So already the elaborate social jostling had begun. It would be a long day.
In fact — thanks to the recent Glitch — it had already been a long day for Muub. The latest in a series of long days. He was principal Physician to the First Family, but he also had a hospital to run — indeed, the retention of his responsibilities at the Hospital of the Common Good had been a condition of his acceptance of his appointment to Hork’s court — and the burden placed on his staff by the Glitch had still to unravel. He studied the vapid, pretty, aging faces of the courtiers as they preened in their finery, and wondered how many more ravaged bodies he would have to tend before sleep claimed him.
Vice-Chair Hork seemed to notice him at last. Hork nodded to him. Hork was a bulky man whose size gave him an appearance of slowness of wit — a deceptive appearance, as more than one courtier had found to his cost. Under his extravagant beard — extravagantly manufactured, actually, Muub reflected wryly — Hork’s face had something of the angular nobility of his father’s, with those piercing, deep black eyecups and angular nose; but the features tended to be lost in the sheer bulk of the younger Hork’s fleshy face, so that whereas the Chair of the Central Committee had an appearance of gentle, rather bruised nobility, his son and heir appeared hard, tough and coarse, the refined elements of his looks serving only to accentuate his inherent violence. Today, though, Hork seemed calm. “So, Muub,” he called. “You’ve decided to join me. I was fearful of being shunned.”
Muub sighed as he worked his way deeper into his cocoon. “You glower too much, sir,” he said. “You frighten them all away.”
Hork snorted. “Then through the Ring with them,” he said, the ancient obscenity coming easily to his lips. “And how are you, Physician? You’re looking a little subdued yourself.”
Muub smiled. “I’m afraid I’m getting a little old for my burden of work. I’ve spent most of the last few days in the Hospital. We’re — very busy, sir.”
“Glitch injuries?”
“Yes, sir.” Muub rubbed a hand over his shaven scalp. “Of course we should have seen the worst now… or rather, the more serious cases we have not yet reached must, sadly, be beyond our care. But there remains a steady stream of lesser injuries which…”
“Minor?”
“Lesser,” Muub corrected him firmly. “Which is very different. Not life-threatening, but still, perhaps, disabling. Most of them patients from the central districts, of course. When Longitude I failed…”
“I know,” Hork said, chewing his lip. “You don’t need to tell me about it.”
Longitude I was an anchor-band, one of four superconducting toroids wrapped around the City to maintain the structure’s position over the South Pole. Longitudes I and II were aligned vertically, while their twins Latitudes I and II were placed horizontally, so that the toroids crisscrossed around the City.
The Glitch had largely spared the Polar regions, the City itself. But at the height of the Glitch, with vortex lines tangling around the City, Longitude I had failed. The City had rattled in its superconducting cage like a trapped Air-pig. The anchor-band’s current had been restored quickly, and the effects on the external parts of the structure — such as the Spine and the Committee Palace — had been minimal. But it had been in the hidden interior of the City, where thousands of clerks and artisans toiled their lives away, that the most serious injuries had been incurred.
“Do we have any figures on the casualties yet?”
Muub looked at the Vice-Chair. “I’m surprised you’re asking me. I’m your father’s Physician, but I’m really just one Hospital Administrator — one of twelve in all of Parz.”
Hork waved fat fingers. “I know that. All right, forget I asked. I just wanted your view. The trouble is that the agencies which gather statistics like that for us are precisely those which were wrecked by the Glitch itself.” He shook his head, the jowls wobbling angrily. “People think gathering information is a joke — unnecessary. A luxury. I suspect even my highly intelligent father shares that view.” The last few words were spat out, venomously. “But the fact is, without such data a government can scarcely operate. I’ve tried to justify this to my father often enough. You see, Doctor, without central government functions, the state is like a body without a head. We can’t even raise tithes successfully, let alone allocate expenditure.” Hork grimaced. “It makes today’s Grand Tribute look a little pointless, doesn’t it, Physician?”
Muub nodded. “I understand, sir.”
“I tell you, Muub,” Hork said, still nervously chewing on his bearded underlip, “one more Glitch like that and we could be done for.”
Muub frowned. “Who are ‘we’? The government, the Committee?”
Hork shrugged. “There are plenty of hotheads, out in the ceiling-farms, in the dynamo sheds, in the Harbor… There seems no way of rooting such vermin out. Even Breaking them on the Wheel serves only to create martyrs.”
Muub smiled. “A wise observation.”
Hork laughed, displaying well-maintained teeth. “And you’re a patronizing old fool who pushes his luck… Martyrs. Yet another subtlety of human interaction which seems to evade my poor, absent father.” Now Hork looked piercingly at Muub; the Physician found himself flinching. “And you,” Hork said. “Do you scent rebellion in the Air?”
Muub thought carefully. He knew he wasn’t under any personal suspicion; but he also knew that the Vice-Chair — unlike his father — took careful note of anything said to him. And Hork had dozens, hundreds of informants spread right throughout Parz and its hinterland. “No, sir. Although there are plenty of grumbles — and plenty of folk ready to blame the Committee for our predicament.”
“As if we had called the Glitches down on our own heads?” Hork wriggled in his cocoon, folds of brushed leather rippling over his ample form. “You know,” he mused, “if only that were true. If only the Glitches were human in origin, to be canceled at a human command. But then, the scholars tell us — repeating what little wisdom was allowed to survive the Reformation — man was brought to this Mantle by the Ur-humans, modified to survive here. If once we had such control over our destiny, why should we not regain it, ultimately?” He smiled. “Well, Physician?”
Muub returned the smile. “You’ve a lively mind, sir, and I enjoy debating such subjects with you. But I prefer to restrict my attention to the practical. The achievable.”
Hork scowled, his plaited hair-tubes waving with an elegance that made Muub abruptly aware of his own baldness. “Maybe. But let’s not forget that that was the argument of the Reformers, ten generations ago. And their purges and expulsions left us in such ignorance we can’t even measure the damage they did…
“Anyway, it’s not revolt I fear, Physician. It’s more the feasibility of government itself — I mean the viability of our state, regardless of whoever sits in my father’s chair.” The man’s wide, fleshy face turned to Muub now, full of unaccustomed doubt. “Do you understand me, Muub? Damn few do, I can tell you, inside this wretched court or out.”
Muub was impressed — not for the first time — by the younger Hork’s acuity. “Perhaps, you fear, the Glitches will render an organized society like Parz City impossible. Revolts will become irrelevant. Our civilization itself will fall.”
“Exactly,” Hork said, sounding almost grateful. “No more City — no more tithe-collectors, or Crust-flower parks, or artists or scientists. Or Physicians. We’ll all have to Wave off to the upflux and hunt boar.”
Muub laughed. “There are a few who would like to see the back of the tithes.”
“Only fools who cannot perceive the benefits. When every man must not only maintain his own scrubby herd of pigs, but must make, by hand, every tool he uses, like the poorest upfluxer… then, perhaps, he will look back on taxation with nostalgic affection.”