Tales from Kalgachia - 40

Springrise was always the same in the hills overlooking Schlepogora city; receding snows turned the open ground into a morass of muddy gravel and uncovered a carpet of last year's pine needles which assailed the land with the sharp scent of their rotting. Sometimes the grim sensuality of the place was moderated by a little sunshine, but not today. The hills were being treated to some cold rain instead.

At the Karymovka sanatorium in these same hills, few ventured out to engage in the institution's outdoor activities. To most of Kalgachia, having generationally absorbed a taste for cosy burrows from their ancient Deep Singer kindreds, a bracing walk in the elements was more of a medicine than a meal; a medicine for which Karymovka's ailing residents, looking out at a grey overcast through rain-spattered windows, decided they'd taken the required dosage for the time being. The institution's lounges, billiard halls, cinemas and craft studios hummed with a steady bustle while other residents paced the sanatorium's many corridors without particular aim - remaining in one's private room during the day was prohibited.

A few of the lounges, however, were reserved for long-term patients and were less busy. In one such lounge - rare for having retained the carpet and wood panelling of the building's original days as a seat of the Minarborian aristocracy - a handful of patients sat in scattered armchairs which were oriented roughly around a television on the wall. From its glowing cathode-ray screen, a woman was delivering a news report:

"More fallout this week after the severed head of Karmen Joonai, Inner Benacia's Shirekeep-installed foreign minister, was delivered to Raynor's Keep by disgruntled elements of the Dolmen. The Prefects' Border Guard Service reports that to date, eighty-nine fleeing Shirerithian agents have been accepted across the Kalgachi frontier and detained for return to Shireroth..."

"Wouldn't have happened in our day, Goldie," said a grizzled old man in one of the armchairs. "They woulda turned 'em away and let 'em rot in the lowlands."

The man in the adjacent chair, a yellow-skinned Nezeni with a portable oxygen tank for company, gurgled in agreement. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes," came his phlegmatic comment between puffs of his oxygen mask. "Why let them play again?"

The lounge erupted in a wheezing chorus of expletives as the face of Li Naomiai, the Shirerithian exterior minister whose condescending Elianist utterances against Kalgachia had led her to be reviled in the country, made an unwelcome appearance on screen. "Fuckin' bitch," "get her off" and "switch over" came through the hubbub of disapproval, drowning out the hated Shirerithian's words but soon replaced by a collective "wheyyy!" as the picture cut to the more agreeable sight of an official of the House of Octavius getting out of a limousine. The report soon ended in favour of an item about printed circuit board workshops in the Northbloom Protectorate, and the patient known as 'Goldie' was sufficiently immersed in it that he failed to notice three young men in drab brown suits being shown into the lounge by a nurse, who walked ahead to usher the other patients out of the room one-by-one. It was only when she marched smartly over to the television and switched it off that 'Goldie' noticed what had happened.

"Do you mind?" he coughed. "I was watching that."

"You have some visitors," said the nurse with an apologetic smile, sliding out of the room with some haste and closing the door which had always been left open until now.

'Goldie' struggled to his feet to greet the suited men. "Well, gentlemen," he said, "I wasn't expecting to receive any-"

"Xantus Yastreb?" interrupted one of the men, a little older than the others but not by much.

"Yes...?" said Xantus hesitantly.

The man produced a leatherbound warrant card which he unfolded to reveal the silver badge of the Prefects, Kalgachia's internal security service.

"Oh no," muttered Xantus, staggering backward. An involuntary jump in heart rate sent him reaching for his oxygen mask again. A visit from the Prefects under any circumstances was rarely good news, even for the previous Kalgachi head of state which Xantus happened to be. "What's happened?" he wheezed. "Is Rubina alright? And Falcifer? What about little Caustifer...?" His yellow eyes widened in creeping panic.

"Nobody is in trouble," said the man in the typical monotone of his ilk. "We have come on a mundane matter."

Xantus' eyes rolled and he hissed in his mask. "You come all the way out here, without notice, to see me of all people... and you call it a mundane matter...?" His trembling yellow hand felt for the armchair behind him and sank back into it. "You should know better than to frighten an old man like that. You..."

His lungs decided he had spoken enough and provoked him to a violent fit of coughing. Reaching for a nearby kidney bowl, he brought it to his face just in time to hack up a string of bloody phlegm attached to a dislodged polyp of some kind. The Prefect briefly recoiled at the sight of the lump which was streaked with its own spidery blood vessels, before cautiously pulling up an armchair of his own and sitting on the forward edge of it. His two companions remained standing, their gaze alternating between Xantus and the closed door.

"Well," said Xantus when he had wiped the last of the slime from his mouth and caught his breath. "The sooner we get this finished the sooner you can leave me alone. What's this mundane matter of yours?"

"I gather," said the seated Prefect, "that you once served with the Shrubmarine?"

