“Tell me what I don’t know.”
“Oui, at our next meeting, chéri,” the voice whispered with a French accent, “The meeting where we become love-ers.”
Wat laughed. He seldom noticed comic situations but this seemed one. He looked at the bubble in a friendly way. It now contained a mouth with full lips precisely crimsoned in a 1940s Hollywood fashion which had been revived at least thrice a century since. He said, “As you’re synthesized from the soundtracks of ancient movies I won’t get much joy from that meeting. You’re probably not even a woman. Real women don’t use satellite technology to seduce a man.”
There was a pause in which he let Sophia resume the pace she found easiest. The voice said, “An intelligent deduction, Colonel Dryhope, but I am very much a woman. This sophisticated foreplay ensures we will meet in the body without inhibitions, but it is your soul I want to seduce.”
The voice now sounded like a soft-speaking south-east English woman with a slight exotic flavour of Caribbean or southern U.S.A. Wat had heard it before. He said amiably, “Why do you want that?”
A man’s voice spoke. It took Wat a few seconds to recognize his own.
“Give me a period of excitement when folk thought they were making a better world … Rage, not sorrow is my disease … I hate women for their damnable smug security … I want the bad old days when wars had no rules and bombs fell on houses and men and women died together like REAL equals! Equal in their agony and mutilation! … Privacy and power, power and privacy.”
Wat felt pressure in his heart and eardrums. He breathed carefully to prevent useless rage. He pretended to yawn then said that using satellite technology to invade private lives was the sort of criminal intrusion the world had outgrown over a century ago, was against the Geneva Convention, was infantile bad manners.
“Yeah, but I’m a real wild child and an outlaw, honey,” said the voice Americanly, “I’m a professional hooker who has hooked you.”
“You’re also a media person. You spoke to me in your English voice from a public eye ball this morning, one that jumped out of a blaeberry bush when I came down by Thirlstane. How can you be public and private too?”
“How can you be Colonel Dryhope in Ettrick Warrior house and your aunties’ Wattie at home? Media people also get into more than one set, Colonel Dryhope. The more sets we belong to the more power we hold. I’m in more than a dozen and am now forming the most powerful set in the world. It has two members — you and me.”
“I’ll discuss this chat with Archie Crook Cot,” said Wat grimly, “You may have heard of him. I don’t think he’ll need more than an hour of networking to find the beam you’re using, and where you are, and who you are.”
For a while the lips stayed slightly parted. Their owner was either thinking hard or listening to instructions from someone else, but Wat did not feel outnumbered.
“I would feel very hurt if you told Archie Crook Cot about me, Colonel Dryhope,” said the mouth at last, “Others would suffer too. You are not a man who can be frightened, but your clan might suffer most.”
“I’m no feart of mysterious threats,” said Wat grinning, “Nor feart of people who repeat things I said idly or in a bad temper. Why not replay what I said before the battle when I spoke to save the Ettrick weans? Geneva noticed that.” “That is not the side of you which attracts me,” said the mouth softly, “Do you not know that many women desire to feel themselves helpless in the arms of a powerful man they identify with God?”
“If you’re a masochist in search of a violent brute find another soldier. The breed is not extinct.”
“Ah, but you are so wrong, chéri! The breed is practically extinct. Other soldiers waste their violence in conventional war games then go home to be nursed by their conventional aunts and sweethearts. And I am more than a sensual body — I too am an outsider who cannot bear this world governed by aunts and grannies. It has lasted too long, it is stale, it needs renewal. You feel this too, Wat — that is why you wanted to start a reich of two with Annie Craig Douglas. It would have been too small for you. Renew the world with me! It will be dangerous work but neither of us fear danger. It will also need political intelligence.”
“Rhetoric!” said Wat impatiently, “If you’ve a concrete proposal, Ms. Media, propose it in sensible modern language. The adjective political became meaningless a century and a half ago.”
“If you stay silent about this meeting …” said the mouth slowly, “… I will propose to you tomorrow.”
“When?”
“When you return to the Warrior house. Promise to be silent till then.”
“I promise nothing. I won’t speak of this till we’ve met. Let that content you.”
The bubble swooped to his right ear and whispered, “Have you ever fucked a media bitch or do you only do it to pussies?”
“Neither bitches nor bubbles.”
“If you gossip about this we will never meet in the flesh, chéri. You will also lose the chance to recreate the world in the image of your wildest dreams — and quickly! Bonsoir. I will now vanish with a most melodious twang but remember, I hear every word you say and love most the words you fear to say. Our lovemaking will be different than with others. It will strengthen, not relax you. I will teach you not to be ashamed.”
He turned in time to see the bubble vanish with a melodious twang.
It was now after sunset but a silvery scatter of pebbles showed the path. The digits on his wristcom were glowing again. He dialled Archie Crook Cot and asked if he would organize the retrieval of the standard, taking the veteran General Megget and three Boys’ Brigade captains with him to show it was an Ettrick Warrior business. Archie Crook Cot, sounding pleased, said yes, he had been worrying about the standard. He would also take Jimsy Henderland (an excellent diver) and start early. Wat told him to use the Warrior house sky sledges but contact General Shafto first, then hesitated and said, “Report to me at once when you return.”
He switched off, wondering if he would regret not having given Archie a more technical job right away. Soon after he saw the lights of Bowerhope. He was enthusiastically welcomed but it was not a satisfying visit. Myoo said, “Getting colonelized has weakened you, Wat Dryhope. You don’t seem with us.”
Our dreams review events of the waking day, working them into the pattern of early memories and wishes which is our character. Wat dreamed easily about his squabble with Annie because he expected young girls to be bothersome. His triumphal arrival at the Warrior house and swift promotion to commander also fitted his dreams; he had not expected it but early efforts had prepared him for it. Nothing had prepared him for the conversation on the path to Bowerhope. His dreams turned nasty and woke him long before dawn. He lay perfectly still, unwilling to rouse the friendly bodies he lay between, unable to rest for troublesome thoughts.
He thought first about people in public eye companies. Broadcasters of war games clearly enjoyed getting close to bloodshed without being hurt. A woman of that sort with a taste for tall graceless carnaptious soldiers could easily use public equipment to contrive private meetings with them. But Wat’s movements had been followed, his words recorded and edited for at least five days before a blocking beam had isolated him from the intelligence network. Through a unique device he had been told that here and now between Myoo and Myow he was still being surveyed. No single person could use so much energy for a private purpose without being noticed as a selfish waster and interrupted. Since the media bitch did not fear interruption she must be part of a team making a programme about him. This broke the first rule in the bill of human rights: NOBODY WILL BE USED BY ANOTHER WITHOUT KNOWING AND WILLING IT. But a team breaking this rule must be working in secret, and secret societies (like governments, stock exchanges, banks, national armies, police forces, advertising agencies and other groups who made nothing people needed) had ended with the historical era. The modern intelligence net was open to everyone. It could only be used secretly by people arousing no curiosity, yet the media bitch had deliberately aroused his. What could such people want that they could not get openly? The earliest Christian churches, the Freemasons and Trade Unions had been secret societies. They believed all good people were equal in the eyes of God or natural justice, so unjust governments had banned them. Big governments later created their own secret societies, the F.B.I., C.I.A., K.G.B.D., M.I.5 which lied and tortured, robbed and killed in ways their employers could publicly deny. And people had been robbed and killed by Al Capone’s mob, the Mafia and the I.R.A. which were also secret forms of government. Wat’s head ached with efforts to imagine reasons for secrecy on an earth whose largest government was the family and where each family had what it needed.