CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - PHRENOLOGY TAKES GUTS

Tom-Tom was a... figure. One of the locals. And... very interested in their old rites of phrenological divination. When Tanner had arrived in Rekida, still processing all that had happened and all that awaited her, still trying to put the mutants, the cold, the dark, and the dead coachman out of her mind as best as she could... Tom-Tom had been there to greet her. To sit down heavily, her gas mask hanging around her neck like some sort of lunatic party-mask, the bulging hose looking to all the world like the trunk of a mutant elephant. She'd sat, grinned, introduced herself in the loudest voice Tanner had ever heard, and promptly asked to measure her skull. Before Tanner could object, a monstrous device had been snapped over her scalp, and she was clenching her fists in a desperate attempt to not crack this whelp's spine with her bare hands. It was a horrid thing, really. A series of metal bands with little screws boring through them. Two clamps held it to the head, and the screws (with blunted ends, thankfully), were screwed inwards until they pressed tightly against the cranium. Then, little measurements could be taken on the precise dimensions of her skull, and this presumably... did something. Tom-Tom's results had been inconclusive. Largely because Marana had noted how deeply uncomfortable Tanner was and had insisted on examining the device herself - insisted so strongly that she'd, of course, had to remove it from Tanner and clamp it to her own head.

And now she was back.

Splendid.

In the dark, she wasn't totally visible, but she still had her gas mask dangling around her neck, and her eyes flickered between them with uncanny jerkiness. She was one of those people who would rather move her eyes than her head, and she moved her eyes a great deal. Dark hair. Peat-dark. And... yes, she had one of those local coats on. They weren't terrifically usual - for the work crews, it was easier to dress in practical, stodgy stuff, easy to bury under protective gear. For everyone else, their lives were too internal to really worry about coats. But... Tom-Tom was definitely one of those people who liked to show off, a little. Rekidan coats were dark, trailed down to the calves, surmounted by high collars that almost scraped the chin, something oddly clerical about it all. Hers was the same peaty shade as her hair, and was winched tight around her waist with a light green belt, the width of Tanner's palm. The thing which made these coats unique were the bandoliers. They wound over the chest, just under the breasts, touched the belt around the waist, and even had small outposts over the calves. Slots for ammunition, long silvery rounds. Empty, of course. Even out here, the soldiers didn't like civilians walking around with firearms. Tom-Tom was using her bandoliers to store fishing hooks, and her belt held the tools necessary for drilling into the ice.

And, of course, there was a necklace of fish, frozen by the air and snow, glittering with little ice crystals.

Tanner grimaced.

"Good evening, Tom-Tom."

"Hey-ho! So, late night walk?"

"More or less. Fishing gone well?"

"Hey, tolerable enough. Tolerable enough. Fish don't expect you coming for them in the night, you know. Don't expect you to drill in the ice, poke a pole down. All of them just go 'well hey, no human should be out here, and no mutant wants to eat us, so this mysterious worm is probably just a weird little exile', then chomp, then yank, then smack. And now I have a pie. Governor, too, if he pays for them, and of course he does, because if you can avoid salted fish, you avoid salted fish. Say, you're Mahar Jovan, yeah? Accent."

"...yes, we're... both from Mahar Jovan."

"You guys eat fish, huh?"

Marana's grimace matched Tanner's, and her voice was lower and more tormented.

"There is more fish than is natural. There's fish in everything."

Tanner nodded slowly.

"Fish pie. Fish stew. Fish cake. Fish biscuits. Fish sticks. Fish on a stick. Fish fry-up. Fish soup. Raw fish with sauce. Grilled fish. Poached fish. Cured fish. Salt-fish. And... jellied eels."

Forced out that last one. She despised jellied eels. Eels were lovely, and they deserved a better fate than to be jellied. If she heard that one of her relatives had been 'jellied', even one of the unpleasant ones, she'd be terrified beyond belief, would wonder if there was a deranged psychopath at large in the world, would doubt the intrinsic decency of most humans. Horrific fate. Tom-Tom blinked.

"Woah. That's wild. Sorry, honoured judge, honoured judge, you have to tell me - raw fish?"

Marana shuddered, and took the question as intended for her.

