“What? How do you—”
“Forget I said that.” His tone had changed back to that oddly calm one.
She must have had too much to drink, because she had the impression time had passed, though she couldn’t remember what had filled it.
“So that’s why old Lijjen’s at you, is he? Thinks you’re holding back?”
She nodded. “He must think I’m conspiring with them because we tracked down infected who aren’t infected halfway across the world, let them escape and then let them hold me hostage and ask questions I can’t answer about that damned Immersion Chamber.”
An hourglass. Next to Drool. The bottom half was getting bluer by the second.
“But they didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. They wanted me to tell them what’d happened t’them. How’m I s’posed to know?”
Because I was there when the mindlocked guardsmen were brought to the Immersion Chamber and put in the Immersion Pods, not when they escaped!
Her tongue was thick against her cheeks and teeth. He wasn’t asking the right questions. He had no interest in the Immersion Chamber, but total interest in what came after. Surely he wanted to know about it. Who wouldn’t?
“But I knew no one’d believe me,” she continued. “Gods, I don’t believe me! But can you imagine that? Running back to Holder Mathra and saying, ‘Never mind. They’re not infected. They’re rilly powerful and rilly angry and rilly hate Seekers an’ talk to each other in their minds, so good luck with tha’. No idea what they are or how they do it, but goodbye an’ ’ave a nice life.’ Who would’ve believed me?”
She blinked. Momentarily, there had been two of Patzer and Drool. Yuck! One of each was enough.
“And Armer Stone sent us here, and I led it. Lots of currency wasted on Sumad Reach t’ accommodate a full Head’s complement. Imagine tellin’ the newskeepers back home that. Imagine my name bein’ used first. Imagine Holder Moorcam trynna explain that t’the Governors’ Council that run the Armer Seekers? And the Royals? My mission, he said, was to reduce fallout from th’ Immersion Chamber. It’s an embarrassment from one end to t’other. We want it to all go away.”
Patzer’s eyebrows had scrunched close together and his mouth was open. Drool nodded again.
Ice cream. Right then, she really missed ice cream. They didn’t have any in Sumad because there were fewer cows than in Armer, but there were some plants here that…
“So why did you come to Sumad?” Patzer’s voice was loud. “Did you happen to track a Sumadan traveler with a crate, coming from Armer?”
“Wha? No. I was tracking the renegades.”
“You tracked them all the way here? And how, exactly, did they—and you—know Polis Sumad was truly the Immersion Chamber’s origin?”
She clicked her tongue with disapproving impatience. “The enormous hollow metal generator? The one with th’ Sumadan hexagon this big, imprinted on the side? You think they or me dinna see that? Oh, and how about th’ Sumadan Invocation, written ten feet tall onna wall? No, that wasn it, Patzer. I jus’ put a world map on the wall, threw a dart annit landed on Sumad Reach!”
“Ah, yes. No, no. It all seems… surprisingly logical,” Patzer said. He seemed disappointed.
Ha, disappointment. Try the last year of my life Patzer. That’s disappointment.
He pursed his lips. “But this is very important, Terese. Why did you choose Sumad Reach as a host chapterhouse?”
“Wha? I just looked at the map fer th’ chapterhouse nearest the refugee areas. ’Cos I thought they’d wanna hide where there’s others with skin our color. Turn out I was right. For all the good it’s done me. Do you know, I once took two cadvers, by mehself, in a farmstead, outside—”
“So, you aren’t interested in Sumad Reach Chapterhouse? You don’t wish to know more about it? You hadn’t heard anything about it?”
“Patzer, I want brain damage so I can forget the place. See Drool nodding? He doesn’t like ’em either!”
“Don’t worry about Drool. You haven’t an interest in the chapterhouse, then?”
“Nah.” Something dripped in her eyes, salty, making her blink. “I’d rather move into a Wall. I’ll do it. Watch me. I’ll work the looms th’ way their women do for nine more months and…”
“What about the renegades? What else can you tell me about them? Tell me something important. Quickly Terese!”
She paused to wonder. “They shouldn’t be able to fight like that. I mean they’re jus’ guards. And they’re gonna stay here, I think.”
“And why are they here? Why do they stay?”
She rubbed her head. When had she begun sweating? “Revenge? I dunno.”
Drool sighed.
“The renegades wanted revenge,” Patzer said. “Right.”
What did his expression mean? She couldn’t place it. Unless… “Wait. ’ave you met them already?”
Patzer fixed her with a glare, then tilted his head sideways. When he spoke, he’d changed to the calmer, observant tone. “You are not the only one, Head Saarg, who has suffered setbacks at their hands, here in Sumad.”
“Wha? Why diddnyu say? Wha did—”
“Forget I said that,” he said loudly.
Forget he’d met… who?
What was Pella doing right now?
“What was responsible for that massacre back in the hinterlands? The one you found with your two friends but didn’t want to mention to me?”
Drool pointed to the hourglass, which had almost drained.
“No idea.” She felt sleepy. “It looked like a hit. Or a clean-up. It’s probably something to do with the Immersion Chamber, but there’s no way t’ prove it, but I wasn’ there that night and I’m glad or I’d be dead and my daughter would ’av to live with my parents ferever because her father’s a cowardly, lazy…”
“Drool,” boomed Patzer, “it’s time the Head had something from the green bottle.”
There was a green bottle? She felt something cool against her lips. Oh, her eyes were closed. She opened them.
“Drink this,” said Drool firmly. His first words. She hadn’t expected a firm voice. He seemed like one of life’s willing followers. She drank something and…
Oh Polis, why was she so hot and thirsty?
Patzer
