Into the Maelstrom Read online

  The chauffeur touched the control screen and leaned forward to mutter something into a microphone. There was no point, Allenson reflected, in having authority if you didn’t abuse it occasionally.

  A hum from the centrally-located motor was the first sign that Control had acquiesced to Allenson’s queue jumping. Balls of green and blue light rolled down the rods and out onto carbon filaments that extended from the rods like spreading ice crystals. A faint shimmer in the air like a heat haze was just detectable around the carriage. Frame fields were theoretically invisible if exactly adjusted but when was any machine perfectly tuned? Not in the Cutter Stream, that was for sure.

  The carriage lifted from the ground and turned away from Port Newquay, climbing slowly until it levelled out at a thousand feet. Trina fastened her lap belt and gazed at Allenson stonily until he did the same. Allenson was pleased to see that Farant kept his right hand on the control stick and his left on the screen even though they were on full automatic.

  Farant was a competent and careful man. That was why Allenson bought his contract when he decided Trina needed a new chauffeur. That, and because the man was a proficient shot with an ion pistol. Allenson paid the indentured servant a generous salary that gave him every expectation of buying out his contract in a few years. Farant had every reason to be solicitous of Lady Allenson’s future good health.

  Control routed them around the edge of Lake Clearwater to avoid flying over Manzanita City. That flight path was forbidden ever since an overloaded lighter frame with burned out batteries came down onto the island despite the one sober crew member pedaling like mad to generate power. It hit one of the villas along the shore, killing the young mistress of a Member of the Upper House.

  The surviving crew member, the sober one, was carefully questioned before being exiled to one of the more unpleasant Hinterland colonies. The interrogation revealed nothing that was not already known. The local frame technology was unreliable and half the stuff imported from Brasilia was crap. Brasilia did not permit its colonies across the Bight to trade freely with other Home Worlds. Streamers had to put up with whatever Brasilia’s merchants chose to dump on them. Reflecting on this didn’t calm Allenson so he concentrated on watching the world go past.

  New settlements were springing up all around the shores of the lake. Land on the original island shot up in value as Manzanita City grew in prosperity and population. Middle-class citizens decamped out to the new suburbs on the mainland. With no Rider attacks on Manzanita in living memory, the need for a defensible island site became irrelevant. The island was now home just to the Cutter Stream local government, the wealthy owners of the villas on the shore and barracklike buildings for the poor who provided the necessary cheap labor.

  They passed over the site of a new settlement still under construction. Allenson was intrigued to see that it was not just utilitarian blocks of cheap flats but also more upmarket houses in terraces with individual gardens. The jetty was already up and being used to bring in materials and labor by boat.

  There was still only one causeway running from the island to the mainland where it ended in Port Clearwater. Unused by anyone, that is, anyone who mattered, it slowly fell into disrepair. Nothing ever came of the talk of putting in a new causeway to Port Newquay. Myriads of small private boats, ferries and lighters weaved backward and forward across the lake linking Manzanita City to its suburbs. Far too much money and hence political influence was tied up in waterway transport for a new causeway to get backing in either the Upper or Lower House.

  The power supply in Trina’s carriage had been retrofitted from a Brasilian military lighter that Allenson had used his influence as Colonel of Militia to acquire. Terran Home World technology was state of the art so Allenson had every confidence in its reliability. Nevertheless, he was pleased to see from the movement of Farent’s shoulders that he was pedaling every so often to keep the batteries charged. The chauffeur was indeed a careful man.

  Allenson checked Farent’s background carefully before employing him. The driver wound up in the Cutter Stream after having been caught defrauding his employer to pay off gambling debts. He was addicted to betting on which dog could run the fastest. He became an indentured servant when his labor was sold to provide compensation for the theft. Farent was spared temptation in his new home as the Stream colonies had never felt the need to import racing dogs across the Bight.

  Competent people in the colonies were always in short supply, especially if they had saleable skills. You either paid ridiculous sums of money to persuade a qualified young employee from the Home Worlds to work on a short-term contract so he could build up a nest egg before going home or you took what you could get. And what you got could be pretty undesirable. Better an indentured servant exiled from the Home World with a known vice you could live with than an unskilled local or worse, an incompetent immigrant.

  This terrible social system hobbled colonial society. It might have been designed for maximum inefficiency, but you worked within the system you had. Most people in the colonies never gave it much thought. After all, they knew nothing else. The wealthy, of course, had no incentive for change because they were already at the top of the tree. Sometimes in an idle moment Allenson dreamed up better ways for mankind to spread across the Bight but he was a pragmatic soul and recognized the pointlessness of fantasizing.

  Brasilia’s main Home World rival colonizing across the Bight was Terra, still licking its wounds from losing the last colonial war. They used convicts as forced labor in their colonies rather than indentured servants. It was a distinction without much difference and just as inefficient.

  The carriage rose and fell, overtaking slower-moving traffic. Trina keyed the screen beside her elbow. Background noises cut out and they could converse without the driver overhearing.

  “I shall miss the Destrys, too,” she said, squeezing his arm.

  Allenson managed to smile at her.

