A Night Without Stars (34 page)

“Captain Chaing,” she said. Her gaze lingered on the frayed edge of the cast sticking out of his tunic sleeve. “Glad to see you've recovered.”

“Very good, comrade,” he said, sitting across the table. “Try and throw me right from the start. Was I supposed to ask: How do you know my name?”

“Every Eliter in Opole knows your name, Captain—especially after Xander Manor.”

“Yes, I thought
you
might be aware of that case. After all, you are the head of the Eliter radical movement here in Opole.”

“You are misinformed, I'm a civil rights advocate. However, for what it's worth, I am genuinely sorry about poor Lieutenant Lurvri.”

“Thank you.”

“It couldn't have been easy, going up against breeder Fallers.”

“There's no such thing.”

She laughed in his face.

“Tell me about your son,” he said when she'd finished.

“Tell me why you brought me in here? It must be terrifically important; they wouldn't even let me have breakfast before they dragged me off.”

“It is. Your son is the most important person on Bienvenido right now. Where is he?”

“Am I under arrest? The officer—the very excitable, unprofessional officer, I might add—didn't have a warrant.”

“He doesn't need one. This is a matter of state security.”

“Really? Has there been a Fall? That's your only authority to claim that, and the Space Vigilance Office hasn't declared one—not here.”

“It's not a Fall. We are operating under nest alert procedures. That gives me a wide range of special powers.”

“A nest alert? Just after you've cleared up all those breeder Faller monsters at Xander Manor? That doesn't inspire confidence in the PSR.”

“Without us, Bienvenido would Fall.”

“Keep telling yourself that. It might comfort you at night. Nothing else will. The Faller Apocalypse is coming, and you're wasting your time oppressing Eliters when you should be chasing down nests.”

“Just tell me about Florian, comrade.”

“My son left the city seven years ago. He was driven out by the persecution of our people as perpetrated by your organization. I haven't seen him since.”

“Has he contacted you?”

“Who?”

Chaing brought a fist down hard on the table and Castillito flinched. “Don't,” he cautioned. “Right now I'm being nice to you because I think your son is an idiot who is caught up in something he doesn't understand. But you need to know this: I will find him. And how I treat him when I do depends a lot on how much trouble he causes me. So I'll ask again, has he contacted you?”

“You weren't quick enough, you know.”

“Quick enough for what?”

“When your gangsters with badges came for me, they didn't stop me from linking to my friends. I was giving them a running commentary all the way here. And it isn't just me you've snatched illegally, is it? Lawyers have already filed motions for release with a judge. There's going to be a citizens' protest outside. A lot of citizens. It's not just Eliters that you antagonize.”

“Imagine how frightened I am.”

“You know, one day you really should consider doing the math. There are more Eliters in Opole than there are PSR personnel. Check with Kukaida if you don't believe me. In fact, there are more Eliters on Bienvenido than there are PSR; we outnumber you quite heavily.”

Chaing sat back in his chair. “I saw him, you know. I actually talked to him four days ago. He made me think he was a simple forest warden. Very clever, your son. Smart.”

He almost missed it, a flicker of uncertainty that showed in her eyes for an instant. “You've seen Florian?”

“Yes. That is one pitiful life he chose for himself. Mind you, I can see how he'd think it was preferable to living at home with you.”

“Oh. Gosh. Ouch. I'm so devastated. Please: Let me confess everything to you.”

“Florian
is
the nest alert.”

She pursed her lips as she stared at him. “If Florian has Fallen, you wouldn't be asking me for help. A Faller-copy of Florian isn't going to come running to his human mother. So what is this about?”

“State secret. But it's bad. If you help me, I can go easy on him.”

“Really? Are you going to put that in writing for me?”

“No, because you're completely dependent on me. This all boils down to my whims. So you have to work really hard on not annoying me.”

“He hasn't Fallen, yet you've declared a nest alert. Dear me; have you been lying, comrade Captain? Have you abused your position and the state apparatus for another purpose? What really happened out there in the valley?”

