Weird Space 2: Satan's Reach (9 page)

He nodded, but said nothing.

Zeela went on, “Anyway, my parents... When I became addicted – I was only around ten standard years old at the time – my father decided that we had to leave Ajanta, irrespective of how dangerous that might be for him and my mother. They were not healthy people, and further weakened by their addiction. They had no way of affording passage from the planet, so they approached someone, I don’t know who exactly, a criminal... someone who might help them. This crook made my father an offer; he would finance their passage off-planet if my father would do something for him.”

“Ah,” Harper said.

“The crook wanted a business associate killed, without being incriminated himself. The man he wanted dead was a notorious criminal, a despicable human being the world would be well rid of... But my father refused. He clung to his pacifist ideals, even if by doing so he was consigning himself, his wife and his daughter, to eventual death.”

Harper nodded. “That must have taken a lot of... courage,” he said at last.

Zeela sighed. “I’m just glad that I never had to face that dilemma. You know, in the Ajantan lair... if I had not been with you, then I doubt whether I could have overturned a lifetime’s indoctrination and fought for my life.” She laughed. “‘Life is mysterious’,” she said. “Anyway, that’s one reason I want to go back to Kallasta. My parents never told me why they left the planet. I recall it as a paradise. I was very young at the time, and no doubt my parents shielded me from the reality, but it seemed idyllic. We lived in a small town on a rain-forested plateau... and yet my parents felt compelled to leave.”

“Did you never ask them why?”

“No, but I recall asking them why they chose Ajanta. The fact was that they had little choice. They had sufficient funds to get them so far, and ‘so far’ was the spaceport of Ajanta.”

“So you want to go to Kallasta and see what your parents left behind?”

“That’s about the size of it,” she said.

He was silent for a time, going over what she had told him as he negotiated the sweeping bends of the coast road and approached the city of DeVries.

She had ten thousand Ajantan units to her name, which would probably last her a month at most. It would take her years, working as a singer in the sea port bars, to save enough for the trip across the Reach.

And soon she would be suffering the withdrawal symptoms of her addiction to dhoor.

He said, “These withdrawals... how bad are they? I mean, is there anything I can do?”

“Thanks, but I’ll survive. I’ll just... lock myself away, take plenty of sugar and water and think of Kallasta.”

He nodded and said nothing as they drove through the plush residential suburbs of the city, ultra-modern domes and silver needles contrasting with ancient timber terraces and A-frames. It was this mixture of the old and the new, this acknowledgement that the planet’s rich history mattered to people, that made DeVries one of his favourite cities of the Reach.

“Den,” Zeela asked a little later, “What is life like for the average citizen beyond the Reach?”

He glanced at her. “What have you heard about life in the Expansion?”

“Not much. A few stories from travellers I met in The Rat and Corpse.”

“And what did they say? No, don’t tell me. They were in the Reach, which means that they’d left the Expansion for some reason. I suspect their views were pretty much like mine.”

“Which are?”

“The Expansion is a closed system, ruled by a totalitarian regime which will tolerate no opposition. Military rule exists in all but name on every planet in the Expansion – some two thousand in all. Over the centuries this draconian rule has cowed the populace, along with ethnic repatriation and selected breeding.”

Zeela shook her head. “Meaning?”

“In the early days of expansion from Earth, citizens were free to live where they wished. They could settle any planet they liked, just so long as they could afford to do so. Over the last few hundred years the authorities have not only proscribed free movement, but ‘consolidated’ planets – that is, moved great swathes of the populace, often by racial groupings, from one world to another in order to make governing them that much easier. And selective breeding... or eugenics... this is a program to wipe out certain races and make ‘pure’ others.” He looked across at her. “Now you’ve got to understand that I was brought up like any other ignorant youth to think that the authorities were always right; their way was the only way I knew. Then much later, when I had the cut, and could read the minds of others, dissidents, freethinkers, radicals... I came to see that the Expansion hadn’t always been so totalitarian, that at one time diversity was the norm. It wasn’t perfect back then, but at least people were free to make their own choices, their own mistakes.”

