Exurbia: A Novel About Caterpillars (An Infinite Triptych Book 1) (8 page)

‘We’re to assume then,’ said the tersh, ‘that you are representing the syndicate?’

Her skin was pale and blemishless, her movements a little lacklustre;
Gnesha, what is so wrong with you?

'I have been dispatched by the inner-council personally.’

‘I see,’ said the tersh. ‘Then it’s a great honour to receive you. To what, might I ask, do we owe the pleasure of your making planetfall? It has been over two centuries since we were last blessed with a visitation.’

Symmetry. That's it. Her face, her body, her gestures, all of it, perfectly symmetrical
.
She's more geometry than woman.

The crowd strained to listen, but sonic equalisers ensured no fragment of the conversation left the meeting podium.

‘We have reason to suspect that a Pergrin crisis is imminent on Exurbia.’

She said it without hesitation, as though announcing her intention to go for a walk later that afternoon. The tersh turned to Jura, wide-eyed, impotent now.

‘Your Magnanimity,’ Jura said quickly, ‘we keep an extremely close watch on even the least suspicious circumstances to ensure such an event -’

‘I am well aware,’ she cut in. ‘Nevertheless. Come, let’s not allow it to mar the first few moments of our opening remarks. Your are Grand Tersh Princewright, I believe. And Professor Jura, yes? My official syndicate title is Fifth Degree Socratic Butterworth, but Miss Butterworth will be acceptable.’

Miss Butterworth,
Jura thought. The name conjured images of an amenable music teacher or benevolent headmistress
. Worse still, she knows our names already.

‘And you have come alone?’ said the tersh.

‘Save for my spyles, yes. They have kept me company during the voyage.’

‘Which reminds me,’ the tersh continued, ‘if I may be so bold, we didn’t detect any trace of weld radiation beyond local space. Has propulsion technology undergone some recent advances?’

‘You will not approach my craft,’ she said. The tersh recoiled and stifled an apologetic squeak. ‘You will not touch my craft. You will not inquire about my craft in any way. It will be sealed in an official Governance hanger and remain there
untouched
 until my departure a week from now. Have I made myself absolutely clear?’

The tersh nodded.

‘Exquisite. Similarly, any attempt to interfere with my spyles will be counted as action against the syndicate hub and the entirety of its peoples.’

The tersh nodded again.

‘Marvellous. As I said, I have no intention of staying beyond a week. If everything is in order, there should be no great complications. I had a rather comprehensive view of the planet on my descent, and I must say, I’m impressed at your maintenance of the forests and greenery. A valiant effort indeed.’

The grand tersh bowed.

‘Though we will have to do something about all this t’assali nonsense. The planet is saturated in radiation already. But,’ she gestured to the glowing blue mass of whatever it was inside the spyle, ‘this will settle the matter. You will need to introduce it into the energy economy at once. Professor, I’m sure I can trust you to get the proverbial lark flying on that front.’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ Jura said. ‘Does the substance have a name, might I ask?’

‘At the hub we call it ambrosia, though you are free to refer to it as whatever you wish.’

Ambrosia. Food of the gods?

Jura saw the stolen burning orange opal of the t’assali rig in his mind’s eye, hidden back at his laboratory, the spinning concentric rings doubling on themselves, the curling mists of steam and smoke the device emitted as it worked. Even now, it was running at half capacity on his workbench, the tell-tale heart
beating and beating and beating.

‘The material is chemically very close to t’assali,’ said Miss Butterworth. ‘Only more stable by a factor of ten. We’ve revolutionised some of the agricultural outer planets simply by switching over to ambrosia. It has certain unique physical characteristics that I think you in particular, Professor, will find intriguing.’

‘Thank you kindly, I’m sure I will,’ Jura agreed.

They walked in a slow triplet from the bridge podium, the spyles lagging politely behind.

‘Your Exurbic is rather good, if I might say so,’ gushed the tersh.

‘As proficient as your diplomacy, Your Eminence,’ she replied. ‘I spent the duration of the journey to your planet studying the dialect.’

‘The duration of the journey? But your accent is perfect. How long have you been in transit?’

