Part 16 (1/2)

The Mole would have to wait, if he only would.

Katiya answered on the second knock. The door to the second-floor apartment swung open with a rattle of locks and chains, and her eye appeared in the crack. When she saw who it was, she opened the door wider and let him in.

M. looked as though she had just woken from a deep Her hair was tangled; her eyes were bagged. She ””Nill a cotton nights.h.i.+rt that barely reached the tops of @44T41*,. A silver pendant shaped like a miniature ingot from a chain about her neck - the only item of z, Roads had seen her wear. guided him into the lounge and collapsed onto an sofa, rubbing her eyes. The room was threadbare: A, sofa and one companion chair, a small table; no no carpet. Damp had stained the ceiling M, in places and made the paint peel from the walls. Rsr;@ air smelled of closed s.p.a.ces, of claustrophobia. ”I'm sorry to disturb you,” he said, standing in the middle of the room. ”I don't mind.” She curled her legs beneath her, u her head on the sofa's ma.s.sive armrest. ChildWke, she watched him. She seemed less nervous on her ivis ground.

He sat down in the other chair. ”I only came to talk.” ”Have you found Cati?”

”No. Has he contacted you?”

No. She shook her head, eyes liquid. Silence claimed them again. He waited for her to speak - for ht sensed that she wanted to - but she didn't. After a minute or two, he broke the silence again: ”I'm sorry. Can I have a cup of water?”

She went to another room without a word, and returned with a small gla.s.s.

Roads placed it on the arm of the chair without drinking from it. She watched with interest as he removed his contact lenses and dropped them into the water. They drifted to the bottom of the gla.s.s like curious jellyfish, and stared vacantly back at her.

t, I know all about the way Cati is,” he said, raising his naked eyes. ”But that's not why I'm here.”She nodded, understanding the gesture for what it was: an exchange of secrets, and therefore of trust.

He continued: ”I simply want to know more about him - where he came from, how you met, what he does, and so on. I need to understand him before I can help him.”

She nodded again, and her eyes wandered. They drifted aimlessly across the walls, the floorboards, ceiling - everywhere but at him - as she retreated into her memories. When she spoke, her voice was soft. ”I first met him ten years ago, by accident. I was . . .

working ... for a man called Jules. Had been since I turned thirteen. He kept me in money, as long as I did my bit. He looked after me, in his way.”

Roads remembered the scars under her armpits. She had probably been a prost.i.tute, enslaved by addiction to her pimp. Some sort of tailored drug, perhaps, brewed in the dark quarters of the city; maybe even one that had heightened her s.e.xual response, inducing a volition in the act which would have made the degradation acceptable at the time - but even more abhorrent, later. ,Jules was a s.a.d.i.s.t, high on a power trip,” she went on. 640ccasionally he'd get paranoid and freak out for a day. We - I wasn't the only one working for him - we knew when to avoid him if things looked like they were going bad. Still, he'd sometimes catch us off-guard. He'd beat the s.h.i.+t out of anyone handy until they confessed to whatever it was that had him in a spin.

He'd make it up later - with real doctors, real sympathy - but we all knew he'd killed a girl once, and kept out of his way as much as we could. ”Late one night, I was almost home when he caught me by surprise. I hadn't even made it through the front door when he was suddenly there, waving a knife, threatening to kill me. I tried to run, but he was too fast.

cl- hit me and I fell down. He kicked me a couple of I ust to hear me scream, and went to cut my throat t, the knife. ”Then this guy appeared out of nowhere: it was Cati, I didn't know him then. He grabbed Jules and sloiv him to one side like a rag doll, then came back to .14;. if I was okay.

I was more afraid of Cati than Jules, tried to crawl away. His eyes were like nothing I'd 'Av seen before. But he wouldn't let me go. Jules went o him with the knife - I guess he'd only been stunned - I [email protected] Cati knocked him out. Didn't kill him, just put him tolA I with one punch. I'd seen Jules fight three men and 'I.lu when he went crazy, but Cati was so much stronger . he knew exactly where to hit. . .”