"Slithers down your throat, kicks on the way down, sits like a pile of angry worms in your stomach. Loathsome nonsense, invented by the bored, the deranged, the potentially inbred and squamous."

Tanner shrugged.

"I don't mind it. Personally."

Marana shot her a withering look, but said nothing else. Well, that was nice - Tanner could already see the comments that-

"I mean, to be fair, I can see you eating anything, big lady. I mean, explains how you got so big, no?"

Tom-Tom smiled guilelessly. Tanner's face was resolutely stoic. She'd heard worse. Sometimes. She cleared her throat loudly, rocking back and forth on her heels in an attempt to stir some warmth into her limbs - wanted to be getting back home, didn't want to stand still in the freezing cold.

"Well. We ought to be heading back. Don't want to be stranded outside when the gates close."

Tom-Tom snorted, and started striding off, her necklace of frozen fish swaying as she went.

"Nah, they let people back in. What, are they going to let you freeze to death in front of them? Hey, got plans tonight, you two?"

Marana glanced at Tanner. Tanner glanced at Marana. Both opened their mouths to make their excuses-

"See, there's this fuck-weasel cat-thing that steals all my fish. Now, I'd kill it with a hatchet, but the thing is quick. If I store my fish outside, the cat gets it. If I store it inside, tomorrow morning it smells like the spasm-chasm of a shantytown whore. Need to gut these bastards tonight, get them over the smoker. Want to help?"

Marana coughed.

"As... delightful as gutting a mound of frozen fish would surely be, Ms... Tom-Tom, I'm..."

She paused.

Tanner looked over, curious.

Their gazes met.

And an idea formed.

Tanner had been thinking about how the interviews had been... poor, to put it mildly. They hadn't bene locked out of all discussions, but they'd been treated with distant reserve. The complaints were small and humble, there was nothing about the major issues which might trouble a population. What had Marana said? Right, right, did people feel comfortable working for a governor instead of someone they voted in? Were some overseers abusing their power? What were their thoughts on the Erlize potentially living among them? Was there any discontent brewing at how it seemed like the population was being cultivated in a certain direction? Tanner thought of Algi, for an odd moment. His neo-monarchist inclinations, his rambling tumble of words on the docks of Mahar Jovan. How he'd talked about... some nonsense to do with relieving the tyranny of the Golden Parliament, and installing someone with a truer sense of something something. Rekida was... old. What did the locals think about their old way of doing things, and would they like to restore it? If their old rulers were priests, was a secular governor ever going to be accepted? Or were they happy to move on from however things were done in the past, their connection to it severed by their time in Fidelizh... no, that hadn't stopped Algi, Fidelizh hadn't had a king for centuries, didn't stop him from enthusing about them. Probably helped, if anything.

Hm.

Tanner forced a smile on her face.

"Well, alright. Happy to. Just... well, let's try and get it done before curfew."

Tom-Tom glanced over her shoulder, her eyes lost in shadow as the night expanded. A second... and her grin flashed, a silver crescent in the gloom.

"Astounding, big lady. You too, she-who-hates-raw-fish?"

Marana shrugged.

"Very well."

"Very well, come on lady, climb out of your own ass, we're gutting and smoking fish here, not going to the cousins-only orgy. Hey, boys!"

She waved grandly at the guards, who nodded curtly back at her. Tom-Tom was a known presence in the colony. Loud, usually did fishing during the summer, kept up with it a little during the winter. This was probably for the best - kept her outside of the colony most days. Tanner, for her own part, just disliked the skull-measuring and vulgarity. If she could get over those two things, she'd be fairly tolerable to be around.

But alas.

She kept up a running commentary as she walked through the streets, which were full of people going to the inns for a spot of hot food and strong drink. Colonies like this were very... unidirectional, in the grand scheme of things. Everyone worked at the same time, stopped working at the same time, with very few outliers. If Fidelizh had been like a great, shivering organism, a slavering animal that was perpetually sweating and smoking and snorting and rolling around in a tangle of limbs... then Rekida was a single pulsing heart. A single pattern occurring over and over, not a chaotic network of conflicting patterns.

"So, thanks for the help with this, really appreciated. Damn cat-thing - I think it's a cat. Big ugly bastard, only see bits of it at a time. Probably a pet, explains how it's alive even when it's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey."

