by Felix Gilman
—We know all this, Creedmoor. We were there.
—Your servants are too good for you.
—You are drunk, Creedmoor.
—Yes.
It was dark. He stood and threw the bottles from the roof.
—I am drunk. Steady me.
He dropped clumsily from the roof, clutched hold of a drainpipe. He swung loosely for a moment. Something warm in the night air closed around him and steadied him.
—Thank you.
He climbed in through the window of Liv’s office.
He slumped down in her chair and rifled through her papers. The General’s file was one of the thick ones.
—She’s been busy. Look at all this. What does it mean?
—We do not know.
—Not bad-looking, either. No life for a woman, this.
It might as well have been in code. Perhaps it was. Day 17—Card A-3; “church spire” (father? Cf. Card E-2, Day 9). Rubbish! Day 20—constant on axis 1, axis 2. Naumann’s Conjecture? Cant! Day 22 - 3 bursts f. current at .5 = min. seizing; exc. sp. re: “horses” (cf 9, 12) Gibberish!
“Please, Dr. A.,” he said. “I am a simple drinking man; can you not write in a simple honest tongue?” It was only thanks to a heroic effort of will, and Marmion hissing in his mind,
—Control yourself, Creedmoor.
. . . that he was able to resist the urge to rip the absurd things to shreds and scatter them petulantly around the room.
He caught sight of himself in the little polished desk mirror and realized that he was becoming unattractive. He pushed his sweaty hair back behind his ears and breathed deeply.
He stole the keys from Liv’s desk and stalked down through the empty corridors into the patients’ cells. He unlocked the door to the General’s cell and stepped inside.
The old man sat awake in the corner of the cell. Erect in his chair, dark liver-spotted hands folded on his lap in the moonlight. He fixed gray-green eyes on Creedmoor, who closed the cell door silently behind him and stood there panting, glaring.
He said, “Well?”
The General did not respond. And slowly Creedmoor realized that the General’s eyes weren’t focused on him, but on a point slightly to his left—the door handle.
“You want to get out of here, old man? Well, maybe. Maybe soon. First we talk. We talk about you. Look at me. Look at me.”
Creedmoor lunged across the room and held the General’s jaw tight in his hand, and jerked the old man’s face up so that he could glare into those empty eyes.
The old man began talking, grandly, gravel voiced, as if addressing a lecture hall: “Once upon a time, there was a—”
Creedmoor cupped a hand over the old man’s mouth. He moved slowly, gently. He had not forgotten the Spirit hovering everywhere with its sticky maternal oppressive attention.
“No nursery tales today. Instead let me tell you a story of the old times, old-timer. There was once a man who everyone called the General, because he was a fucking General, a great man, unlike you, sir, rotting feebly in this piss-pot all day and all night. You who can’t wipe his own ass much less command an army.”
Speculatively, he let go of the old man’s mouth. No further babble came out of it.
“Good. This General. I don’t mean you, old man. I wouldn’t insult him by comparison to you. This other General commanded the forces of the Red Valley Republic. A bunch of ragtag border states and freetowns with big ideas. This was long years ago. Decades, I suppose. I was barely full grown back then.”
Drunkenly he paused to count on his fingers. The General’s eyes watched him.
“Yes. A boy. Only recently arrived in the West from Lundroy. I was not there at your battles. I was, in fact, a pacifist back then and a sometime sermonizer for the Penniless Brethren, or the Liberationists, or the . . .”
He stopped again. He had unpleasant memories of his time with the Liberationists.
“Yes. I was a different man then, too. I would have read in the newspapers the stories of your bloody southward course of conquest and clucked with disapproval, and shook my head and said, Violence solves nothing; what fools. I know better now. You will appreciate the irony, sir, a sophisticated gentlemen like yourself.”
