“Of course,” said Gordon. “A classic sign of arousal, near subliminal in effect. Very good.”
“There are other things,” she said, and she peeled back her robe in a way which was no accident. “Engorgement of the nipples is under my conscious control — you see? And the labia, too. Much of my internal musculature likewise.”
“Indeed,” said Gordon, resisting the desire to trace with his finger the line from her chin to her heated, glistening sex. “Quite a piece of work.”
She gazed at him for a long moment, then closed her robe again. “I should have known better,” she said. “You are very old, aren’t you?”
“In mind, if not body,” admitted Gordon. “More than one rejuv.”
“It’s harder to work with older men.” She extended a hand. “That drink — may I?”
“Of course.” He topped up the glass, and handed it to her.
She sipped it, and smiled. “It’s good. I didn’t know. I rarely drink good wine. Your life here, as a virtual aristocrat — it must be pleasant.” At Gordon’s nod, she continued. “Do you ever think of the people under you? All the hundreds of thousands who live as near-slaves to make your life easy? The original Lord Byron — yes, I recognise you, George Gordon, athlete, marksman, swordsman, poet and sexual omnivore — I seem to remember he fought against oppression.”
“You see yourself as fighting oppression?” He poured the last of the wine into the second tumbler, left behind by Wilde earlier in the night.
“Of course,” she said. “Who would fight if they thought they were on the side of evil? I come as a liberator to the people of New Ceres.”
Gordon finished his wine, and deliberately stepped back two paces. “Enough,” he said. “I make no apologies for New Ceres, but I note that refugees choose to come here, rather than elsewhere — to your worlds, for example.” He saw her face flush at that. “People live here in peace, if not in plenty. I cannot permit you to carry out your plans.”
“So,” she said sadly. “Now I must kill you.” Muscles rippled under her beautiful skin. Veins stood out against her flesh. She breathed heavily, in gusts, and he smelled her sweat.
“If you must,” said Gordon. He retreated another pace, and brought his hands up protectively. “How will you explain it to Dorian?”
“Benton did it,” she said. “My control extends to the adrenal system. You shouldn’t have talked so long, George Gordon. I have had time to prime myself. For the next ten minutes, I have speed and strength and physical endurance far beyond your abilities. After that, when I am found collapsed over your battered form, nobody will doubt that Benton’s great strength overwhelmed you even as you managed to kill him.”
“The berserker state,” he said, wonderingly. “But with a conscious, thinking mind behind it. Benton was right. You are very dangerous indeed. It is fortunate that he killed you when he did.”
“Eh?” Like Benton before her, Grace managed only the single syllable before the cloud of near-microscopic needles fired from the illegal flechette pistol Gordon had taken from the corpse tore her chest apart in a spray of blood and flesh. Despite her bioengineered strength, one shot from the wicked little gun was more than enough, and Gordon turned away from the ruin of her fine body. He tucked the pistol into Benton’s cooling hand, and stepped back to survey his handiwork.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” he said, though she was long past hearing. “No doubt Dorian will write you a lovely elegy, but I suppose that is small comfort. You were wrong about me. I know there is oppression here. I know that New Ceres is a vulnerable, artificial construct — a ridiculous English hothouse full of exotic flowers, surrounded by the howling winds of winter. If it resists the pressures from without, one day it is certain to fall of its own accord, brought down by the will of the people who live here, and make the world what it is. And that is the liberation for which I will struggle,” said Gordon. “The day will come, and I will be here to see it. What you offered is not liberation. It is only another form of enslavement, with a different face. Freedom has to be won, not granted.”
Then he made his way to the kitchens and found another bottle. He climbed with it onto the sloping, shingled roof, where he waited, alone, for the dawn.
The Martian Eye
Postcards from Georgiana
a New Ceres travel column
by Gi Brite
I come in from orbit on a ship filled with refugees — all pre-approved by the New Ceres government, clinging to the few personal possessions they were able to save from Earth before it all went to hell.
I’ve interviewed a few of them, and chatted to more. Two-thirds of them seem to be artists, or musicians, or writers, or artisans. There are a few engineers, and other tech-types, but most of them have been brought along with an artistic spouse or sibling.
I’m getting a sense that the New Ceres migration department are very, very choosy.
The spaceport in New Ceres is discreetly placed in a valley a long distance from the capital city, Prosperine. When you’re all geared up for crinolines and horse-drawn carriages, it’s a little strange to step off the shuttle into a gleaming white spaceport just like any other planet in the systems.
The official at Customs barely glances at my tourist visa. “Authentic or alien?”
Authentic, of course.
I’m sent with the refugees down a long corridor to a hall full of quill-wielding bureaucrats who write our travel certificates out by hand. My dictaware and other tech tools have already been confiscated until my departure, and I’m itching to write down my notes so far, but I can see this is going to take some time. Pen and ink looks hard.
My personal calligrapher writes me a set of papers for “Georgiana Barrowbright.” I feel the need to point out to him that “Gi” isn’t short for anything, and certainly not Georgiana — I was named for Gi Xuan, Twentieth Century It Girl and Pop Princess.
“You asked for the authentic experience,” he mutters like he says those words a million times a day. Probably he does.
The refugees take longer to be processed than the tourists. I’m slapped into a rental gown and wig, to keep me looking the part until I can cash in my pre-paid Regency Makeover certificate in the city, and make my way to the Prosperine shuttle.
It’s a boat. A curved, covered gondola the size of a bus. I squeeze myself and my skirts in with a crowd of native New Ceresians returning home, and Alien tourists who are still hanging on to their own clothes.