She hesitated for a second to clear her throat. Roads waited patiently, guessing that she was unused to talking such lengths, especially about the life that she had secret for so long. ”I was hurt,” she went on. ”Jules had broken a rib where he'd kicked me, and must have cut me at some stage without me noticing. Cati took me to his hideout in a wrecked Rosette cab and fixed me up - wouldn't let me go, wouldn't answer any of my questions. Just looked after me until I was better.”

Her eyes clouded over, and Roads knew what she was remembering. How long had Cati held her? Long enough for her ribs to knit, at least, and for withdrawal symptoms to begin; long enough, perhaps, for them to pa.s.s. Depending on the particular drug she had been .addicted to, her physical distress may well have been acute.

Until she was better, she had said. In more ways than one.

”I don't know how long he looked after me; maybe a week or more. In all that time he didn't say a word. Isoon worked out that he was mute, that he couldn't speak. When I was able to, I tried to write questions on paper, but he couldn't read either. He could only understand a little speech, and make himself understood in return with his hands. When I was well, he made it clear that I was free to go. ”But I didn't want to. He didn't frighten me any more. He had healed me, freed me, saved my life. I think I loved him even then, although all I understood was s.e.x. I wanted to thank him that way, to know him better, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't touch me. ”I cried when he showed me why. I thought that it had been ... taken away from him. That he had been castrated. It wasn't fair, for either of us. ”But I stayed anyway. He didn't really want me to g05 and I eventually got used to the idea. He looked after me, and I looked after him. I was the only person in the world that hadn't run away from him and didn't want to turn him in. I was the only one who had loved him in all his life.”

She cried then, letting free the emotion that had been acc.u.mulating during the days alone. He watched her silently, building a mental picture of their relations.h.i.+p.' She needed someone non-threatening and strong, he someone who could accept what he was. Without communication, without even a s.e.xual bridge, it was hard to imagine any relations.h.i.+p succeeding; yet theirs obviously had, cemented by needs that transcended the everyday.

And was it so strange? She had never had a normal relations.h.i.+p. If one could accept the idea of s.e.x without love, why was love without s.e.x so unimaginable?

”We lived in the hideout for a month until Jules tracked us down and tried to get me back,” Katiya went on wiping her eyes with the back of a hand. ”We IM a, elsewhere to avoid a scene. Cati doesn't like to people. Jules kept coming for over a year, until one rivals killed him in a fight. Only then could we settle down.” She looked around her, reliving her :14is the apartment. When her eyes returned to him, J76 , were sad, but composed. ”He's been gone over three days now,” she said. ”The @A reason why he wouldn't come back would be fl”, *11F.*, it's dangerous for me somehow; he's like that, protective. But if he's in trouble, then it's not he caused. He's the most gentle man I've ever a I ost a child. He wouldn't hurt anyone ... would m A.

Roads thought carefully before saying anything: ”He N not have wanted to, but I think he has.”

She Wiped her hands on her nights.h.i.+rt and met his [email protected], ”I'm sorry. I'll answer any questions you want to A thing to help bring him back. Life. without him ny wouldn't be worth living.” ”When we first met,” Roads began, ”you said that Cati occasionally left during the night.” ”Only recently. In the last month or so.” ”Could you tell me exactly when?”

She nodded and went to get something from another room. When she returned, she flicked through the pages of a small, bound diary and called out dates.

Roads committed them to memory. At least two of the dates matched with his recollection of Roger Wiggs' file.

On these two nights that Cati had disappeared, a supporter of the Rea.s.similation Bill had been killed elsewhere in Kennedy.

It wasn't proof, but it was enough to convince him. With a sinking feeling, he continued his interrogation of Katiya:How did Cati occupy his time? What did he do? Nothing. Before she had met him, he had lived by stealing food at night - usually after curfew, when the chance of detection was small. During one such raid, he had come across Katiya. She didn't like stealing, and neither did he, so she had ultimately found conventional employment. He stayed home during her s.h.i.+fts; they kept each other company at other times.

How? just by being together. Sometimes she'd talk to him, irrespective of how much he actually understood. Other times she'd teach him how to cook, or to use his strength productively. Recently, they had discovered Tai Chi in an old book; Cati had a natural affinity for the ancient discipline.

