Is it Shav you hate most, or Dill, or Fal?  I suspect you may hate most Sarat's application of science to the extra-normal phenomena of this Matter of Kadun.  that would follow from what you hate and fear and spit at being my view that extra-normal phenomena a) exist and b) if genuine are susceptible of rational explanation in an intensely complex universe we do not fully understand.  No gods, no devils, no 'revelations', 'sendings', messages from on high, just levels of experience and phenomena not understood by primitive man, whose stammering monkey brain of course told him he was done to, the passive recipient of something from 'on high', not the agent of its appearance.  But then perhaps you do not understand that.  After all, you are so ridiculous that when a bottom-feeding slum-boy screams he ain't fucking illitrit you take him with leaden seriousness.

Extract from The Anile Heir ©2006.
 
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book.


Shav turned from avid contemplation of a mollusc, not because she was a closet biologist but because she liked time on her own, and getting it could be hard; she was in Essa’s beach-hut and Dad working away at the other end was so peaceful it was like being alone, except maybe a bit better.
“I was remembering,”: she said, “when Turny died. I remember bits – the apple! We were babies. I don’t really – Sarat was very upset.”
Essa looked up.
“She was put down. He didn’t like that.”
“Killed.”
“I thought you were old enough to try to understand. You and Sarat. Zik wouldn’t be left out.”
“I think I understood about wearing out. I got lost after that. That didn’t matter. You gave us a sense – your sense - of – completeness, that death is part of life, not something – intrusive, alien. It was reasonable and right.”
“You think of a death neither reasonable nor right.”
“I think she was pregnant,” said Shavli.
“Shavli…” Essa put down his pad and walked over to her, feeling as though in slow motion.
“People say he froze,” Shav was continuing. “Seconds. No-one – holds it against him. He didn’t, did he. He went straight in. I think what he found stunned him.”
Essa put his arms round her shoulders.
“If he doesn’t want to tell anyone,” said Shavli, “or yet, anyway.”
“I do not see how the death of my beloved Turny - ?”
“I just thought,:” said Shav, “after that he really got the zoo bug, there were so many small furry deaths. I can hear everyone shouting it’s not the same! Of course it’s not the same.”
“We already had the hamster and the rats!”
“I can’t get rid of the feeling there was something strange. Of course there was something strange!”
“How do you know unless you try?” said Essa. “I said the vet could do no more.”
“That is so Sarat.”
Essa smiled.
“Start as you mean to go on. Move over…” He sat beside her. “The problem is she was dead. Therefore he connected with her mind at the moment of death or with another about to die.”
“What I know,” said Shav, “is how Sarat would react to anything small, furry and terrified.”
Essa laughed.
“You think he would see no difference.”
“I don’t think he’d see any difference at all.”
“I too think. He found himself where the living do not go. That is enough. The physician in the emergency room performing resuscitation does not relish interruption but Baz is not the fool who interrupts.”
“If he didn’t know, she couldn’t have been – viable. Ghastly word.”
“Shavli, you do not know. She?”
“She’s not here any more.”
“Let us stand back a little. The two people perhaps in all the world we think do not – what is the word, perhaps panic.”
Shav gave a small frown of concentration.
“Flip. Baz flipped. Sarat does not freeze. Baz does not flip! And remember, there must be a hundred million watching worldwide. They don’t even flip or freeze in private!”
“We are all human.” Sarat lay by Shavli’s pool. His intent seemed even madder than it had in the Jumesit. That, he said to himself firmly, is why we have other people to run things past. Shav and Petrush emerged from the house in swimming-gear. The table was laden with fruit, iced juice and pretty pastel sorbets. Vaccinating sheep didn’t seem such a bad choice.
Petrush took a running dive and surfaced spluttering.
“You’ll need a cool head,” said Sarat.
“Cool is my name.”
He heaved himself out of the pool and helped himself to a bowl of sliced peach.
“What drags you away from the delights of Azt?”
“You fly,” said Sarat.
“We do.”
“Of course you only have the entire Kadun Air Fleet at your disposal”
“This would be so secret even I don’t know I’m doing it.”
“Ah-uh!”
“The reason I’m not entirely mad is that the empire used to have a northern coast. Now it doesn’t.”
“Ah-uh doubled in spades?”
