Michael Swanwick - Stations of the Tide

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STATIONS OF THE TIDE

by MICHAEL SWANWICK (1991)

[VERSION 1.1 (August 22 2005). If you find and correct errors in the text, please update the version

number by 0.1 and redistribute. In two text passages some content seems to be missing. These positions

have been marked *** MISSING PAGE? ***.]

For my mother,

Mrs. John Francis Swanwick,

With much love

Acknowledgments

The author is indebted to David Hartwell for suggesting where to look, Stan Robinson for the

gingerbread-maddrake trick, Tim Sullivan and Greg Frost for early comments and Greg Frost

again for designing the briefcase's nanotechnics, Gardner Dozois for chains of the sea and for

teaching the bureaucrat how to survive, Marianne for insights into bureaucracy, Bob Walters for

dino parts, Alice Guerrant for whale wallows and other Tidewater features, Sean for the game of

Suicide, Don Keller for nominal assistance, Jack and Jeanne Dann for the quote from Bruno,

which I took from their hotel room when they weren't looking, and Giulio Camillo for his memory

theater, here expanded to a palace; Camillo was one of the most famous men of his century, a

thought which should give us all pause. Any book's influences are too numerous to mention, but

riffs lifted from C. L. Moore, Dylan Thomas, Brian Aldiss, Ted Hughes, and Jamaica Kincaid are

too blatant to pass unacknowledged. This novel was written under a Challenge Grant from the M.

C. Porter Endowment for the Arts.

1. The Leviathan in Flight

The bureaucrat fell from the sky.

For an instant Miranda lay blue and white beneath him, the icecaps fat and ready to melt, and then he

was down. He took a highspeed across the stony plains of the Piedmont to the heliostat terminus at Port

Richmond, and caught the first flight out. The airship Leviathan lofted him across the fall line and over

the forests and coral hills of the Tidewater. Specialized ecologies were astir there, preparing for the

transforming magic of the jubilee tides. In ramshackle villages and hidden plantations people made their

varied provisions for the evacuation.

The Leviathan's lounge was deserted. Hands clasped behind him, the bureaucrat stared moodily out

the stern windows. The Piedmont was dim and blue, a storm front on the horizon. He imagined the falls,

where fish-hawks hovered on rising thermals and the river Noon cascaded down and lost its name.

Below, the Tidewater swarmed with life, like blue-green mold growing magnified in a petri dish. The

thought of all the mud and poverty down there depressed him. He yearned for the cool, sterile

environments of deep space.

Bright species of color floated on the brown water, coffles of houseboats being towed upriver as the

haut-bourgeois prudently made for the Port Richmond incline while the rates were still low. He touched a

window control and the jungle leaped up at him, misty trees resolving into individual leaves. The

heliostat's shadow rippled along the north bank of the river, skimming lightly over mud flats, swaying

phragmites, and gnarled water oaks. Startled, a clutch of acorn-mimetic octopi dropped from a low

branch, brown circles of water fleeing as they jetted into the silt.

"Smell that air," Korda's surrogate said.

The bureaucrat sniffed. He smelled the faint odor of soil from the baskets of hanging vines, and a

sweet whiff of droppings from the wicker birdcages. "Could use a cleansing, I suppose."

"You have no romance in your soul." The surrogate leaned against the windowsill, straight-armed,

looking like a sentimental skeleton. The flickering image of Korda's face reflected palely in the glass. "I'd

give anything to be down here in your place."

"Why don't you, then?" the bureaucrat asked sourly. "You have seniority."

"Don't be flippant. This is not just another smuggling case. The whole concept of technology control is

at stake here. If we let just one self-replicating technology through -- well, you know how fragile a planet

is. If the Division has any justification for its existence at all, it's in exactly this sort of action. So I would

appreciate it if just this once you would make the effort to curb your negativism."

"I have to say what I think. That's what I'm being paid for, after all."

"A very common delusion." Korda moved away from the window, bent to pick up an empty candy

dish, and glanced at its underside. There was a fussy nervousness to his motions, strange to one who had

actually met him. Korda in person was heavy and lethargic. Surrogation seemed to bring out a

submerged persona, an overfastidious little man normally kept drowned in flesh. "Native pottery always

has an unglazed area on the bottom, have you noticed?"

"That's where it stands in the kiln." Korda looked blank. "This is a planet, it has a constant gravity.

You can't fire things in zero gravity here."

With a baffled shake of his head Korda put down the dish. "Was there anything else you wanted to

cover?" he asked.

