Volume 17: The Tinderbox
Chapter 5
Interrogations
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Bors Dartán remembered the first time he’d come home to find his old friend Kai waiting outside his door—a sap-addicted whore seeking his help, hollow-eyed with desperation.“You again,” Bors said now.Kai spread his arms and smiled his old smile, the one that used to set Bors’s heart fluttering. “Is it really so bad to see me?”How things had changed over the years. Now Kai was clean and sober and even a little pudgy around the middle. The hollow eyes were bright with plans and schemes. While he still wore the rainbow of tattoos that powerful men had placed on him, he no longer sold his body. He was the leading stream maker, commanding a team of some eighty actors and techs.One thing hadn’t changed, though. Kai was still doing Einara’s dirty work. Since Bors no longer set foot in the Brothel and Einara never left it, apparently it was Kai’s job to coax Bors back into the fold.He wouldn’t succeed.“Come in,” Bors said wearily. Good thing he was storing all of the gear for his upcoming polar expedition in the bedroom. He had no intention of inviting Kai in there.Kai looked sheepish as he followed Bors into the sitting room. “I miss you, Borsha. I wouldn’t visit if I didn’t.”“That’s what you said last time.” Bors sat down primly on the sofa.He didn’t have to offer Kai tea if he didn’t want to, and even if he had wanted to, he was wiped. He’d spent most of the past thirty-six hours processing and interrogating University students who had been arrested after the Constabulary stormed their snow fort and ended their ridiculous protest on behalf of a subversive professor.Most of the protestors were the kind of idiots Bors was used to dealing with these days: bored, privileged children who’d gone along with the action only because their friends were doing it. Their excuses were predictable or incoherent. Quite a few complained about the sap shortage, which gave Bors a secret satisfaction.There were a handful, though, whose eyes betrayed a glint of true understanding. They lied to the interrogators and disowned their beliefs, trying to avoid detention, but Bors saw the germ of rebellion in them. In their immature way, egged on by their professor, they understood that Oslov wasn’t a meritocracy and hadn’t been for some time. They felt the need for renewal.He pretended to believe those students’ lies. He signed their release forms. He seethed with secret excitement.Kai sat on the sofa and stretched out his long legs, trying and failing to look comfortable. “I’m going to get right to the point,” he said. “You’re lying to Einara, and that isn’t helping your friend Aleks.”Kai had been so much more relaxing in the old days—flirty and seductive and fun. Now he was just one more person telling Bors what to do.Soon enough he would see the folly of that, but for now, Bors played dumb. “How could I be lying to Einara? I haven’t talked to her in months.”“Come off it,” Kai said. “You said you couldn’t find Aleks and his friends in the Wastes. You encouraged her to think they were dead. And all this time you were seeing and communicating with them, weren’t you?”Bors contemplated the ceiling. “That damned Janta.” It wasn’t the first time he’d regretted sneaking into Gersha’s villa complex and trying to get the boy on his side. “I never told him Aleks Snowblind was alive.”“You dropped a pretty obvious hint.” Kai’s voice was gritty with annoyance. “Janta has a photographic memory, Bors, and he reads people better than anyone I’ve ever known. If he says he got the vibe from you that Aleks is alive, then Aleks is alive.”Bors wasn’t going to discuss Aleks with Kai until they were finished exploring the secret bunkers. He changed the subject: “So Janta’s been spending a lot of time in the Brothel?”He knew perfectly well that Janta spent nearly every fifth-night in the Brothel. When Bors wasn’t on the job or in the South with Valgund, he was at the surveillance monitors in the Int/Sec Blinding Tank, tracking the boy’s movements.Kai cocked a brow. “Still wanting a heart-to-heart with Janta? Why’s that? You need a hacker for something?”Bors kept his gaze steady. