Queen of Nowhere

by Jaine Fenn

  Even so, the despair sometimes hit hard enough to make her devour every form of chemical oblivion available in the hope of never returning from where the drugs sent her. When she did come back - sometimes after another stint on the city’s charity -

  she’d get grief from the mamas at the bawdy house. But within a few days she’d be back working the streets. There was no other option.

  She was, by standard reckoning, coming up to eighteen years old. She was not sure she would, or wanted to, reach twenty.

  She kept her sobs quiet, but even so she failed to hear the mama’s approach. She looked up as the curtain was pulled aside, and received a loud tut from the older woman standing there.

  Remilla sniffed and sat up.

  ‘Wash your face and get dressed, girl,’ the mama said. ‘You got work to do.’

  ‘I thought I was done for the night,’ said Remilla meekly.

  ‘You was, but Issa’s sick. Can’t have her puking over a special client.’

  A special client. Remilla tried not to let her dismay show.

  The mama clapped her hands, ‘Chop chop, girl!’

  Remilla jumped to her feet, looking round for her dress and makeup.

  The good news was, the special client didn’t have extreme tastes.

  He was an offworlder, half as tall again as Remilla, and he’d apparently ordered, One normal and wonaya local midgets. The ‘normal’

  was a girl Remilla had seen around, probably part native and part offworlder, given she was somewhat shorter than the average freetrader or tourist. The bad news was that the john wanted to watch the two of them while he played with himself. This was the worst sort of work. Being used like an object Remilla could accept, because that was what she was, a damned-to-hell broken piece of flesh. Having to feign lust for a stranger to titillate another stranger was far harder.

  Fortunately, the other girl led the way and they fell into a low-key dom-sub routine that the john liked enough to jerk himself clean to while he watched, after which he passed out in the stirrup chair. The two of them stayed put until he began to snore, then the taller girl got off the bed. She eyed up the unconscious offworlder then turned and unshackled Remilla. Remilla thanked her with a nod, and scooted across the bed. There was a bottle of Fume on the cabinet, which the john had paid for but barely touched, having already got tanked on alcohol. They were, by Remilla’s reckoning, paid up for another half hour, and with the john unconscious it seemed a shame to waste the Fume.

  As Remilla’s hand closed around the bottle she realised the other girl was watching her. She held the bottle out. ‘You want first breath?’ she whispered.

  The girl shook her head. ‘You go ahead,’ she whispered back.

  ‘You prefer dust? Or booze?’

  ‘Nah. I don’t.’

  Remilla looked at her hard. In her two years working the streets of New Salem, she’d never met a whore who didn’t need something, and this girl was older then her, mid-twenties at least.

  ‘What … nothing at all?’

  ‘Nope. ‘

  ‘So, how’d you deal with it?’ Remilla’s gaze flicked round the room, taking in the unconscious john. Something about the other girl encouraged frankness.

  ‘You’d laugh if! told you.’

  ‘Try me.’

  The john stirred. Both girls tensed, but he just snorted, scratched his balls, and started snoring again.

  ‘You want to talk outside?’ asked the girl, nodding at the door.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’m Frej,’ she said, as they gathered their clothes and gear. Not her street moniker, which Remilla knew: Frej was her real name.

  ‘I’m Remilla,’ she offered in return. It had been a long time since she had told anyone her given name; a long time since anyone had cared enough to ask.

  Remilla picked up the bottle, and they crept into an adjacent empty bedroom. Remilla had intended to breathe deep but she felt awkward in front of Frej. ‘So, what’s your secret?’ she asked the other girl, grinning to show she wasn’t mocking her.

  Frej shrugged like she expected to get insulted. ‘I got religion.’

  Remilla nearly dropped the bottle. She felt exposed in a way she hadn’t when she had been physically naked at the end of Frej’s whip. She managed a strangled, ‘Oh.’

  ‘Remilla? You all right?’

