by John F. Carr
In realistic terms, these were orphans and outcasts of various sorts hoping for a better break from the Harmonies than they got from any other organized group on Haven. I watched them, alert for trouble.
“In their vast palaces, they sleep in small rooms even as we do, for warmth, even as we do, and their large impressive ballrooms and dining halls, where glittering parties are held costing more than we can earn in many lifetimes—” He swept his hands up, slapped his palms together, than spread his arms to indicate our surroundings, the entire Shangri-La Valley, all of the outdoors. “Are their decadent places as vast, as impressive as all this?”
Striding to the edge of the small stage, made of a few boards tacked to storage crates pilfered from lakeside docks, Wilgar shook his head and kept his arms wide. “They exclude us from their world of insular wealth yet they never see that we inherit far more, far better, in our journey far from Earth’s oppression. We inherit freedom to make of this world what we will, what we see, what we can. And we do not shirk from such labors, but celebrate our privilege to walk freely everywhere on Haven, our birthright, our legacy and our home.”
Cheers rose like a mushroom cloud.
Wilgar cheered with them, pumping his fists and rousing the crowd even further toward open rebellion.
I stood in front of the stage, on ground level, eyeing potential threats and quailing from the inner precipice he’d led them to. If they boiled over and fell into mob violence, the Governor would send Marines to crush us where we stood.
We would be smoldering slag before we would have a chance to scream a denial.
As the crowd began settling into a murmur, Wilgar raised his hands once more and shouted, “Yes!”
“Yes,” the crowd replied.
“Seek not the false promises of wealth and comfort those debauched liars offer,” he called, prompting more “Yeses” from the crowd. “Join us instead, and Haven shall be ours.”
“Yes,” the crowd cried, swept up in whatever vague vision he had managed by the witchery of his words to plant in their hungry and cold-dullened minds. I could only hope no one rushed up and stabbed him, or threw a lucky rock against his thinning hair or wrinkled face.
So young, yet he looked so old.
He looked, I thought, increasingly like his father.
* * *
And in rounding, and rousing, the remaining Harmonies, we created a visible conclave to hold the CoDo’s attention. I knew some of those in the crowd were spies—some of the faces were too well fed, some of the eyes glittered with sharpness instead of glamour. This pleased me, as long as none of them took a pot-shot at Wilgar or set off a bomb in the middle of the paddock. We needed a spectacle on Harmony terms, and in Harmony scale. Our gathering was rag-tag, impoverished, and humble. They could count, and feel contempt, all they wished. We were not a visible threat to CoDominium control. They could rest secure in their brutal power. For now.
Even as he spoke to the convened Harmonies, representing most of those not yet in the mountains hiding, our swords of ice fanned out to infiltrate, infect, and inhabit. We knew of three city council members so far, and a wandering trader. We knew of an advisor to the CoDo Marines who worked as a kind of scout—more Judas goat really—as they cleared the far canyons of homesteaders. They wanted us controlled and that meant leaving no one unaccounted for inside the Shangri-La Valley.
Reports we received in Harmony code told us some of those homesteaders had managed to stay hidden in underground enclaves and even, in one instance, in caverns under a glacier. Hard numbers were scarce but Wilgar felt we had a growing army of invisibles. He longed to live until they revealed themselves as being a secret, silent majority in charge of everything.
My own readings of history made me expect more a truce, as the old Earth Vatican had achieved for a few thousand years. If we could do as well it would fulfill my hopes and exceed our expectations. At that time, though, I would have accepted a Mormon style success; they took Utah and influenced national politics in old Earth’s America. That was remarkable considering some of the parallels between the origins of our sects.
Utah’s salt flats, deserts, and mountains were as nothing contrasted to Haven’s arid highlands, thin air and jagged mountains, I knew. Still, we were doing all right.
If only Wilgar did not jump the gun, or get too ambitious.
* * *
“We have to kill Thomason Erhenfeld,” Wilgar said, punching his father’s knot again for emphasis. “If we don’t, he’ll corral us, brand us, and butcher us for political meat.”
