On occasion, I have thus depicted myself. 

Onward, ever onward, hatless or not.  Fuck knows where to - a particular instance of better to travel hopefully?  I can't temp, an activity for which it is useful to be able to fucking walk, but that doesn't mean I can't make a buck.  I publish successfully or I don't.    No idea until I talk to a surgeon what I can expect from surgery, given my appalling posture - will it +say physio straighten me up.  Having two legs the same length will presumably help.  

Never ever forgive either the obsequious and fawning bourgeois lackeys or the corrupt ruling-class, the filth who think they own my body and mind.  Not difficult: all they had to say was what is this garbage, this is a fucking democracy, what is this sick shit, of course you can't knock her around, but they just couldn't bring themselves to uphold the governing-system of the country or intervene in assault. Wholly inconceivable to demand drivellers drivelled in public where they could be challenged. Oh how they love filth and dirt and corruption and secrecy and lies, hate anything clean.  Much more sensible and practical to hang on every word of the drivel and  watch me become crippled, then more and more disabled and desperate, until the incontinent pig filth really thought I was finished off when I was exhausted and my mum was dying, when they couldn't restrain themselves from jeering and gloating.  And I'm expected to take such creatures seriously?  Oh aren't  you all such big important monkeys scrabbling around behind closed doors, corrupting, twisting, lying.  Doesn't it make you feel so good and all-powerful to have wrecked my body and my life, to control the rest of my life.  Thus a shit-filled animal like Saunders or Plucinski assumes it has the right to decide whether I may walk.  The precious, of course, the chosen, to be protected and maintained at all cost,  creatures who belong in cages.  How utterly pathetic and vile and repulsive you are.   How pathetically desperately you want to be relevant to me, important, and since I make it abundantly clear you are of no significance to me whatever, you have of course forced your filthy animal self on me and made yourself significant, certainly, important never.  Do look everyone at the funny mad zombies who think they represent a ceiling to my existence, body and mind, sad, sick, capering bags of rotting flesh, ludicrous nutter brutes who think they determine what I may say, write, think, be, do, think themselves my superiors set above me to order my life and being. Everyone has to think the zombies matter and look up to them and accept their commands.  The sheer obscenity of being universally deemed unacceptable, a non-person, no help or support of any kind, and its implications the universal attempt at my psychological destruction - best to find it hilarious.  Oh, what a pathetic sick squirming pile of infected shit you are, and oh, how frantically they beg to please and fall on their faces, and I, I just never learned the trick of making my inside filthy and soft and gooey, so it bends in the middle.
Let's see now, theology, politics, history, physics, art, literature, nothing penetrates, nothing causes motion between the ears, causes the little neurons to spark, because they are fucking corpses, fucking zombies and of course evil, committed to the destruction of democracy and of the free world, and governance by filth, vermin, psychopaths, butchers, criminals, all fact, reason, intellect, morality abandoned. Nothing exists outside their ravings.  Smelly tards is actually flattering, suppurating cunts is better.  Subhuman vermin is good too. There could be no question of democracy, fact, reason, accountability, all dismissed as the ravings of a disobedient slave-girl, not even anything to talk about, they rule. At the public expense.  Why was the Army not sent in?  But that of course would have been upsetting and filth, vermin, psychopaths, butchers, criminals must never be upset and not only will no-one move against them, no-one will help or support me, so binding is the criminal authority of vermin.  Nothing may happen without their consent. And you still don't understand Linch, Naylor and Goldstone are three of the most evil men in England?

Yes, I think obsequious and fawning bourgeois lackeys covers it nicely, so much more reproducible than pig cunt filth, which is what they essentially are.  I think also the nutters come from loon sewers where Doctor and Nurse are the only supposedly educated life  and they really believe everyone thinks Doctor and Nurse are set above all others and consequently that no-one will believe me because I'm just a disobedient servant-girl making up lies about her betters.  Aside from the metal rod in my back....Quite hard to conjure that up. It was nothing if not obvious what was happening to my body and the absence of democracy equally obvious.  In what sense can I be said to be making up the absence of a public investigation?  Somewhere I have the emails from the criminal managers acknowledging receipt of the letter from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, which was why I was moved, and somewhere I have a photograph of the space the width of a chair to which the vermin moved me.  These are loons, nutters, freaks.  You understand of course that Doctor and Nurse ain't fucking stupid, right.  You can probably meet more intelligent amoebae.  The interesting bit is how they have managed to convince everyone outside UCH that nothing exists beside their ravings.

I like to think I've achieved something, not a lot, but something, maybe that I'm not the only one who needs a dentist.

The ottery is at least in spirit very much as depicted, a great many books, a blazing fire and somewhere plush to curl up

If you enter 'rotting corpse' in Google Images, you get lots of really good pictures of yourselves.  Here's a good one of Britannia and her pet cat, Britannia of course representing the chief rider on this storm, persons of the feminine gender.  She was a Celtic goddess, you know.  

You really need to broaden your mind, you know, get out more.  As I  have said, always welcome in the Viledeen.
“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.”

And so we have a new Nazi-Soviet Pact and those who would have been at home in the Waffen SS raise the red flag.
What my grandparents would have wanted me to do? No, it's what my grand-parents would have assumed I'd do.  Leave you with messages from my grandfather and my father.

The Howard lion really doesn't like you at all.  

Clearly what you need is more Spetzi: 
And Ritawa wrote: I knew I had to do it and I knew he’d understand and somehow that made me feel worse, as though I was messing up the party again!  I asked if I could see Sarat briefly, at a time of his convenience of course.  I was asked to pop back at 3, so I popped.  I was shown in.  He was sitting on the desk on the phone, just ending a call.  Hi, he said.  Grab a coffee, do.  There’s a hot-plate and a mini-fridge.  I made polite noises about not wishing to take up his time but I grabbed a coffee anyway.  He motioned to me to sit and I sat, one of those frantically uncomfortable canvas folding-stools. He said: I hope Cioulis is treating you properly, I guess to show he was up to speed.   I grinned. I just wanted to ask a quick something, if I may. It – may sound a bit odd. What did you see when you looked at me?

Ah. A person.  A person who actually isn’t a shit.  As to how to – progress. Pretty much the same, age, class.  Brought up differently. How differently? See how the budgie bites! Does that answer - ?  I managed to say, I thank you.  

Some of us, I admitted, are compiling phrase-books.  I don’t think I’ve met that one before.  He said: we’re all on a learning-curve. 
My other question -  you are the Tradition.  Cioulis is earthpower. Cioulis said the  party is a varied place.  Does that mean I’d get different answers depending on whom I was talking to?  Woo-hoo.  Yes and no.  There’s only one reality.  They tell me it’s entirely mind-bending. For certain I’m not in its more esoteric reaches.  Upper branches, as you prefer.  I think Cioulis is capable of telling you reality is a tree.  I was made to learn a bit about it. Apparently it’s in the job description, essential qualification for the post.  I could not help laughing. What I wanted to learn about was how electricity is supplied to entire communities.  What unites the party is attachment to reality, seeing the real, what is there, not what you think is there, but – people are people.  They have their favourite bits of it.  They see it at different levels.  So – yes and no, essentially the same answers but they might seem different.  Does that help?  Very much, I said.  I thank you. And it’s based in physics.  Yes. Of course I completely longed to say please may my partner be the first female member of the Imperial Army but of course that would be preposterous unless everyone’s female people not to mention children pitched up!  We are after all in this crazy nothing happening war.  A propos of which there was a very large map on the wall.  Can’t possibly tell you what I thought it was indicating but it was very, very interesting.  
And Spetzi wrote: Some of us female people have formed a kind of militia, just in case something disastrous happens, but I think we all understand that we don’t have a place in strategy planning, so it’s back to war to the death with leptons!  So no, I’m not doing anything particularly dramatic to assist the war-effort – though I may wish bloody Azt would bloody do something, preferably come out with their hands up, though probably not quite as much as all of you -  but I am very definitely working for the peace.     
Ritawa.  There’s only one reality but it’s constantly changing?  That actually sounds strange and is rather obvious..  A tree isn’t the same in spring as it is autumn. The geography of the planet isn’t what it was millions of years ago. What I think today most certainly isn’t what I thought a month ago! But the change is contained.  A tree is limited in its movement.  It can’t change itself into a daisy.  What limits the change is what it is. What limits change to people is what they think they are? Mental change I mean! And of course what other people think they are.
Spetzi.  Cantilip can’t have got that wrong.  I don’t mean she’s incapable of error.  In the situation, in the context, she could not have put on line total nonsense. Of course it might just have sounded different!).  People just getting on with their lives, not looking for a war. What have we learned?  The apparent difference is – let’s not say superficial, why not say superficial!  It works in the context it is, on level it is.  If there was no difference, it’d be the same.  Gold star, Spetzi, top of the class! There are different ways of climbing a tree but it’s still the same tree.  That’s pretty obvious too.  I mean you can start at that low branch on the left…What did you see when you looked at Sarat?
Ritawa.  That’s the funny bit, isn’t it. Pretty much word for word the same.  Only of course what you said.  So you’re His Imperial Majesty.  Let us see how this budgie bites!
Spetzi.  So what’s the difference? Ritawa. Hierarchy, obviously.  We’ve been there.
Spetzi.  So he didn’t see a bloody offensive little shit of a junior officer, who bloody dares.  What does it mean?
Ritawa.  What do you mean?
Spetzi.  I don’t know!  But it means something, something to do with controlling, containing.  Don’t tell me that’s hierarchy too, I know it’s hierarchy too!  People are not to be controlled.  Of course there have to be ground rules for when they can be controlled, people being people. Let me try kindergarten steps. You wanted to establish how and in which circumstances he’d control you.  He didn’t see anything that basically needed controlling. Something in motion.  What did I say, hierarchy controls the motion.  A person can only behave in the way ordained by his or her position in the hierarchy.  Though of course there is only one way to behave.  Fun, this, isn’t it.    But we, but earthpower. In some fundamental sense sees people as being, not moving.  Not fluid.  It doesn’t  - wish you were here to soothe my brow.  You can put it really hierarchically or totally unhierarchically.  This is some filthy little man far below me.  This is a friend who’s really upset.  IS, Ritawa, IS.  Am I making the remotest sense?
Ritawa.  Yes but I don’t understand it either. We don’t think people are fixed.  Hierarchically or un.  If your friend is very upset you want her to be happy again. . 
Spetzi.  Oh no! I thought - what if Sarat were earthpower.
Ritawa.  So?
Spetzi.  Do you remember when I yelled at you for joining Challin and you said he wasn’t like what I thought.
Ritawa.  I told you other stuff too, didn’t I.  How none of us had ever met anyone like him before.  It wasn’t that he didn’t keep us on our toes, it was how he did it. 
Spetzi.  Never met a senoki senior officer? Ritawa.  Now you come to mention it.  That’s interesting, isn’t it.
Spetzi.  I do of course keep every jewelled word that falls from your fingers.  Hang on a minute… ‘He just looks at you and that look says, oh this is ridiculous, but true.  I don’t mean the look says that, though I suppose it actually does. When I stop babbling, I mean the look says what are you? Munz describes it as biologist examining a new life-form.  He might say something like, ridiculous man. Then he’d ask you how you were ridiculous.  In a detached sort of way.  As though it were an open question rather than in a domineering way.’
Ritawa.  Of course we were all with him because we hated it all.  The last thing we wanted to be was ridiculous.  Does this sound familiar?
Spetzi.  Don’t tell me you expected Sarat to behave like Challin!
Ritawa.  Of course I didn’t. The problem just might be how very much he did.
Spetzi.  I suppose if you are a civilized being faced with a moron there can’t be that many variations on a theme.
Ritawa.  Thank you for your tender words.  It’s still what you said though, about motion.  I wish I could nail it.  Supposing Fana’s really upset.  Your focus is – what’s there. It’s not that the upsetness - is there such a word - is fixed, she can’t be happy again.  What IS is that she’s really unhappy. But – but if being is doing,  That IS – it’s the IS that’s fluid.  As if - this sounds good, no idea what it means.  As if the IS isn’t really an IS – this is going to drive me nuts -  means there’s a struggle.  Like that image going in and out of focus.  There’s something else there,
Spetzi.  That’s silly but I know what you mean.  About Fana I mean.  Seeeing the whole of her as her upsetness.
Ritawa.  You want to be a fuckwit.  Not of course you my angel!  There’s something there about choosing.  Earthpower doesn’t focus on the choosing but the choice?
Spetzi.  Could that possibly make sense? If there’s an illusory self, it’s pretty obvious where the struggle is.
Ritawa.  Then earthpower doesn’t believe in this illusory self?
Spetzi.  Earthpower says all of you is upset.  
Cioulis had said: mail me any thoughts you might have if you like.  Quality check.  If it’s passable, I shan’t bother to reply, only if you go screamingly off in the wrong direction.    “These two,” said Cioulis, “are nothing if not interesting.”
Karmen tapped his fingers on the table-top. “I of course am more of a free agent.”
“She’s really going to relish some loon from Harn turning up on her doorstep.”
“I suspect little miss Spetzi would prove more than equal to the occasion.”    
“Just talk to her about fermions.”
“That is precisely my thinking.”
“I think not,” said Cioulis.  “He’d want to go and join her, not of course that he would and not of course that he doesn’t anyway – you know what I mean.”
“An activated wanting!  I know what you mean and I take that point.”
Cioulis was grinning to himself. “What do you know about Challin?” “A decent man, as clearly evinced. A brave one – “ “Nothing about his personal history?” “Divorced, two kids with their mom, who does not seem to be anything of particular note.”
“Challin comes from deep VS, as I do, the area around the House.  Plenty of senoki in the Army of course but yes just possibly only one or few at least from the heartlands, the rest of us having joined Sardun.”
“So indeed he is unique?”
“You have to be pretty unique for Marula to fall in love with you.”
“I am entirely startled.  An affair – it would seem to me that you cannot be either Sardun or my lord of Van-senok if you will not go the whole way.”
“Ex-actly.  Joined up instead.”
“So long as Cantilip is not his daughter!”
“Dates are wrong,” said Cioulis. “I am relieved to hear it.”
“Daddy is the fuckwit who tried to put out the Flame.” “That did reach even our distant ears.  It would seem to me – that particular lady.  What is the vogue expression, socially conservative opinion.  My lady Van-senok perhaps the cause of a more conservative opinion of the female of the species?”
“No,” said Cioulis.  “Of course it may be our tendency to see what IS, block capitals.”
“You have lost me.” “It isn’t that he thinks less of women. It’s that he thinks less of men.” “You sound as if you know him – the same community?” “Worse than that.  He had a run-in with the geralis.  Mate of mine was part of the rescue-party.”
“Oh, oh, oh,  I would guess it was after that he declared himself non grata – or grata, as you prefer.”
“He left it three months and planned it exquisitely.  That impressed us.”
“Indeed persons post do not necessarily think at their clearest.”
“What was of consuming interest to us is whom he talked to in those three months when we weren’t watching because we didn’t know there was anything to watch.”
“Cho?  You cannot believe in view of what you have said that it was a feint.”
“No, no, no.”  Cioulis looked quite shocked.  “Protected by a steel ring of fur, to mix my metaphors.  That took arranging.  It also means that PANTHER understood something essential, there had to be a focus for decent kids like young Ritawa who were nonetheless not quite ready to boogie naked in the Sa’aanda Senta.”
“They do that in Zur?  I must visit more often.  That is interesting,” said Karmen, and thought: you cannot be more than a year or two older.  But you of course have seen it and he has not.  I guess that is also what we are fighting for.  
From Spetzi’s archive: Spetzi: you have joined – I too can use the language of Harn – that sexist pig! Ritawa: He’s not like that, Spetz. You’re probably thinking of someone like Ban-vardan, intellectually inferior, weak minds, all the rest of it. Yes, he has profound reservations about suitability.  They come from being bloody civilized.  He is.

