New Days Old Times

Amanda Foxon was standing right beside the smooth ebony trunk of the apple tree when she heard the pick-up van’s horn being tooted in long urgent blasts. She dumped the ripe fruit into the basket at her feet, and pressed her hands hard into the small of her back. A sharp hiss of breath stole out of her mouth as her spine creaked in protest.

She’d been out in the southern orchard since first light, seven hours ago. Always the same at the end of summer. A frantic two weeks to get the big green globes picked and packed before they became overripe under the sun’s fearsome summer radiance. The trees were genetically adapted so that they grew into a very specific mushroom shape, the trunk dividing into seven major boughs two and a half metres above ground. Twigs and smaller branches interlaced to form a thick circular canopy of wood which was smothered by fans of emerald leaves. Glossy apples hung from the underside, clustered as tightly as grapes. Providing they were picked early enough their re-sequenced chromosomes would ensure they didn’t perish for months. So every year a race developed to get them to Harrisburg in time. The contract called for the whole crop to be at the warehouse in another eight days; she had sold the futures early in February, anxious for a guaranteed purchase. Possibly a mistake, holding out could have meant a higher price.

If I just had Arthur’s nerve.

Feeling the blood pound heavily through her lowered arms, she walked out from under the shade of the tree. Blake was driving the fruit farm’s ageing pick-up along the switchback track that wound down the side of the broad valley. A plume of dust fountained out from the wheels each time he swung it round a curve. Amanda’s lips set in a hard line of disapproval; she’d warned him countless times about driving so fast. There would be another argument tonight.

“He’ll turn the damn thing at that speed,” Jane said.

All of the pickers had stopped to watch the small red vehicle’s madcap approach.

“Good,” Amanda grunted. “I can collect the insurance, get a decent van with the money.” She flinched as she realized Guy was giving her a confused look. Her son was only nine; at that age funny was rude jokes and slapstick interactives. Lately, he’d started following Blake round the farm, eager to help out.

The pick-up’s horn sounded again, blatantly distressed.

“All right,” Amanda said. She pulled her wide-brimmed hat back on her head, wiping the sweat from her brow. “Jane and Lenny, with me, we’ll go see what the problem is. Guy, could you make sure everyone’s got a drink, please. It’s very hot today.”

“Yes, Mum.” He started scampering across the orchard’s shaggy blue-green moss that was Nyvan’s grass-analogue, heading for the sheds at the far end.

“The rest of you, we’ve got two-thirds of the trees left, and only eight days.”

The remaining pickers drifted back to their trees and the white cartons piled round them. They weren’t the usual group of easygoing travellers who visited the farm for summer. Govcentral’s Employment Ministry was causing them a lot of grief with new taxes and regulations concerning mobile residency permits for their caravans. Then the fishing ports had begun investing in automated plants, cutting down on the manual gutting and packing work available in the winter months. Like many communities, the travellers were beginning to feel pressured. Immigrants from Earth’s diverse cultures were being deliberately compressed into the same districts by the Settlement Ministry, whose officers adhered rigidly to the approved multiethnic amalgamation policy. There were few of Nyvan’s towns and cities free from strife these days, not like the first century when the pioneers shared the challenge of their new world together. Spring and summer had seen a lot of caravans heading along the main road outside the valley, rolling deeper into the continent where Govcentral’s bureaucrats weren’t quite so prevalent.

Blake was still doing fifty when he drove round the stone farmhouse and into the tree-lined back yard. He braked to a sharp halt outside the kitchen’s open stable door.

“Give me a hand here!” he yelled.

Amanda, Jane, and Lenny were still under the big aboriginal burroughs trees when he jumped out of the driver’s seat. A pair of legs were hanging over the pick-up’s tailgate. The dark trouser fabric was ripped, slippery with blood.

“Hell!” Amanda started to run. The two young pickers were easily faster than her.

The man Blake had brought was in his late twenties, dressed in a green onepiece overall with an elaborate company logo on its breast pocket. A very grubby light-brown waistcoat hung loosely, containing several tool pockets. His skin was dark enough to suggest a Latino ancestry, black curly hair framed a round face with a blunt nose. He wasn’t tall, shorter than Amanda, with swarthy limbs.

