The Star Fraction

12

The Cities of the Pretty

There actually was a wall called the Stonewall Dykes, but it was more to prevent people from entering unwittingly than to keep anyone out – or in. In the bad old days of the Panic it had had a more serious function, but now it was just a bit of retrovirus chic – isolation camp. The real protection of the area – the Gay Ghetto, the Pink Polity, the Queer Quarter – was in the strong, gentle, capable hands of a militia called the Rough Traders.

The truck pulled off the clearway and down a side street, past a portion of the wall on which someone had written ‘Sodom today – Gomorrah the World!’, and they were in. Just another street, except suddenly there were no women. A bit further and there were no men; further yet and there were both, but you couldn’t tell which was which, all gaudy and glad-ragged and gay.

‘What’s the difference between this sort of thing and what’s outside?’

‘None at all, that’s the point. There’s nowt so queer as folks, as they say up North—’

‘Oh shut up. That’s not what I meant. What’s the difference between these specialized neighbourhoods, or whatever you call them, and the mini-states?’

‘No wars.’

‘It can’t be that simple.’

‘Looks like it can.’

‘The future and it works, huh?’

Kohn laughed. ‘It keeps people like me in work. In my future society we’d be out of a job. No wars over territory and no fights over property.’

‘Yeah, yeah…’

Kohn gave directions for a few more turnings. They came to a halt in a car park in front of a large housing estate built as a single block: four sides around a courtyard, the side in front of them having an opening about three metres high and five wide. Through it they could see a lawn and flowerbeds. All the windows in all eight storeys of the block had curtains of ruched peach satin in front of other curtains of frilled net. Another truck and some small vehicles and bicycles stood unattended in the car park.

A man came out of the entrance and walked up briskly. He wore a plain brown loose-fitting smock and trousers and had short blond hair. He stood for a moment at the front of the truck and then stepped up to the door beside Kohn.

Kohn lowered the window. He decided for the moment, to stick with the ostensible reason for their visit. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m the security adviser—’

‘Mr Kohn? Ah, hello. My name’s Stuart Anderson. Your agency told us to expect you. I’ll be asking you in in a moment, but first I’d like a word with the lady.’

Janis leaned across. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but would you mind waiting while your companion looks around? No offence intended – it’s just the rule of the community. The only women allowed in are those who live here or are associated with us, and you…’ He smiled regretfully like a waiter telling you something is off tonight. ‘Refreshments will be brought out to you if you wish, or you may take a walk in the area.’

‘Thank you very much,’ Janis said. ‘What sort of women-oriented community keeps ordinary women out and lets men in?’

‘Femininists,’ Anderson articulated.

‘Ah, so,’ Kohn said. ‘You should have worn a frock, Janis, make-up like lacquer and false eyelashes. Then they might have let you in for a boring examination of their building, which is what I’m down for.’

Anderson gave an open, genuinely amused laugh.

‘Don’t take it to heart, ma’am. We won’t be more than an hour, and in the meantime, if you wouldn’t mind easing the truck forward a bit so we can get it unloaded and reloaded…’

Janis shrugged and blew a kiss and a scowl. Kohn climbed out.

‘Please leave any weapons,’ Anderson said.

Kohn detached the computer and heaved the bag back into the truck. Anderson coughed politely. Kohn thought for a moment, sighed, and passed Janis a pistol, a throwing knife, a flick-knife and a set of brass knuckles.

They walked across the courtyard. People strolled about or worked at the garden. The women, as Kohn had expected, were wearing every exaggeratedly feminine get-up known to man. The men looked rather drab and conventional by comparison. No old people; no children.

‘So tell me, Stuart, what’s it all about? If you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t look very sissy to me.’

‘Of course not,’ Stuart said. ‘That’s not what we’re into. Our aim isn’t to merge or reverse the sex roles but to make femininity the dominant gender.’

Moh shook his head. ‘I still don’t get it.’

