Context (92 page)

Some
things had not changed, even under the conditions of the Dark Fire’s
occupation. To move between strata, it was still far easier to descend.

The dark-haired woman, Shayella,
was waiting in Skandril Market, in a dusty annexe away from the stallholders
setting up. Her face was webbed with tension, pale beneath the glowclusters’
primrose morning light.

Tom, still dripping wet, had
rousted one of the local agents-in-place from his bed in the small hours.
Apologizing for the intrusion, he had taken away a fake ID and one-off
scan-unit.

By a dusty pillar, he scanned in
her DNA, handed over the ID.

‘You’re coming with me,’ he told
her.

Two
strata down, in a deserted former warehouse hall where ciliates rustled unseen,
she sat with Tom and Rilka and Tyentro, and told them what she knew.

‘A thousand artificers,’ she
said, ‘constructed and upgraded the Seer’s chamber, up on the Primum Stratum.
When the -enemy—came, they took it over, by all accounts. Lately, they’ve
searched for anyone who worked on those projects. My...’ She looked at them. ‘My
brother Yano was one of them.’

For two hours they talked, about
conditions since the Blight’s forces had arrived, the strictures on speech and
social life, and about her brother. It all spilled out of her, as the tension
of holding in her opinions and feelings broke open, in a cathartic relief which
was helped rather than hindered by the fact that her audience consisted of
three strangers. But there was no other information of immediate tactical
benefit.

Except in the negative: Yano was
no dissident, had no personal enemies, yet the Tunnel Guard had arrested him.
But he had worked on the Seer’s chamber, perched on one of the flexible
catenary walkways which led to it, dangling over the dark chasm in which it was
suspended.

Finally, Rilka took her away to a
temporary dwelling alcove, leaving Tom and Tyentro to decide what would happen
next.

‘The thing is,’ said Tyentro, ‘while
you were gone, Rilka came back with some interesting data.’

The constabulary where Rilka
worked had assisted in a raid, taking the autodoc files from a local med centre
and imprisoning two of the medics. One of those medics, with travel
authorization spanning eight strata, had an unusual range of patients.

‘His name wouldn’t be Xyenquil,
would it?’

‘No.’ Tyentro shook his head. ‘Any
reason it should be?’

‘Just wondering. So who was the
most interesting patient?’

Tyentro brought a holo to life in
the gloom, and rotated the image of a woman’s head. Her eyes were milky, her
complexion unlined, and it took a moment for Tom to realize where he had seen
her.

‘That’s Velsivith’s wife.’

‘Just so.’ Tyentro smiled. ‘Lieutenant
Velsivith neglected to mention—and I knew he was holding something back—that
wife Vhiyalla has serious problems.’

‘She’s blind.’ Tom frowned. ‘He
told us that.’

‘But he didn’t mention that she’s
dying.’

‘Ah, Chaos.’

‘And now his intelligence
superiors know it too. She’s the one hold they really have over him.’

There was movement at the old
warehouse’s edges, and Tom wondered how the ciliates fared with only dust to
eat. It was one of those moments when the small realities assume importance,
before the arbitrary process of decision-making commits an entire human life to
one course of action.

‘It’s time that Ralkin Velsivith
and I had another little chat, Tyentro.’

‘I can arrange that, sir.’

Shaven-headed
children walked—no, marched—in ranks along the wide corridor. Tom felt his face
stiffen into a mask as he saw the matching tunics, the bright expressions
somewhere between solemnity and buoyant enthusiasm. They wore half-capes of
blue, lined with red, and they walked straight-backed and proud behind a small
banner bearer who could not have been more than eight SY old.

Adult gazes slipped away as the
procession passed.

But it had been worse, earlier
that morning, when the tunnels had been quieter and Tom had seen the column of
prisoners, thirty men, women and children tied together, walking barefoot,
under guard. There had been six soldiers escorting.
Only six.
The prisoners
should have fought back tooth and nail like vicious animals, accepting the risk
of death. But their attentions were focused inwards, full of muddied confusion
(just as Velsivith had described), and the conviction that this was a
bureaucratic error which would surely be rectified as soon as they could talk
to someone in charge.

