“Yes, The Captain. On his yacht Neptune, we cruised to Bermuda, Montserrat, Aruba, Barbados, inter alia.”
“Pretty, were they?”
Now The Captain was wheedling, sneering, eyes bright with satisfaction at having found a sore of nostalgia to jab away at.
Pezzini fell into solemnness.
“Very beautiful, The Captain. However, the scale of dereliction was worse than Old London. Once, the beaches swarmed with the Fatted Masses, the crowds were like drifts of pepper. Nowadays, those beaches are empty.”
“What a vast improvement! Vive the Glorious Resolution!”
Pezzini was silent. Like a well-behaved servant, he offered nothing unless asked.
“You have quite remarkable skin, so smooth, almost the colour of my chair,” The Captain said. “Nice eunuch hide, I must say. If you don’t provide value, we can certainly find other uses for you.”
The Captain and his ultramarine troopers shared what Lawrence thought was a deeply sinister cackling. These people were bloody crooks for certain. The Captain’s hand dipped into the drawer and once again picked out a metal tag. “Value Zeta728.”
“Value Zeta728, The Captain,” Pezzini said.
“Kneel down, value,” Under-sergeant Brummie ordered. Pezzini did so. Lawrence watched the eyes glaze black with rage at the squeeze of the pliers. The big spay uttered not a sound.
“Take him away please, Under-sergeant Brummie. Dormitory 31.”
“Yes, The Captain.”
Now The Captain had Lawrence’s personnel file on his desk. It was recognisable by the many scars it had incurred during a decade of accumulating the paperwork of a career. Lawrence spotted the application form he had filled out a decade ago as a teenager in the immense headquarters of General Wardian glory trust inside the Central Enclave of Old Greater London. Christ, with what insouciance in the face of his whole adult life had he scribbled into the boxes of that form.
“Lawrence Morton Aldingford. Your father is a prominent judge.”
“That is true, The Captain.”
“What does he do?”
“When I last paid any attention, The Captain, he worked in the Land Court of Westminster. He ruled over squabbles between sovereign lands concerning water rights or air rights or ten yards of frontier or whatever pettifogging dross people who own the world bicker about.”
“So how did his son end up in the Night and Fog?”
Lawrence had no idea how to answer such a question. The Captain continued, apparently having asked rhetorically.
“You were a cost-centre lieutenant of General Wardian glory trust. I see you enlisted as probationary basic and worked your way up through the ranks. I would have expected one from your élite background to have commissioned as an officer having taken a degree at Oxford or Cambridge. What was the problem? Too dim perhaps? Hmm?”
The Captain pulled a tight, cold smirk.
“I had no interest in university, The Captain,” Lawrence said. He kept his cool, understanding the game now. This ‘captain’ was simply a jerk, king in his little kingdom, whatever it was, sneering here and jeering there before tagging his catch like cattle.
“I keep reading ‘highly intelligent’, ‘retentive mind’, ‘natural leader’. In your early years you served in high-risk units preventing fenland bandits. Is that where you got the scar?”
Lawrence had a scar on the right side of his jaw, where a bandit had caught him with a dagger of broken glass. The wound was closed by a sergeant, who had apparently learned his art stitching ox hide.
“Yes, The Captain.”
“You then took officer training, where you passed the Securitician A with high distinction and… eventually got posted to a flotilla based at Oban in Scotland. You become a barge commander. Finally, you had a shore posting as customer liaison coordinator. That’s a bullshitter’s job, hardly for a man of action.”
The Captain looked up at Lawrence more sharply.
“So how did you end up here?”
“I don’t know where I am, The Captain.”
“You know where you came from—so you must appreciate this is not an improvement.”
The other ultramarines chuckled at that.
Lawrence was still confounded over how to react. This detailed grilling hinted at an almost personal interest by this ‘captain’, yet for certain, Lawrence had never met the man. The Captain was not an individual one would ever forget.
