A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (44 page)

She stepped into the carriage. It was old, the wooden floor worn into shallow dips by countless feet. The wooden benches running down each side of the carriage had been polished to a rich buttery hue by countless bottoms. Some of the light-panels flickered and rattled. Black smears lined the carriage walls.

There were a pair of proles further down the carriage, staring listlessly at each other across the aisle. After a quick glance, Dai ignored them and settled warily beside Tovar. Looking up, she saw Lotsman grinning, and wished she shared his infuriating sense of adventure. He perched on the bench, hands on his knees, gazing at the window opposite with an expression of happy expectancy on his face. There was nothing to see, of course. Just coarse grey concrete walls.

Which soon turned to black as the train lurched into motion, left the station and entered a tunnel.

On Shuto, transport was free. All forms of transport. Movement itself, however, was not free. Permission was required. But, given the necessary permits, a proletarian could travel at no cost from one side of the planet to the other. As Lotsman, Tovar and Dai were doing.

As the train rattled and shook its way through the tunnels beneath Yomi, Dai tried to think herself into her new guise. She was no longer a crew-member aboard a data-freighter, but a clerk on the most scrutinized world of the Empire. Aboard
Divine Providence
, she had travelled where the data-freighter had taken her; here, she travelled only where she was permitted to travel. And on Shuto, everywhere was carefully organised such that the three classes of society rarely had to mix.

The three of them did not speak during the forty-minute journey to the aerodrome. The carriage remained mostly unoccupied, although different passengers alighted and disembarked at different stations. By the time the train reached the aerodrome, only Lotsman, Tovar and Dai remained. They rose to their feet as the train pulled into the station and waited for it to come jerkily to a halt. Again, Lotsman was first to the door and stepped out onto the platform as it slid open.

Once more amongst square pillars of grey—the décor was so similar they could have been back at that first station—they headed for the first upward ramp they saw, marching along with confidence. It was all a front: they had to appear to know what they were doing or they might draw suspicion.

The concourse of the aerodrome was as vast and empty and forbidding as everywhere else they had seen so far in Yomi. It was impossible to tell what shape it was. Some sections stuck out; others intruded. Off to one side, Dai saw an inclined plane of concrete which seemed to serve no purpose. It was too steep to be a ramp and led up to a blank wall.

Above their heads, strung between columns, were great rectangular glasses like vertical lighting-panels. They glowed a pale yellow and written across them in black was travel information: docks and destinations, departure times and aeroliner designations.

“I don’t know about you,” Lotsman said, “but I’m starving.”

Dai glanced at him. He was gazing up at the information panel. She looked back at Tovar, who stood at her shoulder. He nodded.

“Six hours on that bloody train,” Lotsman continued, “and not a bite to eat.”

“We have time,” said Tovar. “The next aeroliner to Toshi doesn’t leave for three hours.”

Suspecting food would not be provided on the aeroliner—not for prole passengers, anyway—Dai nodded. Her feet still hurt and it was taking all her acting ability not to show it.

They hurt even more once they eventually found a cafeteria. She thought they must have walked miles through this vast echoing concourse with its peculiar architecture. The eaterie was just as unwelcoming, a great open space with tables and chairs in ordered rows, the far wall of glass making it appear the room was open to the outside. A small serving area was situated halfway along the right-hand wall. Lotsman immediately strode toward it.

Tovar had charge of the crowns—here on Shuto, there were too many fiefs for scrip to be useful—and he paid for their meals as they each placed them on the tray they carried. Then it was across to an empty table, of which there were very many, where they sat and immediately began eating. The food was simple fare, of cheap ingredients and cheap to prepare. Proletarians were rarely fed anything else. Dai focused on her plate, eating until she could feel her stomach stretching and the waistbands of her underwear and hose digging even tighter into her middle. She sat back and wished she could
undo
something. A belt, perhaps. Or some handy tabs, such as her
Divine Providence
coveralls had possessed. She missed those coveralls. They had been designed for ease of movement as she crawled about the data-freighter’s engineering spaces. Unlike the constricting jacket, tight-fitting top, short skirt and high heels she currently wore. Standard apparel for a female clerk on Shuto, but not designed for comfort.

