“Oh!” Gia felt lost. “I—I don’t know. I guess I am, a bit. It’s all so very different from home.”
The answer seemed to please the captain. “I’m sure it is. And so far, I’ve heard nothing but good things about you, Cadet Grobbelaar. But you must be wondering why I called you.”
Gia waited, not knowing what to say.
“I’ve had some—well. Some disquieting reports, Grobbelaar, about your father. In fact, Mr Grobbelaar has been, not to put too fine a point on it, causing a fair bit of trouble. He’s a persistent man, is your father. Do you know anything about this?”
Gia shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t—” Then she realised what must have been happening.
The captain sat forward in his chair, his gaze intent. It was no use trying to hide what she’d been thinking.
“He— I guess he’s been asking about my brother?”
“That’s right. For some reason, he seems to think that we’ve taken his son. I have no idea why we would do such a thing, or why he’d even think it. You know about this?”
“Yes, sir. Mandy—that is—”
“I’m aware that one of the guards allowed a woman to speak to you at the main entrance. She gave you some news?”
“That’s right, sir. I’m sorry sir, I know it’s against the rules.”
“Don’t worry about that now. She had some news for you? Something that would explain your father’s behaviour?”
“Yes, sir.” Gia hesitated, unsure how much she should say. “She told me that Nico, my little brother, had gone missing, sir.”
“I see.” Captain Witbooi sat back again, but his gaze remained intent. “Now, Grobbelaar, I’ve done a little bit of investigating. Your family don’t have much of a file, but what there is, is a little, shall we say, disquieting.”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“How much do you know about your parents’ past? I’m asking about your mother, in particular. She’s not a South African citizen, is she?”
“That’s right, sir.” Fear prickled down Gia’s spine. Where was this heading?
“Your parents met in Europe, at a time of political upheaval, I believe.”
“I don’t really know, sir. I know they met when my father was studying in Italy and that they came here just after adopting me.”
“That’s correct. You are their adopted child, but your brother, I presume, is not?”
“No, sir. I mean, he’s not adopted.” An idea swam into view and Gia felt a stir of hope. She licked her dry lips and decided to take the plunge. “My mother—she left, just before I came to the Youth Brigade, sir. I don’t know where she went.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
Gia looked at her knees, unable to meet his gaze. “Yes, sir. My parents, they were—you know. Fighting a lot.”
“Is that why you decided to join the brigade?”
“Oh, no sir! I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”
“Hmm.” Witbooi was staring out of the window now, nodding slowly to himself. “So, cadet, do you think that your brother—that your mother—”
It was working. Gia tried not to sound too eager. “I don’t know, sir, but it does seem likely. Nico’s only seven and I never believed that she would leave him behind.” The words left a bitter aftertaste. But she did leave him, didn’t she?
“Well. That makes sense. Your father’s wife leaves him, taking his son. His daughter goes off to Special Branch— It’s no wonder he’s a little distraught. Very well.”
He got to his feet, nodding at Gia. “Very well, cadet. I believe I have a much better idea of the situation. You may go.”
-oOo-
As she lay in bed that night Gia thought through everything she’d done that day. Using the passwords and the parasite programme had been much easier than she’d expected. It was unlikely, she knew, that all the passwords in the list would still be viable. Some must have been changed since Brakman left. And the longer she waited to use them, the more likely it was that they would be changed.
Tomorrow, she would try using Mrs Solomons’s password. Gia was sure that Mrs Solomons would have files on Nico. Whether those would reveal anything was another question. All in all, it had not been a bad day. Even her interview with Captain Witbooi had gone rather well. Hopefully, he would be satisfied with her explanation of the disappearance of her mother and her brother, and not investigate any further. The last thing she needed was for the captain to start asking questions about Saraswati.
The lie was strangely persuasive and she found herself wondering if it might be true. Was there any way in which Saraswati could have come back and taken Nico with her? It was a comforting idea. Easier to believe than that her mother had simply left, from one moment to the next, turned from the warm, intense, fierce woman Gia had known all her life to an alien, unfeeling bird that had wanted nothing but escape.