‘It’s all to do with peace,’ Anderson said earnestly as they entered the block and walked down a bright corridor. ‘We’re sickened by the violence that goes on all around us, and the femininists have a theory which explains it. The so-called masculine virtues have outlived their usefulness. Aggression, ambition, production. We’ve reached a point where the whole earth can be a home, a garden, a sanctuary. Instead it’s used as a factory, a hunting-ground, a battlefield. That’s what we mean by the dominance of the masculine virtues. What femininism advocates and tries to practise is the long-overdue domestication of the species through the feminine virtues: domesticity itself, of course, plus gentleness, caring, contentment: channelling energy into art, adornment, decoration…All low-impact activities, you see, and utterly absorbing. Take embroidery, for example, which many find entirely satisfying as a full-time, lifelong occupation, yet the material resources used in it are negligible…and of course the product is valuable, including to rich collectors.’

‘And where do men fit into all this?’

‘Oh, they don’t try to fit us in. They just set us a good example. And we integrate our activities and interests as a subordinate, servicing part of this community, just as traditionally women’s work has serviced the masculine economy – in fact, that’s still how many of the women here earn money outside: as teachers, nurses, secretaries—’

‘Bank tellers?’

‘I think that, too, yes.’

‘Sounds a bit sexist to me.’

Anderson laughed. ‘Now that’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time.’

They entered a large, low room, almost a factory floor. Dozens of women worked intently at sewing-machines. A few of them were obviously making clothes, but even Kohn could see that some of the items being made from vast pieces of thin silk had to be something else. He indicated them with his head as they walked along the side of the room. At the same time he tried to see if Cat were among the women there, but – as far as a quick glance could tell – she wasn’t.

‘Pavilions, canopies,’ Anderson explained. ‘Very popular at society garden parties.’

Pavilions? Moh ran some of the shapes through again in his head, then left something at the back of his mind to figure them out. There was another thing that didn’t quite fit here. The ideas that Anderson had expounded struck him as too daft and too sensible at the same time: the femininists were giving some very old-fashioned views a subversive twist, but the tenets Anderson had expressed lacked the seductively counterfactual gormlessness of ideology. (Men are free. Men are equal. Men are such beasts.) Or perhaps Moh was just overestimating the human species: ‘If there’s a folly unvoiced,’ his father had used to say, ‘some little sect will emerge to voice it.’

A woman fell into step with them. She introduced herself as Valery Sharp and described herself as the block administrator. She was small – petite, Kohn mentally corrected himself – and pretty, with the glamorized hausfrau look of some ancient advertisement for detergent: gingham dress, floral-print apron, blonde curls held back with a starched cotton kerchief. She sent Stuart off to get coffee for the lady in the truck and showed Kohn into her office, a small room off the workshop area.

‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ she remarked brightly, closing the door. She sat down behind a desk and invited Kohn to a chair. ‘Someday all offices will be like this.’

The desk looked more like a dressing-table. It had a frilled valance around it. The frills had frills. The chair was swathed in fabric tied with bows; the white wallpaper was sprigged with pink rosebuds; the air was thick with jasmine potpourri. Kohn felt as if he’d stepped into her bedroom. Goddess knew what that was like.

‘It would make a change,’ he said truthfully. He could imagine the entire planet turned over to this sort of taste: roses round every door, perfume on every breeze, men and machines devoted to providing the basic materials for women to endlessly titivate and prettify and tart up…He really should give more of his money to the space movement.

Valery smiled wryly. ‘It gets me like that, too, sometimes,’ she said.

Kohn looked at her, puzzled at this admission. He was reluctant to reveal that he knew there was some connection between this place and the ANR.

Valery looked at him very directly and added, slowly and distinctly: ‘Civis Britannicus sum.’

Kohn stared at her, astounded. The phrase wasn’t exactly a secret password but it was the next best thing: he’d never heard anyone say it without meaning it. It affirmed a continuing sense of Republican citizenship, and there were places where it could get you shot.

‘Gens una sumus,’ he responded. His mouth was dry, his voice thick. ‘We are one people.’ It drew a sharper line than all the manufactured divisions of the Kingdom, and put the speaker on the other side of it.

‘So what’s all this—?’ he began.

And then, suddenly, he saw it: the pieces fitted together – literally.

‘Parachutes!’ he said triumphantly. ‘Microlites, hang-gliders…’

Valery’s eyes narrowed. ‘Very good,’ she said. ‘How did you figure that out?’

Kohn shrugged. ‘With my good right brain.’

She still looked puzzled, but as if she believed him.

‘OK, Kohn. You know Cat is here?’

He nodded. ‘You picked a pretty roundabout way of telling me.’

