‘Do you think they’ve got him?’ she asked as they walked away. Not in a hurry, not drawing attention. Further along the street, three elites were watching people and mods, alert for anything out of place.

‘Oh yes,’ Coulan said. ‘He has a wife and three kids. He’s not going to vanish without telling them.’

‘Has she reported it to the sheriffs?’

‘Yes. As you can imagine, they just leapt into action.’

‘Dammit. Nobody can hold out against what they’ll do to him. He’ll give them passwords, places, times. Everything. He probably already has.’

‘Yes, but what is everything? What does he actually know? He gets an occasional ’path from someone he’s never met, a suggestion that this or that might help stick it to the Captain every now and then. Harmless enough stuff.’

‘I ordered him to stand with Slvasta, Coulan. It’s a disaster. Trevene will know we’re organized way beyond a simple political party.’

‘If he’s half as smart as he’s supposed to be, he knew that a long time ago.’

‘But now he’s got names.’

‘A name. One.’

‘There were others with Slvasta. They need to leave Varlan. For good. And the other four in Kolan’s cell, too: he can identify them.’

‘So warn them. That’s why we have the cells set up the way they are. It’s a network Trevene can’t hope to crack as long as we take the right precautions.’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, his composure making her own fluttery thoughts calmer. ‘You’re right.’

He grinned. ‘I’m always right.’

Bethaneve started to private ’path specific warnings. With luck, the recipients would take them seriously. It took a lot to up and leave your home. She added a few details, emphasizing the danger. The First Officer’s face was often a subliminal addition to the messages.

Do what I ask. Please. Get out while there’s still time. You won’t live to regret it if you don’t.

*

‘Hotheads and ideologues, huh?’ Javier snorted in contempt.

Slvasta grinned at him over his tankard. ‘’Fraid so.’

They were all in the Bellaview pub’s high walled garden, huddled round a table to discuss Slvasta’s lunch.

‘And they’ll give you Langley?’ Coulan queried.

‘That’s what he said.’

‘I wonder who he really represents?’ Bethaneve asked.

‘Some faction of Citizens’ Dawn that’s backed by the regiments,’ Javier said. ‘There’s some heavy-duty fallout from the Doncastor station stampede. The politicians and the regiments are each blaming the other. It’s getting ugly in the government district.’

‘It’s getting ugly everywhere,’ Coulan said. ‘People have been reminded how dangerous mods are when they’re controlled by Fallers; their complacency has been shaken. We need to capitalize on that with the right candidates, who can stand up in public and make a smart argument for our policies.’

‘Why are we even talking about this?’ Bethaneve said. ‘It’s the cells that will overthrow the Captain, not spending twenty years working up through the corrupt council system.’

‘Really?’ Javier said. ‘There were hundreds of comrades at the stampede. We managed to get three to stand with Slvasta. We were helpless when the neuts charged. We turned and ran when the mod-apes joined in. It was the Meor that actually brought that Faller down. We did the groundwork, but they have the power, them and the sheriffs.’

‘Power,’ Slvasta said. ‘You mean weapons.’

‘I do.’

‘We’ll never achieve anything until we can physically take on the regiments and sheriffs,’ Coulan said.

‘You’re talking about killing people,’ Slvasta said wearily.

‘We have to arm ourselves,’ Javier said. ‘What happened to Bryan-Anthony made that very clear.’

‘Maybe,’ Slvasta said. He hated the whole idea, though he had to admit that unless they could fight the establishment out on the streets, the odds against them were overwhelming. ‘But Trevene will certainly know if we start buying guns. Even if we had that kind of money.’

‘Maybe not,’ Bethaneve said. She tried not to grin as they all turned to look at her. ‘I had an interesting message today; it came up through the cells. One of the comrades was trying to recruit someone from out of town. Turns out this person claims he can put us in touch with some kind of weapons merchant.’

‘Trap,’ Javier said immediately. ‘Trevene and the Captain are closing in. You’re popular now, Slvasta, they can’t just disappear you like they do everyone else. So they set you up, then come crashing through the door just when you’re holding the guns and handing over the money. A gift for the whole city to perceive.’

‘Nice idea, but we don’t have the money,’ Slvasta said. ‘And before anyone suggests it, I really don’t want to use the cells to start robbing banks – we’d be nothing more than gangsters then.’

‘It wouldn’t come to that,’ Bethaneve said. ‘The weapons merchant is sympathetic to our cause.’

‘There’s no such thing as a sympathetic merchant, let alone one who sells weapons,’ Javier said forcefully.

‘We can’t afford to ignore this,’ she replied, meeting Javier’s stare levelly. ‘It could be the difference between success and the dungeons underneath Fifty-Eight Grosvner Place.’

‘Trap,’ Javier repeated stubbornly, shaking his head.

‘Possibly,’ she conceded. ‘In which case we need to send someone who’s smart enough to see it coming and walk away, someone they can’t arrest on suspicion alone. But at the same time, someone who can deal directly with this weapons merchant if it turns out legitimate.’

They all turned to look at Slvasta.

‘Oh, come on,’ he exclaimed, his tankard frozen halfway to his mouth. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah,’ Bethaneve said. ‘Seriously.’

9

The Southern City Line express was scheduled to take sixteen hours to complete the thousand-mile journey from Willesden, Varlan’s over-the-river station, to Dios, the capital city of a sprawling agricultural county. After that it would carry on to Port Chana on the southern coast, a further two thousand miles and thirty-five hours away.

Slvasta sat in a second-class carriage, a window seat giving him a view out across the farms and forests that cloaked the landscape. Long brick viaducts carried the train lines across broad valleys where tributaries of the river Nubain meandered their way through the land. Streamers of steam and smoke churned past the glass, temporarily obscuring the view. At first he’d paid a lot of attention to the panorama, then as the monotony grew, he turned to the books Bethaneve had supplied for the journey. Three biographies of first ministers of the National Council: ‘Pay attention to their campaign strategies,’ she instructed; and two weighty tomes on economic theory, ‘because we have to get a grip on the fundamentals’. He read the pages dutifully, wishing she could have slipped a decent modern novel into the stack; he enjoyed sheriff procedurals.

The carriage was mostly full of salesmen and junior government staff. Some families were travelling, their restless kids prowling the aisle. At the far end an infant cried in hour-long outbursts despite everything its fraught mother could do to quiet it, triggering weary, knowing expressions from the rest of the adults each time the wailing started.

Slvasta’s travelling companion took a seat further down the carriage. The meeting had been set up by a cell in the Hicombe Shanty. A cautious introduction in the middle of Lloyd Park, with Javier and Coulan keeping a careful watch for any signs of the Captain’s police lurking in the bushes. The sky overhead appeared to be free of mod-birds, and no one suspicious was strolling across the rolling expanse of grass. And as agreed, the man had been waiting by the big stone and crystal fountain at the centre of the park, wearing a dark blue hat.

He called himself Russell, and Slvasta couldn’t tell if that was true or not. His shell was impeccably maintained. He was middle aged, wearing a simple white shirt, dark blue trousers and sturdy boots. ‘Captain Slvasta, a pleasure,’ Russell said.