The Opole General Hospital was a nine-story gray stone building on the edge of the Jaminth district, built more than four hundred years ago. It was designed to provide the comfortable Void-era middle classes with individual rooms where they could be treated privately, and the management board had struggled to adapt it for the requirements of modern medicine and the massive post-Transition political shift of the state providing equal medical treatment for all. But it persevered through funding crises and staff shortages, giving local citizens a basic medical safety net.
Ambulances delivered urgent cases to the Emergency Treatment Center, a newly built brick annex at the back. To get to it, you had to turn off Roturan Road, which ran along the front of the hospital, and down Vilgor Alley—a narrow backstreet that had a sharp turn at the end, which was difficult for ordinary vans let alone anything as big as an ambulance.
When Chaing’s Cubar pulled up outside the hospital late in the afternoon, his PSR driver didn’t even have the option of turning down into Vilgor Alley; it was blocked off by three sheriff patrol cars. He and Jenifa got out quickly and barged through the cluster of reporters outside the main entrance. They were both wearing their PSR uniforms, which quashed any complaints before they were made.
The Emergency Treatment Center was divided into three wards. The sheriffs had taken over one of them, with two officers standing guard outside the door. They exchanged a glance as Chaing advanced on them and reluctantly let him past unchallenged.
Inside, the long ward was lined with assessment bays that could be curtained off. Most of the curtains were open, showing several injured sheriffs on the trolleys. Arms were in slings. Foreheads were grazed and gashed, wrapped crudely in bandages. Pressure dressings were bound over abdominal wounds. One had badly bloodied torn trousers, her foot at an impossible angle. The ward’s harried doctors and nurses were treating the casualties, conferring with a couple of surgeons.
More sheriffs milled about in the center of the ward, looking angry and anxious—wanting to help and not wanting to get in the way.
“Where is he?” Chaing asked the first one.
The sheriff pointed along the ward, scowling. “We should have just left the piece of shit in the wreck.”
“No, comrade,” Jenifa said levelly. “You shouldn’t. He’s ours.”
That earned her plenty of animosity from the other sheriffs.
“You did a good job catching him,” Chaing said.
“Yeah? Five of our patrol cars got smashed up in the chase before we rammed that bastard off the road. It’s a crudding miracle nobody was killed.”
“The PSR appreciates what you did, comrade.” Chaing carried on down to the main trauma suite. It was a bigger area than the assessment bays, with solid walls and double doors big enough to wheel surgical trolleys in and out. Three armed sheriffs stood outside. He ignored them, pushed the doors open, and strode in.
Two doctors and three nurses were in attendance. Chaing glanced at the man on the trolley. There were a lot of grazes and facial bruising, but he didn’t even have to compare what he was seeing with the file photo: It was Lukan. His clothes had been cut away, allowing bandages to be applied to both legs; blood was already soaking through them. One long arm was in a splint. His wrist was crushed, wrapped in a bloody dressing. A doctor was stitching up gashes on his torso.
“Get out,” Chaing ordered.
“But—”
“OUT!”
They went, cowed and sullen. Jenifa held the doors open for them.
“Don’t let anyone in,” Chaing told her. Although he was more concerned that she wouldn’t be in the room when he began. He didn’t want a repeat of what she’d done to Joffler.
She nodded and went out to stand guard.
Chaing studied Lukan for a moment. The driver was barely conscious. An intravenous drip of amanarnik had been set up, feeding the drug into his good arm to banish the pain. There was a supply regulator tap underneath the bag. Chaing turned it off.
One of the cupboards contained the trauma suite’s supply of bandages. He took out several and wound them around Lukan’s arms, binding him securely to the trolley. Once he’d finished that, he opened the man’s mouth and began feeding a bandage in.
As the drug wore off and the pain returned, Lukan began to moan. His awareness came back slowly. Head turning weakly from side to side. Eyes blinking into focus. His moans grew louder, confused as he realized his mouth was full of bandage. He frowned up at Chaing and tried to lift his arms. Another muffled protest emerged when he found he couldn’t move.
Chaing stared down at him. “You know, I’ve often heard my colleagues claim that the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone is waking up to find themselves in a PSR basement, strapped down on an interrogation bench, with one of our professional torturers standing over them, lighting his blowtorch.”
Lukan strained against the bonds, trying to shout, the cords in his neck standing out in sharp relief. The wad of bandage crammed into his mouth prevented anything but a frantic mewling.
Chaing held up a scalpel in his good hand. Lukan froze, mesmerized by the blade. Chaing began to carefully cut along the bandages around Lukan’s leg, exposing the badly damaged flesh. “Personally, I disagree,” Chaing said. “I think the worst thing that could happen would be if you woke up, strapped to a trolley—much like this one, in fact—with an amateur torturer standing over you. What do you think?”
Director Yaki had assigned Chaing to a big operations room on the third floor of the PSR’s Opole office. It had three long barred windows along one brick wall, and with typical PSR thoroughness the glass was misted to prevent the minute chance of anyone looking in. Metal desks for the investigators were arranged in a long row, each with two telephones; the secretaries’ typing tables were smaller, and lined up behind them. Bulletin boards occupied the wall behind the chief investigator’s desk, which was the biggest in the room, and made of wood.
So far the boards had a standard street map of the city, and several photos arranged in a pyramid with Billop at the top, and his suspected senior lieutenants below. There were two further photos, one of Florian, and one of Lukan, over which someone had scrawled GOTCHA in red felt tip.
Chaing resisted a grin at that when he and Jenifa walked in that evening. He’d been appointed ten PSR investigators. Three records division clerks stood ready, with direct lines down to their basement offices to summon up whatever files the investigators wanted. Captain Franzil from the PSR assault squad had also been given a desk; Chaing and Yaki had agreed that the assault squad should be on standby throughout the investigation—and this time he didn’t need senior officer authorization before deploying them. Even the transport pool was represented by a manager.
The only person not in a PSR uniform was Nathalie Guyot, a senior detective on secondment from the city sheriff’s office who ran their gang investigation bureau. Yaki had brought her in as liaison; apparently no one knew more about Opole’s gangs than she.
When it came to running a case, Chaing couldn’t ask for a better support team. The only person missing was Lurvri. Damn, he would have relished working a case like this.
Yaki was waiting for him. “You have the floor,” she told him quietly. “I’ll keep the county commander off your back for now, but given the scale this is running at, we’re going to need results. Stonal won’t take any responsibility for this.”
“Understood,” Chaing told her, and he turned to face the room. “We have fresh information,” he announced as the heavy door swung shut behind him. “Lukan was very eager to cooperate with the PSR.” Knowing smiles appeared around the room. “He told me he delivered Florian to a warehouse on Connolyn Street early this morning. I want a team over there to check it out right away. The reception committee was three of Billop’s people: Perrick, terVask, and Bulron. I want their files up here within the hour.
“Now, being the low-life crud he is, Billop was going to dump Florian on the street and hold on to his money. Even the gangs realized Florian is too hot for them. According to Lukan, there was a fight. It was a short one, because Florian has some kind of Faller weapon. It’s like a gun that shoots lightning bolts.” He paused for that to sink in. Stonal was adamant there was to be no mention of a Commonwealth connection, so they were still running with the nest alert cover story.