Amanda stared in shock at the wounds on his legs, the bloody cloth which had been used to bandage him. “Blake, what happened?”

“Found him just off the main road. He said his horse threw him. I patched him up as good as I could.” Blake gave Lenny an anxious look. “Did I do it right?”

“Yeah.” Lenny nodded slowly, his hands moved down the injured man’s legs, squeezing gently. He glanced up at Amanda. “This man didn’t fall; these are bite marks. Some kind of dog, I’d say.”

“Blake!” Amanda wanted to strike him, or perhaps just banish him from the farm. How could he have been so stupid? “For heaven’s sake, what did you bring him here for?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” he demanded petulantly.

It wasn’t worth the effort of arguing. Blake would never admit he was wrong about anything. His basic flaw was his inability to learn, to think ahead.

Blake was one of Arthur’s more distant relatives, fostered on her by the rest of the family who were convinced a woman couldn’t run the farm by herself. There are three orchards, they argued, over five hundred trees. Guy’s whole future. You’ll never manage to prune and fertilize and irrigate them properly, not with the other fruit fields as well, and there’s the machinery, too. So Blake had come to live with her and Guy. He was twenty-two, and too quiet to be hot-headed, though he could be astonishingly stubborn. Of course, her biggest mistake was letting him into her bed. He’d interpreted that as some kind of partnership offer to give him an equal say on the way the farm was run. But the nights out here in the countryside were achingly long, and it had been nineteen months since Arthur’s funeral. It wasn’t even the sex she wanted, just the warmth and touch of having him there, the comfort she could draw from a warm body. So far she’d managed to contain and deflect any potential clashes over his new attitude, but this folly could not be overlooked.

“Well?” Blake insisted.

Amanda glanced at Jane and Lenny, who were waiting for her to take the lead. The stranger’s blood was dripping onto the hard bare soil of the back yard, turning to black spots.

“All right. Lenny, stop the bleeding and patch him up as best you can. As soon as he’s conscious again, Blake, you drive him over to Knightsville. Leave him at the station or the hospital, whatever he wants. After that he’s someone else’s problem.”

She didn’t dare look at the two pickers in case it triggered a rebellion. Don’t give them the chance to refuse, she told herself. “Lenny, you and Blake take his legs, you’ll need to be careful. Jane, help me with his shoulders. We’ll take him into the kitchen, put him on the table. It’ll be easier to treat him there.”

The pickers moved hesitantly, expressing their reluctance through complete silence. Amanda climbed up into the back of the pick-up and crouched down beside the injured man. As she slid her hands under his back ready to lift him up she felt a hard lump inside the waistcoat, larger than a fist. Her hand reached automatically towards it.

The stranger’s eyelids flipped open. His hand caught her wrist. “No,” he grunted. “Do what you said. Patch me up. Then I will go. It is the best for us both.” He glanced round at the figures clustered over him. A sharp frown appeared as soon as he saw Lenny’s black and silver skull cap.

Jane and Lenny exchanged a knowing glance at that.

“I cannot help with you crushing my wrist,” Amanda said levelly. It was everything she’d dreaded: his reaction to the pickers, his injuries, his weapon. What must he have done to have dogs set on him? The thought made her afraid for the first time. He wasn’t an inconvenience any more, he was an active threat, to the farm, to Guy.

Between them, they hauled him into the kitchen. He made no sound during the whole process, not even when one of his legs was knocked against the doorframe. Amanda knew she would have cried out at such pain. Such control made her wonder at what electronic implants he was using. Nerve fibre regulators were not cheap, nor did ordinary citizens have any use for them.

“I’ll fetch my bag,” Lenny said, once the stranger was lying on the big old wooden table. He hurried out.

Amanda looked down at the man again, uncertain what to do, his eyes were tight shut again. Even Blake’s confidence had ebbed in the face of such robotic stoicism.

“If I could have some water,” the man said huskily.

“Who are you?” Amanda asked.

His eyes fluttered open as she filled a glass at the sink.

“My name is Fakhud. I thank you for bringing me into your home.”

“I didn’t.” She handed him the glass.

