25 For 25

by Various

  ‘I would,’ Linder said, and returned to his assigned task of tabulating the adjusted output of the Kannack manufactoria, which had altered appreciably in both volume and substance in response to the recent upheavals. The task was a painstaking one, consuming a good deal of time and the greater part of his attention, so he was faintly surprised to find the report he’d requested dropping from the pneumatic tube over the angled surface of his writing desk less than a week later.

  Setting aside the work he was supposed to be doing, Linder began working his way through the thick wad of paper, annotating it as he went with an inkstick. The anonymous Archivist had been thorough, within the limits of his competence, but Linder’s greater experience and expertise soon began to pay dividends, and by the time he was making excuses to the senior Lexicographer for failing to finish his assigned task by the compline bell, he’d discovered a number of discrepancies in the archive records, each accompanied by marginalia in his elegantly cursive hand.

  The majority of the anomalies he identified were in the files administered by the Bureau of Population Management, the department responsible for collating records of birth, death, and off-world migration, which it would then use to allocate resources where they were most urgently required. The devastation wrought on Verghast had rendered much of this material unreliable, so Linder was hardly surprised by this discovery, but one discrepancy perturbed him greatly. There was still no official record of Harl Sitrus’s arrival on Verghast, even though the date was known to him; turning to his data-slate, he invoked Sitrus’s first missive after landing.

  We touched down at Kannack on 439 770, he read, frowning in perplexity. That’s a fair-sized hive, one of the largest left standing after the razing of Vervun and the scouring of Ferrozoica. Klath got us to the scriptorium eventually, after a few wrong turnings... Linder read on, skimming through the familiar words. Nothing else struck him as significant, but the date was unequivocal. The frown deepening, he turned back to the hardprint on his lectern, and paged through the summary of transits from orbit that day.

  Shuttle Damsel’s Delight, grounded pad seventeen, Administratum charter. Twelve passengers, personal effects, cargo amounting to 497 tonnes (stationery sundries). That must have been the one.

  To confirm the fact, he invoked the cogitator link, and examined the manifest in detail. Galen Klath, Lexicographer, and eleven other names. Sitrus’s was not among them.

  Troubled, Linder spent a further few minutes in search of Klath’s whereabouts. His personal quarters were listed as within the bounds of the Administratum Cloister, but Linder lacked the seniority to access their precise location. That didn’t matter, though; the department the Lexicographer was attached to was a mere thirty levels away, and a chance meeting would be easy enough to contrive. Perhaps he would be able to shed some light on the anomaly.

  ‘Sitrus?’ Klath asked, his face crumpling in perplexity. He was much as Linder remembered him, short and rotund, which, together with his hairless pate, made him look uncannily like an oversized toddler dressed for masquerade in adult clothes. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’ve been looking for him,’ Linder said evenly. Having to explain the obvious was another thing he remembered about the plump Lexicographer, which was one of the reasons he’d been so pleased to be transferred to his present duties, away from Klath’s supervision. ‘In his letters, he mentioned you were still colleagues.’

  ‘I see.’ Klath glanced round the crowded buttery, as though afraid of eavesdroppers. There were none Linder could see, just the usual crowd of men and women in inkstained robes, chattering idly as they grabbed some pottage or a mid-shift mug of caffeine before returning to their data-slates and hardprints. ‘But I’m afraid I haven’t seen him since the transfer.’

  ‘He’s transferred?’ Linder asked.

  Caught unawares by the brevity of the question, Klath nodded, chewed and swallowed, and replied with a stifled hiccup. ‘To another department. He didn’t say which.’

  Linder echoed the nod, more slowly. There were over seven thousand separate bureaux within the cloister, dealing with everything from the disposition of tithing revenue to the certification of left-handed writing implements, and with nothing further to go on, his friend might just as well be on a different planet. ‘Did he ever mention where he was living?’ he asked, and Klath shook his head.

  ‘He had a flat somewhere up on the Spine. Lots of people live outside the Cloister, if they can afford it. You young ones, anyway. Too much bustle if you ask me.’

