Blenner looked at him with poorly disguised contempt.
‘We’re good, Vaynom,’ said Meryn. ‘For now. But she’ll come back to both of us too. More questions. So keep the story straight and keep it simple.’
Blenner rose to his feet. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it. Throne knows, I don’t want to lose what I have. And forget a shit-duty posting or a demotion. This? It’d be a headshot for me.’
He looked at Meryn.
‘But Luna’s good. She’s got a ferocious eye for detail,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she can catch anything, but if she does–’
‘We stick to the story.’
‘And live with the guilt? I’ve lived with shame most of my career, Flyn, one way or another. But guilt? Guilt this heavy?’
‘Take another pill, Blenner,’ said Meryn.
‘Don’t you just ever want to let it go?’ Blenner asked. ‘No matter the consequences, just let it all out? Get that weight off you?’
‘No,’ said Meryn. ‘Because I’m not a fething idiot.’
Blenner smiled sadly. ‘No, I don’t suppose you are.’
‘Are you going to crack on me?’ asked Meryn. ‘You sound like a coward who’s close to giving up. But then, you always have. You suddenly going to grow a fething spine and face the music?’
Blenner shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Actually, I’m not worried about me. It’s you that bothers me.’
‘Me?’
‘You shift stories like you change clothes, and you’ve got the wit to sell them too,’ said Blenner. ‘I think if it gets close, you’d throw me under the wheels to save yourself. Feth, you did it to that idiot Wilder. Whatever it takes to cover your arse. Throne, I can imagine it.’
Blenner put on an earnest but wheedling voice.
‘“It was all Blenner’s plan. We had to go along with it because he’s a commissar. He threatened us with the brute force of the Prefectus. Summary execution if we didn’t go along with him. And he’s hooked on pills too. I was too afraid to speak up, sir, but I need to clear my conscience now…”’
Blenner smiled at Meryn.
‘I can hear you doing it. Blinking those wide, handsome eyes. I mean, no one likes you, Meryn, but they all just think you’re a snake. A self-serving creep. They have no idea how truly toxic you are.’
‘And they won’t,’ said Meryn. ‘Will they?’
‘No,’ said Blenner. He put his cap back on. ‘I’ll keep to the story. But you keep leaning on me, I might decide the guilt and all that shit just isn’t worth it.’
He patted Meryn on the shoulder.
‘Feth,’ he grinned, ‘maybe I am growing a spine after all. How about that?’
Luna Fazekiel had a small room at the north end of the undercroft. Just enough space for a cot and a folding desk. She had the picts laid out there, all the images she’d captured on site at Low Keen. It was a damned shame they hadn’t been able to preserve the scene, and an exam of the bodies brought back from Low Keen – Gendler, Wilder and Ezra – had revealed nothing useful.
Low Keen. The very thought of that place made her tense. Aside from the Gendler case, there had been the incident with Daur’s wife and the girl, Yoncy. Fazekiel had been one of the first on the scene. Something had torn bodies apart. Some monster.
She’d heard it too. She’d heard the shrieking sound it made. Fazekiel was a strong soldier, but that sound had shaken her to an extent that troubled her. It had been more than a hazard – they faced those all the time. It had stirred some primal response in her.
She hadn’t slept. The memory of the shrieking sound was playing on her nerves, and she was afraid it might unlock some of the old anxieties she had spent so many years learning to contain and control.
The unknown made her worry. Data comforted her. Solid facts gave her a way to understand the world and retain agency. The Gendler case was reassuring. It helped take her mind off the mysteries she couldn’t address.
She sat down, and brushed invisible dust off the lip of the desk. The picts were telling her nothing. There was no inconsistency of evidence, no clash of accounts. She’d run each interview again – Merity, Blenner, Meryn, Dalin – perhaps twice more, to see if anything shook loose. But she was already sure how her report would run. The data upheld the story Meryn and Blenner had given.
The overhead lamps flickered.
Fazekiel sighed. She wished she’d brought some food with her from the canteen. That was the second time in two days she’d forgotten to eat.
The lights flickered again.
She stood up to fiddle with the lumen element and halted. She suddenly had a really uncomfortable feeling, as though something was scratching at her eardrums and her sinuses.
She coughed and tried to clear her nose. Probably just the damp down in the undercroft getting to her–
The lights went out.
Blackness. The lights didn’t flicker back on. She groped her way to the door, and peered out. The hallway was pitch black too. She could hear voices from other chambers raised in complaint.
The damn circuit fault had finally become terminal.
She fumbled her way back to her desk, reached down, and fished her stablight from her kit pack. It wouldn’t switch on. She slapped it against her gloved palm and the beam speared into life, lighting a frost-blue disc on the far wall. She panned the beam around quickly. Her ear drums itched again.
The beam passed over the open doorway. For a second, it starkly lit a face staring in at her.
Fazekiel jumped in surprise.
She played the beam back.
Yoncy stood in the doorway, hands at her sides, her face expressionless. She was staring right at Fazekiel.
‘Yoncy, you scared the shit out of me,’ Fazekiel said.
The girl didn’t answer. She stared at Fazekiel for another few seconds, then just turned and walked away.
Fazekiel got up quickly, stumbling slightly against her chair.
‘Yoncy?’
She reached the doorway, and stepped out into the hallway. More voices of protest and complaint were echoing through the undercroft. The scratchy sensation in her ears was worse. She played the beam to the left, then to the right. There was no one there.
‘Yoncy?’
She started to move to her left. The overhead lights suddenly buzzed and came back on. Alarms whooped for a second, then cut off. Fazekiel blinked at the glare.
Meryn stood a few metres away, wincing in the light.
‘Captain,’ she said.
‘Oh, ma’am. I… I was just looking to see what had happened to the lights.’
‘With your silver out?’
Meryn looked down, He was holding his warknife.
‘Well, to be honest, I thought I heard something,’ he said.
‘Did you see Yoncy?’
‘What? No,’ said Meryn. He rubbed at his left ear.
‘You feel that?’ asked Fazekiel.
‘What?’
‘In your ears. An itch.’
He nodded.
‘It reminds me of–’
She stopped short. She could feel the anxiety rising inside her and quickly focused on the mental coping strategies she’d been taught to help her deal with her obsessive nature. She shut the anxiety down.
‘Of what?’ said Meryn, looking at her warily.
‘Go and get Baskevyl or Kolea.’
‘Why?’ Meryn asked.
‘Something’s not right,’ said Fazekiel.
‘What are you going to–’
‘I’m going to find Yoncy. She was right here and she’s probably scared. Go and get Baskevyl. Now, please.’
Meryn sheathed his warknife and hurried away.
‘Advise him amber status!’ she called after him.
In the wardroom, the lights fizzled back on in a brief squeal of alarms. Baskevyl was standing with a bottle in his hand.