“Oh. That’s some story.”
“Yes.” He nodded, pulled his arm from around her waist, and leaned into the arm on the sofa. “You understand that it’s impossible? We can’t survive on the land here. The Aerthe kills us, by storm, by lightning, by any means she can. And we need Factor H.”
Now that was a glitch in the theory.
His face hardened. “So most figured she lied and had hid on the landship. She came back to the Underdeck and was mocked. One day she ended up in the Engine Sea.”
Gio ducked her head for a moment.
Jesus H. Did she suicide? Should she say sorry? Condolences? Hell no.
“And the Followers?”
“They’ve manufactured a story that goes from there. Say they have evidence that she did survive on the surface. They have a book copied, they say, from talks she gave. And in that book, I am mentioned as the Prophet. The man who will save us all from our future. Did I miss anything?”
Badh sniffed. “Not much. Only that our current problems have made a lot more join their flock.”
“More assholes.”
How could a made-up book convince people? Were they that frantic? “Why...” she began, feeling her way. “Do they believe? Why believe the book is true?”
“Because –”
“Because...” Badh interjected. “There’s a series of sketches she did that she gave to the man who remembered her words. Because those words weren’t heard by all but by enough people to say some of them were hers. Because one of the sketches showed a town landmark she couldn’t have ever seen unless she was there. A Ramm patrol found it. A patrol that had one of us, a decker, on board.”
Well shee-it. “That’s very interesting.”
“Yup.” Badh scrubbed his eyes with a fist. “Our mother, the puzzle. I have places to go to deal with the aftermath of that core failing.”
“Go then. Get some sleep soon. And I’m going to see if I can get my core-flying good again, soon.”
“Sure. If she has any more of these visions... Gio, you must say.”
“I will.”
“Good.” Badh stood, stretched and walked off, his gait steady despite his fatigue. Then as he came to the exit, he turned and did a small bow. “Thank you again. You helped us and I truly appreciate it.” Then he left.
Well. The shock of that planted her to the sofa in a world of her own.
“My brother can be a little dramatic.” Ryke sounded exasperated.
She put a finger to her mouth and gnawed at a torn fingernail, thinking. She was doubting her priorities. Helping the Mekkers survive should be way down on her list of to-dos.
Way, waaaay down.
Ryke took her into the bedroom where the cage was situated and had her strip. Hesitancy wasn’t going to work against him when he was determined. She removed her clothes – shoes, pants, tunic top, and bandeau – left them in a pile, and waited.
“Kneel.”
Heart thundering, she kneeled. The entire system he put into this, making her obey verbal commands, watching as she obeyed, it now made her wet almost instantly.
Stupid, but it was the truth, and she no longer cared to debate the whys to herself...much.
“Spread your knees like you did earlier.” He walked closer, dragging a chair.
She inched her knees apart.
Then he simply sat. Although he looked at her, he appeared unhappy.
Unhappy was new. Mean, calculating, forthright, all those said Ryke. Not this unhappy, grumpy appearance. For a long, excruciating time he sat with his mouth doing small contortions.
She wanted to ask what he was thinking but doing that might be dangerous.
Then he stood and knocked over the heavy chair. The thump as it hit the floor made her jump.
“Something is wrong. I’m going to sort out this. These Followers, my brother, the landship’s situation, and you with this vision. If I find out you’ve lied my punishment will go far beyond what you can imagine. Understood?”
“Yes.” She nodded. What else could she do or say? Which lie did he mean?
“Stay.” He stalked out.
She stayed, counting her heartbeats, examining her naked thighs and her fingernails, the design on the rug.
When he returned, the black mask swung in his hand. The one with the eye holes with caps and the blunt metal spikes near where the mouth would be, and breathing holes. As it was now, the eye caps were clipped over the openings.
“I don’t...” She backed away, just a little.
“If you move again, I will keep you in this for much longer than I otherwise intended.”
Head lowered, she stayed, again, saw his boots near her, felt his hand stir her hair.
“It’s only for a few hours, maybe. I have to go above. I’ll leave that mechling in charge of you. Give it access to the front door and screens. If you have problems, it can call for help.”
Not enough, she wanted to say. Not when she wouldn’t be able to see, to breathe...
The mask slipped over her head and all of her tensed. Darkness fell. Her breathing echoed. Already the bad thoughts crept in on her.
He began to do up the buckles.
Tinkle, click, slide.
The mask tweaked at her hair, hurt her in trivial ways. Her chest hurt far more, tighter, ever tighter.
“You see,” he whispered. “I just don’t trust you.”
Chapter 25
There was a visceral satisfaction in buckling and locking the mask onto Gio, whether she wanted this or not, and in spite of her whimpers. It was as if he was containing the mystery of her, controlling her. Caging her to the utmost.
He had her slide into the cage and locked it too then returned to his seat.
Watching her curl up on the towels...draw up her knees, those dainty toes and feet, with her slit showing because he had her naked, this was precisely how it should be.
His life had been exactly how he wanted it for a long time. He worked for the king. He did what he was told to do. Did his duty because it benefited his people. Now? He shook his head. He’d been here little more than hours and had six different things running around in his head, sabotaging him. It was her, something was wrong and it was somehow connected to her.
