Awakening (Harmony Book 2)

by Margaret Ball

“Why would anybody write such a document, let alone save it in our archives?”

  Julle shrugged. “It’s from Old Earth. They were strange people, you know, always fighting wars and stuff. As for how it wound up in our archives – I guess one of our colonists thought it might be useful in case our government became too powerful, but the knowledge of it was lost. They probably sent everybody who might have known about it to Esilia. Anyway, I thought you might find it useful. Some of it’s hopelessly dated, of course, but some is still perfectly applicable. You can pull out some of the useful bits for the next leaflet.”

  “It’s printed. On paper.” Lars was still struggling with the idea of a manual for saboteurs.

  “Of course it is! I only had it in my CodeX long enough to get at the department printer, then I wiped it before Security decided to peek at what I’ve been reading. Just like the leaflets,” Julle said. “Paper is the best way to keep things private and prevent traces.”

  “Did anybody see you using the printer?”

  “Only Professor Bagwitt, and I told him it was a rough draft of my thesis that I wanted to save in case the original got accidentally deleted. He’s stupid enough to fall for that and not ask why I didn’t back my thesis up to the department SupercodeX.”

  “I hope in the name of Harmony you’re right,” Lars said. “Now get out of here. I don’t want you connected with this in any other way.”

  “It’s all right,” Julle said. “Everybody already thinks we’re having an affair.”

  She swished out of the office while Lars was still sputtering. Rumor, he thought ruefully. If rumor could make a meal out of the Dean and some young woman having five minutes alone in the room, it must have made a positive banquet of his walking with Julle, meeting her in the cafeteria, the two of them bickering in public like equals.

  After a moment he was able to see the funny side. That’s one rumor Shakros never told me about.

  He looked at the pages in Julle’s folder with new appreciation. She was right; he could easily mine this document for a leaflet’s worth of practical sabotage suggestions. Even after he deleted obscure words like “nail file” and “matches” …. I wonder what they thought they were matching.

  The language was extremely archaic; worse, the document had evidently been written before the rationalization of spelling. But even after deleting obscure language and mentions of outdated technology, there was more than enough material for a leaflet; in fact, he might be able to get two or three leaflets out of the manual. And if he worked slowly enough, the rainy season would be over before he had used up this material, and he’d be able to resume his sailing trips up the coast to collect quotations and formulate ideas. He began marking the papers with tiny dots: one for anything he could use, two dots for really good ideas, three dots for suggestions that strongly appealed to him.

  Almost immediately he had to add another mark for ways of persuading people.

  “Gains should be stated as specifically as possible for the area addressed: simple sabotage will hasten the day when Commissioner X and his deputies Y and Z will be thrown out, when particularly obnoxious decrees and restrictions will be abolished, and so on.”

  Yes! Now that he saw it spelled out, he recognized one of the reasons Marina’s writing was so much more compelling than his. She’d been a genius at naming the real-life problems that constricted everyone’s existence. Perhaps he could, by working very hard, follow in her footsteps.

  “Abstract verbalizations about personal liberty, freedom of the press, and so on may not be convincing; they may not even be understood by people too long dominated by a totalitarian regime.”

  Ouch. That was what he’d been producing. Abstract verbalizations. Oh well, too late to do anything about that. He’d just have to hope his last few efforts hadn’t bored people to the point where they no longer bothered even to look at the leaflets. Now, how about some good concrete suggestions that would work as well in this world as they had in antiquity?

  “Try to commit acts for which large numbers of people could be responsible,” sounded good, but the examples stymied him. “Blow out the wiring in a factory at a central fire box?” When he deleted the words he didn’t recognize or that made no sense in this context, that came to “---- ---- the ---- in a factory at a central ---- -----.” Perhaps in time he’d be able to work out the meaning from context, but he wanted something he could use now. Most of this section on sabotaging mechanical systems was useless, anyway; Harmony’s production was nearly all based on 3D printing facilities that were nothing like antique industrial systems. Maybe later he and Julle could brainstorm on how to adapt the mechanical sabotage ideas to modern printers.

  Ok, this looked more accessible: General Interference with Organizations.

  “Insist on doing everything through channels… Talk as frequently as possible and at great length… When possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and consideration… Bring up irrelevant issues… Haggle over precise wordings…” For a wild moment, Lars wondered whether Bagwitt and the Dean were actually working from this manual. This passage read like a description of a typical faculty meeting; Lars didn’t think it was possible to make those meetings even more boring and less productive. And how many of his readers were in a position to sabotage committee meetings? Outside the university, he thought most meetings actually took place in government bureaus and were attended by people who’d been put in leadership positions for their impeccable devotion to Harmony. Didn’t the manual have any ideas for ordinary people? Oh, here we were at last:

  “Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements required for each task. Contrive as many interruptions to your work as possible: measure dimensions repeatedly, go to the lavatory frequently, forget tools and have to go back for them.” That would be more appropriate for the up-river farms, where people actually did useful things with their hands. Harmony City was dominated by government, office work, and service industries. And teaching twenty-second century science, because we don’t need anything more. I’m no more useful than any clerk in a bureau.

