“I think a guilty person would have run rather than meekly come here to have their thoughts read,” said Lucas, “but we’ll still need Amber to check their minds to confirm their innocence.”
“In which case, you seem to have no current viable suspects at all, and have given yourself a week to achieve something which the members of Sea Farm Security haven’t managed in several months,” said Melisande pointedly.
“I agree the task appears daunting,” said Lucas, “but I believe we will either solve this case within a week or fail to solve it at all. In fact, we have to solve it within a week to have any chance of stabilizing the sea farm population before the New Year census.”
“Your statement is not entirely reassuring,” said Melisande, “but I have every confidence in your abilities and those of Amber and the rest of your unit staff. I will await your next report with extreme interest.”
“Thank you, Gold Commander.” Lucas’s voice sounded perfectly calm, but I caught some of the words on the top levels of his mind.
Waste it! This case is bad enough without having Gold Commander Melisande questioning my every move and …
“Amber, how are you feeling?” asked Lucas. “Do you want to check the minds of Cador and his people now, or should we keep them under guard until the morning? There’s only a vanishingly small chance of one of them being our target, so there’s no great urgency.”
I left Lucas’s thoughts, pulled back into my own head, opened my eyes, and looked out at the sea view while I considered for a moment. I felt tired, but the headache I’d got from trying to skim the minds of the sea farm crowd had gone.
“I think I should try checking their minds now. You may say there’s no great urgency, but those six people must be desperate to know the truth, and Cador is ideally placed to help us find our target.”
“It would be helpful to establish the innocence of these people,” said Lucas, “but you’ve already been stressed by experiencing the anger of the sea farm mind. I’ve just publicly admitted our nosies find the conditions here difficult and will be limited in the number of minds they can read.”
He paused. “That was a deliberate tactic intended to prevent Massen inciting any further panic about permanent nosy patrols, but it also means you aren’t under pressure to read any more minds today. If you have any problems at all, then you should call a halt to this. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“The sea farm population will be eager to know if any of Cador’s people are guilty, so actively in favour of a nosy reading their minds,” said Lucas. “I think we should put on a public display to give everyone their first view of our nosy, demonstrate that having your mind read is painless, and reinforce the idea that the telepathic abilities of nosies only work at short range.”
Lucas’s voice took on a brisk note. “Forge and Amber should go and stand in front of the shelter. Kaden and Matias will escort each member of Sea Farm Security up to join you in turn, and then bring them back. Amber will then pretend to consult with Forge before facing the crowd to announce the verdict.”
I stood up, feeling stiff and cold after sitting still on the bench for so long, and Forge and I went out of the doorway. There was a couple of minutes delay before I saw Kaden and Matias escorting Cador towards us.
“All the walking to and fro is going to make this a slow process,” I said.
“All the walking to and fro is going to give you a rest break between reading each sea farm mind, Amber,” said Emili.
Kaden and Matias stopped when they were still about twenty paces away from me, and took hold of Cador’s arms. I remembered to turn my back to them and face Forge before closing my eyes and reaching out to Cador’s mind. I was surprised to find it had that distinctive air of the sea farm, but the thought levels themselves were similar to those of a citizen of the Hive and perfectly understandable.
… if the nosy may not be able to read all six of our minds, then it shouldn’t be wasting its efforts on me when I’m innocent. No point in me saying that though. A guilty person would say exactly the same thing, so …
… going to be a blow whoever is the murderer. I trusted all five of them, but if it’s my own deputy, Emblyn, then …
… can’t believe Emblyn would murder her aunt, and she was over in High Fold that day anyway. It seems impossible for her to have got to Tropics in time to …
I opened my eyes, and Forge said an intentionally strange word in the distorted nosy voice. “Compleat.”
I glanced at the others. “You can take Cador back to the crowd while I confer with the nosy.”
Matias and Kaden led Cador away, and I faced Forge again. “Cador is innocent. His mind was far more orderly than the other sea farm minds I’ve read.”
“Cador is the head of Sea Farm Security,” said Emili. “Lottery will have chosen him for his post because he believed in the importance of law and order.”
“I suppose that’s true.” I turned to watch Cador being led back to the seawall. “Can we have Cador’s deputy, Emblyn, next? The first murder victim, Hazel, was her aunt.”
“Which one is Emblyn?” asked Emili.
“The woman with long dark hair.”
Cador had reached Lucas now. I lifted my hand, and gave a theatrical nod of my head.
“Cador is confirmed innocent,” said Lucas, in a heavily formal voice.
The crowd by the seawall seemed both relieved and disappointed. However unnerving it would have been to discover the head of Sea Farm Security was a murderer, they were desperate for an answer.
Emblyn was brought up next, and I found her thoughts in wild disorder, distressed by grief for her gentle, caring aunt who had died, and wondering if it was the head of the Sea Farm Security outpost in Tropics region who had killed her.
The act continued until all six members of Sea Farm Security were declared innocent, and then Forge and I went back into the shelter. I sank down on the bench again.
“Are you all right, Amber?” asked Forge, in his distorted nosy voice.
I hastily straightened up. “I’m fine.”