He took a sip and coughed. “I know. But I still thank you. I have many friends in the city, influential friends, they will be grateful to you.”

“I bet you’ve got friends,” Jane muttered softly.

“It’s the bank we need help with,” Blake said with a dry smile. “Those bastards are bleeding us dry with their interest rates. Not just us, all the farms are suffering.”

“Blake,” Amanda said. He scowled, but kept quiet.

Fakhud grimaced, and took another sip of the water.

“What happened to you?” Amanda asked.

“I fell from my horse.”

“And the bite wounds? Lenny said it was probably a dog.”

“Your pardon, but the less you know of me, the less involved in my affairs you will be.”

“Sure,” she said in disgust.

Lenny returned with his bag. He started to stick small sensor disks on Fakhud’s legs.

“Stay and help Lenny,” Amanda told Blake. “Then come and tell me when he’s ready to leave.” She and Jane walked out into the heat of the farmyard. “I’m sorry,” she said it so fiercely it was almost a hiss.

Jane sighed. “Not your fault.”

“I can’t believe Blake was so thoughtless. To put you and your friends in this position, it’s … it’s …”

“In a way it’s rather admirable, actually. He’s only interested in the farm, getting your fruit picked and the trees pruned and fertilized. Politics, race, and religion aren’t part of the equation for him. That was the whole point of Nyvan, wasn’t it? Our parents came here to escape their past; they wanted a land where they could put all their energies into their farms and their businesses. And your Blake, he’s still living there.”

“He’s a fool. Times change.”

“No, time doesn’t change, it just goes backwards. That’s the thing to be sorry for.”

“I’ll have Fakhud out of here by this evening, whether he’s on his feet or not.”

Jane gave her a sad smile. “I’m sure you will.”

“Will Lenny be able to patch those wounds up? Some of them looked ugly to me.”

“Don’t worry about that. Lenny completed three years at medical school before we all decided to leave Harrisburg. He’s as good as qualified. And he’s had a lot of experience with the kind of injuries you get from clashing with the authorities.”

“I can’t believe you were forced out.”

“Nobody can, until it happens to them. Oh, it’s not that bad, not yet. But we Jews have a long history of persecution we can reference, in fact it is our history. We can see the way Harrisburg is going. Best we leave before it does spiral downwards.”

“Where will you go?”

“Tasmal, most likely. A lot of our people have drifted there over the last decade, and to hell with the Settlement Ministry quotas. We’re almost a majority there, the newest of the New Jerusalems.”

“But that’s on the Dayall continent; it has to be six thousand kilometres away at least.”

Jane laughed. “The promised land is never over the next hill. Also our history.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Me and the rest will be OK. We were smart enough to start the journey early. The stubborn ones, those that stay, they’ll be the ones who suffer.”

Amanda glanced round the familiarity of the farmyard. The burroughs trees that waved slowly in the warm breeze were an easy five metres taller than they had been when she was a girl. Over in the eastern corner, the well pump was making its usual clatter as it topped up the cisterns. The red clay tile roof of the long barn was sagging deeper as this year’s growth of purple-flowering joycevine added another heavy layer of branches.

It isn’t just Blake whose mind is closed to the outside, she acknowledged reluctantly. I’m so comfortable here I share the same illusion. The only thing which matters to anyone who lives at the farm, is the farm. Until today.

“You’d better get back to the orchard,” Jane said. “The apples still need picking, nothing’s changed that.”

“Right.” Amanda took a last uneasy look at the kitchen door. “What are you going to do?”

“Tidy up here.” Jane was studying the splashes of blood in the back of the pick-up van. “I’ll get the hose out and wash away all the traces. Best to be careful. The Harrisburg cops are going to be searching for him, and we don’t know what happened to the dogs.”

Amanda didn’t even feel resentful that she was being told what to do on her own farm. She walked back to the orchard, and told the pickers that Blake had found a victim of a riding accident that Lenny was now treating. They seemed to accept that with only mild curiosity.

It was another hour before Blake came out to tell her Lenny had finished. Jane had done a good job washing away the evidence from the pick-up, which was now parked in its usual place beside the gate. Amanda couldn’t even see any blood spots left on the soil outside the kitchen door, just a big damp patch. Jane was busy tending a small bonfire.