“I could be difficult. I could go to court. I could waste ten years of my life on lawyers trying to prove the old maps are forgeries. I could stir up a hornet’s nest that’d reach the stratosphere. I don’t want to do that. I just want to know a couple of things.”
“You don’t want us to bomb anywhere, then.”
“I’ve read up a bit on stealth. Stealth and spy-planes. I think you can do it without being spotted. If you are spotted – that’s one of the things we’re going to talk about.”
“You’re talking about the no-fly zone?”
“Jaaba Sen,” said Shav. “Are we not all one people, the continent at last at peace?”
Petrush made to play a violin.
“There’s a spy-plane called a 580.”
“There sure is.”
“It’s the nature-lover in him,:” said Baz. “The last untouched wilderness. More violins.”
“Sarat, surely you are not cynical and disbelieving.”
“There are more angles than – something with an infinity of angles? Marula’s zest for a tree-hugging emperor might have led one to suppose that she would want me to ask for her trees back. There are more conspiracy theories about that place. Bar the total loon element – site of an ancient civilization – the consensus is not only that there are no humans there but that there never were any humans there. That’s why it’s protected as a world heritage site. Even the loons think the ancient civilization was on the coast.”
“Why does that make them loons?”
“They were aliens. Maybe the loons are aliens too. It’s not the principle of aliens. I just think there should be more of them, more centrally located. They set up house on about the most inhospitable bit of the planet then vanished?”
“Maybe the climate suited them then changed?”
Petrush was grinning evilly.
“Quite apart from that’s what you were kind of told at C-R.”
“Quite apart from that. I started with – I start with the Denzines are going to wreck the perception of any human instrument. I want to know what’s there not what that bastard Fugitry wants to show me. And I do want the crowns, number two, two in number, I mean, which is interesting in itself because the one thing every spotty teen knows about Narulis is Brig, Nautshka and Vrim. The crowns were made for a pair.”
“He does not speak with awe of Denzine Master Fugitry.”
“This is my territory?”
“There’s an air corridor,” said Petrush. “I think we might have some fun here. Make the switch in mid-ocean? Suppose we set up a dummy flight from the City to G-T. Somewhere in the water, it lands on a carrier and gets replaced by our bird. Our bird zooms respectably between the fences then vanishes off the radar. All hell breaks loose because they think it’s crashed. I’m working on it!”
“I knew you’d understand,” said Sarat.
“I’m an understanding kind of guy.”
“What usually happens if you’re found in a prohibited area? Shoot on sight?”
“That may depend. Most no-fly zones are known sensitive areas, military installations, government buildings. This one – it may be hard to justify shoot on sight when the crime is disturbing sleeping moose and the weather is shit. There are no fences along the side of this road. Folks can get lost. Shoot down some Ciletij tycoon in his private jet!”
“Some strange magnetic force played havoc with the instrumentation! Of course we do have to contend with the proposition that there is some strange magnetic force, which may be why it’s a no-fly zone.”
“I need a map,” said Shavli. “What occurs to me is there’s a research station on the ice. Supplies have to come in. People have to go out. They go round?”
“Surely only if they’re going to Vasucula.”
“It’s an international zone. Some of them must be going to Vasucula.”
“I should imagine,” continued Petrush, :”they put up sheep-dogs to guide the stray lamb back to the true path. Depending on what kind of lamb it is of course.”
“Bearing in mind,” said Baz, “it may be some tree-hugging Fidubi, closely associated with NoZone.”
“Ciletij is not your friend.”
“Parts of Ciletij are my friend. I might even think all Ciletij was my friend if I hadn’t had the affrontery to succeed. A powerful and prosperous Kadun, it is argued, only needs someone less nice than me in charge. It’s a kind of – it’s ingrained in some quarters. Why would Kadun want Ciletij. It’s cold, it’s windy, and it has a northern coast which even it can’t want.”
“Less nice and more acclimatized?”
“Kadun has minerals too.”
“Nonetheless and heretofore, here you are, taking a real intelligent interest in that which you swore I recall – “
“You see my problem! For 600 years they showed no sign whatever of wanting the empire back. Kadun had to modernize. All-Kadun was geopolitical convenience, as Karula put it
Fanfare of trumpets, Mitch and I, as rationalist as we are revolutionary, in equal parts loose cannons and saviours – that vital continuity with the past, you know.”
“That would be the past in which no-one on the whole continent wanted the empire back.”