“I submitted a complaint against a corrupt senior officer,” Lawrence said. “Soon after that, I was arrested and charged with being the kingpin of some ridiculous scheme to steal elephant hides, ivory and so forth from one of Krossington’s private gardens. The court martial sentenced me to eight years’ Night and Fog, without possibility of re-employment in any glory trust. I spent three months at Chatham Camp beating gravel roads and now I’m here.”
“Are your family racists?”
Lawrence hesitated, again caught off-guard by the question.
“You do appear to be the outcome of selective breeding. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so white. Have you any moles on your body?”
“You’re quite white yourself, The Captain.”
The most ghastly silence expanded to an excruciating tension. Master-Sergeant Ratty blinked with shock. His hand drifted to his cracker. Yet The Captain just relaxed back in his throne-chair.
“What puzzles me is how one with your abilities and breeding got himself framed up by a clique of provincial scoundrels. Daddy could have saved you, surely?”
It was bound to be recorded in the file that Lawrence had listed no next of kin nor ever sent a letter to his family in the ten years of his employment. His family would have no idea he was in the Night and Fog. Perhaps that was why he had ended up here, whatever here was.
“Tell me about this last account you served on, The Mull and Movern Estate.”
“What particular aspect, The Captain?”
“What land does it contain?”
Lawrence knew the question must not be as pointless as it seemed. He proceeded warily, sticking to facts.
“The Mull and Morvern Estate is the Krossingtons’ great northern colony. They own the entire island of Mull, the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, a slab of land around Oban and a private garden called Loch Sunart nature reserve. His Decency the Sovereign Tom Krossingtion pulls the fortune of Cyrus out of it: fresh water, fish, cattle and sheep, hides, dressed stones, mountains of timber… General Wardian is franchised to keep it safe from calamitous irruptions and infestations of surplus flow.”
“Were you a dedicated glory officer?”
“I certainly was, when I had the chance to be.”
“Tell me about your duties as a barge commander.”
Lawrence baulked, instantly on the alert. Now he understood where The Captain was driving and why.
“We prevented threats from the sea, The Captain.”
“What threats? Pirates?”
“Surplus flow, The Captain.”
“So far north?”
“It was very rare. We were a precaution, no more.”
“You are a liar. The surplus flows north in large quantities. It must be prevented. Tell me the truth—what happened when you found a raft crammed with surplus, out at sea and far from prying eyes?”
Lawrence set his lips tight shut. They could do what the hell they liked, he was not answering that question. One never spoke to outsiders about matters like that, not under any circumstances.
“I know what a brass-muncher is,” The Captain said. “Four machine guns in a powered turret. Designed for the old wars of the Public Era to destroy armoured fighters half a mile away. Fired into hapless flesh at point blank range… You spent three years blasting surplus flow? You must enjoy that kind of thing.”
The Captain had to have been a glory officer once—and not just an average time-server but a top killer. He simply could not have known such details otherwise.
“The deaths are legitimate. The Captain,” Lawrence said. “The Safety Theory of History states that hierarchy is sustained through violence—the testing of safety features. It is a principle as old as society. Consider the Public Era—millions killed on the roads testing safety features, boundless slaughter when nation states tested their safety features. Think of their nuclear weapons.”
“There is really a comparison?”
Incarceration in the Night and Fog had not altered Lawrence’s principles of life.
“I have nothing to be ashamed of, The Captain. Everything I did had the full support of the senior cadre. All land oozes surplus flow, just as skin oozes sweat. The blunt reality is that humanity over-fucks, so there is surplus. Most of it flows north, the whole world knows north means empty—and empty it shall remain. The surplus flow is an instinctive migration, no different from the birds, I did not create the situation and I can’t change the way the world is.”
“And what would your grand family think if they knew? Or your girlfriend? Shall I write to her?”
The Captain laughed at the shock on Lawrence’s face. The worst dread in his life had been that Sarah-Kelly would become curious about his work on the patrol barge. Fortunately, she had never enquired with any determination. Apart from senior officers, whose support was axiomatic, no one outside of the barge crews really knew what went on.
