Alastair Reynolds - Absolution Gap

“Language,” Linxe said, smacking her husband sharply on the wrist. “We’ve a young lady present, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Don’t mind me,” Rashmika said. She was beginning to relax: they were safely beyond the village now, and there was no sign that anyone had tried to stop or pursue them.

“He’s not talking sense in any case,” Linxe said. “The caravans might have the kinds of things we need, but they won’t be giving any of it away for free.” She turned to Crozet. “Will they, love?”

Linxe was a well-fed woman with red hair that she wore swept across one side of her face, hiding a birthmark. She had known Rashmika since Rashmika was much smaller, when Linxe had helped out at the communal nursery in the next village along.

She had always been kind and attentive to Rashmika, but there had been some kind of minor scandal a few years later and Linxe had been dismissed from the nursery. She had married Crozet not long afterwards. The village gossips said it was just desserts, that the two deserved each other, but in Rashmika’s view Crozet was all right. A bit of an oddball, kept him-self to himself, that was all. When Linxe had been ostracised he would have been one of the few villagers prepared to give her the time of day. Regardless, Rashmika still liked Linxe, and consequently found it difficult to hold any great animosity towards her husband.

Crozet steered the icejammer with two joysticks set one on either side of his seat. He had permanent blue stubble and oily black hair. Just looking at him always made Rashmika want to have a wash.

“I’m not expecting sod all for free,” Crozet said. “We may not make the same profit we did last year, but show me the bastard who will.”

“Would you think about relocating closer to the Way?” Rashmika asked.

Crozet wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I’d rather chew my own leg off.”

“Crozet’s not exactly a church-going man,” Linxe explained.

“I’m not the most spiritual person in the badlands, either,” Rashmika said, “but if it was a choice between that and starving, I’m not sure how long my convictions would last.”

“How old are you again?” Linxe asked.

“Seventeen. Nearly eighteen.”

“Got many friends in the village?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised.” Linxe patted Rashmika on the knee. “You’re like us. Don’t fit in, never have done and never will.”

“I do try. But I can’t stand the idea of spending the rest of my life here.”

“Plenty of your generation feel the same way,” Linxe said. “They’re angry. That sabotage last week…” She meant the store of demolition charges that had blown up. “Well, you can’t blame them for wanting to hit out at something, can you?”

“They’re just talking about getting out of the badlands,” Rashmika said. “They all think they can make it rich in the caravans, or even in the cathedrals. And maybe they’re right. There are good opportunities, if you know the right people. But that isn’t enough for me.”

“You want off Hela,” Crozet said.

Rashmika remembered the mental calculation she had made earlier and expanded on it. “I’m a fifth of the way into my life. Barring something unlikely happening, another sixty-odd years is about all I have left. I’d like to do something with it. I don’t want to die without having seen something more interesting than this place.”

Crozet flashed yellow teeth. “People come light-years to visit Hela, Rash.”

“For the wrong reasons,” she said. She paused, marshalling her thoughts carefully. She had very firmly held opinions and she had always believed in stating them, but at the same time she did not want to offend her hosts. “Look, I’m not saying those people are fools. But what matters here is the digs, not the cathedrals, not the Permanent Way, not the miracles.”

“Right,” Crozet agreed, “but no one gives a monkey’s about the digs.”

“We care,” Linxe said. “Anyone who makes a living in the badlands has to care.”

“But the churches would rather we didn’t dig too deeply,” Rashmika countered. “The digs are a distraction. They worry that sooner or later we’ll find something that will make the miracle look a lot less miraculous.”

“You’re talking as if the churches speak with one voice,” Linxe said.

“I’m not saying they do,” Rashmika replied, “but everyone knows that they have certain interests in common. And we happen not to be amongst those interests.”

“The scuttler excavations play a vital role in Hela’s economy,” Linxe said, as if reciting a line from one of the duller ecclesiastical brochures.

“And I’m not saying they don’t,” Crozet interjected. “But who already controls the sale of dig relics? The churches. They’re halfway to having a complete monopoly. From their point of view the next logical step would be complete control of the excavations as well. That way, the bastards can sit on anything awkward.”

“You’re a cynical old fool,” Linxe said.

“That’s why you married me, dear.”

“What about you, Rashmika?” Linxe asked. “Do you think the churches want to wipe us out?”

She had a feeling they were only asking her out of courtesy. “I don’t know. But I’m sure the churches wouldn’t complain if we all went bankrupt and they had to move in to control the digs.”

“Yeah,” Crozet agreed. “I don’t think complaining would be very high on their list of priorities in that situation either.”

“Given all that you’ve said…” Linxe began.

“I know what you’re going to ask,” Rashmika interrupted. “And I don’t blame you for asking, either. But you have to understand that I have no interest in the churches in a religious sense. I just need to know what happened.”

“It needn’t have been anything sinister,” Linxe said.

“I only know they lied to him.”

Crozet dabbed at the corner of his eye with the tip of one little finger. “One of you buggers mind filling me in on what you’re talking about? Because I haven’t a clue.”

“It’s about her brother,” Linxe said. “Didn’t you listen to anything I told you?”

“Didn’t know you had a brother,” Crozet said.

“He was a lot older than me,” Rashmika told him. “And it was eight years ago, anyway.”

“What was eight years ago?”

“When he went to the Permanent Way.”

“To the cathedrals?”

“That was the idea. He wouldn’t have considered it if it hadn’t been easier that year. But it was the same as now—the caravans were travelling further north than usual, so they were in easy range of the badlands. Two or three days’ travel by jammer to reach the caravans, rather than twenty or thirty days overland to reach the Way.”

“Religious man, was he, your brother?”

“No, Crozet. No more than me, anyway. Look, I was nine at the time. What happened back then isn’t exactly ingrained in my memory. But I understand that times were difficult. The existing digs had been just about tapped out. There’d been blowouts and collapses. The villages were feeling the pinch.”

“She’s right,” Linxe said to Crozet. “I remember what it was like back then, even if you don’t.”

Crozet worked the joysticks, skilfully steering the jammer around an elbow-like outcropping. “Oh, I remember all right.”

“My brother’s name was Harbin Els,” Rashmika said. “Harbin worked the digs. When the caravans came he was nineteen, but he’d been working underground almost half his life. He was good at a lot of things, and explosives was one of them—laying charges, calculating yields, that sort of thing. He knew how to place them to get almost any effect he wanted. He had a reputation for doing the job properly and not taking any short cuts.”