Context (93 page)

‘But you didn’t see them.’

‘Not then. But later. I’ve
travelled, closer to the power centres, where there are more non-people like
that. Their eyes . . .’ Velsivith shook his head, very slightly. “They’re
part
of the Blight, just components, and that means they’re no longer human.’

Tyentro unfolded his arms,
recrossed them, without tucking in the upper hand: ready to strike as soon as
it became necessary.

‘What can you give us?’

‘Locations of two of their High
Commands. And biometric data on every prisoner who’s passed through the Grand’aume
Core.’

Tom stepped away from the wall. ‘Biometric
data?’

‘Every prisoner is deepscanned
and analysed. Of the ones who are deported, some are directed to camps near the
High Commands, the power centres. There are tales of what happens there’—with
an almost violent headshake of denial—‘but I don’t know. I do know that those
camps’ prisoners are chosen from the multitude that pass through.’

‘From bio-analyses?’

‘Oh, yes.’ With a bitter smile: ‘You
didn’t think they’d actually committed a crime or anything, did you?’

Tom’s eyelids fluttered as he
shifted into logotropic trance, analysing and synthesizing, allowing gestalten
to form themselves against the background of his own experience, and his
consciously constructed model of the Dark Fire’s nature and intentions,
matching with the scant information he already possessed about the ongoing
arrests.

Finally, he breathed in deeply,
snapped his eyes open.

‘You’ve a prisoner called Yano,’
he told Velsivith. ‘I’d like you to release him.’

‘And that’—Velsivith’s voice was
suddenly subdued—‘is the price of my passage?’

‘With the biometrics. And one
other thing.’

‘Which is?’

‘Something we’ll discuss later.’

~ * ~

50

NULAPEIRON
AD 3421

When
Yano was released, Tyentro himself tagged along through the crowded tunnels,
following the dazed man as he stared with wonder at homely sights he had
thought were lost to him forever. With experienced tunnelcraft strengthened by
natural paranoia, Tyentro was excellent at spotting human surveillance; there
was none here.

Femtotech was more dangerous, but
that would have to wait till they could get to a safe chamber for screening.

Finally, before Yano reached his
sister Shayella’s dwelling—she was with Tyentro’s lieutenant, Stilvan, two
strata below; up here, notice had been given for her arrest -Tyentro
intercepted him.

Dismay shut down Yano’s
expression when Tyentro showed a crystal copy of Shayella’s arrest notice. He
agreed to go along with Tyentro, though he feared trickery, and a return to the
Grand’aume’s dungeons.

Tom learned all this as he
debriefed Tyentro.

‘Let’s get him down to his
sister,’ he said. “Then he’ll be more forthcoming when we ask questions.’

‘All right,’ Tyentro answered. ‘But
I thought his release meant nothing, tactically. Just a way of bringing
Velsivith further into our camp. Strengthening our hold on him.’

‘That’s part of it. But I want to
know more about the Seer’s chamber.’

The
way Tom remembered it, the Seer’s chamber was a great ovoid hanging in a vast
darkened shaft, its catenary walkways like transparent capillaries linking it
to the tunnels beyond the abyss. When he had last seen it, row upon row of
arachnabugs had been crawling on the shaft wall, guarding the Seer.

Yano had helped to build the
walkways. Beyond confirming Tom’s impressions and adding architectural detail—the
exact number of walkways (twelve), the materials used (moldoil softglass)—he
had little tactically significant information.

‘Thank you,’ Tom said finally. ‘Make
yourself comfortable. Two more days, and you’ll be far away from here.’

Yano began to reply, but his
mouth twisted and suddenly he was sobbing, and he sat with his hands clasped
between his thighs, rocking back and forth, staring at the grimy flagstones,
seeing only the jailers coming for him once more, and the glistening red of the
pain chamber’s flesh-like toxin-laden walls, while his skin shrank beneath the
piercing screams of tortured prisoners only he could hear.

They
used a different location for Tom’s next meeting with Velsivith. It was an art
gallery, its owner absent; the walls and ceilings were burnt orange, composed
of flat planes but in a jumbled maze of polygon-faced tunnels, and the floor
was a single continuous turquoise crystal.

It reminded Tom of the Arizona
realm in Ro’s Story, but he tried not to take that as some kind of omen.

He sat beside Velsivith on a wide
bench, and watched a deep-burgundy smartglass sculpture slowly morphing through
liquid, abstract configurations.

‘Tell me,’ Tom said slowly, ‘about
the Seer’s chamber.’

Velsivith twitched. “That place.’

‘It was under heavy guard when
last I saw it. Not that it helped at all.’

‘No-one’—the amber ovoid pulsed
alternately dark and light as Velsivith shook his head—‘would dare attack it
now.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘There are no guards, except in
the ordinary access tunnels outside. But the mausoleum is haunted, my Lord. I
mean it.’

‘Mausoleum?’

‘It— We kept the Seer there.
Froze the—remains. Council orders.’

Haunted.

Dark Fire manifestations?

Then, ‘That’s the other thing I
want to ask of you, Ralkin,’ he said quietly, using Velsivith’s forename for
the first time. ‘Can you get me inside there?’

It was like dark, coagulating
blood: the burgundy smart-glass, slowly changing shape upon its shelf.

‘No,’ said Velsivith finally. ‘Not
you. The scans will remember you, still recognize you, and I can’t override
that.’

Chaos...

‘Tyentro, then.’

‘If you get Vhiyalla to safety,
yes.’

‘I’d say we have a deal.’

They
sent Vhiyalla, along with Shayella and her brother Yano, via the long-prepared
escape routes, stage-managed by some of their deepest-cover agents-in-place. A
bland-faced courier went with them, carrying a crystal in his tunic’s
flash-pocket, set to heisenberg the crystal to oblivion if the pocket was
incorrectly opened.

But the biometrics data which
Velsivith had provided might be very important. Unknown to the others, Tom sent
a duplicate with a second courier.

Deep-lined face and
whipcord-thin, with long wispy white hair: the man was in his seventies, but
ramrod-straight and obviously fit.

That’s how I want to turn out.

Tom and the courier bowed, each
recognizing a kindred spirit. Then the old man was gone, and Tom knew they were
unlikely to ever meet again.