private deals.  We do not do hole in the corner. 
Free elections – equality of rights – minimum wage – healthcare for all
We do not do people frightened to speak. 
We do not do starvation wages.  We do not do rat-infested slums.
We do not do swanning around at Blatni.  We do not do criminals out of reach, untouchable.
(Inset of Searc and Sar-fenan dining at Blatni, heavy white linen tablecloth, crystal chandeliers, etc.)
Screen goes whoosh again.  Sarat and Maya are just finishing polishing a shimmering luminescent silver chair.  “Good as new,” said Sarat.  He sits on it.  “Room for two.”  “Hudge up, then!” says Maya.  He hudges and she sits beside him.  He puts his arm around her.  “You have a problem, my lord Krarlik, you have a big, big problem.  In fact two problems.
Screen fades to a black furry paw under which are strugglingly fruitlessly a number of rats with the faces of the government in Azt.
Final screen.  Death broken at the foot of the Anile throne.  Speech bubble: “I got it wrong again.”
 
 
Baz pulled his woolly hat further down over his ears.  Maps didn’t show that Da-conan, in a wide valley at the meeting of two rivers, got the wind straight from the Arctic.
“I have never in my life felt this much enthusiasm for a shopping mall.”
Double doors excluded the polar blast.
A mooch around the IT store confirmed all state of the art.  If there’s anything they need up here it’s comms. 
A seductive pile of sweaters caught their eye.  They walked firmly into The Great Outdoors.
“We’re visitors,” said Baz cheerfully.  Obviously.  Paw, chisel profile, long straight black hair, earrings, walnut tan, screamed Fidub.  “We’re really not sure we’ve got enough clothes for this weather.  We’ve got our thermals but we still weren’t exactly  warm.  Any tips?”
“Especially around the ears,” said Paw.
She examined their jackets and pronounced them good but recommended another layer, and hats with ear-flaps.  Fur hats.  They grinned at each other both thinking Sarat’d kill us. 
Tough, kill the whole of Van-senok.  Survival fur and fashion fur are clearly morally different.
“Got ice-grips?” she asked.
“No.”
 They came away with fur hats, oiled double-knit woollens and two vicious-looking pairs of ice-grips for their boots.
              “I’m sure there’s a man-made equivalent,” said Paw, imitating Sarat.
              “Ah,” said Baz, “but think of the natural resources that go into its manufacture.”
              Now for Loni’s Mart.  See what they eat around here.
              In-te-res-ting!  Frozen fruit, canned fruit, yes.  Fresh fruit, no.
              This is a peach-free zone.  Can we survive! Maybe in high summer.
              Hang on, there are no veggies, either.  Must have to go to a greengrocer.  Hope yet.
              Baz examined a few labels.  Not AMI!  None of the nutritional stuff you get in the south.  Probably 50% sugar.  Frozen won’t be.
              They checked a few more labels, especially those of a hearty stew to keep the family glowing and calcium is essential for strong bones and teeth, help your children grow tall and straight with our delicious yoghurt dessert.  Just doesn’t say how much calcium.  Defo no food regs.
              Our delicious yoghurt dessert came in a variety of flavours.  They selected blackcurrant and raspberry, and decided what went with their picnic-lunch, yeah right, we’re going to recline under a tree sheltered from the sun’s burning rays, was bread and cold meat. Similarly a butcher and a baker were required.  Convenience shopping in Da-conan extends, we hope, to all in one mall, not all in one store.  Home-delivery, they wondered.  Local shops have always done that.  Presumably if they can reach you through the snow-drifts. 
They found a scrumptious smelling baker, bought a loaf and asked where they could get some cold meat, smoked beef, maybe, a bit of ham.  While the assistant was slicing and wrapping, they surveyed the goods.  Woo-hoo, beef labelled not pre-frozen is twice the price.  Somewhere, presumably south a bit, is a prize herd.  Ah, a greengrocer.  You can tell that by all the greens.  Clearly senoki get their veggies.  There were many varieties of cabbage and onions, leeks, a sort of frondy lacy thing on a stalk which reminded them of seaweed but surely couldn’t be. There were large pink and green apples in plenty and a few oranges.  The woman in front of them was paying cash in small denomination coins, and apparently her eyesight was not good. The shopkeeper was being kindly. 
“We’re foreigners,” said Paw, “and this is going to seem a stupid question. Do you get soft fruit up here at all?”
“Is it because of the war?” added Baz.
The shopkeeper bellowed with laughter.
“You are from the south?  It is very different here.”
“Fidub.”
“I think Fidubi do not shop.  They pluck the peaches from the trees.”
“Bit like that,” said Paw.
“I have been.  When I was younger, merchant fleet.” We didn’t think of the sea.  Stupid of us.  “In season we get a little from Var-sega’  Mostly it goes to children and the Army.”
In-te-res-ting!  We didn’t have the Imperial Miltiary down as fructivores, though we have heard that for a lot of the lads the Army is the first decent meal they’ve had.
“Of course!” said Baz.  “Guess it’s apples or apples.  Don’t mean to be rude, but where do the oranges come from?”
“Harn.”
The sea, the sea!  Think hard about that one, wonder what else comes from Harn and it’s not necessarily edible.
“Could we have six apples and an orange, please.”
The shopkeeper gestured to them to help themselves. Not worried about transferring bugs.  Probably too bloody cold.
They arrived back at the double doors, where a small crowd was assembled, through which weaved their way a larger number of people coming in.  It had started to snow.  Women with shopping-trolleys were on their phones.  Can you come and collect me, guessed Baz.  It can’t do this!  It’s spring!  OK, the total Van-senok experience.  Snow-cats!  It’s not far to the inn. 
So. This – is – snow. It’d be all right if the polar blast wasn’t lashing it into their faces.
“Brrr!” said Baz.  “Afternoon!  Would you have two rooms for two nights, please.”
“Good afternoon to you!” said the receptionist.  “Will that be with dinner?”
“Yes, please,” said Paw.
They filled in the register.
“Wow!” she said, “Fidub!  I’ll need to see your passports.”  She sounded very apologetic about it.
They reached in their jackets and produced the circular, apple-green (yes, well, they stand out) passports of the Republic of Fidub.  Even Fidubi think the circles on the cover are weird, pretty, but weird: top left, off-centre and bottom right are embossed concentric silver circles.  She flipped through their passports.  All PANTHER passports have diplomatic stamps.  If she noticed, she didn’t say anything.
“Would there be lunch?” asked Paw, yoghurt desserts abandoned at the prospect of hot food. 
“Need to go to the bar for that,” she said.  “Plenty of time yet, finish lunches at half-two.  Show you to your rooms.”
The rooms were about the width of three beds and little longer with low ceilings and ye olde beams that were probably real.  They were also warm.  They sat on Baz’ bed.  Paw tore a hunk off the loaf. 
“No trace,” said Baz.
“How can you tell!” said Paw.
Whatever they saw and heard would get back to Sarat.  They assumed Sardun would track them out of an intelligent curiosity as to what that would be.  They also assumed that, this near to both House and Camp, anyone and possibly everyone could be Sardun.  Swaddled in fur and padding, senoki were not easy to tell apart. Since they enjoyed the thought of Saban being regaled by their interest in agriculture, they didn’t bother to get serious about whether they were being followed.
“Thought-experiment.  If Marula had been wandering around the mall, could you tell.”
“Rich, poor,” said Baz, “all swaddled under padding and fur.  Fur might be better quality!”
“We can assume no-one’s perishing of hypothermia in Da-conan.  Vaconik might be different.”
“Clean Air Act,” said Baz.  “I mean let’s assume everyone’s got a grate.  Every house here is going to have been built with a grate.  Modern housing maybe not.”
“Ciletij has masses of coal,” said Paw.  “No way anyone’s flying in coal.”
“Non-perishable.  Rail?”
They decided to stick to plain food, not because they weren’t adventurous but because there was no disguising what it was. After looking at the menu, they realized this was just as well because plain food was all there was.   Baz had a steak in a huge roll with fried onions on the side and Paw had tench and potatoes with mint and butter.
“Guzzling,” said Baz between mouthfuls.
“So fresh it’s wriggling,” said Paw.
“Don’t do gourmet specialties.”
“Bar lunch.  Maybe at dinner.”
Dinner indeed proved more exacting.  There was a choice of four main courses, one was grilled pork, one was fried shark, and the other two were written in irturbi. 
“Do a few things well?  This must be where the locals come when they want to dine out.”
“And the plain stuff is for aliens?”
“Really sorry,” said Baz, “we’d love to try something new, but what is it?”
“Moose.  It is a stew.”
“I’ll have that please.  Do you eat it with potatoes?”
“Bread.”
“Whatever’s usual, please.”
“I’ll have the shark please,” said Paw.
After they’d completed their order, Baz said, “That didn’t swim in any local river!”
“That’s the interesting bit,” said Paw.
Baz’ phone gave a small meow to indicate he had mail.
Taja to Baz:  What the pluperfect iridescent 3D quintessential hell are you two doing?  The vid is all over the Army!
Baz: Don’t exaggerate.  I gave Saban the distribution list.  WYSIWYG. 
Taja: That at least is true!  Where are you?
Baz: Da-conan. A Delightful Town In the Middle of Van-Senok.  Would be if it wasn’t brass monkeys.  We are hardy.  We are valiant.  We have been out in SNOW.  Doing a little recce-ing. 
Meow.
People around looked up once more.  I think Vibrate mode.  Did not expect to be in demand.
Cho to Baz: Excellent.  Double brownie points with crossed paws.
Baz: Get Deelan [Cho’s cook] to cook you up some figisi-jahsonan. It’s really yummy. If she can get the ingredients, which I doubt.
Cho: ROTFLMAO.  You are at the camp?
Baz: Doing good by stealth.  Looking at the local shops, seeing what’s available to eat round here.  I’m just working out how to break it to Sarat.  Fresh fruit, not a lot of.  Make that soft fruit nil.
Cho: I’m sure he will survive.
Baz: Lots of veggies.  Get their vits.
Five trains a day run from Vaconik to Ge’at in Var-sega’, a journey of thirteen hours.  The train stopped at This Halt and That Junction only if required.  Seems sensible, don’t suppose the numbers hold it up.  Oh right, think I get it, leave work in Vaconik, pick up your backpack, catch the 19.32 and you’re in Ge’at at a reasonable time to get some work done.  Sounds less aggro than flying.  Do it in reverse but who uses it the rest of the time?  From Da-Conan to Vaconik, the journey is three hours and 22 minutes according to the timetable.  Clearly not for commuters, then.    What do people go to Vaconik for, a day in the city, must be museums, theatres, big shops of course.  All the same, seven hours travelling.  S’pose you can sleep. The last train back to Da-conan was at a highly respectable 23.20.  Go to the theatre, if you want to get home at 3 in the morning.  Maybe not something to do all that often.  Paw differentiated firmly between 3 in the morning in a bloody blizzard when it was probably -200 and 3 in the morning on the Leolisle.  When they arrived at the station for the 8.47 they thought there’d be maybe half a dozen other travellers.  More like 20, 25.   Even Baz can’t walk up to total strangers and demand their purposes. After all, he didn’t have a clipboard.  Just doing a survey… Added to the list of find out more about.  The train was warm and comfortable with a buffet car in which they sat and watched Van-senok speed by.  At last the trees thinned out and gave way to heath, and then the beginnings of a built-up area, at first sparse, then modern housing, builders’ merchants, hoardings, a park, a playing-field.  Vaconik Central possessed what they ticked off as attributes of main-line stations, restaurants, a grand hotel, cash machines, a pharmacy, a newsagent and stationer’s, a coffee-shop, a food-store and senoki and presumably also some segani quietly availed themselves of these facilities.  Buzz, it did not.  Frivolity, such as art, music, entertainers, was absent.  Well, they are at war.  Paw gazed at the departures board and thought somewhere underneath this is wow!  Down to Wintawa, up and round to G-T, reach the whole continent.  Then they go to Vasucula and Vasuculi arrive.  A quick look round espied no obvious Vasuculat.  Train came in some time ago?   Central it certainly was and within minutes they were in Gava-san, the hub, a broad and ancient highway, still cobbled, closed to traffic, down which they slowly ambled.  Again, ‘everything’ was there, movie-houses, theatres, department stores, a music-shop or perhaps more exactly a shop for musicians, for it was huge, a department store in its own right, and, unusually, appeared to sell everything from grand pianos and exquisite violins to the latest drum-kits, synthesizers and amps.  Hip young men with green hair argued vociferously about guitar strings, but it didn’t break the tone, the mood of the place, which Baz thought decidedly subdued.  They wandered into a network of alleys and found ‘usual shops for alleys’, specialist book-sellers,   jeweller’s, shops selling items of the ilk of incense-burners, floor cushions, rugs, tapestries, scented candles and cheap sets of bowls and cutlery, which Paw designated ‘furnish your student lodgings shops’ together with grocery-stores and a bicycle-shop.  They must, they thought, be very near the Collegium: ‘usual shops for student quarter’.  We cannot have come this far and not see the ocean.  Their alley ended in a large plaza.  Oh.
              “The Shrine,” said Paw softly.
              “Maybe they don’t call it that,” said Baz cautiously, suddenly feeling totally ignorant of earthpower.
              “Old, old, old,” said Paw, “maybe as old as M-P.”
              It looked like but of course couldn’t have been a single block of marbled grey stone the length of the plaza, two storeys, two rows of round windows, a steep over-hanging roof, the edge of which was carved with leaves and flowers.  In the centre, the door, nearly the height of the building, had carved in it a silver birch and two women, one in armour bearing a sword and one with a bow.  Gaurding the door were two stone bears.
              Hasty consultation of phones.
              ‘The Viledeen is the oldest building on the continent still in use today.  The foundations were laid in 6700.’ 
              ‘The Ladies, as they are called, were once believed goddesses, one of the fight and the other of the word.’
              ‘The inscription at the foot of the door reads ‘Enter, who can.’  The meaning of this has long puzzled historians and archaeologists.’  Baz frowned.  ‘Perhaps ironically, the Great Door is now kept sealed.  Entrance is at the side.’
              “There’s a side-door on the left.”
              The side-door led through a long  passage to a (warm, covered) courtyard with noticeboards on the walls, benches and a single large slatted wooden doors with great black hinges opposite the Great Door. A couple wrapped round each other consulted their phones.  There was no centre-piece.  A tree before it got warm and covered? Can’t believe they’d have felled a tree! 
              The two rows of windows on each side lit the grey chamber.  They saw the roof was supported by pillars.  The walls were intricately carved, with trees, with flowers, with bears, with wolves, with stranger things, fantastic creatures, half-stag half-man, giants with many heads. Fragments of paint remained. There were inscriptions but in irturbi, so they didn’t understand.  There were thick dark green carpet (added? replaced?) and benches cut into the walls on which were thick dark green velvet cushions (added? replaced?)
              What, thought Baz, do you do here, what did people do?  He liked the absence of any plaques, sign-posts, translations, it made it current, not just a museum-piece, but they clearly didn’t expect strangers.  Right now, any way.  He thought that before the war Vaconik had probably enjoyed a steady stream of travellers if not tourists eager to partake of their ancient culture and doubtless knowledgeable about it. 
              It must have had some rites and rituals.  Mel would know.  There’s no centre, no centre-piece, focus.  It is the centre-piece.  You’re ye ancient trader, come in out of the forest with your skins or meat or whatever and this is the meaning of Van-senok.  What is? 
If you have the forest, you don’t need pictures of the forest.  Go back, back, back, impossibly far back.  What else was here in 6700? Probably nothing. It would have stood majestic, alone.  Don’t understand.  People who worship goddesses don’t do it sitting on benches.  Then he wondered if he did.  A house for them? Of course it was all painted.  Must be a reconstruction on the Grid. No furniture?
              Paw had already let go.  Time loosened not slipping.  Shadows of the past.  Green, green, their robes were forest green and they had flowers in their hair.  Then death, blood, such violence, pain, then tiny flowers, everywhere, the walls, the ceiling, a carpet, a canape of tiny red flowers
              Something happened, he said rather feebly.
              I know, said Baz. Not human…
              The violence was that of animals, grizzlies ripping and tearing, wolves devouring still living flesh.  And trees drinking blood.
              They had a zoo here?  Trees in zoos don’t drink blood. People were sacrificed to wild animals?  Not unheard of but the venue, no, the venue does not mesh with that. 
              At the First Turn, the pain, blood, death were gone.  I think I see, do I see, an attempt to conquer, an enemy repelled, the enemy? Now the carvings on the walls were all of trees and flowers, great trees, small trees, trees of fantastic size and shape, leaves and branches in spirals, leaves climbing up the walls, leaves in circlets as no leaves ever grew.  For a moment he saw it as it was, a magic forest of brown and green and gold. 
At the Second turn they are in what was probably a starry vault, painted, painted, remember it was painted.  Stars, constellations, spheres, sun and moon are carved into walls. Look up! hissed Paw. The ceiling gave the illusion of open sky, all grey but distinctly full of cloud in more shades of grey than they had thought existed.  
At the Third Turn they are in the sea, fish, crustacea, seaweed, crashing waves, and great ice-floes, seals, polar bears.  Totally amazing.  Why has my sadly limited Fidubi education not told me about the Viledeen.
The woman with the bow came to meet them.  Baz smiled, suddenly feeling he understood everything about earthpower, everything, nothing, it didn’t matter, all he needed to know.
              But of course there was no-one there.
              “I think,” said Baz. A succession of wild thoughts came to him.  Sarat must come.  He must meet her.  Narulis met her.  That explains everything.
              They emerged shaken back into the courtyard. For a while they just sat.  Whew! 
              They padded off to see what lay behind the Viledeen and followed the path round.  You can walk all the way round the outside too.  Does that mean anything to you?  At the back was cluster of single-storey buildings also of grey stone.  Clearly it was thought fitting modernity impinge on them for covered walkways linked them and there were signs directing you to conference rooms and café.  They made a beeline for the caff. The furnishings included the sort of hyper-hip chairs that don’t have individual legs, instead consist of a curved metal frame that is three sides of a rectangle.  A poster covered in diamonds in various shades of pink, red and purple, against which some rock hero unknown to them strutted his stuff was entirely in irturbi.
              They sipped coffee thoughtful.
              “An eye-opener,” said Baz.
              “Broadening of perspective,” said Paw.
He consulted a map of Vaconik, then brooded over a larger map of the coast.  “So the port is there but we’re well inland.  Flooding?”
              Baz said: “Funny.  Earthpower.  Has to include water!  I was thinking – did Narulis represent the sea?  Like the two halves of the Whole.  Can we get a bus?”
              “Oh, this is mega,” said Paw.  “The Cult marched in from the sea and headed for the Viledeen.  Vaconikans or whatever the word is apparently sat back polishing their nails and having another coffee.  The Cult had – like a totem, the IoD, they carried before them. 
After a while senoki wandered in to remove the corpses, all of which if not stricken by arrows – as well as being stricken by arrows – bore the marks of wild beasts.  History of course tells it as an ambush, hidden archers, couple of tame bears.  The totem was smashed and covered with tiny red flowers.
              “I have just had the Viledeen Experience,” said Baz.  “At this moment I’d believe anything.  Whether I do believe anything – does it say anything about her?”
              Paw was grinning.
              “Don’t laugh.  The general belief is she was a construction-worker.”
              “Say that again slowly.”
“Yes, she looks as the goddess was depicted, but the goddess was depicted as an upper-class senoki huntress.  They even have a name for her, Mivalia za-plenit, It seems she was killed in an accident on the site, as happens on the best regulated building-sites. And some people see her ghost.”
“I want,” said Baz, “to say that was no ghost!  However, my experience of ghosts is zero, so what do I know!”
“This is interesting.  Apparently the people who built it were all exiles, rebels, whose concept of earthpower was more sophisticated than that current at the time.”
“If there’s one thing for sure,” said Baz, “this place does not function on the level tree not like fire.”
Consultation with the girl behind the counter revealed a bus linking Vaconik to the next town on the coast, more of a suburb really.  Of course it’s really nice in the summer.  Nothing going on there right now.
              The bus-driver said cheerfully that he stopped on the promenade.  He did.  Baz and Paw pulled their hats down to their eyelashes and their scarves up to the tops of their noses and leant against the railings of the sea-wall watching a malevolent dark-grey ocean batter the shore and smash onto ancient groynes.
              Visibilty was good and far on the horizon were frigates.  Makes you think, doesn’t it, said Baz.  Coastal security, must be a freaking nightmare.  Anyone could slip ashore.  Don’t really think about the Fleet, admitted Paw.  A particularly vicious gust assailed them.  Don’t think we need to linger.  Behind them shops and cafes were heavily boarded up and battered hoardings gave glimpses of another world, half a smiling brown child wearing water-wings.  A quick circuit of Hinsinil told them its core was another Da-conan, neat grey stone houses, with modern bungalows on the outskirts.  Guess you don’t build high. Baz continued to mutter about the antithesis between sea and land.  I mean, sea is basically lethal.  You can’t drink it, you can’t water your pot-plants.  There’s something there and I’m missing it.  Paw pulled up pictures of Hinsinil in the season, unrecognizable, a fun fair with a roundabout with highly painted horses, families on the beach in swim-gear, the shops along the promenade adorned with tubs of shrimp-nets and flip-flops.  
              “There’s a documentary I saw once about the tundra.  How it comes alive in summer, covered in flowers.  I think it’s all like that.”
              Baz grinned.
              “Senoki?  They’re little green shoots just below the surface.”
              “It really throws us, doesn’t it, no street-life.”
              “Commuter-land, either working or at school.”
              Two men passed them, accompanied by large, thickly furred and very lupine-looking pooches.
              “hmm.  Nice fluffy pet for the kids.”
              “Cross-breeds?”
              “Dunno how it works.  If you let your bitch in season into the wilds, does she saunter back in an orgasmic glow?”
              “Is there abortion for dogs?  I mean seriously.  Do you sincerely want a litter of wolf-cubs?”
              “A few tame semi-wolves.  In the Viledeen?”
              Baz was chortling to himself.
              “Just thinking, vet up here, maybe Sarat just needed something a bit more dangerous.”
              “Steel gauntlets to talk to your patients?”
              “Bet you anything they’re fish fans,” said Baz.  Paw’s face said yer what? “Tropical aquaria, exotic jewel fins darting about the room.  Or else they like everything grey.”
              “Tundra,” said Paw again.
              A large square van decorated with pictures of baskets of veg and bread, smiling cows presiding over pitchers of milk, a cheeseboard with crackers slowly passed them.
              “Bet you that’s home-delivery.  They just don’t have to go out.”
“What about exercise?  Can’t have pools in the basement, can they?”
“I run.  You run.  I just do not have the urge.”
Baz slowly lowered his scarf.
“Mainly cos I feel the air would be ripped from my lungs.”
“They must get used to it.  Be used to it.  Think if you grew up here.”
They returned to the  train-station.
              “We could go all the way down to Wintawa.”
              “Recline in the sun-soaked lagoons of the archipelago.”
              “It’s the job,” said Paw sorrowfully.
              “How do we get from this Ge’at to the House?”
They returned to Da-conan for the night, resolved upon a day of wandering around (if it didn’t snow again) followed by the 17.09, which, they noted, had the decency not to get to Ge’at until 6.40.  Did it pause for a rest, did it just dawdle?  They suspected, rightly, that the view would be mostly trees. 
Thirteen hours of train, in which to sleep, read-up, watch the changing landscape (has to change eventually)  and catch up on email. Taza had gone silent so Baz decided to wake him up.
Baz to Taja: Was Narulis ever associated with the sea, particularly in Van-senok?  Thinks: earth/sea, two halves of Whole.
Taja: Diligent cats if somewhat wayward…Yes. The prince of water.
Baz: Meaning unity?
Taja: Yes.  Fidubi are/were called the People of the Sea.
Baz: We went and saw the western ocean.  Had thoughts.
Taja: You have never seen the sea?
Baz: Not after the Viledeen.  Did Narulis meet her?
Taja: !!! Yes. You – went – Viledeen?
Baz: Bloody amazing.  Enter, who can?
Taja: I understand, he said drily, the level of experience may be different.  The Cult attempted desecration.
Baz: Read that bit, lacerated corpses.
Taja: No comment.  Have you seen the Fortress?
Baz: Eek, no.  They knew about us, then, Fidub, before Narulis, I mean.  Got this far.
Taja: Or we got that far!  Not sure egg/chicken.
Baz: ‘There are many Fidubi artefacts in the museum at Car-sandis.’  Not sure that’s the important bit.   Shit, missed the museum.  Must be on-line.
Taja: Not in Vaconik?
Baz: On a choo-choo.
OK, museums Vaconik.  The National.  Why do I think that does not mean the nation of Kadun.  The National is the preserve of Van-senok’s historic.  Baz entered ‘Fidub’ in the search-box.  Woo-hoo! Of course there would be zillions of entries, silly of me.  Narrow it down.  Sea-faring? Why would they have sea-fared?  Turn south-east and start walking.  Riding.  Probably quicker. ‘Contact with Fidub.’    ‘During the Sirenian – ‘ the what? Quick detour. 
“The Si-turnit dynasty ruled Van-senok between 5903 and 6427.  They were overthrown by Sibenis za-fenan.  Marula’s lot.  I didn’t know that!”
Paw said: “What was the grouse?”
“Hang on…Slightly weird.  ‘The Sirenians occupied – conquered is too strong a word given that these regions were almost entirely uninhabited – ‘ Conquerors would say that.  “ – much of the north of what is now Var-sega’ and the north-west of what is now Vaudos.’  What is now?”
“We’ve always known the borders shifted a lot.”
“Za-fenan’s crew saw that as a dilution of earthpower, the strength of which lay in the trees. Actually wasn’t what I.”  He flipped back.  “Oh, double yikes.”  He silently passed the phone to Paw.
“As you say….”
‘This pair of exquisite silver dolphins was a gift from Fidub to the Suzerain of Van-senok.  Fidubi sailed the length and breadth of the continent but never settled in Van-senok, as they did further south, doubtless finding the climate not to their taste.’ 
“All right, all right!”
“You do just have to wonder exactly what they made of Narulis.”
“Wonder a lot of things.  If they were gung-ho for the integrity of their borders.”
“Empire fixed the borders?”
“Fidubi settlements in Var-sega’?”
They felt a bit subdued themselves: there’s such a hell of a lot we don’t know. At least it’s all ancient history.  See how Mel’s Place is doing.
 