He pulled up a chair and sat facing the General, leaning in close. “You were magnificent, sir! In the name of what cause was it—independence from Gun and Line and all domineering Powers? Constitutional and tricameral self-government, yes? Suffrage of all freeholders? Plunder and spoils? Virtue? Enlightenment? Women and wine? Art for art’s sake? I forget. Does it matter? You may feel free to answer me, sir, if it does matter. Friends of mine died today, and I do not know the reason, if there ever is a reason. Speak up!”
He held up his fingers in front of the General’s face and began to count down. “You conquered first Morgan, and then Asher, and third Lud-Town, and then . . .”
He ran out of fingers. “And then all the lands between Morgan and the Delta. I think you fought for a President, yes, or a parliament, or something; would you care to say which? I am not a political man anymore, and I was never a man for the fine details. They are dust now, sir, as is your Republic.” The General turned his face away to the window. Creedmoor held his jaw and pulled him back.
“Never mind politics. I have a better memory for battles. Your eldest son died on Hekman Hill. Died from a belly wound before reinforcements could arrive. Was it worth it? Was it worth it? From Gloriana and Victory and Harrow Cross, the Line came rolling across the land. And Gun came creeping by night. And your little Republic could not stand, sir, caught between those two great forces. But then there was that one last great battle. In Black Cap Valley, you held the Line back; you checked them. You trapped three divisions of the Line in that poisonous place, the muck and those evil flowers soft underfoot and sick-sweet and deadly and moist; and you flooded the valley with blood. You fed that valley so well with blood! Are you not proud? Were it not for lack of horses, at the end, they say, you might have outmaneuvered them; you might have escaped; you might have saved your forces. But no cavalry rode to your rescue, and so the dream died in blood. That was where your other son perished, is that not right? Damn you, answer me. I may break your spindly old neck if you do not. Nothing but the trickle of blood in that valley, the moans of the dead, the slurp and suck of mud. I would be very eager to know how you yourself escaped. And had you saved your own forces, perhaps you could have repeated the trick again and again. Who knows? Perhaps you could have held back the Line. There is a Station now in Red Valley. Arkely. Young but vicious. Does that not sadden you?”
Creedmoor had long since let go of the General’s face. The old man’s eyes were wandering idly.
“So you lived to fight another day and to lose another day, and another, and at last to fall to the mind-bombs and end up here, an animal. What need my masters have of you, I cannot imagine. What is it you know? What is it you know? We planned to bring you back home, back to our hidden places, where we could question you at leisure. The girls of the Floating World. Would you have liked that? But now we are under siege. Without you, I might be able to flee. I’m old, but I’m fast. But with you . . . Impossible. I am stuck here. Trapped. Do you know how I hate to be trapped? I shall go mad. So.”
He angrily unbuttoned his overalls and withdrew Marmion and pointed the heavy Gun’s barrel at the old man’s distinguished brow. “Tell me your secrets or I will simply destroy you now.”
—I will not fire, Creedmoor.
—Perhaps I will use my hands.
—If he dies, you die by the Goad, Creedmoor.
—Tell me what you want from him. What you know. Why they died.
—This is how you ask us to trust you? No, Creedmoor.
Creedmoor watched the General’s eyes wander. He watched them flick to the Gun’s black mouth and away again. Oh yes, he thought, you know this. He kept his grip steady.
And eventually the General’s eyes drifted down and down and locked onto his and the Gen
eral’s ancient sticklike throat quivered and his mouth worked and he spat in Creedmoor’s face.
Creedmoor lowered the gun and laughed. He wiped his face.
—He remembers. Oh, he remembers us all right. There’s something in there. I should be a doctor.
—Never do that again, Creedmoor. He is ten thousand times more precious than you.
The General looked away, and when he turned back, his eyes were distant again, fixed on some point on the far wall.
“Once upon a time,” he said. “There was a . . .”
Creedmoor frowned.
There were footsteps in the hallway outside.
—This problem is beyond your abilities, Creedmoor. Now flee. Do not be found here.
He left by the window.
CHAPTER 24
BREAKING COVER
—Black Roth.
—I beg your pardon?