Tanner paused.

Balls off a brass monkey?

Goodness, that nice officer had been so tactful in avoiding rudeness. What a decent fellow.

"And, you know, I'd string it up, gut it, smoke it, serve it to its owner, but I don't know who the owner is, I don't know where the owner is, I don't know if there is an owner, and I don't know how to smoke cats. Not a mutant, though, can say that, so the soldiers won't give a toss. Hey, you record complaints? Could you start recording that? 'Bastard cat keeps eating my damn fish', record that, tell the governor over tea and cakes, that's what you should do. Only a matter of time before its tastes turn to human, yeah? I mean, not like there's going to be much to eat over the next few months, not with winter. Weirder things have happened, no? Feral cat biting out throats in the night? I'd complain myself, I go up to the mansion enough, but believe it or not, big man governor doesn't like it when I strut into his office with a big basket of fish for him. Likes it to go straight to the kitchens. Imagine that, man doesn't like having his office smell of fish - my hair smells of fish, my skin does, my clothes do, my entire damn soul stinks of the stuff, don't see me complaining. Oh, complain to him about soap, I know it's expensive to get the really good stuff, but I want to stop smelling of fish, seriously killing my ability to have night-time tumbles, you know?"

They kept walking, and Tom-Tom kept rambling away about cats, fish, winter, and assorted things which were deeply fascinating to people in this colony. To be fair, being able to sustain a pointless conversation for a long period of time was... probably a necessary adaptation during the long, dark winters. Either way. The streets grew quieter very quickly, and the low rumble of inn-dwelling crowds faded away. It wasn't a very big colony, easy enough to leave behind major thoroughfares and find nothing but abject silence. Tom-Tom's house was much like all the others in the colony - built to a standard design, roof interlocking with all the roofs around it, part of a long, winding road made of uninterrupted neighbours. Smaller than Tanner's house. It was funny, honestly - the houses here reminded her more of the cells that the judges lived in back in Fidelizh. Small, designed for one or a small number of people... Tom-Tom unlocked the door with a heavy key, ushered them inside, and Tanner could already feel the pinch. A tiny bedroom with a small cot and a heavy stove with a cold kettle mounted on top - not much room for standing. A tiny kitchen, with a tiny table. Everything efficient and narrow - the single corridor linking the front door, the kitchen, and the bedroom was so narrow that they could only move single-file. Not that it was squalid - the ceilings were high, everything was easy to warm up, the kitchen wasn't too cramped if it was just one or two people, and there was even a small yard outside - small, fenced-off, and dedicated mostly to little cottage industry. In Tom-Tom's case, a deep pond for storing live catches, and not much else.

Cosy. That was the word. Cosy. Tom-Tom kept up her chatter, even as she swung the half-frozen fish off, and handed knives around without much ceremony. The pond, though, drew Tanner's attention a little more, just for a moment. It was deep, yes. Very deep. The surface was utterly frozen. Looked like she just used it for temporary storage more than anything else, not an uncommon tactic when there were large numbers of catches. But what surprised her was... well, it was clearly home-made. Rough-hewn. Must've taken quite a bit of work. Tanner examined Tom-Tom closely.

Tom-Tom flashed her a grin, her dark eyes glittering.

"Hey, want to get skull-measured again? Promise, it's reliable, tells your future, your personality, everything. Promise."

"I'm... fine."

"Suit yourself. Rich lady, want another fortune? I can do them, you know. Very talented. Pa always said I had a good eye for skulls, real good hands for applying the screws."

Marana smiled idly as she got to work on the fish, refusing to roll her sleeves up for whatever reason - quickly enough, the melting ice was soaking the fabric through, darkening it and making it cling to the flesh like a layer of frigid paint.

"I think I'm quite well without knowing more about my future. What was it you predicted last time?"

Tom-Tom nodded wisely, her grin never leaving her face - the only interruption was when she stuck her tongue out slightly, concentrating on the fish. Tanner got to work as she talked, having to stand outside in the cold, just due to the size of the kitchen. It was fine. She had more meat covering her organs, more warmth as a consequence. Not that she'd say that to anyone, she wasn't stupid.