…………….
 
Thanks for the suggestion I become a mindless animal, a creature of your making, but I’d really far rather be me, intelligent, learned, witty, literate, female me.  Love the notion I’m unacceptable in my own country.  You just get funnier and funnier.  Ridiculous little animal. 
 
I laugh at you daily. 
Can’t create, can you, poor sad sick little bags of mindless pus.
WENDIN:  So if you were around, you’d eat with us, right.
SARAT: Sure.
GUNTA:  If there was anything you eat!  I’m not talking about cuisine, I’m talking about fish and fruit! 
WENDIN: Army food is good, right, no rat, no crap, but it is a  bit – solid, you could say.  We get apples and chard.  Pears.  Any fruit there is, we get first choice, which is basically why the cats told you none in the shops.  If it grows in Var-sega’, we eat it. 
SITSI: Patsito fried with bacon is just about the yummiest thing you could dream of.  I think it’s pretty solid, fat and calories.
 
Sitsi and others saluted Varna sharply. 
“We are a delegation, sir!”
“And?”
“Fact-finding mission.  Permission to go to Zur again.”
“And meet Sarat?”
“Well, if he should cross our path – not exactly inconspicuous.  Seriously, sir, no, well, maybe, but we’ve got a much clearer idea how things work now.  We think we’ll look at this differently. With more understanding.”
“Initiative,” said Varna, drily.  “They have not attacked for 137 days.  I see no reason they should choose your absence – unless you cause such mayhem in Zur as comes to their attention, of course.”
They pretended to look shocked.
“Three days,” continued Varna.
“Days!  That’s brilliant!  Thank you, sir.  Thought you might say three hours.”
“It matters,” said Varna.  “Zur neat will not transport to the Colonnade.  Essential Zur, quite possibly.”
 
“That side of the border,” said Sitsi, “he’s a Fidubi student living in Zur.”
“Can’t play that one.  Why’d we want to meet one of those?”
“Is there anything wrong with saying, lok, well, we just wanted to meet you.  Doesn’t sound very dynamic.”
“We don’t have to be dynamic that side of the border.”
“He sounds a straight kind of guy.  Just tell it straight.”
“What’s that?”
 
SITSI TO SARAT PM
Varna has agreed to leta group of  us loose in Zur again.  We did just wonder if we might meet you at some point, if you were around.  It’ll be 25th to 28th and we’re staying at Colbin’s, which I’m sure you know.
 
“SArat in in depth talks with Kadun military,” drawled Baz.
“Yup,” said Paw, “the younger and less elevated the better.  Front for Varna?”
“Wanna meet,” said Maya.
“Pretty inevitable,” said Baz, “anyone who can wangle the trip.”
“Tell the exact truth,” said Sarat, “there’s a forum we’re all on.”
“Of course we could always go to Carlin,” said Maya.
“Sarat on state visit to Burunda!”
 
SARAT TO SITSI PM
Coolest!  D’you want to come to dinner one evening?  Let me know which day
 
SITSI TO SARAT
Yes please!  Thank you very much.  The Vaneday, the 27th
 
SARAT TO SITSI?
Shall I invite Shav and Petrush?
 
