Debatable Space

by Philip Palmer

  The room erupts in a rage of crashing tankards and cries of anger and bitter curses. Hera waits patiently. And continues her tale.

  “My third sister was Shiva, named after the Indian goddess. She was a happy and a very beautiful child. But she was, still, only a child, younger than her years really. Shiva was sixteen when Clara was harvested. She had only two years to wait before her own Special Day. But she became melancholy, and listless. It was up to me and my other sister, Persephone, to manage the family. We did the shopping and cooking and cleaning, we hosted all our family parties in the harem. We treated Shiva like a princess, she wanted for nothing. Every night we told her stories of magical faraway places and handsome princes and princesses who lived happily ever after. I was eleven by this time, Persephone was thirteen. But we were women. We began every day with a smile on our lips, we sang, we made our house a beautiful and treasured place. And Shiva, for much of the time, was happy. But then she went to harvest.”

  I can see tears rolling down Hera’s face. She has to stop, because the teardrops are splashing on the table in front of her. Grendel walks over and gently wipes her face dry. Then he embraces her – this huge hairy giant of a man, gently caressing the small, fragile, frightened young woman.

  Hera takes a large draught of wine. She speaks, but her voice is cracked and she takes a few moments to collect herself. But then she resumes her tale, and she has her voice and her rhythm back.

  “After Shiva went to harvest, Persephone and I decided to apply our minds to an understanding of the world. There was a library in the harem, kept under lock and key, but we found a way to escape from our rooms each night and we spent many hours in the library reading the printouts and computer files and even books. We learned about physics and astronomy and history and culture and fashion. We read books about love and romance. I found an author who, even now, I still adore. Her name is Jane Austen. She wrote books about men and women in love.” Hera laughs a hollow laugh. “It was my pornography, my glimpse of the forbidden.

  “Then Persephone went to harvest. I had two years of living alone. The other girls were wonderful with me. But I refused to be adopted into another family. I kept my own home, I hosted parties, I cooked glorious six-course meals which I ate alone. I thought a lot about Darcy, and whether he had brown hair, or fair.

  “Then it was my eighteenth birthday and I was taken to the harvest.

  “You must remember that at this point I had never been out on to the surface of my own planet. We lived in the harem, a massive complex of beautiful buildings with light conducted down funnels from the sky but with no views, anywhere, of anything. So my first voyage on a jet was a terrifying experience. I had to walk across an airfield with this vast yellow fire burning in the sky and actual animals skeetering and running on the ground. I saw men, too, human men, with lazy seductive eyes who looked me up and down as if I were a goddess. I know, now, that life on Hecuba for the men is a strange and barren existence. They work in fields and factories, they sing as they work, they paint paintings and write poems about their love for women. But, of course, they are homosexual by necessity. It isn’t such a bad life, for men. They can live until eighty or ninety or even beyond. They have a culture and community, and they feel the heat of the sun. But to my mind, it is no life for men to live without women. We are the lock and the key, the Yin and the Yang. We are the breath and the breather. Men, and women. We are one species.”

  The words reverberate. The tale continues. Each word is unfurled for us, like a flower opening in the morning light. Hera has the gift of capturing our hearts with her every gesture; we feel her anxiety as she walks across the airfield. We feel her terror as the jet lifts up into the air and flies. We feel her rising trepidation as she is ushered into the palace.

  “I was bathed and clothed by manservants. They took obvious joy in the sight of my naked body. That night I was stripped and perfumed and massaged and oiled and then laid down to sleep. In the morning, the process began again; the massage, the perfumes, the oils. My skin became a repository of rich scents; my body tingled with sexual and sensual awakening.

  “I didn’t, entirely, know what to expect. I think I would have been accepting if I had been disembowelled or beheaded or tortured on some rack. Instead, I was wined and dined in the company of a hundred beautiful eighteen-year girls. Our hosts were giants, huge men and women of incomparable beauty and formidable strength. We girls were asked to dance and sing, which we did. Then the first girl was called before the Sultan and he took his clothes off and he pleasured himself on her naked body.”

