Debris (44 page)

  I couldn't help but grin. "That's true." Jernea was one of the most tenacious people I had ever known. A powerful binder, a highly skilled architect and a determined teacher.

  Dina gestured to me, and I followed her back to her office. "I must warn you, he is not the man he once was."

  Her office was large, but narrow, almost a corridor of itself. Full bookshelves lined the walls, floor to partstone, part-glass ceiling. Only section of the university's ancient and priceless library. A desk, a few chairs and a rug alone broke up the uniform tones of wood and sandstone and leather-bound paper. Jernea was sitting at the far end of the office, beneath a large glass section. Late afternoon gold seemed to make him glow.

  "He is no longer employed by the university," Dina said, softly. "He has not worked here for years. However, he feels safe in this room, he feels more at home here than in an old and empty house." She rubbed the back of her neck and looked at the floor. "Truth be told, I feel better when he is here with me. I don't remember a time at Proud Sunlight without him. He has carers, of course, and they came to me. Explained his situation. His distress. I was glad to have him back, to care for him. He doesn't need much. They feed him every day..." She trailed off as I slowly approached my old mentor.

  Jernea sat in a strange chair, wrought of some kind of thick poly. It couldn't have been comfortable: too straightbacked, legs out, arms on hard rests. Not a cushion or any kind of padding in sight. He wore a gown of faded blue that was done up loosely down the front. His bare skin was thin and withered across stark ribs, and there were countless tiny holes in his chest.

  "Other's hell," I hissed. "What have they done to you?"

  "Oh, I'm sorry," Dina said, behind me. "I should have thought of this. You can't see them."

  "See what?" I glanced at her, angry. There were more holes on his forehead, down his neck, even his arms.

  "The pions, of course. It's a complicated system, tied in to the chair itself. It keeps him alive. They're pumping blood down to his extremities, monitoring and compensating for oxygen loss, as well as maintaining the workings of his left kidney–"

  "Stop." I held up a hand, closed my eyes. "I– I don't want to know." I could imagine pions looping around him, in him, binding him to the chair, to this life, like colourful chains. And I wished I couldn't, because I didn't want to remember Jernea like that.

  He looked like he had been spun from glass. Nearly transparent skin stretched across the bones of his face and hung in wrinkles around his neck. I could make out the veins at his temples, every sunspot that had ever dotted his cheeks. His eyes were white with cataracts, his hair thin. A blanket was tucked in around his legs and his once powerful and expressive hands were curled and skeletal, shaking on his lap.

  "Jernea." I crouched beside him.

  His head turned, ever so slightly, but his sightless eyes passed me by. He mouthed words, but they came out only as wet sounds.

  "Today is not a good day." Dina stood close to my back. "He cannot talk today. He cannot stop the shaking. Some days he will ask after people I have never heard of. He will talk to the pions in the walls as though they were his friends. Today is not one of those days."

  I stood and realised my own hands were shaking, almost as much.

  "You picked a bad day."

  "I did." I clasped my hands, squeezed them as I fought tears. I would not weep for my stubborn old mentor. It was good, in a way, that he did not know that I had fallen. That he would not understand it, or hear it, even if he was told. In that mind, locked behind age and blindness, I was always the centre of a critical circle.

  "Why did you come here?" she asked.

  When I turned, Dina's expression was hard. She crossed her arms, bunching the loose fabric of her gown. "You're not really here to try and persuade an old man to open a tribunal for you, are you?"

  I gaped at her.

  "Because he would be hurt, Tanyana, to think that was all you wanted from him."

  "How did you know I wanted a tribunal?" And why did she remember me? Of all the students, why me?

  "Tell me why you are here."

  I looked back to Jernea, to his shaking and crippled fingers. "No, that is not why I came. Although I might have, if I had thought of it earlier." I shook my head. "I came to ask the greatest pion-binder I have ever known for his expertise, his knowledge, his mind. I came here for nothing."