“Who is his father?”

“A very high-ranking PSR officer. He bribed me not to reveal his name on the birth certificate, paid the fine and everything. Ooops, did that go on the recording?”

Chaing grinned at her, despising her smug expression. His usual technique wasn't going to work on her, he could see that. “Funny.” He slapped her across the face. Hard.

Castillito went over backward, crying in shock. Chaing came around the table slowly and watched her squirm around on the floor. Blood was dripping from the corner of her mouth. He bent down to deliver the ultimatum, to make it very clear what a piece of subhuman filth she was. How he
owned
her.

Her hand lashed up
fast.
A rigid forefinger jabbed into his eye. He roared in pain and shock, staggering backward. Castillito was up after him, spinning around, a leg extending. The heel of her boot struck his cast. It cracked, and the pain-flash of the impact was incredible. He couldn't see anything but a red haze. Nausea made him dizzy, his legs nearly giving way.

“Crudding Uracus!” He tottered back and banged into the wall, almost slumping to the ground. Eliters were fast. Eliters were strong. He'd forgotten the very basics of his profession, he'd been so angry with her defiance.

“Sir?” The prisoner chief was knocking on the door. “Sir, is everything all right?”

Castillito was standing still, staring at him in contempt as she dabbed at her split lip. “Well, is it?” she asked mockingly. “Or are you hoping the Warrior Angel will come and save you? Again.”

Chaing gaped at her.
She does know! I crudding knew it. She is the head radical, she must be.

“Sir?” The key started to rattle in the lock.

“Go away, comrade,” Chaing shouted. “I'm fine.”

“Now, let me tell you what's going to happen,” Castillito said, righting her chair. “If I don't walk out of here within another two hours, details of your Eliter heritage will be anonymously delivered to Gorlan and your precious Stonal.”

“I'm not an Eliter,” he growled, his undamaged hand pressing against his eye. The pain was bad. He worried she'd damaged the eye permanently.
Bitch!

“The way you react to Eliters shows how much you're overcompensating, Chaing. Self-loathing isn't healthy. In the end, it'll eat you up. I've seen it happen before. Accept what you are. It's not like I'm asking you to help us. When the Faller Apocalypse strikes, you'll need us.”

“The day after Uracus closes up for good!”

“You know you're an Eliter. You know there are breeder Fallers. You've met the Warrior Angel. Just how much truth can you keep on denying to yourself? We're on the same side, Chaing. We want to defeat the Fallers. Why can't you acknowledge that?”

“If you want to help me, tell me where your son is.”

Castillito sighed as she sat down. Her expression was like the one his primary school teacher used when she was disappointed with him. “Exposing you isn't a bluff. I sent a time-coded file about you to several friends when your people came for me. And as I can't link to my friends from in here, I can't stop the file from opening in two hours.”

He rubbed his eye, which just made it worse. “I don't trust you.”

“You don't have a choice. Do you know what they do to Eliters who've wormed their way to the very heart of the PSR? There's a furnace in the lowest basement level of this building for the central heating and hot water. They will throw you into it alive. You can trust me on that, because that's what you'd do to a traitor. Isn't it?”

“I have friends, too. If you ever make them suspicious of me, I'll know about it, because they won't believe you. That gives me time. And I will use it to come for you. A furnace will be the least of your worries.”

“I don't want to hurt you in any way, Chaing. It's clearly going to take you a while for you to come to terms with what you are: one of us. But despite that, I have hopes for you, great hopes. One day you might even sit in the director's chair.”

“I will never betray the PSR!”

“The PSR does a good job fighting the Faller nests. That's what you need to focus on.”

He gave her a weary look. “That's what she said.”

“I know.”

“You've met her, haven't you?”

“No. Not in the flesh. I'm not important enough. But friends receive communications occasionally. And we send stuff back. Who do you think alerted her about the new kind of encrypted links in Opole? Who alerted her that you'd found a nest? Who do you owe your pitiful life to?”