  “Yes, it was nice to have one friend who wasn’t after anything. Someone could be relied upon to tell me exactly what he thought even if I didn’t want to hear it.”

  “Sarai was extraordinarily kind to me when I was sick,” Trina said.

  Somehow it always came back to Sarai. Allenson could not decide whether he was sorry or relieved that Sarai was out of his life forever. Perhaps he was both. The Destrys were regular guests at Pentire when they had business in Manzanita or Sarai wished to visit her family. In return, the Allensons occasionally stayed with the Destrys on Wagener when Allenson was required to sort out whatever mess his stepmother was currently making of his late father’s demesne.

  He and Sarai behaved as would properly be expected between in-laws with no overt impropriety. But there was always the glance, the touch on his arm, the flash of her eyes: things that Trina and Royman Destry carefully failed to notice.

  “She was good at that, caring I mean,” Allenson said. “She nursed me once.”

  “I know. She told me,” Trina said, squeezing his arm again to show it was all right.

  “Maybe Destry is better out of it the way things are going,” Allenson said absentmindedly, still remembering Sarai’s tears when he married Trina.

  Sarai never could see that a liaison was impossible. She married Royman Destry, his friend, and that was the end of it. A properly discreet fling would have been socially acceptable. It did not matter even if everyone knew provided no one acknowledged that they knew. But it would never be just a fling between Sarai and him. It would never be just another meaningless adventure. The passion ran too deep, burned too fiercely, and Sarai was incapable of discreetness.

  Sooner or later she would have precipitated a crisis. Destry would have been publically cuckolded. He would have had to call Allenson out or be humiliated and dishonored. Whatever happened then would ruin four lives. He had been right to end it almost as soon as it began. But sometimes, just sometimes, in the dark of the night he remembered her legs opening beneath him like the petals of an exotic flower.

/>   “Why do you say that?” Trina asked.

  Allenson dragged his thoughts back to reality.

  “What?”

  “That maybe the Destrys are better off leaving.”

  “Because of the political crisis,” Allenson replied.

  “Oh that! Isn’t there always a political crisis? I mean, crisis seems to be the normal state for our political system. What makes this one any different from all the others?” Trina asked.

  A soft beep sounded and an amber triangle came up on Trina’s screen. She turned away from him to touch it with a finger.

  “Pardon the interruption, ma’am, but we have permission from Control for free flight. I propose to phase out,” said Farent’s voice over the intercom.

  “By all means, carry on,” Trina replied, removing her finger from the screen to break contact.

  “It’s the new taxation proposals,” Allenson said.

  Trina shrugged.

  “No one likes paying taxes. It’s not unreasonable that the colonies make some contribution for their defense. We couldn’t expect the Brasilian taxpayer to shoulder the burden alone indefinitely. Why should this tax be so more unpopular than any other?”

  Allenson almost snapped at Trina for asking such a damn fool question but bit back the jibe. Increasingly over the years, Trina looked inward to her family. Her role as matriarch of a great estate meant she took little interest in politics and events of state, content to leave such matters to her partner. For that she should not be blamed. She had much to occupy her attention.

  Her son, Reggie, took after his biological parents. He combined his mother’s charm with the cheerful irresponsibility that marked his father’s life. Money slipped through his fingers and any sum “lent” to Reggie must be marked as permanently lost. He occasionally “borrowed” sums from his stepfather’s study without troubling Allenson by asking first.

  The list of schools from which Reggie had been expelled read like a guide to the finest education establishments this side of the Bight. Trina had tried enrolling him in everything from a military academy—Reggie had taken out one of the dormitories with a homemade fifty centimeter mortar constructed to celebrate his birthday—to a liberal arts academy—where he had been caught running a protection racket among the younger boys.

  Trina’s son was always contrite, always apologetic when rebuked for his misdeeds. He faithfully promised never to repeat them. To be fair he rarely did. The next catastrophe would be something novel. Trina doted on the boy and could rarely be cross with him for long. Allenson gave up trying to apply discipline early on since Trina robustly defended her son against such interference, even scolding Allenson in the boy’s presence.

  Allenson quickly realized that further efforts on his part to constrain Reggie would merely further undermine any authority he had left with the boy and drive a wedge between him and his wife. He contented himself with a stepfather’s duty of good stewardship of the lad’s inheritance until he came of age. He had no expectation of a good result long term but that would be neither his fault nor his responsibility.

  And then there was Trina’s daughter, Minta. Poor beautiful sweet Minta, another victim of the genetic damage from the biowars that preceded the collapse of the Third Civilization. The terrible legacy of bioweapons struck too close to home. He suppressed the thought, packing it neatly in a mental box marked “do not open here be daemons.”

  “You are very preoccupied, husband,” Trina said.

  “What? Oh, sorry, my dear. I was just ordering my thoughts to answer your question. It’s not the tax as such. As you say, the colonies would eventually have to take over the cost of their own infrastructure spending. It’s the way the tax is being applied.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Look, if you’d asked me twenty years ago, ten even, how we’d govern the Brasilian Trans-Bight colonies like the Stream, I’d have confidently assumed that Brasilia would be withdrawing its governors and officials. I envisaged the Home World gradually replacing them with diplomats and technocratic advisors. Instead they are moving in the opposite direction and curtailing the powers of the Manzanita Houses. Local government’s become little more than City Councils arguing about how often the ferry boats run and how many life belts they should carry.”

