by Mark Ellis
A quavery, reedy voice responded from the gloom. “The question is as sophomoric as the answer is obvious. Our people do not have the ability to properly evaluate such a revelation. Their reactions would range from disbelief to fear and then to anger. And bloodshed.”
Kane nodded in understanding. Inwardly he reflected that the barony-bred had been taught from birth that if they made themselves helpless, believed themselves to be miserable sinners, then the barons would shower them with rewards. Of course, the people didn’t have the ability to evaluate anything outside of their limited fields of experience. The barons and the laws they enforced saw to that.
Baron Cobalt spoke again, but this time his musical voice was sibilant, like the hissing of a serpent, “You possess an admirable facility for seeking out answers, Kane. A facility shared by your father. However, there is a time for curiosity and a time for decisions. If you choose correctly, all your questions will be answered—in time.”
Kane ducked his head and said with humble reverence, “I choose to accept this honour, my Lord Baron. It is the duty of my family and I vow to continue to faithfully discharge that duty.”
His words sounded false to him, almost a parody of the oath he swore when he’d received his duty badge. It was obviously the answer Baron Cobalt wanted, however, because he uttered a short, tinkling laugh.
“Well said, Kane. And well chosen. Salvo is your guide and sponsor. Heed him and help him. He will administer the pledge of eternal fealty.”
The golden light flickered, dimmed, shadows suffused the arch and Baron Cobalt stepped back inside them.
“Turn, Kane,” commanded Salvo.
Kane did so, finding himself facing men standing in a semicircle around him. He sucked in a sharp breath of recognition. This was no fussy little men’s club. Represented here were the top administrators of the barony, plus the pinnacle-level inner-staff members. Though he didn’t know them all by name, he recognized a couple, including the doddering old man Salvo had addressed as Lakesh on B Level.
He quickly took stock of his surroundings. The room looked as large as a courtyard, lit by clusters of tall scented candles in each of the four corners, but the ceiling was so high that no light reached there.
Salvo stepped forward, placed his right hand on Kane’s breast, over his heart, and after a moment, Kane followed suit.
In a deep, stentorian tone, Salvo said, “You are about to take the oath of the Trust. You are expected to obey its conditions. There are sound reasons behind the oath, and it is easy to see why it is necessary, but not so easy to see how you can live up to it. But live up to it you must, and that means you must make difficult choices. All former loyalties are superseded, swept aside by the oath. Do you understand?”
Kane said, “I understand.”
“Repeat after me.” In ringing tones, Salvo declaimed, “Resolve is our armour, will is our weapon, faith is our mission. Personal ambition is our scourge.’”
Salvo nodded at him, and Kane repeated the words, adding a fanatic’s fevered flair.
“‘We solemnly vow that we will face death rather than disclose the secrets we learn here. We sanctify ourselves in the service of humanity. We accept our responsibilities in the world as ministers of the Archon Directorate. We promise to discharge our duties as befits servants of the future and to hold our knowledge sacred and inviolate.’”
There was more. Kane intoned the words, imitating Salvo’s cadence and delivery of them. Once the oath was completed, Salvo moved aside and Abrams took his place, intoning the same vow for Kane to repeat back.
Each member of the Trust administered the pledge, and Kane parroted it back to every one of them. It took a dismally long time. When the ceremonial give-and-take was over, Kane had memorized every word, every nuance of the vow. He was tired and thirsty, and it wasn’t until the last man stepped away from him that Kane realized what an emotional ordeal he had undergone. He felt wrung out, enervated, numb.
And that, whispered a mocking voice in his head, was the entire point.
The Trust shifted away, a few of them smiling at him. Abrams gave him a direct, iron-grim stare, nodded brusquely and stalked out of the room.
Salvo draped an arm over his shoulders. “Guess you’re feeling pretty limp by now.”
Kane acknowledged the comment with a self-conscious grin.
Salvo guided Kane out of the vast room, beneath a wide, low arch. Another room lay beyond, and another, all feebly lit by an unseen light source.
“Go home and get some rest, Kane. Business as usual during your shift, for appearances sake.”
Kane cleared his throat. “Does that business as usual include doing something about Guana Teague?”
As they approached a set of tall, ornately carved double doors, Salvo stopped abruptly. He turned to face Kane. “Is Teague still important to you?”
Kane presented the impression of seriously considering the query. “No,” he admitted. “Not now.”
“Good,” replied Salvo. “What about the Baptiste woman?”
“That depends. Did her arrest have anything to do with the computer disk I found in Reeth’s slaghole?”
“Unfortunately, yes. The Dulce operation is our mission. Due to you, she found out too much.”
“Is she a Preservationist?”
“She is. We have the proof. She used you, Kane.”
“What’s her relationship with this warlord’s army?”
Salvo waved a dismissive hand through the air. “That, admittedly, is a stretch. Frankly the rumours we’ve received from the field about the warlord are third-hand. The last bit of Intel indicated they were filtering in from overseas, Asia most likely. If that’s the case, there is nothing to concern us. But she’s a Preservationist nevertheless.”