The kitchen had been cleaned, too; it smelt strongly of bleach. Fakhud was sitting in one of the high-back chairs around the table. His green overalls had been replaced by a faded green T-shirt and black canvas shortswhich she recognized as belonging to Blake. Both his legs were sprayed in pale-yellow bandage foam which had hardened into a tough carapace.

A silent Lenny gave her a brief nod as he walked out. “He doesn’t say much,” Fakhud said, “but he’s an excellent medic. I suppose there’s an irony in the situation, him tending me. We’re hardly allies.”

“You’re humans,” Amanda said.

“Ah. Indeed we are. You shame the pair of us, my dear lady.”

“Well, not for any longer. You’re fit to move, I’d like you to leave now.”

“Of course. I have imposed too much already.”

“Wait a minute,” Blake said. “Amanda, you haven’t heard what he’s told me.”

“Nor do I want to,” she said wearily.

“Not about … you know, what he does. This is about New Balat itself, the way its society is run.”

“What about New Balat?” She rounded on Fakhud. “What nonsense have you been filling his head with?”

“It’s not nonsense,” Blake snapped. “It’s a solution to our financial problems.”

“You don’t have financial problems,” she said. “I do. The farm does. You do not. Get that quite clear.”

“All right! But it’s still a solution to your problems. And if you have problems here, then so do I.”

“Start getting a grip on perspective, Blake. I manage this farm just fine, thank you. The money doesn’t come in regularly, because we have seasons. It’s a situation I’ve coped with my entire life. Every farm throughout history has lived like this; we get paid for our crops when they come in and we have to make the money last throughout the rest of the year. A simple expenditure-planning program on the home terminal can see us through without any trouble. Nothing needs to change because some newcomer can’t cope with that. This farm has been here for eighty years, and we’ve managed perfectly well up until now. If it ain’t broke, don’t try and fix it.”

“The banks are crippling you with their interest rates. They don’t care about families and people. They just want money, they want you to work your fingers to the bone for them.”

“You’re being simplistic. I make a profit every year. And everybody has to work for a living, even bankers.”

“But it doesn’t have to be like that. Fakhud says that the New Balat council gives grants to all the farms in their county so they can buy new equipment when they need it and pay workers a decent wage. And their kids have an education paid for by the state, a good education. There are no private schools, no privileged elite.”

“I’m sure the New Balat council gives out thousands of benevolent grants. But here in Harrisburg’s county we get loans from the bank instead. There’s no basic difference. Only the names change. Our services come from the private sector, your friend’s society is paid for by the state. So what?”

“It’s fairer, that’s what. Can’t you see that?”

“No.”

“They’re not dependent on the profit motive, on greed. That’s the difference. That’s what makes it fair! Their economic policy is controlled by democracy, with us it’s the other way round.”

“Heaven preserve us. Blake, I’m only going to say this once more. I am not interested. I don’t want to replace our bankers with their bureaucrats, I do not want to switch from paying high interest rates to high taxes. We have a market for the fruit, we have a decent cash flow. That’s all we need. This is a farming family, my only ambition is to keep it ticking over smoothly. I’m sorry if that isn’t enough for you. If you don’t like that, you can go. Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not even in New Balat county.”

Blake smiled triumphantly. “But we could be.”

“What?”

Fakhud coughed apologetically. “I merely pointed out that this farm is on the borderland. If you did wish to switch allegiances, then in terms of realpolitik it would be possible.”

“Oh, shit.” She wanted to sink into a chair and put her head in her hands. But that would be showing both of them how weak she was.

“See?” Blake said. “It can be done. We can break free if we want to.”

“Break free? Are you insane or just retarded? This is a farm, that’s all. We’re not some big agricultural institution, not a major league economic asset. Just a family farm. We grow apples, strawberries, pears, and peaches. Once we’ve grown them, we sell them. That’s all we do.”

“Sell them to a corrupt system.”

“I’m not arguing with you, Blake. This subject is now closed.”

“But”

“Blake,” Fakhud said softly. “Amanda has made her choice. You should respect that.”

