CHAPTER FORTY - CONSPIRACIES OVER COFFEE

If Tanner's skull was measured that morning by Tom-Tom's merciless contraption, and her fortune and personality read, the readings would have been such: an overdeveloped weariness gland. Memory centres excessively swollen. Dedication nodes producing determination at an enhanced rate. Lucky numbers, non-existent. Lucky gloves, in her pocket. And breakfast, alas, was not on the cranial cards. There was no food in the house, nothing but the sad arrangement of lonely spices and sauces which accompanied the single person. All the enhancements of food, but none of the foundations. Tanner's stomach growled, and she gnawed listlessly on a small crust of black bread. Eager to get to a grocer, to pick up what she needed. Her ration book for the winter was still full of stamps, all she had to do was hand them over the counter and she'd have herself a rich basket of anonymous, paper-wrapped jars and boxes, filled with preserved goods. Eggs, submerged in cloudy water laced with slaked lime. Sausages, smoked, chilled, spiced, processed, refined down until no form of life could dwell within the fibres. Vegetables, blanched until they were pale and waxy, extracted from the vacuum jars of the cold-houses by anonymous men and anonymous women, swaddled in heavy coats. The meat of glass fruit hanging from a metal, wheezing totem-tree. Rations for the winter, doled out by the grace of the governor. She wondered if there was a policy to shut off the food if things became too unruly. If riots started, if, gods forbid, a revolution began, would the governor just politely turn off access? Sterilise the colony?

Grimness was a mood that often accompanied mornings. Evenings were for mulling over the cynical mysteries of the universe, but mornings... mornings were where all the nihilists lived. The world was at its most unflinching, the mind at its least able to endure it. Fattened by dreams, starved by reality.

Gods, she wanted to eat a pile of anonymous matter fried so deeply she couldn't even tell what it used to be. A giant plate of matter, washed down with something deeply unhealthy and plentiful. And all of it warm. And she wanted to do it in the comfort of her room, where she could sprawl backwards and groan afterwards, crumbs staining her lips. And she'd be doing all of this in her undergarments. Just an absolute troglodytic savage, basking in the victory of her feast. She'd hate herself afterwards, yes. But...

Feh. Blamed her mood on not finishing her letter to Eygi. If she'd done that, she'd have been able to let out all the stuff bubbling inside of her, spilling it loosely and messily onto a blank page that she could then lock up and forget about. Like a cat throwing up a hairball. The worries, the concerns, the doubts... her irritation with the governor, her fear of the madman with a knife hiding somewhere amidst the clustering roofs, the terror of failure, the isolation from all the structures she usually relied upon, her impressions of the cold-house, the witnesses she interviewed, the colony as a whole, the rippling mass of unease that slithered around in her guts like a tapeworm, notable only in what it removed - the pit in the stomach, the queasiness, the loss of appetite, the slow erosion. But... no. Her hairball remained cloistered in her throat. Needed to write a letter to Eygi. Needed to get some of this out, before it started to strangle her.

Marana sashayed in, hair pinned up, clothes well-done, everything about her well-composed. Feh. Tanner briefly considered using her as an outlet. But... no, no. Marana could talk back. Would talk back. Would rationalise it, make it cynical, and remember it all for the rest of her time in the colony. Tanner would honestly rather become emotionally constipated (she was really trying to use disgusting imagery to suppress her hunger, thus far it was failing) than plant those sorts of poisonous seeds all around her. Like curing an ingrown toenail by sawing off her entire foot. She glanced oddly at Tanner.

"You look like-"

"Please, don't. I'm very tired."

"Hm."

A pause, and Marana leaned lightly against the door-frame, studying her. Lucky so-and-so, probably managed to have a plentiful quantity of food yesterday. Hanging out in an inn, plenty of liquor... well, it was only natural that she'd have a few nibbles, hm? Gods, Tanner was jealous. Just about the food, the canoodling with a random individual sounded less-than-enjoyable. Tanner studied Marana back, trying to figure out if she was... well, content with how things had gone. Didn't want her to debase herself for a thing like this. Tanner would honestly never forgive herself if that was the case. She chewed a crust. Marana studied Tanner. Tanner studied Marana. Neither of them spoke for a little while. It was odd - during the morning, it was startlingly easy to waste time just staring at things. If Tanner was left alone in the morning, she could honestly imagine staring at her shoe for hours and hours, and wouldn't be disturbed from that staring competition until the world ended, the morning ended, or... no, that'd be about it. Marana seemed to wilt a little under the gaze, though. Tanner's face was flat. Marana's face was starting to flicker between a few expressions. A moment passed...

"Gods, you're good at that."

Tanner blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Staring at people. It's like... being stared at by a boulder."