“And Reeth—what connection did he have to the Dulce mission?”
Salvo’s response was so smooth and practiced, Kane knew immediately he was lying. “Contract labour. We of the Trust must occasionally use men, and men make mistakes. Reeth made a very big one, a fatal one. He had no idea how crucial the operation is, so he got cute, he got greedy.”
“And he learned too much and he got dead.”
“Exactly. Just like Brigid Baptiste.”
Kane sighed. “And Grant? He was with me in the slag-hole. Did he learn too much?”
“Not unless you got very careless.”
“I didn’t.”
“Good. Then Grant is safe, though it’s probably best to expedite his administrative transfer and get him out of the field.”
“I agree,” said Kane. “He knows me too well.”
Salvo smiled broadly. “True. Remember what I said about old loyalties. Now, let’s get you home so you can rest and come to terms with the new burdens you have accepted to carry.”
“It’s a heavy load,” replied Kane, matching Salvo’s smile. “But I look forward to the challenge. Sir.”
BRIGID was escorted to C Level, along a series of twisting corridors and then into a large, featureless room. Several metal doors lined the walls on both sides. There, she was stripped of her bodysuit and underclothes and searched. She detached her awareness and endured the humiliation of rough hands pawing and probing her.
The cell into which they pushed her measured hardly six paces one way by five the other. There was not a stick of furniture in it to relieve the monotony of the smooth white rockcrete. A dim, wire-encased overhead light cast a pallid illumination.
As soon as the door banged shut behind her, Brigid’s submissive attitude vanished. She darted first to one wall and then to another, laying her hands against the cool walls. By touch, she located the miniature spy-eye lens hidden in a mortared seam, complete with a microscopic sound pickup.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, and the rockcrete beneath slowly warmed from her body heat. She regulated her breathing and clo
sed her eyes, as if she were producing eidetic images. Though it required a great deal of mental effort, she refused to think about Kane. She lost herself in the recesses of her mind, studying, examining and weighing everything she had learned in the Dulce file.
Several hours must have passed when she heard the harsh click-clack of the locking mechanism on the door. She repressed a smile. The Mags watching her at the other end of the visual-audio hook-up must have grown concerned over her immobility.
The door opened, and Salvo stepped through and shut it behind him. He looked down at her. “We cannot be heard or observed now, so you can drop your act.”
Sighing in relief, Brigid stood up, stretching her arms and rubbing her legs to restore circulation. She didn’t attempt to conceal her nudity. There seemed little point in it.
Salvo watched her in admiration. “How could you sit like that for so long?”
“Elementary yoga. I found a DVD about it in the archives. How long have I been here?”
“Six hours, I’m told. It’s daybreak. Probably the last time the sun will ever rise on you.”
“Since I can’t see it, it hardly matters, does it?”
Salvo smiled thinly. “You lead rather a double life, don’t you? A key-tapping archivist by day, an insurgent by night. Who are the Preservationists?”
Brigid cocked her head at a quizzical angle. “The who?”
Salvo chuckled. “We’ve known about them for quite some time. Decades. You do know you’re officially charged with sedition?”
Brigid’s bare shoulders moved in a shrug. “I have my defence ready.”
“It will avail you nothing. When treason is the charge, the baron himself acts as the judge and jury, and the trials are conducted in secret.”
“And the verdict is already in,” she said dryly.
“Of course. However, you may receive a modicum of leniency if you tell me what you know about the Preservationists.”
“I know nothing. I’m a historian.”
Salvo’s sallow face twisted in a smirk. “And therefore the perfect tool.”
“You seem to know more about them than I do.”
He laughed sharply. “The Preservationists represent an underground-resistance movement They follow an idealistic principle of someday freeing humanity from the heel of the barons by forcing the ’truth’ down their throats.”
He paused to shake his head. “If it were not for the laws of the barons, as manifested in the baronies, we would still be barbarians, trying to reconstruct all the old horrors that led to the Nukeday.”
“Or,” said Brigid, “we would have learned our lesson and built toward a Utopia.”
“Oh, please,” said Salvo in angry exasperation. “You should know better. History has shown that mankind is incapable of that. Humans are intrinsically destructive, unable to control violent impulses or the desire to choose evil over good.”
“Humans are not good,” Brigid replied calmly. “Nor are they evil.”
“But you believe the baronies are.”
She shook her head. “Not really. Classifying behaviours or laws as simply good and evil does not even qualify as empty semantics. From your viewpoint, the set of values you espouse is not only necessary but benevolent.”
Salvo raised an eyebrow. “You sound like you agree with me.”
“No,” she answered, “I don’t.”
“Why?”
“There is no balance, no equilibrium in this society. Historically, civilizations rose, attained high states of technological advancement, then fell into ruin. Then, after a period of recovery, civilizations advanced again. A continuous, natural cycle. Something opposed this cycle, and civilization was pushed back on all fronts. It’s an unnatural opposition, a subtle process of preventing the restoration of balance.”
Salvo looked intrigued. “Go on,” he urged.
“It’s been close to two hundred years since Nukeday. With the sheer volume of tech that survived in this country alone, the rebuilding process should have been relatively swift.”