The king’s word was suspect because Gyle was suspect. The portal thing he chased seemed more a matter for politics than anything good. The ship faltered, slowed. His brother seemed besotted with her. And what she saw and predicted...the explosion. He shifted forward. He didn’t even know why he’d made an agreement with her since all he’d wanted was to fuck her and yet he didn’t do that because he might lie, but first he needed to understand why he wanted Gio.
This was obsession. He didn’t do obsession, unless it was for his Mekkers or his king.
Talking to Gyle would be the next best step. He needed clarification.
The screen in one of the recreational areas would do. He found it, flicked it on and it started up without fuss. The tech in here was better than most he’d seen above. Which didn’t reflect well on anything. It reinforced the notion that they were decaying slowly, rotting from the inside.
He’d never thought this, like this, before. She’d contaminated him, that female...the one he had naked in a cage. His cock pushed against his pants, reminding him of her uses. He could just take her, now.
Except, no. He didn’t succumb to the lure of sex unless he decided it was the right time. Now, was not.
Redirecting the message, fuzzing the signal so the origin was impossible to locate, this was a simple thing. Play time, really.
Gyle arrived onscreen, seated in the bare room Ryke had often noticed before. Pieces of his image shifted and jumped, but that was the problem with diverting the signal.
“I need to see you, to talk.”
“You do?” Gyle looked down for a moment. “Where is she? Somewhere safe?”
“Yes. No progress as yet but I want a face-to-face talk. At my rooms.”
“I can be there soon. I’ll wai
t if you’re late, but not forever.”
The screen cut out, darkening.
Simple. Maybe too simple. Gyle was normally busy and arranging an appointment this quickly was unusual. It might be that this matter was too important for him to delay. Or it might be something else.
He’d go armed anyway...and reconnoiter in ways Gyle knew nothing of.
Finding the mechling called Aunt Mary was going to be difficult.
Except that it waited in the room with the pond window. Its new appearance threw him for a few seconds, until he saw the wig placed on its new head.
His boots crushed debris underfoot as he walked down the aisle to where it sat on the bench. Though smaller than Gio by a head, this Aunt Mary had become a humanoid mechling. None of those mechling bodies were available still, that he knew of. These forms were considered too large and too scary for most Mekkers to want them scurrying about. The bigger they were, the more powerful also. Mechlings wouldn’t hurt a man or woman, unless they were sun-mad, but precautions had been taken. These had been banned long ago.
Two arms, two legs, a shiny, flattish, round head with black eyestalks popping out between the fronds of black hair. Hmmm?
The king had ignored the ban, obviously. He slowed as he neared it.
“Welcome back, sir.”
Considering he’d also allowed speech in this mechling, this was not that surprising.
“Aunt Mary? Where did you get the new body?”
“In stores, sir. I thought perhaps it would alarm your female less? She did not seem to like the one with numerous legs.”
“Maybe. I have a job for you.”
“Good! I feel much better when I have aims.”
Feel? Again that was an odd choice. Semantics, he guessed.
“Come. I will explain as we return to where I have left my...female. I want you to watch her while I’m gone.”
“Of course, sir.”
He armed himself with every weapon he’d brought with him then shrugged on a coat with a hood. A well-made garment – it was jet black and purer of color than anything he’d worn before. Even when it was on a hanger, the eye slid off when you looked closely at the garment. The lining was also black but bore a subtle dark-gray emblem of a predator snarling, showing many teeth.
There were several ways to get up top. In addition to the old hatches, there were the cargo lifts inside the building shafts. Though used for official visits and journeys, the lifts were well policed. He’d take a ladder and hatch.
Ryke patted down the weapons, double-checking. Going up wouldn’t be necessary if he didn’t need to see Gyle before him, where body language and facial expressions were out in the open. It spoke of distrust and he knew that.
Never thought he’d reach a time when he couldn’t, quite, trust the king’s advisor.
Chapter 26
The main vulnerability of his rooms was precisely what kept them secret – one entrance down a long, zigzag corridor. However once someone knew this was his place, they could trap him in there. Only Gyle had ever known, and perhaps the king. It wasn’t something he’d dwelled on much, not after he’d added a few measures.
He’d always thought Gyle a plain man when not in uniform – his short brown hair, though cut well did not make for a presence. Perhaps neither did his own shaved blond hair, though he’d argue that. Ryke ran his finger down and over the scars on his forehead. For the first time in years he was not shamed by these.
This was good, surely.
He straightened. This spot was a little way into his long corridor, yards from where a secret door joined this one to another corridor. It was an invisible T-junction. The other corridor was very quiet and deep in the history storage areas of the palace, in the catacombs of the past of the Mekkers. Few except scholars roamed this area.
The secret door swished open then shut.
Here was Gyle, dressed in his best black-and-gold court uniform.
He never wore that in Ryke’s rooms.
Treachery antennae twitching, Ryke emerged from his concealment behind a wall rug and nabbed Gyle as he was about to pass. He brought him into the small space and let the rug fall back into place. Long ago, during a loud palace celebration, he’d ripped out rivets and removed this rectangle of metal from his corridor wall. Patched with thinner metal, this left a big potential niche, one that could be knocked through if need be, to the other side of the wall. Once through that, he’d be in a pantry in the kitchens.