"Hm, hm, yes, I remember, I predicted that you'd meet a dark-haired stranger, and you'd ride him raw. Also, that you would go on a journey, and might find satisfaction at the end of it, or maybe not, that part of your skull was unclear. Also, you were a domineering individual, and a tamer of wild animals."

Marana shot Tanner a smug look after that last comment.

Oh, shut up.

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...dark-haired stranger. She immediately thought of that nice officer, Sersa Bayai. He had dark hair, didn't he? Yes, dark, curling hair, cut short in deference to neatness. Hm. Hm. Hopefully that was just a coincidence - yes, yes, it was, most of the locals had dark hair.

"Out of interest, do the predictions change? I mean, really, I don't think my skull changes its shape very often, so-"

Tom-Tom flicked a fish spine at her, and Tanner snorted.

"Do your palms?"

"Well-"

"Do cards? Or the stars? Skulls are the same. Check the measurements, lots of complicated magic happens, and before we know what's happening, I know your future, your lovers, and your personality."

"You could just have a conversation with me."

Tom-Tom grinned, and sliced another fish open, ripping the spine and guts out a moment later, as Tanner continued to work with solid quietness in the dark and the cold.

"Why would I do that, when I could just measure your skull? Scientific, isn't it, no? Scientific. I mean, you say conversation - holistic, vague, subject to interpretation. Everyone hears a conversation differently. Everyone. Me, I do measurements. Of skull shape. I hear a sentence, I go 'oh, it could be this, could be that'. I measure skulls, I get - ah, yes, your continuity lobes are giving me a reading of two superior increments, your notions of time must be this, and this, and this... I mean, if I say 'good day', am I being rude, am I being polite? Hey, big woman, honoured judge, you..."

She trailed off.

Her eyes were wide.

Tanner stopped gutting her fish.

"My name is Tanner, or Ms. Magg if you don't want to call me judge."

"How many fucking fish have you gutted."

...hm.

She had gotten a little carried away, hadn't she?

Seemed to have rather run out. The fish in her hands was the last one left.

"Would you like me to start on the others?"

"Just... do that one. In front of me."

Tanner flicked the knife, ripping out the innards with a single, smooth motion, her face absolutely stoic and unblinking. Didn't break eye-contact with Tom-Tom, studying the woman carefully. An appreciative whistle came out of lips, for once, not set into a grin.

"Hell."

"I worked in a fishery when I was younger."

"Really are Mahar Jovan, aren't you?"

"I already told you I was."

"Sure, sure."

Memories of picking bones out from underneath her fingernails. Either she became quick at removing bones, or she became delicate enough with her work to avoid the bones in the first place. By the time she'd left the fishery, she'd mastered both skills. Waste of time, the latter made the former obsolete. But, then again, she'd been engaged in a great time-wasting exercise before her actual life started with the judges. She glanced around idly, checking her watch.

"Curfew's coming. Actually, if you pass me those fishes, I can handle them quickly enough."

Tom-Tom mutely surrendered the rest of the catch, wiping her ice-slicked hands off on her sturdy trousers. Marana lounged easily against a wall, picking bones from her nails - clumsy, fumbling for the ends of the little needles, failing five times for each success. Amateur gutter. Not a criticism. Most people weren't experts. Most experts weren't in a position to brag about it.

"Mind if I ask sometihng, actually?"

"Sure, why not?"

Tanner smiled faintly.

"Lot of Fidelizhi around here, aren't there? I mean, it's... awkward to ask about, just wondering if you know any of them. People don't really... like talking about that sort of thing, hard to bring up in a conversation, you know?"

Tom-Tom blinked, and tilted her head to one side.

"...suppose so, yes."

"Any congregate nearby?"

Translation: is there a district where all the Fidelizhi people wind up? Are there any Fidelizhi-specific inns or kaffs? The colony had a kaff, yes, but it was small, meagre, nothing close to how things worked in Fidelizh, and hanging out there had yielded nothing, not for her, not for Marana. Maybe because they were both foreigners to... well, everyone here. The only two people from the twin cities. Tom-Tom shrugged.

"We all congregate in the same places, big lady. Same inns, you know?"

