TWO///FIRE AND FROST
The archipelago — the collection of two hundred islands inhabited by perhaps a hundred thousand citizens — straddled one of the many fault lines which circumnavigated the planet. Situated between the infernal pressures of Brightside and the contracting frigidity of Darkside, the islands suffered regular earthquakes. On an average of once a year, the quake-warning siren wailed its ugly double note and we prepared ourselves for the imminent upheaval. In the course of the colony's twenty-five years, no fewer than five new islands had emerged from the depths, and three had tumbled back into the ocean. Meridian was not the safest planet in the Expansion, but perhaps this was what attracted the community of artists to the archipelago, the desire to live a precarious existence balanced between sublime beauty and the constant threat of annihilation.
Tamara and Maximilian Trevellion had been even more daring than most: they had purchased one of the more recent additions to the island chain. According to Abe, the island had been nothing more than a lifeless nub of rock twenty years ago when Trevellion and her husband arrived on Meridian and saw, with the imagination and foresight of the artists they were, the potential of the barren rock. They had landscaped the island with a riot of local vegetation and supervised the construction of a luxurious living-dome on its highest point.
It was nine when we arrived. Abe steered his flier into a marina packed with the expensive yachts and power-boats of the rich and famous. I began to feel uneasy at the thought of socialising with the Altered and Augmented artists. They were renowned for their snobbery, their elitist disdain of those who were neither Altered or Augmented. I wished that I had made some excuse after all and remained at home.
One of a dozen uniformed attendants, supervising the mooring of the vessels, made the flier fast and we stepped onto the quayside.
The day was still light. The sun burned just above the horizon with the same unremitting ferocity as it had at midday. Trevellion's dome, high on the hilltop, was illuminated with interior neons in preparation for the swift fall of night, due in one hour with the arrival of the orbital shield. It could be seen on the horizon to the north, a dark, edge-on meniscus moving slowly towards the archipelago.
Other guests alighted from their boats and strolled along the marble quayside, men and women from all three social castes, dressed as if for some prestigious award ceremony. I noticed the number of guards stationed around the marina and standing sentry along the zig-zag path which led up to the dome. They wore black uniforms and carried laser rifles, and their presence at what was supposed to be an artistic event struck me as bizarre. I recalled the story that soon after her husband's death, a year ago, Tamara Trevellion had hired her own private army to police the island and protect the many works of art on open show.
A tall maître d', in a scarlet uniform with chunky epaulettes, took Abe's invitation card, scanned us and indicated the escalator.
As we took our place on the moving stairway, Abe glanced across at me. He must have sensed my apprehension. "Hey, Bob. Don't worry. We have business here, after all. I couldn't get through to Steiner this afternoon, so I left a message. I did get through to Inspector Foulds, though. He said he'd talk to us tonight."
We arrived at the entrance to the dome. A doorman ushered us through the foyer and across a luxuriously furnished lounge, to a cupola'd exit which gave onto a vast, landscaped lawn thronged with guests. As we stepped outside, our names and professions — I was introduced as an ex-starship pilot — issued from a concealed speaker. Heads turned briefly, but the hubbub of conversation continued without pause.
The lawn was furnished with numerous works of art, striking laser sculptures and statues in bronze and platinum — the work of the late Maximilian Trevellion. Behind us, other guests were announced and made their entries — some evidently big names, if the lull in conversation was any indication. At one point a polite patter of applause greeted the arrival of an Augmented artist, who took a bow in acknowledgment. The guests were deployed across the lawn in groups according to their castes — at this early stage the consumption of alcohol or drugs had yet to dismantle the social barriers. Many cliques were gathered around burners on pedestals, inhaling the euphor-fumes. A live band pulsed out a selection of electro-classics from across the Expansion. In the saddle-shaped greensward adjacent to the lawn, I made out two large oval screens floating in the air; technicians on grav-sleds hovered beside them, hurriedly applying the finishing touches. I assumed that the illuminated meadow was the venue for tonight's event.
We stood at the edge of the lawn, and I stared with wonder at the gathering. This was the first time I had been among so many Altered and Augmenteds, and I felt an extreme reluctance to mix. On Main Island, the only sizable town on the archipelago, the majority of citizens on the streets were normals — or primitives, as we were known. The A's were too busy creating their masterpieces to be seen during the day, and anyway they had servants to do their errands. They came out at night, to be seen at the most expensive restaurants and exclusive parties.
The Augmenteds were relatively unspectacular. They were essentially primitives, wired with the latest cerebro-assist mechanisms, occipital auxiliaries and forearm key-pads. The technology had reached such a level of sophistication that many assists could have been miniaturised and worn unobtrusively — but that would have defeated the purpose of being seen as Augmented. The art these people produced had more in common with quantum physics and higher mathematics than any recognisable form of art a mere normal like myself might appreciate.
The Altereds, on the other hand, were radically different. Many had had themselves transformed totally, with only tell-tale, vestigial characteristics to indicate their original humanity — altered so that they exhibited the outward appearance of beasts both extinct and extant, Terran and alien. One woman had gone the whole hog, so to speak, and taken on the soma-form of an overweight sow, with only her beautiful face remaining, incongruously pert on so solid a neck. I heard her discussing three-dimensional cubism with an orang-utang-man. I saw many other guests so changed and, to my eyes, ugly, that I could only assume they had adopted extra-terrestrial forms.
There were a few normals to be seen here and there: one group stood around a euphor-burner, laughing among themselves. I saw a few Telemass techs, in the light blue uniform of the Organisation, and a number of business people from Main Island.
