Tales from Kalgachia - 34

"And you're quite sure?"

The question by Xantus Yastreb, chairman of the Council of Perfecti, to the member responsible for Health and Public Welfare, was a pointless one - his body already felt the answer.

"I wouldn't have come here if I wasn't, Brother Chairman," said his fellow Perfectus, gazing solemnly across Xantus' study at its ailing occupant. "You know that."

"Hrm," Xantus snorted nervously. "I suppose not."

He rose from his armchair and walked with unsteady gait to an artificial window in the wall - a stained glass affair depicting a pergola of green foliage surrounding a night sky of deep inky blue, spattered with asterisms. This deep underground, the light behind it was not from the sun but an array of electric lights. Like many such lights in Kalgachia's underground portions, these changed in brightness and colour in accordance with a diurnal cycle encoded by a minor frequency modulation of the alternating-current power supply. At that moment the window shone with the pale gold of mid-afternoon - Xantus was entirely aware of the lighting system's workings, but enjoyed taking in its artificial 'sunlight' all the same.

"So..." he said without turning from the window. "What joyful days lie ahead of me?"

The Perfectus was untouched by Xantus' sarcasm, having heard the same from many a condemned patient during his days as a physician. "The Surgeon General and I spoke on the matter at some length," he said, clearing his throat and leaning forward on the leather armchair in which he had been half-buried. "We concluded it would be unwise to throw around a phrase like 'terminal'... were it not for your Nezeni immune system you'd be long gone by now, but as it is... neither you nor your ailment will be going anywhere for a long time."

"I suppose this is the downside of being genespliced as an experiment of the Minarborian penal system." Xantus' shoulders jerked with false mirth. "I should have known it'd catch up with me in the end."

"Well there are many other factors in our inability to find a cure, but yes... the fact you're a unique iteration hasn't helped."

"Will it get worse?"

"Relapsing-remitting," said the Perfectus. "It's too early to know what the general trend will be."

"To the worse," muttered Xantus. "I can feel it. This old body won't withstand weekly random organ failures forever."

"But such pessimism will do you no good, Brother Chairman! The mysteries of your genome cut both ways. For all we know at the DHPW, you could have the potential to outlive us all."

"Some life that'd be," hissed Xantus, turning once more to face the Perfectus. "Look at me. Electro-cardiac treatment, dialysis, getting infections... infections, for Shrub's sake! What kind of Nezeni gets infections!? And when was the last time you saw Beatrice around here? She's been avoiding me since I first started spewing up phlegm. Like a rat off a sinking ship... young Rubina was right, you know."

"I know this must be rather distressing for you..."

"You're damned right it's distressing! You couldn't even have the decency to tell me I'm going to die!"

"Well that's hardly my fault, Brother Chairman. The results of your tests only-"

"Alright, alright," Xantus waved his hand and began pacing the room. "You're right. I apologise. I just hoped for.... more honesty from the Garden, after all the work I've done for it."

"The Garden Physical?"

"No no, the other one," Xantus jerked his finger downward to indicate the immaterial Garden Ketheric.

"You'd have to discuss that with our Sovereign Brother responsible for the Church," said the Perfectus. "If it helps, I can donate your bilious effluent to the chapel putrefact..."

"You leave my bilious effluent alone," said Xantus. "It wouldn't be any good for the putrefact anyway. You know in the Shrub's day, they said anything which has already passed through the human arcanum was unsuitable for donation. It'd be like shitting into the mouths of the Ketheric Host... somehow I don't think they'd appreciate the gesture."

"I must admit my theological meditations have never taken me in that direction," said the Perfectus with a pout, "but I suppose I'm a busy man. Was there anything else you wished to ask me?"

"Only one thing," Xantus returned to his own armchair and sunk into it. For a moment he said nothing. "After a few more weeks of this," he eventually began, "a few more months maybe, when I've really taken a beating... do you really think I'll be able to exercise my functions in Council?"

"But we're all agreed," said the Perfectus, "we'd be more than willing to accomodate your-"

"That's not the point!" wheezed Xantus, coughing up a small blood clot which he wiped irritably from his chin with a handkerchief. "All that means is that you're willing to let me slow business down. That's not what this country deserves. So I'm asking... do you think I'll ever have a chance of working at my old energy level?"

"Well obviously not," said the Perfectus. "But-"

"Then it's decided!" said Xantus, throwing up his hands. "And I don't want to hear another word out of you. I'm not bigger than the Garden... the Broodmother herself taught me that, back when I was a sprog. I can't say I've honoured every one of her maxims over the years, but I'm damned if I'll ever defile that one."

He rose to his feet once more, indicating the door for the Perfectus to leave.

"Will you send for my children on the way out? I have certain arrangements to discuss with them."

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Xantus' children, Rubina and Falcifer, had been in his study for less than five minutes before the bickering began.

