“Leave the anchor in that crate, value,” Under-sergeant Brummie said, gesturing to a crate against the wall. Lawrence bid the piston goodbye without regret, closely followed by Pezzini. Little Gnevik provoked amusement with his struggles to lift his anchor over the lip of the crate even heaving with both arms and uttering amorous groans.
“Mark Chetley Gnevik,” The Captain said. The scathing eyes landed upon Gnevik and the thin mouth curled into a sneer.
“Yes sir.”
“Not sir; I am The Captain.”
“Yes, The Captain.”
“Why you are here?”
The silence became painful. The Captain’s eyes shifted.
“Assist him, Under-sergeant Brummie.”
The under-sergeant raised his cracker pipe and swiped Gnevik’s elbow. The little man uttered a yelp like a terrier and folded over, whining and snivelling. The Captain’s scathing eyes remained fixed on him.
“Why are you here?”
“S-s-sex with children, The Captain.”
The Captain lifted a cardboard folder from a drawer. It bore the motif of Universal Parrier, one of the leading glory trusts of Britain.
“Gnevik is a persistent sex-offender,” he read aloud. “Numerous complaints received all through his service. Charged for fellating recruits in a shower. Charged again for assault of a ten-year-old kid whilst extracting infestation. Caught buggering a boy in a client’s kitchen. It goes on and on. Gnevik was finally caught with three young girls in a garage. I shall not go into the sordid details. Unfortunately for him, they were the daughters of a senior officer.” He smiled up at Gnevik, with the blandness of a primary school teacher. “You must have a taste for danger, never mind little girls, to try a stunt like that.”
The Captain gazed at Gnevik until Lawrence could see, out of the bottom of one eye, the man was visibly shaking and grinding his chubby little fists in terror. The Captain just shook his head and tossed the folder on the desk.
“Let me explain something, not just to you Gnevik but to all three of you. Everyone in my Value System gets tagged. Your old name is finished—you will never use it again. If you do, you will be lashed for the first offense and executed for the second. In time, your old name will pass from memory.”
He dipped into a side drawer and picked out a small metal tag—similar to a dog tag a trooper would wear around their neck. He extended his arm and Under-sergeant Brummie took the tag and stood just behind Gnevik.
“Gnevik, you are Value Zeta727.”
“Respond, Value Zeta727,” Master Sergeant Ratty said, raising his cracker.
“I am Value Zeta727, The Captain.”
In a quick movement, Under-sergeant Brummie gripped Gnevik by the left ear and seemed to snip with a pair of what looked like pliers. Gnevik leaped and screeched. His hands fluttering about the ear. Lawrence saw, with disgust, the metal tag was now clipped to the ear lobe. A drop of blood swelled and dripped.
“Kindly relieve us of his despicable presence, Under-sergeant Brummie.”
“Yes, The Captain.”
Under-sergeant Brummie in turn ordered a leading heeler to take Gnevik to Dormitory 21. The leading heeler grabbed Gnevik by the collar and hauled him out backwards.
The Captain now drew an altogether different style of folder from the desk. This one was of sky-blue vellum stitched with burgundy catgut. Its front was decorated with the coat of arms of the Sovereign Lands of Krossington. Lawrence knew the design well enough, having spent most of his career serving on Krossington lands. That clan shared with all the sovereign caste a taste for the gilded lily: glaring eagles, flowing banners, medieval helmets and so forth. The clan motto was “Aurum Vita Est” (Gold Is Life).
The Captain stared up at clumping, big-breasted Pezzini.
“You are Antonio Kwasu Pezzini. Formerly chief demographer of the Sovereign Lands of Krossington.”
“That is correct, The Captain.”
“How did you come by such an exotic name?”
“My father’s family came from Italy. That was a nation state of southern Europe before the Glorious Resolution—today we call it the Roman Confederation. My mother’s family came from Egypt. That was a nation state of Africa before the Glorious Resolution—now it is the Nile Districts.”
If The Captain was irritated at being patronised, he displayed no sign of it.
“What do you feel guilty of, Pezzini?”
“I do not feel guilty of anything, The Captain. A mistake has been made.”
Pezzini sagged, groaning. Master Sergeant Ratty had jabbed him in the kidney with his pistol.
“We don’t make mistakes, value.”
Shaken but determined to absorb the blow, Pezzini recovered to stand at attention. The Captain remained silent, his head down, reading through the file. After which, he gathered all the papers up and banged them square on the desktop.
“From your clean chin, it is clear you are a spay. Why is that?”
“My parents had me spayed as a boy. They believed it would improve my chances of acceptance into the service of a sovereign clan.”
“Your citizen’s record states you were born in the industrial asylum of Brent Cross. As a boy, you displayed an IQ of 135, which unusual talent won you a scholarship through the Talent Court of Krossington. You have lifted yourself from nothing by your brains alone. That is, of course, not least because you have nothing but your brains left. Lately, you were no less than the chief demographer of the Sovereign Lands of Krossington, the most powerful of all the sovereign lands of Britain. You must have been close to Tom Krossington himself. Did he take you to nice places?”
“Yes, The Captain. On his yacht Neptune, we cruised to Bermuda, Montserrat, Aruba, Barbados, inter alia.”
“Pretty, were they?”
Now The Captain was wheedling, sneering, eyes bright with satisfaction at having found a sore of nostalgia to jab away at.
Pezzini fell into solemnness.
“Very beautiful, The Captain. However, the scale of dereliction was worse than Old London. Once, the beaches swarmed with the Fatted Masses, the crowds were like drifts of pepper. Nowadays, those beaches are empty.”
“What a vast improvement! Vive the Glorious Resolution!”
Pezzini was silent.
