by Jo Zebedee
Bored, bored, bored. Ormuz crossed to his bunk and fell bonelessly onto it. The Imperial Navy Fighting Instructions had beaten him. He’d never read anything so boring. Or so stupid. It amazed him the Imperial Navy had won any battles while following the Fighting Instructions. Although no naval tactician, Ormuz could not understand how any warship could defeat an opponent unless it too followed the Instructions. And what captain worthy of the rank would do so?
He glanced at the clock on the bulkhead above the desk. Night watch had begun fifteen minutes earlier. He could think of no reason to stay up. He’d looked up regulation swords before returning to his studying, but it had proven no substitute for holding the weapon in his hands. He’d also run a search on “Regimental Rolls”, which was apparently a detailed listing of all serving officers, non-commissioned officers, enlisted men and conscripts in the Imperial Regiments. There was, as Lotsman had said, no copy aboard.
Bed-time. Ormuz kicked off his boots and stripped off his ship-coveralls. He slid beneath the blanket on his bunk, reached up and flicked the switch above his head. Darkness fell. A faintly luminous glow shone from the uncovered scuttle but Ormuz ignored it. He rolled onto his side, and his thoughts tumbled and blundered through imagined pages of the Regimental Rolls…
Regimental-Lieutenant Kyrel demar Merenilo…
The OPI inspector had told him that much, but surely there was more to the man… He yawned…
The diffuse light filling the cabin seemed to expand, wiping away detail from surfaces. Ormuz’s desk was slowly absorbed by the illumination, blurring into formlessness. The dial of the clock floated away. The wooden decking paled, turned invisible. Ormuz, half-asleep, was not at all alarmed. As his universe dissolved about him, he smiled dreamily.
Now he hung suspended in a cosmos of no form and no colour. He became aware of star-like objects. They burned with a black flame. Some burnt more darkly than others. Was this, he wondered, how the toposphere truly appeared?
But if it was that place, no other starships were using it to travel between worlds. He could not even sense Divine Providence.
Where was he?
He bent his attention to a nearby black star, felt it reach out and envelope him. Knowledge. He was immersed in data. He knew things, things he had not known before. Vaguely, he remembered having been to this place before and he remembered having forgotten.
Information bombarded him: numbers— No, financial data. A balance sheet for a company called… Negosyo. He could not fathom their business from the accounting information washing over and through him.
A human form caught his eye and he turned his focus upon it. A skilfully sketched headshot of a woman with black hair. He did not recognise her… An escutcheon depicting a red fish… Now the inspector from Darrus in her black uniform… Her image prompted a thought, and data paraded past:
Divine Providence, Barko Type-S data-freighter—
No, he knew all that. It was no help. He concentrated. Ah:
Sir Kyrel demar Merenilo: regimental-lieutenant, Imperial Regiment of Housecarls—
He drank in the details of Merenilo’s life. World and date of birth, relatives and relations, his military record. According to the commentary added by assorted superior officers, Merenilo was a solid dependable officer, short on imagination and not given to questioning orders, or indeed using his initiative overmuch. He was, Ormuz understood, unlikely to have ever made higher rank—he did not have the money to buy a captaincy—unless a patron purchased it for him for “services rendered”.
Ormuz followed a link and learnt of Regimental-Captain Advezer, currently under investigation by the Office of the Procurator Imperial. There was a fat man: a baron and senior officer in the OPI. And from him to… Inspector Sliva demar Finesz. Who in turn led to the crew of Divine Providence, whom she had interviewed regarding Merenilo’s murder.
“The Word was born in the smallest spaces of Creation,” as it said in the Book of the Sun, “where no Man can see but where, one Word upon the other chained as the beasts ploughing the field, they make their Laws manifest…”
It seemed it was true.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Filling the circular glass of the console on Finesz’s burnished wood desk: a photograph of a dark-haired man, an artist’s impression of a dark-haired woman, and an enlarged reproduction of an escutcheon.
