Withûr We

by Matthew Bruce Alexander

  Katherine grabbed his forearm.

  “Alistair…” she couldn’t quite figure out what she wanted to say. “You’re… are you OK? You’re different since you came back.”

  “Why should I be the same?” he asked with a challenging tone.

  Katherine withdrew her hand from him, like one does from a feral dog. Uncomfortable under her pitying but uncomprehending look, he turned and made for the exit.

  “Get a good night’s sleep,” she said gently. “An inspector’s coming tomorrow.”

  His only response was a snort of derision.

  Chapter 3

  Alistair woke long before the others. Now accustomed to a Kaldisian day, he could not remain asleep through the long Aldran night, but the previous one he was unable to get even his usual eight hours. He had a dream he had not had for a couple cycles. One of his first combat operations on Kaldis, before he had been chosen to wear a War Suit, had been to make a sweep through a Mandarin village considered stable. When his platoon entered, fighting erupted. He was escorting a family out of a contested area when his squad met resistance. He left the family in a small alcove and joined his squad in putting it down. It was a matter of a handful of minutes, but when he returned to the alcove where he left the family, all but the father were gone, and he lay on the pavement, blood pooling around him.

  That pale, blood-speckled face appeared and reappeared in his nightmares, but by the end of his tour he had nearly forgotten it. It was strange to him that it should come back now, and so vividly. Unsettled, he sat in his bed, staring into the semi-darkness, his thoughts on a dead man whose corpse was buried and rotting on a planet 250 light years away. He concluded he would get no more sleep for a while.

  Outside, the wind threw a few raindrops against the walls of the house, and a cold draft seeped inside. He had already sampled the weather a few hours earlier when he ventured into the drizzle to reclaim his backpack, thanking whatever god was listening when he found it undisturbed. After stuffing the bag under his bed, he went to the kitchen, made himself a cup and pondered where to more permanently store the precious metal.

  The banks were publicly owned and the government inspected everything put in its vaults. There were certain black market alternatives, but he had no contacts there and did not trust it besides. The best thing to do, he decided, was to convert the gold, purchasing goods from the underground economy. Energy had evolved as a medium of exchange as the government fumbled with the power grid. A hand held device called an enbatt could hold many millions of BTU’s of energy and could be plugged into just about anything to transfer or receive energy.

  He was sitting at the table, leisurely drinking some sweet coffee and paging through a book when his mother came downstairs, wrapped in her night robe.

  “You’re getting an early start today,” she commented as she gave him a peck on this head.

  “I’m still on Kaldisian time.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting what a long day we have.”

  Mary Ashley set about putting a breakfast together while Alistair continued reading.

  “I thought you might like to see Mrs. Durbin’s daughter Carrie,” she ventured with a tone too light not to be deliberate.

  “What do you mean ‘see her’? You can show me an image of her if you like. Or do you want me to marry her?”

  His mother laughed out loud. “She’s not a little girl anymore.”

  He did not respond.

  “Did you find someone on Kaldis?” his mother asked.

  He eventually he managed a curt, “Yes.”

  Recognizing the tenor of his voice, Mrs. Ashley backed away from the subject.

  “Well, let me know if you’d like to see her again.”

  Katherine, Nigel, Mary and Alistair breakfasted together a short time later. Afterwards, as Nigel’s employees arrived for the first shift, he took Alistair aside and in a tone both stern and imploring asked him to be on his best behavior for the inspector. He agreed with a sigh.

  Gerald arrived right after breakfast, dressed in his finest, most impeccably ironed red and blue Civil Service uniform. Nigel had asked him to come for the inspection, for Gerald held a moderately high post in the bureaucracy. Even had he not asked, Gerald would not have missed it.

