Hour of Judgement (23 page)

Only once it was burned ....

He couldn’t risk the chance that Lowden wasn’t dead, that Lowden would rise and walk. He needed fire to cleanse the hatred from his body. Hatred was poison. Andrej wanted to be as whole as he could be; because he was going to die for the murder of his commanding officer. The cleaner he could go to death the better fit he would be to plead his case before the Canopy, and hope to obtain some small measure of mercy.

Fire.

The body lay on the table. It would move in a fire; he had seen the furnaces at the Domitt Prison. He needed to tie the body down, and the toweling wouldn’t do, it was too short. The bed-linen tore in strips, though, and the surplus linen piled very nicely beneath the table. He broke up the chairs and laid them on the linen, and soaked the lot with overproof liquor from the stores. Once the fire was well lit it would feed itself. The problem was getting it well lit.

Andrej found a firepoint laid ready in the washroom, in case a patron desired to smoke. The toweling draped over the body quite well. That was dampened with alcohol, as well, though of lesser proof; Andrej had a few anxious moments, when he touched the pyre off, but after a moment or two of uncertainty the sheeting caught fire with an explosive rush of flame that reached the ceiling and set fire to the lacquered plaster there.

Very satisfying.

The fire ran across the ceiling and down the wall, igniting the wallpaper, setting off the wainscoting very cleverly. And in the middle of the room the fire grew and gained in confidence, reaching up to embrace the body, consuming the sin-offering with grateful greed.

Fire.

There was a sudden shuddering sound from outside in the corridor; the firewalls, Andrej supposed. Why hadn’t the fire-suppression systems gone off? Was it because they were on auxiliary power? Or was the sudden additional drain simply too much for even the auxiliary power to handle?

It was just as well, one way or the other. This way the body would bum. It needed to burn. Captain Lowden himself would burn as well, in a manner of speaking; but that was none of Andrej’s business, any more.

He’d done his business.

He’d finished what he’d come for.

Now he should probably leave the room.

It was very hot, and the thick black smoke from the body as it began to roast was stifling. It would be best to leave quickly. The fire alarms had gone off. Everyone was to evacuate the building, when that happened.

There was a fire on the wall, fire around him, but the fire-door itself did not burn. It was cool to the touch. Andrej knew there was no fire outside the room. Nothing to worry about.

The door closed behind him, flames reaching through the door as he left to snatch at his clothing and try to play. It was a young fire, and very earnest — but easily distracted by the carpet in the hall and the furnishings. Andrej left it all behind him.

The service lift would be out of order.

There was a fire-path toward the emergency exit, the only thing still lit in the rapidly dimming hall as the service house lost all of its power. Andrej opened the emergency exit and got out onto the fire-track, climbing down carefully, hearing people all around him doing the same thing. Joining a steady stream of people struggling down the fire-tracks in the dark.

Hadn’t he climbed down a fire-track once already this evening?

He couldn’t remember.

Andrej reached the street level, and went to see if he could find some Security. The Captain was dead. He had killed the Captain. Security should be told.

Whatever happened after that, at least Lowden was dead, and would never demand that Andrej exchange one prisoner’s pain for a bond-involuntary’s safety again.

Ever.

###

By the time Garol Vogel drew near to the service house the alarm had gone up, and the streets were filled with people and with smoke. It was a clear cold night, with a steady breeze that blew from the bay through the city; so the smoke didn’t linger — but there was a lot of it:

The service house grumbled furiously in the night and held its great gouts of black smoke to itself as jealously as it could, so that when a cloud of smoke escaped it was pursued by a shriek of rushing air and the house’s utmost ill-will.

The Port Authority was there in force, what there was of one. The fire-machines were there, but the pressure in the firefighting web was low and there were only manual pumps to draw the water through long lengths of pipes from the bay into the city to the sprayers.

Hopeless.