Tanner smiled, and got on with her work, letting the silence brew for a moment. She stretched briefly, humming to herself before setting back to a fish. Not many left. Time was short. Marana seemed to pick up on the necessity, and took over for a moment.

"Tell you what, darling, I'm bored. I mean, I help this great lug with her work, but there's no blasted work to be done. We interview, interview... nothing, people just talk about barbers."

"Oh, you should sort that out, we do need more barbers."

"We're looking into it."

"Honestly, I get it. I fish. Give it time, I'll be sitting bored at home, nothing to do, you know? Fun to drill holes and fish for stuff, but you do too much, you deplete everything. And it's risky, right? Drill a hole, liable to fall in if the ice is too weak. Once you're in the water, no getting back out, no sir. Dead as dead can be. Say, tell you what, you pop by here, we gut fish, drink ourselves deaf and blind, wait out the winter together. Trust me, no work for folk like us."

Useful. Noted for later. Tanner grunted, affecting disinterest as best she could.

"I mean, you still fish. I can go over things, deal with small claims... Marana, though, once the work dries up, there's nothing at all. Might as well become a bouncer, seems pretty cushy."

Marana snapped her fingers, a twinkle in her eye.

"Oh, yes, that could be a darling exercise! Me, with a club, strutting around and doing nothing - I tell you, I've seen rowdy watering holes, I tell you, I once knew a stagnant little pool of liquor that passed itself off as a bar and had a murder a week, an assault a night. Bouncers were front-line soldiers in that odious oasis. Here, though, most peaceful inns I've ever seen. Surprised there's so many. Or, if anything, I can get some advice from them on how to spend my days."

Tom-Tom rolled her eyes.

"No joke. Soldiers insist on them. Me, I think it's because getting pushed around by a soldier when you're drunk is one thing, getting pushed around by your neighbour is something else. Somehow. no idea how it all works out, me, but I'm a thick angler, what do I know, and nobody tells me nothin'."

Marana smiled broadly.

"Could be that the bouncers are just trying to instil a philosophical lesson."

"How's that?"

"Common knowledge is that a man in a uniform, with a gun, with a bayonet, with a powerful moustache is going to inevitably become totalitarian and spiteful, his-way-or-no-way, shade of the gallows in his gaze."

Steady on Marana, she wanted to say.

"But a bouncer, that's a civilian. Give him a club and some air of authority, and look at how the corruption festers, look at how their minds shape themselves to the uniform! Like an actor forgetting the mask and becoming the role. Philosophical lesson, pure and simple. Our governor wants us to all be misanthropists."

Tom-Tom blinked slowly.

"Steady on, rich woman. Bouncers are decent blokes. Not their fault the soldiers want 'propah security' all the time. Tell you what, most of them are just bored out of their minds, couple head out with me to go fishing during the day when no-one needs them. They're decent blokes, nothing to think about."

Marana shrugged, didn't press it further. The knife flicked... and caught nothing but air. The fish were done. A neat little pile of bodies. Tom-Tom stepped out into the dark, rubbing her hands together to ward against the cold, starting to drag out bags of woodchips, ready for a little hint of smoke. Smoke the fish, preserve them. Keep them for herself, presumably - Tanner doubted she made much money from the winter catches, just did it for her and her neighbours. Presumably. Hm, that was a thought - who did she flog her fish to? Friends and family? What family? What friends?

No more time for questions. The interrogation was over. Tom-Tom seemed to be unaware of having given up any sort of information - the bouncers weren't targets of resentment, people were clear on them, seemed to respect them. Divide-and-rule, like Marana had said, might not be on the table. Wondered what orders the bouncers got, how they were picked. Either way. They left with a few pleasantries, and walked quietly back to the house. First time they'd seen the interior of one of the working houses - all their interviews happened in workplaces, inns. Never a domestic environment. Night-time curfew, the staggered one, meant that it was always more convenient to go for public areas above anything else. The soldiers they passed in the road nodded politely to them, and didn't obstruct their movements. Were they looking for curfew-breakers with renewed zeal tonight? Was the governor already acting? A flash of nervousness as she nodded back to them, wishing them good-night. Had she just tanked everything to do with her work, had she spilled the wrong beans and completely tainted the proverbial pond? Tom-Tom might not be so willing to talk to her in future, if she found out that Tanner was a grass.