“I think not, The Captain.”
“I also think not. Now answer the question you keep evading: how did you end up here? Submitting a complaint against a superior officer might get you a reprimand, but I cannot see how you—a dedicated officer—ended up in the Night and Fog, still less in my Value System. Please explain this to me.”
“It’s very simple, The Captain. The top officers and merchants of Oban ran a cosy little racket. When I lifted the stone, they hung it on me to save their own stinking hides.”
The Captain stared at Lawrence, keenly, looking deeper, his smile tight and cold, mulling over some private insight.
“You are a rare find. Not often can I acquire one with such a robust ideology. I have no doubt that in time you will become a superior and enduring asset. However, I must give you this warning—despite all the direct experiences of your career, none will have even remotely prepared you for the extreme economic logic I have pioneered in my Value System. So take fair warning and brace your soul.”
He dipped his hand in the drawer and passed a tag to Under-sergeant Brummie.
“Value Zeta729.”
“Kneel, value.”
“Yes, The Captain, Value Zeta729.”
Pumped with outrage, Lawrence barely felt the tag pin skewer his ear lobe. The ache came later, lying awake in a cramped dormitory full of strangers, staring at the boards of the bunk eighteen inches above his nose.
He kept pinching the tag and wondering what the morning would bring.
Chapter 3
For the first time in months, Lawrence’s belly was swollen to bursting point. Abundant helpings of porridge and rye bread with butter and honey had left him feeling, if anything, a bit dopey. He was clean and had been shaved by one of the razor trustees of the gang—not that they were fussy about beards here. He wore a complete issue of new clothes, including the best boots and the best waterproof overalls he had ever used in his life. Add to that, the Value System was a place of serene beauty, more like a private garden than a prison colony. Around them spread a plain of wild grasses and foaming eruptions of bush, infiltrated by creeks of deep green and purple. Here and there sprouted copses of willow, all sprawling under an immaculate blue dome of sky. The day was turning out to be a fine mid-October echo of summer.
His ear lobe still ached.
Gang 4, to which he had been assigned, amounted to one hundred and twenty head of value, each and every one tagged by the left ear. The escort was just ten heelers and leading heelers, five at the front and five at the rear, together with Under-sergeant Brummie and Master-Sergeant Ratty. Finally, there was a big, mean-looking bastard with the build of a gorilla, bearing the silver chevrons of a senior master sergeant.
The ultramarines here seemed closer to their value than at Chatham. Lawrence could hear several of the gang chatting with the rear guard, including the gruff, deep voice of the senior master sergeant. Yet this was no holiday camp. What the hell was it? So far, he had seen the Square, a two-storey square of dormitories, stores and offices built around the Yard, a brick-paved yard about an acre in area on which parades took place twice a day. Other than that, he had noticed three brick chimneys about a mile away issuing pale smoke into the breeze. The sight put Lawrence to wonder how many hours it took the breeze to reach the nearest town, where free people led decent lives… He gazed at the inland horizon, trying to distinguish the least evidence of civilization that way.
A blow between the shoulder blades like a lance. He gasped, stumbled forward, writhed around, suppressing the reflex to lash back. The senior master sergeant jabbed Lawrence on the chin with a cracker pipe, filling his head with a bang and his mouth with the taste of blood.
“Stand still. Eyes down. Present yourself, value.”
“Value Zeta729 presenting, senior master sergeant,” Lawrence said.
“I am Senior Master Sergeant London.”
The cracker pipe prodded Lawrence in the chest. The man had extraordinarily large hands, like land crabs. The inch-thick cracker pipe looked like a drum stick held in such hands.
“Yes, Senior Master Sergeant London.”
“You arrived last night, is that correct, Zeta729?”
“Yes, Senior Master Sergeant London.”
