"And now get beside yourself!"
Immediately Stone lay in his softself, next to and outside of his supine physical body, watching that body tighten, its mouth curving upward.
"Breathe!"
"I'm breathing!"
"And what do you see, breathing?"
Stone watched his tensing body, watched the fury and the rapture rising there. He felt the whole sequence in his softer self, like a shadow.
He caught the exhilaration just before it crested, and held it there in a holy conversation for which he had no words. Childhood scenes played themselves out with savageness, outrage, and uproar; other scenes passed in montage, each carrying its payload of pain.
Through the waves of anguish Stone spoke the litany he had formulated for this moment, and for every moment like it. "This is my violence," he said, "and this is my hurt. This is what I did to Petar. This is what I have given my Spirit over to." He spoke louder. "But now I reclaim my Spirit! Come home, Spirit."
"Good!" Tanya said. "Stay with your softself! Call Spirit home again!"
"Home, Spirit, home! Come home. . . ."
"Spirit loves that violence, Baragiali. Spirit loves it from its different place. And you love it now, from Spirit. Love that violence, love that ecstasy!" When Stone hesitated, the voice came again: "Love it like a father!"
Stone's softself reached out, cradling the vicious joy, talking to it, loving it tenderly. The images flared and faded. Then there was only breath, and the easy ebbing of the joy. He was back in his body. And he was calm.
Eagle and Snake were calm too, both of them glowing, both of them vibrating with well-being. Stone held them against his chest.
Tanya's voice was soft: "You think you can live without that exhilaration, Habitante Baragiali? Without that high, that pure burn?"
Snake and Eagle hummed with affirmation. "Sure," Stone answered, "sure, I can handle it." Big tears bathed his temples. "Tanya, when I'm in this place I can handle anything."
"Let it come."
Stone choked and swallowed and cried. Eagle and Snake sang praises in his head. "What a place, what a place," he blubbered. "Why can't I stay here?"
Tanya's voice soothed him. "You can. You can stay right here in this place. And let Ángel and Gabe pull off their bailiwick revolt without you."
Stone froze.
"You don't have to be a part of it, Baragiali," Tanya added.
Habitante Lucio Baragiali clasped his tattoos tighter. Snake and Eagle danced with joy, threatening to fly off his arms and wake the whole bailiwick with celebration. Stone's tears flooded his cot, his chest heaved. "Tanya, I . . . I might, I might. . . if . . . ."
"If what, Baragiali?"
"If only . . . they'll stay with me!"
"Who? If only who--"
"The animals," he sobbed, "if they'll help me, if . . . ." He held his arms close, rocking left and right.
"Where are they, Baragiali, where are the animals?"
He eased a little. "Sometimes . . . I feel like they're here -- all of them. Well, not here, but close." He eased his grip on his forearms, letting them tingle without restriction. "Like maybe just on the other side of my skin."
"What would bring them through, Stone?"
Stone shook his head. "They'll come when it's safe," he whispered, tears still streaming.
"Safe."
He nodded. "They'll come when there's no more violence. Anywhere." He listened for her response. "Tanya?" Silence. He thought he could hear her smile. He shouted aloud. "Tanya!"
His reverie broken, Stone lurched to his feet and held his arms wide from his body. He could feel Eagle and Snake dancing -- and probably Tanya, too. He moved toward the small window, not daring to look at his arms. In the black night, the bailiwick was peaceful, the sodium light a misty glow.
"No more violence, anywhere," he repeated. He rubbed his bald pate, then thrust his arms up in front of his face, focusing directly on his tattoos. "Okay," he said aloud, "okay! I'll tell Ángel!" Eagle's wings lapsed into composure. "And I'll tell Gabe, too," he said, watching Snake ease into a languorous stretch. He felt lighter, like he'd lost a burden.
He was turning back to his bunk when his cell door clicked and swung ajar. Simultaneously the call box keyed to his cell came to life. "Baragiali, Habitante Baragiali! Report to cushcar ops now!" Stone swore and seized the squawk box. "It's not even daylight!" he howled into it.
"Hot foot it, mister," rasped the Femmedarme's voice. "We're on to dispatch thirty cushcars downriver before seven, all at peak operation status. You get to clean them up, Baragiali! Sun-bus leaves in five. Move!"
