CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT - CLICK-CLICK-CLICK

Tanner and Yan-Lam sat opposite one another in the large waiting room, surrounded by the open, ink-filled pages of half a dozen ledgers, all recording endless strings of near-meaningless numbers. Idly, Tanner wondered if the reason for the incomprehensibility was to stop the governor being replaced. Go ahead, try and undermine his authority, try and get a handle on the colony without his supervision. Try and negotiate a system he likely invented, and perhaps only he and his close associates understood perfectly. Idly, she thought... hm. Hm. If someone had removed those pages from that ledger, they'd known the system, and exactly what to take out. Presumably. Assuming the pages in question weren't just a huge, clumsy hunk removed from the overall text. Either way, it implied someone either had prior knowledge of the system, or had entered the governor's office when he was, well, dying or dead, and had done what Tanner had done. Examined the index cards, removed the relevant files, sliced out what had to be sliced out, returned everything impeccably to where it ought to go. The system was seemingly specialised for removing random chunks without anyone being the wiser - without those pages in the migration/emigration ledger, she had nothing to refer back to, no exemplar to draw her little pecia of information. All she had were fields of numbers, made meaningless by the lack of an exemplar copy. Actual names might only be recorded in a tiny number of documents, everything else reduced down to identification numbers - she'd have to cross-reference everything with the census, most likely, and that would...

Anyway.

There was a reason she was currently abandoning that line of thinking. The grunt work was too much, her ability to work too meagre, the prospects of success far, far too slim. If anything, she'd say that trying to get her involved in the bureaucratic side of the investigation was a ploy to utterly drown her in paper, stop her pursuing a sensitive gold-seam of information.

Speaking of which.

Tanner smiled at Yan-Lam. Yan-Lam shivered. This was... really the first time Tanner had had a chance to really study her at close range. Every time, she'd been bustling past, laden with tea. The recipient of a glance, an idle mental note, nothing more. Only now, with her shivering like a leaf on the other side of an elegant, leather-topped table, could Tanner actually get her measure. She was... oddly sized. Everything about her seemed to be caught between trying to look like an actual, sophisticated, competent adult, and... well, being a child. And in the combination, there was something of the party costume about her appearance. Wore a black dress, like any other chambermaid, but it was a little too primly kept, a little poorly sized. Her bonnet, which was folded neatly at her side, was clearly intended for someone larger than herself. And she wore an alarmingly large pair of boots with specially treated soles, making them as quiet as they could possible be... while also making her seem much taller than she really was. Her hands and forearms were mottled with toughened patches of skin, scalded hairless by working with boiling water for long periods of time, shrivelled and hardened by a lifetime of manual labour. Idly, Tanner noted she was missing part of her smallest finger, the tip almost pinched away, as if by some tremendous force. Scarred over completely, though, and long-since healed. Before she even came to the colony, most likely. Tanner felt, again, a little kinship. Her own hands, beneath her gloves, were riddled with little cuts and scar from her time gutting fish, before she was properly used to it. A question mark spiralling down her thumb where she'd been clumsy. A stiffness of the left index finger where she'd damaged something internal. And her fingernails were perpetually loose, and deeply unbeautiful as a consequence of picking out bones with a knife with years and years. Sometimes she even felt that her skin had become looser, a layer of silty river-water building up underneath, soaking through like she knew it did with drowned bodies.

Her green eyes, for all their nervousness, had a shrewd intelligence to them which... well, perhaps explained how she was bearing up so well. Curiously triangular, too - and her hair was the colour of a fox's fur, an uneven shade of red that was made livid by her pale skin. On a more tanned person, it might come across as closer to brown - idly, she wondered if Yan-Lam had a Rekidan father and a Fidelizhi mother, something to maybe... no, she'd seen a huge number of people around here with brown here. Then again, maybe that was an indication of pretty substantial intermingling. Not that many Rekidans in the world, fewer still were in Fidelizh, and it'd been a while since the Great War, since the wave of refugees fleeing south. Plenty of time for a bit of... well... canoodling, to put it in a way Marana would mock.

Tanner tried to smile.

"Would you like some tea, or..."

The chambermaid shook her head immediately, then twitched, a spasm running up and down her spine, and a polite smile crossed her own pale face.