SITSI TO SARAT
Again, yes please.  Brill.
“I’ll get it! shouted Petrush and flung open the door.  “Gentlemen, welcome to chaos!”
Maya, crossing the hallway, stopped, said, “Darlings, lovely to meet you,” and continued on her way.
“You will gather,” said Petrush, “an event has taken place.  A cat, a real one of the four-legged variety, has chosen this moment to have kittens.  Sarat of course constitutes the attending physician.   I suggest we repair to the tranquillity of the garden.  Unless any of you is a specialist in feline obstetrics. I of course have the misfortunate to be Petrush.”
They introduced themselves.
“I’m Baz, he’s Paw.”
“I’m a cub,” said a cub dolefully.  “That means I get all the crap work.  What would people like to drink?  We offer a variety of fine wines from the sun-drendched vineyards of Fidub.  Got that off the label. Else there’s beer, orange juice, peach juice, lemon juice, tea, coffee, mineral water, and probably anything you can name.  Including applestock.  Maya says she’s dressed for kitten duty and will just wash and brush up and be with you in a tick.”
“Peach juice,” said Frensat in tones of awe and wonder.
 
KAF love FAF!  Ciletij fury as FAF entertains our real allies!  KAF officers in lightning raid on Camp Five (I’ll bring the wine)!
 
And it seems Shavli-ban-essa, Cho’s grand-daughter, is staying at the House in Carlin!  Naturally rumour is rife but if we go now to Carlin…
 
“Car-sandis Gazette.  Imperial Highness!  Or do I mean Flight Captain?  History plays strange tricks on us.  If we ask very nicely, would it be possible to tell us what the hell is going on here?”
“Shavli will do.  It’s actually all very straightforward.”
“It is?”
“Would you just confirm for viewers in Kadun that you are a pilot.”
“I am.”
“Our guys do not look like that!”
“That’s exactly the point,” said Shav.  “It’s simply part of the on-going debate on women in the Kadun military.”
“We can certainly see that – a foot in both camps, you might say.”
“Some guys Sarat met online said they’d be in Zur and would love to meet him.  Cool, he said, and Shav and Pretush – my partner – too.  So we had a peaceful delightul dinner in the garden.  Then Petrush had the idea.  We cleared it with Varna and Skyhawk.  Everyone knows Fidub shares military intelligence with Kadun.  This is really a complete non-event.  I mean what the guys wanted to see was the practical stuff, how it works on the ground, showers, sleeping accommodation.”
“FAF’s showers, top-secret, I think we can all see that!”
“Everyone knows – they do, they do, that is of course why the howling.”
“Skyhawk said fine, so long as the guys are back in Kadun before you guys get on to it, and I could fly them back, so I went to Burunda.  Then Duvi invited me to stay over the weekend here.  I’m sure the House can provide fine china tea-cups to put the storm in.”
“So you have visited Burunda – “
“Sadia and I.  She’s my boss.”
“I may stop laughing in a minute.  So – Skyhawk and Varna despatched two female pilots to Burunda.”
“Hospitality,” said Shav, “should be reciprocated.”
“I guess they weren’t too rude, you being.”
“They weren’t rude at all.  That was one of the things we talk about.  Not being rude to us!  About – normal levels of boyish high spirits being – changed by the presence of females.”
“Male conversation.  This is actually important, isn’t it.”
 
A laconic message was conveyed to the press-fiends at the gats of Camp Five: Sadia and Petrush might talk to you, when they’ve finished work, if they feel benevolent.
 
“Impressions of Burunda, Sadia?”
“One state of the art base is much like another.  They have birds.  They have hangars.  They have beds.  Like ours they’re pre-moulded.”  She grinned.  “The question was of course location.”
“You’d say it had a masculine air.”
“Pretty surprising if it had a feminine one.”
“Sure, sure.  You know what I mean?”
“Do I?”
“I play mixed hockey.  I also play all-male hockey. Atmosphere, Sadia, surely everyone agrees, all boys, all girls for that matter, is slightly different to mixed.”
“We tend to be cleaner.  That does not apply.  Burunda is spotless. That is of course exactly.  Changing-rooms were discussed freely and frankly. As in they don’t exist.  Some form of partition is hardly a huge deal.”
“Unless it’s glass!”
“And everything is state of the art?  We all know the propaganda.”
“They’d hardly have won every round if it wasn’t.”
“At the political level, this is a clear statement of alliance between Fidub and Kadun.”
“At the political level,” said Sadia, “you need to talk to someone else.”
“May we bring the cameras in?  I’m thinking for the benefit of a wider audience in Kadun.”
“That too is someone else,” said Sadia.
 
Sure, said Skyhawk.  At their convenience not yours.
 
“Sarat has been talking to the Kadun military,” said Seani, dead-pan.
“I think it’s easy enough to see that one.  Wanders Grid, finds guys slagging off women in uniform.  Excuse me….”
“Only he is Anile heir.”
“Guys slagging off women in uniform who are opting for empire!  He’s not going to say nothing, is he.”
“I wonder if he displayed his customary tact,” said Seani.  “So how about you guys join the real world, fast.  See if you can find it.”
“Are they allowed on line?”
“That’s an interesting one.  Not exactly secret, the location of Burunda.”
“Any airbase.  Doesn’t move in the night like an army.  Maybe it’s different for KAF.”
The lizard hissed.  Hard to say which is more intolerable, the presence of foreign agents, the presence of the former imperial family, pretend-men pretending to fly.
 
So bomb us to ashes, said Varna, the way you have failed to do for ten years.
Varna is a happy man right now.  He has found out Sadia is both straight and single.  Of how to pursue this he is less sure, but he has imagination and initiative.  He will find a way!
 
“The house,” began Sitsi to a rapt audience, “it’s a detached, but it’s a town-house, not like a mansion.  Surrounded by trees so the neighbours can’t see in!  There’s a wide hall.  So far as we could tell there are only two rooms on the ground floor, two that matter, I mean there’s a downstairs loo, cloakroom.  Both looking out onto the garden, opening out, French doors, patio.  My mum would go ape over that kitchen.  Obviously it’s enormous and there’s a counter in the middle with like bar-stools,  Everything built in of course.  The other room it’s like living and dining.  There’s one huge polished dining-table.  I don’t know anything about antiques except I know one when I see one.  Rest is two huge black corner sofas, a few floor cushions, an AV unit, telly, sound systems, occasional tables.  One or two things I suspect would pay our salaries for ten years.  Kept trying not to stare and – well, felt stupid.  We’ve all seen ancient and valuable at the  House, but this.”
“Well?” they said.
“Lifesize silver panther, absolutely phenomenal, practically see it breathing.”
Sarma looked up sharply.
“I’m just wondering – the Buconin Panther?  Reputedly lost wonder of the empire.”
“Maybe it’s a nearly as ancient replica?” said Frensat.  “I do not see how they could have got that out of Azt.”
“Other thing is a painting, huge landscape.  The colours are entrancing.  Hadn’t a clue where it is and thought I could ask that.  It’s the Sohenisle.”
“We don’t really know what happened when the empire collapsed.  Maybe they said take what is yours!  OK, I doubt it!”
“As for the garden, imagine you’re relaxing in a beautiful orchard in Carlin!  Only it’s not an apple-orchard, it’s an orange-orchard.  Grove, is grove the word.  There’s a hammock and a couple of loungers and a wrought-ron table and chairs and a long table for food and drink.”
“We all helped ourselves from bowls of deliciousness.  You know Sarat is WYSIWIG, because he behaved like any normal well-brought-up host would.  Do you need a spoon?  Pass you the patsito!  It is actually rather good.”
“Yes, bur what was the dliciousness.”
Fillets of habia, six different kinds of mixed salad, lots of little bowls of dips, dressing, sort of, except they had real live pieces of orange and peach in them, .cheeses, fresh crunchy rolls and butter
“Nothing that came out of packet then!”
“We stuffed ourselves, frankly.  Of course there’s plenty of salad in Carlin.  Call it winter salad.  This was summer salad.”
“Servants?”
“Cubs.”
“Behaviour to the boss?”
“Quite hard to describe really.  Offhand but intensely willing.”
“We were addressed thus.  I’m a cub.  That means I’m supposed to know what you want before you do, but I’m a failure.  What would you like to drink?  We offer a wide range of fine wines from the sun-drenched vineyards of Fidub – got that off a label – and practically anything else you care to mention, including applestock.”
“I trust you weren’t pissed by the time you got to Fidub!”
“Day to sober up.  We did finish a little inebriated.  Decorous I hasten to add.”
“In front of Sarat?”
“Baz and Paw.  Who are quite something.  Don’t expect Sarat to know everything about Kadun.  I rather got the impression they do!”
“Cats, aren’t they.”
“What did you actually talk about?”
“Anything.  Everything.  Including fixed wings!  But we didn’t talk shop long enough for it to – you know what I mean.”
Frensat grinned.
“Long enough to know Flight Captain Ban-essa knows her stuff.”
“I don’t really think any of us said anything more exciting than anything we’ve said at the forum.”
“yes, well, the forum’s quite an exciting place!”
“Just thinking.  Hi.  I’m the ADC around here.  That means I get to do all the crap – you mean it doesn’t?  How may I help you?  I can see my way to that.”
“Who do you think did the cooking?”
“That’s an interesting one.  State of the art electronic devices is probably a good part of the answer to that.  I mean if you just put it all in the blender and whizz, it stops looking difficult, doesn’t it.  All those wonderful dips and dressings.”
“You do have to know what to put in the blender.”
“Probably borrowed a chef.  Must be enough around to borrow!”
“Didn’t think of that.  I reckon if it’s just the pair of them they look after themselves.”
“He’s a self-starter, all right.  They all are.  You can always tell.”
“Let us heigh to yonder fair Isles of FIdub!”
“Well, that too.  When you run out of ice and your host jumps up and gets more.  It’s kind of a clue.
 
Hospitality is to reciprocated.  Naturally Sarat is welcome in Burunda.
“Or you could just declare empire,” mused Essa.
“Dad!”
“What is the key fact here?”
Sarat sighed.
“If I were just some Fidubi student.”
“If you behave as HIH, you must expect people to think you are HIH.”
“I could stay at the House and visit Burunda.”
“Wander in and out of Carlin as though it were your back garden.”
“You said about people’s assumptions.”
“So?”
“So – if the whole of Carlin is assuming something – no, that doesn’t work.  Why is this so complicated!  Like – I’m in a little bubble and the assuming is over there somewhere.  The – the weight of the assuming squeezes the bubble, but the bubble is vulnerable, because me is also the assumptions!”
“Something of the kind,” agreed Essa gravely.  “What will you talk about?”
Sarat repeated Sitsi.
“It couldn’t be hairier than the forum!”
“Understood,” said Essa, “but wrong.  Guard of honour?”
Sarat was silent a minute.
“If – if Cho’s going to be emperor, then I guess – I mean I think they’d see it as – not exactly just a bit of fun but – but that’s then not now.” Then, “Ths is – not sure I can put it exactly.  Not manipulation.  Maybe visualization!  But it’s fake.”
“You’ll do, kid, you’ll do.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
“Behave as if empire is given.  And if the whole of Kadun sees you reviewing the troops in Carlin?”
“Oh no?”
“How would you politely decline?”
“I refuse to believe most guys would be deeply disappointed at not standing in the rain so I can walk past them.”
Essa laughed.
“When the alternative is chatting to you about their kids’ health, I should say undoubtedly.”
“I call the shots,” said Sarat.
“As a guest?”
“They can’t have it both ways.  If I’m HIH, I’m not an intruder.  I belong.  WYSIWIG.”
“Better they know now,” agreed Essa.  “I look forward to the comments on the forum.”
“Still thinking,” said Sarat.
 
Baz to Firas, c.c. Cho, Tar, Sarat, Maya. 
Sarat has decided to go to Burunda.  Lot of nattering.  Upshot: ‘not appropriate’ (Tar) for the H-W to gallop beside her.  Rearing, throwing back their manes – oh no, wait, that’s Sarat.  Two female felines, please.
Firas: JD?
Baz:  Ha! 
Paw:  We’ll keep a diary for a couple of days, give you the idea.  Remember this is Zur and Maya’s A-M, so people bend her ear about the oddest things.
Baz: Framework: .  Only places invitation-only are bedrooms and lairs, theirs, ours.  Lair is like private sitting-room or in their case study room.  Whole family can be downstairs but if Sarat has a project to finish or something he’s in the lair.  They’re students, they don’t get up or go to bed at a set time.  Evenings we’re in and essay-free. the four make that six of us are mostly lounging around on the ground floor, kitchen, sitting-room, garden, pool.  Scenario could include close friends. Here are some pix.  You can see it’s fairly open plan.  ‘Course we’ve got our own tellies in case of vile dissent, but none of us watches much and some of the natural history documentaries are really good.
Cho: There was really quite extraordinary footage of the Archipelago.
Paw: Thank you for that helpful comment. 
Firas: Food?
Baz: We eat, yes.  Three of us do.  And I don’t mean Maya’s dieting. It’s the Sarat Diet.  Bears no relation to any fad or carefully analysed biochemistry.  Name me a raw food freak who starts with coffee, cream and sugar. He devised it.  He keeps incredibly fit on it.  Do assure impeccable as both guest and host – eats and serves normal food.
Firas: How is the housekeeping organized?
Baz: Midnight trips to the Megamart.  We have a standing delivery of non-perishables with the standing claws he or she who takes the last loo roll is responsible for ordering more.  We have a daily delivery of bread, milk, cream, fruit and veg.  Masses of it.  Lot of it gets juiced, of course. Blended.  Sarat doesn’t approve of juicers, says they leave out the good bits.  We have two million volt blenders. Chuck whole oranges in.  We have a selection of eats in the freezer, from the hill.  When Tulon, that’s Tar’s chef, found they had to feed half the adolescents in Zur they got very good at interesting things that could live in the freezer until the ravening hordes arrived.  There are eight bars, caffs, restaurants within a ten-minute walk.  No circs in which we starve.  Additionally we have delivery of whatever we feel like, whenever we feel like.  We share the login and add what we want.  As and when we get fish off the quay and choccie biks from the Megamart.  I’m the only one who can really cook so I’m the chef if it’s just Vij and Sarsh, say.  If there are hordes we scrounge help from the hill.  Or proper grown-up people like Cho and Amida.  Maya makes a mean masali.
Tar: Zur is 24/7.  Evil grin.  AMI had not previously marketed ready meals.
Firas: A different world. You all of course know each other very very well.
Paw: We’ve talked about it.  We think we’re easy to get along with.
Sarat: I grew up in a large family.
Firas: My concern is constant allusion to people and places that mean nothing to irturbi.  Housework?
Maya: I sort of grew up in a large family.  The hill.  Total strangers.  Masses of H-W.  Impromptu meetings.  Organized chaos.  Colts come in once a week to do the place top to bottom.  Otherwise we clean up as we go along. 
Baz: Grin.  Sarat does the garden.  Good little citizen mows the lawn once a week or when it’s up to our ankles.  Serious.  Sarat likes green things and green things like Sarat.
Firas: And you two.  Leave, refreshers.  I understand it’s handled by Vax.
Baz: Wd on’t like to miss anything interesting.  Mostly we pootle off when it’s exam-time and they’re bent over their screens.  Mostly work out wherever we are.  If it’s Zur with the H-W, at Cho’s with Vax and Fox.  Etc.
 
