Elke felt a chill that had nothing to do with the water that soaked her clothes. “And how do they decide who to cull?”
Kiran shrugged. “Who knows? I guess we’ll find out soon.” She hugged her arms around herself as though she, too was suddenly cold.
The Diadem
Isabeau turned the dial one last time and smiled with satisfaction as the lock to Tomas’s cubby clicked open.
That was one thing that had gone right.
The lock’s combination had been in Tomas’s booklet, just as she’d hoped it would be. It had taken all her self-control not to rush directly to his cubby. She’d made herself wait till long after curfew, when everything was dark and fewer people were about.
It had been easy enough to avoid the peacekeepers who checked the corridors for curfew-breakers. Isabeau had worried that somebody might challenge her as she stood at the cubby door and struggled with the lock, but the entire roost was dark and quiet, with not even a chink of light at any of the windows.
Danger and Meisje were both on guard, and Isabeau took a last look around before pulling open the door.
It was dark in the cubby, and it took her a few moments to find the tiny coll that lit the space.
Tomas’s bag sat in a corner along with his boots. The bed was made up so neatly the sheets and blankets looked hard-edged, like folded cardboard.
The little model of the Eye perched on a shelf above the bed. Isabeau picked it up and inspected the fins and protuberances that covered its surface. It took her a moment to find the tiny pod-ship. She tried to pinch it free, but didn’t have the trick of it, and at last she put the model back on the shelf with a sigh. Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t justify taking it.
The temptation to take the model made her keenly aware that she was an uninvited intruder in Tomas’s space. But while she had not use for the model, she did need the diadem.
It wasn’t on the shelf above the bed, or in the drawer under it. Reluctantly, Isabeau opened Tomas’s bag. She pulled out a crumpled jacket that had been bundled in there, and to her relief, saw the slender shape of diadem nestling at the bottom of the bag.
She slipped the diadem into her own backpack and looked around again. She spotted a slender colltorch that was much brighter than her own. This went into her bag as well, along with a silent promise to return it as soon as she could.
One of the books next to the bed caught her eye. She opened it, then paged with mounting excitement, going through the chapter headings. ‘Hand Signals for the Gardag Handler’ and ‘Interpreting Gardag Body Language and Signs.” This was exactly what she needed.
Cramming the book into her bag, she looked around the cubby one last time. Maybe she should spend the night here. It was a good deal more comfortable than the hard floor behind the dryers.
But no. Somebody would be sure to notice she was using a cubby not assigned to her, especially with the two gardags in tow.
Reluctantly she darkened the coll that lit the cubby and locked the door behind her.
Through the Airlock
The next morning, Isabeau was back in the cafeteria, breathing in the scent of coffee, baking bread, and hot cooking oil. Her mouth watered at the thought of breakfast.
She’d spent a large part of the night in the crawlspace behind the laundry, memorising gardag hand signals from Tomas’s book, and trying the signals out on Danger and Meisje. The book also helped her to interpret the ways the gardags twitched their ears, blinked, swung their tails, and all the subtler cues of canine body language.
It was fascinating once you knew what to look for—everything held meaning, the direction of their glances, the way they yawned, panted, or licked their lips.
Meisje had put up with her attempts patiently enough, but Isabeau had been increasingly aware of the gardag’s mounting frustration. Meisje no longer paced or whined, but spent most of the night crouched, tense and silent, ears twitching at the least sound.
This morning Isabeau had had enough. She needed human contact, needed to know what was going on in the larger world outside the warm, droning space behind the dryers. Surely the cafeteria would be safe. It was such a public place, especially early in the morning when everyone was getting their breakfast.
Now, standing in the cafeteria, Isabeau was sure that she’d made the right decision. It felt good to be surrounded by people going about their everyday routines, paying her no more notice than a quick glance as she loaded food onto her tray.
“Meisje!”
