Tales from Kalgachia - 16
At four years old Rubina Yastreb was quite capable of conversation, but hardly chose to speak at all.
To her, words were a cumbersome overlay; a necessary inconvenience to make herself understood by others. Her own inner language was a jumble of thought patterns, melodic rhythms and visualised symbols which sometimes manifested themselves in half-mumbling or random fits of dance when she thought nobody was around.
Naturally her mother, Ilessa, was consumed with worry.
"It's hard enough for her to socialise, living down here, without being mentally subnormal too." she said to her husband Xantus. Her chaise longue faced his leather armchair across the traditional Nezeni hearth tree in their drawing room, kept alive so deep underground by a well of soil sunk into the floor and a ring of recessed ultraviolet lamps in the ceiling.
Because of Xantus' role as Kalgachia's head of state, and Ilessa's marriage to him, their whole little family unit lived in a complex of tunnels and chambers which was off-limits to all but the Council of Perfecti and Kalgachia's highest officials. Certainly Rubina was the only child who had ever set foot in the place. The playmates she did have, as visiting initiates of the Troglodyti observed, were not of the physical realm. More than once Ilessa had stumbled upon Rubina alone in her little bedchamber, hosting a 'tea party' - laid out on the floor with a mismatched assortment of crockery from the family kitchen - only for Rubina to deny her entry because it was 'full'.
As as Pedagogue General of Kalgachia, Ilessa was concerned about her daughter's odd character and environment with an obsessive intensity. Although she rarely argued with Xantus on any other subject, the matter of what to do about Rubina - or even if anything needed to be 'done' at all - was a matter of vociferous debate between them. Between that and Xantus' workload with the Council of Perfecti, their marriage had long since shed the rosy tint of its honeymoon period, but the love of each survived in the form of mutual admiration for the other's tenacity in argument.
"She's a Yastreb, what do you expect?" Xantus countered nonchalantly. "I was the same at her age. So was my papa. And my papa's mother, she was a certified retard but still held a government office in Shireroth. I've seen the records from Caverden and Lunaris. So who cares if Rubina's a little deranged? It never did her ancestors any harm. Quite the opposite."
"No harm, Goldie? You were born in a Minarborian penal colony because your father tried to stage a revolution against the necrarchy. That's not what I'd call a healthy upbringing."
"It's a shame you never experienced the wonders of the Minarborian penal system, Lessie. I was tutored by the Broodmother of the Deep Singers herself. Where else would I have had that oppurtunity? Lunacy always brings us Yastrebs to better things. It never makes sense at the time, true, but it keeps us ahead of the historical curve. Between all the prophecies and psychoses, we're wired straight into the Garden Ketheric. Why else would I have ended up here? In little Beenie's case, you just need to think of the final result."
"I can't see her final result being anything but a mad cat lady. At least your grandmother Aegrotia had the excuse of brain damage at birth. Beenie won't have that blissful ignorance. She'll have a cognisant, front row seat for her own descent into social decrepitude. Even if she does become some great prophetess, she won't be happy. Without a wider world to relate with, her revelations will eat her up."
"She'll find curiosity about the world in her own way," said Xantus with a sigh. "What four year old doesn't? In your job, you should know that better than I do."
"Following their own way doesn't always match what's best for them, Goldie. Do you know what the alcoholism rate for under-twelves is in this country?"
"I didn't know they measured such a thing."
"I only know because I commissioned the study. Within a day of publishing the first round of results, the Prefects arrested my chief statistician and threatened to make him disappear unless I agreed to make the study classified. What does that tell you?" Ilessa raised an accusatory eyebrow.
Xantus shrugged in his airmchair. "It tells me the Prefects aren't getting any more subtle in their methods. I'll have another word with the brother responsible in Council and get his goons to lay off the Pedagogue General's Office."
"You're missing the point, Goldie. The fact is, we can't expose Kalgachia's children to the full dogma of Ketherist liberation while their minds are too immature to make the most beneficial use of it. Rubina is no exception. I don't object to her being a little off the beaten track, but she's on course to be lost in the mental wilderness. She needs a link to wider society, to blow off steam if nothing else."
