Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [520]
‘Danger or not, the people must bend to the will of the Oligarch, or the Weyr-Winter will destroy them. We must be cured of our self. Only obedience will see us through three and a half centuries of ice …’ This platitude came from the other end of the iron table, where reflections and shadows merged.
The view of Askitosh was executed in sepia monochrome. The city was enfolded in one of the famous ‘silt mists’, a thin curtain of cold dry air which descended on the city from the plateaux ranged behind it. To this was added the smoke rising from thousands of chimneys, as the Uskuti endeavoured to keep themselves warm. The city faded under a shadow partly of its own making.
‘On the other hand, communication with our ancestors in the pauk state does much to fortify our selves,’ said one greybeard. ‘Particularly when in adversity. I mean, I imagine that few of us here have not derived comfort from communication with the gossies.’
In a querulous voice, a Member from the Lorajan port of Ijivibir said, ‘By the by, why have our scientists not discovered how it is that gossies and fessups are now friendly to our souls, whereas – as well-authenticated testaments tell – they were once always hostile? Could it be a seasonal change, do you think – friendly in winter and summer, hostile in spring?’
‘The question will be rendered immaterial if we abandon the gossies and fessups to their own devices by promulgating the edict before us,’ replied the Member from Juthir.
Through the narrow windows could be seen the roofs of the government printing press where, after only a day or two of further discussion, the edict of the Supreme Oligarch Torkerkanzlag II was turned into print. The posters that fell in their thousands from the flatbed presses announced in bold type that hereafter it would be an Offence to Go into Pauk, whether Secretly or in Company with Others. This was explained as another precaution against the Encroaching Plague. Penalty for contravening the law, One Hundred Sibs and, for a Second Offence, Life Imprisonment.
Within Askitosh itself was a rail transport system worked by steam cars which pulled carriages at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour. The cars were dirty but dependable, and the system was being extended outside the city. These cars took bundles of the posters to distribution points on the fringes of the city, and to the harbour, whence they were distributed by ship to all points of the compass.
Thus bundles soon arrived at Koriantura. Bill stickers ran about the town, pasting up the terms of the new law. One of those posters was stuck to the wall of the house where Eedap Mun Odim’s family had lived for two hundred years.
But that house was now empty, abandoned to the mice and rats. The front door had slammed for the last time.
Eedap Mun Odim left the family house behind him with his usual stiff little walk. He had his pride: his face betrayed nothing of the griefs he felt.
On this special morning, he took a circuitous route to Climent Quay, going by way of Rungobandryaskosh Street and South Court. His slave Gagrim followed, carrying his bag.
He was conscious with every step that this was the last time in his life that he would walk the streets of Koriantura. Throughout all the long past years, his Kuj-Juveci background had led him to think of it as a place of exile; only now did he realise how much it had been home. His preparations for departure had been made to the best of his ability; fortunately, he still had one or two Uskuti friends, fellow merchants, who had helped him.
Rungobandryaskosh Street branched off to the left, the street steep. Odim paused at the turning just before the churchyard and looked back down the road. His old house stood there, narrow at the base, wide at the top, its boxed-in wooden balcony clinging to it like the nest of some exotic bird, the eaves of its steep