The Abyss Beyond Dreams Read online

  ‘People flying into space?’ Slvasta asked. ‘You’re talking about ship’s machines, and they don’t work on Bienvenido. Our ancestors came here so they could live simple lives, lives that brought fulfilment. That is the way to the Heart of the Void.’ He frowned, barely able to believe he’d just quoted such orthodoxy. It was supposed to be him who argued against the establishment’s restrictions.

  ‘Really? Did any of your first ancestors tell you that directly? Or was it the teachers in schools paid for by the Councils? Councils that are ruled by the Captain and all the rich families who support him and beg his patronage. We don’t know what happened three thousand years ago, not really. But does it make any sense to you that the ships would choose to come here, a world under permanent siege? Why would they do that when they had a whole universe to choose from? Got an answer for that?’

  Slvasta had to shake his head and admit defeat. ‘No. Not if you put it like that.’

  ‘Is there another way I should put it?’

  ‘Hey, I’m on your side.’

  ‘Yes. I can see you’re kept down just like all the rest of us dumb peasants. But is it the side you’d choose? If you were allowed to choose, that is? Which you’re not.’

  ‘I’m doing what I can.’

  Javier clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Of course you are.’

  Which he actually wasn’t, but that was down to a harsh self-judgement.

  ‘Enough,’ Bethaneve said. ‘We’re here to enjoy ourselves. Slvasta, fancy a flutter? Javier talks way too much, but he does know his beasts. Initie’s hound might be worth it.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Javier said. ‘Ignore my bullshit. I apologize. Put your money on Initie. You’ll double it at least.’

  ‘All right then,’ Slvasta said, suddenly realizing he was genuinely enjoying himself for the first time since he’d arrived in the city. ‘If it loses, I’ll claim you are a Faller and send the Marines after you. Still think it’s going to win?’

  Javier roared with laughter. ‘Put my coin on with yours. We’ll find out the hard way.’

  *

  ‘Would you like to start with the bad news?’ Bethaneve asked. It was Saturday, a week after the night at the bait. Bethaneve had agreed to meet Slvasta for lunch, and he’d chosen Davidia’s, a fresh-fish café halfway along Captain Sanorelle’s Pier. The pier was actually the start of what the poor Captain had hoped would be a bridge across the Colbal – a folly doomed from the moment the first stanchions were sunk. The river beside the city was over three kilometres wide, with a fiercely strong current even outside the rainy season. The bridge had reached four hundred metres on five massive stone arches before the end collapsed. Scaffolding and masonry alike were washed away by a surge, taking over two hundred workers with it.

  Three arches remained now, and what had been planned as the wide road and railtrack they supported was now covered by a chaotic array of wooden shacks containing fish merchants, cafés and pubs. The air was thick with smoke from the curing houses.

  Slvasta grinned. ‘You’re married?’

  ‘No. I went down into the vault containing tax returns from Erond county. There’s nothing that matches a trader with three or more boats.’

  ‘Ah, well, thank you for trying.’

  ‘I can expand the search.’

  ‘To where? There are hundreds of counties.’

  ‘Seven hundred and fifteen, plus eighty-two governed territories waiting to be elevated to regional status; then they’ll be split into about twenty counties each.’

  ‘That many? I didn’t know. Well, it was a valiant try. I’ll just have to find another way of tracking him down.’

  ‘I didn’t like to say it, but if he is a criminal, or he’s sided with the Fallers, then he probably won’t have a tax file.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘Of course, Javier doesn’t have a file.’

  ‘Now why does that not surprise me? Your friends are quite intense.’ So far he and Bethaneve had been out in the evening on three occasions, two of which had seen them ending up in a pub with Javier and Coulan. He’d enjoyed the men’s company, though he was starting to think he’d like to spend slightly less time with them and more with Bethaneve.

  ‘They talk a lot,’ Bethaneve said as she ate her grilled marrobeam. ‘So do a lot of people. It’s harmless.’

  He examined his beer. ‘Shame.’