As Abe and I moved to the edge of the lawn and admired the view of a beach far below, with the ocean and the other islands beyond, one normal from a nearby group disengaged himself and walked over to us. He was laughing off the effects of the fumes.
"Abraham, Bob — good to see you both."
Douglas Foulds was a square, powerful man in his early fifties. He was from the colony planet of Baxter's Landfall, a world with a greater gravity than either Earth or Meridian, and in comparison to the other guests he seemed ridiculously squat and compacted. Doug was Meridian's Chief Inspector of police: with a couple of dozen men under him to do the leg-work, he was largely desk-bound. Not that this ever prevented him from attending all the big parties and social functions on the archipelago.
"Hell, Abe — why don't you two mix a little? Here, I'll introduce you to a few friends of mine."
Doug had called in on me soon after my arrival on Meridian, and during the course of the next few months we had become friends. We found we had the sport of power-gliding in common, and we had spent many a weekend exploring the meridian. A combination of his work, and my increased drug dependency, had meant that over the past six months I had hardly seen him. On the odd occasion that he had called me, suggesting that we hit the skies sometime, I had put him off with lame excuses.
Now he stood between us, hardly reaching our shoulders, gripped our elbows and escorted us across the lawn like a jailer.
A horde of Altereds stood around a euphor-pedestal by the entrance of the dome, high on a combination of the fumes and champagne. The air was thick with good-natured banter and the frequent explosion of laughter.
"Dougy!" someone — or rather something — roared, as we invaded the territory of the herd. "Do introduce us to your friends!" This sounded all the more threatening because the speaker had the magnificent head of a lion.
"Abe, Bob," Doug said, "meet the Tamara Trevellion fan club. Boys and girls, Abe and Bob." He indicated the lion-man. "Leo Realisto. Leo's perhaps the finest performance artist on the planet."
The Altered demurred, fingers to his pink cravat. I counted a dozen different animal types in the group, but these differed from the other Altereds I had seen tonight in that they had retained their upright postures — only their heads, and in some cases torsos, having undergone the transformation. Leo Realisto wore a white three-piece suit, and this sophistication of attire served to make incongruous and even startling his majestic, leonine head and golden mane.
We circulated. Doug introduced us to all types of Altered; from the domestic and mundane dog and cat, to the more exotic armadillo, mandrill and zebra. From the neck down, all were immaculately outfitted in the latest designer fashions, and I could almost convince myself that they were sporting ingenious headpieces, but for the verisimilitude of their slavering chops and facial mucous membranes.
"These people are admirers of Tamara Trevellion," Doug told us. "She was the first person to go in for full body transformation, and their partial alterations are in homage. After all, it would be passé to go all the way... Ah, Trixi!"
He stood on tip-toe and waved to a petite girl almost as short as himself. She waved frantically in return, rushed over and hugged him. She had the head of what I assumed was a bush-baby — large, dark eyes, a small pink snout and facial fur marked with chevrons of white. The rest of her body was that of an athletic eighteen year-old, and the total effect of the combination was, I thought, rather grotesque.
"A pilot!" she shrilled, when Doug introduced us. She clapped a hand over her huge eyes. "But, oh! Too technical!" She gave a shiver of delicious terror. "May I?"
Before I could stop her, she reached out and ran her fingers through the hair at the back of my head, her wet nose a matter of centimetres from my face. She located my occipital console. "Too much!" she squealed. "But, oh, how can you? All those little machiney bits in your head!"
"It's sealed," I said, and chastised myself for sounding so defensive.
"But still!" the bush-baby cried.
I think Doug sensed my unease. He grabbed a floating tray of drinks and offered them around. "Anyway, what brings you here tonight, Bob? Heard about Trevellion's event?"
"I was doing nothing better." I shrugged. "What is the event?"
"You don't know? Think about it. What's today?" Doug and Trixi stood with their arms about each other, smiling up at us.
I exchanged a mystified glance with Abe.
Doug laughed. "Tell them, Trixi."
The bush-baby, rocking her head from side to side with each word like a metronome, carolled, "It's exactly a year to the day since Tamara Trevellion lost her husband in the Telemass accident!"
"Those in the know are expecting something big to commemorate the tragedy," Doug said. "It should be quite a show."
Abe looked around. "Has Trevellion shown herself yet?"
Doug chuckled, his startlingly blue eyes wide under a full head of grey curls. He was high from the euphor-fumes which swirled around our heads. I was beginning to feel a little woozy myself — or perhaps it was the company. "She's probably rehearsing her triumphal entry. I presume you've heard the latest?"
"Some of us do have full-time occupations," Abe chided.
"Grossly unfair!" Doug said. "The gathering of intelligence is all in the line of duty, after all.
"So what's the latest?" Abe prompted.
Doug winked. "I've heard that Trevellion's taken Wolfe Steiner as her lover."
Trixi covered her mouth. "Coo, weird!" she giggled.
"Well, it is a year since she lost her husband," I began in Trevellion's defence.
"Oh, don't get me wrong — I have nothing against her seeing anyone," Doug said. "But Wolfe Steiner?"
Trixi wrinkled her nose. "Wolfe!" she cried. "Yech, the Ice-man!"
Abe frowned. "I don't understand your objection. I know he's Augmented, but..." It was a rare event for Altereds to consort with Augmenteds, and vice versa, but not unknown.
Doug was shaking his head. "Hear me out, Abe. Don't you think it a little odd, Trevellion's having an affair with the Director of the Telemass station, just a year after the accident?"
