Terese didn’t touch the trader’s note until it was dark and Jools had been snoring half an hour. She hid the small glow of her flashbulb inside her pack while she read the note, then wrote a new note. She approached Toornan and tapped his shoulder.
“Anything?”
“Other than coyotes and meerkats? Nothing. If there’s lions about, they’re avoiding us.”
“All right, wake me if there’s anything interesting.”
But instead of moving back to her blanket, she clamped a hand over his mouth for longer than she needed. His struggling petered out when they locked eyes and he saw her finger over her lips. After a moment, Toornan nodded his understanding. She brought out her glowbulb for him to read her note:
Toornan, don’t speak. Don’t whisper. Don’t open your mouth even to breathe. We’ve been bugged. You’re right about Keeper Lijjen; there’s no way he’d let me out of his sight, ever. I can feel the mechanisms he’s used. There’s one on each of us. I’ve felt them humming with vibrations. He wants to hear what we say because he’s convinced I’m (we’re?) hiding something.
We can’t let Jools in on this. Her opinion on anything becomes whatever the last person she spoke to thinks on the matter. She’s a loyal Seeker, but if she doesn’t see what’s wrong with putting innocent Cenephans out of business, she can’t be trusted.
I didn’t break the trading post’s currency counter. I broke a fan. I paid them a lot for information. Lijjen will think I’m breaking the currency counter when he plays this afternoon’s recording back on his mechanism.
We’re on a clean-up operation. I can recognize the pattern. Everything about this job feels wrong. Someone—maybe Sumadan Seekers—have done something rotten and we’re shutting it down. Getting us to do it is a convenient way of seeing if I know more than I’m saying to Lijjen.
The traders confirmed there’s a small mechanism trading industry across the border with the native Sumadans.
You heard me asking about mechanism traders? My actual question was if there are stories of Darkness events, like poltergeists or large cadver migrations. They said we should come this way, because there are ‘strange stories’ out here, and gangs pushing people out of the area.
I asked what they knew of Sumadan Seekers in the Territories. They said there are no obvious Seekers, but sometimes Sumadan groups that are clearly military come by in plain clothes, give currency and leave mechanisms that, later, Cenephan smugglers come and take with a code word. They’ve threatened the traders with death if even one mechanism goes missing. There’s a mechanism-smuggling ring out here. Which is odd, because mechanisms aren’t expensive or rare.
Toornan seized her stylus.
Gods! We have to get out of this mad Polis. Can’t we snatch the Apprentices and Assistants and just leave? How did you know about the bugs? I can’t feel anything. How did you get suspicious to begin with? Why do I feel like I know less about this expedition than anyone else in it? What in Armer’s name do we do now?
She was so relieved to find Toornan siding with her, she almost cried. Instead she took back the stylus.
These bugs are kept secret by Keepers and Holders. So small they fit on plate armor without us knowing. Each mechanism is probably hidden in a screw or stud holding the skinleaf plate together. They’re made by the Royals, but kept secret. That’s why they gave us the light plate. They knew we’d wear it willingly, not like our official heavy plate.
When I was a girl, my father was a Keeper. I learned to pick his study lock at home and read his notes. Because I was so curious about the Seekers. These mechanisms record everything, then an artifact back in Lijjen’s office, or wherever, filters out the voices from background noise. It’s primed to pick out vibrating throats, so even whispers aren’t safe. I can sense vibrations at lower levels than any other Seeker, but I don’t let on because I don’t want to be noticed. Ever since the Girdle ceremony, my Seeker sense is more sensitive than others.
This operation doesn’t make sense. There’s no reason for Lijjen to distrust me and split up my command. They’ll be looking for us to attempt an escape, and that’ll provide them with an excuse to interrogate and imprison me. Besides, can you imagine getting Jools to leave? She’ll ask for permission first, and who knows what rot has seeped into the Apprentices and Assistants? They’ve got us.
She paused before writing the next paragraph. Her complement was in this fix because of her ambitions, her lies and mistakes. She’d been not only a part of the Immersion Chamber project, but a shift leader, and had been on duty the evening the renegades’ guard unit had been interred in the pods.
At least her complement had no idea. She bore Lijjen’s wrath alone.
Before her promotion, she’d been the best Missionary Seeker within Armer Stone. She knew what she was doing. Her footwork on routine excursions was flawless, though the reports that reached Lijjen said she’d made countless errors. Her paperwork was sent back, sometimes five times, with red pen scrawled over each page, telling her to get her reports in order, never indicating what to change.
She’d come of age in the cadets as the daughter of Sumad Spire Chapterhouse’s Keeper Saarg, which had brought her malice and cruelty. He was made a Holder when she was still an Apprentice. The bullying had been tolerable because she’d known she was better than her classmates. And her tutors. She would deal with whatever Keeper Lijjen threw at her, because every day was a day closer to returning to Pella. Nothing else mattered.
But oppressing the already-downtrodden refugees even further? Just evil. She could accept the insults, but she drew a line when her problems hurt someone else. By all the Gods, she would not enable Lijjen to hurt innocents. This time, she