"I put in a Request For--"

"--Authority. Yes, yes, I have it on my desk. I'm afraid it's right out of the question. Technology

Transfer is in a very delicate position with the planetary authorities. Now don't look at me like that. I

routed it through offworld ministry to the Stone House, and they said no. They're touchy about intrusions

on their autonomy down here. They sent the Request straight back. With restrictions -- you are

specifically admonished not to carry weapons, perform arrests, or in any way represent yourself as

having authority to coerce cooperation on your suspect's part." He reached up and tilted a basket of

vines, so he could fossick about among them. When he let it go, it swung irritably back and forth.

"How am I going to do my job? I'm supposed to -- what? -- just walk up to Gregorian and say,

Excuse me, I have no authority even to speak to you, but I have reason to suspect that you've taken

something that doesn't belong to you, and wonder if you'd mind terribly returning it?"

There were several writing desks built into the paneling under the windows. Korda swung one out and

made a careful inventory of its contents: paper, charcoal pens, blotters. "I don't see why you're being so

difficult about this," he said at last. "Don't pout, I know you can do it. You're competent enough when

you put your mind to it. Oh, and I almost forgot, the Stone House has agreed to assign you a liaison.

Someone named Chu, out of internal security."

"Will he have authority to arrest Gregorian?"

"In theory, I'm sure he will. But you know planetary government -- in practice I suspect he'll be more

interested in keeping an eye on you."

"Terrific." Ahead, a pod of sounding clouds swept toward them, driven off of Ocean by winds born

half a world away. The Leviathan lifted its snout a point, then plunged ahead. The light faded to gray,

and rain drenched the heliostat. "We don't even know where to find the man."

Korda folded the desk back into the wall. "I'm sure you won't have any trouble finding someone who

knows where he is."

The bureaucrat glared out into the storm. Raindrops drummed against the fabric of the gas bag,

pounded the windows, and were driven down. Winds bunched the rain in great waves, alternating thick

washes of water with spates of relative calm. The land dissolved, leaving the airship suspended in chaos.

The din of rain and straining engines made it difficult to talk. It felt like the end of the world. "You realize

that in a few months, all this will be under water? If we haven't settled Gregorian's case by then, it'll never

be done."

"You'll be done long before then. I'm sure you'll be back at the Puzzle Palace in plenty of time to keep

your sub from taking over your post." Korda's face smiled, to indicate that he was joking.

"You didn't tell me you'd given someone my duties. Just who do you have subbing for me anyway?"

"Philippe was gracious enough to agree to hold down the fort for the duration."

"Philippe!" There was a cold prickling at the back of his neck, as if sharks were circling overhead.

"You gave my post to Philippe?"

"I thought you liked Philippe."

"I like him fine," the bureaucrat said. "But is he right for the job?"

"Don't take it so personally. There's work to be done, and Philippe is very good at this sort of thing.

Should the Division grind to a halt just because you're away? Frankly that's not an attitude I want to

encourage." The surrogate reopened the writing desk, removed a television set, and switched it on. The

sound boomed, and he turned it down to the mumbling edge of inaudibility. He flipped through the

channels, piling image upon image, dissatisfied with them all.

The Leviathan broke free of the clouds. Sunlight flooded the lounge, and the bureaucrat blinked,

dazzled. The airship's shadow on the bright land below was wrapped in a diffuse rainbow. The ship lifted

joyously, searching for the top of the sky.

"Are you looking for something on that thing, or just fidgeting with it because you know it's annoying?"

Korda looked hurt. He straightened, turning his back on the set. "I thought I might find one of

Gregorian's commercials. It would give you some idea what you're up against. Never mind. I really do

have to be getting back to work. Be a good lad, and see if you can't handle this thing in an exemplary

fashion, hmm? I'm relying on you."

They shook hands, and Korda's face vanished from the surrogate. On automatic, the device returned

itself to storage.

"Philippe!" the bureaucrat said. "Those bastards!" He felt sickly aware that he was losing ground

rapidly. He had to wrap this thing up, and get back to the Puzzle Palace as quickly as possible. Philippe

was the acquisitive type. He leaned forward and snapped off the television.

When the screen went dead, everything was subtly changed, as if a cloud had passed from the sun, or

a window opened into a stuffy room.

He sat for a time, thinking. The lounge was all air and light, with sprays of orchids arranged in sconces

between the windows and rainbirds singing in the wicker cages hung between the pots of vines. It was

appointed for the tourist trade, but, ironically, planetary authority had closed down the resorts in the

Tidewater to discourage those selfsame tourists, experience having shown offworlders to be less

tractable to evacuation officers than were natives. Yet for all their obvious luxury, the fixtures had been

designed with economy of weight foremost and built of the lightest materials available, cost be damned.