Lotsman let out a quiet belch and scraped his chair back. He picked up his mug of coffee and held it up to his mouth. Before taking a sip, he grinned at Dai. She turned to look at Tovar. The ex-cargo-master patted his lips with a napkin, and then carefully folded it and placed it beside his empty plate.

“We might actually get away with this,” she said in surprise.

It astonished Lotsman how little oversight they had encountered on Shuto. No one watched them, no one wanted to know where they were going. Or why. Even when they climbed the ramp to board the aeroliner taking them to Toshi, no one asked to see their escutcheons or demanded the reason for their presence.

It was entirely different to his life aboard
Divine Providence
. Then, he had been required to present his escutcheon whenever he arrived on a world. Many fiefs also controlled the movements of proles within, and across, their borders. He didn’t know how many fiefs there were on Shuto—hundreds probably. But the borders between them seemed to be completely open. In fact, there was no indication where one fief ended and another began.

The aeroliner would doubtless cross many such borders before reaching Toshi. Lotsman looked about him with professional interest. The aerocraft was essentially a small boat, but incapable of reaching orbit. Its hull contained some twenty rows of seats, in pairs either side of a single aisle, each pair facing each other across a narrow table. As he had boarded, Lotsman had seen another entrance further forward. He guessed that gave access to the compartment for yeomen and nobles.

Dai slid into a seat and across to the window. Tovar stopped and looked back to Lotsman. “Do you want to face forward?” he asked.

“Don’t mind.” Lotsman wasn’t piloting the aerocraft so it made no difference to him.

The cargo-master put his hands to his sizeable stomach and smiled ruefully. “Perhaps you should sit next to Marla, Rafe.”

“Sure.” Lotsman folded himself into the seat beside Dai. Beyond her and through the window, he could see the aerocraft’s wing. It appeared too stubby to provide much lift—but he knew its underside, and the keel of the hull, was covered with chargers set to repel gravity.

“I expected it to be a bit more basic than this,” he remarked. He slapped a hand down gently on the upholstered arm of his chair. “This is nearly luxury.”

Dai gave a weak smile.

“I expect,” replied Tovar, “a lot of things on Shuto might seem luxurious to us.”

“Don’t bet on it,” said Dai darkly.

“It’s all very liberal too.”

“Don’t bet on that either.”

Lotsman turned away. Dai was clearly in no mood for conversation. It was going to be a long journey…

E
mpress Glorina
was a week away from Shuto. Ormuz had mixed feelings about about their impending arrival. To see the Imperial capital! He felt a boyish excitement he had not experienced since his first trip in
Divine Providence
years before. And yet… He would be on Shuto to lift the Serpent’s siege of the Imperial Palace. Duke Ahasz. That was likely to be a strange meeting.

“It’s going to be so weird,” he told Varä. “He’s me, but a couple of decades older.”

“Not quite the same,” the marquess replied. “You’re not trying to take the Imperial Throne.”

“I might as well be. We’ve no idea how the Emperor will respond when the fleet arrives. He didn’t seem to think the Serpent was a threat.”

“He was certainly wrong in that.”

“Wrong?” Ormuz gave a sardonic smile. “When is the Emperor ever wrong, Varä?”

The two of them sat in deep and wide armchairs of shiny brown leather in the battleship’s Great Hall. On a small round table before them a steward had left a silver coffee service. Ormuz still found this too peculiar for comfort—playing the effete noble in some posh club… which was actually aboard a battleship of the Imperial Navy. There had been no such “comforts” aboard
Vengeful
. The Admiral did not believe warships should be luxury berths.

Ormuz leaned forward and picked up his coffee cup. “That,” he said as he sat back, “is assuming I’m even allowed in. Or have you forgotten that I’m a prole?”

“Pah. Semantics,” dismissed Varä. “Your blood is noble, and anyone meeting you now would never guess you’d grown up a prole on some backwards world out on the Empire’s rim.”

“They don’t have to ‘guess’,” pointed out Ormuz.

Politics alone, he suspected, dictated how he would be treated on arrival on Shuto.

