Hannu Rajaniemi - The New Voices of Science Fiction

Tell him you’ll be fine , Marta demanded. Ask him not to mention it to anyone.

“I’m fine.” Zhang Lei pushed himself onto his elbows, then to his knees. “Don’t talk about this, okay?”

The farmer looked dubious. He gathered the water buffalo’s lead rope.

“I’ll walk you back to the studio.”

“No.” Zhang Lei jumped to his feet. “There’s nothing wrong with me. It won’t happen again.”

Better not , Marta grumbled.

Zhang Lei led the way up the trail. J en Dang followed. The water buffalo wasn’t dawdling anymore, it was moving fast, nearly trotting. The track converged on a single-lane paved road, which snaked up the valley in a series of switchbacks. They were higher now, the guest houses far below, and everywhere, rice terraces brimmed with ripening grain yellow as the sun. He could paint those terraces with slabs of cadmium yellow. Maybe he would.

“Which way?”

Zhang Lei needn’t have asked. The water buffalo turned onto the road and trundled uphill. Before long, the slope gentled. Houses lined the road, with gardens and rice paddies behind. The road ended at a circular courtyard patterned with dark and light stones and half-bounded by a stream. At the far end, a footbridge arched over the water, leading to more houses beyond.

The animal’s tail switched back and forth. It trotted toward the water, splayed hooves clopping on the courtyard’s patterned surface. A hygiene sweeper darted out of its path. At the stream’s edge, where the courtyard’s stone patterns gave way to large, dark slabs, the water buffalo paused, lowered its head, and stepped into the water.

A man called out from one of the houses across the bridge. Jen Dang shouted a reply. No word balloon appeared.

Jen Dang offered the lead rope to Zhang Lei.

“He’ll stay in the water. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Zhang Lei leaned on the bridge railings, flipping the rope to keep it from tangling in the animal’s horns as it luxuriated in the water below. The stream wasn’t deep, only a meter or so, but the beast lay on its side and rolled, keeping its white beard, eyes, and horns above water.

When Jen Dang returned, the water buffalo was scratching its long, drooping ear on a half-submerged rock. Zhang Lei kept the rope.

“It’s fun,” he said. “Best part of my day, too.”

The farmer sauntered across the courtyard and joined a pair of friends working in the shade of a mulberry tree.

Zhang Lei composed a series of canvases. The water buffalo with its eyelids lowered in pleasure, lips parted to reveal a gleaming row of bottom teeth. Three women in bright blue blouses weaving in an open workshop, their silver torques flashing. A man in deep indigo embroidered with pink and silver diamonds, sorting through a table piled with feathers. Jen Dang leaning on a low stone wall, deep in conversation with two friends using gleaming axes to chop lengths of bamboo. A white-haired woman in an apron stirring a barrel of viscous liquid with a wooden paddle. A battery of pink-cheeked, scrubbed children racing across the courtyard as a golden pheasant stalked in the opposite direction. A row of cabbages beside the road. Herbs clinging to a slate outcropping. A dragonfly skipping over the water. The tallest peak puncturing the western horizon like a fang on the underjaw of a huge beast.

Aesthetically pleasing, peaceful, picturesque. But all communities had tensions and contradictions. Only a Miao could identify the deeper meaning in these scenes. Only a great artist could paint the picturesque and make it important. He wasn’t Miao and he was no great artist. Could he capture the water buffalo’s expression of ecstasy as it pawed the water? Not likely. But he could paint the mountain. Nothing more banal than another mountain view. But he loved that unnamed peak. He’d loved Mons Hadley, too.

Jen Dang waved. A word balloon blossomed over his head: Let’s go.

He jiggled the rope. The water buffalo ignored him. He flapped it, then gave the gentlest of tugs. The buffalo snorted and heaved itself out of the water. It stood there dripping for a moment, then its skin shivered. It lowered its head, shaking its great bulk and coating Zhang Lei in a local rainstorm.

Zhang Lei wiped his face on his sleeve. The men were still laughing when he joined them. Nothing more fun than watching a rookie fall on his ass.

Jen Dang was still chatting. Zhang Lei waited nearby, in the shade of a house. Along the wall was a metal cage much like the one behind the guest house. A rooster stalked back and forth, its face, comb, and wattle bright red, its bare breast and scraggly back caked with clean, healing sores. It stared at Zhang Lei with a malevolent orange eye, lifted one fiercely taloned yellow leg, and flipped its water dish.

“Stupid bird,” Zhang Lei muttered.

Around the corner was another cage, another rooster in similar condition, its comb sliced in dangling pieces. When it screamed—raucous, belligerent—the other bird answered. Zhang Lei knew an exchange of challenges when he heard it.

“Are these fighting cocks?” he asked when Jen Dang joined him.

“You don’t have them on Luna?” he answered.

Shit , whispered Marta. Tell him you’re from the Sol Belt. You’ve never been to Luna.

Why don’t you hit my disable button again? Load me on a cargo float and stick me in a hole somewhere? Or better yet—a cage. Evict one of the birds and get me my own dish of water.

I might have to do that. Listen kid, it’s never been more important for you to be discreet.

Why? Are they coming for me?

Silence.

They are, aren’t they? Answer me.

A Lunite team tracked you to the Danzhai roadhouse, but don’t worry. We’ve got people on the ground, planting rumors to lure them to Guiyang. Even if they don’t take the bait, Danzhai County has lots of towns and villages. You’re still safe.

“I’m from the Sol Belt,” he told Jen Dang. “I’ve never been to Luna.”

The farmer didn’t look convinced.

Zhang Lei’s hand stole up to his throat. Under his jaw, where his pulse pounded, the hard mass of the noose waited to choke off his life.

When Zhang Lei got back to the studio, the other three artists were upstairs. He shoved the sofa aside. The painting leaned against the wall, facing out, a layer of breathable sealant protecting the drying oil paint. He was sure he’d turned it to face the wall, but apparently not. It didn’t really matter. He wanted it gone.

He sprayed the canvas with another layer of sealant, trying not to look at the thick wet bloody gleam on the arena’s ice. He wrapped it in two layers of black polymer sheeting, and requested a cargo wrap to meet him at the guideway landing stage.

When he got there, the area was packed with Miao arriving on sliders and bikes, whole families crowded onto multi-seat units, laughing and talking. He edged his way to the cargo drop, slid the cargo wrap around it, addressed it to Marta, and shoved the painting inside the conveyor. Done. He’d never have to think about it again.

The Miao were on holiday. Women wore their blue blouses with short skirts trailing with long, flapping ribbons, or ankle-length red and blue dresses. All the women’s clothing was dense with colorful embroidery and tinkling with silver, and all wore their silver torques. The younger women pierced their top-knots with flowers. Mothers and grandmothers layered their torques with necklaces, and wore tall silver headdresses crowned with slender, curving horns. Silver everywhere—charms in the shape of flowers, bells, fish, and butterflies dangled from their jewelry, sleeves, sashes, and hems.

They were, in a word, gorgeous. Happy, laughing, leading children, carrying babies, holding hands with their friends, and among them, men of all ages in embroidered black, blue, and indigo. The men were also happy, also laughing, also embracing their friends, helping their children and elders. But the young women—ah. They caught his eye.