“That means,” he continued, “when we do catch up with him, we will be taking extra precautions. Franzil and I will be drawing up an assault procedure later. In the meantime, our priority is bringing in Billop.” He raised a hand as Nathalie Guyot gathered herself to speak. “Yes, I know he’s hard to find, so first I want to talk to our friends Perrick, terVask, and Bulron. We have a clock running on this, so I need them here by tomorrow midday at the latest. Draw up their full profiles, families, friends, where they hang out. Liaise with the sheriffs on this. Nathalie, what do we need to know about gangs?”
She nodded and stood up. At 110 years old, her hair was mostly silver, but her gray-blue eyes were still alert, and she was clearly enjoying her moment as part of the investigation. “Thank you, Captain. Some background for you all. There are four main gangs in Opole. The largest is run by Roxwolf, who I’m embarrassed to say we still haven’t shut down after fifteen years. He is the smartest, most ruthless gang boss we’ve had in the last hundred years; we’ve never been able to pin a damn thing on him. I can’t even give you a likeness, let alone a photo. Witnesses vanish, and it’s impossible to turn anyone; we’ve tried sending in undercover sheriffs, but he always spots them. Any illegal activity in this city runs with his approval. The other three gangs are nominally independent, but in reality he tolerates them, and most of their rackets are run jointly, with Roxwolf’s boys taking the lion’s share. Billop is the smallest of these.” She put her hand on the map, tracing an outline. “The last gang territory war was three years ago, which saw a whole lot of the smaller operators wiped out, and left Billop with the eastern half of the Gates, extending out into the Veralson and Guntas districts. That’s his turf, as agreed with Roxwolf. After the warehouse fight, he’ll have gone to ground somewhere in that area. Captain Chaing is right: Perrick is our best way to him. And that leaves terVask and Bulron as the best way to Perrick. The three of them are a solid crew.”
“Okay then,” Chaing said. “It is imperative we get Billop into custody as soon as possible. Someone arranged for Florian to deliver waltans to Billop, and that someone is the best connection we have to Florian right now. Joffler doesn’t know who it was; he was told to collect the waltans and arrange shipment. Which means it’s Billop who has that name. So go and get me Billop.”
With the investigators given specific assignments, Chaing pulled Jenifa and Yaki aside. “I don’t like Billop being our only lead.”
“I’d be disappointed if he was,” Yaki said. “What have you got for me?”
“Jenifa had the records department draw up a list of all Florian’s known family and associates from when he was growing up. I want to bring them in.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Seventeen. And that’s really scraping the connections barrel. Florian wasn’t a sociable person.”
“Okay, do it.”
“His mother is Castillito.”
“Crud. The civil rights activist?”
“Yes.”
Yaki clenched her jaw, which made her scar lighten. “Irrelevant, especially in this case. She doesn’t get any special treatment.”
“I’d like to send the assault squad to carry out the arrest. They can search her home and offices, too.”
“Florian won’t have gone to her. That’s too obvious.”
“Florian is very good at doing what we don’t expect.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is he getting to you?”
“Absolutely not. I’m just trying to think like him.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Like most buildings in the Gates, Aunt Terannia’s club was high and narrow, its wooden beams warping over the centuries, leaving walls and floors without any level surface. The ground floor was given over to the club itself, with a small raised stage for musicians facing a floor with twenty tables. A bar along the rear served a good selection of beer, with more casks stored in a tiny cellar underneath. Steep awkwardly angled stairs at the side of the bar led up to the second floor, which had the green room, cluttered with crates of glasses and spare furniture. The staff room was next door and even smaller, with a row of ancient lockers and a cracked porcelain sink. There was also the tiny manager’s office, where the desk covered half of the floor space; boxes of spirits took up most of the rest.
The floor above that was Aunt Terannia’s apartment. Florian sat at the dining table in the living room, with Essie beside him, greedily scooping up porridge from a bowl. Dull thirty-year-old egg-blue paint on the cracked walls seemed to absorb light from the two electric bulbs hanging overhead, adding to the sense of decline, of no one caring. He tried not to look around because he knew he’d start judging, but he reckoned his lodge back in Albina Valley was a better place to live.
Aunt Terannia poured herself some tea from a big pot glazed with an orange-and-green floral design into a matching cup. Florian remembered that crockery from his childhood. He and Lurji used to come visiting Aunt Terannia a lot when they were growing up; she was actually their mother’s second cousin, which made her about the only family they had in Opole.
“What’s her name?” Aunt Terannia asked; she was watching Essie closely.
“Essie.”
“Really? I remember another Essie. You were keen on her, as I recall.”
Florian blushed heavily. “I haven’t seen her since I left.”
“Yet you called this girl Essie.”
“It’s a good name.”
“She calls you Daddy. Is she yours, Florian?”
“Not exactly. Please. I can’t explain.”
“This is me, Florian. Talk to me.”
Florian couldn’t meet her gaze. He’d forgotten how firm Aunt Terannia could be.
“Where did this little sweetie come from, Florian?”
“She was given to me by someone who trusted me. Please, I just need somewhere to stay for a few days.”
“A few days? How did you get into the city, Florian? Every road is blocked by the sheriffs. Yesterday, the queues were kilometers long. It was all anyone was talking about in the club last night. Is it you they’re looking for?”
He nodded miserably.
“They’re saying it’s a nest alert,” Aunt Terannia continued. “We haven’t had one of those for a decade, and never on this scale. Is she a Faller?”
“No!”
Terannia slammed a palm down on the table. “Then what is going on?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said wretchedly. “It’s for your own good.”
“I decide what I do and do not need to hear.” She narrowed her eyes to give him a fierce stare. “Is she Lurji’s?”
“What? No. Please, stop asking!”
A man appeared in the doorway, dressed in blue-and-red-striped pajamas. He was probably a couple of decades older than Terannia, with ebony skin that was thick with wrinkles, and short curly hair that was nearly all silver. His beard was trimmed elaborately. A long gold earring hung from his right ear. “Asking what?” he inquired lightly.
Florian looked at him, then back to Terannia. He blushed again.
“Oh, Florian,” she said in a disappointed tone. “Age doesn’t mean people can’t be happy together. It actually helps, being long past the time of exuberant youth’s foolishness.” She grinned up and took the man’s hand. “Matthieu, this is my dearest nephew, Florian.”
“Ah, the one you send all the textbook copies to. Pleased to meet you, Florian. Nice threads, by the way.”
Florian shook the hand he was offered. There was something wrong with Matthieu’s fingers. They weren’t straight, and the joints seemed swollen. “Pleased to meet you,” he mumbled.
“Florian needs somewhere to stay for a few days,” Terannia said. “Half the government is hunting him, but he won’t tell me why.”
“Quite right, Florian.” Matthieu grinned as he sat down. “A man is entitled to his secrets. Don’t let her bully you.”
“I might have known you’d take his side.”
“We all share the same side,” Matthieu chided. “Know your friends. Trust your friends. Love your friends,” he chanted softly, and gave Florian an expectant look.
“Florian doesn’t know any of your songs,” Terannia said.
“You’re a songwriter?” Florian asked.
“I’m a musician. Or I used to be.”
“Matthieu plays drums with his jazz band here once a week. They’ve joined the electric trend. Even so, it’s very good.”
“Not professional,” Matthieu assured him. “Just amateurs having a good time jamming together. If you do stay, perhaps you’d like to come and hear us play?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Florian, who didn’t like jazz at all.