All were related in some fashion but Finesz could not see how. A search of every data-pool the Darrusï OPI could access had not identified the man, Finesz’s shadow of the day before. He had slipped away after three hours, somehow in the process losing the tail Finesz had put on him. The artist’s impression was drawn from Finesz’s memory of the woman on the train from Minadar. The escutcheon—a scarlet fish in mid-leap—was taken from the photograph of the man. Unsurprisingly, it had been the easiest to trace. It was the coat of arms of Sir Aron demar Igaju, a yeoman of Ukritie, a world in Oblast Province. Why a prole wearing his escutcheon was on Darrus, clear across the Empire, was a puzzle. The OPI could ask, but it would take years for the question to reach the yeoman and for the answer to return.
Finesz looked up at Assaun, who stood waiting patiently before her desk. “You have good news?”
“Ma’am.”
“Well?”
Assaun reached across the desk and flicked several switches on Finesz’s console. “This look familiar?”
Finesz frowned. The glass showed a woman, carefully posed against a blank wall. She was brightly-lit, but the area surrounding her was in darkness. She wore a short, loose dress in metallic green, a matching knee-length coat, pale green hose, and high-heeled boots. She was very beautiful. As Finesz watched, the woman opened her coat, putting her hands on her hips, throwing her head back. “What is this?” Finesz demanded. The woman bore no resemblance to the one who had followed Finesz on the train. “Who is she?”
“Model. Local prole fashion channel,” Assaun said.
Finesz stared at the trooper.
Assaun explained: “No way of canvassing Dardina for the woman. Or, if she’s staying with the man, in Amwadina. Never find them. Too big. Had to be cunning. You noted the colour of the woman’s coat—”
Finesz laughed. “I thought you had me go through those colour swatches so you could build a simulation of her for identification purposes.”
“We did. Struck me the colour was distinctive. Set a search on the entertainments channels, looking for something similar.” He paused. “This the coat?”
Finesz peered at the display. The sequence was plainly designed to advertise the clothing, but the woman’s beauty was being used as a selling-point. “It looks like it,” Finesz admitted. “Similar cut, and the colour is almost exactly the same.”
She looked up. “But a prole channel?”
Assaun nodded. “Outfit was manufactured by Tazaya Fashions. Went on sale twelve weeks ago. Aimed at prole women.”
“You’ve tracked all the ones that were sold?”
“Went round with the artist’s impression of the woman. Got a hit.”
“How does that help?”
Assaun reached across her desk once more and called up a map of Amwadina on her console. “Narrowed the search area down. Clothes shop is here.” He put a finger on the display to show its location.
Finesz rose and flicked a switch to return her glass to its original images. The photograph of her shadow, the prole who, she was convinced, had been in the military, captured her attention. She gazed at the face. It was a handsome one. In other circumstances, perhaps, she would have found him attractive. There was something… assured about his features. A beguiling confidence in the set of the square jaw, the lowered brows, the tight line of the mouth. “Who is he?” she muttered.
She looked up. “You’ve canvassed the area near the shop?” she asked Assaun.
“Doing it, ma’am. Might take a while.”
“Yes, I know we’re short-handed,” she said. She winced at her cal
lous reference to the deaths of Rafeer and Lihik. She looked at the glass once again. A prole with a military background. And the woman: a yeoman in a coat manufactured for the prole market. If she was indeed a yeoman, why wear prole clothing? If she was a prole, then she was guilty of arrogation.
“I need to find them, Assaun,” Finesz said. “I have no idea what I’m dealing with here.” She closed her eyes and drew in a long, shuddering breath. It did not help. “This isn’t a criminal investigation any more… and I’m damned if I can see what it has turned into.” She opened her eyes and gazed at her trooper. “I need answers.”
“Ma’am.”
“Find them, Assaun. Search every hostel, every doss-house, every nook and cranny on the street. Find them. I have a feeling the woman’s identity will elude us as much as his—” She tapped the glass with a finger— “has done.”