“That past. The one in which being modern go-ahead young men we are thought safe: we shall have no interest in the past..”
“And still less in the more sequin-studded aspects of the other matter.”
“None whatever in those. I demand dancing bears.”
“That Ciletij does not relish a united Kadun is not ground-breaking. There had therefore to be something worse in the offing, which we know, and in particular, which we also know, that worse was centred on the other matter. OK, let us call it The Secret, capital T, capital S. The Cult could not be allowed to discover The Secret. With which it could do or perhaps has done still greater evil? That would tend to suggest the chair and admirable though she is I do not know that one can say one can do anything with her.”
“What you really want,” said Baz, “is him to tell you all the mad crap he’s found on the Grid.”
“We do?”
“The best part is some of it’s real,” said Sarat. “If we go inside I can project onto the wide screen."
“It’s the zig-zags,” said Baz. “Do your head in.”:
They sat round the TV screen looking at a jagged red line.
“The ancient enmity,” said Sarat dreamily, “ between Ciletij and Kadun might lead one to suppose the border – a broiling pit of magma might suffice. That is the border. It follows the course of the River Gradun, faithfully follows that course, every curve and loop. It stays ten nani south of the river at all points. Those who’ve been on the ground – guys who were in the resistance – say there is no physical border, not even a piece of rusted barbed wire.” “‘Welcome to Ciletij. Please do not disturb the wolverines. They have just as much right to peace and quiet as you do.’ The trees, the trees!”
“Nor is there any no-man’s land or no-fly zone. What do you notice about this border? Suppose I took off from VS to fly directly to Azt?”
“I cannot quite believe,” said Shavli, “Ciletij are happy for KAF to wander in and out of their air-space.
“When was this border delineated? Oh, of course!”
Sarat grinned happily.
“It was not negotiated with the entity Kadun because no such entity existed. North of Azt it follows the general rules laid down for borders, sentries, guys who want to look at your papers. At Var-sega’ it’s a couple of rows of electric fence and two crossing-points.”
“Marula is in this up to her neck? Conclusion: VS handed over a whole chunk of itself in return for what?”
“We may assume then at the semi-hysteria surrounding Kadun territorial ambition is a complex feint. One may appreciate – though then again one may not – they wanted C-R in Ciletij but it would seem to me the creative cartographer – when the name of a country and of its people is the same, a certain ambiguity is achieved. Rape of Ciletij, the nation, which did not in fact exist. We could posit the – price of the Rape was Van-senok, but that in itself seems a little odd. Unless of course, etc, etc. Superficially odd.”
“How about this for a story?” said Shav. “We’re testing a new ground-penetrating radar. We want to see if it works through trees. Not too much untouched primeval forest on Fidub. Contacts in KAF – pause for violins, hands across the sea – offered Van-senok. Unfortunately, some strange magnetic force played havoc with the instruments and we became hopelessly lost. What happens if we play that in real time?”
“How about that’s Act Two?” said Petrush. “We could get good pics, go back for a second look and then get caught?”
“You don’t seem to think FAF will have a problem with this,” said Sarat.
“PANTHER operation. PANTHER wants a look at Ciletij, we do what PANTHER tells us.”
“He said with wide-eyed innocence. I haven’t talked to Cho and don’t intend to. The fewer people who know I’m not going to invade Ciletij the better.”
“If Ciletij poses a threat to the security of the continent…”
“This space-rock of yours,” said Shav. “Ours! I’m wondering – suppose it’s incorporated into terrestrial weapons?”
“There’d be explosion, death, injury in the area of impact. A normal bomb. But just maybe the – fall-out! Play havoc with the perception of those within an unknown radius?”
“Isn’t that an interesting thought?” said Sarat.
“Baseline is people on the ground are not harmless charcoal-burners. They see us, they call. If they see us. They’re cautious guys. They call even if they’re not sure what they’ve seen. Missiles rising out of the lake. That is one short call.”
“I have an overwhelming desire to see,” said Shav. “I quell it.”
“Exactly,” said Sarat. “Land or air I do not see this as a Sarat-friendly zone.”
“If we came in from VS, it’s minutes. On the other hand, they will not expect anyone coming in from the north. OK, lemme set the scene. A Fleet ice-breaker with spy-birds on board is there. And what are they doing? They are surveying the ice. Probably there already. If they aren’t, we are.”
“Inspirational,” muttered Sarat.
