CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE - THE STINK OF PARANOIA

"Hello, Dyen."

The man glared up at her. And Tanner felt a certain core of anger rising up. Oh, it hadn't gone away, not since she let Dyen go in the middle of that smoke-stained wasteland of black rivers and melting snow, of infernal heat and towering, baffling industrial monoliths. He'd insulted her. He'd humiliated her by getting away. And she was annoyed. Very annoyed. Almost wanted to write a letter to Eygi right here and now to explain her anger, to release it in a fairly harmless fashion, but... no time, no time. Her hands ought to curl around a pen - right now they were just struggling not to curl into fists. The mansion was a ludicrous place to do this. Ludicrous. One didn't conduct interrogations in conditions of such luxury, not unless there was a damn good reason. So, as a concession to the conventions of interrogative practice (Tanner might be frothing with anger, but she was a stickler for conventions she mostly knew about through theatrophone plays), she'd relocated to a small store-room which had, at one point, been used for guns. Could tell by the rotten-egg smell of sulphur and gunpowder, and the lingering traces of iron. Dyen glared at her, but repeatedly glanced away to stare at the twisted remnants of old weapons and spare parts, left behind when this place was cleared out - a perplexity of warlike instruments, in an uncountable variety of shapes. Broken barrels, shattered firing mechanisms, bullets with internals swollen to uselessness by damp, triggers scattered like mangled caltrops, chunks of anonymous metal engraved with flowers and thorns, with great swirls of artistry.

They stood in a dead armoury. Dyen kneeling on the hard stone floor, shuffling to avoid the chunks of mangled metal. And Tanner loomed above him, little flecks of disturbed, uselessly moist gunpowder and erratic dust floating about her like a mixture of black and grey snowflakes. Like he'd never escaped the furnaces - all they needed was a more biting chill, and they'd be right back in that blackened wasteland. Honestly, the soot-stained ceiling of this place was a dead ringer for the swirling black clouds above the smeltery.

He spat.

Tanner stared down.

Sersa Bayai grunted.

"Mind if I sweat him?"

The man suddenly looked rather nervous, and indeed, beads of sweat began to prick as his muddy brow.

"Not yet. Describe how you got hold of him."

"My man followed him out of the furnace. Must've left you behind, I suppose. He's sorry for that, incidentally."

Tanner fought down a grimace.

"It's fine. The crowds were in the way, hard for me to catch up."

"Quite right. He ran, then. Think he got into the colony proper, but... suppose nobody felt like putting you up like they did Tyer, hm?"

The man, kneeling as he was, with his slightly sagging jowls, looked rather like a dog on the verge of growling. Thankfully, and indeed surprisingly, he restrained himself.

"Ran around for a bit, hid when he could... my man, the fellow who accompanied you, he dragged him out by his ear. Roughed him up a little when he got chopsy, and in return got bludgeoned rather poorly around the ears and ribs. Someone was fighting like a cornered rat - not that it made much difference."

Tanner twitched.

"Is the man..."

She really, really needed to learn his name, gods, why did she keep doing this? Kept getting into conversations, establishing connections, but she'd forget to ask for their name, then it would just be too embarrassing. And for the love of all that was good and holy, she wasn't going to call him 'Mr. Supple' out loud. It was Femadol 25 all over again. Feh.

"He's well. Sent him to the infirmary to get patched up, expect him to be a little out of commission for a few days. So. Running from a judge in the middle of an interview, and assaulting a guard. Does that carry a heavy punishment, Judge Tanner?"

Tanner stared at Dyen until he seemed to wilt a little.

"It doesn't carry a small one."

Her voice dropped.

"But, in the right conditions, charges can be... ameliorated. For instance, by assisting in a significantly more..."

Hm. Significant? Significantly more significant, gods she was a complete protoplasmic invertebrate, wasn't she? Rude prototype unfit for reproduction, and- oh, no, wait, she had it.

"...major case, particularly if done so in a major fashion."

