by M. Suddain
‘Yes.’
‘Secrets for the grave.’
‘Right. Tell me, do you know the gentleman in the booth, the one in the Deermarker?’
‘Hmmmmm? I’m afraid I don’t know Mr Deermarker from soap.’
‘What does he look like to you, though? Journalist? Intel? Credit services?’
‘I couldn’t say with certainty, Mr Black. A salesman. Customised bath rails. His wife urged him to take a job at her brother’s consultancy, but he wouldn’t listen. He is his own man. He’ll show her. He knows a man. He could buy a gun. You do know it’s Harvest?’
‘Hmmm? I do know that, yes.’
‘The streets will be filled with revel-makers for the next week. They do it every year … Gypsies.’ He lowered his hand from beside his mouth, let his eyes flick left, then right.
(Are you a Harvest girl, Colette? Do you know the rituals? It’s a big deal here on the Terrestrials. Tonight is the Wild Hunt. Several thousand men from the Low Districts will gather in Revolution Square to rub two massive logs together. The size and power of the fire speaks to their collective manhood. The fires are loaded with imported cactus, and the smoke turns the streets into psychotropic conduits. The Harvest King will arrive late with his retinue of reapers holding sickles, scythes. His Queen will be paraded through the streets on a throne of raw branches by a ferociously spangled mob. Oceans of wine will be drunk – along with a psychoactive tea which brings revelations, telepathy, casual encounters with deities and heroic vomiting. The mob will try to storm the orthodox temples which these days occupy certain nodes of spiritual significance. The authorities will show up. There’ll be a riot. Some will die. Some will become heroes. This is the way the passing of a Celestial New Year is celebrated down here.)
‘So will I keep your room tonight, Mr Black?’
‘Huh? Oh, please do.’
‘And shall I keep a table for you in the Empire Lounge? We have planned a small gaudy at seven. Cocktails and kickshaws. For those not going “on street”.’
‘That’s kind. I’m heading out for a walk, then I have letters to write.’
‘Ah. Your large friend instructed me that you weren’t to wander, sir.’
‘My large friend? Oh.’
‘Your beast of a man. He said I should tell him if you tried to leave. I could populate the table, sir. In the Empire Lounge. So you’d have company.’
‘That won’t be necessary. I’ll call if I need anything.’
‘And shall I send a girl up to turn you down before bed.’
‘… No. No, that won’t be necessary either. But will you send someone up to cover the painting? … I mentioned it yesterday. I tried a bath towel but it isn’t big enough. And it’s too large for me to take down alone.’
‘Ah but yes! The harl-ya-quin. I’ll have our Ron see to it.’
‘Very good. And do you know, Diggity, who might have left this book in the top drawer of my bedside table?’
‘Sir?’ He peered down at the book I held. ‘Well, I’m quite certain it wasn’t one of our staff, Mr Black. Barely one of them reads. It must have been left by a previous guest. Shall I put it in Lost and Found?’
‘The furnace will do. I’ll say goodbye for now.’
‘Tonight is the Wild Hunt, sir.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Men gather in Revolution Square to rub the logs.’
‘Yes. I’ve seen it.’
‘The Harvest King will come to crown his Harvest Queen.’
‘Yes.’
‘She’ll be paraded through the streets by the mob.’
‘I know the rituals, Diggity. I’m from Solidad.’
‘Oh!’ His head jerks back. Then his lips pull up across his teeth to form a nervous grimace. Then he says, through teeth still set, ‘Your people are always welcome here, sir.’
‘Right. Well. I really just came by to see if I had any messages.’
‘Shall I check, sir? … Ah, there are three messages for you.’
But like I said, a decent cellar.
(It occurs to me suddenly, Colette, that you’re a girl from the cities, born in an age of hypersleep, and suspension pods, and tubular berths, and sense-eliminating bodysuits. And so it’s possible you don’t have any sense of what I mean when I use the word ‘hotel’. A traditional ‘Olde Worlde’ hotel is a huge and often sumptuously decorated ‘building’. A guest arrives in a large room called the ‘lobby’ where human staff – such as our man Diggity – wait to receive her. She writes her name manually in the register book – full name and title, unless you’re a bachelor, or a man travelling without his wife, or the pet of a guest – and she gives her luggage – willingly – to a porter so it can be taken to her room. Guests sleep on a four-legged frame containing a padded sleeping lozenge and fabric coverings for warmth. It’s a bizarre arrangement, but once you’ve tried it you can feel the benefits. My family travelled, so I spent a lot of time in hotels. Would you have known the sheer joy of getting lost in dim corridors, of scaring yourself witless in abandoned spaces, or of imagining you’re being followed through deserted halls? My guess is no.)
