Tamaruq (39 page)

A slam of recognition.

I know you.

She dredges her consciousness.

‘Dien,’ she croaks. ‘Wait.’

The emergency summit is called in the Osirian Council Chambers. Representatives are ferried into the city under a Solar Corporation guard, and as the Antarctican delegation passes through the city’s idiosyncratic waterways, all of them deserted, Karis senses they are being watched.

Their destination, the Eye Tower, is situated in the centre of the city and has so far escaped harm. Karis is taken aback by the undeniable beauty of its interior, the tall fir trees and the twin columns of the aquarium that wrap around the lifts that rise through the building’s core. Osirian staff direct them through the building. No one will meet Karis’s eye, though when he looks away he senses the Osirians watching him, covertly, with fascination, as though trying to decide how he has been put together and why. After scrutinizing the city’s outputs for so many years, it’s hard not to stare back. Have these people been complicit in Osiris’s disappearance, or is this clashing of cultures as much a shock to them as it is to Karis?

The Chambers are in the shape of an amphitheatre. Everyone has an assigned place. Overseeing, and leading on the negotiations, is a team of ambassadors from the Pan-African Solar Corporation. Representing the city of Osiris are two individuals: a man, sharply dressed but with the slack, greyish face of someone who has not slept for weeks, and a shabbily clad woman in a headscarf.

Karis taps the shoulder of the woman seated in front of him, an immaculately turned-out military type he knows as Evie Aariak, and speaks in patois.

‘Who are the Osirians?’

She replies without turning.

‘That’s Linus Rechnov, a member of their so-called founding families, and the woman is known as Dien. She’s from the west – the rough side of town.’

‘Dien?’

‘She doesn’t have another name.’

Karis can’t read Aariak’s tone, and so he isn’t sure if she disapproves of this unconventional titling or whether she simply doesn’t care. He looks to the other side of the room, where the Boreal delegation are seated. He’s never seen a Boreal before, and never expected to do so. He can sense the animosity from the northerners, like a toxic chemical substance leaking out of them and trickling its way across the room. One of the Boreals has suffered a head wound, a fact that gives Karis some small pleasure.

‘And them?’ he asks Aariak.

‘The central three are the ones we need to worry about. One Alaskan, one from Veerdeland, the other from Sino-Siberia. They sent everyone. We know something about Katu Ben, the man from Alaska. He was responsible for containing the recent redfleur outbreaks. He has a reputation for ruthlessness.’

Karis considers the round, almost cherubic face of the Alaskan man. Burly and round-shouldered, his teeth protrude slightly, raising the upper lip so that even in repose he gives the impression of a man who at any moment will break out into a display of beaming joviality. He could easily have had that corrected, thinks Karis. But he’s chosen not to.

‘I know, doesn’t look like much. But don’t be deceived,’ says Aariak. ‘This is a man who incinerated an entire city of his own people.’

‘Is it that bad up there?’

‘It’s bad,’ she says.

‘And the other two?’

‘Luciana Tan from the Sino-Siberian Federation and Marc Bernier from Veerdeland. Let’s just say none of them would hesitate to shoot your firstborn.’ Aariak sits back and folds her arms. Her face is set like bufferglass. ‘Then again, if it was a Boreal, neither would I.’

Across the Chambers, Luciana Tan tilts her head to acknowledge something Katu Ben has said. She smiles. A cat’s smile. Karis looks from face to face. The city’s fate, and Karis’s with it, now lies in their hands.

He is relieved when Nkem Sosanya, leader of the Solar Corporation delegation, begins the proceedings. Sosanya rises, and without any obvious gesture manages to convey that everyone else should do the same. With the room on its feet, she thanks them for their attendance. She has a beautiful head, thinks Karis incongruously, the sort of head that would have sculptors in ecstasy. The smooth shape of her skull is accentuated by the close shave of her hair, speckled in black and grey. The face is experienced, commanding, a face to which Karis would probably apply the vague descriptor of wise, and a face which gives him cause to hope.