“Well let me give you some friendly advice. Don’t go strolling along gazing at the horizon or I’ll bend this pipe around your skull. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Senior Master Sergeant London.”
SMS London dropped the cracker back into his belt.
“You’re going to be here a long time, Zeta729.” He spoke in a fatherly tone now. “Just relax and let the place take you. We’ll play you fair, if you play us fair.”
“Yes, Senior Master Sergeant London.”
“Now get moving and catch up.”
“Yes, Senior Master Sergeant London.”
Shaken, trembly at the knees, Lawrence turned away and marched, burning inside with futile rage, his eyes low. He had to swallow his anger and not waste time in childish fantasies of hacking that man to pieces with a sabre. He was not going to get his own back in this place. Up ahead, one of the value had collapsed. He was lying on his side with a couple of fellow value kneeling close by. His face was pinched to the point of ghoulishness, his fingers bony like claws. The impression was of a uniform full of sticks. More value bunched around him. Up at the front of the column, the lead ultramarines turned around to see what the delay was.
Heavy boots thumped up the track behind Lawrence, who dodged aside just in time for SMS London to storm past and stoop over the sick value, arms akimbo.
“Serial Sidney, what is the matter with you?”
SMS London had to bend almost double to hear the reply. He straightened up and swivelled this way and that, looking about. Lawrence noted the man on the ground bore the tag Δ266 (i.e. Delta266).
“Where is this value’s section leader?”
“I’m his section leader. Value Ugly Toes presenting, Senior Master Sergeant London.”
“Ugly Toes, I have watched Serial Sidney decline for weeks. He will burden your section if you continue to cover for him.”
“May I request, Senior Master Sergeant London, that we load Value Serial Sidney onto one of the carts and drop him off in the Square when the loads are taken back?”
“You know this can’t go on.”
“Value Tricky Fingers and I will review his case tomorrow morning, Senior Master Sergeant London.”
“Very well. Responsibility is yours.”
“Thank you, Senior Master Sergeant London.”
SMS London marched off toward the front of the gang, bellowing at the staring onlookers to get a move on, they were late.
One did not have to be a doctor to know that Serial Sidney was dying. The tags were issued in alphanumeric order of arrival, so Delta266-cum-Serial Sidney was by no means an old timer. There were still quite a number of betas extant, gammas were common. It was the eyes that really gave it away. They were staring inward at the terrors of looming infinity. He knew he was going to die.
Ugly Toes was also Lawrence’s section leader. He was a sturdily-build man of about thirty, with a pumpkin head and receding chin. He had good, even white teeth. His tag was Gamma066.
Lawrence was already aware of a potentially dangerous matter of etiquette. In the Value System, the more flamboyant, domineering or otherwise prominent value got nick-named with a moniker, such as Ugly Toes. Even their ultramarine keepers would use the moniker if they were in good standing. It was a serious insult to address a value by tag when they had a moniker. His own size and guarded manner had already attracted several efforts: Big Blondie, Mighty Whitey, Big Silver. This was to his credit. Arrivals too nondescript to gain a moniker were presently ignored as beneath contempt, dismissed for life to the Undead Nameless Gone. No value of respect would speak to them except to give an order.
Lawrence offered to help carry Serial Sidney back to the carts at the rear. Another value volunteered too. He was an odd cove, thin and a little stooped, with ears somewhat like a chihuahua’s and a peculiar yip-yap delivery. His tag was Delta218.
“You’re the big new guy? I’m Yip-Dog.”
“I’m Big Blondie, Mighty Whitey, or Big Silver. You can take your pick.”
“You’re certainly big.”
It was barely any task to walk Serial Sidney back and lift him onto one of the carts.
“What’s wrong with him?” Lawrence asked.
“Leukaemia maybe, or diabetes, he’s got black feet. Or a weird bug caught from this filthy marsh. Fuck knows. A hell of a lot of us go like him, just waste away and then… Well, we all have to go some time. Are you gay?”
Sovereigns of the Collapse Book 2 Page 2