"But Papa he's not ready!" came Rubina's indignant squeak. The little girl was now well into her thirties - clad in the figure-hugging power dress of some Caputian fashion house and hardened by a few years running the Lieutenancy of Oktavyan, she had retained her quiet voice but long since left her childhood timidity behind. Her bare greenish legs, emerging from a pencil skirt and shod in stiletto-heeled sandals, were clamped resolutely together as she fixed hard yellow eyes upon her father. "How can a nineteen year old be expected to function as our head of state?"

"Beans, how can you know I'm not ready?" Falcifer, leaning nonchalantly into the back of his chair, fired back with a cut-glass elocution. "I'm still twelve years old in your eyes, fresh from my Urchagin."

"That's not true!"

"But you've not seen my work down in Lapivril! I've been an acolyte of Lord Lieutenant Shadownap for years now!"

"That doesn't give me any confidence," pouted Rubina. "Shadownap's a weirdo, even by Trog standards. He runs Lapivril because the bowels of Micras are the only place he fits in. Looking after surface affairs is a whole different game, you know. When have you ever been taught about that?"

"I study such things for myself."

"You think you can guide your own education? Dear Shrub, if Mama was here to hear you say that..."

Falcifer choked on his words and glared. Invocations of the mother he had killed by the very act of his birth were a reliable method for Rubina to shut him up during arguments and they both knew it.

"Rubina..." said Xantus, pausing to hack up a quarter-litre of bloody phlegm as discreetly as he could into a waiting bucket. "I know it's a hard sell, answering to your little brother in this great bureaucracy of ours, but there's no need to feel intimidated. Chairing the Council of Perfecti is basically a caretaker role. The Council is sovereign, not the Chairman."

"But he'll still be one-ninth of that sovereignty," said Rubina. "Besides, if the job was that easy you'd still be doing it."

"Then what do you propose?" challenged Falcifer. In the preceding moments the young man had somehow fixed himself a glass of Bergburg slivovitz and was cradling it in his hand, swilling it idly around as his pointed eyebrows awaited an answer. "You know it's bad form to present a problem without offering a solution."

"I'm sure you'll be suited to the job one day," Rubina flashed an almost apologetic smile at the brother she had raised like a son. "I just worry that it's too early for you to take on the mantle of an elder statesman. The clue's in the name."

"Do I detect a pang of jealousy?" said Falcifer with a smirk.

"Ugh," Rubina rolled her eyes. "We've done this already. You know I don't aspire to the job any more. They made me choose between that and Roy, and I chose him. For what it's worth, I'm very happy with the decision."

"Speaking of which," said Xantus, a grin creasing his own face, "any chance of children yet?"

"Papa..." Rubina sighed and shook her head. "We're still trying. Trying very hard."

"There's a mental picture I didn't need," said Falcifer, gulping back the dregs of his slivovitz as if to wash it away.

"I'll send you some photographs," Rubina sneered back at him.

"Well look," said Xantus, "the matter of your appointment is already decided, Falcifer. Lord Shadownap is content for you to represent your occluded brethren before the Council and that will be the essence of the role. He says you'll do a better job at it than I did, which I thought a touch uncharitable but I suppose I should value his honesty."

"Told you," muttered Rubina to Falcifer, twirling her finger around her ear in added contempt for the Lord Lieutenant of Lapivril. She paused as a new thougth struck her. "Papa... what will you do afterwards?"

Xantus smiled and leaned back in his chair. "Well I'm planning to go and join my mother at Karymovka sanatorium. If we're both going to be invalids, we can be invalids together. Reminisce on old times. Bring her up to date on all that's happened while she was buried in the ground... on reflection, I wouldn't trust anyone else to break it to her in detail. They'd only get a face full of acid and a snake-tail round their neck. Yes... I'll have enough to keep me occupied."

"All the same, Papa... I find it rather pitiful."

"Well it's either that or I go chasing after Beatrice again. Which would you prefer?"

Rubina remained silent. They both knew what she preferred.

Falcifer spoke. "I have a question, Papa."

"Go on."

"Well I'm confident that I'm ready to take up the role... I think I've met all of the Perfecti now and they seem benevolent enough. But all the same... I wouldn't be entirely satisfied unless you were available once in a while... to advise me on the little things."

"Have I not briefed you enough already? We've spent hours discussing it."

"Not everything can be taught beforehand, Papa."

"Mhmm," said Xantus, nodding slowly. "I suppose not. You'll have to come and see me at Karymovka though. I can't drag myself down here from the surface all the time... not in this state". As if to further articulate the point he let out an explosive sneeze, caught just in time by his handkerchief. Pausing for a moment to study the splattered result with an expression of utter disgust, he folded the handkerchief away and smiled at Falcifer.

"Well then, boy... are you ready?"

Falcifer stiffened and sat upright. "What, now?"

"There's no time like the present. The Council will be in session in..." he looked at the antique clock on the wall, "twelve minutes."

Falcifer exchanged glances with Rubina, whose head sunk into her hands. From beneath her tufted heap of red hair came a faint groan.

Her little brother straightened the collar of his suit and took in a long, steady breath. In that moment his face fell to an inscrutable expression, as if a door had been closed on his inner humanity. He rose to his feet.

"I am ready."