"I could make some for you, if you'd like, but I'm afraid-"

"No, no, that's fine. I just wanted to ask a few questions. Specifically, about your bruise."

The chambermaid blinked, seeming genuinely taken aback. What kind of question had she been expecting?

"...my bruise?"

"Around your arm."

Yan-Lam didn't glance down. She knew where the damn bruise was. Just hadn't anticipated this line of questioning, needed a moment to steady herself.

"...oh."

"How did you get it?"

"I... believe I bumped into something. I can't say what, not certainly. You know how it is. One bumps into something unconsciously at eight o clock in the morning, and by lunch, there's a bruise. I'm afraid I can't be more specific than that."

Tanner wasn't writing anything down. Writing things down was an interrogative prop, a way of showing that the interrogator was thinking, listening, that everything said would be remembered. Forced the person to split their attention - the questions, the scribbling pen, formulating their own thoughts with greater scrutiny... inserting consistent lies into the mix was a bit of a request, once one was spinning that many cognitive plates. And Tanner didn't want to... interrogate her. Not at all. Not after everything.

"Do you remember what day it appeared?"

"I cannot, honoured judge. I'm sorry."

"Quite a bruise, what did your father think about it?"

A flinch. A spasm of guilt in Tanner's chest. Had to force herself not to look away from the girl.

"...he made tea. Said it helped with bruises. I think it was just to calm me down, not that I needed it."

Oh. Ho. A slip-up. A slip-up induced by exploiting the grief of a young girl. Yes, Tanner, excellent move, not going to be thinking about the shivers of discomfort crawling across her own skin like a colony of ants, not going to be reliving this with shudders from time to time in the future. If she lived that long. But... Mr. Lam had said, unconvincingly, that he didn't know about the bruise. He'd elaborated too much on the topic, gave too many reasons for why he didn't know. Clearly the notion had affected him, but it hadn't... surprised him. Tanner, bluntly, doubted that he'd done this to his own daughter, it seemed unlikely. He looked too meek, he shrank from direct eye contact, he'd barely managed to raise his hands against his killer - died looking sad, not angry. Obviously, all of that was... well, hunches. But she sincerely believed that if she cross-referenced... hold on. Hold on. She could do that. Smiling at Yan-Lam, she left her chair and walked to her ledgers, finding the migration book. Kept her voice mild. Nuts, should've looked this up beforehand. Again, she cursed herself - this was because she lacked experience. Wouldn't make this mistake again. New rule, to engrave into her heart - do all research beforehand. Confrontation should be a final step. Do not make this mistake again.

Do not make this mistake when you talk to Lyur. To Mr. Canima. To anyone.

"How long ago did you arrive in the colony, out of interest?"

A mechanical response came back. This girl was used to being asked questions like this, apparently - an idle thought. Erlize. Giving swift, mechanical, regular responses was a good way to not piss off the secret police, or the regular police. And it always went down well with judges when their interviewees had all the exuberance of a turnip. Shantytown was always getting swept over, so... hm. Definitely experienced.

"A year and a half ago. We arrived during the summer, this is our second winter."

Year and a half... narrowed it down. The migration records were still complete there. Her finger trailed down the columns, skipping over all reports of people leaving, finding... there. Lam. A single, tiny name, livid amongst the sea of more complete names. Almost looked like a nickname, compared to the others. And underneath, Yan-Lam, with a note indicating she was accompanying her father. Identification number... she opened the crime ledger, and started idly drifting her eyes across the page. Narrower range of time, easier to check. And if she knew the number, she could... well, thus far she saw nothing. She kept turning the pages, and kept talking.

"Do you remember if somebody has recently grabbed you around the arm?"

A twitch. Something familiar in that.

"...it may have happened, miss. But, really, I can't... quite remember."