The firefighters weren’t giving up, and they had enough willing help with manual pumps to keep the nearby buildings dampened down. But the service house itself was going to burn. The firefighters could either struggle with the fire in the service house and hope to slow it down, or they could keep the fire from spreading; and they knew their business, and their responsibility to the city.

The fire would not spread.

But it would burn out in the service house. It could not be put out.

There was no hope of making sense of the chaos without plunging into it. No hope of crowd control; that could work in his favor, Garol told himself. He was already familiar with the area. That would help too. Locking off the little two-man transter he’d borrowed from Center House to get here, Garol left the vehicle ten blocks out from the service house and jogged the rest of the way. To see what was going on. To find Captain Lowden.

The nearer he got to the service house the more crowded the streets, but they were all onlookers, curious people, everyone pointing and staring and nobody badly hurt. The service house had clearly been packed to capacity when the alarm had gone off — at its lower levels, at least, and a good crowd making a party in the streets as well from what Garol gathered. Nearer Garol went, closer he came, and still there were no burn injuries; still it was a party, and the burning of the service house — while not a cause for celebration in and of itself — was a spectacle worthy of attention.

No one crying in panic for a friend, though there were some concerns voiced about finding people here and there. Garol wondered if the fire alarms went off more frequently in ports with problems with a power supply. He wouldn’t have thought it, but it seemed some of these people at least had had practice with fire alarms, practice that had stood them in good stead.

He hadn’t found any officials yet.

Garol pressed on to the front lines, within two blocks of the burning building. The night seemed to glow: the firewalls within the building kept the blaze contained, and it was only by accident that a tongue of flame escaped to illuminate the black smoke that boiled furiously now out of every seam and aperture in the building.

He found some officials.

Port Authority.

Joining a huddled group of senior officers Garol introduced himself, to establish his credentials.

“Evening, gentles. Bench intelligence specialist Garol Aphon Vogel, here. If there’s anything I can do to help.”

The senior man was too occupied with a schematic to more than nod in Garol’s direction; but Garol could wait. He was in no hurry. There were people in this gather from the Port Authority, from the service house, from Center House; but Garol saw no Security. No representative from the
Ragnarok
.

One of the people bowed to him formally, as though the man recognized him; Garol couldn’t quite place the man himself, but cheerfully responded in like kind. There was a fire on. No sense in standing on formalities. He was informal enough in his dress and demeanor; but jogging was warm work. Garol intended to apologize to no man for his unbuttoned over-blouse and open collar. Where was the sense in rank distinctions with everyone’s face equally smudged by flying soot?

“All right. Everybody. Hear me and heed me,” the senior firefighter said. Garol waited for the noise to die down: the noise from the crowd, not so far distant; the noise from the fire. Which was not going to die down. “We’re asking you to establish a cordon on a three-block perimeter. You’ll be spread thin, but at least we can channel people. Find out if anyone’s missing. We haven’t heard any confirmed reports of people trapped inside yet; we could be lucky.”

Or they could just not have heard any confirmed reports yet. And Garol hadn’t seen either Captain Lowden or Lowden’s Security. If Lowden were in the area at all he’d be here, with the senior people at this command post. Or he’d have given the whole thing up as a bore and returned to Center House. Which was it?

“With only the auxiliary power we can keep the triage pumps on line. But that’s it. Seven eights till sunrise. This place’ll smoke for three days.”

Maybe next time he was in a port being transferred like this, and the fire suppression systems in the service house were stripped out as they had been in this service house, he would close the service house for the duration. It wouldn’t be a popular move. But so few people were hurt so far in this fire that to count on it happening so gently ever again would be irresponsible.

Garol stepped back into the shadows and melted away, wondering where Captain Lowden’s Security were.

In a few blocks he found them.

They’d married up with the Port Authority, and were providing assistance with relay communications. But Captain Lowden was nowhere to be seen. Garol considered just asking one of them, but they were busy. And he was beginning to make up his mind that if he hadn’t found Captain Lowden yet, Captain Lowden was simply not going to be found. For three days yet. If ever.