They'd never recover the added expense with fuel savings; it had all been done to spite the offworld

battery manufacturers.

The bureaucrat was sensitive to this kind of friction. It arose wherever the moving edge of technology

control touched on local pride.

"Excuse me, sir." A young man entered, carrying a small table. He was wearing an extraordinary

gown, all shimmering moons and stars, ogres and ibises, woven into a cloth that dopplered from deepest

blue to profoundest red and back again as he moved. He set the table down, drew a cloth away from the

top to reveal a fishbowl without any fish, and extended a white-gloved hand. "I'm Lieutenant Chu, your

liaison officer."

They shook. "I thought I was to be assigned somebody from internal security," the bureaucrat said.

"We like to keep a low profile when we operate in the Tidewater, you understand." Chu opened the

robe. Underneath he was dressed in airship-corps blues. "Currently, I'm posing as an entertainment

officer." He spread his arms, tilted his head coquettishly, as if waiting for a compliment. The bureaucrat

decided he did not like Chu.

"This is ludicrous. There's no need for all this hugger-mugger. I only want to talk with the man, that's

all."

A disbelieving smile. Chu had cheeks like balls and a small star-shaped mark by his left eye that

disappeared when his mouth turned up. "What will you do when you catch up with him then, sir?"

"I'll interview him to determine whether he's in possession of contraband technology. Then, if it

develops that he is, it's my job to educate him as to his responsibilities and convince him to return it.

That's all I'm authorized to do."

"Suppose he says no. What will you do then?"

"Well, I'm certainly not going to beat him up and drag him off to prison, if that's what you mean." The

bureaucrat patted his stomach. "Just look at this paunch."

"Perhaps," Chu said judiciously, "you have some of the offplanet science powers one sees on

television. Muscle implants and the like."

"Proscribed technology is proscribed technology. If we employed it, we'd be no better than criminals

ourselves." The bureaucrat coughed, and with sudden energy said, "Where shall we start?"

The liaison officer straightened with a jerk, like a puppet seized by its strings, immediately all business.

"If it's all the same to you, sir, I'd like to learn first how much you know about Gregorian, what leads you

have, and so on. Then I can make my own report."

"He's a very charming man, to begin with," the bureaucrat said. "Everyone I've spoken with agrees on

that. A native Mirandan, born somewhere in the Tidewater. His background is a bit murky. He worked

for some years in the bioscience labs in the Outer Circle. Good work, as I understand it, but nothing

exceptional. Then, about a month ago, he quit, and returned to Miranda. He's set himself up as some

kind of bush wizard, I understand. A witch doctor or something, you doubtless have more information on

that than I do. But shortly after he left, it was discovered that he may have misappropriated a substantial

item of proscribed technology. That's when Technology Transfer got involved."

"That's not supposed to be possible." Chu smiled mockingly. Tech Transfer's embargo is supposed to

be absolute."

"It happens."

"What was stolen?"

"Sorry."

"That important, eh?" Chu made a thoughtful, clicking noise with his tongue. "Well, what do we know

about the man himself?"

"Surprisingly little. His likeness, of course, geneprint, a scattering of standard clearance profiles.

Interviews with a few acquaintances. He seems to have had no real friends, and he never discussed his

past. In retrospect it seems clear he'd been keeping his record as uncluttered as possible. He must have

been planning the theft for years."

"Do you have a dossier on him?"

"A copy of Gregorian's dossier," the bureaucrat said. He opened the briefcase, removed the item,

gave it a little shake.

Chu craned curiously. "What else have you got in there?"

"Nothing," the bureaucrat said. He swiveled the briefcase to show it was empty, then handed over the

dossier. It had been printed in the white lotus format currently popular in the high worlds, and folded into

a handkerchief-sized square.

"Thank you." Chu held the dossier over his head and twisted his hand. The square of paper

disappeared. He turned his hand back and forth to demonstrate that it was empty.

The bureaucrat smiled. "Do that again."

"Oh, the first rule of magic is never do the same trick twice in a row. The audience knows what to

expect." His eyes glittered insolently. "But if I might show you one thing more?"

"Is it relevant?"

Chu shrugged. "It's instructive, anyway."

"Oh, go ahead," the bureaucrat said. "As long as it doesn't take too long."

