PART ONE
Into the Night
Chapter 1
The voice seemed to come from nowhere. 'People! Welcome to the Newest Delhi open-air market.' A pause, then: 'Idi Mondata wants you to know about his sea-fish: he has mawfish, doggies, mirrorbait and, yes, the finest blue bass you could ever taste. Idi tells me it came in only...'
From his concealed position, Mathias Hanrahan didn't notice the effect of his disembodied words on the people who filled the market-place.
He didn't sense the wave of awe that swept over the throng, shopper and trader alike.
He didn't sense the panic.
After telling the good people about Idi Mondata's fresh seafish, Mathias moved on to Mica Akhra's newly crafted implements—the finest tools this side of Orlyons, Mica had called them.
As he spoke into the microphone, Mathias marvelled at how his own voice was being transformed into tiny electrical impulses to be multiplied and converted back to sound by the loudspeakers. Now he knew why the book had called them loudspeakers.
Mathias and Mica had constructed the public address system in secret, relying on components and a manual they had found in an abandoned storeroom in the Primal Manse.
They had placed the two loudspeakers high up on one of the balustrades that were set against West Wall. Concealed cables led back to a heavy-duty cell and the amplifier unit which they had positioned under the back awning of Mica's stall.
When they had finished, Mathias had wanted to search out Greta Beckett and tell her of his plan—explain to her about the little packets of energy that would carry his words—but he had held back. Greta was going through a Conventist phase and she disliked his fondness for the ancient ideas and technologies.
The previous week, Mathias had come across a music box in his rummagings through the closed-off rooms of the Manse. He'd taken it out to Gorra Point, concealed in his cloak; Greta had arrived a short time later and they had stood watching the great brown cutters skimming the sunset-reddened waves. Leading Greta beyond the hearing of their chaperone, Mathias had given his fiancée the box. She had taken it curiously, studying its design, too intricate for a native product. She had tipped it to one side and instantly a coloured ball of light had sprung dancing from the box and strange music had started, halfway through its tune.
When he had found the box, Mathias had thought it beautiful.
Greta had thrown it away and it had broken on the rocks. She had shuddered and tugged her sun-white hair away from her face. 'Thank you, Matti,' she had said sadly. 'But it's not of this world. It's not ours to give or receive.'
And so Mathias had not involved Greta in his plans to modernise the market-place in the city of Newest Delhi. The Convent had clouded her judgement in recent weeks so that now it appeared that her every action had to be considered in terms of the sorority and the lessons of Mary/Deus.
Only Mica Akhra and Idi Mondata had known of Mathias's plans today and neither of them had believed the technology could be made to work. 'Voices in the wires?' Idi had said. 'More like voices in your head. Go see Doctor O'Grade, Matt, you're going crazy!'
Even Mica had not really believed in the public address system. Mica used the old technology every day: a terran microfurnace could cast tools of a higher calibre than any other method, well worth the price the Manse charged for power, as she always said. You can never overestimate the wonders of the old ways, she always said. But she had not believed the wires would carry Mathias's words. That was just too much.
'Vera Lugubé's greens are freshly picked every morning, grown along the banks of the purest mountain streams...'
Now Mathias was moving on to cover the stall-holders who did not know of his scheme. By next market-day they would be queuing up for his services and the city of Newest Delhi would be one more step into the future.
As Mathias talked—Chet Alpha's walk-in peep-show had a new star and the price was just the same—he marvelled at how clearly his words rose above the clamour of the market-place. His voice sounded so clear, so powerful.
Mica Akhra lifted a flap at the back of her stall and hissed at him. 'I think you'd better look,' she said. Her mid-brown face had turned as pale as Mathias's.
Mathias stopped talking into his microphone and instantly he realised why his voice had carried so clearly. Apart from the occasional cries of caged animals the market-place was quiet. Mathias had never heard such a silence.
With a hollow feeling in his stomach, he stood and raised the flap at the back of Mica's stall.
It all seemed unreal.