“Shhh! It’s me, Gyle. Make no noise.”
With his back braced on the wall, he waited for Gyle to calm. No mechlings came here, so this would go unrecorded. He still wouldn’t care to be near his rooms for longer than it took for a fart or two. He’d acclimatized to the Underdeck and up here was making him uneasy.
He flicked on a light mounted on his lapel.
The ghostliness of this encounter was appropriate. Shadows and yellow light played over Gyle’s face.
“Why are you in uniform?”
“I...” Gyle dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “A court appearance I could not avoid. Why this concealment? We’re hiding instead of going to your rooms?”
“Yes.”
“But no one is here. Except for me.”
If Gyle was nervous, it wasn’t showing. A little flustered, but no more than expected for someone wrenched into darkness under a wall rug. The man wasn’t that easy to read, of course. No one who was a court official would be.
“You don’t trust me.”
A statement. Ryke smiled. “No. There are factors, such as the coming Gathering. That someone caught me and Gio on our first outing. That others were looking for Gio and that Ormrad was involved. I’m a cautious man when need be.”
“I’ll forgive you, this once. Let’s have a snuggly conference then. So... Have you found a portal mage? You’ve been working on this, I assume? Or is there any other information that will help us?”
“No. Not yet. I have been working on it. I need to ask you some questions.”
Gyle only grunted. “Ask. I may or may not answer.”
What should he ask? Gyle was as solid and blank as a piece of new metal. He should’ve known. He had, really. Even so, he’d needed to try.
“Anything I find out will reach the king?”
“That’s almost treasonous of you to ask, but the answer is yes.”
“Then tell me why we, the Mekkers, the king, need to make portals.”
Gyle’s face twisted in disgust. “Definitely treason, that one. Let me sum up. Economics. Money. We sell the humans to the Scavs, we get Factor H. It’s prestige even. They do make great fuck toys. More questions?”
“Why hasn’t anyone been told the ship is badly damaged, and that we aren’t travelling as fast as we need to?”
Gyle sighed. “Do not say this to anyone. Even the King’s Own Lawgiver would be executed so fast –”
“The whole of the Underdeck knows.”
“Well...” Then he added, slowly. “They don’t count though, do they, Ryke? Not really.”
An insult. He brushed it off, having had an inkling of where this led.
“Repairs and so on will be accelerated. We have a procedure planned. Keep it quiet and don’t worry.”
He couldn’t see how all that was possible.
A niggling doubt in the back of his mind insisted on being asked. “The Gathering...is something happening then I should know about? Something big?”
“No. Done?”
Shortest answer yet.
Perhaps...that was a sign.
He stared and Gyle, the negotiator for and advisor of the king, waited him out. All his knowledge and also his instinctive assessment of the psychology of clients ratcheted into play. There were lies here, simmering. Gyle was not the stalwart friend he’d always thought he was. Which left him zero friends above.
And how many below? He shook that off.
At least no one had prowled past. No one followed Gyle.
Ryke drew his Th
elk 10, showed the long weapon to Gyle, let the light dribble down the barrel. The blue, safety-off light blinked slowly. “Make sure no one follows me.”
“I’m not stopping you, Ryke. I’m loyal as you are. Just find out that information. Before the Gathering.”
“I will. Go.” He noted that Gyle didn’t challenge him about the threat of the gun.
It occurred to him that an innocent man would’ve done so. If Gyle was purely loyal, he should have reasserted his authority. The man was unsure of his standing, perhaps.
Perhaps. It was difficult to be certain one hundred percent.
Gyle slipped out and he listened to him leave the corridor and slide shut the door.
He checked the area again, and holstered the Thelk.
Too soon for accusations of treason from his end, but Gyle wasn’t the rock-steady man he used to be. The Gathering was almost certainly going to be more than just the king stepping down and another being chosen. The King’s Own should aim to protect the king, but the king mightn’t be the king soon. He’d seen images of birds squabbling over a corpse, pecking, throwing entrails. This reminded him of that.
The predators would emerge from the background. The dark men. Secrets within secrets. His position might disappear. He might. Gyle also, unless he juggled things carefully.
Ryke began to quietly undo the false rivets on the section leading into the pantry. The idea of following Gyle out, using that one exit, made his gut ache.
One should never be careless when one has just been accused of treason.
The return to the Underdeck took longer than planned due to having to use a particularly circuitous route. But he made it without being followed or having to kill anyone. By the time he was in the Underdeck, it was late at night. He opened the front door of the king’s residence and felt relief flow through him, down to his tired feet.
Gio was here and that he acknowledged was a part of this feeling.
Emotions? Fuck emotions, he thought as he strode down the hallway to the bedroom with the cage. She was there, sleeping. He continued on to the large bathroom and had a fast shower then dressed in fresh clothes.
When he entered the cage bedroom, he waved at the mechling, Aunt Mary, and it spun away. Its legs must have rollers beneath.
Branded Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 3) Page 17