[Ravenor 02] Ravenor Returned - Dan Abnett

by Dan Abnett

  After a few minutes, she reached her left hand into the pocket of her coat. The little analyser Carl had given her was there. With her fingers, she played out its tiny plug-wire and, with the analyser still out of sight in her pocket, brought the wire end up onto the station and plugged it into one of the spare data-ports on her cogitator.

  +Getting that?+

  +Carl's getting a signal now, thank you. He says you're operating a late model K-phyber cogitation engine with numerical reinforcement sub frames.+

  +The stuff he knows.+ Kys sent back, and carried on typing.

  "I thought you'd done this before?" said Gatherer Lerally with a sneer. Like all the gatherers, he was a big man with heavily muscled arms and shoulders well displayed by his black singlet.

  "I have," said Nayl. "But it was a different system in collect-distribute where I worked. We had to number the files on a docket before we put them in the cart."

  "Well, that just wastes time." Lerally sighed. He pointed to the data-slate in Nayl's hand. "Your numbers come up there, file and destination, and you wait for the matching serials to flick up on the boards. Then you gather from the bench, swipe each file past your cart scanner, and it's all logged. See? Simple. I don't know how they did things at your old place, Tulliver."

  Nayl shrugged. He had no idea how they'd done things at Bernod Tulliver's old place either. Bernod Tulliver had been stabbed to death in an undersink mugging the month before, and, courtesy of Carl, Nayl was just borrowing his credentials.

  Right now, he was standing in the bowels of Administry Hall Three. It was hot, furnace-hot, thanks to the steam from the hydraulic hoists. Queues of brawny gatherers, each one with a cart, were assembled in front of the benches, watching the overhead hololiths. As numbers flickered up, gatherers moved forward to the benches to collect their cargoes from the robed coordinators. Behind the benches, the enormous cage-lifts brought up file cartons from the basement archives in clouds of vapour.

  "I'll walk you through one," Lerally said. He was a gatherer supervisor, and wore the medal proudly.

  "Thanks," said Nayl.

  More numbers flashed up on the overhead boards.

  "That's you," Lerally said.

  Nayl pushed his cart forward. It had a twisted castor and it fought to go the other way. Nayl winced as the strain pulled at his damaged arm.

  "What's the matter with your arm?" Lerally asked.

  "Nothing. Fricking wonky wheel."

  "Get used to it," Lerally said unhelpfully. "Once you've been here a while, you'll get a better cart. Perks of seniority."

  "How long is 'a while'?"

  Lerally shrugged. "Ten, maybe twelve years. Hurry up. You never keep the co-ordinators waiting."

  Nayl slewed his cart up to the bench and showed the co-ordinator his slate. The robed man turned and hefted a bulging carton of papers from the cage-lifts.

  "Now swipe them off," Lerally said.

  Nayl took each file out of the carton and waved them in turn past the optical reader built into his cart. The dial kept blinking up "unknown".

  "Trick's sake, Tulliver." Lerally exclaimed. He licked his thumb and rubbed the wet end vigorously across the glass lens of the reader. "Dust builds up. It's the static. Try it again."

  Nayl swiped the files again, and the dial snapped up code numbers. Once his cart was full, Nayl slid the empty carton back to the co-ordinator, who slung it back onto the cage-lift.

  "Okay," said Lerally. "Now you deliver. Check off the codes against your slate and use the department map. You'll soon find your way around."

  Nayl nodded and swung his heavy cart towards the elevator bank. He glanced at his slate: P/S4. That was on the fifty-seventh floor. The way his cart was bucking and pulling wide, he'd never even reach the lifts.

  "Holy Throne," he whispered.

  +Stick with it, Harlon.+

  "Easy for you to say, boss. I'd rather be doing something less demanding."

  +Like what?+

  "I dunno. Killing someone you don't like?"

  +Are you sure you're up to this?+

  "Will you leave it alone? I'm fine. I want to do this. I want to be doing something. Belknap said I was fit, didn't he?"

  +Yes. Though I got the distinct impression he wasn't telling me something.+

  Kara Swole stiffened. "Like what?"

