Teranesia

Eleanor hunched towards the camera unhappily. ‘This isn’t going to blow over in a month or two; even if the President is restored to office, there’s almost nothing the government could do now to put things right. For the past sixty years, people in the provinces have tolerated rule from Jakarta so long as there was some token respect for the customary power structures, and some token spending on things like health and education in return for all the timber, fishing and mineral rights being handed over to the cartels. But after fifteen years of austerity programmes – with every spare rupiah going to subsidise the cost of living in the major cities, to stave off riots – the imbalance has become impossible to ignore. Forget religious and ethnic differences; the provinces have been bled dry, and they’re not going to put up with it any longer.’

There was more in the same vein. Prabir listened to it all with a mixture of unease and annoyance. His parents had decided that the safest thing to do was stay put, attract no attention, and ride out the storm. Teranesia had no strategic importance, so neither side had reason to come here. Who was Eleanor to think she knew better, from twenty thousand kilometres away?

Still, it was clear that she was genuinely worried about him, and Prabir didn’t like to see her upset. He’d send back a confident, up-beat reply that would put her mind at ease … without casting doubt on her conclusions, or questioning her expertise.

Prabir pressed one foot against the wall of the hut and rocked the hammock gently while he composed his reply. He began by mentioning the garden, and how well it was doing, though in truth it was full of starchy native tubers that would probably taste like cardboard. ‘Rajendra is weeding it diligently every day. He’s such a good boy!’ He dictated the words to the notepad and it converted them into text; he’d almost patched the software to add random typing errors, but then he’d decided that even the oldest, cheapest keyboard-driven notepad would have corrected them as they were made.

He added a few vaguely positive words about ‘my work’, but there was nothing new to report. His parents had gathered a wealth of data as they observed generation after generation of the butterfly in the setting that had, presumably, shaped its strange adaptations, but as far as Prabir could tell they were still no closer to an explanation. Nothing about Teranesia was wildly different from other islands in the region, and even eighty kilometres of water – and much less during ice ages – was no real barrier to migration on a time scale of tens of millions of years.

He left any mention of politics to the end, and ran through the words in his head a dozen times before committing a first draft to the notepad. He had to sound like his father, but firmer and clearer, so Eleanor wouldn’t keep questioning his decision to stay. Instead of dismissing her fears that the worst might happen, he’d welcome the possibility with open arms.

‘By the way, I checked out that State Department report you mentioned, and I agree completely with your analysis of the situation. The brutal, corrupt Javanese empire is finally coming to an end! Like the Portuguese, and the Dutch, and the British, they’re going to have to learn to live within their own borders. And if they can’t read the lessons of history, ABRMS is going to have to teach them the hard way.

‘But please don’t worry about me and my family. The army will never even think of coming here. We have all the equipment and supplies we need, so we can stay holed up here for as long as we have to. And it’s not as if Radha and I have nothing to do! We’ll continue with our work, until it’s safe to leave.’

Safe to leave? That wouldn’t inspire much confidence. He slid the cursor back across the screen with his finger. ‘… until victory is accomplished!’

Prabir hesitated. It still sounded a bit like whistling in the dark. He needed to sign off on a positive note, or Eleanor would think it was all bluster.

He closed his eyes and swung the hammock, sighing with frustration.

Then inspiration struck.

‘As ever, your friend Prabir. Long live the Republik Maluku Selatan!’

3

‘Be careful!’ Prabir’s mother shaded her eyes and looked up at him, shifting Madhusree to one side to free her arm. Prabir stepped off the ladder on to the gently sloping roof. There were no gutters, so there was nothing to stop him falling if he started to slide, but the surface of the photovoltaic composite felt reassuringly rough beneath his feet. The modified fibreglass gained efficiency from its lack of polish; the polymer strands could gather more light if they stuck out in random tufts.