Oh. First the potato comment yesterday, now this. Had Tanner already peaked in terms of her appearance, before she was even twenty-five? Was she already over the apex, and was sliding downwards into a creature composed of potatoes and sadness? Could already feel her knees aching with age, her gums retreating, her hair greying, her skin sagging. Her face was flat

.

"I mean, entirely positively. You've got an astounding game face, absolutely no idea what you're thinking about behind that thing. Anyway. What's on the docket for today, pet?"

Tanner had no idea she had a game face, whatever that was. Well, she was good at looking thoughtless. Lovely. Tanner hummed, using her voice to seem thoughtful, given that her face was apparently the fleshy equivalent of a dunce cap. And she was, actually, thinking. A moment passed, and she started to relate the affairs of yesterday, in a quiet tone. Marana held up a hand before she could finish her first thought, and she moved to the stove, where she lit up one of the rings and set a kettle over the top, letting it come to a boil before she nodded for Tanner to speak. The low, low whine of a kettle on the verge of boiling, carefully restrained from screeching by adjustments to the flame, drowned out most of their conversation. Tanner felt rather silly, doing something like this. Unfamiliar with the rites of paranoia. Well, very familiar with some, but never paranoia against espionage. Still.

She talked about her findings. Every last detail, committed to her room of memory, in little marked segments and textures where she kept certain cases. She talked about the cold-house, primarily. Little thoughts, like the cast iron decorations, were kept in reserve. Still had to think a little more about that, explore it on her own before discussing it fully. If she discussed every little tangential thought that came to her, she made them real, and poisoned the thought processes of her one and only assistant. Marana mulled over the list of witnesses, reduced to anonymous numbers.

"...you know, when people are lying to you, they do two things, as a rule. One, flat refusal. Two, excessive elaboration. Think of it like a brick wall. First, it resists all approaches. And when you start drilling inside, the wall collapses, and tries to drown you in the rubble. Silence is good, silence is judgemental, silence makes the interrogator's voice the only one in the room. And the opposite... well, if you tell a huge number of irrelevant truths, it becomes harder to pick out the more salient misdirections."

"Experienced?"

Marana shrugged, before turning the motion into a rolling of the shoulders, like she was trying to work out some sort of internal stiffness. Well, that was fair, she'd had canoodling relations on a cot the size of a cigarette carton, anyone would be stiff after that. Stiff. Hah. Stop it, Tanner. Gosh.

"Fiance."

"...oh."

"Oh, it was mostly just tiresome. Rather fun watching him sweat through his collar while I dragged out information from him, I must say. And he did, indeed, try that. And I've interrogated each and every one of my sister's admirers, sometimes while toying with a particularly sharp letter opener. Same response, each time. The silence or the avalanche. Sometimes they go from the former to the latter, or the latter to the former, or stick with one until it collapses around them, but they do prefer those two. I'm sure professional liars are better at it. Presumably."

Well. The conversation had taken a turn. Tanner kept her face blank, and gnawed guiltily at her bread, mourning how little of it was left. Either way. Marana continued.

"Of your witnesses here, all of them reacted in some way that could be suspicious. Two of them were stone walls. Two of them were just vomiting words. One of them was too angry for his own good - reacting with anger is a good way to sound convincing. But what makes me interested is... the one you talked to twice. Because she drifted from silence to elaboration."

Tanner thought back. Female, 25. First encounter, just her telling Tanner to piss off. Second encounter, accidental, Tanner asking awkward questions about the number of coats, and getting a speech on underground food storage as a consequence. From adamant silence to free-wheeling elaboration. Hm. Interesting contrast. What had Marana said yesterday? That you knew someone was doing something duplicitous when they kept volunteering unsought information. Maybe it wasn't always proof of malicious deception, but it could easily be something else. Hm.

"...what do you recommend?"

Tanner kept her voice calm. Professional. And Marana responded in kind.

"Well. I say we go for her again. It was a good move, what you did. First, noting her suspicion. Then, collaring her again and pursuing a radically different tack. Then, exposing this elaboration in front of her co-workers in the most innocent fashion possible... then leaving. She'll have been stewing in this all night, if she really has something to hide."

"You think...?"

"I don't think anything specific. But it's interesting, you have to admit."

"I thought there might be something in Male, 20. The one who had Tyer as a friend, a kind of mentor who welcomed him into the colony. A lingering connection."

"Hm. Too young. And he was too open about the connection. Did anyone else mention it?"

"No, no-one."

"So, if he'd remained silent on that topic, we'd be none the wiser. Something guileless there. Well, maybe we should give him a look over. But the others... there's potential in all of them, but I'm not sure if there's anything solid. But Female, 25, you got something out of her."