“Are you going to call your mother?” Terannia asked.
“I don’t want her involved.”
“She will be, Florian. They’re blocking the roads, searching the train stations and the port. You think they’re going to leave your mother alone?”
Florian dropped his head into his hands. “Oh, crud.”
“Your mother is a very tough lady,” Matthieu said. “If they cross her, they’ll regret it.”
“They’ll come here!”
“I doubt they know we’re related, so this is safe. I’m more worried about your future. Do you actually have a plan? Are you trying to meet someone to hand the girl on?”
“No. It’s not like that. I just have to stay away from the PSR for a month. It’ll all be over then.”
“The PSR won’t stop, Florian. They never stop. I don’t know what you’ve done, but it must have really pissed them off.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he whispered fiercely.
Terannia and Matthieu both looked at Essie, who had now started munching down buttered toast.
“Who is she, Florian?”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. If you can loan me some money, I’ll go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t last ten minutes out there. Every sheriff in the city is looking for you; that means every informer, too.”
Florian hung his head. “That’s not all,” he admitted.
“Go on,” Terannia said, groaning. “If I’m going to protect you, I need to know.”
“The man I take the waltans to, Joffler. He contacted a driver called Lukan, who got me into Opole this morning.”
“I’ve heard of Lukan,” Matthieu said. “He’s quite a legend—in his own eyes.”
“Yes. But the thing is, they all work for Billop. And Billop’s people were waiting for me. There was this…sort-of fight.”
“Oh, great Giu,” Terannia said. “And I always thought Lurji was the problem one!”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Terannia. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I’m kidding, Florian. There was a fight, then? With Billop’s lieutenant? And you got away free?”
“Did you shoot him?” Matthieu asked quickly.
“What? No! Well, not exactly. They did get hurt. I knocked them out.”
“They? How many are we talking about?”
“Three. Well, four if you count Lukan.”
“You knocked out four gang thugs?” Terannia said in astonishment. “Single-handed? Crud, Florian. That warden’s job turned you into a real tough guy.”
“So it’s the PSR, the sheriffs, and Billop’s people who are going to be looking for you?” Matthieu said.
Florian exhaled loudly. “Yes.”
“Wow.”
Terannia and Matthieu exchanged a glance.
“What is it that you need, Florian?” she asked. “From us, I mean.”
“Just somewhere peaceful to stay. It’ll only be for a month, I swear. After that, it won’t matter.”
“So you’ve said. Can you at least tell me what happens in a month?”
He gave Essie a fond glance. “I don’t really know. But it will only be a month. I know that.”
She nodded ruefully. “If that’s all there is to it, you can stay in the mod-stable.”
The office on the second floor was wood-paneled. Matthieu led him in and immediately started rearranging the cases of spirits, clearing them away from the wall.
Florian stood in the doorway, watching him as he held Essie’s hand.
“Essie needs some new clothes,” Terannia said, in a disapproving tone. “That dress is far too tight—and short.”
“I know. Just some sheets or something will do. I can sew them into a new dress.”
Terannia gave the existing dress a closer look. “Did you make this one?”
“Yes.” Florian braced himself for criticism.
“Not bad.”
“Here we go,” Matthieu said. He pressed a section of paneling. There was a click, and a small door swung back.
Florian stared at the lightless passage it revealed. “What’s that?”
“A little bit of quiet privacy in a bad, noisy world,” Matthieu chortled. He took a couple of torches from a drawer in the desk.
“You take them,” Terannia said. “I’m not dressed for it.”
Matthieu gave her a pained look. “Because my old bones are just built for this.”
“Is it difficult?” Florian asked.
“No. Just not built for our height, that’s all,” Matthieu said. “Essie will be fine.” He switched the torch on, and crawled in.
Essie followed him, a delighted expression on her face. Florian brought up the rear, shining the torch forward so Essie would be able to see where she was going.
The corridor was about a meter and a half high, one wide. It had floorboards, and the walls were a reddish brick that had been worn smooth and dark by something rubbing along them for a very long time. There were small doorways at regular intervals, all of them blocked off, some with hurriedly laid brick, others with wooden planks.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Mod-dwarf passage,” Matthieu said. “Back in the Void there were millions of the creatures. They were a slave species that started out as neuts, then got changed somehow by telepathy. Modified, hence: mods. You could get mod-horses, mod-dogs, mod-apes—things that helped with all the tough manual labor. You also got mod-dwarfs, who were house servants.”
“I have heard of them; we learned about them at school. But the teacher never said much.”
“I’m not surprised. Slvasta had them all slaughtered after the Great Transition. There was no telepathy anymore, so we couldn’t order them around, and they were supposed to be related to the Fallers, somehow. Anyway…all houses had them to do the drudge work. So their stables were part of every building back in the Void, along with these passages so they could move between human rooms without getting in the way.”
“Every building?”
“Yes. Trouble is, the passages are all so small there’s no use for them—no human use, anyway—so down the years they gradually got blocked off.”
They reached the end of the corridor and climbed some small wooden steps into a larger room that Florian could just stand upright in. It was semicircular, with the curving wall inset with two rows of deep alcoves. A single window at the top of the flat wall was glazed with a white glass that allowed a reasonable amount of sunlight to shine in.
“The mod-stable,” Matthieu announced; he pointed at the alcoves. “They slept in those. But no worries, you’ve got these.” He took a couple of bedrolls from one alcove. “Toilet in that corner. Sink over there. It does work—not that there’s any hot water, mind.”
Florian turned a complete circle, trying not to show his dismay.
“Hungree, Daddy,” Essie said.
“I’ll bring you some food,” Matthieu said. “And I’ll see what I can do about some picture books or something for Essie.”
“Thank you.” Florian picked up one of the bedrolls. There were more in other alcoves, he saw. “Who are these for?”
“Ah.” Matthieu gave him a soft smile. “Your aunt helps a lot of people who need to get out of town. I don’t need to tell you how much crud Eliters get given here, do I? That bitch in charge of the PSR office has a real animosity going for us. So if someone crosses them, they stay in here for a while to let the heat die down, then we send them along to Port Chana. I think your brother stayed in here for a while before he left.”
“Lurji? He was here?”
“Yeah. And the PSR never caught up with him, did they? So you’re perfectly safe—just so long as you remember not to make too much noise. The Gates are kind of crowded, and you’re only ever five meters away from your neighbors.”
There were eight cells in the Opole PSR office that were specifically designed to hold Eliters. They were in the first level of the basement, with their own external access from the alley at the back. A corridor led away from the bottom of the stairs, directly underneath the building, so that none of the cells had a window, or even an outside wall. Inside each cell, the walls, floor, and ceiling had been covered in a metal mesh, turning it into a Faraday cage that blocked any link broadcast, then another layer of bricks had been laid on top to make the cage secure.
The cells were the only part of the building Eliters were allowed in—even the informers run by Gorlan’s division. Chaing was very aware of this as he stepped through the big iron gate that separated it from the rest of the basement. I should have put Corilla in here. If I had, she’d still be at university.
Ironically, he realized now, it was also the place he would be taken to if section seven ever found out that he had an Eliter heritage as the Warrior Angel claimed. But now that he’d finally read the section seven briefing documents, he realized the odds of them ever catching her were remote verging on zero. The best section seven could do was contain and discredit rumors of her activities.