“Range?” asked Shav.
“I thank you. These birds go for ever.”
“I hadn’t realized that,” said Sarat
“I think not the 580. They make a bee-line south-east. How much artificial intelligence is required? What is the role of and who are the human controllers?”
Baz looked up from a book not as gripping as the surrounding narrative.
“We are. Cats hate the cold.”
“Tick that one off,” said Petrush. “The rest is detail. As to where we land, having done the deed, my choice is a Fidubi carrier in mid-ocean. Whatever happens, whatever is said, this is nothing to do with Kadun.”
Sarat grinned.
“Just figure out how I give you a medal.”
“We can talk about that when we’ve got the goods. All we need now is not to smash into a tree.”
“All of it is apparently untouched wilderness, from the ice right down to VS. Terrapin shows just that.” Terrapin was a Fidubi satellite. Terra pin, geddit. Some people have a strange sense of humour. The other one was called Turtle. “It has quite a reputation. Sightings of almost every monster the human mind has conceived – I noted with regret none had five heads – giant reptiles, lush vegetation, the ancient civilization. A particularly popular theory is genetic mutants. The bears are the size of houses, the wolves the size of rooms. Some tone this down to merely larger than normal, consequent upon genetic isolation. I hear the next question hurtling to your lips. Terrapin shows blurred at C-R. Extremely poor quality images.“ He pursed his lips. “Heavy cloud cover, you know.”
“It’s live, real-time?”
“Shielded?” said Shav at the same time. “Artificial clouds? I know! It’s all the chemtrails from the air traffic.”
“It only passes over twice a day.”
“Every day,” said Petrush. “You assume of course.”
“I assume of course. Eagle-I – who the hell names these things? All the Ciletij commercial satellites only release data under licence. “
“All the geophysical data, GPR, that has to be interpreted. We have to learn to interpret this stuff?”
“The hands-on approach. Do you trust anyone, present company excepted?”
“That is an interesting question. Yes. ‘Our specialists’, no.”
“A select few who handle potentially highly sensitive data.”
“Let me tell you about Jaaba Sen. You might think it a tourist attraction. There will be signs not just of humanity but of tourism at the very least at the periphery. If people do not put more than a toe inside, still they may gaze in awe and wonder. There is a fairly substantial town called Cood and it has no such signs. Closer to the trees are other smaller towns, equally pristine. That there are actual wolves and bears is not in dispute. It may be they are the best deterrent. Ciletij mythology abounds with the terrors of the forest. Certainly there may be terrors in that forest for those who penetrate too deeply, even if they are only shape-shifters pretending to be terrors of the forest. It may also be that if one penetrates too deeply, one is politely halted and turned back. Military installation. Or of course not turned back, merely turned into snow-drift.
“That figures in the more complex conspiracy theories. The military are breeding mutants. Some escaped.”
“There remain zoologists, ecologists – and archaeologists. Two hundred years ago an explorer called Stoobard Solden ventured too far and returned broken and babbling. That of which he babbled was perhaps more interesting. He said the dead walked the forest, his every move was watched. He saw the shades among the trees, but no shadow was cast on the ground. Scientific psychology decided this was a variant of snow blindness, visual hallucination caused by an excess of light. Unscientific psychology talked about it a great deal but showed no particular inclination for field work, at least until high summer. They returned - thoughtful, convinced indeed they had been watched and what watched them were the spirits of trees. I fear they were not tree-huggers. It had not occurred to them there could be harm in cutting down a young tree and building a friendly fire. It would seem the trees thought differently. It would seem the trees moved in the night and blocked their path. The only opening was back whence they came and they took it. That of course stinks of Van-senok.
“The Academy of Geobiology took to the skies and mapped the region, thus providing photographs of some of the most spectacular scenery you never saw. An intrepid band of white-water freaks tried penetration by kayak and vanished, presumed drowned. More latterly the Institute of Zoology gained a permit – from whom is surprisingly or not as you prefer obscure – to conduct some form of census, head-count, of Ciletij’ indigenous wildlife and to map survival in so extreme an environment.. Nothing untoward was seen or they agreed not to let on. The moose thrives, you know. The extent to which the territory they covered was controlled may be implicit in the survey method or may just be one of the few ways to conduct such a survey in such terrain. They selected squares of each kind of habitat and tagged their inhabitants. The scientists had no problem with ‘spooky as hell’ and I quote but attributed it to the constant howling of wolves and cracking of trees under the weight of snow. They even admitted to a feeling of being watched but of course it was nonsense and indeed directing cameras at what wasn’t there confirmed its absence. They concluded that thinking a wolf-pack has you ear-marked as lunch wears you down. One of them said that when he stopped to adjust his pack and the rest of the expedition were just that bit further away than normal he felt as vulnerable a new-born moose separated from the herd! Never being able to be off your guard. It must have been like that for early humans. That was very much the overall conclusion, that it’s ‘like being at the beginning of the world, not just somewhere humans don’t go but where we’ve never been’. Let us say it is not a hospitable environment.