Abe shrugged. "I don't really see..."
"You don't know Trevellion," Doug said. "She's a cold fish — pun intentional. She was distraught last year, grief-stricken. She swore she'd never get over the loss of Max. If you recall, she even threatened to sue Steiner for negligence."
"But the enquiry cleared him," I began.
"That's beside the point. Whatever his involvement, Trevellion held him responsible. That makes their liaison now all the more suspicious."
I considered telling Doug that the lack of opportunity to play the real detective on Meridian was forcing him to imagine intrigue where none existed.
"Perhaps," Abe suggested, "Trevellion has seen the error of her ways, found Steiner to be a thoroughly decent guy, and fallen in love with him."
"Don't give me any of that romantic bullshit, Abe! I've been around long enough to know when something smells... fishy," and he chuckled again at his pun. Trixi joined in.
Abe took the opportunity to change the subject. "Talking about Steiner," he said, "I couldn't contact him today about what happened on Brightside. Is he likely to be here tonight?"
"He'll no doubt be dancing attendance to Trevellion," Doug said. He kissed Trixi on her pink snout and patted her bottom. "Run along, now. There's a good girl." He turned to us. "About those remains..." he said when Trixi had scampered away. He seemed reluctant to discuss work when there was a party to enjoy.
In the event he was saved the effort.
We were interrupted by the arrival of the nighttime phase. The leading edge of the oval shield swooped over the island, bringing with it the brief twilight which presaged eight hours of total darkness. Towards the sunward horizon, the shield was drawing slowly across the burning orb like a great shutter. With the advent of the penumbra, the Brightside aurora burned all the more magnificently, creating spectacular reflections on the surface of the sea. There was a spontaneous burst of applause from the guests on the lawn. Trevellion's dome glowed in the gathering darkness, and from nowhere a spotlight flashed on, picking out the arched exit and the steps leading down to the garden.
"What did I tell you?" Doug murmured in satisfaction.
The music grew muted. A hush descended over the gathering, and the Altereds beside us gazed up in adoration. Tamara Trevellion made her entry.
I stared, too, but the emotion I experienced was more revulsion than reverence. I thought at first that she was wearing a sheer, black evening gown. But then I saw, as she paused in the spotlight at the top of the stairs a matter of metres from us, that I was mistaken. Tamara Trevellion was entirely naked. The gown was in fact a membranous series of frills and fins which flowed and eddied around her body like the finest filigree. Her breasts had been removed, her vagina concealed behind a flap of scales. But it was her face that I found more shocking. Thin lips hyphenated mailed cheeks, and her eyes were huge, grey and depthless. A high, spined crest began at her brow and carried on over her narrow skull to the nape of her neck. Gills, sealed now, were angry red incisions at her throat. The entire effect — far from being aesthetically pleasing, as I guessed had been her intention — was monstrous. I recalled the beautiful mer-woman I had seen on my vid-screen a year ago, and could not decide if my senses had been at fault, or if Trevellion had had herself further Altered.
"The Black Widow fish of the Darkside deeps," Abe whispered to me, staring at her. "Its pigment blackens for camouflage when the male of the species has fertilised it and died."
I stared up at the tall, regal figure. I had to admit that I found her imposing, perhaps because of the way she stood, immobile and silent, regarding her guests as if we were her subjects.
Only then did I notice the two people standing in her wake. One was a small, thin girl, who I took to be her maid or companion. I was immediately taken by her: she was dressed rather plainly, as if she had had the yellow smock selected for her, rather than having chosen it herself — but this served only to highlight her natural prettiness. She was the first woman I had seen that evening who seemed wholly natural and human. I wondered if Trevellion had had a say in the girl's attire, so as not to be upstaged by her maid.
The second figure was a fat, bald-headed man who I recognised from news broadcasts as Trevellion's surgeon, responsible for her alteration. He hovered close behind the fish-woman like some kind of piscean parasite, as if expecting his skills to be called upon at any second.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Trevellion began in a clear, cold soprano, lights flashing off her iridescent scales. "I am, of course, honoured by your presence. Today is somewhat special for me, as you well know. It came to me that the occasion could not go without some form of event to mark it, a creation of surpassing merit. To this end, for the past month, I have endeavoured to create a montage with commentary for your appreciation. The piece is entitled "Memoriam" and will be screened, as ever, above the greensward in a little over thirty minutes. I sincerely hope you enjoy." A round of applause greeted the words, and I found myself joining in. Trevellion raised her hands in an imperious gesture, demanding silence. "Perhaps at this point, I might take the opportunity to mention that I have arranged a special live event to be performed next week..." At this, a murmur of appreciation spread through the audience. "I have been planning this event for some months now, and modestly believe it to be my finest creation. As yet untitled, it will symbolise Earth's relationship with Meridian. You are all invited." Trevellion inclined her head. "Thank you." More applause, and accepting it like royalty she stepped from the spotlight and circulated, the girl and the surgeon in close attendance.
"Well," Doug commented, "that should be worth the wait. Trevellion's live events are quite something." He broke off and gestured to someone among a group of Augmenteds.
Across the lawn Wolfe Steiner was engaged in conversation with a short, bearded man. When he saw Doug he excused himself with a civil bow and joined us. He towered over Doug, the effect of the two men side by side almost comical. The Director of the Telemass Organisation was attired in a severe black uniform; his silver hair, cropped short, emphasized his military bearing.
"Inspector Foulds," he inclined his Augmented head towards the officer, then to Abe and myself.