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”Einara knew about the bunkers, of course; she was the one who’d sent him to find them. Which made it damned awkward to hide what he was doing.He and Valgund had only one more bunker to explore, but it was the hardest one to reach. The two of them had been preparing for the expedition since the new year, with the Northmen’s help.Valgund had told Aleks about their project—without Bors’s permission. But the Northmen were eager to get on board, and Bors had to admit Valgund was right: They needed help. Two men, even with military-grade equipment, couldn’t make the trek alone.He just had to keep Einara at bay until he was ready to make his second pitch to Janta. After that, she and her plans wouldn’t matter. Janta was the one with the skills he needed.Kai plunked his feet on the floor, every movement languid. “This cat-and-mouse game is getting boring, Borsha. I need to get back to the set.” He rose to his feet; stretched. “Einara and I know perfectly well why you want Janta. You found Aleks, and maybe you and he found those bunkers, but you need a hacker to get inside the terminals. We all want the exact same thing!”Bors clenched his jaw. “Do we all want the same thing, Kai?”“Of course! Come and see Einara in the Brothel, and she’ll make sure Janta’s there, too. We can pool our resources.”“You’re not listening.” It was frustrating how little Kai thought things through sometimes. “Do you even know what Einara wants with those bunkers? Or are you just running her errands like a good little husband?”Kai’s pleasant smile vanished. “I trust Einara to know what’s best for the Brothel. For people like me.”Bors got up and walked his friend to the door. “It doesn’t bother you that Einara is tight with Tilrey Bronn? Very tight, from what I’ve heard.”This time, he scored a hit. Kai winced at the mention of Bronn’s name.But when he turned to face Bors in the doorway, the mask of good nature was back on his face. “Bronn is our ally. Even though he works in the Sector, I trust him.”“It doesn’t bother you that your wife is fucking him? Your Outer wife with the mysterious past and even more mysterious goals?”Kai didn’t blink. “She fucks a lot of people. So do I. It’s our profession.”“And the mystery? It doesn’t bother you?”Bors wondered if he should show Kai what his aunt had given him on her death bed—Einara’s own confession to killing Bors’s cousin Irin in cold blood. Kai was in so deep, though, that the revelation might not dissuade him. It might not even surprise him.“You think I’m just her tool,” Kai said in a growl, as if reading Bors’s mind. “But there’s change coming, and she’s just part of it. I’ve seen the signs everywhere, from Councillors down to dishwashers and whores. No one can stop the wave. It’s a question of who’s going to ride it.”Bors hit the sensor, and the door hisped open. “I still think of you as my friend, Kai,” he said. “But I don’t have any new information for your wife. Tell Janta I said hello.”“I don’t want things to be this way, Borsha.”“Nor do I.”Once they had the locations of all five terminals nailed down, Bors would find the right place and time to approach Janta. He suspected it wouldn’t take much to persuade the little hacker to transfer his loyalty from Einara to his old friends the Northmen.Then, once he held all the cards, he would convince Kai that Einara was poison.“See you again soon, friend,” he said.*“If you don’t sign this confession in the next five minutes,” Blas Lindblom said, “I’ll refer you to Int/Sec. I won’t have a choice.”The prisoner glared up at him from the bench to which she was shackled. She was a tiny girl, just fifteen, with dark hair dyed streaky puce—Wardrobe Violation, 6 points—and eyes that burned with the fervor of a true believer.“No thanks, Fir.” She spoke in the spiky dialect of the tower block kids—not just an accent, but a whole lexicon unto itself. “I don’t wanna write anything on your dead trees. My word is of the Spark, and my word is my bond.”She was one of the kids responsible for the subversive banner, the only one who’d needed a second interrogation. The others had signed their confessions and meekly accepted a few months in detention with promises to reform.Either this one was the ringleader and mastermind, or she had a mental illness that kept her from grasping the gravity of her actions. Blas feared it was the latter.