  ‘Really?’ She grinned. ‘Do you think Javier would make a good Captain?’

  Slvasta smiled back and drew in an exuberant breath. ‘No!’

  She laughed. ‘He’s more like you than you realize.’

  ‘I don’t quite see that.’

  ‘Of course you don’t. That big-man bluster act of his covers up a lot. He was ten or twelve, I think, when his parents were eaten by Fallers. That’s what drives his contempt for the Captain and the Councils – just like you.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘We all have reasons for what we do, and the way we think. You want to change the way the regiments do things because that old way nearly got you eggsumed.’

  ‘True, things needs shaking up and modernizing. That’s progress.’

  The look she gave him was almost sad. ‘We both know that’s a pile of crud. Progress stopped on this world three thousand years ago, the day our ancestors landed here.’

  ‘Is that what drives you? The quest for progress?’

  ‘I have a friend . . .’

  He was slightly worried at the way her shell tightened, allowing no shade of emotion to show. Whatever she felt, she wasn’t prepared to share. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Had a friend, I suppose. We were young, and we came to Varlan together. Usual stupid story: we thought a life here was rich and exciting. Which it is when you’re young. Then I learned it wasn’t, not really. It took a while for me to realize that. It took the First Officer to make me see it.’

  ‘Aothori?’ he asked in surprise. ‘You know him?’

  ‘My friend did. A landowner from the south took her to the palace one night. She didn’t want to go, but she had problems in her life.’

  ‘Problems?’ Slvasta queried; he didn’t like to, it was obvious that talking about this was tough for her.

  ‘Narnik,’ she said resentfully. ‘What else? So she wasn’t in a position to say no. When she got there, Aothori enjoyed how vulnerable she was. Thankfully he gets bored quickly, which was probably the luckiest thing that ever happened to her. Too long with him, and . . . well. You’ve heard the rumours about him?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘They’re all true, and that’s not the half of it. He’s evil, Slvasta. Really, truly, evil. If they ever cut him open, I wouldn’t be surprised if he bled blue.’

  ‘That bad, huh?’

  ‘Oh Giu, yes. I want him gone. Dead even. It’s the Captaincy that allows people like him to do whatever they want, to ruin lives. They rule the world for their own pleasure and profit, and it’s wrong. The day they and all their kind are brought down will be the happiest day of my life. So now you know – that’s what drives me.’

  ‘You’re not alone there. And your friend? The one who knew the First Officer? What of her?’

  ‘Gone away somewhere,’ she said with a sad sigh. ‘I suppose you have to know at some time.’

  ‘Know what?’ he asked in sympathy, thinking he could guess what was about to be said.

  ‘It wasn’t just my friend who used to do narnik.’

  ‘We all did,’ he said, a little too cheerily.

  ‘No, Slvasta, I had a real problem. It just took over. But I’ve been clean for a couple of years now. I’m never going back to that, not ever. It’s a dark place, and you don’t see it, not from the inside. And before you know it, the dark closes in and covers you. It’s like being buried alive, and the only way out is another wad. That’s when you think you can see the light again. But it’s not light, not really. It’s just the narnik lifting you, fooling you.’

  He reached over
the table and took her hand. ‘I’m sorry. But you’re clean now? That’s good.’

  ‘Yes. It was Coulan; he found me. He helped me see how bad I was. He helped me kick it. There’s not many people manage that, not when they’re as far gone as I was. But he knew what to do, how to help me. It was amazing, building up my self-esteem again. I owe him a lot. Everything, actually. He was so sweet, so generous. He didn’t have to do it, to help a stranger, but he did because that’s the kind of person he is.’

  Just for a moment Slvasta could sense some of her memories, a few hazy images rich with emotion. He was proud of the way he kept hold of her hand. ‘You and him, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘But it’s over. It has been for a long time. He’s with Javier now.’

  ‘We’ve all got a past in that respect,’ he assured her.

