Phoenix Café (9 page)

Maitri wouldn’t listen. he bowed, bitterly polite.

said Catherine, when Maitri had swept away.

agreed Bhairava glumly. He was a Signifier who didn’t speak aloud unless he had to. Bhairava always treated Catherine exactly as if she was her Aleutian self.

“I am not depressed!”

went on Bhairava, who rarely paid attention to casual speeches. The Spoken Word was for sworn evidence, not for trifles.

“plant”?
I’ve heard they reproduce in strange ways nowadays, but that’s a new departure>.

Catherine had spotted Misha Connelly, talking to a group of stewards. It was a curious shock, after what had happened at Maitri’s party.
Eyes of a stranger that met mine and seemed to know.
She had been in such a daze: somehow walking and talking among Maitri’s guests, blood and fire.

She must have misunderstood. She had never known Bhairava to act stupidly or maliciously in the practice of his profession.

He laid his hand on Catherine’s shoulder, bent and rubbed his cheek briefly against hers. She was startled. They’d had to learn not to caress each other in public. The humans didn’t like it:
animal nuzzling: yuk!

She couldn’t see Misha any more. And now Bhairava had gone too. What did he mean,
I hate goodbyes?
Everyone was moving back to the larger hall. The Aleutians had deserted their reserved seats and settled in a different row, near the doors. She joined them. The church was not so packed as it had been. The police filed in and took up positions around the walls, hands behind their backs in the
don’t want to hurt anyone
gesture: Bhairava standing with them.

Questions, of the immemorial kind. She didn’t listen.

complained Maitri softly, cannot
look after themselves. That’s a fact of life. They aren’t going to vanish. If the humans lived the way we do, everyone would belong to some household or other, whether they were any use or not, and one wouldn’t have this problem, this threat of mob violence.>

Maybe not. Or maybe Lord Maitri was dreaming, imagining an ideal Aleutia that never was. But Catherine was thinking about Misha Connelly. The russet tinged curls under a soft black cap; his pink-cheeked bloom, his extreme self-consciousness, like a vivid blush. He reminded her of a portrait by Sargent, a perfect, lovely and useless Narcissist in bloom. What had they talked about, out in Maitri’s grass garden? Something very important, that Misha knew and…. And suddenly, without warning, she was in the midst of the conversion. DONE BECAUSE WE ARE TOO MANY. Warm blood poured over her hands. She was drenched in cold sweat, bile filled her throat.

She stood up, gasping:

But everyone else was standing too.

Something had happened to question time, but Catherine’s need was greater than her curiosity. She pushed her way to a door marked
females’ bathroom
in the city’s symbolic script and lunged at it.

She stayed in the cubicle for a long time. The mouth of the toilet bowl was worn, and losing its memory; the smell of her vomit escaped from its slackly pursed lips. How dirty everything is, she thought. Grease and grime on every surface, dead dirt filling the air. She hadn’t noticed this in the cell with the pink roses, because then she’d been living down among the humans.

There’d been a lot of noise, she dimly realized. Now it was quiet out there.

When she emerged, she was bewildered to find that the hall was empty. A whirlwind had passed through it. Chairs were overturned, scraps of rubbish strewn over the floor. She walked to one of the plastic seats; set it upright. She was standing beside it when a door at the back of the church opened, and Misha Connelly’s face peered around it.

“What happened?” she asked. “Where’s Maitri?”

“The police got them out before the scrum. What happened to
you?”

“I was taken ill,” said Catherine, with dignity.

Misha grinned. “We saw you rush for the toilet. Don’t be embarrassed, it was probably the best thing you could have done.” He came in. “We told Lord Maitri we’d look after you, and see you safely home.”

“We?”

He winked, and touched the sleeve of his pale coat, the ragged twin of the one he’d been wearing at Maitri’s party. A green steward’s armband appeared. “See? I cravenly concealed my position as an officer of the Movement, while the police rumble was going on. Does that make you feel better?”

“Better than what?”

The door opened again, three more young humans entered. All of them presented themselves as masculine. One was the halfcaste flyposter, one a very dark skinned young Reformer who looked vaguely familiar. The third, a scrawny individual in shirt and jeans whose face seemed made of nose, hung back; overcome with shyness. They were disheveled, glowing, excited. The Reformer youth had a glass bottle tucked under either arm.

“So you found her,” declared this one. “Are you all right, Miss Catherine?”

“I was telling your friend Michael, I mean Misha: I was taken ill, nothing serious. But what happened?” she repeated. “What happened to Lalith, to the meeting?”

“S-someone asked Lalith if the Renaissance isn’t really a front for a h-halfcaste conspiracy,” burst out the Nose. “I say
someone.
Of course we know him, but I w-wouldn’t give his name air time, not even in deadspace. Lalith can handle those types, but h-his friends started throwing things.”

“The police decided to clear the hall,” added Misha. “Big mistake.”

The Reformer brandished his bottles. “Loot!” he cried. “We were running away, and the constabulary fire broke open a
vente directe.
Naturally, I liberated some of the contents. Why don’t you sit down, Miss Catherine. I can’t sit while a Traditionalist lady is standing, and I hate to drink on my feet. As my friend was saying, trouble broke out. The
federales,
who were not invited to our party and had arrived without any notice, opened fire on unarmed citizens.”