"Well I can agree to that," said Xantus. "For a different reason, through. One day she might be helping us run the country down here. In which case it's a good idea to familiarise her with Kalgachia's surface world. True, the Council don't let me go up there any more but at least I have previous experience to work with. I must admit it's been valuable to me." Suddenly Xantus sat bolt upright. "Wait... has Beenie actually been to the surface yet?"
Ilessa tensed up as the revelation struck her. Her own visits to the surface had been entirely work-related and on reflection, Rubina had never in fact accompanied her. The closest the girl had gotten was tagging along for the occasional shopping trip in the underground quarters of Oktavyan City, to which the Perfecti's chambers were linked underground. Rubina was familiar with the surface world through the many picture books on her bedchamber shelf and the little tube television in the drawing room, but she had never seen it in person. "How could I not notice!?" Ilessa gasped.
"To be fair, Beenie has never mentioned going up there herself," said Xantus. "Maybe she thinks the surface is some kind of fictional fantasy land."
"Well I'll have to clear a gap in my work diary and take her up there," said Ilessa. "Your Troglodyte friends won't thank me for tainting her soul with a sight of the evil archonic skies, but she needs to know her enemy."
"True," pouted Xantus. "You know, I have no idea if she'd actually want to go to the surface. She's hard to read. Do you think she wants to go?"
"Yes," came a tiny voice from behind the hearth tree, so quiet that it was barely audible. Squinting between the branches, Xantus and Ilessa spotted the eyes of Rubina peering out at them.
"Beenie!" said Xantus. "What have I told you about hiding from Mama and Papa? Come out of there."
Rubina stepped out carefully around the hearth tree. Her face bore a grey-brown complexion of wet sand or cardboard, the natural combination of Xantus' yellow skin and Ilessa's bluish purple. Somewhat strikingly her hair was a vibrant red, the result of some recessive Goldshirian gene on Xantus' side being activated. Now she looked at the floor in shyness - playing hide was her favourite thing to do, much to the consternation of her parents, but she had not anticipated being told off for it this time.
On seeing her reaction, Xantus decided to drop the bad cop routine. He leaned forward in his armchair. "So you want to go to the surface?" he said.
Rubina nodded, her eyes staying fixed on her little black shoes.
"Well I'm sure we can arrange that," said Xantus. Then after some thought, "where on the surface to you want to go?"
Rubina's feet shifted and she mumbled something.
"Speak up honey," said Ilessa. "Papa can't hear you."
Rubina huffed in frustration. "Nirdledirds."
"Nirdledirds?" said Xantus, trying to ignore Ilessa's frown of disappointment at the girl's speech habits. "What do you mean?"
Rubina went over to a rack of magazines and selected one, flicking to a page in the middle without hesistation - it was a page she had visited often. She showed it to Xantus - it was an old issue of The Crampon, the journal of the Kalgachi Defence Force. The page in question was a feature on one of its air support squadrons, the text laid over a double-spread photo of a Whirdlebirb attack helicopter in flight.
"Oh, Whirdlebirbs!" said Xantus. "You want to see a helicopter!"
Rubina nodded and screwed up her eyes in excitement, breaking into a rare smile.
"Well," said Xantus, "I think that can be arranged."
"I can... I can go now?" chirped Rubina, now bouncing on her feet.
"Tomorrow," said Xantus. "I promise."
Rubina smiled again, turned and bounded out of the room.
"But my diary isn't clear tomorrow," said Ilessa.
Xantus blinked at her. "Am I to believe that your emphatic position of..." he looked at the clock on the wall. "...about two minutes ago, regarding our dauighter's rounded upbringing, has now been relegated to second priority behind your office routine?"
"Oh shut up, Goldie," said Ilessa. Silently, however, she cursed herself. While she accepted in principle that the roles of pedagogue and mother were, although interrelated, quite distinct from each other - she often forgot this in the heat of her work, something which Xantus had noted several times already. While the mothers of Kalgachia's children had their part to play in building upon Ilessa's work, there was nobody to do so for Rubina except for Ilessa herself. She would have preferred to take Rubina to the Oktavyan Cathedral Opera and give her a taste for singing, but if Whirdlebirbs were what it took to get the girl willingly to the surface, Whirdlebirbs it would be.
