The Abyss Beyond Dreams (43 page)

‘So I’ll just remove the assent from poor old Captain Ephraim’s mod licence. Take the wind out of Slvasta’s sails.’

‘That’s an option, of course, sir.’

‘Ah, here we go. What would your advice be?’

‘They’re a one-borough protest party, unregarded by the rest of Varlan, let alone Bienvenido. Cancelling the mod licence calls their action to prominence. It says you’re
worried about Citizens’ Dawn being challenged. The Captaincy mustn’t be seen to be dabbling in grubby politics.’

Philious gave him a curious look. ‘Do nothing? Look out there.’ The Captain’s arm gestured at the big windows overlooking Walton Boulevard. It was night outside, with nebula
light effervescing out of a cloudless sky. Their gentle radiance shimmered on the rooftops. Windows glowed yellow. ‘No streetlights. For the first time in thousands of years, Varlan’s
lights are going out. And its my Captaincy! This wretched
core
has done that. But that’s a mild disaster compared to what I’m reading in the Treasury reports. Prices are
rising, banks are nervous. That cannot stand. We need the new neuts the guild is arranging to bring in, and we need the mods they’ll produce. Unrestricted, unlicensed mods.’

‘Yes. But this clever little manoeuvre of theirs confirms what I’ve said all along: the core is behind the whole neut situation. Slvasta has a weakness: he is obsessed by Fallers and
mods. It consumes him – understandably. That is what ultimately lies behind all this.’

‘Then he should have stayed in the regiment; fought the Fallers head on.’

‘But he didn’t, sir. And we have to deal with him. He and his friends have become public figures. Not so easy to quietly dispose of any more. Questions would be asked. Nobody wants a
martyr.’

‘What, then?’

‘They have made their move. It is a public message of defiance to you personally. We have to make a counter-move. Make them understand this is not some easy game. They must be taught there
are consequences to challenging the authority of the Captain.’

‘Very well. Send them a message. And Trevene, make it a firm one.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We did it.’ Bethaneve said. ‘We started it.’

It was half an hour after the end of the council meeting, and the four of them were sitting in the garden at the back of the Bellaview pub on the other side of Tarleton Gardens from their flat.
Four beers on the table, and a mild fuzz around them to prevent any eavesdropping. Clouds were beginning to thicken in the twilight sky above.

‘A good beginning,’ Javier agreed. ‘But now our biggest task is to keep the momentum going.’

‘The word is out with every cell,’ Bethaneve said. ‘There’s going to be a lot of dead mods across this city by the end of the week.’

‘The sheriffs are going to be busy,’ Coulan said thoughtfully. ‘They’ll work out there’s an organization of some kind behind it. And, as it all started with the
Wellfield, I expect they’ll start poking around.’

‘Maybe not,’ Bethaneve said. ‘Once you’ve struck a spark, some fires flash out of control. If all the unemployed see that dead mods mean jobs for them, we won’t
have to keep feeding the cells with orders to kill. It’ll start to happen naturally.’

‘I like it,’ Coulan said. ‘The sheriffs might blame Nalani council for the spark, but the deaths will look spontaneous. They won’t be interested in us.’

‘Someone already is,’ Slvasta said. ‘And it ain’t the sheriffs.’ He told them about the observer he’d spotted.

‘Uracus!’ Coulan exclaimed. ‘He was really standing that close to me in the public gallery?’

‘Yes.’

‘You should have warned me.’

‘Why, what would you have done? Turned and stared? How would that help?’

‘Is he here now?’ Bethaneve asked.

Slvasta took his time and looked round the pub garden. At one time it might indeed have had a view, but now the only thing behind the garden was a high stone wall covered in viricote vines whose
large papery white flowers were furling up now the sun had gone. ‘Not him, no,’ Slvasta confirmed, checking all the tables. ‘But if they’re smart they’ll rotate their
watchers so we don’t start to recognize them.’

‘You already have,’ Coulan said.

‘I was lucky, or they got careless. It’s not something we can count on.’

‘You’re implying they have a big team on us,’ Bethaneve said in a subdued tone.

‘If they’re watching us already, then we are in trouble,’ Javier said. ‘If they’re watching anyone, it should be Bryan-Anthony. He’s really embracing his role
as chief radical. Even I believed he’s in charge, the way he ran that meeting.’