She was too surprised to say anything. I could tell you and your kind about choices and liberty, she thought. Women must obey their husbands and aren’t permitted to vote.

Blake looked from one to the other, pursing his lips in sullen resentment. “Fine, OK. Keep living in the past, then. Life’s changing on Nyvan, in case you hadn’t noticed; Govcentral won’t always rule here. I know you haven’t got as much for this year’s crop as you did last year. And do you think Harrisburg’s councillors care? Fat arse, do they. You have to move with the times, Amanda, move away from the old colonialist policies. Just don’t complain to me when they foreclose and sell the farm from under you.”

“No worries on that score.” She turned to Fakhud, who even managed to look mildly embarrassed. “Time for you to go.”

“You are correct. And I apologize for bringing disharmony to the lives of such decent people as yourselves. I never meant to cause any trouble.”

“Not here,” she said scathingly.

He bowed his head.

Jane appeared in the doorway. “People coming.”

“Who?” Amanda asked.

“Dunno. They’re on horses, four of them.”

“Shit.” Amanda glared at Fakhud. “Police?”

“I regret, that is a strong possibility.”

“Oh great. Just bloody wonderful.”

“All you have done is treat a man who claimed to have fallen from his horse. As I told you, it was for the best. It would go badly upon you for harbouring fugitives otherwise.”

“Please, don’t use your weapon. My son is here, and the pickers are completely innocent.”

“In the name of Allah the compassionate, you have my word I shall not. Do you intend to turn me over to them?”

Amanda licked her lips, mind awhirl with indecision. He was too proud to plead, holding his head stiffly, though his forehead was beaded by sweat. For the first time, Blake was looking worried, his cockiness dissolving under her stare. The implications of what he’d done were finally sinking in. If nothing else, she was pleased about that.

“I don’t know,” she said. If Fakhud was what she suspected then she ought to run out yelling for the police. But … the Security Ministry was dealing out a lot of rough justice these days, all in the name of quelling and discouraging the disturbances. Even a criminal deserved a fair trial; she’d never abandoned that belief. “I’ll see what they have to say first. Blake, at least get him out of the kitchen; they’ll be able to see him from the farmyard.”

“Right. The cold cellar?”

“Up to you.” Don’t incriminate yourself, think of Guy.

Amanda went out into the farmyard, carefully closing the bottom half of the kitchen door behind her as she went. A big hound was already trotting in through the open gate. It took a considerable effort on her part not to scurry back into the kitchen. The creature must have been genetically modified, powerful muscles flowed smoothly under a short shiny-black hide. Its ancestry was more big game cat than canine.

“Probably affinity-bonded,” Jane said. “Remember, that means its master can hear and see everything it can.”

Amanda didn’t trust her voice, she simply nodded.

“I’ll go and get the pickers.” Jane turned slowly, and began walking towards the southern orchard. The hound swung its head to follow her, but didn’t make any other move.

They were police. Their distinctive blue-grey tunics were visible while they were still a couple of hundred metres from the farm. Amanda waited patiently as the four horses walked unhurriedly towards her. She hated the arrogance of their approach, the way she was made to feel inferior, not worth them making an effort over.

Sergeant Derry was the leader, a black woman who must have massed nearly twice Amanda’s body-weight. It wasn’t fat, just muscle bulk. Amanda wondered what the woman’s blood chemistry would be like to produce that kind of grotesque growth; she must have received several hormone gland implants. Her white and beige stallion was built on the same scale, carrying her without any noticeable discomfort. The three constables riding with her were normal men.

“You’re the owner here?” Sergeant Derry asked.

“That’s right.”

“Hmm.” Derry’s optronic lens flashed up a file, sending minute green and red script scrolling over her right iris. “Amanda Foxon. Lived here by yourself since your husband died. Grandfather was granted full land title under first settlement law.” She grinned and swivelled round to scan the farmyard and the orchards beyond. “Very nice, very cosy. Your family seems to have done all right for itself, Amanda Foxon.”

“Thank you.” The pickers, led by Jane, began to filter into the farmyard. Even their presence didn’t do much for Amanda’s confidence.