‘Yes,’ said Valery. ‘There was a good reason for that. It’s the same reason that the ANR is staying off the nets as far as possible: they’re no longer certain the systems are secure.’

‘What makes them unsure?’

‘I don’t know,’ Valery said impatiently. ‘What I do know is this: we received an urgent message through…channels…to persuade Catherin Duvalier to come and stay with us, and to fetch you here. Donovan is out to get you, and not just for this stupid ransom affair. Now, I don’t know what this means, but I’ve been told to tell you that Donovan knows who you are, and so does Stasis. They’re working together now. Donovan’s challenge was an attempt to lure you to the hospital, where he could find you – fortunately we got Catherin out of the way first. We did send a girl to see you, but she wasn’t able to make a sufficiently secure contact.’

‘Ah! At Brent Cross?’ Kohn snorted. ‘It only made me more paranoid.’

‘She wasn’t very experienced, and we may have overstressed the caution,’ Valery admitted. ‘Anyway, now you are here, we can sort out the ransom business. That won’t stop Donovan, I’m afraid, but at least he’ll have to call off his hue and cry against you.’

‘Can you do that without him knowing where I am?’

‘Certainly,’ Valery said with a smile. ‘Through the Body Bank, remember? All we need is your digital signature, and Catherin’s. Our bank teller will witness it and everything will be legally in the clear.’

‘You’ve just said you don’t trust the nets any more.’

‘We’re talking about different levels,’ Valery said vaguely, or with intentional obscurity.

‘OK. And then what?’

Valery fixed him with a severe look. ‘The ANR,’ she said firmly, ‘is very anxious that you should go immediately to a controlled zone. That’s all I know.’

‘Somebody else suggested I do that,’ Kohn said. ‘I’ve been considering it. It’d be difficult, seeing as the ANR have put the fear of God into the Hanoverians.’

‘We can arrange safe passage,’ Valery said. ‘I’ll tell you about it later. Meanwhile, let’s get this mess sorted out, all right?’

Kohn agreed almost absentmindedly, preoccupied by the implications of what he’d just learned. Valery tilted up a desk terminal – it was shaped like a mounted mirror – and Moh jacked in his computer and passed his digital signature into the handover document. Valery messaged Cat, and after a moment the document showed that her dig-sig was in as well. Kohn watched as the Body Bank registered the transaction. He now had a credit – which he doubted he’d ever collect – of five hundred marks with the Carbon Life Alliance.

The consequences of the deal rippled outwards through databases, and in less than a minute Catherin’s name was cleared and Donovan’s case against Kohn was dropped. Querulous, disappointed queries instantly began to flash around the low-life newsgroups. Kohn shook his head and caught Valery in the same gesture. They shared a disillusioned smile.

Valery was about to fold away the terminal. Then something on the screen caught her attention. She raised an eyebrow at Kohn.

‘It seems Catherin would like to see you.’

Kohn felt his ears going red. ‘Yeah, I guess she has a few words to say to me.’

‘Right,’ said Valery. ‘Go out, then through the door on the left to the garden, and in the first french window. I’ll be along in a few minutes.’ She smiled quizzically. ‘I imagine the worst should be over by then. After that we can discuss what you do next.’

‘I have a companion,’ Kohn said. ‘She’s out in the truck at the moment, and she’d have to be involved in any decisions.’

‘Of course.’

‘OK. See you,’ Kohn said.

He went out into the garden, through a glass door and into a kind of parlour full of overstuffed chairs and large vases. In one of the chairs a woman sat, head half-hidden by a bonnet, bowed over the lap of the huge spreading skirt of her dress. She was meticulously stitching small pieces of coloured fabric on to the back of a denim jacket. A circular pattern with lettering around it was already beginning to take shape. She looked up, slowly, eyelashes lifting modestly.

Cat had a very cat-like smile.

Moh grinned back. ‘Calamity Jane,’ he said.

Teeth white in the sunlight.

‘It’s all fixed?’ she asked.

‘Yup,’ Moh said. ‘You’re in good standing again. An honest-to-goddess accredited left-wing combatant.’

‘Back to the struggle. Good.’

The jacket slipped to the floor as she raised the pistol she had concealed underneath. She held it in her right hand and brought the left – the plastic cast becoming visible as the loose, lacy cone of her sleeve fell back – to give a steadying grip on the right wrist. Very cool, very professional.