  The inspector, a short, fat man with a bald dome of a head, arrived and Nigel, with an obsequious bow, invited him in. He and his wife escorted the man directly to a private luxury booth whereupon Nigel’s prettiest waitress took his order. Nigel and his family sat with him, speaking in a friendly manner when the inspector was silent, and listening intently when he chose to talk. They laughed at his jokes, they oohed and aahed at the stories he deigned to tell them, they complimented his taste, they thanked him for his time, they wondered at his service to the State and all with toothy smiles. Accustomed to the ritual but unable to conceal his distaste, Alistair maintained a safe distance.

  When the inspector had gorged himself on the finest meal the city could produce, he was offered a box of cigars and a brandy which he accepted almost without noting them, as if they had been fetched from his own collection. He lit up a cigar and savored his liquor, permitting himself a refill after the first glass. Nigel offered him free tickets to a concert to be played at the restaurant in the coming week, and these went into his billfold. Mary came by with a freshly baked apple pie. This was acknowledged with a nod. After two hours, the man warmed up to them, and as he smoked his second cigar he regaled them with gossip straight from the highest levels of government. He was brother-in-law to the current vice mayor, and it came out he had studied in Rendral, receiving a degree in philosophy.

  And then it was over. Having deduced from his entrance, short trip to the luxury booth and generous breakfast that the restaurant was fit for public enjoyment, he rose with an effort, patted his stomach, and permitted Nigel to shake his hand. Outside, a stinging drizzle still pelted the ground. Mary offered him an umbrella and Gerald held it as they walked. Having done his best to prepare his guest, Nigel deemed it the best moment to broach a delicate topic.

  “A Mr. Kevin Wellington is keen to purchase my property,” he offered after a small preamble.

  “Yes?”

  “Indeed. I considered his offer, but I must say I think I prefer to keep the old place.”

  Alistair directed a curious look at his brother but Gerald avoided his gaze.

  “Well, we’ll see how it turns out,” the inspector carefully said.

  Shaking the man’s hand again, Nigel said, “If you need anything, be sure to let me know.”

  Gerald walked with him to his auto, holding the umbrella over his head until he was inside and safe from the rain. He then hurried back to his family and they huddled under it, waving goodbye as the inspector pulled onto the street and headed downhill, disappearing around a bend.

  “Did we pass?” asked Alistair as they turned to go inside.

  “I think we’re alright with the licensing board,” his father responded, sounding tired, as if the greater part of his energy had been used up entertaining.

  “And the citizens of Arcarius can rest assured this restaurant is safe after a thorough inspection.”

  No one replied. They shuffled inside, out of the drizzle, one onerous task complete with others still ahead.

  Chapter 4

  In the living room, Nigel and Mary Ashley sat next to each other on the couch Alistair’s grandfather had built. His older siblings were on another nearby. Alistair knelt in the center of the room and placed an imager there. It was a hand-size device in the shape of a hockey puck, and along its sides were several buttons which he played with.

  “OK, turn out the lights.”

  Gerald hopped up and flipped the switch. The room went dark, and Alistair pushed a final button and retreated to a seat in the corner. A tiny red light blinked on for a second, standing out in the near total darkness, and then the room was lit as if by the sun, with the imager projecting three dimensional pictures on the far side
.

  There were gasps from the others as a meadow at the foot of some tall hills was projected onto the room. A waterfall could be seen in the distance and in the foreground were Alistair and one of his comrades. The image was still but seemed real, like reality made somehow immobile, a moment in time now frozen for viewing. The sunlight shone and bounced off the water, captured in mid glint. Alistair’s friend seemed to be in the room with them, though he was farther back in the picture than the walls would allow.

  “That’s Ted. Spunk, we called him.”

  “Where is this?” his mother asked.

  “Uh…” Alistair had to look at the screen on his remote control. “Looks like that’s just outside the capital. This was early on. I think we were on leave.”

  “I didn’t know Kaldis had a capital. Aren’t they anarchists?” his father asked.

  “Not even close.”

  “Where’s Ted from?” Gerald asked.

  “New Boston. His uncle works up here in the summer, actually.”