It certainly hadn't been intentional. 'Good move', Marana had said. Well, if she remained silent, then Marana would think it was entirely deliberate. That was, presumably, good. Either way. They spoke quietly a while longer, but the arrangements of the day were already in motion. They'd go to the cold-house together, once her shift was coming to its end. Tanner had noted the shift schedule when shew as up there yesterday, and knew that the woman would be out during mid-afternoon. Part of the day shift, coming in early, leaving before the sun set, leaving the night shift to handle the rest. Meaning, they had a window to grab her and have a quick, quick chat. And that left most of the day.

Wonderful.

* * *

She'd intended to go and buy some food, some groceries. Eggs, vegetables, sausages, cured assortments. Enough to stock up her pantry for a little while. Even had her ration book tucked into the interior pocket of her heavy overcoat. But... when she stepped out into the snow-covered street, under the shadow of the roofs, with last night's storm still whirling in a few stubborn gusts... she couldn't bring herself to do it. The idea of standing in a queue, buying eggs, doing domestic chores when she had a job to do, it... back in the labyrinth, back in the inner temple, she tended to eat when the work was done. She didn't like taking breaks mid-work, it made her feel guilty, shiftless, lazy. The sort of person who interrupted a case of great importance to some innocent in order to go and drink wine with one's urbane friends. As a judge, she was expected to judge. As a loyal daughter, as the beneficiary of a patron, she had to work hard to prove herself worthy of the blessings lavished on her. Her mother had chosen to stay at home, alone, to take care of an invalid, so Tanner could go and judge. Ms. Carza vo Anka had donated a great sum of money to make her a judge. Her mother's cousin, Lirana, had died on some far-flung expedition and left behind the money which Tanner had relied on for seven years, until she could make some money of her own. How on earth could she accept any deviation from the accepted standard, when so much had been sacrificed in order to bring her to that standard? The gods of Fidelizh dug their fingers into her shoulder when she invited them, but the ties that bound her to family and patron dug into her whenever she failed to satisfy them.

Groceries could wait. She'd get a bite to eat later. Had a little bread, and if she kept moving she didn't notice any discomfort.

She headed back to the scene of the crime once again. Strange, how quickly things had spiralled. Drunkenness, to assault, to stalking, to... this. A weak part of her wondered if she had some part to play. If she'd escalated things somehow, if things might've resolved on their own if she'd kept her brutish nose out of things, if... no, that was a repugnant way of thinking. Her hand curled around a key in her pocket. Tom-Tom's. Obtained consensually and reasonably, not from whatever nightmarish ledger the governor had in his mansion with the keys to every house in town. Say what you like about Tanner, but she tried to be honest. A plainly clothed officer of the colony garrison was standing around when she arrived, painfully obvious when she knew what to look for. He was smoking a pipe, protruding comically through the wrappings of a scarf, and spent most of his time ambling about to keep the blood flowing in his feet. Wondered what these guards did during the night, when the storms raged. Right now things were tolerable, though little lighter-than-air streams of snowflakes meandered along the ground where light breezes touched the earth, but at night... downright dangerous to remain out of doors. The man turned to face her, and she saw his hand twitching, trying to go into a salute. Tanner smiled faintly, and acted the way a human ought to.

"Honoured judge."

"Good morning, sir. Not too cold?"

"No, honoured judge. Tolerable."

"Where do you go at night, out of interest? Must be fairly dangerous, staying out of doors."

"Oh, I just took over this morning. Mostly we shelter in that there house, the one the... well, you know."

Ah. Interesting. Hiding in the suspect's house. Not ideal, obviously, but... anyway.

"Anything happen?"

"Nothing. Few drunks coming home from the inn, can't say there was much more than that. No-one causing any trouble. Put a drunk outside in the cold, he marches home, hands in his pockets. Cold sobers you up, I suppose. It's the heat you need to worry about."

He easily settled into a light professional patter, cutting himself off when he realised who he was talking to.

"...anyhow. Can I do anything to help?"

"No, nothing. I'm just going to look around one of the houses."

"Intending on talking to Mr. Lam?"

"Not today, I think."

The man snorted, the scarf swallowing any of the resultant vapour, leaving only the straggling trail of the pipe's smoke. He stood with his back to a wall, she noticed. Back to a wall, using his left hand for just about everything, his right hidden inside his coat. Presumably clutching a pistol. She'd noticed Sersa Bayai doing the same thing, even during a relaxed walk. Couldn't quite get over military habits. She wondered how many of their habits were instilled by expectation - you became a soldier, and you had to act like a soldier, and dropping the act might make you question certain things, lose resolve, slip into a civilian identity where emotions were more important and stakes were infinitely lower. Put bluntly, she'd never seen an unlikely-looking soldier, every soldier she saw seemed to fulfil the mental ideal of a military man. After a point, she started to wonder if the world just had that many military-looking men, marching out of their mother's womb with a cap already growing out of their soft skulls, eyes hard as flint... or if being a soldier just turned you into that sort of a person, whether you liked it or not.