The glare was back, and Tanner turned to Sersa Bayai again.

"I think I'll take him from here. He's bound, after all."

"Quite. Don't treat him too kindly, if you're willing to take requests, honoured judge."

Tanner said nothing, but she smiled very, very faintly, and Sersa Bayai left with a tip of the cap and a click of his heels, green greatcoat flapping behind him and sending up another flurry of black and grey powder. Dyen's eyes were watering, and his hair was plastered so tightly to his scalp by sweat and fear that he seemed to be growing a layer of fungus rather than actual hair. His sagging-skull face gleamed in the dim light of a single lantern. And Tanner pondered how to best deal with him.

She remained standing, at least. And he remained kneeling. Was that the right thing to do? Did it intimidate him, or was it just making his knees hurt? Did... hurting someone's knees make them tell the truth? Was that torture? She glanced around quickly, and... yes, yes, chairs. Would be a frightful thing for a judge to force someone to hurt their knees during an interview, and honestly, she'd tower above him even if both were sitting. Dyen made a strangled noise as she wordlessly picked him up and placed him into a nearby wooden chair, draping his bound hands over the back (she'd seen that in a political cartoon once). Sat down opposite in her own chair, which strained under her weight... gods, if this thing broke, she'd probably get the stretching disease if she fell on this floor, with all this damn rusty metal.

Alright. Paper out. Grab a tiny table to write on because she forgot to grab one earlier (nuts). Start to write - this time more formally. No more performative writing - everything mattered at this point.

"So. It doesn't reflect especially well on you, Mr. Dyen, if you insisted on running away from an interview."

Silence for a moment.

A long, shuddering breath.

"...listen, woman, I know how this works. I grass, you cut me a deal and keep me nice and safe."

Tanner tilted her head to one side. Somebody had changed his mind quickly.

"I mean it. I know what happens now. If I say nothing, you lock me up for running away, and they kill me to stop me talking. So, tell you what. You take care of me, and I mean take care of me, the works, I want a permanent guard, I want everything, I want top bloody treatment, and I'll tell you what's happening."

They.

Them.

Oh ho.

"Well? Yes? You promise?"

Tanner kept writing.

"...you promise?"

Silence. She was formulating her answer, working out practicalities - her silence wasn't deliberate, she was genuinely deep in thought. The world beyond this room might as well have ceased to exist, and even her interviewee seemed hazy every so often.

"...oh, Dyen, you damn fool... begging a damn judge to be nice, to be understanding... idiot, idiot..."

His head sagged down into his chest, where it rested, a single, gleaming trail of errant saliva dripping from one corner of his mouth. Tanner finally, finally looked up.

"I'll see what can be done."

"...fine. Fine. So. What do you want to know? Who do you want me to betray?"

"Let's start with the incidents we outlined. The two bodies, the cat, and the exile. If you wouldn't mind, could you go through them with me? Confirming details."

Ignore the fact that all she had was conjecture. Make it seem like she was just confirming things. Presumably. The man was a sweating, bruised, wheezing wreck of a creature. Fought like a cornered rat to escape capture, but now the fight had been drained out of him completely. Tanner had thought about wringing him dry for the truth. Now, she thought he'd done all the wringing himself. Not sure if that was a better outcome. Maybe less satisfying.

And thus he began. His story. It wasn't long, it was curt, almost to the point of rudeness. He was a nobody. A real nobody, just a lonely man who joined up with the door-guards because it was easy money, and easy access to booze. Cushy job, he thought. And for a while it was. It's easy to police the law abiding and weary, honestly more of a challenge to stir them to any state of criminality. All he had to do was make sure the inns weren't too full of one type of person, or too full in general, break up larger groups, especially if homogeneous. Sometimes they got orders that some of them were being deficient, that some inns were becoming the regular haunts of a group. Then, they'd liaise with one another, make sure that these groups were split open and sent to disparate inns by any means necessary. He wasn't the organ grinder, he was just the monkey. A little guy, not a big fish. Always keen to emphasise his lack of importance in the grand scheme of things. For some time, that'd been it - he was a bouncer. They did their job. Sometimes they had meetings with the governor where he listened to their reports, their concerns... it was a good job. Wouldn't have it forever, but he didn't need to. To him, this was a holiday from actual work, and he was happy to possess it. If he held it too long, he'd just be hated by the whole colony. Even the most reasonable bouncer could wind up hated after a while, just by obeying the rules at inconvenient moments.