—Black Roth, Creedmoor. And Stephen Sutter. And Dagger Mary.
—Who the fuck are these people? Why are you waking me with this?
—Control yourself, Creedmoor. Your fear is beginning to disgust us. They are your brothers and sisters.
—I know none of these names.
—So? We do. They will be in Greenbank in two nights. They will join Fanshawe.
—Fanshawe! I know Fanshawe. Four, then. Only one I trust. They will help us? They will bring us to safety?
—We do not know. The Line is so strong. But they will only get stronger. This is our last and best chance.
—You are afraid, too.
—Get out of bed, Creedmoor. Go back to work. You are beginning to arouse suspicion. Be ready to move.
The next day, Daisy died. She died attended by shrieking nurses and one very badly shaken doctor.
It happened during Liv’s morning session with her. Daisy quite suddenly interrupted Liv and said: “Oh! I am so, so, tired of questions!”
Liv was astonished and delighted. “Daisy—Colla, I mean—Colla, are you talking to me?”
Daisy didn’t answer. Instead, she took a deep breath and held it. And held it. Her broad simple face went red and then purple and then blue. Her eyes remained quite clear and calm. Then she fell from her chair, and Liv rang the bell and summoned the nurses, who forced open Daisy’s mouth but were unable, even by pounding on her chest, to force her to breathe. The poor girl’s eyes remained quite calm until—and it seemed to take a terribly long time—Daisy finally expired.
Liv took three drops of her nerve tonic, and when she felt sufficiently recovered, she went to the Director’s office.
“It’s quite impossible,” she said.
The Director smiled sadly. “Nevertheless, it appears to have happened.”
“It is simply impossible, Director, for any person to . . . to injure themselves in that fashion. If it could be done, every sulking child in creation would have done it. The mind will not allow it.”
“Their minds are broken. Some vital self-preserving part of the mechanism may be gone.”
“Quite impossible.”
“You seem shaken. Please, don’t imagine anyone thinks this is your fault.”
“Dr. Hamsa has already told me he considers it my fault.”
“Other than Dr. Hamsa. Please don’t let this discourage you from your studies.”
They held Daisy’s funeral the next afternoon. The House’s entire staff attended, all dressed in black. No one was sure what faith Daisy might have belonged to, if any; in the end, they sent her off with a plain wholesome Smiler ceremony. The Director, who was dressed all in black, save for his gold-rimmed spectacles and a dapper golden tie-pin, gave a long, long speech on the sadness of life, the inevitability of death, and the importance nevertheless of a positive attitude; and he praised Daisy’s simple love of music. Maggfrid began to bawl like a baby, and Liv had to lead him discreetly away.
—Say what you like about Daisy. She had good timing.
—Quickly, Creedmoor. While the staff are busy. We make our move.
—You don’t need to tell me twice.
He ran up to the second floor of the West Wing and called on the Kid.
Creedmoor had been working on the Kid for a while. Since their first card game together, in fact, after which Creedmoor had followed the boy as he limped back through the corridors snarling and cursing at nurses. He’d followed him all the way back to his room, and leaned in the doorway, saying, “Kid?”
The Kid lay back on his bed, reading a book. His lips were moving.
“Hey. Hey, Kid.”
“I got a name, old man.”
“Yeah, but you won’t tell anyone what it is.”
“I don’t want to talk to them.”
“Fair enough. My name’s John Cockle.”
“I know.”
“Well, that’s great.” And Creedmoor came into the room and sat down opposite the Kid. The Kid put down his book—a cheap lurid and entirely false account of scandalous sexual practices among the Hillfolk, told mostly in pictures. He regarded Creedmoor with an insolent glare, which Creedmoor found amusing.
“Fact is, you don’t have a name, Kid.”
“What are you talking about, old man?”
“Not here. Names don’t matter here. Here you’re just a number. An entry in a ledger. A patient. A victim. No one gives a shit what your name is, Kid.”
