Geosynchron

by David Louis Edelman

  That clue came as Jara, Benyamin, and Robby were settling in to their seats on the tube. The Islander walked past them, heading for a more private seat he had chosen at the end of the car. "Anything we should be doing on the way out there?" Jara asked.

  Quell stopped, frowned, turned to Jara. "Just get some sleep," he said. "You'll figure out the situation when you meet my son Josiah. He's your client, not me." And then the Islander was gone.

  Jara and Benyamin spent twenty minutes trying to decipher what this meant as the train zipped out of the Andra Pradesh station heading northeast. They tried to locate a picture of Josiah, but the Data Sea seemed to have been scrubbed of his image, and deliberately so. Infogather returned an unprecedented zero results.

  "You don't think this is a personal consulting job, do you?" said Jara over Confidential Whisper.

  Ben shook his head. "Why would he spend all this money to bail his kid out of some local trouble?"

  "Maybe Josiah's horribly ill. Or maybe he's deformed in some way."

  "Can't see how we could help, if that's the case."

  "Do you think ... ? Merri said that Quell's son was agitating for his release from prison, remember? Do you suppose he went too far and pissed off Len Borda? Or maybe he discovered something about the orbital prison system the Council doesn't want the public to know?"

  "Face it," said Benyamin, burying his head in a pillow tucked between the window and the seat. "You're grasping at straws. We don't have enough information to figure this out. We're just gonna have to wait, like the man said."

  "Don't-"

  "Get some sleep, Jara."

  But the fiefcorp master was too keyed up with questions to drift off, and she didn't think a chemically triggered QuasiSuspension nap would do her much good. Not only was there the mystery of Quell's mission to contend with, but there was the anxiety of adjusting to an entirely different culture. They were actually headed to the Islands. Source of a thousand mysteries, subject of a thousand childhood speculations. The feeling wasn't unlike that disquieting awe Jara had felt the night before initiation. But at least with initiation, there had been a modicum of predictability: OCHREs and bio/logics would not work, period. The Pacific Islanders had made a much more complex accommodation to the age of bio/logics. Some of the conveniences Jara had grown accustomed to would work, and some would not. She just had no idea which ones-and likely would not know until she tried to use them and failed.

  So instead of sleeping, Jara decided to do some research. As the snores of the other fiefcorpers echoed through the car, she spent the next few hours flinging Infogathers onto the Data Sea. The more queries she made, the more she realized how similar the culture in the Islands was to that of connectible civilization. Perhaps the dialogue was a bit more coarse and perhaps the breadth of opinion was not as wide, but it turned out that several hundred million people was plenty large enough to build a rollicking, diverse culture.

  The Islanders did not have libertarians and governmentalists, but they did have insulars and assimilationists. The Islanders did not have creeds, but they did have thousands of active civic groups. The Islanders did not have fiefcorps, but there was a homegrown programming scene that catered to the Technology Control Board's narrow specifications. Jara couldn't quite call it a microcosm of the bio/logic fiefcorp sector, because technically the unconnectible companies were allowed to grow much larger and more established than any fiefcorp ever could. No carbonization economics for the Islanders. Some of the programming companies here had literally thousands of employees and decades of experience, which Jara found rather uncanny. What did all those people do day after day?

  Jara was so preoccupied with her research, she failed to notice that Robby Robby had roused from sleep and was standing at the far end of the car, watching the darkened Chinese countryside through the window with a shockingly gloomy expression.

  She walked over slowly, giving the channeler plenty of time to express a preference for solitude. He didn't. "I'm glad you're with us, Robby," she said. "I have a feeling that we're going to need you out there. I would've invited you sooner, but I figured you'd be too busy to come."

  Robby's smile was as wan as any she had seen on his face. "Well, that woulda been the case two or three months ago."

  "What happened?"