Twenty-four hours later, Finesz had a score of men combing every hostel, shop, bar and eatery in the area surrounding the shop in Amwadina. The superintendent of troops had balked at her request for more men, but she had influence enough—even here on Darrus—to get what she wanted. It made her an enemy but she could not care.
Armed with the photograph of her shadow and the artist’s impression of the woman, pairs of OPI troopers showed the two pictures throughout the search area. The county constabulary complained bitterly of OPI heavy-handedness, which in turn generated yet more criticism by the superintendent of troops. If Finesz’s men failed to find their targets, she was going to look very foolish.
She didn’t care. This was important. Finesz had exceeded Norioko’s instructions days before and she was in too deep now to pull out. Not that she had any desire to drop the investigation. All she could say with any certainty was that a regimental-lieutenant linked to a conspiracy on Shuto had made a bid to assassinate a proletarian crew-member of a data-freighter. It had led to the officer’s death. Finesz wanted to know why.
Norioko’s reference to the Grey Princes abruptly came to mind. Finesz no longer felt like scoffing. Whatever the baron knew, she wanted to know it. The two proles being hunted were, she felt, part of the answer. She could smell as much herself.
On the fourth day of the man-hunt, she received a message from Assaun. She was at the viscount’s court, engaged in a damage-limitation exercise. Looking a fool, she could live with—she had no plans to return to Darrus once her work was completed. But she had no desire to see her career destroyed. A few choice words—cryptic hints and clues—in various ears, and her investigation gained an importance out of all proportion to its appearance. Finesz could play politics. She had spent four years at Imperial Court, mistress to one high-ranking noble after another, until being recruited for the Office of the Procurator Imperial by Gyome mar Norioko, Baron Kaban.
“I’ll be with him shortly,” Finesz told the footman, folding up the message from her trooper and tucking it into the bustier of her court dress.
She made her apologies, handed her untouched glass of wine to a passing servant, and swept regally from the court. She strode quickly, the hem of her dress lifted above her ankles, entered the vestibule and spotted Assaun hiding in the shadow of a pillar.
“You’ve found them?” she demanded as soon as she stood before him. Dropping the skirt of her dress, she smoothed out the fabric absently. She peered intently at the trooper. “Well?”
“Not been easy.”
“I didn’t ask if it had been easy. I asked if you’d found them. Don’t come to me with complaints, Assaun. I won’t have them.”
“Had no luck asking about. Had to think around it.”
“Yes. Yes.” Finesz willed the trooper to get the information out. “Go on.”
“Was an incident about ten days ago. Two constables got beaten up. Tall woman in a cloak.”
“That was her?”
Assaun nodded. “Tracked it back. Got a few more hits with that green coat.”
Finesz felt almost light-headed. “You know who they are.”
With each passing day, she had believed she would never find the two proletarians. Lost in this conspiracy, she had felt nothing could ever make sense of it. Piecemeal clues, snippets of information here and there: that was all she had thought would ever come her way. It had seemed entirely fitting—no, expected—that the mysterious pair would vanish from Darrus as enigmatically as they had arrived. Indeed, as if they had never arrived.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
“Staying with a research assistant called Gallam from the University. Using the names Garfi Niwashi and Riz Gotovach.”
“You’ve found them.” Feeling a happiness she had not felt for many years, Finesz turned about and stared at the entrance to the court. A pair of liveried footmen stood to either side of the double doors, gazes firmly fixed forwards. They could have been statues. Finesz turned back to Assaun. She felt an urge to kiss him. He had found them.
Dear Lords, she thought, surprised at her own response to the news. Did I need to find them that much?
Unexpectedly, her mind was a blank. Whatever her intentions had been on finding this Gotovach and Niwashi, she had no idea what to do next. Assaun’s success had driven it from her thoughts.
“I—” She grimaced. She dropped her chin and gazed down at her bust, thought: have I put on weight? Dear Lords, too much partying and not enough exercise. That needs to be remedied—
Another grimace.