  Linder nodded again. He was still in the rooms assigned to him on his arrival, having little inclination to expose himself to the ceaseless activity of the wider hive, but Sitrus would have relished the proximity of taverns and bars, theatres and brawling pits. Ever since their first meeting, as callow Archivists, Sitrus had been hungry for experience, eager to meet life head-on, instead of vicariously through text and picts. It was an attitude uncommon within the sheltered precincts of the Cloister. Perhaps that was why Linder was so determined to see his friend again, instead of accepting that their paths had diverged forever when Sitrus boarded the first transport to Verghast over a year before.

  ‘It must have taken everything he had,’ he said. Rents on the Spine were high, the few adepts he’d met living outside the Cloister barely being able to afford a couple of rooms in a worker’s hab.

  Klath leaned closer, assuming a confidential air. ‘Between you and me,’ he said, ‘I don’t think he paid in cash. Cherchez la femme, and all that.’

  ‘Really?’ Linder considered this unexpected information. Sitrus had always enjoyed feminine company, he knew, but the only women he’d had any contact with before had been other Administratum adepts; which, given the circumscribed nature of the lives they led, had hardly been surprising. None of them could have afforded lodgings in the hive’s most salubrious quarter, any more than Sitrus could. ‘You mean he’d taken up with a local woman?’

  Which would have been impossible, of course. Nothing in any of the letters he’d received had so much as hinted at such a liaison. But Klath was nodding slowly. ‘I believe so,’ he confirmed, with the self-satisfied air of someone passing on a juicy bit of scandal. ‘For the last six months, at least.’

  Six months in which Linder had received three missives from his friend. The first had dwelt at length on some interesting cross-referencing practices the Verghastite Archivists were continuing to cling to in the face of the filing protocols imposed by the new arrivals, and the compromise eventually arrived at to general satisfaction, before rambling off into a description of a few of the local festivals; the second had consisted mainly of enthusiastic comments about the local cuisine, which Sitrus appeared to be finding very much to his taste; and the third contained little apart from an account of an inspection of one of the protein reclamation plants, to which Sitrus had been attached to take notes, and which he’d enlivened with caustic pen portraits of the rest of the delegation. None had so much as hinted at a romantic liaison.

  Klath had to be mistaken. Nevertheless, Linder supposed, he might as well follow it up, if only to eliminate the possibility. In that regard, the mind of a diligent bureaucrat isn’t so far removed from the dispassionate pursuit of hidden truths peculiar to my own profession. Which meant that, from the moment Linder uttered his next remark, our paths would inevitably cross.

  ‘Do you happen to remember her name?’ he asked.

  As it turned out, Klath wasn’t sure, but a little more patient probing on Linder’s part elicited the vague recollection that Sitrus had mentioned meeting someone called Milena once. That was little enough to go on, but for a fellow of Linder’s skills and resources, it was sufficient; there were only so many women of that name living in the Spine, and not all of them were of the right age to be of romantic interest to Sitrus; and not all those remaining on the list were single. That didn’t discount them entirely, of course, but Klath had implied that Sitrus was living with his inamorata, and a husband about the pl
ace would have put paid to so cosy an arrangement. Knowing his friend as he did, I’m sure Linder was able to eliminate a few more potential candidates without too much difficulty, but whatever other criteria he chose to apply, he didn’t bother to share with me during our subsequent conversation on the subject.

  Once he’d got the list down to an irreducible minimum, the streak of determination which had first surfaced during his eventful journey from the landing field displayed itself again. Undaunted by the scale of the task he’d set himself, he began using the limited amount of free time at his disposal to contact the remaining candidates, eliminating them one by one.

  Most were polite, if puzzled, simply assuring him they weren’t acquainted with his friend; an assurance he generally believed, as a lifetime spent in the service of the Administratum had left him able to detect evasion or unease in the harmonics of the voice. A few were clearly suspicious of his motives, and a handful decidedly hostile; these he annotated for possible further enquiry, if he reached the end of his list without any useful result. Whatever his reception, he plodded on, until one of the voices on the vox reacted in a fashion he’d not experienced before.

