Clockwork Heart (32 page)

Amcathra's pale blue eyes narrowed, but instead of answering, he waited. Knowing that Demicans could sit in silence for hours, Taya tucked the watch back into her pocket.

“Decatur Forlore says he had nothing to do with the theft,” she reported, “but he may know who set it up. He thinks it's an Alzanan plot. He has a list of Alzanan spy names and code words that he found in Decatur Neuillan's personal possessions last year that he's willing to hand over in exchange for a deal.”

Cristof muttered under his breath.

“He'll tell the lictors everything he knows if the Council agrees to change his sentence from execution to exile,” she finished.

“The decatur believes he can blackmail the Council?” Amcathra sounded offended.

“I guess he does.”

“It's not an unreasonable demand.” Cristof turned to the lieutenant. “Not if he can help us get the engine back in one piece.”

“You are not without bias in this matter, Exalted.”

“That's true, but I also want to find the engine before they get it out of the city and damage it on the mountain trails. Put me on the case. Alister will work with me.”

“I will send a message to the Council, asking for its decision.”

“They could argue for days.”

“I will impress upon the decaturs the need for haste.”

“Janos!” Cristof leaned on the desk. “We don't have time for that!”

“I can neither speed nor slow the march of the sun across the sky, Exalted,” Amcathra observed. “Nor will putting you on this case convince your brother to reveal his secrets. He will keep them until he is promised his life.”

“But—”

“Come. You may accompany me while I search the engine room.”

Cristof growled.

“What about Taya? She's working as my assistant while she's grounded.”

“Is she?” The lieutenant gave them both a dispassionate look. “Wait outside. And tell Mr. Wycomb that he will come with us.”

“Mr. Wycomb?” Taya asked, puzzled.

“Lars,” Cristof explained, holding the door open for her.

Lictors blocked the door of the Science and Technology Building, ignoring the abuse Isobel and Emelie were heaping upon them. Dark-bearded Victor, on the other hand, was standing to one side, gazing across campus. He saw the small group approach and raised a hand.

“What's going on?” Lars asked, bounding up the stairs.

“It would be a straight walk from here to the university gates if they carried the engine out in crates,” Victor observed. “But that would take dozens of men. On the other hand, a wagon couldn't be brought to the bottom of the stairs without going around Froshcourse.”

Lars turned from him to Isobel. “Iz? What's going on?”

“They won't let us in.”

Taya worked her way up the broad, shallow steps. Cristof paced himself, walking next to her. She appreciated his thoughtfulness; she knew he was impatient to reach the top.

Amcathra jogged up the steps past them.

“Is this the entire team?” He looked at Victor. “Ah, Mr. Kiernan. I thought I recognized your name.”

“Lieutenant,” Victor greeted the lictor, looking uneasy.

“This is Isobel Vidoc and Emelie Wilkes,” Lars said, introducing the two women. “They're on the team, too.” He turned to Isobel. “Where's Kyle?”

She shrugged.

“I stopped at his flat and he wasn't there.”

“Em?”

“I haven't seen him.” The smaller woman frowned, shifting from foot to foot. “What's going to happen now? Are we under arrest?”

“Vic? Any sign of Kyle?”

“I haven't seen him, either.” Victor scratched his beard. “That makes him suspect number one, doesn't it?”

Lars recoiled. “Kyle's not a thief!”

“I know that. But the stripes don't. And until he shows up…”

The programmers looked at each other, crestfallen.

“You're
all
suspects,” Cristof informed them as he and Taya reached the top of the stairs. “Lieutenant, why not have them accompany us, too? They know the area and the engine. They might spot something we'd miss.”

“You will all walk behind me,” the lictor directed.

Lictors were stationed at the top of the stairs down to the AE labs, and a warning chain had been strung across the head of the stairs with a lictor's seal dangling from it. Students crowded the hall, watching as the chain was unhooked and the small procession headed down to the basement. Taya heard them gossiping about Alister. None of them seemed to know about the missing engine yet.