  "Natch." The channeler shifted positions awkwardly as if the very pronunciation of the name caused him discomfort. "I bet big on your old boss, Queen Jara. Real big. Thought the Natchster would have us all sipping wine on the moon before the year was up. Instead I had to let most of my crew loose. Even Frizitz Quo." He took a deep breath. "Things didn't turn out like we expected, huh?"

  The understatement of the century. "No, I suppose not," said Jara.

  "Well, Robby Robby ain't one to hedge his bets. So here I am, still betting on Natch. Not just betting, doubling down! Still hoping that this'll all prove worthwhile in the end. Frankly, between you and me"-he darted a quick glance towards the others to make sure they were still asleep-"I don't have much left to lose."

  The fiefcorp master clapped a comradely hand on the small of Robby's back. "All I can say is that you're not alone."

  Jara finally did collapse into an unsatisfying sleep somewhere around three a.m., still fretting about what lay ahead. She was so preoccupied with the challenges she would encounter when they reached the Islands that it never occurred to her there might be hurdles to jump before they even got there.

  She awoke to a glare of light breaking through the storm clouds of the Pacific Ocean. They were headed east out of Taiwan, skirting the borders of Islander territory as treaty required, so at first Jara thought she might be seeing the rising sun. But as the tube train got closer, she realized this was no natural source of light; it was some TubeCo crossroads platform bleached white with the presence of the Defense and Wellness Council. Council officers, Council hoverbirds, Council banners. Everyone in the car was now wide awake.

  I can't believe this didn't occur to me, the fiefcorp master reproached herself. The Council isn't just going to let people amble back and forth to Manila during a time of war. There was far too much cross-border commerce for them to shut down the tube line altogether, but that didn't mean they couldn't erect checkpoints and make a few choice arrests along the way.

  As the train stopped and Jara watched a line of officers in the white robe and yellow star tromp on board, she suddenly wondered if she might be one of those choice arrests. What they might arrest her for she couldn't imagine, but there was still so much about this game she didn't understand.

  "What do we do?" whispered Jara aloud.

  "It's just a routine inspection," replied Quell in a conversational tone of voice from his end of the car. "They'll just poke their noses through our bags and let us on our way. I've seen this a million times."

  "Yeah," said Benyamin, "but do you usually carry one of those in your bags?" He jerked his thumb at the overhead compartment, where one of the Islander's ebony shock batons was jutting out of his canvas knapsack.

  Quell frowned but said nothing.

  Jara could feel sweat pouring down her face as if someone had turned on a spigot. She was traveling with a man who had recently been released from orbital prison after thrashing the lieutenant executive of the Council to the edge of the Null Current. What if these were Magan Kai Lee's troops marching into the car with dartrifles cocked? And would it be any better if these troops held allegiance to Len Borda instead?

  It soon became clear that this was not just a routine inspection; it was an ambush. Council officers were closing in on them from both adjoining cars of the train. Before Jara knew what was happening, the officers had cut off any hope of escape. Not that escape was likely. Jara glanced out the windows and saw nothing but the platform and the sea stretching across the horizon.

  "I thought this might happen," said Quell in a low voice, barely audible from across the car. He seemed surprisingly matter-of-fact. "Don't worry, it's me they're after. Magan Kai Lee will bail me
out."

  "What do we do?" Jara whispered, repeating her earlier question.

  "Get to Manila. Chandler will meet your train, and he'll take you to Josiah."

  "And then what?"

  She never received an answer. At that moment, an enormous ogre of a Council officer trudged into the tube car, swinging the end of his rifle against his open palm like a nightstick. Jara had to activate a bio/logic program to stop her teeth from chattering. Ben's face had turned almost as white as the officer's uniform, and even Robby Robby looked panic-stricken.

  Quell stared out the window affecting nonchalance. Jara noticed that the shock baton had mysteriously vanished from his bag. The Islander must have grabbed it when Jara had turned to look at the Council officers lining up outside. Was that what he was cradling under his arm? Was Quell preparing for violence?

  Jara took another look at the officers blocking the exits. Grim, impersonal, unyielding. She found herself wishing she still had access to MultiReal, though even then the odds of escape seemed pathetically small.