No-one liked the man stopping them from having a good time in the evening, after all. And some people hated that man. Really, really hated him.

Anyway. Months of this. Very quiet. Very normal.

Then he got his first offer.

"From who?"

"Can't say. Never said his name. Looked... well, he was, uh, grey. Very grey. Grey hair. Grey eyes. Grey beard. Don't think I saw him around the colony much... then again, not everyone comes to the inns at night. Some folk just drink at home."

She scribbled this down. Intending to return. And Dyen kept going. The grey man talked to him one night. And offered him money. Once on the spot, and once when a job was done for him. A healthy stack. The job was simple enough. Make sure a couple of people didn't get into the inn, make sure a certain group was split up. He knew the people in question, and people were already used to him being arbitrary, so... he did it. Tanner almost wrinkled her nose at the keen smell of fear and sweat wafting from Dyen at this point. He stank of terror, and his voice kept shaking. He spoke with the slow, steady tone of someone mid-confession, exhaling mounds of tension and guilt all at once. Sometimes he lapsed from the confession, and would sit in silence, hunched awkwardly to avoid straining his bruises... and then he'd call himself a fool, a clown, a complete idiot, getting involved in things he didn't understand. He seemed to want Tanner to curse him, to abuse him verbally. But she just sat. And wrote. And so he had to take that duty onto himself. Tanner said almost nothing, just let him expel words. Remembered her letters to Eygi - the moment she had to concern herself with a single filter, be it actually sending the letter, or navigating the difficulties of the censors who'd be inspecting it, or anything of that sort... the moment she introduced that filter, that feeling of the letter going beyond her and her alone, the river of thought stopped. Dammed, and dammed for good. Mental constipation, to put it vulgarly.

She felt kinship towards the man, a little. Still disliked him. Still felt angry - very angry - but she was... well, she knew how it felt to unburden oneself.

And she had no reason to stop him.

The first job had been just that. Break up a specific group - only one member got inside, and was collared later that evening by the grey man for a little chat in a darkened corner. And that was all. The money was good, and he honestly suspected the other bouncers of taking similar pay packets. Just for special requests. Maybe that was why they got rotated so often - every bouncer eventually succumbed to the lure, so they had to go shuffled in and out, bring in the pure ones, the ones who would take time to corrupt.

The second, third, fourth jobs were similar too. Break up a specific group. Kick out a specific person. Leave a door unlocked. He was paid well each time, and managed to accrue a healthy little sum of notes inside his mattress (Tanner made a mental note to check his house).

Then the jobs took a turn. He was in too deep at this stage. Much too deep. The grey man continued to offer him money, but the jobs were getting stranger, more... active. Either he obeyed and did what he was told, or, he was sure, they'd go and rat him out to the governor, or take away his money, or just... get rid of him. Only now did he notice that some of the people the grey man talked to... well, he never saw them again, at least, not in his inns. Maybe they were gone for good. Maybe. Now, he was being asked to actually serve as muscle - to come and crack people with his stick, to stand around in an intimidating fashion. He listed his jobs cautiously and slowly, like a religious creed. Tanner noted them all. Dates were uncertain, unfortunately - out here, everything blended together under the right conditions, and these were no different. She had a subjective timeline, anchored to nothing but the vague season. Those two people she'd shown him... he remembered them. He'd kicked them both out of his inn when they were drunk, as instructed. He was also told to be rough. Then they'd shown up dead, and... well. He'd helped make an alibi. Unwittingly, but... anyway. The cat was when he left the bouncers, went off to a miserable job as an overseer in the smeltery.