‘About fourty-eight hours.’

‘But -’

‘It behoves me to tell you that there have been a few changes in syndicate policy. We will discuss them later at length, but for now I hope it’s sufficient to say that certain high-ranking members of the hub are permitted to use implant technology. This is how I accomplished the feat.’

The tersh swallowed violently and stared agape. ‘This is a recent development, yes?’

‘Somewhat.’ 

Those rivers of blood,
thought Jura.
Those coursing rivers of state-sanctioned blood that have been spilled, and for nothing. 

‘Nonetheless, wiremind technology is still prohibited under the Pergrin Decree. If anything, the punishments are more stringent than ever before. In the place of execution we now enforce something of a more
lasting punishment.
But these are overly serious matters for the time being. I’m sure my visit will be beneficial for both the syndicate and Exurbia. She turned then to Jura and smiled with unrestrained gusto. ‘So long as no citizen, official or otherwise, is coveting contraband technology in secret.’

‘We take great efforts,’ said the tersh, ‘to ensure that the Pergrin Decree is kept holy as scripture.’

‘Holier, I should hope.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And there is yet to be a Pergrin crisis on the planet?’ she said, addressing them both then.

‘Well -’ Jura began.

‘One,’ said the tersh. There was something about her face, about her eyes and her symmetry, about the way she stood, indignant and inviting at the same time, that suggested deception would be impossible, or stupid at the least.

‘This was not reported to the syndicate hub. When?’

‘Seven years ago,’ said the tersh.

‘Eight,’ Jura corrected.

‘What happened?’ said the syndicate woman.

‘Come, let me show you to the guest district of the city and -’

‘What happened?’ she said again, blocking the way ahead with her sleek frame.

‘Professor,’ said the tersh. ‘You’re the authority on this kind of thing, after all. Please.’

Gnesha’s feet, you spineless bastard.

‘A student at the Stratigraphics Department began smuggling research equipment into his dormitory and constructing a makeshift wiremind rig,’ Jura said.

‘Go on,’ purred Miss Butterworth.

‘Our detection fields weren’t as sophisticated as they are today. We weren’t able to shut the rig down before it went critical. As soon as it
did
go critical, we dispatched an action team and had the student incarcerated indefinitely and the rig destroyed.’

‘For exactly how long was the machine critical for, Professor?’

‘We estimate about an hour, though from the readings we suspect it wasn’t fully conscious, probably about three quarters of the way there.’

She nodded and turned about without comment, leading the way now down the bridge podium. The crowd was silent and reverential beyond the sonic equalisers.

What a strange episode that had been, eight years ago, the day god had risen briefly from his sleeping. It was Jura who had kicked the student's door in, the security men in close tow with their glitzes at the ready. The kid’s face - there had only been one Ixenite in the end - was bathed in t’assali orange, still fixedly staring into the spinning rings even as the grunts stormed the room. Jura hadn’t seen a t’assali orb like that before, expanding and contracting all at once, warping the light of the field at its outer edges. The kid hadn’t resisted, hadn’t said a damn word, just stood and raised his hands. One of the lowlys shuffled him out and then it was just the security men and Jura and the wiremind rig, the rings spinning and the orb jeering and jiving in the suspensor field.

‘We have to shut it off,’ one of the lieutenants had said.

Jura grunted affirmatively. There were no cords or extensions yet; the kid hadn’t had time to hook it into the steams.

‘
Professor.
’

‘I heard you.’

Would it really be so difficult? I could probably order them out off the room for their safety and hook it up myself.

‘I’ll need a few minutes alone,’ Jura said.

‘Why?’ said the lieutenant.

‘For your own safety
.
The Ixer might’ve installed a bomb-catch or something in case the power trips.’

Discreetly, as though the action were automatic, Jura watched the lieutenant take his glitz from its holster and arm the nib.

‘What exactly is that for?’ he asked.

‘For our safety, Professor, as you said. I mean nothing by it.’

He ordered the men from the room, just Jura and himself left then.

‘Well, Professor?’

‘Yes. All right.’