But as I said, I think I actually might have been followed to this hotel. Why do I suspect I was followed? Because one of the notes left at the front desk said:
Jonathan, you’re being followed.
And then below, in pencil, someone had written:
No you aren’t.
People are fucking with me. Have been ever since I started investigating the place they call Station One. The man in a wool Deermarker was using the booth in the lobby for ten minutes – though I know that machine is jammed to the line for the shipping forecast. He could be a hack. He could be working for a creditor. He could be a meteorological enthusiast. There are storms due from the east. There are large spiders in the planters. The second message said:
Jonathan. You are in bodily danger. Ignore other messages from unknown sources.
Which is fine, except this message was unsigned, and on the back was written:
Ignore the message on the other side. You are being led astray.
The third message was an eye-bleedingly explicit fifteen-page carnal promissory intended for the quiet, mousy woman in room 129, but which was accidentally sent to me. I abridge:
My love … treasure of my heart … object of my breathless, ceaseless longing … my tears of hope and desire … breaking like a wave upon the shores of … piercing my soul like an iron-tipped javelin and … every second seems to mark another epoch of heartache and … a fever … an infection of the lesser body and … for just one night … a night for all the nights … Master of Pleasure … Harbinger of Ecstasy … and my Princess of Flesh … a sensual exorcist … bringing tectonic convulsions of the heart, the pelvis, and … for hour upon hour … exquisite tortures … and sexual ether … as you bare your throat and lash out with your nails … to expose these raging loin-demons to love’s pink light … rubberised and glistening … spanked pink and trembling as a flower … sweating and hooded like a priest … as rigid as the law and twice as cruel … and I’ll persist until your screams of ecstasy burn scorch-marks on the ceiling … until time stops in fear and wonder … until your soul, drenched in pleasure, succumbs to my ritual expulsion, and rises from the deep waters … detaches itself from your body … to float above in fear and wonder … and to bear witness to the possibilities of flesh … until you arrive like the Express from Proteus: oily, thundering, waking the night itself with your shuddering music.
It’s the Feast of Hearts tomorrow. Another Harvest ritual. People send ardent love notes to strangers. Slipped the note under the woman’s door. Would have given it right back to Diggity, but it might have ended him.
But I’m rambling. I’m avoiding doing what needs to be done. First, I said I’d tell you my fears.
I fear many things, Colette. I fear choking while dining alone in my underwear. I fear being forgotten. I fear being scalped by a mediocre cook. I fear this flattened harlequin will
haunt my dreams in four dimensions later. But I don’t fear you. I fear for you, certainly. You are a brave and ambitious seeker of the truth, but I fear you’ll let that ambition blind you to greater possibilities. You know that the story of my secret life could make you rich. But what you don’t know is that I’ve caught you an even bigger fish. I can tell you this now, because by the time this letter reaches you I’ll already be there. For the past few years I have been investigating, as you suspected, the existence of a very special hotel. Finally, through one strange turn after another, I’ve succeeded in my quest. The invitation which miraculously found me at sea was for this very miraculous establishment. I am about to become the first modern critic to be allowed a berth at Hotel Grand Skies: the Empyrean, and to enjoy a meal in its legendary restaurant, the Undersea.
I will let you take a second to process this information.
I’m travelling out tonight. It’s finally happening. I have my instructions. I’m to leave under darkness and take a black-market taxi to Combina Docks, on the far side of the slums. By the time you read this I will already have caught the Night Ferry – which is actually a postal boat – and once more passed through the Velvet Curtain to the East – this time not in handcuffs. I never dreamed I’d share this experience with anyone, but if that’s what it takes then I’m willing. The question is: what kind of companion are you? Are you a maker or a killer of dreams?