“Following that there was a flurry of interest in our wonderful wildlife but few people sincerely want to get eaten and visitors to Saaba Valley, the national park north of GT where you may see wolves under carefully controlled conditions, substantially increased. From the other side, numbers of large dangerous and potentially dangerous carnivores, includes lynx and wolverine, caused concern that in a bad winter they might venture down to human habitation and gobble small children, but it appears to be the perfect self-regulating eco-system. Perhaps interestingly, fell creatures that emerge from the trees and eat babies are not among the myths.
“Where there are no people, there is no archaeology. There are people in Ciletij. It does not cause hearts to race to think there were previously people in Ciletij. They know there were previously people in Ciletij. The question is the furthest northern extent of human habitation: there is no reason to think this prehistoric community would be any different from those disinterred in more accessible places. We know the world is slowly warming. The myth of the remains of an ancient civilization is dismissed totally. Of what would it have been built, blocks of ice? Thus the aliens…The overwhelming emphasis is actually on guilt-tripping Ciletij. Behold the original extent of the forest and dwell in shame on how much of it was felled to create the Ciletij we know and love today. Before you bite me, I know I might have said something of the kind! That was from the simplicity of my tree-loving heart, not a part of what perceive as a sustained campaign to make sure no-one gets close.”
“Suppose I went to this - what was it called? Cood. OK, there’s no tourism industry. So I’m a trail-blazer – Zeshanzesh, are there not - folks who never saw a reason to leave the Leolisle find the entire continent open before them!. I’m there with my back-pack and I want to go hiking. I’m not some extremes freak and I’m not stupid, I know if I get lost my chances of survival are not high. A little gentle exploring. First, I buy a map, right?”
“Fat lot of good it does you! We’re not completely backward,” said Baz. “We sent a cat to Nyon-Va, ten nani from the trees. It showed exactly what you’d expect. A lot of contour lines, some on top of each other, a lot of inverted green Vs, meaning trees, and a lot of water. No roads, no trails, no trains. By the way, there’s nowhere to stay. Against the odds, the natives are friendly and put you in their spare room when you politely conceal your disarray at having dropped off the edge of the world.”
“What was his story?” asked Shav.
“Her story. Fidubi geographer now working in Kadun, which she is. Had a few days off and wanted to see the real north. Touring. Which she was. It’s the southernmost of the – I was going to say settlements. I guess that’s what they are. I guess the ancestors of the good folks of Nyon-va go back to the beginning of people in Ciletij. They’re wired. They have bright lights and music and a weekly dance and all the news but they’re not expecting callers.” He sighed. “There’s just one slightly jarring note. There’s a family runs an international mail order biz in fur, fur hats, fur boots, fur jackets, fur gloves, fur gilets, hand-stitched.. Of course no-one goes into the forest. Of course it’s the perfect untouched self-regulating eco-system. I’d guess Nyon-va has been going into the forest since there were people. It’s cottage industry at base. It’s not going to decimate the fur-bearing populations.”
“No, Petrush,” said Shav.
“The sooner you resolve this matter of Kadun, the sooner I have freedom of movement back!”
“I shouldn’t bet on it,” said Sarat.
“VS,” said Shav. “Where does Mel fit in?”
“As I read it, everyone is to some extent caught up in someone else’s plot. What I think is that Mel knows everything Cantilip knows. What Cantilip knows is what Marula has chosen to tell her. I think it fair to assume Cantilip’s initiation into her heritage was abruptly curtailed by her choice of partner. Cantilip and Mel are running their own investigation. I read that as Cantilip taking an independent look at her heritage. I can relate to that.” He paused. “I said Marula hasn’t asked for her trees back: I have not been asked to pull any levers. It may be Mel has. It would be a great deal less painful on all sides for Mel to negotiate with the Denzines or Ciletij.”