There was plenty of shouting going on inside seven of the eight cells—the usual shouts of abuse and demands for lawyers—the protests leaking out through the grilles in the doors. So far, they’d managed to bring in fifteen of the seventeen suspects connected to Florian. Chaing didn’t hold out much hope; most of them hadn’t seen Florian since senior school. Two had served in the same regiment conscript unit, but that was seven years ago.
He was really only interested in cell one.
The prisoner chief rose from his desk at the end of the corridor and saluted.
“Open it up,” Chaing told him. “And turn off the tape recorder.”
“Sir?”
“You heard.”
“Sir, the logs…”
“You’re changing a reel over. Understand? That’s the log entry.”
“Yes, sir.” The chief went over to a tall cupboard and opened the top door. Inside, eight tape recorders were sitting on two shelves, their big spools turning slowly. The chief switched off the machine recording cell one.
“Thank you, comrade.”
The door had two separate keys. Chaing waited until they were unlocked and the bolts slid back. It was all excessive; the danger from Eliters was never physical.
Castillito was sitting behind the small table in the cell. She was in her late sixties, a beret of close-cut hair colored a strange violet. Her clothes were the kind modern electric bands favored, a white blouse and suede waistcoat, inlaid with colorful glass jewels and beaded tassels. The maroon leather skirt came down to her knees, leaving a couple of centimeters of skin visible above her sky-blue boots.
If Chaing had seen that voguish combination on anyone else, he would have assumed they were narnik-heads, smoking away a vacant life. On Castillito, it simply looked elegant.
“Captain Chaing,” she said. Her gaze lingered on the frayed edge of the cast sticking out of his tunic sleeve. “Glad to see you’ve recovered.”
“Very good, comrade,” he said, sitting across the table. “Try and throw me right from the start. Was I supposed to ask: How do you know my name?”
“Every Eliter in Opole knows your name, Captain—especially after Xander Manor.”
“Yes, I thought you might be aware of that case. After all, you are the head of the Eliter radical movement here in Opole.”
“You are misinformed, I’m a civil rights advocate. However, for what it’s worth, I am genuinely sorry about poor Lieutenant Lurvri.”
“Thank you.”
“It couldn’t have been easy, going up against breeder Fallers.”
“There’s no such thing.”
She laughed in his face.
“Tell me about your son,” he said when she’d finished.
“Tell me why you brought me in here? It must be terrifically important; they wouldn’t even let me have breakfast before they dragged me off.”
“It is. Your son is the most important person on Bienvenido right now. Where is he?”
“Am I under arrest? The officer—the very excitable, unprofessional officer, I might add—didn’t have a warrant.”
“He doesn’t need one. This is a matter of state security.”
“Really? Has there been a Fall? That’s your only authority to claim that, and the Space Vigilance Office hasn’t declared one—not here.”
“It’s not a Fall. We are operating under nest alert procedures. That gives me a wide range of special powers.”
“A nest alert? Just after you’ve cleared up all those breeder Faller monsters at Xander Manor? That doesn’t inspire confidence in the PSR.”
“Without us, Bienvenido would Fall.”
“Keep telling yourself that. It might comfort you at night. Nothing else will. The Faller Apocalypse is coming, and you’re wasting your time oppressing Eliters when you should be chasing down nests.”
“Just tell me about Florian, comrade.”
“My son left the city seven years ago. He was driven out by the persecution of our people as perpetrated by your organization. I haven’t seen him since.”
“Has he contacted you?”
“Who?”
Chaing brought a fist down hard on the table and Castillito flinched. “Don’t,” he cautioned. “Right now I’m being nice to you because I think your son is an idiot who is caught up in something he doesn’t understand. But you need to know this: I will find him. And how I treat him when I do depends a lot on how much trouble he causes me. So I’ll ask again, has he contacted you?”
“You weren’t quick enough, you know.”
“Quick enough for what?”
“When your gangsters with badges came for me, they didn’t stop me from linking to my friends. I was giving them a running commentary all the way here. And it isn’t just me you’ve snatched illegally, is it? Lawyers have already filed motions for release with a judge. There’s going to be a citizens’ protest outside. A lot of citizens. It’s not just Eliters that you antagonize.”
“Imagine how frightened I am.”
“You know, one day you really should consider doing the math. There are more Eliters in Opole than there are PSR personnel. Check with Kukaida if you don’t believe me. In fact, there are more Eliters on Bienvenido than there are PSR; we outnumber you quite heavily.”
Chaing sat back in his chair. “I saw him, you know. I actually talked to him four days ago. He made me think he was a simple forest warden. Very clever, your son. Smart.”
He almost missed it, a flicker of uncertainty that showed in her eyes for an instant. “You’ve seen Florian?”
“Yes. That is one pitiful life he chose for himself. Mind you, I can see how he’d think it was preferable to living at home with you.”
“Oh. Gosh. Ouch. I’m so devastated. Please: Let me confess everything to you.”
“Florian is the nest alert.”
She pursed her lips as she stared at him. “If Florian has Fallen, you wouldn’t be asking me for help. A Faller-copy of Florian isn’t going to come running to his human mother. So what is this about?”
“State secret. But it’s bad. If you help me, I can go easy on him.”
“Really? Are you going to put that in writing for me?”
“No, because you’re completely dependent on me. This all boils down to my whims. So you have to work really hard on not annoying me.”
“He hasn’t Fallen, yet you’ve declared a nest alert. Dear me; have you been lying, comrade Captain? Have you abused your position and the state apparatus for another purpose? What really happened out there in the valley?”
“Who is his father?”
“A very high-ranking PSR officer. He bribed me not to reveal his name on the birth certificate, paid the fine and everything. Ooops, did that go on the recording?”
Chaing grinned at her, despising her smug expression. His usual technique wasn’t going to work on her, he could see that. “Funny.” He slapped her across the face. Hard.
Castillito went over backward, crying in shock. Chaing came around the table slowly and watched her squirm around on the floor. Blood was dripping from the corner of her mouth. He bent down to deliver the ultimatum, to make it very clear what a piece of subhuman filth she was. How he owned her.
Her hand lashed up fast. A rigid forefinger jabbed into his eye. He roared in pain and shock, staggering backward. Castillito was up after him, spinning around, a leg extending. The heel of her boot struck his cast. It cracked, and the pain-flash of the impact was incredible. He couldn’t see anything but a red haze. Nausea made him dizzy, his legs nearly giving way.
“Crudding Uracus!” He tottered back and banged into the wall, almost slumping to the ground. Eliters were fast. Eliters were strong. He’d forgotten the very basics of his profession, he’d been so angry with her defiance.
“Sir?” The prisoner chief was knocking on the door. “Sir, is everything all right?”
Castillito was standing still, staring at him in contempt as she dabbed at her split lip. “Well, is it?” she asked mockingly. “Or are you hoping the Warrior Angel will come and save you? Again.”
Chaing gaped at her. She does know! I crudding knew it. She is the head radical, she must be.
“Sir?” The key started to rattle in the lock.
“Go away, comrade,” Chaing shouted. “I’m fine.”
“Now, let me tell you what’s going to happen,” Castillito said, righting her chair. “If I don’t walk out of here within another two hours, details of your Eliter heritage will be anonymously delivered to Gorlan and your precious Stonal.”
“I’m not an Eliter,” he growled, his undamaged hand pressing against his eye. The pain was bad. He worried she’d damaged the eye permanently. Bitch!