  Evidently the Islander realized that too. The ogreish officer stopped in front of him and simply pointed to one of the tube car doors. Quell rose slowly, his face completely indifferent, and let the Council officer lead him out the door. The officer grabbed his bag and followed him out. Jara could now see the wisdom of the Islander taking a seat on the opposite side of the car; to all appearances, Jara, Ben, and Robby were nothing more than frightened bystanders.

  Five minutes later, all the officers in white had departed, and the train went back to skimming the ocean's surface at high speed. Of Quell there was no sign. Jara looked in the direction from which they had come and saw the white streaks of Council hoverbirds taking flight.

  Ben lightly punched the padded seat in front of him in frustration. "So ... what do we do?"

  Nobody had an answer. Robby walked down to Quell's end of the car, peered under the chair, and produced the Islander's shock baton. They all stared at it dolefully for a moment. Then Robby delicately replaced the baton where he had found it and returned to his seat.

  16

  Twenty minutes outside Manila, they plunged through the unconnectible curtain.

  Jara still had her crash course on Islander lore fresh in her mind, so she could easily recall how Toradicus had forced passage of the Islander Tolerance Act of 146, which essentially cost him the high executive's seat. It also gave the fledgling society in Manila a framework for opting out of modern technology that all connectible companies and government entities were legally bound to obey-the centerpiece of which was the Dogmatic Opposition, a formal declaration of Luddism revolving around a particular technological advance....

  But none of that dry research could convey the sensation of bio/logic programs abruptly stuttering to a halt and multi network transmissions suddenly cutting off. One second Jara was seeing the world dressed in all its bio/logically enhanced finery; the next second she was seeing the world stripped bare of virtual frills.

  From here on out, the fiefcorp master told herself, everyone I see in front of me will actually, physically be in front of me, in the flesh. How odd. She pictured Quell ripping off his connectible collar and making some irascible comment about smoke and mirrors.

  Benyamin took the passage into unconnectible territory without incident, but Robby Robby had been listening to a peppy xpression board composition on the Jamm when the music stopped. "We can get this back, right?" he pouted to Ben. "The Jamm's not gone for good, right?" It was only the third time Jara had ever seen the channeler lose his cool, and the frequency of these episodes was starting to get alarming in and of itself.

  "Music's still coming through the Data Sea," replied Ben without raising his head from his pillow. "It's just not on a frequency that you can feed straight into the neural cortex."

  "So how do I get it?" asked the channeler, momentarily vexed.

  "You can reroute. There's a bio/logic program that'll transpose the signal so you can play it on the OCHREs in the aural canal. Here, let me show you ..." Within seconds, Ben had fixed Robby's Jamm feed to broadcast over actual sound waves instead of brain waves. Robby Robby was soon back on an even keel.

  But the channeler didn't have long to savor his restored virtual music box before the city of Manila came into view.

  Jara watched the approaching skyline in awe. Manila, capital of the Free Republic of the Pacific Islands. The last photographs she had seen of the place must not have been of recent vintage, because this metropolis hardly resembled the picture in her head at all.

  It was an immensely tall city, perhaps taller than any Jara had seen in connectible territories. Whereas the collapsible buildings that filled modern cities tended to produce a low, curved, organic blend of architecture, the Islanders' ethos of plain practicality had resulted in a jagged, almost crystalline style. The city had already expanded eastwards from its historical base until it hit the coastline. Without movable structures and without large swaths of open real estate, there was no direction for the Manilans to build but up, like the ancients had done. The ancients did not have Reawakening-era building materials like flexible glass, stretched stone, and permasteel, so their cities had largely been straitjacketed in two-dimensional grids. Not so Manila. Here the buildings had not only expanded upwards, but side-to-side as well. Connecting corridors floated dozens or even hundreds of meters off the ground, some cantilevered into space as if flaunting their disdain for the law of gravity. Jara spotted one building that actually snaked around two of its neighbors in ever-tightening coils. She saw another shaped like a giant T with immense arms that rested atop four neighboring towers.