“For a start he doesn’t want a bit of his country back. The past,” continued Shav, :”may be as embarrassing as the present if the present is built on a lie.”
“That’s the one. I don’t think this is about any of us in the here and now.”
“But can that be the case?” persisted Shav. “Do people not fight for their history? That is not – very recent history?”
“Owww!” said Sarat. “I don’t think I’m going to find VS worked for the Cult or assassinated Kaminua. Some comparable crime. What I do recognize is the extent to which I have been compromised. The charade at CR. It’s peculiar.”
“It was that, all right,” said Petrush.
“You’re sure it was a charade?” asked Shav.
“No! First I thought, why on earth draw my attention to the place at all. Then I thought once I’d sat on her I’d know she was odd, so it was kind of double bluff. Once I had ‘experienced the mystery of Casin-ruhn’ I should be drawn into the conspiracy to leave everything alone. Mel has no control over the Denzines. Cantilip has no control over her mother. Neither of course has any control over Ciletij – “
“Cantilip,” said Shav, “is independent of her mother in a way that could never have been foreseen.”
“That too. Cantilip is in a position to do things she could not have done until Marula was dead.”
“Looks to me,” said Petrush, “there are two ways of looking at this at base. One is that persons unknown know the full story and are keeping it from you. That is an unfriendly act, the next question being why. The other is that no-one knows the full story although he or she may think she/he does. Either way, you are being kept in the dark and fed shit.”
“It annoys me,” said Sarat. “I am Anile emperor, you know.”
Petrush grinned.
“A third – perspective is that everything worked to constrain you once you reached that august position. You are tied down, Sarat. The price of empire has been that you would not even think of interfering in the affairs of the rest of the continent.. How gross would that be! Why would you? Or how badly do they want you to keep your hands to yourself? I am not making insinuations against your fellow-plotters. I understand you are bonded in blood. But our illustrious elders? Airoch, Tar, Marula, Saryulin.”
Your best friend won’t tell you, thought Baz.
“Or again there is a double-bluff?” suggested Shav. “You have rewritten the continent’s history. It cannot occur to you it needs rewriting again.”
“Cho?” asked Sarat.
Shit, thought Baz.
Shav didn’t answer directly.
“They did not predicate – isn’t that a good word? Exactly who you are. The staying Sarat clause. I think if you fail to stay Sarat you think you have failed. True?”
“Very,”:said Sarat.
“Both of you,” said Petrush, “you and Shavli, for the first what 16 years of your lives you were Fidubi kids. Surely well-heeled ones, surely well-connected ones, but you grew up – “ He grinned suddenly. “ – And remember I am not some writer for Glitz fabricating your early life and struggles, I was there. With the – perspectives of ornerry folks. Most of it’s down to the Straits! A vital separation from Zur.”
“Most of it’s down to Mum and Dad,” said Sarat.
“His Imperial Majesty’s mother is a Fidubi housewife,” said Shavli. She giggled. “Like me.”
“You use the last of the lavatory paper,” said Petrush, “you go down to Zerq’s and get more!”
“You remember that!”
“I remember. That was one sick rabbit. Sure Baya had cubs to help, but they did not undertake to run the joint. That is the difference.”
Shavli grasped the nettle
“Cho – loves you to pieces. They have sweated blood. We all have. Cho would do anything for you. Bomb Ciletij! Possibly. That doesn’t make him incapable of – as you said, being part of other things. Cho could not do anything that would hurt you. Sarat, does it occur to you they don’t want you to know because it would hurt you.”
“No.” said Sarat, then, “What can hurt me more than I have hurt myself? That is – responsibility for being alive,” said Sarat. “We live with the consequences of our choices. Suppose all of it’s crap. Suppose Susheela didn’t flee to Fidub with her son! Would it matter?”
Shav considered.
“To you? To the working-people of Kadun? That’s why you are not safe!”
“Others,” observed Petrush, “may be more deeply - invested in history. To an extent – “ He sighed. “You have augmented. History – you stop any Fidubi in the street. When we were kids, it would not have been – relevant – not sure that’s the word, but you get my meaning, that Fidub was responsible for the empire. There was a nice – a safe? – gap between us and the past. We were now.”