Tanner tilted her head to one side, even as her eyes remained locked on the tables before her. Thought. Could make a gamble. A little one, but a gamble nonetheless. That bruise wrapped all the way around her arm, and Tanner had been thinking quite a bit about bruising patterns today. Bumping into something wouldn't produce that, she needed to be grabbed, and fairly powerfully. Why wasn't she talking? Embarrassment? Fear? Tanner could imagine elements of the narrative - the girl is bruised, her father sees it, this intimidates him, he gives testimony supporting Tom-Tom, he dies at Tyer's hand. Motives eluded her, though. And... she reached the point in the ledger where she passed earlier than Yan and Lam's arrival. Not a single crime with his civilian number - not one. So, that probably firmly excluded the idea of him inflicting the bruise. Meek-looking man, harmless looking, and not a single crime on record during his time here. Plus, the governor had been swift to take care of the girl, seemed to genuinely care for her welfare - if her father had bruised her, she had no doubt the governor would notice and act. His entire headmaster business wouldn't permit another option. She slowly closed her ledger, and returned to sit across from the girl.

"...I'm going to suggest something."

The girl blinked.

"Yes, miss?"

"Just listen, and see if it sounds familiar. There's a woman who might come here regularly, to deliver fish to the governor's kitchens. Dark hair, dark eyes. Usually has a gas mask around her neck. Stinks of fish. You know it's her, because she yells 'hey-ho', and offers to measure your skull. Let's call her Tom-Tom."

You know.

On account of her being called Tom-Tom. Tom, daughter of Tom.

Wonder who Tom's father was?

The girl placed her hands delicately over her knees, and remained quite, quite still, her intelligent green eyes fixed on Tanner.

"She comes here fairly often. And not long ago, maybe just over a week, she comes here again to deliver fish... and while here, she talks to you. Maybe she grabs you by accident, maybe she's just emphasising a point... Tom-Tom's got a strong grip, stronger than you'd think when you look at her. Even I felt it when she grabbed me the same way. And she's physical, too. No discomfort with getting close to people. Has to be like that, to measure people's skulls for fun. So, maybe it's fairly usual. Something you don't even bother remembering, because it happens every so often. But this time, she leaves a bruise. You head home, like you usually do, your father sees the bruise..."

And then he lies about not knowing. Then he testifies in a way that supports Tom-Tom's account. Removes doubt, makes Tanner and all the others unrelentingly hunt down Tyer, rather than stepping back and humming. In a way, his testimony kept them moving forwards like a herd of blood-crazed bulls, even as more and more stumbling blocks appeared to thin the herd and drain its certainty. Even as conflicts piled up, even as other suspicions mounted, Mr. Lam's testimony was a red flag keeping the whole chaotic swirl moving. And then, just as things seemed to maybe overwhelm it... Tyer showed up, murdered two people, and was killed in turn by Lyur, a man with dark eyes and a ferocious strength behind his truncheon.

Tanner just looked at the girl. Idly, she remembered doing the same with Femadol 25. Looking at her, silently. And in both cases, she was just... out of words. She had no more story to tell. She had no more questions to ask. If this silence continued, she'd be just as stumped as she was when it began. The girl looked back. Unflinching. Something in her expression made Tanner want to shrivel away and vanish. Here you are, it seemed to say. Here you are, after examining my father's body, and now you're interrogating me about his death. Do you think I'm an idiot? He sees a bruise on my arm, then he dies. I heard about him giving testimony, and I know Tom-Tom was wrapped up in it - did you forget that I was there when you talked about this with the governor? You're implicating me. You're making me a party in my father's death.

Would you like it if I went around implying that, because you were such a greedy pig growing up, such a devouring pit that obliterated any spare quantity of money, your father had to take whatever jobs he could manage. Your mother had to spend more time at home to take care of you, meaning resources were further strained. Would you like it if I implied that he took such a dangerous job on such a precarious site because of you? Hm?

Tanner felt a spasm in her stomach. Those intelligent, curiously triangular eyes were locked on her, and flat as polished jade.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, honoured judge."

A pause. A moment of thought.

"I... have met the woman you describe, though."

Hm.

"She talks to me, sometimes. When she's waiting for a free moment to talk to the cook about fish prices. Sometimes she asks me questions, but that's all."

"What sort of questions?"

"How I am, how the mansion is, how the people here are faring... polite conversation. If I have a spare moment, I talk with her. Sometimes I have to move on, but... it's becoming of a chambermaid to be polite to guests."

