It was the androids’ stated intention to return the city of Vembyr to a state resembling its condition during the time of the Lizard Court, when by general agreement the city had been at its most culturally vibrant and architecturally coherent. As well as rebuilding the ancient steam-powered automobile it had used to transport them from the docks, Feril had restored two other apartment blocks over the past few decades; this was its third.
All the rooms were tall. Wood panelling carved with intricate abstract patterns climbed from floors of polished wood to agate and marble dados, from which plain white plaster walls rose to fabulously complicated plaster friezes composed of leaves and vines and little peeking lizard faces. The room they were in was sparsely furnished with black wood and hide furniture that looked both severely formal and strangely organic.
“How much?” Sharrow said.
“Ten million,” Zefla said, nodding. She was standing by a panelled wall, running her hand over it.
Miz spread his arms as he turned from the window. He stood there, silhouetted. “The guy didn’t even look surprised!” he exclaimed.
“Judge did,” Zefla said, peering intently at the panelling. “You could see she’d thought it was just a formality, setting bail that high. She had to consult the Court AI right then, in front of everybody, probably asking if she could re-set the bail beyond anybody’s reach, but the rules say no. So Roa walked free.”
“Who’d risk ten mill on somebody that crazy?” Miz said.
“No clues, I take it?” Sharrow asked.
Zefla left the panelling and came to sit with Sharrow on a long couch. She shrugged. “Bail company. Had the money there in a cash-good chip within the hour. No idea who’s behind it.”
“Maybe it’s the same son-of-a-bitch named the noon race winner Minus A Fifth in Tile yesterday,” Miz said, leaning back against the window sill.
“Oh, Miz,” Zefla said, frowning at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know, I’m being paranoid.”
Sharrow felt the nagging sensation return; that feeling there was something she’d missed, something important.
“Miz?” she said.
“Hmm?”
“Come away from the window, will you?”
“What?” Miz said, frowning and looking round behind him. He eased forward, taking his weight off the glass and step-ping away.
Sharrow was aware they were all looking at her. Miz glanced back at the city beyond the window again. She found herself looking round the room for Cenuij. She made a half-exasperated, half-despairing gesture with her arms. “I’m sorry; it’s me who’s paranoid.” She pointed at the window and told Miz, “I’m sure there isn’t a sniper out there, and the glass won’t give way behind you.”
Miz smiled uncertainly at first, then sat down on a pale hide chair.
“Anyway,” Dloan said, flexing his wounded leg a little, “we’re here. What is it we’ve come to see?”
“Something Gorko left behind,” Sharrow told him. She looked round the others, feeling something was wrong, and realised that she was looking for Cenuij again, to catch his gaze. “We go to the warehouse tonight,” she said.
“A warehouse?” Miz said.
“A lot of family possessions are stored here, courtesy of the World Court,” Sharrow said.
“The storage rates are cheap,” Zefla explained to Miz, who was still looking puzzled.
“Some of the stuff’s Gorko’s,” Sharrow told him, “but they haven’t been able to dispose of it yet, and some of it’s still disputed; the Court says it’s theirs, my family says it’s ours.”
“Which category does whatever we’ve come to look at fall into?” Zefla asked.
“The latter,” Sharrow said. “It’s Gorko’s tomb.”
“His tomb?” Miz said.
Sharrow nodded.
Zefla looked mystified. “How did the book lead to the tomb?”
Sharrow looked around the wide, white room, her eyes nar-rowing. “Tell you somewhere else,” she said.
“Don’t you trust your new friend?” Miz inquired.
“Oh, I trust it,” Sharrow said, looking at the delicate leaves, fronds, stems and flowers described in the patterned plaster filling the angle between wall and ceiling. “But who knows…?”
There was silence in the room for a while. Then Zefla clapped her hands together and said, “There anywhere a girl can get a drink round here?”
“Good idea,” Sharrow said, rising. “Let’s try the City Hotel; we need to get you lot booked in, anyway. They won’t let me stay there but I don’t think I’m banned from the bar.”
The warehouse extended into the distance; section after section, aisle after aisle, shelf after shelf after shelf. Sharrow stood with the others at the entrance, while Feril and the warehouse’s caretaker android turned all the lights on from a great board full of switches, slowly filling the cavern with yellow pools of illumination.
“Sheech,” Zefla said, leaning one elbow on Sharrow’s shoulder. “This Gorko’s shit?”
“Yes,” Sharrow said.
“What, all of it?”
Sharrow looked slowly around as the last few lights flicked on in the distance. “This is just one house,” she said.
“Wow,” Miz said.
“Lady Sharrow,” Feril said. “You wished to see your late grandfather’s tomb?”
“Please,” she nodded.
“This way.”
They walked through the dusty debris of her family’s past, amongst the piled crates and past the stacked boxes and faded labels and yellowing lists tied and pinned to the assorted containers. The items that weren’t boxed were covered in translucent plastic wrapping secured by World Court code-seals.
After a short walk they carne to a section of the warehouse dominated by a large plastic-sheeted cube about four metres square, standing on a metal pallet and surrounded by crates, boxes and a variety of loose items also shrouded with the translucent sheeting.
“That is the tomb,” Feril said, pointing at the dark cube.
“Oh,” Miz said. He sounded disappointed. “I’d kind of thought it’d be bigger.”
“That’s all there is,” Sharrow told him.
Fenril found a way through to the cube; they trailed after it. “I shall take the wrapping off,” it told them. It found the plastic sheet’s Court seal and ran its fingers over the input surface. The plastic sheet parted around the sarcophagus and Feril and Dloan pulled it off, revealing the black mirror-surface of the tomb’s polished granite. Sharrow pulled a crate over and stood on it to look through the little smoke-glass window half-way up one black wall.
She put one hand to the side of her face to screen out the light from the warehouse, then took a small torch from her pocket and shone it through the window.
She looked down at the others. “It’s empty,” she said, trying not to sound shocked.
“Your grandfather’s body is in the Noble’s Temple in Yadayeypon,” Feril said. “It was felt that a warehouse was not a fit place for human remains.”
“Same could be said for Yada,” muttered Miz.
“I didn’t know,” Sharrow admitted. She squinted in through the smoke-glass window again.
“The World Court did not publicise the removal of your grandfather’s remains,” Feril said.
“They take his bike to Yada too?” she asked.
“His bike?” Feril said. “Ah, the vehicle in the tomb with him. No. That is… here,” the android said, turning and pointing at a long, translucent bundle.
“Ah well,” Sharrow said, clicking off the torch and stepping down from the pallet. She looked around. “I really wanted to pay my respects to the old man, but…”
“I’m sorry,” Feril said, “I should have realised. You asked to see the tomb and…” Its dull mirror-eyes gazed levelly at her, reflecting the black stone tomb behind. “How silly of me. I do apologise.”