  Dina's shoulders sagged. "I should have known. No one he had touched could use him so thoughtlessly."

  "So tell me," I said. "How did you know that?"

  The edges of Dina's mouth twisted into a grim smile. "Come now, you must know."

  "The veche?" I whispered. "Did they come here, did they threaten you?"

  She was looking at Jernea again. "I should not be talking to you. I believed them, when they said even talking to you would be dangerous, that helping you could be fatal. Even for an old man." But when she looked back up at me her face was set, eyes dark and furious. "But I will not be threatened, and as ancient and distinguished an institution as Proud Sunlight will not be bowed into submission. They can take away our funding, divert kopacks into weapons research and warmongering, but we will not compromise our integrity. We will not be beholden to the veche any more than we already are. No matter how many more pale and strange-looking thugs they send!"

  Ice shuddered over my skin. "Pale? Did they have no expression, nothing in their voice that sounded human? And did they walk like they were unreal, like they were built of wood?"

  "That's an accurate description, if I've ever heard one." Her expression grew disbelieving. "Don't tell me you didn't know it was them. They're watching you, Tanyana. They made a point of coming here, of telling me you were looking for help to open a tribunal, and if I dared to help you both Jernea and I could be in some peril." She chuckled. "They can't understand the calibre of binder Sunlight produces if they think they can threaten us."

  I stared down at the old man for what felt like a long time. "I'm sorry to bring them to your doorway."

  "I know you are." Suddenly Dina placed a hand on my shoulder. "But I am more fearful for you. The veche must be very, very interested in you. Watch yourself."

  I nodded. "I will go, and hope I take all my trouble with me."

  She lifted her eyebrows. "What did you want to ask? I might not be the old man, but I have stood beside him for a long time." Dina softened as she spoke of him. "I learned a few things here and there."

  "It doesn't matter now. And I won't give them any reason to come for you."

  I crouched again, took one of Jernea's hands and then held him. He felt thin and fragile, like so much of my life now. And as I thanked him silently, I realised those questions I had thought so important really didn't matter. Why broken people like me could see debris, whether we could be fixed. What mattered, what really mattered, was why the puppet men had taken such an interest in me. And what, if anything, I could do about it.

  A final pat on skin that didn't seem to feel me, and I stood. "Thank you," I said to Dina.

  She nodded, seemed to hesitate. "Listen, I don't know if I should tell you this, but I think I will." She looked down to Jernea. "For him. When they came, the strange veche men, I heard a rumour. Kopacks are being withdrawn from us, here and at other universities, and thrown into something very secret. I overheard members of the military discipline talking about war with the Hon Ji, and those veche men seem to be involved. So be careful, Tanyana. Those are very powerful men."

  When I left the university the bell was late, the sky streaked with long, drawn-out clouds shining crimson in the sunset. As I travelled the ferry I wondered if I was being watched.

  Trudging back to my room above Valya's home, I realised I had no appetite. Of course, that wouldn't make a difference to her.

  "You're late!" she called as I entered the house. "Busy, busy day."

  I shrugged out of my jacket and draped it over a chair before sitting at her table. It was constantly hot in Valya's kitchen. There was always a fire burning and something cooking. "Not really." I rested my elbows on the table and sank my face into my hands. "I was looking for something and I didn't find it."

  "Eh?" She placed an earthenware bowl in front of me and spooned it full of thick soup. She and Eugeny would have agreed on the apparent universality and infinitely appropriate virtues of soup. "Debris?"

  "No, we found that." I stirred chunks of potato, parsnip, carrot and onion. Valya ate little meat. "Found that easily."

  "It is everywhere now."

  I blinked, slowed my stirring. "You've noticed that too?"

  "Impossible not to." She shook her head. "Dangerous times. Explosion in the night. Debris left lying on the street. Too much to pick up. Not a good sign."

  A sign of what?

  "So then, what were you looking for?" Valya asked.

  "Answers, explanations. Hope." I caught myself. "Don't let it bother you."