“Well, well.” Derry grinned round. “Look at what we have got ourselves here. This has got to be the sorriest old collection of Jew boys and girls I’ve seen in a long time. I really hope you all have your ID chips.”

“We have,” Jane said.

It was the awful fatigue in her voice which kindled Amanda’s anger, the hopelessness of the eternally beleaguered. “They’re working for me,” she barked up at the Sergeant. “I don’t have a single complaint.”

“Glad to hear it,” Derry said. She was looking at each of the pickers in turn, her optronic lens imaging their faces. “But we can’t be too careful with the likes of these, now can we?”

“I’m sure you can’t.”

“Where are you all from?”

“I’m from Harrisburg,” Jane said. “The Manton suburb.”

“I know it, you people turned it into a real shithole. What are you doing here, then?”

Jane smiled. “Picking fruit.”

“Don’t smartmouth me, bitch.”

The hound growled, a low rumbling as its black rubber mouth drew back to expose long yellowed fangs. Jane flinched, but held her ground.

“They’re picking fruit,” Amanda said forcefully. “I asked them here to do it, and they’re excellent workers. Their private lives are none of your business.”

“Wrong, Amanda Foxon. What they get up to in private is always police business.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Am I? You live in Harrisburg county, an original family, so you and your son will be Christians, then?”

“No, we’ll be atheists, actually.”

Derry shook her head ponderously. “It doesn’t work like that. You’ll understand eventually. If they take a shine to this area, every neighbour you have is going to be a Jew in five years’ time. It’s like a goddamn invasion force; ask the decent people who used to live in Manton. They turn the local schools over to teaching their creed, their wholesalers will come in and set up a new commercial network, one that doesn’t include you. This farm will get frozen out ready for a nice kosher family to take it over at way below what it’s worth, because no one else will touch it. The only way your precious Guy will get to carry on here is if he gets circumcised and you book him in for his bar mitzvah.”

“You’re quite pathetic. Do you know that?”

“We’ll see. If you ever looked outside your little valley of paradise you’d see it’s already starting. Govcentral policies don’t work here, not any more. Those bastards are destroying us with their equal settlement policies. They won’t listen to us when we complain, all they do is keep sending us more human xenocs who don’t belong here. You’ll come round to our way eventually, Amanda, and when you do, when you remember who you really belong with, we’ll help each other, you and me.”

The hound padded over to the pick-up, and started sniffing round the back of the vehicle.

Amanda didn’t dare risk a glance at Jane. “What are you doing here? Why did you come?”

Derry was frowning at the hound. “We’re assigned to Harrisburg’s C15 Division.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t really know much about police force divisions. What does that mean?”

“C15 is responsible for counter-insurgency. Basically, we hunt down terrorists, Amanda Foxon. And right now, we’re after a particularly nasty specimen. Abdul Musaf. He planted a viral vector squirt in the Finsbury arcade last night. Fifteen people are in hospital with cancer runaways sprouting inside them like mushrooms. Two have developed brain tumours. They’re not going to make it. So obviously, we’re rather keen to talk to him. You seen anyone like that around here?”

I should tell her, Amanda thought. A viral squirt was a terrible thing to use against innocent people. But I can’t be certain she’s telling the truth, a woman who thinks Jews are a plague.

“No. Why, should I have?”

“He killed one of our pursuit dogs a couple of kilometres south of your track. But he was hurt in the fight. Can’t have got far.”

“OK. We’ll keep watch for him.”

The hound had wandered over to the big patch of wet ground outside the kitchen door.

“Right.” Derry pursed her lips, suspicious and ill at ease. “What about you, Jew girl? You seen him? He’s a Muslim, you know, one of the Legion.”

“No. I haven’t seen anybody.”

“Huh. Bloody typical, don’t know crap about anything, you people. OK, I don’t suppose you’d harbour a towelhead anyway.”

“If you’re a Christian, why have you got an affinity-bonded dog? I thought the Pope banned the faithful from using the bond over a century ago.”

The hound raised its head swiftly, swinging round to look at Jane. The lips parted again, allowing long strands of gooey saliva to drip onto the soil.

