Then all things were normal again, apart from a guiltily appetizing smell of singed flesh. The Anchorite was standing over him holding a gas laser.
“Sometimes they have spare brains in the lumbar area,” said the Anchorite conversationally. “Are you all right, young lady?”
“Very much,” said Measure. “I knew you’d kill him, Uncle Anchorite.” Measure bent down to Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus. “Uncle Anchorite is the fastest gun, daddy.”
“Well, not really.” The hermit hefted a heavy piece of apparatus out of concealment behind the row of EVA suits in the hall. “You remember this piece of gear?”
Reborn-in-Jesus forced his eyes to focus. “It’s a converted starship FTL drive,” he said. “Trapp used it to open locks. It fools security systems. By definition,” he parroted, “an FTL drive is also a time machine.”
“Well, sort of,” said the Anchorite. “It can speed time up or slow it down. I used it to flick your end of the hallway into slow time. No matter how fast he moved, it wasn’t fast enough.”
Reborn-in-Jesus struggled himself up against a wall with his daughter’s help.
“He seemed to know you.”
“He did. Him and everyone like him.”
“You fought in the War Against the Made,” said Reborn-in-Jesus. “You were one of the commanders on our side.”
The Anchorite nodded reluctantly. “I suppose that’s true.” He rose from his seat, the seventeenth chair in the middle of the dining table that was his and his alone, and began picking up equipment crates spread out over the floor. “Their ship is still here. It could be a Made mind too. I’d better see to it.”
Reborn-in-Jesus nodded. He looked at his leg forlornly. “Will I live?”
“Goodness gracious, yes. If that had been a compound fracture severing the femoral, your leg would be the size of a weather balloon by now.” He nodded to Measure. “Run, child, and fetch the endorphins. Give your father fifty milligrammes till your mother arrives to splint the break.” He kicked the hand laser over to Reborn-in-Jesus. “It’s unlikely, but if he moves again, shoot him in all the bad places you can think of.”
Weighed down by weaponry, he left the house, whistling for his devil. A grim shadow moved out of an angle of the external walls to accompany him.
Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus gathered up the weapon into clumsy hands, and finally sank into a dark monster-proof blanket of unconsciousness.
“Four landing jets!”
Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus frowned. “Could be anything. But run and fetch your Uncle anyway.”
Delighted, Measure skipped off squealing to find a green beetle to talk to. Reborn-in-Jesus lifted another child-sized metal locust, its electronic eyes dull and unseeing, its glide planes folded flat against its fuselage, onto the top of the wall, and absent-mindedly slapped another trowel of highly nutritious peptide onto its abdomen end. Building goat-proof fences out of dead GreenQueen workers had proved to be the best use that could be made of them. At the base of the wall, a worker he had thought dead started struggling against the mulch holding it in place, eyes focussing and defocussing on its confusing new environment. He drew the hand laser from a vest pocket and blew both its primary and backup brains out.
Polypeptide mulch had proved to be a useful base for mortar, and why not? Animal dung had proven to make effective wattle-and-daub plaster in houses built on Old Earth for thousands of years. Two or three such houses still existed even today.
The landing retros burned down the ninety-east horizon toward the approach beacon Magus had installed at the Saddle. Apostle, shovelling mulch at his father’s right hand, said:
“What ship is that?”
“Could be,” said Reborn-in-Jesus, “the one we’re expecting.” His leg still moved uncomfortably in the splint. Standing still slapping mortar on bricks was the greatest mobility he was currently capable of.
“Is that the Investors, papa?”
“Could be,” said Reborn-in-Jesus, continuing to slap on mortar.
The Investor was a precise little man in an unobtrusive grey suit and a mood-sensitive tie which seldom shifted from an image of raindrops dropping ceaselessly into grey water in slow motion. Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, sitting at the other end of the Best Parlour dining table, warmed to him instantly.
“Did you have a pleasant journey in, Mr. Yamashita?” said Shun-Company politely as she served Real Tea topped with sprigs of Real Parsley.