Marana spoke quietly, once she was confident no-one could hear, shielding her mouth behind a scarf as snowflakes accumulated in her hair.

"So there we go."

"Hm?"

"Goes a bit deeper than I expected. Governor's learned, hasn't he?"

"You're going to need to elaborate."

"What struck you about the houses?"

"...small. Very small. Narrow."

"Because we're so lacking for space around here."

Tanner blinked. Conclusions clicked.

"Prevents people meeting in them comfortably. If people do, they're incredibly audible. Couldn't fit all three of us in that kitchen, I could see you bumping hips with Tom-Tom every other second. The only place they can meet is the inns. And the inns..."

"Are regulated by the bouncers, who the soldiers insist on. Locals, so they're not going to be resented."

Tanner hummed.

"I thought it was more about divide-and-conquer. Thought it wasn't working."

"Too tight-knit for that to work in the first place, there's no anonymity, the bouncers in other cities can vanish into crowds during the day, here... they're your neighbour, your friend. But, good point."

"So..."

Marana shrugged.

Tanner had a think.

"The pond. Just a small thing. Home-made."

"So?"

"Have you ever had to set up a pond, Marana?"

"Can't say I've had the pleasure. Why?"

"Legal brief. Six months ago. Nuisance case. This was in the shantytown, less regulated, people tend to just do things rather than engage with bureaucracy. What happened was that a homeowner decided to do just that - a pond. Very deep, not too wide. Filled it up with water, the goal was to keep fish. Status symbol, maybe. Fill it with decorative fish, I can't imagine there was much good fishing to be done, not in the Irizah, not in the shantytown's canals."

"What happened?"

"His neighbours complained. Seepage. Their houses were starting to sag as the water soaked into the soil, and the man with the pond refused to admit that he even had one. A heavy rainfall made it swell, it eroded the sides - shoddily constructed - and people had muddy, stagnant water everywhere. Not enough to damage, not really, but enough to be a deep nuisance."

"How did you handle it?"

Tanner shrugged.

"Judgement was that it was a nuisance, construction lacking a proper permit or surveying... fine for the latter, injunction for the former, and requests for damages. He couldn't pay for everything out of pocket, and repossessing his house was out of the question, he was supporting a family at the time. So, he was just ordered to fill in the pond immediately, and handle any further costs from it. Neighbours despised him afterwards, I remember."

"Hm."

"My point is, that pond is clearly home-made. The sides don't look adequately reinforced, and... ice can be a killer for this sort of thing. Water gets into the soil, it freezes, it expands, then it melts and leaves behind eroded soil. With dwellings like this, tight-packed, tight-knit, I think people would notice after a few years when that pond starts seeping into their gardens, and it will, unless it's properly constructed."

Marana blinked.

"You know a surprising amount about this."

Tanner flushed, fishing in her pockets for the key to the house.

"I know about permits and erosion. It's part of my job. You can't exactly judge a man for building a pond without understanding how that pond should've been built in the first place."

And she'd filed the information away into her memory room. One of the dustier corners, admittedly - the feeling of a plank of wood on the underside of her dresser. The whorls, the distortions, the burrs of dust... all of it fed into a suite of little remembrances that chained together gracefully, producing... yes, some knowledge on wells, but also other aspects of the case. Notably, she hadn't just remembered how wells worked, she'd remembered the judgement, then followed onwards.

"So...?"

"So, why wouldn't the neighbours complain?"

"Might not be a problem yet."

"Small community, tight-knit, I imagine they'd notice. Or they will, in time."

The door swung open, revealing the dark, cold interior. Marana, hissing steam into the air from between clenched teeth, headed for the stove to get it stirred to life. Tanner glanced around cautiously, forcing her eyes to move smoothly. Always a temptation to just ignore chunks of a room, of a house, to let it be eaten by the unknown. Let it stew. Let it fester. And then she'd start to worry about glancing over at all, afraid at what might be there. It could take less than a moment - even now, she closed the door and hesitated to check behind it, in the shadows where a person could be hiding. Nothing. Never was.

But there could always be a pale face at the windows.

...maybe she should start placing strands of her own hair around the doors. They'd snap if someone opened them.