On each forehead, a motile sigil—slapped
on during their arrest—cycled through changes, from red diamond to blue spot: a
prisoner brand, which would have deterred escape had they even perceived the
extent of their own danger; but they did not allow themselves that madness. Not
consciously.

Only one small girl, too young to
deceive herself, stared at the soldiers with open mouth and fear shining in her
eyes.

While passers-by, whose former
neighbours might have been among the prisoners, oddly carried on about their
daily business, walking to market or godown. Unable to look, as though they
could not quite perceive what was happening in their own quiet residential
tunnels, in the clean stone corridors with well-kept alcoves, among the small,
tidy moss-gardens and scrubbed piazzettas of a modest, well-ordered community.

Tom
was trembling when he reached the safe chamber, passing by Stilvan—Tyentro’s
lieutenant, hawk-nosed and dangerous—and two other team members, on silent
watch.

I should have done something.

But the Blight’s forces were
everywhere, implacable, as though the very air was heavy with its essence.

Something...

In the small, curtained-off
chamber, Velsivith sat on a low stool, heavy russet cloak pulled round himself.
There was a chill, and a musty smell rose from the old drapes. When he saw Tom,
he gave a thin, tight smile.

‘Well met, my Lord.’

A flicker of a glance from
Tyentro, well concealed. Surprised at Tom’s rank? Neither had told the other
much of his past; their meetings were always brief, for safety.

‘Lieutenant Velsivith, I’m sorry
for your wife’s troubles.’

‘You saw us that day, from the
balcony.’ The amber ovoid in his cheek looked dark, almost brown. ‘But that’s
not what you’re— Her illness. Who else knows?’

‘We were the second interested
group to find out.’

‘Who ... You mean my superiors.
Chaos!’ Velsivith looked away. ‘Ah, Vhiyalla. What are we going to do?’

‘Accept our help,’ said Tom.

‘Oh, that. As I recall our last
meeting’—with more than a trace of self-disgust—‘I left you to the
interrogators’ mercies in one of the pain chambers. Why should you help me?’

‘Common enemy.’

‘Not good enough. Why should you
trust
me?’

Tom stood with his back against
the cold stone wall. He could feel the heat being leeched from his body,
despite his cape.

‘That day, I did see you and
Vhiyalla. What I saw could not be faked.’

Tom heard the longing in his own
voice, fell silent.

Neither of the other men looked
surprised or amused: too many people, nowadays, had tragic stories of their own
to carry with them.

‘Have you got courier lines?’
Velsivith glanced at Tyentro, then back at Tom. ‘Enough to take us into a
friendly realm? Away from the Blight.’

Is that what you ‘re after?
Infiltration, after all?

Taking down an enemy courier
network would be a big feather in any intelligence officer’s cap. Or more
immediately, security forces might already be converging on this rendezvous.

‘She wouldn’t go by herself,’
Velsivith added. ‘Not that I want to remain.’

Tyentro made a silent shift in
stance. This was between Tom and Velsivith; Tyentro’s job was to kill Velsivith
if things went wrong. Should Stilvan raise the alarm, Tom would attempt to
escape—his duty as a local control—while Tyentro dealt with things on the spot.

Anybody can kill anybody.

Not true, but Tyentro was very
capable.

‘What are you offering,’ Tom
asked, ‘to pay for passage?’

Velsivith hunched forward on his
stool. ‘Not many people have seen the Blight manifest a portion of itself—but
you have, my Lord. And so have I.’

Tom felt a chill that was nothing
to do with the stones he was leaning against.

‘You mean the people who killed
the Seer.’

‘People.’ With a faint smile: ‘If
you can call them that. I think of them as
substrate.’