EFFECTS OF SECRECY / CH. 5:FLUTES
EMBASSY BARRACKS, FRISOL 8TH JANUARY, 7.30AM
“Hi, you must be James. I'm Harry, welcome to Mars!” A man greeted James as he wandered into the kitchen area.
Harry was also diplomatic protection, James knew. “Good morning.” he hadn't slept very well, and sounded grumpy even to his own ears.
“Hey, you've got a whole new planet to explore, you shouldn't sound like it's the end of the world.”
“Sorry.” James said, “I didn't sleep too well last night.”
“Oh. Unfamiliar bed syndrome?”
“No... just emotional stuff.”
“Want to talk about it, or do you want me to not be nosey?”
“Yesterday I thought I was in love with a beautiful girl. We come from the same place, but only met on the ship out; she chased me in fact. I was under orders to resist, which was pretty easy until she became a Christian the night before last. Yesterday, the sun was shining and all was right with the whole universe. Last night we worked out that we share something like a third of our great-great grandparents. No future for romance.”
“Ouch. Alice knows all this?”
“Yes.”
“No wonder she said you might want to swap duties. So, officially you're on the rota for escorting Alice duty, but you can swap to compound security if you prefer. But if so, I'll need to give you a three hour orientation between now and eight.”
“I guess I'll stick with escorting her excellency,” James said.
Harry looked at him with remembered amusement, “I once made the mistake of calling Alice 'your excellency' to her face. It was a mistake. She much prefers 'Alice'.”
“She hasn't told me that yet.”
“Have you asked?”
“No.”
“Well, make sure you call me Harry. Eat your breakfast, planning and prayer meeting at eight, or maybe earlier if everyone's there early.”
“Where's there?”
“Alice's office.”
“Thanks.”
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MARS COUNCIL OFFICES, 9.30AM.
In a free moment, while Alice and the secretary to the Council had gone off to prepare papers for Ruth to sign, James asked her, “Are you really OK?”
“I'm fine, James. Don't worry about me. If I look tired that's because I did a lot of on-line window-shopping last night. The fabric situation is pretty good, actually, there's plenty of good designs available, if you look around, which I did. I've also priced up the furniture I'm going to get, so my room won't look nearly so desolate soon.”
“And the rest?”
“I had a good cry, but there's nothing to be done, is there?”
“Not really. Doesn't mean you need to feel good about it.”
“You need to eventually, James. Move on. For what it's worth, I think you'll make someone a wonderful husband.”
“Thank you, Ruth. You'll need to be careful, there's going to be a queue of optimistic men outside your door with roses soon,” he thought a bit, realising that perhaps not many people grew flowers here, “or at least tomato flowers, or something.”
“What, give away tomato flowers when they'd turn into crop?” Ruth asked in mock shock,
“The extravagance of love...” he joked.
“We didn't know each other well enough for love, James.”
“So why am I so upset with my creator?” he asked.
“All the normal selfish reasons? We want what we can't have. Wow! I'm quoting my dad.”
“A rare event?”
“You have no idea. You're really in contact with home?”
“Well, you know how it is...”
“No, I don't. I refused contact.”
“You did? Oh.” He'd heard of people doing it, but was still surprised, “Urm, normally I get a call about every six months.”
“Oh. Next time you get called, please try to remember to revoke my refusal.”
“Of course.”
“And ask that my parents be told that God's found me.”
“I will.”
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FIDDLER'S ARMS, FRISOL 8TH JANUARY, 8PM
“Stop looking like you're on duty, James.” Alice whispered to him.
“I am on duty.”
“Well relax, and blend in more. You'll put people off their music. Mandy?” she called an elderly friend, “come and meet James, who thinks I'm in danger. James, meet Mandy, who knows everyone here except you and Ruth, and can probably tell you their whole biographies. Ruth is James' cousin, Mandy, both arrived yesterday.”
“And you came out together? That's nice.” Mandy said.
“It wasn't planned,” James said, “in fact we only worked out we were related part way here.”