‘About that meeting,’ Bethaneve said. ‘Next time you introduce a proposal, make sure the speech is better rehearsed. It was painful listening to Jerill.’

‘Yes, but it made him sound honest. A natural first-time request, well intentioned and guileless. Nobody wants professional politicians taking over Democratic Unity right now.’

‘I’m not saying professional, just a little more coherent.’

‘We’ll all grow into the role.’

Slvasta ’pathed an order to the barman for another round.

‘We have to be careful,’ Bethaneve said. ‘This is a critical time. We have to get a groundswell of support behind us. So far, all we control is one of the poorest boroughs in
Varlan. And the next round of elections isn’t for another eight months.’

‘Is there a time when it won’t be “critical”?’ Javier asked.

Bethaneve raised her glass and gave him an amused glance over the rim. ‘I can’t think of one.’

*

The second Nalani council meeting was much more boisterous than the first. They’d been expecting that. What the gazettes were condemning as the slaughter of the mods had
taken on a fervour that left even Slvasta and Bethaneve surprised and not a little concerned. The cells had been told to limit their killing to the mods used by business, but no one else felt that
constraint. Household mods were targeted with as much glee as those in commerce. In some of the wealthier boroughs, sheriffs were patrolling all the roads leading into the area, demanding proof of
residency before they let pedestrians and cabs through. Citizens were determined to keep undesirables out – a policy which quickly resulted in a few ugly incidents when the sheriffs were
overzealous. Pamphlets and ’path gossip feasted on those for days.

Then there was the problem of the bodies. Dead mods were simply thrown out onto the streets. Bussalores emerged from their secluded warrens; people reported packs of the sleek rodents swarming
over this bounty of rotting food. They became brave protecting their carrion, snapping at human children. Tatus flies formed huge clouds that clogged the air along alleys and narrow streets. Public
health was becoming a serious issue.

Bryan-Anthony’s opening statement was that the borough considered clearing the bodies away to be the highest priority. Twenty new human workers would be taken on to clear the streets.

‘How will you pay for them?’ asked Oriol, one of the Citizens’ Dawn councillors.

‘I propose charging one shilling for each mod-licence,’ Jerill said. ‘That should see a considerable rise in the borough’s income.’

‘Your lot are killing all the mods,’ Oriol shouted back. ‘There won’t be any left to buy a licence for, you cretin! You didn’t work that out before you started
this, did you?’

‘Keep it civil, councillor, please,’ Bryan-Anthony said.

‘Five of my mods have been murdered by your supporters. Is that civil? I will be ruined!’

‘Employ a human,’ someone shouted from the gallery.

‘Criminal scum,’ came the answering shout.

Bryan-Anthony started banging his gavel as the shouting and accusations in the gallery grew louder and more heated. ‘Order, please. Order!’

Insults were followed up by mild teekay jabs. They didn’t stay mild for long. A full-scale brawl broke out. The sheriffs were called.

It took twenty minutes, but the public gallery was cleared and the rest of the meeting was conducted without any physical observers. As no closed sessions were permitted in Varlan, the borough
clerk allowed any interested party to see and hear through her senses.

‘Did not expect that,’ Slvasta admitted as they walked home.

‘We should have done,’ Bethaneve said. ‘After all, the whole point of getting rid of mods was to hit people where it hurts most: in the wallet. Start taking money away from the
privileged, and they can turn just as savage as any animal that gets shoved into Philippa’s arena.’

Her nose wrinkled up as they turned onto Onslo Road. It was a commercial street with plenty of shops and businesses. Dead mods were piled in the gutter, although the corpses were hard to see
without ex-sight. None of Onslo Road’s streetlights had been lit; the only illumination came from the nebulas and the occasional upper-floor window. Mod-dwarfs made up most of the
capital’s lamplighter teams, and they’d proved an easy target. Gossip ’path claimed that less than twenty per cent of the city’s lamps were currently being lit at night.

They hurried along the pavement. The dark mounds in the gutter shifted about as if they were ripples on some murky lake, emitting slithering sounds as they sloshed against the kerb stones. To
begin with, Slvasta thought the bodies weren’t quite dead, then a quick sweep with his ex-sight showed him they were all smothered by dozens of bussalores – big brutes, he perceived in
dismay; he’d always assumed rodents that size were an urban myth, but then they’d enjoyed plenty to eat this last week.

His arm tightened round Bethaneve’s shoulder, and they all hurried along.