…

    Spetzi pondered, then went looking for Grada, the female cat who’d helped organize the militia.
            “As you know, I have clear ideas about women in Kadun.  Just putting them together. I’m thinking of taking them to Maya, but I just wanted to try it all out on someone in case it was a bit – opaque.  Or obvious of course.”
            Spetzi arrived in Carlin, having driven there, south into Vasucula, all the way through Dabida and across the border into the village where she rightly assumed that even if it had been there before the hordes of press-fiends had annulled any notion that a woman on her own was suspect, but wrongly assumed there would be so much as a sleeping-bag vacant.  Uzzn mun troy Car-sandis.  She went into the Rabbiters’.  Couple of empty tables at least.  Food therefore and coffee while I plan.  Vishtu absorbed her slowly.  Thart bain’t no journo. A lot of people absorbed Spetzi. 
     Spetz decided she was having an adventure and liked it.  What should the next phase be? Presumably I just drive up to the camp.  Ritawa had told her there were many female people so it wasn’t going to be as though an alien had landed.  Of course the female people wouldn’t look as if they had just stepped out of the pages of Elegante.  Tet used to call Hass Non-stick. Infuriatingly to the rest of them, not wholly clean, smelling of salt if not fish, Hass would emerge from a day on the foreshore looking much as when he started. Spetz is of that ilk.  She decided she would ask for Ritawa.  If there were the slightest demur, she would simply ask to see Maya.  After all, everyone has right of access.  This she did.
            “Ritawa ban-garion.  He was part of Challin’s gang.  Not quite sure what he does, properly close-mouthed about it.”
            “May we ask why?”
            “I’m his partner. It’s more than that.  I should like awfully to see my lady Maya.  It seemed only kind to let Ritawa know I’m here first.”
            “So he’s not expecting you?”
            “Grief, no.”
            Well, won’t this be a lovely surprise.
            If she would just pull over and park, they are sure they can track him down for her.
            Ritawa was diligently data-crunching, discussing a column that obstinately failed to be chewed and digested. 
            A cat sauntered into the room
            “Is there a Ritawa here?  Someone to see you.”
            Ritawa swung round on his swivel and jumped as though electrocuted; more than one kind of electric current effect, there truly is.
            “What the – are you doing here!”
            “I had an idea about women.  I think I need to see Maya.  It did seem awfully callous not to let you know I was here first.”
            Oh really.
            “Ah,” said Ritawa.  “Then I shall catch up with you later.  Where are you sataying?”
            “Not a clue.  Thee village is packed out.  I suppose Car-samdis.  May I meet you in the Rabbiters’, about 7?”
            “No!  We get mobbed by what are so rightly named press-fiends if we go to the village.  Link up with Karula and I’ll find you.”
            He returned to his numbers.
            Spetzi grinned to herself: you behave like a boy, you get treated like a boy.
            You lucky sod, thought Ritawa’s colleeagues.  You must have hidden depths!
            Not yet named by physicists, the Spetzi effect.
            “You’ll have to wait,” said the cat.  “Obviously if you were desperate, you’re not desperate are you.”
            “Not in the least,” said Spetzi.
            The Spetzi, Maya asked
            The one and only.
            What’s she like.
            I think the word is stunner.  Stops traffic in a 10 nani radius.
            Will I do? asked Sarat meekly.
            I think not,  actually.  Girl-talk.
            Spetzi sat in the outer office, watching and listening.  It’s crazy.  I like it!
            Maya came straight over.
            “You must be Spetzi.  Come through, come through…”
            “It is so absolutely wonderful that you are here!  I thank you.”
            “We do appreciation,” said Maya.
            Spetz noted Maya poured two cups of coffee and handed her one.  Normal human being time.
            “I had an idea,” said Spetzi, “about women in Kadun.  Ordinary women, who perhaps don’t quite understand that they’re people.”
            “I think I’m going to like this,” said Maya.
            “And who see themselves as part of the class-system.  Naturally I understand there are those who have decided – not.”
            “Sure,” said Maya.
            “I’m sure you understand this, most of it, at least, already.  But you are not inside the structure.  Does that make sense?”
            “Certainly,” said Maya.
            “If I say they are frightened of not being controlled – you impose an absence of hierarchy in which they are uncontrolled but is that not controlling?”
            “Listening closely,” said Maya.
            “There is a question,” said Spetzi.  “In our previous everyday class-relations.  The person in a superior position was himself or herself controlled.  Or perhaps not.  But not merely by persons, by an entire situation, an infrastructure.  Heela for instance. Had he not to behave as my lord Var-sega’?  But Mitch threw away the infrastructure.  To – impose another in which – in which it matters more to be Heela than to be Var-sega’.”
            “Ears flapping,” said Maya.
            “I hope I don’t strike you as rambling,” said Spetzi.
            “Very much to the point,” said Maya.
            “But Kyle, where does she fit?  Was there not a parallel infrastructure?  But you – if a young girl of limited education were worried about her periods, should we not both assume she need talk to a woman not a man.  But then might we not both say she should talk to a doctor, who may be male or female?”
            “Yes,” said Maya.  “So it’s more than an question of interchangeable?”
            “Individuals, sure.  I think I am trying to say women in Kadun have inhabited a parallel world.  It’s more than getting inside that world.  The fundamental control is within.  It comes from being a woman, from looking down at one’s body in the bath and knowing what one is.”
            “What is one?” asked Maya.
            “A separate species,” said Spetzi. “I wasn’t sure if I was perhaps over-dramatizing or alternatively if it were too obvious. I tried it on one of the cats in Var-sega’.  When senoki meet carlini, when Fidubi meet Vasuculi. It’s not quite the same animal. Do you agree?” 
            “Sure.  Dabidans meet Fidubi.”
            Spetzi grinned.
     “It did occur to me. Ritawa has never given the remotest sign he thinks me intellectually inferior, because he doesn’t. Everything between us is between equals. But. But, Imperial Majesty in the feminine gender, you are nonetheless a member of a different species.  He is not capable of what he staged had you been on your own.”
     “That could have been interesting,” said Maya. “Sarat there to protect me?”
     “I think just there.  I really don’t want to sit here and dissect my beloved – it’s the obvious example of something I thought might be opaque.”
     “Sure,” said Maya.
     “Whether I have shed great light!  It’s in all of them, regardless of how sweet they are, how – egalitarian they are towards female people, at least of their own class. Even if not egalitarian, they are relentlessly civilized.  As you of course know, as has been said often enough, the mere existence of the Cult contaminates normal relations between the sexes.  For this reason, when they say they are gentlemen, they really mean it.  Even if a woman were a real prostitute inviting them, they would not.”
     “Behaviour,” suggested Maya, “that in other societies might be perceived as harmless fun, stopping well short of rape, is taboo?”
            “Exactly,” said Spetzi, “and surely to be little angels is a reaction, not a taint.  I read at Mel’s Place – no-one ever had boobs that big.   I may say, I think, a man is controlled by his place in the pecking-order. If those above him make no demur, a behaviour is accepted, if not approved.  Thus of course your matrix.  The extent to which this underpins His Imperial Majesty’s freedom to behave as he damn’ well choose I may one day write a book about.”
            “Please!” said Maya.  “More coffee?”
            “That would be wonderful, thank you.”
            Maya found the biscuit-tin.
            “Look a bit sad.  Could get some sandwiches sent in.”
            “I’m really not hungry, thank you.  Lunch in the Rabbiters’.”
            “I so want to go,” said Maya.  “Mel and Hass have told me so much.  Fiendishly  uncontrolled press-fiends!”
            “Ritawa mentioned!  I said could I meet him there. Practically recoiled.”
            Spetz sipped.  
            “A woman, on the other hand, is controlled from all sides, top, bottom, peers. Intellectually, emotionally and of course morally. Of course, not all irtubi males are little angels.  The incidence of rape in remotely civilized regions is low for the cultural reasons outlined. But just because they don’t act, doesn’t mean they don’t think – or jeer, or cat-call, possibly a peculiarly inappropriate expression!  I said a woman controls herelf. She does because she doesn’t want everyone to think less of her.
            “Ritawa and I have discussed the Leotard Look.”
            “Indeed?” said Maya.
            “We decided he should be with me.  I do not give a damn what anyone thinks.  I do not particularly want groups of men not quite impeding my path, uttering apparently to each other remarks I am clearly supposed to hear.  If I wore it in certain areas of the cities – perhaps the cammo version complete with machine-gun.  The point of course being that men and not just men of all classes would think me lessened.
     “So,” said Maya, “with a man that would be – that’s all right because it’s my lord Var-sega’ – “
     “And with a woman, that int right, no matter who.  Of course I paint with a broad brush. Broadly, yes.”
     “It sort of explains something,” said Maya, “and sort of doesn’t! Azt’s enthusiasm for attacking Sarat’s female attachments.  And they could only bring themselves to attack him in the context of his being gay?  That’s crazy.  I do not believe they are sitting there, oh, but this is His emphasis on His Imperial Majesty! Anyway. Sorry, do go on.”
     “What makes ‘fun’ harmless or otherwise?  It may be as simple as the female people pointing out no-one ever had boobs that big!  I have intervened in conversation I did not find harmless. It is interesting that they clearly did, since they were having it in front of me, but that is an aside.  I recognized I had to be careful.  Not because they would have attacked me, not because they would have destroyed my reputation but because – this is where it becomes strange.  I wanted to keep the channels of communication open to continue to be able to civilize the savage.  May I be naughty and ask you what you think I mean!”
            “Alien?” suggested Maya. “No: you’ve already said women are an alien species! Not-alien. Oh I see. I think. Neither male nor female?”
            “Something preposterous. A woman who thinks she’s a man.  A sort of mutant.”
            “Like all of us?”
            “I have heard it said. I have to recognize that Ritawa played a role in the not attacking and so on.  As you have observed it matters to be Var-sega’. That it was an element in my thinking naturally annoys me.  Of course my looks are in my favour.  A fashion-plate is well placed to insert a knife under the ribs without its being wholly obvious at the time.”
            Maya grinned.
            “Of course you can’t possibly have said what you seem to have just said because your most
pressing concern clearly your next manicure?” 
            “Exactly. It is as Sarat said.  When the woman is silenced, even though she silence herself, then the ‘fun’ is not harmless.
            “And a woman controls her mind because of all the things there is general consensus women simply don’t do. That said, if a person, male or female, clearly has both intelligence and aspiration, PLU will generally give a helping hand; some of us of course think that is what we’re there for.  Within of course the boundaries delineated by Varulin - sorry, AKADUNNCO, Munzi’s sergeant.  But I think my point is she, if she, has to have the aspiration in the first place.”
            “So it’s not – not only – that women may be suppressed, oppressed but that they suppress, oppress themselves.”
            “Something has to unlock that,” said Spetzi.
            It is ten to seven. I think I’ll just, said Karula, and rang the outer office.  Still with Maya.   She probably had to wait to see Maya, reasoned Mitch, maybe they’ve only just got started. Ritawa arrived. High-level talks, said Mitch.  The thing is, do we hold eating?  Spetz, said Ritawa, has an awful lot to say about women in Kadun.  Invite Maya? suggested Karula.  Mitch turned to Ritawa.  You are still feeling sensitive?  Not at all, said Ritawa. Karula picked up her phone agan.  Honey, we sure are getting hungry.  May I invite you to join us.  Maya turned to Spetz. I’m happy to continue here if you prefer, get some food sent in.  Or we can have dinner with Karula.  I think I’d like that, said Spetz.
            Karula examined her beloved.  He reacts to it. As I react to Sarat.  Who does not react to a work of art!  Perhaps not quite the same hormones.
            Sarat of course does not sit all on his own in his little room wondering where Maya is but asks.
            Maya looked up from texting.  Sarat would like to come over.
            Quite a party, said Mitch.
            Always find you a job, suggested Mitch much later.  Why should there be only one Deputy  Press Officer?  It would of course be grossly unfair to the other guys.
            Ritawa laughed.
            Apart from the more homely aspects, I don’t think they’d be wholly capable of seeing Spetz as a free individual over whom I have no control whatever.
            As separate from you, said Maya.  A train running on a track called Spetzi!              
            Jobs for the girls, suggested Karula.
            Surely that is the exact point, said Mitch.
            I should like that, said Spetzi, to stand on camera and point out I am only here because I think I can be.  Why should I not be Deputy Press Officer in Var-sega’?
            I should like that, said Ritawa.
            I think we should introduce you first, said Sarat.
 
            Much, much later, Ritawa said to Mitch: I don’t think I should spend the night here. A search-party might prove embarrassing!  Apart from its being somewhat pointed and possibly even against Army regulations. 
            But you would like a little time together, suggested Mitch. I think Karula and I may discover something so urgent it cannot wait till morning.
            That is kind.  I thank you.
            I too am in love.
 