“Ma’am?”
She looked up, was all business. “Stay away from them, Assaun. I mean that. I want the most… discreet surveillance you can manage.”
“Ma’am.”
“I want to know what they’re doing here. And when I’m ready, we’ll pull them in.”
“Ma’am.”
An overgrown cemetery occupied the plot of land opposite Gallam’s apartment-building. It backed onto a crumbling stretch of city wall some twenty feet high. On the other side of this, Assaun set up a field-post in the abandoned garden of a crumbling mansion which was no longer occupied. OPI technicians drilled through the wall’s rotting stone and pushed spy-microphones and needle-cameras through the holes. Finesz frowned at the mansion—surely proles had never lived so well, even in the distant past?—as she strode, greatcoat flapping, towards the tented field-post. Hands on hips, she grinned at the glasses arranged about the tent’s interior and felt all was good with the world. The needle-cameras were powerful enough to provide a high-quality picture of Gallam’s living-room window. The research assistant normally left the panes opaqued, so the cameras used other wavelengths. The false-colour images appeared odd but the three protagonists were clearly identifiable. And every word they spoke was reproduced cleanly by the speakers attached to the spy-microphones. Niwashi and Gotovach were talking now. Gallam had gone to work.
A woman’s voice, cultured, commanding: “—ful will be back in orbit today.”
“Gotovach,” identified Assaun.
“She’s no prole,” remarked Finesz.
“Speaks like one,” Assaun said.
Finesz realised he was right. Gotovach’s language was proletarian, but her tone conveyed authority and assurance. Another puzzle.
A man’s voice: “I can’t deny I’ll be bloody glad to leave here.”
“Niwashi,” said Assaun.
“Yes,” came Gotovach’s voice. “I feel the same. It’ll be good to be back aboard.”
“You’ll have me feeling maudlin.”
Light female laughter, followed by a moment of silence.
“We should start to make a move,” said Niwashi.
“You’ve left the sovereigns for Suha?”
A female-shaped figure of red, orange and yellow appeared on one of the glasses. She crossed the living-room and halted by the door.
“What’s that blue thing she’s carrying?” asked Finesz.
“Bag,” said Assaun.
Niwashi joined Gotovach by the door. He too carried a bag.
Fi
nesz jerked in surprise. “They’re leaving. Quick! Get the teams in position.”
Assaun bent and whispered into a caster on the desk beside the glasses.
“I’m almost ashamed to admit it,” came Gotovach’s voice. “But I enjoyed our stay here.”
Niwashi did not reply.
They left the apartment. Minutes later, they appeared on the glass depicting the view from a needle-camera focused on the building’s entrance. Gotovach was wearing her metallic green coat. It swung open as she stepped out into the street, revealing the jade all-in-one top and shorts, pale green tights and green boots she wore beneath it. Niwashi was dressed in varying shades of blue: boots, trousers, shirt and jacket. They made, thought Finesz, a colourful couple.
Finesz left the field-post and crossed the garden to an unmarked van floating on the street before the mansion. Sayara stood beside the vehicle, and opened the passenger’s door at Finesz’s approach.
“Be prepared to move as soon as we know where we’re going,” Finesz instructed.
Sayara bobbed her head in acknowledgement.
For ten minutes, the two of them waited patiently. Finesz, not normally at a loss for words, could think of nothing to say. After four years at Imperial court, she had developed phatic conversation to a fine art, but now she felt speech without meaning, without import, would spoil the moment. The end was near. They would follow Niwashi and Gotovach to Minadar and discover to which world they booked passage. And when she had learnt that, she would arrest them.
The caster on the van’s dashboard crackled into life. Assaun’s voice said, “Bought tickets on the train out to Mazra—”
“Where?” demanded Finesz. “Not Minadar?”
“Mazra. Small farming community about thirty miles from Amwadina.”
“What in heavens could they want there?”
Wisely, Assaun chose not to answer.
