“Good. Think you can keep it away from the House?”
“Likely.”
“Good. What you want?”
“For the moment, information. Discreetly gathered. The inside workings of the mesuch fort.”
“Hm. Time limit?”
“No.”
“Good. I’m shamed to say I don’t have many I trust who have the brains to do that work and not get caught at it.”
“Not getting caught is more important than the information.”
“I can see that. Someone else you ought to bring m. Sifaed. She works the back room at Farkli’s lubbot. Gets more techs than we do, ours is mostly Drudges, and one of her steadies is the Chav who runs the Drudges.”
“She tied to the lubbot or does she get out?”
“After she and the other women clean the place, she’s mostly loose till noon. I could set up a meet if you want. Best not here. She goes walking round the edges of the Fen when she needs to get away from the mesuch, that’s as good a place as any. You know what she looks like?”
“No.”
“Big woman, not fat, just heavy. Taller than most. Wide shoulders, wide hips, light brown hair with a lot of red in it, fine flyaway stuff that kinks into tight curls with the least damp in the air. She was a teacher back before the mesuch came, bonded like they do with a Keteng teacher, a Denchok called Bolabel. Mesuch killed xe when they broke up the Dumel. Like they did all the Keteng they saw about.”
“I see. Yes, set up a meet two days on, tell her I’ll watch her backtrail, make sure she’s clear before I show. I’ll call her bond’s name to show her it’s me.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
“Yes. How she handles it will tell me things I need to know.”
Sifaed was grim-faced, eyes hooded, anger in the set of her shoulders as she stepped into the shadow under the trees and stood waiting for Danin to show herself.
“Bolabel,” Deдnin said quietly, then stepped from behind a tree. “How long do you have?”
“That isn’t the question. Convince me I should stay.”
“We’ve quit trying to drive them off. We’re going for the head now. Get that and the body dies.”
“How?” There was an edge to her voice. “You didn’t see what happened here when they came. You weren’t here. I’d remember you. All the faces are graved in my head, everyone, dead and alive. I’ve searched for a way, Chel Dй have I searched. You can’t get in there and I don’t care how big an army you can get together, you won’t even get close. They’ll kill you faster than my father mowed a hayfield.”
“So we just have to be cleverer than they are. What do you know about inside that fort?” Deдnin pulled a pad from a pocket in her shirt, took a pencil from its loop and waited.
Sifaed’s eyes went distant She moved over to the tree, lowered herself onto one of the knobby root knees and scowled at the reedy grass growing round her feet. After a short silence, she said, “One of my regulars is the Muck of the Dirtmen. That’s what they call them that grow food for the rest. Hunh! Not that they actually touch dirt, that’s for Drudges. Ragnal, his name is. Touchy. Full of resentments. You know the kind. Every time someone looks at him, he turns it into a slight. His baby brother was in an airwagon that went down. Crashed. He blames the Muck in charge of equipment, says he’s so corrupt, he’d get rid of all his workers if he could and eat their pay. He says Hunnar, that’s the High Muck of Mucks, he got this job because his wife is important, that he’s messed up a couple of other times and this is his last chance before he’s hauled home and put out to pasture. And that most of the other techish Mucks are the same sort, rejects put together because no one else will have them.”
“Hm. You said he’s a resentful man.”
“Cha oy, but he’s not the only one grumbling at the way things are run, so I suspect it’s close to true. Let’s see. The Drudges live in Dordan-that-was. Seven male, six female. Was more, but guards took four off and that was the last anyone saw of them. Inside the fort, maybe fifty guards. They go on staggered duty, fifteen at a time, two on the High Muck’s workcenter, another two on duty in his quarters. They like that duty, it’s just watching the clean Drudge do her work, then sampling the Muck’s drink stock and poking through his picture stuff. What they hate is walking the walls and punching in at the call stations. It’s boring and they can’t slack there. There’ll be one or two in the watch towers and four walking the walls. The rest off duty, or wherever the High Muck says, lately they’ve been hitting the Sleeping Grounds, bringing in Guardians. Right now, he’s got around ten of them out looking for Denchok, don’t know why, guards don’t either, they’re grumbling because it messes up the schedule. Um. Don’t know how many techs exactly, but you folks have whittled them down by at least a dozen. Four kinds, mining, med, communications, and repair. I’ve counted round thirty at Farkli’s, probably more than that. Four Mucks under Hunnar. Never see those. Um. Some support staff for day to day business the Mucks won’t mess their hands with. Borrow that pencil and pad?”
Sifaed turned to a clean page and drew a square. She frowned at it a moment, then started filling in the square with smaller squares and numbering these. When she finished, she wrote the numbers on the facing page with a note beside each number, then handed the pad back. “Far as I know, that’s how things are arranged. Those Chave go on and on like drunks on a talking jag when they’re with me. Cha oy, I admit I encourage them, you know why.” She looked at the pad in Deдnin’s hand. “I can’t see what use any of that is. You’re not going to get in there. Nobody gets in there except Chave.”
Deдnin slipped the pencil into its loop and tucked the pad away again. “We’ll let you know when we figure it out. Take care, Sifaed. And don’t push things, hm?”
Sifaed nodded. “I hear. Chel Dй grant the time be soon.”
3
Feoltir ran her fingers nervously through hair she’d bleached until it was white enough to pass for age. She glanced at the Guardian who’d volunteered to stay behind, wondering at the withered serenity in his face. He was wandering about, sliding his hand along the rough brown fibers of the Sleepers as if he were caressing cats. He was saying his farewells, that was clear. Farewells to things that looked like wooden eggs with the bark still on. She knew well enough that Eolt were developing inside, she’d been to a Hatching, she’d watched the embryonic Eolt emerge, small and slippery like egg yolks, watched them hunt blindly for the sky, pulling themselves up the posts of the pergolas and crawling shapeless and really rather revolting onto the lattice. She’d watched them suck blood from the Guardians and begin making the gas that would plump them out and carry them aloft. She watched them put on beauty and go floating upward, watched the making of the bonds.
That was why they were there. Her brother wanted the sioll bond. He sat with the other boys and in his turn played the song he’d made to call the new-hatched Eolt to him. He had the gift, an Eolt dropped the speaking tentacle, draped it lightly about his neck. She’d never forgotten the wonder and joy on his face, nor the pain in the faces of the two boys who weren’t chosen.
And I didn’t even have the chance to be rejected. She closed her eyes. I had as much music in me as he did, but no one listened.
A touch on her shoulder. She shivered, looked round.
“They’re coming.” Eagim pointed. “You’re ready?”
“I’m ready.”
The guard shoved her into the cell. He was rougher than he meant to be but not deliberately; he’d just forgotten his own strength. She caught her foot on the sill and fell heavily onto one hip, her right hand twisted under her.
By the time she got to her feet, the door had slid shut and she was alone. Fear churning in her, she moved to the sink in a corner of the cell and ran cold water over her wrist. It was already starting to swell. In a little while she wouldn’t be able to use it and she was ridiculously right-handed.