The grunt could not be reasoned with, that much had to be acknowledged from the outset. No amount of bargaining would allow Jura the five feet needed to cross the room and sync the rig with the worldframe. Threats then. No. He’d taken his glitz out already. He could not be intimidated. They stood, the two of them in the strange room, the titian light blinking and whirling on the walls, the rings spinning faster and faster still. Jura felt a fine point press into the base of his spine.

‘Well
, Professor.
’

‘I hope that isn’t a glitz in my back, Lieutenant.’

‘I’ll need you to deactivate the rig now, Professor. Tershal orders.’

‘And did the grand tersh himself ask you to put that weapon to my back?’

‘The grand tersh specifically requested that if the attending academic ever refuses to act in preventing a Pergrin crisis that I should persuade him with force.’

‘If you riddle me with Denkov radiation, there won’t be anyone left to deactivate the machine. What’s your name, Lieutentant?’

The rig was hellish loud now, grinding and whirring as the rings gyrated.

‘Fricke. Wiremind divison,’ shouted the lieutenant above the cacophony. ‘I'm sure that I can get creative without your help, Professor. Now please, if you would, shut the hell-haunted thing off.’

When the grunt pressed the trigger, Jura’s body would be bifurcated; spatters of blood, fat, and bone splurging out in all directions.
Probably
, thought Jura,
a chunk of bone or muscle would fly into the t’assali sphere's centre and break the circuit.
And then what? What have I won, exactly?
He disconnected the power conduits and disassembled the rings, all the while with the lieutenant watching in silence, and finally stacked the rig up in height order of components; arranged like very precisely broken bones.

‘This stays between us,’ the lieutenant had said then. Jura was speechless. ‘I won’t say a word to my superiors. I would advise you to do the same. We found the rig, you deactivated it. That is what happened.’

The entire episode had remained in Jura’s mind as a testament to random human kindness, to men in immovable positions trying to find even the smallest room to squirm.

‘Well,’ said Miss Butterworth from ahead of them, blonde hair rippling in the wind like straw in a storm, ‘let’s ensure it never happens again.’

11

“Who are we to call a process or phenomenon
unnatural?
Look at you, with your starships and sextants. They are made of nothing but universe.”

     - Tersh Stanislav of Exurbia

261 -

261 woke, once again, before the rising bell. He spent what must have been an hour or so trying to calm his mind in the dark before the morning lights came lit. How sensitive were the cave’s sensors? If they could register brain activity, someone up in Governance would know he’d been awake.
And if so, they will be watching for further anomalies. Possible solution: feign a contagion contracted from one of the Bureau lottery visitors, one that could interfere with sleep. Logical consequence: I will be tried by Governance and summarily executed once the deception is realised. Unimportant at present.

He went about his ablutions in the usual fashion, noting the strange red shade of his face in the wash basin mirror, the pronounced new crease in his brow.
Possible new variant: my contagion excuse is in fact the case and I have been infected by one of the visitors, potentially with a poison. Unimportant at present.

‘Day eight thousand seven hundred and fifteen, quandary one will display in two minutes
,’
 said the cave.

He took a fresh robe from the vacuum tube, fastened the cord about himself, and settled into the main chamber chair. Elevated heart rate, he noted. Palms sweating. The omnicast globes materialised and circled about in cailbration. Then:

‘Quandary one. A human female, Miss Butterworth, has arrived claiming to be a high ranking official of the syndicate hub. However, she is now purporting that the hub have adjusted their stance on implant technology. Vice-Agglutintor Randolph Gall has personally added to the quandary file the fact that she has brought an unfamiliar isotope-like material with her and is advising planetwide distribution.’

‘The implicit assumption,’ said the imp, ‘is that she’s fraudulent somehow, or outright impersonating a syndicate official?’

‘Correct.’

Volatile factors: new technology, particularly this novel isotope. Incidental volatile factors: could possibly be reconnaissance for a future attack of some kind
.

‘Further sourcing needed,’ said the imp. ‘Dispatch an immediate 1D communication to the nearest syndicate hub planet asking for verification of her credentials. Forgo usual Governance clearance, send it immediately and under my authority.’