“With a signed confession, we can discuss sending you to moral rehab instead of detention.” He leaned forward to show her he meant it, though he knew it only made him look more intimidating.Everything in the deposition room was designed to make suspects feel small: the high pulpit in which Blas sat; the flowing gray robe he wore; the narrow, windowless space and high ceiling. No matter how hard he tried to be reasonable and understanding, Blas knew prisoners peered up at him and saw a merciless judge from a world they barely understood. Even his accent unsettled them.It hadn’t bothered Mersha, though. Memories of their steamy encounter two nights ago tugged at Blas’s mind. Tonight he would see Mersha at the brothel again, and he would thank Vedya for connecting the two of them. He just had to get through a few more depositions first.Oh, and the blasted Communal Meal with his family in Ring One. Couldn’t forget that!“You’re trembling,” he said to the prisoner, trying a gentler voice. If only the Constable Witness weren’t sitting right there, making sure every moment of the session was recorded. “Would you mind if I asked you a question?” he added.The girl curled her lip. Her eyes were narrowed, but Blas thought he glimpsed fear there. “Ask whatever you want, Fir High-Head-Goeth-Before-a-Fall.”“High head” was one literal meaning of Linhedda (Upstart). Blas had no idea what the rest meant. “It’s about the text of your banner. Who told you about these Northmen?”“I don’t name names.”Fine, he would use the stern voice again. “If you end up in the Funnel, you’ll be naming names before you know it.”She stared right back at him. A tough case, this one.“But have it your way,” Blas continued as if he couldn’t care less what became of her. “Your unlawful banner stated that ‘The Northmen will claim the South.’ This place you call the South—where is it?”The prisoner’s eyes widened, and she broke into raucous laughter. “Right there in the name, Fir. It’s south of here. The South is the rest of the world—the green part.”A subversive color. A curse word. Who had been talking to Eighter kids about Harbour? “The uncivilized world,” Blas said.There was a hysterical edge on the girl’s laughter. “That’s what you say to keep us here. We’re prisoners in a block of ice, Fir, every single one of us—even you.”“We’re survivors who’ve assembled a civilization,” Blas corrected. This sort of talk made alarms go off in his brain; it reminded him of his father’s wilder rants. “Only the Republic has laws and protections for everyone. In the rest of the world, the place you call the South, the strong rule by force and kill the weak with impunity. Does that sound good to you?”The prisoner’s eyes had glazed over. Instead of listening to him, she was seeing some vision in her head. “Fira don’t know nothing,” she said. “Cowards, every one of you. The green world is ours. It’s our birthright.”Blas rolled his eyes for the benefit of the Constable Witness, who was watching the exchange closely.Five minutes were surely up. If he didn’t send the prisoner to the Funnel, he would look weak. He needed to make it clear for the record that he was simply humoring the girl’s delusions. “And how exactly do you propose to take this ‘green world’ back?”She didn’t miss a beat. “You know how, Fir. We’ve got enough firepower to conquer the green world five times over. But you fools use it to keep your own people down.”“Enough!” A cold, familiar lump settled in Blas’s chest. She wasn’t giving him a choice. “Do not invoke the Republic’s defenses as if they’re at your personal disposal. They exist to protect you, not to grant your selfish desires. Be grateful every day that qualified people are in charge of them.”She had no smart reply for that, so he gave her a last chance to dig herself out of the hole. “Name for me even one way you’re being ‘kept down’, young woman.”She opened her mouth, and he snapped, “I’m not interested in made-up grievances. When in your life have you ever been cold or hungry?”The prisoner’s face was sullen, but her eyes glittered as if she were keeping some wonderful secret from him. “Never been cold. Never been hungry.”“So you admit the Republic isn’t oppressing you?” Suddenly Blas wondered if the girl might be someone else’s victim. All too often that was the case with these delinquents. “Is there anyone hurting you, in your school or dorm?” he asked, trying a last recourse. “A parent, a gang, a friend or lover—anyone making you feel unsafe?”“Nobody.” She spat the word at him. “It’s you, all of you!” A fierce glare around the room. “You Strutters keep us in darkness. You lock us up, separate us from the Spark.”Blas wondered if she understood what would happen to her in the Funnel. Oh, of course Seccies had special protocols for dealing with minors. But, unless they were smart enough to start cooperating immediately, youngsters still tended to come out of there broken in ways that didn’t heal.