He took a flyover into the city centre. “So... the average citizen of the Expansion knows nothing other than what the party tells them. They know nothing of difference, of diversity; they live homogenised lives on their identical planets, eating the same standardised food, watching the same 3V shows, reading the same books and newsies...

“Now, contrast that to the Reach... Tarrasay, for instance. Here democracy rules; there is accountability. People vote for political parties which offer widely divergent views, and vote them out again if they don’t deliver on their promises. There is crime, and corruption, but there is also freedom. Of course, the Reach has planets like Ajanta, and worse... but at least people are free to travel, for the most part.”

Zeela stared at the silver scimitar shapes of the high-rises lining the coast, and the cantilevered domes pendent over the narrow alleys of the ancient parts of town. “I have so much to experience,” she murmured to herself, “so much to learn.”

“I can’t begin to imagine what your life must have been like back there...” Which was not quite true: he’d had that brief glimpse into her mind back at The Rat and Corpse, which had been enough to show him the fear she experienced daily...

“It was hell... but do you know something? I’m amazed now what people can put up with. You learn to live with foul conditions, don’t you? You accept. It never occurred to me, when I was growing up on Ajanta, that things might be any different. Only later, when I began to sing at The Rat and met people from other worlds... only then did I realise that I might have a life that was very different to the one I was living.”

“And the dhoor obviously helped to pacify the populace.”

She nodded. “Oh, I think that made things tolerable. It created a... a haze between you and reality.” She smiled. “I think back and feel the rapture I experienced every three days when I drank my dhoor.”

“You’re missing it?”

In reply she held out her hand, which was shaking. “I’m beginning to feel the effects of not having had any for days, Den.”

“You’ll be fine. A few rough days, then you’ll be back on your feet and enjoying all the new things that life on Tarrasay has to offer.”

She hugged herself and murmured, “Yes, I’m looking forward to that.”

They left the flyover and Harper steered the car into a cradle on the outskirts of the old town. They took an elevator down to ground level, then stepped into a narrow street between two rows of timber buildings. The place was bustling with citizens in a variety of fashions. Zeela stared about her in wonder.

“So many people,” she gasped, “and...” She pointed to a shop window. “And why do people display their clothing like that?”

Harper looked from Zeela to the window of the boutique. “It’s a shop,” he explained. “Those dresses aren’t owned by one person – they’re for sale. You can go in and buy them.”

She shook her head at the idea. “I see... just as on Ajanta you can go into The Rat and buy Finest or wash? I made my own clothes, and we bought food from night markets. So this is like a big night market, but the goods are kept in buildings, and they’re open in daytime.”

“It’s cool enough during the day to do so,” he said.

She laughed. “To think of it... buying things from buildings during the day!”

He smiled at her naivety. “Later I’ll buy you a dress...” He almost added ‘as a going away present’, but stopped himself.

The crowd jostled, and Zeela reached out to take his hand. Harper contrived to scratch his head, then pointed down a narrow street at right angles to the main thoroughfare. “Down here.”

“Where are we going?”

“I know someone who runs a bar, the Endolon on Phreak Street. In my early days on Tarrasay I almost lived in the place, and every time I’m in DeVries I drop by for old times’ sake.”

“I see. So you think they might give me a job?” She sounded less than enthusiastic at the prospect.

“They hire singers, and as I recall not many of them are as talented as you.”

She was silent as she skipped to keep up with him.

Phreak Street was one of the oldest in DeVries – named after Jeremy Phreak, a pirate of the spaceways – a row of three storey timber buildings whose great age was emphasised by the silver spires of the spaceport’s terminal buildings in the background. The Endolon was a narrow mock-Tudor establishment with a painted sign swinging above the iron-banded timber door. The sign showed a bloated grey alien clutching a foaming tankard of ale.

Zeela looked up at the sign and exclaimed, “What a strange picture!”

Harper laughed. “The inn’s owner, and a good friend of mine.”

She stared at him as he invited her to step through the warped timber door.

