She reached the fortress’s upper edge, where watchkeepers walked Sumad Reach’s walls, their backs illuminated from the courtyards below. All carried large, flat glass lens mechanisms for detecting chaos energy fluxes, which were more prevalent at night.
“I’m pleased they recognized how good your eyes are, Toornan,” she said to a plated figure staring intently at the glistening lens held to his face.
Toornan jerked around, his eyes wide. “Terese? When’d you get back?”
“Just now. I thought I’d come see you. I just wanted to let you know… everything is all right.”
“The renegades?”
“Gone. The last sightings have them trying to come north. The bounty hunter had bad intel and wasted our time chasing phantoms.” She slipped irritation into her voice, though saying those words aloud felt good. Almost safe. “What are they saying about that odd workshop?”
“They’ve passed it off as an anomaly. But… I’m just… confused.”
A pair of watchkeepers passed behind them.
She shook her head and raised a finger to her lips. It was possible that some of the vibrations floating about the roof came from surveillance devices.
Toornan took time to fashion his reply. “I’m glad you made it back in one piece.”
“As am I. I spoke to Keeper Lijjen. He’s taken me off the renegades. Now I have an exciting opportunity to work on the rosters until we go home.”
Another ponderous pause. “That’s an improvement, then.”
“Yes, I thought you’d like to know.”
“Thanks for telling me.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Let me know if you need any help… with the rostering.”
She almost sagged to hear a kind offer. “Thanks, Toornan. But for now, I have a lot to learn. If I learn enough, I’ll tell you… all about it.” She remembered something that had confused her at the roster board. “Do you know where Jools is assigned? I should tell her I’ve returned but I didn’t see her name on the boards.”
Toornan shrugged. “Haven’t seen much of her. She was transferred after someone in her complement was promoted.”
Terese left Toornan to his watchkeeping over Polis Sumad.
The tall clock in the hall chimed eleven times as she turned the key in her room’s lock. The female officers’ steam bath felt like heaven, and washing her hair with oils made her feel like a new woman. When that was done, she spent her remaining energy filing and lacquering her nails with her ‘ordinary’ polish. For the rest of her time in Sumad Reach she’d have to maintain appearances.
11
The rostering office was a long, thin room with one smudged-glass window. It was crammed with desks, filing cabinets, bookshelves, wall calendars and wobbling, uneven chairs. The window didn’t open, exacerbating the ripening odor of unwashed bodies, moldering paper and the occasional unfinished lunch. A line of ants marched with implacable determination across one corner of the ceiling.
On her first day, Terese entered the office with a pretend smile and cheery, ‘Good morning’. None of her three co-workers replied. They stared at her until the man she’d come to know as ‘Mr Sniffles’ asked why she was there. Evidently, her predecessor, Head Chuddar, hadn’t told them he was leaving.
She’d been pointed at a desk in the corner furthest from the window, which she’d initially thought to be a table for spare files. There was very little space and the work seemed to follow an in-tray/out-tray model, but she couldn’t be certain.
“Ah,” she ventured, directing her voice at her three new colleagues, studiously ignoring her. “I’m new at this. I was only promoted just before I left Polis Armer. Could someone please just help me figure this out?”
No one moved. It was like she hadn’t spoken.
She slipped over to Mr Sniffles and bent to look him in the eyes.
“Help me. Please.”
The man looked at Terese, then back to her desk, as if trying to tell her with his eyes that her desk was over there and how could she possibly be confused about that? When she didn’t move, the man sighed heavily and walked to her corner, glumly pointing out the various features of her desk.
“Those are… the drawers. That’s your ink pot, the pins for the cork board, and that’s Chuddar’s tea mug.”
“It’s still got tea in it,” she said.
“That’s unusual. He liked finishing his tea.”
She rubbed her forehead. “All right. The job. How exactly do I do it?”
“I don’t know.” The man refused to look her in the face. He sniffed then snorted loudly, and she had to wait until he was finished.
“You don’t know?”
“No.” He returned to his seat.
She plunged into the pile. It seemed there was no need for names in the rostering office, since there were four explicit rostering roles. Regular, Extraordinary, Replacement and Incoming. Terese’s corner had a bronze plaque overhead with the word Incoming stamped in capital letters, and by lunchtime she’d gained little understanding of what was required of her. Only that she was to co-ordinate part of the other three roster-makers’ work and that she was to monitor the outgoing rosters. But to gain a better understanding, she’d have to speak to Mr Sniffles, Mr Tapper or Miss Hung Over. She wasn’t certain if the graying woman was ‘Mrs Hung Over’ or ‘Miss Hung Over’. Clearly though, the woman would never be Miss Sunshine.
It was possible the other three Heads were here on something like punishment detail. Or possibly their rotation had come up and they simply wanted to be done with the job before they moved onto something like mentoring, training or expedition.
She didn’t ask.
That first night, Terese alternately cried and laughed herself to sleep. She’d somehow escaped persecution but ended up buried beneath mounds of incomprehensible work she barely understood. Of course it had been deliberate. Lijjen’s plan was clearly to keep her too busy to ask questions. It wasn’t a bad plan, she had to admit. Which her Uncle Morten would have told her was all part of ‘the plan’.
Every family had that