“It seems strange that the University is still in session,” she murmured to take her mind off the annoyance of negotiating stairs while on crutches. “I feel like the whole city should be in an uproar.”

“The Council may be shaken, but Ondinium remains untouched,” Amcathra replied. “It is the strength of the city. And the weakness.”

“Why do you think it's a weakness?”

“There is nobody in Ondinium who cannot be replaced. We are like the gears in one of Exalted Forlore's clocks. That is a strength because the clock will keep running even if every gear has been replaced. But it is a weakness because it is impossible to respect a man who is nothing more than a replaceable part. ‘We must have a dedicate here. Go, send a lictor there.' A man's name and spirit become unimportant.”

“You're a philosopher, Lieutenant.” Taya reached the bottom of the stairs and rubbed her aching shoulders. “But a grim one.”

“I do not understand how a philosopher in this city could be anything but grim.” Amcathra paused in the gas-lit hallway until the rest of the group joined them.

“‘The hawk sees the meadows and streams that lie beyond this dark forest,'” Taya quoted, in Demican.

“‘Let the sun shine upon the mountains; their peaks remain encased in ice, and my heart, also,'” Amcathra countered in the same language.

“Good one,” Taya said with appreciation, reverting to Ondinan. “You win. I haven't read enough Demican poetry to compete. I just liked that line about the hawk.”

“Perhaps an icarus, whose eyes are fixed upon the horizon, cannot be other than optimistic. Those of us whose view is obscured by machinery are not as fortunate.” Lieutenant Amcathra saw that the rest of the group had gathered. He turned and began pacing down the hall, his blue eyes moving over the walls and floor like one of his hunter kin.

The programmers murmured as Lars pointed out the marks on the walls outside the prototype engine room. After scrutinizing the door and frame, the lieutenant entered, pulling matches from his coat pocket to light the gas lamps.

Taya's first impression was of a large, empty chamber. Then she noticed the marks on the walls and the snips of wire and small screws on the floor. Thick cables ran into the room through a hole in the wall and ended in a cascade of wire and tubes.

Amcathra took his time circling the room, crouching often to inspect the floor before taking another step. Cristof waited in the doorway, and Taya leaned on her crutches behind him. The rest of the programmers crammed close, trying to look over their shoulders.

“If you left anything in the room or took anything with you, the lieutenant will want to know,” Cristof warned Lars.

“I don't think I even went inside. Maybe one or two steps, because I was surprised. But that's all.”

“They packed the engine in straw-filled crates,” Amcathra said. “I see nails, splinters of wood, and wisps of straw. Is straw safe for an engine?”

“If they wrapped the parts in oiled rags before packing them,” Lars replied.

“Could a good hound track the scent of the oil?” Cristof asked.

“They would have put the crates into a wagon outside,” Victor said. “A dog would lose the scent, eventually.”

“We will try,” Amcathra said. Suddenly he stopped and crouched.

Taya watched, fascinated, as he lay on his stomach, studying the ground. If you took Janos Amcathra out of his lictor's uniform, wiped away his black stripe, and dressed him in a Demican hunter's furs and leathers, his behavior would seem absolutely in character. She wondered what kind of family he'd come from. He'd preserved many Demican habits.

“What color is Mr. Deuse's hair?”

“Brown,” Lars said. “Brown hair, blue eyes. About average height and weight.”

Taya realized they were talking about Kyle.

“He had a key to this room?”

“Yes.”

“Lots of people have brown hair,” Isobel protested, even though she, like Amcathra, was Demican blond. “Just because you find some brown hair doesn't mean Kyle stole the engine.”

“Where was Mr. Deuse last night?”

“He left the station with the rest of us.”

“Did any of you go home with him?”

A chorus of ‘no's.

Amcathra stood and searched the room again. At last he walked back, turned off the gas lights, and waved everyone away from the door. He closed and locked it.

“I will take your keys to this room, please,” he said, holding out his hand. One by one, the programmers slid their keys from rings and cords and laid them on his palm. He dropped them all into his pocket with a metallic jingle.