“You’re not accounting for all the other variables of environmental and geologic changes.”
“Even factoring in all the negatives—rad hot spots, hellzones, high infant-mortality rates—I calculated the world should have reached a level comparable to the 1920s or 1930s at least two generations ago.”
“Your point being?”
Brigid lifted her hands, palm upward. “There can be only one explanation. Someone or something is deliberately preventing our recovery, our further development.”
Salvo regarded her keenly. “You seem to have devoted a great deal of thought to this.”
Brigid smiled. “Only for the last six hours.”
Salvo nodded in understanding. “Ah. How much did you learn from the Dulce file?”
“Not nearly enough. What is the Archon Directive?”
“It’s the Directorate now, and has been for a very long time”
“Since the day after Nukeday?”
Salvo laughed in genuine enjoyment. “No wonder Kane had the hots for you. Beautiful and very bright. Unfortunately, not beautiful enough and too goddamn bright.”
She coughed, trying to cover the sudden quaver in her voice. “Was Kane involved in my arrest?”
“Knowingly, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Would it make the prospect of your execution easier to endure if you knew Kane had been used?”
“It would.”
“Then you may go to your death never knowing if he betrayed you or not. Part of the penalty phase of your sentence.”
Wryly, Brigid replied, “The sentence is death. Isn’t that penalty enough?”
“No,” replied. “I’ll offer you a bargain, though. Tell me who your Preservationist cohorts are, and I’ll tell you the truth about Kane.”
“I’ll ask him myself.”
“You’ll never see him again. He has a new set of priorities now, and you don’t even qualify as a footnote.”
“You really hate him, don’t you?”
Salvo’s eyes widened in momentary surprise. “What makes you think that?”
“Body language. The timbre of your voice changes, too, every time you say his name.”
For a long moment, Salvo glared darkly at her, his lips working as if he were preparing to spit at her. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “By God, you are the prettiest and most perceptive insurgent I’ve ever arrested. You’re right, Baptiste. I hate him.”
“Tell me why. I promise it won’t make my execution easier to face.”
Salvo grinned, folding his arms over his chest and leaning one shoulder against the door. “A lot of reasons, some of which are purely instinctive, I guess. Maybe he’s my yin to his yang, or vice versa. A more tangible reason is that my father and his father were enemies.”
“Is nursing old grudges a family tradition?”
Gravely, Salvo answered, “If you are a Magistrate, family tradition and family honour is all-important. Our entire discipline is based on it.”
“From what I saw, Kane doesn’t seem to like you very much, but he doesn’t appear to be carrying an enmity from the last generation.”
“That’s because he isn’t aware of it. I made sure of that.”
Brigid shook her head in exasperation. “I don’t understand. His father did something to your father, and you don’t want him to know, yet you still hate him for it?”
“I didn’t say it was completely rational....and if I am irrational, I am also a man of pride, and I must exact what all men of pride must exact in order to live with themselves.”
“Like what?”
“Vindication. Revenge for the wrongs compounded upon my family name, my family honour.” Salvo’s face twisted into a contemptuous smile. “But none of this has any bearing on you
and your situation, does it?”
“It might make for interesting testimony at my trial.”
Salvo chuckled, a sound like the distant rustling of leathery wings. “Your testimony won’t be worth shit, Baptiste. That’s the beauty of the baron’s court.”
He turned and rapped sharply on the door with a fist. “I don’t mind admitting I’m reinterpreting my standing orders a trifle. I was instructed to obtain as much possible information from you before your execution, but I’d rather not waste my time on torture. You’re only a pawn. Whatever you know will die with you.”
The door opened. “Your trial is scheduled for 0800. Sentence will be carried out at 0830.” Salvo stepped out, and the door banged shut behind him with a ringing finality.
Brigid closed her eyes, struggling to contain the panic swelling within her. She knew the spy-eye was active again, and she refused to allow the terror to consume her, and so provide entertainment for the Mag monitors.
Regulating her breathing, Brigid managed to reduce the trembling of her hands, and then she lowered herself to the floor and assumed the cross-legged lotus position. She smiled at the spy-eye lens and said, “To hell with you. Go watch the Mag shower room for a while.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IF HE HADN’T received the call from Salvo, Grant wouldn’t have caught the communication from Kane.
After giving his statement to Pollard, Grant had been directed to go home and not contact Kane until the matter had been thoroughly looked into. Since Salvo was strangely unavailable, he figured a deeper investigation of the incident would wait until the following day.
Grant hated waiting. Under other circumstances, a Pit sweep would have been under way, with Kane taking the point as always. The murder of a Mag and the attempted murder of another were grounds for a full-scale assault on the slaggers’ dens of Tartarus, turning over every rock in search of Teague, Uno and the albino girl. Last year’s failed ambush by poorly armed jolt-walkers had resulted in a month-long Pit lockdown.
It was very odd, but unlike Kane, Grant wasn’t inclined to ask questions. Instead, he stood gazing out the window into the deep indigo sky, looking for a sign that a new day was dawning.