‘Why did it stop? There’s nothing this world likes better than its traditions.’

‘One of his granddaughters had a puppy. It slipped its lead and ran towards the egg – the lure, you see. She ran after it—’

‘Oh, crud.’

‘They had to amputate three of her fingers when she got stuck.’ Bethaneve squeezed his hand a fraction tighter, and gave his stump a thoughtful look. ‘I don’t suppose they had time to administer narnik, either. Poor girl.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Anyway, that’s the only time I know about an egg being moved anywhere by humans. Maybe this Nigel is planning some kind of victory ceremony. Is he a politician?’

‘I suppose he could stand for a Council office. It makes as much sense as anything – except this was over a year and a half ago.’ He realized they were still holding hands, and made no effort to stop.

‘I’ll do you a deal, Captain Slvasta.’

‘Go on.’

‘I will order up all the files on boatowners in Erond county and go through them for you. See if any of them fit what you’ve told me about Nigel.’

‘That sounds good. What’s my side of the deal?’

Her smile became fierce. ‘You take me to a bait.’

‘A bait?’

‘Yes.’ She was looking at him intently, ex-sight examining his shell for hints of his reaction.

‘Very well.’

She drained her beer glass, then dropped the pretty rose from her hair into it. ‘Come on, then.’

*

Slvasta had never been to the city’s Newich district. Never had a reason to. It was a jumble of derelict warehouses and factories, broken up by bleak tenements the owners had built to house their workforce. A canal had been dug through the middle, channelling a powerful flow from the river Gossant before it emptied into the Colbal. Big factories were built on both sides of it, forming a dark artificial canyon. Each of them possessed two or three waterwheels, turning the looms and lathes inside.

The bait was held in one of them, an abandoned cloth works. Most of the building’s upper floors had been stripped out years ago as part of the demolition and replacement schedule for the whole canal – which hadn’t yet happened. Their absence left a single large enclosed space, with the remnants of the upper floors clinging to the walls forming precarious balconies. The uneven brick floor was broken up by deep, narrow trenches where the whirring leather pulley belts used to run day and night, and had now been colonized by manky, disease-laden urban bussalores. Big iron bearings were still affixed to the walls, the last remnants of the mighty looms which used to fill the factory.

Dozens of slates had slipped off the roof, allowing wide beams of moiré nebula-light to shine in. But the main source of illumination came from hundreds of oil lanterns hanging from the jagged edges of the balconies. They shone down on the bait pit in the centre of the brick floor, an arena seven paces across, made from thick timbers.

There must have been over three hundred men and women crammed inside. Slvasta had expected it to be mostly working class, residents from the nearby slum houses. But no, there were many shiny top hats and ornate dresses; he even saw a few regiment uniforms amid the crowd. The noise was brutal, the air rancid and filled with tatus flies. People were sitting along the edge of the balconies, dangling their legs over the side, tankards and wine glasses in hand. Spilt drink was a constant drizzle as they cheered on their animal down in the pit.

Slvasta stared round in amazement, letting his ex-sight drift about. One end of the factory was stacked with cages containing the animals yet to fight. There were barrels of beer set up, the brewers charging double the price of any pub, tables with wine, even some narnik traders blatantly walking round with trays of wads and fresh pipes. And bookmakers lurked in the corners, surrounded by guards armed with knives and pistols that you didn’t need to probe with ex-sense to discover.

‘Everything out in the open,’ he said, unsure if he approved or not.

‘True democracy,’ Bethaneve replied. Then she waved to someone at a small table on the other side of the pit. ‘This way.’

Her friends turned out to be Javier and his boyfriend Coulan. Javier was a big, heavily muscled thirty-year-old with ebony skin almost as dark as Quanda’s. Slvasta fought down that shameful comparison. The man had a Rakwesh accent, and the way he was hunched over the table made it look as though it’d been built for children. In contrast, Coulan was a tall lad with short-cropped fair hair and skin so pale Slvasta first thought he was albino; with his endearingly handsome features it was easy to like him at first glance. However, his shell was completely impervious, allowing no aspect of his thoughts to escape.

They greeted Slvasta with a modicum of suspicion at first, even with Bethaneve vouching for him.

‘Your first time at a bait?’ Javier asked as he beckoned a barmaid over.

‘Yes.’

‘Thought so.’

Slvasta didn’t know how to take that. Now he was sitting next to Javier, he was beginning to realize just how large the man was.

‘Any tips?’ Bethaneve shouted above the din.

‘Initie’s hound,’ Coulan said. ‘It’s a mean beast. Worth some coin.’

‘Putting it up against two mod-dogs in a while,’ Javier said. ‘I got Philippa one of them.’

‘Philippa runs the bait,’ Bethaneve ’pathed, as she nodded towards a ninety-year-old woman in a filthy silk kimono, sitting in a big armchair close to the arena.

‘Do you keep mod-dogs?’ Slvasta asked.

That earned him a snort of derision from Javier. ‘No. I find them for Philippa. Owners shouldn’t be so fucking careless.’

‘People shouldn’t own them at all,’ Slvasta replied levelly.

It clearly wasn’t the answer Javier had been expecting. He gave Slvasta a dark smile. ‘Then what would we all use?’

‘Who the crud cares? I just don’t want mods and neuts on Bienvenido.’

Javier grinned and nodded at Slvasta’s stump. ‘One of them get a bit snappy, did they?’

‘No, I lost the arm to an egg. The mods helped stick me to it; they belong to the Fallers. People can’t see that.’

Javier rocked back on his stool. ‘Crud!’

A roar came from the arena’s audience. A wolfhound had been dropped into the arena, along with three mod-cats. The wolfhound charged at the mod-cats, slavering furiously. The crowd cheered loudly as its teeth closed round the first mod-cat. But the other two mod-cats, ’path goaded and in a terror-frenzy, started snapping at the wolfhound’s legs. Teeth which adaptors had formed to slice clean through rodents ripped through the dog’s flesh. The wolfhound snarled in pain and fury and clamped its jaws on a mod-cat. Locked together, all three animals jumped and slung themselves around against the wooden wall, growling and shrieking as blood made the floor slicker.

Slvasta used his ex-sight to observe the carnage. Bethaneve stood so she could see the whole gory spectacle. A barmaid delivered three tankards to the table. Javier raised his. ‘To killing mods.’

‘Wherever they are,’ Slvasta responded. They knocked their tankards together and drank.

Bethaneve rolled her eyes. ‘Boys!’ Grinning, she drank a big slug of beer, then resumed her yelling at the arena.

‘So it’s a cushy office job for you now, is it?’ Javier asked.

‘Temporary. I’ll be back sweeping for eggs soon, I hope.’

‘Politics, then? They pushed you out because you were too dedicated to your job? I can appreciate that.’

‘That obvious, huh?’

‘It’s how the rich always work. Anyone who comes along that can upset the way things are done gets taken down fast. How else are they going to keep what they have?’

‘The Fallers keep them in power,’ Coulan said. ‘This constant fight against them means people accept the social and financial structure of this world without question. We need the regiments to perform the sweeps and root out nests; therefore we pay the government to protect us. Who’s going to argue? Without that protection, you either Fall or get eaten. It’s a great incentive.’