Anyway.

"If it helps, honoured judge, me and the boys would love to knock down some doors and hunt for this b... uh, individual. Love to drop the act of being all peaceful and whatnot."

Tanner's smile became a little more genuine.

"Well, the sympathy's appreciated. Wouldn't mind being a little unsubtle myself. Might speed things up."

"Might as well get it over with."

Something in his tone made her pause slightly, but she smiled nonetheless, nodded politely, said her farewells and headed for Tom-Tom's house. The soldier continued to pace around, left hand free, right hand concealed, overcoat flapping around his calves. Get it over with. Hm. The key turned smoothly in the lock, and she entered as silently as she could, feeling awkward intruding into Tom-Tom's house, even though she'd been here before, gutting fish. Still smelled slightly of fish, honestly. In most details, exactly the same as it'd been last time. Small, poky, fairly barren. 'Decorations' in the form of spare fishing poles and other equipment lying in piles, or hanging from crudely embedded hooks in the walls, some of which seemed to just be fairly blunt, thick fishing hooks. Didn't quite like doing this, but... no, no, she was looking for something. When she'd searched Tyer's house, she'd been looking for anything. Now, she had something specific in mind. Her eyes flicked across the limited walls, noting the few decorations, the little chips where things had scraped the wood... idly, she noted the dishevelled areas where, presumably, Tom-Tom had fled the house in a hurry. A coat, designed for summer, was spread out over the floor messily, fallen from a hook after the door had been slammed shut. Felt an instinct to pick it up... no, keep looking. Cast iron decoration, was there...

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

No. Nothing. No such decoration to speak of.

She paused. Could leave. It wasn't even a hunch she had, wasn't anything worth investigating, all she had was the vaguest of all possible inclinations to look into an aesthetic preference. But... part of her wanted to search more. Cast iron was heavy, and the decorations common throughout the colony were clearly well-made. Who did it? Who built them? Were they scavenged from the city, or built here? Shipping would be difficult, damn difficult. See, even the locals, the Rekidans, had gradually lost much of their accent to the shantytown's levelling effect, to the chaos of fleeing the Great War. Everything slowly mashed down into a faintly similar style of speech. Accents were lost. Priesthoods died before they could reach the south. Practices died out. Cuisines faded - she saw the inns, she saw how the sweet, pungent liquor made from the Ina trees was fairly unpopular, people's taste for it declining during their long absence. And... it was like Tyer's knives, his mug, his book of poetry, his newspaper clipping. You carried what you could, left behind what you couldn't. And the heavier the thing you took... well, it'd better be valuable as can be. Tyer's knives were easily the heaviest thing in his entire house, and the best-kept, implying a position of prominence in his mental landscape. Cultural practices, she imagined, would be the same. Little superstitions might linger, but weighty institutions, monumental cults, public sacrifices or festivals?

Anyway.

She found no cast-iron decoration full of abstract swirls and dissolved figures.

Could leave.

But instead, she started running her hands over the walls, feeling the coarse grain of the wood. Marana had made her think. Made her feel... well, maybe it would be worth being slightly more paranoid than usual. She didn't want to find anything, just... her fingers paused.

There.

A patch of wood of markedly different texture. Different colour. A regular rectangle. And in the corners... the tiny, subtle remnants of places where nails had been drilled in. Sturdy nails. Nails fit to hold up something rather heavy indeed.

There had been something here. And it hadn't been minor. Pride of place in her bedroom, in fact.

Tanner hummed.

Withdrew her hands.

And quietly, without further ado, left the house. Locking it behind her.

Business left to do. Elsewhere.

* * *

It was easy enough to find Sersa Bayai, though she hesitated in doing it. Didn't want to seem desperate. Not sure why she would, but... anyway, anyway. Anyway. He was where he usually was. The garrison. Close to the Breach, close enough that a statue of an enormous woman could glower down at Tanner, the shadows of the day turning her face into something... somewhat intimidating. Low brows. Deep scowl. Shadowed eyes. Her enormous arms spread out to support the wall, chipped and frayed by the passage of time, yet even so Tanner could see how the sculptors had paid close attention to the contours of her muscles. Creating a figure devoid of fat, devoid of flaw, devoid of blemish or scar. Sharp angles and harsh curves. The sort of person she imagined emerging from this sort of snow-blasted place, all their excess gnawed away by the flaying cold. The garrison was a low, squat building, deliberately unimposing. White stone harvested from the city had been used to build the place up into a kind of... it almost looked like a villa, or some sort of sprawling ancient palace, in the days before windows or verticality. Ventilation provided by slits in the walls, guarded by small, near-invisible metal bars. The exterior was chaotically decorated, based on wherever the harvested stone had come from. One chunk of wall was at an odd angle, and austere figures marched diagonally upwards towards the sky. Another chunk contained nothing but spirals and symbols. Another contained the vague impression of a sculpted cheek and a harsh lip. And supporting the central gate were a pair of colossal fingers, their nails jutting into the sky, tipped with little peaks of snow. The knuckles came up to her shoulders, and she glanced upwards, wondering if these had come from some of the wall-statues...

