Fork lightning was fairly predictable, but ball was a law unto itself. Our team back home would lose a ball-trapper a year, almost without fail. Nasty business.
“Glad you could make it,” said Courtland. “Tea?”
“No, thanks.”
“Suit yourself. My man Preston does a smashing cuppa. Isn’t that so, Preston?”
Preston murmured, “Yes, sir,” but kept his eyes firmly glued to the horizon.
“Before they Leapbacked riding,” continued Courtland, “ball-lightning hunts were conducted on horseback. Fine sport, they say, although I don’t believe they neutralized a single one. Tricky business, throwing a harpoon at full gallop—and the earthing wires always ended up tangled in the horse’s hooves.”
He chortled to himself, then turned to me with a scowl. “Tommo tells me you didn’t double-order the Lincoln for us— despite his having wangled you a ride to Rusty Hill.”
I shrugged. “Double-ordering the Lincoln without Dad noticing was difficult.”
“Of course it was difficult,” snapped Courtland. “If it was easy, I would have asked Tommo, or done it myself.”
“Ball!” announced Preston, swiftly moving from his binoculars to a simple inclinometer mounted on a wooden tripod. We stared toward the horizon and saw a shining white orb slowly wending its way in our direction. Courtland put down his tea and picked up a stopwatch and clipboard.
“Bearing two hundred and sixty-two degrees,” recited Preston, “elevation thirty-two.”
Courtland wrote the numbers on a pad, then pressed the stopwatch. “Mark!” he called, then turned back to me. “So what are you going to do to make amends? Do you have anything else to bargain with, or will I simply take our favor off your account?”
“I have an account?”
“You most certainly do,” asserted Courtland, “and it’s already in deficit—by the cost of setting up the account. Mark!”
Ten seconds had ticked past.
“Bearing two hundred and sixty-seven degrees, elevation thirty-six,” recited Preston. “High and fast, I think, guv’nor.”
“I’ll be the best judge of that, thank you,” said Courtland, consulting a cardboard calculator before announcing, “Fast and high—it will probably land somewhere near Great Auburn, if it doesn’t wink out before then. Right, then,” he added, turning back to me, “to make amends I have decided you are to return to Rusty Hill and collect up as many spoons as you can. Even a dented teaspoon would be worth a hundred merits on the Beigemarket, and out of the fifty or so spoons kicking around there must be two or three carrying clear title postcodes we can sell to an underpopulated village. Now that would be some serious cash—and legal.”
But Courtland’s avaricious spoon talk had little effect upon me. I had something else on my mind, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“We found Travis.”
He stared at me intently before replying in a nonchalant manner: “Alive?”
“No.”
“Shame. Did you manage to swipe his spoons before anyone arrived?”
“I was more concerned about Travis.”
“That’s what happens when you accept friendships from other colors,” he chided. “It makes one unprofitably sentimental. What happened to him, by the way?”
“His head was half burned away.”
“That’s good news for the Council. It justifies the hideous cost of the crackletrap.”
“But not good news for Travis.”
Courtland shrugged, and I showed him the piece of molten metal I’d found in Travis’ skull.
“Do you know what this is?”
“Of course,” he replied evenly, “it’s a section of unburned Daylighter. Tommo could probably get you four merits for it as salvage. He could sell green to an Orange, that boy.”
“Do you want to know where I found it?”
“My dear fellow, you might enjoy grubbing around for scrap, but I have greater demands on my time.”
“I found it in Travis’ head.”
He stared at me with a blank expression for several moments, giving nothing away. He and his mother had gone out at night to look for Travis, armed with Daylighters. A magnesium flare would be hot enough when thrust into the head to emulate a ball strike. They said they hadn’t found him, but the evidence seemed to indicate otherwise. Courtland tapped his fingers together.
“Something on your mind, Edward?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you kill him?”
He rose to his feet. I thought he was going to violent me, but he didn’t. He just laughed out loud and patted me on the shoulder.
“You’ve been listening to too much Renfrew, old chap. There isn’t any murder anymore—there’s no point to it. Why would we even consider such a thing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly. Besides, what proof do you have? Did anyone see you take that from Travis’ head?”
I didn’t say anything, which was answer enough.
“You’re sharp,” he said, “and I respect that. And since they say you’ve got good red and will be here for a while, I guess you and I will have to get along.”
“I’m not staying, Courtland.”
He smiled.
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
He pointed at my NEEDS HUMILITY badge.
“Do you really think it was Bertie Magenta’s elephant trick that got you sent out here?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to have to guess again. The Outer Fringes have a greater purpose than you credit them.
They are a receptacle for those who have done nothing against the Rules but are deemed ‘potentially problematical. ’ When it comes to Harmony, it’s far better to be safe than sorry. Counting chairs in the Outer Fringes is Reboot with a small r.”
A sudden thought struck me. Old Man Magenta hadn’t been annoyed about the elephant trick perpetrated on his son. In fact, he had laughed for the third time ever, and Mr. Blaupunkt, our Blue prefect, had privately told me that Bertie deserved it, as he was something of a clot, and everyone thought so.
“It was the improved queuing, wasn’t it?” I said in a quiet voice.
“Now you’re getting it. The Collective has a built-in resistance to change. Not just in technology and social mobility but in ideas. Queue modification isn’t an offense, but it’s enough to have you covertly flagged.”
“What about ‘Buy one get one free’ offers? Is that a flag, too?”
“Tommo’s out here for the same reason. But it was greed that had him flagged, not seditious thoughts about corrupting the sanctity of the dinner queue. Are you certain you wouldn’t like some tea?”
“Certain.”
“Designing flyable models, discovering the harmonics, an overly obsessive interest in history, talking about specific ideas at the Debating Society, uncovering certain artifacts—the list is long. You’re not leaving.”
“But I’ve an Oxblood to marry.”
“Your frustration and anger will become bearable in time. Most people in the Fringes eventually stop struggling and wear their defiance with a certain tattered pride. In a generation or two your descendants will forget why they are here and may once more circulate. Unless—?”
“Unless what?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He then opened it in a very obvious manner so I could see how many notes were stuffed inside it.
“There is no proof of your ridiculous assertions regarding Travis, but let’s just say I am willing to be generous to someone who is perhaps a little too nosy for his own good. What’s the going rate for Red silence at the moment? Three hundred?”