The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) (6 page)

Torbidda felt it pulling against the other side. He couldn’t hold it much longer. He screamed into the head set,
‘Help!’

The door was wrestled open, Torbidda screamed and the water filled the compartment.

Then there was pain, and blue light—

When he awoke, the last of the lifeless water was going down the drain, once more subject to gravity. Varro was looking down at him with an expression of wonder, and Leto with one of concern.

Torbidda noticed his bloody lip. ‘You fought for me, Spinther?
Idiota.’

‘Don’t take it to heart,’ said Leto. ‘I didn’t have time to think it through.’

‘Oh, what a mess,’ said Varro, regarding the girl’s body. She was dead, with no wound but the bloody nose Torbidda had given her. ‘I don’t suppose anyone knows her name?’

‘I know her number,’ Torbidda said. ‘It was Eighteen.’

Every workstation had a fresh subject, hyperventilating and struggling against their bonds, ready for dissection.

‘Sixty! Big day! Excited?’

Torbidda responded dutifully, ‘Very, sir.’ Varro’s attentive-ness, stemming from guilt, no doubt, had rapidly become annoying. Torbidda was worried that it would mark him as a Naturalist partisan.

Varro shuffled to the top of cave. ‘Now, pace yourself. You’ve just one subject each. You need to keep it fresh until noon, which is, let’s see’ – he glanced at a water-clock – ‘three hours. You’ll be surprised how much punishment a subject can bear if you avoid the major organs.’

They’d had weeks of lectures and cadaver butchery, and this was their first
real
dissection. Varro, shaken by the Confession Box accident, had brought in those second-years specialising in Anatomy to assist. The monitor tutted as she walked past Torbidda’s station. ‘Call that secure? You won’t learn much wrestling the subject for the scalpel.’

She re-fastened the straps and then looked at him, appraising his fresh black eye. ‘Why don’t you fight back?’

Torbidda carefully laid out his tools. ‘He’s not that much trouble.’

‘You should make eye-contact when you lie. Makes it more convincing.’

As the students got under way, the screaming started.

Torbidda smiled in embarrassment. ‘He’ll get bored and move on.’

She looked at him intensely. ‘Listen, you have to start thinking long-term. If you take it from Four, others will follow. You don’t know what’s coming in the next few months. I didn’t.’ She looked around again and then pulled up her tunic. An ugly pink scar bisected her flank in the shape of an N. ‘I didn’t realise how fast it could escalate. This saved my life. It told me what I had to do to survive.’

Torbidda watched as she circled the room, helping other students. She wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already worked out – so why was he waiting? He wasn’t scared, exactly. He had just exepected an adult to step in at some point – that was how childhood worked. Those were the
rules
.

When she returned, he asked, ‘What should I do?’

‘Give him a target.’

Her name was Agrippina. Her father was a farmer, one of the few still trying to make a living raising chickens and harvesting dust in the Concordian contato. At the end of another drought year he’d realised the worth of his unusually canny daughter. He made the trek to the city bringing her in the trailer with the other livestock. Although she was determined not to let anyone ever own her again, she wasn’t bitter. Her father had done them both a favour.

‘I love it here,’ she said simply.

Every second-year had this reverence. Torbidda was beginning to understand where it came from. The Guild was a machine: it never gave back more than you put in, but it never promised anything, and it never lied either.

‘Madonna, what a din!’ exclaimed Varro. ‘I
told
you: cut the vocal cords first!’

Initially, the complete absence of rules gave rise to clumsy sexual experimentation late at night. That carnal holiday didn’t last. Eventually there was no one foolish enough to drop their guard. Nights were one long tense silence now.

Torbidda could hear the approaching whispers. He knew what was imminent; Agrippina
had
warned him. He had brought this on himself by his servility. It was dark and he was outnumbered here; there was nothing for it but to endure. They came in strength, rushing in to overturn his mattress, and piled on, whooping and hollering. Blows rained down on him in quick succession, on his legs, torso and face. It was not a serious attack – there was nothing sharp involved. He covered his head and waited for the end. Four probably thought he was making an example, but you don’t make examples when nobody can see.

You wait for daylight.

Torbidda rose before the bell and limped to the sinks to wash the matted blood from his body. He entered the refectory and sat alone, eating breakfast through scabbed lips, hood down to show his bruises to the world. Naturally everyone ignored him; talking to a sinking Cadet was impolitic. As Four and his followers filed by Torbidda, each greeted him with a smack on the back on his head.