Would appear so. She could see places where birds had made nests in the cracks, ancient twigs protruding like erratic hairs. Hairy fingers, then. Interesting choice for a gate.

She was shown to Bayai's room by a tired soldier, who left her after knocking curtly at the door with the back of his hand. Tanner hesitated in the little passage - the interior of the garrison was full of narrow passages, winding and curving, sometimes interrupted by strange jutting segments of scavenged wall. And they seemed to be well-designed to carry wind at high speeds, slicing right through her coat. Maybe that was a defensive mechanism - make the enemy so uncomfortable they simply chose to leave. Might work.

Bayai opened the door himself, and his hand immediately twitched up to his hair, smoothing it down into something more presentable. His moustache was slightly askew at one end, and Tanner felt the urge to straighten it for him. But that would be ridiculous. Completely and utterly.

"Ah, good heavens - and good morning, judge. Didn't expect to see you, is anything the matter?"

Tanner flushed under her high collar, and shook her head.

"No, nothing. I... actually wanted to talk. A little."

He blinked. A few times, actually, and the hand used for grooming slowly came to a halt, stuck amidst his curls in a kind of botched salute.

"I see. Well, if you don't mind slightly sparse conditions, you're welcome to come in. Have a pot of coffee boiling, if you care to sample some."

Tanner accepted hesitantly. Coffee on an empty stomach always made her feel a little bloated, but... no, it was the polite thing to do. And she needed to wake herself up a little. The pungent black liquid sat uneasily in her stomach, but hell, she felt uneasy regardless, the coffee couldn't do much else. Like getting a splinter while being shot in the chest, it was annoying, but really, she was a bit busy screaming and dying and haemorrhaging blood all over the carpet. Speaking of carpets, Bayai had a surprisingly nice one. As an officer, he had his own room, with a neat cot, a writing desk, a sturdy lamp, a little stove to keep things warm... a slit in the wall to serve as ventilation, currently shuttered up with sturdy planks of wood. And a rich, lavish carpet, of remarkable quality, thick enough to swallow her boots up completely, red and... in many ways, completely gorgeous. Delightful golden patterns all over it, forming a labyrinth that reminded her slightly of the inner temple, all convoluted passages and winding halls somehow aligning into perfect geometrical harmony, never seeming too esoteric, or too inconvenient.

He noticed her looking at it, and spoke quickly. He was in shirt-sleeves at the moment, rolled up to his elbows, exposing wiry arms corded with muscle, stripped of fat. Reminded her slightly of the wall-statues outside.

"Ah. From home. Hell of an experience getting it here, I'll say that much. I enjoy pacing, you see. Encourages thought, stops the legs going to sleep. Time was, I'd be marching miles upon miles as standard practice every day, I find it hard to rest if I don't get some quantity of walking done."

"It's a lovely carpet."

"Oh, thank you. Very kind."

He stood awkwardly. The room wasn't especially large, and Tanner found herself rather closer to Bayai than she normally would be. Goodness, he smelled nice. Not perfume, just... hm, sandalwood from his shaving soap, a hint of something rum-like from his aftershave, and just general musk. Goodness, she'd never met someone with musk before. Did most people have musk? Did you need to join the military to unlock your musk glands? No, no, people could have musk that was deeply unpleasant, she'd heard that in the past. Maybe if you joined the military, your musk glands were massaged deeply, and awakened into a flood of potent chemicals that filled the air and intimidated the enemy. But if you remained at home, your glands stagnated, swelled up like an appendix, and then you just had rancid musk dribbling out of your pores. If only discussing one's glands was polite conversation, she might bring it up. Otherwise, all she could do was focus on the man below her, and try to keep herself as decorous as possible. As her station demanded.

"...so, was there... something specific you wanted to discuss, judge? Been no business with the house, my men were there all night, checked in with Mr. Lam, made sure he was alive and functional. Seems eager to go and see his daughter, but that's to be expected. He's staying put. And Ms. Tom-Tom?"

"Functioning. But... with matters like these, the process can be the punishment for the victim and the perpetrator."

A snort.

"Quite. Imagine Tyer is sweating his way through all the suits he brought with him, I'll say that much without any doubt. Can't imagine it's much fun for the other side."