After a guard checkpoint, a ride on a secret subway train to an equally secret station, more guard checkpoints and a few minutes walking through a deserted pedestrian tunnel, Ilessa and Rubina emerged in a basement broom closet at the Directorate of Public Works, one of many such disguised interfaces between the lair of the Perfecti and the city of Oktavyan. The broom closet opened onto a janitor's office, the 'janitor' in question being a loyal agent of the Prefects employed specifically to guard this entrance. Ilessa, being familiar to him from countless previous transits, was waved out of the office with a friendly greeting and a few words on the topside weather - cold with a broken overcast and only a light wind. Although Rubina had been through here before, the rarity of the occasion caused her to gaze around in silent wonder as she was led up a grimy metal staircase into a rather cleaner office suite which bustled with the clatter of typewriters, the hiss of pneumatic message tubes and tinny muzak which played from a ceiling speaker. Ilessa and Rubina barely got a look from the throngs of bureaucrats as they entered an elevator at the far side of the office. Rubina enjoyed the momentary weightlessness of the elevator coming to a halt - but instead of opening onto the concourse of a public subway station as usual, the doors slid aside to reveal a wall of blinding, pale gold light which flooded into Rubina's eyes and caused her momentary pain.
"Ah, it's brightening up," said Ilessa as she stepped out onto the polished granite floor of the Directorate of Public Works' surface lobby, bathed in the glow of the outside sun through its glass entrance doors. "Oh it's okay dear," she said to Rubina who was shielding her eyes with her hand. "I forgot you've never seen sunlight. It won't hurt for long, I promise. Do you still want to see the helicopters?"
Rubina, remembering the objective of the outing, squinted determinedly through the great glass doors and managed to pick out the details of the street outside, a sloping road lined with parked cars and the edifice of the opposite buildings, all coated in...
"Snow!" she shrieked, the rare use of her full voice causing Ilessa to jump.
"Oh you'll see plenty of that," said Ilessa. I suppose we'd better go to the park first and get the snowball-throwing out of the way. Trust me, in three hours you'll be sick of the sight of the stuff."
Three and a half hours later in a nearby park, Rubina was still gambolling around with limitless energy, having long since warmed up from the shock of cold air as they had started along Oktavyan's narrow sloping streets. Ilessa, for her part, was growing tired from dodging Rubina's relentless snowballs. The girl had lost a glove at some point, but continued to pack snow together in a hand which was now raw blue with cold. Then Ilessa, to her horror, spotted a gaggle of nearby schoolchildren constructing the foundation for a snowman. Reasoning that Rubina, if she noticed, would end up building snowmen for the entire day, Ilessa quietly led her out of the park under the pretext of searching for her lost glove, then ushered her onto an electric tram.
The Commanding Officer of the 1st KDF Whirdlebirb Squadron, one Major Heydar Kedek, braced himself for a surprise unit inspection when the guardroom called his office and informed him of two guests arriving with a signed warrant from the KDF General Staff. The sight of a well-dressed Nezeni woman and what appeared to be her infant daughter, announced into his office by the roar of a sergeant stood at rigid attention, filled him simultaneously with relief and bewilderment. In the absence of an accompanying gentleman, Kedek was compelled to summon his fullest flirtatious swagger as he rose to his feet in a state of some rigidity himself, sweeping back his hair with a deft brush of the hand, his mouth creasing into a mischievous smile and the glare of his eyes instructing the sergeant in no uncertain terms to get the fuck out of his office.
"Welcome to the Fighting First, madam... Aerit, was it?" He said. "Do take a seat."
Like everyone who had married into the House of Yastreb, Ilessa had the privilege of keeping her maiden name but it was still a surpise to be addressed with it. "Thank you, Major," she said. "I can only apologise for coming at such short notice." She suddenly turned to Rubina, who had opened the squadron silverware cabinet and was fidgeting with one of the sports trophies. "Beenie! Leave that alone! You'll get your grubby finger marks all over it." She rolled her eyes at Major Kedek. "I'm so sorry..."
"It's fine," said Major Kedek with a wave of the hand. "I've got a man on punishment detail tonight. Drunkenness. It won't hurt him to work over that stuff with the polish, provided he doesn't try to drink it. I should thank your charming little sprog for finding him a job." He looked at Rubina who was frozen with the trophy in her hand, like a deer in headlights. "And what's your name, young lady?"