Was she holding back? Was this a little crumb of nothingness dropped before her to obsess over, or... something else? This back and forth continued for a minute or two, but to no end. The girl was adamant in her refusal to talk more than she absolutely had to. Tanner was certain that this was a skill honed by interrogations by the police, the Erlize, the judges... how many interviews had she already been through in her short life? How long had it taken for her to develop such a brick wall against intrusion? The day was wearing on. The fire was getting low. Tanner hummed, unsure of how to proceed, resisting the urge to knead her skirt again.

"...one more thing. How often do you think the bouncers come up here?"

Another startled blink. Alright, that seemed to be the tactic with her - be broad-ranging, switch from area to area. Once she had her barriers up, it was impossible to tell if she was telling the truth or not. Completely neutral. But switch... and there, there was something. Just a little bit.

"Often. Perhaps... once a week."

"All of them?"

"...usually not many, maybe one or two at a time."

She looked uncertain.

Hm.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"And what do they do, when they come here?"

"They meet with Mr. Canima or the governor, sometimes both. I'm not invited to their meetings."

Unknown if that was the truth or not, but she imagined it was the truth. Some things were sufficiently sensitive to keep them out of reach of children. Tanner considered this. The bouncers seemed to be tied up with this on an intimate level. They'd been involved in reporting Tyer's presence, and executing him at the end of it all. Furthermore, the place where a fair amount of drama happened - the inns - were closely supervised by these people. Indeed, the whole drama had started, apparently, because of Tyer having too much to drink in a certain inn - an inn he'd been admitted to by a bouncer. The point was, there were plenty of reasons to suspect them of something. Tanner was still putting things together, but she had to admit, the threads were becoming more and more convenient. Unfortunately, as she was keenly aware... none of this could go into her judgement. A bruise that was already fading, on a girl that had just lost her father. A statement on the quality of a man's character by an ex-lover who'd not interacted with him hugely after their relationship broke down. Another statement delivered by a drunk man post-coitus. And suspicious positioning of bouncers who were in cahoots with the Erlize and the governor, and thus had every damn reason to be well-placed, observant, accustomed with using deadly force... a missing chunk from a ledger didn't prove anything necessarily. All of this evidence could mean something, but it had to be bound together by rigid, rational fact. Otherwise, it was trying to build a house on top of a cobweb.

None of this could go in her judgements. Most of this could barely go in her notes.

She hummed.

A question ached at the tip of her tongue.

Take me, second by second, through the night your father was murdered.

Who was in the mansion. What were they doing. How did they do it. Who did they do it with. Who knew what, and what did they do with this information.

The girl seemed to be challenging her to ask that question. Maybe this was just a source of petty revenge - getting her to ask a question that her entire being did not want to ask.

She clenched her fist under the table.

Those watchful, green eyes were unblinking.

"Do you know if anyone in the colony has a cat?"

Another blink. Another startled twitch.

"...yes? I believe so, at least. I remember seeing one or two... the governor, he..."

A small gulp.

"He actually has... licenses for them."

Tanner stared.

"Licenses for cats?"

"Licenses for cats. Passports, really. I saw them in the governor's study."

"Could you... show me them?"

The girl actually seemed moderately excited. For once. She hopped from the chair, and with her eerily quiet boots, tottered over to the office, pushing the door open with a small amount of difficulty. Tanner followed, clasping her hands together nervously, and... the girl was pulling something off one of the shelves. A book. The office here did have books, and plenty of them, but they were generally (according to the index cards), more bureaucracy, just like all the others. More documents on shipments, imports, exports, reserves of key resources, reasons for expenditure... felt like you couldn't shoot a single bullet without it being recorded in one of these books under an anonymous code, brought into the accounting books for the next round of requisitions. She'd heard rumours about this sort of thing in the Golden Parliament, where they held by no requirements to keep things concise, but was surprised to see it here, where the bureaucracy was... two people, and a handful of secretaries. Regardless. The book was opened, to reveal... thick, thick pages. A scrapbook, more than anything. Only a few pages were filled, containing...

Cats.

Not in terms of pictures. In terms of descriptions. It seemed as though someone had taken a form for a human, and crudely applied feline descriptions to all of them. For instance:

Name: Bittles. Age: 2 years, ? months. Height: 18 inches (nose to tail). Weight: 4.15kg. Hair: Tabby. Forehead: Striped and Narrow. Complexion: Stripy. Eyes: Blue and Keen. Face: Darling. Nose: Snout. Distinctive Marks: Excellent character, potent mouser. Address: Consult Ms. Myeren.