Isabeau nearly dropped her tray at the sound of Dolly’s voice. She hadn’t noticed Elke’s boss, but there she was, frowning down at Meisje. “Meisje. Where’s—” Dolly looked up and spotted Isabeau. “You,” she said. “What’s your name—Isabel.”
“Isabeau,” said Isabeau with a sinking heart. Dolly was looking her over with keen attention, taking in every detail of her appearance.
“Where’s Veraart?” asked Dolly.
“Who?”
“Constable Veraart. Elke. Elke Veraart.” Dolly frowned. “What’s Meisje doing here, without Veraart?”
Isabeau couldn’t think of any way to avoid the truth. “Elke’s gone. She left Meisje with me.”
“She did?” Dolly’s eyebrows climbed. “Come.” She took Isabeau’s tray right out of her hands. “Let’s find a table and you can tell me all about it.”
Dolly led Isabeau to a table, made her sit, and then peppered her with questions as Isabeau first fed the gardags and then ate her own breakfast.
Dolly wanted to know everything. Where was Elke? When had Isabeau last seen her? Isabeau, bristling a little at Dolly’s imperious manner, answered truthfully, but kept her responses short and didn't volunteer any information. She didn’t mention slavers, the collectionistas, or the fact that Elke, Kiran and Noor had gone to meet a possible informant. Instead, she just said that they’d gone off somewhere and made her stay behind.
Isabeau had never liked bossy adults, and Dolly wasn’t even related to her. The more Dolly pushed, the more Isabeau resisted sharing what she knew.
“And she left Meisje with you.” Dolly considered Isabeau thoughtfully. “So, she couldn’t have meant to stay away long. I don’t like this.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers over her forehead, looking, all at once, very tired. “Where could she be? Things have been so crazy, what with the quarantine and all—” She gave herself a little shake. “Well. First things first. We can’t let you just wander about by yourself. You finished eating?” She pushed her chair back and began to tidy up the remains of Isabeau’s breakfast, piling the dishes on the tray.
“Yes. But—“ Isabeau looked up at her in dismay. “I’m not by myself. Meisje— The gardags—”
“I see just the man who can help us.” Dolly raised a hand and called out over the hubbub of the cafeteria. “Mijnheer Sparks!”
The shrunken old mech looked around, and, seeing Dolly, came over to their table.
“Anything wrong?”
“Mijnheer Sparks,” said Dolly. “Could you look after this one for today? Veraart’s gone missing, and I can’t have a child running loose in this chaos.”
Sparks frowned. “Veraart is gone? I thought that was just a rumour. She isn’t sick?”
“Gone,” said Dolly. “She never showed up for work—how many days ago now? I’ve lost count. And she’s not in the lazaretto, I checked.”
“And she didn’t go realside?” Sparks looked at Isabeau. “You know where she is?”
Isabeau shook her head.
“She didn’t go realside,” said Dolly. “Or if she did, the guards didn’t see her and there are no records of her going through. I wonder if you—” Dolly hesitated, but Sparks seemed to understand what she had in mind.
“You want me to do a bit of searching, down in Works? Turn up the compost heaps?”
“I should have asked you long before this, but every time I turn around there’s a new crisis.”
“Tell me about it.” Sparks stuck his hands
in his belt. “People are losing their heads. Back in the day, we used to get cut off from the outside regular, and we just hunkered down and endured. Quarantine.” He huffed. “You’d think it was a war.”
“And can you keep an eye on Isabeau for the day?” Dolly turned to Isabeau. “You have somewhere to sleep, don’t you? A cubby? So, it will just be during the day.”
“Well,” said Sparks. “I suppose.” He looked unenthusiastic. “You can leave her with me.”
“Good,” said Dolly. “Just try and keep her out of trouble. She’s got a talent for it.” And before Isabeau could protest, Dolly was gone, clipping away on her hard heels.
“As if I don’t have enough to do already.” Sparks looked Isabeau up and down. “Aren’t you the one I found wandering about Works the other night?” His gaze fell on Meisje. “What’s wrong with her?”