  There was plenty of time for the fiefcorpers to examine these structures in detail, since the tube train had slowed to a creep as it passed through the streets. Of course, Jara realized, people without bio/logic safeguards would have no warning systems to keep them from sauntering into the path of an oncoming train. They could literally climb onto the tracks without sounding any kind of OCHRE alarm. Jara looked at the faces of the pedestrians loitering right out the window of her tube car. How could these people live only footsteps away from death at all times without constantly shuddering at its presence?

  The train came to a smooth stop at a station labeled DOWNTOWN CROSSING/CITY CENTER. As the fiefcorpers grabbed their packs and slung them over their shoulders, Jara tried not to think what would happen if this Chandler did not show up to meet their tube. How would they go about finding a single individual in a foreign civilization of three hundred million? And even if he did show up, how would they recognize him?

  But no sooner had the fiefcorpers disembarked from the tube when a lean man with crazily kinked hair came running up to them, looking surprisingly spry for a man in his midseventies. He wore an olive green uniform that suggested some kind of government or military affiliation.

  "Guess we stand out here, huh?" said Jara.

  The man gave a curious look at Robby's blue vinyl trenchcoat. "Like ants in a bowl of sugar," he said. He held out his hand in peculiar Islander fashion. "Name's Bali Chandler."

  "I'm Jara, master of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp," replied Jara, grasping Chandler's hand for an awkward shake. "This is my apprentice Benyamin and our channeling partner Robby Robby. Our channel manager Merri is en route from Luna as we speak."

  "So where's the big man?" said the Islander. He peered over their heads as if expecting the approach of a giant.

  Chandler's face darkened considerably as Jara recounted the Defense and Wellness Council's incursion into their train just outside the unconnectible curtain. He listened carefully and scratched at the stubble on his face but said nothing.

  "We're kind of in an awkward position," said Jara. "Quell wouldn't even tell us why he wanted us here. He kept us totally in the dark. So ... aside from tracking down his son Josiah, we're sort of at loose ends."

  "That was smart," mused the Islander. "Always was a wily bastard, but looks like Borda was on to him anyway."
He thrust his hands into his pockets and stared back down the tube track in the direction they had come. Jara half expected to see Quell jogging down the track herself.

  "You think he'll be okay?" said Benyamin.

  Chandler let out a relaxed laugh. "You've met Quell, right? I'm still trying to figure out how he escaped from the Council the last time. Though I guess if he's relying on Magan Kai Lee to spring him ..." The man rubbed his chin silently for a few seconds, then sighed and shrugged at the same time. "Suppose we'd better get to Josiah already."

  Jara cleared his throat. She wasn't sure if this man's easy manner should make her feel more or less reassured about their situation. "Do you think you could ... clue us in on what's going on?" she said.

  Chandler shook his head. "Nope," he said good-naturedly. "Not until Josiah says so. Come on." And then they were off.

  Jara had no idea where the Islander was leading them, but she figured they had no recourse but to follow. By the looks of things, Benyamin and Robby had resigned themselves to staying quiet and following Jara's lead until further notice. Soon all three of them were absorbed in the sights and sounds of the Pacific Islands.

  Chandler did his best to put the fiefcorpers at ease. Though he had only actually left the Pacific Islands twice, he knew much more about connectible culture than Jara knew about the Islanders. He had seen several Juan Nguyen dramas, he regularly tuned in to some of the more eclectic channels on the Jamm, and he followed dozens of connectible drudges on a daily basis, including Sen Sivv Sor, John Ridglee, and Mah Lo Vertiginous.

  Robby Robby looked like he had found a friend, especially when he discovered that one of Chandler's foreign journeys had been to attend Yarn Trip's reunion concert in Vladivostok. "Are all Islanders as hip as you?" he asked with a smile.

  "Only the ones who run border districts," replied Chandler with pride, pointing to a patch on his uniform that Jara assumed to be a badge of office.