“I was perturbed,” said Mr. Yamashita or Yamashita, Yamashita, Yamashita, and Yamashita, “at the amount of space wreckage hereabouts. I and my colleagues passed a junked Skyline-class personal transport on our way here, space in this vicinity is filled with,” he regarded the disassembled GreenQueen worker lying legs-up on the table with distaste, “those things, there is a cloud of radioactive metal droplets and FTL components in close circumpolar orbit that strongly suggest a Type Three Prospector was vapourised here in the recent past, there’s a wrecked Dictator-era gunship trailing this planetoid’s primary in a Trojan orbit, and there is another wreck, a type seven cattle transport, orbiting equatorially—”
“The cattle transport,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus evenly, “is my son’s ship. It is currently powered down to conserve fuel. It is not a wreck.”
Mr. Yamashita coloured in embarrassment. His mood tie changed images to depict a man swallowing a toad.
“I do apologize,” he said. “But you take my point that the approaches to this world seem somewhat heavy with debris, one might even say hazardous.”
“That,” said the Anchorite, from his chair, “can soon be remedied.”
Mr. Yamashita stayed silent for a moment, conversing with Senior Partners. Five generations of Yamashitas had made the family name what it was, and all that accumulated experience could not be allowed to go to waste. Expensive, top-flight personality analogues had been made of all the firm’s senior partners before their deaths, and although they had no legal voting rights, their experience was still cherished. Paul Miki Yamashita junior had his relatives’ guiding voices implanted directly and clamorously into his head. They could not be switched off. They saw and observed upon his every action, in the bath, in bed with his wife. Yamashita-san suffered from family-imposed techno-schizophrenia. Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus found Yamashita-san disturbing, and noticed that the Anchorite, too, kept both hands underneath the dining table where they could not be seen to draw a weapon.
“The senior partners,” coughed Yamashita-san junior, “tentatively approved your proposal on behalf of the investors, with minor reservations. The proposed site of the health retreat and neutronium spa would be, we understand, the South Pole of Mount Ararat.”
“That’s a gravitational gradient spa,” corrected the Anchorite. “It’s the thick clustering of baryobars hereabouts that gives this location healing properties, particularly for clients suffering from microgravity diseases.”
“I would not dare,” said Yamashita-san, “to contradict you, sir, and despite the absence of a shred of supporting medical evidence, am sure you are entirely correct. Our investors, Mr. and Mrs. Joannou, trustees of the Anadyomene Development Company Victims Compensation Fund, have past experience of dealing with you and believe your world to possess potential,” said Yamashita-san. “They account you worthy of trust. We therefore plan to build a spacious hundred-square-kilometre estate furnished with proper modern landing facilities, a fully-equipped hospital for the treatment of degenerative conditions, luxury radiation-shielded accommodation, a bush baby petting zoo, bioluminescent plankton fountains, a hedge maze, and colour-sorting bowerbird gardens.”
“But it would be peaceful,” said the Anchorite. “The underlying tranquillity of the location would be preserved.”
Mr. Yamashita nodded. “No buildings high enough to throw oneself violently from,” he said. “For the benefit of the patients, some of whom might be detoxifying or suffering from mental illness.”
“All of whom,” said the Anchorite firmly, “would be rich.”
; “And there would be a wall,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus with some concern, “between us and them.”
“A very high wall,” agreed Mr. Yamashita, appraising Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus. “Of your family, you yourself would retain a seventeen per cent interest, with your son Mr. Magus and your, um, associate here—” he nodded at the Anchorite “—also retaining seventeen per cent, and the Anadyomene Fund forty-nine.”
“Sounds reasonable,” said the Anchorite.
“Those are, in fact,” coughed Yamshita-san diplomatically, “exactly the terms you asked for. We argued against them at great length with our clients, yet were overruled.”
“Sounds reasonable,” said the Anchorite.
“Our clients appear to place great trust in you, Mr.—?”
“I have transcended the workaday commonplace of names,” revealed the Anchorite.
A cough sounded from behind Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, who grimaced weakly.
“I wish,” he said, “to split my percentage between myself and my dear wife. I will take nine per cent—”
The cough sounded again.
“—eight per cent, and my darling wife, the end point of my affections, the axis of my universe, will take nine.”
Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus’s drink was topped up from behind. The other guests’ glasses remained half full.
Mr. Yamashita smiled with excellent teeth. The sun dawned on his tie, onto which a heron strode out and began fishing in the former rainwater.
