Nouli passed his hand over the air above his contraption, as if caressing a lover’s back. “Imagine a Fleetman who needs half the sleep of a normal man. A Fleetman with sight keen beyond normal reckoning, and energy that never fails when he calls upon it. That’s clearsky. That is the future of all of this.”
“You’re experimenting. On the prisoners.” Her skin grew cold and clammy. Visions of Detan’s sparse tales from his time spent in the Bone Tower danced behind her eyes.
“Nothing as heinous as all that.” He brushed aside her concerns with a wave of his hand. “These people ask for my formulations. They come here without having had the chance to properly come down from their previous preferred methods of… deterring reality, I suppose you could say. Certainly some of them find solace in that mind-numbing barbarism Baset peddles, but I offer them a better alternative. I mean no harm, Miss Leshe. I mean only to enhance their minds and bodies.”
Despite herself, her lip curled in disgust. “At the risk of addiction. At the risk of… of skies know what. You say it grants clarity of mind, but how long does that last? What is the down slope like? I’ve scraped many a man off the street twitching and drooling, scratching themselves raw because they can’t afford another hit of whatever back alley apothik got them hooked in the first place.”
Enard squeezed her arm, hard. She cut herself off, swallowing anger.
“Have you now?” Kisser said, her round eyes locked upon Ripka.
“Have I what?”
“Scraped many an addicted man off the street.”
“I cared for Aransa. I helped where I could,” she said, hoping her anger would cover her anxiety. She’d given them her name, she was not yet sure she wanted to offer up her old profession as well.
“Such a good little citizen.” Kisser tapped her lips with one finger, thinking. “I wonder what it was you stole to end up here, hmm?”
“You said no details.”
“Hah,” Nouli cut it, his hoary brows lifted with curiosity. “I think we’ve been pretty free with details thus far. You know our business. What did an upstanding woman like yourself do to get locked in with the likes of us?”
“Or are you really a prisoner?” Kisser’s hand dropped to her hip, an instinctual grab for a weapon she no longer carried.
“Tell them,” Enard said, his voice strangely resigned.
“Shipment details,” she admitted, glancing down as she spoke, the way Detan had taught her to hide any tension that might creep across her face. What she was telling them now was only a half-truth, and she knew from long experience that she was poor at disguising her expression. “An imperial manifest for a Fleet cargo vessel – the precise locations and nature of that cargo.”
“The manifest alone?” Nouli asked, leaning toward her. “To what purpose? I suppose you must have passed it along to some of those men you swept out of gutters to do the real thieving work.”
“The cargo was people, Master Bern. Selium sensitives of deviant abilities, being kidnapped and shipped off to Valathea to undergo experimentation at the empress’s behest. Think what you will of me, but my actions are not petty. I passed this information along to those who might be able to do something about it before I was captured. I pray to the sweet skies they found a way.”
“Such a noble soul.” Kisser rolled her eyes and slumped back against the wall. “If your story can be believed.”
She spread her palms in supplication to the sky. “Believe it or not, but I did get myself sent to the Remnant with a purpose.”
“We had planned on capture,” Enard said. “I am familiar with the workings of these things. The stealing of the list was for good, yes, but also to be sure Valathea would wish to punish us dearly – without execution being a legal option.”
“Clever,” Nouli mused.
“Short-sighted,” Kisser said. “You came here to find my uncle, well, you’ve done so. Now what?”
Ripka hesitated, not wishing to lay too much of her true plans at their feet. But she could not remain coy much longer – Kisser was liable to drop them both in the well at any moment.
“Tell me, Master Bern, what is your goal at the empress’s behest? What would she use such soldiers for?”
He shrugged as if the empress’s end designs mattered not a whit in all the world to him. “The re-taking of the Scorched, the crushing of Thratia, the bringing to heel of Hond Steading. She believes she’s let the Scorched’s native cities go to seed too long. They need to be reined in, their courses righted. Their heads of state replaced with her chosen, their flimsy democracies cut down in place of heartier stock.”
“And you’d experiment upon the prisoners to fulfill your goals?” she asked, unable to hide her disgust, despite her better judgment screaming at her not to antagonize the very man whose assistance she’d come to beg. But what benefit would he provide, if he were no better than the whitecoats? She had to ask. Had to know what his intentions were – what he was willing to break to achieve his goals.
“My preferences are not in play here. Though I have small freedoms other inmates do not, you can see my hands are tied. I do as my empire bids me.”
“As do their whitecoats. And I’ve seen the gleam of passion in their eyes. Do you not love your work as they do, no matter the form it takes?”
“Do not compare me to those perversions!” He slapped a hand against his desk. “Do I love to practice science? Yes, of course. I am full of questions only experimentation may answer. But science is neutral – it does nothing but raise questions. How one goes about collecting those answers is a function only of human folly and evil. Or, in my case, imperial threat. You should know something of the business of asking difficult questions, Miss Leshe. Or were your efforts to steal information always humane?”
She winced. “Once, to save a great many people…”
“Then you know the nature of this burden. If I were given freedom to investigate these questions of mental alacrity as I saw fit, then I would use only free and informed volunteers, not addicts desperate for their next fix. But the empire binds me. And even still, I have caught and accidentally murdered a great many rats to be certain I was not poisoning anyone.”
“I am offering you that freedom, Nouli. Will you take it?”
Nouli looked up from his work, a sheen of hunger in his eyes so profound it made Ripka jerk back in her seat. “My dear, I will take anything that gets me off this cursed rock. The empress has promised me release upon my success. If you have come bearing a better offer, I suggest you make it now.”
Was this worth the risk? If Nouli turned on them now, much more would be lost than a chance to out-strategize Thratia. He and Kanaea could twist their connections to keep Ripka and Enard on the Remnant indefinitely. Could even prepare to capture Detan, when he came for them. Could hand any information Nouli managed to weasel out of them straight to the empress.
But they’d come this far, and had been lucky enough to find the old engineer somewhat sound of mind, if drifting in moral compass.
“If you agree to assist Dame Honding in defense of her city, I can return you to the Scorched before the monsoons come.”
Nouli sucked his teeth; Kisser let out a low hiss.
“You can’t be serious,” Kisser said.
“I am. Arrangements have been made. I will share no more information, for obvious reasons. Know that I am serious. That I have implanted myself within these walls for the singular purpose of extricating you. Hond Steading requires your expertise. Will you give it?”
He licked his lips, a fresh gleam in his eye – something beyond hunger to be free, something so profound it brought dampness to his eyes, filling his slightly rheumy orbs with a soft, glimmering sheen. “If you can free me, Miss Leshe, I will be forever in your debt. Yours and your friend’s, if he is indeed involved.”