Cho to Baz, Paw, Sarat, Maya: And everything gets back to Firas?
Sarat: We’ve talked about it.  Tough patsito.
Cho: Sarshi?  Mel?  Suddenly you entertain your closest friends and family upstairs?
Sarat: I really don’t think any of us has anything to hide, at least not from Firas.  He’s not going to go to Glitz, is he.  Carlin’s swarming with cats.
Cho: Or you want a full-frontal?
Sarat: That too occurred!
 
“Hi,” said Baz.  “Baz.”
“And this is me with my best party manners. May I see your ID, please, sir.”  Baz grinned.  “Jaizi.  She’s Mellow.”
“I am, I am.”
“This is it?” asked Paw, looking at two backpacks.
“We have been living in a camp.  We thought we’d get new clothes instead of bringing.”
“Got my toothbrush,” said Mellow.
“So Sarat and Maya are - ?”
“With mum and dad in Fidub.  We thought we’d give you a whistle-stop tour, go and pick them up, drop in on Cho, but we also thought jet-lag and finding your way around first.”
 
“They were guest rooms,” said Paw, “so the décor isn’t exciting.  Obviously feel free to decorate to taste.”
“So you’ve both got double-beds,” said Baz.  “We didn’t think you’d mind that.”
“A real bed,” said Mellow.
“And walls!” said Jaizi.  “I’ve never had a room of my own.  Mum and Dad weren’t exactly rolling, shared with my sister.”  She grinned.  “Till I ran away.”
“So do you want to settle in, come and find us downstairs at your leisure.”
“Shower!  Yes please.”
 
Mellow emerged from the shower and stood naked in the middle of the bedroom, revelling in the warmth.
“Don’t get carried away.  There are men in the house!”
“Goddess be thanked, no frilly lacy girly curtains.”
“You didn’t really think – “
“I thought if guys tried to be welcoming they might think something feminine.”
“There is Maya.”
 
 
“We have an urgent practical need to go shopping,” said Mellow.  “else it’s roast cat.”
“Only lightweight things we have are Ts.”
“Firas said he’d opened us bank accounts.  We have to go in person and sign on the dotted line.”
“Tell ‘em to give you smartcards,” said Paw.  “We’ll sort the other stuff.”
“Half Zur commutes to M-P and vice versa.  So there was an urgent need not to faff around changing money, presenting papers and all the rest of it.  Everything goes on the smartcard.”
“That is wow!”
“We are expert on everything ‘cept the coolest place for female attire.  Start with Pritta’s, it’s a department store, at least you’ll get shorts and sandals.”
“What’s the name of this road?  So we can get back!”
Jaizi to Firas: And here we all are on the beach at Fidub…This is work?  Having a wonderful time, wish you were here!  We’ll say more when we’re in the swing of it. 
Mellow to Firas: Not good at describing things.  Pix, kitchen, lounge, our rooms (which we can decorate how we like, when we get around to it), garden, pool. Robot.  If you make crumbs you just languidly reach for the remote.  Tech.  Very.  Gather similar in reach most income levels.
Long long talk about automation, culminating in guided-tour of AMI!  Like we were VIPs or something.  Slightly mind-bending, great halls of bustle and activity but no people.  And your question for the day is – what do people do instead?  First, Zur did it slowly, so kids in school learned the jobs their mums and dads did wouldn’t be there, so they had to start to think differently.  Second if there’s a ground rule you have to be able to talk to a human.  Like your robot vacuum starts to spit the crumbs out instead of sucking them in, you can instanter connect with human beings.  Third, choice. You land in Zur, you can hire a car to drive yourself, you can hire a robot driven vehicle, or you can have a good old-fashioned cabby.  Plenty of guys who still sweep the streets, in Fidub, I’m told.  They like it.  It gets them out in the sunshine and they get to chat to people.  As a ground-rule, all the basic shit jobs have gone, but anything that people actually might enjoy is flexible.  And Zuri make things.  They make home-made this morning that really is.  They make carved from a single log – not sure Sarat approves that one, but you get the idea. And they all need helpers.  People who are less talented cart the logs around.  You have to take account of climate.  Giraga in mid-winter, carting logs around is pretty shit.  But there’s one very basic.  People are expected to be ert!  Not inert I mean.  Like I said, not good at description.  Something like - capable of having their interest caught  in a normal way, whatever that means.  Think we all know the opposite, people who are just flattened. 
Jaizi to Firas: Pic of me and Paw.  We know the script.  In Kadun people are who dark like us (!) are assumed to be Fidubi, least if we’re cats.  When they know you’re gypsy, then they get stupid.  As far as Zur goes I’m yet another Fidubi.  So we’re talking.  Far too polite, by the way to give us the third degree, now tell us all about yourselves, but we’re talking about Kadun, women in Kadun, what we’ve been doing, just general and I give them the whole works.  Mum’s what they call a ‘good gypsy’, Dad fell for her and she got respectable, but the crap is always there, so he’s very protective, and even more protective – like the guys say, ook after our grils, gypsy girls fair game to anyone in some circles, gyppos, whores, thieves.  He’s got a shop. Haberdasher’s, he and mum know their stuff, they’re (nearly) accepted.  And they want me to work in the shop.  Safe.  And I’m not having any.  Dad’s dead straight.  One of the reasons they’ll never be totally accepted is because he won’t cut mum off from her family, so when they’re around they drop in and it’s brilliant and oh the hissing and spitting.  And I get the idea.  I know Gran’ll never go along with it, so I have to make her, don’t I.  I say I want to see the world, safety in numbers, not stupid, wouldn’t run off on my own, like a holiday, right.  Never had one of those, unless you count picnics on The Ridge.  So Gran talks to Mum and Dad.  Now, bless them, they know I don’t have the most interesting life, get a bit of fresh air, but of course they’re anxious, you stay on the road.  That means there’s basically no shit if we stay away from ‘good people’ and of course the caravans know who’s a real good ‘un and who isn’t, the farms that’ll sell you eggs, meat, milk, bread.  Cats always used to keep an eye open for us, but of course they’ve got other things to do these days.  But I get my holiday and we run into a group of cats and I just know this is what I want to do.  Snag: I’m 16.  Just 16.  So I had to stick it out in the shop for a whole year, but I did because now I had a future.  What I did not say was can I tell mum and Dad what I’m doing now, they’ll be over the moon, they won’t believe me!  Didn’t want to sound about 10, after which I realized that in Kadun I’ll be on camera and they really won’t believe it!  Is that our Jaiz?  Can’t be!
Then we got onto the hard stuff.  Like most places we have no rights, no fixed abode, vagrants.Like there was a movement for gypsy rights, but it sort of got pushed under the carpet.  So Sarat (of course!) said healthcare and I was pretty much on my hobbyhorse and said what’s that?  Serious, I said, if we’re sick, we either look after ourselves, call it folk medicine, but ome of it works, or if we’ve got any sense we find cats to help.  Of course not all docs are turds, some treat anyone poor for free, but if it’s something major cats can generally break the door down.
He really cares, about people being fucked over, he really, really does.
 
Forwarded to Mitch:
Your comments?
There are some amazing young women in Kadun.   Gypsies are welcome at the House. I have friends in CLIK who know them well.  They say to praraphrase they only steal from total bastards and CLIK would steal from everyone.  It may entertain you to learn some members of CLIK get twitched about that, insisting they’d only take it off the rich, whereas a farmer who has mysteriously lost chickens and eggs in the night may have very little himself.  I shall assuredly book my guided tour of AMI.  I do not know anything about the interior of Dabida but I know Fidub is much like us in that it has huge metropolitan centres amidst large more sparsely populated areas with small communities – which would be destroyed if routine work such as street sweeping were automated and the inhabitants had to seek work elsewhere. As we both know many streets in our metropolitan centres are not cleaned in any manner and to enforce that level of civic responsibility overall might indeed raise the possibility of labour shortage; from mending the roads to painting public buildings, many things are not happening, partly because of war, partly because of neglect.  A small sleepy town I think has little need of automation to render it clean and effective, but automation is not merely a problem for the working-classes.  Software now resolves many basic book-keeping and accounting issues.  I am not entirely sure I think software an infallible guide to diagnosis but certainly it is preferable to an incompetent or over-worked doctor.  A doctor of course is central in small sleepy towns.  Where he or she knows families as his or her parents knew them.  HE or she brings something irreplaceable.  But healthcare in cities could only benefit from technology.  Kid’s got a rash.  Here’s a pic.  Again as we both know, Kadun is not fully wired and that must surely be a priority.  I leave you to guess whom I think wold mke it a priority!
 Firas: Can he do it?
Mitch: That will become clearer after Burunda.
Baz to Cho:  OK, you want me to stay at Burunda.  That is absolutely delightful and kind of you.  I shall stay at Burunda.  Of course after 24 hours you may ask me to leave.
Cho: He has decided to be difficult?
Baz: He does not like being neither one nor the other and has I think decided therefore to be unflinchingly both.
 
Unflinchingly both pitched up at Burunda in a grey silk polo, a black faux fur gilet, black silk loons and lemon flip-flops.  Maya was similarly attired, other than feet clad in plain black sandals.
Don’t they make a lovely couple!  Sistenda and As exchanged glances.
Someone’s taking the piss!
Sitsi – well, at least you know him – is not good at keeping a straight face.  Valiantly he succeeded.
“Welcome to Burunda!  This of course is AC Varna.  Asdinan you know, Sistenda of course is Leader of the Chamber.  Think you’ve met at the forum.”
“Shouldn’t miss this for the world,” said Sistenda.  “Delighted to meet.  The toes are not cold?”
“I have good circulation,” said Sarat.  “Lovely to meet you.”
“My lady Maya,” said Sistenda.  “Your cousins of course have often visited.”
Rehearsal, thought As, for the real thing.  Can we cope with the real thing?
“Mel speaks warmly of you all,” said Maya demurely. 
Jaizi and Mellow wore PANTHER Ts and combat trousers and boots.  Consequently a number of young male eyes were not wholly fixed on Sarat.  Baz and Paw had grinned.  “Entering enemy territory?”
“Jaizi, Mellow, Baz and Paw,” said Sarat.
  “Let us go inside,” said Varna.  “Coffee, I am sure, will be welcome.”
Baz to Cho: So we are walking through two lines of guys, not rigidly at attention, just standing easy, and I can see little thought-bubble forming: Fuck this for a game of soldiers.  When they get to the end of the row, he turns and says to the guys, “Thanks for turning out.  It’s really good to be here.  Catch up with you later.”  So we proceed indoors to have coffee and soon we’re all nattering, nothing particularly intense, Sarat says Shav’s told me a lot.  I’d really love to look around.  That’s when the fun begins.  Half an hour later Sarat’s sitting on a truck chatting to some guys fixing a truck and Maya’s on the flight control deck  learning how it works.  Three-quarters of an hour later, the sirens go.  Didn’t take long,
 