“Don’t push your luck. The only reason you’re not under arrest right now is because I don’t want to waste taxpayers’ money on you. You get back on that road when you’re done here, head for your precious Tasmal.”

“Yes, sir.”

Derry snorted contemptuously. “Take my advice, Amanda Foxon, kick this thieving rabble off your land the second your crop’s picked. And next year, hire some decent Christians. Get in touch with the Union, they have plenty of honest casual labourers on their books.”

“I’ll remember what you said.”

If Sergeant Derry was aware of the irony, she didn’t show it. She pulled on her reins, wheeling the big stallion round. The hound trotted out of the gate ahead of the horses.

Amanda realized she was sweating, muscles down the back of her legs twitched as if she’d just run to town and back. Jane patted her gently.

“Not bad for an amateur rebel. You faced her down.”

Guy pressed himself to her side, and hugged her waist. “She was horrid, Mum.”

“I know. Don’t worry, she’s gone now.”

“But she’ll be back,” Jane muttered. “Her kind always are. Your file’s in her memory now.”

“She’ll have no reason to come back,” Amanda said. She handed Guy over to Lenny, then went back into the farmhouse.

Blake was helping Fakhud to limp up the stairs from the cellar. Both of them were shivering.

“Did you give people cancer?”

Fakhud drew a strained breath as he reached the top of the stairs. “Is that what the police said?”

“Yes.”

“They lied. I oppose many issues on this planet, but I am not a monster. I would not use weapons like that. Do you know why?”

“Tell me.”

“Because we have children, too. If the Legion started a terror campaign of that nature, others would begin similar campaigns against us.”

“They already are. All of you are fighting each other. All you maniacs.”

“Yes. But not like that, not yet. So far we confine ourselves to sabotage and assassinations of key opponents. Allah grant that it does not move beyond that. If it does, we shall all suffer; this whole world will drown in pain.”

“Why? Why do you do this?”

“To defend ourselves. To defend our way of life. Just as you would do if anything threatened this farm. We have the right to do that, to resist Govcentral’s imperialism.”

“Just go,” she said. Tears of frustration were swelling behind her eyes. “Go, and don’t come back.”

The pick-up was loaded with boxes of apples for one of its regular runs to the station in Knightsville. At the same time, several of the male pickers went in and out of the house, all of them wearing wide-brimmed sunhats which obscured their faces. Fakhud, dressed in Lenny’s clothes, emerged and went over to the van. He lay in a coffin-sized gap between the boxes, while more were stacked over him.

Blake drove away as the sun was less than an hour from the mountains. Amanda tried not to show any concern, keeping the rest of the farm’s activities normal. The pickers remained out in the orchard, working until dusk. Their evening meal was prepared on the large solar accumulator grill in the barn. Everyone had their shower then sat around in the farmyard until the food was cooked.

Amanda stood beside the gate to eat her chicken wing. From there she would be able to see the van’s headlights as it returned along the track. If Blake had kept to his schedule, he should have been back forty minutes ago.

Guy climbed up the low wall and sat on top, his skinny legs dangling over the other side. “I didn’t like today,” he said solemnly.

She leant forward against the wall, and put her arm round his shoulder. “Me neither.”

“Was that fat woman really a police officer?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“She didn’t like anybody. Are all police officers like that?”

“No. You don’t have to be a police officer to hate other kinds of people. Everybody on Nyvan does it.”

“Everybody?”

“Well, too many of us, anyway.”

“Why?”

“There’s a lot of reasons. But mainly because Govcentral is forcing different kinds of people to live next to each other. They do it because they think it’s fair, that people should be treated equally. Which they should be, I’m not complaining about that. The problem is, the immigrants aren’t used to other cultures.”

“But they all get on together on Earth.”

“They get on together in different arcologies; they might be on the same planet, but they’re all segregated. And the people who come here to Nyvan, especially now, are the poor ones. They don’t have much education so they’re very set in their ways, very stubborn, and not very tolerant.”

“What do you mean, now? Haven’t poor people always come here? I remember Father telling me Grandpa didn’t have any money when he arrived.”

