The Fall of Chance (12 page)

“How’d that happen?”

“I know. You’d think there’d be at least one you could bear to look at.”

“No, I mean you’d think the split would be nearer fifty-fifty.”

“Oh, that. Well, five of the old sods were here at the start so it’s nine guys to seven girls for the replacements. As for it being two men who’ve taken over from dead Councillors? That’s just a one-in-four chance, ain’t it?”

“Anyway,” he said, “The structure: Kelly’s already told you that Novices like yourself rotate between the Councillors. Somewhere down the line, you’ll get promoted to Acolyte and then you’ll be fixed to a certain Councillor permanently. It’s always done in order of seniority so you just get stuck with whoever comes up.

“The Councillors themselves move jobs from time to time and when you’re an Acolyte, you’ll go with them so you won’t always be tied with the same work. Eventually, enough old guys ahead of you will pop their clogs and you’ll get the bump to Councillor yourself. Just don’t hold your breath: I’ve been waiting a lot of bloody years and the stubborn bastards insist on clinging to life.”

“How long is it since you became an Acolyte?” asked Unt. He asked more as a means of keeping up his end of the conversation than from genuine interest but Pearson took it another way.

“Ready to move on already, are you?” he asked with a grin. “Fifteen years I’d spent as a Novice. Like I say, progress is slow.”

Fifteen years on the bottom rung, thought Unt. Anyone in any other order would move up several spaces in that time. With dead men’s shoes the only way upward, Pearson could be looking at another thirty to forty years before he became full Councillor. Did the people who wanted this posting realise
that
?

“Anyway,” Pearson continued, “Each Councillor is assigned to one of seven areas: Welfare, Education, Order, Infrastructure, Resources, Strategic Planning and the Chairman.

“Brooker is currently with Welfare and so are you and me. That means we deal with food, health, housing and safety. There’s quite a lot on our plate so you’ll find yourself good and busy.

“Taylor, who we’re going to see now, is with Education. Erk is with Order, Hodd’s with Infrastructure, Pello’s on Strategy and as you know, Kelly’s Chairman.”

Unt couldn’t miss the omission. “So, Resources…”

“Are with Lasper, yep.” Pearson looked awkward. “I’m sorry, mate, I’d leave him out if I could but I’ve got to take you round everyone.”

“It’s fine,” said Unt.

“I know you can’t have missed his reaction,” said Pearson, “But neither did the other Councillors. Yesterday, back doors, the old boys gave him a good dressing down. You needn’t be scared of him.”

You needn’t be scared,
thought Unt. He’d heard those words twice today already. If Lasper was so not-dangerous, why did everyone feel the need to tell him?

They stopped outside an unmarked door, just like Brooker’s. They’d stayed on the same level, turned right at a corridor above a stairwell and continued midway down another corridor. By Unt’s reckoning, that put them in chambers above and behind the main assembly hall. Pearson knocked and at the beckon of a voice within, they entered.

This room was wider and shallower than Brooker’s and had three desks set facing each other. Behind, on either side of a pair of windows, were two doors that likely led off to more office space.

A Novice and an Acolyte were sat at the side desks while leaning back against the front of the middle one was a white-robed Councillor. Unt knew him straight away as Councillor Taylor.

Taylor was one of the five surviving founders. He had a fleshless skull and his hair was grey but his lantern jaw belied any hint of frailty. His skin was like a walnut and looked just as tough. Unt was reminded of Taylor’s fearsome reputation.

He was a firebrand - militant and fierce - but a protector of the community and still a hero to most people. His mummified hands were deeply tanned where his long knuckles gripped the desk. His face was drawn back in what looked like a rigor of agony but was in fact a smile.

“Come in, boys, come in,” Taylor waved them toward him.

“Mr Brooker sent me to show Unt here round the building,” said Pearson.

“Of course he did,” said Taylor. “Why have a dog and lick your own balls? Drink?” He snapped his fingers at his Novice who reached for a decanter full of some amber spirit.