  +I don't know. I didn't probe his mind. I respect doctor-patient confidentiality. I just got the impression he'd given you a clean bill of health because you'd told him to.+

  "Gideon, I don't intend to sit this one out, all right? This is a serious deal, and you need all the help you can get. So I'm helping. I'd rather be doing that than sitting in that lumpy bed in Miserimus."

  +Is it really that lumpy?+

  "Oh, yes."

  +And your wound? It's stable? It's only been a few days since you tore it open chasing Skoh.+

  "It's fine. Now go away. I'm trying to blend here."

  "Weena Carvort, what are you doing?"

  Kara looked up at her supervisor, a dainty little man with augmetic eyes. His name was Beedron Halicut. Ordinate Ordinary Beedron Halicut.

  "I'm loading the tubes," she replied. In truth, her answer should have been. "I'm perched on an uncomfortable metal stool, nursing an aching belly-wound and the grim intimations of my own mortality, jamming numbered message cylinders into the spout ends of pneumatic tubes in the sweaty basements of Adrninistry Hall Three, all the while pretending to be someone who perished from tubercolic fever in an Ecclesiarchy hospice ten days ago."

  But that, naturally, would lose her the job.

  "You might think you're loading the tubes," said Ordinate Ordinary Halicut, "but I believe you are inserting the cylinders upside down."

  "Oh!" Kara said. She looked at the plastek cylinder in her hand and slowly upturned it. "Sorry."

  "I thought you were skilled?" Halicut said sharply.

  "Just confused, sir." Kara replied. "By the new system. On Caxton we loaded them plug-end first."

  "Well, Carvort, you're not on Caxton now." Halicut moved away to berate another tube-loader.

  The pneumatic tube despatch hall was a massive room in the sink-levels of the tower. Like stalactites, festoons of tube pipes fed down into the room, curving slightly to deliver the cylinders into rows of wire racks. They looked like inverted church organs. Schools of operators sat at the ends of the racks, sorting the cylinders that arrived with a burp of air, loading new ones into the ascender pipes. Newly-arrived cylinders were opened and their contents filed into cartons for the gatherers to wheel away. Fresh files came in to be wound into scrolls, cylindered, and sent on their upward journeys.

  The air pressure in the chamber kept popping and changing as the tubes barked and spat their loads.

  Kara glanced at the stack of papers she had just been given by a gatherer. It was just meaningless data, reams of figures. She wound it up tight, slid it into a tube, and pressure-fired it on its way.

  In Miserimus House, I relaxed for a moment. Nearby, Frauka was playing regicide with Zael. He'd finally got the boy to understand the rudiments of the game. Zeph was prowling the grounds, checking the sensors. Carl was at his station, watching the first links show up from Kara, Kys and Nayl. "I'm getting a decent feed from Patience now," he reported. "I just..."

  "What?" I asked.

  Carl frowned. "I can't figure out what they've got her doing. The data she's processing makes no sense. Just random series of characters and numerals without context. Maybe it's a cipher. Give me a while, and I'll see if I can crack it."

  "I have complete faith in you, Carl," I said.

  We were in now, really inside the heart of the mystery. I remember thinking that, feeling the satisfaction of it.

  How wrong I was.

  Shipmaster Akunin had taken a late luncheon at a private club in the high-stacks of Formal C, then travelled back to the Petropolitan in a hired limousine. He was edgy, and his mood did not improve when he reached his suite.

  "An
ything?" he asked his aide.

  "Still no response, sir," the man replied.

  Akunin cursed quietly. "If there's nothing by this evening, I'll send another message."

  The aide nodded. "Master Siskind is here to see you."

  Pulling off his blue satin coat, Akunin went into the lounge. Siskind was sitting in one of the low armchairs.

  "Siskind," Akunin said by way of hello. He crossed directly to the sideboard and poured himself an amasec. "Still nothing from Trice. Can you believe that? My messages are as emphatic as possible, and he deigns to ignore me. Drink?"

  Siskind shook his head.

  Akunin sipped his drink, pacing. The neotropical song-bugs, sensing his demeanour, had fallen silent. "The arrogance of the man!" Akunin spat. "Without the cartel's work, he'd be nothing!"

  Siskind nodded gently.