“I owe you nothing!”

“What has my son done to bring all this down on him? Florian hasn't Fallen. You would have tested his blood when you talked to him, the PSR always does that. So what has happened?” The way she said it made it a rhetorical question. “The regiment was deployed in Albina Valley, and you've been chasing him ever since. Why?”

“You're the head of the Opole radicals,” he countered. “That's not coincidence. Did you send him out there seven years ago? Has he been waiting for this?”

“For what? And for the record, I'm not the leader of the Opole radicals. I am exactly what those precious files of yours say I am: a civil rights activist. A good one, but that's all. There is no conspiracy, Chaing. There never is. It's all part of the lie Yaki feeds you on Stonal's behalf.”

“If Florian contacts you, the first—the only—thing you are going to do is call me.”

Castillito's victory smile was modest. “Of course. Do you have a link code yet, comrade?”

It was the middle of the second day when the pings with Florian's address code started to appear. Matthieu had been back to the mod-stable several times, bringing Florian baskets of food, then yesterday afternoon he handed over some cloth and a sewing kit. It was a much better sewing kit than Joffler's, and Florian set about stitching together a new dress, with shoulder straps that had buttons so they could be extended as Essie grew.

After gorging on more bread and fruit, and drinking a lot of water, Essie had gone to sleep on top of the bedroll, snuggled up in his kaftan. It seemed to ease her somehow, and he was pleased to be rid of the garish thing. As always, her sleep was beset with nightmares. She moaned and sniveled continually. Several times she cried out and sat up, with wide frightened eyes. Florian soothed her back to a quiet slumber every time, unsure if she was actually awake during those episodes. That night she slept for a straight ten hours, waking up ravenous as always. The first thing he did was lengthen the dress straps by three buttons.

He began to review the general band forums while he worked on another new dress. All anyone talked about was the nest alert. Retina image files of the queues at the roadblocks showed stationary lines of vans and trucks for kilometers along the roads, their drivers either stoic or furious. Yesterday he'd seen a few files showing the Coperearl smashed up between a wall and two sheriff cars. He wondered if Lukan was all right, but after the ambush in the warehouse, he didn't really care much.

The next morning the general band was full of news about people being arrested and carted off by the sheriffs without warrants. Florian recognized most of the names of those being taken to the PSR offices, even though he hadn't thought of them in years. The PSR must have been pretty desperate to include them. In truth, he'd not considered asking any one of them for help.

With the newest dress finished, he pulled the food processor cylinders out of the backpack. Most of the food Matthieu had given him went into the hoppers, with water from the tap. This time he set the menu to a paste, which slowly extruded from the lower nozzle directly into a bowl. It had all the same specialist fats and vitamins as the richmilk, but with a thicker constituency and a mix of flavors, from apple to beef, so he could give Essie some variety. He found another setting that produced hard pellets that she could suck on between meals like sweets.

It was while these were starting to emerge, rattling onto a plate as if they were pebbles, that the first ping with his code came in. Reception in the mod-stable wasn't great; the walls were thick, and there was only the one window. But his u-shadow had some excellent filters, and its new subroutines had increased his reception sensitivity. He told it not to acknowledge any pings directed at him, but began reading the message headings. Opole's Eliter community had discovered he was the reason the PSR had declared a nest alert. There was a lot of confusion about that; no one knew if he had Fallen or not. Some urged him to give himself up: “We're suffering because of you.” Most offered support and told him to run, to screw with the PSR bastards as best he could. Streaming in parallel to the pings for him, the general band conversations were saying that all this was nothing to do with a Fall, that he'd struck some blow against the PSR. There were plenty of theories about that, from him burning down the PSR headquarters in Varlan (an impressive step up from his brother's arson), to the development of some new kind of weapon that could wipe out Fallers with a single shot—with a whole lot of criminal acts in between proposed.