Right, fuckers, said Sitsi.  They all grinned, knowing they were all thinking the same thing: done it a million times, of course Sarat here doesn’t make an difference, of course.
Sarat in air-raid in Carlin!  How thick are they? thought Mitch, meaning Azt.  If they really want to focus attention.
There are a number of Press-persons at the gate. 
I’ll talk to them, said Sarat.
“What do we call you?”
“Sarat.”
“Why?”
“It’s my name.  Ilike it.”
“OK.  Sarat.  You have just sat through an air-raid.”
“Balls.  It was nani away.”
“You have a reputation for speaking plainly.”
“Do we look bombed?  Does anyone?”
“You have not lost your boots?”
“If I should be splashing through a muddy field, I’ll wear them.”
“Losers,” said Maya.  “Azt.  Spent ten years losing.”
Laughter,
“We realize of course Alzani-Meta is no more kindly disposed to our foe than we!”
“Correct.”
“But you are hardly here as Alzani-Meta!”
“I am not.”
“In what capacity would you say you are here?”
“Sarat’s other half.”
“In what capacity are you here, Sarat?”
“Anile heir.”
“Some people might find that a pretty breathtaking answer.”
“Don’t see why.  If Narulis’ heir can’t wander around Carlin, who can!”
“I grant it is a little hard to question that!”
“Or indeed Zani’s.”
“Or that!  It was a very long time ago.”
“Not as far as Azt is concerned.”
“You would not by any chance be here to make Azt unhappy?”
“Would I, would I!  Usually I object to cruelty to animals.  Unless they have names like Krarlik.”
“Ban-varsit,” said Maya.  “If ever a dumb animal was asking to be taunted.”
“There’s a lot of imperial property in Azt,” said Sarat.  “Not totally surprisingly, no-one ever paid us for it.  Magnificent row of houses on the waterfront, 25-40 Galena.  We even have the deeds.  Most of the rest is some Ministry for Desecration or other.  We look forward to serving the eviction orders.  Thought we’d give it to the people of Kadun as homes for disabled kids, things like that.”
Silence.
“You – own – your family owns – “
“Corsin HQ, yup.”
“And you have the deeds?  I don’t think I believe I’m hearing this!”
“Truly?  I mean you wouldn’t want to wind us but.”
“It really wasn’t worth the hassle,” said Sarat.  “What would we do with it if we repossessed?  Now it is.”
“Truly, the deeds?”
“PANTHER got out what they regarded as critical paperwork.”
“Sell it!  A whole load of lawyers and ill-feeling – further ill-feeling!  I do take the circumstances into account. Then the people who were living in it to go back living in it?”
“Something like that. I’ve made it sound simple and it wasn’t.  Some of it was sold.  The people who took it over offered to pay, but they weren’t strictly speaking paying us, they were paying Sohenoil.  Contriubtion to the upkeep of PANTHER.  There’s always been a lot of toing and froing, at least once the dust had settled.  Asdinan’s great-great-great-great-grandfather was huge pals with my great-great etc. 
“What you learn from the horse’s mouth!”
What’s in the forum stays in the forum, unless you see an opportunity to innocently get it out.
“You’re dining of course in the officers’ mess.”
“Tonight, yes.  I have other invitations.”
“I bet you do!”
“Dinner in the canteen tomorrow.”
“Good for you.”
“The food’s good, no question.  You might find it a bit short on the green and leafy.”
“And the fins!  Hope you eat meat.”
“I eat meat.”
“You do?  Lot of greenies would shudder.”
“Not at home.  Or for that matter when it’s self-service, like in the student caff.  When I’m a guest, I eat what I’m given.”
Unexpectedly gales of laughter.
“Glad to see some young people are still properly brought up!”
“I wasn’t when I was 16.  I had to decide, was I going to be civilized or was I going to be a pain in the.”I had to decide, when I got political, when I was mixing with a whole load of different people, was I going to be civilized or was I going to be a pain in the.”
“I admit to being a veggie.  Some people would say eating meat isn’t civilized.”
“Sure, but you change that – higher up the food chain!  Not by irritating the hell out of a mate’s mum.  Sarat doesn’t eat this, Sarat doesn’t eat that  - what is this crap?”
“Not meat, fish!  Silly of me. 
“All of them had little dietary foibles,” said Baz.  “Baya, that’s their mum, just said fine.  No-one else is going to buy it, no-one else is going to prepare it or cook it, you’re on your own, kiddos.”
`Possibly not a continent-wide conversation Sarat intended to start, the one where parents directed highly significant glares at their young and the young rallied forcefully: but eating meat is really wrong, Dad.
“You yourself are most correctly attired, of course, apart from.  What point do you seek to make with the footwear?”
“I’m quite hardy,” said Sarat, “resistant to cold.”
“Is it not ridiculously flippant, adolescent, one might say?  Have you entirely grown up?”
“One may say whatever one pleases,” said Sarat.
“Perhaps you convey a silent message.  You will do your duty, but your heart is on the beaches of Fidub?”
“Conversation-piece?” suggested Sarat.  “How much drivel can I provoke?  This is a social visit and as such a fundamentally light-hearted occasion.  If it’ll make you feel happier, I should not wear flip-flops to a funeral.  If it’ll make you feel happier, I do assure you I should not wear flip-flops to a funeral.  Do you actually have nothing better to talk about than my toes?”
“You have lovely toes,” said Maya.
“Someone appreciates me!”
“We all know you have fundamentally serious interests.”
“Good!”
“I imagine you’ll be sharing your politics with the guys, even on a light-hearted occasion.”
“If they’re interested.”
“That possibly depends!”
Sarat grinned.
“Polluted drinking water, yes, the number of wild fungi close to extinction maybe less so.”
“Precisely.  I think the feedback from this occasion will be most revealing.”
“Maya, you must have visited many Dabida military installations.  Would you say what you notice here is there is no space for the feminine.”
“I am honestly not sure,” said Maya, “what space for the feminine is
“If half the personnel were female,” said Sarat, “would they take up more space?”
“Tampon machines in the loo,” said Baz.  He looked around at them.  “Was it something I said?”
“We don’t usually – “
“But we should.  I’s exactly the basics that matter.”
“Perhaps I didn’t put that well.  I did not mean lacy frilly curtains!”
“We’re irturbi,” said Mellow.  “Maybe what’s interesting is the military installations we haven’t visited!  Worked with them in the field, of course.”
“You ladies are field-agents.”
“Done a bit.”
“We all train together,” said Mellow.  “Girls need food, they need sleep.  They do not need to get up at 4 am and go on some mad exercise, but nor does anyone else sane.”
“In that there is some truth.  Cats of course have to be – fighting fit, just like the guys in uniform?”
“I’d hazard a guess,” said Maya, “the word ‘comfortable’ sneaks in somewhere.  Depends, doesn’t it.  The mess strikes me as quite luxuriously comfortable.  If the guys craved comfort on BT, they could of course whistle for it.”
“Blokes really love sleeping on stony beaches,” said Baz, “and any crabs involved are of the most elevated crustacean kind.  With sharp pincers.”
“They make you sleep on the beach?  With the wildlife? That is callous!”
 “I thought Fidub was endless sand!”
“They seek out the bits that aren’t.”
“you’re not winding us up, are you?”
“Would I!  Actually no. Search rock-pools, Fidub.”
“The seaweed’s fascinating,” said Sarat.  “Also highly edible.  Whatever we eat, it’ll be different.”
“Seaweed?”
“Cultivated for human consumption.”
“Well I’m - !”
“There is one serious matter I should like to raise if I may?”
“Sure.”
“As we all know, empire is one of the options open to Kadun and as we also know, there is a great deal of hostility to empire in Ciletij.  I may say we take this with a pinch of salt.  Irturbi will decide the future of Kadun.  Clearly your grandfather is not Jaizal and anything to the contrary is loony-tune.  But there is also a great deal of hostility to you personally over certain trees.  I wondered if you had anything to say to soothe the savage bear?”
“No.”
“Nothing if not succinct.”
“I’m a scientist.  I deal in fact.  I presented facts.  They don’t like facts.  Tough patsito.”
“We’ve all read it,” said Maya.  “Spoilt stripling of the privileged classes, ripping the bread from the mouths of honest Ciletij workers.”
“Don’t forget probably gay,” said Sarat.
“I do assure you he isn’t!  Interference with the internal affairs of Ciletij.  And where are they selling the timber?  Yes, Vaudos!”
“Interfering with a few fat-cats who pay, actually when it comes to it, rubbish-wages to those honest workmen they pretend to care about, profiting from the Cult.”
“Cho wants to muscle in on the timber trade, that’s another good one.  Have you seen Fidub?  It’s a treeless desert!  At least in comparison.  I will not bend your ears for five hours on this.  Promise!  All the facts are on the NoZone site.”
“I am sure they are greatly appeased.  Coming closer to home, questions are of course raised as to whether Sohenoil can profit from empire.”
“How?” asked Sarat.  “What could Cho do that he can’t do now?”
“Buy Vaudos!  Buy into at least.”
“Sure, but there are things we can assume about industry in Vaudos.  Wage-levels, health and safety.  Any civilized national government is going to establish a minimum wage and HandS.  Employee health insurance.  The works.  Why buy and land ourselves with all the extra costs?”
“That is an interesting point which of course goes way beyond Sohenoil. Just the entire structure of Kadun!  Obviously we have a lot of thinking to do about the way ahead.”
Sarat said: “The important thing is that everyone is involved.  As I understand it, that means a whole lot more people need to be wired than are now.  Also as I understand it, there are thought to be bigger priorities. I personally am not 100% sure about that, people should not have decisions taken for them, in which they’ve had no say.  I think where there’s a will there’s a way.  Computer caffs would be an obvious start.”
“That of course is basic democracy and equally of course there are parts of Kadun from which it is entirely absent. How and this indeed is a general question which many of us are addressing would you hope to engage people who are currently divorced from political processes?”
“Talking to them.  In bars, factories, wherever.”
“You personally?”
“I personally am happy to talk to anyone anywhere, give or take the obvious!  I mean I’m really happy to talk to Krarlik in Azt, but maybe not over a beer.”
“If I can just stick my oar in,” said Jaiz.  “You want to take certain things into account here.  Divorced from political processes.  What does that actually mean?  1.  They think no-one’s listening.  2.  They’re scared to speak in case someone thumps them.  3.  It’s deliberately made hard for them.  I’m not saying here in Carlin.  You don’t go back to a meeting where you’re made to feel stupid, made to feel dirty, made to feel poor, made to feel gypsy.”
“You are, aren’t you!  I mean I think that’s brill – “
“Maya better watch her jewellery then!”
Maya, who had appeared almost to be dozing, snapped to battle-stations.
“Who said that?”
“Oh come on, it was a joke!”
“Watch her with Sarat too.”
“Everyone knows gypsies have a certain reputation – “
“Do they really?” asked Sarat.  “I judge people on the ground.”
“Alwasys loved, ‘everyone knows’,” said Maya.  Everyone knows women are this gays are, that.  IT’s crap.”
“We were having an intelligent conversation,” said Sarat.  “Anyone got an intelligent response to Jaizi’s points?”
“Only that it’s straight down the line.  Of course there are some people who are – apathetic.”
“Flattened is my word,” said Mellow. 
“Flattened is a good word.  They don’t believe anything will ever change, so not unnaturally they don’t see any point in trying.”
“So that’s back to Question One  - how to engage them.”
“Seems to me that if Sarat walks into a bar – people aren’t going to yawn, are they!”
“Might do,” said Sarat.  “Some rich kid who doesn’t know from a from e – “
“You have a reasonably vibrant personality.  You may be able to convince them that you do.  Especially since you actually do.  The health side, I mean.”
“We should not deny that it is – if not commonplace, then certainly it happens, that the more affluent and articulate dismiss as exaggerated the complaints of the working-class.  To be able to say firmly this pollutant causes that disease is actually pretty important.”
Maya grinned.
“No, no, it’s not lysantium, it’s just your imagination.  Lysantium is a mould that flourishes in rotting wood.  Its spores give rises to chronic respiratory impairment – one picks up some truly fascinating things living with Sarat.”
“He’s just so romantic,” cooed Baz.
Sarat put his arm round Maya.
“Can be.  Lysantium is actually deeply obvious but I guess if you didn’t know any biology you could dismiss it as stains on the wood.”
“Found a pic on my phone.”
 
“Think we’ll leave you to it,” said Sarat.  “We are guests.  Supposed to be in there, not out here.”
“Found something else too.  Endemic in housing riddled with damp.”
“What practically can be done about that?  I mean the best will in the world can’t tear down all the slum housing.”
“Haven’t gone into this one,” said Sarat, “but I do know 3D printing can create a house in 24 hours.  Not the world’s most fantastic house, but maybe better than lysantium.  Print an apartment block.”
“Say that again slowly.  Some of us aren’t very – print?”
“Print,” said Sarat.
 
High five, miss cat, high five.
Sarma beamed at Jaizi.
“Not me personally, but some of the guys.  You have a little fan-club.” 
“I just learned something,” said Jaizi.  “Not sure what.  It’s got to do with class and being heard.”
 
Varulin studied Ritawa then pulled up one of Kar’s Toons on his phone, where the male bunny sees a completely adorable female bunny and his eyes turn into little hearts.
“I assure you, sir,” said Munzi, “his intentions are entirely honourable.”
“None of us,” said Ritawa, “wants old fogeys with quills.”
“Can it seriously be done?” asked Inyulat.  “Maybe I mean how seriously can it be done?  The worst places.”
 
Builders, by the way,  were sanguine, even upbeat, seeing that much work would be demanded on premises not bad enough to be torn down. 
 
“I rather enjoyed that,” said Sistenda.  “You wouldn’t like to host a meeting on public health, would you.”
“I can do that,” said Sarat.
 
“Born for it,” said Furrier
 
“Just thinking about those wonderful salads,” said Sitsi.  “Thoughtful.”
“Reflective,” said Frensat.
“If it hasn’t poisoned Sarat.”
“I love crab,” said Sarma.  “Any time I get to the coast.”
“Never had it,” said Sitsi.  “Why have I never had it!  Do crabs shun our shores?”
 
”Baz and Paw,” said Furrier.
Firas frowned.
“The chances of Cho entrusting his baa-lamb to dodos.”
“All the same.”
“A pretty soft life?”
 
“Should I make it weaker for the lady, sir?”
“I think that would be wise,” said Frensat.
 
A waiter solemnly approached them bearing a small silver tray on which were two flute glasses filled to the brim with what looked like tomato-juice.
“It’s our special, guv.  We call it rat-blood.”
“Yum!” said Sarat.  “Thank  you.  What actually is it?”
“Chiefly,” said As, “tomato-juice and applestock.  To which is added a secret blend of spices, including ginger and pepper.  It can be quite.”
“Thereby masking its highly aocoholic nature,” observed Varna.
Sarat was sipping cautiously.
“It’s quite.  Hot spiced tomatoes.”
 
Baz was kneeling on the floor, apparently immersed in explaining something.
Aren’t we all completely at home. 
Just want to see.
Prepared to abase, grovel!
Darts, good ones, from a foursome in the corner, two of whom were now looking shattered, one of whom had slid off his chair and was retching, one of whom got to his feet meaning to apologize, then slumped back into his chair looking bewildered.
“Not drunk, sir,” managed the retching one.  “Much worse.”
“Cat-stuff,” said Sarat, exchanging glances with Baz that said, we are guests, they started it, better you!
Sarat got up and went over to the perps..
“We don’t do that, we just don’t do that.”
They went very red, quite as red as rat-blood.
“Get up,” he said to the guy on the floor.  “That was about what?”
“We just wanted to see.”
“Total awe.”
“Can someone get them a bowl of arsenic,” said Baz.  “I mean a coffee.”
Varna snorted.
“Rubbishes everything we’re taught.”
Paw laughed.
“Actually it doesn’t, but that’s advanced stuff.”
Sarat grinned.
“Multi-tasking?”
“Exactly. Focus, don’t split your attention.  You’re listenng to well, everyone, basically, you’re talking to three people – “
“And every cell of my body,” said Baz,  “is focused on Sarat and Maya.  Repeat after me, I shall never behave like a plonker again.”
“Honestly, we had a speech of grovelling apology ready.”
“And you thought you’d have time to give it?”
“Thought you might just well hold us.”
“This is not a training-session, sonny.”
“It’s a party,” said Sarat.  “Or was.”
“We’re waiting,” said Paw.
“You’re amazing!”
“I know,” said Paw. 
“Flattery,” said Sarat, “will get you nowhere.”
“Consider yourselves,” said Maya, “small squeaking kittens under the massive paws of.”
“We’ve all been there,” said Baz.
“We have,” said Sarat.
“I shall never behave like a plonker again.”
Pirli entered.
“I missed the fun!”  He grinned at Maya.  “More kitten-duty?  I am Pirli, their boss.”
“They’re good,” said Baz.
Pirli’s grin broadened.
“Only you are rather better.”
“They are spectacular,” said Frenshal.
“No-one thought the Anile heir surrounded by dodos.”
Didn’t they just, wondered Baz.
“You think Cho would let him out of the house?”
“Not a lot.  You four.  An exact report.  Written.  Now.”  He turned to Baz.  “Who trained you?”
“Vax and Fox.”
“Why did I ask!”
“Yeah,” said Baz, “why did you?”
“Sorted,” said Paw.
 
“Bloody masterclass,” said Firas.
 
The next day Sarat’s attire was politely deemed smart casual, being a thick grey roll-neck sweater, until he removed the sweater to reveal a cap sleeved PANTHER T.  In this he mooched around Burunda.
 
Really, really techy.  No offence but he actually understands what you say to him.
Sistenda chuckled.
“Not my strongest subject, science.”
“And polite with it.”
Sistenda made a moue.
“You mean I’m not?”
“Understands ‘working’, blokes might not have time to gab.  Not that they wouldn’t rather gab, but you know what I mean.”
 
News of the T reached the press-fiends at the gate.  A message was sent.
A message was sent back: who do you think I am, Bilaaya? (a well-known fashion model.)
Sarat thought a bit then sent another message: there’s no point you guys hanging around getting cold toes.  Varna won’t let you in and I’m not coming out.  Meet you at the House just before I go back? 
Deal!
Of course some of them hung around anyway.
 
Sarat jumped from the truck, swung down a rucksack and swung it over his shoulder, helped Maya down with a grace suited to a more formal occasion.  Thanks, guys, it’s been really great.  Good to meet you all.  He put his arm round Maya and walked slowly through the Press-fiends into the House.
“No, Sarat, no,” said Cho, choking with laughter.
He wore the PANTHER T, the black loons, black riding boots, a silver headband and mirror-shades.
They sat on the bottom stairs.  Sarat slowly removed the shades.
“I’m going to get such hell in college tomorrow.”
“Who do you think you are, Narulis or something!”
“I don’t think in Narulis’ time…”
“Fun this, isn’t it,” said Sarat.  “Actually I like people  seeing my eyes.  Unless I’m feeling really difficult.”
“Where’s the banana-skin?”
Sarat gave a quick hoot of laughter but others didn’t get it.
“I guess I need to explain, at least for people in the west.  The hip Cat is Zur’s most famous or notorious restaurant.  Named after a cartoon character taking the urine out of cool.  The Hip Cat has mirror shades.  But the Hip Cat is not wholly – successful.  The Hip Cat saunters straight onto a banana skin.  When a silver salver is placed before him and the lid removed there’s just a fish skeleton.  He cunningly conceals himself outside a mousehole and a friendly gull tells him, They’ve moved to Fidub.
 
