Flux - Xeelee Sequence Part 9

Ito was eyeing Dura's bare limbs doubtfully. "But I don't think we should take you out like that. Nudity's all right for shock value - but in Pall Mall?"

Ito lent Dura one of her own garments, a one-piece coverall of some soft, pliant material. The cloth felt smoothly comfortable against Dura's skin, but as she sealed up the front of the outfit she felt enclosed, oddly claustrophobic. She tried Waving around the room experimentally; the material rustled against her skin, and the seams restricted her movements.

After a little thought she wrapped her battered piece of rope around her waist, and tucked her wooden knife and sc.r.a.per inside the coverall. The homely feel of the objects made her feel a little more secure.

Cris stared at her with a skeptical grin. "You won't need a knife. It isn't the upflux here, you know."

Again Ito hushed him; the two adults politely refrained from comment.

Leaving Farr with Cris, the two women left the home with Toba. He led them to his car, waiting in the "car park." Dura helped him harness up a team of fresh pigs from the pen in the corner.

Toba took them through a fresh maze of unfamiliar streets. Soon they left behind the quiet residential section and arrived in the bustling central areas. Dura tried to follow their route, but once again found it impossible. She was used to orienting herself against the great features of the Mantle: the vortex lines, the Pole, the Quantum Sea. She suspected that keeping a sense of direction while tracking through this warren of wooden corridors was a skill which the children of Parz must acquire from birth, but which she would have to spend many months learning.

Toba brought them to the widest avenue yet. Its walls - at least a hundred mansheights apart - were lined with green-glowing lamps and elaborate windows and doorways. Toba pulled the car out of the traffic streams and hauled on his reins. "Here you are - Pall Mall," he announced. He embraced Ito. "I'll head off to the farm; I'll be back in a couple of days. Enjoy yourselves..."

Ito led Dura out of the car. Dura watched, uncertain, as the car pulled away into the traffic.

The avenue was the largest enclosed s.p.a.ce Dura had ever seen - surely the largest in the City itself. It was an immense, vertical tunnel, crammed with cars and people and full of noise and light. The two women were close to one wall; Dura could see how the wall was lined with windows, all elaborately decorated and lettered, beyond which were arrays of multicolored clothes, bags, sc.r.a.pers, bottles and globes, elaborately carved lamps, finely crafted artifacts Dura could not even recognize. People - hundreds of them - swarmed across the wall like foraging animals; they chattered excitedly to each other as they plunged through doorways.

Ito smiled. "Shops," she said. "Don't worry about the crush. It's always like this."

All four walls of the avenue were lined with the "shops." The wall opposite, a full hundred mansheights away, was a distant tapestry of color and endless human motion, rendered a little indistinct by the dusty Air; lamps sparkled in rows across its face and shafts of light shone from round ducts.

Pall Mall was alive with traffic. At first the swarming, braying cars seemed to move chaotically, but slowly Dura discerned patterns: there were several streams, she saw, moving up and down the avenue parallel to its walls, and every so often a car would veer - perilously, it seemed to her - from one stream to another, or would pull off Pall Mall into a side-street. The Air was thick with green jetfart, alive with the squealing of pigs. For a while Dura managed to follow Toba's car as it worked its way along the avenue, but she soon lost it in the swirling lanes of traffic.

There was a strong, sweet smell, almost overpowering. It reminded Dura of the scented towels in Ito's bathroom.

Ito, touching her arm, drew her toward the shops. "Come on, dear. People are starting to stare..."

Dura could hardly help goggle at the people thronging the shops. Men and women alike were dressed in extravagantly colored robes and coveralls shaped to reveal flashes of flesh; there were hats and jewels everywhere, and hair sculpted into huge, multicolored piles.

Ito led Dura through two or three shops. She showed her jewelry, ornaments, fine hats and clothes; Dura handled the goods, wondering at the fine craftsmanship, but quite unable to make sense of Ito's patient explanations of the items' use.

Ito's persistence seemed to be wearing a little now, and they returned to the main avenue. "We'll go to the Market," Ito said. "You'll enjoy that."

They joined a stream of people heading - more or less - for that end of Pall Mall deepest inside the City. Almost at once Dura was thumped in the small of her back by something soft and round, like a weak fist; she whirled, scrabbling ineffectually at her clothes in search of her knife.