And under it all, a neat paw print, stamped in ink.

Tanner blinked.

She was very confused. Very confused indeed.

"...is this... standard practice? I didn't find any mention of this in his index cards."

The chambermaid actually laughed, though it was tinged with just a hint of sadness. She seemed to find it funny, Tanner's flat, serious face, staring down at the records of various cats.

"No, miss. Not at all. And... well, it's a book of cats. Not very relevant for his visitors, they're usually here on more serious business than studying cats."

Tanner sounded almost indignant when she replied.

"Relevant for me."

"Yes, miss. Of course, miss. Not standard. The governor just... wrote them down. I think... he said they did it in the army. During the Great War. Bring animals along in cages, then use them to tell when the mutants were near, or when mutants were trying to infiltrate a camp. Started as a tactic, then... well, I think they got quite fond of the creatures. Fond enough to take care of them, give them papers..."

He was a cat person.

The governor had been a cat person. Or a pet person in general. Sentimental enough to write out little passports for all the cats in the colony, in a strident, neat hand, and clearly high-quality inks. And then he'd gone out to find those cats to get those little stamps.

...she hadn't known him at all, had she? Not really.

The girl seemed to grow more melancholy as she watched Tanner flip through the small number of pages. One cat was registered as deceased, which was... yes, rather sad. The others... hm. She tried to remember that cat, the one she'd seen on the day of the murder. Bright blue eyes... few cats that met this description. Black fur... and plenty of distinguishing marks. A wedge-shaped tail where the end had come off in some accident or another. Little pieces around the ears gone, until both of them looked remarkably jagged. And... oddly blunt teeth. Even if she'd been mistaken on that point... she reviewed the cat passports, checking them again and again, just to be sure. Some had blue eyes. Some had black fur. But only one had both, and that one had an intact tail, intact ears, and in terms of size, seemed much too small for the one she'd seen. That one had been a real behemoth of a cat, the sort that reminded you how wildcats might once have looked, in the days when the world was just a little more violent. It was bizarre, but... there was an unaccounted cat in the colony. And the colony was a closed system. Nothing entered. Nothing left. Was it some sort of wildcat that lived out in the snow, came into the colony for warmth? Possible, very possible, but... mutants. Contamination. A barren landscape. So much of the ecology here had been devastated, it seemed distinctly unusual that a cat would be here at all. Even if the cat lived, would its prey? Would the life its prey fed on survive, too? Logically speaking, shouldn't an apex predator be the absolute last thing to return to a devastated region, given that it depended on every other layer being intact?

There was an unaccounted cat.

She closed the scrapbook, and held it close to her. Again, this was an unverified document, it was written for fun, not done in triplicate, not held to normal bureaucratic standards, and no court would accept it as anything more than an indication of a man who liked cats. But... hell, she was working on nothing but hunches right now, the actual solid data she possessed to use in a judgement was minimal.

The girl looked at her like she was a bit mad.

"Just... tracking down a cat."

"Did you find it, miss?"

"No. No, I did not."

The girl blinked owlishly.

"That cat would be an illegal immigrant, then. I think you should report this to the Erlize."

Her face was utterly flat. Tanner stared at her.

Did she make a joke?

Did the interrogated girl make a joke? To her interrogator? Over cats? A few days after her father died?

Tanner felt less kinship with Yan-Lam, all of a sudden. Tanner didn't make many jokes. And she'd made none for quite a while after the accident.

"I'm sorry about your father."

The words rushed out of her throat without warning, like she'd been bottling them up for some time, and only now, only now, did the boil burst, did the pimple rupture, did the swollen appendix detonate. The girl's face fell.

Oh. Fuck. Why did she just say that? Why on earth would she say that? Now? Over a scrapbook of cats? What was wrong with her, what was actually wrong with her, how many times did her mother drop her on her head as a child? What was wrong with Tanner Magg, and could it be fixed with a heated metal hook up her nose? The girl backed away for a second, and Tanner twitched, guilt churning in her intestines. Double down, double down, she'd come too far, she'd come much too far.

"I mean, I'm... sorry for your loss. If there's anything I, or the Golden Door can do for you, please, let me know. I... uh..."