            What are you doing back? demanded Munzi.  Didn’t expect to see you till dawn’s first rays.
            It did seem a bit unfair – began Ritwa.
            The unfair bit is having a Spetzi!  What, we ask ourselves dumbly, has he got that we haven’t?
            Can it be cultivated?  Grown in a test-tube?
            You’re not bad-looking, of course.  No-one could call you plain.
            Like Maya, said Ritawa.
            Undoubtedly one could have had any woman in the world.
            They click, said Ritawa.  On camera, off camera.  What I have actually been doing is dining with Their Imperial Majesties.
            I am sorely tempted to behave like a fuckwit!
            It was all Spetz, said Ritawa. Tell you in the morning, if you like.  Not sure you’ll like!  Spetz’s views on male people can be a little painful.
            I believe you may have previously intimated – not of course that it was necessary we pay too much attention. 
            As taken straight to the top to a female person.  We are liable to experience public pain?
            I believe the expression, said Ritawa distantly, is telling it like it is.
 
            Karmen: Oh-oh-oh!  What happened to leptons?
            Cioulis: Women are leptons too.
            Karmen: All the same stuff!
 
            I’m Spetzi.  My partner is in the Army.  He’s related to Mitch. Is this not jobs for the girls, you perhaps think, whatever the feminine is of nepotism.  I have a lot of ideas about women in Kadun, have had for some time.  I took them to Maya, to someone who has functioning ears. I arrived here off my own bat.  I am here because I think I can be.  I’m not here because I’m posh, though of course I am.  I’m not here because I’m good-looking, though of course I am.   I’m here because something inside me says, I’m human, I matter, I have a right to be heard. Class and education are what give me confidence to speak.  I think everyone should be confident.  Now they can be.  We – female people in Kadun – we’ve all been in situations where we’ve perhaps thought, why bother say anything, no-one’s going to listen.  Lots of people now who want to listen.  PANTHER, Sarat, Maya, me, Karula, Mitch. Some of us have maybe been in - situations which could have turned a bit nasty, or even in situations which did turn nasty.  Let’s say I’m aware of the protective value of class, protective value of having a partner who’s close to the House. Being aware of it doesn’t mean I like it. It shouldn’t be like that.  No-one should be frightened to speak is one thing.  No-one should feel that she needs a man to protect her, that’s she’s not safe standing on her own two feet on her own, because she’s just a woman and no-one will care what happens to her. We’re not ‘just women’, a separate species.  We’re people of the female variety. We matter just as much as men.
 
Fana to Spetzi: Welcome to Kadun, land of opportunity!
Spetz: They take the ball and run with it.
Fana: Who doubted it. May I ask what you’re actually going to do and can I do it too.
Spetz: Mitch has suggested I link up with someone called Qine from CLIK.  Maya is kindly lending me clothes for the occasion.
Would Fana get it?
Fana got it: Somewhat aggressive and unfeminine!  What’s she like in person?
Spetz: Extraordinary, as in extra-ordinary.  Naturally I didn’t expect standard issue.
Fana: Well?
Spetz: Damn’ party.  Impressed that Ritawa stood his ground with that opposite him, and I don’t mean Sarat.  He kept saying he recognized he was invited to the party. I didn’t understand he meant physically!  Not exactly the word.
Fana: Simply have to meet.
Spetz: As soon as a couple of things are settled, they’ll come to V-S.
Fana: Sarat too?
Spetz: Oh yes.
Fana; The love?
Spetz: Just possibly intertwined with a couple of hungry panthers!  I don’t think I should neglect my studies.
Fana:  I was never any good at science.
Spetz: I suppose you could try ancient history.  They didn’t have force-fields in Narulis’ time. Have, know about, call them.
Fana: That bad?
Spetz: Also met the extra-extra-ordinary Cioulis.  He said I was receptive.
Fana: That bad!  Never quite saw you as sitting contemplating the infinite.
Spetz: Am I inner and eso or outer and exo!  Don’t know, actually, not sure
Fana: Maya indicates you can still function in the world, not sit in a tree meditating
Spetz: Lots to think about.  Meanwhile I shall do  - which is of course being.
Fana: Exactly what are we going to do?
Spetz: I think accessible is the word.  D’you remember about Mardis?
Fana: What about Mardis?
Spetz: He ran a soup-kitchen in bloody Azt.  I talked to him too.  He said if you’re just there, making yourself useful, people get to know you, they talk.
Fana: Bless his little stripy socks!  I didn’t know that. You can’t cook for toffee, even communal soup.
Spetz: I think – advice. I’m no expert in anything but I do know how to be independently functional.  Obviously I’m no doctor or nurse, but I do known basic biology
Fana: Bank accounts and stuff. Contraception? How women can keep their money separate?  There’re going to be men who really don’t like that.
Spetz: Hence the cammo!
Fana: No kidding.
 
Qine noted a tendency in himself to make sure his clothes were just a bit smarter than usual and his hair better combed; he suppressed it.  Not because she is a ‘lady’, no, no, no. He thought he was going to enjoy being seen around town with Spetzi.
 
He and Spetz found themselves in a situation unlooked-for.  It had been agreed that such matters attended victory.  No-one had told Spetz and Qine didn’t care.  No harm in looking, is there.
“Can’t come in here.  Private property.”
The dogs snarled in agreement.
“Imperial envoy,” said Spetz promptly, “go where I please.”  Not that I have the faintest idea if that’s true of course.  Worry about it later, hauled before Sarat for trespass?
The man sneered.
“That what you stand for, is it, abolition of private property.”
“Personally,” said Qine, “aye, but I doubt young Sarat, owning half Azt as he does.”
Spetz smothered a giggle.
“There’s been a complaint about conditions here,” she said.  “Someone has to investigate it.  On behalf of the government of Kadun.”  I may be getting good at this.
“It is trespass.  An abominable infringement of the very civil liberties you claim to uphold!”
“Got something to hide, have you,” said Qine.
“Is it, though?” asked Spetzi.  “The way we see it, a crime has been committed here.  You couldn’t keep the police out if there’d been a report someone had been stabbed or something.”
“Obstructing the course of justice,” said Qine.
“Show me the law!”
“Not off the top of my head, frankly,” said Spetzi.  “We thought you might be reasonable about this, want to help improve things.”
The man moved to unlock the gate.  They didn’t think that was to let them in.
Of course the dogs are really the size of goldfish.
“We’ll be back,” said Spetzi firmly.
 
They retreated to the nearest bar, which caused another set of problems.  Never a dull moment.
“Can’t come in here, girl, don’t serve women.”
“Imperial envoy,” said Qine, grinning broadly.
“I am she,” said Spetz.
“Hope I am too,” said Qine.
“Yes, of course.  He is too.”
“Some bloody upper-class tart.  What are you, boy? Bleeding servant.”
“CLIK,” said Qine, “and if you flaming well shut up for five minutes you’ll want to help with our little problem.  Lass here works in the Advice Centre.  Lass of ours came to her with a problem about conditions in that dump down the road.  If the inside’s anything like the outside.  Won’t let us in to look.  If you just give us something to drink, then we can work out what we’re going to do about it.  Supposed to sit on the step, are we.”
“Bleeding tarts, all of ‘em.”
“Tell me more,” said Spetzi
“Dumbfuck,” said Qine.  “Flaming dumbfuck.  Good job we all know most lads in Kadun int like that.”
     “Bought and paid for, int yer.  Sold out to the flaming bosses.”
     “Aye, that’s why we want to look at his bloody air-vents!  Make us some tea, would you please, good strong brew, mind. That’ll make you feel a bit better.”
     OhIsee, thought Spetz, not having previously fully absorbed that no alcohol should pass her lips lest she become wanton.
     “Think this is a ladies’ tea-room, do yer!”
     “I think this is a place for people,” said Spetzi.  “I’m people and I’m thirsty.  I’d love a good strong mug of tea.”
     “Aye, and I can think of good strong things I’d love to give yer.”
     “Hey now, lad, keep it clean!”
     “Better out than in.” said Qine firmly.  Spetzi bit her lip. “Now if you just put it away in yer pants, we can have a little talk about your problem with female people.”
     “Of course,” said Spetzi, “it’ll really slow down important stuff like establishing decent working conditions.”
     “Do you or do you bloody not want this country to change?” asked Qine.
     When the landlord’s partner brought two mugs of tea, she didn’t say owt, but she did possibly seem unusually happy.
     Spetz dug out her phone.
     “The thing is, we’re running under old laws.  They didn’t have factories in those days, so we need to see if there’s anything that covers it.”
     Qine read a bit on his own phone.
     “Not giving not taking, just looking.”
     “Good bit here,” said Spetzi, “no-one shall be deprived of his rights.  I call clean air a right.  Wouldn’t have been written down, would it.  No-one’d have thought air could be dirty.”
     “How about this?” asked Qine.  “To no-one shall justice be delayed.  Being delayed to the lass as talked to yer.”
     “Any complaint should be investigated immediately,” said Spetzi briskly.
     Qine grinned.
     “By the time you’re getting a whole flood of them.”
     “As soon as,” said Spetz.
     “Gives ‘em time to cover up,” volunteered one of the regulars.
     Nothing like audience participation.
     “And that,” said Spetz enthusiastically.”
     “Don’t think as they can cover up this one.  Lass said the machines produce like dust and it’s all in the air.  Like you sweep the floor then breathe through it,”
     “Mam works there.  Sick all the time, chesty.”
     Qine faced the basic problem here.
     “No jobs, lads? I think we can do something about that too.”
     “Factory inspector,” suggested Spetz.
     “Fixing air-vents!” said Qine.  “Lot of work to be done in Kadun.”
     “Praecipe,” said Spetz.  “This is interesting.  It’s a command either you do something or you explain why you won’t do it.”
     “We know why he won’t do it,” pointed out Qine.
     “From no-one shall anything that is possessed be taken, whether ox, ass, land.  Oxygen?” 
     Qine laughed.
     “Bit here that’s right annoying.  The law shall be maintained by those with knowledge theretofore.”
     “This is beginning to irritate me,” said Spetzi.  “You can’t arrest or detain in any way without evidence but how d’you get the evidence?”
     “Writ of inquiry sounds good,” said Qine, “but it’s the wrong end.  Seems to mean you can form a jury, put together a court.”
     “Still sounds good,” said Spetzi.
     “Wonder who could issue one of them.”
     “Right, we ask Sarat if he would kindly, then we take it to the police to enforce.”
     Spetzi was dialling.
     Mitch here.
     Spetzi.  Could you ask Sarat to issue a writ of inquiry please.
     A little more information.
     Spetz supplied it.
     I am sure that can be arranged.
     “Ask him for a Clean Air Act,” chipped in Qine.
     I heard that, said Mitch. OK, shall sort.  Mail it you. Detail, name, address?
     “Oh!” said Spetz.  “Qine’s just taken a photo!”
     “Mail it yer,” said Qine.  “The empire in action!”  He looked around.  “Anyone know the name of the owner?”
     “Open the gates?”  suggested Sarat. “Let them in.”
     Mitch grinned.
     “Just a bit more formal?”
     “We need to fill in the gaps fast.  If there’s one thing I actually know about it’s Fidubi clean air legislation.  Meanwhile, I request – I refuse ‘we’.  The imperium requests?  I see a problem here.”
     “So do I,” said Mitch.  “I thought I’d leave it to you.”
     “Name the complainant not.  OK, the plaintiff, is that the word.”
     “Sounds good to me, but maybe not the word.  Think it applies in court. Clean air law applies to the open air.”
     “Why should it?  Shouldn’t it.  If you want to pollute your own air by smoking or an open fire, that’s down to you, but shouldn’t you expect clean air where you work? Subsequent upon receipt of appeal for investigation.  How about that?”
     “I like it!” said Mitch.
     “OK, I request and require.  It needs samples of air.  Someone to examine how the machines work.”
     Mitch looked shocked.
     “That would be tampering with private property.”
     “Wouldn’t it just.  Air is not private property!  Full medical exam of anyone working in the proximity.  The trick is to start the ball rolling.”
     “I am sure the good citizens of Imperial Kadun are more than equal to the task.”
     “There’s going to be a lot of this, isn’t there.  So I’d better get it right.”
     Mitch grinned.
     “Practice does not make perfect?”
     “Basically it has to be like a standard letter, a pro forma.  OK, subsequent upon receipt of appeal for investigation received on dot, dot, dot, I, Sarat ban-essa, Anile Emperor, Master of Kadun, request and require that the named officers of the Empire dot dot dot pass without let or hindrance – where’d I read that – in – what’s the word?”
“Pursuance,” suggested Mitch
“That’s the one.  In pursuance of evidence to support or refute the charge levied below dot dot dot Such evidence taking the form of – “
     “Such evidence as may be acceptable to a court,” suggested Mitch
     “Good one.  There’s still the minor detail of which law!”
     “The right to breathe?”
     “I think once it’s in context that’ll do. No-one’s going to stand up and say there is no right to breathe!  No-one is to be deprived of his or her fundamental rights within this realm, in the present instant – something like that.”
     You have mail.
     Spetz grinned like a fiend and asked if there was a printer around.
     You have mail.
     Mitch grinned like a fiend and forwarded it to Ritawa.
     “OK,” said Sarat, “who’s going to have the right to complete this.  Me, you, Maya, Karula, Faun, B and P.”  Sarat’s turn for fiendish grin.  “Mum and Dad, Cho and Amida.  People have to make themselves useful around this joint.”
Sarat to Law Office: Do we have anything slightly current, pretty-please? Factory acts? Clean air?
Law Office: Use of mobile phones in war-zones. Thought you were making it up as you went along.
Sarat: One must always be able to think on one’s feet.  Serious, guys.  There’s been a complaint.  I made it up as I went along.  I don’t exactly think dot dot dot. No-one is to be deprived of his – or her – rights.  It just needs what those rights are.
Law Office: There’s a problem. If you implement Fidubi law, you’ll bring parts of Kadun to a standstill.  Guys out of work for months.
Sarat: Then you’ll just have to find a way round it, won’t you.
Law Office: We figured that.
Sarat: Anyhow it doesn’t make sense.  Some guys wanted to gain access to a factory to look around but they couldn’t find anything about right of entry.  Even in Narulis’ time you must have been able to enter a barn to see if there was a stolen cow there or something.
Law Office: PANTHER as officers of the emperor had that right.
Sarat: Oh, I see.  Not PANTHER. OK, can’t you transfer to nominated aforesaid PANTHER’s right to search?
Law Office: We’re making it up as we go along.  It’s mostly the rights of Fidubi cops and smashing down the door isn’t one of them, except in very exceptional circumstances.
Sarat: I am getting confused here.
Law Office: PANTHER didn’t write it down.  Don’t tell me PANTHER wrote everything down.  Even PANTHER thought they wrote everything down! We think it was because it was all forged in war.  It would have seemed to them like bothering to write down – Corsin is attacking you? Verily you have the right to fight back. You want the right of instant access to private property wherein you have received complaint that an offence has been or is being committed, yes?
Sarat: Yes.
Law Office: Think carefully about that one.
Sarat: OhIsee.  Exposing non-PANTHER to the Cult.
Sarat picked up his phone and called Mitch.
“Have you got Qine’s number?”
“Sure…”
“Qine,” said Qine.
“Sarat.  Where are you?”
“Just on our way – “
“Stay put.  Wait for PANTHER.  If there’s anything nasty in the air-vents it’s had time to get reinforcements.”
“Understood,” said Qine.
Law Office: They have trebled their numbers.  The impossible they do at once.  They cannot and should not be investigating every complaint of unsafe wiring, but not only may there be something nasty in the corner, but such a complaint may be if not a PANTHER-trap, then a people-trap.
Sarat: You’ll just have to find a way to sort it.
Law Office: I suppose part of the pleasure of being emperor is delegation.
Sarat: You got it in one.
“I’d never have forgiven myself,” said Mitch.
“Nor me,” said Sarat.  “I had to be told how stupid I’d just been.”
“The fact remains PANTHER cannot investigate every complaint of faulty wiring!”
“That,” said Sarat, “is what Cho employs some of the most brilliant minds in the south to solve.”
 