  “Taxation without representation.” Trina said, looking at him.

  Allenson got out his datapad.

  “That’s a rather pithy phrase, my dear. I must make a note of that.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Pentire

  Farant smoothly phased Allenson’s carriage into the Continuum. Manzanita monochromed and faded away to be replaced by a sea of colored streamers. The predominant background tint was deep indigo. The calm Continuum conditions provided Allenson with at least a quantum of consolation.

  He hated traveling by carriage. He would much rather have used a one-man frame but social position restricted his choices. Carriages rocked and corkscrewed cyclically in any sort of Continuum energy disturbance. Too small to crash through the waves and too big to ride over them, carriage travel caused Allenson dreadful motion sickness. One of the most irritating truisms about the things was that the driver at the front got the best ride. The pampered owners at the back suffered an exaggerated pendulum effect.

  Carriage design was just another of life’s inefficiencies that a gentleman was obliged to endure. Allenson toyed with having a novel design of carriage constructed that reversed the positions of passenger and driver but shrank from the amusement it would cause. He already had an unwelcome reputation for eccentricity over such matters as the absurdly high living standards he supplied to his indentured servants. He actually paid them reasonable wages. As it would be intolerable to his conscience to adopt the norm in matters involving his personal honor, he felt obliged to be conventional on less important issues of mere personal comfort. It was, he thought gloomily, just another example of his moral cowardice.

  Trina broke the silence.

  “Do you wish that we were going home?” she asked.

  “We are going home, aren’t we?” Allenson asked, puzzled.

  “You know what I mean,” Trina said, allowing a measure of exasperation to enter her voice. “Going with the Destrys to the Home World across the Bight—going home to Brasilia. You recall where that is?”

  “Yes, sorry, the question took me by surprise.” He considered. “I suppose Brasilia’s truly home for the Destrys but it wouldn’t be for us. You have never been there and neither have I. We don’t know anybody in Brasilia. What would we do there? How would we live?”

  “I just wondered,” Trina said.

  “We’d be mad to leave Manzanita. Everything we’ve built and worked for is here. I don’t want any other home.”

  “I’m glad, neither do I.”

  Trina slid across and squeezed his hand. He was forgiven for his poor mood.

  Allenson managed a smile for her.

  “But it’d be nice if Brasilians treated Streamer gentlemen as equals. I’d like us to receive the respect due to our social rank and achievements and not be regarded as colonial flunkies fit only to carry bags.”

  “You’re thinking of Destry’s Brasilian nephew?” Trina asked, with a grin.

  “Yes, among others,” Destry replied.

  The eighteen-year-old nephew in question had made free with his opinions about colonials on a visit to Pentire. Allenson put up with sneers and condescension from this sprig of Brasilian nobility for Royman’s sake. Matters came to a head when he caught the chinless twit attempting to cane a serving girl for rudeness.

  The nephew wasn’t having it all his own way as the girl was putting up a spirited defense. She had already bloodied his nose. Allenson was a large fit man whose notoriously short temper had been pushed as far as it would go. He seized both cane and nephew. Holding him face down over a table with one hand, he vigorously applied corporal punishment with the other.

  The boy’s humiliation was complete when Royman Destry flatly refused
to call the Proctors to arrest Allenson. Instead Destry offered the opinion that the boy was lucky Allenson abhorred dueling. Royman apologized profusely for the lout’s behavior and promised to write to his father. But then, Allenson reflected, Destry had always been first and foremost a gentleman in his dealings with others.

  “Of course, there’s always an upside to every bad decision,” Allenson said. “If Brasilia weren’t so short-sighted, the colonies would probably be preparing to fight one another over conflicting claims in the Hinterlands. Instead we’re gathering in Paxton to discuss a common response to Brasilian demands. There’s nothing like having a common enemy to inspire political unity.”

  “Enemy is surely an unnecessarily emotive word,” Trina said. “Brasilia is our Home World so how could it be an enemy?”

  “Of course you’re right, my dear,” Allenson replied in a conciliatory tone. “There’s no point in inflaming the situation. I should have used a more measured term.”

  A scintilla of doubt wriggled in his mind like a worm in an apple. Trina was absolutely right. “Enemy” was a word better suited to a demagogue than a gentleman so why had he used it?

  “The Destrys will be all right on Brasilia,” Trina said doubtfully, breaking his train of thought.

  “Of course. As I said it’s their home and they’ve family there.”

  Privately Allenson had his doubts. Royman Destry represented a very big fish in the little pond of Manzanita society. Few equaled him in rank and he had no superiors this side of the Bight. All that would change when they went home. In Brasilia he would just be an impoverished cousin from the back of beyond. Sarai would not react well to being patronized as the daughter of a colonial who was “in trade.”

  A chime indicated that the driver wanted to communicate.

  “Connect,” Trina said without turning around to the screen.

  “I’ve a lock with your private beacon ma’am. We’ll be phasing over Pentire shortly.”