A Night Without Stars (33 page)

Florian blushed heavily. “I haven't seen her since I left.”

“Yet you called this girl Essie.”

“It's a good name.”

“She calls you Daddy. Is she yours, Florian?”

“Not exactly. Please. I can't explain.”

“This is me, Florian. Talk to me.”

Florian couldn't meet her gaze. He'd forgotten how firm Aunt Terannia could be.

“Where did this little sweetie come from, Florian?”

“She was given to me by someone who trusted me. Please, I just need somewhere to stay for a few days.”

“A few days? How did you get into the city, Florian? Every road is blocked by the sheriffs. Yesterday, the queues were kilometers long. It was all anyone was talking about in the club last night. Is it you they're looking for?”

He nodded miserably.

“They're saying it's a nest alert,” Aunt Terannia continued. “We haven't had one of those for a decade, and never on this scale. Is she a Faller?”

“No!”

Terannia slammed a palm down on the table. “Then what is going on?”

“I can't tell you,” he said wretchedly. “It's for your own good.”

“I decide what I do and do not need to hear.” She narrowed her eyes to give him a fierce stare. “Is she Lurji's?”

“What? No. Please, stop asking!”

A man appeared in the doorway, dressed in blue-and-red-striped pajamas. He was probably a couple of decades older than Terannia, with ebony skin that was thick with wrinkles, and short curly hair that was nearly all silver. His beard was trimmed elaborately. A long gold earring hung from his right ear. “Asking what?” he inquired lightly.

Florian looked at him, then back to Terannia. He blushed again.

“Oh, Florian,” she said in a disappointed tone. “Age doesn't mean people can't be happy together. It actually helps, being long past the time of exuberant youth's foolishness.” She grinned up and took the man's hand. “Matthieu, this is my dearest nephew, Florian.”

“Ah, the one you send all the textbook copies to. Pleased to meet you, Florian. Nice threads, by the way.”

Florian shook the hand he was offered. There was something wrong with Matthieu's fingers. They weren't straight, and the joints seemed swollen. “Pleased to meet you,” he mumbled.

“Florian needs somewhere to stay for a few days,” Terannia said. “Half the government is hunting him, but he won't tell me why.”

“Quite right, Florian.” Matthieu grinned as he sat down. “A man is entitled to his secrets. Don't let her bully you.”

“I might have known you'd take his side.”

“We all share the same side,” Matthieu chided. “Know your friends. Trust your friends. Love your friends,” he chanted softly, and gave Florian an expectant look.

“Florian doesn't know any of your songs,” Terannia said.

“You're a songwriter?” Florian asked.

“I'm a musician. Or I used to be.”

“Matthieu plays drums with his jazz band here once a week. They've joined the electric trend. Even so, it's very good.”

“Not professional,” Matthieu assured him. “Just amateurs having a good time jamming together. If you do stay, perhaps you'd like to come and hear us play?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Florian, who didn't like jazz at all.

“Are you going to call your mother?” Terannia asked.

“I don't want her involved.”

“She will be, Florian. They're blocking the roads, searching the train stations and the port. You think they're going to leave your mother alone?”

Florian dropped his head into his hands. “Oh, crud.”

“Your mother is a very tough lady,” Matthieu said. “If they cross her, they'll regret it.”

“They'll come here!”

“I doubt they know we're related, so this is safe. I'm more worried about your future. Do you actually have a plan? Are you trying to meet someone to hand the girl on?”

“No. It's not like that. I just have to stay away from the PSR for a month. It'll all be over then.”

“The PSR won't stop, Florian. They never stop. I don't know what you've done, but it must have really pissed them off.”

“I didn't do anything,” he whispered fiercely.

Terannia and Matthieu both looked at Essie, who had now started munching down buttered toast.

“Who is she, Florian?”

“I can't. I'm sorry. If you can loan me some money, I'll go.”

“Don't be ridiculous. You wouldn't last ten minutes out there. Every sheriff in the city is looking for you; that means every informer, too.”