“Exalted, Icarus, please stay. The rest of you may leave. You will remain here in the capital where we can contact you if we must.”

“What did you find?” Lars asked.

“Clues.”

“Look, Taya, we'll be at the PT,” the big man said, stymied. “You'll tell us if you learn anything, won't you?”

Taya leaned on her crutch and patted his arm, feeling like a doll next to him. “I'll try, I really will.”

After the team members had left, throwing worried looks over their shoulders, Cristof turned to Amcathra.

“Kyle helped us figure out what Alister's program was doing. He seemed like an honest man.”

“I think Mr. Deuse may have been coerced,” Amcathra said. “I saw blood and brown hair on the floor, as might come from a head wound.”

Taya drew in an apprehensive breath. “Do you think he's alive?”

“If they had killed him, I think they would have left his corpse behind.”

“Besides, Lars said Kyle knew how to reconstruct the engine,” Cristof added, his eyes narrowed behind their lenses. “And he's the head of the programming team, now that Alister's in jail. He'd be a nice catch for the Alzanans.”

“It does not need to be Alzanans, Exalted.”

“Who else would do something like this?” Cristof pulled off his glasses and began polishing them fiercely. “They waylaid Kyle and forced him to unlock the door; maybe even made him dismantle the engine.”

“The amount of blood was significant. It is possible he protested at some point.”

Taya felt sick, imagining the pleasant young programmer sprawled in a pool of his own blood.

“Then they packed up the crates and carried them up the stairs and out. What was Victor saying about wagons?” Cristof looked at her.

“He said the thieves would have to hand-carry the crates across campus to the gate or pull a wagon around on some kind of road… something-course…”

“Froshcourse. Right. It runs along the campus perimeter for deliveries.” Cristof turned to the lieutenant. “It's a long route, and it passes in front of the dormitories. One of the students may have heard if a wagon went by late at night.”

“I will have lictors speak to them.” Amcathra stood. “Let us examine the foot path to the gates.”

Outside, Taya sat on an iron bench and watched the two men work. Her leg was throbbing again, warning her that the painkillers were wearing off, and her arms ached from the crutches. Sitting was a relief.

This time Amcathra permitted Cristof to search with him. Both men bent over the path, Cristof constantly pushing his glasses back up as they slipped down his sharp nose. Taya grinned, trying to imagine him in a Demican hunter's furs. He wouldn't be very convincing. He still looked like a crow, bobbing along the path searching for something to eat.

Her grin faded. Kyle had seemed like a nice man, intelligent and responsible. He was the one Clockwork Heart had chosen as Lars's match. And although Lars might have been irritated by the program's decision, he was worried about his friend. He wouldn't be happy to find out that Kyle might have been kidnapped. But how could the thieves have taken Kyle out with them? And what would they have done with the wagon?

“They must be storing the crates someplace until they can get them out of the city,” she said, out loud. “And if they aren't hiding them on Secundus, they would have had to take them through one of the sector gates last night. The crates and Kyle, both.”

“The sector gates are locked after midnight,” Amcathra replied at once. “The theft could have occurred before then, but I think it would have been carried out later, when nobody would be walking around the campus.”

“So if they transported the crates to another sector, they either lied to a lictor about an emergency or waited and went through this morning,” Taya finished.

“It's unlikely they'd call attention to themselves by trying to get through after lockdown. If I were a thief, I'd leave the sector the next day, probably a few hours after the gates had opened,” Cristof said.

Amcathra gave a decisive nod. “Go to the station. I want a tracking hound brought to the engine room and lictors questioning the students in the dormitories. I will inquire at the cart gates, starting at the nearest and proceeding west. Rejoin me when your messages have been delivered.”

Cristof gave the lictor a sour smile. “So, I'm trustworthy enough to run your errands but not investigate your crimes?”

The lictor pulled a narrow black wallet out of his coat pocket and handed it to him. Cristof flipped it open, startled.

“I thought you were going to wait for the captain's approval.”