“Think of your family,” he said in a low voice, knowing the recording equipment would pick it up anyway. “The Spark is a Feudal nonsense religion.”The prisoner didn’t seem to hear him. “The Spark,” she intoned, swaying rhythmically so that her manacles rattled. “I trust in the Light and the Spark and the Hearth and the Green. Not the false hearth of the number lovers. The Northman will come north with a blazing sword and free us from our chains.”“And who is this Northman, exactly? Oslov? Upstart? Laborer?”The girl blinked. “Both. He comes from Thurskein, but his father sits on the Council. Worlds collide in him. That’s how he sets us free.”It was a mad mishmash of beliefs she had—bits and pieces she must have picked up from her elders. And here, at last, Blas found a way out for her.“Sergeant Gervalter,” he said to the Constable Witness, who was scowling at the prisoner, “please record that the defendant is not of sound mind. Her ravings reveal a troubled consciousness. We hereby sentence her to an indefinite term in the Fourth Moral Rehabilitation Facility.”Gervalter’s eyes popped at this unexpected leniency. But he knew better than to question his superiors. His face went blank, and he said, “Let it be so recorded.”“Let it be so recorded,” Blas repeated, facing the prisoner again. She looked as crazed and sullen as ever, no sign of relief.That was proof he’d made the right decision, wasn’t it? Any sane Oslov would be down on their knees thanking him right now. This poor creature was no threat to the Republic. She needed mood stabilizers, not an interrogation.When they led her out, she spat in his direction. She was too far away for the missile to make impact, but Blas winced and hoped no one saw.
Bors Dartán remembered the first time he’d come home to find his old friend Kai waiting outside his door—a sap-addicted whore seeking his help, hollow-eyed with desperation.
“You again,” Bors said now.
Kai spread his arms and smiled his old smile, the one that used to set Bors’s heart fluttering. “Is it really so bad to see me?”
How things had changed over the years. Now Kai was clean and sober and even a little pudgy around the middle. The hollow eyes were bright with plans and schemes. While he still wore the rainbow of tattoos that powerful men had placed on him, he no longer sold his body. He was the leading stream maker, commanding a team of some eighty actors and techs.
One thing hadn’t changed, though. Kai was still doing Einara’s dirty work. Since Bors no longer set foot in the Brothel and Einara never left it, apparently it was Kai’s job to coax Bors back into the fold.
He wouldn’t succeed.
“Come in,” Bors said wearily. Good thing he was storing all of the gear for his upcoming polar expedition in the bedroom. He had no intention of inviting Kai in there.
Kai looked sheepish as he followed Bors into the sitting room. “I miss you, Borsha. I wouldn’t visit if I didn’t.”
“That’s what you said last time.” Bors sat down primly on the sofa.
He didn’t have to offer Kai tea if he didn’t want to, and even if he had wanted to, he was wiped. He’d spent most of the past thirty-six hours processing and interrogating University students who had been arrested after the Constabulary stormed their snow fort and ended their ridiculous protest on behalf of a subversive professor.
Most of the protestors were the kind of idiots Bors was used to dealing with these days: bored, privileged children who’d gone along with the action only because their friends were doing it. Their excuses were predictable or incoherent. Quite a few complained about the sap shortage, which gave Bors a secret satisfaction.
There were a handful, though, whose eyes betrayed a glint of true understanding. They lied to the interrogators and disowned their beliefs, trying to avoid detention, but Bors saw the germ of rebellion in them. In their immature way, egged on by their professor, they understood that Oslov wasn’t a meritocracy and hadn’t been for some time. They felt the need for renewal.
He pretended to believe those students’ lies. He signed their release forms. He seethed with secret excitement.
Kai sat on the sofa and stretched out his long legs, trying and failing to look comfortable. “I’m going to get right to the point,” he said. “You’re lying to Einara, and that isn’t helping your friend Aleks.”