  ‘Good shift-change,’ he began, for the fifty-seventh time. ‘Is that Milena Dravere?’

  ‘Speaking.’ The voice was brisk, brittle behind a sabre-rattle of confidence. ‘And you would be...?’

  ‘Zale Linder. We’ve never met, but we might have a friend in common. Do you know a Scribe named Harl Sitrus?’

  ‘You’re a friend of Harl’s?’ The woman’s voice cracked a little. ‘Where is he? Is he all right?’

  ‘I was hoping you could tell me,’ Linder said, a fresh wave of bewilderment dousing the sudden flare of hope at her first words. ‘I arrived on Verghast a few weeks ago, and I’ve been looking for him ever since.’

  ‘Arrived?’ The vox circuit hummed with speculative silence for a second or two. ‘From off-world?’

  ‘Khulan. I’m with the Reconstruction Administration.’ Linder hesitated, wondering if this would be too much to take in. But it seemed to be the right thing to say.

  ‘Oh, you’re that Zale. Harl talked about you.’

  ‘Did he?’ Linder asked, conscious that the conversation seemed to be slipping away from him. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That I could trust you.’ The admission seemed a reluctant one. ‘We should meet. Compare notes. Maybe we can find him together.’

  ‘I could visit you,’ Linder suggested, wondering if perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. The woman was clearly nervous, and might not feel comfortable about inviting him into her home. But she took the suggestion in her stride.

  ‘Sixty-four Via Zoologica,’ she said, barely hesitating. ‘Can you find it?’

  ‘I can,’ Linder told her with confidence. He had a plan of the hive in his data-slate, newly updated with the latest alterations to roads and transit routes, where fresh construction was scabbing over the scars of Ferrozoican bombardment. ‘But I won’t be off shift until after compline.’

  ‘An hour after compline, then,’ Milena agreed, and broke the connection.

  Cheered by the unexpected acquisition of an ally, Linder returned to work with his usual diligence, and had apparently made considerable progress in disentangling the cat’s cradle of information on his desk when he was unexpectedly interrupted by a diffident knock on the door.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, with some asperity, resenting the disruption of his concentration.

  ‘There’s someone here to see you, honoured Scribe,’ a pale-looking Archivist informed him, inserting just enough of his body across the cubicle’s threshold to become visible.

  ‘I’m busy. Tell them to wait.’ Linder returned to his collection of slates and hardprints, already dismissing the matter from his mind.

  ‘That won’t be convenient,’ I said, pushing past the Archivist, who promptly fled, his duty done. Linder turned back to the door, to find it clicking to, while I leaned casually against its inner surface. I extended a hand. ‘Wil Feris, Adeptus Arbites.’

  ‘Of course,’ Linder said, as though my uniform hadn’t already told him precisely what I was. Surprise was smeared across his face like a harlot’s lipstick, but his handshake was firm, and once he’d registered that I was real and wasn’t going away until I was good and ready, his expression became curious rather than alarmed. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You’ve been looking for Harl Sitrus,’ I said, resigning myself to leaning against the door for as long as the interview took. There was only one place to sit in the narrow room, and Linder showed no inclination to vacate it. ‘So have I.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’ Linder asked, and I shook my head.

  ‘No,’ I admitted, ‘and that irks me. I’m not used to being hidden from. Not for this long, anyway.’

  ‘Why would he be hiding?’ Linder asked, an unmistakable frown appearing on his face. ‘Surely you can’t suspect him of anything?’

  ‘Everyone’s guilty of something,’ I said. That was the first thing I’d learned on joining the Arbites, and before you ask, of course I include myself in that. But there are degrees of guilt, and culpability, and sometimes things aren’t as clear cut as they seem.

  ‘Not Harl,’ Linder said, which surprised me; people usually react to that kind of insinuation by asserting their own innocence. ‘Not of anything that would justify your interest, anyway.’