A man hurried past her. He was dressed in a flowing, sparkling robe. In his soft white hands he held leaders to two fat piglets, and he was being dragged in an undignified way - it seemed to Dura - after the piglets, his feet dangling through their clouds of jetfart. It had been one of the piglets that had hit Dura's back.

The man barely glanced at her as he pa.s.sed.

Ito was grinning at her.

"What's wrong with him? Can't he Wave like everyone else?"

"Of course he can. But he can afford not to." Ito shook her head at Dura's confusion. "Oh, come on, it would take too long to explain."

Dura sniffed. The sweet smell was even stronger now. "What is is that?" that?"

"Pig farts, of course. Perfumed, naturally..."

They dropped gently down the avenue, Waving easily. Dura found herself embarra.s.sed by the awkward silences between herself and this kindly woman - but there was so little common ground between them.

"Why do you live in the City?" Dura asked. "I mean, when Toba's farm is so far away..."

"Well, there's my own job," Ito said. "The farm is large, but it's in a poor area. Right on the fringe of the hinterland, so far upflux that it's hard even to get coolies to work out there, for fear of..." She stopped.

"For fear of upfluxers. It's all right."

"The farm doesn't bring in as much as it should. And everything seems to cost so much..."

"But you could live in your farm." The thought of that appealed to Dura. She liked the idea of being out in the open, away from this stuffy warren - and yet being surrounded by an area of cultivation, of order; order; to know that your area of control extended many hundreds of mansheights all around you. to know that your area of control extended many hundreds of mansheights all around you.

"Perhaps," Ito said reluctantly. "But who wants to be a subsistence farmer? And there's Cris's schooling to think of."

"You could teach him yourself."

Ito shook her head patiently. "No, dear, not as well as the professionals. And they are only to be found here, in the City." Her tired, careworn look returned. "And I'm determined Cris is going to get the best schooling we can afford. And And stick it to the end, despite his dreams of Surfing." stick it to the end, despite his dreams of Surfing."

Surfing?

Dura fell silent, trying to puzzle all this out.

Ito brightened. "Besides - with all respect to you and your people, dear - I wouldn't want to live on some remote farm, when I could be surrounded by all this. The shops, the theaters, the libraries at the University..." She looked at Dura curiously. "I know this is all strange to you, but don't you feel the buzz of life here? And if, one day, we could move a bit further Upside..."

"Upside?"

"Closer to the Palace." Ito pointed upward, back the way they had come. "At the top of the City. All of this side of the City, above the Market, is Upside."

"And below the Market..."

Ito blinked. "Why, that's the Downside, of course. Where the Harbor is, and the dynamo sheds, and cargo ports, and sewage warrens." She sniffed. "n.o.body "n.o.body would live down there by choice." would live down there by choice."

Dura Waved patiently along, the unfamiliar clothes sc.r.a.ping across her legs and back.

As they descended, the walls of Pall Mall curved away from her like an opening throat, and the avenue merged smoothly into the Market. This was a spherical chamber perhaps double the width of Pall Mall itself. The Market seemed to be the end-point of a dozen streets - not just the Mall - and traffic streams poured through it constantly. Cars and people swarmed over each other chaotically; in the dust and noise, Dura saw drivers lean out of their cars, bellowing obscure profanities at each other. There were shops here, but they were just small, brightly colored stalls strung in rows across the chamber. Stallkeepers hovered at all angles, brandishing their wares and shouting at pa.s.sing customers.

At the center of the Market was a wheel of wood, about a mansheight across. It was mounted on a huge wooden spindle which crossed the chamber from side to side, cutting through the shambolic stalls; the spindle must have been hewn from a single Crust-tree, Dura thought, and she wondered how the carpenters had managed to bring it here, into the heart of the City. The wheel had five spokes, from which ropes dangled. The shape of the wheel looked vaguely familiar to Dura, and after a moment's thought she recalled the odd little talisman which Toba wore around his neck, the man spreadeagled against a wheel. Wasn't that five-spoked too?

Ito said, "Isn't this great? These little stalls don't look like much but you can get some real bargains. Good quality stuff, too..."

Dura found herself backing up, back toward the Mall they'd emerged from. Here, right in the belly of this huge City, the noise, heat and constant motion seemed to crowd around her, threatening to overwhelm her.