Spetzi to Fana:  Eeeeeeek!   
 
“I’m sure they are bad for young eyes,” said Karula firmly.
“You don’t know that, Mom, you’re making it up.”
 
Otherwise good-looking young men muttered, it’s the bloody tan!  Ah, but he will perish early of skin cancer.  Others wondered about that.  I mean, if I went to Fidub for a fortnight and scorched myself but you must get used to it, your skin must.
 
Iconic, said Mitch, what is cool, hip, modern Kadun.  Not only that but he has a brain.  For some of course that was alas, he also has a tongue and a brain.  No dumbfuck crap about being a figurehead, then.
Icon, said Mitch.
“We have to bear in mind, Mitch, not everyone will wish to be represented by a hip cat.”
“Then they must be persuaded!”
“A young man who so utterly deflates himself is perhaps a little hard to resist.”
“No, no,” said Mitch.  “Deflating oneself is easy.  Dress up, dress down. Deflating oneself while continuing to look like damn’ Narulis is a one-off.”
 
“Ultimate cool,” pronounced Sorg, “is of course taking the piss out of cool.”
“Just ordered some mirror-shades,” said Vrin.  “Oft have I been tempted but the expression piss-artist occurred to me.  Now I have been raised to a higher level of understanding.”
“We shall duly serve you the scales and fins.”
 
“He’s winding up the entire world,” surmised Seani, correctly.  “Sarat, we have never doubted you are good-looking.”
“Or,” grunted Venzat, “that a most successful career on the stage would await you.”
Num grinned.
“When the music stops, does he have a chair?”
“Polarization,” said Seani.  Sarat would have beamed in approval. 
“WYSIWYG.” 
“Oh that certainly.  Sarat neat.”
“So 50% are shuddering with horror and the other 50 – “
“What’s in a number?” asked Seani.
“Doesn’t that just so depend.”
“Get him when he gets back to Zur.”
 
 “Could we at least reach our front door?” said Maya, loudly.
“Come on, Sarat, WTF?”
“WE’re going inside,” said Baz, “to put our stuff down and have a coffee and then we’ll come out again, all right?”
“Promise?”  Baz just looked at him.  “OK, OK…”
“Nice time with KAF, Sarat?”
“Wonderful.”
“Somewhere in the Constitution,” said Maya, “is the right to physically remove those who impede lawful progress.”
“Can you put those shades on again?  Just for me.”
 
“They’re saying you’re the world’s sexiest man, Sarat.”
“Bit of an exaggeration?”
“How do you feel about that, Maya?  Sarat the world’s pin-up.”
“Mine, all mine,” said Maya.
“Correction,” said Sarat.  “We’ll come out again if you have anything sensible to say.”
“Ciletij going ape, Sarat.”
“I said sensible.”
“Vera-jat, Times of Ciletij.  Come on, you have to admit it’s more than trees.”
“Talk to you in a min, OK.”
 
Sarat came out again and sat himself on the wall.
“What’s more than trees?”
“Oh come on, Sarat!”
“The Rape, man!”
“It didn’t happen.  Every reputable school of learning you can name says either it didn’t happen or it’s open, Schools in Harn, Collegium in M-P, Collegium here in Zur.  Like I said, some guys don’t like facts.”
“And the Academy in G-T is not reputable.  Don’t give me that shit!”
“The empire enslaved, tortured and murdered Ciletij.  You’re going to deny that?”
“Of course I’m not. At the end the empire was a crock of shit.”
“The empire was a crock of shit, period.”
“Bollocks.  The whole continent knows that’s bollocks.  What is the foundation for Dabida?  Imperial law.”
“As the guy said in Carlin, anyone who thinks Cho is a second Jaizal is playing loony-tunes, but Sarat, you have to understand a real sense of grievance.”
“Do I?  Isn’t that the problem?  There’s a lot of stuff that’s common knowledge, like infiltration of the Ciletij military and G-T refusing to do anytning about it.  Not my problem, but how do I tell the difference between a nice ordinary guy and Cult-backed propaganda against me and my family.  Because I am sure anything not going to understand Azt.  You clear out your rats and then we can all see the real picture.”
“I’ve never heard such bloody slime – what the hell do you mean, refuse to do anything about it.  Be saying we’re run by Azt next.”
“You mean you’re not!”  Pause for hysteria.  “You really want to read.  What I know, as in know, is that Dabida, Vasucula and Fidub have been on at you for years.  It’s been in the papers and yes, sorry to have contacts, but I’ve heard it from Vanya, at dinner, Airoch, at dinner, PANTHER, all the time.”
“Oh shit, Sarat!”
Maya said: Heard it from Tar, heard it from the H-W, heard it in the student bar.  You guys need to face facts.  The south is very fed up with you.”
“Worst of all,” said Sarat, “I’ve heard it from the whole of Camp Five.  FAF is very very fed up with you.  You’re using them to keep you safe so you can go on licking Azt’s arse.  Playing both ends against the middle.”
“I do not want to hear this!”
“I do,” said Num, loudly and distinctly.  “Straight down the line, Sarat, Camp Five?”
“Half of them were in Kadun – the obvious half! Flip flap fly, fought the Cult.  And FAF sit in a frozen waste so G-T can play palsy-walsy with Searc and get away it?  Azt’d be all over Ciletij if it weren’t for FAF.”
“Profiting from timber sales to Vaudos!”
“Comes into it,” said Sarat.
“OF course Fidub is biased in favour of Kadun.”
Maya said: “I think if you ask around you will find Zuri very very biased.  Not hard.  If it weren’t for Varna, for Prog, for Ban-vesit, for Divaldin, Carlin would have fallen.  Do you actually understand what that means?”
“Azt at the border, most of us are not quite that thick.”
 
Kailo: “Perhaps the words Airoch uses are too long.”
“You guys are hostile to our gallant allies in Ciletij.
“Yes.  Not of course so hostile that we shan’t save their miserable skins.”
 
Airoch: “I understand there is a Plain Speech Movement, a campaign for lucidity in public life, which of course I back fully.”
 
Air-Commander  (Ciletij Air Fleet).  I have often thought most politicians extremely stupid.  I have to confess Airoch-cha makes a welcome exception.
 
“We in the west must meet them.” Rewn
“That is undoubtedly the case,” said Mitch, “but I do not think our questions are any better F2F.  Are you prepared to step into the firing-line?  Are you prepared indeed to place Maya in the firing-line?”
“Have to talk to the parents,” said Carlutan.
Rewn nodded.
“I should go ape and I am not Alzani-Meta.”
“Can’t believe they haven’t discussed.”
 
Carlutan thought then announced he was happy to have a quick chat with the Press, perhaps at Volti’s.  The local Press choked slightly, Volti’s being the nearest place of refreshment to Siba Base and generally regarded as one up from a muddy natural spring contaminated by sheep droppings.  Log-distance lorry-drivers stopped there.  Carlutan sat sipping something brown and swirling from a plastic cup, surrounded by three of his pilots.  Indeed there are some very cool guys in Kadun.
“Air-Commander, I think we can guess to what we owe this invitation.”
“I doubt it.”
“Us two, we’re Ciletij,” said one of the pilots.  “Not saying there are millions of us, more like five, but that’s not really the point.  A lot of Ciletij generally do recognize who are the good guys here.”
“OK, I did not guess.  So you ran away to KAF!”
“Of course we were vetted by PANTHER.”
“I myself,” said the third pilot, “am a good citizen of Vasucula.”
The journos screwed up their brows.  Definitely were not aware.”
“By the way we like trees!  Seriously, a lot of the – divisions in Ciletij are geographical.  It’s the long border with Cult Kadun.  Up in the north  and to the west – two things.  We’ve always mixed with segani and senoki, it’s a load of garbage there’s ingrained hostility.  And we’re just normal citizens of a democracy, like Fidubi and Dabidans.”
“A few of them in KAF too,” noted Carlutan.   “I actually looked up the numbers.  There are 37 Dabidans, 85 Fidubi and 47 Ciletij.  And 93 Vasuculi.”
The Vasuculi allowed himself a small smirk.
“That is pretty wow, a substantial number of fliers, right.”
“They’re not all pilots.”
“Well, just a substantial number, then.  Are you able to tell us more about the situation in the Ciletij Air Fleet?”
“I can hear the screams of traitor! before I even start.  Everyone in Kadun knows the spiel and of course people feel vulnerable.  Not making excuses for anyone but – 20 nani from Azt isn’t a cosy place to be.”
“We have to accept we are a more conventional people than say Zuri.  Partly climate, I mean we wear more clothes because it’s damn’ cold.  But that just makes us like segani.  When people say – Sarat has said – we’re infiltrated, don’t think that’s really the right word, sounds as if we’re full of irturbi.  Corrupted is the word.  I’m going to make a lot of senior officers very angry but they’d be hard pressed to deny it’s true.  1, you have to understand there are many women in the Ciletij military.  2.  I was in the Air Fleet for my national service, so I saw a bit on the ground and I actually also worked with FAF.  I assure you they are not prissy.  There’s a line.  I don’t know, kind of no-one can define it but everyone knows where it is.  Like the so-called joke in Carlin.  Unfunny.  More porn.  The guys got coarser.  Women who complained and they did, loudly, were fobbed off.  Yeah, yeah, it was a joke.  One of the awful things was it was so obvious.  If a woman asked for a transfer.  Yes of course, delighted, where would you like to go, line of least resistance.  Nobody wanted it but nobody stopped it, either.   And the rest of us seethed, being bloody handed over to them on a plate.  We all think there were pay-offs of course, civ, military, anyone with sticky fingers.  It’s a really busy border with Vaudos.”
“That I find really interesting.”
“Thought you might,” said Carlutan.
“And of course there’s a lot of propaganda.  Some of it’s hard-on, fulsome praise of Azt, lot that’s slimier and more subtle.  What we say here is exaggerated – is propaganda.  Look at the benefits to Vaudos of stable government – “
As you say, we know this song!
“Something else I want to say.  We’re all taught about the Rape at school.  Can’t not be, whole history of Ciletij is tied up with the empire.  We’re not.  Well, I wasn’t anyway, taught to hate Kadun today.  It’s history.  Like most history, most people don’t bother much with it.  Except maybe when someone says empire.  I want to say – it’s a bit complicated.  Not that I agree with Sarat, but he’s coming from a genuine place.  Decent sensible people think it happened  and Sarat dismissing them really annoys me.  But I saw in the papers a total toad, my ex-CO to be exact, pretending to be a decent Ciletij officer, mouthing off.  People in Kadun can’t tell the difference.  People in the south can’t.”
“So Ciletij need to name and shame?  I would guess fear is an element, as of course it has been here in Kadun.”
“Yes.  Both bits.”
“The name of the gentleman in question?”
“I can think of other words.  G-T Gazette, don’t suppose you read it.  Air-Colonel Simbali-ran.”
“I think we can all look out for further pronouncements!”
“Bomb us.  Now.” Said Carlutan cheerfully.  “They would of course have no more hope than the vamps.”
“On a wider front, Air-Commander, that was a purely spectacular fail in Carlin.  They just made themselves look ridiculous.  Can you think of any reason for it?”
“It was a purely spectacular affront.  It is of course a hell of a flight but certainly Sarat and Maya are welcome at Siba.  It was – that about which they could not do nothing.”
“I have wondered.  Diplomatic channels, protest to Fidub and Dabida?  Useless of course, but – no more useless.”
“I thought – just my two cents.  If they started a political row, they’d have to keep saying who Sarat is.”
“That is surely an interesting point, reinforcing again and again - ?”
 
 
Cho rang Essa.
“I can hear you sighing from here.”
Mitch looked at Heela.
“More than welcome, of course.”
Sarat looked at a map.
How different can one airbase be from another?  Very.  Maya likened Burunda to a panther lounging on a tree after a successful kill; Siba she thought more of a ratter prowling the granaries.  It wasn’t that Siba was any less prosperous – it’s hunger, isn’t it, she said to Jaizi. Don’t know they’re alive in Carlin, said Jaiz.  These guys have had it rough.  They had their moments, said Maya.  Vaudosi?  Later she had a more complex perception.
“They want something from you,” she said to Sarat.
Baz grinned.
“Just be the adorable you.”
“Shoot your mouth off,” said Paw, “that’s all they ask.”
“There are some quite conservative guys here.”
“Doesn’t matter.  They know which side they’re on.”
“Slight mismatch,” said Jaizi.  “They think you bothered to come.  You think try keeping me away.”
After three days at Siba the heli landed on the flat bit behind the House, called the grounds for convenience, though more the back garden; the sides and front have no perimeter fence.  There is however a moat.  No drawbridge, the bridge is fixed, bridges for the moat encircles the House, which is approximately five rooms long by three deep; it is for the most part a bungalow or if you are feeling more forgiving a chalet.  However the side walls rear into towers reaching to the heavens: look-out posts. Althugh there is no first floor, there is in the wide entrance hall a grand staircase, which leads to a half-landing off which are doors to the gallery of the Great Hall.  The House has been described as ‘a most curious edifice’.  Mitch grins and says it is what realtors mean by ‘a character property’. 
And so the bonds were forged that were to shake the continent to its foundations, etc, etc.
Love at first sight?  It was.
“We meet at last!” said Sarat.
“Gee,” said Mitch, “I have heard so much about you.”
The back yard, ever a bustle of activity, stopped to frankly stare, but there was no ra-ra-ra.  Just another one of Mitch’s radical pals.  Like hell! Let the lad put his feet up first. Do it proper later Changri had decreed. Been reading it ip.  Mitch had felt cautious, reasoning Changri’s idea of doing it proper might not be Sarat’s, which he presumed to be Maya’s.  Things can change in a thousand years.  Sounds impeccable to me, Heela had said.   Formal but not extravagant, Mitch agreed.  For the moment Sarat met only Great Aunt Asaa and Uncle Wilan, both of whom had invited themselves to stay.  Asaa looked him up and down.  Ah, Cho’s cub.  “I am he!” said Sarat. “You intend to get arrested?”  she asked with some enthusiasm. It was revealed this small stooped old lady of some 88 years was quite possibly worse than Mitch and had been notorious.
Marula also had invited herself, along with Vannina and Cantilip, but was not arriving until tomorrow.
 