  She paused. Then “We Hecubans were, as you may all know, bred for our durable hymens. And the masters of our planets – the Doppelganger Robots who ruled us – were bigger than human size in all respects. So after her rape, the girl inevitably bled to death. And that, I realised, was in fact our fate.

  “I shall speak no more of what happened on that evil, terrible night.”

  We nod, soberly, imagining, choking back our horror.

  “But I survived. I woke at the bottom of a mountain of the dead deflowered. I crawled my way out. I escaped into the hills. And, one day, I was able to steal a jet and fly up into the stars. My reading in the library had equipped me with a basic notion of astronomy. And the jet was, paranoidly, equipped to cope with years of deep-space travel. So I flew into the stars and was found some eighteen months later, more dead than alive, by a pirate vessel. And here I am today.”

  Hera lifts her glass. “I propose a toast.” We raise our glasses.

  “To Naomi. To Clara. To Shiva. To Persephone. And to all the other girls of Hecuba. To my sisters.”

  The throng echo her toast in a full-throated shout: “To your sisters!”

  I look at Lena. She is pale and trembling.

  “How,” she whispers to me. “How did we let it come to this?”

  Flanagan

  Another tale is told. The Illyrians dance for us. The Meccans enact a puppet play of inordinate skill and beauty. A gang of Lopers enact a hunting scene.

  Lena bangs her tankard. All eyes turn. She stands. “This is my story,” she tells them.

  Lena

  “I have a son, and I cannot love him.”

  The words ripple through the hall.

  Lena continues: “And you may ask: So what? Compared to what others have been through? I know of your suffering. I have friends who have spent their lives in a prison cell, too low for them to stand up, on preposterous trumped-up charges. Refused access to lawyers and the rule of justice. For what? For nothing. They have lost their lives not as punishment, not as deterrent, and not because they were guilty, but because the system sometimes chews people up and does not spit them out.

  “I know all this and yet… I cannot love my son and it corrodes my heart.

  “I didn’t love his father either. And my son Peter was a frozen embryo for nearly a century, as I went about living my life. When he was born my situation was difficult. When he was a toddler I became very ill. I spent months in hospital, and convalesced for nearly four years. My son was effectively raised by strangers, but when he became my son again I tried to love him. I tried so hard. When he was eleven we danced together in Saint Mark’s Square in Venice, Earth, to the music of the band in Florian’s Cafe. He was sandy-haired. Freckled, like me. Very intense, very serious. But he was a cruel child. He once skinned a cat. Later, he became a drunk. An alcoholic in fact. He abused drugs. As an adult, he had a juvenile sense of humour, he loved to taunt his friends and humiliate them. He wasn’t like me, so much, after all. But by then I was busy again. I had entered the world of politics. I was responsible for great changes in society.

  “I created Heimdall.”

  Another ripple; this time of astonishment.

  “I was a politician, and a pioneer of the space colonisation movement. My son was on one of the second wave of spaceships that went out to settle space, he eventually landed on Meconium. A bleak, desperate planet which was never adequately te
rraformed. When they landed, my son was still a relatively young man. And ambitious, too. He murdered the elected President and took power himself. By this time I was a powerful woman, I was the first President of Humanity, I went by the name of Xabar.”

  The ripple is a hush. It is an invisible sword, poised in the air.

  “I am blamed for many things, but we had dreams in those days. My first planet was called Hope. I yearned to make it an earthly paradise. I almost succeeded. But then I was impeached, for an act of, let’s face it, cold-blooded murder. I was brain-fried, following procedures set in place and devised by myself. I became a reformed character, but also a broken woman. My son went from strength to strength.

  “I know I have done bad things, but… but…” Lena wipes the tears from her eyes.

  Then she continues: “What kind of Universe have we created when a mother can be apart from her child for entire centuries?