  ‘I know. But I’m still friends with him. Slvasta, I really hope that doesn’t bother you. It’s not in my nature to turn my back on someone who was so important to me. Without him . . . I don’t know where I’d be now. Dead, possibly, or just another house girl down at the bad end of Gamstak district.’

  ‘But you’re neither of these things. And I’m very grateful to him for that.’

  ‘Really?’ Her hand tightened on his.

  ‘Yes. Whatever you’ve been through, it made you what you are today. And that’s a very special person, Bethaneve. One I’m pleased I know.’

  ‘You’re so sweet. I can’t believe you do the job you do.’ She leaned over and kissed him. They’d kissed before – pleasant end-of-the-evening kisses when teekay strokes became playfully naughty – but not like this, not with this hunger. His shell immediately tightened round his thoughts, preventing anyone’s ex-sight from sensing them directly. Nothing he could do about the other café customers’ eyesight, though.

  They moved apart, sharing the same knowing smile. It gave Slvasta real hope for the future for the first time since Ingmar’s death.

  6

  It was the following Thursday when the news reached Varlan. It must have come in by special messenger to the palace some time during the night, the kind of news the Captain and his Council kept quiet about until the official gazettes could print clever sanitized reports that minimized the level of damage.

  But when Slvasta walked into Rose’s Croissant Café, he knew something was wrong. Even the regulars were giving him disapproving stares, and the unguarded thoughts his uniform kindled in some were downright hostile.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked Rose when she came over to take his order.

  ‘You pay them no heed, captain,’ she said, her voice growing loud enough to carry across the café. ‘Everybody here knows you’re from the Cham regiment, and they do all right by their county. You’re not like those others.’

  ‘Other what?’

  ‘You might want to look at the Hilltop Eye.’

  When she’d taken his order, Slvasta used his teekay to pluck the Hilltop Eye from the rack beside the door. The pamphlet was easy enough to find; the rack was stuffed full of them that morning. It slid through the air above the heads of everyone sitting at their table.

  He was slightly surprised to see it was a new one; normally the pamphlet was printed every month or so, and the last one had come out barely five days ago. Also, this was just a single sheet. ‘NEST UNCOVERED’ was printed in bold across the top. With a growing sense of dismay he read down the report. Wurzen, the southernmost town in Rakwesh province, had discovered a nest. All the Fallers had been killed by sheriffs and regimental reservists from the town. No thanks to the authorities.

  The nest had taken over the Lanichie family, some local landowners who had a grand townhouse. How long they’d managed to carry off the charade was unknown. Rumours had been rife for years – true, Slvasta knew, he’d seen classified reports of suspicions from the Wurzen sheriff’s office – but one of the Lanichie daughters was married to the Captain’s district governor; the county regiment’s commander was a cousin. The family employed hundreds of people in its estates, and half the businesses in the county depended on its patronage. Official reports into the disappeared, and qualms about the increasingly reclusive occupants of the townhouse with its strangely persistent fuzzing, had been quashed for years.

  Two days ago, at one o’clock in the morning, a drunk group of sailors had waylaid a covered cart trundling quietly through the town. It had a brewery logo on the side, and they were hoping to help themselves to some barrels. What they found was two eggs. The Faller who drove it made a desperate dash for the Lanichie townhouse, with the rapidly sobering sailors in hot pursuit.

  A ’pathed alarm surged through the town, and a mob emerged. Every mod-animal in Wurzen went wild, attacking the entire human population.

  ‘I knew it!’ Slvasta exclaimed out loud as he read that part.

  But fear and anger had taken hold now, and the mods were swiftly killed by teekay assault, physical battery and pistol shot. Sheriffs and reservists, who had weapons, led the charge against the townhouse. What they found inside, after they killed the Fallers, was what everyone imagined Uracus itself would be like. Human bones, gnawed clean, filled every room. Initial estimates were that over three hundred people had been eaten.

  The Wurzen nest was an atrocity on a scale nobody had even conceived of before. And it had all been brushed aside and kept quiet because the Lanichie family was of good stature – landowners, aristocracy, rich. The ruling class. Those rulers had allowed it to happen because they’d never dream of questioning their own.