Florian hung his head. “That's not all,” he admitted.

“Go on,” Terannia said, groaning. “If I'm going to protect you, I need to know.”

“The man I take the waltans to, Joffler. He contacted a driver called Lukan, who got me into Opole this morning.”

“I've heard of Lukan,” Matthieu said. “He's quite a legend—in his own eyes.”

“Yes. But the thing is, they all work for Billop. And Billop's people were waiting for me. There was this…sort-of fight.”

“Oh, great Giu,” Terannia said. “And I always thought Lurji was the problem one!”

“I'm sorry, Aunt Terannia. I didn't mean for any of this to happen.”

“I'm kidding, Florian. There was a fight, then? With Billop's lieutenant? And you got away free?”

“Did you shoot him?” Matthieu asked quickly.

“What? No! Well, not exactly. They did get hurt. I knocked them out.”

“They? How many are we talking about?”

“Three. Well, four if you count Lukan.”

“You knocked out four gang thugs?” Terannia said in astonishment. “Single-handed? Crud, Florian. That warden's job turned you into a real tough guy.”

“So it's the PSR, the sheriffs,
and
Billop's people who are going to be looking for you?” Matthieu said.

Florian exhaled loudly. “Yes.”

“Wow.”

Terannia and Matthieu exchanged a glance.

“What is it that you need, Florian?” she asked. “From us, I mean.”

“Just somewhere peaceful to stay. It'll only be for a month, I swear. After that, it won't matter.”

“So you've said. Can you at least tell me what happens in a month?”

He gave Essie a fond glance. “I don't really know. But it will only be a month. I know that.”

She nodded ruefully. “If that's all there is to it, you can stay in the mod-stable.”

The office on the second floor was wood-paneled. Matthieu led him in and immediately started rearranging the cases of spirits, clearing them away from the wall.

Florian stood in the doorway, watching him as he held Essie's hand.

“Essie needs some new clothes,” Terannia said, in a disapproving tone. “That dress is far too tight—and short.”

“I know. Just some sheets or something will do. I can sew them into a new dress.”

Terannia gave the existing dress a closer look. “Did you make this one?”

“Yes.” Florian braced himself for criticism.

“Not bad.”

“Here we go,” Matthieu said. He pressed a section of paneling. There was a
click,
and a small door swung back.

Florian stared at the lightless passage it revealed. “What's that?”

“A little bit of quiet privacy in a bad, noisy world,” Matthieu chortled. He took a couple of torches from a drawer in the desk.

“You take them,” Terannia said. “I'm not dressed for it.”

Matthieu gave her a pained look. “Because my old bones are just built for this.”

“Is it difficult?” Florian asked.

“No. Just not built for our height, that's all,” Matthieu said. “Essie will be fine.” He switched the torch on, and crawled in.

Essie followed him, a delighted expression on her face. Florian brought up the rear, shining the torch forward so Essie would be able to see where she was going.

The corridor was about a meter and a half high, one wide. It had floorboards, and the walls were a reddish brick that had been worn smooth and dark by something rubbing along them for a very long time. There were small doorways at regular intervals, all of them blocked off, some with hurriedly laid brick, others with wooden planks.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Mod-dwarf passage,” Matthieu said. “Back in the Void there were millions of the creatures. They were a slave species that started out as neuts, then got changed somehow by telepathy. Modified, hence: mods. You could get mod-horses, mod-dogs, mod-apes—things that helped with all the tough manual labor. You also got mod-dwarfs, who were house servants.”

“I have heard of them; we learned about them at school. But the teacher never said much.”

“I'm not surprised. Slvasta had them all slaughtered after the Great Transition. There was no telepathy anymore, so we couldn't order them around, and they were supposed to be related to the Fallers, somehow. Anyway…all houses had them to do the drudge work. So their stables were part of every building back in the Void, along with these passages so they could move between human rooms without getting in the way.”

“Every building?”

“Yes. Trouble is, the passages are all so small there's no use for them—no human use, anyway—so down the years they gradually got blocked off.”

