‘My mother is persistent and ambitious. Very ambitious. She cites continuity of bloodline, and her connection to the People’s Hero who saved the hive from doom. She may carry the popular vote, despite her sex. Now, the city knows she has a child by Gaunt, the offspring of the hive saviour. So, in the absence of a direct male heir, the most elegant compromise to effect a popular succession would be to skip a generation. To make the child the new lord. For my mother to step aside, and become the Lady Dowager. For the son to succeed. That would be a big deal. It would strengthen House Chass’ hold on power immensely. For Vervunhive to inherit a ruler who is both House Chass and the bloodline of the People’s Hero.’
‘But no one knows that child is a girl?’
‘No one,’ she said.
Away in the distance, in the direction of Zarakppan, the muffled thump of an artillery bombardment or a saturation bombing began to roll, like faraway thunder or the quiver of heavy metal sheets. A smudge of black smoke smeared the horizon.
‘My mother is ambitious,’ said Felyx. ‘She wants power for herself. And she can’t accede to the demands to step aside anyway, because that means admitting her child is another female. So she sent me away.’
‘Just like that?’
‘You really don’t understand hive politics, do you? By sending me away, my mother makes herself the only candidate for succession. She avoids the issue of standing aside, and secures absolute primogeniture, which suits her ambition, no matter the political fight that might present to her. If I had stayed, the issue of my succession would have become a focus, and my gender would have been revealed. It would have weakened House Chass even more. There would have been no advantage to skipping, and there would have been, further, the prospect of an all-female succession. A woman followed by a woman. That would be too much for the traditionalists to bear. House Chass would have been done, then and there.’
‘So she sent you away?’
‘She sent me away.’
‘So she could become queen?’
‘It’s not a queen. It’s… head of the House.’
‘She doesn’t sound like a very nice woman,’ said Dalin.
‘She’s not. She’s a political animal. I respect her and loathe her for that in equal measure. I honestly wanted to find my father. I thought he’d be the better parent.’
‘And he’s not?’
‘How do you think he’s doing so far?’
Dalin swung his feet and shrugged.
‘He’s a great man.’
‘He’s a great soldier,’ said Felyx. ‘He’s no father. Except, ironically, to the Ghosts.’
Dalin ran his tongue around his teeth and thought for a moment.
‘We should tell him,’ he said.
‘No!’
‘My mother, then?’
‘Are you trying to be stupid?’
‘Then Doctor Curth. Curth can be trusted. Doesn’t she even know?’
‘I have studiously avoided all medicae exams,’ she said. She paused. ‘The prospect of lice is a worry.’
‘You’re on the front line. What if you’re injured? They’ll find out. That’s no way to find out!’
‘You will keep my secret, Dalin Criid. You will swear this to me.’
She looked at him fiercely. She was not asking. It was the look of a person who had been raised to expect complete obedience.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Verghast high echelon may be a misogynistic mess… which, I have to say, comes as a surprise given how many female soldiers it has raised. Like my mother.’
‘By necessity,’ she scoffed, ‘and because it is the only sphere of power in which a Verghastite woman may flourish. The war allowed women to show their strength. It is an empowering moment against the traditional patriarchy that my dear mother is using to the full extent to secure her position. It also factored into her decision regarding me. If I was sent out after my illustrious father, and served with him, and won rank and glory, then I could return and succeed her, and it wouldn’t matter if I was a man or a woman. Because glory in war is a currency that all Verghastites understand. So she had the juvenaticists accelerate my growth and packed me off.’
In the distance, the thunder of the bombing had grown more intense.
‘My point is,’ said Dalin, ‘you don’t need to hide here. The Ghosts will accept you for who you are. There’ll be no prejudice like there is in your home hive.’
‘Word would get back to Verghast, and that would undermine her carefully laid plans,’ Felyx said.
‘I think you should tell someone,’ he said.
‘I think you should tell no one,’ she replied.
There was silence between them for a while.
‘What do I call you?’ he asked.
‘Felyx,’ she said. ‘Or Chass, as you do.’
‘What’s your real name?’
‘Meritous Felyx Chass. Merity Chass. After my mother. But my name is employed artfully to disguise the gender.’
Dalin heard someone behind him. He turned sharply.
‘What are you doing out here, Dal?’ asked Yoncy.
‘Yoncy!’ Dalin jumped down off the wall.
Yoncy scratched at her bald scalp. She looked thinner and older without the little girl pigtails. Her smock dress seemed more like the tunic of a prepubescent boy. She looked awkward, but oddly more beautiful than she had done as a pig-tailed child.
‘Mumma cut my hair off, Dal,’ she said.
‘How long has she been there?’ Felyx asked, jumping off the wall in alarm.
‘She cut my hair off because of the lice,’ said Yoncy. ‘The itchy lice. She cut off all my tails.’
‘How long has she been there?’ Felyx repeated. ‘What did she hear? Dalin?’
‘What were you talking about?’ Yoncy asked.
‘Oh, just things,’ said Dalin.
‘Were you talking about Papa Gaunt?’
‘Yes,’ said Felyx, warily.
‘He is milignant commander now,’ she said. ‘They said so.’
‘That’s right,’ said Felyx. ‘My great father, greater by the hour.’
Yoncy cocked her starkly shaved head, and looked at Felyx with big eyes.
‘He’s your papa too? Papa Gaunt is?’
‘He’s my father, yes.’
Yoncy frowned and thought.
‘What else were you talking about?’ she asked. ‘Who’s Merity?’
Laksheema led them through to the large workspaces adjoining her panelled office. Grae followed. The workspaces were several joined chambers, lined with examination benches over which hung glass projection screens. Ordo tech-savants bowed to Laksheema, before turning back to their diligent examinations.
Laksheema had brought a small silver cyberskull from her desk. She set it, and then released it into the air as if she were letting slip a dove. It rose and hovered over her shoulder. They all immediately felt a slight prickling sensation. The drone was generating a clandestine jamming field around them.
‘The stones are the chief items of interest,’ said Laksheema. She clicked an actuator wand, and images of the stones appeared on the hanging protection plates. Close up views, both back and front, in high resolution. Domor looked at them and shuddered.
‘I understand the asset thought these especially significant?’ she said.
‘That’s my understanding,’ said Fazekiel.
‘Did he say why?’
‘Neither Fazekiel nor I were present at the time of recovery,’ said Baskevyl.
‘I was,’ said Domor. ‘I was part of Strike Beta that went in with Gaunt, and made the recovery. We went into that foul fething place. It was like animals lived there, but Mabbon, he called it a college.’
‘Mabbon?’ asked Grae.
‘The “asset”,’ Domor replied, surly.