“Oh, it must have been a lovely surprise, then. Anyway, you want to know who's who? Over there is Cecilia Durrel, who makes the hottest Tabasco on the planet, a lovely Christian lady, that's her husband, Jimmy, beside her, he's a chemist, then beside him is his sister, Evangeline, she's due to have her third soon, as you can see. Then there's Jim, rare honor to have him with us, I must say, and his wife Tabitha. He promised he'd propose and then got scared and vanished out of her life for thrity-five years, or was it forty? Can you imagine it!”
James didn't get an opportunity respond before she moved on. It seemed that she really did know everyone, and James felt himself slowly relax as she chattered on and on.
“Wow, I think you got everyone,” James said, looking around the room, “except maybe the blond about my age, over in the corner.”
“Oh, that's Margaret, I thought you'd know her, she works at the embassy.”
“I make that a full house, then. Well done!” He remembered Margaret now. She'd been at the prayer meeting at the start, but had left.
“Now, young man, you'd better go and introduce yourself to Margaret, since you did ask after her, she's looking this way and she's got very good hearing.”
James wandered over, to explain.
“Hi, Mandy didn't tell me your name the first time round so I thought I ought to ask if she knew it. She tells me you're at the embassy too?”
“Yes. You're James?”
“Yes. Diplomatic protection.”
“I always thought that was an odd job title. I mean, how diplomatic is it to stand around and watch people work?”
“Not very, not if that's all I'd be doing.”
“That was supposed to be a joke,” Margaret said.
“I'm laughing,” he said, with an almost straight face.
“I see. Maybe you are diplomatic. Do I gather that your girlfriend is called Ruth?”
“She's called Ruth, but she's not my girlfriend.”
“No? That's not what I'd heard.”
“We worked out last night that we share about a third of our great-great grandparents. That's almost as bad as first cousins. So no, girlfriend is definitively off the list of possible descriptions.”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” Margaret said, “urm... how do you get to a third of a power of two?”
“Simplification. Depending on which set of great-greats you look at, we're third cousins, and third cousins once removed, and fourth cousins, and probably something else further back, too. We made a guess this afternoon about what happened: we come from neighbouring districts of the same town, both families have very much stayed in the same area for generations, and it looks like a few generations ago people decided that they needed to look a bit further afield for husbands and wives, and went all the way to the next-door district. Weren't they adventurous?”
“Not really,” Margaret said. “I didn't realise there were any places like that left.”
It was done very naturally, he thought, with his thoughts hidden, but she was clearly probing for more information. “Not many. We know we're a bit of an oddity. A little hide-away community trying to escape the attention of the rest of the world. Both Ruth and I left.”
“Like the Amish, you mean?”
“There are some similarities, yes. Farming, hunting, fishing, handicrafts...”
“Not much hunting and fishing here,” Margaret said.
“Not for game or fish, no.” he agreed, “But speaking of fishing for information, what's your role at the embassy?”
“Intel,” she admitted.
“I'd love to say 'ooh, tell me more', but I assume that I don't have clearance.”
“Well, I suppose I can tell you I've read your file.”
“Shocking,” he said.
“But I've not heard any decisions from you.”
“I'm not aware of having made any I'd like to share.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“And you've really got a range of ten metres?”
James decided he'd like Ruth to come and talk to Margaret about range.
Margaret looked for Ruth. It was more than ten metres, and there were a lot of people in the room. “Really?” she asked.
“My cousin decided she'll come after this song,” he reported.
“That's even further than I can hear,” Margaret said.
James hid his thoughts, and said “Mandy said you had good hearing.”
“That's one description, I suppose.”
“So what's your range?”
“About double what's supposed to be normal. Six to eight metres.”
“Hmm,” he said deciding she must be part Mer before he unhid his thoughts.
“What does 'hmm' mean?”
“Secrets.”
“You're full of them, aren't you?”
“I'm a cloud of mysteries, I've been told. Or something like that. There's even a microscopic chance I might tell you some of them.”
“Oh yes? Like what?”
“My favourite colour.”
“What is it?”
“When I discover it, I'll tell you, how's that?”
“Very smooth. Now let's be polite and listen. Unless you want to join in?”
“Maybe later.”
“Promises, promises,” Margaret said.