  ‘I’m interested in a great deal,’ I told him. Which was true; law enforcement on Verghast was in as big a mess as any of its other institutions, and the Arbitrators brought in to sort it out had been forced to take on cases which would have been handed to the locals on more smoothly functioning worlds. ‘Including the falsification of records.’

  ‘Harl would never do something like that,’ Linder said, sounding genuinely angry. Most Administratum adepts would as soon profane the name of the Emperor as knowingly tamper with the data they were charged to protect.

  ‘Don’t you think it a little odd that so many records relating to him have disappeared?’’ I asked, refusing to raise my voice in return.

  Linder looked thoughtful. ‘That might be the result of tampering,’ he conceded. ‘But you’ve got no proof that Harl’s responsible.’

  ‘Nothing definite,’ I agreed. ‘But innocent men seldom disappear into thin air. Unless foul play’s involved.’

  Linder paled; clearly this possibility hadn’t occurred to him. ‘You think he’s been murdered?’ he asked at last.

  ‘It’s possible,’ I said evenly, ‘but I doubt it. I think he wiped his own records to cover his tracks, and hide whatever else he tampered with.’

  ‘Harl wouldn’t do a thing like that,’ Linder said again, glaring at me with unmistakable dislike. ‘And I’ll prove it.’

  ‘I’ll be delighted if you can,’ I told him. He clearly knew nothing of any use to me. ‘In the meantime, if he should get in touch, or you find some trace of him, be sure to let me know.’

  ‘You can count on it,’ Linder said, in tones which made it clear he regarded the interview as over.

  How much of his interrupted chain of thought Linder was able to pick up after my departure I can only guess, but given his stubborn streak, I imagine he’d pretty much completed his task for the day by the time he left the scriptorium and headed uphive to meet Milena Dravere. He found his way with little trouble, consulting his data-slate from time to time, but generally moving through the shift-change bustle with a resolute determination which left the local operatives I’d assigned to watch him scurrying to keep up; no mean feat, given that most of them were Kannack born and bred. True to the picture I was beginning to form of him, he took little notice of the barrage of noise and spectacle most men would have found distracting, but remained obdurately fixed on his goal.

  The only time he showed any visible sign of surprise was when he reached the Via Zoologica itself, and realised that the road broke through into the open air. He paused for a moment, looking down the lo
ng, sloping flank of the hive shining like a beached galaxy below, then strode on, his shadow flickering in and out of existence as it merged momentarily with the patches of deeper darkness between the waylights. As he neared his destination, skirting a crowded tavern from which jaunty zither music floated incongruously on the night air, he slowed his pace, paying greater attention to the address plates screwed to the smog-eaten bricks of the overhanging housefronts.

  At length he came to his destination, and knocked, a little hesitantly. After a few moments a woman opened the carved wooden door a wary crack.

  ‘Milena?’ he asked, unsure of his reception. ‘It’s me, Zale.’

  ‘Then you’d better come in.’ The door opened wider, and he stepped inside, finding himself in an airy, well-lit entrance hall. His hostess was petite, dark-haired, and carried a small-calibre autopistol in her left hand. Linder had never seen a genuine weapon before, and was taken aback; but before he could protest, Milena had closed and bolted the door, and deposited the gun on a nearby occasional table. From the number of faint scratches in the marquetry surface, Linder surmised that the gun generally rested there, where it could be picked up easily whenever the woman answered the door.

  She motioned him through one of the arches leading off the hall, and he found himself in a comfortably appointed living room roughly the size of his entire lodgings. He looked around curiously, noting the opulent decor, the artful scattering of antiques and objets d’art, utterly unlike the contents of any room he’d ever been in before.

  ‘You have a very elegant home,’ he said, hoping to break the awkward silence.

  ‘Thank you.’ Milena perched on the edge of a sofa, opposite the armchair Linder had selected as seeming least likely to swallow him whole. He was astonished at how comfortable it was; the furniture he was used to was generally selected for its utility, rather than comfort. Milena glanced round, as though lost in her own house. ‘Harl found it for me.’