His colorful speech might have amused me on some other topic. On this one, I could not smile. “Try to kill the Governor, he’ll come after us. We’re the only ones who’d—”
“Factions,” he said. “You’ve been to those meetings. You know there are any number of blades drawn under the table.”
“It’s Haven,” I said. “It would be stranger if that weren’t the case, but you know we’re the threat.”
“Harmless Harmonies? You’ve heard the taunts. Little kids spit on us and laugh.”
“Spoilt rich snots, sure. They treat any perceived underdog that way, they’re raised to be coddled cowards.” I paced now, back and forth, as he stood by the knot occasionally smacking a fist into the rope. Did he want to shatter Garner “Bill” Castell’s hold over us, I wondered. Or free it?
I could not understand why he both wanted to overreach, and aim so low at the same time, other than revenge for his father. Eherenfeld Bronson Junior’s father had killed Wilgar’s. Martyred him, frankly. Half the charisma Wilgar wielded came from that last burst of flame that consumed his father so shockingly as he dangled from the gibbet, hanged as a criminal. “I’m not going to help you hang like your father did.”
“I’m already a traitor and revolutionary.” He said this calmly, then smiled.
I saw the humor in his eyes. “Planning to burst into flames?”
“I was thinking more of exploding and taking everyone with me,” he said. “No, I’m no martyr. Dying isn’t my goal. I know you think it’s revenge, too, like that old Earthish war you keep talking about, and those Americalic precedents.”
“Presidents,” I said. “American Presidents.”
“That family who got rich canning beans?”
“They had oil and many other interests too.”
He laughed. “Oh, well, diversity’s good. Here I am with all my eggs in one basket.”
“You’re forgetting about Alexander’s Sword.”
“I’m referring to my little ice men.”
“They’re everywhere, and nowhere. Scattered, yet in unison. They’re—”
“Save the slogans and mantras for the recruits.”
My fists clenched. How I wanted to show him what that huge knot of ropes he tied my stomach into so often felt like.
He saw my flare of anger and said, “Go ahead. Beat me bloody. I deserve it.”
“No. You’d enjoy it too much.”
“Only afterwards, yes. Yes, I would.” He laughed again, a more bitter sound this time. “So there’s a touch of martyr in me, after all. Your job is to keep me safe, even from myself. I don’t envy you that duty, but I love you for doing it so well. So dedicatedly.”
“Save your love for the recruits,” I said, leaving him to his brooding, his Hitlerian bunker plans, his futility.
In my own office a runner waited, just catching his breath. He was maybe fifteen Haven years of age and as scrawny as a clownfruit tendril. “Report,” I told him.
He ducked his head, summoning the message verbatim.
I wrote it down and dismissed him, then opened the books necessary to decipher the code and find out what new urgent hell awaited us.
When I saw the message I could neither stand nor breathe for a moment. “You son of a bitch,” I whispered, when my spell of being shocked had passed. “You sneaky underhanded son of an effing bitch.”
* * *
That evening, Erhenfeld Bronson luxuriated
in his Roman style baths with three concubines culled from the Steppes tribes, each younger and more virginal than the next. Having deflowered them over the course of a long soak, complete with pauses for much gluttony as roast yak, sweets, and wine imported from Earth, he felt greatly refreshed, if tired. He was also, be it admitted, slightly let down that one of the silly bitches had managed somehow to drown in the throes of her underwater servicing, but the way she’d tightened around his throbbing member had been exceptionally sweet, and had him wondering if perhaps he might make a habit of drowning them, if that’s the effect one could reliably expect.
He wandered in a silk robe through the harem slapping and punching a few deserving wenches but not enough to excite him again, then decided a good day sufficed. “I shall to bed,” he announced, skipping the verb as only the best in Haven society had the right to. After all, it was understood that the high and mighty simply acted and had no need of verbs or other such low descriptive crutches.
Slouching through the halls, he paused now and again for more wine, poured by the trio of servants who trailed him constantly with food, drink, and pleasure items such as a hollow dildo with a chamber full of headland wasps that buzzed delightfully when shaken. He liked that they died to give him pleasure.
