White Queen

by Gwyneth Jones

said Clavel.

  Johnny was shocked at having his need stated so bluntly, by the voice in his head. It was like getting fingered by the faithhealer. Hey, you there. You in the back row, with the shameful crippling fatal disease!

  “You know about that? I guess you do. And you can help me?”

  said Clavel.

  The alien was shuddering visibly. “Huh? Oh, yes.” He held out his hand. That seemed to be what she meant. Two half-naked bodies, a sticky smell of yeast—briefly, the accusation he’d yelled at Braemar crossed his mind. You want me to fuck the alien for you! But he wasn’t going to risk his incredible prize on account of petty squeamishness. She was such a kid. Quite harmless. She used his hand as an anchor, and pulled herself into his arms. The closeness must be part of it, skin against skin.

  Clavel told him.

  She reached into her bodysuit-thing, brought out a hand crawling with blood colored lice. They glistened. Johnny stared, too disgusted and fascinated to move a muscle. The arm around his shoulders drew his face down. She began to kiss at him, the way a cat kisses: thin stretched lip and an edge of tooth. She touched his nipples, traced whorls of hair down to his belly. She pressed the bristling hollow of her nasal cavity to his face, at the same time trying to reach the louse covered hand into his pants.

  She touched his nose.

  He was paralyzed with astonishment. A mad voice inside was still asking quite seriously how much is the cure worth. Then he tried, gently, to get away: and found he couldn’t. This was beyond a joke. Clavel shucked off her underwear. The naked chickenskin baboon crouched over him. It took his hand and buried it to the wrist in a fold that opened along its groin. The chasm inside squirmed with life. Part of its wall swelled, burgeoning outward.

  “Ah—”

  The baboon clutched his wrist and worked its bellyfold up and down, its thighs slipped along his hips. It wasn’t female after all, but a kind of hermaphrodite. Something slid out of the fold: an everted bag of raw flesh, narrowing to a hooked end. It was enormous. Johnny felt a jolt of horrible arousal, like the affectless clutch in the groin he’d get from a glimpse of violent pornography. Clavel’s eyes were still fixed on his, still sweet and childlike. Suddenly, he lost his nerve completely. He struggled and protested, still attempting to laugh off this gross and ludicrous social error but inwardly totally panicked.

  The alien didn’t know what he meant, or didn’t care. It descended on him. He tried to scream. He could not. And this was what he had always feared, why he had run from Braemar. Stark horror! This was how it was always going to end. The faith so close to fear, wonder so close to terror, betrayed him utterly: stripped him, robbed him and flung him out, meaningless, into a bursting vacuum.

 

  ii

  Braemar, mistress of signs, never worked from home. She was unavailable for phone-in interviews, held on to the enhanced status of mobility: you won’t make plug-in bonded labor out of me. But on a night like this she was glad enough to shut the mortuary drawer behind her.

  Billy was crying. Kamla was fast asleep in his nursery with her head in a box tv, her dreams awash with advertising aimed at people sixty years or so her senior. Brae left her: she’d wake and grizzle if you took the thing off. She changed Billy’s wet pajamas and bedding. The poor little bugger then wanted to chat, he probably hadn’t had a word out of his mother all day. But she stonewalled on that. One has to keep the limits clear.

  Fed Trixie. The smell in the kitchen was vicious. Braemar had refused to buy a gimmicky new robot that Ionela wanted, and this was the Transylvanian revenge. Ionela, drunk on nouvelle consumerism ever since Braemar shipped her tribe over here, had decided it was her Christian-Sustainable-Developmentalist duty to make do with just one cleaning product. The evil woman had been caught using toilet cleaner to rub up Braemar’s antique furniture.

  Domestic robots don’t work, and they make one look a vulgar fool. But the peasant craved toys, craved any kind of power. Braemar could remember going through that stage.

  She had been to her pharmacist. It was lucky that the poor still devoured patent medicines, or undead monsters like Braemar would be in trouble. There were hardly enough of them left to support the surviving illicit dealers on their own. Nowadays, everything was bloody legal. And the official quacks (Braemar didn’t believe in doctors) never prescribed anything but electricity. If you broke your leg, they’d give you a course of ECT.