* * * * * * * *
Four hours later Habitante Baragiali was flat on his back under two tons of suspended cushcar, patiently manipulating the last one of the craft's forty-eight air jets into a full circle, assuring himself of its mobility. He grunted with satisfaction and flipped up his goggles so he could survey the whole range of his work. "Done!" he exclaimed.
"Baldy!" Gabriel Girardon was flat on his belly shouting at his friend. "You wanted to talk to me, Baldy?"
Stone touched the hydraulic and shot out from under the cushcar. "Gabe, I got passes to walk, all the way back to the mess. You okay to come with me?"
"Si bon vous semble!" Gabe took Stone's tool sheath and goggles, as both men stood. He set them in front of the uniformed woman at the workstation.
Stone handed Gabe one of the white caps that would identify them to any Femmedarme as habitantes-en-route. He pulled the other cap onto the back of his own head, then signed a magnopad for the Kanshou. She glanced at him, at the pad, and at Girardon, then nodded and waved them on their way.
Still in her earshot, Stone slapped Gabe's shoulder. "Let's go, monsieur!"
"Good to see you, Baldy."
The two men emerged from the maintenance berths and set out toward the food rotunda. The narrow road wound through tracts of grain, resting fields of sweet crimson clover, and groves of trees.
Stone felt at ease, almost happy. He'd liked and trusted Gabriel Giradon from the moment he'd met him a few months ago. They walked together now, two big men casually scanning the early morning sky as if their only concern was getting to the coffee at the mess hall. "Anytime soon?" Stone asked lightly, setting their pace.
"Got to be," Gabe answered, equally casually. They walked ten steps without speaking. Then Gabe peeled a gnawstalk and stuck the end of it in his mouth. "So what's up, Big Stone?"
Eagle and Snake lay at ready on Stone's swinging arms, eager for his announcement. "Easy," he told them mentally. "This is Gabe, my buddy. I get to approach him gradual-like."A grudging response from each arm. "Well, Monsieur Girardon," he said aloud, "the violence re-training exercises, the em-vees -- I think they may be working for me." Snake's head swayed with contentment. "I had this dream--"
"And a session with your doxy, huh? Hey, let me see her, can I?" Gabe halted their walking.
Stone grinned and pulled up his left sleeve. Snake lay quietly around Tanya's body.
Gabe studied the tattoo. He shook his head. "Stone, man, I don't understand how your Tanya can be my Philipa. Two women in one!" He stroked the tattoo, then dropped Stone's arm. He chewed happily on his gnawstalk as they resumed their progress. "So, the re-training," he said, "sure it works. It's the only thing that does."
"Hold on, Gabe," Stone frowned, "I just said the re-conditioning is working for me. It may not work for others. Maybe some people out there would rather get their brains adjusted--"
"Now you hold on," Gabe countered mildly. "There's nothing there to get adjusted. Nobody's found it yet, Big Stone, that so-called violence center in the brain. They probably never will." He let out a long breath. "They'd have to use thousands of habitantes to find it. They'd have to use you and me, Stone, 'violent offenders against society.'" Three steps later he added a grim certitude. "And we are not playing in that game." He looked at the gnawstalk and returned it to his pocket.
Eagle and Snake were uneasy. Stone'
s gut echoed their agitation.
"Baldy," Girardon went on, "when it comes down to dust it doesn't matter what causes all us 'violent offenders.' Could be conditioning, could be genes, doesn't matter. Even that so-called violence center in the brain -- it doesn't matter. They might find it, they might not. The point is they're willing to make guinea pigs out of us to look for it. Without our say-so. That's the real violence, Big Stone."
He hauled them to a stop and studied Stone's face. "That's why right this minute thirty thousand habitantes in three separate tri-satrapies are ready and waiting to blow their bailiwicks to kingdom-come. They know it's an outrage." He paused. "And so do you, Baldy."
Stone looked back at him steadily. "I know it, Gabe," he replied earnestly. "What they're willing to do without our consent, that's the outrage." He held Gabe's eyes.
From the west, Stone heard the purr of a surveillance cushcar moving toward them. In a smooth unhurried motion he eased Gabe forward with a head signal, adding to his behavior an expansive laugh and a nod for the benefit of the approaching Femmedarme. The two men started walking again -- casually, conversationally, as the cushcar slowed above them. "Keep it sweet and light, monsieur," Stone warned, at the same time lifting his cap and wiping his bald head. His mouth was shielded by his handkerchief.