Meisje was vibrating with tension. She looked back and forth between Isabeau and Sparks, and then at the cafeteria entrance. She yawned, and licked her lips, and glanced at the entrance again, the whites showing at the edges of her eyes.
“I think— I think she’s worried about Elke,” said Isabeau. “She wants to go looking for her. Is that it, girl?”
Meisje gave an unhappy whine that ended in another yawn.
“So why doesn’t she just go?” asked Sparks.
Isabeau considered Meisje thought fully. “It’s because Elke told her to look after me.”
Meisje gave a sharp bark, her body wire-tense.
“You really want to go? It’s fine, you know,” said Isabeau. “I’m with Sparks now. He’s a grownup. He can look after me. I’ll be safe with him.”
The gardag hesitated.
“Go on,” said Sparks. “I’ll keep an eye on her. Go find Elke.”
Meisje touched her nose to Isabeau’s hand and then she was off, weaving between people and tables.
“She’ll track down Veraart, if anyone can,” said Sparks. “But we have to be off too. Come along. “He started for the entrance of the cafeteria, not waiting to see if Isabeau would follow him.
“What did Dolly mean,” Isabeau said when she caught up with him, “about the compost heaps?”
“Checking the heaps for bodies.” Sparks strode along. He was a small man, but Isabeau had to trot to keep up with him.
“Bodies,” Isabeau repeated, then stared at him in growing horror. “You mean—”
“It’s just a precaution,” Sparks said impatiently. “Since we don’t know where Veraart is.” He glanced at Danger, who was trotting out in front of them. “That guy listen to you? He could help us search.”
Isabeau followed Sparks down the stairs and into Works level.
Bodies.
It simply hadn’t occurred to her that Elke, Noor and Kiran might not just have disappeared to some unknown place. That they might have been— But her mind swerved from the idea.
“Mamre!” Sparks shouted at a group of fugados who were heaving a rubbish bin down the corridor. A man separated himself from the group and came towards them.
“Listen,” said Sparks. “You people find anything odd down here lately? We’ve got a missing person. Anything that might be a body? Clothes?”
“Who?” Isabeau could see the man’s lips move behind the scarlet scarf that hid his face and felt the momentary pressure of his glance.
“Veraart. Constable Veraart.”
Isabeau swallowed, her mouth dry. “And two other people,” she managed.
Sparks turned to look at Isabeau. “What’s that?”
“Elke was with my sister, Noor,” said Isabeau. “And another woman. Kiran. They’re missing too.”
“Kiran Ghatak? Ghatak’s missing?” Sparks cursed. “I thought she was just sick. When she didn’t show up for work—”
Isabeau shook her head.
“Well,” Sparks said to the fugado. “You heard the girlie. Three people, missing. We need to turn over the heaps and check wherever else you can think of.”
At the man’s nod, Sparks stomped further down the corridor, grumbling. “As though I didn’t have enough problems already.”
¤¤¤
“So, we’ve searched the compost heaps, the ash pit, the incinerators are all clean, store rooms, that big back-up vat...” Sparks lips kept moving as he silently worked his way through the list. He shook his head. “There are so many places to hide a body. The shell-cavity, for one. We don’t have time to do a proper search.”
They were sitting on a bench in one of the algae labs, bathed in the green light of a grow tank. Sparks had shared his packed lunch with Isabeau, who was chasing the last of the crumbs in the crumpled wax paper in which it had been wrapped. She fed Danger a speck of cheese, then looked round for Meisje, remembering all at once that she’d not seen the gardag since she’d left the cafeteria.
Maybe I shouldn’t have let her go off like that by herself. What if something happened to her? But Meisje was more than capable of looking after herself.
“Of course, that’s assuming that we’re looking for bodies.” Sparks pursed his lips into a sour pucker. “If they simply left the Eye...”
Isabeau frowned. “But the guards say—”
“I know.” Sparks subsided a little, deflated.
“They couldn’t have gone the other way? Through the strangeside gate?”
