The Dream Archipelago

  ‘Do you want to go on?’ Ordier said.

  ‘Of course. Give me a minute. Nothing serious.’

  But the challenge of the climb seemed to have waned, if only temporarily, because he was obviously in no hurry to continue. The bulk of the ridge rose above them.

  Parren looked to the side, where the folly loomed high on the ridge.

  ‘That castle belongs to you, doesn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘It’s not a real castle. It’s a folly.’

  ‘Couldn’t we climb up to the battlements? It looks like it would be easier than these rocks.’

  ‘Yes, it’s easier,’ Ordier said. ‘But also more dangerous. The folly’s partly ruined and the steps are reinforced for only some of the way up. In any event, the view is better from the ridge, I assure you.’

  ‘So you have been up to the battlements?’

  ‘Only the first time I looked round the property. But I wouldn’t risk it again.’ Ordier decided to take a chance. ‘But you could go up there alone, if you like,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Parren said, rubbing his arm with his fingertips. ‘Let’s do it this way.’

  Ordier again ran through the list of precautions, showing Parren how to use the rope, how to find footholds and handholds, how to shift his balance as he climbed. It was not a steep or a high ascent but the rocks were so broken and brittle that any careless movement could bring disaster to them both.

  They resumed their climb. All went well until about two-thirds of the way to the top when Parren slipped again. He cried out as he fell against a boulder jutting out beneath him.

  ‘You’re making too much noise,’ Ordier said, when he had climbed down to the man and saw that he was unhurt. ‘Do you want the Qataari to hear us even before we reach the top?’

  ‘You’ve done the climb before. It’s different for you.’

  ‘I was alone the first time I climbed up here. I didn’t make such a song and dance about it.’

  ‘You’re younger than me, Ordier.’

  The recriminations ceased when Ordier climbed away from him and resumed his position with the rope. He sat down on a slab and stared at Parren, waiting to see if the man wanted to go on with the climb. The anthropologist continued to sulk for a few more minutes, then appeared to realize that Ordier was doing his best for him. At last he climbed slowly up. Ordier took in the slack of the rope.

  ‘You were right, Ordier,’ Parren said, speaking quietly. ‘I’m sorry I made a fuss.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘Do you suppose the Qataari know we’re here?’

  ‘It’s impossible to be sure until we actually reach the top.’

  ‘So you think they heard me?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ Ordier said. ‘The wind’s noisy today. Maybe you’ll get away with it. They don’t have superhuman faculties, as far as anyone knows. Be as silent as possible from now on.’ He pointed up. ‘We’ll head for that dip there. It’s not exactly where I went last time, but close to it. If the Qataari haven’t changed their guard positions since you’ll find that the nearest guard is some distance away from you. With any luck you’ll have a few minutes before they spot you.’

  Ordier crawled forward, placing his feet on the best holds he could find, pointing them out mutely to the other man. Up here towards the summit of the ridge there were fewer pieces of broken and fallen rock, so it was possible to move with less risk of dislodging anything. Parren followed in silence. At last Ordier reached a broad slab just beneath the crest of the ridge and lay face down across it while he waited for Parren to climb up to join him.

  They both lay in silence for a couple of minutes, letting their breathing steady. The face of the rock was sun-hot, burning their hands and faces as they rested.

  ‘If you’ll take more advice from me,’ Ordier whispered, ‘don’t use your binoculars at first. Take in the general view, then use the glasses on the nearest subjects.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Once they spot us the cry will go up. It radiates outwards from here.’

  Parren had his binoculars out and hanging around his neck. Ordier took out his own from their case.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he said softly.

  Parren nodded and they inched forward and upward, until they could peer over the ridge into the valley beyond.

  A group of five Qataari guards stood in the valley immediately beneath them, staring patiently up at the exact place where they were looking over.

  Ordier reflexively ducked down again, but in the same moment he heard the Qataari shouting and knew there was no more chance of surprising them.