Rubina, overawed by the man's uniform, snapped to attention. "Rubina Yastreb," she said, quietly but tunefully.
"Ah, a Yastreb!" said Major Kedek, glancing back at Ilessa. "Any relation? I gather one of their number runs the show down below, so to speak."
"Sub Juniperus," said Ilessa, invoking the Kalgachi shorthand for state secrecy. "Suffice it to say I didn't get this at the Deferment Flea Market." she slid the General Staff warrant across the desk.
"Understood. Forgive me," said Major Kedek, studying the warrant. His eyes widened as he realised its implications. "It would appear this effectively places you in command of my unit for the duration of your visit. I will comply, of course, but this is a most unusual situation."
"Don't worry, Major," said Ilessa. "I won't be interfering in anything more than I have to. It's only that young Rubina here wants to see one of your Whirdlebirb helicopters, preferably in action. People of our... station in society... don't get out on the surface much. We like to make the most of things when we do. I hope you can accomodate us."
Kedek leaned back in his seat, tenting his fingers. "Yes," he said after a moment of silence. "I believe I can." He sprang to his feet and stepped over to the window, beckoning Rubina to join him. "Well there they are, young lady," he said. "In all their glory. Take a look."
Rubina skipped over to the window, and at a stroke was utterly transfixed at the scene outside; a row of Whirdlebirb helicopters parked on a flight line recently cleared of snow, their coaxial rotors hanging limply in the pale golden sunlight. The engine cowlings of one were opened up, its contents being worked on by a mechanic on a ladder. "Can... can..." Rubina began without looking away. "Can I see it go?" Her voice faded into an excited squeak. There was no immediate reply so she turned around.
Behind her, Major Kedek had produced a flight helmet from a locker and was busy strapping it to his head. "You can do better than see it, young lady," he said. "Since my promotion to this damned desk I've been lucky to get in five flying hours a month. You just gave me a perfect reason to rack up a couple more."
Rubina looked at Ilessa. "What does that mean, Mama?"
Ilessa smiled. "It means you're going for a ride, Beenie."
Her ears were split by another shriek of joy.
Xantus was on the brink of retiring to bed by the time Ilessa and Rubina stumbled through the door of their underground home, their faces a picture of fatigued contentment.
"There you are!" said Xantus. "I was beginning to think something awful had happened to you. Did you see some Whirdlebirbs?"
Ilessa held up a reel of recording tape and walked straight past Xantus. "Watch this," she said, opening the tape player next to their little television.
"What is it?"
"Just watch it."
Xantus watched the television screen warming into life. It displayed a monochrome picture of forested hill terrain passing below the camera, with a crosshair in the middle of the screen.
"Wait, you got to fly in a Whirdlebirb?" said Xantus.
Rubina nodded without looking away from the screen.
"We took a flight over Lithead," said Ilessa. "In a second you'll see the camera pan around. Rubina was in the co-pilot's seat and started playing around with the sensor dome controls."
The television picture duly began to show the camera's movements; random at first, then steadier and more controlled. The crew audio crackled with the voice of Major Kedek, guiding Rubina through the helicopter's sensor systems. The picture briefly switched through glowing infrared and gravimetric views before returning to normal. Then the swivelling camera passed a blurred lump in the landscape, stopped and moved back to it; the bulky form of a Tee-al, stood on its hind legs and watching the helicopter pass.
Xantus watched in horror as the recorded voice of his daughter came through the audio track:
"Tee-al! Tee-al! There's a Tee-al!"
The stern voice of Major Kedek came next. "What!? Ah crap, I see him. This sector was listed as clear two days ago, damn it! Don't worry, Ms. Aerit. I'll get us out of here."
The camera view tilted with the helicopter banking away. Then Ilessa's voice, tainted with an uncharacteristic growl, broke into the audio:
"Are you mad, Major!? Those things wiped out half my family, and for once I have the power to ask for a little payback. Go ahead and attack the thing!"
"I would ma'am," came Major Kedek's voice, "but we're alone, unsupported and have a child on board. There may be other Tee-als in the vicinity."
"Better men than you have fought them with worse odds! Didn't the warrant say I was in command?"
Xantus' jaw hung agape at his wife's furious tenor in the recording, something he never heard before. Her face, lit by the glow of the television, watched it with a smug grin of satisfaction.