‘We really will have to do something about this,’ Javier said, clamping his hand over his nose to ward off some of the stench.

‘Another unintended consequence,’ Bethaneve ’pathed as she held her breath. ‘It’s too expensive to pay humans to light the streetlamps and refill them again in the
morning. Maybe we should start to put in some exemptions in the licensing ban.’

‘It wouldn’t matter any more,’ Javier said. ‘The streetlight companies couldn’t afford new mods right now. Have you seen what a three-month-old mod-dwarf is going
for today? That’s if you can import one. The sheriffs are talking about providing armed guards when stables bring them into the city.’

‘It’s starting to hit the economy, too,’ Coulan said. ‘Food prices are going up.’

‘I could have told you that would happen,’ Slvasta said. ‘All the Wellfield stalls have raised their prices. We had no choice; people cost more to employ.’

‘Wages will have to rise to take that into account,’ Bethaneve said. ‘Which, of course, they won’t. Maybe Nalani should introduce a minimum wage level?’

‘No,’ Slvasta said. ‘We have to be realistic. Even if we could enforce it, every shop owner and business would challenge it in the courts, which would just shut down the
borough’s commercial affairs. That would cause even more hardship.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘That will have to come after, when we can enforce it planet-wide.’

‘Good call,’ Slvasta said. Once again he was impressed and disturbed by her devotion to the cause.

*

A squad of sheriffs were waiting in the Wellfield market when Slvasta and Ervin drove their carts back from Plessey station. Five of them were standing round Javier’s
stall, strong shells preventing any emotional leakage.

Slvasta saw Javier standing in front of the main display cabinets, in deep conversation with the squad’s sergeant.

‘Get the carts unloaded, please,’ Slvasta told Ervin and the new workers as he pulled up outside the store rooms. ‘I’ll see what’s going on.’

Javier gave him a tight smile as he went over. ‘This is Sergeant Becker. He needs us to identify someone.’

‘Identify?’ Slvasta said.

‘If you wouldn’t mind, please, councillor?’ Becker said. He was in his late sixties, a rotund man with a big walrus moustache. The polite yet firm attitude told Slvasta he was
a career sheriff used to dealing with human extremes.

‘I’ll be happy to help the sheriffs,’ Slvasta said.

All that earned him was a quiet grunt. Three of the squad fell in behind them as they walked out of the Wellfield to a couple of cabs waiting outside.

‘Are we under arrest?’ Slvasta asked.

‘No, sir. My men are here for your protection.’

When Slvasta checked with Javier, all the big man could do was shrug.

Doyce Street was barely ten minutes away. Slvasta had a bad feeling as they pulled up outside an old tenement. He remembered Doyce Street, and couldn’t think why. More worrying, his
ex-sight caught a glimpse of mod-bird circling high overhead. It wasn’t just the sheriffs involved in this . . . whatever this was.

Two sheriffs stood guard outside one of the tenements. They opened the door to allow Becker through. He tried not to let any censure show through his shell, but the place was bleak. Bare brick
walls whose mortar was eroding to fine sand which drifted down the walls to contaminate the floorboards. Odd stains discoloured bricks at random. Long, poorly lit corridors of doors on every floor
looked like the image created by two mirrors reflecting each other, they were so monotonous. Identical doors opened into single-room lodgings; communal bathrooms at the end of each corridor were
ornamented by leaking pipes and cracked basins. Cool air was heavy with the smell of sewers that drained badly. It was all a stark reminder of the life he was barely avoiding by living with his
friends, of how every farthing from his wage was important.

They followed Becker up to the third floor. Slvasta didn’t need any ex-sight to know there was death in the miserable lodgings Becker finally showed them to. An eerie sensation of gloom
pervaded the walls, so much so that Slvasta wondered if there was a tortured soul clinging to the building’s structure. The drab cube of a room had paper on the walls, so ancient and damp it
was barely more than a grey skin of mould. There were just two pieces of furniture: an iron-framed bed and a recently repaired bussalore-proof wooden chest full of clothes. Tall piles of extremist
political pamphlets cluttered the floor, their curling pages yellow and damp.

A body was sprawled on the bed. A lot of blood had seeped out of the multiple knife wounds to soak into the mattress and drip onto the floorboards. Two bright oil lamps had been set up by a
coroner’s assistant who was waiting patiently, reading a copy of
Hilltop Eye
. He rolled the pamphlet up when Becker showed them in.