  When he moved back up to look again he saw that the warning was fanning outwards. The guards along the valley side of the ridge were turning their backs on Ordier and Parren, and in the rose plantation, along the banks of the narrow river, on the approaches to the camp, the Qataari were halting in whatever they had been doing. They stood erect, passively waiting.

  Parren was holding his binoculars awkwardly, trying to see but trying to keep his head down at the same time.

  ‘There’s no point concealing yourself any more,’ Ordier said. ‘You might as well stand up. You’ll see better.’

  Ordier himself sat up and settled as comfortably as possible on the edge of the slab. In a moment Parren sat down beside him. The two men looked across the valley, the sun beating down on their faces. They both scanned to and fro, using their binoculars.

  Ordier had his own concerns. While Parren searched for whatever it was he wanted to see, Ordier scanned the rose plantation systematically, looking with the powerful glasses from one person to the next. Most of them stood with their backs turned away from him. At such a distance it was difficult to see clearly, even under magnification. His heartbeat was causing the glasses to judder in his hands, making the image leap. There was one Qataari who was unmistakably female. Ordier stared at her, unable to be certain it was not the young woman he saw in the arena.

  While Parren was still busy with his own observations Ordier swung his glasses to the side, towards the part of the ridge where the folly was. Because of the lie of the land it was not possible to see the actual arena but two of the hollow encircling statues were visible. He had had no hopes of seeing if a ritual might be in progress – anyway, the distance was too great – but he wanted to find out if there were any people in that part of the valley. Apart from one of the guards standing close to the folly, though, there was no apparent activity over there.

  Their silent observations of the unmoving valley continued for several more minutes. Parren produced a notebook, made sketches of the view and wrote two pages of notes in small, tight handwriting. Ordier watched him with eyes half-closed against the brilliant sunlight, feeling the top of his head starting to burn in the heat.

  Scattered around the rock on which they were sitting were several rose petals, curled up and dried by the sun. As they ascended Ordier had noticed petals all over the lower part of the ridge, but those, perhaps for being better sheltered from the sun, had still been soft and pink. He picked up one of the dried ones, curled and crushed it between his fingers. It broke into dust, and drifted lightly to the ground when he brushed his hands together.

  When he completed his notes Parren again scanned the valley through his glasses, then said that he had now seen everything he wanted.

  ‘Have you any idea when they’ll break out of that?’ he said.

  ‘They’ll wait until they think the coast is clear. Whatever else you can be sure of, none of them will move a muscle until a long time after we’ve left.’

  Parren stared off into the distance: Ordier’s house, the dusty landscape that lay all about, the heat-hazed mountains in the background.

  Eventually he said, ‘Would it be worth waiting here out of sight for an hour or two? I have the time.’

  ‘The Qataari have more. They know we’re here now. We might as well go back.’

  ‘They seemed to be expecting us, Ord
ier.’

  ‘I know.’ He glanced apologetically at the other man. ‘That’s probably because I brought you to the same part of the ridge that I climbed before. We should have tried somewhere else.’

  ‘Then we could do that next time.’

  ‘If you think it’s worth it.’

  They began to make their way down, Ordier taking the lead. With the greater power of the sun the descent quickly became physically unpleasant. They were tempted to take shortcuts so as to cut short the climb, but the unstable surfaces and the jagged edges of the rocks were a constant reminder of the dangers.

  It was Parren who called a halt first. He squatted down in the shade of an overhang. Ordier climbed back up to him and crouched beside him. They both drank water from their bottles, wiping their mouths with the backs of their hands. Below them and slightly to the side, seemingly close at hand, Ordier’s house and grounds stood out against the dun landscape like a brightly coloured plastic model. They could see the figures of Jenessa and Luovi basking beside the pool, side by side in the shade of a large canopy.

  Parren said, ‘Jenessa tells me you once worked with scintillas.’