Which brings me, as promised, to my offer. I think it provides significant incentive to abort your project in favour of an authorised collaboration. What I propose is this: that we work together in secret to produce a secret book about my secret visit to the Empyrean, and the Undersea. I will write, you will edit. It will be a stealth project. There will be no word of its existence until the day it’s published. We will ignore the major publishers – which, admittedly, I have already managed to alienate with a slew of rage-fuelled, post-Coma messages – and compose the book ourselves, thus retaining Total Creative Control, and removing any chance of a pre-publication leak. We will present nothing more than a slim book, simply produced, about a perfect hotel, and a perfect meal. It will be the antidote to the age we live in. And it will make us immeasurably rich, and restore my reputation as an artist.
As a further sweetener, if one is needed, I’ll help you with your biography project. I will give you a full, frank and exclusive account of my famously abortive public appearance at Infinicon – the only one I’ll ever give – for a reasonable fee, to be negotiated later by us, and assuming my memories coagulate. Even after months at sea my recollections of the party aboard The Huntress are still scattered. I will also answer all your questions about my recent troubles, as well as the incriminating ‘facts’ you’ve uncovered about my past life. I will be frank and honest with you about everything. I will grant full access to what remains of my collected journals. (I can’t give you TCC on this project, of course. But a respectful measure of editorial control, certainly, and a healthy cut of the action.)
Any one of these exclusives would be game-changing for a small independent operator looking to make her mark in publishing. But together they have the potential to hurl you into the next galaxy.
A lot has happened to me over the past year, but like you I’m a voracious hunter. I refuse to give up. My great hero, forensic gastronomer and nine times international blind-tasting champion Eliö Lebaubátain, was on his way to becoming a champion swimmer. He didn’t give up when he lost both his legs. Well, he gave up swimming, obviously. But it led him to greater things. I don’t know what the lesson here is. Perhaps not to give up on life. It’s been a long day. I have to go. Will send this as I leave. Notes will follow. I’ll index and package as well as I can, send to you by Armed Delivery Service. Will continue speaking to you in my notes. I find it grounding to address my editor directly.
Oh. My hopes. I said I’d share my hopes. My hope is that this offer is acceptable. All is well, and I hope you think so too. I hope this all makes sense, and that we can continue in a spirit of understanding towards a destination of mutual benefit. And I hope you don’t think I’m only approaching you now because I’ve burned so many of my bridges, and the major publishers are no longer knocking on my door – because of the startlingly frank and violently descriptive messages I sent them. The fact is, you’ve always been on my radar. I’ve just been waiting for the right project. You’re the only collaborator for me, but it isn’t just because you’re the only one who’ll still speak to me. My ultimate hope is that you lose yourself so profoundly in the pleasures of my meal at the Undersea that you forget everything about the past. All that matters is the future.
Ron came up to cover the painting with a sheet. I can still see, faintly, the image of the harlequin through the cloth. And another copy of Doctor Rubin’s book, Infinity Remastered, has been delivered into my bedside table. Which was inevitable. But the man in the Deermarker was gone when I went down. The woman from 129 was taking coffee in the lobby, so lost in her smiling thoughts she didn’t even hear me greet her as I passed.
J.T.
NOTES FROM THE NIGHT FERRY
Colette, I’m on the Night Ferry. Can’t believe this is real. Trip to the docks was a nightmare. Took a black-market taxi through the low parts to avoid the crowds, now my shoes are filthy and I almost had to shoot a midget small individual. It’s a long story. But I’m here now. Feeling agitated, so took an Exocet.2
Has been a heavyweight shit-tournament to get ready for this trip. Lost all my luggage at the Fair, you see. Sold the last of my clothes and other possessions to run off to sea. My new suits and shirts were assembled so quickly by Silksmith & Sons I felt sure I’d look like an actor. But fortunately they had all my measurements, so no adjustments were needed, and only an expert with a glass could spot any haste in the work.
Assumed I’d be making the crossing alone, but in the end have been forced to bring my agent, and a bodyguard. Tried to ditch them, but they found me. Still don’t know why I need them. Remind me why I need you, Beast?
