“Revelation,” added the voice, when Avatar looked blank. “I’m either the true angel of God or his deadly enemy. Unfortunately, no one can decide which, though theologians once wasted a lot of time trying.” The Colonel’s tone made clear what he thought of that.
Revelation? That was the nasrani political endgame, at least Avatar thought it was. He wasn’t big on politics. “You believe this stuff . . .”
“What do you think?”
He thought not.
“Either it was a geek joke,” explained the Colonel, “or they needed to find a framework in a hurry . . . Lash-ups are always easier than starting from scratch, take a look at religion or computer games. My guess is the shapers fed in a couple of terabytes of world myth plus Jung. It didn’t worry them if the deep background was suboptimal. I was only there for the duration of the war. And that was only meant to last a few months.”
“I’m dying of cold,” said Avatar, “and you’re talking shit . . .”
CHAPTER 49
28th October
Mohammed Tewfik Pasha, Khedive of El Iskandryia, rolled over in his huge water bed and opened one eye at the sound of knocking. The bed in which he woke was larger than king-sized, obviously enough, since this was the Imperial Suite.
It was also empty apart from him, and that choice was his. He’d seen how he was watched by the daughters of other guests, their eyes tracking him as he walked down the ornate stairs into the dining room to take his place at the captain’s table. And he knew too that the Van der Bilt girl had dined alone in her cabin every night until he’d taken to eating his supper in public.
El Iskandryia was widely expected to lose its status as a free city. And the shallow end of the gene pool was preparing itself for the Khedive’s new role as romantic but tragic hero (with looks, money and title).
His face was on that week’s Time, but for all the wrong reasons. Cosmo Girl had even produced a poster showing him in shorts and T-shirt, standing barefoot on the deck of a yacht and staring moodily out to sea, or so he’d read. He’d never actually seen the poster and couldn’t remember having been allowed to go barefoot anywhere. Just getting permission from the General to appear out of uniform usually took a tantrum.
Any one of the young mothers who promenaded their children through the upper deck’s Palm Garden each morning would go to bed with him. He’d had sly smiles, batted eyelashes, even a handwritten note folded and slipped into his trouser pocket by a mother of twins. Then there was that Australian woman, her smile anything but innocent, asking him how many slaves he had in his harem . . . And would he like one more?
Yet the only girl he wanted, the one he’d actually invited, had sent her bastard half brother instead.
“Rotate.” Across the suite on a white ash sideboard (so retro-Cunard), a silver photo frame started to flick from picture to picture. It showed what the Khedive’s guests expected it to show. The General and Tewfik Pasha standing together in the throne room. Tewfik Pasha silhouetted against the sun in the luxuriant green of the General’s garden. A winter sunset over the Corniche. And, as a default setting, elegant hand-drawn calligraphy showing the name of God.
They were all an irrelevance . . . Except for the name of God, obviously. The Khedive’s correction was heartfelt and instant, but all the same he felt sick at the thought of his unintended blasphemy. And yet, the fact remained that the only picture that really mattered to him was a tattered clipping, tucked away in the back of his wallet.
It was taken in the early dawn outside an illegal cellar club and showed Zara naked except for a tight faux-fur coat. The grainy shadow between her half-seen breasts bothered him more than any of the pink Renoir nudes so carefully collected by his grandfather and great-grandfather.
“Your Highness . . .”
He’d forgotten about the earlier knock at his bedroom door.
“Yes,” said the Khedive and watched a heavy door swing open to reveal the captain, looking every inch the master of the world’s largest seagoing liner. One thick and three lesser rings circled the cuffs of Captain Bruford’s immaculate jacket. Her trousers had razor-sharp creases at the front and a heavy gold stripe down each outer seam. She seemed slightly embarrassed to see the Khedive, which puzzled Tewfik Pasha until he realized it might be because he was wearing nothing, at least nothing visible.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, sir.” With an effort, Captain Bruford shook her gaze from the half-naked boy. “You know we pride ourselves on how seriously we take the safety of our important guests. All our guests,” she corrected herself.
The Khedive nodded. It seemed unlikely that she’d come up to the Imperial Suite to make a mission statement on behalf of her company, much less discuss its core values or whatever buzzword best described the clichés he’d already heard on the induction film. All the same, the captain seemed to be having trouble coming to the point.
“Yes?”
“Helicopter . . .”
He looked at her in blank amazement.
“On the edge of our systems,” she said. “Approaching the SS Jannah. ”
“And that’s a problem?” Guests came and went by helicopter all the time: that was the whole point of being aboard the SS Jannah; it never docked, anywhere, ever. The only time it left international waters, and that time was covered by special treaty, was when the liner passed through the Panama Canal or the Pillars of Hercules.
“They’re shielded,” said Captain Bruford. “And we can’t get a handshake. Believe me, we’ve tried.” The Englishwoman looked something between irritated and anxious.
“I think it would be safer,” she added, “if we were to get Your Highness off the ship. We have three high-speed VSVs available, Thornycroft-built and with submersible capacities . . .”
She just couldn’t help it, the Khedive realized. Every statement she made about Utopia Lines came out sounding like an advertisement. It had to be something the company burned into their brains at training school.
“You think I’d be safer aboard the VSV?”
“No.” The captain looked at him, her mind already made up. “I think everybody else would be safer. My chief of security has spent the last ten minutes running a risk analysis and you’re the obvious target.”
Tewfik Pasha nodded. In all probability that was true.
Climbing out of bed without thinking about how that might appear to his visitor, he collected a towel from the back of a chair, only to drop it on the tiles when he reached the cubicle.
One month each year was what he got. Time off for good behaviour, that was how he thought of the SS Jannah. One month away from lessons, from his staff, from protocol, from the General . . .
Four weeks in which he could do what he wanted. Sleep, eat, watch old Beat Takahashi vids, if that was what took his fancy. And then it was back to the uniforms, to living in a goldfish bowl, to being immensely rich but having no money. He owned palaces and slept for eleven months of the year in a small room without either air-conditioning or heating. A room where the basin ran only cold water and his antique Chinese carpet was worn to the thinness of tapestry, its holes and stains covered by a rug, thrown down in the strategic place. Living like that was supposed to teach him humility.
Tewfik Pasha wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t even a child. He knew there were whole districts of his city that had no water for drinking, washing or anything else, arrondissements where houses had no glass in the windows and sewage ran untreated in the gutters, alleys where raggeds slept at night, curled against walls or under benches, hiding from the police or their families, or from both—violence came in many guises.