They reached the end of the corridor and climbed some small wooden steps into a larger room that Florian could just stand upright in. It was semicircular, with the curving wall inset with two rows of deep alcoves. A single window at the top of the flat wall was glazed with a white glass that allowed a reasonable amount of sunlight to shine in.

“The mod-stable,” Matthieu announced; he pointed at the alcoves. “They slept in those. But no worries, you've got these.” He took a couple of bedrolls from one alcove. “Toilet in that corner. Sink over there. It does work—not that there's any hot water, mind.”

Florian turned a complete circle, trying not to show his dismay.

“Hungree, Daddy,” Essie said.

“I'll bring you some food,” Matthieu said. “And I'll see what I can do about some picture books or something for Essie.”

“Thank you.” Florian picked up one of the bedrolls. There were more in other alcoves, he saw. “Who are these for?”

“Ah.” Matthieu gave him a soft smile. “Your aunt helps a lot of people who need to get out of town. I don't need to tell you how much crud Eliters get given here, do I? That bitch in charge of the PSR office has a real animosity going for us. So if someone crosses them, they stay in here for a while to let the heat die down, then we send them along to Port Chana. I think your brother stayed in here for a while before he left.”

“Lurji? He was here?”

“Yeah. And the PSR never caught up with him, did they? So you're perfectly safe—just so long as you remember not to make too much noise. The Gates are kind of crowded, and you're only ever five meters away from your neighbors.”

There were eight cells in the Opole PSR office that were specifically designed to hold Eliters. They were in the first level of the basement, with their own external access from the alley at the back. A corridor led away from the bottom of the stairs, directly underneath the building, so that none of the cells had a window, or even an outside wall. Inside each cell, the walls, floor, and ceiling had been covered in a metal mesh, turning it into a Faraday cage that blocked any link broadcast, then another layer of bricks had been laid on top to make the cage secure.

The cells were the only part of the building Eliters were allowed in—even the informers run by Gorlan's division. Chaing was very aware of this as he stepped through the big iron gate that separated it from the rest of the basement.
I should have put Corilla in here. If I had, she'd still be at university.

Ironically, he realized now, it was also the place he would be taken to if section seven ever found out that he had an Eliter heritage as the Warrior Angel claimed. But now that he'd finally read the section seven briefing documents, he realized the odds of them ever catching her were remote verging on zero. The best section seven could do was contain and discredit rumors of her activities.

There was plenty of shouting going on inside seven of the eight cells—the usual shouts of abuse and demands for lawyers—the protests leaking out through the grilles in the doors. So far, they'd managed to bring in fifteen of the seventeen suspects connected to Florian. Chaing didn't hold out much hope; most of them hadn't seen Florian since senior school. Two had served in the same regiment conscript unit, but that was seven years ago.

He was really only interested in cell one.

The prisoner chief rose from his desk at the end of the corridor and saluted.

“Open it up,” Chaing told him. “And turn off the tape recorder.”

“Sir?”

“You heard.”

“Sir, the logs…”

“You're changing a reel over. Understand? That's the log entry.”

“Yes, sir.” The chief went over to a tall cupboard and opened the top door. Inside, eight tape recorders were sitting on two shelves, their big spools turning slowly. The chief switched off the machine recording cell one.

“Thank you, comrade.”

The door had two separate keys. Chaing waited until they were unlocked and the bolts slid back. It was all excessive; the danger from Eliters was never physical.

Castillito was sitting behind the small table in the cell. She was in her late sixties, a beret of close-cut hair colored a strange violet. Her clothes were the kind modern electric bands favored, a white blouse and suede waistcoat, inlaid with colorful glass jewels and beaded tassels. The maroon leather skirt came down to her knees, leaving a couple of centimeters of skin visible above her sky-blue boots.

If Chaing had seen that voguish combination on anyone else, he would have assumed they were narnik-heads, smoking away a vacant life. On Castillito, it simply looked elegant.