Dill  had absorbed ‘real modern young guy’ and prepared a small entertainment.  Baria had sidled up to her grandmother.  We’ve got something to show you.  Kyle had laughed all the way through and pronounced it delectable, entirely fit for public viewing.   
“Our children,” said Mitch, “have prepared a short topical presentation.  Our subject is the use of smartphones by teens.”    Dill had thought it prudent he attend rehearsal to make doubly sure it would be OK.  Karula, chief foe in this respect, had not been let in.
Enter Dill
Mom disapproves of how much time we spend on our phones.  She says we shall develop the concentration spans of headless chickens.  We wish to show we can understand words of more than three letters.  The Var-sega’ Players present an excerpt from Silently She Trod.
Qirl stepped forward and unrolled a short scroll.  Baria crosses the room behind him holding up a placard and pointing to it: IT’S ALL ON THE GRID
The scene is a room in the House at Var-sega’.  Samia ban-sarndit-vaq a most eru- - eru – I can never prounce that – “
Erudite said Dill in a stage whisper
Erudite and learned lady sits surrounded by many volumes of enormous cultural significance and historic moment  –
I got that from the Guidebook, murmured Dill.  Baria crossed back waving her placard, then held up another one: SOLILOQUY BY DILL.  MIME BY QIRL.
These words so crowd my mind that I do hear in dreams distant voices calling
[Picture of someone addressing a crowd – hand to ear – head to one side, resting on hands together – hand to ear.  Baria returns to walking back and forth with IT’S ALL ON THE GRID]
Thus directed do I ride league on league and see great cities, empty plains and men
[Finger pointing – hands making galloping motion – hand above eyes as though gazing into distance]
Who do with argument abound and reason most enchantingly upon high matters
[Graphic of question-marks, ‘But’, ‘If’, ‘And’ – 2+2 = 4  -
How best to steer the ship of state, while flowers dance, the very earth gives rise
[Rowing movement – as though holding girl in arms to dance -  pointing frantically at the floor]
To visions
[Wide eyes]
That which cannot be …
[Shakes head, obviously didn’t see what I thought I saw]
 
Just freeze that frame, that small and merry gathering of what you might call extended family.  In ten years’ time the unimaginable will have befallen them.
 
 “I would not think that critical,” said Karula, “considering the most run-down areas are the poorest.  Start on the doorstep.”
“But who is to pay? The State?”
Mitch smiled.
“You call in a private company to fix the road outside your door because no-one else will.  I think it is the case that throughout the south public thoroughfares are considered at least a municipal responsibility.”
“Persons of middling income will not vote for increased taxation.”
“Maybe,” said Mitch and smiled at Sarat.
Sarat said: “The highways were under public control under imperial law.  It comes from the bit about living without hindrance.  If a road is private, then you may be barred from using it.”
“A considerable amount of hooey,” said Mitch, “is uttered with the purpose of indicating that the standards of the civilized world are alien to Kadun, but that is not of course the case.”
Heela smiled.
“WE have of course here at expert in imperial law.”
“No way!” said Sarat.  “But we do have – the Constitution of Dabida is derived from imperial law and A-M have to learn it inside out and back to front.”
“You are where in the succession?” demanded Asaa.
“Was,” said Maya.  “Fifth. Mel, Hass, Pietri, my father, Vij.  Until Mel has kids. It was never going to happen anyway, but Tar said he didn’t quite think Sarat would do as King of Dabida, so I gave it up.”
“Indeed,” said Heela, failing to keep a straight face.
“The reverse, of course,” pursued Asaa.
“It’s a possibility,” said Maya.
“I am sure you can tell us much about the Dabidan model.”
Very old ladies, thought Sarat, are allowed to issue orders.
 
They had noticed immediately that there were no dogs and it became apparent there were no cats, rabbits or hamsters either.  They invented reasons: allergy?  There had indeed when he was 12 been a girl in Sarat’s class who claimed she couldn’t sit next to him because he brought on her asthma.  Of course you must come to Fidub!  Only…
Sarat found he felt strangely off about approaching the subject, as though it were indelicate but plunged in.
“Obviously lovely if you stayed in Fidub, only we can’t help noticing – does someone have a fur allergy?”
“First thing you meet,” said Maya, “is Essa’s wolfhounds.  Of course you can always stay with Cho.”
“WE have stables,” said Mitch.
“And no ratters?  Four-footed ones.”
Not sure it’s the epitome of courtesy to grill the House on whether it has a kitchen-cat.
“Tell you later,” said Mitch.
 
Mitch took Sarat and Maya out to see some of the sights of Var-sega’, for instance the foaming Biril, a notoriously polluted river.
Sarat looked at it sorrowfully.  “I just don’t fancy a swim.”  Then he warmed to his subject.  Counter-productive.  Source of recreation.  Source of food.  Danger to wildlife, danger to livestock.  Danger to people.  Danger to the very oceans.  Because Barbantin, who are not short of a buck, refuses to deal with its garbage.  The wanton discharge of toxic waste into the public arena.  Absolute contempt for people, for the planet, for anything except the next dollar. 
Not scared of being sued, then, Sarat
No legislation demanding they clear up their own garbage. Puh-lease weren’t they toilet-trained. Yes I’m equating this with human waste, except in some ways it’s worse, such as not being bio-degradable.
“Perhaps we should not quite pursue that one, at least publicly. I am sure Mitch has tld ou the back drp, the exigencies of war.  Further, to engage staff on this ‘trivialty’ would take men awy from vital military production lines.
“Or military service itself,” added Mitch.
“Mitch has told me a lot about Barbantin, not least that they have a near monopoly and think they run the joint.  It occurred to me a little healthy competition might focus them better.”
“Employ women?” suggested Maya.
“My lady Maya!  This is men’s work. Caapital M, capital W.”
“So it’s OK for kids to fall into this sewer, but not OKfor women to – got it.  No legislation protecting them or anyone else.”
Mitch nodded sagely.
“You may be getting the hang of this.”
“Bah!  What Sarat said.  Arms need twisting. The larger concern of course is the poor guys who work unprotected.  A guy who developed tumours on his kidneys got backed by CLIK to sue.  Of course the House backed him too.  Everyone thought the medical evidence was cast-iron.  It was – “
Through murmurmuring of you know about that, hey.  We are not exactly uninformed.
“You might not have heard of See Piss, as it is lamentably called.  It’s a PANTHER organization, C-P-I-S, Committee for Probity in Science.  Dad’s part of it.  He was livid.  He thought – they all thought Futura Labs falsified data on behalf of Barbantin – “
“They’ll sue you.  No joke.”
“They all thought Futura falsified data on behalf of Barbantin.  It made the Times.  On their Grid-site.”
“The Straits Times?  Very much in the public arena.”
“The case failed.  It’s pretty much given that if you’re exposed to x microns human cells go waaah! and turn cancerous. Pretty much, by the way, mean the idiosyncrasies of the individual human body.  You can probably always find an exception, people who smoke or work with toxic substances and don’t get sick.  These things take their time.  Like – suppose you lived till 80 and never got sick.  Your resistance might have give up by the time you were 90 or a post-mortem would show the beginnings of sickness.  Barbantin were clever. They said that level of exposure is a nonsense and here is the evidence independently assessed to prove it. So all the evidence was circumstantial.  Given the processes and machines used, in the notorious absence of any health and safety provision it follows that the level of exposure will be…They said the notorious absence was garbage and they had a special filtration system.  The guys working there never noticed it but they weren’t expert witnesses and PANTHER took a look but their evidence was thrown out on the grounds of illegal entry.”
“A filtration system invisible to the human eye!  Among a lot of things, I think many of us were not aware PANTHER had other -  branches or is that Sardun!”
“Other fish to fry?”
“Always did,” said Baz.  “Empire’s social workers.”
“Cease and desist in the emperor’s name!” carolled Paw.
“About the size of it,” said Sarat.
“Good headline?” suggested Mitch. 
“Serious,” said Sarat.  “Of each we uphold the right to live without hindrance.  Imperial law.  In fairness I don’t tink it applied to fish but I am sure guys being made sick by their work are being badly hindered.”
“The core point of course,” said Mitch, “is there is what I think we may call a meme or perhaps a flavour indicating the standards of civilized people are alien to Kadun, and that of course is nonsense.”
“To none in need shall physic be withheld,” said Baz.
“Does that mean what I think it means – you are seriously telling me the empire offered free healthcare?  I really don’t think I believe that.”
“Tough,” said Sarat.  “Obviously there were no antibiotics, x-rays.  What treatments there were had to be available to all, even if all that could be done was alleviate suffering.”
“The public hospital in Sinva is in fact an ancient foundation,” said Mitch. “Go read their statutes.”
“So part of the problem is in fact – advances in medical science, pushing the cost up.”
“Kadun is not poor,” said Sarat.
“Part of the problem is Big Pharma,” said Mitch.  “I can cite you 300% profit on basic drugs, Vivala for blood pressure.”
“We know they’re rats, Mitch.”
“I’m a cat,” said Sarat.
“Going back to – surely trained chemists would be required.  Whatever you think of it, I suspect we don’t have many women chemists.”
 
“Take Nelotides,” said Maya.  “They make armaments for the Quadrant. We know there are a number of fantasies circulating about southern industry moving into Kadun.  That’s probably not going to happen because of the A-word, automation.  I mean it wouldn’t be Day One, you’re in a dirty factory with unsafe machinery and Day Two you’re in a clean factory with safe machinery doing exactly the same thing, because the work you did in the dirty factory doesn’t exist in the new one.  None of us is about putting irturbi out of work.  Kadun has to sort herself out first.”
“I would think Mitch’s friends in CLIK are very much about protecting jobs.”
“It has to come and they know it has to come,” said Mitch.  “The question is managing it.”
“So the Quadrant’s fine armaments are not actually made by people.”
  “Of course there was one hell of a row – one specialist system is not snatching bread from the mouths of our workers, but there is the question of patriotism.  Of course we must support our own industries.  Was that Nelotides?”
“A missile detcction system,” explained Mitch.  “Rewn said he bought the best.  And it is not good to accuse Rewn of lack of patriotism.”
“He laughs too loudly,” said one of the journos enthusiastically. 
 
MIAOW!
Persons turned, startled. 
Secret PANTHER call-sign, said Baz, looking at his phone.  He snorted.
“Mail from Hass.  Dear Narulis, couple of cartoons from the Zur Gazette. TTT if you will stalk Kadun quoting imperial law.”
He passed the phone to Maya, who also snorted and passed it without comment to Sarat, while of  the throng all searched Zur Gazette.
Raya  in Azt, stars in her eyes, hugging herself in ecstasy, standing in front of a building labelled Imperial Library.  “Mine, all mine!”
Maya in Azt sitting on the Anile Throne.  Zani inset: “Well, now, there’s a turn-up!  Of course I wasn’t paired with Narulis.”
“Oh for,” said Sarat.  “Zani.”
Some weren’t quite sure how it was appropriate to react and others who didn’t give a damn about that.
“A reputation as something of a bookworm?”
“We must assume Zani and Susheela was never a possibility!”
“Still, I have thought it strange she found no-one else, some dashing young Fidubi.”
“There would surely have been – difficulties.”
“Oh, there would,” said Sarat.
“I suppose the poor lady was somewhat traumatized.”
Sarat was very taken aback.
“Obviously she’d had a hairy time.  Not too traumatized to found Sohenoil!  She was quite a lady.”
“The House bathes in reflected glory,” said Mitch.  “I have to confess we know very little of Susheela’s life in Fidub.  Other considerations at the time.”
Eeek.  Fortunately distraction was at hand.
“Sohenoil is that ancient?  I think they did not then drill for oil.”
“Oh,” said Sarat.  “No.  Not that kind of oil.  In the retail trade like AMI, sort of cousins.  Cooking oil.  The oil from the sira.”
“And Susheela – “
“She and Falnos, her eldest.  They had to fund PANTHER.”
Baz retold the story with bells on. 
From this Sarat deduced that Var-sega’s journos were not forumites.  Reasonable.  Like putting an alcoholic in a brewery.
 
Here we are back at the House, the evening drawing to a close, dinner-guests departed, Asaa indeed retired for the night, but Wilan going strong.
 
