18.2. Forty-Sixty Calder Farris

Gyde was having a conversation with someone at the top of the stairs outside their office. It was the Bronze from Saradena, the one who’d been talking about the dead Silver case in the cafeteria.

Pol froze, his hand on the rail at the bottom of the stairs. There was a second when he might have spun around and walked the other way, fled the Department of Monitors and Centalia, and never returned. But Gyde saw him and smiled and Pol’s hand went round around the banister and pulled himself upward because it was the most logical thing to do.

“We have an appointment this morning,” Gyde said pleasantly.

“What appointment?”

“A banned book expert. A Gold. He’s a collector.”

“A collector of banned books?”

“He’s a Gold. He can do what he likes.”

“Where did you find him?”

“I have my ways, classmate.” Gyde winked.

They drove across town to one of the great old imperial buildings. The Gold had a luxury suite overlooking Gorenten Square, including a balcony with primo seats for state parades. In the elevator Gyde asked, “Have you ever been in the home of a Gold before? No? It’s quite a lifestyle. But they’re very private, so don’t ask a lot of questions.”

Don’t ask a lot of questions. Pol almost laughed.

It turned out the Gold was an expert in rare books, not banned. And he was not old—perhaps thirty-five. Pol was surprised. All the Golds he’d seen on posters or heard on the radio were old, the councilmen of state, distinguished white-hairs. But of course, there had to be younger Golds as well, didn’t there? They didn’t reproduce much, the Golds. “To set an example for the lower classes” was the official line. “Because there’s only so much room at the top” was no doubt closer to the truth. This Gold’s penthouse was the most subtly lavish display of money Pol had ever seen—carpeting like an elaborate mosaic and furniture that was heavy and weighted and black.

And his wife… The Gold female floated through the room as though her body were made of the same insubstantial stuff as her gown. Her light blue eyes were rimmed with a darker shade that matched her temples, and her white-blond hair was coiled and stiffened into an elaborate headdress. Silver females were trained for combat. This female was different—delicate and soft, rare as an orchid. She appeared briefly to welcome them, then disappeared again like a dream. The book expert himself was not attractive. He had the requisite signs of class—blond hair and rich blue temples—but on a short and fleshy frame. He had bulging eyes.

“How can I serve the state?” Chancellor Tyches asked as they settled down in his library.

Gyde’s face was grave with concern. “Have you heard about the state terrorist who’s been writing messages on public buildings?”

“I’ve heard it mentioned.” Tyches settled back into his chair. He withdrew a Balsala smoke from a box on his desk and offered them each one. The expensive smoke tasted wonderful.

“His last was a pamphlet.” Gyde handed Chancellor Tyches a copy. “There are some curious ideas in it. I was hoping you might recognize his source.”

“Ah!” Chancellor Tyches sank back with an expression of complacent arrogance. He scanned the pages. “Mad.”

Pol leaned forward. “Do you really think so?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Why?”

“I think what we want to know,” Gyde interrupted smoothly, “is if you recognize any of the ideas in the pamphlet. I thought he might have gotten them from a banned book.”

“What things in particular?”

“I apologize; I’m being unclear. What I find odd is this reference to there being ‘aliens’ from other planets.”

“Um. I see. Yes, that is an odd idea. You know, I really admire the Silver class. Truly, I do.”

“Thank you, Chancellor.”

“What a tremendous service you do for the state. I admire your… sense of glory. It’s very dashing. As a young man I even wished I could be a warrior.”

Tyches and Gyde chuckled gently over the na"Ivet'e of this.

“Did you enjoy your upbringing?”

“…Of course, Chancellor Tyches.” Pol had never seen Gyde flustered before.

Tyches’s eyes moved to Pol.

“Certainly,” Pol agreed. There must have been something unexpected in his eyes, for Tyches forgot Pol was inconsequential. Their gaze locked. Pol wanted to look away but feared it would reveal too much. He held it, smiled.

“You must forgive my curiosity, but I so rarely meet Silvers.”

“It’s our pleasure to tell you anything you like, Chancellor.” Gyde had recovered himself. Now his tone indicated that they would be at the chancellor’s disposal for hours if that’s what he wanted, tell him every intimate detail he might want to know: how they groomed their teeth, what it felt like when they shat.

“Well, never mind.” Tyches lost interest. “Let me think.”

Gyde smoked his Balsala halfway down and put it out in a dish on the desk. Pol reluctantly put his out as well. He immediately wished he could light another.

“What I tell you does not leave this room,” Tyches said slowly. “And it will have to go on your records that you’ve heard this.”

“We are in your hands.”

“Very well. There are banned books which theorize that there are… other suns and planets, up among the stars.”

Pol felt his heart quicken. The Gold was lying. He knew very well, he knew, there were other solar systems out there. Apparently the state had decided that Silvers had no need of that knowledge. But the Golds, they had been taught the truth about the universe—the truth that he, Pol, also knew.