Chu opened a cage and lifted out a rainbird. "Thank you." With a gesture, he dimmed the windows,

suffusing the lounge with twilight. "I open my act with this illusion. Thusly:"

He bowed deeply and swept out a hand. His movements were all jerky, distinct, artificial. "Welcome,

dear friends, countrymen, and offworlders. It is my duty and pleasure today to entertain and enlighten you

with legerdemain and scientific patter." He cocked an eyebrow. "Then I go into a little rant about the

mutability of life here, and its myriad forms of adaptation to the jubilee tides. Where Terran flora and

fauna -- most particularly including ourselves -- cannot face the return of Ocean, to the native biota the

tides are merely a passing and regular event. Evolution, endless eons of periodic flooding, blah blah blah.

Sometimes I compare Nature to a magician -- myself by implication -- working changes on a handful of

tricks. All of which leads in to the observation that much of the animal life here is dimorphic, which means

simply that it has two distinct forms, depending on which season of the great year is in effect.

"Then I demonstrate." He held the rainbird perched on his forefinger, gently stroking its head. The

long tailfeathers hung down like teardrops. "The rainbird is a typical shapeshifter. When the living change

comes over the Tidewater, when Ocean rises to drown half of Continent, it adapts by transforming into a

more appropriate configuration." Suddenly he plunged both hands deep into the bowl of water. The bird

struggled wildly, and disappeared in a swirl of bubbles and sand.

The illusionist lifted his hands from the water. The bureaucrat noted that he had not so much as gotten

his sleeves wet.

When the water cleared, a multicolored fish was swimming in great agitation in the water, long fins

trailing behind. "Behold!" Chu cried. "The sparrowfish -- in great summer morph an aviform, and a

pisciform for the great winter. One of the marvelous tricks that Nature here plays."

The bureaucrat applauded. "Very neatly done," he said with only slight irony.

"I also do tricks with a jar of liquid helium. Shattering roses and the like."

"I doubt that will be necessary. You said there was a point to your demonstration?"

"Absolutely." The illusionist's eyes glittered. "It's this: Gregorian is going to be a very difficult man to

catch. He's a magician, you see, and native to the Tidewater. He can change his own form, or that of his

enemy, whichever he pleases. He can kill with a thought. More importantly, he understands the land here,

and you don't. He can tap its power and use it against you."

"You don't actually believe that Gregorian is a magician? That he has supernatural powers, I mean."

"Implicitly."

In the face of that fanatical certainty, the bureaucrat did not know what to say. "Ahem. Yes. Thank

you for your concern. Now, what say we get down to business?"

"Oh yes, sir, immediately, sir." The young man touched a pocket, and then another. His expression

changed, grew pained. In an embarrassed voice he said, "Ah... I'm afraid I left my materials in the

forward stowage. If you would wait?"

"Of course." The bureaucrat tried not to be pleased by the young man's obvious discomfort.

With Chu gone, the bureaucrat returned to his contemplation of the passing forest below. The airship

soared and curved, dipped its nose and sank low in the air. The bureaucrat remembered his first sighting

of it back in Port Richmond, angling in for a docking. Complex with flukes, elevators, and lifting planes,

the great airship somehow transcended the antique awkwardness of its design. It descended slowly,

gracefully, rotor blades thundering. Barnacles covered its underbelly, and mooring ropes hung from its

jaws like strings of kelp.

A few minutes later the Leviathan docked at a heliostat tower at the edge of a dusty little river town.

A lone figure in crisp white climbed the rope ladder, and then the heliostat cast off again. Nobody

debarked.

The lounge door opened, and a slim woman in the uniform of internal security entered. She strode

forward, hand extended, to offer her credentials. "Lieutenant-Liaison Emilie Chu," she said. Then, "Sir?

Are you quite all right?"

2. Witch Cults of Whitemarsh

Gregorian kissed the old woman and threw her from the cliff. She fell toward the cold gray water

headfirst, twisting. There was a small white splash as she hit, plunging deep beneath the chop. She did not

surface. A little distance away, something dark and sleek as an otter broke water, dove, and

disappeared.

"It's a trick," the real Lieutenant Chu said. On the screen Gregorian's face appeared: heavy, mature,

confident. His lips moved soundlessly. Be all that you were meant to be. The bureaucrat had killed the

sound after the fifth repetition, but he knew the words by heart. Give up your weaknesses. Dare to live

forever. The commercial ended, skipped to the beginning, and began again.

"A trick? How so?"

"A bird cannot change into a fish in an instant. That kind of adaptation takes time." Lieutenant Chu

rolled up her sleeve and reached into the fishbowl. The sparrowfish jerked away, bright fins swirling.

Dark sand puffed up, obscuring the tank for an instant. "The sparrowfish is a burrower. It was in the sand

when he thrust the rainbird into the water. One quick movement, like this," she demonstrated, "and the

bird is strangled. Plunge it into the dirt, and simultaneously the fish is startled into swimming."