  "Answers, eh? Eat." Valya sat at the other end of the table with her own bowl. She watched my spoon like a hawk watches a mouse. I forced myself to eat, if only to appease her keen gaze. "You need someone who knows many things. You know who knows many things?" She sipped delicately. Always gave me most of the chunks. Apparently Valya still believed I needed fattening.

  "Who?"

  "Yicor. He sees much, he hears much, and he has many books."

  I swallowed a large slice of onion without bothering to chew. I had seen books, hadn't I? Hidden in those shelves.

  "Lots of books. Books other people don't have. Books other people aren't interested in having. Books only certain people care about."

  Slowly, I looked up from the table. It was like surfacing from a fog. Valya's eyes were bright and sharp, stars in a clear sky.

  "Only certain people?" I released the spoon and it slid into the soup, leaving only the very end of its wooden handle dry.

  "Only some." Valya gestured to the soup. "You eat and you go. He'll be happy to see you, he will want to help. Likes girls."

  I pried the spoon up and wiped sticky fingers on a napkin. "I owe you thanks, Valya."

  "Eat. Those are my thanks."

  I finished the bowl so quickly I burned the top of my mouth. Valya, taking the time to taste her food, waved me away as soon as the bowl was empty. I took it to the tub of cleaning water, grabbed my coat and headed out into twilight.

  I hadn't returned to Yicor's shop since he gave me Valya's address, but I could remember the way. He wasn't far. Street lamps sprang into light as I arrived. His windows were dark, the door closed, but as I stood on the step and listened, I could hear noises inside. Footsteps and a solitary voice.

  I knocked, rapping cold knuckles so hard on the wood they stung, and the noises ceased. Then a lock turned, the door opened a crack, and an eye looked out at me, lit by the lamps at my back, the only bright thing against the darkness of the shop.

  "My dear!" The door opened wide and all of Yicor's face was washed in lamplight. "Now this is the kind of surprise I wish I had more of."

  "Thank you, Yicor. I hope I'm not intruding."

  "You, my dear, could never." He stepped from the door. "Please, come in from the dark."

  I didn't mention that it was, in fact, darker inside his shop.

  He shut the door and I waited a moment for him to light an old portable gas lamp.

  "Come through, come through." He led me down the shelves, his lamp bobbing like a firefly. "Is everything all right, my dear?"

  I hesitated a moment, and blurted out, "Did you find a home for it? The book I sold you."

  He placed the lamp on his desk. The face he turned to me was piteous and full of compassion. "I did, if it helps you to know. Somewhere it will be treasured."

  I nodded, more than a little surprised by how relieved that made me feel.

  He added, "But I'm certain that is not the reason you are here."

  No, it wasn't. "Valya suggested I speak to you."

  "Good woman, that one."

  "Yes, she is."

  "Obsessed with food, though."

  That made me grin. "So it's not only me then."

  With a chuckle, Yicor patted his generous stomach. "Not in the least."

  "She thought you could help me. You see, I'm looking for answers."

  "Answers?" Yicor's eyes left my face, travelled too casually over the shelves we had passed to rest on the ceiling.

  "And Valya told me to ask for your help."

  "Did she?" he asked.

  "She said you'd be happy to give it."

  Yicor stood rigid a moment longer. Then he released a great sigh; his shoulders sagged. "Valya is a good woman. She knows who to trust. If she sent you here, then she had her reasons. I won't argue with her."

  Who to trust? Why did I feel like there was a conversation going on that I couldn't hear? Hidden meanings behind innocuous words?

  "Come with me." Yicor collected his lamp from the desk again, and headed into the forest of shelves, junk and dust.

  He did not take me to the door. The shelves turned around on themselves, became a maze that spread deep into the shop. More deeply than I had realised it had space to go. When we got to a point where I was thoroughly lost, and quite convinced that I could wander here until I starved to death, Yicor stopped. He put the lantern on the floor beside a rug. He flipped the mat up by its corners to reveal a trapdoor in the floor.