Peter Hamilton - Fallen Fragon

"Hell."

As his sensors shifted their focus back, he was mildly surprised to see Duane Garcia was still waiting for him. "Checking on me?"

"Certainly not. It's a difficult path back, and there are several forks. We wouldn't want you to get lost."

Lawrence chuckled as they started walking. "Funny, I'd have said that was exactly what you wanted to happen."

Duane Garcia acknowledged the gibe with a slight grin. "I admit your arrival here is not the most welcome visit we've ever had. But I really don't want you having a genuine accident out here, if for no other reason than I doubt your commanding officer would believe it was an accident."

"True enough. Can I ask you something?"

"Certainly."

"Where's your jail?"

"A jail? I'm sorry, we don't have one."

"So in a settlement of at least six hundred people, there are no sinners. Sounds like paradise."

"I'm afraid not. We do have miscreants, of course, every community does. It's just that we don't believe in incarceration as a form of correction or punishment. Other penalties are applied. Restrictions, both physical and material."

"Humm. For the record, I don't believe all this Zen bullshit you people are selling the captain. This whole community is way too nice. Normally, by the third generation, any community founded around a single principle has developed a lot of dissenting voices."

"You have seen the way we live. There is little here to complain about. And if you do, you are free to leave."

"Nope. I still don't buy it."

"You're very adamant about that. Why?"

"I was born a third-generation colonist myself. I know all about the resentment directed toward obsolete restrictive ideals."

"That might just be you. Or perhaps our ideals are more appealing than those of your homeworld."

"Touchй." But I still know you're hiding something, he thought.

Captain Lyaute decided that it was safe for the patrol to stay in the village for the night. The villagers clearly didn't represent the kind of threat evident in Dixon.

Families were temporarily evicted from various A-frame houses to make way for the squaddies. Lawrence was billeted with Ntoko, Amersy and 435NK9's latest recruit, Nic Fuccio. Their A-frame was one of those overlooking the central park where the convoy vehicles were drawn up. Five comfortable bedrooms, three bathrooms, a lounge, study, reception room, dining kitchen, a family room full of toys; all arranged in a T-shape. As he walked through it, Lawrence thought about some middle managers from Z-B he knew whose apartments were a lot more cramped. He claimed a bedroom with a big sliding glass door and stripped off his Skin. The bulky suitcase of field-support equipment extruded eight umbilical cords, and he plugged them into the suit. Blood and other fluids began to cycle through the flaccid synthetic muscle.

A warm shower washed off the blue dermalez gel, and he dressed in an olive-green sweatshirt and gray shorts to join his housemates on the balcony. Amersy had already found the drinks cabinet and mixed a jug of some lemon-based cocktail. Lawrence went for a can of Bluesaucer. The beer tasted better than it ever had down in Memu Bay.

He hadn't realized it before, but the village was situated on a gentle slope. Half of their A-frame was supported on thick wooden stilts to keep it level. From the balcony they could see out over a broad shallow valley where the forest formed an unbroken dark blue-green cloak.

"Do we ever get any runaways, Sarge?" Nic asked as he settled back in a cushioned sun lounger.

"No. We're too obvious. Why, you thinking of it?"

Nic gestured round the clearing. Eight of the convoy's squaddies remained in Skin, guarding the trucks and jeeps. It was an easy duty. The kids were hanging around the vehicles, with the Skins letting them sit in the driving seats. Several girls had appeared, in their teens or early twenties. Lawrence was sure they hadn't been around before. He would have remembered. Like the tourists at Memu Bay, they didn't wear much, T-shirts or halter tops, and shorts. From his angle, most of them looked cute to beautiful. They belonged perfectly to the idyll image. The duty Skins were very busy talking to them.

"Got to admit," Nic said. "It's tempting. I can see myself living like this once I've earned a big enough stake."

"I couldn't," Lawrence said.

"Why the hell not? A place like this, you've got everything you could possibly need. Hey, I wonder if they go in for that trimarriage lark? Country folk always stick with the original traditions longer than the townies."

Ntoko chuckled and pushed his cocktail glass toward the tall, healthy girls gathered round a jeep. "Two of them together would finish you off, man."

"There are worse ways to go."

"This whole living with nature in the forest crap is a dead end," Lawrence said.

"Whoa there, the man's got a bug jammed up his ass." Nic laughed. "What could be wrong with this, Lawrence? Do a couple of hours' work each day, then spend the rest of the time lying about drinking and screwing. Look at 'em. They're all smiling, none of them are stressed. They know they're on to a good thing."

"I've seen this kind of setup before. It appeals to us because we see it as a break from our job. But you can't live like this for eighty years. You'd die of boredom after six months."

"Oh hell," Amersy groaned. "Here we go, the starship captain speech again. We're all meant for higher things."

"It's true," Lawrence insisted. "This kind of existence contributes nothing to the human experience. It's a retreat for people who can't handle modern society. And the irony is, they're utterly dependent on that society. Villages like this rely entirely on the industrial products made down in the city."

"That's always been the way, Lawrence," Ntoko said. "Different communities live different lives and produce different things. Trading between them generates wealth. Centuries ago it was different nations; now we've evolved microcosms of that, with communities that are going down highly specialized routes. This kind of lifestyle wasn't possible before modem communications and transport. These villagers are as much a development of our society as Memu Bay is."

"They're dreamers who need a good dose of reality to wake up and take part in what the rest of us are building."

The sergeant raised his cut crystal glass to the sinking sun. "Well, this is the kind of dreaming I like. Now have yourself another beer and chill out, Lawrence."

"Yes, Sarge." Lawrence grinned and fished round in the icebox. A group of children walked past the end of the house's garden. They yelled something unintelligible, and Lawrence waved back. Places like this, he conceded, did have their uses. He'd never managed to relax quite this much before on Thallspring, not even clubbing down on the marina.

If he could just work out what was wrong with Arnoon... Which was when he saw one of the children, a boy, slip his hand into one of the bushes that marked the boundary of the garden. His fingers slithered casually through the chubby blue-green leaves and found one of the fruits hanging within. It was a smallish globe, with a satin orange sheen. He plucked it with an easy twist of his hand and bit into it. Juice dribbled down his chin.

"I knew it!" Lawrence hissed. "Did you see that?"

"See what?" Ntoko asked.

"He's eating fruit. Real fruit. Off a bush. They're all bloody Regressors."

Ntoko frowned at the boy over the rim of his glass. "You sure?"

"I saw him."

"Filthy habit."

"Fancy making your kids do that."

Nic pulled a face at the liquid slopping around the bottom of his own glass. "Hey, you don't think they've given us any, do you?"

"They'd better not have," Amersy growled.

Lawrence slumped back down in the sun lounger again.