  “Is Ted still on duty?” Nigel asked.

  Alistair shook his head, forgetting they couldn’t see him. “Ted was shot two cycles in. They shipped him out on a med ship. I never heard what happened to him after that.”

  This reminder of Alistair’s work on Kaldis was a contrast with the idyllic scene before them, and it silenced them. Alistair rotated the image so they could see all three hundred sixty degrees of it and then went on to the next one.

  “This was the main square of some little village. I can’t remember its name.”

  “It’s pretty,” Katherine remarked.

  “We came back a year later and wound up leveling the place.”

  “Oh my god,” breathed his mother.

  Alistair rotated the image while the others blushed at his blunt comment. Then he went on to the third image.

  “That’s me and the guys dressed in our war suits.”

  There were four figures in the picture, all suited up in a sleek looking camouflage outfit, complete with a helmet. They assumed the largest of the four was Alistair.

  “We just ordered one of those for the Civil Guard,” said Gerald. “How do they work?”

  “Very well. There’s an inertial pack on the back - you can’t see it here - and it changes colors to blend in if you want. It acts as armor, temperature controlled, night vision, heat vision, muscle support… it’s got just about everything you could want.”

  “Aren’t they invisible to radar?” asked Gerald.

  “That’s why sonar is starting to come back.”

  “How good’s the armor?” asked Katherine.

  “I’d’ve been dead about twelve times over without it.”

  “Alistair,” his mother admonished.

  “How many war suits does the army have?” asked Nigel.

  “Just over a hundred. But with a war suit, any one soldier is worth a hundred without.”

  “How’d you wind up with one?”

  “I got picked.” While they sat impressed, he clicked to the next picture. “Oh, this is from a mountain overlooking Mar Profundo. It’s the second largest city on Kaldis.”

  The image presented to them was of a large metropolis. It was night and the lit city below, each of the thousands and thousands of its lights caught in mid sparkle, spanned the entire stretch of visible land, from left horizon to right horizon, and from the base of the hills on which the picture was shot to the edge of the sea and even beyond into the very waves. The downtown section had buildings a mile high, above the level where the image was taken. A few clouds floated near the building tops, and long, thin tubes in the sky connected many of the large and exotically designed skyscrapers. There were even bubble-covered sections of the city extending into the sea, and the tops of the bubbles just broke the surface while the lights from the buildings below filtered fuzzily through the dark waters. Vehicles in mid-flight were captured in transit between buildings, and hovering advertisements – something quite unfamiliar to Aldrans – lined the commonly used routes between and above the great buildings. Katherine gasped at the beauty of it.

  “I’m surprised they allowed you to return with all this,” Gerald said.

  “I didn’t declare it,” Alistair casually replied.

  “You didn’t declare…” Gerald sighed. “Alistair…”

  “They speak a lot of Spanish on Kaldis, don’t they?” Katherine asked before a familiar argument could begin.

  “Yeah, all sorts of languages.”

  “Did you learn another language?” his mother asked, as if the thought were a shocking one.

  “I learned Spanish pretty well. I picked up some Mandarin and a couple others too. Mar Profundo means Deep Sea in Spanish.”

  “Did you spend much time there?” asked his mother.

  “Almost every leave I had.” Alistair stared off into the past as he remembered the city. “Mar Profundo is my favorite city on Kaldis. Or anywhere.”

  “Why did they build under the sea?” asked Gerald.

  “Brings a lot of tourists. Many people prefer living there.”

  After four cycles, Alistair had taken many images of Kaldis, too many to view in one sitting. He showed them a few more of his favorites and they murmured appreciatively, riddling him with questions, some newly conceived and others stored away for a few cycles. When the show was over, he turned off the imager and put it away. Grabbing a small cloth sack, he rooted around inside while Gerald turned on the light. Producing something that looked a bit like a flashlight, only with a slight bend near one end, Alistair turned to his father.