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The grey man had wanted the man, Law-Nat, gone from the colony. Didn't want him dead. Wanted him intimidated. So they paid for Dyen to snap the poor thing's neck in front of him. The man... well, he took it poorly. Tried to take out his anger on Dyen at a later date, on several later dates, and when it became apparent that he could do nothing, that he was just tarring himself over and over with a guilty brush by assaulting a bouncer... he left. And Dyen bailed on the whole operation, heading out to the smeltery to work for pennies. But at least he wasn't being asked to kill cats for cash. Or kick people out to freeze to death, but at least he hadn't had to see that, now had he? He was a nobody. A complete nobody wrapped up in things he didn't understand.

"And what about Lyur? Do you know anything about him?"

"...no, no, I... look, I promise, the other bouncers, we don't talk, I don't talk with Lyur either, I think they see me as someone who came down a sudden case of... fucking cowardice. Nervous when I see them. Think they might want to crack me around the back of the head and send me out to die drunk in the snow. Still think that. And now you've talked to me, like it or not, the grey man's coming."

"Tell me about him."

"Grey. Grey hair. Grey beard. Grey eyes. Everything dusty. Faded. Like a ghost. Cold, cold eyes... and bright teeth. Nothing else. Wore different suits all the time. But... yeah, yeah, he was well-heeled. Spoke well. Never drank. Sometimes ordered a small glass, but he never even sipped. Not once. Freak. Only saw him outside work once. He only ever approached me, see, only ever talked to me on his terms, I had no way of finding him. I was a small thing, he didn't care enough about me to give me an address or anything. No way of getting in touch. He found me when he wanted me to do a job. Just glad he didn't take his money back when I was finished."

"And he did the bulk of the... dirty work?"

"Yeah, yeah. Sure. Well, maybe. Hard to imagine him hurting people - his hands were too clean. Easier to imagine him getting someone else to do it. I don't know. But when he told me to send him people, they didn't come back."

"Name?"

"Never said it."

"He never had a placeholder?"

"Not once. I had no way of asking for him, if I talked to people about him our arrangement would be 'terminated', his word. And me with it. Didn't say that. But I could feel it."

Her quill was flying. More and more notes, more and more sketches of this... new figure. Her mind danced involuntarily back to Mr. Canima, who mentioned some Erlize agent who botched an operation because of a false memory. Convinced there was a shadowy figure behind it all, convinced he'd seen a name which had since been covered up. Whole operation went mad because of that, because of a non-existent person given reality by delusion and subsequent bureaucracy. Needed a real name, needed a real anchor for all of this. Had a nightmare vision of both her and Dyen getting killed, and her notes being deemed the work of a stressed, sleep deprived mind, talking about the spectre of 'the Grey Man'. Sounded like something from a cheap pulp novel, or one of those sensationalist news stories they printed in the illustrated news. So... hm. Hm.

"I'll need to... check some of this. You said you saw him outside of work once. Might I ask...?"

"Once. Just once. Saw him... right, never told anyone this, he didn't see me, if he did I might already be dead. So write it down properly."

He leaned close. The stench of rotten eggs from the gunpowder, the metallic tinge of old metal, the thickness of dust, the cloying heat of sweat and the bitter edge of fear... all of it combined into a haze, and Tanner thought there was no better term for the combined scent than paranoia.

"I was out one night. Walking. Walking around. As one does. Summer, must've been, weather was good. Don't like walking around in the main colony, people recognise me, or... used to. No fun being recognised as a bouncer outside of work, when you're not allowed to hit people. No fun. No good. Unsafe. You ever walked around the merchant houses?"

"Can't say I have."