‘Morning.’

‘Morning.’

‘Morning.’

‘Morning.’

Torbidda’s swollen face usefully masked his anger – though the anger wasn’t directed at Four but at himself. He had survived the night, but what incompetence, to have let it come to this.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. ‘You all right?’

Leto’s imprudence was touching. He had troubles of his own
with the Fuscus twins. The New City brats were minor nobility; their family had a long-running feud with the Spinthers. Leto’s indifference to the incestuous quarrels of the old nobility infuriated them nearly as much as his indifference to his status, which was far grander than theirs.

‘Go away.’

‘What? I’m not going to— Look, I wasn’t one of them last night—’

‘I know that! Please, go, but first hit me.’

Leto’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you planning?’

‘Please.’

‘Fine!’ he shouted and struck Torbidda hard on the back of the head. There was general laughter as he walked away.

‘Even Spinther’s got sick of the smell,’ Four drawled.

Torbidda limped through the day, dutifully dissected, solved problems and calculated and drew and read, and all the while dispassionately examined his plan from different angles, holding it up to the light to see its flaws.

He arrived early for Mechanics to select a workstation that would put his back to the classroom. He powered up his water-saw and cut a small wedge of wood. He took his half-carved table leg from the lathe and practised swinging it, getting the feel of its weight and balance. After class began he informed Flaccus that there was an impatient consul waiting for him in his tower. Flaccus left in a flap, telling the class to continue work. Torbidda followed him to the door, wedge in hand, but there was no need for it. Flaccus had left his keys behind.

Torbidda turned the lock and pocketed the keys. Then he returned to his own isolated workstation, taking care to shuffle past Four’s desk. The absence of adult supervision would be irresistible – he knew Four still thought of the selectors as surrogate parents. He busied himself splitting wood with water. With
the din from the saws it would be impossible to hear Four’s approach, so he just had to be ready.

When it came, time seemed to slow. An arm came around his neck; the other braced his forehead. Four meant to tip him towards the blade – he probably just planned to scare him. Instead of resisting, Torbidda pulled, leaning to the left as he went forwards, and Four’s arm went into the water’s path. There was a whipping sound and the stream ran red for a moment. Four’s scream was louder than the saw.

Now Torbidda pushed against his weight and Four fell backwards, trying to keep his balance even as the blood spewed from his severed forearm. Torbidda snatched up the table leg as he turned and put his whole body behind it. It caught Four under the jaw and lifted his feet from the ground.

He landed on his back and lay there, coughing blood, not understanding what had happened – or what was happening now. His eyes darted from his pumping wound to the onlooking classroom.

‘Please,’
he gargled, ‘get help!’

One of his crew ran to the door, only to discover it was locked.

‘I’ve got the key,’ Torbidda said clearly.

Four’s crew dared each other to rush him, but a minute passed and still no one made a move. He stood guard over Four until the blood slowed to a languid ebb. At the end of it, Torbidda had the high ground. They had watched their leader die, and everyone else had watched them watching.

When Torbidda unlocked the door, Flaccus was waiting. Torbidda got a slap for locking him out of his own classroom and a mop for the mess. The selector didn’t mention Four. No one did. He was forgotten before his blood was mopped up.

Heads turned in the refectory as Torbidda sat at the second-years’ table.

Agrippina smiled. ‘I didn’t invite you to join me. There are rules, you know.’

‘But just one counts.’

Agrippina laughed. ‘I heard about your woodwork.’

‘Already?’

‘I see you’ve been practising eye-contact – but don’t pretend to be surprised. Everyone’s talking about it.’

Torbidda felt no elation about the killing, nor any remorse. He wondered if he had always been so heartless, or whether it was a logical response to a heartless environment. He knew now why congress was civil amongst the second-years: they all knew the consequences. They still quarrelled, but their quarrels were swift, unflinching things and the loser was not left bruised or lame but out in the cold, another example to his peers.

Agrippina studied him coolly. ‘You did what you had to. I know you’re too smart to waste your time with guilt, but don’t start revelling in killing either. Some Cadets start thinking it’s
that
type of competition, and they don’t last.’

‘I understand. It’s a means to an end. I don’t understand why you care.’

‘You helped me.’

‘True but you didn’t
have
to reciprocate. I’m only a first-year.’

‘Exactly. You’re talented and you won’t ever be competition.
I’ll need competent allies when I become Third Apprentice.’