Ritawa, meanwhile, fortunately oblivious to all of this, was reflecting on peeling paint, a cracked table-top, men in worn clothes and something stranger, his Spetzi looking as though she were part of the scene, not a super-imposition, a piece of image manipulation.  He printed the pic out and stuck it above his desk, whereon heretofore he would not have had a purely decorative photo of his other half.
 
Spetzi to Ritawa: It was so interesting.  PANTHER brought guys able to collect such evidence as may be.  The whole place stank.  If smell constitutes air pollution, it’s an open and shut case.  Not sure exactly what the smell was.  People and their clothes not terribly clean, I suppose waste-products from the machinery.  The people, the workers, rather looked at us all as if we had five heads, but we all assured them we were just doing a bit of a clean-up.  In the middle of it all I rather wanted to go to the lavatory.  It was actually just about OK but I was told it was only OK because the lasses kept it at least as clean as they could.  I guess intractable stains. Same with the little kitchen area. Bits of the sink were yellow, but clean yellow!  I’m wondering something along the lines of obviously there is no way the workers could have done something about the overall awfulness.  No-one could have expected that.  Past tense.  Sarat can!  I guess it would  need some specialists, even if you can cope with your domestic electricity, doesn’t mean you can wire a whole building.  But how to get round the sacred rights of property!
Ritawa.  I don’t see a real difference.  I mean, if it is agreed that the whole place has to be revamped, what does it matter who does the revamping.
Spetz.  The creep paying them their wages might think it matters.
She said something of this to Qine.  Always buy him out! said Qine.  Don’t think that’s quite the way to go! said Spetz. 
“I would agree there,” grinned Qine.  “I do not quite think we want His Imperial Majesty owning every means of production in Kadun.”
“You’d have it taken over by the State.  One of the probs has to be at this particular moment there’s not a lot of difference.  What about taken over by the people?”
“Lass, they could not possibly afford – “
“I can see that.  There has to be some way.  Look, let’s just – if we just say Sohenoil could buy out the whole of Giraga.
“Aye,” said Qine suspiciously, “and?”
“There’re so many things I don’t know.  Productivity, that’ll do.  Assume productivity would increase if the place were sane.  What I’m thinking doesn’t quite make sense because the existing share-holders’d scream the place down.  Some of them might be little old ladies with barely more than the workers.  Not saying there are no fat cats, promise!”
“Not a guaranteed income,” said Qine.
“Probably about as guaranteed as you can get psychologically, with Kadun in a state of paralysis.  As things are, so they shall ever be!”
“That’s been shaken up for some time.”
“Maybe not if you’re a little old lady!”
“So young Sarat’s frightening little old ladies!  Don’t think he’d like that.”
“What I was trying to get at is supposing everyone who works there got a share of the profits.  There has to be capital, Qine, new equipment – “
“Let’s say for the sake of the argument I’m with yer.  But Sohenoil doubtless gets the lion’s share.”
“Only on condition they put it back in?  Most of it anyhow.  Suppose it cost – no idea.  A cool two potatoes to buy everyone out.  Then Sohenoil’s down two potatoes.  Which you will tell me they can surely afford but maybe not all over Kadun! So then Sohenoil is the owner of the place and has to pay all the workers an increased wage along with pay for the repairs, so Sohenoil isn’t doing particularly well out of this.   You will agree that, whatever Sohenoil is, it’s not a charitable foundation.”
“I don’t know,” said Qine grinning evilly, “heard some right interesting things about Mr Fix-It. Funded CLIK in Zur for a start.  Mind you, they didn’t know at the time it was to run his revolution for him.”
“I didn’t know that!”
“Tell yer later.  I’m interested.  Because as of now the whole place is practically worthless, int it.   Can’t continue full production if the place is being ripped apart. Profits ripped apart by the cost of repairs. The share-holders are probably selling even as we talk.  If they can.  Still, so far Sohenoil is losing, if I have it right.”
“Right!”
“So how do they claw back money earned from the sweat of the workers?” asked Qine enthusiastically.  “I know about co-ops, but that’s starting from scratch.”
“By the time you’ve clawed back and started from scratch,” said Spetz.
Qine didn’t think he knew her quite well enough to give her a friendly punch on the arm.
“How does everyone stay purring? No cat-fights, mind.”
Spetz gave a quick gurgle of laughter.
“So there are poor old Sohenoil, left holding a rather costly baby.  The workers are basically doing their own repairs, they know what works best for them, but as previously they’ll need some outside help. I’m wondering if that can come from the Army.  Assume everything’s settled, they won’t have anyone to fight, will they.  Anyhow, it’s money out not in and there isn’t going to be much in the way of producing.  That great day comes when the place reopens for business.  Now, bearing in mind no idea of the sums, no idea if it would or even could work.  Suppose Sohenoil took all the profits for – no idea, whatever covered outlay then a bit, then said, that’s cool, guys, all settled, all yours. Trouble is, I have no idea if that’s five months or fifty years.  Somehow there’d need to be something left in the kitty.”
“Keeping a straight face too.  I think certain people would say we need to have some facts here.  I’m just wondering if certain people might not be better at getting them.  Fancy a trip south, do you?”
“Toss-up,” said Spetzi, “between dereliction of duty and pressing imperial business.  I think it’s the second actually, but I also think it can wait. Going to court and stuff.”
     “No reason not to run it past folk.”
     “No reason at all.”
     “Would it be time Mitch showed his face around here?”
     “Always glad to see Mitch.”
 