Was that overly paranoid?

Kept thinking about the red-haired mutant with the blue silk dress, with her dead-glass eyes.

"So, where do we end up, with this pond business?"

"At best, a future nuisance to deal with. Worth telling her, if we feel like being friendly."

"Worst case?"

"...why aren't people complaining? Why aren't her neighbours? If they were all friendly with each other, why tolerate a nuisance without settling it peacefully? If they're opposed, why tolerate the nuisance without complaining? Might be worth talking to her neighbours."

Marana hummed.

"I think you might want to check their accents. Just out of curiosity."

"How so?"

"If they're Fidelizhi. I'm thinking... well, the houses, the bouncers, all of it. I wouldn't be surprised if the governor had settled people deliberately, splitting things up, making sure there were no dedicated districts for certain groups. In Krodaw, those developed, especially when the refugees came flooding in to flee the Sleepless. Once they develop, they're hard to break up, and dissent can fester inside them easily. Like your judges, I suppose. Do you think your beliefs would be the same if you had to live shoulder-to-shoulder with the people you judged? If you didn't shutter yourselves away in your labyrinth?"

Tanner sat down, not taking her coat off quite yet, unwilling to feel the bite of cold through her clothes alone. Didn't answer the last point. Not really inclined to do so, to discuss the judges. Her faith in them was absolute.

"And the bouncers?"

"I wonder what their orders are, how they're picked. Wonder if they're meant to just split things up randomly, stop people associating permanently. Good luck having an association when the bouncers are splitting up any large groups."

"Very... well co-ordinated."

"'Any group larger than six is not permitted', 'stop every fifth person and send them to another inn', 'don't allow capacity to exceed this number'. Doesn't need to be too complicated."

Tanner gave her an odd look.

"You're very... cynical about it. See power structures everywhere."

Marana smiled sadly.

"Give it time, you'll learn. It's the only way of doing things. One you see how they're everywhere, you can see how absurd some things are, how... I don't know. I'm tired."

"I hope you're not trying to make me a surrealist."

"You'd need to learn how to draw, first."

"Not happening."

"Feh."

Tanner and Marana sat in silence, letting the stove warm up. Tanner wasn't sure how she felt at present. She could see what Marana was getting at. The tiny houses. The bouncers that were clearly unnecessary for keeping the peace. The unnaturally high numbers of Fidelizhi civilians in a place which was hard to reach, and Fidelizh had no historical connection to. Hm. She started wondering... the judges sent here. Two from the west. Three from the east. And only her from Fidelizh, and she wasn't even from Fidelizh, nor had she developed the accent, or any outward distinguishing features of Fidelizhi identity. She let their gods ride on her back sometimes, but her natural reticence stopped her from being too exuberant on the topic. Was that why she had been asked to come here? Because she was an outsider to everyone? Had the others been picked for that reason? How much did the governor have under control, and if he was willing to plan things out to this extent, how much did he plan now? Hell, was her entire presence here basically divorced from being a judge, and instead she was just... bait? Luring people out from their hidey-holes, giving dissidents within the colony a chance to complain about things, to make problems more obvious? She doubted she was a mole, or anything of the sort. But maybe bait. Maybe.

Not sure. Not sure about much, now. How could she be?

Wanted to write to Eygi, get her thoughts laid out in order, before burning the paper and moving on, her thoughts now immaculately arranged and ready for use. Just... keep doing her job. She was a judge, and what judges did was... well, judge. Adjudicate. What else could she be expected to do? Marana was slumping, reaching for her hip-flash, a dull, idiotic look in her eyes as animal yearnings took over her mind. Shame. But, well, it was all good for her to do this sort of thing, Tanner had a job. She tried to imagine the gold pince-nez, even reached into her pocket for them... thought about the rosy vision they granted. The cultivation of luck through her gloves. The candle burning to shelter her from witchcraft. The governor might just be... trying to keep this place safe. Amidst the endless snowy plains, where no humans dwelled, maybe he was just trying to be effective. Keep people under control. She thought of the shantytown, and... gods, that place had been miserable in summer. The ground was hard-packed grey dirt. The buildings were ramshackle, yet were allowed to grow ever-so-very tall, storey upon storey. Buildings crammed too close to even allow the fog into it, and the great smoky layer hovered above the rooftops, a perpetual overcast sky... stinking and frothing in the heat. Sometimes the dirt remembered that it had been mud for a very, very long time, back when this was a river, and became a seething mess, knee-deep in some places. Poor lighting. Poor policing. A perpetual symphony of talking, yelling, wailing, hammering, bargaining, cooking, and the low whine of instruments in the fetid air.

