Part 14 (1/2)

Praeda spotted Che and hurried over. Her facade of calm had cracked, revealing a scholarly fire in her eyes. 'Che, you've got to come and see this,' she rushed out, almost falling over the words.

'What? What's happened?'

'Nothing's happened,' said Praeda. 'It's just ... It's incredible, really remarkable. Come with me ... No, wait, come here.' She caught Che's hand and tugged her towards the fountain. 'Do you see? Do you?'

'I see a fountain,' replied Che slowly, watching the water bubble up between the stones and subside again. 'Praeda, please just be more clear.'

'Think, Che,' Praeda insisted. 'Yes, it's a fountain, but how do fountains work?'

'I ...' I no longer know I no longer know, and she could not say it.

Praeda shook her head impatiently. 'Did you a.s.sume this was just a natural spring or something? Che, think! We're above the level of the river here.'

Che vaguely understood what she meant, but that knowledge was dim and distant. 'Just get to the point,' she demanded, to cover up.

'The point is ... follow me,' Praeda dragged her across the room to the little servants' door she had recently come in through.

'This is ... rude,' Che protested. 'We're supposed to be guests here.'

'Manny can keep them occupied. He's loud enough and fat enough for all three,' Praeda sneered. She was pulling Che onwards through a series of small turns. The servants' pa.s.sages were low-ceilinged and cramped. There were little doorless rooms either side, some filled with boxes and sacks, others with tables for preparing food, or with desks for scribes. Praeda paid them no notice whatsoever, nor the surprised servants they pa.s.sed on their way.

There was a black-clad figure ahead and for a moment Che thought it was the Vekken, inexplicably involved in Praeda's schemes. Then she saw it was a man in dark armour, with a full-face helm tilted back to reveal sandy Solarnese features.

'Well, now, here you are at last,' he said as the pair of them approached him.

'Who's this?' Che demanded. 'What's going on here?'

'The name's Corcoran, Bella.' As he said it Che noticed his tabard, though the smoky lamplight made it hard to pick out the open gauntlet embroidered there.

'Iron Glove,' she observed automatically. As he grinned in acknowledgement, she thought back, seeing them dealing with Dragonflies at the oasis, or on the streets of Solarno. 'Who are you people?'

'We just happen to be the newest and most successful trading cartel out of Chasme,' Corcoran replied. He was a wiry individual with a pointed face that smiled shallowly and easily. 'Weapons, Bella. We deal in weapons and the accoutrements of war.'

'Here?' Che asked. 'I thought they weren't keen on ... innovation here.'

'Oh, pits to innovation,' said Corcoran dismissively. 'We can sell them better swords swords than they have. You don't need than they have. You don't need innovation innovation. We provide what they lack. It's purely good business.'

'This man isn't what I brought you here to see,' Praeda explained impatiently. 'It's what he showed me. Come on.'

She pushed past them both, leaving Che to blunder in her wake. The corridors were lit erratically by bowl-shaped oil lamps, or the occasional stone-cut shaft. Corcoran seemed almost to melt into the gloom as he followed, his dark leathers merging easily with the pooling shadows. Only his pale face, the gleam of his teeth, betrayed him.

'Here.' Praeda stopped abruptly then and darted through an even lower doorway. Che followed her, and almost tumbled down a short flight of steps. The room beyond was bigger than she expected, excavated down into the earth. There was a ...

There was a something something within it. within it.

Praeda was obviously expecting comment, while Corcoran was lounging about at the top of the stairs, watching. Che did not know what to say.

'What ... am I looking at?' she asked.

'Oh, Che, honestly,' Praeda chided, losing patience. 'Look here, these stone pipes must lead to the river or to some pond where they keep their purified water. That's done by those reed beds we saw, by the way, but I'll tell you about it later. Anyway, the water is at a lower level than the fountain, so they have to draw it up somehow. That's where this comes in, you see?'

Che still didn't see, though. There was a vertical pipe, carved as intricately as everything else, with a metal rod jutting from it, and there was some kind of fulcrum there, and a weight ... I'm supposed to be able to understand what this is I'm supposed to be able to understand what this is, she realized. Deep inside herself, she began to feel ill.

'Tell me ...' she said hoa.r.s.ely.