She set the small corpse down on the table. "Simple, when you know how it's done."

Gregorian kissed the old woman and threw her from the cliff. She fell toward the cold gray water

headfirst, twisting. There was a small white splash as she hit, plunging deep beneath the chop. She did not

surface. A little distance away, something dark and sleek as an otter broke water, dove, and

disappeared.

The bureaucrat snapped off the television.

The government liaison leaned straight-backed against a window, the creases of her uniform imperially

crisp, smoking a thin black cigarillo. Emilie Chu was thin herself, a whippet of a woman, with cynical eyes

and the perpetual hint of a sneer to her lips. "No word from Bergier. It appears my impersonator has

escaped." She stroked her almost-invisible mustache with cool amusement.

"We don't know that he's gone yet," the bureaucrat reminded her. The windows were clear now, and

in the fresh, bright air the encounter with the false Chu seemed unlikely, the stuff of travelers' tales. "Let's

go see the commander."

The rear observatory was filled with uniformed schoolgirls on a day trip from the Laserfield Academy,

who nudged each other and giggled as the bureaucrat followed Chu up an access ladder and through a

hatch into the interior of the gas bag. The hatch closed, and the bureaucrat stood within the triangular

strutting of the keel. It was dark between the looming gas cells, and a thin line of overhead lights provided

more a sense of dimension than illumination. A crewman dropped to the walkway before them.

"Passengers are not--" She saw Chu's uniform and stiffened.

"Commander-Pilot Bergier, please," the bureaucrat said.

"You want to see the commander?" She stared, as if he were a sphinx materialized from nothing to

confront her with a particularly outrageous riddle.

"If it isn't too much trouble," Chu said with quiet menace.

The woman spun on her heel. She led them through the gullet of the airship to the prow, where stairs

so steep they had to be climbed on all fours like a ladder rose to the pilothouse. On the dark wooden

door was the faintest gleam of elfinbone inlay forming a large, pale rose-and-phallus design. The

crewman gave three quick raps, and then seized a strut and swung up into the shadows, as agile as any

monkey. A deep voice rumbled, "Enter."

They opened the door and stepped within.

The pilothouse was small. Its windshield was shuttered, leaving it lit only by a triad of navigation

screens to the fore. It had a lived-in smell of body sweat and stale clothing. Commander Bergier stood

hunched over the screens, looking like an aging eagle, his face a pale beak, suddenly noble when he

raised his chin, a scrawny-bearded poet brooding over the bright terrain of his world. Turning, he raised

eyes fixed on some distant tragedy more compelling than present danger could ever be. Two dark

cuplines curved under each eye. "Yes?" he said.

Lieutenant Chu saluted crisply, and the bureaucrat, remembering in time that all airship commanders

held parallel commissions in internal security, offered his credentials. Bergier glanced down at them,

handed them back. "Not everyone welcomes your sort on our planet, sir," the commander said. "You

keep us in poverty, you live off our labor, you exploit our resources, and you pay us with nothing but

condescension."

The bureaucrat blinked, astonished. Before he could frame a response, the commander continued,

"However, I am an officer, and I understand my duty." He popped a lozenge into his mouth and sucked

noisily. A rotten-sweet smell filled the cabin. "Make your demands."

"I'm not making any demands," the bureaucrat began. "I only--"

"There speaks the voice of power. You maintain a stranglehold on the technology that could turn

Miranda into an earthly paradise. You control manufacturing processes that allow you to undercut our

economy at will. We exist at your whim and sufferance and in the form you think good. Then you walk in

here carrying this whip and making demands you doubtless prefer to call requests and pretend it is for

our own good. Let us not cap this performance with hypocrisy, sir."

"Technology didn't exactly make an 'earthly paradise' of Earth. Or don't they teach classical history

here?"

"The perfect display of arrogance. You deny us our material heritage, and now you have as good as

asked me to thank you for it. Well, sir, I will not. I have my pride. And I--" He paused. In the sudden

silence it was observable how his head nodded slightly at irregular intervals, as if he fought off sleep. His

mouth opened and shut, opened and shut again. His eyes slid slowly to the side in search of his lost

thought. "And, ah. And, ah--"

"The illusionist," the bureaucrat insisted. "Lieutenant Chu's impersonator. Have you found him yet?"

Bergier straightened, his fire and granite restored. "No, sir, we have not. We have not found him, for

he is not here to be found. He has left the ship."

"That's not possible. You docked once, and nobody debarked. I was watching."

