Part 22 (2/2)

*Oh, Rain, stop pretending.' Uncle Mentira puts his hands on his thighs and bends to look me directly in the face, like he's about to wish me Happy Birthday or offer some family-type advice. *We know what you are. Suspected it, tested it, proved it. What we want to know now is . . . what are you capable of?'

What am I capable of?

Not polite speech. Not thoughts that make sense, that's for sure. I feel as if there are holes in my feet and all my blood is draining away. As if my bones are melting so only a sh.e.l.l remains, sitting in this white room looking like a person but completely hollow inside.

Somewhere outside the Festival is in full progress. Beyond these walls normal people are having normal lives in normal bodies.

Time neither flies nor drags, it ceases to exist. I can't think how to react or act.

*A kind of catatonia?' muses Uncle Mentira as needles jab into my skin and blood is sucked out. He pats me on the cheek. *It'll pa.s.s.'

I can't focus any more. Instead of the white laboratory I see white snow in the forest.

Uncle Mentira gives my cheek a harder slap now.

*Don't drift too far. I've got a story for you. Your neighbour used to read you stories, didn't she? Stupid woman didn't know how wise she was. What do the tales tell us? Once there were witches. That's what they were called before Aura could study them and give their afflictions a proper name and category. The head witch, the most abnormally evolved, lived on a lake in the forest. She grew old, or ill, or mutated; we don't yet have evidence to judge. She needed to pa.s.s her witch-infection on. Am I making sense yet? Getting through to you? Talking your language?'

His words evoke images of the dead-grey lake where I crashed. I see a hut in the water, raised up on wooden legs, all gnarled and k.n.o.bbled. I step across the still water and knock on the hut door. No one replies. I push open the door and smell what's inside a” age, weakness, goat-milk and garlic.

Welcome, Rain . . . comes a voice as old as stone and dark as the Eclipse.

*Wake up, Rain!'

A circle of Scrutiners forms a copse around me. They're so tall when I look up, like silver-bark trees. If they spread their arms birds could land on them. A bird stirs a” the corvil in my jacket.

*Ssh . . .' I warn it. *Ssh,' I warn the Scrutiners, who are consulting keypads and screens.

*Ah, you're back.' Uncle Mentira breaks connection and waves the Scrutiners away. *Sorry for the disorientation. We haven't yet figured out the correct dosage for keeping you docile but alert. Feybane hasn't attracted much scientific study until recently, so we're learning as we go.'

*I'm fine,' I croak. The words seem to come out one hour at a time. I'm about to add, *I want to go home,' but then I remember I haven't got a home. They turned on me. Turned me out. Don't want me any more.

Uncle Mentira crouches down to look me in the eye as he speaks. *We've been speculating about what it is you can do for us, Rain. Predictions are limited at the moment, with only Old Nation fey-tales as sources to go on, alongside reports of your behaviour since that initial crash in the Mora.s.s.'

I knew it wasn't paranoia. I knew I was being spied upon.

*Haze is full of stories. Full of lies.'

*Haze doesn't interest us very much,' says Uncle Mentira. *She was just a skivvy, learning conjuring tricks and keeping goats. She's had nothing useful to say about the old woman who kept her working in the forest, apart from fanciful notions about controlling light and dark. Presuming they are fanciful . . . ?'

For the first time there's an edge of uncertainty in his voice a” or is it fear? I don't care about his concerns. I'm wondering who's been making secret reports about me. Was it Reef? It had to be him. First his parents, now me. And he said I could trust him!

I tell Uncle Mentira that I fly planes. That I want to go back to Sea-Ways.

*Leave military tactics to the experts, Rain. Aura predicts the future by statistical probability, not superst.i.tious bowl-gazing in a bath-house. According to Aura Sea-Ways will fall. It's a lost cause. A Crux victory waiting to happen. Corona is far more important, more crucial. Corona is Aura's hub.'

*What about my friends?'

He shrugs. *Friends has become a rather inaccurate term for the people you once a.s.sociated with under false pretences. Still, the reports did say you were loyal. Young Reef Starzak noted repeatedly a” and admiringly a” how you gave no thought for your own safety if others were in danger. That has been a most useful piece of information. Which is why I brought this . . .'

Without blinking he produces a People's Number Five Glissom pistol from a pocket in his white coat.

*I'm not afraid of you.'

*I know.' Uncle Mentira connects briefly then goes to the single door set smoothly in the white walls. I notice there's no handle on the inside. I can also see there's nothing made of bioweave in the room. No flowers will grow here.

The door opens, just a little way.

Zoya slips through the gap. I'm guessing she found the banquet all right, because there's a stain of something on her tunic front and a crumb still lodged in the corner of her mouth. Funny to think I made this prediction back in the bath-house a” You get free run of a luxury banquet in Corona. It seemed so silly and irrelevant at the time. Now everything I foretold is coming true.

Uncle Mentira says, *Ah, here you are. Just in time. Come in.'

Zoya squints at all the lights. *I'm missing the Festival. Everybody's out there.'

*Not everyone.' Uncle Mentira nods towards me.

Zoya's surprise is genuine. *Pip! What . . . ?' Then she looks from me to her father. *I didn't think . . .'

*Of course not,' he says soothingly. *I don't expect you to. Your job is to do as you're told. Did you bring what I asked for?'

She nods, yes.

*Good. Safer to ask you to get it than risk taking some ourselves . . .'

My own Cousin Zoya.

*Confide in me,' she said. *Trust me,' she said. I should've known she'd have to betray me a” who'd blame her? Anything not to be different, not to stand out, not to disobey Aura. It's just like the vision in the bath-house basin of water a” one by one people I care about turn away from me in disgust. What's left?

Just me. Whoever a” whatever a” I am.

Little nodes connected to my wrists and scalp send signals to a scanner which scratches out lines on a screen nearby a” my blood pressure? Stress levels?

*Tense, isn't it?' says Uncle Mentira. He's got a curious gleam in his eye, rather like a corvil eyeing up a potential meal. *Believe me, I wouldn't resort to such untidy emotional blackmail if we really didn't need some answers soon. Proper scientific research takes time we just don't have.'

A voice from the forest rustles in my mind. An old woman warns, Rain . . . we haven't much time . . .

*Leave Zoya out of this. It's got nothing to do with her.'

*That's not what my trigger finger says,' replies Uncle Mentira calmly. He holds the pistol to Zoya's temple. She flinches and gives a little whimper, like a wolf cub would, pinned down by its parent. *I don't want to do this, Rain, do you understand that? My personal preferences do not include pointing a gun at my own daughter's head.'

*Can't you just let her go?'

*Can't you just give us a show? We need to know if you're worth all this attention.'

The scanner lines are getting longer and stronger. The air goes so still I think the posse of Scrutiners must be holding their collective breath.

*It's OK, Zoya,' I say, palms out as if to calm the whole room. *He isn't going to shoot.'

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