Tanner hummed in agreement, and wrapped both of her hands around her cup, her broad palms swallowing the ceramic whole, spreading the heat so thin it was barely a small glow. A tiny pit of silty darkness held between large, nervous hands.

"...I wanted to know your thoughts on something. It's nothing, really, just a small point. But I thought you might... anyway. Are you familiar with the cast-iron decorations? It feels as though every inn has them, and most of the houses, even one of the cold-houses has one in the front room."

Bayai blinked. Startled. Control returned to his features, and his brows furrowed.

"Could you possibly sit, if it's at all convenient? I feel the need to pace."

And if she didn't sit, he'd be whacking into her constantly. And that'd be woeful. Completely woeful. She sat quietly on a small chair, moving very, very carefully to avoid breaking it. And true to his word, he began to pace, his high, shiny boots utterly silent on the thick carpet.

"I'm familiar with them. Seen them more than enough times. Why do you ask?"

"Who makes them?"

"Nobody. They were brought up, to my understanding. Out of the riverbed shantytown. They're heavy, yes, but less so than other luxuries. Given that their dwellings are so small, it's one of the few things the colonists can bring to brighten things up a little. Governor ordered us to reserve space for them with each shipment of new colonists."

Tanner leaned forwards.

"Do they have any significance?"

"Unsure. There's aesthetic appeal, obviously. I've not seen people praying to them, worshipping them, treating them as anything more than highly-regarded sentimental objects."

"But they're distinctly Rekidan."

"Distinctly. Almost all the locals have one. I've asked, but the answers tend to be evasive. No references to religions or gods or cults, only to their physical appearance, and usually their status as heirlooms. One man, for instance, brought his along because his father had owned it, and his grandfather before him, and he wasn't going to leave it behind in the shantytown to be stolen."

Tanner hummed.

"...I wonder if they're remnants of a cultural practice, then. Diluted down over the years, until everyone's forgotten what they actually mean. I heard... well, don't tell anyone from Mahar Jovan about this, but in Jovan, most of the lodges have rites they don't understand. I heard that... one of them actually uses a language they don't understand, bastardised over the years. But, again, tell no-one I told you that."

A charming grin was sent her way.

"Don't worry, my lips are sealed. It's conceivable, though. Still..."

He paused.

"Very widespread habit, bringing them up here. Would've thought a 'meaningless tradition' would break down over time, or that people in the shantytown would sell them off for a bit of money once the going became too tough to handle."

"You think so?"

"I... imagine so."

The two lingered in silence for a moment, even the pacing inaudible with the carpet muffling everything. Tanner thought. She thought deeply. It... was unusual. Pointless objects with no meaning but sentimental value, but every local was hauling them up. But... not every local, not at all. She spoke suddenly, and Bayai's head twitched in her direction, startled slightly by the sudden noise.

"I met one local who didn't have one."

"Hm?"

"Mr. Lam. He didn't have a cast-iron decoration. He did have a cage, though. A little wooden one, no nails involved. Very elegant. Said it was used to trap bad influences."

A moment, and she continued.

"And last night, when I talked to Tom-Tom, she mentioned how the reason for the disparate names among locals - some having the short names with a patronymic, some having those names which always include 'y', like Lyur, Tyer, or Fyeln... she mentioned how the reason was simple drift. Not all Rekidans being the same. I felt slightly ashamed at questioning it, honestly."

Bayai observed her silently, and she felt the urge to keep going, just to fill up the quiet. A sudden thought - was this how Mr. Lam or the interviewees had felt when she was quiet for a long period of time? And Marana had said something about her... 'game face', hm. Hm.

"But... then I went to the cold-house, and there was one of the cast-iron decorations. Very odd place for a sentimental object, one's workplace. And this is all hunches, there's nothing here worth discussing. I didn't even want to interview a local about it, it'd feel too... well, it's difficult to interview people on their cultural practices, rather like asking someone to explain their choice in undergarment... pardon me, I didn't meant to be vulgar. But... well, you see why I came to you. Given all you've said in the past about how it feels like things here are too quiet, like people just refuse to talk about certain things."

Idiot, she was stumbling over her own words, filling up her sentences with empty speech. Ought to be more professional around the man. Forced herself not to knead her skirt, that would just be... no, no. Keep her hands completely flat, one over the other, as dignified and poised as if she was sitting for a portrait.

"Hm. Yes, I see."

He turned to the coffee pot, quietly pouring himself another cup, offering it mutely to Tanner. She declined with a simple shake of the head. Goodness, they were non-verbal, that was... rather familiar, wasn't it?

"I can say that I'm not some sort of cultural attaché, I can't give a properly informed opinion. But I do feel... do you ever get this feeling of slight unease? A friend of mine, left the army some time ago, lost a limb in a colonial skirmish. And he said that the stump still burned - phantom pain, he called it. The body still remembered the limb it had lost, even when there was nothing there. Still felt there should be something, so it invented the impulses to send back to itself. And out here, I feel phantom pain. Frequently. Like something's been severed, and I can still feel where it should be."