After the song, was over, Ruth came and James did the introductions, “Margaret, my multiple-cousin Ruth, Ruth, allow me to introduce Margaret who can only hear decisions six or seven meters away, the poor thing, but at least she hasn't got the pain, as far as I know. Oh, she's a spy but she still thought we were dating, so I thought I ought to help her do her job.”
“One of these days I'm going to do your job, and then where will you be?”
“Feeling terrible and visiting you in hospital I hope, since the alternative is being at your funeral,” James replied, matter of factly.
“I think I'd forgotten that part of your job,” Margaret said quietly, “sorry.”
“I don't think I ever knew about it,” Ruth said.
“Ultimately my job is to make sure if anyone sticks a knife in anyone it's me rather than Alice, likewise bullets, but there shouldn't be any guns here, but that doesn't stop anyone making blow-pipes, and so on, though.”
“Makes sense,” Ruth agreed.
“Which reminds me,” he said, “Margaret is there any way of finding what toxic plants there might be on the planet? Other than kidney beans of course, there wasn't anything in my briefing document. It'd be good to know what sort of poisoned blades or darts might be around.”
“Poison darts? Blow-pipes?” Margaret asked, “who'd know how to make something like that?”
“A hunter, for example, or an assassin, me. You too, Ruth?”
“Of course. Not so many trees or bamboo around, but there's plenty of plastic pipe.”
“Any chance of a demonstration of what it would take, given the right knowledge and some kidney beans?” Margaret asked.
“Sure,” Ruth said, “but I don't think I'll actually cook up the poison, if that's OK; it's nasty stuff to leave lying around. But I'd happily go a few stages and then turn it into bean soup, or something like that.”
“You need a lot to be dangerous though, don't you?”
Ruth looked at her in amazement. “Aren't you supposed to know this sort of thing? Just eating five raw kidney beans can make an adult very sick. A small pot of beans turned into a nice concentrated poison, administered by a dart? Bye bye.”
“Oh. Well, on that note, I'd better leave. I think I'm up next.”
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8.50PM
“That was lovely,” Ruth said, when Margaret had finished playing. “Can I have a look at your flute?”
“It's not quite a flute.”
“No, it's not,” Rose agreed, with her thoughts hidden, “you inherited it?”
“How did you guess? It was my grandfather's, but I think he said he'd inherited it too.”
James had been concentrating on the crowd, not Margaret, so hadn't looked closely at the instrument she was playing. Taking a look at what Ruth was holding, he recognised it immediately,
“Hmm, yes. Not a flute, is it?”
“It's in lovely condition, Margaret,” Ruth said, “but do make sure you re-wax and buff the bore to a full shine if you ever want to use it for anything other than music.”
“What else might I want to use it for?”
“Oh, nothing, I hope, but it might be worth practicing with it, just in case.” She looked more closely at the mouthpiece, and told James, “it's not more than two hundred years old, it's got the safety catch.”
“Well that's good. We wouldn't want a nasty accident if she was using it loaded.”
“What are you two talking about?”
“Cultural heritage,” James said.
“Whose?”
“Yes,” James replied, much to Margaret's annoyance. “Did you leave yours at home, Ruth?”
“Oh, don't worry, James,” Ruth said with a smile, “they won't get confused, even in the dark. This is the old four hole pattern, mine is the recent five hole pattern.”
“Hmm,” James said disapprovingly, “I prefer the tone of the four hole version.”
“Tradtionalist!” she accused, “the five gives better range.”
“Only in musical terms,” he replied,
“True, you do loose a bit of distance.”
Margaret saw Alice heading their way, having just spoken to Scaredy Jim, and whispered, “Alice, help! They're looking at my flute and saying things like 'it's a good thing it's got the safety catch, or there might be a nasty accident.' Can you make them stop or at least explain?”
“Maybe not in public, Maam,” James suggested.
“That's good, because I think we should leave, once Jim's played.”
“Problem?” James asked.
“Hopefully not,” Alice replied.
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EN-ROUTE TO EMBASSY
“So, James and Ruth, would you like to explain?” Margaret asked.