‘Now I’ve got you, you son of a bitch,’ said Catherin Duvalier.

Cat felt she had been waiting for this moment, this perfect revenge, for years rather than days. A glimpsed thought told her this was the case, that recriminations from their original break-up still echoed. The thought passed, leaving a steely memory of Moh stalking out of the hospital bay.

Her anger tensed the muscles of her damaged forearm, and hurt.

She’d had more visitors than anybody else in the secure ward. First Moh, then – in a virtual sense – Donovan. And later that evening the nurse who’d brought her dinner had put her head around the partition, smiled and said, ‘A friend of mine would like to meet you.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘She’s a teller at the Body Bank. She’s learned about your position and she’d like to help you.’

‘I don’t want to be a security guard, thanks.’

‘Oh, that’s not the idea at all. Nothing like that. That’s why she wants to see you. I think you’ll be interested.’

Catherin shrugged and agreed. A few minutes later the bank teller walked in, heels clicking, clothes whispering together. She poised herself on the chair beside the bed.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Annette. I understand you’re looking for a safe place to stay, out of the fights.’

It didn’t take Annette long to convince Catherin that the femininist community was a good place to go until her status as a combatant was restored. It would give her a retreat, a chance to plan.

‘But that’s all,’ Cat explained hastily. ‘I’m not saying I agree with your ideas or anything—’

‘Of course not,’ Annette said. ‘But don’t count on it. We’ve won over quite a few combatants who’ve got tired of the boys’ games.’

Cat smiled. It wouldn’t happen to her. ‘When can I go?’

‘First thing tomorrow morning?’

‘Fine.’

‘Good. That’s settled, then.’ As she stood up to leave, Annette picked up Catherin’s denims and looked at them with some disdain.

‘We’ll have to get you something decent to wear,’ she said, making to take the whole blue bundle.

‘No, no,’ Catherin said. ‘I want to keep these. I can do something with them.’

‘All right…Let me just get your measurements. Excuse me a moment.’ She took a scanner from her pocket and waved it from Cat’s neck to her ankles. ‘See you tomorrow, Catherin.’

She returned at an ungodly hour the next morning with long paper bags draped over her shoulder. The nurse pulled a screen across the bay. Catherin looked at the bags.

‘Modesty,’ she said. ‘Oh, Jesus!’

‘Go out in style, kid,’ Annette said.

They had to help her to dress. It wasn’t because of her broken arm in its shell, or her innocence of the intricate fastenings. There simply was no way to put on or take off these clothes independently. When they had finished they stepped back and smiled at her.

‘Oh. Oh,’ the nurse said. ‘You’re so beautiful.’

Annette took Catherin’s shoulders and turned her to face a wall mirror. She stared at this strange double, coiffed and corsetted, crinolined in blue satin and white lace. She stepped forward, then back, amazed at the sheer amount of stuff that moved with her, the trimmings that fluttered and swayed. She had to laugh, shaking her head at the absurdity of it. She plucked at the skirt in front of her with gloved fingers, let it drop.

‘I feel silly,’ she said. ‘Helpless.’

‘Not quite,’ Annette grinned. She reached over to give Catherin a small handbag. ‘In there, my dear, along with some make-up carefully chosen for your complexion, you’ll find a neat, ladylike little pistol.’

Catherin smiled, relaxing. This trace element of the kind of protection she had always counted on reassured her and enabled her to accept the kind on which she must now rely: a power that didn’t come out of the barrel of a gun. The shaping grip around her waist, the frame of fabric below her waist – they were not a prison but a castle.

‘OK, sisters,’ she said. ‘Let’s make an exit.’

She walked out of the ward with her head high, looking straight in front of her. She had once seen a royal wedding on television, so she knew how to get the effect.

Moh looked at her for a long second.

‘Look, Cat, I’m honestly sorry about what I did. What I didn’t do. But it’s settled, it’s squared—’

‘Not with me it bloody isn’t. That’s the point. Now I’m back in action I can take you prisoner.’ She grinned. ‘And I just have.’

‘On whose behalf?’ Moh said sourly, playing for time. ‘If it’s the Left Alliance we’ve already worked out what—’

‘Oh, no,’ said Cat. ‘On behalf of Donovan. I called him when I was logged on to sign the release, as soon as I was in the clear. The CLA are sending a couple of agents—’

‘You did what?’