Spetzi to Ritawa: And yes, it did seem rather unfair to you stuck in that bloody field for me to go gallivanting off all over the place, though of course you have lots of interesting conversation too.  And yes, I am entirely sure Qine’s sole thoughts were of revolution! But that of course is something we’re all going to have to get used to, if you work with people of the other gender, you may need to travel with people of the other gender.  But those aren’t my most important thunks.  Clearly people think differently on a wide range of subjects.  Clearly also entirely free to voice ‘socially conservative opinion’ though people are, no-one is going to pay the faintest attention: no-one is going to say Ban-vardan thinks it inappropriate if not indecent that Qine and Spetzi sit together in a working-mens’ bar, have a nice cuppa and plot phase two of our attack, so they cannot possibly behave in so shocking a fashion.  Clearly people are equally free to voice total opposition to the rights of capital and no-one’s going to pay any attention to them, either!  But it’s not the same, is it.  Not exactly sure why/how.  Basic human rights comes into it.  No: not just ‘come into it’, it’s the common ground.  And also it’s not true that no-one is paying attention to opposition to the rights of capital because basic human rights are opposition to the unfettered rights of capital.  What the whole thing is is unshrinking opposition to the unfettered rights of capital. 
Ritawa: So Sarat is saying even capitalists have some rights and CLIK presumably say no.  I think I can see – if you are free, then must you not be free to accumulate. Part of the interesting bit comes from when there’s no labour involved, no paid labour, labour other than your own: if you write a best-seller, or are a successful artist.  Another interesting bit is when there’s nothing anyone can call labour at all, a knack for buying or selling at the right time, that capital moves in a world of its own divorced from those whose lives it affects, which must be rather a lot of the point.  But none of that is what I was particularly thinking.  What you said about getting us in to help with specialist stuff.  I’m sure we could do that but that’s not the point.  Might some of it not be better automated and if so people are out of work.  There would seem to be an awful lot to be done, so I don’t know that that’s a financial problem.  For that matter, people might want to do something else.  But it might just be an emotional, a psychological problem.  And more: no matter how ghastly the place is, it’s local, convenient, you’re not going to want to travel 30 nani to the nearest job.
Spetzi.  Not everyone sees life as an opportunity to gallivant around the continent!  I did get a sense of community.  That’s important.  I looked up CLIK in Zur.  Deeply hated in some quarters, sold out, etc.  Loathed particularly in Ciletij, which may have other implications.  Emperor is bad enough without stinking rich!  We’re all of us going to have to recognize that there will be a constant attempt to stir up the working-classes against ‘their new masters’, and I think that’s desperately important because most of us are a step behind here, thinking what Sarat is doing is stirring up the working-classes. But the comrades in Zur are completely unperturbed. They say: look before you judge; it works here in the south; nobody flaming starving in Zur, don’t think you can say the same in Ciletij. You ask an employee of flipping Sohenoil if he or she feels in any way oppressed.   You come and look round AMI.  No-one’ll stop yer.  That’s the killer bit, isn’t it.  So much for the rights of property.  Of course, as Sarat said, the word is politeness, the word is civility!  You don’t get in people’s way.  That’s what he basically thinks, isn’t it. Transparency goes all the way.  Doubtless an armed guard around their bedroom. If lots of people’s lives are affected, they, their partners, their children, their parents, possibly an old aunt whom they look after, it’s not, it can’t be, concealed, private. 
Ritawa.  One must wonder if Sarat were required urgently in the middle of the night – alas, the telephone has been invented.  Or Maya of course, but what possible need could there be for Maya in the middle of the night, a line of thought which just possibly is not so much grossly indelicate as striking at the core of our sexist conditioning!  What, indeed, might PANTHER say?  Sarat, you need to come?  One of you needs to come?  I think I’d better elevate this!  Would he leave that urgent external matter – no, that doesn’t work.  What –  riots all over Var-sega’ about women in bars!  Would he leave it to her?  Would she leave it to him?  I think we can assume if it were urgent the two of them.  Did it occur to you, either of you, to ask Maya for a writ of inquiry?
Spetzi.  Owwwwww! No.  No, and if it had it would have seemed – contrived, is that the word? And you are now going to ask me if I should have said what I said to Maya to Sarat. Ritawa.  It crossed my mind.  Go back to AMI.  I should imagine most things are agreed among the workers themselves.  But everyone knows that if you have a problem with the consensus you are entirely free to scream all the way to the top, which is not just Tar, Mel, Hass, Vij but Saski, Cantilip - Maya’s mother - and I should imagine people do, which is probably the point?  Suppose I asked a Zuri what he, emphasis on he, would do – did – if he felt he couldn’t get any sense out of anyone, might he not say he went to Saski.  Until people don’t see a difference, there’s a difference?  Can we conceive the female halves acting unilaterally?
Spetzi. I may be just starting to conceive it!  What do they do in AMI?  Can fruit!  It has to be more complicated than that, not least because it’s probably automated.  But the other thing, going back to our word of the day fixed, suppose whatever you’re doing, quality control, infection control, it might be quite interesting but if you decide it’s not what you want to do for the rest of your life and your personal circumstances make it hard to change, I’d imagine you’d be supported, you’re regarded as a person, not just a cog in the wheel.
Ritawa.  The meaning of your existence not to control quality!  I have wondered what is the meaning of my existence, in purely practical terms.  I rather think that depends.  If staying in the Army means automating factories, teaching IT, I don’t think there will be many dull moments.
Spetzi.  Wow!  That just sounds so brilliant.  D’you think there will be riots specifically about that – gender roles?
Ritawa.  I rather think that depends on people like Qine. 
Spetzi.  He was rather cool.  And of course I’d have got nowhere on my own. Ritawa.  And if accompanied by a female comrade the argument we have had before  - or keep having!  Shall we survive on my salary and yours?  I asked Mitch the fate of my unearned riches.  He said that depends on precisely where it comes from and that needs peace to be fully investigated.  This is the ultimate war on capital, which is of course why CLIK have fallen in.  Only it’s being fought by capital. Having money is one thing.  Clearly no-one, at least no-one outside the less progressive communalists, has a problem with that in itself.  But I at least do not care to think that it comes from frank exploitation of my fellow beings. If you were to put me in that factory and say, Ritawa, this is where your money comes from – I trust it doesn’t – I should feel ashamed.  There are only two kinds of money in Kadun, clean and dirty.  Cho wants the City banks out and, according to Mitch at least, knows how to achieve that.  What else do we know? We know about the LLR, the Law of Limited Returns limiting the length of time rent may be charged.  Interestingly enough, that is generally regarded mainly as a knee straight in the groin of the Houses, who appear indeed entirely unwounded thereby, though others I think may be quite severely wounded thereby. We know Sarat has a great deal of private property, though I should guess he’ll give a lot of it to the people! We know they all in the south have private property and it is to be assumed Sarat and Maya do not intend to live in a terraced house, if for no other reason than security.  And it may just be sinking in that the value of certain shares will collapse.  Other investments of course came out in a field with the Ciletij Rep!  ‘Kadun doesn’t actually have an economy, it has two economies. On each side the guys at the top deal with their own.  The guys at the bottom don’t know who the hell they’re dealing with, hence interaction and the illusion of one economy.’  I suppose I was aware of something of the kind, but I hadn’t heard it put so succinctly.  Capital is inanimate.  Capital has no intent or feelings.  Everything is in what people do with it.  All this of course underpins the situation in Azt: not just how much is on the books but where it comes from.  I think Sarat would enjoy – I think everyone would enjoy – using Cult money to fund  scholarships for women or facilities for mentally handicapped children. But is some of it underneath it all a loan.  Actually I think Sarat would probably enjoy being sued by the Cult for theft, but it might somewhat disrupt proceedings.  There was another gem.  Mel’s observations on Carlin.  I think all of us recognize to some extent this particular game.  It’s a contract.  A game.  Everyone has his or her allotted role. The pieces interlock, the fortress is secure.  If one of the pieces refuse the game, cast himself out from the herd - he is at risk, a straggler prey to wolves, who may one day return a wolf himself. Everybody gets a prize.  Good landlords, good tenants, good living.  Outside the wolves circle.  They have nothing, they have everything. They have phones, they have excellent schools and hospitals.  They say what they damn’ please.  And they’re trapped in the game.  You’m go to Rarbbiters’? You’m tark Carlin.  Damn it, I want to go!  I digress.  That’s the biggest scam of all.  Of course all of them can talk normally.  All that state-of-the-art TV!  But so long as that’s the face of Carlin, there’s no trouble.  Uzz’n baint but ‘armless yokels ‘ere, zurr. Never mind that uzz’n been plarting revo for years!  Do not, by the way, I learn, imagine this was merely Mel and Asdinan. And Cousins Sorg and Mardis of course.  There are people in the village in this up to their necks and beyond!  But if the wolves are gone?  It’s more complicated than it unravels.  Nothing changes, everything changes.  Could I have said something like that before?  Nobody need be doing what he or she was doing before?  Suppose one of the Rabbiters gets elected to the Senate in Azt? What effect does that have?  After all, there’s only one authority in Carlin right now and it’s not the House.  Shut up and let you get a word in edgeways!
Spetzi.  All of it, it’s an ‘is’ change!  Everything is open when it used to be closed.  Fixed.  It wasn’t just we thought of it as fixed, it was that it was fixed by the game. You’ll say, everything is not open.  Example: Saryulin, Heela, Marula are no more going to surrender the Houses, the stewardships than fly to the moon, I should imagine.  I should imagine flying to the moon is more likely.
Ritawa.  I think I got there, just put it differently.  It’s a question of what belongs in both worlds, isn’t it. 
Spetzi.  That’s exactly what it is.  Now let me be difficult.  Suppose some beady-eyed newly elected Senator wants to abolish the Houses as an outmoded feudal construct.  I’d think Sarat would probably say, they go, then I go, but the people, what do the people say? I should think that after this they tell him he’s talking out of his.
Ritawa.  Evil grin.  So among many many other things, this is a way of maintaining the status quo!  There’s something else there.  The Houses were a gift from Narulis.  Short of the extreme vandalism of destroying the buildings, they can’t be evicted.  I’ve thought – enough going on without tourists!  I really do think a more than idle curiosity might prompt me to ask very politely if I might see the Window.
Spetzi.  Not in the middle of the night, I trust!  I think I should probably retire to my alas single bed.  It is after all 2 in the morning.
Ritawa.  Are we not young, fit and in the middle of a revolution!
Spetzi.  It’s not called beauty-sleep for nothing.  Yea, even I can look a bit ragged.
Ritawa. Ah, well, if you put it like that.  
“An object of outstanding natural beauty,” Sorg had said. “Are we not connoisseurs of beauty?”
“That is grossly sexist!  Is one not a human being?”
“I am, I am!  Exactly my point. Is it not simply my duty as representative of Carlin in the benighted west.”
“Offend her feminism, offend Var-sega’.  What’s the hat-trick?”
“Behaving like a normal human being,” said Sorg promptly.
“You don’t know how to.”
“Now that is a real slur. How can we be useful around this joint?”
Consequently Spetz is sitting at a long low table on which are strewn leaflets about indeed such things as contraception and opening bank accounts, talking to three people, two female and one male, by their clothes working-class, when Sorg and Karci stroll in.  The boyfriend? think the people around, but Spetz gives no sign of glee, running into arms of beloved.
“San-yaega-baht,” said Sorg.  “The subspecies generally known as that lunatic Sorg.  A friend of mine, Karci.  We’re at Caniba, heard you were in the neighbourhood.”
“He yearns wistfully for news of Carlin,” said Karci.  “Actually we both do.”
“Mostly,” said Sorg, “we wondered if we could help.”
“Excellent!” beamed Spetzi.  “How about you pick up coffees – “ She gestured at a battered but functional coffee-machine.  “ – and tell us how? I’m Spetzi.  This is
“Representatives of a sort of all-ranks committee,” said Sorg. “Some of the chaps up at Veli too.”
“Where’s that?” asked Spetzi.
“Barracks over in Asanti Road,” said Cari.
“We don’t see it as our sexist conditioning, just common sense,” said Karci.  “If female persons are going to go where they’re not f-lipping wanted, maybe you could do with guard-dogs?  No slur on you guys, quite sure you can look after yourselves and anyone with you.  Only maybe you have better thing to do than act as guard-dogs.”
“In a perfect world,” said Sorg, “the female persons ought to be able to work solo, but it isn’t and they can’t.”
“Of course we’re aware of the class-dynamic,” said Karci. “We thought lads with  lasses like our Spetzi, officer-class with ladies like you.”
“Just want to make trouble, don’t you, lads!”  This with considerable enthusiasm.
“That’s the general idea,” agreed Sorg.
“In a perfect world,” said Spetzi.  “I can shoot.  Last thing anyone wants is anyone getting shot.”
“Oh I don’t think so,” said Sorg. 
“Just muscle,” said Karci.
“Of course we’re not just muscle,” said Sorg.  “We have many talents.  Holograms, for instance, we’re awfully good at holography.”
“How d’you fit holograms into this!” Sorg got out his phone and fiddled. Out of the phone sprang a 3D image of a child stricken by poverty, spindly legs pimpled with cold, a thin blouson clearly inadequate against the falling snow, dirty canvas shoes. “The sort of footwear,” observed Sorg, “people in the south reserve for the beach.” The child re-appeared, first in his shorts, now clear-skinned and brimming with health, then clad in a quilted parka down to his knees, with solid rubber boots, then bending down to scoop up a handful of snow. Phut!  The snowball exploded in mid-air.
“Happy kids,” said Karci. “We think kids should be happy.”
“How about this,” said Sorg. The centre of Giraga as is, dirty, peeling paint, battered vans, the yellow smog and people in gas-masks a nice touch.  All the shop-fronts are freshly painted in a variety of pastel shades.  Two of the more dilapidated shop-fronts transformed into a shiny clean chest clinic, only it’s not a white shiny clean, it’s a pale yellow shiny clean.  There are trees along the road..  Obviously it’s spring because blossom lies thick on the ground.  The bar has two well polished wooden benches outside and troughs of flowers..  Thing is everyone can see them.  Don’t have to all crowd round a phone.  Get out bits of paper. Flaming brilliant!  
Ritawa to Sorg: Hi.  I do tech.  Can you tell me how it’s done.  Ritawa (Spetz’s other half) Sorg: It’s basically an app.  We fiddled with it a bit.  Totally illegal but we’ll sort that out with the geeks later. Mail it you.
Ritawa.  With instructions!  Not then a real hologram, not that it matters.  How about the real stuff?
Sorg. Plenty of experts in holography at your end!  Don’t think I can say more but if you showed an intelligent interest.
Ritawa.  Got it.  Thanks. How about 3D printing?
Sorg: Have I found a soul-mate?  Certainly 3D printing.  Really, sir, is that entirely appropriate.  If I might just print the Anile throne for you….Being Sarat, he’d probably sit on the ground with his back against it.  Apparently some loon is actually marketing designer crates as the latest in interior design. 
Ritawa. Do I believe that!
Sorg.  I didn’t.  Found it on the Grid.  You find me a sadder, wiser and chastened man. Ritawa.  Spetz and I have talked a bit about automation in the factories.
Sorg.  Unemployment. Ritawa.  Exactly.  They’re only as they are/were because it was thought mass unemployment would be the last straw.
Sorg.  Exactly.  So guys need to get their heads around different kinds of work.  Slow-ow-ow-ly, I think slow-ow-ow-ly.
Ritawa.  Theorizing on too little data.  Me.  What do the mass of people in the south do to earn a living?
Sorg.  I really don’t know either.
Ritawa. I’ll look it up.

Or maybe you prefer Maya duelling with my lady of Vaudos and of course the fence

Someone to see you, Sarat.
 
Someone is wearing a short fur jacket Baz judges real.  T-t-t, not the way….She removes it and hands it to the nearest cat.  Also not the way.  Sarat is for once standing, by the window.  He murmurs, “My lady of Vaudos.”
“Order them to leave.”
“No,” said Sarat.
“There is no right of private audience?  It is common knowledge – “
“Other guys I talk to,” said Sarat, “are not nasty slimy creatures from the pit of desecration.”
“’Guys’!”
“Would you like a nice cup of tea,” asked Baz.
“Remembering to say ‘please’,” said Paw.
“I will not speak in the presence of these animals!”
“Do sit down,” said Sarat.  “Since you know perfectly well that whatever you tell me will be all over PANTHER in ten minutes, what else have you in mind?”
“Not that.”
“Then?”
Must I crawl prostrate beg.
No.
Our lives are forfeit.
“There have to be witnesses,” said Sarat.
“And the witnesses are reamed,” said Baz.
Then I humiliate, abase.
She fell on her knees and touched her forehead to the floor.
“Get up,” said Sarat.  “Or I sit on the floor next to you?”
She raised her head and glared at him.
Maya walked in.
“Drama!  I really did think a female presence was re quired at this one.”  She tumbled to the floor and sat cross-legged.  “Darling, falling at the feet of men is terribly yesterday.”
“Bitch!” said my lady of Vaudos.
“Lots of sharp white teeth,” agreed Maya.
Sarat joined Maya on the floor.
“The buzz-word is behaving intelligently.”
“You execute us or not.  Where is the intelligence!”
“It’s not down to me,” said Sarat.  “Heela, Saryulin and Marula.”
“You can intercede – “
“No,” said Sarat.
“You will not! I too can read law!”
“If you ask for my protection I have to give it.  You’ll still be locked up for life as a clear and present danger to normal humanity.”
“I cannot be – changed?”
“Only with your full consent.”
“’That they freely chose is but rarely unchosen,’” quoted Baz.  “Not sure where I got that from.”
“If you did not make it up!”
“We have the right,” said Maya, “to know what we’re protecting.  Have you killed?”
“Often.”
“And you enjoyed it or preferred the pain?”
“The latter.”
At which point there was a knock on the door.  Great goodness, there is a normal world.
Unless war’s broken out, thought Baz.  He went out to the summoner and closed the door firmly behind him.
“A lot of people,” said Sarat, “would love to know what ‘It’ is.”
“That is the price of life?”
“I’m confused,” said Maya.  “Thought you loved death.”
“Yea,” said Sarat.  “The Great Master shall hold you in his eternal embrace.”
“I have children.”
“A creature like you loves anything?” asked Sarat.
“What is ‘love’!”
“Something there’s not a lot of in Vaudos. Shall we keep to the point?”
“I can never go back.  My children.”
“Everyone go aaah!” said Paw.  “You must have thought of that.  What did you expect from this expedition?”
Baz slipped back.
“To see.”
“Get on line.  Read the papers.”
“A Fidubi lunatic Imperial Majesty!”
“Change sides?” suggested Paw.
“Know your enemy,” said Baz.
Sarat said: “You don’t get quivery at the mention of ‘It’.”
“Oh I see,” said Maya.  “You want to know if we can defeat ‘It’.”
“How likely are we to tell you!”
“The female mind may in some respects be stronger.  ‘Eso’, is it not?”
OhIsee
One duels, ma’am?
‘It’ is testosterone?
Find the secret find the weakness
Maya sits in a field of flowers.
Ground parched arid lifeless cracks
Maya back in overalls with a tin labelled SEALANT
Stop it! muttered Baz.  Sarat just grinned.
The land heals.  Tiny saplings appear. A forest of silver birches
Same old? questioned Paw.
The sound of trees falling, trees screaming as they are cut.
Maya sitting in a heap of sawdust crying.
Oh really.
Maya sitting in Zanocki Park with Sarat’s arm around her gazing fondly on their cubs.
Giant winged lizards with serrated beaks descend on the cubs.
Are turned into humming-birds, tiny jewels of colour giving off  rainbow rays of light
Maya and Sarat grow old, wither, become grinning skeletons.  Then comes the night.
Dark with no stars fills the room, and with it dread, at any rate if anyone in the room were prone to dreading, which they weren’t.  Voices shout and scream in terror and lamentation.
Oh really.
Maya sitting on a moonbeam swinging her legs.
Sarat’s voice in some irritation.  Can no-one change a lightbulb round here?
B+P looked at him.  Not me.
Would he interfere with a lady, would he!
The dark sniffs, paws, lacerations appear on Maya’s legs, her eyes turn red and begin to run with blood.
In real time.  Fractionally.  Maya shifts herself along her moonbeam and the blood hangs in rivulets in mid-air. 
Stain the floor.  A good squirt of new improved PANTHER  a skeletal hand seizes the can knocks Maya off her perch falls broken splayed
Getting antsy?
My lady of Vaudos falls like a rag doll screaming into infinite space.  Maya thoughtfully provides her with a cushion to land on sits beside her.
You lose because you always lose there is no death
There is no life
Garbage crap aren’t  you alive
Given surrendered no thing
I a star thing!
Destroy devour
Star deformed sucked torn
Maya nearly screamed.  In real time.  Sarat sort of moved. No, said Baz
Maya slammed the shutter down, a wall of apparent burnished silver with KEEP OUT emblazoned on it. Spurts of acid scorched seared pocked melted. Briefly.  Maya put smilies on the healed wounds.  Crush annul incinerate the outer surface a wall of fire.
It began to rain.  Heavily.
The fire sputtered and transformed into a wall of outward-facing spikes.
Strands of barbed wire grew from the tips of the spikes and encircled encaged my lady Vaudos
Your captive I cede
Maya waited for the counter-attack.  People rarely fight clean in this one.
Time does time not erode crumble destroy time tearing at the wound of life are you not weakened aged weary in your crumbling bones
Sun-ka-sun I shine I who am a star perceptual
Careful, thought Baz.
Even stars grow old and weary age and die can time not destroy all rock all land all seas
Time for lunch wet Viasdan in Carlin muddy field see stains on the floor in space Maya Talal ban-essa centred in the Whole, Anile Empress, Mistress of Kadun does Vaudos break its trust in time or space where are you?
Here.
Where?
Nasty shack no carpet tins.
And?
You wish in truth I bow crawl make obeisance to the Anile Throne.
No
Are we not all free to choose and choose death.
No.
Your meaning!
Is our meaning not made plain before the world death does not rule Kadun.
Then you must fight.
What are we fighting shall I ream
You would not it is forbidden
I would not.
Then an empty threat!
No.
These are riddles!
Find the key.
You command Imperial Majesty
Shrug
If I tell you
Have you not told
Perhaps or I lie
Lie and will lie why the truth
I must know
What?
What is death?
“A function of time,” said Maya.  “More than that I do not know and cannot say.”
That I see were time to stop and cannot. “Or we move and time stays still.”
“I think – “ began Baz.
“I think,” said Maya softly, “my lady of Vaudos is wondering whether.” She stopped.
“No,” said Sarat.
You take our lives we may not take our own.
“Not,” said Sarat, “at Xu-Laman.”
Shall we not be the final sacrifice.
He-elp, thought Baz. Unexpected, you could say unexpected.  Or they guess?
“Some kind of a fishing-trip?” asked Paw.  “Going to be a bit different this Xu-Laman, isn’t it.  Under the watchful eyes of Their Imperial Majesties.”
You cannot prevent the power.  [Image of dead cats nailed to a door.]
“Just longing for an excuse to invade,” said Sarat.
Corsin devour your rabble here assembled you will not.
“Exactly,” said Sarat enthusiastically.
“So what are we going to do?” asked Maya brightly.
“You are of course free to go,” said Sarat, “unless there’s something else you want to say?”
“I cannot.”
“Speak or go?”
“I cannot return!”
“Then you make no sense.” Or if you return the final sacrifice?
“Can you save my children?”
“If,” said Baz, “we were sure it wasn’t a trap and we’re not.  You were allowed to come.  Oh.  Knowing your children would be sacrificed at Xu-Laman.”
“We never thought they were nice.   If you do go back you are spared, must watch – “
“Yeutch,” said Maya.
“But how would they know you haven’t told us about ‘It’.”
“They want you to tell us about ‘It’?”
“They think themselves invincible.  I do not know.”
“And when we turn up ‘It’ is something different?”
“’It’ is always something different.  The results cannot be predicted.”
“Tear hair time?” suggested Baz.
“A field?” suggested Sarat.  “Not of course a boring muddy one.”
She looked intently at Maya.
“They say you cannot win. I do not know.  It uses silver.”
Sarat sighed.
“Does it by any chance confound space and time?”
“Then it is true!”
“What is?”
“The Throne.”
“Ah yes,” said Sarat.  “The kitchen-chair.  Or a load of old hooey.  A story to pique my personal interest.  What’s interesting is what I might do.  Desert Carlin.  Hare off to Van-senok.  Invade Ciletij territory.  Especially that one.”
“Sure you’d get a lovely welcome,” said Paw.
If my lady of Vaudos’ absolute bewilderment is faked then she’s an even better actress than we think her.
“Not sure,” said Baz.  “Are you supposed to know the chair in the museum in Azt is a fake?  Why does your brother freak over ‘It’?  And you don’t.”
“Do you actually have any children?” asked Paw.
“You torture me to verify truth?”
“No,” said Sarat.  “Not sure what we’re going to do with you – I think I know a real sweet guy who – “
He got out his phone, got through to M-P and asked for Taja, now, don’t care if he’s levitating.  Pretty-please.  Baz laughed out loud. 
“Sarat, he is busy.  You know that word.” 
“I have a problem here called Vastulis’ daughter.  Does that make him less busy?”
“Possibly!  How about Vax?”
“I’ll call Cho – “
“I mean Vax is around somewhere, only saw him about half an hour ago.”
“Could have left by now.”
“Just hang on a minute!”
At least the shrine at Maona-pri doesn’t torment you with jangling muzak when they put you on hold.  Sarat laughed and flipped the loudspeaker on.  The room was soothed by The Edes of Salva-va.
“Taja.  Idle, I think.  Nothing better to do than come to Carlin. Tell.”
“Pitched up of own accord query sent.  Strange story about ‘It’ being connected to silver, to the chair.  Sick strange story about being final sacrifice at X-L.  Can you spot the lies for us, please.”
“A pleasure.  I shall come.”
“Worse than that,” said Sarat.  “We don’t exactly have the facilities for caging monsters.”
“Of course.  Come and collect her.”
“I thank you.”
Sarat cut the call and looked at B+P
“I don’t have time to baby-sit.  Sort it would you please.  They’ll be here from the shrine as soon as.”
“Dialling as we speak,” said Baz.
Vasili said: “The shrine?”
“At Maona-Pri,” said Sarat.  “They really know about people like you.”
“Guess this will do,” said Paw.  “You’ll just have to find yourself another office.”
“I can cope,” said Sarat.
For the first time, thought Maya, she looks genuinely frightened. 
Sarat’s phone rang.  It did what?  Sarat’s and Maya’s phones are allowed to  ring. Only inside, puh-lease. There have to be some privileges.
“Vax.  I hear things.  Fox and I will come with Taja and Losig – female of the species.”
“I wondered about that,” said Sarat.
 
