Philious gave him a curious look. ‘Do nothing? Look out there.’ The Captain’s arm gestured at the big windows overlooking Walton Boulevard. It was night outside, with nebula light effervescing out of a cloudless sky. Their gentle radiance shimmered on the rooftops. Windows glowed yellow. ‘No streetlights. For the first time in thousands of years, Varlan’s lights are going out. And its my Captaincy! This wretched core has done that. But that’s a mild disaster compared to what I’m reading in the Treasury reports. Prices are rising, banks are nervous. That cannot stand. We need the new neuts the guild is arranging to bring in, and we need the mods they’ll produce. Unrestricted, unlicensed mods.’

‘Yes. But this clever little manoeuvre of theirs confirms what I’ve said all along: the core is behind the whole neut situation. Slvasta has a weakness: he is obsessed by Fallers and mods. It consumes him – understandably. That is what ultimately lies behind all this.’

‘Then he should have stayed in the regiment; fought the Fallers head on.’

‘But he didn’t, sir. And we have to deal with him. He and his friends have become public figures. Not so easy to quietly dispose of any more. Questions would be asked. Nobody wants a martyr.’

‘What, then?’

‘They have made their move. It is a public message of defiance to you personally. We have to make a counter-move. Make them understand this is not some easy game. They must be taught there are consequences to challenging the authority of the Captain.’

‘Very well. Send them a message. And Trevene, make it a firm one.’

‘Yes, sir.’

5

‘We did it.’ Bethaneve said. ‘We started it.’

It was half an hour after the end of the council meeting, and the four of them were sitting in the garden at the back of the Bellaview pub on the other side of Tarleton Gardens from their flat. Four beers on the table, and a mild fuzz around them to prevent any eavesdropping. Clouds were beginning to thicken in the twilight sky above.

‘A good beginning,’ Javier agreed. ‘But now our biggest task is to keep the momentum going.’

‘The word is out with every cell,’ Bethaneve said. ‘There’s going to be a lot of dead mods across this city by the end of the week.’

‘The sheriffs are going to be busy,’ Coulan said thoughtfully. ‘They’ll work out there’s an organization of some kind behind it. And, as it all started with the Wellfield, I expect they’ll start poking around.’

‘Maybe not,’ Bethaneve said. ‘Once you’ve struck a spark, some fires flash out of control. If all the unemployed see that dead mods mean jobs for them, we won’t have to keep feeding the cells with orders to kill. It’ll start to happen naturally.’

‘I like it,’ Coulan said. ‘The sheriffs might blame Nalani council for the spark, but the deaths will look spontaneous. They won’t be interested in us.’

‘Someone already is,’ Slvasta said. ‘And it ain’t the sheriffs.’ He told them about the observer he’d spotted.

‘Uracus!’ Coulan exclaimed. ‘He was really standing that close to me in the public gallery?’

‘Yes.’

‘You should have warned me.’

‘Why, what would you have done? Turned and stared? How would that help?’

‘Is he here now?’ Bethaneve asked.

Slvasta took his time and looked round the pub garden. At one time it might indeed have had a view, but now the only thing behind the garden was a high stone wall covered in viricote vines whose large papery white flowers were furling up now the sun had gone. ‘Not him, no,’ Slvasta confirmed, checking all the tables. ‘But if they’re smart they’ll rotate their watchers so we don’t start to recognize them.’

‘You already have,’ Coulan said.

‘I was lucky, or they got careless. It’s not something we can count on.’

‘You’re implying they have a big team on us,’ Bethaneve said in a subdued tone.

‘If they’re watching us already, then we are in trouble,’ Javier said. ‘If they’re watching anyone, it should be Bryan-Anthony. He’s really embracing his role as chief radical. Even I believed he’s in charge, the way he ran that meeting.’

‘About that meeting,’ Bethaneve said. ‘Next time you introduce a proposal, make sure the speech is better rehearsed. It was painful listening to Jerill.’

‘Yes, but it made him sound honest. A natural first-time request, well intentioned and guileless. Nobody wants professional politicians taking over Democratic Unity right now.’

‘I’m not saying professional, just a little more coherent.’

‘We’ll all grow into the role.’

Slvasta ’pathed an order to the barman for another round.

‘We have to be careful,’ Bethaneve said. ‘This is a critical time. We have to get a groundswell of support behind us. So far, all we control is one of the poorest boroughs in Varlan. And the next round of elections isn’t for another eight months.’

‘Is there a time when it won’t be “critical”?’ Javier asked.

Bethaneve raised her glass and gave him an amused glance over the rim. ‘I can’t think of one.’

*

The second Nalani council meeting was much more boisterous than the first. They’d been expecting that. What the gazettes were condemning as the slaughter of the mods had taken on a fervour that left even Slvasta and Bethaneve surprised and not a little concerned. The cells had been told to limit their killing to the mods used by business, but no one else felt that constraint. Household mods were targeted with as much glee as those in commerce. In some of the wealthier boroughs, sheriffs were patrolling all the roads leading into the area, demanding proof of residency before they let pedestrians and cabs through. Citizens were determined to keep undesirables out – a policy which quickly resulted in a few ugly incidents when the sheriffs were overzealous. Pamphlets and ’path gossip feasted on those for days.

Then there was the problem of the bodies. Dead mods were simply thrown out onto the streets. Bussalores emerged from their secluded warrens; people reported packs of the sleek rodents swarming over this bounty of rotting food. They became brave protecting their carrion, snapping at human children. Tatus flies formed huge clouds that clogged the air along alleys and narrow streets. Public health was becoming a serious issue.

Bryan-Anthony’s opening statement was that the borough considered clearing the bodies away to be the highest priority. Twenty new human workers would be taken on to clear the streets.

‘How will you pay for them?’ asked Oriol, one of the Citizens’ Dawn councillors.

‘I propose charging one shilling for each mod-licence,’ Jerill said. ‘That should see a considerable rise in the borough’s income.’

‘Your lot are killing all the mods,’ Oriol shouted back. ‘There won’t be any left to buy a licence for, you cretin! You didn’t work that out before you started this, did you?’

‘Keep it civil, councillor, please,’ Bryan-Anthony said.

‘Five of my mods have been murdered by your supporters. Is that civil? I will be ruined!’

‘Employ a human,’ someone shouted from the gallery.

‘Criminal scum,’ came the answering shout.

Bryan-Anthony started banging his gavel as the shouting and accusations in the gallery grew louder and more heated. ‘Order, please. Order!’

Insults were followed up by mild teekay jabs. They didn’t stay mild for long. A full-scale brawl broke out. The sheriffs were called.

It took twenty minutes, but the public gallery was cleared and the rest of the meeting was conducted without any physical observers. As no closed sessions were permitted in Varlan, the borough clerk allowed any interested party to see and hear through her senses.

‘Did not expect that,’ Slvasta admitted as they walked home.

‘We should have done,’ Bethaneve said. ‘After all, the whole point of getting rid of mods was to hit people where it hurts most: in the wallet. Start taking money away from the privileged, and they can turn just as savage as any animal that gets shoved into Philippa’s arena.’