  Hearing her name like that warmed her heart. ‘I … I had religion. Once. Maybe I still do, if God’ll have me.’

  ‘The Divine is always accessible. Even here.’

  Not God: the Divine. ‘You’re…’ Remilla struggled for the right word. She’d heard countless sermons at the Community warning of the many misguided sects pretending to preach the True Faith.

  Which one of them used the term ‘Divine’? She couldn’t remember, and finished, a little apologetically, ‘ … a heretic.’

  To her surprise, Frej laughed. ‘Well, I ain’t one of your lot, that’s true. You’re from that northern patriarchal commune, right? The ones trying to farm the wastes?’ She shook her head ruefully.

  Remilla nodded, though she wasn’t sure what ‘patriarchal’

  meant. She wondered if she should try to defend the Community, but didn’t feel much inclined.

  ‘You’re still a cut above the godless, in my book,’ said Frej.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And if you ever want to come outside and pray with me, I’d welcome the company.’

  ‘Pray with you?’ Since entering the living hell of New Salem, Remilla had never shared the act of worship. Sometimes she lurked outside churches on Holy Day, and murmured along with the prayers and chants, but she never dared enter. She was fallen; such places were not for her. Then Frej’s exact words registered.

  ‘What do you mean, “come outside” and pray? Surely we’d have to go to church. Or we can pray anywhere - provided we don’t disturb anyone.’ Remilla had been beaten up by one of the other girls for praying too loudly, and had learned to keep the volume down.

  ‘Church? Nah. I know that where you come from the men say you can only get with the Divine if you follow their rules, but it don’t have to be like that. You want to find something bigger than us shitty humans and our shitty lives, you don’t need a church.

  Being outside’s good, though, puts you in touch with the Universe.’

  Remilla had never heard anyone talk like that. Frej obviously believed, but it was a very different faith from the sort she knew.

  ‘Can you … tell me more?’

  Frej laughed. ‘Surely can.’

  AN ABSTEMIOUS LOT

  This has been building for years, but I’m - we’re - finally getting close. When we strike, it has to be perfectly coordinated. If the Sidhe get wind of what’s happening, they’ll take precautions, perhaps just disappear then surface again later.

  It’ll all come together on R-Day - a single day, twenty-five hours that will change human-space for ever.

  You probably want to know what ‘R’ stands for. Well, ‘revelation’, or perhaps ‘retaking’. Or maybe ‘revenge’.

 

  Bez’s musings were interrupted by an incoming com call. For a moment she paused, alarmed - Who even knew she was here? - but it was just her host, asking if Bez wished to join the other guests for dinner. She said she would love to: she wanted to make the effort to fit in, and her body needed food. She had used the journey from Tarset to get into synch with local time, but the adjustment had left her more sensitive to physical requirements such as eating and sleeping at regular times. ‘Where’s the restaurant?’ she asked.

  ‘The garden is our dining area. Follow thou the path all the way.’

  ‘With the flutterflies?’

  ‘Sonics are employed to keep the smallest of the All-Father’s creatures at bay while we take our repast.’ Dena sounded amused.

  Bez followed the instructions and went down to the garden, which was wild in the centre but became more formal near the edges, ending in well-tr
immed lawn. The tables, which were arrayed in a half-circle against the outside wall, sat on yellow and green paving slabs. About half the seats were occupied, some by single women like her, some by larger groups. Other women milled around, talking and smoking, standing way too close to each other even when they were not obviously lovers. Given how empty this world was, Bez found the Graceni’s lack of respect for personal space perplexing. With her darker-than-average skin she drew a few curious glances, but no one approached.

  Bez spotted an empty two-person table and sat down. After a while a woman approached her; Bez tensed, wondering if she wanted the other seat. The woman stopped and said with the flat local tonality, ‘Evening blessings, sister. Anything more than water to drink.’