Kai had been so much more relaxing in the old days—flirty and seductive and fun. Now he was just one more person telling Bors what to do.
Soon enough he would see the folly of that, but for now, Bors played dumb. “How could I be lying to Einara? I haven’t talked to her in months.”
“Come off it,” Kai said. “You said you couldn’t find Aleks and his friends in the Wastes. You encouraged her to think they were dead. And all this time you were seeing and communicating with them, weren’t you?”
Bors contemplated the ceiling. “That damned Janta.” It wasn’t the first time he’d regretted sneaking into Gersha’s villa complex and trying to get the boy on his side. “I never told him Aleks Snowblind was alive.”
“You dropped a pretty obvious hint.” Kai’s voice was gritty with annoyance. “Janta has a photographic memory, Bors, and he reads people better than anyone I’ve ever known. If he says he got the vibe from you that Aleks is alive, then Aleks is alive.”
Bors wasn’t going to discuss Aleks with Kai until they were finished exploring the secret bunkers. He changed the subject: “So Janta’s been spending a lot of time in the Brothel?”
He knew perfectly well that Janta spent nearly every fifth-night in the Brothel. When Bors wasn’t on the job or in the South with Valgund, he was at the surveillance monitors in the Int/Sec Blinding Tank, tracking the boy’s movements.
Kai cocked a brow. “Still wanting a heart-to-heart with Janta? Why’s that? You need a hacker for something?”
Bors kept his gaze steady. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”
Einara knew about the bunkers, of course; she was the one who’d sent him to find them. Which made it damned awkward to hide what he was doing.
He and Valgund had only one more bunker to explore, but it was the hardest one to reach. The two of them had been preparing for the expedition since the new year, with the Northmen’s help.
Valgund had told Aleks about their project—without Bors’s permission. But the Northmen were eager to get on board, and Bors had to admit Valgund was right: They needed help. Two men, even with military-grade equipment, couldn’t make the trek alone.
He just had to keep Einara at bay until he was ready to make his second pitch to Janta. After that, she and her plans wouldn’t matter. Janta was the one with the skills he needed.
Kai plunked his feet on the floor, every movement languid. “This cat-and-mouse game is getting boring, Borsha. I need to get back to the set.” He rose to his feet; stretched. “Einara and I know perfectly well why you want Janta. You found Aleks, and maybe you and he found those bunkers, but you need a hacker to get inside the terminals. We all want the exact same thing!”
Bors clenched his jaw. “Do we all want the same thing, Kai?”
“Of course! Come and see Einara in the Brothel, and she’ll make sure Janta’s there, too. We can pool our resources.”
“You’re not listening.” It was frustrating how little Kai thought things through sometimes. “Do you even know what Einara wants with those bunkers? Or are you just running her errands like a good little husband?”
Kai’s pleasant smile vanished. “I trust Einara to know what’s best for the Brothel. For people like me.”
Bors got up and walked his friend to the door. “It doesn’t bother you that Einara is tight with Tilrey Bronn? Very tight, from what I’ve heard.”
This time, he scored a hit. Kai winced at the mention of Bronn’s name.
But when he turned to face Bors in the doorway, the mask of good nature was back on his face. “Bronn is our ally. Even though he works in the Sector, I trust him.”
“It doesn’t bother you that your wife is fucking him? Your Outer wife with the mysterious past and even more mysterious goals?”
Kai didn’t blink. “She fucks a lot of people. So do I. It’s our profession.”
“And the mystery? It doesn’t bother you?”
Bors wondered if he should show Kai what his aunt had given him on her death bed—Einara’s own confession to killing Bors’s cousin Irin in cold blood. Kai was in so deep, though, that the revelation might not dissuade him. It might not even surprise him.
“You think I’m just her tool,” Kai said in a growl, as if reading Bors’s mind. “But there’s change coming, and she’s just part of it. I’ve seen the signs everywhere, from Councillors down to dishwashers and whores. No one can stop the wave. It’s a question of who’s going to ride it.”