Ito followed her and took her hand. "Come on," she said. "Let's find somewhere quieter and have something to eat."

Cris's room was a mess. Crumpled clothes, all gaudily colored, floated through the Air like discarded skin; from among the clothes' empty limbs, bottles of hair-dye protruded, glinting in the lamplight. Cris pushed his way confidently into this mora.s.s, shoving clothes out of the way. Farr didn't find it so easy to enter the room. The cramped s.p.a.ce, the clothes pawing softly at his flesh, gave him an intense feeling of claustrophobia.

Cris misread his discomfiture. "Sorry about the mess. My parents give me h.e.l.l about it. But I just can't seem to keep all this junk straight." He tipped back in the Air and rammed at a ma.s.s of clothing with both feet; the clothing wadded into a ball and compressed into one corner, leaving the Air marginally clearer; but even as Farr watched the clothes slowly unraveled, reaching out blindly with empty sleeves.

Farr peered around, wondering what he was supposed to say. "Some of your belongings are - attractive."

Cris gave him an odd look. "Attractive. Yeah. Well, not half as attractive as they could be if we had a little more money to spare. But times are hard. They're always hard." He dived into the bundles of clothing once more, pulling them apart with his hands, evidently searching for something. "I suppose money doesn't mean a thing, where you grew up."

"No," Farr said, still unsure what money actually was. Oddly, he had heard envy in Cris's voice.

Cris had retrieved something from within the cloud of clothing: a board, a thin sheet of wood about a mansheight long. Its edges were rounded and its surface, though scored by grooves for gripping, was finely finished and polished so well that Farr could see his reflection in it. A thin webbing of some shining material had been inlaid into the wood. Cris ran his hand lovingly over the board; it was as if, Farr thought, he were caressing the skin of a loved one. Cris said, "It sounds great."

"What does?"

"Life in the upflux." Cris looked at Farr uncertainly.

Again Farr didn't know how to answer. He glanced around at Cris's roomful of possessions - none of which he'd made himself, Farr was willing to bet - and let his look linger on Cris's stocky, well-fed frame.

"I mean, you're so free free out there." Cris ran his hand around the edge of his polished board. "Look, I finish my schooling in another year. And then what? My parents don't have the money for more education - to send me to the University, or the Medical College, maybe. Anyway, I don't have the brains for any of that." He laughed, as if proud of the fact. "For someone like me there are only three choices here." He counted them off on his callus-free fingers. "If you're stupid, you end up in the Harbor, fishing up Corestuff from the underMantle - or maybe you can lumberjack, or you might end up in the sewage runs. Whatever. But if you're a little smarter you might get into the Civil Service, somewhere. Or - if you can't stand any of that, if you don't want to work for the Committee - you can go your own way. Set up a stall in the Market. Or work a ceiling-farm, like my father, or build cars like my mother. And spend your life breaking your back with work, and paying over most of your money in t.i.thes to the Committee." He shrugged, clinging to his board; his voice was heavy with despondency, with world-weariness. "And that's it. Not much of a choice, is it?" out there." Cris ran his hand around the edge of his polished board. "Look, I finish my schooling in another year. And then what? My parents don't have the money for more education - to send me to the University, or the Medical College, maybe. Anyway, I don't have the brains for any of that." He laughed, as if proud of the fact. "For someone like me there are only three choices here." He counted them off on his callus-free fingers. "If you're stupid, you end up in the Harbor, fishing up Corestuff from the underMantle - or maybe you can lumberjack, or you might end up in the sewage runs. Whatever. But if you're a little smarter you might get into the Civil Service, somewhere. Or - if you can't stand any of that, if you don't want to work for the Committee - you can go your own way. Set up a stall in the Market. Or work a ceiling-farm, like my father, or build cars like my mother. And spend your life breaking your back with work, and paying over most of your money in t.i.thes to the Committee." He shrugged, clinging to his board; his voice was heavy with despondency, with world-weariness. "And that's it. Not much of a choice, is it?"

If Farr had closed his eyes he might have imagined he was listening to an old, time-beaten man like Adda rather than a boy at the start of his life. "But at least the City keeps you fed, and safe, and comfortable."

