Memory

Poldarn nodded. 'So what's everybody else doing?'

'Standing about, mostly. I got pissed off and came on. Waste of time, if you ask me, the whole bloody thing.'

'No desperate panic, all hands on deck, that sort of thing?'

It seemed to take the man a while to figure out what Poldarn was trying to say. 'Don't reckon so,' he replied eventually. 'So if you're not feeling a hundred and ten per cent, I'd not bother going in if I were you. Most like you'd only get in the way.'

'Thanks,' Poldarn said graciously.

That still left him with the problem of finding something to do. He'd had quite enough of reading, given that as far as he was aware the only books in the whole camp were two copies of Concerning Various Matters. He wasn't wanted at work, which wasn't happening anyway. He wasn't hungry or tired, and judging by the way the man whose name he couldn't remember had reacted at the sight of him, he could forget about socialising, too. A leisurely walk round the inside of the perimeter fence would take him a quarter of an hour. That didn't really leave much.

He was seriously considering going back to the shed and getting back into bed when someone called out to him. He turned round, bracing himself for a similar reaction to the one he'd just received.

The newcomer was Spenno, the pattern-maker; and if he'd noticed anything different about Poldarn since the last time he'd seen him, he didn't show it. Poldarn had only spoken to him a dozen times since he'd been at Dui Chirra; but Spenno was acting as if he'd been looking for him.

'So you're up and about, then,' Spenno said. 'Feeling better?'

'More or less,' Poldarn replied. 'How's it going?'

'Isn't,' Spenno said. 'I keep telling them, whole lot's got to come down, says so in the book, but will they listen?

Hell as like. And they call themselves engineers. Whole lot of 'em between them couldn't peel a carrot.'

Poldarn shrugged. 'Must be pretty trying for you,' he said.

'You get used to it.' Spenno frowned, as if trying to remember what he'd been meaning to say. 'Anyhow,' he went on, 'I want your opinion about something, if you've got a moment.'

A moment; which doesn't exist in religion. 'Sure,' Poldarn said. 'But I don't imagine I can be much use to you. I'm just unskilled labour around here. Unless,' he said, remembering, 'it's a blacksmithing job.'

But Spenno shook his head. 'Nothing like that,' he said. 'No, it's rather more important than that. I need to know, you see, who's going to win the war.'

Poldarn looked at him. 'What war?' he asked.

Spenno didn't appear to have heard him. 'It's pretty fundamental, really,' he went on. 'I mean, here we are, making these bloody terrible things; once I've managed to get through to that clown Galand Dev, anyhow. But we'll get there in the end, no doubt about it. And then the question arises: once they're made and proved and finished and all, who're they going to get pointed at? Got to look at the whole picture, see. Otherwise I'm simply not doing my job.'

Spenno didn't look like he was drunk, or as if he'd been breathing in the fumes off the etching tank. 'I'm sorry,' Poldarn said cautiously, 'I don't know anything apart from what we were all told. You could ask Brigadier Muno, but I don't imagine-'

But Spenno smiled. 'Of course you know,' he said. 'I mean, it's why you're here, isn't it? You know, when you first showed up asking for a job, I couldn't figure for the life of me what you'd be wanting with an outfit that just made bells. Not your line at all. I thought, surely he'd be headed straight for Torcea, or else he'd have stayed out west, in the Bohec valley, where it all seemed to be happening. I couldn't imagine what it had to do with us-I mean eventually, yes, sooner or later it'd be here as well as everywhere else, but not yet, if you see what I mean. But anyway, you looked like you'd rather be left alone, and for crying out loud, it's not my place to tell you your job-I reckoned you had your reasons and you'd just get on with doing what you had to do. And then this all started; and so of course I knew, straight away; where else would you be? Which is why,' he went on with a gentle sigh, 'I haven't really bothered about this much before, since in the long run it's all a bit academic anyway. But like I said, you've got to look at the whole picture; and the way I figure it is, surely once it's all over and you've done your thing and everything's-well, you know; surely what a person did, you know, which side he was on in this war, whether he was one of the good guys, it's going to decide who makes it and who doesn't-afterwards, I mean. Assuming there is an afterwards, of course, and I know, everything'll be completely different, not like anything we can understand. But there'll be something, there's got to be, and I'm buggered if I'm going to lose out on my chance of that just because these Poldarn's Flute things got pointed at the wrong bunch of people. Now I've been assuming that because we're, well, the government, call it what you like, that we've got to be the good guys and whoever we smash to bits with these flute things must be the enemy, the bad people. But now we're so close, and suddenly it's all about to happen-well, you can't blame me for checking up, can you? It's just common sense, really, and it doesn't hurt to ask, just so as to be sure.'

'I'm very sorry,' Poldarn said quietly, 'I haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about.'

Spenno grinned. 'I know,' he said. 'You aren't allowed to say. I appreciate that; I mean, if you go around telling all and sundry, the whole thing falls flat on its face. But it's all right, I don't suppose anybody knows but me-well, maybe Chaplain Cleapho, after all he's head of religion, isn't he? And the monks, the ones you spared at Deymeson, they'd know, of course; and your priestess, her in the cart with you at Cric. But people don't know-especially now, when they won't be able to recognise you any more. And obviously, I won't breathe a word to a soul. So there's no harm in telling me, is there, Poldarn?'

It took some time to sink in. Then he replied, 'No, you're wrong. It's not like that at all. It was just a trick, a confidence trick, a scam. To cheat the people in the villages into giving us food. And we only did it the one time, for crying out loud.'

This time Spenno seemed just a little bit offended. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'That's fine. I understand. I suppose you can't go making exceptions, even for people you know. Must be hard enough as it is, in your position. But it's not like I was asking for, well, special treatment when the time comes, anything like that. I just wanted to know what's the right thing to do. No harm in that, surely? I mean, if I'm trying to do the fight thing, then aren't we both on the same side?' He grinned weakly. 'Or would that be telling, too?'

For some reason, Poldarn felt it was important that Spenno be made to understand. 'Please,' he said, 'you've got to believe me. It was all just pretending, to get money and food out of those people. And Copis, the priestess, she wasn't even-' He stopped. Wasn't even a real fraud didn't sound right, and he couldn't tell the truth about why she'd been sent with him, even assuming that he knew what the truth was. 'She was only pretending,' he said. 'Really, she'd been sent by the sword-monks, on some mission or other-'

'Well, of course,' Spenno said, now distinctly annoyed. 'Of course. They're in charge of religion, it's their responsibility, of course they'd choose the priestess. Look, obviously I've said the wrong thing, but I wasn't to know, was I? All I ask is, you won't hold it against me, right?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'You're all wrong about this,' he said. Then something occurred to him. 'But how did you know that was me?' he asked. 'Did you see us, at Cric?'

'No, of course not, I was here. But I recognised you.'

'How the hell could you do that? I've never been here before-' He stopped. 'At least, I don't think so. Had you seen me before-before I turned up here for work, I mean?'