"Wolfe," Doug said jovially, and the use of his first name was like a challenge, "enjoying the party?" I was suddenly aware of a charge of ill-feeling between the Director and the Inspector.
Unsmiling, the Director tipped his head to one side in a non-committal gesture. "As parties go, it is above the average."
"We don't usually see you at these events," Doug went on.
"I have been especially busy of late."
I wondered if Director Steiner's air of detachment — although bodily present, he seemed absent, as if he had left his personality elsewhere — was the result of some belligerence between Doug and himself, or an effect of his Augmentation. Many Augmenteds I had met seemed to exist in a realm at one remove from reality, lost like autistics in some private inner world.
"But work couldn't keep you away from this one, eh, Wolfe?"
The Director deigned not to reply.
Undeterred, Doug continued, "The event should be quite something, hm?"
Steiner regarded him with eyes so brown they seemed black. A ribbed cupola braced his skull and held his head at a quizzical angle. His response came after a lapse of seconds.
"I cannot honestly say that I am anticipating the event."
Doug rubbed his hands together, gave a quick wink to Abe. "Oh, and why's that, Wolfe?"
The Director considered. "In my opinion, tonight's event seems too calculated a response to be considered true art. Also, I am not sure that Tamara has recovered sufficiently from, and fully assimilated, her tragedy to produce a significant work on the subject." He became silent. Points of light sequenced along the surface of the cupola below his right ear.
Perhaps to deter Doug's further jibes, Abe said, "Won't this be your last social event on Meridian, Director? I've heard you're leaving."
"I leave in less than a week," Steiner replied. "I might just make Tamara's next event. The date of embarkation has been put back, due to unforeseen circumstances—"
"And what of Tamara," Doug cut in, "will she be going with you?"
Steiner seemed not to notice, or chose to ignore, Doug's provocations. "I have asked Tamara to accompany me to my new posting."
"And has she accepted?"
"That remains to be seen," Steiner replied evenly.
Abe exchanged a glance with me. I knew that he felt as uneasy a spectator of this verbal duel as I did. He said, "Perhaps you could tell me, Director — is there any truth to the rumour that the Telemass shots to Earth are to be reduced to one a month? I've heard there's been staff cuts at the station."
I saw Doug glance at the Director, a slight smile on his lips, as if he knew something that we did not and was enjoying seeing Steiner cross-questioned.
"Earth-Meridian shots, and vice versa, will not be cut to one a month, Mr Cunningham," Steiner said. "Staff has been reduced, that is true. But this will in no way affect the regularity of imports and exports."
"Is that so?" Doug asked. "Then what's the 'technical adviser' — isn't that how he was introduced? — doing on Meridian if everything's AOK?" He indicated the black-suited, bearded man Steiner had been talking to earlier.
"Weller's visit here is merely routine," Steiner replied.
"But you don't deny things are slowing down on Meridian?" Doug went on. "Tourism has taken a tumble over the past year, the mining operations have pulled out..."
"I suggest," Steiner said testily, "that you interrogate the economists on Main about these purported facts. I run the Telemass station, Inspector, not the planet."
Doug sipped his drink, smiling to himself.
Steiner said, "I received your message earlier, Mr Cunningham." He turned to Doug. "I presume you wanted to see me about this matter, Inspector?"
Doug nodded. "Could you tell me if any of your technicians are missing, Wolfe?" he asked. "The remains found today seem to belong to one of your men."
Steiner lapsed into a trance. Lines of miniaturised text scrolled down his pupils. He came to and reported to the Inspector, "I have five staff on furlough at the moment. They might be anywhere on Meridian." He paused. "Do you know how the technician died, Mr Cunningham?"
"Well, not really. It was obvious that a sand lion got to him at some point, but whether the animal was the cause of death..."
"Also," Doug said, "it's a bit of a mystery how the tech got out that far. There was no vehicle nearby, or vehicle tracks, according to Abe and Bob. And he couldn't have walked so far out."
"Is it possible that a lion might have attacked him near the coast and carried the remains inland?" Steiner asked.
Doug glanced at Abe, who shook his head. "They're not known to venture anywhere near the coast. They live and hunt in an area one to two hundred kays into the interior. And they don't carry their victims. They devour them on the spot."
Doug nodded. "I might need to question you at some time. I'd be obliged if you could make yourselves available."
There was a flurry of commotion behind us. Tamara Trevellion was making her way through an admiring throng of guests, the pretty girl and her surgeon in tow. Steiner excused himself, joined her and took her hand; he escorted the fish-woman towards our group, answering her questions on the way.
As I watched them, I wondered how the Director could bring himself to conduct an affair with a woman so alien.
We accommodated the artist into our circle. "Mr Cunningham, Inspector Foulds." She inclined her head to each in turn. "Wolfe, my dear, do introduce me..." Her tone was imperious, without warmth. She stared down at me as I was introduced and extended a cold and bloodless hand. Barbels depended from her underslung jaw, their extremities illuminated like fibre optic cable.
"Delighted," she said, far from convincingly.
Although Trevellion had retained her original form, it seemed as though she had been stretched, the bones and muscles of her limbs, and even those of her torso, drawn and attenuated to achieve some aesthetic at odds with any human criteria of beauty. Seen at a distance, she might have appeared strikingly slender and exotic; at close quarters, towering over Director Steiner and the rest of us, she struck me as a bizarre freak. When she took my hand I felt the cold sebaceous film that covered her body, and only then did I notice the parasitical, sluglike fish that anchored themselves to her scales by suction and moved about her person with quick flips of their tales.
