“You have quite remarkable skin, so smooth, almost the colour of my chair,” The Captain said. “Nice eunuch hide, I must say. If you don’t provide value, we can certainly find other uses for you.”
The Captain and his ultramarine troopers shared what Lawrence thought was a deeply sinister cackling. These people were bloody crooks for certain. The Captain’s hand dipped into the drawer and once again picked out a metal tag. “Value Zeta728.”
“Value Zeta728, The Captain,” Pezzini said.
“Kneel down, value,” Under-sergeant Brummie ordered. Pezzini did so. Lawrence watched the eyes glaze black with rage at the squeeze of the pliers. The big spay uttered not a sound.
“Take him away please, Under-sergeant Brummie. Dormitory 31.”
“Yes, The Captain.”
Now The Captain had Lawrence’s personnel file on his desk. It was recognisable by the many scars it had incurred during a decade of accumulating the paperwork of a career. Lawrence spotted the application form he had filled out a decade ago as a teenager in the immense headquarters of General Wardian glory trust inside the Central Enclave of Old Greater London. Christ, with what insouciance in the face of his whole adult life had he scribbled into the boxes of that form.
“Lawrence Morton Aldingford. Your father is a prominent judge.”
“That is true, The Captain.”
“What does he do?”
“When I last paid any attention, The Captain, he worked in the Land Court of Westminster. He ruled over squabbles between sovereign lands concerning water rights or air rights or ten yards of frontier or whatever pettifogging dross people who own the world bicker about.”
“So how did his son end up in the Night and Fog?”
Lawrence had no idea how to answer such a question. The Captain continued, apparently having asked rhetorically.
“You were a cost-centre lieutenant of General Wardian glory trust. I see you enlisted as probationary basic and worked your way up through the ranks. I would have expected one from your élite background to have commissioned as an officer having taken a degree at Oxford or Cambridge. What was the problem? Too dim perhaps? Hmm?”
The Captain pulled a tight, cold smirk.
“I had no interest in university, The Captain,” Lawrence said. He kept his cool, understanding the game now. This ‘captain’ was simply a jerk, king in his little kingdom, whatever it was, sneering here and jeering there before tagging his catch like cattle.
“I keep reading ‘highly intelligent’, ‘retentive mind’, ‘natural leader’. In your early years you served in high-risk units preventing fenland bandits. Is that where you got the scar?”
Lawrence had a scar on the right side of his jaw, where a bandit had caught him with a dagger of broken glass. The wound was closed by a sergeant, who had apparently learned his art stitching ox hide.
“Yes, The Captain.”
“You then took officer training, where you passed the Securitician A with high distinction and… eventually got posted to a flotilla based at Oban in Scotland. You become a barge commander. Finally, you had a shore posting as customer liaison coordinator. That’s a bullshitter’s job, hardly for a man of action.”
The Captain looked up at Lawrence more sharply.
“So how did you end up here?”
“I don’t know where I am, The Captain.”
“You know where you came from—so you must appreciate this is not an improvement.”
The other ultramarines chuckled at that.
Lawrence was still confounded over how to react. This detailed grilling hinted at an almost personal interest by this ‘captain’, yet for certain, Lawrence had never met the man. The Captain was not an individual one would ever forget.
“I submitted a complaint against a corrupt senior officer,” Lawrence said. “Soon after that, I was arrested and charged with being the kingpin of some ridiculous scheme to steal elephant hides, ivory and so forth from one of Krossington’s private gardens. The court martial sentenced me to eight years’ Night and Fog, without possibility of re-employment in any glory trust. I spent three months at Chatham Camp beating gravel roads and now I’m here.”
“Are your family racists?”
Lawrence hesitated, again caught off-guard by the question.
“You do appear to be the outcome of selective breeding. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so white. Have you any moles on your body?”
“You’re quite white yourself, The Captain.”
The most ghastly silence expanded to an excruciating tension. Master-Sergeant Ratty blinked with shock. His hand drifted to his cracker. Yet The Captain just relaxed back in his throne-chair.
“What puzzles me is how one with your abilities and breeding got himself framed up by a clique of provincial scoundrels. Daddy could have saved you, surely?”
It was bound to be recorded in the file that Lawrence had listed no next of kin nor ever sent a letter to his family in the ten years of his employment. His family would have no idea he was in the Night and Fog. Perhaps that was why he had ended up here, whatever here was.
“Tell me about this last account you served on, The Mull and Movern Estate.”
“What particular aspect, The Captain?”
“What land does it contain?”
Lawrence knew the question must not be as pointless as it seemed. He proceeded warily, sticking to facts.
“The Mull and Morvern Estate is the Krossingtons’ great northern colony. They own the entire island of Mull, the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, a slab of land around Oban and a private garden called Loch Sunart nature reserve. His Decency the Sovereign Tom Krossingtion pulls the fortune of Cyrus out of it: fresh water, fish, cattle and sheep, hides, dressed stones, mountains of timber… General Wardian is franchised to keep it safe from calamitous irruptions and infestations of surplus flow.”
“Were you a dedicated glory officer?”
“I certainly was, when I had the chance to be.”
“Tell me about your duties as a barge commander.”
Lawrence baulked, instantly on the alert. Now he understood where The Captain was driving and why.
“We prevented threats from the sea, The Captain.”
“What threats? Pirates?”
“Surplus flow, The Captain.”
“So far north?”
“It was very rare. We were a precaution, no more.”
“You are a liar. The surplus flows north in large quantities. It must be prevented.