The Kid sneered. Creedmoor had to admit, it was a first-rate sneer. Admittedly, it was greatly aided by the scars in the Kid’s face, but even so. The boy had character. He must have been something special when he was a soldier.
—A wolf. He deserves better than to sit here with the sheep. He won’t get it, of course, but still.
“Get out of here, Cockle.”
“Make me get out.”
“If that damn thing weren’t watching, I would.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He leaned forward and got close to the Kid’s face. “You couldn’t, and you know it. Maybe once when you were strong and whole. Not now.”
“What’s wrong with you, Cockle?”
He laughed, and stood up. “Nothing. Just saying. I know how you feel, Kid. Alone. Trapped. Nowhere to go. No hope. Well, a man should stand on his own two feet—no reference, Kid, to your unfortunate situation, I mean figurative feet. But a man should stand up on his own, and he should fight for himself, and he should go where he wants. Right? If I were your age, all over again, and I’d ended up here, I’d feel the same way you feel, you can bet on that, Kid. And maybe I did, once.”
And he got up and left before the Kid could reply.
They talked again the next night, and the next. Robert, the Kid said, it’s Robert; and Creedmoor told him that names sometimes had to be earned.
“I don’t want to end up like the rest of them. Letting that thing feed on me. I don’t want to rot here, Cockle.”
“Not Cockle. Creedmoor.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Let me show you something, Kid.”
Creedmoor withdrew the weapon from his white overalls.
“This is exactly what you think it is, Kid.”
The Kid’s eyes were greedy, frightened, ashamed, proud, one after the other. He let the Kid trace Marmion’s silver inlays with his finger.
“Here’s real healing, Kid. Here’s what’s going to make you strong again. Dangerous again. I wasn’t much older than you when I was married to this beauty. Many of us were maimed when we took up the Gun. We heal. Think on it, Kid. Think on it.”
“Yes.”
“Think on it.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll need your help. But it’s work you’ll enjoy.”
—We like him, too, Creedmoor. He hates well. But we do not take cripples.
—Poor dumb kid.
—What if he gives us away?
—He won’t.
—He agreed too quickly.
—We’re quick to corrupt. We come into this world that way.
—What if he has second thoughts?
By the time of Daisy’s funeral, the Kid was as ready as he was ever going to be.
Maggfrid was inconsolably distraught. Apparently he’d taken a liking to Daisy; the funeral was too much for him. Liv sat with him in his room and made soothing noises while he sobbed. She brought down the Child’s History from her office and read him stories of battles, which sometimes cheered him up—not now. Eventually she drew water from the sink at the end of the corridor and measured out five drops of nerve tonic into the glass; that was enough to put Maggfrid swiftly and surely to sleep.
She consulted her ugly noisy golden pocket watch: the Director would be talking for a while yet. She had time to check on her patients. She had time to check on her experiments.
With the help of Renato, who was strong and handy with a saw, and could be trusted not to be squeamish, she had removed Daisy’s brain the night before the burial. What was being buried was an empty husk; everything that mattered of Daisy was pickling downstairs in a jar in Liv’s office. She was eager to study it further. She had already identified some unusual bruising in the thing’s folds. Poor Daisy—something might still be salvaged from her tragedy.
Liv left Maggfrid snoring and slumped mountainously on his narrow bed, and walked out into the silent corridors. She slipped the Child’s History into a pocket of the black jacket she’d borrowed for the funeral.
Unusually silent. At first she put it down to the funereal mood of the day, but as she walked through the corridors and down the stairs—Maggfrid’s room was on the fourth floor—she began to feel uneasy. So many empty rooms. Where was everybody? They could not be walking in the gardens; perhaps they were all in one of the common rooms, but then would it be so quiet?
The legless blond boy in room 320—rolling his chair indecisively back and forth between window and door of his cell—shook his head and told her he didn’t know where anyone was. She left him be.
His neighbor was more forthcoming. “Downstairs, ma’am. Try downstairs.” He refused to say more—but that already was as much conversation as the man was capable of on any typical day, so she left him be.