Within the circuit of two or three blocks Garol encountered the first of the Port Authority’s triage stations, comprised of two people. One to write. One to talk. Interviewing the man who had bowed to Garol earlier; while a small crowd of people waited patiently for their turn, as though it was part of the game.

“ — Fleet Captain,” the man was saying. “I showed him to the service lift, since the other one was out. I saw the officer around here not too long ago. Name of Vogel, I believe.”

This was a surprise. And clearly a mistake. Garol kept to the crowd, anonymous and invisible. Listening hard. It wasn’t difficult to get close and still stay hidden; not in the dark, with the smoke and the chaos.

“Bench intelligence specialist, he said. Just now, that is. But I haven’t seen the Fleet Captain. I haven’t seen anyone who has. And the alarm went off on the preferred suite level, so I’m pretty concerned.”

Had it indeed?

The preferred suites, where Captain Lowden would have been quartered.

But Garol knew he hadn’t been shown to any service lift. It made a man wonder. Who had?
   

Who had the service house employee mistaken him for, who had obviously gone up to see Captain Lowden not long before the fire alarm had gone off on the floor where Lowden was staying?

It made no sense. But that was what Bench intelligence specialists were for. Problems that made no sense.

Methodically now Garol worked his way out from the innermost line of defense against the fire through the crowds of gawkers and the people working out to the far edge of the excitement, where people coming in to see the sight traded places with others who’d had enough and were ready to go home.

Looking for Captain Lowden.

Listening for anyone who had seen Captain Lowden.

Not finding anybody.

But there, out on the periphery of the fire’s excitement, weaving a bit and strolling quite casually toward an alley, Garol Vogel saw a man he recognized.

About his size.

With a dark uniform, and no real telling the crucial differences, not in the dark.

The over-blouse hanging open all down the front.

The collar of the under-blouse loosened, bare skin showing through.

And the blond hair smudged and darkened with soot, with smoke, with whatever else Garol did not care to guess.

Andrej Koscuisko.

Drunk. Not disorderly, no, but clearly six measures into a five-measure flagon, and where would a man have picked up a bottle of cortac brandy of that vintage if not in the bar of a luxury suite in the preferred quarters of a service house?

Koscuisko hadn’t gotten it from Center House.

Because Koscuisko hadn’t had it with him when he’d left. Garol had watched him go. And Koscuisko hadn’t been back to Center House since. Garol had come straight from Center House. Koscuisko bad been reported at the Port Authority.

It all came together; and when it did it all added up.

Breaking into a quick jog Garol pulled away from the loosely grouped crowd he’d been hiding among to chase after Koscuisko. Garol caught up to him within the sixth block from the service house fire, and greeted him politely.

“Good-greeting, your Excellency. I trust the evening finds you well?”

Koscuisko close up was much more clearly drunk than Koscuisko from a distance had been. There was no response. As far as Garol could tell Koscuisko didn’t so much as hear him. Garol tried again.

“Nice night for a walk, sir. Taking any particular route? May I join you?”

This seemed to give Koscuisko pause; but no, he was only steadying himself against a warehouse wall for as long as it took him to take a drink. There was still no way to tell if Koscuisko had heard him.

Where was Koscuisko going?
   

Where had he been?

“Well, in that case.” Andrej Koscuisko was the son of one of the oldest, most influential, trading-houses in the Dolgorukij Combine. The inheriting son. Men with rank and influence couldn’t be allowed to wander around strange ports in the middle of the night. It wasn’t done.

“In that case I’ll show you to the door, your Excellency. If you’ll permit. It’s this way, sir, I’ve got a mover.”

Particularly when men who by virtue of their birth or position had political importance were also Ship’s Inquisitors, and unpopular as a class, and there was already at least one unsolved murder in Port Burkhayden. Garol had no desire to go for two.

Where were Koscuisko’s Security?

Had Koscuisko left them at the service house? At the Port Authority? Where had Koscuisko been? What had Koscuisko done?