Urbis

“Do you treat all your guests this way?” Crispin asked in his strange accent, when they reached Bernard’s office.

“Only those who are strangers to us.” The stranger spoke slowly and in a peculiar dialect, Bernard noted, and made an effort to speak slowly himself. “Listening devices may be inserted into any orifice on the body, we have found in the past.”

For a moment, Crispin wondered if the man facing him were mad. How could one listen through one’s...? But in a place where people could fly, and doors opened and closed of their own accord, what other wonders might be possible?

They were now gathered in Bernard’s poky office. Through a cracked and grimy window, Crispin could see a roofscape that was terminated by the shiny mesas of the nearest skyscraper blocks which effectively eclipsed the sky.

“How do you like your coffee?” said Lyall when Crispin had made himself comfortable in a swivel chair and was testing it out, swinging slowly from side to side.

Crispin stared blankly at him. “I don’t understand.”

Bernard waved his hand from behind his desk. “Just bring the pot, Ly. I think this is going to be a long haul.” He pulled out a long silvery pipe and began stuffing it with tobacco. He produced a lighter and lit it. He then jabbed a small button on the wall beside him. A faint hum became audible, and Crispin saw that its source was a metallic hoop on the ceiling whose diameter approximately enclosed the area occupied by Bernard’s chair. As the smoke began to rise, Crispin noticed that it was drawn towards small vents set into the hoop. “The group required me to install one of those,” Bernard explained, “to protect them from my filthy habit.” When he was satisfied that the pipe was going well, he took a long hard look at the man in front of him. “Marlon said you were weird. He was right. Do you want to tell us about yourself?”

Crispin told his tale slowly, indeed haltingly, and in detail. Bernard and Charlie listened, as did Lyall when he returned with coffee and toast and jam, made with the remains of Crispin’s loaf. At times the three listeners struggled with Crispin’s accent, and with some of the peculiar words he used. The situation was entirely mutual, with Crispin guessing at times in his attempt to fathom the men’s meaning.

When he had finished, they were silent. Bernard was staring at his cold pipe, Lyall was gazing fixedly into his empty coffee mug, and Charlie was giving equally rapt attention to the threadbare carpet. “That’s a pretty wild story,” Bernard said after a pause. Crispin opened his mouth to protest its veracity. “So wild, in fact,” the former continued, “that I suspect it’s true. You must understand, Crispin, that it contradicts everything we’ve ever been taught about what’s over the mountains. But considering our teachers, that isn’t at all surprising. We have always been led to understand that beyond those mountains was a desert or a disease-riddled swamp, a wasteland dating back to a past nuclear war, a place inhabited only by a mish-mash of deadly germ bacilli and probably a few mutant cockroaches.”

Underneath a cool, detached veneer, Bernard was making a swift appraisal of an extraordinary situation. Marlon, he concluded, had been on the right track. If the Security Commission were trying to plant someone in the Underground - as they had tried on previous occasions, they wouldn’t make it someone as outlandish as this Crispin. His clothing, his wild appearance, his strange dialect, all pointed to the truth of his tale.

Crispin was looking at him uncomprehendingly. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess it’s all a bit over your head at the moment. Look, there must be a million questions you want to ask us.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Well, there’s plenty of time,” said Bernard. ” At the moment I can’t see any use we might have for the information you’ve given us, but you never know. We’re going to have to think a bit about what you’ve told us. Our leaders feed us all the time, but this one’s a biggie.”

Crispin looked from one to another of the three men. “Can you help me find Tana and the other women?”

A hush fell over the room. The men shifted awkwardly in their chairs. Charlie found a voice. “We have to be honest with you. Things do not look good for your wife. There are thousands of brothels in this city, she could be in any one of them. Most of them keep their women on drugs to keep them quiet, which means she may not be too aware of what’s being done to her. But the chances of tracking her down are just about non-existent.”

Crispin looked forlorn. Charlie’s heart went out to him. “We have contacts in some of the higher class joints. When they’re under the influence, the high-and-mighties let slip a few titbits of news that are sometimes useful. If we hear anything, we’ll let you know.”

Crispin smiled weakly.

“Meanwhile,” said Bernard, “We’d better get you tidied up and dressed normally, so you don’t stand out. Then I guess we’d better put you under someone’s wing to teach you how to survive in this place. Charlie? Would you take Crispin and introduce him to the shower?”

With a smile Charlie ushered Crispin out of the office, leaving Bernard to ponder further the implications of this new arrival. Crispin could be useful to the Underground, anyone with his survival skills and determination had to be an asset, Bernard deemed. But the question was, how best to use Crispin. Bernard saw at once that the man would have to be diverted from the near-impossible task of finding his woman.

An idea came to him and he snapped his fingers with glee. He picked up the phone.

As they were walking to the showers, Crispin said: “Tell me a little about what you do.”

Charlie took a deep breath. He said, “We’re trying to change the way the city is run.”

“How is the city run?”