"Well technically yes, ma'am," continued Major Kedek's voice, "but..."
"No buts! You will attack the creature this instant. That's an order! Unless you want to be shovelling shit out of cossack stables for the rest of your career!"
There was an awkward silence in the recording while Xantus shook his head in disbelief. "Uh..." came Major Kedek's voice, rather more feeble than it had been. "We appear to have lost contact with the creature, ma'am. Looks like it's wandered into the trees."
The camera suddenly switched to infrared and panned around, locating and settling on a large bright glow among dark treetops. Rubina's voice came in:
"Found him! There he is! He's there! Mister Tee-al is playing hide! Heeheehee..."
"Alright, Garden help us," came Major Kedek's voice. "Target re-acquired. Engaging with rockets."
The camera showed a sudden acceleration toward the Tee-al, momentarily flooded with hot white as a salvo of rockets leapt away and struck a wide area of forest, smashing the trees to splinters and angering the Tee-al which spread its enormous batlike wings and took to the air. These wings, being flimsy sheets of skin, were then shredded by a prolonged burst of 20mm incendiary cannon fire from the helicopter's twin gun pods. The Tee-al clumsily slammed to the ground again, knocking down half a dozen trees in the process.
"Alright, he's grounded," came Major Kedek's voice. "We can't do much else without heavy weapons."
"But you've got two anti-gravtank missiles," came Ilessa's voice. "They'll do the job."
"They're too expensive to waste on Tee-als, ma'am. We're forbidden from using them unless the creature is threatening a settlement."
"Says who?"
"The KDF General Staff, ma'am."
"The same General Staff who put you under my command for the day? Finish that hamster off, damn it! I can tell you've never had your grandmother bleed to death in your arms because of those things. And you call yourself a soldier! Besides, if there's a court martial it'll be mine... and I'd like to see them try! Grow some balls and get it done, Major."
There was another painful silence in the audio, just long enough for Xantus to meditate on certain episodes of Ilessa's family history that she had witheld from him. Then the camera view banked toward the Tee-al again and the voice of Major Kedek returned:
"Very well, ma'am. Engaging with Malus... we'll make this one for your grandmother."
The television flashed to the wake of the hypersonic missile zipping through the air, disappearing into the distance in an instant. The infrared picture gave a magnificent view of the Tee-al's glowing white eyes exploding out of its skull as the missile's heavy tungsten dart produced a kinetic shockwave which was amplified inside the creature's subcutaneous bone armour and instantly pulverised its innards.
"Wheee!" came Rubina's voice. "Bye bye Mister Tee-al! Hahaha!" Her camera remained fixed on the motionless corpse of the creature as the helicopter banked away, at which point the tape ended abruptly.
Xantus, for the first time in a long time, struggled to find speech. At some point, probably when the Tee-al came on screen and the room suddenly felt like it was spinning, he had slumped down into his armchair. He eventually found it in himself to summon a feeble croak:
"I... I thought you were scared of Tee-als, Lessie."
"Only when I'm defenceless against them," said Ilessa. "I've been waiting for a moment like that for years, Goldie. It had to be done. You know when you see a massive spider break cover in your home, and you have to kill it while you have the chance so it doesn't come back and crawl all over you at night? It's like that. And besides, I needed to put certain... ghosts to rest."
"Regardless of what Beenie saw?" said Xantus.
At the mention of her pet name Rubina jumped on the spot, her face warped by a smile of utter joy. "Today was fun!" she squeaked. "I want to do it again! Oh and I got a special present!" She indicated a tin badge pinned to her dress. It depicted the face of a Tee-al, its eyes rendered as X-shapes like a dead cartoon character.
Xantus leaned down and examined it. "Is that what I think it is?" he said.
"Tee-al Kill Badge, Third Class," said Ilessa, tapping an identical badge on her own dress. "For a shared kill. You get Second Class for killing one by yourself or First Class for being injured in the process. Not many civilians get a chance to earn one, except for the Church partisans. Or so Major Kedek said."
"Major Kedek?"
"The voice on the tape. He was our pilot today."
"Is that so?" said Xantus. "I'll have to remember that man's name." He looked down at Rubina, who was playing with a strand of her red hair and making quiet helicopter noises to herself.
"And as for you, young lady... it's way past your bedtime."
