“I’ve never seen a seagull at night before,” Mindwalker said, straining to sound amiable. Normally, he was rather fond of the philosophical bird. “You don’t roost in trees. Where do you lot go?”
“That’s a secret known to gulls.”
“Oh. Sorry I asked.”
“But I’ll tell you.” The seagull lowered his voice to a whisper. He was going to reveal a special secret known only to gulls. Mindwalker leaned close to hear it.
“We pass through a tear in the sky into the Dream World.”
***
As soon as she saw that head again, her hackles shot up like thorns. Her tail tucked in for a brawl – she couldn’t help it. That massive ruff, those lifeless eyes, that fixed smile. Help me, Twitch. I’m going to take him out!
Twitch felt her friend turn into a weapon, but she was tense too. “Do it with words.”
Words crowded around her, offering themselves up for sacrifice. Self-absorbed scatbrain narcissistic callous impresario swallowed by your own ego.
The great head swayed from side to side. The Jerk was borne aloft on a tree trunk carried by six High Guard sons shuffling on their hind legs. When he came to where she was standing, his eyes swept over her, but the eyes were unfocussed, the nose wasn’t engaged, and the ears heard nothing.
Slypaws shot barbed hateballs at him that stuck like thorns.
Then a High Guard parading past blocked her vision and the encounter was over. All that was left for her to see was the pointed end of the tree chewed by a beaver.
“I feel defeated,” she told Twitchwhisker as the City Elders paraded through. “The indifference. He went by like a Primate automobile.”
“There’ll be another time.”
“You’re right. This evening hasn’t even begun.”
52
The State is an orderliness made to further the joy of life of raccoons. Is this harmony not told us in the story of the mating of Hapticia and the Great Raccoon? She brought her keen eyes and fingerwork to the union; he, the gifts of mind and making. Together they fashioned the first City.
Such a public orderliness, as far as harmony is possible among members of an aggressive species crowded in one place, prevailed at least during the Protector’s opening remarks.
The ordinary citizens maintained order by promptly forgetting every word that was spoken. They were here for the feast, something worth waiting for. Sons and daughters of the leading families who made up the City Honour Guard maintained order by standing still in one place. This reminded everybody that order had always existed in the city and was based on the concentration of wealth. If there was any doubt about this, the doubter need only glance at the units of the High Guard who affirmed the natural order by standing near the line of food trucks along the river side of the eating area. And to symbolize the orderly distribution of the plunder awaiting them, townsfolk could take note of the Peoples Corps ruffians guarding the organic waste bins. They could see how even the most disprivileged among us are elevated to a lofty station in life by their faith in public order. Meanwhile, the Citizens Brigades, concealed in the leafy foliage along the riverbank, contributed to the greater orderliness of things by imagining the new and better order they were about to make as soon as they heard the cue. For they took Procyonides’s philosophy to heart – especially that oral text about the State being a Making just like an artifact you fashion with your paws. High overhead, tracing out the mouth of the cosmic den, which is the nest of the material world, Lady Hapticia gazed down on the sacred measures made visible by her light.
“From the river to the western rise, from the lake up to the marshes, the citizenry and those working hard to join it have told me that they want a City where no raccoon goes to bed hungry. That is why I have placed before your City Elders a plan for public safety and a guaranteed nightly sustenance that will give every citizen a secure and well-fed future.”
The speech was grave, measured, passionately sincere. Each syllable was enunciated, and at the pause before the next point to be made, there was an audible intake of breath that gave a thrill of excitement to the message. The sense of an expectation being regularly fulfilled, of a promise being inevitably delivered, was felt in the symmetries of the phrasing and the vigour of the elocution. Who could doubt that the speaker had the energy even if he lacked the will to do it?
“And all across this City, from hill to hill to hill, citizens and those seeking to become citizens have been telling me that they expect our new Commonwealth to embrace the communities of the River Clan on the far side of the river. Imagine! All the lands of the River Clan once again united. That’s what citizens want to see, and that’s just what they’ll get.”
A raccoon went insane and had to be dragged out. The poor, writhing noisemaker was disposed of face down in a wire mesh refuse container with a lid on it.
Bandit, without moving his head, stole a glance at Sensibel. Her face in the moonlight, serene as the goddess above, showed no sign of noticing the disturbance. He looked at the Security Director. The One Raccoon Empire was her idea, yet her face was without feeling. Why there weren’t more displays of irrationality vexed him, because he felt a tension everywhere. The Honour Guard cadets were shifting from foot to foot nervously. They knew Something Crude was about to happen.
“And citizens, especially those living on the outskirts of the City, have told me they want a policy restricting the influx of …”
“Here it comes,” Mindwalker said calmly.
“Migrants. They are being welcomed by the decadent bottle-sniffing artists who are trying to create a breakaway republic. But I have listened to your stories, and so tonight I am announcing …”
Someone shouted “Free Pork!” At the words Free Pork, Citizens Brigade youths sprung out of the bushes and overpowered the Peoples Corps ruffians guarding the food bins.
“Free pork! All you can eat. Come and get it!”
“Corn on the cob! Right over here!”
“Anyone want beer? First come, first served.”
The Protector stopped his speech and looked behind him to the City Elders for support. But their uselessness to the social order suddenly became obvious. On the lawn in front of the stage, a mammoth shift in the arrangedness of things was taking place as the populace became a mob charging towards the waste bins and food trucks. Soon the eating area was full of happy raccoons squatting on picnic tables, consuming the repast that was intended for them. From the sound of singing, it was clear that some had broken into the beer truck. Bandit looked out over the chaos, with Flaxentips clinging to him. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the Director of Security, impassive, self-contained, studying the breakdown of civil order with a detached self-interest.
For the chaos that ensued was epic in proportion. If you want an epic simile, you need only call to mind the legend of the violent wedding ceremony which Procyonides cites in his Dialogue on Statecraft. It was the marriage of the Great Raccoon Ancestor, at that time in his terrestrial form, and Hapticia, the Moon Lady. They say the banquet was held in a shady cavern under a canopy of trees, and it rang with the noise of the feasters. For every raccoon clan in antiquity had sent representatives. Even the cloud-born Procyon-Aquilla, half coon, half eagle, came. Tucking their wings in tidily around their hind legs, they revelled as the scents of roasted flesh and sweet wine rose to the tree tops. But being creatures of the heavens, they could not handle spirit-sugar wisely, neither the beauty of mortal women. With wine dribbling down their beards, they carried away the bride whom they seized by the hair and dragged beyond the upset tables. And then did each Procyon-Aquilla grab a girl so that the whole scene looked like a city ravaged.
But then the Raccoon Ancestor pushed through the overturned tables and the shrieking women and rescued the bride Hapticia from the concupiscible passions of the sky dwellers. Crying “To arms, Citizens,” he led the fierce raccoons of the River Clan against the winged marauders. Thus did he restore the rule of Concord over Discord. Bringing all the wedding guests into the harmonious measures of Hapticia he established the foundations of the City as it is known to Raccoons.
But here on the banks of the great stream that gives its name to the River Clan, violence found no form that night, I can tell you. At the words Tonight I will announce … Free pork. All you can eat, order forgot itself entirely.
***
“Reserves, sir?”
“Commit them at once,” Meatbreath said. Bandit heard the exchange across the stage, and felt the world become different. Seconds later, the High Guard army concealed in a parking lot to the west hit the rioters like a school bus.
***
“Reserves? Have we any Reserves?” Mindwalker asked.