“Earlier this evening, Maam,” James addressed Alice from his position as driver, “I asked Margaret if there was any way I'd be able to find out about toxic plants, other than kidney beans, of course. I was thinking that even if guns are banned, poison is still dangerous, and there's always knives, needles and blowpipes as a delivery methods. Margaret thought there wouldn't be any blowpipes on the planet, and Rose offered to show how one could be made using some plastic pipes. I thought it was a good idea, but now I don't know if messing about with plastic pipes is really necessary, since it turns out that Ruth and Margaret both have one from home.”
“You're accusing my flute of being a blowpipe?” Margaret asked, incredulous.
“Not accusing it, no, recognising it as a superior version to Ruth's.”
“James is a traditionalist,” Ruth explained.
“Ruth's is a compromise made in modern times when what was meant as a disguise has come to be seen as more important that the primary function: a light-weight, short-range distance weapon. Margaret's is old enough that it could well have been used for real. Ruth's probably hasn't.”
“Told you,” Ruth said, with a grin, “James is a traditionalist.”
“You're saying my flute has been used to kill people?”
“No, it's not that old,” Ruth said, “whoever last shot it almost certainly used darts loaded with a muscle relaxant which doesn't have long-term effects. Just like I did. Mine has been used to shoot someone too, by the way, but only because I was a very annoyed teenager at the time.”
“But you also know how to make a poison out of kidney beans,” Margaret said.
“Yes.”
“For use with a blow pipe,” she checked.
“Yes.”
“Where are you two from?”
“Same place as your flute,” James answered, ambiguously.
“Grandfather said it came from New Zealand.”
“That's just about possible, I suppose,” James said, “in which case you're probably a relative.”
“You have got to tell me more, please!” Margaret said, “This is fascinating!”
“They took vows of silence, Margaret,” Alice said.
“Oh.”
“And they probably ought to be asking one from you, too, retroactively.”
“We should, yes.” James acknowledged, “thank you, Maam.”
“And James should probably be asking you how far back you can remember your family tree, too,” Ruth supplied.
“Ruth!” James protested.
“You're not even a tiny bit interested?” she challenged, “I think you ought to be.”
“Well...”
“Silly man,” Ruth concluded, “learn your lesson.”
James, blushing and glad he had to keep looking at the road, said, “Ruth has a point, I suppose, unless...” He didn't know if Margaret had a boyfriend, fiancé, or husband.
“Unless what?” Margaret asked, partially guessing what he was getting all embarrassed about.
“It's really very simple, Margaret,” Ruth said, coming to his rescue, “James made the mistake of falling in love with me before we found out we were relatives. I've always been a 'feel first, think later' sort of person, so I'm sort of used to having my hopes and dreams fall to ashes, but he's more stable than that and it hurt him more deeply. I guess he's still thinking he needs to mourn or show me loyalty, or something. So, I'm not saying he's ready to fall in love, or he's going to fall in love with you, but unless you've got some boyfriend lurking somewhere, or maybe even if you have, it'd help him avoid another disaster if you did happen to know what your great-great grandparents were called, or could dredge up that information somehow.”
“All my great-great grandparents? Not a hope, sorry,” Margaret said, “my mum got interested in working out our family tree, but her searches kept coming up blank on dad's side. I think she only found full records for two of his grandparents.”
“With you having a pipe like Ruth's, blanks in official records aren't exactly a good sign, Margaret,” Alice said.
“Hey, doesn't that depend if I'm interested in him?”
“Shall I quote you from last month?” Alice teased. Margaret had said she'd be interested in any Christian man with clearance and who wasn't due to go back to Earth.
“No!” Margaret said.
“I'm sure Harry will be happy if you decide to un-dump him and rotate back to Earth.”
“Alice, will you stop match-making? I'm perfectly capable of sorting out my love-life on my own.”
“That's not what you said last month, either. But more seriously, this is a situation you can't sort out on your own, actually. Unless you're definitively not at all ever going to be interested in James, of course. These two would consider third cousin marriage to be incest. Given how many other links they've got, I'm not surprised, really. So, with you having some known connection with their mysterious home and having multiple gaps, he's going to decide he's got to be impervious to your charms.”
“Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?”
“Yes, I am, Margaret. I'll check if you're his third cousin or closer if you like, and I'd prefer to do it now, so there's no doubts or wrong guesses right from the start.”
“I guess I'd like to know,” Margaret said.