Gia turned over, trying to find a more comfortable position on her pillow, wishing that she’d not allowed herself to go down this particular trail of memories. Her ignorance chafed her. She didn’t know where Saraswati was, or what she could do, now that she was in her swan shape. She ran her fingers over the bracelets that had once belonged to her mother, tracing the whorled patterns engraved in the silver. The image rose in Gia’s mind, of Saraswati bending over Nico’s bed and gathering him up in her arms. He was her born son, after all. Not completely human. No one really knew what Nico was or what he could do.
When she slept at last, she dreamed about her mother, not as she’d been before the change and not as the wild swan she’d seen breaking through the balcony doors, but a strange amalgam of the two, a swan-woman with downy feathers sprouting at her hairline and dark, cold, bird eyes in her white, white face.
-oOo-
Words bounced around Nico, muddy, fuzzy words and then some barbed sparks. He was being lifted, carried, cold then warm. Warm and scratchy, like being licked by a rough tongue. The sensation pulled at him, slowly at first, then with a rush and he surfaced to find himself standing wet and naked in a small cement yard, being sponged down by a stranger.
A man. But larger than any man Nico had ever seen, with broad shoulders and over-long arms. He had a mane of dreadlocks that cascaded almost to his waist and his face was densely covered in fine, short hair. Nico looked at him with dreamy interest, still not quite awake enough to feel any fear.
The man squeezed out the sponge he’d been using and said something. His words were earthy clods, like clay, some of them baked into brick. Nico watched, fascinated, as the word bricks built up on one another, fitting together so neatly, then began crumbling away, one brick at a time.
Billy. This was Billy, the owner of the dark brown voice. Nico became aware of the sound again, the pushing, washing sound of the sea. The rush and suck of waves and the occasional boom as a large breaker met the shore. Somewhere beyond the walls that surrounded him, was the sea.
Where was he?
Memories returned, of being carried out of the van at night, glimpsing what looked like a station platform, overhung by tall and craggy cliff. How long had he been here?
Billy held out a blanket. Nico wrapped himself in it and followed Billy back inside. A large room with windows on one side. They’d been boarded up so that only a few chinks of light came filtering in from outside. Nico allowed himself to surface even more. It was hard to leave the familiar dark, but something warned him that it was dangerous to stay there. There was no Saraswati here to sing him out of his dreams, and no Mandy to keep him safe.
At least his head was not hurting so much anymore, but everything was different. Everything was wrong. Nothing happened as it should. His familiar, safe routine, presided over by his mother, father, Mandy and Miss Winterbach was gone; he was surrounded by strangers in this strange place.
He sank down where he was, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall and drew the blanket tightly around himself. Then Billy was back with something in his hands. Nico took it. A sandwich.
The bread was covered in little seeds that clung to his fingers in an unpleasant way. It was none too fresh either, the bread hardening and a piece of wilted lettuce sticking out in a fringe. If Mandy had given him something like this, Nico would have turned his face away, lips clenched in outrage. His food had to be just right or else he would not eat it, could not eat it. But now his body took over and he found himself stuffing the sandwich into his mouth, saliva spurting as he bit into it.
The food brought him all the way awake. He looked around as he finished the last few bites and tried to brush away the seeds and crumbs.
Somebody sat at a table near the back of the room in a pool of light cast by a desk lamp. A small person, about Nico’s size but much skinnier, too slender to be a normal human. It had a puff of white hair that made it look rather like a dandelion gone to seed and its skin had a translucence of a gecko. Nico remembered the figure he’d seen climbing out the window. This must be the sharp-voiced one, the one called Spyker. An animal lay curled up at Spyker’s feet, something the size of a large dog.
Spyker was speaking now and Nico concentrated to make sense of the words, forcing them from shapes into sounds.
“I don’t see why you’re so suspicious,” Spyker said. “You were fine with selling stuff to him. What’s different now?”