  Ordier glanced at him in surprise. ‘Why did she tell you that?’

  ‘I asked her outright. Your name was familiar. We both come from Faiandland, after all. Once she told me I remembered your story, what the press had said about you.’

  ‘Well, at least you know why I came to the islands,’ Ordier said. ‘I’ve nothing to do with scintillas any more. I’ve left all that behind me.’

  ‘Yes, but you still know more about them than most people.’

  ‘What use is that sort of knowledge here, in the islands?’

  ‘To me, it could be extremely useful. I need to consult someone with specialized knowledge. In other words, I need to consult you.’

  ‘What would you want to know?’ Ordier said, resignedly.

  ‘Everything you can tell me.’

  ‘Professor Parren, I think you’ve been slightly misinformed about me. I was never technically involved with the scintillas. I was simply an expediter, a merchandising agent.’

  ‘I know what you did. But I also know you’re not being completely candid with me. If you’re not an expert in scintillas, no one is.’

  ‘I’ve told Jenessa only a little about what I used to do. She shouldn’t have said anything. I truly know little about scintillas that isn’t common knowledge by now. Techniques were improving. The equipment I was selling is years out of date.’

  ‘Then that’s not a scintilla detector I saw in your house?’

  ‘Look, I don’t see why you’re interested.’

  Parren was sitting forward away from the shade of the overhang. His manner had changed.

  ‘Let’s not mince words, Ordier. I need some information and you’re clearly the best person to give it to me. I want to know for instance if there’s any law in the Archipelago that prohibits the deployment of scintillas.’

  ‘Now why should you need to know that?’

  ‘Because I want to use scintillas to observe the Qataari. I’d like your opinion on that. And because of what we’ve both just seen, I want to know if you think the Qataari might have any way of jamming the signals from scintillas.’

  ‘I can tell you there’s no law against using them. Or at least, no enforceable law. There’s only the Covenant of Neutrality, but I’ve never heard of it being invoked against the use of scintillas. Planting them is generally considered to be a breach of the Covenant, but I’ve never heard of any prosecutions. Some of the islands might have their own local laws. Tumo, as it happens, doesn’t.’

  ‘What about the rest of what I asked?’

  ‘Obviously, the scintillas could be deployed if you could think of some way of planting them without the Qataari knowing.’

  ‘That’s actually the easiest part. I’ve already told you that I’m planning to use an aircraft. There’s a company in Tumo Town that says it can supply the equipment for releasing scintillas at night.’

  ‘You’re ahead of me, you see,’ said Ordier mildly. ‘Why do you suppose the Qataari would know how to jam scintillas?’

  ‘They’ve had experience of them. Both sides were using scintillas when the Peninsula campaign was going on. The military overdo everything. Scintillas must have been ankle-deep around the Qataari. It wouldn’t have taken much for even a relatively backward race to work out what the scintillas were for. Anyway, as we both know, the Qataari are not backward.’

  ‘I was under the impression that you thought they might be. Anthropologists don’t usually spend much time studying scientifically literate people.’

  ‘The Qataari are different. They’re of interest to researchers precisely because they won’t allow research. As you say, social anthropology normally concerns itself with primitive peoples, but the Qataari aren’t primitives. We categorize societies in groups of soft and hard. That’s our jargon for the degree to which they impact on the world around them. The Qataari look like a classic society of the soft kind: they’re not warlike, they grow flowers, they’re passive to a fault. But there’s something deep and subtle and worked-out going on. It’s obvious to anyone. I think of the Qataari as decivilized but hard. As hard as any society can be. Their technological skills must be a match for anything of ours.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘An intelligent guess. They’re obviously trying to conceal something. But what’s your opinion about the scintillas, Ordier? Do you think they could jam scintilla output?’

  ‘No one else can, so far as I know. They couldn’t be jammed when I was working with them, and the conventional wisdom was that they probably never would be. Limitations on wavelength and signal compression, apparently. But you know how it is with technology. It’s always improving.’