"But not everyone wants to be comfortable. Isn't there more to life than that?" He looked at Farr again with that odd tinge of envy. "That's what Surfing offers me... Your life, in the upflux, must be so - interesting. interesting. Waking up in the open Air, every day. Never knowing what the day is going to bring. Having to go out and find your own food, with your bare hands..." Cris looked down at his own smooth hands as he said this. Waking up in the open Air, every day. Never knowing what the day is going to bring. Having to go out and find your own food, with your bare hands..." Cris looked down at his own smooth hands as he said this.

Farr didn't know what to reply to all this. He had come to think of the City folk as superior in wisdom, and it was a shock to find one of them talking such rubbish.

Looking for something to say, he pointed to the board Cris was still cradling. "What's this?"

"My board. My Surfboard." Cris hesitated. "You've never seen one before?"

Farr reached out and ran his fingertips over the polished surface. It was worked so finely that he could barely feel the unevenness of the wood; it was like touching skin - the skin of a very young child, perhaps. The mesh of shining threads had been inlaid into a fine network of grooves, just deep enough to feel.

"It's beautiful."

"Yes." Cris looked proud. "It's not the most expensive you can get. But I've put a h.e.l.l of a lot of work into it, and now I doubt there's a better board this side of Pall Mall."

Farr hesitated, embarra.s.sed by his utter ignorance. "But what's it for?"

"For Surfing." Cris held the board out horizontally and flipped up into the Air, bringing his bare feet to rest against the ridged board. The board drifted away from him, of course, but Farr could see how expertly Cris's feet moved over the surface, almost as if they were a second pair of hands. Cris held his arms out and swayed in the Air. "You ride along the Magfield, like this. There's nothing like it. The feeling of power, of speed..."

"But how? Do you Wave?"

Cris laughed. "No, of course not." Then he looked more thoughtful. "At least, not quite." He flipped off the board, doing a neat back-somersault in the cramped room, and caught the board. "See the wires inlaid into the surface? That's Corestuff. Superconducting. That's what makes the boards so d.a.m.n expensive." He rocked the board in the Air with his arms. "You work it like this, with your legs. See? It's like Waving, but with the board instead of your body. The currents in the superconductors push against the Magfield, and..." He shot his hand through the Air. "Whoosh!"

Farr thought about it. "And you can go faster than Waving?"

"Faster?" Cris laughed again. "You can be faster than any car, faster than any farting pig - when you get a clear run, high above the Pole, you feel as if you're going faster than thought." His expression turned misty, dreamlike.

Farr watched him, fascinated and curious.

"So that's what the board is for... sort of. But it's also my way out of here. Out of my future. Maybe." Cris seemed awkward now, almost shy. "I'm good at this, Farr. I'm one of the best in my age group; I've won a lot of the events I've been eligible for up to now. And in a couple of months I qualify for the big one. The Games. I'll be up against the best, my first chance..."

"The Games?"

"The biggest. If you do well there, become a star of the Games, then Parz just opens her legs for you." Cris laughed coa.r.s.ely at that, and Farr grinned uncertainly. "I mean it," Cris said. "Parties at the Palace. Fame." He shrugged. "Of course it doesn't last forever. But if you're good enough you never lose it, the aura. aura. Believe me... Will you still be around, for the Games?" Believe me... Will you still be around, for the Games?"

"I don't know. Adda..."

"Your friend in the Hospital. Yeah." Cris's mood seemed to swing to embarra.s.sment again. "Look, I'm sorry for going on about Surfing. I know you're in a difficult situation."

Farr smiled, hoping to put this complex boy at his ease. "I enjoy hearing you talk."

Cris studied Farr speculatively. "Listen, have you ever tried Surfing? No, of course you haven't. Would you like to? We could meet some people I know..."

"I don't know if I'd be able to."

"It looks simple," Cris said. "It is is simple in concept, but difficult to do well. You have to keep your balance, keep the board pressed between you and the Magfield, keep pushing down against the flux lines to build up your speed." He closed his eyes briefly and rocked in the Air. simple in concept, but difficult to do well. You have to keep your balance, keep the board pressed between you and the Magfield, keep pushing down against the flux lines to build up your speed." He closed his eyes briefly and rocked in the Air.

"I don't know," Farr said again.

