“I saw it. It was with your note.”
“It’s a strange disease. Nothing as cliché as cancer or a rampant fungal infection. My doctor did a lot of tests, which I gather I failed. Which is annoying; I have always been good at tests. I can expect a gradual decline in physical and neurological function, he said. Symptoms include tiredness and non-specific pain. Yes, my doctor diagnosed me with modern living.”
“What are your treatment options?”
“Nothing that will cure it. Just palliative care.”
“Which is why you went to GEC and did the deal to have your double-e flux extracted in one mass?”
“They were going to put me in the Python Building, to replace my grandfather in the failing engine.”
“You would have been miserable there,” Drakeforth said.
“I’m not sure I would have been anything. I mean, my consciousness would have gone but I would have been useful, you know?”
“If I knew this was going to be a pity-party, I would have brought cake and balloons,” Drakeforth replied.
I managed a smile, “Sure. A sendoff like that would have been worth staying alive for.”
“I’ll check Withitt’s desk.” Drakeforth slipped from light to dark and filled a silhouette behind the desk.
Drawers rattled and opened. Goat was running his fingertips along the canvas sheets of the tent and seemed to approve of the cloth. “We’re going to need more goats,” he muttered to himself.
“This looks promising,” Drakeforth announced. He tapped a desk lamp and the tent filled with the light of the sun on a heavily overcast day. Drakeforth laid a mobile tablet on the desk and regarded it with the disdain normally reserved for well-hung roadkill.
“Let’s have a look.” I took the tablet and frowned at the requirement for a password, or a retina scan or a recorded fingerprint.
“Shame Withitt isn’t still here,” I said.
“You think she would be more cooperative this time around?” Drakeforth asked.
“No, but we could use her finger to unlock this device.”
“If it has an empathic battery, could you maybe talk nicely to it?”
I snorted and was going to say something sarcastic, when it occurred to me that he might be right. With one hand on the screen, I closed my eyes and thought gentle, warm thoughts at the device under my touch.
The tablet whispered and warmed, I felt the swirl of empathic energy tingling my skin until it left a message at the beep.
It was there: the encrypted file in the sent folder of his mail app. “Hello, Professor Bombilate,” I murmured.
“The doctor is in?” Drakeforth asked.
“Professor, the professor is in,” I corrected. “Now, we have to find the rest of the information. It will be enough to shake things up and if we can work out the key to decrypt the files, we can really shake things up.”
“We need to do more than shake things up, we need to break things down.”
“Revealing the truth about the Godden Energy Corporation didn’t change anything,” I reminded him.
“These are different people, they have a long history of upheaval and change. Conflict and revolution has been a national sport in Pathia for centuries. These people love nothing more than starting a fight over a new idea.”
“If we give them enough information, they can do what they want with it. If that means societal change, then great. If it means everyone just shrugs and goes on with their lives, then not so great, but okay.”
“Life would be so much simpler without people,” Drakeforth replied.
“Let’s get out of here before someone comes and asks stupid questions.” I tucked the tablet into my coat and pulled my hat down over my eyes.
Goat gave the canvas wall one final caress and followed us out of the tent.
Our litter bearers reclined in the shade of their carriers as we casually strolled through the dig site towards them.
“Don’t look to your right,” Drakeforth warned.
Of course I glanced in that direction immediately. Nothing out of the ordinary, so I looked the other way and saw Eade in fervent conversation with the clipboard carrier.
“Sheep!” I muttered. “Do you think she saw us?”
“It’s not her I’m worried about, so much as them,” Drakeforth replied.
“Who are they?” I squinted in the glare and tried to make out the details of the figures shimmering in the heat haze.
“Knotstick Order,” Drakeforth replied. “Here to keep everything under the control of the grand Sybil.”
“Those sibilus things are whistles for murrai. If we get one of those whistles, we might be able to create a distraction.”
“Shame they don’t sell them in the gift shop,” Drakeforth said.
“There’s no gift shop here, but…”
“You think you can teach an old stone new tricks?” Drakeforth asked. I turned on my heel and marched back into the dusty maelstrom.
Finding an abandoned clipboard was easy. I held it like a shield against questions, and moved along the tables of artefacts waiting to be sorted and categorised. Shards of pottery, dirt-encrusted coins, and the occasional stone tablet were on display. I stopped at a box of possible candidates. A young man with his hair tied back was carefully brushing caked sand off some kind of stone whisk.
I rummaged through the box and found a dark stone whistle, like the one Nonce wore around his neck. I glanced up and the whisk brusher was watching me. “What is this doing in here?” I snapped.
“Its uh—”
“It’s clearly Copra Dynasty, and the rest of these items are Cobra Dynasty. Mixing them up could get you fired.”
“I didn’t—”
“Oh, forget it. I’ll take care of it. Just don’t mention your incompetence to anyone else.”
“Uhh, thank you,” he managed.
I walked off, quietly pleased that I had gotten away with it.