He stepped through and stood beside Mica. The market was packed with people, as was always the case. Children, mothers, traders, geriatrics, fathers who normally stood tall and proud, heads above the mass of ordinary folk. All stood pale and open-mouthed. All looked up at the sky, trying to see where the Voice had come from. Clusters of Masons stood plucking uneasily at their neckties, waving Hiram handshakes at acquaintances in the crowd. Even the wailing momma who fronted the Jesus-Buddha stall—'penny a prayer, a quarter for minor forgiveness'—had halted her Cry of the Hellbound.
A crackle of static came from the speakers and echoed around the gathering. A child's scream broke loose to be muffled by someone's hand.
'Why are they scared?' whispered Mathias. 'Why have they stopped trading?' Mica didn't answer and Mathias wondered if the success of the system had affected her too. He had expected some sort of reaction—none of these people had ever heard an amplified voice—but nothing like this. He could see the look on the wailing momma's face: it was a blend of fear and something like rapture, as if her Jesus-Buddha had spoken to her through one of the wooden statuettes she sold from her stall. The others, too, showed fear tinged with awe: a voice they didn't understand, a voice they didn't want to understand.
'They're crazy,' he muttered. 'Crazy.'
He turned his back on Mica and returned to the rear of her stall. He picked up the microphone and heard a moan from the crowd as another crackle came from the loudspeakers.
Holding up the flap so he could see, he spoke into his public address system.
'This is Mathias Hanrahan, heir to the Primacy of Newest Delhi. I am speaking to you over a voice-multiplication system. Its outlets are set in West Wall. If the system proves useful it will become a familiar feature of the market-place.'
The crowd was stirring. Ripples of movement ran through the throng, colour returned to faces, noises resumed their babble.
'Listen to the voice and you will find the best bargains, the finest fresh foods, the crispest cloths and linens! Yes, we will have the finest market-place on all Expatria!'
But Mathias had misread the crowd's reaction. The ripples of movement turned into waves that broke against the stalls, the colouring of the faces was fuelled by the adrenalin of rage, the sounds rose to drown out the words carried by Mathias Hanrahan's miraculous public address system.
Bodies pressed against the frontage of Mica Akhra's Finest Metal Implements stall, breaking one of the uprights away so that the striped canvas roof fell in on Mica and Mathias. Struggling free of the stall, Mathias saw that they had not turned against him, the perpetrator of the Voice. It was more complex than that. He stared at the frenzied faces. The crowd was a mindless animal, moving under its own momentum, surging around the market-place and bringing down everything in its path. The beast had been awoken.
The first stall to go under was the wailing momma's. She rode free with the flow, clutching an armful of Jesus-Buddha statuettes to her chest; but then, as part of the crowd, she was taken over, absorbed, and she began to throw the carved figures with the rest. Stones, too, were flying, along with greens from Vera Lugubé's stall and chunks of fish from Idi Mondata's.
Mica Akhra clutched Mathias's arm. 'Come on,' she said. 'This is not the place to be.' At times the small age difference between Mathias and Mica did not matter, at others it gave her a seniority that he instantly accepted and obeyed. Now, he followed her without thinking into the fringes of the rampaging crowd.
Instantly there were hands pulling at him, bodies pushing, jostling, a current that was pulling him in a direction he didn't want to take. He fought the flow, shrugged free of the hands and tried to follow Mica.
Something wet and heavy hit him across the shoulders, a huge steak of blue bass. Stunned, he looked around but he had lost track of Mica. His head fuzzy, he let the crowd take him, pulling him through the shapes it drew in what had once been the market-place of Newest Delhi.
Rough stone against his face, the taste of it in his mouth. Mathias clung to the wall, realised where he was. He edged along the obstacle, fearful of being crushed by the crowd-creature but fearful, also, of losing contact with the solidity of West Wall.
A hand curled around his face and pulled his head back. He bit hard on an index finger and the hand disappeared. Tasting blood in his mouth, he struggled along the face of the wall and finally he reached the opening that he knew must be there. Without the wall to support him, the weight of the crowd pushed Mathias through the gap and he clambered up the steep steps and away from the madness that he had somehow inspired.
At the top of the steps, Mathias paused for breath. The city's ramparts were wide here, the sea thundering on one side, the crowd on the other. Hands seized him roughly.
'When will you ever learn?' said a tired voice that he instantly recognised. Lucilla Ngota, consort of March Hanrahan, his father; the woman who had sworn to shape Mathias into something that might just be worthy of inheriting March's Primacy when the time came.
