echoing space floored with dark marble and occupied by the usual contingent of Capidaran bureaucrats and businessmen hurrying back and forth. As was apparently standard for Capidaran public spaces, it was too cold in the building for Tremaine to bother leaving her coat at the cloakroom and Ilias kept his as well.
The corporal led them up the back stairs to the floor of the rather cramped and dingy offices given over to the Rienish authorities. Strangely dressed Rienish and Syprians were a more familiar sight here, and a couple of Capidaran naval officers and a woman secretary Tremaine recognized from the various meetings she had attended actually said hello to her. They reached Averi’s area, where there were more familiar faces and even a few officers Tremaine knew in passing from the Ravenna, most contemplating some naval charts and captured Gardier maps tacked up on the wall.
Averi appeared almost immediately out of the back room, greeting them brusquely with, “I heard about the experiment last night. You were lucky you didn’t kill yourselves, going through a gate into some unknown place.” Colonel Averi was the highest-ranking Rienish army officer in Capidara; if there were others who had taken evacuation transports, none had made it here. He was an older man, with a grim face and thinning dark hair. He and Tremaine had had their problems when they first met, but they had managed to achieve an almost accommodating working relationship. Capistown hadn’t improved Averi’s health any either; he still looked thin, pale and more like he should be lying in a hospital bed than planning an attack on Ile-Rien’s occupied coast.
Tremaine nudged Ilias, who was craning his neck to see the charts, saying pointedly, “He’s talking to you.”
“What?” He looked startled, then shrugged, telling Averi in Rienish, “We had to find where it went. It’s lucky every time we go through and don’t die.”
Averi didn’t seem satisfied with this answer, but he didn’t pursue it either, just shaking his head and gesturing for them to follow him back to the inner room.
It was more private but not any better appointed, with wooden filing cabinets and a table covered with papers, most weighed down by a large book of standard nautical charts. “I’ve had Balin brought here from the cells in the Magistrates’ Court,” he said. “There’s a room we use on this floor for questioning.”
“Why did you want me to talk to her?” Tremaine asked, looking distractedly around for a place to sit and seeing there wasn’t one; the straight-backed chairs all seemed to be a vital part of some arcane filing system.
“I wanted to confront Balin with someone who has been to the Gardier world. I know she’s become increasingly uneasy with our new knowledge of the Gardier—the Aelin.” Averi glanced at Tremaine with a thin smile. “I know she wasn’t pleased the first time one of us was able to speak to her in her own language, but you should have seen her face when we asked her about the Liaisons.”
Tremaine nodded. “Liaison” was the closest the Rienish could come to the Gardier word for the men who had had small crystals implanted in their bodies, who passed along orders from the Gardier’s upper echelons. Though Nicholas had lived among them so long, he had never been able to find out just who the Liaisons were liaising with, or why. “And you think she’s some kind of observer, sent to spy on the other Gardier by Command or Science or whichever.”
“Yes. There’s apparently a deep distrust between the Command and Science classes.” Averi picked up a sheaf of papers, frowning absently. “She can write and read, which makes her too well educated for their Service class.”
They had found out so much about the Gardier in such a relatively short time, going from knowing next to nothing, not even what they called themselves, to actually visiting their world and one of their cities, stealing a new prototype
The corporal led them up the back stairs to the floor of the rather cramped and dingy offices given over to the Rienish authorities. Strangely dressed Rienish and Syprians were a more familiar sight here, and a couple of Capidaran naval officers and a woman secretary Tremaine recognized from the various meetings she had attended actually said hello to her. They reached Averi’s area, where there were more familiar faces and even a few officers Tremaine knew in passing from the Ravenna, most contemplating some naval charts and captured Gardier maps tacked up on the wall.
Averi appeared almost immediately out of the back room, greeting them brusquely with, “I heard about the experiment last night. You were lucky you didn’t kill yourselves, going through a gate into some unknown place.” Colonel Averi was the highest-ranking Rienish army officer in Capidara; if there were others who had taken evacuation transports, none had made it here. He was an older man, with a grim face and thinning dark hair. He and Tremaine had had their problems when they first met, but they had managed to achieve an almost accommodating working relationship. Capistown hadn’t improved Averi’s health any either; he still looked thin, pale and more like he should be lying in a hospital bed than planning an attack on Ile-Rien’s occupied coast.
Tremaine nudged Ilias, who was craning his neck to see the charts, saying pointedly, “He’s talking to you.”
“What?” He looked startled, then shrugged, telling Averi in Rienish, “We had to find where it went. It’s lucky every time we go through and don’t die.”
Averi didn’t seem satisfied with this answer, but he didn’t pursue it either, just shaking his head and gesturing for them to follow him back to the inner room.
It was more private but not any better appointed, with wooden filing cabinets and a table covered with papers, most weighed down by a large book of standard nautical charts. “I’ve had Balin brought here from the cells in the Magistrates’ Court,” he said. “There’s a room we use on this floor for questioning.”
“Why did you want me to talk to her?” Tremaine asked, looking distractedly around for a place to sit and seeing there wasn’t one; the straight-backed chairs all seemed to be a vital part of some arcane filing system.
“I wanted to confront Balin with someone who has been to the Gardier world. I know she’s become increasingly uneasy with our new knowledge of the Gardier—the Aelin.” Averi glanced at Tremaine with a thin smile. “I know she wasn’t pleased the first time one of us was able to speak to her in her own language, but you should have seen her face when we asked her about the Liaisons.”
Tremaine nodded. “Liaison” was the closest the Rienish could come to the Gardier word for the men who had had small crystals implanted in their bodies, who passed along orders from the Gardier’s upper echelons. Though Nicholas had lived among them so long, he had never been able to find out just who the Liaisons were liaising with, or why. “And you think she’s some kind of observer, sent to spy on the other Gardier by Command or Science or whichever.”
“Yes. There’s apparently a deep distrust between the Command and Science classes.” Averi picked up a sheaf of papers, frowning absently. “She can write and read, which makes her too well educated for their Service class.”
They had found out so much about the Gardier in such a relatively short time, going from knowing next to nothing, not even what they called themselves, to actually visiting their world and one of their cities, stealing a new prototype
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