Band of Gypsys by Gwyneth Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

proportioned. It barely held an oval hardwood table, polished but shabby, a smart screen and a random assortment of chairs. The walls were hung in faded blue paper, with a narrow stripe; naked windows looked out on yellow coping stones and grey corners of roof slope. Oltech slates and earbeads were laid out at each place; water jugs and glasses arrayed down the centre, with small plates of macrobiotic oatcakes. Standalone imaging hardware stood beside the screen, on a trolley. Three people faced the Working Party: Fiorinda, and two of the most puzzling members of Ax’s inner circle: Chip Desmond in a crumpled metallic grey flying suit, cherub-cheeks glowing, nappy hair twisted into a golly-forest of little tails, a red silk scarf at his throat; and Kevin Hanlon, aka “Verlaine”, piratical in loose purple linen breeches, a ragged My Favourite Molecule tee, silky brown curls fringing a tight-wrapped skull and crossbones bandana. These were The Adjuvants , young “Indie” pop-stars from the original CounterCultural ThinkTank, swept into bizarre prominence beside their friend Ax Preston.
    Verlaine got down from his perch on the table and took a seat, like a mildly naughty undergraduate at the start of a seminar. The visitors disposed themselves: the table was large enough, and there were sufficient chairs, for them to keep their distance. Silence prevailed. At last a voice rose from the government ranks.
    ‘Are the President and Mr Pender delayed?’
    ‘No,’ said Fiorinda. ‘They can’t make it, I’m sorry. Don’t worry, Chip and Verlaine are experts, and I’m well briefed. We’ll be able to answer your questions.’
    She used no implants, no eye-socket tech, but she had a retentive memory, and could put the right names to all the faces. Wendy Carter, media-star neurologist: an obvious instant authority on the new science of “Mind/Matter Physics”. Ardhal Fitzgerald, expatriate Cambridge computer scientist, also a spy for Dublin. ( cead mile failte, little brother, and you’re welcome to take good notes). Boris Anathaswamy, high energy physicist from Culham. Guilty by association presumably. Mairead Culper of Glastonbury Council; Official CounterCultural Party. Jack Vries, the Wiccan Scholar, vaguely titled Consultant to the Home Office. A Bishop, a Buddhist, and an Immam, all public figures, from the Standing Bio-Ethics Committee. Tony Burnside-Khan and Rasheeda Townsend, both from the weapons industry: and that’s a statement of intent.
    Not a single actual fusion consciousness specialist, but you couldn’t blame them for that. There weren’t many experts in what Sage had done in the entire world, and none at all in England, except for a tiny handful of dilettante rockstars and lowly Welsh postdocs. Olwen Devi, genius of the Zen Self project in Reading Arena, had returned to Caer Siddi, the Company headquarters; her best people with her.
    ‘We can reschedule, if you wish, but it’s going to mean some delay. There are the preparations for Mayday at Reading, and then almost immediately they have several important early summer events—’
    It was Jack Vries who answered, betraying himself as the leader of the group (on paper that was Mairead Culper, sharing power with the Bishop of Oxford)
    ‘I’m afraid some of our questions will be very sensitive for you, Fiorinda, but by all means, let’s go ahead. We can make a start at least.’
    The extremist junta is cast out by force of arms. The smoke clears, you look around, and several of the worst bastards have sneaked right back into office. The last time Fiorinda had seen Jack Vries, pastel-blond dandy with the colourless, secretive eyes, he’d been a guest at Rivermead when Rufus O’Niall was reigning there, in the body of a dead man. Fiorinda, on display as “Fergal Kearney’s whore”, had found out plenty, while the bad guys let their hair down. She had saved a few lives, and she’d known which of the insiders were secretly, fearfully, friends to