"Makes sense, they stick to their own, they don't mingle. Governor wants to get them to, but they don't, they just don't. Especially not in winter. Maybe they go to the inns now and again... and they're meant to have their houses surrounded by everyone else, governor doesn't want to have a district. But they mingle with each other. And they don't mingle with our lot. Too busy eating truffles and swan, or whatever they eat."

He spat. Tanner kept writing.

"Still. Couple of nice parts with more merchant houses than usual. The regular houses are empty because the inns are open. The merchant houses don't bother you. So I walked there. Liked it. And I was walking around, and there was a party going on in a merchant house, could see candles through those big, big windows... glanced over, glanced and stared... gods, you should've seen it. Beautiful. Really beautiful. Big roast dinner, all these bottles of wine, crisp white tablecloth... probably celebrating an engagement or something, I don't know. Either way. I looked in... and I saw him. Sitting there, bold as brass, surrounded by all these merchants, all these investors, all the people who employed us, kept the colony going. Not a servant. He was at the table. Had a lady draped over his arm, was wearing this great suit, had a silk tie... hair combed over his head, shining like silver. He was laughing at a joke, had his head tilted back, showing all those bright, bright teeth... then he paused. I could feel him about to turn. He could sense me looking at him. He'd see me, then he'd have me beaten to death for knowing too much. So I ran. Gods, I ran..."

Tanner stared.

The well-to-do people who'd gathered like buzzards on the governor's death, terrified of what was coming next. Had to be called to heel by Mr. Canima's knowledge of all their little indiscretions and weaknesses, binding them to the colony and keeping them quiet, whether they liked it or not. They were involved in this? They'd... hold on. She lacked a direct connection, but she could feel the links of it forming. The well-to-do people, all of them Fidelizhi, were connected to the bouncers. Why? Enforcers? Of what? Why would they want some people out of the way, either exiled or dead? Why on earth would... hold on. A thought. The smeltery was owned by a few people, she remembered that much, so... was he being kept on as an overseer because it kept him quiet? To keep him close, and thus monitored? Gods, she'd been lucky to get him in that case. Anyway, anyway. Why would they want, say, Law-Nat exiled but not dead? Had he seen too much, learned too much... or did they just want him gone because he wasn't someone they personally controlled, and they wanted someone else? Dammit, she was getting conspiratorial - confine herself to the facts. The well-to-do people were connected to the bouncers. The bouncers were connected to the Tyer case. The Tyer case was connected to the governor's death (most likely). Follow the links, and she wound up with them. Maybe they weren't responsible for all that had happened, but they might at least know something.

Nuts.

She stared at her paper, thinking, her face completely still... and the stoicism, once more, provoked nervousness in the man. Sweat rolling down his face. Shoulders hunched so tightly it seemed like they were about to tear right off his torso from tension alone. His jaw was clenched so tightly that it shook. He was terrified. That much was completely genuine - she didn't believe he'd be capable of acting this kind of emotion. She'd seen him nervous in the canteen - and he was even more nervous now.

So.

...so...

A question occurred to her. A non-sequitur, but... she spoke mildly.

"What's the hammer and the eye?"

A flinch, a twitch - he was surprised, the change in topic had shaken him. Well, in her defence, there was really no other time to say it. Wasn't going to interrupt his confession, right? Honestly.

"What?"

"The hammer and the eye. Your former colleague, Myunhen, mentioned them at one point. By all the spirits of the hammer and the eye, to be specific. Ring any bells?"

"...uh, it's a Rekidan thing."

"Oh?"

"Rekidan thing. You people swear to gods. We have the hammer and the eye."

"What does it mean, though?"

"Look, I'm not a bloody theogonist, ask someone else. I just told you about a man who does want me dead, knows some very powerful people, and has probably paid off everyone and their mother to slice my throat from ear to ear, and you're asking about the crap my dad mumbled about when he was drunk? You think we had long talks about fucking religion? I don't know what it means, I do not know. People just say it sometimes, why do people say 'cockles of my heart', you think they fucking know what that means, you think that means anything?"