The Corporation leader speaks in her own language, and there is a rustling as everyone inserts their receivers, some glancing mistrustfully at the African technology. The Corporation have set up a translation chamber, with a row of receptor cubes set in a semi-circle in front of the delegates. There is a second’s delay and then the mechanical voice of the translation murmurs into Karis’s ear, speaking Boreal English. The foreign language, with its clipped northern enunciations, has a strange effect upon him, a distancing from the room and the people in it. He has a surge of longing to hear Swahili, his own language of the home, or patois, or any common Antarctican language.

Sosanya speaks and the translation follows.

‘We are now in session. Be aware that any words you voice from this moment will be picked up by the translator and exported until the session end. Please raise your hand to indicate your understanding and agreement.’

Hands raise, some with obvious reluctance. Sosanya inclines her head. She puts forward the situation. What has happened here is a direct contravention of the Nuuk Treaty. Both parties have used illegal weapons of force, against each other, and against the Osirian people. Hundreds of innocent civilians have already died in the crossfire.

Despite her measured address, Karis has the impression that Sosanya would like nothing better than to bash together the heads of everyone in the room; that the perilous journey across the sea from the Solar Corporation has been a matter of deep inconvenience, a matter which has taken the African away from more important, pressing, never-to-be-revealed matters.

‘There are a number of legal issues to address,’ she continues. ‘Firstly, the legal ownership of the city of Osiris. Secondly, the reason and responsibility for the city’s disappearance in the last fifty years. And thirdly, whether crimes against humanity have been committed by the parties to my left and right, that is: the Boreal States of the north and the Republic of Antarctica.’

Aariak stands. ‘We wish to put forward a fourth issue.’ She looks pointedly at the Boreals. ‘The question of why Osiris was built in the first place, and so conveniently close to Antarctican waters.’

Sosanya consults briefly with her peers. ‘Intent will be considered. We have a lot to unravel over the next few days. I expect the full co-operation of everyone in this room.’

The Boreals respond with outrage. The translation babbles in Karis’s ear. Voices overlap, the words fusing together, too quick to make any sense. Sosanya calls for order.

As the day goes on, Karis feels the hope prompted by Sosanya’s presence gradually seeping away. Glancing around the room, he can read only anger and resentment. There is no will here for resolution. Rather, the Boreals and the Antarcticans are relishing the chance to finally come together, out from the shadows of a war long fought but never acknowledged.

It all comes back to the fucking knowledge banks, he thinks. The Corporation has energy, but the north maintains its monopoly on medicine. They guard those banks as jealously as emperors. We’re self-sufficient and they can’t bear that; they can’t bear to be excluded from anything. Because of our independence, we have to be punished.

‘Is it – ready?’

‘Almost, Ms Rechnov – Silverfish—’

‘Just Adelaide.’

The technician makes some final adjustments. She watches silently. The small, bluish eye of a camera is trained on her face, a microphone positioned by the pillow. If she concentrates on any one thing in the room for long, it blurs into senselessness. People materialize who she knows are not there. Others take on appearances that are not their own.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ murmurs Mikaela Larsson at her side. Ole squeezes her hand in agreement.

‘I do. It may be… the last useful thing… I do.’

Ole’s grip tightens. She senses him shaking his head.
Don’t say that.

With difficulty, she turns her head to the nurse. Lifts a hand to point.

‘I need you to take that away.’

‘That’s your morphine, Adelaide—’

‘I know. But I can’t… think straight… with it.’

The nurse’s face is flat with refusal.

‘That’s a Rechnov order,’ says Adelaide.

When the nurse cuts off the supply she doesn’t feel it at first. And then it hits her, and it’s annihilating.

‘We move on to the question of this city’s disappearance,’ Sosanya announces. ‘I call upon the Osirian representation.’

Attention shifts to the two Osirians in the room, who so far have been silent, although Karis has observed them exchanging notes on a pad.

‘Please confirm that you represent the two sides of your city, east and west.’

Linus Rechnov gets to his feet. Rechnov. Wasn’t that the name mentioned by the officer on the ship?

‘That is technically correct,’ says Linus.

‘But we’re talking together today,’ says the woman known as Dien. And Linus adds, ‘The border has been removed.’

