‘Can you do that, too?’ Tasmin asked. ‘Get passage. Earliest possible trip with someone reliable. On the Southern Route, I think. It’s longer, but there hasn’t been a fatality on that route for quite a while.’
‘Yes, Sir.’ Jamieson and Clarin shared what Tasmin had come to identify as ‘a look.’
‘I’m all right. You heard the whole thing from the stairs, I know. It’s … well, it’s a shock to find someone you’ve –’
‘Hated?’ Clarin tilted her head to one side, examining him through compassionate eyes.
‘I guess. It’s a shock to find someone you’ve hated didn’t deserve it. It turns the blame inward.’
‘No more your fault than his,’ said Clarin, blinking rapidly. ‘Excuse me, Sir, but your father must have been a bastard.’
‘He was.’ Tasmin sighed. ‘In many ways he was, Clarin, he was.’
‘And then what?’ asked Jamieson. ‘Shall we go back on the same trip?’
‘Go back?’ he shook his head, for a moment wondering what the boy was talking about. ‘To Deepsoil Five? Of course not, Jamieson. The mystery is still there, isn’t it? I still don’t know what Lim was doing. I still don’t know why Celcy died!’
‘Where next, Sir?’
‘To Don Furz. That’s the only clue we have left.’
Donatella Furz returned to the Chapter House at Northwest late in the afternoon of the agreed-upon day, having come up the coast in a small BDL transport ship and inland from there in a provisions truck. Zimmy would be expecting her, undoubtedly with something special set up by way of dinner and amusement. She needed him, needed to talk to him. Events of the past three days had been as confusing as they were frightening. She kept thinking of Gretl, even though what was happening to her was nothing like what had happened to Gretl except in its atmosphere of obdurate menace. At the moment of peril she had had no time to be frightened. Only afterward, considering it, thinking how close to death she had come both times, did the cold sweat come on her and her stomach knot. Now she had to confide in someone. Someone close.
Who else could it be but Zimmy? She found herself rehearsing the conversation she would have with him, his exclamations of concern. He already knew about Gretl – everyone at the Priory knew about Gretl – he’d understand her fear. Even thinking of telling him made her feel better, as though the very fact she could share her troubles and dangers somehow lessened them. If she could trust anyone, she could trust him. Even though she hadn’t told him anything yet, she would now. She had to be able to talk to someone!
Zimmy, however, was not waiting for her.
She didn’t want to make an undignified spectacle of herself over the man – he was a services employee, after all, and the Explorer King had said enough on that score already – so she showered and changed and went down to the common room for a drink and the odd bit of chitchat. Chase Random Hall was in his usual place, a high backed chair with the unmistakable air of a throne. She nodded in his direction and received a nod in return.
‘All well, Don?’ he called, bringing every eye in the room to rest on her.
Damn the man. ‘All well, Randy,’ she returned with a brilliant smile. ‘The doctor says I’ll live.’ She circulated, exchanging the gossip of Splash One for the gossip of Northwest. The evening meal was announced, and still no Zimmy. Now she began to worry, just a little. Had he forgotten the date of her return? He would be full of apologies and consternation if that was the case, busy taking little digs at himself. Or had something happened to him? She turned away from the thought. It was enough that people were trying to kill her; surely there was no reason for anyone to try to kill Zimmy. Of course, there were always accidents.
‘I don’t see Zimble around,’ she said to her dinner mate.
‘Zimmy? Oh, he went out. Let’s see, I saw him go out the little gate about midafternoon. Shopping, he said, and then an amateur show with friends.’
‘Ah.’ She kept her voice carefully casual. ‘After what I saw in Splash One, I grow concerned about any absent face.’ The conversation switched to Gretl Mechas, and she quickly changed the subject. They talked of Crystallites, suspected and proven, and she remained puzzled. He must have forgotten. Though Zimmy usually didn’t forget. Not anything. He was the kind of man who remembered every word of conversations held years before; the kind of man who sent greetings on obscure anniversaries; the kind of man who kept gift shops in business. He had a little notebook full of people’s birthdays. This minor talent, or vice, would have made him merely a sycophantic niggler were it not for his humor and charm. No, she could not imagine Zimmy forgetting.
She was in the lounge at a corner table, half hidden by her table mates, when he returned. She saw him in the hallway, checking the message board. Ralth was halfway through a complicated story that she chose not to interrupt, so she did not call out or make any gesture, but merely noticed Zimmy from under her lowered lids. Zimmy turned, his mobile face twisted into a laughing response to someone’s remark.
And saw her.
Don let her lids drop closed, frightened at what she had surprised in his face. Shock. Shock and astonishment. He had not expected to see her here. He had not expected to see her anywhere. She gasped and put a hand to her throat, not looking up. Something hard pressed up. She gulped.
‘Don? What’s the matter?’ Ralth was looking at her with concern.
‘I swallowed the wrong way. Got so intrigued by your story, I forgot to breathe.’ She laughed and looked up. There he was. Zimmy. Now he was beaming at her. Waving. If she hadn’t seen him for that split second, she