"Actually, it's because an old name for a part of the heart was-"

"Shut it. You've got my confession. Now give me a cell, give me people who won't kill me, give me gin, give me a bed, and give me a woman with a mouth like fucking silk."

Tanner blinked.

"I can give you a cell. Wait here for a moment."

"Fine. Nowhere else to go."

Tanner stood. Brushed down her skirt, wincing as her hands came away stained with little pieces of soot from the smelter... and left, papers under her arm. And with no further ado, she was gone. Closing the door behind her, and locking with a key provided by Sersa Bayai. So. So. What was she meant to do with this information? An investigation could work, but... poking a bit of a hornet's nest, wasn't she? And this was new. No mention of the well-to-do types until now, they'd just been background figures of no great importance to her day-to-day existence, and now... now they were jostling for the position of central figures in this whole miserable drama. Unexpected? Hm. Well, it'd be easier to fudge books and muddle records if one had access to substantial wealth... needed to rummage through the man's house. Get some clarifications on where he stored his money, she needed material evidence for his employment. One man's word was good, but unless many such men came forwards...

"Keep an eye on him, if you wouldn't mind. I might want to ask him a few more questions."

"Right-o. Where's he going afterwards?"

"...I need somewhere very secure. I don't... meant to impugn the credibility or dignity of your officers, I'm sure they're good men, but there's a possibility of... great quantities of money being involved in this operation. Can you guarantee his safety, if necessary?"

Bayai hummed, stroking his moustache thoughtfully. Oh, goodness. Just realised that they were rather close together. Not a very wide corridor, and she was... not exactly petite. Felt a flush creep along her collarbone, and she tried to shuffle backwards surreptitiously, before Bayai finished his pondering excitations of the old vibrissae... and leaned forwards in confidence. Well. Now they were very close together. She'd kept her breath clean? Had she? Breathe through her nose, curse it, her nose, but not too heavily, don't bathe him in warm body-fumes (stop it Tanner), just... why did humans need to breathe. Why couldn't they just drain air through their skin like giant plants? No more bad breath, no more discomfort from simply feeling another's breath on one's skin, gah. Anyway. Focus. Ramble to Eygi about this, then burn the letter, same as she always did.

"If you're looking for something properly secure, what you want is one of the chained towers. You know them, out there in the snow. Isolated, nothing around them to hide in... easy to guard. One entrance, one exit. Anyone heads out there, we know. Instead of the usual rotating guard, just appoint a few people you completely trust."

Damn.

That was a very good idea.

"Any... thoughts about soldiers you'd trust?"

"I have a few. I'll talk to them, make sure they're still on the straight and narrow. Get back to you."

"Until then?"

"Talk to Mr. Canima. Get him or his boys to mind him in here, might be the best option."

Well. That was also a good idea. But she liked it rather a lot less than the other good idea.

Crumbs.

"I'll... make sure."

"No need to take care of it yourself. One of my boys can pop over now, have a chat, make sure it all works out."

Tanner blinked. That would... well, it would be terribly rude to force someone else to meet with Mr. Canima and goodness he was already calling a man over and telling him to go upstairs. Have a chat with the Erlize leader, ideally without shaking too much, and get someone on this door. The storeroom had no windows, no way in but the solid, locked door. Safe enough, if they guarded the door properly. Tanner checked her notes again as Bayai managed things on the practical side. Something was... making her uneasy. Not sure how to describe it, but... maybe it was just the feeling of being in a very small pool of safety, surrounded on all sides by enemies. She glanced up suddenly.

"Did we get that woman? Beldol, the one who..."

Was Tyer's lover, before everything went to hell.

"Ah. Right. Her. Yes, brought her in. She's staying in one of the servant's quarters for the moment."

"Is that... safe?"

"Mansion's guarded well. Point of pride - the governor died outside of this place, because his killers wouldn't dare try and cross the guards here. And now it's even more of a point. Might not be able to protect the governor, but we can still protect his house. Could move her to a chained tower too - we have one or two that we've properly cleared out of rubble, but we don't tend to use them much. Maybe keep all your suspects out there?"