Girardon's voice was suddenly fierce. "Motherfucking rubbernecks!" he muttered, head down and his lips barely moving. Then his dark face became animated again. "So let me tell you, Big Stone, about the beautiful Philipa, about my Wicked Step-Sister." Gabriel launched into his story-telling mode, playing not just to Stone but to the Femmedarme above who was certainly monitoring the loudest portions of their conversation by remote audio sensors.
"Philipa," Stone prompted. "You loved her." He could feel to his right some of the pressure of the air jets that held the hovercraft aloft.
"I worshipped her," Gabe said wistfully. He stared straight ahead as he walked. "After my father died, my mother fell in love with Dame Pola van der Weyden of Brussels. She had three daughters, and when I was eight my mother, my real sister, and I moved into their big house in Algiers. That's six females I got to live with, Stone. Cheek by jaw. Six." Gabe's sarcasm was masked by an enthusiastic smile.
Stone nodded and chuckled. The cushcar purred overhead.
"Philipa was the oldest girl, fourteen, pure white, and very pretty. But she paid me no mind at all. I used to follow her around like a puppy dog, begging for a smile, a nod, anything that would tell me she knew I existed. One day she turned on me and said, 'Gabriel, what will you give me for a smile?' So I said, 'Anything, Philipa, I'll give you anything!' 'Be my slave,' she said. 'Do whatever I say.'" Gabe did not disguise his disgust. "Then she showed me off to to her sisters and her friends, me grovelling, kissing her feet, me fetching and carrying for her while they all laughed. So when we were alone again I said, 'My smile, Philipa. Now I get my smile!' She just raised her eyebrow. No smile. Then she walked away."
The hovercraft continued to drift forward with their progress, at their same pace. Gabe ostensibly ignored the overhead intrusion. "I was crazy," he continued. "I ran after her, crying, and for months I bowed and scraped for her, loving it even when she belittled me or made a fool of me in front of others. One day when she had been especially cruel and I was snivelling hard, she shook me and said, 'Gabriel, you will always be my slave!'" Gabe stopped his walking. Stone stopped, too.
"Bald Man, it hit me right then what I was letting her do to me. I shut up. I looked at her. And I ran out. She never got to me after that." They walked again.
The cushcar had drifted ahead of the two men. It stopped abruptly, clearly waiting for them. As if only now discovering her presence, Gabriel Girardon looked up at the Femmedarme, discernible through the windows of the hovercraft. With a dazzling innocent smile, he pointed to his white hat and waved. The driver offered no acknowledgment, merely pressed the air jets to lift the car to a slightly higher altitude.
"Cuntlicker!" Gabriel whispered through motionless lips.
Stone had glanced at the cushcar as Gabe was doing his act. He pulled his buddy back to the story. "So did the girl ever smile?"
"Never." Gabe shook his head. "She's head of a big convent in Canada now, bossing other nuns. Still not smiling, at least from what I hear lately." He paused. "Well, Philipa managed to isolate me from the whole family. Lied to my mother and Pola, made sure everybody thought I was some kind of freak." Gabe punched Stone's arm with his elbow. "Get this. When I was eleven, she showed my mother a complete list of the war flicks I'd been borrowing every day from the flatfilm library, even some of the restricted ones I'd gotten under an assumed name. My mother completely lost it. She sided with Philipa, and cut off my privileges." He glanced up at the cushcar.
"That's when I split, lied about my age, signed onto a old freighter that took me to sea and then down to Central Africa where I found my mother's people. I ceremonially took back my tribal name and claimed my old man's name as well. And I learned to handle weapons. That's where my 'life of crime' began. Anti-Kanshou pressure groups, secession movements." Gabriel walked in silence for a moment. "Yes," he finally said, pointing to Stone's sleeve, "I certainly do hate that woman." He looked upward and hissed through a frozen smile, "And same to you, sweetheart!"
"Cut it out, Gabe." Stone covered a grin with a finger swiped across his nose. The hovercraft still hung above them.
Girardon put his gnawstalk back in his mouth and continued, conversationally. "She likes our company, Big Stone. So on with the parlor talk. How come you got yourself on the wrong side of the holy Kanshoubu? You hit your kid. You told me that."