“Not for me, thanks,” said Pearson.

“Baby,” said Taylor, “But you’ll take one with me, won’t you Unt?”

Thankfully, Pearson stepped in on Unt’s behalf. “I don’t think Mr Brooker would be happy if I brought him back half-cut.”

The Novice had poured Taylor’s drink but without someone to share it, he waved it impatiently away.

“So you’re showing him the ropes, eh?” he asked Pearson. “I suppose you’ll be eager to pass on all that fetching and carrying that Brooker has you do?”

Without giving Pearson a chance to answer, Taylor turned to Unt. “Don’t you listen to anything this reprobate tells you,” he said. “He’s red as a fox and every bit as crafty. Ninety percent of anything he says you should be doing will be something that he should be doing himself.”

“Don’t believe a word, Unt,” said Pearson. Unt was just amazed to hear him speak so bold. “It’s the same in every office: the Novice does the leg-work, the Acolyte does the desk work and the Councillor takes all the credit. Every office except this one. Here you’ll just be made to drink.”

“Training!” said Taylor, recalling his abandoned drink and knocking it back in one. “Once a man can perform his duties while drunk, he can perform them in any circumstance.”

“But they can’t do their duties,” Pearson served back, “Stuff just gets screwed up and then we have the Educators howling on one side and the Chairman complaining on the other.”

“Bah!” Taylor made a dismissive gesture, “You’re just upset because it was training you failed. All sinew, that’s your problem. Unt, did you know this here scarecrow got so drunk he fell out of a window with an entire year’s worth of exam papers?”

“That’s because you made me drink a full bottle of whisky,” Pearson argued. Then they both laughed.

“You see, Unt, that’s the beauty of our system,” said Taylor, “The rest of them will harp on about fairness but the best bit is that a man can be pickled and do his job just as well. No doubt you’ll have got this post because you’re a smart young buck but all you need here is the ability to pick up two dice, chuck ‘em and - if there’s no-one more sober about to do it for you - count ‘em.”

“And that from your Councillor for Education,” finished Pearson. Even Unt smiled this time.

“So you want to know what we do here?” Taylor spoke to Unt. “Well, the bulk of what we do is two-fold. One: we decide the curriculum for the little kiddies and ensure the Educators are doing their job. Two: we make sure the Orders train up their apprentices properly. Not you, mind- we don’t bother to keep track of our own.

“Other than that, we teach the values of being good little citizens and, for some unfathomable reason, we direct the Artisans. I suppose they’re no use to man nor beast so someone’s gotta be stuck with ‘em.”

“As you see, Councillor Taylor is a connoisseur of the Arts,” said Pearson.

“Ah, get away, both of you,” said Taylor, “Don’t let me keep you from saying nothing with all the other coffin-dodgers.”

They left as bidden but as Unt stood in the doorway, Taylor hollered, “Hey, Unt! Having problems with Lasper?”

Unt nodded with an inward groan.

“Just kick the old bastard in the nuts.”

Pearson closed the door behind them and led on.

“That was bizarre,” said Unt. “Are they all so…”

“Colourful?” Pearson grinned, “No, Taylor’s a one-off, thank Fate. The others all have their quirks, sure, but Taylor leaves them all for dust in the bonkers stakes.”

“I never imagined it like this,” said Unt.

“We hide it well,” said Pearson. “It wouldn’t do for folk to think of us as human.”

“No.”

“But Taylor was right about one thing: the Novices are universally dumped on. Sorry, but there it is.”

“That’s all right.”

“You might be rotated through the offices but no matter where you go, the nature of things doesn’t change. File that, collect this, deliver those: that’s what it all boils down to. Glamorous, eh?”

*              *              *              *

The next three Councillors they visited were far more muted and closer to what Unt had expected. Erk, in charge of Order, had the bearing of a professor. With wire-trimmed glasses and a beaklike nose, he reminded Unt of a woodpecker. He was slow and meticulous in his talk: not unkind but not engaging. He described his duties in the driest terms: his team made the rules and enforced them but with so little crime about, most of what he did was arbitrate petty disagreements and painstakingly review the law.