"...bit like putting all your eggs in one basket, isn't it?"

"If you think so. I'll leave it to your discretion."

Well. Glad that business, at least, was taken care of. The two parted ways, Bayai continuing to sort out security arrangements, leaving Tanner in her soot-stained dress to head back to the waiting room. Not sitting down, just walking around, afraid of staining the furniture in some fashion. Her ledgers were still scattered. Her gear for small-scale writing was still active. Lists and lists of... incidents, of people coming in, leaving... she bit her lip slightly.

Uneasy.

Very uneasy.

Would it be possible to hunt for any mention of this... conspiracy (there was no better word) in the files? And still, she was missing a key point - motive. Why would they be involved in this? What benefit could they glean? These were the people that managed the carriage companies, grew the food, fuelled the smelters, cleared the city... the governor organised, provided a legal framework for things to operate, and managed the areas of a colony which were inherently unprofitable - the military, for instance. He subsidised what needed to be subsidised, bought up all their food and stored it for winter... made sure the colony could survive the awkward stages of development. At least, as she understood it, and the ledgers had always confirmed this, throughout all her research. Whole ledger of subsidies given, and the reasons. So... why would they be involved in beating up random people and kicking them out of the colony? Why hadn't Mr. Canima noticed this sort of corruption in the past, he was fairly scrupulous about these things... well, he had said that the Erlize operated using bureaucracy as a foundation. Their noses twitched when they saw gaps in data, or unusual data, or some kind of anomaly in the great heaving piles of paperwork they clambered around. Payments in cash, well-hidden, all done informally... maybe that exploited a blind spot. Or, no, the bouncers were the governor's men, not Canima's, he wouldn't have the kind of documentation he might ordinarily have, and regular switches would stop him from building up proper files on them to observe certain trends. Possible that the governor, by accident, had created a group of people poised to exploit blind spots in Erlize observation, and then this... grey man had sighted this resource, and decided to make use of it.

Could just be that. So, she had method. But the motive eluded her continuously. Again, her mind went back to those sliced pages, cut out of the ledger as if to hide something. Canima's warning to steer clear of them. The colony was a closed system, everything was tied together, including this case and those papers, so...

Dammit.

She'd hoped to find evidence of a brutish cabal exploiting others for some sort of personal gain. And she might've just found a different cabal doing the same thing... but it was too high up. For the bouncers, just making a packet of money might be sufficient motive, but for these people? They owned half the colony, they paid almost everyone here, what was on the table for them, and...

Her hands twitched as they reached for a pen. For a second, she almost fell over - gods, weariness. Clawing at her eyes, digging fingers into her mind and chilling it dead. Had to stay up. Had to keep working. More coffee. Drop of coffee would do her a power of good. Now... now get her thoughts in order, expel some of this tension, drain some of the emotion whirling around in her. Write to Eygi.

Her pen was poised. A blank sheet of paper was here for her.

She paused.

And dropped the pen, a tiny drop of ink flying from the tip to scatter across the page like a little black comet trail.

No time to write to her.

But the things churning in her needed to get out somehow, and... ledgers, ledgers, needed her papers, needed to write copies of the confession, copies, and hide them. Make sure no-one could destroy them. And-

Marana was back.

Her voice echoed through the corridors.

"Where is that enormous woman, I have business to discuss with her!"

Oh. Right. Marana. Sent her out to investigate those cast-iron decorations. Again, a mystery tacked onto the main one, but in the closed circuit of the colony, everything mattered. The carvings, the murders, the bouncers, the merchants, the... damn scarf the governor had been wearing the night he died. She gripped her temples and tried to suppress a headache as the woman swanned in, hair tumbling behind her in a snow-kissed wave.

"Ah, and there you are."