  "Another hour or two, and I'll send to him again." Akunin growled. "I've half a mind to go to him in person, see how he likes that-"

  Akunin's personal hand-vox chimed and he took it out of his pocket.

  "One moment," he said to Siskind, and raised the device to his ear. "Akunin?"

  "Just calling to see if our employer had answered yet," said a voice.

  "Who is this?" Akunin asked.

  "It's Siskind. I was just-"

  Akunin lowered the communicator and turned to stare at the man sitting opposite him.

  "Siskind" got to his feet. He seemed to ripple, to shimmer, as if the image of Bartol Siskind was just a reflection in a disturbed pool. Then the ripple stilled itself again and Akunin was staring at a mirror image of himself.

  "Oh Terra." Akunin gasped and started to run, dropping his glass and his hand-vox. His double caught up with him before he'd taken three steps, and seized him. Arms pinned, Akunin crashed forward against the sideboard.

  "Please! Please!" he squealed. The grip constricting him grew tighter.

  "Sire Trice is happy not," the double lisped, sliding a long, slim serrated blade out of its cuff.

  "Oh no! Please!"

  "Let him go, Monicker," said a voice from the doorway.

  Akunin stepped back and let the real Akunin slump to his knees.

  Toros Revoke padded into the room, his stale yellow eyes showing amusement.

  "Get up, Akunin," he said.

  Trembling, Akunin did as he was told. In all his dealings with the Secretists on behalf of the cartel, Akunin had never found Revoke anything less than terrifying.

  "You seem to have taken it upon yourself to become a nuisance," Revoke said. "What's the matter with you, shipmaster? All these pleading demands for a meeting."

  Akunin eyed the secretist warily. "I think what I've got to say is important."

  "So... I'm here now. Say it."

  "Not to you. I need to speak with Trice, a personal meeting-" Akunin began.

  Revoke raised a finger to his lips. "First of all, it's Chief Provost Trice. Second, the remit of Contract Thirteen states clearly that you of the cartel and the chief provost should not be seen together, nor have direct dealings, nor any connection be apparent between such parties. Third, something tried to kill the chief provost the other day. We've been a little busy since then trying to discover what it was and who sent it. In comparison, you and your pathetic mewlings are a very, very low priority."

  "I know! Please, I know that! This-"

  "I could have you killed," Revoke said bluntly. "I could have Monicker here do it. She's very good."

  Akunin glanced nervously at his double, but it wasn't his double anymore. It was hardly anything. A woman, vaguely, a hazy blur in the air that light seemed to ignore.

  "What is she?" Akunin asked.

  "Monicker? She's a dissembler. They're very rare. It's a form of albinism, an extreme mutation form. A dissembler's pigmentation is so shockingly absent, they act as living mirrors, reflecting back likenesses. It's very useful. Monicker observed your friend Siskind when he visited you earlier today, and mirrored him. Oh, Master Akunin, the look on your face."

  "You've been observing me?"

  "Of course we have." Revoke replied. "The fuss you're making. This unseemly frenzy to meet with the chief provost. It's just not on, Akunin. Not on at all. The provost is furious with you."

  "Of that, I have no doubt," Akunin said, recovering his composure a little. "He runs a subsector. I run a ship. I am small fry. I understand that. We, the other shipmasters under contract, we are just pawns in his great theatre. We do the grunt work get paid - well paid, I'm under no illusions. We are supposed to get on with our job and be invisible."

  "Well, you seem to appreciate it quite clearly," said Revoke. "It begs the question..."

  Akunin looked Revoke in the face. "I have been insisting on a meeting because I know something that may well be directly connected to the attempt on the chief provost's life. We have a mutual problem. The entire venture is in jeopardy."

  "Really? Why?"

  "Gideon Ravenor is still alive. And I have reason to believe he is here on Eustis Majoris."

  Toros Revoke stared at Akunin for a long moment. "Do you have proof?"

  "Yes."

  "Bring it with you. Now."

  TWO

  It was the third time she'd called that morning. The switchboard put her through, but all she got was an autovox invitation to record a message. For the third time, she didn't.

  The town-hab was quiet, just the ticking of the numerous chrons and horologs her uncle had collected over the years. Maud Plyton paced around the gloomy house, agitated and anxious.