There was no predicting, of course, what would
actually
happen. And should he try to imagine, he was likely to get it wrong. No battle plan survived contact with the enemy.

He rested his chin on his hand and peered up at a banner hanging from a pole fixed on one of the Hall’s many pillars. It denoted some martial honour but he had yet to learn the trick of deciphering them. Not that he particularly cared. He was not Navy, he would never be Navy.

His eyes dropped from the banner to a trio of young officers walking along one of the balconies overlooking the Great Hall. No, not officers. Midshipmen. Their blue coats boasted white facings. He watched them march forward, heading he surmised to the main wardroom. As his gaze passed across their faces, he was drawn back to one of the three. There was something familiar about the young man in the middle of the trio.

Young! The thought prompted a smile. The midshipman was only a year or two younger than Ormuz himself, but it was difficult not to think of him as “young”. He had nondescript features in a round face, short brown hair, and stood six inches shorter than his companions. Something about him, however, reminded Ormuz of someone.

“See those midshipmen up there,” he said to Varä.

The marquess twisted round his chair and peered up at the balcony. “What about them?”

“The one in the middle: do you know him?”

Varä shook his head. “Not my type.”

“You’ve never seen him before?”

“Not that I’m aware of, Casimir.” Varä turned back to face Ormuz. “But I meet so many people.” He gave an eloquent shrug.

Ormuz did not reply but continued to watch the three midshipmen. He felt sure he recognised the young one, he could not think from where. Perhaps he’d seen him about
Empress Glorina
before—he certainly wasn’t from
Vengeful
. Ormuz knew all the officers who had been aboard her.

Shaking his head, he turned back to the marquess. Later he might remember where he’d seen the young man before.

Rinharte pulled up the battleship’s crew complement on her glass and, by flicking various switches, narrowed the displayed selection to show only
Empress Glorina
’s midshipmen.

“You’re certain he wasn’t one of ours,” she asked Ormuz.

“I know all our midshipmen, Rizabeka,” Ormuz replied.

Empress Glorina
’s officers—enemy officers—had all given their parole and were allowed freedom of movement within officer country.

That niggling sense of familiarity had been bothering Ormuz all morning. Try as he might, he could not think where he had seen the young midshipman before. But he definitely knew his face. Something told him it had not been during the fight to take
Empress Glorina
from her crew. To be fair, much of that battle was a blur. He remembered thundering across the gangplank from
Vengeful
, he remembered bowling into the waiting defenders… The rest was a confused and confusing montage of faces, blood, and swinging sword-blades; and noise—screams and yells and the roaring of flames.

So he had come to Rinharte. She had access to the battleship’s data-pool. If the midshipman were a member of
Empress Glorina
’s complement—as he had to be—then his identity could easily be determined.

Ormuz peered at the ten faces arranged on the glass. The one he sought was immediately obvious. “Him,” he said, and tapped the glass on the young man’s face. “Harap. Balik mar Harap.”

Rinharte leaned close and Ormuz withdrew his hand. He heard her draw in her breath sharply.

“Where did you see him?” she demanded.

“In the Great Hall. Well, on one of the balconies.”

“Dear Lords.” She rose to her feet, picked up her sword and fastened it to her belt. “Romi!” she called.

Mate Maganda appeared in the doorway. “Ma’am?”

“Get Lieutenant Pulisz and tell him to meet us with half a dozen of his best in the Great Hall.”

Ormuz stared at Rinharte. She knew the midshipman?

She turned to him. “He’s one of the Urbat,” she explained.

“Who? The what?”

“The clones, Casimir. The ones who tried to kill you. They’re called Urbat.”

He turned back to the glass and stared at the face. Something seemed to click into place. “Aszabella!” The young woman at the assembly on Linna who had killed Mate Kowo. “That’s where I’d seen him before. They could almost be brother and sister.”

“Quite,” said Rinharte.

Ormuz abruptly remembered. “Ah, yes. Of course.” Appearances had been deceiving with Aszabella. The young lady had not been “she” at all.

“Damn. Who knows what sabotage he’s planning? We have to take him into custody.” Rinharte’s tone was urgent.