  There was a carafe on the table, but Bez had noticed other diners with tall glasses or steaming mugs. ‘Evening blessings. Do you have caP’

  The woman shook her head ruefully. ‘No caf. If thou so desires, we have pear-cactus syrup or mint matte.’

  ‘Water will be fine, thanks.’ Though Bez had not paid much attention to the sections on food and drink, she did remember the guidebooks warning potential hedonists that they would find few intoxicants here. Aside from the sex and the cigrenes, the Graceni were an abstemious lot. Even caf was a stimulant too far.

  The meal itself was self-service: women were going over to an open servery further round the wall and returning with bowls.

  Bez waited until the crowd died down before fetching hers. The food smelled great, though the unappetising meat-stew-with-white-lumps would have got a starliner chef fired on the spot. She took the bowl back to her place and picked up the linked pair of sticks the Graceni used instead of normal cutlery. She hadn’t had the opportunity to practise with these, and her first few attempts resulted in a lot of dropped food, some of which she barely caught in the bowl. Eventually she managed to get the hang of lifting the food to her mouth and snatching it off the sticks before it fell, although she did resort to surreptitiously spearing some of the larger lumps. Despite being lukewarm due to her ineptitude with the sticks, the meal was delicious: the meat was succulent and tender, the white lumps some sort of vegetable that was crisp on the outside and fluffy inside, providing a perfect counterpoint to the stew’s richness. Taking her cue from the other women, she lifted the bowl to drink the last of the rich gravy.

  Some women were going back for slabs of syrup-drenched honeycomb cake, but Bez decided against this; her antics with the bowl of stew had resulted in quiet amusement on adjacent tables, and she did not fancy providing entertainment during the next course as well. She was about to activate her comshades when she saw Dena coming over.

  ‘Thou art satisfied in body and soul,’ said her host.

  Dena was looking at her empty bowl, so Bez responded, ‘Yes, thank you, the food was excellent.’

  ‘In truth, such bounty is not for the common day.’

  Bez said, ‘Of course: today’s a Holy Day, isn’t it?’

  Dena’s smiled broadened. ‘Aye. Thou art a believer?’ She actually exaggerated the question, which Bez took to mean she was surprised.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Even so, the Lord All-Father extends his love to thee, sister,’

  said Dena. ‘And thy voice is welcome to join ours.’

  Bez had noticed some of the women gathering on the far side of the room; she had been mildly concerned this might be the precursor to some sort of sexual activity, although the guidebooks had been clear that sex was culturally inappropriate outside Temples or private rooms. ‘No, it’s all right. I’m not a good singer.’

  ‘As thou desires.’

  Bez did not think Dena was offended, though it was hard to tell, so she asked, ‘Is it all right if I stay here anyway?’

  ‘Thou may treat my house as thy home, sister.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Dena took Bez’s bowl and moved off.

  After a quick glance round to check no one was paying undue attention, Bez activated her comshades. Over dinner she had been considering the best way to interface with Gracen’s quirky infoscape. For a start she needed to declare her gender: actively identifying herself as a woman increased her chances of getting access to detailed data about another woman. It was an interesting reflection on Graceni culture that datasearches did not automatically link back to a person’s ID. Information, like sex, was freely available - provided you followed the rules.

  Once she had informed the comnet she was female, her view of the infoscape opened up. For the first time she was able to access specific names and addresses.

  As was the case with many of her agents, Bez had originally found Alpha83 through the beevee boards - what the trashier news services referred to as the ‘interstellar chat network’. That nickname was not only derogatory, it was inaccurate: beevee costs and routing delays didn’t allow for anything as frivolous and instantaneous as ‘chat’. In recruiting agents for her network, especially the Alphas, Bez looked for intelligent people who had both the material means and the level of commitment to follow a cause she could legitimately claim to share; what she thought of as their ‘button’. She never hinted at her real motivation, any more than she included genuine info in her profile. People who would easily believe she was fighting the Sidhe were not the sort of agents she wanted. Once R-Day was imminent, she would have to tell her strategically important Alphas the truth, but she would be very careful in presenting it.