Cris eyed him. "You should be strong enough. And, coming from the upflux, your sense of balance and direction should be well developed. But maybe you're right. You're barrel-chested, and your legs are a little short. Even so it mightn't be impossible for you to stay aboard for a few seconds..."

Farr found himself bridling at this cool a.s.sessment. He folded his arms. "Let's do it," he said. "Where?"

Cris grinned. "Come on. I'll show you."

Ito took Dura to the Museum.

This was situated in the University area of the City - far Upside, as Dura was learning to call it; in fact, not very far below the Palace itself. The University was a series of large chambers interconnected by richly paneled corridors. Ito explained that they weren't allowed to disturb the academic calm of the chambers themselves, but she was able to point out libraries, seminar areas filled with groups of earnest young people, arrays of small cells within which the scholars worked alone, poring over their incomprehensible studies.

The University was close to the City's outer wall, and was so full of natural light the Air seemed to glow. There was an atmosphere of calm here, an intensity which made Dura feel out of place (even more than usual). They pa.s.sed a group of senior University members; these wore flowing robes and had shaved off their hair, and they barely glanced at the two women as they Waved disdainfully past.

She leaned close to Ito and whispered, "Muub. That Administrator at the Hospital. He shaved his head. Does he belong here too?"

Ito smiled. "I've never met the man; he sounds a little too grand for the likes of us. But, no, if he works at the Hospital he has no connection now with the University. But he may once have studied here, and he wears the bald fashion as a reminder to the rest of us that once he was a scholar." Her smile was thin, Dura thought, and tired-looking. "People do that sort of thing, you know."

"Did you - study - at the University? Or Toba?"

"Me?" Ito laughed, gently. "Do I look as if I could ever have afforded it?... It would be wonderful if Cris could make it here, though. If only we could find the fees - it would give him something higher, something better to aim for. Maybe he wouldn't waste so much time on that d.a.m.n Surfboard."

The Museum was a large cube-shaped structure at the heart of the University complex. It was riddled with pa.s.sageways and illumination shafts, so that light seeped through the whole of its porous bulk. As they moved slowly through the maze of pa.s.sageways, the mult.i.tude of ports and doorways seemed to conceal a hundred caches of treasure.

One corridor held rows of pigs, rays and Crust-spiders. At first the creatures, looming out of the darkness, made Dura recoil; but she soon realized that these animals were no threat to her - and never would be to anyone else. They were dead, preserved somehow, fixed to the walls of this place in grim parodies of their living postures: gazing at the magnificent, outstretched wings of a ray, pinned against a frame of wood, Dura felt unaccountably sad. A little further along a display showed an Air-pig - dead like the others, but cut open and splayed out with its organs - small ma.s.ses of tissue fixed to the inner wall of the body - now glistening, exposed for her inspection. Dura shuddered. She had killed dozens of Air-pigs, but she could never have brought herself to touch this cold, clean display.

Oddly, there was no smell in these corridors, either of life or death.

They came to an area containing human artifacts. Much of it was from the City itself, Dura gathered, but from ages past; Ito laughed as she pointed to clothes and hats mounted on the walls. Dura smiled politely, not really seeing the joke. There was a model of the City, finely carved of wood and about a mansheight tall. There was even a lamp inside so that the model was filled with light. Dura spent some time peering at this in delight, with Ito pointing out the features of the City. Here was a toy lumber train entering one of the great ports Downside, and here was the Spine leading down into the underMantle; tiny cars carrying model Fishermen descended along the Spine, seeking lodes of precious Corestuff. And the Palace at the very crown of the City - at the farthest Upside of all - was a rich tapestry glowing with life and color.

Further along, there were small cases containing artifacts from outside the City. Ito touched her arm. "Perhaps you'll recognize some of this." There were spears and knives, all carved from wood; she saw nets, ponchos, lengths of rope.

Upfluxer artifacts.

None of them looked as if they had come from the Human Beings themselves. But, said Ito, that wasn't so surprising; there were upfluxer bands all around the fringe of Parz's hinterland, right around the Star's Polar cap. Dura studied the objects, aware of her own knife, her rope still wrapped around her waist. The things she carried wouldn't be out of place inside one of these displays, she realized. With a tinge of bitterness, she wondered if these people would like to pin her and her brother up on the walls, like that poor, dead ray.