  She ought to eat. There was nothing in the larder but a dish of potato mash, smeared with baby saliva, and the end of a carton of nature identical egg. She poured eggy goop into a dish and stuck it in the micro. Eat sparingly, keep calm. Maybe you’ll live forever.

  Trixie followed her to the drawing room. The wallpanel had defaulted to its river scene, green and moony shadows. The floor-length windows were wet and black, the glass set to let in no light and reflect nothing. She thought she would use no more Looney Tunes, that was getting stale. She would move on: maybe Alison de Vere. She walked around tidying things. Stopped in front of a mirror and preened. That’s a pretty woman still, in her pretty suit of peacock blue and gold thread. She felt how the love of lovely things would grow on her, as other pleasures receded. She would be a dragon buried to the eyes in her musty hoard, like granny in the old house (so long gone) in Nairobi. Outside in the wet dark there were rows of glistening tended vegetables, that Braemar would never see on her table. No one can change their nature, she was not a giving sort of person. But it was soothing, a secret indulgence, to let herself be robbed blind by the Marmune tribe.

  She woke up the tv and checked a few headlines. The bouncing rouble. Korean concerns, will New Zion once again bale out Moscow? The failure of New Zion: overcrowding, Eve-riots, trouble brewing. How strange to see the human world going on so complacently. She had an urge to reach into the illusory depth and shake someone by the shoulders. News! Once the newspaper barons owned the tv companies, it was obvious that the papers would take over the screen. The tabloids, and the quality dailies, and the weekend sections: faxed to your breakfast bar, still on the street corners; dominating the wallscreen in the living room as well. Once again, money achieves the inevitable. What else but a “newspaper” could carry enough conflicting viewpoints to satisfy the twenty-first-century punter? What was less predictable was the way the rest of the tv staples had withered away. There was the BBC (or similar) for worthy projects and Westminster. That was practically it, but for the news in a myriad forms. People scarcely wanted anything else. There was enough horror, enough drama, enough art, enough pathos there for anyone. Certainly enough fiction. She’d done a minor commercial about this trend: Death Of A Sitcom.

  It was against Braemar’s principles to pay for Indie tv. If anyone wanted her to watch their self-indulgent rubbish it had to be free. She rifled through the hot codes that had come her way, thinking about the absurdity of keeping Kamla in education. Thinking about the incredible barrage of human diversity tapped by that space hanging on her wall. Johnny Guglioli’s worldview had been formed by the citadel of New York, before the fall. A beleaguered fort, waiting for the Cavalry. So young. How could he see the world that Braemar believed in? Always more problems, always more solutions. It’s just the normal noises, Johnny. We don’t need any help.

  She was at a low ebb tonight. She remembered sweating in the hotel room in Karen, with the scared pig of an Englishman. It is true, she thought. I sent that girl to her death. Johnny’s right, there’s no way back to civilization from here. She was afraid (afraid?) that she’d pushed Johnny too hard the other night—deliberately. She’d meant to drive him away. Anything rather than drag him further into this business. She closed her eyes and th
ere he was. The dignified young American, so self-possessed among her second class celebs: and shabby enough to satisfy Thoreau himself. Beware of any enterprise that requires new clothes.

  Well, he was gone and White Queen would have to think of something else. Try again, fail again. Fail better. That’s the whole story, she thought, wearily. Our best case. And wondered why on earth it seemed so important that the fake superbeings shouldn’t complete their takeover.

  She opened a window. Took a few drops of onei, set the decoder to convert an antique tape of Miami Vice, set the sound filter to block out the noise of London, and the hifi to sample the rain. The air was soft and damp as night in Africa, stirring with natural music, musique naturelle.Trixie quietly went over to the bin, chucked up her dry owl-pellets and came back to the nest of cushions; settled her muzzle on Braemar’s knee with a contented sigh.

  The Annie Mah dress with the glowworm skirts—

  Braemar lay in a waking dream of idealized memory, pure epicurean pleasure.

