And then, just then, the expression cracked by a fraction. He saw something flicker across Udmil’s dark eyes – anger, perhaps. ‘We live in a debased age, probator. Blood is readily shed. Do you have children?’

‘A daughter.’

‘Then you know the fear. You know what it is when, for a moment, you cannot protect them. You know the certainty you feel when something is wrong.’ She sat back. ‘I am not mistaken. Find him, please.’

Zidarov felt his heart sinking. That, if nothing else, had been sincere. There was no way out of this. If he went to Vongella, he’d probably find that she had already spoken at length to this woman. And even if she hadn’t, she’d tell him not to destabilise a good situation. If a Terashova wanted something doing, it would have to be done.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

The journey back was depressing. It took a very short time to get accustomed to cleaner air, cleaner transitways, a smattering of vegetation in neat cultivated rows. On the raised arterial running east out of Revenna, Urgeyena’s full sprawl was visible, extending away in all directions towards a grimy horizon. The spiked towers jutted like broken ribs from the clutter, their columns, buttresses and turrets marred with black streaks of filth. It was a jumble, a mess, like some vast scattered rubbish heap, strewn with tatters of bright colouring amid a slipped mountainside of grey. It smelled of insufficient drainage and plentiful mould. It sounded like a machine, buzzing and hissing, clanging and roaring, a foundry fuelled by ambition, but one that only produced visible muck and blind devotion.

He pushed the Luxer harder, trying to build up some speed before the nest of junctions brought the throttling congestion back. The faint aroma of flowers still lingered in the cab, though that was rapidly fading. Ahead of him, the first of many sector checkpoints swept into view – an ugly multi-storey fortress, crenellated, black as oil, crowned with rotary cannons and stuffed with armed preceptors from the Regio Custos. Those things were everywhere in Urgeyena, restricting transit between habclaves to those – like himself – who were authorised to move around, or those – also like himself – willing to slip some slate into the right palm when the occasion demanded. He went through in the privileged channel, slowing as he passed under the first portcullis, keeping his holo-seal in view for the servo-skulls lurking in the shadowy eaves.

He wouldn’t head back to the Bastion. His iris told him that Udmil’s people had already prepared an info-shunt for him, but there was plenty of time to review that. For now, he wanted to check out the real places, the real people. It was possible he’d stumble across the boy today. It was possible this would be over very soon.