Context by John Meaney Page B

as it slipped from the
stevedore’s grasp and bounced out of reach.
     
    It was the cargo Tom had
disturbed, coming to life now where the warmth was greater: hundreds of
frogglies, each one black and round with a single yellow eye, a pair of springy
legs—and a dislike of being roughly handled.
     
    Off to one side, two medics were
working on the injured courier. He lay on a blue emergency pallet, eyes closed
as they fitted an amber cast to his shattered arm.
     
    ‘Friggin’ stokhastikos!’
     
    One of the men tripped, caught
off balance by a froggly underfoot. He fell heavily onto the flagstones, and
the two frogglies he had been holding bounced free.
     
    ‘This is your fault,’ the foreman
said, trying to hold in his laughter. His big shoulders shook.
     
    ‘Sorry.’ Tom could not help
grinning.
     
    Two more men entered the dock,
and Tom recognized them both.
     
    What are you doing here?
     
    It made reasonable sense that
Xyenquil should be involved in a medical case, come to see the injured courier.
But he was accompanied by a blond man wearing a violet tunic and burgundy
cloak, with an amber ovoid inset on his left cheek: Ralkin Velsivith. News
travelled fast.
     
    A froggly bounded across Tom’s
path as he made his way towards them.
     
    ‘My Lord.’ Velsivith gave an
abbreviated bow. ‘Exactly what happened to him?’
     
    ‘I’m not exactly sure,’
said Tom.
     
    The words roused the courier, who
looked up from the pallet. Half a dozen frogglies were sitting on his chest.
But he stared at Velsivith, taking in the twin daggers at his hips, the
unmistakable security officer demeanour—
     
    ‘No!’ Xyenquil dropped to the man’s
side, fumbling for a medi-strip.
     
    The courier’s eyes rolled up in
their sockets —
     
    Sweet Fate.
     
    — and his body gave one great
spasmodic twitch, then lay still.
     
    ‘Destiny!’
     
    Thanatotrope.
     
    ‘Another suicide.’
     
    Velsivith stared at Tom.
     
    ‘I don’t—’
     
    But Xyenquil was running a scan
over the courier’s corpse, and when he looked up it was almost with relief.
     
    ‘An ordinary thanatotrope, if
that makes sense.’ He shrugged. ‘Just a suicide implant. No additional
features, I’d say, unlike Captain Strelsthorm’s ... Well. But whoever he was’—nodding
towards Velsivith—‘he chose death rather than your custody, Lieutenant.’
     
    Velsivith turned away then, but
for one extraordinary moment Tom could have sworn that it was tears that caused
the lieutenant’s eyes to glisten: a strange liquid regret which was totally
incongruous on a hardened intelligence officer.
     
    Particularly one who worked for
an organization which had the safety of the wealthy Aurineate Grand’aume as its
prime remit, and the implicit authority, Tom was sure, to carry out its work in
any fashion necessary.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    14

    NULAPEIRON
AD 3418

     
     
    Creamy
jade, carved opalescent panels which cast their own diffuse light—for an
interrogation chamber, it showed a great deal of style.
     
    ‘If I’d wanted to kill him’—Tom
sat down on a low jade bench, facing Velsivith—‘I wouldn’t have carried him to
safety. I could’ve drowned.’
     
    ‘So you were friends.’ With a
fingernail Velsivith tapped the ovoid in his cheek. ‘Or merely colleagues?’
     
    ‘I’d never seen him before.’
     
    ‘So you said.’
     
    Tom tried to keep calm. This was
standard technique, nothing more. Nothing personal.
     
    But Velsivith’s attitude had
changed, covering any evidence of regret and replacing it with impersonal
efficiency, as though he were under scrutiny as much as Tom.
     
    ‘I’ve nothing to hide.’ Tom
shrugged.
     
    Velsivith reached inside his
cloak, pulled out something.
     
    A bluemetal poignard, sheathed.
     
    Searched my quarters. Bad sign.
     
    ‘Somebody gave it to me.’ Tom
shook his head, exasperated. ‘A vassal. With no message.’
     
    ‘And?’
     
    ‘And nothing.’
     
    Did the Kilware