  “Get up.”

  Johnny Guglioli stood at the open window. He was drenched to the skin, and he was pointing a hunting rifle at her.

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  She switched off the hifi. Johnny had no shirt under his jacket, his feet were bare in plastic sandals. Water streamed from his loose hair. He looked terrible: his mouth slack, all the lines of his face wiped away. The housekey was in her hand, power to do all sorts of things, but her mind wouldn’t work.

  “You set me up!” he screamed. “You did it! You damned whore you’re going to die. Call off the dog!” The Doberman was trotting towards Johnny, tail swinging gently.

  “Basket, Trix.”

  Braemar stood carefully, heart thumping, the onei leaving her in a rush of icy chills.

  “What’s going on, Johnny?”

  He sobbed. He jabbed sideways with the rifle, a cheery Wemyss cat flew and shattered on the parquet. He cleared the rest of that table, swept the pictures above it from the wall, and stabbed and trampled them, using the rifle like a bayonet. She was wondering how far it was safe to preempt him, to humiliate herself ahead of his orders. She was wondering how long the rot had been spreading, if there was anything left of Johnny in that slack shell. Should she undress?

  His wet hair flew in his face. He tossed it back, and smashed some crystal.

  “You’re police bodyguard’s gone.”

  “I know. They’re on strike—”

  There was nothing else he could reach. He pointed the rifle at Braemar again, his hands perfectly steady. She looked down it, ideas spinning uselessly, with a dry mouth and loosening bowels: and suddenly became exasperated.

  “Oh, who cares. I’m sixty three years old. I’m tired, and my complexion’s past praying for. Go ahead. Shoot me. Make my day.”

  “Sixty three? You said you were forty seven.”

  “That was two seasons ago. Forty nine isn’t smart at all this year. Go on, Johnny. I’m far too much of a coward to kill myself, but I’d be crazy to turn down an opportunity like this.”

  The rifle wavered.

  “The alien broke into my room,” he whispered. “It raped me.”

  “Raped—?”

  He bared his teeth. “It—they’re hermaphrodites.”

  She began to walk towards him. She walked ’til the muzzle of the rifle was touching her breastbone, took it from him, and carefully restored the safety catch. Johnny let her do it. He sat down on a swan-backed chaise-longue, expensive copy of a gloriously decadent regency original; dripping all over the watered silk.

  “How do you tell? You use onei, you must know. How do you tell if you’re dreaming?”

  “Try continuous memory. If you can string the course of the day together without waking yourself, then however weird things seem you are probably awake already.”

  “I can’t do that. I can’t remember how I got here. It’s the QV, I’m going.” He began to sob, heels of his hands thrust into his eyesockets.

  “I don’t think so,” said Braemar. It was true, she realized. She genuinely would rather be dead than watch Johnny succumb to the subtle poison his body might be carrying. Rather he killed her first. With profound relief, she knew that it had not happened. He was sane. She touched him: quickly drew back when he flinched away.

  “Tell me?”

  “I was feeling weird. I was having dreams about the aliens’ planet, watching tv round the clock, shouting at the tv; and I don’t know. Generally going crazy. Then I saw her in the street. Of course I didn’t take that seriously. Tonight she broke into my room. Clavel, she’d sneaked out of Uji on her own and got to London passing for human. She told me some ‘artisan’ made the passport: they can do a lot of things we’ve never guessed. I was completely off guard. She told me she was going to reveal all. What you’ve been saying. How they’re not superbeings, how they’ve tricked us. And then—”

  Silence. He stared and stared, his eyes like bruises.

  “You said ‘rape.’ What does that mean?”

  “What I said. What d’you fucking want, Brae?”

  “No, I don’t want a blow by blow account—” She broke off, electrified: pity turned to iron in her voice. “But you’d better be ready. Other people will.”

  Johnny looked around, maybe for the first time aware of his surroundings. He ran his hands through his hair. “What a mess.” He shuddered. “I’m sorry Brae.” He wiped his fingers on his jacket, looked at them, frowned and wiped them again. “They’re gone.”