“Basically, it’s run by a power elite - the people with the most money. Called the Presidium. They make the decisions. Based on who gives them the biggest bribes. Do you follow so far?”

Crispin hesitated. He recalled the longhouse of Vale-By-The-Waters, where the simple decisions relating to the running of a tiny community were made by village elders. “I’m not sure.”

“Not to worry. You’ll get the hang of it in time.”

“Tell me more,” Crispin urged. “Tell me how you want to change things.”

“We’re simply trying to make things fairer, and make life a little better for ordinary people. But the Presidium likes things the way they are, and they fight very hard to keep them that way.There’s more of us, but they have all the hardware to keep us in our place.”

As if on cue, an olive green Security helicopter rattled past outside the windows.

“See what I mean?”

“Yes,” said Crispin slowly. “I see. How are you going to make the changes? By fighting?”

“Eventually,” Charlie agreed. “But we need more people on our side, so we do consciousness-raising exercises, pinpointing things the Presidium does or permits that endanger people’s lives, like the way they carry poisonous wastes around the city. That was the last big campaign we did, after a string of serious accidents. But we’re struggling against apathy: like Bernard said, most people don’t want to know what’s going on, or if by chance they know, they don’t really care, if it doesn’t touch them directly.”

They walked on, and Crispin sought to cope with the facts that threatened to overwhelm him. One notion seemed to overshadow all others: what if there were fighting, and Tana were to be caught somewhere in the middle of it?

They arrived at the shower room.

Charlie brought Crispin back to Bernard’s office. He had shaved off the beard and most of the tangled mop of hair, and Crispin was rubbing self-consciously at the newly-denuded raw flesh.

“Good, very good,” said Bernard. “You’re starting to look a bit more like one of us. Next thing we need to do is to get you some new duds.”

“I... have no way to pay,” said Crispin.

“It’s okay,” said Bernard. “We try to operate on the old philosophy: from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. Right now, your needs are many and your ability, financially at least, is nil. That will change.” As an afterthought he added: “Not that Lyall will be getting you anything very fancy. The sort of things you see us wearing.”

He fingered the worn collar of his shirt, and Crispin laughed.

“The next thing to do is find you a place to live. There’s a spare room here, if you don’t mind stepping into a dead woman’s shoes.”

Crispin cocked his head on one side. “Dead woman’s shoes?”

Bernard was solemn. “When we move into a place like this, the first thing we do is tap the electricity mains. Do you know about electricity? No? Well, it’s a form of energy that provides light, heat, everything. You’re supposed to pay for it as you use it, but we steal it out of the cables it runs through. And it’s dangerous stuff. Olive was our last electrician. She tapped the grid for us here, but she... had an accident.” He seemed to have something in his throat. “Her room is vacant.”

There was a painful lull in the conversation. “Do women do dangerous work here?”

“We all do the same things, irrespective of sex,” said Bernard.

“I see,” said Crispin.

Charlie arrived with a tray of food. “Thought you might be hungry,” he smiled.

“There you are,” said Bernard. “Men do fetching and carrying. What was once thought to be women’s work.”

As they ate, Crispin sought information on everything he could think of, firing questions at Bernard about things that he had seen. The shops full of erotica, the copulating couple under the strange fountain, the odd looking people.

Bernard waved his hands, seeking to hold back the barrage. “It’s the way it is,” he sighed. ” A preoccupation with sex usually indicates a civilization in decline. Which still further leads me to believe it’s time for a change. Don’t misunderstand me, there’s nothing wrong with sex in the context of a loving relationship, but that stuff just exploits women, makes men see them as nothing more than a body.”

Crispin nodded.

Lyall returned with a large bundle of clothes and piled them in a heap on the floor. Crispin picked through them, holding each item up for inspection. The colours were faded, mostly blues, grey and gunmetal, and some hems were frayed, but most of the clothes were in good condition.

He was a little disconcerted by the tight fit of the pants, but the others assured him that that was the norm. He added a shirt, and a loose fitting overgarment, over the top of which he fastened a belt which had large pouches on the hips.

“For your bits and pieces - when you get them,” Lyall explained, without really explaining anything.

The shoes were a little small, so Crispin completed the ensemble with his own mammoth hide boots.

“Okay,” said Lyall cheerily. “Looks like you’re ready to go out on the town.”

Bernard cleared his throat. “Er, yes, Crispin. We were wondering if you’d care to go out with us tonight for some entertainment. Just a local cabaret.”

The prospect of some simple relaxation appealed to Crispin. He had been continually under tension, first with the hunt and then with his search for Tana, for what seemed an age. “Yes,” he said. “I would like that.”

“Good,” said Bernard. “There will be someone there we’d like you to meet.”

“One last question,” said Crispin. “For the time being, at any rate.”

“Sure,” said Charlie, leading Crispin through the door. “Fire away.”

“This place, this city, does it have a name?”

“Yep,” said Charlie. “It’s not used much, but it does have one. It’s called Urbis.”