Maybe the governor was just trying to do his best. To take a borderline unsalvageable settlement and dredge people out of it, managing it properly, doing his best to avoid what had happened to Krodaw.

Did Marana project her own experience of Krodaw onto Rekida because she could see where all of this was going? Or because she...

Tanner didn't know. She didn't want to know. She made good points on some details. But sometimes she verged on the conspiratorially fatalistic. Never a good combination.

Regardless.

She ought to tell Tom-Tom about the pond, the future issues.

Settled back, and considered writing up notes...

But the stove was growing warm. Her coat had ceased to be a shelter, now it was a heavy, happy blanket, soothing her as she ambled her way towards rest, towards dreamlessness. She reached into her pocket now, settling on her decision, taking her gold pince-nez, mounting them over her nose. She knew she'd just have a sore nose in the morning, but she wanted to have rosy dreams, devoid of malice or pessimism, where fates were gentle and the snow was simply beautiful, drained of all its biting cold. White as flower petals.

A few doubts, though, clawed at her brain.

Why did Tom-Tom not dump her fish into the pond, maybe sealed up so the water wouldn't soak into them too much? The cold would preserve them, the water would shield them from any cats.

The glasses hummed to her a little. No, silly thing. She was being sociable. Tom-Tom was sociable. Probably just saw an opportunity, maybe she just wanted to smoke the fish tonight.

Why had Tom-Tom been wearing a gas mask for a little trip out to fish? For that matter, why was she out so late?

Silly thing. Gas masks were wise, and some people were paranoid - healthily so - about mutation even in 'safe' circumstances. And she could stay out as late as she liked, she had that liberty, she'd even specifically explained that it was a good time to fish. Maybe she was being facetious, but... Tanner hadn't done much fishing, that was handled by huge boats, she'd gutted and skimmed a few bodies from the top of the pile.

Tom-Tom? That bouncer from day one, his name had been Lyur, if she remembered correctly. Other locals she'd talked to... well, they were anonymous, liked it that way when they were giving interviews. Tom-Tom stood out, just a little bit.

It was a pet name, obviously. People had strange names. That surrealist in the hotel had been called Ape, Tom-Tom was fairly reasonable compared to that, really. Sounded plausible as a nickname, and she was casual enough to operate on her nickname alone.

Why were Tom-Tom's neighbours not complaining about her pond?

Shush. Sleep.

And dream of officers with dark, curly hair.

...or, you know. Other things. Capes. Paper. Imagine drafting a letter for Eygi about today. Organise her thoughts like she was trying to present them formally over lunch, in the most comprehensible, rational, useful fashion. That was it - organise it down to relevant details, arranged in order of importance to the listener, then methodically explain it, giving Eygi a clear sense of the situation.

On the other hand.

Sleep.

That was just as workable.

And the last thing she thought about were the dead eyes of that red-haired mutant. The chamberlain in the governor's chambers, and how she'd seemed a little nervous today. Not even sure what she was pressing at. All she felt were threads, loose threads, with nothing to motivate them together. Why even bother? To produce a better grassing document for the governor? A better cheat-sheet for running the colony? Shush. Settle down and sleep. The law did not concern itself with trivialities, not unless the judges were especially underworked and bored. She ought to sleep. Or... ah. Marana wasn't asleep quite yet, was she? Drinking a little. Tanner stood quietly, stumping over.

"What're you-"

Tanner grabbed Marana's hands, and started working on the nails.

"I won't have the fish bones stinking up the house."

They wouldn't.

But they were uncomfortable to have around. And Tanner knew how to get them out. Marana hesitated... then relaxed. Allowed her to get to work on removing the fish bones from beneath her nails, picking them out with delicate precision.

Drinking, fish gutting, nail care and paranoid speculations.

Goodness, she was having a girl's night out, wasn't she?