His lips thinned.

"I mentioned, some time ago, how I used to stay in a colony of Tuz-Drakkat. Convalescence, no official duties. Brief, but interesting."

"Yes, you did. Said you wound up taking on a half-dozen duties just by accident."

"Hm. Quite. Tiring work. But interesting, as I said. Now, I've done a few tours in a few colonies, and I've stayed in one colony that was perfectly stable, and I can say this - there's something rotten here. Something unusual. But when I try to pin it down, to turn it to a set of evidence, I fail. It's just hunches."

Tanner wanted to squeak.

Yes, yes, yes! I get it! I get it! Oh, thank the gods, I'm not mad!

"Now. Most colonies, we found them to furnish an instrument to provide resources necessary for the development of the heartland, the core. Hinterland colonies and distant colonies are the same, just over greater distances. But here's the thing. Hinterland colonies are full of our folk. City-folk. Not too far from Fidelizh, not too different from us. But even then, they get ideas of independence, and quickly. They like to make their own rules, decide things for themselves. They know a colony in the hinterlands only lasts a few generations before the soil is rotten with contamination, and the buildings come alive with mutated vermin. So they want everything they can. They're not here to slave away for us, they're here because it gives them power, because they can dictate what goes back home. But then you go up here, and... this is the home of the Rekidans. This is a place where their ancestors were born. There's enough foundation stone here to sustain them forever. They're distant from Fidelizh, distant from our armies. They've got every reason to resist us."

"The governor's trying to counter that, I think. Regulates whatever he can, constantly monitors opinion, imports Fidelizhi civilians to make sure the colony isn't totally dominated by a single group..."

The pacing continued, becoming more energised.

"Oh, I'm quite aware, honoured judge. Quite aware. Now, this remains between the two of us, eh? But those bouncers? Governor hired them. Keeps them in line. Reason is, he doesn't want inns becoming places where one type of person congregates all the time. Bouncers see too many Rekidans going in, they start barring them, start only letting Fidelizhi in. See huge groups of like-minded people, they break them up. Anything to keep people harmonious."

"...goodness. I wasn't..."

She paused. Was she aware of that? She was aware there was something going on with the bouncers, didn't take a genius to figure out that having a corps of truncheon-wielding enforcers in a highly peaceful colony, when there was barely a barber to service the place... well, didn't take a genius to realise that was somewhat odd. Didn't know it was that formalised, though.

"I suppose I suspected, certainly. Goodness. Quite a level of planning, really."

"No word of a lie there. No word of a lie. Obviously, I appreciate the security the governor brings, very fond of it, makes my men live longer, makes my job easier. But... still. Almost feel as though there ought to be more, but when I think of that, I imagine myself as some shell-shocked veteran conjuring up enemies where none exist. My father, he was in the Great War, and he spent the last years of his life only sleeping when someone else was awake. Refused to sleep with everyone else. Terrified of the enemy coming when everyone was unawares."

Tanner hummed.

"...sounds ghastly. And I understand, sir. Really, I do. I've seen pile after pile of briefs coming over into the inner temple, and then I see nothing out here, and I wonder... am I missing something, is this place truly as calm as it seems, or am I just looking for phantoms?"

"Quite. Quite. Like seeing a cockroach, isn't it? It's not the insect that worries you, it's how many you're not seeing. After all, the bullet that kills you is the one bullet you never hear coming. If you'll pardon the morbidity."

The thought could've been plucked right out of Tanner's cranium with a pair of tweezers. Sersa Bayai paced, and brushed his moustache down a little, straightening it, and with it, his thoughts. Hm. Could hair be connected to the brain? It... well, she'd heard that the body made all sorts of chemicals to influence the brain, read it in the newspaper once, and there were diseases which did the same thing... and hair, well, that came out of the skull, surely that had some influence on things. Maybe... hm, hm, maybe natural instincts were stored in head-hair (after all, everyone had it), and higher intellect was stored in facial hair. No, no, that meant all women (pace to the bearded ladies she'd heard about in circuses) lacked higher intellect. So... hm, her theories needed work before she expressed them to anything but her mirror. Maybe hair was a transmitter, like the cables linked to theatrophones, carrying signals from distant realms. Meaning, the more hair you grew, the more you could transmit and receive. Men, alas, had been condemned by cruel culture to cut their hair short, meaning they had to grow facial hair to make up the difference. While ladies like Tanner had too much hair, and received too much information, explaining her chronic indecisiveness and paranoia. That was her, she was just too smart.

Oh, goodness, he was talking.

