The Galaxy Game (17 page)

‘And the Walls?’ asked Rafi eagerly.

Ntenman looked at him. ‘Yes. The commercial leagues play and practise below now, but there are still amateur leagues that play friendly games on the tower-side walls.’

‘What?’ said Rafi, confused at the look.

Ntenman looked away again. ‘I know it’s new and exciting, but don’t get too excited and don’t act too new. Now, put these in your listening queue: Five Trees Escape. Central Fastline Station. Sundome Mezzanine Slowline. The Board of Credit Assessors (that’s the only non-Academe tower, by the way). The Credit Exchange Bureau is the low bump next to it; we’re going there after our next sleep. And Academe Surinastraya – that’s where we’re headed – which specialises in Energy.’

Ntenman’s chatter got them halfway to the tower, but by then Rafi’s dizzied exhaustion had become a stagger. Ntenman complained under his breath, but he led Rafi along a fork in the path, under a metal archway set in a stone wall and into a capsule of the Sundome Slowline. It looked innocent, paused and poised on an antigrav pad in a small chamber with an open sky, but then it lurched off at speed, a single pearl zipping along the Slowline, half-sunk in a trench with sky and a sliver of horizon as the only view options. Rafi tumbled at the start and only saved himself by clutching the lower edge of the high window-ceiling. Ntenman sighed tolerantly and waited, leaning safely and comfortably, until the motion had steadied, then came over to show him where to park his centre of gravity.

‘I keep forgetting what a booby I was when I first got here,’ he admitted, unpeeling a seat from its wall recess. He remained standing, nonchalant in his ability to anticipate changes in the capsule’s direction and speed – not very different from the changing gravity of a Wall, in fact.

The journey was short, but Rafi, to his embarrassment, fell asleep halfway, going from avidly listening to the topics Ntenman had suggested straight to sudden unconsciousness with ridiculous speed. Ntenman shook him awake and pulled him up with a smile of amused sympathy. Rafi surreptitiously wiped a line of drool from the left corner of his mouth and trailed behind him to exit the capsule. Their single pearl had joined a chain of five others. Shadowy passengers moved within their translucent walls; some were coming, some going, dancing up or down their capsule’s little gangway which connected to the upper pavement and open air above the Slowline track. They moved with the speed of ease and familiarity, but Rafi stepped like an elderly traveller, sober and cautious, until he stood on the broad, flat lawn at the base of the Academe. He gazed around, then up and up, feeling that curious thrill of reverse-vertigo created by an edifice being too tall and too close. Its needle was an imperfect sundial with two shadows, each of a slightly different hue, but true dark at the overlap.

‘Here we are,’ said Ntenman. ‘And look – they’re expecting us.’

Rafi uncraned his neck and refocused his vision on a nearer point.
They
were two figures, one tall and roundly heavy, dressed in the common galactic suit of tunic and trousers and a light, short robe of office that indicated an administrative rather than academic function; the other taller and trimmer, in what looked like Galactic Patrol urban kit, but unarmed except for a ceremonial knife at the waist. They walked down the wide stone ramp of the Academe’s main entrance, and as they drew nearer, Rafi noted a touch of tension, if not outright haste, in their movements.

‘Long years time I haven’t seen you, Ntenman, and now look. You. Here without so much as warning, far less invitation. Here with child in hand like an elder but still a child yourself. Here like Punartam belongs to you. Can you be bothered to learn shame, if not manners?’

The harshness of the words became a lie with the broadness of the smile, and yet that smile still carried the hint of an edge – Rafi could not tell how or why. In contrast, Ntenman’s smile was painfully, obviously brave.

‘Revered Haviranthiya,’ was all he said as he submitted to the administrator’s hard embrace.

Ordinarily Rafi would be waiting attentively for an introduction, but the identity of the second figure had become clear to him at last. The uniform was the first clue, then the face familiar enough from a single brief meeting on the Sadiri settlement, but it was the expression of annoyance and reproach that triggered his guilt reflex and jogged his memory. ‘Corporal Lian?’

First a calm correction. ‘Second Lieutenant Lian, newest officer of the Galactic Gendarmerie.’ Then a stern glare. ‘Your aunt is worried sick. Why haven’t you been in touch?’