“Well, now that we are concluded, how do we propose to populate the gardens? Mrs. Joannou is very fond of redwood.”
unity and the tax pirates
In the tenth kilodia since the founding of the New and Perfect Era, Mount Ararat experienced the firm hand of government. This arrival, however, had been anticipated for several days. Rather than waiting for new stars to appear in the firmament and muddy urchins to skip in trailing pond muck yelling ‘MA! PA! THERE’S A SPACESHIP IN SUCH AND SUCH A CONSTELLATION!’, the family Reborn-in-Jesus had recently arranged to be warned in advance by the new ultramodern landing facility under construction by Temple House in the southern hemisphere of the planet. This new landing, therefore, was announced by a call on Third Landing’s one and only videophone, a bespoke device cast in genuine ancient bakelite, consisting of a three-dimensional screen and speakers and one single large ivory button which opened a channel to Mount Ararat’s only other videophone, at the construction site.
The foreperson, Mr. Feng, sat in a cosy office surrounded by robosupervisor screens, grinning at the camera. “Good morning! We’re tracking an unauthorized incoming approaching down the uphill ecliptic. Transponders identify it as a government ship. It does not respond to hailing. Are you expecting it?”
Third Landing had a number of adult inhabitants—Mr. and Mrs. Reborn-in-Jesus, their eldest daughter Unity, taciturn Testament, voluble Apostle, and wholesomely beautiful God’s-Wound—but uncommonly, only Unity was at home to take the call. Tall, slender, impossibly attractive, but terrified that her sheer size made her look like a man, Unity hunched herself smaller and spoke into the microphone in as high a voice as she could muster. “I don’t believe so, Mr. Feng, but if it’s a government ship I’m sure no harm can come of it.”
Mr. Feng—middle-aged, portly, but possessed of the single undeniable plus point that he was not one of Unity’s immediate gene pool, grinned. “Yes, I’m pretty sure they’re listening to us too. But we have nothing to fear. They’ll find our accounts in order.”
“You think it’s a Revenue ship, Mr. Feng?”
“Almost certainly. The Tax Pirates cruise the outer reaches of human space, looking for isolated, impoverished planets. When they find one they land, make up an enormous back tax bill, present it to the local yokels, and wait for the money and bribes to roll in. It’s just like real piracy, only with fewer spacings and plump-buttocked cabin boys.”
Unity coloured like a ripening fruit. “I’m not sure father would approve of your using such words around me, Mr. Feng.”
“Buttock buttock buttock buttock buttock. Feng out.”
Unity rose to her feet and called out through the house.
“POSTLE! ZOUNDS! THERE’S A GOVERMENT SHIP COMING IN!”
*
It was the end of the day. 23 Kranii was loitering on the C/D ring division with intent to set. Mother and Father, who were not strictly Beguiled-of-the-Serpent’s mother and father, still could not bring themselves to call 23 Kranii ‘the sun’. The goats were already penned in in the High Street, attempting vainly to find scraps of ungrazed green. Some of them were already turning round to sleep in the Goat Shelter.
It was Naphillian perihelion, and the sun did not set properly at this time of year due to Mount Ararat’s axial tilt. However, it did pass behind Naphil’s A, B, and C rings, which dimmed it to a ruddy disco swirl, and for those few hours, the goats could be persuaded to sleep. During Crystal Night, as the children had christened it despite unfathomable objections from their parents, glistering shadows scooted across the fields like schools of supersonic jellyfish, and the sun was a vague patch of glowing coals fixed firmly over the North Pole, still light enough to read by, still warm enough to sleep under.