Marula looked up from her monitor and laughed.
“I think I have received an imperial command.  Shall I obey?”
She moved over so Behna could read the screen.
“What will you tell him?” asked Behna.
“Whatever he asks.  Is it not his chair?”
“About the rest of it?”
“Why should he ask?”
 
So now a further meeting of the General Staff is convened.  Plus one.  Sarat says he didn’t know at the time about Challin’s affair with Marula and even if he had he had a few million other things to think about.  Cioulis and Karmen, however, took a profound interest in a number of interactions, especially perhaps the one that began “Mummy.”
“Took your time,” growled Saban.
“You see Heela, Saryulin?” retorted Marula.
“It is different.”
Marula’s eyes met Challin’s.
“Many roads,” he said, “one destination.”
“Carvena sal-tan sulit enemeri,” said Marula.
“Sulit -vastingi, bars ilamin enemeris!“ said Challin. “My apologies.” He waited for Marula to translate.
“The wanderer has but one home.  Home is where one rests one’s head. Broadly.”
OK, thought Karmen, they just get away with referring to their famous difference over empire. Cioulis showed him a mental image of two hearts entwined.  Karmen continued gazing into the middle-distance.
“The phrase-book,” said Cantilip, “sadly never got finished.  Hallo.  What is your name? You mean you actually eat this stuff patsito?”
“Could I possibly persuade you to marry me?” added Mel.
“One condition,” said Cantilip.  She  reached into her hair and extended a bottle-green tress. “You must promise to attend to my roots.”
“Dying to,” said Mel.
Sarat and Maya arrived.
Marula turned.
“My lord, my lady of Kadun!  I am summoned!  I come!”
“You’re going to love it,” said Cantilip.
Sarat said: “Maya and I had a visitor, Vastulis’ daughter.  After multiple layers of crap, possible-crap and not-crap, she is now incarcerated in the shrine at M-P.  Not something you would wish to meet, my lady Vasili. After extensive examination, Taja at the shrine reckons the following has a 95% chance of being true.  She was sent to tell us we are doomed and probably to send me off chasing wild geese to attempt to evade doom.  Explain in a minute. 
She started by throwing herself at our feet, literally.  We joined her on the floor and a good time was had by all.  What she wanted was life, except on closer examination it appeared to be death.  The psychology is a little murky.  She has three children.”
“Poor little bastards,” murmured Karmen.
“We don’t choose our parents,” said Sarat.  “Since she freely came, I told her she could freely go away again.  She repeatedly said she couldn’t go back.  This was puzzling, since it seemed this was no daring escape but permitted.  Her choice, she said, was between death and death. They can of course all go wherever they choose, Enbahaluk, Ciletij indeed, at least in principle.  It seemed a little unreasonable to wander up my garden-path and then say death was forced upon her.  At the other end there would seem a 95% certainty that Corsin wishes to celebrate its final Xu-Laman in Vaudos by immolating all Vastulis’ family. Of course she would have to watch her children slaughtered first.”
Karula was very pale.  Mitch held her hand very tightly.

“I do not know that they would quite understand in G-T,” said Mitch.
“This,” continued Sarat, “is where it stops being repulsive and gets merely juicy.  Unfortunately any story you have heard about the Throne is true.  Also unfortunately the one in Azt is fake.  The real one is at Casin-Ruhn, the site of the Rape of Ciletij.  Why, I have no idea, I think it has been said to keep it safe when the empire collapsed. When the border was drawn it ended up on the other side.  I am not about to invade Ciletij to get my chair back!  Some people, Van-senok-type people, have always known it was there and indeed have sat on it, why not, after all, a convenient resting-place in the middle of nowhere.  Marula, Cantilip and Venga have sat.  The other known person who has sat is my revered grandpapa, Cho. He gets around, he surely does.  The problem  given us on a plate – it is noted - is how the hell these interesting physical properties can be – if of course they actually have been – transmogrified into supposedly the ultimate weapon.  Telling me this tale of the ultimate weapon I reckoned was meant to cause me to leave Carlin – could I, could I! – and invade Ciletij territory.  Sure I’d get a warm welcome. The Vasili person has not actually seen ‘It’.  It seems her partner, now gone to the Great Master, was involved in its creation.  She thinks she’s telling the truth.  Could be she’s repeating lies she has been told are truth.  We still don’t know for sure any more than we did to start with.  Oh and alternatively I am perhaps not supposed to know the throne in Azt is fake and to concentrate our attentions on Azt.  Fun this, isn’t it.  Possibly all a complete waste of time.”
     “We have to set eyes on ‘It’?” asked STB. 
     “No more FAFfing about,” agreed Sarat.
     Cioulis stood up, unusually taut.
     “I too.”
     “Normal day out for a senoki,” said Sarat.
     “Not I,” said Challin.  “But I knew it is there.”
     “There is no physical border,” said Saban.
     “Then it would be possible to claim one was wandering Van-senok hopelessly lost?”
     “No, Sarat,” said Maya.
     “Just a thought.”
     “It would.  We have.  Have I not said, Ciletij there are not our enemies.  We share danger from cold, from isolation.  If you find a fellow human, you assist not ask what he is doing there.”
     “Of course if you find a sick animal,” said Baz.
     “Then you put it down,” said Saban.
     “We can follow that up later,” said Sarat.
     “Now,” said Saban.  “What is the point of preserving such a creature?”
     “To get information from her,” suggested Mitch.
     “As Sarat has said,” said Maya, “once in Carlin she could have got a flight to the other side of the planet.  It is not the same as arrest in Azt.  Or for that matter Vaudos.”
     “That is understood,” said Saban.
     “The fundamental question,” said STB, “is change.  Or does attempted changing so damage they are better dead.”
     “Talk to them at the shrine,” said Sarat. 
     “One more thing,” said Maya.  “We duelled. When she was trying to pulverize me, the ultimate weapon was time.”
     “Would you be able to explain precisely,” asked Karmen.  She showed him. “Whew!”
     “Was a bit,” said Maya.
     “The illusion time has stopped?” asked Mel.  “What can that possibly mean?”
     “Whatever it is,” said Faun, “the key point is surely that we’re not supposed to be able to counter it.”
     “A stopped clock cannot be restarted?”
     “If one is dead,” said Sorg steadily, “is one not so to say a stopped clock?”
     “Be ye all of good cheer,” muttered STB.
     “I merely suggest!”
     “Wrong way round,” said Maya, “not stopping, speeding up.”
     “But it’s still an illusion!”
     “If you are crumbling into dust, do you know that?”
     “Did someone use the word ‘hairy’?  Or these fun things are what we are supposed to think, of course.”
     “However,” said Maya, “I appeared to constitute evidence ‘It’ is not invincible.  Do we bomb the House?”
     “Or are we simply dying of curiosity.”
     “We thought we’d play with them a bit,” said Faun.  “Of course it might bite our tails off.  On the whole Plan One.”
     “There is another possibility – roll of drums.”
     “Never!”
     “You don’t say!”
     “Suppose – some people.  Don’t know.  Group of Corsin.  ‘It’ isn’t finished.  They don’t have a lot of faith in ‘It’.  Not least because if ‘It’ is as described could we possibly know more about the Throne.  Some people are going to be thinking about cutting and running, stands to reason.  They say the Delta is very beautiful at this time of year.”
     “Then she was sent to check us out.  OK, the doubters let her out. But they have no control over the upcoming shit-fest.  They might have guessed she would not go back and in any case why would they think she had a choice.  So they wanted her out?  How is she doing?”
     “Taja has no analogy.  Like sharing one’s time with a poisonous snake maybe.  Something that may strike suddenly at any moment! It doesn’t, learned that much.  But it could. However, a talkative snake.”
     “A disinformative one?”
     “The properties of the Throne?” asked Challin.  “Possibly hooey, but it may matter.”
     “Apologies,” said Sarat.  “Cantilip is going to tell us a story. I’m sure others can chip in with their own experiences.”
 
     “He is frantically in love with her,” deemed Cioulis.
     “She is besotted with him,” opined Karmen.
     “Both their subsequent matches therefore doomed!”
     “Just watch the Announcements,” said Karmen.   
 
Sarat is bombing Vaudos!  I repeat, Sarat is bombing Vaudos!  Sarat is sort of bombing Vaudos?  Sarat is dynamiting in Vaudos?  Sarat does not – yet! - own Vaudos! WTF is Sarat doing in Vaudos? Are you sure he’s not bombing Dabida!  We are assured, announced Vanya solemnly, we are not under attack. This is of course in part because we are doing so to speak the attacking. 
 
OK, Sarat, the  people who are really, really going to object to this are your erstwhile bosom buddies in NoZone.  Guess they won’t bomb you back!  WTF you doing with the Great Divide?
 
Major public works, guys.  Just in time for the forecast torrential rain to fall in stair-rods. Up in the Lausanine the Hyla is in spate.  Excellent.
 
It is a truly terrible thing to have a past.  People observed with some awe that Sarat was probably getting more shit than had he committed mass murder. The lizard of course lamented the collapse of youthful idealism in the face of lust for power, but even the lizard failed to come up with an even slightly plausible explanation as to how irrigation helped Sarat get the rest of his empire back.
 
Nonetheless, it really brings home to you how a united Imperial Kadun will change the shape of the continent.  Literally? All the same, the plans for a national park look really good.
 