Now she laid four webbed fingers on Steiner's arm. "I trust you have been keeping our guests entertained?" Her face was devoid of any expression I might have recognised, but I thought I detected a note of irony in her tone. The last thing that Director Steiner could be called upon to do was to 'entertain'.
"We were having a fascinating discussion," Doug joined in the fun.
Steiner, augmented beyond such petty concerns, stood beside the fish-woman and took it all in silence — or perhaps he was lost in some abstraction known only to himself.
"I suppose he's been telling you about his treachery," Trevellion went on.
At this, Steiner did respond. His eyes widened, as if the remark had jolted him. He stared at Trevellion.
"What treachery is this?" Doug asked, suppressing a smile.
"Oh, he didn't tell you?" She squeezed her lover's arm. "Wolfe is deserting me."
"That is hardly fair," Steiner said. "I have asked you to accompany me to my next posting, Tamara."
"Will you go, Mrs Trevellion?" Doug asked.
"Meridian is my home now. I adore the place. I will never leave, no matter what." At this she stared at Steiner, her flat grey eyes expressionless.
She changed the subject, addressing Abe. "Mr Cunningham — Wolfe mentioned that you were discussing sand lions. Apparently you saw someone savaged on Brightside today?"
I drew a sharp breath and almost choked on my drink. I was unable to tell if Tamara Trevellion's reference to Brightside was intentional, another cruel jibe, or merely a faux pas of thoughtless insensitivity.
In the fraught silence that followed, I noticed the girl — Trevellion's maid or assistant, standing behind the fish-woman. She clearly wanted to say something, change the subject, but could not find the words to do so. She wore a wincing expression between pain and embarrassment.
Abe nodded. "That's right," he said. His stare was a challenge.
"Sand lions fascinate me," Trevellion went on. "They are the most ferocious animal native to the planet, are they not?"
Abe swirled his drink. "You're well informed."
"Do you know something," she said, seemingly addressing us all, "I rather think I would like one as a pet—"
"That's quite impossible," Abe said, almost losing his cool.
"It is? But surely a lion could be operated upon so that it obeyed my commands?" She turned and gestured imperiously to her surgeon. "Hathaway, what do you think?" The surgeon almost bowed, then whispered that such an operation was feasible.
I wanted suddenly to be elsewhere, away from the tableau of Trevellion's holding court, trampling over people's sensibilities with her thoughtless egotism.
The same thought had obviously occurred to the girl. She edged in beside me, pursed her lips tight and raised her eyes, as if to say: "Here she goes again!" It was a relief to see features so animated after Trevellion's lugubrious expression.
The girl was small, with long fair hair, dark eyebrows and a pale, oval face. Her lips were so full they seemed swollen, giving her face a martyred look. I could not help but notice the threadbare state of the primrose dress that covered her thin body: she had about her the same unkempt and unsophisticated appearance as those who have ceased to look after themselves, like psychiatric patients. To complete her aspect of destitution, she was barefoot.
"How the hell can you stand the woman?" I asked.
She pursed her lips in a twisted, off-centre expression of resignation, shrugged stoically.
I said, "I know, somebody has to to the dirty work..."
This time she smiled, then hesitated on the verge of saying something. "Are you Mr Benedict," she whispered at last, "the pilot?" She glanced nervously at Trevellion, but the fish-woman was absorbed in conversation with her surgeon. "... I heard you announced."
I was surprised that she had remembered. "Ex-pilot," I corrected her.
"You're the first pilot — ex-pilot — I've ever met," she said shyly, avoiding my eyes. "Were you on in-system runs?"
I nodded, wanting to steer the conversation away from this subject. "Earth-Mars, most of the time." I too had adopted a whisper, as if loath to interrupt Trevellion's monologue: she was now declaiming out loud the aesthetics of having a tamed lion on the island.
"But why did you leave? Why did you come here, of all places?"
I wondered, for a second, if I was being set up — but decided against it. The girl was too nervous, too shy, to be intentionally probing for the errors of my past.
"I'd had enough of piloting," I answered. "I wanted a quiet life. Meridian seemed just the planet."
She shrugged, smiled. "I know it's silly, but I've dreamed for years of escaping Meridian. I hate the place. I want nothing more than to get away."
I laughed. "Then why don't you?"
"Oh, that's impossible!" She said this with venom, then stopped suddenly as she became aware of the silence around us.
Tamara Trevellion had paused in her speech and was staring at the girl, who seemed to shrink into herself beside me. Never have I seen such a look of dismay on a face as I did then.
"You know," Trevellion said, with an iciness entirely in keeping with her appearance, "that I will not tolerate being interrupted. Perhaps you would like to enlighten us with your comment?"
"Ner-no," the girl stammered. "I... I'm sorry—"
"In that case, I assume that you have something better to do with yourself than make a public exhibition of your ill-manners?"
The girl looked stricken, hardly able to nod in cowed agreement. As she hurried away she glanced at me, and I saw the expression of wretchedness on her face. A tension had developed among the group, as if each one of us felt uneasy with ourselves for tolerating such arrogance.
I watched the girl run across the lawn and disappear into the dome.
"Well, Mr Cunningham," Trevellion was saying, "will you capture me a lion? I'll make sure that you are amply rewarded."
"No matter what the reward, the answer is no. Brightside holds unpleasant memories for me. I don't want to risk my life merely to satisfy a whim."
Trevellion gestured. "My offer is one hundred thousand credits. Please take your time and think it over."
Before Abe could reply, Trevellion glanced at her scaled wrist and announced that it was time for the commencement of the event. She turned and swept from our circle, her fins rippling in the warm night air as she hurried across the garden.