“Hey!” someone shouted. I kept walking. “You! In the hat!” I walked faster; there were a lot of people in hats. It was the desert; not wearing something on your head was a good way to get your brain steamed.
The slap of running feet on sand came closer. I ducked under a rope and tried to ignore the subtle, panicked gestures Drakeforth was making at me.
Goat sprang forward, twisted past me with the grace and agility of someone who’d spent a lot of time balancing on ropes, and spread his arms.
“Goose! Goose!” he yelled, and ran flapping at the knot of workers who were in pursuit.
I looked back. The workers were stumbling to a halt and clustering together as Goat descended on them. While I had never herded anything myself, the principle seemed straightforward, and Goat had an apparent knack for it.
Drakeforth was watching the proceedings with his usual razor-focused contempt.
“I got it,” I whispered.
“Great, now play a tune or whatever it does and see what happens.”
I put the sibilus to my lips and blew in it. A puff of dust shot out of a hole in the end. I blew it again. No sound, but I felt the blast ripple out and echo off the stonework.
Four murrai jerked up from their labours and turned to face me across the dig site. The people around them backed away as the stone men began to march. The volume of shouts rose as they stepped over and around the work underway in their shadows.
Eade looked around and saw us. Drakeforth waved. She waved back with one finger. I blew on the silent whistle and the murrai picked up their pace. Falling into line, the four of them came straight towards us.
Goat continued running around the workers he had corralled, and then veered off to chase the murrai.
Blowing the whistle was like yelling for attention, it seemed. The detailed instructions were transmitted in the intent. Like when I was driving
the murrai across the desert. I waved at them and indicated where they should stop.
“Climb up,” I said, and we scrambled onto the shoulders of giants.
Chapter 43
Riding a murrai might be like riding a bike, but at least it wasn’t something I was going to forget in a hurry.
With legs locked around the statue’s shoulders, I tried to move with its rocking gait. Goat was showing off by standing on his, one foot on its flat-top head, the other on the shoulder as casually as he might stand on the deck of his ship.
Drakeforth could have been riding in a litter for all the attention he gave. He stared back at the vanishing dig site. I hoped Eade was having trouble getting to her transport and following us.
I made semaphore hand signals, directing traffic and feeling relieved that the murrai were still accepting my advice on navigation.
As captains of our two-legged ships, we crested dunes until the regular motion started making me feel sick. I watched the horizon and thought about the various types of ice-cold tea I was going to devote my life to sampling once we returned to the world.
The long sunset turned the shadows to fire and smoke. The sand reflected a thousand colours, and shards of light danced in every grain. At this time of day, the desert could be a landscape of double-e flux, the sparks of life scattered by the seven winds. Each tiny part ground down from the rock of a person, an existence that was as complete and inviolate as a mountain.
Semita’s lights brought us into land like the runway of a zippelin port. Our mounts strode from sand to smooth rock and on to the pyramid paving of the city streets. The people we passed barely glanced at the murrai, until they saw us on their shoulders. Then they stared and nudged their companions to look and see.
Our small parade marched on until we paused so I could ask directions. Following the advice given, we walked up a street lined with cars and carefully-tended dead trees. Professor Bombilate lived in a yellowstone townhouse with steps leading up to a stone door painted in a pale blue that matched the window trims.
We parked and climbed down. “Uhm…stay,” I ordered the murrai. They didn’t move when we climbed the steps and I hoped they would be there when we came out.
“Should we knock?” I asked. Drakeforth raised a hand and then dropped it again. The door opened and I opened my mouth to explain why we were on their doorstep.
The pale woman leaned back against the wall, merging with the darkness so only the whites of her eyes and the pale milk of her skin stood out.
“The door seems to be already open,” Drakeforth said, and stepped inside.
At university, I never went into a professor’s apartment, townhouse or bathroom. I saw plenty of their offices, always stacked high with books and papers. The impression was always that they were just ahead of us on the learning curve and were desperate to keep ahead by cramming as much knowledge as possible into their own heads before giving us stuff we could have worked out for ourselves with a few pointers and a library card.
By contrast, Professor Bombilate’s house was empty of everything but furniture. It could have been a show-home for a real estate developer, except for the dishes in the drying rack and the pile of single socks on the kitchen table.
“Split up, search the place, meet at the socks in ten minutes,” Drakeforth said.
We went in different directions, leaving Goat turning in circles in the living room. I headed upstairs. Bathroom, bedrooms…one appeared to be used regularly, the other a pristine guest room.
I went back out into the hallway, noted the bathroom, bedrooms, and went around them again. I stepped into the bathroom, back into the hall, counting my steps as I went into the guest room. There was a sense of façade about the place. I tapped a wall. It sounded solid enough. I tapped other walls in other rooms, each sounding as sound as you would expect.
Inside the closet of the main bedroom were identical suits, freshly dry, dusted and pressed. I slid the clothes along the rail and pressed the panels on the back wall. Something clicked and a section popped out. I pulled the small door open and went to find Drakeforth.