Billy slouched nearby on a broken-backed sofa. He had a skein of wire over his knees and was untangling it, threading a loose end in and out until a length of it pulled free. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just seems too good to be true. First this guy pops up and claims to be Belle Gente—”
“Why would he lie about that?” said Spyker. “You were happy enough to take his money. What’s wrong with him giving us stuff?”
“Because it’s just too good to be true,” said Billy. “That stuff he gave you, that’s worth a packet. Worth way more than the couple of bits of magic-tech we got for him.”
Spyker leaned back, looking critically down at whatever it was he was working on. The animal at his feet stirred and grunted, settling itself more comfortably. “So maybe he’s a stupid,” said Spyker. “Or generous. What do we care?”
Billy laughed without humour. “Spyker, there’s no way that guy doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing. He’s sharp as they come, Mr Mandible, or whatever it is he calls himself.” He pulled another strand of wire free and started coiling it around his fingers, wrapping it into a neat ball. “It’s too good to be true. Here’s a guy, comes out of nowhere but says he’s with the Belle Gente. He doesn’t know us from soap, but he pays us tops for everything we can give him. Next thing, he’s giving us fancy equipment and who knows what-all else, selling us a scheme, says we can ‘make our mark’. It just smells to me.”
“Your problem is you just have no ambition.” Spyker bent over his work again. “Weren’t you daydreaming about joining the Belle Gente just the other day? Well, this might just be our chance to show them what we can do.”
“Yeah, you’re right, I guess.” Billy sighed. He grabbed another handful of tangled wire from a bag and dragged it onto his lap. “But next time, I’m going with to meet him.” He looked up and caught Nico’s eye. “Hey, you finished with that sandwich? Want another one?”
Spyker swivelled on his chair and shot Nico a sour look. “And that’s another thing. What are we going to do with your little pet? Look at him gaping at us, the retard.”
“Hey!” said Billy, glaring at Spyker. “None of that.”
Nico felt his face flush and returned Spyker’s stare, refusing to look away. It was not the first time he’d heard that word flung at him. Retard. A burnt word like scorched toast, that made the whole room stink. What was it Miss Winterbach always said? He worked his jaw and got his tongue in place. The words came slowly, but they came.
“Sticks and stones.”
Now both of them were staring at him. Even the dog looked up, its large ears pricked.
“Hah,” said Billy. “You can talk. I thought I’d hit you too hard.”
But Nico was not listening. He was concentrating. If he could find the first word, then it would pull the others along. “Why.” There it was. Now the next one came more easily and the one after that. “Why. Me. Here?”
The two of them glanced at one another then Billy leaned forward. “You saw us doing a job. Last night, remember? I bopped you one. Too hard. Couldn’t just leave you lying in the street, hey? So here you are.”
Nico already had the next words ready. “Home. Take me home.”
“Yes, so you can rat us out?” snapped Spyker.
Nico could tell he was angry. He did all the things Miss Winterbach had told him to watch for. Staring at Nico for too long, lips clenched together like that. Saying each word distinctly, as if he was putting them down in a row, like cards. True, his face was not red. He was too pale for that, but his words did not make sense. “Rat?” Nico asked, glancing at Billy, who did not look angry at all.
“Spyker means he thinks you are going to tell on us,” said Billy. “Tell the people about us. The cops, maybe.”
“Oh.” Nico had to think about that. It was true. He would tell what had happened to him. Not the cops, maybe, but to his father and Mandy, he would tell them. And he could understand why Billy and Spyker did not want that. Even Nico knew that people like Spyker and Billy, clearly nonhuman magicals, were not allowed to wander the streets at night, let alone break into people’s houses. He thought of his father and Mandy. What must they think? He pictured them finding his empty bed, not knowing where he was. If he could just get a message to them...
“Can—” He ground his teeth in frustration. It was so difficult to find the words. Couldn’t they just see what he wanted? Wasn’t it obvious? “Message,” he said, looking urgently at Billy, who seemed the most sympathetic. “Dad?”