The hands—those of a guard—released him and he turned.
'But...' The words were suddenly difficult for Mathias to find. 'They shouldn't have...'
Lucilla was looking at him with an expression that told him exactly what she thought. He would never make it, he would never be a worthy heir.
Rifle shots rang out from around West Wall, fired into the air. Mathias looked at Lucilla and at the mix of Primal Guards and militia troopers that surrounded them on the ramparts. More shots rang out. His shoulders slumped. Why did nobody understand?
'Come along,' said Lucilla. 'The militia can handle the rest. I think March might want to discuss this with you.'
~
The Primal Manse formed a rough crescent of interconnected buildings close to the market-place and the stone curtain of West Wall. The original prefabricated colony M-frames had been overbuilt with masonry and extended over the years with an array of mismatched blocks and wings, leaving the Primal gardens to the north, and a square known as the Playa Cruzo to the east. Lucilla left Mathias in his room in the private western wing of the Manse, the oldest part of the complex.
He sat on his bed, staring at the shelves of ancient documents, most of which he could not even read. He opened his windows so he could hear the distant swell of the sea. Whenever he was in torment he turned to the sea; its fathomless age helped him to see things in perspective, helped him to shrug things off.
After a time, there was a knock at the door.
He was in another world but eventually the persistent tap-tap-tap broke through and he strode over and opened the door himself. A servant, masked for the customary anonymity of the serving classes, said, 'Sir, the Prime of Newest Delhi awaits your company in the Court of Sighs.'
The Court of Sighs was a high-roofed hall, its sides lined with pillars. March Hanrahan sat casually towards one end, just one of the two dozen or so present, yet clearly marked as different by the people around him. His face was lined and greyed, years ahead of time; his hair was white already. Again, Mathias wondered at the pressures of the Primacy.
The Prime was talking to Edward Olfarssen-Hanrahan, Mathias's half-brother by one of March's early mistresses. March often said publicly that he regretted bedding Natalia Olfarssen. She was a tough negotiator. She had carried his son, only three months younger than Mathias, and insisted that he be recognised as the Prime's second child. Natalia Olfarssen had friends in irksome places and there had been only one way to placate her: grudgingly, Edward had been brought up as a member of the Primal household. Although the clan was large, its growth had been by affiliation and takeover; Mathias and Edward were the only members of their generation to bear the family name.
March Hanrahan ignored Mathias as he approached but all the others in the court paused in their conversations and watched. Mathias felt good. He knew he was about to be publicly humiliated but that mattered little in the run of things.
The Prime said something sharply and Edward backed away, his face pale. Mathias stopped before his father and said, 'You requested my presence, March.'
The Prime stared at his son, as if he was trying to see through him. 'I have warned you before,' he said, spacing his words. 'You are irresponsible. Immature. You have no sense of your own position.'
Mathias looked around. They were all lapping it up. They couldn't wait to slither away and spread word of the hopelessly irresponsible heir. He smiled at them and then stopped, aware that March might get the wrong impression.
His father continued. 'We have yet to discover the monetary cost of your little escapade. Stalls were wrecked, their produce destroyed. People were hurt, fourteen are still under doctor's supervision. Someone could have been killed today. And all because you wanted to be louder than anyone else.' The Prime shook his head. 'I sometimes have trouble identifying myself in you, son. You make things difficult for no good reason.'
Mathias spoke into the silence. 'Sir. I see now that I handled it badly. I should have guessed what might happen. But it was the people who did this, not me. They reacted out of ignorance and injured themselves in consequence. Confronted with something they didn't understand, they panicked. Next time, things will be different.'
'Next time? Have you heard nothing I have said?' March Hanrahan gripped the sides of his seat and then slumped back. 'These toys you experiment with, they are a part of the old ways. There is no place for this science, this technology.
'Our ancestors from the Ark ships, they had these technologies, yet they were scared to land on Expatria's surface. They had been confined for too long. When they landed they rapidly changed their ways. They saw that there was no room for the old ideas: they didn't work. Today you provided yet another example of why these ideas do not work, yet still you persist!'