“For the record, that’s not what I think. Or that the empire was always the shit-hole Ciletij said it was. There is absolutely no justification for that. What I do think revolves around Zani. I think that story is a deal more complicated than the official version. But it wouldn’t – diminish him. I don’t think I’m going to find he didn’t lead an army to the Great Gates and found Dabida.”
“Could Mel have an interest in that story!”
“History tells us Jaizal sent a mighty army to crush him and he emerged victorious. I’ve heard less plausible stories but not many. I do not doubt Zani’s courage, oratory, weaponry or numbers and I still think they would have been massacred if there hadn’t been something else, some display of power to convince irtubi he could defeat Jaizal. The field effect is apparently confined to north of the GD, to which I say oh yeah? Second, I – we, this one comes from Mel. We think Zani sat on the chair and that’s why he didn’t proclaim himself Anile emperor, simple, humble guy that he was. There are other questions keeping historians busy, whether eso or exo. PANTHER was unable to stop the rot and then suddenly proved capable of both defeating Jaizal and cleaning out Kadun. Zani marched across Carlin and Carlin failed to notice.
I think all of them, VS, Carlin, PANTHER, wanted the collapse of the empire. I think Zani was in league with them up to his neck and the deal was he’d defeat Jaizal so long as he did not become emperor and they could have their independence back. I think – some show of power and/or who are the Imperial Army! Senoki, Segani, Carlini.”
“Certain resonances,” said Shavli.
“The world was confounded when the Army of All-Kadun joined me. But of course it didn’t:” “I think there are two things. I do not on what I have heard see any likelihood of any government – or throne – falling. To the extent that this is bound up in the eso, it cannot make the six o’clock news and – dislocate the continent’s image of itself, that of the man or woman in the street. But I would say the relationship of the academic discipline of history to the other matter is necessarily at times somewhat jagged and to that extent the man or woman in the street may be living a lie.”
“That’s why Mel loves Kyse,” said Sarat.
“Kyse?”
“His rationalist if not revolutionary historian friend. He says the word is lying.”
“I should like to meet Kyse. I conclude this mystery of ours is eso. That may seem obvious given the centrality of a silver chair. I thought it worth wondering if riot and revolution might ensue!”
“The spill-over?” suggested Shav. “We started by talking about Ciletij missiles!”
“We try to keep them separate,” agreed Petrush.
“If we filter that lot,” asked Sarat, “do we come to something with which I could go public? The cause merely of terminal embarrassment, caught lying?”
“It’s a possibility. It says a lot for Mel.”
“Oh yes,” said Sarat, “it says a lot for Mel.”
“Apart from having sat on the chair and chatted to Kaminua, you are squeaky-clean.”
“And Maya,” said Sarat.
Baz looked up sharply..
“I was going to say I cannot believe anyone who knows would sink so low as to use that.”
“Who knows?” asked Petrush.
“Us,” said Baz, “you, family, Pietri and Caluna. Hass and Venga. Mel and Cantilip.”
“Marula.” said Shav.
“There would have seemed no harm?”
“Sheds a whole new light,” said Baz. “Mel may be trying to make up for being a bloody fool!”
“Eh, our Mel? Never!” said Paw sauntering in.
“Missed all the fun.”
“Tell me later. Cool off…”
He headed for the pool
“OK,” said Petrush. “We know how the Quadrant worked. Division of labour. Fidub handled space. Shall we list what we do know for a change? We know that the military use of nuclear power is banned world-wide. We know that all physical manifestations of military power are essentially a side-show for the masses because the only serious wars ever fought were fought with mind. We know that guys with dangerous minds are not immune to being shot which makes it a good idea to have handy something to shoot them with. We know that Ciletij historically has a horror of mind-power and prefers tanks and – again historically – has relied on the south for the fancy stuff, in particular Fidub. We know that PK can stop advancing tank but it takes as many guys as there are advancing tanks and on the whole it is simpler either to blow up the tank or for those guys to work together on the terrain. We know that the Ciletij sense of vulnerability is increased a thousand-fold by your little venture. We know that there are other forms of modernization besides main drainage and all the guys who worked with Ciletij in Kadun know that thinking Ciletij know that too – “
“Concur,” said Sarat.
“We know that elements in both Ciletij and Kadun forced into a shotgun marriage do not wholly warm to sharing their little secrets with each other – “
“Concur,” sighed Sarat.
