Lieutenant Harman led the party down a long corridor. Sentries stood at various points along the passageway, and they seemed alert and ready for action.
A male sentry led the men into one room, while Lieutenant Harman took Drexelica into another. The guard subjected each of his charges to a dispassionate, but very thorough, search, causing Grimm, for one, severe embarrassment at the soldier's intimate inspection of his various orifices.
With evident chagrin, Crest surrendered his daggers and whip, while Tordun gave up a knuckleduster and a knife concealed in his right boot. The sentry placed the confiscated weapons in a sturdy, metal-walled locker, which he locked.
Grimm rued his temporary lack of power; with his magic, he would have found it a simple matter to convince the soldier that he had already searched them.
The guard eyed the two Questors' staves, Nemesis and Redeemer, and Xylox advised the soldier that these rods were mere badges of rank.
The soldier eyed the slender staves for a few moments, but he seemed unaware of the deadly potential they contained, since he nodded in assent.
I'm glad he didn't object to Xylox's magic pendant of Missile Reversal, Grimm thought. He must think it's just a gaudy adornment.
Seeming satisfied that his proteges had been stripped of all offensive weapons, the guard went to another locker, scanned the men with a critical eye and produced five green uniforms similar to his own, handing one to each. Grimm felt more than happy to surrender his stiff, stained, tattered robes, and he found the green uniform surprisingly comfortable. Stout, black leather boots completed the ensemble; they felt heavy and clumsy on his feet, but they fit well enough.
It seemed strange to wear clothes which conformed so well to the outline of his body, but he felt less embarrassed when he saw Xylox and Crest attired in a similar manner. Xylox, in particular, seemed unhappy, and Grimm could see why; the mage carried a considerable pot-belly before him, which was well hidden by his habitual, shapeless robes.
Foster's expression suggested that there was nothing unusual about these procedures, and Grimm guessed the pilot had visited the compound before.
As Grimm expected, Tordun posed rather more of a problem to clothe; it seemed that even the largest uniform in the locker was too small for him. The guard eyed the huge albino and shrugged. While the white-haired man stood naked, without apparent shame, showing a muscular body with many scars, the soldier took the albino's robes and inspected them in great detail. After feeling along each seam and fold, the man appeared satisfied, and he handed the robes back to the pale-skinned giant without a word. However, he retained Tordun's battle armour.
The guard appraised his charges once more and nodded.
Grimm wondered for a moment if the man was mute, but the sentry then said, "You'll do."
He led them back into the corridor, where Lieutenant Harman was waiting with Drex, who now wore a green outfit like her stern duenna's. The Grivense girl's hair was tied back in a long queue, and her lower legs were now on display beneath the knee-length skirt. Although red and blistered, Grimm saw that they were well-proportioned, and of a pleasing form. He tried not to stare, despite the fact that Drexelica did not appear in the least ashamed to have her lower legs on display.
The male guard and the female officer exchanged their ritual salutes, and the lieutenant turned to her charges.
"The General is only to be addressed by his rank, or by the honorific, 'Sir'," she said, as if reciting a familiar litany. "Keep your mouths shut unless you are asked a direct question or otherwise given explicit permission to speak. Maintain a respectful distance from the General at all times. Is that understood?"
"Understood!" Foster snapped, and Grimm and his companions either nodded or otherwise acknowledged Harman's terse instructions.
"This way, please," the female officer said, despite the fact that there was only one obvious route. She led the group to the end of the corridor, where Grimm saw a metal door with a panel of illuminated, numbered cartouches, like those he had seen at Haven.
"Please turn around," the lieutenant said, and her charges complied. Grimm heard a series of strange bleeps, and the now-familiar hiss of a sliding door.
"Go in."
Lieutenant Harman would benefit from a series of Magemaster Faffel's lessons in Courtly Graces, thought Grimm. Even she'd crumble after a few sessions with that crabbed old bastard.
The party walked into a tiny room with a single entrance, and Grimm wondered if they were to be imprisoned in this metal cell, but the stern woman followed them into the small chamber, as the door slid closed.
He saw another of the glowing panels on the far wall, and Harman pushed a number at the top of it. Grimm felt a brief moment of vertiginous panic as his stomach seemed to fall to the level of his feet, and he realised that the whole room must be accelerating upwards. From the shocked expressions of all his companions except Xylox, the young mage knew they felt no more sanguine than he about the alien experience.
As the chamber rose, the numbers on the panel turned red in numeric sequence until the top cartouche was lit, and Grimm's stomach returned to its customary position. The door hissed open, and the Questor felt no surprise to see a pair of sentries waiting outside, weapons at the ready; the General seemed to treat his personal security with the utmost seriousness. Harman stepped from the small room, and the guards stood aside.
"This way." The lieutenant strode down a short corridor and the group followed her. Grimm did not need to turn around to know that the armed sentries' eyes and weapons were trained on them at every step.
To Grimm's surprise, the door at the end of the passageway was an ordinary, if ornate, wooden portal with heavy hinges, and Harman gave it a firm rap with her balled fist.
"Enter." The voice was deep and rich; the green-clad woman opened the door in a fluid movement.
The General's chamber was opulent, oak-panelled and fitted with a heavy, deep-blue carpet. Polished brass sconces threw a warm, golden glow onto the high ceiling, and Grimm, ever the bibliophile, gaped at the impressive collection of books arrayed around the panelled walls. A mahogany desk, the size of a small boat, commanded the centre of the room, behind which sat an imposing-looking man.
The General had a lined, leathery face, a map of a human life made flesh, and an ugly scar marred his right cheek. He was bald, and his uniform seemed little more ornate than those of the sentries outside the door; despite the officer's impressive, forbidding appearance, Grimm felt surprised to see lines betokening humour around the margins of the military man's ice-blue eyes and his mouth.
Harman clicked her heels, standing ramrod-straight. She presented a crisp salute, which the General returned in a languid, almost bored, manner.
"New intake from Haven, Sir!" the female officer said.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Quelgrum said. "That will be all for now."
Harman clicked her heels again and exited the room.
"Please excuse Lieutenant Harman's manner," the General said in a surprisingly warm manner. "She's a very efficient officer, and I don't know what I'd do without her; she has a most retentive memory for facts and faces. However, she can be a little overbearing at times, I know.
"Mr. Foster; I believe we've met before," the soldier said in an amicable tone, rising to his feet and extending his hand. He was not a tall man, but his presence seemed to fill the room.
"That's right, Sir," the pilot said, his eyes aglow, taking the General's hand and pumping it in with enthusiasm. "That was three years ago, when I took you on a tour of Haven."
"So it was. How is Administrator Armitage, these days? I'm rather surprised he didn't tell me you were coming."
Foster looked a little confused, but the little fiction that had been constructed for him by Xylox soon took hold.