Abe and I hung back, then followed the rest of the guests down a paved incline between scented bougainvillaea and the massive trumpet blooms of a native shrub. We passed over a stone bridge and came to the saddle-shaped greensward. Cushions littered the grass and the guests made themselves comfortable. Trays loaded with drinks floated through the gathering, and euphor-fumes snaked through the air. I was feeling far from euphoric.
"What a bitch," I said, as we stretched out on foam-forms set into the bank of the hollow.
"Do you know something, Bob? I think she had absolutely no idea what she was asking me to do. She wanted a sand lion, and that's all she was thinking about."
I was actually referring to Trevellion's treatment of the girl, but said nothing.
~
As we waited for the performance to begin, I thought of the girl and wished now that I had gone after her and said something, rather than allow myself to be lured meekly to watch one of Tamara Trevellion's self-aggrandizing events. I was determined not to be impressed by what was to follow.
A hush settled over the audience. I looked around the hollow; I could not see Trevellion, but Wolfe Steiner was seated on the ground ten metres before us with a group of Augmenteds, staring up into the night sky. The lights, floating will-o'-the-wisps on the periphery of the hollow, dimmed one by one until absolute darkness descended.
The first floating screen, until now a dark oval the size of a flier blotting out the stars of Darkside, activated; its frame of separate neon strips ignited in sequence and created a flicker effect, bathing the audience in a wash of bright electric blue light. Then with a startling crash of chords from a hidden speaker the screen suddenly expanded to fill half the sky above the hollow, and the guests below cried out first in alarm and then appreciation, and stared up in wonder. On the convex membrane of the screen, so vast I had to lie back to take in all of it, the first image resolved itself.
The scene was Earth, the Saharan artists' colony of Sapphire Oasis, and the subject was the crystal artist Max Trevellion at a party thrown to celebrate his engagement to Tamara Christiansen. The film was stock vid-footage, but subtly altered, computer enhanced. An accompanying voice-over spoke Tamara's early love poems. I had seen sufficient news-vids of Max Trevellion to know that the image of him here, sun-bathing beside a pool, working on a crystal, was idealised; skilfully, Tamara had altered the planes of his face, brightened his eyes, increased his height and made his movements fluid and commanding. He seemed even to emanate a charismatic aura. Only when I heard the line: "We apprehend our loved ones/ With eyes of perfection..." did I realise that this image of him was not an improved version of Max Trevellion designed to make him something that he was not, but how Tamara Christiansen had actually seen her husband-to-be.
For the next thirty minutes we watched an historical account of the following twenty years: their wedding on Earth, their artistic collaborations, their move to Meridian. Tamara Trevellion appeared in all these as a tall, severe figure, handsome, perhaps striking — but not at all the Nordic Goddess she had been before her alterations. She had applied the same techniques of dissimulation to the portrayal of herself as she had to her husband, though in her case she presented her younger self in a cold, self-critical light.
Then the film concentrated on their individual artistic careers: Max went from strength to strength, attaining distinction with a series of crystals depicting life on Meridian, now exhibited in all the major galleries on Earth. For her part, Tamara seemed always to be in her husband's shadow. She seemed reluctant to exhibit her work, and the few pieces she did show gained only lukewarm response. Her poetry received popular acclaim, but Tamara despised this. It was as if the popularity of her verse served only to point up her lack of success in other artistic media.
The last scene of this first section of the event showed Max and Tamara working together on a crystal, with the voice-over: "In creation/ Our love combined, creating."
The giant screen dimmed, plunging the hollow into darkness. There was a polite scatter of applause. As a resumé of their time together, and of Trevellion's view of herself and her husband, it had been entertaining enough. It set the scene for the tragedy to come, but could not in itself be called art. Max Trevellion came over as a genuinely warm and talented artist, and I began to feel sympathetic towards the man, began to feel the tragedy of his loss. Trevellion, for her part, had characterised herself as a nervous, self-doubting paranoid. More than once she had shown herself dissatisfied with her creations: one scene had her smashing to pieces a crystal she considered second rate. I had always thought that there were two attitudes an artist can take to their work: they can egotistically assume that it is better than it actually is, or they can tell themselves that it could be better. Tamara Trevellion took the latter course to an extreme.
Then the second floating screen, redundant until now, activated its sequencing neon frame and expanded in a sudden, dizzying rush. Now the entirety of the heavens above us, the whole of our field of vision, was taken up by the over-reaching screens. A voice-over announced the date: a year ago today. The day, I realised, of the Telemass accident. An identical still image appeared on each screen; a photo-portrait of Max Trevellion, the two faces staring at each other from the convex hemispheres. Then the image to our left unfroze and the show resumed.
For the next hour, each screen played alternately. The first, for the next five minutes, presented a factual account of what had happened during a period of a few hours on that fateful day. Then that image froze and the facing screen showed what I could only assume was an idealised version of the events, how Trevellion wanted the day to have progressed.
Fate is inevitable, she seemed to be saying, tragedy requires a victim: therefore, take this victim...
On the left screen, we watched Max Trevellion report that his daughter was ill: he would make the trip to Earth in her place. The audience watched, spellbound. I felt something catch in my throat with the realisation that, with these words, Trevellion had consigned himself to oblivion. Then, on the right screen, we watched a small, fair-haired girl ready herself excitedly for her trip to Earth.
At the sight of her I sat forward, my heart thumping.
"The girl..." I whispered to Abe.