“The way you react to Eliters shows how much you’re overcompensating, Chaing. Self-loathing isn’t healthy. In the end, it’ll eat you up. I’ve seen it happen before. Accept what you are. It’s not like I’m asking you to help us. When the Faller Apocalypse strikes, you’ll need us.”
“The day after Uracus closes up for good!”
“You know you’re an Eliter. You know there are breeder Fallers. You’ve met the Warrior Angel. Just how much truth can you keep on denying to yourself? We’re on the same side, Chaing. We want to defeat the Fallers. Why can’t you acknowledge that?”
“If you want to help me, tell me where your son is.”
Castillito sighed as she sat down. Her expression was like the one his primary school teacher used when she was disappointed with him. “Exposing you isn’t a bluff. I sent a time-coded file about you to several friends when your people came for me. And as I can’t link to my friends from in here, I can’t stop the file from opening in two hours.”
He rubbed his eye, which just made it worse. “I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t have a choice. Do you know what they do to Eliters who’ve wormed their way to the very heart of the PSR? There’s a furnace in the lowest basement level of this building for the central heating and hot water. They will throw you into it alive. You can trust me on that, because that’s what you’d do to a traitor. Isn’t it?”
“I have friends, too. If you ever make them suspicious of me, I’ll know about it, because they won’t believe you. That gives me time. And I will use it to come for you. A furnace will be the least of your worries.”
“I don’t want to hurt you in any way, Chaing. It’s clearly going to take you a while for you to come to terms with what you are: one of us. But despite that, I have hopes for you, great hopes. One day you might even sit in the director’s chair.”
“I will never betray the PSR!”
“The PSR does a good job fighting the Faller nests. That’s what you need to focus on.”
He gave her a weary look. “That’s what she said.”
“I know.”
“You’ve met her, haven’t you?”
“No. Not in the flesh. I’m not important enough. But friends receive communications occasionally. And we send stuff back. Who do you think alerted her about the new kind of encrypted links in Opole? Who alerted her that you’d found a nest? Who do you owe your pitiful life to?”
“I owe you nothing!”
“What has my son done to bring all this down on him? Florian hasn’t Fallen. You would have tested his blood when you talked to him, the PSR always does that. So what has happened?” The way she said it made it a rhetorical question. “The regiment was deployed in Albina Valley, and you’ve been chasing him ever since. Why?”
“You’re the head of the Opole radicals,” he countered. “That’s not coincidence. Did you send him out there seven years ago? Has he been waiting for this?”
“For what? And for the record, I’m not the leader of the Opole radicals. I am exactly what those precious files of yours say I am: a civil rights activist. A good one, but that’s all. There is no conspiracy, Chaing. There never is. It’s all part of the lie Yaki feeds you on Stonal’s behalf.”
“If Florian contacts you, the first—the only—thing you are going to do is call me.”
Castillito’s victory smile was modest. “Of course. Do you have a link code yet, comrade?”
It was the middle of the second day when the pings with Florian’s address code started to appear. Matthieu had been back to the mod-stable several times, bringing Florian baskets of food, then yesterday afternoon he handed over some cloth and a sewing kit. It was a much better sewing kit than Joffler’s, and Florian set about stitching together a new dress, with shoulder straps that had buttons so they could be extended as Essie grew.
After gorging on more bread and fruit, and drinking a lot of water, Essie had gone to sleep on top of the bedroll, snuggled up in his kaftan. It seemed to ease her somehow, and he was pleased to be rid of the garish thing. As always, her sleep was beset with nightmares. She moaned and sniveled continually. Several times she cried out and sat up, with wide frightened eyes. Florian soothed her back to a quiet slumber every time, unsure if she was actually awake during those episodes. That night she slept for a straight ten hours, waking up ravenous as always. The first thing he did was lengthen the dress straps by three buttons.
He began to review the general band forums while he worked on another new dress. All anyone talked about was the nest alert. Retina image files of the queues at the roadblocks showed stationary lines of vans and trucks for kilometers along the roads, their drivers either stoic or furious. Yesterday he’d seen a few files showing the Coperearl smashed up between a wall and two sheriff cars. He wondered if Lukan was all right, but after the ambush in the warehouse, he didn’t really care much.
The next morning the general band was full of news about people being arrested and carted off by the sheriffs without warrants. Florian recognized most of the names of those being taken to the PSR offices, even though he hadn’t thought of them in years. The PSR must have been pretty desperate to include them. In truth, he’d not considered asking any one of them for help.
With the newest dress finished, he pulled the food processor cylinders out of the backpack. Most of the food Matthieu had given him went into the hoppers, with water from the tap. This time he set the menu to a paste, which slowly extruded from the lower nozzle directly into a bowl. It had all the same specialist fats and vitamins as the richmilk, but with a thicker constituency and a mix of flavors, from apple to beef, so he could give Essie some variety. He found another setting that produced hard pellets that she could suck on between meals like sweets.
It was while these were starting to emerge, rattling onto a plate as if they were pebbles, that the first ping with his code came in. Reception in the mod-stable wasn’t great; the walls were thick, and there was only the one window. But his u-shadow had some excellent filters, and its new subroutines had increased his reception sensitivity. He told it not to acknowledge any pings directed at him, but began reading the message headings. Opole’s Eliter community had discovered he was the reason the PSR had declared a nest alert. There was a lot of confusion about that; no one knew if he had Fallen or not. Some urged him to give himself up: “We’re suffering because of you.” Most offered support and told him to run, to screw with the PSR bastards as best he could. Streaming in parallel to the pings for him, the general band conversations were saying that all this was nothing to do with a Fall, that he’d struck some blow against the PSR. There were plenty of theories about that, from him burning down the PSR headquarters in Varlan (an impressive step up from his brother’s arson), to the development of some new kind of weapon that could wipe out Fallers with a single shot—with a whole lot of criminal acts in between proposed.
Essie woke up midafternoon, crying. “Legs hurt, Dada,” she sniffled.
“I’ll sort it out,” he said as he always did. He massaged her calves and ankles while she sucked on the pellets. “I have a new dress for you.”
“You best dada.”
Her simple love triggered a burst of emotions that made his throat constrict. “We’ll be safe here,” he told her as his fingertips dug into her stiff gastrocnemius muscles. “You and me together.”
“Hungree, Dada.”
He grinned. “Yeah, me, too.” That was when Captain Chaing’s name popped up in the general access. Florian scowled at the mention of the captain. There were a lot of protesters outside the PSR office on Broadstreet, waving placards and chanting, holding up traffic. Surprisingly, the majority weren’t Eliters. The restrictions of the nest alert were antagonizing a lot of people. Encouraged by a fearless core of civil rights activists, they were becoming bold, protesting against the cause of the disruption.
Matthieu turned up again in the late afternoon. He blinked in mild surprise when he saw the food basket was empty. “I’d better get you some more,” he said in a mildly sarcastic tone.
“Thank you,” Florian said.
“She doesn’t do much else, does she?” Matthieu said as he gazed down at Essie, who was asleep on the kaftan again.
“No,” Florian said proudly.
“Is she yours?”
“No, she’s not.”
“We’ve got a band playing tonight. Who’s MacLeod.”
“What?”
“That’s their name: Who’s MacLeod. They’re going to be loud. That’s how the kids like it these days. And there’re other clubs as well.” He pointed to the window. “You might not get much sleep.”