The lady’s gun wasn’t much of a stopper, he thought; he could kill her before he died. For a moment he took comfort in that. Then he remembered there was a way out of the trap and out of the absurd feud that his offence against Cat had started, and which she seemed determined to finish. He eased back from tensing to spring, and waited, forcing a sickly smile.

‘Formally,’ Cat said, ‘they’re coming here to pay you the ransom for me, as they have every right to. And there’s nothing to stop me handing you over to them.’

Moh heard footsteps on the path outside. He stood where he was until Valery came in and stood beside him. Cat flicked a glance at her but the pistol didn’t waver.

‘Here’s something to stop you,’ Moh said. ‘Valery, Miss Duvalier has just claimed me as a prisoner on behalf of the CLA. Two of their fighters are due here – when?’

‘Any time now,’ Cat said. ‘Valery, this has nothing to do with you.’

‘Yes, it has,’ Valery said. ‘For one thing, you’re still inside our community. For another—’ She hesitated, looking uncertainly at Moh.

‘Just tell her, dammit,’ Moh said. ‘If I don’t move it this minute I’ll be—’ He stopped, fighting for breath, for words, against the pictures that his too efficient brain displayed. The thought of falling into the hands of the CLA and, worse, Stasis was turning his skin cold and the room dark.

‘You’ll do it?’ Valery asked him.

‘Yes, I’ll do it.’

‘You have to say it,’ Valery said gently. ‘Say it to her. For the record.’

Moh drew a deep breath. ‘As a citizen of the United Republic I claim the protection of its armed forces and pledge on my honour to exercise when called upon by its lawful authority the Army Council of the Army of the New Republic all the rights and duties of such citizenship including but not limited to the franchise and the common defence. Is that it?’

‘Basically, yes,’ Valery said. ‘So, Cat, unless you want to tangle with the ANR I suggest you put that gun away.’

Cat stared at them both. ‘This place is ANR?’

‘Yes,’ Valery said.

Cat’s shoulders slumped. She lowered the pistol.

‘You still owe me one, Moh.’

‘Later,’ Moh said through gritted teeth. Calming himself, he smiled. ‘You are pretty,’ he said – as if that would be enough, would help, would cover everything – and backed out. He sprinted across the courtyard lawn, leapt flowerbeds and shrubs, dodged people. He wasn’t surprised to find Valery Sharp keeping pace. A sidelong glance showed muscles firmed, doubtless by aerobics, under the clothes which also weren’t as daft as they looked; they didn’t get in her way.

‘I’m sorry,’ Valery gasped. ‘We never expected—’

‘It’s OK. Neither did I.’

They stopped in the cool gloom of the entrance-way. Crates were being loaded on to the truck. Only a couple more to go.

‘Now, what were you going to tell me?’

‘Take the truck,’ Valery said.

‘Where?’

‘As far north as you can, then to any controlled zone. We’ve got clearance for all the borders, and tax-in-kind, but…if it looks like anyone’s going to find out what’s really in it, stop them at any cost. If necessary, burn the container section. At any cost.’ She looked at him. ‘Can you do that?’

‘Yes. Will you call my co-op, with a message from me to a guy called Jordan: the search is over, do your own thing.’

‘I’ll do that. And I’ll keep Cat out of Donovan’s way for a bit.’

‘OK. I hope I see you again.’

Valery smiled and shoved him on his way. ‘Go!’

He ran to the back of the truck, grabbed the last crate and hurled it in, jumped up to the deck and hauled the tailgate down after him as he vaulted back out. A man fumbled with a lock. Kohn waited for what felt like seconds until it was secure, then ran to the cab and almost flew through the door. He found himself facing his own gun. Janis was crouched under the steering-wheel, aiming at the door and trying to fit an ammunition clip at the same time. The whiplash sensor extension writhed as it tried to keep level with the windscreen.

‘Get down!’ she hissed.

Kohn threw himself on the passenger seat, gasping. Janis passed the gun to him as if pushing it away from her.

‘It talks,’ she said.

‘Yeah, yeah, you knew that.’ Kohn rolled on to his back and clashed the clip and the computer into place. ‘What’s it say?’