“Do you have a headache, Amber?” asked Emili anxiously.
“No, I’m just a bit cold and tired.”
“This shouldn’t take much longer,” said Gideon.
I heard Lucas’s voice speaking at the loud volume that meant he was using the microphone to address the crowd again. “I have a few more words to say before this broadcast ends.”
I wanted to watch Lucas making this last speech, but I was too tired to link to the mind of one of my Strike team and watch it through his eyes. I did what I’d hardly ever done before, took out my dataview, and set it to show the view from Adika’s camera.
Lucas was standing on the seawall facing the crowd. “Some of you look disappointed that the nosy confirmed these people are innocent, but you shouldn’t be. Your Admiral volunteered to have his mind read earlier, and he was confirmed as innocent too. You’ve gone through months of uncertainty, but now you know you can trust the most senior officers of Sea Farm Security, you can trust your Admiral, and you can trust me.”
Lucas paused. “And now I have something to say that is only aimed at one person. The murderer who has been terrorizing you all.”
He smiled. “If you thought poisoning one of my people would make me run away in fear, you were wrong. You haven’t made me afraid. You have made me angry.”
His voice grew louder. “You have challenged me, and I accept that challenge. You have lit a fire, and I will fan its flames until they consume you. You have summoned a hurricane, and it is here to destroy you.”
Lucas shouted his last sentence into the microphone. “C’est mon coeur qui te parle!”
Chapter Thirty-one
I stood outside the shelter, with Forge next to me, and our bodyguards clustered around us. Lucas was leading Adika, Rothan, and the rest of the Alpha Strike team back up the path towards us, and I felt myself sagging with relief. There’d been a nightmare period w
here I’d pictured those same figures running back along the path, with a screaming mob behind them, and a squadron of fighter aircraft sweeping low overhead.
Cador and Juniper were with Lucas, one walking on each side of him. When they reached our group, I saw the two of them throwing matching nervous glances at the ominous grey-masked nosy standing at my side.
“Amber, I’ve asked Cador and Juniper to join my Tactical team and me for a meeting,” said Lucas. “The plan is that we’ll go through the details of every known attack our target has committed. I’m hoping Cador will be able to provide us with all the official facts, while Juniper can add more personal information she’s heard from friends. You’ll need to inform the nosies that Juniper will be staying with us in our base corridors after the meeting.”
Juniper gave Lucas a startled look. “I’m going to be staying in your base corridors?”
Lucas sighed. “Yes. Your impassioned speech at the seawall was tremendously helpful, but could make the murderer attack you. I’ll have to keep you under our protection until we solve this case. We’ll give you one of the apartments in corridor 5 near the beach exit, because you’ll be happier in rooms with windows. Amber will need to make sure the nosies avoid entering corridor 5 unless I’m taking them out on a run with me.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem, sir,” I said. “The nosies prefer to stay in the corridors that are further underground.”
“If you need anything, Juniper, you can ask the guards at the beach exit,” said Lucas. “I strongly advise you not to leave corridor 5 yourself because you’d find the sight of unmasked nosies … disturbing.”
There was something deeply unnerving about the way Lucas said that last sentence, so I wasn’t surprised to see Juniper gulp and nod hastily. “I won’t leave corridor 5, sir. If I’m going to be staying with you, should I go home now to get clothes and …”
Juniper let the words trail off because Lucas was already shaking his head.
“I’ve already had one of my people poisoned by an item brought into our base corridors, and I’m not risking it happening again. The murderer shouldn’t have had any opportunity to tamper with the clothes you’re wearing, but we can’t allow any of your other possessions into our base. I’m sure we can find a few spare clothes for you to wear.”
“Some of mine should fit reasonably,” I said.
Lucas looked at Cador. “You’re welcome to bring your people under our protection as well.”
“It’s the job of Sea Farm Security to protect the sea farm population, not cower in hiding,” said Cador. “Now the six of us and the Admiral are confirmed innocent, we’ll be able to take our own measures to ensure our safety.”
“I agree with your decision,” said Lucas, “but I can’t risk allowing visitors to wander in and out of our base corridors. We’ll need to hold our meetings in the glass-walled room at the beach exit.”
Cador glanced at grey-clad Forge. “I’d prefer our meetings to take place in the observatory anyway.”
“That room is called the observatory?” asked Adika. “What is it used to observe?”
“It’s used for observing a lot of things. The stars, phases of the moon, weather, boats at sea,” said Cador. “You can use it to tell the time, and mark the changing of the seasons, and particularly the summer and winter solstices. There’s a stone circle up by the reservoir in High Fold that can do most of those things as well, but the observatory has the advantage of being protected from the weather.”
I didn’t understand how a glass-walled room could tell the time, and I was completely bewildered by the mention of a stone circle.
Lucas seemed confused too. “What are the summer and winter solstices?”
“The summer solstice is the longest day and shortest night of the year,” said Cador. “The winter solstice is the shortest day and longest night. We’re only a couple of weeks away from the winter solstice now.”
I gave a startled look up at the sky. “You mean it isn’t just the weather that changes with the seasons, but the length of days as well? I thought it seemed to be getting dark early.”