  Alpha83 was a recent recruit and her ‘button’ was religion; even by Graceni standards she was devoutly Salvatine. But she was no hermit: she worked in the records office of the planetary government, and that was what made her useful.

  It was possible Alpha83 herself was the Sidhe agent who was procuring the false IDs. But the chances were minimal. If the Enemy knew anything about her, they knew how unlikely it was that Bez would follow up a lead outside the hubs in person. There were more efficient ways to entrap her.

  She tried not to panic when she failed to get a match on Alpha83’s address. Bez was not the only beevee-board user to post an inaccurate profile. She liked to corroborate names and addresses where possible via independent research, but she hadn’t had time !Os

  to do this for Alpha83. It was not as though she had expected to be visiting her in person.

  She did know Alpha83’s real name - Khea Foelin - and department - birth registration, Meneske ward. The fact that the woman worked in Meneske implied she lived in the city; when it came to dirtborn agents, Bez had found that people living near a planet’s contact point with the rest of human-space were most likely to take an interest in matters beyond their world.

  The Holy Day service had begun with prayers, but now the women had moved onto a weird overtonal chanting. It distracted Bez, both because of the unusual structure, which she found attractive, and because of the small imperfections in pitch, which she did not. She exited from her current search. As her attention returned to the real she was startled to find a bug with orange-and-green-veined translucent wings sucking at a spill on the table, its long black feeder flicking out across the liquid. Presumably the sonics had been turned off. Bez changed tables and pulled up her hood, minimising the amount of flesh available as a landing site for curious insects. She activated her headware, dampened her aural feeds to block the noise, then returned to the infoscape.

  Her initial search listed fifteen Khea Foelins in Meneske ward.

  She cross-referenced with another service and confirmed that humber.

  Next, she checked the publicly available information on these women. Basic data on age, sexuality and marital status was held on all citizens; they themselves chose what additional information they presented to outsiders. As Bez quickly came to realise, this data had less to do with their place in the world than their insights about it, and about the nature of reality, God, virtue and assorted spiritual and philosophical matters. Each individual also tailored her profile, adding holos and music, not to mention voice recordings, idiosyncratic l
ayouts and a plethora of culture-specific words and terms Bez had to look up. The info was there, but not at the forefront; for example, the first subject Bez researched worked as a carer in a creche, but this datum was only available in a semi-poetic spoken piece on the miraculous innocence of young minds.

  By the time she was halfway through her list, Bez began to see basic patterns in the data Graceni women presented; as a result she started to home in more quickly on the relevant info. She had already discarded those she had researched so far, for reasons of age, career choice and, in one case, a diatribe warning against having any truck with the sin-washed universe beyond Gracen.

  She carried on, vaguely aware that the chanting had died away.

  The tenth Khea Foelin was a government worker, and Bez’s pulse quickened. But the woman was too poor to indulge in beevee communication, as well as being something of an isolationist.

  When she reached the final candidate without getting a hit, she raised her shades to run a hand across her tired eyes. The garden was dim and utterly silent. Checking the time she realised why: everyone had gone to bed. As should she.

  Although she planned to recheck her findings once she had got some rest, she had to acknowledge that she might not be able to trace her agent. Quite aside from the annoyance of a wasted journey, the apparent disappearance of Alpha83 had worrying implications, given the Graceni were so open with most of their information.

  On impulse, Bez made a call, using comshades rather than headware. The response was automated, but it gave her the answer she needed: although the starliner she had arrived on was already gone, there was another due in the day after tomorrow. She would not give up easily, but it was good to know that if she needed to get away, she could.

  DATA NEXUS

  Designation: Target93

  Human alias: Fera Yasmie

  Position: Division Chief for Procurement, Starscape

  Location: Ylonis

  Vulnerabilities: There are rumours of corporate malfeasance In Target93’s background, but not enough evidence to damn her.