"This is a seaward flight. It is all but empty. On the landward run, yes, perhaps an agile and

determined man could evade me. But I have accounted for every passenger and had my crew open

every stowage compartment and equipment niche in the Levi. I went so far as to send an engineer with

an airpack up the gas vents. Your man is not here."

"It's only logical he'd've secured his escape beforehand. Maybe he had a collapsible glider hidden

forward," Chu suggested. "It wouldn't have been difficult for an athletic man. He could have just opened

a window and slipped away."

More likely, the bureaucrat thought, and the thought struck him with the force of inevitability, more

likely he had simply bribed the captain to lie for him. That was how he himself would've arranged it. To

cover his suspicion, he said, "What bothers me is why Gregorian went to all this trouble to find out how

much we know about him. It hardly seems worth his effort."

Bergier scowled at his screens, said nothing. He touched a control, and the timbre of one engine

changed, grew deeper. Slowly, slowly the ship began to turn.

"He was just baiting you," Chu said. "Nothing more complicated than that."

"Is that likely?" the bureaucrat said dubiously.

"Magicians are capable of anything. Their thinking isn't easy to follow. Hey! Maybe that was

Gregorian himself? He was wearing gloves, after all."

"Pictures of Gregorian and of our impersonator," the bureaucrat said. "Front and side both." He

removed them from his briefcase, shook off the moisture, laid them side by side beside the screens. "No,

look at that -- it's absurd to even contemplate. What does his wearing gloves have to do with anything?"

Chu carefully compared the tall, beefy figure of Gregorian with the slight figure of her impersonator.

"No," she agreed. "Just look at those faces." Gregorian had a dark, animal power, even in the picture. He

looked more minotaur than man, so strong-jawed and heavy-browed that he passed through mere

homeliness into something profound. His was the sort of face that would seem ugly in repose, then waken

to beauty at the twitch of a grin, the slow wink of one eye. It could never have been hidden in the pink

roundness of the false Chu's face.

"Our intruder wore gloves because he was a magician." Lieutenant Chu wriggled her fingers.

"Magicians tattoo their hands, one marking for each piece of lore they master, starting from the middle

finger and moving up the wrist. A magus will have 'em up to the elbows. Snakes and moons and whatnot.

If you'd seen his hands, you'd never have mistaken him for a Piedmont official."

Bergier cleared his throat and, when they both turned to him, said, "With the technology you deny us,

a single man could operate this ship. Alone, he could manage all functions from baggage to public

relations with nary a crewman under him."

"That same technology would make your job superfluous," the bureaucrat pointed out. "Do you think

for an instant that your government would pay for an expensive luxury like this airship if they could have a

fleet of fast, cheap, atmosphere-destroying shuttles?"

"Tyranny always has its rationale."

Before the bureaucrat could respond, Chu interjected, "We've located Gregorian's mother."

"Have we?"

"Yes." Chu grinned so cockily the bureaucrat realized this must be something she had dug up on her

own initiative. "She lives in a river town just below Lightfoot. There's no heliostat station there, but if we

can't find somebody to rent us a boat, it's not a long walk. That'll be the best place to start our

investigation. After that we'll tackle the television spots, see if we can trace the money. All television is

broadcast from the Piedmont, but if you want to follow up on the ads, there's a gate at the heliostat

station, that's no problem."

"We'll visit the mother first thing tomorrow morning," the bureaucrat said. "But I've dealt with

planetside banks before, and I very seriously doubt we'll be able to follow the money."

Bergier looked at him scornfully. "Money can always be traced. It leaves a trail of slime behind it

wherever it goes."

The bureaucrat smiled, unconvinced. "That's very aphoristic."

"Don't you dare laugh at me! I had five wives in the Tidewater when I was younger." Bergier popped

another lozenge, mouthed it liquidly. "I had them placed where they could do the most good, spaced out

along my route distant enough that not one suspected the existence of the others." The bureaucrat saw

that the commander did not observe how Chu rolled her eyes when he said this. "But then I discovered

that my Ysolt was unfaithful. It drove me half mad with jealousy. That was not long after the witch cults

were put down. I returned to her that day after an absence of weeks. Oh, she was hot. Her period had

just begun. The whole house smelled of her." His nostrils flared. "You have no idea what she was like at

such times. I walked in the door, and she slammed me to the floor and ripped open my uniform. She was

naked. It was like being raped by a whirlwind. All I could think was that we must avoid scandalizing the

neighbors.

"It would have made a fish laugh to see me struggling beneath that little hellcat, I should imagine.

Red-faced, half-undressed, and flailing out with one arm to close the door.