  ‘That would also be true of Qataari technology, of course.’

  ‘I don’t know, Parren. I imagine so.’

  ‘Look at this.’ Parren reached into a pocket and pulled out a small box. Ordier recognized it at once: it was a scintilla quiet-case, similar to his own. Parren opened the lid and reached inside with a pair of tweezers he took from a mounting inside the lid. ‘Have you seen one of these before?’

  He dropped a scintilla into the palm of Ordier’s hand.

  Ordier, guessing, said, ‘It doesn’t have a serial number engraved on it.’

  ‘Right.’ Parren leaned over and picked up the scintilla again with the tweezers. He dropped it into the quiet-case and closed the lid with an emphatic click. ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘Do you?’ Ordier said.

  ‘I’ve never encountered it before.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ Ordier said. ‘Except here on Tumo. My guess is that they’re military.’

  ‘No, I’ve checked. They’re required by the Treaty of Yenna to mark them. Both sides have abided. Anyway, the imprinted serial number is used digitally in decoding the images. The scintillas are supposed not to be able to work without it.’

  ‘Then it’s a bootleg?’

  ‘They’re usually marked too, for the same reasons. A few of the pirates might leave them blank, some kind of perverse virus mechanism. But the numbers of unmarked bootleg scintillas would be tiny, because there’s no point in anyone using scintillas unless they can acquire the signals. These little devils are all over the place. I’ve found hundreds since I’ve been on Tumo.’

  ‘You’ve checked them all?’ Ordier said.

  ‘No, but nine out of ten of the ones I’ve found in the town have been blank.’

  ‘Then whose are they?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d tell me, Ordier.’

  ‘I think we’ve already established you’re better informed than I am.’

  ‘All right, then I’ll tell you what I think. They’re connected with the Qataari.’

  Ordier waited, expecting more to follow, but the other man was looking at him expectantly, waiting for a response.

  He said in the end, ‘So …?’
/>
  ‘Someone,’ Parren said with emphasis, ‘is spying on the Qataari.’

  ‘With what purpose?’

  ‘The same as mine, obviously.’

  Ordier heard again the ambitious note in Parren’s voice he had heard at Jenessa’s dinner party. For a moment Ordier felt the same stab of guilt, thinking that Parren had somehow learnt that he was spying on the Qataari from the folly. But Ordier’s own guilt was nothing beside Parren’s ambition, which was so bright behind his eyes that it blinded him.

  He said after a moment, ‘Then perhaps you should join forces with whoever it is. Or else you’ll end up getting in each other’s way.’

  ‘That’s it precisely. As I don’t know who it could be I’m forced to compete with.’

  ‘You have your own scintillas?’

  Ordier had intended the question sarcastically, but Parren said at once, ‘Yes. I can get hold of a new version, the latest thing. They were still being tested only a few days ago. They’re a quarter the size of existing scintillas, so to all practical purposes they’re invisible. At the same time they have digital networking capacity, which means that for the first time saturation coverage produces a holistic image, instead of hundreds of thousands of separate digital channels that have to be decoded.’

  ‘Then there’s your answer,’ Ordier said, mentally recoiling from the surprising information. ‘You would clearly have the edge.’

  ‘I know. But there’s one unavoidable problem. The cost is going to be immense. I can’t commit my university budget if it transpires the Qataari can jam my scintillas.’

  Ordier smiled grimly. ‘As I said, I can’t help you. Technology moves too swiftly. But if you want my opinion I think a technical ability to detect scintillas is irrelevant, when we’re talking about it in the context of the Qataari. You’ve seen how sensitive they are to being watched. It’s like a sixth sense. My guess is they’d find out about your scintillas somehow.’

  ‘But they’re not superhuman, as you said.’

  ‘As a lot of people say. They just go on acting as if they are. Look, I need a proper drink. We can talk about this back at the house.’