Bronson reached his bedroom and dismissed his trio of attendants. He told his chamberlain to keep the fires blazing as he slept, lest a chill descend and spoil some remarkably sybaritic dream no lower mortal could possibly grasp, were he ever teasingly to relate it. They’d only be envious, he thought, poor nothings.
Climbing the three steps up onto the massive bed, where long ago, so long it seemed forever to him, his father, poor fool, had died from the hot lead he himself had so carefully poured through the funnel into the sleeping man’s right ear. That a head could hold so much molten lead remained a marvel although, truth to tell, the old man had thrashed a bit as the heat struck his senses, and some of the dull silver stuff had gone spurting out his nose and mouth as his palate and nasal passages melted. Messy old raptor, Erhenfeld thought. Smelly, too. Especially as the lead ate into him.
Had it dissolved one of his father’s sick dreams? he wondered.
He laid his heavy head into the many silk pillows propped to hold his bulky shoulders up as he slept. His fat, overwhelming his diaphragm, made it difficult for him to breathe if he lay flat on his back. Not that Haven’s air was rich and sweet like that of Earth, which he’d visited as a boy. Oh, so like being drunk was breathing on Earth, he remembered. How pleasant to dream of being there again, lording it over those pathetic wiggly things they call people.
His chamberlain, a thin fellow, descendant of a Steppes tribe, Turkic or Polsky perhaps, worked his way around the six fireplaces, stoking each and bringing the warm flow of air, using ducts and vents, onto the bed, which was partly enclosed by silk drapes of many colors, embroidered with erotic scenes.
Erhenfeld watched the fellow, whose name he could never recall despite the man having worked for him for two or three Haven years, or more perhaps, who knew? He watched him bend and stoke, adjust vents, and fiddle with the matches professionally.
When the chamberlain reached the final fireplace, which stood behind the bed, Erhenfeld considered saying something vaguely complimentary to the man. He opened his mouth to do so but a yawn interrupted him, and after that, well, the effort was simply too much. He closed his eyes, slobbering already.
His first snore was cut short by the rope tightening around his neck. Startled, and already panicked for air, he tried to sit up but found himself pinned by a noose tightening even as his legs kicked, his arms flailed.
His face got very red, then his vision, too, but through the crimson haze he saw his chamberlain, whatever his name was, come around the bed from behind to stand over him. The chamberlain said something about ice, but strangely then poured a scoop of coals glowing red and yellow from the fire directly onto Erhenfeld’s crotch. The bed clothes, sheets, and soon the drapery too caught flame and burned with greed for the scant oxygen Haven’s air offered. Still, it burned.
The Haven Administrator, Governor Thompson Erhenfeld Bronson, son of the late Consul, Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson, died trying so hard to scream that his lungs burst, but they soon melted as the fire fed off them, too, eager to stay alive in Haven’s harshness.
* * *
The announcement spread like a Haven ice storm.
Haven Administrator, Governor Thompson Erhenfeld Bronson, who had hanged Wilgar’s father, who had burst into flame as he hanged from the noose, died of strangulation and fire in his bed, which he’d inherited when his own father had died mysteriously of, most said, patricide.
A chamberlain, whose daughter had drowned in a mishap in the governor’s private baths, and who had been assigned to the governor’s bedroom for overnight duties, was missing and being sought.
Anyone caught harboring this fugitive would be considered guilty of accessory to murder. This, under the new CoDominium occupation laws, would earn the accessory’s entire family, as well as circle of known associates, possible death sentences.
Anyone knowing anything was strongly urged to come forward.
* * *
“You stupid son of a bitch, you called for this without consulting with me,” I said, my anger cold now, controlled and all the more dangerous.
He stood in the kitchen sipping warm needle tea, his woolen robes puffed out as if he’d stuffed them with smugness. “You really expect me to consult you on all my decisions?”
This said so blithely I wondered for a moment if he remembered anything we’d lived through in our lives.
He smiled and said, “Sit, get some tea. It’s good, the needles are fresh from the foothills.”
