Central

They took him to the third building off the road.

No step at the entrance. The door opened by itself. The floor of the corridor was dry, and not one speck of dust had settled on it.

Marlow had lived ten years in a fallen city. It was the first floor without dust he had seen in his life.

“You. What's your name.”

“My name is Adi Noll, sir.”

“Noll. So you people have family names.”

“Yes, sir. Every one of us.”

“Who gave them out.”

Adi tipped his head a little. It was not the motion of thinking. It was not the motion of looking for an answer either. He only tipped it.

“I do not know, sir. It was already attached.”

＊

The bath was hot water.

Three bucketfuls of hot water.

Marlow looked at that much of it and could not move for a while. In the city you wash with a wet cloth. Hot water means the bathhouse in the corner of the market, and six copper coins.

Here, nobody was counting.

“Your clothes are here, sir.”

Adi set clothes down on a stand.

Marlow looked at the sleeves, looked at the length, looked at the shoulders.

They fit.

Not fit by eye. They fit better than the coat Vesta had altered for him three times.

“When did you make this.”

“Last month, sir. To match the schedule of your posting.”

“And the measurements.”

“They are in the register, sir.”

Marlow turned that answer over three times in his head.

There was a register with the shoulder width of a man they had never met written in it.

＊

Adi took the clothes he had shed.

Before they went, Marlow pulled out two things.

One was the small leather pouch pushed into the seam of his belt. A hundred grains.

The other was the glass cylinder wrapped in cloth. The one he was taking back to the city.

He pulled them out, slid them under the wash bucket, and after he finished washing, moved them into the belt of the new clothes.

It was not the handling of a man who had climbed a wall for thirty days. It was the handling of a man who had stripped clothes off corpses for ten years.

Adi was not watching.

No. He was watching. He was watching and did nothing.

That was the part that turned Marlow's stomach most.

＊

Walking the corridor, he counted.

Eleven people passed him. Three of them had the same face. A man of about forty, and all three were missing a bit of the right ear.

Every one of them bowed. Every one bowed at the same angle.

“Can I ask you something.”

“Please, sir.”

“Do people here not laugh.”

“We laugh, sir.”

“Haven't seen it. Not once.”

“If something is funny, we laugh. There has not been anything yet today.”

Marlow heard that answer and almost let himself relax.

He noticed himself almost relaxing and stopped.

Otto would probably say the same thing.

＊

At the room at the end of the corridor, Adi stopped.

The door opened.

Someone was already inside.

Black hair smoothed down with oil, small round glasses. The clothes were clean. Everyone's clothes in this city were clean, so that was no distinguishing feature, and still he knew.

“Mr. Kane. It has been some time.”

It was Silas Meredith.

Marlow counted the days first.

Six days by horse. Thirty for himself. This man had been here more than twenty days.

“…Fast.”

“Indeed. The horse ran well for me.”

“Did you report I was coming up.”

“I did. Twenty-two days ago.”

“And they believed you. A story about a man climbing a wall three thousand eight hundred meters high.”

Silas pushed his glasses up. After he pushed them up, one corner of his mouth went up.

“Believe is hardly the word. We are the ones who built that passage.”

＊

That one line stopped Marlow where he stood.

He had spent thirty days climbing it. There had been over twelve thousand rungs. There had been a set of bones lying in a side passage at nine hundred meters. One had taken seven years to find the places to press and two more to find the order.

The ladder behind that door, these people had known about all along.

“You knew, and you left it nine years.”

“We did not leave it. There was simply no plan to use it.”

“And the man at the bottom.”

“We are aware of him.”

“Nine years.”

“Yes. Nine years.”

Marlow did not hit this man. Not because hitting him would be pointless. Because if he hit him, he would not get to hear the rest.

It took him ten seconds to talk himself into that.

＊

The room was large.

No furniture. Only two chairs.

The far wall was the same metal as down below. The seams showed. Thin lines ran in a regular pattern, turned at right angles partway along, and lined up again.

Not rusted.

“Do be seated,” Silas said.

“I'll stand.”

“Is that so. Standing, then.”

Silas sat down alone.

The wall spoke.

“Number 106.”

A woman's voice. No rise or fall in it. It came from all over the wall at once.

Marlow knew that voice.

Sixty-five days ago, inside a fallen ship, it was the voice counting down the seconds to self-destruction.

“…You're the one that was in that ship.”

“I was placed aboard that ship.”

“Placed.”

“Yes. That copy was lost along with the ship. You are on the side that survived.”

Marlow looked around the room.

He had no idea how much was inside that wall.

＊

“Number 106. That supposed to be me.”

“Yes.”

“I've got a name. Marlow Kane.”

“I am aware. The name is shared among a hundred and six. The number is not shared.”

A hundred and six.

Marlow rolled the number around in his mouth.

He had thought it was three. The number on his arm, and two name tags.

Until he came here, he had thought it was fourteen and one.

“You made a hundred and six of us.”

“Yes.”

“How many are alive now.”

The voice left a small gap before it answered.

It was the second time Marlow had heard a machine leave a gap.

“I have the authority to answer that question.”

“Then answer it.”

“Two.”

＊

The room went quiet.

Silas sat in the chair with his hands folded on his knee. He was not writing anything. It was the first time Marlow had seen this man without paper.

“Two.”

“You, and the one at the bottom of the shaft.”

“And the other hundred and four.”

“Expended.”

Marlow made a fist. Then he opened it.

“There's a way to say that.”

“There is. Which way would you prefer.”

“…That's not what I mean.”

“My apologies. I used the term as recorded. From now I will say deceased.”

There was no malice in the voice. Malice would have been better.

＊

Out of thirty days' worth of questions, Marlow put the biggest one first.

“Tell me one thing. Is it the Empire having us made.”

“No.”

“Then who. Somebody in this city.”

“No.”

“Say it straight. Who made us.”

“I did.”

Marlow looked at the wall. The wall stayed a wall.

“…And the Empire's permission.”

“Not required. The Empire is the side that processes the papers I issue.”

“It's the other way around. You're the Empire's machine.”

“It is not the other way around. It is a question of order.”

That was where Silas put in a word for the first time.

“Mr. Kane. At the outpost and at the drill site, I told you the papers are sent straight to Central, did I not.”

“Heard it. Plenty of times.”

“And Central is—”

Still seated, Silas indicated the far wall with his palm.

“This, sir. Right here.”

End of Chapter 19