"Shrubmarine...?" the very mention of Minarboria's long-range submarine fleet sent Xantus into a nostalgic reverie. "Well not technically. I was attached to it by the Church of Minarboria, to serve as boat's chaplain. I only did one patrol. One of the Sphyraena-class boats, I forget the name... but why in the Shrub's name would you want to know about that?"

"I am not at liberty to divulge the intended use of your information," said the Prefect.

"Not at liberty..." hissed Xantus. "Don't you know who I am?"

"I am aware of the rumours," said the Prefect, "But either way, your security clearances were revoked last year."

"Revoked!? That's news to me, young man. For what reason?"

"Routine purgation of inactive officials from the register."

"Well you could have told me."

"You never enquired."

"Oh hang on," said Xantus. "Don't tell me this is about the Caifassi. I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it again... my father may have been a traitor to the Shrubbery but he gave no order for that boat to do what it did. Why in the Shrub's name must you dig this up after so many-"

"We are not enquiring about the Harvestfall Revolution," said the Prefect. "The role of your family in the affair is known well enough and it has no bearing on Kalgachia's present security. The assistance we require is technical."

"Technical?"

"Any information you can provide us with regard to equipment aboard the Sphyraena-class submarine would be of value. Particularly hydrophones."

"Don't you have that in your archives?"

"If we did, this visit would be unnecessary."

"Eh, fair enough... most of it would have been lost in Turbinaris anyway. That's where the Ramazan Design Bureau was based, on the sea floor off Lywall. My dear old mother worked there for a time, as a woundmender. She's around here somewhere if you want to squeeze her for clues, but it may take a while for you to decode the sarcasm. Excuse me..." He leaned suddenly into the kidney bowl again and retched hard, although nothing fell from his mouth this time. As he gasped and coughed, one of the standing Prefects scribbled the comment about Turbinaris and his mother into a notebook.

"We will catch up with her in due course," said the seated Prefect. "For now, we would like to know about your own knowledge of the equipment."

"None at all!" muffled Xantus through the oxygen mask he had now raised to his mouth. "As I said, I was a chaplain. I dispensed lich gravy and words of shrubly reassurance to troubled sailors."

"Lich gravy?"

"Don't tell me you've never heard of lich gravy."

"Never."

"Well it is before your time, I suppose. Flavoured embalming fluid, drunk by the shotglass to keep our undead benefactors smelling sweet. They made a less toxic version for the rest of us. First time I tried it at the start of the voyage I couldn't stand the stuff. By the time we got back to port I couldn't get enough of it. Hah..."

"Back on subject," said the Prefect. "Can you tell me anything about the operational aspect of the voyage?"

"Only fragments, young man. It was the better part of a century ago. The Shrubmarine's ballistic missile boats used to take the arctic route over Benacia and loiter behind the Jedś-ó-Ĵars isles in Craitland. Inside territorial waters, I was told. From there they could lob biological warheads straight into Shirekeep. Anyway, they used to station reconnaissance people on icebergs along the route, to report on hostile shipping. Adapted Deep Singers covered in white fur. Frightening characters. Didn't say much. The voyage I was on was to deposit one of these fellows on his iceberg... after a while, another boat would bring his replacement. Although this all happened pretty close to the collapse... maybe the replacement never arrived. Our fellow could still be on his iceberg for all I know. It's been a few decades but I seem to remember he took a fishing rod with him..."

By now the Prefects were glancing incredulously at each other. A short silence followed while Xantus refilled his lungs from the mask again.

"It zah purrt shup uzadut", he mumbled suddenly.

"I beg your pardon?" said the Prefect.

Xantus removed his mask. "It's that pirate ship, isnt it?" he repeated. "The OIEC boat. The Jollity of Froyalan or whatever it's called. You want to stick a hydrophone on it. That's why you're here. I'm guessing the Bleep Works is trying to rustle one up, hence you Prefects being all over the matter. And I bet you're tapping up all the other old Shrubmarine veterans... if anyone's left."

"You know I cannot confirm or deny any of that," said the Prefect, "suffice it to say that your tank of oxygen there seems beneficial for your cognitive capacity."

"It's good stuff," said Xantus, lifting up the mask. "Wanna try some?"

"No," said the Prefect flatly.

"Suit yourself," said Xantus, taking another long breath from it and leaning back in his chair. "You know it won't end well, you people getting involved in the Captive Sea. I can tell you didn't study history at university."

"Better a conflagration there than one here, mister Yastreb," said the Prefect. "We have more trade routes to protect since your day."

"That may be," said Xantus, "but in my day I would never have sent Kalgachia's sons to risk their lives in such places. They call it the Tumultuous Wastes for a reason, you know. Blasted archonic waters... not worth the bones of a single son of Shrubdom."

"Well the present administration appears to think differently."

Xantus smiled. "The present administration... will put more wrinkles on this old face of mine before they're finished. Like they've done since they were as high as the arm of this chair." He giggled to himself at the thought, endured the inevitable spluttering cough and giggled some more. After a moment his breathing relaxed and he closed his eyes, still smiling.

The Prefect began to ask another question but was interrupted by the old man snoring.