“That’s okay. It wasn’t too loud last night. Are you playing tonight?”
“ ’Fraid not,” Matthieu said sadly, and glanced at his hands. “Not that I don’t want to, but I can’t play so much now. I used to play guitar, but drums and singing is the best I can manage these days.”
“Arthritis?”
“No, actually. The PSR didn’t like the protest songs I used to perform. One night they came for me after a gig; they used wooden posts to break my hands.”
“Oh, great Giu. Matthieu, I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t do it. That’s why I’m pleased you’re here. Whatever you’ve done, I’m glad of the opportunity to help you. It’s another blow against them. And besides, people still play my songs.”
“I’m glad.”
“We fight them in a thousand small ways each day, my young friend. That is how decent people will triumph in the end.”
Florian had never been more tempted to tell someone what had happened, who Essie really was. “You’re right. We will,” he said fiercely.
Matthieu nodded in understanding. “I have some good and bad news for you.”
“What?”
“Castillito was taken into custody this morning.”
“Mum?”
“Don’t worry, they released her. I have friends who were outside the PSR office on Broadstreet. They saw her coming out.”
“Oh, thank Giu.”
“But it does mean they will be watching her. Closely, I suspect. She is their only true connection to you now. That means you cannot see her, Florian. You understand that. Don’t you?”
“Yes. I…I guess so.” In a way he was relieved. The fact that the one person who had never sent out a ping for him was his mother had been bothering him. Badly.
“Good man.”
“So she’ll understand why I came to Aunt Terannia and not her, won’t she?”
“Of course.” Matthieu hesitated for a moment. “I know you said you will only need shelter for a month, but have you considered what will happen if they start to get close? I’m not saying they will,” he said quickly, “but I’ve never seen anything like this hunt. And they’re looking for Billop now. Florian, he’s a nasty piece of work who’ll do anything to save his own skin; he might be able to point them here.”
“I’ll leave. I swear I won’t put Terannia and you in danger.”
“That wasn’t quite what I was getting at. Florian, there may be one person who can help you, but I don’t know how you’d feel about asking her.”
“Her? Her, who?”
“Why, the Warrior Angel, of course.”
“The Warr—But she’s not…Oh, is she real?”
“Very much.”
“Crud.” There were a hundred questions he wanted to ask about that. For his whole childhood, the stories of the Warrior Angel and how she protected Eliters had been a fascination and a comfort. It was her face that was the icon of every general band file, a constant reminder to Eliters that they had a champion. She was a myth he so wanted to be real. “Do you know her?”
“Me? Crud, no. But there are some Eliters that do, or at least know how to get a message to her. Or so they say. There’s no direct link, no ping code; it’s more like shouting into haunted fog and waiting to see what comes out of it. And there’s no way of telling if she’ll come, or even if she’s there listening.”
“So do you think I should ask?”
“Right now, maybe not, but I’d like you to at least consider it if things get…heated. If I get dragged in to the PSR dungeons, I’m not likely to hold out for long. Not at my age.”
“Don’t,” Florian said quickly. “Don’t hold out at all. Please. If they come for you, or Terannia, don’t antagonize them. I’ll go quietly if that happens.”
The old musician shook his head. “I’m not saying that’s going to happen. I’m just outlining a few options if things take a turn for the worse. You’re not necessarily as alone as you think you are.”
“Thanks, Matthieu.”
“You’re a good lad, Florian. Your aunt thinks the world of you.”
“She was always here for us growing up,” he said sheepishly. “She helped both of us. It wasn’t easy in those days.”
“I know. And it’s never easy, not for us Eliters.” He gave the sleeping girl a soft look. “Funny, she looks like she’s grown again, even since this morning.”
“Um, Matthieu, she does grow. A lot. You need to be ready for that.”
“Riiight.” Matthieu glanced at him, then back to Essie. “Okay, I’ll get you some more food now. Then you’re on your own for the night. Can’t risk anyone coming into Terannia’s office while that secret door’s open.”
“I have some songs,” Florian blurted. He hated how much danger he was putting Terannia and Matthieu in, and there amid all the wondrous knowledge Joey had given him were music catalogs. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had to thank the man with.
“Good for you, Florian. I didn’t know you liked music.”
“I…They’re part of the mindscape files I code,” he said meekly.
“The what files?”
“The…Oh, I make images you can play in your macroclusters, sort of like dreams, I guess.” His u-shadow was assembling a file of titles based on a simple search request. He’d sampled a few tracks out of the thousands and thousands that the space machine had given him. Even he, who never really thought much of music, had to admit Commonwealth music was extraordinary. There was so much of it, and it varied enormously, from orchestras of hundreds to soloists; from bands to single songsculptors creating directly through their technology. And the catalog stretched back centuries, right back to the first recorded songs—farther back if you counted the sheet music the truly ancient composers had written. The request he’d loaded into the secondary routine that handled simple searches was for songs that protested injustice and gave people hope for the future; songs about love (there were an incredible amount of them); and lively tunes that were just plain fun (plenty of those). The last criterion was that they had to be written for guitars and drums and piano in any combination.
A list of several thousand slipped up into his exovision, dating from the mid-twentieth century on Earth. Data supplements told him Earth was the original home of the human race.
“Show me,” he instructed the u-shadow. And Earth appeared in his exovision. Earth from orbit—as if he were an astronaut! And a real vision, not the constructs he featured in his simple mindscapes. Earth had huge brown-and-green continents, and oceans smothered in exotic whorls of pristine white cloud. A world crowned by ice at both poles. The nighttime continents glittered with the lights of cities—vast conurbations that stretched for hundreds of kilometers, especially along coasts. It was so beautiful he yearned to reach out and touch it.
“Oh, great Giu,” he moaned. Tears started to fill his eyes.
“Florian?” Matthieu asked. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” He wiped at his eyes, ordering his u-shadow to shrink the list of songs down to ten. “These are for you,” he told Matthieu, and sent the files over. “Your band can play them if they’re any good. I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“That’s very kind, Florian,” the old musician said with a soft smile. “I know how hard it can be to show your work in public, especially something as personal as a song. These are very big files, so I’ll listen to them tonight, and we can talk about them in the morning. How’s that?”
“Um, yes.” He hadn’t expected to have to discuss them. “That’s fine.”
Chaing walked out of the clinic on the second floor of the PSR office and took a lift down to basement level five, two levels below the records division. The operation had made progress during the morning. Perrick and terVask were now in custody and on their way in. The sheriffs were still hunting Bulron, but it was no longer a priority now that Chaing had the other two.
Level five was where they were headed. The cells here were smaller than the Eliter cells up above, the corridors narrower, unpainted brick soaking up the light from the small bulbs in their caged glass holders. Iron doors on both sides of the central corridor had a central grille covered by a sliding panel.
At the end of the central corridor was a junction with two other corridors leading off at right angles. It had a desk for this level’s cell chief, and a normal door into the guard office behind him.
Jenifa was standing beside the desk talking to the cell chief and a couple of guards when Chaing arrived. She turned, and the start of a smile swiftly turned into a concerned frown. “What the crud happened to your eye?”
“Nothing,” he said. The clinic nurse had been worried as she bathed it clean and applied a sticky ointment. She’d wanted him to go to the hospital optometrist—as if he had the time. He settled for a small dressing and an eye patch. One of the clinic’s orderlies had removed his broken cast and put on a fresh one, which was larger than the first and still setting. It meant he had to cut off his shirtsleeve and wear his uniform jacket with its sleeve pinned across his side.