“You want to tell your people you’re okay?” said Billy, frowning in his effort to understand. “But how will you do that, without giving us away? Better you just disappear. They can’t care much about you. They weren’t looking after you that well, anyway, letting you wander around at night like that.”
This took Nico’s breath away. Where could he even start? He tried again. “Please.” The words came easier now. “Just tell. That me okay.”
“Look, buddy,” said Spyker. “You’re lucky to be alive at all. If it were up to me, we’d just get rid of you. Would make things a lot simpler.”
“Chill, dude,” said Billy, frowning at Spyker. “No need to get so intense about it.” Nico felt a stir of hope at this. It looked as if Billy was on his side after all. But then the big man sighed and shook his head. “No way, little dude,” he said heavily. “Not worth the risk. Better make it a clean cut, you know? You’re with us now.”
A Scent of Cloves
“Catch each specimen gently but firmly and examine it for defects.”
That was easier said than done. Gia adjusted the goggles, which were digging into the bridge of her nose. They had a tendency to fog up too. But better that than getting spat in the eye by some venomous creature. She looked glumly at the mesh box that stood on the table in front of her, full of buzzing things. Some of the other cadets already had their boxes open and were tentatively reaching inside.
“Gently, now,” said Cadet Lee. “No fast moves. If you startle them, it will take several minutes for them to settle down again and they might damage themselves.”
Gia’s group were back in the New Block laboratory. So far the morning had been fairly dull. Cleaning zoo display cases, emptying and filling water and food dishes, all under Cadet Lee’s watchful eye. But now things were looking rather more exciting. The night patrol had brought in a number of new creatures and the cadets had to learn how to handle them. Undamaged creatures were destined for the zoo display. Some would be used in the doctor’s experiments. But for the rest, there was the killing jar.
Better get it over with.
Gia opened the box just enough to get one gloved hand inside. A swiff hung on the mesh just near
the opening and she reached for it, moving as slowly as she could. It was about the length of her hand and had long, twiggy limbs as translucent as tinted glass. Its wings were white, stroked with blurred black markings like inky fingerprints. At the moment those wings were spread and vibrating slightly and Gia held her breath, waiting for the thing to launch itself into the air. But no. Cadet Lee was right. As long as she kept her movements slow and gradual, the thing stayed down.
Easy does it.
She curved her fingers over the creature’s thorax and then, keeping her movement smooth, grasped it firmly and pulled it out of the box. It whirred in her hand, wriggling desperately for escape. She curled her other hand around its wings, preventing it from fluttering too hard. She could smell it now, a green, sappy scent like crushed leaves. Turning her hand, she examined the creature. Its wings were undamaged, not torn or bruised like some of the other specimens. Its long antennae were unbroken too. Both eyes were perfect little globes like green dew drops. Black markings above the eyes gave it a remarkably human expression of permanent surprise. Its multiple legs made it seem insect-like, but two of them ended in delicate claws that looked like long-fingered, human hands.
Funny what a difference that makes. I care more about the ones that look a bit like little people.
“A thousand miles away,” said somebody softly, close behind her. “What are you thinking about, cadet?”
“It just seems so strange,” said Gia, so bemused by the swiff that she didn’t wonder who she was speaking to. “I don’t really care what happens to the insecty ones, but if they have a face, like this little guy, I care what happens to him. Why is that?”
“A good question, cadet.” Gia realised with dismay that it was Doctor Scubbe who was speaking. “What is your name, cadet?”
“Grobbelaar,” said Gia.
“Grobbelaar.” The doctor looked at her with disconcerting intensity. “I like the way you think. Being aware of your reactions to the subject you are studying is vital. The phenomenon you point out is something I’ve observed myself. Humans are programmed to respond to certain signals, certain facial shapes, for example, and it’s no accident that so many magical creatures look so very human. Makes it harder to harm them, as you say. We feel sorry for them. I feel it myself. Like this little thing.”
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