‘Cranks. Coming for us. It’s picking up signals—’

‘Helmet.’ He waved a hand in front of Janis until he felt the helmet in it. He half-sat, cautiously, slid the helmet on and flipped the glades down, jacked the lead into the gun and keyed the screensight to head-up. The gun’s two views – where it was pointing, and what the eye-on-a-stalk was seeing – overlay his own like reflections in a window. They had never looked so distinct.

‘What did you get, gun?’

There was a pause as the computer interrogated the even tinier mind of the gun’s basic firmware.

‘Phone call, public, CLA encryption style, otherwise no data extracted. Source vehicle now entering square at—’

And there it was, flashily outlined in red: a black Transit van with black windows, turning the corner. It drove around the square and rolled to a stop a couple of metres in front of the truck. Kohn made out two heat-images behind the light-shaded windscreen of the van.

He turned on the engine and grabbed the steering-wheel with his left hand. Janis watched.

‘Seat. Belts,’ said the truck.

‘Oh, shut the fuck up.’

Janis clunk-clicked the belt on the driver’s side and looped her arms through it, grasped it firmly with her hands, letting it take her weight.

‘Good,’ Kohn said, like some psychopathic driving instructor. ‘Expect a jolt. Now take the brake off and give us some juice.’

He braced his legs together against the lower edge of the dashboard. The truck lurched forward. There was a heartening crunch as its steel fenders rammed the thin metal and hard plastic of the van. Janis yelled but it was surprise – the impact hadn’t been too severe.

Kohn jack-knifed up and out of the cab, hit tarmac and made a low lunge for the van door, his body wrapped around the gun. He used the butt to smash the side window and whirled the weapon around to cover the inside. A young man and a young woman, both long-haired, oily-denimed, hailstoned with safety glass and still shaking from the collision. The man reached under the dashboard. Kohn fired one shot across the back of the man’s hand and into the corner below the steering column. The hand snatched back and something hydraulic failed at the same moment.

‘Out,’ Kohn said, and stepped backwards off the running-board.

They came out. The woman had her hands on her head. The man held his bleeding hand to his mouth.

‘You come for me?’

The woman shook her head, the man nodded.

‘Well, now you’ve f—’

Kohn’s words were swamped by a thrumming roar, a skidding screech.

He turned his head – the gun stayed steady like a handrail – and saw an overdeveloped ’thirties Honda rocking gently where it had halted, a couple of metres away. Its rider was built to match, all the way from leather boots to leather cap. He dismounted, thus revealing that what had looked like a spare fuel-tank was actually an armoured codpiece. His arm and chest muscles would have been troubling even without the holografts.

He held up a badge. ‘Rough Traders,’ he said. ‘Do you have a problem?’

Kohn pointed the gun groundwards and said, ‘A disagreement.’

‘Does anyone wish to lay a charge?’

The couple by the van shook their heads.

‘Nor me,’ Kohn said. ‘But I wish to claim a ransom for a hostage, and I’ve had some difficulty persuading these two. I think you’ll find that they do have the documentation.’

They nodded frantically. Kohn felt some tension ease. It had been just a guess that Donovan’s mob would try to maintain the cover.

‘How much?’

‘Five hundred marks,’ the woman said, finding her tongue at last. She held out a grubby banknote. Kohn made an insultingly elaborate show of scanning it with one of the gun’s sensors (which duly registered that it didn’t contain any large masses of moving metal) and wrote out a receipt pertaining to the release of one Catherin Duvalier for the sum of, etc. The rent-cop witnessed it and the man took the top copy, with the wrong hand at first.

‘Please make sure this is delivered to the person mentioned in it,’ Kohn said, handing over a second copy to the Rough Trader. ‘She’s currently resident at this block.’

‘OK.’

Kohn walked back to the truck and climbed in, to find that Janis had been covering the whole incident with his previously discarded pistol. He smiled, kissed his finger and thumb at her and strapped in. The Rough Trader was striding towards the apartment block; the crank agents were talking into a mike in their disabled van. Laughing, Kohn eased the truck out of the square and along a narrow street, forcing a ridiculously broad pink Cadillac to mount the pavement as it came towards them. Then, after a few more back streets, they were on the clearway again.

Janis said, ‘Explanation time.’

‘Parachutes,’ Kohn said.

‘Huh?’