Conversation continued at Rafi’s side while he stammered out apologies. ‘So tall,’ Haviranthiya was saying, slapping a wincing Ntenman with cheerful yet painful force about the shoulders. ‘So broad. And still a child.’

Rafi fought his way out of the fog of contrition. ‘Wait. How do you expect me to be in touch? There’s about a month’s message delay for ordinary mail.’

A tired look and a sad shaking of the head were the only reply. Guilt prompted Rafi’s brain a little further and he felt his face go hot as he recalled the still-unread data chip. He spasmed, grabbing the pouch at his waist as if seized with sudden incontinence, and said pathetically, ‘Things have been so busy.’

‘Your friend Ntenman contacted the Revered, who then contacted us Cygnians. I had a separate communication that gave me some more information on the situation . . . so I got a few days’ leave and came here.’

‘Came here from where?’

Lian gestured vaguely east. ‘Academe Bhumniastraya. Terran Studies. Doctor Daniyel is there.’

Rafi shook his head. He had heard of her but never met her. With another pang of guilt he remembered the datacharm and the many, many papers he had saved there. He was holding his information everywhere but inside his head.

‘The Academe asked her to come. She’s very good, so good in fact that they wanted her to plan
and
lead the fieldwork.’

‘Wasn’t she sick?’ Rafi asked, somewhat amazed by this small talk but happy for the illusion of ordinariness. At his side, Ntenman was being subjected to a resonant, top-volume and frighteningly happy interrogation sprinkled with reminders of his lack of status and common sense. Rafi was desperate to keep out of it.

‘She was, but they asked her to reconsider taking a full cure, and so she did. Exigencies of the Service and so on. Physically, she’s doing very well, but she says they give her so much to do that she’s still as chronically fatigued as ever.’

The uncomfortable, one-sided conversation ongoing nearby overcame their polite attempts to ignore it and drew them in. ‘And this is your friend! Does he know he is dressed like a child? So strange, when you are not and should be! Ntenman, you cannot be responsible for a child if I am to be responsible for you. Perhaps our esteemed Second Lieutenant will take charge of him for us?’

‘There’s no need, Revered Haviranthiya,’ said Lian with a cautious smile. ‘Rafi has reached partial majority under Cygnian law. He’s not a full adult, but he’s not a child. He can go where he chooses . . . for now.’

Rafi kept his mouth shut at those last ominous words. It had just occurred to him in a blood-chilling, bone-numbing instant that although Lian was a friend of his aunt’s, a posting in the Galactic Gendarmerie meant a shift in location, not role. Strictly speaking, Lian was a representative of the military police and had the authority to send him back to Cygnus Beta.

Haviranthiya’s smile had not once faded, but there was a detectable shift from sarcastic irritation to unshakeable intent. ‘Then let him choose to stay here a while with his friend. I can educate them both on what it is to be a man on Punartam.’

Lian’s smile also did not falter though it did quirk questioningly, conveying more warning than uncertainty. At least it appeared to be friendly warning, as between equals. ‘Do keep me updated,’ was all Lian said. ‘I will organise for his credit—’

Haviranthiya cut the sentence in half with an imperious chop of his broad right hand. ‘Not at all necessary. It would be an honour and a pleasure to arrange for his introductions, his keys, his essentials and his accoutrements.’

Rafi wondered if it was possible to pass out from the sheer pressure of mounting bewilderment. Lian gave him a quick, amused glance.

‘In fact,’ Lian added, with a lilt that suggested suppressed laughter, ‘after you’ve given the boys an initial briefing, perhaps Rafi could join me later for some pre-sleep refreshment and recreation. I think we need to talk.’

Chapter Eight

‘The Ntshune, who are the alleged emotional centre of humanity, have elaborate, calculated forms of retaliation. The Sadiri, for all their mental capacity and apparent coolness, are blunt, direct and passionate in revenge. These are crude generalisations, but they are so attractively paradoxical, so charmingly mythic, that they have acquired a kind of truth as both Sadiri and Ntshune try to live up to their respective reputations.’

Ntenman roused slightly from his slouch on the daybed and glared at Rafi, obviously still tender from the prolonged flaying of his ego. ‘Listen and learn all you like, but there’s no need to share.’

Rafi took the audioplug from his ear and glared back. ‘Well, it explains your ingenious ways of torturing me. Dressing me like a fool. Dragging me around until I collapse and then letting me embarrass myself at the Academe. How much Ntshune
are
you, Tinman? More than most Cygnians, surely?’