Bors hit the sensor, and the door hisped open. “I still think of you as my friend, Kai,” he said. “But I don’t have any new information for your wife. Tell Janta I said hello.”
“I don’t want things to be this way, Borsha.”
“Nor do I.”
Once they had the locations of all five terminals nailed down, Bors would find the right place and time to approach Janta. He suspected it wouldn’t take much to persuade the little hacker to transfer his loyalty from Einara to his old friends the Northmen.
Then, once he held all the cards, he would convince Kai that Einara was poison.
“See you again soon, friend,” he said.
“If you don’t sign this confession in the next five minutes,” Blas Lindblom said, “I’ll refer you to Int/Sec. I won’t have a choice.”
The prisoner glared up at him from the bench to which she was shackled. She was a tiny girl, just fifteen, with dark hair dyed streaky puce—Wardrobe Violation, 6 points—and eyes that burned with the fervor of a true believer.
“No thanks, Fir.” She spoke in the spiky dialect of the tower block kids—not just an accent, but a whole lexicon unto itself. “I don’t wanna write anything on your dead trees. My word is of the Spark, and my word is my bond.”
She was one of the kids responsible for the subversive banner, the only one who’d needed a second interrogation. The others had signed their confessions and meekly accepted a few months in detention with promises to reform.
Either this one was the ringleader and mastermind, or she had a mental illness that kept her from grasping the gravity of her actions. Blas feared it was the latter.
“With a signed confession, we can discuss sending you to moral rehab instead of detention.” He leaned forward to show her he meant it, though he knew it only made him look more intimidating.
Everything in the deposition room was designed to make suspects feel small: the high pulpit in which Blas sat; the flowing gray robe he wore; the narrow, windowless space and high ceiling. No matter how hard he tried to be reasonable and understanding, Blas knew prisoners peered up at him and saw a merciless judge from a world they barely understood. Even his accent unsettled them.
It hadn’t bothered Mersha, though. Memories of their steamy encounter two nights ago tugged at Blas’s mind. Tonight he would see Mersha at the brothel again, and he would thank Vedya for connecting the two of them. He just had to get through a few more depositions first.
Oh, and the blasted Communal Meal with his family in Ring One. Couldn’t forget that!
“You’re trembling,” he said to the prisoner, trying a gentler voice. If only the Constable Witness weren’t sitting right there, making sure every moment of the session was recorded. “Would you mind if I asked you a question?” he added.
The girl curled her lip. Her eyes were narrowed, but Blas thought he glimpsed fear there. “Ask whatever you want, Fir High-Head-Goeth-Before-a-Fall.”
“High head” was one literal meaning of Linhedda (Upstart). Blas had no idea what the rest meant. “It’s about the text of your banner. Who told you about these Northmen?”
“I don’t name names.”
Fine, he would use the stern voice again. “If you end up in the Funnel, you’ll be naming names before you know it.”
She stared right back at him. A tough case, this one.
“But have it your way,” Blas continued as if he couldn’t care less what became of her. “Your unlawful banner stated that ‘The Northmen will claim the South.’ This place you call the South—where is it?”
The prisoner’s eyes widened, and she broke into raucous laughter. “Right there in the name, Fir. It’s south of here. The South is the rest of the world—the green part.”
A subversive color. A curse word. Who had been talking to Eighter kids about Harbour? “The uncivilized world,” Blas said.
There was a hysterical edge on the girl’s laughter. “That’s what you say to keep us here. We’re prisoners in a block of ice, Fir, every single one of us—even you.”
“We’re survivors who’ve assembled a civilization,” Blas corrected. This sort of talk made alarms go off in his brain; it reminded him of his father’s wilder rants. “Only the Republic has laws and protections for everyone. In the rest of the world, the place you call the South, the strong rule by force and kill the weak with impunity. Does that sound good to you?”
The prisoner’s eyes had glazed over. Instead of listening to him, she was seeing some vision in her head. “Fira don’t know nothing,” she said. “Cowards, every one of you. The green world is ours. It’s our birthright.”