Did he ever seem to drift off, as though he was listening to voices she could not hear?

No. Was she aware of the existence of the control-code? No. She didn't know what he was talking about. Had he ever acted irrationally? Harmed her in any way?

No. The only time she had seen him use physical force was against Jules.

Did Cati know anything about the Rea.s.similation? Had he expressed an opinion regarding it?

No. She didn't think he truly understood what was going on. He saw the world on an interpersonal level, .and had difficulty with the more abstract concepts of governments and governmental departments.

Did she know when he had first come to Kennedy, or how?

No. She a.s.sumed that he had crept past the automatic machine-gun emplacements somehow. They were supposed to be impenetrable - and Roads a.s.sured her [email protected] m, was more or less the case - but she didn't put past Cati's superhuman abilities. [email protected] Cati told her anything at all about his past? NrcH V, e was unable to speak. ”But I guessed a little,” she added, ”from the way he ike him when I was Iheard stories about people I [email protected] before I skipped school and hitched with Jules. must have been in the army at one stage, or To be honest, I try not to think about it, just L him the way he is.” ”So he can only communicate with you by hand ii, and gestures?” ”Yes. Except for when he has something really M., - to tell or show me.” ”And what does he do then?” ”He'll draw me pictures.” ”Can I see them?” [email protected] She hesitated for a second, then went to get them. She . I with a cardboard box two-thirds full of sheets A IL paper torn from notebooks. On every one was a M IFIexvio picture, usually in black and white.

The drawings were crude - minimalist in a child-like I - but competent. Cati conveyed information, not detail. People were outlines possessing few features.' Only Katiya herself was drawn with care, as though she was the one real person in the world. Kennedy was portrayed as a series of empty boxes with blank s.p.a.ces between them.

All in all, the pictures concerned events that Cati had seen and did not understand, or things that were important to him. There were a lot of pages to glance through, although less than might have been expected for ten years' work. Roads browsed through them all, hoping there might be something useful among the ma.s.s of detail:Katiya in their home on Old North Street; the bent span of Patriot Bridge; two men arguing, one holding a gun; a woman with a small child in a pram; two dogs mating; an object that he did not at first recognise, then realised was the necklace around Katiya's neck. ”He gave me that when we first moved here,” she said, noticing the picture in his hands. Without embarra.s.sment, she added: ”He doesn't understand the idea of bond contracts, so this is the closest I'll get to a wedding ring. I never take it off.”

Roads continued browsing. The further he went, through the box, the more yellow the pictures became. The last fifty were especially brittle, and obviously drawn as a series - telling a story of sorts, perhaps. There were images from Cati's life before Kennedy: the War, the Dissolution, other dark-skinned men that could only have been his fellow CATIs, things that Katiya would not have understood without knowing more about his background.

Detail was especially spa.r.s.e in this sequence, and Roads remembered with a shock that Cati must have been no more than five years old at the time these events took place.

Five years old, and already a killer. Roads found it hard to imagine what Cati's thought processes must have been like. Human? Mechanical? Or alien - different in an entirely new way? Certainly the things that he had been compelled to record in his pictures were atypical of the everyday person's concerns: no friends, no scenery, no joy. just facts, one after the other, as interminable and impersonal as the pages of a calendar.

And yet, strangely, Cati was human enough to feel love.

Then Roads reached the final picture in the box. Not the first picture drawn, for it was clear the box had been over the years. Expecting it to be just 014 in the series, he turned it over ...

froze. Katiya noticed the abrupt change in his expression.

Irl, is it. Roads held it up to the light so she could see. ”Do ot know who this is?”

No. Someone Can met, I guess. Is he important?” ”I think so.” He turned the picture around to study it *61. The sudden sinking feeling in his stomach was fill ITT-1 only by annoyance at not suspecting sooner.

It was a portrait of a man - someone Cati had known well, for it was drawn with surprising The man's features were irregular, twisted; his =11 and face were completely bald. Most telling of all, the man was portrayed only from the neck up. And in the picture, Keith Morrow was smiling.