Meaning a courier had brought news I had not yet heard. This was getting better by the moment, meaning much worse than I’d dared worry about. “Wilgar, talk to me. Tell me what you’re trying to do, other than destroy us?”
“I’ve voiced my displeasure.”
He had not even bothered saying ‘our’, I noticed. “So you’re becoming the monster you’re fighting, is that it?”
“Stuff your philosophy back down your throat and listen. My decision was based on many things, too many to discuss with anyone. My connections were seamless.”
“This time. Maybe. That remains to be seen. You realize the CoDo may not care if it can prove a case against us. It can lie and achieve the same end, ridding itself of us.”
“It can try.” He smiled and sipped more tea.
I accepted a cup from one of the women, wrapping my cold fingers around it. My robes were not as lined, it seemed. “We’re making a huge mistake trying to fight them on their terms,” I said. “Patience is called for, the long game.”
“We’re cutting what you so often call our Gordian Knot.”
I saw in his eyes a gleam of, was it glee? Hysteria? Madness?
“We’re cutting to the heart of it all, to direct power. These corrupt scum must learn that we can touch them any time we wish, anywhere, in any way, up to and including death. We are all around them, and we outnumber them.”
“And one of their bombs can vaporize all of us at one go,” I said, but he wasn’t listening, perhaps not even to himself. He was speechifying.
I sipped needle tea and let him go. It mattered not what he said. What he did was my worry. He was endangering not only himself but every Harmony, or Harmonite, as the CoDo insisted on labeling us. Probably a cognate of sodomite, I thought. That was their style, crass and low.
Now I, Kev Malcolm, Wilgar’s lifelong friend and chosen gallowglass, was watching our spiritual leader tempted by the power of secrecy away from Harmony principles, ideals I defended by never fully embracing them. By doing so he was threatening not only all our lives—the CoDo was not above a pogrom—but all that Harmony stood for.
“You need to come back from the edge,” I said, sipping more tea.
My words did not even interrupt the flow of his words.
I sighed.
How like a hopeless love for an unattainable woman, I thought, my relationship to Harmony ideals. Having decided they were not only good, but worth dying for in defending them, I stood apart, unacknowledged, and guarded their best interests, hoping to keep them safe and ensure that they flourished. And now, their husband, my best friend, a man of vision, strength, and integrity, was planning and doing things that practically ensured a rough road ahead for my beloved. His actions might also spell doom for the Harmony ideals I had stewarded so long by protecting their embodiment, in him, in Wilgar, whose role was to husband them into an ever better future.
“This can’t end well,” I muttered, and of course he ignored me, perhaps did not even hear me. And as he droned on, a thought struck me: This can’t end well if let be.
I frowned and tasted blood, having bitten my lower lip.
* * *
Haven, we’d called it. A refuge. A place to be free from oppression and free to live our own ideals. We had colonized Haven and made it viable for settlers. This made it valuable, and in swooped the corporate vultures. We were easy meat, they thought. We pacifists with our passive fists would not fight back even if we could.
We are born, live for a time, and die. All else is games, according to the Quartermain Codicil. It’s attached to Garner Bill’s hand-scrawled book of thoughts; he says he cited it from an old movie about a wilderness paradise ruined by greed. Why he called it what he did, I do not know. Perhaps it was only a quarter of the main truth.
In any case, our new wilderness, harsh, hostile, and barren, is now a gem lusted after by CoDominium greed. Kennicott and Dover want minerals, corporate and political forces want a power stage, outcasts want elbow room, criminals want a free-for-all: everyone wants something. My detestation of what the original colonists must have left on Earth is overwhelming at times. Yet I grant, too, the good things mentioned in our slender scripture. There is good even in suffering, if you can last long enough to sift it out.
Seeing what was coming, I started making us protective vests, using what materials lay at hand. I scrounged every time we sallied forth or did a dark mission. I kept my eyes open when roaming the streets in town or creeping through dark halls to break into locked rooms for this or that piece of leverage against the forces aligned against us. It was surprising, what I found discarded or lying exposed and unsecured.