“How could I forget? You beat me out of some of the best damned merchandise I’ve seen since I started stringing.”
She laughed. “Well, no contest this time, unless a couple of wild card stringers show up. Good stuff here and it’s all ours, my dear.”
“Well, since we’re not competitors this time, what do you say to a night on the town? Um, such as it is, anyway.”
“You’re on! But let me check in and get cleaned up a little first.”
“I’m not starving. I’ll wait for you in the hotel bar.”
He’d first met Arden years ago, when she was just out of her teens and he was a big, experienced stringer in his mid-twenties and anxious to show off to the younger generation. That was over in Anchor Mahri, a depressing factory land half a world from here. She’d been such a sexy, wideeyed innocent, hanging on his every word and vamping him constantly, and he’d started regarding her less as a stringer than as just another barroom girl with not much future. She’d hung SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 27
around with him while he’d made some of his calls and discussed orders and deals, and he hadn’t thought much of it. She’d even moved into his Page 14
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hotel room.
Of course, one morning he awakened to find her gone, and thought little of it, until he made his rounds to firm up his deals and found that she had been there first. Not just to one, but to every damned account on his listand with a better offer and a take it now or forget it style. She’d taken note of every single item of business he did and every offer under discussion and beaten him by just the exact deal that would make them switch.
She’d given him one hell of a sour stomach and a worse wallop in the pocketbook, but he also admired her gutsy style. He was pretty sure afterward that, given a day alone with a recalcitrant prospect, she would wind up owning his business.
She also had a quick mind, a superbly trained body and the reflexes to make it work for her, and more talent with the Flux than anybody he’d ever met. She could hold her own in any fight, and he’d heard the stories of some of those as well.
She joined him in about half an hour, having washed up and changed into her city clothes. They were still stringer black, of course, but made out of some tight, clingy material that seemed to formfit itself to her body and make her seem, while fully clothed, almost naked. At least it left very little to the imagination. She also wore her dress boots, with the heels so high it gave her the sexiest walk in the world-
“Well? Shall we go?” she prompted.
He nodded and signed the tab. “I guess steak would be the best in a place like this. At least farmers make good home-grown beer and booze.”
They barely noticed the stares and nervous looks they got from those they passed. Stringers were used to such things, and both Matson and Arden 28 Jack L. ChaSker
were experienced enough that they no longer even got the slight charge from knowing they were feared by all the “decent” folk of Anchor and Flux. Like monarchs, they tended only to notice when such reactions were absent.
The food was good, and perfectly prepared, although the wine was lousy. While the beer and booze were good, this was clearly not grape country.
They relaxed with shop talk, mostly telling tales of good and bad experiences and filling one another in on people and places the other hadn’t been to, at least in a long time. Neither, of course, discussed future plans or routingsshe would never give away anything by reflex, and she’d sure taught him long ago not to, either. So it surprised him, after dinner and after checking out a couple of inferior bar shows, when she said, “You know, I’ve been thinking of quitting for a while. Going to a Page 15
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Freehold and contribute while there’s still time.”
That stopped him. “Huh? You?”
“So what’s wrong with me?”
He chuckled. “That would take too long to list, but it’s all mental. No, I just can’t see you taking off all that time and becoming a mama to a screaming kid, that’s all. I think you’d go nuts.”
“Most mothers do, I’m told. But, you know. I’ve been a lot of places and seen and done a lot of things. I’m very well off, so that’s not a problem, and it’s one thing I’ve never done.”
“You’ve never cut off your left arm, either. But if that’s the way you feel, why not just do it? You could have any man you want.”
“Uh huh. And there’s one I have in mind who, I think, will make half of the best new stringer in a century. I decided that fate would make the decision if I met him again in time, and it looks like I have.”
He stared at her. “You’re serious?”
“I’m serious. I made the decision the moment I SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 29
saw you, riding in here.” She flashed him her patented evil grin. “I already arranged with the hotel to share your room.”
He thought of the sheets of business documents there and felt a mild chill. She caught it and laughed. “Yes, I saw them. Want to see mine? The same stuff. We’re not competing here, remember?”
He smiled and shrugged. “Okay, then. The shows here are pretty lousy anyway.”
She smiled and patted his bottom. “Let’s go put on our own, then. The next few days are exactly the right time for it.”
Bending to fate, he followed her back to the hotel.
4
TEMPLE
“Where ya goin’, Cass?”
She stopped and turned to see Dar and Lani.
Dar was a big, strapping farmboy with a tan complexion set off by flaming red hair, while Lani was a pretty, tinyshorter and lighter than Cassie by farand extremely overendowed young woman.