“I thought...” Ruth started to say.
“It was Simon or Cecilia that had the gift?”
“Yes.”
“Their majesties were rather surprised when they found out too, but it certainly makes communicating with home easier in an emergency.”
“Do I take it this change of plan is an emergency?” James asked.
“Not really. More of a precaution, I spotted one of the maybe-not-retired-assassins approaching the dome.”
“You didn't say.”
“No. Our paths weren't going to cross, so there was no need.”
“Maam” James protested, thinking he should have been told.
“James, first, call me Alice. Secondly, allow me to make all decisions about how my gift is used and how I respond to the information granted me by it. I do not respond well to being pressured or tempted to use my gift, or to share information that I feel is not relevant. I'm not saying never ask, but expect the answer will be no most of the time, OK?”
“OK” James agreed. He didn't have much option.
“Oh, I'm also not in any way promising to check up on every woman you meet, but I did notice that you two had struck it off well together, you're going to spend a lot of time looking at risk factors and the like together, and there aren't any other single Christian women in the truthsayer association who aren't from another country, plus of course Ruth brought up the subject. So I looked. You're not Margaret's fourth cousin or closer.”
“Thank you, Alice.” James replied.
“What I understand are the standard embassy rules apply,” Alice added, “you may talk informally outside duty hours, but not in an isolated location. If you do choose to pursue a relationship, you may seek to have duty slots adjusted so you're free at the same time, but only after you're judged to have had a reasonable chance of settling into the local culture, typically a month. At no time will you engage in scandalous behaviour, and local customs will be followed regarding minimum periods of dating and engagement to avoid causing scandals. That bit means you should assume you're not getting engaged before you've had your first decent harvest, James, or married before having enough produce to support yourselves fully by the fruits of your labour.”
“I understand,” James said, “I'm sure I'm not ready to think about falling in love so soon, but thank you for making it clear, and for checking.”
“Ruth?” Margaret asked, “since I don't want to distract our driver, can I ask you something? Quietly, I mean.”
Ruth offered her hand.
[When I was little, Grandad told me all sorts of things he said were secret stories, that his mother had told him. One was about my flute, saying it was a magic flute which when you blew on it just right you could make people go to sleep.]
[So he knew then.]
[Yes. Another was about an old urm, lady, called Sathzakara, telling her grandchildren to go and bring her back some fish, and they did.]
[Oh? That sounds rather lacking in the plot department.]
[I left out the secret bits. He made me promise not to tell anyone.]
['And an oath must be kept, for an oathbreaker...' do you know the rest?]
['is shark or sharkfood.'] Margaret thought, amazed.
[Not all sharks need to be killed. Some sharks have two legs; some have more, others less, but all sharks need watching.]
[Yes! He said that as well.]
[Sathzakara Evangelia was an ancestor of mine, and of James too, a long long way back. Keep your oath, distant cousin, but know that you don't break it if you talk to James.]
[And the thing about putting on scales?]
[Scale, no 's' on the end. Just special clothing.]
[It can't all be true!]
[I suppose that depends on what all contains.]
[A crystal city under the sea? Submarines made of gold which could fly to the moon? Having conversations with whales? A potion which lets you hold your breath for more than ten minutes?]
[Some of those are no more than stories, some are secrets of the deep. You are not fully of the deep, Margaret, and the deep doesn't give up its secrets easily. Try to be patient.]
Margaret thought for a while, then asked, “James, can you tell me about Sathzakara?”
“Ruth?” James asked, shocked,
“I told her very very little she hadn't already heard, James, except we are her descendants. She has learned why oaths must be kept, but perhaps she does not truly know it.”
“Ah. So, what would you like to learn about my ancestress, Margaret? Which part of her life? Pagan warrior, evangelist, general, politician? Of how her English husband found her, and the changes that brought, or of the last change she introduced? I know a lot of stories; most are even true.”
“I think I'd like to learn all of them, James, or as many as can be told.”
“That sounds like it will take a lot of time.”
“I've read your file, James. Now, I'm not saying I'm never leaving, but I don't have plans to leave. I like it here on Mars, I like the mixture of good company, physical work, music, it's a good place. And who wouldn't like to find out about their heritage?”