‘I’ve dressed you like a child because that’s what you are in this place. No one told you to take off the oxygen filter and run yourself ragged. Again, no one told you to hold on to that datachip as if you had for ever to read it. Your aunt’s friend is a
policeman
? You should have prepared me for that, at least. Thank day and night I got us here legally.’

‘And you haven’t answered my question.’

Ntenman looked embarrassed. ‘Mostly Ntshune. Three-quarters, in fact. My padr’s half-Terran.’

‘You sound so ashamed! Most Cygnians would be stupidly proud of that.’

He huffed resentfully. ‘You really haven’t guessed by now? I’m . . . incapable of functioning in Ntshune society. Insufficient psi ability. Easier to be Cygnian.’ His sentences became more and more staccato as he tried and failed to speak lightly about what was clearly a source of deep, long-term hurt.

‘I didn’t know,’ Rafi said in quiet apology.

He went to the window and looked out to give Ntenman a bit of space. The smooth, opaque exterior of the tower was a hollow tube set like a translucent bell over a skyscraper, hiding myriad wide windows to offices, living quarters, lecture halls and rooms upon rooms. About fifty metres of broad-bladed green and purple grass covered the ground between the outer and inner walls, and the inner walls also ran verdant with hanging vegetation. Inside their room, the harsh light of the suns filtered through as cool aqua and the dry air was gentled by the moist exhalation of many plants clustered together.

This window was on the quiet side of the tower, the side for resting, meditating and, with the window’s screening turned to full opacity, sleeping. Haviranthiya had explained that to him; the Academe dealt with the long days by making time into place. There was also a work section and a recreation section, and people moved to where they needed to be as the hours turned. The basic accommodation in the Academe was called a ‘three-roomer’, with none of the rooms adjacent. As non-academics, Rafi and Ntenman had something less than basic, two rooms only, one very private for sleep and quiet, the other more open and public for eating, entertainment and being gregarious. He had not seen that room yet, but he knew already that it would have a good view of the several game Walls poised over the inside of the tower’s outer casing. He was eager to watch a game, but Haviranthiya, anticipating the fatigue of the newly arrived, had taken them to sleeping quarters and ordered him to rest for an hour.

When Rafi turned back, he found Ntenman was propped up on his elbows, frowning at him, diverted from his brief moment of weakness by a lingering mystery. ‘How can you not know, Moo? You can’t hide what you are. Serendipity saw it the moment she met you.’

‘What do you mean?’ Rafi asked. His voice was calm, his face was calm, but his eyes were wide and hurt.

‘You’re like a lighthouse. Most times you’re barely noticeable, and then there’s this great sweep of . . .’ Ntenman lay back and combed his hands vigorously through the air in an attempt at description. ‘Of
something
,’ he said weakly. ‘Anyone can feel it.
I’ve
felt it.’

Rafi blinked and turned away. ‘So I can shout. Doesn’t mean I can speak,’ he muttered.

‘Maybe you should have let the Lyceum help you— Wait, what am I saying? They can barely help themselves. But Moo,
someone
has to help you, and this may be the best place for it. What are you afraid of, exactly?’

‘I don’t know. I . . . I . . .’ He tried to find more words, but his throat tightened and would not release them. His aunt’s explanation, that they had mutually influenced each other into silence, was a comforting one, but there was an undertow of fear and shame that felt both foreign and familiar. He pushed his hands at the invisible barrier. ‘I don’t know!’ he cried out. ‘I don’t know what I’m afraid of. I’m just afraid.’

‘Don’t yell,’ Ntenman said quietly. ‘Not in this section. It’s important to be good neighbours in the Metropolis. It matters a lot.’

Rafi murmured an apology.

‘As I was saying, you could get help here. Be a child, learn from scratch. The Academe is a galactic environment. It caters to Sadiri and Cygnians and Zhinuvians all the time, but there are some communities below-ground that have the full Punarthai experience. You could go there and learn what you are and what to do with it.’

‘I don’t want to be a child again. I am an adult.’ It was an embarrassing thing to have to say, so he said it with as much quiet dignity as he could manage.

‘By homestead standards, Moo!’ Ntenman made his tone just as quiet and twice as intense. ‘If you want to be an adult here you have to prove you can do more than herd goats, chop wood and breed.’