Cassie’s father had once cruelly joked that Lani got not only her own attributes but the ones that Page 16
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were supposed to go Cass as well. Both had been in her class through school; Lani was a little more than a month older than Cass, Dar just a week younger than she.
Cassie would have liked Lani to have been as short in brains as she was endowed in beauty, just to provide some symmetry to life, but the truth was it was Dar who was rather slowone teacher had used the term “vacuous”while Lani was quite bright and in line for a scholarship to teacher’s training or perhaps into agricultural research. It said something about the beauty that. while she could have had any boy not only in the commune but probably in the entire Census, she had chosen Dar, whose mind was nil but who was certainly pleasant and cheerful and, like so many large men, uncommonly gentle, but who was also, from all reports, rather well endowed himself.
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Both were simply too nice to stay mad at, and Dar had been one of those boys who’d always been a friend.
“I’m going into the city,” she told them. “I have some books to return and some more I need to take out. The exams are only a couple of weeks away.”
They both nodded. Lani said, “I think it’s a little too late for the books now. These tests aren’t like the ones in school, remember. Relax, Cass. You’re a natural for the vet’s spot.”
She smiled at the compliment. “I guess you’re right, .but I can’t help worrying and studying anyway. It can’t hurt, and maybe it’ll help if I do get the slot. Anyway, it beats sitting around being bored.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that bored stuff,” Dar agreed. “In fact, we were thinking of going into the city ourselves. Census Carnival opens tonight, remember.”
Cass was surprised at herself for not remembering that. The fact was, she never thought of things that cost money, because communards didn’t have it or need it. All was provided by the council, with bonuses for the best work being used for catalog purchases. That’s why they went to the capital so seldom despite its closeness.
“You have money for that this early?”
“Sure,” Dar responded, “and so do you. A hundred cubits of silver on account, for coming of The Age.”
She had, quite frankly, forgotten all about that, although she had the slip for it in her overnight Page 17
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bag where she’d stuffed it after they gave it to her.
It was redeemable almost everywhere if cash was available, and cash was readily available during Census Celebration. “I’d been thinking of putting that away for later,” she told them.
“Aw, c’mon! That’s not what that’s for,” he retorted. “Hell, you get staked after classification, 32 /acA: L. Chatker
plus expense money. 77ns money’s strictly for having a good time. What say we all go into town and go to the Carnival? Just relax and let loose for a while, have some fun.” He looked suddenly uncertain and turned and looked at Lani, but she gave him a nod and a smile.
Cassie thought it over for a moment. “Well, okay.
Maybe you’re right. I knew I was going to have to stay over tonight anyway, since it’s already so late. Go and get your things. I’ll wait for you here.”
The Census Celebration was part of the system dictated by the holy scriptures, and it was a curious blend of circus, government report, and public execution. Its root was in the absolute prohibition of any sort of birth control on the part of the individualalthough the priestesses who were midwives had the authority and duty to terminate the life of any baby determined by a host of very strict standards to be defectiveand the concurrent duty of all married couples to have as many children as they could. Large families had greater status in the community, preferential treatment, and huge allowances.
Unfortunately, an Anchor could support only a finite number of people. Each year a massive census was taken across the entire 680 square kilometers of Anchor Logh, a census of people, animals
everyone and everything that consumed things.
This was then compared with the harvests, known reserves, and anticipated demands for the following year, and a total number of supportable people was determined, which was then compared against the total numbers of young men and women reaching age 18The Agebetween census periods. The difference, less the average birth-death differential for the past five censuses, was the number of surplus people, and that surplus had to be disposed of.
The church and holy books gave ample theologi-SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 33
cal backing to this cruel rite, since the selection was done in the most random and fairest of ways by a great lottery on the last day of Census Celebration. The Holy Mother, of course, operated in such a circumstance, and those selected were actually selected by Her for reasons of atonement or whatever other reasons She might have that were inscrutable to humans. The Paring Rite, as it was called, was a most sacred and holy rite, per-Page 18
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formed by the Sister General herself on the front steps of the holy Temple. Those “pared” in the rite were forbidden citizenship and became Property of the People. As such, they were sold or bartered to the stringers as any other goods and removed from Anchor Logh. What the stringers did with them was the subject of wild speculation and terrible stories, most contradictory, but nobody really knew for sure since no one returned to tell the tale.
And so it was with some horror that, as the three rode towards the city, Cassie remarked, “I saw a stringer riding in today.”