“Just like Slvasta,” the orderly had said when he finished helping Chaing back into his clothes. His humor vanished fast when he caught Chaing’s expression.
“Nothing?” Jenifa exclaimed. “But—”
“I tripped. Hit my face on a door. Now move on,” he snapped. The painkillers weren’t quite strong enough to stop the ache from his damaged wrist, and he was worried that Castillito’s kick had shifted the broken bone out of alignment. It just didn’t feel right somehow; the pain was sharper now.
Jenifa’s expression hardened. “Yes, sir.”
“When are they due?” Chaing asked.
“The sheriff cars are pulling up outside in a couple of minutes, sir,” the cell chief said.
“Right. I want interrogation room three cleared out. Remove all the furniture. Then put Lukan and his cot in there.”
“Er…sir?”
“You heard, comrade. And when the prisoners come down here, put them both in with Lukan. Clear?”
The cell chief clearly didn’t like any kind of shift in procedure, let alone this. But he nodded and said “Yes, sir,” almost as if he meant it.
Guards were summoned and started carrying the chairs and table out of interrogation room three. Chaing and Jenifa went into the observation room, which looked in on interrogation room three through a big one-way mirror.
“Are you going to tell me what’s happening?” she asked coldly. “Nobody on the third floor knew where the crud you went after you interviewed Castillito.”
“Sorry.” Chaing gave her an awkward smile. He waved his hand at the eye patch. “I had to go to the clinic. I did trip when I was hitting Castillito. I feel ridiculous. What kind of interrogator does that?”
She pushed her lips together in bemusement. “So is that why you let her go? To avoid the embarrassment?”
Chaing could practically feel her judging him; he was starting to get resentful about the way he had to justify himself the whole time. “Not quite. She’s still our best hope of a lead after Billop. Florian might contact her. I’ve got her under constant observation. If he comes within a kilometer of her, we’ll spot him.”
“He’s not going to go anywhere near her. She’s his mother, for crud’s sake; he doesn’t want her involved. At best he’ll do that Eliter link thing—how would we ever know?”
“Some of Gorlan’s informers are watching for that.”
Jenifa gave him a puzzled glance. “You’re relying on them?”
“What else have I got? Locked up here in a cell, out of contact with her kind, she was no use at all to me. This way at least I’ve opened up a possibility. And yes, I know how slim it is, but Florian might risk it.”
“So this…?” She indicated the room on the other side of the shaded glass. Three guards were carrying in Lukan’s cot, with him on it. The driver was moaning feebly, barely conscious.
“This is to encourage attitude adjustment. Information volunteered through fear is always more reliable—”
“—than information extracted under duress. Yes, I know that’s your preferred method.” She watched Lukan for a moment. “He’s not going to last much longer if you don’t get him back to a hospital. You know that, right?”
“I know and don’t care. He helped a known nest alert subject get into the city. I find that kind of behavior is beyond understanding. It’s treason against his whole species. Like this, he’s useful to me.”
For once her expression was almost approving.
They had to wait for a couple of minutes, then the door of interrogation room three opened again and PSR guards shoved Perrick and terVask in. Their shackles were unlocked, and the guards left.
“What the crud?” Perrick exclaimed, and went over to the cot. “Uracus, it’s Lukan!”
“What?” TerVask hurried over. He paled as Perrick pulled the blankets back, revealing the driver’s ruined legs wrapped in bloody bandages. Most of the cot’s blankets were stained with urine and feces.
Perrick swung around to stare at the mirror, his round face showing signs of panic. “What did you do to him?” he growled.
Chaing chortled quietly.
“Lukan,” terVask called anxiously. “Lukan, pal, what happened to you? What did you tell them?”
Lukan tried to say something, which emerged from his battered lips like a hissing cough.
“What’s he say?” Perrick asked.
“I think he wants some water,” terVask said.
Perrick turned a full circle, then fastened his gaze on the mirror again. “I don’t know where Florian went,” he said loudly. “The bastard shot us with some kind of gun. Ain’t never seen anything like it before. It was like it was firing lightning bolts, or something. My legs still ain’t right, I’s got trouble walking half the time. But listen, anything I can do to help you catch him, and I’ll do it.” He gave Lukan another concerned look.
“Glad to hear it,” Chaing muttered.
“Honor among thieves,” Jenifa said in contempt.
“These aren’t thieves,” Chaing told her. “These are gang thugs. Tough as Uracus on the outside, but no brains.”
“Which one are you going to question first?”
“Well, terVask is the weaker one, but Perrick is senior, so he’s more likely to know where Billop is. But he might just get stubborn when he knows it’s his boss that he’s got to give up.”
“Perrick, then. We can’t afford to waste time on terVask. The longer it takes to get Billop, the more distance Florian can put between himself and us.”
Chaing gave her an approving grin. “You’re right. Perrick it is.”
Interrogation rooms one to five were for people who could be intimidated or misled into revealing what the PSR wanted to know. Rooms six through nine were equipped for prisoners who were tough and stubborn. The centerpiece of number seven was a big wooden X set into the brick floor, with manacles at each extremity. Four bright spotlights on the ceiling shone on it constantly, turning the rest of the room into a glare through which sinister shadows moved, and the relentless questions emerged. The only time that light stopped punishing the prisoner’s face was when one of the interrogators stepped forward carrying electrodes, or sharp instruments, or heavy cudgels. These tools of the trade were always laid out neatly on a bench at the start, so that the smarter prisoner could see them when they were brought in, before they were fastened to the cross and the big lights turned on. If they were truly smart they would know just how utterly hopeless their situation was.
Billop was smart, but then Chaing had expected him to be; you didn’t get to be a gang boss by thuggery alone. He’d put up quite a fight when the sheriffs came for him, resisting arrest right up to the end. Now though, it was different; now the screaming and struggling were from fear as the guards ripped his clothes from him, beating him with leather truncheons every time he resisted. He screamed a lot more as the manacles closed around his wrists and ankles.
The lights came on, and he stiffened as if the illumination were a physical force pinning him to the cross. He squinted into the glare as he pissed himself.
A mocking chuckle came out of the dazzling brilliance as his urine splattered onto the brick floor and trickled into the drain grille between his feet.
“What do you want from me?” he sobbed as his body began to shake.
There was only unnerving silence.
“What is it? What do you want? Please.”
This time there was an answer. “I want a name.”
“Yes. Yes!”
“You know Florian, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. I didn’t know he was a Faller. I swear on Giu itself, I didn’t know that.”
“You worked with him? You paid him for the waltans he caught?”
“I did. It’s just for granddad’s delight; there’s no harm in that. But I never actually paid him. He has no money.”
“The name I want—”
“Yes?”
“Who introduced you? Who told you he was going to be a warden? That he was the kind who would trap waltans? Who is his friend in Opole? Who will he go to here when he’s in trouble?”
“Rasschaert!” Billop yelled at the top of his voice, as if he was expelling something evil from his body. “It was Rasschaert! He came to me; he fixed it all up. It was Rasschaert. Rasschaert!”
“Good. Now, where is Rasschaert?”
“Huh?” Billop froze up again.
“Where. Is. Rasschaert?”
