This was noteworthy. Signum Loveh, it seemed, was a much more regular visitor than all of the other dead Engineers I’d asked about.
“I asked to be let in on the secret,” Vartas said resentfully. “To get to go, too. But she said it wasn’t allowed. Said I had to be chosen. What made you chosen, I didn’t know. I mean, when I looked at the rest of her little gang, I couldn’t see what made them so special.”
Miljin and I glanced at one another, our interest piqued.
“Gang?” I asked. “What gang is this?”
“Dunno if it was a gang, precisely,” Vartas muttered. “Just…just pals, perhaps. Friends. But they all seemed to bear some blessing from above.”
“Names,” spat Miljin. “Give us their names, damn you.”
“D-damn it all,” he stammered. “I’m a spatiast, not an engraver! I don’t keep this shit behind my eyes!” He grumbled for a moment. “Gink was friendly with three of them. Might have been more, but she and those three hung together tight.” One finger probed where his pipe had burned him on his side as he thought. “Vanduo. That was one, I think.”
I nodded. Princeps Alaus Vanduo—that was one of the dead.
“And the next…I think the name was Lapa? Lapir?”
“Lapfir?” I suggested.
“I think that was it. Maybe, yes. That was it.”
Princeps Atha Lapfir, then. Another of the dead ten.
“And the last…” Vartas frowned for a moment. “The last was…Jolgalgan. Right. That was her.”
I looked at him blankly. Then I looked at Miljin, who stared blankly back at me. This name was totally new.
“Ah…who?” I asked.
“Jolgalgan,” said Vartas again. He nodded. “That was her. Captain Kiz Jolgalgan. I remember because she was an Apoth, and no one else was.”
My eyes fluttered as I riffled among the many names I’d heard in the past day. Yet Captain Kiz Jolgalgan, I knew, was most certainly not one of the ten dead Engineers.
“You’re…you’re sure about this?” I asked. “You’re sure this person was grouped in with Loveh and the rest of the Engineers?”
“I am,” he said. He’d recovered his pride and stuck his nose in the air. “I told you I remembered, and why. Try listening.”
My thoughts danced as I turned this bit of information over. I caught Miljin’s eye, and saw a keen, burning look in his face, and knew he was thinking the same thing as me.
We have a survivor. An eleventh member of the group. Someone who went to one of these mysterious meetings—and maybe walked away.
“Describe her, then,” said Miljin. “What’d this gal look like?”
“Tall woman,” said Vartas. “Broad. Very stern, very serious. Face like she’s always sucking on a lemon seed.”
“What race was she?” Miljin asked. “Tala? Rathras? Kurmini?”
“You know…I couldn’t quite tell,” admitted Vartas. “She had a Kurmini name, but she didn’t look Kurmini. She was far too tall, and her hair was pale yellow, and tightly curled. I’ve never seen a Kurmini with hair like that.”
“What assignment did she serve under in the Apoths?” asked Miljin.
“Don’t know. I never talked to her in person. I wasn’t invited to the party,” he said bitterly.
We quizzed him further on this Jolgalgan, but he could give us little. Eventually I gave up and tried a new angle. “Did Signum Loveh bring anything back from these meetings?” I asked.
“No,” said Vartas.
“Did she bring anything to these meetings?” I asked. “Documents? Money?”
“No, but…” He frowned, thinking. “But sometimes she…she took something from her quarters on these visits. A little coin thing, it looked like. I caught her putting it in her pocket once. I asked what it was, and she said she couldn’t tell me. So I…”
“So you reckoned it was part of these meetings,” I said.
He nodded. “But that’s all I knew. I just knew the meetings, the money, the coin—and not to ask questions. When you came and brought her up, I…I worried it was some corruption. I thought she had the right to lie in peace with a clear name, and thought Commander Blas could maybe help give her cover…”
I looked him over and didn’t see any lie there. Evidently the man didn’t know.
“Commander Blas is dead,” I said.
“He…he what?” said Vartas, shocked.
“Blas is dead,” I said. “Along with all these other Engineers who went to these little secret meetings. Probably because of these secret meetings. So if there’s anything else you know, you need to tell us now.”
“I don’t know anything more!” said Vartas.
“You sure, boy?” said Miljin.
“I promise, I don’t!” Then a faint pout of horror crept into his face. “Why are you two asking about this? Does this have anything to do with the breach?”
There was a long silence. Miljin picked up one of Vartas’s unlit shootstraw pipes and sniffed at it. “You keep yourself in this bed, Signum,” he said. “You keep your fucking money. And you keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, I am going to come back here—and this?” He pointed to the gash in the bed, between Vartas’s legs. “I shall do the same again, but six smallspan higher. And then six again, and six again. Am I clear?”
Beads of sweat came boiling out of Vartas’s brow. “As mountain water, sir.”
“Good.” He pocketed the shootstraw pipe and swatted my shoulder. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
* * *
—
MILJIN AND I stood in the medikkers’ halls, thinking in silence as the attendants swarmed around us.
“So,” he said.
“So, sir,” I said.
“We got mysterious meetings of Engineers, meeting about…something. Don’t know what yet. But all with Commander Blas involved.”
“Correct, sir.”
“And now we’ve got an Apoth who might be a part of it,” he said. “Except—her name ain’t on the list of the dead.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Got to get ahold of her quick,” he said. “And press her to tell us what in hell happened in these damn meetings. I’ll tell the Legion lads to start a lookout for her. But maybe she’s dead, too. Tree-speared out in the middle of some fucking field somewhere, and we haven’t found her yet.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “Meanwhile, we’ve got black-clad assassins in Daretana.”
“We do, sir.”
“This along with, you know, people sprouting trees from inside theirselves, and all that’s brought about.”
“Yes, sir.”
He snorted and spat on the floor. “Fucking hell. What a mess.” Then he chewed his lip, thinking. “You know, if I had some magic coin that could let me into some secret meetings, well…”
“…you wouldn’t take it with you to the sea walls, sir?” I suggested.
“Hell no. Sure wouldn’t. I’d keep it somewhere safe.”
“I agree, sir.”
We stood there in contemplative silence. Then two attendants wheeled by a wooden cart, one wheel squeaking wildly. The cart carried a large glass tank, like an aquarium—but as it passed before us, we saw it did not contain any conventional fish. Rather, a massive, rippling, purplish starfish was gripping the bottom of the tank—and growing from its back was a human hand.
The hand’s fingers flexed and twitched very slowly as it passed before us, as if exulting in the flow of the water. It had a feminine look to it. Something delicate in the nails and knuckles.
We watched in silence as the tank went by, the one wheel squeaking in protest.
“Looks like Topirak’s getting a replacement,” said Miljin.
I cleared my throat. “Looks that way, sir,” I said hoarsely.
Miljin waited to speak again until its squeak had long faded. Then he grunted.
“Let’s go check Loveh’s quarters for that fucking coin,” he said, “before someone wheels one of them starfish by with a prick growing from its back, and I faint and crack my head open and wind up in one of these goddamn baths.”
* * *
—
WE FOUND LOVEH’S quarters on the west side of the building. A small chamber with a single bed, trunk, closet, bookshelf—but if you had the eye for it, the suggestions of wealth could be found all around us. Bedsheets fine and silky. Jar of soapdust on the windowsill, frothy and fragrant. Closet full to bursting with clothing far beyond what most Iyalets doled out.