"Well and good. I was a young man. But the things she did to me! From somewhere she had acquired

skills I had not taught her, ideas that were not mine. Some of them things such as I had never

experienced. We had been married for years. Now, all at once, she had acquired new tastes. Where had

she learned them, hey? Where?"

"Maybe she read a book," Chu said dryly.

"Bah! She had a lover! It was obvious. She was not a subtle woman, Ysolt. She was like a child,

showing off a new toy. Why don't we see what happens if, she said... Let's pretend you're the woman

and I'm the man... This time I'm not going to move at all, and you can... It took her hours to demonstrate

everything she had learned -- 'thought of' she said -- and I had a lot of time to mull over what I should

do.

"It was dark when I left her. She was sleeping it off, her long black hair sticking to her sweaty little

breasts. What an angelic smile she had! I went out to discover who had cuckolded me, and I brought

along a gun. He would not be difficult to find, I determined. A man with such skill as Ysolt mirrored

would be known in the right quarters.

"I went down to the riverbank, to the jugs and paintpots, and asked a few questions. They said yes, a

man with the kind of skill I described had been through recently." A hidden speaker mumbled

respectfully, and Bergier touched the controls. "Trim the port aerostat manually if you have to. Yes. No.

You have your orders." He was silent for a long, forlorn moment, and the bureaucrat thought he had lost

the thread of his tale. But then he began again.

"But I could not find the man. Everyone had heard of him -- word had gone round like the latest dirty

joke -- and many hinted they had slept with him, but he was not to be found. There were a lot of odd

types afoot in those days, after the suppression of Whitemarsh, and a sex-artist was the least of them. I

learned that he was of moderate size, polite dress, wry humor. That he spoke little, lived off the largess of

women, had dark eyes, rarely blinked. But the river lands swarmed with people who had something to

hide. A cautious man could hide there forever, and he was the most evasive creature in the world. He

moved unseen and unnoted through the night world, made no promises, had no friends, established no

rhythms. It was like punching empty air! He was not to be found.

"After a few days, I changed my tactics. I decided Ysolt should find him for me. So I made myself

impotent. You understand how? With my fist. Old Mother Hand and her five daughters. By the time

Ysolt got to me, there was nothing could make the old soldier stand erect for her. It drove her to

distraction. And I, of course, feigned embarrassment, humiliation, distress. After a time I simply refused

to try.

"Sure enough, she was driven back to her lover, to this man of extraordinary skill and knowledge. She

returned to me with breathing exercises and relaxation techniques that ought to have worked, but did not.

All this time, I acted cold and distant toward her. It was only natural she would assume that I was

blaming her for my disability. By the time the corps called me back to duty, she was ready to do anything

to effect my cure.

"When next I returned, she had 'discovered' a man who could aid me in my distress. She knew I

didn't approve of the witch cultists. But he could prepare a potion for me. It would cost a great deal. She

did not like that part. A man should not charge for such a thing. But a husband's happiness was so

important to his wife.... She finally persuaded me.

"That night I filled a small, heavy box with silver and went as directed to a small garage just below the

docks. There was a blue light over the side door. I went in.

"The minute the door closed, someone threw on every light in the place. My eyes crawled. Then the

bright sting of vision resolved into automobiles, racks of grease guns, welding tanks. There were six

waiting for me, two of them women. They sat in truck cabs and atop hoods, looking at me with unfriendly

eyes, as unblinking as owls."

The speaker murmured again, and Bergier jerked his head to the side. "Why are you bothering me

with this? I don't want to be disturbed with routine." Then, returning to his story, "One of the women

asked to see my money. I opened my box, took out a moleskin bag containing eighty fleur-de-vie

dollars, and threw it at her feet. She untied the bag, saw the flash of mint silver, and drew in her breath.

This came from Whitemarsh, she said.

"I said nothing.

"The cultists traded glances. I slid a hand inside my coat and clutched my revolver. We need the

money, a man said. The government dogs are slavering over our shoulders. I can smell their filthy breath.

"The woman held up a handful of silver, flashing like so many mirrors. There was a coinmaker

disappeared just before the rape of Whitemarsh, she said. They took his stock and gave it away to

whoever wanted it. I was there, but felt I didn't need it. She shrugged. How quickly things change.

"I knew they thought I'd robbed a brother fugitive. I don't suppose you know much about the

suppression of Whitemarsh?"

"No," the bureaucrat said.

"Only hearsay," Chu said. "It's not exactly the sort of history they teach in school."