  “I picked this up for you in Mar Profundo. I got you a good supply of batteries, because I don’t know if we have anything on Aldra that will work with it.”

  His father took the proffered item and held it in his hands, smiling in anticipation.

  “OK, you got me. What does it do?”

  “It’s called a pintador. A painter. From now on, if you don’t want to spend days painting something, you can use this to change the color.”

  The painter was passed around the room.

  “It can also smooth out the paint you already have on, and it applies a gloss to make it look new.”

  “How’s it work?” Nigel asked, a slight smile of awe and surprise still on his face.

  “I’ve got the instructions. They’re coming out with a new model that’s supposed to be a big improvement but I left Kaldis before it came out.”

  Gerald was frowning as he gingerly held it in his hands, as if it might contaminate him. “Alistair, I’m pretty sure this is contraband.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t declare it either.”

  Gerald let out an even louder sigh. “You know I work for the Transportation Bureau.”

  “This isn’t about you.”

  “No, it’s about you and the fact that I am supposed to turn you in for this!” He turned to Nigel. “I think we both know this is a bad idea right now of all times.”

  The comment provoked a curious look from Alistair. His father wanly smiled.

  “Oh… it’s a nice gift. I think if we keep it hidden and don’t use it out in the open…”

  “They’re cracking down on this sort of thing now.”

  “They’re always saying that.”

  Gerald sighed yet again. “This puts me in a bad situation.”

  “Dad’s got a bad hip,” said Alistair. “If I want to give him a gift to help him paint the house, I don’t see how the government has any business getting involved.”

  “We don’t make laws lightly, Al.”

  “You work in the Transportation Bureau. You don’t make any laws.”

  “There are good reasons for the things we do in government. How many painters and brush makers and paint makers were unemployed with this?

  “You’re still on about that?”

  “I’ll get some drinks for everyone,” Mary declared and left for the kitchen.

  “Why don’t we see what else you have for us,” suggested Kathe
rine.

  Both of Nigel’s sons blushed from repressed feelings as they buried the disagreement. Gerald furiously tapped his fingers on his knee and Alistair turned his attention to his sack as he took out the other gifts he had purchased.

  ***

  The car shifted forward and the final leg of the trip began. Alistair and Oliver had been about the town, visiting a few bars, some familiar sights, seeing things that changed while Alistair was off, and now both were headed back to Nigel’s. A young man with a sparse beard, patched clothing and broken spectacles boarded the car at one station and stood at the front facing the other passengers. He introduced himself to his sparse audience and spoke at length about the coming election and why they should vote for Aloysius Warwick.

  Prompted by the subject of the man’s speech, Alistair asked, “Who are you voting for?”

  Oliver snorted. “I’m not. You know they took away your option to write in a candidate?”

  Alistair shook his head. “I wasn’t going to vote anyway.”

  “Well, I wanted to pencil myself in. Not that they’d actually count it.”

  “If they bring back the write-in I’ll give you a second.”

  At the front of the car, the campaigner was growing more excited as he gesticulated to an audience that did not appreciate the artistry of the presentation. Oliver and Alistair gave as much attention to the noise of his voice as they did to the whoosh of the air the train stirred up in the tunnels, or the rattle of one of its many loose windows.

  “So what is Kaldis actually like? It’s not really anarchy, then?”

  “It used to be close. Some cities are trying to pass a Constitution. Others are threatening to nullify it, others are going to secede, others are threatening war on those who don’t ratify.”

  “And what the hell are we doing there?”

  “Keeping the peace,” Alistair said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Though I must say we entered plenty of peaceful areas and left them smoking rubble.”

  “Smoking rubble is peaceful.”

  “We’re actually there to reinforce the Neo-Constitutionalists as they call themselves. Every star system in the galaxy has troops there. It’s like a party you can’t afford not to go to. Everyone wants a new Constitution for Kaldis, and everyone wants to oversee its creation. For the good of all Kaldisians.”