"It was a hard life for the people who made their living in the swamp," the guide continued, ignoring the man. "Although there were periodic economic booms in the area, based around fur or cypress wood, the downturns were generally longer. Before J Corporation created the Louisiana Swamp Preserve, it was a dying way of life."
"Don't look like there's a lot of people making a living here now," the British man offered, and laughed.
"Gareth, leave the turtle alone," his wife said.
"Ah, but there are people still making a living in the old-fashioned way," the guide responded cheerfully, pleased that she had been given an easy one. "You'll see on the last stop on our tour, when we reach the Swamp Market. The old crafts and skills haven't been forgotten, but preserved."
"Like a dead pig in a jar of alcohol," the engineer said quietly, displaying what Olga thought was an unexpected gift for simile.
"If it comes to that," the guide said, finally allowing her own defensiveness to show through, "Charleroi's people come from this same area, didn't they?" She turned to the young pilot, who gazed back at her with infinite weariness. "Isn't your family from right around here?"
"Yah." He nodded, then spat over the side. "And look at me today."
"Piloting a boat through the swamp," the tour guide said, her point proved.
As the guide went on to list in great detail the red-shouldered hawk, ibis, annhinga, and other creatures winged and otherwise who frequented the reclaimed swamp, Olga let her mind wander away, lazy as the track through the floating duckweed of yesterday's final tour, which their own boat was following with only the smallest of deviations. A bird the guide identified as a bittern made a sound like a hammer striking a board. The cypresses began to thin, the mist to burn away.
They slipped from the grove to find the stern black finger of God held up before them, dominating the horizon beyond the swamp's vegetative carpet.
"Lord," said the Englishwoman. "Gareth, look at that, darling."
"It's just that building," the child said, rooting in the daypack for something else to eat. "We saw it before,"
"Yes, that's the J Corporation tower," the guide said, as proud of the distant structure as she had been of the Intra-coastal Barrier. "You can't see from here, but the island in Lake Borgne contains an entire city, with its own airport and police force."
"They basically make their own law," the professional man told his partner, who was dabbing her forehead with a handkerchief. He didn't bother to whisper this time. "The guy who owns it, Jongleur, is one of the richest guys in the world, no dupping. They say he pretty much owns the government down here."
"That's not very fair, sir. . . ." the guide began, flushing.
"Are you kidding?" The man snorted, then turned to the British family. "They say that the only reason Jongleur doesn't admit he owns the government outright is because then he'd have to pay taxes on it."
"Isn't he the one who's two hundred years old?" the British woman asked as her husband chortled at the idea of owning your own government. "I saw about him on the tabnets—he's a machine or something." She turned to her husband. "I saw it. Made me go cold all over, thinking about it."
The guide waved her hands. "There is a great deal of exaggeration about Mr. Jongleur, most of it cruel. He's an old man and he's very ill, it's true." She put on what Olga thought of as the Sad Newsreader Face, the one that net people donned when presenting schoolbus crashes or senseless homicides. "And of course he's influential—the J Corporation is the biggest employer in the New Orleans area, and has interests worldwide. They're a major stockholder in many companies, household names—CommerceBank, Clinsor Pharmaceutical, Dartheon. Obolos Entertainment, for that matter, the children's interactive company. What's your name," she asked the little boy, "Gareth, isn't it? Surely you know Uncle Jingle, don't you, Gareth?"
"Yeah. 'Snot fair!' " He laughed and slapped his mother's shin with his lightstick.
"See? J Corporation is involved in lots of things, vested in wholesome and consumer-friendly companies all over the world. We are, as we like to say, a 'people corporation'. . . ."
The rest of the spiel was lost to Olga—in fact, she had stopped hearing what the woman said after the mention of Obolos. In all her years working for the company she did not remember being told anything about J Corporation. But, of course, who paid attention? In a world where every corporate fish was both eater and eaten, who could even tell which fish had swallowed last?
I should have researched the tower, I should have. . . .
But it had been a religious experience, a revelation, not a school assignment. The children's voices had demanded she come, and so she had put away her worldly goods and come.
Uncle Jingle—Uncle Jingle comes from the black tower.
Olga Pirofsky spent almost two more hours in the tiny boat, surrounded by faces whose mouths moved but whose voices she could no longer bear to listen to, an interstellar traveler landed among babbling aliens.
Uncle Jingle is murdering the children. And I helped him do it.
"I don't understand here," said Long Joseph. "Where is this Sellars? You said he was on the phone—you said he was calling and calling on the phone. But now he don't call at all, anytime."
"He said he'd call back." Jeremiah spread his hands helplessly. "He said there were things going on . . . we're not the only ones with problems."
"Yeah, but I bet we are the only ones locked up in a mountain while a bunch of Boer murderers trying to burn their way in and kill us."
"Just settle down, would you? You're making my head hurt." Del Ray Chiume had returned from his brief inspection tour. "Don't pay any attention to him," he told Jeremiah. "Just read us the notes you made—it's not like we have a lot of time to waste arguing."
Long Joseph Sulaweyo didn't like anything much about the way this was going. It was bad enough being trapped in a deep underground base in the middle of nowhere, with only three bottles of anything decent to drink to last God only knew how long, and people outside who wanted to kill him, but now it appeared that Del Ray—Del Ray who Joseph himself had brought here—was making common cause with Jeremiah Dako, ganging up against him.
Joseph could make no sense of it, unless Del Ray, too, was secretly a girly-man as well, and the deep fraternal bond was stronger than other loyalties. Maybe that is the real reason he broke up with my Renie.
"So I am supposed to trust my life to this kak?" he demanded.
"Don't start with me, Joseph Sulaweyo," Jeremiah said. "Not after you just disappeared for days without an explanation, leaving me to handle everything."
"I had to go see my son." But he could not escape a small flitting shadow of guilt. He would not want to be cooped up in this place alone. Perhaps it had not been easy for Jeremiah either. "All right, then, who is this Sellars man? What business does he have with us, that he calls up from nowhere and tells us what to do?"
"The business is trying to save our lives," Jeremiah growled. "And if you hadn't shown up when you did, he would have been the only thing to keep me from being murdered by those men out there."
"That and several feet of battleship steel plate." Del Ray was trying to sound cheerful but hadn't quite succeeded. "There are worse places to be under siege than in a hardened military bunker."
"Not if we don't get things in order," Jeremiah said primly. "Now, are you going to listen?"
Joseph had not entirely buried his suspicions. "But if this man is away in America like you say, how did he find this place? It is supposed to be a big secret."