“Could these books be obtained by a Bronze?” Gyde asked.

“Nooo,” Tyches said thoughtfully. “The two books I know of are more… technical writings, probably not comprehensible to most people. I have just thought of something else, though…”

He went to a glossy black cabinet and unlocked it with a small key. Inside were neat stacks of thick-papered files. He locked the cabinet again, bringing one of the files back to his desk. He turned over pages of scribbled writing.

“There is a banned book called Heavenly Mysteries. Occult-religio trash. It claims there are all sorts of other worlds inhabited by strange creatures, some of them intelligent.” Tyches closed the file, satisfied. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that was your terrorist’s source.”

Gyde wrote the title in his notebook. “Do you have any idea where someone might have access to that book?”

“The city of Madamar. That’s where the book was found, anyway. Three copies were confiscated years ago.”

“Is there any chance we could see the book itself?” Pol asked.

Chancellor Tyches turned his bulging eyes to Pol. There was contempt in them. “That’s why the books are banned. No one is supposed to read them.”

“That’s fine, Chancellor Tyches,” Gyde said quickly.

“I don’t have the book. As I said, it’s occult-religio trash. But even if I did, I couldn’t let you see it.”

“We don’t need to see it, thank you,” Gyde said with humility.

Pol bowed his head apologetically. “I’m sorry. Of course you’re right, Chancellor Tyches.”

In the car, Gyde’s silence was chilling.

“They let us into the Archives to do research for cases,” Pol said. “I thought…”

“Are you out of your scarping mind? Do you really think they let you see anything in the Archives other than what they want you to see?”

The words dried up on Pol’s tongue. He felt suspended all of a sudden, tricked into taking a false step out over nothingness. He should never have said anything, not one word. He looked out the window.

“By the blood, Pol, sometimes I wonder where you’ve been all your life!”

Pol studied the passing buildings.

Gyde cleared his throat: “Where did you serve?”

“Sachiasus, Ephiphron, Mona Res,” Pol regurgitated names from Pol 137’s file, keeping his voice even.

“I had friends in Ephiphron. I heard it was cold there.”

Pol gave him a glare, a glare that might be read as either “of course it was cold” or “cold—are you crazy?” and certainly meant “get off my scarping back.”

The car felt stifling. Pol tried to think. Was Gyde suspicious? If he was, could Pol take him out? Even if he succeeded in killing Gyde and getting away with it, what then? There was still that upcoming physical. He would have to run. Run where?

But Gyde didn’t continue to question him. Instead, he began talking about a battle he’d been in, the Great Battle, the Battle of Cross-Plain.

“It was cold there, I can tell you. In the morning there were icicles hanging from the guns. It was the worst battle I ever saw, in twenty-five years of combat.”

“I’ve heard about it. What was it like?” Pol didn’t give a scarp about the Battle of Cross-Plain, but he was happy to let Gyde talk about himself, fill up the silence.

“I was an assistant to the commander. He made me stick close to him; that’s the only reason I survived. Entire units were decimated.” Gyde paused. “When we set up trophy we didn’t have enough men left to bury the dead. There were corpses stretched out for miles. We had to call a truce to deal with it. For two days we worked side by side with the enemy making bonfires of the bodies. You’d think fighting would have broken out, but there wasn’t a single incident. There were too many dead all around us already. We didn’t have the stomach for battle.”

“It sounds like a great glory.”

“It was. I earned a hundred merits for that battle.”

Pol stared at him in astonishment. “A hundred?”

“There were so few survivors,” Gyde said with a roguish wink and a smile.

They drove on quietly for a while. Pol pictured the battle in his mind, or tried to. He hadn’t been at that battle, he was sure, though he might have been. It had been fifteen years ago, and he had been old enough to fight if he’d really been a Silver. He didn’t think he’d been there, not even on the enemy side. But he did remember being in combat, vaguely. He got a brief impression of a desert and tanks. Desert?

“My best classmate from childhood was wounded,” Gyde said casually. “The femur in his right leg was shattered. I visited him in the infirmary. I could see, looking at it, that it would never be right. He wouldn’t be able to keep the leg. He knew it, too.”

There was something strange in Gyde’s voice. Pol turned to look at him.

“I said good-bye to him one day, and the next day when I went back, his bed was empty.” Gyde looked in the rearview mirror, then glanced over into his passenger’s eyes. “A warrior exists to serve the state, and when he can no longer serve…”

Pol understood; at last he understood Gyde’s insinuations about Silver retirement. He looked at Gyde’s clenched jaw and, with a chill of horror, he knew.

It must be true. If anyone would know such a thing, it would be Gyde.

“The state rewards service,” Pol said.

“Long live the state,” replied Gyde.