Rael Mandella Jr.’s personal bodyguard would not permit him to approach closer than three metres.
“This has to stop, Rael.”
The strike leader shrugged.
“I’m sorry, but as soon as the scabs go it’ll stop. It’s their fault. If you want a peaceful resolution, go to the Company, not to me.”
“I’ve just come from the Company. They said exactly the same thing but turned around. Don’t play simpleton with me, Rael. I’ve known you since you were a boy. Now, I haven’t got proof, or names, but the law is the law, whatever my sympathies, and as soon as I have the evidence, the law will be enforced.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Dominic Frontera was only too aware of the futility of threatening with his handful of fat, friendly constables a man who dared the transplanetary empire of the Bethlehem Ares Corporation; nevertheless, he said, “Not threatening, Rael. Just advising.”
By the end of the week all but three hundred strikebusters had left. Of those remaining, fifty-two would be remaining permanently in the town cemetery. The same weekend Concordat held its first martyr’s funeral. Willy Goomeera, 9, single, separator plant operator, had been killed by a blow to the neck with a brick while attempting to close with, and knife, a scab separator plant operator from Maginot outside the Industry Is Ecstasy Infants’ School. Willy was a martyr, the intended victim, turned victor, a monster. Willy was lowered into the earth in a funeral urn draped with the green and white Concordat banner while mother two sisters lover cried a river.
Rael Mandella Jr. and his strike committee attended the funeral.
“So what about the production figures now?”
“Levelling off at about ten percent optimal. I calculate plant profitability to reach marginal in twenty-two days.”
“Strike fund’s only good for fifteen. Mavda, see if you can arrange cash aid from our supporters as well as the regular air drops. B.J., keep hammering at the other Transplanetaries, Bethlehem Ares’s misfortune is their fortune. I think I’ll have that word with my aunt to see if she can release us some free accommodation in church hostels. That should free some money from the rehousing budget.”
The six conspirators bowed and went their ways and the first shovels of fine red dirt thumped down on Willy Goomeera’s ceramic coffin.
49
Since becoming more than three-quarters mortified, Inspiration Cadillac had grown correspondingly less tractable, thought Taasmin Mandella.
“Lady, you must not permit yourself to become involved in the Bethlehem Ares Steel dispute. You must not confuse the spiritual with the political.”
Grey Lady and Iron Chamberlain were hurrying down the underground passage that led from the private rooms to the public chambers. At the word “political” Taasmin Mandella stopped and whispered into Inspiration Cadillac’s ear, “Thou hypocrite. Tell me, if spirituality does not touch every aspect of life, including the political, how can it be truly spiritual? Tell me that.” She strode off down the neon-lit corridor. Her prosthetic chamberlain’s prostheses clicked and whirred as he bustled after her.
“Lady, with respect, you are letting yourself become emotionally clouded. Ignore the fact that Rael Mandella Jr. is your nephew; you must make an objective decision on whether or not to permit the heretics… pardon, Lady, strikers, the use of our dormitory facilities. Once muddying subjectivities are removed from the issue, the decision becomes clear.”
At the door to her audience chamber Taasmin Mandella halted again.
“Indeed it does, Chamberlain. I am pledging full spiritual, moral and economic support for Concordat.”
“Lady! This is madness! Consider the pilgrims, upon whose generosity we are dependent, will they not be dissuaded by this rash action? Consider the Poor Children, by siding with the heret-strikers you are in effect denying their faith in the holiness of the Steeltown Shrine. You cannot abandon your faithful devotees, both pilgrims and Poor Children!”
“I know where those spurious prophecies about the factory came from, Chamberlain. I am not one-third the fool you take me for.”
In her audience chamber she sat enthroned, illuminated by a single shaft of sunlight caught by angled mirrors high in the dome. Around her feet were strewn flowers and tangles of metal swarf, before her a line of pilgrims with nine-pointed starbursts painted on their brows stretched into the gloom. A chilly piety leaked into the air.
“This place needs more light,” Taasmin Mandella whispered to herself, picturing a Panarchic hand lifting the top off the Basilica like the lid on a jar of pickled gherkins to let the full light of day flood in.
“Pardon, madam?” asked an attendant Poor Child with a metal head.
—Poor Child, thought Taasmin Mandella. As the line of healings blessings prophecies petitions forgivenesses shuffled forward she found herself looking up at the reflections of the clouds caught in the roof mirrors and thought of her nephew fighting for the things her power had been given her to fight, out there in the desert sun, under the open sky and the eyes of the Panarch. Spirituality in action, faith in brown shoes, the knife edge of revolutionary love. She was right to pledge assistance to Concordat. For all their human sins, they upheld humanity, life and freedom before the Company’s crushing sterility, machine regimentation and annihilation.
“Lady, the Old Women of Chernowa.” A gaggle of black-shawled gaptoothed grandmothers bowed amid the flowers and swarf. They carried an ugly wooden effigy of a small child. Clumsily carved, ineptly painted, it wore an expression as if a sharp implement were being inserted into its backside. “They bring a petition, madam.” The attendant bowed respectfully and gestured for the Old Women of Chernowa to approach.
“What is your petition?” Sun glinted on clear cold water, leaves cast dappled shadows in leisurely shade; Taasmin Mandella hardly heard their pleading voices.
“… take away our sons and our sons’ sons they take away our freedom, our nobility, they take all we have and give it back to us in dribs and drabs; this they call ‘industrial feudalism,’ and for this we are meant to thank them….”
“Stop. You are from Seeltown?”
The oldest and most venerable of grandmothers cringed low in dread.
“Stand up, all of you.” Sunshine and shade and clear cold water evaporated in the light of the higher sun. “You are from"-she searched her memory, cursing herself for her inattention-"Chernowa in New Merionedd?”
“That is so, madam.”
“And you are oppressed by the Company… strikers, I take it?”
The youngest grandmother pushed to the front of the gaggle.
“Lady, they have cut off the food from our bellies and the water from our lips, the light from our eyes and the power from our fingertips, they have driven us out of our homes so that we must either leave our families, or else live like animals in rude huts of plastic and card! Grey Lady, we petition you, help us! Pray for us, intercede for us, bring the cries of the oppressed to the ears of the Panarch, let him shine his favour upon us, bless us…
“Enough.” The effusive woman crept back to her place, shamefaced at her outburst. “What is that you have with you?” Eldest Grandmother held up the ugly statue.
“This is our icon, the Bryghte Chylde of Chernowa, who by the intervention of the Blessed Lady saved our town from destruction by a falling spaceelevator shuttle through summoning a mystic wind and blowing the danger away.”
Taasmin Mandella had heard of the miracle of Chernowa. The town had been saved but shuttle and all two hundred and fifty-six aboard had been vaporized. A better class of miracle would have saved both, she thought. And it was an exceptionally ugly statue.