  “Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the—foreman? Is that some kind of supervisor? – with unnecessary questions.” Now that was advice anybody could use. Lars grinned at the thought of the Security Bureau grinding to a halt because of the “enthusiasm” of clerks and habbers, and marked that paragraph with three dots. He went on marking until he had more than enough material for the first leaflet.

  “Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned.”

  “Report imaginary spies or danger to the—Gestapo? Probably another name for Security.

  “Act stupid.”

  “Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible.”

  “Cry and sob at every occasion, especially when confronted with government clerks.”

  Okay, some suggestions were kind of obvious, but at least there were enough to fill up a leaflet before he started researching antique technology and converting the mechanical sabotage suggestions to suit modern times.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  There was no point in asking Vikki to toss a few scraps to Scat now and then; she’d made her opinion of the feral cat clear enough. I’m sorry, Scat. I shouldn’t have encouraged you; I can’t keep myself, let alone you. Maybe when she had a place to live she could come back and look for Scat, though he’d probably have moved on by then.

  Devra left the few possessions Lili Partrij had saved for her in Vikki’s apartment. “I’ll send for them,” she said, “when I’m settled.”

  That was true enough. She didn’t mention that she wouldn’t be settling with her brother. There was really no need to go into that. Even if she didn’t get a job for a few days, there were always a few rooms – most of them created by subdividing larger apartments, and not mentioning the fact to the Housing Bureau – that could be r
ented without going through the Bureau.

  She just hadn’t realized how much you had to pay for the privilege of slipping under the Bureau’s radar.

  “It’s lovely,” she lied to the third potential landlady, who was showing a space the size of a double bed, separated from the rest of the apartment by a sagging curtain, “but I’m afraid the rent is more than I can manage just now.”

  She stopped at the nearest Community Market to buy a cheese roll and a bottle of iced kahve for lunch, and wasted a little time looking for fresh fruit that didn’t look as if it had been sitting on the shelf since Esilia became an independent country. It would have been easier if she didn’t keep bumping into the only other customer there, who seemed to have a mission to stand in front of Devra and stare at the walls.

  “Can I help you find something?” Devra asked, the third time he got in the way.

  He half turned and gave her a smile so bright that you’d have thought this was the best thing he’d heard of since the automatic pastry roller. Rather a nice-looking man, Devra thought. For one thing, she didn’t have to get a crick in her neck looking up at him; he was only a couple of inches taller than her. He had curly reddish-brown hair and a face that could better be described as interesting than as handsome; but the smile lit him up and made him seem like somebody who’d be fun to talk to.

  “Um, do you know where they keep the dairy products?”

  Hmm. Maybe he had such a nice smile because he was slightly retarded? They were standing in front of a shelf laden with non-perishable canned and boxed food.

  “They’d be on a cold-shelf,” she suggested. “Maybe near where I got the iced kahve.” She waved her hand towards that corner of the market.

  “Oh, iced kahve, brilliant idea. Do they have any more? Suddenly that sounds like exactly what I want.” He went off towards the cold-shelves and she resumed debating between a wrinkled apple and a very green peach.

  He materialized beside her again just as she’d decided not to risk any of the so-called “fresh” fruit. “I’m awfully sorry, but I couldn’t find the iced drinks. Um, maybe you could show me where you found yours?”

  Devra wondered why he kept pestering her. Weren’t there any store clerks who could help him? Oh, well. She retraced her steps to the cold-shelf where she’d gotten the kahve, pointed, and refrained from saying “If it were a snake it would’ve bitten you.” Anyway, the snake would have to slither down a ways to attack; she’d taken the last bottle on the middle shelf, and she’d have had to stand on something to reach the next higher shelf. The helpless young man, though, with his two-inch advantage in height, reached up and over, stretching, and just barely grasped a bottle.

  The move also gave her an opportunity to appreciate his trimly muscled body. His smartcloth shirt and pants were closely fitted, after the current fashion, and the fabric clung so closely to his body that she could actually see the muscles rippling under his skin.

  Devra enjoyed a moment of purely aesthetic appreciation. You just didn’t see bodies like that among secondary school teachers. Nor bakers, for that matter. She resolved to do sit-ups every night before going to bed.

  Once she had a bed, that was.

  “Success!” He clinked his newly acquired bottle against hers. “Shall we celebrate by finding a nice park to sit in while we drink them? It’s actually not raining for once, be a shame to waste the chance of getting outside.”

  The word “sit” worked powerfully on Devra. Yes, he was trying to pick her up, and not subtly; but what harm could there be in enjoying a mid-day interlude in one of the city’s many tiny green spaces? It wasn’t like he was going to hit her over the head and sell her off to slavers. Mid-day, with everyone hurrying to and from their lunch breaks, was the worst possible time to try anything like that. Anyway, there wasn’t any slave trade here.

  She realized that his face was falling; she’d taken too long to answer. Discord, now she felt that she owed him. “Sounds good to me,” she said, “if you don’t mind me eating lunch at the same time.”

  He glanced at the solitary cheese roll in her basket. “You were going to buy something else?”

  “That’s quite enough,” Devra said sharply. “But don’t you have more shopping to do?” She waved at the cold-shelves beyond them, where any dairy products the market had would be kept.