  “I travelled into space. My son by this time had expanded his empire. And finally, accompanied by a large and ruthless army and navy, he decided to come home. He spent many many years at near-light speed. We met in space, as he journeyed to Earth to invade it. I barely recognised him. We spent some time together, he was very charming. But I found him cold, arrogant, dictatorial, and contemptuous of women. I realised: I had failed to raise him well.

  “Perhaps he would always have been a monster. Or perhaps it is all my fault.

  “Ask yourselves this: Is it all my fault? I know what you have suffered. Do you blame me?

  “Look at my history, my life. What I have tried to achieve. Judge me by that. Don’t judge me for being a bad mother.

  “But, I fear, you will.

  “My companions already know the truth; my son is the Cheo. He now lives on Earth, we haven’t met for centuries. But we regularly communicate. He tells me of his various schemes. I don’t ask for it, but I am kept extremely well informed.

  “I know more than any of you what this Universe is like.

  “Hera, I have heard your story. You are my sister. I am your sister. Please, do not judge me for what I have done. Judge me for what I will do. Judge me with the eyes of posterity.” Ugly phrase.

  Shut up, I have them in the palm of my hand.

  “When I held my newborn baby in my arms, I thought that nothing could ever stop me loving him. I was wrong.”

  I sit.

  The silence is awkward.

  Flanagan stands up. In a calm, conversational tone, he says to the assembled crowd of cut-hroats, “Who’s for war, then?”

  The roar of approval almost knocks him off his feet.

  Book 8

  Lena

  “How was it? My speech?”

  “Fabulous.”

  “You’re not just saying that?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I felt it played rather well.”

  “It was majestic.”

  “Captain Flanagan…”

  “You don’t need to say anything nice to me, Lena.”

  “I may have underestimated you.”

  He pauses, a twinkle in his eyes. “And I, you,” he says, gallantly.

  “This is a bold thing you have embarked upon.”

  “It is the grandest endeavour in all human history.”

  “I admire you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Will you…”

  “What?”

  “Hold my hand.”

  “Of course.”

  He does.

  “And stroke my cheek.”

  “If you wish.”

  He does.

  “And kiss me.”

  “Hey now.”

  The Captain looks alarmed. He is a cartoon figure with big bushy grey beard and wild eyes, and he dresses like a blind man. But I have become fond of him. I run my fingers through his hair. I press my lips to his.

  After a few minutes I release my kiss.

  “Is that good?” I ask him.

  “Sublime.”

  “You’re not just saying that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Do you love me, Captain?”

  “Kiss me again, if you like.”

  I do. I run my fingers over his crotch. I feel his manhood stir. I do have power over him. I do. Honestly!

  I do!

  Flanagan

  We are on our way.

  Lena’s speech was weird. It was passionately and movingly delivered, but in many ways ill judged for its audience. It had the air of a plea for pity by a woman riddled with guilt. Which is, I guess what she is, and what it was.

  I had, to be honest, expected better from her. But who cares? She has her allotted role to play, whether she knows it or not.

  However, since then, we appear to have some kind of sexual “thing” going. Jamie and Brandon taunt me about it. But I’ll do whatever I need to do. Even… that. It’s a relatively small price to pay.

  After Lena’s speech, I rose and spoke myself. I told the assembled pirates in the most vivid and extravagant terms about our reconquest of Cambria. I stirred the hearts of those formidable pirates. I inspired them with a vision.

  War.

  Not victory, not justice, not revenge. War itself and for its own sake was what these men and women yearned for. Hope had died in their hearts long ago. They had no need of worldly comforts – they’d stolen all they would ever need. And they were in no imminent danger either. The days of constant pursuit and persecution of pirate crews were long gone.

  Because the truth was, the Corporation had so much wealth, it didn’t care what we stole from its vessels and cities.