The light mood of the other two seemed to vanish at once. Dar shivered- “Them vultures! Demon bastards from the Flux!” Neither of the women was going to argue that the stringers were actually essential to the economy of World; that they alone kept commerce of all kinds going. And even if they had, for they actually knew this, it would not have changed their opinion in the slightest. Anyone who rode the Flux for a living simply couldn’t be human and remain mentally and spiritually whole.
Cassie had seen the Flux once. They all had, on an overnight field trip in school. It was a terrible and frightening sight, a wall of nothingness surrounding World. Although they all knew World was round, since it had been made by the Holy Mother in the image of Heaven, it still looked like the edge of the earth.
There were a fair number of people in Anchor 34
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Logh who had gone through the Flux in a stringer’s train, of course. Many professional schools were located in other Anchors, and occasionally needed professionals were imported. The Sister General herself had come from an Anchor far away. But stringers controlled your mind in the Flux, and the images of the journey were either too muddied or too bizarre and Jantastic to believe when others were told of those trips. Usually, after a time in Anchor, those who recalled and told of those trips found the experience hard to believe or accept as well.
Only the stringers knew for certain what, if anything, was out there in the Flux, and even if you had nerve enough to ask onewell, who could believe a stringer?
Spirits lightened again when they reached the city. Already there were huge crowds of people in from the outlying ridings and the streets of the city were festooned with multicolored lights and decorations and there was a festive air. They headed straight for the carnival grounds, oblivious of the time, and it was a fantastic sight indeed. This year Page 19
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the government had outdone itself in rides and sideshows and attractions, all powered by the electrical energy supplied by the sacred modules located well beneath the Temple. Although the crowd was large, it felt good to be with so many merry people in such close quarters.
Anticipating that all young people of The Age would be physically present as required by law, and knowing that each had their hundred cubit marker, the Central Bank had a booth set up to cash in the markers, and after standing in line for quite a while all three were, for the first time in their lives, cash solvent. They wasted no time in enjoying the money.
For the first time in a very long time Cassie felt good. For a few hours all the worries and tensions SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 35
of the day and the time slipped away, as did much of the loneliness. It was easy, for a time, to even pretend that it was she and Dar there at the Carnival, with Lani the guest instead of herself.
It was quite late before they pooled their money and saw just how quickly it could vanish and knew that it was time to leave. Cassie came to the conclusion with extreme reluctance, as it also brought her back to reality. Dar and Lani planned to stay at the Youth Hostel, where lodging and basic meals were free to commune members. She recalled her books, and said, “I have to stay over at the Temple.
I think it’s too late to return these tonight. Want to stay over there, Lani?”
The pretty girl looked slightly embarrassed, and Dar sort of shuffled his feet-Finally Lani responded, “Uh, Dar can’t stay there, Cass. You know that.”
She started to reply, but then thought better of it as the social wall went up once again. Having been so mentally up that evening, her euphoria came crashing down with more than usual force.
They were not a threesome. They had never been a threesome. They were two plus one, and guess who was the odd girl out?
“Oh, that’s right. I don’t know why I said that
forget it,” she recovered as best she could. “You go on and have a good time. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
They seemed relieved now to break it off, and she wanted away from them at this moment, too, so it was after quick and perfunctory goodbyes that they went their separate ways.
Church and state were inexorably linked in Anchor Logh, as in most Anchors, yet they were quite separate institutions. As the Holy Mother was female, only women could enter the priesthood or hold any office in the church. To balance this, only men could hold office in the Anchor government Page 20
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or in riding or commune governments as well.
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However, since the government acted in ways holy scripture dictated, and because legal disputes with the government were settled by special priestesses who decided things according to their interpretation of scripture, the fact was that women ran the Anchor.
This, too, balanced out quite a lot, since priestesses took vows of not only poverty and obedience but absolute chastity as well, vows that, once taken, could not be withdrawn-Only virgins could enter the order, those with an intact hymen. When they did, they were no longer subject to the Paring Rite, but they became, forever, not citizens but the Property of the Church, and second thoughts and reconsiderations were strictly for the next life.
These thoughts went through her own mind as she walked to the Temple.
She had left Leanspot at the Youth Hostel stables and brought her luggage with her. Now she redeemed it from the check stand near the carni-‘
val entrance and started off towards the Temple.
Off to one side of the route was the brightly lit gaiety of Main Street, but she had no intention of going there, or, in fact, anywhere near there. Particularly with stringers in town. She approached Temple Square and stopped a moment to look at the massive structure, an impressive block of some unknown reddish material from which rose nine great pyramidal spires, the central one reaching some one hundred meters into the air. The whole building was indirectly floodlit with multicolored lights, and the sight was nothing if not awe-inspiring.