The room was dim, but the green light made Sparks’s eyes glint. “I won’t say that’s impossible, but if that’s the way they went, they might as well be—” He must have seen something in her face, because he bit off whatever he’d been going to say. “Realsiders don’t go into the Strange. And the stories of the ones that do are daydreams and fancy-talk. No.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t think your friends have been caught in that particular net.”
“So where are they then? You haven’t looked upstairs yet.”
“Upstairs?” Sparks looked startled. “Oh, you mean Solar or Gardens levels. Dolly’s checking that out. But you made me think. Upstairs.”
He brushed the crumbs from his thighs and got up. “Come.”
He stomped off.
Isabeau followed Sparks to a door in the outer corridor, one she’d noticed already because it had more than the usual number of warning notices plastered all over it.
“Well. Lookie here,” muttered Sparks, wiggling the handle between two fingers. “Somebody’s jimmied this.” He pushed open the door. Isabeau followed cautiously, but there was nothing remarkable about the room beyond, a narrow store room, lined with metal lockers. The walls were plastered with notices and instructional posters, spelling out their messages in pictograms rather than words. The far wall held a bulky hatchway, and next to this was a small window that opened on a dark room.
No, that darkness was not a room. Isabeau caught her breath as she realised that the window was set into the outer wall of the Eye.
“Is that—” She pointed, and Sparks gave a grunt.
“Yes,” he said. “That looks out on the void.” He touched one of the locker doors, which swung open, revealing a row of what Isabeau took to be wetsuits.
“Hmm.” Sparks closed the locker and opened the one next to it. “Wait here.” He strode out into the corridor, calling out, “Balthazar? Balthazar!” as he went.
It was only then that Isabeau noticed Danger’s agitation. The gardag was sniffing all around the door, paying special attention to the broken lock. He sneezed explosively then sniffed again, hackles raised.
“What’s wrong, Danger?” said Isabeau. He glanced up at her, whined anxiously, and resumed his sniffing. “Do you smell Noor here? Or Elke and Kiran?” But even as she spoke, she realised what had agitated him, because she could smell it too—the sweetly cold scent of disinfectant.
Danger moved into the room and pawed at a locker door, so that it banged open. He sniffed gustily at the rows of gas canisters and hoses revealed inside. They, too, reeked of disinfectant.
Isabeau swallowed but before she could speak again, Sparks was back with a skinny glim
in tow, a young man dressed in faded but clean overalls.
“Look at this lock,” Sparks told the glim. “What do you think?”
“That’s definitely been forced.” The glim’s voice was unexpectedly high, a soft, woody fluting. “It wasn’t like this last time I did the inspection. Let’s see—”
He stopped in surprise at seeing Isabeau and Danger.
“Oh, yes,” Sparks said. “This is Isabeau. Isabeau, this is Balthazar.”
Balthazar nodded uncertainly at Isabeau. “Pleased to meet you.”
“When was your last inspection?” Sparks asked him.
“Oh. Indeed.” Balthazar turned from Isabeau in relief. “Here, it’s here, written up in the sheet.” He put a finger on a piece of paper that was taped up next to the door. “Hmm. Hm! Almost time for another. Twenty days ago. And everything was in order, then.”
“And why are the suits not locked up?” Sparks indicated the lockers.
Balthazar blinked at him in surprise. “Locked up? We never do lock them up. Against safety regulations.”
“Oh,” said Sparks. “So, with the door unlocked like this, anyone could have opened the lockers in the last—what did you say? Twenty days?”
“Yes, precisely that,” said Balthazar. “Is anything out of place? Shall I check?”
“Yes, you better check,” Sparks said heavily.
Balthazar glanced at Isabeau, licking his lips with a quick flick of his pale tongue. “Ah—”
“You two better step outside,” said Sparks. “Not enough room in here for all of us.”
Isabeau sent Danger out into the corridor but stayed in the open door herself. She didn’t want to miss anything.
Balthazar’s tentative manner dropped away as he pulled a clipboard from its hook.
The Strange Page 20