  His warm brown eyes shifted slightly. “Actually, my aunt didn’t give me a list. I need to go back and get one. So I can efficiently buy everything at one time, you know.”

  As transparent excuses went, that was middling-good.

  She insisted on paying for her own roll and kahve at the counter, and slightly regretted the gesture of independence: there went the last of the small change she’d had left after her trip to the bazaar. From now on she’d have to use her CodeX and tap the funds in her savings account.

  “I’m Mikal,” he informed her as they headed for the nearest mini-park.

  It would be rude not to reciprocate.

  “Devra.”

  “That’s a pretty name. From Old-Earth Deborah?”

  “I suppose so.” Devra had never considered the question before.

  “I like the old form better. ‘Devra’ sounds so rushed. ‘Deborah’ is a name one can linger over.”

  For such a bumptious young man, he was strangely tongue-tied after they found a park bench and sat down. Devra munched her way through the cheese roll without interruption, and wished they could have met under better circumstances. She thought she might have liked getting to know this Mikal, so overflowing with energy that he couldn’t even sit still on the bench; he stood on it, balanced perilously on the back, jumped down into the grass and walked around to sit back crosslegged on the ground.

  “In a city the size of this one,” he said after she’d disposed of the bread, “it’s easy to lose track of people you meet. I mean, normally I wouldn’t try to get your contact on a first date-“

  Devra spluttered around a mouthful of kahve. “You’re calling this a date?”

  Mikal waggled his eyebrows at her. “I’ll take what I can get. So can I have a way to get in touch with you again?”

  “I wish you could,” Devra said, “but at the moment I’m homeless.”

  His face fell again. “That’s what all the girls say. And why? I’m clean, healthy, of sound mind and body, and I can cite my aunt as testimony that I’m also honest, reliable, and kind to children and small animals. What’s wrong with me?”

  “That sounds more like a marriage proposal than asking for a date!”

  The eyebrows again. “Like I said, I’ll take what I can get. Would you entertain a proposal?”

  Devra shook her head. “You’re insane. No wonder you can’t get a girl’s contact! You probably scare them off.”

  “But you’re not scared,” Mikal said, sounding ridiculously hopeful.

  Devra finished her kahve and looked for the nearest recycler. “No. Just sensible.” She felt just a little bit sad as she said it. It might be fun to be swept off her feet by this cheerful young man – with the truly excellent body… She colored slightly. See, that was where not being sensible got you: in trouble. Mikal was probably trouble cubed. Not that his interest would last, once he discovered how much trouble she was in already.

  “I do have a lot to do this afternoon. Thank you for a pleasant lunch.”

  “Wait!” Mikal bounded after her. “OK, you may be cautious about giving me your contact, but would it hurt for me to give you mine? You could just tap it into your CodeX.”

  “There’s really no point,” Devra said, and kept walking. It was the sensible thing to do. She couldn’t get involved with anybody until she had worked the warning flags off her record and regained her Citizenship. It would be too humiliating to be dumped by this Mikal as soon as he found out who she was.

  “If you change your mind, you can always find me at the Green Cat!” he called.

  ***

  It would have been nice to have a place to sleep before
she returned to the job hunt, but with absolutely no money in her pocket Devra decided that she’d do better to get a job first. Of course she still had her savings account, but that might have to last a long time. So, job first. She might get one that came with some kind of automatic housing assignment, and then she wouldn’t have to waste any of her limited savings on rent.

  As she went down the scale of job applications, though – from baker, to waitress, to dishwasher – the chances of assigned housing went down also. But then, so did her expectations. By the end of the afternoon she would have been happy to wash dishes in return for her food and a bed in a workers’ dormitory.

  Unfortunately, even the people who needed dishwashers checked her ID and turned her away after seeing the Security flag on her record.

  Twilight was scarcely darker than daylight under the grey skies of the rainy season; Devra registered the passing of time in her weary legs and aching feet. She didn’t like to stop now, with nothing achieved, but the daytime shops and snack bars were closing. Well, in an hour the bars and the restaurants that served actual sit-down dinners would be open. She could buy an hour’s rest and warmth at one of the seedy little places where she’d been applying – if she could find one that was still open – and then start over with the good restaurants.

  The Green Cat Kahve Shop and Bakery was halfway down Cat Alley and was clearly open. The name was familiar… “The Green Cat will always find me!” Mikal had called to her after she had – quite sensibly – refused to give him her contact info. She wondered if this could be the place he’d meant.

  The café had a brightly painted sign and lights that shed a warm glow on the street, though the narrow windows were frosted with decorative patterns that made it difficult to tell exactly what was going on in the kahve shop. Devra was relieved that the door opened on a large, peaceful room, with a few unhurried customers lounging at tables and chatting idly. Mikal was nowhere to be seen.

  The aroma of fresh-baked muffins filled the room and saliva filled Devra’s mouth. Her snack of cheese bread and iced kahve had been quite a long time ago. She took a seat at an empty table and sat for a few minutes, hardly aware of what was going on around her. Perhaps Mikal was the baker here, except in that case she’d have expected him to be better at finding supplies in the market.