Call for you, Sarat.  Important. Cile (this mouthed, not spoken).  Sarat grinned and took the phone
“Sarat here.”
“What the hell are you doing, boy!”
Sarat grinned more.
“May I ask whom I have the honour of being shouted at by?”
“Varchulan, as you damn’ well know.  Well?”
“Finishing a war before you start one.”
“Listen before you act, boy!”
“I’m over 16.  I have a name.”
“Sarat, damn it, listen!”
“You haven’t spoken.”
Ah well, at least they’re talking to each other.
“I wish my grand-daughter to speak to Maya.  In public.  Perhaps even on a crate.  Is that clear?”
Ah.
“Entirely.  Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
 
Nothing by the way that wouldn’t dry up nicely if we just block the breaks.  Having encircled the House with water, what do we do for an encore, hope it’ll float away?  We shall wait and see if anything happens.  And if nothing happens?  Drones for this, we think.  Drones drop high explosive to create spokes of water, radii from the House.  Maybe we’ll erode the foundations.  Maybe ‘It’ is in a cellar or a dungeon below ground.  You know those stupid water-bombs you can get for kids’ parties.  What’s stupid about them?  Look, dear ‘It’, why don’t you just come out with your hands up – tentacles, whatever. Just leave it to soak a bit – marinade.  Oh good, it’s chucking it down again.  Where can we get that much water from?  I think it may be called the sea.  Thought you said you weren’t going to turn Kadun into a flood plain. Hydroelectric dams.  If I have this right, vast quantities of water falling through a confined space create the sort of pressure at the bottom that cracks mountains.  On the other hand, if the water isn’t confined.  You can kill with water bombs.  Some kids here, thought they were just messing around, bit of fun.  Unless presumably they’re so flimsy they collapse on impact – but then would they survive the flight?  We all secretly know in the bottom of our little furry hearts we want to drop something straight through the centre of the House.  The question is what?
 
The vampires came once and were wiped out.  We appear to have total control of the south of Vaudos.  Oh goody.
 
Let us assume something sentient somewhere.  Then the answer has to be what can’t be redirected straight back at us or at least easily and what can’t be transmogrified, at least easily.  We come back to water.
 
Actually we come back to the foe not having so much as twitched a toenail, not in Vaudos, not in Azt.  Verily they have great faith in ‘It’? How comforting.
 
Immolation, immolation, everyone gets immolated?  Why then do they not start partying?
 
























Someone to see you, Sarat.   Someone is wearing a short fur jacket Baz judges real.  T-t-t, not the way….She removes it and hands it to the nearest cat.  Also not the way.  Sarat is for once standing, by the window.  He murmurs, “My lady of Vaudos.” “Order them to leave.” “No,” said Sarat. “There is no right of private audience?  It is common knowledge – “ “Other guys I talk to,” said Sarat, “are not nasty slimy creatures from the pit of desecration.” “’Guys’!” “Would you like a nice cup of tea,” asked Baz. “Remembering to say ‘please’,” said Paw. “I will not speak in the presence of these animals!” “Do sit down,” said Sarat.  “Since you know perfectly well that whatever you tell me will be all over PANTHER in ten minutes, what else have you in mind?” “Not that.” “Then?” Must I crawl prostrate beg. No. Our lives are forfeit. “There have to be witnesses,” said Sarat. “And the witnesses are reamed,” said Baz. Then I humiliate, abase. She fell on her knees and touched her forehead to the floor. “Get up,” said Sarat.  “Or I sit on the floor next to you?” She raised her head and glared at him. Maya walked in. “Drama!  I really did think a female presence was re  quired at this one.”  She tumbled to the floor and sat cross-legged.  “Darling, falling at the feet of men is terribly yesterday.” “Bitch!” said my lady of Vaudos. “Lots of sharp white teeth,” agreed Maya. Sarat joined Maya on the floor. “The buzz-word is behaving intelligently.” “You execute us or not.  Where is the intelligence!” “It’s not down to me,” said Sarat.  “Heela, Saryulin and Marula.” “You can intercede – “ “No,” said Sarat. “You will not! I too can read law!” “If you ask for my protection I have to give it.  You’ll still be locked up for life as a clear and present danger to normal humanity.” “I cannot be – changed?” “Only with your full consent.” “’That they freely chose is but rarely unchosen,’” quoted Baz.  “Not sure where I got that from.” “If you did not make it up!” “We have the right,” said Maya, “to know what we’re protecting.  Have you killed?” “Often.” “And you enjoyed it or preferred the pain?” “The latter.” At which point there was a knock on the door.  Great goodness, there is a normal world. Unless war’s broken out, thought Baz.  He went out to the summoner and closed the door firmly behind him. “A lot of people,” said Sarat, “would love to know what ‘It’ is.” “That is the price of life?” “I’m confused,” said Maya.  “Thought you loved death.” “Yea,” said Sarat.  “The Great Master shall hold you in his eternal embrace.” “I have children.” “A creature like you loves anything?” asked Sarat. “What is ‘love’!” “Something there’s not a lot of in Vaudos. Shall we keep to the point?” “I can never go back.  My children.” “Everyone go aaah!” said Paw.  “You must have thought of that.  What did you expect from this expedition?” Baz slipped back. “To see.” “Get on line.  Read the papers.” “A Fidubi lunatic Imperial Majesty!” “Change sides?” suggested Paw. “Know your enemy,” said Baz. Sarat said: “You don’t get quivery at the mention of ‘It’.” “Oh I see,” said Maya.  “You want to know if we can defeat ‘It’.” “How likely are we to tell you!” “The female mind may in some respects be stronger.  ‘Eso’, is it not?” OhIsee One duels, ma’am? ‘It’ is testosterone? Find the secret find the weakness Maya sits in a field of flowers. Ground parched arid lifeless cracks Maya back in overalls with a tin labelled SEALANT Stop it! muttered Baz.  Sarat just grinned. The land heals.  Tiny saplings appear. A forest of silver birches Same old? questioned Paw. The sound of trees falling, trees screaming as they are cut. Maya sitting in a heap of sawdust crying. Oh really. Maya sitting in Zanocki Park with Sarat’s arm around her gazing fondly on their cubs. Giant winged lizards with serrated beaks descend on the cubs. Are turned into humming-birds, tiny jewels of colour giving off  rainbow rays of light Maya and Sarat grow old, wither, become grinning skeletons.  Then comes the night. Dark with no stars fills the room, and with it dread, at any rate if anyone in the room were prone to dreading, which they weren’t.  Voices shout and scream in terror and lamentation. Oh really. Maya sitting on a moonbeam swinging her legs. Sarat’s voice in some irritation.  Can no-one change a lightbulb round here? B+P looked at him.  Not me. Would he interfere with a lady, would he! The dark sniffs, paws, lacerations appear on Maya’s legs, her eyes turn red and begin to run with blood. In real time.  Fractionally.  Maya shifts herself along her moonbeam and the blood hangs in rivulets in mid-air.  Stain the floor.  A good squirt of new improved PANTHER  a skeletal hand seizes the can knocks Maya off her perch falls broken splayed Getting antsy? My lady of Vaudos falls like a rag doll screaming into infinite space.  Maya thoughtfully provides her with a cushion to land on sits beside her. You lose because you always lose there is no death There is no life Garbage crap aren’t  you alive Given surrendered no thing I a star thing! Destroy devour Star deformed sucked torn Maya nearly screamed.  In real time.  Sarat sort of moved. No, said Baz Maya slammed the shutter down, a wall of apparent burnished silver with KEEP OUT emblazoned on it. Spurts of acid scorched seared pocked melted. Briefly.  Maya put smilies on the healed wounds.  Crush annul incinerate the outer surface a wall of fire. It began to rain.  Heavily. The fire sputtered and transformed into a wall of outward-facing spikes. Strands of barbed wire grew from the tips of the spikes and encircled encaged my lady Vaudos Your captive I cede Maya waited for the counter-attack.  People rarely fight clean in this one. Time does time not erode crumble destroy time tearing at the wound of life are you not weakened aged weary in your crumbling bones Sun-ka-sun I shine I who am a star perceptual Careful, thought Baz. Even stars grow old and weary age and die can time not destroy all rock all land all seas Time for lunch wet Viasdan in Carlin muddy field see stains on the floor in space Maya Talal ban-essa centred in the Whole, Anile Empress, Mistress of Kadun does Vaudos break its trust in time or space where are you? Here. Where? Nasty shack no carpet tins. And? You wish in truth I bow crawl make obeisance to the Anile Throne. No Are we not all free to choose and choose death. No. Your meaning! Is our meaning not made plain before the world death does not rule Kadun. Then you must fight. What are we fighting shall I ream You would not it is forbidden I would not. Then an empty threat! No. These are riddles! Find the key. You command Imperial Majesty Shrug If I tell you Have you not told Perhaps or I lie Lie and will lie why the truth I must know What? What is death? “A function of time,” said Maya.  “More than that I do not know and cannot say.” That I see were time to stop and cannot. “Or we move and time stays still.” “I think – “ began Baz. “I think,” said Maya softly, “my lady of Vaudos is wondering whether.” She stopped. “No,” said Sarat. You take our lives we may not take our own. “Not,” said Sarat, “at Xu-Laman.” Shall we not be the final sacrifice. He-elp, thought Baz. Unexpected, you could say unexpected.  Or they guess? “Some kind of a fishing-trip?” asked Paw.  “Going to be a bit different this Xu-Laman, isn’t it.  Under the watchful eyes of Their Imperial Majesties.” You cannot prevent the power.  [Image of dead cats nailed to a door.] “Just longing for an excuse to invade,” said Sarat. Corsin devour your rabble here assembled you will not. “Exactly,” said Sarat enthusiastically. “So what are we going to do?” asked Maya brightly. “You are of course free to go,” said Sarau actually have any children?” asked Paw. “You torture me to verify truth?” “No,” said Sarat.  “Not sure what we’re going to do with you – I think I know a real sweet guy who – “ He got out his phone, got through to M-P and asked for Taja, now, don’t care if he’s levitating.  Pretty-please.  Baz laughed out loud.  “Sarat, he is busy.  You know that word.”  “I have a problem here called Vastulis’ daughter.  Does that make him less busy?” “Possibly!  How about Vax?” “I’ll call Cho – “ “I mean Vax is around somewhere, only saw him about half an hour ago.” “Could have left by now.” “Just hang on a minute!” At least the shrine at Maona-pri doesn’t torment you with jangling muzak when they put you on hold.  Sarat laughed and flipp

o be shit,” said Sarat.  “The difference is other people saying so.  Whether they spread disease.”
Qine cocked his head.
“I think I can see you, your – government, an elected Senate won’t pay no heed.”
“Can you?” asked Sarat.
Qine laughed again.
“Nothing made me think you pulled your punches. Bottom line is they’re – people like you.”
“So I’m going to pay more attention to them than to you?”
“I would not think that.”
“So?”
“You would say, capital has rights.  You have to or give it all away. You keep it.  They keep it.  It’s power.  More power than folk without.  You, Mitch, you use it to do good.  Not for a moment denying.  They use it to do bad.  How can you stop that if you don’t take it off them?”
“So there’s a bias.”
“Say a lad’s making trouble somewhere.  In a factory.  You’ll say law’s on his side.  You’re on his side.  Everyone’s on his bloody side.  But what does that mean?  They buy people.  Buy the cops.  How does the lad keep his kiddies safe?  That’s what I mean. Kadun’s a big place. Can’t give protection to everyone who has a run-in.”
“Maybe.  Depends on how much of it.”
“What we’re for,” cut in Baz.
“We do cutting crap good,” said Paw.
“’Course,” said Baz, “could do with a hand.  All the local people. Not to mention the Press.”
“People have to stop being frightened,” said Sarat. “That’s the point.”
“What happens,” said Baz.  “Your example.  All his mates get scared or most of them, back down? .   What happens if everyone says piss off?   Maybe someone tells a cat.  Maybe that fixes it. First thing is call in the Press, just to make sure.  What do they do then, whine to Sarat about the sacred right to fuck people over?”
“That’s what’d happen in Fidub?”
“All over the papers the next day.  Juicier the better.  Threats, blackmail.”
“Friend of mine, he says you cut off the oxygen.”
“That’s the idea,” said Sarat.
“And say they do whine.  It’s their money.  They have a right to judge how to use it.”
“Within the limits of the law, of course,” cooed Baz.  “Which are a bit hazy at the moment, as you know.  They do whine.  You should see Sarat’s Inbox.”
“That had not occurred to me.”
“Maybe you’d like to answer some of it!”
“Of course it’s not quite as acid as your example.  No-one’s saying I’ve bought the local coppers and you can’t touch me.  Am I to understand, then, sir.  You got it, guy, in a nutshell.”
“If there’s one person,” said Baz.  “Some people are just not very bright.  Would Sarat be interested in some kind of deal.  Most of them are quite bright enough to grasp the last thing they want is Sarat on their Board.”
Sarat’s phone rang.
He listened.
“Something’s happened in Vaudos.  Not sure what.  Catch up with you later.  Or possibly sooner.”
And that will be all over the camp in 10 seconds.
He stood up
“Have your attention, guys…This is where it starts.  We are not, repeat not under attack.  The guys in Vaudos haven’t so much as twitched their toenails.  Only there’s – call it enemy activity, aim as yet unknown.  Tell you more when I know more.”
 
Something is happening at the House, on camera 24.  Oh right.  Shimmering, motile maybe-metal.  A little it looks  like a fence made of fine gold wires: it is flexible, curves.  Hovers.  Moves.  If you wanted to physicalize  - is there such a word – a force field, you might make it look like that.  It does not appear to have any affect on the ground over which it passes: for instance vegetation does not wither and die.  Is someone having us on?  Also, the Cult is not renowned for doing pretty, and it is, very, glinting in the moonlight.  It doesn’t even stop the clocks.  Maybe it has to be activated.  Maybe it isn’t real. 
 
It is undulating very slowly north, towards the Third Army.  And Corsin.  This bit of Vaudos, you will have gathered, is pretty empty.  It’s going to meet people.  Won’t they notice?  Will anything be left of them?
 
Sarat arrived.  It’s a walking fence.  Does it talk, does it play the piano.  Does it sing?
 
A fox appears, stops, approaches.  Passes through, vanishes.  Whoops!  But no, re-appears apparently unharmed on the other side.  And the point of that is what?  What happens to the human mind in that millisecond of disappearance?   Don’t do animal experiments, especially on humans.
Maybe didn’t really disappear, went into?
 