"Back to the Rekidans, though... gone from the shantytown to here. From being shoved into a dark, stinking prison in the ground, to a boundless wasteland that's historically belonged to them. That's one hell of a change, colonists have set themselves apart from the heartland over less. One hinterland colony, they lived out in the fens, and they started thinking of themselves as fen people within a generation, different from the freaks in the city. Fens. Bit of dampness, handful of reeds, and they were a different people, distinct from Fidelizh, worthy of self-governance."

He snorted, and Tanner nodded rapidly.

"Yes, yes, I entirely know what you're talking about, entirely. In Mahar Jovan, there's... well, the people from Krodaw, the colonists who went out, then came back when the Sleepless took the place, they've always been different. They wear big coats, even in summer, because Krodaw was too hot, and they're used to the heat now. Even their children do it, and they never lived in Krodaw a day in their lives. They love sprawling, too, with their shirts slightly unbuttoned, staring at the river. It's... well, I feel, sometimes, like the parents sit down with their children, and teach them how to be melancholy and nostalgic for things that they never experienced. People in Mahar learn how to cultivate luck, people in Jovan learn about lodges, people from Krodaw learn how to be melancholic."

She paused, realising she'd talked too much, had dominated the conversation, and filled the air with the unpleasant sound of her own voice. Sersa Bayai nodded understandingly, mulling over her thoughts.

"Exactly. Exactly. And yet, here, in their homeland, after getting away from a slum in a city they probably aren't entirely charitable towards in their thoughts or motivations, are being quiet as field-mice. I don't mean to be crass, but something isn't adding up, and it's beginning to unnerve me. I can feel where their religion should go, their resistance, their organisations, their interest in independence, I can feel where it should be, but it's not there. This colony is wreathed in phantom pain."

Tanner sipped from her coffee, thinking.

"...perhaps it's the dependency. I mean, if the cold-houses go, then winters become unendurable around here. Not with how small the colony is, and how poor the land is, especially after the Great War."

"No joke there, Ms... sorry, judge."

Tanner smiled faintly.

"You can call me Tanner, if you like."

Bayai blinked owlishly, and Tanner felt her face heat up. Thanked all the gods that it didn't manifest as a visible blush.

"...right then. No joke, Tanner, the land here is awful. Mutants tore most of it up, going to take generations more for any kind of sustainable life to remain up here. Going to be a meagre city for some time."

"So... maybe they're so dependent on Fidelizh that they can't help but be docile and quiet. Even if these cast-iron decorations have significance to them, they stay mute on the topic. Aware of how delicate things are."

"Still makes no sense to me. People are irrational. The hinterland colonies know we could afford to wipe them out and start over again, they know who's the stronger partner, but they resist nonetheless."

He shook his head.

"I don't know. I simply don't. But it worries me."

"...it worries me, too. I feel like... this investigation, I'm brushing against a dozen things I should know more about. When I arrived here, when I started working, I felt like I was stepping on toes, particularly with regards to the governor and his own plans. Now, I feel like I'm stepping on invisible toes that I don't even know exist. Could be one, could be a hundred, I'm none the wiser."

Bayai hesitated, then reached out to pat her on the shoulder. Tanner froze.

"Well. Tell you what, j... Tanner. Two of us keep our eyes out on this. And if something happens, whatever it might be, you come to the garrison. I'm trying to keep my men on their toes, they should be ready for anything, if necessary."

His smile was firm. Reassuring.

Tanner blinked a few times.

"Alright. Yes, yes, alright. I'll let you know if something comes up, if you do the same for me."

"Happy to. Any plans for today?"

Oh goodness, was she being invited to something? Oh, goodness, she only wore black dresses with pearl buttons, she really didn't have... no, no, he was talking about the investigation. She smiled lightly, and sipped at the rest of her coffee, the liquid basically cold at this point, barely rendered drinkable by the warmth of her own hands.

"Interviewing someone. I doubt it'll lead anywhere, but one has to do something."

"Ah, I quite understand. Hate being idle, myself. Let me know if you need an escort."

An escort? As in - no, no, he meant an armed guard.

Goodness, she was all aflutter today, wasn't she? Her attention was riveted on Bayai as he moved to his desk, rummaging around briefly in neatly-organised drawers, hands dancing delicately over the precisely arranged ink bottles, pens, knives, papers, and little knick-knacks and doo-dads which made life significantly more bearable in some nebulous fashion.

"And you might want this. If you're, ah, considering anything."

Tanner blinked as a telescope was handed over, lenses winking back. Oh my.

And when she left the garrison, she had to forcibly keep her mouth as flat as possible. No smiles. No dopey little smiles, not one sneaky smirk.

It wouldn't do to be interrogating someone about a knife-wielding lunatic while grinning like a dozy moon-calf, now would it?

No sir.