Mathias's light mood was gone. 'Your reasoning is false,' he said. 'You make connections where there are none, you link effects with the wrong causes. Can't you see, old man?'
'I can see,' said the Prime, his voice low and unnaturally steady, 'it is time that you faced up to your position as heir to the Primacy of Newest Delhi. You must amend your ways. You must learn responsibility. I will have no more of this stupidity.' He paused. 'This is the last time I warn you, Mathias Hanrahan: face up to your responsibilities. If not, well ... there are always others in line.' He shrugged and it was clear that he had finished.
Edward coughed and, when Mathias glanced in his direction, smiled and looked towards the Prime. Mathias concentrated on his breathing and managed to remain silent.
The Prime turned to a representative from one of the inland valleys and spoke quietly.
Clearly dismissed, Mathias walked from the Court of Sighs and wandered away from the Manse, heading for the comfort of the sea.
~
'When the sun bleeds the horizon,' Greta had said. 'At the Pinnacles on Gorra Point.'
Leaning against one of the standing rocks, Mathias looked out at the red smear that marked where sea merged with sky and he remembered Greta's words. Cutters skimmed low across the waves of Liffey Bay, heading for their night-time roosts on the cliffs. Mathias envied them their freedom.
His mood had eased upon reaching the shore and he had laughed at the absurdity of it all. Nothing could get him down for long. He had passed the time until sunset locating gin-shells in the sands, and trying to see how heavy a stone had to be before it would trigger the bivalve shell into snapping shut.
When the sky had started to colour he had headed for the group of rocks they called the Pinnacles. They stood the width of Mathias's shoulders and at least three times his height. Once, when he was younger, he had tried to climb one but he had not succeeded, the surface had been too sheer and he could find no grip. March had chastised him for that, told him it was too dangerous an activity for the heir to the Primacy. Mathias had only wanted to find out how far he could see from the top.
Now he waited, leaning against one of the smaller Pinnacles, listening for sounds of Greta or her chaperone.
As the last colours were fleeing the night sky, Mathias heard the sound of footfalls and then he saw the glow of two lanterns. 'Greta,' he called, and stepped clear of his rock. Even in the dim light, she looked as fresh and alive as ever.
'Matti,' she said, and her chaperone melted discreetly into the shadows, the glow of her lantern reminding the young couple that they were never quite alone. 'When will you learn?' said Greta.
Mathias cursed to himself. He had hoped she had not heard, that he could tell it to her in his own way. 'It was the stupid, ignorant people,' he muttered, scared to meet her eyes. A hawk-moth was hovering inside a nearby gin-shell, gathering sweet exudations from the shell's interior without triggering the creature's deadly trap. 'I was doing it for them, but they didn't see, they just panicked. What could I do?' He knew it was no good trying to justify himself to her, she was as much against the old ways as his father.
'I was at a Gathering,' she said. 'We were praying to Mary/ Deus, repeating the triunes. I could feel the sorority all around me: I felt like a real part of it for the very first time. It was beautiful.
'Then one of the Little Sisters told me about what you had done and it made me want to cry, Matti. Do you know what you're doing?'
Mathias hated talk of the Convent, the strange animation it gave to Greta's talk. The Convent had found a gap in Greta's life and Mathias felt excluded. Why couldn't she turn to him instead? Why did she need this substitute for the more conventional teachings of Jesus-Buddhism, if she needed such superstition at all? 'But if people can only...'
'No, Matti. Those ways are no good to us now.' She removed the hand he had placed on her arm—he was so rarely able to touch her, he had held her in his arms on only two occasions, each ended by the discreet cough of their chaperone—and gave him a stern look. 'Matti, there is much that is good about you, but there is much that must change. Your father is right, you have to grow into your responsibilities.' She backed away and kissed the air in parting, then left with her chaperone.
Mathias felt terrible. He could easily cope with his argument with March, but not Greta too! Since her father had pledged her troth to Mathias, nearly four years before, their relationship had grown, it had given Mathias something to depend on.
And now she was angry with him.
He had to change, that was what she had said. He had to grow into his responsibilities.
He wandered down to stand by the sea and, skimming stones into the night, he knew that he would do anything Greta demanded of him. He would mend his ways and become a Prime to make the clan proud.
And then he would be able to think about the changes he would make.