“We know that the Cult is active, particularly – curiously perhaps – in Ciletij, calling for continent-wide disarmament because why retain the military when clearly there is and never will be anyone to fight. I am thinking hard about your space-rock. I do not much like my thoughts. Suppose it were incorporated in a normal common-or-garden bomb. Its power has survived travel through aeons of space and we may – predicate it would therefore survive the heat of explosion. That explosion may be expected to cause the normal level of damage of a blast but I am wondering about – fall-out. Might the fall-out not cause havoc with the perception of those in the surrounding area? I am of course wondering also how that might mesh with the CR charade.”
“Mmm! Radiation as some kind of cutesy clue. The idiot boy has been told…That occurs to me too. This stuff is powerful and it has a half-life? We know it’s powerful. It may be a faint feeble remnant of its former self? It’s terribly tempting to think of the Rape as this power on the loose among people who had absolutely no way of handling it, but there wouldn’t seem to be any way the dates fit.”
“We’re good boys and girls and everyone knows we’re good boys and girls, but your heirs and successors getting hold of a power - ?”
“Maybe that’s what happened before?” said Shav.
“I am not prepared,” said Sarat, “to be put off by a theory. Possibly a conclusion I am duly supposed to reach. Nor am I an idiot. I shan’t leave matches around for the kids to play with.”
“Sarat and Hass played with alphabet-bricks on the floor of the Room,” said Shav in a good imitation of Mel. “No-one is going to think him a second Jaizal.”
“They don’t want you to have that power now,” said Petrush. “It’s too dangerous. The mere fact that it exists becomes a threat.”
“It comes back to who knows what. They couldn’t say the chair was lost because VS knew damned well it wasn’t.”
“The stories around the chair are all good,” said Sarat.
“Maybe that’s the point of the nuclear metaphor. The power itself is neutral.”
“Jaizal must have the throne! Why, if she’s one of the good guys? I had her assayed. Young Scientist of the Year. Fidubi ores! She is indeed made of impure silver and the more detectable impurities are those of lodes formerly found in extremely small quantities on the Utmost Isle and now exhausted, as evidenced by artefacts in the Museum of Early History. I actually read the assay report – don’t start me on wavelengths and photons – but of course ‘trace elements’ rang no bells at the time. Or after for that matter. Did you know the average friendly homely meteorite is mostly iron? But if this space-rock contains something unknown, literally alien, it reacts - ? What is she, guys, what is her – potency, if that’s not a sexist word?”
Baz looked at Shav and Petrush and answered for them.
“Earthpower.”
“Does it not crumble mountains and shatter continents?”
“It might just,” said Petrush (Cool is my name), “be beginning to come together.”
“This is a pure flight of fancy,” said Sarat, “but suppose, just suppose, on some immeasurably distant planet, something sentient looks to us like rocks. Rocks can be hurled through space, we know that. Suppose some humdinger of a cosmic cataclysm - ?”
“Who noticed the sentience?” asked Shav.
“Who do you think!” sighed Baz.
“Cantilip? That rather puts her in the clear.”
Sarat said mildly, “You have to remember we have been through a remarkably wide range of experiences together.”
“I’m going to assume you have tried simple questions. What is your name? Where do you come from? What do your parents do?”
“It doesn’t work like that. Maybe you should sit. The nearest I can come is our – pre-occupations taken outside time until time itself dissolves.”
“She is your pre-occupation!”
“How can I put this?” said Sarat. “I haven’t sat on her since Maya died.”
“Sorry.”
“It shook us all more than we let on. What is being screamed at us is everything is whole. There is no difference between life and death. These are not things I want to hear right now.”
“Oh Sarat.”
“But she responded to you?”
“She responded to love.”
“Time to eat, I think,” said Petrush. “I fear that having been insufficiently forewarned, the range of seeds we have to offer is limited or indeed non-existent.”
“Lad were brought up proper,” said Shav, “Eats what he’s given.”
“News travels fast,” growled Sarat.
“If you want to really freak Kadun,” said Baz. “Anyone who noticed the diet before put it down to the hot weather.”
Sarat grinned.
“Meaning Mitch.”
“You have to understand,” said Baz, “food underpins the entire empire.”
“I think you need to go into that a bit more…”
“It’s our memoirs, at once riveting, unclassified and seminal. Tell you later.”
Extract from The Anile Heir ©2006. I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book