  For what is wealth? Any fabric, from cashmere to silk to spiderweave, can be manufactured in an orbital factory. The designs of the great designers can be transmitted around the Universe via the Beacons in less time than it takes to think a thought. Furniture and jewellery can be easily created, gold spun to order, flying cars made in a matter of minutes. Vast orbiting factories crewed by human slaves and self-manufacturing robots can create anything, easily, whether it involves the transmutation of metals, or the precise manufacture of leisure electronics, or the most skilful knitting and weaving.

  All it takes to fuel this self-perpetuating infinitude of wealth is energy. And that, too, is available in near-limitless quantities. Over more than a thousand years (Earth Elapsed Time) the human race has spread itself over a small part of one small galaxy; but within this area the power available within the stars is beyond measure. For each and every star is lit and fired by a complex series of nuclear reactions which generates more energy than the human race has ever used and will ever need.

  Once you have superdense power capsules which can be hurled into the sun’s core for recharging, or arrays of solar panels orbiting the star like satellites, you have access to as much power as you can desire. And then you create robot computers which can build their own replacements. And then – you have plenitude. Ecological pollution is scarcely an issue; most inhabited planets are terraformed in any case. The population explosion never registers; space is big enough for everyone, and besides, lots of slave-class humans die doing dangerous jobs. The Sol system itself is carefully controlled so that only an elite few become citizens; the rest are dispatched on colony ships. Or exterminated.

  It’s a perfect, self-regulating system. Space, it seems, really is big enough.

  When I was a young pirate, I realised nothing of this. I thought that by pillaging merchant ships I was striking a small but significant blow against the prevailing autocracy. I squandered wealth, I burned cargoes, in the hope of giving the Cheo sleepless nights.

  It was all nonsense. We pirates are the butterflies on an elephant’s arse. We are no threat to anyone.

  But we are, let’s face it, a formidable army.

  Twenty thousand pirate ships have gathered, crewed by nearly a million warriors. Some are mercenary soldiers, some are sneak thieves and con artists, making a living by cheating and defrauding the system. Many are Space Factory workers who ha
ve fled the grind and horror of their daily lives. Some are murderers who have been repeatedly brain-fried but have still not lost the urge to slaughter and maim. Some are merely criminals; outlaws who have cheated or stolen from their own human kind. They are a brutal ugly gang but we need every man and woman jack of them.

  We are headed for Kornbluth, which is eighteen light years from our sanctuary in Debatable Space, and will take us twenty subjective years to reach. We have chosen not to attack Illyria, our nearest neighbour in space. The plan is that, if any ships survive, we will lash Illyria in the course of our headlong retreat back to Debatable Space. Assuming, that is, that any of us live that long.

  The joy of interstellar warfare is that it is relatively easy to sneak up on people. Our flotilla of warships is a cloud that fills the sky viewed from a perspective of two or three hundred miles. But in the wider scheme of things, we are a blip, a mosquito in a vast expanse of black sky.

  Our mosquito accelerates at near-light speed. Behind us we tow an asteroid and a Space Factory. Like a horde of Mongol warriors, we steadily advance towards an apocalypse.

  It will, however, be a long journey. For many it will be their entire life, from birth to death. And I am sobered at the scale of the challenge we face. Because when we are spotted, in seventeen or eighteen years (our subjective time) the Corporation will immediately commence its defence plans. All available warships will be marshalled.

  But, even more alarmingly, new ships and soldiers will be grown. The space factories around Kornbluth will be diverted into the manufacture of warships and Doppelganger Robots. Raw materials ripped out of planets and asteroids and dark matter itself will be funnelled into vast smelting vats. Metals will be sifted or transmuted; if necessary, hydrogen will be turned into helium which will be turned into carbon which in turn will become diamond-hard iron. But metals are only needed for the internal structures of spaceships. The hulls themselves are grown out of organic polymers of greater-than-spider-web tensile strength. Production lines will churn out Doppelganger body parts with all the sensitivity of human skin but with the durability of an armour-plated missile.