Tanner felt a hand resting on the back of her head, and she stiffened as Marana leaned downwards to plant an affectionate kiss on the side of her forehead. She smelled of smoke. Tanner remained absolutely frozen until she'd moved away to find herself a proper chair, brushing flakes of snow from her shoulders as she went about her work. The imprint of the kiss on her forehead burned a little, and she could almost feel the skin erupting with a highly localised rash. Not used to physical contact. Especially not that sort. Not even her mother had been that affectionate, and her father had been more of a... well, clap her around the shoulders and ruffle her hair sort of person. Gods, stop fixating on it. Probably just having a reaction to the alcohol that had doubtless been pasted across her forehead. Marana pulled a chair close, and sat down elegantly, sprawling in the sort of uncontrolled way which... well, was clearly very controlled indeed. No-one sprawled that way unless they wanted to show off their shapely limbs a little.

"So? Any successes?"

"You first. What have you been up to? Haven't seen you for..."

How long had it been? Lost track of time, could be a few days...

"Well, I've been investigating. Doing all the things people like us ought to do. I've poked around odd corners, talked with interesting people... even met up with that nice Fyeln individual, remember him? Well, turns out he's developed a bit of a liking for me, two of us got up to a bit of business, and-"

A tiny crack.

Tanner appeared to have gripped the rests of her chair a little roughly. Marana looked momentarily worried, and even flashed a nervous smile at her, while her eyes darted hither and thither.

"Have you been spending all this time..."

"Of course not, you absurd gannet. He's a contact. We talked a great deal. He had rather more to share with me that... what, the old fellow with the purple nose who drinks himself half to death whenever he has a chance? Oh, I assure you, Fyeln is much better company. I'm not an idiot, Tanner, I'm capable of working."

Tanner flushed.

"Sorry."

"No, no, you're stressed. Look rather tired, too."

A pause.

"...gods, you look tired. Completely exhausted. And filthy."

"I'm fine. Have work. Copying."

"No, no, no, I'll handle the copying. Come on, you're coming home, post-haste. Two of us need to have a chat and some actual bloody rest. Come on."

Tanner sighed, sagging. She... did feel exhausted. Never gone this long without sleep. What day was it, again? Come to think of it... her vision was slightly hazy. How had she... there was a slight shimmer, right at the edge of her eyes. Grey. Maybe she was inventing false memories, like Canima had warned, and the grey man had come about from this, from the shimmering, from the slight vibration of her eyes. She stared at her hands. Didn't feel quite real. Sleeplessness... well, it was expected of her, she didn't like sleeping until the day's work was done, and... the day's work was never really done. So the day never really ended, just kept going and going and going. A great pale sun was looming outside, like even the sky was trying to play along with the idea. Noon, morning, evening, didn't matter, the sun was either on or off, like one of those flameless lights the theurgists were so fond of. Out there... grey. Not bright enough for the snow to glimmer, so it just sat there, leaden and infinite. Maybe she was just hallucinating the grey man, because only a grey man could walk out of that place. She checked her notes... no, no, he was real, the notes were real. Needed to confirm all of this.

Sitting down made her aware of how... damn tired she was.

Had her skin always felt this gritty? Had her eyes always been this numb? Didn't even really feel alive, just hunks of cold jelly sitting in her face, occasionally sparking with a stray impulse. She closed them for a moment, sighed...

"Sure. Home."

"There we go. Feel better once you have some sleep in you. I'll take your papers."

"Hrm."

"Up you get, you tremendous grouch."

And side by side, Tanner struggling not to stagger, the two made their way out into the grey. Out into the chill. And towards the distant signs of home, while the governor's fox-patterned tie kept her cape around her shoulders. With the way it strained, she could almost imagine the foxes were moving, bounding across the featureless green background.

Weeks since she'd seen green. Real green. Summer green. Field green. Not just the dark foreboding green of conifers, sharp green.

And all the while, Marana talked.

And while Tanner couldn't remember a single word by the time she staggered through the front door...

She appreciated each and every one of them.