“That’s true, but Grandpa wanted to come. He was a pioneer who wanted to build a fresh world for himself. Most of the people of that time were. That’s changed now.” She pointed up at the night sky. “See those stars up there? Their planets aren’t like Nyvan. The new colony worlds have ethnic streaming policies; they’re all sponsored by different Govcentral states, so the only people you get emigrating to them are the ones from the same arcology. As they’re all the same to start with, they don’t quarrel so much.”

“Then why are people still coming here?”

“Because Earth is so overcrowded, and we’re close to it, only seventeen light-years away. That makes travelling here one of the cheapest starflights possible. So Govcentral sends us all the people who can’t afford to pay the passage to another planet, all the unemployed and petty criminals, people who never really wanted to come here in the first place.”

“Can’t we stop them from doing that?” he asked indignantly. “This is our planet. Won’t Govcentral wreck it?”

“We can’t stop Earth dumping people on us because Govcentral is our government, too. Although a lot of people think it shouldn’t be. That’s another big part of the problem. Nobody here can agree on anything any more.”

“Can’t we go to an ethnic streaming world? A Nyvan-ethnic one, like it was before?”

Amanda was glad of the night, it meant her son couldn’t see the tears forming in her eyes. That one innocent child’s question reducing her every accomplishment to nothing. Three generations of labour, sacrifice, and pride had bequeathed him this farm. And for what? She couldn’t even call it an island of sanctuary from the madness which raged all around. Today had extinguished that illusion.

“There aren’t any Nyvan-ethnic worlds, Guy,” she said slowly. “Only us. We’re just going to have to stay and make the best of it.”

“Oh. All right.” He studied the gleaming constellations. “Which one is Earth?”

“I don’t know. I never thought it was very important to find out.” She gave the darkened hills one last look. There was no sign of the pick-up van returning. The bleak depression inside her was threatening to become outright despair. Not even Blake would be so stupid as to go with Fakhud, surely? Though the alternative was even worse, that Sergeant Derry had caught them.

Please let it be a puncture, or a shorted power cell, she prayed. Somewhere in the soft night air she thought she heard a mocking laugh. It was probably just an echo inside her own skull.

Amanda woke before dawn, puzzled at the silence. It was a subliminal warning of wrongness, nothing she could actually name. She also missed Blake’s weight at her side. When she went into his room, he wasn’t there either. His bed hadn’t been used.

The wood-burning range stove in the kitchen was almost out. Amanda had to fight against the instinct to load it immediately. Instead, she pulled her house coat tight and hurried out into the farmyard. The pick-up van hadn’t returned.

She closed her eyes and cursed. Blake had gone for good. No use trying to kid herself about that any more. He believed a politician’s promise, that their way is better than ours. Fool, stupid country boy fool.

Now she would have to find a replacement, which wouldn’t be easy in these times. For all her exasperation with him, he’d been a good worker. It was a rare quality in today’s young men.

She walked towards the long barn as the sun began to rise over the horizon. A heavy dew had given the joycevine leaves a mantle of grey sparkles. The grill was still sending out small wisps of smoke from last night’s fats, mingling with the thin strands of mist layering the air.

Jane or one of the others would have to drive her into Knightsville to recover the pick-up. Assuming Blake had left it at the station.

It was when she reached the end of the barn that Amanda realized what had been bothering her since she awoke. Silence. Total silence. The pickers had gone.

Amanda ran into the centre of the small paddock where their vehicles had been parked. “No!” She turned a complete circle, trying hopelessly to spot the collection of cars and trucks they’d arrived in.

But they must have left hours ago. Their departure hadn’t even left any tyre tracks in the dew.

“You can’t!” she yelled at the narrow brown track which wound away from the farm. “You can’t leave. I haven’t even paid you.” It wouldn’t matter to them, she knew; money versus Sergeant Derry focusing her interest and attention on their group.

Amanda sank to her knees amid the damp fur of the grass-analogue. She started sobbing as the dark fear rose to claim her thoughts. Fear of the future. Fear for Guy.

The sun rose steadily, banishing the sheets of gossamer mist which lurked among the orchards. Under its growing warmth, the rich crop of apples turned yet another shade darker as they waited for the hands of the pickers.

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