Beguiled-of-the-Serpent’s favourite goat, Shub-Niggurath, followed her blindly by the still waters of the Town Pond and into the shadow of the palms, where the History of the Entire Universe had been picked out in mosaic on the side of the Government Penitentiary by the combined children of Mount Ararat under Mother’s guidance. The first few square metres of mosaic were in raw, undifferentiated earth colours, home-baked clay baked in Mother’s home clay-baking apparatus, made of wetted Mount Ararat regolith, brown chondritic sand and rubble. In these colours the beginning of all things had been related—the bountiful hand of an indeterminately sexed Creator bestowing being on a roughly-rendered Adam and Eve, who looked to have come into being simultaneously with an identical number of ribs. Later episodes dwelt at length on the creation of Satan and His appearance before God to receive the instruction to torment Job. The trials of Job were depicted in great detail, involving Job’s friends and relatives being burned, buried, blown up and beheaded. Some of those chapters in the story seemed to be picked out in various shades of stained glass. Still later episodes, more gaudily made of metal, ceramic and plastic, showed the recent history of Mount Ararat—an idealized pre-war general purpose transport descending from the sky, bearing and loading precious cargoes. The cargoes, the drive exhaust of the trader, and the panoply of stars that twinkled overhead were made of a mineral mined from the very centre of Mount Ararat; a mineral which Beguiled’s foster-brother Magus was currently attempting to sell on a planet orbiting another star, and which all the children had been warned not to prise out of the mosaic, handle, lick, or eat under any circumstances. During daylight hours, when solar power activated the UV filaments twining over the fields, the normally jet-black stars and starship fluoresced a gorgeous sympathetic purple.
Beguiled sat down with her back against the metal wall of the Penitentiary, took out the cheap plastic encrypted text reader her mother turned a blind eye to, and loaded forbidden book number four, Paradise Regain’’d, by John Milton. She had not been entirely sure what to make of Mr. Milton’s earlier Paradise Lost; it had made the Devil out to be a villain, whereas the book of Job and the Gospel of Matthew clearly showed him to be God’s servant. Perhaps this book would make things clearer.
“I who e’er while the happy garden sung...” began the book. Beguiled, who was beginning to toy with spelling her name Beguil’d, worked her way through the ancient language with some difficulty, until she was interrupted by a clear regular sound of knocking, not so much heard as felt, communicated through her shoulderblades resting against the metal. Whatever the sound was, it was coming from the inside of the prison itself.
Born into a society which relied heavily on occasional visits from passing spaceships, Beguiled was well acquainted with Morse Code. Dotdotdotdot—dot—dotdashdotdot?
??dotdashdotdot—dashdashdash—H-E-L-L-O.
She turned, and pressed her ear against the metal. Gingerly, not wanting to disturb the constant stream of messaging, she tappedout the same greeting in reply.
The stream of dots and dashes changed instantly. T-H-A-N-K-G-O-D-R-U-O-N-T-H-E-O-U-T-S-I-D-E-T-H-I-S-I-S-J-O-H-A-N-N-E-S-
She interrupted the knocker’s enthusiasm with a curt reply. M-R-T-R-A-P-P-I-S-T-H-A-T-Y-O-U-STOP.
The knocking paused. Then, hesitantly, it replied back:
W-H-O-W-A-N-T-S-2-K-N-O-W-QUERY.
Beguiled tapped back: B-E-G-U-I-L-D-R-A-F-F-A-E-L-E-STOP.
There was another pause. Then came the reply:
B-E-G-U-I-L-E-D-O-F-T-H-E-S-E-R-P-E-N-T-QUERY.
Beguiled tapped back a Y-E-S, then followed with:
Y-O-U-G-O-T-M-E-I-N-2-T-R-O-U-B-L-E-M-R-T-R-A-P-P-STOP.
I-M-S-O-R-R-Y-P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E-S-O-F-E-S-C-A-P-I-N-G-I-M-T-R-Y-I-N-G-2-E-S-C-A-P-E-N-O-W-
She clicked the BOOKMARK AND EXIT spot on the reader’s screen. Even after she unstuck her ear from the wall, she could still hear the rhythm tapping out frantically. Somehow, the tapper seemed to have sensed the fact that she no longer had her head against the metal.
W-A-I-T-P-L-E-A-S-E-I-T-S-T-A-K-E-N-S-O-L-O-N-G-2-G-E-T-T-H-I-S-F-A-R-C-A-N-U-H-E-L-P-M-E-
Beguiled took great pleasure in tapping:
N-O
Chondritic gravel crunched beneath her heels as she turned on them and trudged back in the direction of the house. Shub-Niggurath, bleating softly, rose without question and accompanied her. The landscape crawled and flashed with the purple noise of shadows flitting by faster than film frames.
There was a rumble of rockets, and a bright star descending along the ninety-east meridian towards the new landing field. Someone appeared to have arrived.