Fire in the Sky

2

“You’ve come to make trouble, haven’t you.” Parlach was a broad strong woman a little younger than Deдnin, with a round face, pouty lips and pale blue eyes. Bland blue eyes, mouth falling into a meaningless smile when she finished speaking.

Deдnin looked at her a long moment. “Yes,” she said finally and waited for a response.

“Good. Think you can keep it away from the House?”

“Likely.”

“Good. What you want?”

“For the moment, information. Discreetly gathered. The inside workings of the mesuch fort.”

“Hm. Time limit?”

“No.”

“Good. I’m shamed to say I don’t have many I trust who have the brains to do that work and not get caught at it.”

“Not getting caught is more important than the information.”

“I can see that. Someone else you ought to bring m. Sifaed. She works the back room at Farkli’s lubbot. Gets more techs than we do, ours is mostly Drudges, and one of her steadies is the Chav who runs the Drudges.”

“She tied to the lubbot or does she get out?”

“After she and the other women clean the place, she’s mostly loose till noon. I could set up a meet if you want. Best not here. She goes walking round the edges of the Fen when she needs to get away from the mesuch, that’s as good a place as any. You know what she looks like?”

“No.”

“Big woman, not fat, just heavy. Taller than most. Wide shoulders, wide hips, light brown hair with a lot of red in it, fine flyaway stuff that kinks into tight curls with the least damp in the air. She was a teacher back before the mesuch came, bonded like they do with a Keteng teacher, a Denchok called Bolabel. Mesuch killed xe when they broke up the Dumel. Like they did all the Keteng they saw about.”

“I see. Yes, set up a meet two days on, tell her I’ll watch her backtrail, make sure she’s clear before I show. I’ll call her bond’s name to show her it’s me.”

“You sure you want to do that?”

“Yes. How she handles it will tell me things I need to know.”

Sifaed was grim-faced, eyes hooded, anger in the set of her shoulders as she stepped into the shadow under the trees and stood waiting for Danin to show herself.

“Bolabel,” Deдnin said quietly, then stepped from behind a tree. “How long do you have?”

“That isn’t the question. Convince me I should stay.”

“We’ve quit trying to drive them off. We’re going for the head now. Get that and the body dies.”

“How?” There was an edge to her voice. “You didn’t see what happened here when they came. You weren’t here. I’d remember you. All the faces are graved in my head, everyone, dead and alive. I’ve searched for a way, Chel Dй have I searched. You can’t get in there and I don’t care how big an army you can get together, you won’t even get close. They’ll kill you faster than my father mowed a hayfield.”

“So we just have to be cleverer than they are. What do you know about inside that fort?” Deдnin pulled a pad from a pocket in her shirt, took a pencil from its loop and waited.

Sifaed’s eyes went distant She moved over to the tree, lowered herself onto one of the knobby root knees and scowled at the reedy grass growing round her feet. After a short silence, she said, “One of my regulars is the Muck of the Dirtmen. That’s what they call them that grow food for the rest. Hunh! Not that they actually touch dirt, that’s for Drudges. Ragnal, his name is. Touchy. Full of resentments. You know the kind. Every time someone looks at him, he turns it into a slight. His baby brother was in an airwagon that went down. Crashed. He blames the Muck in charge of equipment, says he’s so corrupt, he’d get rid of all his workers if he could and eat their pay. He says Hunnar, that’s the High Muck of Mucks, he got this job because his wife is important, that he’s messed up a couple of other times and this is his last chance before he’s hauled home and put out to pasture. And that most of the other techish Mucks are the same sort, rejects put together because no one else will have them.”

“Hm. You said he’s a resentful man.”

“Cha oy, but he’s not the only one grumbling at the way things are run, so I suspect it’s close to true. Let’s see. The Drudges live in Dordan-that-was. Seven male, six female. Was more, but guards took four off and that was the last anyone saw of them. Inside the fort, maybe fifty guards. They go on staggered duty, fifteen at a time, two on the High Muck’s workcenter, another two on duty in his quarters. They like that duty, it’s just watching the clean Drudge do her work, then sampling the Muck’s drink stock and poking through his picture stuff. What they hate is walking the walls and punching in at the call stations. It’s boring and they can’t slack there. There’ll be one or two in the watch towers and four walking the walls. The rest off duty, or wherever the High Muck says, lately they’ve been hitting the Sleeping Grounds, bringing in Guardians. Right now, he’s got around ten of them out looking for Denchok, don’t know why, guards don’t either, they’re grumbling because it messes up the schedule. Um. Don’t know how many techs exactly, but you folks have whittled them down by at least a dozen. Four kinds, mining, med, communications, and repair. I’ve counted round thirty at Farkli’s, probably more than that. Four Mucks under Hunnar. Never see those. Um. Some support staff for day to day business the Mucks won’t mess their hands with. Borrow that pencil and pad?”

Sifaed turned to a clean page and drew a square. She frowned at it a moment, then started filling in the square with smaller squares and numbering these. When she finished, she wrote the numbers on the facing page with a note beside each number, then handed the pad back. “Far as I know, that’s how things are arranged. Those Chave go on and on like drunks on a talking jag when they’re with me. Cha oy, I admit I encourage them, you know why.” She looked at the pad in Deдnin’s hand. “I can’t see what use any of that is. You’re not going to get in there. Nobody gets in there except Chave.”

Deдnin slipped the pencil into its loop and tucked the pad away again. “We’ll let you know when we figure it out. Take care, Sifaed. And don’t push things, hm?”

Sifaed nodded. “I hear. Chel Dй grant the time be soon.”