She could fill out paperwork.

But that sounded very pathetic.

"...thank you, honoured judge."

And now she was prim and proper again. Everything sealed under layers of routine. Tanner felt like an absolute monster.

"I met him, a few days before... it happened, and he seemed like a very nice man. I... could retrieve some of his effects for you, if you like. The governor said he would, but I'm not sure if..."

If there was time before he was beaten to death.

"...I haven't returned to the house."

"I could retrieve that cage, if you like. I may need to go there today, I could..."

The girl almost looked offended for a moment, before forcibly suppressing it.

"That won't be necessary. It needs to be burned."

"Right. Right. It... traps misfortune, yes?"

"And I have no doubt it's swollen with it. It needs burning."

"...can you make another one?"

A slightly offended sniff.

"Yes. I can."

"Difficult?"

"A little. The hard part is doing it without any nails. Father... father had a number of tools for it."

"I can find them for you, if you like."

"That's very kind of you to offer, miss."

Her mouth snapped shut, adn she seemed to be considering something, fighting with her own instincts... well, did she want it, did she not, did she.. did she just want to avoid coming into contact with any more memories? Caught between the urge to move on and sever herself from the things in her past that hurt the most, or to clutch onto every last reminder, no matter how much it stung to do so?

Tanner could relate.

Remembered almost crying when mother had to start getting rid of some of father's clothes when they grew too old, and he grew too thin for any of them to look like anything but funeral shrouds.

Remembered well.

She tried to smile.

"...I really am sorry."

She was just digging herself deeper and deeper with each passing moment, wasn't she? Stop bringing up her father, stop it. The girl nodded politely, asked if there would be anything else, and when Tanner said nothing, she turned on her heel and departed. Leaving Tanner with her book of cat descriptions, a name, and vague proof that her father had lied about not knowing about her bruise. The strands were coming together. And even surrounded by guilt and embarrassment, she thought... thought that this sort of thing might well have justified Tyer's death, in the eyes of some. She was getting closer to something, though she wasn't entirely sure what that something actually was. Whatever was going on... someone had wanted things to end, and quickly. And they'd done this by killing two of the people who could spill the beans. Maybe that had been significant enough to even demand the governor's death.

She let the girl go.

And when she left herself, wrapped up in her coat, face buried in her scarf to stop her face from showing to the world - not that it ever wavered in expression, of course - she passed by the same soldier she'd passed on the way to and from the kitchen. Waiting with idle impatience, incapable of leaving, desiring to act, but unsure of what he could do. His mouth kept twitching, just as it had done when she'd passed him the first time. She nodded, politely, and he saluted back, his many gleaming buttons shining like the stars of an unknown constellation, his coat the pleasing green of a shadowed forest's leaves. He saluted...

And watched her, unblinkingly, as she headed for the main door.

* * *

"Air's poor."

Sersa Bayai was staring out into the snow. The day was dragging on. The sun was limping its meandering orbit to grateful relief, chased away by the coming storms. Tanner, Marana, and Bayai stood together in the garrison, at the summit of a little tower made from scavenged stone. All around them were murals, and instead of crenels and merlons, there were fingers - stone fingers, protruding from artfully sculpted figures, arranged chaotically and completely out of sequence. A whole legion of hands that seemed so stretch towards the sun. Maybe they should never have come to this place. Not Tanner, she did as she was instructed, but... Fidelizh. Maybe some places ought to be lands of the dead for a few generations, just until the blood could sink low enough, and the lingering witchcraft of a terrible massacre could dissipate. Witchcraft could be cooled, with time. With rite, too. But time was always much, much stronger. Now she thought about it, there was something optimistic there. As long as mankind endured, witchcraft would, stretching black, gaseous fingers into the depths of each man's fortune, turning it from rich to poor, from poor to fatal. But it was human. Malice wasn't some divine construct, something immortal and embedded into reality... it was just a transient bit of misfortune. A standard enemy, just like rats in walls, lice in clothes, worms in food...

Anyway.

She stared out at the snow.

Stared at the city. And the titanic woman guarding the Breach stared back at her, the dying light making her face inscrutable, harsh, unyielding to interpretation or understanding. Challenging Tanner to investigate further. See what lay beneath all the snow, all the ice. Maybe there were just bones. Piles and piles and piles of them, a little fossilised layer lying a little below the surface. Regardless.