  Other houses and the town Council offices were fired as the mob sought revenge, a physical outlet for their horror and fury. Landowners, merchants, anyone living in a large house, government officials – they were chased out of their homes, out of the town, beaten, robbed, brutalized. The Captain’s district governor was supposed to have been lynched with help from his own sheriffs . . .

  The mob still ruled in Wurzen, Hilltop Eye claimed, and the discontent was spreading to the surrounding towns and villages, where the families of the disappeared were taking up arms in search of vengeance.

  ‘Great Giu,’ Slvasta muttered. His dismay was tempered by a grim satisfaction. The regiments will have to change now.

  He dropped a few copper coins on the table and left. As he walked down Walton Boulevard, he grew aware of the unusually light amount of traffic for the time of day. At the same time, his ex-sight was gathering up the emotional atmosphere starting to engulf Varlan. That was the thing with ’path whispers. Given the right spark of gossip, they could spread across the city in a matter of minutes. Hilltop Eye wasn’t a spark, it was an eruption; shocked ’path conversations between families and friends overlapped, multiplied to streak along streets and canals at the speed of thought.

  The city’s cab drivers, those masters of urban gossip and innuendo, understood all too well what the growing mood spelt, and turned to head back to their stables. Their absence added to the expanding feeling of anxiety; ire towards authority was building fast. Once or twice, Slvasta sensed individuals urging people to take their frustrations out on the government – fast sharp ’path voices that swirled for a few seconds amid the mental clamour, only to vanish again after a few seconds, untraceable even to the best psychic detective. But each little burst of encouragement was absorbed and disseminated, adding to the citymind gestalt.

  Keturah was in the Regimental Council offices, radiating worry – a state shared by just about all the staff. Thelonious hadn’t come in yet. Slvasta sat behind his desk, not knowing what to do. The ’path babble filling the aether outside precluded any work. Everybody, it seemed, was waiting for something to happen. He told Keturah she could go home if she wanted, but she said, no, she’d ride it out, although she did want to go home early.

  At nine o’clock, Arnice stuck his head round the door. ‘This is getting a bit beastly,’ he said.

  ‘I told you we should be taking those reports of the disappeared more seriously. And did you read ab
out the mods attacking humans in Wurzen? I wonder what Major Rennart makes of that?’

  ‘Oh, come now, be gallant in your victory.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone has won anything here. Three hundred people!’

  ‘Humm. Don’t tell anyone, but it was probably closer to four hundred. The Captain’s police chief, Trevene, was saying the Lanichie family probably Fell five years ago.’

  ‘Five years? Hey, wait a minute, how do you know what the police chief is saying?’

  Arnice winked. ‘Trevene is my sister-in-law’s uncle.’

  ‘Did he know?’

  ‘No, of course not. The idiot governor was too stupid to question anything.’

  ‘Bloody typical.’

  ‘Quite. Anyway, I’m off to change into my combat uniform.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  Arnice pointed at the window. ‘You need to stretch your ex-sight. There’s a nasty little bunch of peasants congregating in Bromwell Park, fizzing with anti-Captain thoughts – as if he knew what was happening in Wurzen. We’re worried they’ll march on the National Council chamber, or worse, the palace. So the Meor regiment will deploy across Walton Boulevard and, shall we say, discourage them.’

  ‘Ah.’ Slvasta frowned. ‘Can they get here in time? Your men are all barracked on the south side of the Colbal.’

  ‘Not as of three o’clock this morning when the news reached us. They’re in various forward deployment bunkers, including the one under this building.’

  ‘We have a deployment bunker here?’

  ‘Oh, yes. But don’t spread the news around.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Don’t worry. The chaps train for civil disobedience suppression. We’ll crack a few heads, chuck some of the would-be revolutionaries in jail, and the rest will slink off back to their hovels and drink themselves stupid all night. And if the worst comes to the worst, well, we’ve got all the guns, haven’t we?’