‘Insurance reasons. Like I said.’ Daniel munches loudly on pickled eyeballs from our hamper. He’s well done in. A two-button navy worsted with a pale yellow hen’s-hair pattern that catches the low lighting in our booth. Beast likes his jacket cut slightly shorter, side vents, a little waist suppression in the trousers, though not too much. Too strong a waist distorts the jacket’s lines. He also wears the dumb, assured grin of the naturally handsome man.
‘Insurance reasons?’
‘Yep. Some people still want you dead. And these are dangerous waters. If anything happens to you out here alone you won’t be covered, which means we don’t get paid.’ He wipes his massive hands with a napkin.
‘You’re saying I need to employ you because if I don’t, and I die, you won’t get paid.’
‘Correct.’
‘Seems a little circular, Beast.’
‘What isn’t, Jonathan?’
He is right, though. These are dangerous waters, and a statistically significant number of people still do want to cause me harm. Which comes with the job, of course. But the past year has been especially turbulent. Beast has been a rock. He left his father’s wake when he heard about the incident at the Fair. He tracked me down at St Direghul, shipped me to a better hospital, one with big rooms and less aggressively hygienic nurses. He was sceptical when I told him I was having sessions with a new doctor who had visited me in Coma’s Azure District to tell me I was finally on the List of One Thousand. Doctor Rubin gave me strict instructions that I wasn’t to tell anyone I was being added to the List. But of course I told Beast. I tell him everything. He’s like a literary agent crossed with a valet crossed with a physician. He’d pointed out that he hadn’t been able to find any record of Rubin Difflaydermaus, BBDSM, in the IMDB, or the PMP Digest. I’d pointed out that there was his book, Infinity Remastered, which had his photo on the cover, and which had mysteriously appeared on the bedside table of my room aboard The Huntress, and at St Direghul, and St Elsewhere
’s, and in basically every hotel suite I’ve stayed in subsequently – except for my berth on the deep-space cargo ship. Even Doctor Rubin has limits, it seems.
Beast pointed out that the existence of a book still didn’t prove the existence of a specific author, or of the hotel at which Difflaydermaus was supposedly head physician. So I’d showed him the laundry ticket, the one I’d hidden under the insole of my shoe before I was arrested.
‘What is this?’
‘It’s proof, Beast.’
‘It’s a laundry ticket.’
‘It’s a laundry ticket from Hotel Grand Skies.’
He’d peered at the now almost illegible type. ‘I suppose it could say that. Where’d you get it?’
‘It was left for me on my bedside table in my cabin aboard The Huntress the night of the gas attack. It was stuck between the pages of a copy of Infinity Remastered some time after I went to sleep in my cabin, and before I woke to find everyone dead.’
‘Wait, you said when the party on the yacht got out of hand you shut yourself in your room and barricaded the door.’
‘Correct. They threatened to set fire to me.’
‘And you said the door was still barricaded when you woke up.’
‘Also correct.’
‘So how could they get in to leave a book and a laundry ticket on your bedside table?’
‘No idea. Some secret entrance.’
‘Hmmm. There’s a number on the back here. Tiny. Phone number, maybe?’
‘That’s my UIIS.’
‘Come again?’
‘My Unique Inductee Identification Serial. Everyone added to the List of One Thousand gets one.’
‘Right.’
‘It’s how they keep track of you so they know where to send your invitation.’
‘OK. And have they sent you your invitation?’
‘Nope.’
‘So they’ll send it here?’
‘They’ll send it wherever I am.’
‘Because of this little number here?’
‘Yep.’
Beast genuinely thought I’d gone mad. And that should have been a warning sign. He’s what they call a Believer. You can tell him any half-baked conspiracy and he’ll swallow it. Ancient aliens; mind-control systems; covert infiltration of the East; dark-lord worship among senior government and celebrity figures; the Elks. He thinks our government has the Postal Service put sedatives in stamp glue to make us compliant. You’ll never see him lick a stamp. He thinks domestic dogs have electronic chips in them to record our thoughts, and that our recent voyage to our neighbouring galaxy was staged, and that the Western Hemisphere is secretly run by Elks. Yep, those old men in funny hats who meet each week to play board games and talk about how women shouldn’t vote. I made the one about the stamps up myself, actually, and he swallowed it. It passes the time.