“There is a creature,” said Saban, “who is expendable.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” said Sarat.
“Then one of us?”
“Show her the pictures,” suggested Cioulis.
 
“This,” said Taja, “appears to be ‘It’. Your comments?”
“Death,” said Vasili. 
“That is an expletive?”
“It is death.”
“How is it death?”
“Madness and death.”
“Try again.  What is it?”
“Extinction.  Annihilation. Death.”
“You seem more knowledgeable.”
“I lied.”
“When do you ever tell the truth?”
 
“What is death to them,” said Venga.  “I will go.”
“If I forbid,” said Sarat.
“I shall pay no heed!”
“No,” said Hass.  “It should it must be me.”
“I sort of follow,” said Mel.  ”Let me talk to Qartly.”
“Ah-hah!” said Karmen.
Mel on the phone.
“A load of possibly screaming garbage about the Anile throne, a walking fence. It doesn’t appear to harm foxes.”
“There must be propulsion,” said Qartly.
“That may be too rational for the current scenario.”
“Human?”
“Where?  The House!”
“Is behind it actually the same as in front of it?” wondered Cioulis.
“A force pulls it forward,” suggested Qartly.
Mel went outside and continued the call.
“We have perhaps triggered it?” asked Karmen.
Maya said: “Maybe it’s not meant for us, just has to freak normal minds.”
“Nice one,” said Sorg, “but then why isn’t it heading for us.  Sort of shield?”
“It’s going to have some effect on us.”
“The stars, the stars,” said Cantilip.  “I get there.”
“Last person,” said Marula abruptly.  “As Hasiyata of course understands.”
Venga laughed.
“May I not grow!”
“Visible waves?” asked Challin.
“That’s an interesting one.”
“Don’t have anything intelligent to say about it, but it’s got to be interesting!”
“I do surely think we have to gaze upon it,” said STB.
“Cunningly disgused as foxes.”
“If we knew what kind of wave, couldn’t we deflect it or split it or something?”
“I think we know that,” said Karmen.
“Time-waves?” sighed Faun. 
“Small detail missing there.”
“I think we’ve been a bit thick,” said Maya.  “Haven’t we assumed only nice people know about the chair?”
     “We are such fools,” said Marula.
     “Gee, where did they get the raw material?” suggested STB.
     “Where are the Ciletij military?” asked Faun.
     Saban sketched rapidly.
     “There.  There.  There.”
     Sarat began to laugh.
     “Sorry.  Tickled my funny-bone.  The lake.  Maybe it likes water.”
     “We aim to please!” said Faun.
     “I suppose the chair is still there?” asked Hass.
     “Not transmogrified into a golden wave!”
     “Mine, all mine?” suggested Sarat.  “I think that would make me unhappy.”
     “We can witness,” said Saban.  “You can never prove.”
     “No,” sighed Sarat, “I could never prove.”
     Mel came back.
     “Qartly’s verdict, for what it’s worth: Kilana siy tan.”
     “We may just have got there ourselves.”
     “There are still unanswered questions.  If it were heading for us.  It is not.”
     “If it leads the Third Army.”
     “Good to know what is pulling/pushing/propelling.”
     “Suppose which I doubt we can change its direction.  What do we do with it!”
     “Nonetheless,” said Mel, “I think we have to get going.”
     “Whole new meaning to going with the flow?”
     “Just working out,” said Sarat, “how to tell the guys they may be under imminent attack by a walking fence.”
     “Which we think will blow their minds and make them useless.”
     “That’s the one,” said Sarat.
     “Do we have the nerve to ignore it?” asked Hass.
     “An interesting idea,” said Karmen, “but I should vote not.”
     “OK,” said Sarat.  “We do exactly what we were going to do. Except.”
     “Change of venue!”
     “None of that’s the problem, though,” said Mel.  “You can see why she thinks we’re doomed.”
     “We can see,” said Karmen.
     WTF that mean?  It means Corsin have learned how to handle, and so be immune to, positive energy. 
     “Oh I see,” said Maya and STB practically at the same time.
     “Why the brother is a quivering wreck,” said Maya.
     “Someone was an experimental animal,” said STB.
 
Hi, little fence.  Come out with your posts up.  You are surrounded.  What you are surrounded by may/might confuse even you.  Or it may not.  Be prepared!  Sigh. We were going to do this round the House.  Oh no: and we’re going to do this  around the House.  And at Hokabi.  Ooh, ooh, isn’t life exciting.  It’s basically our own ‘cleansing ritual’, Faun had explained.  You could not recite some of that ancient-speak and keep a straight face.  But so far as anyone can tell, all the movements are genuine.  It has to look really really good. And who is watching?  That is what we’re going to find out.  
 
Ritawa to Spetz.  We appear to be at war.  Something is happening.  Nobody knows what, according to Sarat, not even him.
Spetz.  Sort of a relief in a way?
Ritawa.  Sort of.  In a way.
 
Tell you something, said the bloke in charge of transport, while you lot were snoring three truckloads of cats headed for Vaudos.  We may not know what’s going on but someones do.
 
I wish! Sarat would have said, had he overheard.  Aware he was going to have to communicate, he hoped he could keep it the right side of sane.   In the morning the Press yammered. Something Is Happening.  Sarat kept it brief.  Still collecting data.
 
OK, assume it’s bait.  Stop.  Scan.  Nothing, a few specimens of that wide range of wildlife for which Vaudos is renowned.  Would be if anyone went there.  Hence the national park.  That’s weird though.  Why don’t the bunnies scarper from spook-zone?  The bloody fence.   Stop.  Scan. 
There are no humans.
 
So what’s the trap?  The dear fence itself? The House explodes?  Something explodes. Us, maybe, all over the news.  The trap, we think, is, might be, not that we can see how, we’re being filmed and recorded.  Will be.  Automatic cameras at the House? How can they still be working? The fence itself? We should not therefore do or say anything too outre.  PANTHER in Vaudos is not going to set the world alight.  Of course images can be manipulated.  Here we are in a sea of corpses? Whom have we massacred? Cross that one if we come to it.  Sorg’d have a field day making them Corsin corpses.  Don’t say that word!
 
The CR involves forming a circle around the target and moving in to form a five-pointed star.  That works, so we enjoy ourselves reciting the words in the privacy of our minds. We double up so it’s a smaller five-pointed star, at which point who knows, maybe a chorus of dancing-bears did high-kick across the floor of the Ciletij Senate.  Check tomorrow’s papers.  However, here in dark, dull, damp, Vaudos nothing happens, zilch. Zip a rock into the doorway and make it jump up and down.  Nothing triggered, nothing happening.  Sensors inside?  Well, if we’re sensed, we’re sensed.  Still nothing local. 
 
     Like the other Houses, the House in Vaudos is not large, roughly three large rooms by three large rooms.  Interestingly, it has a central courtyard, daubed by obscene and graphic graffiti and full of puddles.  Re-enacting cleansing rituals is not readily performed in wellies and it was a warm night. People were wearing those plastic sandals with drainage holes in you can get for swimming where the seabed is rocky and jagged. OK, water has seeped through gaps between the stones and it’s going to be a swimming-pool underneath?  How do we get to the cellars, preferably without drowning ourselves.  Obscene reek at the back and it’s not rotting vegetation. 
 
The kitchen table is heavily stained with blood.  The corpse nailed to it is fairly fresh, female and got up to resemble Maya in silver leotard and trappings with a wig askew of black curls.  We are PANTHER and friends.  We don’t stop thinking, that being mostly why we’ve survived thus far.  We therefore have a logical problem with this called 24/7 surveillance.  There has been a ritual murder of an occupant,  therefore, despite no signs of occupation, and where there is a murder there must also be a murderer. Or murderers.  Yeah right, the fence did it.  Pix.  The face can be reconstructed for identification. We wonder if we should just wait for something to happen, but, puh-lease, not here.  Make more sense if it were the kiddies.  Maybe that’s upstairs.  Either they screwed the cameras or there’s a tunnel.  Stop.  Scan.  There is no human life here except upstairs there is faintly something.
 
In the nursery. Three children are seem to be in a sort of time-warp.  The girl picks up a Maya-doll, tears its head off, throws it across the room, goes to fetch it.  Repeats the performance.  For ever.  The boys practise goal-scoring with Sarat’s head. More experimental anmals?  Haven’t we been busy.
 
The guys at the back have discovered a bank of screens and dials and flashing lights in an outhouse, presumably moved out of the way of the fucking water by invisible hands.  Oh yeah and you do what?  Thinkdon’ttouchitdon’tdoanythingthat’sthetrapalarm! Biterbit? Youbet. Screens, dials and flashing lights, no matter how fascinating, find ritual murder beyond them.  I suppose I mean they could manipulate a robot which is where? Is this secret passage time?  OK, this controls the fence. Somewhere.  There’s always a nice big knob obviously more important than the rest. 
Notwithoutkids
WhatkidsWTF
 
Then the fence:
.  Oh – oh - oh this is interesting.  The fence forms a circle a ring, defensive, offensive? Meaningless?  KLUTZESwe’reinacirclestraighten! They formed a line.  The fence unfolded to form a line at right angles. Ah-ah arewebeingpulledintwodirections? OK, little fence, let us try to tune in to your inner essence.  The fence began to sing, hum at least.  You know, like the Throne, popularly held to be musical. We seem therefore to be communicating.  Anyone know what we’re saying?  Friendandally!  Not if it screws half the Army!   The fence jerked suddenly, was pulled sharply backwards, appeared to shake off constraint and curled up again.   
 
The Hokabi team arrived.  Hokabi was pretty boring in comparison.  Its burnt-out shell offered much cover but provided it wasn’t covering decomposing corpses, time-bubbles and wavy fences, the regulars could sort it.
 
Obviously if we have two time-twitches the thing to do is put them together and see what happens.  They’re logical like that.  OK said Karmen let’s just see if we can if we can it’s moving.  I think in fact we just do we not I think we do get me a flight to Fidub can they land at the shrine.  Cho has a landing pad said Faun.  Good good good come on kiddies trip to the sunshine. And Momma.
 
If your brain is still working after all this, you will have grasped that the snotty little brats espied by the lass who didn’t like working at the House were too young to have been Vastulis’s.
 
“Get them to bring a few cans of spray paint,” said someone.  “Imperial silver.”
“Nice one.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Surely standard issue.”
 
Cioulis showed the fence an image of the Anile Throne.   It began to move towards him.  He held out his hand.  Cioulis! yelled others mentally and physically. He touched it thrown in deep space keep centred whole middle of fucking Vaudos I am travelling oh this is fun! Laters.  Apparently unaware the effort of disconnection had thrown him backwards he said shit! ScrewCorsinisthepointimmune? asked Faun.  Can’t be, said Cioulis.  Must be, said Faun.  They made it.  Cioulis laughed.  It made itself.   Don’t know where I got that from.  Certain.  Whatever they did this not intended. Faun reached the same conclusion as Karmen as to air freight.  Cioulis had another bright idea and showed the fence the shrine at M-P.  Confusion of images.  The word ‘home’. Is that weird or is that weird?
 
IAF loaded two cans of grey paint and a couple of paintbrushes.
 
Vax might have been heard to mutter something about the local tip, but that is the least of Sarat’s problems. 
 
There actually are private showers, in the no-go area, for people who’ve been doing things like crawling around soggy ruins in the middle of the night in sopping sandals and don’t want to talk about it.
 
     “Something to communicate,” said Sarat.  “Been to Vaudos, got the T-shirt.  PANTHER and friends went to Vaudos.  1 to investigate the House and 2 to check out the ruin of Hokabi for nasties. We might have wanted to use them as bases in Vaudos, though since I’ve just told Corsin that I guess we shan’t.  Just patrolling the joint.  3 to investigate an artefact that showed up on our cameras, nature of which still undetermined. 
     They thought the ‘artefact’ was a trap, bait, so were CAUTIOUS, 20 point bold. There seemed no-one around and continued to indeed be no-one around.  They found what they thought in fact was the trap, would  trigger an alarm and refrained from triggering it.  Alarm, explosion, could have been anything from generating all out attack to bringing the House down around them. Or or course they were wrong and nothing would happen.   They thought they’d trigger it remotely just to say good-bye. Nothing appeared to happen.  Eventually our camera picked up a contingent of Corsin.  Here they are hunting wild geese.  To continue ornithology, we were of course supposed to be sitting ducks.  As usual, we’re too clever for them.  Not quite the end of the story.” Picture of silver chair daubed on wall.  IMPERIAL PROPERTY – KEEP OUT.  ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.  “They entered.  Nothing happened.  They fanned out round the House.  Nothing happened.  Don’t think they do false sense of security but they wouldn’t be human, well a bit, if they weren’t more relaxed than when they arrived. FV also stands for Forever Vigilant.  We are, yes.  We had had of course plenty of time to get organized.  We shot a satisfying number of them.”  Pix of black-uniformed bodies.  “The rest ran for it. PANTHER and co scrammed too, having no wish to confront the entire Third Army, at least quite yet.
     “There are therefore a number of corpses requiring removal or dispersal. If Corsin wish to remove their dead, we shall not intrude. They will of course have to communicate that intent – and keep to it.
     “I don’t know what’s going to happen next.   Just so long as they remember – here I am having a quick babble.  We’re not sitting here gloating.  We’re sitting here figuring how to stay three steps ahead.”
 
Corsin thought it prudent to let their exalted leader, Ban-razit, comment first.
“Send Misa to them with a message.”
 
This is war, Sarat!
Not necessarily.  Countless firefights over the years, just not me to tell you about them.
Yes, well, maybe…
 
The loss of the fence has only slightly dented cool since most of us didn’t believe in it in the first place. (Editor’s note: slavering nutters in Azt I shall get to later.)  There remain more usual fashions of engagement.  There are other things not strictly same old.  We sent her to see.  Now we know.  Plain losing also dents cool.  Not, however, a lot.  If we wish to cause the maximum of  embarrassment, how should we go about that?
 
The fence wrapped itself around one of the pillars of the shrine, crooning softly.
“Quite so,” said Taja, not quite able to keep a straight face.”
“May we expect,” asked Losig.  “Generation.”
“Nothing if not interesting,” said Taja.
 
The time-bubble was a bigger problem, there being no point in bursting it only to kill its occupants, who are deemed alive and indeed kicking.  Sane or reparable are different.
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