“Guys, there’s a secret panel in the—” I went silent as I noticed the extra people standing in the living room. Drakeforth was on the sofa, while Goat lay stretched out on the floor with two men holding him down.
“Miss Pudding,” Nonce said, appearing from the kitchen. “So nice to meet you again.”
“I’d rather see my dentist,” I replied. “What are you doing here, Mister Nonsense?”
“Grand Linteum Nonce,” he corrected. “I am the current head of the Knotstick Order.”
“I’m a lifetime member of the Cragmark fan club,” I replied.
“Miss Pudding, we both know why we are here. May I suggest you hand over anything you have regarding the late Professor Bombilate and we will be on our way.”
“I told you, we don’t have anything,” Drakeforth said from the couch. One of Nonce’s priests flexed his knuckles behind Drakeforth’s head.
“I have faith in you,” Nonce said. “We know you were at the dig site at Errm. You left rather quickly, and, might I add, in an unusual manner.”
“Doesn’t everyone travel by murrai?” I asked with wide-eyed innocence.
“There aren’t many of the machines left. It’s not common to see someone control them as adeptly as you clearly do.”
“It’s simply a case of purse your lips and blow,” I replied.
“I have no time for word games,” Nonce said, his smile frosting over.
“Who’s playing?” I replied, my eyes locked on his.
“I’m keeping score, if that helps,” Drakeforth said from the sidelines.
A priest with banana-sized fingers that were in perfect proportion to the rest of him, stepped forward. “We will take what you have,” he growled.
“Fine.” I slipped a hand into my pocket and blew the murrai whistle before they could grab me. The front door exploded inwards, most of the hallway and tasteful furniture flew into the kitchen. The men of the Knotstick Order ducked for cover as the murrai walked through into the living room as if the walls were paper.
“I hope you found what we needed,” Drakeforth shouted over the noise of the house demolition.
“Not quite. Upstairs, quick!” We ducked under a swinging murrai fist and Goat crawled under the rug and wore it like a shell as he scuttled after us.
Grand Linteum Nonce was blowing his murrai whistle until his cheeks bulged. The murrai ignored his commands and I could feel them drawing on my own panicked energy. We ran up the stairs and into Bombilate’s bedroom. I threw the closet door open and indicated the open panel. Drakeforth reached in and grabbed the carefully wrapped box hidden in the secret alcove.
He handed it to me and then checked to see if we had missed anything. “That’s everything, unless you want to try a suit?” Drakeforth asked.
“I’m good.”
The stairs collapsed as two Knotstick priests tried to hold back a murrain, and the stone man did a stumbling pirouette. Goat knotted the end of the rug around his neck and wore it like a cloak.
Drakeforth threw the curtains open and slid the window along its track. “Pudding, do you think you could bring our ride around the back?”
“I miss that car,” I replied. With a shift in focus, a murrai went through the kitchen wall under our feet and emerged in the back rock garden.
“Now we jump?” Drakeforth asked.
“Genome!” Goat yelled, and took a running jump through the open window. The murrai caught him and set him down on the warm sand.
I climbed out and jumped, remembering to breathe only when I was placed next to Goat. Drakeforth stepped out as casually as a man leaving a house the usual way. He set foot on the murrai’s sandstone palm and stepped down.
“Send the murrai somewhere, we will go the othe
r way,” Drakeforth ordered. I nodded; it made sense. Even though the idea of three rock star bodyguards was very enticing.
The murrai gatecrashed on the way out, much the way they came in. We scrambled over the back wall and across the neighbour’s yard as Professor Bombilate’s house collapsed behind us.
“Well, that’s one way to cover our tracks,” I said.
We flagged down a litter and the three of us crammed inside while the carriers bent their knees and lifted us to their shoulders.
“Are you going to open it?” Drakeforth asked.
“Sure, I guess. Okay.” The box was tied shut with twine, and I frowned at the knots but Goat took the package from me and gnawed on the string until it snapped.
“Thanks.” I took the box back and opened it. Inside was a Celerytron notebook and a carefully wrapped soft package that I hoped would be the missing shroud.
Chapter 44
The Hotel Dust had a comforting familiarity, and the woman (I stared at her until I was certain) behind the reception desk barely glanced in our direction as we crossed the lobby.
Drakeforth opened the door to our room and we set the box down on the bed.
“Goat, you should take a shower.” I pointed towards the bathroom door.
Goat indicated the door and raised an eyebrow. I nodded and waved him in that direction. He opened the door, peered inside, and looked back at me with a question writ large on his face.
“Yes, shower. Come back when you and your…clothes are clean.”
When he had gone, Drakeforth handed me the computer out of the box. “This is for you. I’ll have a look at the sheet.”
Celerytron computers use empathically empowered technology. That meant the new desktop PCs at the museum, and this notebook, were recently imported.
I stared at the screen as the machine booted up. The familiar GEC heart and lightning bolt logo glowing in high-definition.
“Godden Energy Corporation provided the technology to the Knotstick Order. New computers and a whole lot of information in return for the steady supply of double-e flux.”
Time of Breath Page 18
