“We should do something,” Vasko said.
“We’re off duty, and two of us aren’t enough to make a difference. They’ll have to think of something different. It’s not as if they’re going to be able to contain this for much longer. I don’t think I want to be here any more.” She meant the shoreline. “I checked the reports before I came out. Things aren’t so bad east of the High Conch. I’m hungry and I could use a drink. Do you want to join me?”
“I don’t have much of an appetite,” Vasko said. He had actually been starting to feel hungry again until he saw the person fall into the sea. “But a drink wouldn’t go amiss. Are you sure there’ll be somewhere still open?”
“I know a few places we can try,” Urton said.
“You know the area better than me, in that case.”
“Your problem is you don’t get out enough,” she said. She pulled up the collar of her coat, then crunched down her hat. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before things turn nasty.”
She turned out to be right about the zone of the settlement east of the Conch. Many Arm members lodged there, so the area had always had a tradition of loyalty to the administration. Now there was a sullen, reproachful calm about the place. The streets were no busier than they usually were at this time of night, and although many premises were closed, the bar Urton had in mind was still open.
Urton led him through the main room to an alcove containing two chairs and a table poached from Central Amenities. Above the alcove a screen was tuned to the administration news service, but at the moment all it was showing was a picture of Clavain’s face. The picture had been taken only a few years earlier, but it might as well have been centuries ago. The man Vasko had known in the last couple of days had looked twice as old, twice as eroded by time and circumstance. Beneath Clavain’s face was a pair of calendar dates about five hundred years apart.
“I’ll fetch us some beers,” Urton said, not giving him a chance to argue. She had removed her coat and hat, piling them on the chair opposite his.
Vasko watched her recede into the gloom of the bar. He supposed she was a regular here. On their way to the alcove he had seen several faces he thought he half-recognised from SA training. Some of them had been smoking seaweed—the particular variety which when dried and prepared in a certain way induced mild narcotic effects. Vasko remembered the stuff from his training. It was illegal, but easier to get hold of than the black market cigarettes which were said to originate from some dwindling cache in the belly of the Nostalgia for Infinity.
By the time Urton returned, Vasko had removed his coat. She put the beers down in front of him. Cautiously Vasko tasted his. The stuff in the glass had an unpleasant urinal tint. Produced from another variety of seaweed, it was only beer in the very loosest sense of the word.
“I talked to Draygo,” she said, “the man who runs this place. He says the Security Arm officers on duty just went and punched holes in all the boats on the shore. No one else is being allowed to leave, and as soon as a boat returns, they impound it and arrest anyone on board.”
Vasko sipped at his beer. “Nice to see they haven’t resorted to heavy-handed tactics, then.”
“You can’t really blame them. They say three people have already drowned just crossing the bay. Another two have fallen off the ship while climbing.”
“I suppose you’re right, but it seems to me that the people should have a right to do what they like, even if it kills him.”
“They’re worried about mass panic. Sooner or later someone is bound to try swimming it, and then you might have hundreds of people following after. How many do you think would make it?”
“Let them,” Vasko said. “So what if they drown? So what if they contaminate the Jugglers? Does anyone honestly think it makes a shred of difference now?”
“We’ve maintained social order on Ararat for more than twenty years,” Urton said. “We can’t let it go to hell in a handcart in one night. Those people using the boats are taking irre-placeable colony property without authorisation. It’s unfair on the citizens who don’t want to flee to the ship.”
“But we’re not giving them an alternative. They’ve been told Clavain’s dead, but no one’s told them what those lights in the sky are all about. Is it any wonder they’re scared?”
“You think telling them about the war would make things any better?”
Vasko wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, where the seaweed beer had left a white rime. “I don’t know, but I’m fed up with everyone being lied to just because the administration thinks it’s in our best interests not to know all the facts. The same thing happened with Clavain when he disappeared. Scorpio and the others decided we couldn’t deal with the fact that Clavain was suicidal, so they made up some story about him going around the world. Now they don’t think the people can deal with knowing how he died, or what it was all for in the first place, so they’re not telling anyone anything.”
“You think Scorpio should be taking a firmer lead?”
“I respect Scorpio,” Vasko said, “but where is he now, when we need him?”
“You’re not the only one wondering that,” Urton said.
Something caught Vasko’s eye. The picture on the screen had changed. Clavain’s face was gone, replaced for a moment by the administration logo. Urton turned around in her seat, still drinking her beer.
“Something’s happening,” she said.
The logo flickered and vanished. They were looking at Scorpio, surrounded by the curved rose-pink interior of the High Conch. The pig wore his usual unofficial uniform of padded black leather, the squat dome of his head a largely neckless outgrowth of his massive barrelled torso.
“You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?” Vasko asked.
“Draygo told me he’d heard that there was an announcement scheduled for around this time. But I don’t know what it’ll be about and I didn’t know Scorpio was going to show his face.”
The pig was speaking. Vasko was about to find a way to make the screen louder when Scorpio’s voice rang out loudly throughout the maze of alcoves, piped through on some general-address system.
“Your attention, please,” he said. “You all know who I am. I speak now as the acting leader of this colony. With regret, I must again report that Nevil Clavain was killed today while on a mission of maximum importance for the strategic security of Ararat. Having participated in the same operation, I can assure you that without Clavain’s bravery and self-sacrifice the current situation would be enormously more grave than is the case. As things stand, and despite Clavain’s death, the mission was successful. It is my intention to inform you of what was accomplished in that operation in due course. But first I must speak about the current disturbances in all sectors of First Camp, and the actions that the Security Arm is taking to restore social order. Please listen carefully, because all our lives depend on it. There will be no more unauthorised crossings to the
Nostalgia for Infinity. Finite colony resources cannot be risked in this manner. All unofficial attempts to reach the ship will therefore be punished by immediate execution.”
Vasko glanced at Urton, but he couldn’t tell if her expression was one of disgust or quiet approval.
The pig waited a breath before continuing. Something was wrong with the transmission, for the earlier image of Clavain had begun to reappear, overlaying Scorpio’s face like a faint nimbus. “There will, however, be an alternative. The administration recommends that all citizens go about their business as usual and do not attempt to leave the island. Nonetheless it recognises that a minority wish to relocate to the Nostalgia for Infinity. Beginning at noon tomorrow, therefore, and continuing for as long as necessary, the administration will provide safe authorised transportation to the ship. Designated aircraft will take groups of one hundred people at a time to the Infinity. As of six a.m. tomorrow, rules of conveyance, including personal effects allocations, will be available from the High Conch and all other administrative centres, or from uniformed Security Arm personnel. There is no need to panic about being on the first available transport, since—to repeat—the flights will continue until demand is exhausted.”