The inn’s interior was low and dark. A bar stretched the length of the room on the left, propped up by drinkers. The lighting was minimal, a series of imitation candles strategically positioned not so much to afford illumination but to provide anonymity to the drinkers who inhabited shadowy booths opposite the bar. In olden times, so the story went, the Endolon had been the haunt of criminals and cut-throats.

At the far end of the narrow room sat the Endolon itself.

Zeela looked around uncertainly. “They have singers
here
?”

“In the evenings in the upstairs room,” he said. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

He led the way to the throne at the far end of the bar, aware that Zeela was hanging back.

He understood why. The Endolon was grotesque. The creature was a great grey mass, not dissimilar to a bloated walrus if that animal had been positioned upright and wedged into a timber seat. Its fat spread in folds two metres wide, bulging through the gaps between the throne’s arms. It was without legs, but possessed four stubby arms just long enough to be able to lift a flagon of ale to the slit of its mouth in its domed head.

Two moist eyes, like oysters swimming in engine oil, peered out from an otherwise featureless face.

Legend had it that the Endolon had been
in situ
for three hundred years – some stories even claimed that the building had been built around the alien five hundred years ago. At any rate, the creature had not moved from its seat in living memory.

“Denphrey Harper!” the alien burbled. “And who is this?”

Harper drew up two stools and positioned them before the Endolon. Zeela climbed onto hers and stared at the alien. Harper signalled to the barman for two beetroot beers, his favoured tipple when in town, and said, “Zeela Antarivo, meet the Endolon. Endolon, meet Zeela.”

“The pleasure is mine entirely,” said the alien. “You appear young. Is Zeela your daughter, Denphrey, or your wife?”

“Neither. A friend. She hails from Kallasta, and sings like a songbird. I was hoping that she might find work here.”

The Endolon gestured with a wave of one of its tiny hands. “I will audition you myself, Zeela.”

“We’re here
en route
from the world of Ajanta...” Harper went on, and recounted their escape from that planet, pursued by the aliens.

Zeela took her pot of beetroot beer and sipped, glancing at Harper and smiling her appreciation.

“Ah, Kallasta,” said the Endolon. “Clement world, fourth planet from its primary. Agricultural, settled in 1246 by members of the Universal Church of Peace. Approximately two hundred light years from Tarrasay...” the Endolon went on in this vein for some time, regurgitating all the facts in its possession regarding the world of Kallasta. It closed its eyes, as if in bliss at being able to perform the service.

Zeela caught Harper’s eye and pulled a quizzical face. He leaned towards her and murmured, “The Endolon never forgets a fact, and delights in recounting them at any opportunity.”

The Endolon had once told Harper that there were few of its race left in this sector of space, and for all it knew anywhere else across the face of the galaxy. Once its kind had been a proud star-faring people, with life-spans of thousands of years standard, and a peaceful philosophy. Over the millennia they had spread far and wide, settling on quiet worlds and acting as sages and repositories of knowledge for races both alien and human. Someone had once told Harper that the Endolon had fled the Expansion five hundred years ago – its creed not in accord with the militaristic bent of the human authorities – settled on Tarrasay and established the eponymous drinking establishment. The Endolon, however, was reluctant to speak of its own past.

Its oleaginous eyes opened and shuttled from Harper to Zeela. It called out a name, and seconds later a serving boy scurried across and knelt before the throne. He opened a cupboard in the throne’s base and pulled out a bulbous container. Harper averted his gaze and tried not to inhale as the boy slipped a towel over the chamber pot and staggered away with it.

“Will you eat?” asked the Endolon.

“Thank you, but no,” Harper said. He glanced at Zeela who was staring aghast at the serving boy, who had returned with the empty pot and was inserting it beneath the throne.

She shook her head. “Nor me, either, thank you.”

“But you do not mind my taking sustenance?” the alien asked, then told the boy to fetch a baguette from the kitchen.

A minute later the Endolon held a great truncheon of bread in one of its four hands and proceeded to alternate between taking noisy bites of baguette and slurps of ale.