Marana hummed lightly, and took a long drag on a cigarette.

"Hopefully it's not me. Happy to stub this out, if you prefer."

Sersa Bayai didn't answer for a moment, before suddenly turning, as if he just now realised she was still here.

"No, no, not at all, miss. Nothing along those lines. Just... readings. From earlier."

He sighed.

"Detectors. Contamination's up. Looks like a seam might've opened somewhere out there."

Tanner paled a little.

"It's not-"

"Dangerous. It's not dangerous, honoured... Tanner, don't worry. The air here is already higher than average, just due to the Great War. Never know when some stockpile will open up. They used to store them in sacs, you see. Huge things, looked like insect abdomens. There's a broken, sterilised one a few days travel from here... almost bigger than a god-tower from back home. They grew them, really. Made a mutant so hopeless it couldn't mutate very quickly at all, then filled it up with contamination. It could barely use the stuff, it was too limited. Other mutants would crawl up and down, drink from it to repair themselves, grow stronger... captives could be plugged into it. Funniest things - mutants for capturing humans had huge ribs, growing out of their backs. Ready to capture people, snap shut like a carnivorous plant. Then they'd haul you to the sac, and find these... openings, almost like sphincters. Pardon the expression. Then, the ribs could be shoved inside, a little gap would open, contamination would spill..."

He trailed off, his eyes sharpening. He'd been rambling.

"Anyway. Fluctuations like that happen from time to time. Nothing to be concerned out for now. But, ah, if you have any anti-mutagenic pills, I'd say to take them... once a week, if this keeps up."

"Do we have the right supplies for that?"

"Naturally. First concern with coming up here, first things we brought up. Practically before the citizens, I think."

Tanner stared out. Mutants. Higher than average contamination. And a strange, unaccounted-for cat, with eerie-looking teeth. The scrapbook in her pocket felt oddly heavy. She tried to think... if that thing was mutated, which might explain the teeth... what was it eating? A moment of fear - was it similar to that wolf-thing? Something which still remembered mortal hungers, even if those hungers could never satisfy what it really needed? Better a cat than a wolf, at least... that would just result in some stolen fish or killed birds, as opposed to a human hunted down and butchered in the wasteland. Hm. No. Maybe not a mutant. If it was, there'd be nothing to eat around here, no reason to risk itself by approaching humans who'd want to immolate it on sight. Might explain how a cat survived in the cold post-war wilderness, though... managed to live out there when everything else had died out. Hm. Worth considering. She filed it away in her memory. Another thing to follow up on, when she needed to. The cat lead was fairly minor, she was more interested in...

"May I ask something? It's to do with the... well, there was some business, years ago, when the governor first arrived here. I was-"

"Before my time. I wasn't here, then. Recent assignment."

His tone was curt, and brooked no argument.

"Do you know if anyone else...?"

Sersa Bayai turned to her, eyebrows and moustache furrowing in unison as he considered the question.

"...hm. Not sure. I'll ask. But I doubt it, really. Soldiers get rotated in and out regularly, stops us getting too corrupt. Governor's policy. Think when he arrived, he reorganised the whole system, top to bottom. Not sure how he managed it, but... well, it worked."

A pause. The dead, battered body of the governor hung invisible between them. Marana sniffed lightly.

"Interesting. Seems like a fair amount happened then."

Tanner hummed.

"And the relevant section of the ledgers has been cut out with a razor blade."

The others stared at her. Marana coughed.

"Could you potentially elaborate, my effervescent seed-cake?"

Seed...?

Anyway.

"Migration records. I don't... want to go into it, not too much. It's all very unformed. Still putting my thoughts together. But... part of it, the years when the governor first arrived, a little on either side, are cut out of the book. Not sure which names it's trying to conceal..."

Sersa Bayai sized her up for a careful moment, then took a drag on his own cigarette and tossed it over the side of the tower.

"I wouldn't press too far on that front."

"Why not?"

"Razor blade. Why be so careful?"

"...uh-"

"It's not uncommon. Only one copy of the ledgers, I think people cut out sections fairly frequently when they're going to need to refer to them a lot. Don't want to damage the rest of the book, so they use a sharp blade. Heard of it happening."