Stone picked up Gabe's mood, lock-stepping with his friend as he told his story. "I been cited . . . oh, maybe twenty times for picking fights . . . scrapping, you know. But then I got slammed into bailiwicks for major offenses. Three times." He shoved his hands into the pockets of his fatigues. "The first time I'd been pissed for days and a traffic 'Darme ordered me to wait at a corner. I told her she was arrogant. She looked at me like I was some scumbag, so I laid into her."
"You hit a Kanshou, Big Stone?" Gabe's voice was full of admiration.
"I tried. She decked me, right in the middle of the street, and hauled me up before the sub-demesne tribunal. Since it was a first offense, they modified my term to only three months." The hovercraft still purred above them. "When I got out, Aleska and Petar and I lived six happy years. Good years they were, until one night at a bar I got loaded and tore up a Ruskie who gave me some disrespectful lip. Two years in a bailiwick for that."
Gabe was sucking on his gnawstalk. "The last time, you weren't drunk when you hit your boy."
"No. Just irritable. Soon as I did it I was sorry. I grabbed him and tried to apologize. Scared him half to death. Then I ran all the way to the the Kragujevac Femmedarmery and committed myself to the nonviolence program here, at Bucharest Bailiwick." They walked in silence for a few paces. "This last training has been the hardest. But," he added, "the best." He felt Snake shimmy and Eagle's wings flutter. Stone grinned, his spirits high. "So now I got a better handle on what happens, on how I cross over and go for the kill."
The hovercraft had dropped behind them now, but still tracked them. They rounded a stand of trees and looked out on the flamboyant public buildings of Bucharest Proper in the far distance. Below them in the valley lay the bailiwick's sediment fields, miles of rectangular beds of crushed coke which transformed the human wastes of the Balkans into fertilizer for the tri-satrapy's farms.
"And here we are, Baldy," Gabriel chuckled, "you running your em-vees and re-route sequences, me re-framing and trying to forgive a bitch of a step-sister." Gabe's walk had a bounce to it. "But my stuff is a little different from yours."
"How do you mean?"
"See, at heart my friend, I am not really violent."
Stone searched for the joke. "Come on, Gabe. You wasted six people, for chrissake--"
"By accident, man! The building was supposed to be e
mpty! It was just a little demolition demonstration to let the bureaucrats know we were serious." Gabriel shifted the gnawstalk to the other side of his mouth, noting the cushcar's distance, and talking more easily now. "See, I get no kick out of hurting or killing." He chewed thoughtfully. "Well, maybe a buzz out of accuracy sometimes . . . ." He grinned. "But what worries the girls at the Miller Center is that I don't get off on it. 'Dissociated,' they call me. But actually, I'm not into beating up on anybody. I'm just a good old-fashioned woman-hater."
Stone guffawed. "Can it, Girardon! You've filled every cunt in two satrapies!"
"Sure I have!" Gabe swaggered a little. "It's my way of fucking the government. I just fuck their Femmedarmes, tell them I'm crazy about them, and when they're in good and deep, I split. Never lay an angry hand on them. Just leave them crying for more." He stopped and looked over his shoulder toward the retreating cushcar. "But my dear," he called out earnestly, hands over his heart and walking backward, "I never loved you! You just misunderstood!"
Stone slapped Gabe's shoulder, laughing. The hovercraft veered to the west and become a large dot against the clouds.
In his head, Stone heard a patient voice. "Now," said Eagle.
"Baldy," Gabe said, "what is it? You got something in your craw."
"I do," Stone confessed. He drew Gabe back into walking again. He was cool-headed and easy now, supported by a well of endorsement flooding from his arms. Snake and Eagle were alert, and Tanya's presence brushed the edge of his awareness. He spoke evenly, his eyes on the horizon, his voice focused toward his friend. "I want out, Gabe. I can't do the action." Snake and Eagle were poised just short of exhilaration. "Go, Baragiali!" Tanya whispered.
Gabriel Girardon's eyes were also on the horizon. His boots, in sync with Stone's, hit the pavement nine times before he spoke. "That's a tidy little bombshell." Two more steps. "Why?"
"I could tell you that I want out because it won't work, and that's true: it won't work."
"Or you could say you've decided it's okay for them to tinker with our heads."
Stone exploded. "Gabe, I just got through telling you I think that's an outrage! I just got through telling you there's no way I want them using any of us without our say-so! I just got through telling you that I've got good feelings about my own re-training now, that I got some hope now that I'll never have to consider getting 'adjusted!'"
The Kanshou (Earthkeep) Page 14