Blas rolled his eyes for the benefit of the Constable Witness, who was watching the exchange closely.
Five minutes were surely up. If he didn’t send the prisoner to the Funnel, he would look weak. He needed to make it clear for the record that he was simply humoring the girl’s delusions. “And how exactly do you propose to take this ‘green world’ back?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “You know how, Fir. We’ve got enough firepower to conquer the green world five times over. But you fools use it to keep your own people down.”
“Enough!” A cold, familiar lump settled in Blas’s chest. She wasn’t giving him a choice. “Do not invoke the Republic’s defenses as if they’re at your personal disposal. They exist to protect you, not to grant your selfish desires. Be grateful every day that qualified people are in charge of them.”
She had no smart reply for that, so he gave her a last chance to dig herself out of the hole. “Name for me even one way you’re being ‘kept down’, young woman.”
She opened her mouth, and he snapped, “I’m not interested in made-up grievances. When in your life have you ever been cold or hungry?”
The prisoner’s face was sullen, but her eyes glittered as if she were keeping some wonderful secret from him. “Never been cold. Never been hungry.”
“So you admit the Republic isn’t oppressing you?” Suddenly Blas wondered if the girl might be someone else’s victim. All too often that was the case with these delinquents. “Is there anyone hurting you, in your school or dorm?” he asked, trying a last recourse. “A parent, a gang, a friend or lover—anyone making you feel unsafe?”
“Nobody.” She spat the word at him. “It’s you, all of you!” A fierce glare around the room. “You Strutters keep us in darkness. You lock us up, separate us from the Spark.”
Blas wondered if she understood what would happen to her in the Funnel. Oh, of course Seccies had special protocols for dealing with minors. But, unless they were smart enough to start cooperating immediately, youngsters still tended to come out of there broken in ways that didn’t heal.
“Think of your family,” he said in a low voice, knowing the recording equipment would pick it up anyway. “The Spark is a Feudal nonsense religion.”
The prisoner didn’t seem to hear him. “The Spark,” she intoned, swaying rhythmically so that her manacles rattled. “I trust in the Light and the Spark and the Hearth and the Green. Not the false hearth of the number lovers. The Northman will come north with a blazing sword and free us from our chains.”
“And who is this Northman, exactly? Oslov? Upstart? Laborer?”
The girl blinked. “Both. He comes from Thurskein, but his father sits on the Council. Worlds collide in him. That’s how he sets us free.”
It was a mad mishmash of beliefs she had—bits and pieces she must have picked up from her elders. And here, at last, Blas found a way out for her.
“Sergeant Gervalter,” he said to the Constable Witness, who was scowling at the prisoner, “please record that the defendant is not of sound mind. Her ravings reveal a troubled consciousness. We hereby sentence her to an indefinite term in the Fourth Moral Rehabilitation Facility.”
Gervalter’s eyes popped at this unexpected leniency. But he knew better than to question his superiors. His face went blank, and he said, “Let it be so recorded.”
“Let it be so recorded,” Blas repeated, facing the prisoner again. She looked as crazed and sullen as ever, no sign of relief.
That was proof he’d made the right decision, wasn’t it? Any sane Oslov would be down on their knees thanking him right now. This poor creature was no threat to the Republic. She needed mood stabilizers, not an interrogation.
When they led her out, she spat in his direction. She was too far away for the missile to make impact, but Blas winced and hoped no one saw.
Chapter End Notes
The Communal Meal will be fun, I think. And Blas will get a bit of a surprise afterward. ;) Thanks so much for reading, and I hope everyone’s staying safe and doing well! <3 <3
Chapter End Notes
The Communal Meal will be fun, I think. And Blas will get a bit of a surprise afterward. ;) Thanks so much for reading, and I hope everyone’s staying safe and doing well! <3 <3
The Communal Meal will be fun, I think. And Blas will get a bit of a surprise afterward. ;) Thanks so much for reading, and I hope everyone’s staying safe and doing well! <3 <3