"They should," the commander said. "Let the children know what government is all about. This was

back when the Tidewater was young, and communes and Utopian communities were as common as

mushrooms. Harmless, most of them were, pallid things here and gone in a month. But the Whitemarsh

cults were different; they spread like marsh-fire. Men and women went naked in public daylight. They

would not eat meat. They participated in ritual orgies. They refused to serve in the militia. Factories

closed for want of laborers. Crops went unharvested. Children were not properly schooled. Private

citizens minted their own coinage. They had no leaders. They paid no taxes. No government would have

tolerated it.

"We fell on them with fire and steel. In a single day we destroyed the cults, drove the survivors into

hiding, and showed them such horror they would never dare rise again. So you understand that I was in

great danger. But I did not show fear. I asked them, did they want the money or not?

"One of the men took the bag, weighed it in his hand. Then, as I had hoped, he slid a handful of coins

into each of his trousers pockets. We will divide this evenly, he said. So long as the spirit is alive,

Whitemarsh is not dead. He threw me a greasy bundle of herbs, and said sneeringly, This would make a

corpse rise, much less your limp little self.

"I dropped the bundle in my lead box and left. At home I beat Ysolt until she bled and threw her out

in the street. I waited a week, and then reported to internal security that fugitive cultists were hiding in my

area. They ran a scan and found the coins, and with the coins the cultists. I still did not know which

specific one had defiled my Ysolt, but they all still held most of the coins, so he had been punished. Oh

yes, he had been punished well."

After a moment's silence the bureaucrat said, "I'm afraid I don't follow you."

"I was sent into Whitemarsh just before it fell. I removed the coinmaker, and used a device my

superiors had provided to irradiate his stock. Half of those who escaped our wrath carried their debased

coinage with them. They never understood how we found them so easily. But it is observed that many of

the men came down with radiation poisoning not long after, and where a man least wishes it. Disgusting

sight. I still have the pictures." He stuck his hands in his trousers pockets and raised his eyebrows. "I fed

the potion they gave me to Ysolt's dog, and it died. So much for the subtlety of wizards."

"The irradiator is illegal," the bureaucrat said. "Even planetary government is not allowed to use one. It

can do a lot of damage."

"You see your duty, hound of the people! Go to it. The trail is only sixty years cold." Bergier stared

bitterly down at his screens. "I look down at the land, and I see my life mapped out beneath me. We're

coming up on Ysolt's Betrayal, which is sometimes called Cuckold, and further on is Penelope's Lapse,

then Feverdeath, and Abandonment. At the end of the run is Cape Disillusion, and that accounts for all

my wives. I have retreated from the land, but I cannot yet completely leave it. I keep waiting. I keep

waiting. For what? Perhaps for daybreak."

Bergier threw open the shutters. The bureaucrat winced as bright white light flooded in, drowning

them all in glory, turning the commander pale and old, the flesh hanging loose on his cheeks. Down below

they saw the roofs and towers, spires and one gold dome of Lightfoot rising toward them, bristling with

antennae.

"I am the maggot in the skull," Bergier said deliberately, "writhing in darkness." The illogic of the

remark, and its suddenness, jolted the bureaucrat, and in a shiver of insight he realized that those staring

eyes were looking not back at horror but forward. There was a premonition of senility in that slow

speech, as if the old commander were staring ahead into a protracted slide into toothless misery and a

death no more distinct from life than that line dividing ocean from sky.

As they started from the cabin, the commander said, "Lieutenant Chu, I will expect you to keep me

posted. I will be following your progress closely."

"Sir." Chu closed the door, and they descended the stairs. She laughed lightly. "Did you notice the

lozenges?" The bureaucrat grunted. "Swamp-witch nostrums, supposed to be good for impotence.

They're made out of roots and bull's jism and all sorts of nasty stuff. No fool like an old fool," she said.

"He never leaves that little cabin, you know. He's famous for it. He even sleeps there."

The bureaucrat wasn't listening. "He's around here somewhere." He peered into the darkness, holding

his breath, but heard nothing. "Hiding."

"Who?"

"Your impersonator. The young daredevil." To his briefcase he said, "Reconstruct his gene trace and

build me a locater. That'll sniff him out."

"That's proscribed technology," the briefcase said. "I'm not allowed to manufacture it on a planetary

surface."

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STATIONSOFTHETIDEbyMICHAELSWANWICK(1991)[VERSION1.1(August222005).Ifyoufindandcorrecterrorsinthetext,pleaseupdatetheversionnumberby0.1andredistribute.Intwotextpassagessomecontentseemstobemissing.Thesepositionshavebeenmarked***MISSINGPAGE?***.]Formymother,Mrs.JohnFrancisSwanwick,WithmuchloveAcknowled...

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Michael Swanwick - Stations of the Tide

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