‘Very well. Let’s address the central issue at stake here. There has been no contact with this city for the past fifty years. What explanation do you have for this?’

Linus Rechnov speaks calmly.

‘I’m afraid we have no explanation. Since the days of the Great Storm, no one has ever answered our distress call. We believed ourselves alone, the rest of the world lost. Most of us did. I have been somewhat notorious in our city for having views to the contrary, though I have never seen any evidence to confirm this belief. Until now.’

The Boreals wear open expressions of disbelief.

‘It was I who encouraged the last expedition boat,’ Linus continues. ‘We had fallen into a trap of belief, taking our customs for granted. That is what I felt. Because all of our previous expeditions had failed, we lost hope. We decided the risks were too great; we couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. But I believed it was necessary to try again, although others in my family did not. Our city, which we as Osirian citizens are so proud of, is in a state of stagnation. We’ve tried to preserve it – but we can no longer deny that without valuable resources, our society will collapse. It might not have happened immediately – perhaps not even within my lifetime – but the decline would have begun.’

Linus pauses, taking his time. Karis has a sense that he is walking a very fine line.

‘Our call was answered, but not in the way I expected. I have to assume that the expedition boat which departed last October made it safely to land. No one has deemed it fit to inform us that this is the case.’

Nkem Sosanya confers with a colleague.

‘I can confirm that the expedition boat did indeed reach land. There was one survivor. A man called Vikram Bai.’

Karis sits up. He knows that name. Fuck, he’s even
seen
Vikram Bai, albeit in a holoma.

The revelation has a clear effect upon both of the Osirians. Dien sits bolt upright, her eyes wide with surprise. Her mouth opens, then she decides against whatever she was about to say. Linus has lost colour. For a moment, the Osirian politician is at a loss for words. He pulls himself together with apparent difficulty.

‘And the rest?’ he asks.

‘Patagonian reports confirm the ship was wrecked on the coast. The other crew were lost at sea.’

The Alaskan Katu Ben gets to his feet.

‘None of this goes any way to explaining fifty years of silence.’

Linus Rechnov turns to face the Boreal.

‘We wouldn’t mind an explanation from you, either. Why was our distress call ignored? Why did no one ever come to help, to find us?’

‘We sent seventeen expeditions,’ says Katu Ben. His face is the picture of charming bewilderment. ‘None of them ever returned. We’d like to know why.’

Linus Rechnov wears an equally puzzled expression.

‘Surely the explanation is entirely obvious? For the same reason we have never sent a successful expedition until now. They did not survive the journey.’

Nkem Sosanya gestures at the Boreal to sit down.

‘Let me ask you once and for all, Linus Rechnov. Did you know about life outside of Osiris?’

The Osirian pauses for a moment, listening to the translation. Then his expression clears.

‘No,’ he says, without hesitation. ‘But I suspected we were not alone.’

This man is a good liar, thinks Karis. And it occurs to him that the lies of Linus Rechnov may be the only thing standing between grace and destruction.

‘And yourself?’

This time the question is directed at Dien, who listens, and laughs bitterly.

‘You think I’d have stayed in this shitty city if I did? When I was a kid, almost every day of my life I asked the stars to send us a boat. Eventually I realized none was coming. I stopped asking. Kind of ironic that when you do show up, all you can talk about is who’s going to take us over. But hey, I’m just a westerner. What do I know?’

The Boreals exchange irritated glances, clearly unhappy with the lack of resolution. Sosanya calls for attention.

‘We move on to the technicalities of ownership. Records and treaties have been cross-referenced. Undisputed is the fact that the City of Osiris was built as a joint venture by the Boreal States of Alaska, Veerdeland and Sino-Siberia. Construction was begun in the year twenty-two eighty-six and not fully completed at the point of the Great Storm, leading to the subsequent division of the city into east and west.’

‘It was built to spy on us!’ shouts Aariak. In her rage she has reverted to her own language of the home and there is a moment’s pause while the translation boxes compute. ‘If their right is so legitimate, why did they come here in stealth, sneaking south in the night like thieves? Why did they meet with resistance from the rightful citizens of this city which we are endeavouring to liberate? Answer me that!’