  She froze when she heard the music. A sudden, four-finger chord, then a rill and a sprightly refrain. It was coming from the drawing room.

  Uncle Valeryn was seated at the spinet, playing one of Steramon's bagatelles from memory. Plyton stood in the doorway and watched him, her eyes welling up. Every few weeks, her uncle would do this. Like the sun passing out from behind a cloud, his lucidity would briefly return, and he'd play. Then the clouds would return. The patches of lucidity were becoming more infrequent these days.

  Valeryn stopped playing. "Enid?" he called. Enid was the private nurse, and she wasn't due in until three.

  "No, it's me, Uncle Vally," Plyton said, entering the room. "Don't stop playing."

  Valeryn tinkled a few more notes and stopped again. He reached out and took his niece's hand, squeezing it.

  "Maud. I thought you were Enid," he said.

  "No, it's me," Plyton said, knowing her uncle would drift away at any moment.

  "How are things with you?" he asked.

  "Problems," she said.

  "What sort?" Valeryn replied. "Magistratum matters, no doubt?"

  She smiled sadly. "Yes, Uncle Vally. Department troubles. You don't want to hear about them."

  "Don't I?" he said, and let go of her hand. He played a series of plangent chords. "It's out of tune," he said. "There, the upper D, a little flat." He struck the note repeatedly. "I don't play this very much now, do I?"

  "Not as much as you used to," she said.

  Valeryn looked up at her. His face was in shadow. "I know, Maud," he said.

  "Vally?"

  "I know. Moments like this, I know how I am. Fading. Not always there. There are blanks. These long... intermissions. I don't remember. It's very frustrating. I know you're a Magistratum officer. I know you've been living here with me for some time. But I have no idea how old you are or what happened yesterday. I know I have a nurse. Enid, right? So if I have a nurse, I must be ill."

  "Uncle..."

  "It's very frustrating. Very frustrating." He fell silent. Then he started and looked up at her again. "What was I just saying, Enid?"

  "Maud, Uncle Vally. It's Maud."

  "Oh, yes. Silly old me. Maud. My, how you've grown. How are things with you? Have you got a job, my dear? A man on the go?"

  Plyton sighed. "Uncle Vally? I've got to go out for a while. Enid will be here in another hour or so. Will you be all right?"

  "Enid?"

&n
bsp; "The nurse?"

  "Oh, her. Yes. Yes, I'll be all right."

  Plyton walked back towards the door, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. The spinet behind her rang out suddenly. A Kronikar valse.

  "Uncle Vally?"

  "I remember," he said, without looking round. "So much and so little. It's very hard. The only thing I know for sure is that, when the moments of clarity come, use them. Like now. I don't know if I'll ever play again, so I better play now. Use the moment. Seize the moment. You never know how dark it's going to get otherwise."

  "Good advice, Uncle Vally," she said.

  "I thought so," he said. "Do what you can, while you still can. Otherwise..."

  She looked back. The music had paused.

  "Uncle?"

  "The upper D there. A little flat, wouldn't you say?" He tapped at it. "A little flat, isn't it, Enid? A little flat?"

  "Yes, Uncle Valeryn," Plyton said. She could hear him striking the note over and over as she left the hab and headed for the rail transit.

  "Oh. It's you," said Limbwall, opening the door.

  "Yes. Hello," Plyton said. "Nice gown there. Are you going to let me in?"

  "What are you doing here?" Limbwall said, gathering his shabby housecoat around him self-consciously.

  "I rode the transit all the way to E to see you. Can I come in?"

  Limbwall hesitated, then reluctantly let her inside his cramped little hab. His face showed the ugly bruises that the fists of the Interior Cases marshals had left on it two days before. He looked scared.

  "What do you want?" he asked, attempting to tidy up the clutter in his bedsit.

  "Just thought I'd hang out with a work colleague," Plyton said.

  "You've never hung out with me."

  "No, I haven't. Sorry, that was a lie. I wanted to talk to someone."

  "About what?" he replied.

  She stared at him with a "What the hell do you think?" look.

  Limbwall shrugged. "I think you should go, Plyton. I don't think we're meant to be speaking to each other. Rickens told us to go back to our habs and wait there to be questioned."

  "Have you been questioned, Limbwall?"