It was also Erk’s duty to oversee the protection of the town’s borders but with no known settlements nearby, encounters with outsiders were few. The toughest job in defending the town, it seemed, was deciding whether the occasional traveller would be allowed to hock their wares.

Next was Hodd who oversaw Infrastructure. His was a busy and chaotic office, crammed with display boards that covered every inch of space, including the windows.

Heaps of paper were stacked across all three desks and when that space had run out, the floor had been invaded. Novice and Acolyte moved around so busily there seemed to be twice as many of them.

Hodd was polite but clearly distracted. He rhymed off the purpose of every board and pile: drains, sewers, power, buildings and repair schedules were the limit of what Unt took in. By the time Hodd had rattled through the complex system of covered labels and string that connected them all, Unt was well beyond the coping limits of his brain.

“That one’s very spiritual,” said Pearson as the door shut behind them, “Likes to meditate, if you can believe it. Must be killing him working in there.” Unt thought he’d be the same when the time came.

Strategic Planning was the domain of the diminutive Pello, who had spoken at the Pride. He was famed as the architect of their system and seemed to be in his element. Talking to a confirmed Novice, he was more expansive than he’d been during Unt’s Work Experience.

“Nothing goes to plan,” he chuckled as he wandered around the room. “Case in point: this year, there was call for another grain silo but in the end, the roll decided we needed another plinth for a statue: a great big one to commemorate the founding. I’d have liked a statue of me but we’ve ended up with a prism, of all things.”

“A prism?” asked Pearson.

“To refract the light,” said Pello, still moving, “It bends it in random ways which I’m told captures the spirit of the system. I built the system so you’d think I’d know but apparently not. Wonderful, isn’t it?” He seemed to mean it too and actually shook with laughter.

The Strategists, he told Unt, created the town’s long-term plan. Although the principle of a strategy seemed at odds with a system built on chance, what it did was create an undercurrent of order that was still free of a controlling human hand.

Pello used the morning’s caseload as an example: the blacksmiths had created a surplus of trenching tools because that was the random number they’d been told to make. The Strategists were trying to find a use for them with a major project. There were three options on the table: the farmers wanted to improve drainage and irrigation, another plan was to make a public swimming pool and another, grander scheme, envisioned building a canal to the nearby Moxie Hills. There was metal there and that was always in short supply but the project was undoubtedly ambitious. Pello’s team were weighing all the options, trying to create a matrix that would give all proposals the chance they deserved.

“I look forward to working with you, Unt,” were Pello’s parting words. Chairman Kelly would be the last Councillor Unt was to meet which left just one person in between. It had been there in Unt’s mind with every introduction, probably because they all kept reassuring him. Lasper’s tall, pointed figure had been looming ever-closer on the horizon, the reach of his shadow deepening as their confrontation grew closer.

“I’m sorry to do this to you, buddy,” said Pearson, “But it’s gotta be done. Think of it like when you pull a bandage off: one quick rip of pain and it’s over.”

“It’s fine,” said Unt, trying to stay in the mental place he’d made for himself. He stood before the door, breathed and knocked.

There was no answer, Uncertain, Unt looked at Pearson. Should he knock again?

“Someone’s playing games,” said Pearson. Not waiting to make a second attempt, he turned the handle, pushed the door narrowly open and slipped through. Unt followed, feeling like a thief passing through an unlocked window.

“Councillor Lasper?” Pearson kept his voice respectful. The layout of Lasper’s office was like Brooker’s. There was no desk for the Councillor in the room but he was there, hovering over an Acolyte as though reviewing some point of business.

Half-moon glasses made his eyes more pinched than usual as he regarded Pearson, then Unt, with clear distaste. “Mr Pearson, it is customary to knock and wait for an invitation before entering a Councillor’s chambers.”