Catherine sat on the floor. She felt too unstable to perch on a seat-with-legs. They followed her example. The dark-skinned Reformer opened one of his bottles and offered it. The smell of rough wine assaulted her dizzy head: she refused.

“I know this dreadful stuff,” complained Misha Connelly. “Chateau-disgusting shareware, it begs to be taken away on every street corner. I thought you said you stole it. Dirtjuice, I think the misconstructed amateurs call it. Lightly aged regurgitated orange peel, and is that a soupçon of dog excreta?”

The Reformer hid his annoyance by taking a huge swig.

“I don’t think it’s too bad. I was a looter in spirit.”

“Allow me to introduce my friend Joset Uwilingiyimana,” Misha told Catherine. “Looter in spirit.”

Joset, sitting cross-legged, bowed grandly from the waist, spreading his arms wide and nearly upending his bottle. “Honored to make your acquaintance, Miss Catherine. Misha has told us so much—”

The Nose spluttered and coughed violently: Misha scowled.

“Rajath,” offered the halfcaste, picking up the other bottle, his bright black eyes dancing. “My name is Rajath.”

“Rajath?” She laughed. It was the Sanskrit name of the trickster captain, self-declared leader of the original Landing Parties. “So that’s what happened to the rascal. He became a human. I shall be careful how I deal with you!”

“My co-religionist is Mâtho,” finished Michael, in a forbidding tone, pointing to the Nose. “He’s a foul vessel of lust and worse vices and a disgrace to male-ordered society. He has a strange sense of humor. Ignore him.”

“But what
happened,”
Joset recommenced importantly, “was that fighting broke out at our meeting. It’s what we expect in raw revolutionary politics.”

“It’s never happened before,” said Rajath.

“We’ve never had the police at a gig before.” Joset took the contradiction in his stride, and continued to explain the situation. “Lalith was very upset.”

“I didn’t know you’d spoken to her,” muttered the halfcaste, eyeing Catherine slyly. “I thought her minders took her away, while you ran off to ‘loot’ a shareware booth.”

“But I know she was upset because I know Lalith!”

“The p-police were here to protect Lord Maitri’s party,” whispered Mâtho, who was now, after Misha’s reproof, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the floor. “T-that’s obvious.”

“I’m sorry,” said Catherine. “We shouldn’t have been here.”

Misha aimed a gentle cuff at the side of his co-religionist’s head.

“No, he’s right,” protested Catherine. “We shouldn’t have come. Maitri doesn’t understand that some things won’t do any more, or that we must not patronize you. But I’m glad I heard Lalith. Your manifesto sounds very positive.”

Misha’s friends glanced at each other.

“Did I say something wrong?”

Mâtho began: “Lalith doesn’t—” He caught Misha’s eye, and shut up.

“No one will know exactly who did what to whom until they open the hall’s black box,” Misha announced, killing the question of the Renaissance manifesto. “And that account, we believe, will exonerate the Movement entirely!”

“It’s the tamper-proof recording,” Joset explained, for Miss Catherine’s benefit, “of what happens in a public venue. We gave you, and all our guests, our own sealed transcripters, which will have recorded exactly what happened here. We do that because we want it clear that anything other than our authorized script is not a guaranteed record. The black box is the city’s own version. Legally it can’t be examined unless there’s a felony or a breach of the peace. However, we know it will agree perfectly with our account.”

They giggled. Even Misha permitted himself an austere grin.

“Tamper-proof,”
repeated Rajath, screwing up his face in a violent wink, to make sure Catherine took the point.

“Oh, I see. And are we being recorded at the moment, for this incorruptible record?”

Michael stood up. “Not by the black box, because our booking finished a short while ago. There’s nothing public going on here now. That’s a timely reminder, we’d better leave before the lights go out, and the doors lock until the local priest arrives for morning mass. We’ll find you a cab, Miss Catherine.”

They could not find a cab. They began to walk.

“D-do you know how to use the lev-metro, Miss?” asked Mâtho.

“Of course she doesn’t,” Joset told him scornfully. “She’s a lady!”

The street projections were fading one by one as the commercial day ended. Rajath used his little machine to unzip the Renaissance arrows: running ahead to vanish them, for fun, before they disappeared with their hosts. He was soon out of sight. Joset and Misha went striding on together, swinging a wine bottle each: plunged, it appeared, in intimate conversation. Mâtho the Nose walked beside Catherine, and managed to overcome his shyness.

“A-are you still a missionary? Mish said you’ve given it up. I ask because you -you see my agency, I mean my father’s news agency, would like to c-cover the Church of Self. We use material from the big handlers, usually, but w-would you like to record a piece for us, giving the Aleutian side of the story? O-or even a series of pieces, your own account.”

“I don’t work for the Mission any more.”

They emerged onto a broad boulevard where there were no projections. The twilight air was swimming in a violet haze. Ranks of buildings of every age in the city’s long history stretched away, towards a glimpse of moving water. Catherine was lost. The landmarks meant nothing to her: an ancient-looking road bridge, a four peaked tower, a distant spiral monument reaching up between the rooftops. She had no idea where the four friends were leading her. There was no street-lighting. Their footsteps rang in the dusky silence; secret glimmers darted from between the slats of window shutters, or from the depths of dark courtyards. The air smelled of quenched dust, orange peel, dogdirt…