The journey into the city is livened up by the presence of Jacques, an attractive youngster who decides to play travel guide to me. He’s wearing a mixture of offworld clothing and New Ceres chic — apparently it’s the style amongst the kids these days, and has just returned from visiting his father offworld.
Jacques takes great delight in pointing out to me the different levels of authenticity in the garb of our fellow travellers — some that I thought were natives are actually tourists in hired clothes like my own, and several natives are wearing their offworld clothing like a badge of honour. He glances through my papers and advises me to cash my Makeover certificate at Marguerite’s — apparently the best of the “tourist” outfitters, and a mine for local gossip.
As our gondola shuttle moves into the city, I spot a group of men in golden robes wearing what look like plague doctor masks — all beaky nose and gilded leather. “Where did they get their outfits?” I exclaim, but it doesn’t provoke the laugh I intended.
“You didn’t smuggle anything in with you?” Jacques asks in an undertone. “No offworld tech, nothing disallowed by the Book of Light?”
I read the Book of Light Guidelines for Tourists pamphlet on the shuttle, and I’m pretty sure I’m answering truthfully when I tell him I’m clean.
He relaxes a little. “You should be fine, then. Though they’re likely to keep an eye on you — journalists are renowned for trying to smuggle in recording tech.”
“Who are they?”
“The Lumoscenti,” he says in a half
whisper, though our graceful boat has already left the creepy golden men long behind. “The Priests of Light. They’re the ones who decide what is and isn’t … New Ceres.”
“Oh, the Authenticity Police.”
The nervous look on this cocky, confident boy’s face tells me that is isn’t a joking matter. This is the story I came here to find — not girlie gossip about how hard it is to struggle into a corset, or how to find yourself a genuine Mr Darcy on a white horse.
No one ever talks about the darker side of New Ceres — the ethical questions raised by a society that deliberately limits its citizens to the technology available in Earth’s eighteenth century. Are New Ceresians empowered, or repressed? I can’t help thinking that those golden monks might be the key to answering that question…
Next Column: What’s living in the wigs?
Tale of the Veremaurs
Excerpt: New Ceres Field Notes of Dr Meredith Perle, Assoc. Prof.,
Chair of Anthropology, University of Minerva.
During one of my many information-gathering forays through the anachronistic society of New Ceres, I heard of a man called only ‘The Raconteur’ who knew all the old tales of early New Ceresian history and legend. I finally discovered him in a back street coffee house in the coastal city of Celestine — an old man now. At my request, he related the following tale.
###
“Well my friends, you ask me for a tale, and I think tonight, I shall give you one. Gather round, and listen closely, for I shall tell you the tale of the Veremaurs. In the old country, the Veremaurs had existed for as far back as any of us raconteurs can remember, and we remember far back into history let me assure you. There have been stories about various members of the Veremaur family that would make the hair stand up at the back of your neck. They were a very, very strange family, with a gift that was most unusual. Some of you probably know psychics…some of you may even have had your fortune told … have you? With cards, or coffee grains left in your cup? These are party tricks to the Veremaurs … party tricks … even the least talented of that family could do that.
No, the special gift the Veremaurs had was that they could see far into your soul. They could tell you where you have been and what you are doing and where you will go … and not just with this lifetime, but with all lifetimes. They could sense things that we do not even know — they could sense intentions, and thoughts — frightening what they could tell you. Not all family members — that is true … but in each generation there is one or two, and what they see is frightening. I have heard of one Veremaur who could lie on a grave and tell you about the corpse beneath. He was always accurate too … very seldom missed. Strange man was Ivan Veremaur. He never liked to use his gift … but every now and again old Ivan would creep out and trouble followed. Always.
Some of the Veremaurs could pick up a drunk cup of coffee, look deep into it and go into a trance, and tell you things about who had drunk the coffee, and what intention that person had. Some of the Veremaurs went to the dark side. Well … they had a gift and it could be used for light or dark. Just like, say, electricity … you plug something into a socket, and it can turn on a light, or work an electric prod … same thing with the Veremaurs. They could just tap into their gift, and use it how they liked. Born to it, they were. Stuff they did couldn’t be taught. Some had it very powerfully, some only a little, some not at all, but like I said, in every generation there were some very powerful Veremaurs. Some turned to healing, and some to scrying, some taught, some tried politics.
But eventually the powers that be took fright, and decided to wipe out the family. Too frightening for them. Knew too much of course … so then the slaughter began … and not just slaughter. No, that wasn’t good enough apparently. They decided to separate the head from the body, and the arms and legs from the torso … that way they said the head would never find its neck, nor the arms and legs the where withal to conjure up their magic tricks. Magic tricks. What a laugh … they didn’t do magic tricks … what they had was real, and powerful, and too powerful. That’s the truth.
But, some of the children survived. I heard one or two young ones were taken in by the Mathematicians … and of course that was out of the frying pan into the fire wasn’t it. Techos they were called and had their own problems. But probably some of the young babes were taken in somewhere, so don’t be surprised if one day you hear of the Veremaurs again. Power like that doesn’t die … it changes shape, it evolves, it grows cunning and sly, and finds ways to maintain itself. Veremaurs will be back in some form or other … just wait and watch, but while you do that, my friends, be vigilant and frightented, ’cos who knows how the power will play out when it does.”
###
When I returned the next evening to confirm some details of my transcription, the Raconteur was nowhere to be found. It was three months before I would discover him again, and he claimed no knowledge of me or the story I have presented here.
Acknowledgements
“Postcards from Georgiana” written by Tansy Rayner Roberts
“Tale of the Veremaurs” written by Ruth Krasnostein and Tansy Rayner Roberts
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