"So someone might-"

"Just be referring to them. Might've happened some time ago, if they're old enough. Not like they're in urgent demand. Could just be sitting on a dusty bookshelf, or could be in use right now."

He paused, and snorted.

"Grim thought, there. What if the governor was looking in those sections, removed them to study closer, and when he died..."

Tanner nodded firmly.

"I understand. I'll search his bedroom tomorrow."

Bayai blinked.

"I meant, they might've been destroyed. Or lost."

Well, that was always on the table, obviously. But the idea of a deliberate removal, just to borrow them... that worked for her. She could look around for that, investigate... did raise the potential of them being taken innocently, and lost just as innocently, or stored away and forgotten with nothing but innocence on the mind, but... anyway. She had other things to look into. Particularly...

"What's your experience with the bouncers?"

"Told you a while ago, I think. They work with the governor. Worked. Will work again, I suppose, when we get another one. Keep things regulated."

"Yes, yes, I know, but... are they trained? Are there any... problems with them that've come up over the years?"

"None that I can think of. They're public, people notice if one of them is being particularly harsh. Don't know about training, I'm afraid. Assume there's some, but I doubt there's... some sort of training camp, off in the wilderness, where they do obstacle courses and combat drills."

"What about the overseers in the city, the ones who monitor the work crews?"

"Not quite the same. Companies hire them, they work for them, they keep an eye on things... usually, though, they're more technical than bouncers. Overseers have to actually oversee, they can't just let things run on their own. Bouncers are governor-owned. Overseers are company-owned."

Tanner hummed. Companies. The well-to-do people who'd assembled in the wake of the governor's death. Interesting.

She remembered Lyur, with his dark, callous eyes, and his sallow, frog-like skin. His bloodstained truncheon. The thin man from earlier in the night, who'd directed them to where Tyer had gone, sounded the alarm in the first place. Remembered Femadol 25's story about how the overseers seemed to conspire to slowly break apart her relationship with Tyer, even if that was purely subjective and anecdotal. Idly... she wondered if maybe, just maybe, there was a record of the number of bouncers, their activities, their reported incidents. The colony charted everything else. Where were the ledgers on them? Or was that too sensitive to keep in the mansion, was that somehow hidden away, or had the sensitive sections been cut out with a razor blade too? She kept imagining the bloodied, beaten body of the governor. No deliberate lacerations, just a slow tenderising process that turned him into... that. And there was one group of people with a great deal of skill when it came to bludgeoning people.

Was there precedent, though? Had they done this before? Tyer, that was one, but how about any others?

It all came back to the bouncers. It all came back to a lingering sense that something was out of joint. Corruption? Not sure what corruption could yield out here, it was all too frozen, too...

Marana spoke.

"Follow the money, that's my opinion. See who benefits, see who was getting paid... people are simple, most of the time. Dangle enough money, enough reward, they'll do plenty of things. Plen-ty."

How awfully cynical.

But still.

The threads were moving. The Tyer case was becoming more and more sensitive. It was the last thing she knew the governor had been investigating, and it might well have killed him, just like it killed everyone else it touched. No wonder Yan-Lam didn't want to leave the mansion. She had to ask a few questions tomorrow. An old shantytown neighbour to Yan-Lam and her father. A bouncer, perhaps, who'd be willing to talk. And...

Mr. Canima.

He who met with the bouncers every week. He who managed the Erlize, and saw quite a great deal. He who had unrestricted access to the most sensitive of the colony's documents. He who terrified her out of her skin.

On second thought...

...how many Erlize were in the city? Maybe they'd be easier to, well, probe on this sort of thing. Maybe .

The three lingered in silence. Lost in their own thoughts.

And gazed into the unyielding snow. A wind moved across it - and below them, detectors crackled erratically, picking up on the slightest hint of something in the air. A ruptured sac of contamination. A new spring easing through the earth. A huge dead body spraying its scent into the air.

Plenty of options.

Tanner knew she wouldn't sleep tonight. So she stared. And she waited for the sun to go down and for it to be too cold to remain outdoors.

Once more, a spasm echoed through her stomach, carrying an emotion she couldn't identify.

Once more, she ignored it.