Cador put his hand to his mouth as if he was trying to smother a laugh.
“Amber has only been going Outside for a few months, so she’s still learning about things like seasons,” said Rothan swiftly.
“Oh,” said Cador. “I suppose a nosy interpreter very rarely needs to go Outside. It must be a …”
“Someone’s coming!” Adika interrupted him.
I turned to look at the figure running towards us, and recognized who it was just as Juniper groaned.
“That’s Perran,” she said, in a resigned voice. “He’s the one who forced my arm into the machine.”
I heard a murmured expletive from Adika, and he strode forward to block Perran’s path. “Stop right there!”
“I need to talk to Juniper,” said Perran.
“Juniper, do you want to talk to him?” asked Adika.
“No, but I think I’d better do it. Perran kept trying to call me when I was at the Trauma Casualty Centre, but I blocked his calls. Now I’m back at the sea farm, he keeps following me around trying to talk to me. If I must have a conversation with him, then I’d rather do it when you people are with me. I know Perran’s mind was checked at the Hive, and it was confirmed he’d no idea the woodworking machine had been sabotaged, but I still don’t trust him not to do something dangerous like grab at my left arm.”
“Perran won’t lay a finger on you,” said Adika, in a threatening voice.
“I only want to apologize to you, Juniper,” pleaded Perran.
“You want to apologize for doing this to my arm?” Juniper pointed her right forefinger at her left arm.
“I want to apologize for everything. The way I whined about you coming top in the assessments. The time I cheated in the tests to try to beat you. How I pushed you into helping me study. And yes, what I did to …”
Perran made a sound as if he was about to vomit. “I only meant to frighten you, Juniper. I’d checked the power switches on all the woodworking machines were off, but the motor started and …”
His voice broke up into a childlike wail of distress. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. So sorry. I’d do anything to change what happened, but I can’t, and I’m so sorry.”
“All right, you’ve apologized,” said Juniper coldly. “Now what’s your real reason for talking to me? I heard people have been unfriendly to you since you returned to the sea farm. Is your plan to pressure me into publicly accepting your apology, and then manipulate me into telling everyone else to forgive you too?”
“No,” said Perran. “I admit that’s just the sort of self-centred tactic I’d have used in the past, but after what happened … I can’t blot out the memory of what I did. I used to tell myself that I was the best, the most wonderful, the most important person in the world, and had the right to do whatever I like. Now I have to accept the real truth about myself.”
Perran shook his head. “The Guild of Sea Captains terminated my Apprenticeship of the Seas for breaking safety rules, my friends ignore me, and strangers spit their contempt at me when they walk by. I know that’s exactly what I deserve though, and nothing in comparison to what you’ve suffered.”
Looking at Perran’s face, hearing his voice, was triggering disturbing images and sounds from the memory sequence I’d relived with Juniper. Perran had forced my arm, no, he’d forced her arm, into the woodworking machine. Morton had already read Perran’s mind, and confirmed he’d believed the power to the woodworking machine had been switched off, but I had to check that was true myself.
I turned my face away from the others, and reached out to thoughts which inevitably had the distinctive flavour of the sea farm. I was too tired to delve deeper than the top couple of levels of Perran’s mind, but that was enough to show he was passionately sincere about what he was saying.
I pulled back into my own head again, and rubbed a hand across my eyes. With the twin echoes of Jun
iper’s pain and Perran’s regret warring in the background of my mind, I didn’t know whether to condemn Perran or sympathize with him.
Perran was still speaking. “I had to apologize to you, Juniper, but I promise I’ll stay away from you in future. I’ll never approach you, or try to talk to you again, as long as I live.”
“It won’t be for as long as you live, Perran. It will only be for a few weeks. As soon as I’m eighteen, I’m going to beg a ride on one of our fishing boats and leave as driftwood.”
“What? You can’t leave as driftwood!” Perran gave her an appalled look.
“What else can I do?” Juniper snapped the question at him. “Did you think I could carry on and become a Sea Captain after what you did to me?”
Perran winced. “Surely you can continue your Apprenticeship of the Seas and …”
“No!” she yelled the word at him. “No, I can’t continue my apprenticeship. The Guild of Sea Captains didn’t just terminate your Apprenticeship of the Seas, but mine as well. They’ve blocked me from ever working on a fishing boat again.”
“They can’t do that. Both your parents are Sea Captains, so …”
“Which is exactly why I’m going as driftwood,” said Juniper bitterly. “My own parents are Sea Captains. My own parents were at the meeting that destroyed what was left of my life.”
“They may have objected to the decision and been overruled,” said Perran.
“Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t,” said Juniper. “All I know is they didn’t have the courage to tell me the news when I came home. They took the cowardly option of keeping quiet and letting the Guild of Sea Captains tell me in a text-only message.”
Her voice changed from anger to despair. “I’m going to help catch the person who killed Hazel, Treeve, and my dreams. Then I will leave this place as driftwood and never return.”
She turned to hurry off along the path towards the beach exit, and Eli chased after her.
Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3) Page 27