'It's a vacuum pump, though, isn't it?' Corcoran said delightedly, from behind her. 'The cursed'st one I ever saw, but that's what it is. They get some poor sods of servants to haul the weight up, and then the weight comes down slow probably there's some sand emptying out of somewhere else to keep it that way ...'

'The weight descending draws up the plunger, expanding an airless s.p.a.ce that the water then rushes up to fill,' Praeda went on. 'Really, Che, this is apprentice stuff. The water possesses enough momentum to gush through the smaller pipes and into the gravel fountain. It then probably flows right back down to where it originated.'

Che did not trust herself to speak, merely put out an arm to seek the support of the wall.

'Of course,' Corcoran was saying, 'we could sell them a pump the size of your shoe that would do a better job, and not need some b.u.g.g.e.r hauling a weight up every morning, but they won't have it. Mad, they are, around here.'

'But that's not right ...' Che began slowly.

'What do you mean?' There was a look of perfect incomprehension on Praeda's face.

'The Khanaphir ... they're Inapt, surely.' She glanced from the academic to the Iron Glove factor, whose expressions mirrored each other exactly.

'Inapt?' Praeda said slowly. 'Che, they're us us they're Beetle-kinden. Of course they aren't Inapt. What were you thinking?' they're Beetle-kinden. Of course they aren't Inapt. What were you thinking?'

'Go out of the city,' Corcoran put in. 'Go upriver, they got watermills, cranes, they can do all sorts of clever things with levers and weights. Take a look at the Estuarine Gate some time! It's just, they've no more than that. No imagination is what I think.'

'No ...' Che sat down on the steps. She could feel something slipping away from her, and she thought it might be her hopes. Beyond Praeda's concerned face the stone pump ground minutely on, obstinately destroying everything she had come here to find.

Am I alone now? Now that the Khanaphir are just Apt, and merely backward, rather than some great survival from the Age of Lore? Can I admit to myself that I'm a freak and a cripple, and simply get it over with?

'Che, what's wrong?' Praeda asked. And then Ethmet was there.

'Forgive me, forgive me, Honoured Foreigners,' he said. 'Alas, you are used to better hospitality than our poor city can afford. Forgive me that we have bored you thus, that you have fled us into these unfit places. I shall call for dancers. I shall have Amnon order his men to fight for your pleasure.'

'Please, First Minister,' said Praeda, abruptly stand-in diplomat. 'I think that Che ... that is, Miss Maker is ill.'

'Alas!' He crouched beside her and, despite Petri's predictions, his lined face showed nothing but concern. 'We shall have a physician sent for at once.'

'No, please.' Somehow Che got herself to her feet. She saw that Corcoran had made himself scarce as soon as the Minister arrived, perhaps not eager to be implicated in robbing this man of his guests. 'Please, I just need to rest. I just need to go to my rooms.'

'Well, it is late,' Ethmet agreed. 'I shall have some servants escort you.'

They have servants for everything, she thought muggily. Even to make their machines work. They have machines that are powered by people, how strange Even to make their machines work. They have machines that are powered by people, how strange. She was wailing inside her head. She wanted to go home away from this place that had so decisively betrayed her but Collegium was just as strange, and she could not now say in what quarter home lay.

They all headed back to the emba.s.sy together in the end. Manny was singing loudly, a girl on each arm, and Che was glad that her room was located at the opposite end of the building from his. Not that I will sleep, anyway Not that I will sleep, anyway. The discovery that had so thrilled Praeda had filled her with dread. I had everything worked out, and what a fool I've been! I had everything worked out, and what a fool I've been! At every step, she felt she should plunge into the chasm that had suddenly opened up before her. At every step, she felt she should plunge into the chasm that had suddenly opened up before her. Nowhere to go Nowhere to go, she kept thinking. I have nowhere to go. This has been a fool's errand, and I was the fool for it I have nowhere to go. This has been a fool's errand, and I was the fool for it. Another hour, another dawn facing that realization seemed unbearable.

'Manny,' she said, and then repeated, 'Manny!' when he wouldn't stop singing.

'What can I possibly do for you, Honoured Amba.s.sador?' he drawled, and the girls giggled. Possibly, in their eyes, he seemed full of exotic allure. Overfull, maybe.