Part 28 (1/2)

'We all get nervous,' said Joanna. 'You must be a natural, then.

What brought you on side?'

Simon looked around. 'Maybe we'd better mingle. I don't want the guests to think the humans are ignoring them.'

Joanna smiled, and called 'Miroka?'

Simon looked up as an Earth Reptile woman in a Unitatus uniform slowly walked up. 'Hi,' he said, astonished.

She inclined her head. 'Miroka, this is Simon Frederson.'

'I've heard of you,' said the Earth Reptile, formally.

'We were just talking about the reasons for what we're doing,'

said Joanna.

Miroka inclined her head. Simon wasn't sure what the gesture meant. 'Equal rights,' she said. 'Self-determination. Excellent reasons for the Earth Reptiles to ally themselves with your cause.

But what about you?'

'Oh, you know,' said Simon. 'The usual story. Boy meets girl, girl is killed during vicious suppression of riot, boy turns radical and discovers unforeseen talent for violence. Tanj, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that to sound as awful as it did.'

Miroka didn't comment. 'I'm sorry,' said Joanna. 'You must have other talents besides violence, though.'

'I prefer this work to blowing things up,' he said. 'How about you?'

201.

'I got sick of organizing charity events,' she said. 'Not many people realize that the Unitatus were originally founded to protect Earth from outside threats. We kept going for centuries after we were seriously needed. When the Wars of Acquisition began, we weren't just superfluous: we were a joke.'

Simon waggled his head. 'I guess I see what you mean,' he said. ' We We were the threat.' were the threat.'

'Now the threat comes from inside the Empire, not outside,'

said Miroka. 'We must act together to protect Earth.'

'Not just to protect it,' said Simon. 'Things are going to be different.'

Port Elizabeth, Skag, 8 July Vincenzi opened his eyes. The alarm would go off in four minutes.

He was remembering when the world had been much smaller, a single corridor, on Level 113 of Sir Guilliam Habibi's stack, s.p.a.ceport Six Overcity.

Presumably there had been a time when his entire world had consisted of his family's apt, but his earliest memories were of the corridor, particularly standing on the stoop while his mother gossiped with Mr Bobindinga from across the way.

He remembered the smell of long-chain polymers as their cleaning bot described a precise rectangular pattern on 'their'

section of the floor. He loved to get up early on a Sat.u.r.day morning and watch the cleaning robots come out of the apts, each one scrubbing the corridor in front of its owner's door. The cleaning bots were all different, different makes, ages and customized, optimized and painted in bright colours. Some families went as far as to get sophisticated software plug-ins to make their bots move just that little more smoothly and stylishly than their neighbours'.

In his first memories Vincenzi didn't know what the bots were, just that they were bright and attractive and moved in an interesting manner. He wished the bots would come up out and dance every morning. When he asked his mother why they didn't, she shrugged and said that everyone had always cleaned the corridor on Sat.u.r.day morning.

202.

'What everyone?' he asked.

'Everyone round here,' said his mother.

As he got older, he began to realize that the dance of robots was more than just a community ritual it was a contest. An unspoken compet.i.tion between the families on the corridor to see whose cleaning bot was the best and who kept their patch of floor the smartest. And although it was hard to see how the final result was arrived at, everybody seemed to know the final score.

It was from this that Vincenzi learnt that some of the most important things in life are never spoken of.

Three minutes.

He was older by then, and his life had expanded beyond the corridor, to encompa.s.s other corridors and the Janinski Galleria and the place called Halfapark because it was obvious when you looked at the plans that it was supposed to be twice as big but had been chopped in half by a design error.

His school, LocEd 113HBSP6, was just off the park. That was where he learnt vital things, like it was better to get smacked twice on the hand by a human teacher than to get one static shock from a profbot, and the words to all six verses of 'Let the G.o.ddess Watch Over the Empress'. He learnt to salute the flag and swear his fealty to his liege lord. As he was to remark on his second tour of duty on Orestes, 'There was an education in there somewhere, but I'm b.u.g.g.e.red if I know what it was.'

He said this to a Skag maiden, who looked at him with pretty, uncomprehending eyes, and persuaded him to buy another bottle of overpriced, watery brandy.

He grew older. Bhubba, the senior of his two fathers, updated the holographic image of the family that adorned their doorway.

Then he took Vincenzi aside and, opening a bottle of ersatz Chianti, gave him the standard warnings against s.e.x, drugs and loud music. And like the warning given by the first upright primate to its child, it was about a year too late.

For there was already loud music, and drugs of a kind, and even s.e.x, albeit still only at the level of theory. Vincenzi's adolescent world was the whole North-West quadrant of Level 113, and sometimes up to 114, because there was a way past the ID checks if you were fast and clever, and Vincenzi was both.

203.

But 114 was overrated, he thought, much the same as 113 only different and down on his own level there were plenty of things to do and, most of all, friends to do it with.

Two minutes.

He could remember that world, but it was no longer part of him. It was as though he'd been cut in half, like the park, his life sliced down the middle the moment he'd pulled that trigger and sent the lieutenant's head flying.

The Vincenzi before that moment still couldn't quite believe that s.p.a.ce wasn't s.p.a.cious, that with the whole galaxy to roam in he spent all his time wedged into tin cans or foxholes. Or in crummy barracks, like this one.

Stuck in those foxholes, he'd swapped jokes about the Skag home world, how it had to be like one giant brothel. Stupid kid.

Here, the Skags didn't s.h.a.g you. They ordered you the h.e.l.l out of your nice warm bunk and drilled you until your ears rang.

He was pulling on his uniform when the alarm went off. Ten seconds later the Skag jaresht jaresht was in there, a tall fix-fingered woman in a livid red uniform, throwing sluggish soldiers out of bed and shouting, 'Battle drill for the grunts, tactical drill for the officers, but first, a delicious breakfast and an ice-cold shower to wake you up! Come along, was in there, a tall fix-fingered woman in a livid red uniform, throwing sluggish soldiers out of bed and shouting, 'Battle drill for the grunts, tactical drill for the officers, but first, a delicious breakfast and an ice-cold shower to wake you up! Come along, chumanene chumanene!'

Vincenzi hadn't quite puzzled out what rank a jaresht jaresht was equivalent to. He had a suspicion it meant 'shouter'. He'd never heard one of them speak below a hearty roar. was equivalent to. He had a suspicion it meant 'shouter'. He'd never heard one of them speak below a hearty roar.

He was lacing his boots when the jaresht jaresht boomed, 'Vinsensee!' boomed, 'Vinsensee!'

She was standing right in front of him. He hopped to his feet and said, 'I hear you!'

'I've got something for you, chumanet chumanet,' said the Skagette.

'Come along, come along.'