He glanced at me. "Of course, didn't you know? She's Trevellion's daughter, Fire."
"She is? But I thought..."
I returned my attention to the right screen, appalled and fascinated. The girl going through the motions that would, in Tamara Trevellion's revisionist version of events, lead to her death was the same girl who, one hour earlier, Trevellion had treated with absolute contempt. The girl I had assumed was her maid or companion was in fact her daughter...
As I watched, I saw that Trevellion had employed the same technique to subtly alter her daughter's appearance as she had to enhance her husband's.
Fire Trevellion was, in reality, very attractive; in this version, her features had been taken and shifted slightly, skewed, so that while still recognisably Fire's, the face had lost all its appeal, its character. She was not quite ugly in her mother's revised scenario, but she was made somehow... peevish, mean-spirited. I felt a slow anger welling at Trevellion's deceit. I wondered how many of the guests were aware of what she had done.
Then the show switched to the left screen, the screen which showed what had really happened, and we watched Tamara kiss her husband farewell, to a rousing fanfare and the lines: "The tragedy of their parting/ Was that they knew not the tragedy." We watched Max Trevellion take his place on the Telemass pad beside the two other tachyon-passengers to Earth, watched him flash out of existence accompanied by a mighty crash of cymbals, then silence.
The right screen: Fire Trevellion said goodbye to her parents, who, arm in arm, very much in love, watched her take her place on the pad and disappear in a flash of white light. They turned, all smiles, and left the station. Voice-over: "Fate takes, and though the tragedy is great/ It can be overcome." But I knew the lines to be sanctimonious platitudes, lies. Had Fire taken her father's place that fateful day, the tragedy for Tamara would not have been so great.
But the show was not yet over.
Trevellion had one more victim to sacrifice.
As we watched, the two screens merged, became one all— encompassing membrane like the inner surface of a dome. A blurred image emerged. I was shocked to see Director Wolfe Steiner, enthroned in his command chair in the Telemass Control Centre — but not the Wolfe Steiner as we knew him. Trevellion's graphics had taken his aloofness, his coldness, his augmentation and emphasized all three, so that now he resembled nothing more than a caricature of his former self, a heartless, inhuman calculating machine. She had employed monotone graphics, hard angles to achieve the effect. As with Fire, she had remoulded his features; she had made him less human, more a sharp-featured adjunct of his augmentation.
We were swamped by the magnified image of Steiner, giving orders to his technicians as they attempted to retrieve the vector along which Max Trevellion and the others were lost. He was portrayed doing this with no display of emotion whatever, which, as Trevellion intended, had the effect of creating an atmosphere of hostility among the audience — but would passion on his part have done anything more to save the artist? Then we watched him break the news to the families, again with total impassivity. We watched him face the inquest, answer questions, accept the verdict of not guilty with all the emotion of an android. We were manipulated into feeling hatred towards Wolfe Steiner, and when the lines rolled out: "They found him free from blame/ But would they have found him guilty?" I think that the majority of the audience was on Trevellion's side in her detestation of the Director. I saw a tall figure hurry past where we were seated and leave the hollow, and when I looked to where I'd seen Wolfe Steiner earlier, his foam-form was empty.
I recalled Doug Foulds' opinion that their liaison was suspicious, and I knew now that he was right: Steiner had been set up. I thought I understood Trevellion's grief at her loss, but I could not begin to understand why, instead of trying to heal herself, perhaps learn from grief and create from it as artists should, she had vindictively hit out and unjustly slighted both Steiner and her daughter.
I rose and strode quickly from the hollow. As the giant, frozen image of Steiner's caricatured face faded from the screen, cloaking my retreat in welcome darkness, I was amazed to hear the beginnings of applause behind me, then louder as the audience gave their full support to Trevellion's twisted catalogue of spite. I needed to get away, to be alone for a time. It was as if the greensward was contaminated by Trevellion's inhumanity, as if by remaining there I might tacitly condone her creation.
I hurried from the gathering and found myself on a cliff-top path overlooking a deserted beach. I followed it down to the sheltered cove, then walked along the firm stretch of sand beside the ocean. The only illumination was from the massed stars above Darkside.
In the gloom before me I heard a small sound of surprise, then, "Mr Benedict?"
I peered. "Fire?"
She quickly backhanded what might have been a tear from her cheek. She perched on a rock, her knees drawn up to her chin. She smiled as I approached. "I thought it was you, Mr Benedict."
I sat beside her. In the cold light of the stars she seemed reduced in size and substance, a two-dimensional silver engraving. On her left knee I made out the sheen of saliva and the imprint of teeth.
I gestured towards the hilltop. "Listen," I began, "I'm sorry."
She looked away. "Forget it."
"I wanted to say something to your mother, tell her what I felt."
"What could you have said?" Her tone was hopeless.
"Perhaps I might have made her see how rude she was..."
Fire turned large green eyes on me, curiously innocent beneath the high fringe. "You're talking about earlier, when Tamara got mad at me for interrupting?"
"Of course."
She laughed. "I'm not bothered about that! She treats me like that all the time. Of course, in front of strangers..." She shrugged with a kind of determined resolve. "I can handle it."
"You mean...?" I gestured. "You saw your mother's show?" I had hoped that she might have been spared witnessing the event.
Without meeting my gaze, she nodded. "I sneaked out of my room. Pretty cruel, wasn't it?" She went on, with a forced gaiety which I guessed belied her true feelings, "Did you see how she portrayed me, Mr Benedict? I've known all along that she would rather I'd gone instead of my father — I can live with that. But to portray me as ugly as she did... there was no reason for that."