‘That place is an ANR front. The whole femininism thing is a cover-up.’ They both laughed. ‘They’re busy making parachutes and fabric panels for microlites and hang-gliders, using manual sewing-machines. No software, see? Nothing to trace. Bulk orders on the Black Plan, like Jordan told us. They must be preparing for something big soon. And, think of it, all these dolly secretaries and so on must make pretty good spies.’

‘What about the ones who really believe in it?’

‘I doubt if there are many, and they can be kept harmlessly occupied. That was what all that fussy domestic craftwork crap was about in the first place, if I remember my social-history books.’

Janis looked as if she had caught up with herself.

‘Yes, but what happened back there?’

He told her: how the shapes hadn’t seemed right, and what Valery had told him; finding Catherin, and how and why she’d set him up. Janis already knew about his earlier relationship with Catherin – they’d spent hours of the past days and nights telling each other everything. But she was upset.

‘Oh, Moh!’ Janis stared straight ahead.

‘I know I shouldn’t have—’

‘No, it’s just – why did you do it in the first place? Why did she try to get back at you like that? Sounds to me like two people out to hurt each other. A particularly nasty lovers’ quarrel.’

‘I never thought of it like that,’ he said, considering. ‘It was business, politics. I felt she’d betrayed what we had stood for, that she fucking deserved it, working for these creatures from the swamp after, after—’

He was reduced to hand-waving.

‘After standing shoulder to shoulder with you for scientific-technological socialism?’

Kohn gave her a half-amused grimace that admitted the explanation lacked plausibility. ‘Something like that.’

She squeezed his knee. ‘It’s all right, I’m not jealous. Well, I am, actually. But I know what I’m up against.’

‘Yeah,’ Kohn said. ‘No competition at all.’

‘Why did they let you get away?’

‘There’s a formula,’ Kohn said, ‘a password for these situations. Goes a bit further than the old Civis Britannicus sum. You say it to the right person, you’re a citizen of the Republic. That’s what I did when I saw it was our only way out. The Republic, the ANR, they don’t give a damn for the militia rules of engagement. So now things are, like, different.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Well, any sort of little skirmishes we get into now are gonna be war. It won’t be like being a mercenary or even just defending ourselves the way we did back there.’

‘You’re telling me you’ve joined the ANR?’

‘Not exactly, but I’ve agreed to carry out its lawful orders, as a citizen of the Republic.’ He looked over at her, feeling he had more explaining to do. ‘It wasn’t just to get out of Cat’s clutches. I’ve been thinking about it. The Republic’s the only place I’ll ever find the answers to what’s happened to me. Like Logan said, it’s the safest place for us. And for whatever data is stashed in the gun’s computer. As for the politics of it, hell, if Josh could square whatever he was doing with working for the Republic, so can I.’

Janis was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘I want to join, too. Be a citizen. How do I do it?’

‘I told you the first time this came up: you’re still a citizen. From school, remember? If you want to be an active citizen, you contact another one, and volunteer. Like I just did.’

‘Damn, I could’ve done it back there, now I’ll have to wait till we…’ She stopped, hit her forehead with the heel of her hand and said, ‘Civis Britannicus sum, all right? That’s me in?’

She looked so keen and pleased with herself that Kohn felt ashamed of his reluctance, but he had to ask.

‘You’re sure you—?’

Janis burst out laughing. ‘I love the way you keep warning me off – it’s either charming or you must think I’m a vac-head. Look, Kohn, I know we’re in trouble. The only place I have a chance to live now is on this side of all those burning bridges.’ She punched his arm, like she didn’t want to risk anything but fraternal greetings at this moment. ‘My country is where you live, wherever that is.’

‘You know where it is,’ he said. ‘The fifth-colour country. Gens una sumus.’

They left the Stonewall Dykes and then Norlonto itself; they were on the King’s highway now, the public roads. Kohn felt the momentary pang of unease which always accompanied his crossing into the domain of the state. An emotional toll. They passed a high blue-and-white sign with a vertical arrow and one word on it: ‘North.’ The clearway flowed into an eight-lane motorway. The diesel kicked in. Janis squirmed down in her seat like a happy child.

‘I love that sign,’ she said.

‘Uh-oh,’ Kohn said.

Janis sat up straight. ‘What?’

Kohn pointed at the rear-view screen. Far behind them in the traffic was a pink blob with a wide chrome grin.