“He’s…He’s…” Tears started to dribble down Billop’s cheeks as he shook his head. “Oh, Giu, please.”
“Use the cutters. Remove his toes.”
“HE’S DEAD,” Billop screeched. “He’s dead. I swear it. Please, that’s the truth. He’s dead. Rasschaert is dead.”
The whole team looked at Chaing with eager faces as he stomped into the third-floor operations room just after midnight. He kicked his desk. Hard.
Expressions changed fast. Everyone was abruptly busy with work, heads down at their desks.
Chaing kicked the desk again. “Crudding Uracus.” He sat down, and so nearly swiped his good arm across all the files and folders on the top of the desk, sending them flying. Instead he took a breath and made a pained groaning sound from deep inside his chest.
Jenifa hurried in and slapped a thin folder down in front of him. It had DECEASED stamped in scarlet ink across the front. “Billop was telling the truth. Rasschaert was killed three years ago. There was some kind of power struggle with neighboring gangs.”
“Yeah. Nathalie mentioned it. Crud! We had him, Jenifa; there was a connection. Rasschaert would have known where he would go, who would take him in. He might even have sheltered Florian himself.”
“There will be others who know.”
He glared at her. She endured it calmly.
“Who?” he demanded with all the petulance of a five-year-old.
“We’re the PSR. Finding out dirty little secrets is what we do.”
Chaing nodded slowly. The pain in his wrist was just awful. He opened the top drawer and fished out the little bottle of painkillers.
“You have to come up with a new line of investigation before Yaki gets in tomorrow morning,” Jenifa said. “You have to show you’re on top of this.”
“I know.” He tipped four pills into his hand and swallowed them without water, grimacing as they slid down slowly and awkwardly. For a bad second he thought he might choke. “All right, let’s think this through. The positive: We’ve identified Rasschaert as a close acquaintance, close enough to know Florian would be willing to catch waltans for a drug dealer.”
“But he wasn’t on our original friends and family list,” Jenifa said. Her finger tapped the folder. “He is an Eliter, of course. That’s why records division had this file.”
Chaing gave the drab cardboard folder a weary look. “Florian won’t have old friends outside the Eliters. We’ve both read his file; he didn’t get on well with anyone at school, and his time in the regiment was a disaster. But Eliters stick with their own.”
“So it will be an Eliter sheltering him.”
“Yeah, and the PSR knows every one of them.” Not true. They don’t know about me. His hand came down on the folder. “So let’s start with Rasschaert. Get Kukaida’s people to run a cross reference. I want everyone he knew around the time Florian was in Opole. Bring them in.”
“I’ll get on to records division,” she said briskly.
“Every time,” he muttered sullenly.
“What?”
“Every crudding time we’re closing in on him, luck snatches him away again. How can anyone be this lucky?”
“You still think this isn’t a coincidence?”
“I don’t know. You couldn’t plan to have Lukan to smuggle you into the city, not seven years ago. But Florian isn’t stupid, that much is obvious. And he certainly knows someone who can shelter him. Anyone else—anyone—and they’d be in custody by now, and that Commonwealth girl would be alone in a cell with Stonal.”
“Not sure anyone deserves that,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“I’ve been there.”
“Yes. How was that?”
He grinned lamely. “I might tell you one day.”
“I’ll get working on this,” she said, picking up Rasschaert’s folder.
Chaing watched her walk across the operations room and gather a couple of investigators together at her own desk. A records division clerk joined them as they started poring over the pages in the folder.
He was sure that they’d come up with a decent list. More possibilities. More arrests and interrogations in the basement. He ought to be satisfied, but it would take time. And the girl, the fast-growing girl from the Commonwealth, was getting older with every day. He wasn’t sure why he feared that so much. Instinct? And maybe the memory of the incredible Warrior Angel.
Perhaps I should throw in the towel and join the other side? Castillito would welcome me, that’s for sure. And they certainly seem to be winning right now. But winning what? The Warrior Angel has had 250 years, and she’s not accomplished anything different. Helped us, yes. But a significant victory? Uracus, even she said the Liberty flights were our only hope of survival.
Chaing went over to Gorlan and sat down in front of her desk. It wasn’t that they didn’t get on, simply that their paths rarely crossed. But now Gorlan was pissed that a hunt for an Eliter was being conducted by someone from the nest investigation division—and a mere captain at that. As far as she was concerned, his appointment as operation commander was a monumental and deliberate vote of no confidence from Yaki. There would be payback for that, later. A bureaucratic ally in the office’s vicious political jungle would no doubt leak some critical piece of knowledge at a strategic time. A detrimental comment would be placed on his permanent administration file. His promotion prospects would be hurt. That’s how it always went. But Gorlan didn’t know he was now with section seven.
Just the thought of all the office politics made Chaing weary.
“Didn’t go well with Billop, then?” Gorlan asked sardonically.
“He told me everything I wanted to know, thank you, comrade. The trouble was, the information wasn’t any use. The only connection between him and Florian is dead. Gang turf war.”
“Yeah, when they happen, they’re short and nasty. You should talk to Nathalie Guyot. These are not the people who take prisoners.”
“I didn’t realize Eliters were part of the gangs, too.”
“Gang bosses aren’t like us, comrade; they don’t discriminate. And Eliters can be quite an asset to gangs, as their links provide unbreakable communication. Very useful for criminal activities.”
“Okay.” Chaing leaned back in the chair. “Question for you, comrade.”
“Go on.”
“Say I’m a radical Eliter. I’ve done something bad, struck a victorious blow against the terrible government, and now the PSR is really mad about it. They’re using every trick they have to hunt me down, calling in every favor, every asset, every informer. Every road and rail line and river traffic route out of the city is blocked to me. What do I do?”
“They’ll catch you eventually,” Gorlan mused. “So there’s only one thing you can do. Like all your hothead friends before you: leave.”
“Leave to go where?”
“Port Chana is where rumor has it—a hotbed of Eliter radicals. But we both know the PSR has a disproportionately large office there precisely because of that. So it’s not actually the destination that matters, because it could be anywhere.”
“An isolated valley in the Sansone foothills, for instance?”
“Quite. But it’s how you get there that is important. Concentrate on the route.”
“Ah. I use the equally legendary underground railway.”
“A little less of the legendary, comrade. It’s not a formal organization, but the Eliters do stick together and help one another out. Sometimes they use people like Lukan.”
“Non-Eliters? For this? Really?”
“It’s been known. You’ve seen that people like Lukan don’t care what their cargo is, only that it pays.”
“So the radical Eliters will get Florian out of Opole?”
“Every Eliter knows someone who knows someone. Then there’re anonymous links—the general band, it’s called. It’s how they operate. So eventually, when the pressure gets too much: Yes, they’ll get him out.”
“Then all we have to do is find which Eliters are more helpful than others, and make them show us their secret routes out of the city.”
“Yes.” Gorlan laughed benevolently. “It’s that simple.”
“Thank you, comrade.” Chaing got up to leave, then hesitated. “How many Eliters are there in Opole?”
“Records division will give you the exact number, but it’s in the thousands. Ten thousand, probably, maybe a few more. Why?”
“So there are more Eliters than there are PSR officers?”
“Yes.” Gorlan smiled knowingly. “But don’t forget, we have all the guns.”
Chaing nodded thoughtfully, as if reassured by her assessment. And that’s exactly what Captain Philious thought before Slvasta’s revolution.