  “What?”

  “The bugs. They were all over me.”

  Braemar drew breath. “Clavel? What happened to Clavel?”

  “Clavel was….” His eyes stared, seeing monsters. “They were all around me.”

  He grinned, a gruesome rictus. “I don’t think I shot her. Better check the gun. Clavel left, after, and then I don’t know much what I did.” He made an enormous effort. “Could I have a shower?”

  “Not yet.” She pulled on her house shoes, pulled him to his feet. “We’re going to the police.”

  The police station was on the edge of the infill. Beyond it ordered streetlights died: a rat’s nest of strung bulbs and jam-packed lit windows twinkled. In front of it, searchlights played. The police seemed to be dealing with a major incident. The road was full of people in fluorescent rain gear, holding umbrellas over 360s; rushing around with loudhailers. Braemar stopped the car before she got too close. The confusion terrified her. So Johnny wasn’t alone tonight. It was the end then, the phony war was over. She’d almost prayed for this moment: but she felt sick. One of the rain-geared figures strode across her view, brandishing a plastic placard for the news screens across Europe.

  Braemar laughed. “Of course, it’s the strike.”

  She got out of the car. So did Johnny. When she looked around, he’d vanished. He was walking quickly back down the street. She had to run to catch up, her slippers spurting water.

  “Johnny, where are you going? Come on, please, come on. You can’t protect a rapist. I know this is going to be vile but that’s just not tenable. One does not do that.”

  He kept on walking.

  “Sorry. Can’t help you. My mama didn’t bring me up to cross no picket lines.”

  She grabbed his arm. He shook her off. She got in front of him, impassioned and righteous.

  “Johnny, you can’t walk away from this. You have been assaulted, physically and worse: treated with vicious contempt. Think, it could happen to others. Maybe less able to protect themselves; and maybe the rest are worse than Clavel, once they drop the pretense—”

  He stopped, shoulders hunched against the rain. “You are insulting my intelligence, Brae.”

  The rain fell between them and all around, striking the pavement in hissing crowds. Above them a hoarding had shorted out. It fizzled, and croaked an occasional loud blurred syllable, as if trying to call for help. A bevy of ring-necked parakeets huddled along the frame. They dived out into the wet at each burst of
sound, sherbet green in the streetlights, screaming an immigrants’ lament for another city of trees and dust, where the rain was never so chill.

  “Okay, forget the propaganda. What about revenge?”

  Johnny sat down on the edge of the curb, fists balled between his knees. He looked back. The picketers and attendant newspersons had noticed nothing. Braemar sat beside him: he forced himself to look at her. He was thinking of the first time, in Africa. He had told himself that night that this was the best sex there could ever be in the world. When it starts off so desperate, so unstoppable it is indistinguishable from rape. And then you find she wanted it all the time….

  “I cannot do it, Brae. I just cannot.”

  He looked away. “I don’t know if the rape accusation would stand up. I wasn’t in control of myself. She—it, didn’t finish. I did. I was…. Do I have to explain?”

  “No,” said Braemar, at last, acknowledging defeat. “You don’t have to explain. I know.”

  She tucked the Mini Cooper up to the curb. It was still raining hard. They sat in the brief refuge of its lighted shell. “What d’you want to do now? Send for your mad scientist to take samples?”

  Braemar shook her head.

  “Oh, God, Brae. The little bug…lice things…”

  “Don’t, Johnny.”

  “It knows where I live. It was watching me for days. The others know too. I felt them: in her, in its mind—”

  “Don’t give yourself the horrors. They’re aliens, remember. Biologically speaking, one of those cells on human flesh is a fish on a bicycle.” She took his hand, gripped it. “Listen, Johnny. The Aleutians have done no deliberate harm to any human but Sarah—and she, as far as they were concerned, was committing an act of war. They tampered with some machines, and there were casualties. By my reading, those deaths were unplanned. Okay, they’ve made some wild threats. Everybody does it. They are not hostile. You can still believe that. I believe it. She’s not going to come after you again. This was a ghastly mistake.”

  Johnny looked at her in disbelief.