"I'm sorry," I said, inadequately.
She stared out at the waves, silver crested in the starlight. "And in front of all those people," she said almost wistfully. "That was the worst thing of all. I can put up with her hatred in private — but in public like that it just makes both of us look small."
I wondered then if she had heard the applause.
A silence came between us. I was suddenly afraid that she might regret sharing her pain with a perfect stranger and decide to leave, so I said the first thing that came into my head.
"How old are you, Fire?"
She had to think about it. "Nineteen standard."
I shrugged. "So what's keeping you here? Why don't you get out, if you don't like the way your mother's treating you?"
"Is that an offer, Mr Benedict? Shall we elope? We could go to Earth. I'd like nothing more."
I smiled. "I can't see why you just don't pack your bags and move to another island."
"Listen, I know you mean well, but you don't know the half of it. I'm sick and I need my treatment and it's expensive and only Tamara can afford it, okay? If it wasn't for Tamara and fats up there, I'd be dead."
"I had no idea... I'm sorry."
She turned on me. "Hey, don't you think I want to escape? I'm sometimes tempted to leave and to hell with the consequences. I often think a month or two of freedom, away from Tamara, would be worth dying for. But I always chicken out, stay here and take the abuse."
I attempted to lighten the tone of the conversation. "What do you do here? Do you work?"
She sighed. "I run after Tamara. I'm her secretary, housemaid, cook. I make sure she has all the right materials to hand. I've done all this since I was ten."
"Can't you get out a bit, explore the islands?"
She seemed to shrink into herself. "Tamara wouldn't like that," she said in a small voice.
I wanted to tell her, to hell with what Tamara would or wouldn't like. Then I reminded myself that she had had almost twenty years of this conditioning, was subservient beyond the point where mere verbal coaxing would stir thoughts of rebellion.
I was aware that she was looking at me.
I was shocked by what she said next.
"How long have you been taking frost, Mr Benedict?"
I stared at her. "How do you know—?"
She smiled. "Tamara was dependent, once. I recognise the signs. Pale skin, the eyes. You look like you take a lot."
I was momentarily non-plussed. I had discussed my use of the drug with no one before now. "A little," I said.
"Are you hooked?"
I hesitated. "Habituated, let's say. I could stop tomorrow."
"That's what Tamara said—"
"Then how did she get off it?"
"Her surgeon weaned her off. Then he Altered her. She doesn't need the stuff now. Her metabolism manufactures a different drug which gives her a safer, permanent high."
She paused, then said, "Who supplies you, Mr Benedict?"
"No one. I gather it and prepare it myself."
"From Brightside?" There was surprise in her tone.
"It grows wild out there," I began.
"So... you get lots of the stuff?"
I shrugged, uneasy at her questions. "A fair amount."
She was watching me closely. "Mr Benedict... I don't suppose you'd consider getting me some frost, would you?"
"I don't know..."
"Why not? You said I ought to get away from here. I can't
do it physically, so what's wrong with the alternative? We could meet here, same time tomorrow. You could stay with me while I take it, make sure I do nothing stupid. I'd pay you for it."
"I don't want paying."
"Then you'll bring me some?" Her smile, at the thought of it, won me over.
"Just enough for one trip," I told her, wondering what I was getting myself into. "No more."
"Great! Moor your launch in the next cove, Mr Benedict. It can't be seen from the dome."
She started suddenly at a sound from along the beach. "Shhh! I think it's Tamara."
I smiled. I wanted to tell her that she was being paranoid.
"If she found me down here, talking to you, when I should be in my room..." Her face in the starlight wore a mask of fright.
"I must go, Mr Benedict!"
I had expected her to take the cliff path, but instead she dashed to the undergrowth at the foot of the cliff. I followed her. She had parted the fronds of a fern and was squirming into a narrow gap between two rocks.
"Fire...?"
She turned her head awkwardly. "It's a tunnel I found," she panted. "It leads up to the garden outside my room. It's the only secret I have from Tamara. I'll see you tomorrow!" And with that she was gone.
I left the beach, passing as I did so not Trevellion, as Fire had feared, but a couple of Augmented lovers, strolling in the starlight. I took the path to the top of the cliff and rejoined the party on the illuminated lawn, considering Fire Trevellion and her situation.
I had no wish to make the acquaintance of Tamara Trevellion again tonight, and when I located Abe I was relieved when he suggested that we leave.
"Where've you been, Bob? I've been ready to go since that so called event. Tamara's been obnoxious. She seems to think she's created something of lasting importance. And what's all the more sickening, her sycophants tend to agree."
~
Back at my dome in the early hours, I sat on the patio and thought through the events of the evening, the screen-show and my meeting with Trevellion's daughter. Then I found the frost flowers where I'd flung them that afternoon and set about preparing the drug. I made a dilute solution for Fire tomorrow, filled the half-shell for my immediate use and stashed away the remainder.
I returned to the patio with a small dose in the burner to see me through the night. I thought about reliving my meeting with Fire, but decided against it. It was too recent in my mind, and surrounded by too many ugly incidents — the discovery of the technician's remains, the night's event, the way Trevellion had treated her daughter. If any of these intruded while I concentrated on my time with Fire, I risked subjecting myself to the nightmare of a bad trip. Instead, I thought of that holiday twenty years ago, the beach and the slim blonde girl, not at all unlike Fire Trevellion. I applied a light to the sparkling pink powder and it ignited with a hiss, giving off thick, acrid fumes.
I inhaled deeply, and dreamed.