‘Yeah, well, we know that,’ Kohn said. ‘What amazes me is the uses they can get put to, not to mention the pilot’s birthsign hologram medallion, satellite televangelists—’
‘—and Creation astronomy kits—’
‘—credulity drugs to make alternative medicine more effective—’
‘—designer heroin for dying soldiers—’
‘—instant access to more lies than you could refute in ten lifetimes—’
‘—Well, that’s freedom for you,’ Janis said, grinning up at the two men’s faces. ‘From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen, right?’
Jordan shrugged off the rucksack in the hallway and stood still for a moment, trying to recover a sense of balance. His ears sang and his eyes still delivered an unfamiliar illusion that everything was spinning, but not actually moving. His knee-joints felt unreliable. Here he was, going with two people he barely knew into a fortified house full of drugtakers! Loose women! Armed communists!
He followed Moh and Janis into the main room. No one else seemed to be around.
‘Coffee, anyone?’ Moh said.
‘Sounds like a really good idea.’ Jordan sat down on the sofa, too hard. Faint ringing noises echoed into the distance.
‘Here’s another good idea.’ Moh tossed something over his shoulder. It landed beside Jordan. ‘Have yourself one of these.’
Jordan picked up the pack of marijuana cigarettes and looked at it doubtfully as a battered Zippo landed on the identical spot. He turned to Janis and raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you think of this stuff?’
‘Well – it’s not particularly good for you if you smoke a lot, and it makes some people lazy or at least lazier than they’d be anyway, but on the other hand it isn’t addictive and it’s a lot less carcinogenic than tobacco.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m having one, anyway.’
‘It doesn’t make holes in your brain?’
‘No, I don’t think the latest research really bears that out.’
Jordan took the lighter and packet over to Janis.
‘I’ll try it,’ he said. ‘But I’m not quite sure how.’
‘Best a little smoke and a lot of air.’ She demonstrated. Jordan lit up and went back to the sofa. Away for one evening and already he was on drugs. Rather to his surprise he made a fairly creditable fist of it, and had got over the coughing by the time Moh brought him a big earthenware mug of Nicafé.
‘Good stuff?’ Moh grinned, settling beside him.
‘Yes,’ Jordan gasped, wiping his eyes and sipping coffee. He looked at how the man sat: arrogantly relaxed, one ankle resting on the other knee, the ebony gleam of his leather clothes; and the woman, half-lotus in the chair, alabaster skin and tender flesh in black silk, smoke curling around her curling hair. ‘Can’t say I’ve noticed much effect yet.’
Moh’s lips and brows twitched, but he made no comment.
‘So…’ Jordan looked from Moh to Janis. ‘Are you going to tell me what you know?’
Moh rolled his eyes and closed them. ‘Not tonight we ain’t.’
He seemed to have drifted off into some kind of trance. Janis noticed Jordan noticing, and made a pacifying gesture.
‘He’s had a long day,’ she said.
‘Not to mention the drugs.’
‘Yeah,’ said Janis. ‘Not to mention the drugs. Tell me about yourself, Jordan.’
Jordan took another hit. He still couldn’t identify any effect. His mind felt clear and calm, and he couldn’t look at anything but Janis. She had flared when she spoke, and now was settled back to a steady flame with a flickering hint of mischief. They talked quietly while Kohn watched something else, and said nothing.
Moh saw the darkness and the lights of the city around them as if the walls were transparent; and the new strange company he kept, the bright city of clean sharp logic at the back of his mind. It ran pictures for him, eidetic memories that played like VR diskettes, of the world that had made the world he walked in now:
the bright world the banner bright the symbol plain the greenbelt fields the greenfield streets the Fuller domes the crowds the quiet dark moments
the plastic model spaceships hanging from black threads the old Warsaw Pact poster of a little girl cradling the Earth DEFEND PEACE the stacked clutter of toys and books and tapes the VR space-helmet
the war. The Republic didn’t disdain the help of children. The party set up a special militia, the Young Guards. Moh toted his first rifle then, a lightweight British SLR, in boring nights of watching the entrance to an office tower. (The trick was that he was guarding it secretly, from a safe-house window across the street: the government was already behaving like a resistance movement.) The days were more exciting: demonstrations and street fights, the tensions of the struggle to maintain neutrality, to keep out of the war. Josh and Marcia made jokes that he didn’t get, about fighting for peace. They were literally doing that, kicking into demonstrations of what they called the War Party: royalists and tories and fascists. Sometimes the police joined in on both sides.
Moh, later, found himself surprisingly ignorant of the details of the actual course of the War of European Integration. At the time he picked up the assumption that the news was all propaganda, and only caught glimpses of it on television. German tanks rode battering sleds of air, carrying the star-circled banner into Warsaw and Bucharest and Zagreb. German MiGs cleared the skies.
The Peace Process. No, not that. He jolted himself awake, gulped cold coffee and thought about something else.
Jordan was explaining to Janis the distinction between Dispensationalism and Pre-Millenarianism (which seemed very important but difficult to grasp) when he heard Moh’s mocking laughter and saw him stand up, looking as if he’d had a good night’s sleep.
‘It’s time I went to bed,’ Moh said.
‘I think it’s time I did,’ Janis said. She yawned, stretched, and jumped to her feet.
‘D’you mind just crashing here, Jordan, just for tonight?’
‘That’s fine. That’s great. Thanks.’
‘Okay. See you in the morning, Jordan.’
‘Goodnight.’
Janis waved, smiling. A moment later they were gone, like birds through a hole in the roof. Jordan sat still for some time and then took most of his clothes off, wrapped himself in blankets from the back of the sofa, and stretched out on it and stayed awake for a long time.
‘Well?’ she said, leaning against the door of his room.
‘Well what?’
‘Have you found a place?’
‘Yeah,’ Kohn said.
‘Good. Well…I feel like another joint before turning in.’ She raised her eyebrows and looked at him. He still seemed wide awake, and he grinned back at her as if this were the most unexpected and delightful suggestion he’d heard in a long time.
‘Yeah, why not?’
She turned and opened the door, watching him. His arm came into the room, past her shoulder; he did something with a switch. Small lights glowed on in the corners as she kicked off her shoes and sat down on the edge of the bed. He sat beside her, leaned an elbow against the pillow and offered her the now depleted and battered pack. She took one out and lit up.
‘Do you want to share?’
‘No, thank you,’ he said. ‘Lipstick tastes.’
She caught him just as he reached for the pack, with her right hand suddenly behind his head. Her fingers dug into his curls. She drew in the smoke to her throat, held it, and grudged the breath that escaped as she whispered, ‘Taste this…’
She brought their mouths (hers open, his opening) together and breathed out while he breathed in. They both broke away, gasping. The second time she gave less attention to fire and more to water, darting her tonguetip against his.