Sarat waffled away in bed.
“Can’t work it out.  I know Cho was close to Heela’s father.  Does Heela not know?”
Maya persisted in being reasonable.
“Even if Heela does know, Mitch has been in the City.  Nothing I know about him suggests he would have had the faintest interest in ancient history before he left!  It’s only a subject because we’re here.”
“I’ll call Cho.”
“Greetings,” said Cho. “You wish me to post bail?”
“Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.  Want to ask you sometime.  Mitch expressed vague interest in learning what happened to Susheela.”
“Ah.”
“He is Sardun.”
“Who were of course closely involved at the time.  This may be more readily digested in V-k.”
“Heela doesn’t know?  Marula’s pitching up tomorrow.”
“Excellent.  Heela knows.  Better from you.”
“We couldn’t see anywhere in Mitch’s life where the subject would have come up!”
“All of it,” said Cho laughing, “down to the last molecule of Fidubi silver.”
“It’s not really my field, he bleated.  What does Marula know?”
“Suddenly you are very far from home.”
“Nonsnese, all the best people live in Casin-ruhn.  Stop laughing like that.  Yes.  I know exactly nothing about Sardun at the eso level.”
“Then you too will learn.”
“Does Heela know about the chair?”
“Oh yes.  Possibly he has sat on it.  And Marula, of course.”
“Sat on Marula?”
“That is not possible.”
“May I show them the documents.”
“Yes.  And download.  You are being unusually sensitive about this.”
“It’s very very personal to me.  It  - is me, everything I am.”
“Think about that,” said Cho.
But Marula was not arriving until late afternoon.  Our star of the following day was a waste disposal facility that failed to dispose of biological waste, specifically that from hospitals, amputated limbs, organs.  So Sarat was told.  The stink helped.  High fences PRIVATE BEWARED OF THE DOGS prevented entry. 
Back to the House.  Marula reclined, Cantilip knelt on the floor talking to Qirl.  Saban stood by the window.  Behna chatted amiably to Heela and Dill.  Vannina was doing a jigsaw with Baria.  A delegation.
“Ah, here they are,” said Kyle.
Marula smiled.
“Should there not be a fanfare of trumpets?”
“Maya can do guitar,” said Sarat.  “I’m quite good on drums.”
Saban laughed out loud.
Cantilip had jumped up.
“Delicious.  So pleased.”
Yup, Cantilip is pretty delicious, in what would have been bottle-green fatigues, had they not been made of heavy silk, shining dark green hair cascading down her back.  Kyle was among the first to contemplate how fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your perspective) Sarat was already paired.
“The revolutionaries,” said Behna enthusiastically.
“We try,” said Mitch.
Well isn’t this just a happy family reunion.  At one point Sarat and Cantilip were arguing about the seeding of Derera’s pine.  Complex glances were exchanged and it wasn’t a reproach that conversatoin be more general. 
“You have to come!” said Cantilip.
“Of course I have to come!” said Sarat, “In other words thank you for your kind invitation.”
Dinner was held.  The children went reluctantly to bed. Sarat felt that he metaphorically cleared his throat.
“Mitch said you didn’t know what happened to Susheela.  I do!  She kept a journal.  Don’t know if you’d like to hear the story.”
“You have Susheela’s journal.  That would be superb.”
“We are agog,” said Kyle. Heela, who knew, just smiled.
Sarat said: “I think I need first to say – it’s the wildest craziest other matter story.  I’m a scientist.  There are parts of it I flatly don’t believe.  Which means.  I believe people say what they think happened.  Whether it actually happened and wasn’t a further layer of illusion is something else.”
“What on earth – “ began Mitch.
Sarat gave way to laughter.
“Good question.”
“Lemme set the scene,” said Maya.  “Zani defeated Jaizal before the Great Gates!  It’s Zur’s favourite story, only of course he didn’t, he defeated Corsin.  Jaizal was nowhere around.”
“First Event was before that,” said Sarat.
“Just getting there.  Jaizal hath sent a mighty army forth to conquer Fidub.  Only the guys in the mighty army didn’t much like Jaizal and joined with the guys in the south.  We call it the First Event.  So they turned round and went back.  News of this reached Azt and turmoil began. In the midst of which Jaizal quietly vanished.”
“They said, the rat has fled!  They said he was murdered, they said he’d escaped by sea.  None of these is actually true.  He went to look for his chair.  My chair.”
“You – “ began Heela, then let Sarat continue. 
“As you know, I think you know, some of you know, the actual throne is in Casin-ruhn – “
“What!” said Mitch.
“I think you have their attention,” murmured Maya.
“Van-senok nicked it,” said Sarat.
“We are forgiven?” asked Marula with something close to a giggle.
“You weren’t to know it would end up in Ciletij.”
“Dear Varchulan,” said Maya, “you have something of ours, please may we have it back.”
“Why,” said Sarat, “is I think unclear.  Obviously something to do with Casin-ruhn, maybe some kind of purification?”
“The goddess lives in an ice-palace at the bottom of the lake,” said Cantilip cheerfully.  “Mummy thinks it’s sort of rededicating the land to her, recrowning her queen.”
“At least they didn’t chuck it in the lake!”  Mitch.  “I am understanding the throne is buried among the trees?”
“Oh no,” said Sarat.  “There’s a cabin, a rather strange cabin, get to that later.  Yea, many legends surround the Anile Throne.  It sings, dances, plays the piano.  Possibly a chorus of dancing-bears high-kicks across the floor of the Ciletij Senate when someone sits on it.  The problem with all this stuff is at least some of it is true.  When you sit on the chair – we call it the chair because it looks like a kitchen chair, total absence of scrolls or clawed feet – you trip, in the modern sense, take a mental journey.”
“I cling to the practical,” said Mitch.  “I wondered how on earth it was possible to get it out of Azt, but if it – nondescript, presumably it would not have been hard to load it onto a cart.”
“It’s solid silver,” sighed Sarat, “but sure, tarnished, covered in mud.  OK, there we are, a might army is advancing on Azt.  Susheela was not in Azt either.  He kept her and her children away from it all in the Summer Palace. He understood she was special and she understood – she understood he needed her, she was his last – sole – foothold on sanity.  Her brothers tred to rescues her but she wouldn’t leave.  What she said was taking her children, the youngest then just a baby, would endanger them all.  She wouldn’t leave her children.  She would not leave Jaizal – “
“I trust you will not feed us southern psycho-babble claiming he was misunderstood?”
“First hear the story,” said Sarat. 
“I for one will not hear such nonsense.”
“Then listen and learn,” said Sarat.  “t’s a really exciting story.  Jaizal had a younger brother and a sister, so there were three people he trusted, Vargilia, Samas and Susheela, all of whom he kept locked up, but what are locks to – any of us.  Oh dear, Samas has escaped, the brother.  Corsin of course launched amn-hunt, fearing people would rally to him.  They looked in the wrong direction.  Samas had gone to Fidub.  Long and complicated story.  Jaizal surmised correctly that PANTHER knew where the chair was.  Samas feared to deliver himself to PANTHER thinking, also possibly correctly, they’d kill him.  Jaizal had to have the real chair.  He thought it might heal him and was more likely to kill him but that was a rightful death, the emperor on the throne, unlike other possible demises.  Yea, many legends surround the throne!  It’s silver, Fidubi silver.  As we know, Fidub is geologically bizarre.  The Institute of Geophysics on Arit spent ten years trying to find out why the Isles sing.  Also burns the tootsies of the bad guys.  These properties are contained, it is said, in the throne.  If I sat Krarlik on it, he’d burn.  Possibly.  If I sat on it, it’d sing.  Possibly.  Samas had the sense to go to the shrine at M-P.  They hadn’t known the throne had been swapped and were curious.  They made enquiries…Alas, it is in Van-senok. Something of a downer for Jaizal, but they could see no harm in his knowing and let Samas return to Kadun. Fidub, Fidub, Isles of the Blest, Jewel of the East, Star of the West.  He winced.  He was a cultured man.  It’s all the same story.  He had no interest whatever in what is now Dabida.  If he could conquer Fidub, then the shrine would either kill or cure.  Corsin of course simply wanted Fidub under the heel. 
When it became clear the army wasn’t going to get anywhere, he made his last public appearance on this earth, addressing the Senate, lot of guff about the necessity of total victory, entrusted Susheela to Samas, and vanished.  He was just about the most hated man on the continent, but he still had his powers and he was going away from the war.  He thought he had a chance.  He wanted of course to take Susheela but that would just have made it more likely they’d all be murdered, by bandits if nothing else. Two things.  Increasing cries of The empire is dead!  Not fruitful ground for her, Zani, her son, any – contender for the throne.  The other thing is the mob in Azt doesn’t seem to have thought of her.  Loot was what was on its mind.  PANTHER thought of her.  The staff, guards either fled or loved her, basically.  She was just that sort of lady.  They understood she was as much a prisoner as they.  Had been.  Jaizal had always arrived by water, in the imperial barge. They were close to the river.  PANTHER pitched up in a much cruder barge and apparently that bit was quite easy.  See a woman with three kids in old and dirty clothes on an old and dirty barge and you don’t particularly think – lo, it is the Empress!  The docks were in chaos, trade disrupted, food rotting, rats fleeing.  Rumour of a fleet coming up from the south.  That bit’s total garbage, the battle between the Imperial Fleet and Fidub was far to the south.”
I am hypnotized, thought Mitch, this is my history.
“They did not change sides?” asked Heela.
“Some surrendered, but what they called the black ships of course didn’t.  Not so many surrendering.  Of course they had no news of the about-turn.  Now, as Cho puts it, the House of Fire really did not want to know that Sonny that screwed up, but they were decent people and took them in.  So there she was in a foreign country with her cats and they were already saying, never, ever, ever again dependent, on anyone, ever, never.  For a time of course they were getting constant news from Kadun but then the dust settled and cat-future had to be settled too.  Jaizal reached Casin-ruhn – “
“He what!  Sorry, pray continue…”
Saban smiled.
“Sardun know this story.”
Marula looked at him sharply but said nothing.  Karula said unexpectedly, “There is an old myth that Jaizal haunts Casin-ruhn.  It is part of its being a place of pure evil.  I find I am on the edge of my seat as to – what element of truth!”
“Susheela began her journal, a very private one.  I guess it helped her debrief.”
“So you know – exactly what passed.”
 “Everything they did to Jaizal.  He knew, you see, he knew what had been done to him.  That’s why he kept her locked away, the one part of him that was still Jaizal.  She was the only person in the world who called him Jaizal.  He talked sometimes in his sleep.  Sometimes he screamed.  He had to have the chair. So he went to find it. They said, he was killed by his own guards, but no body was found.  They said, he escaped by water and died at sea, and no wreckage could be found.  They said, the rat has fled.  Disguise accent, disguise body language, to disguise the profile is hard but he still had his power, blurring vision, erasure of what you just saw, and Kadun was not densely populated.  Nonetheless he was the single most hated man on the continent.  He arrived at Casin-ruhn and sat on the chair.  He had no idea what if anything would happen.  At first it seemed that he was burning and then the dross was burned away and he tripped, in the modern sense, visions of past and present and who knows where and – ss if I can remember it, ‘then it seemed to me like unto death, but it was only sleep and wakefulness found me on a couch of furs and a great man did tend the fire but must this not be another dream.”  He wrote to Susheela.
“Sarat! You – have – Jaizal’s letter.”  Mitch.
“We have Jaizal’s love-letters.  They’re amazing, he managed to both pour out his wounded heart to her and be totally without self-pity or self-justification.  He saw everything with painful clarity.  Sarat grinned wildl y at Saban.  “Sardun dropped in from time to time, even then.  From them he got news and quill and parchment. And they said, let her forget. And he said, no, she must know from me I am alive and whole and at peace and that is her peace. So he wrote to Susheela.  My love.  And she wrote back.  They corresponded so far as was possible. I mean this wasn’t pop to the post-box.  Sardun were the couriers.  And when the youngest was 18, she said, I go now, and she took ship, which was a lot safer than crossing Kadun, for anyone,  and went to him.  It gets worse.  The great man in furs was Kaminua and with him my lady Asyrion.”
“Sarat!”
“Casin-ruhn, abode of dead emperors.  Even Jaizal was not entirely – ‘But I did become persuaded they had found immortality among the trees, though a strange immortality where one’s needs are those of men for assuredly they eat and drink as mortals do and this is beyond my understanding.”  Yes, that is the nub!  There is just something about supposedly immortal people roasting haunch of moose.  We think they’re Denzine shape-changers, but no-one has ever been able to break the illusion and no-one has a clue why it has been kept up for nearly a thousand years. Cho’s met Kaminua too. You may well say, why didn’t Jaizal ask them?  He did!  Why don’t I~ - ?  You have meetings here, there must be a screen. Another question of course is why didn’t Sardun kill him. Then they really are lost to history. Sardun escorted them to the coast.  It is thought they set sail for Harn.  Of course after everything they might have foundered at sea.”
“Thank you so much!” said Karula.  “That is the most amazing story I have heard in my life!”
“A screen?” asked Mitch.  “This is on-line, a private archive.”
Sarat laughed
“As soon as it was possible to scan things we scanned everything, for the simple reason that the only guys interested were in Kadun.  Historians have always trekked to Fidub.”
“We repairto the Library!” declared Heela.  “Absolutely riveting.  I thank you also.  The history of this House is enriched by this story.”
Kyle asked one question: “how old was she?”
Sarat smiled.  “Young enough.  There has been a great deal of sniffing around.  If they had more children, no-one knows whose children they were.”
“You have met Tima in the forum,” said Rewn.  “His antecedent of course was Samas.”
My lady Susheela, my love.
I would wish you know me alive and well and in safety.  There is much mystery in this place and my understanding fails me but I have sat on the throne and it seemed to me a great anguish in my heart such that it was bursting, breaking out of my chest and I was burning in pain beyond imagining, and many strange visions.  The stars shrivelled and died, and I so I thought myself with them, and I was content, but it was only sleep and wakefulness found me on a couch of furs and a great man did tend the fire but must this not be another dream.  I say only here that this lor of the wilderness, guardian of the throne knew me and bears me no ill will…
“Later,” said Sarat, “when he was sure of her and more confident in his couriers, he wrote freely.”
And I said I must ask it, for are we not taught that to die is to leave the body, and yet you feast.  He said, what point bereft of life’s pleasures.  In that I saw reason but scarce explanation.  But how came you to perceive this gift?  I was sick unto death, said my lady, and it was taught me.  I beseeched but one thing, that it be shared with my beloved.  But you wish to know by whom!  They came from a world they called Sug, from beyond the stars.  Nor were they as men, but smaller and more rounded in form.  They had a vessel that crossed the skies.  Fleeing from their homeland, they sought sanctuary elsewhere and so came to rest among the trees.  They say Death pursued them but always they outran him, and it was they the Cult sought to destroy. 
“When you think it really can’t get any worse, “ said Maya, “it gets worse.”
“Oh yes,” said Sarat.  “Ciletij.  Trees.  I was roaming the Grid looking at good solid worthy stuff, the incidence of Yata’s pine – “ The wild grin again, this time directed at Cantilip.  “ – which I do appreciate is entirely distinct from Dira’s pine, when I followed a link and fell off the edge.”
“Jaaba-Sen?” asked Saban.
“Jaaba-Sen indeed.  That piece of the planet has quite a reputation.”
“Including of course aliens,” said Maya.  “I really thought about this.  Decided I had no problem with the principle of aliens, the possibility, just an awful lot with them popping down to Casin-ruhn and not otherwise introducing themselves.”
“Is that polite!” demanded Sarat.  “See why Van-senok got shot of it, at least.  When a border with Ciletij was drawn up, V-k, said take it, it’s yours! Goes far beyond just giving them Casin-ruhn.”
Cantilip looked startled.
“It was originally V-k?  I did not know that.”
“Nor I,” said Behna.
“Old news,” said Marula.
“If you look at the old maps, V-k goes right up to the ice,” said Heela.  He smiled.  “We gave nothing to Vasucula.”
 “That is all very fine and laudable,” said Karula, “let there be peace between our two tribes.  It is surely a little surprising that they left the throne there.”
“I thought that,” said Sarat.  “Then I thought, well OK, they didn’t exactly what it back in Azt, did they.  I’m guessing they thought – like a memorial to the empire.”
“If it is there,” said Maya with a particularly deep sigh.  “To those of normal perception, I mean.”
Just enjoy, thought Saban.
“The trouble is normal people go there.  There’s a Commemoration Society and it gathers every year.  I’ve seen the vids.  If we look at the satellite pix…Lake.  Building.  If we go now to the vids….Lake.  Building. There’s  a shack there.  I don’t suppose the Ciletij worthies even think about it.  It’s described as a log-store.  But there was one year – a blizzard descended out of the blue and so any shelter is better than no shelter, the door was opened – and they were confronted by piles of logs.  Evertything about this story is impossible!”
“How do they get there?” asked Mitch
“Good question!  Although it’s a national day of remembrance, not many people actually attend because it’s practically impossible.  Someone represents the government, someone represents the military, there’re members of the Commemoration Committee, an obligatory film-crew and that’s that.  Sea-plane.  Land on the lake.”
Behna grinned.
“Bet the goddess loves that!”
Sarat tutted.
“Most disruptive!”
“Sub-plot,” said Maya, “attempted Cult infiltration of the Committee.  Hats off to them they said go hang.  The H-W work with SIS.  Please continue.”
 
Look, everyone, do look at all the illiterate mongs, they ain’t fucking stupid, right, and they ain’t fucking illitrit and to prove their giant intellects and superior grasp of language they’ll beat you up and cripple you.  Ain’t yer fucking illitrit, skivvy=boy, ain’t yer, an’t yer really.
 
And of course Ners has a vastly superior qualification and is more than capable of judging it perfectly appropriate that I be used to do heavy manual labour, the damage to my spinal fusion being a bonus, and naturally it is evil to question the judgement of Ners, because Ners know everything, and so of course I am disobedient and arrogant and insolent and why haven’t the smelly mongs been publicly crucified.
 
But the best bit is no-one thinks there’s anything wrong in that, no-one thinks anything need be said or done about it.  How things are, ain’t it, women making trouble, you knock the stupid cunts around until they learn who’s boss.   Everyone knows that. 
 
Just don’t learn, do I, vermin.    Welcome to human obscenity, where every fact of history, every act about me, every fact about England today is dismissed out of hand, that madness and evil rule. 
 
When the government has kicked you in the face and left you to be crippled and die, when MI5 has kicked you in the face and left you to be crippled and die, there really isn’t anywhere to go.  Get the head of MI5 on it too on camera saying it is quite right that Miss Howard’s spinal fusion was repeatedly routinely assaulted in punishment and that she should have been crippled and left to suffer.  Of course no-one dreamt of interfering.  She's only a woman.  Who cares what happens to a woman?  How can a woman have anything important to say?